Page:Harper's New Monthly Magazine - v109.djvu/1035

Rh should also be the one child who had it most exhaustively supplied to her. With a wondering awe and a stimulating sense of crime the children brought her all they gleaned. And she in turn took it to her father with an optimism and a childlike trust that his coldly recurrent explanations could not quite kill. Still, they made a shadow—the only one on the child's life,—and this shadow was growing deeper. It seemed, more than any other thing, to shut Hildegarde away from her little friends.

These and many other thoughts passed through Mademoiselle Verrier's mind as she stood looking at the father and daughter one cold December evening. They sat in a great chair before the open fire, whose lights, playing on their faces, brought out the strange unlikeness of the two. As twilight came on, the professor had dropped his book, and was leaning back with a tired expression on his prematurely aged face. He was deep in thought. He had already forgotten the little girl who was dozing in his arms. The governess summoned all her courage for a final appeal.

"Once more, Professor, pardon," she said, quietly. "It is necessary that I speak; the time has come. It is worse, always worse, each day. The child has a most beautiful nature; it is becoming ruined. Her life it is not natural. She has no playmates, except by stealth; she does what pleases her. You correct her—and she goes to sleep. She does not hear. What can be the end? But one thing—a spoiled child, a most beautiful nature spoiled, all spoiled. It grieves my heart. I cannot look on and say nothing. Now I have said—what I must. If it is necessary, I can then go away. But before I go I must say frankly, Professor, you do not understand a little child. Many wise men have not that knowledge. A child should lead a child's life—not the life of a grown person."

Her brilliant eyes filled suddenly. She rose abruptly and left the room, while a startled gentleman rubbed his eyes before the fire. He sat very still for a long time. Hildegarde awoke and began to talk to him, but at first he did not hear her. His thoughts were busy. "You do not understand a little child." No one had ever said so before, but somehow as the words fell on his ears they had carried with them a sudden cold conviction of their truth. Was it possible, despite his convictions, that his ideas were all wrong? The doubt was a very slight one as yet, just the suggestion of a cloud over the sky of his perfect confidence, but he felt a chill at its approach.

Hildegarde stopped talking and looked up at him with deep reproach.

"You don't hear me, favver," she said, impatiently. "You don't ever hear me. I'm talking, I am, 'bout all the fings Georgie said. He said God made me. An' God gived me you and this house, Georgie said, an' my books an' all my fings. Pie gived me everyfing, Georgie said,—every—single—fing. An' I felt dreffle, 'cos mademoiselle says always fank folks for fings, an' I never fanked God for anyfing!"

The professor smiled, absently at first, then with a queer catch in his breath. It seemed strange that this, which he had known must surely come sometime, should come to-day of all days, so close on the heels of the sudden arraignment which had just been hurled at him. How strangely and, from the Christian standpoint, how well the baby had put it. "I never fanked God for anyfing." There was deep reproach in the words—to others than Hildegarde.

"She must be told none of the traditions of religion."

He recalled this caution he had given to mademoiselle and the servants. It had not occurred to him that other children would discuss religion with his little girl, yet he might have known they would, had he but thought. He would see how far matters had gone.

"What more did Georgie say?" he asked, gently.

Hildegarde sat up in his lap with sudden interest.

"Why, I been telling you, favver. All 'bout Cwistmus. He was born then, God was, in a stable. So now folks are glad, and evewybody gets pwesents. Santa Claus bwings 'em—the pwesents, you know. An' he comes down the chimney wif a big sleigh, an' he dwives lots and lots of deers in the sleigh. An' evewybody gets fings in 'tockings. We hang them up, you know. It's just booful. I never heerd such nice 'tories. Georgie