WHO GAVE THAT KISS.
A year and a half had elapsed since that wild outburst of rebellion against discipline had sent Meg flying Londonward. She had settled down into the routine of the school. Nothing now existed for her outside its boundaries. She had parted company with her childhood. The goblin past lay behind her, and as she looked back upon it the child who watched over the staircase almost appeared to have been a visionary creature.
She concentrated all her attention upon her studies. If still Miss Grantley was prejudiced against her she won the approbation of her other teachers. Signora Vallaria rolled her dark eyes as Meg's fingers still lagged behind in execution; but there was an energy, an intelligence in her apprehension that made the signora, while wringing her hands, yet consider Meg's lesson a treat to give. If Meg's answers occasionally still lacked exactitude in the historical class they were always roughly brilliant and intelligent. She was still apt to pass beyond her own depth, but her fellow-pupils felt the impetus of a rashness that was the outcome of energy. Meg had an unconscious ascendency over her schoolmates. A vigorous nature will always sway more languid spirits; but her influence over them was due rather to the fact that since she was eight years of age she had begun to think, and, like all suffering creatures, to observe. This power of observation, of drawing her own conclusions, and of acting upon them, was the secret of her ascendency over her schoolfellows. It was the ascendency of character.
Some called her repellent; for there was a childlike bluntness, a certain defiant awkwardness about her still. Others, like Miss Pinkett, treated her with contempt as a nameless waif. Others again, like Gwendoline Lister, wove a web of romance about her; nothing short of Meg being the deserted child of a duchess satisfied the Beauty. Meg knew she continued to be the object of this speculation, and these castles in the air made about her future wounded her, and she repelled curiosity. She still remained solitary in that busy republic of girls. Still her sensitive pride impelled her to refuse sweets when offered to her, because she had none to give in return; still she refused invitations, because she could not ask others to be guests at her home.
The day of her attempted flight had proved memorable; that day of feverish adventures had brought her an experience over which, in her loveless life, she often pondered. That spectral kiss placed on her forehead, which had brought such solace to her as she lay in misery and loneliness, haunted her. Who had given her that kiss? At first she had thought it might be Miss Reeves to assure her of pardon; but why should the schoolmistress have made a mystery of her kindness? The balanced composure and impartiality of the lady's manner dispelled this conjecture. The more Meg saw Miss Reeves the more she felt sure the lady would not yield to any emotional demonstration, and, if she yielded, she would not conceal it. Miss Grantley could not have taken this fit of pity. Her frosty behavior precluded its possibility. Then Meg thought it might be the cook who was kind to her.
"Did you come up to my room that night when I was going to sleep?" she asked the old servant; but the surprised denial she received was conclusive. Who then could have given her that kiss? It could not be the old gentleman. She had heard the wheels of his carriage driving down the garden, and nothing could well be more unlikely or unlike his stern, unsympathetic nature. There was no one else in the house that day except the servants, and no servant could have approached with that gliding footfall. Meg sometimes fancied it might be her dead mother attracted to her grieving child's bedside; but Meg asked herself, "If it were, why had she not come to kiss or comfort her before?" and then she added, "there are no such things as ghosts." But still this solution seemed to rest upon her mind as a notion more akin to her feelings, if it were the least probable explanation of the mystery.
Meg, during the year and a half that had elapsed, had given way to no more bursts of impish rage; she had become a reticent, grave, and silent girl. She was rather stern-looking, but this expression of sternness, if to a superficial observer it might have seemed an outcome of her nature, was in truth but that of a habit acquired by its enforced repression. Her sympathies bid fair to languish and die from want of soil, when an event happened which gave a force and a color to her school-life.
One afternoon after class, Meg, entering the schoolroom, perceived the girls gathered in a knot at the further end. She pushed her way through to discover what was attracting them. A golden-haired child was the center of the group. She was a new pupil come from India, and the girls were lavishing caresses upon the little stranger. The child was pretty and frail-looking enough to justify their enthusiastic effusiveness. She submitted to the kisses and hugs and general petting with a half-resigned air that suggested endurance of what she was already over-satiated with, rather than gratitude for the accorded welcome. Meg looked on, unsympathizing with these cheap caresses, but still attracted by the prettiness of the child as one might be by a strange bird of great beauty. The wistful gaze of large blue eyes encircled with lilac shadows met hers; but still Meg took no notice, repelled by that excess of demonstration lavished upon the little stranger by the other girls. "They don't see how they worry the poor little thing," she muttered as, taking up what she had come for, she went upstairs.
Some time after, as she knelt before her trunk, putting its contents in order, a slight touch on her elbow caused her to look round.
"What pretty things!" said a little voice. It was the child. With tiny fingers she pointed to the gayly-bound volume Meg was restoring to the box.
"There are pictures inside," Meg replied, turning the pages. The child looked coldly at the prints. She apparently did not care for the illustrations. It was the gold-edged leaves and the gold pattern on the cover which attracted her.
"How it sines!" she said with her baby lisp, and she passed her rosy fingertips over the gilding.
Meg looked at the bright hair falling in soft abundance over the tiny shoulders, at the dark lashes that shaded the eyes, surrounded by pearly shadows, at the sculptured lips, the upper lip lying softly curled over the lower. She thought she had never seen anything so dainty and delicate as this child. She seemed to be like a feather blown out of heaven across her path.
"What is your name?" asked Meg.
"Elsie," said the child; "and what is yours?"
"My name is Meg."
"Did your mamma give you those books?" asked the child.
"I have no mamma," Meg replied curtly.
"I have no mamma either; she is dead," said Elsie.
Meg was moved by one of those sudden emotions which come with a rush. She lifted her box with violence and carried it some paces off.
"How strong you are!" said the child. "Can you lift me?"
Meg felt inclined to be impatient. Then, meeting the glance of eyes the appeal of which was irresistible, she took the child in her arms and tossed her up.
That night, through the silence of the dormitory, Meg heard subdued sobbing. All the other girls were asleep. Elsie's bed had been placed on the other side of the room. Meg listened for a moment. Her heart was wrung by that low sound of weeping. She thought of her own anguish of loneliness, and of that haunting kiss which had brought such solace to her in her night of sorrow. After awhile she stole out of bed, and bending over the child, she kissed her forehead.