I thought it was all true, and oh!--there ain't anybody
to help! Oh, I wish I was dead! I wish I was dead!"
"Rebecca," I said, a little frightened, and convinced that the girl had
some serious trouble at heart. "Tell me what the trouble is? Has any one
deceived you? And why should any one wish to deceive you, child?"
Rebecca only moaned and shook her head.
"But you must tell me," I said; "I can't help you unless you do."
She drew herself farther away from me, with only these convulsive sobs
for a reply. I did not attempt to get nearer to her, to comfort her as it
had been my first impulse to do. She had repulsed me once. "You are
nervous and excited, my dear," I decided to say; "and something of little
consequence, probably, looks like a mountain of difficulty to you. At any
rate, when you get ready to confide in me, you must come to me. I shall
not question you again."
So I left her, less with a feeling of commiseration for her than with a
deep sense of my own pressing burdens and responsibilities.
I had another ex-pupil (Rebecca had been out of school for several
weeks), who was a source of considerable anxiety to me--Luther Larkin.
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