Elizabeth W. Champney

“ I feel like telling somebody, and Winnie is so queer lately—she freezes me. She has disapproved of me and scolded me ever since she found out about Cynthia’s dress, and I can’t bear to be disapproved of. It isn’t one bit nice. Adelaide is perfectly splendid; she likes me and pets me, but perhaps she wouldn’t if she knew everything; but you are just my dear old Tib. You would always like me, wouldn’t you, even if I were real wicked?”
“Yes indeed, Milly,” I replied; “and so would Winnie; you don’t half realize her love for you.” ”

“ He said to himself, “Now’s the time to sprint.” How strange that his muscles would not obey the command telegraphed to them by his brain. Strain every nerve as he did, he could not increase the pace. Emerson, the Morse flyer, shot by him with his magnificent stride, as fresh and unwearied in this final burst of speed as Milton’s conception of a young archangel. Stacey staggered on, but the drum corps was suddenly silent, and there was no shout as he passed the cadet contingent. They and he knew that the contest was now hopeless. He did not look up at Milly. ”

“ But something within him whispered, “You can do it yet. You can be something more than a dude and a good fellow,” and he resolved to devote his vacation to serious training in his studies.
It gave him a thrill of pleasure, strangely mingled with humility, to see the Commodore’s delight, just as he was handing Mrs. Fitz Simmons into the carriage, at hearing the old cry from the drum corps, who had been lined up in front of the barracks by Buttertub for that purpose, and gave it with a will—Jim’s shrill voice joining in the final cheer:
“Who’s Fitz Simmons?” ”

“ But da Vinci hath no drawings toward Rome. I have marked for a long time that he cutteth his doublet after the French fashion. Trust me, he is no man for us; he would rather trip it merrily with French dames than wear out his knees on the cold scagliola of the Vatican. I have bethought me also that Leonardo is too old and subtle for you; you need a man whom you can manage; who shall look up to you as a patron and as a superior. My eye hath lately fallen upon a youngster of surprising talent as a painter, a stranger in Florence, of no great influence, and utterly unknown to fame. ”

“ But Stacey is livelier and puts in four strides to three of the Woodpecker’s, so they are pretty nearly equal. Stacey is a prettier runner, too. He does it just as easy, while the Woodpecker works all over, arms and legs, and bites on his handkerchief, and his eyes pop out, and when it’s all over he falls in a heap and looks as if he were dying, while Stacey takes another lap in better time than the last, just for fun.
Stacey rides the bicycle, too, splendidly. He has one of those big wheels and he can manage it with his feet and do all sorts of tricks with his hands. ”

“ I fear no such cause of defeat for a Medici, but I hear rumours concerning Giovanni which make me fear that he is not crafty enough for success. He has been dissolute; that is no hindrance to a cardinal’s hat or even to the tiara; the folly I dread is more fatal. They say that he has reformed his life and is thinking of marriage. If this is true, I renounce his cause in favor of that of Cæsar Borgia, who has the audacity of a lion joined to the rascality of a fox, and who is not hindered from the putting in practice of my principles by any so cowardly and stupid a thing as a conscience. ”

“ Adelaide replied, knowing exactly what he wished to say, and determined to prevent his saying it.
“Miss Adelaide, I began to say what was on my mind last Halloween——”
“Oh! yes, and pardon me for interrupting you, but you remind me that I must return your muffler, which I have kept all this time. I will get it now,” and Adelaide tried to slip by him and out of the door.
“No, you must not get it now,” the Professor exclaimed, barring her way with his extended hand in which he still held the dish of ice-cream. “I must speak to you, Miss Adelaide. I may never have another opportunity.” ”

“ Jim pined for his mother, and one day, to give her little invalid something pleasant to look forward to, Adelaide told him that their parents were on the way home. The news did him more good than all the physician’s tonics. He brightened every day and talked of his mother incessantly. Once it seemed to occur to him that his delight was a poor return for Adelaide’s care, and he asked her anxiously, “You don’t mind, do you, sister, that I am so glad mother is coming? You are the very best sister in all the world, but then you are not quite mother. ”

“ She seemed to argue that as no lover of the beautiful could fail to appreciate Adelaide’s beauty, therefore our artist must admire Adelaide, and in this deduction she was not far from the truth, but she ought not to have taken it for granted that Adelaide must be equally pleased with her admirer. How her espionage tracked us through several innocent tricks and capers, and was finally foiled by our beloved Winnie; how the great mystery of the robbery for a time brought doubt and suspicion between four dear friends who would, and did, go through fire and water for one another ”

“ Winnie remarked wrathfully. “Now how natural it would be to make a romance out of such a rescue, but Professor Waite’s heart is as stony as that of the Apollo Belvedere.”
Milly smiled piteously and shook her head, while she looked significantly from me toward Adelaide, as much as to say: “We know better; he is not so stony-hearted as he seems.” ”

“ I wonder if he is an artist and is going to teach us. My! he is looking this way,” and Winnie crouched suddenly. The movement was a careless one, and the commissary slid down the sloping cover of the trunk upon which it rested, striking the door with its end like a battering-ram, and with such force that the rusted lock yielded, and the commissary, with Winnie seated upon it, swept forward, like a toboggan, far into the center of the hospital. ”

“ I miss mother, but I would rather die than let any one know it. I’ve put her photograph down at the bottom of my trunk, for it gave me the snuffles to see it, and Stacey Fitz Simmons caught me kissing it once, and I was so ashamed. He is one of the nicest fellows here, and he didn’t rough me a bit about it, only whistled, and said: “You’ve got a mighty pretty mother; I guess she takes after your sister. Pity there wasn’t more beauty left for the rest of the family.” He knows you, and I guess you must remember meeting him when you visited the Roseveldts last summer at Narragansett Pier. ”

“ I said, as I kissed her, “you must not let yourself care for Professor Waite, for he does not——”
“I know,” she replied, “he loves Adelaide; he can’t help it any more than I can help——”
“Hush,” I said, “this is all foolishness; put it right out of your little head. You are only sixteen; you are not old enough to care for any one. You will laugh at this by and by.”
She shook her head solemnly. “I shall always remember, Tib—that for one heavenly minute he held me tight—so.” ”

“ Art and Love! It is too much for mortal man to possess and live.”
“Be content with art,” Adelaide replied gently. “It is a great gift, and must console you, for I cannot be your wife.”
“Cannot? Why not?”
“I will tell you. You think you love me, but it will pass. I regard you very highly, [385] but not above duty. The feeling which I have for you, Professor Waite, cannot be love, since it is perfectly easy for me now to give you up——”
“No,” he assented; “if that is true you do not love me.” ”

“ I told her what I wanted her to translate, she glared at me haughtily, but I looked as demure as I could, and she went through it without flinching. ‘Men are deceivers ever, aren’t they, Miss Noakes?’ I said. ‘Just think of Pious Æneas behaving so cruelly to his dear Dido.’ ‘How should I know, child?’ she replied rather curtly.”
While we were laughing, Cerberus knocked to inform us that Mrs. Roseveldt’s carriage waited and had sent him to inquire for Miss Armstrong.
Adelaide found that Stacey had waited for her return. He woke to animation over the photographs. “This decides me,” he said. ”

“ She did not do it—and suspicion might as well start out from the first on the right track. I will go at once to Mr. Mudge, and enlighten his benighted mind.”
“What is your theory, Adelaide?” I cried, but not before the door had closed behind her.
“Don’t stop her,” Winnie pleaded. “Time is precious; Mr. Mudge may have tired waiting for Milly and have gone. No matter what her theory is, so long as it takes suspicion from Milly. I had great hopes that Cynthia would succeed in making him think I had done it.” ”

“ At first her face showed only blank surprise, then, as she told herself that this must be a joke of Winnie’s, who was fond of masquerading in costume, she remarked with dignity.
“Really, this is quite too childish; where did you ever get that absurd costume? You look too ridiculous for anything——”
Cynthia Vaughn shrieked with laughter.
The artist bowed, but colored to the roots of his hair and closed the door, while Milly threw her arms around Adelaide, laughing hysterically, Winnie appeared from behind her door also laughing, and I vainly attempted to explain matters. ”

“ Providence keeps the things for which we are not prepared, saved on an upper shelf for us until we deserve them.”
As he said this, a joyful hub-bub rang out in the Amen Corner, led by a wild, Comanche shriek from Polo, who happened to be in the corridor: “Miss Adelaide’s come! Glory! Oh, glory!”
Professor Waite flushed and paled, took two steps impulsively toward the door, and then sat down before my easel, and began insanely to spoil a sky with idiotic dabs of green paint. I wondered whether Providence was saving up Adelaide until he deserved her. ”

“ Mrs. Roseveldt and Milly sat beside him on the box. Mrs. Roseveldt wore a Paris costume of white cloth with Louis XVI jacket with velvet sleeves and vest heavily embroidered in gold. A little bonnet formed of gold beads fitted her aristocratic head like a coronet. Milly was bewitchingly pretty in a fawn coloured shoulder cape, and a pancake hat piled with yellow buttercups. She seemed, as Adelaide said, cut out of a piece with her surroundings. Adelaide and I occupied the back seat, with Little Breeze beside us in the place which had been intended for Winnie. ”

“ Mudge had become so firmly convinced in his own mind that Polo’s name was Lawn Tennis that we saw the futility of correcting him and gave up the attempt.
“Mr. Mudge,” Winnie exclaimed, “we protest! Cynthia, I call upon you to own up. It wasn’t such a very bad frolic. You meant no particular harm. We will all sign a petition to Madame asking her to let you off. Don’t let Polo be unjustly suspected. You know you did it; own up to it like a man.”
But Cynthia was in no mood to own up to anything like a man, or like a decent girl. ”

“ I paid my respects first to Maestro Pietro Perugino, my sometime friend at Urbino, and whom we there regarded as the very cream and quintessence of painting. He has a home here, living in a goodly and comfortable state, but has grown somewhat crabbed and soured, as happens to men who feel themselves out of fashion and forgotten of the world. He has a rival here, one Michael Angelo, and Perugino having criticised a cartoon which this fellow had set up, representing I know not what absurdity, of bathing soldiers, Angelo replied that he considered Perugino to be a man ignorant in art matters. ”

“ She flouted the idea that he might be dead. “He ain’t the dying kind,” she said, when Cynthia suggested the possibility. “None of our family ain’t, except father. Why, I’ve been through enough to kill a cat, and I haven’t died yet.”
She was especially devoted to Milly, to whom she felt, with reason, that she owed all her good fortune. Professor Waite found her remarkably serviceable as a model, from her versatility and ability to adapt herself to any character, giving a great variety of types for us to copy. ”

“ Winnie’s romance of the cabinet pleased us all, but Adelaide was sure that Madame would not allow it to be read without certain changes, especially the reference to the robbery in the school, and the “lovering” parts.
“You need not imagine,” said Milly, “that because you object to lovering, all the rest of the world does. Why, even Miss Noakes has a softer heart than Adelaide’s. But really and truly, Winnie, how much of that is true? Was Raphael really engaged?” ”

“ Speak of angels——How nice of you, Stacey, to bring me that salad. I am positively dying for something to eat. Wasn’t the Bishop too longsome for anything? I thought I should expire, and I was wild to get across the stage at Winnie, whose back hair was coming down. No, I shall not tell you what we were saying about you. Do get me some chicken salad. I can’t endure lobster;” and as the obedient Stacey ambled briskly away, Milly confided to me: “Do you know, Tib, Adelaide is beginning to care for Professor Waite? ”

“ A large sky-lighted room had been set apart as an infirmary, and a little suite of rooms in the great tower adjoining as the physician’s quarters. But it was rare indeed that any one was ill at Madame’s, and when a pupil was taken sick, her parents usually took her home at once. So the doctor, having nothing to do but to hear the recitations in physiology, preferred not to reside in the school building, and the pretty suite of rooms, consisting of a parlor and three bedrooms, was assigned to us, and the hospital proper was used as a trunk room. ”

“ The bell rang for breakfast and Adelaide and I walked along together, pausing to slip the note under the studio door. It would not go quite through, a little end protruding, but that did not strike us as of any consequence. I had descended one flight of stairs when I found that I had forgotten my geometry and I hastened back to get it. I met Winnie before I turned into the corridor. “Hurry,” she exclaimed, “Snooks is just leaving her door; she will mark you for tardiness.” I flew along at the top of my speed, but on reaching our corridor I saw a sight which suddenly arrested my footsteps. ”

“ Buttertub hates Stacey; he wanted to be drum-major himself.
He calls Stacey wasp-waist, but it only calls attention to his own big stomach. He is always eating, and he won’t train, and he can’t run without having a fit of apoplexy. He weighs too much for the crew and he can’t even ride a bicycle, or do anything except the heavy work on the foot ball team and study. Yes, he can study; that’s the disgusting part. [191]
Stacy can do everything. He’s a splendid sprinter. There’s only one other boy in the school that can equal him, and that’s a red-headed boy they call Woodpecker. ”

“ If you girls only knew what scamps some of those slips of nobility are you would not be so crazy for titles.”
Adelaide’s eyes snapped. “I do not care a fig for a title,” she said indignantly. “I think a great deal more of an enterprising, hard-working, true-hearted American, than of a mere name. I think that the American pride of having accomplished some worthy work in life is much more allowable than the English pride of belonging to a leisure class.” ”