Miss Brown set about very bravely next morning to get their things in
order. She was very brave and determined to be magnanimous, but I cannot
say that she was cheerful. It is true that she kept smiling all day
long, like Malvolio, though with the better motive of concealing her
disappointment and pain and unjust feeling; but the effect of this smile
was depressing. She was determined, whatever might happen, to do her
duty to the last: and then, what did it matter what should follow? With
this valiant resolution she faced the crisis and nobly took up all its
duties. She bought I don't know how many dozens of yards of nice
"long-cloth," and cut out and made up, chiefly with the sewing-machine,
garments which she discreetly called "under-clothing" for the girls;
for her delicacy shunned the familiar names of those indispensable
articles. She found it needful that they should have new Sunday frocks,
and engaged the parish dressmaker for a week, and went herself to town
to buy the stuff, after the girls and she had spent an anxious yet not
unpleasant afternoon in looking over patterns. All this she did, and
never a word of murmur escaped her lips. She was a heroic woman. And the
busy days pursued each other so rapidly that the awful morning came, and
the girls weeping, yet not uncheerful, were swept away by the "fly" from
the station--where Miss Maydew, red and excited, met them, and carried
them off remorseless on their further way--before any one had time to
breathe, much less to think. Mr. St. John went to the station with his
daughters, and coming back alone and rather sad, for the first time
forgot Miss Brown; so that when he heard a low sound of the piano in the
schoolroom he was half frightened, and, without thinking, went straight
to the forsaken room to see what it was. Poor curate!--unfortunate Mr.
St. John! and not less unfortunate Miss Brown. The music had ceased
before he reached the door, and when he went in nothing was audible but
a melancholy little sound of sobbing and crying. Miss Brown was sitting
before the old piano with her head bowed down in her hands. Her little
sniffs and sobs were pitiful to hear. When he spoke she gave a great
start, and got up trembling, wiping her tears hastily away with her
handkerchief. "Did you speak, sir?" she said, with her usual attempt at
cheerfulness. "I hope I did not disturb you; I was--amusing myself a
little, until it is time for my train. My th-things are all packed and
r-ready," said the poor little woman, making a deplorable effort at a
smile. The sobs in her voice struck poor Mr. St. John to the very heart.
"I have never had time," he said in the tone of a self-condemned
criminal, "to ask where you are going, Miss Brown."
"Oh yes, I have a pl-place to go to," she said. "I have written to the
Governesses' Institution, Mr. St. John, and very fo-fortunately they
have a vacant room."
"The Governesses' Institution! Is that the only place you have to go
to?" he said.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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