The Unclassed | Page 7

a chair which would probably have claimed the title of easy, sat the girl
Harriet Smales, her head in bandages.
She received Miss Rutherford rather sulkily, and as she moved,
groaned in a way which did not seem the genuine utterance of pain.
After a few sympathetic remarks, the teacher began to touch upon the
real object of her visit.
"I have no intention of blaming you, Harriet; I should not speak of this
at all, if it were not necessary. But I must ask you plainly what reason
you had for speaking of Ida Starr's mother as they say you did. Why did
you say she was a bad woman?"
"It's only what she is," returned Harriet sullenly, and with much inward
venom.
"What do you mean by that? Who has told you anything about her?"
Only after some little questioning the fact was elicited that Harriet
owed her ideas on the subject to a servant girl in the house, whose
name was Sarah.
"What does Sarah say, then?" asked Miss Rutherford.
"She says she isn't respectable, and that she goes about with men, and
she's only a common street-woman," answered the girl, speaking
evidently with a very clear understanding of what these accusations
meant. The schoolmistress looked away with a rather shocked
expression, and thought a little before speaking again.
"Well, that's all I wanted to ask you, Harriet," she said. "I won't blame
you, but I trust you will do as I wish, and never say such things about
any one again, whoever may tell you. It is our duty never to speak ill of
others, you know; least of all when we know that to do so will be the
cause of much pain and trouble. I hope you will very soon be able to
come back again to us. And now I will say good-bye."
In the shop Miss Rutherford renewed to the chemist her sincere regret
for what had taken place.
"Of course I cannot risk the recurrence of such a thing," she said. "The
child who did it will not return to me, Mr. Smales."
Mr. Smales uttered incoherent excuses, apologies, and thanks, and
shufflingly escorted the lady to his shop-door.
Miss Rutherford went home in trouble. She did not doubt the truth of
what Harriet Smales had told her, for she herself had already

entertained uneasy suspicions, dating indeed from the one interview she
had had with Mrs. Starr, when Ida was first brought to the school, and
deriving confirmation from a chance meeting in the street only a few
days ago. It was only too plain what she must do, and the necessity
grieved her. Ida had not shown any especial brilliancy at her books, but
the child's character was a remarkable one, and displayed a strength
which might eventually operate either for good or for evil. With careful
training, it seemed at present very probable that the good would
predominate. But the task was not such as the schoolmistress felt able
to undertake, bearing in mind the necessity of an irreproachable
character for her school if it were to be kept together at all. The
disagreeable secret had begun to spread; all the children would relate
the events of yesterday in their own homes; to pass the thing over was
impossible. She sincerely regretted the step she must take, and to which
she would not have felt herself driven by any ill-placed prudery of her
own. On Monday morning it must be stated to the girls that Ida Starr
had left.
In the meantime, it only remained to write to Mrs. Starr, and make
known this determination. Miss Rutherford thought for a little while of
going to see Ida's mother, but felt that this would be both painful and
useless. It was difficult even to write, desirous as she was of somehow
mitigating the harshness of this sentence of expulsion. After
half-an-hour spent in efforts to pen a suitable note, she gave up the
attempt to write as she would have wished, and announced the
necessity she was under in the fewest possible words.


CHAPTER II
MOTHER AND CHILD

Ida Starr, dismissed by the schoolmistress, ran quickly homewards. She
was unusually late, and her mother would be anxious. Still, when she
came within sight of the door, she stopped and stood panting. How

should she tell of her disgrace? It was not fear that made her shrink
from repeating Miss Rutherford's message; nor yet shame, though she
would gladly have hidden herself away somewhere in the dark from
every eye; her overwhelming concern was for the pain she knew she
was going to cause one who had always cherished her with faultless
tenderness,--tenderness which it had become her nature to repay with a
child's unreflecting devotion.
Her home was