“‘Man for the field and woman for the hearth;Man for the sword and for the needle she.’
“Something else has taken place while you were away. Mrs. Hartwell-Jones has taken a great fancy to Letty.”
Grandfather and grandmother exchanged very knowing glances at this. They had often wondered, since the little circus girl had gone to live with Mrs. Hartwell-Jones, if something more would not come of the arrangement.
“It would be a great thing for Letty,” said grandmother at last. “Mrs. Hartwell-Jones believes that the child has a good singing voice.”
“Well, I am sure I should be thankful to see the little girl happy,” said grandfather. “Letty is a good child and will repay any kindness Mrs. Hartwell-Jones does for her, I am sure. Have you finished with Kit’s letter, my dear?”
Grandmother caught up the letter from her lap and turned to the beginning.
“Do they say anything about the date they are to sail?” She asked the question with mingled feelings. She would be very glad to see her son and daughter-in-law again, of course, but their return to America meant the departure of the twins from Sunnycrest and it really seemed too soon to end their happy visit. The summer had been very short.
Two or three days later, grandfather opened the new program of events which he had planned.
“Kit, my boy,” he said at dinner, “as long as you have started in with this swimming business, I suppose you might as well keep it up. It is a pity to let that one lesson go to waste.”
Christopher’s face beamed with astonishment and delight.
“You don’t mean to say that you’re going to let me go swimming?” he cried. “Oh, cricky, that’s bully!”
“Why, yes, it seems to me that I knew how to swim when I was your age,” went on grandfather. “Suppose we let Janey go into the village with grandmother this afternoon while you and Perk and I go off on a little lark of our own. What do you say to the plan, Kit?”
“I think it would be—perfectly splendid, sir!” shouted Christopher in great excitement.
“All right, then. I’ll have Perk harness the spring wagon. Grandmother, will you ask Huldah to put us up a bite of something? A pretty liberal bite, my dear. Learning to swim is hungry work. And I thought we might pick up Bill Carpenter on the way,” he added to Christopher, “if we see him about anywhere.”
“Are you going to swim, too, grandfather?” asked Jane, folding her napkin neatly. “I should think it would be horrid in the cold, weedy water. Please don’t let Kit drown again.”
“Huh!” sniffed Christopher in his most superior manner, “I just guess there’s not any danger of me drownin’. I can swim. You just ask Perk if I can’t.”
“Well, that’s nothing to be so smart about. I could swim, too, if I chose to learn. Girls are just as clever as boys, every bit, only they don’t like such silly things.”
“The things a girl likes are heaps sillier,” retorted Christopher. “Fairies and dolls! Ho! There aren’t any such things as fairies, and who’d play with a doll? An old painted thing stuffed with sawdust!”
Jane’s face grew red and her eyes filled with tears.
“You have always been glad enough to play with dolls and to talk about fairies when you hadn’t got any horrid boys around,” she said slowly.
Then her injured feelings overcame her and she ran to her grandmother and buried her face on her shoulder.
“Oh, grandmother,” she sobbed, “Kit doesn’t love me any more. He talks to me like other boys talk to girls. I always thought Kit and I would be just alike forever and ever, but we ain’t—aren’t, I mean—and it’s all Billy Carpenter’s fault!”
Grandmother whispered comforting words in the little girl’s ear, and stroked her hair until Jane’s storm of tears was over. Christopher stood by in awkward silence. He felt sorry and a little taken aback, for he had not really meant to hurt his sister’s feelings.
“I didn’t mean to be a beast, Jane,” he said. “I’m sorry I said that about your dolls. Stop crying, do, there’s a good fellow. I’m sorry, honest Injun. I’ll—I’ll stay home!” he gulped heroically, “and play I’m Oberon or Puck all the afternoon; or I’ll doctor Sally through the scarlet fever. Stop crying, I say.”
Jane lifted a tear-stained face.
“I don’t want you to stay home,” she said cruelly. “I am glad you’ve got something to do, ’cause I was only staying home to keep you company. I’ve got another engagement for this afternoon,” and lifting her little square chin loftily, she walked out of the room.
So occurred the first real break between the twins. Jane’s tender little heart reproached her the minute she had closed the door.
“I was rude to him when he was trying to make up,” she thought miserably. “I wish I hadn’t. And he’s going to be gone all the whole afternoon! I hope it won’t spoil his picnic with grandfather.”
Just as grandmother and Jane were about to start, Letty appeared in the pony carriage to take them. Grandmother decided, therefore, to let Jane go back with Letty and she could follow later. But she remembered some jelly that she wished to send to Mrs. Hartwell-Jones and asked the children to wait while she had it packed. Jane was glad of the delay, for she wanted a chance to make up with Christopher if possible, and he had gone down to the stable to help Perk harness the horse. They drove up presently, Christopher looking so supremely happy that Jane was obliged to acknowledge that her unforgiving words had not altogether spoiled his afternoon.
“Good-bye, Kit, I hope you’ll have a good time,” she said a little wistfully.
“Thanks, Janey; wish you were going along,” replied Christopher graciously. “But girls can’t do everything that boys can, you know. Some day we’ll have a picnic for the ladies, won’t we, grandfather?” he added politely.
Grandfather kissed Jane and lifted her into the pony carriage beside Letty.
“Have a nice time at the author-lady’s, little Jane, and if you miss Kit very much, just let me know and I’ll make him go along next time to rock your baby to sleep. He’s not a man quite yet, you know.”
“He thinks he’s awful smart, though,” she replied to her grandfather, and stuck out her tongue resentfully at Christopher over Mr. Baker’s shoulder.
“Just the same, you’re not allowed to go alone,” she taunted.
Christopher refused to have his spirits damped.
“Grandfather is only going so that I can show him how well I know how to swim. And he’s not so bad as having girls tagging along,” he answered coolly.
And grandfather felt that the apron-strings were indeed untied!
Grandfather remembered Christopher’s promise to Jane and did get up another picnic “for the ladies,” but the ladies included only Jane and her grandmother. Mrs. Hartwell-Jones and Letty were not invited for several reasons, chiefly because grandmother had expressed the wish to have it strictly a family party. She realized that the end of Jane’s and Christopher’s visit at Sunnycrest was drawing near; that before very long their father and mother would return and carry the children back to their home in the city. And so she thought that one last party, all by themselves, would be very nice. Jane and Christopher thought so too. They were always happy and contented with their grandparents.
Of course they went to the woods—the only picnic grounds worth considering except on circus day. Grandfather drove past the swimming pool, so that Jane might see the spot where Christopher had learned to swim and wherein he had almost drowned on that memorable afternoon. They went on farther yet into the woods. It was all deliciously green and brown; still and cool. Jane was quite confident that she would catch sight of a fairy before long.
Grandfather had brought some fishing-tackle, and after the picnic ground was chosen and the horse unharnessed and made comfortable, they all sat in a row on the bank of the stream and fished. At the end of half an hour Jane, to Christopher’s secret envy, was the only one who had caught anything. It was a fat little perch that wriggled and shone in the sunlight.
“Oh, the poor little thing!” cried Jane, and covered her face with her hands while grandfather took it off the hook.
“Coward-y cat!” jeered Christopher. “Isn’t that just like a girl! Afraid of a fish!”
Jane took up the cold, squirming thing and held it tight in both hands, looking her brother straight in the eyes.
“I am not a coward-y cat, Kit Baker,” she said quietly. “I just couldn’t bear to see the poor thing being hurt with that dreadful sharp hook.”
Christopher felt subdued. It had not occurred to him to feel sorry for the fish.
“It’s only a fish,” he muttered. “They don’t feel much.”
“Janey is quite right,” said grandfather. “A truly kind heart always sympathizes with any animal, however small, that is in pain.”
They fished on patiently for another half hour, not talking much (Christopher could not keep absolutely silent) for fear of scaring away the fish, which, however, must have had either a bad fright or a warning, for they refused to bite or even nibble. Finally grandmother suggested that it was rather useless to try any longer.
“But one fish won’t go very far,” grumbled Christopher. “Let’s try for just one more. It’s hungry work, fishing.”
“I think Huldah has packed enough in the basket to keep us from starving until supper time,” laughed grandmother, “and as there is only one poor little fish for all of us, suppose we just put him back into the water?”
“Oh, no,” cried Christopher aggrieved.
“Oh, yes, let’s,” exclaimed Jane. “Poor little fish, we’ll make him happy. He’s my fish and I guess I have the right to say what shall be done with him,” she added defiantly, seizing the basket as Christopher made a lunge for it. “If your stomach wasn’t so greedy, Kit Baker, your heart would be kinder.”
Jane let the wriggling pink fish slip back into the brook, where he darted out of sight in an instant among the rushes.
The hamper that Huldah had packed certainly did promise to satisfy the appetite of even the hungriest people in the world. There were all sorts and conditions of sandwiches; thin and square with the crusts cut off. Some had slices of chicken inside, others pink boiled tongue. Still others had tender leaves of dressed lettuce—these were grandmother’s favorites—and others with jelly. Then there were soft ginger cakes and crisp sugar wafers; apple pie—Huldah’s famous apple pie with plenty of cinnamon—hard boiled eggs that had the yolks beaten up with salad dressing; pears, plums and a whole chocolate layer cake. There were also bottles of milk and coffee which latter grandmother heated over a spirit lamp in a tiny saucepan put in for the purpose. Christopher wanted to build a fire out of sticks and bits of wood for the coffee, but grandfather said it was too hot for that.
After the luncheon was over, Jane and Christopher went off to gather moss and pine-needles. Jane had planned to make a pine pillow to take home to her mother, who declared that they always cured her headaches. Letty had promised to help her with the sewing, for Jane did not like to sew very well, not even to make doll’s clothes, and it was only a labor of love (or the occasional desire to be thought grown-up) that could induce her to use a needle.
Fir trees were somewhat scarce in the grove and the children had to walk some distance. They left grandfather and grandmother discussing something in very low, serious tones.
“What are they talking about?” asked Christopher, pointing his thumb over his shoulder in the direction of his grandparents. “They look like they sometimes do when we’ve been up to something.”
“But we haven’t—not for a long time,” put in Jane defensively. “Not since the time you played hookey with Perk and drowned because you didn’t know how to swim.”
“I didn’t play hookey. Grandfather let me go.”
“He didn’t say you might go in swimming.”
“Well, he has since,” returned Christopher triumphantly, as if that settled the matter. “But something is up,” he added, returning to his subject. “Do you suppose they’ve found out about our putting that hard cider we found in the cellar into the pups’ milk?”
“It was only some left-over stuff, and it didn’t hurt the pups,” said Jane hurriedly, for the idea had been hers. “And it did make them act funny.”
They both laughed at the recollection.
“Well, then, maybe it’s the green stripes I painted on the pig the day we pretended he was a zebra in the circus. Grandfather said green paint was very poisonous. I’d have used brown paint if I could have found any; it would have been lots more lifelike. Anyhow it didn’t seem to hurt the pig any, although it did lick a lot off.”
“I know what it is they’re talking about,” replied Jane with an air of importance. “It’s not the pigs and it’s not the pups. It’s about Letty.”
“Letty! What has she been doing?” demanded Christopher in astonishment. He had looked upon Letty as so far above naughtiness as to be considered almost a goody-goody.
“She hasn’t done anything,” explained Jane. “They are just talking about where Mrs. Hartwell-Jones is going to send her to school this fall. I heard Mrs. Hartwell-Jones say something about it to grandmother the last time we were there.”
“Oh, is that all!” exclaimed Christopher indifferently, and lost his interest in the subject immediately.
But, if the twins had known it, Mr. and Mrs. Baker were discussing something much more interesting than Letty’s school, and that was, Letty’s whole future. Grandmother had had a very short, very happy note from Mrs. Hartwell-Jones just before leaving for the picnic. It seemed that the “lady who wrote books,” after a great deal of discussion with her lawyer, a long letter from Mrs. Baker, the twins’ mother, some correspondence with Mrs. Drake (whose whereabouts Mrs. Hartwell-Jones had had a good deal of trouble to discover), and finally a personal visit from her lawyer, had resolved definitely upon the great step of making Letty her own little girl.
As soon as they were alone, grandmother gave Mrs. Hartwell-Jones’s note to grandfather to read. It began with the announcement of the author-lady’s decision, included an invitation for the picnickers to stop at her house on their way home for congratulations and supper, and wound up with the request that she be allowed to tell the twins the news herself.
“I want to see Janey’s face,” she wrote, “when she learns what a wonderful thing has come to me out of her little idea of being helpful to a fellow mortal. May the dear child grow up to be as tender and thoughtful a woman as she is a little girl! She will undoubtedly be greatly and widely beloved.”
“Isn’t it beautiful the way she speaks of our Janey?” said grandmother with tears in her eyes, when grandfather had finished reading the note.
“Does Letty know yet?” he asked.
“She is to tell her this afternoon, and we are to stop in on our way home from the picnic to rejoice with them. You see she invites us all to supper.”
“That will please Kit,” smiled his grandfather. “You have not given Jane a suspicion of it?”
“Of course not. Don’t you see that Mrs. Hartwell-Jones wants the pleasure of telling her herself, or let Letty do it. I wonder what Letty said and did when she was told, and what they are saying about it now?”
Letty’s feelings at that moment were really too mixed up and bewildered to describe. She had had a very happy day, performing her customary tasks in the morning and driving as usual with Mrs. Hartwell-Jones in the pony carriage. She had not felt a bit badly (as Jane had feared she might) at not being invited to the picnic. She loved the children and their good times dearly, but she was equally satisfied to be alone with Mrs. Hartwell-Jones.
That usually placid lady appeared extraordinarily excited and restless to-day.
“Oh!” Letty had exclaimed when she came into the sitting-room that morning with the breakfast tray, which she insisted upon preparing always herself. “How pretty you look! Your cheeks are as rosy as Jane’s!”
Mrs. Hartwell-Jones had laughed and kissed Letty, but she said nothing of what was on her mind, until the afternoon. It was a warm, sunshiny day with a sort of hush over the earth. The air was still and full of sweet, clean country smells. Mrs. Hartwell-Jones and Letty sat alone together in the large, up-stairs sitting-room. A little later they were to have a tea-party of two, for Mrs. Hartwell-Jones always liked a cup of tea or chocolate in the afternoon.
“Letty, my dear,” said Mrs. Hartwell-Jones gently, trying to keep the excitement out of her voice, “please sit here on the stool, close by me. I have something very important to talk to you about.”
“Something important to talk to me about!” repeated Letty in astonishment. “Oh, what is it?”
“Sit there, dear child, facing me. Now look up at me so that I can watch your eyes. Tell me, Letty dear, have you ever thought about what you would do when you grew up?”
“Not very much; not at all since I have been with you. Before—when I was with the circus I used to wonder what I could do to get away from it all. I knew that I could never stand it to go on travelling about with a circus all my life. Mrs. Drake was very good to me and the baby was dear! But I hated the life; living in tents, always on the go; no school, no little girl friends, no home!”
She sat looking at the floor thoughtfully for a moment.
“NOW LOOK UP AT ME”“NOW LOOK UP AT ME”
“NOW LOOK UP AT ME”
“I suppose I ought to have thought about it more,” she said humbly. “I am afraid I have taken your kindness too much as a matter of course, dear Mrs. Hartwell-Jones. I shall try to show you how truly grateful I am to you for giving me such a happy home! And you know how delighted I am about boarding-school,” she added eagerly. “It seems just like—well, almost like heaven to be like other girls and go to school to learn things and be happy. I shall study hard and be good in school to show how grateful I am. And then, perhaps, when I am grown up, I can teach and pay you back for all you are going to do for me.”
“You dear little girl!” cried Mrs. Hartwell-Jones with a sob in her voice, “I want no thanks but your happiness!
“But now, listen to what I have to say. How would you like being somebody’s little girl in earnest? To have a real home to go to in holiday time, and—and some one to love you and be as nearly a mother to you as it is possible to be?”
Letty looked puzzled and a little frightened.
“Have you found some of my relatives? some one to claim me?” she asked. “Oh, Mrs. Hartwell-Jones, I don’t want to leave you! I don’t, I don’t! You have taken as great care of me as my mother could have. Please don’t send me away!”
“No, no, dear, never. You don’t understand, Letty darling. Do you know what adoption means?”
“No, I am afraid I don’t,” said Letty meekly. She hung her head and blushed, embarrassed as she always was at her ignorance, when asked the meaning of something she did not know.
“It means,” said Mrs. Hartwell-Jones slowly, “that any one who wishes, and there are no reasons why one should not do so, can take a little girl or boy into one’s home and make that child her very own, by law. And it means, Letty darling, that if you are willing, I intend to take you to my home and make you my own little daughter!”
Letty sat staring at her with wide eyes. She was too bewildered—too overwhelmed to speak. Two great tears welled up in Mrs. Hartwell-Jones’s eyes and rolled down her cheeks. Then she gave an odd little cry and stretched out her arms.
“Oh, my little girl, my little girl!” she whispered.
Neither of them knew how long they sat there, wrapped in each other’s arms, not talking except for a quick question and answer now and then. At last they were interrupted by a hesitating knock on the door, and Anna Parsons’ voice was heard calling:
“Please, Mrs. Hartwell-Jones, mother says she is afraid the chocolate will spoil if it waits any longer.”
Letty laughed and springing to the door, threw it wide open.
“Oh, Anna,” she cried, “I am the happiest girl in the whole wide world! Bring in the chocolate and cakes, quick.”
Anna turned up her nose a trifle. It seemed rather a greedy thing to say that one was the happiest girl in the world at sight of hot chocolate and cakes—even if they were Madeira cakes. But then, she did not know the wonderful thing that had happened to Letty.
In spite of Letty’s appearing to be overjoyed at the arrival of the chocolate and cakes, she did not eat very much. For some reason which Anna did not understand she did not seem able to keep quiet for an instant. Every second she would jump up to fetch some trifle for Mrs. Hartwell-Jones, for which that lady had not felt the slightest need; or if she could think of nothing to do, would simply whirl about the room in an ecstasy of motion. Anna watched her with astonished curiosity.
These little afternoon tea-parties occurred every day now, and Anna Parsons was always included. Usually on the days when the twins and their grandmother were not present, Mrs. Hartwell-Jones did most of the talking, entertaining her little guests with descriptions of her travels across the seas or telling them bits of stories that she had read or written herself. But to-day it was Letty who talked. Talked! She became a perfect chatterbox. Indeed, she seemed like a different person altogether, with her sparkling eyes, red cheeks and prattling tongue.
Presently Anna Parsons asked some question about the ponies, Punch and Judy, and that set Letty off on her recollections of the circus. Soon she had Anna and Mrs. Hartwell-Jones both laughing heartily over her tales; little Anna nearly fell off her chair in her merriment over the account of the trick elephant’s puzzled behavior when they softened the clapper of his bell so that it would not sound when he rang it.
Then she told all the droll stories she could remember about Poll, Mrs. Goldberg’s parrot; and about the wonderful day Emma Fames had spent with her at Willow Grove and how she had saved Jane and Christopher from the bear.
“This mention of the twins and Willow Grove set Mrs. Hartwell-Jones thinking of the letter she had received from the children’s mother. Both she and grandmother had written to Mrs. Baker, Jr., and the answer had been most satisfactory, both earnest and enthusiastic. Mrs. Baker had described her visit to Mrs. Grey and told what a sweet, cultured, refined woman she had found her to be, and how carefully brought up and guarded Letty had been.
“Unless these three years with a traveling circus since her mother’s death have spoiled her, I am sure you could find no more ladylike child than Letty,” she had written. “Certainly she has sufficient birth and breeding to overcome any little bad habits she may have acquired, and in the proper surroundings I am sure she will grow into a charming, refined gentlewoman. Moreover, she may prove to have an inestimable gift. Her mother told me that she herself sang quite well when she was a younger woman, and that she had a strong conviction that Letty had inherited her voice.”
Mrs. Hartwell-Jones sat thinking over this letter and all the little incidents of the child’s past life that Letty had told her from time to time, and she breathed a little prayer of thanksgiving that a precious soul had been entrusted to her care.
“But I thought you didn’t like the circus,” exclaimed Anna at last, when she could laugh no more.
“I didn’t,” answered Letty positively, becoming grave all at once. “I didn’t like it at all!” She was silent for a moment and then said soberly: “Anna, did you ever get into a deep, dark wood with lots of low, thorny bushes and vines among the trees that caught your feet and tangled them and pricked you when you tried to walk through? And then, all at once you came out into the bright, bright sunshine? Then, if you looked back at the wood, while you were safe outside in the warm sunshine, it did not look so dreadful, but you found that it had some rather bright spots in it here and there. Well, that is how I feel about the circus.”
“Oh!” said Anna wonderingly.
“Oh, oh, it is so nice to be out in the sunshine again!” sighed Letty clasping her hands and looking across at Mrs. Hartwell-Jones with tears in her eyes. “So nice!”
Mrs. Hartwell-Jones opened her arms without a word, and Letty ran to them with a glad little cry. Anna stared at the pair in amazement, quite unable to account for this display of emotion. Then, with a sudden instinct that she was not wanted for the moment she rose, gathered the teacups softly together on the tray and tiptoed out of the room.
It was some time before Mrs. Hartwell-Jones and Letty were again interrupted. This time it was the sound of a horse’s hoofs in the road below and then Grandfather Baker’s voice calling “Whoa!”
“Our supper guests are arriving,” exclaimed Mrs. Hartwell-Jones smiling.
“Oh!” cried Letty, jumping to her feet. “May I tell them?”
“Of course you may, my dear, that is, the children. The grown-ups already know. I could not keep my secret from Mrs. Baker.”
Letty flew out of the room, and met the Baker family mounting the stairs. She looked so radiantly happy that Christopher felt sure that there was going to be something particularly good for supper.
When they had all gathered in the sitting-room, after the greetings were over, Letty announced her glorious news, and then, oh, what excitement prevailed! The old Parsons house had never known anything like it. Every one talked at once, no one knew what any one else was saying, and no one answered questions. Indeed, nobody expected to be answered at first, nor said anything of any importance. They just “oh’d” and “ah’d” and kissed one another and laughed—and cried a little bit too, the feminine part. At this point Christopher drew his grandfather aside and said in a disgusted voice:
“There they go again! What makes women and girls cry so much, grandfather? They’re as bad when they’re pleased as when they’re sorry.”
Letty’s cheeks grew redder and redder, and her eyes danced and sparkled until they were fit companions for the stars that were already beginning to peep through the darkening sky outside. For it was growing later and later. Christopher began to be afraid that nobody would remember about supper. He could not be the one to remind Mrs. Hartwell-Jones, since he was her guest, but the picnic in the woods seemed farther and farther in the past until at length he decided that it had happened the day before—or maybe years ago! A fellow’s stomach can’t stay empty forever, you know, and he began to wonder what were the first symptoms of starvation.
Mrs. Hartwell-Jones came to herself and a realization of her duties as hostess in time, however, to save him from the actual pangs of starvation, and Mrs. Parsons, who had come up with Anna “to see what it was all about” hustled down-stairs again with the promise that she would have supper on the table “in a jiffy.”
At table the grown-ups, who all sat together at one end of the table, seemed to have a good deal to say to each other that was serious, but the children were brimful of fun and nonsense, and Letty kept the twins in a gale of laughter, just as she had kept Anna Parsons and Mrs. Hartwell-Jones in the afternoon.
After supper the children went out-of-doors and sat on the steps in the sweet night air while Letty sang to them. They grew very quiet and sober in the soft, solemn darkness. Presently Christopher said briskly, by way of breaking what he thought was beginning to be an awkward silence:
“I guess you’re some happy to-night, Letty. How does it feel to be somebody’s little girl after you haven’t belonged to anybody for so long?”
Instead of answering Letty suddenly began to cry. She only now saw how very lonely she had been these past three dreary years.
“There now, you rude boy, you’ve hurt her feelings. I hope you’re satisfied,” exclaimed Jane indignantly. “How would you like to be told you didn’t belong to any one?”
“But I do belong to some one, and I always have. But Letty didn’t, until Mrs. Hartwell-Jones took her, and I don’t see why she has to cry just because I spoke the truth,” argued Christopher.
“Kit is right,” said Letty, drying her tears. “I didn’t belong to any one before and it makes me so happy now to think that I’m really going to be somebody’s little girl again that—that I had to cry.”
“Huh! Had to cry! Why don’t you laugh if you’re glad? Why, I’d laugh for a week if I was going to belong to somebody that had as many good things to eat as Mrs. Hartwell-Jones always has.”
“Why, Kit, would you like to leave father and mother?” exclaimed Jane, much shocked.
“I didn’t say that, but Mrs. Hartwell-Jones certainly does know how to feed a fellow,” and Christopher smacked his lips.
Letty saw the word “greedy” trembling on Jane’s tongue and to check it she began quickly to talk about her good fortune.
“I am not to go to boarding-school, after all, because Mrs. Hartwell-Jones said she would be too lonely without me,” she said with a happy laugh. “Oh, just think of having a home to go back to every day after school! And the girls won’t snub me because of being a little circus girl!” she exclaimed, and, to Christopher’s vexation, began to cry again.
Jane grew very thoughtful all of a sudden. She thought of her own home-coming each day after school. She remembered that sometimes—quite often, indeed—she had not wanted to go home at all; had thought it very stupid to sit in the house and study. She would much rather go to the house of a schoolmate, or bring a friend home to play with her. But mother did not approve of visiting on schooldays, and Jane’s good times always had to be put off until Friday and Saturday during term-time. Mother was always at home to welcome her, and to ask about her lessons, quite as much interested in everything that had happened as if she, too, were a little girl. Then Christopher would get home from his school and the twins would have a jolly romp together before study time. Still Jane had found it dull at home at times. She wondered why, when she thought of how much she loved her mother and when she saw how happy it made Letty to think of going home to a woman who was very dear and sweet but who wasn’t her own mother after all—not really and truly her mother.
The children had not spoken for some time. Christopher was busying himself with trying how many stars he could count without changing his position. Suddenly a shadowy figure whirled toward them out of the darkness. Letty caught her breath and half rose to her feet. Christopher grasped the step with both hands and ejaculated:—“Oh, cricky!” He grew very pale for a moment but controlled his feelings bravely. But Jane screamed outright and threw both her arms around Letty’s neck.
But the shadowy figure turned out to be only Jo Perkins on his bicycle. He carried a small envelope which he handed to Christopher.
“It’s a cablegram, Kit,” he said. “Run up to your grandfather with it, quick. It came about supper time and Huldah said she didn’t know but it might be something important and that I’d better ride in with it.”
Perk propped his bicycle against the steps and waited while the twins rushed up-stairs.
“It’s from father and mother,” shouted Christopher, tumbling up the stairs in the lead. “What does it say, grandfather, oh, what does it say?”
Jane scrambled up behind her brother.
“They’re coming home, they’re coming home!” she sang blissfully. “When, grandfather? When?”
Grandfather looked a bit startled at this abrupt entrance. He fumbled for his spectacles, put them on and unfolded the cablegram carefully, while grandmother leaned over his shoulder, almost as impatient as the children.
“We sail ‘Metric’ Thursday. All well,” read grandfather.
“I knew they were coming, I knew it!” cried Jane happily. “When will they get here, grandfather?”
Then grandfather, grandmother and Jane began talking all at once, while Christopher whistled “The Campbells are Coming” as the most appropriate tune he could think of and Mrs. Hartwell-Jones and Letty stood hand in hand, smiling upon them all happily. A few weeks ago this little scene of rejoicing would have made Letty very sorrowful, but now she had her own unspeakable joy.
Outside in the soft summer night Jo Perkins sat on the fence and waited in comfortable unconcern.
“Jane,” said Christopher to his sister three days later, “a week is an awfully short time.”
“What do you mean?” demanded Jane.
She knew that when Christopher began to speak in that tone he had, something in particular to say.
“I mean that in a week mother and father will be here and——”
“A week isn’t a short time to wait to see them when we haven’t seen them for a long, long summer,” interrupted Jane indignantly.
“Well, it’s a short time when it’s all we’ve got left of staying here, isn’t it?” retorted Christopher.
Jane’s face lengthened. She had not thought of that side of the question.
“Do you think they are going to take us right straight home?” she asked slowly.
“Why, of course. Father’s been away from his business so long that he’ll just have to get back to it. I know enough to know that,” replied Christopher in his most exasperatingly superior tone.
But Jane was too deep in her own thoughts to be provoked. She was trying to understand the queer feeling that Christopher’s words brought to her heart. Surely she was not sorry that her father and mother were coming home? Oh, no, the thump her heart gave told her that that was not the reason. But it would be hard to leave grandfather and grandmother, Huldah and the puppies!
“Don’t you think they’ll let us stay a little longer?” she repeated. “School doesn’t begin for almost another month.”
“I don’t know. But if one of us was ill, we’d have to stay longer, wouldn’t we?”
“Why, yes, of course. But then it wouldn’t be any fun. Besides neither of us is ill or anything like it.”
“It is fun to be ill if you’re not so very bad,” said Christopher, answering the first half of Jane’s sentence. “Why, when Edward Hammond had the measles—do you remember?—he had lots of fun. He had to stay in bed a few days, but he didn’t mind that ’cause his mother read him stories and he got lots of presents.”
“Did he? Well, I guess mother’ll bring us a present.”
“And nice things to eat,” went on Christopher. “It was really great sport being ill.”
Jane eyed her brother suspiciously.
“Kit Baker, what’s the matter? What do you mean? Why are you talking such a lot about Edward Hammond having the measles? It all happened over a year ago anyhow, and he’s as well as you or I, now.”
“It wasn’t Edward I was thinking so much about as the measles.”
Jane turned.
“What about the measles? You don’t think you’re getting them, do you? Have you been exposed?”
“You don’t have to be exposed to get the measles.”
“Oh, but you do, I know. Else why is mother always so careful to keep us away from any one who has measles?”
“Oh, I suppose you can catch them from somebody else, but you can get them without being exposed, too, because Edward’s mother said he hadn’t been exposed, so there.”
“She said she couldn’t find out that he’d been exposed,” corrected Jane. “But I’d like to know what difference it makes now, Kit Baker. Do you feel as if you were getting the measles?”
“Not exactly, only—why, don’t you see? If one of us was to get the measles, we couldn’t go back to town so soon. And whichever one of us had ’em would have a bully time, with presents and sweetbreads and things,” he added hastily, as if offering an inducement.
Jane considered. She felt sure that there was something behind Christopher’s words—something he was trying to make her understand; but she could not make out what it was.
“Well, anyway,” she announced finally, “I haven’t the measles, nor anything else. I don’t know about you, but if you are coming down with anything you’ll have plenty of time to get over it before we go home.”
Which practical speech ended the conversation for the present.
Whatever Christopher’s deep-laid schemes were, he decided that the time was not yet ripe to unfold them. Then, too, there might be no necessity. He would wait and see.
But immediately after breakfast, two days before the steamship “Metric” was due to arrive in New York, he came upon his grandparents as they were ending a private consultation. Christopher overheard grandmother say:
“It will have to be Monday, then, two days after they get here.”
The words set Christopher thinking. As usually happens when one overhears something intended for other ears, he misunderstood grandmother’s meaning and jumped to the conclusion that the Monday to which grandmother referred was the day set for their return to the city. To leave Sunnycrest and all its joys, the freedom, the open air, country life! To leave on Monday and this was Thursday! Clearly there was no time to be lost. He rushed off to find Jane, carried her to the most remote corner of the orchard and there they sat a good hour or more, quite beyond the reach of ears, however sharp, but showing, had any one been interested enough to watch, that the topic under discussion was very weighty—and with two sides to it, to judge from Jane’s determined attitude and Christopher’s of persuasion.
It had been arranged that grandfather and grandmother were to go to the city on Friday afternoon, sleep there overnight, meet the ship which was to dock very early in the morning and bring the twins’ parents back with them to Sunnycrest on Saturday.
Grandmother, who believed in being punctual always, had already packed her bag and was in readiness for the journey quite soon after breakfast, although they did not have to start until after an earlier dinner than usual.
But shortly after eleven o’clock Jane came into the house looking very much flushed and complained of not feeling well. Even as she spoke, she turned white and became very ill. Christopher, who had followed her to the door of grandmother’s room, looked on with deep concern.
“Why, Kit,” exclaimed grandmother, “what have you and Janey been doing?”
“Playing,” answered Christopher briefly. He seemed to have lost his usual too-ready tongue. “We were just playing.”
“Was Janey swinging in the hammock or anything that could have made her so seasick?”
“We weren’t near the hammock,” answered Christopher frankly. “Are you going to send for the doctor, grandmother?”
“I hope it won’t be necessary,” replied grandmother anxiously. “Please ask Huldah to come up-stairs, Kit. I’ll get Janey to bed.”
Jane appeared so limp and miserable that grandmother decided (greatly to her secret disappointment) to give up her journey to town and stay at home with her, letting grandfather go by himself.
“And it will be a melancholy meeting with such anxious news for the children’s father and mother,” she added regretfully.
“Oh, Jane’s not as ill as that,” expostulated Christopher. “She’s—she’s—it’ll just keep us from going home so soon, perhaps, but that’s all. You go ahead to town, grandmother. I’ll take care of Janey—me and Huldah. And perhaps Letty’ll come out and read to us.”
“Oh, I should be afraid to let Letty come until I know what the matter is. Janey may be coming down with something. It is most distressing, and Dr. Greene is away up country and won’t be back to-night.”
And grandmother, cheerful, serene grandmother, actually cried a little. But then you see, she was both worried about Jane’s sudden, somewhat mysterious illness, and disappointed that she should have such distressing news to give the children’s mother just at this last moment when everything had gone so beautifully all summer long.
“Don’t you think you’d better go?” urged grandfather. He, too, was disappointed, for he and grandmother rarely traveled and always enjoyed their little excursions together. “Don’t you think Janey’s mother might worry more than she need if you stay behind? She will think it more serious than it really is.”
“It is serious enough to make me unwilling to leave Janey,” answered grandmother positively. “I should worry every single instant if I were away from her. I could not stand it, not knowing how she is every minute. With her symptoms she might be coming down with almost anything.”
“But I don’t think she’s very ill,” put in Christopher again. “You just tell father and mother she’ll be all right in a week or two if they——”
“In a week or two!” exclaimed grandmother, looking ready to cry again. “I hope it is not going to be so long an illness as that!”
Christopher blushed and hung his head, while grandfather again urged the wisdom of going to town together as they had originally planned. But grandmother was firm. She changed her dress and went back to Jane’s room. Jane set up a wail when she heard that grandmother was to remain at home.
“I am not ill, grandmother, not a bit!” she moaned. “I—I——”
“Be careful, Jane,” called Christopher from the doorway of his own room. “You’ll—you’ll get sick again.”
Jane dropped back in bed and began to cry. Grandmother knelt down and did her best to comfort her, but Jane sobbed on quite heedlessly.
Grandfather and Christopher had to sit down to dinner alone, as grandmother would not leave Jane and grandfather could not wait or he would miss his train. It was rather a melancholy meal. Grandfather ate hardly anything and even Christopher’s appetite failed. He watched his grandfather off and rode on the step of the carriage as far as the gate, but he did not ask permission to go all the way to Hammersmith, for the sake of the ride, as grandfather and Joshua had both expected him to do.
“The boy seems quite unlike himself,” grandfather remarked to Joshua as they drove away. “He takes Janey’s illness very much to heart.”
“I always agreed there was a lot of character in that boy,” replied Joshua heartily.
Christopher was told, when he got back to the house, that Jane was asleep and must on no account be disturbed, so he tiptoed disconsolately away and cast about for something to do. He began to be sorry he had not asked leave to ride into the village.
At about five o’clock grandmother called him. Jane was awake and feeling ever so much better—almost like herself in fact. Would Christopher sit with her a short time while grandmother went to her own room?
Jane, who had been sitting up in bed playing quite happily with her paper dolls, dropped back on her pillow when Christopher came in and turning her back, refused to speak to him. Grandmother had already left the room.
“Sit up, Jane,” commanded Christopher, closing the door and drawing a small black lacquered box from his pocket.
“I won’t,” said Jane flatly. “You are a horrid, wicked boy and I don’t like you.”
“But you promised.”
“You spoiled grandmother’s trip to town and mother’ll be scared ’most to death when she hears I’m too ill to let grandmother go.”
“I can’t help that. I didn’t know grandmother would stay home when it wasn’t necessary, and you promised——”
“Grandmother is so disappointed she wants to cry all the time,” went on Jane, her lip quivering.
“You promised!” Christopher’s tone was growing threatening. “Hurry up. There isn’t much time.”
“I don’t care,” said Jane defiantly.
“Jane Baker! Do you mean to say you are going to break your promise?”
This was attacking Jane’s vulnerable spot, for she prided herself upon always keeping her word. She sat up in bed.
“But if it’s a wrong promise?” she asserted weakly.
“It’s the same promise as when you made it,” announced Christopher with calm conviction, and he approached the bed with the small box in his hand.
Grandmother completed her afternoon toilet in something of a hurry, for she thought she heard sounds in Jane’s room.
“What is it?” she asked a little anxiously, appearing in the doorway just as Christopher opened the door from within.
“Nothing,” he answered. “I was just helping Janey get—get fixed.”
Grandmother glanced at Jane, lying flat on her pillow, her face turned away.
“Don’t you feel as well, Janey?” she asked tenderly, crossing to the bedside quickly.
Jane shook her head without speaking. She was white about the lips but her face looked red and blotched. Grandmother lifted one of the little hands; it felt hot and feverish. Huldah entered just then with a daintily arrayed supper tray but Jane pushed it aside with a shudder.
“I am afraid it is measles,” grandmother said in a low tone aside to Huldah. “She is sick again and see how flushed and broken out her face looks. We’d best send Kit away somewhere.”
“He can go down to the farmhouse,” replied Huldah promptly. “Joshua will see to him. I’m going to stay up here nights until the child’s better. Where could the precious lamb have caught the measles? I don’t know of a case for miles around.”
Mrs. Baker spent an anxious night for Jane tossed and moaned in her sleep in a distressful way. Several messages had been sent to the doctor and grandmother had also sent Jo Perkins into Hammersmith with a note to Mrs. Hartwell-Jones, to tell her of the sudden illness and to warn Letty against coming out to Sunnycrest for fear of contagion. Such a dreary home-coming it promised to be for the returned travelers!
Christopher was decidedly taken aback by his banishment. He had not counted on anything of that sort and remonstrated vigorously.
“If it is measles, I don’t see the use in sending me away now,” he argued. “I guess the harm’s already done.”
But grandmother was determined to take no risks and sent Christopher off with a hand-bag.
Toward morning Jane became quieter and grandmother fell into an exhausted sleep. When Jane woke, she tiptoed softly into the bath-room, went through her morning bath and got back into bed again without disturbing her grandmother. The blotchy flush had entirely left her face and she looked and acted perfectly well. Indeed, she appeared quite like her usual self, except for a certain look of unhappiness which even the thought of her mother’s coming could not banish from her chubby face.
Grandmother was surprised to see this sudden change for the better, when she finally awoke, and she sent Jo Perkins speeding again into the village with a telegram to grandfather. But she decided to take no chances until Dr. Greene had come and pronounced the danger of measles really past, so Christopher was still held in quarantine at the farmhouse at the foot of the hill.
The doctor was late and took his departure only just before the arrival of the travelers. He had been puzzled by Jane’s symptoms.
“There were evidences of an upset stomach,” he said, “but not enough to have caused fever and a breaking out.”
She might get up and dress, he added as he left, and such a scramble Jane had to get into her clothes in time, with one eye on the clock! But she succeeded, and was the first to rush into her dear, dear mother’s arms.
What a day of jubilation it was! What wonderful tales of travel! What wonderful presents! But through it all there was something not quite natural about the behavior of the children. Christopher’s cheerfulness was a little overdone. The look of unhappiness still lurked in the depths of Jane’s eyes and she very pointedly avoided her brother.
“If grandmother had not assured me to the contrary, I should say the children were suffering from a guilty conscience,” said Mr. Christopher Baker, Jr., to his wife.
“Yes,” she agreed. “And Janey appears on the eve of confession. I have noticed two or three times that she has been on the point of telling me something and Kit has stopped her. Do you suppose there can be something behind her illness?”
After supper the family were assembled on the veranda, and Mrs. Baker, Jr., or “Mrs. Kit” as she was generally called—asked about Letty.
“We know how interested you both must be in Mrs. Hartwell-Jones and Letty,” replied grandmother, “and so we have planned to invite them to Sunnycrest to spend a week. They are to come on Monday.”
Jane and Christopher exchanged sudden, startled looks.
“Aren’t we going home on Monday?” demanded Christopher.
“No, my boy. I have a ten days’ holiday and we are going to spend it here, all together,” answered his father.
Jane burst into tears.
“Now, Jane!” whispered Christopher fiercely, and reached out a hand to clutch Jane’s skirts.
But she was too quick for him and sprang to the shelter of her mother’s arms.
“Oh, we needn’t have done it! We needn’t have done it!” she wailed.
Everybody was unspeakably astonished except Christopher, who grew very red in the dusk, squirmed about on his chair, finally rose and muttering something about “girls being such softies,” ran into the house.
“Oh, mother,” sobbed Jane, “come over here.”
She drew her mother apart and made her sit down. Then standing beside her, the dear mother-shoulder ready to hide a shamed face, she whispered her story:
“Kit and I thought you and father were going to take us right back home to the city, and we didn’t want to go, and Kit said if one of us was ill or something, that we couldn’t go so soon, so he—he made me promise and we—I ate a lot of mushy bread and milk and drank some warm water and Kit whirled me till I was dizzy and—and grandmother put me to bed; then Kit came up and painted my face out of our water-color box and whirled me again and grandmother thought it was measles. She was scared and she cried because she had to give up her trip to the city with grandfather to meet you and mother—oh, mother, I’m so mis’rable! And I have broken my promise to Kit, too, ’cause I promised him not to tell!”
The halting, sobbing whisper ceased and Jane, in an agony of weeping, buried her head in her mother’s breast.
“Why, Jane!” exclaimed her mother. “Why, Janey!”
After the scolding, the sermon and the punishment were over and the children had been sent forgiven to bed, the four grown-ups went out onto the veranda again. It was a soft, balmy night, with no hint of the coming autumn in the air. The stars twinkled good-humoredly.
Grandmother, grandfather, mother and father all looked at one another for a moment; then—I am sorry to say that then they laughed; laughed until the tears rolled down their cheeks and they had to sit down to keep from tipping over.
But of course Jane and Christopher never knew that.
Mrs. Hartwell-Jones and Letty came out to Sunnycrest on the following Monday, as they had been invited to do, and every one spent a happy week. Letty was radiant to meet again some one who had seen and known her mother, and urged Mrs. Baker, Jr., to tell Mrs. Hartwell-Jones everything she could remember about the sweet, sad-faced gentlewoman who had trained her little daughter so carefully and lovingly.
There were long, long talks among the grown-ups, and both grandmother and the mother of the twins were confident that Mrs. Hartwell-Jones had done wisely in making Letty her own little girl.
Letty had asked permission to renew only one tie of her past life.
“You have told Mrs. Drake already,” she said to Mrs. Hartwell-Jones, “and I should like all my other friends to know, if I could reach them. There was dear Miss Reese. She was so good to me and my mother one winter, and then I never heard from her again, nor her cousin, Clara Markham. Indeed, I’ve even forgotten what Miss Reese’s married name is. I have always thought of her as Miss Reese.
“Then there was Mrs. Goldberg at Willow Grove. She was awfully good-hearted although she was so fat and homely and dressed so badly. But she and Mr. Goldberg went out to California just before—before my mother died. Mr. Goldberg wanted Ben to go out to California with him, but Ben couldn’t leave mother and me. Perhaps if he had gone——” Letty stopped and her eyes filled with tears. “Perhaps that horrible accident wouldn’t have happened!”
“Hush, dear Letty—dear little girl,” whispered Mrs. Hartwell-Jones tenderly. “An accident is always likely to happen in such a life—so filled with risks and dangers. And think how very much more terrible it would have been if it had happened far off—away from you.”
Letty was soon comforted and dried her eyes with a little sigh.
“But there is one person I can tell my happiness to,” she said after rather a long silence, “if I may? It is Emma Haines, the little girl I told you about that lived next door when we had rooms in South Front Street. I should so like her to know! May I write to her? She lives in New Jersey now, she and her mother and Tottie. Such a cunning baby Tottie was.”
“By all means write to her at once,” consented Mrs. Hartwell-Jones cordially. “And when we get settled at home in town, you may invite her over to see you, if you like.”
Letty would have liked to take Mrs. Hartwell-Jones’s “at once” literally. Indeed, she had already jumped up from her stool and crossed to the writing-desk, when Christopher appeared at the open door and beckoned to her eagerly. The little conversation had taken place in Mrs. Hartwell-Jones’s room at Sunnycrest, and Christopher’s interruption was not a surprise, as the twins gave Letty very little time to herself.
After Letty had run off to join the children, Mrs. Hartwell-Jones sat lost in thought, considering seriously an idea that had come to her that morning, suggested by the letter she had received from her lawyer. Presently she went to consult Grandmother Baker, as she generally did upon nearly all matters nowadays. She found her in her own room, going over the week’s mending.
“Mrs. Baker, I am thinking of taking a short journey,” she began. “But you are busy, I see. I am afraid I shall disturb you.”
Grandmother hastened to assure her that she was not interrupting.
“Indeed, it will help me very much to be talked to,” she replied. “It will help me to keep my mind off the terrific size of the holes in Kit’s stockings. Just look at this!” And she held up a long brown stocking with a great gaping tear in the knee. “You say you think of taking a short journey,” she exclaimed in surprise. “You don’t think of leaving us before the end of your visit, I hope?” she added anxiously.
“Only for two days, if you will excuse us. I think of taking Letty with me. But I would like your opinion; whether you think it would please and interest Letty, or only distress her with sad memories.”
Mrs. Baker looked up curiously.
“I am thinking of going down to Philadelphia for a day,” explained Mrs. Hartwell-Jones. “There are certain records that my lawyer wishes to look up, concerning Letty’s baptism and the exact date of her father’s death. I should like, too, to call on the minister, if we can find him, in whose parish Mrs. Grey lived at that time.
“And I thought possibly it might interest Letty to revisit some of the places where she used to live. Or do you think it might rouse sad memories in the child’s heart and make her unhappy? Do you think it would be a hard experience?”
“It might sadden the dear child a bit for the moment,” answered grandmother; “but the sadness cannot last long, remembering what the future holds for her, and I think it would be very good for her, Mrs. Hartwell-Jones, to go over the old scenes and impress them upon her mind, since her life from now on is to be so very different.”
“I am glad you agree with me, Mrs. Baker. Then, since that is settled, will it interfere with your plans in any way to have us go tomorrow?”
Mrs. Baker smiled.
“Not with me, dear Mrs. Hartwell-Jones. Choose your own time and convenience. But I am afraid the children will raise a very dreadful outcry.”
Mrs. Hartwell-Jones smiled too, in recollection of all the mysterious whisperings and private interviews that had been going on among the children.
“I think they can spare Letty for two days,” she laughed. “We shall be back the day after, you know.”
Letty received the news of the proposed journey with mingled feelings. How odd it would seem to go back to Philadelphia, to revive the scenes and memories of the old life, which seemed gone forever.
Letty was afraid it might make her unhappy to visit again the places where she had lived with her dear, dear mother. She said nothing of all this to Mrs. Hartwell-Jones, and tried her best not to let her see that she felt it, but entered into plans very eagerly and drove Punch and Judy into the village after the noonday dinner to get time-tables.
It was discovered that the only convenient train to Philadelphia passed through Hammersmith in the afternoon, not reaching Philadelphia until after dark. And the return trip must be taken even later in the day.
“Of course we can do nothing the evening we reach there,” said Mrs. Hartwell-Jones, “but it will give us nearly a whole day before starting back, which is all the time I shall need.
“But we shall arrive at Hammersmith very late in the evening, Mr. Baker,” she added. “Don’t you think it would be better for Letty and me to stop overnight at our own rooms in the village? It will take Joshua and the horses out so late, to come to meet us.”
“Indeed, no. Josh won’t mind a little evening jaunt. We may all come, for the matter of that, for the sake of a moonlight ride.”
And so Mrs. Hartwell-Jones and Letty started off. It was all very strange and odd to Letty. She could not get used to the parlor-car. She had traveled a good deal in her time, during her three years with Mr. Drake’s circus, but never, of course, in such comfort and luxury. It was like living in a different world.
Philadelphia, too, was like a completely different city. It was quite dark when they arrived and the confusion and brilliance of the big, busy station quite overwhelmed Letty. The streets were totally unfamiliar. She had been in that part of the city very seldom and never at night. The comfort and delightful motion of the taxicab charmed her and she became completely absorbed in watching the register, illumined by a tiny electric light.
“What does it make you think of, dear?” asked Mrs. Hartwell-Jones as the taxicab was steered smoothly and dexterously in and out of the stream of traffic.
“Oh, I don’t know. It is all so mysterious, this going along and along without anything to take us,” replied Letty. “But then, after all, it isn’t so very different from a trolley-car, is it, except that there are no tracks. Ah, the thing has dropped again! What do you suppose makes it? You say the man does not push it,” and she studied the metre with puzzled eyes.
The ride was very short and the hotel at which they stopped very magnificent. A meal was served to them in their own room, for it was too late to dress and go down-stairs to the restaurant; and after it was over, Letty spent the hour until bedtime at the open window, watching the rushing stream of people pour by below, in carriages or motors and on foot, ascending or descending from trolley-cars and entering or leaving the big hotel. All the while she asked herself over and over:
“Is this Philadelphia? Is this really Philadelphia where I used to live?”
Her sense of strangeness and bewilderment did not leave her next morning, for Mr. Shoemaker, Mrs. Hartwell-Jones’s lawyer, having come over from New York by appointment to join them, the three took another taxicab and drove out to West Philadelphia. This part of the city was even stranger to Letty than the portion about the station, for she had been only a baby, too young to remember any impressions, when her mother, Ben and she had moved down-town; and she had never revisited that part of the city at all.
She did not understand exactly what was the errand upon which Mrs. Hartwell-Jones and the lawyer were bent, and while they consulted huge books and parish registers, she wandered about the yard of the big college where her father had been a teacher, looking up at the high buildings with their rows and rows of windows, and thinking how jolly it must be to be a boy and go to college.
“But there are girls’ colleges, too,” she reflected. “Perhaps Mrs. Hartwell-Jones will let me go to one when I am old enough—or know enough. Oh, dear, I am sorry I am so far behind other girls in my classes. I mean to work terribly hard. Mrs. Hartwell-Jones has helped me a lot this summer and perhaps it won’t matter so much, my being behind, at a private school.”
When Mrs. Hartwell-Jones and Mr. Shoemaker joined Letty, a kind-faced old clergyman accompanied them, who patted Letty on the cheek and exclaimed:
“Bless me, is this the baby? How time does fly, to be sure. You are a fortunate little lady, Letitia. Good-morning, all of you.”
After luncheon at the hotel, Mr. Shoemaker talked business with Mrs. Hartwell-Jones for half an hour or so, then departed again for New York. Mrs. Hartwell-Jones ordered still another taxicab.
“We have over two hours before our train leaves, dear, and so suppose we drive about to the different places you know about. Would you like to? Do you remember the street and number where your Miss Reese used to live?”
Letty gave the address, which was quite near by, and as they drove past the house she related again, with eager interest, the exciting tale of the fire. Then they were driven down Chestnut Street and Letty’s eyes shone as they passed the shops she recollected having visited with Miss Reese on the memorable Christmas shopping expedition.
“Is this where you had your first taste of ice-cream soda-water?” asked Mrs. Hartwell-Jones as the cab stopped in front of a large candy shop. “Then we must have some now, for old times’ sake. And let us take a box of candy back to the twins.”
They did a good deal of shopping, of one sort or another, and then Mrs. Hartwell-Jones gave the chauffeur a direction that made him stare. It brought the tears to Letty’s eyes suddenly and a great lump to her throat.
Far down-town they drove, out of the range of stylishly equipped carriages and motor cars; out of the range of big shops and smooth streets. The pavement grew rougher and dirtier, the houses and small shops that lined the street, shabbier and shabbier.
Letty leaned forward out of the carriage window, her eyes large, curious, almost frightened, fixed on each familiar spot as it was passed. She clasped her hands tightly together and drew her breath in short, audible inspirations.
“Ah, there is the house, there it is!” she exclaimed at length, and Mrs. Hartwell-Jones gave the signal to stop.
The cab came to a halt at the curb, the motor continuing to throb with an even, businesslike regularity.
The little motor inside Letty’s small body was throbbing too, wildly, now fast and now slow, as she gazed at the shabby, dingy house that had been her home. It looked shabbier and dingier than ever, and there were neither fresh muslin curtains nor blooming plants at the third-story front windows where her mother used to sit and sew.
No familiar faces were to be seen. Several people went in and out of the front door, turning to stare curiously at the lady and little girl sitting in the motor car. But Letty had never seen any of them before. There were children playing on the door-step next door, but they were not Emma Haines nor Tottie. It all seemed completely changed.
“Oh, dear!” sighed Letty.
Then she turned and threw herself into Mrs. Hartwell-Jones’s outstretched arms.
“My mother, my mother!” she sobbed. “How I want my mother!”
Mrs. Hartwell-Jones soothed her as best she could, wondering the while if she had done wrong to bring back the old associations.
“I know it is hard, dear little girl,” she whispered, “but I think some day you will be glad we came. It will help to fix the picture in your mind. It keeps our memories fresher and more precious, you know, if we have the pictures of their surroundings clearly in our mind.
“Take one last look, dear, and then we shall go. I pray I may be able to keep you as good and happy as your dear mother did, my precious little Letty!”
The cab moved slowly, with increasing speed, away from the dingy street, back to the gay, prosperous part of the city; back to the life that was to be Letty’s henceforth.
The child’s sobs soon ceased and she drew back from the comforting shoulder. But she still clung to Mrs. Hartwell-Jones’s hand for solace, and there were tears in the brown eyes that tried bravely to smile.
“You are so good to me!” she exclaimed. “My mother would be so grateful to you if she knew!”
“She does know, up in heaven. I am sure she does, Letty, dear. And we shall both do our best to keep good and happy, shall we not? for that would please her best.
“And Letty dear, while we are on the subject, may I speak about something else regarding you and me? What do you want to call me, child? Have you thought about it at all? You know you can’t go on calling me Mrs. Hartwell-Jones,” she added with a little laugh, to aid Letty’s embarrassment. “How would ‘Aunt Mary’ do?”
Letty looked up shyly.
“I think that would be perfectly beautiful!” she ejaculated with a happy sigh. “If it is what you would like?” she added hastily.
Mrs. Hartwell-Jones would have liked a sweeter, more intimate title, but she guessed that Letty would find it too hard to confer the beloved name of mother upon any one else; so she accepted the other and they were both satisfied and contented.
“‘Aunt Mary,’” whispered Letty again and again. “It is a beautiful name and just like yourself, Mrs. Hart—I mean Aunt Mary,” she added tremulously.