Madame Deriby granted the permission and for several days Geraldine’s pillow was smoothed and her tray brought up by her kindly roommate.
One day Geraldine was able to sit up for a while and Matilda wrapped her in the warm plaid shawl and then sat in the sunny window to read to her. The story was interesting, but Geraldine was not listening. She was thinking of something that she had wanted to say to Matilda for the past week, but her pride had prevented. At last she exclaimed, “Matilda, will you stop a moment if you have reached the end of a chapter? There is something that I want to say.”
The other girl glanced up inquiringly.
“I want to ask your forgiveness for several things,” the English girl began. “First of all, please don’t move to the cupola, for I want you to be my roommate as long as I am in this school. I have always been lonely,” she added, “and how I have wished that I had a sister or even a girl cousin, but I had none. Mother died when I was a baby and Dad tried to be mother and sister to me, but he had to be away so much, and I have lived nearly all of my life in French and English boarding-schools. We were poorer at first because Dad was only a younger brother, but last year his older brother died and left us the Barrington estate. I was so delighted because I thought that we would settle down in that beautiful place and have a home at last, but Father could not be happy, he said, until he had found a sister of his who long ago came to America. If she was still living, he wanted to share his fortune with her. She had always been so loving to him, he told me, but she married some one beneath her and the older brother had disowned her. They knew that she came to the States with her husband, but she was never heard from again.
“We lived in our castle-like home for a month, then Dad packed up and said that he must come to America and try to find his lost sister. So we came. Dad put me in this boarding-school while he travels about looking for my aunt. He is away out in the Middle West now. In his last letter he wrote that this country is wonderful; he had never dreamed it was so big. He hasn’t found a trace of his lost sister, however, and so he will be back in a fortnight, then, how happy I shall be, for we shall go back to that wonderful Barrington Manor, and yet, Starr, I feel sure that I am going to be lonely. There will just be Daddy and me in that great rambling old castle, that is no one except the servants. I wish that I could take you back with me to be my adopted sister.”
Matilda smiled into the beautiful face of her roommate as she replied, “I’m glad that you like me, Geraldine, but I love my prairie home as much as you do your English home and I couldn’t let the ocean separate me from my splendid brothers.”
“Well, then go on with the story,” Geraldine said, and Matilda continued reading, feeling happier than she had since she came to Linden Hall Seminary.
Two weeks passed and Geraldine Barrington was able to walk about, but she was never content unless Matilda, whom she now called Starr, was her constant companion.
“Father is coming to-day,” Geraldine announced happily one morning as she entered their room holding an open letter. “He is so disappointed! He writes that he has visited every part of the West, but he has been unable to find his sister. He will be here this morning and I’m to ride down in the bus to meet him. I asked Madame Deriby if you might accompany me but she said that since you are just beginning your classes, she did not like to have you miss even one recitation, but I want you to get acquainted with him when we come back to the school.”
“I would like to meet your father,” Matilda replied. “I am ever so glad for your sake that he is coming.” Then taking her books, she went to her classes.