CHAPTER XIII
From this time on, the younger set of girls made a point of being kind to Hester. Feeling that they had misjudged her they tried to repay by an excess of kindness. Hester was a responsive creature. She had no ugliness in her heart. Spite was a quality that had not entered into the composition of her character. So when the girls showered her with kindness, she responded heartily and put from her heart, the bitter thoughts which had been there.
Helen, after the brave stand she had taken in regard to Hester, was troubled. She felt that she had been placed by Hester's shortcomings in an unpleasant position. She had deceived her girl friends. To be sure, she had not told them a word which was not strictly true, but they had misunderstood her and she knew it. To make matters worse, she had deliberately constructed her sentences that they might be deceived and yet she was telling the truth. Taking it all in all, it was a paradox. She hated deception, and Hester had placed her in such a position that she had been compelled to put a double meaning to her words.
So the little plan which Erma had worked out had the effect of widening the breach between the occupants of Sixty-two.
Hester had been grieved by the treatment she had received from Helen; but after the choice of substitutes, sorrow gave place to anger at the injustice accorded her. When the anger had gone, a steadiness of purpose came to Hester. She resolved to treat Helen with courtesy, nothing more; to be untouched by her in any way. Hester set her lips firmly and raised her head proudly. She had caught little mannerisms from Debby Alden, just as she had caught the principle which had actuated her conduct: not to cry out and let every one know when one is hurt.
When she came back from the two-days' visit with Aunt Debby and Miss Richards, she had mastered her feelings to a great extent. She never failed to greet Helen upon rising; she bade her a courteous good-night when bed-time came. They spoke together of little school affairs, but the long confidential talks had gone. They were well-bred strangers together for a time. They were spoiling the best part of the school year by what they pleased to think was their heroism. It would have been far easier and more fruitful of good results had they taken each other sharply to task, and blurted out what they had against each other. It would have been an easy matter, for each would have discovered that there existed no cause for an estrangement between them.
Down in the city, Debby Alden was spending the best year of her life. She had continued her music until her playing had passed the apprentice stage. She read the classics with Miss Richards. The townspeople had found her charming in her gracious thought for others. She was practical and thoroughgoing, and they filled her hands with church and charity work. Debby had not an idle, lonely moment. To do her justice, she gave no thought to what people might be thinking of her. She had too many thoughts outside herself to give Debby Alden much thought.
She had proved the statement that it is a woman's own fault if she is not beautiful by the time she has forty years to her credit. Debby's beauty was of form and feature, and beyond this, the beauty which radiates from holding high ideals and living up to them. People did not merely like or admire this elder Miss Alden. Those words were weak to express the sentiment they held for her. They loved her, perhaps because Debby had in her heart an interest and love for every human creature that she met. Hester wisely had not mentioned to her aunt the little disturbance at school. This was partly due to unselfishness, and partly that there had been nothing tangible to tell. It would be very foolish to run and cry, "I have had my feelings wounded, but I do not know why." Pride, too, was one of the important factors of her silence. She could tell no one—not even her dear aunt—that the girls had, for some reason, held her in disfavor.
But Debby Alden had not lived with Hester sixteen years without understanding her. The girl had barely entered the cottage and removed her wraps before Debby knew that something had gone wrong. Debby asked no questions, according to Hester the same privileges she demanded for herself—to have hurts and wounds without being questioned concerning them.
At the sight of Hester's troubled face, Debby Alden's old fears came back to her. Had someone at the school brought up the subject of the girl's parentage? Had someone told her that she had been thrown upon the world a waif, and none of her people had cared to look for her?