MISS PEPPERILL AND THE GRAY LADY
Tess and Dot Kenway set off for the hospital in good season that
Saturday morning, their arms laden with great bunches of flowers, all
wrapped about with layers of tissue paper, for the November air was
keen.
On the corner of High Street, the wind being somewhat blusterous, Dot
managed to run into somebody; but she clung to the flowers nevertheless.
"Hoity-toity!" ejaculated a rather sharp voice. "Where are you going,
young lady?"
"To--to the horsepistol," declared the muffled voice of the
matter-of-fact Dot.
"Hospital! hospital!" gasped Tess, in horror. "This is Miss Pepperill."
"Ah! So it is Theresa and her little sister," said the teacher. "Humph!
A child who mispronounces the word so badly as that will never get to
the institution itself without help. Let me carry those flowers,
Dorothy. I am going past the Women's and Children's Hospital myself."
"Thank her, Dot!" hissed Tess. "It's very kind of her."
"You can carry the flowers, Miss Pepperill," said the smallest Corner
House girl, "if you want to. But I want Mrs. Eland to know I brought
some as well as Tess."
The red-haired lady laughed--rather a short, brusk laugh, that might
have been a cough.
"So you are going to see your Mrs. Eland, are you, Theresa?" she asked
her pupil.
"Yes, Miss Pepperill. We always see Mrs. Eland when we go to the
hospital," said Tess. "But we like to see the children, too."
"Yes," said Dot; "there is a boy there with only one arm. Do you suppose
they'll grow a new one on him?"
That time Miss Pepperill _did_ laugh in good earnest; but Tess
despaired. "Goodness, Dot! they don't grow arms on folks."
"Why not?" demanded the inquisitive Dorothy. "Our teacher was reading to
us how new claws grow on lobsters when they lose 'em fighting. But
perhaps that boy wasn't fighting when he lost his arm."
"For pity's sake! I should hope not," observed Miss Pepperill. In a
minute they came in sight of the hospital, and she added, in her very
tartest tone of voice: "I shall go in with you, Theresa. I should like
to meet your Mrs. Eland."
"Yes, ma'am," Tess replied dutifully, but Dot whispered:
"I don't like the way she says 'Theresa' to you, Tess. It--it sounds
just as though you were going to have a tooth pulled."
Miss Pepperill had stalked ahead with Dot's bunch of flowers. Dot did
not much mind having the flowers carried for her; but she did not
propose letting anybody at the hospital make a mistake as to who donated
that particular bouquet. As they went in she said to the porter, who was
quite well acquainted with the two smallest Corner House girls by this
time:
"Good morning, Mr. John. _We_ are bringing some flowers for the
children's ward, Tess and me. That lady with--with the light hair, is
carrying mine."
Fortunately the red-haired school teacher did not hear this observation
on the part of Dot.
Half-way down the corridor, Mrs. Eland chanced to come out of one of the
offices to meet the school teacher, face to face. "Oh! I beg your
pardon," said the little, gray lady--for she dressed in that hue in the
house as well as on the street. "Did you wish to see me?"
The matron was small and plump; the teacher was tall and lean. The rosy,
pleasant face of Mrs. Eland could not have been put to a greater
contrast than with the angular and grim countenance of the bespectacled
Miss Pepperill.
The latter seemed, for the moment, confused. She was not a person easily
disturbed in any situation, it would seem; but she was almost bashful as
the little matron confronted her.
"I--I---- Really, are you Mrs. Eland?" stammered the school teacher.
"Yes," said the quietly smiling gray lady.
"I--I have heard Theresa, here, speak so much of you----" She actually
fell back upon Tess for support! "Theresa! introduce me to Mrs. Eland,"
she commanded.
"Oh, yes, Mrs. Eland," said the cordial Tess. "I wanted you to meet Miss
Pepperill. You know--she's my teacher."
"Oh! who wanted you to learn the succession of the rulers of England?"
said Mrs. Eland, laughing, with a sweet, mellow tone.
"Yes, ma'am. The sovereigns of England," Tess said.
"Of course!" Mrs. Eland added:
"'First William, the Norman,
Then William, his son.'"
"That old rhyme!" Miss Pepperill said, hastily, recovering herself
somewhat. "You taught it to Theresa?"
"I wrote it out for her," confessed Mrs. Eland. "I could never forget
it. I learned it when I was a very little girl."
"Indeed?" said Miss Pepperill, almost gasping the ejaculation. "So did
I."
"That was some time ago," Mrs. Eland said, in her gentle way. "My mother
taught me."
"Oh! did she?" exclaimed the other lady.
"Yes. She was an English woman. She had been a governess herself in
England."
"Indeed!" Again the red-haired teacher almost barked the expression.
She seemed to labor under some strong emotion. Tess noted the strange
change in Miss Pepperill's usual manner as she spoke to the matron.
"I think it must have been my mother who taught me," the teacher said,
in the same jerky way. "I'm not sure. Or--perhaps--I picked it up from
hearing it taught to somebody else.
"'First William, the Norman,
Then William, his son,----'
Not easily forgotten when once learned."
"Very true," Mrs. Eland said quietly. "I believe my little sister
learned it listening to mother and me saying it over and over."
"Ah! yes," Miss Pepperill observed. "Your sister? I suppose much younger
than you?"
"Oh, no; only about four years younger," said Mrs. Eland, sadly. "But I
lost her when we were both very young."
"Oh! ah!" was Miss Pepperill's abrupt comment. "Death is sad--very sad,"
and she shook her head.
At the moment somebody spoke to the matron and called her away.
Otherwise she might have stopped to explain that her sister had been
actually lost, and that she had no knowledge as to whether she were dead
or alive.
The red-haired teacher and the two little Corner House girls went on to
the children's ward.