"Huh! And I was only trying to see if there wasn't some way out of the mess for you," said Neale, as though offended.

"I wouldn't want to get out of it--even if you could help me--at such a price. Because _she_ may have been a tale-bearer, do you think _I'd_ be one?"

"Not even to get a chance to act in _The Carnation Countess_?" asked Neale, with a sudden smile.

"No! And--and _that_ wouldn't help me, anyway!" she added, quite despairingly.

CHAPTER XVIII

MISS PEPPERILL AND THE GRAY LADY

Tess and Dot Kenway set off for the hospital in good season that Sat.u.r.day morning, their arms laden with great bunches of flowers, all wrapped about with layers of tissue paper, for the November air was keen.

On the corner of High Street, the wind being somewhat bl.u.s.terous, Dot managed to run into somebody; but she clung to the flowers nevertheless.

"Hoity-toity!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed a rather sharp voice. "Where are you going, young lady?"

"To--to the horsepistol," declared the m.u.f.fled voice of the matter-of-fact Dot.

"Hospital! hospital!" gasped Tess, in horror. "This is Miss Pepperill."

"Ah! So it is Theresa and her little sister," said the teacher. "Humph!

A child who misp.r.o.nounces the word so badly as that will never get to the inst.i.tution itself without help. Let me carry those flowers, Dorothy. I am going past the Women's and Children's Hospital myself."

"Thank her, Dot!" hissed Tess. "It's very kind of her."

"You can carry the flowers, Miss Pepperill," said the smallest Corner House girl, "if you want to. But I want Mrs. Eland to know I brought some as well as Tess."

The red-haired lady laughed--rather a short, brusk laugh, that might have been a cough.

"So you are going to see your Mrs. Eland, are you, Theresa?" she asked her pupil.

"Yes, Miss Pepperill. We always see Mrs. Eland when we go to the hospital," said Tess. "But we like to see the children, too."

"Yes," said Dot; "there is a boy there with only one arm. Do you suppose they'll grow a new one on him?"

That time Miss Pepperill _did_ laugh in good earnest; but Tess despaired. "Goodness, Dot! they don't grow arms on folks."

"Why not?" demanded the inquisitive Dorothy. "Our teacher was reading to us how new claws grow on lobsters when they lose 'em fighting. But perhaps that boy wasn't fighting when he lost his arm."

"For pity's sake! I should hope not," observed Miss Pepperill. In a minute they came in sight of the hospital, and she added, in her very tartest tone of voice: "I shall go in with you, Theresa. I should like to meet your Mrs. Eland."

"Yes, ma'am," Tess replied dutifully, but Dot whispered:

"I don't like the way she says 'Theresa' to you, Tess. It--it sounds just as though you were going to have a tooth pulled."

Miss Pepperill had stalked ahead with Dot's bunch of flowers. Dot did not much mind having the flowers carried for her; but she did not propose letting anybody at the hospital make a mistake as to who donated that particular bouquet. As they went in she said to the porter, who was quite well acquainted with the two smallest Corner House girls by this time:

"Good morning, Mr. John. _We_ are bringing some flowers for the children's ward, Tess and me. That lady with--with the light hair, is carrying mine."

Fortunately the red-haired school teacher did not hear this observation on the part of Dot.

Half-way down the corridor, Mrs. Eland chanced to come out of one of the offices to meet the school teacher, face to face. "Oh! I beg your pardon," said the little, gray lady--for she dressed in that hue in the house as well as on the street. "Did you wish to see me?"

The matron was small and plump; the teacher was tall and lean. The rosy, pleasant face of Mrs. Eland could not have been put to a greater contrast than with the angular and grim countenance of the bespectacled Miss Pepperill.

The latter seemed, for the moment, confused. She was not a person easily disturbed in any situation, it would seem; but she was almost bashful as the little matron confronted her.

"I--I---- Really, are you Mrs. Eland?" stammered the school teacher.

"Yes," said the quietly smiling gray lady.

"I--I have heard Theresa, here, speak so much of you----" She actually fell back upon Tess for support! "Theresa! introduce me to Mrs. Eland,"

she commanded.

"Oh, yes, Mrs. Eland," said the cordial Tess. "I wanted you to meet Miss Pepperill. You know--she's my teacher."

"Oh! who wanted you to learn the succession of the rulers of England?"

said Mrs. Eland, laughing, with a sweet, mellow tone.

"Yes, ma'am. The sovereigns of England," Tess said.

"Of course!" Mrs. Eland added:

"'First William, the Norman, Then William, his son.'"

"That old rhyme!" Miss Pepperill said, hastily, recovering herself somewhat. "You taught it to Theresa?"

"I wrote it out for her," confessed Mrs. Eland. "I could never forget it. I learned it when I was a very little girl."

"Indeed?" said Miss Pepperill, almost gasping the e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n. "So did I."

"That was some time ago," Mrs. Eland said, in her gentle way. "My mother taught me."

"Oh! did she?" exclaimed the other lady.

"Yes. She was an English woman. She had been a governess herself in England."

"Indeed!" Again the red-haired teacher almost barked the expression.

She seemed to labor under some strong emotion. Tess noted the strange change in Miss Pepperill's usual manner as she spoke to the matron.

"I think it must have been my mother who taught me," the teacher said, in the same jerky way. "I'm not sure. Or--perhaps--I picked it up from hearing it taught to somebody else.

"'First William, the Norman, Then William, his son,----'