Daisy

"Don't you hear yourself called?" said a voice behind me. "Why don't you go?"

I looked round at Miss Macy, who was my adviser, then doubtfully I looked away from her and caught the eyes of Mlle. Géneviève. She nodded and beckoned me to come forward. I did it hastily then, and found myself curtseying in front of the platform where stood madame.

"The prize is yours, Miss Randolph," she said graciously. "Your paper is approved by all the judges."

"Quite artistic," – I heard a gentleman say at her elbow.

"And it shows an amount of thorough study and perfect preparation, which I can but hold up as a model to all my young ladies. You deserve this, my dear."

I was confounded; and a low curtsey was only a natural relief to my feelings. But madame unhappily took it otherwise.

"This is yours," she said, putting into my hands an elegant little bronze standish; – "and if I had another prize to bestow for grace of good manners, I am sure I would have the pleasure of giving you that too."

I bent again before madame, and got back to my seat as I could. The great business of the day was over, and we soon scattered to our rooms. And I had not been in mine five minutes before the penalties of being distinguished began to come upon me.

"Well, Daisy!" said Miss Lansing, – "you've got it. How pretty! isn't it, Macy?"

"It isn't a bit prettier than it ought to be, for a prize in such a school," said Miss Macy. "It will do."

"I've seen handsomer prizes," said Miss Bentley.

"But you've got it, more ways than one, Daisy," Miss Lansing went on. "I declare! Aren't you a distinguished young lady! Madame, too! why we all used to think we behaved pretty well before company, – didn't we, St. Clair?"

"I hate favour and favouritism!" said that young lady, her upper lip taking the peculiar turn to which my attention had once been called. "Madame likes whatever is French."

"But Randolph is not French, are you, Randolph?" said Blackeyes, who was good-natured through everything.

"Madame is not French herself," said Miss Bentley.

"I hate everything at school!" St. Clair went on.

"It's too bad," said her friend. "Do you know, Daisy, St. Clair always has the prize for compositions. What made you go and write that long stuff about Rameses? the people didn't understand it, and so they thought it was fine."

"I am sure there was a great deal finer writing in Faustina's composition," said Miss Bentley.

I knew very well that Miss St. Clair had been accustomed to win this half-yearly prize for good writing. I had expected nothing but that she would win it this time. I had counted neither on my own success nor on the displeasure it would raise. I took my hat and went over to my dear Miss Cardigan; hoping that ill-humour would have worked itself out by bed-time. But I was mistaken.

St Clair and I had been pretty near each other in our classes, though once or twice lately I had got an advantage over her; but we had kept on terms of cool social distance until now. Now the spirit of rivalry was awake. I think it began to stir at my Paris dresses and things; Karnak and Mme. Ricard finished the mischief.

On my first coming to school I had been tempted in my horror at the utter want of privacy to go to bed without prayer; waiting till the rest were all laid down and asleep and the lights out, and then slipping out of bed with great care not to make a noise, and watching that no whisper of my lips should be loud enough to disturb anybody's slumbers. But I was sure after a while, that this was a cowardly way of doing; and I could not bear the words, "Whosoever shall be ashamed of me and of my words, of him shall the Son of man be ashamed, when He cometh in the glory of His Father." I determined in the vacation that I would do so no more, cost what it might the contrary. It cost a tremendous struggle. I think, in all my life I have done few harder things, than it was to me then to kneel down by the side of my bed in full blaze of the gaslights and with four curious pairs of eyes around to look on; to say nothing of the four busy tongues wagging about nothing all the time. I remember what a hush fell upon them the first night; while beyond the posture of prayer I could do little. Only unformed or half formed thoughts and petitions struggled in my mind, through a crowd of jostling regrets and wishes and confusions, in which I could hardly distinguish anything. But no explosion followed, of either ridicule or amusement, and I had been suffered from that night to do as I would, not certainly always in silence, but quite unmolested.

I had carried over my standish to Miss Cardigan to ask her to take care of it for me; I had no place to keep it. But Miss Cardigan was not satisfied to see the prize; she wanted to hear the essay read; and was altogether so elated that a little undue elation perhaps crept into my own heart. It was not a good preparation for what was coming.

I went home in good time. In the hall, however, Mlle. Géneviève seized upon me; she had several things to say, and before I got up stairs to my room all the rest of its inmates were in bed. I hoped they were asleep. I heard no sound while I was undressing, nor while I knelt, as usual now, by my bedside. But as I rose from my knees I was startled by a sort of grunt that came from St. Clair's corner.

"Humph! – Dear me! we're so good, – Grace and Devotion, – Christian grace, too!"

"Hold your tongue, St. Clair," said Miss Macy, but not in a way, I thought, to check her; if she could have been checked.

"But it's too bad, Macy," said the girl. "We're all so rough, you know. We don't know how to behave ourselves; we can't make curtseys; our mothers never taught us anything, – and dancing masters are no good. We ought to go to Egypt. There isn't anything so truly dignified as a pyramid. There is a great deal of à plomb there!"

"Who talked about à plomb?" said Miss Bentley.

"You have enough of that, at any rate, Faustina," said Lansing.

"Mrs. St. Clair's child ought to have that," said Miss Macy.

"Ah, but it isn't Christian grace, after all," persisted Faustina. "You want a cross at the top of a pyramid to make it perfect."

"Hush, Faustina!" said Miss Macy.

"It's fair," – said Miss Bentley.

"You had better not talk about Christian grace, girls. That isn't a matter of opinion."

"Oh, isn't it!" cried St. Clair, half rising up in her bed. "What is it, then?"

Nobody answered.

"I say! – Macy, what is Christian grace – if you know! If you don't know, I'll put you in the way to find out."

"How shall I find out?"

"Will you do it, if I show it you?"

"Yes."

"Ask Randolph. That's the first step. Ask her, – yes! just ask her, if you want to know. I wish Mme. Ricard was here to hear the answer."

"Nonsense!" said Macy.

"Ask her! You said you would. Now ask her."

"What is Christian grace, Daisy?" said Miss Bentley.

I heard, but I would not answer. I hoped the storm would blow over, after a puff or two. But Blackeyes, without any ill-nature, I think, which was not in her, had got into the gale. She slipped out of bed and came to my side, putting her hand on my shoulder and bringing her laughing mouth down near my ear. A very angry impulse moved me before she spoke.

"Daisy!" – she said, laughing, in a loud whisper, – "come, wake up! you're not asleep, you know. Wake up and tell us; – everybody knows you know; – what is Christian grace? Daisy! – "

She shook me a little.

"If you knew, you would not ask me," – I said in great displeasure. But a delighted shout from all my room-mates answered this unlucky speech, which I had been too excited to make logical.

"Capital!" cried St. Clair. "That's just it – we don't know; and we only want to find out whether she does. Make her tell, Lansing – prick a little pin into her – that will bring it out."

I was struggling between anger and sorrow, feeling very hurt, and at the same time determined not to cry. I kept absolutely still, fighting the fight of silence with myself. Then Lansing, in a fit of thoughtless mischief, finding her shakes and questions vain, actually put in practice St. Clair's suggestion, and attacked me with a pin from the dressing table. The first prick of it overthrew the last remnant of my patience.

"Miss Lansing!" – I exclaimed, rousing up in bed and confronting her. They all shouted again.