"He lifted the bow and drew it across the strings"
"A good fiddle! ach! it is a peautiful little fiddle!" he exclaimed, as he ceased playing. Then he complimented Hope by saying: "You haf the musical eye, as well as ear, Mädchen, to put your heart on this little fiddle, and we shall haf so good a time, you and I, learning to play it."
That night, just after supper, Hope took her first lesson. As she tucked the little fiddle under her chin, and drew the bow uncertainly and awkwardly across the strings, her heart beat, and her eyes filled with joyous tears. The little fiddle for the time quite pushed Dolly Dering and everything connected with her out of her mind.
While she was thus happily occupied, her father was busily engaged with what looked like a toy engine. He was tinkering over one of those ideas of his, that Mr. Dering had spoken of. This particular idea was something connected with the speed of the locomotive and the economy of fuel at one and the same time. Two years before, certain improvements in this direction had been made, but they were not fully successful, because they did not combine harmoniously,—what was gained in one direction being partially lost in another. John Benham's idea was to invent something that should combine so harmoniously that a high rate of speed could be attainable with a minimum of fuel.
When he first started to work out this idea, he was quite confident that he could carry it through to success; but he had been at it now for months, and the harmonious combination still evaded him. What was it? What had he missed? Over and over again he would ask himself this question, and over and over again he would add here or take away there, and all without achieving the result he desired. So many failures had at length beaten down his courageous confidence not a little, and he had begun to think that he must be on the wrong track altogether, and might as well give up the whole thing.
He was thinking this very strongly that Monday night when he sat in his workshop,—a long, low room he had arranged for himself at the end of the house. The night was warm for the season, and through the open doorway he could hear the quavering, uncertain scraping of the little fiddle.
"Dear little soul!" he thought; "I hope this good time is paying her for that bad time of hers."
If he could only have known how thoroughly it was "paying her,"—that at that moment the bad time was pushed completely out of mind by the good time! He hoped that she was comforted; that was the most that he expected. For himself, nothing had put the story she had told him out of his mind; and while he sat there adjusting and readjusting the little model, it was half mechanically,—his thought being more occupied with his child's painful little experience, and all that it suggested to him. He was not a bitter or a violent man. He did not think that the poor were always in the right, and the rich always in the wrong in their relations with each other, as a good many working-people do. No; he was too intelligent for that. But what he did think, what he knew was, that the rich were not hampered and hindered by the daily struggle for existence, for the means to procure food and clothing and shelter from week to week. He knew that his own abilities were hindered and hampered by the necessity that compelled him to work almost incessantly for the necessaries of life. If he could have had only a little of the leisure of the rich, a little of their money, he could have had constantly at his hand, not merely the books that he needed, and the time to study them, but various other ways and opportunities would have been open to him to follow out his strong taste for mechanical construction. As it was, he had been obliged to grope along slowly, working at odd times after his labor of the day, and generally at some disadvantage, either in the lack of proper tools, or needed books of reference directly at his hand. All these thoughts bore down upon him that night with greater force than usual, because of Hope's story; for here it was again in another direction, that difference between the rich and the poor. And while he thought these thoughts, scrape, scrape, went Hope's bow across the strings.
"Do you hear that, John?" asked Mrs. Benham as she came into the workshop.
"Yes, I've been listening to it for some time." There was an absent expression in John Benham's eyes, as he glanced up. His wife noticed it.
"You look tired, John. I wouldn't bother over that"—with a nod at the engine model—"any more."
"No; I've about made up my mind to give it up. I don't seem to be on the right track with it, anyhow."
There was a depressed, discouraged note in the husband's voice that his wife at once detected. It was a new note for her to hear in that voice. She regarded him anxiously a moment, and then, smiling, but with a good deal of real earnestness, said,—
"Don't fret about it, John. Hope, maybe, 'll make all our fortunes yet. Mr. Kolb told me that she had a wonderful ear for music, and would be a fine performer some day."
"Fortunes! 't isn't money only, Martha; I hate to give up a thing like this. I felt so sure of myself when I started; and—and—it is failure, you see; and failure is harder to bear than the hardest kind of labor. I've always thought, you know, that I was cut out for this sort of thing,—this inventive business,—but it looks as though I had been more conceited than anything else, doesn't it?"
"No, no; it doesn't, John. Your worst enemy couldn't say that you were conceited. But you've had so little chance, so little time; that's what's the trouble. But you haven't come to the end yet, and I didn't mean that I wanted you to give up trying. I only meant that I wouldn't bother over that. You must start something new; that's all I meant, John," cried Mrs. Benham, full of affectionate sympathy and repentance.
"Oh! I understand, Martha; I understand. What you said didn't discourage me. I dare say I shall tinker away at something again by and by; but this thing"—striking the model a little blow with his hand—"is a failure."
At that moment the door-bell rang, and Mrs. Benham hurried away to answer its summons. Left alone, her husband stretched out his hand towards the model, and opened the door of its fire-box. There was still a tiny bed of coals there.
"We'll have a last run," he said, with a half-smile; and opening the steam-valve, he saw the beautiful little model start once more on its way along the rails he had laid for it upon the work-bench that ran around the room. As he had constructed a self-acting pressure that should close the steam-valve at a certain point, the model was under as perfect control from where he stood as if it were of larger proportions, and he were managing and directing it from its engine cab. A look of pride, followed by an expression of sadness, flickered over the builder's face, as he watched it. Where had he failed?
Round and round the course the pretty thing sped, not at any headlong speed, but at the pace that had been set for it, to prove or disprove the effectiveness of the combination. Click, click, how smoothly it ran! everything apparently perfect, from the wheels to the wire-netted flues. If only—But what—what is that? and John Benham starts forward with sudden eager attention. His quick ear has caught a slight sound that he had not heard before, so slight that only his ear would have detected it. The machine was on its finishing round; three seconds more, and the self-acting steam-valve has shut, the engine slows up to a stop, and its builder, with a quickened pulse, bends eagerly forward.
CHAPTER VI.
Perhaps it is five minutes later that the wife opens the door again. "John, who do you think has just called?" She receives no answer. "Dear me!" she says vexedly to herself, "he's worrying at that machine again. I wish he'd give it up. John!" Still no answer. Mrs. Benham walks into the room. "John, I wish—" But as she catches sight of her husband's face, which is pale, and changed by some strong feeling, she forgets what she was about to say, and exclaims in a troubled tone, "What is it? What is the matter, John?"
He starts and turns to her. Matter? A half-smile stirs his lips, and he points to the engine without another word.
Mrs. Benham is frightened. She thinks to herself: "This constant worry over that thing is turning his head; he will lose his mind. Oh, John!" she cries, "if you would only come away and rest and give this up, if only for a little while! I—I—" and poor Mrs. Benham's voice breaks, and the tears rush to her eyes.
"Martha, Martha, you don't understand. My worry is all over,—all over. The thing is a success,—a success, Martha, and not a failure!"
"What—why—when I went out—"
"When you went out a while ago, I'd given it up, and I thought I'd say good-bye to it in a last run, and on that run I heard a new sound. Look here, Martha, do you see that link in the valve gearing? I thought I had taken every pains to suspend it properly. Well, it seems I hadn't. I suspended it in the usual way, and it worked in the usual way; but it turns out that wasn't the way to work with my new injector, and there is where the hitch was. Do you remember when I brought my hand down on the machine when we were talking? I must have displaced this delicate little bolt or pin that you see here, at that blow, and in that way put the link—it is what is called a shifting link—into the right position to work my injector combination. This little change of position makes everything clear as daylight, and I can put this little beauty into fine shape now; fasten the bolts and pins permanently instead of temporarily, for I don't need any more changes. It will do its double work of speed and fuel-saving every time; for see there!"—and the exultant builder pointed to some almost infinitesimal figures in two different portions of the engine. They were the registers that proved the result of this last triumphant run, and the complete success of his invention.
The tears were still in Mrs. Benham's eyes, but they were tears of joy. "It seems too good to be true," she faltered.
"And I thought the other thing—the failure—too bad to be true," he returned. Then smiling a little, "I shall name it 'Hope,'" he said.
"And it is Hope that will make our fortunes, after all; for this will make a fortune, won't it, John?" inquired Mrs. Benham, looking up into her husband's face eagerly. But he didn't hear her. His thoughts had gone back to that valve gearing, and the link that had been so happily put in place.
She touched his arm, and repeated her question.
"Fortune?" He turned from his loving contemplation of the thing that he had builded. It seemed almost human to him. "Fortune,—I don't know," he answered absently.
Mrs. Benham did not repeat her question again. She saw, as she glanced at her husband's face, that it would be of no use, for she saw that just for the present he was all absorbed in the delight that had come to him, in the successful accomplishment of his undertaking. This was joy enough for him at the moment. He had often said to her when she had advised him not to tire himself out pottering over things that might not bring him a penny, that he loved the work for itself, independent of anything else. And it was the work that he was thinking of now, not the possible financial results. But by and by—and Mrs. Benham's thoughts went wandering off into that by and by, when these results would take tangible form. Her ideas, however, were extremely modest. This fortune that she had in her mind, that she saw before her at that instant, was very limited. Harry Richards, an old friend of her husband's, had made a comfortable little sum out of an improvement upon car-window fastenings, and it was some such comfortable little sum that Mrs. Benham was thinking of. A little sum that would be sufficient, perhaps, to pay at once what mortgage there was still left upon their little home, to buy a new carpet for the parlor, and the books her husband needed, and to give Hope all the instruction she wanted upon the violin, from Mr. Kolb, or any other teacher, at the teacher's price.
Just at this point of her thought, a quick, flying step was heard, and a quick, humming voice,—a little sweet, thready sound, as near like a violin tone as the owner could make it,—and the next minute Hope appeared in the workshop rosy and radiant.
"Mr. Kolb says," she broke out, dropping her humming violin note, "that I shall make a very good little fiddler some day if I 'haf patience,'" gayly imitating the old German's pronunciation. "He says—" But something in her father's absorbed attitude, in her mother's expression, stopped her. "What is it? what has happened?" she inquired, looking from one to the other.
"Your father has got the little engine all right."
"It does just what he wanted it to do?" asked Hope, eagerly.
"Yes, just what he wanted it to do."
Hope danced about the room, humming her little thready violin note. Her father, roused from his reverie, looked up at her, and smiled.
"Well, Hope, the little fiddle was a success, eh?"
"And the little engine too;" and the girl danced up to her father, humming her note of gladness.
"Yes, the little engine too."
Mrs. Benham, looking across the work-bench at her husband and daughter, nodded and laughed at them.
"You're just alike,—you two," she said. "There's nothing now but the little engine and the little fiddle. But how does it happen, Hope, that Mr. Kolb could give you such a long lesson? Didn't he go in to play at the concert to-night?"
"No; he has a cold, and his nephew, Karl, is to take his place. It is Karl, you know, who teaches at the Conservatory; and Mr. Kolb says that some time, when he gets too old and rheumatic to go out in the evening, he may give up orchestra-playing altogether, and take to teaching like Karl."
"Well, he'll have to get more profitable pupils than Hope Benham in that case," said Mrs. Benham, laughingly.
"Mother, do you think—is it taking too much—from—"
"No, no, Hope," interrupted her mother. "I don't think anything of the kind. Mr. Kolb meant what he said when he told you he'd like to give you lessons. Don't you fret about that; father will pay him some time."
"Perhaps I'll pay him when—" But Mrs. Benham did not stop to hear the end of her daughter's sentence. A patter of rain-drops caught her ear, and she hurried away to close the upper windows. Hope turned to her father with her new idea; she was aglow with it.
"Farver," she began, using her old baby pronunciation, as she was in the habit of doing now and then,—"Farver, Mr. Kolb says if I practise hard, I may get to play the little fiddle at a concert some day, and earn money, and then—then, I shall pay Mr. Kolb for teaching me, farver."
"Oh! that is your plan? Hope, the little fiddle has done a good work already. It has pushed all that bad time out of your mind, hasn't it?"
"Yes, yes, it has pushed it away—away—oh! ever so much further; but, farver," and Hope put her head down on her father's shoulder, "I—I—don't ever want to see that girl again."
"Yes, father knows;" and drawing her closer to him, John Benham stroked his daughter's sleek brown head with a soft caressing touch.
And father did know. He knew that the little daughter was having her first experience of the world, and the way it made its separations, its class distinctions between rich and poor and high and low. He was not envious or jealous or bitter, but he was very observant and thoughtful, and he could not help seeing how ignorantly made were some of these distinctions, and how unchristian. He knew that his little Hope was intelligent and refined,—the fit companion for any refined child, however placed in the world; and he knew that he himself was a fit companion for intelligent, thoughtful men, however placed,—for, though obliged to be a hard worker since he came a boy of fifteen from his father's farm, he had found time to think and read and study, and he was conscious that he had read and studied and thought to some purpose, and that his thought was worth something; yet because of this way that the world had of separating people without regard to their real natures or their real tastes, but solely in regard to the accidents of poverty or family influence, he was debarred from acquaintanceship on true, equal terms with many who would naturally have been his companions and friends, and whose companionship would have been of service to him, as his would have been of service to them, from the different knowledge that had come to each, from their different experiences. And here was Hope—he looked down at her as his thoughts came to this point—here was Hope, his cherished little daughter, so fine, so sweet. Was that girl of the world's so-called higher class, whose blunt speech had hurt so deeply,—was she a fit companion for his little daughter?
He bent down and put his lips to the sleek brown head, as he asked this question. Then he saw that the child was asleep; but his movement roused her, and, stirring uneasily, she murmured in her dreams, "Ten cents a bunch!" then, half awakening, cried, "Farver, farver, I don't ever want to see that girl again."
"No, no, you sha'n't. It's all over, dear. We're not going to have any more of that 'Ten cents a bunch!'—never any more of it," he repeated consolingly, but with an emphasis of indignation and self-reproach.
But he was mistaken. Neither he nor Hope had heard the last of that "Ten cents a bunch!"
CHAPTER VII.
To be a pupil in Miss Marr's school was a distinction in itself. "Why don't you give and write your name 'Mademoiselle Marr,' as you have a right to do?" asked one of Miss Marr's acquaintances, when the school was first started.
Miss Marr laughed; then she answered soberly, "When my father came to America, he made himself a legal citizen of the country and he fought in its battles. He never called himself, and he was never called by any one, 'Monsieur.'"
"Because he bore the title of General."
"Not at first,—not until he had earned it here. But I—I was born and brought up here, and I have been always Miss Marr here. Why should I now suddenly change to Mademoiselle?"
"Because it would be of benefit to your school. Americans are attracted by anything foreign, and Mademoiselle Marr's school would sound so much more distinguished than Miss Marr's school."
"Oh!" and Miss Marr flung up her hands impatiently; "I am a better American than these foolish people who like foreign titles so much. But they shall come to me, they shall send their children to Miss Marr's school. I am not going to begin with any little tricks,—to throw out any little bait to catch silly folk, for it is not such folk's patronage that I want. I am going to keep an honest school, and I shall start as I mean to go on."
The acquaintance sighed, and shook her head, and told all her friends how obstinate Miss Marr was, how she had been advised and how she had gone against the advice, and that the school wouldn't come to anything, would get no start as Miss Marr's school, whereas as Mademoiselle Marr's it would at once impress everybody.
But Miss Marr went on in her own way, and at the end of five years there was no school in all New York that had the kind of high reputation that hers had. It was, in a certain sense, the fashion, and yet it was not fashionable.
"It's that French way of hers, after all," said the acquaintance whose advice had not been taken; "it's that French way that she inherited from the General. Nobody had finer manners than General Marr, and he had the qualities of a leader, too, in some ways,—though he never could keep any money; and these qualities also his daughter inherits."
Miss Marr laughed at this explanation when she was told of it,—laughed, and declared that the only secret of her success lay in the fact that she liked her work, and put her whole heart into it. And I'm inclined to think she was right. If she got a start at first because she was General Marr's daughter, she held it and made much of it because she had character and purpose. She put her heart into her work, and that meant that she put the magic of her lively sympathy and interest into it; and if she had not possessed this character and purpose, she couldn't have done what she did, even if she had been the daughter of an even more distinguished man than General Marr. She had said in the beginning: "I am not going to model my school after any fashionable pattern, for I don't care to have what is called a fashionable school, and I don't solicit fashionable patronage. There are plenty of quiet, cultivated people in New York and elsewhere who, I am sure, want just such a school as I mean to have,—a sensible, honest school, that shall give a sensible, honest, all-round education." And she was right, as events proved. The quiet, cultivated people came forth at once to her support; and then the queerest thing happened,—the fashionable folk began to come forward too, and in such numbers that she couldn't accommodate half of them, and they, instead of accepting the situation, and going elsewhere at this crisis, patiently bided their time, waiting until a vacancy occurred. It will readily be understood that when things had come to this pass, it was considered a most decided distinction to be a pupil at Miss Marr's school.
It was just at the climax of this popularity, just before the beginning of a new year, that a certain young lady said to her younger sister,—
"Now, Dorothy"—
"Dorothea! Dorothea! I'm going to have my whole name, every syllable of it, to start off in New York with."
"Well, Dorothea, then; you must remember one thing about Miss Marr,—she won't put up with any of your flippant smartness."
"She needn't."
"But, Dorothea, you won't be punished, and you won't be allowed to argue, as you did at Miss Maynard's. It will be like this,—Miss Marr will let you go on and reveal yourself and all your faults without a word of comment, as she would if you were a guest; then if she finds that you or your faults are of the kind that she doesn't care to have in her school, she'll send you home. She says, you know, that her school is neither an infant school, nor a reform school,—that by the time girls are fifteen, they are young ladies enough to have some idea of good breeding, and if they haven't, they are not the sort of girls that she wants in her school. Now remember that, Dorothea."
"I never heard of a school-teacher putting on such airs as this Miss Marr does, in my life. It's always what she wants, what she expects, what she is going to do. I know I shall hate her!"
"Well, if this is the spirit that you propose to start with, it is very easy to foresee the result."
"I don't care."
"Now, Dorothea, you do care. Just think—your name has been on the list for a whole year for this vacancy; and it was your own idea, you know. Nothing would satisfy you but to go to Miss Marr's."
"Oh, I know, I know; don't preach, you dear Molly Polly! I'm not going to fly at Miss Marr and call her an old cat, if I think she's one."
"No, I should say not, but you mustn't fly at a good many things,—at certain rules and regulations, for instance,—and you mustn't take any saucy little liberties, such as you have been in the habit of taking at Miss Maynard's."
"Oh, not a liberty!" smiling and nodding at her elder sister. "I shall pull my face down like this"—drawing down her lips and lowering her eyes—"when I meet the great Miss Marr, and I shall say, in a little bit of a frightened voice like this, 'Oh, Miss Marr, Miss Marr, please don't shut me up in a dark closet and put me on bread and water, whatever I do.'"
"What a goose you are, Dorothy!" but the elder sister laughed.
"Dorothea! Dorothea! remember now it's to be Dorothea, and you must write Dorothea on the envelopes of your letters to me," was the swift protest.
Three days after this conversation, Dolly, or Dorothea Dering, sat waiting with her mother in a handsome but rather old-fashioned-looking parlor in a rather old-fashioned house in New York, for the appearance of its hostess, Miss Marr. Dolly had been fidgeting about, examining the ornaments on the tables and the pictures on the walls, with a mingled expression of curiosity and irritability on her face, when she caught the sound of a firm even footfall on the polished oak floor of the hall. The girl made a little face at this firm, even sound, and said to herself, "It's just like her,—old Madam Prim!"
In another moment the footsteps came to the threshold of the parlor, and Dolly looked across the room to see—Why, there was some mistake! This was one of the pupils, and no Madam Prim; and what a stylish girl, what a stunning plain gown! thought Dolly. The minute after, "the stylish girl in the stunning plain gown" was saying, "How do you do, Mrs. Dering?" and Mrs. Dering was saying, "How do you do, Miss Marr?"
Dolly almost gasped with astonishment. "This, Miss Marr! Why, she didn't look any older than Mary."
The fact was, that Miss Marr was seven years older than Mary Dering, who was only twenty-three; but Angelique Marr was one of those persons who never look their age. Though not childish or immature, she had a fresh girl's aspect. In looking at her, Dolly forgot all her little plans for saying or doing this or that. Miss Marr looking at her said to herself: "Poor child! how shy and awkward and overgrown she is!" and forthwith concluded that it would be better not to notice her much for a time, and therefore gave all her attention to the mother, bestowing a swift fleeting smile now and then upon the girl,—a young smile, like that of a comrade in passing. Dolly was out of all her reckoning; her program of word and action which she had so carefully arranged being completely destroyed by this surprise of personality,—this substitution of the "stylish girl in a stunning plain gown" for an old Madam Prim. So absorbed was she in these thoughts, she heard but vaguely what her mother was saying, and was quite startled when the moment of parting from her came, forgetting all the fine little airs and good-bye messages she had arranged. She was so dazed, indeed, that she seemed stupid, and impressed Miss Marr more than ever as shy and awkward and overgrown; and it was out of pity for this shyness that Angelique Marr, as the door closed upon Mrs. Dering, turned to Mrs. Dering's daughter with her sweetest and friendliest of young smiles, and said to her,—
"Would you like to come up to my little parlor and have a cup of chocolate with me before I show you your room?"
As Dolly accepted the invitation, she had an odd subdued sort of feeling, as if she had been invited to lunch with one of Mary's fine young lady friends; and this feeling, instead of wearing off, increased, as she found herself in the little parlor drinking the most delicious foamy chocolate from a delicate Sèvres cup, while her entertainer helped her to biscuit or extra lumps of sugar, telling, as she did so, a droll little story about her first lesson in chocolate brewing from an old French soldier,—a friend of her father.
Dolly listened and laughed, and felt more and more that she was being treated in a very grown-up way by a very grown-up young lady, and that she must be equal to the occasion; so she sat up in her chair with a great deal of dignity, and endeavored to say the proper things in the proper places, with a delightful sense that she was doing the thing as well as Mary. It was at this moment that some one knocked at the door; and at Miss Marr's "Come in," there appeared a tall youth, who cried out as he entered,—
"Well, Aunt Angel!"
"What! Victor?"
Then followed embraces and inquiries; and Dolly began to feel out of place, and the stranger that she was, when Miss Marr turned, smiled, begged her pardon, and introduced her to her nephew,—Victor Graham, who was just back from his vacation at Moosehead Lake. With the grace and tact that people called "that French way" of hers, Miss Marr managed to include Dolly in the conversation, and, finding that she had spent several summers at Kineo, the Moosehead Lake region, drew her out by clever questions to tell what she knew about it. And Dolly knew a great deal about it; she had paddled a canoe on the lake, she had caught fish and helped cook them on the shore, and she had camped out in the Kineo woods.
Victor Graham, tall as he was, was only sixteen,—a real boy who loved out-of-door sports,—and, delighted to find somebody who was so familiar with the charmed region he had just reluctantly left, was soon in the full swing of reminiscences and questions. Had she been to this place, did she know that point, etc., etc.? In short, he felt as if he had met a comrade, and he treated her as such,—as a boy like himself; and Dolly for the moment responded in the same spirit, and forgot her stiff dignity and young lady manners, patterned after her sister Mary's.
Miss Marr sat back in her chair, looking and listening and smiling. Dolly had not the least idea that she was reading, as one would read in a book, a little page of Dorothea Dering. But she was. Dolly, in talking to Victor, forgot, as I have said, her dignity and young-lady manners, and was the Dolly Dering who romped and raced and paddled and cooked at Moosehead Lake.
"Not so very awkward, and not shy at all, but a big overgrown girl, who may one day be an attractive woman, when she is toned down and less crude and hoydenish."
This was part of Miss Marr's reading as she looked and listened; and as Dolly, getting more excited with her subject, went on more glibly, her silent smiling listener thought,—
"A good deal of a spoiled child evidently, who has been used to having her own way and been laughed at for her smart sayings until she is quite capable, I fear, of being rude and overbearing, if not unfeeling on occasions. But I think there is good material underneath. We'll see, we'll see."
What would Dolly have said if she could have heard this criticism of Dorothea Dering? What would Mrs. Dering have said if she could have heard her daughter called capable of being rude and overbearing? What would Mary have said to the whole summing up,—Mary, who was not of the kind ever to have been spoiled by indulgence, who was finer and had better instincts than Dolly? Mary would have said, "Oh, Dolly, Dolly, what have I always told you?"
Just as Miss Marr came to the conclusion of these reflections, she looked up at the clock on the mantel, and gave a quick start. Victor, following the direction of her eyes, stopped the story of camp-life that he was telling, and jumped to his feet, saying,—
"Do excuse me, Aunt Angel; I'd no idea it was so late."
Dolly's face fell like a disappointed child, and she burst out impatiently,—
"Oh, finish the story, finish the story!"
Victor Graham gave her a glance of surprise; then, flushing a little, said gently,—
"This is Aunt Angel's busy hour; I'll finish the story some other time."
The blood mounted to Dolly's forehead. That glance of surprise pricked her sharply. It angered her too. Who was this boy to set his priggish manners above hers? And in hot rebellion, she cried out flippantly,—
"No, no, tell it now, tell it now! Ten minutes longer can't make much difference."
She had been accustomed to persist in this fashion at home; and beyond a "Dolly, how impolite!" or "Be quiet, Dolly!" spoken at the moment by father or mother or Mary, not much further notice was taken of her offence. But neither Miss Marr nor Victor made the slightest suggestion of a reproving comment now. They made no comment whatever. The boy simply stared at her a second, then lowered his eyes, showing clearly that he was embarrassed by the girl's rudeness. Miss Marr looked at her with an expression of wondering astonishment that was in itself a shock and a revelation to Dolly. There was not a particle of personal resentment in this expression; it was the wondering astonishment of a person who is regarding for the first time some strange new species of development. Dolly had hitherto gloried in her impertinence, as something witty and audacious. Now all at once she was made to see that to another person, and that person this "stylish girl in a stunning plain gown," this audacious impertinence looked vulgar. The shock of this revelation was so sudden to Miss Dolly that all self-possession deserted her, and again Miss Marr saw her apparently shy and awkward and speechless. The deep red flush that overspread her face at the same time added to the appearance of shyness, and pleaded for her more than words would have done.
"She'd be a jolly girl, if she didn't break up into such Hottentot ways. I wonder where she came from?" was Victor's inward reflection. His concluding reflection, as he went out of the house, was, "Wonder what Aunt Angel will do with her."
Aunt Angel wondered, too, as she accompanied Dolly up to the room that had been arranged for her; and as she wondered, she could not help thinking, "How glad I am the girl is going to have a room to herself, and not with any one of the other girls!"
The room was small, but it was charmingly furnished,—a little pink and white chamber, with all sorts of pretty contrivances for comfort and convenience. As Dolly looked about her, when Miss Marr closed the door upon her, she thought of what her mother had said, after inspecting the room the day before: "It isn't in the least like a boarding-school,—it is like a visitor's room, Dolly, as you will see."
And Dolly did see, but she was in no mood to enjoy the pretty details just then, for the sense of humiliation was weighing heavily upon her. In vain she tried to blow it away with the breath of anger,—to call Miss Marr "old Madam Prim," and Victor "that prig of a boy." Nothing of this kind availed to relieve her. Never in her life had she been so impressed by anybody as by Miss Marr, and she was also sure that she had also begun to impress Miss Marr, in her turn. And now and now!—and down on the pink and white bed Dolly flung herself in a paroxysm of mingled regret, rage, mortification, and disappointment, and, like the big, overgrown, undisciplined child that she was, sobbed herself to sleep.
The short October afternoon had come nearly to an end when she woke; and she looked about her in dismay. It must be late; and, springing up, she glanced at her watch. It was half-past four. At this moment she heard, in the hall outside, a murmur of girls' voices. One called, "Miss Marr;" and another said, "The Boston train was delayed, or I should have been here earlier."
Then followed a soft tinkle of laughter, a little tap of heels, and an opening and shutting of doors. Dolly, listening, knew what this meant,—knew that these girls were the late arrivals, the returning pupils.
"And they all know each other," she commented rather lonesomely and enviously, "and I shall dress myself and get down before them. I'm not going to enter a room full of strange girls, if I know it!"
Dolly's taste was generally excellent. She knew what to wear and when to wear it; but some mistaken idea of outshining those strange girls at the start took possession of her, and instead of putting on a gown suited to the occasion, she donned a fine affair,—a combination of old-rose cashmere and velvet, with rose ribbons at her throat. As she left the room in this finery, she saw a door farther down the hall open, and a tall slender girl, dressed with the severest simplicity, come forth.
One of those strange girls! And Dolly, as they met, stared at her, with her head in the air. But the strange girl, with a matter of course manner, gave a little courteous inclination of greeting as she passed, whereat Dolly grew rather red. "I wonder if that is the girl who talked about 'my train,'" thought Dolly. "I'll bet it is. She has a look like that girl I saw one day last spring with the Edlicotts at Papanti's dancing-school. I wonder what her name is."
As the girl ran lightly down the stairs, one of the maids came up. Dolly stopped her and asked, "Is that one of the pupils?"
"Yes, miss."
"What is her name?"
"Miss Hope Benham."
CHAPTER VIII.
Miss Hope Benham! It was five years since Dolly's encounter with Hope in the Brookside station, and four years since she had heard her or the name of Benham referred to. This later reference was made by Mr. Dering one morning at the breakfast-table.
"Well, Dolly," he had suddenly said, glancing up from his newspaper, "that little flower-girl who got the better of you last season is in luck."
Dolly looked up with a puzzled expression.
"What! you've forgotten the little girl at the Brookside station who told you how ignorant and bad-mannered you were?"
"Oh, Ten-cents-a-bunch!" shouted Dolly.
"Yes, little Ten-cents-a-bunch. Well, her father, the engineer, is on the high road to fortune by a certain successful invention of his. Now, what do you say to that?"
"Ten-cents-a-bunch," repeated Dolly, laughing.
"Oh, that Mr. Benham, the engineer you told us of last season?" asked Mary, with interest.
"Yes, that's the man. He has procured a patent on a valuable invention of his, and is going to be a rich man by means of it. He's a much cleverer fellow than I thought. I heard him speak the other night before the Scientific Mechanics' Association, and it was a very intelligent speech, full of scientific knowledge, and showing a great deal of ability."
"And last year, father, you laughed at me for asking you if he had this ability."
Mr. Dering shook his head with a comic smile.
"Oh, well, Mary, we are all liable to mistakes. I've seen so much of this inventive ambition that came to nothing, I've grown to be cautious in my judgments."
"Of course he isn't running an engine now?"
"Bless you, no. He's off to Europe this month. He's made some contract with a firm in France for the use of his invention. They had heard of it through a former fellow-workman of Benham's,—another clever fellow, yet not a genius like Benham, though he has gained for himself quite an important position as an inspector of locomotives abroad; but there is an account of the whole thing in the morning's paper."
Dolly listened to this talk with a very divided attention. She had a big picnic on her mind, and all other matters were of very little importance beside that. It was thus that Ten-cents-a-bunch and the name of Benham were quite overborne for the time by this interest. After four years more of picnics and other pleasurings, Dolly heard the name again without the slightest recognition, and in the tall young girl of fifteen, with her womanly face and her hair wound into a knot at the back of her head, she received no suggestion of little Ten-cents-a-bunch.
And how was it with Hope? Hope remembered. The last four years of her life had been passed abroad, most of them in France, where she had been at school in Paris, while her father and mother were established near by,—her father taking advantage of the great opportunities Paris offered him for scientific study. It was a happy time for all of them, and in this happy time Hope forgot some earlier deprivations and discomforts, or at least forgot the smart of them; but she never forgot that encounter at the Brookside station, which was to her her first close experience of the world's class distinctions. Neither had she ever forgotten the face of "that girl;" and when, coming out of her room at Miss Marr's, she looked down the hall and saw those big black eyes and that confident expression, she at once, in spite of the change in Dolly's height and breadth, recognized her.
But the five years had matured and educated Hope so much that the thrill which accompanied this recognition was not that shrinking of fear and dislike which had once overcome her. It was now the ordinary pang of repulsion that one feels in meeting something or somebody connected with what was once painful; and there was an expression of this feeling in her face, as she entered the library downstairs. Two or three girls were already assembled there; and as Hope responded warmly to their affectionate greetings, one of them exclaimed,—
"There! now you look like yourself. When you came in, you had a stand-off sort of air, and a little hard pucker between your eyes, as if you were expecting to confront an army of enemies."
Hope laughed; and presently the whole group were off on a regular girl chat, telling the story of their long summer vacation in the most animated manner. They were in the thick of this, when some one pushed the portière aside, with the uncertain touch of a strange hand, and a strange voice asked constrainedly,—
"Is this a private sitting-room?"
The girls all turned to look at the speaker, and there was a half moment of silence. Then Kate Van der Berg answered politely,—
"Oh, no; it is the library, where we all come when we like."
"Oh, I didn't know where to go;" and Dolly came forward, trying to look indifferent and at her ease, and succeeding only in looking rather huffy and uncomfortable. The first glance she had received was not reassuring. The four girls whose chat she had interrupted were all dressed in the simplest manner, with no frills and furbelows anywhere; and that first glance of theirs at the new-comer's fine gown was a glance of surprise that there was no mistaking. The fact of it was, every girl of them, as she caught sight of Dolly, supposed for the moment that she was a guest of Miss Marr's; and when enlightened to the contrary by Dolly's own words, every girl of them involuntarily gave another glance of surprise.
They were well trained, however, and presently endeavored to make the new pupil feel at home; but it was rather up-hill work naturally. Luckily at this crisis, Miss Marr appeared, to adjust matters.
"Oh!" she exclaimed, glancing brightly at Dolly, "you found your way down all alone. I went to your room a little while ago; and as you were asleep, I didn't disturb you."
Then, with the same bright look and manner, she introduced the girls to Dolly, and stood talking with them all for a few minutes. When she turned to leave them, a general protest arose, Kate Van der Berg crying out,—
"Oh, no, no! don't go yet, Miss Marr! Just think, we haven't had a sight of you for three months, and we are positively hungry for you, aren't we, Hope?" appealing to Hope Benham, who was standing near her.
Hope made no reply in words, but she gave a quick upward look and smile which spoke more eloquently than any words. Dolly, observant of everything, saw not only this look and smile, but the answering look and smile in Miss Marr's eloquent face; and instantly a little sharp feeling of something akin to both jealousy and envy disturbed her. Not to lead off and take a first place was a new experience to Dolly, and she did not enjoy it. At home in Brookside or Boston she had always easily led off in this way, partly on account of her belonging to a family whose acquaintance was large, and partly on account of her dominant desire. But here she found herself for the first time amongst strangers, who knew nothing about her, and to whom she was of no importance. An uneasy sense of all this had begun to assail her before she left Miss Marr's little parlor. It deepened as she entered the library and met the three pairs of eyes turned upon her and her fine gown. It deepened still more as she saw that swift exchange of tender glances between Miss Marr and Hope; and the little imp of jealousy straightway sprang up with its unreasonable suggestions that she was not treated with sufficient consideration, that she was, in fact, neglected, and left out in the cold, when she should, as the new-comer, have received assiduous attention. That she, the daughter of the Hon. James Dering, should be thus coolly set aside! It was at this climax of her resentful feeling that Miss Marr happened to look across at her. She caught at once something of the true state of things,—not everything, but enough to show her that the girl felt awkward and uncomfortable.
"Poor thing!" she thought; "she doesn't get on well at all. I must ask Hope to help me with her. She, if anybody, will be able to make her feel easier and more at home."
There was no opportunity to speak with Hope then, for down the hall came tap, tapping, another little company of heels, and presently the portière was flung aside, and a troop of girls entered, and rushing up to Miss Marr, claimed her attention, with their gay and affectionate greetings. No, no time then to speak to any one privately and specially, only time to mention Dolly's name,—"Miss Dorothea Dering, girls,"—only time for this before the clock rung out the hour of six; and at the last stroke Miss Marr turned her head from the girls, who were flocking about her, and looked back at Hope Benham.
"Hope, will you take Dorothea—Miss Dering—in to dinner?"
Miss Marr did not see the change in Hope's face,—the sudden stiffening, as it were, of every feature; but Kate Van der Berg saw it. It was the same kind of stiffness that she had noticed when Hope came into the library,—the rigid stiffness that she had called a "stand-off sort of air," and there was that little hard pucker again between the eyes.
"Hope will take her in to dinner and be as polite to her as a Chinese mandarin, but she won't 'take' to her in any other way," was Miss Kate's shrewd reflection.
The position was not an agreeable one to Hope, but she bethought herself that it might have been much more disagreeable if Dorothea had remembered. That she did not, was perfectly apparent. But if she had remembered! Hope shuddered to think of what might have happened if this had been the case. How, with that incapacity for understanding sensitive natures unlike her own, this girl would in some abrupt way have referred to that past painful encounter,—painful, not because of the different conditions of things at that time, but painful because of that first cruel knowledge of the world that had come through it.
Kate Van der Berg was not far wrong when she prophesied that Hope would be as polite as a Chinese mandarin to the new-comer. Hope was very polite. You could not have found fault with a single word or action. Even Dolly saw nothing to find fault with; but all this politeness did not warm and cheer her, did not make her feel any easier or more at home. In sitting there at the dinner-table in the bright light she felt more uncomfortable than ever, for by this searching light she saw now very clearly the extreme plainness of each girl's attire; and as she caught every now and then the quick observing glance of one and another, she saw that she had made a great mistake,—that, instead of producing a fine impression by her fine dress, she had produced an unfavorable one, and was being silently criticised as rather loud and—oh, horror!—vulgar.
Miss Marr, looking across the table, did not fail to see that Hope was not so successful as usual in charming away the awkwardness and discomfort of a stranger. Presently she caught two or three little set speeches of Hope's,—polite little speeches, but perfectly mechanical,—and said to herself as Kate Van der Berg had said, "Hope doesn't take to her."
It was generally the custom for the girls to meet in the library before and after dinner for a few minutes' social chat; but on this night most of the girls, having just arrived, excused themselves, and went directly upstairs to unpack their trunks and settle their various belongings. Hope was very glad to make her excuses with the others, and escape to her room, that for a few days she was to occupy alone. She was busily engaged in putting the last things in their places, when there came a light tap on the door, and to her "Come in," Miss Marr entered, with a little apology for the lateness of her call, and an admiring exclamation for Hope's quick dexterity in arranging her belongings. After this she sat a moment in silence, with rather a perplexed look on her face; then suddenly she broke the silence.
"Hope," she said, "I am afraid I gave you an unpleasant task to perform to-night."
Hope reddened.
"You didn't find it easy, I perceived, to talk with the new pupil."
"N—o, I didn't," faltered Hope.
"She was hard to get on with, wasn't she?"
"I—I don't know. I—talked to her—I paid her what attention I could."
"But she was disagreeable to you?"
"She didn't intend to be—I—I didn't fancy her, Miss Marr."
Miss Marr looked the surprise she felt. She had never known Hope to take such a sudden dislike.
"I didn't fancy her, and I suppose I was stiff with her; but I tried—I tried to be polite to her."
"Of course you did. I'm not finding fault with you, dear. You did what you could to help me, and it was kind of you. I'm sorry you feel as you do, but don't trouble any more about it; it will wear off, I dare say; and now make haste and go to bed,—you look tired."
"Miss Marr," and Hope put a detaining hand on Miss Marr's arm. "What is it—what else is it you were thinking of—of asking me to do?"
"Never mind, dear."
"Tell me, please, Miss Marr."
"I was going to ask you to let Miss Dering occupy the other bed in your room to-night. Some one left the water running before dinner in the room over hers, and the bed and carpet are drenched; but I will make some other arrangement for her now,—you sha'n't be troubled with her."
"But the other rooms are full."
"Yes, but I will have a cot put up in the little parlor. Good-night;" and with a soft touch of her hand on Hope's cheek, Miss Marr left the room. She was half-way down the hall when Hope ran after her.
"Miss Marr, Miss Marr, don't—don't put up the bed in the little parlor. It is nine o'clock. Let her come to my room."
"My dear, go back; don't think any more about the matter."
"No, no, let her come to my room, please, Miss Marr."
Miss Marr looked at the pleading face uplifted to hers, and understood. At least she understood enough to see that Hope was already accusing herself of being disobliging and selfish, and that she would be far more uncomfortable now if left alone than she would be in sharing her room with the obnoxious new comer; and so without more hesitation she yielded the point, with a "Very well, dear; it shall be as you say," and went on down the hall to Dorothea.
CHAPTER IX.
"I am very sorry to have intruded upon you," said Dolly, as Hope met her at the door of her room.
Dolly meant to be very dignified and rather haughty, but she behaved instead like what she was,—a cross, tired, homesick girl. Hope, seeing the red, swollen eyelids, forgave the crossness, and saying something pleasant about its being no intrusion, pointed out the little bed behind the screen that Dolly was to occupy, and went on with the work of regulating her bureau drawers, that Miss Marr had interrupted, begging to be excused as she did so. If Dolly had done the proper thing, the thing that was expected of her, she would have retired behind the screen and gone to bed then and there. But she had no idea of going to bed, so long as there was a light burning, and anybody was stirring; so she dropped down into an easy-chair that stood near the door, and took up a book that was lying on the table. It was a copy of "Le Luthier de Crémone,"—a charming little play by Francois Coppée. Miss Dolly turned the leaves over a moment, then put the volume down, and cast an interested, curious look at Hope, who at that moment was busy arranging her boxes. Dolly had studied French sufficiently to enable her to read some very simple stories, but "Le Luthier de Crémone" was quite beyond her power, and her glance at Hope was compounded of envy and admiration. Hope, without apparently observing her, was yet nervously conscious of every movement, and thought to herself,—
"Oh, dear! why doesn't she go to bed?"
Putting down the book, Dolly's eyes next turned to a certain oblong case that was lying upon a chair near her.
"Oh!" she exclaimed, "do you play the violin?"
"Yes, a little," answered Hope.
"So do I. May I look at your violin?"
Hope hesitated a second, then lifted the instrument from its case. It was not the good little fiddle that she had earned for herself five years ago. That was safely packed away. This was a much more costly fiddle, and had been purchased in Paris for her by a brother of Mr. Kolb, who was an extensive dealer in violins Dolly had taken lessons of an excellent teacher, who was also an excellent judge of a violin, and had chosen hers for her. She had at various times heard him talk about some of the famous old violin-makers, and recognized their names when she heard them spoken. As she took Hope's violin from her hands, she said,—
"Oh, yours is about the size of mine. Mine is English, but it is modelled on the famous old Stradivari pattern of Cremona, my teacher said. You know Stradivari was one of the most famous of the Cremona makers," looking up at Hope with an air of wisdom.
