When they reached Sixth Avenue it took but an instant for both girls to pick out the most enticing shop and thither they hurried. It was brilliantly lighted, the gorgeous splendor was Oriental in its beauty, there was no quiet hidden loveliness about this store, it dazzled and charmed and it had price signs! Just nice little white signs, with dull red figures, not at all “screeching” at customers, but most useful to persons of limited means. One could tell with the merest glance just what counter to keep away from.
A struggling mass of humanity, mostly women, were packed in tightly about one counter. The girls could not get closer than five feet, but patiently they stood waiting their turn to see what wonderful thing was on sale. It was Tavia’s first bargain rush, and for every elbow that was jammed into her ribs, she stepped on someone’s foot. Dorothy held her head high above the crowd to breathe. At last they reached the counter, and the bargains that all were frantically aiming to reach were saucepans at ten cents each.
“After that struggle, we must get one, just for a memento of the bargain rush,” exclaimed Dorothy, crowding her muff under her arm. Something fell to the floor with a crash at the movement of Dorothy’s arm. Immediately there was great confusion, because, a little woman, flushed and greatly excited had cried out, “My purse! I beg your pardon madam, that is my purse you have!”
The small, excited woman was clinging desperately to the arm of another woman, who towered above the crowd.
“Why, that’s Miss Mingle!” cried Tavia to Dorothy.
“Oh, Miss Mingle!” called out Dorothy.
“Girls,” cried the little Glenwood teacher, excitedly, “this woman snatched my purse!”
They were all too excited at the moment to find anything strange in thus meeting with one another.
The big woman calmly surveyed the girls: “She, the blond one, knocked your purse down with her muff, I was goin’ to pick it up, that’s all. It’s under your feet now.”
The woman slowly backed into the crowd.
Dorothy’s eyes opened wide with wonder! The thing that had fallen had certainly made a crash! and the leather end sticking from the cuff of the woman’s fur coat sleeve surely looked like a purse! Dorothy gasped at the horror of it! What could she do? The woman was moving slowly farther and farther away.
Miss Mingle stooped to the floor in search of the purse. As quick as a flash the woman slipped out of the crowd, as Miss Mingle loosened her hold. Amazed and horrified at the boldness of the theft, Dorothy for one instant stood undecided, then she sprang after the woman and faced her unflinchingly:
“Give me that purse! It’s in the cuff of your coat sleeve!”
The woman drew herself up indignantly, glared at Dorothy, and would have made an effort to get away, scornfully ignoring the girl who barred her path, when a store detective arrived on the spot.
She, too, was a girl, modestly garbed in black. In a perfectly quiet voice she spoke to the woman.
“These matters can always be settled at our office, madam. Come with me.”
“The idea!” screamed the woman. “I never was insulted like this before! How dare you!”
“There is nothing to scream about,” said the young detective, in her soft voice, “I’ve merely asked you to come to the office and talk it over. Isn’t that fair?”
“Indeed, I’ll submit to nothing of the sort! A hard-working, honest woman like I am!” She made another effort to elude her accusers by a quick movement, but Dorothy kept close to one side and the store detective followed at the other. The woman stared stubbornly at the detective. Disgusted with the performance, Dorothy quietly reached for the protruding purse and held it up.
“Is this yours?” she asked, of Miss Mingle.
“Yes, yes, my dear!” cried Miss Mingle, gratefully accepting the purse, “I’m so thankful! I caught her hand as she slipped the purse away from my arm. How can I thank you, Miss Dale?”
Tavia led the way out of the crowd, and the store detective took charge of the woman, who was an old offender and well known.
“Dorothy Dale and Tavia Travers!” joyfully exclaimed Miss Mingle, when the excitement was over. “Where did you come from, and at such an opportune moment?”
“We are as surprised as you,” exclaimed Dorothy, “and so glad to have been able to be of assistance!”
“We’ll hang the saucepan in the main hall at Glenwood in honor of the bargain rush,” said Tavia, waving the parcel above her head.
“Girls, I’m still picking feathers out of my hair!” said Miss Mingle, laughing gaily.
“Don’t you love New York?” burst from Tavia’s lips. “I’m dreading the very thought of returning to Glenwood and school again!”
But Miss Mingle sighed. “I’m counting the days until my return to Glenwood, my dears. But, you don’t want to hear anything about that, you’re young and happy, and without care. Come and see us—I’m with my sister, and I would just love to have you.” At mention of her sister, Miss Mingle’s lips involuntarily quivered and she partly turned away. “Do come, girls, this is my address. I’m glad you’re enjoying New York; I wish I could say as much.”
As she said good-bye, Dorothy noticed how much more than ever the thin, haggard face was drawn and lined with anxiety, and the timid dread in her eyes enhanced by the bright red spots that burned in the hollows of her cheeks.
“We must call,” said Dorothy, when Miss Mingle had disappeared. “There is some secret burden wearing that little woman to a shred.”
“Her eyes have the look of a haunted creature,” said Tavia, seriously. “We can’t call to-morrow; we have the matinee, you know.”
“Yes, that’s always the way, one must do the pleasant things, and let misery and sorrow take care of themselves,” sighed Dorothy. “Well, we can the following day.”
“Oh dear,” sighed Dorothy, falling limply into a handsomely upholstered rocker in the comfortable resting-room of the shop, half an hour after they had left Miss Mingle, “I’m completely exhausted!” She carried several parcels, which she dropped listlessly on a nearby couch, on which Tavia was resting.
“How mildly you express it!” cried Tavia, “I’m just simply dead! Don’t the crowds and the lights and confusion tire one, though! I’ll own up, that for just one wee moment to-day, I thought of Dalton, and its peaceful quiet and the blue sky and—those things, you know,” she hastily ended, always afraid of being sentimental.
“I shouldn’t want to think that all my days were destined to be spent in New York. It makes a lovely holiday place, but I like the country,” said Dorothy, as she watched a young girl, shabbily dressed, eating some fruit from a bag.
Tavia watched her too. “At least, the monotony of the country can always be overcome by simple pleasures, but here there is no escape to the peaceful—the temptations are too many. For instance,” Tavia jumped from her restful position, and sat before a writing table, and the shabby young girl who was eating an orange, stopped eating to stare at the schoolgirl. “Who wouldn’t just write to one’s worst enemy, if there was no one else, just to use these darling little desks!”
“And the paper is monogramed,” exclaimed Dorothy, regaining an interest in things. “What stunning paper!” She, too, drew up a chair to the dainty mahogany table and grasping a pen said: “We simply must write to someone. This is too alluring to pass by.”
“Here goes one to Ned Ebony,” and Tavia dipped the pen into the ink and wrote rapidly in a large scrawling hand.
“Mine will be to—Aunt Winnie,” said Dorothy, laughing.
The shabby girl finished her orange, and picking up a small bundle, took one lingering look at the happy young girls at the writing desks and left the resting room.
“Aren’t we the frivolous things,” said Tavia, “writing the most perfect nonsense to our friends merely because we found a dainty writing table!”
“With the most generous supply of writing paper!” said Dorothy. “But the couches and chairs in this room are too tempting to keep me at the writing desk.” Dorothy sealed her letter and again curled up in the spacious rocking chair.
“And while we are resting, we can study art,” exclaimed Tavia, gazing at the oil paintings and tapestry that adorned the walls.
A woman, with a grand assortment of large bundles and small children, tried to get them all into her arms at once, preparatory to leaving the resting room, but found it so difficult that she sat down once more and laughed good-naturedly, while the children scrambled about the place, loath to leave such comfortable quarters. Dorothy watched with interest, and wondered how any woman could ever venture out with so many small children clinging to her for protection, to do a day’s shopping. Tavia was more interested in art at that moment.
“Why go to the art museums?” she asked, “we can do that part on our trip right here and now; we only lack catalogues.”
“And we can do nicely without them,” said Dorothy, dragging her wandering attention back to Tavia. “I can enjoy all these pictures without knowing who painted them. We can have just five minutes more in this palatial room, and then we simply must go on.”
And five minutes after the hour, Dorothy persuaded Tavia to leave the ideal spot, and, entering the elevator, they were whirled upward to the dress parade.
Roped off from the velvet, carpeted sales floors, numerous statuesque girls paraded about, dressed in garments to charm the eye of all beholders—to lure the very short and stout person into purchasing a garment that looked divine on a willowy six-foot model; or, a wee bit of a lady into thinking that she can no longer exist, unless robed in a cloak of sable. But neither Dorothy nor Tavia cared much for the lure of the gorgeous garments, they were too awed at the moment to yearn for anything. A frail, ethereal creature, with a face of such delicacy and wistfulness, so dainty and graceful, with a little dimpled smile about her lips, passed the country girls and after that the girls could see nothing else in the room. They sat down and just watched her. A trailing robe of black velvet seemed almost too heavy for her slender white shoulders, and a large hat with snow white plume curling over the rim of the hat and encircling her bare throat, like a serpent, framed her flushed face.
“There,” breathed Tavia, “is the prettiest face I’ve ever dreamed of seeing.”
“She’s more than pretty, she has a soul,” said Dorothy, reverently. “There is something so wistful about her smile and the tired droop of her shoulders. I feel that I could love her!”
“She has put on an ermine wrap over the velvet gown,” said Tavia. Shrinking behind Dorothy she said impulsively: “Dare we speak to her? It must be the most wonderful thing in the world to have a face like that! And to spend all her days just wearing beautiful gowns!”
“She wears them so differently from the others here,” declared Dorothy. “She’s strikingly cool, so far beyond her immediate surroundings.”
“I think she must be a princess,” said Tavia, in a solemn voice, “no one else could look like that and stroll about with such an air!”
“I think she is someone who has been wealthy and is now very poor,” said Dorothy, tenderly. “How she must detest being stared at all day long! This work, no doubt, is all she is fitted for, having been reared to do nothing but wear clothes charmingly.”
“She’s changing her hat now,” said Tavia, watching the model as she was arrayed in a different hat. “We might just walk past and smile. I shall always feel unsatisfied if we cannot hear her voice.”
Together they timidly stepped near the wistful-eyed girl with the flushed face.
“You must grow so very tired,” said Dorothy, sympathetically.
A cool stare was the only reply.
“Hurry with the boa, you poky thing,” came from the red, pouting lips of the wistful-eyed girl, ignoring Dorothy and Tavia as though they were part of the building’s masonry. “I ain’t got all day to wait! Gotta show ten more hats before closing. Hurry up there, you girls, you make me mad! Now you hurry, or I’ll report you!” and turning gracefully, she tilted her chin to just the right angle, the shrinking, wistful smile appeared on her lips, the tired droop slipped to her shoulders, all the air of charm covered her like a mantle, and again she started down the strip of carpet, leaving behind her two sadly disillusioned young girls.
“Let us go right straight home,” said Dorothy. “One never knows what to believe is real in this hub-bub place.”
“We might have forgiven her anything,” said Tavia, “if she had been wistfully angry, or charmingly bossy; but to think that ethereal creature could turn into just a plain, everyday mortal!”
“The flowers were mostly artificial, the bargain counters mere stopping places for pickpockets, and the most beautiful girl was rude!” cried Dorothy.
“We must be tired; all things can’t be wrong,” said Tavia, philosophically.
“We’ll take a taxi home,” said Dorothy, “Come on.”
“Tavia!” exclaimed Dorothy, the next afternoon, as they prepared to go to a matinee, “this address is Aunt Winnie’s apartment house—the one she invested so much money in.” She handed Tavia Miss Mingle’s card.
“How strange that the teacher should be Aunt Winnie’s tenant, and you never knew it,” cried Tavia, as she arranged a bunch of orchids, real hot-house orchids, that Ned had sent.
“Won’t Aunt Winnie be surprised when she learns that our little Miss Mingle is one of her tenants?” Dorothy said. She was pinning on a huge bunch of roses. Ned had laughed at the girls’ tale of finding everything on the shopping tour to be false, and to prove that there were real things in New York City, had sent them these beautiful flowers to wear to the matinee.
“Indeed,” continued Dorothy, “I’m mighty glad we met Miss Mingle. Aunt Winnie has had just about enough worry over that old apartment house! Miss Mingle, no doubt, will relieve that anxiety to some extent. I do so hope that everything will come out right. But come, dear, don’t look so grave, we must be gay for the show!”
Ned ran into the room. “Hurry, girls,” he said, bowing low, “the motor is at the door.”
“The car!” screamed the girls in delight, “where did the car come from?”
“Oh, just the magic of New York,” said Ned, with a smile.
“Not theFire Bird?” asked Dorothy, hat pin suspended in mid-air.
“Oh, no, just a car. Maybe you girls like being bumped along on top of the ’bus, but little Neddie likes to have his hand on the wheel himself,” said Ned.
“Running a car in New York,” said Tavia, “is not North Birchland, you know. Maybe we’ll get a worse bump in it than we ever dreamed of on top of the ’bus.”
“Oh, I know something about it,” said Ned confidently, “been downtown twice to-day in the thickest part of the traffic, and I’m back, as you’ll see, if you’ll stop fooling with those flowers long enough to look at me.”
Tavia turned and looked lingeringly at Ned. “To-be-sure,” she drawled, “there’s Ned, Dorothy.”
“I’m really afraid, Ned,” said Dorothy, “the traffic is so awful, you know you aren’t accustomed to driving through such crowds.”
“If you stand there arguing all afternoon, there won’t be any trouble about getting through the crowd, of course,” gently reminded Ned. “It’s a limousine and a dandy! Bigger than theFire Birdand a beautiful yellow!”
“Yellow!” cried Tavia in horror. “With my complexion! Couldn’t you engage a car to match my hair?”
“And my feathers are green!” exclaimed Dorothy. “Just like a man, engage a car and never ask what shade we prefer!”
Tavia sat down in mock dismay. “Our afternoon is spoiled! No self-respecting person in this town ever rides in a car that doesn’t match!”
“Oh, tommyrot,” said Ned in deep disgust, listening in all seriousness to the girls’ banter. “Who is going to look at us? Never heard of such foolishness!” And he dug his hands into his pockets, and walked gloomily about the room.
“Ned, dear, you’re a darling,” enthused Dorothy, “you don’t really believe we are so imbued with the spirit of New York as to demand that?”
“Ned really has paid us the greatest compliment,” said Tavia, complacently, “he believed it was all true, and only geniuses can produce that effect.”
Fifteen minutes later, after several near-collisions, Ned drove the yellow car up to the entrance of the theatre, and while he was getting his check from the lobby usher, the girls tripped into the playhouse.
They had box seats. With intense interest the girls watched the continuous throng pouring into their places. Few of the passing crowd, however, returned the lavish interest that was centered on them from the first floor box; no one in the vast audience knew or cared that two country girls were having their first glimpse of a New York theatre audience. They saw nothing unusual in the eager, smiling young faces, and as Dorothy said to Tavia, only the striking, unique and frightfully unusual would get more than a passing glance from those that journey through New York town.
But Dorothy and Tavia did not look at the crowd long. It was something to be in a metropolitan theatre, witnessing one of the great successes of the season.
Soon the curtain rolled up on the first act, a beautiful parlor scene, and Tavia gave a gasp.
“Say, it beats when I went on the stage,” she whispered to Dorothy, referring to a time already related in detail in “Dorothy Dale’s Great Secret.”
“Do you wish to go back?” asked Dorothy.
“Never!”
The play went on, and as it was something really worth while, the girls enjoyed it greatly.
“Isn’t he handsome?” whispered Tavia, referring to the leading man.
“Look out, or you’ll fall in love with him,” returned Ned, with a grin. “He’s one of the girls’ matinee idols, you know.”
Between the acts Ned slipped out for a few minutes. He returned with a box of bonbons and chocolates.
“Oh, how nice!” murmured Dorothy and Tavia.
Then came the great scene of the play, and the young folks were all but spellbound. When Vice was exposed and Virtue triumphed Dorothy felt like clapping her hands, and so did the others, and all applauded eagerly.
There was a short, final act. Just before the curtain arose a step sounded in the box and to the girls’ astonishment there stood Cologne.
“I’ve been trying to attract your attention for ever so long,” she cried, after embracing and kissing her friends enthusiastically. “I’m spending the day with a chum. It’s such a joy to meet you like this!”
“And yesterday we met Miss Mingle,” laughed Dorothy. They drew their chairs up close, and told Cologne about the attempted theft.
“I’m so sorry for Miss Mingle,” Cologne said, rather guardedly, “it seems a pity that we never tried to know her better. She must have needed our sympathy and friendship so much.”
“All the time, she has been one of Aunt Winnie’s tenants,” explained Dorothy. “But of course I did not know that.”
“Then she must have told you about it,” said Cologne.
“We’ve heard nothing,” said Dorothy, “but we expect to call there to-morrow.”
“Then,” said Cologne discreetly, “I can say no more.”
Soon the last act was over, the orchestra struck up a popular tune, the applause was deafening, and the audience rose to leave the theatre.
“It’s all over,” said Ned, and then he greeted Cologne and her friend, Helen Roycroft.
“Didn’t you like it?” exclaimed Cologne’s friend, who was a New York girl. “The critics just rave over it! Everyone must see it before anything else! But I’m hungry; aren’t you?” she asked, including all three.
Ned slipped back, but Tavia grasped his arm.
“There’s the most wonderful little tea-room just off Fifth Avenue,” said Helen Roycroft, with perfect self-possession and calm, “and I should so love to have you enjoy a cup of tea with me.”
Tavia murmured in Ned’s ear: “Of course you’re crazy for a cup of tea.”
Ned looked helplessly at Dorothy, and calculated the money in his pockets. Four girls and all hungry! Helen Roycroft, meeting a new man, lost little time in impressing him with the wonderful importance of herself, and together she and Ned led the little party over Thirty-eighth Street to Fifth Avenue, while good-natured Cologne, with Dorothy and Tavia, followed behind.
The tea-room they entered, as Helen explained, was the most popular place in town for people of fashion, for artistic souls, and the moneyed, leisure class.
“Everyone likes to come here,” continued Helen, in a manner that plainly suggested that she loved to show off her city, “mostly because the place was once the stable of a member of the particular four hundred, and as this is as near as most of its patrons will ever come to the four hundred, they make it a rendezvous at this particular hour every afternoon.”
The “stable” still retained its original architecture, beamed ceiling and quaint stalls, painted a modest gray and white, in which were placed little tables to accommodate six persons, lighted with shaded candles. Cushioned benches were built to the sides of the stalls for seats; dainty waitresses, dressed also in demure gray and white, dispensed tea, and crackers and salads.
Hidden somewhere in the dim distance, musicians played soft, low music and the whole effect was so charming that even Ned held his breath and looked around him in wonder. This tea-room was something akin to a woman’s club, where they could entertain their men friends with afternoon tea, in seclusion within the stalls.
Helen Roycroft mentioned the name of a well-known actress and, trying hard to keep her enthusiasm within bounds, pointed her out to the party. The actress was seated alone in a stall, dreaming apparently, over a cup of tea. The waitress stood expectantly waiting for the young people to select their stall. When Tavia saw the actress, with whose picture they were all very familiar, she pinched Dorothy hard.
“Surely we never can have such luck as to sit at the same tea table with her,” indicating the matronly actress.
“Should you like to?” asked the New York girl.
And forthwith they were led to the stall. The matronly-looking woman languidly raised blue, heavy-lashed eyes to the gushing young girls who invaded her domain, then put one more lump of sugar in her tea and drank it, and Tavia breathlessly watched!
She was an actress of note, one of the finest in the world, and her pictures had always shown her as tall and slender and beautifully young! The woman Tavia gazed at had the face of the magazine pictures, but she was decidedly matronly; there was neither romance nor tragedy written on the smooth lines of her brow. She was so like, and yet so unlike her pictures, that Tavia fell to studying wherein lay the difference. It was rude, perhaps, but the lady in question, understood the eager brown eyes turned on her, and she smiled.
And that smile made everyone begin to talk.
It was quite like a family party. Ned, as the only man present, came in for the lion’s share of attention and it pleased him much. Just a whim of the noted actress perhaps, made her join gaily in the tea-party, or mayhap, it was a privilege she rarely enjoyed, this love of genuine laughter, and bright, merry talk of the fresh young school girls. And it was a moment in the lives of the girls that was never forgotten.
The voices in the tea-room scarcely rose above a murmur; the music played not a note above a dreamy, floating ripple; and the essence of the freshly-made tea pervaded the air.
At times Tavia could see the actress of the magazines, and again she was just somebody’s mother, tired out and drinking tea, like every mother Tavia had ever met. But the most thrilling moment of all was when she said good-bye and asked the girls to call. And best of all, she meant it—Dorothy knew that! There was no mistaking the sincerity of the voice, the kindly light of her eyes, nor the simple words of the invitation to call.
“I must hurry now,” she had said, “I’m due at the theatre in another hour; but I want to see you again. I want you to tell me more of your impressions of this great city. I’ve really enjoyed this cup of tea more than you know, my dears,” and she smiled at Tavia and Dorothy.
Tavia and Dorothy had really talked so much that Helen Roycroft had little chance to display her fine knowledge of city life. Cologne was well content to sit and listen.
When the actress was gone, Tavia said to Dorothy: “Must we really go? I could stay here drinking tea for a week.”
“I never want to see a cup of tea again,” declared Ned. “And say,” he continued, “next time I’m dragged into a ladies’ tea-room, I want an end seat! These stalls were never meant for fellows with knees where mine come!” And he painfully unwound himself from a cramped position.
“Ned does have so much trouble with those knees,” explained Dorothy. “He never can have any but an end seat or box-seat at the theatre, because there is no room for his knees elsewhere. Poor boy! How uncomfortable will be your memory of this tea-room!”
“It will be the loveliest memory of my trip,” Tavia declared. “We found something real and true!”
“I’d give the whole world to be able to stay over,” said Cologne, plaintively.
“Just one more cup of tea!” cried Dorothy, “then we’ll start for home in the yellow car.”
“I’m glad it’s dark,” said Tavia, mischievously glancing at Ned, “the color combination is such wretched taste!”
“I’m sorry, Cologne,” said Dorothy, “that you can’t stay and come with us to-morrow to call on Miss Mingle.”
Ned was cranking up the car, and the girls for a moment were just a confused mass of muffs and feathers and kisses, then they jumped in, and drove home to the Riverside apartment.
“How funny!” exclaimed Tavia, as she and Dorothy began to ascend the stairs in the deep, dark hallway of the apartment house that Aunt Winnie owned, and in which Miss Mingle and her sister lived. It was six stories high and had two apartments on each floor. A porter, with the unconcern of long habit, carelessly carried a rosy, cooing baby on his shoulder up the long flights of stairs, his destination being an apartment on the sixth floor. The mother of the child climbed up after him deep in thought, probably as to what to have for dinner that day.
“No, there are no elevators,” explained Dorothy. “This house is one of the early apartments, built before the people knew the necessity for such luxuries as elevators.”
“Luxuries!” said Tavia, stopping to catch her breath, “if elevators are luxuries in a six-story house, I’ll vote for luxuries!”
“Just one more flight,” said Dorothy, “it’s the fifth floor, the left apartment, I believe,” she consulted a card as they paused on a landing.
“I don’t wonder now at Miss Mingle looking haggard,” said Tavia, “if she must face this climb every time she comes back. Imagine doing this several times a day!”
“At least, one would get all the necessary exercising, and in wet, cold weather, could have both amusement and exercise, sliding down the banisters and climbing back,” Dorothy said, determined to see the bright side of it.
Tavia slipped in a heap on a step and gasped: “Yes, indeed, I’ll admit there may be advantages in the way of exercise.”
“Courage,” said Dorothy laughing, “we have only ten steps more!”
While Dorothy resolutely dragged Tavia up the last ten steps, Miss Mingle appeared in the hall.
“I heard your cheerful laughter,” she said with a smile, “and I said to sister, prepare the pillows for the girls to fall on, after their awful climb. But I didn’t say,” she added, playfully, “feather pillows to fall on the girls!”
“We really enjoyed the climb,” said Dorothy.
“It was lots of fun,” agreed Tavia.
They entered a room which at first glance seemed a confused jumble of beautiful furniture, magazines, newspapers and books, grocer and butcher and gas bills, and a gentle-faced woman reclining languidly in an easy chair. Her smooth black hair fell gracefully over her ears; she had large gray eyes, whose sweet patience was the most marked characteristic of her face.
“My sister, Mrs. Bergham, has been quite ill,” explained Miss Mingle, as she rushed about trying to clear off two chairs for the girls to sit on. Every chair in the room seemed to be littered with what Dorothy thought was a unique collection of various sorts of jars, tea pots, and cups; and last week’s laundry seemed to cover the radiators and tables. The room, however, for all the confusion, was quaint and artistic, and had odd little corners fixed up here and there.
“MY SISTER, MRS. BERGHAM, HAS BEEN QUITE ILL,” EXPLAINED MISS MINGLE.“MY SISTER, MRS. BERGHAM, HAS BEEN QUITE ILL,” EXPLAINED MISS MINGLE.
“MY SISTER, MRS. BERGHAM, HAS BEEN QUITE ILL,” EXPLAINED MISS MINGLE.
“I’m so ill and I’m afraid I’ve been quite selfish, demanding so much of sister’s time!” Mrs. Bergham said, extending a long white hand to the girls, and with her other removing a scarf from her shoulders, allowing it to drop to the floor. Miss Mingle immediately picked it up, folded it neatly, and laid it on the window seat.
“I’ve had rather a sad Christmas,” she went on. “Sister, it’s getting too warm in this room,” and, removing a pillow from under her head, she permitted that also to drop to the floor. Miss Mingle stooped and picked it up.
“There, there, dear,” said the latter, “I can’t let you talk about it. The girls will tell you all about their trip and you’ll forget the miserable aches and pains.” She puffed and patted the pillows on which her sister was resting.
Mrs. Bergham smiled languidly. “It’s so fine to be young and strong,” she said. “I have two small sons, and it made my Christmas so hard not to have them with me. But I couldn’t take care of them. They are such robust little fellows! Sister decided, and I suppose she’s right—she always is—that it would be best for me not to have the care of them while I am so ill.” She sighed and smiled patiently at Miss Mingle. “So we sent them away to school. I did so count on having them with me this holiday, but sister thought it would only be a worry; didn’t you, dear?”
Miss Mingle hesitated just the fraction of a second, then she answered cheerfully: “Mrs. Bergham is so nervous, and the boys are such lively little crickets, we didn’t have them home for Christmas.”
“Children are sometimes such perfect cares,” declared Tavia, feeling that something should be said.
“Then, too,” continued Mrs. Bergham, evidently greatly enjoying the opportunity to talk about herself to the helpless callers, “I’ve tried hard to add a little to our income. I paint,” she arched her straight, black eyebrows slightly. “Everything was going along so beautifully, although it is an expensive apartment to keep up, and I cared nothing for myself, I like to keep a home for my sister, and I worked and worked, and was so worried. Don’t you like this apartment? I’ve grown very fond of it.” She talked in a rambling way, but her voice was pleasing and her manner quite tranquil, so that Dorothy wondered how she said so much with apparently little exertion.
“The night the telegram came,” said Miss Mingle, “I thought she was dying, and I must say,” she laughed, “that that alone saved you naughty girls from receiving some horrible punishment.” They all laughed at the remembrance of that last night at Glenwood. “But when I got here,” continued Miss Mingle, “my sister was much better, and I was so relieved to find her just like her own dear self, when I had expected to find her—very ill—that I forgot everything, even having the boys home, so that sister’s fatherless sons had no Santa Claus this year.”
Tavia was curious. The furnishings of the room were good, almost elaborate, but the carelessness of it all at first hid the good points. Surely Mrs. Bergham did not keep it up on her painting. Tavia judged that, by the long, slender, almost helpless hand and the whole poise of the woman. And the two little boys at school! Could it be possible, she thought, that Miss Mingle supported the family?
“I’m sorry I am not well enough to arrange to have you meet some of my young friends,” said Mrs. Bergham. “We entertain a little, sister and I. I know so many interesting young people. Bohemians, sister calls them!”
Miss Mingle was arranging the books on top of a bookcase and they fell with a clatter. If she made any answer, it was lost in the noise.
At the name of “Bohemians” Dorothy brightened. “I’ve never seen a real, live Bohemian!” she exclaimed, clasping her hands together with ecstasy.
“But we met an actress yesterday,” Tavia said, hesitatingly.
Mrs. Bergham waved her hand in space. “I mean real artists, people who have genius, who are doing wonderful things for the world! We count those among our friends,” she said.
“My!” thought Dorothy, “did Miss Mingle belong to that society? Did she know the geniuses of the world, and yet had never mentioned it to the girls at school?” But Miss Mingle had little to say. She finished arranging the books, and moving swiftly, nervously about, she tried to bring some kind of order out of the confusion in the room.
“Do sit down, sister, this can all wait. I’m sure the girls don’t mind if we are not in perfect order,” said Mrs. Bergham.
Dorothy and Tavia, in one breath, assured the ladies that they didn’t mind a bit, and Tavia even added, with the intention of making Miss Mingle feel at ease, that it was “more home-like.”
“I never could sit up perfectly straight nor stay comfortably near anything that was just where it should be,” explained Mrs. Bergham. “My husband loved that streak of disorder that was part of my nature, but sister was always the most precise and careful little creature.” She looked at Miss Mingle with limpid, loving eyes. “Sister was always the greatest girl for taking all the responsibility, she was so hopelessly in love with work in her girlhood! What a lovely time our girlhood was! Isn’t it time for my broth?” she asked, as she glanced at a small watch on her wrist.
“Forgive me, dear,” said Miss Mingle, “I forgot. I’ll prepare it immediately,” and she dropped what she was doing and hurried to the kitchen.
Mrs. Bergham arose and walked to the window seat, resting her elbows on some pillows. She wore a light blue dressing gown, made on simple lines, but so perfectly pretty that Dorothy and Tavia decided at once to make one like it immediately, on reaching home. The light blue shade brought out the clear blue-grey of her eyes, and her heavy dark lashes shaded the soft, white skin. She sighed, and asked the girls to sit with her in the window seat. In her presence Tavia felt very awkward, young and inexperienced, and she sat rather rigidly. Dorothy was more at ease and, too, more critical of their hostess. She listened to the quick, nervous steps of Miss Mingle as she hurried about the kitchen, preparing nourishment for her languid sister.
“There isn’t much view from this window,” said Tavia bluntly, more because she felt ill at ease than because she had expected to see something besides the tall, brown buildings across the street. The buildings were high, no sky could be seen from the window, and the sun did not seem to penetrate the long line of stone buildings across the way.
“Oh, there are disadvantages here, I know, but I’m so fond of just this one room. The house is in that part of the city most convenient to everything—that is, everything worth while, of course. So, sister decided it was best to stay here. However, the rent is enormous. It was that mostly which caused my breakdown. In six months time our rent has been doubled by the landlord. I got ill thinking about it, and I just had to send for sister. Sister’s salary isn’t so large, and the constant increase in our rent is a burden too great to bear.”
“I’d move,” said Tavia, promptly.
“But where would we find another place that meets all the requirements as this place does? If sister were always with me, we might come across something suitable some time, but alone, I am of little use in a business manner. Sister is so clever! She can do everything so much better than I. My illness is keeping me at home at present, and as my sister will return to school directly, there is really no time to look about for other quarters.” The sufferer said this quite decidedly.
“Who raises the rents?” Dorothy tried to ask the question naturally, but a lump seized her throat, and she felt the blood rushing to her cheeks.
“Oh, some agent. Several dozens of persons have bought and sold this house, according to Mr. Akerson, since we moved in.” The subject was evidently beginning to bore Mrs. Bergham, for she yawned. “What pretty hair you have, Miss Dale,” she exclaimed, “so much like the gold the poets sing about.”
Dorothy brushed back the tiny locks that persisted in hanging about her ears, and she smiled shyly.
“Can’t you refuse to pay the increases in the rent?” asked Dorothy.
“Oh, these is always some good reason for the increases,” answered Mrs. Bergham. “Some new improvements, or some big expense attached to maintaining a studio apartment, in fact, according to Mr. Akerson, the reasons for raising our rent are endless.”
Dorothy’s eyes met Tavia’s in a quick flash, as she noted the name of the agent.
Then Miss Mingle came into the room with a neatly-arranged tray for her sister. Mrs. Bergham thanked her and waited patiently while little Miss Mingle drew up a table to the window seat and placed the things on it.
Mrs. Bergham held up a napkin. “I don’t want to trouble, dear, but really I’ve used this napkin several times. Just hand me any kind; I know things haven’t been ironed or cared for as they should be, but I don’t mind. There, that one is all right. I’m an awful care; am I not?”
Miss Mingle squeezed her hand. “Just get well and be your old, happy self again, that’s all I ask.” She turned to the girls. “My sister and her boys are all I have in the world to work and live for,” she finished.
“I’m really so sorry, sister, that you did not speak about the girls spending their holiday in town. We could have a nice little dinner before you all return to Glenwood,” suggested Mrs. Bergham.
“Don’t think of it,” said Dorothy, shocked at the idea of little Miss Mingle being burdened with the additional care of trying to give a dinner for Tavia and herself. Indeed, it would have been more to Dorothy’s mind to have taken Miss Mingle with her, and have her sit in Aunt Winnie’s luxurious apartment, and be waited on for just one day, as the little teacher was waiting on her languid sister.
Tavia, too, thought, since the idea of increasing any of Miss Mingle’s responsibilities was apt to be brought up, it was the right moment to depart.
Dorothy held Miss Mingle’s hand as they were leaving and said: “Mrs. Bergham told us of your difficulty about the rent. I’m so sorry.”
“We are absolutely helpless,” said Miss Mingle. “We are paying three times what the apartment was originally rented for and there is no logical reason why it should be so. The agent says it’s the landlord’s commands, and if we don’t like it we can move. It seems that this particular landlord is money mad!”
“Oh,” cried Dorothy, “something must be done!”
“The only thing that I can think of,” said Mrs. Bergham, wiping two tears from her eyes, “is to forget the whole tiresome business. It was horrid of me to say anything at all, but it’s so much on our minds that I cannot help talking about it.”
“I’m very glad indeed,” said Dorothy, “that you did.”