Part 8 (1/2)

”I think,” he remarked, quietly. ”That I might give you a _little_ further information on the subject, since you seem so very much interested in it. Minnie was along with Charlie on Sat.u.r.day night, on his interesting errand, and also Miss Chartres.”

Archie gave a low whistle of surprise, and stared at Seymour, as though expecting him to say more, but if such was his expectation, he was doomed to disappointment, for Seymour having delivered in these few words the full extent of his information on the topic under discussion, closed his lips and turned his attention to his book again.

Minnie looked distressed, but Archie did not notice it in his astonishment and eagerness to know more about this mysterious proceeding.

”Is it true, Minnie?” he demanded. ”Seymour, who told you that?--I declare I don't believe a word of it.”

”Edward Laurence told me,” replied Seymour, without looking up. ”His mother was down there at Hollowmell yesterday, and came home full of it.

I did not know before to-day that I had a saint for a sister; and as for not believing it, if you don't, just look at her and you soon will.”

And sure enough her face was dyed with a hot flush that mounted even as he spoke to the roots of her hair, though he could only have been instinctively aware of her confusion, for his head was still bent over his book.

Archie looked from the one to the other in open-mouthed astonishment for a minute or two, and then it dawned upon him that Minnie looked, to say the least of it, uncomfortable, and stifling his curiosity, which was by this time greater than ever, as best he could, suddenly relapsed into silence.

Soon afterwards Seymour left the room, and Minnie resolved to seize this opportunity of telling Archie the real facts of the case.

”It was so kind of you,” she commenced rather confusedly, ”to help me as you did just now. I could not tell you about it while Seymour was here, for you know very well how he laughs at religion, and says it is all done for show, and that there is no heart in it at all. I don't mean that I should have told you if Seymour had not been here, for I wouldn't have mentioned it if he had not--”

”Never mind about that,” interrupted Archie, impatiently, ”proceed with the story--or,” he hastily interrupted himself, ”not if it bothers you to talk about it. I don't mind much, you know.”

Minnie smiled, knowing well how much he did mind, and a.s.sured him that it would not bother her at all to tell him, as she knew he would listen patiently, and not ridicule anything she might say.

She then proceeded to tell him in as few words as possible, what had taken place at Hollowmell on Sat.u.r.day night, and how it came about that Mabel happened to be there at such a late hour.

”Why,” exclaimed Archie, when he had listened with an interest, which surprised himself as entirely as it surprised Minnie; for though of an unusually curious disposition, he invariably found his interest flag after drinking in the first few details of anything. ”Why, if you aren't a party of complete 'bricks--' Seymour called you a saint, but I say a 'brick,' and if you aren't content with that, I don't know what _will_ content you.” And he stared at her with an expression of intense approval that was irresistible.

”But what I want to know is this,” he continued in a tone of confidential deliberation, when her amus.e.m.e.nt had subsided. ”However did you manage to get Charlie into such a pie? He and Seymour go together in these affairs; I should have considered Ned a more suitable subject for a purpose of that kind.”

”O, I hadn't time to think, I suppose, I was in too great a hurry to get away--and besides I wasn't sure whether Ned was in or not. I'm glad now it was Charlie, for I don't think he'll look on these things with the same eyes now, as he used to, after what he saw of their value and necessity when nothing else could avail.”

”Ah, well, I don't know much about it myself, but I suppose we must attend to them some time, though there's no particular hurry at present for any of _us_ that I can see.”

”Oh, but there is!” cried Minnie anxiously, ”don't you see that the end may come any day, and that though we are young, we haven't any guarantee that we will live even one day more--there are so many ways we may die, and just consider that one of them might overtake us within an hour.”

”O, yes, of course, it _might_,” was his light reply, ”but that's very unlikely. It's a rather dull sort of subject this--I think I'll run round to Jack Durnard's for a map I lent him yesterday.”

He walked out unconcernedly, and Minnie made no effort to stop him, knowing how useless further remonstrance on this point would be.

Next day Mabel was allowed to come to school, greatly to Minnie's delight, and was not worse on that account contrary to her aunt's confident expectation, indeed the life and activity with which she found herself surrounded there, and into which she was ere long sucked, seemed to raise and disperse the cloud of depression which had enveloped her, so that in a few days she was her old self again.

The examination in which Mona and Minnie were to take part, was now drawing near, and both were very hard at work in consequence. Minnie, who never did anything by halves, wrought with all her energy, and denied herself the pleasure of being at Hollowmell as often as usual, that she might keep herself in right working order.

Not that she hoped to stand first on the list, for that hope she had abandoned when she resolved to keep back her Latin translation, but there were candidates from other schools in the neighbourhood, and the honour of the school was as much a consideration with her as any individual honour could be.

They were both too busy just at that time to indulge in any of their usual skirmishes, even if they had been particularly inclined, which, singularly enough, neither happened to be. Mona, to do her justice, had not, since the day on which she had been so ignominiously defeated about the Hollowmell scheme, troubled Minnie with any of her ordinary most provoking remarks; she held aloof, it is true, in a way which many considered to bode no good to their future peace when she would once more be at liberty to resume her attacks.

In this, however, they were mistaken, for matters remained ”in statu quo” after the examination was over, and the school had fallen into its usual routine again.

There was a good deal of speculation as to which would stand highest, but as it would be some time before the result could be communicated, these speculations were soon allowed to die away, and be replaced by objects of more immediate interest.