CHAPTER XIII.

A PROOF OF FRIENDSHIP.

There is no need of describing more fully the three winter months that Margaret passed at Shellbeach. The time went faster than ever, after she had offered her services to Father Barry. Under his direction, she did great good; more indeed than any one knew of, for she had obtained a promise from the good priest that he would not speak of her charities. So when Dr. James once or twice tried to lead his friend to speak about the matter, Father Barry, desirous that she should not lose the reward of the "Father who seeth in secret," only smiled and said, "She knows all about it, you must go to her." As for the McNallys, Margaret still considered them as her _protégés_, and cherished in private the project for improving their condition.

Then she had done something else, a thing of which she was very proud, and of which she often afterward boasted--she had taught a roomful of children in the public school at Sealing! Old Mr. Burney was growing more and more infirm, and seemed threatened with the entire loss of his mind. It became every day more difficult to leave him; and one morning, Margaret, on calling as usual for her friend, found that her father had had a shock of paralysis, and could not be left. Martha had planned to send an excuse by Margaret for her absence; but she could think of no person to supply her place, and she was completely surprised by Margaret's announcing her intention to try her hand at managing the children! All remonstrance was in vain, and having received a few brief directions, Margaret drove rapidly away to Sealing. How her fashionable friends in New York would have opened their eyes, had they been favored with a sight of Miss Lester hearing two or three dozen children recite the multiplication-table!

She returned in the afternoon, radiant, and, as she herself said, "hungry as a bear." She gave glowing accounts to Martha of her success, and begged to be allowed to try the experiment again on the morrow. Some of the boys, she remarked, evidently "took her measure;" but after trying a little impertinence, they gave it up as a bad job, and every thing went as well as Martha could have desired. For three days, Margaret kept this up, and gained the hearts of even the most obdurate of her scholars. How delighted she was with her success! At the end of that period, as old Mr. Burney had grown better, Margaret's school duties came to a close.