Miss Prudence Part 44

How that tiny box burned in his pocket! Should he toss it away, that circlet of gold with _Semper fidelis_ engraved within it? How he used to write on his slate: "Morris Kemlo, _Semper fidelis_" and she had never once scorned it, but had written her own name with the same motto beneath it. But she had given it a higher significance than he had given it; she had never once thought of it in connection with any human love.

"How often do you write to Hollis?" he inquired at last.

"I do not write to him at all," she answered.

"Why not? Has something happened?" he said, eagerly.

"I suppose so."

"Don't you want to tell me? Does it trouble you?"

"Yes, I want to tell you, I do not think that it troubles me now. He has never--answered my last letter."

"Did you quarrel with him?"

"Oh, no. I may have displeased him, but I have no idea how I did it."

She spoke very easily, not flus.h.i.+ng at all, meeting his eyes frankly; she was concealing nothing, there was nothing to be concealed. Marjorie was a little girl still. Was he glad or sorry? Would he find her grown up when he came back next time?

"Do you like school as well as you thought you would?" he asked, with a change of tone.

He would not be "nonsensical" any longer.

"Better! A great deal better," she said, enthusiastically.

"What are you getting ready for?"

"_Semper fiddelis_. Don't you remember our motto? I am getting ready to be always faithful. There's so much to be faithful in, Morris. I am learning new things every day."

He had no reply at hand. How that innocent ring burned in his pocket! And he had thought she would accept that motto from him.

"I am not the first fellow that has gone through this," he comforted himself grimly. "I will not throw it overboard; she will listen next time."

Next time? Ah, poor Morris, if you had known about next time, would you have spoken to-night?

"Marjorie, I have something for you, but I would rather not give it to you to-night," he said with some confusion.

"Well," she said, quietly, "I can wait."

"Do you _want_ to wait."

"Yes. I think I do," she answered deliberately.

Miss Prudence's step was at the front parlor door.

"You young folks are not observing the clock, I see. Marjorie must study astronomy by starlight to-morrow morning, and I am going to send you upstairs, Morris. But first, shall we have family wors.h.i.+p, together? I like to have a priest in my house when I can."

She laid Marjorie's Bible in his hand as she spoke. He read a short Psalm, and then they knelt together. He had grown; Marjorie felt it in every word of the simple heartfelt prayer. He prayed like one at home with G.o.d. One pet.i.tion she long remembered: "Lord, when thou takest anything away from us, fill us the more with thyself."

XVIII.

ONE DAY.

"Education is the apprentices.h.i.+p of life."--_Willmott._

Marjorie did not study astronomy by starlight, but she awoke very early and tripped with bare feet over the carpet into Miss Prudence's chamber.

Deborah kindled the wood fire early in Miss Prudence's chamber that Prue might have a warm room to dress in. It was rarely that Marjorie studied in the morning, the morning hours were reserved for practicing and for fun with Prue. She said if she had guessed how delightful it was to have a little sister she should have been all her life mourning for one. She almost envied Linnet because she had had Marjorie.

The fire was glowing in the airtight when she ran into the chamber, there was a faint light in the east, but the room was so dark that she just discerned Prue's curls close to the dark head on the pillow and the little hand that was touching Miss Prudence's cheek.

"This is the law of compensation," she thought as she busied herself in dressing; "one has found a mother and the other a little girl! It isn't quite like the old lady who said that when she had nothing to eat she had no appet.i.te! I wonder if Miss Prudence has _all_ her compensations!"

She stepped noiselessly over the stairs, opened the back parlor door, and by the dim light found a match and lighted the lamp on the centre table.

Last night had come again. The face of the clock was the only reminder she had left the room, the face of the clock and a certain alertness within herself. As she settled herself near the register and took the astronomy from the pile her eye fell on her Bible, it was on the table where Morris had laid it last night. Miss Prudence's words came to her, warningly. Must she also give the fresh hour of her morning to G.o.d? The tempting astronomy was open in her hand at the chapter _Via Lactea._ She glanced at it and read half a page, then dropped it suddenly and reached forward for the Bible. She was afraid her thoughts would wander to the unlearned lesson: in such a frame of mind, would it be an acceptable offering? But who was accountable for her frame of mind? She wavered no longer, with a little prayer that she might understand and enjoy she opened to Malachi, and, reverently and thoughtfully, with no feeling of being hurried, read the first and second chapters. She thought awhile about the "blind for sacrifice," and in the second chapter found words that meant something to her: "My covenant was with him of life and peace." Life and peace! Peace! Had she ever known anything that was not peace?

Before she had taken the astronomy into her hands again the door opened, as if under protest of some kind, and Morris stood on the threshold, looking at her with hesitation in his att.i.tude.

"Come in," she invited, smiling at his att.i.tude.

"But you don't want to talk."

"No; I have to study awhile. But you will not disturb; we have studied often enough together for you to know how I study."

"I know! Not a word in edgewise."

Nevertheless he came to the arm-chair he had occupied last night and sat down.

"Did you know the master gave me leave to take as many of his books as I wanted? He says a literary sailor is a novelty."

"All his books are in boxes in the trunk room on the second floor."

"I know it. I am going up to look at them. I wish you could read his letters. He urges me to live among men, not among books; to live out in the world and mix with men and women; to live a man's life, and not a hermit's!"

"Is he a hermit?"

"Rather. Will, Captain Will, is a man out among men; no hermit or student about him; but he has read 'Captain Cook's Voyages' with zest and asked me for something else, so I gave him 'Mutineers of the Bounty' and he did have a good time over that. Captain Will will miss me when I'm promoted to be captain."

"That will not be this voyage."

"Don't laugh at me. I have planned it all. Will is to have a big New York s.h.i.+p, an East Indiaman, and I'm to be content with the little _Linnet_."

"Does he like that?"