Little Maid Marian by Amy Ella Blanchard (books to improve english .txt) 📗

borders and recklessly pull the flowers? Does one dare to leave the house to do that?" There was a little mocking look in her eyes as she spoke.

"Oh, yes, of course we can go anywhere we like in the garden," returned Marian. "Do come, and I will show you my apple tree. If you are not afraid to climb you can see the ocean from my seat in the crotch,—and the mountain, too," she added more soberly.

"Don't suggest mountains yet," said Miss Dorothy, becoming sober too. "But there, I won't think about mountains; I've always managed them and I always intend to."

Marian gazed at her with new intentness and drew nearer. "Can you manage mountains?" she asked wonderingly.

"Why, yes; if you don't make them out of mole-hills it is easy enough."[36]

Marian pondered over this answer all the way down-stairs, but could not make head or tail of it. She would ask further when she knew Miss Dorothy better. She felt quite assured that she would not be long in feeling as much at home with her as with Mrs. Hunt.

As they passed the kitchen door near which the grim Hepzibah stood, Miss Dorothy drew her skirts aside and fled down the garden walk, giving a pretended scared look over her shoulder as she caught Marian's hand. "Don't let her get me, will you?" she said. Marian fell in with her mood and promised that she should not be delivered to the ogress, though in her heart of hearts she felt that a person who would dare to take liberties with Grandma Otway's best room surely could not be a very scary individual, and by the time they had reached the apple tree, she had decided that Miss Dorothy would probably have no fear of climbing to the very top, if she cared to.

"The Garden of Hesperides and the Golden Apples!" exclaimed Miss Dorothy, settling down into the crotch and giving Marian a hand to help her to a seat by her side. "Isn't this too lovely[37] for anything? It will be the finest place in the world to come and read fairy-tales. Do you know many? I have brought a lot with me, and we'll have a lovely time here before it gets too cold to stay out."

"I don't know many fairy-tales," Marian answered doubtfully. "Grandma doesn't exactly approve of them; at least she never tells me any. She says that Bible stories are entertaining enough for any one, and she lets me read those 'simplified for the understanding of a child.'" She spoke with perfect gravity, though Miss Dorothy turned her head to hide the smile she could not prevent.

"I suppose, then," said Miss Dorothy, "that you have a book of those."

"Yes; it belonged to grandpa when he was small, and it is called 'Tales from the Bible, simplified for the understanding of a child'; I read it generally on Sundays. Mrs. Hunt knows about Cinderella and the Glass Slipper and about the Pig that huffed and puffed till he blew the house down."

"Oh, I don't know that last one," said Miss Dorothy; "you will have to tell me, and I'll tell[38] you about the Golden Apples. Don't the apples smell good? Do we dare have any of them when they are ripe?"

"Oh, yes, we can have two a day; one in the morning and one at noon; grandma says they are lead at night."

"Goodness me! I believe I have heard that saying before," said Miss Dorothy, mentally determining to carry apples to her room to eat when she felt inclined. Mrs. Otway should not decide such matters for her. She sat with her chin in her hand looking off at the ocean, blue in the distance. Marian, watching her, decided that although the new teacher did not exactly fill her expectations in some respects, in others she far exceeded them. She had very blue eyes that could be merry or soft as her mood was, her hair was wavy and of a light brown color; she was fair of skin, had rather a large mouth and not a specially beautiful nose, but she was good to look upon and the more one looked the more charming one thought her. She was dressed very simply in a gray traveling gown with no jewelry but a silver pin fastening her collar. Her face in repose was serious and Marian could[39] see that she was not one to be trifled with, in spite of her fun-loving spirit.

"There are many things I want to know," said Miss Dorothy after a while, "but I will wait till I absolutely have to ask questions."

"If you want to know one thing," returned Marian, "I can tell you. If you would like me to tell you when grandpa and grandma will be here I can say in about five minutes." She was looking off down the street and Miss Dorothy saw two figures approaching.

"Then we'd better go in," she said. "I should not like them to meet me in an apple tree; they might think me very undignified."

Marian was rather inclined to think they might, but she glossed over the fact by saying, "Well, you see it has been such a long, long time since they were young they must forget how it feels."

Miss Dorothy smiled and began to climb down the ladder, Marian following. In a few minutes they were walking soberly up the path and reached the front door just as Mr. and Mrs. Otway were there.

"Miss Robbins has come," announced Marian[40] with a little nod of her head in the direction of the young lady in the background.

"Ah-h," responded her grandfather, "then I was right, my dear," he turned to his wife, "I said it was probable that she would get the first train. We should have told Hepzibah or else you should have remained at home."

"I never remain at home from the quarterly meeting upon any pretext," returned Mrs. Otway firmly; "it was a most important one."

But Mr. Otway had hastened forward and was holding out his hand in welcome to Miss Dorothy. "I am glad to receive my old friend's daughter," he said with a stately bow. "This is Miss—ah, yes, Miss Dorothy. I may have met you when you were less of a young lady, but I cannot separate you, as a memory, from your sisters."

"I think I remember Professor Otway," returned Dorothy smiling up into the near-sighted eyes which were peering down at her. Mr. Otway was tall, spare, a little stoop-shouldered. His hair was quite gray and grew sparsely around his temples; his face was clean shaven. Mrs. Otway was below medium height, plump and keen-eyed. She wore an old-fashioned gown[41] and a plain bonnet. Winter or summer she never went out without a small cape over her shoulders. Upon this occasion it was of black silk trimmed with a fold of the same. She looked approvingly at Dorothy's neat frock, but a little disapprovingly at the arrangement of her hair.

"I am sorry not to have been here to welcome you," she said, "but there are certain matters of business which cannot be set aside for uncertainties. I hope Hepzibah or Marian showed you to your room."

"Marian did, and has been a very kind hostess," returned Miss Dorothy. "I am very glad you did not give up an important matter for anything so indefinite as my arrival. You must never let my presence allow of any change in your arrangements, Mrs. Otway. I am exceedingly grateful to you for taking me in, and I should be very uncomfortable if I were to interfere with your usual routine."

Mrs. Otway nodded approval. "We shall consider you one of the family, my dear Miss Robbins," she told her. "Marian, take my things up-stairs." She gave her bonnet and[42] cape to her granddaughter and led the way to the semi-darkened parlor where she established herself in a haircloth rocking-chair while Miss Dorothy seated herself upon the sofa.

Marian laid the bonnet and cape carefully upon her grandmother's smooth bed and went down to tell Hepzibah that it was the teacher, who had arrived. She had not wanted to leave Miss Dorothy, in order to give the old servant this piece of information, but now that her chance had come she went straight to the kitchen.

Hepzibah was stalking about preparing supper. She looked up sharply as Marian entered. "Well," she said, "what's wanting?"

"It's Miss Robbins, the teacher, Heppy," Marian told her. "You saw us go by down the garden, didn't you?"

"Why didn't she say so?" returned Heppy in an aggrieved voice. "How's I to know she wasn't a book-agent or a body selling home-made laces and embroidered shirt waists. She was carrying a bag and it might have been full of wares for all I knew."

"But she doesn't look like a peddler."[43]

"Looks belie folks sometimes. Some of 'em is dressed as good as the best, in hats with feathers and kid gloves. She might have been that or anything, for all I could tell. I'll do just the same next time. She'd oughter have told her business right out, instead of hemming and hawing and asking was Mrs. Otway to home. That's the way they all do; get the name next door and come as brazen as you please asking for Mrs. this and that. I'd like to know who's to tell the sheep from the goats."

"I would know in a minute that Miss Dorothy wasn't a goat," said Marian.

"Oh, you know a heap, don't you," replied Heppy scornfully. "If you knew so much why didn't you tell me who it was first off?"

"I didn't know exactly who it was but I could easily guess, for I knew the teacher was coming some time soon."

"I don't see why your grandma didn't say I was to look out for her," Heppy went on with a new grievance.

"Maybe she thought you would know, because you helped get her room ready, and knew she was expected," Marian made excuse.[44]

"As if I could remember anything on a Saturday, when I'd been pestered to death, answering the door a dozen times, while I was cleaning my kitchen. She might have chose some other day to come."

"She has to begin school on Monday, and besides that would be just as bad, for it would be wash-day and you are cross always then, Heppy, you know you are."

Heppy turned on her. "You just go out of here," she said. "I don't want you 'round underfoot, pestering me at meal-time nohow. I guess I can get a meal for four just as easy as for three and I don't need your help neither."

At this Marian was fain to depart, seeing that Heppy was in one of her worst moods, when everything was a grievance. It was a pleasant contrast when the little girl was met by Miss Dorothy's smile as she returned to the parlor, so she settled herself by the side of this new friend, folded her hands and let her feet dangle over the edge of the sofa. It was rather a slippery seat and in time it might be that she would have to wriggle back to a firmer place, but its nearness to Miss Dorothy was its attraction and she felt well satisfied and[45] entirely secure when the teacher's arm encircled her and drew her closer. "I am to have one new pupil anyhow," said Miss Dorothy, smiling down. "Won't it be nice for us to be going to school together every day, Marian?"

"Oh, am I going?" Marian looked from one grandparent to another.

Mrs. Otway nodded sedately. "We have concluded that it is best," she said. "Your grandfather has many affairs to attend to, and it is a tax upon his time to teach you, therefore, since you will not need to go to school unattended, we think it best. We shall see how it works, at all events, and if it seems wise to withdraw you later, we can do so."

Marian gave a long sigh of satisfaction, but said nothing. She was constantly told that little children should be seen and not heard, and moreover she thought it might hurt her grandfather's feelings if she showed too much pleasure at the change. Yet when she gave the new teacher a glad smile, Miss Dorothy realized that the prospect of school was a pleasant one to at least one of her pupils.

[49]

CHAPTER III A New Road

Instead of sitting in a straight-backed chair in her grandfather's study, conning over dry lessons while Mr. Otway wrote or read, it was quite a different experience for Marian to go to school to Miss Dorothy in a cheerful