He was at dinner when the children returned and they all came to the table where he sat alone. Dora's face was slightly flushed and she looked very attractive in the blue-serge suit. His heart throbbed with a vague, new pride in her. It was strange, but she had already acquired a sort of self-possession that rested well on such young shoulders. He noticed that she conducted herself almost as well as her two companions. She unfolded her napkin and put it into her lap, and handled her knife and fork as they did.
"Oh, it was glorious, brother John!" she exclaimed. "I wish you had been there. Girls and boys acted and sang on a little stage. Harold helped Mr. King run it all. The ice-cream and cake was the best I ever tasted. Harold made a speech, and it was very funny. Everybody laughed and clapped their hands."
"Harold only introduced some of the performers in a funny sort of way," Betty said, with quiet dignity. "He wrote it down beforehand."
When dinner was over they all went to the parlor above. Betty sat at the piano, opened a book of "Gospel Songs," and she and Minnie and some of the boarders began to sing. Harold came in with his mother and they stood side by side, listening. John sat at a window and he noticed that Dora, who was near the piano, had a look half of envy, half of chagrin in her eyes.
"Poor kid!" John mused, reading her aright, "she is sorry she can't sing. Young as she is, she has backbone and doesn't want others to be ahead of her."
That night before going to bed he looked in on her in her room. She sat in a big rocking-chair with a book in her lap. He went in and looked at it. It was an English primer. She glanced up at him. There was something like the moisture of diffused tears in her eyes and he heard her sigh.
"What is the matter?" he asked, gently.
She sighed again. "I can't make head nor tail of this darned thing," she said, her lips twitching. "Oh, I'm mad, brother John! Betty and Minnie can both read and write, and Betty keeps telling me (not in a mean way, though) not to say this and not to say that. Why, I'm a fool— I'm really a blockhead!"
John was deeply touched. He drew up a chair close beside hers and rested his hand on her head. "Listen, kid," he began. "It will come out all right. You are going to start to school Monday and you will learn fast. You are anxious to do it, you see, and that is the main thing. Some children have to be forced to learn, but it will come easy to you, for you have a good mind."
"Do you believe it? Do you really?" she faltered, searching his face eagerly.