“What do you mean by coming here?” Miss Wigger inquired.
She answered gently, but not timidly. The tone in which the mistress had spoken had evidently not shaken her resolution, so far.
“I wish to know,” she said, “if this gentleman desires to see me on the subject of my advertisement?”
“Your advertisement?” Miss Wigger repeated. “Miss Westerfield! how dare you beg for employment in a newspaper, without asking my leave?”
“I only waited to tell you what I had done, till I knew whether my advertisement would be answered or not.”
She spoke as calmly as before, still submitting to the insolent authority of the schoolmistress with a steady fortitude very remarkable in any girl—and especially in a girl whose face revealed a sensitive nature. Linley approached her, and said his few kind words before Miss Wigger could assert herself for the third time.
“I am afraid I have taken a liberty in answering you personally, when I ought to have answered by letter. My only excuse is that I have no time to arrange for an interview, in London, by correspondence. I live in Scotland, and I am obliged to return by the mail to-night.”
He paused. She was looking at him. Did she understand him?
She understood him only too well. For the first time, poor soul, in the miserable years of her school life, she saw eyes that rested on her with the sympathy that is too truly felt to be uttered in words. The admirable resignation which had learned its first hard lesson under her mother’s neglect—which had endured, in after-years, the daily persecution that heartless companionship so well knows how to inflict—failed to sustain her, when one kind look from a stranger poured its balm into the girl’s sore heart. Her head sank; her wasted figure trembled; a few tears dropped slowly on the bosom of her shabby dress. She tried, desperately tried, to control herself. “I beg your pardon, sir,” was all she could say; “I am not very well.”
Miss Wigger tapped her on the shoulder and pointed to the door. “Are you well enough to see your way out?” she asked.
Linley turned on the wretch with a mind divided between wonder and disgust. “Good God, what has she done to deserve being treated in that way?” he asked.
Miss Wigger’s mouth widened; Miss Wigger’s forehead developed new wrinkles. To own it plainly, the schoolmistress smiled.
When it is of serious importance to a man to become acquainted with a woman’s true nature—say, when he contemplates marriage—his one poor chance of arriving at a right conclusion is to find himself provoked by exasperating circumstances, and to fly into a passion. If the lady flies into a passion on her side, he may rely on it that her faults are more than balanced by her good qualities. If, on the other hand, she exhibits the most admirable self-control, and sets him an example which ought to make him ashamed of himself, he has seen a bad sign, and he will do well to remember it.
Miss Wigger’s self-control put Herbert Linley in the wrong, before she took the trouble of noticing what he had said.
“If you were not out of temper,” she replied, “I might have told you that I don’t allow my house to be made an office for the engagement of governesses. As it is, I merely remind you that your carriage is at the door.”
He took the only course that was open to him; he took his hat.
Sydney turned away to leave the room. Linley opened the door for her. “Don’t be discouraged,” he whispered as she passed him; “you shall hear from me.” Having said this, he made his parting bow to the schoolmistress. Miss Wigger held up a peremptory forefinger, and stopped him on his way out. He waited, wondering what she would do next. She rang the bell.
“You are in the house of a gentlewoman,” Miss Wigger explained. “My servant attends visitors, when they leave me.” A faint smell of soap made itself felt in the room; the maid appeared, wiping her smoking arms on her apron. “Door. I wish you good-morning"—were the last words of Miss Wigger.
Leaving the house, Linley slipped a bribe into the servant’s hand. “I am going to write to Miss Westerfield,” he said. “Will you see that she gets my letter?”
“That I will!”
He was surprised by the fervor with which the girl answered him. Absolutely without vanity, he had no suspicion of the value which his winning manner, his kind brown eyes, and his sunny smile had conferred on his little gift of money. A handsome man was an eighth wonder of the world, at Miss Wigger’s school.
At the first stationer’s shop that he passed, he stopped the carriage and wrote his letter.
“I shall be glad indeed if I can offer you a happier life than the life you are leading now. It rests with you to help me do this. Will you send me the address of your parents, if they are in London, or the name of any friend with whom I can arrange to give you a trial as governess to my little girl? I am waiting your answer in the neighborhood. If any hinderance should prevent you from replying at once, I add the name of the hotel at which I am staying—so that you may telegraph to me, before I leave London to-night.”
The stationer’s boy, inspired by a private view of half-a-crown, set off at a run—and returned at a run with a reply.
“I have neither parents nor friends, and I have just been dismissed from my employment at the school. Without references to speak for me, I must not take advantage of your generous offer. Will you help me to bear my disappointment, permitting me to see you, for a few minutes only, at your hotel? Indeed, indeed, sir, I am not forgetful of what I owe to my respect for you, and my respect for myself. I only ask leave to satisfy you that I am not quite unworthy of the interest which you have been pleased to feel in—S.W.”
In those sad words, Sydney Westerfield announced that she had completed her education.
THE STORY
FIRST BOOK.
Chapter I. Mrs. Presty Presents Herself.
NOT far from the source of the famous river, which rises in the mountains between Loch Katrine and Loch Lomond, and divides the Highlands and the Lowlands of Scotland, travelers arrive at the venerable gray walls of Mount Morven; and, after consulting their guide books, ask permission to see the house.
What would be called, in a modern place of residence, the first floor, is reserved for the occupation of the family. The great hall of entrance, and its quaint old fireplace; the ancient rooms on the same level opening out of it, are freely shown to strangers. Cultivated travelers express various opinions relating to the family portraits, and the elaborately carved ceilings. The uninstructed public declines to trouble itself with criticism. It looks up at the towers and the loopholes, the battlements and the rusty old guns, which still bear witness to the perils of past times when the place was a fortress—it enters the gloomy hall, walks through the stone-paved rooms, stares at the faded pictures, and wonders at the lofty chimney-pieces hopelessly out of reach. Sometimes it sits on chairs which are as cold and as hard as iron, or timidly feels the legs of immovable tables which might be legs of elephants so far as size is