Then came Natalie with the message that:
“Madame wants Jessica in her own private room at once. She’s afraid to trust her with us, I suppose, and I think it’s real mean to snatch her away the very minute she gets home.”
“Ah; it does seem like home, really, to be among you all again. Only what’s been done to the rooms? They are so beautiful, and what a lovely, lovely world it is, to-day! Seems if there were so many places to be happy in, so many one can call a sort of home—This, the hospital, Ephy’s flat, and precious Sobrante. I wish—Oh! how I wish every girl in all the world could be as happy as I am this minute! Yes, Natalie, I’m going to Madame right away. But I must say I wish I’d thought to ask her to have a thin white dress made for me, too. You all look so sweet and dainty.”
They escorted her to the schoolmistress, Helen herself slipping her strong arm about the other’s waist, and clasping Jessica’s hand, that had been so brown and was now so thin and white, with a fervor which told how deep her own emotion.
Then Madame Mearsom took her from them with a motherly kiss and the remark:
“Exercises do not begin until ten o’clock. For the time between, Jessie must rest quietly right here with me. Ah! how well you all look. I am certainly proud of my girls, to-day.”
Yet there was a ring of sadness in the teacher’s voice. Some of these would leave her soon, to return no more. They had been with her for years. She had done, or tried to do, a mother’s part by them and she loved them. They loved her, too, of that she was sure; but—the young go away and forget, the old remain and remember.
However, it was not this wise woman’s way to cast any shadows over other people’s sunshine; and it was now with a gay smile that she waved them all away and shut the door upon herself and her restored pupil. Then she led Jessica directly to her own capacious lounge, made her lie down, covered her lightly with a silken spread, and bade her go to sleep.
“Sleep, dear Madame? When it’s only morning and I’ve just come home? Why, I can’t!”
“Yes, you can. I command it; but first drink this bit of bouillon that the maid has brought. Commencement day is always an exciting one, even for the perfectly well and strong. You are well, too, now, but not yet strong. After your nap you shall be dressed and go to join your mates. This is the first Commencement you have ever attended. You will find much to interest.”