Delia looked at Mrs. Pomeroy, and was delighted to see the first dawn of a smile on her countenance. She began to see what Delia was aiming at, and could not help being amused at her ingenuity.
"Read the figures, if you please, Miss Thomas," said she mildly. "What possible objection can you have to doing so? They are very plainly written."
"I can't see them," said Miss Thomas, bursting out at last. "I cannot tell one line from another, at this distance, and you know I can't."
"I have but little more to say," continued Delia, without manifesting any triumph at the success of her experiment. "Miss Thomas says that she only two people walking in the garden, and we have both confessed to being there. She cannot see to read a line of large white figures on a black ground at the distance of four yards, so it is no great wonder that she should mistake poor Emily, in her long black cloak and fur cap, for a gentleman, especially as she seemed to have made up her mind that there must be a beau in the case, any how. I do not mean to say any thing disrespectful, but I must say I think she should furnish herself with more substantial proofs, before bringing such accusations against young ladies of good character. I do not think either my father, or Emily's, would be at all pleased to think that we had been subjected to such suspicions."
Delia spoke with a propriety and dignity which might have prepossessed the sternest judge in her favor, and the apparently free confession of her real fault, had great weight with Mrs. Pomeroy, who valued frankness above all things. Miss Thomas' defective vision was well known to every one, notwithstanding the absurd pains she took to conceal it. She was, moreover, extremely suspicious in her temperament, and apt to draw conclusions from what she imagined, than from what she really saw; and consequently her word had less weight with Mrs. Pomeroy than that of any other teacher in the school. This being the case, Mrs. Pomeroy was quite willing to give the girls the benefit of the doubt which evidently existed, and consider the whole matter as nothing more than a girlish frolic. So she gave them due praise for their openness, and a kind admonition to do better in future, appointed them an act of Athalie to learn by heart, (she always gave punishment lessons out of Athalie), and dismissed them to their duties. Emily was crying too much to speak, but Delia said, and this time with real feeling:
"You are very kind, Mrs. Pomeroy. I shall try to act in such a manner, in future, that you shall never regret your goodness to me to-day. Miss Thomas, I am sorry that I spoke disrespectfully to you last evening, and I beg your pardon."
Miss Thomas received this apology with a kind of snort, making no other reply, but the moment the door closed behind the girls, she opened her fire upon Mrs. Pomeroy.
"So this is the reward I get for my faithfulness in your behalf, ma'am—losing my rest, and endangering my health, to be browbeaten and put down in your very presence, ma'am, by those who can pull the wool over your eyes by a few fine speeches. But this is the last time I shall expose myself in your service—" She paused for lack of breath.
"You are exposing yourself now, without doing any one service, least of all, yourself," answered Mrs. Pomeroy, calmly. "I appreciate your good qualities, Miss Thomas, and desire to bear with your infirmities—"
"Infirmities! ma'am—infirmities. I should beg respectfully to know what they are? I know I am a sinful mortal, of course, like every one else, but I should like to know what fault you, or any one else, have to find with me?"