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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, Dorothy at Oak Knowe, by Evelyn Raymond
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: Dorothy at Oak Knowe
+
+
+Author: Evelyn Raymond
+
+
+
+Release Date: May 9, 2010  [eBook #32310]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DOROTHY AT OAK KNOWE***
+
+
+E-text prepared by D Alexander and the Project Gutenberg Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net)
+
+
+
+Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this
+      file which includes the original illustrations.
+      See 32310-h.htm or 32310-h.zip:
+      (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/32310/32310-h/32310-h.htm)
+      or
+      (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/32310/32310-h.zip)
+
+
+
+
+
+DOROTHY AT OAK KNOWE
+
+by
+
+EVELYN RAYMOND
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+New York
+Hurst & Co., Inc.
+Publishers
+
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+THE DOROTHY BOOKS
+
+By EVELYN RAYMOND
+
+
+These stories of an American girl by an American author have made
+"Dorothy" a household synonym for all that is fascinating. Truth and
+realism are stamped on every page. The interest never flags, and is
+ofttimes intense. No more happy choice can be made for gift books, so
+sure are they to win approval and please not only the young in years,
+but also "grown-ups" who are young in heart and spirit.
+
+ Dorothy
+ Dorothy at Skyrie
+ Dorothy's Schooling
+ Dorothy's Travels
+ Dorothy's House Party
+ Dorothy in California
+ Dorothy on a Ranch
+ Dorothy's House Boat
+ Dorothy at Oak Knowe
+ Dorothy's Triumph
+ Dorothy's Tour
+
+ COPYRIGHT, 1910, BY
+ THE PLATT & PECK CO.
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+
+
+[Illustration: "EVER RIDE IN AN OX-CART"? _Dorothy at Oak Knowe._]
+
+
+
+
+ CONTENTS
+
+
+ CHAPTER                                                    PAGE
+
+    I. ON THE ROAD TO OAK KNOWE                               9
+
+   II. UNFORTUNATE BEGINNINGS                                24
+
+  III. PEERS AND COMMONS                                     39
+
+   IV. THE GILPINS HAVE A PARTY                              55
+
+    V. THE FRIGHT OF MILLIKINS-PILLIKINS                     69
+
+   VI. AT THE FALL OF THE MAIDEN'S BATH                      85
+
+  VII. ALL HALLOW EVE FESTIVITIES                           102
+
+ VIII. PEER AND COMMONER                                    117
+
+   IX. THE NIGHT THAT FOLLOWED                              133
+
+    X. OPEN CONFESSION IS GOOD FOR THE SOUL                 148
+
+   XI. WHAT CAME WITH THE SNOW AND ICE                      164
+
+  XII. JOHN GILPIN JOINS THE SPORT                          182
+
+ XIII. A BAD DAY FOR JOHN GILPIN                            193
+
+  XIV. EXPLANATIONS ARE IN ORDER                            206
+
+   XV. MRS. JARLEY ENTERTAINS                               221
+
+  XVI. A PERPLEXING PROBLEM OF LIFE                         232
+
+ XVII. COMMENCEMENT; AND CONCLUSION                         249
+
+
+
+
+DOROTHY AT OAK KNOWE
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+ON THE ROAD TO OAK KNOWE
+
+
+"This way for the Queen!"
+
+"Here you are for the Duke of Connaught! Right this way!"
+
+"Want the Metropole, Miss?"
+
+"Room there, stupid! She's from the States--any fool could see that!
+I'm from your hotel, little lady, the American. Your luggage, Miss,
+allow me?"
+
+If Dorothy's hands hadn't been too full, she would have clapped them
+over her ears, to drown the cries of the hackmen who swarmed about her
+as she stepped from the train at the railway station in Toronto. As it
+was, she clung desperately to her bag and shawlstrap, which the man
+from the American hotel seemed bound to seize, whether or no.
+
+But her heart sank and it was a forlorn little girl, indeed, who
+looked anxiously around seeking some face on which might be a smile of
+welcome. But nobody paid any attention to her, except the obstreperous
+hackmen, and in a sudden fright she let fall the tears she had so
+bravely kept back until then. It had been a long and lonely journey,
+but she had been assured that she would be promptly met and cared for
+when it ended. Now, amid all the throng of travelers and those who
+awaited them, not one was looking for a "dark haired girl in navy
+blue" and the tears fell faster as she cried aloud:
+
+"Oh! what shall I do! What shall I do!"
+
+Even the hackmen had forsaken her in pursuit of other, more promising
+patrons. The short autumn day was at its close and in the growing
+darkness her fright increased and her usual common sense left her.
+But, as she spoke, a hand was laid upon her shoulder and a rather
+gruff voice demanded:
+
+"Why, little stranger, what's a-troublin' ye?"
+
+Dorothy winked her tears away and looked up into the face of an old
+man, whose gray beard swept his breast while his head was entirely
+bald. He wore a long blue smock, carried an ox-goad in one hand and a
+canvas bag in the other. He looked as kind as he was homely and
+Dorothy answered quickly:
+
+"I'm lost, I guess. Or forgotten, and that's just as bad! I--I--"
+
+"Lost? Right here in this town? Well, that couldn't hardly be. Though
+I own it's a biggish place. But if you be, I'll see to it that you get
+found again, immediate. First start--who be ye?"
+
+"I'm Dorothy Calvert, from Baltimore. I came to the Oak Knowe School
+for Girls. Somebody was to meet me. Nobody has and--and--I don't know
+what to do."
+
+John Gilpin whistled and exclaimed:
+
+"No! Never! I saw at a glance you was no Cannuck! The little maids
+we raise in our Province have redder cheeks 'an yours. An' we don't
+let 'em go traversin' round the universe without their mothers or
+leastways nurses to look after 'em. But bless my soul, you've fell
+into safe hands. I know old Oak Knowe well. No better school in the
+whole Empire nor that. Moresomever, there's been some miscarry betwixt
+your folks and the Lady Principal or she'd never let you come to this
+pass. But my road lies same as yours. I'll just step-an'-fetch my oxen
+and head 'em straight for home. We'll get to the School in next to no
+time. Leastways, betwixt now and bedding-bell--they ring it about
+half-past nine."
+
+"Is it so far? Why, it must be hours till then!"
+
+At the cheerful sound of this old teamster's voice Dorothy forgot her
+fear. She didn't stop to reflect that she should have waited quietly
+in the station till somebody called for her, nor that she might have
+telephoned to her teachers to announce her arrival. All she realized
+was that here was a friend in need and that he was a quaintly
+interesting person.
+
+"'Tis a matter of some miles, lassie, and my old oxen are no electric
+tram. Slow and sure's their motto and what's an hour, more or less, in
+a little girl's lifetime? You got a box?"
+
+Dorothy glanced at the rug and magazine, tightly strapped together,
+and at the handbag she had set down upon the platform and replied:
+
+"No, Mr.--I don't know your name yet--I haven't now. I had one, but I
+ate the lunch out of it and tossed it from the car window."
+
+The old man stared as if she had spoken nonsense, but informed her:
+
+"Gilpin's my name. John Gilpin; but my dame says I'm no descendant of
+him that took that famous ride as is in the story books. I'm too slow,
+Dame says. But is all your clothes in that satchel?"
+
+It was Dorothy's turn to stare and to laugh.
+
+"Oh! no, indeed! They're in my trunk. Here is my check. Number 70777.
+I put that down in my little notebook, though it's easy to remember."
+
+"Humph! I've heard that in the States they call a box a 'trunk,'
+same's if it was an elephant. Well, give me the check. I'll just
+step-an'-fetch it and we'll be jogging."
+
+Mr. Gilpin took the check and lumbered away, dragging one leg stiffly
+as if he could not bend the knee, while Dorothy's spirits rose as she
+watched him. After all, this was a real adventure; and when it was
+over and she was safe at her fine school, she could write all about it
+to the friends at home. Thinking about them, she forgot how long John
+Gilpin tarried and roused from her reverie with a start when his
+hearty voice, guiding his oxen, came around the corner of the station.
+
+"Here we be, lassie! Ever ride in an ox-cart? Ever see a neater yoke
+o' cattle? That's an unco big box for a small maid to own and hefty,
+to boot. Step right in, for it's gathering clouds, I see, and we can't
+have that tidy dress of yours get spoiled while it's new."
+
+It was easy to "step in" to the low-hung vehicle and Dorothy nestled
+against her new friend on his spring-seat forward; all the back part
+of the wagon being filled with empty barrels and her own trunk.
+
+It had been some sort of holiday in the city and the streets were gay
+with flags and bunting, causing Dorothy to exclaim:
+
+"Why, it's just like Halifax, that time Earl Grey was coming! It's
+just as English as that was--even more so, for I don't see Old Glory
+anywhere, and there I did."
+
+Old John turned his bare, bald head toward her and demanded:
+
+"What do you know about Halifax? Or the Governor General? I thought
+you was United States."
+
+"So I am, so I am! But people may travel once in a while, mayn't they?
+I can tell you lots about Halifax, even though I was there but a
+little while. That was on a vacation journey and it was delight-ful!"
+
+Then, finding the farmer so interested, Dorothy eagerly recited the
+story of her "Travels" and their happy ending at her rightful home at
+Deerhurst and in the love of her Great-Aunt Betty.
+
+"Sounds like a story book, now don't it! And to think after all
+that the old lady should be willin' to despatch you up here to our
+Province, just to get a mite of education. Should ha' thought there'd
+be institooshuns of learning nigher hand 'an Oak Knowe, where she
+could ha' clapped eyes on ye, now and again. She--"
+
+"Oh! don't misjudge my darling aunt! She hated to have me come as
+badly as I hated to leave her; but, though I've never been really ill,
+she fancied that this climate would make me very, very strong.
+Besides, the minister who founded Oak Knowe--he was a bishop, I
+believe--was one of her girlhood friends, and so she chose it for
+that, too. Anyway, to her who has traveled so much, Canada and
+Maryland seem but a little way apart."
+
+"That's right, lassie. That's right. Be loyal to your friends, whether
+they be right or wrong. An' talk about travel, there beant many
+corners of this earth that I haven't took a glance at. I've not always
+been a farmer, though you mightn't think it now."
+
+They had passed out of the city streets into the open country, the
+oxen swaying and pacing sedately along, as if it mattered nothing how
+late they might reach home. To pass the time, Dorothy asked the old
+man to talk about his own travels, and he promptly answered:
+
+"In course, and obleeged for anybody to care to listen. Dame has heard
+my yarns so often, she scoffs 'em; but I've seen a power o' things in
+my day, a power o' things. I was born in Lunnon, raised in Glasgo',
+run away to Liverpool and shipped afore the mast. From sailor I turned
+soldier under Chinese Gordon--Ah! the man he wus! Miner, constable, me
+Lord's butler, then his cook, and now, at the fag end of my days,
+settled down to be my Dame's right-hand-man. She was a likely widow,
+coming from England to take up land here, and I met her aboard ship,
+last time I crossed seas. Didn't take us long to strike a bargain. She
+needed a man to till her farm; I needed a good woman to mend me and do
+for me, for I was that tired of rovin'--my hearties! We get along
+well. We get along prime. I do the talking and her does the thinking.
+She's that uncommon thing--a silent woman. Like to hear how I come
+nigh-hand to death along of a devil fish? Want to feel your hair
+rise on end and your arms get reg'lar goose-fleshy? Makes me nigh
+get that way myself, every time I recall--Whist! If that ain't
+thunder I'm a-dreamin', sure! Thunder this season of the year! Now
+that's fair ridic'lous. But mentionin' devil fish, yon comes one
+them red go-devils, Dame calls 'em, as squawkin', blazing-eyed
+automobeelyers--comin' this minute. No marvel natur' gets topsy-turvy
+with them wild things ramsaging round. But, quick, lassie! Do your
+young eyes see something or somebody lying beyond in the middle of the
+road?"
+
+The old man checked his garrulous tongue to rise and peer into the
+darkness, while Dorothy sprang to her feet beside him, straining her
+own eyes to follow his pointing finger.
+
+"There is, there is! Looks like a man or boy or bicycle or something
+and that horrid car is coming right toward it! Make 'em stop! Holloa!
+Loud, loud, for they don't see him! they'll run over him--he'll be
+killed!"
+
+But still the gay occupants of the car observed nothing; till at
+last a fiercer shriek from Dorothy sounded above their laughter and
+instantly hushed it, while the driver of the machine looked curiously
+at the cart which the wise oxen, perceiving their own danger, had
+drawn out of harm on the roadside. But the stop had been too late.
+Though the motor was swerved aside, it had already collided with the
+objects in its path, and it was in a terrified silence that the
+merrymakers descended from it.
+
+But even old John had been quicker than they and was now bending above
+the lad crushed beneath the forward wheels of this hated "go-devil."
+
+"Oh! my poor lad! Oh! my sunny Robin!" he groaned: then in a fury of
+anger at the great machine, tried his strength to lift it from its
+victim.
+
+Fortunately there were several men in the party, and the car well
+equipped against mischance, and so it was swiftly forced away, while
+the farmer again stooped over the motionless lad beneath and tenderly
+raised him in his arms. For a moment the group gathered about the pair
+believed that the boy was dead; then a low moan from his white lips
+mingled with the lamentations of John Gilpin and brought relief to
+everyone.
+
+Again came flashes of lightning and the growls of thunder, and the
+owner of the car exclaimed:
+
+"Lay the boy in the motor and we'll get him to a hospital at once.
+Maybe he isn't so badly hurt as seems. Pile up the cushions, somebody,
+and give him to me, old man. I'm stronger than you and better used to
+sick folks. Doctor Winston is my name."
+
+"The more shame to you then for what you've done this night!" hotly
+retorted old John, clasping his burden the closer and moving slowly
+toward his own humble cart.
+
+"Idiot! Don't put him in that shaky wagon. Delay may cost his life.
+Hospital's the place and the car is swiftest!" cried another of the
+gentlemen, indignantly. "Of course we'll see to it that he has the
+best of care with no expense spared."
+
+As if he had not heard, old John still moved away, quietly ordering
+Dorothy:
+
+"Undo that shawl of yours. Roll them barrels out of the wagon. Take
+off your jacket and make a piller of it. Spread the shawl out and
+cover him with part of it whilst I lay him down. Poor little Robin!
+The 'only son of his mother and she was a widow.'"
+
+Dorothy was glad to obey this strange old man who had been so genial
+and was now so stern, and it relieved her distress to be doing
+something to help. But as she tried to roll the barrels out, a hand
+fell on her arm and the doctor said:
+
+"I'll do that, Miss. They're too heavy for you. I wish you'd persuade
+your grandfather to trust me with this poor boy. It would be so much
+better."
+
+"He isn't my grandfather. I don't know him--I mean he was taking me--"
+
+But her words fell upon deaf ears, apparently. Having sent the empty
+barrels flying where they would, the doctor had now taken the pile of
+cushions somebody had brought him and arranged them on the wagon
+bottom. Next he calmly relieved John Gilpin of the injured boy and
+laid him gently down. Shaking out Dorothy's thick steamer rug, her
+"shawl," he carefully covered Robin and, sitting down beside him,
+ordered:
+
+"Drive on, farmer! Chauffeur, follow with the car. Lady Jane, the
+medicine case. To the nearest house at once."
+
+There was no resisting the firm authority of the physician and John
+Gilpin climbed meekly to his seat and at his urgent "gee-ho" the oxen
+started onward at a steady gait. But despite his anxiety there was a
+satisfaction in their owner's mind that the "nearest house" would be
+his own and that it would be his capable "Dame" who would care for
+Robin and not a hospital nurse.
+
+Meanwhile Dorothy seemed forgotten both by the people who had returned
+to their car and Mr. Gilpin; so, fearing that she would be left alone
+by the roadside, she sprang upon the end of the cart and sat there,
+her feet dangling over its edge.
+
+Now, indeed, her adventure was proving anything but amusing. What
+would Aunt Betty think of her heedless action? Or her dear guardian,
+Seth Winters, the "learned Blacksmith," wisest of men, whom the reader
+of this series will recall in "Dorothy's Schooling." Would she ever
+reach Oak Knowe, and how would this escapade be regarded there?
+
+Into her troubled thoughts now broke a sound of pain, that drove
+everything save pity from her mind. The rain was now falling fast and
+drenching her new clothes, but her anxiety was only that the injured
+boy should not get wet and she was glad that her rug was so thick and
+warm. It had been a parting gift from her "House-Boat" guests and held
+almost sacred as a memento of their happy trip together.
+
+But now the oxen were turning into a lane. She could dimly see the
+hedgerows on either side, that now and then the lightning flashes
+showed more plainly; and, after a time, something big and white
+seemed to block their way. A moment more and the white obstruction
+proved to be a cottage with a lamp shining through its window. Then
+a door opened and a woman's voice called cheerily:
+
+"Welcome home, my man! You're late the night. Met you up with any
+trouble? Didn't the apples sell well?"
+
+"More trouble than you dream, Dame, and I've fetched it for you to
+share. Light the bedroom to once. 'Tis the dead--or dyin'--is here."
+
+Without a word the woman turned away, moving heavily because of her
+great size, and an inner door opened, showing a comfortable bed, its
+covers already invitingly spread back. Lighting more candles the dame
+stood quietly aside, waiting her unexpected guest.
+
+The doctor brought the boy in, still wrapped in the rug and, tossing
+that to the floor, gently laid him down. John followed close behind,
+announcing:
+
+"'Tis Robin, Dame, our bonny Robin of the Glen. The heart of the
+mother will break. He--"
+
+"Help here. Hot water, please. More light. An old sheet for bandages.
+Don't dally. Undress him, Lady Jane."
+
+"But, doctor, I'm afraid!" objected that lady who, partly from
+curiosity, partly to avoid the rain, had followed the physician into
+the house.
+
+Indeed, all the motoring party had now swarmed into the kitchen,
+intending to be quiet yet really chattering noisily, and some of them
+sniffing covetously the odors from a great pot of soup, steaming away
+on the stove. But nobody was quite ready to respond to the doctor's
+appeals for help, even Mrs. Gilpin being confused and stupid before
+these strangers who had taken possession of her home.
+
+As for old John, he could simply stand and stare at the unconscious
+lad on the bed, too dazed and grieved to be of any use whatever.
+
+Not so Dorothy, who had entered with the rest and who noticed Dr.
+Winston's impatience--who knew that a hospital was where his patient
+should be and not this ill-equipped cottage. Throwing off her dripping
+jacket, she cried:
+
+"I'll help."
+
+A teakettle was singing beside the soup-pot on the stove and a dishpan
+was hanging near. To empty the kettle into the pan and to carry it to
+the chair beside the bed was an instant's task. Then, seizing the
+upper sheet and using her teeth for scissors, she swiftly tore it into
+strips; and by this time the dame had regained her own presence of
+mind.
+
+Without troubling to ask who Dorothy was or how she came to be there,
+she now took charge of things, saying:
+
+"You'll find clean towels in that chest of drawers. Fetch the doctor a
+pile. Shears are yon in that work-basket. You're spry on your feet as
+I can't be, but I do know how to take the clothes off this poor Robin.
+My, what's this he clenches so tight in hand? One of them telegraph
+letters 'tis his errand to deliver. All over the countryside the
+laddie rode on his wheel to earn the bit money would pay his mother's
+rent. Brave, bonny lad that he was!"
+
+Gently releasing the telegram from his fingers, Mrs. Gilpin held it up
+for the doctor to see.
+
+"For Oak Knowe. Open it, little girl, and read if it's important."
+
+She obeyed, but her voice trembled as she read. It was the belated
+message that announced her own coming and the hour of her arrival. It
+explained why she had not been met at the station, but she felt both
+shocked and guilty as she exclaimed:
+
+"Oh! it is my fault! It's all my fault that he is killed! Just about
+me it happened! What shall I do--what shall I do?"
+
+"Stop that sort of talk and see how your dead boy stares at you! Look
+well, Robin, you see a real live Yankee girl!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+UNFORTUNATE BEGINNINGS
+
+
+Even the most cultured Lady Principals do not enjoy being roused from
+their slumbers, an hour after midnight, by the tooting of a motor car
+beneath their bedroom windows. It was annoying to have to dress again
+and descend to a dimly-lighted reception room to receive a new pupil
+who had missed a train, on the route, and misdirected her telegram.
+Nor was there anything prepossessing about this especial girl, whose
+clothes steamed with moisture and whose travel-soiled cheeks were
+streaked by raindrops and tears. So it was small wonder that Dorothy's
+reception by Miss Muriel Tross-Kingdon was decidedly cool and crisp.
+
+"This is really unprecedented, Miss Calvert. I cannot understand how
+any young lady, whose friends consider her intelligent enough to
+travel alone, could have made such stupid blunders, as you have. At
+the point where you knew you were to change trains, why did you not
+keep watch and inquire for direction?"
+
+"Well, you see there was a military parade and the soldiers looked so
+queer in their red uniforms and their funny little caps on the sides
+of their heads that--that--that I forgot. I mean the timetable told
+the right hour, course, but the first train was behind and so--and
+so--"
+
+It was a very lame excuse and Dolly knew it. But it was the truth and
+as such she gave it.
+
+Miss Tross-Kingdon made no reply. Inwardly she was commenting upon
+Dorothy's pronunciation of certain words, which was wholly at fault
+according to English custom, and realizing that here was the first
+fault to be corrected in her new pupil.
+
+Dorothy's heart sank. Uncle Seth's last advice to her had been:
+
+"Whenever you feel blue, just wave your flag of high courage and march
+ahead. Don't stop to think! March, march, march--toward the better
+time that will surely come."
+
+But that high-courage flag hung limply now and she felt she could
+never again wave it at all. But, fortunately, the Lady Principal now
+rose to terminate the interview. Touching an electric bell for the
+maid on night duty, she said:
+
+"It is very late and you are tired. Dawkins will show you to your
+cubicle and assist you in undressing. You may omit your bath,
+to-night, and are allowed an extra hour of sleep in the morning. Where
+are your suit case and hand bag?"
+
+Dorothy rose, as the lady did, but a fresh feeling of guilt made her
+eyes fall as she murmured:
+
+"I--don't--know."
+
+"Don't know!" echoed the Lady Principal, in amazement. Then directing
+Dawkins to supply what was needed, she returned to her interrupted
+repose, while Dorothy wearily followed the stern-faced maid; being
+cautioned, meanwhile:
+
+"Do not dare to make a noise and arouse the young ladies."
+
+Yet arrived at the cubicle, or small division of the great dormitory
+which had been assigned her, Dorothy realized that Dawkins was kinder
+than she looked. For presently she was being undressed, her face and
+hands sponged with cool water, and herself reclothed with the freshest
+of gowns. Then she was bodily lifted into the dainty little bed as if
+she were a baby.
+
+This unexpected gentleness touched her heart and, flinging her arms
+about the maid's neck, she sobbed:
+
+"Oh! do be good to me! I am so desolate!"
+
+"Whist, child! We must no be wakin' the troublesome girls around. And
+sure the lonesomeness'll pass, like the dew afore sun, once you get a
+good sleep and meet up with your mates. Good night, child, and sleep
+well."
+
+Then, since there was nobody to witness her unusual demonstration,
+maid Dawkins stooped and kissed the tired eyes of her new charge, and
+went quietly away.
+
+But there had been one observer of this caress. Peeping from her own
+compartment stood a girl whose keen eyes had noticed everything, and
+who felt she could scarcely wait until morning to spread the news.
+Creeping back to her own bed, she lay long awake, thinking the matter
+over. For this schoolgirl, who rejoiced in the title of the Honorable
+Gwendolyn Borst-Kennard, had a deal of curiosity that was wholly
+roused now.
+
+"Never saw old Dawkins kiss anybody. Dawkins, of all creatures! Never
+knew a new girl come at this time of night--and she certainly was new.
+And she hadn't any clothes, I know, because that was one of the school
+hampers Dawkins had. Must be somebody very poor. I wonder who!
+Maybe--for goodness sake! Maybe she's some relation to old Dawk! Else
+why should she kiss her? Humph! I thought this was a school for young
+ladies, not for the poor relations of servants. There's one thing
+certain, mamma will never allow me to remain where there are paupers.
+Never in this world. Neither would Lord Christopher let Marjorie. No,
+indeed. So will Miss Tross-Kingdon find out. Why! one charity pupil at
+Oak Knowe would ruin it! Anyhow, I mean to hurry round in the morning
+and warn all my set against noticing the beggar and what our set does
+surely goes. Mamma gets odd notions about things, sometimes, like
+saying I must sleep in this old dormitory instead of having a private
+room, and that I have silly feelings about rank. Wanted the Lady
+Principal to make me more democratic: but even she couldn't wish me to
+sleep among paupers. Heigho! I wish it was morning! But I'll take a
+nap now and that will pass the time."
+
+Exhausted by the long journey she had taken, and by the startling
+events of the night, unconscious Dorothy slept calmly on, little
+dreaming of Gwendolyn's fancies about her; nor did she wake till long
+after all her dormitory mates had dressed and gone below to breakfast.
+When she did arouse it was to wonder about this strange place in which
+she found herself and at an elfish-looking child perched on the foot
+of her little bed, staring at her with wide eyes and keen impatience,
+and who greeted her first movement with the exclamation:
+
+"Well, old sleepy-head, I thought you never would wake up! Who are
+you, anyway, and what makes you stay in cubicle so long after
+breakfast? Won't you catch a lecture, though! I wouldn't be in your
+shoes for a sovereign!"
+
+"Don't believe you could be in them. You're so small they'd fall off,"
+answered Dorothy laughing.
+
+"No, they wouldn't. I'd tie them on. If I wanted to. Who are you?
+When'd you come? How dare you stay in bed so?"
+
+Dolly laughed again. She had fallen asleep convinced that she could
+never laugh again, so tired and homesick had she been. But now,
+refreshed by rest and with the sunlight streaming through the windows,
+the world seemed a very different place. Besides, there was something
+so winning about this inquisitive little maid, that the stranger's
+heart was comforted that she had found a friend already.
+
+"Well, dearie, I suppose I dare because Miss Tross-Kingdon--"
+
+"Did she say you could? Isn't that odd! She's my aunt. I haven't any
+folks 'cept her, I'm a norphan. I'm Millikins-Pillikins, my brother
+Hugh calls me; and the girls, too. But I'm not, really. I'm Grace
+Adelaide Victoria Tross-Kingdon. That's my truly name. Nobody could
+call me all that, could they? Wouldn't be time. Auntie Princie calls
+me just plain 'darling' or 'dear.' I'm a Minim. I don't have to do
+lessons and things. I'm in the 'kindy.' Auntie Princie doesn't approve
+of a kindergarten in this School for Young Ladies; but it's a
+speriment the Board of Directioners wanted to try. Them's the
+gentlemen auntie has to mind. Fancy! My great big grown-up Auntie
+Prin having to mind them, same's I have to mind her! My Lord Bishop,
+he's the head Directioner, but he's the jolliest! I just love him! He
+knew my papa and mamma before they got drowned in the sea. My brother
+Hugh lives with the Bishop and writes things for him. They call him a
+seckeratary. He gets money for doing it. Think of that! Sometimes he
+gives me pennies and even six-pences. Sometimes--not often. You see he
+wants to earn enough to buy a cottage for him and me. I'm to be the
+lady of it--the mistress! Fancy! But Auntie Princie says I have lots
+to learn before then. I will have to make his bread, 'cause he won't
+have money enough to keep me and a cook, too. I'll have to have a
+housemaid to help me, but you know housemaids never do the cooking.
+But say, girl, you haven't told me your name yet?"
+
+Dorothy sat up in bed and drew the child toward her:
+
+"My dear, you haven't given me a chance yet, you've been so busy
+telling me who you are. But I've enjoyed it and I thank you for coming
+to wake me up. Now I must get up and dress. Maybe you will show me to
+the bathroom, though I don't like to go about in this way."
+
+"That's a school nightie you've got on. Where's your bath robe?"
+
+"In my trunk."
+
+"Where's your trunk?"
+
+"I suppose it's at John Gilpin's house. That is, if he didn't throw it
+out of the cart with the empty barrels."
+
+"Why did he throw out the barrels?"
+
+"To make a place for Robin to lie on."
+
+"What Robin?"
+
+"The messenger boy who was hurt. He was bringing my telegram and he
+fainted and fell and the motor car--but I mustn't stop now to talk. I
+must get dressed."
+
+"Couldn't you talk without stopping? I could."
+
+"I believe you, child. Will you show me?"
+
+"Of course--if you'll tell the rest. Wait. If you want a robe I'll get
+Gwendolyn's. It's right yonder."
+
+So it happened that the first act of the supposed charity pupil was to
+borrow a garment of the very girl who had so misjudged her, and who
+entered the dormitory just as Dorothy was leaving it for the lavatory.
+
+Curiosity had sent Gwendolyn and Laura Griswold, her chum and
+"shadow," back to this apartment at this unusual hour, but at sight of
+Dorothy disappearing toward the bath wearing Gwendolyn's robe, its
+owner forgot her curiosity in indignation. Stopping short, midway the
+great room, she clasped her hands in a tragic manner and demanded of
+Laura:
+
+"Did you ever in your life see anything so cool as that? The impudent
+girl! How dare she? I wonder what else she's taken! And that
+mischievous little Pill with her. That child's the nuisance of this
+school. Even if she is Lady Principal's niece, she shouldn't be given
+the liberty she has. But I'll report."
+
+"Yes, indeed, I'd report!" echoed Laura. "First, have to sleep in the
+school things; then help herself to yours. It's simply outrageous. Why
+not go right away? It's recess and Miss Tross-Kingdon has no class."
+
+"She has worse. The Bishop's in the reception-room, and Dr. Winston,
+too. They were all talking very fast and I wanted to stop and listen.
+But I didn't quite dare, for she was facing the door and might see me.
+But I did hear the Bishop say that if she was a Calvert she could
+hardly fail to be all right. She came of good stock--none better. I
+wondered who he meant; but Lady Principal saw me looking in and asked
+me if 'I wished anything?' Hateful woman! She has the most
+disagreeable manners!"
+
+"Never mind. Anyway, let's go tell her!" advised Laura, and the pair
+departed.
+
+However, the electric bell rang just then, announcing that recess was
+over and the telling had to be postponed to a better season. A few
+moments later a maid came to say that as soon as Dorothy was ready the
+Lady Principal would receive her in the west parlor. But she might
+stop in the breakfast-room on the way, where a dish of cereal and a
+bowl of hot milk was awaiting her. The maid added to the "Little
+Pill":
+
+"As for you, Miss Grace, the Minims are ready for their calisthenics
+and your teacher wants you."
+
+"But I don't want her. I want to go with Dolly."
+
+"You're too big a girl for dolls, Miss Grace, and quite big enough to
+obey orders."
+
+Grace's sharp little face darkened and she made a mocking grimace to
+the maid, retorting:
+
+"You don't know anything, Dora Bond! You don't know that the Dolly I
+play with is this new girl. I shall go with her. I hate them
+exercises. They make my back ache. I'm excused to-day, anyhow. I heard
+Auntie Princie tell a lady how I wasn't a bit strong and that she had
+to indulge me a lot. I shall do as I please. I shall go where I like.
+I shall, so, old Bondy! So there!"
+
+Dorothy was surprised by the unpleasant expression which had
+settled on the little girl's face, but said nothing. Following
+Bond's direction, she hurried through a long hall to a sunshiny
+breakfast-room and the simple meal prepared for her. She hastily
+drank the milk, but had no appetite for the cereal. Her heart was in a
+flutter of anxiety about the coming interview with Miss Tross-Kingdon.
+She had at once disliked and feared that lady, on the night before,
+and felt that her present appearance, in a rain-spotted frock and with
+her hair so hastily brushed, must only add to the sternness of this
+unknown Lady Principal.
+
+However, the clinging hand of Millikins-Pillikins gave a little
+comfort. She didn't feel quite so lonely and timid with the child
+beside her and, as she made her graceful curtsey at the open door, all
+her fear vanished and she became once more the self-possessed Dorothy
+of old. For, rising and crossing the room to meet her was her
+acquaintance of the night, who had brought her to Oak Knowe in his own
+car from John Gilpin's cottage.
+
+With extended hands he grasped hers and, turning to Miss Muriel,
+remarked:
+
+"Any time you need a nurse, madam, just call upon this little lady.
+She was the best helper I had last night. Quick and quiet and
+intelligent. She must train herself for that vocation when she is
+older."
+
+The color flew to Dorothy's cheeks and she flashed him a grateful
+smile, for the kind words that so soothed her homesick heart.
+
+The other gentleman in the room did not rise, but held out a
+beckoning hand and, with another curtsey to Doctor Winston, Dorothy
+excused herself to him and obeyed the summons. This other was a
+venerable man with a queer-shaped cap upon his white head and wearing
+knee breeches and gaiters, which made the young American remember some
+pictures of old Continental statesmen.
+
+"So this is my old friend Betty Calvert's child, is it? Well, well!
+You're as like her as possible--yet only her great-niece. Ha, hum!
+Little lady, you carry me straight back to the days of my boyhood,
+when my parents came from England--strangers to your Baltimore. But we
+were not strangers for long. There's a distant blood relation between
+our house and yours and we youngsters found in beautiful Bellevieu a
+second home. So you must remember that, since your aunt has done me
+the honor to send you away up here to this school of mine--of ours, I
+should say--you have come to another home just as I did then. Dear
+little Betty! What a mischief she was! Are you mischievous, too, I
+wonder?"
+
+Then he turned to the Lady Principal, warning her:
+
+"Look out for this little miss, Miss Tross-Kingdon! She looks as meek
+as a lamb, just now, but blood will tell and she'll bear watching, I
+believe."
+
+The dear old man had drawn Dorothy close to his side and was smiling
+upon her in a manner to win the heart of any girl and to cure her of
+her homesickness--at least for the time being. When he released her,
+he rose to depart, resuming for a moment the business talk with the
+Lady Principal, which Dorothy's entrance had interrupted. Both she and
+the doctor also arose and stood respectfully waiting till the Bishop
+disappeared. Then said Dr. Winston:
+
+"You'll like to hear about your boy patient, I suppose, Miss Calvert.
+Well, I think he's all right, or will be as soon as his bones
+and bruises mend. What I suspect is that the brave lad is about
+half-starved--or was. He's in danger of being overfed now, since he
+has fallen into Dame Gilpin's hands."
+
+"Half-starved, sir? How dreadful!" cried Dorothy, while Miss
+Tross-Kingdon exclaimed: "Can that be possible!"
+
+"Quite possible, indeed. His mother is a widow and very frail, old
+John tells me. Her husband was a carpenter who worked in town and was
+trying to pay for the little place he'd bought out here in the
+suburbs, hoping the open-air life might cure her. She'd gone into
+chicken and flower culture, thinking she could help in the payment.
+They were proud of Robin, the 'brightest, merriest, best boy in the
+Glen,' John claims, and had somehow got a second-hand bicycle for him
+to ride into school for the 'grand eddication' they wanted he should
+have. Then the father died and Robin got a position as messenger boy.
+Every cent he earned he gave his mother and she took in sewing. They
+ate just as little as they could and the result has been disastrous. A
+growing boy can't work all day and half the night, sometimes, on a
+diet of bread and water. So last night he fainted on his trip and fell
+off his wheel in the middle of the road. Then I came speeding along
+toward home and smashed them both up. But it's an ill wind that blows
+nobody good and the lad's accident may turn out his blessing. Dorothy
+and I and the Dame have mended a collar bone and a couple of ribs
+and my ambitious young 'Mercury' is laid up for repairs. John
+'step-and-fetched' the mother, Mrs. Locke, and she, too, will get some
+rest and nourishment. She's worrying a good deal, but has no need.
+Plucky little Robin will soon be chirping again, 'fine as silk.'
+Maybe, after school hours, Miss Tross-Kingdon will permit me to take
+Dorothy with me in the car to visit her patient. May I, Madam?"
+
+The Lady Principal did not look pleased. The Bishop's and the doctor's
+treatment of the new pupil had really softened her heart toward the
+girl, but she was a stickler for "rules" and "discipline," and
+remembered that this was not the day on which her "young ladies" were
+allowed to pay visits.
+
+"Thank you, Doctor Winston, but I am obliged to decline the invitation
+for to-day. She has entered Oak Knowe some time after the opening of
+term and must pass examination, that I may understand for which Form
+she is best fitted. Nor have I yet been advised of such houses as her
+guardians desire her to visit. Commonly, the young ladies of Oak Knowe
+do not consort with laborers and messenger boys. But I thank you for
+your courtesy toward her; and, as that is the bell for my class in
+Greek, I must beg you to excuse me and I wish you good morning, Dr.
+Winston. Come, Miss Calvert, I will have your examination begin at
+once. Make your obeisance to the doctor."
+
+Dolly's heart sank. Why should she be made to feel so guilty and
+insignificant? Still, as she turned to follow the teacher, she
+obediently saluted the physician and, glancing up into his face,
+saw--was it possible that he winked?
+
+Though she felt as she were going to be tried for her life, this sight
+so surprised her, that she giggled hysterically and thus irreverently
+followed the haughty instructress out of the room. So doing, she added
+one more to the list of misdemeanors that lady had already placed
+against her account.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+PEERS AND COMMONS
+
+
+Along the hall down which Dorothy followed the Lady Principal were
+many doors opening into small class rooms. Each class was under its
+especial teacher, its number being limited to ten students. It was the
+policy of the school that by this division better instruction could be
+given each pupil, and Dorothy wondered to which of these groups--if
+any--she would be assigned. Another hall and other class rooms joined
+the first and longer one, at a right angle, and here Miss Muriel
+paused, directing:
+
+"Proceed down this corridor till you reach the parlor at its end.
+There you will find Miss Hexam awaiting you. She will test your
+scholarship and report to me. Do not fail to answer her questions
+promptly and distinctly. I observe that you do not enunciate well. You
+slur some of your words and clip the endings from your participles. To
+say 'hopin'' or 'runnin'' is execrable. Also, there is no such word as
+'daown' or 'araoun'.'"
+
+Dorothy's temper rose. She had done nothing right, it seemed, since
+she had arrived at this "school for criticism," as she termed it, and
+now said pertly:
+
+"I reckon that's the Southern way of talking. I noticed that the
+Bishop didn't bother about his 'gs' and he had the same twang that all
+do down home. He must have lived there a right smart time when he was
+little."
+
+"Many things are permissible in a cultured old gentleman which are
+not in an ignorant and forward girl. You came here for your own
+improvement. I shall see that you attain it; or, if you fail in this
+after a reasonable trial, you cannot be retained. That rule is plainly
+stated in our circular. I will bid you good morning until I send for
+you."
+
+Poor Dorothy fairly withered under this sternness that she felt was
+unjust, but she felt, also, that she had been impertinent, and running
+after Miss Muriel, as she moved away, she caught the lady's sleeve,
+imploring:
+
+"Please don't think I'm all bad, Miss Tross-Kingdon! I've been
+heedless and saucy, but I didn't mean it--not for badness. Please wait
+and try me and I _will_ 'improve,' as you said. Please, please! It
+would break Aunt Betty's heart if she thought I wasn't good and--and
+I'm so unhappy! Please forgive me."
+
+The dark eyes, lifted so appealingly, filled with tears which their
+owner bravely restrained, and the Lady Principal was touched by this
+self-control. Also, under all her sternness, she was just.
+
+"Certainly, Dorothy, your apology is sufficient. Now go at once to
+Miss Hexam and do yourself credit. If you have studied music, another
+person will examine you in that."
+
+Impulsively Dorothy caught the lady's hand and kissed it; and,
+fortunately, did not observe that dainty person wipe off the caress
+with her handkerchief.
+
+Then summoning her courage, the new pupil hurried to the end parlor
+and entered it as she had been taught. But the "den of inquisition,"
+as some of the girls had named it, proved anything but that to
+Dorothy.
+
+"The Inquisitor" was a lovely, white-haired woman, clothed in soft
+white wool, and smiling so gently toward the trembling girl that all
+fear instantly left her.
+
+"So this is Dorothy Calvert, our little maid from Dixie. You'll find a
+wide difference between your Southland and our Province, but I hope
+you'll find the change a pleasant one. Take this chair before the
+fire. You'll find it comfortable. I love these autumn days, when a
+blazing log can keep us warm. It's so fragrant and cheerful and far
+more romantic than a coil of steam pipe. Have a biscuit, dear?"
+
+Miss Hexam motioned to a low wicker chair, which some girls had
+declared a "chair of torture," but which suited Dorothy exactly, for
+it was own mate to her own little reading chair "at home." Almost she
+could have kissed it for its likeness, but was allowed no time for
+foolishness. The homely little treat of the simple crackers banished
+all shyness and the dreaded "exam" proved really but a social visit,
+the girl not dreaming that under this friendly talk was a careful
+probing of her own character and attainments. Nor did she understand
+just then how greatly her answers pleased the gentle "Inquisitor."
+
+"You want me to 'begin at the beginning'? Why, that's a long way back,
+when I was a mere midget. A baby only a year and a half old. Papa and
+mamma died away out west, but, of course, I didn't know that then. I
+didn't know anything, I reckon, except how to make Mother Martha
+trouble. My father was Aunt Betty's nephew and she didn't like his
+marrying mamma. I don't know why; only Ephraim says 'Miss Betty was
+allays full o' notions same's a aig's full o' meat.' Ephy's Aunt
+Betty's 'boy,' about as old as she is--something over eighty. Nobody
+knows just auntie's real age, except Ephraim and Dinah. They've lived
+with her always and treat her now just as if she were a child. It's
+too funny for words, sometimes, to hear the three of them argue over
+some thing or trifle. She'll let them go a certain length; then all at
+once she'll put on her dignity and they fairly begin to tremble. She's
+mistress then and they're her servants, but I do believe either one
+would die to prolong her life. Dinah says: ''Pears lak death an' dyin'
+nebah gwine come nigh my Miss Betty Calvert.' And she's just right.
+Everybody thinks my darling aunt is the sweetest, most wonderful woman
+in the world. But I beg your pardon. I didn't mean to talk so much and
+hinder your examination."
+
+"Oh! that is all right. I love to hear your story that you've left off
+at its beginning. You're only a 'baby' so far, you know."
+
+"Well, if you like. When my father died, my mother felt that she would
+die, too, and she couldn't bear to leave me alone. So she just sent me
+to Aunt Betty. But she felt, auntie did, that she couldn't be bothered
+with a 'squalling baby,' nor could she cast me off, really. 'Cause she
+was my real great-aunt and my nearest relation and was rich enough to
+do what she liked in a money way. Besides, she wanted me to be raised
+real sensible. So she picked out a splendid couple she knew and had me
+left on their doorstep. She had pinned to my clothes that my name was
+'Dorothy C.' Their name began with 'C,' too, so they guessed I was
+meant for them to keep, because they hadn't any other child. What a
+lot I'm talking! Do you want to hear any more? Won't the Lady
+Principal be angry if I don't get examined?"
+
+"I will make that all right, Dorothy, and I am greatly interested.
+It's 'like a story out of a book,' as the Minims say. Go on, please."
+
+"Well, these dear people took care of me till I was a real big girl. I
+love them dearly. He was a postman and he walked too much. So he had
+to lose his position with lameness and he's never gotten over it,
+though he's better now. He has a position in a sanitarium for other
+lame folks and Mother Martha is the housekeeper, or matron, there.
+Uncle Seth Winters, who knows so much that he is called the 'Learned
+Blacksmith,' is my guardian. He and Aunt Betty have been dearest
+friends ever since they were little. They call each other cousin,
+though they're no kin at all, any more than he's my uncle. He was my
+first teacher at his 'school in the woods,' but felt I ought to go to
+a school for girls. So I went to the Rhinelander Academy and he stayed
+at his smithy on the mountain, near Mother Martha's little farm and
+Aunt Betty's big one, and one vacation auntie told me who I was and
+took me home to live with her; and she liked Oak Knowe because the
+Bishop is her lifelong friend. She has had my name on the list waiting
+for a vacancy for a long, long time; so it's a terrible pity I should
+have been horrid, and offended the Lady Principal."
+
+"Let us hope she is not seriously offended, dear, nor have you told me
+what the offense is. But bear in mind, Dorothy, that she is at the
+head of a great and famous institution and must strictly live up to
+its standards and keep her pupils to their duty. But she is absolutely
+just, as you will learn in time.
+
+"I feel like hearing music, to-day, but get very little. All our
+practice rooms are sound-deadened. Do you play at all, on any
+instrument, or sing?"
+
+"A little of both, when I'm at home. Not well in either, though Aunt
+Betty loves my violin and my little songs. If I had it here, I would
+try for you, if you'd like. But it's in my trunk, my 'box,' Mr. Gilpin
+called it."
+
+Miss Hexam smiled and, opening a little secretary, took out an old
+Cremona, explaining:
+
+"This was my brother's, who died when I was young. He was a master of
+it, had many pupils. I allow few to touch it, but I'd be pleased to
+have you, if you would like."
+
+"Would you? May I?" asked Dorothy, handling it reverently for its
+sacredness to this loving old sister. And, after she had tuned it, as
+reverently for its own sake. It was a rare old instrument of sweetest
+tone and almost unconsciously Dorothy tried one theme after another
+upon it while Miss Hexam leaned back in her chair listening and
+motionless.
+
+Into that playing the young musician put all the love and homesickness
+of her own heart. It seemed as if she were back at Deerhurst, with the
+Great Danes lying on the rug at her feet and dear Aunt Betty resting
+before the fire. Then, when memory threatened to bring the tears she
+was determined should not fall, she stopped, laid the violin silently
+upon the table and slipped out of the room, leaving Miss Hexam still
+motionless in her chair.
+
+But she would have been surprised had she looked back into the
+"inquisition chamber" a few moments later to see the "inquisitor"
+arouse, seize a sheet of paper and rapidly write a few lines upon it.
+But the few lines were important. They gave a synopsis of Dorothy's
+scholarship and accomplishments, and unerringly assigned her to "Form
+IVb, class of Miss Aldrich."
+
+The "terrible exam" was over and Dorothy hadn't known a thing about
+it!
+
+Outside that little parlor another surprise awaited her. A crowd of
+girls was racing madly down the hall, the foremost looking backward as
+she ran and roughly colliding with Dorothy; with the result that both
+fell; while the others, following in such speed, were unable to check
+in time to prevent their tumbling over the first pair. Then such
+shrieks of laughter rang out that the teachers in the nearby
+classrooms came to their doors in haste.
+
+Even they were obliged to smile over the heap of girls and the tangle
+of legs and arms as the fallen ones strove to extricate themselves.
+They were all in gymnasium-costume and were bound for a side door of
+the building which led by a short cut to the gymnasium in the Annex.
+
+This was Dorothy's introduction to the "Commons," the largest and
+wildest "set" in the great school. They were all daughters of good
+families but of no "rank" or titles; and there was an abiding
+opposition among them to the "Peers," the smaller "set" of aristocrats
+to which the Honorable Gwendolyn Borst-Kennard and Lady Marjorie
+Lancaster belonged. Mostly the "Commons" were a rollicking company,
+going to the extreme limits of behavior where any fun promised to
+follow, yet mostly keeping just safely within rules. Their escapades
+kept the faculty in considerable anxiety as to what they would do
+next, yet their very gayety was the life of Oak Knowe and even the
+Lady Principal was secretly fonder of them than of the more dignified
+"Peers."
+
+As they now scrambled to their feet, she who had run against Dorothy
+heartily apologized, yet paused half-way in that apology to stare and
+remark:
+
+"Why, heigho, there! I thought you were a Minim, you're so little.
+But I fancy you're a newcomer whom I don't know. Please explain; are
+you 'Peer' or 'Lower House'?"
+
+Dorothy laughed:
+
+"'Lower House,' I thought when you knocked me down, whatever that may
+be."
+
+"It means--is your father an Earl? or your mother a Duchess? Have you
+an Honorable amongst you? You hold your curly head as if you might
+have all three!"
+
+All the girls had now gathered about the stranger whom their leader
+was so unceremoniously quizzing and were eagerly inspecting her, but
+somehow Dorothy did not resent the scrutiny. There were big girls and
+little ones, fat girls and thin ones, plain and pretty, but each so
+good-natured looking and so friendly in her curiosity that Dolly's own
+spirits rose in response to their liveliness.
+
+"No, indeed! I'm just a plain American girl and prouder of that than
+of any title in the world. You see, all of _us_ are queens in our own
+right!" answered the newcomer, promptly.
+
+"Well, come on then; you belong to us and we all belong to the queen.
+Queen, what shall we call you? Where do you hail from?"
+
+"My home is in Baltimore, and my name is Dorothy Calvert."
+
+"Then you must be a sort of 'Peer' after all. I hate history, but I
+remember about that, for Lord Baltimore and Calvert are the same
+thing, I fancy. I'm sorry. I hoped you belonged to our 'set' and
+weren't an aristocrat."
+
+"But I'm not, I'm not!" protested Dorothy. "I do belong to you, I want
+to because you look so friendly and I need friends dreadfully. I'm so
+lonely, or I was. I've just come, you know."
+
+"Have you been 'inquisitioned' yet?"
+
+"I don't understand."
+
+The questioner explained, and Dorothy exclaimed:
+
+"Oh! I think that's cruel! Miss Hexam is perfectly lovely!"
+
+"So do we think, course, and she doesn't mind the nickname. It was
+first given her by a silly Seventh Form girl who thought she was all
+ready for the University yet failed to pass even a Fifth Form exam. I
+guess you'll not be put to study to-day, so best come over to the gym
+with us. What stunts can you do?"
+
+"None. But I've told you my name and you haven't told yours. Thank
+you, though, for asking me. I'm so glad to go."
+
+"Oh! you poor little lonesome Queen Baltimore! I'm Winifred Christie;
+this freckle face is Fannie Dimock; Annie Dow wears that blue bow in
+her hair; Florita Sheraton is the fat one; Ernesta Smith the thin;
+Bessie Walters--well, no need to point out Bessie. She's the nimblest
+girl in the gym. We here extend the freedom of the Lower House; and
+all in favor of grabbing this Yankee into our set before the other set
+catches her, say--Aye!"
+
+"Aye--aye--aye!" endorsed the motion and Dorothy clapped her hands
+over her ears, to keep out the ear-splitting shouts. How these girls
+dared make such an uproar amazed her; but she did not yet know that in
+the "long recess," now passing, much liberty was permitted and that a
+noise which did not interfere with study hours was not reprimanded.
+
+"It's the overflow of natural spirits and inevitable in the young,"
+was one of the Bishop's beliefs, and not even the Lady Principal
+disputed his authority.
+
+"Come on, Queenie, and be put through your paces!" cried Winifred,
+throwing her arm around Dorothy's shoulders and forcibly racing her
+out of doors and across the lawn toward the gymnasium.
+
+But arrived there only one or two of the group attempted any exercise.
+The rest settled around Dorothy, whom the athletic Winifred had tossed
+upward upon the back of the wooden horse, and, with her arms folded
+upon the newcomer's knees, this leader of the "Commons" proceeded to
+cross-question her victim.
+
+ [Illustration: "PROCEEDED TO CROSS-QUESTION HER VICTIM."  _Dorothy at
+ Oak Knowe._]
+
+"It's the cast-iron rule of our set to find out everything about
+anybody we receive into it. Begin at the date of your birth and
+proceed in a seemly manner until you come up to date. Where were you
+born? What sort of baby were you--good, bad, or indifferent? Begin!"
+
+Entering into the spirit of the thing Dorothy gave her simple life
+history in a few sentences. But when the questions came as to the
+events of the last few days her face grew serious and her voice
+faltered.
+
+"Why did I come to Oak Knowe alone? Because there was nobody to come
+with me. That is, Dinah or Ephraim, who might have come, couldn't be
+trusted to go back alone. My dearest girl friend, Molly Breckenridge,
+had been enrolled here and we expected to come together, but the
+Judge's health suddenly broke down and he was ordered to California
+and couldn't part with her. Uncle Seth wasn't well. He's my guardian
+and Aunt Betty's friend. She's my great aunt who takes care of me but
+she wouldn't leave Uncle Seth, even if he's not our kin at all, though
+we call him so. Jim Barlow is tutoring in a boys' school and; well,
+Aunt Betty said I could perfectly well and safely travel alone. I was
+put into the conductor's care when I started from Baltimore and he
+passed me along to the next one, and they've all been splendid to me.
+There'd have been no mistakes if I hadn't been careless myself. But I
+was. I missed a train I should have taken and didn't send the telegram
+I ought at the right time and there was nobody at the station to meet
+me and--and--"
+
+"The idea! A girl like you, traveling all the way from Baltimore to
+Toronto without a maid or any grown-up to take care of her! That's the
+strangest thing I ever heard. Weren't you just awfully scared all the
+time?" asked Florita Sheraton, amazed. "An English girl would have
+been in a blue funk every minute of the time."
+
+"I don't know anything about a blue or other colored funk, but every
+well-bred American girl can take care of herself if she chooses. If
+she 'loses her head' she gets into trouble right away. I lost mine
+last night and went riding off at dark with a strange old man, who
+said he'd bring me here, instead of stepping into the telegraph office
+and wiring the Lady Principal. Then all I'd have had to do would be to
+wait for her to send for me, and after all it wasn't the old man who
+brought me, it was Dr. Winston in his motor. He called here this
+morning and asked me to ride back with him and see Robin, but Miss
+Tross-Kingdon wouldn't let me."
+
+"Course she wouldn't. She never lets anybody do anything she wants
+to, if she can help it. Hateful old thing!" remarked Bessie Walters;
+at which the others laughed and Annie Dow inquired, "Who is Robin?"
+
+Dorothy told the story of last night, her new acquaintances listening
+intently, and Winifred commenting:
+
+"If you aren't the very luckiest girl in the world! Why I never had an
+adventure in my life, yet I'm ages older than you."
+
+At this a shout of derision rose, and Fannie Dimock exclaimed:
+
+"Don't believe that, Queen Baltimore. There's scarcely a day passes
+that she isn't in some scrape or other. Why, last term, she was in
+disgrace so often I really believed she wouldn't be allowed to come
+back."
+
+"Oh! little things like that don't count. But--" she stopped speaking
+so abruptly and such an earnest expression settled on her face that a
+mate remarked:
+
+"Look! There's something brewing this minute! Look out, Win, what you
+do! Don't mix any of us up in your schemes. I don't want any more
+extras so soon again;" then explained to Dorothy that "extras" were
+some difficult lessons any culprit was obliged to learn.
+
+Just then came the bell for mid-day luncheon, and all the Commons
+except Winifred answered the summons promptly. But she lingered
+behind, detaining Dorothy till the others were out of hearing, and
+then suggested something to her which made her clap her hands in
+delight. For the secret thus imparted seemed the simplest thing
+possible and one in which, to Dolly's ignorance of Oak Knowe rules,
+was entirely right.
+
+Arm in arm, the new friends entered the dining-room and Winifred
+marched Dorothy steadily forward to a seat at her own table, just
+opposite that occupied by some of the other "set," with the Honorable
+Gwendolyn among them. Dolly glanced across and nodded, but that titled
+young person returned the nod with a stare so intent and contemptuous
+that the color flashed to the stranger's face and her eyes fell as if
+she were in guilt. Yet she couldn't guess why, nor why she should be
+relieved when there arose a sudden diversion outside the doorway
+toward which everybody turned their eyes.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+THE GILPINS HAVE A PARTY
+
+
+The young ladies of Oak Knowe went out for their afternoon exercise
+for the half hour before supper. Those who had been long at the school
+were allowed to roam about the spacious grounds without a teacher, but
+newcomers, or those who wished to go further afield, were always
+attended by one.
+
+Most of Winifred's motherless life had been passed at Oak Knowe, even
+few of her vacations elsewhere. Her father was a very wealthy man, of
+large affairs which carried him often from the Province, to England or
+countries further away, so that his home was seldom opened. But to
+compensate his daughter for this state of things he had arranged with
+the authorities that her school life should be made as homelike as
+possible. She had her own private room with a tiny parlor and private
+bath adjoining. She was allowed to entertain her schoolmates there as
+she would have done in her father's house; always, of course, within
+the limits set by the faculty.
+
+But Winifred cared little for all this unusual luxury. She rarely
+asked for any money "banked" with the Lady Principal beyond the
+twenty-five cents a week which any pupil might spend; and she liked
+the common parlor far better than her own richly furnished one.
+Nothing hurt her feelings more than to have her mates refer to her
+wealth or to treat her differently from the poorest pupil.
+
+But there were times when she enjoyed her privileges to the utmost,
+and that first day of Dorothy's life at Oak Knowe was one such. Not
+having been "in disgrace" for a week at least she confidently asked
+permission to entertain the newcomer in her rooms, "Just we two by
+ourselves. She's lonely and I like her. Please, Miss Tross-Kingdon."
+
+"You'll be quiet, Winifred, and keep out of mischief?" asked the Lady
+Principal, with more gentleness than ordinary. It was natural that she
+should feel great interest in the girl she had almost reared and whose
+own power for good or ill Winifred herself could not yet comprehend.
+
+"Ah, now, Miss Muriel, you know I will! Why, surely, I've been as good
+for a whole week as if I were a kindergarten Minim. You should trust
+me more. I read the other day that people are just what you think they
+are. So, whatever you want me to be, please just think I _am_ and
+I'll be it!" and the audacious creature actually dabbed a kiss on the
+Lady Principal's own cheek.
+
+"Wheedler! Well, I'll try to fancy you're a saint, but I'm not so
+fanciful about this Dorothy Calvert. She's a pretty little thing and
+my Grace made friends with her at once and the Bishop says she is of
+good blood. That counts, of course, but she seems to me a little
+headstrong and very stupid. I don't yet understand how Miss Hexam came
+to put her into so high a Form. However, I know that she is very
+homesick, as all new pupils are, so you may entertain her if you wish.
+A maid shall send you in a tray and you are excused from school
+supper; but see to it, Winifred, that you use your influence aright.
+The more favored a person is in this world the more that individual
+should watch her own actions."
+
+Winifred thanked the teacher and backed out of the room as if in the
+presence of royalty itself. This action in itself was offensive to the
+teacher but was one she could hardly criticise; nor did she guess
+that, once out of sight, the "wheedler" should first stamp her foot
+and exclaim:
+
+"I'm sick to death of hearing about my 'influence' and being an
+'individual.' Makes me feel like a spider, that time the German count
+came to visit Father and called his attention to 'that individual
+crawling down the wall.' He meant 'one, a solitary thing.' But I'm no
+'solitary' just because Father has a little money. I often wish he
+hadn't a pound, especially when some of the 'Peers' try to make me
+believe he is at least a 'Sir'."
+
+Then hurrying to Dorothy she danced about in delight at her success.
+
+"Yes, she says you may come, and she's sure to send us in a fine
+supper. Miss Muriel Tross-Kingdon never does a thing by halves, not
+even a lecture on 'individual influence.' Queen Baltimore, aren't you
+glad you're poor?"
+
+"Neither glad nor sorry, Winifred, because I'm neither rich nor poor.
+Anyway neither of us can help being just as we are, I reckon."
+
+"Come on, though, and hurry up. 'If it were done, when 'tis done, then
+'twere well it were done quickly,'" quoted Winifred, whose class
+reading just then was "Macbeth"; and seizing the smaller girl whirled
+merrily down the hall.
+
+Five minutes later, with hats and jackets on, they joined the other
+pupils out of doors. To Dorothy it seemed the beautiful grounds were
+alive with all sorts and conditions of girls, pacing rapidly up and
+down, "sprinting" to warm themselves against the chill of the coming
+evening, playing tennis for the brief half-hour, or racing one another
+from point to point. There were girls so many and so various, from
+Seventh Form young ladies to the wee little Minims, that Dolly
+wondered if she would ever know them all or feel herself a member of
+the great company.
+
+But Winifred gave her little time to gaze about her.
+
+"Oh! don't bother with them now. Our way is that lower gate, and it's
+a good bit of a distance, I hope you're a good walker."
+
+"Pretty good, I reckon," answered Dolly falling into step with the
+taller girl and hurrying forward at even a swifter pace.
+
+"But, begging your pardon, that's no way. We Canadians learn
+pedestrianism--whew! what a long word!--just as we learn our letters.
+Begin very slowly at first. Then when your muscles are limbered, walk
+faster--and faster--and faster! Till it seems as if your legs swing up
+and down of their own accord, just like machines. It's wonderful then
+how little you tire and how far you can go. Slack up a bit and I'll
+show you."
+
+Absorbed in this new lesson Dorothy scarcely noticed when they left
+Oak Knowe limits and struck out along a country lane, with hedgerows
+at either side; nor when having climbed a stile they set out across a
+plowed field, till her feet grew heavy with the soil they gathered.
+
+"Oh! dear! What mud! Why do you walk in it, Winifred?"
+
+"It's the shortest road. Here's a stone. Stop a bit and scrape it
+off--as I do. See?" answered the other, calmly illustrating her
+advice.
+
+"But I don't like it. My shoes will be ruined!" wailed Dolly who was
+always finical about "dirt."
+
+"Humph! Haven't you another pair? But they ought to be--such
+flimsy-wimpsy affairs! Look at mine. A bit of mud more or less can't
+hurt them and it's the boot-boy's business to clean them."
+
+The English girl held forth a good sized foot clad in a still larger
+shoe of calfskin, which though soiled with the clay had not absorbed
+much of its moisture: while the finer affairs of Dorothy's were
+already wet through, making her uncomfortable.
+
+"I couldn't walk in such heavy boots. And it's raining again. It
+rained last night. Does it rain every day in Canada? We ought to go
+back. Do let's, and try this some other time. I reckon this will
+finish my new suit, entirely."
+
+Winifred put her arms akimbo and stared at her new friend. Then burst
+into a hearty laugh over Dorothy's disgusted face.
+
+"Ha, ha, ha! And 'I reckon,' little southerner, that you'll be a more
+sensible girl after you've lived up here a while. The idea of turning
+back because it rains! absurd! Why, it's fine, just fine! The Lady
+Principal will overhaul your fair-weather-clothes and see that you get
+some fit to stand anything. This homespun suit of mine couldn't get
+wet through if it tried! But I shan't stand here, in the middle of a
+plowed field, and let it try. Come on. Its the States against the
+Province! Who'll win?"
+
+"I will! For old Maryland and the President!" cried Dorothy, and
+valiantly strode forward again.
+
+"For our Province and the King!" shouted the Canadian; and after that
+neither spoke, till the long walk ended before the cottage door of old
+John Gilpin and his dame. There Winifred gave a smart tap to the panel
+and holding her hand toward Dorothy, cried:
+
+"Quits, Queen Baltimore! We'll call it even and I'll never doubt your
+pluck again. But you certainly must get some decent clothes--if I have
+to buy them myself!"
+
+Then the door opened and there stood old John, peering from the
+lamp-lighted room into the twilight without. After a second he
+recognized Dorothy and drew her in, exclaiming joyfully:
+
+"Why, Dame, 'tis our little lass herself! Her of the night last spent
+and the helping hand! Step ben, step ben, and 'tother miss with ye.
+You're surely welcome as the flowers in spring."
+
+Mrs. Gilpin came ponderously forward, a smile on her big but comely
+face, and silently greeted both visitors, while her more nimble
+husband promptly "step-an'-fetched" the best chairs in the room and
+placed them before the fire.
+
+"Dry yourselves, lassies, whilst I tell the Robin you've come to see
+him. He'll be that proud, poor laddie, to have Oak Knowe young ladies
+pay him that honor! and he's mending fine, mending fine, doctor says.
+The mother--"
+
+He disappeared within that inner chamber still talking and as happy
+now as he had seemed sorrowful when Dorothy parted from him on the
+night before. Then he had anticipated nothing less than death for the
+boy he loved, despite the doctor's assurance to the contrary. He came
+back leading a woman by the hand, as protectingly as if she had been a
+child, and introduced her as:
+
+"The bit mother hersel'! Look at her well. Isn't she the very sight
+and image of Robin, the lad? And mind how she's pickin' up already.
+Just one day of good victuals and Dame's cossetting and the pink's
+streamin' back to her cheeks. Please the good Lord they'll never get
+that thin again whilst I have my ox-team to haul with and the Dame's
+good land to till. I'll just step-an'-fetch the rocker out--"
+
+At that point in his remarks the Dame laid a hand on his shoulder,
+saying:
+
+"That'll do, John Gilpin. Just brew a cup of tea. I'll tell the lad."
+
+Winifred was amused at this wifely reprimand, but no offense seemed
+meant nor taken. The farmer stopped talking and deftly made the tea
+from the boiling kettle, added a couple of plates to the waiting
+supper table, and drew from the oven a mighty dish of baked beans that
+might have been cooked in Yankee-land, and flanked this by a Yorkshire
+pudding.
+
+"Oh! how nice that smells!" cried Dorothy, springing up to add the
+knives and forks from the dresser; while Winifred clapped her hands in
+a pretended ecstasy and sniffed the savory odors, admitting: "I'm as
+hungry as hungry! And this beats any supper I asked for at Oak Knowe.
+I hope they'll want us to stay!"
+
+Her frankness made timid little Mrs. Locke smile as she had not been
+able to do since she had known of Robin's accident, and smiling was
+good for her. Indeed, the whole atmosphere of this simple, comfortable
+home was good for her, and the high spirits of these three young
+people delightful to her care-burdened heart.
+
+For, presently, it was the three--not least of these her idol, her
+Robin! Dorothy had followed the Dame into the boy's room and Winifred
+had promptly followed her; and because he was the sunny-hearted lad
+which the farmer had claimed him to be, he put all thought of his own
+pain or trouble out of mind, and laughed with the two girls at their
+awkward attempts at feeding him from the tray on the stand beside the
+bed. Having to lie flat upon his back he could still use one arm and
+could have fed himself fairly well. But this his visitors would not
+allow; and he was obliged to submit when Winifred, playfully
+struggling with Dolly for "My time now!" thrust a spoon into his ear
+instead of his mouth.
+
+The truth was that under the girl's assumed indifference to the fact
+that she was breaking rules by "visiting without permission" lay a
+feeling of guilt. "Double guilt" she knew, because she had imposed
+upon Dorothy's ignorance by stating that during "exercise hour" any
+long resident pupil was free to go where she chose. This was true, but
+only in a measure. What was not true was that so distant a point as
+John Gilpin's cottage should be chosen, much less entered without
+permission.
+
+But curiosity had been too strong for her and she had resented, on
+Dorothy's account, the refusal of Dr. Winston's invitation in the
+morning. Besides, she argued with her own conscience:
+
+"We're excused from school supper and free to entertain each other in
+my room till chapel. What difference does it make, and who will know?
+To-morrow, I'll go and 'fess to Miss Muriel and if she is displeased
+I'll take my punishment, whatever it is, without a word. Anyhow, Dolly
+can't be punished for what she doesn't know is wrong."
+
+So, feeling that she "was in for it, anyway" Winifred's mood grew
+reckless and she "let herself go" to a positive hilarity.
+
+Dorothy watched and listened in surprise but soon caught her
+schoolmate's spirit, and jested and laughed as merrily as she. Even
+Robin tried to match their funny remarks with odd stories of his own
+and after a little time, when he had eaten as much as they could make
+him, began to sing a long rigmarole, of innumerable verses, that began
+with the same words and ended midway each verse, only to resume. It
+was all something about the king and the queen and the "hull r'yal
+famblely" which Dorothy promptly capped with an improved version of
+Yankee Doodle.
+
+Whereupon, the absurd jumble and discord of the two contrasting tunes
+proved too much for old John's gravity. Springing up from his chair in
+the outer room he seized his fiddle from its shelf and scraped away on
+a tune of his own. For his fiddle was his great delight and his one
+resort at times when his wife silenced his voluble tongue.
+
+The old fiddle was sadly out of tune and Dorothy couldn't endure that.
+Running to him she begged him:
+
+"Oh! do stop that, please, please! Here, let me take and get it into
+shape. You make me cringe, you squawk so!"
+
+"You fix it? you, lassie! Well, if that don't beat the Dutch! What
+else do they l'arn children over in the States? Leave 'em to go
+sky-larkin' round the country in railway carriages all by themsel's,
+and how to help doctors set broken bones, and how to fiddle a
+tune--Stars an' Garters! What next? Here, child, take her and make her
+hum!"
+
+Presently, the preliminary squeaks and discords, incident to "tuning
+up," were over and Dorothy began a simple melody that made all her
+hearers quietly listen. One after another the familiar things which
+Aunt Betty and her guardian loved best came into her mind; and
+remembering the beloved scenes where she had last played them, her
+feeling of homesickness and longing made her render them so movingly
+that soon the little widow was crying and Robin's sensitive face
+showed signs of his own tears following hers.
+
+The tempting supper had remained untouched thus far. But now the
+sight of his guests' emotion, and a warning huskiness in his own
+throat, brought John Gilpin to his feet.
+
+"This isn't no mournin' party, little miss, and you quit, you quit
+that right square off. Understand? Something lively's more to this
+occasion than all that solemcholy 'Old Lang Synin', 'or 'Wearin' Awa''
+business. Touch us off a 'Highland Fling,' and if that t'other girl,
+was gigglin' so a few minutes gone, 'll do me the honor"--here the old
+fellow bowed low to Winifred--"I'll show you how the figger should be
+danced. I can cut a pigeon-wing yet, with the supplest."
+
+Away rolled the table into the further corner of the room: even the
+Dame merely moving her own chair aside. For she had watched the
+widow's face and grieved to see it growing sad again, where a little
+while before it had been cheerful.
+
+Dorothy understood, and swiftly changed from the "Land O' the Leal" to
+the gay dance melody demanded. Then laughter came back, for it was so
+funny to see the farmer's exaggerated flourish as he bowed again to
+Winifred and gallantly led her to the middle of the kitchen floor, now
+cleared for action.
+
+Then followed the merriest jig that ever was danced in that old
+cottage, or many another. The cuts and the capers, the flings and
+pigeon-wings that bald-headed John Gilpin displayed were little short
+of marvelous. Forgotten was the dragging foot that now soared as high
+as the other, while perspiration streamed from his wrinkled face,
+flushed to an apoplectic crimson by this violent exercise.
+
+Winifred was no whit behind. Away flung her jacket and then her hat.
+Off flew the farmer's smock, always worn for a coat and to protect the
+homespun suit beneath. The pace grew mad and madder, following the
+movement of the old fiddle which Dorothy played to its swiftest.
+Robin's blue eyes grew big with wonder and he whistled his liveliest,
+to keep up with the wild antics he could see in the outer room.
+
+Nobody heard a knock upon the door, repeated until patience ceased,
+and then it softly opened. A full moment the visitor waited there,
+gazing upon this orgy of motion; then with an ultra flourish of her
+skirts Winifred faced about and beheld--the Lady Principal!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+THE FRIGHT OF MILLIKINS-PILLIKINS
+
+
+For another moment there was utter silence in the cottage. Even the
+Dame's calmness forsook her, the absurd performance of her bald-headed
+husband making her ashamed of him. She had seen the Lady Principal
+passing along the road beyond the lane but had never met her so
+closely, and she felt that the mistress of Oak Knowe was high above
+common mortals.
+
+However, as the flush died out of Miss Tross-Kingdon's face Mrs.
+Gilpin's ordinary manner returned and she advanced in welcome.
+
+"You do us proud, madam, by this call. Pray come in and be seated."
+
+"Yes, yes, do!" cried John, interrupting. "I'll just step-an'-fetch
+the arm-chair out o' Robin's room. 'Twas carried there for his mother
+to rest in. She--"
+
+The mortified old fellow was vainly trying to put back the smock he
+had so recklessly discarded and without which he never felt fully
+dressed. He hated a coat and wore one only on Sundays, at church. But
+his frantic efforts to don this garment but added to his own
+discomfiture, for he slipped it on backwards, the buttons behind,
+grimacing fiercely at his failure to fasten them.
+
+One glance toward him set all the young folks laughing, he looked so
+comical, and even the dignified caller was forced to smile.
+
+"Don't see what's so terrible funny as to send ye all into a
+tee-hee's-nest! but if so be _you_ do, why giggle away and get shut of
+it!" testily cried the poor old man. To have been caught "making a
+fool of himself" was a "bitter pill" for him to swallow; having always
+prided himself upon his correct deportment.
+
+It was, as usual, the portly Dame who came to his relief, reminding:
+
+"There, husband, that will do."
+
+Then she quietly drew the smock over his head and slipped it back in
+proper guise. With this upon him his composure returned, and he
+apologized to Miss Tross-Kingdon as any gentleman might have done.
+
+"Sorry to have kep' you standing so long, lady, but I'll
+step-an'-fetch--"
+
+However he was spared that necessity. Dorothy had heard and
+understood that the best chair in the house must be placed at the
+caller's service and had as promptly brought it. For a moment Miss
+Tross-Kingdon still stood as if she would decline, till, seeing
+the disappointment on her host's face, she accepted it with:
+
+"Thank you. My errand could easily have been done without so troubling
+you. I came to see if you have any more of that variety of apples that
+you sent us last time. The _chef_ declares they are the finest yet.
+Have you?"
+
+"Yes, lady, I've got a few bar'ls left. Leastwise, my Dame has. She
+can speak for hersel', if so be she wants to part with 'em. I heard
+her say she meant to keep 'em for our own winter use. But--"
+
+"That will do, John. Bring a pan from the further bin and show Miss
+Tross-Kingdon. Maybe she'll like them just as well."
+
+"All right, wife. I'll step-an'-fetch 'em to oncet."
+
+So this obedient husband went out, his lame foot once more dragging
+heavily behind him, and he managing as he departed to pass by Dorothy
+and firmly clutch her sleeve, as he hoarsely whispered:
+
+"Did you ever see the beat! In your mortal 'arthly life, did ye? Well,
+I'm ashamed to the marrer of my bones to be caught cavortin' round
+like the donkey I was. Come on down suller with me and I'll get
+the apples. But carry 'em back--I shan't. Not this night. That
+woman--lady, I mean--has got eyes like gimlets and the less she bores
+'em into old John Gilpin the better he'll like it. Worst is, what'll
+dame think? She won't say much. She's a rare silent woman, dame is,
+but she can do a power of thinking. Oh! hum!"
+
+So it happened that Dorothy returned to the kitchen, fairly staggering
+under the weight of the biggest pan of apples that the farmer could
+find. Mrs. Gilpin took them from her and showed them to the Lady
+Principal, who was inwardly disappointed at the failure of her visit.
+But the business was speedily concluded and, rising, she bade Mrs.
+Gilpin good evening. The only notice she bestowed upon her runaway
+pupils was to offer:
+
+"If your visit is ended, young ladies, you may return to Oak Knowe in
+my carriage."
+
+Dorothy did not yet know how serious an offense she had committed and
+merely thought that the Lady Principal was "stiffer" even than usual;
+not once speaking again until the school was reached. Then, as she
+moved away ignoring Winifred entirely, she bade Dorothy:
+
+"Go to your dormitory, take a warm bath, and dress yourself freshly
+all through. Your luggage has been unpacked and arranged in your
+wardrobe. Put on one of your wool gowns for the evening, and come to
+Assembly Hall. We are to have a lecture and concert, beginning at
+eight. Punctual attendance required."
+
+"She acts and looks as if we had done something dreadful, but I can't
+guess what," said Dorothy, perplexed.
+
+"Lucky for you that you can't! Your ignorance of school rules may save
+you this time, but it can't save me. One of the hardest things about
+it is, that you and I will be prohibited each other's 'society' for
+nobody knows how long. I'm a wild black sheep, who's led a little
+lamb--that's you--astray. It was fun--_was_ fun, mind you, but--but
+it's all over for Winifred!"
+
+"Win, you darling, what do you mean?" demanded Dolly, throwing her
+arms about her new friend's neck in great distress.
+
+"I mean exactly what I say. I'm an old offender, I've been there
+before and ought to know better. I did like you so! Well, never mind!
+The milk is spilled and no use crying about it!"
+
+Dorothy was surprised to see tears suddenly fill Winifred's eyes and
+to feel her clinging arms gently loosened. Under all her affected
+indifference, the girl was evidently suffering, but as evidently
+resented having sympathy shown her; so the new pupil made no further
+comment, but asked:
+
+"Do we have supper before that lecture? and should I dress before the
+supper?"
+
+"Huh! There'll be no supper for you nor me this night! And I'm just
+ravenous hungry! Why was I such a fool as to dance that jig instead of
+eating that pudding and beans? Yorkshire pudding's just delicious, if
+it's made right, and the Dame's looked better even than our _chef's_.
+If one could only look ahead in this world, how wise one would be,
+'specially in the matter of suppers! Well, good-by, Queenie, with
+aching heart from you I part; when shall we meet again? Ah! me! When?"
+
+With a gesture of despair, half-comical, half-serious, the older girl
+dashed down the corridor and Dorothy turned slowly toward her own
+little room. There she found her luggage unpacked, her frocks and
+shoes neatly arranged in the wardrobe, underclothing in the small
+bureau, her toilet things on the tiny dressing table, and the fresh
+suit she had been asked to put on spread out upon the bed.
+
+It was all very cosy and comfortable, or would have been if she hadn't
+been so hungry. However, she had hardly begun undressing before
+Dawkins appeared with a small tray of sandwiches and milk, explaining:
+
+"Supper's long past, Miss Dorothy, but the Principal bade me bring
+this. Also, if there's time before lecture, you are to go to her
+private parlor to speak with her. I'll help you and 'twill make the
+time seem shorter."
+
+"Thank you, Dawkins, that's sweet and kind of you; but--but I don't
+feel any great hurry about dressing. Maybe Miss Tross-Kingdon'll be
+better-natured--I mean not so cross--Oh! dear, you know what I mean,
+don't you, dear Dawkins?"
+
+"Sure, lassie, I know you have a deal more fear of the Lady Principal
+'an you need. She's that just kind of a person one can always trust."
+
+"I reckon I don't like 'just' people. I like 'em real plain _kind_.
+I--I don't like to be found fault with."
+
+"Few folks do so like; especially them as deserves it. But you will
+love Miss Muriel better 'an anybody at Oak Knowe afore the year's out.
+Only them that has lived with her knows her. I do know. A better woman
+never trod shoe leather, and so you'll find. Now, you've no time to
+waste."
+
+Nor was any wasted, though Dorothy would gladly have postponed the
+Principal's further acquaintance till another day. She found the lady
+waiting and herself welcomed by a gracious word and smile. Motioning
+to a low seat beside her own chair, Miss Muriel began:
+
+"You are looking vastly improved, Dorothy, since you've taken off your
+rain-soaked clothes. I hope you haven't taken cold. Have you felt any
+chill?"
+
+"Thank you, Miss Tross-Kingdon, none at all. Winifred says I will soon
+get used to rain, and she doesn't mind it in the least. She says she
+likes it."
+
+The Lady Principal's expression altered to one of sadness rather than
+anger, at the mention of the other girl, but she did not criticise her
+in words.
+
+"My dear little Dorothy, I sent for you to explain some things about
+Oak Knowe which you do not understand. We try to make our rules as few
+and lenient as possible, but such as do exist we rigidly enforce.
+Where there are three hundred resident and day pupils gathered under
+one roof, there is need for regular discipline, and, in general, we
+have little trouble. What we do have sometimes comes from ignorance,
+as in your case to-night. Your taking so long a walk without a
+chaperon, and paying a social visit without permission, was a direct
+trespass upon our authority. So, to prevent any future mistakes, I
+have prepared you a list of what you may and may not do. Keep this
+little notebook by you until you have grown familiar with Oak Knowe
+life. Also, you will find copies of our regulations posted in several
+places upon the walls.
+
+"And now that we have finished 'business' for the present, let us talk
+of something pleasanter. Tell me about that 'Aunt Betty' of yours,
+whom our good Bishop lauds so highly."
+
+Vastly relieved that the dreaded "scolding" had been so mild and Miss
+Tross-Kingdon so really kind, Dorothy eagerly obeyed, and was
+delighted to see a real interest in this wonderful aunt showing in
+the teacher's face.
+
+But her enthusiastic description of Mrs. Calvert was rudely
+interrupted by a childish scream and little Millikins-Pillikins flying
+wildly into the room, to spring into Miss Muriel's lap and hide her
+face on the lady's shoulder, begging:
+
+"Don't you let him! Don't you let him! Oh! Auntie, don't you!"
+
+"Why, darling, what is this? What sent you out of bed, just in your
+nightgown? What has frightened you?"
+
+"The debbil!"
+
+"Grace! What wicked word is that you speak?"
+
+"It was, _it was!_ I seen him! He come--set on my feet--an'--an'--Oh!
+Auntie Prin, you hold me close. 'Cause he was a talkin' debbil. He
+come to cotch me--he said it, yes he did."
+
+Miss Tross-Kingdon was as perplexed as horrified. That little Grace,
+her orphan niece and the dearest thing in life to her, should speak
+like this and be in such a state was most amazing.
+
+For a few seconds she did hold the little one "close" and in silence,
+tenderly stroking the small body and folding her own light shawl about
+it, and gradually its trembling ceased, the shuddering sobs grew
+fainter and fewer and the exhausted little maid fell fast asleep. Just
+then the clock on the mantel chimed for eight and Miss Muriel's place
+was in assembly, on the platform with the famous lecturer who had come
+to do her great school honor. She must go and at once.
+
+Dorothy, watching, saw the struggle in the aunt's mind depicted on her
+face. With a tender clasp of the little one she put her own desire
+aside and turned to duty; and the girl's own heart warmed to the
+stately woman as she had not believed it ever could.
+
+Dawkins had prophesied: "You'll love Miss Muriel, once you know her,"
+but Dorothy had not believed her. Yet here it was coming true already!
+
+"Dorothy, will you please ring for a maid to look after Grace? Wake
+up, darling, Auntie Prin must go."
+
+The child roused as her aunt spoke, but when she attempted to put her
+down and rise, the frantic screams broke out afresh, nor would she
+submit to be lifted by the maid who promptly came. Miss Muriel's bell
+was not one to be neglected!
+
+"No, no, no! I shan't--I won't--the deb--"
+
+"Not that word, sweetheart, never again!" warned the Lady Principal,
+laying her finger on Grace's lips. "Go nicely now with Dora, and make
+no trouble."
+
+"No, no, no!" still screamed Grace: her flushed face and feverish
+appearance sending fresh alarm to her aunt's heart.
+
+"Why, look here, Millikins! I'm Dorothy. The 'sleepy-head' you came to
+wake up this morning. Won't you go with _me_, dear? If Auntie Prin
+says 'yes,' I'll take you back to bed, and if you'll show me where."
+
+Millikins looked long and steadily at Dolly's appealing arms, then
+slowly crept into them.
+
+"Pretty! Millikins'll go with pretty Dorothy!"
+
+So they went away, indeed a "pretty" sight to the anxious aunt.
+Dorothy's white gown and scarlet ribbons transformed her from the
+rain-and-mud-bespattered girl of a few hours before, while her loving
+interest in the frightened child banished all fear and homesickness
+from her own mobile face.
+
+Little Grace's room was a small one opening off from Miss Muriel's,
+and as soon as the lecture was over and she was free, she took Dr.
+Winston with her to see the child. Her dark little face was still very
+flushed, but she was asleep, Dorothy also. The girl had drawn a chair
+close to the child's cot and sat there with an arm protectingly thrown
+over her charge: and now a fresh anxiety rose in the Lady Principal's
+heart.
+
+"Oh! Doctor, what if it should be something contagious? I don't see
+why I didn't think of that before. Besides, I sacrificed Miss
+Calvert's opportunity to hear the lecture for Grace's sake. How could
+I have been so thoughtless!"
+
+"Well, Madam, I suppose because you are human as well as a
+schoolma'am, and love for your niece stronger than training. But don't
+distress yourself. I doubt if this is anything more than a fit of
+indigestion. That would account, also, for the imaginary visit of a
+goblin, which terrified the little one. However, it might be well to
+isolate Miss Dorothy for a day or so, in case anything serious
+develops."
+
+By that time Dorothy was awake and sat up listening to this
+conversation; and when the doctor explained to her that this isolation
+meant that she must live quite apart from the schoolmates she so
+desired to know, she was bitterly disappointed.
+
+"I haven't been here more than twenty-four hours, yet it seems as if
+more unpleasant things have happened than could anywhere else in a
+lifetime," she complained to Dawkins, who had come to arrange another
+cot for her to use and to bring the needed articles from her own
+little cubicle.
+
+"Ah, lassie! When you've lived as long as me you'll learn 't a
+'lifetime' is a goodish long spell: and if so be you can't mix with
+your mates for a little few days, more's the blessing that's yours,
+alongside as you'll be of the Lady Principal. Now, say your prayers
+and hop into this fine bed I've fixed for you, and off to Noddle
+Island quick as wink. Good night and sleep well."
+
+Surely our Dorothy had the gift of winning hearts, and other Oak Knowe
+girls with whom Dawkins exchanged scant speech would have been
+astonished by the kindly gossip with this newcomer. Also, the maid's
+belief that Dorothy's intercourse with the Lady Principal would be
+delightful was well founded. Miss Muriel was grateful to her pupil for
+her patience with troublesome Grace, and regretful that her isolation
+from her mates had come about in just this wise.
+
+However, Dr. Winston had been right. Millikins-Pillikins had been
+allowed the run of the house and, like most children, found its
+kitchen its most attractive place. There her sharp tongue and amusing
+capers furnished amusement for the servants, who rewarded her with all
+sorts of "treats" and sweetmeats. The result was natural, but what was
+not so natural was her persistent declaration that she had been
+visited by an evil spirit.
+
+"I did so see him, Auntie Princie! He had big whitey eyes, and his
+head was all red--"
+
+"No more, darling. Say no more. Just play with your blocks. See what
+sort of house you can build, or--"
+
+"Auntie Prin, I do _hate_ blocks! And you don't believe me. Did
+Millikins ever tell you a wrong story in her whole life?"
+
+"No, darling, not to my knowledge. I'm proud to know you are a very
+truthful little girl. But even such can _dream_ queer things. Ask
+Dorothy to play for you and me. You know this is the last day she'll
+be shut up here and I'd like to hear some music."
+
+Dorothy laid down her book and went to fetch her violin, but the
+self-willed Grace would have none of that. Stamping her foot, she
+imperiously cried:
+
+"No, no, no! She shall come with me and seek that old debbil. She
+shall so. He had hornses and his face--"
+
+"Grace Adelaide Tross-Kingdon! if you disobey me again by mentioning
+that subject, I shall send for the Bishop and brother Hugh and see
+what they can do with you. Do you want to be disgraced before them?"
+
+The little girl pondered that question seriously. She could not
+understand why telling the truth should disgrace anybody. She loved
+the Bishop and fairly idolized her big brother Hugh. Her Aunt Muriel
+was more angry with the child than ever before in her short life and
+Millikins fully realized this fact.
+
+"I'm sorry, Auntie Prin. I'm sorrier than ever was. I hate them two
+should think I was bad and I wish--I wish you wouldn't not for to tell
+'em. I isn't bad, you only think so. 'Cause it's the truthiest truth,
+I _did_ see him. He had--"
+
+Miss Tross-Kingdon held up a warning hand and her face was sterner
+than any pupil had ever seen it. Such would have quailed before it,
+but Millikins-Pillikins quailed not at all. Rising from the carpet,
+where she had been sitting, she planted her sturdy legs apart, folded
+her arms behind her and unflinchingly regarded her aunt. The midget's
+defiant attitude made Dorothy turn her head to hide a smile, while the
+little girl reiterated:
+
+"I did see him. I have to tell the truth all times. You said so and I
+have to mind. I did see that debbil. He lives in this house. When my
+brother Hugh comes, he shall go with me to hunt which room he lives
+in, and the Bishop shall preach at him the goodest and hardest he can.
+This isn't no badness, dear, angry Auntie Prin; it is the truthiest
+truth and when you see him, too, you'll believe it. If Hugh would
+come--"
+
+Miss Tross-Kingdon leaned back in her chair and threw out her hand in
+a gesture of despair. What made her darling so incorrigible?
+
+"Oh! I wish he would come, I certainly wish he would! This thing is
+beyond me or anything in my experience. I almost begin to believe that
+Bible days have returned and you are possessed of the evil spirit."
+
+Millikins-Pillikins returned to her play in supreme indifference. She
+knew what she knew. Couldn't a body believe one's own eyes? Didn't
+the _chef_ often say that "Seeing is believing," when the scullery
+maid stole the raisins and he found them in her pocket? She couldn't
+help Auntie Prin being stupid; and--
+
+"Oh, oh, oh! Hughie's come! Hughie's come! Oh! you darling brother
+boy, let's go and seek that debbil!"
+
+The youth who entered and into whose arms his little sister had
+sprung, held her away from him and gasped. Then answered merrily:
+
+"That gentleman doesn't belong in good society, kiddie. It's not good
+form even to mention him. I'd rather go the other way."
+
+Then he set her gently down and turned to acknowledge his aunt's
+introduction to Dorothy. He was well used to meeting the Oak Knowe
+girls, but wondered a little at finding one at this hour in the Lady
+Principal's private parlor. As he opened his lips to address some
+courteous remark to her, a shriek of utter terror rang through the
+house and a housemaid burst unceremoniously in, white and almost
+breathless, yet managing to say:
+
+"Oh! Ma'am, I'm leavin'--I'm leavin' the now! Sure, 'tis a haunted
+house and Satan hisself dwells in it!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+AT THE FALL OF THE MAIDEN'S BATH
+
+
+There had, indeed, been strange happenings at Oak Knowe. Beginning on
+that first day of Dorothy's life there, with the crash outside the
+dining-room door. That had been caused by the tripping and falling
+with a loaded tray of one of the best waitresses employed. Afterward
+it was discovered that a wire had been stretched across the doorway,
+low down near to the floor, and not easily noticeable in the dim
+passage. Who had done this thing?
+
+Miss Tross-Kingdon paid scant attention to the incident, apparently,
+although she caused a very thorough investigation to be secretly made.
+Nothing came of it.
+
+Matters went so wrong in the servants' quarters that they became
+demoralized and several threatened to leave. Thefts from one and
+another were frequent; yet as often the missing article was found in
+some unusual place where, as Dawkins declared:
+
+"Nobody but a crazy person would ha' puttin' it."
+
+One morning the _chef's_ spotless marble molding-board was found
+decorated by a death's-head and bones, done in red paint, and his
+angry accusations of his fellow-workers brought the Lady Principal to
+the kitchen to restore peace. But peace did not last long. The head
+laundress, who personally "did up" the finest pieces in "the wash,"
+found her pile of them deluged with blueing, so that her work had to
+be done all over again. These were but samples of the strange
+happenings; and though most of the servants had been so long at Oak
+Knowe that they considered it their real home, some of the most loyal
+to its interests felt they couldn't endure this state of things much
+longer.
+
+Then had come the fright of little Grace, followed by that of the
+housemaid, whom no arguments could calm, and who rushed out of Miss
+Muriel's parlor as she rushed into it, departing that hour for good
+and all and to spread far and near ill reports of the great school.
+
+However, after that day nothing further happened. At a secret meeting
+of the faculty it was decided to take no outward notice of these
+disturbances, but to keep silent watch until such a time as the
+culprit, or culprits, should betray themselves.
+
+"He or she is bound to do so, after a time. There's always a hitch
+somewhere in such mischievous schemes and nothing worse than mortal
+hands has performed this 'witch work,'" said the Bishop calmly,
+though vexed that such foolishness could be found at his beloved Oak
+Knowe.
+
+Then for many days the disturbances ceased.
+
+Dorothy fell into the daily life of the school with all her heart,
+making friends with her mates in her own Form and even with some of
+the older girls. Best of all, she had lost all fear of the Lady
+Principal, whose heart she had won by her devotion to little
+Millikins. She even begged forgiveness for Winifred, against whom the
+teacher still felt some resentment; saying to Dolly:
+
+"It isn't what she did--in itself--so much as her broken trust. She
+has been with me so long, she has been taught so constantly, that I
+feel indignant at her deception. Anything but deception, Dorothy.
+Remember that a treacherous person is more to be feared than an openly
+wicked one."
+
+"But, dear Miss Muriel, Winifred will never cheat again. Never,
+I know. She won't go off bounds a step now, even though her
+'restriction's' taken off. And she keeps away from me till she makes
+me feel dreadfully. Says she doesn't want to 'contaminate' and get
+me into trouble again. Please let her go nutting this afternoon with
+Miss Aldrich's class."
+
+"Very well. She may go."
+
+"One thing more, Miss Tross-Kingdon. When may I, may we, go to see
+Robin?"
+
+The lady smiled. A sudden memory of the scene upon which she had
+entered that rainy evening of her first visit to the cottage amused
+her, and she answered graciously:
+
+"Probably on Saturday, if you wish. Though I am still doubtful whether
+your guardians would approve."
+
+"I can answer for them, dear Miss Muriel. They are just the kind that
+would like me to go. Some of Aunt Betty's dearest friends are very
+poor. She finds them honester and more generous than the rich ones. As
+for darling Uncle Seth, he learned to be a regular blacksmith, just so
+he could live among them on 'even terms,' he said. Yet he's the
+wisest, best man in all the world."
+
+In the Lady Principal's private opinion he was also the most
+eccentric; but she did not dash Dorothy's enthusiasm further than to
+say:
+
+"To me it seems wisest to content one's self with the station in which
+one has been born. To step aside from the normal path in life--"
+
+Foreseeing a "lecture," Dorothy interrupted:
+
+"Beg pardon, Miss Muriel, but there's Win yonder this minute, walking
+with her head down as if she were worrying. She thought her father was
+coming home next week and he isn't, and she's so disappointed. She's
+reading his letter over again. She said, when I asked her why she was
+so blue, that it didn't seem like home here any longer with you
+offended, and he wasn't coming, and she had no real home anywhere. Oh!
+you needn't be afraid of darling Win doing anything crooked again. Do
+love her and take her back into your trust, and may I go now to tell
+her she can go nutting and about Saturday, and may I hurry up?"
+
+Without waiting an instant longer, Dorothy took permission for granted
+and ran out of the house. In reality, she had grieved far more over
+Winifred's punishment, by being kept on bounds and denied some other
+privileges, than that lively young person had herself.
+
+Winifred was ashamed, but she wasn't unhappy. Only now this letter of
+her father's, and the longing to see him, had sobered her greatly. Yet
+she was ready enough for the next amusement that might offer and
+looked up eagerly as Dorothy ran towards her across the lawn, crying:
+
+"Don't look so forlorn, Win! We can go--you can go--"
+
+"They can go!" finished the other, her mood quickly changing at sight
+of Dorothy's beaming face. "Where can they go, how can they go, when
+can they go, Teacher?"
+
+"Nutting, with Miss Aldrich's class. On their feet. With baskets and
+bags and the boot-boy with poles to thresh the trees and carry the
+nuts! and on Saturday to old John's cottage to hear the Robin sing!"
+
+"Oh! do you mean it? Do you? Then I know I'm all right with Miss
+Muriel again and I must go and thank her."
+
+Away hurried the impulsive girl and in the Lady Principal's room was
+presently an interview that was delightful to both. For in her heart,
+beneath a cold manner, Miss Tross-Kingdon kept a warm love for this
+wild pupil of hers; and was as ready to believe in Winifred's promises
+as the girl was to make them.
+
+The late autumn day was uncommonly fine. Not only Miss Aldrich, but
+most of the other teachers, were to take their classes to a distant
+forest on their annual nutting excursion, from which, this year,
+Winifred had felt she would be excluded. Miss Aldrich was not her own
+class director, but the girls in it were her especial friends and
+belonged to her gymnasium class. They were all "Commons," except
+Marjorie Lancaster, a gentle little "Peer," whom haughty Gwendolyn
+kept well reminded of her rank.
+
+"I don't like your being so chummy with those girls, and, worst of
+all, with that Dorothy Calvert. She's a pert sort of girl, with no
+manner at all. Why, Marjorie, I've seen her leaning against the Bishop
+just as if he were a post! _The Bishop_, mind you!"
+
+"Well, if he wanted her to, what harm, Gwen? Somebody said he knew her
+people over in the States and that's why she was sent away up here to
+his school. I like her ever so much. She's so full of fun and so
+willing to help a girl, any girl, with her lessons. She learns so easy
+and I'm so stupid!" protested Marjorie, who was, indeed, more noted
+for her failures than her successes at recitations.
+
+"But I don't like it. If you must have an intimate, why not choose her
+from 'our set'?"
+
+"The 'Commons' are lots jollier. They're not all the time thinking
+about their clothes, or who's higher ranked than another. I'm thankful
+I belong with the Aldrich ten. We have splendid times."
+
+Gwendolyn sighed. She found it very difficult to keep many of her
+"set" up to their duty as peers of the realm. "Class distinction" fell
+from her nimble tongue a dozen times a day in reprimands to other
+"Peers" who would hobnob with untitled schoolmates despite all she
+could do; and now to preserve Marjorie from mingling too much with the
+"Commons," she declared:
+
+"Well, if you won't come with us, I shall go with you. My director
+will let me. She always does let me do about as I like. She's lots
+more agreeable than the Lady Principal, who ought to appreciate what I
+try to do for the good of the school. When I told her how Florita
+Sheraton had complained she just couldn't get enough to eat here, she
+was cross as two sticks and said: 'Gwendolyn, if you are a real
+Honorable, you'll not descend to tale-bearing!' Hateful thing. And she
+comes of a titled family, too, somebody said. Yes, I'm sure my teacher
+will let me."
+
+"Even a worm will turn," and mild little Marjorie murmured under her
+breath:
+
+"I wish she wouldn't! But, of course, she will, 'cause it's the
+easiest way to get along. Yet you'll spoil sport--sure!"
+
+But the Honorable Gwendolyn Borst-Kennard was already moving away to
+announce her intention to her greatly relieved director. For it was
+usually the case, that wherever this young aristocrat went, trouble
+followed; for, like the 'twelfth juryman,' she never could understand
+why the 'eleven contrary ones' didn't agree with _him_.
+
+Nobody stayed at Oak Knowe, that day, who was able to join this
+outing: and when nearly three hundred girls take the road, they are a
+goodly sight worth seeing. Each had been provided with her own little
+parcel of lunch packed in the small basket that was to be carried home
+full of nuts, and each carried a stout alpenstock, such as the
+experienced teachers had found a help on their pupils' long walks.
+
+"A walk that is less than five miles long is no walk at all for
+healthy girls," had been Dr. Winston's remark; adding, for the Lady
+Principal's ear alone: "That'll take the kinks out of them and they'll
+give you less trouble, skylarking. Teach them the art of walking and
+let them go!"
+
+To escape Gwendolyn, Marjorie had hurried to the fore of her "Ten" and
+slipped her arm into Winifred's, who had expected Dorothy instead. But
+she couldn't refuse Marjorie's pleading:
+
+"Don't look like you didn't want me, Winnie dear. Gwen is bound so to
+take care of me and I don't need her care. I don't see any difference
+between you 'Commons' and we 'Peers' except that you're nicer."
+
+"Why, of course, I want you, Marjorie. Can you see Dorothy Calvert
+anywhere behind? It's so narrow here and the hedge so thick I can't
+look back."
+
+From her outer place and lower height Marjorie could stoop and peer
+around the curve, and gleefully cried:
+
+"Of all things! The girls have paired off so as to leave Gwen and
+Dolly together at the very end! Another class is so close behind they
+can't change very well and I wonder what Gwendolyn will do!"
+
+"I'm sorry for Dolly, but she'll get on. Gwen has pretended not to see
+her so many times that Dorothy can hardly put up with it. Under all
+her good nature she has a hot temper. You'd ought to have seen her
+pitch into one of the scullery boys for tormenting a cat. And she said
+once that she'd make Gwendolyn like her yet or know the reason why.
+Now's her chance to try it! It's all that silly imagination of Gwen's
+that makes her act so. Made up her mind that Dolly is a 'charity'
+girl, when anybody with common sense would know better. There are some
+at Oak Knowe, course: we all know that, for it's one of the Bishop's
+notions he must give any girl an education who wants it and can't pay
+for it. But I don't know which ones are; do you?"
+
+"No, indeed! And if I did, I'd never let them know I knew."
+
+"Of course you wouldn't. No gentlewoman would, except that stuck-up
+Gwen. Her mother, Lady Jane's so different. She's almost as jolly and
+simple as her brother, Dr. Winston. But her Honorable young daughter
+just makes me tired! Peek again. What are they doing now?"
+
+"The 'Peer' is walking like a soldier on parade, stiff as can be,
+thumping her alpenstock up and down plumpety-plump, hard as nails. But
+Dorothy seems to be chattering away like a good one!"
+
+Winifred stooped and peered between the bobbing rows of girls and
+branches of trees and caught Dorothy's eye, to whom she beckoned:
+"Forward!" But Dorothy smilingly signaled "No!"
+
+"Well, _one_ of that pair is happy, but it isn't Lady Jane's daughter!
+I fancy we'd best leave them to 'fight it out on that line,'" decided
+Winifred, facing about again. "I know Queen Baltimore will down
+Honorable England at the end."
+
+Despite her own stiffness, Dorothy's continued chatter at last began
+to interest Gwendolyn, and the perfect good nature with which she
+accepted the marked coldness of the haughty girl to make her ashamed.
+Also, she was surprised to see how the girl from the States enjoyed
+the novelty of everything Canadian. The wild flowers especially
+interested her, and Gwendolyn was compelled to admire the stranger's
+love and knowledge of growing things.
+
+With more decency than she had hitherto shown, she finally asked:
+
+"However did you come to know so much botany, Miss Calvert?"
+
+"Why, my Uncle Seth, the Blacksmith, taught me; he lived in the woods
+and loved them to that degree--my heart! he would no sooner hurt a
+plant than a person! He was that way. Some people are, who make
+friends of little things. And he was so happy, always, in his smithy
+under the Great Tree, which people from all the countryside came to
+see, it was so monstrous big. Oh! I wish you could see dear Uncle
+Seth, sitting at the smithy door, reading or talking to the blacksmith
+inside at the anvil, a man who worked for him and adored him."
+
+The Honorable Gwendolyn stiffened again, and walked along in freezing
+silence. She would have joined some other girl ahead, but none invited
+her, and she was too proud to beg for a place beside those who should
+have felt it an honor to have her. Besides, pride kept her to her
+place in the rear.
+
+"Huh! I'll show this Yankee farrier's niece that I am above caring who
+is near me. But it's horrid to be forced into such a position and I
+wish I hadn't come. Goodness! how her tongue runs! And now what freak
+sets her 'Oh-ing!' and 'Ah-ing!' that style?" ran Gwendolyn's
+thoughts, and she showed her annoyance by asking:
+
+"Miss Calvert, will you oblige me by not screaming quite so loud? It's
+wretched form and gets on my nerves, for I'm not used to that sort of
+thing."
+
+"Neither am I!" laughed Dorothy; "but you see, I never saw anything
+so lovely as that glimpse before. I couldn't help crying out--we came
+upon it so suddenly. Do see yonder!"
+
+Her finger pointed westward, then was promptly drawn back, as she
+admitted:
+
+"Pointing is 'bad form,' too, I've been taught. But do look--do look!
+It's just like fairyland!"
+
+Gwendolyn did look, though rather against her will, and paused, as
+charmed as Dorothy, but in a quieter fashion. She was a considerable
+artist and her gift in painting her one great talent. Oddly enough,
+too, she cared less for the praise of others than for the delight of
+handling her brush.
+
+Beyond, a sudden break in the thick wood revealed a tumbling
+waterfall, descending from a cliff by almost regular steps into a
+sunlit pool below. Bordering it on both sides were trees of gorgeous
+coloring and mountain ashes laden with their brilliant berries; while
+a shimmering vapor rose from the pool beneath, half veiling the little
+cascade, foaming white upon the rocks.
+
+For a moment Gwendolyn regarded the scene in silence but with shining
+eyes and parted lips. Then she exclaimed:
+
+"The very spot we've searched for so often and never found! 'The
+Maiden's Bath,' it's called. I've heard about it so much. The story is
+that there was an Indian girl so lovely and pure that it was thought a
+mortal sin for mortal eyes to look upon her. She had devoted herself
+to the service of the Great Spirit and, to reward her, He formed this
+beautiful Bath for her use alone, hid it so deep in the heart of the
+forest that no one could find it but she. There was but one trail
+which led to it and--we've found it, we've found it! Hurry up! Come."
+
+Dorothy stared. Here seemed a new Gwendolyn, whose tongue ran quite as
+rapidly as her own had ever done, and whose haughty face was now
+transformed by eager delight. As the young artist ran forward toward
+the spot, Dolly noticed that no other girl was in sight. They two had
+turned a little aside from the smoother path which the rest had taken,
+Dorothy following the lure of some new wild flower and Gwendolyn
+stiffly following her. Only a minute before the chatter and laughter
+of many girls had filled the air; now, save for their own footsteps on
+the fallen leaves, there was no sound.
+
+"I wonder where the rest are! Did you see which way they went,
+Gwendolyn?"
+
+"No. I didn't notice. But they're just around the next turn, I fancy.
+Oh! to think I've found the Bath at last. I must make a little sketch
+of it and come back as soon as I can with my color box. How the studio
+girls will envy me! Every time we've been in these woods we've
+searched for it and now to come upon it all at once, never dreaming,
+makes me proud! But--_don't you tell_. I'd begun something else for
+next exhibition, but I shall drop that and do this. I'll get leave to
+do it in my recreation hours in some empty class room, and bring it
+out as a surprise. I wish I'd found it alone. I wish nobody knew it
+but me. It must be kept a secret--so don't you dare to tell. Come on."
+
+"Huh! I reckon if you'll stick to facts, it was I--not you--who found
+it. I don't see why I should keep it secret. It doesn't belong to
+either of us, it belongs to the whole world. I wish everybody who
+loves beauty could enjoy it," answered Dorothy, warmly.
+
+"Well, go tell then, tattle-tale! You might know a common girl like
+you would be hateful to her betters, if she got a chance!" retorted
+Gwendolyn, angrily.
+
+It rose to Dorothy's lips to respond: "Tattle-tale and mischief-maker
+is what all the girls know _you_ are!" but she kept the hard words
+back, "counting ten" vigorously, and also listening for some sound of
+her now invisible schoolmates. She wasn't a timid girl, but the
+silence of this deep forest startled her, nor looking around could she
+discover by what path they had come to this place.
+
+Then Gwendolyn was hurrying forward, carrying the pocket-pad and
+pencil without which she went nowhere, and careless of everything but
+to get her sketch. So Dorothy followed, forgetting her resentment in
+watching her companion. To see Gwen's head turning this way, then
+that, squinting her eyes and holding her pencil before them, measuring
+distance thus and seeking the "right light," interested the watcher
+for the time.
+
+Finally, the artist had secured a point which suited her and, seating
+herself, rapidly drew a picture of one view. She worked so deftly and
+confidently, that Dorothy's only feeling now was one of admiration.
+
+Then a new position was sought and another sketch made, but Gwen
+permitted no talk between them.
+
+"I can't work and talk, too; please be still, can't you?" she asked,
+looking up from her work.
+
+And again the real earnestness of the girl she disliked made Dorothy
+obedient, again rising to follow while Gwen chose another view still,
+high up near the top of the wonderful cascade. Her face had grown pink
+and animated and her eyes glowed with enthusiasm.
+
+"I shall paint that misty-veil with a glaze of ultramarine. There
+should be an underwash of madder, and maybe terre verte. Oh! if I can
+only make it look one atom as I see it! We must come here again and
+again, you and I, Miss Calvert, and you must--you simply _must_ keep
+the secret of our finding till after I've exhibited my picture."
+
+"All right. How long will it be before we can go find the others? you
+know we can't gather any nuts right here. I don't see a single nut
+tree."
+
+"I don't know how long I shall be, and why care about nuts while we
+can have--this?" returned Gwen, indifferently.
+
+"Very well, I guess I'll take a nap. Seems terrible close in this
+shut-in nook and my walk has made me sleepy. I reckon I'll take a nap.
+Wake me up when you get through."
+
+So saying, Dorothy curled down upon a mass of mighty ferns, laid her
+head on her arm and went to sleep. For how long she never knew, but
+her awakening was sudden and startling. She had been roused from a
+dream of Bellevieu, her Baltimore home, and of dear Aunt Betty feeding
+her pets, the Great Danes.
+
+Brushing the slumber from her eyes, she gazed about her, wondering for
+an instant, where she was. Then--that frantic shriek again:
+
+"Help! Help! I'm dr--"
+
+The cry died in a gurgle and Dorothy sprang to her feet in terror. She
+had warned Gwendolyn not to take that high seat so close to that
+slippery rock, from beneath which the cascade began its downward flow.
+
+"If you fall, it will be straight into the pool. Do be careful, Gwen,
+how you move."
+
+But the warning had been useless--Gwendolyn was already in the pool.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+ALL HALLOW EVE FESTIVITIES
+
+
+"I'm going to choose Queen Bess! I've made a lovely ruff, stands away
+up above my head. And Mrs. Archibald, the matron, has bought me four
+yards of chintz that might be brocade--if it was!" said Florita
+Sheraton, from the gymnasium floor, hugging her arms for warmth.
+
+"Four yards! That'll never go around you, Fatty!" declared Fanny
+Dimock, with playful frankness.
+
+"Well, it'll have to go as far as it may, then. It cost twenty cents.
+That left five only for the white and gilt paper for my ruff and
+crown."
+
+"Was Queen Elizabeth fat?" asked Dorothy, from her now favorite perch
+upon the high wooden horse.
+
+"What does that matter, whether she were or not? The plot is to act
+like a Queen when once you get her clothes on," observed Winifred,
+judicially. "I wonder if you can do that, Flo. Or if it needs another
+yard of cloth to make you real stately--she ought to have a train,
+oughtn't she--I might lend you another sixpence. If Miss Muriel would
+let me."
+
+"Don't ask for it, Win. You've done so splendidly ever since--"
+
+"That time I didn't! Well, I'd rather not ask for it. Twenty-five
+cents was the limit she set."
+
+"Wants to stimulate our ingenuity, maybe, to see how well we can dress
+on twenty-five cents a week!" laughed Ernesta Smith, who had no
+ingenuity at all. "If it weren't for Dolly here, I'd have to give it
+up, but she's fixed me a lovely, spooky rig that'll just make you all
+goose-fleshy."
+
+"What is it? Tell," begged the others, but Ernesta shook her head.
+"No, indeedy! It's the chance of my life to create an impression and I
+shan't spoil it beforehand. It'll be all the more stunning because I'm
+such a bean-pole. Dorothy says that Florrie and I must walk together
+in the parade."
+
+"Oh! I hope it will be a grand success!" cried Winifred, seizing
+Bessie Walters and going through a lively calisthenic exercise with
+her. "We've always wanted to have a Hallowe'en Party, but the faculty
+have never before said yes. It's all Dorothy's doings that we have it
+now."
+
+A shadow fell over Dolly's bright face. It was quite true that she had
+suggested this little festivity to the good Bishop. She had told him
+other things as well which hurt him to hear and made him the more
+willing to consent to any bit of gayety she might propose. She had
+said:
+
+"There is somebody in this school that doesn't like me. Yes, dear
+Bishop, it's true; though I don't know who and I've tried to be
+friendly to everybody. That is to all I know. The high-up Form girls
+don't appear to see me at all, though they're friendly enough with
+lots of the other younger ones. I heard Edna Ross-Ross saying to
+another that all the strange, horrid things that had happened at Oak
+Knowe this autumn began with my coming. She'd been told that I was a
+charity scholar, belonging to one of the servants. She didn't object
+to charity girls, so long as she knew they were of _good_ family, but
+she drew the line at _servants'_ families. She said that Gwendolyn had
+heard you, yourself, tell Miss Tross-Kingdon that I was mischievous
+and she must look out for me."
+
+"My dear, my dear! Surely no fair-minded girl could have so
+misunderstood me, even admitting that I did say that--which I fail to
+remember. As to that silly notion about the 'haunting' business, Betty
+Calvert's niece should be able to laugh at that. Absurd, absurd! Now
+tell me again what your fancy is about this Hallowe'en Party."
+
+"Why, sir, things can't be done without folks do them, can they?"
+
+"That's a poser; but I'll grant your premises. Proceed with the
+argument," answered the old gentleman, merrily.
+
+"Well, I thought, somehow, that if everybody was allowed to dress in
+character and wear some sort of a mask, the one who had played such
+pranks and frightened Grace and the maids might be found out. If
+anybody in this house owns such a mask as that horrid one and is mean
+enough to scare little girls, he or she wouldn't lose so good a chance
+of scaring a lot more. Don't you think so? And--and--there's something
+else I ought to tell, but am afraid. Miss Muriel gets so stern every
+time the thing is mentioned that I put it off and off. I can tell you
+though, if you wish."
+
+"Certainly, I wish you would."
+
+The gentleman's face had grown as serious now, and almost as stern, as
+the Lady Principal's at similar times; and Dorothy gave a sigh to
+bolster her own courage as she gravely announced:
+
+"When I took out my white shoes to wear them last evening, there was a
+skull and cross-bones on each one, done with red paint: and the tube
+of vermilion had been taken from my own oil color box. Now--what do
+you think of that?"
+
+Her listener pursed his lips in a silent whistle, which indicated
+great amazement in a man like him, but he said nothing. Only, for a
+moment he drew the girl to him and looked searchingly into her brown
+eyes. But they looked back at him with a clear, straightforward gaze
+that pleased him and made him exclaim:
+
+"Well, little Betty--whom you always seem to me--we're in a scrape
+worthy of old Bellevieu. We've got to get out of it, somehow. You try
+your scheme of playing masked detective first. If you fail in proving
+our innocence and some other youngster's roguery, I'll tackle the
+matter myself. For this nonsense is hurtful to Oak Knowe. That I am
+compelled to admit. 'Behold how great a matter a little fire
+kindleth.' A miserable rumor started has wide-spread effect. I could
+preach you a sermon on that topic, but I won't. Run along back to your
+mates and try it. Just whisper 'Hallowe'en Party' to any one of them
+and see if every girl at Oak Knowe doesn't know beforehand that after
+chapel, to-night, the Lady Principal will announce this intended
+event. Now, good day, my dear 'Betty,' and for the present, to oblige
+me, just put those decorated shoes out of sight."
+
+This talk had been two days before: and with the Lady Principal's
+announcement of the affair had been coupled the decision:
+
+"Those of you young ladies that have no costume suitable may expend
+their week's allowance in material for one. Of course, this restricts
+the expense to utmost simplicity. No one may run in debt, nor borrow
+more than suggestions from her neighbors. Under these conditions I
+hope you will have the happy time you anticipate."
+
+So they were dismissed in gay spirits, to gather in groups everywhere
+to discuss costumes and the possibility of evolving a fetching one at
+the modest cost of a quarter dollar. By the afternoon following, most
+of the preparations had been made. Some of the maids had lent a hand
+to the sewing and the good-natured matron had planned and purchased
+and cut till her arms ached. But she had entered into the spirit of
+the occasion as heartily as any girl of them all; and the sixth and
+seventh Form students, who rather fancied themselves too grown-up for
+such frivolity, had willingly helped the preparations of the lower
+school pupils.
+
+Only one who might have enjoyed the fun was out of it. Gwendolyn was
+in the hospital, in the furthest west wing: for the time being a
+nervous and physical wreck from her experience at the Maiden's Bath.
+Even yet nobody dared speak to her of that terrible time, for it made
+her so hysterical; and for some reason she shrank from Dorothy's
+visits of inquiry and sympathy more than from any other's. But this
+seemed ungrateful to Lady Jane, her mother, now in residence at the
+school to care for and be near her daughter. She determined this
+"nonsense" must be overcome and had especially begged Dolly to come to
+the sick room, dressed for the party, and to relate in detail all that
+had happened on that dreadful day.
+
+So Dorothy had slipped away from her mates, to oblige Lady Jane, but
+dreading to meet the girl she had saved, yet who still seemed to
+dislike her. She wore her gipsy costume of scarlet, a little costume
+that she had worn at home at a similar party, and a dainty scarlet
+mask would be added later on. She looked so graceful and winsome, as
+she tapped at the door, that Lady Jane exclaimed as she admitted her:
+
+"Why, you darling! What a picture you have made of yourself! I must
+give you a good kiss--two of them! One for myself and Gwen and one for
+the Aunt Betty you love."
+
+Then the lady led her in to the low chair beside Gwen's bed, with a
+tenderness so motherly that Dorothy lost all feeling of awkwardness
+with the sick girl.
+
+"Now, my child, I must hear every detail of that afternoon. My darling
+daughter is really much better. I want her to get over this dread of
+what is past, and safely so. I'm sure your story of the matter will
+help her to think of it calmly."
+
+She waited for Dorothy to begin, and at last she did, making as light
+of the affair as of an ordinary playground happening.
+
+"Why, it wasn't anything. Really, it wasn't, except that Gwen took
+such a cold and grieved so because other folks had to find where the
+hidden cascade was. She just got so eager with her drawing that she
+didn't notice how close she got to the edge of the rock. If I had
+stayed awake, instead of going to sleep, I should have seen and caught
+her before she slipped. I can't forgive myself for that."
+
+The Lady Jane shook a protesting head.
+
+"That was no fault in you, Dorothy. Go on."
+
+"When I waked up, she was in the water, and she didn't understand how
+to get out. She couldn't swim, you know, but I can. So, course, I just
+jumped in and caught her. There was a big branch bent down low and I
+caught hold of that. She caught hold of me, but not both my arms, and
+so--so--I could pull us both out."
+
+Dorothy did not add that her arm had been so strained she could not
+yet use it without pain.
+
+"Oh! thank God for you, my dear!" cried the mother, laying her hand
+upon Gwendolyn's shoulder, who had turned toward the wall and lay with
+her face hidden. "And after that? Somebody said you stripped off your
+own jacket and wrapped it around her."
+
+"It wasn't as nice as hers, but you see she was cold, and I thought
+she wouldn't mind for once. I borrowed her bathrobe once and she
+didn't like it, and now she'd borrowed my jacket and didn't like that,
+I suppose."
+
+"Like it! Doubtless it helped to save her life, too, or her from
+pneumonia. Oh! if you hadn't been there! If--" sobbed the mother.
+
+"But there wasn't any 'if,' Lady Jane; 'cause if I hadn't seen the
+falls and made her see them, too, she wouldn't have been near hand. If
+she'd gone with the girl she wanted to, nothing at all would have
+happened. Some way it got mixed up so she had to walk with me and
+that's all. Only once we got out of the water onto the ground, I
+started yelling, and I must have done it terrible loud. Else Mr. Hugh
+wouldn't have heard me and followed my yells. He'd gone long past us,
+hunting with his gun, and he heard me and came hurrying to where the
+sound was. So he just put his coat around her and made her get up and
+walk. He had to speak to her real cross before she would, she was so
+dazed and mis'able. But she did at last, and he knew all those woods
+by heart. And the directions of them, which way was north, or south,
+or all ways.
+
+"It was a right smart road he took for roughness, so that sometimes we
+girls stumbled and fell, but he wouldn't stop. He kept telling us
+that, and saying: 'Only a little further now!' though it did seem to
+the end of the world. And by and by we came out of the woods to a
+level road, and after a time to a little farmhouse. Mr. Hugh made the
+farmer hitch up his horse mighty quick and wrap us in blankets and
+drove us home--fast as fast. And, that's all. I'm sorry Gwendolyn took
+such a cold and I hope when she gets well she'll forgive me for going
+to sleep that time. And, please, Lady Jane, may I go now? Some of the
+girls are waiting for me, 'cause they want me in the parade."
+
+"Surely, my dear: and thank you for telling me so long a story. I
+wanted it at first hands and I wanted Gwendolyn to hear it, too. Good
+night and a happy, happy evening. It's really your own party, I hear;
+begged by yourself from the Bishop for your schoolmates' pleasure. I
+trust the lion's share of that pleasure may be your own."
+
+As Dorothy left the room, with her graceful farewell curtsey, the girl
+on the bed turned back toward her mother and lifted a tear-wet face.
+
+"Why, Gwen, dearest, surely she didn't make you nervous again, did
+she? She described your accident so simply and in such a matter of
+course way. She seemed to blame the whole matter on herself; first her
+discovery of the waterfall, then her falling asleep. She is a brave,
+unselfish girl. Hoping you 'would forgive' her--for saving your
+life!"
+
+"Oh, mother, don't! You can't guess how that hurts me. 'Forgive her'!
+Can she ever in this world forgive me!" And again the invalid's face
+was hidden in the covers, while her body shook with sobs; that
+convinced Lady Jane that nobody, not even her anxious self, knew how
+seriously ill her daughter was.
+
+"My child, my child, don't grieve so! It is all past and gone. I made
+a mistake in forcing you to meet the companion of your disaster and
+hearing the story from her, but please do forget it for my sake. You
+are well--or soon will be; and the sooner you gain some strength,
+you'll be as happy as ever."
+
+"I shall never be happy again--never. I want to go away from here. I
+never want to see Oak Knowe again!" wailed Gwendolyn with fresh tears.
+
+"Go away? Why, darling, you have always been happier here than in any
+other place. At home you complain of your brothers, and you think my
+home rules harder than the Lady Principal's. Besides, I've just
+settled the boys at school and with you here, I felt free to make all
+my plans for a winter abroad. Don't be nonsensical. Don't spoil
+everything by foolishness concerning an accident that ended so well.
+I don't understand you, dearest, I certainly do not."
+
+Assembly Hall had been cleared for the entertainment. Most of the
+chairs had been removed, only a row of them being left around the
+walls for the benefit of the invited guests. These were the friends
+and patrons of the school from the near by city and from the country
+houses round about.
+
+Conspicuous among these was old John Gilpin in his Sunday suit, his
+long beard brushed till each hair hung smooth and separate, his bald
+head polished till it shone, and himself the most ill at ease of all
+the company. Beside him sat the little widow, Robin's mother; without
+whom, John had declared, he would "not stir hand nor hoof" toward any
+such frivolity, and the good Dame abetting him in the matter. She had
+said:
+
+"No, Mrs. Locke, no more he shall. I can't go, it's bread-settin'
+night, and with my being so unwieldy and awkward like--I'd ruther by
+far stay home. Robin will be all right. The dear lad's become the very
+apple of my eye and I e'enamost dread his gettin' well enough to go to
+work again. A bit of nonsense, like this of Dorothy's gettin'-up, 'll
+do you more good nor medicine. I've said my say and leave it said. If
+John could go in his clean smock, he'd be all right, even to face that
+Lady Principal that caught him cavortin' like a silly calf. But
+'twould be an obligement to me if you'd go along and keep him in
+countenance."
+
+Of course, Mrs. Locke could do no less for a neighbor who had so
+befriended her and Robin: so here she was, looking as much the lady in
+her cheap black gown as any richer woman there. Also, so absorbed she
+was in keeping old John from trying to "cut and run," or doing
+anything else that would have mortified his wife.
+
+The Lady Principal had herself hesitated somewhat before the cottagers
+were invited, fearing their presence would be offensive to more
+aristocratic guests, but the good Bishop had heartily endorsed
+Dorothy's plea for them and she accepted his decision.
+
+In any case, she need not have feared. For suddenly there sounded from
+the distance the wailing of a violin, so weird and suggestive of
+uncanny things, that all talking ceased and all eyes turned toward the
+wide entrance doors, through which the masqueraders must come.
+Everything within the great room had been arranged with due attention
+to "effect." In its center a great "witches' caldron" hung suspended
+from three poles, and a lantern hung above it, where the bobbing for
+apples would take place. Dishes of salt, witch-cakes of meal,
+jack-o'-lanterns dimly lighted, odors of brimstone, daubs of
+phosphorus here and there--in fact, everything that the imaginations
+of the maskers could conceive, or reading suggest as fit for
+Hallowe'en, had been prepared.
+
+The doleful music drew nearer and nearer and as the lights in the Hall
+went out, leaving only the pale glimmer of the lanterns, even the most
+indifferent guests felt a little thrill run through their nerves. Then
+the doors slowly opened and there came through them a ghostly company
+that seemed endless. From head to foot each "ghost" was draped in
+white, even the extended hand which held a lighted taper was gloved in
+white, and the whole procession moved slowly to the dirge which the
+unseen musicians played.
+
+After a circuit of the great room, they began a curious dance which,
+in reality, was a calisthenic movement familiar to the everyday life
+of these young actors, but, as now performed, seemed weird and
+nerve-trying even to themselves. Its effect upon others was even more
+powerful and upon John Gilpin, to send him into a shivering fit that
+alarmed Mrs. Locke.
+
+"Why, Mr. Gilpin, what's the matter? Are you ill?"
+
+"Seems if--seems if--my last hour's come! Needn't tell
+me--them's--just--just plain schoolgirls! They--they're spooks right
+out the graveyard, sure as preachin' and I wish--I hadn't come! And
+there's no end of 'em! And it means--somethin' terr'ble! I wish--do
+you suppose--Ain't there a winder some'ers nigh? Is this Hall high up?
+Could I--could I climb out it?"
+
+The poor little widow was growing very nervous herself. Her
+companion's positive terror was infecting her and she felt that if
+this were her promised "fun" she'd had quite enough of it, and would
+be as glad as he to desert the gathering.
+
+Suddenly the movement changed. The slowly circling ghosts fell into
+step with the altered music, which, still a wailing minor, grew fast
+and faster, until with a crash its mad measure ended. At that instant,
+and before the lights were turned on, came another most peculiar
+sound. It was like the patter of small hoofs, the "ih-ih-ihing" of
+some terrified beast; and all ears were strained to listen while
+through those open doors came bounding and leaping, as if to escape
+its own self--What?
+
+From her perch on Dr. Winston's knees, Miss Millikins-Pillikins
+identified it as:
+
+"The debbil! The debbil!"
+
+Old John sprang to his feet and shrieked, while, as if attracted by
+his cry, the horrible object made straight for him and with one
+vicious thrust of its dreadful head knocked him down.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+PEER AND COMMONER
+
+
+The lights flashed out. The ghostly wrappings fell from the figures
+which had been halted by the sudden apparition that had selected poor
+John Gilpin as its victim, though, in knocking him down it had knocked
+common sense back into his head. For as he lay sprawled on the floor
+the thrusts of that demoniac head continued and now, instead of
+frightening, angered him. For there was something familiar in the
+action of his assailant. Recovering his breath, he sat up and seized
+the horns that were prodding his Sunday suit, and yelled:
+
+"Quit that, Baal, you old rascal! Dressin' up like the Old Boy, be ye?
+Well, you never could ha' picked out a closer fit! But I'll strip ye
+bare--you cantankerous old goat, you Baal!"
+
+Away flew the mask of the evil spirit which some ingenious hand had
+fastened to the animal's head, and up rose such a shout of laughter as
+made the great room ring. The recent "ghosts" swarmed about the pair,
+still in masks and costumes, and a lively chase of Baal followed.
+
+The goat had broken away from the irate old man, as soon as might be,
+and John had risen stiffly to his feet. But his bashfulness was past.
+Also, his lameness was again forgotten, as one masquerader after
+another whirled about him, catching his coat skirts or his arm and
+laughingly daring him:
+
+"Guess who I am!"
+
+He didn't even try, but entered into the fun with as great zest as any
+youngster present, and it must be admitted, making a greater noise
+than any. Around and around the great hall sped the goat, somebody
+having mischievously closed the doors to prevent its escape; and
+across and about chased the merrymakers, tossing off their masks to
+see and careless now who guessed their identity.
+
+"Baal!" "Baal here!" "Who owns him? Where did he come from?" "What
+makes him so slippery? I wonder if he's been greased!"
+
+At last answered the farmer:
+
+"I guess I could tell you who owns him, but I'd better not. I don't
+want to get nobody into trouble, much as he deserves it."
+
+"'He?' Is it a 'he' then and not one of the girls?" demanded Winifred.
+
+But he did not inform her, merely asking when it would be time to bob
+for apples.
+
+"Because I know they're prime. They come out Dame's choisest bar'l.
+Grew on a tree she'll let nobody touch, not even me."
+
+"Apples! Apples! My turn first!" cried Florita Sheraton, stooping her
+fat body above the "caldron" into which some of the fruit had been
+tossed. But she failed, of course, her frantic efforts to plant her
+white teeth in any one of the apples resulting only in the wetting of
+her paper crown and ruff, as well as the ripping of her hastily made
+"robe." Then the others crowded around the great kettle, good
+naturedly pushing first comers aside while but a few succeeded in
+obtaining a prize. Old John was one of these; so gay and lively that
+the audience found him the most amusing feature of the entertainment.
+
+Till finally Mrs. Locke gained courage to cross to his side and
+whisper something in his ear; at which he looked, abashed and with a
+furtive glance in the direction of the Lady Principal, he murmured:
+
+"Right you be. I 'low I've forgot myself and I'm afraid she'd blush to
+see me so cuttin' up again. And too, I clean forgot that bag! I'll
+step-an'-fetch it right away."
+
+With his disappearance half the noise and nonsense ended, but more
+than satisfaction greeted his return, with Jack, the boot-boy, in
+close attendance. The latter bore in each hand a jug of freshly made
+sweet cider but his expression was not a happy one, and he kept a
+watchful eye upon the old man he followed. The latter carried two
+baskets; one heavy with well cracked nuts, the other as light with its
+heap of white popped corn. Bowing low to the Lady Principal he
+remarked:
+
+"With your permission, Ma'am;" then set the articles down beside the
+"caldron," clapping his hands to attract the schoolgirls' attention
+and bid them gather around his "treat" to enjoy it. Then, stumbling
+over a fallen mask, he sternly ordered Jack:
+
+"Get to work and clear these things up, and don't you forget to save
+Baal's, for, likely, 'twill be needed again."
+
+At which the boot-boy's face turned crimson, though that might have
+come from stooping.
+
+Nobody waited a second invitation to enjoy the good things that John's
+thoughtfulness had provided; but, sitting on the floor around his
+baskets, they made him act the host in dispensing fair portions to
+all, a maid having quickly brought plates, nutpicks and cups for their
+service.
+
+After the feast followed games and dances galore, till the hour grew
+late for schoolgirls, and the Bishop begged:
+
+"Before we part, my children, please give us a little music. A song
+from the Minims, a bit from the Sevenths on the piano, and a violin
+melody from our girl from the South. For it is she, really, who is
+responsible for this delightful party. Now she has coaxed us into
+trying it once, I propose that we make Hallowe'en an annual junketing
+affair, and--All in favor of so doing say 'Aye.'"
+
+After which the "Ayes" and hand claps were so deafening, that the good
+man bowed his head as if before a storm. Then the room quieted and the
+music followed; but when it came to Dorothy's turn she was nowhere to
+be seen. Girlish cries for "Queenie!" "Miss Dixie!" "Dolly! Dolly
+Doodles!" "Miss Calvert to the front!" failed to bring her.
+
+"Gone to 'step-an'-fetch' her fiddle--or Mr. Gilpin's, maybe!"
+suggested Winifred, with a mischievous glance at the old man who sat
+on the floor in the midst of the girls, gay now as any of them and
+still urging them to take "just a han'ful more" of the nuts he had
+been at such pains to crack for them.
+
+But neither Dorothy nor "fiddle" appeared; and the festivities came to
+a close without her.
+
+"Queer where Queenie went to!" said Florita, walking along the hall
+toward her dormitory, "and as queer, too, where that goat came from."
+
+"Seemed to be an old acquaintance of the farmer's, didn't it? He
+called it 'Baal,' as if that was its name; and wasn't it too funny for
+words? to see him chasing after it, catching it and letting it slip
+away so, till Jack caught it and led it away. From the way he acted I
+believe _he_ was the one who owns it and rigged it up so," said
+Ernesta, beside her.
+
+"Well, no matter. I'm so sleepy I can hardly keep my eyes open! But
+what a glorious time we've had; and what a mess Assembly Hall is in."
+
+"Who cares? We're had the fun and now Jack and the scullery boy will
+have to put it in order for us. Matron'll see to that. Good night."
+
+They parted, each entering her own cubicle and each wondering somewhat
+why Dorothy did not come to hers. Commonly she was the most prompt of
+all in retiring and this was long past the usual hour. Could they have
+seen her at that moment their surprise would have been even greater.
+
+Long before, while the feast was at its height, the girl had quietly
+slipped away.
+
+Despite the fun she had so heartily enjoyed, thoughts of the visit to
+Gwendolyn's sick room, which she had made just before it, kept coming
+into her mind: and her thoughts running thus:
+
+"Gwen was ill, she really was, although Lady Jane seemed to think her
+only whimsical. She looked so unhappy and maybe partly because she
+couldn't be in this first Hallowe'en party. It was too bad. I felt as
+if she must come and when I said so to Winnie she just laughed and
+answered: 'Serves her right. Gwendolyn has always felt herself the top
+of the heap, that nothing could go on just right if she didn't boss
+the job. Now she'll find out that a little "Commoner" like you can do
+what no "Peer" ever did. Don't go worrying over that girl, Queen
+Baltimore. A lesson or two like this will do her good. She'd be as
+nice as anybody if it wasn't for her wretched stuck-up-ness. Miss
+Muriel says it's no harm to be proud if it's pride of the right sort.
+But pride of rank--Huh! How can anybody help where they're born or who
+their parents are? Don't you be silly, too, Dorothy Calvert, and pity
+somebody who'd resent the pity. I never knew a girl like you. You make
+me provoked. Never have a really, truly good time because you happen
+to know of somebody else that isn't having it. I say again: If the
+Honorable Gwendolyn Borst-Kennard feels bad because she isn't in this
+racket I'm downright glad of it. She has spoiled lots of good times
+for other girls and 'turn about's fair play.'"
+
+"Now, Winnie dear, your 'bark is worse than your bite' if I can quote
+maxims, too. In your heart, down deep, you're just as sorry for poor
+Gwen as I am. Only you won't admit it."
+
+"Well, if you think so, all right. You're a stubborn little thing and
+once you take a notion into your brain nobody can take it out. 'Where
+are you going, my pretty maid? I'm going a studying, sir, she said;'"
+and tossing an airy kiss in Dorothy's direction, ran swiftly away.
+
+Yet events proved that, as Winifred had argued, Dorothy's opinion did
+not alter. Neither could she be sorry for anyone without trying to
+help them in some way.
+
+The simple country treat of nuts, popped corn, and cider had proved
+enjoyable to other schoolmates--why shouldn't it to Gwendolyn? She'd
+try it, anyway. So, unnoticed by those around her, Dolly heaped her
+own plate with the good things, placing a tumbler of cider in the
+middle and hurried away, or rather glided away, so gently she moved
+until she reached the doorway. There she ran as swiftly down the long
+hall toward the west wing and Gwendolyn's room in it.
+
+Tapping at the door Lady Jane soon opened it, but with finger on lip
+requesting silence. But she smiled as she recognized who stood there
+and at the plate of goodies Dorothy had brought. Then she gently drew
+her in, nodding toward the cot where her daughter seemed asleep.
+
+She was not, however, but had been lying still, thinking of many
+things and among them her present visitor. She was not surprised to
+see her and this time was not pained. It seemed to the imaginative
+invalid that her own thoughts had compelled Dorothy to come, in
+response to them.
+
+"I'm awake, Mamma. You needn't keep so quiet."
+
+"Are you, dearest? Well, that's good; for here has come our little
+maid with something tempting for your appetite. A share of the
+Hallowe'en treat, is it, Dorothy?"
+
+"Yes, Lady Jane, and it's something different from what we often have.
+The farmer, Mr. Gilpin, brought it for us girls and I couldn't bear--I
+mean I thought Gwendolyn should have--might like, her share, even
+if--if _I_ brought it. I'm sorry the plate is a cracked one, but you
+see there were so many needed and the maids brought what they could
+find handiest, I suppose. But--the glass of cider is all right. That's
+from the regular table and--and it's really very sweet and nice."
+
+Now that she had come poor Dorothy wished that she hadn't. Lady Jane
+seemed pleased enough and had promptly turned on a stronger light
+which clearly showed the face of the girl on the bed. She could talk
+readily enough to the mother but whenever she glanced toward Gwendolyn
+her tongue faltered and hesitated woefully. It seemed as if the sick
+girl's eyes were still hard and forbidding and their steady stare made
+her uncomfortable. So she did not speak to the invalid and was
+promptly retreating when Gwendolyn suddenly asked, yet with apparent
+effort:
+
+"Mamma, will you please go away for a few minutes? I've--I've got to
+speak to Dorothy--alone."
+
+"Why, certainly, dearest, if you think you're strong enough. But
+wouldn't you better wait another day? Wouldn't I be able to talk for
+you?"
+
+"No, no. Oh! no, no. Nobody but I can--Please go--go quick!"
+
+"'Stand not upon the order of your going but go at once!'" quoted Lady
+Jane, jestingly.
+
+But she failed to make her daughter smile and went away, warning:
+
+"Don't talk of that accident again to-night, girls."
+
+"That's exactly what I must talk about, Mamma, but you mustn't care."
+
+Lady Jane's heart was anxious as she closed the door behind her and
+she would have been amazed had she heard Gwendolyn's exclamation:
+
+"I've been a wicked girl! Oh, Dorothy! I've been so mean to you! And
+all the time you show me kindness. Are you trying to 'heap coals' on
+my head?"
+
+"'Heap coals?'" echoed Dolly, at first not comprehending; then she
+laughed. "I couldn't do that. I have none to 'heap' and I'd be horrid
+if I tried. What do you mean?"
+
+"It began the night you came. I made up things about you in my mind
+and then told them to our 'set' for facts. I'd--I'd had trouble with
+the 'set' because they would not remember about--about keeping
+ourselves apart from those who hadn't titles. I felt we ought to
+remember; that if our England had made 'classes' we ought to help her,
+loyally. That was the first feeling, way down deep. Then--then I don't
+get liked as I want to be, because I can't help knowing things about
+other girls and if they break the rules I felt I ought to tell the
+teachers. Somehow, even they don't like that; for the Lady Principal
+about as plain as called me 'tale-bearer.' I hate--oh! I do hate to
+tell you all this! But I can't help it. Something inside me makes me,
+but I'm so miserable!"
+
+She looked the fact she stated and Dorothy's sympathy was won, so that
+she begged:
+
+"Don't do it, then. Just get well and--and carry no more tales and
+you'll be happy right away."
+
+"It's easy to talk--for you, maybe. For me, I'd almost rather die than
+own I've been at fault--if it wasn't for that horrid, sick sort of
+feeling inside me."
+
+In spite of herself the listener laughed, for Gwendolyn had laid her
+hands upon her stomach as if locating the seat of her misery. She
+asked merrily:
+
+"Is it there we keep our consciences? I never knew before and am glad
+to find out."
+
+But Gwendolyn didn't laugh. She was an odd sort of girl, and always
+desperately earnest in whatever she undertook. She had made up her
+mind she must confess to the "Commoner" the things she had done
+against her; she was sincerely sorry for them now, but she couldn't
+make that confession gracefully. She caught her breath as if before a
+plunge into cold water and then blurted out:
+
+"I told 'our set' that you were Dawkins's niece! I said you were a
+disgrace to the school and one of us would have to leave it. But Mamma
+wouldn't take _me_ and I couldn't make _you_ go. I got mad and
+jealous. Everybody liked you, except the girls I'd influenced. The
+Bishop petted you--he never notices me. Miss Tross-Kingdon treats you
+almost as lovingly as she does Millikins-Pillikins. All the servants
+smile on you and nobody is afraid of you as everybody is of me.
+Dawkins, and sometimes even Mamma, accuses me of a 'sharp tongue'
+that makes enemies. But, somehow, I can't help it. And the worst
+is--one can't get back the things one has said and done, no matter how
+she tries. Then you went and saved my life!"
+
+At this, the strange girl covered her face and began to cry, while
+Dorothy stared at her, too surprised to speak. Until the tears changed
+to sobs and Gwendolyn shook with the stress of her emotion. Then,
+fearing serious results, Dorothy forgot everything except that here
+was someone in distress which she must soothe. Down on her knees she
+went, flung her arms around the shaking shoulders, and pleaded:
+
+"Well, you poor dear, can't you be glad of that? Even if you can never
+like me isn't it good to be alive? Aren't you grateful that somebody
+who could swim, even poor I, was at the pool to help you out of it
+that day? Forget it, do forget it, and get well and happy right away.
+I'll keep away from you as far as I can and you must forgive me for
+coming here again just now."
+
+"Forgive you? Forgive you! Oh! Dorothy Calvert, can you, will you ever
+forgive me? After all my meanness to you, could you make yourself like
+me just a little?"
+
+Gwendolyn's own arms had now closed in eager entreaty about the girl
+she had injured. Her pride was humbled at last and completely. But
+there was no need of further speech between them. They clung together
+in their suddenly awakened affection, at peace and so happy that
+neither felt it possible they had ever been at odds.
+
+When, at last, Dorothy drew back and rose, Gwen still clung to her
+hand, and penitently said:
+
+"But that isn't all. There's a lot more to tell that, maybe, will make
+you despise me worse than ever. I've done--"
+
+"No matter what, dearest. You've talked quite enough for to-night and
+Dorothy should be in bed. Bid one another good night, my dears, and
+meet again to-morrow;" interrupted Lady Jane, who had quietly
+returned.
+
+So Dorothy departed, and with a happier heart than she had had since
+her coming to Oak Knowe; for now there was nobody there with whom she
+was at discord.
+
+But--was there not?
+
+Gayly tripping down the long corridor, humming a merry air and hoping
+that she hadn't yet broken the retiring-rule, she stopped short on the
+way. Something or somebody was far ahead of her, moving with utmost
+caution against noise, yet himself, or itself, making a peculiar
+rat-a-tat-tat upon the polished boards.
+
+Instantly Dorothy hushed her light song and slackened her steps. The
+passage was dimly lighted for it was rarely used, leading as it did to
+the distant servants' quarters and ending in a great drying-room above
+the laundry. Even this drying-room was almost given up to the storage
+of trunks and other things, the laundry itself being more convenient
+for all its requirements.
+
+Rumors came back to her of the burglaries which the kitchen-folk had
+declared had been frequent of late, none more serious than the loss of
+a dinner provided and the strange rifling of safes and cupboard. Such
+had happened weeks before, then apparently ceased; but they had begun
+again of late; with added rumors of strange noises heard at night, and
+in the quieter hours of the day.
+
+The faculty had tried to keep these fresh rumors from the pupils'
+ears, but they had leaked out. Yet no real investigation had been
+made. It was a busy household, both above and below stairs; and as is
+usual, what is "everybody's business is nobody's" and things were left
+to run their course.
+
+But now, was the burglar real? And had Dorothy come suddenly upon his
+track? If she only could find out!
+
+Without fear of consequences to herself and forgetful of that
+retiring-rule she tip-toed noiselessly in the wake of whatever was in
+advance, and so came at last to the door of the drying-room. It stood
+ajar and whatever had preceded her passed beyond it as the girl came
+to it.
+
+She also entered, curiosity setting every nerve a-tingle, yet she
+still unafraid. Stepping behind the open door she waited what next,
+and trying to accustom her eyes to the absolute darkness of the place.
+The long row of windows on the outer wall were covered by wooden
+shutters, as she had noticed from the ground, and with them closed the
+only light which could enter came through a small scuttle, or skylight
+in the center of the ceiling.
+
+From her retreat behind the door she listened breathlessly. The
+rat-a-tat-tat had died away in the distance, whither she now dared not
+follow because of the darkness; and presently she heard a noise like
+the slipping of boards in a cattle shed.
+
+Then footsteps returning, swiftly and softly, as of one in bare or
+stockinged feet. There was a rush past her, the door to which she
+clung was snatched from her and shut with a bang. This sound went
+through her with a thrill, and vividly there arose the memory of a
+night long past when she had been imprisoned in an empty barn, by the
+wild freak of an old acquaintance of the mountain, and half-witted
+Peter Piper for sole companion. Then swiftly she felt her way back
+along the door till her hand was on its lock--which she could not
+move. Here was a situation suitable, indeed, for any Hallowe'en!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+THE NIGHT THAT FOLLOWED
+
+
+It was long past the hour when, on ordinary nights, Oak Knowe would
+have been in darkness, relieved only by a glimmer here and there, at
+the head of some stairway, and in absolute stillness.
+
+But the Hallowe'en party had made everything give way and the servants
+were up late, putting the great Assembly Hall into the spotless order
+required for the routine of the next day.
+
+Nut shells and scattered pop corn, apple-skins that had been tossed
+over the merrymakers' shoulders to see what initial might be formed,
+broken masks that had been discarded, fragments of the flimsy
+costumes, splashes of spilled cider, scattered crumbs and misplaced
+furniture, made Dawkins and her aids lift hands in dismay as, armed
+with brooms and scrubbing brushes they came to "clear up."
+
+"Clear up, indeed! Never was such a mess as this since ever I set foot
+at Oak Knowe. After the sweepin' the scrubbin'; and after the
+scrubbin' the polishin', and the chair fetchin' and--my heart! 'Tis
+the dear bit lassie she is, but may I be further afore Dorothy Dixie
+gets up another Hallowe'en prank!" grumbled Dawkins, yet with a tender
+smile on her lips, remembering the thousand and one trifles which the
+willing girl had done for her.
+
+For Dawkins was growing old. Under her maid's cap the hair was thin
+and gray, and stooping to pick up things the girls had carelessly
+thrown down was no longer an easy task.
+
+The rules against carelessness were stringent enough and fairly well
+obeyed, yet among three hundred lively girls some rules were bound to
+be ignored. But from the first, as soon as she understood them,
+Dorothy had been obedient to all these rules; and it was Dawkins's
+pride, when showing visitors through the building to point to Dolly's
+cubicle as a model. Here was never an article left out of place;
+because not only school regulations but real affection for the maid,
+who had been her first friend at Oak Knowe, made Dorothy "take care."
+
+Then busy at their tasks, the workers talked of the evening's events
+and laughingly recalled the incident of the goat, which they had
+witnessed from the upper gallery; a place prepared for them by the
+good Bishop's orders, that nobody at his great school should be
+prohibited from enjoying a sight of the pupils' frequent
+entertainments.
+
+"But sure, 'tis that lad, Jack, which frets me as one not belongin' to
+Oak Knowe," said Dora, with conviction.
+
+"Not belonging? Why, woman alive, he's been here longer nor yourself.
+'Twas his mother that's gone, was cook here before the _chef_ and pity
+for his orphaned state the reason he's stayed since. But I own ye,
+he's not been bettered by his summers off, when the school's not
+keepin' and him let work for any farmer round. I note he's a bit more
+prankish an' disobliging, every fall when he comes back. For some
+curious reason--I can't dream what--he's been terrible chummy with
+Miss Gwendolyn. Don't that beat all?" said Dawkins whirling her brush.
+
+"I don't know--I don't really know as 'tis. He's forever drawing
+pictures round of every created thing, and she's come across him doin'
+it. She's that crazy for drawing herself that she's likely took an
+int'rest in him. I heard her puttin' notions in his head, once,
+tellin' him how 't some the greatest painters ever lived had been born
+just peasants like him."
+
+"Huh! Was that what made him so top-lofty and up-steppin'? When I told
+him he didn't half clean the young ladies' shoes, tossin' his head
+like the simpleton he is, and saucin' back as how he wouldn't be a
+boot-boy all his life. I'd find out one these days whom I'd been
+tongue-lashin' so long and'd be ashamed to look him in the face. Huh!"
+added another maid.
+
+"Well, why bother with such as him, when we've all this to finish, and
+me to go yet to my dormitory to see if all's right with my young
+ladies," answered Dawkins and silence fell, till the task was done and
+the great room in the perfect order required for the morning.
+
+Then away to her task above hurried good Dawkins and coming to
+Dorothy's cubicle found its bed still untouched and its light brightly
+burning. The maid stared and gasped. What did this mean? Had harm
+befallen her favorite?
+
+Then she smiled at her own fears. Of course, Dorothy was in the room
+with little Grace, where the cot once prepared for her still remained
+because the child had so begged; in "hopes I'll be sick some more and
+Dolly'll come again." So Dawkins turned off the light and hurried to
+her reclining chair in the outer hall, where she usually spent the
+hours of her watch.
+
+But no sooner had she settled herself there than all her uneasiness
+returned. Twisting and turning on her cushions she fretted:
+
+"I don't see what's got into this chair, the night! Seems if I can't
+get a comfortable spot in it anywhere. Maybe, it's 'cause I'm extra
+tired. Hallowe'en pranks are fun for the time but there's a deal hard
+work goes along with 'em. Or any other company fixings, for that
+matter. I wonder was the little Grace scared again, by that ridic'lous
+goat? Is that why Dorothy went with her? Where'd the beast come from,
+anyway? And who invited it to the masquerade? Not the good Bishop,
+I'll be bound. Now, what does make me so uneasy! Sure there's nought
+wrong with dear little Dixie. How could there be under this safe
+roof?"
+
+But the longer Dawkins pondered the matter the more restless she grew;
+till, at last, she felt she must satisfy her mind, even at the cost of
+disturbing the Lady Principal; and a moment later tapped at her door,
+asking softly:
+
+"Are you awake, Miss Muriel? It's Dawkins."
+
+"Yes, Dawkins, come in. I've not been able to sleep yet. I suppose the
+evening's care and excitement has tired me too much. What is it you
+want? Anything wrong in the dormitory?"
+
+"Well, not to say wrong--or so I hope. I just stepped here to ask is
+Miss Dorothy Calvert staying the night?"
+
+"Staying with Grace? No, indeed, the child has been asleep for hours:
+perfectly satisfied now that I and so many others have seen the
+apparition she had, and so proved her the truthful little creature
+she'd always been."
+
+That seemed a very long answer to impatient Dawkins and she clipped it
+short by asking:
+
+"Then, Ma'am, where do you suppose she is?"
+
+"What? Do you mean that she isn't in her own place?"
+
+"No, Ma'am, nor sign of her; and it's terr'ble strange, 'pears to me.
+I don't like the look of it, Ma'am, I do not."
+
+"Pooh! don't make a mystery out of it, my good woman!" replied Miss
+Tross-Kingdon, yet with a curious flutter in her usually stern voice.
+Then she considered the matter for a moment, finally directing:
+
+"Go to the hospital wing and ask if she's there with Gwendolyn. She's
+been so sorry for the girl and I noticed her slipping out of Assembly
+with a plate full of the things Mr. Gilpin brought. I don't remember
+her coming back, but she was certainly absent when her violin was
+asked for. Doubtless, you'll find her there, but be careful not to
+rouse any of the young ladies. Then come back and report."
+
+Dawkins tip-toed away, glad that she had told her anxiety to her
+mistress. But she was back from her errand before it seemed possible
+she could be, her face white and her limbs trembling with fear of--she
+knew not what!
+
+"If it was any girl but her, Ma'am! That keeps the rules better nor
+any other here!"
+
+"Hush, good Dawkins. She's all right somewhere, as we shall soon
+discover. We'll go below and look in all the rooms, in case she might
+be ill, or locked in some of them."
+
+"Yes, yes, Ma'am, we'll look. Ill she might really be after all them
+nuts an' trash, but locked in she can't be, since never a lock is
+turned in this whole house. Sure the Bishop wouldn't so permit, seeing
+that if it fired any time them that was locked up could not so easy
+get out. And me the last one down, to leave all in the good order you
+like."
+
+"Step softly still, Dawkins. It would take very little to start a
+panic among our many girls should they hear that anything was amiss."
+
+Each took a candle from the rack in the hall and by the soft light of
+these began their search below, not daring to flash on the electric
+lights whose brilliance might possibly arouse the sleepers in the
+house. Dawkins observed that the Lady Principal, walking ahead, was
+shaking, either with cold or nervousness, and, as for herself, her
+teeth were fairly chattering.
+
+Of course their search proved useless. Nowhere in any of those first
+floor rooms was any trace of the missing girl. Even closets were
+examined while Dawkins peered behind the furniture and curtains, her
+heart growing heavier each moment.
+
+Neither mistress nor maid spoke now, though the former led the way
+upwards again and silently inspected the dormitories on each floor.
+Also, she looked into each private room of the older and wealthier
+pupils, but the result was the same--Dorothy had as completely
+disappeared as if she had been bodily swallowed up.
+
+Then the aid of the other maids and, even of a few teachers was
+secured, although that the school work might go on regularly the next
+day, not many of these latter were disturbed.
+
+At daybreak, when the servants began to gather in the great kitchen,
+each to begin his daily tasks, the Lady Principal surprised them by
+her appearance among them. In the briefest and quietest manner
+possible she told them what had happened and begged their help in the
+search.
+
+But she was unprepared for the result. A housemaid threw up her hands
+in wild excitement, crying: "'Tis ten long years I've served Oak Knowe
+but my day is past! Her that went some syne was the wise one. I'll not
+tarry longer to risk the health o' me soul in a house that's haunted
+by imps!"
+
+"Nor me! Him that's snatched off to his wicked place the sweet, purty
+gell, of the willin' word an' friendly smile, 'll no long spare such
+as me! A fine collectin' ground for the Evil One is so big a school
+as this. I'm leavin' the dustin' to such as can do it, but I'm off,
+Ma'am, and better times for ye, I'm sure!" cried another superstitious
+creature.
+
+This was plain mutiny. For a moment the lady's heart sank at the
+prospect before her, for the panic would spread if not instantly
+quelled, and there were three hundred hungry girls awaiting
+breakfast--and breakfast but one feature of the case. Should these
+servants leave, to spread their untrue tales, new ones would be almost
+impossible to obtain. Then, summoning her authority, she demanded:
+
+"Silence and attention from all of you. I shall telephone for the
+constabulary, and any person who leaves Oak Knowe before Miss Calvert
+is found will leave it for the lock-up. The housemaids are excused
+from ordinary duties and are to assist the _chef_ in preparing
+breakfast. The rest of you, who have retained your common sense, are
+to spread yourselves about the house and grounds, and through every
+outbuilding till some one of you shall find the girl you all have
+loved. Leave before then? I am ashamed of your hard hearts."
+
+With stately dignity the mistress left the kitchen and a much subdued
+force of helpers behind her. That threat of "the constabulary" was an
+argument not to be defied.
+
+"Worst of it is, she meant it. Lady Principal never says a thing she
+doesn't mean. So--Well, I suppose I'll have to stay, then, for who
+wants to get took up? But it's hard on a workin' woman 't she can't do
+as she likes," muttered the first deserter and set about her duties.
+Also, as did she so did the others.
+
+Meanwhile how had the night passed with the imprisoned Dorothy? At
+first with greater anger than fear; anger against the unknown person
+who had shut that door upon her. Then she thought:
+
+"But of course he didn't know, whoever it was. I'm sure it was a man
+or boy, afraid, maybe, to make a noise account of its being late. Yet
+what a fix I'm in! Nobody will know or come to let me out till Dawkins
+goes her rounds and that'll be very, very late, on account of her
+clearing up the mess we made down in Assembly. My! what a fine time we
+had! And how perfectly grand that Gwendolyn and I should be friends at
+last. She kissed me. Gwendolyn Borst-Kennard kissed me! It's worth
+even being shut up here alone, behind that spring-locked door, just to
+be friends. I'm so sleepy. I wish I could find something to put around
+me and I'd lie right down on this floor and take a nap till somebody
+lets me out."
+
+Then she remembered that once she had heard Dawkins telling another
+maid that there were "plenty more blankets in the old drying-room if
+her 'beds' needed 'em;" and maybe she could find some if she tried.
+
+"This is the very darkest place could ever be, seems if! ouch! that
+hurt!" said the prisoner aloud, to bolster her own courage, and as she
+stumbled against a trunk that bruised her ankle. "I'll take more
+care."
+
+So she did: reasoning that people generally piled things against a
+wall, that is, in such a place, for greater convenience. With
+outstretched hands she felt her way and at last was rewarded by
+finding the blankets she sought. Here, too, were folded several cots,
+that were needed at times, like Commencement, when many strangers were
+at Oak Knowe. But she didn't trouble to set up one of these, even if
+she could have done so in that gloom. But a blanket she could manage,
+and beside the cots she could feel a heap of them. In a very few
+minutes she had pulled down several of these and spread them on the
+floor; and a little later had wrapped them about her and was sound
+asleep--"as a bug in a rug, like Dawkins says," her last, untroubled
+thought. So, though a prisoner, for many hours she slumbered
+peacefully.
+
+Down in the breakfast-room matters went on as usual. Or if many of the
+girls and a few of the pupils seemed unduly sleepy, that was natural
+enough, considering the frivolities and late hours of the night
+before.
+
+Even the Lady Principal, sitting calmly in her accustomed place,
+looked very pale and tired; and Winifred, observing this, whispered to
+her neighbor:
+
+"I don't believe we'll get another party very soon. Just look at Miss
+Tross-Kingdon. She's as white as a ghost and so nervous she can hardly
+sit still. I never saw her that way before. The way she keeps glancing
+toward the doors, half-scared every time she hears a noise, is queer.
+I wonder if she's expecting somebody!"
+
+"Likely somebody's late and she's waiting to say: 'Miss'--whoever it
+is--'your excuse, please?' I wonder who 'twill be! and say, look at
+the Aldrich ten--can you see Dorothy?"
+
+Winifred glanced around and answered, with real surprise: "Why, she's
+absent! If it were I nobody'd be astonished, 'cause I always have the
+same excuse: 'Overslept.' But Dolly? Oh! I hope she isn't sick!"
+
+And immediately the meal was over, Winifred hurried to the Lady
+Principal and asked:
+
+"Please, Miss Muriel, can you tell me, is Dorothy Calvert ill?"
+
+"Excuse me, Winifred, I am extremely busy," returned Miss
+Tross-Kingdon, and hurried away as if she were afraid of being
+questioned further.
+
+Naturally, Winifred was surprised, for despite her sternness the Lady
+Principal was invariably courteous; and putting "two and two together"
+she decided that Dorothy was in trouble of some sort and began a
+systematic inquiry of all she met concerning her. But nobody had seen
+the girl or knew anything about her; yet the questioner's anxiety
+promptly influenced others and by the time school session was called
+there was a wide-spread belief that some dreadful thing had befallen
+the southerner, and small attention was paid to lessons.
+
+It was not until the middle of the morning that Jack-boot-boy appeared
+in the kitchen, from his room in an outside building, where the men
+servants slept. He was greeted by reproofs for his tardiness and the
+news of Dorothy's disappearance.
+
+"Lost? Lost, you say? How can she be right here in this house? Why, I
+saw her around all evening. It was her own party, wasn't it? or hers
+was the first notion of it. Huh! That's the queerest! S'pose the
+faculty'll offer a reward? Jiminy cricket! Wish they would! I bet I'd
+find her. Why, sir, I'd make a first rate detective, I would. I've
+been readin' up on that thing an' I don't know but it would pay me
+better'n paintin', even if I am a 'born artist,' as Miss Gwendolyn
+says."
+
+"Born nincompoop! That's what you are, and the all-conceitedest
+lazybones 't ever trod shoe leather! Dragging out of bed this time o'
+day, and not a shoe cleaned--in my dormitory, anyway!" retorted
+Dawkins, in disgust.
+
+"Huh! old woman, what's the matter with you? And why ain't you _in_
+bed, 'stead of out of it? I thought all you night-owls went to bed
+when the rest of us got up. You need sleep, you do, for I never knowed
+you crosser'n you be now--which is sayin' consid'able!"
+
+Dawkins was cross, there was no denying that, for her nerves were
+sadly shaken by her fears for the girl she had learned to love so
+dearly.
+
+"You get about your business, boy, at once; without tarryin' to pass
+remarks upon your betters;" and she made a vicious dash toward him as
+if to strike him. He knew this was only pretence, and sidled toward
+her, mockingly, then, as she raised her hand again--this time with
+more decision--he cowered aside and made a rush out of the kitchen.
+
+"Well, that's odd! The first time I ever knew that boy to turn down
+his breakfast!" remarked the _chef_, pointing to a heaped up plate at
+the back of the range. "Well, I shan't keep it any longer. He'll have
+the better appetite for dinner, ha, ha!"
+
+Jack's unusual indifference to good food was due to a sound he had
+overheard. It came from somewhere above and passed unnoticed by all
+but him, but set him running to a distant stairway which led from "the
+old laundry" to the drying-loft above: and a sigh of satisfaction
+escaped him as he saw that the door of this was shut.
+
+"Lucky for me, that is! I was afraid they'd been looking here for that
+Calvert girl, but they haven't, 'cause the lock ain't broke and the
+key's in my pocket," said he, in a habit he had of talking to himself.
+
+The noise beyond the door increased, and worried him, and he hurriedly
+sought the key where he usually carried it. The door could be, and had
+been, closed by a spring, but it needed that key to open it, as he had
+boastingly remembered. Unhappy lad! In not one of his many and ragged
+pockets could that key now be found! While in the great room beyond
+the noise grew loud, and louder, with each passing second and surely
+would soon be heard by all the house. Under the circumstances nobody
+would hesitate to break that hateful lock to learn the racket's cause;
+yet what would happen to him when this was discovered?
+
+What, indeed! Yet, strangely enough, in all his trepidation there was
+no thought of Dorothy.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+OPEN CONFESSION IS GOOD FOR THE SOUL
+
+
+A housemaid, passing through the disused "old laundry" on the ground
+floor, as a short-cut toward the newer one in a detached building,
+heard a strange noise in the drying-room overhead, and paused to
+listen. This was unusual. In ordinary the loft was never entered,
+nowadays, except by some slippered maid, or Michael with a trunk.
+
+Setting down her basket of soiled linen she put her hands on her hips
+and stood motionless, intently listening. Dorothy? Could it be
+Dorothy? Impossible! No living girl could make all that racket;
+yet--was that a scream? Was it laughter--terror--wild animal--or what?
+
+Away she sped; her nimble feet pausing not an instant on the way, no
+matter with whom she collided nor whom her excited face frightened,
+and still breathlessly running came into the great Assembly Hall.
+There Miss Tross-Kingdon had, by the advice of the Bishop, gathered
+the whole school; to tell them as quietly as she could of Dorothy's
+disappearance and to cross-examine them as to what anyone could
+remember about her on the evening before.
+
+For the sorrowful fact could no longer be hidden--Dorothy Calvert was
+gone and could not be found.
+
+On the faces of those three hundred girls was consternation and grief;
+in their young hearts a memory of the "spookish" things which had
+happened of late, but that had not before disturbed them; and now, at
+the excited entrance of the maid, a shiver ran over the whole company.
+Here was news! Nothing less could explain this unceremonious
+disturbance. Even Miss Muriel's face turned paler than it had been,
+could that have been possible and without a word she waited for the
+maid to speak.
+
+"Oh! Lady Principal! Let somebody come! The drying-loft!
+screams--boards dragging--or trunks--or murder doing--maybe! Let
+somebody go quick--Michael--a man--men--Somebody quick!"
+
+Exhausted by her own excitement, the maid sank upon the nearest chair,
+her hand on her heart, and herself unable to add another word. Miss
+Tross-Kingdon rose, trembling so that she could hardly walk, and made
+her way out of the room. In an instant every assembled schoolgirl was
+on her feet, speeding toward the far west wing and the great loft,
+dreading yet eager to see what would there be revealed.
+
+Still anxious on his own account, but from a far different cause, and
+still listening at the closed door with wonder at what seemed going on
+behind it, was Jack, the boot-boy. At the approach of the excited
+girls, he lifted his ear from the keyhole and looked behind him, to
+find himself trapped, as it were, at this end of the narrow passage by
+the multitude which swarmed about him, feverishly demanding:
+
+"Boy, what is it? What is it? Is Dorothy in there? Is Dorothy found?"
+
+"Is Dorothy--"
+
+Poor Jack! This was the worst yet! At full comprehension of what that
+question meant, even he turned pale and his lips stuttered:
+
+"I--I--dunno--I--Jiminy cricket!"
+
+He must get out of that! He must--he must! Before that door was opened
+he must escape!
+
+Frantically he tried to force his way backward through the crowd which
+penned him in, but could make little progress; even that being
+suddenly cut off by a strong hand laid on his shoulder and the _chef_
+forcing into his hand a stout crowbar, and ordering:
+
+"Help to break her down!" at the same instant Michael, the porter,
+pressing to his side armed with an ax. "Now, all together!" cried he,
+and whether or no, Jack was compelled to aid in the work of breaking
+in.
+
+But it was short work, indeed, and the crowd surged through the
+opening in terror of what they might behold--only to have that terror
+changed into shouts of hilarious delight.
+
+For there was Dorothy! not one whit the worse for her brief
+imprisonment and happily unconscious of the anxiety which that had
+caused to others. And there was Baal, the goat! Careering about the
+place, dragging behind him a board to which he had been tied and was
+unable to dislodge. The room was fairly lighted now by the sun
+streaming through the skylight, and Baal had been having a glorious
+time chasing Dorothy about the great room, from spot to spot,
+gleefully trying to butt her with his horns, leaping over piles of
+empty trunks, and in general making such a ridiculous--if sometimes
+dangerous--spectacle of himself, that Dorothy, also, had had a merry
+time.
+
+"Oh! you darling, you darling!" "Dolly Doodles, how came you here!"
+"Why did you do it? You've scared us all almost to death!" "The Bishop
+has gone into town to start detectives on your track!" "The Lady
+Principal--Here she is now! you've made her positively ill, and as for
+Dawkins, they say she had completely collapsed and lies on her chair
+moaning all the time."
+
+"Oh, oh! How dreadful! And how sorry I am! I never dreamed; oh! dear
+Miss Muriel, do believe me--listen, listen!"
+
+The lady sat down on a trunk and drew the girl to her. Her only
+feeling now was one of intensest gratitude, but she remembered how all
+the others had shared her anxiety and bade her recovered pupil tell
+the story so that all might hear. It was very simple, as has been
+seen, and needs no repetition here, ending with the heartfelt
+declaration:
+
+"That cures me of playing detective ever again! I was so anxious to
+stop all that silly talk about evil spirits and after all the only
+such around Oak Knowe was Baal!"
+
+"But how Baal, and why? And most of all how came he here in the
+house?" demanded Miss Tross-Kingdon, looking from one to another;
+until her eye was arrested by the expression of Jack, the boot-boy's
+face. That was so funny she smiled, seeing it, and asked him:
+
+"Can't you explain this, Jack?"
+
+"Uh--er--Ah! Wull--wull, yes, Ma'am, I allow 't I might. I mean 't I
+can. Er--sho!--Course, I'll have to. Wull--wull--You see, Miss Lady
+Principal, how as last summer, after school was took in, I hired
+myself out to work for old John Gilpin an' he had a goat. Dame didn't
+hanker for it no great; said it et up things an' got into places where
+'twarn't wanted and she adwised him, that is to say she told him, how
+'t he must get rid of it. He got rid of it onto me. I hadn't got
+nobody belongin' and we've been first rate friends, Baal and me."
+
+This was evidenced by the quietude of the animal, now lying at the
+boot-boy's feet in affectionate confidence, and refreshing itself with
+a nap, after its hilarious exercise.
+
+"Strange that we didn't know he was on our grounds, for I did not.
+Where have you kept him, Jack, and how?"
+
+The lad flushed and fidgetted but dared not refuse to reply. He had
+been too long under the authority of Miss Tross-Kingdon for that, to
+whose good offices his mother had left him when she died.
+
+"Wull--Wull--"
+
+"Kindly stop 'wulling' and reply. It is nearly lunch time and Dorothy
+has had no breakfast."
+
+"Yes, Miss Muriel, please but I have. When I waked up after I'd slept
+so long it was real light, so I went poking around to see if I could
+find another door that would open, or any way out; and I came to a
+queer place away yonder at the end; and I heard the funniest
+noise--'ih-ih-ih--Ah-umph!' something like that. Then I knew it was
+the goat, that I'd heard pat-pat-pattering along the hall last night
+and that I'd followed. And I guessed it was Jack, instead of a
+burglar, who'd rushed past me and locked me in. I was mighty glad to
+see anybody, even a goat, and I opened the gate to the place and Baal
+jumped out. He was tied to that board--he'd pulled it off the gate,
+and was as glad to see me as I was him. That little sort of cupboard,
+or cubby-hole, had lots of excelsior in it; I guess it had come around
+crockery or something, and that was where Baal slept. There was a tin
+box there, too, and I opened it. I was glad enough then! For it was
+half full of cakes and apples and a lemon pie, that you call a
+'Christchurch' up here in Canada; and before I knew it Baal had his
+nose in the box, like he was used to eating out of it, and I had to
+slap his nose to make him let me have a share. So I'm not hungry and
+all I care is that I have made you all so worried."
+
+But already that was almost forgotten, though Miss Muriel's curiosity
+was not yet satisfied.
+
+"Jack, are you in the habit of keeping that animal here, in this
+room?"
+
+"Yes--yes, Ma'am; times I am. Other times he stays in the old
+shed down by the brook. Most of the men knew I had him; Michael
+did, anyhow. He never said nothing again' it;" answered the boy,
+defiantly, trying to shift responsibility to the old porter, the
+most trusted servant of the house.
+
+"No, I cannot imagine Michael meddling with you and your foolishness;
+and for a lad who's lived so long at a great school, I wonder to hear
+such bad grammar from your lips. How did you get Baal into this room
+without being detected in it?"
+
+"Why, Ma'am, that was easy as preachin'. That back end, outside steps,
+what leads up from the ground for carrying up wet clothes, it used to
+be. He comes up that way, for goats can climb any place. Leastwise,
+Baal can, and the door's never locked no more, 'cause I lost the key;"
+answered Jack, who was now the center of attention and proud of the
+fact.
+
+"Very well, Jack. That will do. Kindly see to it that Baal is
+permanently removed from Oak Knowe, and--" She paused for a moment, as
+if about to add more, then quietly moved away, with Dorothy beside her
+and all her now happy flock following.
+
+Never before had the laughter and chatter of her girls sounded so
+musical in her ears, nor her own heart been lighter than now, in its
+rebound from her recent anxiety. She wasn't pleased with Jack, the
+boot-boy; decidedly she was not pleased. She had not been since his
+return from his summer's work, for he had not improved either in
+industry or behavior. She had not liked the strange interest which
+Gwendolyn had taken in his slight gift for drawing, which that
+enthusiastic young artist called "remarkable," but which this more
+experienced instructor knew would never amount to anything.
+
+Yet that was a matter which could wait. Meanwhile, here was a broken
+day, with everybody still so excited that lessons would be merely
+wasted effort; so, after she had sent Dorothy to put on her ordinary
+school dress, she informed the various classes that no more work was
+required that day and that after lunch there would be half-holiday for
+all her pupils.
+
+"Hurrah! Hurrah! Three cheers for Dolly and may she soon get lost
+again!" shouted Winifred, and, for once, was not rebuked because of
+unladylike manners.
+
+Left to himself, Jack regarded his beloved Baal, in keen distress.
+
+"Said you'd got to go, did she? Well, if you go I do, too. Anyhow I'm
+sick to death of cleaning nasty girls', or nasty shoes o' a lot o'
+girls--ary way you put it. Boot-boy, Baal! Think o' that. If that
+ain't a re--restrick-erated life for a artist, like Miss Gwen says I
+am; or uther a dectective gentleman--I'd like to know. No, sir, Baal!
+We'll quit an' we'll do it to once. Maybe they won't feel sorry when
+they find me gone an' my place empty to the table! Maybe them girls
+that laughed when that old schoolmarm was a pitchin' into me afore all
+them giggling creatures, maybe they won't feel bad, a-lookin' at that
+hull row of shoes outside cubicle doors waiting to be cleaned and not
+one touched toward it! Huh! It'll do all them 'ristocratics good to
+have to clean 'em themselves. All but Miss Gwendolyn. She's the
+likeliest one of the hull three hundred. I hate--I kinder hate to
+leave her. 'Artists has kindred souls,' she said once when she was
+showin' me how to draw that skull. Who can tell? I might get to be
+more famouser'n her, smart as she is; an' I might grow up, and her
+too, and I might come to her house--or is it a turreted castle?--an' I
+might take my fa--famousness an' offer it to her to marry me! And
+then, when her folks couldn't hardly believe that I was I, and her old
+boot-boy, maybe they'd say 'Yes, take her, my son! I'm proud to
+welcome into our 'ristocraticy one that has riz from a boot-boy to our
+rank!' Many a story-book tells o' such doings, an' what's in them
+ought to be true. Good for 't I can buy 'em cheap. The Bishop caught
+me reading one once and preached me a reg'lar sermon about it. Said
+that such kind of literatoor had ruined many a simple fellow and would
+me if I kep' on. But even Bishops don't know everything, though I
+allow he's a grand old man. I kind of sorter hate to leave Oak Knowe
+on his account, he takes such an int'rest in me. But he'll get over
+it. He'll have to, for we're going, Baal an' me, out of this house
+where we're wastin' our sweetness on the desert air. My jiminy
+cricket! If a boy that can paint pictures and recite poetry like I
+can, can't rise above shoe-cleanin' and get on in this world--I'd like
+to know the reason why! Come, Baal! I'll strap my clothes in a bundle,
+shake the dust of old Oak Knowe offen me, and hie away to seek my
+fortune--and your'n."
+
+Nobody interfering, Jack proceeded to put this plan into action; but
+it was curious that, as he reached the limits of Oak Knowe grounds, he
+turned and looked back on the big, many-windowed house, and at the
+throngs of happy girls who were at "recreation" on the well-kept
+lawns. A sort of sob rose in his throat and there was a strange
+sinking in his stomach that made him most uncomfortable. He couldn't
+tell that this was "homesickness," and he tried to forget it in
+bitterness against those whom he was deserting.
+
+"They don't care, none of 'em! Not a single mite does anyone of them
+'ristocratics care what becomes of--of poor Jack, the boot-boy! Come
+on, Baal! If we don't start our seekin' pretty quick--Why jiminy
+cricket I shall be snivellin'!"
+
+Saying this, the self-exiled lad gripped the goat's leading strap and
+set out at a furious pace down the long road toward the distant city.
+He had a dime novel in one pocket, an English sixpence in another--And
+what was this?
+
+"My soul! If there ain't the key to that old door they broke in to see
+what was racketing round so! I wonder if I ought to take it back?
+Baal, what say? That cubby of our'n wasn't so bad. You know, Baal, I
+wouldn't like to be a thief--not a reg'lar thief that'd steal a key.
+Course I wouldn't. Anyhow, I've left, I've quit. I'm seekin' my
+fortune--understand? Whew! The wind's risin'. I allow there's going to
+be a storm. I wish--Old Dawkins used to say: 'Better take two thoughts
+to a thing!' an' maybe, maybe, if I'd ha' waited a spell afore--I mean
+I wouldn't ha' started fortune-seekin' till to-morrow and the storm
+over. Anyhow, I've really started, though! And if things don't happen
+to my mind, I can show 'em what an honest boy I am by takin' back that
+key. Come on, Baal, do come on! What in creation makes you drag so on
+that strap and keep lookin' back? Come on, I say!"
+
+Then, both helping and hindering one another, the lad and his pet
+passed out of sight and for many a day were seen no more in that
+locality.
+
+Yet the strange events of that memorable day were not all over. At
+study hour, that evening, came another surprise--a visit to her mates
+of the invalid Gwendolyn. From some of them she received only a silent
+nod of welcome; but Laura, Marjorie, and Dorothy sprang to meet her
+with one accord, and Winifred followed Dorothy's example after a
+second's hesitation.
+
+"Oh, Gwen! How glad we are to have you back! Are you sure you're quite
+strong enough to come?" questioned Marjorie, while less judicious
+Laura exclaimed:
+
+"But you can't guess what you've missed! We've had the greatest scare
+ever was in this school! You'd ought to have come down sooner. What do
+you think it was that happened? Guess--quick--right away! Or I can't
+wait to tell! I'll tell anyhow! Dorothy was lost and everybody feared
+she had been killed! Yes, Gwen, lost all the long night through and
+had to sleep with the goat and--"
+
+Gwendolyn's face was pale from her confinement in the sick room but it
+grew paler now, and catching Dorothy's hand she cried out:
+
+"Oh! what if I had been too late!"
+
+Nobody understood her, not even Dorothy herself, who merely guessed
+that Gwen was referring to their interview of the night before; but
+she didn't know this proud girl fully, nor the peculiar nature of that
+pride which, once aroused, compelled her to do what she most shrank
+from. As Dorothy pushed a chair forward, Gwendolyn shook her head.
+
+"Thank you, but not yet. I've got something to say--that all of you
+must hear."
+
+Of course, everybody was astonished by this speech and every eye
+turned toward the young "Peer" who was about to prove herself of noble
+"rank" as never in all her life before.
+
+Dorothy began to suspect what might be coming and by a silent clasp of
+Gwendolyn's waist and a protesting shake of her head tried to prevent
+her saying more.
+
+But Gwendolyn as silently put aside the appealing arm and folding her
+own arms stood rigidly erect. It wouldn't have been the real Gwen if
+she hadn't assumed this rather dramatic pose, which she had mentally
+rehearsed many times that day. Also, she had chosen this quiet hour
+and place as the most effective for her purpose, and she had almost
+coerced Lady Jane into letting her come.
+
+"Schoolmates and friends, I want to confess to you the meanest things
+that ever were done at dear Oak Knowe. From the moment she came here
+I disliked Dorothy Calvert and was jealous of her. In less than a week
+she had won Miss Muriel's heart as well as that of almost everybody
+else. I thought I could drive her out of the school, if I made the
+rest of you hate her, too. I'd begun to teach the boot-boy to draw,
+having once seen him attempting it. I painted him a death's head for a
+copy, and gave him my pocket-money to buy a mask of the Evil One."
+
+"Oh! Gwendolyn how dared you? You horrid, wicked girl!" cried gentle
+Marjorie, moved from her gentleness for once.
+
+"Well, I'll say this much in justice to myself. That thing went
+further than I meant, which was only to have him put pictures of it
+around in different places. He'd told me about keeping a goat in the
+old drying-room, and of course he couldn't always keep it still. The
+kitchen folks put the pictures and the goat's noises together and
+declared the house was haunted. I told the maids that they might lay
+that all to the new scholar from the States, and a lot of them
+believed me."
+
+Even loyal Laura now shrank aside from her paragon, simply horrified.
+She had helped to spread the rumor that Dorothy was a niece of
+Dawkins, but she had done no worse than that. It had been left to
+Jack-boot-boy to finish the contemptible acts. He got phosphorus from
+the laboratory, paint from any convenient color box, and his first
+success as a terrifier had been in the case of Millikins-Pillikins, at
+whose bed he had appeared--with the results that have been told. He
+it had been who had frightened the maid into leaving, and had spread
+consternation in the kitchen.
+
+"And in all these things he did, I helped him. I planned some of them
+but he always went ahead and thought worse ones out. Yet nobody,
+except the simpletons below stairs, believed it was Dorothy who had
+'bewitched' the house," concluded that part of Gwendolyn's confession.
+
+Yet still she stood there, firmly facing the contempt on the faces of
+her schoolmates, knowing that that was less hard to bear than her own
+self-reproach had been. And presently she went on:
+
+"Then came that affair at the Maiden's Bath. Dorothy Calvert, whom I
+still hated, saved my life--while she might have lost her own. What I
+have suffered since, knowing this and how bravely she had borne all my
+hatefulness and had sacrificed herself for me--You must guess that. I
+can't tell it. But last night I made myself beg her pardon in private
+as I now beg it before you all. May I yet have the chance to do to her
+as she has done to me! Dorothy Calvert--will you forgive me?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+WHAT CAME WITH THE SNOW AND ICE
+
+
+After that memorable week of Hallowe'en, affairs at Oak Knowe settled
+into their ordinary smooth running. That week had brought to all the
+school a surfeit of excitement so that all were glad of quiet and
+peace.
+
+"The classes have never made such even, rapid progress before, in all
+the years I've been here;" said the Lady Principal to the good Bishop.
+"Things are almost ominously quiet and I almost dread to have
+Christmas time approach. All the young ladies get more interested then
+in gift-preparing and anticipations of vacations at home than in
+school routine. I hate to have that interrupted so soon again."
+
+The Bishop laughed.
+
+"My dear Miss Muriel, you take life too seriously. Upheavals are good
+for us. Our lives would grow stagnant without them."
+
+"Beg pardon, but I can't fancy affairs at Oak Knowe ever being
+stagnant! Nor do I see, as you seem to, any fine results from the
+happenings of Hallow week. One of the ill results is--I cannot find a
+competent boot-boy. That makes you smile again, but I assure you it is
+no trifle in a large establishment like this, with it the rule that
+every pupil must walk the muddy road each day. The maids will do the
+work, of course, but they grumble. I do wish the ground would freeze
+or some good boy offer his services."
+
+A rattling of the window panes and a sound of rising wind sent the
+Bishop to the window:
+
+"Well, Miss Tross-Kingdon, one of your wishes is already coming true.
+There's a blizzard coming--surely. Flakes are already falling and I'm
+glad the double sashes are in place on this north side the building,
+and that Michael has seen to having the toboggan slide put in order.
+I prophesy that within a few days all the young folks will be
+tobogganing at a glorious rate. That's one of the things I'm thankful
+for--having been born in Canada where I could slide with the best!"
+
+He turned about and the lady smiled at his boyish enthusiasm. He was a
+man who never felt old, despite his venerable white head, but as he
+moved again toward the fire and Dorothy entered the room a shadow
+crossed his face. He had sent for her because within his pocket lay a
+letter he knew she ought to have, yet greatly disliked to give her.
+All the mail matter coming to the Oak Knowe girls passed first
+through their instructors' hands, though it was a rare occasion when
+such was not promptly delivered.
+
+This letter the Bishop had read as usual, but it had not pleased him.
+It was signed by one James Barlow, evidently a very old friend of
+Dorothy's, and was written with a boyish assumption of authority that
+was most objectionable, the Bishop thought. It stated that Mr. Seth
+Winters was very ill and that Mrs. Calvert was breaking down from
+grief and anxiety concerning him; and that, in the writer's opinion,
+Dorothy's duty lay at home and not in getting an education away up
+there in Canada. "Anybody who really wishes to learn can do that
+anywhere," was the conclusion of this rather stilted epistle.
+
+Now when his favorite came in, happy and eager to greet him, he
+suddenly decided that he would keep that letter to himself for a time,
+until he had written to some other of the girl's friends and found out
+more about the matter.
+
+"Did you send for me, dear Bishop?"
+
+"Well, yes, little girl, I did. There was something I wanted to talk
+to you about, but I've changed my mind and decided to put it off for
+the present;" he answered with a kindly smile that was less bright
+than usual. So that the sensitive girl was alarmed and asked:
+
+"Is it something that I've done but ought not?"
+
+"Bless your bonny face, no, indeed. No, Miss Betty the second, I have
+no fault to find with you. Rather I am greatly delighted by all your
+reports. Just look out of window a minute--what do you see?"
+
+Dorothy still wondered why she had been summoned, but looked out as
+she had been bidden.
+
+"Why, it's snowing! My, how fast, and how all of a sudden! When we
+were out for exercise the sun was shining bright."
+
+"The sun is always shining, dear child, even though clouds of trouble
+often obscure it. Always remember that, little Dorothy, no matter what
+happens."
+
+Then he dropped what the schoolgirls called his "preachy manner" and
+asked:
+
+"How do you like tobogganing?"
+
+"Why--why, of course I don't know. I've never even seen a toboggan,
+except in pictures. They looked lovely."
+
+"Lovely? I should say, but the real thing far lovelier. Miss
+Tross-Kingdon, here, knows my opinion of tobogganing. The finest sport
+there is and one that you unfortunate southerners cannot enjoy in your
+native land. Up here we have everything delightful, ha, ha! But you'll
+have to be equipped for the fun right away. Will you see to it, Miss
+Muriel, that Dorothy has a toboggan rig provided? For Michael will
+have the slides ready, you may be sure. He was born a deal further
+north even than this and snow-and-ice is his native element. Why, the
+honest old fellow can show several prizes he won, in his younger days,
+for skating, ice-boating, tobogganing, and the like. I always feel
+safe when Michael is on hand at the slide to look after his 'young
+leddies.'
+
+"Now, I must go. I have a service in town, to-night, and if I don't
+hurry I'll be caught in this blizzard. You run along, 'Betty' and
+spread the news of the grand times coming."
+
+With a gentle pat of the little hand he held he thus dismissed her,
+and inspired by his talk of the--to her--novel sport, she ran happily
+away, forgetful already of anything more serious.
+
+"Oh! girls! the Bishop says we'll soon have tobogganing!" she cried,
+joining a group gathered about a great wood fire in the library.
+
+"Oh! goody! I was looking at my new suit this very morning. Mother's
+had such a pretty one made for me, a blanket suit of baby blue with
+everything to match--mittens and cap and all! I'm just wild to wear
+it!" answered Fanny Dimock, running to the window to peer out.
+
+"To-morrow's half-holiday. Let's all go help Michael to get the slides
+ready!"
+
+"Of course--if the storm will let us out! Oh glorious!" said Ernesta
+Smith flying to Fanny's side, and trying to see through the great
+flakes, fast packing against the pane and hiding the view without.
+
+But this only increased the gayety within. Electric lights flashed
+out, girl after girl ran to fetch her own coasting suit and to spread
+it before the eyes of her mates.
+
+"Oh! aren't they the sweetest things!" exclaimed the delighted
+Dorothy; "the very prettiest clothes I ever saw!"
+
+Indeed they did make a fine show of color, heaped here and there,
+their soft, thick texture assuring perfect protection from cold. Reds
+and greens, pinks and blues, and snowy white; some fresh from the
+makers' hands, some showing the hard wear of former winters; yet
+all made after the Oak Knowe pattern. A roomy pair of pantaloons,
+to draw over the ordinary clothing from the waist down, ended in
+stocking-shaped feet, fitted for warm wool overshoes. The tunic fell
+below the knees and ended above in a pointed hood, and mittens were
+made fast to the sleeves.
+
+"Lovely, but isn't it terribly clumsy?" asked Dorothy, more closely
+examining one costume.
+
+"Let's show her! Let's have an Indian dance! Hurry up, everybody, and
+dress!"
+
+In a jiffy every girl who owned a costume got into it and the place
+was transformed. For somebody flew to the piano and struck up a lively
+waltz, and away went the girls, catching one another for partner--no
+matter who--whirling and circling, twisting bodies about, arms
+overhead, as in a regular calisthenic figure--till Dorothy was amazed.
+For what looked so thick and clumsy was too soft and yielding to
+hinder grace.
+
+In the midst of the mirth, the portieres were lifted and Gwendolyn
+came in. It was unfortunate that just then the music ended with a
+crash and that the whirling circles paused. For it looked as if her
+coming had stopped the fun, though this was far from true.
+
+Ever since that day of her open confession her schoolmates had
+regarded her with greater respect than ever before. Most of them
+realized how hard that confession had been for so haughty a girl, and
+except for her own manner, many would have shown her marked affection.
+
+When she had ceased speaking on that day an awkward silence followed.
+If she had expected hand-claps or applause she failed to get either.
+The listeners were too surprised to know what to do, and there was
+just as much pride in the young "Peer's" bearing as of old. After a
+moment of waiting she had stalked away and all chance for applause was
+gone.
+
+But she had returned to her regular classes the next morning and mixed
+with the girls at recreation more familiarly than she had formerly
+done; yet still that stiffness remained.
+
+For half-minute, Gwendolyn hesitated just within the entrance, then
+forced herself to advance toward the fireplace and stand there warming
+herself.
+
+"It's getting very cold," she remarked by way of breaking the
+unpleasant silence.
+
+"Yes, isn't it!" returned Winifred; adding under her breath: "Inside
+this room, anyway."
+
+"We're warm enough, dressed up like this," said Marjorie, pleasantly.
+"Dorothy says that the Bishop thinks we'll have tobogganing in a day
+or two, if the snow holds. She's never seen a toboggan nor how we
+dress for the sport, and we brought in our togs to show her. She
+thinks they look too clumsy for words, so we've just been showing her
+that we can move as easily in them as without them. But--my! It's made
+us so warm!"
+
+Gwendolyn turned toward Dorothy with a smile intended to be cordial,
+and asked:
+
+"Is that so, indeed? Then I suppose you'll have to get a rig like ours
+if you want to try the slide."
+
+"Yes, I suppose so. The Bishop asked the Lady Principal to get me one,
+but I don't suppose she can right away. Nobody could go shopping in
+such weather, and I suppose they have to be bought in town."
+
+"The blankets are bought there, but usually the suits are made at home
+before we come; or else by the matron and some of the maids here. I--"
+
+A look of keener interest had come into her face, but she said nothing
+further and a moment later went out again.
+
+As the portieres fell together behind her, Winifred threw up her hands
+in comic despair.
+
+"Whatever is the matter with that girl? or with _me_--or _you_--or
+_you_!" pointing to one and another around her. "She wants to be
+friendly--and so do we! But there's something wrong and I don't know
+what."
+
+"I do," said a sweet-faced "Seventher," who had been quietly studying
+during all this noise. "Poor Gwendolyn is sorry but isn't one bit
+humble. She's absolutely just and has done what she believed right.
+But it hasn't helped her much. She's fully as proud as she ever was,
+and the only way we can help her is by loving her. We've _got_ to love
+her or she'll grow harder than ever."
+
+"You can't make love as you'd make a--a pin-cushion!" returned Florita
+Sheraton, holding up, to illustrate, a Christmas gift she was
+embroidering.
+
+Dorothy listened to this talk, her own heart upbraiding her for her
+failure to "love" Gwen. She liked her greatly and admired her courage
+more.
+
+"Win, let's you and me try and see if that is true, what Florita
+says. Maybe love can be 'made' after all;" she whispered to her
+friend.
+
+"Huh! That'll be a harder job than algebra! I shall fail in both."
+
+"I reckon I shall, too, but we can try--all the same. That won't hurt
+either one of us and I'm awfully sorry for her, she must be so
+lonesome."
+
+"'Pity is akin to love!' You've taken the first step in your climb
+toward Gwen's top-lofty heart!" quoted Winifred. "Climb away and I'll
+boost you as well as I can. I--"
+
+"Miss Dorothy Calvert, the Lady Principal would like to see you in her
+own parlor;" said a maid, appearing at the door.
+
+"What now? You seem to be greatly in demand, to-day, by the powers
+that be, I hope it isn't a lecture the Bishop passed on to her to
+deliver," said Florita as Dorothy rose to obey.
+
+But whatever fear Dolly felt of any such matter was banished by her
+first glance into her teacher's face. Miss Muriel had never looked
+kinder nor better pleased than then, as, holding up a pair of
+beautiful white blankets she said:
+
+"How will these do for the toboggan suit the Bishop wished me to get
+for you?"
+
+"Oh! Miss Muriel! Are those for me and so soon? Why, it's only an hour
+ago, or not much more, since he spoke of it, and how could anybody go
+to town and back in that little while, in such a storm?"
+
+"That wasn't necessary. These were in the house. Do you like them?"
+
+"Like them! They're the softest, thickest, prettiest things! I never
+saw any so fine, even at Aunt Betty's Bellevieu. Do you think I ought
+to have them? Wouldn't cheaper ones answer for messing around in the
+snow?"
+
+"The question of expense is all right, dear, and we're fortunate to
+have the material on hand. Mrs. Archibald will be here, directly, to
+take your measurements. Ah! here she is now."
+
+This was something delightfully different from any "lecture," and even
+Miss Muriel talked more and in higher spirits than usual; till Dorothy
+asked:
+
+"Do you love tobogganing, too, Miss Tross-Kingdon?"
+
+"No, my dear, I'm afraid of it. My heart is rather weak and the swift
+motion is bad for it. But I love to see others happy and some things
+have happened, to-day, which have greatly pleased me. But you must
+talk sliding with Mrs. Archibald. Dignified as she is, she'll show you
+what a true Canadian can do, give her a bit of ice and a hill."
+
+The matron laughed and nodded.
+
+"May the day be long before I tire of my nation's sport! I'm even
+worse than Michael, who's almost daft on the subject."
+
+Then she grew busy with her measurings and clippings, declaring: "It
+just makes me feel bad to put scissors into such splendid blankets as
+these. You'll be as proud as Punch, when I dress you out in the
+handsomest costume ever shot down Oak Knowe slide!"
+
+"Oh! I wish Aunt Betty could see it, too. She does so love nice
+things!"
+
+When Mrs. Archibald and her willing helpers had completed her task and
+Dolly was arrayed in her snow-suit she made, indeed, "the picture"
+which Dawkins called her.
+
+For the weather proved what the Bishop had foretold. The snow fell
+deep and heavy, "just right for packing," Michael said, on the great
+wooden slide whose further end rose to a dizzy height and from whose
+lower one a second timbered "hill" rose and descended.
+
+If the toboggan was in good working order, the momentum gained in the
+descent of the first would carry the toboggans up and over the second;
+and nothing could have been in finer condition than these on that next
+Saturday morning when the sport was to begin. The depression between
+the two slides was over a small lake, or pond, now solidly frozen and
+covered with snow; except in spots where the ice had been cut for
+filling the Oak Knowe ice-houses. Into one of these holes Michael and
+his force had plunged a long hose pipe, and a pump had been contrived
+to throw water upward over the slide.
+
+On the night before men had been stationed on the slide, at intervals,
+to distribute this water over the whole incline, the intense cold
+causing it to freeze the instant it fell; and so well they understood
+their business they had soon rendered it a perfectly smooth slide of
+ice from top to bottom. A little hand-railed stairway, for the ascent
+of the tobogganers, was built into the timbers of the toboggan, or
+incline, itself; and it was by this that they climbed back to the top
+after each descent, dragging their toboggans behind them. At the
+further side of the lake, close to its bank, great blazing fires were
+built, where the merry makers could warm themselves, or rest on the
+benches placed around.
+
+Large as some of the toboggans were they were also light and easily
+carried, some capable of holding a half-dozen girls--"packed close."
+Yet some sleds could seat but two, and these were the handsomest of
+all. They belonged to the girls who had grown proficient in the sport
+and able to take care of themselves; while some man of the household
+always acted as guide on the larger sleds and for the younger pupils.
+
+When Dorothy came out of the great building, that Saturday holiday,
+she thought the whole scene was truly fairyland. The evergreens were
+loaded to the ground with their burden of snow, the wide lawns were
+dazzlingly bright, and the sun shone brilliantly.
+
+"Who're you going to slide with, Dolly? On Michael's sled? I guess the
+Lady Principal will say so, because you're so new to it. Will you be
+afraid?"
+
+"Why should I be afraid? I used to slide down the mountain side when I
+lived at Skyrie. What makes you laugh, Winifred? This won't be very
+different, will it?"
+
+"Wait till you try it! It's perfectly glorious but it isn't just the
+same as sliding down a hill, where a body can stop and step off any
+time. You can't step off a toboggan, unless you want to get killed."
+
+Dorothy was frightened and surprised, and quickly asked:
+
+"How can anybody call that 'sport' which is as dangerous as that? What
+do you mean? I reckon I won't go. I'll just watch you."
+
+It was Winifred's turn to stare, but she was also disappointed.
+
+"Oh! you little 'Fraid-Cat,' I thought you were never afraid of
+anything. That's why I liked you. One why--and there are other
+whys--but don't you back out in this. Don't you dare. When you've got
+that be-a-u-tiful rig and a be-a-u-tiful toboggan to match. I'd hate
+to blush for you, Queen Baltimore!"
+
+"I have no toboggan, Winnie, dear. You know that. I was wondering
+who'd take me on theirs--if--if I try it at all."
+
+Winifred rushed to the other side of the porch and came flying back,
+carrying over her head a toboggan, so light and finely polished that
+it shone; also a lovely cushion of pink and white dragged from one
+hand. This fitted the flat bottom of the sled and was held in place,
+when used, by silver catches. The whole toboggan was of this one
+polished board, curving upward in front according to the most approved
+form, pink tassels floating from its corners that pink silk cords held
+in their place. Across this curving front was stenciled in pink:
+"Dorothy Calvert."
+
+"There, girlie, what do you say to that? Isn't it marked plainly
+enough? Didn't you know about it before? Why all we girls have been
+just wild with envy of you, ever since we saw it among the others."
+
+Dorothy almost caught her breath. It certainly was a beauty, that
+toboggan! But how came she to have it?
+
+"What do you mean, Winifred Christie? Do you suppose the Bishop has
+had it made, or bought it, for me? Looks as if it had cost a lot. And
+Aunt Betty has lost so much money she can't afford to pay for extra
+things--not very high ones--"
+
+"Quit borrowing trouble, Queenie! Who cares where it came from or how
+much it cost? Here it is with your own name on it and if you're too
+big a goose to use it, I shall just borrow it myself. So there you
+are. There isn't a girl here but wouldn't be glad to have first ride
+on it. Am I invited?" and Winifred poked a saucy face under her
+friend's hood.
+
+"Am I?" asked Florita Sheraton, coaxingly throwing her arms around
+Dolly.
+
+"Oh! get away, Flo! You're too big! You'd split the thing in two!"
+said Ernesta, pulling away her chum's arms. "Just look at me, Dolly
+Doodles! Just see how nice and thin I am! Why I'm a feather's weight
+to Flo, and I'm one of the best tobogganers at Oak Knowe. Sure. Ask
+Mrs. Archibald herself, for here she comes all ready for her share of
+the fun!"
+
+"Yes, yes, lassie, you're a fair one at the sport now and give some
+promise o' winning the cup yet!" answered the matron, joining the
+girls and looking as fit and full of life as any of them.
+
+"Hear! Hear! Hurrah for 'Nesta! Three cheers for the champion cup
+winner!"
+
+"And three times three for the girl Dolly chooses to share her first
+slide on the new toboggan!" cried somebody, while a dozen laughing
+faces were thrust forward and as many hands tapped on the breasts of
+the pleaders, signifying: "Choose me!"
+
+The Bishop was already on hand, looking almost a giant in his
+mufflers, and as full of glee as the youngest there. The lady
+Principal, in her furs, had also joined the group, for though she did
+not try the slides, she loved to watch the enjoyment of the others,
+from a warm seat beside the bonfire.
+
+While Dorothy hesitated in her choice, looking from one to another of
+the merry, pleading faces about her, Gwendolyn Borst-Kennard stood a
+little apart, watching with keen interest the little scene before her,
+while the elder members of the group also exchanged some interested
+glances.
+
+"Count us! Count us! That's fair! Begin: 'Intry, mintry, outry, corn;
+wire, brier, apple, thorn. Roly, poly, dimble-dee;--O--U--T spells Out
+goes SHE!'"
+
+Over and over, they laughingly repeated the nonsense-jingle, each girl
+whom the final "she" designated stepping meekly back with pretended
+chagrin, while the "counting out" went on without her. The game
+promised to be so long that the matron begged:
+
+"Do settle it soon, young ladies! We're wasting precious time."
+
+Dorothy laughed and still undecided, happened to glance toward
+Gwendolyn, who had made no appeal for preference, and called out:
+
+"Gwen, dear, will you give me my first lesson? I choose Gwendolyn!"
+
+It was good to see the flush of happiness steal into Gwen's face and
+to see the smile she flashed toward Dorothy. Stepping forward she
+said:
+
+"Thank you, dear. I do appreciate this in you, and you needn't be
+afraid. The Lady Principal knows I can manage a toboggan fairly well,
+and this of yours seems to be an exact copy of my own that I've used
+so long."
+
+Other cheers followed this and in a moment the whole party had spread
+over the white grounds leading to the great slide, the good Bishop
+following more slowly with the other "grown-ups," and softly clapping
+his mittened hands.
+
+"Good! Fine! I like that. Dorothy has ignorantly done the one right
+thing. If she could only guess the secret which lies under all how
+thankful she would be that she made this choice and no other."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+JOHN GILPIN JOINS THE SPORT
+
+
+Old Michael stood on the wide platform at the top of the slide, his
+face aglow with eagerness, and his whole manner altered to boyish
+gayety. His great toboggan was perched on the angle of the incline,
+like a bird poised for flight, while he was bidding his company to:
+"Get on, ladies! Get on and let's be off!"
+
+Behind and around him were the other men employees of Oak Knowe, and
+every one of them, except the _chef_, enthusiastic over the coming
+sport. But he, unhappy mortal, preferred the warmth of his kitchen
+fire to this shivery pastime and had only entered into it to escape
+the gibing tongues of the other servants. Yet in point of costume he
+could "hold his head up with the best"; and the fact that he could, in
+this respect even outshine his comrades was some compensation for his
+cold-pinched toes.
+
+The platform was crowded with toboggans and girls; the air rang with
+jest and laughter; with girlish squeals of pretended fear; and cries
+of: "Don't crowd!" or: "Sit close, sit close!"
+
+"Sit close" they did; the blanketed legs of each tobogganer pressed
+forward on either side of the girl in front, and all hands clasping
+the small rod that ran along the sides of the toboggan.
+
+The slide had been built wide enough for two of the sleds abreast, and
+one side was usually left to the smaller ones of the experienced
+girls, who could be trusted to safely manage their own light craft.
+
+To Michael and the matron was always accorded the honor of first slide
+on the right while the "best singles" coasted alongside on the left.
+That morning, by tacit consent, the new "Dorothy Calvert" was poised
+beside the big "Oak Knowe" and the Honorable Gwendolyn Borst-Kennard
+was a proud and happy girl, indeed, as she took her place upon it as
+guide and protector of ignorant Dorothy.
+
+"She chose me of her own accord! I do believe she begins to really
+love me. Oh! it's so nice to be just free and happy with her as the
+others are!" thought Gwen, as she took her own place and directed her
+mate just how to sit and act. Adding a final:
+
+"Don't you be one bit afraid. I never had an accident sliding and I've
+always done it every winter since I can remember. We're off! Bow your
+head a little and--keep--your--mouth--shut!"
+
+There wasn't time! Dorothy felt a little quiver run through the thing
+on which she sat and a wild rush through icy air! That was all! They
+had reached the bottom of the first slide and began to fly upward over
+the other before she realized a thing. Gwen hadn't even finished her
+directions before they had "arrived!"
+
+The Southerner was too amazed, for a second, to even step off the
+toboggan, but Gwendolyn caught her up, gave her a hearty kiss and hug,
+and demanded:
+
+"Well! Here we are! How do you like it! We've beat! We've beat!"
+
+Dorothy rubbed her eyes. So they had, for at that instant the big Oak
+Knowe fetched up beside them, and its occupants stepped or tumbled
+off, throwing up their hands and cheering:
+
+"Three cheers for the Dorothy Calvert! Queen of the Slide for all This
+Year!"
+
+And liveliest among the cheerers was the once so dignified young
+"Peer," the Honorable Gwen. Dorothy looking into her beaming face and
+hearing her happy voice could scarce believe this to be the same girl
+she had hitherto known. But she had scant time to think for here they
+came, thick and fast, toboggan after toboggan, Seventh Form girls and
+Minims, teachers and pupils, the Bishop and the _chef_, maids and
+men-servants, the matron and old Michael--all in high spirits, all
+apparently talking at once and so many demanding of "Miss Dixie" how
+she liked it, that she could answer nobody.
+
+Then the Bishop pushed back her tasseled hood and smiled into her
+shining eyes:
+
+"Well little 'Betty the Second,' can you beat that down at old
+Baltimore? What do you think now? Isn't it fine--fine? Doesn't it make
+you feel you're a bird of the air? Ah! it's grand--grand. Just tell me
+you like it and I'll let you go."
+
+"I--Yes--I reckon I do! I hadn't time to think. We hadn't started, and
+we were here."
+
+"Up we go. Try her again!" cried one, and the climb back to the top
+promptly began, the men carrying the heavier sleds, the girls their
+lighter ones, Gwendolyn and Dorothy their own between them. Then the
+fun all over again; the jests at awkward starts, the cheers at
+skillful ones, the laughter and good will, till all felt the
+exhilaration of the moment and every care was forgotten.
+
+Many a slide was taken and now Dorothy could answer when asked did she
+like it:
+
+"It's just grand, as the Bishop said. At first I could hardly breathe
+and I was dizzy. Now I do as Gwen tells me and I love it! I should
+like to stay out here all day!"
+
+"Wait till dinner-time! Then you'll be ready enough to go in.
+Tobogganing is the hungriest work--or play--there can possibly be!"
+said Gwendolyn, pirouetting about on the ice as gracefully as on a
+waxed floor, the merriest, happiest girl in all that throng. Not only
+Dorothy but many another observed her with surprise. This was a new
+Gwen, not the stand-offish sort of creature who had once so haughtily
+scorned all their fun. She had always tobogganed, every year that she
+had been in that school, but she had never enjoyed it like this; and
+again as the Bishop regarded her, he nodded his head in satisfaction
+and said to the matron:
+
+"I told you so. I knew it. Do a kindness to somebody and it will
+return to yourself in happiness a thousand fold."
+
+"Thanks, dear Bishop! I'll try to remember," merrily answered she;
+noticing that Gwendolyn had drawn near enough to hear, and taking this
+little preachment to herself to prevent Gwendolyn's doing so. She was
+so pleased by sight of the girl's present happiness that she wished
+nothing to cloud it, and believing herself discussed would certainly
+offend proud, sensitive Gwen.
+
+Almost two hours had passed, and a few were beginning to tire of the
+really arduous sport, with its upward climb, so out of proportion to
+the swift descent; when suddenly fresh shouts of laughter rang out
+from the high platform and those ascending made haste to join the
+others at the top.
+
+There stood old John Gilpin and Robin, the latter's young bones now
+sound and strong again, and himself much the better for his sojourn at
+the cottage with his enforced rest and abundance of good food.
+
+"Well, well! How be ye all? Hearty, you look, and reg'lar circus
+pictures in them warm duds! Good day to your Reverence, Bishop, and I
+hope I see you in good health. My humble respects, your Reverence, and
+I thought as how I'd just step up and ask your Reverence might my lad
+here and me have a try on your slide. I thought--why, sir, the talk
+on't has spread way into town a'ready, sir, and there'll be more
+beggars nor me seekin' use on't, your Reverence--"
+
+The prelate's hearty laughter rang out on the frosty air, a sound
+delightful to hear, so full it was of genial humanity, and he grasped
+the hand of the old teamster as warmly as he would that of a far
+wealthier man.
+
+"Man to man, John, we're all in the same boat to-day. Drop the
+formality and welcome to the sport. But what sort of sled is this,
+man? Looks rather rough, doesn't it? Sure you could manage it on this
+steep incline?"
+
+John bridled and Robin looked disappointed. Expectations of the
+toboggan-slide's being made ready had filled his head, and he and the
+old man had toiled for hours to make the sled at which the Bishop
+looked so doubtfully.
+
+"Well, your Reverence--I mean--you without the Reverence--" here the
+Bishop smiled and Robin giggled, thereby causing his host to turn
+about with a frown. "You see, sir, Robin's always been hearin' about
+your toboggan up here to Oak Knowe and's been just plumb crazy--"
+
+At this point the shy lad pulled John's coat, silently begging him to
+leave him out of the talk; but the farmer had been annoyed by Robin's
+ill-timed giggle, and testily inquired:
+
+"Well, sir, ain't that so? Didn't you pester the life clean out o' me
+till I said I'd try? Hey?"
+
+"Y-yes," meekly assented the boy; then catching a glimpse of Dorothy
+and Winifred and their beckoning nods he slipped away to them. To him
+Dorothy proudly exhibited her beautiful toboggan, explaining its fine
+construction with a glibness that fitted an "old tobogganer" better
+than this beginner at the sport. Gwen's face beamed again, listening
+to her, as if she felt a more personal pride in the sled than even
+Dorothy herself. She even unbent so far from her pride of rank as to
+suggest:
+
+"If you'll let me borrow it and he'd like to go, I'll take Robin down
+once, to show him how smoothly it runs."
+
+Robin's eyes sparkled. He wasn't shy with girls, but only when he felt
+himself made too conspicuous by his host's talk.
+
+"Would you? Could she? May she?" he cried, teetering about on his
+ragged shoes in an ecstasy of delight.
+
+Dolly laughed and clapped her hands.
+
+"Verily, she should, would, can, and may! laddie boy. But where's your
+jacket? I mean your other one? It's so cold, you'll freeze in that
+thin one."
+
+By the color which came to the lad's cheek Dolly realized that she had
+asked a "leading question," but Robin's dismay lasted only an instant;
+then he laughed merrily at the "good joke," and answered:
+
+"Well, you see, Miss Dorothy, my 'other one' is at some tailor's shop
+in town. I haven't had a chance yet to choose one, let alone pay for
+it! But what matter? 'Tisn't winter all the year and who wears
+top-coats in summer? Did she really mean it?"
+
+Gwendolyn proved that she "really meant it" by pushing the "Dorothy
+Calvert" into position and nodding to him that she was ready.
+
+"All right! Let her go!" he responded to her silent invitation and
+away they went, as ill-matched a pair as might have been found. But he
+had a boy's fearlessness and love of adventure; and even on that
+swift descent his gay whistling floated back to those above.
+
+Meanwhile, John Gilpin was explaining with considerable pride,
+yet thankful that the Bishop was out of hearing on his own
+downward-speeding toboggan:
+
+"You see, lassie, how't Robin was dead set to come. Said he knew so
+good a man as his Reverence wouldn't say 'No' to us, and just kept
+teasin' at me till we stepped-an'-fetched a lot of staves come off a
+hogshead. So I fastened 'em together on the insides--See? And we've
+shaved an' shaved, an' glass-scraped 'em on t'other till they'll never
+hurt no slide 't ever was iced. The Bishop seemed terr'ble afraid I'd
+rough up his track with it, but it's a poor track that water won't
+freeze smooth again; so if we do happen to scratch it a mite, I'll
+step-an'-fetch a few buckets o' water and fix it up again. And say,
+girlie, where's that Jack, boot-boy? And Baal? I ain't seen hide nor
+hair of ary one this long spell, an' I allow I kind of sorter miss
+'em. He used to give the dame the fidgets with his yarns of what
+he's goin to be an' do, time comes, but me an' him got on fairly
+well--fairly. As for that goat, he was the amusingest little creatur'
+'t ever jumped a fence, even if we did fight most of the time. Hah,
+hum! I've noticed more'n once that the folks or things you quarrel
+with are the ones you miss most, once they're gone."
+
+"We haven't seen Jack since that time he locked me in the drying-room.
+He ran away, I reckon, and took Baal with him. And it's just like
+you say: nobody liked him much, and he was always in disgrace with
+somebody, but I heard the Lady Principal say, only yesterday, that
+she actually believed she missed that worthless boot-boy more than
+any other servant who might have left."
+
+"Well, now, Dorothy, don't that beat all? That book-l'arned lady just
+agreein' with me! I often tell Dame 't I know more'n she thinks I do,
+but all she'll answer to that is: 'John, that'll do.' A rare silent
+woman is my Dame but a powerful thinker. Hello! Here they come back
+again. Robin! Robin! Look-a-here! You didn't bamboozle me into makin'
+our sled and climbin' this height just to leave me go for a passel o'
+silly girls! No, siree! You come and slide with me right to once. I
+set out to go a-tobogganin' an' I'm goin'. So none of your backslidin'
+now!"
+
+"All right, Mr. Gilpin, here am I! And I do hope it won't be any true
+_back_ sliding we shall do on this thing. You'd ought to have put a
+little handrail on the sides like I told you there always was; but--"
+
+"But that'll do, Robin. In my young days knee-high boys didn't know
+more'n their elders. That'll do!"
+
+The old farmer's imitation of his wife's manner seemed very funny to
+all the young folks, but his anxiety was evident, as he glanced from
+his own hand-made "toboggan" to the professional ones of the others.
+Upon his was not even the slight rod to hold on by and the least jar
+might send him off upon the ice. Peering down, it seemed to him that
+glazed descent was a straight road to a pit of perdition and his old
+heart sank within him.
+
+But--He had set out to go tobogganing and go he would, if he perished
+doing it. Dame had besought him with real tears not to risk his old
+bones in such a foolhardy sport, and he had loftily assured her that
+"what his Reverence can do I can do. Me and him was born in the same
+year, I've heard my mother tell, and it's a pity if I can't ekal him!"
+
+Moreover, there were all these youngsters makin' eyes at him, plumb
+ready to laugh, and thinkin' he'd back out. Back out? He? John Gilpin?
+Never!
+
+"Come on, Robin! Let's start!"
+
+Gwendolyn and Dorothy were also ready to "start" upon what they
+intended should be their last descent of that morning. Alas! it proved
+to be! Five seconds later such a scream of terror rent the air that
+the hearts of all who heard it chilled in horror.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+A BAD DAY FOR JOHN GILPIN
+
+
+What had happened!
+
+Those who were sliding down that icy incline could not stop to see,
+and those who were on the ground below covered their eyes that they
+might not. Yet opened them again to stare helplessly at the dangling
+figure of a girl outside that terrible slide. For in a moment, when
+the clutching fingers must unclose, the poor child must drop to
+destruction. That was inevitable.
+
+Then they saw it was Dorothy, who hung thus, suspended between life
+and death. Dorothy in her white and pink, the daintiest darling of
+them all, who had so enjoyed her first--and last!--day at this sport.
+
+Fresh shudders ran through the onlookers as they realized this and the
+Lady Principal sank down in a faint. Then another groan escaped
+them--the merest possibility of hope.
+
+Behold! The girl did not fall! Another's small hand reached over the
+low side of the toboggan and clutched the blanket-covered shoulder of
+the imperiled child. Another hand! the other shoulder, and hope grew
+stronger. Someone had caught the falling Dorothy--she and her
+would-be-rescuer were now moving--moving--slowly downward along the
+very edge--one swaying perilously with the motion, the other wholly
+unseen save for those outstretched hands, with their death-fast grip
+upon the snowy wool.
+
+Down--down! And faster now! Till the hands of the tallest watchers
+could reach and clasp the feet, then the whole precious little body of
+"Miss Dixie," their favorite from the Southland.
+
+But even then, as strong arms drew her into their safe shelter, the
+small hands which had supported her to safety clung still so tight
+that only the Bishop's could loose their clasp.
+
+"Gwendolyn! You brave, sweet girl! Let go--let go. It's all right
+now--Dorothy did not fall--You saved her life. Look up, my daughter.
+Don't faint now when all is over. Look up, you noble child, and hear
+me tell you: Dorothy is safe and it is you who saved her life. At the
+risk of your own you saved her life."
+
+Clasped close in his fatherly arms, Gwendolyn shuddered but obeyed and
+looked up into the Bishop's face.
+
+"Say that again. Please. Say that again--very slow--if it's the--the
+truth."
+
+ [Illustration: "SOMEONE HAD CAUGHT THE FALLING GIRL." _Dorothy at Oak
+ Knowe._]
+
+"Gwendolyn, I tell you now, in the presence of God and these
+witnesses, it has been your precious privilege to save a human life,
+by your swift thought and determined action you have saved the life of
+Dorothy Calvert, and God bless you for it."
+
+"Then we are quits!"
+
+For another moment after she had said those words she still rested
+quietly where she was, then slowly rose and looked about her.
+
+Dorothy had been in the greater peril of the two, yet more unconscious
+of it. She had not seen how high above the ground she hung, nor how
+directly beneath was the lake with the thinly frozen spots whence the
+thicker ice had been cut for the ice-houses; nor how there were heaped
+up rocks bordering the water, left as nature had designed to beautify
+the scene.
+
+She was the quickest to recover her great fright and she was wholly
+unhurt. Her really greater wonder was that poor Miss Muriel should
+happen to faint away just then.
+
+"I'm glad she did, though, if it won't make her ill, 'cause then she
+didn't see me dangling, like I must have, and get scared for that.
+Likely she stayed out doors too long. She isn't very strong and it's
+mighty cold, I think."
+
+So they hurried her indoors, Gwendolyn with her, yet neither of them
+allowed to discuss the affair until they were both warmly dressed in
+ordinary clothes and set down to a cute little lunch table, "all for
+your two selves," Nora explained: "And to eat all these warm things
+and drink hot coffee--as much of it as you like. It was Miss Muriel
+herself who said that!"
+
+This was a treat indeed. Coffee at any meal was kept for a special
+treat, but to have unlimited portions of it was what Dolly called "a
+step beyond."
+
+Curious glances, but smiling and tender, came often their way, from
+other tables in the room, yet the sport, and happily ended hazard of
+the morning had given to every girl a fine appetite, so that, for
+once, knives and forks were more busily employed than tongues.
+
+Neither did the two heroines of the recent tragic episode feel much
+like speech. Now that it was all over and they could think about it
+more clearly their hearts were filled with the solemnity of what had
+happened; and Gwendolyn said all that was needed for both, when once
+laying her hand on Dorothy's she whispered:
+
+"You saved my life--the Bishop says that I saved yours. After that
+we're even and we must love each other all our lives."
+
+"Oh! we must, we must! And I do, I shall!" returned Dorothy, with
+tears rising.
+
+Then this festive little lunch dispatched, they were captured by their
+schoolmates and led triumphantly into the cheerful library, the scene
+of all their confabs, and Winifred demanded:
+
+"Now, in the name of all the Oak Knowe girls, I demand a detailed
+history of what happened. Begin at the beginning and don't either of
+you dare to skip a single moment of the time from where you started
+down the old toboggan alongside of John Gilpin and that boy. I fancy
+if the tale were properly told his ride would outdo that of his
+namesake of old times. Dorothy Calvert, begin."
+
+"Why, dear, I don't know what to say, except that, as you say, we
+started. My lovely toboggan went beautifully, as it had all the time,
+but theirs didn't act right. I believe that the old man was scared so
+that he couldn't do a thing except meddle with Robin, who doesn't know
+much more about sliding than I do, or did. He--"
+
+"I saw he was getting on the wrong side, right behind you two, as we
+shot past on ours," interrupted Serena Huntington, "and we both called
+out: 'steer! steer right!' but I suppose they didn't hear or
+understand. We were so far down then that I don't know."
+
+"Gwen, dear, you tell the rest," begged Dorothy, cuddling up to the
+girl she now so dearly loved.
+
+It wasn't often that Gwendolyn was called to the front like this, but
+she found it very pleasant; so readily took up the tale where Dorothy
+left it, "at the very beginning" as "Dixie" laughingly declared.
+
+"It seems as if there was nothing to tell--it was all so quick--it
+just happened! Half way down, it must have been, the farmer's sled hit
+ours. That scared me, too, and I called, just as Serena had, and as
+everybody on the slide was doing as they passed: 'Steer right!' I
+guess that only confused the poor old man, for he kept bobbing into us
+and that hindered our getting away from him ourselves.
+
+"Next I knew, Dolly was off the sled and over the edge of the slide,
+clinging to it for her life. I knew she couldn't hold on long and so I
+rolled off and grabbed her. Then we began to slide and I knew somebody
+was trying to help by pushing us downward toward the bottom. I don't
+know who that was. I don't know anything clearly. It was all like a
+flash--I guessed we would be killed--I shut my eyes and--that's all."
+
+To break the too suggestive silence which followed with its hint of a
+different, sorrowful ending, Florita Sheraton exclaimed:
+
+"I know who did that pushing! It was our little Robin Adair, or
+whatever his name is. Fact. That home-made toboggan of his came to
+grief. The old man has told me. He's out in the kitchen now warming up
+his bruises. You see, there wasn't anything to hang on by, on the
+sides. He had scorned Robin's advice to nail something on and he
+nearly ground his fingers off holding on by the flat bottom. It went
+so swift--his fingers ached so--he yanked them out from under--Robin
+screeched--they ran into you--they both tumbled off--Robin lodged
+against you but John Gilpin rode to the bottom--thus wise!"
+
+Florita illustrated by rolling one hand over and under the other; and
+thus, in fact, had John Gilpin taken his first toboggan slide.
+
+Laughter showed that the tension of excitement which had held these
+schoolgirls all that day had yielded to ordinary feelings, and now
+most of them went away for study or practicing, leaving Dorothy and
+Gwendolyn alone. After a moment, they also left the library, bound
+kitchenwards, to visit old John and see if Robin were still
+thereabouts.
+
+"I wish there were something I could do for that boy," said Gwen. "I
+feel so grateful to him for helping us and he looked so poor. Do you
+suppose, Dolly, if Mamma offered him money for that new coat he jested
+about, that he would be offended."
+
+"Of course, Gwen, I don't know about _him_. You never can tell about
+other folks, but Uncle Seth thinks it's a mighty safe rule 'to put
+yourself in his place'; and if I were in Robin's I'd be 'mad as a
+hatter' to have money offered me for doing a little thing like that.
+Wouldn't you?"
+
+"Why, yes, Dorothy, of course I would. The idea! But I'm rich, or my
+people are, which is the same thing. But he's poor. His feelings may
+not, cannot, be the same as our sort have."
+
+"Why can't they? I don't like to have you think that way. You ought
+not. Gwen you must not. For that will make us break friendship square
+off. I'm not poor Dawkins's niece, though I might be much worse off
+than that, but once I was 'poor' like Robin. I was a deserted baby,
+adopted by a poor letter carrier. Now, what do you think of that?
+Can't I have nice feelings same as you? And am I a bit better--in
+myself--because in reality I belonged to a rich old family, than I was
+when I washed dishes in Mother Martha's kitchen? Tell me that, before
+we go one step further."
+
+Dorothy had stopped short in the hall and faced about, anxiously
+studying the face of this "Peer," who had now become so dear to her.
+
+Gwendolyn's face was a puzzle; as, for a time, the old opinions and
+the new struggled within her. But the struggle was brief. Her pride,
+her justice, and now her love, won the victory.
+
+"No, you darling, brave little thing, you are not. Whatever you are
+you were born such, and I love you, I love you. If I'd only been born
+in the States I'd have had no silly notions."
+
+"Don't you believe that, Gwen. Aunt Betty says that human nature is
+the same all the world over. You'd have been just as much of a snob if
+you'd been 'raised in ol' Ferginny' as you are here. Oh! my! I didn't
+mean that. I meant--You must understand what I mean!"
+
+A flush of mortification at her too plain speaking made Dorothy hide
+her face, but her hands were swiftly pulled down and a kiss left in
+their place.
+
+"Don't you fret, Queenie! It's taken lots of Mamma's plain speaking to
+keep me half-way decent to others less rich than I, and I'm afraid
+it'll take lots of yours, too, to put the finishing touches to that
+lesson. Come on. We love each other now, and love puts everything
+right. Come on. Let's find that Robin and see what we can do for him
+without hurting his feelings."
+
+"Oh! yes, come, let's hurry! But first to the Lady Principal. Maybe we
+can help them both. Won't that be fine?"
+
+But they were not to help Robin just then. A groan from the servants'
+parlor, a pleasant room opening from the kitchen, arrested their
+attention and made them pause to listen. Punctuated by other sounds,
+a querulous voice was complaining:
+
+"Seems if there warn't a hull spot left on my old body that ain't
+bruised sore as a bile. Why, sir, when I fell off that blamed sled
+we'd tinkered up"--groan--"I didn't know anything. Just slid--an'
+slid--an' rolled over and over, never realizin' which side of me was
+topmost till I fetched up--kerwhack! to the very bottom. Seemed as if
+I'd fell out o' the sky into the bottomless pit. Oh! dear!"
+
+Dawkins's voice it was that answered him, both pitying and teasing him
+in the same breath:
+
+"I'm sure it's sorry I am, Mr. Gilpin, for what's befell; but for a
+man that's lived in a tobogganing country ever since he was born, you
+begun rather late in life to learn the sport. Why--"
+
+"Ain't no older'n the Bishop! Can't one man do same's t'other, I'd
+like to know, Mis' Dawkins?"
+
+"Seems not;" laughed the maid. "But, here, take this cup of hot
+spearmint tea. 'Twill warm your old bones and help 'em to mend; an'
+next time you start playin' children's game--why don't! And for
+goodness' sake, John, quit groanin'! Takin' on like that don't help
+any and I tell you fair and square I've had about all the strain put
+on my nerves, to-day, 't I can bear. What was your bit of a roll down
+that smooth ice compared to what our girls went through?"
+
+"Has you got any nuts in your pockets? Has you?" broke in
+Millikins-Pillikins, who had been a patient listener to the confab
+between the farmer and the nurse till she could wait no longer. Never
+had the old man come to Oak Knowe without some dainty for the little
+girl and she expected such now.
+
+"No, sissy, I haven't. I dunno as I've got a pocket left. I dunno
+nothing, except--except--What'll SHE say when I go home all lamed up
+like this! Oh! hum! Seems if I was possessed to ha' done it, and so
+she thought. But 'twas Robin's fault. If Robin hadn't beset me so I'd
+never thought of it. Leastwise, not to go the length I did. If
+I'd--But there! What's the use? But one thing's sure. I'll get shut of
+that boy, see if I don't. He's well now an' why should I go to
+harboring _reptiles_ in my buzzum? Tell me that if ye can! _Reptiles._
+That's what he was, a-teasin' an' misleadin' a poor old man into
+destruction. Huh! I'll make it warm for him--trust John Gilpin for
+that!"
+
+Dawkins had long since departed, unable to bear the old man's
+lamentations, and leaving the cup, or pot, of hot tea on the table
+beside him. But little Grace couldn't tear herself away. She lingered,
+first hoping for the nuts she craved, and later in wonder about the
+"_reptile_" he said was in his bosom. There were big books full of
+pictures in the library, that Auntie Prin sometimes let her see. She
+loved to have them opened on the rug and lie down beside them to study
+them. She knew what "reptiles" were. That was the very one of all the
+Natural History books with the blue bindings that she liked best, it
+was so delightfully crawly and sent such funny little thrills all
+through her. If a picture could do that what might not the real thing
+do!
+
+"Show it to me, please, Mr. Gilpin. I never saw a reptile in all my
+whole life long! Never!"
+
+The farmer had paid scant attention to her chatter; indeed, he
+scarcely heard it, his mind being wholly engrossed now with
+what his dame would say to him, on his return home; and in his
+absent-mindedness he reached out for the drink good Dawkins had
+left him and put the pot to his lips taking a great draught.
+
+An instant later the pot flew out of his hand and he sprang to his
+feet, clutching frantically at his bosom and yelling as if he were
+stung. For the contents of the pot were boiling hot and he had scalded
+his throat most painfully.
+
+But wide-eyed little Grace did not understand his wild action, as,
+still clutching his shirt front, he hurled the pot far from him. Of
+course, the "reptile" was biting! That must be why he screeched so,
+and now all her desire for a personal acquaintance with such a
+creature vanished. She must get as far away from it as possible before
+it appeared on the surface of his smock and, darting doorward, was
+just in time to receive the pot and what was left in it upon her curly
+head. Down she dropped as if she had been shot, and Dorothy entering
+was just in time to see her fall. The scene apparently explained
+itself. The angry face of the old man, his arm still rigid, in the
+gesture of hurling, the fallen child and the broken pot--who could
+guess that it was horror at his uncalculated deed which kept him in
+that pose?
+
+Not Dorothy, who caught up little Grace and turned a furious face upon
+poor John, crying out in fierce contempt:
+
+"Oh! you horrible old man! First you tried to kill me and now you have
+killed her!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+EXPLANATIONS ARE IN ORDER
+
+
+Dorothy ran straight to the Lady Principal's room, too horrified by
+what she imagined was the case to pause on the way and too excited to
+feel the heavy burden she carried.
+
+Nobody met her to stop her or inquire what had happened. Gwendolyn had
+been called to join her mother and had seen nothing of the incident,
+and Dorothy burst into the pretty parlor--only to find it empty.
+Laying Millikins down on the couch she started to find help, but was
+promptly called back by the child herself.
+
+"Where you going, Dolly Doodles? What you carry me for, running so?"
+
+"Why--why--darling--can you _speak_? Are you _alive_? Oh! you
+dear--you dear! I thought you were killed!" cried the relieved girl
+kneeling beside the couch and hugging the astonished little one.
+
+"Why for can't I speak, Dorothy? Why for can't I be alive? The
+'reptile' didn't bite me, it bited _him_. That's why he hollered so
+and flung things. See, Dolly, I'm all wet with smelly stuff like
+'meddy' some kind, that Dawkins made him. And what you think? Soon's
+he started drinking it the 'reptile' must not have liked it and must
+have bited him to make him stop--'Ou-u-c-ch!' Just like that he said
+it, an' course I runned, an' the tea-pot flew, an' I fell down, and
+you come, grabbed me and said things, and--and--But the reptile didn't
+get Gracie, did it? No it didn't, 'cause I runned like anything, and
+'cause you come, and--Say, Dolly! I guess I'd rather see 'em in the
+book. I guess I don't want to get acquainted with no live ones like I
+thought I did. No, sir!"
+
+"What in the world do you mean, Baby? Whatever are you talking about?
+Oh! you mischief, you gave poor Dolly such a fright when you fell down
+like that!"
+
+"Why, Dolly Doodles, how funny! I fall down lots of times. Some days I
+fall down two-ten-five times, and sometimes I'd cry, but Auntie Prin
+don't like that. She'll say right off: 'There, Millikins, I wouldn't
+bother to do that. You haven't hurt the floor any.' So course I stop.
+'Cause if I had hurted the floor she'd let me cry a lot. She said so,
+once. Mr. Gilpin didn't have a single nut in his pockets. He said so.
+And he talked awful funny! Not as if to me at all, so must ha' been to
+the 'reptile' in his 'buzzum.' Do 'reptiles' buzz, Dolly, same as
+sting-bees do? And wouldn't you rather carry nuts in your pockets for
+such nice little girls as me, than crawly things inside your smock to
+bite you? I think a smock's the funniest kind of clothes, and Mr.
+Gilpin's the funniest kind of man inside 'em. Don't you?"
+
+"If either one can match you for funniness, you midget, I'll lose my
+guess. Seems if this had been the 'funniest' kind of day ever was. But
+I'll give you up till you get ready to explain your 'reptile' talk.
+Changing the subject, did you get a slide to-day?"
+
+"Yes, lots of them. What do think? I didn't have anybody give me a
+nice new toboggan with my name on it, like you had; so the Bishop he
+told Auntie Prin that he'd look out for me this year same's he did
+last year. I hadn't grown so much bigger, he thought. Course he's
+terrible big and I'm terrible little, so all he does is tuck me inside
+his great toboggan coat. Buttons it right around me--this way--so I
+never could slip out, could I? And I don't have to hold on at all he
+holds on for me and Auntie's not afraid, that way. Don't you think it
+was terrible nice for Gwendolyn to give you your things?"
+
+"What things, dear? Gwen has given me nothing that I know of. Is this
+another mystery of yours?"
+
+"It isn't not no mystery, I don't know what them are, except when
+girls like you get lost right in their own houses and don't get found
+again right soon. But I know 'secrets.' Secrets are what the one you
+have 'em about don't get told. That was a secret about your things,
+Gwen said. You didn't get told, did you?"
+
+"I have a suspicion that I'm being told now," answered Dorothy,
+soberly. "Suppose you finish the telling, dear, while we are airing
+the subject. What are the things you're talking about?"
+
+"Why, aren't you stupid, Dolly? About the be-a-u-tiful blankets were
+made into your suit. Auntie said they were the handsomest ever was.
+Lady Jane had bought 'em to have new things made for Gwen, 'cause Lady
+Jane's going far away across the ocean and she wanted to provide every
+single thing Gwen might want. In case anything happened to Gwen's old
+one.
+
+"So Gwen said, no, she didn't need 'em and you did. She guessed your
+folks hadn't much money, she'd overheard the Bishop say so. That's the
+way she knows everything is 'cause she always 'overhears.' I told
+Auntie Prin that I thought that was terrible nice, and I'd like to
+learn overhearing; and she sauced me back the funniest! My! she did!
+Said if she ever caught me overhearing I'd be put to bed with nothing
+but bread and water to eat, until I forgot the art. Just like that
+she said it! Seems if overhearing is badness. She does so want
+Gwendolyn to be really noble. Auntie Prin thinks it noble for Gwen to
+give up her blankets and to have that be-a-u-tiful toboggan bought for
+you with your name on it. You aren't real poor, are you, Dolly? Not
+like the beggar folks come 'tramping' by and has 'victuals' given to
+them? Bishop says all little girls must be good to the poor. That's
+when he wants me to put my pennies in my Mite Box for the little
+heathen. I don't so much care about the heathen and Hugh--"
+
+But Dorothy suddenly put the child down, knowing that once started
+upon the theme of "Brother Hugh" the little sister's talk was endless.
+And she was deeply troubled.
+
+She had altogether forgotten John Gilpin and the accusation she had
+hurled at him. Nothing now remained in her mind but thoughts of
+Gwendolyn's rich gifts and indignation against her. Why had she done
+it? As a sort of payment for Dorothy's assistance at the Maiden's
+Bath?
+
+Meeting Miss Muriel in the hall she cried:
+
+"Oh! my dear lady, I am in such trouble! May I talk to you a moment?"
+
+"Certainly, Dorothy. Come this way. Surely there can be nothing
+further have happened to you, to-day."
+
+Safe in the shelter and privacy of a small classroom, Dorothy told her
+story into wise and loving ears; and to be comforted at once.
+
+"You are all wrong, Dorothy. I am sure that there was no such thought
+as payment for any deed of yours in poor Gwendolyn's mind. You have
+been invariably kind to her in every way possible; and until this
+chance came she had found none in which to show you that she realized
+this and loved you for it. Why, my dear, if you could have seen her
+happiness when I told her it was a beautiful thing for her to do, you
+would certainly have understood her and been glad to give her the
+chance she was glad to take. It is often harder to accept favors than
+to bestow them. It takes more grace. Now, dear, let's call that 'ghost
+laid,' as Dawkins says. Hunt up Gwen, tell her how grateful you are to
+her for her rich, unselfish gifts, and--do it with a real Dorothy
+face; not with any hint of offended pride--which is not natural to it!
+And go at once, then drop the subject and forget it. We were all so
+thankful that you chose her this morning without knowing."
+
+Back came the smiles as Miss Muriel hoped to see them, and away sped
+Dorothy to put the good advice in practice; and five minutes later
+Gwendolyn was the happiest girl at Oak Knowe, because her gifts had
+been ascribed to real affection only.
+
+"Now, Gwen, that we've settled _that_, let's go and see what we can do
+for Robin. Heigho, Winifred! you're just in time to aid a worthy
+cause--Come on to Lady Principal!"
+
+"Exactly whither I was bound!" waving a letter overhead. "Going
+a-begging, my dears, if you please!" she returned, clasping Gwen's
+waist on one side to walk three abreast. A trivial action in itself
+but delightful to the "Peer," showing that this free-spoken "Commoner"
+no longer regarded her as "stand-offish" but "just one of the crowd."
+
+"Begging for what, Win?"
+
+"That's a secret!"
+
+"Pooh! You might as well tell. Secrets always get found out. I've just
+discovered one--by way of chattering Millikins-Pillikins. Guess it."
+
+"I couldn't, Dolly, I'm too full of my own. As for that child's
+talk--but half of it has sense."
+
+"So I thought, too, listening to her. But _half did_ have sense and
+that is--Who do you think gave me my beautiful toboggan things?"
+
+"Why, your Aunt Betty, I suppose, since she does everything else for
+you," answered Winifred promptly. "Anyhow, don't waste time on
+guesses--Tell!"
+
+Then she glanced up into Gwendolyn's face and saw how happy it was,
+and hastily added:
+
+"No, you needn't tell, after all, I know. It was Gwen, here, the
+big-hearted dear old thing! She's the only girl at Oak Knowe who's
+rich enough and generous enough to do such a splendid thing."
+
+"Good for you, Win, you guessed right at once!" answered Dolly trying
+to clap her hands but unable to loosen them from her comrades' clasp.
+"Now for yours!"
+
+"Wait till we get to the 'audience chamber'! Come on."
+
+But even yet they were hindered. In the distance, down at the end of
+the hall, Dorothy caught sight of Mr. Gilpin, evidently just departing
+from the house. A more dejected figure could scarcely be imagined, nor
+a more ludicrous one, as he limped toward the entrance, hands on hips
+and himself bent forward forlornly. Below his rough top-coat which he
+had discarded on his arrival, hung the tatters of his smock that had
+been worn to ribbons by his roll down the slide.
+
+Nobody knew what had become of his own old beaver hat, but a light
+colored derby, which the _chef_ had loaned him, sat rakishly over one
+ear, in size too small for the whole top of his bald head.
+
+"Looks as if he had two foreheads!" said Winifred, who couldn't help
+laughing at his comical appearance, with part of his baldness showing
+at front and back of the borrowed hat.
+
+Dorothy laughed, too, yet felt a guilty regret at the way she had
+spoken to him. She had accused him of "trying to kill her" as well as
+Gwen and little Grace; but he "kill anything"? Wicked, even to say
+that.
+
+"There goes John Gilpin, and, girls, I must speak to him. Come--I
+can't let him go that way!"
+
+As his "good foot" crossed the threshold Dorothy's hand was on his
+shoulder and her voice begging:
+
+"Oh! please, Mr. Gilpin! Do forgive that horrible thing I said! I
+didn't know, I didn't understand, I didn't mean it--I thought--it
+looked--Do come back just a minute and let me explain."
+
+The old fellow turned and gazed into her pleading eyes, but at first
+scarcely heard her.
+
+"Why, 'tis the little maid! hersel' that was cryin' that night on the
+big railway platform. The night that Robin lad was anigh kilt.
+Something's mixed up in me head. What's it, lassie, you want?"
+
+"I want your forgiveness, Mr. Gilpin. When I saw Gracie on the floor
+and the broken pot beside her I thought--you'd--you'd tried--and
+account of your sled hitting Gwen and me--Do come in and rest. You're
+worse hurt than anybody thought, I'm afraid. There, there, that's
+right. Come back and rest till the team goes into town for the
+Saturday night's supplies. It always goes you know, and Michael will
+get the driver to drop you at your own door. I'm sure he will."
+
+Obediently, he allowed her to lead him back into the hall and to seat
+him on the settle beside the radiator. The warmth of that and the
+comfort of three sympathetic girls soon restored his wandering wits
+and he was as ready to talk as they to listen.
+
+"You do forgive, don't you, dear old John?"
+
+"Sure, lassie, there's nought about forgiveness, uther side. It was a
+bit misunderstandin' was all. The wee woman a-pleadin' for treats out
+of pocket, and me thinkin' hard o' Robin, for coaxin' an old man to
+make a fool of hissel'. Me feeling that minute as if 'twas all his
+fault and thinking I'd cherished a snake, a reptile, in my buzzum, and
+sayin' it out loud, likes I have a bad habit of doing.
+
+"Silly I was, not remembering how't a child takes all things literal.
+Ha, ha, ha! To think it! When I scalded mysel' with the hot tea the
+bairnie should fancy I yelled at a sarpent's bite! Sure, I could split
+my sides a-laughin' but for the hurt I gave her. How is she doin',
+lass? I've waited this long spell for someone to pass by and give me
+the word, but nobody has. Leastwise, them that passes has no mind for
+old John in his dumps."
+
+"Why, Mr. Gilpin, she wasn't hurt at all; and it's just as you said.
+She thought you had a real snake in your clothes and it had bitten
+you. She's all right now, right as can be; and so will you be as soon
+as you get home and into your wife's good care. She--"
+
+"Ah, my Dorothy! 'Tis she I dread. Not a word'll she say, like enough,
+but the look she will give to my silly face--Hmm. She's a rare silent
+woman is my Dame, but she can do a power o' thinkin'."
+
+"Yes, she can, and the first thing she'll think is how glad she is to
+have her husband back again, safe and sound."
+
+"Aye, but Dorothy, hark ye! I'm safe, I'll grant ye that; but--sound?
+'Tis different letters spells that word. Sound? I'll no' be that for
+weeks to come!" and the poor fellow, who certainly had been badly
+bruised and lucky to have escaped broken bones, sighed profoundly.
+
+Winifred had an inspiration.
+
+"Speaking of Robins, suppose we write her a round-robin letter? Right
+here and now, on the back of this letter of Father's? It's a grand
+good letter for me and we'll write so nicely of you, Mr. John, that
+it'll be a good one for her, too."
+
+"Will ye? A real letter explainin' about the accident, when the
+lassie's toboggan got in our way and we got that mixed 'twas nigh the
+death of the lot? Dame'd be proud enough to get that letter. Sure, I
+believe 'twould set her thinkin' of other things, and she'll be liker
+to overlook my foolishness."
+
+They all laughed at the crafty manner in which he shipped his
+responsibility for the accident from his shoulders to theirs; but
+Winifred plumped herself down on the settle beside him and, using it
+for a desk, concocted an amusing story of the whole day's happenings.
+The other girls had less of the gift of writing, but each added a few
+words and signed her name with a flourish. Altogether it was a
+wonderful document, so the farmer thought, as Winifred tore that
+half-sheet from her father's letter, folded it in a fantastic way and
+gave it him.
+
+Indeed, he was so pleased with it and so anxious to get it into his
+wife's hands that, after turning it over and about, in admiration of
+the "true lover's knot" into which Win had folded it, he rose to go
+away. All his stiffness was forgotten, he almost neglected to drag his
+lame foot, he firmly declined to stay for supper or any ride with the
+Oak Knowe team, so completely had the kindness of the three girls
+cured him.
+
+"A letter for the Dame! Sure she'll be the proud woman the night, and
+maybe she'll think I'd more sense after all. I don't mind she'd ary
+letter come before since we was married. Good night, young ladies.
+Tell the bit woman 't next time there'll be nuts in me pockets, all
+right, and no fear for her o' more snakes. Good-by."
+
+They watched him down the path, fairly strutting in his pride over the
+note which a mere whim on Winifred's part had suggested, and Dorothy
+exclaimed:
+
+"What a dear, simple old soul he is! That a tiny thing like that could
+make so happy. I believe he was more delighted with that half-sheet of
+your paper than you are with your father's other half."
+
+Winifred caught the others about the waist and whirled them indoors
+again, first gleefully kissing her father's bit of writing and asking:
+
+"Think so? Then he's the gladdest person in the world, to-night.
+Oh--ee!"
+
+"Well, Win, you can be glad without squeezing the breath out of a
+body, can't you? Heigho, Robin! Where'd you come from?" said Dolly, as
+the boy came suddenly upon them from a side hall.
+
+"Why, from the kitchen. The folks there made me eat a lot of good
+stuff and a woman--I guess it was the housekeeper--she made me put on
+some of the men's clothes while she took my knickers and mended them.
+I'd torn them all to flinders on that slide, or old botched up sled,
+and she said I was a sight. I was, too. She was awful kind. She made
+me tell all about Mother and my getting hurt and everything. But she
+said I ought to go right away and find Mr. Gilpin and get friends with
+him again. Isn't it funny? He blames _me_ for all that happened and
+for teasing him to make that wretched sled, yet, sir, if you'll
+believe me he was the one spoke of it first. True! Said he'd never had
+a toboggan ride in all his life, long as that was, because he hadn't
+anybody to go with him. But 'he'd admire' to have just one before he
+died--"
+
+"He had it, didn't he?" laughed Winifred.
+
+"He had a hard time getting Mrs. Gilpin's consent. She treats him as
+if he were a little boy, worse'n Mother does me, but he doesn't get
+mad at all. He thinks she's the most wonderful woman in the world, but
+I must find him and put myself right with him before we go home and
+tackle her. He'll need my help then more'n he did makin' that beastly
+sled! It was awful--really awful--the way he went rolling down that
+icy slide, but to save my life I can't help laughing when I think of
+it. Can you?"
+
+At the lad's absurd movements, as he now pictured John's remarkable
+"ride" they all laughed; but suddenly Dorothy demanded:
+
+"You sit right down yonder on that settle and wait for me. You can't
+find Mr. Gilpin, now, he's far on the road home. But there's something
+I must ask Miss Tross-Kingdon--"
+
+"No! You don't ask Miss Tross-Kingdon one single thing till I've had
+my ask first, Dorothy Calvert! Here I'm nearly crazy, trying to hold
+in my secret, and--"
+
+"I claim my chance too! I've a petition of my own if you please and
+let the first to arrive win!" shouted Gwendolyn, speeding after the
+other two toward the "audience chamber."
+
+Thus deserted, Robin laughed and curled up on the bench to wait; while
+the Lady Principal's sanctum was boisterously invaded by three
+petitioners, forgetful of the required decorum, and each trying to
+forestall the others, with her:
+
+"Oh! Miss Muriel, may I--?" "Please, Miss Tross-Kingdon, my
+father's--"
+
+"Hear me first, dear Lady Principal, before he gets away. Can--"
+
+But the Lady Principal merely clapped her hands over her ears and
+ordered:
+
+"One at a time. Count twenty."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+MRS. JARLEY ENTERTAINS
+
+
+"I've counted! And I beg pardon for rushing in here like that. But I
+was afraid the others had favors to ask and I wanted to get mine in
+first!" said Gwendolyn, after the brief pause Miss Tross-Kingdon had
+suggested.
+
+"Oh! you sweet, unselfish thing!" mocked Winifred, "your favor can't
+be half as fine as mine--"
+
+"Nor mine! Oh! do please let me speak first, for fear he gets away!"
+begged Dorothy, eagerly.
+
+"First come first served, Dolly, please!" coaxed Gwendolyn and the
+teacher nodded to her to speak.
+
+"Mine's for next Saturday. Mrs. Jarley's Wax Works are to be in town
+and Mamma says if you'll allow I may invite the whole school to go.
+She'll have big sleighs sent out for us and will let us have supper at
+the hotel where she stops. May we go?"
+
+"Wait a moment, Gwendolyn. Did you say the 'whole school'?"
+
+Each year Lady Jane had allowed her daughter to entertain her
+schoolmates in some such manner but the number had, heretofore, been
+limited to "Peers" only. Such a wholesale invitation as this required
+some explanation.
+
+Gwendolyn's eyes fell and her cheek flushed, while the other girls
+listened in wondering delight for her answer, which came after some
+hesitation. But came frankly at last in the girl's own manner.
+
+"I'm ashamed now of the silly notions I used to have. I wanted to do
+something which would prove that I am; so instead of picking out a few
+of what we called 'our set' I want every girl at Oak Knowe to join us.
+You'll understand, of course, that there will be no expense to
+anybody. It's Mamma's farewell treat to us girls, before she goes
+abroad. May she and I give it?"
+
+"Indeed, you may, Gwendolyn, if the Bishop approves. With the
+understanding that no lessons are neglected. The winter is about over.
+Spring exams are near, and 'Honors' or even 'Distinction' will not be
+won without hard work."
+
+"Thank you, Miss Muriel. May I go now and ask the Bishop, then tell
+the girls?"
+
+"Certainly," and there was an expression of greater pleasure on the
+lady's face than on that of Gwendolyn's even.
+
+Winifred executed what she called a "war dance" as Gwen disappeared,
+crying:
+
+"That's what I call a wholesale burying of the hatchet! That
+'Honorable' young woman is distinguishing herself. Don't you think
+so, Miss Muriel?"
+
+"I am pleased. I am very pleased. Gwendolyn has surely dropped her
+foolishness and I'm proud of her. It's so much safer for anyone to be
+normal, without fads or fancies--"
+
+"Oh! come now, you dear Schoolma'am! Never mind the pretty talk just
+this minute, 'cause I can't wait to tell you--Father's coming--my
+Father is coming and a proper good time with him! If you'll only
+remember I wasn't saucy then--A girl you'd raised to hand, like me,
+couldn't really be saucy, could she? And--and please just wait a
+minute. Please let me talk first. Because _I_ can't ask _everybody_,
+but my darling Father means just as well as Lady Jane. His invite is
+only for a dozen--round baker's dozen, to take a trip in his car to
+Montreal and visit the Ice Palace! Think of that! The beautiful Ice
+Palace that I've never seen in all my life. If you'll say 'yes,' if
+you'll be the picker out of 'em, besides yourself and Miss Hexam and
+Dawkins--Oh! dear! You three grown-ups take off three from my
+dozen-thirteen! But there'll be ten left, any way, and please say yes
+and how many days we may be gone and--Oh! I love you, Miss Muriel, you
+know I do!"
+
+The lady Principal calmly loosened Winifred's clasping arms, and
+smilingly looked into the sparkling, pleading eyes before her. Who
+could be stern with the whimsical child she had cared for during so
+many years, and under whose apparently saucy manner, lay a deep love
+and respect? She did not enlighten the pleader on the fact that this
+was no new thing she had just heard; nor that there had been written
+communications passing between Mr. Christie and the Bishop with
+consent already won. But she put her answer off by saying:
+
+"We'll see about it, Winifred: and I'm glad there was nobody save
+Dorothy here to see you so misbehave! But if we go, and if the
+selection is left to me, I may not please you; for I should choose
+those whose record for good conduct is highest and whose preparation
+for exams is most complete."
+
+Winifred wrinkled her brows. Of course she, as hostess couldn't be
+counted either out or in, but she knew without telling that but few of
+her own class-ten would be allowed to go. They were the jolliest "ten"
+at Oak Knowe and oftener in disgrace about lessons than free from it.
+
+"Oh! dear! I do wish we'd dreamed this treat was coming! I'd have
+forced the 'Aldriches' to study as hard as they played--if--if I had
+to do it at the point of my mahl-stick. I guess it'll be a lesson to
+them."
+
+"I trust it will, dear, but Dorothy has waited all this time. Three
+little maids with three little wishes, regular fairy-tale like, and
+two of them granted already. What's yours, Dorothy?"
+
+Since listening to the others' requests, her own seemed very simple,
+almost foolish; but she answered promptly:
+
+"I want to get you a boot-boy."
+
+Winifred laughed.
+
+"Hey, Dolly! To switch off from a private-car-ice-palace-trip into a
+boot-boy's jacket is funny enough. Who's the candidate you're
+electioneering for?"
+
+Miss Muriel hushed Winifred's nonsense which had gone far enough and
+was due, she knew, to the girl's wild delight over her father's
+promised visit.
+
+"If you could find a good one for me, Dorothy, you would certainly be
+doing me a favor, not I one for you. Whom do you mean?"
+
+"Robin Locke, Miss Tross-Kingdon. He's so very poor."
+
+"Poverty isn't always a recommendation for usefulness. Is he old
+enough? Is it that lad who came with Mr. Gilpin?"
+
+"Yes, Miss Muriel. He's just the loveliest boy I've seen in Canada--"
+
+"The _only_ one, except Jack!" interrupted Winifred.
+
+"It was because of me and my carelessness he got hurt and broke
+himself. He was carrying my telegram that I ought to have sent long
+before and he was so starved he fell off his bicycle and always ever
+since I've wished I could help him some way and he'd have such a nice
+home here and he wouldn't bring in goats, and his mother could do
+things to help and I thought maybe he could do the shoes and other
+things would be easier than what he did and could be a golf-boy for
+the Bishop when the time comes and it's pretty near and--"
+
+"There, Dorothy, take your breath, and put a comma or two into your
+sentences. Then we'll talk about this project of yours. Where's Robin
+now?"
+
+"Right out on the settle this minute waiting--if he hasn't gone
+away--May I--"
+
+"Yes, honey, step-an'-fetch him!" laughed Winifred again, "he's used
+to that sort of talk."
+
+Away flashed Dorothy and now, at a really serious rebuke from the Lady
+Principal, Winifred sobered her lively spirits to be an interested
+witness of the coming interview, as Dorothy came speeding back,
+literally dragging the shy Robin behind her.
+
+But, as before, the presence of other young folks and Miss Muriel's
+first question put him at his ease.
+
+"Robin, are you willing to work rather hard, in a good home, for your
+mother and to provide one for her, too?"
+
+"Why, of course, Ma'am. That's what I was a-doin' when I fell off.
+Goody! Wouldn't I? Did you ever see my mother, lady?"
+
+"Yes, Robin, at our Hallowe'en Party," answered Miss Tross-Kingdon,
+smiling into the beautiful, animated face of this loyal son.
+
+"You'd like her, Ma'am, you couldn't help it. She's 'the sweetest
+thing in the garden,' Father used to say, and he knew. She feels bad
+now, thinking we've been so long at the farmer's 'cause she don't see
+how 't we ever can pay them. And the doctor, too. Oh! Ma'am, did you
+hear tell of such a place? Do you think I could get it?"
+
+"Yes, lad, I did hear of just such, for Dorothy told me. It's right
+here at Oak Knowe. The work is to pick up row after row of girls'
+shoes, standing over night outside their bedroom doors and to blacken
+them, or whiten them, as the case might be, and to have them
+punctually back in place, in time for their owners to put on. Cleaning
+boots isn't such a difficult task as it is a tedious one. The maids
+complain that it's more tiresome than scrubbing, and a boy I knew grew
+very careless about his work. If I asked you and your mother to come
+here to live, would you get tired? Or would she dislike to help care
+for the linen mending? Of course, you would be paid a fair wage as
+well as she. What do you think?"
+
+What Robin thought was evident: for away he ran to Dorothy's side and
+catching her hand kissed it over and over.
+
+"Oh! you dear, good girl! It was you who helped the doctor set my
+bones, it was you who let me slide on your new toboggan, and it's you
+who've 'spoke for me' to this lady. Oh! I do thank you. And now I'm
+not afraid to go back and see Mr. Gilpin. He was so vexed with me
+because he thought--May I go now, Ma'am? and when do you want us,
+Mother and me?"
+
+"To-morrow morning, at daybreak. Will you be here?"
+
+"Will I not? Oh! good-by. I must go quick! and tell my Mother that she
+needn't worry any more. Oh! how glad I am!"
+
+With a bow toward Miss Tross-Kingdon and a gay wave of his hand toward
+the girls, he vanished from the room, fairly running down the corridor
+and whistling as he went. The rules of Oak Knowe had yet all to be
+learned but it certainly was a cheerful "noise in halls" to which they
+listened now.
+
+"And that's another 'link' in life, such as Uncle Seth was always
+watching for. If I hadn't delayed that telegram and he hadn't fallen
+down and--everything else that happened--Robin would never have had
+such a lovely chance," said Dorothy proudly.
+
+"That's a dangerous doctrine, Dorothy. It's fine to see the 'links'
+you speak of, but not at all fine to do evil that good may come. I'd
+rather have you believe that this same good might have come to the lad
+without your own first mistake. But it's time for studying Sunday
+lessons and you must go."
+
+"Catch me studying 'links' for things, Dolly, if it gets a body
+lectured. Dear Lady Principal does so love to cap her kindnesses with
+'a few remarks.' There's a soft side and a hard side to that woman,
+and a middle sort of schoolma'amy side between. She can't help it,
+poor thing, and mostly her soft side was in front just now.
+
+"Think of it! Wax Works and Ice Palaces all in one term! I do just
+hope Mrs. Jarley'll have a lot of real blood-curdling 'figgers' to
+look at and not all miminy-piminy ones. Well, good night, honey, I'm
+off to be as good as gold."
+
+Every pupil at Oak Knowe, in the week that followed, tried to be "as
+good as gold," for a pleasure such as Lady Jane proposed to give the
+school was as welcome to the highest Form as to the lowest Minims, and
+the result was that none was left out of the party--not one.
+
+It was all perfectly arranged, even the weather conspiring to further
+the good time, with a beautifully clear day and the air turned mild,
+with a promise of the coming spring. The snow was beginning to waste,
+yet the sleighing held fine and the city stables had been ransacked to
+obtain the most gorgeous outfits with the safest drivers.
+
+Thirty handsome sleighs with their floating plumes and luxurious
+robes, drawn by thirty spans of beautiful horses was the alluring
+procession which entered Oak Knowe grounds on the eventful Saturday;
+and three hundred happy girls, each in her best attire piled into
+them. Yes, and one small boy! For who could bear to leave behind that
+one last child of the great family? And a boy who in but a week's time
+had learned to clean shoes so well and promptly?
+
+So clad in his new suit, of the school's uniform, "Such as all we men
+folks wear"--as he had proudly explained to his mother when he first
+appeared in this before her--and with a warm top-coat and cap to
+match, the happy youngster rode in the leading sleigh in which sat
+Lady Jane herself.
+
+Of how those happy young folks took possession of the exhibition hall,
+that had been reserved for them; and smiled or shuddered over the
+lifelike images of famous men and women; and finally tore themselves
+away from the glib tongue of the exhibitor and his fascinating
+show--all this any schoolgirl reader can picture for herself.
+
+Then of the dinner at the great hotel, in a beautiful room also
+reserved that they might indulge their appetites as hunger craved
+without fear or observation of other guests: the slow drive about the
+city, and the swift drive home--with not one whit of the gayety dimmed
+by any untoward accident.
+
+"Oh! it's been a perfect success! Nothing has happened that should
+not, and I believe that I've been the happiest girl of all! But such a
+crowd of them. Better count your flock, Miss Tross-Kingdon, maybe, and
+see if any are missing;" said Lady Jane as she stepped down at the Oak
+Knowe door.
+
+"I don't see how there could be, under your care, my Lady, but I'll
+call a mental roll."
+
+So she did. But the roll was not perfect. Two were missing. Why?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+A PERPLEXING PROBLEM OF LIFE
+
+
+Miss Tross-Kingdon entered Miss Hexam's room, looking so disturbed
+that the latter asked:
+
+"Why, Muriel, what is the matter?"
+
+They two were of kin and called each other by their first names.
+
+"Matter enough, Wilda. I'm worried and angry. And to think it should
+happen while the Bishop is away on that trip of his to the States!"
+
+"Tell me," urged the gentle little woman, pushing a chair forward into
+which the Lady Principal wearily dropped.
+
+"It's that Dorothy Calvert. She's lost herself again!"
+
+"She has a knack of doing that! But she'll be found."
+
+"Maybe. Worst is she's taken another with her. Robin, the new
+boot-boy."
+
+Miss Hexam laughed:
+
+"Well, I admit that is the greater loss just now! Girls are plentiful
+enough at Oak Knowe but boot-boys are scarce. And this Robin was a
+paragon, wasn't he? Also, I thought Dorothy was away up toward the
+'good conduct medal,' as well as 'distinction' in music. I don't see
+why she should do so foolish a thing as you say and lessen her chances
+for the prize."
+
+"Wilda, you don't understand how serious it is. It was one thing to
+have it happen in this house but it's night now and she away in a
+strange city. I declare I almost wish she'd never come at all."
+
+For a moment Miss Hexam said no more. She knew that Miss Muriel loved
+the missing girl with sincere affection and was extremely proud of her
+great progress in her studies. All the school had readily conceded
+that in her own Form Dorothy stood highest, and would certainly win
+the "honors" of that Form. When the Principal had rested quietly a
+while longer she asked:
+
+"Now tell me all about it, Muriel."
+
+"Nobody missed her, but, she did not come home with the rest. I've
+'phoned to the police to look for for her and the boy, but it's a
+disgrace to the school to have to do such a thing. Besides, Robin's
+mother is half wild about him and declares she must walk into town to
+seek him."
+
+"You're foolish, the pair of you. Stop and reason. Robin is thoroughly
+familiar with the city and suburbs, from his messenger-boy experience.
+Dorothy is blessed with a fair share of common sense. If they
+wandered away somewhere, they'll soon wander back again when they
+realize what they have done. I'm sorry you stirred up the police and
+they should be warned to keep the matter quiet."
+
+"Oh! they have been," answered the weary Lady Principal. "It does
+seem, lately, that every good time we allow the girls ends in
+disaster."
+
+"Never mind. You go to bed. You've done all you can till morning."
+
+Miss Muriel did go away but only to spend the night in watching along
+with Lady Jane in the library, the latter deeply regretting that she
+had ever suggested this outing and, like the Lady Principal, both
+sorry and angry over its ending.
+
+Dorothy had ridden to the exhibition in the very last sleigh of all,
+as Robin had in the first, and when they all left the hotel after
+dinner he had lingered beside her while she waited for the other teams
+to drive on and her own to come up.
+
+This took a long time, there was so much ado in settling so many girls
+to the satisfaction of all; and looking backward he saw that there
+would still be a delay of several moments.
+
+"I say, Dorothy, come on. I want to show you where we used to live
+before my father died. We'll be back in plenty time. It's the dearest
+little house, with only two rooms in it; but after we left it nobody
+lived there and it's all gone to pieces. Makes me feel bad but I'd
+like to show you. Just down that block and around a side street. Come
+on. What's the use standing here?"
+
+"Sure we can be back in time, Robin?"
+
+"Certain. Cross my heart. I'm telling you the truth. It's only a step
+or so."
+
+"Well, then, let's hurry."
+
+Hurry they did, he whistling as usual, until they came to a narrow
+alley that had used to be open but had now been closed by a great pile
+of lumber, impossible for them to climb.
+
+"Oh! pshaw! Somebody must be going to build here. But never mind. Our
+house was right yonder, we can go another way."
+
+His interest as well as hers in exploring "new places," made them
+forget everything else; and when, at last, they came to Robin's old
+home a full half-hour had passed.
+
+It was, indeed, a sorry place. Broken windows, hanging doors and
+shutters, chimney fallen, and doorstep gone. Nobody occupied it now
+except, possibly, a passing tramp or the street gamin who had
+destroyed it.
+
+"My! I'm glad my Mother can't see it now. She never has since we moved
+down to our cottage in the glen. It would break her dear heart, for my
+father built it when they were first married. That was the kitchen,
+that the bedroom--Hark! What's that?"
+
+"Sounded like a cat."
+
+"Didn't to me. Cats are squealier'n that was. I wonder if anybody or
+thing is in there now. If I had time I'd go and see."
+
+"Robin, wouldn't you be afraid?"
+
+"Afraid? Afraid to go into my own house, that was, that my father
+built with his own hands? Huh! What do you take me for? I'd as soon go
+in there as eat my din--Hello! There certainly--"
+
+They put their heads close to the paneless window and listened
+intently. That was a human groan. That was a curious patter of small
+hoofs--Dorothy had heard just such a sound before. That surely was a
+most familiar wail:
+
+"Oh, Baal! My jiminy cricket!"
+
+"Jiminy cricket yourself, Jack-boot-boy! What you doing in my house?
+I'm living in yours--I mean I'm boot-boy now. How are you?" cried
+Robin, through the window.
+
+"Who'm you? Have you got anything to eat? Quick! Have you?"
+
+The voice which put the question was surely Jack's but oddly weak and
+tremulous. Dorothy answered:
+
+"Not here, Jack, course. Are you hungry?"
+
+"Starvin'! Starvin'! I ain't touched food nor drink this two days. Oh!
+Have you?"
+
+Daylight was already fading and street lights flashing out but this
+by-way of the town had no such break to the darkness. Robin was over
+the rickety threshold in an instant and Dorothy quickly followed.
+Neither had now any thought save for the boy within and his suffering.
+
+They found him lying on a pile of old rags or pieces of discarded
+burlap which he had picked up on the streets, or that some former
+lodger in the room had gathered. Beside him was Baal, bleating
+piteously, as if he, too, were starving. The reason for this was
+evident when Robin stumbled over a rope by which the animal was
+fastened to the window sash; else he might have strolled abroad and
+foraged for himself.
+
+But if Robin fell he was up in a second and with the instincts of a
+city bred boy knew just what to do and how to do it.
+
+"Got any money, Dorothy?"
+
+"Yes. Twenty-five cents, my week's allowance."
+
+"I've got ten. Mother said I might keep that much out of my week's
+wages. Give it here. I'll be back in a minute."
+
+He was gone and Dorothy dropped down on the dusty floor beside Jack
+and asked his story. He told it readily enough, as far as willingness
+went, but his speech lagged for once and from sheer lack of strength.
+
+"I left--seeking my fortune. It warn't so easy as I thought it would
+be. I've hired for odd jobs, held horses, run arrants, helped 'round
+taverns, but didn't get no place for steady. Trouble was, folks don't
+take no great to Baal. They'd put with him a spell, treat him real
+decent till he'd up and butt somebody over--then his dough was cooked.
+The worse he was used the better I liked him, though I'd ha' sold him
+for money if I could, I've been hungry so much the time. And that
+right here, Dorothy, _in a town full o' victuals_! Just chock full.
+See 'em in the winders, see 'em in the markets, on wagons--and every
+created place, but not a speck for me. But I got along, I'd ha' made
+out, if I hadn't et somethin' made me dretful sick. It was somethin'
+in a can I picked up out a garbage pail, some sort o' fish I guess,
+and I've been terr'ble ever since. What'd he go for? Why don't he come
+back?"
+
+"I don't know. I reckon he went for food. How did you keep warm in
+here, if this is where you lived?"
+
+"Didn't keep warm. How could I? I ain't been warm, not real clean
+through, since the last night I slep' in my nice bed at Oak Knowe."
+
+"Why didn't you come back? Or go to the railway stations? They are
+always heated, I reckon."
+
+"Did. Turned me out. Lemme stay a spell but then turned me out. Said I
+better go to the poorhouse but--won't that boy never come!"
+
+"He's coming now, Jack," she answered and was almost as glad as he of
+the fact.
+
+Robin came whistling in, good cheer in the very sound.
+
+"Here you are neighbor! Candle and matches--two cents. Pint of
+milk--three. Drink it down while I light up!"
+
+Jack grabbed the milk bottle with both hands and drained it; then fell
+back again with a groan.
+
+"'T hurts my stummick! Hurts my stummick awful!"
+
+"Never mind. I'll turn Baal loose and let him find something outside.
+A likely supper of tin cans and old shoes'll set him up to a T. Scoot,
+Baal!"
+
+The goat was glad enough to go, apparently, yet in a moment came
+bleating back to his master. Dorothy thought that was pathetic but
+Robin declared it disgusting.
+
+"Clear out, you old heathen, and hunt your supper--"
+
+"Oh! don't be cruel to the loving creature, Robin! Suppose he should
+get lost?" begged Dorothy.
+
+"Lost? You can't lose Baal, don't you fret. Look-a-here, boy! here's a
+sandwich! Come from the best place in town. I know it. Give the
+biggest slice for the least money. Can't tell me anything about that,
+for I've been nigh starved myself too often in this same old town.
+What? You don't want it? Can't eat it? Then what do you want?"
+
+Provoked that his efforts to please Jack failed so fully, Robin
+whistled again, but not at all merrily this time; for he had at last
+begun to think of his own predicament and Dorothy's. Here they were
+stranded in town, Oak Knowe so far away, night fast falling and,
+doubtless, a stern reprimand due--should they ever reach that happy
+haven again.
+
+"Robin, I do believe he is sick. Real, terrible sick. It wasn't just
+starving ailed him. Do you s'pose we could get a doctor to him?"
+
+"To this shanty? No, I don't. But if he's sick, there's hospitals.
+Slathers of 'em. Hurray! There's the one that Dr. Winston is head of.
+There's an emergency ward there and free ones--and it's the very
+checker!"
+
+Jack had ceased moaning and lay very still. So still that they were
+both frightened and Dolly asked:
+
+"How can we get him there, if they would take him in? He's terrible
+heavy to carry."
+
+Even dimly seen by the light of the flickering candle struck on the
+floor, Dorothy thought the pose of superiority Robin now affected the
+funniest thing, and was not offended when he answered with lofty
+scorn:
+
+"Carry him? I should say not. We couldn't and we won't. I'll just step
+to the corner and ring up an ambulance. I know the name. You stay
+here. I'll meet it when it comes and don't get scared when the gong
+clangs to get out of the way."
+
+Dorothy's own life in a southern city returned to her now and she
+remembered some of its advantages which Robin had spoken of. So she
+was not at all frightened when she heard the ambulance come into the
+street beyond the alley, which was too narrow for it to enter, nor
+when two men in hospital uniforms appeared at the door of the room.
+They had lanterns and a stretcher and at once placed poor Jack upon it
+and hurried away.
+
+They needed not to ask questions for Robin had followed them and was
+glibly explaining all he knew of the "case" and the rest which he had
+guessed.
+
+"Ate spoiled fish out of a garbage can, did he? So you think it's
+ptomaine poisoning, do you Doctor Jack-o'-my-thumb? Well, I shouldn't
+be surprised if your diagnosis is correct. Steady now, mate, this is
+a--Hello! What's that?"
+
+"That" proved to be Baal, returned to inquire what was being done to
+his master by prodding the orderly's legs with his horns, so that the
+stretcher nearly fell out of his hand.
+
+Baal got his answer by way of a vicious kick which landed him out of
+reach and permitted the men to carry their burden quickly away. Left
+behind, the pair of young Samaritans stared for an instant at one
+another, dismayed at their own delay.
+
+It was Dorothy who came to a decision:
+
+"We've done as bad as we could and as good. Seems awful queer how it
+all happened. Now we must go home. Can we get a carriage anywhere and
+would it take us back without any money to pay it? Would Miss
+Tross-Kingdon pay it, do you think? The Bishop would but he's gone
+traveling."
+
+Leaving their candle still flickering on the floor they anxiously left
+the shanty; and it may be stated here, for the guidance of other
+careless ones that there was an item in the next morning's paper
+stating that a certain "old rookery had been burned down during the
+night; origin of fire unknown; a benefit to the city for it had long
+been infested by hoboes and tramps." To which of these classes poor
+Jack belonged it did not state; but either one was a far call to the
+"great artist" he had said he would become.
+
+There were cabs in plenty to be seen and, probably, to be hired; but
+they did not summon one. A vision of Miss Tross-Kingdon's face at its
+sternest rose before Dorothy and she dared not venture on the lady's
+generosity. Another thought came, a far happier one:
+
+"I'll tell you! Let's follow Jack. Maybe Dr. Winston would be there or
+somebody would know about us--if we told--and would telephone to Oak
+Knowe what trouble we're in. For it is trouble now, Robin Locke, and
+you needn't say it isn't. You're scared almost to death and so am I. I
+wish--I wish I'd never heard of a Wax Works, so there!"
+
+Robin stopped and turned her face up to the light of a street lamp
+they were passing and saw tears in her eyes. That was the oddest thing
+for her to cry--right here in this familiar city where were railway
+stations plenty in which they might wait till morning and somebody
+came. But, softened as her tears made him, he couldn't yet quite
+forget that he was the man of the party.
+
+"It's an awful long ways to that Hospital, and I've got five cents
+left. We can go in anywhere and I can 'phone for myself. No need to
+bother any doctors or nurses."
+
+Opposition to her wishes dried her tears.
+
+"Well, I am going to Dr. Winston's hospital. I'd like you to go with
+me and show me the way but if you won't the policemen I meet will do
+it. I'm going right now."
+
+That conquered this small Canadian gentleman, and he answered:
+
+"All right. I'll show you. Only don't you dare to be crying when you
+get there."
+
+She wasn't. It proved a long walk but help loomed at the end of it and
+the youngsters scarcely felt fatigue in the prospect of this. Also,
+the help proved to be just what they most desired. For there was Dr.
+Winston himself, making his night visit to a very ill patient and
+almost ready to depart in his car which stood waiting at the door.
+
+Dorothy remembered how little gentlewomen should conduct themselves
+when paying visits; so after inquiring of the white-clad orderly who
+admitted her if Dr. Winston was there, and being told that he was, she
+took her empty purse from her pocket and sent up her card. She would
+have written Robin's name below hers if she had had a pencil or--had
+thought about it.
+
+The tiny card was placed upon a little silver salver and borne away
+with all the dignity possible; but there was more amazement than
+dignity in the good doctor's reception of it. Another moment he was
+below, buttoning his top-coat as he came and demanding with a smile
+that was rather anxious:
+
+"To what am I indebted for the pleasure of this visit, Miss Dorothy
+Calvert?"
+
+But the tears were still too near the girl's eyes for her to meet jest
+with jest. She could only hold out her arms, like the lonely,
+frightened child she was and he promptly clasped her in his own.
+
+Then "tinkle, tinkle, tinkle," ran a little bell in the Oak Knowe
+library and over the telephone wire rang the doctor's hearty voice.
+
+"Be at rest, Miss Muriel. Your runaways are found and I'll motor them
+home in a jiffy!"
+
+This was so joyful a message that Lady Jane and the Lady Principal
+promptly fell upon one another's neck and wept a few womanly tears.
+Then Miss Tross-Kingdon released herself, exclaiming:
+
+"Oh! those dreadful police. Why did I violate the privacy of Oak Knowe
+by setting them to search? I must recall the order right away--if I
+can!"
+
+Self-blame doesn't tend toward anybody's good nature and the head of
+Oak Knowe School for Young Ladies had been sorely tried. Also, her
+offense had come from the very girl she trusted most and was,
+therefore, the more difficult to forgive. So clothing herself in all
+her dignity, she was simply the Lady Principal and nothing more, when
+for a second time the quiet of her domain was broken by the honk-honk
+of an automobile, the door opened and Dorothy and Robin walked in. The
+doctor had laughingly declared that he couldn't enter with them--he
+was afraid! But though it was really only lack of time that prevented
+him so doing, their own spirits were now so low that they caught the
+infection of his remark--if not his spirit--and visibly trembled.
+
+This was a sign of guilt and caught Miss Muriel's eye at once.
+
+"What is the explanation of this, Dorothy? Robin?"
+
+Dorothy had been pondering that explanation on the swift ride home.
+Dr. Winston had called them the Good Samaritans and seemed pleased
+with them. Maybe Miss Muriel would think so, too.
+
+"We stayed to see--we had to be what he said. Good little
+Samaritans--"
+
+"Humph! If that is some new game you have invented, please never to
+play it again. Your duty--"
+
+"Why, Lady Principal, you wouldn't have us 'pass by on the other
+side,' would you? To-morrow's lesson--"
+
+But there was no softening in Miss Muriel's eye, and indignant Robin
+flashed out:
+
+"Well--well--you needn't blame _her_. You needn't blame a _girl_--when
+it was all my fault! I coaxed her or she wouldn't ha' done it!"
+
+This was such a manly, loyal reversion of the old story of Adam and
+Eve that Lady Jane laughed and would have clapped her hands in pride
+of her small compatriot. But she refrained and chose the wiser course
+of slipping away unseen.
+
+"Robin! you forget yourself! I have given you a home here but I have
+not given you license to be insolent or disobedient. You have been
+both. Your mother is somewhere on the road to town, looking for you."
+
+But it happened she was not. Dr. Winston had espied a lone woman
+dragging herself citywards and had stopped to give her a lift. Then,
+learning who she was and her errand, had promptly turned about and
+conveyed her also home; so she was back in their own rooms almost as
+soon as her boy was and able to soothe his wrath as only mothers can.
+
+But upon poor Dorothy fell the full force of her teacher's
+indignation.
+
+"Dorothy, I would not have believed it possible for you so willfully
+to disappoint me. Go to your dormitory and to bed at once. You cannot
+go off bounds again till Easter holidays. Good night."
+
+Dorothy obeyed in silence. She could think of many things to say but
+she could not say them. Even to anxious Dawkins who would have
+welcomed her warmly and ministered loving comfort she could only say:
+
+"Good night. It's such a mixed up world. It was good to help Jack, the
+doctor said; and it was wrong, Miss Tross-Kingdon said; and--and--I'm
+so tired! Oh! if I could only see Aunt Betty!"
+
+With that last homesick cry, she laid her head on her pillow, and
+being a perfectly healthy girl--fell fast asleep.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+COMMENCEMENT; AND CONCLUSION
+
+
+Dorothy in disgrace! That seemed an incredible thing to her
+schoolmates, who had hitherto believed "Dixie" to be the one great
+favorite of all.
+
+However, she could never speak of the matter to anybody, except the
+Bishop when he came home from his southern journey and the news he had
+to bring her was so far more important and saddening that a short
+confinement "on bounds" seemed actually trivial. For Uncle Seth was
+dead. The dear guardian and wise counselor would greet her no more. At
+first her grief seemed unbearable; but the good Bishop took her into
+his own home for a little time and she came back to Oak Knowe somewhat
+comforted for her loss.
+
+Besides she had had a little talk with Miss Tross-Kingdon, and there
+was again sweet peace and confidence between them. Miss Muriel now
+helped the girl in her work, inciting her ambition and keeping her so
+well employed that she had little time to sit and grieve.
+
+Indeed, the spirit of ambition was in everyone's heart. Easter
+holidays were past, spring exams proved fairly satisfactory with much
+yet to be accomplished before Commencement came. So the weeks fairly
+flew, the outdoor recreations changing with the seasons, and Dorothy
+learning the games of cricket and golf, which were new to her and
+which she described in her letters home as "adorably fascinating and
+English." Tennis and basket-ball were not so new. She had played these
+at the Rhinelander Academy, the first private school she had ever
+attended; but for even these familiar sports she spared little time.
+
+"It does seem as if the minutes weren't half as long as they were in
+the winter, Winifred! There's so much, so much I want to finish and
+the time so short. Why, it's the middle of June already, and
+Commencement on the twenty-first. Only six days for us to be together,
+dear!" cried Dorothy in the music room with her violin on her lap, and
+her friend whirling about on the piano stool.
+
+They were "programmed" for a duet, the most difficult they had ever
+undertaken, and were resting for the moment from their practicing
+while Dorothy's thoughts ran back over the year that was past.
+
+"Such a lot of things have happened. So many bad ones that have turned
+out good. Maybe, the best of all was Jack-boot-boy's running away and
+our finding him. It gave Robin and me a rather unhappy time, but it's
+turned out fine for him, because as he says: 'It's knocked the
+nonsense out of me.'"
+
+"The Dame will let no more creep in. Old John told me how it was. Soon
+as Dr. Winston told him where Jack was, at that hospital, he said to
+his wife: 'I'm going to see him.' Then that 'rare silent woman' spoke
+her mind. 'Husband, that'll do. I'll ride yon, on the cart, to fetch
+him home here to our cottage. The doctor says he's well enough to
+leave that place. I'll get him bound out to me till he's twenty-one.
+Then I'll let him go to 'seek' that 'fortune' he yearns for, with a
+new suit of clothes on his back and a hundred dollars in his pocket.
+That's the law and I've took him in hand."
+
+"So he's settled and done for, for a long time to come. It's just fine
+for him, they'll treat him like a son--Baal can live his days out in a
+pen--and Jack will grow up better fitted for his own station in life,
+as you Canadians say. Down in the States we believe that folks make
+their own 'stations'; don't find them hanging around their necks when
+they are born. Why I know a boy who was--"
+
+"There, Dolly Doodles! Don't get started on that subject. I know him
+by heart. One remarkable creature named James Barlow, who couldn't
+spell till you taught him and now has aspirations toward a college
+professorship. By the letters he writes, I should judge him to be a
+horrible prig. I wish I could see him once. I'd make him bow his lofty
+head; you'd find out!"
+
+Dorothy pulled a letter from her pocket and tossed it into her
+friend's hands.
+
+"You'll soon have a chance. Read that."
+
+"Oh! may I?"
+
+But the reading was brief and an expression of great disappointment
+came to Winifred's face.
+
+"Oh, Dorothy! How horrid!"
+
+"Yes, dear. I felt so, too, at first. Now all I feel is a wish to be
+through so I can hurry home to dear Aunt Betty who must need me
+dreadfully, or she'd never disappoint us like this."
+
+"It was such a beautiful plan. We should have had such a lovely time.
+Ah! here comes Gwen. Girl, what do you think? Mrs. Calvert isn't well
+enough to come to Canada, after all, and Dorothy has got to go home.
+When it's all fixed, too. Father's freed himself from business for
+three delightful months, and we three, with her were to go jaunting
+about all over the country in his private car, and Dorothy to learn
+that Canada beats the States all to pieces."
+
+Gwendolyn shared the disappointment. That trio had been dubbed by
+their mates as the "Inseparables" and the love between them all was
+now deep and sincere.
+
+"Read it aloud, Gwen. Maybe there's a chance yet, that I overlooked. I
+was so mad I couldn't half see that upstart's writing--not after the
+first few words. He doesn't mince matters, does he?"
+
+The letter ran thus:
+
+     "DEAR DOROTHY:
+
+     "Mrs. Calvert will not be able to come to Canada to meet
+     you. She is not ill in bed but she needs you here. Dinah is
+     taking care of her now, and Ephraim and I have decided that
+     it is best for us two to come to Oak Knowe to fetch you
+     home. Of course, you could come alone, as you went, but I'm
+     at leisure now, and have laid aside enough from my year's
+     earnings to pay the expenses of us all; and Ephraim wants to
+     go for you. He says 'it ain' fitten fo' no young lady lak my
+     li'l Miss to go trabbelin' erbout de country widout her own
+     serbant-boy to take care ob her. Mah Miss Betty was clean
+     bewitchted, erlowin' hit in de fust place, but she's laid up
+     an' ole Eph, he ain' gwine hab no mo' such foolishness.'
+
+     "Those are his own words and lately--Well, I don't like to
+     go against that old man's wishes. So he and I will be on
+     hand by the twenty-first of June and I expect can get put
+     up somewhere, though I'm ignorant as to what they do with
+     negroes in Canada.
+
+                         "Faithfully,
+                              "JIM."
+
+"Negroes! Negroes? Why, is that Ephraim a negro?"
+
+"Yes, indeed. As black as ink, almost, with the finest white head--of
+wool! Not quite so thick and curly as your 'barristers' wear, but
+handsome, I think. It represents so many, many years of faithful
+service. That dear old man has taken care of Aunt Betty ever since she
+was a child, and does so still. Nobody knows his real age, but it's
+one proof of his devotion to her that he'll take this long journey
+just because he remembers what's 'fitten,' even if she has grown
+careless about it. You see, it's Uncle Seth's death that must have
+changed her so," said Dorothy, musingly, with her eyes on the floor.
+
+The other two exchanged pitying glances, and it rose to Winifred's
+lips to say:
+
+"But she let you come alone in the fall and he wasn't dead then;" but
+she refrained. She knew, for Dolly had told her, that all that winter
+Dorothy's home letters had not seemed quite the same as they had used,
+during other separations from her aunt; and that many of them had
+been written for Mrs. Calvert by various friends of the old lady's,
+"just to oblige." Never before had the sprightly Mrs. Betty shrunk
+from writing her own letters; and, indeed, had done so often enough
+during the early winter to prevent Dorothy's suspicion of anything
+amiss.
+
+"Auntie dear, is so old, you know girls, that of course she does need
+me. Besides she's been all over the world and seen everything, so
+there's really 'nothing new under the sun' for her. That's why this
+junketing around we'd planned so finely, doesn't appeal to her as it
+does to us," said Dorothy, at last, lifting her violin to her shoulder
+and rising to her feet. "Shall we try it again, Win? And, Gwen, dear,
+have you finished your picture yet for the exhibition?"
+
+"Just finished, Dolly. And I forgot my errand here. Miss Muriel sent
+me to tell you girls that the dressmaker was in the sewing-room,
+giving last fittings to our frocks. She wants us to go there right
+after practice hour, for we must not lose our turn. I wanted to wear
+that beautiful one Mamma sent me from Paris but 'No' was the word.
+'There will be no change in our custom. Each girl will wear a plain
+white lawn Commencement frock, untrimmed, and with no decoration
+except a sash of each Form's colors.' So there we are, same old
+six-pences, and dowds I think, every one of us."
+
+But when those few days intervening had passed and great Oak Knowe
+was alight with its hundreds of daintily robed girls, there was not a
+single "dowd" among them; nor one, whether unknown "charity" scholar
+or otherwise who felt envy of any difference between themselves or
+others.
+
+"What a glorious day! What crowds are here and coming. Assembly
+and all the rooms near it will be packed closer than ever! Oh!
+I'm so happy I can't keep still! No more lessons, no more
+early-to-bed-and-rise business for three delightful months! There's
+father! There he is--right in the front row of guests' seats. Right
+amongst the 'Peers,' where he belongs by right!" cried Winifred,
+turning Dorothy's head around that she might see the object of her own
+great excitement. "See, see! He's looking our way. He's discovered
+us! And he's awfully disappointed about you. He never forgave Miss
+Tross-Kingdon that she wouldn't let you take that Ice Palace trip
+with us, just because you'd broken a few rules. But never you mind,
+darling. Though this is the end of Oak Knowe for us together, it isn't
+the end of the world--nor time. Father shall bring me to you, he
+shall, indeed! Just think how it would help my education to visit
+the States! But, hark! The bugle is blowing--fall into line!"
+
+From their peep-hole in the hall Dorothy, also, could see the guests
+taking seats; and clutching Winifred's sleeve, whispered:
+
+"Look! Look! Away there at the back of Assembly, close to the
+door--that's Jim! That's Ephy! Oh! isn't it good to see them? For no
+matter now, I'm not without my own home folks any more than the rest
+of you. After banquet I'll introduce you if I get a chance."
+
+Then they fell into the line of white clad girls, and to the strains
+of a march played by the Seventh Form graduates, three hundred bright
+faced maidens--large and small--filed to their places in Assembly for
+their last appearance all together.
+
+It was a Commencement like multitudes of others; with the usual eager
+interest in guessing who'd be prize winners. The most highly valued
+prize of each year at Oak Knowe was the gold medal for improvement in
+conduct. Who would get it? Looking back the "Inseparables" could think
+of nobody who'd shown marked advance along that line; Winifred
+remarking, complacently:
+
+"I think we're all about as good as can be, anyway. 'Cause we're not
+allowed to be anything else."
+
+"I know who's improved most, though. I hope--Oh! I hope she'll get
+it!"
+
+And when the announcement was made she did! Said the Bishop, who
+conferred the diplomas and prizes:
+
+"The Improvement Gold Medal, the highest honor our faculty can bestow,
+is this year awarded to--" Here the speaker paused just long enough to
+whet the curiosity of those eager girls--"To the Honorable Gwendolyn
+Borst-Kennard. Will she kindly advance and receive it?"
+
+Never was "honor girl" more deeply moved, surprised, and grateful than
+this once so haughty "Peer," now humble at heart as the meekest
+"Charity" present, and never such deafening cheers and hand-claps
+greeted the recipient of that coveted prize.
+
+Other lesser prizes followed: to Winifred's surprise, she had gained
+"Distinction" in physical culture; Florita in mathematics; and a new
+"Distinction" was announced for that year--"To Miss Dorothy Calvert
+for uniform courtesy," and one that she valued less: a gold star for
+advancement in music.
+
+"Two prizes, Dolly Doodles! You ought to should give poor Gracie one,
+you should. 'Tis not nice for one girl to have two, but my Auntie
+Prin, she couldn't help it. She told the Bishop you'd always been a
+beautiful behaver, an' she must. Now, it's all over, and I'm glad.
+I'm so tired and hungry. Come to banquet."
+
+After all it was the same as most Commencements the world over, with
+its joys and its anticipations. What of the latter's realization? In
+Dorothy's case at least the telling thereof is not for this time or
+place; but all is duly related in a new story and a new volume which
+tells of "Dorothy's Triumph." But there was that year one innovation
+at the banquet, that farewell feast of all the school together. For
+the company was but just seated when there stalked majestically into
+the great hall an old negro in livery.
+
+Pulling his forelock respectfully toward the Bishop, bowing and
+scraping his foot as his Miss Betty had long ago taught him, he
+marched straight to his Miss Dorothy's chair and took his stand behind
+it. He took no notice when turning her head she flashed a rather
+frightened smile in his direction, nor did either of them speak. But
+she glanced over to the head of the table and received an approving
+nod from her beloved Bishop; whose own heart felt a thrill of happy
+memory as he beheld this scene. So, away back in boyhood's days, in
+the dining-room at beautiful Bellevieu, had this same white-headed
+"boy" served those he had loved and lost.
+
+To him it was pathetic; to other observers, a novelty and curiosity;
+but to Dorothy and Ephraim themselves, after that first minute, a mere
+matter of course. Looking over that great table, the girl's face grew
+thoughtful. She had come among all these a stranger; she was leaving
+them a friend with everyone. The days that were coming might be happy,
+might be sorry; yet she was not alone. Old Ephraim stood behind her,
+faithful to the end; and out in the hall waited James Barlow, also
+faithful and full of the courage of young life and great ambition.
+No, she was not alone, whatever came or had come; and, after all, it
+was sweet to be going back to the familiar places and the familiar
+friends. So, the banquet at its end, by a nod from the Bishop, she
+drew her violin from under the table and rising in her place played
+sweetly and joyfully that forever well loved melody of "Home, Sweet
+Home."
+
+One by one, or in groups, the company melted away. Each to her new
+life of joy or sorrow or as general, both intermingled.
+
+
+
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's note:
+
+Minor changes have been made to correct typesetters' errors; otherwise,
+every effort has been made to remain true to the author's words and
+intent.
+
+
+
+***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DOROTHY AT OAK KNOWE***
+
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