Georgia had given such a violent start, and a spasm of such intense anguish had passed over her face, that Miss Maggie jumped back, and stood regarding her with wide-open and startled eyes, the picture of astonishment.
"Nothing—nothing," said Georgia, leaning her elbow on the table, and dropping her forehead on it: "a sudden pain—gone now. Pray do not be alarmed."
"Oh, I ain't alarmed," said Miss Maggie composedly. "Do you think you will like to live out here? It's awful lonesome, I can tell you; a quarter of a mile almost to the nearest house. Licie and I want papa to stop in New York in the winter, but he won't—he doesn't mind a word we say. Papas are always the dreadfulest, most obstinate sort of people in the world—now, ain't they?—always thinking they know best, you know, and always dreadfully provoking. Oh, dear me!" said Miss Maggie, with a deep sigh, as she fell back in her chair, and held up and glanced admiringly at one pretty little foot and distracting ankle, "I don't know what we should ever do only papa comes from the city to see us, and that nice Signor Popkins, who was a count or a legion of honor, or some funny thing in France, and got exiled by that nasty Louis Napoleon, comes and gives Licie and me two music lessons every week. Oh! Miss Randall, he's got just the sweetest hair you ever saw; and mustaches—oh, my goodness! such mustaches—that stick out like two shaving-brushes; and splendid long whiskers, like a cow's tail. Felice don't care much for him, because she thinks she's caught that nice, clever Mr. Randall, your namesake, you know; but I guess she ain't so sure of him as she thinks. Oh! he does write the most divine poetry ever was—down right splendid, you know; and every lady is raving about him. He's travelled all over Europe, and Asia, and Africa, and the North Pole, and California, and lots of other nice places, and knows—oh, dear me, he knows a dreadful sight of things, and is a splendid talker. He only came from England two weeks ago, and everybody is making such a time about him. Felice met him at a party, and he came here last night with the divinest bouquet, and she thinks she has him, but I know better. Then some more gentlemen come here. Lem Turner, and Ike Brown, and Dick Curtis, but he's gone away somewhere to the country, to where some friend of his lives—— Hey? What now? Another pain, Miss Randall?"
"No—yes. Excuse me, Miss Leonard, I am very tired, and will lie down now. You will please to tell them I do not feel well enough to go down to tea."
"Well, there! I might have known you were tired, and not kept on talking so, but I am such a dreadful chatterbox. I'll tell Susan to bring up your tea. Good-by, Miss Randall; I hope you'll be quite well to-morrow, I'm sure." And the loquacious damsel bowed a smiling adieu, and retired.
Georgia was better the next morning, and able to join the family at breakfast, which meal was enlivened by a steady flow of talk from Miss Maggie, and a series of snappish contradictions and marginal notes from Miss Felice, who never got her temper on till near noon. Mr. and Mrs. Leonard took both daughters as matters of course, and seemed quite used to this sort of thing. On Georgia's part it passed almost in silence, as she sat like some cold, marble statue, with scarcely more signs of life.
After breakfast Miss Felice sat down to practice some unearthly exercises on the grand piano that adorned the drawing-room, and Miss Maggie Leonard bore off Georgia and the three juvenile Leonards to a large, high, severe-looking room, adorned with a dismal looking blackboard, sundry maps, with red, green, yellow splashes, supposed to represent this terrestrial globe. Four solemn-looking black desks were in the four corners, and one in the middle for the teacher. Books, and ink bottles, and slates, without end, were scattered about, and this, Mrs. Leonard informed Georgia, was the school-room, and after administering a small lecture to Messrs. Albert and Royal and Miss Jennie, the purport of which was that the world in general expected them to be good children and learn fast, and mind Miss Randall, she floated out, bearing off the unwilling Miss Maggie, and Georgia began her new life as teacher.
That day seemed endless to Georgia. Accustomed to uncontrolled freedom and wild liberty, she was fitted less for a teacher than for anything else in the world. That love of children which it is necessary every teacher should possess, Georgia had not, and before the wearisome day was done every feeling that had not been stunned into numbness rose in rebellion against the intolerable servitude.
At four o'clock the day's labor was over, and the children, glad to be released, scampered off.
Seating herself at the desk, Georgia dropped her throbbing head upon it, giddy and blind with one of her deadly headaches, which until the last month or two, she had never known.