Читать книгу The Passionate Quest онлайн

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Sunday, always an uncomfortable day for the younger inmates of Sion House, proved more than usually tedious on the morrow, both as an institution and in the slow monotony of its drawn-out hours. Rosina alone faced her uncle at breakfast, and, beyond the customary morning greeting, no word was spoken between the two until the school bell began to ring harshly at nine o'clock. Benjamin rose at once to his feet.

"Have you arranged for your class?" he asked.

"I shall teach it myself," Rosina replied. "I can speak to Mrs. Haslem then about some one to take it over."

He left the room without any further word. Rosina added to her simple yellow and white cotton frock a straw hat trimmed with buttercups, and made her way through the private gate, across the asphalt pavement, to the dreary schoolroom whose whitewashed walls were hung with texts and pictorial representations of Scriptural happenings. She bore her part in the attempted instruction of a dozen or more ungainly, unprepossessing and unimaginative children, spoke a few kindly words to them of farewell, without evoking, however, the slightest trace of any feeling save one of curiosity as to a possible successor. She was forced to use more than her usual tact in avoiding the attentions of the male teachers, frock-coated and silk-hatted youths of anemic complexion and artificial ways. The pastor himself, an older and somewhat more robust replica of the species, stopped her at the door. He was a young man of goodly qualities and narrow vision, who had, however, an honest belief in himself and his work. His parentage was Scotch.