A FAMILY CEMENTED BY LOVE.
"Hippolyta Prymmer, I've come to ask your pardon. Let bygones be bygones. I've been ugly, and I acknowledge it. I'll try to do better in future. Let's shake hands."
Mrs. Prymmer stood slowly opening and shutting her mouth. Was it really Jane Gastonguay—rich Jane Gastonguay—that stood in her parlour thus humbly suing for forgiveness?
"You see," Miss Gastonguay went on, "there has always been something in our two natures that clashed. I have been the worst, I acknowledge it, and now I want to know if you will forgive me, and come to see me sometimes,—not too often, for it is dangerous to see too much of people."
Mrs. Prymmer usually put her worst foot foremost. Down in her heart were hidden depths of kindness never explored by herself or by others. Something away down there now stirred tentatively. "We were girls together," she said, simply, as she took the hand of her former schoolmate.
"And now we will be old women together. Thank fortune, this scene is over. Where is your daughter-in-law?"
"Next door."
"Ah, she likes that conglomerate family."
"And the minister," said Mrs. Prymmer, dryly. "I suppose it's all right. Married women usen't to run about so much in my day."
"Fie upon you, let others criticise your daughter-in-law."
"You always had a free-hung tongue, Jane Gastonguay," said Mrs. Prymmer, with spirit.
"True, true, you've got the whip-hand of me now, Hippolyta. My niece is out in the carriage, she wants to see your daughter-in-law. We'll run in to the parsonage. Good-bye," and she bustled out of the house.
Derrice was sitting on the well-worn sofa in the parlour of the little house, awaiting the return of the various members of the family. So much at home was she that she had picked up a book and was quietly reading when Miss Gastonguay burst in upon her.
"How do you do, child. Why haven't you been to see me?"
"I don't like to go too often."
"But you enjoy visiting me?"
"Very much indeed."
Miss Gastonguay looked around as if to make sure that she would not be overheard. "You will not tell any one if I favour you with a confidence?"
"Certainly not."
"Well, you remind me of a former dear friend. I like to have you with me. Come to French Cross as often as you will, and never be frightened by my gruff ways."
"And you," said Derrice, playfully, "you also remind me of some one."
"Who is it?"
"My father."
Miss Gastonguay immediately became interested in an adventurous fly who, thinking spring had come, had sallied from his retreat in the wall, and was pursuing a shaky course toward the ceiling.
"Your voice is like his," said Derrice, "particularly when you lower it. I am fortunate in having Captain White to remind me of his appearance, and you to call up his very tones."
There were tears in her eyes, and Miss Gastonguay, suddenly losing interest in the fly, gently patted her head.
"Is there not some one in the hall?" asked Derrice. "I thought I heard a step."
"No, child. You hear my niece in the kitchen talking to old black Rebecca,—tell me about this father of yours."
Derrice was only too glad to do so, and, launching herself on a full tide of happy reminiscences, she soon presented to her interested hearer an almost perfect picture of an indulgent father who had presided over her pleasant wandering life.
At last she was interrupted by the entrance of two demure rosy little girls who came running down the hall to salute her with cries of joyful welcome.
"Well, papooses," said Miss Gastonguay, as she watched Derrice taking off their woollen caps and smoothing back their tumbled hair, "are you not glad to see me?"
"Oh, yes, yes, Miss Gastonguay," they hastened to assure her, "but you don't come so often."
"My niece does."
"Yes, Miss Chelda," they repeated, without enthusiasm. "She comes often. Rebecca loves her."
"Rebecca has cause to," muttered Miss Gastonguay. "I suspect a good many of Chelda's silver pieces find their way into her bag of a pocket," then, sinking back on the sofa, she allowed her eyes to wander about the room.
There were no grand apartments at Number 50 Blaine Street, no luxuries in the way of furnishings and decorations, but the small house possessed something that many of the finer houses of the town could not boast of,—an air of quiet cheerfulness and homeliness that made Miss Gastonguay murmurrestlessly, "The woman who presides here is happier than I am."
"You know the history of that eldest girl," she said, when the two children ran away to hang up their caps and jackets.
"Yes,—she was taken out of some dreadful house in this town."
"A house—a den, and in it her childish eyes once witnessed a murder. One would never think it to look at her now. Mary Potts Negus is a genius at rescuing and bringing up children. One would fancy that she had had enough trouble in raising her own and settling them in life."
The two girls soon returned. One of them, Marion, excused herself on the plea of housewifely duties; the other, Bessie, remained with her callers, and in a gentle and motherly manner received the other children as they came in.
The baby of the family, laughing and crowing with delight, arrived first on the shoulder of the eldest lad, who had been giving him an airing on a hand-sled. This child, Bessie drew to the fire, and with careful fingers divested him of manifold wraps, much interrupted during the process by his persistence in throwing his arms around her neck.
Following the baby and the lad came two other boys, orphan twins deserted by their parents and adopted by the charitable Mrs. Negus. They stoppedlong enough in the hall to pull off the fur caps drawn down over their foreheads, then, with unmitigated pleasure overspreading their freckled faces, they, too, entered the room, and greeted Miss Gastonguay with deference, and Derrice with an air of comradeship.
Miss Gastonguay stared with interest at them, while Derrice said,"What have you been doing to-day, boys?"
"Trying a new sport,—skeeing. You tie things something like toboggans on your feet and you slide down hill like the wind. It's great fun. Will you come and try it to-morrow?"
She was just assuring them that she would do so, when the mistress of the house entered the room. Derrice had much ado to preserve her gravity, though she was by this time well used to the sight of her philanthropic neighbour.
Mrs. Negus was nothing but a bundle of wraps. Broad she was about her shoulders and chest, tapering gradually down to a scant black dress and a pair of small feet. After the unwinding and unfolding of several scarfs, a woollen shawl, and a long veil, she stood revealed,—beaming face, spectacles, and pepper and salt curls surrounded by a heap of newspapers that had fallen from her garments.
"Heat preservers, my dear Miss Gastonguay," she said to the elder of her callers. "When I dress to goout, I run someExpressesup my back and a couple ofGlobesover my chest. Then I am a Republican-Democrat, and between the two political parties you have no idea how warm I keep. Bessie, will you please look in the dictionary and see what 'napiform ' means. I met Cousin Jonah Potts to-day, and he muttered something about my being 'napiform.' I know he doesn't approve of my style of dress, but as I am rheumatic I have got to stick to it, for who would attend to my family of mixed pickles if I were taken away?"
"Who, indeed?" said Miss Gastonguay. "There's no one in the town would put up with them, but you, Mary Potts Negus."
"Napiform," said the child, slowly reading from a dictionary that she had taken off the bookcase, "from the Latinnapus, a turnip, andforma, a shape. Having the shape of a turnip, or swelled in the upper part and becoming more slender below."
Mrs. Negus shook her curls. "Saucy Jonah! if any one else had said that about me he would have been angry. Now I'll go up-stairs. We all have a bad habit of rushing into the parlour when we come in. We go so fast when we are out that we have to sink down into the first resting-place we see when we get home. Bessie, my dear, did Marion put extra tea in the teapot?"
"Yes, auntie."
"And get a clean cloth?"
"Yes, she did."
"Well, cut some cake, not in too large pieces, and I'll be down presently," and she was about to dart toward the door when Miss Gastonguay recalled her.
"Mary Potts Negus, I'm not going to stay to supper."
"Now, now," and the little woman exhibited so much disappointment that Derrice laid a pleading hand on her new friend's knee.
"I never do such a thing in the world."
"Make a beginning, then, I'd love to have you, particularly as you send me such good checks for these little ones."
"But I've got my niece here."
"That is no matter; she often comes."
"Very well," said Miss Gastonguay, with resignation. "Go, one of you boys, and send my carriage home."
The twins whipped out-of-doors, and Miss Gastonguay thoughtfully watched Derrice, who had seated herself on the hearth-rug and was tickling the baby's dimpled chin until he shrieked with delight.
"Where's your husband, child?"
"In Bangor," said Derrice.
"And do you always get your meals here when he is absent?"
"Nearly always."
"You must make it up to Mrs. Negus. Her purse isn't very deep and she keeps on adopting children."
"I have written to my father to send me some money for her."
Miss Gastonguay hastily opened her mouth, then closed it again, for Chelda stood before her. "You are going to stay, aunt?" she asked, in slight surprise.
"Yes."
Chelda made no comment, and even went to play with Derrice and the baby on the hearth-rug, but Miss Gastonguay saw from her manner that she was not pleased.