L. T. Meade

“ CECIL walked toward the door; Molly was following, when Matilda pulled her back.
"You shan't leave me," she said, flinging her arms round Molly's knees. "I won't be left alone in this awful, terrible black storm. You know how wicked I am, Molly, and that I am not fit to die. You can't—you shan't leave me! God will never forgive you if you do."
Molly hesitated for a minute; the thought of her vow in the cathedral came back to her. She longed to fly out after Cecil, but after all, she could do nothing in the fearful gale, and Matilda—wretched Matilda—really needed her presence. ”

“ Matilda had every intention of coming. It was all very well to be rich, and to be surrounded by luxuries, and to be fawned on by girls poorer than herself, but she knew in her heart of hearts that she lacked those things which girls like Cecil Ross and Molly Lavender, and even poor, low-born Kate O'Connor, possessed. She lacked sadly all that nobility of spirit which shone in Cecil's eyes, and was reflected in every tone of Molly's sweet voice. She hated the girls who possessed those gifts which had been denied to her. ”

“ Grannie—you know what a brick she is?"
"I should rather think I do," said Cecil warmly.
"Well," continued Molly, "she can't have me this Christmas. That love for silence seems to grow and grow upon her. The poor darling will soon bring herself to such a pass that she won't even be able to stand the creaking of a chair; but what heavenly plan do you think she has suggested? I am not to go to her, but I am to have a jolly, jolly, merry, merry Christmas, for all that. Oh, Cecil, and it will help you too, and those boys of yours, and Kate! ”

“ Say, you two girls, won't you be pleased when Kate comes back?"
"Of course," said Cecil, looking up with an expression of surprise; "but I didn't know that you cared."
"You think I care for nothing," said Matilda; "you have a hateful opinion of me."
"Sit down, Matty," said Molly, in a kind voice. "Here's a cozy seat on the sofa, and here is your novel, nice and handy."
"I can't read," said Matilda; "I am frightened. I never heard such wind, and how dark it is getting! What an awful day! I certainly do hate the seaside in winter." ”

“ God saved me from drowning almost through a miracle; and I am so glad to be alive again, Molly, and so delighted to be able to kiss you, Cecil, and this bed is so delicious, and your dear faces are so lovely, and the earth is such a grand, splendid battlefield, and it is such a good thing to be young and strong, that if every girl at Redgarth taunts me with the fact that I eat the bread of charity, I shall not mind them now. ”

“ The girls rattled off their conversation in brisk, brusque voices; all the faces were new, all the voices strange; there was a great deal of badinage and repartee—a sort of ceaseless chaff was going on. Molly felt bewildered.
A great gong sounded at this moment through the house.
"Come and sit near me at supper," said Kate, noticing the faint alarm which lurked in Molly's brown eyes. "I will promise to steer you through the shoals this first evening. You will get on your own feet in no time."
"No, she won't; she's slipping now," said Hester, with a laugh. ”

“ Why, of course, we all loved Kate better than anyone else in the house! It did not matter a bit about her running about barefooted long ago, nor her grandfather being a sort of peasant king. Kate was just Kate, and we all loved her; oh, she mustn't die!"
"Do sit down, Amy, and eat your supper," said poor Molly. "What is the good of our saying that sort of thing? If God wishes it, she will die; it all rests with God."
"Yes, that is true enough," said Hester. "After all, none of us can do anything; let us get over this horrid meal, and go into the drawing room. ”

“ Why did she go to the cave where the skeletons are? We should have had none of this terrible trouble but for Matilda. But why did Kate feel it so much? Is Maurice's life to be sacrificed to Kate? I must find Maurice; he mustn't go in the lifeboat. No, no, he shan't! What shall I do? How am I to reach the coastguard station, in the teeth of such wind and rain as this?"
Cecil struggled on, every nerve strung to the highest tension; every faculty and force in her body stimulated to its greatest pitch to enable her to win the day in this terrible battle with the weather. ”

“ Dorothy's she thought with a feeling of almost rapture of all that Miss Forester had said to her; her spirit was so uplifted that she thought no temptation too strong not to be easily overcome.
"And I can be happy as well as good," thought the young girl, as she skipped lightly over the ground. "What a delightful Christmas we are all going to have! how beautiful the world is! Oh, yes! God is very good, and I ought to love him; I do love him. I wonder if ever a time will come when I shall feel that I love him best of all."
"Hullo! I say, Molly Lavender, won't you stop for a minute?" ”

“ I could not help overhearing what Cecil and Molly said, and when Cecil dropped the letter at my feet, I should have been more than human if I had not picked it up. After all, it would have been wicked to conceal this matter from Kate. Poor Kate! how wild she looked when she went out! Oh, yes, my beautiful Kate, I know how to sting you! For all your false humility you are about the proudest girl I know. You proud! what right have you to be proud? Oh, I shall love to humble you! You have got neither birth nor money. There are some tolerably poor people who are well born ”

“ The great cold had gone, but the fierce gale grew fiercer hour by hour. The girls and boys appeared in the breakfast room with blank, disappointed faces.
"What are we to do with ourselves all day?" said Molly.
"I am glad I have my novel," muttered Matilda.
"For my part, I wish the holidays had come to an end," said Cecil. "I am wild to get to work again. What do you say, Kate? Suppose we do a little work this morning. I can help you with your Homer, if you like."
"No, thanks," answered Kate; "I am not in the humor to work."
"Have you a headache?" asked Cecil, looking at her anxiously. ”

“ I regard you, Cecil, and Kate O'Connor, as quite the cleverest girls at present at St. Dorothy's; but, although you are both undoubtedly brilliant, you are essentially different; you have got the capacity for work. If you avail yourself of the privileges which are now accorded to you, you can acquire knowledge to a great extent, and use that knowledge very brilliantly in the future. Kate, on the other hand, has a more delicate organism; hers are more the gifts of fancy. She is endowed with imagination of a high order; she is intellectual without being logical. ”

“ It was splendid the way she owned up to having been born to poverty and a humble life, and how beautiful she made the thing seem—like a poem."
"Miss Leicester told me about it," said Miss Forester. "Poor Kate herself has just the nature that may be called upon to suffer much in life; but she is full of gifts, and the mere fact of her not having money need not discourage one so beautiful, lovable, and talented."
"Of course it need not," said Cecil, rising as she spoke. "Surely Kate has enough given her to enable her to conquer fate." ”

“ You and Molly came in, and you read Miss Forester's letter aloud. I heard everything, and I was delighted. I was glad that Kate was to be humbled, and was to be only a charity girl. You dropped the letter going upstairs. I found it and put it in my pocket. I was very anxious that Kate should know the truth."
"You are a nice specimen of humanity," said Cecil.
"Oh, do let her speak now, Cecil!" said Molly.
"I don't care who knows," said Matilda. "Oh, there's another awful flash of lightning! I'm afraid I'll be struck; I'm not a bit fit to die. Oh, yes, I'm sorry I've been such a bad girl! ”

“ Now she sat down moodily on a chair in front of her little dressing-table, and began to work up her lecture notes. But the task was so uncongenial that she soon stopped. The soft voices in the dormitory next her own kept on their low talk. She could not hear a word they said, but the noise irritated her. No one could be more passionate than poor Kate when she chose. To-night all the worst side of her character was in the ascendant. She felt as if she almost hated Molly and her friend. She moved softly about her cubicle, afraid that the two girls might hear her. ”

“ Kate had been close to death a little earlier in the same year, but then she had been unconscious. If Death had really claimed her as his prey, she would have gone away into the other world knowing nothing of that last journey. In ignorance and oblivion she would have passed the boundary, and when she found herself in the Life beyond this life, she would recall no memory of the road by which she had come. To meet death by severe illness would have been in the ordinary course of nature, but the death which now awaited her was different. ”

“ She avoided Molly's eyes as she spoke. "She is so completely out of the common that she must have had quite an uncommon life. I should not be a bit surprised if she were one of those brave girls who have known poverty, and have risen above it. I should call her, if I were asked, one of nature's ladies. After all, nature does make noble, queen-like sort of women now and then, whatever their position in life. Is that not true, Molly Lavender?"
"Yes, it is perfectly true," answered Molly, wondering at Matilda's discernment. "There is no one in the school I respect like Kate." ”

“ Matilda was true to her promise; no one could catch her even attempting to eavesdrop; she interfered with none of the arrangements of the others, but plodded along, not adding her quota of merriment or joy, but still behaving much better than anyone expected.
"It is too good to last," thought Kate, who knew her well.
But Cecil and Molly began to believe that they had been overhard on Matilda. As the days wore on they tried to draw her out. They were intensely happy themselves, and they wanted all their companions to share their pleasure. ”

“ I must admit, in the solitude of my room, that I have not a good feature in my face. Kate is handsome; Kate has got all that beauty about her appearance which been denied to me. It will be an interesting problem to see who will make the best out of life—Kate, the pauper, the charity girl, or I, who have more money than I know what to do with, but who am not possessed of beauty, nor of any special talent. I believe I see my way now to having a good time at Redgarth. ”

“ Can't you take a joke? Oh, what a trial it is for an Irish girl to live in England! you English are so painfully prosaic. Do believe one thing about Kate O'Connor, my dear little Molly: it is her fashion to talk at random. She would not be Irish if she were not always propounding the most impossible theories, and saying the most impossible things. But when she does the queer things and says the queer words, just make up your mind that she is in fun, and doesn't mean them to be taken seriously. ”

“ She and I were at school together when we were children, and have been great friends all our lives."
"Then of course you take her part," said Hester.
Cecil's eyes flashed fire.
"I do," she answered with spirit, "and I insist on knowing the truth. What has Molly done?"
"Well, it is this. Kate, for all her high spirits and her fun and nonsense, has a lot of reserve about her. She will hardly tell her innermost thoughts to anyone. Not a soul in the place, except, of course, Miss Forester and Miss Leicester, knew about the story which she told us to-night. ”

“ Danvers hates boys, except in school, and then he's always jacketing them. Danvers is a classic, and I've no turn for classics. It—it'll kill me, Maurice."
"What a cad you are to think of yourself!" said Maurice; "it won't kill you any more than the rest of us. I'm glad you've got more stuff in you, Jimmy, and Teddy knows better than to stand in his sister's light. Come along out, all three of you; we'll thrash the thing bare, and come back prepared to help Cecil in every way. ”

“ You had an ordeal to go through, had you not?"
"I got on pretty well," answered Molly; "I am not a bit clever, you know."
Kate glanced at her with a smile.
"Perhaps not," she replied. "What does that matter? You are going to be a very sweet woman by and by; you are going to be womanly in the best sense of the word. Miss Forester has taken quite a fancy to you—that in itself is something to be proud of; she scarcely ever shows preference. When she does, that person is in rare luck, as we say in old Ireland. ”