From that moment, all idea of sacrifice vanished forever. Miss Pritchard felt suddenly, amazingly, and incomparably blessed. Her realization that the girl's charming face and figure were matched by a most lovable personality came so quickly as to seem instantaneous. In very truth, Elsie's bubbling gayety and sweetness of disposition were as natural and inseparable as her very dimples.
At once, Miss Pritchard's life took on new color, new meaning. The change for her was far greater than if she had carried out her former intention and gone from work in the city to leisure in the country. She was in a new, strange, wonderful country where life was interesting, even thrilling, beyond anything she had ever known. She had not dreamed that youth could be at once so gay and blithe and yet so simple and generous, so spontaneous, so affectionately considerate of the older and the less richly endowed.
For her part, the eager, warm-hearted girl adored Miss Pritchard almost at sight. The strength and sincerity of the woman, her utter unselfishness, her wisdom, her humor, and her keen intelligence combined to make her the most impressive personality the sensitive young girl had ever encountered. Quite untroubled by the ethical aspect of the situation, she gave herself up to it wholly, only troubled lest she had gotten the better part of the exchange she had made with the real Elsie Marley; lest she be cheating the other out of companionship with this wonderful Cousin Julia.
No difficulty offered itself. Keen as she was, Miss Pritchard was without shadow of suspicion. Stare as she would, she couldn't discover any slightest resemblance to the Pritchards in the girl, yet she drew only the one conclusion.
"Elsie, you must be altogether a Marley," she said to her as they sat happily together on the third evening after the girl's arrival. And her voice indicated that she was quite satisfied to have it so.
"I'm certainly no Pritchard," returned Elsie coolly, and not without enjoyment, "begging your pardon, Cousin Julia."
"Well, of course, I ought to regret it, you being the last of the family; but I'm afraid I don't," returned Miss Pritchard. "You see I rather dreaded your coming as that of a double-dyed Pritchard. The Pritchards of my father's generation were pretty stiff, I confess, heavy and solemn and rather pompous. My mother who was a Moore, as no doubt you have heard, had a strong sense of humor, and didn't bring me up in very great awe of the family. She was thankful I didn't take after them, and so have I always been. I often think, what a misfortune had I had to have a Pritchard as a bedfellow and roommate all these years, as I must have had if I had taken after my father—who was, I believe, however, the mildest of the Pritchards, and very much altered by my mother's influence. And girls are usually like papa—as you are—and boys like mamma, they say. Surely, no girl could be less like her mother than you, dear."
Elsie sobered. One of the facts she most cherished was the knowledge that she resembled her adored mother in nature as well as in manner and personal appearance. It would be hard, nay, impossible, to give over that solace. But she told herself she must thinkAugusta Pritchard(what a name!) whenever Cousin Julia saidmotherto her.
"Of course, you don't remember your father, Elsie, but do you remember any other of the Marleys or know anything of them?"
"Just one member of the family," said Elsie, getting down from the window-seat. "I've heard about her ever since I can remember." And bowing low, she began to sing:
"Do you ken Elsie Marley, honey?The wife who sells the barley, honey?She won't get up to serve her swine,And do you ken Elsie Marley, honey?
Elsie Marley has grown so fineShe won't get up to serve the swine,But lies in bed till eight or nine,And surely she does take her time.
Do you ken Elsie Marley, honey?The wife who sells the barley, honey?She won't get up to serve her swine,And do you ken Elsie Marley, honey?"
The wonder and admiration in Miss Pritchard's eyes couldn't be hidden. Elsie threw herself down on the settee by her side.
"That's the only Marley I've ever known, Cousin Julia, but she's rather a dear old body," she said and squeezed Miss Pritchard's arm affectionately.
"How very difficult it's going to be to explain now," Elsie Marley said to herself as she dressed on Friday morning. "How I wish I had done it that very first hour. Mr. Middleton would have understood, then, for I had just told him Elsie liked to act; and he wouldn't have cared. He couldn't have been really hurt as I am afraid he will be now. And yet, how can I help feeling glad I was here to take the library for him? And I did so enjoy doing it, too."
She decided that if Miss Stewart were able to go back this afternoon, she would leave directly after lunch and get the only train for New York that she knew—the one Elsie Moss had taken. And if she couldn't possibly explain in any other manner, she would have to write a note and steal quietly away. It wasn't a nice thing to do; yet she couldn't afford to let the difficulty of explaining the situation keep her here until Elsie Moss should have become so firmly established that it would be cruel to drag her back to Enderby.
On the other hand, as long as she had started in with the library work, if Miss Stewart wasn't well enough to attend this afternoon, she would remain one day more. And if she found that that was to be the case, she would spend her morning writing the note to Mr. Middleton to fall back upon in case of need, and a letter to Elsie Moss warning her of the change.
When she went down to the dining-room, Mr. Middleton had that same air of eagerness mingled with what seemed to Elsie assurance of the permanency of their relationship. After a little he inquired whether her unfamiliar work of the day before had tired her overmuch.
"Oh, no—Uncle John, not at all," she replied, consciously hampered by lack of vocabulary or of tone to express enthusiasm that was new to her.
"Well, then, what should you say to giving Miss Rachel another day of rest?" he suggested. "I have been afraid for some time that she's rather letting people get on her nerves, and possibly a few days off would be a benefit for all concerned. She has lived alone for years, and, good as she is, has grown narrow and notional as one inevitably will who hasn't other personalities in a household to rub against. I dare say if she had her way she wouldn't allow a boy under fifteen in the library."
"She's afraid they'll soil the books?" Elsie remarked lamely, striving to be adequate to the occasion. But somehow, he seemed rich enough to lend her something unawares.
"Yes, dear, that's it, of course, and perfectly natural and legitimate in its place such caution is. But the trouble is, she puts it first and foremost. We want certainly to keep the books as neat as is consistent with constant use, and it's always safe to ask to see a lad's hands; but there are different ways of going about the business. The main thing about a library is, of course, its usefulness to the people; perhaps, most of all to the younger among them. You agree with me, dear, that that consideration comes before everything?"
"Yes, indeed, Uncle John," she said primly.
He smiled suddenly and very charmingly.
"Elsie dear, if I hadn't known that your step-mother was a schoolmistress, I should have guessed it," he declared. "Externally, her influence upon you has almost blotted out your mother's. I'm thankful you didn't stay with her long enough for it to go deeper, excellent woman as I know her to be. As it is, your speech and manner conceal rather than reveal your likeness to your mother, but it struggles through for all that."
He paused and his face grew grave.
"I hope—I trust, dear, you didn't feel—repressed?" he asked anxiously. "You are so quiet and reserved and docile for a young girl—especially for your mother's daughter. Your stepmother was—kind to you, surely?"
"Oh, yes, sir," she faltered, distressed at the dilemma. Vaguely aware that she had an opening for her confession, she made no attempt to use it. "I know I am—everything is"—she faltered.
"You're just right, Elsie dear," he said kindly. "Just be yourself. And if you have learned not to be spontaneous, try to forget it. In any event, never repress any desire for gayety or romping or what-not in this house. You don't at all need to be quiet oh your Aunt Milly's account. She isn't strong and she is excitable, and yet she isn't somehow what is called nervous at all. She doesn't mind noise or even tumult; indeed, she likes to feel that things are going on in the house even if she cannot share them."
Even now, Elsie understood that this was quite true in regard to Mrs. Middleton. There was, in spite of what the girl called her falsity, something generous about her. Elsie wasn't herself any the more drawn to her—or any the less repelled—but now she first had a slight inkling of any foundation for Mr. Middleton's strange infatuation. There was, somehow, in the midst of all that sentimentality, some genuine feeling which for him transmuted the whole into pure gold.
Well, for her part, she could stand it another day for the sake of going to the library.
"What are you going to do this morning, Elsie?" Mr. Middleton inquired as they returned to the house after a few minutes spent in the garden.
Elsie colored faintly.
"Write some letters," she said.
Indeed, she spent the whole morning in the attempt, though she accomplished nothing. She made half a dozen beginnings of the letter which was to set forth the scheme Elsie Moss had concocted and she had entered into; but none went further than three sentences, and it began to seem that that expedient were the more difficult. In any event, before she made a seventh trial she turned to the note that was to acquaint Elsie Moss with the situation. Here, she only failed the more dismally. When it was time to dress for lunch, she seemed to be forced to explain to Mr. Middleton just as she was leaving, and to come upon poor Elsie Moss quite unexpectedly. It seemed as if it would almost kill her to do either.
Mrs. Middleton did not appear at lunch and everything was so pleasant that Elsie's spirits rose until she was almost gay. She talked more than she had done since she came—almost more than she had ever done before until she met Elsie Moss—and she was at once gratified and appalled to perceive that she was reminding Mr. Middleton of his sister. Of course, his real niece would remind him still more, but Elsie knew that the wrench to his feelings before she should be established in the parsonage would be severe, even terrible. If only Mrs. Middleton kept her room continually! And yet, he might not like that.
The library was only the more engaging that day. Mattie Howe came in early and they went through a number of shelves in the children's department together in selecting her book. Then Elsie took the little girl in her lap—in a curiously easy fashion—and they looked at the colored pictures in a large book that did not circulate until some one else came in and claimed the librarian's attention.
A roguish-looking boy with a tousled head entered, stared at Elsie in amazement, and went abruptly out. Returning a little later with shining face and wet, parted hair, as he asked at the desk for a book, he spread out a pair of very clean hands in a manner intended to be nonchalant. He was ready and eager to talk and very amusing. Before Elsie got through with him, she had assured him that she meant to read "Robinson Crusoe" within the next fortnight.
Then a lad apparently of about her own age, a high-school boy, shy, but with very gentle manners, who started as if to retreat as he saw her, gathered his courage, returned his book, and stood there undecided.
"Do you want another book?" Elsie asked.
"Have you got anything about Edison?" he asked. "I've got to write a composition about electricity, and I thought I might start with him."
Elsie consulted the catalogue, but greatly to her disappointment was unable to find anything. The boy had such nice manners and such honest, deep-set eyes that she wanted to help him.
"You might start with Benjamin Franklin," she suggested, not very confidently.
"Sure!" he returned, smiling frankly. She got him a biography of Franklin, and he sat down at one of the tables with note-book and pencil and was soon deep in it.
There were a number of references to Franklin in the catalogue, and as Elsie went back to it to see if she might have made a better choice, she saw that one referred to the proper volume of a "Dictionary of American Scientists." It came to her that she might discover Edison in the same place. She was pleased to find several pages of a recent volume of the work devoted to that inventor. She carried it to the boy and pointed out the pages with a feeling of satisfaction almost like triumph.
The afternoon flew. She closed the library regretfully, for she never expected to enter it again. For to-morrow was Saturday, and if she should stay beyond the afternoon, it would mean she could not get away until Monday. And that she could never stand. For she had gathered somehow that Mrs. Middleton made a special effort to sit up all Sunday except during the time her husband was at church. If it was mostly a case of nerves, Miss Stewart might as well come back one day as another.
But again at dinner Mrs. Middleton was absent from her place. She sent a special request to Elsie to occupy it, and Elsie spent a very happy half-hour telling Mr. Middleton about the happenings of the afternoon, hearing his explanatory comment on persons and things, and serving the pudding. And when he told her he had seen Miss Stewart, who thought she would hardly feel like coming back until Monday, and had assured her that his niece would be glad to take her place another day, Elsie was quite undisturbed.
Elsie Marley was very tired as she locked the door of the library Saturday night and started forhome, as she caught herself calling the parsonage. She had been there the greater part of the day. She had spoken to Mr. Middleton at breakfast of going over to familiarize herself somewhat with the encyclopaedias and reference-books, and he had asked her to look up certain passages and verify one or two quotations for him. The latter proved a more difficult task for the girl than the clergyman would have dreamed; but she was very happy in doing it, gratified, too, to realize that her handwriting was very clear as well as pretty. And the single cause of her dismay when he thanked and praised her and referred to her mother—or his sister—was that she should not be on hand to help him another Saturday.
The afternoon had been a very busy one, every one in town, seemingly, old, young, and middle-aged, desiring a book for Sunday. A goodly number of girls of near her age came in, sweet-faced girls who, though they couldn't compare with Elsie Moss (who was, however, in a class by herself), seemed more attractive than those she had seen at home. The tall boy who was interested in electricity came again and greeted her shyly, though rather as if they were old friends. Later, older girls and young men who worked in Boston during the week dropped into the library to inquire for the latest novel or to spend part of their half-holiday looking over the picture papers and magazines. All were extremely cordial and friendly. Without actually overhearing anything, Elsie, who wasn't at all quick in regard to matters of that sort, understood, somehow, that there was more or less comparison between herself and the regular librarian, which was not altogether complimentary to Miss Stewart.
As she went up the walk shortly after six o'clock, the girl saw some one gazing out of the window of the room she had first entered four days ago, and recalled her first view, which seemed now far back in the past. There was no one there when she went in, however, and as she realized that the place had not been touched since her arrival, suddenly the glow of satisfaction that had cloaked her weariness changed to wrath. She flew to her room for refuge.
And now real wrath descended upon her. For she found it as she had left it that morning. The bed was not made; her nightgown was on the floor, and the clothes she had worn yesterday scattered about on the chairs. Her brown eyes looked darker and there was a hint of color in her cheeks as she ran down to the kitchen and confronted Kate amid the chaos and confusion of her own domain.
"Katy, my bed hasn't been made, nor my room done to-day," she cried.
"Bless my soul, I clean forgot it," said Kate in real consternation. "I'll go right up this very minute as soon as I've cast my eyes on the oven, though, to tell you the truth, my feet ache like the toothache."
Elsie's feet ached, too, for the first time in her life. Wherefore she partly understood. Her indignation died out.
"Oh, don't bother then, Katy," she said kindly, "I can sleep on the couch to-night. And to-morrow, perhaps, you'll do it early before your feet get tired?"
Kate insisted upon going. "No, you don't sleep on no sofy; not while I can crawl about," she declared, and Elsie followed her up-stairs.
Watching her from her chair by the window, the girl saw that she looked tired, indeed.
"I could have slept on the couch, Katy," she protested.
Kate looked at her—frowned—then smiled.
"Oh, Miss Elsie, a body'd know you lost your mother young. Now if I'd 'a' forgot your uncle's bed, he'd 'a' made it hisself and said nothing. There's many young ladies as makes their own beds, and does all but the heavy sweepin'. I don't suppose you ever did such a thing in your life?"
Elsie confessed that she hadn't. She didn't say that it seemed a burden to turn down the covers. Again Kate frowned and smiled. Clearly Miss Moss wasn't one to take a hint.
"How would you like tolearn?" she inquired.
"Oh, I never thought," said Elsie. "Why, yes, of course, if you'll teach me some time, I'll do it every day after I get so that I can."
For the moment she had forgotten her stay was to be so limited.
"Bless you, you'll learn in no time; it's nothing to do," Kate assured her beamingly. "Come here, right now."
Somewhat taken aback, Elsie complied. She was surprised to find that it wasn't difficult nor even unpleasant.
"You see, Miss Elsie, I can't never go about my work and finish one thing before I take up another," Kate explained. "I'm up and down these stairs, up and down, up and down, from mornin' till night, a-waitin' on the missus. When it ain't eggnog, it's beef-tea or gruel, and then again it'll be frosted cake, icing that thick, upon my word and honor! And once she gets hold of me, I have to stay and tell her all the news I get from the grocer and the butcher's boy, and who goes by and what they has on. Not that I don't admire bein' sociable, and I can't help havin' a motherly feelin' for one old enough to be my mother; but I don't get no chance to redd up nowhere except the dinin'-room and his study. And then you know, I ain't no general housework girl, anyways, I've always cooked before; but here I have to do everything, besides waitin' on a woman as isn't any sicker than what I be. If you knew the money she spends on choc'late creams and headache powders and the trashy novels she reads, you'd wonder she ain't even yellower than what she is."
The next morning Elsie set about trying to do her own room. Before she had reached the point of attacking the bed, she had decided that she could save herself a great deal of work by putting things away when she took them off or used them, instead of dropping them, as she had always done, for some one else to pick up. Kate came in and insisted upon helping with the bed.
"But, Katy, don't you want to get ready for church?" Elsie suddenly thought to inquire.
"I went to early mass this mornin', miss. I declare to goodness, I'm that shabby that I don't like to appear out in broad daylight."
"Why, Katy, what do you do with all your money? Do you have parents to support?"
"No'm, I'm an orphan. But I don't have any ready money, and I don't like to take what little I have out of the savings-bank. I ain't been paid my wages sence Christmas."
Elsie was aghast. "But why don't you ask for them?" she cried.
"I do. And she keeps a-promisin', but money slips right through her fingers. I don't like to go to himself about it, because I hate to upset him, and then she's good to me, and I know them headache powders makes her forgetful. I don't know where the money goes: she has a fistful the first of every month, but she owes bills to everybody in town except the undertaker. What I'm afraid of is as some of 'em'll go to himself. The ice man is gettin' as sassy as he can live."
Elsie was shocked beyond expression. The situation would have seemed inconceivable except that anything was conceivable in connection with Mrs. Middleton. The girl had almost forgotten that she was departing shortly, but realizing it, she was the more relieved. Only it would be all the harder for Elsie Moss.
Still, even so, she found she couldn't dismiss the matter thus. Somehow her heart went out to that careless, slipshod, kindly, Irish Kate. Before she went to church, she slipped into the kitchen and insisted upon her accepting fifteen dollars to get herself some clothes before the next Sunday. And when Kate flatly refused to take the money, she developed a curious resourcefulness. She declared that unless she took it, she should go to her uncle and ask him to inquire into the question of her unpaid wages. And Kate succumbed.
After service, Elsie sat down to write to Elsie Moss. She didn't say anything she had meant to say. She knew she ought at least to give her some intimation of the situation, lest the other should be wholly unprepared and enter perhaps upon some course that must be rudely interrupted by the end of another week. But she wasn't clever enough for that.
She spoke of the place and the people and how much she liked them. She told of the three afternoons in the library, and remembering how the other had taken to the children on the train, tried, in her stiff, constrained way, to describe little Mattie Howe, who minded the baby all his waking hours and read a Prudy book a day.
She couldn't even mention Mrs. Middleton. She spoke freely of Elsie's uncle—almost enthusiastically, indeed—told how he had asked if she had toothache, and signed herself, rather abruptly, "Your loving friend, Elsie M——."
The following morning she found a letter on her plate. She had gone by the name of Moss nearly a week, yet it gave her a start to see the address and to break open the envelope.
It was a bright, amusing letter, as informal as her own had been stiff. Elsie Moss found Cousin Julia no end jolly, a perfect brick. The boarding-house was the most interesting place she had ever known, and the people just right; and though New York was stifling she loved it, and wasn't the least in a hurry to get to the shore. She expected very soon to confide her ambition to Miss Pritchard—honestly, she was so dear and splendid, that it was the greatest wonder that she hadn't told her she wanted to be an actress before they left the Grand Central Station.…
"I'm simply perishing to hear from you, Elsie-Honey," the letter concluded. "Uncle's a darling saint, I know, but you must tell me about Aunt Milly so I can describe her to my stepmother. I sort of glossed her over in this letter I enclose for you to forward so that it will have the Enderby postmark. I came out strong on Uncle John and the station at Boston, however. And tell me about the servants. I know there's a servants' hall like in English books, so I suppose they have a lot. If there's a butler, I almost envy you, for that would be good practice for me, because most plays have a butler and a French maid. I shall probably be French-maided to the limit if I ever get a start, though I'd rather be a slavey or a chimney-sweep!
"Do you leave your shoes outside the door at night? I should never remember. The first day I was here I made my own bed! The chambermaid nearly fell over.
"Do tell me a lot to write to auntie (that's my stepmother); I have always told her everything I'm thinking about, and now it will be rather difficult for I only think now about the stage and Cousin Julia and you, Elsie-Honey. I hope you think of me?"
"Oh, Miss Moss, I think I can come earlier to-morrow afternoon and stay longer," said little Mattie Howe eagerly. "It's been such a good week for drying clothes that mother's way ahead on her work, and she'll mind the baby herself. Charles Augustus is going to take back the last load this afternoon with his cart."
"That's nice for you, Mattie, but I shan't be here. Miss Stewart's coming back to-morrow," replied Elsie.
The child's bright, thin little face clouded.
"Oh, dear, oh, dear, these changes are most too much for me, I declare!" she cried. "I mean changes-backis. The change that brought you here, Miss Moss, was just sweet. Only I wish it had turned into astay."
Elsie drew the little thing close to her. At the moment she herself almost wished it had been astay.
"I wonder if that's myhard," prattled the child. "Mother says everybody, even rich people, have hard things to bear. Do you bleeve so, Miss Moss?"
Elsie looked startled.
"Why, Mattie, I hardly know," she faltered. "Ye-es, I suppose every one does, really."
"Even you, Miss Moss?"
Elsie couldn't answer. On a sudden that first day she and Elsie Moss had been together came back to her. She recalled Elsie's fresh grief for the death of her mother and her own sense of remissness, and the class motto that signified through hardships to the stars. Since she had been at Enderby, things had been disagreeable enough almost to make up for her former immunity. And yet, she hadn't been here ten days, and she didn't really have to endure it. Furthermore, she was to escape from it very shortly.
"No, Mattie, I don't believe I have had so much that is hard as most people have," she owned.
"You are like the princess, you see," murmured the child. "But I s'pose you feel awfully sorry about your auntie being so poorly? When mother was sick once I felt as badhereas if I had the stomachache hard."
Elsie evaded the issue by hoping politely that the little girl's mother was quite well now.
"Oh, yes, Miss Moss, and does four peopleses' washings besides our own," Mattie declared. "Father works steady most of the time, but there's five of us, counting the baby, and—sometimes he gets drunk. Not so very often, he doesn't, but nobody can ever tell when he will and when he won't, so mother has to help out. Well, I must go now. When will I see you?"
Elsie didn't know what to say. Miss Stewart's return had been delayed from day to day and she had postponed making her decision as to her course until that matter was settled. Only to-day had she learned that the librarian would resume her work to-morrow, Saturday, and she expected to give up her evening to forming her own plans. Until this moment, she hadn't thought of Mattie as a complication. It didn't seem possible that one could become so attached to a child of ten years in—it wasn't yet ten days—that one not only hated to leave her, but even felt remiss, almost conscience-stricken, in so doing.
"Won't you come to see us, mother and me and the baby—you'll just love him, Miss Moss, he can pat-a-cake and by-by and almost talk and lots else, too. Won't you please come?" the child begged.
Even with her arm about the child's shoulders, the incongruity of calling upon a woman who took in washing came to Elsie Marley—likewise the fact that she wasn't likely to be in Enderby beyond Monday at the latest. But she surprised herself and delighted Mattie by suddenly agreeing to come the next day.
When she spoke of it to Mr. Middleton that night at dinner, expecting him to be surprised and, perhaps, to protest, she found him interested and eager.
"Oh, Elsie, that's capital!" he exclaimed. "She's the nicest sort of woman, Mrs. Howe is. She's hardly more than a girl in spite of that little brood of five. She gets out very little, and if you would go around once in a while it would mean a lot to her. Besides, I'm sure you'll enjoy her."
As Elsie sat in her room by the window that evening, she wondered whether one visit from a person one is never to see again would mean anything to Mattie's mother? Well, for that matter, whether it would or not, she had promised to make it and must keep her word. And she mustn't allow her thoughts to be diverted by that.
For the opportunity she had sought to complete her plans was hers. Mr. Middleton had gone out to attend a committee meeting directly after dinner. Mrs. Middleton she hadn't seen all day. The matter of the library had settled itself, and her way was clear.
But somehow her thoughts didn't proceed as she had expected them to do. She had rather looked for marshalled ranks of reasons standing at either hand—those sayinggo, of course, largely predominating—which she would only have to review. Instead her mind wandered, roving back to the conversation with Mattie, and the little girl's quoting her mother that every one has a hard to bear.
Was it really true? She supposed it must be. Mr. Middleton, despite his serenity, looked as if he had undergone all sorts of things. So had Elsie Moss. Even poor old Kate had had her share. On the other hand, there was Mrs. Middleton, there was Elsie's own grandmother and her mother. And there was Elsie herself. She had never had anything hard in her life until within a fortnight.
How curious it was that Mattie should have put her finger upon Mrs. Middleton as being her particular difficulty, mistaken though her sense of the situation was. Mrs. Middleton was truly the onlyhardElsie had ever known. Undergoing a certain amount of her society and submitting to her caresses, sometimes once a day, often less frequently, was the only ordeal she had ever undergone. And severe though it was, there were wide spaces between, and those spaces were the happiest moments she had ever known.
Now she was planning to throw away all the happiness, the delight, because of the discomfort. It came to her rather vaguely that perhaps that was the way with people who seemed never to have had hardships. They evaded them somehow. And she wondered if some one else had to shoulder them as so much extra burden? It almost seemed so.
And yet, why should she remain and endure that dreadful Mrs. Middleton? What good would it do? Mightn't it, on the contrary, do real harm? The girl couldn't imagine it as being any easier as the days went by, but in case it should, what would it mean but that she herself was becoming coarse—even vulgar?
In a sense, there wasn't any one now to care whether she was coarse or not. Elsie Moss might, and Mr. Middleton. He liked her as she was. He wouldn't like her to be different. And yet, he not only endured Mrs. Middleton but actually cared for her, and he was as refined as any one she had ever known, besides being so much more interesting than any one except Elsie Moss. Possibly he would rather have her altered somewhat than have the shock of learning the truth of the matter, and of having a reluctant, and perhaps unwilling, Elsie Moss in the house.
Elsie Moss, too, liked her as she was. She had called her a princess. Surely she wouldn't endure any change. And yet again—what if enduring Mrs. Middleton would mean actually doing something for the other Elsie? What if not enduring her—flying from difficulty—would mean disappointment—breaking her ardent heart?
The clock struck nine, and immediately she heard Mr. Middleton enter the house. He called to her and Elsie went down.
He wanted to tell her of a plan they had been discussing at the meeting in regard to a course of lectures for the coming winter. All eagerness, he reviewed the whole situation for her benefit, then went on to tell her of the lectures they had had in other years, and to compare those in prospect. Elsie, who was already learning to talk, to express some of the interest she felt, enjoyed it the more that she was able to respond in a measure—quite enough to satisfy him completely.
When she went to her room again, it was only to postpone the decision. To-morrow she would go to see Mattie Howe without knowing whether it was a farewell call or not. The next day, Sunday, she would decide. She promised herself solemnly that she would do so. She would shut herself up in her room directly after dinner, and would not emerge until she had made up her mind.
Had Elsie Marley been possessed of more imagination, or had she been accustomed to use what she had, she might have been better prepared to meet little Mattie's mother. The child was unusual and showed the influence of careful upbringing. Further, Mr. Middleton had spoken of her as looking like a girl and as worth seeking out; and already Elsie had had a chance to discern that, broad and tolerant as he was, he saw things as they were (except in the case of his wife), never misstated and rarely overstated. For all that, she set out on Saturday afternoon prepared to meet the typical washerwoman of fiction—worn, bedraggled, shapeless, and forlorn. She was prepared to go into a steaming kitchen with puddles on the floor and dirty children all about, and have this red-faced personage take a scarlet hand out of the tub, dry it on a dirty apron, and hold it out to her. And for her part she was prepared to take it, damp or clammy as it might be, without a squirm.
Wherefore, when Mattie ushered her proudly into a pretty, tidy living-room with a square piano in the corner, and she saw a tall, slender person with a plain, sweet, girlish face advancing to meet her, in spite of her resemblance to Mattie, Elsie had no idea who she might be. She had a confused sense of some neighbor having been brought in to receive her, and a vague idea of asking to be taken into the kitchen.
"Oh, mother, here's Miss Moss!" cried Mattie, then dropped her hand and exclaiming, "My goodness, there's that baby already!" fled into the entry.
"I'm so pleased to see you, Miss Moss," said Mrs. Howe quietly. "Sit there by the window where you get a view of the hill. It's more than good of you to come. I hope Mattie didn't tease you too much?"
"No, indeed, she asked me very prettily," said Elsie. "She's a sweet child."
"She's good as gold," said her mother. "And she's perfectly wild about you. She calls you the Princess Moss-rose and makes up stories about you after she goes to bed."
Elsie smiled and colored.
"Don't tell her I told you," warned Mrs. Howe, "she'll be right back. She had the baby's clean dress ready to pop over his head the moment he woke up."
Elsie looked up quickly as if she were about to speak. But though she said nothing, Mrs. Howe seemed to reply.
"She takes most all the care of him when she isn't in school," she admitted. "Some people think she's too young and that it's too hard for her. But I hardly think so. She's naturally thin, just as I am, but she's never sick, and she likes it, though, of course, like any child, she'd like more time to herself. But she's a born mother. And she really seems to make better use of her spare time than most of the little girls she plays with. And though I suppose I ought not to say it, she and Charles Augustus are ever so much better-behaved and better-mannered than most children who have nothing to do but play—and sometimes it seems they're happier. You see I taught school three years up in the State of Maine, which is my home, and I understand children pretty well, by and large."
Mattie came in at that moment with the baby, a fair, rosy, fat little fellow in a starched white dress and petticoats. She put him through all his tricks to please the visitor, and then asked Elsie if she wished to hold him. Elsie accepted the honor, though she felt rather apprehensive. It wasn't bad, however; indeed, the confidence with which the baby nestled into the arms that didn't know how to enfold him was rather sweet to the girl. And when he made a sudden dash for the pink rose in her leghorn hat, she didn't mind it at all.
Watchful little Mattie minded, however, and took him away quickly lest he injure any of the princess's royal finery. Then the mother took him from her, that the little girl might have the major part of Miss Moss's attention. For the same reason she forbore to call in the other two children, little girls of five and seven, who were playing with dolls in the yard.
But when Charles Augustus came home, his mother proudly summoned him into the parlor. Elsie had seen him at the library—a solemn, big-eyed little fellow with a prominent forehead and spectacles.
When he had shaken hands, his mother told Elsie how much she relied upon his help. He fetched and carried all the clothes she laundered, and had recently made a new body for his old cart which would carry a good-sized clothes-basket.
"I don't see how you do it—other people's washing," said Elsie suddenly.
"I couldn't if Mattie and Charles Augustus didn't help me so much," replied Mrs. Howe.
The girl glanced about the pretty room, at the attractive mother in her neat, faded muslin gown, at the thoughtful children, and the rosy baby. How dreadful it seemed to wash soiled clothing for four strange families!
"Don't you hate it?" she asked with a directness rare to her.
"Oh, no," said Mrs. Howe quietly. "I love to iron, especially pretty things, and I don't mind washing, now that I've got set tubs. You wouldn't believe, would you, that your uncle is responsible for my having them? He thought of it himself. The first I knew of it was that the men came to put them in. Isn't that just like him?"
Elsie agreed.
"But don't you get awfully tired?" she demanded.
"Well, yes, Miss Moss, I do. But so does almost every mother of a little family. You come to take it for granted, you know. A mother rather sinks her life in that of her children, and—after all, she doesn't lose half so much as she gains. And getting tired—why, I know just from what Mattie has told me about the way you do at the library that you understand the satisfaction of doing for others, and that getting tired's a part of it."
Reaching the parsonage, Elsie didn't go in, but sat on a bench in the garden for an hour, not thinking, hardly musing, but in a sort of spell as it were. As she rose at the stroke of six, she was saying to herself: "I never knew life was like that!" And she repeated it as she entered the house.
On the hall-table was a letter from the Elsie in New York. Taking it to her room, she perused it eagerly. One paragraph she read over twice, and yet twice again at bedtime.
"Oh, Elsie-Honey," the passage ran, "I was so relieved and thankful to get your letter and feel convinced that you like Uncle John and Aunt Milly just as well as I do Cousin Julia—though I don't see how you can—quite. It came to me the night before I got your letter—suppose you should want to swap back? The cold shivers chased one another up and down my spine and nearly splintered it. Of course, I should have done it without a word, but oh, Elsie-Honey, I don't mind telling you now that it would have broken my heart for sure. For I'm simply mad about Cousin Julia—so dotty over her that I believe if she'd told me I couldn't on any account study for the stage, I should have kissed her hand like a meek lamb. Instead of which she knows and approves—that is, she is willing. Only an angel from heaven would really approve—and I suppose he (or she) wouldn't. At any rate, my present job is trying to keep from bursting with happiness."
"Elsie, I rather want to hear that Elsie-Marley-Honey-thing again," remarked Miss Pritchard. "Would you mind doing it now?"
The two sat alone on the veranda of the hotel at an hour when other guests were resting after the midday meal. Before them, beyond a stretch of mosslike lawn and a broad sandy beach, rolled the sea, brilliantly blue, with the waves curling dazzlingly white. Miss Pritchard, comfortably dressed in a plain pongee-silk suit with a long jacket, was ensconced on a willow settee with some recent English reviews. Elsie, perched on the railing, her back against a pillar, gazed at the far-away sky-line. She wore a pale-pink linen frock. Her small face with its dark eyes and big dimples, her bobbed hair, and her exceeding slenderness of form gave her such an appearance of youthfulness that she seemed a very tall child, rather than the small girl she was.
"I like your manner of speaking of my specialty, Cousin Julia," she remarked. "Pray tell me why you want to hear it again, if you have such scant respect for it?"
Miss Pritchard smiled. "If you must know, child, I want to listen more critically this time. I'm quite sure I must have praised it far above its deserts. And now that I understand the situation I ought to be a better judge."
Despite her lightness of tone, Miss Pritchard was really desirous of applying the test. Less than a fortnight after the girl's arrival, she had learned of Elsie's desire to be an actress. The knowledge came like a blow, it must be confessed. Broad as she was, she couldn't help regretting that the girl's desires—and apparently her talent—seemed to lie in the direction of the stage. Though she had declared she had no patience with Pritchard notions and pretensions, she couldn't help feeling that it was hardly decorous for the last of the Pritchards to become an actress. Moreover, she feared that Elsie's capability did not point to what is called the legitimate drama; it looked from the first as if she would make straight for vaudeville and, perhaps, never go further. After her training she might fill a soubrette's part acceptably for a few years, but Miss Pritchard sighed when she tried to look beyond that. To her it seemed like a limited outlook with a closed door blocking the way at a point long before the age when one's career should have reached the apex.
But Elsie's heart was set on it, and Miss Pritchard, despite her misgivings, was full of sympathy and entered cordially into plans and ways and means. Her newspaper work had given her friends among critics, managers, and various theatrical people, and she helped Elsie select a school wherein to begin her studies. That accomplished, Elsie reluctantly agreed to accompany Miss Pritchard to the shore to spend her six weeks' vacation.
"What I cannot understand," said Miss Pritchard at this time, repeating very much what she had said before, "is, how you ever did it—how you could possibly get any such idea into your head with your bringing-up. For the life of me, I can't imagine your family countenancing any such thing!"
"They didn't take to the idea with any enthusiasm," Elsie replied truly.
"You certainly are the strangest Pritchard ever. You're less Pritchard than I, and that's saying a great deal," said Miss Pritchard with a sigh. "Dear me, when I was at Aunt Ellen's when you were a baby, they were so worried for fear you should have any Marley traits whatever, so anxious for you to be all Pritchard!"
"Are you siding with them now?" the girl asked soberly. "Are you disappointed in me, Cousin Julia?"
"Bless your heart, dear, I'm so satisfied that I'm frightened, and I think I'll throw my precious ruby ring into the sea. I wish I could say that I'd like you to be just so far Pritchard as not to have any desire for the stage; but I somehow don't dare even say that. You see, I couldn't risk losing any particle of Marley other than the stage-madness."
Elsie came to her side and kissed her warmly.
"Then suppose we chuck the Pritchards for good," she proposed.
Miss Pritchard fairly gasped. Such temerity took her breath. But she didn't give expression to her amazement. Already she had come to the conclusion that Elsie had not been happy at home; she who was so frank in all else was so brief and guarded in all her references to the family or her home life. Now it seemed as if she must have been exceedingly unhappy, to be ready to renounce the Pritchards in that wholesale way. And yet, how could any girl whose life had not been happy—nay, brimming with sunshine—be so gay and blithe and girlish and care-free as she? Could the reaction from strict repression possibly have that effect? Could the opportunity to realize her ambition work such a miracle? Miss Pritchard shook her head. It was beyond her, she confessed.
"Now you're down, you may as well do your stunt and have it over, Elsie," she remarked. And Elsie, standing back a little, repeated the performance in a manner that was only the more captivating.
Then, resuming her seat on the railing, she looked eagerly toward Miss Pritchard. The face of the latter was a study. With every line, every word, indeed, of the simple song, the actress in the girl had come out strongly. Admiration of the grace and skill and charm of it all, and wonder at the extraordinary sweetness of the girl's voice, mingled with regret at the significance of it.
"Do you know what you look like, Cousin Julia?" Elsie asked.
"No, my saucy Marley, I do not."
"Like 'Heaven only knows'"—the girl heaved a tremendous sigh—"'whatever will become of the naughty Brier-Rose.'"
"My dear, if you exhibit that sort of keenness," said Miss Pritchard, laughing, "I'll make a newspaper reporter of you, willy-nilly. Then you'll be sorry for poking fun at your elderly relative."
"It's only that I'm so used to discouragement from my elders and betters that I'm familiar with the signs," returned Elsie. "Like as not, if any one were to say, 'Hooray! Bully for you! Go in and win!' I shouldn't understand. I should think they were kidding me."
"Poor child!" laughed Miss Pritchard, but she was really secretly touched.
At this moment an artist Miss Pritchard had known for years, who always spent his summers at this hotel, appeared before them. A man between fifty and sixty, it was said of him that he had never succeeded; younger, struggling artists said it was because of his handicap of a fortune.
"Oh, Miss Marley, I wish I could persuade you to sing that again," he said. "I caught a bit and a glimpse at a distance—just enough to tantalize me."
Elsie, who admired Mr. Graham immensely, was seized with sudden diffidence. He was a connoisseur in all matters of art. Suppose he should say right before Miss Pritchard, that she was only a silly tomboy, or whatever such a gentleman would say to express that idea? She glanced irresolutely at Miss Pritchard.
"Go ahead, dear," said Miss Pritchard cheerfully, and turning to her friend: "My little cousin thought I was scolding her, Mr. Graham. The truth is, I'm the one who should be scolded. I chose the work I cared for at about Elsie's age and went in for it; and yet when she chooses hers, which happens to be the stage, I act the hen-with-the-duckling."
"Oh, Cousin Julia, you're the only one that has ever let me even speak of it!" cried Elsie. Tears suddenly filled her eyes, and smiling through them, she stepped back and began the song. And this time she put in all thefrills, as she expressed it. She danced and acted and sang, and, as always, she was quite irresistible. The artist was charmed.
"It's good enough for the vaudeville stage just as it is," he declared. "There's only one fault."
"Oh, what is that?" the girl cried eagerly, with the artist's desire for criticism, even though destructive.
"Your voice is too good—altogether too good. You could do it as well and perhaps better with a voice far inferior to yours in range, sweetness, and tone."
The girl gazed at him reproachfully. She had always had that to contend with. People had always tried to "buy her off," as she expressed it, by proposing that she become a singer instead of an actress. Now, as always, she rebelled at the idea, and again her vision of a public singer came to her—a very stout blonde lady in a very low-cut gown with a very small waist (the picture had not adapted itself to more modern fashions), placing a fat, squat hand on her capacious bosom, and uttering meaningless syllables that rose to shrieks. Anything but that, she said to herself!
Mr. Graham had fallen into a reverie. His hand shaded his brow. He frowned as he endeavored to recollect something.
"Just where did you get hold of that song?" he inquired.
"My mother used to sing it," replied Elsie, and Miss Pritchard wondered. So far as she had known, none of the Pritchards had sung, and it was difficult to fancy Elsie's mother warbling a ditty of that sort. The birth of her child must have altered Augusta greatly.
"It's an old nursery rhyme, I believe," the artist went on, still half in his perplexity. "Isn't it singular about the name—or perhaps you were named for it?"
"I was namedafterit," responded Elsie demurely.
He smiled, but he was only half attending. He was reaching for something in the depths of his mind which he did not find, and presently he sauntered on with bent head. Miss Pritchard took up theSpectator, and Elsie produced the "First Violin," and presently was lost in that.