Love Works Wonders Part 3

"Am I better or worse than you had imagined me?" she asked, with careless scorn.

"You are different--better, perhaps, in some things. You are taller.

You are so tall that it will be difficult to remember you are a pupil."

"The Darrells are a tall race," she said, quietly. "Miss Hastings, what have you come here to teach me?"

The elder lady rose from her seat and looked lovingly into the face of the girl; she placed her hand caressingly on the slender shoulders.

"I know what I should like to teach you, Miss Darrell, if you will let me. I should like to teach you your duty to Heaven, your fellow-creatures, and yourself."

"That would be dry learning, I fear," she returned. "What does my uncle wish me to learn?"

"To be in all respects a perfectly refined, graceful lady."

Her face flushed with a great crimson wave that rose to the white brow and the delicate sh.e.l.l-like ears.

"I shall never be that," she cried, pa.s.sionately. "I may just as well give up all hopes of Darrell Court. I have seen some ladies since I have been here. I could not be like them. They seem to speak by rule; they all say the same kind of things, with the same smiles, in the same tone of voice; they follow each other like sheep; they seem frightened to advance an opinion of their own, or even give utterance to an original thought. They look upon me as something horrible, because I dare to say what I think, and have read every book I could find."

"It is not always best to put our thoughts in speech; and the chances are, Miss Darrell, that, if you have read every book you could find, you have read many that would have been better left alone. You are giving a very one-sided, prejudiced view after all."

She raised her beautiful head with a gesture of superb disdain.

"There is the same difference between them and myself as between a mechanical singing bird made to sing three tunes and a wild, sweet bird of the woods. I like my own self best."

"There is not the least doubt of that," observed Miss Hastings, with a smile; "but the question is not so much what we like ourselves as what others like in us. However, we will discuss that at another time, Miss Darrell."

"Has my uncle told you that if I please him--if I can be molded into the right form--I am to be heiress of Darrell Court?" she asked, quickly.

"Yes; and now that I have seen you I am persuaded that you can be anything you wish."

"Do you think, then, that I am clever?" she asked, eagerly.

"I should imagine so," replied Miss Hastings. "Pauline--I need not call you Miss Darrell--I hope we shall be friends; I trust we shall be happy together."

"It is not very likely," she said, slowly, "that I can like you, Miss Hastings."

"Why not?" asked the governess, astonished at her frankness.

"Because you are to correct me; continual correction will be a great annoyance, and will prevent my really liking you."

Miss Hastings looked astounded.

"That may be, Pauline," she said; "but do you know that it is not polite of you to say so? In good society one does not tell such unpleasant truths."

"That is just it," was the eager retort; "that is why I do not like good society, and shall never be fit for it. I am truthful by nature. In my father's house and among his friends there was never any need to conceal the truth; we always spoke it frankly. If we did not like each other, we said so. But here, it seems to me, the first lesson learned to fit one for society is to speak falsely."

"Not so, Pauline; but, when the truth is likely to hurt another's feelings, to wound susceptibility or pride, why speak it, unless it is called for?"

Pauline moved her white arms with a superb gesture of scorn.

"I would rather any day hear the truth and have my mind hurt," she said, energetically, "than feel that people were smiling at me and deceiving me. Lady Hampton visits Sir Oswald. I do not like her, and she does not like me; but she always asks Sir Oswald how his 'dear niece' is, and she calls me a 'sweet creature--original, but very sweet' You can see for yourself, Miss Hastings, that I am not that."

"Indeed, you are not sweet," returned the governess, smiling; "but, Pauline, you are a mimic, and mimicry is a dangerous gift."

She had imitated Lady Hampton's languid tones and affected accent to perfection.

"Sir Oswald bows and smiles all the time Lady Hampton is talking to him; he stands first upon one foot, and then upon the other. You would think, to listen to him, that he was so charmed with her ladyship that he could not exist out of her presence. Yet I have seen him quite delighted at her departure, and twice I heard him say 'Thank Heaven'--it was for the relief. Your good society is all deceit, Miss Hastings."

"I will not have you say that, Pauline. Amiability, and the desire always to be kind and considerate, may carry one to extremes at times; but I am inclined to prefer the amiability that spares to the truth that wounds."

"I am not," was the blunt rejoinder. "Will you come to your rooms, Miss Hastings? Sir Oswald has ordered a suite to be prepared entirely for our use. I have three rooms, you have four; and there is a study that we can use together."

They went through the broad stately corridors, where the warm sun shone in at the windows, and the flowers breathed sweetest perfume. The rooms that had been prepared for them were bright and pleasant with a beautiful view from the windows, well furnished, and supplied with every comfort. A sigh came from Miss Hastings as she gazed--it was all so pleasant. But it seemed very doubtful to her whether she would remain or not--very doubtful whether she would be able to make what Sir Oswald desired out of that frank, free-spoken girl, who had not one conventional idea.

"Sir Oswald is very kind," she said, at length, looking around her; "these rooms are exceedingly nice."

"They are nice," said Pauline; "but I was happier with my father in the Rue d'Orme. Ah me, what liberty we had there! In this stately life I feel as though I were bound with cords, or shackled with chains--as though I longed to stretch out my arms and fly away."

Again Miss Hastings sighed, for it seemed to her that the time of her residence at Darrell Court would in all probability be very short.

CHAPTER IV.

"YOU ARE GOING TO SPOIL MY LIFE."

Two days had pa.s.sed since Miss Hastings' arrival. On a beautiful morning, when the sun was shining and the birds were singing in the trees, she sat in the study, with an expression of deepest anxiety, of deepest thought on her face. Pauline, with a smile on her lips, sat opposite to her, and there was profound silence. Miss Darrell was the first to break it.

"Well," she asked, laughingly, "what is your verdict, Miss Hastings?"

The elder lady looked up with a long, deep-drawn sigh.

"I have never been so completely puzzled in all my life," she replied.

"My dear Pauline, you are the strangest mixture of ignorance and knowledge that I have ever met. You know a great deal, but it is all of the wrong kind; you ought to unlearn all that you have learned."

"You admit then that I know something."

"Yes; but it would be almost better, perhaps, if you did not. I will tell you how I feel, Pauline. I know nothing of building, but I feel as though I had been placed before a heap of marble, porphyry, and granite, of wood, gla.s.s, and iron, and then told from those materials to shape a magnificent palace. I am at a loss what to do."

Miss Darrell laughed with the glee of a child. Her governess, repressing her surprise, continued:

"You know more in some respects than most educated women; in other and equally essential matters you know less than a child. You speak French fluently, perfectly; you have read a large number of books in the French language--good, bad, and indifferent, it appears to me; yet you have no more idea of French grammar or of the idiom or construction of the language than a child."

"That, indeed, I have not; I consider grammar the most stupid of all human inventions."

Miss Hastings offered no comment.