"I never have talked to her about the mayflower business, as you call it."

"Do you mean to say that she doesn't know that you sold those flowers to buy a violin?"

Hope colored painfully as she answered,--

"I--I have never said anything about those things to her."

"You haven't? Well, now look here; you've been so nice keeping _my_ secret, I'll keep yours. The girls, not one of them, shall hear a word from me of that poor time and the flower-selling,--not one word; you can trust me."

"Oh, no, no, Dorothea! You think I am ashamed of that 'poor time,' as you describe it,--that dear time, it ought to be described. No, no, it isn't because I was ashamed of that time that I haven't spoken to Kate or to the others, it is because I'm always shy of talking about myself, always, and I was more than ever shy of talking to girls about a way of living and doing that they knew nothing of, and that they would wonder at as I told of it,--wonder at and stare at me in their wonder, because they knew nothing only of one kind of living and doing,--_their_ kind.

It would have been like what it is sometimes for a musician to play to an audience a new composition that is full of strange chords and harmonies. The audience listens and wonders but doesn't understand, and so is not in sympathy with the player, and the player is made to feel awkward and uncomfortable, and as if he had made a mistake in producing the composition at that time. That was what I knew that I should feel if I talked to these girls. Don't you see what I mean?"

"Yes, I see, now that you've put it before me in this way, but I shouldn't, if you hadn't laid it out as you have; and--well, I suppose I might have felt just as you did in your place, only I shouldn't have known how to explain it to myself as you have."

"And then after _you_ came," went on Hope, more as if she were relieving her own mind than addressing any particular person, "after that, it would have been more difficult to talk of that old time--"

"Because you thought I'd stowed away in my mind that old squabble just as you had, and would jump on you, and say a lot of disagreeable things.

Well, I might have burst out with a lot of remarks and exclamations and questions, and stared at you as you say you expected to be stared at, but I shouldn't have had any feeling of spite against you, any more than I have now this minute, for, as I tell you, I'd never laid up anything, but you're so sensitive, you wouldn't have liked my remarks and questions before all the girls, I dare say."

"And I dare say this sensitiveness has made me cowardly. I thought one day last term when Kate Van der Berg was talking with Anna Fleming about people who had risen in the world by their own ability, and yet didn't like to refer to their early days of poverty and struggle, that I must be a great coward, and I was very unhappy over it for a while; but I know now that my cowardice isn't shame at all, but just that shrinking from talking to those who couldn't fully understand what I was talking of, and who would stare at me with wonder and curiosity _because_ they didn't understand. But now, now, I'm not going to shrink any longer, I'm not going to have anybody ever think for a single moment that I'm ashamed of that dear time when we lived in that tiny cottage at Riverview, where I first began to learn to play on the little violin I earned myself, and where my dear, dear father made the little model of the engine that made his fortune."

"Oh, do you mean, then, that you are going to tell Kate now, right away,--Kate and the other girls,--what you've told me?" asked Dorothea eagerly, and with her usual blunt inquisitiveness.

"Well, I don't know that I shall rush 'right away' now, this minute, and tell them; it isn't exactly a matter of such importance as that,"

answered Hope, with a laugh that was half amused and half annoyed. "I think I shall dress for dinner first, and I _may_ sleep on it."

"Oh, now you're snubbing my inquisitiveness, I know! But, Hope, see here a minute. I--I want to say that I'm not going to talk to the girls about you. Of course, you expected that I would--would go on over that Brookside station squabble, and I might, if things hadn't turned out as they have--if I--I didn't feel as I do--as if I knew you better now, and knew how you felt about being made a show of."

Hope winced a little at this presumption on Dorothea's part that there was still a secret between them,--a secret dependent on Dorothea's own good will,--and she made haste to say,--

"It is very nice of you, I'm sure, Dorothea, to want to consult my feelings, but it isn't necessary for you to think that you must keep silent on my account."

Dorothea looked a little disappointed, and Hope felt a twinge of self-reproach as she glanced at her; but it was impossible for her to accept the att.i.tude of indebtedness that seemed about to be thrust upon her. As she turned to leave the room, however, she said more warmly than she had yet spoken,--

"I think you have been very good-natured, Dorothea, to have taken everything that I have said so nicely--and--and"--smiling a little--"you are better-natured than I am, because you don't lay things up as I do."

"No, I don't lay up grudges, but I can lay up a little grat.i.tude, I hope, and that helps me to be good-natured sometimes."

As she said this, Dorothea showed all her milk-white teeth in a frank laugh; and Hope, regarding her, thought to herself: "She _is_ better natured than I am about some things, and she _can_ be generous."

CHAPTER XXII.

"And she didn't make any objection to going with you?"

"No, not the slightest. Indeed she seemed glad to go with us."

Hope flushed a little, as she said this in answer to Kate's question that night, as the two sat talking over the day and its exciting events.

The flush was the result of that pang of tender conscience that springs up in revolt at even a momentary want of candor.

"And Ray Armitage,--how did he take it?"

"Oh, quite easily!"

"And you didn't have--either you or Mrs. Sibley--to argue with her; you didn't have to tell her that the only thing to save her from the consequences of her silliness was to go home in a proper way under proper chaperonage?"

"No, we didn't have to knock her down with that bludgeon," laughed Hope.

"Well, I suppose she had begun to _think_! I'm glad she had so much sense. Schuyler made all manner of fun of me after you and Mrs. Sibley left. He said, in the first place, that he didn't believe you'd be in time to see them before they entered the theatre, and if you did, you wouldn't stop them."

"Mrs. Sibley was of the same opinion exactly."

"How clever it was of her to do the next thing,--take you into the theatre, and then manage the whole thing so perfectly!"

"Yes, wasn't it clever, and so kind."

"When you drove up did you see any of the teachers?"

"We met Miss Stephens as we entered the hall."

"You don't mean it? What did she say at seeing Dorothea with you?"

"Mrs. Sibley came in with us for a moment, and Miss Stephens looked at the three of us with some surprise, and then said,--

"'I thought Dorothea was coming home long ago under the escort of Bessie Armitage and her brother.'

"At that, Mrs. Sibley answered at once, 'We met Dorothea, and took her with _us_.'

"Oh! and when Miss Stephens saw Mrs. Sibley and heard her say that, she felt that everything was all right, I suppose. She ought to have been sure of that before, and then you wouldn't have lost your afternoon's skating, and had such a lot of bother."

"Oh, well, it's all turned out satisfactorily."

Hope couldn't tell Kate _how_ satisfactorily,--couldn't tell her that if Miss Stephens _had_ been sure that everything was right at an earlier hour and Dorothea had thus been hindered from doing what she did, she would also have missed that mortifying experience, that might do more to shake her unlimited confidence in her own estimates and opinions than anything else could possibly do.

No, Hope couldn't tell Kate of this, for her lips were sealed. But if she could not express herself freely in this direction, she could, and she would, say something to show Dorothea as she had just seen her,--at her best; and so she held forth, with what amplitude was possible within the limit of her promise, on the girl's surprising gentleness and reasonableness. Dorothea had really behaved exceedingly well, she told Kate, and was not only appreciative of what had been done for her, but of the good intention that prompted the doing. And here Hope could not help repeating this characteristic speech of Dorothea's,--

"I don't half believe, and I never have, that such dreadful consequences would come of going against Miss Marr's rules; but _you_ do, I see, and so it was awfully kind of you to take all this trouble to pull me out of the danger you thought I was in."

"She said that? Well, I must say, she's got more sense and feeling than I gave her credit for; and to think of her flying at _me_ as she did.

_My_ intentions were as good as yours."

"Yes, but you gave her advice, and she hates advice. What seemed to impress her was our--Mrs. Sibley and my--taking the trouble to leave the Park, and actually going in to the matinee and waiting to do her the service we did."

"Well, I hope her grat.i.tude and appreciation will last long enough to keep her out of any more silly sc.r.a.pes for a while."

"I don't believe she will want to get into any more such sc.r.a.pes. I--I think she feels sort of ashamed of what she has done. And, Kate, couldn't we--wouldn't it be a good plan if we tried to help her to keep out of such things?"