When the little tale had been told, Virginia said with a queer little smile: “Shall I tell you my new goal? Or rather the only one which I have definitely formed?”
“Oh, yes, please do!” It was little Sally who spoke. She had never even thought that a goal in life was necessary. She nestled a bit nearer to the speaker and listened with her baby-blue eyes intently watching.
Then Virginia told of the little deserted schoolhouse, “It must be very lonely, for it’s many a year since its door was closed and locked for the last time. I suppose it has stood there through the long sunny days and the long windy or rainy days, wondering why the eight laughing, happy little children never came again, and the rickety shed back of it wonders perhaps why eight little burros are no longer tied in its shelter.”
“I remember that little drifted-in schoolhouse, Virg,” Margaret said softly. “I rode by there alone one day, and I dimly recall having thought that it must be lonesome, though I haven’t the imagination that you have, and oh! I do think it is just wonderful of you to want to give some of your free time to teaching those babies. Maybe I will be able to help. That is, if I am there.”
“If you are there?” Virginia’s tone held a surprised query. “Dear, adopted sister of mine, where else would you be but with us on V. M.? Don’t you know that my brother Malcolm is your guardian and that our home is always to be your home, that is, if you want to go back with me? Of course, you will soon be free to choose your own way of living. Perhaps you’d rather stay in the East?”
“Oh, no, indeed. I want more than words can tell to go back home with you and to live forever with my sister Virginia and my brother Malcolm—if they want me.” Then with a little laugh she turned eyes in which there were tears to look at the listening group. “Girls, forgive me, please! I know I’m depressing everybody. I was just feeling so sort of useless and all alone.”
“Oh, you’re useful enough, Megsy. Cut out worrying about that,” Barbara retorted gayly. “Didn’t you sew seven buttons on undergarments for me just in time to save me from being pounced on by Miss Snoopins? And didn’t she happen around five minutes after you had put up your needle to examine my work basket? ‘Mees Barbara,’ she remarked, and her voice was almost human, ‘this is the first time I have ever found your undergarments neatly mended.’ Honestly, I thought by her manner that she was disappointed. So don’t ever say you aren’t useful, Margaret Selover.”
“What I want to know,” Betsy put in irrelevantly “is, when Eleanor Burgess is going to honor this seminary with her presence and with whom she is going to room.”
CHAPTER XI
A NEW PUPIL ARRIVES
But after all there was no mystery concerning the time when Eleanor Burgess was to arrive at the seminary, for she appeared, bag and baggage, on the second day after the visit which Mrs. Martin and Virginia had made to the supposedly deserted house.