Never before had the laughter and chatter of her girls sounded so musical in her ears, nor her own heart been lighter than now, in its rebound from her recent anxiety. She wasn't pleased with Jack, the boot-boy; decidedly she was not pleased. She had not been since his return from his summer's work, for he had not improved either in industry or behavior. She had not liked the strange interest which Gwendolyn had taken in his slight gift for drawing, which that enthusiastic young artist called "remarkable," but which this more experienced instructor knew would never amount to anything.

Yet that was a matter which could wait. Meanwhile, here was a broken day, with everybody still so excited that lessons would be merely wasted effort; so, after she had sent Dorothy to put on her ordinary school dress, she informed the various cla.s.ses that no more work was required that day and that after lunch there would be half-holiday for all her pupils.

"Hurrah! Hurrah! Three cheers for Dolly and may she soon get lost again!" shouted Winifred, and, for once, was not rebuked because of unladylike manners.

Left to himself, Jack regarded his beloved Baal, in keen distress.

"Said you'd got to go, did she? Well, if you go I do, too. Anyhow I'm sick to death of cleaning nasty girls', or nasty shoes o' a lot o'

girls--ary way you put it. Boot-boy, Baal! Think o' that. If that ain't a re--restrick-erated life for a artist, like Miss Gwen says I am; or uther a dectective gentleman--I'd like to know. No, sir, Baal!

We'll quit an' we'll do it to once. Maybe they won't feel sorry when they find me gone an' my place empty to the table! Maybe them girls that laughed when that old schoolmarm was a pitchin' into me afore all them giggling creatures, maybe they won't feel bad, a-lookin' at that hull row of shoes outside cubicle doors waiting to be cleaned and not one touched toward it! Huh! It'll do all them 'ristocratics good to have to clean 'em themselves. All but Miss Gwendolyn. She's the likeliest one of the hull three hundred. I hate--I kinder hate to leave her. 'Artists has kindred souls,' she said once when she was showin' me how to draw that skull. Who can tell? I might get to be more famouser'n her, smart as she is; an' I might grow up, and her too, and I might come to her house--or is it a turreted castle?--an' I might take my fa--famousness an' offer it to her to marry me! And then, when her folks couldn't hardly believe that I was I, and her old boot-boy, maybe they'd say 'Yes, take her, my son! I'm proud to welcome into our 'ristocraticy one that has riz from a boot-boy to our rank!' Many a story-book tells o' such doings, an' what's in them ought to be true. Good for 't I can buy 'em cheap. The Bishop caught me reading one once and preached me a reg'lar sermon about it. Said that such kind of literatoor had ruined many a simple fellow and would me if I kep' on. But even Bishops don't know everything, though I allow he's a grand old man. I kind of sorter hate to leave Oak Knowe on his account, he takes such an int'rest in me. But he'll get over it. He'll have to, for we're going, Baal an' me, out of this house where we're wastin' our sweetness on the desert air. My jiminy cricket! If a boy that can paint pictures and recite poetry like I can, can't rise above shoe-cleanin' and get on in this world--I'd like to know the reason why! Come, Baal! I'll strap my clothes in a bundle, shake the dust of old Oak Knowe offen me, and hie away to seek my fortune--and your'n."

n.o.body interfering, Jack proceeded to put this plan into action; but it was curious that, as he reached the limits of Oak Knowe grounds, he turned and looked back on the big, many-windowed house, and at the throngs of happy girls who were at "recreation" on the well-kept lawns. A sort of sob rose in his throat and there was a strange sinking in his stomach that made him most uncomfortable. He couldn't tell that this was "homesickness," and he tried to forget it in bitterness against those whom he was deserting.

"They don't care, none of 'em! Not a single mite does anyone of them 'ristocratics care what becomes of--of poor Jack, the boot-boy! Come on, Baal! If we don't start our seekin' pretty quick--Why jiminy cricket I shall be snivellin'!"

Saying this, the self-exiled lad gripped the goat's leading strap and set out at a furious pace down the long road toward the distant city.

He had a dime novel in one pocket, an English sixpence in another--And what was this?

"My soul! If there ain't the key to that old door they broke in to see what was racketing round so! I wonder if I ought to take it back?

Baal, what say? That cubby of our'n wasn't so bad. You know, Baal, I wouldn't like to be a thief--not a reg'lar thief that'd steal a key.

Course I wouldn't. Anyhow, I've left, I've quit. I'm seekin' my fortune--understand? Whew! The wind's risin'. I allow there's going to be a storm. I wish--Old Dawkins used to say: 'Better take two thoughts to a thing!' an' maybe, maybe, if I'd ha' waited a spell afore--I mean I wouldn't ha' started fortune-seekin' till to-morrow and the storm over. Anyhow, I've really started, though! And if things don't happen to my mind, I can show 'em what an honest boy I am by takin' back that key. Come on, Baal, do come on! What in creation makes you drag so on that strap and keep lookin' back? Come on, I say!"

Then, both helping and hindering one another, the lad and his pet pa.s.sed out of sight and for many a day were seen no more in that locality.

Yet the strange events of that memorable day were not all over. At study hour, that evening, came another surprise--a visit to her mates of the invalid Gwendolyn. From some of them she received only a silent nod of welcome; but Laura, Marjorie, and Dorothy sprang to meet her with one accord, and Winifred followed Dorothy's example after a second's hesitation.

"Oh, Gwen! How glad we are to have you back! Are you sure you're quite strong enough to come?" questioned Marjorie, while less judicious Laura exclaimed:

"But you can't guess what you've missed! We've had the greatest scare ever was in this school! You'd ought to have come down sooner. What do you think it was that happened? Guess--quick--right away! Or I can't wait to tell! I'll tell anyhow! Dorothy was lost and everybody feared she had been killed! Yes, Gwen, lost all the long night through and had to sleep with the goat and--"

Gwendolyn's face was pale from her confinement in the sick room but it grew paler now, and catching Dorothy's hand she cried out:

"Oh! what if I had been too late!"

n.o.body understood her, not even Dorothy herself, who merely guessed that Gwen was referring to their interview of the night before; but she didn't know this proud girl fully, nor the peculiar nature of that pride which, once aroused, compelled her to do what she most shrank from. As Dorothy pushed a chair forward, Gwendolyn shook her head.

"Thank you, but not yet. I've got something to say--that all of you must hear."

Of course, everybody was astonished by this speech and every eye turned toward the young "Peer" who was about to prove herself of n.o.ble "rank" as never in all her life before.

Dorothy began to suspect what might be coming and by a silent clasp of Gwendolyn's waist and a protesting shake of her head tried to prevent her saying more.

But Gwendolyn as silently put aside the appealing arm and folding her own arms stood rigidly erect. It wouldn't have been the real Gwen if she hadn't a.s.sumed this rather dramatic pose, which she had mentally rehea.r.s.ed many times that day. Also, she had chosen this quiet hour and place as the most effective for her purpose, and she had almost coerced Lady Jane into letting her come.

"Schoolmates and friends, I want to confess to you the meanest things that ever were done at dear Oak Knowe. From the moment she came here I disliked Dorothy Calvert and was jealous of her. In less than a week she had won Miss Muriel's heart as well as that of almost everybody else. I thought I could drive her out of the school, if I made the rest of you hate her, too. I'd begun to teach the boot-boy to draw, having once seen him attempting it. I painted him a death's head for a copy, and gave him my pocket-money to buy a mask of the Evil One."

"Oh! Gwendolyn how dared you? You horrid, wicked girl!" cried gentle Marjorie, moved from her gentleness for once.

"Well, I'll say this much in justice to myself. That thing went further than I meant, which was only to have him put pictures of it around in different places. He'd told me about keeping a goat in the old drying-room, and of course he couldn't always keep it still. The kitchen folks put the pictures and the goat's noises together and declared the house was haunted. I told the maids that they might lay that all to the new scholar from the States, and a lot of them believed me."

Even loyal Laura now shrank aside from her paragon, simply horrified.

She had helped to spread the rumor that Dorothy was a niece of Dawkins, but she had done no worse than that. It had been left to Jack-boot-boy to finish the contemptible acts. He got phosphorus from the laboratory, paint from any convenient color box, and his first success as a terrifier had been in the case of Millikins-Pillikins, at whose bed he had appeared--with the results that have been told. He it had been who had frightened the maid into leaving, and had spread consternation in the kitchen.

"And in all these things he did, I helped him. I planned some of them but he always went ahead and thought worse ones out. Yet n.o.body, except the simpletons below stairs, believed it was Dorothy who had 'bewitched' the house," concluded that part of Gwendolyn's confession.

Yet still she stood there, firmly facing the contempt on the faces of her schoolmates, knowing that that was less hard to bear than her own self-reproach had been. And presently she went on:

"Then came that affair at the Maiden's Bath. Dorothy Calvert, whom I still hated, saved my life--while she might have lost her own. What I have suffered since, knowing this and how bravely she had borne all my hatefulness and had sacrificed herself for me--You must guess that. I can't tell it. But last night I made myself beg her pardon in private as I now beg it before you all. May I yet have the chance to do to her as she has done to me! Dorothy Calvert--will you forgive me?"

CHAPTER XI

WHAT CAME WITH THE SNOW AND ICE

After that memorable week of Hallowe'en, affairs at Oak Knowe settled into their ordinary smooth running. That week had brought to all the school a surfeit of excitement so that all were glad of quiet and peace.

"The cla.s.ses have never made such even, rapid progress before, in all the years I've been here;" said the Lady Princ.i.p.al to the good Bishop.

"Things are almost ominously quiet and I almost dread to have Christmas time approach. All the young ladies get more interested then in gift-preparing and antic.i.p.ations of vacations at home than in school routine. I hate to have that interrupted so soon again."

The Bishop laughed.

"My dear Miss Muriel, you take life too seriously. Upheavals are good for us. Our lives would grow stagnant without them."

"Beg pardon, but I can't fancy affairs at Oak Knowe ever being stagnant! Nor do I see, as you seem to, any fine results from the happenings of Hallow week. One of the ill results is--I cannot find a competent boot-boy. That makes you smile again, but I a.s.sure you it is no trifle in a large establishment like this, with it the rule that every pupil must walk the muddy road each day. The maids will do the work, of course, but they grumble. I do wish the ground would freeze or some good boy offer his services."

A rattling of the window panes and a sound of rising wind sent the Bishop to the window:

"Well, Miss Tross-Kingdon, one of your wishes is already coming true.

There's a blizzard coming--surely. Flakes are already falling and I'm glad the double sashes are in place on this north side the building, and that Michael has seen to having the toboggan slide put in order.

I prophesy that within a few days all the young folks will be tobogganing at a glorious rate. That's one of the things I'm thankful for--having been born in Canada where I could slide with the best!"

He turned about and the lady smiled at his boyish enthusiasm. He was a man who never felt old, despite his venerable white head, but as he moved again toward the fire and Dorothy entered the room a shadow crossed his face. He had sent for her because within his pocket lay a letter he knew she ought to have, yet greatly disliked to give her.

All the mail matter coming to the Oak Knowe girls pa.s.sed first through their instructors' hands, though it was a rare occasion when such was not promptly delivered.

This letter the Bishop had read as usual, but it had not pleased him.

It was signed by one James Barlow, evidently a very old friend of Dorothy's, and was written with a boyish a.s.sumption of authority that was most objectionable, the Bishop thought. It stated that Mr. Seth Winters was very ill and that Mrs. Calvert was breaking down from grief and anxiety concerning him; and that, in the writer's opinion, Dorothy's duty lay at home and not in getting an education away up there in Canada. "Anybody who really wishes to learn can do that anywhere," was the conclusion of this rather stilted epistle.

Now when his favorite came in, happy and eager to greet him, he suddenly decided that he would keep that letter to himself for a time, until he had written to some other of the girl's friends and found out more about the matter.

"Did you send for me, dear Bishop?"

"Well, yes, little girl, I did. There was something I wanted to talk to you about, but I've changed my mind and decided to put it off for the present;" he answered with a kindly smile that was less bright than usual. So that the sensitive girl was alarmed and asked:

"Is it something that I've done but ought not?"