It was the day before Christmas. For eight weeks Margaret had been at
Elmhurst, Miss Dole's school in the Berkshires. School--Miss Dole's
school--had been something of a surprise to Margaret; and Margaret had
been decidedly a surprise to the school. Margaret was not used to young
misses who fared sumptuously every day, and who yet complained because a
favorite ice cream or a pet kind of cake was not always forthcoming; and
Miss Dole's pupils were not used to a little girl who questioned their
right to be well-fed and well-clothed, and who supplemented this
questioning with distressing stories of other little girls who had
little to wear and less to eat day after day, and week after week.
Margaret had not gone to Elmhurst without a struggle on the part of her
mother. To Mrs. Kendall it seemed cruel to be separated so soon from the
little daughter who had but just been restored to her hungry arms after
four long years of almost hopeless waiting. On the other hand, there
were Margaret's own interests to be thought of. School, certainly, was a
necessity, unless there should be a governess at home; and of this last
Mrs. Kendall did not approve. She particularly wished Margaret to have
the companionship of happy, well-bred girls of her own age. The
Houghtonsville public school was hardly the place, in Mrs. Kendall's
opinion, for a little maid with Margaret's somewhat peculiar ideas as to
matters and things. There was Bobby, too--Bobby, the constant reminder in
word and deed of the city streets and misery that Mrs. Kendall
particularly wished forgotten. Yes, there certainly was Bobby to be
thought of--and to be avoided. It was because of all this, therefore,
that Margaret had been sent to Elmhurst. She had gone there straight
from the great hotel in the mountains, where she and her mother had been
spending a few weeks; so she had not seen Houghtonsville since
September. It was the Christmas vacation now, and she was going
back--back to the house with the stone lions and the big play room where
had lain for so long the little woolly dog of her babyhood.
It was not of the stone lions, nor the play room that Margaret was
thinking, however; it was of something much more important and
more--delightful, the girls said. At all events, it was wonderfully
exciting, and promised all sorts of charming possibilities in the way of
music, pretty clothes, and good things to eat--again according to the
girls.
It was a wedding.
Margaret's idea of marriage had undergone a decided change in the last
few weeks. The envious delight of the girls over the fact that she was
to be so intimately connected with a wedding, together with their
absorbing interest in every detail, had been far more convincing than
all of Mrs. Kendall's anxious teachings: marriage might not be such a
calamity, after all.
It had come as somewhat of a shock to Margaret--this envious delight of
her companions. She had looked upon her mother's marriage as something
to be deplored; something to be tolerated, to be sure, since for some
unaccountable reason her mother wanted it; but, still nevertheless an
evil. There was the contract, to be sure, and the doctor had signed it
without a murmur; but Margaret doubted the efficacy of even that at
times--it would take something more than a contract, certainly, if the
doctor should prove to be anything like Mike Whalen for a husband.
The doctor would not be like Mike Whalen, however--so the girls said.
They had never seen any husbands that were like him, for that matter.
They knew nothing whatever about husbands that shook and beat their
wives and banged them around. All this they declared unhesitatingly, and
with no little indignation in response to Margaret's somewhat doubting
questions. There were the story-books, too. The girls all had them, and
each book was full of fair ladies and brave knights, and of beautiful
princesses who married the king--and who wanted to marry him, too, and
who would have felt very badly if they could not have married him!
In the face of so overwhelming an array of evidence, Margaret almost
lost her fears--marriage might be very desirable, after all. And so it
was a very happy little girl that left Elmhurst on the day before
Christmas and, in care of one of the teachers, journeyed toward
Houghtonsville, where were waiting the play room, the great stone lions,
and the wonderful wedding, to say nothing of the dear loving mother
herself.
It was not quite the same Margaret that had left Houghtonsville a few
months before. Even those short weeks had not been without their
influence.
Margaret, in accordance with Mrs. Kendall's urgent request, had been the
special charge of every teacher at Elmhurst; and every teacher knew the
story of the little girl's life, as well as just what they all had now
to battle against. Everything that was good and beautiful was kept
constantly before her eyes, and so far as was possible, everything that
was the reverse of all this was kept from her sight, and from being
discussed in her presence. She learned of wonderful countries across the
sea, and of the people who lived in them. She studied about high
mountains and great rivers, and she was shown pictures of kings and
queens and palaces. Systematically and persistently she was led along a
way that did not know the Alley, and that did not recognize that there
was in the world any human creature who was poor, or sick, or hungry.
It is little wonder, then, that she came to question less and less the
luxury all about her; that she wore the pretty dresses and dainty shoes,
and ate the food provided, with a resignation that was strangely like
content; and that she talked less and less of Patty, the twins, and the
Alley.