"A TOUCH CAN MAKE OR A TOUCH CAN MAR"
The school was chosen and Toinette placed therein. What momentous results
often follow a simple act. When Clayton Reeve placed his little girl with
the Misses Carter, intending to leave her there a few months, and seek the
change of scene so essential to his health, he did not realize that her
whole future would be more or less influenced by the period she was
destined to spend there. No brighter, sunnier, happier disposition could
have been met with than Toinette's when she entered the school; none more
restless, distrustful and dissatisfied than her's when she left it, nearly
six years later.
If we are held accountable for sins of omission, as well as sins of
commission, certainly the Misses Carter had a long account to meet.
Like many others who had chosen that vocation, they were utterly incapable
of filling it either to their own credit or the advantage of those they
taught. While perfectly capable of imparting the knowledge they had
obtained from books, and of making any number of rules to be followed as
those of the "Medes and Persians," they did not, in the very remotest
degree, possess the insight into character, the sympathy with their pupils
so essential in true teachers.
It is not alone to learn that which is contained between the covers of a
book that our girls are sent to school or college, but also to gather in
the thousand and one things untaught by either books or words. These must
be absorbed as the flowers absorb the sunshine and dew, growing lovelier,
sweeter and more attractive each day and never suspecting it.
And so the shaping of Toinette's character, so beautifully begun by the
wise, gentle mother, passed into other and less sensitive hands. It was
like a delicate bit of pottery, the pride of the potter's heart, upon
which he had spent uncountable hours, and was fashioning so skilfully,
almost fearing to touch it lest he mar instead of add to its beauty;
dreading to let others approach lest, lacking his own nice conceptions,
they bring about a result he had so earnestly sought to avoid, and the
vase lose its perfect symmetry. But, alas! called from his work never to
return, it is completed by less skilful hands, a less delicate conception,
and, while the result is pleasing, the perfect harmony of proportion is
wanting, and those who see it feel conscious of its incompleteness, yet
scarcely know why.
We will skip over those six miserable years, so fraught with small trials,
jealousies, deceptions and an ever-increasing distrust, to a certain
Saturday morning in December.
The early winter had been an exceptionally trying one, and Toinette, now
nearly fourteen years old, had seen and learned many things which can only
be taught by experience. She had seen that in some people's eyes the
possession of money can atone for many shortcomings in character, and that
certain lines of conduct may be condoned in a girl who has means, while
they are condemned in a girl who has not; that she herself had many
liberties and many favors shown her which were denied some of her
companions, although those companions were quite as well born and bred as
herself, and with all the latent nobility of her character did she scorn
not only the favors but those who showed them, and often said to her
roommate, Cicely Powell: "If _I_ chose to steal the very Bible out of
chapel, Miss Carter would only say, 'Naughty Toinette,' in that smirking
way of hers, and then never do a single thing; but if Barbara Ellsworth
even looks sideways she simply annihilates her. I _hate_ it, for it is
only because Barbara is poor and I'm--well, Miss Carter likes to have the
income I yield; I'm a profitable bit of 'stock,' and must be well cared
for," and a burning flush rose to the girl's sensitive cheeks.
It was a bitter speech for one so young, and argued an all too intimate
acquaintance with those who did not bear the mark patent of
"gentlewoman."
The six years had wrought many changes in the little child, both in mind
and body, for, even though one had been cramped, and lacked a healthful
development, the other had blossomed into a very beautiful young girl, who
would have gladdened any parent's heart. She was neither tall nor short,
but beautifully proportioned. Her head, with its wealth of sunny, wavy
hair, was carried in the same stately manner which had always been so
marked a characteristic in her father, and gave to her a rather dignified
and reserved air for her years. The big brown eyes looked you squarely in
the face, although latterly they had a slightly distrustful expression.
Hurry home, Clayton Reeve, before it becomes habitual. The nose was
straight and sensitive, and the mouth the saving grace of the face, for
nothing could alter its soft, beautiful curves, and the lips continued to
smile as they had done in early childhood, when there was cause for smiles
only. The mother's finger seemed to rest there, all invisible to others,
and curve the corners upward, as though in apology for the hardened
expression gradually creeping over the rest of the face.
It is difficult to understand how a parent can leave a child wholly to the
care of strangers for so long a period as Mr. Reeve left Toinette, but one
thing after another led him further and further from home, first to
Southern Europe, then across the Mediterranean into wilder, newer scenes,
where nations were striving mightily. Then, just as he began to think that
ere long his own land would welcome him, news reached him of trouble in a
land still nearer the rising sun, and his firm needed their interests in
that far land carefully guarded. So thither he journeyed. But at last all
was adjusted, and, with a heart beating high with hope, he started for his
own dear land and dearer daughter.
It must be confessed that he had many conflicting emotions as the great
ship plowed its way across the broad Pacific, and ample time in which to
indulge them. Many were the mental pictures he drew of the girl there
awaiting him, and would have felt no little surprise, as well as
indignation, could he have known that she was left in ignorance of the
date of his arrival. But Miss Carter had reasons of her own for concealing
it, and had merely told Toinette that her father was contemplating a
return to the States during the coming year. It seemed rather a cold
message to the girl whose _all_ he was, for she had written to him
repeatedly, and poured out in her letters all the suppressed warmth of her
nature, yet never had his replies touched upon the subject of her
loneliness and intense desire to see him, but had always assured her that
he was delighted to know that she was happy and fond of her teachers. And
Toinette had not _quite_ reached the age of wisdom which caused her to
suspect _why_ he gave so little heed to such information, although it
would not have required a much longer residence at the Misses Carter's to
enlighten her. Happily, before the revelation was made she was beyond
further chicanery.