Part 19 (1/2)
The Queer Little Thing
_By Eleanor Hoyt Brainerd_
Bonita Allen was a queer little thing. Everyone in the school, from Miss Ryder down to the chambermaid, had made remarks to that effect before the child had spent forty-eight hours in the house, yet no one seemed able to give a convincing reason for the general impression.
The new pupil was quiet, docile, moderately well dressed, fairly good looking. She did nothing extraordinary. In fact, she effaced herself as far as possible; yet from the first she caused a ripple in the placid current of the school, and her personality was distinctly felt.
”I think it's her eyes,” hazarded Belinda, as she and Miss Barnes discussed the new-comer in the Youngest Teacher's room. ”They aren't girl eyes at all.”
”Fine eyes,” a.s.serted the teacher of mathematics with her usual curtness.
Belinda nodded emphatic a.s.sent. ”Yes, of course; beautiful, but so big and pathetic and dumb. I feel ridiculously apologetic every time the child looks at me, and as for punis.h.i.+ng her--I'd as soon shoot a deer at six paces. It's all wrong. A twelve-year-old girl hasn't any right to eyes like those. If the youngster is unhappy she ought to cry twenty-five handkerchiefs full of tears, as Evangeline Marie did when she came, and then get over it. And if she's happy she ought to smile with her eyes as well as with her lips. I can't stand self-repression in children.”
”She'll be all right when she has been here longer and begins to feel at home,” said Miss Barnes. But Belinda shook her head doubtfully as she went down to superintend study hour.
Seated at her desk in the big schoolroom she looked idly along the rows of girlish heads until she came to one bent stoically over a book. The new pupil was not fidgeting like her comrades. Apparently her every thought was concentrated upon the book before her. Her elbows were on her desk, and one lean little brown hand supported the head, whose ma.s.ses of straight black hair were parted in an unerring white line and fell in two heavy braids. The face framed in the smooth s.h.i.+ning hair was lean as the hand, yet held no suggestion of ill-health. It was clean cut, almost to sharpness, brown with the brownness that comes from wind and sun, oddly firm about chin and lips, high of cheekbones, straight of nose.
As Belinda looked two dark eyes were raised from the book and met her own--sombre eyes with a hurt in them--and an uncomfortable lump rose in the Youngest Teacher's throat. She smiled at the sad little face, but the smile was not a merry one. In some unaccountable way it spoke of the sympathetic lump in her throat, and the Queer Little Thing seemed to read the message, for the ghost of an answering smile flickered in the brown depths before the lids dropped over them.
When study hour was over the Youngest Teacher moved hastily to the door, with some vague idea of following up the successful smile, and establis.h.i.+ng diplomatic relations with the new girl; but she was not quick enough. Bonita had slipped into the hall and hurried up the stair toward the shelter of her own room.
Shrugging her shoulders, Belinda turned toward the door of Miss Ryder's study and knocked.
”Come in.”
The voice was not encouraging. Miss Lucilla objected to interruptions in the late evening hours, when she relaxed from immaculately fitted black silk to the undignified folds of a violet dressing gown.
When she recognized the intruder she thawed perceptibly.
”Oh, Miss Carewe! Come in. Nothing wrong, is there?”
Belinda dropped into a chair with a whimsical sigh.
”Nothing wrong except my curiosity. Miss Ryder, do tell me something about that Allen child.”
Miss Lucilla eyed her subordinate questioningly.
”What has she been doing?”
”Nothing at all. I wish she would do something. It's what she doesn't do, and looks capable of doing, that bothers me. There's simply no getting at her. She's from Texas, isn't she?”
The princ.i.p.al regarded attentively one of the grapes she was eating, and there was an interval of silence.
”She is a queer little thing,” Miss Lucilla admitted at last. ”Yes, she's from Texas, but that's no reason why she should be odd. We've had a number of young ladies from Texas, and they were quite like other school girls only more so. Just between you and me, Miss Carewe, I think it must be the child's Indian blood that makes her seem different.”
”Indian?” Belinda sat up, sniffing romance in the air.
”Yes, her father mentioned the strain quite casually when he wrote.
It's rather far back in the family, but he seemed to think it might account for the girl's intense love for nature and dislike of conventions. Mrs. Allen died when the baby was born, and the father has brought the child up on a ranch. He's completely wrapped up in her, but he finally realized that she needed to be with women. He's worth several millions and he wants to educate her so that she'll enjoy the money--'be a fine lady,' as he puts it. I confess his description of the girl disturbed me at first, but he was so liberal in regard to terms that----”