LETTERS
When the sleighing party reached home they found hot chocolate and ginger
cookies awaiting them. Before retiring, Miss Preston had seen to it that
neither shivering nor hungry bodies should be tucked into bed that night.
Five weeks had now sped away, and Toinette was beginning to look upon her
new abiding-place as home; at least, it was nearer to it than any she
could remember. The old life at the Carter school seemed a sort of
nightmare from which she had wakened to find broad daylight and all the
miserable fancies dispelled.
She and Cicely were seated at their desks one afternoon. It was half-past
four and study hour. Cicely was hard at work upon her algebra lesson, but
Toinette was writing a letter. This, she knew quite well, was not what she
was supposed to be doing, but the five weeks had not sufficed to undo the
mischief done in seven years, and she was writing simply from a spirit of
perversity. There was ample time to do it during her hours of freedom, but
the very fact of doing it when she knew full well that she ought to be at
work on her German added piquancy to the act. Moreover, the letter was to
a boy with whom she had become acquainted while at Miss Carter's, and had
kept the acquaintance a most profound secret. Not that she cared specially
for the boy, although he was a jolly sort of chap, and had been a pleasant
companion during their stolen interviews, and often smuggled boxes of
candy and other "forbidden fruit" into the girl's possession.
Still, at Miss Carter's a boy sprouting angel's wings would have been
regarded in very much the same light as though he were sprouting imp's
horns, and any girl caught talking to one--much less corresponding--would
have had a very bad quarter of an hour, indeed. So, though she did not
care two straws whether she ever saw him again or not, all the
wrong-headedness which had been so carefully fostered for the past years
delighted in the thought that she was doing something which might not be
approved; indeed, from her standpoint, would be decidedly criticised, and
to get ahead of a teacher had been the "slogan" of the Carter school.
It was the custom at Sunny Bank for the teachers to go around to the
girls' rooms during the study hour to help, suggest, or give a little
"boost" over the hummocky places, so when a pleasant voice asked at the
door: "Can I help you any, dearies?" Cicely answered from her room:
"Oh, Miss Howard, will you please tell me something about this problem? I
am afraid my head is muddled."
"To be sure, I will," was the cheery reply, and Miss Howard passed through
Toinette's room to Cicely's.
As she did so her dress created a current of air which carried a paper
from Toinette's desk almost to her feet. She stooped to pick it up and
hand it back to Toinette, who had sprung up to catch it, and, as she
handed it to her, Miss Howard noted the telltale color spring into the
girl's face.
"Zephyrus is playing you tricks, dear," she said, smiling, and passed on
to Cicely. After giving her the needed assistance, she left them, and a
little further down the corridor met Miss Preston.
"How are my chicks progressing, Miss Howard?"
"Nicely, Miss Preston. Cicely needed a little help with a problem in
algebra, but I think Toinette needs a little of yours in the problem of
life," and Miss Howard went her way.
A word to the wise is sufficient.
Meanwhile, the letter was finished, addressed, and slipped into Toinette's
pocket, to be mailed later.
Ordinarily, all letters were placed in a small basket to be carried to the
office by the porter. As Toinette came down the hall shortly before dinner
Miss Preston was just taking the letters from the basket to place them in
the porter's mailbag.
"Any mail to go, dear?" she asked.
"No, thank you, Miss Preston," answered Toinette, and, jumping from the
last step, ran off down the hall to join Cicely and the other girls. In
jumping from the step something jolted from her pocket, but, falling upon
the heavy rug at the foot of the stairs, made no sound. As the porter was
about to take the pouch from her hands Miss Preston's eyes fell upon the
letter, and, supposing it to be one which had been dropped from the
basket, stooped to pick it up. She was a quick-witted woman, and the
instant she saw the handwriting and the address she drew her own
conclusions.
"So that is part of the life problem, is it? Poor little girl, she has got
to learn something which the average girl has to unlearn; where they
entirely trust their fellow-beings, she entirely distrusts them. I wonder
if I shall ever be able to show her the middle path?" Telling the porter
to wait a moment, Miss Preston slipped into the library, and, catching up
a pencil and slip of paper, wrote down the name and address which was
written upon the envelope, then, stepping back to the hall, handed the
porter the letter to post.
Toinette joined the girls, and in the lively chatter which ensued forgot
all about the letter until several hours later, and then searched for it
in every possible and impossible place, but, of course, without finding
it, and was in a very _un_comfortable frame of mind for several days, and
then something happened which did not serve to reassure her, for a reply
came to her from her correspondent.
How in the world her letter had ever reached him was the question which
puzzled her not a little, and she fretted over the thing till she was in a
fever. Then she determined to write again to ask how and when the letter
had reached him, although she was beginning to wish that boy, letter and
all, were at the bottom of the Red Sea, so much had they tormented her. So
a second letter was written, and then came the puzzle of getting it into
the mail bag unnoticed. At Miss Carter's school all letters had been
examined before they were allowed to be mailed, and as Toinette's
correspondence was supposed to be limited to the letters she wrote to her
father, she had never inquired whether Miss Preston first examined them or
not, but, taking it for granted that she did so, handed them to her
unsealed. On the other hand, Miss Preston, thinking that it was simply
carelessness that they were not, usually sealed them and sent them upon
their way.
Although she had not said anything about it, the little affair had by no
means passed from Miss Preston's thoughts, but she was trying to think of
the wisest way of going about it, and was waiting for something to guide
her.
"If I can only win her confidence," she said to herself more than once.