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
