Marion Berkley Part 22

Here it is. Now, Miss Christine, I don't want you to wear the pin; it's the same you wear every day, and you ought to have some color about you somewhere; so I want you to wear this knot of blue satin, and I've got a band to match. Please do, just for my sake!"

"Why, Marion, you will make me absurd; you forget what an old maid I am."

"Old maid! I should think as much," replied Marion, pinning on the bow in spite of all remonstrance,--"old maid indeed! You're nothing of the sort, and what's more you know you never will be;" and Marion gave a mischievous glance at her teacher.

"Don't be impertinent, Marion," replied Miss Christine; but "old maid"

as she called herself, she could not keep a very girlish blush from glowing on her cheeks at her pupil's words.

"I think you are just as lovely as you can be!" exclaimed Marion. "Oh! I forgot; the band for your hair;--there! now you're complete."

"Why, Miss Christine, you'll hardly know yourself," said Florence; "just look in the gla.s.s. Those crimps make you look five years younger."

"I'm going down to get Sallie," said Marion. "Don't put your things on yet, please; she wants to see you."

Marion ran off, returning in a few moments with Sarah Brown, who, the moment she saw her teacher, threw open her arms, and gave her a most emphatic hug.

"Now you look just as you ought. I'm perfectly delighted you're going, and your hair is beautiful,--that band is so becoming."

"That is all Marion's doings; in fact, I owe all my 'fine feathers' to her, and without them I should not be such a 'fine bird' as you seem to think me;" and Miss Christine laughed her dear, little laugh, that her scholars loved so well, and glanced affectionately at the group of admiring girls about her.

"You are not a 'fine bird' at all," exclaimed Sarah, in her most enthusiastic way; "you are just a dear, white dove."

"O Sarah! a white dove in black silk and blue satin--rather incongruous," said Miss Christine.

The girls all joined Miss Christine in her laugh; but nevertheless protested that Sarah's simile was not a bit exaggerated.

"Well now, Miss Christine," said Marion, "if you are ready, I'll go down and tell Biddy to put her things on."

"Biddy isn't going with me," replied Miss Christine, who seemed very busily engaged enveloping her head in a cloud, bringing it so far over her face that not a vestige of her hair was visible.

"Why, you're not going alone?"

"No; M. Beranger was invited, and kindly offered to escort me," said Miss Christine, bending her head to fasten her glove.

"Oh!" said Marion; but she gave a sly glance at her companions, which was not observed by Miss Christine, whose glove-b.u.t.tons seemed to be giving her a great deal of trouble.

"Now, good-night, girls. I thank you a thousand times for all you have done for me, Marion;" then, as she kissed them all, "I don't believe there ever was a teacher had such affectionate scholars."

"You mean there never were scholars that had such a perfectly lovely teacher!" cried Sarah Brown, loud enough to be heard in the hall below.

"'Sh!" said Miss Christine. "Monsieur is down there; he will hear you."

"I guess it won't be any news to him," whispered Marion, as they hung over the banisters watching the proceedings below. "Do you know, Sallie, I believe she pulled that cloud over her head on purpose so that Miss Stiefbach wouldn't see she had her hair crimped. I dare say if she had, she'd have given her a lecture, when she got back, on the follies and vanities of this world."

"I dare say," replied Sarah. "She'd like to make Miss Christine just such a stiff old maid as she is herself; but she won't succeed."

"Not a bit of it," replied Marion.

When Miss Christine came home from the party, and stood before her gla.s.s preparatory to undressing, if she had been one of her own scholars she would have said she had a "splendid time." Evening companies, even as small as the one she had just attended, were something in which she rarely indulged; in fact, she had often remained at home from preference, sending her sister in her place, thinking she was much more likely to shine in society than herself. But this night she had really enjoyed herself. It certainly was very pleasant to know she looked better than usual; and if the evidence of her own eyes, and the admiration of her scholars, had not proved that, there had been some one else who testified to the fact in a few respectful, but very earnest words.

As she unpinned the blue ribbons, she wondered if it had been foolish and undignified in her to wear them; but the recollection of the loving girls who had urged her to do so filled her heart with delight, and she went to bed feeling that the affection of those young hearts was worth more than all the elegance of manner, and extreme dignity, for which her sister was noticeable, which, however it might inspire the awe and respect of her pupils, never won their love.

The next morning the girls noticed that Miss Christine's crimps were not entirely "out." When she brushed her hair that morning, her first impulse had been to straighten out the pretty waves with a dash of cold water; then she thought, to please Marion, she would leave it as it was.

I wonder if it occurred to her that the only lesson for the day was French?

CHAPTER XVI.

THE HOLIDAYS.

The days and weeks at Miss Stiefbach's school quickly succeeded each other, all pa.s.sing very much as those I have already described, and the Christmas holidays were close at hand.

Shortly after Thanksgiving there had been another musicale, at which Marion played without dropping her music, or making any mistakes, and won universal admiration for the delicacy of her touch, and above all for the depth and beauty of her expression. Not that so-called expression which has lately become the fashion, which seems to consist in playing half the piece in pp., rushing from that to ff., with a rapidity which certainly astonishes the hearer, if it does nothing more; but carefully noting the crescendos and diminuendos, which are to music what the lights and shadows are to painting, and rendering the whole in a manner that appealed to the heart rather than the senses.

Marion was gradually, and without any noticeable effort on her part, obtaining a different footing in the school. The girls who had admired but feared her might now be said to only admire; for the cutting sarcasms, the withering scorn, which had formerly led them to fear her, were now very rarely observable in either her conversation or her manners.

Once or twice some of the scholars had spoken of the difference in Marion's behavior, and, as one of them expressed it, "wondered what had come over the spirit of her dreams;" but the answer to the query was generally accepted as a fact, "that it was only one of her odd freaks, and very likely would not last long."

But it was not one of her freaks; far from it. A change was coming over her whole character; slowly but surely it was approaching; manifesting itself at present in certain ways, or perhaps not so much in certain ways as in the absence of certain other ways, which had before been the dark spots in a nature which G.o.d had intended to make broad, intense, and n.o.ble. G.o.d had intended?--no, not that; for what could G.o.d intend and not perform? The nature was there, heart and soul bearing the impress of the Maker's hand; but like a beautiful garden having within its borders flowers of surpa.s.sing beauty and luxurious growth, but twined and intertwined with rank weeds and choking briers, which the gardener must clear away,--not tearing them apart with rough and ruthless hands, and by so doing killing the tender plant; but delicately, carefully, as a mother would tend her babe; untwining tendril after tendril, leaf after leaf, propping and sustaining the flowers as he works, until at last the weeds lay withered and broken, but a few moments trailing their useless branches on the ground, ere the gardener with a firm grasp wrenches them from the soil. His hands may be scratched and bleeding from contact with the briers; but what of that?

If the plants are rescued; if they raise up their drooping heads, and gladden his eyes with the sight of their buds and blossoms, do you suppose he will murmur or complain for any wounds he may have received?

Not he! The weeds and briers are gone, the blooming plants are saved,--that is enough.

Such a garden was Marion's heart, and she had already commenced the work of the gardener; but so slowly did she proceed that sometimes she was almost willing to let the work go, so hopeless did it seem to her; only a few tendrils untwined, only a few leaves saved from the briers whose roots as yet remained untouched. But such moments of discouragement did not come to her often, or if they did, she tried not to yield to them.

The great trouble with her was the determination with which she held to her resolution in regard to Rachel; she still treated her with the same coldness, the same formal politeness, which she had shown her on her first arrival; she had not succeeded in quieting the still, small voice, which persisted in whispering in her ear; but though she could not help hearing it, she resolutely forbore to heed it.

Poor Florence had built high hopes on the easy, friendly manner with which Marion had treated Rachel the night of the famous Thanksgiving party, and had thought the pain she suffered with her foot but a small price to pay for the bringing together of her old friend and her new; but she had seen those hopes vanish one by one. As the friendship between herself and Rachel increased, Marion's coldness became the more distressing to both parties; for although Marion had never abated one jot of her affection for Florence, there was a certain barrier between them, which each from her heart deplored, but which seemed destined for the present to remain uncrossed.

But, my dear reader, I'm afraid you think I am growing fearfully prosy, and if you don't I am sure I do; so I will hurry on with my story.

It was the 23d of December, and the young ladies of Miss Stiefbach's school were starting off en ma.s.se for their various homes; indeed, some living at the West had already gone, having been called for by parents or friends, and not a few by their older brothers on their way home from college, who were not at all averse to spending one night in "that stupid old town," for the sake of a peep at the pretty girls of the school.

Marion Berkley, Mattie Denton, the two Thayers, Florence Stevenson, and Rachel Drayton, all went by the Boston train, and I don't believe a merrier party ever started on a journey together.

Florence, finding that Rachel was intending to spend the holidays at the school, had written to her father, and obtained his permission to take her new friend home with her. Rachel had at first demurred, dreading to again encounter strangers; but Florence had plead so earnestly, representing to her how forlorn and stupid it would be for her at the school, at the same time promising that she should not see any company, or partic.i.p.ate in any gayety,--"they would just have a quiet time at home and enjoy each other,"--that she had at last yielded.

It was a most excellent thought of Florence, for anniversaries of any kind were likely to prove very trying to Rachel; making her realize more forcibly than ever the loss of her father,--a loss to which she had tried to reconcile herself; but, strive hard as she would, it was ever present in her mind, and if she had been left in that great house, with none of the pupils with whose laughter, fun, and frolic the walls had so often resounded, it is probable that the melancholy which had at first seemed fixed upon her, but which the presence of so many bright young lives around her had done much towards dispelling, would have returned to her with double force, and taken a stronger hold upon her than ever.

When Florence had communicated her intention to Marion, she answered not a word; but no one knew what a hard struggle it was for her to keep silent.

Christmas vacation was always looked forward to by them both, with greater antic.i.p.ations of pleasure than any other, for Florence always spent several days in the city with Marion in a round of pleasure. Not b.a.l.l.s and parties, but theatres, concerts, picture-galleries, etc., were visited; in fact, every new thing that came to the city that week, and was worth seeing, Mr. Berkley always made it a point to take the girls to see, and those good times were talked over for weeks and weeks after they were back at school.

Marion had been looking forward to the holidays with more than her usual eagerness, for then she thought she and Florence would be together just as they used to be, without any barrier whatever between them; but when she heard that Rachel would spend the vacation with Florence, she knew, of course, that there would be an end to all the merry-makings; for even if she and Rachel had been on good terms, the latter would not of course have partic.i.p.ated in such gayety.

The girls were all met at the depot by their respective papas, mammas or "big brothers," and after great demonstrations of delight at meeting, and good-byes, and "Come round soon," etc., from the girls as they parted, they all separated on their way to their various homes.

"Marion," asked Mr. Berkley at the breakfast-table the next morning, as he helped his daughter to the best chop on the platter, "who was that young lady with Florence last night?"