CHAPTER X.
SCHOOL.
I had another time the next day between Mrs. Sandford and themantua-maker. The mantua-maker came to take orders about making myschool dress.
"How will you have it trimmed?" she asked. "This sort of stuff willmake no sort of an appearance unless it is well trimmed. It wantsthat. You might have a border of dark green leaves--dark green, likethe colour of this stripe--going round the skirt; that would have agood effect; the leaves set in and edged with a very small red cord,or green if you like it better. We trimmed a dress so last week, andit made a very good appearance."
"What do you say, Daisy?"
"How much will it cost?" I asked.
"Oh, the cost is not very much," said the milliner. "I suppose wewould do it for you, Mrs. Sandford, for twenty-five dollars."
"That is too much," I said.
"You wouldn't say so, if you knew the work it is to set those leavesround," said the mantua-maker. "It takes hours and hours; and thecording and all. And the silk you know, Mrs. Sandford, _that_ costsnowadays. It takes a full yard of the silk, and no washy lining silk,but good stiff dress silk. Some has 'em made of velvet, but to besure, that would not be suitable for a common stuff like this. It willbe very common, Mrs. Sandford, without you have it handsomelytrimmed."
"Couldn't you put some other sort of trimming?"
"Well, there's no other way that looks _distingue_ on this sort ofstuff; that's the most stylish. We could put a band of rows of blackvelvet--an inch wide, or half an inch; if you have it narrower youmust put more of them; and then the sleeves and body to match; but Idon't think you would like it so well as the green leaves. A greatmany people has 'em trimmed so; you like it a little out of thecommon, Mrs. Sandford. Or, you could have a green ribbon."
"How much would _that_ be?" said Mrs. Sandford.
"Oh really, I don't just know," the woman answered; "depends on theribbon; it don't make much difference to you, Mrs. Sandford; it wouldbe--let me see, Oh, I suppose we could do it with velvet for you forfifteen or twenty dollars. You see there must be buttons or rosettesat the joinings of the velvets; and those come very expensive."
"How much would it be to make the dress plain?" I asked.
"_That_ would be plain," the mantua-maker answered quickly. "The styleis, to trim everything very much. Oh, that would be quite plain withthe velvet."
"But without any trimming at all?" I asked. "How much would that be?"I felt an odd sort of shame at pressing the question: yet I knew Imust.
"Without trimming!" said the woman. "Oh, you could not have it_without trimming_; there is nothing made without trimming; it wouldhave no appearance at all. People would think you had come out of thecountry. No young ladies have their dresses made without trimming thiswinter."
"Mrs. Sandford," said I, "I should like to know what the dress wouldbe without trimming."
"What would it be, Melinda?" The woman was only a forewoman at herestablishment.
"Oh, well, Mrs. Sandford, the naked dress I have no doubt could bemade for you for five dollars."
"You would not have it _so_, Daisy, my dear?" said Mrs. Sandford.
But I said I would have it so. It cost me a little difficulty, and alittle shrinking, I remember, to choose this and to hold to it in theface of the other two. It was the last battle of that campaign. I hadmy way; but I wondered privately to myself whether I was going to lookvery unlike the children of other ladies in my mother's position: andwhether such severity over myself was really needed. I turned thequestion over again in my own room, and tried to find out why ittroubled me. I could not quite tell. Yet I thought, as I was doingwhat I knew to be duty, I had no right to feel this trouble about it.The trouble wore off before a little thought of my poor friends atMagnolia. But the question came up again at dinner.
"Daisy," said Mrs. Sandford, "did you ever have anything to do withthe Methodists?"
"No, ma'am," I said, wondering. "What are the Methodists?"
"I don't know, I am sure," she said, laughing, "only they are peoplewho sing hymns a great deal, and teach that nobody ought to wear gaydresses."
"Why?" I asked.
"I can't say. I believe they hold that the Bible forbids ornamentingourselves."
I wondered if it did; and determined I would look. And I thought theMethodists must be nice people.
"What is on the carpet now?" said the doctor. "Singing or dressing?You are attacking Daisy, I see, on some score."
"She won't have her dress trimmed," said Mrs. Sandford.
The doctor turned round to me, with a wonderful genial pleasantexpression of his fine face; and his blue eye, that I always liked tomeet full, going through me with a sort of soft power. He was notsmiling, yet his look made me smile.
"Daisy," said he, "are you going to make yourself unlike otherpeople?"
"Only my dress, Dr. Sandford," I said.
"L'habit, c'est l'homme!--" he answered gravely, shaking his head.
I remembered his question and words many times in the course of thenext six months.
In a day or two more my dress was done, and Dr. Sandford went with meto introduce me at the school. He had already made the necessaryarrangements. It was a large establishment, reckoned the mostfashionable, and at the same time one of the most thorough, in thecity; the house, or houses, standing in one of the broad clearAvenues, where the streams of human life that went up and down wereall of the sort that wore trimmed dresses and rolled about in handsomecarriages. Just in the centre and height of the thoroughfare Mme.Ricard's establishment looked over it. We went in at a statelydoorway, and were shown into a very elegant parlour; where at a grandpiano a young lady was taking a music lesson. The noise was verydisagreeable; but that was the only disagreeable thing in the place.Pictures were on the walls, a soft carpet on the floor; the colours ofcarpet and furniture were dark and rich; books and trinkets andengravings in profusion gave the look of cultivated life and the easeof plenty. It was not what I had expected; nor was Mme. Ricard, whocame in noiselessly and stood before us while I was considering thewonderful moustache of the music teacher. I saw a rather short, graveperson, very plainly dressed--but indeed I never thought of the dressshe wore. The quiet composure of the figure was what attracted me, andthe peculiar expression of the face. It was sad, almost severe; so Ithought it at first; till a smile once for an instant broke upon thelips, like a flitting sunbeam out of a cloudy sky; then I saw thatkindliness was quite at home there, and sympathy and a sense ofmerriment were not wanting; but the clouds closed again, and the lookof care, of sorrow, I could not quite tell what it was, only that itwas _unrest_, retook its place on brow and lip. The eye, I think,never lost it. Yet it was a searching and commanding eye; I was sureit knew how to rule.
The introduction was soon made, and Dr. Sandford bid me good-bye. Ifelt as if my best friend was leaving me; the only one I had trustedin since my father and mother had gone away. I said nothing, butperhaps my face showed my thought, for he stooped and kissed me.
"Good-bye, Daisy. Remember, I shall expect a letter every fortnight."
He had ordered me before to write to him as often as that, and givehim a minute account of myself; how many studies I was pursuing, howmany hours I gave to them each day, what exercise I took, and whatamusement; and how I throve withal. Mme. Ricard had offered to show memy room, and we were mounting the long stairs while I thought thisover.
"Is Dr. Sandford your cousin, Miss Randolph?" was the question whichcame in upon my thoughts.
"No, ma'am," I answered in extreme surprise.
"Is he any relation to you?"
"He is my guardian."
"I think Dr. Sandford told me that your father and mother are abroad?"
"Yes, ma'am; and Dr. Sandford is my guardian."
We had climbed two flights of stairs, and I was panting. As we wentup, I had noticed a little unusual murmur of noises, which told me Iwas in a new world. Little indistinguishable noises, the stir and humof the busy hive into which I had en
tered. Now and then a door hadopened, and a head or a figure came out; but as instantly went backagain on seeing Madame, and the door was softly closed. We reached thethird floor. There a young lady appeared at the further end of thegallery, and curtseyed to my conductress.
"Miss Bentley," said Madame, "this is your new companion, MissRandolph. Will you be so good as to show Miss Randolph her room?"
Madame turned and left us, and the young lady led me into the room shehad just quitted. A large room, light and bright, and pleasantlyfurnished; but the one thing that struck my unaccustomed eyes was theevidence of fulness of occupation. One bed stood opposite thefireplace; another across the head of that, between it and one of thewindows; a third was between the doors on the inner side of the room.Moreover, the first and the last of these were furnished with twopillows each. I did not in the moment use my arithmetic; but thefeeling which instantly pressed upon me was that of want of breath.
"This is the bed prepared for you, I believe," said my companioncivilly, pointing to the third one before the window. "There isn'troom for anybody to turn round here now."
I began mechanically to take off my cap and gloves, looking hard atthe little bed, and wondering what other rights of possession were tobe given me in this place. I saw a washstand in one window and a largemahogany wardrobe on one side of the fireplace; a dressing table orchest of drawers between the windows. Everything was handsome andnice; everything was in the neatest order; but--where were my clothesto go? Before I had made up my mind to ask, there came a rush into theroom; I supposed, of the other inmates. One was a very large, fat,dull-faced girl; I should have thought her a young woman, only thatshe was here in a school. Another, bright and pretty, and verygood-humoured if there was any truth in her smiling black eyes, wasmuch slighter and somewhat younger; a year or two in advance ofmyself. The third was a girl about my own age, shorter and smallerthan I, with also a pretty face, but an eye that I was not so sure of.She was the last one to come in, and she immediately stopped andlooked at me; I thought, with no pleasure.
"This is Miss Randolph, girls," said Miss Bentley. "Miss Randolph,Miss Macy."
I curtseyed to the fat girl, who gave me a little nod.
"I am glad she isn't as big as I am," was her comment on theintroduction. I was glad, too.
"Miss Lansing--"
This was bright-eyes, who bowed and smiled--she always smiled--andsaid, "How do you do?" Then rushed off to a drawer in search ofsomething.
"Miss St. Clair, will you come and be introduced to Miss Randolph?"
The St. Clair walked up demurely and took my hand. Her words were inabrupt contrast. "Where are her things going, Miss Bentley?" Iwondered that pretty lips could be so ungracious. It was not temperwhich appeared on them, but cool rudeness.
"Madame said we must make some room for her," Miss Bentley answered.
"I don't know where," remarked Miss Macy. "_I_ have not two inches."
"She can't have a peg nor a drawer of mine," said the St. Clair."Don't you put her there, Bentley." And the young lady left us withthat.
"We must manage it somehow," said Miss Bentley. "Lansing, look here,can't you take your things out of this drawer? Miss Randolph has noplace to lay anything. She _must_ have a little place, you know."
Lansing looked up with a perplexed face, and Miss Macy remarked thatnobody had a bit of room to lay anything.
"I am very sorry," I said.
"It is no use being sorry, child," said Miss Macy; "we have got to fixit, somehow. I know who _ought_ to be sorry. Here--I can take thispile of things out of this drawer; that is all _I_ can do. Can't shemanage with this half?"
But Miss Lansing came and made her arrangements, and then it was foundthat the smallest of the four drawers was cleared and ready for myoccupation.
"But if we give you a whole drawer," said Miss Macy, "you must becontent with one peg in the wardrobe--will you?"
"Oh, and she can have one or two hooks in the closet," saidbright-eyes. "Come here, Miss Randolph, I will show you."
And there in the closet I found was another place for washing, withcocks for hot and cold water; and a press and plenty of iron hooks;with dresses and hats hanging on them. Miss Lansing moved and changedseveral of these, till she had cleared a space for me.
"There," she said, "now you'll do, won't you? I don't believe you canget a scrape of a corner in the wardrobe; Macy and Bentley and St.Clair take it up so. _I_ haven't but one dress hanging there, butyou've got a whole drawer in the bureau."
I was not very awkward and clumsy in my belongings, but an elephantcould scarcely have been more bewildered if he had been requested tolay his proboscis up in a glove box. "I cannot put a dress in thedrawer," I remarked.
"Oh, you can hang one up here under your cap; and that is all any ofus do. Our things, all except our everyday things, go down stairs inour trunks. Have you many trunks?"
I told her no, only one. I did not know why it was a littledisagreeable to me to say that. The feeling came and passed. I hung upmy coat and cap, and brushed my hair; my new companion looking on.Without any remark, however, she presently rushed off, and I was leftalone. I began to appreciate that. I sat down on the side of my littlebed; to my fancy the very chairs were appropriated; and looked at mynew place in the world.
Five of us in that room! I had always had the comfort of great spaceand ample conveniences about me; was it a _luxury_ I had enjoyed? Ithad seemed nothing more than a necessity. And now must I dress andundress myself before so many spectators? could I not lock up anythingthat belonged to me? were all my nice and particular habits to becrushed into one drawer and smothered on one or two clothes-pins? Musteverything I did be seen? And, above all, where could I pray? I lookedround in a sort of fright. There was but one closet in the room, andthat was a washing closet, and held besides a great quantity of otherpeople's belongings. I could not, even for a moment, shut it againstthem. In a kind of terror, I looked to make sure that I was alone, andfell on my knees. It seemed to me that all I could do was to prayevery minute that I should have to myself. They would surely be nonetoo many. Then, hearing a footstep somewhere, I rose again and tookfrom my bag my dear little book. It was so small I could carry itwhere I had not room for my Bible. I looked for the page of the day, Iremember now, with my eyes full of tears.
"Be watchful," were the first words that met me. Aye, I was sure Iwould need it; but how was a watch to be kept up, if I could never bealone to take counsel with myself? I did not see it; this was anothermatter from Miss Pinshon's unlocked door. After all, that unlockeddoor had not greatly troubled me; my room had not been of late ofteninvaded. Now I had no room. What more would my dear little book say tome?
"Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaringlion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour."
Was the battle to go so hard against me? and what should I do withoutthat old and well-tried weapon of "all-prayer?" Nothing; I should beconquered. I must have and keep that, I resolved; if I lay awake andgot up at night to use it. Dr. Sandford would not like such aproceeding; but there were worse dangers than the danger of lessenedhealth. I _would_ pray; but what next?
"Take heed to thyself, and keep thy soul diligently."--"What I sayunto you I say unto all, Watch."
I stood by the side of my bed, dashing the tears from my eyes. Then Iheard, as I thought, some one coming, and in haste looked to see whatelse might be on the page: what further message or warning. Andsomething like a sunbeam of healing flashed into my heart with thenext words.
"Fear thou not: for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God;I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold theewith the right hand of my righteousness."
"I, the Lord thy God, will hold thy right hand."
I was healed. I put up my little book in my bag again, feeling wholeand sound. It did not matter that I was crowded and hindered andwatched; for it was written also, "He preserveth the way of hissaints;" and I was safe.
I sat a
little while longer alone. Then came a rush and rustle of manyfeet upon the stairs, many dresses moving, many voices blending in asoft little roar; as ominous as the roar of the sea which one hears ina shell. My four room-mates poured into the room, accompanied by twoothers; very busy and eager about their affairs that they werediscussing. Meanwhile they all began to put themselves in order.
"The bell will ring for tea directly," said Miss Macy, addressingherself to me; "are you ready?"
"'Tisn't much trouble to fix _her_ hair," said my friend with theblack eyes.
Six pair of eyes for a moment were turned upon me.
"You are too old to have your hair so," remarked Miss Bentley. "Youought to let it grow."
"Why don't you?" said Miss Lansing.
"She is a Roundhead," said the St. Clair, brushing her own curls;which were beautiful and crinkled all over her head, while my hair wasstraight. "I don't suppose she ever saw a Cavalier before."
"St. Clair, you are too bad!" said Miss Macy. "Miss Randolph is astranger."
St. Clair made no answer, but finished her hair and ran off; andpresently the others filed off after her; and a loud clanging bellgiving the signal, I thought best to go too. Every room was pouringforth its inmates; the halls and passages were all alive and astir. Inthe train of the moving crowd, I had no difficulty to find my way tothe place of gathering.
This was the school parlour; not the one where I had seen Mme. Ricard.Parlours, rather; there was a suite of them, three deep; for this partof the house had a building added in the rear. The rooms were largeand handsome; not like school rooms, I thought; and yet very differentfrom my home; for they were bare. Carpets and curtains, sofas andchairs and tables were in them, to be sure; and even pictures; yetthey were bare; for books and matters of art and little socialluxuries were wanting, such as I had all my life been accustomed to,and such as filled Mme. Ricard's own rooms. However, this firstevening I could hardly see how the rooms looked, for the lining ofhumanity which ran round all the walls. There was a shimmer as ofevery colour in the rainbow; and a buzz that could only come from ahive full. I, who had lived all my life where people spoke softly, andwhere many never spoke together, was bewildered.
The buzz hushed suddenly, and I saw Mme. Ricard's figure going slowlydown the rooms. She was in the uttermost contrast to all herhousehold. Ladylike always, and always dignified, her style was herown, and I am sure that nobody ever felt that she had not enough. YetMme. Ricard had nothing about her that was conformed to the fashionsof the day. Her dress was of a soft kind of serge, which fell aroundher or swept across the rooms in noiseless yielding folds. Hoops werethe fashion of the day; but Mme. Ricard wore no hoops; she went withease and silence where others went with a rustle and a warning toclear the way. The back of her head was covered with a little cap asplain as a nun's cap; and I never saw an ornament about her. Yetcriticism never touched Mme. Ricard. Not even the criticism of a setof school-girls; and I had soon to learn that there is none morerelentless.
The tea-table was set in the further room of the three. Mme. Ricardpassed down to that. Presently I heard her low voice saying, "MissRandolph." Low as it always was, it was always heard. I made my waydown through the rooms to her presence; and there I was introduced tothe various teachers. Mademoiselle Genevieve, Miss Babbitt, Mme.Jupon, and Miss Dumps. I could not examine them just then. I felt Iwas on exhibition myself.
"Is Miss Randolph to come to me, Madame?" the first of these ladiesasked. She was young, bright, black-eyed, and full of energy; I saw somuch.
"I fancy she will come to all of you," said Madame. "Except MissBabbitt. You can write and read, I dare say, Miss Randolph?" she wenton with a smile. I answered of course.
"What have been your principal studies for the past year?"
I said mathematics, astronomy, and philosophy and history.
"Then she is mine!" exclaimed Mlle. Genevieve.
"She is older than she looks," said Miss Babbitt.
"Her hair is young, but her eyes are not," said the former speaker,who was a lively lady.
"French have you studied?" Madame went on.
"Not so much," I said.
"Mme. Jupon will want you."
"I am sure she is a good child," said Mme. Jupon, who was agood-natured, plain-looking Frenchwoman, without a particle of aFrenchwoman's grace or address. "I will be charmed to have her."
"You may go back to your place, Miss Randolph," said my mistress. "Wewill arrange all the rest to-morrow."
"Shall I go back with you?" asked Mlle. Genevieve. "Do you mind goingalone?"
She spoke very kindly, but I was at a loss for her meaning. I saw thekindness; why it showed itself in such an offer I could not imagine.
"I am very much obliged to you, ma'am," I began, when a little burstof laughter stopped me. It came from all the teachers; even Mme.Ricard was smiling.
"You are out for once, Genevieve," she said.
"La charmante!" said Mme. Jupon. "Voyez l'a plomb!"
"No, you don't want me," said Mlle. Genevieve, nodding. "Go--you'lldo."
I went back to the upper room and presently tea was served. I satalone; there was nobody near me who knew me; I had nothing to do whilemunching my bread and butter but to examine the new scene. There was agreat deal to move my curiosity. In the first place, I was surprisedto see the rooms gay with fine dresses. I had come from the quiet ofMagnolia, and accustomed to the simplicity of my mother's taste; whichif it sometimes adorned me, did it always in subdued fashion, andnever flaunted either its wealth or beauty. But on every side of me Ibeheld startling costumes; dresses that explained my mantua-maker'seagerness about velvet and green leaves. I saw that she was right; hertrimmings would have been "quiet" here. Opposite me was a brownmerino, bordered with blocks of blue silk running round the skirt.Near it was a dress of brilliant red picked out with black cord andheavy with large black buttons. Then a black dress caught my eye whichhad an embattled trimming of black and gold, continued round the waistand completed with a large gold buckle. Then there was a grey cashmerewith red stars; and a bronze-coloured silk with black velvet a quarterof a yard wide let into the skirt; the body all of black velvet. Icould go on if my memory would serve me. The rooms were full of thissort of thing. Yet more than the dresses the heads surprised me. Justat that time the style of hair dressing was one of those styles whichare endurable, and perhaps even very beautiful, in the hands of afirst-rate artist and on the heads of those very few women who dresswell; but which are more and more hideous the farther you get fromthat distant pinnacle of the mode, and the lower down they spreadamong the ranks of society. I thought, as I looked from one toanother, I had never seen anything so ill in taste, so outraged instyle, so unspeakable in ugliness as well as in pretension. I supposedthen it was the fashion principally which was to blame. Since then, Ihave seen the same fashion on one of those heads that never wearanything but in good style. It gathered a great wealth of rich hairinto a mass at the back of the head, yet leaving the top and front ofthe hair in soft waves; and the bound up mass behind was loose andsoft and flowed naturally from the head, it had no hard outline norregular shape; it was nature's luxuriance just held in there frombursting down over neck and shoulders; and hardly that, for some lockswere almost escaping. The whole was to the utmost simple, natural,graceful, rich. But these caricatures! All that they knew was to massthe hair at the back of the head; and that fact was attained. But somelooked as if they had a hard round cannon-ball fastened there; otherssuggested a stuffed pincushion, ready for pins; others had amortar-shell in place of a cannon-ball, the size was so enormous; innearly all, the hair was strained tight over or under something; innot one was there an effect which the originator of the fashion wouldnot have abhorred. Girlish grace was nowhere to be seen, either inheads or persons; girlish simplicity had no place. It was a school:but the company looked fitter for the stiff assemblages of ceremonythat should be twenty years later in their lives.
My heart grew very blank. I felt unspeakably alon
e; not merely becausethere was nobody there whom I knew, but because there was nobody whomit seemed to me I ever should know. I took my tea and bits of breadand butter, feeling forlorn. A year in that place seemed to me longerthan I could bear. I had exchanged my King Log for King Stork.
It was some relief when after tea we were separated into other roomsand sat down to study. But I dreamed over my book. I wondered howheads could study that had so much trouble on the outside. I wanderedover the seas to that spot somewhere that was marked by the ship thatcarried my father and mother. Only now going out towards China; andhow long months might pass before China would be done with and theship be bearing them back again. The lesson given me that night wasnot difficult enough to bind my attention; and my heart grew veryheavy. So heavy, that I felt I _must_ find help somewhere. And whenone's need is so shut in, then it looks in the right quarter--the onlyone left open.
My little book was upstairs in my bag: but my thoughts flew to my pageof that day and the "Fear thou not, for I am with thee." Nobody knows,who has not wanted them, how good those words are. Nobody else canunderstand how sweet they were to me. I lost for a little all sight ofthe study table and the faces round it. I just remembered who was WITH ME;in the freedom and joy of that presence both fears and loneliness seemedto fade away. "I, the Lord, will hold thy right hand." Yes, and I, a weaklittle child, put my hand in the hand of my great Leader, and felt safeand strong.
I found very soon I had enemies to meet that I had not yet reckonedwith. The night passed peacefully enough; and the next day I was putin the schoolroom and found my place in the various classes. Theschoolrooms were large and pleasant; large they had need to be, forthe number of day scholars who attended in them was very great. Theywere many as well as spacious; different ages being parted off fromeach other. Besides the schoolrooms proper, there were rooms forrecitation, where the classes met their teachers; so we had the changeand variety of moving from one part of the house to another. We metMlle. Genevieve in one room, for mathematics and Italian; Mme. Juponin another, for French. Miss Dumps seized us in another, for writingand geography, and made the most of us; she was a severe littleperson in her teaching and in her discipline; but she was good. Wecalled her Miss Maria, in general. Miss Babbitt had the history; andshe did nothing to make it intelligible or interesting. My besthistorical times thus far, by much, had been over my clay map and myred and black headed pins, studying the changes of England and herpeople. But Mlle. Genevieve put a new life into mathematics. I couldnever love the study; but she made it a great deal better than MissPinshon made it. Indeed, I believe that to learn anything under Mlle.Genevieve would have been pleasant. She had so much fire and energy;she taught with such a will; her black eyes were so keen both for herpupils and her subject. One never thought of the discipline in Mlle.Genevieve's room, but only of the study. I was young to be there, inthe class where she put me; but my training had fitted me for it. WithMme. Jupon also I had an easy time. She was good-nature itself, andfrom the first showed a particular favour and liking for me. And as Ihad no sort of wish to break rules, with Miss Maria too I got on well.It was out of school and out of study hours that my difficulties cameupon me.
For a day or two I did not meet them. I was busy with the schoolroutine, and beginning already to take pleasure in it. Knowledge wasto be had here; lay waiting to be gathered up; and that gathering Ialways enjoyed. Miss Pinshon had kept me on short allowance. It wasthe third or fourth day after my arrival, that going up after dinnerto get ready for a walk I missed my chinchilla cap from its peg. Isought for it in vain.
"Come, Daisy," said Miss Lansing, "make haste. Babbitt will be afteryou directly if you aren't ready. Put on your cap."
"I can't find it," I said. "I left it here, in its place, but I can'tfind it."
There was a burst of laughter from three of my room-mates, as Miss St.Clair danced out from the closet with the cap on her own brows; andthen with a caper of agility, taking it off, flung it up to thechandelier, where it hung on one of the burners.
"For shame, Faustina, that's too bad. How can she get it?" said MissBentley.
"I don't want her to get it," said the St. Clair coolly.
"Then how can she go to walk?"
"I don't want her to go to walk."
"Faustina, that isn't right. Miss Randolph is a stranger; youshouldn't play tricks on her."
"Roundheads were always revolutionists," said the girl recklessly. "_Ala lanterne!_ Heads or hats--it don't signify which. That is anexample of what our Madame calls 'symbolism.'"
"Hush--sh! Madame would call it something else. Now how are we goingto get the cap down?"
For the lamp hung high, having been pushed up out of reach for theday. The St. Clair ran off, and Miss Macy followed; but the two othersconsulted, and Lansing ran down to waylay the chambermaid and beg abroom. By the help of the broom handle my cap was at length dislodgedfrom its perch, and restored to me. But I was angry. I felt the fierycurrent running through my veins; and the unspeakable saucy glance ofSt. Clair's eye, as I passed her to take my place in the procession,threw fuel on the fire. I think for years I had not been angry in sucha fashion. The indignation I had at different times felt against theoverseer at Magnolia was a justifiable thing. Now I was angry andpiqued. The feeling was new to me. I had been without it very long. Iswallowed the ground with my feet during my walk; but before the walkcame to an end the question began to come up in my mind, what was thematter? and whether I did well? These sprinklings of water on theflame I think made it leap into new life at first; but as they cameand came again, I had more to think about than St. Clair when I gotback to the house. Yes, and as we were all taking off our thingstogether I was conscious that I shunned her; that the sight of her wasdisagreeable; and that I would have liked to visit some gentlepunishment upon her careless head. The bustle of business swallowed upthe feeling for the rest of the time till we went to bed.
But then it rose very fresh, and I began to question myself about itin the silence and darkness. Finding myself inclined to justifymyself, I bethought me to try this new feeling by some of the words Ihad been studying in my little book for a few days past. "The entranceof thy words giveth light"--was the leading text for the day that hadjust gone; now I thought I would try it in my difficulty. The verynext words on the page I remembered were these--"God is light, and inhim is no darkness at all."
It came into my mind as soon, that this feeling of anger andresentment which troubled me had to do with darkness, not with thelight. In vain I reasoned to prove the contrary; I _felt_ dark. Icould not look up to that clear white light where God dwells, and feelat all that I was "walking in the light as he is in the light."Clearly Daisy Randolph was out of the way. And I went on withbitterness of heart to the next words--"Ye _were_ sometime darkness,but now are ye light in the Lord; walk as children of light."
And what then? was I to pass by quietly the insolence of St. Clair? was Ito take it quite quietly, and give no sign even of annoyance? take nomeans of showing my displeasure, or of putting a stop to the naughtinessthat called it forth? My mind put these questions impatiently, and still,as it did so, an answer came from somewhere,--"Walk as children oflight." I _knew_ that children of light would reprove darkness only withlight; and a struggle began. Other words came into my head then, whichmade the matter only clearer. "If any man smite thee on the one cheek,turn to him the other." "Love your enemies." Ah, but how could I? withwhat should I put out this fire kindled in my heart, which seemed only toburn the fiercer whatever I threw upon it? And then other words camestill sweeping upon me with their sweetness, and I remembered who hadsaid, "I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee." I softly got outof bed, wrapped the coverlid round me, and knelt down to pray. For I hadno time to lose. To-morrow I must meet my little companion, and to-morrowI _must_ be ready to walk as a child of light, and to-night the fires ofdarkness were burning in my heart. I was long on my knees. I remember, ina kind of despair at last I flung myself on the word of Jesus, and criedto
Him as Peter did when he saw the wind boisterous. I remember how thefire died out in my heart, till the very coals were dead; and how the dayand the sunlight came stealing in, till it was all sunshine. I gave mythanks, and got into bed, and slept without a break the rest of the night.