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Page 26
"I told Miss Eldridge you advised me to get it," continued she
triumphantly, "and she didn't say another word."
The professor was aghast. He felt a warm wave stealing over his face.
This must be stopped, and at once. Fancy his class, his brother
professors, getting hold of such a rare bit of gossip! But he would not
hurt her feelings. She was so young, so innocent, and her frank blue
eyes were so like those of his dead friend.
"My child," he said softly, "you honor me by your confidence; but may
I--might I ask you, when you seek my advice upon subjects--ah--not
congruous to my age and profession, not to repeat the result of our
conferences? With thoughtless people it might in some slight measure be
considered derogatory to my professional dignity. Not that I think it
so," he hastily added. "All that concerns you is of great, of heartfelt
interest to me."
"I didn't tell anybody but Miss Eldridge," said the culprit penitently;
"and I know she won't repeat it; and I'll never do so any more, if
you'll let me come to you with my foolish little troubles. It seems
something like having papa again."
Now, why this touching tribute should have irritated the professor who
can say? He was startled, shocked, at the irritation, and he strove to
banish all trace of it from his voice and manner as he said, gravely and
kindly, "Continue to come to me with your troubles, my dear, if I can
afford you either help or comfort."
A few days passed, and she waylaid him again. Her pretty face was pale,
and her soft yellow hair was pushed back from her forehead, showing the
blue veins in her temples.
"I don't know what I shall do," she said, in a troubled voice. "Those
children have caught up with me in arithmetic, and by next week they'll
be ahead of me; and I feel as if I oughtn't to take Miss Eldridge's
money if I can't do all she engaged me for. What would _you_ do if you
were me?"
"Could you not prepare yourself by study, and so keep in advance of your
little pupils?" he inquired kindly.
"I don't believe I could," she replied despondently. "I tried to do the
sums that came next, last night, and they wouldn't come right, all I
could do; and I got a headache besides."
"I have an hour to spare," said the professor, pulling out his watch:
"perhaps, if you will bring me your book and slate, I can elucidate the
rule which is perplexing you."
"Oh, will you _really_?" she exclaimed, a radiant smile lighting up her
troubled face. "I'll bring them right away. How kind, how _very_ kind
you are, to bother with my sums, when you have so much Greek in your
head!" And, obeying an impulse, as she so often did, she caught his hand
in both her own and kissed it heartily. Then she skimmed across the
parlor, and he heard her child's voice "lilting lightly up the" stairs
as he stood--in a position suggestive of Mrs. Jarley's wax-works--gazing
fixedly at the hand which she had kissed.
"She regards me as a father," he said to himself severely. "Am I going
mad? Or becoming childish? No; I am only sixty. But, even if it were
possible, it would be base, unmanly, to take advantage of her
loneliness, her gratitude. No, I will be firm."
So, when the offending "example" was handed to him, with the
above-quoted touching statement as to its total depravity, he looked
only at the slate. Gently and patiently, as if to a little child, he
pointed out the errors and expounded the rule, amply rewarded by her
joyful exclamation, "Oh, I see _exactly_ how it's done, now! You do
explain things beautifully. I really think I could have learned a good
deal if I'd had a teacher like you when I went to school."
"Come to me whenever your lessons perplex you, my dear," he answered,
still looking at the slate; "come freely, as if--as if I were your
father."
"Ah, how kind, how good you are to me!" she cried, seizing his slender,
wrinkled hand and holding it between her soft palms. "How glad papa must
be to know it! It almost seems like having him again. Must you go?
Good-night."
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