Chapter 19

"Do you think Mr. Holmes, will ever come home?" he asked.

"Why not? Of course he will," she answered in astonishment.

"That depends. Prue might bring him. I want to see him finished; there's a fine finishment for him somewhere and I want to see it. For all that is worth anything in me I have to thank him. He made me--as God lets one man make another. I would like to live long enough to pass it on; to make some one as he made me."

It was too cold to walk slowly, their words were spoken in brief, brisk sentences.

There was nothing specially memorable in this walk, but Marjorie thought of it many times; she remembered it because she was longing to ask him what he had brought her and was ashamed to do it. It might be due to him after her refusal last night; but still she was ashamed. She would write about it, she decided; it was like her not to speak of it.

"I haven't told you about our harbor mission work at Genoa; the work is not so great in summer, but the chaplain told me that in October there were over sixty seamen in the Bethel and they were very attentive. One old captain told me that the average sailor had much improved since he began to go to sea, and I am sure the harbor mission work is one cause of it. I wish you could hear some of the old sailors talk and pray. The _Linnet_ will be a praise meeting in itself some day; four sailors have become Christians since I first knew the _Linnet_."

"Linnet wrote that it was your work."

"I worked and prayed and God blessed. Oh, the blessing! oh, the blessing of good books! Marjorie, do you know what makes waves?"

"No," she laughed; "and I'm too cold to remember if I did. I think the wind must make them. Now we turn and on the next corner is our entrance."

The side entrance was not a gate, but a door in a high wall; girls were flocking up the street and down the street, blue veils, brown veils, gray veils, were streaming in all directions, the wind was blowing laughing voices all around them.

Marjorie pushed the door open:

"Good-bye, Morris," she said, as he caught her hand and held it last.

"Good-bye, Marjorie,--_dear_" he whispered as a tall girl in blue brushed past them and entered the door.

Little Miss Dodd ran up laughing, and Marjorie could say no more; what more could she say than "good-bye"? But she wanted to say more, she wanted to say--but Emma Downs was asking her if it were late and Morris had gone.

"What a handsome young fellow!" exclaimed Miss Parks to Marjorie, hanging up her cloak next to Marjorie's in the dressing room. "Is he your brother?"

"My twin-brother," replied Marjorie.

"He doesn't look like you. He is handsome and tall."

"And I am homely and stumpy," said Marjorie, good-humoredly. "No, he is not my real brother."

"I don't believe in that kind."

"I do," said Marjorie.

"Master McCosh will give you a mark for transgressing."

"Oh, I forgot!" exclaimed Marjorie; "but he is so much my brother that it is not against the rules."

"Is he a sailor?" asked Emma Downs.

"Yes," said Marjorie.

"A common sailor!"

"No, an uncommon one."

"Is he before the mast?" she persisted.

"Does he look so?" asked Marjorie, seriously.

"No, he looks like a captain; only that cap is not dignified enough."

"It's becoming," said Miss Parks, "and that's better than dignity."

The bell rang and the girls passed into the schoolroom in twos and threes. A table ran almost the length of the long, high apartment; it was covered with green baize and served as a desk for the second class girls; the first class girls occupied chairs around three sides of the room, during recitation the chairs were turned to face the teacher, at other times the girls sat before a leaf that served as a rest for their books while they studied, shelves being arranged above to hold the books. The walls of the room were tinted a pale gray. Mottoes in black and gold were painted in one straight line above the book shelves, around the three sides of the room. Marjorie's favorites were:

TO DESIRE TO KNOW--TO KNOW, IS CURIOSITY.

TO DESIRE TO KNOW--TO BE KNOWN, IS VANITY.

TO DESIRE TO KNOW--TO SELL YOUR KNOWLEDGE, IS COVETOUSNESS.

TO DESIRE TO KNOW--TO EDIFY ONE'S SELF, IS PRUDENCE.

TO DESIRE TO KNOW--TO EDIFY OTHERS, IS CHARITY.

TO DESIRE TO KNOW--TO GLORIFY GOD, IS RELIGION.

The words were very ancient, Master McCosh told Marjorie, the last having been written seven hundred years later than the others. The words "TO GLORIFY GOD" were over Marjorie's desk.

The first class numbered thirty. Clarissa Parks was the beauty of the class, Emma Downs the poet, Lizzie Harrowgate the mathematician, Maggie Peet the pet, Ella Truman wrote the finest hand, Maria Denyse was the elocutionist, Pauline Hayes the one most at home in universal history, Marjorie West did not know what she was: the remaining twenty-two were in no wise remarkable; one or two were undeniably dull, more were careless, and most came to school because it was the fashion and they must do something before they were fully grown up.

At each recitation the student who had reached the head of the class was marked "head" and took her place in the next recitation at the foot. During the first hour and a half there were four recitations--history, astronomy, chemistry, and English literature. That morning Marjorie, who did not know what she was in the class, went from the foot through the class, to the head three times; it would have been four times but she gave the preference to Pauline Hayes who had written the correct date half a second after her own was on the slate. "Miss Hayes writes more slowly than I," she told Master McCosh. "She was as sure of it as I was."

The replies in every recitation were written upon the slate; there was no cheating, every slate was before the eyes of its neighbor, every word must be exact.

"READING MAKES A FULL MAN, CONFERENCE A READY MAN, WRITING AN EXACT MAN," was one of the wall mottoes.

Marjorie had an amusing incident to relate to Miss Prudence about her first recitation in history. The question was: "What general reigned at this time?" The name of no general occurred. Marjorie was nonplussed. Pencils were rapidly in motion around her. "Confusion" read the head girl. Then to her chagrin Marjorie recalled the words in the lesson: "General confusion reigned at this time."

It was one of the master's "catches". She found that he had an abundant supply.

Another thing that morning reminded her of that mysterious "vibgyor" of the old times.

Master McCosh told them they could _clasp_ Alexander's generals; then Pauline Hayes gave their names--Cassander, Lysimachus, Antiognus, Seleucus and Ptolemy. Marjorie had that to tell Miss Prudence. Miss Prudence lived through her own school days that winter with Marjorie; the girl's enthusiasm reminded her of her own. Master McCosh, who never avoided personalities, observed as he marked the last recitation:

"Miss West studies, young ladies; she has no more brains than one or two of the rest of you, but she has something that more than half of you woefully lack--application and conscience."

"Perhaps she expects to teach," returned Miss Parks, in her most courteous tone, as she turned the diamond upon her engagement finger.

"I hope she may teach--this class," retorted the master with equal courtesy.

Miss Parks smiled at Marjorie with her lovely eyes and acknowledged the point of the master's remark with a slight inclination of her pretty head.

At the noon intermission a knot of the girls gathered around Marjorie's chair; Emma Downs took the volume of "Bridgewater Treatises" out of her hand and marched across the room to the book case with it, the others clapped their hands and shouted.

"Now we'll make her talk," said Ella Truman. "She is a queen in the midst of her court."

"She isn't tall enough," declared Maria Denyse.

"Or stately enough," added Pauline Hayes.

"Or self-possessed enough," supplemented Lizzie Harrowgate.

"Or imperious enough," said Clarissa Parks.

"She would always be abdicating in favor of some one who had an equal right to it," laughed Pauline Hayes.

"Oh, Miss West, who was that lovely little creature with you in Sunday school Sunday?" asked Miss Denyse. "She carries herself like a little princess."

"She is just the one not to do it," replied Miss Parks.

"What do you mean?" inquired Miss Harrowgate before Marjorie could speak.

"I mean," she began, laying a bunch of white grapes in Marjorie's fingers, "that her name is _Holmes_."

"Doesn't that belong to the royal line?" asked Pauline, lightly.

"It belongs to the line of _thieves_."

Marjorie's fingers dropped the grapes.

"Her father spent years in state-prison when he should have spent a lifetime there at hard labor! Ask my father. Jerome Holmes! He is famous in this city! How dared he send his little girl here to hear all about it!"

"Perhaps he thought he sent her among Christians and among ladies," returned Miss Harrowgate. "I should think you would be ashamed to bring that old story up, Clarissa."

Marjorie was paralyzed; she could not move or utter a sound.

"Father has all the papers with the account in; father lost enough, he ought to know about it."

"That child can't help it," said Emma Downs. "She has a face as sweet and innocent as an apple blossom."

"I hope she will never come here to school to revive the old scandal," said Miss Denyse. "Mother told me all about it as soon as she knew who the child was."

"Somebody else had the hardest of it," said Miss Parks; "_that's_ a story for us girls. Mother says she was one of the brightest and sweetest girls in all the city; she used to drive around with her father, and her wedding day was set, the cards were out, and then it came out that he had to go to state-prison instead. She gave up her diamonds and everything of value he had given her. She was to have lived in the house we live in now; but he went to prison and she went somewhere and has never been back for any length of time until this year, and now she has his little girl with her."

Miss Prudence! Was that Miss Prudence's story? Was she bearing it like this? Was that why she loved poor little Prue so?

"Bring some water, quick!" Marjorie heard some one say.

"No, take her to the door," suggested another voice.

"Oh, I'm so sorry, so sorry!" This was Miss Parks.

Marjorie arose to her feet, pushed some one away from her, and fled from them all--down the schoolroom, though the cloak-room out to the fresh air.

She needed the stiff worth-wester to bring her back to herself. Miss Prudence had lived through _that!_ And Prue must grow up to know! Did Miss Prudence mean that she must decide about that before Prue could come to school? She remembered now that a look, as if she were in pain, had shot itself across her eyes. Oh, that she would take poor little Prue back to California where nobody knew. If some one should tell _her_ a story like that about her own dear honest father it would kill her! She never could bear such shame and such disappointment in him. But Prue need never know if Miss Prudence took her away to-day, to-morrow. But Miss Prudence had had it to bear so long. Was that sorrow--and the blessing with it--the secret of her lovely life? And Mr. Holmes, the master! Marjorie was overwhelmed with this new remembrance of him. He was another one to bear it. Now she understood his solitary life. Now she knew why he shrank from anything like making himself known. The depth of the meaning of some of his favorite sayings flashed over her. She even remembered one of her own childish questions, and his brief, stern affirmative: "Mr. Holmes, were you ever in a prison?" How much they had borne together, these two! And now they had Prue to love and to live for. She would never allow even a shadow of jealousy of poor little Prue again. Poor little Prue, with such a heritage of shame. How vehemently and innocently she had declared that she would not be called Jeroma.

The wind blew sharply against her; she stepped back and closed the door; she was shivering while her cheeks were blazing. She would go home, she could not stay through the hour of the afternoon and be looked at and commented upon. Was not Miss Prudence's shame and sorrow her own? As she was reaching for her cloak she remembered that she must ask to be excused, taking it down and throwing it over her arm she re-entered the schoolroom.

Master McCosh was writing at the table, a group of girls were clustered around one of the registers.

"It was mean! It was real mean!" a voice was exclaiming.

"I don't see how you _could_ tell her, Clarissa Parks! You know she adores Miss Pomeroy."

"You all seemed to listen well enough," retorted Miss Parks.

"We were spell-bound. We couldn't help it," excused Emma Downs.

"I knew it before," said Maria Denyse.

"I didn't know Miss Pomeroy was the lady," said Lizzie Harrowgate. "She is mother's best friend, so I suppose she wouldn't tell me. They both came here to school."

Master McCosh raised his head.

"What new gossip now, girls?" he inquired sternly.

"Oh, nothing," answered Miss Parks.

"You are making quite a hubbub about nothing. The next time that subject is mentioned the young lady who does it takes her books and goes home. Miss Holmes expects to come here among you, and the girl who does not treat her with consideration may better stay at home. Jerome Holmes was the friend of my boyhood and manhood; he sinned and he suffered for it; his story does not belong to your generation. It is not through any merit of yours that your fathers are honorable men. It becomes us all to be humble?"

A hush fell upon the group. Clarissa Parks colored with anger; why should _she_ be rebuked, she was not a thief nor the daughter of a thief.

Marjorie went to the master and standing before him with her cheeks blazing and eyes downcast she asked:

"May I go home? I cannot recite this afternoon."

"If you prefer, yes," he replied in his usual tone; "but I hardly think you care to see Miss Pomeroy just now."

"Oh, no, I didn't think of that; I only thought of getting away from here."

"Getting away is not always the best plan," he replied, his pen still moving rapidly.

"Is it true? Is it _all_ true?"

"It is all true. Jerome Holmes was president of a bank in this city. I want you in moral science this afternoon."

"Thank you," said Marjorie, after a moment. "I will stay."

She returned to the dressing-room, taking a volume of Dick from the book-case as she passed it; and sitting in a warm corner, half concealed by somebody's shawl and somebody's cloak, she read, or thought she read, until the bell for the short afternoon session sounded.

Moral science was especially interesting to her, but the subject this afternoon kept her trouble fresh in her mind; it was Property, the use of the institution of Property, the history of Property, and on what the right of Property is founded.

A whisper from Miss Parks reached her:

"Isn't it a poky subject? All I care to know is what is mine and what isn't, and to know what right people have to take what isn't theirs."

The hour was ended at last, and she was free. How could she ever enter that schoolroom again? She hurried along the streets, grown older since the morning. Home would be her sanctuary; but there was Miss Prudence! Her face would tell the tale and Miss Prudence's eyes would ask for it. Would it be better for Prue, for Aunt Prue, to know or not to know? Miss Prudence had written to her once that some time she would tell her a story about herself; but could she mean this story?

As she opened the gate she saw her blue bird with the golden crest perched on the arm of a chair at the window watching for her.

She was at the door before Marjorie reached it, ready to spring into her arms and to exclaim how glad she was that she had come.

"You begin to look too soon, Kitten."

"I didn't begin till one o'clock," she said convincingly.

"But I don't leave school till five minutes past two, childie."

"But I have something to tell you to-day. Something _de_-licious. Aunt Prue has gone away with Morris. It isn't that, because I didn't want her to go."

Marjorie followed her into the front parlor and began to unfasten her veil.

"Morris' mother is coming home with her to-morrow to stay all winter, but that isn't it. Do guess, Marjorie."

She was dancing all around her, clapping her hands.

"Linnet hasn't come! That isn't it!" cried Marjorie, throwing off her cloak.

"No; it's all about me. It is going to happen to _me_."

"I can't think. You have nice things every day."

"It's this. It's nicer than anything. I am going to school with you to-morrow! Not for all the time, but to make a visit and see how I like it."

The child stood still, waiting for an outburst of joy at her announcement; but Marjorie only caught her and shook her and tumbled her curls without saying one word.

"Aren't you _glad_, Marjorie?"

"I'm glad I'm home with you, and I'm glad you are to give me my dinner."

"It's a very nice dinner," answered Prue, gravely; "roast beef and potatoes and tomatoes and pickled peaches and apple pie, unless you want lemon pie instead. I took lemon pie. Which will you have?"

"Lemon," said Marjorie.

"But you don't look glad about anything. Didn't you know your lessons to-day?"

"Oh, yes."

"I'll put your things on the hat-rack and you can get warm while I tell Deborah to put your dinner on the table. I think you are cold and that is why you can't be glad. I don't like to be cold."

"I'm not cold now," laughed Marjorie.

"Now you feel better! And I'm to sit up until you go to bed, and you are to sleep with me; and _won't_ it be splendid for me to go to school and take my lunch, too? And I can have jelly on my bread and an orange just as you do."

Marjorie was awake long before Deborah entered the chamber to kindle the fire, trying to form some excuse to keep Prue from going to school with her. How could she take her to-day of all days; for the girls to look at her, and whisper to each other, and ask her questions, and to study critically her dress, and to touch her hair, and pity her and kiss her! And she would be sure to open the round gold locket she wore upon a tiny gold chain about her neck and tell them it was "my papa who died in California."

She was very proud of showing "my papa."

What excuse could she make to the child? It was not storming, and she did not have a cold, and her heart did seem so set on it. The last thing after she came upstairs last night she had opened the inside blinds to look out to see if it were snowing. And she had charged Deborah to have the fire kindled early so that she would not be late at breakfast.

She must go herself. She could concoct no reason for remaining at home herself; her throat had been a trifle sore last night, but not even the memory of it could bring it back this morning.

Deborah had a cough, if she should be taken ill--but there was the fire crackling in the airtight in confirmation of Deborah's ability to be about the house; or if Prue--but the child was never ill. Her cheeks were burning last night, but that was with the excitement of the anticipation. If somebody should come! But who? She had not stayed at home for Morris, and Linnet would not come early enough to keep them at home, that is if she ought to remain at home for Linnet.

What could happen? She could not make anything happen? She could not tell the child the naked truth, the horrible truth. And she could not tell her a lie. And she could not break her heart by saying that she did not want her to go. Oh, if Miss Prudence were only at home to decide! But would she tell _her_ the reason? If she did not take Prue she must tell Miss Prudence the whole story. She would rather go home and never go to school any more than to do that. Oh, why must things happen all together? Prue would soon be awake and asking if it were storming. She had let her take it for granted last night; she could not think of anything to say. Once she had said in aggrieved voice:

"I think you might be glad, Marjorie."

But was it not all selfishness, after all? She was arranging to give Prue a disappointment merely to spare herself. The child would not understand anything. But then, would Aunt Prue want her to go? She must do what Miss Prudence would like; that would decide it all.

Oh, dear! Marjorie was a big girl, too big for any nonsense, but there were unmistakable tears on her cheeks, and she turned away from sleeping Prue and covered her face with both hands. And then, beside this, Morris was gone and she had not been kind to him. "Good-bye, Marjorie--_dear_" the words smote her while they gave her a feeling of something to be very happy about. There did seem to be a good many things to cry about this morning.

"Marjorie, are you awake?" whispered a soft voice, while little fingers were in her hair and tickling her ear.

Marjorie did not want to be awake.

"_Marjorie_," with an appeal in the voice.

Then the tears had to be brushed away, and she turned and put both arms around the white soft bundle and rubbed her cheek against her hair.

"Oh, _do_ you think it's storming?"

"No."

"You will have to curl my hair."

"Yes."

"And mustn't we get up? Shan't we be late?"

"Listen a minute; I want to tell you something."

"Is it something _dreadful?_ Your voice sounds so."

"No not dreadful one bit. But it is a disappointment for a little girl I know."

"Oh, is it _me?_" clinging to her.

"Yes, it is you."

"Is it about going to school?" she asked with a quick little sob.

"Yes."

"_Can't_ I go, Marjorie?"

"Not to-day, darling."

"Oh, dear!" she moaned. "I did want to so."

"I know it, and I'm so sorry. I am more sorry than you are. I was so sorry that I could not talk about it last night."

"Can't I know the reason?" she asked patiently.

"The reason is this: Aunt Prue would not let you go. She would not let you go if she knew about something that happened in school yesterday."

"Was it something so bad?"

"It was something very uncomfortable; something that made me very unhappy, and if you were old enough to understand you would not want to go. You wouldn't go for anything."

"Then what makes you go?" asked Prue quickly.

"Because I have to."

"Will it hurt you to-day?"

"Yes."

"Then I wouldn't go. Tell Aunt Prue; she won't make you go."

"I don't want to tell her; it would make her cry."

"Then don't tell her. I'll stay home then--if I have to. But I want to go. I can stand it if you can."

Marjorie laughed at her resignation and resolution and rolling her over pushed her gently out down to the carpet. Perhaps it would be better to stay home if there were something so dreadful at school, and Deborah might let her make molasses candy.

"Won't you please stay home with me and make molasses candy, or peppermint drops?"

"We'll do it after school! won't that do? And you can stay with Deborah in the kitchen, and she'll tell you stories."

"Her stories are sad," said Prue, mournfully.

"Ask her to tell you a funny one, then."

"I don't believe she knows any. She told me yesterday about her little boy who didn't want to go to school one day and she was washing and said he might stay home because he coaxed so hard. And she went to find him on the wharf and nobody could tell her where he was. And she went down close to the water and looked in and he was there with his face up and a stick in his hand and he was dead in the water and she saw him."

"Is that true?" asked Marjorie, in surprise.

"Yes, true every word. And then her husband died and she came to live with Aunt Prue's father and mother ever so long ago. And she cried and it was sad."

"But I know she knows some funny stories. She will tell you about Aunt Prue when she was little."

"She has told me. And about my papa. He used to like to have muffins for tea."