Work through the morning hour.
CHAPTER VIII.
MAKING OPPORTUNITIES.
Committee meetings became the fashion of the day. No time now for loitering over lessons, no weary yawning behind the covers of wearisome text-books.
Promptly at four o'clock was to be a meeting of importance. It would be "just horrid" to be detained in the recitation-room over an imperfectly-prepared lesson, while the others hastened to Miss Benedict's room, to be met with her questioning as to the where and why of the absent member. Mrs. Foster had never seen better work done than went on among her girls during the weeks that followed.
There was need for committee meetings, and for almost endless discussions of ways and means. The voluntary offerings were all in, and though each had done her best, all knew that the sum total was meager enough. Money must certainly be earned, but the grave question was, How?
"Oh, there are ways," declared Miss Benedict, with a confidence that of itself inspired courage. "Of course, there are a good many ways; and we must think them up. Earning money is never very easy business, and we must begin by understanding, that as a matter of course, there is work, and disagreeable work, of some sort, in store for each one of us."
The girls, each and all, declared themselves ready for work, but totally in the dark. They knew how to save money, the most of them, provided they could get hold of any to save; but as for earning it, they really had never earned a cent in their lives. There had been no opportunity, so they declared.
"We will make opportunities," announced the brave young leader, to whom money had hitherto flowed in an unbroken stream. But her courage was contagious, as true courage often is, and the girls laughed, and announced themselves as ready, even to make opportunities, if somebody would show them how.
"Let me see," said Miss Benedict; her head dropped a little to one side, her chin resting on her hand in the attitude that she used to assume, when Dora said she was planning a house and lot for some protégé. "To begin with, there are things to be sold by agencies."
Two or three girls gravely shook their heads; one shrugged her shoulders as an evidence of dismay, not to say disgust, and Ruth Jennings spoke:
"Book agents! We can't do it, Miss Benedict. There are not three people in South Plains who ever think of buying a book. One of the creatures canvassed the whole town last summer; was in every house within three miles, and she sold just four books. A good book it was, too; but the people who had money to spare didn't want it, and the people who wanted it hadn't the money. I was never more sorry for anybody in my life than I was for that poor girl, who wore out a pair of shoes and a pair of gloves, and spoiled her bonnet, to say nothing of her temper. And she was voted the greatest nuisance we ever had in this village, and that is saying a great deal."
Miss Benedict laughed merrily. Ruth's voluble tongue always amused her.
"I don't mean books," she explained. "There are other things; for instance, hair-pins."
The sentence closed with a little laugh, and seemed to be suggested by the dropping of one of the gleaming things at that moment from her hair; but there was that in her voice which made the girls think there was a real suggestion hidden in it, though they could not see how.
"Hair-pins!" repeated Ruth, in puzzled tone.
"Yes: really and truly, not metaphorically. I bought some last night at the store in the village; the best, the clerk gravely assured me, that were to be had. Wretched things! I wore one for an hour, then threw it in the stove; it seemed to me that it pulled each hair of my head during that one hour. Look at the kind we ought to have!" Whereupon she drew the gleaming thing out again, and passed it around for minute scrutiny. "Blued steel, they are, you see; that is the trade mark; each one is finished to a high degree of smoothness. One who has used a single paper of them could not be persuaded to content herself with any other kind. Cheap they are, too. Actually cheaper than those instruments of torture I bought last night. I sent to my sister by the morning mail, to send me a box forthwith. That suggested the business to me, I presume. There are worthless imitations, but the genuine sort can be bought by the quantity very cheaply indeed, and a respectable profit might be made on them until the people were supplied. It isn't as though we were at work in a city, where women could supply themselves without any trouble. It is a work of genuine mercy, I think, to rescue the ladies from those prongs to which they have to submit."
"Turn hair-pin pedlers!" said Mary Burton. There was a laugh on her face, but the slightest upward curve to her pretty lip. Mary felt above the suggestion.
Her father was a farmer, decidedly well-to-do, and owned and lived in one of the prettiest places about South Plains.
"Yes," said the millionnaire's daughter, who had lived all her life in a palatial home such as Mary Burton could not even imagine, "pedlers, if you like the name; why not? It is a good, honest business, if one keeps good stock, and sells at honest prices.
"I like it very much better than selling cake, and flowers, and nuts, and candy, in the church, at wicked prices, in the name of benevolence."
There was a general laugh over this hint. South Plains had had its day at such work as this, and those girls knew just how "wicked" the prices were, and how questionable the ways which had been resorted to in order to secure customers.
"I'd as soon sell hair-pins as anything else," affirmed Ruth Jennings. "I would like some of them myself; we always get wretched ones down at the corner store. But, Miss Benedict, do you believe much could be made just out of hair-pins?"
"Not out of hair-pins alone; but there are other things, plenty of them; little conveniences, you know, that people do not think of, until they are brought to their doors, and that are so cheap, it seems a pity not to buy them, if only for the sake of getting pleasantly rid of a nuisance." This with a merry glance at Ruth.
"For instance, there are some charming little calendar cards being gotten up for the holiday sales, on purpose for the children. They are mounted on an easel, and contain a Bible verse for every day in the year, with a bit of a quotation from some good author, in verse, you know; exquisite little selections, just suited to children; on each Sabbath the card contains the Golden Text of the Sabbath-school lesson. They are just as pretty as possible, and retail for twenty cents. I don't believe there are many mothers who could resist the temptation of buying one for their children. But useful things, viewed from a practical standpoint, sell the best. I have always heard that the country was the place to get pies, and custards, and all such good things?"
"It is," said one of the girls, with a confident nod of her head. "This is the greatest place for pies you ever saw! I know people who have a pie of some sort for breakfast, dinner and supper. No use in trying to start a bakery here. People all make their own, and plenty of it."
Miss Benedict looked her satisfaction.
"Then there are plenty of burnt fingers, I am sure. Nettie, my dear, you said you helped your mother on Saturday, which I suppose is baking-day. How many times have you blistered your poor little fingers trying to lift out a hot and heavy pie from the oven?"
"More times than I should think of trying to count; and, for that matter, I have done a great deal worse than to burn my fingers. Only last Saturday I tipped a pumpkin pie upside down on the floor; mother's clean floor, it had just been mopped. The tin was hot, you see, and the cloth slipped somehow, so that my bare fingers came right on the hottest part, and I just squealed, and dropped the whole thing. Oh, such a mess!"
"Precisely," said Miss Benedict, looking unsympathetically pleased with the story. "I have no doubt that we should find quite a noble army of martyrs among you in that very line, or among your mothers; you girls would be more likely to 'squeal and drop it,' as Nettie has said. But now I want to know what is to hinder us from being benefactors to our race, and earning an honest penny in the bargain, by sending for a box full of pie-lifters, and offering one to every housekeeper in South Plains? They are cheap, and I don't believe many pie-bakers would refuse one."
"Pie-lifters!" "I never heard of such an institution." "What in the world are they?" Three questioning voices.
"Oh, just ingenious little pieces of iron, so contrived that they will open and shut like an old-fashioned pair of tongs, only much more gracefully; they adjust themselves to the size of the tin, or plate, and close firmly, so that even a novice can lift the hottest pumpkin pie that ever bubbled, and set it with composure and complacency on the table at her leisure."
"I should think they would be splendid!"
This, in varying phraseology, was the general vote.
"Then I'll tell you of one of the greatest nuisances out. Look here! Did you ever see a more starched-up linen cuff than this is?"
The girls looked admiringly. No; they never did. It shone with a lovely polish, the means of securing which was unknown to the most domestic of them.
"Well," explained Miss Benedict, "it isn't linen at all. By the way, I am trying to economize in laundry work. It is nothing but paper, but with such a good linen finish that nobody ever discovers it, and they answer every purpose. I find they don't keep them at the corner store, and your young gentleman friends would like them, I am sure. They can be had at the factory very reasonably, indeed. I shouldn't wonder if we would better invest in some. But that was not what I started out to say. When you get a pair of cuffs nicely laundried, so that they are stiff and shining, how do you enjoy struggling with them to get the cuff button in, or to get it out—especially if you are in a hurry?"
This query produced much merriment among two of the girls, which the elder sister presently explained:
"You ought to ask that question of our brother Dick. He does have the most trying times with his cuff buttons. He wants his cuffs so stiff they can almost walk alone, and then he fusses and struggles to get the buttons in so as not to break the cuff. He is just at the age, Miss Benedict, to be very particular about such things, and sometimes he gets into such a rage. Last Sunday he split one of his buttons in half a dozen pieces tugging at it. I tried to help him, but I couldn't get the thing in; they are a dreadful nuisance."
"Ah, but look at this." A sudden, dexterous movement, and the button was standing perpendicularly across the button-hole, and could be slipped in or out with perfect ease.
The girls looked and admired and exclaimed. They had never seen such a contrivance.
"But they are very expensive, are they not?" This question came from the ever-practical Ruth.
Miss Benedict readjusted her cuff with a sudden quivering of the lip, as a rush of memories swept over her. Those heavy gold cuff buttons, with their rare and delicate designs, had been among her father's gifts, less than a year ago.
"These are rather so," she said presently, struggling to keep her voice steady, "but the device for opening and shutting is introduced into plain buttons, which can be had for twenty-five cents a set; and I think they are a great comfort especially to young men."
This is only a hint of the talk. It was continued at several meetings, and plans at last were perfected, and orders made out and sent to the city for a dozen or more useful articles, none of them bulky, all of them cheap. The arrangement was, that each young lady should take her share of the articles, keep her individual account, and thenceforth go armed; hair-pins and cuff buttons in her pocket, ready, as opportunity offered, to suggest to a friend the advisability of making a desirable purchase. If she went to a neighbor's of an errand, she was in duty bound to take a pie-lifter under her shawl, and describe its merits. Did she meet a reasonably-indulgent mother, out were to come the pretty calendar cards, and the agent thereof was to hold herself prepared to descant eloquently on their beauties. Thus, through the whole stock in trade.
As for the "nuisance" part, of course it would be a good deal of a nuisance, and a good deal of a cross; especially when they met with surly people who did not even know how to refuse politely. But as workers enlisted for the war, they were to be ready to bear such crosses, always endeavoring to carry on their work on strictly business principles; to descend to no urging or unlady-like pressure, but simply to courteously offer their goods at honest prices; if, after such effort, they received replies that were hard to bear, they must just bear them for the sake of the cause. Thus decreed the heroic leader; adding, by way of emphasis, that all ways of earning money had their unpleasant side she supposed, and all workers had moments in which their work could only be looked upon in the light of a cross. Would those girls ever know what a cross it had been to her, Claire Benedict, to come to South Plains and teach them music? This part she thought. Such crosses were not to be brought out to be talked about. Hers was connected with such a heavy one, that it would bear mentioning only to Him who "carried her sorrows."
CHAPTER IX.
OUTSIDE THE CIRCLE.
It was the music-teacher who asked this question, as she waited in the music-room for recess to close, and her work to begin. Around the stove gathered the usual group of girls, talking eagerly. An absorbing topic had been opened before them, one with unending resources. Ruth Jennings had had unprecedented success, the Saturday before, disposing of pie-lifters. She was detailing some of her curious experiences. Also she had received an order for a certain kind of egg-beater, the like of which had never been seen in South Plains. She had duly reported the mysteriously-described thing to Miss Benedict, who had at once recognized it, and sent her order out by the morning mail—not for one, but two dozen. Why should not other families in South Plains beat eggs in comfort? It was strange that she had not thought of those nice little egg-beaters.
This and a dozen other matters of interest were being repeated and discussed, the lady at the piano being constantly appealed to for information, or to confirm some surprising statement. During a momentary lull in the talk, she asked her question.
Ruth Jennings answered:
"Oh, the Ansted girls! Why, Miss Benedict, is it possible that you have not discovered that they belong to a higher sphere? Dear me! They have nothing to do with South Plains, except to tolerate it during a few months of the summer because the old homestead is here, and they can't very well move it to the city. They live in that lovely place at the top of Curve Hill. You have been up there, haven't you? It is the only really lovely spot in South Plains. In summer their grounds are just elegant!"
Yes, Miss Benedict had been in that direction, and every other. She rested herself, body and soul, by long, brisk, lonely walks. She had noticed the place and wondered over it, and had meant to ask its history. So unlike every other spot in the withered village. Great broad fields stretching into the distance; handsome iron fence, with massive gate-posts, guarded by fierce-looking dogs in iron; a trellised arbor, the outline of a croquet-ground; a hint of wide-spreading, carefully kept lawns, showing between patches of the snow; a summerhouse that in the season of vines and blossoms must be lovely; a circle that suggested an artificial pond, centred with a fountain, where she could imagine the water playing rainbows with the sunshine in the long summer days.
And in short, there were all about this place very unmistakable tokens of the sort of refinement which is only to be secured by a full purse and an abundance of elegant leisure on the part of some one whose tastes are cultured to the highest degree. Shrouded in the snows of midwinter, with a shut-up look about the large, old-fashioned, roomy house, kept in a state of perfect repair, yet kept carefully for what it was, a country home, the place was marked and exceptional.
It spoke a language that could be found nowhere else, in the village or out of it for miles around. Miss Benedict had looked upon it with loving eyes. It spoke to her of the world from which she had come away; of the sort of life which had always heretofore been hers. It did not look elegant to her, except by contrast with the surrounding shabbiness. She had been used to much greater elegance. It simply said "home" to her sad heart; and only the Saturday before, she had wondered whose home it was, and why she never saw people who seemed to match it, and when it would be opened again for residence, and whether she should ever get a chance to visit that lovely greenhouse, all aglow even now.
It came to her as a surprise that it really was the home of two of her pupils.
"Do you mean that the Ansteds live there?" she questioned. "Where is the family? and why are the girls here?"
"Oh, the family are everywhere. They scatter in the winter like the birds. Go South, you know, or West, or wherever suits their royal fancy. They have no home but this, because they can not make up their minds where to settle down for one, so they board all over the world. Do business in the city, live in South Plains, and stay in Europe; that is about their history."
"And the girls remain here while their parents are away?"
"Part of the time, yes'm. Mrs. Ansted was a schoolmate of Mrs. Foster, I have heard, and respects her very highly, and would prefer having the girls with her to sending them anywhere else. Mr. Ansted is a merchant in the city. In the summer he comes out home every night, and some of them stay in town with him a great deal. It is only ten miles away, you know. If they did not charge so dreadfully on the new railroad, we might get a chance to look at its splendors once in a while ourselves; but the Ansteds don't care for high prices. Mr. Ansted is one of the directors, and I suppose they ride for nothing, just because they could afford to pay eighty cents a day as well as not. That seems to be the way things work."
"But the family attend this church, of course, while they are here. I should think the girls would be interested to join us."
"Oh, no, ma'am; indeed, they don't. They haven't been inside the church six times in as many years. They go to town."
"Not to church!"
"Yes'm; they do. Every pleasant day their carriage rolls by our house about half-past eight, and makes me feel cross and envious all day."
"But do you really mean that they habitually go ten miles to church each Sabbath, when there is one right at their doors that they might attend? What denomination are they?"
"The very same as our own," the girl said, laughing over Miss Benedict's astonished face.
Then the gentle Nettie added her explanation:
"Well, but, girls, you know they don't really go ten miles. There is an elegant church, Miss Benedict, just about seven, or maybe almost eight, miles from here. It was built by wealthy people who live out there in the suburbs, and it is said to be the prettiest church in town, and the Ansteds go to that."
"But eight miles every Sabbath, and return, must make a busy and wearying day of the Sabbath, I should think, when there is no occasion. How came they to fall into the habit of going so far?"
"Why, they did not use to spend their summers here; only a few weeks during August. They had a house in town, and then Mrs. Ansted was sick, and the doctors said she could not live in the city, and they had a little delicate baby, who they said would die unless they kept it in the country. So, they sold their town house, and came out here to stay until they decided what to do, and then the railroad was built, and Mr. Ansted found it easy enough to get back and forth to his business, and the baby began to grow strong, and they spent a great deal of money on the place, and grew to liking it, and they just stay on. They keep rooms in town, and are there a great deal, but they really live in South Plains."
"And drive to church every Sabbath!"
"Well, every Sabbath when it is pleasant. They are not very regular. When it is too warm to go, they lounge under the trees, and when it is too rainy they lounge in their handsome house, I suppose. At any rate, they don't appear in our church. We don't see much more of them when they are at home than when they are in Europe, only riding by."
"And do the girls like to be here at school while the family is away?"
"Well, that is a new thing, you see. Mrs. Foster has only been here since September. Before that, they never looked at our school; but directly they heard she was coming, the Ansted girls came in, and are to board here until the family come back from Florida. We never any of us spoke to Fannie and Ella Ansted in our lives until they appeared here in October."
Then Mary Burton spoke:
"And we shall not get a chance to speak with their highnesses much longer. The Ansteds are coming home in two weeks. Lilian, that's the baby, has had a low fever, and the doctors have decided that she needs to come home and get braced up, and the house is being aired for their coming. Ella Ansted told me this morning. She says she and Fannie will only be here at recitations after next week or week after. She doesn't know just when the folks will get here, they are going to stop in New York."
"Girls," said the music-teacher in her most resolute tone, "let us get the Ansted girls into our circle, and set them at work for the church."
But this met with eager demurs. The Ansteds held themselves aloof from South Plains. They never made calls among the people, or invited them to their home, or noticed them in any way. They had nothing to do with the poor little church; never came to the prayer meetings, nor to the socials, nor in any way indicated that they belonged to the same flesh and blood as the worshipers there, and South Plains held its head too high and thought too much of itself to run after them. The girls were well enough, Fannie and Ella, and they had been pleasant to them; but as for stooping to coax them to help, they did not feel that they could do it, even for Miss Benedict.
"I don't want you to stoop," declared Miss Benedict, "nor to coax. I want you to give them a good hearty invitation to join us. Poor things! I am just as sorry for them as I can be! Eight miles away from their church and all church friends; no prayer meeting to attend, and no pastor to interest himself in all they do! I have wondered why those girls seemed so out in the cold. I begin to understand it. You think you have been cordial; but you have just edged out a little, made a tiny opening in your circle, and said in effect: 'Oh, you may come in, if you will crawl in there! We will tolerate you while you are here, if you won't expect too much, nor ask us to invite you to our special doings of any sort. You are just outsiders, and we are not going to stoop to you, and let you be one with us.'"
The girls laughed a little, but Ruth Jennings demurred. Nobody had wanted them to stay outside; they had chosen to do so. They would not attend the church, though the trustees had invited Mr. Ansted, and they never showed in any way an interest in South Plains or its people.
Miss Benedict changed her tactics:
"Girls, wait; let me ask you, are Fannie and Ella Ansted Christians?"
"Not that I ever heard of," Ruth said, and Mary Burton added that she knew they were not; that one day when they were talking about such things, Ella asked the strangest questions, almost as though she were a heathen; and Fannie did not seem to know much better.
"Well, have you made them realize that you young people belong to Christ, and that it is a pleasant way, and you would like to have them join it, and work for his cause? Ruth, my dear, do they know that you desire to have them happy in Christ, and that you pray for this every day?"
"It isn't likely they do, Miss Benedict, for it isn't true. I never thought about them twice in my life in that connection, and I know I never prayed for them."
"And are there any of you who can give a better record than that?" She looked around upon the silenced group, and waited in vain for an answer. At last she said, gently:
"Now, girls, there are only two questions more that I want to ask you. One is: Which is it that stands aloof, and makes no effort to help others, you or the Ansted girls, if you know Christ and they do not? And the other is: Will you all agree to invite them to join us, and do it heartily?"
The pealing bell cut short an answer, if one had been intended. Miss Benedict was glad. She wanted no answer just then; she had planted her little seed, and hoped that it would take root and grow.
"She has a way of taking things for granted," said one of the group which moved out of the music-room, leaving Nettie to take her lesson. "How does she know that any of us are Christians?"
There was a moment's silence, then Mary Burton asked:
"Do you really suppose there is no difference between us and others? Can't we be told in any way?"
"I'm sure I don't know how. There hasn't been a communion service since she came here, and we don't any of us go to prayer meeting. They say she does. Father said she sat in one corner of that dark old church the other night; the first woman there, and not many came afterward."
Said Mary Burton:
"I wonder what it means, any way, to come out from among them and be separate? I came across that verse in my reading the other night, and I wondered, then, just what it meant. We girls are certainly not any more 'separate' since we joined the church than we were before, so far as I know; and yet the verse some way made me think of Miss Benedict; she seems different from other Christians. I should like to know just what made the difference?"
"She is 'gooder,'" said Ruth Jennings, laughing a little, "that is just the whole of it; but I wish she hadn't started out on this idea about the Ansteds. They won't join us, and I don't want to feel myself humiliated by asking them."
But Nettie, usually easy to be turned aside, held persistently to the thought which troubled her.
"I know she is 'gooder,' that is what I say; but ought not we to be the same? Ought the boys and girls with whom we five spend so much time, to feel that we just belong to their set, and are in no sense different from them? We are all the church-members there are among the young people, you know. When I told Miss Benedict that the other day, she looked astonished for a minute, and then she said: 'You dear girls, what a work you have to do!' But I don't feel as though we were doing it, and I, for one, don't know how; but I wish I did."
There was no answer to that. The little seed was taking root, though not in the way that the planter had planned.
CHAPTER X.
AN OPEN DOOR.
The Ansted girls had been invited to join the workers. Miss Benedict's influence reached as far as this, though that lady wished she had been sure that the invitation had sounded cordial and hearty. But they had hesitated and hesitated, and proposed to talk with mamma about it, and mamma was reported to have said that it was hardly worth while; they were such entire strangers to the church and the people that of course they could not be expected to have the interest in it which others had; and the girls had tossed their heads and said they knew it would be just so, they were sorry they had invited them, and they would not be caught that way again, not even for Miss Benedict.
Meantime, Miss Benedict studied the Ansteds from a distance, and tried to understand the reasons for their utter isolation from the good people of the village. She cultivated the friendship of the two girls who were her pupils, and who, now that they had declined the invitation to join the others, were more shut off from them than before. Miss Benedict took care, however, not to refer to this episode; there were reasons why she did not desire to know the particulars. But she made herself as winning as she could to the girls, and wondered how and when she could reach their home.
As is often the case, the way opened unexpectedly.
It was a wintry evening, and she, having walked further than she had intended, was making the return trip with all speed, lest the darkness fast closing on the village, should envelop her before she reached the academy.
"How foolish I was," she told herself, "to go so far! I must have walked two miles, and it is beginning to snow. What would mamma think to see me on the dark street alone?"
In common with most city-bred ladies, accustomed to treading the brightly-lighted city streets with indifference, she looked upon the darkness and silence of the country with a sort of terror, and was making swift strides, not pausing even to get the glimpse of "home" which shone out broadly across the snow from all the front windows of the house on Curve Hill.
It looked very home-like, but her only home was that plain, little upper room, at the academy, and thither she must go with all speed. Underneath the freshly-falling snow lay a treacherous block of ice, and as the hurrying feet touched it, they slipped from their owner's control, and she was lying a limp heap at the foot of Curve Hill.
No use to try to rise and hasten on. A very slight effort in that direction told her that one ankle was useless. What was to be done? She looked up and down the street; not a person was to be seen in either direction. Would it be of any use to call through this rising wind for assistance? How plainly she could see the forms flitting about that bright room! yet they might as well be miles away, so far as her power to reach them was concerned. She made a second effort to rise, and fell back with a groan; it was best not to attempt that again, or she should faint, and certainly she had need of her senses now. If only one of those queer-looking wood-sleighs, over which she had laughed only this afternoon, would come along and pick her up, how grateful she would be! Somebody else was coming to pick her up.
"What have we here?" said a brisk voice. "Fallen humanity? plenty of that to be found. What is the immediate cause?" Then in a lower tone: "I believe it is a woman!" By this time he had reached her side, a young man, prepared to make merry over the fallen fortunes of some child; so he had evidently at first supposed.
"I beg pardon, ma'am," he said, and even at that moment he waited to lift his hat, "did you fall? Are you injured? How can I best help you?"
Claire Benedict of old had one peculiarity which had often vexed her more nervous young sister: under embarrassing or trying circumstances of any sort, where the average young woman would be likely to cry, she was nearly certain to laugh. It was just what she did at this moment.
"I think I have sprained my ankle," she said between her laughs; "at least, it will not allow me to move without growing faint, so I am keeping still; I thought I needed my senses just now. If you can think of any way of securing a wagon of some sort in which I can ride to the academy, it will help me materially."
"To the academy! Why, that is a mile away! You must take a shorter ride than that for the first one. You can not be very heavy, I should say. Allow me." And before she understood what he was planning sufficiently to attempt a protest, he had stooped and unceremoniously picked her up, and was taking swift strides across the snow-covered lawn to the side piazza of the Ansted house. The gate leading to the carriage-drive was thrown open, so there had been no obstacle in his way.
It was ridiculous to laugh under such circumstances, but this was just what Claire did, while her porter threw open the door, strode through the wide hall, and dropped her among the cushions of a luxurious couch, in one of the bright rooms.
"Here is a maimed lady," he said. "Mamma, Alice, where are some of you?"
"Oh, Louis!" said a familiar voice, "what's the matter? Did you run over her? Why, Fannie, it is Miss Benedict! Mamma! Louis, call mamma, quick!"
And then Claire really accomplished what she had so often threatened, and fainted entirely away.
"It is only a sprain," she explained, directly her eyes were open again; "I was very foolish to faint."
A pleasant, motherly face was bending over her, with eyes like Ella and hair like Fannie; this must be the mother.
"Is it a sprain, do you think?" she asked, "or only a sort of twist? Those things are sometimes very painful for awhile. We have sent for a physician, and shall soon know what to do for you. In the meantime, Fannie, my dear, her boot should be removed."
Thus reminded, Fannie bent with eager fingers over the injured member.
"Did you fall, Miss Benedict? Wasn't it too bad? But since you were going to fall, I am glad you did it right by our gate."
"Mamma, do you know? This is our music-teacher."
"So I judged, daughter. We are sorry to make her acquaintance in this manner, and glad to be of service. Bring another pillow, Ella."
It was all gracefully and graciously said. Mrs. Ansted was not a woman who would have thought of seeking out, and calling in a friendly way on her daughter's music-teacher; but she was one who, when that music-teacher appeared at her door in need of assistance, could bestow it heartily and delicately.
"She is not like mamma in the least—oh, not in any particular—and yet I think she means to be a good woman, so far as she sees the way to it out of the environments of her world. I wonder if there is any way in which I am to help her, and if this is a beginning?"
This was the mental comment of the music-teacher, who was supposed to be absorbed in her own troubles.
It all arranged itself speedily and naturally. The doctor came and pronounced the ankle badly sprained, advised entire quiet for a few days, heartily seconded Mrs. Ansted's suggestion that the prisoner should remain with them, and when Claire faintly demurred, that lady said, decidedly:
"Why, of course, it will be the proper thing to do. It is not as though you were at home. The academy is at best, a poor place in which to secure quiet, and there is no occasion for submitting to the discomfort of getting there. This is decidedly the place for you. Since it was the treacherous ice on our walk that brought you to grief, you must allow us to make what amends we can. I will send word to Mrs. Foster at once."
Claire yielded gracefully; in truth, she was rather anxious to do so. She was interested in the Ansteds. She had been wondering how she could make their acquaintance, and interest them in matters that she believed required their aid. She had been doing more than wondering. Only this morning, thinking of the subject, as she locked her door for prayer, she had carried it to Christ, and asked him for opportunities, if indeed he meant that she was to work in this direction. What a signal opportunity! Certainly not of her planning. She must take care how she closed the door on it. Behold her, then, an hour later, domiciled in one of the guest chambers of the beautiful old home, where every touch of taste and refinement, yes, and luxury, soothed her heart like a breath from home. This was the home to which she had heretofore been accustomed. More elegant her own had been, it is true, but the same disregard to money that had characterized the belongings of her father's house were apparent here; everything spoke of a full purse and a cultured taste. It was very foolish, but Claire could not help a little sigh of satisfaction over the delicacy of the curtains and the fineness of the bed draperies. Had she really missed things of that sort so much? she asked herself. Yes, she had! her truthful heart responded. She liked all soft and fair and pretty things; but, after all, the main reason for their soothing influence now was that they said "home" and "mother" to her.
Laid aside thus suddenly from her regular line of work, the morning found her, dressed, and lying on the fawn-colored couch in her pretty room, considering what there was to do that day. She had already feasted royally; the delicate breakfast that had been sent up to her was served on rare old china, and accompanied with the finest of damask and the brightest of solid silver.
They commented on her in the dining-room below after this fashion:
"Poor creature, I suppose she thinks she has dropped into fairy-land. She looks as though she could appreciate the little refinements of life. I quite enjoyed sending her that quaint old cream cup. I fancy she has taste enough to admire it." This from the mother. Then Alice:
"Mamma, are not such things a sort of cruel kindness? Think of going back to the thick dishes and cheap knives of the academy after being served in state for a few days!"
"I know, dear; but we can not help that part. She will probably not remain long enough to get spoiled. She is really quite interesting. I wonder if she has seen better days?"
How would Claire have answered this question? "Fairyland?" yes, it was something of that to her, but she was like a fairy who had been astray in a new world, and had reached home again. The silver might be choice, but she had seen as choice, and the china might have been handed down for generations, yet the style of it and the feel of it were quite familiar to her. Dainty and delicate things had been every-day matters in her father's house. "Different" days she had seen, oh, very different; yet this young girl, so suddenly stranded on what looked like a rough shore, was already beginning to question whether, after all, these were not her "better days." Had she ever before leaned her heart on Christ as she was learning now to do? Busy in his cause she had always been, eagerly busy, ever since she could remember; but she began to have a dim feeling that it was one thing to be busy in his cause, and quite another to walk with him, saying, as a child, "What next?" and taking up the "next" with a happy unquestioning as to the right of it. Something of this new experience was beginning to steal over her; there seemed to be less of Claire Benedict than ever before, but there was in her place one who was growing willing to be led, and Claire already felt that she would not be willing to take back the old Claire Benedict; she was growing attached to this new one.
Before that day closed, the Ansteds had a revelation.
It was Alice, the young lady daughter of the house, who had come up to show Mrs. Foster the way, and who lingered and chatted with the cheerful young prisoner after Mrs. Foster had taken her departure. She stooped for Claire's handkerchief, which had dropped, and said, as her eye fell on the name:
"I know of a young lady who has your full name. That is singular, is it not? The name is not a common one."
"Who is she?" asked Claire, interested. "Is she nice? Shall I immediately claim relationship?"
"I am not in the least acquainted with her, though I fancy from what I have heard that she may be very 'nice.' She was pointed out to me once at a concert in Boston, by a gentleman who had some acquaintance with her. She is the daughter of Sidney L. Benedict, a millionnaire. I suppose you do not know of her, though she is a namesake. I heard more about her father perhaps than I did of her. Ever so many people seemed to admire him as a wonderful man; very benevolent, you know, and sort of hopelessly good, he seemed to me. I remember telling my brother Louis that it must be rather oppressive to have such a reputation for goodness to sustain. Were you ever in Boston?"
The music-teacher was so long in answering, that Miss Alice turned toward her questioningly, and found that the eyes, but a moment, before so bright, were brimming with tears.
"I beg your pardon," she said, sympathetically, "does your ankle pain you so badly? Something ought to be done for it. I will call mamma."
But Claire's hand detained her.
"It is not that," she said gently, and smiled. "I forgot my ankle, and where I was, and everything. He was a good man, Miss Ansted; good and true to the heart's core, and his goodness was not oppressive, it was his joy. He has gone now to wear his crown, and I am proud to be his daughter Claire. But oh, there are times when the longing to see him rolls over me so that it swallows every other thought." And then the poor little teacher buried her head in the lace-trimmed pillows and cried outright!
"Mamma, what do you think! Louis, can you believe it possible? She is one of the Boston Benedicts! A daughter of that Sidney L. about whom we heard so much when we were with the Maitlands!"
"I heard he had gone to smash!" said Louis, when the first astonishment was over, "but I thought he had done it fashionably, and provided handsomely for his family."