There was no real sympathy between Mrs. Tweedie and her boarder, but Barbara was a college graduate, and Mrs. Tweedie had heard that her family was of the best. Education and blood Mrs. Tweedie worshipped. If the devil had presented himself to her with his family history under his arm she would have welcomed him. Besides, taking boarders is a much more genteel way of piecing out an insufficient income than taking in washing.
Fanny Tweedie thought that Barbara was an awfully nice girl; though she was forced to admit after an acquaintance of two years that she did not wholly understand her. And Barbara liked Fanny because, though somewhat frivolous, she was companionable and amusing.
Barbara tolerated Mrs. Tweedie because boarding places in Manville were scarce. She did not care for the town, and disliked especially the manners of most of its people; but she kept her opinions to herself; which, as has been intimated, did not increase her popularity with the women.
Will Flint, son of the Rev. Elijah Flint, was a big, manly-looking fellow who might have been a greater success at college if his parents had not held the reins so tightly when he was a boy at home. His father had preached him a thousand sermons, and his mother had wept gallons of tears; yet here was the object of their labour at home in disgrace, his career at college ruined in his senior year.
Both said that Will had decided to leave college and engage in some sort of business. He had left, but to say that he decided to leave was as far from the truth as right from wrong. The faculty decided, Will left. He was not all to blame, and nothing dishonourable had been done, but his frank explanations did not assuage in the slightest degree the grief of his parents. The disgrace in their eyes was an indelible stain, and a gloom that was deep and black had reigned in the parsonage since the day of his arrival. Outside, tongues were wagging at a furious rate. The sons and daughters of the clergy seem to be the special prey of gossips. They are supposed to be impervious to temptation, something better than the ordinary human. We forget that the same God made them that made the children of the butcher and the baker.
Late that afternoon, after Barbara had sent the last little urchin homeward, she stood at a window looking out over the fields at the autumn foliage of the woods beyond. She had been there but a moment when Will Flint came down the road and turned into the path that led to the schoolhouse. When he saw her he stopped. Barbara did not know whether she was pleased or not to see him. It was time to go, however, so she put on her things, went out and locked the door, and started down the path.
"Hope you won't be vexed, Miss Wallace, because I came," said Will, "but I've been so confoundedly lonesome to-day that I—"
"I am not vexed," she said, quickly. His manner and frankness pleased her, and dispelled the doubt that was in her mind a moment before.
"I'm glad," he said as they turned and walked toward home. "The boys that I knew," he continued, "have gone away to work, or school. That is why I'm lonesome I suppose, and then the place seems different."