Part 3

"I don't know that she does," said Charlotte; "I rather think mother has said nothing to her yet; and if I were you, Olive, I would not tell her. You know mother likes to have the first notice of her plans come from herself; and Abby will never be able to help saying, 'Oh! Yes, I knew!'"

"Poor Abby is such a child," said Olive, with something of a sigh. "I sometimes feel as though it were wrong to leave her to herself."

"Oh! She will do well enough. You know how fond mother is of her, and I suppose you do not doubt that she will take the best care of her." Charlotte said this with a little of the old jealousy in her tone.

"Of course I know that," Olive hastened to say, "but I am afraid Abby will stand too much in awe of her to confide in her as she does in me. But she will not hear of my giving up my plan upon her account, and so I can only hope all will be for the best. So it is settled that you are not to go back with me. I am afraid I shall be rather lonely, but I suppose I may as well get used to it," she added, with something of a sigh.

Charlotte pressed her hand, and sighed too. She began to feel that in losing Olive, she should lose much more than she had been aware of.

Mrs. Merton continued to treat Olive with coldness all the next day, but by the morning of the third her face began to relax into its usual smiles. She was, in truth, a very kind-hearted woman, and anxious to do every thing in her power for her daughter and her nieces. But then she wanted to do it exactly in her own way, and to have them mere passive recipients of her favors. Any thing like contradiction, or having a will of their own, annoyed her extremely. For this reason, Abby had always been more her favorite than Olive; for Abby never contradicted any body if she could help it. It was too much trouble. Even Charlotte did not entirely satisfy her in this respect, for Charlotte was apt to have an opinion of her own, and to maintain it stoutly, too. But she had always intended to be just to Olive, though she did not particularly like her.

We have said, that in a gentle, lady-like way, she was something of a match-maker. It was her wish to introduce her into society, under the best auspices, and if possible, to settle her in life advantageously. That Olive should actually intend to renounce all these privileges, and give herself up to the laborious life of a school-teacher, seemed incredible, and at first her indignation knew no bounds.

But after calm reflection, she began to see certain alleviating circumstances. She honestly regretted that the girl should be so blinded to her own interests, but perhaps upon the whole it was just as well. It would be much less trouble to bring out two young ladies than three. Olive was very difficult to manage sometimes, and she had very romantic ideas upon certain subjects. A year's experience of the real hardships of life would probably do more towards bringing her to reason than all the lectures in the world, and she would be ready to return home and behave like a reasonable being, at least so far as could be expected from her father's daughter.

So reasoned Mrs. Merton, and by such reasoning, aided by the natural kindness of her heart, her wrath cooled apace. She gave Olive her formal consent to the plan, accompanying the same with an hour's lecture upon the folly of romantic ideas, and the absolute necessity of laying them aside, if she meant to succeed in life, concluding all with a kiss, and the injunction very kindly given, that she must always consider her uncle's house as her home, and an assurance that she would ever find it open to her, should she not find her occupation of teaching as agreeable as she expected. Olive was very grateful for the kindness, and took the lecture in excellent part, and so fair weather was once more established throughout the family, greatly to the delight of Mr. Merton, who never could endure any thing like a family dissension.

CHAPTER THIRD.

OLIVE'S vacation passed away pleasantly and quickly; she felt that she had never before spent one so agreeably.

Charlotte's jealousy seemed almost entirely subdued. She thoroughly respected her cousin for her independence, and felt ashamed of the many times she had taunted her with her unfortunate circumstances: moreover, she began to feel the real value of Olive's society, and now that she seemed likely to lose it, she felt a desire to make the most of what remained.

Mr. Merton saw, with pleasure, that a warm friendship seemed, at last, likely to grow up between his daughter and his favorite niece, and encouraged it by every means in his power. Mrs. Merton, who never did any thing by halves, exerted all her powers, which were by no means small, to make the time pass pleasantly. Rides and drives, short journeys and impromptu pic-nics, filled up the time pretty thoroughly. And when Olive ventured to remonstrate a little, she received this answer:

"You are going to begin a life of hard work, my dear. It is no more than right that you should play while you can. And mind, Olive, I will not have you spend your vacation in sewing. There will be time enough for that when you are away from home."

Upon this kind pretext, aunt Rebecca took the whole charge of Olive's clothes. And when she got ready to return to school, she found herself furnished with an entirely new and very handsome wardrobe, sufficient to last a long time. She remonstrated a little at being so far favored above the other girls.

"Your case is very different from theirs, Olive. As I said before, you are about entering upon a laborious life, and it is but fair that the commencement should be made easy for you. Abby and Charlotte will have plenty of time to play, and it would be no kindness to take their work out of their hands. Abby, especially, needs to be taught to sew. It is a knowledge which can not fail to be useful to her, however she may be situated in life."

Olive was fain to acquiesce in this reasoning, though she thought that Mrs. Merton would find she had taken upon herself more than she imagined, in trying to make Abby work. She well remembered all the entreaties and remonstrances, the coaxing and scolding that were necessary at school, to make her mend her stockings or keep her dresses in any decent order. She took an opportunity to say a few last words to her sister upon the subject.

"Do pray, Abby dear, try to keep your clothes in nice order. You know how much any slovenliness annoys aunt Rebecca, and I shall not be here to pick up your things after you, and take up your stitches for you!"

"Never fear," said Abby, lightly; "I am going to turn over a new leaf about that."

"But, Abby, you have turned over so many new leaves which did not seem to have any thing on them after all—"

"That you are afraid the whole book will be found to contain nothing but blank leaves, after all, eh, sister mine? But I shall arrive at the reading by and by, and then see how interesting it will be!"

"Pray what do you mean to have your book turn out?" asked Olive.

"Perhaps it may turn out a song, Perhaps turn out a sermon,—"

sang Abby, in her skylark tones. "Perhaps a solemn tragedy—who knows?"

Poor Abby! Who knows, indeed!

"And, Abby, one other thing. You know I shall not be here for you to tell all your affairs to—and it takes a good while for a letter to come and go. Now won't you confide in aunt Rebecca, and take her advice about every thing? You know you are apt to be giddy sometimes," said Olive, with the air of one who makes an assertion which may seem doubtful to the hearer.

"I did not know I was any thing else," laughed her sister. "I feel complimented by that 'some times,' Olive."

"Well, then, if you know that you are giddy, won't you confide in aunt Rebecca?"

"Yes, of course, if I can think of any thing to confide. But you had better say uncle Merton. I could go to him with a story a great deal easier than I could to aunt Rebecca, for all people generally consider him so solemn and grave. I wonder why it is?"

"Because he spoils you, and never lectures you for your good, you little goose."

"Well, I don't like to be lectured for my good," with a little toss of her head, which set her golden curls dancing, so that they seemed to emit a light of their own. "It never does me any good, and makes me feel more like being cross than any thing else in the world. I don't mean you, of course," she added, fearful that she might seem unkind; "you never do lecture, you only talk."

"Then, if I only talk, will you mind what I say?"

"Yes, of course, if I can."

"And you will write to me very often, won't you, Abby? You know I shall be very lonely without you or Charlotte—"

"Without Charlotte, especially," said Abby, parenthetically.

"I like Charlotte better than I ever did before," said Olive. "But it is no trouble for you to write letters, and you will have so much to say. You must tell me all about your parties and going out, and all the new acquaintances you make. I wish you would keep a journal, and send it to me every week."

"Keep a journal, indeed! I would about as soon undertake to keep my uncle's books. I never expect to have perseverance enough to keep a journal."

"Perhaps it would be a good time to acquire that rather convenient quality," suggested Olive.

"Oh! No, I can not engage to keep a journal, but I will write as often as you wish to hear from me. Any thing else, my dear little Mentor?"

"Nothing, only—you will be going out a good deal, dear Abby, and perhaps you will meet temptations. Pray don't let any thing make you forget what we used to learn at our mother's knee when we were children."

"I shall never forget that Olive," said Abby, her bright face assuming the most serious expression of which it was capable. "It seems as though I remembered that more distinctly than any thing else about her. And for all you think I am so giddy, (and I know I am,) you never knew me forget to say my prayers night and morning."

"That is true," Olive admitted.

"Or laugh or whisper in church, did you?"

"I hope not. To say nothing of any higher motive, I do not believe you would ever do any thing so entirely vulgar and ill-bred."

"Well, Olive, I can tell you that I saw our very superfine aunt Dimsden and our very superfiner sister Laura, talking to the very super-finest Miss Eaton in service-time, at St. David's, last Sunday evening, and I know Dr. Eastman saw them, too, for he looked straight at them."

Olive laughed. "Do you know what aunt Rebecca thinks of aunt Dimsden, Abby?"

"Oh! Yes, I know. They are a pair of affectionate sisters-in-law, are they not? But I thought Laura ought to know better. I really was mortified for her."

"I am glad I did not see her," said Olive. "I don't think Laura has improved at all the last year, Abby."

"How can she improve, living as she does? Aunt Dimsden thinks of nothing but having a place in society, and making as much parade as she can, upon as small means. I believe her Bible reads, 'Whether ye eat, or drink, or whatever ye do, do all for a social position.'"

Olive shook her head reprovingly, but she could not help admitting the truth of what Abby said. "I am sure you will admit, Abby, that it might have been better for Laura, if she had always had the prospect before her of being obliged to earn her own living. It really makes me unhappy to think what sort of a woman she is likely to become."

"There is no use in making yourself unhappy about it, Olive; Laura likes it."

"So much the worse for her."

"And aunt Dimsden pretends to be a religious woman too," said Abby, thoughtfully. "How is it, Olive, that she says the same prayers and creed that we do, and that Mrs. Eastman and Mrs. Addiston do, and yet makes dress and company and outside show her chief objects?"

"I don't know," answered Olive, with a deep sigh; "I don't want to judge her, but I think such people do a great deal more mischief than they think for."

"Aunt Rebecca does not seem to bestow nearly as much thought and pains upon her dress and so on," continued Abby, "and yet she is always well-dressed, and appears like a lady, while Aunt Dimsden—" Abby paused.

"Aunt Rebecca would not do any thing mean for the sake of what aunt Dimsden calls society," said Olive. "She would never run after or court any one she did not respect, or slight any one who had been kind to her, however vulgar the person might be."

"She has no need of doing so," replied Abby. "She has plenty of such society as she likes without it. Sometimes I wonder, Olive, how such people as Miss Eaton, and—and others would act if there came up another persecution for the sake of Christianity."

"There is no telling," said Olive; "they might be as firm and resolute in dying for their faith as any one at all. They might realize then that faith is a real true thing, and not a fashion."

"I think if Miss Eaton should be burned alive, aunt Dimsden and Laura would go to the stake without flinching," said Abby, laughing.

"Poor Laura!" sighed Olive.

"Well, I know; I feel very sorry about her, too, and I wish things were different, but I can not make them so, and what is the use of fretting? I should rather be in your place than hers. But I don't want to be in either so long as I can stay as I am."

And so the conversation ended, not very satisfactorily in all points to Olive, but more so, upon the whole, than such conversations between herself and her sister usually did. About Laura she felt less anxiety and no responsibility. They had been very much separated from early childhood, Laura having been adopted by Mrs. Dimsden immediately after her father's death—and their dispositions were entirely different. Laura, with all her apparent amiability, was too selfish to be very lovable.

They had been educated upon very different plans, and their whole system of ideas and theory of life were entirely dissimilar. Mrs. Merton thought Mrs. Dimsden a very vulgar woman: Mrs. Dimsden thought Mrs. Merton proud, set up, and disagreeable, at the same time that she courted her society, and made the most in all her conversation of the small degree of intimacy existed between them. Mrs. Dimsden talked of dear Rebecca and my sister Rebecca, and quoted her sayings and doings upon all occasions; while Mrs. Merton always spoke with great respect of Mrs. Dimsden, and treated her with as much distance as she could reconcile it to her conscience to assume towards the widow of her husband's half-brother. Mrs. Merton, in fact, though a very proud, and somewhat worldly woman, was neither mean nor vulgar, while Mrs. Dimsden was both.

Mrs. Merton, though she liked to see her young friends married and settled in life, and thought any romantic ideas of love and spiritual affinity very much out of place, would yet have scorned the idea of going out of her way to attract or entice gentlemen. While Mrs. Dimsden avowedly considered getting married the principal object in the life of woman—the very thing for which she was made, and failing which, she must necessarily miss the great object of existence. In this belief she devoted all her energies to marrying off whatever young lady might be under her charge for the time being. People laughed at her, but she carried her point; and having provided for her younger sisters and cousins, she was intent upon making a match for Laura—a match which should exceed all others in brilliancy and cause her sister-in-law to hide her diminished head.

Laura, on her part, fell in very well with all her aunt's schemes on her behalf. She was quite as beautiful as Abby, and almost as devoid of serious thought. But there was this difference, that while Abby had a kind and warm heart, and for the sake of any one she loved would sacrifice almost any thing, Laura, under a veil of amiable manners, was very selfish, and seldom bestowed a thought upon any one's peace or comfort except her own. She did not care for books except just so far as they could minister gracefully to her love of display, and she valued music and drawing upon the same grounds. In fact, she lived only upon the outside, and if she had a heart, she had never found it out, and was not very likely to do so under the tuition of aunt Dimsden. She liked Olive as well as she could like any body; she envied Abby her musical talent, and thought her much more reasonable than Olive. This last plan especially, she looked upon as preposterous to a degree.

"But Olive," she remarked sweetly, "had always been a strange, unaccountable creature, and there was no use in distressing one's self about her freaks."

Aunt Dimsden said she had given that up long ago, but at the same time she gave Olive some friendly advice as to marrying a minister or a professional man—a thing, she observed, which teachers are very apt to do.

Olive's last term in school was a very pleasant one. Her friend, Helen Monteith, was still there, and some others of her particular set; and there were several of the new girls whom she liked very much. She was very busy, for besides her regular business, she spent a good deal of time in learning what Mrs. Granger called the theory and practice of teaching, by hearing classes, assisting the younger girls in their lessons, and helping Miss Lincoln to correct compositions and exercises. She was surprised to find what an amount of labor was required in that department alone, and how little, after all this labor, certain of the girls contrived to learn.

"It reminds me," she said, upon one occasion, "of an old proverb I have heard many repeat,—That one man may lead a horse to water, but twenty men can not make him drink."

"And yet the poor teacher is blamed for not making him drink," replied Miss Lincoln.

"Yes. Many people can never be brought to acknowledge that their own children and their own management at home is in fault. What is one to do in that case?"

"Have patience," said the teacher, sighing: "I know of nothing else. But I think one great reason why scholars, especially girls, learn so little, is from the want of any adequate motive."

"One would think the mere pleasure of knowing ought to be enough," said Olive.

"Not with children. They have not knowledge enough to appreciate the value of more."

"But most of the girls here are not children, Miss Lincoln. There are very few under fourteen years old."

"True," replied Miss Lincoln, "but think how ignorant many of them are when they come, and when they go away, for that matter."

"What motive would you propose, then?"

"Why, they are several. One is, as you say, the desire of knowledge, but every one can not appreciate that. The next best is the desire of usefulness, and the best of all is the religious motive, which includes the others; 'Whether ye eat or drink, or whatever ye do, do all to the glory of God.'"

"But I think, Miss Lincoln, it is much easier to acquire knowledge with the idea of turning it to some account, besides the mere enjoyment of it one's self," said Olive; "I am sure I have studied much better this term than ever I did before. I never go over a single lesson without thinking, 'Now, how should I explain this, if I were called upon to teach it?' And I find my ideas much clearer for the process."

"Yes, you learn to analyze, and to see clearly what you know, and what you do not know."

"I have heard teachers say that it was very difficult to study while engaged in school," remarked Olive.

"It is so," admitted Miss Lincoln; with a sigh. "Their powers of mind and body are generally so over-taxed in their school duties that they are glad to rest themselves as thoroughly as possible when they are out of the school-room. Some are stronger than others, and some schools are better supplied with assistants, but as a rule, teachers, especially in the smaller schools, are very much over-taxed."

Olive sighed. "Not a very pleasant prospect for me," she said.

"It is part of the price one must be content to pay for independence and usefulness," replied Miss Lincoln. "But some teachers are much more favorably situated than others in that respect. In this house, for instance, we should be very ungrateful if we complained. The only over-worked person in the establishment is Mrs. Granger."

"But, Miss Lincoln, think how many men have studied law and medicine, and even divinity, while teaching."

"Oh! Yes, I know it. There are many honorable exceptions, even among women. I studied chemistry myself, while I was teaching in a district-school."

Olive had anticipated one thing, in which she was pleasantly disappointed. She had supposed a good many of the girls would look down upon her, when they learned that she was to be dependent upon her own resources. But in this she found herself mistaken. Girls in a large school are apt to be very thorough democrats, and if there is an aristocracy, it is almost always one of talent and personal influence. Of this aristocracy, Olive had always been a prominent member, and she did not find her position at all changed. Her equals treated her with the same consideration to which she had always been accustomed, and with the younger girls, her influence was increased rather than diminished, from the fact that she sometimes heard their lessons, or assisted them in their exercises.

Still there were some few who took it upon them to pity her extremely, and among the number were Miss Lucretia Monroe, and her friend, Miss Jane Douglass, who had long enjoyed the proud preëminence of being the greatest dunces in the school. Either of these young ladies could miss question after question at a public examination with the greatest coolness; they cared nothing for prizes, to which, indeed, they never aspired. And they never considered themselves disgraced by being found out in any scrape whatever. Of course, they were not held in any high estimation by the aristocracy aforesaid. But, secure in the depths of their ignorance, they did not feel themselves in the slightest degree disturbed, by the not always concealed contempt of Misses Grey, Monteith, McHenry, and company.

"Poor Olive!" said Lucretia one day to Maria Grey, with a sweet air of amiability. "How much I pity her!"

"Do you?" said Maria, carelessly. "I dare say she would be very much obliged to you if she knew it."

"Yes, because she has got to teach for a living," continued Miss Monroe, elegantly. "I don't know what I should do if I were so reduced."

"I don't know what you would, I am sure," returned Maria. "You would be in a bad case certainly; I can not think of any thing you could possibly teach."

"You need not snap one up so, Maria. I do not expect to be a school-ma'am myself, and my papa never intended I should be educated for one. But any way, I am sorry for Olive, and I shall make a point of noticing her just as much as ever."

"'You' notice Olive McHenry!" exclaimed Maria Grey. "Upon my word, Miss Monroe, you are sublime in the extreme of your impertinence. Why, child, it is an honor to you, that she sometimes condescends to help you out of a scrape, when every one else is tired of you. The idea of your presuming to pity Olive McHenry, because she prefers independence gained by her own exertions, to idleness and uselessness! You would do much better if you would exert yourself to imitate her a little."

Nevertheless, Miss Monroe persisted in her charitable intentions, and proceeded to bestow a good deal of her society upon Olive, who could not help wondering what in the world had come over her.

She asked Maria one day. "She comes to my room, till I am tempted sometimes to tell her that I would rather have it to myself, and she seems to miss no opportunity of talking with me."

"Don't you understand it?" replied Maria, laughing. "She is pitying you for your hard fate. She told me that she was sorry for you, and meant to notice you as much as she could."