Dorothy took it, looked it over, then touched her lips lovingly to
it.
"I'm very sorry," she said, "but it couldn't have been so awful
bad to get well so quickly, could it?"
"It is all passed now, dearie, and we are glad that no one's good
time was spoiled, aren't we?" Katherine observed and hastening to
change the subject.
"Indeed, we are. It was such a happy time!" sighed Dorrie, in a
tone of supreme content. "I've dreamed and dreamed of it. I wake
in the morning thinking of it, and mamma and I talk and talk about
it."
"I wish to add, Miss Katherine," her principal here interposed,
"that your special contribution to the programme of last Friday
evening was exceedingly entertaining; and"--his eyes resting very
kindly on her--"having learned the circumstances that inspired it,
I heartily appreciate the spirit with which you met and mastered
them. Now, Dorrie, I will not keep you from your talk with her any
longer," and, with a genial smile and bow, the gentleman left the
room.
Katherine remained an hour with Dorothy and allowed her to
expatiate upon her "good time" to her heart's content, after which
she went out into the grounds for a little quiet meditation by
herself.
She was very happy because of what Prof. Seabrook had said to her
and the marked change in his manner towards her. He had addressed
her by her first name, too, for the first time, a thing which he
never did in speaking to students in public; but there were a
favored few whom he sometimes greeted thus when he chanced to meet
them informally, and it now seemed as if she were henceforth to be
numbered with them.
All the same, she knew that, in his heart, he was not one whit
more tolerant of her religious views, and the skeptical gleam in
his eyes, while inspecting her hand, had told her that he had no
faith whatever that she had made a "demonstration" over a severe
burn. But it was evident there had been a radical change in his
attitude towards her; he no longer entertained any personal
repulsion, and thus, with the little fire of Friday night, all
"barriers had been burned away" and a bond of true sympathy re-
established between them. So, with a smile on her lips and a song
in her heart, she made her way to a favorite spot, beneath a
mammoth beech tree, where, drawing forth a pocket edition of
"Unity of Good" [Footnote: By Mary Baker G. Eddy.], that tiny
book, that multum in parvo which, to every earnest student of
Christian Science, becomes a veritable casket of precious jewels,
she was soon lost to all things material in the perusal of its
pages.
She had been reading fifteen minutes, perhaps, when a muffled step
on the heavy greensward caused her to glance up, to find Dr.
Stanley almost beside her.
"All inquiries regarding a certain lady's health, I perceive, are
quite unnecessary," he observed, as he searched her glowing face.
"Pray pardon me if I have startled you, but I would like to know
how that poor hand is getting on, if it is permissible to mention
it."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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