Monica's choice

by Flora E. Berry

"Yes. I have heard from your father, and there is a letter for you," Mrs. Beauchamp repeated, slowly, but she did not reach out her hand for it.

Impetuous Monica was about to snatch it up, but her grandmother stayed her hand.

"Wait, Monica, until I have finished, and then you may take your letter to the schoolroom to read. For months I did not tell your father a word about your troublesome ways, but lately you have been so incorrigible that I was compelled to let him know. And now this letter has come in reply to mine, and your father is grieved beyond expression. No doubt he will tell you the same in your letter; and he wishes me to consult Mr. Bertram, the lawyer, as to which school it will be best to send you to, immediately. But ... it will be a day-school. Now you may go."

Monica snatched up the letter handed to her without a word, and was gone. Mrs. Beauchamp breathed a sigh of relief, and rang the bell for tea; the letter and consequent interview with her unruly grandchild had tired her out.

Meanwhile Monica had fled to her own room, a perfect little paradise, containing all the things most dear to a young girl's heart. Everything in it, from the dainty bed to the little rocking-chair beside the open window, was blue; carpet, curtains, walls, all took the prevailing tint, and most girls of Monica's age would have revelled in such surroundings, and have taken a pride in having everything kept in spick-and-span order, in so charming a domain. But not so Monica; one of her worst failings was untidiness. The shoes which she had worn out of doors that morning, and which had been carelessly tossed in a corner, were making dirty little puddles on the blue and white linoleum: for she had been caught in a heavy April shower. Her hat and jacket had been tossed promiscuously on to the most convenient chair; one glove was lying on the bed, the other--well, as a matter of fact she had dropped that half-way home, but had not missed it yet; that would mean a fruitless hunt through drawers, all more or less in confusion, next time she went out. The comb and brush she had hastily used, to make herself sufficiently tidy to pass muster with her grandmother at the luncheon table, were still lying on the dainty little duchesse table, while the drawer which should have contained them was half open, disclosing a medley of all kinds.

These are only samples of "Miss Monica's muddles," as the long-suffering under-housemaid (whose duty it was to keep the young lady's room in order) called them. "I can't seem to keep things tidy nohow," she would confide to the kitchenmaid; "as soon as ever I get it straightened up of a morning, in she bounces, and begins a-topsy-turvying up of everything."

But Monica noticed none of these things; if the room had been in absolute chaos she would have been oblivious of it, while she held a thin sheet of foreign paper, covered with her father's writing, in her hand.

Pausing only to slip a tiny brass bolt into its place, in order to secure privacy, she flung herself into the little blue rocker, and tore open the envelope with eager fingers.

As she read her letter, a smile of pleasure hovered about her lips, for her father gave in his own racy style a description of a Hindu mela at which he had been present the day before; but soon her expression changed, for his next topic was very different. It was evident that he was deeply concerned about her behaviour to her grandmother and governesses, and the thought of her fast growing up into a headstrong, self-willed young woman grieved him terribly. He spoke of the loving little girl to whom he had bid farewell only eighteen months before, and could scarcely imagine that in so short a time she should have become so changed; what would she be like when he returned to England, if she were allowed to follow her own way?

Monica's tears were slowly falling as she reached the last page. She began to realise, for the first time, that she was disappointing her father's hopes for his only and much-loved child, and although the knowledge was painful, it was very salutary. With eyes blinded with tears, so that the writing seemed blurred and indistinct, she read on to the end, and then as she saw the well-known signature, she bowed her proud young head on the broad window-ledge, and sobbed as if her heart would break.