Chapter Eleven

by Kate J. Neily
Edited and Revised by Amber Moeller

Mrs. Morgan found herself disappointed in her hope that a little pleasurable excitement would rouse Nelly out of the strange, morbid mood which had clung to her ever since her illness. The glow of gratified vanity brightened her up for a few days; but the old anxious cloud soon came back, and Mrs. Morgan perplexed herself in vain to conjecture the cause of so sudden a change in her daughter. Nelly had never been specially sweet-tempered or lovely; but she was one of those strong, active, high-spirited children, who fill a house with the sounds of merry and busy childish life. Never quiet; now here, now there; laughing and singing, or, perhaps, quarrelling; at any rate, always full of bustle and animation,-- she had been the life of the house. Now she moped about with a sullen face and silent voice, and seemed to desire nothing so much as that her mother should employ her, with a promise of payment, to assist her in needlework after school hours were over. Mrs. Morgan could not conjecture what special need she had for money, nor guess, in the least, what was the cause of her altered manner; but the mystery was soon to be resolved.

One Saturday her mother asked Nelly to take Jennie round to Mr. Butler's, and have her fitted with a pair of stout school shoes.

"It is so damp I scarcely dare venture out myself," she said; but Nelly answered ungraciously,--

"Then why can't Anne go, Mother? I don't feel like it;" for she did not indeed "feel like" entering again the store where she had told such unblushing falsehoods, and where her debt was still unpaid.

"Because Anne is busy, my dear; and, besides, I would much rather trust you to see that the shoes fit properly. Come, get your hat and cloak; it will do you good to go out; you have been moping in the house all day."

Mrs. Morgan spoke decidedly, though gently, and Nelly knew she must obey. She put down her work with a jerk, and slammed the door as she went out of the room; and you may be sure little Jennie found her sister no very pleasant companion, as she hurried her angrily along towards the store. Her mother had given her the money to pay for the shoes, and as Nelly handed it to Mr. Butler, who himself waited upon her, he asked, a little hesitatingly,--

"Your mother didn't send the money for your boots--did she, miss?"

The quick blood rushed to Nelly's face.

"Di-didn't she?" she stammered, not knowing what to say. "I suppose she forgot it; but I'll speak to her about it when I go home."

"What boots, Nelly?" asked little Jennie, who was listening. " I didn't know you had been buying any."

"It's none of your business," answered Nelly, sharply. "Don't be asking meddlesome questions."

The child was silent, abashed at the rebuke; but the shopkeeper noticed the scene with curious eyes. "Something wrong here, I believe," he thought; "Mrs. Morgan always pays for everything when she buys it, and I guess this young miss has been doing a little shopping on her own account."

"I'll just give you a little bill of it," he said; "ours is a cash concern, you know, and your mother has always been a cash customer. I'm sure she's forgotten it."

"O, no, you needn't give me any bill," said Nelly, hastily; "I'll speak to her about it, and bring the money on my way to school, on Monday;" and she looked furtively at Jennie; but Jennie was busy watching a pretty little child, who was being fitted with a pair of tiny blue kid slippers, and didn't seem to have heard what was said.

But the shopman noticed the hurried glance, and was more than ever suspicious that something was wrong.

"Very well, miss, it will be all right, no doubt," he said; but he resolved, inwardly, that if it were not all right, and the money did not come on Monday, the bill should go.

So Nelly went home with a double anxiety -- the fear of the bill being sent, it, and the fear of Jennie's asking her mother the same question which she had asked herself in the store. She endeavored to avert this last calamity by giving the child a sound scolding, as soon as she got her into the street, for being meddlesome and inquisitive; and then, after she had brought her to tears of terror and shame, she took her into a confectioner's shop, and treated her to sugarplums, as a reward for the promise never again to ask impertinent questions. Her usual "good luck," as she called it, helped her to evade the former misfortune; for, the money not coming on Monday, -- as Nelly knew very well it would not, when she promised it, and Mr. Butler being a shrewd and cautious man of business, -- the bill was duly sent. But it so happened, that just as the boy rang the bell at the Morgan's door, Nelly was coming up the steps, just home from school, and recognized the lad as errand boy at the shoe store.

"A bill, isn't it, from Mr. Butler's? All right -- I'll take it," she said; and the boy had just left the stoop, and the coarse yellow envelope barely found its way into her pocket, when Anne opened the door, and seeing no one but Nelly, grumbled a little that she couldn't come in at the basement door, and "lave her to her work."

But Nelly didn't stop to giver her a proud answer, as she ordinarily would have done; her heart was beating wildly at this last narrow escape, and she was glad to rush up to her own room, and, locking the door, give vent to her excitement unobserved.

She sank upon her chair, breathless and trembling, at first; but presently, when she grew calmer, she tore open the envelope, and there, sure enough, were the fateful words which would have revealed her shameful secret: --

"J.W. Morgan to Henry Butler, Dr."

Nelly glanced at the bill with a look of aversion, and then tore it into tiny pieces, and threw them into the slop-jar.

"Thank fortune, that is over for a day or two," she said, with a long-drawn breath; " but he'll be sure to send it again -- the stingy creature; or, if he doesn't, he'll speak to mother about it the first time she goes into the store. I wish I had never seen him or his horrid shoes. They had brought all this trouble upon me."

Poor Nelly! it didn't occur to her to think that it was her own vanity, love of dress, and deceitfulness, which had brought her into this strait; nor, in all her desperate plans for escape, did she think of the plain way of confession and amendment.

She sat in her fireless room, brooding over her trouble, until she grew numb with cold, and them crept down stairs like a guilty thing, shrinking into corners, and ashamed to look any one openly in the face, wearing such a pale and wretched aspect, meanwhile, that both her father and mother noticed it, asked kindly if she was not well, and puzzled themselves vainly to think what had come over their once bright, cheerful, and fun-loving daughter.

In the same miserable mood she went to school next day, walking along the busy streets lonely and wretched, noticing nothing, except to give a hopeless glance into the little old lady's shop as she passed, to see if possibly any one might be watching for her. But no; no such happy surprise was in store for her, and the poor girl went on her way with an added pang at her heart, and took her seat at her desk alone, too miserable to wish to speak or be spoken to.

And yet all the rest of Miss Kavanagh's class seemed to be in a state of high excitement; school was not yet opened, and some of the girls stood about in groups, talking eagerly; others were at the blackboards, dashing off, in excited haste, examples in arithmetic, and imploring one and another of the better scholars to "just tell them once more about this or that; they were sure they should forget it, and make dunces of themselves, when Mr. Burton examined them." Others still were rapidly turning over the leaves of Grammars and Geographics, refreshing their memories on difficult points; and Nelly remembered that this was "Promotion-week," that the superintendent of the schools had been examining the lower classes for several days, and that he was to visit theirs today.

Indeed, she saw him now sitting on the platform, talking with the principal and some of the teachers, Miss Kavanagh among them; but she felt no interest in the matter. She was too much absorbed with her own imminent trouble to care for anything outside of it; and, besides, she knew there was no prospect of her promotion. Quick and clever as she was, she had always thought too much of dress and amusement ever to make a diligent scholar; and her fortnight's absence during her illness had thrown her hopelessly behindhand. It was only another bitter drop in the cup of her misery to feel that she was entirely unprepared for examination, and knew that she should disgrace herself by repeated failures, and by remaining in the second class, while all her companions, except the few notoriously idle or dull, would pass up to a higher grade, and have the honor of being under the immediate charge of the lady principal herself. It was only another drop, and Nelly swallowed it with a bitter gulp, and sat at her seat silent and sullen, assuming a haughty indifference to the whole matter, which was filling the rest of the class with excitement and anxiety.

Just as she had expected, she failed constantly in answering the questions addressed to her in the course of the examination, and just as she expected, her name was not upon the list of those considered ready for promotion when the examination was ended.

She did not feel sorry nor ashamed; her heart was too bitter for that now, only indignant, when Mr. Burton asked, in a tone of displeased surprise, why it was that such a tall, intelligent-looking girl should be so far behind her mates; nor was she at all grateful when Miss Kavanagh, although displeased herself, did her the justice to say that she had been detained from school by a severe illness, from which she did not seem to have recovered with her usual tone of mind.

She put on a defiant, don't-care look when her proud and happy companions marched, blushing and smiling, into the front room, where they were henceforward to wear the honorable title of the "First Class;" and she answered with a glance of cool disdain some simple remark which one of the acknowledged "stupids" of the class, also left behind, ventured to address to her as a companion in misfortune.

She carried her disgrace with a high head in presence of others, but tears of bitter mortification and anger gushed to her eyes when once she was safely out into the street; and her afternoon and evening at home were no happier than had been those of the previous day.

The hardest thing to bear of it also was the taking her seat next morning among the crowd of smaller girls, promoted from the third class, upon whom she had always looked down in the playroom, and wherever else she happened to meet them, as "mere little chits, not worth noticing." Now they were her classmates, and enforced companions, with equal rights and honors as herself; and she detected them glancing at her from time to time with looks half curious, half contemptuous, as having failed of the promotion which they themselves had obtained.

Nelly returned these glances with icy disdain, but they stung her none the less; and all this mortification, added to her harassing special anxiety, made her utterly reckless, and ready to do any wicked and desperate deed.

There was very little regular study or recitation that day; the forty new scholars in each class had to be provided with sets of new books before the lessons of the higher grade could be appointed or prepared. Mr. Potter, the principal of the school, was busy in the library all day with two or three of his older boys, filling up orders for books as they were sent in, and counting the money, which the children had brought from home to pay for them. The teachers occupied themselves principally in entering the names of the promoted pupils in their roll-books, in explaining to them their own particular rules, to which they required obedience from their class, and in writing the separate list of books.

This was no slight task, as very few of the girls needed exactly the same, almost all of them having one or more of the text-books, which had descended to them from some older brother or sister. The counting of the money, too, was troublesome and tedious, as it came in innumerable pieces of fractional currency, with very few large bills, and yet mounted up to a considerable sum.

Miss Kavanagh, pitying Nelly for the mortification which she knew she was feeling, and knowing, too, that she was quick and clever, called her to her side, and employed her in separating the various ten, twenty-five, and fifty-cent stamps, and laying them in separate piles for more convenient counting; and, when at last the lists were all made out, and the money duly summed up, she sent her to carry both to the library, and see that the books were selected, and brought to the classroom.

Nelly's pride had been soothed by being chosen thus to assist her teacher in responsible work; but even this had, nevertheless, a source of torment for her. She looked with greedy eyes at the piles of money lying on the desk, and as bill after bill passed through her fingers, they itched with almost uncontrollable desire to close upon some of them, "just enough to save her from detection and disgrace," and rush desperately from the room with her prize.

But, of course, she knew that could not be done and she went on counting the money with trembling and covetous fingers, not daring to appropriate a single penny of it, even in this hour of her extremity. When she went into the library, she found there a scene of busy bustle and hurry. It was getting to be late in the afternoon; it was important that the children should have their books before school was dismissed, in order to have their lessons appointed for the morrow; and the orders were coming in so thick and fast as to keep the principal and his young assistants exceedingly busy.

As Nelly entered, several girls, also holding book-lists, and envelopes full of money, stood near the door, waiting their turn to be served; but Nelly, with her usual quick and imperious manner, pushed her way to the place in front of them. As she did so, she jostled one of the girls against a small stand, covered with loose pieces of money, which one of the boys had just emptied from an envelope, and was certifying, before handing out the books, for which it was to pay.

The stand tottered with the rude shock, and the loose bills flew here and there over the floor. There was an impatient exclamation, and Mr. Porter came hastily from the other end of the room, where he was registering the different sums of money in a great cash-book, to inquire what was the matter.

"Only some money scattered on the floor. We'll pick it up." "It was Nelly Morgan's fault; she's always so topping." "It was an accident, I think; some one jostled the table." These and a dozen other exclamations replied to his question, while every one stooped to pick up the scattered stamps, which had fluttered in every direction.

Nelly, abashed at the reproving glance which the principal directed towards her, busied herself with the rest; and, as she bent down and helped to gather up the fugitive pieces, a sight met her eye which sent all the blood in one great throb to her heart, with a rush of conflicting emotions.

Behind a great pile of "Websters," which had been stacked upon the floor, half hidden under one of the shelves of the library, where she was sure no one but herself perceived it, lay a crisp new greenback with the stamp 5 very plainly visible.

It was really a five-dollar bill, but to Nelly it was more than that: it was absolute salvation from disgrace, and the temptations to take it was simply irresistible to her in her desperate mood. She flirted her skirt dexterously over it, clutched it with burning fingers, thrust it close down into her high balmoral boot, and then, picking up again a few smaller bills, which she had laid down for the moment, rose and handed them to the boy; and, in the confusion of the moment, no one noticed how deathly pale was Nelly Morgan, nor how her heart beat, nor how her lips moved convulsively once or twice with the words "Saved, saved!"

Neither did they notice specially how suddenly the blood rushed back to her face, nor how she trembled, and clung to a chair for support, when the boy, carefully recounting the money, pronounced it five dollars short of the amount marked upon the envelope.

For there was an immediate chorus of exclamations -- "Is it, really?" "Too bad!" "We must look again;" and the search was again instituted, everybody peering into nooks and crannies, under shelves, behind piles of books, and in every place it seemed possible for money to hid itself.

But no five-dollar greenback was perceptible; and, after long and fruitless seeking, Mr. Porter said to the girl whose money it was which had been thrown from the table, --

"Your teacher must have made some mistake in the amount she marked upon the envelope. It seems impossible that, if the money had really been dropped here, it should not be found. Go and ask Miss Elliott to be so good as to come to the library."

The girl went out, and returned immediately with her teacher; but she, of course, was quite positive that there had been no mistake on her part; and a pause followed of very disagreeable feeling to every one. At last Mr. Porter said, --

"Well, there is nothing further to be done just now, and it is time for school to be dismissed. I will have the room thoroughly cleared and searched before I go home, and, if the money is not found, we can consider tomorrow what is best to be done. The girls must have their books, of course, if I pay for them myself."

The terrible strain upon Nelly's self-control relaxed a little; danger was over for the present and before tomorrow the money would be safe in Mr. Butler's hands. She went back to the schoolroom with the rest, and found the classes preparing for dismissal. In a few minutes more she was out on the street, and stooping, under the pretence of fastening an untied shoe-string, she seized the stolen bill, and hastened with guilty speed to get rid of it, and all her troubles with it, at the shoe store.

To be continued ...

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