Late that night Marion, lying awake to worry over the letter she had read, heard the heavy rumble of the circus vans on their way out of town to the distant place where their next public appearance was to be made. All her trouble ended with the welcome sound, for now there would be no meeting with the sphinx, and Elfie would not be tempted to go outside the gates; so the honest eyes closed in sleep that lasted undisturbed till the “wake-up” bell resounded through the halls.
Candace had again succumbed to the rheumatism, so Marion dressed Elfie and took her down to breakfast and kept her by her side till the prayer-bell rang. Then Katie pounced upon her, it being her week, and Marion did not see her again except across the school-room.
At twelve o’clock recess began, at one the girls dined, and at two o’clock school began again, and lasted till half past three. The hour before dinner was devoted, in rainy weather, to gymnastics in the large garret fitted up with various mechanical contrivances for physical culture, but in pleasant weather the girls walked, ran, or played either in the grove behind the house, the meadow on the left, or the tennis-court and croquet-ground on the other side. Beyond the fence which defined these ample grounds no one was allowed to go without permission, even though, as sometimes happened, grace-hoop, shuttlecock, or ball perversely flew over the fence.
On this day Mrs. Abbott called Marion to her immediately after the twelve-o’clock bell rang.
“My dear,” she said, “I shall have to ask you to do me a favor. I have here a check for fifty dollars which I need to have cashed immediately. Will you take it for me to the bank at the village and bring me the money? It is a long walk, but I know you don’t mind that. To save time and insure your getting back in time for dinner I would send you in the phaeton, but my pony has lamed himself. But I will have your dinner kept warm for you.”
“O, that is nothing,” said Marion. “I’d as lief go without any dinner, and, if you don’t mind, I’ll go through the back gate, it’s so much shorter.”
“Yes, you may do so. The key to the padlock hangs, as usual, behind the hat-rack.”
The carriage road to the village led past the front of the house and twisted and turned several ways, most obligingly winding by various farm-houses, but a shorter cut across the fields could be reached by going through a little gate at the end of the thick grove behind the house. The road thus gained led to the station and then on to the village, but a path across the fields avoided the station and intersected the road again further on.
“I’d be fidgety now if the circus had stayed over to-day, for, with Candace sick, there’d be no one to keep Elfie from going out with the girls to get their fortunes told,” thought Marion.
But the circus had gone and she went on gayly, rather pleased with the errand and thinking nothing of the two-miles’ walk to the village.