The Girls at Mount Morris by Amanda Minnie Douglas (rooftoppers .txt) 📖

wondered.

"What a pleasant room this is, Mrs. Boyd! But all the rooms are just cozy and nice. Of course Mrs. Barrington can afford to keep it in a lovely fashion for her prices are high and she doesn't care to take any scholars only from the best families. I do wonder how that Nevins girl slipped in? Her father is a first-class banker, I have understood. They have a big house in New York and a summer house at Elberon, and their New York house is rented out for seven thousand dollars; but isn't she a terror? How do you stand her, Miss Boyd?"

"She has had very little training. Her mother has been ill and seems very indulgent," answered Lilian quietly. "Yet she may make a very fair scholar."

"It's funny to hear her talk. Bragging, we call it. Do you suppose the stories are true?"

"Mrs. Barrington would know," was the cautious reply.

"Well, I suppose she must be satisfactory or she wouldn't be here. But there's common blood back of her somewhere. Money doesn't give you the prestige of good birth. That always shows--don't you think so?" with a confident upward glance.

"I have not had experience enough with the world to judge," answered Lilian. "We lived in a factory town--"

"And in such places there are a good many newly rich, and they think they have it all."

Mrs. Boyd had been straightening out the rent and basting it on a piece of stiff paper.

"I wonder if you would mind asking Mrs. Dane if there were irons on the range."

She looked straight at Louie, not at all as if she was asking a favor. Lilian was on her knees straightening and dusting the lower shelf of the book case. She did not even turn her head.

Miss Howe went out with what she thought was a stately step and frowned at the girl on the floor whose business was to wait on her mother. When she was clear out of sight and hearing Lilian sprang up and clasped her arms about her mother.

"Oh, that was just splendid!" she cried, her eyes soft and shining.

"I--I think I meant--either of you!" hesitating.

"It was her business and it won't hurt her to wait on herself. The girls go down to the kitchen and iron out ribbons and things. I'm not their maid, and she had no business to stand here gossipping about Miss Nevins. I'm sorry for her and I don't like her, but there are some girls that are real friendly. There are two girls going to college next year. They have money, too, and they think a degree a great thing, and know of girls who have taught awhile and then taken a year or two and taught again. I was reading such a fine book--this girl and her mother took a cottage and boarded the overflow of girls and had a lovely time, she helping and studying. That's what we will try to do, and this year you will get real well and strong. Oh, isn't it nice not to have any care of things and so much comfort?"

The mother bent over her work turning her head aside so that a tear shouldn't fall on it. Oh, wouldn't the child be better off without her? She was so courageous, so fertile in expedients. Oh, they could not be all day dreams.

The skirt was beautifully darned and pressed and sent to Miss Howe's room by the maid. Then a note came to Mrs. Boyd. "Wouldn't she and Miss Lilian walk home with the Trenhams from church tomorrow morning and dine and meet a delightful young friend who had graduated at a Woman's College. Lilian might like to hear the experiences."

"Oh, that will be just royal!" the girl exclaimed. "Mother you must rest this afternoon. If there is any mending let me do it."

"Nothing is needed. Sometimes I feel as if I did not really earn my salary, and Mrs. Barrington is so kind."

"And now I begin to feel quite at home with some of the young ladies. I _am_ proud of being a good scholar, but I study with all my might and main," laughing. "And next year I may earn a little money."

Sunday was bright but rather blowy. The leaves fell and whirled about like flocks of birds and the sky was like a June day. Miss Benson had come to church, a bright rather pretty woman of five or six and twenty. Her voice was attractive. Lilian had come to remark the differences in voices. Some did repel you; many were indecisive.

They walked down to Elm place. This was the old end of the street in a row of small detached houses with gardens running back to the next street and a space of six feet or so between. The Trenham's was in very nice tidy order, the windows with neat white drapery.

"Our next door neighbors are considered quite a detriment," explained Edith Trenham. "The woman professes to be a clairvoyant, and there are five children, two very unruly boys. I do hope they will go away in the spring."

Edith ushered her guests into the pretty parlor where the cheerful fire seemed to radiate pleasure as well as heat. In a small wheeling chair sat the invalid, a pale little girl of fifteen, but who looked years younger. She held out her hand to Lilian.

"Oh, what pleasure it is to see you," she cried. "Your color is radiant--like a June rose, isn't it mamma? and such beautiful hair. Edith is always well but she hasn't much color. Oh, if you could have seen our roses in June! They were bewildering. Don't you feel that gorgeous things sometimes are? Then the next door boys came over and stole the roses and broke the bushes. I cried nearly all day. It seemed as if I had been pulled to pieces. The mother said she was sorry but that wouldn't put the roses back."

"Claire you will find is quite a spoiled child," Edith said, stooping to kiss her. She was very pale and the dark hair framing in the little face gave her an almost uncanny look.

When they had laid aside their wraps Claire took possession of Lilian again, and wanted to know about the girls in the Seminary.

"Why, Claire, they are most all young ladies," said Edith.

"Well--are there many pretty ones? and what do they do beside study? They would get tired studying all the time."

Lilian explained that they visited in each others rooms and had calisthenics and danced, and went through some beautiful evolutions with Indian clubs--

"Oh, how funny!" Claire interrupted. "Do they make believe they are Indians?"

"Oh, no," and Lilian explained. They had a bell double quartette and made lovely music by striking some sweet-toned bells with small wands, and they were allowed to go down town. One evening a week there were dances.

"Oh, do you dance? You look that way?"

Lilian colored. "You see I spend a good deal of my time with my mother. Then I have lessons to learn--"

"And I don't study, I read delightful books. For you must know I can never get about or do things like other children. I draw and I paint over pictures, and I have an autoharp, and a beautiful big doll that I make believe is alive and we go traveling. Edith reads about journeys."

Mrs. Trenham had been adding a few last touches to the table which had been mostly prepared in the morning, the real cooking having been done the day before. Claire was lifted out in a cushioned chair and insisted that Lilian should sit next. Miss Benson was on the other side and took a turn with Lilian.

"Yes, she had worked her way through college. She had studied type-writing and done work for the professors and copied essays for the girls and coached backward girls, and trimmed hats, as she had a genius for millinery. Then, in vacation she had been a sort of summer governess when parents wanted to take journeys. It had all been very interesting, too, but it had taken longer, and now she was studying medicine in New York and teaching some hours a day."

"I like to teach but I don't believe I want to be a doctor, I think I should like to go to college."

"It is a fine discipline and broadens out one's mind. It makes excellent teachers, as well, and you do have many happy times. Think of a settlement of hundreds of girls!"

"Mrs. Barrington will only have twenty boarders and there are about twenty day scholars."

"Not a very large family to be sure, but enough to give you some variety. You look as if you might be a good student."

Lilian colored.

Mrs. Trenham was entertaining the mother.

She had been a widow twelve years, but was left with a small competency. Claire had been thrown out of a carriage by a runaway horse when she was barely five and very seriously injured so that for two years she was entirely helpless and now held her life on a very frail tenure, but she was a happy child and they made her life as entertaining as possible.

"You are blest in your daughter," said Mrs. Trenham. "She is so bright and eager and vigorous, and has so much character. Well, I have Edith who has always been a great comfort, and I suppose one gets used to a burden when it is a pleasant one. Claire is very loving and we try to keep all sad things from her."

Lilian thought it a delightful afternoon. These were the kind of people you could get close to. She saw that her mother was enjoying it as well. Wasn't it rather monotonous for her at Mrs. Barrington's? At Laconia there had been neighbors dropping in, some who had known her early life and sympathized with her misfortunes, and here, no one. She was glad to have been taken in this kindly family.

"Oh, won't you come often?" pleaded Claire. "I like you so much, and if you could come some Saturday mamma and Edith might go out together. An old lady does come in when they go to church, but she isn't any real company. She hasn't any ideas. Don't you think old people get sort of stupid?" Lilian laughed.

Miss Benson expressed a good deal of pleasure at meeting such an ambitious girl and hoped to keep in touch with her for sometime; she might be able to counsel her or perhaps direct her on her way.

"It has been just delightful," she said when they reached their own rooms.

She did not go in to sing but read to her mother. Yes, she would try in the future to share more of her life with the colorless one. She had resolved to make the great sacrifice when she found she could not go on with school, and lo, this had been the outcome. They were delightfully sheltered, there were no hardships, only pin pricks and she would be silly to mind those. There was a sudden commotion through the place on Monday morning. Such glad bursts of welcome, such joyous laughter and absolute peans of delight.

For Zaidee Crawford had come. She, Lilian, was not in it and she wondered if at any time or in any place there would be such unalloyed gladness at her coming.

A girl of fifteen, bewilderingly pretty in the changes that passed over her mobile face.