So the holidays passed by--dreary ones for Dorothy, who spent whole listless evenings staring at the fire; and drearier still for Aunt Barbara, who made many efforts to interest the girl, and, failing utterly, went about with a new sadness in her eyes and a fresh grief in her heart that she would not have confessed to anyone.
Everybody at Holly Cottage was glad when the term began again.
"I don't hold with holidays," grumbled Martha. "Give young folks plenty of work, say I, and they're much better than mooning about with naught to do. Dorothy's a different girl when she's got her lessons to keep her busy."
To do Dorothy justice, she certainly worked her hardest at the College, though the prospect of becoming a teacher did not strike her as an inspiring goal for her efforts. She put the idea away from her as much as possible, but every now and then it returned like a bad nightmare.
"I should hate to be Miss Pitman," she remarked one day at school. "It must be odious to be a mistress."
"Do you think so?" replied Grace Russell. "Why, I'd love it! I mean to go in for teaching myself some time."
"But will you have to earn your own living? I thought your father was well off," objected Dorothy.
"That's no reason why I shouldn't be of some use in the world," returned Grace. "Teaching is a splendid profession if one does it thoroughly. I have a cousin who's a class mistress at a big school near London, and she's so happy--her girls just adore her. It must be an immense satisfaction to feel one's doing some real work, and not being a mere drone in the hive."
This was a new notion to Dorothy, and though she could not quite digest it at first, she turned it over in her mind. She was astonished that Grace, who had a beautiful home, could wish to take up work.
"She'd make a far better teacher, though, than Miss Pitman," she thought. "I wonder why? It's something about Grace that makes one feel--well, that she's always doing things from a motive right above herself."
Dorothy found this an interesting term at the College. As a recruit of the Dramatic Union, she attended rehearsals and was given a minor part in a play that the members were acting, just for practice. It was an honour to be included in the "Dramatic", for its numbers were limited, and it was mostly made up of girls from the Upper School. Her bright rendering of her small part won her notice among the monitresses.