CHAPTER XX
A JOYFUL SURPRISE
Marjory was still more or less in disgrace the day that Doctor Rhodesannounced that at last he had secured a new French teacher to takeMadame Bolande's place.
"Her name is--Ah! I've forgotten it. No, Miss--er--Miss Flower. That's it.Miss Flower. She is not a French woman but comes very well recommended.It has been difficult at this particular time to find exactly the rightperson; but I think you will all be pleased."
Doctor Rhodes was to prove a better prophet than he suspected. When thetime came, some of the girls were _more_ than pleased.
"Flower," whispered irrepressible Maude, into a convenient ear. "Shemust be a regular daisy."
"Perhaps she's a Texas sunflower," returned Victoria.
That afternoon, of course, all the Highland Hall girls, bristling withcuriosity, congregated on the veranda to watch for the station hack.
"I'm mighty glad to give up my job," said Henrietta, pausing near one ofthe many groups. "Eighty minutes of hard labor a day are quite a strain.That last Theolog was used up in less than a week and all my skirt bandsare getting loose--all that hard labor with French verbs. I hope MissFlower is an improvement on Madame Bolande."
"Madame Bolande is the best French teacher _I've_ had," said Gladys deMilligan, rather pointedly. "I haven't learned a thing since she left."
"Of course, if you _like_ that kind," retorted Henrietta. "Come on,Hazel. Let's stand on the railing and see if the old 'bus is on the way.I don't have to be dignified any more."
Ten minutes later, a young woman descended from the timeworn hack. Asshe paid the driver, she stood in a patch of sunlight. From the verandashe was plainly visible and rather more than sixty eager young eyes,with no intention of rudeness on their owners' part, took in everydetail of the new teacher's neat costume and dwelt pleasurably on hervery attractive countenance. But suddenly there was a most remarkablecommotion on that veranda. Five girls were scrambling down the steps,regardless of seated schoolmates, and five joyful voices were shrieking:
"It's Miss Blossom! It is! It is! It's our Miss Blossom! Our own MissBlossom!"
"And _this_," cried Mabel, triumphantly, "is the Flower we get!"
Much to the new teacher's surprise and bewilderment, she was seized andhugged and kissed and squeezed by five excited girls.
"Well, I declare," said she, when she could get a good look at them. "I_wondered_ if this school always welcomed new teachers this way. If itisn't Bettie, and Jean and Marjory and Henrietta and Mabel! Isn't thisgreat. And I thought I was going to be all alone among strangers. Thisis certainly too good to be true. Jean, you look just the same and goodenough to eat. Bettie, you're taller and plumper too--you're lookingfine. Marjory, you little mite; you aren't as big as you were the lasttime I saw you--are they abusing you at this place? Here's Henrietta aslovely as ever--but you're pale, my dear. And Mabel--Why, Mabel, I dobelieve you're taller--and thinner. And _aren't_ you good looking! Butyou all look as sweet as peaches and cream to _me_."
"If we'd all picked out the person that we wanted most to come to thisplace," declared Mabel earnestly, "that person would have been you."
Every one liked Miss Blossom, the pleasant young woman who had spent asummer in Lakeville and had played in Dandelion Cottage with Jean,Bettie, Marjory and Mabel; and had later paid them a visit at Pete'sPatch, where she had met pretty Henrietta.
Never was teacher more popular. Before long, almost every girl in theschool was completely in love with the charming young woman. And now,some of the girls who had listened most credulously to Gladys'sunpleasant tales about the Lakeville children, began, little by little,to doubt these tales. Miss Blossom was so very attractive, so genuinelygood, so admirable in every way, that it couldn't be possible that shewould _like_ those four Michigan girls if Laura's tales were entirelytrue. And there was Henrietta, too, evidently firm in her belief inMarjory's honesty. Surely if those two really particular personsconsidered Marjory a nice child, perhaps she wasn't as black as sheappeared to be painted.
The next dancing evening, Victoria Webster delighted Marjory by invitingher to two-step and Debbie Clark asked her for a waltz.
One night, almost a week after the new teacher's arrival, Jean andBettie were spending an evening in Miss Blossom's own room. They hadslipped away from the West Corridor without telling the other Lakevillegirls where they were going. They appeared to have some weighty matteron their minds and were evidently not quite at ease.
"We want to tell you something," explained Jean, fidgeting a little inher chair. "It's a long story and some of it is quite horrid; but weneed your help."
"We _wanted_ to come sooner," added Bettie, "but we thought we ought notto bother you until you were settled and a little bit used to theschool."
"Very thoughtful of you," assured Miss Blossom. "But now we have a longevening before us and I'm ready to listen with all my ears."
So Jean, with some help from Bettie, told about the various thefts ofmoney and other things, about Marjory and the blue beads, about Sallieand the stolen purse under her pincushion and the handkerchief full ofpurloined articles in Marjory's drawer. About Laura and her mean littleway of saying unpleasant things about the Lakeville girls.
And then they told Miss Blossom what they had been careful to mention tono one else. They recounted their past experience with Laura inLakeville; told how she had maliciously destroyed the wonderful vinethat grew in their garden; and how now she had stolen the pricelesstreasures from their precious treasure boxes. How she had taken even theprecious handkerchiefs that Miss Blossom herself had embroidered for thegirls.
"Miss Blossom," confessed Jean, who was obviously not enjoying her task,"we haven't known _what_ we ought to do. We thought, if Laura hadchanged for the better, that it wouldn't be right for us to tell thatshe had changed her name and done things to her hair; and that when weknew her in Lakeville, she was common and dishonest and all that. Whenshe came here she seemed improved in sort of a way; even if it wasn'texactly a way we liked. And of course we didn't want to be unfair to herin any way or to do anything that wasn't kind. We _couldn't_ like her;but we _were_ perfectly decent to her. And even now, we may be mistaken.We may be wronging her; but we can't help thinking--Well, here is thisthing about Marjory and that other thing about Sallie--"
"Those pocketbooks," said Bettie, "in their two rooms. Marjory and I arealmost sure that one person did that."
"I think so too," said Jean. "But I've thought and thought and thought;but I just didn't know what I ought to do about it--or if I really oughtto do anything. But there is poor Marjory getting thinner and thinnerand our poor sweet Sallie--we do love Sallie, every one of us--with nopeople of her own to take her part. It does seem as if something oughtto be done."
"Don't worry about it any more," said Miss Blossom, with a wonderfullysoothing hand on Jean's troubled brow. "Something _is_ going to be done.Our Marjory is going to hold her head up again and our Sallie is goingto be proved honest; but you don't need to think about it for anotherminute. You did perfectly right in coming to me and I'm glad you came.But now you must run along to bed--there's the nine o'clock bell. Goodnight and pleasant dreams to both of you."
Miss Blossom spent the next half hour with the Rhodes family. She toldthem what she knew of the Lakeville girls and of Gladys de Milligan, whohad once lived in Lakeville as plain Laura Milligan.
"A silly girl with a foolish mother," commented Doctor Rhodes. "Yet,strangely enough, there is no pupil in this school who has higher marksin her studies or for general deportment than this overdressed Milligangirl."
"And I'm sure," said Mrs. Henry, with a twinkle in her blue eye, "thatGladys would come first in any gum chewing contest."