CHAPTER VI.
THE NEW SCHOLAR
"O girls, the new scholar has come!" shouted little Fannie Thayer, as she bounced into the library one afternoon, where some of the older girls were studying.
"Do hush, Fannie!" exclaimed her sister Julia; "you do make such an awful noise! Of course you've left the door open, and it's cold enough to freeze one. Run away, child."
"But, Julia," remonstrated Fannie, as her sister went on reading without taking any notice of her communication, "you didn't hear what I said,—the new scholar has come."
"What new scholar?" inquired Florence Stevenson, looking up from her book. "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; but she comes from ever so far off, and she's real pretty, kind of sad-looking, you know."
"What in the world is the child talking about?" broke in Marion. "Who ever heard of Miss Stiefbach's taking a scholar after the term had begun?"
"I remember hearing something about it, now," said Julia. "The girl was to have come at the beginning of the quarter; but she has been sick, or something 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's certain," said Marion, with a very decided air.
"Why, of course she won't," replied Florence; "we never have but two girls in a room. Oh! I know, she will go in with little Rose May; see if she doesn't!"
"Well, I tell you, I am sorry she's come!" ejaculated Marion. "I hate new scholars; they always put on airs, and consider themselves sort of privileged characters. I for one shall not take much notice of her."
"Why, Marion," exclaimed Grace Minton, "I should think you would be ashamed to talk so! She may be a very nice girl indeed. You don't know anything about her."
"I don't care if she is a nice girl. She ought to have come before. It will just upset all our plans; the classes are all arranged, and everything is going on nicely. There are just enough of us, and I say it is a perfect bother!"
"I really don't see why you need trouble yourself so much," broke in Georgie Graham, who was always jealous of Marion, and never lost an opportunity of differing with her, though in a quiet way that was terribly aggravating. "I don't believe you will be called upon to make any arrangements, and I don't see how one, more or less, can make much difference any way."
The entrance of Miss Christine prevented Marion's reply, and she immediately took up her book and became apparently absorbed in her studies.
"O Miss Christine," they all exclaimed at once, "do tell us about the new 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 asked in nearly the same breath.
"If you will be quiet, and not all speak at once, I will try and tell you 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 not know as you will agree with me. She seems to have a very lovely disposition, and I should think that after a while she might be very lively, and a pleasant companion for you all; but at present she is very delicate, as she has just recovered from a very severe illness brought on by her great grief at the death of her father. They were all the world to each other, and she was perfectly devoted to him. She cannot yet 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 is her father's brother, who is now in Europe. Poor child! she is all alone in the world; my heart aches for her."
Miss Christine's usually cheery voice was very low and sad, and the tear that glistened in her eye proved that her expressions of sympathy were perfectly sincere; if, indeed, any one could have doubted that kind, loving face. As she ceased speaking, there was a perfect silence throughout the room, and those who had felt somewhat inclined to side with Marion felt very much conscience-stricken.
Marion, however, continued studying, not showing the slightest signs of having had her sympathies aroused.
Miss Christine continued: "I hope, girls, you will be particularly kind to Miss Drayton. She must naturally feel lonely, and perhaps diffident, among so many strangers, and I want you all to do everything in your power to make it pleasant for her. You in particular, Marion, having been here longer than any of the others, will be able to make her feel quite at home."
"Indeed, Miss Christine, you must excuse me. You know taking up new friends at a moment's notice, and becoming desperately intimate with them, is not my forte."
"Marion," replied Miss Christine, in a quiet, but reproving tone, "I do not ask you to become desperately intimate with her, as you call it, or anything of the kind. I merely wish you to show her that courtesy which is certainly due from one school-girl to another."
Marion made no reply, and Miss Christine sat down and commenced talking to the girls in her usual pleasant manner. It was her evident interest in everything which concerned them, that made her so beloved by her pupils.
They all knew that they could find in her a patient listener, and a willing helper, whenever they chose to seek her advice; whether it was about an important, or a very trifling matter.
There was some little bustle and confusion as the girls laid aside their books, and clustered round Miss Christine with their fancy-work, or leaned back in their chairs, glad to have nothing in particular to do.
"Miss Christine!" exclaimed little Rose May, "I do wish you would show me 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 these sleeves are a perfect nuisance. I wish I hadn't begun 'em!"
"Why, you poor child," laughingly replied her teacher, "what are you doing? 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 and then 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 your worsted over would widen it."
"I know you didn't say put your stitch over," retorted Rose; "you just said put over, and how was I going to know by that? I think you're real mean; you never take any pains with us little ones; I don't—"
"Hush, hush, Rose! You must not speak so," said Miss Christine, laying her hands on the child's lips; then, turning to Julia, she said, "If you had taken more pains with Rose, and tried to explain to her how she ought to have done her work, it would have been much better for both of you."
"Well, Miss Christine, she came just as I was thinking up for my composition, and I didn't want to be bothered by any one. As it was, she put all my ideas out of my head."
Miss Christine's only reply was a shake of the head and an incredulous smile, which made Julia wish she had shown a little more patience with the child.
"There, Rose," said Miss Christine, as the little girl put the finishing touch to her sleeves, "next time you will not have to ask any one to show you how to 'bind off.' Your sleeves are very pretty, and I know your 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 skipping off, ready for fun and frolic, now that those troublesome sleeves were finished. But she had hardly reached the hall when she came running back, 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, although they were too well-bred to actually stare at her companion, it must be confessed 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 mental suffering, not of continued ill-health.
She was dressed in the deepest mourning, in a style somewhat older than that generally worn by girls of her age. Her jet-black hair, which grew very low on her forehead, was brushed loosely back, and gathered into a rough knot behind, as if the owner was too indifferent to her personal appearance to try to arrange it carefully.
As she stood now, fully conscious of the glances that were surreptitiously cast upon her, she appeared frightened and bewildered. Her eyes were cast down, but if any one had looked under their long lashes, they would have seen them dimmed with tears.
Accustomed all her life to the society of older persons, no one who has not experienced the same feeling can imagine how great an ordeal it was for her to enter that room full of girls of her own age. To notice the sudden hush that fell upon all as she came in; to feel that each one was mentally making comments upon her, was almost more than she could bear. If they had been persons many years older than herself, she would have gone in perfectly at her ease; chatted first with this one, then with that, and would have made herself at home immediately.
Unfortunately the only young persons in whose society she had been thrown were some young ladies she had met while travelling through the West with her father. They had been coarse, foolish creatures, making flippant 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 perhaps her future companions might be of the same stamp.
Miss Christine noticed her embarrassment at once, and kindly went forward to meet her, saying as she did so, "Well, my dear, I am glad to see you down here; I am not going to introduce you to your companions now, you will get acquainted with them all in time; first I want you to come 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 the school-room beyond; talking pleasantly all the time, calling her attention to the view from the windows, the arrangement of the desks, and various other things, until at last she saw her face light up with something like interest, and the timid, frightened look almost entirely disappear; then she took her back into the library.
As they went in, Florence Stevenson, who stood near the fireplace, made room for them, remarking as she did so, "It is very chilly; you must be cold; 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 that pretty 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 poor Rachel's voice trembled as she thought of the one who had always directed her studies; but Florence went bravely on, determined to do her part towards making the new scholar feel at home.
"Well, I'm afraid you will find it hard to get used to us, if you have never been thrown with girls before. I don't believe but what you thought we were almost savages; now honestly, didn't you feel afraid to meet 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 companions were like this one she should have no great fears for the future.
Most of the scholars had left the room; the few who remained were chatting together apparently unconscious of the stranger's presence, and as Rachel stood before the fire, with her back to the rest of the room, and Florence beside her talking animatedly, she was surprised to find herself becoming interested and at ease, and before Miss Christine left them the two girls were comparing notes on their studies, and gave promise of soon becoming very good friends.
When Marion left the library, she went directly to her room, locked the door, and threw herself on the seat in the window in a tumult of emotion. Paramount over all other feelings stood shame. She could not excuse herself for her strange behavior, and she felt unhappy; almost miserable. "Why did I speak so?" she asked herself. "Why should I feel such an unaccountable prejudice against a person I never even heard of before? I thought I had conquered all these old, hateful feelings, and here they are all coming back again. I don't know what is the matter with me. It is not jealousy; for how can I be jealous of a person I never saw or heard of before in my life? I don't know what it is, and I don't much care; there aren't four girls in the school that like me, and only one I really love, and that's dear old Flo. She's as good as gold, and if any one should ever come between us I pity her! I'll bet anything though, that she is downstairs making friends with that girl this minute."
This thought was not calculated to calm Marion's ruffled feelings, and she 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 hastily smoothing her hair she went downstairs.
It chanced that just as she entered the dining-room Rachel Drayton and Florence came in by the opposite door. Florence was evidently giving Rachel an account of some of their school frolics, though in an undertone, so that Marion could not catch the words, and her companion was listening, her face beaming with interest. No circumstance could have occurred which would have been more unfavorable for changing Marion's wayward mood.
Coming downstairs she had been picturing to herself the unhappiness and loneliness of the poor orphan, and she had almost made up her mind to go forward, introduce herself, and try by being kind and agreeable to make amends for her former injustice; for although she knew Miss Drayton must be entirely unconscious of it, she could not in her own heart feel at rest until she had made some atonement.
No one could have presented themselves to a perfect stranger,—a thing which it is not easy for most persons to do,—with more grace and loveliness than Marion, if she had been so inclined, for there was at times a certain fascination about her voice and manner that few could resist.
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 she saw one, who, although she was certainly pale enough, seemed to be anything but miserable, and above all was evidently fast becoming on intimate terms with her own dear friend Florence.
That was enough; resolutely crushing down all kindly feelings that were struggling for utterance, she took her seat at the table as if unconscious of the stranger's existence. Miss Stiefbach sat at the head of one very long table, and Miss Christine at another, having most of the little girls at her end; while Marion sat directly opposite with Florence on her right. Without changing this long-established order of things, Miss Christine could not make room for Rachel by the side of Florence as she would have liked, and the only place for her seemed to be on Marion's left, as there were not so many girls on that side of the table. Hoping that such close proximity would force Marion to unbend the reserved manner which she saw she was fast assuming, Miss Christine, before taking her own seat, went to that end of the table and introduced Marion to Rachel, laughingly remarking that as they were the oldest young ladies there, they would have to sustain the dignity of the table.
This jesting command was certainly carried out to the very letter of the law by Marion.
She was intensely polite throughout the meal, but perfectly frigid in the dignity of her manner, which so acted upon poor Rachel, that the bright smiles which Florence had called forth were effectually dispelled, 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 her accustomed prayers. It seemed hypocrisy for her, who had so resolutely made another unhappy, to ask God's blessings on her head, and she remained kneeling long after Florence had got into bed, communing with herself, her only inward cry being, "God forgive me!"
But how could she expect God would forgive her, when day after day she knowingly committed the same faults?
Sick at heart, she rose from her knees, turned out the gas, and went to bed, but not to sleep; far into the night she lay awake viewing her past conduct.
She did not try to excuse herself, or to look at her faults in any other than their true light; but, repentant and sorrowful though she might be, she could not as yet sufficiently conquer her pride to ask pardon of those she had openly wounded, or to contradict an expressed opinion even after she regretted ever having formed it.
Poor child! she thought she had struggled long and fiercely with herself; she had yet to learn that the battle was but just begun.