Part 8

Julia looked from one to the other: her face grew redder and redder, and her eyes filled with tears. She took up Olive's sketch and examined it. Then looked again at her own, and, at last quite overcome, she burst into tears and sobbed aloud.

Olive now really pitied the girl.

"You had better go out into the air a little, Julia," she said, kindly; "Laura, my dear, go with your sister."

The two left the room, and Olive, turning to the class, said, gravely: "I trust to your honor, girls, never to mention this little affair again, either to Julia or any one else. You will see the reason for what I say, if you think how you would like to be treated yourselves under such circumstances."

The girls looked at each other with some surprise, but with evident approbation, and Olive saw that, so far as they were concerned, she had gained a complete victory. But she felt rather anxious about the effect upon Julia. She was, however, soon set at rest.

"What did Miss McHenry say after I went out?" Julia asked of Anna Jones, in the short recess that Olive allowed them.

"She said we were not to say any thing about the matter, to you or any one else, because we would not like it ourselves," replied her friend.

Julia hesitated a moment, and then said:

"Anna, do you think I made a fool of myself?"

"I think you did," said the straightforward Anna; "and if I were you, I would tell Miss McHenry so, and ask her to overlook it. That will be the best way to make every one forget it."

Julia meditated a moment, and then marched straight up to the drawing-table, where Olive was standing, surrounded by all the older girls.

"Miss McHenry," she said, resolutely, but with a slight tremor in her voice. "Anna Jones says I made a fool of myself this afternoon—at least, I asked her if I didn't, and she said yes, and I am come to ask your pardon. I see that you are right, and that I don't know any thing about drawing. If you will let me come into the class again, I will do just what you want me to."

"I am very glad to hear you say so, my dear," said Olive, kissing her; "it is always an excellent sign, when a girl is ready to acknowledge that she has been in the wrong. I shall be very glad to teach you all I know, and I have no doubt that you will soon learn to draw very well."

Thus ended Olive's first contest in school, wherein, by the exercise of a great deal of forbearance, and a little ready wit, she put her opponent entirely in the wrong, and drew the sympathies of the whole school to herself. Julia was possessed of a great many good qualities, but she had been badly managed, both at home and in school. She was really very quick, and easily kept at the head of almost all her classes, and she had been put forward to think herself a good deal more talented than she was, by the injudicious praises of parents and teachers. Her strong will had never happened to have a stronger one opposed to it, and thus she had carried all before her. Olive foresaw a good many mortifications in store for her, but she hoped they would all end as well as the first had done.

School was dismissed at half-past four, and Olive walked a little way down the street, hoping that the fresh air would cool her hot forehead, and quiet its throbbing. But she soon became conscious that she was being stared at from almost every house that she passed, and turned back again. Ruth met her at the door.

"How tired you are," she said, kindly, "but you will soon get used to it. How did you get on?"

"Very well, I believe," said Olive, wearily, "but really I hardly know."

"You had better go up-stairs, and lie down till tea-time," said Ruth compassionately. "You will find it easier to-morrow, and still more so the next day, till by and by, you will hardly mind it at all."

Olive was very glad of the encouragement, and still more of the rest. She threw herself upon the lounge, and closed her eyes without thinking of slumber, but by degrees her thoughts mingled themselves confusedly together, and she slept soundly, till she was aroused by the tea-bell, and rose feeling quite herself again.

Mrs. Felton had prepared herself to sympathize with Olive's trials, and seemed quite provoked to think she had not had any. Mr. Felton inquired whether she had found the school pleasant, and on being answered in the affirmative, mildly remarked that some people found things agreeable, and others made them so, after which he finished his supper without another word, and then betook himself to his newspaper.

"There has been a piano sent here for you to-day," said Ruth as they adjourned to the parlor.

"A piano! From whom?" asked Olive, very much surprised.

"Mr. Gregory sent it," replied Ruth. "It is one that Augusta Tower had before she was married. Mr. Tower bought a much finer one for her, and when she went home to live, she took it with her. So as one was enough in the house, and you had none, they thought you might as well use this."

It was a plain but handsome instrument of good tone, and perfectly in tune. Olive was delighted. She was fond of music, and played very well, though she had not Abby's splendid talents, and she had sighed more than once over the prospect of being without a piano of her own.

"A good many people thought Mrs. Tower ought to have sold her handsome piano, after her husband died," said Mrs. Felton, in her sighing voice, "but she hardly sold any of her things. It looks rather singular to see the minister's parlor the handsomest furnished of any in town."

"I don't know why she should sell her things, mother," said Ruth. "They can not be in debt, and she had enough to support herself, though not as much as people generally thought she would have."

"Ruth never will allow that Mrs. Tower can do any thing wrong," said Mrs. Felton, appealing to Olive. "Even when, the third Sunday after her child died, she played the organ just as usual, Ruth defended that."

"We should not have had any music at all, if she had not, mother, and you know the Bishop was here. Augusta did not think she ought to give up all her duties because she was in affliction. I know she was blamed for going into Sunday-school so soon too, but I must say, I think she did right."

"But she is always doing such queer things," persisted Mrs. Felton. "Do you know, Miss McHenry, she was married on Tuesday morning, and she went to church the Sunday before, though the invitations were all out."

"I do not see any thing wrong in that," remarked Olive. "It seems to me that would be the very time I should want to go."

"Especially as it was the Communion," added Ruth.

"Well, my dear, very likely you are right and I am wrong. I always am, you know," said Mrs. Felton, in deeply resigned tones. "I only know, it would have been thought very strange when I was young, but people have improved since then, no doubt. I don't think I am quite a fool, however." And with these words, Mrs. Felton returned to the dining-room.

Ruth suppressed a sigh and asked Olive to play something.

"Mother thinks Augusta is very odd," she said, after a while, "but I hope you will like her. She goes out very little, but I think she will come and see you."

"Did I understand you that she was a widow?" asked Olive.

"Yes, her husband died five years ago—just two years after they were married. He was a cultivated, agreeable man, and was supposed to be very rich. But after his death, it was found that there was only about a thousand a year, for Augusta and her child. They lived rather expensively, I suppose, but they had no debts, and so Augusta kept most of their furniture and all her books and pictures. She furnished the Parsonage, which needed it very much, and she has lived at home ever since. Her child, a most lovely little creature, died last summer very suddenly. I was always fond of Augusta, when we were school-girls. But since her widowhood, I have loved her more dearly than ever."

"Is she an only child?" asked Olive.

Something passed across Ruth's face, like a sudden gust of wind across a still piece of water, but almost before it could be noticed, it was gone.

"She had one brother, but he is dead," she said quietly.

At this moment, the door-bell rang, and a Mrs. Dennison entered. She was a pretty, matronly woman, one of those "mothers in Israel," a certain proportion of whom are to be found in almost every church, efficient helps to the minister, faithful in their own families, and ready to lend a helping hand to every good work, but so quiet and undemonstrative that they are hardly appreciated till they are dead and gone. And then every one says on every occasion when assistance is needed: "How we do miss Mrs. Dennison!" She had come to call upon Miss McHenry, and invite her to the sewing society next day, at her house.

Ruth advised Olive to go.

"You will find yourself a little stared at, perhaps, but the meetings are very pleasant, and it is a good way to become acquainted with the people."

"I never attended a society in my life," said Olive. "There was none connected with our church, and I believe aunt Rebecca had a prejudice against them. She thought they promoted scandal."

"If scandal-loving people meet together, they will be likely enough to talk scandal," replied Ruth, "whether it be at a society or a party. But it has never been my fate to hear very much of it at society. I suppose they may be different in different places. Mrs. Dennison and Mrs. Gregory have been at the head of ours for a good many years, till the latter resigned in favor of Augusta, and they are neither of them people likely to encourage gossip. But I leave you to judge for yourself."

Other callers came in, and Olive was introduced to several ladies and gentlemen, all well-bred, pleasant people. And when at rather an early hour, she laid her head on her pillow, it was with a very pleasant feeling of encouragement and thankfulness that the lines had fallen to her in such pleasant places. If she could have forgotten her great anxiety about Abby, she would have been quite happy.

CHAPTER SEVENTH.

IT was an old custom for school to be out on Friday afternoons at half-past three. Olive dressed for the society before she went to school, and Ruth was to call for her on her way. The two days since Wednesday had passed without any thing particular to mark them, except that one or two new scholars had entered.

The girls, for the most part, were quiet, orderly, and studious, and very ready to attend to her hints with regard to sitting, speaking, and standing. Julia, especially, was quiet and meek to a degree that astonished all her companions, and seemed particularly to delight her sister, a meek, gentle, little thing, over whom she was rather given to tyrannizing. She took so much pains with her ruled lines that she was advanced to the next step in Chapman without delay, and Olive promised her that after three or four more lessons, she should have something really pretty to do.

As Olive entered the dressing-room, she found one of the girls, named Melissa Tucker, waiting to speak to her. She was a pale-faced, pale-haired girl, with eyes of no particular color, and a disagreeable drawl to her speech.

"What is it, Melissa?" asked Olive.

"I think it my duty, Miss McHenry," said Melissa, solemnly, "to tell you that I saw Jane Ramsdell and Phebe Jones whispering twice this morning, and once yesterday."

"Indeed," said Olive, proceeding to take off her bonnet, without manifesting any vital interest in the intelligence.

"Miss Brown used to call them up and reprove them before the whole school, when they did so," persisted Miss Tucker, after waiting in vain for the commendation which she expected. Olive took no notice.

"They whisper a great deal. I often see them, and I shall think it my duty to tell you, Miss McHenry, every time the girls do any thing wrong. Miss Brown used to say she was very much obliged to me for doing so."

"I am not of Miss Brown's opinion," said Olive. "I do not want any one coming to me with stories of what the girls do. Any mischief which I can not see, I am willing to pass over. You would not have been very well pleased, I venture to say, Melissa, if Phebe had told me, this morning, when you were reading that story in school-time, though you knew very well that it was contrary to rules."

Melissa looked confounded.

"I saw you at the time," Olive continued, "but I did not see fit to notice it then. I beg, however, that you will remember the circumstance, when you give in your report to-night; and please to remember, also, that I will have no tale-bearers about me. You may have thought it your duty, as you say, to come and tell me, but as you see I do not wish you to do so again, it will be your duty in future to avoid it."

Melissa followed her teacher into the school-room with as much anger in her heart as could well dwell there, and she mentally resolved to be revenged before many hours. The consternation was great, when before the calling of the merit-roll, Olive rose and said:

"I have been told that one or two of the girls whispered this morning. I was sorry to hear it, and I hope, if it is true, that they will answer accordingly, and be careful not to offend again. I suppose you would all like to know who informed me." She paused, and a murmur of mingled expectation and indignation ran round the room. "I shall not tell you," she resumed, "nor in any way point out the offender. I presume she did what she thought was right. But once for all, I wish to say that I do not want any one coming to me with stories. I am tolerably clear-sighted myself, and moreover I trust to your honor not to try to deceive me. I hope I am safe in so doing," she said, looking round the room.

Every hand was raised in token of assent. "If you know of any large girl, tyrannizing over and tormenting a little one, and can not stop her yourselves, or if you find out that any one in the school is plotting to set the house or the river on fire, you may come and tell me, but I do not wish to hear of any thing else. Now we will let the matter drop."

She began to call the roll, and when she came to the name of Phebe Jones, Phebe answered with spirit:

"Yes, Miss McHenry, and I should have answered so, if you had not been told. I wanted very much to know where the lesson was, and you were busy with the new scholars, so I asked Jane Ramsdell. She did not hear the first time, and I asked her again."

"If that was all, Phebe, and I presume it was if you say so, I will excuse it this time," replied Olive. "But remember hereafter, I would rather you should wait a little than break a rule."

Ruth now entered—basket in hand, and the girls all rose—another ancient usage at the entrance of a stranger, which pleased Olive very much. "Don't you think that a very pretty custom?" she said to Ruth, as, school being dismissed, they walked towards Mrs. Dennison's.

"Very," replied Ruth, "and it has the sanction of antiquity with us. One of the teachers not long ago, tried to abolish it on the ground that it looked old-fashioned, but the boys and girls stood out so stoutly for it that she was forced to give it up. I do not think myself that there is any great danger, at the present time, of young people's being too deferential to their elders."

When they arrived at Mrs. Dennison's, they found the room quite full, and all eyes were turned towards the new-comers. Olive felt her color rise a little, but she bore the battery of glances very well, and after speaking to Mrs. Dennison, who came forward to meet her, she followed her companion towards the centre-table, where sat the principal officers of the society, cutting out and arranging work, and marking patterns.

They seemed to have their hands very full indeed. One of them was Mrs. Dennison herself, and the other a lady in the deepest mourning, whom Olive knew at once must be Ruth's friend, Mrs. Augusta Tower. Olive thought she had seldom seen a more lovely woman.

Mrs. Tower was small and somewhat slight, with an exquisitely fair complexion, and a bloom as delicate as an infant's. Her eyes were large and well shaped, but their color was not so easily decided. Olive thought them like deep rills. All the features were clearly cut, and the eyebrows, especially, though not heavy, were remarkably well defined, not arched, but level, and turning a little down at the outer corner. Her soft brown hair was plainly dressed, under a widow's tucked crape cap of the simplest form. A chain and cross of beautiful brown hair were her only ornaments.

"Some work?" she said, in answer to Ruth's inquiries. "Oh! Yes, as soon as I finish this pattern: but we are really overburdened to-day, so much has been ordered."

"Can not I do that?" asked Olive. "I have a good deal of experience in drawing patterns."

Mrs. Tower gladly accepted the offer, and made a vacant space at the overloaded table, where Olive found herself employed most of the time till dark, in tracing scollops, wheels, eyelets, etc. Ruth sat near her, engaged on a child's cambric apron. There was a buzz of conversation in the room, now and then enlivened by a hearty laugh from some of the younger ladies.

It was really a very pretty sight. The parlors were large and neatly furnished, though in rather old-fashioned style, and opened together by folding doors. The back-room where there was a fire, seemed to have been taken possession of by the elderly ladies, half a dozen of whom were congregated around the windows, knitting and netting, and talking in subdued tones. Their conversation was not, perhaps, very deep or learned, but it was wholly kindly and good, and many times there dropped from the lips of these mothers in Israel, sentiments of wisdom and experience which many a learned man might lay to heart, and be the better for—yes, even that deeply-learned gentleman who lately declared in a lecture that no woman had ever added any thing to the sum of human intelligence.

Several of these ladies were mothers and grandmothers of some of Olive's pupils, and came forward to speak to her, and she felt herself strengthened and encouraged by their kindly greetings. In the front-room were the younger part of the company, young married ladies with their sisters and cousins, numbering, like all assemblies of American women, a large proportion of pretty faces, clear, straightforward, intelligent eyes, and thoughtful brows.

The murmur of talk, which had stopped for a little at Olive's entrance, soon began again, and Olive could not help fancying that she herself was sometimes the subject of conversation. She felt that if so, it was no more than natural, and strove not to feel any embarrassment. Two ladies near her, were talking about the Sunday-school. She listened with interest, and at last ventured to ask a question.

"Are you interested in Sunday-schools?" asked the elder of the ladies, after replying to the interrogatory.

"Very much theoretically, but practically, I know little about them. I have never taught at all."

"We shall be very glad of your assistance in our school," continued Mrs. Sands; "for teachers are not too numerous among us. But perhaps you are sufficiently burdened already."

"I have hardly tried it long enough to know," was Olive's rather embarrassed reply. "I shall be able to tell better after a few weeks."

"I hope you feel the importance of the trust committed to you, Miss McHenry," said the other lady, whom she now thought must be Melissa Tucker's mother. "It is a solemn responsibility."

"It is, indeed," said Olive, hardly knowing what to say.

"You must be sometimes quite weighed down with the awful account you will have to give of your labors."

"I try not to be weighed down," said Olive. "Do you not think it is possible to take too much responsibility upon one's self? After all, in this, as in many other things, we can only do our best, with all the light we can get, and leave the event to God." Olive spoke with some effort, and a slight blush.

But looking up, she met Mrs. Tower's deep eyes raised to hers, with a sudden flash as it were, of approbation, and Mrs. Dennison too smiled an assent. Mrs. Tucker, however, looked doubtful, and a little annoyed.

"That doctrine gives great encouragement to carelessness," she said.

"I do not see how," Mrs. Tower replied. "Because, if we take ever so much responsibility, we can really do nothing without the will of God, you know."

"I think there is great comfort in the idea, too, that all the responsibility does not rest with us," remarked Mrs. Dennison, in her subdued voice. "I know, after my little Sammy died, I used to go over and over all his sickness, and say to myself, if this had been done, or if that had been tried, perhaps he might have lived, though I really knew, all the time, that every thing had been done that could be. But by and by it came to me, as it were, that after all, as you say, Miss McHenry, the event was in the hands of One that could not do wrong, or make a mistake, and then I felt quite reconciled."

Mrs. Tower bent over her work, and Olive heard a suppressed sigh.

"Then you think, I suppose," said Mrs. Tucker, sharply, "that you may be just as giddy and careless as you please, and let every thing go, because God can bring it out right in the end."

"That is hardly a fair construction, Mrs. Tucker," said Ruth, who had hitherto sat silent. "Miss McHenry said we were to do our best, and leave the event to God. That is, surely, a very different thing from being careless and giddy."

Mrs. Tucker said something about hair-splitting which Olive did not exactly catch, and she was not sorry when the entrance of half a dozen of the school-girls occasioned something of a move and interrupted the conversation.

Julia Goodrich, the leader in every thing, came up and asked for work—something easy, of course, for never was young girl at sewing society known to ask for any thing else. The rest soon gathered round, and at last came Melissa Tucker, with a countenance of melancholy, and rather an elaborate appearance of having been crying. Mrs. Tucker charged her with it at once, and with a faint smile, Melissa owned the soft impeachment.

"You are so quick-sighted, dear aunt," she said, in her drawling tones.

Olive was surprised, for the remarkable similarity in looks and tones had led her to think that they were mother and daughter.

"What has been the matter with you? I insist upon knowing," said Mrs. Tucker, with emphasis, and looking daggers at all the other girls.

"Nothing of much consequence," replied Melissa, mournfully, threading her needle.

"Have your feelings been hurt, Melissa?" with still more emphasis.

"I confess they have been deeply wounded, dear aunt, but I must submit. I know submission is our duty under trials. We must take it meekly when we are misunderstood and cruelly treated." And again she sighed deeply, with a significant glance at Olive.

But Olive was earnestly engaged in comparing the pattern she was drawing with one which a lady was working, and this speech was lost upon her.

Mrs. Tucker, however, followed the glance, and saw where it rested. She liked a scene, especially when she was able to take a prominent part, and she determined to get one up.

"Melissa," she said, solemnly, and in tones which drew upon her the attention of all in her neighborhood, "I will know what you have been crying about, and who has injured your feelings. I know very well how forgiving you are, and I won't have you trampled upon by any one. No one, whether teacher or any one else, need think she is going to tyrannize over you, because you are timid and retiring. Tell me at once."

Olive could not help hearing and understanding this, and she was beginning to feel painfully embarrassed as to what she ought to do, when she was unexpectedly relieved.