HESTER'S FORGOTTEN BOOK.

It wanted scarcely three weeks to the holidays, and therefore scarcely three weeks to that auspicious day when Lavender House was to be the scene of one long triumph, and was to be the happy spot selected for a midsummer holiday, accompanied by all that could make a holiday perfect--for youth and health would be there, and even the unsuccessful compet.i.tors for the great prizes would not have too sore hearts, for they would know that on the next day they were going home. Each girl who had done her best would have a word of commendation, and only those who were very naughty, or very stubborn, could resist the all-potent elixir of happiness which would be poured out so abundantly for Mrs. Willis' pupils on this day.

Now that the time was drawing so near, those girls who were working for prizes found themselves fully occupied from morning to night. In play-hours even, girls would be seen with their heads bent over their books, and, between the prizes and the acting, no little bees in any hive could be more constantly employed than were these young girls just now.

No happiness is, after all, to be compared to the happiness of healthful occupation. Busy people have no time to fret and no time to grumble.

According to our old friend, Dr. Watts, people who are healthily busy have also no time to be naughty, for the old doctor says that it is for idle hands that mischief is prepared.

Be that as it may, and there is great truth in it, some naughty sprites, some bad fairies, were flitting around and about that apparently peaceful atmosphere. That sunny home, governed by all that was sweet and good, was not without its serpent.

Of all the prizes which attracted interest and aroused compet.i.tion, the prize for English composition was this year the most popular. In the first place, this was known to be Mrs. Willis' own favorite subject. She had a great wish that her girls should write intelligibly--she had a greater wish that, if possible, they should think.

"Never was there so much written and printed," she was often heard to say; "but can any one show me a book with thoughts in it? Can any one show me, unless as a rare exception, a book which will live? Oh, yes, these books which issue from the press in thousands are, many of them, very smart, a great many of them clever, but they are thrown off too quickly. All great things, great books among them, must be evolved slowly."

Then she would tell her pupils what she considered the reason of this.

"In these days," she would say, "all girls are what is called highly educated. Girls and boys alike must go in for compet.i.tive examinations, must take out diplomas, and must pa.s.s certain standards of excellence.

The system is cramming from beginning to end. There is no time for reflection. In short, my dear girls, you swallow a great deal, but you do not digest your intellectual food."

Mrs. Willis hailed with pleasure any little dawnings of real thought in her girls' prize essays. More than once she bestowed the prize upon the essay which seemed to the girls the most crude and unfinished.

"Never mind," she would say, "here is an idea--or at least half an idea.

This little bit of composition is original, and not, at best, a poor imitation of Sir. Walter Scott or Lord Macaulay."

Thus the girls found a strong stimulus to be their real selves in these little essays, and the best of them chose their subject and let it ferment in their brains without the aid of books, except for the more technical parts.

More than one girl in the school was surprised at Dora Russell exerting herself to try for the prize essay. She was just about to close her school career, and they could not make out why she roused herself to work for the most difficult prize, for which she would have to compete with any girl in the school who chose to make a similar attempt.

Dora, however, had her own, not very high motive for making the attempt.

She was a thoroughly accomplished girl, graceful in her appearance and manner; in short, just the sort of girl who would be supposed to do credit to a school. She played with finish, and even delicacy of touch.

There was certainly no soul in her music, but neither were there any wrong notes. Her drawings were equally correct, her perspective good, her trees were real trees, and the coloring of her water-color sketches was pure. She spoke French extremely well, and with a correct accent, and her German also was above the average. Nevertheless, Dora was commonplace, and those girls who knew her best spoke sarcastically, and smiled at one another when she alluded to her prize essay, and seemed confident of being the successful compet.i.tor.

"You won't like to be beaten, Dora, say, by Annie Forest," they would laughingly remark; whereupon Dora's calm face, would slightly flush and her lips would a.s.sume a very proud curve. If there was one thing she could not bear it was to be beaten.

"Why do you try for it, Dora?" her cla.s.s-fellows would ask; but here Dora made no reply: she kept her reason to herself.

The fact was, Dora, who must be a copyist to the end of the chapter, and who could never to her latest day do anything original, had determined to try for the composition prize because she happened accidentally to hear a conversation between Mrs. Willis and Miss Danesbury, in which something was said about a gold locket with Mrs. Willis' portrait inside.

Dora instantly jumped at the conclusion that this was to be the great prize bestowed upon the successful essayist. Delightful idea; how well the trinket would look round her smooth white throat! Instantly she determined to try for this prize, and of course as instantly the bare idea of defeat became intolerable to her. She went steadily and methodically to work. With extreme care she chose her subject. Knowing something of Mrs. Willis' peculiarities, she determined that her theme should not be historical; she believed that she could express herself freely and with power if only she could secure an unhackneyed subject.

Suddenly an idea which she considered brilliant occurred to her. She would call her composition "The River." This should not bear reference to Father Thames, or any other special river of England, but it should trace the windings of some fabled stream of Dora's imagination, which, as it flowed along, should tell something of the story of the many places by which it pa.s.sed. Dora was charmed with her own thought, and worked hard, evening after evening, at her subject, covering sheets of ma.n.u.script paper with penciled jottings, and arranging and rearranging her somewhat confused thoughts. She greatly admired a perfectly rounded period, and she was most particular as to the style in which she wrote. For the purpose of improving her style she even studied old volumes of Addison's _Spectator_; but after a time she gave up this course of study, for she found it so difficult to mold her English to Addison's that she came to the comfortable conclusion that Addison was decidedly obsolete, and that if she wished to do full justice to "The River" she must trust to her own unaided genius.

At last the first ten pages were written. The subject was entered upon with considerable flourishes, and some rather apt poetical quotations from a book containing a collection of poems; the river itself had already left its home in the mountain, and was careering merrily past sunny meadows and little rural, impossible cottages, where the golden-haired children played.

Dora made a very neat copy of her essay so far. She now began to see her way clearly--there would be a very powerful pa.s.sage as the river approached the murky town. Here, indeed, would be room for powerful and pathetic writing. She wondered if she might venture so far as to hide a suicide in her rushing waters; and then at last the brawling river would lose itself in the sea; and, of course, there would not be the smallest connection between her river, and Kingsley's well-known song,

"Clear and cool."

She finished writing her ten pages, and being now positively certain of her gold locket, went to bed in a happy state of mind.

This was the very night when Annie was to lead her revelers through the dark wood, but Dora, who never troubled herself about the younger cla.s.ses, would have been certainly the last to notice the fact that a few of the girls in Lavender House seemed little disposed to eat their suppers of thick bread and b.u.t.ter and milk. She went to bed and dreamed happy dreams about her golden locket, and had little idea that any mischief was about to be performed.

Hester Thornton also, but in a very different spirit, was working hard at her essay. Hester worked conscientiously; she had chosen "Marie Antoinette" as her theme, and she read the sorrowful story of the beautiful queen with intense interest, and tried hard to get herself into the spirit of the times about which she must write. She had scarcely begun her essay yet, but she had already collected most of the historical facts.

Hester was a very careful little student, and as she prepared herself for the great work, she thought little or nothing about the prize--she only wanted to do justice to the unfortunate queen of France. She was in bed that night, and just dropping off to sleep, when she suddenly remembered that she had left a volume of French poetry on her school desk. This was against the rules, and she knew that Miss Danesbury would confiscate the book in the morning, and would not let her have it back for a week.

Hester particularly wanted this special book just now, as some of the verses bore reference to her subject, and she could scarcely get on with her essay without having it to refer to. She must lose no time in instantly beginning to write her essay, and to do without her book of poetry for a week would be a serious injury to her.

She resolved, therefore, to break through one of the rules, and, after lying awake until the whole house was quiet, to slip down stairs, enter the school-room and secure her poems. She heard the clock strike eleven, and she knew that in a very few moments Miss Danesbury and Miss Good would have retired to their rooms. Ah, yes, that was Miss Danesbury's step pa.s.sing her door. Ten minutes later she glided out of bed, slipped on her dressing-gown, and opening her door ran swiftly down the carpetless stairs, and found herself in the great stone hall which led to the school-room.

She was surprised to find the school-room door a little ajar, but she entered the room without hesitation, and, dark as it was, soon found her desk, and the book of poems lying on the top. Hester was about to return when she was startled by a little noise in that portion of the room where the first cla.s.s girls sat. The next moment somebody came heavily and rather clumsily down the room, and the moon, which was just beginning to rise, fell for an instant on a girl's face. Hester recognized the face of Susan Drummond. What could she be doing here? She did not dare to speak, for she herself had broken a rule in visiting the school-room. She remained, therefore, perfectly still until Susan's steps died away, and then, thankful to have secured her own property, returned to her bedroom, and a moment or two later was sound asleep.

CHAPTER x.x.x.

"A MUDDY STREAM."

In the morning Dora Russell sat down as usual before her orderly and neatly-kept desk. She raised the lid to find everything in its place--her books and exercises all as they should be, and her pet essay in a neat brown paper cover, lying just as she had left it the night before. She was really getting quite excited about her river, and as this was a half-holiday, she determined to have a good work at it in the afternoon.

She was beginning also to experience that longing for an auditor which occasionally is known to trouble the b.r.e.a.s.t.s of genius. She felt that those graceful ideas, that elegant language, those measured periods, might strike happily on some other ears before they were read aloud as the great work of the midsummer holidays.

She knew that Hester Thornton was making what she was pleased to term a poor little attempt at trying for the same prize. Hester would scarcely venture to copy anything from Dora's essay; she would probably be discouraged, poor girl, in working any longer at her own composition; but Dora felt that the temptation to read "The River," as far as it had gone, to Hester was really too great to be resisted. Accordingly, after dinner she graciously invited Hester to accompany her to a bower in the garden, where the two friends might revel over the results of Dora's extraordinary talents.

Hester was still, to a certain extent, under Dora's influence, and had not the courage to tell her that she intended to be very busy over her own essay this afternoon.

"Now, Hester, dear," said Dora, when they found themselves both seated in the bower, "you are the only girl in the school to whom I could confide the subject of my great essay. I really believe that I have hit on something absolutely original. My dear child, I hope you won't allow yourself to be discouraged. I fear that you won't have much heart to go on with your theme after you have read my words; but, never mind, dear, it will be good practice for you, and you know it _was_ rather silly to go in for a prize which I intended to compete for."

"May I read your essay, please, Dora?" asked Hester. "I am very much interested in my own study, and, whether I win the prize or not, I shall always remember the pleasure I took in writing it."

"What subject did you select, dear?" inquired Miss Russell.

"Well, I am attempting a little sketch of Marie Antoinette."

"Ah, hackneyed, my dear girl--terribly hackneyed; but, of course, I don't mean to discourage you. _Now I_--I draw a life-picture, and I call it 'The River.' See how it begins--why, I declare I know the words by heart, '_As our eyes rest on this clear and limpid stream, as we see the sun sparkle_----' My dear Hester, you shall read me my essay aloud. I shall like to hear my own words from your lips, and you have really a pretty accent, dear."

Hester folded back the brown paper cover, and wanting to have her task over began to read hastily. But, as her eyes rested on the first lines, she turned to her companion, and said:

"Did you not tell me that your essay was called 'The River'?"

"Yes, dear; the full t.i.tle is 'The Windings of a n.o.ble River.'"

"That's very odd," replied Hester. "What I see here is 'The Meanderings of a Muddy Stream.' '_As our dull orbs rest on this turbid water on which the sun cannot possibly shine._' Why, Dora, this cannot be your essay, and yet, surely, it is your handwriting."

Dora, with her face suddenly flushing a vivid crimson, s.n.a.t.c.hed the ma.n.u.script from Hester's hand, and looked over it eagerly. Alas! there was no doubt. The t.i.tle of this essay was "The Meanderings of a Muddy Stream," and the words which immediately followed were a smart and ridiculous parody on her own high flown sentences. The resemblance to her handwriting was perfect. The brown paper cover, neatly sewn on to protect the white ma.n.u.script, was undoubtedly her cover; the very paper on which the words were written seemed in all particulars the same. Dora turned the sheets eagerly, and here for the first time she saw a difference.

Only four or five pages of the nonsense essay had been attempted, and the night before, when finishing her toil, she had proudly numbered her tenth page. She looked through the whole thing, turning leaf after leaf, while her cheeks were crimson, and her hands trembled. In the first moment of horrible humiliation and dismay she literally could not speak.

At last, springing to her feet, and confronting the astonished and almost frightened Hester, she found her voice.