Five years had elapsed. Meg was eighteen; she had distanced all her competitors, and she was the head-pupil of Miss Reeves' establishment.
During those years she still remained somewhat of a solitary in the school. The girls who had been her first schoolfellows had all left. By the succeeding girls, Meg was still called repellent by some, attractive by others.
As time went on the mystery of her origin, about which her schoolmates still busied themselves, pained and humiliated her with greater poignancy. She longed to be allowed to know and love her benefactor. When questioned as to who she thought she was—how she had come by the name of Beecham—she felt inclined to answer bitterly: "Do not call me by my name. It would be more convenient to call me by a number, as I am told the prisoners are called. Let me say I am number 18 or 24."
Mr. Standish still held an ever-present if somewhat dim place in the background of Meg's consciousness. It was a quaint half-goblin remembrance. The link between them seemed sundered forever. She had never heard from him since their parting. To Ursula alone she had spoken of that solitary time, of the friend who had been kind to her, and of the fashion-plate which had been sacred to her as her mother's portrait. To her alone she had shown her treasured presents. One day Ursula suggested that her mysterious protector was Mr. Standish. That the stern old gentleman was perhaps a guardian appointed by this friend in his absence. Meg had disclaimed the possibility. Yet the thought that he might be lingered in her mind. As a child loves wonderland, so she dwelt upon Ursula's suggestion. She reasoned herself out of it. She laughed at it, yet it remained. Was he not the only one who had cared for her in her unsheltered childhood?
"Describe him to me," Ursula had once asked.
"I cannot," Meg answered. "It is strange. I can remember a tie he wore—dark-blue, dotted over with tiny horseshoes; and I remember a pair of slippers he had, with big red roses on the toes. I remember his hands, and the color of his hair."
"And you can't remember his face?" Ursula said in tones of disappointment.
"Perhaps if I saw him I might," answered Meg reflectively. "It is so long ago, I have a very dim recollection of his features. They beamed with kindness, and he was kind to me." And then she would tell again the many kind things he had done, the memory of which she held sacred. "Ah," she continued, "I used to be unable to think and speak of those things without tears, but now you see my eyes are quite dry."
Once Meg asked Mr. Fullbloom if Mr. Standish was her guardian. The elderly lawyer she had once known was dead. His brother was now the representative of her unknown benefactor. He alone visited her from the outside world. The solicitor chuckled, as if he were amazingly tickled by this question, but he answered it neither in the affirmative nor the negative.