Miss Thrasher, hardly older than Betty herself, and pretty in a white
frightened way, refused, but almost cheerfully. "I have a Christmas box
to open and Christmas letters to write. Thank you very much."
Betty's heart sank as she saw Miss Hyle's face. "Goodness, she's
coming!"
Miss Hyle was the most unpopular teacher in school. Neither ill-tempered
nor harsh, she was so cold, remote and rigid in face, voice, and manner
that the warmest blooded shivered away from her, the least sensitive
shrank.
"I have no skates, but I should like to borrow a pair to learn, if I
may. I have never tried," she said.
The tragedies of a beginner on skates are to the observers, especially
if such be school-girls, subjects for unalloyed mirth. The nine girls
choked and turned their backs and even giggled aloud as Miss Hyle went
prone, now backward with a whack, now forward in a limp crumple.
But amusement became admiration. Miss Hyle stumbled, fell, laughed
merrily, scrambled up, struck out, and skated. Presently she was
swinging up the pond in stroke with Betty and Eleanor O'Neill.
"Miss Hyle, you're great!" cried Betty, at the end of the morning. "I've
taught dozens and scores to skate, but never anybody like you. You've a
genius for skating."
Miss Hyle's blue eyes shot a sudden flash at Betty that made her whole
severe face light up. "I've never had a chance to learn--at home there
never is any ice--but I have always been athletic."
"Where is your home, Miss Hyle?" asked Betty.
"Cawnpore, India."
"India?" gasped Eleanor. "How delightful! Oh, won't you tell us about
it, Miss Hyle?"
So it was that Miss Hyle found herself talking about something besides
triangles to girls who really wanted to hear, and so it was that the
flash came often into her eyes.
"I have had a happy morning, thank you, Betty--and all." She said it
very simply, yet a quick throb of pity and liking beat in Betty's heart.
"How stupid we are about judging people!" she thought. Yet Betty had
always prided herself on her character-reading.
"Hurrah, the mail and express are in!" The girls ran excitedly to their
rooms.
Betty alone went to hers without interest. "Why, Hilma, what's
happened?"
The little round-faced Swedish maid mopped the big tears with her
duster, and choked out:
"Nothings, ma'am!"
"Of course there is! You're crying like everything."
Hilma wept aloud. "Christmas Day it is, and mine family and mine friends
have party, now, all day."
"Where?"
Hilma jerked her head toward the window.
"Oh, you mean in town? Why can't you go?"
"I work. And never before am I from home Christmas day."
Betty shivered. "Never before am _I_ from home Christmas day," she
whispered.
She went close to the girl, very tall and slim and bright beside the
dumpy, flaxen Hilma.
"What work do you do?"
"The cook, he cooks the dinner and the supper; I put it on and wait it
on the young ladies and wash the dishes. The others all are gone."
Betty laughed suddenly. "Hilma, go put on your best clothes, quick, and
go down to your party. I'm going to do your work."