CHAPTER VI.
THE NEW SCHOLAR
"O girls, the new scholar has come!" shouted little Fannie Thayer, asshe bounced into the library one afternoon, where some of the oldergirls were studying.
"Do hush, Fannie!" exclaimed her sister Julia; "you do make such anawful noise! Of course you've left the door open, and it's cold enoughto freeze one. Run away, child."
"But, Julia," remonstrated Fannie, as her sister went on reading withouttaking any notice of her communication, "you didn't hear what Isaid,--the new scholar has come."
"What new scholar?" inquired Florence Stevenson, looking up from herbook. "This is the first I have heard of any."
"Why, don't you know?" answered little Fannie, glad to have a listener."Her name is--is--Well, I can't remember what it is,--something odd; butshe comes from ever so far off, and she's real pretty, kind ofsad-looking, you know."
"What in the world is the child talking about?" broke in Marion. "Whoever heard of Miss Stiefbach's taking a scholar after the term hadbegun?"
"I remember hearing something about it, now," said Julia. "The girl wasto have come at the beginning of the quarter; but she has been sick, orsomething or other happened to prevent. I believe she comes from St.Louis."
"I wonder who she'll room with; she can't come in with us, that'scertain," said Marion, with a very decided air.
"Why, of course she won't," replied Florence; "we never have but twogirls in a room. Oh! I know, she will go in with little Rose May; see ifshe doesn't!"
"Well, I tell you, I am sorry she's come!" ejaculated Marion. "I hatenew scholars; they always put on airs, and consider themselves sort ofprivileged characters. I for one shall not take much notice of her."
"Why, Marion," exclaimed Grace Minton, "I should think you would beashamed to talk so! She may be a very nice girl indeed. You don't knowanything about her."
"I don't care if she is a nice girl. She ought to have come before. Itwill just upset all our plans; the classes are all arranged, andeverything is going on nicely. There are just enough of us, and I say itis a perfect bother!"
"I really don't see why you need trouble yourself so much," broke inGeorgie Graham, who was always jealous of Marion, and never lost anopportunity of differing with her, though in a quiet way that wasterribly aggravating. "I don't believe you will be called upon to makeany arrangements, and I don't see how one, more or less, can make muchdifference any way."
The entrance of Miss Christine prevented Marion's reply, and sheimmediately took up her book and became apparently absorbed in herstudies.
"O Miss Christine," they all exclaimed at once, "do tell us about thenew scholar." "Is she pretty?" "Will she be kind to us little girls?""How old is she?" and many other questions of a like nature, all askedin nearly the same breath.
"If you will be quiet, and not all speak at once, I will try and tellyou all you want to know. The name of the new scholar is Rachel Drayton.She is about sixteen, and I think she is very pretty, although I do notknow as you will agree with me. She seems to have a very lovelydisposition, and I should think that after a while she might be verylively, and a pleasant companion for you all; but at present she is verydelicate, as she has just recovered from a very severe illness broughton by her great grief at the death of her father. They were all theworld to each other, and she was perfectly devoted to him. She cannotyet reconcile herself to her loss. He has been dead about eight weeks.Her mother died when she was a baby, and the nearest relation she has isher father's brother, who is now in Europe. Poor child! she is all alonein the world; my heart aches for her."
Miss Christine's usually cheery voice was very low and sad, and the tearthat glistened in her eye proved that her expressions of sympathy wereperfectly sincere; if, indeed, any one could have doubted that kind,loving face. As she ceased speaking, there was a perfect silencethroughout the room, and those who had felt somewhat inclined to sidewith Marion felt very much conscience-stricken.
Marion, however, continued studying, not showing the slightest signs ofhaving had her sympathies aroused.
Miss Christine continued: "I hope, girls, you will be particularly kindto Miss Drayton. She must naturally feel lonely, and perhaps diffident,among so many strangers, and I want you all to do everything in yourpower to make it pleasant for her. You in particular, Marion, havingbeen here longer than any of the others, will be able to make her feelquite at home."
"Indeed, Miss Christine, you must excuse me. You know taking up newfriends at a moment's notice, and becoming desperately intimate withthem, is not my forte."
"Marion," replied Miss Christine, in a quiet, but reproving tone, "I donot ask you to become desperately intimate with her, as you call it, oranything of the kind. I merely wish you to show her that courtesy whichis certainly due from one school-girl to another."
Marion made no reply, and Miss Christine sat down and commenced talkingto the girls in her usual pleasant manner. It was her evident interestin everything which concerned them, that made her so beloved by herpupils.
They all knew that they could find in her a patient listener, and awilling helper, whenever they chose to seek her advice; whether it wasabout an important, or a very trifling matter.
There was some little bustle and confusion as the girls laid aside theirbooks, and clustered round Miss Christine with their fancy-work, orleaned back in their chairs, glad to have nothing in particular to do.
"Miss Christine!" exclaimed little Rose May, "I do wish you would showme how to 'bind off.' I keep putting my thread over and over, and,instead of taking off stitches, it makes more every time. I think thesesleeves are a perfect nuisance. I wish I hadn't begun 'em!"
"Why, you poor child," laughingly replied her teacher, "what are youdoing? You might knit forever and your sleeves would not be 'bound off,'if you do nothing but put your worsted over. Who told you to do that?"
"Julia Thayer did; she said knit two and then put over, and knit two andthen put over, all the time, and it would come all right."
"Now, Rose, I didn't!" exclaimed Julia. "I said put your stitch over,you silly child! I should think you might have known that putting yourworsted over would widen it."
"I know you _didn't_ say put your stitch over," retorted Rose; "you justsaid put over, and how was I going to know by that? I think you're realmean; you never take any pains with us little ones; I don't--"
"Hush, hush, Rose! You must not speak so," said Miss Christine, layingher hands on the child's lips; then, turning to Julia, she said, "If youhad taken more pains with Rose, and tried to explain to her how sheought to have done her work, it would have been much better for both ofyou."
"Well, Miss Christine, she came just as I was thinking up for mycomposition, and I didn't want to be bothered by any one. As it was, sheput all my ideas out of my head."
Miss Christine's only reply was a shake of the head and an increduloussmile, which made Julia wish she had shown a little more patience withthe child.
"There, Rose," said Miss Christine, as the little girl put the finishingtouch to her sleeves, "next time you will not have to ask any one toshow you how to 'bind off.' Your sleeves are very pretty, and I knowyour mother will be glad her daughter took so much pains to please her."
Rose glanced up at her teacher with a bright smile, and went skippingoff, ready for fun and frolic, now that those troublesome sleeves werefinished. But she had hardly reached the hall when she came runningback, saying, in a most mysterious sort of stage-whisper, "She's coming!she's coming downstairs with Miss Stiefbach! Rebecca what's-her-name;you know!"
The girls looked up as Miss Stiefbach entered the room, and, althoughthey were too well-bred to actually stare at her companion, it must beconfessed that their faces betrayed considerable interest.
Rachel Drayton, the "new scholar," was between sixteen and seventeen;tall and very slight; her eyes were very dark; her face intensely pale,but one saw at once it was the pallor of recent illness, or acute mentalsuffering, not of continued ill-health.
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She was dressed in the deepest mourning, in a style somewhat older thanthat generally worn by girls of her age. Her jet-black hair, which grewvery low on her forehead, was brushed loosely back, and gathered into arough knot behind, as if the owner was too indifferent to her personalappearance to try to arrange it carefully.
As she stood now, fully conscious of the glances that weresurreptitiously cast upon her, she appeared frightened and bewildered.Her eyes were cast down, but if any one had looked under their longlashes, they would have seen them dimmed with tears.
Accustomed all her life to the society of older persons, no one who hasnot experienced the same feeling can imagine how great an ordeal it wasfor her to enter that room full of girls of her own age. To notice thesudden hush that fell upon all as she came in; to feel that each one wasmentally making comments upon her, was almost more than she could bear.If they had been persons many years older than herself, she would havegone in perfectly at her ease; chatted first with this one, then withthat, and would have made herself at home immediately.
Unfortunately the only young persons in whose society she had beenthrown were some young ladies she had met while travelling through theWest with her father. They had been coarse, foolish creatures, makingflippant remarks upon all whom they saw, in a rude, unladylike manner,and from whom she had shrunk with an irresistible feeling of repugnance.No wonder her heart had sunk within her when she thought that perhapsher future companions might be of the same stamp.
Miss Christine noticed her embarrassment at once, and kindly wentforward to meet her, saying as she did so, "Well, my dear, I am glad tosee you down here; I am not going to introduce you to your companionsnow, you will get acquainted with them all in time; first I want you tocome into the school-room with me and see how you like it."
And she took her hand and led her through the open door into theschool-room beyond; talking pleasantly all the time, calling herattention to the view from the windows, the arrangement of the desks,and various other things, until at last she saw her face light up withsomething like interest, and the timid, frightened look almost entirelydisappear; then she took her back into the library.
As they went in, Florence Stevenson, who stood near the fireplace, maderoom for them, remarking as she did so, "It is very chilly; you must becold; come here and warm yourself. How do you like our school-room?"
"Very much; that is, I think I shall. It seems very pleasant."
"Yes, it is pleasant. It's so much nicer for being papered with thatpretty paper than if it had had dark, horrid walls like some I've seen.What sort of a school did you use to go to?"
"I never went to school before; I always studied at home;" and poorRachel's voice trembled as she thought of the one who had alwaysdirected her studies; but Florence went bravely on, determined to do herpart towards making the new scholar feel at home.
"Well, I'm afraid you will find it hard to get used to us, if you havenever been thrown with girls before. I don't believe but what youthought we were almost savages; now honestly, didn't you feel afraid tomeet us?"
"It was hard," replied Rachel; but as she glanced up at the bright,animated face before her, she thought that if all her future companionswere like this one she should have no great fears for the future.
Most of the scholars had left the room; the few who remained werechatting together apparently unconscious of the stranger's presence, andas Rachel stood before the fire, with her back to the rest of the room,and Florence beside her talking animatedly, she was surprised to findherself becoming interested and at ease, and before Miss Christine leftthem the two girls were comparing notes on their studies, and gavepromise of soon becoming very good friends.
When Marion left the library, she went directly to her room, locked thedoor, and threw herself on the seat in the window in a tumult ofemotion. Paramount over all other feelings stood shame. She could notexcuse herself for her strange behavior, and she felt unhappy; almostmiserable. "Why did I speak so?" she asked herself. "Why should I feelsuch an unaccountable prejudice against a person I never even heard ofbefore? I thought I had conquered all these old, hateful feelings, andhere they are all coming back again. I don't know what is the matterwith me. It is not jealousy; for how can I be jealous of a person Inever saw or heard of before in my life? I don't know what it is, and Idon't much care; there aren't four girls in the school that like me, andonly one _I_ really love, and that's dear old Flo. She's as good asgold, and if any one should ever come between us I pity her! I'll betanything though, that she is downstairs making friends with that girlthis minute."
This thought was not calculated to calm Marion's ruffled feelings, andshe sat brooding by the window in anything but an enviable mood.
She was still in this state of mind when the tea-bell rang, and hastilysmoothing her hair she went downstairs.
It chanced that just as she entered the dining-room Rachel Drayton andFlorence came in by the opposite door. Florence was evidently givingRachel an account of some of their school frolics, though in anundertone, so that Marion could not catch the words, and her companionwas listening, her face beaming with interest. No circumstance couldhave occurred which would have been more unfavorable for changingMarion's wayward mood.
Coming downstairs she had been picturing to herself the unhappiness andloneliness of the poor orphan, and she had almost made up her mind to goforward, introduce herself, and try by being kind and agreeable to makeamends for her former injustice; for although she knew Miss Drayton mustbe entirely unconscious of it, she could not in her own heart feel atrest until she had made some atonement.
No one could have presented themselves to a perfect stranger,--a thingwhich it is not easy for most persons to do,--with more grace andloveliness than Marion, if she had been so inclined, for there was attimes a certain fascination about her voice and manner that few couldresist.
She had expected to see a pale, sickly, utterly miserable-looking girl,towards whom she felt it would be impossible to steel her heart; and shesaw one, who, although she was certainly pale enough, seemed to beanything but miserable, and above all was evidently fast becoming onintimate terms with her own dear friend Florence.
That was enough; resolutely crushing down all kindly feelings that werestruggling for utterance, she took her seat at the table as ifunconscious of the stranger's existence. Miss Stiefbach sat at the headof one very long table, and Miss Christine at another, having most ofthe little girls at her end; while Marion sat directly opposite withFlorence on her right. Without changing this long-established order ofthings, Miss Christine could not make room for Rachel by the side ofFlorence as she would have liked, and the only place for her seemed tobe on Marion's left, as there were not so many girls on that side of thetable. Hoping that such close proximity would force Marion to unbend thereserved manner which she saw she was fast assuming, Miss Christine,before taking her own seat, went to that end of the table and introducedMarion to Rachel, laughingly remarking that as they were the oldestyoung ladies there, they would have to sustain the dignity of the table.
This jesting command was certainly carried out to the very letter of thelaw by Marion.
She was intensely polite throughout the meal, but perfectly frigid inthe dignity of her manner, which so acted upon poor Rachel, that thebright smiles which Florence had called forth were effectuallydispelled, and throughout the rest of the evening she was the same sad,frightened girl who had first made her appearance in the library.
When Marion knelt that night to pray, her lips refused to utter heraccustomed prayers. It seemed hypocrisy for her, who had so resolutelymade another unhappy, to ask God's blessings on her head, and sheremained kneeling long after Florence had got into bed, communing withherself, her only inward cry being, "God forgive me!"
But how could she expect God would forgive her, when day after day sheknowingly committed the same faults?
Sick at heart, she rose from her knees, turned out the gas, and went tobed, but not to sleep; far into the night she lay
awake viewing her pastconduct.
She did not try to excuse herself, or to look at her faults in any otherthan their true light; but, repentant and sorrowful though she might be,she could not as yet sufficiently conquer her pride to ask pardon ofthose she had openly wounded, or to contradict an expressed opinion evenafter she regretted ever having formed it.
Poor child! she thought she had struggled long and fiercely withherself; she had yet to learn that the battle was but just begun.
Marion Berkley: A Story for Girls Page 6