FAIRY GOLD.
PRELUDE.
"Claire! do stop that tiresome practicing and come here. Helen and I want you."
The voice was very clear and vibrating, and had a ring of command in it as it uttered these words; while the summer dusk was dying away, and the summer air came soft and sweet into the school-room of a convent, that, from the eminence on which it stood, overlooked a city at its feet, and the rise and fall of Atlantic tides. It was drawing toward the close of the exercise-hour, but the two girls who stood together in school-girl fashion beside an open window, and the third, who in an adjoining music-room was diligently practicing Chopin, were not the only ones who had neglected its observance and incurred no rebuke; for was not to-morrow the end of the scholastic year, and did not relaxation of rules already reign from dormitory to class-room?
Many hearts were beating high at the thought of the freedom which that morrow would bring; many dreams were woven of the bright world which lay beyond these quiet shades; of pleasures which were to replace the monotonous round of occupation in which youth had so far been spent—the round of lessons from teachers whose voices were gentle as their faces were holy and serene; of quiet meditations in the beautiful chapel, with its sculptured altar and stained-glass windows and never-dying lamp; of walks in the green old garden, and romps along its far-stretching alleys. They were ready to leave it all behind, these careless birds, eager to try their new-fledged wings; and when the heat and burden of the day should come down upon them, how much they would give for one hour of the old quiet peace, the old happy ignorance!
And among them all no face was more bright with triumphant hope—or was it triumphant resolve?—than hers whose voice went ringing through the almost deserted school-room, in the half-entreaty, half-command recorded above.
The sound of the piano ceased on the instant; a slight rustling followed, as of music being put away; and then a girl came down the middle aisle of desks, toward the window which overlooked the garden and faced the glowing western sky, where the two girls were standing, both of whom turned as she advanced.
"You must pardon me," she said, in a tone of apology. "I did not mean to stay so long, but I forget myself when I am at the piano, and I could scarcely bear to think that this was my last hour of practice."
"I am quite sure that it will not be your last hour of practice," said the girl who had spoken first. "You are too fond of drudgery for that. But how can you talk of not bearing to think of its being the last here, when Helen and I have been congratulating each other on the fact until we exhausted all our expressions of pleasure, and had to call on you to help us?"