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Page 61
Gazing at the pictured face through her tears, she recalled how Lloyd
had met _her_ disappointment, trying to live each day so unselfishly
that she could go on, stringing the little pearls on her rosary.
"If you could do it, I can too," she said presently. "And the best of
having such a chum is I needn't leave you behind when I leave school.
You are one thing that I don't have to give up."
That picture was the last thing she put into her trunk. She left it
hanging on the wall while she did all the rest of her packing, that she
might glance at it now and then. It helped wonderfully to remember that
Lloyd had had the same experience. Madam Chartley came in while she was
in the midst of her preparations for leaving, glad to find her making
them with her usual energy and interest When in answer to her offers of
assistance Mary assured her there was nothing any one could do, she
said, "I'll not stay then, except to say one thing that I may not have
opportunity for later." She paused and laid her hands on Mary's
shoulders, looking down at her searchingly and kindly.
"I want you to know this--that I have never had a pupil whom I parted
from as reluctantly as I shall part from you. Your enthusiasm and love
of school have been a joy to your teachers and an inspiration to every
girl in Warwick Hall. If it were merely a matter of expense I would not
let you go, but under the circumstances I have no right to interfere.
You ought to go. And my dear little girl, remember this, whenever
regrets come up for the school days brought so suddenly to a close, that
school is only to prepare us to meet the tests of life, and already you
have met one of its greatest--'_To renounce when that shall be
necessary, and not be embittered_!' And you are doing that so bravely
that I want you to know how much I admire and love you for it."
To Madam's surprise the words of praise did not carry the comfort she
intended. Mary's arms were thrown around her neck and a tearful face
hidden on her shoulder, as leaning against her she sobbed, "Oh, Madam
Chartley! I wish you could feel that way about me, but honestly I
haven't stood the test. I can renounce for myself, and not feel bitter,
but I can't renounce for Jack! It makes me _wild_ whenever I think of
all he has to give up. It isn't right! How could God let such an awful
thing happen to him, when he has always lived such a beautiful unselfish
life?"
Drawing her to a seat beside the window, Madam sat with an arm around
her, until the sobs grew quiet, and then began to answer her
question--the same old cry that has gone up from stricken souls ever
since the world began. And Mary, listening, felt the comfort and the
uplift of a strong faith that had learned to go unfaltering through the
sorest trials, knowing that out of the worst of them some compensating
good should be wrested in the end. For months afterwards, whenever that
bitter cry rose to her lips again, she stilled it with the remembrance
of those words. Sometime, somehow, even this terrible calamity should be
made the stepping-stone to better things. How such a thing could come to
pass Mary could not understand, but Madam's faith that such would be so,
comforted her. It was as if one little glimmering star struggled out
through the blackness of the night, and in the light of that she plucked
up courage to push on hopefully through the dark.
That afternoon just as her trunk was being carried out, the 'bus drove
up, bringing back its first instalment of returning pupils. Cornie Dean
was among them, and Elise and A.O. Mary, looking out of the window,
heard the familiar voices, and feeling that their questions and sympathy
would be more than she could bear, caught up her hat and hand-baggage,
and ran over to Betty's room to wait there until time to go.
"No, I can't see any of them, _please_." she begged, when Betty came in
to say how distressed and shocked they all were to hear about Jack, and
to know that she was leaving school. They were all crying over it, and
wanted to see her, if only for a moment.
"No," persisted Mary. "It would just start me all off again to hear one
sympathetic word, and my eyes are like red flannel now. I've already
said good-bye to Madam, and I'm going to slip out without speaking to
another soul."
"You'll have to speak to Hawkins," said Betty. "For he is lying in wait
for you with such a box of lunch as never went out of this establishment
before. He asked Madam's permission to put it up for you himself. He
told her about your binding up his hands the day the chafing-dish turned
over and burned him so badly, and about the letter you wrote for one of
the maids that got her sister into a school for the blind, and several
other things, winding up with 'There's a young lady with a _'eart_ in
'er, Ma'am!'"
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