Part 49 (1/2)
Master McCosh raised his head.
”What new gossip now, girls?” he inquired sternly.
”Oh, nothing,” answered Miss Parks.
”You are making quite a hubbub about nothing. The next time that subject is mentioned the young lady who does it takes her books and goes home.
Miss Holmes expects to come here among you, and the girl who does not treat her with consideration may better stay at home. Jerome Holmes was the friend of my boyhood and manhood; he sinned and he suffered for it; his story does not belong to your generation. It is not through any merit of yours that your fathers are honorable men. It becomes us all to be humble?”
A hush fell upon the group. Clarissa Parks colored with anger; why should _she_ be rebuked, she was not a thief nor the daughter of a thief.
Marjorie went to the master and standing before him with her cheeks blazing and eyes downcast she asked:
”May I go home? I cannot recite this afternoon.”
”If you prefer, yes,” he replied in his usual tone; ”but I hardly think you care to see Miss Pomeroy just now.”
”Oh, no, I didn't think of that; I only thought of getting away from here.”
”Getting away is not always the best plan,” he replied, his pen still moving rapidly.
”Is it true? Is it _all_ true?”
”It is all true. Jerome Holmes was president of a bank in this city. I want you in moral science this afternoon.”
”Thank you,” said Marjorie, after a moment. ”I will stay.”
She returned to the dressing-room, taking a volume of d.i.c.k from the book-case as she pa.s.sed it; and sitting in a warm corner, half concealed by somebody's shawl and somebody's cloak, she read, or thought she read, until the bell for the short afternoon session sounded.
Moral science was especially interesting to her, but the subject this afternoon kept her trouble fresh in her mind; it was Property, the use of the inst.i.tution of Property, the history of Property, and on what the right of Property is founded.
A whisper from Miss Parks reached her:
”Isn't it a poky subject? All I care to know is what is mine and what isn't, and to know what right people have to take what isn't theirs.”
The hour was ended at last, and she was free. How could she ever enter that schoolroom again? She hurried along the streets, grown older since the morning. Home would be her sanctuary; but there was Miss Prudence!
Her face would tell the tale and Miss Prudence's eyes would ask for it.
Would it be better for Prue, for Aunt Prue, to know or not to know? Miss Prudence had written to her once that some time she would tell her a story about herself; but could she mean this story?
As she opened the gate she saw her blue bird with the golden crest perched on the arm of a chair at the window watching for her.
She was at the door before Marjorie reached it, ready to spring into her arms and to exclaim how glad she was that she had come.
”You begin to look too soon, Kitten.”
”I didn't begin till one o'clock,” she said convincingly.
”But I don't leave school till five minutes past two, childie.”
”But I have something to tell you to-day. Something _de_-licious. Aunt Prue has gone away with Morris. It isn't that, because I didn't want her to go.”