AUNT CRETE’S EMANCIPATION

“SHE WATCHED LUELLA’S DISMAYED FACE WITH GROWING ALARM”

BY
Grace Livingston Hill-Lutz
Author of “The Girl from Montana,”
“The Story of a Whim,” Etc.
ILLUSTRATIONS BY
CLARA E. ATWOOD
THE GOLDEN RULE COMPANY
Tremont Temple
Boston, Mass.

Copyright, 1911
By The Golden Rule Company

CONTENTS

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Aunt Crete’s Emancipation

CHAPTER I
A TELEGRAM AND A FLIGHT

“WHO’S at the front door?” asked Luella’s mother, coming in from the kitchen with a dish-towel in her hand. “I thought I heard the door-bell.”

“Luella’s gone to the door,” said her sister from her vantage-point at the crack of the sitting-room door. “It looks to me like a telegraph boy.”

“It couldn’t be, Crete,” said Luella’s mother impatiently, coming to see for herself. “Who would telegraph now that Hannah’s dead?”

Lucretia was short and dumpy, with the comfortable, patient look of the maiden aunt that knows she is indispensable because she will meekly take all the burdens that no one else wants to bear. Her sister could easily look over her head into the hall, and her gaze was penetrative and alert.

“I’m sure I don’t know, Carrie,” said Lucretia apprehensively; “but I’m all of a tremble. Telegrams are dreadful things.”

“Nonsense, Crete, you always act like such a baby. Hurry up, Luella. Don’t stop to read it. Your aunt Crete will have a fit. Wasn’t there anything to pay? Who is it for?”

Luella, a rather stout young woman in stylish attire, with her mother’s keen features unsoftened by sentiment, advanced, irreverently tearing open her mother’s telegram and reading it as she came. It was one of the family grievances that Luella was stout like her aunt instead of tall and slender like her mother. The aunt always felt secretly that they somehow blamed her for being of that type. “It makes one so hard to fit,” Luella’s mother remarked frequently, and adding with a disparaging glance at her sister’s dumpy form, “So impossible!”

At such times the aunt always wrinkled up her pleasant little forehead into a V upside down, and trotted off to her kitchen, or her buttonholes, or whatever was the present task, sighing helplessly. She tried to be the best that she could always; but one couldn’t help one’s figure, especially when one was partly dependent on one’s family for support, and dressmakers and tailors took so much money. It was bad enough to have one stout figure to fit in the family without two; and the aunt always felt called upon to have as little dressmaking done as possible, in order that Luella’s figure might be improved from the slender treasury. “Clothes do make a big difference,” she reflected. And sometimes when she was all alone in the twilight, and there was really nothing that her alert conscience could possibly put her hand to doing for the moment, she amused herself by thinking what kind of dress she would buy, and who should make it, if she should suddenly attain a fortune. But this was a harmless amusement, inasmuch as she never let it make her discontented with her lot, or ruffle her placid brow for an instant.

But just now she was “all of a tremble,” and the V in her forehead was rapidly becoming a double V. She watched Luella’s dismayed face with growing alarm.

“For goodness’ sake alive!” said Luella, flinging herself into the most comfortable rocker, and throwing her mother’s telegram on the table. “That’s not to be tolerated! Something’ll have to be done. We’ll have to go to the shore at once, mother. I should die of mortification to have a country cousin come around just now. What would the Grandons think if they saw him? I can’t afford to ruin all my chances for a cousin I’ve never seen. Mother, you simply must do something. I won’t stand it!”

“What in the world are you talking about, Luella?” said her mother impatiently. “Why didn’t you read the telegram aloud, or why didn’t you give it to me at once? Where are my glasses?”

The aunt waited meekly while her sister found her glasses, and read the telegram.

“Well, I declare! That is provoking to have him turn up just now of all times. Something must be done, of course. We can’t have a gawky Westerner around in the way. And, as you say, we’ve never seen him. It can’t make much difference to him whether he sees us or not. We can hurry off, and be conveniently out of the way. It’s probably only a ‘duty visit’ he’s paying, anyway. Hannah’s been dead ten years, and I always heard the child was more like his father than his mother. Besides, Hannah married and went away to live when I was only a little girl. I really don’t think Donald has much claim on us. What a long telegram! It must have cost a lot. Was it paid for? It shows he knows nothing of the world, or he would have put it in a few words. Well, we’ll have to get away at once.”

She crumpled the telegram into a ball, and flung it to the table again; but it fell wide of its mark, and dropped to the floor instead. The aunt patiently stooped and picked it up, smoothing out the crushed yellow paper.

“Hannah’s boy!” she said gently, and she touched the yellow paper as if it had been something sacred.

“Am taking a trip East, and shall make you a little visit if convenient. Will be with you sometime on Thursday.

Donald Grant.”

She sat down suddenly in the nearest chair. Somehow the relief from anxiety had made her knees weak. “Hannah’s boy!” she murmured again, and laid her hand caressingly over the telegram, smoothing down a torn place in the edge of the paper.

Luella and her mother were discussing plans. They had decided that they must leave on the early train the next morning, before there was any chance of the Western visitor’s arriving.

“Goodness! Look at Aunt Crete,” said Luella, laughing. “She looks as if she had seen a ghost. Her lips are all white.”

“Crete, you oughtn’t to be such a fool. As if a telegram would hurt you! There’s nobody left to be worried about like that. Why don’t you use your reason a little?”

“Hannah’s boy is really coming!” beamed Aunt Crete, ignoring their scorn of herself.

“Upon my word! Aunt Crete, you look as if it were something to be glad about, instead of a downright calamity.”

“Glad; of course I’m glad, Luella. Wouldn’t you be glad to see your oldest sister’s child? Hannah was always very dear to me. I can see her now the way she looked when she went away, so tall and slim and pretty——”

“Not if she’d been dead for a century or so, and I’d never seen the child, and he was a gawky, embarrassing creature who would spoil the prospects of the people I was supposed to love,” retorted Luella. “Aunt Crete, don’t you care the least bit for my happiness? Do you want it all spoiled?”

“Why, of course not, dearie,” beamed Aunt Crete, “but I don’t see how it will spoil your happiness. I should think you’d want to see him yourself.”

“Aunt Crete! The idea! He’s nothing to me. You know he’s lived away out in the wild West all his life. He probably never had much schooling, and doesn’t know how to dress or behave in polite society. I heard he went away off up in the Klondike somewhere, and worked in a mine. You can imagine just what a wild, ignorant creature he will be. If Clarence Grandon should see him, he might imagine my family were all like that; and then where would I be?”

“Yes, Crete, I’m surprised at you. You’ve been so anxious all along for Luella to shine in society, and now you talk just as if you didn’t care in the least what happened,” put in Luella’s mother.

“But what can you do?” asked Aunt Crete. “You can’t tell him not to come—your own sister’s child!”

“O, how silly you are, Crete!” said her sister. “No, of course we can’t very well tell him not to come, as he hasn’t given us a chance; for this telegram is evidently sent on the way. It is dated ‘Chicago,’ and he hasn’t given us a trace of an address. He doesn’t live in Chicago. He’s very likely almost here, and may arrive any time to-morrow. Now you know we’ve simply got to go to the shore next week, for the rooms are all engaged at the hotel, and paid for; and we might as well hurry up and get off to-night or early in the morning, and escape him. Luella would die of mortification if she had to cousin that fellow and give up her trip to the shore. As you weren’t going anyway, you can receive him. It will keep him quietly at home, for he won’t expect an old woman to go out with him, and show him the sights; so nobody will notice him much, and there won’t be a lot of talk. If he looks very ridiculous, and that prying Mrs. Brown next door speaks of it, you might explain he’s the son of an old school friend who went out West to live years ago——”

“O Carrie!” exclaimed Aunt Crete, “that wouldn’t be true; and, besides, he can’t be so very bad as that. And even if he is, I shall love him—for he’s Hannah’s boy.”

“Love him all you want to,” sniffed her sister, “but for pity’s sake don’t let the neighbors know what relation he is.”

“That’s just like you, Aunt Crete,” said Luella in a hurt tone. “You’ve known me and pretended to love me all your life. I’m almost like your own child, and yet you take up with this unknown nephew, and say you’ll love him in spite of all the trouble he’s making me.”

Aunt Crete doubled the V in her forehead, and wiped away the beads of perspiration. Somehow it always seemed that she was in the wrong. Would she be understood in heaven? she wondered.

Luella and her mother went on planning. They told off what Aunt Crete was to do after they left.

“There’s the raspberries and blackberries not done up yet, Crete, but I guess you can manage alone. You always do the biggest part of the canning, anyway. I’m awfully sorry about your sewing, Crete. I meant to fit your two thin dresses before we went away, but the dressmaker made Luella’s things so much more elaborate than I expected that we really haven’t had a minute’s time, what with all the lace insertion she left for us to sew on. Perhaps you better run down to Miss Mason, and see if she has time to fit them, if you think you can’t wait till we get back. You’ll hardly be going out much while we’re gone, you know.”

“O, I’ll be all right,” said Aunt Crete happily. “I guess I can fix up my gray lawn for while Donald’s here.”

“Donald! Nonsense! It won’t matter what you wear while he’s here. He’ll never know a calico from a silk. Now look here, Crete, you’ve got to be awfully careful, or you’ll let out when we went off. There’s no use in his finding out we didn’t want to see him. You wouldn’t want to hurt his feelings, you know. Your own sister’s child!”

“No, of course not,” agreed Aunt Crete, though there was a troubled look in her eyes. She never liked prevarication; and, when she was left with some polite fabrication to excuse her relatives out of something they wanted to shirk, she nearly always got it twisted so that it was either an out-and-out lie, which horrified her, or else let the whole thing “out of the bag,” as Luella said.

But there was little time for discussion; for Luella and her mother had a great deal of packing to do, and Aunt Crete had the dinner to get and the house to set in order, surreptitiously, for the expected guest.

They hurried away the next morning in a whirl of bags and suitcases and parasols and umbrellas. They had baggage enough for a year in Europe, although they expected to stay only two or three weeks at the shore at most. Aunt Crete helped them into the station-cab, ran back to the house for Luella’s new raincoat, back again for the veil and her sister’s gloves, and still a third time to bring the new book, which had been set aside for reading on the journey. Then at last they were gone, and with one brief sigh of satisfaction Aunt Crete permitted herself to reflect that she was actually left alone to receive a dear guest all her own.

Never in all her maiden existence had she had this pleasure before. She might use the best china, and have three kinds of pie at once, yes, and plum-cake if she chose. Boys like pie and cake. Donald would be a big, nice boy.

What did it matter to her if he was awkward and from the West? He was in a large sense her own. Hannah was gone, and there was no one else to take a closer place. Who but his mother’s sister should have the right to mother him for a while? He would be her own as Luella never had been, because there was always Luella’s mother to take the first place. Besides, Luella had been a disappointing baby. Even in her infancy she had developed an independence that scorned kissing and cuddling. Luella always had too many selfish interests on hand to have time for breathing out love and baby graces to admiring subjects. Her frown was always quicker than her smile. But somehow Aunt Crete felt that it would be different with this boy, and her heart swelled within her as she hurried into the house to make ready for his coming.

The front hall was littered with rose-leaves. Luella had shaken a bunch of roses to get rid of the loose leaves, and had found they were all loose leaves; therefore she flung them down upon the floor. She had meant to wear them with her new pongee travelling-suit. It looked well to wear roses on a journey, for it suggested a possible admirer. But the roses had not held out, and now Aunt Crete must sweep them up.

A glance into the parlor showed peanut-shells scattered over the floor and on the table. A few of Luella’s friends had come in for a few minutes the evening before, and they had indulged in peanuts, finishing up by throwing the shells at one another amid shouts of hilarious laughter. Aunt Crete went for the broom and dust-pan. If he came early, the hall and parlor must be in order first.

Luella and her mother had little time to waste, for the tickets were barely bought and the trunks checked before the train thundered up. It was a through vestibuled train; and, as Luella struggled up the steps of one car with her heavy suitcase, a tall young man with dark, handsome eyes and a distinguished manner swung himself down the steps of the next car.

“Hello, Luella!” called a voice from a pony-cart by the platform. “You’re not going away to-day, are you? Thought you said you weren’t going till next week.”

“Circumstances made it necessary,” called Luella from the top step of the car while the porter held up the suitcase for her to take. “I’m running away from a backwoods cousin that’s coming to visit. I’ll write and tell you all about it. Good-by. Sorry I can’t be at your house to-morrow night, but it couldn’t be helped.”

Then Luella turned another gaze upon the handsome stranger, who was standing on the platform just below her, looking about interestedly. She thought he had looked at her more than casually; and, as she settled herself in the seat, she glanced down at her pongee travelling-suit consciously, feeling that he could but have thought she looked well.

He was still standing on the platform as the train moved out, and Luella could see the girl in the pony-cart turn her attention to him. She half wished she were sitting in the pony-cart too. It would be interesting to find out who he was. Luella preened herself, and settled her large hat in front of the strip of mirror between the windows, and then looked around the car that she might see who were her fellow passengers.

“Well, I’m glad we’re off,” said her mother nervously. “I was afraid as could be your cousin might come in on that early through train before we got started. It would have been trying if he’d come just as we were getting away. I don’t know how we could have explained it.”

“Yes,” said Luella. “I’m glad we’re safely off. He’ll never suspect now.”

It was just at that moment that the grocery-boy arrived at the back door with a crate of red raspberries.

“Land alive!” said Miss Crete disappointedly. “I hoped those wouldn’t come till to-morrow.” She bustled about, taking the boxes out of the crate so that the boy might take it back; and before she was done the door-bell rang.

“Land alive!” said Miss Crete again as she wiped her hands on the kitchen towel and hurried to the front door, taking off her apron as she went. “I do hope he hasn’t come yet. I haven’t cleared off that breakfast-table; and, if he should happen to come out, there’s three plates standing.”

But the thought had come too late. The dining-room door was stretched wide open, and the table in full view. The front door was guarded only by the wire screen. The visitor had been able to take full notes, if he so desired.

CHAPTER II
THE BACKWOODS COUSIN

Miss Lucretia opened the screen, and noticed the fine appearance of the young man standing there. He was not shabby enough for an agent. Some one had made a mistake, she supposed. She waited pleasantly for him to tell his errand.

“Is this where Mrs. Carrie Burton lives?” he asked, removing his hat courteously.

And, when she answered, “Yes,” his whole face broke into dancing eagerness.

“Is this my Aunt Carrie? I wonder”; and he held out a tentative, appealing hand for welcome. “I’m Donald Grant.”

“O!” said Miss Lucretia delightedly, “O!” and she took his hand in both her own. “No, I ain’t your Aunt Carrie, I’m your Aunt Crete; but I’m just as glad to see you. I didn’t think you’d be so big and handsome. Your Aunt Carrie isn’t home. They’ve just—why—that is—they are—they had planned to be at the shore for three weeks, and they’ll be real sorry when they know——.” This last sentence was added with extra zeal, for Aunt Crete exulted in the fact that Carrie and Luella would indeed be sorry if they could look into their home for one instant and see the guest from whom they had run away. She felt sure that if they had known how fine-looking a young man he was, they would have stayed and been proud of him.

“I’m sorry they are away,” said the young man, stooping to kiss Aunt Crete’s plump, comfortable cheek; “but I’m mighty glad you’re at home, Aunt Crete,” he said with genuine pleasure. “I’m going to like you for all I’m worth to make up for the absence of my aunt and cousin. You say they have gone to the shore. When will they be at home? Is their stay there almost up?”

“Why, no,” said Aunt Crete, flushing uncomfortably. “They haven’t been gone long. And they’ve engaged their rooms there for three weeks at a big hotel. Luella, she’s always been bound to go to one of those big places where rich people go, the Traymore. It’s advertised in all the papers. I expect you’ve seen it sometimes. It’s one of the most expensive places at the shore. I’ve almost a notion to write and tell them to come home, for I’m sure they’ll be sorry when they hear about you; but you see it’s this way. There’s a young man been paying Luella some attention, and he’s going down there soon; I don’t know but he’s there already; and his mother and sister are spending the whole season there; so Luella had her heart set on going down and boarding at the same hotel.”

“Ah, I see,” said the nephew. “Well, it wouldn’t do to spoil my cousin’s good time. Perhaps we can run down to the shore for a few days ourselves after we get acquainted. Say, Aunt Crete, am I too late for a bite of breakfast? I was so tired of the stuff they had on the dining-car I thought I’d save up my appetite till I got here, for I made sure you’d have a bite of bread and butter, anyway.”

“Bless your dear heart, yes,” said Aunt Crete, delighted to have the subject turned; for she had a terrible fear she would yet tell a lie about the departure of her sister and niece, and a lie was a calamity not always easily avoided in a position like hers. “You just sit down here, you dear boy, and wait about two minutes till I set the coffee-pot over the fire and cut some more bread. It isn’t a mite of trouble, for I hadn’t cleared off the breakfast-table yet. In fact, I hadn’t rightly finished my own breakfast, I was so busy getting to rights. The grocery-boy came, and—well, I never can eat much when folks are going—I mean when I’m alone,” she finished triumphantly.

She hurried out into the dining-room to get the table cleared off, but Donald followed her. She tried to scuttle the plates together and remove all traces of the number of guests at the meal just past, but she could not be sure whether he noticed the table or not.

“May I help you?” asked the young man, grabbing Luella’s plate and cup, and following her into the kitchen. “It’s so good to get into a real home again with somebody who belongs to me. You know father is in Mexico, and I’ve been in the university for the last four years.”

“The university!” Aunt Crete’s eyes shone. “Do you have universities out West? My! Won’t Luella be astonished? I guess she thinks out West is all woods.”

Donald’s eyes danced.

“We have a few good schools out there,” he said quietly.

While they were eating the breakfast that Aunt Crete prepared in an incredibly short space of time, Donald asked a great many questions. What did his aunt and cousin look like? Was Aunt Carrie like her, or like his mother? And Luella, had she been to college? And what did she look like?

Aunt Crete told him mournfully that Luella was more like herself than like her mother. “And it seems sometimes as if she blamed me for it,” said the patient aunt. “It makes it hard, her being a sort of society girl, and wanting to look so fine. Dumpy figures like mine don’t dress up pretty, you know. No, Luella never went to college. She didn’t take much to books. She liked having a good time with young folks better. She’s been wanting to go down to the shore and be at a real big hotel for three summers now, but Carrie never felt able to afford it before. We’ve been saving up all winter for Luella to have this treat, and I do hope she’ll have a good time. It’s real hard on her, having to stay right home all the time when all her girl friends go off to the shore. But you see she’s got in with some real wealthy people who stay at expensive places, and she isn’t satisfied to go to a common boarding-house. It must be nice to have money and go to a big hotel. I’ve never been in one myself; but Luella has, and she’s told all about it. I should think it would be grand to live that way awhile with not a thing to do.”

“They ought to have taken you along, Aunt Crete,” said the young man. “I do hope I didn’t keep you at home to entertain me.”

“O, no, bless your heart,” said the aunt, “I wasn’t going. I never go anywhere. Why, what kind of a figure would I cut there? It would spoil all Luella’s good time to have me around, I’m so short-waisted. She always wants me to wear a coat when I go anywhere with her, so people won’t see how short-waisted I am.”

“Nonsense,” said Donald. “I think you are lovely, Aunt Crete. You’ve got such pretty white hair, all wavy like mother’s; and you’ve got a fine face. Luella ought to be proud to have you.”

Aunt Crete blushed over the compliment, and choking tears of joy throbbed for a minute in her throat.

“Now hear the boy!” she exclaimed. “Donald, do have another cup of coffee.”

After breakfast Aunt Crete showed her guest to his room, and then hurried down to get the stack of dishes out of the way before he came down again. But he appeared in the kitchen door in a few minutes.

“Give me a dish and some berries,” he demanded. “I’m going to help you.”

“HE HELPED WITH VIGOR”

And despite all her protests he helped with such vigor that by twelve o’clock twenty-one jars of crimson berries stood in a shining row on the kitchen table, and Aunt Crete was dishing up a savory dinner for two, with her face shining as brightly as if she had done nothing but play the whole morning.

“We did well, didn’t we?” said Donald as he ate his dinner. “I haven’t had such a good time since I went camping in the Klondike. Now after we get these dishes washed you are going to take a nice long nap. You look tired and warm.”

Aunt Crete protested that she was not tired, but Donald insisted. “I want you to get nice and rested up, because to-morrow we’re going shopping. By the way, I’ve brought you a present.” He sprang up from the table, and went to his suitcase to get it.

Aunt Crete’s heart beat with anticipation as he handed her a little white box. What if it should be a breastpin? How she would like that! She had worn her mother’s, a braid of hair under a glass, with a gold band under it, ever since she was grown up; and sometimes she felt as if it was a little old-fashioned. Luella openly scoffed at it, and laughed at her for wearing it; but no one ever suggested getting her a new one, and, if she had ventured to buy one for herself, she knew they would have thought her extravagant.

She opened the box with excited fingers, and there inside was a little leather case. Donald touched a spring, and it flew open and disclosed a lovely star made all of seed-pearls, reposing on white velvet. It was a “breastpin” indeed, and one fit for a queen. Fortunately Aunt Crete did not know enough about jewelry to realize what it cost, or her breath might have been taken away. As it was, she was dumb for the moment. Such a beautiful pin, and for her! She could scarcely believe it. She gazed and gazed, and then, laying the box on the table, rose up and took Donald’s face in her two toil-worn hands, and kissed him.

“I’m glad you like it,” he said with a pleased smile. “I wasn’t quite sure what to get, but the salesman told me these were always nice. Now let’s get at these dishes.”

In a daze of happiness Aunt Crete washed the dishes while Donald wiped them, and then despite her protests he made her go up-stairs and lie down.

When had she ever taken a nap in the daytime before? Not since she was a little girl and fell from the second-story window. The family had rushed around her frightened, and put her to bed in the daytime; and for one whole day she had been waited upon and cared for tenderly. Then she had been able to get up; and the hard, careless, toilsome world had rushed on again for her. But the memory of that blessed day of rest, touched by gentleness, had lingered forever a bright spot in her memory. She had always been the one that did the hard things in her family, even when she was quite young.

Aunt Crete lay cautiously down upon her neatly made bed after she had attired herself in her best gown, a rusty black and white silk made over from one Luella had grown tired of, and clasped her hands blissfully on her breast, resting with her eyes wide open and a light of joy upon her face. She hardly felt it right to relax entirely, lest Donald might call her; but finally the unaccustomed position in the middle of the day sent her off into a real doze, and just about that time the telephone bell rang.

The telephone was in the sitting-room down-stairs. It had been put in at the time when the telephone company were putting them in free to introduce them in that suburb. It was ordinarily a source of great interest to the whole family, though it seldom rang except for Luella. Luella and her mother were exceedingly proud of its possession.

Donald was in the sitting-room reading. He looked up from his paper, hesitated a moment, and then took down the receiver. Perhaps his aunt was asleep already, and he could attend to this without waking her.

“Hello; is this 53 M?”

Donald glanced at the number on the telephone, and answered, “Yes.”

“Here you are, Atlantic. Here is Midvale,” went on the voice of the operator at central.

“Hello! Is that you Aunt Crete? This is Luella,” came another girl’s strident voice in hasty impatience. “What in the world were you so long about answering the ’phone for? I’ve been waiting here an age. Now, listen, Aunt Crete. For heaven’s sake don’t you tell that crazy cousin of ours where to find us, or like as not he’ll take a notion to run down here and see us; and I should simply die of mortification if he did. This is a very swell hotel, and it would be fierce to have a backwoods relation appear on the scene. Now be sure you keep dark. I’ll never forgive you if you don’t. And say, Aunt Crete, won’t you please sew on the rest of that Val edging down the ruffles of the waist and on the skirt of my new lavender organdie, and do it up, and send it by mail? I forgot all about it. It’s on the bed in the spare room, and the edging is started. You sew it on the way it is begun. You’ll see. Now don’t you go to sewing it on in that old way because it is quicker; for it doesn’t look a bit pretty, and you’ve nothing much else to do, now we’re gone, anyway. And say, Aunt Crete, would you mind going down to Peters’s to-day, and telling Jennie I forgot all about getting those aprons to finish for the fair, and tell her you’ll finish them for her? Do it to-day, because she has to send the box off by the end of the week. And mother says you better clean the cellar right away, and she wondered if you’d feel equal to whitewashing it. I should think you’d like to do that, it’s so cool this warm weather to be down cellar. And, O, yes, if you get lonesome and want something to do, I forgot to tell you I left those three flannel shirt-waists all cut out ready to be made in the upper bureau drawer of the spare room. Now don’t read your eyes out the way you did the last time we went off and left you, and have to wear dark glasses for a week, because I have lots of things planned to do when I get home. I’m going to have Helena Bates for a week, and there’ll be several lunches and picnics doing. O, say, Aunt Crete, mother says, if there’s any more pie-cherries to be had, you better put up some; and be sure and stone them all. I just hate them with the seeds in. And I guess that’s all; only don’t forget you promised to have all those buttonholes worked for me in those underclothes I’m making, before I get back. Are you all right? Let me see. There was something else. O, yes, mother says you don’t need to get out the best china and make a great fuss as if you had grand company; he’s only a country boy, you know. Say, Aunt Crete. Are you there? Why don’t you answer? Aunt Crete! Hello! For pity’s sake, what is the matter with this ’phone? Hello, central! O, dear! I suppose she’s gone away. That’s the way Aunt Crete always does!”

Donald, a strange, amused expression upon his face, stood listening and hesitating. He did not know exactly what to do. Without any intention at all he had listened to a conversation not intended for his ears. Should he answer and tell who he was? No, for that would but embarrass Luella. Neither would it do to call Aunt Crete now, for they would be sure to find out he had heard. Perhaps it was better to keep entirely still. There seemed to be nothing serious at stake. Ruffles, and shirt-waists, and gingham aprons for a guild, and whitewashing the cellar! Nobody would die if none of them were done, and his blood boiled over the tone in which the invisible cousin at the other end of the wire had ordered Aunt Crete about. He could read the whole life-story of the patient self-sacrifice on the one hand and imposition on the other. He felt strongly impelled to do something in the matter. A rebuke of some sort should be administered. How could it best be done?

Meantime Luella was fuming with the telephone girl, and the girl was declaring that she could get no answer from Midvale any more. Donald stood wickedly enjoying their discomfiture, and was at last rewarded by hearing Luella say: “Well, I guess I’ve said all I want to say, anyway; so you needn’t ring them up again. I’ve got to go out boating now.” The receiver at the shore clicked into place, and the connection was cut off.

Then the young man hung up the receiver at the Midvale end of the line, and sat down to think. Bit by bit he pieced together the story until he had very nearly made out the true state of affairs. So they were ashamed of him, and were trying to get away. Could it be possible that they had been the people that got on the train as he got off? Was that girl with the loud voice and the pongee suit his cousin? The voice over the telephone seemed like the one that had called to the girl in the pony-cart. And had his eyes deceived him, or were there three plates on the breakfast-table that morning? Poor Aunt Crete! He would give her the best time he knew how, and perhaps it was also set for him to give his cousin a lesson.

CHAPTER III
A WONDERFUL DAY

Aunt Crete woke up at last from an uncomfortable dream. She thought Carrie and Luella had come back, and were about to snatch Donald away from her and bear him off to the shore.

She arose in haste and smoothed her hair, astonished at the freshness of her own face in the glass. She was afraid she had overslept and lost some of the precious time with Donald. There was so much to ask him, and he was so good to look at. She hurried down and was received warmly. Donald’s meditations had culminated in a plan.

“Sit down, Aunt Crete; are you sure you are rested? Then I want to talk. Suppose we run down to the shore and surprise the folks. How soon could you be ready?”

“O dear heart! I couldn’t do that!” exclaimed Aunt Crete, her face nevertheless alight with pleasure at the very thought.

“Why not? What’s to hinder?”

“O, I never go. I always stay at home and attend to things.”

“But that’s no reason. Why couldn’t things attend to themselves?”

“Why, I couldn’t leave the house alone.”

“Now, what in the world could possibly happen to the house that you could prevent by staying in it? Be reasonable, dear aunt. You know the house won’t run away while you are gone, and, if it does, I’ll get you another one. You don’t mean to tell me you never go off on a vacation. Then it’s high time you went, and you’ll have to stay the longer to make up for lost time. Besides, I want your company. I’ve never seen the Eastern coast, and expect to enjoy it hugely; but I need somebody to enjoy it with me. I can’t half take things in alone. I want somebody my very own to go with me. That’s what I came here for. I had thought of inviting you all to go down for a little trip; but, as the others are down there, why, we can join them.”

Aunt Crete’s face clouded. What would Luella say at having them appear on her horizon? The young man was all right, apparently, but there was no telling how angry Luella might be if her aunt came. She knew that Luella preferred to keep her in the background.

“I really couldn’t go, dear,” she said wistfully. “I’d like it with all my heart. And it would be specially nice to go with you, for I never had anybody to go round with me, not since your mother was a girl and used to take me with her wherever she went. I missed her dreadfully after she was married and went West. She was always so good to me.”

The young man’s face softened, and he reached his hand impulsively across the table, and grasped the toil-worn hand of his aunt.

“Well, you shall have somebody to go round with you now, auntie; that is, if you’ll let me. I’m not going to take ‘No’ for an answer. You just must go. We’ll have a vacation all by ourselves, and do just as we please, and we’ll bring up at the hotel where Aunt Carrie and Luella are, and surprise them.”

“But, child, I can’t!” said Aunt Crete in dismay, seeing his determination. “Why, I haven’t any clothes suitable to wear away from home. We were all so busy getting Luella fixed out that there wasn’t any time left for mine, and it didn’t really matter about me anyway. I never go anywhere.”

“But you’re going now, Aunt Lucretia,” said he; “and it does matter, you see. Clothes are easily bought. We’ll go shopping after breakfast to-morrow morning.”

“But I really can’t afford it, Donald,” said his aunt with an air of finality. “You know I’m not rich. If Carrie weren’t good enough to give me a home here, I shouldn’t know how to make two ends meet.”

“Never mind that, Aunt Crete; this is my layout, and I’m paying for it. We’ll go shopping to-morrow morning. I’ve got some money in my pocket I’m just aching to spend. The fact is, Aunt Crete, I struck gold up there in the Klondike, and I’ve got more money than I know what to do with.”

“O!” said Aunt Crete with awe in her voice at the thought of having more money than one knew what to do with. Then shyly, “But——”

“But what, Aunt Lucretia?” asked Donald as she hesitated and flushed till the double V came into her forehead in the old helpless, worried way.

“Why, there’s lots of canning and house-cleaning that has got to be done, and I don’t really think Carrie would like it to have me leave it all, and run away on a pleasure excursion.”

Righteous indignation filled the heart of the nephew. “Well, I should like to know why she wouldn’t like it!” he exclaimed impulsively. “Has she any better right to have a vacation than you? I’m sure you’ve earned it. You blessed little woman, you’re going to have a vacation now, in spite of yourself. Just put your conscience away in pink cotton till we get back—though I don’t know whether I shall let you come back to stay. I may spirit you off with me somewhere if I don’t like the looks of my cousin. I’ll take all the responsibility of this trip. If Aunt Carrie doesn’t like it, she may visit her wrath on me, and I’ll tell her just what I think of her. Anyhow, to the shore you are going right speedily; that is, if you want to go. If there’s some other place you’d rather go besides to the Traymore, speak the word, and there we’ll go. I want you to have a good time.”

Aunt Crete gasped with joy. The thought of the ocean, the real ocean, was wonderful. She had dreamed of it many times, but never had seen it, because she was always the one who could just as well stay at home as not. She never got run down or nervous or cross, and was ordered to go away for her health; and she never insisted upon going when the rest went. Her heart was bounding as it had not bounded since the morning of the last Sunday-school picnic she had attended when she was a girl.

“Indeed, dear boy, I do want to go with all my heart if I really ought. I have always wanted to see the ocean, and I can’t imagine any place I’d rather go than the Traymore, Luella’s talked so much about it.”

“All right. Then it’s settled that we go. How soon can we get ready? We’ll go shopping to-morrow morning bright and early, and get a trunkful of new clothes. It’s always nice to have new things when you go off; you feel like another person, and don’t have to be sewing on buttons all the time,” laughed Donald, as if he was enjoying the whole thing as much as his aunt. “I meant to have a good time getting presents for the whole family; but, as they aren’t here, I’m going to get them all for you. You’re not to say a word. Have you got a trunk?”

“Trunk? No, child. I haven’t ever had any need for a trunk. The time I went to Uncle Hiram’s funeral I took Carrie’s old haircloth one, but I don’t know’s that’s fit to travel again. Carrie’s got her flannels packed away in camphor in it now, and I shouldn’t like to disturb it.”

“Then we’ll get a trunk.”

“O, no,” protested Aunt Crete; “that would be a foolish expense. There’s some pasteboard boxes up-stairs. I can make out with them in a shawl-strap. I sha’n’t need much for a few days.”

“Enlarge your scale of things, Aunt Crete. You’re going to stay more than a few days. You’re going to stay till you’re tired, and just want to come back. As we’re going to a ‘swell’ hotel,”—Donald reflected that Aunt Crete could not understand his reference to Luella’s description of the Traymore,—“we can’t think of shawl-straps and boxes. You shall have a good big trunk. I saw an advertisement of one that has drawers and a hat-box in it, like a bureau. We’ll see if we can find one to suit.”

“It sounds just like the fairy tales I used to read to Luella when she was a little girl,” beamed Aunt Crete. “It doesn’t seem as if it was I. I can’t make it true.”

“Now let’s write down a list of things you need,” said the eager planner; “we’ll have to hurry up things, and get off this week if possible. I’ve been reading the paper, and they say there’s coming a hot wave. I need to get you to the shore before it arrives, if possible. Come; what shall I put down first? What have you always thought you’d like, Aunt Crete? Don’t you need some silk dresses?”

“O dear heart! Hear him! Silk dresses aren’t for me. Of course I’ve always had a sort of hankering after one, but nothing looks very well on me. Carrie says my figure is dumpy. I guess, if you’re a mind to, you can get me a lace collar. It’ll please me as well as anything. Luella saw some for a quarter that were real pretty. She bought one for herself. I think it would do to wear with my new pin, and all my collars are pretty much worn out.”

“Now look here, Aunt Crete! Can’t I make you understand? I mean business, and no collars for a quarter are going to do. You can have a few cheap ones for morning if you want them, but we’ll buy some real lace ones to wear with the pin. And you shall have the silk dress, two or three of them, and a lot of other things. What kind do you want?”

“O my dear boy! You just take my breath away. I with two or three silk dresses! The idea! Carrie would think me extravagant, and Luella wouldn’t like it a bit. She always tells me I’m too gay for my years.”

Donald set his lips, and wished he could have speech for a few minutes with the absent Luella. He felt that he would like to express his contempt for her treatment of their aunt.

“I’ve always thought I’d like a gray silk,” mused Aunt Crete with a dreamy look in her eyes, “but I just know Luella would think it was too dressy for me. I suppose black would be better. I can’t deny I’d like black silk, too.”

“We’ll have both,” said Donald decidedly. “I saw a woman in a silver-gray silk once. She had white hair like yours, and the effect was beautiful. Then you’ll need some other things. White dresses, I guess. That’s what my chum’s grandmother used to wear when I went there visiting in the summer.”

“White for me!” exclaimed the aunt. “O, Luella would be real angry at me getting white. She says it’s too conspicuous for old women to dress in light colors.”

“Never mind Luella. We’re doing this, and whatever we want goes. If Luella doesn’t like it, she needn’t look at it.”

Aunt Crete was all in a flutter that night. She could hardly sleep. She did not often go to town. Luella did all the shopping. Sometimes she suggested going, but Carrie always said it was a needless expense, and, besides, Luella knew how to buy at a better bargain. It was a great delight to go with Donald. Her face shone, and all the weariness of the day’s work, and all the toilsome yesterdays, disappeared from her brow.

She looked over her meagre wardrobe, most of it cast-offs from Carrie’s or Luella’s half-worn clothing, and wrote down in a cramped hand a few absolute necessities. The next morning they had an early breakfast, and started at once on their shopping-expedition. Aunt Crete felt like a little child being taken to the circus. The idea of getting a lot of new clothes all for herself seemed too serious a business to be true. She was dazed when she thought of it; and so, when Donald asked what they should look at first, she showed plainly that she would be little help in getting herself fitted out. She was far too happy to bring her mind down to practical things, and, besides, she could not adjust herself to the vast scale of expenditure Donald had set.

“Here are some collars,” said Donald. “We might as well begin on those.”

Aunt Crete examined them with enthusiasm, and finally picked out two at twenty-five cents apiece.

“Are those the best you have?” questioned Donald.

“O, no,” said the saleswoman, quick to identify the purchaser that did not stop at price; “did you want real or imitation?”

“Real, by all means,” he answered promptly.

“O Donald,” breathed Aunt Crete in a warning whisper, “real lace comes dreadful high. I’ve heard Luella say so. Besides, I shouldn’t have anything to wear it with, nor any place to go fixed up like that.”

“Have you forgotten you’re going to the Traymore in a few days?” he asked her with a twinkle in his eye. “And what about the gray silk? Won’t it go with that? If not, we’ll get something better.”

Assisted by the saleswoman, they selected two beautiful collars of real lace, and half a dozen plain ones for commoner wear.

“Couldn’t you go with us?” asked Donald of the saleswoman as the purchase was concluded. “My aunt wishes to get a good many things, and neither she nor I is much used to shopping. We’d like to have your advice.”

“I’m sorry; I’d like to, but I’m not allowed to leave this counter,” said the woman with a kindly smile. “I’m head of this department, and they can’t get along without me this morning. But they have buyers in the office just for that purpose. You go up to the desk over on the east side just beyond the rotunda, and ask for a buyer to go around with you. Get Miss Brower if you can, and tell her the head of the lace department told you to call for her. She’ll tell you just what to get,” and she smiled again at Aunt Crete’s kindly, beaming face.

They went to the desk, and found Miss Brower, who, when she heard the message, took them smilingly under her wing. She knew that meant a good sale had been made, and there would be something in it for her. Besides, she had a kindly disposition, and did not turn up a haughty nose at Aunt Crete’s dumpy little figure.

“Now, just what do you want first?” she asked brightly.

“Everything,” said Donald helplessly. “We’ve only bought a lace collar so far, and now we want all the rest of the things to go with it. The only things we’ve decided on so far are two silk dresses, a black one and a silver-gray. How do we go about it to get them? Do they have them ready-made?”

“Nothing that would be quite suitable, I’m afraid, in silks. But we’ll go and see what there is in stock,” said the assistant with skilful eye, taking in Aunt Crete’s smiling, helpless face, lovely white hair, dumpy, ill-fitted figure, and all. “There might be a gray voile that would suit her. In fact, I saw one this morning, very simple and elegant, lined with gray silk, and trimmed with lace dyed to match. It is a beauty, and just reduced this morning to thirty dollars from sixty. I believe it will fit her.”

Aunt Crete gasped at the price, and looked at Donald; but he seemed pleased, and said: “That sounds good. Let’s go and see it. We’ll have a gray—what was it you called it—voile? Remember that name, Aunt Crete. You’re going to have a gray voile. But we want the silk too. Do they make things here? We want to go away in a few days, and would like to take them with us.”

“O, yes, they’ll make anything to order; and this time of year we’re not so busy. I guess you could get a ‘hurry-up’ order on it, and have it done in a couple of days; or it could be forwarded to you if it was not quite finished when you left.”

They stepped into the elevator, and in a trice were ushered into the presence of the rare and the imported. Aunt Crete stood in a maze of delight and wonder. All this was on exhibition just for her benefit, and she was Alice in Wonderland for the hour. Donald stood back with his arms folded, and watched her with satisfaction. One thing alone was wanted to complete it. He would have liked to have Luella up in the gallery somewhere watching also. But that he held in anticipation. Luella should be made to understand that she had done wrong in underrating this sweet, patient soul.

“DONALD WATCHED HER WITH SATISFACTION”

The gray voile was entirely satisfactory to the two shoppers. Donald recognized it as the thing many women of his acquaintance wore at the receptions he had attended in university circles. Aunt Crete fingered it wistfully, and had her inward doubts whether anything so frail and lovely, like a delicate veil, would wear; but, looking at Donald’s happy face, she decided not to mention it. The dress was more beautiful than anything she had ever dreamed of possessing. “But it won’t fit me,” she sighed as she and Miss Brower were on the way to the “trying-on” room, where the garment was to be fitted to her. “I’m so dumpy, you know, and Luella always says it’s no use to get me anything ready-made.”

“O, the fitter will make it fit,” said Miss Brower convincingly; and then, with a glance at the ample waist, whose old-fashioned lines lay meekly awry as if they were used to being put on that way and were beyond even discouragement: “Why don’t you wear one of those stiffened waists? There’s a new one on sale, has soft bones all around, and is real comfortable. It would make your dresses set a great deal better. If you like, I’ll go get one, and you can be fitted over it. You don’t like anything very tight, do you?”

“No,” said Aunt Crete in a deprecatory tone, “I never could bear anything real tight. That’s what puts Luella out so about me. But, if you say there’s a waist that’s comfortable, I should be so obliged if you’d get it. I’d be willing to pay any price not to look so dumpy.”

She felt that if it took the last cent she possessed, and made all her relatives angry with her, she must have something to fit her once.

Miss Brower, thus commissioned, went away, and returned very soon with the magical waist that was to transform Miss Lucretia’s “figger.” If Donald could have seen his aunt’s face when she was finally arrayed in the soft folds of the gray voile and was being pinned up and pinned down and pinned in and pinned out, he would have been fully repaid. Aunt Crete’s ecstasy was marred only by the fact that Luella could not see her grandeur. Actually being fitted in a department-store to a “real imported” dress! Could mortal attain higher in this mundane sphere?

When the fitting was pronounced done and Aunt Crete was about to don her discouraged shirt-waist once more, Miss Brower appeared in the doorway with a coat and skirt suit over her arm, made of fine soft black taffeta.

“Just put this on and let the gentleman see how he likes it,” she said. She had been out to talk over matters with Donald and have an understanding as to what was wanted. She had advised the taffeta coat and skirt for travelling, with an extra cloth coat for cool days. Aunt Crete, with the new dignity that consciousness of her improved figure gave her, rustled out to her nephew looking like a new woman, her face beaming.

That was a wonderful day. Aunt Crete retired again for the black taffeta to be altered a little, and yet again for a black and white dotted swiss, and a white linen suit, and a handsome black crêpe de chine, and then to have the measure taken for the silver-gray silk, which the head dressmaker promised could be hurried through. They bought a black chiffon waist and some filmy, dreamy white shirt-waists, simple and plain in design, with exquisite lace simply applied, fine hand-made tucks, and finer material. Miss Brower advised white linen and white lawn for morning wear at the seashore, and gave Aunt Crete confidence, telling how she had a customer, “a woman about as old as you, with just such lovely white hair,” who but yesterday purchased a set of white dresses for morning wear at the seashore. This silenced the thoughts of her sister’s horror at “White for you, Crete! What are you thinking of?” Never mind, she was going to have one good time, even if she had to put all her lovely finery away in a trunk afterwards, and never bring it out again, or—dreary thought—were made to cut it over for Luella sometime. Well, it might come to that, but at least she would enjoy it while it was hers.

Two white linen skirts, a handsome black cloth coat, several pairs of silk gloves, black and white, some undergarments dainty enough for a bride, a whole dozen pairs of stockings! How Aunt Crete rejoiced in those! She had been wearing stockings whose feet were cut out of old stocking legs for fifteen years. She couldn’t remember when she had had a whole new pair of stockings all her own. And then two new bonnets.

All these things were acquired little by little. It was while they were in the millinery department, and Miss Brower had just set a charming black lace bonnet made on a foundation of white roses on the white hair, that Donald decided she was one of the most beautiful old ladies he had ever seen. The drapery was a fine black lace scarf, which swept around the roses and tied loosely on the breast; and it gave the quiet little woman a queenly air. She was getting used to seeing her own face in strange adornments, but it startled her to see that she really looked handsome in this bonnet. She stood before the transformation in the mirror almost in awe, and never heard what Miss Brower was saying:

“That’s just the thing for best, and there’s a lovely lace wrap in the cloak department she ought to have to go with it. It would be charming.”

“Get it,” said Donald with respectful brevity. He was astonished himself at the difference mere clothes made. Aunt Crete was fairly impressive in her new bonnet. And the lace wrap proved indeed to be the very mate to the bonnet, hiding the comfortable figure, and making her look “just like other people,” as she breathlessly expressed it after one glance at herself in the lace wrap.

They bought a plain black bonnet, a sweet little gray one, a fine silk umbrella, a lot of pretty belts and handkerchiefs, some shoes and rubbers, a hand-bag of cut steel, for which Luella would have bartered her conscience—what there was left of it; and then they smiled good-by at Miss Brower, and left her for a little while, and went to lunch.

Such a lunch! Soup, and fish, and spring lamb, and fresh peas, and new potatoes, and two kinds of ice-cream in little hard sugar cases that looked like baked snow-balls. Aunt Crete’s hand trembled as she took the first spoonful. The wonders of the day had been so great that she was fairly worn out, and two little bright red spots of excitement had appeared in her cheeks, but she was happy! Happier than she remembered ever to have been in her life before. Her dear old conscience had a moment of sighing that Luella could not have been there to have enjoyed it too, and then her heart bounded in wicked gleefulness that Luella was not there to stop her nice time.

They went into a great hall in the same store, and sat among the palms and coolness made by electric fans, while a wonderful organ played exquisite music, and Aunt Crete felt she certainly was in heaven without the trouble of dying; and she never dreamed, dear soul, that she had been dying all her life that others might live, and that it is to such that the reward is promised.

They went back to Miss Brower later; and behold! the silver-gray silk had been cut out, and was ready to fit. Aunt Crete felt it was fairy-work, the whole of it, and she touched the fabric as if it had been made by magic.

Then they went and bought a trunk and a handsome leather satchel, and Donald took a notion that his aunt must have a set of silver combs for her hair such as he saw in the hair of another old lady.

“Now,” said Donald reflectively, “we’ll go home and get rested, and to-morrow we’ll come down and buy any things we’ve forgotten.”

“And I’m sure I don’t see what more a body could possibly need,” said Aunt Crete, as, tired and absolutely contented, she climbed into the train and sat down in the hot plush seat.

The one bitter drop in the cup of bliss came the next morning—or rather two drops—in the shape of letters. One from Aunt Carrie for Donald was couched in stiffest terms, in which she professed to have just heard of his coming, and to be exceedingly sorry that she was not at home, and was kept from returning only by a sprained ankle, the doctor telling her that she must not put her foot to the ground for two or three weeks yet, or she would have to suffer for it.

The other letter was for Aunt Crete, and was a rehash of the telephone message, with a good sound scolding for having gone away from the telephone before she finished speaking. Luella had written it herself because she felt like venting her temper on some one. The young man that had been so attentive to her in town had promenaded the piazza with another young woman all the evening before. Luella hoped Aunt Crete would put up plenty of gooseberry jam. Aunt Crete put on her double V as she read, and sighed for a full minute before Donald looked up amused from his letter.

“Now, Aunt Crete, you look as if a mountain had rolled down upon you. What’s the matter?”

“O, I’m just afraid, Donald, that I’m doing wrong going off this way, when Carrie expects me to do all this canning and sewing and cleaning. I’m afraid she’ll never forgive me.”

“Now, Aunt Crete, don’t you love me? Didn’t I tell you I’d stand between you and the whole world? Please put that letter up, and come and help me pack your new trunk. Do you want that gray silk put in first, or shall I put the shoes at the bottom? Don’t you know you and I are going to have the time of our lives? We’re going to run away from every care. Do you suppose your own sister would want you to stay here roasting in the city if she knew you had a nephew just aching to carry you off to the ocean? Come, forget it. Cut it out, Aunt Crete, and let’s pack the trunk. I’m longing to be off to smell the briny deep.” And laughingly he carried her away, and plunged her into thoughts of her journey, giving her no time the rest of the day to think of anything else.

CHAPTER IV
AUNT CRETE TRANSFORMED

They locked the house early one morning when even the dusty bricks had a smell of freshness to them before the hot sun baked them for another day. The closed blinds seemed sullen like a conquered tyrant, and the front door looked reproachfully at Aunt Crete as she turned the key carefully and tried it twice to be sure it was locked. The lonesome look of the house gave the poor old lady a pang as she turned the corner in her softly rustling silk coat and skirt. She felt it had hardly been right to put on a new black silk in the morning, and go off from all the cares of the world, just leave them, boldly ignore them, like any giddy girl, and take a vacation. She regarded herself with awe and a rising self-respect in every window she passed. Somehow the look of dumpiness had passed away mysteriously. It was not her old self that was passing along the street to the station bearing a cut-steel hand-bag, while Donald carried her new satchel, and her new trunk bumped on a square ahead in the expressman’s wagon.

It was a hot morning, and the great city station seemed close and stuffy; but Aunt Crete mingled with the steaming crowd blissfully. To be one with the world, attired irreproachably; to be on her way to a great hotel by the sea, with new clothes, and escorted devotedly by some one that was her very own, this indeed was happiness. Could any one desire more upon the earth?

Donald put her into a cab at the station, and she beamed happily out at the frightful streets that always made her heart come into her mouth on the rare occasions when she had to cross them. The ride across the city seemed a brief and distinguished experience. It was as if everybody else was walking and they only had the grandeur of a carriage. Then the ferry-boat was delightful to the new traveller, with its long, white-ceiled passages, and its smell of wet timbers and tarred ropes. They had a seat close to the front, where they could look out and watch their own progress and see the many puffing monsters laboriously plying back and forth, and the horizon-line of many masts, like fine brown lines against the sky. Aunt Crete felt that at last she was out in the world. She could not have felt it more if she had been starting for Europe.

“SHE BEAMED UPON THE WHOLE TRAINFUL OF PEOPLE”

The seashore train, with its bamboo seats and its excited groups of children bearing tin pails and shovels and tennis-rackets, filled her with a fine exhilaration. At last, at last, her soul had escaped the bounds of red brick walls that she had expected would surround her as long as she lived. She drew deep breaths, and beamed upon the whole trainful of people, yelling baby and all. She gazed and gazed at the fast-flying Jersey scenery, grown so monotonous to some of the travellers, and admired every little white and green town at which they paused.

Donald put her into a carriage when they reached the shore. Half an hour off they had begun to smell the sea, and to catch glimpses of low-lying marshes and a misty blueness against the sky. Now every friendly hackman at the station seemed a part of the great day to Aunt Crete. So pretty a carriage, with low steps and gray cushions and a fringe all around the canopy, and a white speckled horse, with long, gentle, white eyelashes. Aunt Crete leaned back self-consciously on the gray cushions, and enjoyed the creak of her silk jacket as she settled into place. She felt as if this was a play that would soon be over; but she would enjoy it to the very end, and then go back to her dish-washing and cellar-cleaning, and being blamed, and bear them all in happy remembrance of what she had had for one blissful vacation.

She did not know that Donald had telephoned ahead for the best apartments in the hotel. She was engaged in watching for the first blue line of the great mysterious ocean; and, when it came into sight, billowing suddenly above the line of board walk as they turned a corner, her heart stood still for one moment, and then bounded onward set to the time of wonder.

Two obsequious porters jumped to assist Aunt Crete from the carriage. The hand-baggage drifted up the steps as if by magic, and awaited them in the apartments to which they arose in a luxurious elevator. Aunt Crete noticed several old ladies with pink and blue wool knitting, sitting in a row of large rocking-chairs, as she glided up to the second floor. It gave her rest on one point, for they all wore white dresses. She had been a little dubious about those white dresses that Donald had insisted upon. But now she might enjoy them unashamed. O, what would Luella say?

She glanced around the room, half-fearfully expecting to find Luella waiting there. Somehow, now she was here, she wanted to get used to it and enjoy it all before Luella came. For Luella was an uncertain quantity. Luella might not like it, after all! Dreadful thought! And after Donald had taken so much trouble and spent so much money all to surprise them!

The smiling porter absorbed the goodly tip that Donald handed him, and went his way. Aunt Crete and Donald were left alone. They looked at each other and smiled.

“Let’s look around and see where they’ve put us,” said Donald, pushing the swaying curtains aside; and there before them rolled the blue tide of the ocean. Aunt Crete sank into a chair, and was silent for a while; and then she said: “It’s just as big as I thought it would be. I was so afraid it wouldn’t be. Some folks next door went down to the shore last year, and they said it didn’t look big enough to what they’d expected; and I’ve been afraid ever since.”

Donald’s eyes filled with a tender light that was beautiful to see. He was enjoying the spending of his money, and it was yielding him a rich reward already.

The apartments that had been assigned to them consisted of a parlor and two large bedrooms with private baths. Donald discovered a few moments later, when he went down to the office to investigate, that Luella and his aunt occupied a single room on the fourth floor back, overlooking the kitchen court. It was not where he would have placed them, had they chosen to await his coming and be taken down to the shore in style. But now that they had run away from him, and were too evidently ashamed of him, perhaps it was as well to let them remain where they were, he reflected.

“Aunt Carrie and Luella have gone out with a party in a carriage for an all-day drive to Pleasure Bay,” announced Donald when he came up. “Aunt Carrie’s ankle must be better.”

“Well, that’s real nice!” exclaimed Aunt Crete with a smile, turning from her view of the sea, where she had been ever since he left her. “I’m glad Luella is having a good time, and we sha’n’t miss her a mite. You and I’ll have the ocean all to ourselves to-day.”

Donald smiled approvingly. He was not altogether sure he cared to meet that other aunt and cousin at all. He was not sure but he would like to run away from them, and carry Aunt Crete with him.

“Very well,” he said, “I’m glad you’re not disappointed. We’ll do just whatever we want to. Would you like to go in bathing?”

“O, my! Could I? I’ve always thought I’d like to see how it would feel, but I guess I’m too old. Besides, there’s my figger. It wouldn’t look nice in a bathing-suit. Luella wouldn’t like it a bit, and I don’t want to disgrace her, now I’m here. She always makes a lot of fun of old people going in and sitting right on the edge of the water. I guess it won’t do.”

“Yes, it will do, if you want to. Didn’t I tell you this was my party, and Luella isn’t in it? That’s ridiculous. I’ll take you in myself, Aunt Crete, and we’ll have the best time out; and you sha’n’t be scared, either. I can swim like a fish. You shall go in every day. Would you like to begin at once?”

“I should,” said Aunt Crete, rising with a look of resolution in her face. She felt that Luella would condemn the amusement for her; so, if she was to dare it, it must be done before her niece appeared.

They went down to the beach, and for a few minutes surveyed the bathers as they came out to the water. Then with joy and daring in her face Aunt Crete went into the little bath-house with wildly beating heart, arrayed herself in the gay blue flannel garb provided for her use, and came timidly out to meet Donald, tall and smiling in his blue jerseys.

They had a wonderful time. It was almost better than shopping. Donald led her down to the water, and very gently accustomed her to it until he had led her out beyond the roughness, where his strong arms lifted her well above the swells until she felt as if she was a bird. It was marvellous that she was not afraid, but she was not. It was as if she had that morning been transferred back over forty years to her youth again, and was having the good times that she had longed for, such as other girls had—the swings, and the rides, and the skatings, and bicyclings. How many such things she had watched through the years, with her heart palpitating with daring to do it all herself! Her petulant sister and the logy Luella never dreamed that Aunt Crete desired such un-auntly indulgences. If they had, they would have taken it out of her, scorched it out with scorn.

The white hair with its natural waves fluffed out beautifully, like a canary’s feathers, after the bath, and Aunt Crete was smiling and charming at lunch in one of her fine new white dresses. She had hurried to put it on before Luella appeared, lest they might all be spirited away from her if Luella discovered them. She reflected with a sigh that they would likely fit Luella beautifully, and that that would probably be their final destination, just as Luella’s discarded garments came to her.

But there was nothing to mar the lunch-time and the beautiful afternoon, wherein, after a delicious nap to the accompaniment of the music of the waves, she was taken to drive in the fringed carriage again, while a bunch of handsome ladies, old and young, sat on the hotel piazza in more of those abundant rockers, and watched her approvingly. She felt that she was of some importance in their eyes. She had suddenly blossomed out of her insignificance, and was worth looking at. It warmed her heart with humble pleasure. She felt that she had won approval, not through any merit of her own, but through Donald’s loving-kindness. It was wonderful what a charm clothes could work.

“Put on your gray silk for dinner,” said Donald with malice aforethought in his heart.

“O,” gasped Aunt Crete, “I think I ought to keep that for parties, don’t you?”

“If ever there was a party, it’s going to be to-night,” said Donald. “It’s going to be a surprise-party. You want to see if Aunt Carrie and Luella will know you, you know.”

So with trembling fingers Aunt Crete arrayed herself in her purple and fine linen, very materially assisted by a quiet maid, whom Donald had ordered sent to the room, and who persuaded Aunt Crete to let her arrange the pretty white hair.

It was surprising to see, when the coiffure was complete, that she looked quite like the other old ladies, who were not old at all, only playing old.

“I don’t believe they will know me,” whispered Aunt Crete to herself as she stood before the full-length mirror and surveyed the effect. “And I didn’t think I could ever look like that!” she murmured after a more prolonged gaze, during which she made the acquaintance of her new self. Then she added half wistfully: “I wish I had known it before. I think perhaps they’d have—liked me—more if I’d looked that way all the time.” She sighed half regretfully, as if she were bidding good-by to this new vision, and went out to Donald, who awaited her. She felt that the picnic part of her vacation was almost over now, for Carrie and Luella would be sure to manage to spoil it someway.

Donald looked up from his paper with a welcome in his eyes. It was the first time she had seen him in evening dress, and she thought him handsome as a king.

“You’re a very beautiful woman, Aunt Crete; do you know it?” said Donald with satisfaction. He had felt that the French maid would know how to put just the right touch to Aunt Crete’s pretty hair to take away her odd, “unused” appearance. Now she was completely in the fashion, and she looked every inch a lady. She somehow seemed to have natural intuition for gentle manners. Perhaps her kindly heart dictated them, for surely there can be no better manners than come wrapped up with the Golden Rule, and Aunt Crete had lived by that all her life.

They entered the great dining-hall, and made their way among the palms in a blaze of electric light, with the head waiter bowing obsequiously before them. They had a table to themselves, and Aunt Crete rejoiced in the tiny shaded candles and the hothouse roses in the centre, and lifted the handsome napkins and silver forks with awe. Sometimes it seemed as if she were still dreaming.

The party from Pleasure Bay had reached home rather late in the afternoon, after a tedious time in the hot sun at a place full of peanut-stands and merry-go-rounds and moving-picture shows. Luella had not had a good time. She had been disappointed that none of the young men in the party had paid her special attention. In fact, the special young man for whose sake she had prodded her mother into going had not accompanied them at all. Luella was thoroughly cross.

“Mercy, how you’ve burned your nose, Luella!” said her mother sharply. “It’s so unbecoming. The skin is all peeling off. I do wish you’d wear a veil. You can’t afford to lose your complexion, with such a figure as you have.”

“O, fiddlesticks! I wish you’d let up on that, ma,” snapped Luella. “Didn’t you get a letter from Aunt Crete? I wonder what she’s thinking about not to send that lavender organdie. I wanted to wear it to-night. There’s to be a hop in the ballroom, and that would be just the thing. She ought to have got it done; she’s had time enough since I telephoned. I suppose she’s gone to reading again. I do wish I’d remembered to lock up the bookcase. She’s crazy for novels.”

All this time Luella was being buttoned into a pink silk muslin heavily decorated with cheap lace. There were twenty-six tiny elusive buttons, and Luella’s mother was tired.

“What on earth makes you so long, ma?” snarled Luella, twisting her neck to try to see her back. “We’ll be so late we won’t get served, and I’m hungry as a bear.”

They hurried down, arriving at the door just as Aunt Crete and Donald were being settled into their chairs by the smiling head waiter.

“For goodness’ sake! those must be swells,” said Luella in a low tone. “Did you see how that waiter bowed and smiled? He never does that to us. I expect he got a big tip. See, they’re sitting right next our table. Goodness, ma, your hair is all slipped to one side. Put it up quick. No, the other side. Say, he’s an awfully handsome young man. I wonder if we can get introduced. I just know he dances gracefully. Say, mother, I’d like to get him for a partner to-night. I guess those stuck-up Grandons would open their eyes then.”

“Hush, Luella; he’ll hear you.”

They settled into their places unassisted by the dilatory waiter, who came languidly up a moment later to take their order.

Aunt Crete’s back was happily toward her relatives, and so she ate her dinner in comfort. The palms were all about, and the gentle clink of silver and glass, and refined voices. The soft strains of an orchestra hidden in a balcony of ferns and palms drowned Luella’s strident voice when it was raised in discontented strain, and so Aunt Crete failed to recognize the sound. But Donald had been on the alert. In the first place, he had asked a question or two, and knew about where his relatives usually sat, and had purposely asked to be placed near them. He studied Luella when she came in, and felt pretty sure she was the girl he had seen on the platform of the train the morning he arrived in Midvale; and finally in a break in the music he distinctly caught the name “Luella” from the lips of the sour woman in the purple satin with white question-marks all over it and plasters of white lace.

Aunt Carrie was tall and thin, with a discontented droop to her lips, and premature wrinkles. She wore an affected air of abnormal politeness and disapproval of everything. She was studying the silver-gray silk back in front of her and wondering what there was about that elegant-looking woman with the lovely white waved pompadour and puffs, and that exquisite real lace collar, to remind her of poor sister Lucretia. She always coupled the adjective “poor” with her sister’s name when she thought of all her shortcomings.

Luella’s discontent was somewhat enlivened by the sight of the young man that had not gone on the drive to Pleasure Bay. He stood in the doorway, searching the room with keen, interested eyes. Could it be that he was looking for her? Luella’s heart leaped in a moment’s triumph. Yes, he seemed to be looking that way as if he had found the object of his search, and he was surely coming down toward them with a real smile on his face. Luella’s face broke into preparatory smiles. She would be very coy, and pretend not to see him; so she began a voluble and animated conversation with her mother about the charming time they had had that day, which might have surprised the worthy woman if she had not been accustomed to her daughter’s wiles. She knew it to be a warning of the proximity of some one that Luella wished to charm.

The young man came on straight by the solicitous waiters, who waved him frantically to various tables. Luella cast a rapid side glance, and talked on gayly with drooping head and averted gaze. Her mother looked up, wondering, to see what was the cause of Luella’s animation. He was quite near now, and in a moment more he would speak. The girl felt excited thrills creeping up her back, and the color rushed into her cheeks, which were already red enough from the wind and sun of the day.

“Well, well,” said the young man’s voice in a hearty eagerness Luella had never hoped to hear addressed to herself, “this is too good to be true. Don, old man, where did you drop from? I saw your name in the register, and rushed right into the dining-room——”

“Clarence Grandon, as true as I live!” said a pleasant voice behind Luella. “I thought you were in Europe, bless your heart. This is the best thing that could have happened. Let me introduce my aunt——”

Some seconds before this Luella’s thrills had changed to chills. Mortification stole over her face and up to the roots of her hair. Even the back of her neck, where her bathing-suit was cut low and square, turned angry-looking. The pink muslin had a round neck, and showed a half-circle of whiter neck below the bathing-suit square. But Luella had the presence of mind to smile on to her mother in mild pretence that she had but just noticed the advent of the young man behind. An obsequious waiter was bringing an extra chair for Mr. Grandon, and he was to be seated so that he could look toward their table. Perhaps he would recognize her yet, and there might be a chance of introduction to the handsome stranger. Luella dallied with her dinner in fond hope, and her mother aided and abetted her.

The lovely old lady with the silver-gray silk and the real lace collar and beautiful hair had her back squarely toward the table where Luella and her mother sat. They could not see her face. They could only notice how interested both the young men were in her, and how courteous they were to her; and they decided she must be some very great personage indeed. They watched her half enviously, and began to plan some way to scrape an acquaintance with her. One glimpse they had of her face as the head waiter rushed to draw back her chair when she had finished her dinner. It was a fine, handsome face, younger than they had expected to see, with beautiful sparkling eyes full of mirth and contentment. What was there in the face that reminded them of something? Had they ever met that old lady before?

Luella and her mother brought their dallied dessert to a sudden ending, and followed hard upon the footsteps of the three down the length of the dining-hall; but the lady in gray and her two attendants had disappeared already, and disconsolately they lingered about, looking up and down the length of piazzas in vain hope to see them sitting in one of the great rows of rockers, watching the many-tinted waves in the dying evening light; but there was no sign of them anywhere.

As they stood thus leaning over the balcony, a large automobile, gray, with white cushions, like a great gliding dove, slipped silently up to the entrance below them in the well-bred silence that an expensive machine knows how to assume under dignified owners.

Luella twitched her mother’s sleeve. “That’s Grandon’s car,” she whispered. “P’raps I’ll get asked to go. Let’s sit down here and wait.”

The mother obediently sat down.

CHAPTER V
LUELLA AND HER MOTHER ARE MYSTIFIED

They had not long to wait. They heard the elevator door slide softly open, and then the gentle swish of silken skirts. Luella looked around just in time to be recognized by young Mr. Grandon if he had not at that moment been placing a long white broadcloth coat about his mother’s shoulders. There were four in the party, and Luella’s heart sank. He would not be likely to ask another one. The young man and the gray-silk, thread-lace woman from the other dining-table were going with them, it appeared. Young Mr. Grandon helped the gray-silk lady down the steps while the handsome stranger walked by Mrs. Grandon. They did not look around at the people on the piazza at all. Luella bit her lips in vexation.

“For pity’s sake, Luella, don’t scowl so,” whispered her mother; “they might look up yet and see you.”

This warning came just in time; for young Mr. Grandon just as he was about to start the car glanced up, and, catching Luella’s fixed gaze, gave her a distant bow, which was followed by a courteous lifting of the stranger’s hat.

Aunt Crete was seated beside Mrs. Grandon in the back seat and beaming her joy quietly. She was secretly exulting that Luella and Carrie had not been in evidence yet. She felt that her joy was being lengthened by a few minutes more, for she could not get away from the fear that her sister and niece would spoil it all as soon as they appeared upon the scene.

“I thought Aunt Carrie and Luella would be tired after their all-day trip, and we wouldn’t disturb them to-night,” said Donald in a low tone, looking back to Aunt Crete as the car glided smoothly out from the shelter of the wide piazza.

Aunt Crete smiled happily back to Donald, and raised her eyes with a relieved glance toward the rows of people on the piazza. She had been afraid to look her fill before lest she should see Luella frowning at her somewhere; but evidently they had not got back yet, or perhaps had not finished their dinner.

As Aunt Crete raised her eyes, Luella and her mother looked down into her upturned face enviously, but Aunt Crete’s gaze had but just grazed them and fallen upon an old lady of stately mien with white, fluffy hair like her own, and a white crêpe de chine gown trimmed with much white lace. In deep satisfaction Aunt Crete reflected that, if Luella had aught to say against her aunt’s wearing modest white morning-gowns, she would cite this model, who was evidently an old aristocrat if one might judge by her jewels and her general make-up.

“‘SOMEWHERE I HAVE SEEN THAT WOMAN,’ EXCLAIMED LUELLA’S MOTHER”