“But if there’s nothing to tell, how can I let out things?” remarked Hannah, fixing her small, shrewd blue eyes on The Imp’s face.
“Oh my dear, don’t you know how people are suspected? Now, Hannah, you must be silent, and you must promise me that you will. If you are, the Dodds and I will make you one of our special friends; of course if you are one of my friends I can do any amount of nice things for you, for the Dodds simply pour their riches at my feet. I’ve the greatest power over them, I do assure you, and I can use it in your behalf too, Hannah, and I will. You don’t like being poor. No more do I.”
“I don’t greatly care,” replied Hannah.
“Oh yes, you do, that’s all nonsense. I tell you what it is, Hannah, I call it downright cruel that I, with my beautiful face, should not have the Dodds’ money as well.”
“I don’t see that at all,” answered Hannah. “Why shouldn’t the Dodds have their money? Why should one person have everything?”
The Imp was silent for a minute, her big, dark eyes fixed upon Hannah. Then she burst into a ringing and very charming laugh. “I suppose you’re right,” she said, “and the Dodds are useful; I’ve only to hint for a thing and I get it. Hannah, they shall be fairy god-mothers to you also. Meet me in the quad to-night and whisper to me what you want most in the world, and I’ll guarantee that you get it. Now I must run; but—don’t forget, we are sure to be questioned, and mum’s the word with us all.”
Hannah knew well that “mum” must be the word with her, she was far too terrified to act in any other way; and now, with the colour coming and going in her cheeks, she faced Mrs. Fleming while that good lady questioned the Lower School.
Mrs. Fleming stood on the little raised daïs, which she always occupied in moments of intense emotion, or when anything very special was about to occur. Her face was pale; the girls all looked at her and then looked away, they felt nervous thrills going through them. Mrs. Fleming had that extraordinarily beautiful face which comes from a soul at peace with God. She was one of those women who all her life long had given herself up to God. The cares, the sorrows, the temptations of this world were, therefore, more or less at a little distance from her. Morning after morning, evening after evening, she laid her burden in the care of One who could never fail her. She had laid the present burden in that safe keeping, and now the gentle and yet sorrowful expression in her eyes caused the girls to gaze at her with a curious wonder. There was a struggle going on in almost every breast; it would be difficult to keep back anything from so loving, so kind, so noble a teacher.
Mrs. Fleming waited to speak until the sound of the departure of the Upper School had died away. Then, looking solemnly round at the nine girls who formed the Lower School, for little Elisabeth was not admitted into this conclave, she spoke: “My dear children,” she said, “I want to tell you something. Your friend—for each schoolgirl in a small school like this must be the friend of every other girl in the school, or she ought to leave the school, and as Peggy Desmond has only just arrived I don’t think that you can possibly regard her in any light except that of a friendly one—your friend, my dear children, is, I am grieved to tell you, in great pain, and to a certain extent also in peril. She lay so long on the damp grass that acute pains and fever have set in, and for the present she is exceedingly ill; I have been obliged to get two nurses to come and look after her. Now, when I saw Peggy Desmond at morning school yesterday she was as bright, as healthy, as happy-looking a child as I could possibly see. My dears, can any of you throw light on the marvellous, the terrible change which has taken place with regard to her? Dr. Hodge says that the broken leg has been unquestionably caused by a violent blow. Now, who could have done this cruel thing to Peggy?”
“There was the pony, of course,” interrupted The Imp.