I did lie very quiet, and, after a while, fell into a doze, from which the sound of footsteps woke me. Some one was standing at the foot of my bed. It was Tony. She looked a trifle more sallow than usual, but was grinning cheerfully. “I’m better now,” she said.
The delicate emphasis on the now was like a condensed epic. “So am I,” I murmured confidentially.
Tony disappeared, and in a few minutes was back again, comfortably attired in a dressing gown and slippers. She perched herself on the foot of my bed. “Hasn’t it been a perfect congé?” she sighed happily. (Oh, blessed memory of youth!) “If you’d seen Madame Duncan, though, when I came stealing out of the chapel,—without a veil, too. ‘What does this mean, Tony?’ she said. ‘It isn’t possible that’”—
There was an abrupt pause. “Well?” I asked expectantly, though I had heard it all several times already; but Tony’s eyes were fixed on the little pile of clean linen lying on my chair.
“Oh! I say,” she cried, and there was a joyous ring in her voice. “Here’s our chance. Let’s change all the girls’ washes.”
I gazed at her with heartfelt admiration. To have passed recently through so severe a crisis,—a crisis which had reduced me to nothingness; and yet to be able instantly to think of such a charming thing to do. Not for the first time, I felt proud of Tony’s friendship. Her resourcefulness compelled my homage. Had we been living in one of Mr. James’s novels, I should have called her “great” and “wonderful.”
“Get up and help,” said Tony.
I stumbled out of bed, and into my slippers. My head felt curiously light when I lifted it from my pillow, and I had to catch hold of my curtain rod for support. The dormitory floor heaved up and down. Tony was already at work, carrying the linen from one side of the room to the other, and I staggered weakly after her. There were thirty beds, so it took us some time to accomplish our mission; but “The labour we delight in physicks pain;” and it was with a happy heart, and a sense of exalted satisfaction, that I saw the last pile safe in the wrong alcove, and crawled back between my sheets.—“Something attempted, something done, to earn a night’s repose.” Tony sat on my bed, and we talked confidentially until we heard the girls coming upstairs. Then she fled, and I awaited developments.
They entered more noisily than was their wont. The law ruled that a congé came to an end with night prayers, after which no word might be spoken; but it was hard to control children who had been demoralized by a long day of liberty. Moreover, the “Seven Dolours” dormitory was ever the most turbulent of the three; its inmates lacking the docility of the very little girls, and the equanimity of the big ones. They were all at what is called the troublesome age. There was a note of anxiety in Madame Chapelle’s voice, as she hushed down some incipient commotion.
“I must have perfect silence in the dormitory,” she said. “You have talked all day; now you must go quietly to bed. Do you hear me, children? Silence!”