Eleanor Hoyt Brainerd

“ She and the idol could never marry and live happily ever afterward, but there was a certain consoling splendour in having been loved hopelessly by such a perfect hero—for he did love her. She was sure of that. Of course he ought not to have done it, ought not to have sent her the violets and the love message; but that was Fate! Hadn't Madame Noveri known all about the thing before it happened?
Cynthia sighed miserably. She was quite sure that her heart was broken, but she was glad he loved her, and she would treasure his violets always, though she would not go to the matinée to see him again. ”

“ Belinda nodded comprehension.
The "Black Sheep" read the sympathy in her eyes.
"It's good of you to listen. You see, I've been away twenty years. It's a long time."
He sat silent for a moment staring straight before him, but seeing something that she could not see. Then he came back to her.
"Yes; it's a long time. One imagines the things one has left stand still, but they don't. I thought I'd find everything pretty much the same. Of course I might have known better, but—well, a fellow's memory and imagination play tricks upon his intelligence sometimes. I liked New York, you know. ”

“ Belinda diplomatically evaded the question. "You hope to go on the stage?" she asked.
Adelina lapsed into tragedy. "I'd die if I couldn't. I was just born for the stage. Papa and the boys don't seem to understand. They think I'm silly, stage-struck, like girls who go on in the chorus and are Amazons and things. I can't make them see that I'm going to be a star, and that being a great actress is an entirely different thing from being an Amazon. Folks up home are all so dreadfully narrow. A genius hardly ever gets sympathy in her own home, though. ”

“ For the first time, Mademoiselle faced Belinda and the wide-eyed girls.
"Ces chères demoiselles! Cette superbe Mees Ryder! Bah! It was too easy. I mention a duchess, a countess. The lofty Mees Ryder falls upon my neck. I tell stories of the French noblemen who have adored me, persecuted me with their devotion until I fled from France; poor but honest. The little schoolgirls gulp it all down and beg for more. Oh, but they are stupid—these respectable people. You have my sympathy, Mademoiselle Carewe. You must live among them. For me—give me les gens d'esprit, give me a society interesting. ”

“ New girls were her specialty. She was an expert in homesickness, a professional drier of tears and promoter of cheerfulness. When she really brought her batteries into action the most forlorn of new pupils wiped her eyes and decided that boarding-school life might have its sunny side.
Gradually the Misses Ryder and Belinda's fellow-teachers had recognised the masterly effectiveness of her system and her personality, and had shifted the responsibility of "settling" the new girls to the Youngest Teacher's shoulders. As a rule, Belinda cheerfully bowed her very fine shoulders to the burden. ”

“ It's all wrong. A twelve-year-old girl hasn't any right to eyes like those. If the youngster is unhappy she ought to cry twenty-five handkerchiefs full of tears, as Evangeline Marie did when she came, and then get over it. And if she's happy she ought to smile with her eyes as well as her lips. I can't stand self-repression in children."
"She'll be all right when she has been here longer and begins to feel at home," said Miss Barnes. But Belinda shook her head doubtfully as she went down to superintend study hour. ”

“ It was after a hasty and simple luncheon, beginning with lobster salad and ending with tutti-frutti ice cream and chocolate éclairs, that the Ryder expedition drifted into a well-known jewellery shop.
Belinda, helping Katherine Holland to choose a stickpin for her brother, saw the familiar faces and idly watched the girls as they bore down upon a counter where a bland salesman greeted them with welcoming smiles. ”

“ Six couples swung into the street, with Belinda at their heels. Out of the grim, inclosing walls, with the cool, moist air in their faces, the lights reflected gayly in the glistening pavements, the cabs and carriages dashing by, the mystery and fascination of a great city clinging around them, and a matinée idol beckoning them, the girls began to find life more cheerful. ”

“ Miss Barnes shook her head.
"My dear, I can stand sharp angles, but I detest a human feather pillow. Push Amelia in at one spot and she bulges out at another. It's impossible to make a clean-cut and permanent impression upon that girl."
The teacher of mathematics always stated her opinions with a frankness not conducive to popularity.
Belinda laughed.
"It ought to be easy for you to find out what the girls are giggling and whispering about," continued Miss Barnes. "They are so foolish over you." ”

“ The Lieutenant drew Belinda's hand through his arm and stopped her under the glare of the electric light.
"Don't be an idiot," he said brusquely. "Who is Miss Ryder? Who are the girls?"
The bullying stirred the young woman to intelligence.
"She's principal of the school. I'm teaching there. I brought twelve pupils to the theatre."
Amazement, comprehension, sympathy chased each other across the man's face and were swallowed by wild mirth, but Belinda's eyes filled with tears, and his mirth evaporated.
"Never mind. Buck up, little girl. We'll fix it some way. We'll get a cab. We'll kill a horse. ”

“ There was a soulful pride in Cynthia's manner, a tremulous thrill in her voice.
"Well, we'll all watch out for him. I'm almost as interested as if I were it," said Laura May generously; and Cynthia crept cautiously to her own room, to dream of a beautiful being with raven hair and piercing black eyes—and no moustache. ”

“ I do not tire.
"But there is one thing, chère Mademoiselle Ryder. I know that the other teachers—my associates—dislike the shopping. They object to chaperoning the young ladies upon the little expeditions to the shops. Me, I do not mind. I am glad to go if it will save the others from a duty that is disagreeable. It has come to me that perhaps the theatre is more popular than the shopping, that it may give pleasure to chaperon to the theatre, the opera, the concert. That is so, is it not?"
Miss Ryder admitted that there might be reason in the theory.
Mademoiselle smiled, a sweet, swift smile. ”

“ Belinda exhausted her own resources and appealed to Miss Lucilla, who stared incredulously over her nose-glasses and sent for Bonita.
After the interview she called for the Youngest Teacher, and the two failures looked at each other helplessly.
"It's an extraordinary thing," said Miss Lucilla in her most magisterial tone—"a most extraordinary thing. In all my experience I've seen nothing like it. Nothing seems to make the slightest impression upon the child. She's positively crazy." ”

“ As Miss Lucilla Ryder explained, in an effort to soothe the natural fears of a society leader whose great-grandfather had been a most reputable farmer, the young ladies of the school were divided into groups, and the flowers of New York's aristocracy would find in their especial classes only those young ladies with whom they might reasonably expect to be intimate after their school life ended and their social career began. ”

“ Miss Lucilla shook her head stubbornly.
"Not at all. It would be the ruination of the child to give in to her whims and bad temper now. If she won't listen to reason she must be allowed to pay for her foolishness. When she gets hungry enough she will eat. It's absurd to talk about a child of twelve having the stoicism to starve herself into an illness just because she is homesick at boarding-school."
Belinda came back to her threadworn argument.
"But Bonita is different, Miss Ryder." ”

“ Just to think that if anything had happened to me last week, that horrid thing would have had my chatelaine and my La Vallière! Sometimes I don't believe anybody's true—except Laura May. I told everything to Blanche, and I suppose she's betrayed every single thing to that freckled Lizzie Folsom. It's just because Lizzie has so much money for matinées and Huylers."
"That doesn't sound well, Amelia." Belinda's tone was reproving. "Lizzie is a very attractive girl, and though Blanche wasn't very loyal, she may have said some things that were true. ”

“ When the fortune which had seemed a premise in life's logic shrunk to proportions barely adequate to support the mother and the younger children, and became for Belinda herself a vague hypothesis, New York still hung mystic and alluring upon the horizon ”

“ Still there was no denying that the event fitted into Madame Noveri's prediction at every point, and it was natural to suppose that if Cynthia had met her affinity according to schedule she would be absolutely certain of his identity, so the confidants finally accepted the situation and gave themselves up to vital interest in their friend's romance, while Cynthia herself went about with her head in the clouds, drove her teachers to despair by her absent-mindedness, read the theatrical columns of all the papers, and wasted her substance in riotous buying of photographs. ”

“ Belinda wrestled heroically to suppress a fit of untimely mirth. She knew Amelia and her set so well. She could picture each detail of the musical flirtation, each ridiculous touch of sentimentality.
"I shall expel her."
Miss Ryder's tone was firm.
Belinda laid a soft hand impulsively upon the arm of the August One. "She isn't bad—just foolish——"
"She's made the school ridiculous."
[Pg 40] "The school can stand it. She's made herself more ridiculous, and it will be hard for her to stand that." ”

“ Sentiment gravitates naturally toward Amelia. She is all heart. Possibly it would be more accurate to say she is all heart and imagination; and if a sentimental confidence, tale, or situation drifts within her aura it invariably seeks her out. Upon this occasion the second-floor maid was the intermediary through which the romantic tale flowed. She had been dusting the study while Miss Lucilla and Miss Emmeline discussed the problem of Katharine Holland, and happening to be close to the door—Norah emphasised the accidental nature of the location—she had overheard the whole story. ”

“ Cynthia worshipped at the shrine of the valentine violets. She clipped their stems, she changed the water in the vase, she opened the window and shut the register because the room was too warm for violets, she shut the window and opened the register for fear of chilling the flowers. When not on duty elsewhere she might ordinarily be seen sitting in her own room gazing at the purple blossoms like a meditating Yogi. ”

“ Her schoolmates watched her every move, hung upon her every word, humbly accepted any smallest crumbs of attention or comradeship she vouchsafed to them. No one dared hint at a knowledge of her secret, but in each breast was nursed the hope that some day the heroine of romance might throw herself upon that breast and confide the story of her woes. Meanwhile, it was much to lavish unspoken sympathy upon her and live in an atmosphere freighted with romance. ”

“ Belinda shone for all. She allowed great and small to adore her. To her pupils she was just but merciful, and stoically impartial. The school superintendent, who had weathered the first throes of widowerhood, and reached the stage where he loved sitting upon a veranda in the twilight and hearing nocturnes played by some feminine personality in the parlour, suffered much emotional stress and strain in the endeavour to decide whether he would rather have nocturnes and a parlour-chained Belinda or a Belinda beside him in the twilight and no nocturnes. ”

“ When the owners of the heads saw Belinda they understood and smiled benignantly. All the world loves a lover.
Belinda was utterly unconscious of the glances, unconscious of anything save that the gods were good.
Here was Jack—Jack, of all men, dropped into the midst of her gloom. Hilarious memories and cheerful anticipations swarmed into her mind. Jack stood for home, old days, old larks, old irresponsibility. New York [Pg 20] disappeared from the map. The Select School for Young Ladies ceased to exist. The young ladies themselves were blotted out. ”

“ Only Laura May Lee mourned and refused to be comforted.
"I will never again open my soul to anyone," she vowed hysterically.
"I said the woman was a cat," commented Miss Barnes when the news reached her ears.
What Miss Lucilla Ryder said in the first fervor of her surprise no one save Belinda knew, for their interview was behind closed doors, but when she came from her room to meet the detective Miss Lucilla's calm dignity was without a ripple.
The investigation of teachers' credentials is now her pet hobby, and she freezes at the mention of the French nobility. ”

“ Belinda rose with fine stateliness.
"If there's nothing I can do for you, Mr. Ryder——"
"Sit down."
She sat down involuntarily, and then felt egregiously foolish because she had done it; but John Ryder was leaning forward with his honest eyes holding hers and was talking earnestly.
"Please don't be angry. I've been out in the Australian bush so long that I've forgotten my parlour tricks. Men say what they think, and ask for what they want, and do pretty well as they please—or can—out there. I've hardly seen a woman. I suppose they'd cut down the independence if they entered into the game. ”

“ Norah and the other maid smiled upon him ineffectively.
"Always ready to lend ye a hand at an odd job, but divil a kiss or a bit of love-making behind the door," Norah explained to Amelia, who had sniffed an incipient romance below stairs when she first saw the new man.
Miss Lucilla congratulated herself upon the addition to her staff of servants and sought an excuse for letting James go altogether and cleaving to his friend. The teachers sang the praises of Augustus, the girls found him obliging and resourceful in smuggling, the servants couldn't pick quarrels with him. ”