"It's as nice as it can be, and I'm glad you have it, Cousin Peace, but only think what renunciations the little grey house has had to make lately—you and Polly, Lydia—I suppose I can't include Demetrius——"
"Are those the only renunciations, and is it only the little grey house which has renounced, Rob dear?" asked Myrtle Hasbrook significantly.
"But, as I was about to say when this lady rudely interrupted me," continued Rob frowning at Myrtle, fearfully, "consider what we have gained: A new house to make a supplementaryhome; a new kind-of-cousin-through-our-aunt-in-law; up at the big house, little Doris and Ted and Bobby, besides dear little Betty to pet and look after, and——"
"Our father, dear Grey people," broke in Basil's voice, completing Rob's sentence.
The group around the fireplace of the new house turned towards the door.
They saw the three tall Rutherford boys, and with them a man in navy uniform, as tall as his sons, smiling at them with his handsome bronzed face.
"I need no introduction to the Greys. I have known you all so long through these great boys of mine that it feels like coming home, merely to meet you. It will take all of my two years' leave of absence to tell you how grateful I am for all that you have done for my boys. Dear Mrs. Grey, I am your humble debtor," said Commodore Rutherford, bending over the motherly hand which had wrought so much good to his sons, with a something caught in other climes added to his cordial frank heartiness of manner. "And which is Oswyth, my daughter Wythie?" he asked looking unerringly straight at Wythie's blushing and happy face. "My little girl, you dear, little old-fashioned, sweet faced little girl, Iverily believe that Basil's love is not blind." And he kissed Wythie tenderly, half lifting her as he touched her cheeks.
"Come to supper in my new little house, and insure its prosperity by its happy beginning," called Miss Charlotte's musical voice from the dining-room.
All winter Wythie had hemmed damask and stitched linen, like the old-fashioned little soul that she was. Not Oswyth Grey, the first, in her generation could have burned with more housewifely zeal for home-and-hand-made furnishings for the home to which she was never to go from the little grey house than did this Oswyth, set down, a sweet anachronism, amid the age of sewing-machines and ready-madeness. The long winter days were too short for the dear little woman, expert needlewoman though she was, in which to prepare for the home to which she was to go in June when Basil was graduated.
The Caldwell place—now the Rutherford place—was going through thorough renovations. The Greys had always known that the Rutherford boys were provided with enough money to remove them beyond anxiety as to the future. It was precisely like their unworldliness to acceptthis fact vaguely, and it gave Wythie something approaching a shock to discover that Basil was rich, measured by her simple standards.
"It won't matter in the least how poor are the books which he writes, Wythie; he will be able to live while they are writing, and then publish them himself and buy up the entire edition. So aren't you glad that his mother left Basil such a pretty little fortune?" asked Rob, energetically creasing the hem of the napkin for which she had offered her help.
"I think Basil will write nothing but poetry for twelve months," added Prue. "So he will need every penny. I don't consider the Rutherford boys' fortune riches."
"It is enough to keep up that big Caldwell place with two women and a man servant, and to live tastefully and other-fully; I call that rich, Prudence. What would you have?" said Rob.
Prue arose, tall and graceful in her eighteenth year, as a young goddess, and walked to the window where she stood looking out, her hands clasped at the back of her head with its crown of golden hair. The sunshine lit her up into a splendour that had nothing to fear from its most illuminating ray, and Wythie's busy hands paused, with her needle held at the full length of its thread,to look at her anew with an overwhelming sense of her fitness for a brilliant setting.
"I would have," said Prue slowly, without turning around, "I would have an income that was equal to these boys' principal. I would have great spacious rooms, filled with the most charming, exquisitely costumed people. I would have a retinue of well-trained servants that would keep me from feeling one jar of the wheels of living. I would have a life full of big interests, not a little, limited life like ours here. I would have the world, my sisters." And Prue extended her arms with a regal gesture that seemed at once to hunger for it and to seize it.
"Oh, Prue, Prudy!" expostulated Wythie in genuine distress. "After all our happy years in this dear little house! After all our blessed mother has taught us of the beauty of simplicity and unworldliness!"
Prue turned then to look at her elder with a tolerant smile. "Don't be so shocked, my dear, little, contented Mouse," she said. "You look as though I had announced my desire for something criminal. I don't want the world that we renounce in baptism; I don't want it in a sordid, vulgar, mean way. I want a big stage and on it I'd like to play a big part, and I'd like to use the power itgave me for glorious things. There are more ways of being good than humdrum ones."
"You are ambitious, Prudence, and Mardy says that ambitious women are not likely to be happy ones," insisted Wythie.
"Then I must be unhappy. I can't make myself like you, Wythie, satisfied to live, like Kiku-san, purring by the fire, nor like Rob, throwing herself into whatever lies at hand, and spending herself for a tiny circle," said Prue. "I'm going out into the world and it shall not be the worse for having me. I'm going to be part of a great scene, and I don't mean to be a blot on it."
Rob had let her napkin fall and was watching Prue as closely as Wythie was, sharing her presentiment of misfortune for their beautiful youngest, but seeing farther.
"Don't look so troubled, Wythiekins," she said. "Prue must dree her wierd, like the rest of humanity. She never was the wren we were; she wants to be an eagle and soar against the sun. I can understand her better than you do. I have my restless moments, but I think there is an instinct in me that is prescient; I know without having tasted, that the fruit of ambition does not nourish. Prudy will flash out into her bigger world, and she will learn that nothing matters,nothing counts but love and the inner things. I'm not two years older than you, my little tall sister, but I'm right, as you will see. It isn't only that Mardy thinks this; I feel it, or nobody knows what mad things I might do, for I'm fearfully impatient at times. It won't harm her, Wythie; the only difference is that what you and I know Prue must be taught by experience and disappointment."
"You talk like all the prophets melted into one," said Prue, impressed in spite of herself, for Rob's flashing dark eyes saw far, as her family well knew.
"Nothing that ends can satisfy any one with a mind, and much more with a soul, Prue. It is simple enough to understand, if once you realize that. Your world is too brief, dear Prudy. If you go forth to conquer it you will turn back some day to the narrow field you had here, and see that it was intrinsically a wider one, reaching farther, than that which you mistake for greater," said Rob.
"You talk like an old woman, and you are as inexperienced a girl as I am," said Prue.
"She talks like what she is; a creature of insights, and that is not a matter of years; Rob has always known," said Wythie, warmly. "'Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers.'"
"Mercy upon us, Wythie, you and Rob ought to go about like Dinah Morris in 'Adam Bede,' in a cap and kerchief preaching unworldliness," cried Prue petulantly. "I shall take the world into my hands, not into my heart, and I'm going to make it give me its best gifts." She tossed her head as she spoke, and Wythie and Rob felt that her beauty made hers no idle boast.
Rob arose and, putting both arms around her, kissed Prue as her mother might have done. "Go your ways, dear," she said. "We fear nothing for you but that they will be harder ways than ours, and that in the end its youngest child will look back longingly at these peaceful years in the little grey house."
Prue broke away and quickly left the room, annoyed, moved, excited.
Rob went back to her seat and picked up her napkin, absently, examining it closely, as if the future lay folded in its hem.
"This means the death knell to poor Bartlemy's hopes, Wythie," she said. "This means Arthur Stanhope and his million."
"Ah, yes, I know that," sighed Wythie. "But, of course, it doesn't mean that Prue will marry for money!"
"No, but—well, we can't be sure, but I'm afraid that she doesn't realize the influence it has had on her mind," said Rob.
"Arthur Stanhope is very nice," suggested Wythie.
"How often have we assured each other of that?" laughed Rob. "We don't seem at ease about it. But he is, really, very nice, only he doesn't strike me as particularly forceful—and then he isn't, Bartlemy!"
"Oh, that's really the whole trouble," mourned Wythie. "Our dear, big Bartlemy! And I was so sure that not a link of the triple alliance would fail!"
Rob looked up quickly, but Wythie had not the most remote intention of teasing, so she resumed her creasing with heightened colour, and Wythie hemmed on, lost in thought.
The Grey girls went to the commencement, and saw their Battalion B dismissed from their beloved Mother Yale with honours for which all three, each in his way, had worked hard. The last train brought them back to Fayre: Wythie tucked under Basil's father's arm, who seemed hardly less fond of his little almost-daughter than Basil, while Basil looked after Hester; Lester Baldwin devoted himself to Frances, and Roband Prue fell to Bruce and Bartlemy's share, just as they had always done.
"Mother Grey, here are our alumni!" cried Commodore Rutherford, his voice resounding through the stillness of Fayre at midnight as the party came up the flagged walk.
"I think it sounds pretty bad to say: 'I am an alumnus,'" said Bartlemy. "Much as I coveted the title it sounds zöological to me."
"Dear boys, I congratulate you with all my heart," said Mrs. Grey. "I feel a little of Mr. Peggotty's wonder when he found Davy 'a gentleman growed.'"
"I hope you are not struck by finding us gentlemen? We've been tolerably growed ever since you've known us," said Bruce.
"It was a delightful day? Not a blemish in it?" asked Cousin Charlotte, who had come up with Polly for the night to pay tribute to the alumni.
"It was the most beautiful, faultless day one could imagine," said Hester.
Basil began to count on his fingers. "Ten days from to-day I can easily imagine far more beautiful," he said, with a rapturous look at Wythie.
"Rhoda has made us chocolate, dear Alumni," said the Grey mother. "And we're going to drinkyour health from the cup from which Washington pledged the Grey of that day."
She did not care to discuss that ten days distant celebration, glad as she was that Wythie was to be so safely happy.
It was such a very short time to keep the circle in the little grey house unbroken, and those ten days sped like swallows over the old roof.
There had been stirring discussions as to the manner of Oswyth's marrying; only one thing had been settled from the first: Wythie insisted on a perfectly simple wedding, and on being married in her beloved little home.
When it came to inviting and omitting, the matter grew difficult. The Greys suddenly realized how long was their list of friends with a claim, once they admitted the claim of any outside the most strictly limited circle of relatives and intimate friends. Hester and Frances must be present, yet why not with them the Fayre girls and young men with whom Wythie had played from the day when her shoes were guiltless of heels and more than liable to bend around the ankles?
It ended in asking so many people that it was "a question as to how they could be nearer present than under the apple-trees," Prue said, and herremark solved the problem. It was June, and all the doors and windows of the little grey house could be thrown open to its warmth. Like all early houses the grey house had many doors, letting its guests step forth under its trees with but a brief delay upon broad flagstone steps. Wythie was to be married in the big wainscotted room in which her father had spent most of his dreaming days. Hester, Frances, Rob, and Prue, with the help of Bruce and Bartlemy, with Lester, had covered the walls between wainscotting and low ceiling with mountain laurel, and the effect was most beautiful.
The old clergyman who had baptised and catechised Wythie was to marry her, and Dr. Fairbairn was to give her away. Rob and Prue, in pale green gowns, were to be Wythie's bridesmaids, the other two Rutherfords supporting Basil. Wythie had begged that Polly might be flower maid, not in a bridal procession, since there was to be none, but carpeting with rose leaves the place where she and Basil were to stand while the Fayre young people sang the Lohengrin march without accompaniment.
Wythie had stood out for sentiment, and her wedding-gown was a frail muslin of the first Oswyth's, wrought with that other Oswyth'sneedlework, made, so tradition had it, for her own bridal which was never to be. Over it fell from the crown of Wythie's fair head to her little feet a priceless old veil worn for three generations by many brides of the Winslow race. Her only ornament was Basil's gift of his mother's pearls, on the back of whose clasp he had had engraved the poem which he and Wythie had read in the garret on the day of their betrothal, the stanza written to the Oswyth of long ago.
Wythie, ready for her bridal, stood for the last time before the mirror of the room which she and Rob had for so long shared through their happy childhood, their anxious, yet happy young girlhood, and through the perfect sympathy of their dawning womanhood and grown-up love. It seemed to Wythie, as her hands smoothed her frail old gown, that in some mystical way her dream had been fulfilled, and that in her that earlier romance was perfected.
Then she turned to her dear ones. Prue stood tall and beautiful in her mermaid-tint of robe, smiling, glad of Wythie's joy, yet moved. But Rob's cheeks were crimson in her effort for self-control. Say what one would, this was separation, and though the new home was so near she was giving up her Wythie. Mrs. Grey smiled at Wythiebravely, saying as she met her imploring eyes: "My darling, you have been all that a girl could be to her mother; I am glad to give you to Basil to be all that a woman can be to her husband."
But Wythie threw herself into her arms, crying: "Don't give me, Mardy; I can't be given. I must still be a daughter of the little grey house."
"Now, Wythiekins, don't be a goose! We couldn't get rid of you if we would," said Rob sternly. "It's lovely to have a brother. There's the chorus, the wedding march. Trot along Wythie!" And she hurried the little bride from the room, imploring all the powers that be to help her to drive back the sob then choking her and all succeeding sobs.
There was not a formal entrance. Before the guests realized that they were coming, Oswyth and Basil stood in their places on Polly's fragrant carpet, with Rob and Prue and Bruce and Bartlemy on either hand, and with Mrs. Grey, Commodore Rutherford and Cousin Peace as near as they could get, and with Polly looking up into the clergyman's eyes with such a solemn face that those who were not too deeply interested to notice her, wondered if she were going to forbid the bans.
A few words, the promises asked and given, andOswyth Grey was Oswyth Grey no more. Young Basil Rutherford, carrying himself proudly, humbly erect, turned to lead down among his friends his little wife.
Rob did not know how the next half hour passed; she helped Wythie into her travelling gown and for one, long moment, the sisters clung to each other. For whatever happiness the future held, this was a sort of parting, and the little grey house had given up its eldest daughter.
Mrs. Grey followed Basil and Wythie out on the steps, tears in her eyes and smiles on the lips which kissed and blessed Wythie clingingly. A crack of a whip, Myrtilla Hasbrook's baby Betty upset a basket of rice, and Wythie was gone.
Rob, seeking for a spot in which to hide till she could be sure of herself, came upon Polly crying her eyes out in the hall closet, with Bruce trying to comfort her.
"Oh, Rob, oh Rob!" sobbed Polly. "The only thing that I can think of to make me bear it is that I'm so thankful it isn't you!"
Bartlemy was painting Prue. Not that there was anything novel in this; he had been painting Prue at every opportunity since he had first known her, but this attempt was an ambitious one, not a portrait, nor a study of the single figure in some pretty pose as usual, but a larger canvas and a difficult composition.
Under the splendid trees of the hill place where the little Hasbrooks and their mother were reigning what Aunt Azraella might have considered a reign of terror, Prue posed for Bartlemy with the four children around her whose eager hands she was filling with daisies. The picture was to be called: "My Lady June," and on it Bartlemy built high hopes of early fame. It was progressing slowly; neither bribes, threats nor prayers could keep Ted and Bobby Hasbrook still long at a time; Doris was an ideal model, but lively little Betty was as reliable as abutterfly, and Bartlemy had to take what he called "snap-shot strokes" on her restless little figure.
The picture bade fair to be something well worth doing if Bartlemy proved equal to his own conception. Prue, lovely beyond words in her floating white draperies, swaying downward to the children as she enriched them with the dower of June, was like the incarnation of the summer-time, so exquisite that the young artist had to fight to keep his hand steadily at his work, and his mind from wandering from Prue as a model to the Prue whom he daily feared more and more beyond his reach.
Basil newly married and engrossed in his happiness, Bruce working hard under Dr. Fairbairn's strict requirements left Commodore Rutherford very much to the society of his youngest son, between whom and the big sailor there sprang up a beautiful intimacy of friendship, founded on their differences. Bartlemy was sufficiently an artist to talk of himself quite simply, and he and his father had discussed the probability of Prue, at some future day, making him happy as Wythie had made Basil.
"You are only a boy, my great son, but I think you know perfectly well what you will want when you are ready to take it, and though youare so young I should be delighted if beautiful Prudence cared enough for you to wait for you. It would not necessarily be long; you have as much to start upon as Basil has," said this comrade-father, wise in reading the set of tides and winds. "But, my son, though Prue is fond of you in her frank sisterly manner of established custom, it is Arthur Stanhope whom she will marry, and not my boy, who must find his consolation in the galleries of Europe as many another disappointed artist has found it before him."
"Not without a try at a better fate, father," said Bartlemy with a certain compression of the lip that meant determination.
Prue, bending forward that day, under the glorious trees, amid the waving grass, and holding out the daisies to wriggling Bob and Ted, felt the determination and preoccupation of the painter's mind, and dreaded a scene that would be painful to them both. So she chatted on in a ceaseless flood of varying topics, wondering if this really could be only Bartlemy with whom she felt so ill at ease.
"See here, boys, I'm going to chloroform you the next time," cried Bartlemy at last. "How do you think I can paint a perpetual motion—let alone two motions? Oh, say, Betty, now don'tjump out of the picture like that, not even if you do want to reach that tassel grass!"
"Betty, Betty, try to be quiet!" begged Prue. "Poor Bartlemy! he can't paint, and you will have spoiled our beautiful picture!"
"It's so hot!" sighed Betty.
"Yes, and what do we care for pictures? You can get better ones'n this'll be at the grocer's, swapping for soap wrappers," grumbled Bobby.
"'N Doris wants to finish Tobias' collar, though she's too polite to say so," added Ted.
"Doris is a comfort, a model model," said Bartlemy. "We might as well let the kiddies off, Prue; they've stood it as long as they can, and the rest of the time they would be no good. I've got what I wanted most to-day, and can work it up without models for a day or two."
The children had scattered at the first suggestion of dismissal, all but Doris, who paused to pick up some tubes and a brush which Bartlemy had dropped before walking sedately away to resume the collar which she was making for old Tobias, who found his declining years sunshine-flooded by the coming of this little maid.
Bartlemy set his boxes in order, and folded up his easel, then he looked up at Prue, who saidhastily: "I think I'll go on up to the house and see Myrtle Hasbrook for a little while."
"No; don't, Prue. Let me tell you what I was thinking," said Bartlemy. "I was thinking," he continued, disregarding Prue's gesture of dissent, "that I should like to paint you as Romola."
"Romola? Among these Connecticut hills?" laughed Prue.
"No, indeed, but Romola in Florence," said Bartlemy. "Get an old Florentine costume, and the Florentine background, and wouldn't you make a dandy model for Romola?"
"It's not very easy to get the Florentine background—" began Prue.
"Perfectly easy," said Bartlemy eagerly, interrupting her. "Prue, I'm going over this autumn. I have enough money to afford never to sell a picture—as much as Bas has. Come with me to Florence; let me show you, let us see together for the first time the pictures we all dream of, and let me see the people in the galleries turn away from the Titians, and the golden hair which Henner paints to look at the golden-haired American girl, more beautiful than any of them, my pride, my model, my inspiration, my——"
"Bartlemy, wait!" cried Prue in distress,hardly knowing this eager, earnest pleader for her old chum. "I may go to Italy, too—not this autumn, but by spring. We are such old friends that I can tell you, and you'll understand, though I would not have any right to speak of this to any one else. Perhaps you may paint me as Romola in Florence, if we meet there. I want to go to Europe to stay for a long time—on my wedding-trip. Arthur Stanhope—Oh, Bart dear, please don't look so hurt. He hasn't told me that he cares for me, not yet, but I know that he does care and will say so, and I shall go to Italy with him, not with my dear old chum, Bartlemy. But I'll see you there, and you shall paint me as Romola, Bart dear. I'd love to be painted as Romola, not Romola in black and serious under Savonarola's influence, but radiant, beautiful, golden-haired, young Romola, as she was when Tito found her."
"And you'll always care for me; why don't you add that, Prue—it's what girls say in novels when they don't care a hang for a fellow," muttered Bartlemy.
"Oh, I do care for you, I shall always care for you," protested Prue eagerly. "I didn't say it because I know you are sure of it! Aren't you my special property, the member of Battalion B thatbelonged to me, just as Basil and Bruce belonged to Wythie and Rob?"
Bartlemy looked up at the girl with a new anxiety that made the noble lad forget his own misfortune for an instant. She spoke like a child, with entire unconsciousness of the sting this assurance must bear for Bartlemy.
"Say, Prue, you are fond of Stanhope? You—you aren't making a mistake, are you? Because if you are I should think you would see what all this is to me," he said. "I don't understand how you can help knowing that kind of caring doesn't comfort a fellow much, not if you've felt the other kind of love yourself."
"I'm not making a mistake, Bart dear. I'm as fond of you as I can be, but Mr. Stanhope is ever so much older than I am, and it's quite, quite different. We are chums, Bart, and we shall be always, shall we not?" Prue held out her hand with a cheerful kindness that made Bartlemy catch his breath as he took the little white thing that seemed to understand as well as the girl's brain did what she was denying and what she was offering him.
"It isn't likely that I shall change much to you," he said, and even Prue saw the mute misery he was trying to hide.
"It's only because I am pretty and you are an artist, Bartlemy; if it wasn't for that and my being the youngest, the one you always walked and talked with most, you would not care more for me than for Rob—everybody admires Rob. You mustn't imagine that you are unhappy, Bart dear, because that would distress me beyond anything. You won't mind, will you? And if we should be in Florence we'd have the nicest times, don't you think we should? I mean if we met there? Because we're like Joe Gargery and Pip: 'Ever the best of friends,' aren't we, dear Bartlemy—chum?" And Prue smiled, radiant in her beauty with the breeze dappling her faultless face with the shadows of the branches. She thought privately that she was showing wonderful skill and insight in the difficult task of adjusting her best friend and first lover, tactfully giving him the clue to their future intercourse.
Bartlemy seemed less pleased with the interview. He was wise enough to see that no mere protestations on Prue's part could so effectually deny him hope of winning her as did her careless indifference, her childish lack of understanding of how hard it was for him to stand there with her smiling at him, forever out of reach.
"I think I'll go home, Prue," he said a trifleunsteadily. "You're going up to Mrs. Hasbrook. Good-bye, Prue."
"Good-bye, Bartlemy? Well, till to-night then. We shall see you after tea. Good-bye," said Prue still smiling, but with a troubled look creeping over her face as she watched Bartlemy gather together his painting tools and walk slowly down the hill without looking back. For she guessed that the picture would never be finished; that for the young painter of whom she was, in her insufficient way, so very fond, "My Lady June" would remain but a sketch upon the canvas, symbol and reminder of his first romance.
Bruce went alone to the little grey house that evening. Bartlemy remained with his father till late at night, and when they parted with the handshake which spoke them friends as well as father and son, it was arranged that Bartlemy should at once go away to begin the European study to which he had been looking forward throughout his college days, though then he had not meant to go alone.
Commodore Rutherford was to go with the lad as far as England, possibly into France. It was all so sudden that the Greys had hardly time to adjust their minds to the fact that Bartlemy was going before he came to say good-bye. Basiland Wythie were at home and this first real break in the sextette of beautiful comradeship, as well as their disappointment in its cause, threw a shadow over the other five who without Bartlemy would be so incomplete.
Wythie and Rob kissed the tall boy with tears which they did not try to keep back, and the dear Grey mother held him close.
"Good-bye, my dear; good-bye, dear Bartlemy," she whispered. "I am so sorry, but I fear we can do nothing but be sorry. Learn to be happy; one disappointment in the beginning of life will not harm, but will strengthen you, and remember we all love you, and shall watch your every step with anxious pride."
"Good-bye, Mardy Grey. The little grey house has given me much, but it has denied me its best gift," said Bartlemy. He looked once more at Prue, standing a little aloof, pale, sorry, ashamed, but not relenting, and last of all he took her hand without a word. The door closed behind him, and with his footsteps down the flags died away the last echo of the unbroken tramp of Battalion B, which had brought cheer to the little grey house for more than four years.
"For just you and Basil can never be thebattalion," said Rob reproachfully to Bruce, as if it were his fault.
Wythie and Basil went away to their new home and Bruce went with them. Bartlemy was to start on a train that stopped on signal at Fayre at half-past three in the morning. It was a dismal going away, and the Greys remembered how much they should miss not only Bartlemy but the kind Commodore whose very voice was a cordial. He would return in two months, leaving Bartlemy abroad to study.
"Of course time, and the work he loves so much, and the glorious pictures and architecture he is to see for the first time, will heal Bartlemy's wound, Rob," said Mrs. Grey, as she and her second daughter lingered after Prue had gone soberly up-stairs, leaving them to themselves. "And Rob, only fancy! I have had a letter from Arthur Stanhope in the last mail to-night announcing his coming here to-morrow, avowedly to ask little Prudy to marry him. I must take to cap and spectacles, for she is my baby—yet after all, she is eighteen."
"To-morrow! The very day poor Bartlemy sails! It is altogether too much like that game you used to play with us when we were babies, sticking bits of paper on your finger-tips, and crying:'Fly away, Jack, fly away, Jill! Come again, Jack, come again, Jill!' I do think he might have waited! Yet how could he know?" cried Rob.
"It is a good letter, manly, straightforward—I left it up-stairs, or I would show it to you," said her mother with a half laugh at Rob's vehemence. "He says he will not assume that I know that he wants to marry our Prue, though he feels sure that we must have seen how profoundly he admires her. He wants me to receive him to-morrow with the intention of asking her to marry him. I suppose I must say yes, Rob?"
"I suppose you must, Mardy. Really, I can't feel about Prue's marrying as I did about Wythie's," said Rob. "Though I do feel very badly that it isn't dear old Bart."
"And I feel much more about it, in a certain way," returned her mother. "Wythie's marriage held no risk; it was the natural and lovely outcome of a charming romance, but Prue, foolish, ambitious, beautiful Prue is going into a different world from ours, and I am less sure of her fate."
"She wouldn't be satisfied in our world, Mardy; she never was. So isn't it best to be glad that another has opened to her?" suggested Rob.
"Wise Robin!" smiled her mother. "I suppose it is."
Mrs. Grey had telegraphed to Arthur Stanhope her permission to come, as he had asked her to do. A box of rare and costly flowers preceded him, and Prue was making herself ready to receive him with triumph in her eyes, and without a shadow of doubt or regret to confirm her mother's fears. But she was so young; did she really know what she wanted? Mrs. Grey could not answer her own question. It lurked behind the eyes smiling at Prue in the glass as the girl made herself ready to receive her coming fate. She turned to meet the eyes with a little laugh of satisfaction, pardonable to the possessor of such beauty as she had just been contemplating.
"I think we weren't half sympathetic enough with Lydia in having a young man come out from New York to see her—it's really very nice, Mardy," she cried, shaking out of its box a single pink rose from among the many long-stemmed beauties filling the room with their odour. "I suppose you and Rob, and Wythie, if she were here, would rather have one of those old-time blush roses from the bush some one planted ages ago," Prue continued, "but I wouldn't; I'd rather have this magnificent thingthat came from a hot-house after ever so long cultivating and selecting to make it what it is."
"Only that you may be good and happy, Prudy; that granted, your mother will not quarrel with you for loving the splendours of a world that never for a moment has appealed to her," said Mrs. Grey gently.
"Kiss me then, you dear, sweet mother," said Prue. "It's a pity I'm not like you, but I am a worldly Prudence—oh, I never thought of it before! Why did you name me Prudence if you did not want me to love this world's goods prudently?"
"It has always seemed to me imprudent to love them, Prue. But here's your kiss, my baby, and all good attend you, darling."
The faint blush tint of her floating gown, deepening into the pink of the rose he had sent her seemed to Arthur Stanhope, as Prue glided into the room, like the dawn, for he saw that she had come to fulfil his dreams.
It was moonlight, and Rob, sitting chin in hand by the window which Wythie had loved best in the room that had been theirs, saw her younger sister walking in its rays, and knew that she alone was now wholly the daughter of the little grey house.
The next morning saw Prue stirring early in a rapture of plans and gratified desires which the day was not long enough to allow her to tell to her mother and to Wythie and Cousin Peace who came in to wish joy to little Prudy.
The girl walked on air and the air was rainbow-tinted. Arthur's aunt, one of the leaders of the best social set in New York, had sent a loving note to the girl whom he had chosen, asking her to come to her at Newport for August, and then to go with them to the Berkshires, to her other house, for the supplementary season there.
"Only fancy," cried Prue, lifting her arms in a rapture that seemed to call upon all the world to witness and to share it. "I, I, Prue Grey, who used to go to school shabbily clad, who had to look at goodies in the shops till my mouth watered, I am going to Newport, to the Berkshires, to walk on velvet and to eat off of gold plate like a queen, and to take my place among everything and everybody I want! Oh, it is a dream! It can't be true!"
"But your blood is the best in the land; you talk as if you were a beggar maid, and Arthur Cophetua!" cried Rob indignantly.
"He is giving me everything I want," saidPrue. "He thinks he is not worthy to untie my shoe, so don't be afraid that he undervalues me."
"Wouldn't you rather be all alone, just with him this summer when you are first engaged?" asked Wythie timidly. She really felt afraid of this new Prue who swept everything before her like an empress.
Prue laughed. "You dear, sentimental little Wythie-goose!" she cried patronizing her favourite sister. "Of course I wouldn't! I wouldn't rather anything were anyway but just as it is! But I'll tell you what Arthur says—he says I'm so pretty he would not dare to let them all see me unless I had first promised—Oh, no; I won't tell you, either—it's silly!"
"We might conjecture what you had omitted—let me see—three words, I should think," remarked Rob.
"Dear little Prudy, I hope you will be happy every minute of this life that you think is to prove fairyland to you," said Cousin Peace gently.
Suddenly Rob seemed to shake herself mentally. "I really don't see why we all have an ill-concealed feeling that Prue is liable to be anything but happy!" she cried. "It is all because we love Bartlemy, and our thoughts are following him across the deep. Of course you will be happy,Prudy, and of course it is fine to be going to Newport and way stations, dancing and looking lovely with nothing to distract your attention from newly-found bliss, 'with the world so new-and-all,' as Kipling says. You are going to enjoy your little eighteen-year-old self till you won't believe it's you. And Arthur is a nice fellow, who has behaved beautifully all through this trying period, and I'm glad you are to be set in such a way as to show our jewel to her best advantage. We are envious old foxes, looking at your grapes! Ask us, Wythie and me, to your splendid mansion—when you get one—and you'll see how worldly we shall be, too!"
Prue laughed, but she did not need Rob's consideration. She had been too engrossed in the wonderful splendour awaiting her to be sensitive to the misgivings of her family. And after all why should she not be happy who had always longed for luxury, and to whom poverty in the old days had been more irksome than to her sisters?
"I'll ask you," she said, "to my fine mansion, to my box at the opera, to drive behind my splendid horses, to dine with my brilliant friends. Oh, girls, won't it be lovely?"
Prue ran down-stairs to meet Frances andHester, whom she saw coming, and to tell them of her glories before any one else could take the edge off of her tidings.
"I wish she realized more, were less young. She seems scarcely different than when her father bought her that little blue silk parasol in her third year, and she refused to eat except beneath its shade," said Mrs. Grey.
"She was not unhappy after she got used to the parasol, although it no longer held her spellbound, Mardy," said Rob, the philosopher. "Why should she be unhappy after she has grown accustomed to a million? Prudy is so happy now that her parasol would not interest her. Let us believe that by and by she will be so much happier than now that this beginning too will be forgotten in greater bliss."
"Prue is one of the Grey girls, your daughter, Mary; I am sure wealth will not spoil her, and only think, with her great beauty and her great wealth what royal opportunities she will have for doing good!" added Cousin Peace. "Dear little golden-haired Prudy! She is only very young, and that will be but too soon corrected in her."
"Walk up the street part way with me, Robin; my husband will be waiting lunch for me,"said Wythie with such a happy smile that Rob remarked, as she snatched a parasol:
"Dear me, how fine that sounds! Happiness seems to be a drug in our market. I'll come, Mrs. Rutherford; Hester and Frances will have to listen to Prue a while but they won't mind."
"'It's we two, it's we two, it's we two for aye,'" sang Rob to a slight, inconsequent tune of her own making. "We are the only Grey girls left, Mardy, the only reliable daughters of the little grey house. What with Wythie so very young-matronly and preoccupied in her home, and Prue shining at Newport and writing us of the cotillions and general splendours, and of admiration enough to turn any head, I begin to feel like Holmes' Last Leaf."
"Why, that's a rather dismal ending to a speech that began in such a contented little chant," said Mrs. Grey, looking up from her desk with her pen marking the point half-way up her column of accounts at which she had suspended addition.
"Oh, no; it's not a withered, dun leaf; it's a flaming maple," returned Rob. "But it is queer to be the spinster Miss Grey, with one'ssisters married and gone—gone at any rate, and as good as married. The house is quiet, and—and—well, spacious."
"Lonely, Rob?" suggested her mother.
"No, Mardy; not lonely with you, but I feel, as near as I can express it—shrunken," said Rob thoughtfully. "I miss the girls, of course, but there is something sweet about this solitude of two, as the French say—like being an only child."
Mrs. Grey looked at Rob consideringly, wondering how long she could keep this daughter, if not the one dearest to her motherly heart, certainly the one that she could least well spare. The girl's face was not less brilliant, but it was quieter; the quick tongue had learned the curb, and there was a softer, more womanly look around the sensitive lips which always seemed ready to laugh or to quiver because the upper one was so short. "Wythie is as pretty and sweet as a dove, and Prue is rarely beautiful, but to my eyes Rob is the prettiest of the Grey girls, the one whose face has most power to charm," thought the mother for the unnumbered time as she looked at her. She dared not allude to Bruce. She believed and hoped that sooner or later Bruce's quiet persistence and devotion would win from Rob its reward, butthe girl sprang to arms so quickly at a hint of such a possibility that her mother dared not suggest now that Rob, too, might slip away from the little grey house.
Instead, she asked: "Aren't you going up to see Wythie a moment before you go down to Charlotte's?"
"Yes; Wythie wants advice on the curtains for the Commodore's room," said Rob. "Much as we all like and enjoy Commodore Rutherford, I wonder if Basil and Wythie don't half dread his coming back? Love is selfish; not one bit noble, no matter what the poets say. Wythie flies to hug me when I come in, but I always feel sure that she likes to have me shut the door and leave Basil and her to themselves."
"Why, Robin!" remonstrated her mother.
"Oh, well; it's all right. We made up our minds to that, I suppose, when we let her go. She loves me just as well as ever, but she isn't my Wythie altogether, as she used to be—she's my exclusively-and-happily married sister. Home is home, Mardy, and every one, who doesn't belong inside it, no matter who she may be, is an outsider. Very likely I shall feel just the same when I have been longer alone with you."
"If ever you marry, dear, I shall pray you tocome here to live, and let me have a corner in your home, otherwise the little grey house would be left bereft, indeed. Would you mind letting your Mardy Grey stay with you, and should I be an outsider?" asked Mrs. Grey.
"You are the very inside and core of my heart, Mardy, as you well know, and those are the only terms upon which I would marry—if I could marry. But I won't marry, Mardy; I never, never will! I don't want to. I want to be Rob Grey, just nobody but Rob Grey of the little grey house to the end." And Rob dropped a kiss on her mother's glossy brown hair as she went out of the room to get her hat for her call on Wythie. "You could not be any one better or more beloved," her mother called after her, and resumed her accounts.
Rob went up the street in the bright September sunshine, wondering at her vague dissatisfaction, which made her feel unlike her usual blithe self. It was worse than foolish, she told herself, but Wythie's blissful contentment had a bad effect upon her mind.
Basil faithfully retired after breakfast to the room which had been set apart for his use and wrote till luncheon, resisting the strong temptation to watch his girl-wife busying herselfabout her morning household cares. So Rob did not expect to find Basil when she came in by the side door, and followed the sound of Wythie's voice to the library. She did not expect to find Bruce either, yet there he was, at the hour when he was usually busiest, for Bruce was working in earnest at his profession, and Dr. Fairbairn told enthusiastic stories of his assistant's natural gift for healing and of his untiring industry.
Rob halted a perceptible instant on the threshold before entering; she had avoided Bruce of late, feeling an electrical atmosphere surrounding him.
The "Hallo, Rob!" with which he greeted her sounded safe enough, and Rob returned it cheerfully as she entered.
It was a beautiful room, high ceiled and dignified, and its appointments were perfect. Rob looked around it with new satisfaction, seeing anew, as she did at each visit, how quietly fine and tasteful was Oswyth's home.
"I'm so sorry that I made you come up here first this morning when you were in a hurry to get to Cousin Charlotte's, Rob," said Wythie. "You know I thought Frances was going to town on the 1.53 train, but she went this morning, so Ihad to decide the curtains for myself and give her the sample. I took the autumn-tinted fabric. Basil says he is sure father would prefer it, and I want the room to be what he likes, although he won't be in it long, and nobody knows how soon he will get back here. Aren't you going to stay with me, or haven't you settled Cousin Peace's problem?"
"If you're going down to Miss Charlotte's I'll take you there safely, Rob. I've got to meet the doctor at the new family's, four doors below her," said Bruce rising.
Rob flushed; she had been long trying to avoid these solitary interviews with Bruce, and now Wythie had made it impossible for her to escape this walk without being downright rude. She arose with a reluctance that every muscle betrayed, and said: "I suppose I must go if you don't need me, Wythie. Cousin Peace is waiting for me; I told her I would hurry down as soon as I had seen your samples once more."
"Basil and I are going to drive over to the lake this afternoon; be ready by three, and tell Mardy," said Wythie nervously. Her experienced eye detected a look in Bruce's that spoke of determination, and in Rob's an expression of defiant fear.
She watched them off down the long walk under the heavy trees that shaded the approach to her new home, clasping and unclasping her hands in a panic of foreboding. It took all her strength of mind to keep her resolution not to disturb Basil during his working hours; she longed to rush to him and say what she could now say only to herself and the carved chair upon which she was kneeling by the window: "Oh, dear, oh dear! He is going to tell her he cares for her, and she is going to be horrid! Oh, Rob, how can you, when he is such a dear boy, and you know you will never look at any one else! it isn't like Prue. Oh, I wish Basil were here!"
Wythie's forecast was proving entirely correct. Bruce walked down to the gate without a word, and Rob kept at his side with a most forbidding expression on her face, which seemed to have had all its ripples and sunshine frozen in Wythie's library.
For a few paces down the street Bruce preserved this silence, then suddenly he halted, and turned on Rob fiercely. "Look here, Rob," he said. "You've been trying to keep out of my way, and I suppose you think I'll take that for my answer. But I won't! Are you going to marry me?"
"No, indeed I am not," retorted Rob with equal emphasis.
"Why not?" asked Bruce, walking on as if disposed to argue it.
"Because I do not want to," said Rob, evidently not inclined to discussion.
"But you care for me," insisted Bruce.
"Do I? Well, I shall not very long if you bother me about such things," said Rob.
"I want you, Rob," said Bruce with a break in his voice that softened Rob a little.
"I wish you wouldn't; it is so unpleasant," she said.
"Rob, dear, from the first moment that I saw you I cared for you in a boyish way. And now that I am a man you have grown to be so much a part of every hope I have, every thought I think, every effort I make that to tear you out of my life would leave a crippled Bruce Rutherford forever. I don't mean to appeal to your pity, of course, but it's the simple truth that my future lies at your mercy. It's not going to be with me as with Bartlemy. I don't mean that Bart wasn't in earnest and that Prue did not hurt him, but he has the artist nature, and he'll pull through. I'm a fellow of one idea, and it wouldn't be easy to uproot me and make me grow in new soil. Somehow, Ican't imagine living without you, Rob. What's the use of my telling you all this, when you know me better than I know myself, when I've never had a secret from you in all these years of our fine friendship? You know what it will be if I have to try to limp along without you. You helped Hester with the Green Pasture's; why do you want to cripple me worse than that poor little chap you've got there is crippled? Can't you imagine what it means to me even to think of losing you, Rob?"
Bruce held out his hands with an appealing gesture, and Rob saw them, the strong well-shaped, true doctor's hands, tremble.
"Oh, don't Bruce," she begged faintly. It was harder than she had thought it would be, and all the courage and defiance with which she had set out had ebbed away.
"Then why, why are you treating me as you do?" demanded Bruce. "There isn't another fellow whom you know and would rather have—there's no Arthur Stanhope in the way of this Rutherford wooer. And I'm sure you love me, Rob, though you don't know it, or won't admit it."
This was an unfortunate remark for Bruce. It sent Rob's head up in the air again, and awoke her spirit of resistance.
"I freely admit being fond of you, Bruce, but you are not satisfied with my affection. You want me to marry you, and I don't want to marry. Of course there isn't any other I want—but that would be quite as true if you omitted the other:—There isn'tanybody I want, you or another. I tell you I don't want to marry; I'm sick of hearing of marrying—Wythie, Frances, Bartlemy, you, even Prue, all wanting to marry some one! Hester is the only sensible person. Won't you please,please, Bruce, try to be reasonable? Can't you see how unpleasant it makes things? I have to dodge you for fear you'll make love to me, and we used to be so happy and affectionate and comfortable! It's all your own fault. For pity's sake believe me, Bruce, and let's be happy again! I won't marry, I can't marry, I don't want to marry, and all you are doing is spoiling a chumminess that is as much nicer than sentimental fussing as roast beef is nicer than white of egg, beaten to a stiff froth." And whimsical Rob stopped to laugh at her involuntary quotation from the cook-book, though her eyes were brimming.
Bruce looked at her and to her great relief his face cleared up, though she might have felt less cheerful if she could have read his mind.
"You're only a fledgling still, Roberta," he said to her manifest annoyance. "You are unable to diagnose your own symptoms; as a physician-to-be I think I know you better than you know yourself. Very well, then; so be it. I will stop pestering you, and you shall get back your old-time comrade as near as I can recall him. Of course we are both going to remember that we are man and woman, even though we are young ones, not boy and girl any longer, and of course you cannot quite forget that I love you. But there is no help for that; we'll go back to the old ways as near as we can. So don't dodge me any more, Roberta, and I'll curb my impatience."
Rob looked at Bruce sidewise and most doubtfully. "You mean mischief," she said. "You always did when you were too good and yielding."
Bruce laughed outright. "I mean beneficiently—to us both," he said. "'You'll love me yet and I can wait your love's protracted growing.' We always loved our Browning, you know. Here is Cousin Charlotte's gate. Run in, little Robin, and don't worry. If I had lost you I couldn't meet the doctor down yonder and go on with my work—I'd be—well, never mind all that! We're not to talk of these things, and I hope I'd be man enough to live my life to some purpose ifI lost my eyes, and limbs—or even you! But it would take time, to face my maimed life. It seems queer to find you, clear, decided, sane Rob, trying to fight against happiness, and not understanding yourself! Good-bye, Robin dear. When you see me again it will be your old chum Bruce, so don't run away from him. Good-bye."
Bruce took one of Rob's hands—the left one nearest him—shook it kindly, raised his hat and walked swiftly away, leaving Rob to go slowly into Cousin Peace's pretty house with a new sensation of bewilderment and defeat subduing her into a person whom she did not in the least recognize as confident Rob Grey.
Lydia opened the door and Rob amazed her by exclaiming: "Why I forgot all about you, Lyddie; you're another!"
"Another what, Roberta?" Lydia asked with her customary gravity.
"Another who has lately married. It doesn't matter; I had been reckoning up how many seemed to have been stricken with the epidemic; that's all," said Rob.
"What you are meant to do, you do, Roberta, and it's not an epidemic," returned Lydia. "It is a state of great blessedness when the brethren dwell together in it in unity."
The sound of a piano ceased from within and Polly, growing taller and with an awakening look on her pale face, rushed out to greet Rob with the ardour of her intense and hidden nature. Rob folded the little girl in her arms with more than usual tenderness.
"Dear Polly, did Cousin Peace think I had broken my promise? I had to go to Wythie's first, you know," she said.
"No; we weren't looking for you so soon; I thought I should get through practising before you came," said Polly. "Maraine is waiting for you."
Maraine was the title by which Rob had solved the difficulty of what Polly should call Miss Charlotte, "for, though she was not really your godmother—I doubt your having a godmother, Pollykins,—she is near enough a fairy godmother to deserve the name," she said.
"Very well; take me to her, Polly," Rob said now, and followed Polly to Miss Charlotte, whose soft voice and gentle, unseeing face, raised to smile at her, fell on Rob's perturbed spirit like the balm which she always found Cousin Peace.
"What has happened, Robin dear?" asked Cousin Peace instantly. "What troubles you?"
"Nothing worth talking about, dearest peaceful cousin," said Rob.
"Bruce came down with you, Polly said. Did he tell you what has been discussed, and does it frighten you?" asked Miss Charlotte.
"He told me nothing except—Oh, why are we talking about Bruce?" Rob burst out in an hysterical cry that revealed to Miss Charlotte all her troubles.
"Only that it was Bruce's plan which I was to lay before you—Hester wanted me to tell you without waiting for her to-morrow, when she comes out. Bruce thinks that in the course of his reading he has stumbled upon the cause of the lameness, the worse than lameness, of our one boy at Green Pastures. He worked on his idea secretly till he felt that he had his theory and proposed course well in hand, then he laid it before Dr. Fairbairn. The old doctor is most wrought up about it. It involves an operation, which, if Bruce is right, will cure that poor child. The old doctor has called upon several surgeons; some of them laugh at Bruce, with the intolerance of older minds for young ones, but a few—and they are the more important ones—agree with Bruce that, young and undiplomaed though he is, he has hit upon an actual discovery. Theyare discussing performing the operation on the child—for Bruce could not be allowed to do it, of course—under Bruce's direction, in a sense. It is not fully decided, but very nearly. Curious Bruce did not speak of it himself!"
"Not a bit; it is just like Bruce to let other people tell even his best friend of his triumphs—and, Cousin Peace, I was not very nice to Bruce," said Rob, with a glow of pride in the clever student, and a humility new and bewildering.
"Oh, dearest Robin, don't be blinder than I, and fail to recognize happiness when it knocks at your door!" cried Miss Charlotte, laying her hand on Rob's. "Bruce deserves the best at the hands of all of us—Bruce is my boy of boys, you knew."
"There's not another boy on earth equal to him; we all know that, not even Basil and Bartlemy, but that doesn't make one love him, does it?" cried Rob.
"It makes us all love him, Robin, and we will let him feel it, quite simply and honestly, as is his right," said Cousin Peace softly. "Whether or not the operation is performed, and whether or not Bruce's theory is correct, the mere fact that he formed it and is clever enough to have thought of it has already won him honour in theeyes of his future associates and it has given him a place among those of his profession who think and discover. Isn't that a great thing for a student to have accomplished?"
"It is fine, Cousin Peace; don't think I am not glad," said Rob feebly. "Is Polly going on well with her music?"
"Better than we expected; she is a faithful little Polly, and works hard," said Miss Charlotte, with a smile that rewarded Polly for aching muscles in back and untrained little fingers. "Mr. Armstrong is coming out especially to see Polly on Saturday. He is greatly interested in her. What about Prue?"
"She goes from glory to glory, revelling in admiration, luxury and all the honey-pots of the world open in a row, pouring their sweetness over her," said Rob. "Mardy will not let her marry till spring, you know, but I suppose she will be with Arthur's aunt a great deal this winter—this aunt took Arthur's mother's place when she died, you remember, don't you? So it is really like letting Prue go to her future mother-in-law. Mardy can hardly help it. Besides, Prue is nearly beside herself with happiness, and the only fly in her honey is that she can't afford to dress like the girls she meets, but even that trouble willdrop off when she is Arthur's wife. Isn't it strange that Prue should have got what she wanted, when she aimed at something so far beyond her reach, apparently?" And Rob sighed unconsciously.
"It is a great joy to know that all three of you dearest girls are finding such perfect joy," said Cousin Peace, while Polly climbed into Rob's lap at the sound of the sigh.
"Hester has done a nice thing, did you know it?" asked Rob, as if anxious to get the conversation into safe waters.
"Hester does nothing but nice things," said Miss Charlotte. "What is this particular one?"
"She has persuaded her father to rent three rooms in Myrtle Hasbrook's house for the Baldwins to use when they come to Fayre. Since Green Pastures is succeeding and is a permanent institution Hester made her father see they ought to have a place in Fayre that was their own. By taking Myrtle's rooms they add enough to her little income to secure her. I think Hester is really a magnificent girl!" Rob spoke with warmth, and Miss Charlotte as warmly assented.
"But my dear Robin made it possible," she added, with her loving touch on Rob's hair.
"Oh, I didn't want the house; it wasn't good in me to refuse it," said Rob, rising to go. "Thelittle grey house and Mardy, isn't that enough to satisfy any girl?"
"It is a great deal, but it is natural to want to round our lives, Robin," said her cousin. "I am a happy and blessed woman, dear, and my life was marked out for me when my eyes were closed to all visions, except those of dreams. But I am a happier woman for having my little Polly. Each life has its meaning, every one her limitations and she is a blessed woman to whom the whole meaning of life comes, offered in such love and honour and security that she may take it fearlessly, and through it reach up to the highest ends. To go without bravely and cheerfully when that is one's vocation is noble, Rob, but to receive, gratefully, on one's knees, and to enjoy the fulness of all living is not a thing to turn from, dearie, for in its highest form it is the lot of few."
"You who never married are the best, the most peaceful, the most comforting of women. Even Mardy has had a hard life, in some ways, and does not seem so lifted above sorrow and loss as you," said Rob.
"I am blind Charlotte Grey; set apart, not lifted up, dearie," returned her cousin, who rarely spoke of her misfortune.
Polly looked from one to the other. "Miss Charlotte is the sky, and you are a green field, full of flowers, Rob," she said.
"Little singing Polly!" said Miss Charlotte. "A green field for sweet human joys and nourishment! That is the very point, my children."