Hester's Counterpart: A Story of Boarding School Life. Jean Katherine Baird

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СКАЧАТЬ a tender light in her eyes, that Hester laughed aloud.

      "But you like my foolishness, Aunt Debby. I know you do." She was down beside Debby Alden with her hand laid caressingly on the woman's arm.

      "Now, Hester, you are – "

      "But you like me to be foolish. You know you do, Aunt Debby."

      "I surely do not – "

      Hester laughed again. Aunt Debby was blushing like a young school-girl.

      "You cannot say that you do not like it," cried Hester. "You turn the question every time and do not answer directly."

      "We'll finish this work and go back to our packing," was the firm rejoinder. "Your little baby-clothes are here. Your mother must have been a fine needle-woman, for the rolled hems and hemstitching are perfect."

      The little dresses and petticoats were yellow with age. There was no distinguishing mark about them. They were of fine sheer linen, and exquisitely made. But thousands of babies over the land might have worn just such garments.

      "You had a little handkerchief about your neck like a bib," continued Debby. "This is it. It was pinned down in front with an odd pin. It's rather peculiar and not worth much as far as money goes."

      She handed the pin to Hester. It was of yellow metal – gold, perhaps – of oval shape and about the size of a dime. Inside the outer gold edge was woven a narrow strand of hair, and within this was imbedded a peculiar yellow stone.

      "Isn't it pretty!" cried Hester. She held it in her hands and examined it eagerly. It was the first interest she had evinced in anything which belonged to that time before she entered the Alden home.

      "I fancy it isn't gold," continued Debby Alden. "I never knew gold to have that peculiar tinge. It was that way when I unpinned it from your bib. I tried to brighten it a little, but I couldn't. It looks now just as it did when I laid it away. That stone, of course, is nothing more than a bit of yellow glass of small value."

      "Yes," said Hester slowly. Her eyes were fixed upon the queer stone. "I never saw a bit of glass look so. When I hold it one way, it looks like a spark of fire. It looks as deep as a well, when you look directly into the center."

      "Cut glass," said Debby. "All cut glass reflects light like that."

      Cut glass or something more, it appealed to Hester. Turning it about in her hand, she examined it critically.

      "There's a little hook here at the end," said Hester. "Did you notice that, Aunt Debby?" Debby took the pin in her hand to examine it. "I didn't notice that before. It has been an old fashioned earring made into a pin. Earrings used to be fashionable. No lady ever dressed without them, I've heard my mother say. The breast-pin that I wear with my gray silk was made from an earring of Grandmother Palmer's. Dear, dear, I wonder who wore these."

      "I'm going to keep this and wear it, Aunt Debby."

      "I don't believe I would, Hester. Someone might ask you where you got it."

      "And I shall tell them it was my mother's, and that I wore it when I was a little baby. That is true. Isn't it, Aunt Debby?"

      "You might lose it – " Debby began.

      "If I do, no one will care except me. I'd dearly love to have it, Aunt Debby. Isn't it my own to do with as I please?"

      There was no argument to bring against this, and Debby remained silent. Hester, pleased with the bauble, pinned it on her dress and then set about replacing the other articles in the trunk.

      The pin might be cut glass or something better. Neither Debby nor Hester knew, nor could they know that it would bring to Hester loss of friends and – but neither the girl or woman could anticipate that. At present, all they could do was to admire the glitter of the stone and watch the changing lights play upon it.

      CHAPTER III

      I was the last week in August when Debby Alden and Miss Richards moved into the cottage at the east end of Lockport. The seminary was not to open until a week later and Hester was with her friends, assisting in every way she could in putting the place to rights.

      Thursday evening, the house was immaculate. There was neither fad nor fancy about its equipment. Debby had brought down some great four-posters, old blue china, and solid silver. Miss Richards had several black walnut armchairs that were old enough to have been Mayflower Pilgrims, but which were not. There was a rug which Miss Richards had picked up in Europe twenty years before and a gay screen which Lieutenant Richards had bought a century before in an old junk shop in China.

      "We look as though we had stepped from a previous century," said Miss Richards. "We haven't a modern article about us – " She glanced toward Hester and then added – "except Hester."

      "You really need me," responded the girl. "I'm the only piece of twentieth-century furniture you and auntie have. I think I shall remain with you. I could study just as well here as shut up in that old stone building. I really think I could get my lessons better."

      "I think so, too," said Miss Richards, "that is if you refer but to book lessons."

      "What other kind could there be?"

      "The kind that people teach you. They are all sorts of lessons, as varied in kind as there are people. The girls at Dickinson will teach you many a good lesson."

      "I should think you and Aunt Debby could do it better. I've quite made up my mind to be but a parlor student."

      "There are some things Debby and I cannot teach you. We love you too much to give you the very lessons which we know would prove best for you. The girls at school will do that for us."

      "I do not always quite understand," said Hester. "Mr. Sanderson used to declare that I was neither philosophical nor mathematical. I do not see deeply into matters. I do know, though, which I like. Just now there is nothing I should like better than being at home with you and Aunt Debby, and I have quite made up my mind to that."

      "You had better unmake it, Hester," said Debby who, coming into the house at that moment, had overheard their words.

      "You will remain at the seminary even over Saturday and Sunday, except once each month. Miss Weldon does not approve of pupils coming back and forth. I think she is quite right. This flitting about gives a most unsettled feeling. You will not know where you belong, and we'll have none of it for you."

      Hester sighed and turned aside. She was disappointed, only for the time. Had she been Debby Alden's own daughter, she could not have partaken more strongly of some of Debby's characteristics. When Hester once made up her mind, she was quite "set." She had no thought of giving up her plans.

      "About the time that I'm ready to leave them, they'll both realize how much they'll miss me. Then I'll be able to persuade Aunt Debby to allow me to board at home."

      Confident in her power of persuasion, Hester went about her work as happy as though the matter had been adjusted to her satisfaction.

      There was yet some shopping to be done before Hester's outfit would be complete. Miss Debby had purposely delayed buying until she came to Lockport where she believed a better selection might be made.

      Miss Richards had friends in town and had gone off to spend the day with them. After the household duties had been disposed of, Debby and Hester set out on their shopping expedition.

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