Turquoise and Ruby. Meade L. T.

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      “I am sorry,” she said.

      “You won’t yield?”

      “I will not.”

      “You have displeased me extremely. You talk of this as a case of conscience. I declare that it is nothing of the sort. Helen of Troy was the symbol of all that is beautiful in woman. Her name has come down through the ages because of her loveliness and gracious character. When a schoolgirl like you attempts to override her mistress’ maturer judgment, she acts with wilfulness and ungraciousness, to say the least of it.”

      “I am sorry,” said Honora.

      She turned aside. There was a lump in her throat. After a minute, she continued:

      “But I will not act Helen of Troy.”

      “That being the case, girls,” said Mrs Hazlitt, who had quite resumed her usual calm of manner, “we must forego the tableaux – that is unless a suitable Helen of Troy can be found within twenty-four hours. I will now wish you good-night. I am disappointed in you, Honora, very much disappointed.”

      Chapter Two

      For Helen of Troy

      The excitement of the school knew no bounds. Hazlitt Chase was not a house divided against itself. All the girls loved all the other girls. Hitherto, there had never been a split in the camp. This was partly caused by the fact that there were no really very young girls in the school. A girl must have passed her fourteenth birthday before she was admitted. Thus it was easy to enlist the sympathies, to ensure the devotion of the young scholars. They worked for an aim; that aim was to please Mrs Hazlitt. She wanted to prepare them for the larger school of life. She took pains to assure them that the sole and real object of education was this. Mere accomplishments were nothing in her eyes, but she desired her girls to find a place among the good women of the future. They must not be slatternly; they must not be vain, worldly-minded, but they must be beautiful – that is, as beautiful as circumstances would permit. Each gift was to be polished like a weapon for use in the combat which lay before them; for the battle they had to fight was this: they had, in their day and generation, to resist the evil and choose the good.

      Now, Mrs Hazlitt very wisely chose heroes and heroines from the past to set before her girls, and she felt very much annoyed now that Nora Beverley should object to take the part of Helen of Troy – Helen, who, belonging to her day and generation, had been much tried amongst beautiful women, badly treated, harshly used; sighed for, longed for, fought over, died for by thousands. That this Helen, so marvellous, so – in some senses of the word – divine, should be criticised by a mere schoolgirl and considered unworthy to be represented by her, even for a few minutes, was, to the headmistress, nothing short of ridiculous. Nevertheless, she was the last person to wound any one’s conscience.

      She retired to her private sitting-room, and then quite resolved to give up “A Dream of Fair Women,” and to substitute some other tableaux for the pleasure of her guests.

      Meanwhile, in the school, there was great excitement. Cleopatra, Jephtha’s daughter, the gracious Queen Eleanor, and the other characters represented by Tennyson in that dim wood before the dawn, were exceedingly distressed at not being allowed to take their parts.

      “I have written home about it, already,” said Mary L’Estrange. “I have asked my father – who knows a great deal about antiquity, and the Greek story in particular – to send me sketches of the most suitable dress for Iphigenia. I have no scruples whatever in taking the part, and I cannot see why Nora should. Oh, Nora, there you are – won’t you change your mind?”

      “My mind is my own, and I won’t alter it for any one living,” said Nora. “Now, don’t disturb me, please, Mary; I want to recite over the first six stanzas of ‘In Memoriam’ before I go to bed.”

      She began whispering to herself, a volume of Tennyson lying concealed in her lap. Mary shrugged her shoulders and went to another part of the school-room. Here was to be found a girl of the name of Penelope. She was a comparatively new comer, and had not entered the school until just before her sixteenth birthday. Some pressure had been brought to bear to secure her admission, and the girls were none of them sure whether they liked her or not. Mrs Hazlitt, however, took a good deal of notice of her, was specially kind to her, and often invited her to have supper with herself in the old summer parlour, where Queen Elizabeth was said, at one time, to have feasted.

      Penelope Carlton was not at all a pretty girl, but she was fair, with very light blue eyes, and an insipid face. Now, as Cara and Mary looked at her, it seemed to dart simultaneously into both their brains that, rather than lose the tableaux altogether, they might persuade Penelope to take the part of Helen. Penelope was not especially an easily persuaded young woman; she was somewhat dour of temper, and could be very disagreeable when she liked. Honora was a universal favourite, but no one specially cared for Penelope. Some of her greatest friends were the younger girls in the school, over whom she seemed to have an uncanny influence.

      “Listen, Penelope,” said Mary, on this occasion. “You were in the arbour just now?”

      “Yes,” said Penelope; “I was.”

      “And you heard what Nora said?”

      “Not being stone-deaf, I heard what she said,” responded Penelope.

      “You thought her, perhaps, a little goose?” said Cara. “Well,” said Penelope, “I don’t know that I specially applied that epithet to her. I suppose she had her reasons. I think, on the whole, I respected her. Few girls would give up the chance of taking the foremost position and looking remarkably pretty, just for the sake of a scruple.”

      “And such a scruple!” cried Cara. “For, of course, Helen was visionary – nothing else.”

      Penelope shrugged her shoulders.

      “I have not studied the character,” she said. “I have purposely avoided learning anything about Greek heroines. I know about Jephtha’s daughter; for I happen to have read the Book of Judges; and I also know the story of our Queen Eleanor; for I was slapped so often by my governess when I was learning that part of English history that I’m not likely to forget it. The great Queen Eleanor and going to bed supperless are associated in my mind together. Well, what do you want, girls? ‘A Dream of Fair Women’ is at an end, is it not? I suppose we’ll have something else – ‘Blue Beard,’ or scenes from ‘Jane Eyre.’ Oh dear – I wish there was not such a fuss about breaking-up day; you are all in such ludicrous spirits!”

      “And are not you?” said Mary L’Estrange, colouring slightly.

      “I?” said Penelope. “Why should I be? I stay on here all alone. Deborah sometimes stays with me, or sometimes it’s Mademoiselle, or sometimes Fräulein. When it’s Deborah, I get her to read foolish stories aloud to me by the yard. When it’s Mademoiselle, she insists on chattering French to me, and, perforce, I learn a few phrases; and when it’s Fräulein, I equally benefit by the German tongue. But you don’t suppose it’s anything but triste.”

      “You must long for the time when you will leave school,” said Cara. “It is very selfish of me,” she added, “but I have such delightful holidays, and I do look forward to them so. Picture to yourself a great place, and many brothers and sisters and cousins of all sorts and degrees, and uncles and aunts; and father and mother, and grandfather and grandmother; and great-grandfather and great-grandmother; and we take expeditions to one place and another every day; and sometimes great-grandfather hires a hotel by the sea and takes every one of us there for a СКАЧАТЬ