“Your friend, Miss Lord, invited me into her room last night and told me she would pay my expenses at a boarding school for the next two years if I chose to go. The school would not be an expensive one, as she had many other demands upon her fortune which she plainly considered more important. She also announced that I particularly required a discipline which I had never received. Did you know, Marguerite, that Miss Lord has also asked the group of girls with whom I used to live, her own French Camp Fire group, to go with her to work among the poor children in the devastated country? They are to sew for the poor and help in any way possible in order that they may be trained perhaps as teachers for the home for orphan children which Miss Lord hopes at some future time to establish in France.”
Marguerite Arnot stopped sewing for a moment.
“I trust you accepted Miss Lord’s offer, Julie. You will probably never have another such opportunity in your life and Miss Patricia is right when she says you are in need of discipline. How little like a fairy godmother Miss Patricia looks and yet what wonderful things she does for everybody!”
“Yes, for everybody except you, Marguerite Arnot, and yet I once thought you were her favorite. If it were not for you I should accept Miss Lord’s offer; I am not so stupid that I do not realize what even two years of education may do toward giving me a better start in life. Besides, I know my father would have wished me to accept; he was always insisting that I had no proper education without making the effort to see that I did have one. Really, Marguerite, I think you might have done something for yourself, so that I should not have to worry over you.’
In spite of Julie’s absurdity, the older girl smiled and sighed almost in the same instant, since even so unreasonable an affection was not to be disregarded.
“I don’t know just what remarkable future you think I should have worked out for myself in the past few months, Julie. Just the same I think I can continue to make my living without your sacrificing yourself. Perhaps with your cleverness and with Miss Patricia to help you by paying for your schooling you may turn out to be a famous woman some day and be able to care for me after all! I am not so clever as you are!”
Julie nodded.
“No, you are not, that is why I am so anxious for you to marry. You really need some one to look after you. It was for that reason I arranged for you to go to the Queen’s secret garden. I have been hoping Mr. Hale would become more interested in you, but I’m afraid after all he prefers Miss Graham. You would have liked him to care for you, wouldn’t you, Marguerite?”
Julie’s state of mind, her amazing candor were the attributes of a thoroughly untrained child, nevertheless Marguerite Arnot’s long patience could endure no more.
“Never make a speech of that kind to me again as long as you live, Julie. But one thing I would like to understand. What do you mean by saying you arranged for me to go to the Queen’s secret garden? Was I invited by Mrs. Burton, Bettina Graham, or Mr. Hale?”