“Well, these dear people took care of me till I was a real big girl. I love them dearly. He was a postman and he walked too much. So he had to lose his position with lameness and he’s never gotten over it, though he’s better now. He has a position in a sanitarium for other lame folks and Mother Martha is the housekeeper, or matron, there. Uncle Seth Winters, who knows so much that he is called the ‘Learned Blacksmith,’ is my guardian. He and Aunt Betty have been dearest friends ever since they were little. They call each other cousin, though they’re no kin at all, any more than he’s my uncle. He was my first teacher at his ‘school in the woods,’ but felt I ought to go to a school for girls. So I went to the Rhinelander Academy and he stayed at his smithy on the mountain, near Mother Martha’s little farm and Aunt Betty’s big one, and one vacation auntie told me who I was and took me home to live with her; and she liked Oak Knowe because the Bishop is her lifelong friend. She has had my name on the list waiting for a vacancy for a long, long time; so it’s a terrible pity I should have been horrid, and offended the Lady Principal.”
“Let us hope she is not seriously offended, dear, nor have you told me what the offense is. But bear in mind, Dorothy, that she is at the head of a great and famous institution and must strictly live up to its standards and keep her pupils to their duty. But she is absolutely just, as you will learn in time.
“I feel like hearing music, to-day, but get very little. All our practice rooms are sound-deadened. Do you play at all, on any instrument, or sing?”
“A little of both, when I’m at home. Not well in either, though Aunt Betty loves my violin and my little songs. If I had it here, I would try for you, if you’d like. But it’s in my trunk, my ‘box,’ Mr. Gilpin called it.”
Miss Hexam smiled and, opening a little secretary, took out an old Cremona, explaining:
“This was my brother’s, who died when I was young. He was a master of it, had many pupils. I allow few to touch it, but I’d be pleased to have you, if you would like.”
“Would you? May I?” asked Dorothy, handling it reverently for its sacredness to this loving old sister. And, after she had tuned it, as reverently for its own sake. It was a rare old instrument of sweetest tone and almost unconsciously Dorothy tried one theme after another upon it while Miss Hexam leaned back in her chair listening and motionless.
Into that playing the young musician put all the love and homesickness of her own heart. It seemed as if she were back at Deerhurst, with the Great Danes lying on the rug at her feet and dear Aunt Betty resting before the fire. Then, when memory threatened to bring the tears she was determined should not fall, she stopped, laid the violin silently upon the table and slipped out of the room, leaving Miss Hexam still motionless in her chair.
But she would have been surprised had she looked back into the “inquisition chamber” a few moments later to see the “inquisitor” arouse, seize a sheet of paper and rapidly write a few lines upon it. But the few lines were important. They gave a synopsis of Dorothy’s scholarship and accomplishments, and unerringly assigned her to “Form IVb, class of Miss Aldrich.”
The “terrible exam” was over and Dorothy hadn’t known a thing about it!