QUEENIE'S WHIM.
CHAPTER I.
THE NEW SCHOOL-MISTRESS.
"The trivial round, the common task,
Would furnish all we ought to ask—
Room to deny ourselves, a road
To bring us daily nearer God."—Keble.
"In a month from this time you will enter on your new duties as mistress of the Hepshaw girls' school."
Queenie gave a little start and cry of suppressed pleasure, and then the color rushed over her face. With sudden impulse, as involuntary as it was graceful, she held out her hand to Garth.
"Oh, Mr. Clayton! how kind you are to me! Once or twice I was half afraid you had forgotten; and all the time you were quietly arranging it."
Garth was quite equal to the occasion. He looked down at the girl's radiant face, so expressive of joy and gratitude, with warm kindliness shining in his eyes. When the slim hand was stretched out to him he held it for a moment as though it had been Cathy's. "Oh, if he were only my brother!" sighed the girl to herself, with a little outburst of natural yearning as she felt the strong clasp.
Garth's handsome face looked almost as bright as hers. His position contented him; it was novel as well as interesting. It pleased him to throw the shield of his protection and tenderness round these young strangers, who had, in a way, appealed to his generosity. If Queenie had been old and plain he would have been just as gentle and chivalrous in his manner to her. No woman would ever have had a rough word from Garth; but a little of the zest and flavor would have been wanting.
To read gratitude in a pair of wonderful brown eyes, that seem to have no bottom to their depth, and to feel a soft, girlish hand touch his own timidly, were new revelations to the young man, who was a philosopher, but no stoic. He remembered their expression long afterwards, and the peculiar feel of the fluttering fingers, with an odd sensation that tingled through him. "What a contrast she is to Dora!" he thought again.
"You are very, very good to me," continued Queenie; but he interrupted her.