“Mercredi, une heure,” and “the poor suffer want—les pauvres ont besoin.”
That was all, and it really seemed to be a bit of exercise, and nothing else. But then, I had the key in my heart, and could read it as he meant; though truly it was an exercise for me to find means to overtop all difficulties and meet him. I knew what he meant well enough—just as well as if he had written four pages, crossed, in his own niggling, little, scrimply, unintelligible, Frenchy hand. So I sat thinking of the six box cords tied together and hidden away in the bottom drawer, underneath my green silk, and tightly locked up to keep them from prying eyes.
Well, of course, I told Clara—though I may as well own that I really should not if I could have helped it. For she was anything but what I should have liked; and, of course, I did not care to be so teased. And there was my appetite so spoiled again that I could not eat, and poor me in such a fidget for the rest of the day, that I did not know what to do. I slipped upstairs three times to see if the cord was all right, and the knots tightly tied; and then, the last time, if I did not hear Miss Furness calling me, and come down in a flurry and leave the key in the drawer. I turned quite hot all over when I felt for it in my pocket, and was sure I had lost it somewhere; when if I could not get some more cord I should be stopped again. All at once I remembered that the thing must be stuck in the keyhole. So, as soon as the lesson with Miss Furness was over, I slipped to the back staircase, and was about halfway up, when I must meet that tiresome, fat, old Fraülein.
“Vots for you heere, Mees Bozerne?” croaked the tiresome old English killer. “Young ladies ’ave no beesness upstaer in de afternoon. Go you down.”
Of course I had to go down again, for I was breaking rules, and ought to have been at work at private study in the schoolroom till half an hour before tea-time.
“It’s too bad,” I muttered, as I began to descend—“too bad to send me to a place like this, where one may not even go up to one’s bedroom. I’m sure, I don’t feel in the least bit like a school-girl.”
Just then I heard Miss Sloman calling the Fraülein to “Come here, dear!” They always called one another, “my love,” and “dear,” in private, though I’m sure no one could have been more unamiable, or looked more ready to scratch and call names. So the Fraülein again ordered me to go down, and then turned back, evidently to go to Miss Sloman: so, seizing the opportunity, I slipped down into the hall, and began bounding up the front stairs like lightning, when if I did not literally run up against Mrs Blunt, and strike her right in the chest with my head, just as she had come out of her room—for I was not looking, but, with head down, bounding up two stairs at a time.
It was a crash! Poor woman, she could not get breath to speak for some time. But, there, she was not the only one hurt; for that horrible twisted vulcanite coronet was driven right into my poor head, and pained me terribly.
“Ach ten!” cried the Fraülein, who had heard the crash and exclamation on both sides, and now came waddling up; “I told you go down, ten, Miss Bozerne, and you come up to knock de lady principal.”