The Little Colonel's Christmas Vacation by Annie Fellows Johnston

THE reaction came next day, however, when a budget of letters from the / girls turned her thoughts back to all that she was missing. Betty was / rooming with Juliet Lynn now, and they were writing a play together in / spare minutes. Allison had had honourable mention three times in the / Studio Bulletin, and a number of her sketches had been chosen for / display on the studio walls. Kitty had surprised them all by the / interest she had suddenly taken in French, and had translated a poem so / cleverly that Monsieur Blanc had sent it home for publication in a Paris / paper. The work was so interesting now, Betty wrote, and the time so / full, Warwick Hall grew daily more inspiring and more dear.

The old ache came back to Lloyd as she read. She felt that she had / fallen hopelessly behind the others. She was so utterly left out of all / their successes. The little efforts she had made to fill her days with / things worth while suddenly shrivelled into nothing, and she sat with / the letters in her lap, staring moodily into vacancy.

"What's the use?" she sobbed. "All that I can do heah doesn't amount to / a row of pins. I am out of it."

Thinking of Warwick Hall and the girls and all that she was missing, she / sat pitying herself until the tears began to come. She let them trickle / slowly down her face without attempting to wipe them away or fight them / back. Nobody was there to see, and she could be as miserable as she / chose. In the midst of her gloomy reverie she heard the door-bell ring.

Dabbing her handkerchief over her eyes, she started across the room to / make her escape up-stairs before Mom Beck could open the front door. But / she was too late. As she pushed aside the portieres, she heard Agnes / Waring ask if she were at home, and Mom Beck immediately ushered her in.

"I came to bring the costume back," she began, hurriedly. "No, I must / not sit down, thank you. I am on my way to Mrs. Moore's to fit a lining. / But I just had to stop by and tell you what a lovely time I had / yesterday and last night. You should have seen Marietta's face this / morning when I opened the piano and played and sang for her. The tears / just rolled down her face, but it was because we were so happy.

"She said she had been afraid that I would grow morose and bitter / because I had so few pleasures, and she is so glad about the music / lessons and my joining the choir. Mr. Bond is going to come by for me / next Friday night. Sister Sarah said she had no idea that colours could / make such a difference in one till she saw me in that costume. She has / been looking over the silk quilt pieces your mother sent Marietta, and / she recognized two pieces that are parts of dresses your grandmother / used to wear. One is a deep rich red, -- a regular garnet colour, and the / other is sapphire blue. She said that if they had belonged to any one / else but Amanthis Lloyd she couldn't do it, -- but instead of cutting them / up into quilt pieces she -- she is going to make them into shirt-waists / for me."

The colour deepened in Agnes's face as she made the confession, with an / unconscious lifting of the head that made Lloyd remember Mrs. Bisbee's / remark about the Waring pride. She hastened to say something to cover / the awkward pause that followed.

"Grandmothah Amanthis and Miss Sarah were such good friends, even if / there was so much difference in their ages. I know she would be glad for / you to use the silk that way. Looking pretty in it and having good times / in it seems a bettah way to use it as a remembrance of her than putting / it into a quilt, doesn't it?"

Then, to change the subject, which disconcerted her more than it did / Agnes, she held up the package of letters.

"I heard from the girls to-day, and they are all getting on so / beautifully, and making such good records, that it neahly breaks my / hah't to think I can't be with them." She laughed nervously. "I suppose / you wondahed what made my eyes so red, when you came in. I've been / regularly howling. I couldn't help it. I sat heah thinking about deah / old Warwick Hall, and all that I had to give up, till I was so misahable / I _had_ to cry."

Agnes, turning toward the window so that her face could not be seen, / looked out at the bare branches of the locusts.

"I wonder," she began, slowly, "if it would make any difference to / you -- if it would make your disappointment any easier to bear -- to know / how much your being in the Valley this winter has meant to me. Fifty / years from now one term more or less in your studies won't amount to / much. It will not count much then that you've solved a few more problems / in algebra, or learned a little more French, or fallen behind the others / in a few credit marks, but it will make all the difference in the world / to me that you were here to open a door for me.

"If you've done nothing more than give me that one music lesson, it has / showed me the possibility of all that I may accomplish, and started me / on the road to my heart's desire. If you've done no more than prove to / me that I can conquer my timidity and be like other girls, and accept / the little pleasures just at hand for the taking, don't you see that you / have opened up a way for me that I never could have found alone? And to / do that for any one, why, it's like teaching him a song that he will / teach to some one else, and that one will go on repeating, and the next / and the next, until you've started something that never stops. If I were / making up the accounts in the Hereafter, I am very sure I'd count it / more to your credit, -- the unselfish way you are helping people than all / the lessons you could learn in a term at school. I am not saying half / what I feel. I couldn't. It is too deep down. But, oh, I do want you to / know that your disappointment has not all been in vain."