Rhoda's Education by Lucy Ellen Guernsey

WHEN Aunt Hannah came home, which she did about three weeks after Rhoda's departure, her first question Was about Rhoda.

"She wrote me she was going to school in Milby," she said to Jeduthun Cooke, whom she had met at the station, and who had offered to take her home in his buggy.

"Oh, she did? " said Jeduthun, in something like a tone of relief. "Well, I'm glad to hear you say so. It's all right, then."

"All right? What do you mean, Jeduthun? Of course it's all right. What should be wrong?"

"Oh, nothing," said Jeduthun. "I thought all the time it was nothing but talk; but some of the folks over at the Springs, and even at Boonville, say that it is all stuff about her going to school-that John Bowers just took her to 'The Home' where he got her first and left her there."

"I dare say he did," answered Miss Weightman. "Rhoda told me in her letter that there was talk of her boarding at 'The Home' till she could find some other place."

"Oh, well, I dare say it's all right. I hope so, I'm sure, for Rhoda is as nice a girl as ever lived, and I'd hate to think John Bowers would do such a mean thing. Here comes Uncle Jacob now."

"So you've caught a ride, I see," said Uncle Jacob. "I calculated to meet you, but I had business that kept me a spell, and this old horse hain't got any go in him. I don't see what ails him."

"I do," said Jeduthun, who stood no ways in awe of the rich man, and knew his own value too well to be afraid of consequences; "I can see it right through his ribs. Put some oats into him, Mr. Weightman; that's the best medicine for his disease."

"You might as well go on since you have got started," said Mr. Weightman, not noticing Jeduthun's remark on his steed. "I've got business over at the Springs, and may not be home till dark."

"I guess you won't, according to appearances," chuckled Jeduthun. "I sha'n't charge her anything for the ride, you may be sure," alluding to a current story that Mr. Weightman had once asked a poor woman to ride to the Springs with him and then charged her two shillings.

"I suppose one way the story got out about Rhoda was this," remarked Jeduthun, after they had gone on a little way in silence: "Mr. Badger, at the post-office, remarked that nobody got letters from Rhoda. You see she promised to write to Fanny Badger and Flora Fairchild and two or three of the girls, and they kept coming after letters, and didn't get any.

"It's very strange, pa,' says Fanny one day.

"It ain't any more strange than that she don't write to her own folks,' says Mr. Badger, 'and they hain't had one letter from her since she went away: I know Rhoda's writing,' says he, 'and I know there hasn't been one.'

"Then at that minute, Mr. Bowers came in, and Flora Fairchild, she asks him when he had heard from Rhoda.

"And he colours up, and says, 'Well, not very lately. I expect she don't have much time to write letters.'

"And he turned and was going away without his mail, till Mr. Badger called him back, he seemed so kind of confused. And the next day Aunty Fairchild was over to the Springs, and she heard it from some one that knew her that Rhoda was living at 'The Home. ' But if she is boarding there to go to school, it's all right, of course."

"Of course," echoed Aunt Hannah, but she did not feel perfectly easy. She said to herself half a dozen times during the five miles' ride that it was all nonsense-that John and Maria never would do such a thing in the world, and it was a shame even to think it of them; but she felt all the same that it would be a great comfort to hear from themselves that Rhoda was well and happy at school.

Her adopted grand-niece had crept very near the old woman's warm heart during these last years. She had done more to form Rhoda's mind than any one else, and she understood the girl far better than her adopted parents.

"It would kill the child or drive her to something desperate," she said to herself; "but it can't be. I am an old fool, and am just worrying myself for nothing."