JEWEL
A CHAPTER IN HER LIFE
By Clara Louise Burnham
TO F. W. R.
MY FIRST INSPIRATION
THIS STORY IS OFFERED
IN LOVING ACKNOWLEDGMENT
PREPARER'S NOTE
This text was prepared from a 1903 edition, published by Grosset &
Dunlap, New York.
CONTENTS
[ JEWEL ]
[ CHAPTER I ]
[ CHAPTER II ]
[ CHAPTER III ]
[ CHAPTER IV ]
[ CHAPTER V ]
[ CHAPTER VI ]
[ CHAPTER VII ]
[ CHAPTER VIII ]
[ CHAPTER IX ]
[ CHAPTER X ]
[ CHAPTER XI ]
[ CHAPTER XII ]
[ CHAPTER XIII ]
[ CHAPTER XIV ]
[ CHAPTER XV ]
[ CHAPTER XVI ]
[ CHAPTER XVII ]
[ CHAPTER XVIII ]
[ CHAPTER XIX ]
[ CHAPTER XX ]
[ CHAPTER XXI ]
[ CHAPTER XXII ]
[ CHAPTER XXIII ]
[ CHAPTER XXIV ]
[ CHAPTER XXV ]
[ CHAPTER XXVI ]
[ CHAPTER XXVII ]
[ CHAPTER XXVIII ]
JEWEL
CHAPTER I
THE NEW COACHMAN
“Now you polish up those buckles real good, won't you, 'Zekiel? I will say for Fanshaw, you could most see your face in the harness always.”
The young fellow addressed rubbed away at the nickel plating good humoredly, although he had heard enough exhortations in the last twenty-four hours to chafe somewhat the spirit of youth. His mother, a large, heavy woman, stood over him, her face full of care.
“It's a big change from driving a grocery wagon to driving a gentleman's carriage, 'Zekiel. I do hope you sense it.”
“You'd make a bronze image sense it, mother,” answered the young man, smiling broadly. “You might sit and sermonize just as well, mightn't you? Sitting's as cheap as standing,”—he cast a glance around the clean spaces of the barn in search of a chair,—“or if you'd rather go and attend to your knitting, I've seen harness before, you know.”
“I'm not sure as you've ever handled a gentleman's harness in your life, 'Zekiel Forbes.”
“It's a fact they don't wear 'em much down Boston way.”
His mother regarded his shock of light hair with repressed fondness.
“It was a big responsibility I took when I asked Mr. Evringham to let you try the place,” she said solemnly, “and I'm going to do my best to help you fill it. It does seem almost a providence the way Fanshaw's livery fits you; and if you'll hold yourself up, I may be partial, but it seems to me you look better in it than he ever did; and I'm sure if handsome is as handsome does, you'll fill it better every way, even if he was a fashionable English coachman. Mrs. Evringham was so pleased with his style she tried to have him kept even after he'd taken too much for the second time; but Mr. Evringham valued his horses too highly for that, I can tell you.”
“Thought the governor was a widower still,” remarked Ezekiel as his mother drew forward a battered chair and dusted it with the huge apron that covered her neat dress. She seated herself close to her boy.
“Of course he is,” she returned with some asperity. “Why should he get married with such a home as he's got? Fifteen years I've kept house for Mr. Evringham. I don't believe but what he'd say that in all that time he's never found his beef overdone or a button off his shirts.”
“Humph!” grunted Ezekiel. “He looks as if he wouldn't mind hanging you to the nearest tree if he did. I heard tell once that there was a cold hell as well as a hot one. Think says I, when the governor was looking me over the other day, 'You've set sail for the cold place, old boy.'”
“Zeke Forbes, don't you ever let me hear you say such a thing again!” exclaimed Mrs. Forbes. “Mr. Evringham is the finest gentleman within one hundred miles of New York city. When a man has spent his life in Wall Street it's bound to show some in his face, of course; but what comfort has that man ever known?”
“Pretty scrumptious place he's got here in this park, I notice,” returned the new coachman.
“Yes, he has a breath of fresh air before he goes to the city and after he gets back every day. Isn't that Essex Maid of his a beauty?” Mrs. Forbes cast her eyes towards the stalls where the shining flanks of two horses were visible from her seat by the wide-open doors of the barn. “His rides back there among the hills,”—Mrs. Forbes waved her hand vaguely toward the tall trees waving in the spring sunshine,—“are his one pleasure; and he never tires of them. You will find the horses here something different to groom from those common grocery horses in Boston.”
“Oh, I don't know,” drawled 'Zekiel, teasingly.
“Then you'd better know, young man,” emphatically. “And, Zeke, what's the names of those carriages?” pointing with sudden energy at two half shrouded vehicles.
“How many guesses do I get?”
“Guessing ain't going to do. Do you know, or don't you?”
“Know? Why,” leniently, “bless your heart, mother, don't you s'pose I know a buggy and a carryall when I see 'em?”
“Oh, you poor benighted grocery boy!” Mrs. Forbes raised her hands. “What a mercy I mentioned it! Imagine Mrs. Evringham hearing you ask if she'd have the buggy or the carryall! 'Zekiel,” solemnly, “listen to me. That tall one's a spider, and the other's a broom. There! Do you hear me? A spider and a broom!”
Ezekiel's merry eyes met the anxious ones with a twinkle.
“Who'd have thought it!” he responded.
“Now then, Zeke,” anxiously, “it's my responsibility. I recommended you. I want you should say 'em off as glib as Fanshaw did. Now then, which is which?”
“Mother, didn't you tell me that the late lamented was not a prohibitionist?”
“Fanshaw drank like a fish, if that's what you mean.”
“Well, just because he saw things in this barn you needn't expect me to! Poor chap! Spiders and brooms! He must have been glad to go.”
Mrs. Forbes' earnest expression did not change. “'Zekiel, don't you tease, now! We haven't got time. I want you to make such a success of this that you'll stay with me. You can't think how I felt when I woke up this morning and thought the first thing, 'Zeke's here.' Why, I've scarcely kept acquainted with you for fifteen years. Scarcely saw you except for a few weeks in the summer time. Now I've got you again!”
“I ain't the only thing you've got again,” grinned 'Zekiel, “if you're going to see things, same as Fanshaw did.”
Thus reminded, the housekeeper looked back at the phaeton and the brougham. “Be a good boy, Zeke,” coaxingly, “and don't forget now, because Mrs. Evringham is a great stickler—and a great sticker, too,” added Mrs. Forbes in a different tone.
“Who is the old woman, if the governor isn't married?” asked Ezekiel with not very lively interest. “She don't seem popular with you.”
“I'll tell you who she is,” returned his mother in a low, emphatic tone. “she's just what I say—a sticker and an interloper.”
“H'm! Shouldn't wonder if the green-eyed monster had got after mamma,” soliloquized the youth aloud. “Somebody else sews on the buttons now, perhaps.”
“'Zekiel Forbes, we must have an understanding right off. You've got to joke and tease, I s'pose, but it can't be about Mr. Evringham. This is like a law of the Medes and Persians, and I want you should understand it. The more you see of him the less you'll dare to joke about him.”
“I told you he scared me stiff,” acknowledged Zeke, running the harness through his hands to discover another dingy spot.
“Well, he'd better. Now I wouldn't gossip to you of my employer's affairs—I hope we're better than two common servants—but I want you to be as loyal to him as I am, and to understand a few of the reasons why he can't go giggling around like some folks.”
“Great Scott!” interpolated the young coachman. “Mr. Evringham go giggling around! So would Bunker Hill monument!”
“Listen to me, Zeke. Mr. Evringham has had two sons. His wife died when the oldest, Lawrence, was fifteen. Well, both those boys disappointed him. Lawrence when he was twenty-one married secretly a widow older than himself, who had a little girl named Eloise. Mr. Evringham made the best of it, and helped him along in business. Lawrence became a broker and had made and lost a fortune when he died at the age of thirty-five.”
“Broke himself, did he?” remarked the irrepressible 'Zekiel.
“Yes, he did. Here we were, living in peace and comfort,—my employer at sixty a man of settled habits and naturally very set in his ways and satisfied with his home and the way I had run it for him for fifteen years,—when three blows fell on him at once. Firstly his son Lawrence failed and was ruined; secondly he died; and thirdly his widow and her daughter nineteen years old came here a couple of months ago and settled on Mr. Evringham, and here they've stayed ever since! I don't think they have an idea of going away.” Mrs. Forbes's eyes snapped. “Such an upset as it was! I couldn't show how I felt, of course, for it was so much worse for him than it was for me. He had never cared for Mrs. Evringham, and scarcely knew the girl who called him 'grandfather' without an atom of right.”
“Hard lines,” observed 'Zekiel. “Does the girl call herself Evringham?”
“Does she?” with scorn. “Well I guess she does. Of course she was only four when her mother married Lawrence, and I guess she was fond of her stepfather and he of her, because he never had any children; but sometimes I ask myself, is it going on forever? I only hope Eloise'll get married soon.”
'Zekiel dropped the harness to arrange imaginary curls on his temples and pat the tie on his muscular neck. “If she's pretty I'm willing,” he responded.
His mother shook her head absently. “Then there was Mr. Evringham's younger son, a regular roving ne'er-do-well. He didn't like Wall Street and he went West to Chicago. He was a rolling stone, first in one position and then in another; then he got married, and after a few years he rolled away altogether. All Mr. Evringham knows about him and his family is that he had one child. Harry wrote a few letters about his wife Julia and the baby, at the time it was born, and Mr. Evringham sent a present of money; then the letters ceased until one day the wife wrote him frantically that her husband had disappeared and begged to know where he was. Mr. Evringham knew nothing about him and wrote her so, and that is the last he's heard. So you see if he looks cold and hard, he's had enough to make him so.”
“H'm!” ejaculated 'Zekiel. “He don't give the impression of lyin' awake nights wondering how his deserted daughter-in-law and the kid make out.”
“Why should he?” retorted Mrs. Forbes sharply. “His two boys acted as selfish to him as boys could. He's a disappointed, humiliated man in that proud heart of his. He's been hunted out and harrowed up in this peaceful retreat, when all he asked was to be let alone with his horses and his golf clubs, and I think one daughter-in-law's enough under the circumstances. I have some respect for Mrs. Harry, whoever she is, because she lets him alone. In all the long years we've spent here, when he often had no one to talk to but me, he's let me have a glimpse of these things, and I've told you so's you'd think right about him and serve him all the better.”
“He's got a look in his eyes like cold steel,” remarked Ezekiel, “and lines under 'em like they'd been drawn with steel; and his back's as flat and straight as if a steel rod took the place of a spine. That thick gray hair and mustache of his might be steel threads.”
“He's a splendid sight on horseback,” responded Mrs. Forbes devoutly. “His sons were neither of 'em ever the man he is. I'd like to protect him from being imposed upon if such a thing was possible.”
“Sho!” drawled 'Zekiel. “Might's well talk about protecting a battleship.”
“Well, 'Zekiel Forbes,” returned his mother, her eyes bright, “can't you imagine a battleship hesitating to run down a little pleasure yacht with all its flags flying? And can't you imagine that hesitation costing the battleship considerable precious time and money? You've said a good deal about my sacrificing my room in the house and coming out here to fix a little home for us both, upstairs in the barn chambers, but perhaps you can see now that it isn't all sacrifice, that perhaps I'm glad of an excuse to get out of the house, where things are so different from what they used to be, and to have a cosy home with my own boy. Now then, 'Zekiel,” coaxingly, these words recalling her boy's responsibilities, “look over there once more and tell me which of those is the spider.”
Zekiel dropped the harness and laid his hand gently on his mother's forehead. “There isn't anything there, dear mother,” he said soothingly.
“Zeke!” she exclaimed, jerking away with a short reluctant laugh.
“'Mother, dear mother, come home with me now,'” he roared sentimentally, so that Essex Maid lifted her beautiful head and looked out in surprise. “Remember Fanshaw, and put more water in it after this,” he added, dropping his arm to his mother's neck and capturing her with a hug.
“'Zekiel!” she protested. “'Zekiel!”
CHAPTER II
THE CHICAGO LETTER
The mother was still laughing and struggling in the irresistible embrace when both became aware that a third person was regarding them in open-mouthed astonishment.
“'Zekiel, let me go!” commanded the scandalized woman, and pushed herself free from her tormentor, who forthwith returned rather sheepishly to his buckles.
The young man with trim-pointed beard and mirthful eyes, who stood in the driveway, had just dismounted from a shining buggy. Doubt and astonishment were apparently holding him dumb.
The housekeeper, smoothing her disarranged locks and much flushed of face, returned his gaze, rising from her chair.
“I couldn't believe it was you, Mrs. Forbes!” declared the newcomer. “Fanshaw isn't—” He looked around vaguely.
“No, he isn't, Dr. Ballard,” returned Mrs. Forbes shortly. “He forgot to rub down Essex Maid one evening when she came in hot, and that finished him with Mr. Evringham.”
The young doctor's lips twitched beneath his mustache as he looked at 'Zekiel, polishing away for dear life.
“You seem to have some one else here—some friend,” he remarked tentatively.
“Friend!” echoed the housekeeper with exasperation, feeling to see just how much Zeke had rumpled her immaculate collar. “We looked like friends when you came up, didn't we!”
“Like intimate friends,” murmured the doctor, still looking curiously at the big fair-haired fellow, who was crimson to his temples.
“I don't know how long we shall continue friends if he ever grabs me again like that just after I've put on a clean collar. He's got beyond the place where I can correct him. I ought to have done it oftener when I had the chance. This is my boy 'Zekiel, Dr. Ballard,” with a proud glance in the direction of the youth, who looked up and nodded, then continued his labors. “Mr. Evringham has engaged him on trial. He's been with horses a couple of years, and I guess he'll make out all right.”
“Glad to know you, 'Zekiel,” returned the doctor. “Your mother has been a good friend of mine half my life, and I've often heard her speak of you. Look out for my horse, will you? I shall be here half an hour or so.”
When the doctor had moved off toward the house Mrs. Forbes nodded at her son knowingly.
“Might's well walk Hector into the barn and uncheck him, Zeke,” she said. “They'll keep him more'n a half an hour. That young man, 'Zekiel Forbes,—that young man's my hope.” Mrs. Forbes spoke impressively and shook her forefinger to emphasize her words.
“What you hoping about him?” asked 'Zekiel, laying down the harness and proceeding to lead the gray horse up the incline into the barn.
“Shouldn't wonder a mite if he was our deliverer,” went on Mrs. Forbes. “I saw it in Mrs. Evringham's eye that he suited her, the first night that she met him here at dinner. I like him first-rate, and I don't mean him any harm; but he's one of these young doctors with plenty of money at his back, bound to have a fashionable practice and succeed. His face is in his favor, and I guess he knows as much as any of 'em, and he can afford the luxury of a wife brought up the way Eloise Evringham has been. That's right, Zeke. Unfasten the check-rein, though the doctor don't use a mean one, I must say. I only hope there's a purgatory for the folks that use too short check-reins on their horses. I hope they'll have to wear 'em themselves for a thousand years, and have to stand waiting at folks' doors frothing at the mouth, and the back of their necks half breaking when the weather's down to zero and up to a hundred. That's what I hope!”
'Zekiel grinned. “You want 'em to try the cold place and the hot one too, do you?”
“Yes I do, and to stay in the one that hurts the most. The man that uses a decent check-rein on his horse,” continued Mrs. Forbes, dropping into a philosophizing tone, “is apt to be as decent to his wife. The doctor would be a great catch for that girl, and I think,” dropping her voice, “her mother'd be liable to live with 'em.”
“You're keeping that dark from the doctor, I s'pose?” remarked 'Zekiel.
“H'm. You needn't think I go chattering around that house the way I do out here. I've got a great talent, if I do say it, for minding my own business.”
“Good enough,” drawled 'Zekiel. “I heard tell once of a firm that made a great fortune just doing that one thing.”
“Don't you be sassy now. I've always waited on Mr. Evringham while he ate his meals, and that's the time he'd often speak out to me about things if he felt in the humor, so that in all these years 't isn't any wonder if I've come to feel that his business is mine too.”
“Just so,” returned 'Zekiel, with a twinkle in his eye.
“It's been as plain as your nose that the interlopers don't like to have me there. Not that they have anything special against me, but they'd like to have someone younger and stylisher to hand them their plates. I'll never forget one night when they'd been here about a week, and I think Mr. Evringham had begun to suspect they were fixtures,—I'd felt it from the first,—Mrs. Evringham said, 'Why father, does Mrs. Forbes always wait on your table? I had supposed she was temporarily taking the place of your butler or your waitress.'”
The housekeeper's effort to imitate the airy manner she remembered caused her son to chuckle as he gathered up the shining harness.
“You should have seen the look Mr. Evringham gave her. Just as if he didn't see her at all. 'Yes,' he answered, 'I hope Mrs. Forbes will wait on my table as long as I have one.' And I will if I have my health,” added the speaker, bridling with renewed pleasure at the memory of that triumphant moment. “They think I'm a machine without any feelings or opinions, and that I've been wound up to suit Mr. Evringham and run his establishment, and that I'm no more to be considered than the big Westminster clock on the stairs. Mrs. Evringham did try once to get into my employer's rooms and look after his clothes.” Mrs. Forbes shook her head and tightened her lips at some recollection.
“She bucked up against the machine, did she?” inquired Zeke.
The housekeeper glanced around to see if any one might be approaching.
“I saw her go in there, and I followed her,” she continued almost in a whisper. “She sort of started, but spoke up in her cool way, 'I wish to look over father's clothes and see if anything needs attention.' 'Thank you, Mrs. Evringham, but everything is in order,' I said, very respectful. 'Well, leave it for me next time, Mrs. Forbes,' she says. 'I shall take care of him while I am here.' 'Thank you,' says I, 'but he wouldn't want your visit interfered with by that kind of work.' She looked at me sort of suspicious and haughty. 'I prefer to do it,' she answers, trying to look holes in me with her big eyes. 'Then will you ask him, please,' said I very polite, 'before I give you the keys, because we've got into habits here. I've taken care of Mr. Evringham's clothes for fifteen years.' She looked kind of set back. 'Is it so long?' she asks. 'Well, I will see about it.' But I guess the right time for seeing about it never came,” added the housekeeper knowingly.
“You're still doing business at the old stand, eh?” rejoined Zeke. “Well, I'm glad you like your job. It's my opinion that the governor's harder—”
“Ahem, ahem!” Mrs. Forbes cleared her throat with desperate loudness and tugged at her son's shirt sleeve with an energy which caused him to wheel.
Coming up the sunny driveway was a tall man with short, scrupulously brushed iron-gray hair, and sweeping mustache. The lines under his eyes were heavy, his glance was cold. His presence was dignified, commanding, repellent.
The housekeeper and coachman both stood at attention, the latter mechanically pulling down his rolled-up sleeves.
“So you're moving out here, Mrs. Forbes,” was the remark with which the newcomer announced himself.
“Yes, Mr. Evringham. The man has been here to put in the electric bell you ordered. I shall be as quick to call as if I was still in the house, sir, and I thank you—'Zekiel and I both do—for consenting to my making it home-like for him. Perhaps you'd come up and see the rooms, sir?”
“Not just now. Some other time. I hope 'Zekiel is going to prove himself worth all this trouble.”
The new coachman's countenance seemed frozen into a stolidity which did not alter.
“I'm sure he'll try,” replied his mother, “and Fanshaw's livery fits him to such a turn that it would have been flying in the face of Providence not to try him. Did you give orders to be met at this train, sir?” Mrs. Forbes looked anxiously toward the set face of her heir.
“No—I came out unexpectedly. I have received news that is rather perplexing.”
The housekeeper had not studied her employer's moods for years without understanding when she could be of use.
“I will come to the house right off,” was her prompt response. “It's a pity you didn't know the bell was in, sir.”
“No, stay where you are. I see Dr. Ballard is here. We might be interrupted. You can go, 'Zekiel.”
The young fellow needed no second invitation, but turned and mounted the stairway that led to the chambers above.
Mr. Evringham took from his pocket a bunch of papers, and selecting a letter handed it to Mrs. Forbes, motioning her to the battered chair, which was still in evidence. He seated himself on the stool Zeke had vacated, while his housekeeper opened and read the following letter:—
CHICAGO, April 28, 19—.
DEAR FATHER,—The old story of the Prodigal Son has always plenty of originality for the Prodigal. I have returned, and thank Heaven sincerely I do not need to ask you for anything. My blessed girl Julia has supported herself and little Jewel these years while I've been feeding on husks. I don't see now how I was willing to be so revoltingly cruel and cowardly as to leave her in the lurch, but she has made friends and they have stood by her, and now I've been back since September, doing all in my power to make up what I can to her and Jewel, as we call little Julia. They were treasures to return to such as I deserved to have lost forever; but Julia treats me as if I'd been white to her right all along. I've lately secured a position that I hope to keep. My wife has been dressmaking, and this is something in the dry goods line that I got through her. The firm want us to go to Europe to do some buying. They will pay the expenses of both; but that leaves Jewel. I've heard that Lawrence's wife and daughter are living with you. I wondered if you'd let us bring Jewel as far as New York and drop her with you for the six weeks that we shall be gone. If we had a little more ahead we'd take the child with us. She is eight years old and wouldn't be any trouble, but cash is scarce, and although we could board her here with some friend, I'd like to have her become acquainted with her grandfather, and I thought as Madge and Eloise were with you, they would look after her if Mrs. Forbes is no longer there. This has all come about very suddenly, and we sail next Wednesday on the Scythia, so I'll be much obliged if you will wire me. I shall be glad to shake your hand again.
Your repentant son,
HARRY.
Mrs. Forbes looked up from the letter to find her employer's eyes upon her. Her lips were set in a tight line.
“Well?” he asked.
“I'd like to ask first, sir, what you think of it?”
“It strikes me as very cool. Harry knows my habits.”
The housekeeper loosened the reins of her indignation.
“The idea of your having a child here to clatter up and down the stairs at the very time you want to take a nap!” she burst forth. “You've had enough to bear already.”
“A deal of company in the house as it is, eh?” he rejoined. It was the first reference he had ever made to his permanent guests.
“It's what I was thinking, sir.”
“You're not for it, then, Mrs. Forbes?”
“So far as taking care of the child goes, I should do my duty. I don't think Mrs. Evringham or her daughter would wish to be bothered; but I know very little about children, except that your house is no place for them to be racing in. One young one brings others. You would be annoyed, sir. Some folks can always ask favors.” The housekeeper's cheeks were flushed with the strength of her repugnance, and her bias relieved Mr. Evringham's indecision.
“I agree with you,” he returned, rising. “Tell 'Zekiel to saddle the Maid. After dinner I will let him take a telegram to the office.”
He returned to the house without further words, and Mrs. Forbes called to her son in a voice that had a wrathful quaver.
“What you got your back up about?” inquired Zeke softly, after a careful look to see that his august master had departed.
“Never you mind. Mr. Evringham wants you should saddle his horse and bring her round. I want he should see you can do it lively.”
“Ain't she a beaut'!” exclaimed Zeke as he led out the mare. “She'd ought to be shown, she had.”
“Shown! Better not expose your ignorance where Mr. Evringham can hear you. That mare's taken two blue ribbons already.”
“Showed they knew their business,” returned Zeke imperturbably. “I s'pose the old gent don't care any more for her than he does for his life.”
“I guess he loves her the best of anything in this world.”
“Love! The governor love anything or anybody! That's good,” remarked the young fellow, while Essex Maid watched his movements about her with gentle, curious eyes.
“I do believe she misses Fanshaw and notices the difference,” remarked Mrs. Forbes.
“Glad to, too. Ain't you, my beauty? She's going to be stuck on me before we get through. She don't want any Britishers fooling around her.”
“You've certainly made her look fine, Zeke. I know Mr. Evringham will be pleased. She just shines from her pretty little ears to her hoofs. Take her around and then come back. I want to talk to you.”
“If I don't come back,” returned the boy, “you'll know the governor's looked at me a little too hard and I've been struck so.”
“Don't be any foolisher than you can help,” returned Mrs. Forbes, “and hurry.”
On 'Zekiel's return to the barn he saw that his mother's face was portentous. “Lawrence was at least handsome like his father,” she began without preamble, looking over Zeke's shoulder, “but Harry was as homely as he was no account. I should think that man had enough of his sons' belongings hanging on him already. What do you think, 'Zekiel Forbes? Mr. Evringham's youngest son Harry has turned up again!”
“I should think it was the old Harry by your tone,” rejoined Zeke equably.
“He and his wife, poor as church mice, are getting their expenses paid to Europe on business, and they have the nerve—yes, the cheek—to ask Mr. Evringham to let them leave their young one, a girl eight years old, with him while they're gone.”
“I hope it's a real courageous youngster,” remarked Zeke.
“A child! A wild Western dressmaker's young one in Mr. Evringham's elegant house!”
“Is the old Harry a dressmaker?” asked Zeke mildly.
“No, his wife is. His Julia! They've named this girl for her, and I suppose they called her Jule, and then twisted it around to Jewel. Jewel!”
“When is she coming?” asked Zeke, seeing that he was expected to say something.
“Coming? She isn't coming,” cried his mother irefully. “Not while Mr. Evringham has his wits. They haven't a particle of right to ask him. Harry has worried him to distraction already. The child would be sure to torment him.”
“He'd devour her the second day, then,” returned Zeke calmly. “It would be soon over.”
CHAPTER III
MOTHER AND DAUGHTER
Dr. Ballard had gone, and his hostesses were awaiting the summons to dinner. Mrs. Evringham regarded her daughter critically as the girl sat at the piano, idly running her fingers over the keys.
The listlessness expressed in the fresh face and rounded figure brought a look of disapproval into the mother's eyes.
“You must practice that nocturne,” she said. “You played it badly just now, and there is no excuse for it, Eloise.”
“If you will let me give lessons I will,” responded the girl promptly, without turning her graceful, drooping head.
The unexpected reply was startling.
“What are you talking about?” asked Mrs. Evringham.
“Oh, I'm so tired of it all,” replied the girl wearily.
A frown contracted her mother's forehead. “Tired of what? Turn around here!” She rose and put her hands on the pretty shoulders and turned her child until the clear gray eyes met hers. “Now then, tired of what?”
Eloise smiled slightly, and sighed. “Of playing nocturnes to Dr. Ballard.”
“And he is quite as tired of hearing you, I dare say,” was the retort. “It seems to me you always stumble when you play to the doctor, and he adores Chopin.”
Eloise continued to meet her mother's annoyed gaze, her hands fallen in her lap, all the lines of her nut-brown hair, her exquisite face, and pliable, graceful figure so many silent arguments, as they always were, against any one's harboring annoyance toward her.
“You say he does, mother, and you have assured him of it so often that the poor man doesn't dare to say otherwise; but really, if you'd let him have the latest Weber and Field hit, I think he would be so grateful.”
“Learn it then!” returned Mrs. Evringham.
Eloise laughed lazily. “Intrepid little mother!” Then she added, in a different tone, “Don't you think there is any danger of our being too obliging? I'm not the only girl in town whose mother wishes her to oblige Dr. Ballard. May we not overreach ourselves?”
“Eloise!” Mrs. Evringham's half-affectionate, half-remonstrating grasp fell from her child's shoulders. “That remark is in very bad taste.”
The girl shook her head slowly. “I never can understand why it is any satisfaction to you to pretend. You find comfort in pretending that Mr. Evringham likes to have us here, likes us to use his carriages, to receive his friends, and all the rest of it. We've been here seven weeks and three days, and that little game of pretending is satisfying you still. You are like the ostrich with its head in the sand.”
Mrs. Evringham drew her lithe figure up. “Well, Eloise, I hope there are limits to this. To call your own mother an—an ostrich!”
“Don't speak so loud,” returned the girl, rising and patting her mother's hand. “Grandfather has returned from his ride. I just heard him come in. It is too near dinner time for a scene. There is no need of our pretending to each other, is there? You have always put me off and put me off, but surely you mean to bring this to an end pretty soon?”
“You could bring it to an end at once if you would!” returned Mrs. Evringham, her voice lowered. “Dr. Ballard has nothing to wait for. I know all about his circumstances. There never was such a providence as father's having a friend like him ready to our hand—so suitable, so attractive, so rich!”
“Yes,” responded the girl low and equably, “it is just five weeks and two days that you have been throwing me at that man's head.”
“I have done nothing of the kind, Eloise Evringham.”
“Yes you have,” returned the girl without excitement, “and grandfather sneering at us all the time under his mustache. He knows that there are other girls and other mothers interested in Dr. Ballard more desirable than we are. Oh! how easy it is to be more desirable than we are!”
“There isn't one girl in five hundred so pretty as you,” returned Mrs. Evringham stoutly.
“I wish my prettiness could persuade you into my way of thinking.”
“What do you mean?” The glance of the older woman was keen and suspicious.
“We would take a cheap little apartment to-morrow,” said the girl wistfully.
Mrs. Evringham gave an ejaculation of impatience. “And do all our own work and live like pigs!” she returned petulantly.
Eloise shrugged her shoulders. “I may flatter myself, but I fancy I should keep it rather clean.”
“You wouldn't mind your hands then.” Mrs. Evringham regarded the hands worthy to be imitated by a sculptor's art, and the girl raised them and inspected the rose-tints of their tips. “I've read something about rubber gloves,” she returned vaguely.
“You'd better read something else then. How do you suppose you would get on without a carriage?” asked her mother with exasperation. “You have never had so much as a taste of privation in any form. Your suggestion is the acme of foolishness.”
“I think I could do something if you would let me,” rejoined the girl as calmly as before. “I think I could teach music pretty well, and keep house charmingly. If I had any false pride when we came out here, the past six weeks have purified me of it. Will you let me try, mother? I'm asking it very seriously.”
“Certainly not!” hotly. “There are armies of music teachers now, and you would not have a chance.”
“I think I could dress hair well,” remarked Eloise, glancing at the reflection in a mirror of her own graceful coiffure.
“I dare say!” responded Mrs. Evringham with sarcastic heat, “or I'm sure you could get a position as a waitress. The servant problem is growing worse every year.”
“I'd like to be your waitress, mother.” For the first time the girl lost her perfect poise, and the color fluctuated in her cheek. She clasped her hands. “It would be heaven compared with the feeling, the sickening, appalling suspicion, that we are becoming akin to the adventuresses we read of, the pretty, luxurious women who live by their wits.”
“Silence!” commanded Mrs. Evringham, her eyes flashing and her effective black-clothed figure drawn up.
Eloise sighed again. “I didn't expect to accomplish anything by this talk,” she said, relapsing into listlessness.
“What did you expect then? Merely to be disagreeable? I hope you may be as successful in worthier undertakings. Now listen. Some of the plans you have suggested at various times might be sensible if you were a plain girl. Your beauty is as tangible an asset as money would be; but beauty requires money. You must have it. Your poor father might have left it to you, but he didn't; so you will marry it—not unsuitably,” meeting an ominous look in her child's eyes, “not without love or under any circumstances to make a martyr of you, but according to common sense; and as a certain young man is evidently more and more certain of himself every time he comes”—she paused.
“You think there is no need for him to grow more certain of me?” asked Eloise.
“You might have saved us the disagreeables of this interview. And one thing more,” impressively, “you evidently are not taking into consideration, perhaps you never knew, that it was your grandfather's confidence in a certain course which induced your poor father to take that last fatal flyer. Your grandfather feels—I'm sure he feels—that much reparation is due us. The present conditions are easier for him than a separate suitable home would be, therefore”—Mrs. Evringham waved her hand. “It is strange,” she added, “that so young a girl should not repose more trust in her mother's judgment. And now that we are on the subject, I wish you would make more effort with your grandfather. Don't be so silent at table and leave all the talking to me. A man of his age likes to have merry young people about. Chat, create a cheerful atmosphere. He likes to look at you, of course, but you have been so quiet and lackadaisical of late, it is enough to hurt his feelings as host.”
“He has never shown any symptoms of anxiety,” remarked Eloise.
“Well, he is a very self-contained man.”
“He is indeed, poor grandfather; I don't know how you will manage, mother, when you have to play the game of 'pretend' all alone. He is growing tired of it, I can see. His courtesy is wearing very thin. I'm sorry to make it harder for you by taking away what must have been a large prop and support, but I heard papa say to himself more than once in those last sad days, 'If I had only taken my father's advice.'”
“Eloise,” very earnestly, “you misunderstood, you certainly misunderstood.”
The girl shook her head wearily. “No, alas! I neither misunderstand nor forget, when it would be most convenient to do so.”
Mrs. Evringham's fair brow contracted as she regarded her daughter with exasperation. “And you are only nineteen! One would think it was you instead of me to whom the next birthday would bring that detested forty.”
The girl looked at her mother, whose youthful face and figure betrayed the source of her own heritage of physical charm.
“I long ago gave up the hope of ever again being as young as you are,” she returned sadly. “Oh!” with a rare and piteous burst of feeling, “if dear papa could have stayed with us, and we could have had a right somewhere!”
Mrs. Evringham threw her arms about the young creature, welcoming the softened mood. “You know I took you right to my own people, Eloise,” she said gently. “We stayed as long as I thought was right; they couldn't afford to keep us.” A sound at the door caused her to turn. The erect form of her father-in-law had just entered the room.
“Ah, good evening, father,” she said in tones whose sadness was not altogether feigned, even though she secretly rejoiced that Eloise should for once show such opportune emotion. “Pardon this little girl. She was just feeling overwhelmed with a pang of homesickness for her father.”
“Indeed!” returned Mr. Evringham. “Will you walk out? Mrs. Forbes tells me that dinner is served.”
Eloise, hastily drawing her handkerchief across her eyes, passed the unbending figure, her cheeks stinging. His hard voice was in her ears.
That she was not his son's child hurt her now as often before in the past two months, but that he should have discovered her weeping at a moment when he might have been expected to enter was a keen hurt to her pride, and her heart swelled with a suspicion of his unspoken thoughts. She had never been effusive, she had never posed. He had no right to suspect her.
With her small head carried high and her cheeks glowing, she passed him, following her mother, who floated on before with much satisfaction. These opportune tears shed by her nonconforming child should make their stay good for another two months at least.
“You must have had a beautiful ride, father,” said Mrs. Evringham as they seated themselves at table. She spoke in the tone, at once assured and ingratiating, which she always adopted toward him. “I noticed you took an earlier start than usual.”
The speaker had never had the insight to discover that her father-in-law was ungrateful for proofs that any of his long-fixed, solitary habits were now observed by feminine eyes.
“I did take a rather longer ride than usual,” he returned. “Mrs. Forbes, I wish you would speak to the cook about the soup. It has been served cool for the last two days.”
Mrs. Forbes flushed as she stood near his chair in her trim black gown and white apron.
“Yes, sir,” she replied, the flush and quiet words giving little indication of the tumult aroused within her by her employer's criticism. To fail to please Mr. Evringham at his meals was the deepest mortification life held for her.
“I'm sure it tastes very good,” said Mrs. Evringham amiably, “although I like a little more salt than your cook uses.”
“You can reach it I hope,” remarked the host, casting a glance at the dainty solitaire salt and pepper beside his daughter's plate.
“But don't you like it cooked in?” she asked sweetly.
“Not when I want to get it out,” he answered shortly.
“How can mother, how can mother!” thought Eloise helplessly.
“There is decided spring in the air to-day,” said Mrs. Evringham. “I remember of old how charmingly spring comes in the park.”
“You have a good memory,” returned Mr. Evringham dryly.
“Why do you say that?” asked the pretty widow, lifting large, innocent eyes.
“It is some years since you accompanied Lawrence in his calls upon me, I believe.”
“Poor father!” thought Mrs. Evringham, “how unpleasantly blunt he has grown, living here alone!”
“I scarcely realize it,” she returned suavely. “My recollection of the park is always so clear. It is surprising, isn't it, how relatives can live as near together as we in New York and you out here and see one another so seldom! Life in New York,” sighing, “was such a rush for us. Here amid the rustle of the trees it seems to be scarcely the same world. Lawrence often said his only lucid intervals were during the rides he took with Eloise in Central Park. Do you always ride alone, father?”
“Always,” was the prompt rejoinder, while Eloise cast a glance full of appeal at her mother.
The latter continued archly, “If you could see Eloise on a horse you would not blame me for trying to screw up my courage, as I have been doing for days past, to ask you if she might take a canter on Essex Maid in the morning, sometimes, while you are away. Fanshaw assured me that she would be perfectly safe.”
Mr. Evringham's cold eyes stared, and then the enormity of the proposition appeared to move him humorously.
“Which maid did Fanshaw say would be safe?” he inquired, while Eloise glowed with mortification.
“Well, if you think Eloise can't ride, try her some time!” exclaimed the widow gayly. It had been a matter of surprise and afterward of resentment that Mr. Evringham could remain deaf to her hints so long, and she had determined to become frank. “Or else ask Dr. Ballard,” she went on; “he has very kindly provided Eloise with a horse several times, but the child likes a solitary ride, sometimes, as well as you do.”
The steely look returned to the host's eyes. “No one rides the Maid but myself,” he returned coldly.
“I beg you to believe, grandfather, that I don't wish to ride her,” said Eloise, her customary languor of manner gone and her voice hard. “Mother is more ambitious for me than I am for myself. I should be very much obliged if she would allow me to ask favors when I want them.”
Mrs. Forbes's lips were set in a tight line as she filled Mrs. Evringham's glass.
That lady's heart was beating a little fast from vexation, and also from the knowledge that a time of reckoning with her child was coming.
“Oh, very well,” she said airily. “No wonder you are careful of that beautiful creature. I caught Eloise with her arms around the mare's neck the other day, and I couldn't help wishing for a kodak. You feed her with sugar, don't you Eloise?”
“I hope not, I'm sure!” exclaimed Mr. Evringham sternly.
“I'll not do it again, grandfather,” said the girl, her very ears burning.
Mrs. Evringham sighed and gave one Parthian shot. “The poor child does love horses so,” she murmured softly.
The host scowled and fidgeted in his chair with a brusque gesture to Mrs. Forbes to remove the course.
“Harry has turned up again,” he remarked, to change the subject.
“Really?” returned his daughter-in-law languidly. “For how long I wonder?”
“He thinks it is permanent.”
“He is still in Chicago?”
“Yes, for a day or two. He and his wife sail for Europe immediately.”
“Indeed!” with a greater show of interest. Then, curiously, “Are you sending them, father?”
“Scarcely! They are going on business.”
“Oh,” relapsing into indifference. “They have a child, I believe.”
“Yes, a girl. I should think perhaps you might have remembered it.”
“I hardly see why, if Harry didn't—a fact he plainly showed by deserting the poor creature.” The insolence of the speaker's tone was scarcely veiled. Her extreme disapproval of her father-in-law sometimes welled to the surface of her suave manner.
Mr. Evringham's thoughts had fled to Chicago. “Harry proposed leaving the girl here while they are gone,” he said.
Mrs. Evringham straightened in her chair and her attention concentrated. “With you? What assurance! How like Harry!” she exclaimed.
The words were precisely those which her host had been saying to himself; but proceeding from her lips they had a strange effect upon him.
“You find it so?” he asked. The clearer the proposition became to Mrs. Evringham's consciousness the more she resented it. To have the child in the house not only would menace her ease and comfort, but meant a possibility that the grandfather might take an interest in Harry's daughter which would disturb Eloise's chances.
“Of course it does. I call it simply presumptuous,” she declared with emphasis.
“After all, Harry has some rights,” rejoined Mr. Evringham slowly.
“His wife is a dressmaker,” went on the other. “I had it directly from a Chicago friend. Harry has scarcely been with the child since she was born. And to saddle a little stranger like that on you! Now Eloise and her father were inseparable.”
There was an ominous glitter in Mr. Evringham's eyes. “Eloise's father!” he returned slowly. “I did not know that she remembered him.”
The hurt of his tone and words sank deep into the heart of the girl, but she looked up courageously.
“Your son was my father in every best sense,” she said. “We were inseparable. You must have known it.”
“You appeared to be separable when your father made his visits to Bel-Air Park,” was the rejoinder. “Pardon me if I knew very little of what took place in his household. A telegraph blank, please, Mrs. Forbes, and tell Zeke to be ready to go to the office.”
There was a vital tone in the usually dry voice. Mrs. Evringham looked apprehensively at her daughter; but Eloise gave her no answering glance; her eyes were downcast and her pretense of eating continued, while her pulses beat.
CHAPTER IV
FATHER AND SON
When later they were alone, the girl looked at her mother, her eyes luminous.
“You see,” she began rather breathlessly, “even you must see, he is beginning to drive us away.”
“I do hope, Eloise, you are not going to indulge in any heroics over this affair,” returned Mrs. Evringham, who had braced herself to meet an attack. “Does the unpleasant creature suppose we would stay with him if we were not obliged to?”
“If we are obliged to, which I don't admit, need you demand further favors than food and shelter? How could you speak of Essex Maid! How can you know in your inmost heart, as you do, that we are eating the bread of charity, and then ask for the apple of his eye!” exclaimed Eloise desperately.
“Go away with your bread and apples,” responded Mrs. Evringham flippantly. “I have a real worry now that that wretched little cousin of yours is coming.”
“She is not my cousin please remember,” responded the girl bitterly. “Mr. Evringham reminded us of that to-night.”
“Now don't you begin calling him Mr. Evringham!” protested her mother. “You don't want to take any notice of the man's absurdities. You will only make matters worse.”
“No, I shall go on saying grandfather for the little while we stay. Otherwise, he would know his words were rankling. It will be a little while? Oh mother!”
Mrs. Evringham pushed the pleading hand away. “I can't tell how long it will be!” she returned impatiently. “We are simply helpless until your father's affairs are settled. I thought I had told you that, Eloise. He worshipped you, child, and no matter what that old curmudgeon says, Lawrence would wish us to remain under his protection until we see our way clear.”
“Won't you have a business talk with him, so we can know what we have to look forward to?” The girl's voice was unsteady.
“I will when the right time comes, Eloise. Can't you trust your mother? Isn't it enough that we have lost our home, our carriages, all our comforts and luxuries, through this man's bad judgment—”
“You will cling to that!” despairingly.
“And have had to come out to this Sleepy Hollow of a place, where life means mere existence, and be so poor that the carfare into New York is actually a consideration! I'm quite satisfied with our martyrdom as it is, without pinching and grinding as we should have to do to live elsewhere.”
“Then you don't mean to attempt to escape?” returned Eloise in alarm.
“Hush, hush, Goosie. We will escape all in good time if we don't succeed in taming the bear. As it is, I have to work single handed,” dropping into a tone of reproach. “You are no help at all. You might as well be a simpering wax dummy out of a shop window. I would have been ashamed at your age if I could not have subjugated any man alive. We might have had him at our feet weeks ago if you had made an effort.”
“No, no, mother,” sadly. “I saw when we first came how effusiveness impressed him, and I tried to behave so as to strike a balance—that is, after I found that we were here on sufferance and not as welcome guests.”
“Pshaw! You can't tell what such a hermit is thinking,” returned Mrs. Evringham. “It is the best thing that could happen to him to have us here. Dr. Ballard said so only to-day. What is troubling me now is this child of Harry's. I was sure by father's tone when he first spoke of her that he would not even consider such an imposition.”
“I think he did feel so,” returned Eloise, her manner quiet again. “That was an example of the way you overreach yourself. The word presumption on your lips applied to uncle Harry determined grandfather to let the child come.”
“You think he really has sent for her then!” exclaimed Mrs. Evringham. “You think that is what the telegram meant! I'm sure of it, too.” Then after a minute's exasperated thought, “I believe you are right. He is just contrary enough for that. If I had urged him to let the little barbarian come, he couldn't have been induced to do so. That wasn't clever of me!” The speaker made the admission in a tone which implied that in general her cleverness was unquestioned. “Well, I hope she will worry him out of his senses, and I don't think there is much doubt of it. It may turn out all for the best, Eloise, after all, and lead him to appreciate us.” Mrs. Evringham cast a glance at the mirror and patted her waved hair. “And yet I'm anxious, very anxious. He might take a fancy to the girl,” she added thoughtfully.
“I'm such a poor-spirited creature,” remarked Eloise.
“What now?”
“I ought to be strong enough to leave you since you will not come; to leave this roof and earn my own living, some way, any way; but I'm too much of a coward.”
“I should hope so,” returned her mother briefly. “You'd soon become one if you weren't at starting. Girls bred to luxury, as you have been, must just contrive to live well somehow. They can't stand anything else.”
“Nonsense, mother,” quietly. “They can. They do.”
“Yes, in books I know they do.”
“No, truth is stranger than fiction. They do. I have been looking for that sort of stamina in myself for weeks, but I haven't found it. It is a cruel wrong to a girl not to teach her to support herself.”
“My dear! You were going to college. You know you would have gone had it not been for your poor father's misfortunes.”
Eloise's eyes filled again at the remembrance of the young, gay man who had been her boon companion since her babyhood, and at the memory of those last sad days, when she knew he had agonized over her future even more than over that of his volatile wife.
“My dear, as I've told you before, a girl as pretty as you are should know that fortune cannot be unkind, nor the sea of life too rough. In each of the near waves of it you can see a man's head swimming toward you. You don't know the trouble I have had already in silencing those who wished to speak before you were old enough. They could any of them be summoned now with a word. Let me see. There is Mr. Derwent—Mr. Follansbee—Mr. Weeks—”
“Hush, mother!” ejaculated the girl in disgust.
“Exactly. I knew you would say they were too old, or too bald, or too short, or too fat. I've been a girl myself. Of course there is Nat Bonnell, and a lot more little waves and ripples like him, but they always were out of the question, and now they are ten times more so. That is the reason, Eloise,” the mother's voice became impressive to the verge of solemnity, “why I feel that Dr. Ballard is almost a providence.”
The girl's clear eyes were reflective. “Nat Bonnell is a wave who wouldn't remember a girl who had slipped out of the swim.”
“Very wise of him,” returned Mrs. Evringham emphatically. “He can't afford to. Nat is—is—a—decorative creature, just as you are,—decorative. He must make it pay, poor boy.”
Meanwhile Mrs. Forbes had sought her son in the barn. He and she had had their supper in time for her to be ready to wait at dinner.
“Something doing, something doing,” murmured Zeke as he heard the impetuosity of her approaching step.
“That soup was hot!” she exclaimed defiantly.
“Somebody scald you, ma? I can do him up, whoever he is,” said Zeke, catching up a whip and executing a threatening dance around the dimly lighted barn.
His mother's snapping eyes looked beyond him. “He said it was cold; but it was only because he was distracted. What do you suppose those people are up to now? Trying to get Essex Maid for Mamzell to ride!”
Zeke stopped in his mad career and returned his mother's stare for a silent moment. “And not a dungeon on the place probably!” he exclaimed at last. “Just like some folks' shiftlessness.”
“They asked it. They asked Mr. Evringham if that girl couldn't ride Essex Maid while he was in the city!”
'Zekiel lifted his eyebrows politely. “Where are their remains to be interred?” he inquired with concern.
“Well, not in this family vault, you may be sure. He gave it to them to-night for a fact.” Mrs. Forbes smiled triumphantly. “'I didn't know Eloise remembered her father,'” she mimicked. “I'll bet that got under their skin!”
“Dear parent, you're excited,” remarked Zeke.
She brought her reminiscent gaze back to rest upon her son. “Get your coat quick, 'Zekiel. Here's the telegram. Take the car that passes the park gate, and stop at the station. That's the nearest place.”
Ezekiel obediently struggled into the coat hanging conveniently near. “What does the telegram say?—'Run away, little girl, the ogre isn't hungry'?”
“Not much! She's coming. He's sending for the brat.”
“Poor brat! How did it happen?”
“Just some more of my lady's doings,” answered Mrs. Forbes angrily. “Of course she had to put in her oar and exasperate Mr. Evringham until he did it to spite her.”
“Cutting off his own nose to spite his face, eh?” asked Zeke, taking the slip of paper.
“Yes, and mine. It's going to come heavy on me. I could have shaken that woman with her airs and graces. Catch her or Mamzell lifting their hands!”
“Yet they want her, do they?”
“No, Stupid! That's why she's coming. Can't you understand?”
“Blessed if I can,” returned the boy as he left the barn; “but I know one thing, I pity the kid.”
Mr. Evringham received a prompt answer to his message. His son appointed, as a place of meeting, the downtown hotel where he and his wife purposed spending the night before sailing.
Father and son had not met for years, and Mr. Evringham debated a few minutes whether to take the gastronomic and social risk of dining with Harry en famille at the noisy hotel above mentioned, or to have dinner in assured comfort at his club—finally deciding on the latter course.
It was, therefore, nearly nine o'clock before his card was presented to Mr. and Mrs. Harry, to whom it brought considerable relief of mind, and they hastened down to the dingy parlor with alacrity.
“You see we thought you might accept our invitation to dinner,” said Harry heartily, as he grasped his parent's passive hand; “but your business hours are so short, I dare say you have been at home since the middle of the afternoon.” As he spoke the hard lines of his father's impassive face smote him with a thousand associations, many of them bringing remorse. He wondered how much his own conduct had had to do with graving them so deeply.
His wife's observant eyes were scanning this guardian of her child from the crown of his immaculate head to the toes of his correct patent leathers. His expressionless eyes turned to her. “This is your wife?” he asked, again offering the passive hand.
“Yes, father, this is Julia,” responded Harry proudly. “I'm sorry the time is so short. I do want you to know her.”
The young man's face grew eloquent.
“That is a pleasure to come,” responded Mr. Evringham mechanically. He turned stiffly and cast a glance about. “You brought your daughter, I presume?”
“Yes, indeed,” answered Mrs. Evringham. “Harry was so glad to receive your permission. We had made arrangements for her provisionally with friends in Chicago, but we were desirous that she should have this opportunity to see her father's home and know you.”
Mr. Evringham thought with regret of those friends in Chicago. Many times in the last two days he had deeply repented allowing himself to be exasperated into thus committing himself.
“Do sit down, father,” said Harry, as his wife seated herself in the nearest chair.
Mr. Evringham hesitated before complying. “Well,” he said perfunctorily, “you have gone into something that promises well, eh Harry?”
“It looks that way. I'm chiefly occupied these days in being thankful.” The young man smiled with an extraordinary sweetness of expression, which transfigured his face, and which his father remembered well as always promising much and performing nothing. “I might spend a lot of time crying over spilt milk, but Julia says I mustn't,”—he glanced across at his wife, whose dark eyes smiled back,—“and what Julia says goes. I intend to spend a year or two doing instead of talking.”
“It will answer better,” remarked his father.
“Yes, sir,” Harry's voice grew still more earnest. “And by that time, perhaps, I can express my regret to you, for things done and things left undone, with more convincingness.”
The older man made a slight gesture of rejection with one well-kept hand. “Let bygones be bygones,” he returned briefly.
“When I think,” pursued Harry, his impulsive manner in strange contrast to that of his listener, “that if I had been behaving myself all this time, I might have seen dear old Lawrence again!”
Mr. Evringham kept silence.
“How are Madge and Eloise? I thought perhaps Madge might come in and meet us at the train.”
“They are in the best of health, thank you. Eh—a—I think if you'll call your daughter now we will go. It's rather a long ride, you know. No express trains at this hour. When you return we will have more of a visit.”
Harry and his wife exchanged a glance. “Why Jewel is asleep,” answered the young man after a pause. “She was so sleepy she couldn't hold her eyes open.”
“You mean you've let her go to bed?” asked Mr. Evringham, with a not very successful attempt to veil his surprise and annoyance.
“Why—yes. We supposed she would see us off, you know.”
“Your memory is rather short, it strikes me,” returned his father. “You sail at eight A.M., I believe. Did you think I could get in from Bel-Air at that hour?”
“No. I thought you would naturally remain in the city over night. You used to stay in rather frequently, didn't you?”
“I've not done so for five years; but you couldn't know that. Is it out of the question to dress the child again? I hope she is too healthy to be disturbed by a trifle like that.”
Mrs. Evringham cast a startled look at her father-in-law. “It would disappoint Jewel very much not to see us off,” she returned.
Mr. Evringham shrugged his shoulders. “Let it go then. Let it go,” he said quickly.
Harry's plain face had grown concerned. “Is Mrs. Forbes with you still?” he asked.
“Oh, yes. I couldn't keep house without Mrs. Forbes. Well,” rising, “if you young people will excuse me, I believe I will go to the club and turn in.”
“Couldn't you stand it here one night, do you think?” asked Harry, rising. “The club is rather far uptown for such an early start.”
“No. I'll be on hand. I'm used to rising early for a canter. I'll take it with a cab horse this time. That will be all the difference.” And with this attempt at jocularity, Mr. Evringham shook hands once more and departed, swallowing his ill-humor as best he could. Any instincts of the family man which might once have reigned in him had long since been inhibited. This episode was a cruel invasion upon his bachelor habits.
Left alone, Harry and his wife without a word ascended to their room and with one accord approached the little bed in the corner where their child lay asleep.
The man took his wife's hand. “I've done it now, Julia,” he said dejectedly. “It's my confounded optimism again.”
“Your optimism is all right,” she returned, smoothing his hand gently, though her heart was beating fast, and the vision of her father-in-law, with his elegant figure and cold eyes, was weighing upon her spirit.
Harry looked long on the plain little sleeping face, so like his own in spite of its exquisite child-coloring, and bending, touched the tossed, straight, flaxen hair.
“We couldn't take her, I suppose?” he asked.
“No,” replied the yearning mother quietly. “We have prayed over it. We must know that all will be right.”
“His bark is worse than his bite,” said Harry doubtfully. “It always was; and Mrs. Forbes is there.”
“You say she is a kind sort of woman?”
“Why, I suppose so,” uncertainly. “I never had much to do with her.”
“And your sister? Isn't it very strange that she didn't come in to meet us? I was so certain I should put Jewel into her hands I feel a little bewildered.”
“You're a trump!” ejaculated Harry hotly, “and you've married into a family where they're scarce. Madge might have met us at the train, at least.”
“Perhaps she is very sad over her loss,” suggested Julia.
“In the best of health. Father said so. Oh well, she never was anything but a big butterfly and Eloise a little one. I remember the last time I saw the child, a pretty fairy with her long pink silk stockings. She must have been just about the age of Jewel.”
The mother stooped over the little bed and the dingy room looked pleasanter for her smile. “Jewel hasn't any pink silk stockings,” she murmured, and kissed the warm rose of the round cheek.
The little girl stirred and opened her eyes, at first vaguely, then with a start.
“Is it time for the boat?” she asked, trying to rise.
Her father smoothed her hair. “No, time to go to sleep again. We're just going to bed. Good-night, Jewel.” He stooped to kiss her, and her arms met around his neck.
“It was an April fool, wasn't it?” she murmured sleepily, and was unconscious again.
The mother hid her face for a moment on her husband's shoulder. “Help me to feel that we're doing right,” she whispered, with a catch in her breath.
“As if I could help you, Julia!” he returned humbly.
“Oh, yes, you can, dear.” She withdrew from his embrace, and going to the dresser, took down her hair. The smiling face of a doll looked up at her from the neighboring chair, where it was sitting bolt upright. Her costume was fresh from the modiste, and her feet, though hopelessly pigeon-toed, were encased in bronze boots of a freshness which caught the dim gaslight with a golden sheen.
Mrs. Evringham smiled through her moist eyes.
“Well, Jewel was sleepy. She forgot to undress Anna Belle,” she said.
Letting her hair fall about her like a veil, she caught up the doll and pressed it to her heart impulsively. “You are going to stay with her, Anna Belle! I envy you, I envy you!” she whispered. An irrepressible tear fell on the sumptuous trimming of the little hat. “Be good to her; comfort her, comfort her, little dolly.” Hastily wiping her eyes, she turned to her husband, still holding the doll. “We shall have to be very careful, Harry, in the morning. If we are harboring one wrong or fearful thought, we must not let Jewel know it.”
“Oh, I wish it were over! I wish the next month were over!” he replied restively.
CHAPTER V
BON VOYAGE
At the dock next morning the scene was one of the usual confusion. The sailing time was drawing near and Mr. Evringham had not appeared.
Harry, with his little girl's hand in his, stood at the foot of the gang plank, peering at every newcomer and growing more anxious every moment. Jewel occupied herself in throwing kisses to her mother, who stood at the rail far above, never taking her eyes from the little figure in the blue sailor suit.
The child noted her father's set lips and the concentrated expression of his eyes.
“If grandpa doesn't come what shall I do?” she asked without anxiety.
“You'll go to England,” was the prompt response.
“Without my trunk!” returned the child in protest.
Her father looked again at the watch he held in his hand. The order to go ashore was sending all visitors down the gang plank. “By George, I guess you're going, too,” he muttered between his teeth, when suddenly his father's tall form came striding through the crowd. Mr. Evringham was carrying a long pasteboard box, and seemed breathless.
“Horse fell down. Devil of a time! Roses for your wife.”
Harry grasped the box, touched his father's hand, kissed the child, and strode up the plank amid the frowns of officials.
Jewel's eager eyes followed him, then, as he disappeared, lifted again to her mother, who smiled and waved her hand to Mr. Evringham. The latter raised his hat and took the occasion to wipe his heated brow. He was irritated through and through. The morning had been a chapter of accidents. Even the roses, which he had ordered the night before, had proved to be the wrong sort.
The suspense of the last fifteen minutes had been a distressing wrong to put upon any man. He had now before him the prospect of caring for a strange child, of taking her out of town at an hour when he should have been coming into it. She would probably cry. Very well; if she did he determined on the instant to ride out to Bel-Air in the smoking car, although he detested its odors and uncleanness. The whole situation was enormous. What a fool he had been, and what an intelligent woman was Mrs. Forbes! She had seen from the first the inappropriateness, the impossibility, of the whole proposition. His attention was attracted to the fact that the small figure at his side was hopping up and down with excitement.
“There's father, there's father!” she cried, as Harry joined his wife at the rail and they lifted the wealth of roses from the box and waved them.
“We've wronged him, Harry!” exclaimed Julia, trying to see the little face below through her misty eyes. “How I love him for bringing me these sweet things! It gives me such a different feeling about him.”
“Oh, father would as soon forget his breakfast as roses for a woman he was seeing off,” returned Harry without enthusiasm, while he waved his hat energetically.
The steamer pulled out. The faces in the crowd mingled and changed places.
“I've lost them, I've lost them!” cried Julia. “Oh, where are they, Harry.”
“Over there near the corner. I can see father. It's all right, dear,” choking a little. “Jewel was skipping and laughing a minute ago. It will only be a few weeks, but confound it,” violently, “next time we'll take her!”
Julia buried her face in the roses, on which twinkled a sudden dew, and tried to gather promise from their sweet breath.
Jewel strained her eyes to follow the now indistinguishable forms on the lofty deck, and her grandfather looked down at the small figure in the sailor suit, the short thick pigtails of flaxen hair tied with large bows of ribbon, and the doll clasped in one arm. At last the child turned her head and looked up, and their eyes met for the first time.
“Jove, she does look like Harry!” muttered Mr. Evringham, and even as he spoke the plain little face was illumined with the smile he knew, that surpassingly sweet smile which promised so much and performed nothing.
The child studied him with open, innocent curiosity.
“I can't believe it's you,” she said at last, in a voice light and winning, a voice as sweet as the smile.
“I don't wonder. I don't quite know myself this morning,” he replied brusquely.
“We have a picture of you, but it's a long-ago one, and I thought by this time you would be old, and—and bent over, you know, the way grandpas are.”
Even in that place of drays and at eight o'clock A.M. these words fell not disagreeably upon irritated ears.
“I think myself Nature did not intend me to be a grandpa,” he replied.
“Oh, yes, you're just the right kind,” returned the child hastily and confidently. “Strong and—and handsome.”
Mr. Evringham looked at her in amazement. “The little rascal!” he thought. “Has she been coached?”
“I suppose we may get away from here now,” he said aloud. “There's nothing more to wait for.”
“Didn't the roses make mother happy?” asked the little girl, trotting along beside his long strides. “I think it was wonderful for you to bring them so early in the morning.”
Mr. Evringham summoned a cab.
“Oh, are we gong in a carriage?” cried Jewel, highly pleased. “But I mustn't forget, grandpa, there's something father told me I must give you the first thing. Will you take Anna Belle a minute, please?” and Mr. Evringham found himself holding the doll fiercely by one leg while small hands worked at the catch of a very new little leather side-bag.
At last Jewel produced a brass square.
“Oh, your trunk check.” Mr. Evringham exchanged the doll for it with alacrity. “Get in.” He held open the cab door.
Jewel obeyed, but not without some misgivings when her guardian so coolly pocketed the check.
“Yes, it's for my trunk,” she replied when her grandfather was beside her and they began rattling over the stones. “I have a checked silk dress,” she added softly, after a pause. It were well to let him know the value of her baggage.
“Have you indeed? How old are you, Julia? Your name is Julia, I believe?”
“Yes, sir, my name's Julia, but so is mother's, and they call me Jewel. I'm nearly nine, grandpa.”
“H'm. Time flies,” was the brief response.
Jewel looked out of the cab window in the noisy silence that followed. At last her voice was raised to sound through the clatter. “I suppose my trunk is somewhere else,” she said suggestively.
“Yes, your trunk will reach home all right, plaid silk and all.”
Jewel smiled, and lifting the doll she let her look out the window upon the uninviting prospect. “Anna Belle's clothes are in the trunk, too,” she added, turning and speaking confidentially.
“Whose?” asked Mr. Evringham, startled. “There's no one else coming, I suppose?”
“Why, this is Anna Belle,” returned the child, laughing and lifting the bisque beauty so that the full radiance of her smile beamed upon her companion. “That's your great-grandfather, dearie, that I've told you about,” she said patronizingly. “We've been so excited the last few days since we knew we were coming,” looking again at Mr. Evringham. “I've told Anna Belle all about beautiful Bel-Air Park, and the big house, and the big trees, and the ravine, and the brook. Isn't it nice,” joyfully, “that it doesn't rain to-day, and we shall see it in the sunshine?”
“Rain would have made it more disagreeable certainly,” returned Mr. Evringham, congratulating himself that he was escaping that further rain of tears which he had dreaded. “It is a good day for your father and mother to set out on their trip,” he added.
“Yes, and they're only to be gone six little weeks,” returned Jewel, smoothing her doll's boa; “and I'm to have this lovely visit, and I'm to write them very often, and they'll write to me, and we shall all be so happy!” Jewel trotted Anna Belle on her short-skirted knee and hummed a tune, which was lost in the rattle of wheels.
“You can read and write, eh?”
“Oh ye—es!” replied the child with amused scorn. “How would I get my lessons if I couldn't read? Of course—big words,” she added conscientiously.
“Precisely,” agreed Mr. Evringham dryly. “Big words, I dare say.”
A sudden thought occurring to his companion, she looked up again.
“You pretty nearly didn't come,” she said, “and just think, if you hadn't I was going to England. Father said so.”
At the sweet inflections of the child's voice Mr. Evringham's brows contracted with remembrance of his wrongs. “I should have come. Your father might have known that!”
“I suppose he wouldn't have liked to leave me sitting on the dock alone, but I should have known you'd come. The funny part is I shouldn't have known you.” Jewel laughed. “I should have kept looking for an old man with white hair and a cane like Grandpa Morris. He's a grandpa in Chicago that I know. He's just as kind as he can be, but he has the queerest back. He goes to our church, but says he came in at the eleventh hour. I think he used to have rheumatism. And while I was sitting there you could have walked right by me.”
“Humph!”
“But then you'd have known me,” went on Jewel, straightening Anna Belle's hat, “so it would have been all right. You'd have known there would be only one little girl waiting there, and you would have said, 'Oh, here you are, Jewel. I've come. I'm your grandpa.'” The child unconsciously mimicked the short, brusque speech.
Mr. Evringham regarded her rather darkly. “Eh? I hope you're not impudent?”
“What's that?” asked Jewel doubtfully.
Her companion's brow grew darker.
“Impudent I say.”
“And what is impudent?”
“Don't you know?” suspiciously.
“No, sir,” replied the child, some anxiety clouding her bright look. “Is it error?”
Mr. Evringham regarded her rather blankly. “It's something you mustn't be,” he replied at last.
Jewel's face cleared. “Oh no, I won't then,” she replied earnestly. “You tell me when I'm—it, because I want to make you happy.”
Mr. Evringham cleared his throat. He felt somewhat embarrassed and was glad they had reached the ferry.
“We're going on a boat, aren't we?” she asked when they had passed through the gate.
“Yes, and we can make this boat if we hurry.” Mr. Evringham suddenly felt a little hand slide into his. Jewel was skipping along beside him to keep up with his long strides, and he glanced down at the bobbing flaxen head with its large ribbon bows, while the impulse to withdraw his hand was thwarted by the closer clinging of the small fingers.
“Father told me about the ferry,” said Jewel with satisfaction, “and you'll show me the statue of Liberty won't you, grandpa? Isn't it a splendid boat? Oh, can we go out close to the water?”
Mr. Evringham sighed heavily. He did not wish to go out close to the water. He wished to sit down in comfort in the cabin and read the paper which he had just taken from a newsboy. It seemed to him a very long time since he had done anything he wished to; but a little hand was pulling eagerly at his, and mechanically he followed out to where the brisk spring wind ruffled the river and assaulted his hat. He jerked his hand from Jewel's to hold it in place.
“Isn't this beautiful!” cried the child joyfully, as the boat steamed on. “Can you do this every day, grandpa?”
“What? Oh yes, yes.”
Something in the tone caused the little girl to look up from her view of the wide water spaces to the grim face above.
“Is there something that makes you sorry, grandpa?” she asked softly.
His eyes were fixed on a ferry boat, black with its human freight, about to pass them on its way to the city.
“I was wishing I were on that boat. That's all.”
The little girl lifted her shoulders. “I don't believe there's room,” she said, looking smilingly for a response from her companion. “I don't believe even Anna Belle could squeeze on. Do you think so?”
Mr. Evringham, holding his hat with one hand, was endeavoring to fetter the lively corners of his newspaper in such shape that he could at least get a glimpse of headlines.
“Oh, I see a statue. Is that it, grandpa? Is that it?”
“What?” vaguely. “Oh yes. The statue of Liberty. Yes, that's it. As if there was any liberty for anybody!” muttered Mr. Evringham into his mustache.
“It isn't so very big,” objected Jewel.
“We're not so very near it.”
“Just think,” gayly, “father and mother are sailing away just the way we are.”
“H'm,” returned Mr. Evringham, trying to read the report of the stock market, and becoming more impatient each instant with the sportive breeze.
“Julia,” he said at last, “I am going into the cabin to read the paper. Will you go in, or do you wish to stay here?”
“May I stay here?”
“Yes,” doubtfully, “I suppose so, if you won't climb on the rail, or—or anything.”
Jewel laughed in gleeful appreciation of the joke. Her grandfather met her blue eyes unsmilingly and vanished.
“I wish grandpa didn't look so sorry,” she thought regretfully. “He is a very important man, grandpa is, and perhaps he has a lot of error to meet and doesn't know how to meet it.”
Watching the dancing waves and constantly calling Anna Belle's attention to some point of interest on the water front or a passing craft, she nevertheless pursued a train of thought concerning her important relative, with the result that when the gong sounded for landing, and Mr. Evringham's impassive countenance reappeared, she met him with concern.
“Doesn't it make you sorry to read the morning paper, grandpa?”
“Sometimes. Depends on the record of the Exchange.” There was somewhat less of the irritation of a newsless man in the morning in the speaker's tone.
“Mother calls the paper the Daily Saddener,” pursued Jewel, again slipping her hand into her grandfather's as a matter of course as they moved slowly off the boat. “I've been thinking that perhaps you're in a hurry to get to business, grandpa.”
The child did not quote his words about the ingoing ferry boat lest he should feel regret at having spoken them.
“Well, there's no use in my being in a hurry this morning,” he returned.
“I was going to ask, couldn't you show me how to go to Bel-Air, so you wouldn't have to take so much time?”
A gleam of hope came into Mr. Evringham's cold eyes and he looked down on his companion doubtfully.
“We have to go out on the train,” he said.
“Yes,” returned the child, “but you could put me on it, and every time it stops I would ask somebody if that was Bel-Air.”
The prospect this offered was very pleasing to the broker.
“You wouldn't be afraid, eh?”
“Be what?” asked Jewel, looking up at him with a certain reproachful surprise.
“You wouldn't, eh?”
“Why, grandpa!”
“Well, I believe it would do well enough, since you don't mind. Zeke is going to meet this train. I'll tell the conductor to see that you get off at Bel-Air, and when you do, ask for Mr. Evringham's coachman. You'll see Zeke, a light-haired man driving a brown horse in a brougham. He'll take you home to his mother, Mrs. Forbes. She is my housekeeper. Now, do you think you'll understand?”
“It sounds very easy,” returned Jewel.
Mr. Evringham's long legs and her short skipping ones lost no time in boarding the train, which they found made up. The relieved man saw the conductor, paid the child's fare, and settled her on the plush seat.
She sat there, contentedly swinging her feet.
“Now I can just catch a boat if I leave you immediately,” said Mr. Evringham consulting his watch. “You've only a little more than five minutes to wait before the train starts.”
“Then hurry, grandpa, I'm all right.”
“Very well. Your fare is paid, and the conductor understands. You might ask somebody, though. Bel-Air, you know. Good-by.”
Hastily he strode down the aisle and left the train. Having to pass the window beside which Jewel sat, he glanced up with a half uneasy memory of how far short of the floor her feet had swung.
She was watching for him. On her lips was the sweet gay smile and—yes, there was no mistake—Anna Belle's countenance was beaming through the glass, and she was wafting kisses to Mr. Evringham from a stiff and chubby hand. The stockbroker grew warm, cleared his throat, lifted his hat, and hurried his pace.
CHAPTER VI
JEWEL'S ARRIVAL
When her grandfather had disappeared, Jewel placed Anna Belle on the seat beside her, where she toed in, in a state of the utmost complacence.
“I have my work to do, Anna Belle,” she said, “and this will be a good time, so don't disturb me till the train starts.” She put her hand over her eyes, and sat motionless as the people met and jostled in the aisle.
Minutes passed, and then some one brushed the child's arm in taking the seat beside her. “Oh, please don't sit on Anna Belle!” she cried suddenly, and looked up into a pair of clear eyes that were regarding her with curiosity.
They belonged to a man with a brown mustache and dark, short, pointed beard, who carried a small square black case and had altogether a very clean, fresh, agreeable appearance.
“Do I look like a person who would sit on Anna Belle?” he asked gravely.
The doll was enthroned upon his knee as he set down his case, and the train started.
“If she annoys you I'll take her,” said Jewel, with a little air of motherliness not lost upon her companion.
“Thank you,” he replied, “but I'm used to children. She looks like a fine, healthy little girl,” keeping his eyes fixed on the doll's rosy cheeks.
“Yes indeed. She's very healthy.”
“Not had measles, or chicken pox, or mumps, or any of those things yet?” pursued the pleasant voice.
“Oh dear!” gasped Jewel. “Please let me take Anna Belle.” She caught her doll into her arms and met her companion's surprised gaze.
“I haven't any of them,” he returned, amused. “Don't be afraid.”
“I'm not afraid,” answered the child promptly. “There is nothing to be afraid of.”
“I was only going to say,” said the young man, “that if she was ailing I could prescribe for her. I have my case right here.”
Jewel's startled look fell to the black case. “What's that! Medicine?” she asked softly.
“It certainly is. So you see you have a doctor handy if anything ails the baby.”
The child gazed at him with grave scrutiny. “Do you believe in materia medica?” she asked.
The young doctor threw back his head and laughed heartily. “Well, yes,” he answered at last. “I am supposed to.”
To his surprise his neighbor returned to the attitude in which he had found her, with one hand over her eyes.
He ceased laughing and looked at her in some discomfiture. Her mouth was set seriously. There was no quiver of the rosy lips.
To his relief, in a minute she dropped her hand and began to hum and arrange her doll's hat.
The conductor approached, and as the doctor presented his ticket, he said, “This little girl's fare is paid, I believe.” The conductor nodded and passed on.
“I'm to get off at Bel-Air,” said Jewel. “I hope he doesn't forget.”
“If he does, I shan't,” said the doctor, “for I'm going to get off there myself.”
The child's eyes brightened. “Isn't that nice!” she returned. Then she lifted Anna Belle and whispered something into her ear.
“No secrets,” said the doctor.
“I was just reminding Anna belle how we are always taken care of,” returned Jewel.
The young man regarded her with increasing interest and curiosity.
“Don't you wonder how I knew that your fare was paid?” he asked.
“How did you?”
“I met Mr. Evringham hurrying through the station. He said his granddaughter was on this train and asked me to look out for a little girl with a doll.”
“Oh,” returned the child, pleased, “then you know grandpa.”
“I've known him ever since I was no bigger than you are. But even then,” added the doctor mentally, “I hadn't supposed him capable of sending this baby out from the city alone.”
Jewel watched the kind eyes attentively. “So you see,” he went on, “all I had to do was to look for Anna Belle.”
“And you nearly sat on her,” declared the child.
“I deny it,” returned the doctor gravely. “I deny it. You weren't looking. For one second I was afraid you were crying.”
“Crying! What would I be crying for, coming to have a lovely visit at grandpa's!”
“I suppose you are in a hurry to see your aunt and cousin?” remarked the doctor.
“Yes, but I don't know them. You see,” explanatorily, “they aren't my real relations.”
“Indeed?”
“No, aunt Madge is my uncle's wife and cousin Eloise is her little girl, but not uncle Lawrence's.”
The doctor thought a minute.
“Really? She is a very charming little girl, is your cousin Eloise. Aren't you going to tell me your name?”
“My name is Jewel.”
“And I am Dr. Ballard, so now we are properly introduced.” He smiled upon her with merry eyes, and she responded politely:—
“I'm very glad you found us.”
Arrived at Bel-Air, the doctor picked up his case and Jewel followed him from the train. He looked about expectantly for Mrs. Evringham or her daughter. They were not there.
The little girl's quick eyes discerned a light-haired driver and a brown horse coming around a curve of the pretty landscape gardening which beautified the station. At the same moment Dr. Ballard recognized the equipage with relief.
“They've sent for you. That is all right,” he said, and 'Zekiel, with one side glance at the little stranger, drew up by the platform.
“Good-morning, Zeke. Here is your passenger.” He lifted Jewel to her place beside the driver, whose smooth, stolid face did not change expression.
“Do I wait for Mr. Evringham?” he asked, without turning his head in its stiff collar.
“No, Mr. Evringham remained in town.”
“Is there a trunk?” pursued Zeke immovably.
“How about your trunk, little one?” asked the doctor.
Jewel produced a paper check. “A man gave grandpa this for it at the boat place.”
“I'll see to having it sent up then.” The doctor looked along the platform. “It didn't come this trip.” He took the child's hand in his. “I shall see you again before long. Good-by.”
Jewel looked after his retreating figure with some regret. Her present companion seemed carved out of wood. His plum-colored livery fitted without a wrinkle. His smooth, solemn face appeared incapable of speech.
The swift horse trotted through the village street at a great pace, and the visitor enjoyed the novel experience so intensely that she could not forbear stealing a look up at the driver's face.
He caught it. “Ain't afraid, are you?” he asked.
She looked doubtful. “Is it error for the horse to go so fast?” she returned.
“Error?” 'Zekiel regarded the child curiously. “Well, I guess it's considered one o' the biggest virtues a horse can have.”
“Then why did you ask me if I was afraid? You're the third person who's asked me that this morning,” returned Jewel, with wondering inflections in her soft voice. “Are New York people afraid of things?”
“Well, not so's you'd notice it as a rule,” returned Zeke. “I'm glad if she ain't one o' the scared kind,” he pursued, as if to himself.
“Oh, this is splendid,” declared Jewel, relieved by her companion's smile; “I don't know as Anna Belle ever had such a good ride. See the trees, dearie! How the leaves are coming out! They aren't nearly so far out in Chicago; but oh,” as the horse turned, “there's a big storm coming! What a black cloud! We're just in time.”
“I don't see any cloud,” said Zeke, staring about.
“Why, right there in front of us,” excitedly, pointing at the long opaque mass against the sky.
“That? Why, that's hills.” Zeke laughed. “The mountain they call it here. Pretty sickly mountain we'd think it was up Berkshire way.”
“Oh, it's a mountain, Anna Belle,” joyfully, “we're really seeing a mountain!”
“No you ain't,” remarked Zeke emphatically. “Not by a large majority. Guess Chicago's some flat, ain't it?”
“We don't have hills, no. So now we're going to see grandpa's park, and the ravine, and the brook, and—and everything!”
Zeke stole a furtive look at the owner of the joyous voice. The voluminous ribbon bows behind her ears were mostly in evidence, as she bent her face over her doll in congratulation.
“Left Mr. Evringham in town, did you?” he asked.
“Yes, he was busy, and in a hurry to get to his office. Grandpa's such an important man.”
“Is he?” asked Zeke.
“Why ye—es! Didn't you know it?”
“I surmised something of the kind. So Dr. Ballard looked after you.”
“Yes,—and I do hope my trunk will come.”
Jewel looked wistfully at the driver. In spite of his stiff and elegant appearance he had been surprisingly affable. “I have a checked silk dress,” she added modestly.
“You don't say so!” ejaculated Zeke, wholly won by the smile bent upon him. “Well, now, if that trunk don't show up by noon, I'll have to do something about it.”
“Oh, thank you!” exclaimed the child.
They now sped through the gates of the park and by the porter's lodge, and began the ascent of a winding road. Handsome residences were set among the fine trees, and at sight of each one Jewel looked expectant and eager.
“I expect mother'll be kind of looking out for us,” continued Zeke. “Poor kid!” he added mentally.
“Grandpa said something about your mother.”
“His housekeeper, Mrs. Forbes.”
“Oh yes, of course I know about Mrs. Forbes,” returned Jewel hastily and politely. “He told me your name too,” she added suggestively.
“Yes, I'm Zeke. And you just remember,” emphatically, “that I come when I'm called. Will you?”
“Yes,” replied the child, laughing a little. “Do you know my name?”
“It's Julia, isn't it?”
“Yes, but if you called me by it perhaps I shouldn't come, for I'm used to the name of Jewel.”
“Pretty name, all right,” returned Zeke sententiously. “Now you can see your grandpa's house. The one with the long porch.”
Jewel jumped up and down a little in the seat and held Anna Belle to get a good view. The brown horse trotted with a will, and in a minute more they had passed up the driveway and paused beneath the porte-cochere.
Mrs. Forbes threw open the door and stood unsmiling.
“Where is Mr. Evringham?” she asked, addressing her son.
“Stayed in town.”
The housekeeper stepped forward and helped down the little girl, who had risen and was looking brightly expectant.
“How do you do, Julia,” she said. “Did you come out alone on the cars?”
“No. Dr. Ballard came with me.”
“Oh, that was the way of it. Zeke, hitch up the brougham. The ladies are going out to lunch.”
“Why didn't they let me know?” grumbled Zeke. “Could have hitched up the brougham just as well in the first place.”
“Don't ask me,” returned his mother acidly. “Where is your bag, Julia? I hope you haven't left it in the train?”
“No, I didn't have any. I used mother's. She knew I'd have my trunk to-night.”
“Then come in and I'll show you where your room is.”
The child looked eagerly and admiringly from side to side as she followed Mrs. Forbes up two flights of broad shallow stairs and into an apartment which to her eyes seemed luxurious.
“Was this ever my father's room?” she asked.
“Why yes, I believe it was,” returned Mrs. Forbes, to whom that circumstance had not before occurred.
“How kind of grandpa to let me have it!” said Jewel, highly pleased.
“He wasn't in it much, your father wasn't. Away at school or some other place mostly. Where's your trunk?”
“It's coming. Zeke said he'd attend to it.” Jewel looked up happily. “I have a”—she was intending to communicate to Mrs. Forbes the exciting detail of her wardrobe when the housekeeper interrupted her.
“My son's name is Ezekiel,” she said impressively.
“Oh,” returned Jewel abashed. “He told me Zeke.” She still stood in the middle of the large white room, Anna Belle in her arms, and with the surprised look in her serious face drew upon herself an unflattering mental comment.
“The image of Harry,” thought Mrs. Forbes.
“Can I see aunt Madge and cousin Eloise?” asked the child, beginning to feel some awe of the large woman regarding her.
“They're getting ready to go out to lunch. They can't be disturbed now. You can sit here, or walk around until lunch time. You'll know when that is ready, because the gong will sound in the hall. Now when you go downstairs be careful not to touch the tall clock on the landing. That is a very valuable chiming clock, and you mustn't open its doors, for fear you would break something. Then if you go into the parlor you must never play on the piano unless you ask somebody, for fear Mr. Evringham might be trying to take a nap just at that time; then you mustn't go into the barn without permission, for it's dangerous where the horses are, and you might get kicked. If you're tired from your journey you can lie down now till lunch time; but whenever you do lie down, be sure to turn off this white spread, for fear you might soil it. Now I'm very busy, and I shan't see you again till lunch.”
Mrs. Forbes departed and Jewel stood for half a minute motionless, feeling rather dazed by a novel sensation of resentment.
“As if we were babies!” she whispered to her doll. “She's the most afraid woman I ever saw, and she looks so sorry! She isn't our relation, so no matter, dearie, what she says. This is father's room, and we can think how he used to run around here when he was a little boy.”
Tiptoeing to the door, Jewel closed it and began to inspect her new apartment.
The sweet smelling soap on the marble stand, the silver mountings of the faucets, the large fine towels, the empty closet and drawers, all looked inviting. Throughout her examination the little girl kept pausing to listen.
Surely aunt Madge and cousin Eloise would look in before they went out to their engagement. Mother had so often said how nice it was that they were there. Surely they didn't know that she had arrived. That was it, of course; and Mrs. Forbes was so sorry and anxious she would probably forget to tell them.
Some altercation was just then going on in the apartments of those ladies.
“We ought to speak to her before we go,” said Mrs. Evringham persuasively. “Father would probably resent it if we didn't.”
“I have told you already,” returned Eloise, “that I do not intend doing one thing henceforward that grandfather could interpret as being done to please him.”
“But that is carrying it ridiculously far, not to greet your cousin, who has come from a journey and is your guest.”
“My guest!” returned the girl derisively. “We are hers more likely. I will not go to her. The sooner grandfather sends us away the better.”
Mrs. Evringham looked worried.
“This is mania, Eloise!” she returned coaxingly. “Very well, I shall go and speak to the child. She shan't be able to tell her grandfather of any rudeness.”
In a few minutes Jewel, sitting by her window, Anna Belle in her lap, heard the frou-frou of skirts in the hall, and with a knock at the door, a lady entered. She was arrayed in a thin black gown and wore a large black hat, that was very becoming.
Jewel's admiration went out to her on the instant and she started up.
The lady swept toward her, and bending, a delicate perfume wafted about Jewel as she felt a light touch of lips on her cheek.
“So this is Julia Evringham,” said the newcomer.
“And you are aunt Madge,” returned the child gladly, clinging to the gloved hand, which endured for a moment, and then firmly disengaged itself.
“Your father and mother got off all right I hope?” went on the airy voice. “I'm always afraid of winds at this season myself, but they may not have them. Your cousin Eloise and I are hurrying away to a luncheon, but we shall see you at dinner. You're very comfortable here? That's right. Good-bye.”
She swept away, and the light again faded from Jewel's face as she went slowly back to her seat.
“Aunt Madge is afraid, too,” she said to the doll. “We know there won't be winds, don't we, dearie? God will take care of father and mother.”
An uncomfortable lump rose towards the child's throat.
Mrs. Evringham followed Eloise into the brougham, smiling.
“It couldn't be better,” she announced with much satisfaction as they drove away.
“What?”
“She is plain—oh, plain as possible. Small eyes, large mouth, insignificant nose. She will never get on with father. He never could endure ugliness in a girl or woman. I have heard him say it was unpardonable. If it hadn't been that we were what we are, Eloise, I should never have dreamed of doing as I have done. Now if only some good fairy would open your eyes to see which side your bread is buttered on! You could do marvels with such a foil for contrast.”
CHAPTER VII
THE FIRST EVENING
In the excitement of the early morning start, Jewel had eaten little breakfast, but the soft resonance of the Japanese gong, when it sounded in the hall below, found her unready for food.
However, she judged the mellow sound to be her summons and obediently left her seat by the window. As she went down she looked askance at the tall dark clock which, even as she passed, chimed the half hour melodiously. Certainly her important grandfather lived in a wonderful house. She paused to hear the last notes of the bells, but catching sight of the figure of Mrs. Forbes waiting below, she started and moved on.
“That's right. Come along,” said the housekeeper. “Mr. Evringham likes everybody to be punctual in his house.”
“Oh, has grandpa come home?” inquired Jewel eagerly.
“No, he won't be home for hours yet. Come this way.”
The little girl followed to the dining-room, which she thought quite as wonderful as the clock; but her admiration of all she saw was no longer unmixed. Mrs. Forbes seemed to cast a shadow.
One place was laid at the table, one handsome chair was drawn up to it. Jewel longed to call Anna Belle's attention to the glittering array on the sideboard and behind the crystal doors of cabinets, but something withheld her.
She looked questioningly at the housekeeper. “I think I'll draw up another chair for Anna Belle,” she said.
Mrs. Forbes had already decided, from small signs of assurance, that this Western child was bold. “Give her an inch, and she'll take an ell,” she had said to herself. “I know her sort.”
“Do you mean the doll?” she returned. “Put it down anywhere. You must never bring it to the table. Mr. Evringham wouldn't like it.”
In silence Jewel seated the doll in the nearest chair against the wall, and as she slid up into her own, a neat maid appeared with a puffy and appetizing omelet.
Mrs. Forbes filled the child's glass with water, and the maid set down the omelet and departed.
Jewel's heart sank while Mrs. Forbes presented the souffle.
“I'm sorry,” she began hesitatingly, “I never—I can't”—then she swallowed hard in her desperate plight. “Isn't it pretty?” she said rather breathlessly.
“It's very good,” returned the housekeeper briefly, misconstruing the child's hesitation. “Shall I help you?”
“I—could I have a drink of milk? I don't—I don't eat eggs.”
“Don't eat eggs?” repeated the housekeeper severely. “I'm sorry you have been allowed to be notional. Children should eat what is set before them. Taste of it.”
“I—I couldn't, please.” Jewel's face was averted.
Mrs. Forbes touched an electric bell. The maid reappeared. “Remove the omelet, Sarah, and bring Miss Julia a glass of milk.”
That was the order, but oh, the tone of it! Jewel's heart beat a little faster as she took some bread and butter and drank the milk, Mrs. Forbes standing by, a portentous, solemn, black-robed figure, awful in its silence.
When the child set down the glass empty, she started to push back her chair.
“Wait,” said Mrs. Forbes laconically. She again touched an electric bell. The maid reappeared, removed the bread and milk and served a dainty dessert of preserved peaches, cream, and cake.
“I've really had enough,” said Jewel politely.
“Don't you eat peaches and cream, or cake either?” asked Mrs. Forbes accusingly.
“Yes'm,” returned the child, and ate them without further ado.
“Your trunk has come,” said Mrs. Forbes when at last Jewel slipped down from the table. “I will come up and help you unpack it.”
“If only she wouldn't!” thought the child as she lifted Anna Belle, but the housekeeper preceded her up the stairs, breathing rather heavily.
Sure enough, when they reached the white room, there stood the new trunk that had been packed with so much anticipation. The bright black letters on the side, J. E., had power even now to send a little glow of pride through its possessor. She stole a glance at Mrs. Forbes, but, strange as it may appear, the housekeeper gave no evidence of admiration.
“I don't need to trouble you, Mrs. Forbes. I can unpack it,” said the child.
“I'm up here now, and anyway, I'd better show you where to keep your things. Where's your key?”
Jewel laid down the doll and opened her leather side-bag, producing the key tied with a little ribbon.
Mrs. Forbes unlocked the trunk, lifted out the tray, and began in a business-like manner to dispose of the small belongings that had last been handled so tenderly.
“Mrs. Harry certainly knows how to pack,” ran her thoughts, “and she'd naturally know how to sew. These things are as neat as wax, and the child's well fixed.” In the tray, among other things, were a number of doll's clothes, some writing materials, a box of different colored hair ribbons, and a few books.
“Glad to see a Bible,” thought Mrs. Forbes. “Shows Mrs. Harry is respectable.” She glanced at the three other books. One was a copy of “Heidi,” one was “Alice in Wonderland,” and the third a small black book with the design of a cross and crown in gilt on the cover. Mrs. Forbes looked from this up at the child.
“What's this? Some kind of a daily book, Julia?”
“I—yes, I read it every day.”
“Well, I hope you'll be faithful now your mother's gone. She's taken the trouble to put it in.”
Jewel's eyes had caught a glimpse of green color. Eagerly she reached down into the trunk and drew out carefully a dress in tiny checks of green and white.
“That's my silk dress,” she said, regarding it fondly.
“It is very neatly made,” returned Mrs. Forbes repressively. “It doesn't matter at all what little girls have on if they are clean and neat. It only matters that they shall be obedient and good.”
Jewel regarded her with the patience which children exercise toward the inevitable. “I'd like to fix Anna Belle's drawer myself,” she said modestly.
“Very well, you may. Now here are your shoes and slippers, but I don't find any rubbers.”
“No, I never wear rubbers.”
“What? Doesn't it rain in Chicago?”
“Oh yes indeed, it rains.”
“Then you must get your feet wet. I think you better have had rubbers than a silk dress! What was your mother thinking of?”
Jewel sighed vaguely. She wondered how soon Mrs. Forbes would go away.
This happy event occurred before long, and the little girl amused herself for a while with rearranging somewhat the closet and drawers. Then putting on her hat and taking her doll with her, she stole quietly down the thickly carpeted stairs, and opening the heavy hall door, went out upon the piazza. It was sheltered from the wind, and wicker chairs were scattered about. Jewel looked off curiously amid the trees to where she knew, by her father's description, she should find, after a few minutes' ramble, the ravine and brook. Pretty soon she would wander out there. Just now the sun was warm here, and the roomy chairs held out inviting arms. The child climbed into one of them. Father would come back here some happy day and find her. The thought brought a smile, and with the smile on her lips, her head fell back against a yielding cushion, and in a minute she had fallen asleep. Anna Belle toppled over backward. Her plumed hat was pushed rakishly askew, but little she cared. Her eyelids had fallen, too.
Mrs. Evringham and Eloise, returning late from their luncheon, came upon the little sleeping figure as they walked around the long piazza.
“There she is!” exclaimed Mrs. Evringham softly, putting up her lorgnette. “Behold your rival!”
Eloise regarded the sleeper without curiosity.
“At least she has not come uninvited,” was her only comment.
“But she has come unwelcome, my dear,” returned Mrs. Evringham with relish. “Just wait until our gracious host realizes what he has let himself in for. Oh, there's a good time coming, you may be sure. Hush, don't waken her! It would be a blessed dispensation if she were always to sleep while her grandfather is absent,” and Mrs. Evringham led the way into the house, her laces fluttering.
On the first landing the ladies met Mrs. Forbes, troubled of countenance.
“I am looking for the child Julia,” she said. “I can't think where she can have disappeared.”
“You've not far to seek,” returned Mrs. Evringham airily. “She is asleep on the piazza.”
“Thank you.” Mrs. Forbes hastened downstairs and out of doors. Glancing about she quickly perceived the short legs stretched in a reclining chair, and advanced toward the relaxed little figure.
“Julia, wake up!” she said, touching her.
The child stirred and opened her eyes. Her movement made the doll slip to the floor, and this caused her to come to herself suddenly.
“Why, I fell asleep, didn't I?” she said drowsily, reaching for the doll.
“Yes, and in Mr. Evringham's own chair!” responded Mrs. Forbes.
“They're all his, aren't they?” asked the child.
“Yes, but this is his special favorite, where he always lies to rest. Remember!” returned Mrs. Forbes. “Come right upstairs now and change your dress for dinner. He will be coming home in a few minutes.”
“Oh, good!” exclaimed Jewel with satisfaction, and passed into the house. Mrs. Forbes was following ponderously. “Oh, you don't need to come with me,” protested the child earnestly. “I can do it all myself.”
“Are you sure?” doubtfully.
“Oh, ye—es!” replied the little girl, running lightly up the stairs.
“I ought to put her on the second floor,” mused Mrs. Forbes, “if I've got to be running up and down; but I suppose she has done for herself a great deal. I suppose the mother hadn't time to be bothered. I'd like to make Mamzell change rooms with her.”
Jewel hummed a tune as she took off her sailor suit, performed her ablutions, and then went to her closet to choose a frock for dinner. She decided on a blue dress with white dots chiefly because she would not have to change her hair ribbons. She had never herself tied those voluminous bows.
At last she was ready and danced toward the door, but some novel timidity made her hesitate and go back sedately to the chair by the window. Mrs. Forbes's impressive figure seemed to loom up with an order to her to wait the summons of the gong.
She sat there for what seemed a very long time, and at last a knock sounded at the door. Perhaps grandpa had come up. Jewel flew to open to him—and saw the white capped maid who had appeared at luncheon.
“They are all at table, and Mr. Evringham wishes you to come down,” she said.
“But I was waiting for the gong.”
“We only have that at noon.”
Jewel's feet flew down the stairs. Her grandfather had sent for her. She was eager to reach him, yet when she entered the dining-room, her little face all alight, it was not so easy to run to him as she had fancied.
He sat stiffly at the foot of the table. Opposite him was aunt Madge, and at her left sat the prettiest young lady the child had ever seen.
Mrs. Forbes stood near Mr. Evringham, looking very serious.
Jewel took in all this at a glance, and contenting herself with greeting her grandfather's lifted eyes with a smile, she ran to Mrs. Evringham and turned her back.
“There's just one button in the middle, aunt Madge, that I can't reach,” she explained softly.
Every eye at the table was regarding the child curiously, but she took no note of any one but her grandfather, and her dress buttoned, she ran to her chair and slid up on its smooth morocco. Eloise observed the little girl's loving expression.
“I am sorry you are late, Julia,” said Mr. Evringham.
“Yes, so am I, grandpa,” was the prompt response. “I wanted to be down here as soon as you came home, but I thought I ought to wait for the gong, and then it didn't ring.”
Her eyes roved to where, directly opposite, the beautiful young lady was regarding her soberly.
Mrs. Evringham spoke. “That is your cousin Eloise, Julia.”
Eloise inclined her graceful head, but made no further recognition of the child's admiring look.
“They haven't met before?” said Mr. Evringham, looking from one to the other.
“No,” returned Mrs. Evringham with her most gracious manner. “It just happened that Eloise and I were engaged at luncheon to-day, and when we returned the little girl was taking a nap.”
By this time Mrs. Forbes had brought Jewel's soup and she was eating. She looked up brightly at Mr. Evringham.
“Yes, grandpa, I went to sleep in your big chair on the piazza. I didn't know it was your special chair until Mrs. Forbes waked me up.”
Her grandfather regarded her from under his heavy brows. He was resenting the fact that Eloise had made no effort to welcome the child. “Indeed?” he returned. “What did she wake you up for?”
“Because it was time to get ready for dinner,” returned Jewel. “It reminded me of the story of Golden Hair, when she had gone to sleep on the bear's bed, the way Mrs. Forbes said, 'This is your grandfather's chair!'”
She looked around the table, expectant of sympathy. Only Mrs. Evringham seemed to wish to laugh, and she was making heroic efforts not to do so. Lovely Eloise kept her serious eyes downcast.
“Ha!” ejaculated Mr. Evringham, after a lightning glance of suspicion at his daughter-in-law. “I think I remember something about that. But Golden Hair tried three beds, I believe.”
“Yes, she did, but you see there wasn't any little bear's chair on the piazza.”
“Very true. Very true.”
“Golden Hair was a great beauty, I believe,” suggested Mrs. Evringham, looking at the child oddly. “She had yellow hair like yours.”
Jewel put up a quick hand to the short tight braid which ended behind her ear. “Oh no, long, lovely, floating hair. Don't you remember?”
“It's a good while since I read it,” returned Mrs. Evringham, laughing low and glancing at Eloise. Her father-in-law sent her a look of displeasure and turned back to Jewel.
“Dr. Ballard found you on the train, I suppose?”
“Yes, grandpa. We had a nice time. He is a very kind man.” The child glanced across at her cousin again. She wished cousin Eloise would lift her eyes and not look so sorry. “I wonder,” she added aloud, “why Dr. Ballard called cousin Eloise a little girl.”
No one spoke, so Mrs. Evringham broke the momentary silence. “Did he?” she asked.
“Yes, he said that my cousin Eloise was a very charming little girl.”
Jewel wondered why Eloise flushed and looked still sorrier, and why aunt Madge raised her napkin and turned her laugh into a cough. Perhaps it teased young ladies to be called little girls. Jewel regretted having mentioned it.
“I guess he was just April-fooling me,” she suggested comfortingly, and the insistence of her soft gaze was such that Eloise looked up and met a smile so irresistible, that in spite of herself, her expression relaxed.
The softened look was a relief to the child. “I've heard about you, of course, cousin Eloise,” she said, “and I couldn't forget, because your name is so nice and—and slippery. Eloise Evringham. Eloise Evringham. It sounds just like—like—oh, like sliding down the banisters. Don't you think so?”
Eloise smiled a little. “I hadn't thought of it,” she returned, then relapsed into quiet.
Mrs. Forbes's countenance was stony. “Children should be seen and not heard,” was her doctrine, and this dressmaker's child had an assurance beyond belief. She seemed to feel no awe whatever in her grandfather's presence.
The housekeeper caught Jewel's eye and gave her such a quenching look that thenceforward the little girl succumbed to the silence which the others seemed to prefer.
After dinner she would have a good visit with grandpa and talk about when father was a little boy. Her hopes were dashed, for just as they were rising from the table, a man was announced, with whom Mr. Evringham closeted himself in the library.
In the drawing-room aunt Madge and cousin Eloise both set themselves at letter-writing, and entirely ignored Jewel. The child looked listlessly at a book with pictures, which she found on the table, until half-past eight, when Mrs. Forbes came to say it was time for her to go to bed.
She rose and stood a moment, turning hesitatingly from her aunt to her cousin.
“Oh, is it bedtime?” asked aunt Madge, looking up from her letter. “Good-night, Julia. I hope you'll sleep well.” Then she returned to her writing.
Eloise bit her lip as she regarded the little girl with a moment's hesitation, but no, she had decided on her plan of action. Mrs. Forbes was observing her. Eloise knew the housekeeper's attitude toward them was defensive, if not offensive. “Good-night,” she said briefly, and looked down again.
“Good-night,” returned Jewel quietly, and went out.
In the hall she hesitated. “I want to say good-night to grandpa,” she said.
“Well, you can't,” returned Mrs. Forbes decidedly. “He is talking business and mustn't be disturbed.”
She followed the child up the staircase.
“I could go to bed alone, if I only knew where the matches are.”
“You said you could dress alone, but you had to ask Mrs. Evringham to button your frock. Remember after this that I am the one to ask. She and Miss Eloise don't want to be bothered.”
“Is it a bother to do a kindness?” asked Jewel in a subdued tone.
“To some folks it is,” was the response. They had reached the door of the child's room; “but some folks can see their duty and do it,” she added virtuously.
Jewel realized regretfully that her present companion belonged to the latter class.
“Now here, right inside the door,” proceeded Mrs. Forbes, “is the switch. There's electricity all over this house, and you don't need any matches. See?” Mrs. Forbes turned the switch and the white room was flooded with light.
A few hours ago this magic would have evoked much enthusiasm. Even now Jewel was pleased to turn the light on and off several times, as Mrs. Forbes told her to do.
“Now I'll see if you can undress yourself,” said the housekeeper. Jewel's deft fingers flew over the buttons in her eagerness to prove her independence. When at last she stood in her little white nightgown, so neat and fine in its small decorations, Mrs. Forbes said, “Do you want me to hear you say your prayers?”
“No, I thank you.” With her hasty response Jewel promptly jumped into the bed, from which the white spread had been removed.
“I hope you always say them,” said Mrs. Forbes, regarding her undecidedly.
“Yes'm, I always do.”
The child cuddled down under the covers with her face to the wall, lest Mrs. Forbes should see a further duty and do it.
“You ought to say them on your knees,” continued the housekeeper.
“I'd just as lief,” replied Jewel, “but I don't believe God cares.”
“Well,” returned Mrs. Forbes solemnly, “it is a matter for your own conscience, Julia, if your mother didn't train you to it. Good-night.”
“Good-night,” came faintly from beneath the bedclothes.
Mrs. Forbes turned off the light and went out, closing the door behind her.
“If she'd always speak when she's spoken to, and be quiet and modest as she is with me, she'd be a very well-behaved child,” she soliloquized. “I could train her. I shouldn't wonder at all if her mother should see a great difference in her when she comes back.”
The housekeeper went heavily downstairs. Jewel, pushing off the bedclothes, listened attentively to the retiring steps, and when they could no longer be heard, she jumped out of bed nimbly, and feeling for the electric switch, turned on the light. Her breath was coming rather unevenly, and she ran over the soft carpet to where her doll lay. Catching her up, she pressed her to her breast, then sitting down in the big chair, she began to undress her, crossing one little bare foot over the other knee to make a lap.
“Darling Anna Belle, did you think I'd forgotten you?” she asked breathlessly. “Did you think you weren't going to have any one to kiss you good-night? It's hard not to have any one you love kiss you good-night.” Jewel dashed her hand across her eyes quickly, then went swiftly on with her work. “You might have known that I was only waiting until that—that giantess went away. She wouldn't let me bring you down to dinner, dearie, but you didn't miss anything. Poor grandpa, I don't wonder any longer that he doesn't look happy. He has the sorriest people all around him that you ever saw. He lives in a big, beautiful castle, but it's Castle Discord. I named it that at dinner. Nobody loves one another. Of course grandpa loves me, because I'm his own little grandchild, but he's too sorry to show it. The beautiful enchanted maiden, and the Error fairy, and the giantess, are all making discord around him. A little flat is better than a big castle, isn't it? We know a flat—let's call it Harmony Flat, Anna Belle. Perhaps if we're very, very, good, we'll get back there some time.” Jewel suddenly pressed the doll's nightdress against her wet eyes. “Don't, don't, dearie! I know it does seem a year since—since the boat this morning. If all the days were as long as this, we'd be very, very old when father and mother come home.” The soft voice broke in a sob. “I don't know what I should do if you weren't a Christian Scientist, Anna Belle. We'll help each other all we can. Now come—come into bed and say your prayers.”
“Say your—your prayer first, dearie,” she whispered, sobbing:—
“'Father, Mother, God,
Loving me,—
Guard me when I sleep;
Guide my little feet
Up to Thee.'
“Now you'll feel—better, dearie. In a minute you won't be so—homesick for—for—father and mother. Hush, while I say mine.”
Jewel repeated the Lord's Prayer. When she had finished, her breath still caught convulsively, so she continued:—
“Dear Father, Mother, God, loving me, help me to know that I am close to Thee. Help me to remember that things that are unhappy aren't real things. Help me to know that everything is good and harmonious, and that the people in this castle are Thy children, even if they do seem to have eyes like fishes. Help me to love one another, even the giantess, and please show grandpa how to meet error. Please let Dr. Ballard come to see me soon, because he has kind eyes, and I'm sure he doesn't know it's wrong to believe in materia medica. Please take more care of father and mother than anything, and say 'Peace be still' if the wind blows the sea. I know, dear Father in Heaven, that Thou dost not forget anything, but I say it to make me feel better. I am Thy little Jewel, and Anna Belle loves Thee, too. Take us into the everlasting arms of Love while we go to sleep. Amen.”
Jewel brushed away the tears as she ceased, and with her usual quickness of motion, jumped out of bed to get a handkerchief. Turning on the electric light, she went to the chair over which hung the dotted dress. She remembered having slipped a clean handkerchief into its pocket before going to dinner.
In reaching for it her fingers encountered a scrap of paper in the depths of the pocket. She drew it forth. It was folded. She opened it and found it written over in a clear round hand.
“Is my little darling loving every one around her? People do not always seem lovely at first, but remember that every one is lovable because he is a thought of God. Those who seem unlovely are always unhappy, too, in their hearts. We must help them, and the best way to help is to love. Mother is thinking about her little Jewel, and no seas can divide us.”
A slow smile gladdened the child's tear-stained face. She read the message again, then turned out the light for the last time and cuddled down in bed, her warm cheek pressing the scrap of paper in her hand, her breath still catching.
“Mother has spoken to us, Anna Belle,” she whispered, clasping the doll close. “Wasn't it just like God to let her!” Then she fell asleep smiling.
CHAPTER VIII
A HAPPY BREAKFAST
Mrs. Forbes was on the porch next morning when Mr. Evringham returned from his canter.
“Fine morning, Mrs. Forbes,” he said, as he gave Essex Maid into Zeke's hands.
“Very fine. A regular weather breeder. It'll most probably rain to-morrow, and what I wanted to speak to you about, Mr. Evringham, is, that the child hasn't any rubbers.”
“Indeed? What else does she need?”
“Well, nothing that I can see. Her things are all good, and she's got enough of them. The trouble is she says she has never worn rubbers and doesn't want to, and if she gets sick I shall have to take care of her; so I hope, sir, you'll say that she must have them.”
“Not wear them? Of course she must wear them,” returned Mr. Evringham brusquely. “Get them to-day, if convenient, Mrs. Forbes.”
The housekeeper looked relieved.
“I hope she's not making you any trouble, eh?” added Mr. Evringham.
“Not any more than she can help, I suppose,” was the grudging reply. “She's a smart child, and being an only one, she's some notional. She won't eat this and that, and doesn't want to wear rubbers, but she's handy and neat, and is used to doing for herself; her mother hasn't had time to fuss with her, of course, and that's lucky for me. She seems very well behaved, considering.”
Jewel had made heroic efforts while Mrs. Forbes assisted at her morning toilet, and this was her reward.
“Well, we mustn't have you imposed upon,” returned Mr. Evringham, feeling guilty of the situation. “The child must obey you implicitly, implicitly.”
So saying he passed into the house, and after making a change in his toilet, entered the dining-room. There he was seated, deep in his newspaper and waiting for his coffee, when the door opened, light feet ran to him, and an arm was thrown around his neck. He looked up to meet a happy smile, and before he could realize who had captured him, Jewel pressed a fervent kiss upon his cheek.
“Oh, grandpa, how nice and cold your cheek feels! Have you been out doors already?”
Mr. Evringham could feel the said cheek grow hot in surprise at this onslaught. He held himself stiffly and uncomfortably in the encircling arm.
“Yes, I've been out on horseback,” he returned shortly. “I go every morning.”
Jewel's eyes sparkled. “Oh, I'm so glad. Then I can watch you. I love to see anybody ride. When I see a beautiful horse something inside me gets warm. Father says I like just the same things he does. I must let you read your paper, grandpa, but may I say one thing more?”
“Yes.”
“I didn't come last evening to kiss you good-night because you had somebody with you in the library, and, the giant—and Mrs. Forbes wouldn't let me; but I wanted to. You know I wanted to, don't you? I felt all sorry inside because I couldn't. You know you're the only real relation I have in the castle”—Here Mrs. Forbes's entrance with the coffee interrupted the confidence, and Jewel, with a last surreptitious squeeze of Mr. Evringham's neck, intended to finish her sentence eloquently, left him and went to her chair.
“You're to sit here this morning,” said Mrs. Forbes, indicating the place opposite her employer. “Mrs. Evringham and her daughter don't come down to breakfast.”
Jewel looked up eagerly. “Not ever?” she asked.
“Never.”
The child shot a radiant glance across at her grandfather which he caught, the thread of his business calculations having been hopelessly broken. “Oh, grandpa, we're always going to have breakfast alone together!” she said joyously. Noting Mrs. Forbes's set countenance, she added apologetically, “They're so pretty, cousin Eloise and aunt Madge, I love to look at them, but they aren't my real relations, and,” her face gladdening again, “to think of having breakfast alone with you, grandpa, makes me feel as if—as if I had a birthday!”
Mr. Evringham cleared his throat. The situation might have been a little easier if Mrs. Forbes had not been present, but as it was, he had never felt so embarrassed in his life.
“Now eat your oatmeal, Julia,” said the housekeeper repressively. “Mr. Evringham always reads his paper at breakfast.”
“Yes,” replied the child with docility. She poured the cream from a small silver pitcher with a neatness that won Mrs. Forbes's approval; and Mr. Evringham read over headlines in the paper, while he sipped his coffee, without understanding in the least the meaning of the words. Mrs. Forbes was right. Discipline must be maintained. This was the time during which he wished to read his paper, and it was most astonishing to be so vigorously taken possession of by an utter stranger. Now was the time to repress her if she were to be repressed. Mrs. Forbes was right. After a while he glanced across at the child. She looked very small and clean, and she was ready with a quick smile for him; but she put a little forefinger against her lips jocosely. He cleared his throat again and averted his eyes, rumpling the paper as he turned a leaf.
Mrs. Forbes left the room with the oatmeal dishes.
Jewel leaned forward quickly. “Grandpa,” she said earnestly, “if you would declare every day, over and over, that no error could come near your house, I think she would go away of her own accord.”
Mr. Evringham stared, open paper in hand. “What? Who?”
“Mrs. Forbes.”
“Go away? Mrs. Forbes? What are you thinking of! I couldn't get on without Mrs. Forbes.”
“Oh!” Jewel leaned back with the long-drawn exclamation. “I thought she was what made you look sorry.”
“No indeed. I have enough things to make me sorry, but she isn't one of them.”
“Do you like her?” wonderingly.
“I—why—I respect her profoundly.”
“Oh! It must be lots easier to respect her pro—the way you do, than to like her; but,” with firm lips, “I've got to love her. I told Anna Belle so this morning, and especially if you want her to stay.”
“Bless my soul!” Mr. Evringham looked in dismay as his vis-à-vis. “You must be very careful, Julia, not to offend or trouble her in any way,” he said.
“All right, grandpa, I will, and then will you do me a favor too?”
“I must hear it first.”
“Would you mind calling me Jewel? You know it isn't any matter about the rest, because they're not my real relations, but Julia is mother's name, and Jewel is mine; and when I love people very much, I like them to call me Jewel.”
Mrs. Forbes here entered with a tray, and Mr. Evringham merely said, “Very well,” twice over, and retreated into his newspaper.
On the tray were boiled eggs. Jewel glanced quickly up at Mrs. Forbes's impassive face. She might have remembered. Probably she did remember.
Life had not taught the child to be shy, as has been evidenced; so although Mrs. Forbes was an awing experience, she felt strong in the presence of her important grandfather, and only kept silence now in order not to interrupt his reading.
When at last he laid down his paper and began to chip an egg, Jewel glanced at those which Mrs. Forbes had set before her. Her little face had grown very serious.
“Grandpa, do you think it's error for me not to like eggs?” she asked. “Mother never said it was. She was willing I should eat something else.”
“Of course, eat whatever you like,” responded Mr. Evringham quickly.
Mrs. Forbes seemed to swell and grow pink. “You always have eggs, sir, and if there's two breakfasts to be got, will you kindly tell me what the other shall be?”
Mr. Evringham glanced up in some surprise at the unfamiliar tone.
“Oh, the oatmeal is a plenty,” said Jewel, looking at the housekeeper, eager to mollify her.
“Try an egg. Perhaps you'll like them by this time,” suggested Mr. Evringham.
“Do you like everything to eat, grandpa?”
Mr. Evringham, being most arbitrary and peculiar in his tastes, could only gain time by clearing his throat again, and taking a drink of coffee.
“Mrs. Forbes will bring you a glass of milk, I dare say,” he returned at last, without looking up; and the housekeeper turned with ponderous obedience and left the room.
Nimbly Jewel slid down from her chair, and running around the table to her grandfather's place, put both her arms around his neck and whispered to him eagerly and swiftly, “If you have such a pro—something respect for Mrs. Forbes, and it makes her sorry because I won't eat eggs, perhaps I ought to. If it offends thy brother to have you eat meat, you mustn't, the Bible says, so I suppose, if it makes Mrs. Forbes turn red and perhaps get the stomach ache to have me not eat eggs, I ought to; but grandpa, if you decide I must, please let me wait till to-morrow morning, so I can say the Scientific Statement of Being all day—”
Here Mrs. Forbes entered with a glass of milk on a little tray. She stood transfixed at the sight that met her.
“That child hasn't the fear of man before her eyes!” she ejaculated mentally, then she marched forward and deposited the milk beside Jewel's empty plate, while the child ran back and took her seat.
Mr. Evringham, gazing at his visitor in mute astonishment, was much disconcerted to receive a confiding gesture of raised shoulders and eyebrows, which, combined with a little smile, plainly signified that they had been caught. He took up his newspaper mechanically.
He had never had a daughter, and caresses had seldom passed between him and his children. His duties as a family man had always been perfunctory. He was tingling now from the surprise of Jewel's action, the feeling of the little gingham clad arms about his neck, the touch of the rose-leaf skin as she swept his cheek and ear in her emphatic half-whisper.
His mental processes were stiff when the subject related to things apart from the stock market, his horses, and golf, but he was finally understanding that his granddaughter had come to Bel-Air, prepared by accounts which had cast a glamour over everything and everybody in it. She had evidently found Mrs. Forbes fall below her expectations. He had been disillusioned concerning Mrs. Evringham and Eloise. As yet the halo with which he himself had been invested was intact. Was it to remain so? He still saw how foolish he had been to send for the child. He still wished, of course, that she was in Chicago now, instead of sitting across there from him in crisp short skirts, her head and shoulders only showing above the high table, and a little smile of good understanding waiting for him each time he looked up.
He had done very well during a lifetime without being hugged, yet the innocent incense, which had been rising spontaneously before him ever since the child entered the dining-room, had a strangely sweet savor. Such was the joy of breakfast alone with him that it made her feel as if she had a birthday! Perfectly absurd! Quite the most absurd thing that he had ever heard in his life.
Mrs. Forbes spoke. “Perhaps it is to be the same way about the rubbers, Mr. Evringham!” she said, much flushed. “Perhaps you will not insist upon Julia wearing rubbers!”
“Oh yes, yes, certainly,” returned Mr. Evringham hastily, anxious to reinstate himself. “I wish you to have a pair of rubbers at once, Julia—Jewel. You surely don't mean that your mother has allowed you to wet your feet.”
“I—I never noticed, grandpa, but,” hopefully, “she lets me wet my hands, so why not my feet?”
“Bless me, what ignorance! Because the soles of your feet have large pores through which to catch cold. Hasn't any one ever told you that?”
Jewel smiled. “That would be a queer arrangement for God to make, don't you think?” she asked softly. “Just as if He expected us to walk on our hands.”
Mrs. Forbes's eyes widened, and an irrepressible “Well!” escaped from her lips. “Has that young one reverence for anything in heaven above or earth beneath?” she queried mentally.
Mr. Evringham managed to recover himself sufficiently to say, “You shouldn't speak so, Jewel.”
“But you know how it was about the tree of knowledge, grandpa,” replied the child earnestly. “God told Adam not to eat of it, because then he'd believe in good and evil, and that always makes such lots and lots of trouble. The Indians don't have to wear rubbers.”
“Drink your milk, Jewel,” returned Mr. Evringham uncomfortably, not having the temerity to lift his eyes as high as his housekeeper's countenance. “No matter about the Indians. You are a civilized little girl, and you must wear rubbers while you live with me. Mrs. Forbes will very kindly buy them for you.”
“Oh, I have money,” returned Jewel brightly. “I have three dollars,” she added, trying not to say it boastfully. “Fifty cents for every week father and mother are going to be away.”
Mr. Evringham wiped his mustache. “You need not spend any of it for the rubbers,” he returned. “You are buying those to please me.”
“I shall love to wear them to please you, grandpa,” she returned affectionately. “I'll put them on every time I can think of it.”
“Only when it is wet, of course,” he said. “When it is rainy.”
“Oh yes,” she returned, “when it's rainy.”
“Harry looked like my father, and she does, by Jove,” mused Mr. Evringham. “She's like me. Knows what she wants to eat, and cares for a horse, if she is a strange little being.”
“You say you like horses?” he remarked suddenly.
“I just love them,” answered Jewel, “and I came real close to them once. Father took me to the horse show.”
“He did, eh?”
“Yes, he told mother he was going to blow me to it.” The child laughed. “Father's the greatest joker; he says the funniest things. He didn't blow me to it at all. He took me in the cable car, and we had more fun! It was the most be—eautiful place you ever saw.”
“It was, eh?”
“Yes. The music was playing, and there were coaches and four-in-hands and horns and men in red coats and beautiful little shiny carriages—and the horses! Oh, they all looked so proud and glad, and they trotted and ran and jumped over high fences, and the harness jingled and the people cheered!” The child's cheeks were glowing.
Mr. Evringham gave an exclamation that was almost a laugh. “You didn't sleep much that night, I'll wager!”
“No, I didn't want to. I stayed awake a long time to realize that God doesn't love one of His children any better than another, so of course some time I'll wear a tall shiny hat and ride over fences just like flying. I'll have a horse,” Jewel added slowly, looking off with a rapt expression as at a long-cherished vision, “with a white star in his forehead!”
“H'm! Very good taste,” returned Mr. Evringham, scarcely knowing what he was saying, so dazed was he by the extraordinary mixture of ideas.
After breakfast he had his usual interview with Mrs. Forbes concerning the important event of dinner. Jewel had run upstairs to dress Anna Belle.
The menu decided upon, Mr. Evringham still lingered.
“Mrs. Forbes, I have never had any experience with little girls. You have, no doubt,” he said. “Am I right in thinking that my granddaughter is—is a rather unusual specimen?”
“She's older than Dick's hatband, sir,” rejoined the housekeeper promptly.
“Are they, perhaps, teaching differently in the schools from what they used to?”
“Not that I know of, Mr. Evringham.”
“She uses very unusual expressions. I can't make it out. You are an intelligent woman, Mrs. Forbes. Did you ever happen to hear of such a thing as the—a—a—Scientific Statement of Being!”
“Never in my life, sir,” returned the housekeeper virtuously.
“Extraordinary language that, from a—a child of her years. She seems to have been peculiarly brought up. You heard her reference to—in fact to—the Creator.”
“I did, sir. At the breakfast table, too! I was as shocked as you were, sir. Her mother put a Bible into her trunk, but it's plain she never taught her any reverence. The Almighty give her a jumping horse indeed! If you'll excuse me, Mr. Evringham, I think you should have said something right there.”
The broker pulled his mustache. “I've listened to more unreasonable views of heaven,” he returned.
“Do you think it was heaven she was talking about!”
Mr. Evringham shrugged his shoulders. “You can't prove anything by me. She's the most extraordinary child I ever listened to.”
Mrs. Forbes pursed her lips. “You'd not believe, sir, how differently she behaves when she is alone with me. As mild-mannered and quiet as you'd wish to see anywhere. She scarcely speaks a word.”
Mr. Evringham bit his lip and nodded. It gave him some amusement in the midst of his perplexity to remember the manner in which he had been advised to exorcise this tower of strength altogether.
“It's my opinion, sir, that children should be made to eat what is set before them,” went on Mrs. Forbes, reverting to her principal grievance.
“It would save you a lot of trouble if I had been trained that way—eh, Mrs. Forbes?” returned the other, with extraordinary lightness.
“You are a very different thing, I should hope!” exclaimed Mrs. Forbes solemnly.
“Yes, about fifty years different. Hard to teach an old dog new tricks, eh? You might have some chops for her luncheon, perhaps, and an extra one for her breakfast. She hasn't eaten anything this morning.”
For the first time an order from Mr. Evringham evoked no reply from his housekeeper. He felt the weight of her disapproval. “But get the overshoes by all means, as soon as convenient,” he made haste to add. “Ring for Zeke, if you please, Mrs. Forbes. I must be off.”
CHAPTER IX
A SHOPPING EXPEDITION
The housekeeper warned Jewel not to run out of doors that morning as she wished to accompany her to the shoe store.
“I'm not going to take you, Anna Belle,” Jewel said to her doll. “I don't like to ask the giantess if I may, and of course, it won't be a very good time anyway, so you be patient and we'll go out together this afternoon.”
Mrs. Forbes's long widow's veil, a decoration she never had discarded hung low over her black gown as she stepped deliberately down the stairs from her barn chamber.
“I am going with the little girl, Zeke, to buy her a pair of rubbers,” she announced to her son.
“Going foot-back? Why don't you have out the 'broom'? One granddaughter's got as good a right to it as the other, hasn't she?”
“I should say so, but that child, Zeke, in addition to her wonderful boldness this morning with Mr. Evringham, that I told you about, is perfectly crazy over horses.”
“H'm. That don't surprise me. A young one that can stand up to the governor wouldn't be afraid of anything in the way of horseflesh.”
“So I decided,” continued Mrs. Forbes, pulling on her roomy black gloves, “that it would be better for her to go this morning in the trolley.”
“You did? Well if that ain't a regular step-mother act!” returned Zeke in protest. “The kid had a bully time coming home from the depot yesterday. Dick felt good, and he just lit out. I tell you her eyes shone.”
“I like to do what's best for folks in the end,” declared Mrs. Forbes virtuously. “Julia's parents are poor, and likely to be. She's only going to be here six weeks, and what is the sense of encouraging a taste she can't ever indulge? No, I'll take her in the trolley. It's a nice morning, and I shan't mind the walk down to the gate.” The speaker marched with the dignity which was always inseparable from the veil toward the back door of the house to give some last orders, and Zeke lounged out with his rake toward the grounds at the front. There he caught sight of a small figure in hat and jacket waiting on the piazza. He turned toward it, and Jewel advanced with a smile of recognition. She had had to look twice to identify her fine plum-colored companion of yesterday's drive with this youth in shirt sleeves and a soft old hat.
“Well, little girl, how are you getting on?” he asked.
“Pretty well, thank you.” Her beaming expression left no doubt that she was very glad to see him.
“Not particularly flattering if she is,” he mused. “Fine ladies not out of their rooms yet, and ma doin' her duty by her to beat the band.”
“Where's your doll?” he asked.
“I didn't bring her. I thought perhaps the—Mrs. Forbes would—would just as lief she didn't come.”
“Ma hasn't played with dolls for quite a spell,” agreed Zeke, with a smile that was sunshine to the child.
“You live out in the barn with the horses, don't you?” she asked eagerly. “Will you give me permission to go out there some time?”
“Sure. Come any time.”
“Mrs. Forbes said I must ask permission,” responded the child with an apprehensive glance behind her to see if her escort were arriving. “What—what is your name?”
“Forgotten this soon? I told you Zeke.”
“I thought you did, but your mother said it was something very different.”
“Ezekiel, perhaps.”
“Yes, that's it. I won't forget again. How many horses has grandpa?”
“Two here, but I guess he's got more in the country. You come out to the barn any time you feel like it. You've heard of a bell cow, haven't you? Well, we've got the belle horse out there. She beats all creation.”
“The one I saw yesterday,” eagerly, “the one that runs away all the time?”
“No. This is Mr. Evringham's riding horse.”
Jewel hopped and clapped her hands. “I'll see grandpa ride. Goody! I'll watch him.”
“Go to your paths, Zeke,” said a voice, and the veil appeared around the corner of the house.
Jewel quietly joined her stately companion, and walked away sedately beside her.
They did not exchange many words on their way to the park gates, for Mrs. Forbes needed her breath for the rather long promenade, and Jewel was busy looking at the trees and trim swards and crocus beds beside the winding road.
Outside the gate they had to wait but a minute before the car came, and after they had boarded it, the little girl was entertained by looking out of the window, and often wished for Anna Belle's sympathy in some novel sight or sound.
A ride of fifteen minutes brought them to the shoe store. Mrs. Forbes seemed to know the clerk, and Jewel was finally fitted to her guardian's satisfaction, but scarcely to her own, the housekeeper having selected the species known as storm rubbers, and chose them as large as would stay on.
“They're quite warm, aren't they?” said Jewel, looking down at her shiny feet and trying to speak cheerfully.
“When you wear them you want to be warm,” was Mrs. Forbes's rejoinder.
“I brought my money,” said the child, in a low voice.
“No. Your grandfather wishes to make you a present of these.” The housekeeper's tone was final, and she paid for the overshoes, which were wrapped up, and then she led Jewel out of the store.
Next door was a candy shop with alluring windows.
“I'd like to go in here,” said the little girl. “Would you mind?”
“Do you spend your money for candy, Julia?”
“Yes'm. Don't you like it?” Jewel lingered, looking at the pretty display. Easter had recently passed, and there were bright-eyed little yellow chickens that especially took her fancy.
“It isn't a question of liking it when people are poor,” returned Mrs. Forbes. “I'm astonished that your mother encourages you to spend money for candy.”
Jewel looked up quickly. “Did you think we were poor?” she asked, with disconcerting suddenness.
Mrs. Forbes hesitated. “Your mother is a dressmaker, isn't she?”
“Yes, she's just a splendid one. Everybody says so. We couldn't be poor, you know. She found out about God before I was old enough to talk, so you see all her poor time came before I can remember.”
The housekeeper glanced about her furtively. “Julia, don't you know you shouldn't use your Creator's name on the street!” she exclaimed, when she had made certain that no one was listening.
“Why not?” asked the child.
“Why—why—it isn't a proper place. Some one might hear you.”
“Well, won't you let me get some candy now? If I knew what kind you liked, Mrs. Forbes, I'd get it.”
“I don't eat candy as a rule. It's not only extravagant, it's very unhealthy.”
The little girl smiled. “How do you suppose your stomach knows what you put into it?” she asked. “I guess you're just a little—bit—afraid, aren't you?”
“Odder than Dick's hatband!” quoth Mrs. Forbes again, mentally. “I take horehound drops sometimes,” she said aloud, “for a cold.”
“Can't you sneeze a little now?” asked Jewel, amusement twinkling in her blue eyes. “I do want so much to go in here.”
“Don't tempt Providence by making fun of sickness, Julia, or you'll live to regret it,” returned Mrs. Forbes. “I don't mind getting some horehound drops, but be careful now and don't spend too much. A little girl's money always burns in her pocket.”
“Yes'm,” returned the child dutifully, skipping up to the door of the shop and opening it.
Mrs. Forbes followed slowly, and once inside, fell into conversation with the girl of whom she bought the cough candy. This gave Jewel opportunity to buy beside her caramels one of the lovely yellow chickens, which she designed for a special purpose.
“Now don't you eat that candy before lunch. It will take away your appetite. It is nearly lunch time now,” said Mrs. Forbes as they left the store.
“And won't you either?” asked the child, offering the open caramel bag with a spontaneous politeness which somehow made the housekeeper feel at a disadvantage.
“No, thank you. Stop that car, Julia, and make them wait for me,” she said, making haste slowly.
Once within, it took Mrs. Forbes a minute or two to get her breath, but she soon noticed that her companion's eyes were fixed upon a man seated a little way from them across the car. A smile kept coming to the child's lips, and at last the gentleman himself recognized that he was an object of interest. He looked at the strange little girl kindly. Her hand went unconsciously to the small gold pin she wore. The man smiled and touched one of similar pattern which was fastening his tie. In a minute more his street was reached, and as he passed Jewel on his way out of the car, he stooped and gave her ready hand a little pressure.
She colored with pleasure, and Mrs. Forbes swelled with curiosity and disapproval. She knew the man by sight as a highly respectable citizen. What was this wild Western child doing now? The car made too much noise to permit of investigation, so she waited until they had left it and entered the park gates.
“Julia,” she said then, “where did you ever see that gentleman before?”
“I never did,” replied the child.
“What do you mean by such bold actions, then? What will he think of you?”
“He'll think it's all right,” returned Jewel. “We have the same—the same friends.”
The housekeeper looked at her. It was beneath her dignity to ask further questions at present, but some time she meant to renew the subject.
“It's very wrong for a little girl to take any notice of strangers,” she said.
“Yes'm,” replied Jewel, “but he was—different.”
Mrs. Forbes maintained silence henceforth until they reached home. “You may hang your hat and jacket in the closet under the stairs whenever you don't wish to go to your room,” she said when she parted with her companion at the piazza, “but don't wander away anywhere before lunch.”
“No'm. Thank you for taking me, Mrs. Forbes.”
“You're welcome,” returned that lady, and the long black veil swept majestically toward the barn.
Sweet and rippling music was proceeding from the house. Jewel tiptoed across the piazza to a long window, from whence she could see the interior of the drawing-room.
“It is the enchanted maiden,” she said to herself, and sank down softly by the window, listening eagerly to the melodious strains and smooth runs which flowed from beneath the slender fingers. One piece followed another in quick succession, now gay, now grave, and the listener scarcely stirred in her enjoyment.
At last, suddenly, in the midst of a Grieg melody, the player ceased, and crossing her arms upon the empty music rack, bowed her head upon them in such an attitude of abandon that Jewel's heart leaped in sympathy.
“Oh cousin Eloise! What makes her so sorry?” she thought. The child's intuition had been strong to perceive the nature of her aunt Madge. “It must be such an awful thing to have your own mother an error fairy. That must be the reason. I wish I could tell her”—Jewel jumped to her feet, but just as she was determining to go to her cousin, the soft-toned gong pealed its mellow summons, and she saw Eloise rise from the piano in time to meet her mother, who at that moment entered the room.
Jewel went into the house, hung up her hat and jacket, and deposited her packages. By the time she reached the dining-room her aunt and cousin were already seated. Mrs. Evringham put up her lorgnette as she greeted the child. Eloise nodded a grave good-morning, and Mrs. Forbes began to serve the luncheon.
Jewel looked in vain for any trace of excitement or tears on her cousin's lovely face. Eloise did not address her or any one. Mrs. Evringham did the talking. After a question as to how Jewel had spent the morning, and without listening to the child's reply, she began to talk to her daughter of a drive she wished to take that afternoon.
Jewel discerned that Mrs. Forbes was not kindly disposed toward the mother and daughter, and that they ignored the housekeeper; that Eloise was languid and out of sympathy with her mother, and that Mrs. Evringham was impatient with her, often to the verge of sharpness. The child was glad when luncheon was over; but before going upstairs she brought her small bag of caramels and offered them to the ladies.
Mrs. Evringham gave a little laugh of surprise and looked at Eloise, who took one with a sober “Thank you.”
“I don't believe I could, child,” said aunt Madge, glancing with amusement at the striped bag. “Keep them for yourself.”
“You'll have some, won't you, Mrs. Forbes?” asked Jewel, and the housekeeper so strongly disapproved of Mrs. Evringham's manner that she accepted.
“Perhaps you would like to try some of our candy, Julia,” said Mrs. Evringham, as the child followed her aunt and cousin upstairs.
Jewel paused while aunt Madge brought from her room into the hall a large box, beribboned and laced, full of a variety of confections.
“How pretty!” exclaimed the child.
“This is from your friend, Dr. Ballard,” said her aunt. “He sent it to the charming little girl, Eloise.”
Jewel, running on up to her room eating the creamy chocolate, wondered still more why her cousin should seem so sorry, with so much to make her happy.
“Now, Anna Belle, the time has really come,” she said happily to her doll, as she took her in her arms and began putting on her jacket and hat. “We're going away from Castle Discord to seek our fortunes. We're going to leave the giantess, and leave the impolite error fairy, and leave the poor enchanted maiden, and go to find the ravine and the brook. Wait till I put on my oldest shoes, for we shall have to climb deep, deep down to get near to father.”
At last she was ready, and when she had closed the heavy house door behind her, and had run down the driveway to the park road, a delicious sense of freedom possessed her.
“There goes the little Westerner,” observed Mrs. Evringham, looking from her window. “It's a good thing she knows how to amuse herself.”
“A good thing, indeed,” returned Eloise. “There is no one here to do anything for her.”
“She has wonderful assurance for such a plain little monkey,” went on Mrs. Evringham.
“She has extremely good breeding,” returned her daughter, coming to the window and following Jewel's retreating figure with her eyes, “and a charming face when she smiles.”
“Very well. Look out for yourself, then. I thought last night, once or twice, at dinner, that she was rather entertaining to her grandfather.”
“She has her doll,” said Eloise wistfully. “Where can she be going? I wish I were going with her.”
Mrs. Evringham laughed. “Well, you are bored. Pshaw, my dear! Lie down and get a little beauty sleep. Then we will go driving and see that charming spot Dr. Ballard told us about. I'm sure he will call to-night.”
CHAPTER X
THE RAVINE
Outside the well-kept roads of Bel-Air Park, Nature had been encouraged to work her sweet will. The drive wound along the edge of a picturesque gorge, and it was not long before Jewel found the scene of her father's favorite stories.
The sides of the ravine were studded with tall trees, and in its depths flowed a brook, unusually full now from the spring rains.
The child lost no time in creeping beneath the slender wire fence at the roadside, and scrambling down the incline. The brook whispered and gurgled, wild flowers sprang amid the ferns in the shelter and moisture. The child was enraptured.
“Oh, Anna Belle!” She exclaimed, hugging the doll for pure joy. “Castle Discord is far away. There's nobody down here but God!”
For hours she played happily in the enchanting spot, all unconscious of time. Anna Belle lay on a bed of moss, while Jewel became acquainted with her wonderful new playmate, the brook. The only body of water with which she had been familiar hitherto was Lake Michigan. Now she drew stones out of the bank and made dams and waterfalls. She sailed boats of chips and watched them shoot the tiny rapids. She lay down on the bank beside Anna Belle and gazed up through the leafy treetops. Many times this programme had been varied, when at last equipages began to pass on the road above. She could see twinkling wheels and smart liveries.
With a start of recollection, she considered that she might have been a long time in the ravine.
“I wish somebody would let me bring a watch the next time,” she said to her doll, as she took her up. “Haven't we had a beautiful afternoon, Anna Belle? Let's call it the Ravine of Happiness, and we'll come here every day—just every day; but perhaps it's time for grandpa to be home, dearie, so we must go back to the castle.” She sighed unconsciously as she began climbing up the steep bank and crept under the wire. “I hope we haven't stayed very long, because the giantess might not like it,” she continued uneasily; but as she set her feet in the homeward road, every sensation of anxiety fled before an approaching vision. She saw a handsome man in riding dress mounted on a shining horse with arched neck, that lifted its feet daintily as it pranced along the tree-lined avenue.
“Grandpa!” ejaculated Jewel, stepping to the roadside and pausing, her hands clasped beneath her chin and her eyes shining with admiration.
Mr. Evringham drew rein, not displeased by the encounter. The child apparently could not speak. She eyed the horse rather than its rider, a fact which the latter observed and enjoyed.
“Remind you of the horse show?” he inquired.
“It is the horse show,” rejoined the child.