Brenda's Bargain Part 7

"It's lucky for my friends that a little practice is coming my way, for I was ready, for the sake of business, to set any of them by the ears.

Why, the other day when I was out with my uncle, and the cable car stopped too suddenly, I almost hoped that he would sprain his ankle--just a little, that I might have the chance to bring suit against the company."

"How cruel!" exclaimed Julia, into whose ear he had let fall these rash admissions.

While Tom ran on in this frivolous fashion, Philip was talking more seriously with Pamela and Miss South. Indeed, seriousness was a quality that Philip now showed to an extent that seemed strange to those who had known him in his earlier college years. Much responsibility had recently come to him on account of his father's failing health, and in the West he had been so thrown on his own resources that he no longer regarded life as unsatisfactory unless it offered him amus.e.m.e.nt.

"I have wondered," he was saying to Miss South, "if you really wished me to give that talk on the Western country."

"Yes, indeed, we are very anxious to have it. We are counting on you to open our lecture season."

"Oh, I'm only too happy, although you must remember that I'm not a professional; but my lantern is in order, and I have nearly a hundred slides. Many of them are really fine,--even if I do say it," he concluded apologetically.

"I'm sure they are," responded Miss South, "and I can tell you that we older 'inmates,' as you call us, are equally anxious to hear you."

"You mean, to see the pictures; they will be worth your attention, but as to my speaking--"

"'You'd scarce expect one of my age To speak in public on the stage,'"

interposed Tom mockingly, as he overheard the latter part of the sentence. Whereat Philip, somewhat embarra.s.sed, was glad to see Angelina at the door announcing "Dinner is served," and leading the way with Miss South the others followed them to the dining-room.

As they took their places Philip found himself beside Pamela. He had seen her but two or three times since her Freshman year at Radcliffe, and in consequence would hardly have dared venture to allude to that sugar episode through which he had first made her acquaintance. But Pamela, no longer sensitive about this misadventure, brought it up herself. Though Philip politely persisted that it had seemed the most natural thing in the world to see before him on a Cambridge sidewalk a stream of sugar pouring from an overturned paper-bag, Pamela a.s.sured him that to her he had appeared like a hero on that memorable occasion, since he had saved her from a certain amount of mortification.

"But I'm wiser now," she said; "I hadn't studied philosophy then," and she quoted one or two pa.s.sages from certain ancient authors to show that she had attained a state of indifference to outside criticism.

Gradually Pamela told Philip much about her school, to prove that it wasn't simply philosophy that helped her enjoy her work.

"So it really is your interest in them that makes your pupils so fond of your cla.s.ses."

Then, in answer to her word of surprise, he added:

"Oh, my little cousin, Emily Dover, one of your most devoted admirers, has been telling me--I believe that you have the misfortune to instruct her."

"Ah, the good fortune! She is a bright little thing, if not a hard student."

"You could hardly expect more from one of our family."

"Why, your sister seems to me fairly intelligent."

Could this be Pamela, actually speaking in a bantering tone, unawed by a young man considerably her senior?

"I am glad," he said a moment later, "that you are surviving not only the experiment of teaching my little cousin, but this experiment at the Mansion."

"Oh, this isn't an experiment, it's--it's--"

"The real thing?"

"Yes, it really is. If you wish to understand it, you must come here some day when the cla.s.ses are at work. Miss South or Edith will be happy to show you about."

"But I am a working-man now. At the time when I might properly visit the school I am afraid that there would be no cla.s.ses in session."

"Of course I'm busy myself, too," said Pamela, "and sometimes I feel that I am here on false pretences."

"Remembering your reputation, I don't believe that you are very idle."

"Oh, of course I help; but then some one else could as well do my work."

"Tell me exactly what you do."

But Pamela shook her head, and with all his urging Philip could not make her describe her exact sphere of activity. Yet Miss South or Julia could have told that no resident was more useful than Pamela, who devoted her evenings to the girls, talking to them, playing games, and in all that she did directing their thoughts toward the appreciation of beautiful things. Every Sat.u.r.day she took two or three to the Art Museum, and later she meant them to see any exhibitions that there might be in town.

One or two critics were inclined to laugh at this work. "It would put strange ideas into the heads of the girls. They would want things that they could never own." But Pamela was satisfied when she saw the rapturous glance of appreciation on the faces of Concetta and Inez, the most artistic of the girls, and the awakening interest in the others.

But how could she explain all this to Philip in casual conversation at a dinner-table?

Maggie, helping Angelina, found this, her first experience in waiting on company, very trying. To overcome her timidity Miss South had purposely a.s.signed her to this task. But who could have supposed that she would let the bread fall as she pa.s.sed it to Philip, tilting the plate so far that a slice or two fell on the table before him.

"There!" and he smiled good-humoredly, "the Mansion realizes the extent of my appet.i.te, and evidently I am to receive more even than I ask for."

Poor Maggie's next mishap was to drop a dessert plate as she started to take it from the sideboard.

"It was because you looked at me so hard," she said afterwards to Angelina; "I couldn't think what you wanted, you were shaking your head so fierce."

"Why, it was the finger-bowl, child. You forgot it. There should be one on every plate. When I told you to get extra things for company, I meant finger-bowls too. We always have them on the dessert plates."

"Oh, yes," said Maggie, as if her not getting them had been the merest oversight, although really this was her first experience in waiting at dinner, and she had not a good memory for the details that had been taught her.

But shy as she was, she did not hesitate to take part in the conversation once or twice. Miss South and the others showed no surprise when twice her voice was heard replying to questions that Philip had expected Miss South or Pamela to answer.

After the older people returned to the library, Angelina confided to Maggie that Mr. Philip Blair was to give a lecture at the Mansion in a week or two. "I know all about it, because Miss Julia told me a few days ago."

Haleema, the little Syrian girl, who was helping Maggie in her dish-washing, paused in her singing to listen to Angelina's accounts of the wonderful adventures that Mr. Blair had had in the West.

"Ho!" said Haleema, "it ain't nothing to go bear-hunting, if you don't get killed. Why, I've had two uncles and ten cousins killed by the Turks," and then she went on singing cheerfully,--

"'As quick as you're able set neatly the table, And first lay the table-cloth square; And then on the table-cloth, bright and clean table-cloth, Napkins arrange with due care.'"

The air to which she sang was "Little b.u.t.tercup," and her voice was clear and sweet, but as she began the second stanza,--

"'Put plates in their places at regular s.p.a.ces,'"

Angelina interrupted her. "This isn't the time for singing this song, this is dish-washing time;" and, overawed by Angelina's imperative manner, Haleema was silenced.

As to the lecture itself, it is needless to say that Philip a few evenings later had an appreciative audience. All the girls were in a twitter at the prospect of this their first entertainment, Angelina most of all. She had arranged her hair in an elaborate coiffure, which, she informed Haleema, she had copied from a hairdresser's window in Washington Street.

"Ah, then, perhaps you have one of those things--a whip, I think they call it?"

"A what?"