The Little Colonels Chum: Mary Ware | Page 5

we think she's going to be famous some day. She does such beautiful designing.) Lloyd has been my model ever since I was eleven years old. I'd rather be like her than anybody I ever knew or read of, so I don't mind Jack calling me a copy-cat for trying. One of the reasons I wanted to come to Warwick Hall was that she had been here. Would you believe it?" she rattled on, "Last night on the sleeping-car I counted up forty-two good reasons for wanting to come here to school."
It had been many a moon since Mary's remarks had met with such flattering attention. Not realizing she was being studied she felt that Madam was genuinely interested. It encouraged her to go on.
"Jack gave me my choice of all the schools in the United States, and I chose this without hesitating an instant. Jack is paying my expenses you know. I couldn't have come a step if it hadn't been for him, and there wouldn't have been the faintest shadow of a hope of coming if he hadn't been promoted to the position of assistant manager at the mines. Oh, Madam Chartley, I wish you knew Jack! He's just the dearest brother that ever lived! So unselfish and so ambitious for us all"--
She stopped abruptly, feeling that she was letting her enthusiasm run away with her tongue. But Madam, noting the quick leap of light to her eyes and the eager clasping of her hands as she spoke of him wanted to hear more. She was sure that in these na?ve confessions she would find the key-note to Mary's character. So with a few well chosen questions she encouraged her to go on, till she had gathered a very accurate idea of the conditions which had produced this wholesome enthusiastic little creature, almost a woman in some respects, the veriest child in others.
Mary had had an uneventful life, she judged, limited to the narrow bounds of a Kansas village, and later to the still narrower circle of experiences in the lonely little home they had made on the edge of the desert, when Mrs. Ware's quest of health led them to Arizona. But it was a life that had been lifted out of the ordinary by the brave spirit which made a jest of poverty, and held on to the refining influences even while battling back the wolf from the door. It had made a family of philosophers of them, able to extract pleasure from trifles, and to find it where most people would never dream of looking.
As she listened, Madam began to feel warmly drawn to the entire family who had taken the good old Vicar of Wakefield for an example, and adopted one of his sayings as a rule of life: "Let us be inflexible and fortune will at last turn in our favour."
Mary had no intention of revealing so much personal history, but she had to quote the motto to show how triumphantly it had worked out in their case and what a grand turn fortune had taken in their favour after so many years of struggle to keep inflexible in the face of repeated disappointments and troubles. It had turned for all of them. Joyce, after several years of work and worry with her bees, had realized enough from them to start on her career as an artist. Holland was at Annapolis in training for the navy. Within the last six weeks Jack's promotion had made possible his heart's desire, to send Mary to school and to bring his mother and thirteen year old brother to Lone-Rock, the little mining town where he had been boarding, ever since Mr. Sherman gave him his first position there, several years before.
Mary was so bubbling over with the pleasure these things gave her that it was impossible not to feel some share of it when one looked at her. As Madam Chartley led the way to the office she felt a desire to add still more to her pleasure. It was refreshing to see some one who could enjoy even little things so thoroughly. She bent over the ledger a moment, scanning the page containing the list of Freshmen who had passed the strict entrance requirements.
"I had already assigned you to a room," she said, "but from what you tell me I fancy you would count it a privilege to be given Lloyd's old room. If that is so I'll gladly make the change, although I do not know whether the other girl assigned to that room will prove as congenial a companion to you as the first selection. Her mother asked for that particular room, so I cannot well change."
Mary's face grew radiant. "Oh, Madam Chartley!" she cried. "I'd room with a Hottentot for a chance