Hope Benham Part 7

They were well trained, however, and presently endeavored to make the new pupil feel at home; but it was rather up-hill work naturally.

Luckily at this crisis, Miss Marr appeared, to adjust matters.

"Oh!" she exclaimed, glancing brightly at Dolly, "you found your way down all alone. I went to your room a little while ago; and as you were asleep, I didn't disturb you."

Then, with the same bright look and manner, she introduced the girls to Dolly, and stood talking with them all for a few minutes. When she turned to leave them, a general protest arose, Kate Van der Berg crying out,--

"Oh, no, no! don't go yet, Miss Marr! Just think, we haven't had a sight of you for three months, and we are positively hungry for you, aren't we, Hope?" appealing to Hope Benham, who was standing near her.

Hope made no reply in words, but she gave a quick upward look and smile which spoke more eloquently than any words. Dolly, observant of everything, saw not only this look and smile, but the answering look and smile in Miss Marr's eloquent face; and instantly a little sharp feeling of something akin to both jealousy and envy disturbed her. Not to lead off and take a first place was a new experience to Dolly, and she did not enjoy it. At home in Brookside or Boston she had always easily led off in this way, partly on account of her belonging to a family whose acquaintance was large, and partly on account of her dominant desire.

But here she found herself for the first time amongst strangers, who knew nothing about her, and to whom she was of no importance. An uneasy sense of all this had begun to a.s.sail her before she left Miss Marr's little parlor. It deepened as she entered the library and met the three pairs of eyes turned upon her and her fine gown. It deepened still more as she saw that swift exchange of tender glances between Miss Marr and Hope; and the little imp of jealousy straightway sprang up with its unreasonable suggestions that she was not treated with sufficient consideration, that she was, in fact, neglected, and left out in the cold, when she should, as the new-comer, have received a.s.siduous attention. That she, the daughter of the Hon. James Dering, should be thus coolly set aside! It was at this climax of her resentful feeling that Miss Marr happened to look across at her. She caught at once something of the true state of things,--not everything, but enough to show her that the girl felt awkward and uncomfortable.

"Poor thing!" she thought; "she doesn't get on well at all. I must ask Hope to help me with her. She, if anybody, will be able to make her feel easier and more at home."

There was no opportunity to speak with Hope then, for down the hall came tap, tapping, another little company of heels, and presently the portiere was flung aside, and a troop of girls entered, and rushing up to Miss Marr, claimed her attention, with their gay and affectionate greetings. No, no time then to speak to any one privately and specially, only time to mention Dolly's name,--"Miss Dorothea Dering, girls,"--only time for this before the clock rung out the hour of six; and at the last stroke Miss Marr turned her head from the girls, who were flocking about her, and looked back at Hope Benham.

"Hope, will you take Dorothea--Miss Dering--in to dinner?"

Miss Marr did not see the change in Hope's face,--the sudden stiffening, as it were, of every feature; but Kate Van der Berg saw it. It was the same kind of stiffness that she had noticed when Hope came into the library,--the rigid stiffness that she had called a "stand-off sort of air," and there was that little hard pucker again between the eyes.

"Hope will take her in to dinner and be as polite to her as a Chinese mandarin, but she won't 'take' to her in any other way," was Miss Kate's shrewd reflection.

The position was not an agreeable one to Hope, but she bethought herself that it might have been much more disagreeable if Dorothea had remembered. That she did not, was perfectly apparent. But if she had remembered! Hope shuddered to think of what might have happened if this had been the case. How, with that incapacity for understanding sensitive natures unlike her own, this girl would in some abrupt way have referred to that past painful encounter,--painful, not because of the different conditions of things at that time, but painful because of that first cruel knowledge of the world that had come through it.

Kate Van der Berg was not far wrong when she prophesied that Hope would be as polite as a Chinese mandarin to the new-comer. Hope was very polite. You could not have found fault with a single word or action.

Even Dolly saw nothing to find fault with; but all this politeness did not warm and cheer her, did not make her feel any easier or more at home. In sitting there at the dinner-table in the bright light she felt more uncomfortable than ever, for by this searching light she saw now very clearly the extreme plainness of each girl's attire; and as she caught every now and then the quick observing glance of one and another, she saw that she had made a great mistake,--that, instead of producing a fine impression by her fine dress, she had produced an unfavorable one, and was being silently criticised as rather loud and--oh, horror!--vulgar.

Miss Marr, looking across the table, did not fail to see that Hope was not so successful as usual in charming away the awkwardness and discomfort of a stranger. Presently she caught two or three little set speeches of Hope's,--polite little speeches, but perfectly mechanical,--and said to herself as Kate Van der Berg had said, "Hope doesn't take to her."

It was generally the custom for the girls to meet in the library before and after dinner for a few minutes' social chat; but on this night most of the girls, having just arrived, excused themselves, and went directly upstairs to unpack their trunks and settle their various belongings.

Hope was very glad to make her excuses with the others, and escape to her room, that for a few days she was to occupy alone. She was busily engaged in putting the last things in their places, when there came a light tap on the door, and to her "Come in," Miss Marr entered, with a little apology for the lateness of her call, and an admiring exclamation for Hope's quick dexterity in arranging her belongings. After this she sat a moment in silence, with rather a perplexed look on her face; then suddenly she broke the silence.

"Hope," she said, "I am afraid I gave you an unpleasant task to perform to-night."

Hope reddened.

"You didn't find it easy, I perceived, to talk with the new pupil."

"N--o, I didn't," faltered Hope.

"She was hard to get on with, wasn't she?"

"I--I don't know. I--talked to her--I paid her what attention I could."

"But she was disagreeable to you?"

"She didn't intend to be--I--I didn't fancy her, Miss Marr."

Miss Marr looked the surprise she felt. She had never known Hope to take such a sudden dislike.

"I didn't fancy her, and I suppose I was stiff with her; but I tried--I tried to be polite to her."

"Of course you did. I'm not finding fault with you, dear. You did what you could to help me, and it was kind of you. I'm sorry you feel as you do, but don't trouble any more about it; it will wear off, I dare say; and now make haste and go to bed,--you look tired."

"Miss Marr," and Hope put a detaining hand on Miss Marr's arm. "What is it--what else is it you were thinking of--of asking me to do?"

"Never mind, dear."

"Tell me, please, Miss Marr."

"I was going to ask you to let Miss Dering occupy the other bed in your room to-night. Some one left the water running before dinner in the room over hers, and the bed and carpet are drenched; but I will make some other arrangement for her now,--you sha'n't be troubled with her."

"But the other rooms are full."

"Yes, but I will have a cot put up in the little parlor. Good-night;"

and with a soft touch of her hand on Hope's cheek, Miss Marr left the room. She was half-way down the hall when Hope ran after her.

"Miss Marr, Miss Marr, don't--don't put up the bed in the little parlor.

It is nine o'clock. Let her come to my room."

"My dear, go back; don't think any more about the matter."

"No, no, let her come to my room, _please_, Miss Marr."

Miss Marr looked at the pleading face uplifted to hers, and understood.

At least she understood enough to see that Hope was already accusing herself of being disobliging and selfish, and that she would be far more uncomfortable now if left alone than she would be in sharing her room with the obnoxious new comer; and so without more hesitation she yielded the point, with a "Very well, dear; it shall be as you say," and went on down the hall to Dorothea.

CHAPTER IX.

"I am very sorry to have intruded upon you," said Dolly, as Hope met her at the door of her room.

Dolly meant to be very dignified and rather haughty, but she behaved instead like what she was,--a cross, tired, homesick girl. Hope, seeing the red, swollen eyelids, forgave the crossness, and saying something pleasant about its being no intrusion, pointed out the little bed behind the screen that Dolly was to occupy, and went on with the work of regulating her bureau drawers, that Miss Marr had interrupted, begging to be excused as she did so. If Dolly had done the proper thing, the thing that was expected of her, she would have retired behind the screen and gone to bed then and there. But she had no idea of going to bed, so long as there was a light burning, and anybody was stirring; so she dropped down into an easy-chair that stood near the door, and took up a book that was lying on the table. It was a copy of "Le Luthier de Cremone,"--a charming little play by Francois Coppee. Miss Dolly turned the leaves over a moment, then put the volume down, and cast an interested, curious look at Hope, who at that moment was busy arranging her boxes. Dolly had studied French sufficiently to enable her to read some very simple stories, but "Le Luthier de Cremone" was quite beyond her power, and her glance at Hope was compounded of envy and admiration.

Hope, without apparently observing her, was yet nervously conscious of every movement, and thought to herself,--

"Oh, dear! why _doesn't_ she go to bed?"

Putting down the book, Dolly's eyes next turned to a certain oblong case that was lying upon a chair near her.

"Oh!" she exclaimed, "do you play the violin?"

"Yes, a little," answered Hope.

"So do I. May I look at your violin?"

Hope hesitated a second, then lifted the instrument from its case. It was not the good little fiddle that she had earned for herself five years ago. That was safely packed away. This was a much more costly fiddle, and had been purchased in Paris for her by a brother of Mr.