"Never mind, it will soon grow again," said Belle, consolingly, seeing that Almira looked annoyed. "She will come to something, after all," she continued to Janet, as they went down stairs together. "I shall have some hope of her, now that she has got rid of those curls. Poor thing, what a struggle it must have cost her."
"Those same ringlets never went for nothing," replied the Queen of Sheba, who in her office of monitress had been more than usually disturbed by Almira's carelessness and laziness during the day. "I should not be surprised if we should hear something more about them before long."
So it turned out. In her distress at her loss, it had never occurred to Almira that she was leaving behind her a token of her presence, which could not fail to be recognized.
Mrs. Pomeroy, coming out of her bed-room, had seen the unlucky ringlets hanging in the door, and at once divined how they came there. For more than a year, she had been trying by all sorts of gentle means, to break Almira of her habit of eaves-dropping, and prying into the concerns of others, but without the least success, and she now determined to try the effect of another course. Taking the locks in her hand, she descended to the tea-table, and at the end of the meal, the usual signal announced a speech from the throne.
"Has any young lady lost any thing?" asked Mrs. Pomeroy.
There was silence, but one or two glanced significantly at poor Almira, whose cheeks began to burn.
"These curls were found hanging in the outside door to my dressing room," continued Mrs. Pomeroy, holding them up in full view of the assembled family. "I cannot, of course, imagine how they should have come there, unless, indeed, some one has been listening at the door, but if they belong to any young lady in the establishment, she can have them returned, by calling at my room and proving her property."
[CHAPTER XI.]
MR. AND MRS. MASON arrived next morning, and had rather a lengthened conversation with Mrs. Pomeroy, before they were admitted to see Delia, who continued very unwell, and seemed threatened with serious illness. Poor Delia meantime was trembling with conflicting emotions, among which shame, perhaps, predominated. She had, as Mrs. Pomeroy requested, read through all the returned letters, from beginning to end. The task was a hard one, but it did her good. Now that her eyes were opened to the man's real character, she wondered what it could have been about him that fascinated her.
"But I never really did care for him," she said to Emily. "My vanity was flattered by his attentions, and I thought there was something very interesting in having a secret correspondence. There were plenty of such things going on at the Gymnasium, and some of the teachers knew it well enough, too. I have seen Miss Jenkins look the other way, very hard indeed, when she knew, as well as they did, that the girls were doing things that were forbidden. But the poor thing was so overworked, and the girls plagued her so, that it was no wonder if she was glad to buy a little peace at any price. How long they stay down stairs! I do wish they would come up, and yet I dread to see them, especially mother. I have acted so shamefully towards her."