Hunters Marjory | Page 6

one thing about Mary Ann which interested Marjory profoundly, and that was her school experience. She felt that she would like to question the girl about it, and yet was too proud to betray her curiosity by bringing up the subject. Mary Ann, however, saved her the trouble, for as soon as they were seated she began at once,--
"Why don't your uncle send you to school? Any one would think a great girl like you ought to be sent to school. Why don't he send you?"
"Uncle doesn't wish me to go to school."
"Maybe he don't want to pay the fees," said Mary Ann.
Marjory said nothing.
"I learn French and German and music. I'm getting on fine with the piano, and papa's going to buy me one of my own soon. You haven't got a piano at Hunters' Brae, have you?"
"No," said Marjory shortly.
As a matter of fact there was a piano at Hunters' Brae, but it was kept in the room that had been her mother's--a room that Marjory was not allowed to enter. For reasons of his own the doctor had forbidden Marjory to go into it. She should do so on her fifteenth birthday, but not before. Lisbeth went in once a week with pail, broom, and duster, but she always carefully locked the door behind her, and Marjory knew nothing of the room or its contents. "Some bonnie day," was all that the old woman would say when she questioned her.
Mary Ann continued,--
"It seems a shame you can't be made a lady of too."
"I can be a lady without going to school," said Marjory sulkily.
The other looked at her in surprise.
"Oh no, you can't. Who is there to teach you? You have to learn manners and deportment and accomplishments and all that sort of thing first. I don't see that you've got any chance here, you poor little thing," patronizingly.
"I don't care," said Marjory, knowing in her heart that she did care beyond everything, and that her greatest desire was to learn all sorts of things. "I don't care a pin," she repeated.
"Yes, you do, or you wouldn't get so red," said Mary Ann provokingly. Then she continued, "Your uncle's queer, isn't he?"
"What do you mean by 'queer'?"
"Well--queer--in his head, you know. People say he is, and, anyhow, he does queer things--keeping that room shut up, and all that. I should say he must be a little bit mad."
"He isn't," indignantly. "He's a very clever, celebrated man."
Mary Ann went off into peals of laughter.
"Oh dear! who told you that?" she cried at last.
"Lisbeth," defiantly.
Another peal of laughter greeted this statement.
"It really is too funny; you little simpleton, to believe such a thing. Why, if he was celebrated, he would be rich enough to send you to school, and he wouldn't let you sew and dust the way you do, just like any village girl. I never dust; mamma doesn't wish me to." And Mary Ann looked at her white hands admiringly, and shot a glance, which Marjory felt rather than saw, at the brown ones nervously clasping and unclasping themselves.
"I wonder," continued her tormentor, "that you don't insist on being sent to school, so that you could learn to earn your own living. I've heard mamma say your uncle gets no money for your keep; no letters ever come from foreign parts from your father. It must be strange to have a father you've never seen. It must be horrid to be like you, because, really, when you come to think of it, you are no better off than a charity child, are you?"
But Mary Ann had gone too far. A tempest was raging in Marjory's heart, and as soon as she could find her voice, which seemed suddenly to have deserted her, she cried,--
"You are a beast, Mary Ann Smylie, and I hate you; and although I haven't been to school, I don't say 'if he was,' and 'don't' instead of doesn't." And with this parting shot Marjory rushed through the shop and jumped into the cart; and Brownie, infected by his mistress's excitement, galloped nearly all the way home, his unusual haste and Silky's sympathetic barking causing quite a commotion in the sleepy, quiet village.
Arrived home, Marjory ran to her uncle's study, knocked loudly at the door, and hardly waiting for permission, went in, leaving Silky, breathless and panting, outside.
The doctor was sitting in his armchair in his favourite attitude--his legs crossed, the tips of his fingers meeting, his eyes fixed upon them, but his thoughts far away. As a matter of fact he was thinking of Marjory at this very moment, of his visit to the Foresters, and the plans they had been making for the two girls.
"Well, Marjory, what is it?" he asked kindly, as the excited girl stood before him. She was trembling