Part 19 (1/2)

”Yes; but I know what to do.” The child nodded her head defiantly and made an elaborate sign of the cross, first over Clem and then upon the front of her own bodice. ”That's against witches,” she announced.

”Please don't take me for a witch!” It was absurd, but really Hester began to wonder where these misunderstandings would end. The look, too, on the boy's face puzzled her.

”I always wondered,” said Myra, unmoved, ”if the new teacher would turn out a witch. Witches always start by making themselves into young and beautiful ladies; that's their trick. Whoever heard of a teacher being a young and beautiful lady?”

”Well,” answered Hester, between a sigh and a smile, ”a compliment's a compliment, however it comes. I am the witch, then; and who may you be?-- Hansel and Grethel, I suppose? I don't think, though, that Hansel really believes me a witch, by the way he's looking at me.”

”He isn't looking at you at all. Come away, Clem!” She led the boy away by the hand, which he gave to her obediently, but left him when half-way across the turf and came swiftly back. ”He wasn't looking at you.

He's blind.”

”Ah, poor child! I am sorry--please tell me your name, and believe that I am sorry.”

”If you were sorry, you'd go away, and not come teaching here.”

Myra delivered this Parthian shaft over her shoulder as she walked off.

At the same moment Hester heard a door open in the room behind her, and Parson Endicott came forth from the counting-house.

”Ah--er--Miss Marvin ”--He paused with a lift of his eyebrows at the sight of the rag doll in Hester's hand. She, on her part, felt a sudden hysterical desire to laugh wildly.

”It--it isn't mine!” she managed to say in a faint voice and with a catch in her throat.

”I had not supposed so,” Parson Endicott answered gravely. ”I came to tell you, Miss Marvin, that Mr. Samuel Rosewarne and I have agreed to recognise your claim. By so doing we shall be piously observing his father's wishes, and--er--I antic.i.p.ate no opposition from my fellow-members on the Board. The school--you have already paid it a visit, perhaps? No? It will, I venture to think, exceed your expectations. The school is furnished and ready. I suggest--if the other Managers consent--that we open it formally on Tuesday next, with a short religious service, consecrating, so to speak, your future labours.

Yours is a wonderful sphere of usefulness, Miss Marvin; and may I say what pleasure it gives me to learn that you are a Churchwoman. A regular communicant, I hope?”

Hester was silent. She disliked this man, and saw no reason to be hurried into making any confession to him.

”It is a point upon which I am accustomed to lay great stress. In these days, with schismatics on all hands to contend against, it behoves all members of the true Church to show a bold and united front.” He leaned his head on one side and looked at her interrogatively. ”Do you play the harmonium?” he asked.

But at this point Mr. Sam thrust his head out through the counting-house doorway, and the parson coughed discreetly, as much as to say that the answer might wait.

”Well, Miss Marvin,” said Mr. Sam jocosely, ”we've fixed it up for you between us!”

Hester thanked them both briefly, and wished them good-day.

”She dresses respectably,” said the parson, when the two were left alone.

”I detect a certain earnestness in her, though I cannot say as yet how far it is based on genuine religious principles.”

”She is more comely than I expected,” said Mr. Sam.

At the ferry Hester found Nuncey awaiting her with a boat-load of the Benny children.

”I reckoned you'd be here just-about-now,” Nuncey hailed her.

”Come'st along for a bathe wi' the children! I've a-brought a bathin'

suit for 'ee.”

”But I can't swim,” Hester answered in alarm, and added, as she stepped into the boat, ”Nuncey, don't laugh at me, but until to-day I had never seen the sea in my life.”

Nuncey looked her up and down quizzically. ”And I've never seen Lunnon!