Daisy
that in her days; and she knows it and she don't like it. It's real
fun to see St. Clair beat; she thinks she is so much better than other
girls, and she has such a way of twisting that upper lip of hers. Do
you know how St. Clair twists her upper lip? Look!--she's doing it
now."
"She's handsome though, ain't she?" said Miss Macy. "She'll be
beautiful."
"No," said Mlle. Genevieve; "not that. Never that. She will be
handsome; but beauty is a thing of the soul. _She_ will not be
beautiful. Daisy, are you going to work hard this year?"
"Yes, mademoiselle."
"I believe you," she said, taking my face between her two hands and
kissing it.
"Whoever saw Mlle. Genevieve do that before!" said Miss Macy, as the
other left us. "She is not apt to like the scholars."
I knew she had always liked me. But everybody had always liked me, I
reflected; this time at school was the first of my knowing anything
different. And in this there now came a change. Since my wearing and
using the Paris things sent to me by my mother, which I dared not fail
to use and wear, I noticed that my company was more sought in the
school. Also my words were deferred to, in a way they had not been
before. I found, and it was not an unpleasant thing, that I had grown
to be a person of consequence. Even with the French and English
teachers; I observed that they treated me with more consideration. And
so I reflected within myself again over Dr. Sandford's observation,
"_L'habit, c'est l'homme._" Of course it was a consideration given to
my clothes, a consideration also to be given up if I did not wear such
clothes. I saw all that. The world _knew me_, just for the moment.
Well, the smooth way was very pleasant. I had it with everybody for a
time.
My little room-mate and classmate St. Clair was perhaps the only
exception to the general rule. I never felt that she liked me much.
She let me alone, however; until one unlucky day--I do not mean to
call it unlucky, either--when we had, as usual, compositions to write,
and the theme given out was "Ruins." It was a delightful theme to me.
I did not always enjoy writing compositions; this one gave me
permission to roam in thoughts and imaginations that I liked. I went
back to my old Egyptian studies at Magnolia, and wrote my composition
about "Karnak." The subject was full in my memory; I had gone over and
over and all through it; I had measured the enormous pillars and great
gateways, and studied the sculpture on the walls, and paced up and
down the great avenue of sphinxes. Sethos, and Amunoph and Rameses,
the second and third, were all known and familiar to me; and I knew
just where Shishak had recorded his triumphs over the land of Judea. I
wrote my composition with the greatest delight. The only danger was
that I might make it too long.
One evening I was using the last of the light, writing in the window
recess of the school parlour, when I felt a hand laid on my shoulders.
"You are so hard at work!" said the voice of Mlle. Genevieve.
"Yes, mademoiselle, I like it."
"Have you got all the books and all that you want?"
"Books, mademoiselle?"--I said wondering.
"Yes; have you got all you want?"
"I have not got any books," I said; "there are none that I want in the
school library."
"Have you never been in madame's library?"
"No, mademoiselle."
"Come!"
I jumped up and followed her, up and down stairs and through halls and
turnings, till she brought me into a pretty room lined with books from
floor to ceiling. Nobody was there. Mademoiselle lit the gas with
great energy, and then turned to me, her great black eyes shining.
"Now what do you want, _mon enfant_? here is everything."
"Is there anything about Egypt?"
"Egypt! Are you in Egypt? See here--look, here is Denon--here is
Laborde; here are two or three more. Do you like that? Ah! I see by
the way your grey eyes grow big--Now sit down, and do what you like.
Nobody will disturb you. You can come here every evening for the hour
before tea."
Mademoiselle scarce stayed for my thanks, and left me alone. I had not
seen either Laborde or Denon in my grandfather's library at Magnolia;
they were after his time. The engravings and illustrations also had
not been very many or very fine in his collection of travellers'
books. It was the greatest joy to me to see some of those things in
Mme. Ricard's library, that I had read and dreamed about so long in my
head. It was adding eyesight to hearsay. I found a good deal too that
I wanted to read, in these later authorities. Evening after evening I
was in madame's library, lost among the halls of the old Egyptian
conquerors.
The interest and delight of my work quite filled me, so that the fate of
my composition hardly came into my thoughts, or the fact that other
people were writing compositions too. And when it was done, I was simply
very sorry that it was done. I had not written it for honour or for duty,
but for love. I suppose that was the reason why it succeeded. I remember
I was anything but satisfied with it myself, as I was reading it aloud
for the benefit of my judges. For it was a day of prize compositions; and
before the whole school and even some visitors, the writings of the girls
were given aloud, each by its author. I thought, as I read mine, how poor
it was, and how magnificent my subject demanded that it should be. Under
the shade of the great columns, before those fine old sphinxes, my words
and myself seemed very small. I sat down in my place again, glad that the
reading was over.
But there was a little buzz; then a dead expectant silence; then Mme.
Ricard arose. My composition had been the last one. I looked up with
the rest, to hear the award that she would speak; and was at first
very much confounded to hear my own name called. "Miss Randolph--" It
did not occur to me what it was spoken for; I sat still a moment in a
maze. Mme. Ricard stood waiting; all the room was in a hush.
"Don't you hear yourself called?" said a voice behind me. "Why don't
you go?"
I looked round at Miss Macy, who was my adviser, then doubtfully I
looked away from her and caught the eyes of Mlle. Genevieve. She
nodded and beckoned me to come forward. I did it hastily then, and
found myself curtseying in front of the platform where stood madame.
"The prize is yours, Miss Randolph," she said graciously. "Your paper
is approved by all the judges."
"Quite artistic,"--I heard a gentleman say at her elbow.
"And it shows an amount of thorough study and perfect preparation,
which I can but hold up as a model to all my young ladies. You deserve
this, my dear."
I was confounded; and a low curtsey was only a natural relief to my
feelings. But madame unhappily took it otherwise.
"This is yours," she said, putting into my hands an elegant little
bronze standish;--"and if I had another prize to bestow for grace of
good manners, I am sure I would have the pleasure of giving you that
too."
I bent again before madame, and got back to my seat as I could. The
great business of the day was over, and we soon scattered to our
rooms. And I had not been in mine five minutes before the penalties of
being distinguished began to come upon me.
"Well, Daisy!" said Miss Lansing,--"you've got it. How pretty! isn't
it, Macy?"
"It isn't a bit prettier than it ought to be, for a prize in such a
school," said Miss Macy. "It will do."
"I've seen handsomer prizes," said Miss Bentley.
"But you've got it, more ways than one, Daisy," Miss Lansing went on.
"I declare! Aren't you a distinguished young lady! Madame, too! why we
all used to think we behaved pretty well _before company_,--didn't we,
St. Clair?"
"I hate favour and favouritism!" said that young lady, her upper lip
taking the peculiar turn to which my attention had once been called.
"Madame likes whatever is French."
"But Randolph is not French, are you, Randolph?" said Blackeyes, who
was good-natured through everything.
"Madame is not French herself," said Miss Bentley.
"I hate everything at school!" St. Clair went on.
"It's too bad," said her friend. "Do you know, Daisy, St. Clair always
has the prize for compositions. What made you go and write that long
stuff about Rameses? the people didn't understand it, and so they
thought it was fine."
"I am sure there was a great deal finer writing in Faustina's
composition," said Miss Bentley.
I knew very well that Miss St. Clair had been accustomed to win this
half-yearly prize for good writing. I had expected nothing but that
she would win it this time. I had counted neither on my own success
nor on the displeasure it would raise. I took my hat and went over to
my dear Miss Cardigan; hoping that ill-humour would have worked itself
out by bed-time. But I was mistaken.
St Clair and I had been pretty near each other in our classes, though
once or twice lately I had got an advantage over her; but we had kept
on terms of cool social distance until now. Now the spirit of rivalry
was awake. I think it began to stir at my Paris dresses and things;
Karnak and Mme. Ricard finished the mischief.
On my first coming to school I had been tempted in my horror at the
utter want of privacy to go to bed without prayer; waiting till the
rest were all laid down and asleep and the lights out, and then
slipping out of bed with great care not to make a noise, and watching
that no whisper of my lips should be loud enough to disturb anybody's
slumbers. But I was sure after a while, that this was a cowardly way
of doing; and I could not bear the words, "Whosoever shall be ashamed
of me and of my words, of him shall the Son of man be ashamed, when He
cometh in the glory of His Father." I determined in the vacation that
I would do so no more, cost what it might the contrary. It cost a
tremendous struggle. I think, in all my life I have done few harder
things, than it was to me then to kneel down by the side of my bed in
full blaze of the gaslights and with four curious pairs of eyes around
to look on; to say nothing of the four busy tongues wagging about
nothing all the time. I remember what a hush fell upon them the first
night; while beyond the posture of prayer I could do little. Only
unformed or half formed thoughts and petitions struggled in my mind,
through a crowd of jostling regrets and wishes and confusions, in
which I could hardly distinguish anything. But no explosion followed,
of either ridicule or amusement, and I had been suffered from that
night to do as I would, not certainly always in silence, but quite
unmolested.
I had carried over my standish to Miss Cardigan to ask her to take
care of it for me; I had no place to keep it. But Miss Cardigan was
not satisfied to see the prize; she wanted to hear the essay read; and
was altogether so elated that a little undue elation perhaps crept
into my own heart. It was not a good preparation for what was coming.
I went home in good time. In the hall, however, Mlle. Genevieve seized
upon me; she had several things to say, and before I got up stairs to
my room all the rest of its inmates were in bed. I hoped they were
asleep. I heard no sound while I was undressing, nor while I knelt, as
usual now, by my bedside. But as I rose from my knees I was startled
by a sort of grunt that came from St. Clair's corner.
"Humph!--Dear me! we're so good,--Grace and Devotion,--Christian
grace, too!"
"Hold your tongue, St. Clair," said Miss Macy, but not in a way, I
thought, to check her; if she could have been checked.
"But it's too bad, Macy," said the girl. "We're all so rough, you
know. _We_ don't know how to behave ourselves; we can't make curtseys;
our mothers never taught us anything,--and dancing masters are no
good. We ought to go to Egypt. There isn't anything so truly dignified