EDNA ACCEPTS.
During the last few months Edna’s school had not been as large as usual,
and when at last it closed for the summer vacation, it numbered only
fifteen scholars, and she was not quite certain that she should open it
again. She was as popular as ever. No one had aught to say against her,
but Uncle Phil’s “Synagogue” had gotten him into a world of trouble, and
made him many enemies. So long as the work made little or no progress,
the people were quiet and regarded the thing as a crazy kind of project
which, let alone, would die a natural death. And for a time it did bid
fair to do so, for what with the trouble to get men, and the fearfully
high prices when he did get them, and the bother it was to see to them,
Uncle Phil was inclined to take the matter easy, and after the
cellar-wall was laid, there were weeks and months during which nothing
was done, and Squire Gardner said, with a knowing wink, “We hain’t lost
the old man yet,” and began to talk seriously of repairing his own
church and having the ladies get up a Fair, of which his wife and Ruth
were to be head and front. Accordingly Ruth came down one day to talk
with Edna about it, and get her interested, as with her taste and skill
she was sure to be a powerful ally if once enlisted in the cause. But
Edna would not commit herself, and Ruth returned home disheartened and
disappointed.
That night Uncle Phil was attacked with dizziness and a rush of blood to
his head, which frightened him nearly out of his wits.
“I can’t die yet,” he said, when recovered somewhat, “but it came pretty
nigh takin’ me off. Yes, yes; had a narrer escape; but I can’t go yet;
it’s no use talkin’. I ain’t ready, and that synagogue business ain’t
moved a peg this two months; but if the Lord will set me on my legs
agin, I promise to go at it at once. Try me and see if I don’t.”
He was taken at his word, and once well again he attacked the chapel
with a right good-will, and brought out men from Millville, and boarded
them himself, and kept them at work early and late, and proved so
conclusively that he was in earnest, that his opponents took the alarm,
and waiting upon him a second time grew so warm and even provoking that
Uncle Phil blazed up fiercely, and said he wouldn’t give a red toward
any other church, nor ask anybody to give to his, and swore so hard that
the Unitarians asked “how soon he intended to be confirmed;” while the
Orthodox added that “it was of such materials the Episcopal church was
composed,” and then Uncle Phil wondered if he was not being “persecuted
for righteousness’ sake,” and if it would not be put to his account as a
kind of offset for the _hay_ he had raked up and gotten into the barn
away from the rain on two or three different Sundays which he could
remember.
People did not mean to mix Edna up in her uncle’s quarrel, but it
affected her nevertheless, and on one pretext and another the Gardners
left the school, while others gradually dropped off too, until Edna
began seriously to think she might be obliged to seek employment
elsewhere, and had some thoughts of going to New York and devoting
herself wholly to her favorite occupation,—drawing and painting. She and
Jack were the best of friends, and through him she hoped to get a
situation in the city, and she was about writing to him with reference
to it, when she heard from Maude of Roy’s plan concerning herself, and
then received his letter containing the offer, which she decided at once
to accept. Among her other accomplishments, she numbered that of
imitating, or adapting herself with great facility to different styles
of handwriting, and this was a help to her now. Roy knew her natural
handwriting, and it was necessary that she should take another. Next to
her own, the style she used with the most ease was a pretty, running
back-hand, and she adopted this in the letter she wrote to Mr. Leighton
accepting his offer, and naming the first of September as the most
convenient time for her to come to Leighton, provided it suited Mrs.
Churchill. It did suit Mrs. Churchill, who seemed much better now that
she had something to look forward to, and who began to take a great
interest in having everything comfortable and pleasant for the stranger.
“I shall want her near me, of course,” she said to Georgie, who was
often at the house; “and yet I do not wish her to feel as if she were a
prisoner, tied close to my side. Here’s this little room opening out of
mine; but I think it is too small, don’t you?”
Without waiting for an answer, Mrs. Churchill stepped into the hall, and
opening a door directly opposite her own, continued:
“I have about decided to give her this one. It is near my own, and very
pleasant too. Do you think she will like it?”
Georgie did not say that this room, with the bay-window and fine river
view, was the one of all others which she would choose for her own, in
case she was ever fortunate enough to reign as mistress of the house,
but she did suggest that Miss Overton ran some risk of being spoiled if
the best were given her at first. “I dare say the little room opening
from yours is quite as good as she has been accustomed to, and will suit
her very well,” she said, but Mrs. Churchill did not think so. She felt
a deep interest in the young stranger, and wished everything to be as
pleasant for her as possible.
“If I could only see better, I should know if things were right,” she
said; “but I can’t, and I wish you would superintend a little, and if
anything is out of place, see that it is righted.”
And so it came about that Georgie, instead of Maude, saw to the
arranging of Edna’s room, which, though not quite so handsomely
furnished as some of the others, was the largest and pleasantest chamber
in the house. Georgie had always coveted it, and now as she stood giving
some directions to the housemaid, she felt a pang of envy toward the
young girl who was to occupy it, and live under the same roof with Roy.
She was too proud to acknowledge even to herself that she was jealous of
a school-mistress, but she could not help envying her in some respects,
and as she was very curious to see her, she waited with almost as much
impatience as did Mrs. Churchill herself for the arrival of the
stranger.