Читать книгу Adele Doring at Boarding School - Grace May North - Страница 6

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Dancing into the sunny living-room, Carol called, “Mother mine, we have a problem to solve. Can you guess what it is?”

Mrs. Lorens glanced up from the blue patch that she was sewing on a small pair of overalls as she replied, “Yes, dear, I can guess. The principal of the Sunnyside school thinks that you are too advanced to take the work of the eighth grade again.”

“Why, Mother dear, are you a mind-reader?” Carol asked as she sat on a stool near by. “That is just what happened, and in one way I am ever so sorry. Of course I am eager to get through high as soon as possible, so that I may help Daddy ‘recuperate his fallen fortunes,’ as he calls it, but I am really disappointed not to be able to attend this school, for I met seven of the loveliest girls, and they asked me to join their Sunnyside Club. Mother dear, what am I to do? It will cost quite a little to send me to the city of Dorchester every day, and that is the nearest high school.”

Mrs. Lorens smiled lovingly at her daughter. “The right way always opens for us, dear,” she said. “Just now I am not sure what it is, but this evening your father and I will talk it over,” then she added with a little sigh, “I had so hoped, Carol, that you might go to boarding-school this year to study music and drawing, for which I am sure that you have natural talent, but, because of our changed circumstances, I fear that it cannot be. That is why your brother Peter gave up going to college this term. He will continue his law studies with your father and assist him in the office, but, if we all economize, and go without something this winter, you may be able to go away to school by another fall.”

Carol sprang up and kissed her mother impulsively. “You go without, Mummie?” she exclaimed indignantly. “Well, I just guess not! If Peter and I need more ‘iddication,’ as Pat used to call it, then we’ll earn the money ourselves.”

The mother smiled into the earnest brown eyes. She had so wanted Carol and Peter to have the advantages of higher education, but how proud she was of them for bearing their disappointment so bravely.

“Mummie,” Carol was saying, “the twins are waiting for me without. Have you an errand that we can do for you?”

“Yes, dear,” the mother replied. “Your father left a bundle of legal papers on the desk in his study and you are to take them to Mr. Dartmoor’s, and your father told me to tell you to give them to the old gentleman himself, as they are very important.”

“Then it shall be done!” Carol replied brightly, kissing her mother and skipping away.

A moment later she appeared on the front path.

“Dorothy! David!” she called. “Where are you?” and then, as the two scrambled down from a tree, she explained, “I have an errand to do for Father, and, if you wish to go with me, I’ll run you a race.”

“I’ll beat you both!” David cried lustily when they were out on the highway, which led toward Little Bear Lake.

“Not while your twin Dorothy has such long spider-legs,” Carol laughingly replied, and then, away they ran down the country road which was bordered with goldenrod and purple asters. As Carol had prophesied, Dorothy easily won the race, then, being quite out of breath, they continued their way at a slower pace.

Half a mile beyond, they could see what appeared to be a dense wood, but which, in reality, was a beautiful estate, where, in the midst of fine old trees, stood the castle-like home of their father’s richest client, Mr. Dartmoor.

Soon Carol and the two children passed under an imposing archway, and walked along the circling drive. On either side of wide stone steps, lions crouched, as though about to spring upon the unwelcome visitor.

“You tiny tads stay here,” Carol said softly, “while I go inside and call upon the ogre.”

“Oh Carol,” Dorothy whispered, her eyes wide with sudden fear, “is Mr. Dartmoor really an ogre?”

“No, of course not!” the big sister laughingly replied. “I’ve never seen him, but I’ll tell you all about him when I come out.”

Then Carol went up the steps and lifted the heavy iron knocker and smiled reassuringly down at the children, who stood watching her, almost fearfully, at the foot of the stone steps.

“Skip over and look at the fountain,” she called softly, and then turned, for the door was opening.

A serving-man in blue-and-gold livery admitted her in to a dimly-lighted, softly-carpeted hall. Having stated her errand, Carol sat on the edge of a chair holding fast to her bundle of important papers, and waited the appearance of the old gentleman who Peter had told her looked like an ogre.

“How solemn and quiet everything is,” she thought as she glanced about, “but of course there is nothing to be afraid of.”

Just then she heard a cane knocking across the floor in an adjoining room, the velvet portières parted and Mr. Dartmoor himself stood before her.

“How do you do, little lady?” he said, and his voice did not sound at all like an ogre’s.

Carol slipped from the chair and half curtsied. “I’m very well, sir, thank you,” she replied. “I am Carol Lorens, and my father asked me to give you this bundle of legal papers.”

“So you are Mr. Lorens’ little girl? You are about fourteen, are you not?” the old gentleman asked kindly.

“I am fifteen,” Carol replied less timidly.

“I have a granddaughter who is the same age,” Mr. Dartmoor said as he held back a portière. “Yonder is her portrait.”

“Oh, how lovely she must be!” Carol exclaimed as she stepped inside the room and gazed admiringly at the life-sized painting which hung over the mantel. A beautiful young girl looked out at them and a shaggy collie stood at her side.

“Does your granddaughter live here with you?” Carol asked.

The old gentleman shook his head sadly. “No,” he replied. “Evelyn’s parents are dead and I have placed her in a good boarding-school, but she is very, very lonely. Her mother left her only a few weeks ago.”

“Poor Evelyn!” Carol said and there were tears in her eyes. “I did so want to go to boarding-school myself, but I would far rather have my mother.”

Mr. Dartmoor went to the door with Carol and the twins raced from the fountain to meet her. They went shyly up the wide stone steps when the old gentleman called to them. True, he had shaggy grey eyebrows but the blue eyes underneath them were twinkling.

When the children were again on the highway, David exclaimed, “I don’t believe that Mr. Dartmoor is an ogre at all. He looks so kind and jolly. I think he is Santa Claus.”

“Maybe so!” Carol laughingly replied, and then she told the twins about the old gentleman’s beautiful granddaughter Evelyn, who was in a boarding-school near Buffalo.

Suddenly Dorothy asked, “Carol, don’t you feel awfully sorry ’cause you can’t go away to boarding-school like you expected to?”

Carol smiled down at the pretty upturned face of her little sister as she replied, “Yes, dear, I am very sorry.”

“Then why don’t you cry?” asked David. “Dorothy always cries when she can’t have what she wants.”

“I don’t always, so now!” exclaimed his small twin, stamping her foot and flashing her eyes. “You cried yourself when your stupid old balloon burst.”

“Do you want to know why I don’t cry?” Carol asked quickly, to quiet the impending storm. “Well, it’s because our mother tells us that every cloud has a silver lining and I make believe that not going to boarding-school is a big, black cloud, and I’m trying to think what its silver lining would be. Saving the money and making things easier for Mummie, I suppose.”

Just then a squirrel darted across the path and the twins gave merry chase, while Carol, left alone, walked along slowly, thinking of the lovely orphan girl who had everything the world could give except a mother. Tears rushed to her eyes as she tried to picture what life would be without her own dearest “mummie.”

When the house was reached Carol went directly to the living-room and throwing her arms about her mother, she clung to her as though she would never let her go again.

“What is it, darling?” Mrs. Lorens asked as she pressed her cheek against the tear-wet face of her daughter.

Then Carol told all about Evelyn. “Oh Mummie, Mummie,” she implored, “promise that you will never, never leave us.”

“Tut, tut, daughter of mine!” her mother replied brightly. “As Grandpa Lorens used to say, ‘Don’t let’s worry about a thing until it has happened, and even then, worrying doesn’t help any.’ Hark! The clock is striking five and supper not begun. Call Dorothy and David, and tell them that it is time to set the table.”

Carol obeyed and she laughed and chattered with the twins while they all helped their mother prepare the evening meal, but, in spite of her assumed cheerfulness, she could not forget poor lonely Evelyn Dartmoor. How she hoped that some day she would meet her.

Surprising things happen, and before that week was over, Carol had met Evelyn in a way that brought great happiness into both of their lives.