Chapter Five

As the girls were gathered in the long wardrobes, putting on cloaks and hats, and chattering, like so many magpies, over the delights of that most delightful day, some one called out, --

"Here's a pair of rubber boots, tucked up in the corner here; who owns them? Nobody? Well, then, let's put them up at auction. Who bids for this fine pair of rubber boots, warranted to keep out everything?"

"Even the feet," said another laughing girl, as the little mischief held the unclaimed boots high above her head; and another cried merrily,--

"Let's settle it as they did about the little glass slipper. Let's all try them on, and see who is the Cinderella amongst us."

But by this time Maggie Lang had got a glimpse of the boots about to be so unceremoniously disposed of, and she recognized them at once as belonging to her deskmate, Nelly Morgan.

"Have they got blue straps inside to pull them on with?" she asked: "yes, I thought so; I knew they were Nelly Morgan's; I've seen her dry them at the register many a time. Give them to me, and I'll take them home to her; she'll be sure to want them before the holidays are over, and the school house will be locked up, you know."

"Take them home to her?" repeated one of the girls, in surprise. "Indeed, I wouldn't take any such trouble for such a mean, disobliging creature."

"Yes, if it hadn't been for her, we wouldn't have had to appear so stupid that we couldn't take any part in the reception exercises," said another; and still another chimed in with a laugh of ridicule.

"O, well girls, she came in as the show-piece, you know. Everything is spectacular, nowadays, as my father says, when he puts on his glasses."

A burst of laughter followed this brilliant sally from the "witty" young lady of the first class; and, under cover of the noise, Maggie went up and took possession of the boots.

It was too bad, thought the kind-hearted little girl, that poor Nelly should lose the use of her rubbers all through the holiday week, when she would want to be going out more than usual, and when the melting snow would be sure to make it muddy, as well as to have lost all the pleasure of that happy day. It must have been a very dull day to her, indeed, thought Maggie, going home with such a bitter feelings as she had done, and not a bit like Christmas Eve. And she felt quite glad that she had an excuse to go round to Nelly's house, and tell her how sorry she felt, and perhaps cheer her up a little, by telling her what merry times they had had in the playroom, and how much she had wished for her there. So she wrapped up the boots in a piece of paper, and started of with them tucked under her arm. She stopped at her home first, of course, and ran upstairs to tell her mother all the wonderful history of the day; and Mrs. Lang was quite as much interested and pleased as Maggie could desire.

"I concluded something special must be going on at the school, when you stayed so long," she said; "for I knew my Maggie would not go off anywhere else without asking mother, Well, it certainly was very kind of Mr. Thurston and the other gentlemen; and I hope you, for one, Maggie, will show that you remember it, by trying to be more diligent than ever next term. 'Those horrid, horrid sums' Maggie;" and Mrs. Lang smiled significantly at her little daughter. Maggie colored a little and answered, quickly, "Yes, indeed, mother, I shall study harder than ever, to please the gentlemen and dear Miss Kavanagh, too. O, mother, she was so please with the bouquet I brought her; it was the prettiest one she had; but, mother, she was vexed with me, too, today -- with all of us; and it was about the strangest thing. I'll tell you all about it."

So then came all the story of Nelly Morgan's strange performances; of her sudden appearance in glory, and her equally sudden disappearance in shame; of Maggie's going to her house, and not finding her there, and of the disappointment with regard to their recitation.

"So the bells didn't ring in your class today, in spite of its being Christmas Eve!" said Mrs. Lang, with a smile, as Maggie finished her story; but for all that, she looked grave, and in her own mind felt tolerably certain that there was something wrong connected with Nelly's behavior.

She did not say so, however, and Maggie went on to tell about the finding of the rubbers. "I have them here, mother," she said, "and if you don't mind, I'd like to run round and take them to Nelly, and tell her how sorry I am she missed all the fun, and giver her this paper of candy, if she'll have it. It's only four o'clock, and I won't stay long. May I go?"

Mrs. Lang hesitated a moment; she did not like to have her little daughter intimate with a girl who, she feared, was not possessed of very strict principles of right; but neither could bear to check her in her kindly impulse; so she said, "Yes, you may go; but don't stay very long." And Maggie promised, and tying on her hood again, started off on her kindly errand.

We must hasten on before her, however, and find out how it has fared with Nelly all through this Christmas Eve, which she had thought was going to be such a proud and happy day. She was in such a tempest of rage when she rushed out of the schoolroom that she scarcely knew what she was doing. Her chief desire was to get away as quickly as possible from the scene of her mortification and disappointment; and she had thrown on her wraps, and rushed off in such haste that she had entirely forgotten her overshoes; nor did she remember then until, as she ran along the street, not noticing, in her blind passion, where she was going, she felt the snow, which lay in pools of melting slush on every crossing, penetration the delicate kid of her pretty boots, and wetting her feet to the skin. Then she remembered, in consternation, that water would spoil the bright bronze coloring; and, looking down at her feet, she discovered, to her despair, that her beautiful shoes were entirely ruined!

Tears of sorrow and of fear rushed to her eyes. Her beautiful bronze boots! -- they were so handsome, and so costly! She had never had such a pair before, and they fitted her so perfectly, and every one admired them so much! How could she bear to give them up? And, worst of all, how could she account to her mother of their condition? how should she tell her of the deception she had practiced upon her, and of the mortification in which it had ended?

"It will never do; she would tell father, and he would be, O, so angry!" thought the unhappy girl, still hastening along the sloppy streets, and trying to force back her tears, that people might not stare at her for crying. "I must hide them away when I get home, and I must try somehow or other to earn the money to buy another pair just like them. I can knit sontags and breakfast shawls, and I'll take the dollar my father always gives me at Christmas to buy the worsted for the first one. Thank fortune, they're safe in the drawer. I only hope I shan't be asked to a single party this winter."

With this not very cheering hope for her only comfort, the miserable girl reached her home, and stole in at the basement door, trembling for fear that Anne should suddenly come out of the kitchen, and starting like a guilty thing at every sound she heard. She met no one, however, on her way upstairs. The children had not yet returned from their little school, and the nurse was taking care of Mrs. Morgan and the baby in their own room; so that Nelly made her way, unseen and unheard, up to the empty guest chamber, which had been the scene of her triumphant vanity only an hour or two before.

There, with very different feelings from those with which she had put them on, she took off her fine clothes, and began to lay them, with tears of shame and anger, back in the drawer. But when she went to fold up her dress, she found not only that it was considerably tumbled by the heavy cloak, but that -- worse and worse -- the inside of the hem, all across the back breadth, was spotted with mud which had splashed up underneath in her mad race home through the slush.

This was too much, and Nelly dropped, all undressed as she was, into a chair, and sobbed aloud. What should she do with this fresh misfortune? The shoes she might possibly replace; but how could she ever account to her mother for the splashes on the dress which, as she supposed, had never been worn out of the house? She did not dare wash them off, for Swiss muslin always showed when it had been washed, as it lost in the water the peculiar pale bluish tinge which it has when new; besides, the starch would come out, and that breadth would look all limp and unlike the others, and O, her mother would be sure to notice the difference, and what should she do? Poor Nelly! it never occurred to her to do the only safe thing, because the only right thing was -- go to her mother, acknowledge her fault, tell all its unhappy consequences, and as forgiveness, in real penitence of heart, and determination never to attempt to deceive again.

It did not occur to Nelly because she did not feel real sorry for her fault; she only felt anger at the failure of her plans, and fear of discovery; and she attached so much more importance to fine dress herself than to truth and honor, that she could not believe her mother would be willing to let the accident to the shoes and the frock pass unpunished, merely because she was honest enough to confess how it had happened. She had not yet experienced the truth of the sweet promise,--

"If we confess our sins, God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness."

And thus she felt only the cowardice of the guilty, with none of the trustful courage of the penitent and believing.

So, as the poor girl sat shivering in the cold, any way and every way except the right way of getting out of her trouble came into Nelly's mind. She could think of nothing better, however, than letting the mud dry on the dress, and then trying to rub it off with a brush. So she spread out the gauzy white skirt on the backs of two chairs, looked at it in a helpless sort of way, and then put on her everyday dress, and wrapped her cloak around her; for there was no fire in the spare room, and Nelly began to find it very cold indeed.

She did not dare, however, to go down into a warm room, for fear her mother would hear that she was at home, and want to know why she had left school for early. She did not even dare to walk about to keep herself warm, lest she should be hear; and there was nothing for her to do but wrap her cloak tight around her, and tuck her poor little cold feet under her, to keep them from getting quite numb.

There were no books, in the room that Nelly cared to read, no work, no playthings; and O, the disappointed, and mortified, and anxious girl! While her classmates were passing the hours so pleasantly, she had nothing to do but chafe her chilly hands, and look disconsolately at her ruined finery, and listen for every sound, every footfall, so as to spring and hide it away if any step should be heard approaching the room; no companions but her own bitter, and angry, and fearful thoughts, and no memory of the day which was not inexpressibly painful.

And yet this was Christmas Eve, and held sacred by the whole Christian world, in memory of that wondrous Eve, hundreds of years ago, when the wise men beheld the Star in the East, that heralded the birth of the Prince of Peace, and when the angels sang the triumphant song, --

"On earth peace -- good will to men!"

But there was no peace, no good will to men, in our poor foolish Nelly's heart that day.

Never was the sound of the great City Hall bell, booming out twelve o'clock, more welcome than it was to this poor little half-frozen prisoner of her own misdeeds; for that was the hour when school was to have been dismissed, and now she might appear before her mother without exciting any remark. The light splashes of mud on the dress were now quite dry, too; and Nelly took a clothes-brush from the bureau, and tried very carefully to rub them off. To her great relief, she was able to efface them almost entirely. Only a few slight stains remained, and Nelly trusted to her quick wit to prevent them from being noticed the next time she had occasion to wear the dress.

The shoes now remained to be disposed of. These were still quite wet, and entirely discolored; and Nelly looked at them with a pang of regret, not for her sin, but for their loss. She had decided that the safest place in which to hide them was a certain hole in the plaster of the attic wall; and accordingly she stole up the narrow stairs in her stocking feet, creeping softly as a cat, and listening, and looking sharply, for fear that Anne might be up in her room and hear her.

But no sign of anyone appeared, and Nelly climbed up on a chair, and thrust the proofs of her deception safe out of sight, drawing back her hand hastily, lest a hungry rat, mistaking it for a piece of cheese, might nibble a bit of it for his Christmas dinner. Then she crept downstairs again, folded away her dresses, tidied the room, and, taking her cloak and hood, closed the door, and stole softly down to the front hall. There she changed her manner very suddenly. She opened the street door and shut it again with a bang; burst out in to a snatch of a Christmas carol, and then ran noisily upstairs, singing all the way, as though happy as a child ought to be on Christmas Eve. When she reached her mother's door, she stopped her song, as though afraid of disturbing her or baby, and, turning the knob softly, she entered the room, and presented herself before her mother a having just arrived from school.

To be continued ...

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