She sat perfectly still for a long time, her hands clasped in her lap, and her big, brown eyes, into which had crept a wonderfully soft expression, looking far away beyond the walls of Miss Preston’s sitting-room, far beyond the bedroom next it, and off to some lonely, unsatisfied years, when she had lived in a sort of truce with all about her, never knowing just when hostilities might be renewed. It had acted upon the girl’s sensitive nature much as a chestnut-prickle acts upon the average mortal; a nasty, little, irritating thing, hard to discover, a scrap of a thing when found—if, indeed, it does not succeed in eluding one altogether—and so insignificant that one wonders how it could cause such discomfort. But it is those miserable little chestnut-prickles that are hardest to bear in this life, and so warp one’s character that it is often unfitted to bear the heavier burdens which must come into all lives sooner or later.
CHAPTER XIX
“FATAL OR FATED ARE MOMENTS”
“Nobody has ever spoken to me as you have, Miss Preston,” Toinette began presently, “and I can’t tell you how I feel. Maybe heaven will be better, but I don’t believe I shall ever feel any happier than I feel this minute. It seems as though I’d been living in a sort of prison, all shut up in the dark, and that now I am out in the sunshine and as free as the birds. But I must tell you something more: I can’t rest content unless I do. The letter I posted to-day wasn’t to papa, I sent it to Howard Elting, in Branton, and it isn’t the first I’ve written him, either. I didn’t lie about the other one, Miss Preston; I was ready to mail it, but lost it; I don’t know how. Somebody must have found it and posted it, for he got it and answered it, and I was so puzzled over it that I wrote again. That was the letter you saw me post. Now, that is the truth, and I know that you believe me.”
Toinette had spoken very rapidly, scarcely pausing for breath, and when she finished gave a relieved little sigh and looked Miss Preston squarely in the eyes. Truly, her self-respect was regained.
Will some of my readers say: “What a tempest in a teapot?” To many this may seem a very trivial affair, but how small a thing can influence our lives! A breath, the passing of a summer shower, may help or hinder plans which alter our entire lives. And Miss Preston was wise enough to understand it. Here was a beautiful soul given for a time into her keeping. Now, at the period of its keenest receptive powers, a delicate and sensitive thing needing very gentle handling.
Stroking the head again resting upon her shoulder, as though it had found a safe and happy haven after having been tossed about upon a troubled sea, she said, quietly:
“I posted the letter, dear; I found it in the hall where it had been dropped; it never occurred to me that there was any cause for concealment; the girls all correspond with their friends; it is an understood thing. I recognized your writing, and, as I had friends at Branton, I wrote to ask if they knew the person written to. They replied that they did, and told me who he was. Knowing how few friends you have, I wrote to this boy asking him to come to our dance to-morrow night, because I thought the little surprise might give you pleasure, and you would be glad to welcome an old friend. Does it please you, my little girl?”