Marion Berkley Part 15

"Yes, I do," replied Sarah, emphasizing every word with a shake of the head. "I know perfectly well what I am talking about, and you know I know it, and _I_ know I shan't know it much longer without letting somebody else know it; so there!"

"Well, Sarah," said Miss Christine, who could not resist joining Marion in a hearty laugh at Sarah's excited and rather incoherent sentence, "if you and Marion know what you are talking about, that is certainly more than I can say, and as it is never polite to allude to a secret in the presence of a third party. I think I ought to be that somebody else, whom you are 'to let know it;'" and Miss Christine shook her head in laughing imitation of Sarah.

"Well, I'll tell you one thing, Miss Christine; it's about Marion's--"

"Sarah Brown, hold your tongue!" cried Marion, at the same time clapping her hand over Sarah's mouth.

"Marion Berkley, I shan't!" cried Sarah, struggling to free herself, and gasping out at intervals broken sentences perfectly unintelligible to Miss Christine; then, as Marion loosed her hold, she shouted: "It's about Marion's break-down! there!"

"Sarah Brown, you'll be sorry for this!" cried Marion, her eyes flashing with indignation.

"Sarah! Marion!" exclaimed Miss Christine, looking from one to the other in utter amazement. "I don't understand you at all; what is this all about?"

"She doesn't know what she is talking about, and I think she had better mind her own business!" exclaimed Marion.

"I do know what I'm talking about, and it's just as much my business as it is any one else's; if it isn't, I'll make it so."

"Girls! girls! you cannot think how you grieve and astonish me. Do you know how you are talking? Your language is unladylike in the extreme.

But"--turning to Sarah--"even that is not so unpardonable as the thoughtlessness which could lead you to speak of Marion's failure last night, when you know it must be extremely unpleasant for her to have it alluded to in any way."

"Miss Christine, it's too bad for you to speak so to me," cried Sarah, the tears now streaming down her cheeks, and her voice pitched to its most excited tones. "You know I just worship Marion, only she won't let me show it, and I never did an unkind thing to her in my life; but I told her I should tell about the Polonaise, and so I will; no one shall stop me!"

"Sarah, you forget to whom you are speaking," quietly replied Miss Christine, adding as she glanced at Marion, and noticed that she stood with her lips tightly compressed, "If you have the affection for Marion which you profess, you will cease to speak of a subject which evidently annoys her."

"Well, it has no business to annoy her, and I mean to tell every girl in the school," retorted Sarah, now fairly beside herself; and raising her voice until she fairly shouted, she called to the girls who were pa.s.sing the door, on the way to the library, "Come in here, girls! come in here, every one of you! Yes, Georgie Graham, you too, I want you all. Now listen to what I've got to say. You all thought Marion Berkley ought to have been ashamed of herself to play the Polonaise when she knew Georgie was going to play it; and you were all glad she broke down, because almost all of you hate her, and are jealous of her because she's the handsomest, and the smartest, and the very best girl in the school every way; and because she doesn't say one thing to your back and another to your face, the way most of you do; but I'll tell you why she played it.

She played it because that creature there--" pointing her finger at Georgie, who happened to be the central figure in the group of astonished listeners--"because that girl was in the anteroom _listening_, _eaves-dropping_, as she always is, and knew all about the musicale two weeks before any of us, and practised, and practised, by stealth, just for no other reason than to show off before company, and put Marion in the shade; and Marion played it just to punish Georgie for that and fifty other mean things she's done. I suppose you think it was hateful in Marion; but _I_ don't; I only just wish that for once she'd had a little of Georgie's _bra.s.s_,--for _she's_ got enough for every girl in the school,--and then she wouldn't have broken down. But I haven't done yet," exclaimed the excited girl, after stopping to take breath, "I haven't done yet; when Miss Christine told Marion how sorry she was that Georgie should have played the piece she had chosen, Marion told her the whole truth up and down. No, not the whole truth. She never told about Georgie's listening to Miss Stiefbach; no, not a word! She just told her she deserved to break down herself for having treated Georgie so unkindly; and there aren't a dozen girls in the school but what would have told on another to save herself. Now, who do you think was the mean one, I should like to know?" and Sarah glanced round the room with an air of triumph; then as suddenly changing her expression to one of contempt, she exclaimed, "You needn't say anything. I know you think just as Marion does, that I've been meddling in business that does not concern me; but I don't care _that_ for one of you;" and, snapping her fingers in the air, Sarah sat down in the nearest chair, completely exhausted by her harangue.

"Young ladies! young ladies! what is the meaning of this noise?"

exclaimed Miss Stiefbach, in utter amazement, as she entered the room by another door from that around which almost all the scholars were crowded. "Why are you not at work in the library? Miss Christine, explain the cause of this excitement."

Miss Christine, who had heretofore been completely overpowered by the suddenness and volubility of Sarah's outbreak, saw at a glance that something must be done at once to prevent her from going through the whole again to Miss Stiefbach; for she dreaded the effect it might have upon her sister, knowing that she would look upon the matter from her cold, calculating point of view, and probably punish Sarah severely for her disrespectful conduct, utterly ignoring the generous impulses which had led to it. As for Georgie, when she hastily glanced at her, and saw her usually haughty head hanging in shame and confusion, she felt that for the present at least her punishment was sufficiently severe. So stepping forward and laying her hand on Sarah's shoulder, at the same time placing herself almost directly in front of her, she turned to Miss Stiefbach and said:--

"Sarah has been rather disrespectful to me; but I do not think she was intentionally rude. I shall have to send her to her own room to do her mending by herself. The rest of the young ladies must go at once to the library, and I will be with them, directly."

Miss Stiefbach made no reply, although it did not escape her keen eye that more had been going on than she was made aware of; but she knew by previous experience that there were times when Miss Christine's judgment was wiser than her own. She turned towards the door, and with a commanding gesture waved the girls out. Marion hesitated, and would have held back, but Miss Stiefbach coldly remarked:--

"Marion, unless you, too, are in disgrace, you will please leave the room;" and motioning her to lead the way sailed out of the parlor.

The instant they were gone Sarah threw her arms around her teacher's neck and sobbed aloud.

"I could not help it, Sarah; indeed I could not," said Miss Christine with a troubled voice as she stroked her pupil's hair; "it certainly was very wrong of you to behave so, and if I had not sent you to your room I should have had to tell Miss Stiefbach all about it, and I am afraid she would have punished you more severely than I have."

"It isn't that, Miss Christine, it isn't that," sobbed Sarah. "I'd a great deal rather go to my room; and you knew it when you sent me there.

It's about Marion; she said she'd never speak to me again if I told; she didn't know I knew about it until this morning."

"Well, how did you know it, dear; did any one tell you?"

"No, and I wasn't listening either," exclaimed Sarah, raising her flushed face; "but several of us knew how Georgie found out about the musicale, and I noticed, just as Marion did, how much she had practised the Polonaise, and last night I heard her tell one of the girls she was glad Marion broke down, it just _did her good_; and I determined then I'd pay her for it. I was standing very near you, though you did not know it, when Marion told you all about it last night, and I thought it was outrageous that she should bear all the blame; and before M.

Beranger too! It was a shame! But oh, dear, Miss Christine, it hasn't done a bit of good! She'll just hate me now, I know she will, for she almost made me promise not to tell."

"I cannot say I quite approve of your method of doing Marion justice, but I hardly think she will be very severe to such a disinterested little champion," said Miss Christine, who could not help smiling at the utter wretchedness of Sarah's tone; "however, here she comes to speak for herself."

"O Miss Christine, do come in there! I made an excuse to get me some darning-cotton; but Miss Stiefbach's reading the most stupid book of sermons; do come in and take her place! What!" as she caught sight of Sarah, "is she here yet?"

"Yes, Marion, she is here, and is making herself perfectly miserable, because she believes she has made you an enemy for life. Don't you think you can convince her of the contrary?"

"O Marion!" sobbed Sarah, "please don't be mad with me, for I really could not help it. I thought I was doing it all for your good, and when I got started I _could_ not stop till I had it all out."

"You little bit of a goose! did you really think I was going to be angry with you after making such a thrilling stump-speech in my favor?" and throwing herself on her knees beside Sarah's chair, Marion looked up at her with a smiling face, but with eyes not undimmed by tears.

"And you really think I did it from kindness?"

"Yes, I certainly do!"

"And you won't snub me any more?" cried Sarah, giving Marion a pa.s.sionate kiss.

"Oh, I can't promise you that," laughed Marion; "a little, healthy snub, now and then, does you good, and I shouldn't be doing my duty if I didn't give it to you, but"--and her voice a.s.sumed the tender, affectionate tone so rarely heard by her school-mates, and which touched Sarah even more than her words--"I shall never be really unkind to you again, and I promise to love you as much as you wish."

"You really mean it, Marion? You really mean that you will love me?"

"Yes, I really mean it. Miss Christine shall be my witness that I have this day gained a friend."

"Yes, my dear," answered Miss Christine, who had been a silent but interested observer of this little scene: "and a truer one I do not think you could have."

CHAPTER XIII.

THE WANDERER RETURNS.

For several days the musicale, and the events connected with it, formed the subjects of general conversation. At first Sarah's remarkable address to her school-mates appeared likely to have a contrary effect from that which she desired, being calculated to make Marion more disliked than ever by those to whom she had been held up by her zealous little champion as superior to themselves in every way.

But Sarah, despite her quick temper, was a great favorite in the school, for her warm heart and generous nature made her as ready to do any one a kindness as she was to fly into a pa.s.sion. She always spoke the truth, and if she unintentionally wounded or even annoyed one of her companions she was ever ready to make reparation. Perhaps many of them felt the truth of her remarks, and thought that in this case silence was their only safeguard.

Miss Christine had spoken privately to the older scholars, entreating them not to harbor any ill-will towards either of the three immediately concerned, and so the matter was pa.s.sed quietly over, and that which in many instances could have had nothing but evil results seemed likely in this one to be productive of good; for Marion, fearing that she had been the means of depriving Sarah of some of her warmest friends, almost unconsciously a.s.sumed a different bearing towards all her companions, and for her new friend's sake exhibited an interest in persons and things about her which she had heretofore treated with supreme indifference. And so the days wore on, and Thanksgiving was rapidly approaching. None of the girls who lived at a distance were going home this year, and the house was filled with lamentations, and half-stifled fears lest certain boxes should fail to make their appearance.

Marion had as yet received no definite news from her mother regarding Jemima Dobbs, and her heart was filled with disappointment when she thought of the lonely Thanksgiving they were likely to have at the farm-house in place of the bright and happy one she had pictured to herself.

She was sitting in her window one morning thinking of Aunt Bettie, when her door suddenly opened, a voice cried, "Look out for your head!" and a thick letter was shot into her lap. She caught it eagerly, not stopping to think whose was the unerring hand that had so accurately hit its mark, and tearing off the envelope in true school-girl fashion, she glanced rapidly along the pages, when her eyes were caught with the words: "Jemima will be at the B---- station Wednesday, when the seven o'clock train arrives; be sure and have some one there to meet her."

With a cry of delight Marion ran to the door to call Florence, and was met by that young woman at the head of the stairs. She received the happy tidings as enthusiastically as Marion could possibly wish, and going back to their room, and seating themselves in their usual window, Marion read the letter aloud:--

"BOSTON, Nov. 24th.

"MY DEAR DAUGHTER:--Papa has just gone down town; Fred is at school; and Charley radiantly happy in the possession of a new mechanical toy, which I expect will be demolished in a few moments, as that young gentleman is developing a surprising fancy for inquiring into the 'why and wherefore' of everything he takes hold of. As everything seems to promise a quiet time for me, I think I will devote myself to you, as I have quite a long story to tell you.

"I know you have been very much disappointed that my recent letters have contained no news of your protege; but I am in hopes that this one will put all your anxiety to rest, and quite equal your most ardent expectations.