It was Christmas Eve, and Kate Dayton, one of Pomford’s pretty girls, had found the Little Gray Lady sitting alone before the fire gazing into the ashes, her small frame almost hidden in the roomy chair. The winter twilight had long since settled and only the flickering blaze of the logs and the dim glow from one lone candle illumined the room. This, strange to say, was placed on a table in a corner where its rays shed but little light in the room.
“Oh! Cousin Annie,” moaned Kate (everybody in Pomford who got close enough to touch the Little Gray Lady’s hand called her “Cousin Annie”—it was only the outside world who knew her by her other sobriquet), “I didn’t mean anything. Mark came in just at the wrong minute, and—and—” The poor girl’s tears smothered the rest.
“Don’t let him go, dearie,” came the answer, when she had heard the whole story, the girl on her knees, her head in her lap, the wee hand stroking the fluff of golden hair dishevelled in her grief.
“Oh, but he won’t stay!” moaned Kate. “He says he is going to Rio—way out to South America to join his Uncle Harry.”
“He won’t go, dearie—not if you tell him the truth and make him tell you the truth. Don’t let your pride come in; don’t beat around the bush or make believe you are hurt or misunderstood, or that you don’t care. You do care. Better be a little humble now than humble all your life. It only takes a word. Hold out your hand and say: ‘I’m sorry, Mark—please forgive me.’ If he loves you—and he does—”
The girl raised her head: “Oh! Cousin Annie! How do you know?”
She laughed gently. “Because he was here, dearie, half an hour ago and told me so. He thought you owed him the dance, and he was a little jealous of Tom.”
“But Tom had asked me—”
“Yes—and so had Mark—”
“Yes—but he had no right—” She was up in arms again: she wouldn’t—she couldn’t—and again an outburst of tears choked her words.
The Little Gray Lady had known Kate’s mother, now dead, and what might have happened but for a timely word—and she knew to her own sorrow what had happened for want of one. Kate and Mark should not repeat that experience if she could help it. She had saved the mother in the old days by just such a word. She would save the daughter in the same way. And the two were much alike—same slight, girlish figure; same blond hair and blue eyes; same expression, and the same impetuous, high-strung temperament. “If that child’s own mother walked in this minute I couldn’t tell ‘em apart, they do favor one another so,” old Margaret had told her mistress when she opened the door for the girl, and she was right. Pomford village was full of these hereditary likenesses. Mark Dab-ney, whom all the present trouble was about, was so like his father at his age that his Uncle Harry had picked Mark out on a crowded dock when the lad had visited him in Rio the year before, although he had not seen the boy’s father for twenty years—so strong was the family likeness.
If there was to be a quarrel it must not be between the Dabneys and the Daytons, of all families. There had been suffering enough in the old days.
“Listen, dearie,” she said in her gentle, crooning tone, patting the girl’s cheek as she talked. “A quarrel where there is no love is soon forgotten, but a difference when both love may, if not quickly healed, leave a scar that will last through life.”
“There are as good fish in the sea as were ever caught,” cried the girl in sheer bravado, brushing away her tears.
“Don’t believe it, dearie—and don’t ever say it. That has wrecked more lives than you know. That is what I once knew a girl to say—a girl just about your age—”
“But she found somebody else, and that’s just what I’m going to do. I’m not going to have Mark read me a lecture every time I want to do something he doesn’t like. Didn’t your girl find somebody else?”
“No—never. She is still unmarried.”
“Yes—but it wasn’t her fault, was it?”
“Yes—although she did not know it at the time. She opened a door suddenly and found her lover alone with another girl. The two had stolen off together where they would not be interrupted. He was pleading for his college friend—straightening out just some such foolish quarrel as you have had with Mark—but the girl would not understand; nor did she know the truth until a year afterward. Then it was too late.”
The Little Gray Lady stopped, lifted her hand from the girl’s head, and turned her face toward the now dying fire.
“And what became of him?” asked the girl in a hushed voice, as if she dared not awaken the memory.
“He went away and she has never seen him since.”
For some minutes there was silence, then Kate said in a braver tone:
“And he married somebody else?”
“No.”
“Well, then, she died?”
“No.”
The Littie Lady had not moved, nor had she taken her eyes from the blaze. She seemed to be addressing some invisible body who could hear and understand. The girl felt its influence and a tremor ran through her. The fitful blaze casting weird shadows helped this feeling. At last, with an effort, she asked:
“You say you know them both, Cousin Annie?”
“Yes—he was my dear friend. I was just thinking of him when you came in.”
The charred logs broke into a heap of coals; the blaze flickered and died. But for the lone candle in the corner the room would have been in total darkness.
“Shall I light another candle, Cousin Annie?” shivered the girl, “or bring that one nearer?”
“No, it’s Christmas Eve, and I only light one candle on Christmas Eve.”
“But what’s one candle! Why, father has the whole house as bright as day and every fire blazing.” The girl sprang to her feet and stepped nearer the hearth. She would be less nervous, she thought, if she moved about, and then the warmth of the fire was somehow reassuring. “Please let me light them all, Cousin Annie,” she pleaded, reaching out her hand toward a cluster in an old-fashioned candelabra—“and if there aren’t enough I’ll get more from Margaret.”
“No, no—one will do. It is an old custom of mine; I’ve done it for twenty years.”
“But don’t you love Christmas?” Kate argued, her nervousness increasing. The ghostly light and the note of pain in her companion’s voice were strangely affecting.
The Little Gray Lady leaned forward in her chair and looked long and steadily at the heap of smouldering ashes; then she answered slowly, each word vibrating with the memory of some hidden sorrow: “I’ve had mine, dearie.”
“But you can have some more,” urged Kate.
“Not like those that have gone before, dearie—no, not like those.”
Something in the tones of her voice and quick droop of the dear head stirred the girl to her depths. Sinking to her knees she hid her face in the Little Lady’s lap.
“And you sit here in the dark with only one candle?” she whispered.
“Yes, always,” she answered, her fingers stroking the fair hair. “I can see those I have loved better in the dark. Sometimes the room is full of people; I have often to strain my eyes to assure myself that the door is really shut. All sorts of people come—the girls and boys I knew when I was young. Some are dead; some are far away; some so near that should I open the window and shout their names many of them could hear. There are fewer above ground every year—but I welcome all who come. It’s the old maid’s hour, you know—this twilight hour. The wives are making ready the supper; the children are romping; lovers are together in the corner where they can whisper and not be overheard. But none of this disturbs me—no big man bursts in, letting in the cold. I have my chair, my candle, my thoughts, and my fire. When you get to be my age, Kate, and live alone—and you might, dearie, if Mark should leave you—you will love these twilight hours, too.”
The girl reached up her hands and touched the Little Gray Lady’s cheek, whispering:
“But aren’t you very, very lonely. Cousin Annie?”
“Yes, sometimes.”
For a moment Kate remained silent, then she asked in a faltering voice through which ran a note almost of terror:
“Do you think I shall ever be like—like—that is—I shall ever be—all alone?”
“I don’t know, dearie. No one can ever tell what will happen. I never thought twenty years ago I should be all alone—but I am.”
The girl raised her head, and with a cry of pain threw her arms around the Little Gray Lady’s neck:
“Oh, no!—no! I can’t bear it!” she sobbed! “I’ll tell Mark! I’ll send for him—to-night-before I go to bed!”