Bessie Bradfords Prize | Page 4

Mrs. Richards, who was that which Mrs. Granby so mistakenly called herself, "a woman of few words," for she, as well as the rest of the family, had been greatly interested in the adventure of the heroic little girl who had braved and endured so much to rescue her young brother and sister.
Maggie hesitated one moment, then said:
"No, Mrs. Richards. Mrs. Neville has gone back to her son, but Miss Lena has not gone with her. She is to stay with Colonel and Mrs. Rush for a long time, perhaps a year, and we are all so glad about it."
"And could the mother go and leave her, and she might any time take a turn for the worse, and be took off sudden?" interposed Mrs. Fleming, whose tears did not prevent her from hearing all that passed. "You never know when there's been burnin' if there ain't smothered fire, an' it shows up when you least hexpect it."
No one took any notice of this cheerful prophecy, but Mrs. Granby asked:
"And the young lady is like to be quite well again and about soon, Miss Maggie?"
"Oh, yes," answered Maggie, confidently; "and we hope to have her back at school before long. She is quite well enough now to enjoy everything except walking; but her feet are still tender and she cannot yet walk about. But come, girls, it is time to go;" and the young party took their leave.
When not far from their respective homes, which were all in the same neighborhood, they met Gracie Howard, and Maggie stopped to speak to her, although Gracie had shown no sign of wishing to do so; indeed, she seemed as if she would rather pass on. Of course, the others lingered too.
"Gracie," said Maggie, "I hope you will come to the meeting of our club the day after to-morrow. It is so long since you have been."
Gracie colored violently, looked down upon the ground, and in a nervous way dug the toe of her overshoe into the snow which had fallen that morning and still lay in some places on the street.
"I don't know; no, I think not--I think--perhaps I may go out with mamma," she stammered, anxious for some excuse, and yet too honest to invent one that was altogether without foundation. Perhaps she would go out with her mother; she would ask her to take her.
"Oh, come, Gracie; do come," persisted Maggie, determined to carry her point if possible. "It is so long since you have been, and you know there is a paper owing from you. Your turn is long since passed; and we'll all be so glad to have you."
Grade's color deepened still more, and she cast a sidelong glance at Lily, who stood at Maggie's elbow; and Lily saw that she was doubtful if that "all" included herself. Lily was very outspoken, particularly so where she saw cause for disapproval, and above all if she thought others were assuming too much; and she had on certain occasions so plainly made known her opinion of some of Grade's assumption, that a sort of chronic feud had become established between the two, not breaking out into open hostility, but showing itself in a half-slighting, half-teasing way with Lily, and with Gracie in a manner partly scornful, partly an affectation of indifference.
Some six weeks since, at a meeting of the club of the "Cheeryble Sisters," to which all three little girls belonged, Gracie's overweening self-conceit and irrepressible desire to be first had led her into conflict with another of her classmates, Lena Neville, in which she had proved herself so arrogant, so jealous and ill-tempered that she had excited the indignation of all who were present. But if they had known what followed after Gracie had been left alone in the room where she had so disgraced herself, how would they have felt then? How she had stood by and seen the source of contention, a composition, which she believed had been written by Lena, torn to atoms by a mischievous little dog, withholding her hand from rescuing it, her voice from warning the dog off from it simply for the indulgence of that same blind, overpowering jealousy. The destruction was hardly wrought, when repentance and remorse too late had followed--repentance and remorse, intensified a thousandfold by after events on the very same day.
But that guilty secret was still locked within her own heart, weighing heavily upon her conscience, but still unconfessed, still unsuspected by others. Ever since that miserable afternoon she had shrunk from meeting her classmates, and although she had been obliged to do so at school, she had avoided all other opportunities of seeing them, and on one excuse and another had refused to attend the meetings of the club which came together every Friday afternoon, the place