“It's plain as a b c,” she said. “You long to go to school and can't—I don't long to and can! Now here's my idea that I evolved with my thinking-cap—I mean night-cap—on! Let's go to school together. We can pore over the horrid old books on the train, mornings and nights, and I can try and remember all the teachers tell me at the Seminary during the day. Aunt Hope will be overjoyed to have me try to remember anything! And, don't you see, anybody who worships history and can't let a Latin book alone, could keep up easy enough with a dull thing like me.”
Glory paused for breath. She was still laughing with her eyes. But at sight of the radiance in the lean, brown face of the Other Girl, she sobered in sudden awe. To be as glad as that for a chance to learn!
“You understand all right now, don't you?” Glory said gently, and her gloved fingers stole across to the Other Girl's uncovered ones and rested on them reassuringly.
“Yes, now I dare to—but oh, it takes my breath away!” the Other Girl cried. “It's such a beautiful, beautiful thing for you to do! Do you think I don't know that? Do you think I won't do my very best? Why, I can study in the rubber factory, too! I mean I can carry the geometry propositions in my head—I know I should remember every line and every letter—and work them out noontimes and in all the betweens.”
“You needn't do that,” Glory said, “you could copy the lesson off on a piece of paper—no, I'll tell you! I'll get Judy's books for you. Oh, there are plenty of ways to manage. Now let's begin. There's time left to make a start, anyway.”
“Wait,” the Other Girl said quickly, “I hate to waste a minute, but I've got to say something. I want you to know what it may mean if you do this for me. It may mean luxuries for my sick mother and—a chance for my little ‘Tiny Tim.’ Do you know, my teachers said if I could only keep on I might get a place to teach. Think of it! Do you know, some doctors told mother once that there was a little chance of straightening Timmie's bad leg, if we had the money. Oh, do you know this may mean things like that! Do you think I'm not thankful to you?”
The impetuous words flowed out in a hurried stream, and the eyes of the Other Girl, as they looked into Glory's, shone through a dazzle of happy tears. For a moment after the eager voice ceased neither girl made a sound. Then it was Glory who spoke.
“Why!” she cried with a long breath, “Why, I didn't know it could mean anything like that! I thought it would just mean getting a little learning. I didn't know there were things like that at the other end of it.”
Glory had lived a little less than sixteen years, but they had been “different” from the years the Other Girl had lived. Aunt Hope had been all the suffering she had ever seen—Aunt Hope, smiling and brave, on her silken pillows. Until that sad little story the other night, she had scarcely connected anything sorrowful or hard to bear with Aunt Hope.
The beautiful autumn weeks multiplied to months, and Glory's plan prospered thriftily. The lessons went on steadily through the morning and afternoon rides. The Other Girl's face was set toward a possible, splendid time to come; Glory's was set toward patience and gentleness. For it was not always easy to give up the hour and a half each day to the distasteful work that she so cordially hated. At first, I mean; strangely enough, after a while things changed. Glory woke up one day to find herself keenly interested in a knotty problem. She could hardly wait to get her head beside the Other Girl's, to see if together they could not solve it.