The Girls at Mount Morris Part 4

"Well, I don't know, you have a right to choose your friends, and I heard Mrs. Dane say something about their being very poor."

"Well, she's stylish and she has an air, and Mrs. Barrington wouldn't take in any one objectionable. If my father should die I might be glad to have some one take me in, and I expect to teach when I am through.

You see father has four more to educate."

"Well, Mattie Vincent, you can make a bosom friend of her for all that I care."

"Oh girls, don't let's quarrel about her when we have just come and are glad to see each other. I dare say Miss Boyd wont trouble us."

"She'll be pus.h.i.+ng, and aspiring to the best--you'll see! One can tell by the way she holds her head, and she _could_ stare you out of countenance with those bold black eyes. I shall keep on my guard. You'll see me take her down if she presumes."

But Lilian Boyd did not presume. She went to church with her mother on Sunday in a simple white pique frock, and spent the evening on the back porch with Miss Arran, not even going in the parlor for the singing, and on Monday school duties began. The cla.s.ses received considerable accessions from the day scholars. Lilian had two of the younger cla.s.ses and she found a real pleasure in the teaching. Then she was in the Latin cla.s.s and proved herself an excellent scholar.

The evening hour was sometimes rather trying. Some of the girls asked foolish questions just to perplex her. Occasionally she suggested they should ask Miss Davis. The younger ones were quite tractable, though now and then a spirit of fun broke out, set a-foot generally by the larger girls.

CHAPTER III

FOOD FOR CONSIDERATION

Lilian Boyd did not want to cross the line of division that was acutely felt and yet so nicely projected that a faint move on her part would bring about a rebuff. She had the youthful longing for girlish friends.h.i.+ps, for little confidences about books they liked, about aims and the future. Some of the pupils were so attractive; and it was because she was the caretaker's daughter; she saw it when they came in to her mother with any errand, when they pa.s.sed her in the halls with a supercilious nod.

But then, why need she care? They would go their way presently and she might remain. She knew she had won Mrs. Barrington's favor. That lady made it a point of her joining the Sunday evening singing and she found that she had a good, flexible voice.

One lovely October afternoon she thought she would walk down to the river whose banks were now a blaze of color. Some one called and she turned. It was Alice Nevins who _was_ sometimes tiresome. The girls were going down in town and one of them had really asked her if she would not like to join them. A gratified light shone in her eyes for a moment.

There was something in the other's face that gave her a quick warning.

There was some plot underneath.

"Thank you very much but I cannot go this afternoon. I hope you will all have a nice time."

Then she went to her room. Her mother was folding up some sewing. "There is so little to do," and she smiled vaguely.

"Come out and walk with me."

"No, I don't feel equal to it, I will put a shawl about me and sit on the porch."

"Shall I come and read to you?"

"No, dear, it is an effort to listen. I'll just sit and think."

"Mother, are you satisfied here?"

"Oh, my child, I could not have dreamed of anything so comfortable, and for your sake--you are happy?" with a touch of wistfulness.

"Oh, it is so delightful, and then to think that I shall fit myself for a nice position presently. Then mother dear we will have a few rooms and a real home again."

"Oh, you are so good," in a tremulous tone.

Lilian kissed her. She wondered why her mother's eyes rested on her at times with that unfathomable look and the lips would move, then suddenly compress.

So she walked down past the summer house where the Virginia creeper was flaunting long scarlet branches in the wind.

"Oh, Miss Boyd!"

She turned. Alice Nevins ran out. Her face was red and swollen with weeping.

"Oh, what is the matter?"

"Let me come with you? Oh, I'm so homesick, and I just hate some of the girls. They laugh when I blunder. I don't know things. I just hate school! Papa _would_ send me here. Mamma begged to take me abroad. I'm sure I could have learned a great many things. People say travel is an education. I hate to study books. Do you really love it?"

"Yes, very much, and for all it brings to you. Were you never at school before?"

"Only a little. Then I had a governess. You see, I was growing fast and mamma thought I oughtn't study. She wasn't very well and papa wanted to take her somewhere in Italy, and he sent me here, and some of the girls _do_ make fun of me. Can't you _feel_ it when they are laughing at you?"

Lilian flushed. "I try to think of something else. They are not really worth minding."

"I know I'm not pretty. Oh, I wish I were! And you have such a lovely complexion. How is it made up?"

"Made up? What do you mean?"

"One of the girls said it was, and that sometimes you painted."

Lilian was angry then.

"My paint and powder are soap and water," she returned, indignantly. "It is a shame for a young girl to do such things."

"But you _are_ pretty. Must your mother be the caretaker here? What does she have to do?"

"She looks after the sewing and the mending. Yes, because we are poor, we both have to earn our living. Some day I mean to teach and take care of her."

"Where is your father?"

"Oh, he died when I was a baby."

"Well--I'm awful sorry. Do you like that Phillipa Rosewald?"

"I don't know much about her."

"She makes fun of so many things, and she tells you words that sound wrong when you p.r.o.nounce them. I said something yesterday and the girls giggled and Miss Davis thought I did it purposely and I was marked down."

"It was a very mean thing," Lilian's cheek glowed with indignation.

"Then Miss Rosewald tells such funny stories. Four or five of the girls just hang together and they think they are everything. But I guess father is as rich as any of their fathers. Only I wish I was real handsome."

"Oh, my dear, I would think of my studies instead. Now let us talk them over. What is it that bothers you most?"