“No, I ain’t ill. Can’t a feller do a gen’rous thing ’ithout his folks ’cusin’ him o’ bein’ sick? But, say! Wait a minute! I will take it, too. I’ll take it an’ give it to my mother myself. I earned it fair an’ square, didn’t I?”
“Of course you did. And you are a perfect darling that you do not wish to waste it on yourself. Mother will be delighted with your unselfishness! If it weren’t in the street I’d kiss you, sweetheart!”
“Well, you needn’t. An’ I’ve got a quarter, anyway. That is more’n I’ve had in a dog’s age before. Do you s’pose my mother will scold me for running away from school?”
“As you draw near home your conscience begins to prick you, doesn’t it? Mine does. I didn’t feel half as guilty before.”
There was such a sympathy in this matter that despite its being on the “street” and a place where exhibitions of affection were out of place, the brother and sister clasped hands with an eagerness that told how much they really feared the quiet glance of disapproval which Mrs. Beckwith would make her only punishment.
But it was not Beatrice’s habit to acknowledge herself worsted till compelled; and she dashed into the little parlor of their flat crying, as gayly as she could: “Fairy gifts, Motherkin! I’ve discovered the secret of transmuting posies into pounds, petals into pennies, and chrysanthemums into oysters! Behold—and believe!”
“Ahem! Miss Beatrice, this is truly fortunate. I had begun to despair of seeing you.”
The girl wheeled suddenly about, and there, spectacles on nose and music-roll in hand, sat the Professor of Voice Culture who was training her for “her career,” and whom she had faithfully promised to meet that day for “a particular reason of obligingness to me myself; that may mean a much of benefit to the poor old Herr Doctor.”
Until that instant she had utterly forgotten the teacher’s request and her promise, and the regret with which she now recalled it effectually banished all affected hilarity. Dropping her package of “saddle rocks,” she held out both hands to the shabby-looking German, with an accent of such keen distress in her voice that he forgave her on the instant: “Oh, sir! I am so sorry. But—I never thought of it, not once. Has it made a great difference?”
“No, no,—not so great—but the mother—”