"Don't, don't go"
A lump began to rise in Hope's throat. Had she been too harsh in what she had told, or in the way she had told it? Had they all been too harsh, too cold in their treatment of this girl's offences? It was true that they were all against her,—the "all" who comprised the little set of the older girls, and perhaps—perhaps—But what was that that Dorothea was saying?
"I think you've been awfully kind to take all this trouble for me; and I've always thought you were so indifferent,—that you didn't in the least care what became of me."
"Kind? indifferent? I don't understand," faltered Hope, staring blankly in her amazement at Dorothea.
"Yes, I should never have thought of your taking the least trouble, putting yourself out for me. I knew you didn't approve of me very much, but I supposed that you were so indifferent that it didn't matter to you. I don't half believe, and I never have, that such dreadful consequences would come of going against Miss Marr's rules; but you do, I see, and it was awfully kind of you to take all this trouble to pull me out of the danger you thought I was in,—awfully kind, and I sha'n't forget it; and if you call this meddling, it's a very different sort of meddling from some other people's. It's easy enough for some folks to talk and criticise everything you do, telling you what you ought and what you ought not to do, as if you were a mere ignoramus. I never would stand that kind of thing. Yes, it's a very different sort of thing that you've done, to put yourself out, and maybe run a risk yourself in doing it; and then to promise, as you have, not to say anything about that horrid part of the whole affair,—Raymond Armitage's hateful impoliteness! Well, I don't think there are many girls that would hold their tongues like that; and I—I—I just—just—love you for it!" wound up Dorothea, her voice breaking in a sudden little tempest of tears.
"Oh, but I—I—I'm not what you—what you think—I'm not—I don't deserve—you don't know me," stammered Hope, astonished and embarrassed beyond words.
"I knew you from the first, the very first," went on Dorothea.
Hope started.
"From the very first, when I saw you coming down the corridor that afternoon I arrived, as the kind of girl I'd like,—a girl who wouldn't be mean and meddlesome; and I knew you were a lady of the real stuff, and you are—a long shot ahead of most of 'em here; and oh, I say—" Dorothea had now conquered her tears,—"aren't you the girl I saw last year at Papanti's with the Edlicotts?"
"No."
"Well, you look so like her I thought you might be, or some relation of hers maybe. You're just of her stamp, any way. Anna Fleming is always talking about those Knickerbocker Van der Bergs as if they were ahead of everybody else, and she is always quoting Kate Van der Berg as being so swell in her looks and her manners. Looks and manners! I told Anna the last time she said this to me, that you were a great sight more swell. And you are. Oh, I know who's who; there can't anybody tell me! Manners! I don't call it very good manners to talk at people as Kate Van der Berg has talked at me, with all that stuff of what her brother Schuyler says about girls. She never liked me from the start, and she did what she could to set you, and, for that matter, the rest of the girls against me. I soon caught on to that. If it hadn't been for her—"
"Oh, Dorothea! Dorothea!" burst in Hope at this point, "I can't let you go on any more like this,—it would be mean and cowardly and dishonorable in me. You're all wrong, all wrong! Kate hasn't set me or any one else against you. You don't know, you don't remember—you think I—I would have been more—more sociable—more friendly, if it hadn't been for Kate, but—but it is—it is Kate who would have been more sociable, more friendly perhaps, if it hadn't been for me! You have forgotten me—you have forgotten that we have ever met before, but we have, and I have never forgotten, for you—you hurt me horribly—horribly at that time. I remember everything about it—every word; and when I met you in the corridor, the day you arrived here in the autumn, I knew you at once, but I saw that you had forgotten me, and I—"
"But when—where—how long ago was it—that time we met first—and what in the world did I say to hurt you so?" interrupted Dorothea with wide-open eyes of amazement.
"It was at Brookside, years ago."
"At Brookside? I never knew a girl like you at Brookside."
"Not like me now. I was only ten years old then, and I—was selling mayflowers in the Brookside station."
"Oh, I remember! I remember!" cried Dorothea, leaping down from the bed where she was sitting. "And you—you are that girl?"
"Yes, my father was an engineer on that road, and couldn't afford to buy me what I wanted more than anything in the world—a violin, and I thought I would have to give it up—to go without it, until one day on the street I heard a boy with a basket of mayflowers crying 'Ten cents a bunch,' and then I saw how I might earn the money that I wanted so much, and buy my violin myself."
"And you—you are that little girl—that little 'Ten-cents-a-bunch,' as I called you afterward to my father! Oh, oh, it all comes to me now; how mad I got because you stood up to me, and talked back to me. I suppose I was a great inquisitive brat, and fired off a lot of inquisitive questions at you,—I was always asking questions,—and you got mad at 'em and went for me, and then I got mad with you, and we had a regular squabble. I told my father about it, and he laughed and said, 'I don't think you had the best of it, Dolly;' and then I remember, too, something he said to Mary, my sister,—Mary had taken a great fancy to you,—something about your father knowing a lot about engines,—being a genius at that kind of thing; and then papa laughed again and asked me, if your father should turn out a millionaire some day, how'd I like my impudent little girl—that's you, you know—turning into a millionaire's daughter, and I said I'd say,'Ten cents a bunch to her,' and I have, I have! For your father has turned into a millionaire, hasn't he? and that's what it means, your being here, and your having a Stradivari violin! Oh, oh, oh, it's just like a story, just like a play—a Cinderella play; but," catching a queer expression on Hope's face, "I'm awfully sorry I hurt your feelings as I did, but you mustn't lay it up against me,—nobody ever lays anything up against me. I didn't mean to hurt your feelings, but I didn't know any better then, and anyhow, everything's come out all right for you now,—you've come up out of the soot and ashes just as Cinderella did, only your soot was engine soot, and you've come up at the top of everything, and I do say, now, that you are a great sight more swell in your looks and your manners and in yourself than Kate Van der Berg, I don't care what soot and ashes you came up from."
The queer expression on Hope's face had by this time deepened into something that looked like a wondering smile, a smile that seemed to say, "How perfectly astonishing this girl is!"
Dorothea saw the smile, and with a sudden acuteness that now and then came to her, hit upon its meaning, and cried out,—
"Oh, I see what you think,—I surprise you all round, I know, I'm so outspoken and blunt. Jimmy says I'm beastly blunt sometimes. I suppose in the first place that you expected me to have laid things up against you as you did against me; but, goody gracious, I never remember a quarter of what I say nor a quarter of what anybody else says after a while, and I'm always ready to make up, to jump over anything that's disagreeable if I'm met half-way; and you,—well, you've met me more than half-way in this business about Raymond Armitage, and if I had laid up anything you'd ever said,—and I do remember," laughing, "you said I was the most ignorant girl you'd ever seen,—I couldn't be mad with you for it now. No, I couldn't be anything but friendly to you,—and it's such jolly fun, too, the whole story,—my not remembering you, and the way it's turned out, and all; but look here, what's that you said about Kate Van der Berg,—that she might have been more sociable if it hadn't been for you? Did you tell her—I suppose you did—of our first meeting in the Brookside station, and the scrimmage we had, and that I hurt your feelings so dreadfully?"
"No; but after you had been here for a little time, Kate noticed that I—was rather stiff toward you."
"Yes, stiff and offish, but dreadfully polite, and in spite of it—the offishness, I mean—I liked you. Isn't it funny? But go on—Kate noticed that you were stiff toward me—"
"And she asked me what it was that I disliked in you, and I told her just this,—that you and I had met long ago when we were little girls, and that you had said something then that had hurt me that I had never forgotten, but that you had forgotten it and forgotten me. That was all. I thought it was better to tell her what I did than to try to turn the subject, because if I tried to do that she would have thought the matter worse than it was."
"Well, I suppose she told the girls what you said, and made much of it, and—"
"She told no one. I asked her at once not to speak of it, and she promised that she wouldn't, and I know that she didn't."
"But you—I don't see, when you have talked with her, as you must have done, you are so intimate with her—about your mayflower business and everything—how you could help mentioning our scrimmage."
"I never have talked to her about the mayflower business, as you call it."
"Do you mean to say that she doesn't know that you sold those flowers to buy a violin?"
Hope colored painfully as she answered,—
"I—I have never said anything about those things to her."
"You haven't? Well, now look here; you've been so nice keeping my secret, I'll keep yours. The girls, not one of them, shall hear a word from me of that poor time and the flower-selling,—not one word; you can trust me."
"Oh, no, no, Dorothea! You think I am ashamed of that 'poor time,' as you describe it,—that dear time, it ought to be described. No, no, it isn't because I was ashamed of that time that I haven't spoken to Kate or to the others, it is because I'm always shy of talking about myself, always, and I was more than ever shy of talking to girls about a way of living and doing that they knew nothing of, and that they would wonder at as I told of it,—wonder at and stare at me in their wonder, because they knew nothing only of one kind of living and doing,—their kind. It would have been like what it is sometimes for a musician to play to an audience a new composition that is full of strange chords and harmonies. The audience listens and wonders but doesn't understand, and so is not in sympathy with the player, and the player is made to feel awkward and uncomfortable, and as if he had made a mistake in producing the composition at that time. That was what I knew that I should feel if I talked to these girls. Don't you see what I mean?"
"Yes, I see, now that you've put it before me in this way, but I shouldn't, if you hadn't laid it out as you have; and—well, I suppose I might have felt just as you did in your place, only I shouldn't have known how to explain it to myself as you have."
"And then after you came," went on Hope, more as if she were relieving her own mind than addressing any particular person, "after that, it would have been more difficult to talk of that old time—"
"Because you thought I'd stowed away in my mind that old squabble just as you had, and would jump on you, and say a lot of disagreeable things. Well, I might have burst out with a lot of remarks and exclamations and questions, and stared at you as you say you expected to be stared at, but I shouldn't have had any feeling of spite against you, any more than I have now this minute, for, as I tell you, I'd never laid up anything, but you're so sensitive, you wouldn't have liked my remarks and questions before all the girls, I dare say."
"And I dare say this sensitiveness has made me cowardly. I thought one day last term when Kate Van der Berg was talking with Anna Fleming about people who had risen in the world by their own ability, and yet didn't like to refer to their early days of poverty and struggle, that I must be a great coward, and I was very unhappy over it for a while; but I know now that my cowardice isn't shame at all, but just that shrinking from talking to those who couldn't fully understand what I was talking of, and who would stare at me with wonder and curiosity because they didn't understand. But now, now, I'm not going to shrink any longer, I'm not going to have anybody ever think for a single moment that I'm ashamed of that dear time when we lived in that tiny cottage at Riverview, where I first began to learn to play on the little violin I earned myself, and where my dear, dear father made the little model of the engine that made his fortune."
"Oh, do you mean, then, that you are going to tell Kate now, right away,—Kate and the other girls,—what you've told me?" asked Dorothea eagerly, and with her usual blunt inquisitiveness.
"Well, I don't know that I shall rush 'right away' now, this minute, and tell them; it isn't exactly a matter of such importance as that," answered Hope, with a laugh that was half amused and half annoyed. "I think I shall dress for dinner first, and I may sleep on it."
"Oh, now you're snubbing my inquisitiveness, I know! But, Hope, see here a minute. I—I want to say that I'm not going to talk to the girls about you. Of course, you expected that I would—would go on over that Brookside station squabble, and I might, if things hadn't turned out as they have—if I—I didn't feel as I do—as if I knew you better now, and knew how you felt about being made a show of."
Hope winced a little at this presumption on Dorothea's part that there was still a secret between them,—a secret dependent on Dorothea's own good will,—and she made haste to say,—
"It is very nice of you, I'm sure, Dorothea, to want to consult my feelings, but it isn't necessary for you to think that you must keep silent on my account."
Dorothea looked a little disappointed, and Hope felt a twinge of self-reproach as she glanced at her; but it was impossible for her to accept the attitude of indebtedness that seemed about to be thrust upon her. As she turned to leave the room, however, she said more warmly than she had yet spoken,—
"I think you have been very good-natured, Dorothea, to have taken everything that I have said so nicely—and—and"—smiling a little—"you are better-natured than I am, because you don't lay things up as I do."
"No, I don't lay up grudges, but I can lay up a little gratitude, I hope, and that helps me to be good-natured sometimes."
As she said this, Dorothea showed all her milk-white teeth in a frank laugh; and Hope, regarding her, thought to herself: "She is better natured than I am about some things, and she can be generous."
CHAPTER XXII.
"And she didn't make any objection to going with you?"
"No, not the slightest. Indeed she seemed glad to go with us."
Hope flushed a little, as she said this in answer to Kate's question that night, as the two sat talking over the day and its exciting events. The flush was the result of that pang of tender conscience that springs up in revolt at even a momentary want of candor.
"And Ray Armitage,—how did he take it?"
"Oh, quite easily!"
"And you didn't have—either you or Mrs. Sibley—to argue with her; you didn't have to tell her that the only thing to save her from the consequences of her silliness was to go home in a proper way under proper chaperonage?"
"No, we didn't have to knock her down with that bludgeon," laughed Hope.
"Well, I suppose she had begun to think! I'm glad she had so much sense. Schuyler made all manner of fun of me after you and Mrs. Sibley left. He said, in the first place, that he didn't believe you'd be in time to see them before they entered the theatre, and if you did, you wouldn't stop them."
"Mrs. Sibley was of the same opinion exactly."
"How clever it was of her to do the next thing,—take you into the theatre, and then manage the whole thing so perfectly!"
"Yes, wasn't it clever, and so kind."
"When you drove up did you see any of the teachers?"
"We met Miss Stephens as we entered the hall."
"You don't mean it? What did she say at seeing Dorothea with you?"
"Mrs. Sibley came in with us for a moment, and Miss Stephens looked at the three of us with some surprise, and then said,—
"'I thought Dorothea was coming home long ago under the escort of Bessie Armitage and her brother.'
"At that, Mrs. Sibley answered at once, 'We met Dorothea, and took her with us.'
"Oh! and when Miss Stephens saw Mrs. Sibley and heard her say that, she felt that everything was all right, I suppose. She ought to have been sure of that before, and then you wouldn't have lost your afternoon's skating, and had such a lot of bother."
"Oh, well, it's all turned out satisfactorily."
Hope couldn't tell Kate how satisfactorily,—couldn't tell her that if Miss Stephens had been sure that everything was right at an earlier hour and Dorothea had thus been hindered from doing what she did, she would also have missed that mortifying experience, that might do more to shake her unlimited confidence in her own estimates and opinions than anything else could possibly do.
No, Hope couldn't tell Kate of this, for her lips were sealed. But if she could not express herself freely in this direction, she could, and she would, say something to show Dorothea as she had just seen her,—at her best; and so she held forth, with what amplitude was possible within the limit of her promise, on the girl's surprising gentleness and reasonableness. Dorothea had really behaved exceedingly well, she told Kate, and was not only appreciative of what had been done for her, but of the good intention that prompted the doing. And here Hope could not help repeating this characteristic speech of Dorothea's,—
"I don't half believe, and I never have, that such dreadful consequences would come of going against Miss Marr's rules; but you do, I see, and so it was awfully kind of you to take all this trouble to pull me out of the danger you thought I was in."
"She said that? Well, I must say, she's got more sense and feeling than I gave her credit for; and to think of her flying at me as she did. My intentions were as good as yours."
"Yes, but you gave her advice, and she hates advice. What seemed to impress her was our—Mrs. Sibley and my—taking the trouble to leave the Park, and actually going in to the matinée and waiting to do her the service we did."
"Well, I hope her gratitude and appreciation will last long enough to keep her out of any more silly scrapes for a while."
"I don't believe she will want to get into any more such scrapes. I—I think she feels sort of ashamed of what she has done. And, Kate, couldn't we—wouldn't it be a good plan if we tried to help her to keep out of such things?"
"Help her—how?"
"Well, I—I feel as if I may have been too hard on her. I have cherished my feeling of dislike constantly, and have done her an injury all round—with you, and the other girls by the way I have held off from her. She feels that the girls don't like her, and thinks that you were the first to dislike her, and that it was you who had influenced me. I told her what a mistake that was,—that it was I who had influenced you—by my manner at the start; and then, then I recalled myself to her mind. I told her what she had forgotten,—that I was the little girl she had met five years ago,—the little girl she had had a quarrel with at the Brookside station, and that I had always remembered what she had said to me there,—always remembered and resented it, and that it was that that had affected my manner towards her, had made me stiff and offish to her."
"Oh, Hope, do, do tell me about that time! I've never liked before to urge you to tell me the whole story, but I wish now that you would tell me."
There was a moment of hesitation,—just a moment; then with a little rising of color, a little tremulousness of voice, Hope said,—
"Kate, do you remember that piece of music that I brought back from Boston,—that 'Idyl of the Spring' that Mr. Kolb had composed for me to play at our coming May festival?"
"That piece dedicated to you, and so oddly named 'Mayflowers: Ten Cents a Bunch'?"
"Yes, and do you remember, when you asked me how he came to give it such an odd title, that I told you he had known a little girl once that he was very fond of, who had sold mayflowers at ten cents a bunch?"
"Yes."
"Well, I was that little girl."
"You! you! When—where—how did you come to sell them?"
"I'll tell you;" and then, for the second time that night, Hope told her story of that 'poor time,' as Dorothea had blunderingly called it,—that dear time, as she herself rightly and happily called it,—when she lived with her father and mother in the little cottage at Riverview, and carried out her joyous plan of earning that wonderful twenty-five dollars to buy the good little fiddle. As she told the story now, as she went back to the details of her plan, with Kate for audience, and described the little fiddle in the shop-window as she had first seen it, and the sinking of her heart as she was told the price, and then the happy relief of her inspiration when she heard the boy on the street call out "Ten cents a bunch," she began to lose her shyness in the warmth of her recollection,—to lose her shyness and to forget her shrinking from a possible auditor who wouldn't understand. Wouldn't understand! As she neared the end, as she came to her meeting with Dorothea in the Brookside station, and said, "It was there that I first met Dorothea," Kate burst in,—
"And she insulted you, she insulted you in her ignorance and stupidity! I can see it all,—all. She couldn't comprehend such a dear darling brave little thing as you. She took you for an ordinary little street huckster,—the horrid thick-headed, thick-skinned creature,—and sneered and jeered at you, and very likely called you names, or did other dreadful things."
"Oh, no, no, Kate! she wasn't malicious. She didn't mean to hurt me; but she was ignorant of any way of living but her own way, and she thought that anybody who sold things on the street must be one of those very poor people who lived anyhow, like the people at the North End, and so she asked me questions,—questions that hurt me, because they showed that she thought I was so different from herself. No, it wasn't malice that made her ask these questions, it was simply ignorance; and I—I told her so at last."
"You did? Hurrah! Tell me—tell me exactly what you said," cried Kate, laughing delightedly.
"Well, I said exactly that,—that she must be very ignorant or she would know more about the difference in people, that she would see the difference; and then I told her that my father was an engineer on the road, and that we had a nice home and plenty to eat and to drink and to wear, and books and magazines and papers, and then she asked me what I sold flowers on the street for, if we were as nice as that, and I told her that I wanted to buy something for myself that my father couldn't afford to buy for me; and then I remember"—and a little dimpling smile came over Hope's face here—"I asked her, 'Don't you ever want anything that your father doesn't feel as if he could buy for you just when you want him to?' and she was so irritated at my accusing her of being ignorant that she answered, 'Well, if I did, I shouldn't be let to go out on the street and peddle flowers to earn the money.'"
"The hateful, impudent—"
"But wait, wait! I was as bad as she was here, because I answered back, 'And I shouldn't be allowed to say "let to go," like ignorant North Enders.'"
"Oh, Hope, Hope, this is beautiful, beautiful!" and Kate began to dance wildly around the room, thrumming an imaginary pair of castanets as she danced.
"I don't think it was very beautiful," protested Hope; "but you can see by this speech that I was as bad as she after I got my temper up."
"Bad! it was beautiful, beautiful,—just the best thing I ever heard. Bad! well, I should say not."
"But she didn't mean to hurt me, to begin with, and I—I meant to hurt her in everything I said. Remember that."
"You meant to enlighten her, and I fancy you did, and you certainly got the better of her."
"Yes, and her father told her so, she said, when I recalled the 'scrimmage,' as she termed it, to her mind; and yet in spite of that she didn't lay up anything against me. She had forgotten my face, and was fast forgetting the whole affair when I brought things back to her. She had never had a bit of grudge against me, and she only laughed when she recalled some of the things I had said. I'm glad now to tell you the whole story, for you must see by what I have told you, that she isn't in the least malicious, and you must see, too, that she is really much better natured than we have thought her, not to have laid up anything; yes, much better natured than I am."
"Well, she was the attacking party. You were only on the defensive, and you knocked her down with the truth. Of course you would remember the kind of things she said to you more than she would remember your replies; and then you are much finer and more sensitive than she, anyway. But I will allow that she has turned out better in the end than I would have expected. That telling you what her father said wasn't bad. But, Hope dear, sensitive as you are, how could you recall yourself and that old time to her?"
"I told you how I came to do it; it was because she had got it into her head that it was you who had made me stiff and offish, and I had to tell her then just how it was."
"Oh, yes; and you sacrificed yourself in that way for me. You hated to tell her, Hope, I know you did,—you are such a sensitive, shrinking creature."
"Yes, that is just my fault,—a cowardly shrinking, that makes me keep silent sometimes when I ought to speak. Oh, Kate, Kate, I dare say now, this minute, you are thinking how strange it is,—my not having spoken to you before, of all this old life of mine, when I lived so differently from the way I live now. I dare say you think I—I was ashamed to talk about it, because my father was a working-man, a poor locomotive engineer. Oh, I shall never forget how I felt that day last term when you talked about the people who kept still and never spoke of their humble beginnings; and when you brought up the Stephensons and said, 'Do you think they'd keep still, because they were ashamed of their humble beginnings, after they had worked out of them and become prosperous?' and then when you went on and declared how you hated the cowardice of those people who didn't dare to speak of these things, and what you would do under such circumstances, I felt that I was the most miserable coward, and that you would despise me forever if you knew what I was keeping to myself. But I knew—I knew all the time, that I wasn't ashamed of anything,—of the little home without a servant or of the engine-cab and my dear, dear father. I knew I was proud of him and what he had done, and yet I knew that I couldn't bear to think of telling all these things to girls who had never known what it was to live as we had. I felt that you wouldn't, that you couldn't understand; that you would take it all something as Dorothea had, years ago, though you wouldn't say a word of how you felt, but you would look it. You would stare at me with wonder and curiosity,—that you—you—"
"Oh, Hope, Hope, my dear, I do understand it all—all—everything. I know that you couldn't be ashamed of that old time, and I understand just how you felt about us, how and why you shrank from telling us. One such experience as that with Dorothea was enough to make you shrink from all girls like us. You were a dear delicate little child, and you had never known that there was such ignorance as Dorothea's, and that you could be so misunderstood, and it has made a great bruise on you that you have never got over. Oh, Hope, this is all Dorothea's doing. She meant no harm, but she has done the harm nevertheless, for she has taken away your belief and trust and confidence. To think that you couldn't trust me, after all you've known of me, to understand just a difference in the way of living! Why, the life you've just told me of—that little home where you were so close to each other, where you lived so near to all your father's hopes and plans—seems to me beautiful, something to be envied. And to think you should think I shouldn't understand, shouldn't appreciate it—should look at it with—with such eyes as—as Dorothea's! Oh, Hope! Hope! doesn't this prove what harm Dorothea has done you?"
"And if it does, Kate, and I don't deny that it does, I say again that she didn't mean to do any harm,—I see that now as clear as can be,—and that ought to make all the difference; and then when I think what I have done—"
"You! what have you done but to forgive her ninety-and-nine times?"
"Oh, no, no, Kate, I've—I've dis—no, I've hated her all these years, and this hate has affected my manner towards her so much that it influenced you and all the other girls against her; and as she has been harmed through that, I don't see but that I ought to cry quits."
"Yes, five months against five years. Do you call that quits?"
"Yes, and maybe more than quits, because I've made enemies for her, or at least influenced people against her, while she had no feeling to prejudice people against me. She has liked me all this time that we've been here at school together, spite of my being so stiff; and when she came to find out who I was,—the little girl who got the best of her in that childish quarrel, she hadn't the least ill will towards me. Quits? Yes, I say it's more than quits for me. Oh, Kate, I can't tell you everything she said to me just now, but she did show herself generous and grateful; and even when I confessed that it was I who had prejudiced you, even then she had no ill will. Yes, yes, I agree that I was harmed and hurt by what happened five years ago; but, Kate, I've been thinking very fast and very hard for the last hour or two, and I've come to believe that if I had known nothing of Dorothea before she came here—if I and you had started without any prejudice, things might have been different, we might have been easier and pleasanter with her, and that might have brought her out in pleasanter ways. But instead of that, we picked up every little thing, and, well, she was cold-shouldered awfully by all of us at times; and we can't tell—we don't know what we might have done, if we had tried to make her one of us more. We might have kept her from doing such foolish reckless things as she has; and so, as I think that I am to blame for the beginning of this prejudice that has hurt her, I think that I may have been the means of doing her greater harm than she has ever done me; for think, think, Kate, what harm it must be to a girl to have Raymond Armitage able to boast about her accepting his attentions, and for your brother and Peter Van Loon, and nobody knows who else, getting such a cheap opinion of her through these things."
"Yes, I see. But what do you propose to do about it?"
"Well, I think—I ought to do or try to do what I can now, to help her not to hurt herself any more by these pranks."
"How are you going to work to make her over like this?"
"I—I don't expect to make her over, Kate, but I think she may get a different idea of having a good time if we are very friendly to her, and bring her into our good times, and she sees that the girls, and the boys too, that she really wants to associate with, really and truly look down on these pranks that she has thought were only 'good fun,'—look down upon them and think them vulgar."
"And you want me to help in this missionary work?" asked Kate, half laughing.
"Yes, I—I want you to be nice to her, Kate. When you meet her to-morrow morning, now, I want you to give her something more than a stiff nod; I want you to smile a little,—not too much, or she'll think I've been talking to you about her."
"A little, but not too much," laughed Kate, "Oh, Hope, Hope, you dear delightful darling you, this is too funny, too funny!"
"But won't you try—won't you try, Kate, to—"
"To smile upon her a little but not too much? Yes, yes, I'll try, I'll try," still laughing.
"And, Kate dear," suddenly enfolding the laughing girl in a close embrace, "will you try to do something else for me,—will you try to forgive me for—for being so stupid as not to trust you to—to understand? Will you try to forgive me, and to—to love me as well—as you did before?"
"Try to forgive you—to love you as well as I did before," cried Kate, pressing Hope's cheek against her own. "I've nothing to forgive; and as for loving you as well as I did before, I love you better, if that were possible, for before, though I thought I knew you pretty well, I didn't know how more than generous you could be. Love you? I love and admire you beyond anybody; I—"
"Girls, girls, it's after talking hours," whispered Anna Fleming, as she pushed open the door. "I've just come from your room, Hope, where I've been with Myra, and the lights are all being turned down in the halls, and so we must say good-night and scatter to bed."
"Oh, yes, I ought not to have stayed so long," whispered back Hope, apologetically. "Good-night!" and "Good-night!" "Good-night" responded Anna and Kate in chorus; but Kate managed to add slyly in a lower whisper to Hope,—
"I'll smile upon her a little, but not too much, Hope dear."
CHAPTER XXIII.
The next morning was rather dreaded by Dorothea. She had really suffered from a headache the night before, and with that excuse had been allowed to keep her room, and have a light supper sent up to her.
"But I wish I hadn't—I wish to goodness I'd gone down last night!" she said petulantly to herself, as she faced the morning's sunshine. She had full faith in Hope and her promise, and was therefore quite secure that not one of the girls would know of that mortifying little episode at the end of yesterday's escapade; and this was the most that she cared for. But yet, in spite of this, she had a certain very uncomfortable feeling about meeting Kate Van der Berg and "that set," as she called the little group of girls of which Kate seemed the natural head and leader. A very uncomfortable feeling; for though that mortifying episode was a safe secret, the rest of the escapade was the common property of Kate and Hope; "and of course," argued Dorothea, "Kate Van der Berg has told all she knows to the others, and they'll just take her little pattern of things, and set up and look at me, and think how the naughty girl was taken care of by Mrs. Sibley and Hope. Oh, oh, if it hadn't been for that horrid Raymond Armitage's being so mean and selfish at the end,—well, I've found him out!—I shouldn't have had to accept Hope's offer,—though it was awfully good of her, and I was awfully glad to accept, as things turned out. But if things hadn't turned out as they did,—if Ray Armitage had behaved himself, I needn't have accepted, and then if I had come back in the cars, as I went, I should have taken the risks and they'd have known that I was independent. But now, though thank Heaven they won't know why I accepted Hope's offer, they'll know that I did accept it, and so they'll stare at me as the naughty little girl who had to give in!"
It will be seen by this argument that Dorothea's state of mind was not yet what it should be. It will also be seen that, harboring such a state of mind, it was quite natural that she should find herself decidedly uncomfortable at the prospect of facing "that set." But it had to be done, however. There was no use in putting it off; and with a final glance at the mirror, a final pat to her smooth shining hair, Dorothea started off toward the dining-room. As she gained the lower hall, she heard a mingled sound of various voices issuing from the room, and ruefully thought: "Late as it is, they're all there! Why didn't I get up earlier? I might have known they'd be late Sunday morning. Now all eyes will be glaring at me when I open the door!"
But as she opened the door, beyond one or two of the girls looking up with a preoccupied air and a hasty good-morning, no notice was taken of her. "That set" and indeed the whole assembled company were in the very thick of an animated talk concerning the origin and observance of Saint Valentine's Day.
"Of course we have kept up the Valentine fun year after year, because there's such a lot of children in our family. I don't suppose that grown up people nowadays would make anything of it, if it wasn't for children,—except maybe vulgar people who use those horrid comic valentines to play a vulgar joke on some one," Kate Van der Berg was saying just as Dorothea stepped over the threshold. A little nod and smile was given to Dorothea the next moment,—a little easy nod and that happy half-smile that was "not too much," recommended by Hope.
"It says in Chambers' Book of Days," here spoke up Anna Fleming, "that Valentine's Day is now almost everywhere a much degenerated festival, but that it was once a very general custom with everybody—grown-up-people as well as children—to send valentines to each other; and it says, too, that the origin of this custom is a subject of some obscurity. Those are the very words; I read them last night to Myra, didn't I, Myra?"
"Yes; and you read too that the Saint Valentine who was a priest of Rome and martyred in the third century seems to have nothing to do with the matter beyond the accident of his day being used for the festival purpose."
"Then, if that is true, the whole thing is a sentimental muddle of nonsense, starting off with the mating of birds for origin, as some of the old writers seem to believe," cried Kate, in a disgusted tone. "But I'm not going to believe any such thing. I'm going to believe what Bishop Wheatley says about it. He says that Saint Valentine was a man so famous for his love and charity that the custom of choosing valentines upon his festival took its rise from a desire to commemorate that very love and charity by choosing a special friend on his day,—I suppose his birthday,—which was, as nearly as can be reckoned, the fourteenth of February. Now, I shall stick to this explanation of the day. Bishop Wheatley's authority is good enough for me, and I shall choose my valentine on his lines this year as I did last."
"Oh, who was your Valentine last year?" cried little Lily Chester, with eager curiosity.
"My aunt Katrine,—a great-aunt whom I had never seen until last year, when she came over from Germany to visit us."
"An old aunt,—how funny!" exclaimed Lily.
"Why funny?"
"Why? Because—because whoever heard of anybody choosing an old aunt for a valentine?"
"Whom do you choose, Lily?"
"I? Oh, I choose children I know,—boys, always."
An outburst of laughter greeted this declaration; and in the midst of it Kate said gayly, with a little confidential nod to Dorothea, "It's currants and raisins again, Dorothea."
The gay tone of good-fellowship, the confidential nod and smile took Dorothea so by surprise that for the moment her ready speech failed her. What she had thought, what she might have said if she had not thus been surprised into silence, was something in her usual truculent vein, with a very decided declaration of sympathy with Lily's choice. But surprised and silent for the moment, she was all ready to agree with Myra Donaldson, who followed Kate's remark with a laughing confession that she too had chosen "boys always,"—that she thought that was the customary, the proper valentine way. And agreeing with Myra in an emphatic "It is—it always has been the proper valentine way," Dorothea was again surprised at the gentleness of Kate's tone as she disagreed,—as she said:
"Oh, no, no, Dorothea; the good old Bishop Wheatley didn't mean that it was nothing but a sweethearting custom, for there is another record that says distinctly that the early Church looked upon that custom as one of the pagan practices, and observed the day as a real Saint's Day, when one chose a particular patron saint for the year and called him, or her, my 'valentine.' And it was in that way that I chose dear old Aunt Katrine for my valentine last year."
"And I chose my dear Mr. Kolb, my first music-teacher," said Hope, looking up brightly. "He taught me to play on that little violin I was telling you about," glancing at Kate with a significant smile. Dorothea saw the smile, and instantly said to herself: "She's told her,—she's told her all that Mayflower and fiddle story, every word of it, I can see by their looks. I wonder if she's told the other girls?"
But what was that that Myra Donaldson was referring to?—something that had evidently brought up all this talk. Dorothea had lost a sentence or two in her momentary preoccupation over Hope and Kate; but now catching the words "It's to be a valentine party as usual," she asked eagerly,—
"Whose party is it,—who gives it?"
"Bessie Armitage. The fourteenth of February is her birthday, and she always has a party on that day, or on the evening of the day. She hasn't sent her invitations out yet, but she will next week. I went to her last year's party, and it was such a pretty party, wasn't it?" looking at Kate and Hope, who at once gave cordial agreement that it was a very pretty party. "But you'll see for yourself this year, Dorothea," Myra went on, "for I suppose Miss Marr will let us go, as she did last winter, though it is stretching a point to go to any party outside; but Bessie has been here so long—she was only ten when she first came to Miss Marr's—that she has exceptions made in her favor; and then these birthday-parties of hers are always early parties, and that makes a great difference."
A party,—a Valentine party at Bessie Armitage's! Dorothea couldn't, for the life of her, keep the hot angry color from rushing to her face as she heard the name of Armitage; and her first thought was: "Catch me going to a party at his home, where I've got to be polite to him!" At the next thought,—the thought that her refusal to go would be thoroughly understood by Raymond himself, would be taken by him as a direct cut and snub, her spirits rose, and a little triumphant smile began to curl her lips.
"Look at Dorothea! She's planning some mischief," laughed Myra, who had noted the sudden change in her opposite neighbor's face. All eyes were now indeed turned upon Dorothea.
"Yes, you look like yourself again," spoke up Anna Fleming, "you were quite pale when you first came in. Has your headache all gone?"
"My headache?"
"Yes; they said you didn't come down to dinner last night on account of a headache."
"Oh yes, I forgot to ask you how you were, we were so full of Bessie's Valentine party when you came in," said Myra, apologetically. Then, politely: "You had to leave the Park yesterday almost directly after you arrived there, some one said. 'Twas too bad. I didn't see you at all after we entered, for I went at once over on the other side of the pond with Anna and some of her friends. What a scattered party we were,—Anna and I on one side and Kate and Hope on the other, and the rest I don't know where: and how we straggled home,—Anna's friends in charge of us, while Miss Thompson had another party and Miss Stephens still another."
Dorothea forgot her embarrassment, forgot everything, as she listened to these words, but the amazing fact that Kate had told neither Anna nor Myra the story of yesterday's escapade,—and Anna was Kate's room-mate! Could it be that Kate Van der Berg,—who had always been so ready to find fault, to say disagreeable things, to put her—Dorothea—in the wrong,—could it be possible that of her own will, her own thought, she had refrained from repeating what she knew? And if she had, what was her motive? Dorothea asked herself suspiciously, for she could not understand how one so outspoken and lavish in her fault-finding could suddenly put such restraint upon her tongue; for she could not comprehend, this quick-tempered yet obtuse Dorothea, that a nature which might be lavish of fault-finding and criticism upon certain occasions, upon certain other occasions, from a nice sense of honor and generosity, might also be able to keep a golden silence. Yet this was just what Kate Van der Berg had done. She had had the impulse at the first to rush at once to Myra, to whom she had already told so much, with this amazing story of Dorothea's latest exploit. But a second impulse came to her,—a kindly impulse of restraint, wherein she said to herself: "No, I won't prejudice Myra any further, perhaps I've prejudiced her too much already by what I've told her; at any rate, I'll keep silent about this affair." How more than glad she was that she had thus kept silent when Myra's innocently betrayed ignorance brought that look of surprise and relief into Dorothea's face. And Dorothea, presently turning her gaze from Myra to Kate herself, caught on the latter's face something of the expression of this gladness, and experienced a fresh surprise thereat; but in this surprise was mixed a little feeling of self-gratulation that matters were turning out so easily and happily; and then her volatile spirits began to rebound again, and her thoughts to run in this way,—
"How silly I've been to get so nervous and fidgety; but it's all owing to Ray Armitage's behavior. I haven't done anything to be ashamed of anyhow, and I dare say in her secret heart Kate Van der Berg thinks I haven't. Any way everything is blowing over beautifully now, and I'm not going to bother about things another bit, not even about that horrid Ray Armitage,—though I'll manage to get even with him yet!" And so solacing herself, in this fashion, Dorothea's spirits continued to rise higher and higher, and by Monday she was in her usual mental as well as bodily condition, her headache and her heartache—if the latter term could be employed to describe her pangs of sore mortification—no longer conquering her. Indeed, so jubilant was the reactionary state of mind following upon her depression, that she at once set about readjusting various little plans to suit her present mood. One of these plans was the determination she had made to refuse Bessie Armitage's invitation to the birthday valentine party. It would only make the girls talk for her to stay away, she concluded. It would be a great deal better plan to go to the party, and show Ray Armitage that he wasn't of enough consequence to keep her away. And when there she could manage to snub him beautifully in a dozen different ways, though it was in his own house,—oh yes, in a dozen different ways, and be outwardly very polite too; yes, indeed, she knew how to do it!
In thoughts and plans like these, the days flew swiftly by. "Next week," Myra had informed them, the invitations were to be sent out, and she had had her information from Bessie herself, who was at that time confined at home with a severe cold. Next week, and then another week would bring the anticipated fourteenth.
CHAPTER XXIV.
"But there must be some mistake, some accident, that has delayed yours, for all the other girls received theirs yesterday," exclaimed Myra Donaldson in surprise, when Dorothea mentioned the fact to her on Tuesday of that following week, that she had not received her invitation. "Yes, there must be some accident," reiterated Myra; "it no doubt slipped out in some way, and you'll get it to-morrow." But "to-morrow" came and went and Dorothea failed to receive the invitation.
"Of course there must be some mistake," Anna Fleming also declared, when she was told of the fact; and then one and another echoed the same declaration as they heard of the circumstance. Of course there was some mistake! By Thursday, certainly, everybody thought the "mistake" would be discovered and rectified; but Thursday too came and went, and Friday passed by without the desired result. On Saturday morning Dorothea said to Hope,—
"I—I wish you would do something for me, Hope."
"Yes, certainly I will if I can," returned Hope.
"Well, it's just this: I heard that you were going out to drive with Kate Van der Berg this afternoon, and I wondered if you could—if you would call and see Bessie Armitage,—see how she is, you know—and then—and then you might ask her—you might tell her about the invitation,—that I hadn't received it. Of course I don't want to speak to her about it, but somebody else might, and she would want to be told—she'd feel horribly—I should, I'm sure, in her place if I wasn't told—if the mistake wasn't rectified; and so I thought if you would just speak of it—"
"Yes, indeed I will. I'm glad you asked me. I wonder I hadn't thought of it myself, but I'll go round directly the first thing this afternoon," responded Hope, cordially.
"Some mistake?" repeated Bessie Armitage, in a queer, hesitating, questioning way, as Hope sat before her, waiting for the explanation that she had expected would at once make everything right for Dorothea.
"Yes, for she hasn't received her invitation at all, you understand," answered Hope, thinking that Bessie had not understood.
"Yes?" began Bessie, and then stopped, her eyes cast down and the color coming into her cheeks, while Hope and Kate glanced at each other in embarrassed silence. What did it mean? What could be the matter? They were wildly conjecturing all sorts of strange impossible things, and Hope was just determining to break the dreadful silence with these very questions, when Bessie looked up and said:
"I'll tell you—I must tell you; there wasn't any mistake—I knew that Dorothea had no invitation."
"Oh!" breathed Hope, faintly; and "Oh!" echoed Kate, in the same tone.
"No, it was meant that she shouldn't have one; but I had written one, and I was going to send it if—if my mother hadn't stopped it."
"Your mother?"
"Yes, my mother. I had already sent out quite a number of invitations, and had just got another lot ready, when my mother came in and saw Dorothea's name on one of the notes. The moment she saw it, she forbade me to send it. Mother was at the New Year's party,—perhaps you remember,—just at the last of it, when Dorothea was going on so, and she took a great dislike to Dorothea then. Dorothea was noisy, you know. Mother thought she was very loud and underbred. But that—that wasn't all. A little while ago some acquaintances of ours from Philadelphia—the Cargills—were staying at the Waldorf. The next day after they arrived, they went to a matinée at the Madison Square Theatre, and saw there my brother Raymond, and with him a young girl. Of course they thought the girl was some member of our family; and when he went to speak to them, they asked him if that was another sister he had with him, and he told them no; that it was only an acquaintance,—a girl who was in a boarding-school in the city. Mrs. Cargill thought this was very odd; and as Raymond was so young, she spoke about it to mamma. Mamma was astonished, and she went straight to Raymond and asked him what it all meant, and who the girl was; and Raymond had to tell the whole story then,—that it was Dorothea Dering, from Miss Marr's school; that he had invited her to go to the matinée with him, and that she had accepted the invitation; and then that he had met her at the skating-pond in Central Park, and had gone from there with her to the theatre, unsuspected by any of the teachers. The minute mamma heard the name, 'Dorothea Dering,' she recalled the New Year's party and Dorothea's behavior there; and so, and so, don't you see, when she saw Dorothea's name on the envelope, the other day, she thought of all these things, and—and forbade my sending the note. I tried my best to get her to let me send it; I told her what Anna Fleming had said to me,—that Dorothea came from one of the first families of Massachusetts; that her father was the Hon. James Dering, and all her people were in the very best society. But the more I tried to talk Dorothea up in this way, the more decided mamma grew; until, at last, she said that there had been too much of this falling back upon one's family nowadays; that bad, loud manners and rude behavior were not to be overlooked and excused on that account, and that she didn't propose to overlook Dorothea's by having her invited to her house. And when I said I thought that Raymond was as much to blame, in asking her to go to the matinée, as Dorothea was in going, mamma said that that didn't help her case at all; that Raymond's invitation was only the result of her own loud, free ways; that he would never have thought of inviting her like that, if she had been a different kind of girl. Oh,"—with a quick look at Hope and Kate,—"mamma didn't altogether exonerate Raymond; she didn't think he was altogether right, by any means; but then she does think—and so do I, girls—that boys and young men are apt to treat a girl a good deal as the girl treats them; and—and—Dorothea was too forward with Raymond. I saw it myself from the first; and she led him on,—she encouraged him to treat her as he wouldn't have treated either of you two. She thought he admired just those free, foolish ways of hers; but he didn't,—he was only amused by them. Oh, I know Raymond; and I know if he had seen me going on with any one as Dorothea did, he would have scolded me well. It wouldn't have amused him to have seen his sister going on so, to have seen me amusing any one like that. But, Hope, Kate, all the same, I felt dreadfully at leaving Dorothea out,—dreadfully, for there I'd sent off almost all the school invitations; there was no getting them back. If I could have got them back, I would; and—yes, truly, I wouldn't have sent any invitations to any one at Miss Marr's, if I had known I had got to cut Dorothea. No; I wouldn't have sent one, and then I could have explained it to the rest of you privately, or I could have said I couldn't make so large a party this year. Yes, I would certainly have done this if it hadn't been too late,—if mamma had only seen and stopped Dorothea's invitation before the other school notes had been sent. Yes, I would have done just that; and not because I'm at all fond of Dorothea, but because I hate to hurt anybody's feelings, and to—to make such a time. I should have gone back to school this week if it hadn't been for this happening; but I'm not going now until after the party, and I may not go until next term if my father will take me away with him to Florida, where he is going next month; and I hope, oh, I hope he will!" And here suddenly, to Hope and Kate's astonishment, this quiet, self-contained Bessie Armitage covered her face with her hands and burst into tears.
"Oh, Bessie! Bessie!" broke forth Hope and Kate, with a warm outrushing of sympathy, and a desire to say something comforting,—"oh, Bessie, Bessie!" and then suddenly they both stopped, for what could they say further without saying something that would seem like a protest against Mrs. Armitage's decision,—that, in fact, would be a protest, for both girls were protesting in their hearts at that moment, were saying something like this to themselves,—
"What harm could it have done to let this invitation go,—just this one? They needn't ever have invited her again." And at that very moment, as they were thus thinking, they heard the rings of a portière slip aside, and there was Mrs. Armitage herself, entering from the next room with a kind look of concern on her face, and in another moment, after her friendly greeting, she was saying,—
"Bessie has told you my decision about the invitation to Miss Dering, and I dare say you think I am very stiff and hard, not to let the invitation go,—that it can't make much difference for this once; but, my dears, it is this once, this one party, where my little ten-year-old Amy and her little cousins will be in amongst the older ones, that will make all the difference, for I don't want these little girls to see such an exhibition of loud manners, and those—I hate to say it—vulgar flirting ways such as I saw New Year's evening. If it were any other party, a party where there were older girls only, I might have let the invitation go; but I have seen the ill effects of very young girls like my Amy and her cousins being brought into contact even for a short time with a handsome showy girl who does and says the kind of things that Miss Dering does, especially when that girl is accepted as a guest by their own friends; and so, if only for this one reason apart from any other, don't you see, my dears, that I couldn't let this invitation go?"
"Yes, I do see, I do see!" cried Kate, impulsively; "but—Mrs. Armitage, do you think she—Dorothea will understand—will know that it is her own fault?"
"I—I think she will, I think she must," answered Mrs. Armitage. There were tears in her eyes as she said this; and as she bent down and kissed them good-by, both Hope and Kate felt the depth and sincerity of her purpose, and respected her for it.
"She's right, she's right of course!" burst forth Kate, as the two girls were driving away together; "but, oh, I do wish she hadn't been quite so right, quite so high-minded just now; for what an uncomfortable time is ahead of us! Oh, Hope, I pity you; what shall you—what can you tell Dorothea?"
"I don't see that I can tell her anything but the truth."
"Not the whole truth?"
"What else could I tell her?"
"My! I wouldn't be in your shoes for something! She'll be so furious, she'll fall upon you,—you or anybody who is nearest,—and chew you into mince-meat! Oh, Hope, don't tell her! Tell her—tell her—oh, I have it—tell her that you spoke to Bessie about the invitation, and that there was none sent because Bessie is offended with her for some reason,—that you can't tell her what it is, but that she must go to Bessie herself for the reason. There! there you are all fixed up, and with the great high-minded muss shoved off on to the Armitage shoulders, where it ought to be. Houp la! I'd dance a jig if I were out of the carriage!"
"But I—I sha'n't shove it off like that, Katy dear. I shall tell Dorothea everything,—it is the only way. I shall tell her as gently as I can, but I shall tell her. If I turn it off in the way you suggest, it will make more trouble. She'll go to Bessie the minute she gets back and say something disagreeable to her, or she'll treat her in an angry disagreeable manner, and just as like as not say something,—something purposely impertinent to irritate Bessie,—for she won't stop at anything then."
"But do you think it will be any better—do you think she'll be any less angry if you tell her that it is Mrs. Armitage who is at the bottom of the business?"
"Yes, I do; I think it will be a great deal better. She'll be angry,—she may be furious, as you say; but I shall tell her just how Bessie felt about not sending the note,—how she cried over it, and how Mrs. Armitage felt; and Dorothea has too much sense not to see herself, after the first burst of temper, that the whole thing has been made too serious a matter for her to quarrel about it in a little petty way. And then—then I think, after she gets over the anger, that she is going to be helped by the whole experience, going to see what she has never seen before,—that she is all in the wrong in her way of doing and saying the things that she does, and that she will be left out of everything if she doesn't do differently; and nothing—no, nothing but something like this—would ever show her how she has been hurting herself."
"Well, you may be right, Hope; but I believe this spoilt baby will scream and kick and bang her head in some sort of tantrum way, and then she'll pack up her clothes and rush off to Boston, shaking the wicked dirty dust of New York from her feet, and calling us all a lot of primmy old maids, or something worse."
Hope laughed a little, but she was more than a little anxious and troubled; for, spite of her brave stand, she did have a very decided dread of applying that heroic treatment of the whole truth to Dorothea; and her dread by no means diminished as she went down the long corridor and saw at the end of it Dorothea's room-door standing open, and within the room Dorothea herself, humming a gay waltz as she shook out the folds of the yellow gown; and "Oh," groaned Hope, "she's getting it ready for the party; she thinks everything is all right, and she's so sure she's going. Oh, dear!"
And then it was, when Hope's heart was quaking with fear and pity, that Dorothea glanced up from the yellow gown and cried out joyfully,—
"Oh, there you are! Come in, come in, and tell me all about it,—how the mistake was made; and where is it,—the invitation?—you brought it with you, didn't you?"
"No—I—she—"
"Thought it wasn't necessary,—that you could tell me? Was the note lost?" went on Dorothea, in her headlong way of anticipating everything as usual, and only brought up at last by Hope's faint, distressed cry of—
"Oh, Dorothea, there wasn't any invitation!"
"Wasn't any? What—what do you mean?" exclaimed Dorothea, dropping her yellow gown to the floor, and staring with great dilating eyes at Hope.
"I mean that Bessie—that Bessie didn't—that—that it was stopped—that her—"
"Her brother stopped it? Raymond Armitage? He was so mean as that—because I resented the way he treated me there at the theatre? He—he has told her some lie, then, and I will tell her—"
"Oh, Dorothea, Dorothea, wait, wait—listen to me! It is not—it was not her brother, not Raymond Armitage, who stopped it; it was—it was—their mother—it was Mrs. Armitage."
"Mrs. Armitage! and Raymond went to her—he got her to stop it? Oh, how—"
"No, no, he did not go to her. Oh, Dorothea," going forward and taking Dorothea's hand, "won't you wait, won't you listen to me?"
The soft touch of Hope's hand, the soft tone, so full of pity it sounded like love, seemed to surprise Dorothea out of her gathering wrath for a moment, and her own fingers closing over Hope's with a sudden clinging movement, she answered hastily,—
"Yes, yes, I'll listen, I'll listen; go on, go on!"
And Hope, holding the girl's hand with that soft, firm touch, went on to tell her the story that was so difficult for her to tell,—that "whole truth" that she had decided that Dorothea must now know once for all. As gently as possible, the talk with Bessie, the interview with Mrs. Armitage was given; nothing, not even the reference to the New Year's party episode and its prejudicial effect, being withheld; and yet through it all Dorothea made no interruption, made no sign to show her feeling, beyond now and then a convulsive clutch at the hand that was holding hers, and a gradual fading away of the hot red color that had suffused her face at the start. As Hope felt this clutch of her fingers now and then, as she saw toward the end of her story the increasing pallor of her companion's face, she could not help a thrill of apprehension, for these signs seemed to her the signs of a storm that would presently break forth; and as she came to the end, the very end of what she had to say, she had a feeling of trying to steady herself, to hold herself in readiness to argue or assert or soothe, whichever method might seem best suited to stem or stay the outbreak she expected. But what—what did this mean—this dead silence that followed, when she had ceased speaking? Was this the calm before the dreaded storm? And Hope, who had lowered her eyes toward the end of her story, instinctively looked up,—looked up to see great tears rolling down the colorless cheeks before her, and over all the face a pale passion of emotion that did not seem to be the passion of anger. Could it be the passion of pain only? Could it be that there was to be no storm of angry protest and defiance even at the very first? No, there was to be no storm of that kind. Dorothea had again surprised her!
CHAPTER XXV.
But as the fears and apprehensions that beset her began to lessen, Hope's pity and sympathy rose afresh, and with added vigor. She was thinking how best to express this pity and sympathy without striking a note of criticism that might injure the effect of what she had placed before Dorothea, when Dorothea herself showed the way, as she suddenly said,—
"There's no use for me to stay here any longer. I'd better go home, where people know me, and—and don't think my ways are so dreadful."
There was no angry temper in this speech. Though the tone was rather morose and bitter, it seemed to spring from a sudden appalled sense of defeat and danger such as she had never heretofore experienced. And this was just the situation. Hope's tact and kindness had presented the whole truth so carefully that petty irritation was swallowed up in the something serious that Dorothea herself but half comprehended, but from which her first instinct was to flee,—to go home where people knew her and didn't think her ways so dreadful.
But, "No, no," Hope urged against this desire. "You must stay, Dorothea,—stay and take a better place than you've ever taken before with us; for you can, oh, you can, Dorothea. You can make us all love and admire you if you have a mind to, if you won't—won't be quite so headlong, so—so sure you are right in some things, so—childish in some ways."
"I childish! 'Tisn't childishness your Mrs. Armitage is finding fault with!" blurted out Dorothea, in a bitter yet broken tone.
"But it is just that. If you were small for our age instead of so big, it would be called childishness; and as it is, I've heard you spoken of as 'a spoilt child.' But you are so tall, so big, so womanly, most people think you are a grown up young lady; and—and grown up young ladies don't go on just in the way that you do, Dorothea."
"'Just the way that I do!' Oh, I laugh, and I make too much noise in my fun, I suppose you think; but what's the reason the Brookside people and the lots of people we know all about Brookside,—what's the reason they don't find fault with my ways and leave me out of their parties?"
"You are a stranger here, Dorothea. You must remember that we never have the same freedom, or are looked upon quite the same, in a place where we are strangers, as where we have always lived," answered Hope, gently.
"Then it's all the more reason why I'd better go home, where people know me and don't think my ways so dreadful."
"Dorothea, you have told me once or twice that your cousin found fault with your ways, and perhaps—if he had not been your cousin, have known you so well—if you had been a stranger to him, he might not have made a friendly allowance for you; and, Dorothea, tell me one thing: did you ever—ever go on there at home as you have here,—receiving gifts and attentions, and going to the theatre on the—on the sly?"
"N—o."
"If you had, and it had been found out, do you think it would have been passed over unnoticed?"
"N—o, I don't suppose it would, but I shouldn't have been treated like this,—left out like this."
"No; because—because, Dorothea, you and your family are not strangers,—because you are well known, and people forgive friends for a long time."
"Then I'd better go back to them, I'd better go back to them, and I will, I will! Oh, I can't stay here, Hope, I can't, I can't! I see how you'll all feel, how you'll think that I've been a disgrace to the school, when this gets out that Mrs. Armitage wouldn't have me at the party, and I can't, I can't stay."
"Dorothea, Dorothea!" and Hope knelt down by the couch where Dorothea had flung herself in an agony of tears,—knelt down, and putting her arms about the suffering girl begged her never for a moment to think that either she or Kate or Bessie would speak to the other girls about Mrs. Armitage's action in regard to the invitation. "No, they will never know from us, Dorothea,—never, never."
