Miss Allen

“ Her cheeks were glowing now with something like the shame of the woman who feels her love is lightly rejected. “Is that final?” she asked, drawing herself up as she sat, and facing him proudly.
“No, no, it’s not final,” Alan answered, feeling the woman’s influence course through body and blood to his quivering fingertips. Magical touches stirred him. “How can it be final, Herminia, when you look at me like that? How can it be final, when you’re so gracious, so graceful, so beautiful? Oh, my child, I am a man; don’t play too hard on those fiercest chords in my nature.” ”

“ As soon as the girls had stopped clapping, Miss Allen went on with the announcements. “The eight candidates—Dorothy Maxwell, Edith Evans, Helen Stewart, Frances Wright, Ethel Todd, Marian Guard, Lily Andrews, and Ruth Henry are to meet in my office to-morrow afternoon at two o’clock to organize and to elect their Captain.”
After dinner was over, Marjorie sought Ruth. She was not jealous of her friend’s triumph; Ruth deserved it, and she did not.
So, with genuine pleasure, she said, “I’m awfully glad you made it, Ruth. Nobody deserves it more than you!” ”

“ When Alan reached the trysting-place, under a broad-armed oak, in a glade of the woodland, Herminia was there before him; a good woman always is, ’tis the prerogative of her affection. She was simply dressed in her dainty print gown, a single tea-rosebud peeped out from her bodice; she looked more lily-like, so Alan thought in his heart, than he had ever yet seen her. She held out her hand to him with parted lips and a conscious blush. Alan took it, but bent forward at the same time, and with a hasty glance around, just touched her rich mouth. Herminia allowed him without a struggle ”

“ Herminia replied, in a very earnest mood. “I have wrought it all out in my mind beforehand—covenanted with my soul that for women’s sake I would be a free woman. Alan, whoever would be free must himself strike the blow. I know what you will say—what every man would say to the woman he loved under similar circumstances—‘Why should you be the victim? Why should you be the martyr? Bask in the sun yourself; leave this doom to some other.’ But, Alan, I can’t. I feel I must face it. Unless one woman begins, there will be no beginning.” ”

“ Alan was steeped in Italy; he knew and entered into the spirit of Tuscan art; and now for the first time Herminia found herself face to face with a thoroughly new subject in which Alan could be her teacher from the very beginning, as most men are teachers to the women who depend upon them. This sense of support and restfulness and clinging was fresh and delightful to her. It is a woman’s ancestral part to look up to the man; she is happiest in doing it, and must long remain so; and Herminia was not sorry to find herself in this so much a woman. ”

“ Compact of like clay, he knew the meaning of her hopes and aspirations. Often as he sketched he would look up and wait, expecting to catch the faint sound of her light step, or see her lithe figure poised breezy against the sky on the neighbouring ridges. Whenever she drew near, his pulse thrilled at her coming—a somewhat unusual experience with Alan Merrick. For Alan, though a pure soul in his way, and mixed of the finer paste, was not quite like those best of men, who are, so to speak, born married. A man with an innate genius for loving and being loved cannot long remain single. ”

“ You all know our standards are very high, and Miss Allen and I both agreed that in all the cases where the handbook gave a choice of two alternatives, we would require both. It is entirely fair, because it is the same for everybody. Do you understand?”
Ruth sat perfectly still; but she saw her hopes of wearing the green clover badge home at vacation fading, for though she knit splendidly, she had never done a stitch of crocheting in her life.
Miss Phillips distributed the paper, and the girls gave their attention to the written part of the test. ”

“ But Ruth’s thoughts had taken an entirely different direction.
“Who are our room-mates?” she asked, as they ascended the stairs.
“Let me think,” said Miss Landis. “It’s hard to remember with so many girls, but I helped Miss Allen with the lists.” She stopped as they reached the second floor. “Oh, yes,” she continued, “you room with Ethel Todd—a sophomore. She’s a splendid girl—very popular. You’re lucky! And your room-mate,” she turned to Marjorie—“hasn’t come yet. She’s a freshman, named Lily Andrews.” ”

“ Herminia lifted her eyes to his with just a tinge of lofty scorn, tempered only by the womanliness of those melting lashes. “And you can think of that? she murmured, gazing across at him half in tears. “O Alan, for my part I can think of nothing now but the truths of life and the magnitude of the issues. Our hearts against the world—love and duty against convention.” ”

“ Marjorie, because she was both tall and quick, had been chosen for the position of jumping-center on the school team. She had been going out regularly to the practices in the field (the girls at Miss Allen’s played out-door basket-ball) , and she was in splendid trim for the game. Her cheeks glowed and her eyes sparkled while she played; had she been a vain girl, she would have realized that under no other circumstance could she appear so attractive.
“Go on—write to Jack!” pleaded Ruth. “Why, he’d love to see you play. ”

“ Miss Allen's strong and attractive pensonality has contributed in no small degree to the suc- cess of her work by winning friends for her on every side, and enlisting the hearty co-opera- tion of her pupils. Certainly no teacher in any field has gained a more . ”

“ Still, if Alan wished it. For a woman is a woman, let Girton do its worst; and Herminia not less but rather more than the rest of them.
Then Alan began. With her hand clasped in his, and fondling it while he spoke, he urged all he could urge to turn her from her purpose. He pointed out to her how unwise, how irretrievable her position would be, if she once assumed it. On such a road as that there is no turning back. The die once cast, she must forever abide by it. He used all arts to persuade and dissuade; all eloquence to save her from herself and her salvation. ”

“ It was like the magical transformation of a sorrow-shrouded woman back into the shape of her own earliest maidenhood.
Her hair, of the palest gold, would, if unshorn, have covered her figure in a soft, thick golden cloud; but shorn, it lay about her neck and ears in large, lustrous waves that left defined the contour of her beautiful head, and gave to it the aerial charm that belongs to the joyousness of youth. Her whole figure was relaxed into a posture slightly drooping; her bare arms, white as the necks of swans, hung in forgotten grace at her sides ”

“ Herminia answered with passionate seriousness. “Alan, I don’t want any man to save me from that; I want you rather to help me, to strengthen me, to sympathise with me. I want you to love me, not for my face and form alone, not for what I share with every other woman, but for all that is holiest and deepest within me. If you can’t love me for that, I don’t ask you to love me; I want to be loved for what I am in myself, for the yearnings I possess that are most of all peculiar to me. I know you are attracted to me by those yearnings above everything ”

“ Mercifully those upon whom the burdens are hung often become the better for their loads; they may not live so long, but they are more useful. Thus in turn the weak develop the strong.
For years Miss Anna had sacrificially demeaned herself in the service of Harriet, who would now have felt herself a recreant friend unless she had promptly detailed every annoyance of her life. She would go home, having left behind her the infinite little swarm of stinging things—having transferred them to the head of Miss Anna, around which they buzzed until they died. ”

“ They would be spared the quivering shame, the tingling regret, the struggle with which she braced up her maiden modesty to that supreme effort. But she would go through with it all the same. For eternal woman’s sake she had long contemplated that day; now it had come at last, she would not weakly draw back from it.
Alan’s eyes were all admiration. He stood near enough to her level to understand her to the core. “Herminia,” he cried, bending over her, “you drive me to bay. You press me very hard. I feel myself yielding. I am a man ”

“ I wanted to tell Lily—and I’ll take this chance to tell you, Ruth—that the scouts decided to-day to give up next Saturday to doing a good turn for somebody else. So I have Miss Allen’s permission to invite the twenty-four little orphans from the Mynfield Home for an outing.”
“How lovely,” said Marjorie, absently.
“Poor children; they don’t have much pleasure in their lives,” continued Miss Phillips, not noticing the girls’ preoccupation. “So when Frances suggested giving them a party next Saturday, I jumped223 at the idea. ”

“ She expected Alan to call, in accordance with his promise, for she had seen at Mrs Dewsbury’s how great an impression she produced upon him; and, having taught herself that it was every true woman’s duty to avoid the affectations and self-deceptions which the rule of man has begotten in women, she didn’t try to conceal from herself the fact that she on her side was by no means without interest in the question how soon he would pay her his promised visit. As he appeared at the rustic gate in the privet hedge, Herminia looked out, and changed colour with pleasure when she saw him push it open. ”

“ It was indeed a fitting time for Miss Allen to inform157 the lucky candidates of their election to the Girl Scout troop.
“Before I announce the names of the new candidates,” she said, “let me tell you that Miss Martin’s school is watching our Girl Scout troop carefully, and from our success will decide whether or not to start one of their own next year! It is a big responsibility, girls! I would like every student in my school to be a scout, if she would try to live up to the pledge and laws ”

“ It is impossible to mix with a lofty nature and not acquire in time some tincture of its nobler and more generous sentiments. Herminia was weaning Alan by degrees from the world; she was teaching him to see that moral purity and moral earnestness are worth more, after all, than to dwell with purple hangings in all the tents of iniquity. She was making him understand and sympathise with the motives which led her stoutly on to her final martyrdom, which made her submit without a murmur of discontent to her great renunciation. ”

“ Colin, if you please, sir, I'm not going to be a shop-girl, thank you. A pretty shop-girl I should make now, shouldn't I? That's just like all you men: you think nobody can go in for bettering themselves, only yourselves. If a girl doesn't want to be a parlour-maid any longer, you can't think of anything but she must want to go and be a shop-girl. I wonder you didn't say a barmaid. If you don't beg my pardon at once for your impudence, I won't tell you anything more about it.'
'I beg your pardon, I'm sure, Minna,' Colin answered submissively. ”

“ I’ve lodgings on the Holmwood, in such a dear old thatched cottage; roses peep in at the porch, and birds sing on the bushes. After a term in London, it’s a delicious change for one.”
“But are you alone?” Alan interposed again, still half hesitating.
Herminia smiled once more; his surprise amused her. “Yes, quite alone,” she answered. “But if you seem so astonished at that, I shall believe you and Mrs Dewsbury have been trying to take me in, and that you’re not really with us. Why shouldn’t a woman come down alone to pretty lodgings in the country?” ”

“ Any girl who wishes to belong must have at least 80% in all her studies, and must be a member or a substitute on some school team. And if there are more than thirty-two girls eligible, we will start two troops.”
The girls were surprised at Miss Allen’s remarks, and many of their faces registered disappointment. Frances Wright rose from her seat.
99 “Well, Frances?” asked the Principal.
“Miss Allen, when will the Girl Scouts meet?”
“Friday evening.”
Frances looked astonished. “How about the sorority?” she asked. ”

“ I reply with dignity, ‘I was brought up in the family of a clergyman of the Church of England.’”
“And what does the Dean say to your views?” Alan interposed doubtfully.
Herminia laughed again. If her eyes were profound, two dimples saved her. “I thought you were with us,” she answered with a twinkle; “now, I begin to doubt it. You don’t expect a man of twenty-two to be governed in all things, especially in the formation of his abstract ideas, by his father’s opinions. Why then a woman?” ”

“ Can’t you possibly manage it? We need girls so much—and you’re a good swimmer already. I wouldn’t want you to neglect your lessons; but Latin won’t take all your time, will it?”
“No, but you know the sorority takes an awful lot of it. I’ve just got to give up something—so I guess it will have to be athletics.”
“Very well,” replied Miss Phillips, rising; “you know best.”
But as the days passed Marjorie often wondered whether she really did know best. She realized, in a vague sort of way, that she was not so happy as she had been when she first came to Miss Allen’s ”

“ And then oh! good me, the shovel-fulls of brimstone, which well-nigh suffocated the life out of one. There, I do say, that with all the humming and the buzzing about one, and all the furious creatures as well, one felt for all the world as if one had been turned into a bee-hive oneself, with just a pair of boots on.
“But oh! dear, dear! What a sight poor Miss Di was! Well, there, if all the meddlesome-matties got their reward that way, the world would be very soon rid of them, I’ll be bound.”
CHAPTER XXVI.
“WHATEVER WILL THE MASTER SAY?” ”

“ Time never destroys thee, little sister, or stains thy whiteness; and thou wilt be bending at thy prayers among the green graves on the twilight hillside ages after I who lie below have finished mine. Pray for me then, pray for thine erring sister, thou pure-souled violet!"
"How cold thou art! Shall I take thee in and warm thee on my bosom? Ah, no! For I know who thou art! Not a bird, but a little brown mendicant friar, begging barefoot in the snow. And thou livest in a cell under the convent eaves opposite my window. What ugly feet thou hast, little Father! ”