OLD FRIENDS AND NEW.
Several days passed, and nothing occurred to mar the harmony of the
occupants of No. 40.
Carrie, Susan and Sallie were one evening studying their Arithmetic
together. The lesson was in Miscellaneous Questions, and they found
it uncommonly hard. One problem in particular troubled them all
exceedingly. At last Susan turned to Florence, who was reading a book
which one of the girls had loaned her.
“Flora,” said she, “I wish you would be so kind as to show us how to do
this twenty-seventh sum.”
Florence looked up pleasantly.
“I would if I could,” she replied; “but I don’t know any more about it
than the man in the moon.”
“Now, Flora,” said Susan, “of course you do. It’s just like the
fourteenth that we had yesterday, that so many of us missed; and you
know you did them all.”
“I beg your pardon: I don’t know any such thing.”
“You told Miss Forester you had done them all, at any rate.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Why, Florence!” exclaimed Sallie.
“If you didn’t, I’m very much mistaken,” said Susan.
“Then you are very much mistaken. I will tell you just how it was. Miss
Forester asked me if I had correct answers to all the questions. I
said I had; and I told the truth; for I had got a key and copied every
answer as correctly as possible.”
The girls said not a word, but were astonished at the coolness of their
companion’s explanation of her answer.
Florence was the first to break the silence.
“You needn’t look a whole volume of sermons at me, Miss Susan,” said
she. “Pray, what would you have had me do under the circumstances?”
“I would have had you speak the truth.”
“I should like to know if I didn’t speak the truth! As nearly as I can
understand, your advice would have been, when Miss Forester asked me
if I had correct answers, to have said, ‘No.’ Very singular advice,
I must say, from a person possessing your remarkable virtues! No, my
dear young woman: that would have been a lie; and I’m altogether too
conscientious to be guilty of such a thing!”
“How can you talk so, Florence? You know it was very wrong. In the
first place----”
Florence put her hands over her ears.
“Bless me!” she exclaimed. “We are actually going to have a sermon!
You must be used to preaching, for you begin in regular ministerial
fashion:--‘In the first place!’ Excuse me: I don’t care about hearing
the other seventy-seven heads of the discourse.” And she rose and left
the room abruptly.
She left the door open behind her, so that the girls heard her say
to several of her companions who were sitting in the hall, round a
favourite study-table,--
“I am going to ask Mr. Worcester to have my room changed. The fact is,
it’s altogether too much for one sinner to monopolize the benefits
arising from such saintly room-mates. Besides, saints are dreadfully
tedious, I find. I did suppose there would be some advantages
from having such room-mates,--for instance, that I could have the
looking-glass all to myself; but, to my surprise, I find that the
saints make as much use of it as I do. The only thing to be gained
is a very large number of moral lectures. I left Saint Susan holding
forth as I came out; and she was quite horrified and disgusted at my
wickedness in not staying to hear her discourse to the end. If any of
you feel the need of a sermon, walk into No. 40. Seats free; and she
hasn’t got more than half through yet.”
The girls laughed,--some of them heartily.
“I declare, it is shameful!” exclaimed Carrie, angrily. Susan said
nothing. Her lip quivered as she bent over her slate; but she
controlled herself, and at last, declaring that she had solved the
difficult problem, she proceeded to explain the proper process to her
fellow-students.
“Is the sermon ended?” called out Florence, popping her head in at the
door.
“Yes,” said Susan, pleasantly, as she came in, followed by several of
the girls.
Carrie would not speak: she felt too indignant. Florence saw this, and
mischievously attempted to draw her into conversation. It was in vain.
At last she exclaimed,--
“Girls, I verily believe Saint Caroline is mad with me! I shouldn’t
wonder if there was the material for a very good sinner in her, after
all.”
This was too much for Carrie’s gravity. She laughed outright.
“Florence Anderson, you are the most provoking girl I ever saw!” she
said. “You are enough to make a saint angry.”
“So I perceive,” said Florence, gravely.
From that evening Florence always spoke of Susan as “Saint Sue,”
until at last it became quite the general custom to address her in
that manner, greatly to Caroline’s annoyance; but if she ventured to
expostulate she was in danger of being dubbed “Saint” also. But, in
spite of her odd ways, Carrie could not help liking her room-mate
exceedingly; for Florence had taken a fancy “to be friends with
her,” and when she tried to make herself agreeable she was sure to
succeed. Glaring as were her faults, she had qualities which made her
a general favourite. She was, when she chose to apply herself, a very
fine scholar. She was full of life and spirits and was always the
leader in all sports and pastimes. She was universally cheerful and
good-humoured, and never at a loss for something new in the way of
amusements: in short, in whatever was going on, right or wrong, she was
the leading spirit. It was quite flattering to Carrie to be singled
out as a chosen companion by one who was such an acknowledged leader
in the school; and perhaps this appeal to her vanity blinded her eyes
to many of her new friend’s faults. Susan was in danger of no such
blindness, for Florence disliked her quite as much as she liked her
cousin; and, if Carrie regretted her friend’s prejudice against Sue,
the latter regretted her fancy for Carrie with equal sincerity.
To show how thoroughly she disapproved of this intimacy, Susan would
have nothing whatever to do with Florence, except to treat her with the
most distant politeness and chilling formality. If she proposed a walk
or any scheme of amusement, Susan would invariably make some excuse for
not joining the party, and, not content with this, she would exert all
her influence to prevent her cousin’s making one of the number. She
felt that Florence was a dangerous associate; and again and again she
would advise Carrie to have nothing to do with her. But her advice
met the usual fate of such unwelcome counsel: it was listened to with
ill-disguised impatience and at last disregarded altogether.
When Susie talked of Florence’s want of principle and steadiness, her
cousin would retort that she was unreasonably prejudiced against her.
Carrie’s position was by no means a pleasant one. She was sincerely
attached to both her friends, while they not only disliked each other
cordially, but were jealous of each other’s influence. She was like a
shuttle-cock kept flying between two skilful players.
“I wish you liked Susie better!” she said one day to her friend.
“You had better wish that Susan liked me,” was Florence’s reply. “How
can I like her, when she treats me as if I were such a wretch that she
hardly dared speak to me for fear of pollution? You know she warns you
against me and thinks I am the most awful creature that ever lived.”
“Well, Florence, you know, too, that you show your very worst side to
her. You always sneer at every thing good when you are with her. She
thinks you have no respect for religious things at all; and sometimes I
almost think so too.”
“But I have a great respect for Christian people.”
“Then why do you laugh at Susie and call her ‘Saint’?”
“Oh, because she is so solemn and so dismal and so easily shocked, and
seems to set herself up for something so good.”
“Now, Florence, you are unjust. I am sure Susie is as full of fun, in
her quiet way, as any of the girls.”
“Well, it’s of no use for us to talk about it. Saint Sue don’t like me,
and I don’t like her; and we shall probably always remain of the same
opinion. There is no love lost between us. If she could have her way,
she would never let you speak to me again.”
Not long after this conversation, Susan said to her cousin,--
“I really think you ought not to make such a constant companion of
Florence.”
“That is just what Florence said you would tell me,” replied Carrie;
“and she said, too, she thought it was a strange idea of your’s that
saints should not associate with anybody but other saints, leaving the
poor sinners to their own destruction without the benefit of any good
influences.”
“That sounds just like Florence; but I’m afraid she has more influence
over you than you have over her. Carrie, I don’t like to say it, but
I am really afraid you are not so constant in the performance of your
Christian duties as you ought to be and as you used to be. Aunt Stanley
said we should have temptations and trials, and warned us not to yield
to them.”
“She said, too, that she did not think we need to have long faces and
be always talking of religious things.”
“Very true. But there’s a great deal more danger of being too
indifferent than too earnest; and, Carrie, I really think it my duty to
tell you that----”
The blood rushed to Caroline’s face.
“Susie,” she exclaimed, “I wish you didn’t lecture me every time you
get me alone. Lately it seems to be all you talk to me about, whenever
we are together, that I’m doing very wrong. I actually almost dread to
be left with you.”
Susan began to cry.
“Don’t cry,” said her cousin, kissing her tenderly. “I know you mean it
all for the best and because you love me; and perhaps I deserve it all.
But it a’n’t pleasant, you know, to be lectured, even if you do deserve
it. Don’t cry. You make me very unhappy!”
Susie brushed away her tears and kissed Carrie, and so the subject
dropped,--for the time, at least.