Miss Prudence

Prudence, by Jennie Maria
(Drinkwater) Conklin

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Title: Miss Prudence A Story of Two Girls' Lives.
Author: Jennie Maria (Drinkwater) Conklin
Release Date: November 27, 2003 [EBook #10322]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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PRUDENCE ***

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MISS PRUDENCE
A STORY OF TWO GIRLS' LIVES
By JENNIE M. DRINKWATER
1883
"We are not to lead events but to follow them."--Epictetus.

CONTENTS
CHAP
I. AFTER SCHOOL
II. EVANGELIST
III. WHAT "DESULTORY" MEANS
IV. A RIDE, A WALK, A TALK, AND A TUMBLE
V. TWO PROMISES
VI. MARJORIE ASLEEP AND AWAKE
VII. UNDER THE APPLE-TREE
VIII. BISCUITS AND OTHER THINGS
IX. JOHN HOLMES
X. LINNET
XI. GRANDMOTHER
XII. A BUDGET OF LETTERS

XIII. A WEDDING DAY
XIV. A TALK AND ANOTHER TALK
XV. JEROMA
XVI. MAPLE STREET
XVII. MORRIS
XVIII. ONE DAY
XIX. A STORY THAT WAS NOT VERY SAD
XX. "HEIRS TOGETHER"
XXI. MORRIS AGAIN
XXII. TIDINGS
XXIII. GOD'S LOVE
XXIV. JUST AS IT OUGHT TO BE
XXV. THE WILL OF GOD
XXVI. MARJORIE'S MOTHER
XXVII. ANOTHER WALK AND ANOTHER TALE
XXVIII. THE LINNET
XXIX. ONE NIGHT
XXX. THE COSEY CORNER
XXXI. AND WHAT ELSE?

MISS PRUDENCE.

I.
AFTER SCHOOL.
"Our content is our best having."--Shakespeare.
Nobody had ever told Marjorie that she was, as somebody says we all
are, three people,--the Marjorie she knew herself, the Marjorie other
people knew, and the Marjorie God knew. It was a "bother" sometimes
to be the Marjorie she knew herself, and she had never guessed there
was another Marjorie for other people to know, and the Marjorie God
knew and understood she did not learn much about for years and years.
At eleven years old it was hard enough to know about herself--her
naughty, absent-minded, story-book-loving self. Her mother said that
she loved story-books entirely too much, that they made her
absent-minded and forgetful, and her mother's words were proving
themselves true this very afternoon. She was a real trouble to herself
and there was no one near to "confess" to; she never could talk about
herself unless enveloped in the friendly darkness, and then the
confessor must draw her out, step by step, with perfect frankness and
sympathy; even then, a sigh, or sob, or quickly drawn breath and half
inarticulate expression revealed more than her spoken words.
She was one of the children that are left to themselves. Only Linnet
knew the things she cared most about; even when Linnet laughed at her,
she could feel the sympathetic twinkle in her eye and the sympathetic
undertone smothered in her laugh.
It was sunset, and she was watching it from the schoolroom window,
the clouds over the hill were brightening and brightening and a red
glare shone over the fields of snow. It was sunset and the schoolroom
clock pointed to a quarter of five. The schoolroom was chilly, for the
fire had died out half an hour since. Hollis Rheid had shoved big sticks
into the stove until it would hold no more and had opened the draft,

whispering to her as he passed her seat that he would keep her warm at
any rate. But now she was shivering, although she had wrapped herself
in her coarse green and red shawl, and tapped her feet on the bare floor
to keep them warm; she was hungry, too; the noon lunch had left her
unsatisfied, for she had given her cake to Rie Blauvelt in return for a
splendid Northern Spy, and had munched the apple and eaten her two
sandwiches wishing all the time for more. Leaving the work on her
slate unfinished, she had dived into the depths of her home-made
satchel and discovered two crumbs of molasses cake. That was an hour
ago. School had closed at three o'clock to-day because it was Friday
and she had been nearly two hours writing nervously on her slate or
standing at the blackboard making hurried figures. For the first time in
her life Marjorie West had been "kept in." And that "Lucy" book
hidden in her desk was the cause of it; she had taken it out for just one
delicious moment, and the moment had extended itself into an hour and
a half, and the spelling lesson was unlearned and the three hard
examples in complex fractions unworked. She had