MISS PINKETT'S DIAMOND.
Elsie had taken a fancy to the stern, silent girl. She put out all her
little arts to please Meg. Indifferent and inclined to be fitful to the
girls who petted her and offered to carry her in their arms, she
followed Meg about with pathetic persistence. Meg felt the delight of a
devoted nature, thankful for opportunities given to it of sacrificing
itself, and mingled gratitude with the feeling she returned. She devoted
herself to Elsie. She played with her, she taught her lessons, she spent
time and ingenuity in making learning easy to her; and Elsie accepted
this devotion. There was pity for Elsie mingled in Meg's solicitude. She
was so strong, and the child looked so frail. She was so fearless, and
the child was as easily frightened as a little bird. A severe word made
Elsie tremble; and it was pitiful to see the little hands, with their
network of veins, trembling at any harshness.
The girls were astonished to see a return of the terrible Meg one day
when Laura was teasing Elsie, mimicking her nervous ways, her frightened
starts and turns of the head. Meg suddenly leaped forward and pushed
Laura with such force that this damsel found herself sitting on the
ground at some yards' distance.
"How dare you be so cruel to a little child!" Meg said, standing between
Elsie and her tormentor.
"I shall have you punished, you gypsy!" Miss Laura replied.
"Have me punished if you like," said Meg; "but if you dare hurt this
child I will give it to you again."
A peculiarity of the child which perplexed Meg, besides an almost
abnormal timidity, was the singular fascination exercised over her by
bright objects. Like a little grayling that rises to the light, every
shining object attracted Elsie. It seemed almost uncanny to Meg, whose
aesthetic sense was yet in its elementary stage, and who was
unconsciously stirred by the moral suggestiveness of beauty, rather than
by its physical appeal. Flowers, birds, Elsie herself, came to her as
vague yet tangible revelations of a greater calm, a higher goodness and
sweetness than earth holds. Elsie's delight in brilliancy was purely
sensuous, and its influence over her nervous little frame puzzled Meg.
A Salviati glass that stood in Miss Reeves' sanctum fascinated the
child. She seized every opportunity to catch a sight of the wonderful
vase; the shifting opal tints seemed to throw her into an excited dream.
She would go and peep at it through the open door. Meg missed her one
day from the playground, and found her perched on a chair in the room no
one was allowed to enter without the mistress' permission, touching the
vase, cooing and kissing the cold and glittering glass.
"Come down, Elsie! You must not come in here, you know, without Miss
Reeves' permission," she said, alarmed, gently taking the child up in
her arms. Then as Elsie struggled she went on: "Everything in this room
is a present from an old pupil or a friend. Everything is very dear to
Miss Reeves in it. She would be very angry if an accident happened to
the vase. You would be punished for disobedience."
Elsie at this prospect let Meg carry her away, but she began to cry:
"I want it--I want it. I want to take it to bed with me! I want to have
it all to myself!"
Meg soothed her. She endeavored to divert her attention by telling her
the story of a mine of diamonds, more wonderful than that of the field
of diamonds in "Sindbad the Sailor." For Elsie's sake Meg had developed
the gift of telling stories. Her inventive powers were as the wand of a
magician over the child. Her tales were distinguished by a touch of the
grotesque and grewsome, a spice of humor and adventure. Meg's voice,
which was of a peculiar quality, helped the effect. It was low and
feeling at times, and again it had a spirited emphasis kept under gentle
restraint. A child was the heroine of these stories, inspired by
incidents enlarged upon and drawn from her childish recollections.
The stories that attracted Elsie most were those of splendor and of
perfume. She would listen enthralled to the adventures in the bowels of
the earth of a little girl, who met there the giant who took care of the
fire, the sparks of which formed the diamonds, rubies, and topaz.
One day Elsie crept like a lizard to Meg's side. Miss Pinkett, who was a
parlor-boarder now, had certain privileges, and was going to a party.
She had called Elsie in to see her dressed, and she had shown the child
a diamond star her father had sent from India on her last birthday.
"She put it here"--Elsie's little hand touched her forehead. "It looked
all alive, twinkling--twinkling! It was more beautiful than the glass
vase. It shot out now a lovely red ray, then a yellow light or a bit of
shiny blue. Miss Pinkett said her mother had more beautiful diamonds,"
Elsie concluded, with a sigh of exhausted happiness.
"It is only a bit of coal--black coal that has been buried a long time
in the earth," Meg replied with practical coldness.
"I don't believe it. It shines--shines--shines!" said the child. "Do you
think Miss Pinkett would let me touch it, put it on, and play with it?"
"No," said Meg bluntly. "I would not ask her. You might lose it, and she
would never forgive you."
But the diamond star had taken possession of Elsie's mind, and the fear
of punishment did not lift the spell it exercised.
"Do you see that little red-morocco box?--it is in there. I saw her put
it in there," she whispered to Meg next morning, dragging her by the
skirt into the room Miss Pinkett still shared with Miss Lister alone.
"Do leave that diamond alone," said Meg brusquely. "Don't think of it so
much, Elsie. It will get you into trouble and you will get punished. Did
you ever see a drop of water through a microscope? That is ever so much
more wonderful. Dr. Flite showed us this at the chemistry class this
morning."
"I don't care for drops of water," said Elsie pettishly.
"There are monsters in it that fight each other and eat each other up.
I'll tell you a story about a drop of water," said Meg suggestively,
still trying to divert Elsie's attention.
One morning Meg was running down the corridor that led out of the
dormitories.
"Meg, Meg!" called a little voice in a whisper. Meg looked round; it was
Elsie standing at Miss Pinkett's door. She was holding something in the
palm of her small, shaking hand. Meg, approaching, saw it was the
diamond star.
"Elsie, put it back at once," she said peremptorily.
"The box was open. I saw it shining and I took it out. I could not help
it. Is it not lovely?"
The tiny fingers caressed the stone, and the baby voice gurgled and
laughed to it.
"You will get into trouble, and I shall not be able to save you from
being punished," said Meg. "Put it back."
As she spoke Elsie gave a sudden start, dropped the diamond, and took to
flight.
Meg picked up the gem and went inside the room to place it in its box.
She encountered Miss Pinkett and Miss Lister coming in by another door.
"What are you doing in my room?" asked Miss Pinkett coldly.
Meg, without answering, put down the diamond.
Miss Pinkett flushed. "What right have you to touch anything of
mine--this diamond especially?"
Meg remained silent, as if pondering what she would say.
"If I find you fingering anything that belongs to me I will report you,
Miss Beecham," resumed Miss Pinkett in her most chilly tones.
"You ought to lock up your diamond," said Meg, at last, with an effort.
"It it not right to leave it about--not right to others. It might bring
some one into temptation."
"I understand," replied Miss Pinkett with cutting point. "I see there is
necessity to lock it up." She shut the box with a snap, and closed the
drawer with an elaborate jingle of keys.
The diamond was hidden, but Elsie still thought of it. One evening, as
Meg sat on the window sill absorbed in reading an account of the condor,
and following with tremendous interest the flight of the bird over
mountain and seas, Elsie suddenly interrupted her.
She pointed to the evening star hanging in the suffused light of the
sunset. "I wonder if papa sees that star in India," she said.
"Not just now, at any rate," answered Meg a little roughly. Any sign of
yearning in Elsie's voice affected her painfully.
"Do you think Miss Pinkett's lovely jewel is like that star?" said
Elsie, after a pause.
"No, it is not more like it than a lighted lucifer match is like a sun,"
replied Meg.
"She is gone out to a dinner-party to-night, and she did not wear it. I
wonder why," continued the child, undismayed by the blunt reply.
"I do not care for that diamond more than if it were a pebble from the
gravel of the playground," answered Meg impatiently; then with abrupt
transition she asked, "Did you ever hear of the condor?"
"The what?" asked Elsie.
"The condor," repeated Meg, and she pointed to the picture of the bird.
But Elsie's mind was not to be so easily diverted.
"If I had that diamond," she said in a subdued tone, "I would carry it
about wherever I went. I would talk to it, and kiss it."
"I think," said Meg, "that if you had it you would want nothing but that
hard, glittering stone."
"Nothing! At night I would put it under my pillow and it would come into
a dream," continued Elsie.
"You dream of it already," said Meg impatiently.
"I wish you would tell me a story about it," replied Elsie with a sigh.
Meg shut her book. She drew her breath heavily
"I don't like that diamond," she said. Then pausing, she began abruptly:
"Once upon a time there was a little girl like you, who wanted a
diamond, and she cared for nothing because she could not get that
diamond; and a spirit put her into a small bare world all alone, to own
it and be its queen. And the spirit gave her a beautiful diamond, twenty
times as big and as beautiful as that one of Miss Pinkett's."
"Oh!" said Elsie, with a pant.
"The little girl," went on Meg, "jumped about for joy, and said she
would want nothing now that she had this diamond.
"And the spirit said to her, 'There is something better and more
beautiful than this diamond. When you have got tired of that jewel you
will find this out, and then you will want that greater blessing.'"
"Blessing!" repeated Elsie petulantly. "I am sure she never did want
anything more."
"And so the little girl," continued Meg, "talked to her diamond, and
kissed it, and put it under her pillow at night and dreamed of it. But
the diamond did not answer her, did not kiss her back; if she were sad
or if she were glad it glittered the same. So the little girl at last
grew tired of the diamond. It was not a companion. She felt a great
want. There is something better, she thought; something that would be
good and pleasant to have in sorrow as well as in joy. She asked the
spirit to tell her what was that better thing. But the spirit did not
answer. So the little girl went wandering about her bare world to find
it. She walked till she was footsore, and still she could not find it;
for she did not know what it was. Only she yearned for it. One night she
was so weary and lonely that she felt as if she must die, and she prayed
to the spirit to have pity upon her and give her that better thing; and
at last it came to her."
"What was it?" said Elsie eagerly.
"She was dropping off to sleep, sobbing to herself in her weariness and
solitariness, when on her forehead there was laid a soft kiss."
"A kiss!" repeated Elsie in a tone of disappointment.
"It was a kiss of love, like this," said Meg, bending forward and gently
kissing Elsie's forehead. "And when she felt this kiss the fatigue, the
loneliness and sadness left her, and the next morning she awoke quite
happy."
"Was it the spirit gave her the kiss?" asked Elsie, with cold interest.
"She sometimes thought it was," said Meg.
"And the diamond--what became of the diamond?" asked Elsie.
"It had vanished," said Meg.
"I do not like that story," said Elsie pettishly; but she remained
thoughtful by Meg's side.