Rhoda's Education by Lucy Ellen Guernsey

RHODA went to her room burning with shame and anger. Her first impulse was to put on her bonnet and go home, but she reflected, as she grew a little cooler, that it was after nine o'clock of a dark night, and too late to undertake a walk of a mile alone, and that she could not possibly take her trunk. And then what would Miss Carpenter say? What would the ladies of the board say when they came to hear the whole story? They would think she had disgraced the institution and herself. Perhaps they would not let her stay there any more. And oh, what would Aunt Hannah say if she knew?

The very thought of Aunt Hannah seemed to bring some peace to Rhoda's tempest-tossed spirit.

"I know what she would say," thought the poor girl. "She would say that I had done very wrong, but that was no reason why I should go on doing wrong. She would tell me to confess my sin and ask forgiveness and grace to do better. But oh, how can I? I knew I was wrong. I knew I was deceiving and helping Isa to deceive, and yet I was so selfish, so bent on having my own way, that I kept on, though something warned me all the time. And yet-Oh yes, I must ask forgiveness for myself and Isa. Poor girl! I wonder what her father will do to her? I feel worse about her than even for myself."

Rhoda knelt down by her bedside, and humbly and with many tears confessed her sin and asked forgiveness in His name who said, "Not seven times, but seventy times seven. " She was still kneeling when some one tapped lightly at the door. She started up and opened it, thinking of Isa, but it was Mrs. Ferrand who had knocked. She had been crying as well as Rhoda, and looked even more unhappy.

"Oh, Rhoda, how could you? " said she, in a half whisper. And then, with a fresh burst of tears, "I am sure I liked you and trusted you more than any girl I ever had. I thought you were almost perfect. And now Mr. Ferrand says it is just what he expected and what I might have known. Why wouldn't you be contented to read the books he gave you, and not get out of your station into algebra and geometry and all such things?"

Despite her grief and shame, Rhoda could hardly forbear smiling.

"Mrs. Ferrand, I am very sorry," said she, earnestly-"I am more sorry than I can tell you. You have been very good to me ever since I came here, and it was a shame for me to deceive you so. But I do think it was the deception that was the harm, and not the algebra and geometry, or the music either, for that matter."

"But, Rhoda, don't you see that you wouldn't have been tempted to deceive only for the music?"

"I am not sure of that, Mrs. Ferrand. Did you never hear of servants who didn't care about music or books deceiving their employers?"

"To be sure," said Mrs. Ferrand, considering. "There was Mary Blane. She couldn't even read, and she stole tea and candles, and baked cakes on the sly, and got out of the window and ran away to balls, and got taken up by the police. But I don't think that any excuse for you, Rhoda."

"I know it isn't, Mrs. Ferrand, and I don't mean to excuse myself. I think I was very much to blame-not for playing the piano, but for doing it slyly and helping Miss Isa to deceive her father. I feel worse about that than anything."

"And we all thought she was improving so much," said Mrs. Ferrand, wiping her eyes. "Mr. Harvey told her father that she had gained more in the last six weeks than in all the winter."

"Well, Mrs. Ferrand, honestly, I do think she has; and so far as her music went, I think I was an advantage to her, for I used to play over her lessons and show her how to learn them. Miss Isa-"

"Well, go on," said Mrs. Ferrand, as Rhoda checked herself and coloured. "What were you going to say?"

"I was going to say, if you will excuse me, that Miss Isa needs a great deal of help and showing to learn anything, or so it seems to me. She gets puzzled, and the harder she works, the more puzzled she grows; whereas, if she has some one to show her and make things that she don't understand plain to her, she gets on pretty well."

"I know it," said Mrs. Ferrand, sighing. "Isa isn't bright. She is like me, and I never was one bit of a scholar. I was the only dunce in our family. It used to trouble mother a good deal, but father said it didn't matter.

"You can't make scholars out of everybody,' I remember his saying; 'Lucilla may make a very good and useful woman without knowing anything about algebra.'

"That was a great comfort to me."

"I am sure he was right," said Rhoda, warmly. "I think you are just as lovely and good as you can be, and it makes me feel all the more ashamed to think how I have treated you."

"Oh, my dear, and I was so fond of you, and trusted you so. I always felt perfectly easy about anything you undertook to do. You never disappointed me. Now, we are going to have ever so much company next week, and very particular company too, and I was thinking all the time what a comfort it was going to be to have you and Marion, and now I shall have a new girl to teach, and I dare say Marion will go away too."