DECEIT.
Miss Ashton's talk had an excellent influence upon the school. Even
the wealthy girls felt there was something worth living for but
society and fashion. A large proportion of the pupils were from
families in moderate circumstances; to them avenues of access to power
and influence were opened. To the poor, of whom there were not a few,
help in its best sense was offered in ways that faithful diligence
would make their own.
In just so far as Miss Ashton had made these two things, faithfulness
and diligence, the ground-work of all success, she had given the true
character to her school; and as the work of the term began with this
demand upon the attention of the pupils, there was a fair prospect of
its being the best of the year. The holidays had come and gone. Not a
room in the large building but bore evidence of its wealth in
Christmas gifts.
New books covered many of the girls' tables, new pictures hung on
their walls; chairs, old and faded, blossomed into new life with their
head-rests, their pretty pillows and elaborate scarfs; ribbons of all
colors decked lounges, tables, curtains; pen-wipers, lay gracefully
by the side of elegant ink-stands, perfume bottles stood on
_etageres_, while the numbers of hand-painted toilet articles,
articles to be used in spreads, bric-a-brac of all kinds and
descriptions, it would have been hard to number.
Pretty, tasteful surroundings are as much a part of a girl's true
education as the severer curriculum that is offered to her in her
studies, and Miss Ashton gave the influences of these Christmas gifts
their full value when she weighed the harder work for the teachers
which the vacation always brought.
To be sure, there came a time at the beginning of the term when the
unwise parents were responsible for much bad work. Those of their
children who had come back with boxes filled with Christmas
luxuries--candies, pies, cakes, boxes of preserved fruits, nuts,
raisins, and whatever would tempt them to eat out of time and
place--had little chance to do well in the recitation-room until these
were disposed of.
In truth, even more difficult, more of a hindrance in her school
discipline, Miss Ashton often found the parents than their children.
She was sometimes obliged to say, "I could have done something with
that girl if her mother had let her alone." One fact had established
itself in her experience, that almost every girl committed to her care
had, in the home estimation of her character, traits which demanded in
their treatment different discipline from that given to any of the
others.
She could have employed a secretary with profit, simply to answer
letters relating to these prodigies, and nine out of ten proved to be
only girls of the most common stamp, both for intellect and
character.
Marion had spent her vacation time in a profitable manner. As
mathematics was her most difficult study, so she had given her
attention almost entirely to it; and even Miss Palmer, who was never
good-natured when a pupil was advanced into one of her classes, and by
so doing made her extra work, was obliged to confess she was now among
her best scholars.
Thus encouraged, Marion received an impetus in all her other studies;
and, of course, as good scholarship always will, this added to the
influence which her sterling moral worth and kindly ways had already
given her.
There was one dunce in her mathematical class who gave her great
annoyance; it was Carrie Smyth, a Southern girl, into whose dull head
no figures ever penetrated.
There was something really pitiable as she sat, book in hand, trying
to puzzle out the simplest problem, and Marion often helped her, until
Miss Palmer prohibited it.
"I will not allow it," she said decidedly. "If Carrie cannot get her
own lessons we ought to know it, and to treat her accordingly.
Whatever assistance she needs, I prefer to give her myself."
Marion obeyed, and Carrie cried, but the consequences followed at
once.
Carrie soon learned to copy from Marion's slate whatever she needed,
and, as Marion sat next her in the class, this was an easy thing to
do; and as Miss Palmer, wisely, seldom asked Carrie any but the
simplest questions, well knowing how useless any others would be, she
escaped detection until, one day, grown bolder by her escapes, she
copied from Marion more openly, Marion seeing her. That this might
have happened once, but never would again, Marion felt quite sure; but
what was her dismay, when she saw it continue day after day. She was
ashamed to let Carrie know of her discovery, as many another noble
girl has been under similar circumstances, but she knew well that it
could not be allowed, and that to pretend ignorance of the fact was
wrong.
She moved her seat, but, after staring at her blankly out of her dull
eyes, Carrie moved hers to her side, and the class all laughed at this
demonstration of affection; but Miss Palmer, who had taught long
enough to know that it might mean something but affection, watched
them. She had not long to do so before she discovered Carrie's trick,
Marion's knowledge of it, and her embarrassment.
After recitation, she told them to remain, and when they were alone
together she said,--
"Marion Parke! how long have you known that Carrie Smyth copied her
sums off your slate?"
Poor Marion! She looked at Miss Palmer, then at Carrie; the color came
into her face, and the tears into her eyes, but she did not answer a
word.
Miss Palmer repeated her question with much asperity. Still no answer,
but two large tears on Marion's cheeks.
"You do not choose to answer me" (a little more gently now): "I shall
report your behavior to Miss Ashton. Carrie Smyth, how long have you
been copying Marion's sums, instead of doing your own?"
"I've--I've never copied them, Miss Palmer," said Carrie, looking Miss
Palmer boldly in the face.
"Carrie Smyth, I saw you do so!"
"I--I never did, never, Miss Palmer. _Never!_"
"Go to your room, Carrie Smyth. I am not surprised at your readiness
to tell a falsehood; you have been acting one for weeks, and they are
all the same, the acted and the spoken, in God's sight. Go to your
room and pray; ask God to forgive you."
Then she opened a Bible which lay on a table near her, and in very
solemn tones read these words, "'But the fearful and unbelieving, and
the abominable, and murderers'" (glancing off now in a threatening
manner at Carrie), "'and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters,
and all liars shall have their part in the lake that burneth with fire
and brimstone, which is the second death.'"
Carrie turned very pale. If Miss Palmer had asked her for the truth
again, she would have told it, but she did not; she only motioned the
girls from the room, and went herself to see Miss Ashton.
Incidents similar to this were not unusual in the school, and Miss
Ashton always considered them the most painful and troublesome to deal
with. She waited a day or two before taking any notice of it, then she
sent for Marion, who went to her room with fear and trembling.
"Marion," said Miss Ashton, beckoning to her to come and sit on the
sofa beside her, "I am very sorry on your account that this has
happened. It would have been better if you had told Miss Palmer as
soon as you knew what Carrie was doing; better for her, for of course
she was deceiving, and we know what that means; better for Miss
Palmer, for she could form no just estimate of Carrie's scholarship,
for which she is responsible; and better for you, because, in a
certain way, it made you a partaker in the deception."
"O Miss Ashton! I could not tell on her; I could not, _I could not!_"
exclaimed Marion.
"I understand you perfectly," said wise Miss Ashton; "I only want you
to see the situation as it is. If you had thought of it, you might
have come to me. Everything of that kind I should know, then your
responsibility would have ceased, and, without making a class matter
of it, I could have influenced Carrie to do right.
"Now, if you fully understand me, run back to your lessons, only
remember, in whatever perplexity for the future you find yourself, I
am the house mother, and you are all my children; you would not have
hesitated to tell your mother if you had found any of your brothers or
sisters doing wrong, should you?"
"No, ma'am; I should have gone to her at once."
"And not felt that you were a tell-tale?"
"Not for a moment."
"Just so, then, it is here; we are all one family, and there is
nothing mean in reporting to me, more than to a mother. It's the
motive that prompts the telling that gives it its moral character. It
is the noblest that can act wisely, and escape the odium of
tell-tales; and, my dear Marion, I feel quite sure that for the future
I can trust you."
Marion went away with a light heart. "Trust me? of course she can,"
she said to herself; "but I am so sorry for Carrie Smyth."
Carrie, in truth, even after listening to the terrible denunciations
Miss Palmer had read to her, was to be pitied for her moral as well as
mental dulness. She went through the ordeal of her talk with Miss
Ashton with far less feeling than Marion had shown; and the only
punishment she minded was being put back into the class of beginners,
and being told that the next time she was found doing anything of the
kind, and told a falsehood about it, she would be expelled from
school.
This, on the whole, she would have liked, for study was detestable to
her, and there was nothing but the ambition of her mother that made
it seem necessary in her home surroundings.
Both Miss Palmer and Marion were delighted to have her leave the
class. Marion kindly kept the reason for her having done so to
herself, though many inquiries were made of her by the other
scholars.