Poor Miss Tuttle gasped for breath, and sank helplessly on a garden chair, wishing she were dead and buried, so keen was her pain and humiliation.
“You may read the old man’s letter if you like,” added the girl, thrusting it into her hand.
The sorrowful spinster, who would have given all she possessed for such a letter, was forced to read the gushing and awkward love letter of the rich old widower to the merry girl, who laughed over it with her handsome young lover, and gayly passed around the fine box of bonbons that accompanied the epistle.
“The dear old silly! I thought he looked on me still as a little girl,” she cried. “Now if he had only been sensible and asked you, Miss Tuttle, it would have been a charming arrangement in point of age and all that, you know.”
Miss Tuttle winced at the innocent thrust of the happy girl, but she was so miserable that her pride fell from her like a garment, and she frankly assented, saying:
“Yes, for I always admired Mr. Bennett, and if he had asked me I would have accepted him.”
The young people instantly felt very sorry and sympathetic, and Leola proposed that when she gave him her answer she should give him a hint that he would be more successful with the governess than with the pupil.
Miss Tuttle was so moved by this offer that she felt all her anger and jealousy give way, and took Leola into her heart again.
“Oh, if you could only manage it I would be grateful forever,” she exclaimed. “You know I cannot stay on at Wheatlands when you are gone, Leola, for people would talk, and besides the fact that he is in arrears for my salary, we have had a bitter quarrel this morning,” and then, between tears and sobs, she blurted out all Wizard Hermann’s plans to the astonished lovers.
Then Leola recalled the morning, three weeks ago, when her guardian had bidden her prepare to be married in a month to the man of his choice.