Hollowmell or, A Schoolgirl's Mission

Excerpt

MINNIE'S PLAN.

"Why, wherever can my books be?" exclaimed Minnie Kimberley in a vexed tone, as she hunted up and down the schoolroom, opening now one cupboard, then another, now a desk, and again diving down to peer under some out-of-the-way table or form; for places which one would think the most unlikely, were certain to be the places where Minnie's books would at length be discovered.

"I can't make it out," she continued, her bright face clouded over with vexation, "somehow or other my books always do manage to get lost."

"Perhaps if you could manage to put them back in your desk when you had done with them, instead of leaving them lying just wherever you happen to be, they might manage to stay there," suggested Mona Cameron, a tall young lady, who sat near the window sewing, and who had more than once been disturbed by Minnie's voyage of discovery.

"Oh, I've found two of them!" cried Minnie, emerging from beneath a distant table, her hands black with dust, and herself nothing abashed by Mona's rather sarcastic speech. "I wonder, now, whether I shall be able to hunt up the others before Mab finishes her music!"

"O, Mabel Chartres is away," volunteered one of the other girls, "I heard her come down fully ten minutes ago."

"That can't be," replied Minnie, "she must have come in here for her things before she went away."

"Not at all, seeing she carried them up to the music-room with her that she might save time; I heard her say she wanted away soon."

Minnie flew to the corner where Mabel's hat and jacket usually hung, and sure enough both were gone. She sat down for a minute ready to cry with disappointment, but recovering herself immediately, she choked back the tears, and proceeded with the search for her books, though in a rather more subdued manner, and with a great deal less bustle and talkativeness. At length they were all collected from their various hiding-places, and Minnie was ready to depart, but she seemed in no hurry to go. She stood leaning against the desk, with a rather irresolute look on her face, as if trying to make up her mind to something. More than once she moved as if to go, but something seemed to arrest her step.

At last she turned to where Mona Cameron still sat at work, and said in a clear voice which could be distinctly heard by all the girls in the room, "I will try, Mona, to take your advice about putting my books back in my desk; I know I'm horribly careless, and I thank you for reminding me how I can mend it if I try."

All the girls looked up amazed—Mona herself as amazed as any and also a little confused—but Minnie did not wait to see what effect her words would produce, she walked straight out after she had spoken, and was not a little astonished, and perhaps a little perturbed, to find Miss Elgin, the English governess, in the dressing-room where she could not choose but hear what had passed. Her face flushed, and she tried to hurry out without attracting her notice, but Miss Elgin stopped her as she passed the desk at which she sat, and drawing the bright face down to the level of her own, kissed her on the forehead with a whispered "That was bravely spoken, Minnie," and let her go....