Part 1

Transcriber's note: Unusual and inconsistent spelling is as printed.

THE

SCHOOL-GIRLS'

TREASURY

OR,

STORIES FOR THOUGHTFUL GIRLS.

BY

LUCY ELLEN GUERNSEY

PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL SOCIETY FOR THE PROMOTION OF EVANGELICAL KNOWLEDGE, NO. 2, BIBLE HOUSE, NEW YORK.

1870.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1870, BY "THE PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL SOCIETY FOR THE PROMOTION OF EVANGELICAL KNOWLEDGE," In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of New York.

ST. JOHNLAND STEREOTYPE FOUNDRY, SUFFOLK CO., N. Y.

THIS VOLUME IS PUBLISHED BY SPECIAL CONTRIBUTION OF THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL OF THE CHURCH OF THE INCARNATION, NEW YORK.

[Illustration]

CONTENTS.

ANNA, OR, "MAKE THE BEST OF IT"

DORA, OR, "WON'T YOU EVER TELL?"

ESTHER'S BAD DAY, OR, "I COULDN'T HELP IT"

MARTHA, OR, "CHARITY THINKETH NO EVIL"

MARY, OR, "SHE MADE ME DO IT"

LOUISA, OR, "JUST ONE MINUTE"

THE

SCHOOL-GIRLS'

TREASURY

[Illustration: ANNA, OR, "MAKE THE BEST OF IT." Frontispiece.]

[Illustration]

ANNA,

OR,

MAKE THE BEST OF IT.

YOU would not oftener see a pleasanter parlor than the one where Anna was sitting. It was handsomely and tastefully furnished, with abundance of pictures and prints on the walls. There were pretty chintz curtains to the one large window, and the couches and chairs were covered with the same material. There was a bright blazing fire burning in the grate, and a pretty kitten sat purring on the rug before it. The gas was lighted, and a table at Anna's elbow was strewn with books and magazines.

Yet Anna sat in her comfortable chair before the fire, looking very doleful indeed, and she had been sitting so for a whole hour. She had a book in her hand, but she was not reading: her eyes were apparently fixed on the kitten before the fire, and it was easy to see that a very little would make them overflow with tears. In fact, Anna felt very unhappy, and—in spite of her long frocks which she had worn for a full half year—very babyish indeed.

Anna had been left at home to keep house for a week, while her father and mother and the two younger children went to visit her grandfather. Anna had expected a very dear friend to stay with her while her father and mother were gone. Lillie Adams was to have come by the evening train, and Anna had caused a dainty hot supper to be prepared for her; but instead of her friend, the postman brought a hurried letter from Lillie Adams, saying that her father had been suddenly called abroad on business and wished her to go with him: so she was going to Germany upon three days' notice, instead of coming to visit Anna.

This was a grievous disappointment, no doubt, and it was no wonder that Anna felt it; but she was not going to work to meet it in the right way.

She was making the worst instead of the best of the case. She would not eat a mouthful of the supper which had been prepared for her friend; she betook herself to none of her usual evening employments, but sat moodily before the fire, picturing to herself the merry group which would be assembled at her grandfather's fireside, and the delightful bustle in which Lillie Adams was engaged preparing to go abroad. And contrasting these things with her own lonely condition and the long tiresome week of solitude which was before her. There was great danger of the eyes overflowing, after all: when the opening of the door and the entrance of the cook made a moment's diversion.

Caroline Davis was a colored woman who had lived with Mrs. Grey ever since her marriage, and was regarded as a friend and counsellor by all the family, from the oldest to the youngest, especially by the children. She was apt to "speak her mind," as she said, on all occasions, especially when she thought she saw any of the children going wrong, and she had come to speak her mind now to her favorite, Miss Anna.

"Miss Anna!" said she, planting herself in front of her. "Ain't you going to eat any supper?"

"I don't want anything, thank you, Caroline," said Anna, in a doleful tone.

"You'd better have something," persisted Caroline. "I've got some splendid batter cakes, just baked, and a chocolate cake such as you like; and I'll make you a famous cup of coffee."

"I don't think I want any, thank you, Caroline," repeated Anna, still more dolefully, though she was conscious of certain stirrings within at the mention of the chocolate cake and other dainties.

Caroline took a step forward, and placed her arms a-kimbo, as she was apt to do when disposed for an argument. "Look here, honey," said she. "Do you calculate to go on this way all the time your pa and ma are away? Because, if you do, I think I'd better write to them to come home again."

Anna smiled, in spite of herself. "I hav'n't made any calculations about the matter, Caroline. My calculations have not turned out so well that I should want to make any more," she added, rather bitterly.

"Just so, honey. You've been disappointed, I don't deny it; and no wonder you feel bad. But the question is, are you going to feel as bad as you can, or are you going to make the best of it? You know what the Bible says about taking up the cross, Miss Anna, my dear. Now this disappointment is a cross that He has sent you, and the question is whether you are going to take it up and bear it like a Christian or sit down on the ground and fret under it, like a baby?"

Anna seemed a good deal interested by this view of the case. "But it hardly seems right to call such a thing as this a cross," said she.

Caroline smiled. "Well, I don't call it the biggest kind of a cross," said she, "that is compared to what some folks have to carry—old Mrs. Williams, for instance, with her bad leg and her rheumatic shoulders and her poor consumptive daughter. Still it is a cross for you to be disappointed of your friend's visit, and to have to stay alone all the week; but I would not make it any worse than it is, if I were you. Now I shall go and get your supper and bring it to you in here, and I guess you'll find you want some, after all."

Anna sat thinking, after Caroline left the room, but it was with quite a different expression of face.

"How silly I am!" she was saying to herself. "Only yesterday I was reading the lives of Margaret Rogers and Lady Jane Gray, and wishing I had lived in times when there were some great things to do; and hear I am actually crying like a baby over the very first thing that comes to try my strength, and sitting down as though them were no more to be done in the world, because Lillie Adams is going to Europe. I won't be such a fool, and that is all about it. Come, Pussy, get up and make yourself agreeable!"

Pussy was very ready to exert herself for Anna's benefit and her own, and the two were in the midst of a famous romp, when Caroline entered with her dainty tray of provisions.

"There, now! I call that something like!" said she, much pleased with the change. "Come and eat your supper, honey, while it is hot."

Anna disposed of her batter-puffs and other good things in a way which showed that her trouble had not entirely destroyed her appetite, and she could not deny that she enjoyed her supper.

"Caroline," said she, "you know that breakfast shawl Aunt Anna left here? It is rather faded, but not at all worn out. I have been thinking that I might ravel it out and make it over with some stripes of a new bright color. That would make it quite pretty again, and it would be nice and warm for Mrs. Williams' lame shoulders."

"That is an excellent notion of yours, my dear. The old lady needs a shawl, I know, and she likes bright colors, too: and she will think all the more of the shawl if it is your own work."

Anna was one of those people who, when they think of a project for the benefit of another, like to set about it directly; so she went up-stairs and brought down the old shawl and a large basket of bright-colored worsteds, of many different shades.

The rest of the evening quickly passed away in ravelling out the shawl and contriving the best way of making it over so as to be better than before. And Anna was surprised when Caroline came in and said it was nine o'clock.

"Are you going to have prayers to-night, Miss Anna?"

Anna hesitated. She felt very shy about reading and praying before the servants.

"I would, if I were you," said Caroline. "You see you are the head of the house, now that your father and mother are away."

"And I am sure we need to ask God's protection all the more when we are separated one from the other," thought Anna. "No, I will not give way to false shame. I may as well begin now as any time. Yes, Caroline, we will have prayers, if you will tell Jane and Albert to come in."

Anna's heart beat fast when she began to read, but she tried to fix her mind upon the sacred words, and by the time she came to the prayers, she was ready to pray with all her heart.

"Well, I didn't believe Miss Anna would read prayers!" she heard Jane say, after the servants had left the room. "She is such a shy young lady, generally. You know for all she plays so well, how she hates to play before company."

"She is her father's own daughter," replied Caroline. "When she knows she ought to do a thing she does it; I tell you she isn't ashamed to confess her Lord before men, and He won't be ashamed to confess her in the great day!"

"Was that confessing Christ, I wonder?" thought Anna. "I suppose it was, in one way, though I did not think of it at the time. I am glad I did read, at any rate."

Some of Anna's unpleasant feelings returned when she found herself in her own room up-stairs. It seemed so very lonely without papa and mamma in the next room and the boys overhead, and she began to wonder whether she was going to be afraid.

"But, after all, what is there to be afraid of?" she said to herself. "The bell-rope hangs close to my head and I have only to pull it to call Caroline and Albert in a minute. Besides it is God who takes care of me when my father and mother are here, and He can do it just as well when they are away!"

So Anna read her chapters and said her prayers, and learned her two verses to repeat in the morning, as was the custom of the family; and then went bravely to bed without even looking under the bed, as she did sometimes when her parents were at home. She had thought she should lie awake and listen for suspicious noises; but, as it happened, the first noise she heard was the ringing of the first bell in the morning.

"Now, what had I better do to-day?" she said to herself, as she was dressing. "I have no particular work, and there is nothing to be done about the house. O dear, I wish it was not vacation and all the girls I care about were not away. But then if it is vacation, that is no reason why I should be idle; I mean to practise two hours instead of one, and try to get those waltzes perfectly that papa likes so much."

"And what else shall I do? I believe I will try painting a picture all by myself, and see what I can make of it. Miss Jeffrey says I ought to be able to work by myself now, and I am sure she will be pleased if I have something pretty to show her when school begins again. I will copy that chromo which Aunt Anna gave mamma; and if it turns out nicely, it will be a pretty present for one of the old ladies at the Home."

Anna read prayers after breakfast, and then, after dusting the drawing-room, she sat down for two hours of vigorous practise. Then she began her picture, and by dinnertime she had her paper prepared, her outline drawn, and her first tints washed in.

"There! I have made a good beginning!" said she, looking at her work with great satisfaction. "And if nothing happens, I shall have finished it before mamma comes home, and before school begins again. I mean to work at music and painting in the morning and take a good long walk every afternoon. Then I will work at Mrs. Williams' shawl in the evening, and that will use up my time nicely."

Something was destined to happen, however, which sadly interfered with all these calculations. When Anna returned from her walk that afternoon, she saw that the blinds of the front bed-room were opened.

"I wonder if Lillie can have come, after all!" she said to herself, as she quickened her steps.

She was met at the door by Caroline with a face which promised no good news.

"Has any one come?" she asked.

"Well, yes, honey, somebody has come, though I'm afraid it isn't any one you want to see very bad."

"Not Aunt Dorinda!" exclaimed Anna, rather more loudly than was prudent, considering the tone in which she spoke.

"Hush, my dear! She will hear you! Yes, it is Aunt Dorinda, sure enough! Never mind, honey, we can't help it now. We must only make the best of it, that's all."

"Aunt Dorinda, of all people!" thought Anna, as she went to her room to take off her hat. "Well, there is an end to all my fine plans. However, as Caroline says, there is no help for it now. Poor thing, I suppose I may as well have her for a little while as anybody else. I must just leave off studying painting and study patience, that is all."

Poor Aunt Dorinda! She was a woman of a good deal of talent. She was tolerably rich, and decidedly well educated; and she fully intended to be a Christian, and to do a great deal of good in the world; and yet there was not one of all the families she visited who did not dread to see her come into the house, or who did not feel relieved when she went away.

All this inconsistency is easily explained. Aunt Dorinda never did or could mind her own business, and let the affairs of other people alone. She was possessed with a great desire to do good, and she was always making presents; but she wished always to do good exactly in her own way; and her presents were generally accompanied with remarks and admonitions which rendered them bitter pills to those who were obliged to accept them.

"So it seems I have come just in the nick of time!" said she to her niece, after the first greeting. "I do wonder your mother should have you to keep house alone. I don't suppose you know anything about it."

"I don't have very much housekeeping to do, Aunt Dorinda," replied Anna. "Caroline is the housekeeper when mamma is away. And I did not expect to be alone either, for Lillie Adams was coming to stay with me, only she was obliged to go away unexpectedly."

"Worse and worse! Two giddy heads are worse than one. I am surprised that your mother should think of leaving you alone with such a vain worldly girl as Lillie Adams."

"Lillie is neither vain nor worldly, Aunt Dorinda!" said Anna, with spirit. "She was confirmed last Easter, and the is a good Christian girl, if ever there was one."

"Don't tell me that, Anna Grey!" returned Aunt Dorinda, angrily. "Haven't I seen her with my own eyes with three ruffles on the lower skirt of her dress and as many on the upper? Do you call that being a Christian?"

"Lillie does not follow her own taste in dress," said Anna, smiling in spite of herself. "Her stepmother dresses her. Lillie said to me that she preferred to dress more plainly; but Mrs. Adams had always been so kind and good to her, that she did not like to contradict her on a matter of no great importance. You know, Aunt Dorinda, how devotedly Mrs. Adams nursed Lillie through her long illness, after she had that dreadful accident. Papa himself said that Lillie owed her life and health more to her stepmother's nursing than to his skill. Mrs. Adams gave up everything to her."

"O yes, I know!" said Aunt Dorinda, scornfully. "I heard all that when I talked to Lillie as I did about her dress."

"'What of that?' said I. 'You ought to follow your own convictions of duty, whatever your stepmother may say.'"

"And all Lillie did was to toss head and say that 'her convictions of duty led her to honor her father and mother.'"

"What time do you have tea?"

"At seven-o'clock, aunt, because it is more convenient to papa: but I will order it earlier, if you are hungry, after your ride."

"Well, I am surprised!" This was Aunt Dorinda's favorite phrase. "I should think your father, being a physician, would know better than to eat so late in the evening. Half-past five is the very latest hour that any one ought to eat."

Anna could not help thinking that her father, being a physician, would be likely to know what was good for himself and his family; but she said nothing, and ordered tea at half-past five, thinking that at least she would have a good long evening to work.

Aunt Dorinda, came down at tea-time, bringing a very large work-basket with her. She shook her head at the biscuits, declaring them very unwholesome, but managed to eat a fair share of them nevertheless, with a due proportion of stewed oysters and other good things.

Anna tried to keep her entertained by asking questions about different relatives and family friends; but she found there was not one of them all who had not displeased Aunt Dorinda in some way or other, generally by having opinions of their own about the management of their private affairs. Aunt Dorinda was one of those people who think that they are always right, and therefore always entitled to find fault with others. She had, as it were, cut out a pattern of Christian character according to her own notions of perfection, and she went about the world trying this pattern upon all her acquaintances, and endeavoring to pare and prune them or else to stretch them to fit it. She frowned and shook her head when Anna brought out her crochet work, after tea.

"Always at that useless fancy work!" said she. "Why do you not do something useful? How much better to be working for some poor person or for the missionaries, than to be spending your time in such idle pursuits!"

"But this is for a poor person, aunt," said Anna, determined not to be vexed. "It is for old Mrs. Williams, at the Home."

"How absurd, Anna! Making such a fanciful thing for a poor woman who is dependent for her daily bread! You might buy a woollen shawl for half the money, which would do her just as much good and save your time and your funds."

"I don't think so, aunt! You see this shawl did not cost me any money, except twenty-five cents for some scarlet-shaded wool. Aunt Anna left it here when she went away and told me to give it to some poor person. And almost all the new wool I am using is made up of odds and ends left from different pieces of work."

"Then why not give her the shawl just as your aunt left it?"

"Because it would not be as acceptable, aunt. Mrs. Williams loves pretty things and colors, and she will like the shawl all the better if it is my own work."

"Humph! I suppose you flatter yourself that you are doing all that work for Mrs. Williams and not for your own amusement?"

"Yes, aunt, I think so," said Anna, simply.

"Well, here is the proof. I have in this basket some shirts to be made up for a missionary at the west. Let me see you put away that senseless worsted, and stitch one of these bosoms."

"I cannot do it this evening, aunt, because papa does not like to have me do fine work in the evening," said Anna, speaking pleasantly, though she felt annoyed. "But I will stitch it to-morrow, with pleasure."

"We shall see when to-morrow comes!" said Aunt Dorinda, rather ungraciously. "I hope no new excuse will turn up in the meantime. There now, child, you need not color so and look so vexed. I mean all for your good, and you know I always say just what I think to everybody."

"But you don't like it one bit, when people say what they think to you!" thought Anna, but she did not say so.

She began asking about the missionary to whom the shirts were to be sent, and about other missionaries; and the rest of the evening passed over very comfortably.

"We have prayers at nine o'clock, Aunt Dorinda," said Anna, when the clock struck the hour.

"Indeed!" said Aunt Dorinda. "Who conducts them, now that your father is away?"

"I did last night and this morning," replied Anna. "I thought perhaps you would do so to-night."

"You had better do just as you would if I were not here," said Aunt Dorinda. "I will see how you manage, and tell you if there is room for improvement."

Anna did not feel any more devotional for the thought that Aunt Dorinda was criticising her; but she tried to collect herself and to think of nothing but the solemn duty in which she was engaged; and she succeeded better than she expected.

"Why don't you pray in your own words?" was Aunt Dorinda's first question.

"Because, aunt, I think that the words in the book are better than any I could use. And besides," added Anna, rather, timidly; "if I were to try to pray in my own words before others, I am afraid I should be thinking more of the words and of how to express myself than of the sense."

"Do you think then that all those who pray in their own words before others are thinking more of the words than of the sense?" asked Aunt Dorinda, sharply.

"No, aunt, not at all. I was only speaking of myself. And I don't see either why I should use my own words when I have such good and suitable words all ready for me."

"I am afraid you have no proper spirit of devotion," said Aunt Dorinda, severely. "I am afraid you have never learned to pray in the true spirit of prayer."