THE events which had followed the picnic had almost put school-affairs
out of Kitty's head. But the next Monday, Mrs. Evelyn decided that it
was best for her to begin school again. Kitty rather dreaded it, for
she thought the girls would all know of her late misfortune, and might
perhaps say something about it. But in this she was mistaken: not one
of them made the least allusion to it.
On the contrary, they seemed disposed to be more kind than usual. More
than one fine harvest-apple was laid on her desk while she was at her
recitation. And at recess, she found them all ready to defer to her and
to play the games that she liked best. Even Selina greeted her kindly,
though rather distantly,—asked how Annie was, and throughout the whole
day refrained from annoying her either by word or by deed.
Afternoon brought its usual task of composition, and Kitty dreaded
it more than ever. She had not had time (even if she had felt the
inclination) to study another composition. And having been out of the
habit of writing for two or three weeks, she had lost almost all that
she had gained by her former practice. Again her fingers lingered idly
over the slate or employed themselves in tracing unmeaning characters;
while Selina, at her side, produced and wrote down sentence after
sentence with apparently little effort and with what appeared to Kitty
marvellous rapidity.
The old envious feelings began to rise in her heart; and she made
but feeble efforts to resist them. Should she give up the foremost
place—which seemed doubly dear to her now that she had once enjoyed
it—and sit down contentedly in a lower one, owning herself inferior
to a country-girl who had never enjoyed one-half her advantages? What
would Miss Watson think of her, especially after she had handed in one
such good composition? She read over what she had written. It seemed
tame and flat even to herself; and in an evil hour, she put aside the
convictions that forced themselves upon her, and took her resolution to
continue in the course she had begun.
She went to Miss Watson in recess and asked to be excused from writing,
on the ground that she was tired and had a headache, promising to bring
in a composition before Friday.
Miss Watson hesitated. "I do not grant many excuses, as you know,
Kitty," she said, after a little consideration, "but I know you have
had a great deal to fatigue you during the past week, and I think I
will make an exception in your favour, provided you will promise to
bring me a composition before Friday."
Kitty promised, and returned to her desk quite relieved. That night,
she carefully fastened her door after she went up to bed, and selecting
a composition from her bundle, she copied it neatly, omitting two or
three sentences which she fancied sounded too old for her. She laid
the copy carefully into her arithmetic, and then, fancying she heard
her aunt stirring, she hastily undressed herself and crept into bed,
without reading her Bible or saying her prayers. She had repeated these
with great regularity ever since Annie had been sick, and now the
omission made her rather uneasy. She thought she would say them in bed,
but she was too tired, and at once fell asleep.
She kept the composition till Wednesday morning, and then handed it
to Miss Watson, who praised her very much for her punctuality in
fulfilling her promise, and spoke to her so kindly that Kitty's uneasy
conscience was again aroused, and she wished the deception had not
been attempted. But she persuaded herself that it was too late now,
and she must let things take their course, promising herself that she
would not do so again. She did not know (and yet she might have known
by this time) how hard it is to stop short in a course of deception and
imposture.
The composition was read and highly approved,—though once Miss Watson
paused and said, "I rather think you must have left out something here,
Kitty. There seems to be a want of connection."
Kitty coloured, but answered, with apparent frankness, "I dare say I
might have done so, Miss Watson. I copied it in rather a hurry."
"Have you the original with you?" asked Miss Watson.
"No, ma'am: I wrote it on some scraps of paper, and threw them away."
Another lie: two lies off hand! Yet only the Sunday before Kitty had
resolved that she would never tell another falsehood,—that she was
going to begin in earnest to be a good girl. She had resolved, but had
not prayed; and resolution without prayer is like a house of bricks
without mortar: with the first wind that blows, down it comes.
The next Monday, Kitty had her composition ready when she went to
school, and handed it to Miss Watson,—this time without even a blush.
She had refused so often and so steadily to listen to the voice of
conscience that it had become almost silent, except at rare intervals:
yet she was not happy. She was in reality no more on an equality with
Selina than she had ever been; and the fact that Miss Watson, and
Selina herself, believed her to be so, did not stifle her feelings of
mortification.
Moreover, she was in constant fear of detection. She had bestowed her
bundle of papers in what she considered a secure place, and she had no
reason to believe that any one even suspected their existence. Yet her
aunt never came into her room, or even up-stairs, without her trembling
lest her secret should be discovered. And if Miss Watson scrutinized
her manuscript more closely than usual, or made any criticism upon it,
Kitty felt sure it was because she suspected something wrong.
One day, when Harvey came up from the village and handed her a letter
from Miss Burlingame, her hand trembled so much as she took it that he
remarked it, and said to her, jokingly, "If you are so much startled by
every letter you receive, Kitty, it is to be hoped that you have not
many correspondents."
"Pshaw!" replied Kitty, hurrying away. "You are always fancying things,
Harvey. Why should I be startled?"
Yet after she was safe in her own room, it was some time before she
found courage to open the letter. It was a very kind one, full of
pleasant chitchat and good advice, and containing not one word about
the stolen papers.
"How foolish I am!" said Kitty. "As if she could possibly know any
thing about it! I wish I had never touched them, I am sure," she added,
with a sigh: "But there is no help for it now. Examination will be here
in two weeks, and then there will be no more school: I must keep it up
till then, and after that I will throw them in the fire and think no
more about them."
As if not thinking about them could blot out the record of her sins in
her own conscience, or in that higher record above, and cause it to be
forgiven by Him to whom all thoughts are open and from whom no secrets
are hid!
Examination, as Kitty said, was coming on in two weeks. The girls had
all been occupied about their compositions, and several of them had
showed their first copy to Miss Watson. But Kitty and Selina still kept
theirs back, and said nothing of them to any one.
One day, as it drew near the time, Miss Watson said to them, in the
drawing-class, "Are your compositions ready, girls? I have seen all but
yours; and I wish to read them over before you copy them for the last
time."
Selina produced hers from her portfolio, and handed it to Miss Watson.
"Is yours ready, Kitty?" asked the latter.
"No, ma'am,—not quite. I will bring it to-morrow or the next day."
"I hope, girls," said Miss Watson, gravely, "that whichever one gets
the prize,—if either of you do get it,—the other will make up her mind
not to feel angry or envious about it. I have sometimes been sorry that
I ever began the practice of giving prizes."
"Is there to be a prize?" asked Kitty. "I did not know that."
"I forgot that you were away last week," replied Miss Watson. "Yes: I
have offered a premium of a writing-case for the best composition, and
a workbox for the best examination in Colburn's Arithmetic."
The drawing-lesson was now concluded, and Kitty walked slowly
homewards, pondering very deeply upon something. Annie was waiting for
her at the gate, as usual. But she soon excused herself, and going
up to her room, she fastened her door and drew forth the bundle of
papers from their place of concealment. Selecting one, after some
consideration, she read it over carefully.
"It is just the thing," she said to herself. "It is so different from
what any of the rest are likely to write. If it were not for the
prize—I don't want that, I am sure, and I know Selina does. But I don't
want to let her triumph over me, and I won't."
She thought a few minutes. "I know what I will do," she said to herself
again. "Myra will not be examined in Colburn's Arithmetic; so I am
quite sure of that prize, at any rate. Then, when it comes to the
other, I will tell Miss Watson that I do not want both prizes, and I
would rather she gave that one to Selina. That will make it all right."
And she actually felt pleased with her own generosity, forgetting
that, even if she did cede the first prize to her rival, she would be
only giving away what she had no right to possess and could not have
obtained by any fair means.
She sat down to her desk and proceeded to make a copy of the
composition she had selected, purposely erasing a word and making a
blot here and there to make it appear like an original. In the midst
of her labours, some one tried the door and startled her so that it
was with difficulty she suppressed a scream. She retained presence of
mind enough, however, to slip the old stained paper out of sight before
she opened the door to her aunt, who was naturally surprised at her
agitated appearance.
"Why, Kitty, what is the matter? What makes you look so flushed?" she
asked.
"Do I?" said Kitty. "I was very busy writing, and you startled me,
somehow. I am just finishing my examination-composition, so as to let
Miss Watson see it to-morrow before I copy it."
"I am afraid you are working too hard with all this drawing and
writing," said Mrs. Evelyn, stroking her head kindly. "I have noticed
two or three times lately that you seemed nervous and startled. You
must not make yourself sick over it. Had you not better leave it for
the present and run out to play with Annie?"
"I would rather not," said Kitty, shrinking from the caress which she
felt she did not deserve. "I have almost finished; and I am afraid I
shall forget if I leave it."
"Very well," replied Mrs. Evelyn. "Do as you please: only do not get a
headache over it."
Kitty promised to be careful, and returned to her work as soon as her
aunt left the room. She finished her copy, looked it over and added
a word here and there, and then put it and the original away in her
desk. The name at the bottom caught her eye and struck her as rather a
peculiar one,—Felicia Brandon.
"I wonder who Felicia Brandon was?" she said to herself. "I never
heard of any one of that name in the city. At any rate, she can afford
to lend me her composition for once. It is a pity that such a good
one should be thrown away. Oh, dear, how I wish it was all over!" she
added, drawing a deep sigh: "And then if any one ever catches me in
such an affair again, they will know it. However, it is too late to
stop now. I must carry it through. I am going out to play now, at any
rate."
"Well, Kitty, are your labours finished?" said Harvey, as he met Kitty
in the barnyard. "I heard you were deep in your composition."
"Yes," replied Kitty, gayly; "and I am glad of it, for I am sick of the
sight of the old thing. And, by-the-by, Harvey," she added, struck with
a sudden thought, "don't you want to hear it? I should like to know
what you think of it."
"I am no great things of a critic," replied Harvey, evidently much
flattered by the proposal, "but I will act to the best of my ability,
and I should like to hear it very much. Suppose you bring it out here
and read it to me while I fix the harness?"
Kitty ran into the house and soon appeared with the paper. Harvey had
arranged a nice seat for her of some carriage-cushions, and it was with
a feeling of some trepidation and considerable importance that she read
the title:—"The Last Night of the Old World."
"That is a curious title," said Harvey. "But go ahead, Kitty."
Kitty obeyed and read to the end without any other interruption. When
she had finished, she paused, expecting some remark.
But Harvey said nothing.
"Well, how do you like it?" she asked, after waiting a moment. "Do you
think it will get the prize?"
"I can't say about getting the prize, because I do not know how well
the others may write," said Harvey, "but I think this is first-rate. I
don't see how you can make up such things, for my part."
"Then you think it will answer?" said Kitty, who really began to feel
as if the composition were her own.
"I like it very much,—especially the last part," replied Harvey. "It is
rather curious, though," he added, after a pause, "to think that all
you say there is really coming to pass some time,—the end of the world,
I mean."
"I hope I shall not live to see it, that's all!" said Kitty.
"That is a vain hope, Kitty; for you will live to see it as surely as
you sit there."
"Why, Harvey, you don't believe these stories that people are telling
about the comet, do you? Miss Watson says they are all nonsense."
"I don't know much about the comet, and I don't care much about it,"
said Harvey. "From all I can learn, I rather expect the comet would get
the worst of it if we should come together. Neither do I think any man
can tell when the end of the world shall come, for Scripture says, 'Of
that day and that hour knoweth no man.' But nevertheless I believe that
both you and I, and every one else in the world, will see it when it
does come."
"But it may be a thousand years from now, or more," argued Kitty.
"Well, and don't you expect to be alive a thousand years from now? What
does 'the life everlasting' mean?"
"Oh, I did not think of that," said Kitty. "I was thinking about living
here on this earth. That is very different."
"I don't see the difference," remarked Harvey. "Your body without your
soul would not be of much account anyhow, while your soul can live
without your body, you know. Besides, we believe in 'the resurrection
of the body' too."
"I do not see the use of thinking all the time about such things,
Harvey," said Kitty, rather uneasy at the course the conversation was
taking. "It only makes one uncomfortable. What would become of the
world if everybody's head was full of nothing but thinking that they
were to die some time or other?"
"I think perhaps it would be a better world than it is, in some
respects," replied Harvey, "and that if we thought of such matters
oftener, we should do some things much better and others not at all.
I guess that both you and I have done things this very day which we
should not have done if we had remembered those two sentences, —'The
resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting.'"
If Harvey had not been so much engaged in altering a refractory buckle,
he might have seen how Kitty winced under this chance shot.
Suspecting nothing wrong, however, he noticed nothing. And having
arranged the buckle to his satisfaction, he proceeded in his remarks:—
"You see, Kitty, it is not as if we could put it away by not thinking
about it: it 'will come,' anyway, and we don't know when nor how. And
since that is the case, which do you think is the wisest plan,—to act
as the quail does, which puts its head under a leaf and thinks no
one can see it because it can see nobody, or to make up our minds to
meet it bravely and be ready when it comes, so as to have it bring us
good instead of hurt? Which course seems most worthy of a reasonable,
sensible person, do you think?"
"But some people live to be very old, Harvey," said Kitty, evasively.
"There was my grandfather Maynard, you know: he lived to be
ninety-seven."
"And some die very young. Your aunt's youngest daughter was just your
age when she was killed by being thrown from a wagon; and see how near
poor little Annie came to it the other day. But, old or young, sooner
or later, what does it signify, if it must come at last?"
"Annie is such a curious child," said Kitty, thoughtfully. "She said
to me yesterday, 'Kitty, if I had died that day, I should have been an
angel just exactly two weeks.' Wasn't it curious, for a child?"
"I believe she was right," said Harvey, with emphasis. "I do believe
that child is a good Christian child, young as she is. Isn't that a
better way of thinking about it than yours, Kitty?"
"Perhaps so, if one only could," replied Kitty, with something of a
sigh. "Have you almost finished that harness, Harvey? You know you
promised to fix our springboards after tea."
"So I did, and so I will," said Harvey. "I have just got through here;
and then I will wash my hands and set about it. But, Kitty," he added,
earnestly, detaining her a moment, "I do wish you would think about
what I have been saying. It won't make you any the less happy, and may
make you a great deal more so."
Harvey was so far mistaken in what he had said, that it did make
Kitty very uncomfortable to think about it. She had come, almost
unconsciously, to attach a good deal of importance to his sayings and
opinions; and she could not get over the impression his words had made
upon her. She knew very well that she had been doing things this very
day, and for a long time back, which looked very ugly in the light of
the few simple words which Harvey had quoted:—"The resurrection of the
body, and the life everlasting."
She remembered a story she had read in the newspaper of a man who was
killed on the railroad with his pockets filled with forged bank-notes.
She had considered it very shocking at the time. But now she could not
help drawing a parallel between his case and her own, and thinking,—
"What if I should be killed on my way to school with that thing in my
pocket? Oh, how I do wish I had never begun it!—That I had just let
Selina have her way, and not tried—If she had not been so hateful about
it! But I know she has written the very best she possibly could, and
how she will triumph if she gets the prize, after all."
The mention of Selina's name called up all the old trains of thought
about her, from the first unfortunate laugh under the school-room
window to the affair of the picnic. And she remembered, or fancied,
that only that very day Selina had glanced at her with a significant
smile when the two suggestive words "Poland" and "exile" had occurred
in the reading-lesson.
"I cannot give it up now, so there is no use in fretting about it," was
her final conclusion. "Examination will soon be over, and then I need
think of it no more."
The next day, Miss Watson was sitting alone at her desk, when Kitty
approached and handed her the manuscript she had prepared. It was in
recess, and all the other girls were out in the yard at play.
Miss Watson opened the paper, and Kitty was about to retire, but the
teacher detained her:—"Sit down, my dear, till I look it over."
Kitty would rather not have done so, but there was no escape, and
she reluctantly took a chair, while Miss Watson ran her eye over the
composition.
"I like this very much, my dear," said Miss Watson, after she had read
it twice through. "It is original,—quite out of the common run,—and is
very well expressed. I suppose these comet-stories suggested it to you?"
"Yes, ma'am," said Kitty, as Miss Watson paused for a reply.
"It might be longer, certainly," Miss Watson proceeded to say; "but
brevity is after all a good fault."
"I thought I had said all there was to say," said Kitty; "and there was
no use in adding more just to make it long."
"Very true," replied Miss Watson. "I would not alter a word in it, but
copy it just as it is. I think you can hardly improve it. You have made
a great advance in writing, Kitty, and your conduct has given me great
satisfaction in many other ways. I feel that I can trust you, my dear:
I know that you will not be idle or in mischief the moment my back is
turned."
If Selina had been present to hear them, Kitty might have enjoyed these
praises: as it was, they gave her unmixed pain, and she could not
refrain from tears as Miss Watson kissed her and again assured her of
her regard and confidence.
As it happened, Selina entered just as the conference came to a close,
and seeing tears in Kitty's eyes and an unusual flush on her cheeks,
she concluded that Miss Watson had found fault with the composition
which Kitty held in her hand. This idea was a very natural one, and
made her feel good-naturedly sorry for Kitty, who, she thought, must
have been very much annoyed before she would have let Miss Watson see
that she was crying.
"Never mind, Kitty," she whispered, as they sat down at their desks
together. "I would not care. Miss Watson always criticizes the girls'
examination-compositions. She made me alter ever so many things in
mine. I would not worry about it, if I were you."
"Who do you think will get the prize?" asked Kitty, drying her eyes,
but not caring to undeceive Selina as to the cause of her tears.
They had been on pretty good terms, upon the whole, since she returned
to school. And she was willing to talk to her now, if only to get away
from her own thoughts.
"Oh, I don't know any more than you do, of course. I think it will be
between us four,—you and I and Sylvia and Harriet, I mean,—for Myra
won't be here, you know. I know who would like to get it," she added,
laughing.
"So do all of us," replied Kitty.
"But, to tell you the honest truth, Kitty. I don't care so much about
it as I did," Selina continued, quite seriously. "I don't want to make
you angry with me again by saying what you won't like, but I have been
thinking a good deal about it lately, and I do think that we—you and I,
I mean—have acted very foolishly this summer. What nice times we had
that first two weeks, and might have kept on having them, only we fell
to quarrelling and being jealous of each other! I don't mean to excuse
myself. I knew it was mean in me to laugh at your composition so; and
you know I did tell you I was sorry."
"I know," replied Kitty, much astonished at the unexpected turn the
conversation was taking.
"Well, we might have gone on well after that, if we had not got into
such a foolish way of rivalling and triumphing over each other every
chance we had. And what good has it done?"
"But at the picnic, Selina—"
"Well, at the picnic, Kitty, I do really think you were as much to
blame as I was. I never meant to spoil your dish, though I own I was a
good deal vexed because it was prettier than mine. But it was really
and truly an accident, and so I should have said, if you had not been
so violent and made me so angry. But never mind that now. What do you
say to letting it all go and being good friends for the future?"
She offered to kiss Kitty as she spoke; and Kitty could not refuse.
"But I don't understand what makes you feel so differently all at once,
Selina," she said,—a little suspiciously.
"I don't know that I can tell you exactly," Selina replied, blushing a
good deal and playing with her slate-pencil as she went on.
"The truth is, Miss Watson has talked to me, and Sylvia has talked to
me,—you know what a coaxing thing she is when she sets out to make one
do any thing. And finally, one Sunday night, after I had been thinking
a good deal, I told mother about it, and 'she' talked to me. Then your
little cousin was taken sick, you know, just about that time, and I
thought you must be feeling so badly, especially as I heard it all
came from your making a mistake about her medicine. And altogether, I
thought I would make one more effort to be friends again before school
was out. You don't know how much I want to be a good girl sometimes,"
she added, with a sigh, "only I am always forgetting it the first time
any thing comes in my way."
"But what about the prize, Selina?" said Kitty, feeling as if she were
in an uncomfortable dream.
"Oh, let that take its chance. I don't deny that I want to get it, and
so, I suppose, you do. But we will not quarrel about it, however it
turns out: will we?"
"No; of course not," was the reply.
The ringing of the school-bell put an end to the conversation, and
Kitty tried to fix her attention upon her books, but without much
success. She would rather Selina had gained every prize in the school
than that she should have spoken as she had done. Nothing that could
have occurred would have lowered her so much in her own eyes as
did this frank confession, joined to Miss Watson's praises of her
trustworthiness.
She would have given any thing to have the forged composition back in
her own hands. But how to help herself she did not see. If she were
to request permission to suppress it and write another, Miss Watson
would be sure to ask her why she did so; and then what reason could she
give?—For a full confession of all her deceit from the beginning was
not to be endured. She could not see any way except to let matters take
their course; and this, with a heavy heart, she resolved to do, more
than ever determined that Selina should have the prize at any rate.
She was so absent in the history-class, and made so many mistakes, that
Miss Watson noticed it, and asked her what was the matter.
"My head aches, Miss Watson," Kitty answered,—with perfect truth, for
she had such a heavy pain over her eyes that she could hardly see.
She had had several of these headaches since the excitement of Annie's
sickness; and Mrs. Evelyn was quite uneasy about them, and would have
taken her out of school had not the end of the term been so near.
Miss Watson pitied her, lent her her own Cologne-water, and finally
sent her home before school was out, with an injunction not to come
next morning unless her head was quite well.
Selina walked home with her, and then ran all the way to her own home
to bring over her mother's camphor, because Mrs. Evelyn happened to
say that she had none. All these kindnesses were as coals of fire upon
Kitty's head. She longed, as she turned upon her uneasy pillow, to
have the matter off her hands, and almost resolved, before she went to
sleep, that she would confess the whole in the morning.
But with the morning, there came a relief from pain; pride resumed its
empire and sealed her lips. And again, she persuaded herself that the
best way was to let matters take their course.
Day by day went on, and still Kitty had not copied her composition,
though Miss Watson had more than once reminded her that she had no time
to lose. The truth was, Kitty could not bear to touch or even to see
it; and so greatly had her feelings changed that she would have given
the world, almost, if she could have contrived some way to escape the
examination altogether.
Either her conversation with Harvey in the barn, or Selina's unexpected
frankness, or perhaps both together, had thoroughly aroused her
lately-sleepy conscience, which now absolutely refused to be silenced
and tormented her night and day. She felt acutely all the sins of
which she had been guilty, and which now appeared to her in their true
colours; and it seemed to her that she could never look any one in the
face again.
Sometimes at night, when alone in her own room, the pressure would
become so intolerable that she felt she would do any thing to be
relieved of it; and at such times, she almost resolved to go to her
aunt, or Miss Watson, and confess the whole. Happy would it have been
for her if she had done so. But, somehow, when morning came, she always
felt differently: the task which had appeared so easy the night before
now seemed impossible, and again she resolved to let it go to the end.
At last, on the Thursday before the examination, Miss Watson called
Kitty to her desk and told her peremptorily that she must bring the
composition to school the next day, adding that she had done very wrong
in putting it off so long.
Kitty promised compliance, and Miss Watson turned again to her
employment. But looking up and observing that Kitty still lingered, she
asked,—
"What is it, Kitty? What are you waiting for?"
"I wish, Miss Watson—" Kitty began, but paused as if the words stuck in
her throat.
"Well, what do you wish?" asked Miss Watson, after waiting a reasonable
time for the remainder of the sentence.
"I wish you would excuse me from having a composition at all," Kitty at
last managed to say. "I would much rather not."
"But why, Kitty?" Miss Watson asked, much surprised at this unusual
fit of diffidence,—as she considered it. "Why don't you want your
composition read? Are you out of conceit with it?"
"No, ma'am; but I don't want to have any. I would much rather Selina
should have the prize, and I don't want to write against her."
Miss Watson smiled, pleased at Kitty's generosity, though at the same
time she could not help being amused at the apparent coolness with
which Kitty took it for granted that she was sure of the prize.
"But, Kitty, perhaps Selina will get the prize at any rate. I have not
declared my opinion yet, and shall not do so till the compositions
are read: so you need not distress yourself upon that score. I cannot
excuse you; and I shall expect you to have your composition finished
and ready by to-morrow morning."
Kitty walked away, feeling that, though she had fully made up her mind
to give up the prize to Selina, there was something after all not very
agreeable in the idea of her gaining it for herself. She copied her
composition very neatly and handed it to Miss Watson next morning,
thinking within herself that now, at any rate, there was no more to be
done; she could not draw back if she would, but must wait the event.
"Who reads the compositions?" she asked of Sylvia, as they were walking
home together at night.
Every thing was now ready for the examination, which was to take place
the next Monday: the lessons had been recited for the last time; the
drawings, of which there was a pretty display, were nicely mounted;
and nothing now remained to be done, except that the girls were taking
their books home for a final review.
"I don't know who is to read them this time," replied Sylvia.
"Sometimes it is one and sometimes another: last spring Miss Watson
read them herself. But I dare say Selina will know; she always has the
latest news. Selina," she asked, as the latter came up, "do you know
who is to read the compositions this time?"
"Miss Watson's sister," replied Selina. "Did you not know she had come?
She is going to stay till the end of the week, and then they are going
a journey together."
"Oh, I am so glad!" exclaimed Sylvia. "She reads so beautifully, Kitty!
You never heard any thing like it; and she never makes mistakes, as Mr.
Stuart does. You remember last fall, Selina?"
"I should think I did," replied Selina. "I was on thorns all the time.
He made mine sound like perfect nonsense; and Miss Watson said herself
that there was no excuse for it, because the writing was as plain as
print: but Felicia is something like. Her voice is music in itself."
"What did you say her name was?" asked Kitty.
"Felicia! Isn't it a curious name?"
"I have heard it somewhere before," said Kitty, "but I don't remember
where."
"Miss Watson brought her up," continued Selina, "and worked herself
almost to death to pay for her education; for you must know that
her mother died when she was only a few months old and Miss Watson
was sixteen. They say that was one reason why Miss Watson never was
married."
"It was all the more generous in her," continued Sylvia, taking up
the story, "because Felicia's father never was kind to Miss Watson,
but treated her very harshly, besides spending all her own father's
property."
"Well, but how was it?" asked Kitty. "I don't understand. I thought
Felicia was Miss Watson's sister."
"Half-sister," replied Selina. "Mrs. Watson married a man by the
name of Brandon when Miss Watson was thirteen or fourteen years old.
She acted against the advice of all her friends; and it was very
unfortunate, for he was a good-for-nothing fellow, and spent all her
property and Miss Watson's too, besides abusing them shamefully. But he
died after a while, and left her with this little baby. By this time
Sophia—that is, Miss Watson—was teaching school and supporting herself
very nicely, and when her mother died—which she did pretty soon—she
gave Felicia into her sister's care and made her promise to be a mother
to her; and so she has been."
"Then her name is Felicia Brandon?" asked Kitty, trying in vain to
recall her association with the name.
"Yes, but almost every one round here calls her Felicia Watson, because
she has been with Miss Watson so much. She is teaching, herself, now,
and gets a very high salary, for she has a first-rate education, and
she is always sending her sister things. And, by-the-by, Kitty, she
knows all about your school: she was there two years, and thinks all
the world of Miss Burlingame."
They had arrived at Mrs. Evelyn's gate as Selina concluded her
sentence. Kitty bade her friends a hasty good-night and went directly
into the house.
"I wonder what ailed Kitty?" said Sylvia to Selina, as they went on
their way. "Did you notice how she looked when she went in?"
"I dare say she has one of her sick headaches coming on again," replied
Selina. "She has not been well at all lately. I hope she will not be
sick examination-day."
"You and Kitty are very good friends now," remarked Sylvia, smiling.
"Yes; and I mean to keep good friends if I can," replied Selina.
"You were right there, Sylvia: it 'is' a great deal pleasanter than
quarrelling."