The girls said, “Miss Ashton grew thin and pale from the worry.” The feeling of the school, most of whom were tenderly attached to her, was decidedly against those who had troubled her; and if she could have known the true state of the case, when she was neither eating nor sleeping, in her anxiety to do what was right, she would have found that the good for order, discipline, and propriety, which was growing from this evil done, was to exceed any influence she could hope to exert, even from the severest act of just discipline.
She was to be helped in a most unexpected way.
Two days after her interview with Myra Peters, there was a soft tap on her door, and opening it, there stood Mamie Smythe! 131
Her face, usually covered with smiles, was grave and even sad.
“Miss Ashton,” she said, without waiting to close the door, “please don’t be hard on the other girls. It was all my fault; I was the Eve that tempted them. I know it was wrong; I know it was dreadful wrong! I was worse than Eve; I was the serpent that tempted Eve! They wouldn’t a single one of them have gone if it hadn’t been for me! Do, please, Miss Ashton, punish me, and not them! They never, never, never would have gone if I hadn’t tempted them. Please, please, Miss Ashton! I’ll do anything; I’ll get extra lessons for a year! I won’t have a single spread; I’ll be good; you won’t know me, Miss Ashton, I’ll be so good; and I’ll bear any punishment. You may ferule me, as they do in district schools,” and she held out a little diamond-ringed hand toward Miss Ashton; “I’ll be shut up for a week in a dark closet, and live on bread and water. You may do anything you please with me, only spare them,” and she looked so earnestly and imploringly up in Miss Ashton’s face, that her heart, in spite of her better judgment, was touched; all she said was,—
“Tell me about it, Mamie.”
“When Susan gave me the note,” began Mamie. Miss Ashton started. “Susan who?” she asked, for Susan Downer had not confessed to any note; indeed, had virtually denied connection with the ride.
“Susan Downer, of course; she gave me the note. 132 Her brother brought it to her, and I was wild with joy to have a sleigh-ride. It was such a bright moon, and the sleighing looked so fine, I wanted all day to ask you to let me have a big sleigh, and take the girls out, but I knew you wouldn’t.”
“Yes, I should have,” interrupted Miss Ashton.
“That’s just awful,” said Mamie, after a moment’s reflection; “and if I’d been brave enough to ask you, nothing of this would have happened.