Toward the end of June letters from Arthur were infrequent. Indeed, but one had come from him since he had left camp for Cuba, and this, like the earlier letters, had been addressed to Agnes, not to Brenda. Letters were mailed to him twice a week, and various things had been sent to him that the family hoped might be of use in camp. But although Brenda helped pack the little boxes, and though she had bought, or at least selected, many of the things that went in the boxes, she did not write. She was still waiting for Arthur's letter.
The last week in June several of the girls from the Mansion went home to be with relatives for a few days before going up to the farm, and Brenda at last agreed to go down to Rockley. Mrs. Barlow had told her that she might bring with her any of the girls whom she wished to have with her. "Naturally, I suppose, you will wish to bring Maggie, as she is your especial protégée."
Mrs. Barlow had not realized the waning of Brenda's interest in Maggie, but Brenda, as she read the letter, knew that she would not invite Maggie. She had not yet spoken to Maggie about the silver clasp, but she saw that the time had now come to do it, and she nerved herself to the disagreeable task. Accordingly, a day or two before she was to start for Rockley she called Maggie to her room, but when Maggie appeared she was not alone. Concetta was with her. It hardly seemed wise to send Concetta away, and the two little girls sat down, as if to make an afternoon visit. Hardly had she been seated five minutes, however, when Concetta spied the little silver clasp that Brenda had laid on the table near by. At first she put out her hand as if to take it, then even more quickly drew it back. But Brenda had noted the action, and after they had talked a few minutes of other things she brought up the subject of the lost purse.
She had described the pretty purse that she had so valued, because it was a present from one of whom she was especially fond, and told how its loss had distressed her. It must be admitted that her heart beat a trifle more quickly as she looked at the two, but neither of the girls appeared the least self-conscious. Then she held up the clasp—perhaps it wasn't just right to say this before Concetta—and added:
"It surprised me very much a day or two ago to find this little clasp in the possession of one of the girls here at the Mansion, for it is the very clasp that I lost with the silver purse."
Then Maggie reddened and looked at Concetta, and Concetta looked from Maggie to Brenda.
"Did you think that somebody stole it?" asked Maggie anxiously, and then she seemed to search Concetta's face for an answer.
"I hardly care to say what I think," replied Brenda. "I should not like to believe that any one had stolen it."
This time her gaze was so evidently directed toward Maggie that Maggie was almost driven to reply.
"I know that it was in my drawer, Miss Barlow, but—"
"Oh, it was I who gave it to her, I really did; but I didn't steal it." Concetta spoke very positively.
Brenda was certainly puzzled by the turn of affairs, the more puzzled because she realized as well as any one else in the house that Maggie and Concetta had never been good friends, yet it was Maggie whom she now heard saying:
"Oh, I'm sure, Miss Barlow, that Concetta isn't to blame."
"I never saw the purse," explained Concetta, "but the clasp was given to me—that is, I paid twenty-five cents for it. The girl I got it from lives in the next house to my uncle's; you can ask her about it."
"Well, I'm obliged to you, Concetta, for freeing Maggie from suspicion. It is indeed strange that the day I lost the purse was the very day on which I first saw Maggie. You remember, Maggie, the day when I went home with you."
"Yes, indeed, Miss Barlow, the day I broke that vase; that was a bad bargain for you."
"Why, I'm not so sure, Maggie; you see I seem to have found you in exchange for the vase, and perhaps, after all, I have had the best of the bargain. But tell me, Concetta, how it happens that you and Maggie are good friends now. Only a little while ago you seemed to be far from friendly, yet now you would not have been so ready to tell me about the silver clasp if you had not been anxious to help free Maggie from any chance of blame."
So Concetta—for in spite of occasional mistakes in English she was always more voluble than Maggie—explained that several times of late Maggie had been very kind to her, and she gave among her instances the day when Maggie had helped with the lamps; "and then I thought that she was dreadfully good when she never told about Haleema the day the ammonia got spilled, for it was Haleema that broke the bottle, but Maggie never told; and then," concluded Concetta magnanimously, "I got tired of hearing every one find fault with Maggie, so she and I are going to be great friends now. That's one of the things I've learned here, that it's better to be good friends with every one, 'to love your neighbor as yourself.' Miss South often talks to me about it, and so I'm trying to think that every one is as good as I am;" and Concetta tossed her pretty head, and her expression seemed to say that she did not find this sentiment the easiest one in the world to hold.
On investigation—for Concetta urged her to investigate—Brenda found her story true so far as it concerned the way in which she had come into possession of the silver clasp. The little girl from whom she had bought it referred her to an old woman who had a long story as to how it had come into her possession, and Brenda at last decided that it was useless to follow the clew further. But the outcome of all this was a better understanding between Brenda and Maggie, for Brenda, when she had once made a mistake, was never unwilling to rectify it. Whether this little girl had stolen it or whether the old woman was to blame she did not care. She felt sure that neither Maggie nor Concetta had taken the purse. She praised the latter for her frankness, and became so kind to the former, that Maggie actually blossomed out under her smiles.
Before the end of the month Pamela had written that she must stay in Vermont all summer, and in consequence could take no part in the vacation work that Julia had planned. Nora accordingly offered her services, and Amy wrote that she volunteered to spend August with the girls.
Brenda's cousin, Edward Elton, who happened to be present when the plans were discussed, expressed himself as being so gratified that Julia and Miss South would not be left to carry on the work quite alone, that Anstiss Rowe, ever a fun lover, began to speculate as to the reason for his concern.
"Do you suppose that this is on account of his interest in Julia? Julia has so many others to worry about her, that he need not be especially fearful on her account, or—there, I'll ask her—" and running up to Miss South, who had just been bidding Mr. Elton good-bye at the door, she put the question so suddenly that Miss South actually blushed. Then a certain idea came into Anstiss' mind, which just then she did not put into words.
It was the end of June before Brenda consented to go down to Rockley, and when she went Maggie accompanied her. The observing little girl was still disturbed as she noted how thin Brenda had grown, and even before Mr. and Mrs. Barlow noticed it, Maggie had seen that Brenda's step was a little heavy, that her bright manner had given place to listlessness. Her one interest seemed to consist in buying and collecting things for the benefit of the Volunteer Aid Association. No one now reproached her for extravagance, and when her father found that it would please her, he doubled his contribution to this Association, and sent another in Brenda's name.
One afternoon Julia came down and spent the night, and the two cousins wandered on the beach, just as they had in that summer that now seemed so long past—that summer that had been Julia's first at Rockley. Little Lettice, skipping along beside them, begged her aunt to tell her about the day when she had sat on the rock and had dropped her book on the heads of Amy and Fritz seated just beneath her. It always interested Lettice to hear this, for Brenda had a fashion of ending the story with "and if I hadn't dropped that book, I might never have known your cousin Amy." For Amy was "Cousin Amy" in the vocabulary of Lettice, who would have thought it a great misfortune never to have known this adopted relative, since nobody else in her whole circle of acquaintances had so many delightful stories to tell. But on this particular evening Brenda was not ready to repeat her story nor to tell any other, and little Lettice, with a grieved expression, ran on ahead of Brenda and Julia to skip stones in the water. Julia did not remonstrate with Brenda, for she realized that her cousin was not acting wholly from perversity.
Now Brenda was not the only one of the Mansion group whom the prospect of Cuban fighting troubled. Miss South's brother Louis was at the front, and two of Nora's brothers, and Tom Hearst, who had written several amusing letters from camp. Yet although those who were in the army tried to cheer the hearts of their friends at home, and although the latter wrote cheerfully in reply, all felt that the time was far from a happy one. The more timid, like Edith, had recovered from their fear that the Spanish fleet would pounce down upon the defenceless inhabitants of the North Shore. Yet some of them would have faced this danger rather than to live in dread that their sons and brothers were to meet the troops in actual conflict under the hot Cuban sun.
Even the strongest, even those who had no relatives in the army, were stirred, as they had seldom been stirred before, on that Sunday morning when they received the first news of the attack on Santiago. How terrifying were the broad headlines with letters two or three inches long, and how meagre seemed the information given in the columns below,—meagre, yet appalling: "The volunteers were terribly raked. Nearly all the wounded will recover." How much and yet how little this meant until the names of the killed and wounded should be given! Brenda herself would not look at those Sunday newspapers. Agnes summarized the news for her, and told her that in the short list given of wounded or killed she had not yet found one that she knew.
"Oh, when shall we hear everything?" cried Brenda. "Oh, Papa, can't you go; can't I go with you? I would so much rather be in Cuba than here."
"My dear child, you are foolish. In Cuba at this season! Even if you could go, what could you do? The killed and wounded are a very small proportion of those who are fighting, and we have no reason to think that Arthur is among them. To be sure, I wish that Ralph were here; we could, at least, send him South. As it is, I may go myself, but we can only wait until to-morrow, when there will be more complete reports."
Were twenty-four hours ever as long as those that passed before the Monday morning papers arrived?
After her sleepless night again Brenda shrank from reading the reports. Agnes, going over the long list of killed and wounded, gave an exclamation of surprise,—or horror,—then checked it, with an anxious look at Brenda. The latter, watching her narrowly, sprang forward.
"What is it Agnes? You must tell me at once."
"Poor Tom Hearst!" cried Agnes, as her tears fell on the paper; "he was killed by a bursting shell during the early part of the attack on San Juan Hill."
But Brenda apparently did not hear.
"Is Arthur's name there?" she asked impatiently.
"Why, yes," said Agnes reluctantly, "it—"
But before she could utter another word Brenda had fallen heavily to the floor, and for a few minutes everything else was forgotten. Indeed, from the moment when Brenda was placed on the couch in her room upstairs Agnes did not leave her side, and for twenty-four hours, by the direction of the physician whom they had hastily summoned, they did not dare to refer to Santiago.
When she came to herself Brenda learned that the report about Arthur had simply been "slightly wounded;" that her father was expecting an answer soon to his telegram of enquiry, and that Philip Blair had started South.
A faint smile passed over Brenda's face.
"I was sure—I was afraid that he was killed—like poor Tom. Isn't it dreadful that he should die? he was always so full of life." Then she began to weep silently, and said no more about Arthur.
Now it happened that Brenda passed through a more severe illness that summer than Arthur. Her physician, in anxious consultation with the family, concluded that she had stayed too long in town. "I think, too," he said, "that she has had something to worry her. It would seem," he added apologetically, "that one situated as she is would have no cares; but it is hard sometimes to account for the workings of a young girl's mind. She may have magnified some little anxiety until it played serious injury to her nerves."
"It is this war," responded Mrs. Barlow. "I wonder that more of us do not have nervous prostration."
During those long weeks Brenda herself had little to say, even when she was well enough to sit up. When she spent long hours under the awning on the little balcony on which her windows opened, she seemed to take but a languid interest in the world around her.
In those first two or three days when Brenda's condition was at its worst, when there was even a question whether or not she would get well, no one thought much about Maggie, the newcomer at Rockley, whose grief was greater than she could express. She kept her place in a corner of the piazza, hoping and hoping that some one would ask her to do something for the sick girl. Gladly would she have exchanged places with the trained nurse who went back and forth to the sick-room, had she not known that the nurse could do the things that she in her ignorance was unequal to. At last there came a day when Brenda herself asked for her, and after that Maggie was always in the sick-room, except on those occasions when she was carrying into effect some request of Brenda's. How thankful she felt for the lessons in invalid cookery, that now enabled her to prepare a tempting luncheon that Brenda would eat after she had petulantly refused the equally good luncheon prepared by the nurse. Then there were hours when no one but Maggie could amuse Brenda, when, after listening to a chapter or two from the book that she had asked Maggie to read, the sick girl would draw the other into conversation. Any one who listened would have found that the subject about which they talked was war and battles—especially the eventful day of the Santiago fight, concerning which Brenda would allow no one else to speak to her.
Now it happened that one afternoon after Maggie had been reading to her, Brenda remembered the photograph that she had seen in Maggie's room, and again, as on that former day, she asked her about it. So Maggie was drawn to tell all about Tim, even the sad story of his imprisonment.
"But now," she concluded, "everything is going to be all right. His captain is going to have him recommended for promotion for saving life—great bravery," and she pronounced the words with extreme pride. "He saved an officer at the risk of his own life, and when the war's over he's coming to see me."
In fact, Maggie had good reason to be proud of Tim. She had read his name in the newspapers, and though his own letters were modest, she was sure that he had been a real hero.
But the strangest thing of all was a letter from Philip Blair, that Mrs. Barlow read one day aloud in Maggie's presence.
"After all," he wrote, "sick as Arthur is, we may be thankful that it is fever and a very slight wound that keep him on his back. From all I hear he had the narrowest escape, and but for a private soldier, Tim McSorley, he would probably have lost both legs." Then followed a description of the way in which Tim had rescued him almost from under the bursting shell; for, the newspaper report to the contrary, Arthur had not been badly hurt by the shell, only stunned, with a slight wound also from a grazing bullet. But the hardships of the campaign had so told on him that he was soon on the sick list, and when he reached Fort Monroe on the hospital ship he was in a raging fever.
Now to Philip in this eventful July had come an opportunity for usefulness, really greater than if he had gone to Cuba in the army. As his father could now spare him, he had given invaluable service to the sick. He had made one trip to Cuba and had had the grave of Tom Hearst marked properly, and he had travelled the length of the country from Florida to Boston to report to the Volunteer Aid Association the especial needs of the sick soldiers in the camps that he had visited. He was a real ministering angel—for angels are often masculine—to Arthur and other sick friends of his in the hospital at Fort Monroe; and those who knew how much he accomplished in this direction wondered how he found time for the long and cheerful letters that he wrote to the friends of the sick to keep up their spirits.
Lois, too, though belated, had a chance to serve as a nurse in one of the camps, and, while doing her duty there, had the satisfaction of knowing that she was not neglecting home duties; for both her family and Miss Ambrose were at last in such a condition that she felt justified in leaving them. Though few persons would have envied her her hard hospital work, Lois considered herself the most enviable of mortals, and all that she went through only confirmed her in her strong desire to be a doctor.
One fine October morning, almost three months to a day from the victory at Santiago, Julia and Nora, Edith and Ruth, stood on one of the broad piazzas at Rockley talking as rapidly as four intimate friends can talk. Ruth and Julia were hand and hand, for this was their first day together since Ruth's return from her year's wedding journey, and each was delighted to find the other unchanged. "A little older," Julia had said when Ruth pressed her for her opinion; and then, that her friend might not take her too seriously, "but I'd never know it."
"A little more sedate," Ruth had responded; "but you do not show it."
Then the four fell to talking over the events of this very remarkable year.
"Nothing can surprise me," Ruth said, "since I have heard of the engagement of Pamela to Philip Blair. I did not suppose that he had so much sense. Excuse me," she added hastily, noting Edith's surprised look; "I merely meant that Pamela's good qualities are the kind that the average man would be apt to overlook."
"Philip is not an average man," responded Edith proudly; "we all think that he is most unusual."
"Yes, indeed," interposed Nora; "my father says that he never saw any one develop so wonderfully, and when he was first in college every one thought that he was to be a mere society man, like Jimmy Jeremy. Wouldn't you hate it, Edith, if he had decided to devote his life to leading cotillions?"
"Oh, he never would have done that," said the literal Edith; "he would have found something else to do daytimes."
Then Nora, to emphasize Philip's development, told several anecdotes of his helpfulness and devotion to the sick soldiers.
But neither Edith nor Nora then told what Ruth learned later, that Mrs. Blair was far from pleased with the turn of events, as the quiet and almost unknown Pamela was not the type of girl she would have selected to be Philip's wife. Her objection, however, had been made before Philip's engagement was formally announced. When once it was settled, she accepted it with the best possible grace, and even Pamela herself scarcely realized the obstacles that Philip had had to overcome in gaining his mother's consent.
Edith had found it even harder to conceal her disappointment from Philip. Only to Nora did she say, frankly, "I hoped that it would be Julia. They were always such friends, and I am sure that no one ever had so much influence over him."
"We can give Julia the credit of having made Philip look at life in a broader way, and I am sure that they are still the greatest friends. But I happen to know, Edith, that she never felt the least little bit of sentiment for him, and never would."
More than this Nora could not be persuaded to say, and Edith, though with a slight accent of resignation, added:
"Oh, well, I'm very fond of Pamela already, and if I can't have Julia for a sister-in-law, I'm sure that she and I will get along beautifully. Only it will seem very strange to have such a learned person in the family."
But to return to the group on the piazza this bright autumn morning. Seldom have tongues flown faster than theirs. There were so many things to talk about, more absorbing even than Philip's engagement,—Arthur's wonderful escape, for example, of which Ruth had heard only the vaguest account. Now, as she wished to hear details, Nora naturally was ready to give them to her.
"A shot had passed through his ankle, and he couldn't drag himself away, so that there seems not the slightest doubt that he would have been struck again, and perhaps killed, for he was just in the line of the enemy's fire."
Nora spoke as if quite familiar with army tactics and military language, and since there was no one present to criticise her or to say whether her description was technically correct, she continued:
"Yes, we are quite sure that he would have been killed if it hadn't been for Tim McSorley, who dragged him away—"
"Ah," interposed Edith, "and isn't it strange this soldier proved to be a cousin or uncle of Maggie McSorley, a girl, you know, who is at the Mansion; and it's all the stranger because it was Brenda who discovered her, and this has made the greatest difference for Maggie. Brenda had got into the habit of snubbing her, but now she can't do enough for her."
"It's all very interesting," said Ruth, smiling slightly; "but Maggie herself hadn't anything to do with rescuing Arthur, had she?"
"Oh, no, indeed; but still it has made a difference, for Brenda naturally feels grateful to every one belonging to Tim McSorley. She is so impulsive. Then I think, too, that she saw that she had always been unfair to Maggie, and so now she can't do enough for her, just to make amends."
"Yes, and besides, although Maggie had nothing to do with rescuing Arthur, it was her uncle's letter to her that gave the first account of what had really happened to Arthur. I was in the room when she came running to Brenda with the letter; it was when Brenda was nearly beside herself, waiting for some real news, and I honestly think that that letter saved her from brain fever," added Julia.
"'All's well that ends well,'" rejoined Ruth, "is too trite a proverb to quote to-day, yet, however it happened, we should be thankful that Brenda escaped brain fever. No day could be more ideally suited for a wedding than this, but if Brenda's illness had been more severe than it was, who knows when the wedding could have taken place. The day might have been postponed to December or some equally disagreeable month, and no tenting on the lawn then."
"I agree with you," said Julia; "and now I must run away, for there are still several things to do for Brenda, and in less than an hour the train will be here bringing Arthur and the rest of the wedding party. Let me advise you," she concluded, "to be arrayed in your wedding garments by that time, for on an informal occasion like this you will all be needed to help entertain. Many of the guests have never been here before."
When at last the wedding guests arrived, the truth of this statement was evident, for among them were very few of the old friends of the Barlow family.
"We have had one family wedding," Brenda had protested, when her friends expressed surprise at her plans; "and now, if I wish to have mine small and quiet, I think that I ought to be suited, and Arthur, too, for he wishes everything to be just as I wish it."
There was no gainsaying this reasoning, nor would Mr. and Mrs. Barlow have asked Brenda to change her plans. What remonstrances there were came from some of the relatives, and from many of Brenda's young friends not invited to the house, who felt that in some way they were to lose something worth seeing. As Brenda had decreed that it should be a house wedding, they were not even to have the privileges of lookers-on, as might have been the case at a church wedding.
But was ever any family perfectly satisfied with the plans made for the wedding of one of its members? Was there ever a wedding in preparing for which various persons did not think themselves more or less slighted? How, then, could Brenda expect to please all in her large connection? Now, in spite of her impulsiveness, Brenda had been considered rather conventional, and on this account many felt aggrieved that she had insisted on having the affair small and informal.
Yet after all it wasn't a very small wedding, and the drawing-rooms at Rockley were well filled, though with a far less fashionable assemblage than that which had surrounded and greeted Agnes and Ralph Weston six years before. There were naturally a certain number of relatives present, as well as Mr. and Mrs. Blair, Dr. and Mrs. Gostar, and a few other old friends of both Brenda's and Arthur's families.
Besides the "Four," and Julia and Amy and Ruth, there were Frances Pounder and two or three of Brenda's former schoolmates. Miss Crawdon, too, had been invited, and one or two teachers from her school.
Frances Pounder, as her friends still called her, was now Mrs. Egbert Romeyn, and her husband was to perform the marriage ceremony. Mr. Romeyn's church was in a mission centre on the outskirts of the city, and Frances gladly shared his parish labors. To the great surprise of all who knew her, she had really buried the pride and haughty spirit of her school days.
Anstiss and Miss South and the rest of the staff of the Mansion were present; and besides Philip Blair, and Will Hardon and Nora's brothers, and Fritz Tomkins and Ben Creighton, there were several other young men, Arthur's special friends chiefly, with a few of those who had known Brenda from childhood.
Then in addition to these were a number of "unnecessary people," as Belle called them in a stage whisper to Nora,—all the girls from the Mansion, for example, every one of whom had accepted the invitation, and the whole Rosa family, from Mrs. Rosa to the youngest child. Since the defeat of the Spanish, and especially since the destruction of Cervera's fleet, Angelina had had little to say about her Spanish blood. Indeed, she had been overheard giving an elaborate explanation to one of the Mansion girls of the difference between Spanish and Portuguese, with the advantage on the side of the Portuguese, from whom, she said, she was proud to be descended, "although," she had added, "I was born in the United States, and so I shall always be an American citizen."
Although Angelina was the especial protégée of Julia, rather than of Brenda, she took the greatest interest in the wedding. Had she been one of the bridesmaids she could hardly have taken more trouble in having her gown of the latest mode, at least as she had understood it from reading a certain fashion journal, with whose aid she and a rather bewildered Shiloh seamstress had made up the inexpensive pink muslin.
Mrs. Rosa, dazed by the invitation to the wedding, inclined not to accept it; but Julia, anxious to please Brenda, did all that she could to make it possible for the whole Rosa family to come from Shiloh to Rockley. The Rosas did not seem exactly essential to the success of the wedding, yet as Brenda had set her heart on their presence, there was no reason why she should not be humored.
To any one who did not know the circumstances, the presence of Mrs. McSorley and Tim may have appeared less explainable even than the presence of the Rosas.
Yet Tim, Maggie's Tim, was only second in interest in the eyes of many present to Arthur himself; for he it was who had saved Arthur's life on that memorable day of battle, and for this and another act of heroism he had received especial praise from his commanding officers.
It isn't every family that can have a hero in it, and Mrs. McSorley, after Maggie had shown her Tim's name in print, and some of his letters, had wisely concluded, as she said, to "let bygones be bygones;" and as the nearest relative after Maggie of the brave soldier, Arthur had sent her a special invitation. So it was that sharp-featured little Mrs. McSorley, almost to her own surprise, found herself at Rockley, though feeling somewhat out of place in the midst of what she considered great grandeur. She stood in the background, near one of the long glass doors opening on the piazza, ready to make her escape should any curious eyes be turned toward her. The Rosas, Angelina excepted, were near Mrs. McSorley, and Mrs. Rosa was in much the same state of mind as the latter.
Yet after all, who has eyes for any one else when once the bride and bridegroom have taken their places. Punctually at the appointed hour the bridal party entered the room, and the murmur of voices was hushed. But when the impressive service was over, and young and old hastened forward with their congratulations, again the voices were heard—a subdued chorus of admiration. For although, as Brenda had decreed, this was a most informal wedding, though the service was simple, and there were no attendants but little Lettice and her cousin Harriet, yet no wedding of the year had been more beautiful. Brenda herself had never looked so well, and her simple muslin gown was infinitely more becoming than one more elaborate could have been. She carried a great bouquet of lilies-of-the-valley, and the little bridesmaids carried smaller bunches of the same flower. They wore little pins of white and green enamel, and pearls in the form of sprays of lily-of-the-valley, Arthur's gift to them, and they held their little heads very proudly, since this to them was the most important moment of their lives. Arthur, as a hero of the late war, was almost as interesting to the onlookers as the bride, and that is saying a great deal. Though a little against his own will, he wore his uniform, at Brenda's request, and thus gave just the right note of color, as the artistic Agnes phrased it. Over the spot where the two stood was a wedding-bell of white blossoms,—the one conventional thing that Brenda had permitted,—and in every possible place were masses of white chrysanthemums and roses and other white flowers.
The continued warm weather had enabled Brenda to carry out her long-cherished plan of having the wedding-breakfast in a tent on the lawn, and she and Arthur led the way outside as soon as they could. The others followed, and quickly all the guests were grouped in smaller marquees arranged for them around the large tent in which the tables were set. The caterer and his assistants were aided by a rather unusual corps of helpers,—the girls from the Mansion, who had begged Brenda's permission to serve her in this way. Every one of them was there, and Maggie, who had been at Rockley all summer, directed them, pleased enough that her knowledge of the house and grounds enabled her to be of real use on this eventful day.
"No," responded Brenda smilingly, as some one asked her what prizes there might be concealed within the slices of wedding-cake,—"no, this time I believe there is neither a thimble nor a ring, nor any other delusion. You see, at Agnes' wedding I received in my slice of bride-cake the thimble that should have consigned me to eternal spinsterhood, and Philip had the bachelor's button. Now you can picture my mental struggle when I found that I couldn't live up to what was so evidently predestined for me, and Philip doubtless has had the same trouble, and you can see why it is wiser that none of the guests to-day should be exposed to similar perplexity."
"But you forget Miss South," said Nora, who was one of the group; "don't you remember that she found the ring in Agnes' cake?"
"Oh, yes, but that only proves my rule."
"Why, Brenda Barlow, how blind you are! Haven't you heard?"
"I'm not Brenda Barlow, thank you, and I haven't heard, but I can see," and she looked in the direction in which Nora had turned. There, surrounded by the rest of the "Four," with Mr. and Mrs. Barlow and Mr. and Mrs. Blair near by, stood Mr. Edward Elston, the picture of happiness. Miss Lydia South, leaning on his arm, looked equally happy, and her attitude was that of one receiving congratulations.
"They did not mean to have it come out until next week," explained Nora, "but in some unexplained way it became known, and now I suppose we may all congratulate them."
In a moment Arthur and Brenda had offered Miss South their cordial good wishes. "I am more than glad to call you cousin," said Brenda, "and I do not know which to congratulate the more, you or Cousin Edward. But what will Julia and the Mansion do without you next year?"
"Oh, I shall be at the Mansion until after Easter," replied Miss South, "and for the remainder of the year I think that Nora and Anstiss are willing to do double work. Beyond that we cannot look at present."
"Arthur," said Brenda, as they moved away, "you are not half as cheerful to-day as you were at Agnes' wedding. You and Ralph seem to have changed places. It is he who is making every one laugh. It does not seem natural for you to be so serious."
Brenda seemed satisfied with Arthur's reply.
"For one thing," said Arthur, "I am thinking of poor Tom Hearst. I cannot help remembering that he was the life of everything then; it seems so hard that he should have been taken."
"Yes, yes," responded Brenda gently. "I, too, have been thinking about him. I was looking, last evening, at the photograph we had taken at the Artists' Festival—the group in costume with Tom in it. He was so happy then at the thought of going to Cuba; and now—just think, Arthur, it was only six months ago." Brenda's voice broke, she could hardly finish the sentence.
"There, there," interposed Arthur gently, "let us remember only that he died bravely;" and then in an unwonted poetical vein he recited a few lines beginning—
"How sleep the brave who sink to rest,By all their country's wishes bless'd!"
"How sleep the brave who sink to rest,By all their country's wishes bless'd!"
and Brenda, listening, was partly cheered, though even as her face brightened she averred that she did not wish ever to wholly forget Tom Hearst.
To Brenda, indeed, any allusion to the war was painful. She could not soon forget those first days of anxiety, and the anxious weeks of her convalescence, when it was not a question of whether shewouldwrite to Arthur or not, but of whether shecould. But now, with the future spreading so brightly before them, it was hardly the time to dwell on the mistakes of the past.
One morning not so very long after the wedding the old Du Launy Mansion was "bustling with excitement." This, at least, was the way in which Concetta phrased it, and if her expression was not exactly perfect in the matter of its English, every one who heard her understood what she meant, and agreed with her. Girls with eager faces hurried up and down stairs, laughing gayly as they met, even when occasionally the meeting happened to take the form of a collision.
Lois, entering the vestibule, looked at the doorkeeper in surprise. She resembled Angelina, and yet it was not she.
"I'm her sister," the little girl explained; "I'm Angelina's sister. She's going to study all the time this winter."
"Oh, yes," responded Lois absent-mindedly; "so you are to take her place."
Lois had not known the whole Rosa family, and if she had ever heard of Angelina's sisters, had forgotten their existence. Her first start of surprise, therefore, had not been strange. But now as she went upstairs she did recall the fact that Miss South and Julia had decided that Angelina's rather indefinite duties as doorkeeper and assistant were not likely to fit her for the most useful career. Taking advantage accordingly of her professed interest in nursing, they had advised her to begin a certain course of training, by which she might fit herself to be a skilled attendant. "At the end of this course you may be inclined to return to the Mansion and help us with the younger girls whom we shall then have with us." The suggestion that she might some time teach the younger girls pleased Angelina, and almost to their surprise she accepted the offer. Her letters from the school to which she had gone, though she had been there so short a time, were highly entertaining. Those who were most interested in her were glad that Angelina had made the change. She had not yet sufficient age and discretion to assume the role of mentor and patroness that she liked to assume before the younger girls now at the Mansion.
"It is no reflection upon our school," Julia had said cheerfully, "that we send Angelina to another; but we shall have younger girls in our next year's class, and Angelina herself will then be older, and possibly wiser, so that if she then tries to guide our pupils, it will not be a case of the blind leading the blind."
But this is a little aside from the entrance of Lois into the Mansion this bright October day. After she had passed the young doorkeeper her second surprise came in the shape of Maggie, who greeted her enthusiastically as she stood at the door of the study. Enthusiasm was a new quality for Maggie to manifest, and Lois would indeed have been unobserving not to notice that the Maggie who now spoke to her was altogether different from the Maggie McSorley whom she had known six months earlier. The other Maggie had been thin and pale, and her eyes were apt to have a red and watery look. But this Maggie was rosy-cheeked and bright-eyed, and her expression was one of real happiness. Lois had no chance to compliment Maggie on the change, for, before she could speak, from behind two hands clasped themselves across her eyes, while a deep voice cried, "Guess, guess,—"
"Clarissa!" exclaimed Lois, and then with her sight restored she turned quickly about to meet the smiling gaze of her old classmate.
"I knew you were coming soon to visit Julia, but I had no idea that it would be so soon."
"I hope that you are not disappointed," rejoined Clarissa. "I hurried on account of this wonderful prize-day. But howdidyou manage to play hide-and-seek with me in Cuba. By rights we should have met at the bedside of some soldier, or at least on the hospital ship. Tell me, now, wasn't it great, to feel that one was actually saving life?" and then and there the two friends sat down on the lowest stair and began to talk over all they had gone through during the past few months, regardless of the wondering glances of the girls who passed on their way up and down.
Lois, however, spoke less cheerfully of her experiences. She had happened to help attend to a number of extremely pathetic cases, and on the whole her work had touched her very deeply. A general improvement in Miss Ambrose's condition had enabled her to accept with a clear conscience an opportunity that had come to her for a brief term of service as nurse, and her family had put no further obstacles in her way. But on the whole, though glad that she had been able to help, she had found that she shrank from certain details of the work. An observer would not have imagined this condition of mind in Lois, for her hand was always steady, her mind always alert for every change in her patient, and she was unsparing of herself. But she had learned from her experience that it would be wiser for her to shape her future studies toward a scientific career, rather than in the direction of the active practice of medicine. To have attained this self-knowledge was worth a great deal to her.
On the other hand, nursing had strengthened Clarissa in her zeal for personal service, and she had decided to add to her Red Cross training a regular hospital course for nurses.
In the midst of their eager conversation the two friends suddenly were recalled to the present by seeing Julia at the head of the stairs.
"What a lowly seat you have chosen!" she cried. "But do go into the study; I'll be there in a moment."
When she joined them Lois apologized for having come so early.
"You wrote me that this was to be the most remarkable prize-day you had ever had, and I thought that I might make myself useful by arriving this morning. But if you tell me that I am in the way, I'll bear the reproof for the sake of the pleasure I've had in meeting Clarissa. I had not realized that her visit to you had already begun."
"Oh, we didn't tell you purposely. We wished to surprise you," and then the conversation drifted naturally to their Radcliffe days.
Julia herself brought it to an end by asking her friends to go to the gymnasium, where they could make themselves useful by talking to her while she did several necessary things in connection with the award of the prizes.
"It seems to me that it's always a prize-day here at the Mansion. Didn't you have several last winter?" asked Lois. "I remember the tableaux, and the valentines, and there were some prizes for scrap-books, and dolls, and—"
"Well," said Julia, with a smile, "if competition is the soul of trade, why shouldn't it be the soul of education? At any rate, we feel that at the Mansion we can accomplish a great deal by stimulating the girls with the hope of a future reward. The prize award to-day, however, is nothing new. Prizes will be awarded on last year's record. You must remember that we promised two—one to the girl who had improved the most, who had succeeded in reaching the highest standard, and one to her who tried the hardest."
"Ah, yes, I remember," responded Lois; "but I thought that they were to be given last year."
"We were too much occupied at the end of the season with thoughts of the war. We decided to postpone the prize-day until autumn."
"It's well that you did," said Clarissa, "otherwise you wouldn't have had the pleasure of hearing me make a speech on the happy occasion," and she drew herself up to her full height, as if about to begin an eloquent oration.
When afternoon came a baker's dozen of girls assembled in the gymnasium, which was tastefully decorated with flags, branches of autumn foliage, and long-stemmed, tawny chrysanthemums arranged in tall vases.
Besides the pupils there were present all the staff of the Mansion, but no outsiders, since this, after all, was to be a family affair—no outsiders, at least, except Clarissa; for Lois, like Nora and Amy, and one or two other friends of Julia's, were accounted members of the staff, though their help was less definite than that of Julia and Pamela and the other residents of the Mansion.
As the girls took their places in a semicircle in front of the little platform, they talked to one another in an undertone.
"I hear that the prizes are perfectly beautiful. Miss Brenda, I mean Mrs. Weston, sent one of the prizes, but I don't know what it is."
"Whom did you vote for, Concetta?"
"Oh, that's telling; we were not to tell until all the votes were counted; but I think—"
"Hush! Miss Julia's going to speak."
Then as all the eager faces turned toward her, Julia began her informal address.
"I need not remind you that last winter you were told that two prizes would be awarded at the end of the season. The first to the girl who in every way had been the most successful—whose record was really the best. The second to the girl who had succeeded in making the most of herself. Miss South and I have watched you all carefully. Every day we made a record of your improvement—in some cases, I am sorry to say, of your lack of improvement. We have talked the matter over, and have asked Miss Northcote to help us decide; and after we three had made one decision, we referred it to every other person who had lived here the past year, or who had taught you even for a short time."
Julia's natural timidity heightened perhaps the seriousness of her tone, and the faces before her grew sober.
"Now at one time, as I think I told you, we thought of leaving it to you girls to vote on both the first and the second prizes; but on second thought we have seen that the first prize ought to be based on the records that have been kept. Accordingly," and she opened a box that lay on the table before her, "it gives me great pleasure to present this case of scissors to Phœbe, as a prize awarded her for having made the best record in work and in all other things during the past year."
Now Phœbe had been so quiet a girl, so colorless in many ways, that no one had thought of her as a possible prize-winner. She accepted the scissors with a smile and a word of thanks, and passed the red morocco case around the circle that all might see its contents—six pairs of scissors, of the finest steel, ranging in size from a very small pair of embroidery scissors to the largest size for cutting cloth.
There were whispered comments in the interval that followed. One girl expressing her astonishment that Phœbe had been the winner, another replying, "Why, she never did wrong, not once; didn't you ever notice?"
Then in a little while Julia spoke again.
"We have decided to let you vote for the girl who deserves the second prize. Remember it is to be given to the girl who has made the most of herself, who has shown the greatest improvement. Each must write her choice independently on one of these slips of paper, and at the end of ten minutes Miss Herter will collect the slips."
As they wrote, the faces of the girls were worth studying. Evidently the matter was one that demanded deep thought. They bit their pencils, and looked at one another, and at last wrote the name in haste and folded the slip with the air of having accomplished a great thing. There were some, of course, who wrote their choice instantly, and with no hesitation, and waited almost impatiently for Clarissa to collect the slips. But at last the votes were in, and as it did not take long to count them, the result was soon known.
"Nine votes—a majority—for Nellie, and it is confirmed by the staff," announced Clarissa in her clearest tones. At this there was much clapping of hands, and even a little cheering, for Nellie was a favorite, and no one begrudged her the set of ebony brushes and mirror for her table. Even Concetta and Haleema seemed content with the result, although more than one of the judges surmised that the slips that bore the names of these two girls were written each by the girl whose name it bore.
There was justice in this award to Nellie, who a year before had been the most hoidenish of young Irish girls, in speech more difficult to understand than any of the others, in dress untidy to an extent bordering on uncouthness, and in disposition apparently very slow to learn the ways of an ordinary household. By the end of the season her speech had become clear and distinct, though with a charming brogue; her dress had become neat and tasteful, and she could make most of her own clothes, and Miss Dreen considered her the deftest of her waitresses. Perhaps, however, the vote would not have been so nearly unanimous had not Nellie also endeared herself to the girls by a certain sunniness of disposition. She had not made a single enemy during the whole year. But in the midst of their congratulations—from which the blushing Nellie would gladly have escaped—the girls again heard Julia's voice.
"I have here a letter from Mrs. Arthur Weston ["Miss Brenda," two or three explained to their neighbors], who expresses her regret that she cannot be with us to-day."
Julia would have been glad to read her cousin's letter to the girls, had it not been written in so unconventional a style as to make this impossible. There were passages, however, that it seemed wise to give at first hand, and with one or two slight changes of wording she was able to read them. But first she had a word or two of explanation.
"You may remember last year, when I told you that you were to have a small allowance of money to spend each month as you pleased, I spoke of this as 'earnings.' Although we of the staff had decided that we should not criticise your way of spending it, we thought that by calling the money 'earnings,' you might take better care of it. Well, I know that two or three of you opened small accounts in a savings bank. I know that others have spent the money in useful things for their relatives at home, and more than one, I am sure, has nothing to show for her money except the memory of chocolates and oranges, and perishable ribbons and other fleeting pleasures; but we have agreed not to criticise this expenditure, and I merely refer to them becauseIknow that one of your number has been called a miser, because she was so intent on hoarding that she would not spend a cent for things either useful or frivolous."
All eyes were now turned toward Maggie, and for the moment she felt like running from the room.
"But before I continue," added Julia, "I must tell you a story," and then in a few words she related the episode of the broken vase; "and now," she concluded, "I will read directly from Mrs. Weston's letter:
"'You may imagine my surprise,'" she read, "'when a letter came to me a day or two ago from Maggie McSorley containing a post-office order for twenty-two dollars. This was to pay for the broken vase with interest. It seems she had been saving it all winter from that meagre little allowance you allowed her, and to make up the whole sum she did some work this summer—berry-picking,Ibelieve. Arthur and I were very much touched, and I have put the post-office order away, for I am sure that I should never feel like spending it.'"
"Sensible!" exclaimed Miss South, under her breath.
Then Julia continued to read from Brenda's letter.
"'So of course I want to make it up to Maggie, and I am sending a twenty-dollar gold piece, which you must promise to give her as a prize, on the same day when you give the other prizes, and she's to do exactly what she likes with it. It's a prize for her having learned not to break things. But I'm writing her that I am very glad she broke that vase, for if she had not, I should never have had the chance of having the help she gave me this last, dreadful summer.'"
Perhaps Julia need not have read so much of the letter, though in doing so she attained what she had in mind,—to show the girls that Maggie was not a miser, and to explain why Brenda had of late shown so much more interest in her than in some of the other girls.
So Maggie in her turn was congratulated, the more heartily even, because Miss South had added a word to Julia's speech by saying that, before Brenda's letter had come, she had contemplated a special prize for Maggie, since the latter had certainly succeeded in her efforts to overcome some of her more decided faults,—"'A reward,' rather than 'a prize,' perhaps we should call it, but, by whatever name, equally deserved."
That evening, after Clarissa had accepted Lois' invitation to go with her to her Newton home for a day or two, Julia decided to go to her aunt's to spend the night. The family had not yet returned to town, though the house was now ready for them. A care-taker and another servant were in charge, and, weary from her exertions of the afternoon, Julia was rather glad of the rest and quiet that the lonely house afforded.
But although she enjoyed the quiet, the very freedom from interruption gave her time for disquieting thoughts. She began to reflect upon her own loneliness, upon the fact that she was not really necessary to anybody. Her uncle and aunt were kindness itself, but even they did not depend upon her.
Every one—even little Manuel Rosa—was of special importance to some one else, while among all the people in her circle she alone seemed to stand quite by herself. The thought wore upon her, and deepened when she thought of Brenda's absence. Later, when she went to Brenda's room to put away some things that she had promised to pack for her, the cover slipped from a little pasteboard box that she had lifted from a shelf. Glancing within she saw some bits of broken, iridescent glass. The sight made her smile. "Brenda's bargain," she said; "how absurd that whole thing was,—the loss of the vase, the acquisition of Maggie; and yet I am not sure," she continued to herself, "but that Brenda gained by the exchange. I am not sure but that Maggie was a better investment than any of us at first realized. She has been one of the means, certainly, by which Brenda has gained a truer knowledge of herself."
Nor was Julia wrong in this. Maggie unconsciously had helped Brenda to a knowledge of herself; for the Brenda of the past year had been very different from the Brenda of six years before. The earlier Brenda, as Julia had first known her, had been unwilling to admit herself wrong, even when her blunders stared her in the face. But the latter Brenda had profited by her own blunders, in that she had been willing to learn from them; and though Maggie had been only one of the elements working toward Brenda's uplifting, she had had her part in the progress of the past year.
Thinking of Brenda in this light, dwelling on the affection that had so increased as the two cousins had come to understand each other, Julia became more cheerful. She felt that she no longer stood alone, for even setting aside her circle of warm friends (how had she dared to overlook them?), was she not in her aunt's household a fourth daughter, and loved as well—almost as well—as Caroline, or Agnes, or Brenda?
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HELEN LEAH REED'S "BRENDA" BOOKS
BRENDA, HER SCHOOL AND HER CLUB
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PHEBE: HER PROFESSION
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NAN AT CAMP CHICOPEE; or, Nan's Summer with the Boys
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NAN'S CHICOPEE CHILDREN
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