Miss Prudence Part 47

"Not for everybody; do you know I wonder why Miss Prudence doesn't live in New York as she did when she sent Linnet to school."

"She wanted to be home, she said; she was tired of boarding, and she liked Master McCosh's school for me. I think she will like it for Prue.

I'm so glad she will have Prue when I have to go back home. Mr. Holmes isn't rich, is he? You said he would take care of Prue."

"He has a very small income from his mother; his mother was not Prue's father's mother."

"Why, do you know all about them?"

"Yes."

"Who told you? Aunt Prue hasn't told me."

"Mother knows. She knew Prue's father. I suspect some of the girls'

fathers in your school knew him, too."

"I don't know. He was rich once--here--I know that. Deborah told me where he used to live; it's a handsome house, with handsome grounds, a stable in the rear and an iron fence in front."

"I've seen it," said Morris, in his concisest tone. "Mr. Holmes and I walked past one day. Mayor Parks lives there now."

"Clarissa Parks' father!" cried Marjorie, in an enlightened tone. "She's in our first cla.s.s, and if she studied she would learn something. She's bright, but she hasn't motive enough."

"Do you think Mr. Holmes, will ever come home?" he asked.

"Why not? Of course he will," she answered in astonishment.

"That depends. Prue might bring him. I want to see him finished; there's a fine finishment for him somewhere and I want to see it. For all that is worth anything in me I have to thank him. He made me--as G.o.d lets one man make another. I would like to live long enough to pa.s.s it on; to make some one as he made me."

It was too cold to walk slowly, their words were spoken in brief, brisk sentences.

There was nothing specially memorable in this walk, but Marjorie thought of it many times; she remembered it because she was longing to ask him what he had brought her and was ashamed to do it. It might be due to him after her refusal last night; but still she was ashamed. She would write about it, she decided; it was like her not to speak of it.

"I haven't told you about our harbor mission work at Genoa; the work is not so great in summer, but the chaplain told me that in October there were over sixty seamen in the Bethel and they were very attentive. One old captain told me that the average sailor had much improved since he began to go to sea, and I am sure the harbor mission work is one cause of it. I wish you could hear some of the old sailors talk and pray. The _Linnet_ will be a praise meeting in itself some day; four sailors have become Christians since I first knew the _Linnet_."

"Linnet wrote that it was your work."

"I worked and prayed and G.o.d blessed. Oh, the blessing! oh, the blessing of good books! Marjorie, do you know what makes waves?"

"No," she laughed; "and I'm too cold to remember if I did. I think the wind must make them. Now we turn and on the next corner is our entrance."

The side entrance was not a gate, but a door in a high wall; girls were flocking up the street and down the street, blue veils, brown veils, gray veils, were streaming in all directions, the wind was blowing laughing voices all around them.

Marjorie pushed the door open:

"Good-bye, Morris," she said, as he caught her hand and held it last.

"Good-bye, Marjorie,--_dear_" he whispered as a tall girl in blue brushed past them and entered the door.

Little Miss Dodd ran up laughing, and Marjorie could say no more; what more could she say than "good-bye"? But she wanted to say more, she wanted to say--but Emma Downs was asking her if it were late and Morris had gone.

"What a handsome young fellow!" exclaimed Miss Parks to Marjorie, hanging up her cloak next to Marjorie's in the dressing room. "Is he your brother?"

"My twin-brother," replied Marjorie.

"He doesn't look like you. He is handsome and tall."

"And I am homely and stumpy," said Marjorie, good-humoredly. "No, he is not my real brother."

"I don't believe in that kind."

"I do," said Marjorie.

"Master McCosh will give you a mark for transgressing."

"Oh, I forgot!" exclaimed Marjorie; "but he is so much my brother that it is not against the rules."

"Is he a sailor?" asked Emma Downs.

"Yes," said Marjorie.

"A common sailor!"

"No, an uncommon one."

"Is he before the mast?" she persisted.

"Does he look so?" asked Marjorie, seriously.

"No, he looks like a captain; only that cap is not dignified enough."

"It's becoming," said Miss Parks, "and that's better than dignity."

The bell rang and the girls pa.s.sed into the schoolroom in twos and threes. A table ran almost the length of the long, high apartment; it was covered with green baize and served as a desk for the second cla.s.s girls; the first cla.s.s girls occupied chairs around three sides of the room, during recitation the chairs were turned to face the teacher, at other times the girls sat before a leaf that served as a rest for their books while they studied, shelves being arranged above to hold the books. The walls of the room were tinted a pale gray. Mottoes in black and gold were painted in one straight line above the book shelves, around the three sides of the room. Marjorie's favorites were:

TO DESIRE TO KNOW--TO KNOW, IS CURIOSITY.

TO DESIRE TO KNOW--TO BE KNOWN, IS VANITY.

TO DESIRE TO KNOW--TO SELL YOUR KNOWLEDGE, IS COVETOUSNESS.

TO DESIRE TO KNOW--TO EDIFY ONE'S SELF, IS PRUDENCE.

TO DESIRE TO KNOW--TO EDIFY OTHERS, IS CHARITY.

TO DESIRE TO KNOW--TO GLORIFY G.o.d, IS RELIGION.

The words were very ancient, Master McCosh told Marjorie, the last having been written seven hundred years later than the others. The words "TO GLORIFY G.o.d" were over Marjorie's desk.

The first cla.s.s numbered thirty. Clarissa Parks was the beauty of the cla.s.s, Emma Downs the poet, Lizzie Harrowgate the mathematician, Maggie Peet the pet, Ella Truman wrote the finest hand, Maria Denyse was the elocutionist, Pauline Hayes the one most at home in universal history, Marjorie West did not know what she was: the remaining twenty-two were in no wise remarkable; one or two were undeniably dull, more were careless, and most came to school because it was the fas.h.i.+on and they must do something before they were fully grown up.