“The hole in my stomach is all gone,” she confided to Eunice’s ear, “and I’m so happy that I could walk straight up the side of that house.”
Mrs. Ward, who was watching from the parlour window for their arrival,—not anxiously, however, as she supposed they were safe with Emily Drayton,—was filled with amazement at the sight of their escort.
“Your little daughters have given me the great pleasure of a call,” he said, courteously. “They will perhaps explain better than I can, but I cordially hope it was a pleasure that may be soon repeated. And now, may I see your husband for five minutes or so?”
And then, when the President was safely in papa’s study, the eager children poured out the story of the afternoon to mamma’s astonished ears.
CHAPTER XX.
OLD MR. CHESTER.
With the clue that the children had given the President, the affair was more closely investigated. Donald was furiously angry at the children’s exploit at first, as it certainly compromised him, but, with a little management, the source of information was kept entirely a private matter between the President, one or two of the Faculty, Doctor Ward, Donald, and Sidney Chester. Donald and some of the others whom Cricket had named were called up at a special meeting of the Faculty, but they still steadily refused to say a word at the expense of their classmates. At last, by much quiet management, the whole sentence was conditionally repealed, and private interviews were held with those now pretty well known to be the ringleaders. They knew that they owed their escape to some private influence, and were well warned that the next offence would give them the weight of this one also.
A few days later, old Mr. Chester came over to see Doctor Ward. He was a stern old man, who had made his own way in the world, and he wanted his son to have the education he had so sorely longed for and never had.
He had been puzzled and distressed that Sidney did not regard his college course as a sacred privilege, and had been cut to the heart by some of the lad’s previous escapades. He could not comprehend that the boy was really doing good work, and was only working off his animal spirits by all sorts of what his father called “Tom-fool tricks.” He scowled upon athletics, which to his mind involved only an infinite waste of time and money. That classroom lore is but half the value of college life he could not in the least comprehend. At the last of Sidney’s escapades, Mr. Chester had raged furiously, and vowed that the next time the boy was caught in anything of the sort, it should end his college career, and land him in the hated office.
When the old gentleman learned of the little girls’ part in the affair, he came to Doctor Ward to express his gratitude that they had saved his lad, as he put it.
“The obstinate young donkey would tell me nothing about the matter,” he growled. “He would actually have let me take him out and put him to work, without saying a word.”