The Moral Sciences went to Dr. Price, and he had a class of girls
in Latin; but my only opportunity of going before him was at morning
prayers and Wednesday afternoons, when we assembled in the hall to
hear orations in Latin, or translations, and "pieces" spoken by the
boys; and at the quarterly reviews, when he marched us backward and
forward through the books we had conned, like the sharp old gentleman
he was, notwithstanding his purblind eyes.
CHAPTER XVI.
I heard from home regularly; father, however, was my only
correspondent. He stipulated that I should write him every other
Saturday, if not more than a line; but I did more than that at first,
writing up the events of the fortnight, interspersing my opinions of
the actors engaged therein, and dwindling by degrees down to the mere
acknowledgment of his letter. He read without comment, but now and
then he asked me questions which puzzled me to answer.
"Do you like Mr. Morgeson?" he asked once.
"He is very attentive," I wrote back. "But so is Cousin Alice,--she is
fond of me."
"You do not like Morgeson?" again.
"Are there no agreeable young men," he asked another time, "with Dr.
Price?"
"Only boys," I wrote--"cubs of my own age."
Among the first letters I received was one with the news of the death
of my grandfather, John Morgeson. He had left ten thousand dollars
for Arthur, the sum to be withdrawn from the house of Locke Morgeson
& Co., and invested elsewhere, for the interest to accumulate, and
be added to the principal, till he should be of age. The rest of
his property he gave to the Foreign Missionary Society. "Now," wrote
father, "it will come your turn next, to stand in the gap, when your
mother and I fall back from the forlorn hope--life." This merry and
unaccustomed view of things did not suggest to my mind the change
he intimated; I could not dwell on such an idea, so steadfast
a home-principle were father and mother. It was different with
grandfathers and grandmothers, of course; they died, since it was
not particularly necessary for them to live after their children were
married.
It was early June when I went to Rosville; it was now October. There
was nothing more for me to discover there. My relations at home and
at school were established, and it was probable that the next year's
plans were all settled.
"It is the twentieth," said my friend, Helen Perkins, as we lingered
in the Academy yard, after school hours. "The trees have thinned so
we can see up and down the streets. Isn't that Mr. Morgeson who
is tearing round the corner of Gold Street? Do you think he is
strange-looking? I do. His hair, and eyes, and complexion are exactly
the same hue; what color is it? A pale brown, or a greenish gray?"
"Is he driving this way?"
"Yes; the fore-legs of his horse have nearly arrived."
I moved on in advance of Helen, toward the gate; he beckoned when he
saw me, and presently reined Nell close to us. "You can decide now
what color he is," I whispered to her.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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