Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 118, August, 1887 | Page 7

have not much occasion
for money. You shall go to the best school that any of our cities can
offer, Myrtle, and you shall stay there until we agree that you are fitted
to come back to us an ornament to Oxbow Village, and to larger places
than this if you are called there. We have had some talk about it, your
Aunt Silence and I, and it is all settled. Your aunt does not feel very
rich just now, or perhaps she would do more for you. She has many
pious and poor friends, and it keeps her funds low. Never mind, my
child, we will have it all arranged for you, and you shall begin the year
1860 in Madam Delacoste's institution for young ladies. Too many rich
girls and fashionable ones there, I fear, but you must see some of all
kinds, and there are very good instructors in the school,--I know
one,--he was a college boy with me,--and you will find pleasant and
good companions there, so he tells me; only don't be in a hurry to
choose your friends, for the least desirable young persons are very apt
to cluster about a new-comer."
Myrtle was bewildered with the suddenness of the prospect thus held
out to her. It is a wonder that she did not bestow an embrace upon the
worthy old master. Perhaps she had too much tact. It is a pretty way
enough of telling one that he belongs to a past generation, but it does

tell him that not over-pleasing fact. Like the title of Emeritus Professor,
it is a tribute to be accepted, hardly to be longed for.
When the curtain rises again, it will show Miss Hazard in a new
character, and surrounded by a new world.
CHAPTER XXIII.
MYRTLE HAZARD AT THE CITY SCHOOL.
Mr. Bradshaw was obliged to leave town for a week or two on business
connected with the great land-claim. On his return, feeling in pretty
good spirits, as the prospects looked favorable, he went to make a call
at The Poplars. He asked first for Miss Hazard.
"Bliss your soul, Mr. Bridshaw," answered Mistress Kitty Fagan, "she's
been gahn nigh a wake. It's to the city, to the big school, they've sint
her."
This announcement seemed to make a deep impression on Murray
Bradshaw, for his feelings found utterance in one of the most energetic
forms of language to which ears polite or impolite are accustomed. He
next asked for Miss Silence, who soon presented herself. Mr. Bradshaw
asked, in a rather excited way, "Is it possible, Miss Withers, that your
niece has quitted you to go to a city school?"
Miss Silence answered, with her chief-mourner expression, and her
death-chamber tone: "Yes, she has left us for a season. I trust it may not
be her destruction. I had hoped in former years that she would become
a missionary, but I have given up all expectation of that now. Two
whole years, from the age of four to that of six, I had prevailed upon
her to give up sugar,--the money so saved to go to a graduate of our
institution--who was afterwards----he labored among the
cannibal-islanders. I thought she seemed to take pleasure in this small
act of self-denial, but I have since suspected that Kitty gave her secret
lumps. It was by Mr. Gridley's advice that she went, and by his
pecuniary assistance. What could I do? She was bent on going, and I
was afraid she would have fits, or do something dreadful, if I did not let

her have her way. I am afraid she will come back to us spoiled. She has
seemed so fond of dress lately, and once she spoke of learning--yes, Mr.
Bradshaw, of learning to--dance! I wept when I heard of it. Yes, I
wept."
That was such a tremendous thing to think of, and especially to speak
of in Mr. Bradshaw's presence,--for the most pathetic image in the
world to many women is that of themselves in tears,--that it brought a
return of the same overflow, which served as a substitute for
conversation until Miss Badlam entered the apartment.
Miss Cynthia followed the same general course of remark. They could
not help Myrtle's going if they tried. She had always maintained that, if
they had only once broke her will when she was little, they would have
kept the upper hand of her; but her will never was broke. They came
pretty near it once, but the child wouldn't give in.
Miss Cynthia went to the door with Mr. Bradshaw, and the
conversation immediately became short and informal.
"Demonish pretty business! All up for a year or more,--hey?"
"Don't blame me,--I couldn't stop her."
"Give me her address,--I'll write to her. Any young men teach in