"Liked her! Not if she could have said anything bad enough to hurt you like this,--to have hurt you for five years."

"It doesn't hurt me as it did then, but I remember it."

"Well, that shows what a hurt it must have been."

"What she said was out of ignorance. She didn't know any better," Hope went on, determined to do the honorable thing by her childish enemy.

"I don't believe she knows much better now. Oh, you needn't try to smooth it all over to me, you little conscientious thing; it's of no use."

"But, Kate, promise me one thing,--that you won't--you won't talk to the other girls about it."

"Yes, I'll promise you that I'll be as mum as an oyster."

"And you won't--you won't be--"

"Disagreeable to her?" interrupted Kate, laughing. "Well, I'll try not to be; I'll take pattern by you, and be so politely fascinating that she'll ask me to play duets with her."

Hope could not help laughing at this, but all the time she felt disturbed and troubled. Kate Van der Berg had playfully jibed at her for her conscientiousness. Kate thought she was over-conscientious, and she might have been sometimes, for she was a sensitive creature, with high notions and ideas of truth and justice and honor, and her father had developed these ideas by his advice and counsel. One of the things that he had impressed upon her was never to take advantage of any one, especially any one that you had had a quarrel with. "Fair play, my dear, always; remember that, and so you must remember to be open and above board after you've had any differences with people, and never let yourself say or hint damaging things about them, to prejudice others,"

was one of his favorite pieces of counsel, put in one form and another, at various times. Hope thought of these words even when she joined in Kate Van der Berg's laughter. She thought of them after Kate had left her, and all through the rest of the day they would start up to torment her. At last she said to herself: "This is over-conscientious, for _I didn't mean_ to prejudice any one against Dolly Dering. I tried not to show how I felt, and if I didn't succeed, it isn't my fault; but I'm a great goose to fuss so. Kate will keep her promise, I know, and Miss Dorothea Dering won't be unpopular because of anything I have said."

So the matter rested, and the days went on, the school arrangements settling into order, and the school companionships falling into the usual adjustment by personal choice. When everything seemed to be running smoothly, Dolly came forward again with her proposition. It was one afternoon when she heard the sound of a violin floating down from the music-room. It was the first time she had heard it, and obeying her headlong impulse, she ran swiftly up the stairs and knocked at the door.

A voice called out, "Come in;" and obeying it, she found herself not only in the presence of Hope, but of Kate Van der Berg, Myra Donaldson,--Hope's lately returned room-mate,--and Anna Fleming. Myra was seated at the piano, a sheet of music before her, waiting for Hope to signal to her. All the girls looked up and bowed as Dolly entered, but no one spoke. They were intent upon watching Hope, who, bow in hand, was carefully testing the strings that she had just tightened.

Dolly came round and stood beside Kate Van der Berg at the back of the piano, which was a parlor grand placed half-way down the room. She started to whisper, "What is it they--" but was checked by Kate's "Hush!

hush!" and just then the bow was brought to bear softly upon the strings, as Hope began playing the sonata in F major by Beethoven. Once or twice as the music progressed, Kate glanced at Dolly with a new interest. What was this cool intruder--for such Kate dubbed her--thinking as she listened to these exquisitely rendered strains? Was she properly astonished and ashamed of herself for proposing to join such a performer in a violin duet? Dolly's face betrayed nothing, however. She simply stood perfectly still, leaning a little forward against the piano, her big black eyes fixed in a steady gaze, now upon Hope's violin bow, and now upon Hope herself. She stood thus until near the close, when the difficult and delightful pa.s.sages approach the climax. Then her eyes wandered, her features relaxed, and when the end came, she was ready with a little outburst of vigorous applause, which she followed up with,--

"You ought to play in public at concerts. But how you _must_ have worked! I'm not up to the cla.s.sic, and I can't play like you, anyway.

What I like, what I _love_, is dance music,--waltzes,--and I've got the loveliest duet in that time. It'll be as easy as A B C too. I'll run and get it now, and my violin, and you just try it with me, and--oh, say, have you asked your teacher what I told you to? You haven't? Well, never mind for anybody's permission. 'T won't take you long; I'll--"

"You really must excuse me, but I can't play any more now," interrupted Hope's voice, as Dolly turned to go for her violin.

"Oh, dear, I wish I'd come sooner, before you had started off on that long thing. But will you play with me to-morrow about this time? Or why not to-night after dinner?"

"But," with a queer little smile, "I haven't asked my teacher's permission yet."

"No, and I don't believe you care two pins about that," answered Dolly.

"Well, I don't believe it would be of any use," responded Hope, guardedly.

"Then say to-night after dinner."

"To-night after dinner I had promised to read French with Kate Van der Berg."

"Oh, well, there'll be time enough for that too; and you won't mind, will you, if she plays with me first?" addressing Kate.

"Mind? I shall mind a great deal," Kate made haste to reply. "I know how it is when these musical people get started; they never know when to stop. No, she's promised to me to-night, and I'm not going to let her off."

All this was said in a bright, laughing way, that hadn't an atom of unfriendliness in the tone of it; and Dolly had not the faintest idea that her proposition was being decidedly snubbed, as she listened. The other girls were wiser. The moment that Hope refused to play in the way she did, they knew that the proposition was distasteful to her; and when Kate Van der Berg came to the support of this refusal with that quick, bright decision, they knew that _she_ knew more than they did why the proposition was distasteful.

Anna Fleming, who was Kate's room-mate, said to her a little later,--

"Kate, didn't you think it was rather disobliging of Hope Benham not to play that duet with Dorothea Dering?"

"Disobliging! Well, that is a way to put it. I think it was the most forward, presuming--what my brother Schuyler would call 'the cheekiest thing' for that girl to take it for granted that such a violinist as Hope Benham would want to practise her little rubbishy waltzes with her."

"But she didn't know probably what a splendid player Hope was, when she first asked her."

"She knew, didn't she, after she had heard the sonata?"

"Yes, I suppose she had some idea, but she might not have been a very good judge. She said, you know, at once that she couldn't play like Hope, anyway."

"Yes, I heard her; so kind of her to say that," cried Kate, sarcastically.

Anna laughed. Then, "What's the matter with 'that girl,' as you call her?" she asked.

"Matter! well, I should think you could see as well as I that she is a forward sort of thing; that's all I've got against her," Kate concluded hastily, remembering her promise to Hope.

"Hope must have taken a great dislike to her."

"Why should you think that?"

"Because I never knew Hope Benham to set herself up on her violin-playing before, and refuse to play with anybody."

"n.o.body has ever asked her to play a violin duet. It is she who has asked one of us to play an accompaniment for her now and then. You know that _we_ should never have thought of going forward and offering to play for her."

"Oh, well, we knew all about her playing from Miss Marr. But you say n.o.body has ever asked her to play a violin duet. How about that little Vernon girl who left last term? Hope used to play with _her_ a great deal, and Milly used to ask her too. Hope didn't care particularly for Milly Vernon."

"But she wanted to help her."

"And she wanted to be obliging too. Hope Benham has always been one of the kindest and most obliging girls in school."

"And she is now, but she has some sense and spirit, and probably doesn't mean to have a new-comer like Dorothea Dering take full possession of her on short acquaintance."

"Yes, it _is_ a pretty short acquaintance," responded Anna, thoughtfully.

"That last remark of mine was a happy hit," thought Kate, triumphantly.

"It has disposed of all the surmises about Hope's dislike, but," she further thought, "I wonder how this violin business is going to end. I prophesy that Miss Dorothea Dering will carry the day, and Hope will play that duet with her yet."

CHAPTER XI.

The first two months at school generally pa.s.s very quickly; after that, the time is apt to move a little slower. The first two months at Miss Marr's school pa.s.sed so quickly that the girls all confessed themselves "so surprised" when December came with Christmas scarcely more than three weeks away. Miss Marr gave a vacation on Christmas week, when the boarding-girls, as those who were inmates of her house were called, could go to their homes, if not too far off, and return by New Year's eve, for it was a fixed rule that they must all be back by that time, and not one of them but was delighted to obey this rule, for not one of them would have lost Miss Marr's New Year's party, which, according to Kate Van der Berg, was the best fun of the year.

"But what do you do, what _is_ the fun?" inquired Dolly Dering, who was present when Kate made the above statement.