The Actress' Daughter: A Novel

by May Agnes Fleming

"Ah, Georgia! I see you are in one of your wild moods to-day, and will not listen to reason. Well, good-by—be a good girl till I come back."

"Good-by, sir. I don't think I will ever be a good girl, but I will be as good as I can. Good-by, and thank you, sir."

There was something so darkly earnest in her face, that Mr. Coleman looked after her, more puzzled than he had ever before been by a pupil. She had always been an enigma to him—she was to most people—and to-day she was more unreadable than ever.

"I declare to skreech, Georgy!" said Miss Jerusha, as they walked home together, "you like to skeered the life out o' me to-day, the way you talked and shouted. Clare to gracious! ef it wasn't parfectly orful, not to say downright wicked. Talk about scalin' heaven! there's sense for you now! And it's not only sinful, as Deacon Brown remarked, but reglir onpossible. Where could a ladder, now, or even a fire escape be got, long enough to do it? Pah! it's disgustin', such nonsense! I wonder a man like that there Mr. Coleman would 'low of sich talk in his school hus, it's rale disgraceful—that's what it is!"

Georgia laughed. Georgia was more patient with Miss Jerusha than she used to be, and had her hot temper more under control. This was in a great measure owing to the instructions and gentle exhortations of good Mrs. Murray, little Emily's mother, who had taught her that instead of conferring a favor on the old maid by living with her, she owed her a debt of gratitude she would find it difficult to repay. And Georgia, whose faults were more of the head than of the heart, saw Mrs. Murray was right, and consented to try and "behave herself" for the future. Georgia found self-control a very difficult lesson to practice; and the impulses of her nature very often rose and mastered her good resolutions yet. Still it was something for her even to try, and it had such an effect on Miss Jerusha, that the vinegar in that sour spinster's composition became perceptibly less acid, and the ward and "dragon" got along much better than formerly. So true it is that every effort to do good is rewarded even here.

When Georgia got home she found her friend Emily Murray awaiting her. Despite the wide difference in their dispositions Emily and Georgia were still fast friends. Emily did not go to the public school, but was taught at home by her mother. But they saw each other every day, and Emily's sunny disposition helped not a little to soften down our savage little wild-cat into her present state of comparative civilization. Still the same rounded little lady was Emily, perhaps an inch or two higher than when thirteen years old, but still nothing to speak of, with the same smiling, rosy, sunshiny little face peeping out from its wealth of tangled yellow curls—for Emily's hair would persist in curling in spite of all attempts to comb it straight and respectable looking, and persisted in having its own way, and openly rebelling against all established authority.

"Oh, Georgia! I'm so glad!" exclaimed Emily, throwing her arms around Georgia's neck, and administering a dozen or two short, sharp little kisses that went off like the corks out of so many ginger-beer bottles. "I'm ever so glad that you got all the prizes! I knew you would; I said it all along. I knew you were dreadfully clever, if you only liked. And now I want you to come right over to our house and spend the evening with us. Mother told me to come for you. Oh, Georgia! we'll have a good time!"

"Well, there, Em, you needn't strangle me about it," said Georgia, laughingly releasing herself. "If Miss Jerusha doesn't want me particularly, I'll go."

Two years previously Georgia would no more have thought of asking Miss Jerusha's leave about any thing than she would of flying; but since she had come to a sense of her duty things were different. But as the leopard cannot change his spots, nor the Ethiope his skin, so neither could she entirely change her nature, and there was an involuntary defiant light in her eye and haughtiness in her tone when asking a favor, and a fierce bright flash and passionate gesture when refused.

Miss Jerusha looked undecided, and was beginning a dubious "Wal, raily, now—" when Emily's impulsive arms were around her neck, and her pretty face upturned.