"Principal, Assistant and Janitor," laughed Pearl, "that gives a person some scope—to be sure."
Mrs. Watson hurriedly put up the ironing-board, and set to work. She would get Pearl ready, though she did it with a heavy heart.
Pearl finished her sewing and then went upstairs to make her small wardrobe ready for her departure, and although she stepped quickly and in a determined fashion, there was a pain, a lonely ache in her heart which would not cease, a crying out for the love which she had hoped would be hers.
"I wonder if I will ever get to be like ma," she thought, as she lined the bottom of her little trunk with brown paper, and stuffed tissue paper into the sleeves of her "good dress," "I wonder! Well, I hope I will be like her in some ways, but not in this mournful stuff—I won't either. I'll sing when I feel it coming on me—I will not go mourning all my days—not for any one!"
She began to sing:—
"Forgotten you? Yes, if forgetting
Is thinking all the day
How the long days pass without you.
Days seem years with you away!"
Pearl's voice had a reedy mellowness, and an appeal which sent the words straight into Mary's practical heart. Mary, washing dishes below, stopped, with a saucer in her hand, and listened open-mouthed:—
"If the warm wish to see you and hear you,
And hold you in my arms again,
If that be forgetting—you're right, dear,
And I have forgotten you then!"
Her voice trailed away on the last line into a sob, and Mary, listening below, dropped a tear into the dish-water. Then racing up the stairs, she burst into Pearl's room and said admiringly:
"Pearl, you're a wonder. It's an actress you ought to be. You got me blubbering, mind you. It's so sad about you and your beau that's had a row, and both of you actin' so pale and proud, you made me see it all. Sing it again! Well, for the love of Pete—if you ain't ready to blubber too. That's good actin', Pearl—let me tell you—how can you do it?"