Five oaks awoke to a new existence on the first morning after the arrival of its guests from New York—an existence of wild shouts, gleeful laughter, scampering feet and confusion. In the kitchen and the garden old Mr. and Mrs. Barrett no longer held full sway. For some time there had been a cook, a waitress, a laundress, and an experienced gardener as well. In the barn, too, there was now a stalwart fellow who was coachman and chauffeur by turns, according to whether the old family carriage or the new four-cylinder touring car was wanted.
Tom, Peter, Mary, Patty, and the twins had not been at Five Oaks twenty-four hours before they were fitted to new clothing throughout. Mrs. Kendall had not slept until she had interviewed the town clothier as to ways and means of immediately providing two boys and four girls with shoes, stockings, hats, coats, trousers, dresses, and undergarments.
“‘Course ’tain’t ‘zactly necessary,” Patty had said, upon being presented with her share of the new garments, “but it’s awful nice, ’cause now we don’t have ter go ter bed when ours is washed—an’ they be awful nice! Just bang-up!”
No wonder Five Oaks awoke to a new existence! The wide-spreading lawns knew now what it was to be pressed by a dozen little scampering feet at once: and the great stone lions knew what it was to have two yelling boys mount their carven backs, and try to dig sharp little heels into their stone sides. Within the house, the attic, sacred for years to cobwebs and musty memories, knew what it was to yield its treasured bonnets, shawls, and quilted skirts to a swarm of noisy children who demanded them for charades.
Tom, Peter, Mary, Patty, Arabella, and Clarabella had been at Five Oaks two weeks when one day Bobby McGinnis found Margaret crying all alone in the old summerhouse down in the garden.
“Gorry, what’s up?” he questioned; adding cheerily: “‘Soldiers’ daughters don’t cry’!”—it was a quotation from Margaret’s own childhood’s creed, and one which in the old days seldom failedto dry her tears. Even now it was not without its effect, for her head came up with a jerk.
“I—I know it,” she sobbed; “and I ain’t—I mean, Iarenot going to. There, you see,” she broke off miserably, falling back into her old despondent attitude. “‘Ain’t’ should be ‘are not’ always, and I never can remember.”
“Pooh! Is that all?” laughed Bobby. “‘Twould take more’n a ‘are not’ ter make me cry.”
“But that ain’t all,” wailed Margaret, and she did not notice that at one of her words Bobby chuckled and parted his lips only to close them again with a snap. “There’s heaps more of ’em; ‘bully’ and ‘bang-up’ and ‘gee’ and ‘drownded’ and ‘g’ on the ends of things, and—well, almost everything I say, seems so.”
“Well, what of it? You’ll get over it. You’re a-learnin’ all the time; ain’t ye?”
“‘Are not you,’ Bobby,” sighed Margaret.
“Well, ‘are not you,’ then,” snapped Bobby.
Margaret shook her head. A look that was almost terror came to her eyes. She leaned forward and clutched the boy’s arm.
“Bobby, that’s just it,” she whispered, looking fearfully over her shoulder to make sure that no one heard. “That’s just it—I’m not a-learnin’!”
“Why not?”
“Because of them—Tom, and Patty, and the rest”
Bobby looked dazed, and Margaret plunged headlong into her explanation.
“It’s them. They do ’em—all of ’em. Don’t you see? They say ‘ain’t’ and ‘gee’ and ‘bully’ all the time, and I see now how bad ’tis, and I want to stop. But I can’t stop, Bobby. I just can’t. I try to, but it just comes before I know it. I tried to stop them sayin’ ’em, first,” went on Margaret, feverishly, “just as I tried to make ’em act ladylike with their feet and their knives and forks; but it didn’t do a mite o’ good. First they laughed at me, then they got mad. You know how ’twas, Bobby. You saw ’em.”
Bobby whistled.
“Yes, I know,” he said soberly. “But when they go away——”
“That’s just it,” cut in Margaret, tragically. “I wa’n’t goin’ to have them go away. I was goin’ to keep ’em always; and now I—Bobby, Iwantthem to go!” she paused and let the full enormity of her confession sink into her hearer’s comprehension. Then she repeated: “I want them to go!”
“Well, what of it?” retorted Bobby, with airy unconcern.
“What of it!” wept Margaret. “Why, Bobby, don’t you see? I was goin’ to divvy up, and I ought to divvy up, too. I’ve got trees and grass and flowers and beds with sheets on ’em and enough to eat, and they hain’t got anything—not anything. And now I don’t want to divvy up, I don’t want to divvy up, because I don’t want them—here!”
Margaret covered her face with her hands and rocked herself to and fro. Bobby was silent. His hands were in his pocket, and his eyes were on an ant struggling with a burden almost as large as itself.
“Don’t you see, Bobby, it’s wicked that I am—awful wicked,” resumed Margaret, after a minute. “I want to be nice and gentle like mother wants me to be. I don’t want to be Mag of the Alley. I—I hate Mag of the Alley. But if Tom and Patty and the rest stays I shall bejust like them, Bobby, I know I shall; and—and so I don’t want ’em to stay.”
Bobby stirred uneasily, changing his position.
“Well, you—you hain’t asked ’em to, yet; have ye?” he questioned.
“No. Mother ‘spressly stip’lated that I shouldn’t say anything about their stayin’ always till their visit was over and they saw how they liked things.”
“Shucks!” rejoined Bobby, his face clearing. “Then what ye cryin’ ‘bout? You ain’t bound by no contract. You don’t have ter divvy up.”
“But I ought to divvy up.”
“Pooh! ‘Course ye hadn’t,” scoffed Bobby. “Hain’t folks got a right ter have their own things?”
Margaret frowned doubtfully.
“I don’t know,” she began with some hesitation. “If I’ve got nice things and more of ’em than Patty has, why shouldn’t she have some of mine? ’Tain’t fair, somehow. Somebody ain’t playin’ straight. I—I’m goin’ to ask mother.” And she turned slowly away and began to walk toward the house.
Not once, but many times during the next few days, did Margaret talk with her mother on thissubject that so troubled her. The result of these conferences Bobby learned not five days later when Margaret ran down to meet him at the great driveway gate. Back on the veranda Patty and the others were playing “housekeeping,” and Margaret spoke low so that they might not hear.
“Iamgoin’ to divvy up,” she announced in triumph, “but not here.”
“Huh?” frowned Bobby.
“Iamgoin’ to divvy up—give ’em some of my things, you know,” explained Margaret; “then when they go back, mother’s goin’ with ’em and find a better place for ’em to live in.”
“Oh, then they aregoin’back—eh?”
Margaret flushed a little and threw a questioning look into Bobby’s face. There seemed to be a laugh in Bobby’s voice, though there was none on his lips.
“Yes,” she nodded hurriedly. “You see, mother thinks it’s best. She says that they hadn’t ought to be here now—with me; that it’s my form’tive period, and that everything about me ought to be just right so as to form me right. See?”
“Yes, I see,” said Bobby, so crossly that Margaret opened her eyes in wonder.
“Why, Bobby, you don’t care ’cause they’re goin’ away; do you?”
“Don’t I?” he growled. “Humph! I s’pose ’twill be me next that’ll be sent flyin’.”
“You? Why, you live here!”
“Well, I say ‘ain’t’ an’ ‘bully’; don’t I?” he retorted aggressively.
Margaret stepped back. Her face changed.
“Why—so—you—do!” she breathed. “And I never once thought of it.”
Bobby said nothing. He was standing on one foot, digging the toe of the other into the graveled driveway. For a time Margaret regarded him with troubled eyes; then she sighed:
“Well, anyhow, you don’t live here all the time, right in the house, same’s Patty and the rest would if they stayed. I—I don’t want to giveyouup, Bobby.”
Bobby flushed red under the tan. His eyes sparkled with pleasure—but his chin went up, and his hands executed the careless flourish that a boy of fourteen is apt to use when he wishes to hide the fact that his heart is touched.
“FOR A TIME MARGARET REGARDED HIM WITH TROUBLED EYES.”“FOR A TIME MARGARET REGARDED HIM WITH TROUBLED EYES.”
“Don’t trouble yerself,” he shrugged airily. “It don’t make a mite o’ diff’rence ter me, ye know. There’s plenty Icanbe with.“ And he turned and hurried up the road with long strides, sending back over his shoulder a particularly joyous whistle—a whistle that broke and wheezed into silence, however, the minute that the woods at the turn of the road were reached.
“I don’t care,” he blustered, glaring at the chipmunk that eyed him from the top rail of the fence. “Bully—gee—ain’t—hain’t—bang-up! There!” Then, having demonstrated his right to whatever vocabulary he chose to employ, he went home to the little red farmhouse on the hill and spent an hour hunting for a certain book of his mother’s in the attic. When he had found it he spent another hour poring over its contents. The book was old and yellow and dog-eared, and bore on the faded pasteboard cover the words: “A work on English Grammar and Composition.”
Tom, Peter, Mary, Patty, and the twins stayed at Five Oaks until the first of September, then, plump, brown, and happy they returned to New York. With them went several articles of use and beauty which had hitherto belonged to Five Oaks. Mrs. Kendall, greatly relieved at Margaret’s somewhat surprising willingness to let the visitors go, had finally consented to Margaret’s proposition that the children be allowed to select something they specially liked to take back with them. In giving this consent, Mrs. Kendall had made only such reservation as would insure that certain valuable (and not easily duplicated) treasures of her own should remain undisturbed.
She smiled afterward at her fears. Tom selected an old bugle from the attic, and Peter a scabbard that had lost its sword. Mary chose a string of blue beads that Margaret sometimes wore, and Clarabella a pink sash that she found in a trunk. Patty, before telling her choice, asked timidlywhat would happen if it was “too big ter be tooked in yer hands.” Upon being assured that it would be sent, if it could not be carried, she unhesitatingly chose the biggest easy-chair the house afforded, with the announcement that it was “a Christmas present fur Mis’ Whalen.”
For a moment Mrs. Kendall had felt tempted to remonstrate, and to ask Patty if she realized just how a green satin-damask Turkish chair would look in Mrs. Whalen’s basement kitchen; but after one glance at Patty’s radiant face, she had changed her mind, and had merely said:
“Very well, dear. It shall be sent the day you go.”
Arabella only, of all the six, delayed her choice until the final minute. Even on that last morning she was hesitating between a marble statuette and a harmonica. In the end she took neither, for she had spied a huge chocolate-frosted cake that the cook had just made; and it was that cake which finally went to the station carefully packed in a pasteboard box and triumphantly borne in Arabella’s arms.
Mrs. Kendall herself went to New York with the children, taking Margaret with her. In theGrand Central Station she shuddered a little as she passed a certain seat. Involuntarily she reached for her daughter’s hand.
“And was it here that I stayed and stayed that day long ago when you got hurt and didn’t come?” asked Margaret.
“Yes, dear—right here.”
“Seems ’most as if I remembered,” murmured the little girl, her eyes fixed on one of the great doors across the room. “I stayed and stayed, and you never came at all. And by and by I went out there to look for you, and I walked and walked and walked. And I was so tired and hungry!”
“Yes, yes, dear, I know,” faltered Mrs. Kendall, tightening her clasp on the small fingers. “But we won’t think of all that now, dear. It is past and gone. Come, we’re going to take Patty and the others home, you know, then to-morrow we are going to see if we can’t find a new home for them.”
“Divvy up!” cried Margaret, brightening. “We’re goin’ to divvy up!”
“Yes, dear.”
“Oh!” breathed Margaret, ecstatically. “I like to divvy up!” And the mother smiled content,for the last trace of gloomy brooding had fled from her daughter’s face, and left it glowing with the joy of a care-free child.
Not two hours later a certain alley in the great city was thrown into wild confusion. Out of every window leaned disheveled heads, and in every doorway stood a peering, questioning throng. Down by the Whalens’ basement door, the crowd was almost impassable; and every inch of space in the windows opposite was filled with gesticulating men, women, and children.
Mag of the Alley had come back. And, as if that were not excitement enough for once, with her had come Tom, Mary, Peter, Patty, and the twins, to say nothing of the beautiful lady with the golden hair, and the white wings on her hat.
“An’ she’s all dressed up fit ter kill—Maggie is,” Katy Goldburg was calling excitedly over her shoulder. Katy, and Tony Valerio had the advantage over the others, for they were down on their knees before the Whalens’ window on a level with the sidewalk. The room inside was almost in darkness, to be sure, for the crowd outside had obscured what little daylight there was left, and there was only the sputtering kerosenelamp on the table for illumination. Even this, however, sufficed to show Katy and Tony wonders that unloosed their tongues and set them to giving copious reports.
“She’s got a white dress on, an’ a hat with posies, an’ shoes an’ stockings,” enumerated Katy.
“An’ de lady’s got di’monds on her—I seen ’em sparkle,” shouted Tony. “An’ de Whalen kids is all fixed up, too,” he added. “An’, say, dey’ve bringed home stuff an’ is showin’ ’em. Gee! look at that sw-word!”
“An’ thar’s cake,” gurgled Katy. “Tony, they’re eatin’ choc’late cake. Say, Iama-goin’ in!”
There was a sudden commotion about the Whalens’ door. An undersized little body was worming its way through the crowd, and thrusting sharp little elbows to the right and to the left. The next minute, Margaret Kendall, standing near the Whalens’ table, felt an imperative tug at her sleeve.
“Hullo! Say, Mag, give us a bite; will ye?”
“Katy! Why, it’s Katy Goldburg,” cried Margaret in joyous recognition. “Mother, here’s Katy.”
The first touch of Margaret’s hand on Katy’s shoulder swept like an electric shock through the waiting throng around the door. It was the signal for a general onslaught. In a moment the Whalen kitchen swarmed with boys, girls, and women, all shouting, all talking at once, and all struggling to reach the beautiful, blue-eyed, golden-haired little girl they had known as “Mag of the Alley.”
Step by step Margaret fell back until she was quite against the wall. Her eyes grew wide and terror-filled, yet she made a brave attempt to smile and to respond politely to the noisy greetings. Across the room Mrs. Kendall struggled to reach her daughter’s side, but the onrushing tide of humanity flung her back and left her helpless and alone.
It was then that Mrs. Whalen’s powerful fist and strident voice came to the rescue. In three minutes the room was cleared, and Margaret was sobbing in her mother’s arms.
“You see, mother, you see how ’tis,” she cried hysterically, as soon as she could speak. “There’s such lots and lots of them, and they’re all so poor. Did you see how ragged and bad their clotheswere, and how they grabbed for the cake? We’ve got to divvy up, mother, we’ve got to divvy up!”
“Yes, dear, I know; and we will,” soothed Mrs. Kendall, hurriedly. “We’ll begin right away to-morrow, darling. But now we’ll go back to the hotel and go to bed. My little girl is tired and needs rest.”
Dr. Spencer met Mrs. Kendall and her daughter at the Houghtonsville station on the night they returned from New York. His lips were smiling, and his eyes were joyous as befitted a lover who is to behold for the first time in nine long days his dear one’s face. The eager words of welcome died on his lips, however, at sight of the weariness and misery in the two dear faces before him.
“Why, Amy, dearest,” he began anxiously: but her upraised hand silenced him.
“To-night—not now,” she murmured, with a quick glance at Margaret. Then aloud to her daughter she said: “See, dear, here’s Dr. Spencer, and he’s brought the ponies to carry us home. What a delightful drive we will have!”
“Oh, has he?” For an instant Margaret’s face glowed with animation; then the light died out as suddenly as it had come. “But, mother, I—I think I’d rather walk,” she said. “You know Patty and the rest can’t ride.”
The doctor frowned, and gave a sudden exclamation under his breath. Mrs. Kendall paled a little and turned to her daughter.
“Yes, I know,” she said gently. “But you are very tired, and mother thinks it best you should ride. After all, dearie, you know it won’t make Patty and the rest ride, even if you do walk. Don’t you see?”
“Yes, I—I suppose so,” admitted Margaret; but she sighed as she climbed into the carriage, and all the way home her eyes were troubled.
Not until after Margaret had gone to bed that night did Mrs. Kendall answer the questions that had trembled all the evening on the doctor’s lips; then she told him the story of those nine days in New York, beginning with Margaret’s visit to the Alley, and her overwhelming “reception” in the Whalens’ basement home.
“I’m afraid the whole thing has been a mistake,” she said despondently, when she had finished. “Instead of making Margaret happy, it has made her miserable.”
“But I don’t see,” protested the doctor. “As near as I can make out you did just what she wanted; you—er—‘divvied up.’”
Mrs. Kendall sighed.
“Why, of course, to a certain extent: but even Margaret, child though she is, saw the hopelessness of the task when once we set about it. There were so many, so pitifully many. Her few weeks of luxurious living here at home have opened her eyes to the difference between her life and theirs, and I thought the child would cry herself sick over it all.”
“But you helped them—some of them?”
Again Mrs. Kendall sighed.
“Yes, oh, yes, we helped them. I think if Margaret could have had her way we should have marched through the streets to the tune of ‘See the conquering hero comes,’ distributing new dresses and frosted cakes with unstinted hands; but I finally convinced her that such assistance was perhaps not the wisest way of going about what we wanted to do. At last I had to keep her away from the Alley altogether, it affected her so. I got her interested in looking up a new home for the Whalens, and so filled her mind with that.”
“Oh, then the Whalens have a new home? Well, I’m sure Margaret must have liked that.”
Mrs. Kendall smiled wearily.
“Margaretdid,” she said; and at the emphasis the doctor raised his eyebrows.
“But, surely the Whalens——”
“Did not,” supplied Mrs. Kendall.
“Did not!” cried the doctor.
“Well, ’twas this way,” laughed Mrs. Kendall. “It was my idea to find a nice little place outside the city where perhaps Mr. Whalen could raise vegetables, and Mrs. Whalen do some sort of work that paid better than flower-making. Perhaps Margaret’s insistence upon ‘grass and trees’ influenced me. At any rate, I found the place, and in high feather told the Whalens of the good fortune in store for them. What was my surprise to be met with blank silence, save only one wild whoop of glee from the children.
“‘An’ sure then, an’ it’s in the country; is it?’ Mrs. Whalen asked finally.
“‘Yes,’ I said. ‘With a yard, some flower beds, and a big garden for vegetables.’ I was just warming to my subject once more when Mr. Whalen demanded, ‘Is it fur from the Alley?’
“Well, to make a long story short, they at last kindly consented to view the place; but, after one glance, they would have none of it.”
“But—why?” queried the doctor.
“Various reasons. ’Twas lonesome; too far from the Alley; they didn’t care to raise vegetables, any way, and Mr. Whalen considered it quite too much work to ‘kape up a place like that.’ According to my private opinion, however, the man had an eye out for a saloon, and he didn’t see it; consequently—the result!
“Well, we came back to town and the basement kitchen. Margaret was inconsolable when she heard the decision. The Whalen children, too, were disappointed; but Mr. Whalen and his wife were deaf to their entreaties. In the end I persuaded them to move to rooms that at least had the sun and air—though they were still in the Alley—and there I left them with a well-stocked larder and wardrobe, and with the rent paid six months in advance. I shall keep my eye on them, of course, for Margaret’s sake, and I hope to do something really worth while for the children. Patty and the twins are still with them at present.”
“But wasn’t Margaret satisfied with that?” asked the doctor.
“Yes, so far as it went: but there were still theothers. Harry, that child has the whole Alley on her heart. I’m at my wits’ end to know what to do. You heard her this afternoon—she didn’t want to ride home because Patty must walk in New York. She looks askance at the frosting on her cake, and questions her right to wear anything but rags. Harry, what can I do?”
The man was silent.
“I don’t know, dear,” he said slowly, at last. “We must think—and think hard. Hers is not a common case. There is no precedent to determine our course. Small girls of five that have been reared in luxury are not often thrust into the streets and sweat shops of a great city and there forced to spend four years of their life—thank God! That those four years should have had a tremendous influence is certain. She can’t be the same girl she would have been had she spent those years at her mother’s knee. One thing is sure, however, seems to me. In her present nervous condition, if there is such a thing as getting her mind off those four years of her life and everything connected with it, it should be done.”
The doctor paused, and at that instant a step sounded on the graveled driveway. A momentlater a boy’s face flashed into the light that streamed through the open door.
“Why, Bobby, is that you?” cried Mrs. Kendall.
“Yes, ma’am, it’s me, please. Did Mag—I mean Margaret come home, please?”
“Yes, she came to-night.”
Bobby hesitated. He stood first on one foot, then on the other. At last, very slowly he dragged his right hand from behind his back.
“I been makin’ it for her,” he said, presenting a small, but very elaborate basket composed of peach-stones. “Mebbe if she ain’t—er—arenot awake, you’ll give it to her in the mornin’. Er—thank ye. Much obliged. Good-evenin’, ma’am.” And he turned and fled down the walk.
For a time there was silence on the veranda. Mrs. Kendall was turning the basket over and over in her hands. Suddenly she raised her head.
“You are right, Harry,” she sighed. “Her mind must be taken off those four years of her life, and off everything connected with it; everything and—everybody.”
“Yes,” echoed the doctor; “everything and—everybody. Er—let me see his basket, please.”
Four days later Mrs. Kendall and her daughter Margaret left Houghtonsville for a month’s stay in the White Mountains. From the rear window of a certain law office in town a boy of fourteen disconsolately watched the long train that was rapidly bearing them out of sight.
“An’ I hain’t seen her but once since I give her the basket,” he was muttering; “an’ then I couldn’t speak to her—her mother whisked her off so quick. Plague take that basket—wish’t I’d never see it! An’ I worked so hard over it, ’cause she said she liked ’em made out o’ peach-stones! She said she did.”
It was the day before Christmas. For eight weeks Margaret had been at Elmhurst, Miss Dole’s school in the Berkshires. School—Miss Dole’s school—had been something of a surprise to Margaret; and Margaret had been decidedly a surprise to the school. Margaret was not used to young misses who fared sumptuously every day, and who yet complained because a favorite ice cream or a pet kind of cake was not always forthcoming; and Miss Dole’s pupils were not used to a little girl who questioned their right to be well-fed and well-clothed, and who supplemented this questioning with distressing stories of other little girls who had little to wear and less to eat day after day, and week after week.
Margaret had not gone to Elmhurst without a struggle on the part of her mother. To Mrs. Kendall it seemed cruel to be separated so soon from the little daughter who had but just been restored to her hungry arms after four long years of almost hopeless waiting. On the other hand, there wereMargaret’s own interests to be thought of. School, certainly, was a necessity, unless there should be a governess at home; and of this last Mrs. Kendall did not approve. She particularly wished Margaret to have the companionship of happy, well-bred girls of her own age. The Houghtonsville public school was hardly the place, in Mrs. Kendall’s opinion, for a little maid with Margaret’s somewhat peculiar ideas as to matters and things. There was Bobby, too—Bobby, the constant reminder in word and deed of the city streets and misery that Mrs. Kendall particularly wished forgotten. Yes, there certainly was Bobby to be thought of—and to be avoided. It was because of all this, therefore, that Margaret had been sent to Elmhurst. She had gone there straight from the great hotel in the mountains, where she and her mother had been spending a few weeks; so she had not seen Houghtonsville since September. It was the Christmas vacation now, and she was going back—back to the house with the stone lions and the big play room where had lain for so long the little woolly dog of her babyhood.
It was not of the stone lions, nor the play room that Margaret was thinking, however; it was ofsomething much more important and more—delightful, the girls said. At all events, it was wonderfully exciting, and promised all sorts of charming possibilities in the way of music, pretty clothes, and good things to eat—again according to the girls.
It was a wedding.
Margaret’s idea of marriage had undergone a decided change in the last few weeks. The envious delight of the girls over the fact that she was to be so intimately connected with a wedding, together with their absorbing interest in every detail, had been far more convincing than all of Mrs. Kendall’s anxious teachings: marriage might not be such a calamity, after all.
It had come as somewhat of a shock to Margaret—this envious delight of her companions. She had looked upon her mother’s marriage as something to be deplored; something to be tolerated, to be sure, since for some unaccountable reason her mother wanted it; but, still nevertheless an evil. There was the contract, to be sure, and the doctor had signed it without a murmur; but Margaret doubted the efficacy of even that at times—it would take something more than a contract,certainly, if the doctor should prove to be anything like Mike Whalen for a husband.
The doctor would not be like Mike Whalen, however—so the girls said. They had never seen any husbands that were like him, for that matter. They knew nothing whatever about husbands that shook and beat their wives and banged them around. All this they declared unhesitatingly, and with no little indignation in response to Margaret’s somewhat doubting questions. There were the story-books, too. The girls all had them, and each book was full of fair ladies and brave knights, and of beautiful princesses who married the king—and who wanted to marry him, too, and who would have felt very badly if they could not have married him!
In the face of so overwhelming an array of evidence, Margaret almost lost her fears—marriage might be very desirable, after all. And so it was a very happy little girl that left Elmhurst on the day before Christmas and, in care of one of the teachers, journeyed toward Houghtonsville, where were waiting the play room, the great stone lions, and the wonderful wedding, to say nothing of the dear loving mother herself.
It was not quite the same Margaret that had left Houghtonsville a few months before. Even those short weeks had not been without their influence.
Margaret, in accordance with Mrs. Kendall’s urgent request, had been the special charge of every teacher at Elmhurst; and every teacher knew the story of the little girl’s life, as well as just what they all had now to battle against. Everything that was good and beautiful was kept constantly before her eyes, and so far as was possible, everything that was the reverse of all this was kept from her sight, and from being discussed in her presence. She learned of wonderful countries across the sea, and of the people who lived in them. She studied about high mountains and great rivers, and she was shown pictures of kings and queens and palaces. Systematically and persistently she was led along a way that did not know the Alley, and that did not recognize that there was in the world any human creature who was poor, or sick, or hungry.
It is little wonder, then, that she came to question less and less the luxury all about her; thatshe wore the pretty dresses and dainty shoes, and ate the food provided, with a resignation that was strangely like content; and that she talked less and less of Patty, the twins, and the Alley.
Christmas was a wonderful day at Five Oaks, certainly to Margaret. First there was the joy of skipping, bare-toed, across the room to where the long black stockings hung from the mantel. In the gray dawn of the early morning its bulging knobbiness looked delightfully mysterious; and never were presents half so entrancing as those drawn from its black depths by Margaret’s small eager fingers.
Later in the morning came the sleigh-ride behind the doctor’s span of bays, and then there was the delicious dinner followed by the games and the frolics and the quiet hour with mother. Still later the house began to fill with guests and then came the wedding, with Mrs. Kendall all in soft gray and looking radiantly happy on the doctor’s arm.
It was a simple ceremony and soon over, and then came the long line of beaming friends and neighbors to wish the bride and groom joy andGod-speed. Margaret, standing a little apart by the dining-room door, felt a sudden pull at her sleeve. She turned quickly and looked straight into Bobby McGinnis’s eyes.
“Bobby, why, Bobby!” she welcomed joyously; but Bobby put his finger to his lips.
“Sh-h!” he cautioned; then, peremptorily, “Come.” And he led the way through the deserted dining-room to a little room off the sidehall where the gloom made his presence almost indiscernible. “There!” he sighed in relief. “I fetched ye, didn’t I?”
Margaret frowned.
“But, Bobby,” she remonstrated, “why—what are you doing out here, all in the dark?”
“Seein’ you.”
“Seeing me! But I was in there, where ’twas all light and pretty, and you could see me lots better there!”
“Yes, but I wa’n’t there,” retorted Bobby, grimly; then he added: “‘Twa’n’t my party, ye see, an’ I wa’n’t invited. But I wanted ter see ye—an’ I did, too.”
Margaret was silent.
“Mebbe ye want ter go back now yerself,” observed Bobby,gloomily, after a time. “’Tain’t so pretty here, I’ll own.”
Margaret did want to go back, and she almost said so, but something in the boy’s voice silenced the words on her lips.
“Oh, I’ll stay, ‘course,” she murmured, shifting about uneasily on her little white-slippered feet.
Bobby roused himself.
“Here, take a chair,” he proposed, pushing toward her a low stool; “an’ I’ll set here on the winder sill. Nice night; ain’t it?”
“Yes, ’tis.” Margaret sat down, carefully spreading her skirts.
There was a long silence. Through the half-open door came a shaft of light and the sound of distant voices. Bobby was biting his finger nails, and Margaret was wondering just how she could get back to the drawing-room without hurting the feelings of her unbidden guest. At last the boy spoke.
“Mebbe when we’re grown up we’ll get married, too,” he blurted out, saying the one thing he had intended not to say. He bit his tongue angrily, but the next minute he almost fell off the window sill in his amazement—the little girl had sprung to her feet and clapped her hands.
“Bobby, could we?” she cried.
“Sure!” rejoined Bobby with easy nonchalance. “Why not?”
“And there’d be flowers and music and lots of people to see us?”
“Heaps!” promised Bobby.
“Oh-h!” sighed Margaret ecstatically. “And then we’ll go traveling ‘way over to London and Paris and Egypt and see the Alps.”
“Huh?” The voice of the prospective young bridegroom sounded a little uncertain.
“We’ll go traveling to see things, you know,” reiterated Margaret. “There’s such a lot of things I want to see.”
“Oh, yes, we’ll go travelin’,” assured Bobby, promptly, wondering all the while if he could remember just where his mother’s geography was. He should have need of it after he got home that night. London, Paris, Egypt, and the Alps—it might be well to look up the way to get there, at all events.
“I think maybe now I’ll go back,” said Margaret, with sudden stiffness. “They might be looking for me. Good-bye.”
“Oh, I say, Maggie,” called Bobby, eagerly,“when folks is engaged they——” But only the swish of white skirts answered him, and there was nothing for him to do but disconsolately to let himself out the side door before any one came and found him.
“And I’m going to get married, too,” said Margaret to her mother half an hour later.
“You’re going to get married!”
“Yes; to Bobby, you know.”
The newly-made bride sat down suddenly, and threw a quick look at her husband.
“To Bobby!” she exclaimed. “Why, when—where—Bobby wasn’t here.”
“No,” smiled Margaret. “He said he wasn’t invited, but he came. We fixed it all up a little while ago. We’re going to London and Paris and Egypt and see the Alps.”
The great dining-room at Hilcrest, the old Spencer homestead, was perhaps the pleasantest room in the house. The house itself crowned the highest hill that overlooked the town, and its dining-room windows and the veranda without, commanded a view of the river for miles, just where the valley was the greenest and the most beautiful. On the other side of the veranda which ran around three sides of the house, one might see the town with its myriad roofs and tall chimneys; but although these same tall chimneys represented the wealth that made possible the great Spencer estate, yet it was the side of the veranda overlooking the green valley that was the most popular with the family. It was said, to be sure, that old Jacob Spencer, who built the house, and who laid the foundations for the Spencer millions, had preferred the side that overlooked the town; and that he spent long hours gloating over the visible results of his thrift and enterprise. But old Jacob was dead now, and his son’s sons reignedinstead; and his son’s sons, no matter how much they might value the whiz and whir and smoke of the town, preferred, when at rest, to gaze upon green hills and far-reaching meadows. This was, indeed, typical of the Spencer code—the farther away they could get from the oil that made the machinery of life run easily and noiselessly, the better pleased they were.
The dining-room looked particularly pleasant this July evening. A gentle breeze stirred the curtains at the open windows, and the setting sun peeped through the vines outside and glistened on the old family plate. Three generations of Spencers looked down from the walls on the two men and the woman sitting at the great mahogany table. The two men and the woman, however, were not looking at the sunlight, the vines, or the swaying curtains; they were looking at each other, and their eyes were troubled and questioning.
“You say she is coming next week?” asked the younger man, glancing at the letter in the other’s hand.
“Yes. Tuesday afternoon.”
“But, Frank, this is so—sudden,” remonstratedthe young fellow, laughing a little as he uttered the trite phrase. “How does it happen that I’ve heard so little of this young lady who is to be so unceremoniously dropped into our midst next Tuesday?”
Frank Spencer made an impatient gesture that showed how great was his perturbation.
“Come, come, Ned, don’t be foolish,” he protested. “You know very well that your brother’s stepdaughter has been my ward for a dozen years.”
“Yes, but that is all I know,” rejoined the young man, quietly. “I have never seen her, and scarcely ever heard of her, and yet you expect me to take as a matter of course this strange young woman who is none of our kith nor kin, and yet who is to be one of us from henceforth forevermore!”
“The boy is right,” interposed the low voice of the woman across the table. “Ned doesn’t know anything about her. He was a mere child himself when it all happened, and he’s been away from home most of the time since. For that matter, we don’t know much about her ourselves.”
“We certainly don’t,” sighed Frank Spencer;then he raised his head and squared his shoulders. “See here, good people, this will never do in the world,” he asserted with sudden authority. “I have offered the hospitality of this house to a homeless, orphan girl, and she has accepted it. There is nothing for us to do now but to try to make her happy. After all, we needn’t worry—it may turn out that she will make us happy.”
“But what is she? How does she look?” catechized Ned.
His brother shook his head.
“I don’t know,” he replied simply.
“You don’t know! But, surely you have seen her!”
“Yes, oh, yes, I have seen her, once or twice, but Margaret Kendall is not a girl whom to see is to know; besides, the circumstances were such that—well, I might as well tell the story from the beginning, particularly as you know so little of it yourself.”
Frank paused, and looked at the letter in his hand. After a minute he laid it gently down. When he spoke his voice was not quite steady.
“Our brother Harry was a physician, as you know, Ned. You were twelve years old when hemarried a widow by the name of Kendall who lived in Houghtonsville where he had been practising. As it chanced, none of us went to the wedding. You were taken suddenly ill, and neither Della nor myself would leave you, and father was in Bermuda that winter for his health. Mrs. Kendall had a daughter, Margaret, about ten years old, who was at school somewhere in the Berkshires. It was to that school that I went when the terrible news came that Harry and his new wife had lost their lives in that awful railroad accident. That was the first time that I saw Margaret.
“The poor child was, of course, heartbroken and inconsolable; but her grief took a peculiar turn. The mere sight of me drove her almost into hysterics. She would have nothing whatever to do with me, or with any of her stepfather’s people. She reasoned that if her mother had not married, there would have been no wedding journey; and if there had been no wedding journey there would have been no accident, and that her mother would then have been alive, and well.
“Arguments, pleadings, and entreaties were in vain. She would not listen to me, or even seeme. She held her hands before her face and screamed if I so much as came into the room. She was nothing but a child, of course, and not even a normal one at that, for she had had a very strange life. At five she was lost in New York City, and for four years she lived on the streets and in the sweat shops, enduring almost unbelievable poverty and hardships.”
“By Jove!” exclaimed Ned under his breath.
“It was only seven or eight months before the wedding that she was found,” went on Frank, “and of course the influence of the wild life she had led was still with her more or less, and made her not easily subject to control. There was nothing for me to do but to leave the poor little thing where she was, particularly as there seemed to be no other place for her. She would not come with me, and she had no people of her own to whom she could turn for love and sympathy.
“As you know, poor Harry was conscious for some hours after the accident, long enough to make his will and dictate the letter to me, leaving Margaret to my care—boy though I was. I was only twenty, you see; but, really, there was noone else to whom he could leave her. That was something over thirteen years ago. Margaret must be about twenty-three now.”
“And you’ve not seen her since?” There was keen reproach in Ned’s voice.
Frank smiled.
“Yes, I’ve seen her twice,” he replied. “And of course I’ve written to her many times, and have always kept in touch with those she was with. She stayed at the Berkshire school five years; then—with some fear and trembling, I own—I went to see her. I found a grave-eyed little miss who answered my questions with studied politeness, and who agreed without comment to the proposition that I place her in a school where she might remain until she was ready for college—should she elect to go to college.”
“But her vacations—did she never come then?” questioned Ned.
“No. At first I did not ask her, of course. It was out of the question, as she was feeling. Some one of her teachers always looked out for her. They all pitied her, and naturally did everything they could for her, as did her mates at school. Later, when I did dare to ask her to come here,she always refused. She wrote me stiff little notes in which she informed me that she was to spend the holidays with some Blanche or Dorothy or Mabel of her acquaintance.
“She was nineteen when I saw her again. I found now a charming, graceful girl, with peculiarly haunting blue eyes, and heavy coils of bronze-gold hair that kinked and curled about her little pink ears in a most distracting fashion. Even now, though, she would not come to my home. She was going abroad with friends. The party included an irreproachable chaperon, so of course I had nothing to say; while as for money—she had all of her mother’s not inconsiderable fortune besides everything that had been her stepfather’s; so of course there was no question on that score.
“In the fall she entered college, and there she has been ever since, spending her vacations as usual with friends, generally traveling. When she came of age she specially requested me to make no change in her affairs, but to regard herself as my ward for the present, just as she had been. So I still call myself her guardian. This June was her graduation. I had forgotten thefact until I received the little engraved invitation a week or two ago. I thought of running down for it, but I couldn’t get away very well, and—well, I didn’t go, that’s all. But I did write and ask her to make this house her home, and here is her reply. She thanks me, and will come next Tuesday. There! now you have it. You know all that I do.” And Frank Spencer leaned back in his chair with a long sigh.
“But I don’t know yet what she’s like,” objected Ned.
“Neither do I.”
“Oh, but you’ve seen her.”
“Yes; and how? Do you suppose that those two or three meetings were very illuminating? No. I’ve been told this, however,” he added. “It seems that immediately after her return to her mother’s home she had the most absurd quixotic notions about sharing all she had with every ragamuffin in New York. She even carried her distress over their condition to such an extent that her mother really feared for her reason. All her teachers, therefore, were instructed to keep from her all further knowledge of poverty and trouble; and particularly to instil into her mindthe fact that there was really in the world a great deal of pleasure and happiness.”
Over across the table Mrs. Merideth shivered a little.
“Dear me!” she sighed. “I do hope the child is well over those notions. I shouldn’t want her to mix up here with the mill people. I never did quite like those settlement women, anyway, and only think what might happen with one in one’s own family!”
“I don’t think I should worry, sister sweet,” laughed Frank. “I haven’t seen much of the young lady, but I think I have seen enough for that. I fancy the teachers succeeded in their mission. As near as I can judge, Miss Margaret Kendall does not resemble your dreaded ‘settlement worker’ in the least. However, we’ll wait and see.”
There was something of the precision of clockwork in matters and things at Hilcrest. A large corps of well-trained servants in charge of an excellent housekeeper left Mrs. Merideth free to go, and come, and entertain as she liked. For fifteen years now she had been mistress of Hilcrest, ever since her mother had died, in fact. Widowed herself at twenty-two after a year of married life, and the only daughter in a family of four children, she had been like a second mother to her two younger brothers. Harry, the eldest brother, had early left the home roof to study medicine. Frank, barely twenty when his brother Harry lost his life, had even then pleased his father by electing the mills as his life-work. And now, five years after that father’s death, Ned was sharing his brother Frank’s care and responsibility in keeping the great wheels turning and the great chimneys smoking in the town below.
Della Merideth was essentially a woman who liked—and who usually obtained—the strawberries and cream of life. Always accustomed to luxury, she demanded as a matter of course rich clothing and dainty food. That there were people in the world whose clothing was coarse and whose food was scanty, she well knew; and knowing this she was careful that her donations to the Home Missionary Society and the Woman’s Guild were prompt and liberal. Beyond this her duty did not extend, she was sure. As for any personal interest in the recipients of her alms, she had none whatever; and would, indeed, have deemed it both unnecessary and unladylike that she should have had such interest. Her eyes were always on the hills and meadows on the west side of the house, and even her way to and from Hilcrest was carefully planned so that she might avoid so far as was possible, the narrow, ill-smelling streets of the town on the other side of the hill.
Frank Spencer was a hard-headed, far-seeing man of business—inside the office of Spencer & Spencer; outside, he was a delightful gentleman—a little grave, perhaps, for his thirty-three years, but none the less a favorite, particularly withanxious mothers having marriageable, but rather light-headed, daughters on their hands. His eyes were brown, his nose was straight and long, and his mouth firm and clean-cut. His whole appearance was that of a man sure of himself—and of others. To Frank Spencer the vast interests of Spencer & Spencer, as represented by the huge mills that lined the river bank, were merely one big machine; and the hundreds of men, women, and children that dragged their weary way in and out the great doors were but so many cogs in the wheels. That the cogs had hearts that ached and heads that throbbed did not occur to him. He was interested only in the smooth and silent running of the wheels themselves.
Ned was the baby of the house. In spite of his length of limb and breadth of shoulder he was still looked upon by his brother and sister as little more than a boy. School, college, and a year of travel had trained his brain, toughened his muscles, and browned his skin, and left him full of enthusiasm for his chosen work, which just now meant helping to push Spencer & Spencer to the top notch of power and prosperity.
For five years the two brothers and the widowedsister in the great house that crowned Prospect Hill, had been by themselves save for the servants and the occasional guests—and the Spencers were a clannish family, so people said. However that might have been, there certainly was not one of the three that was not conscious of a vague fear and a well-defined regret, whenever there came the thought of this strange young woman who was so soon to enter their lives.
To be a Spencer was to be hospitable, however, and the preparations for the expected guest were prompt and generous. By Tuesday the entire house, even to its inmates, was ready with a cordial welcome for the orphan girl.
In his big touring car Frank Spencer went to the station to meet his ward. With him was Mrs. Merideth, and her eyes, fully as anxiously as his, swept the crowd of passengers alighting from the long train. Almost simultaneously they saw the tall young woman in gray; and Mrs. Merideth sighed with relief as Frank gave a quick exclamation and hurried forward.
“At least she looks like a lady,” Mrs. Merideth murmured, as she followed her brother.
“You are Margaret Kendall, I am sure,” Frankwas saying; and Mrs. Merideth saw the light leap to the girl’s eyes as she gave him her hand.
“And you are Mr. Spencer, my guardian—‘Uncle Frank.’ Am I still to call you ‘Uncle Frank’?” Mrs. Merideth heard a clear voice say. The next moment she found herself looking into what she instantly thought were the most wonderful eyes she had ever seen.
“And I am Mrs. Merideth, my dear—‘Aunt Della,’ I hope,” she said gently, before her brother could speak.
“Thank you; and it will be ‘Aunt Della,’ I’m sure,” smiled the girl; and again Mrs. Merideth marveled at the curious charm of the eyes that met her own.
The big touring car skirted the edge of the town, avoiding as usual the narrower streets, and turning as soon as possible into a wide, elm-bordered avenue.
“We have to climb to reach Hilcrest,” called Frank over his shoulder, as the car began a steep ascent.
“Then you must have a view as a reward,” rejoined Margaret.
“We do,” declared Mrs. Merideth,—“but not here,” she laughed, as the car plunged into the depths of a miniature forest.
It was a silent drive, in the main. The man in front had the car to guide. The two women in the tonneau dropped an occasional word, but for the most part their eyes were fixed on bird or flower, or on the shifting gleams of sunlight through the trees. The very fact that there was no constraint in this silence argued well for the place the orphan girl had already found in the hearts of her two companions.
Not until the top of the hill was reached, and the car swung around the broad curve of the driveway, did the full beauty of the panorama before her burst on Margaret’s eyes. She gave a low cry of delight.
“Oh, how beautiful—how wonderfully, wonderfully beautiful!” she exclaimed.
Her eyes were on the silver sheen of the river trailing along the green velvet of the valley far below—she had turned her back on the red-roofed town with its smoking chimneys.
The sun was just setting when a little later she walked across the lawn to where a rustic seat marked the abrupt descent of the hill. Far below the river turned sharply. On the left it flowed through a cañon of many-windowed walls, and under a pall of smoke. On the right it washed the shores of flowering meadows, and mirrored the sunset sky in its depths.
So absorbed was Margaret in the beauty of the scene that she did not notice the figure of a man coming up the winding path at her left. Even Ned Spencer himself did not see the girl until he was almost upon her. Then he stopped short, his lips breaking into a noiseless “Well, by Jove!”
A twig snapped under his foot at his next step, and the girl turned.
“Oh, it’s you,” she said absorbedly. “I couldn’t wait. I came right out to see it,” she finished, her eyes once more on the valley below. The brothers, at first glance, looked wonderfully alike, and Margaret had unhesitatingly taken Ned to be Frank.
Ned did not speak. He, too, like his sister an hour before, had fallen under the spell of a pair of wondrous blue eyes.
“It seems to me,” said the girl, slowly, “that nothing in the world would ever trouble me if I had that to look at.”
“It seems so to me, too,” agreed Ned—but he was not looking at the view.
The girl turned sharply. She gave a little cry of dismay. The embarrassed red flew to her cheeks.
“Oh, you—you are not Uncle Frank at all!” she stammered.
A sudden light of comprehension broke over Ned’s face. And so this was Margaret. How stupid of him not to have known at once!
He laughed lightly and made a low bow.
“I have not that honor,” he confessed. “But you—you must be Miss Kendall.”
“And you?”
“I?” Ned smiled quizzically. “I? Oh, I am—yourUncleNed!” he announced; and his voice and his emphasis told her that he fully appreciated his privilege in being twenty-five—and uncle to a niece of twenty-three.
By the end of the month the family at Hilcrest wondered how they had ever lived before they saw the world and everything in it through the blue eyes of Margaret Kendall—the world and everything in it seemed so much more beautiful now!
Never were the long mornings in the garden or on the veranda so delightful to Mrs. Merideth as now with a bright, sympathetic girl to laugh, chat, or keep silent as the whim of the moment dictated; and never were the summer evenings so charming to Frank as now when one might lie back in one’s chair or hammock and listen to a dreamy nocturne or a rippling waltz-song, and realize that the musician was no bird of passage, but that she was one’s own beloved ward and was even now at home. As for Ned—never were the golf links in so fine a shape, nor the tennis court and croquet ground so alluring; and never had he known before how many really delightful trips there were within a day’s run for his motor-car.
And yet——
“Della, do you think Margaret is happy?” asked Frank one day, as he and his sister and Ned were watching the sunset from the west veranda. Margaret had gone into the house, pleading a headache as an excuse for leaving them.
Della was silent. It was Ned who answered, indignantly.
“Why, Frank, of course she’s happy!”
“I’m not so—sure,” hesitated Frank. Then Mrs. Merideth spoke.
“She’s happy, yes; but she’s—restless.”
Frank leaned forward.
“That’s it exactly,” he declared with conviction. “She’s restless—and what’s the matter? That’s what I want to know.”
“Nonsense! it’s just high spirits,” cut in Ned, with an impatient gesture. “Margaret’s perfectly happy. Doesn’t she laugh and sing and motor and play tennis all day?”
“Yes,” retorted his brother, “she does; but behind it all there’s a curious something that I can’t get at. It is as if she were—were trying to get away from something—something within herself.”
Mrs. Merideth nodded her head.
“I know,” she said. “I’ve seen it, too.”
“Ah, you have!” Frank turned to his sister with a troubled frown. “Well, what is it?”
“I don’t know.” Mrs. Merideth paused, her eyes on the distant sky-line. “I have thought—once or twice,” she resumed slowly, “that Margaret might be—in love.”
“In love!” cried two voices in shocked amazement.
Had Mrs. Merideth been observant she might have seen the sudden paling of a smooth-shaven face, and the quick clinching of a strong white hand that rested on the arm of a chair near her; but she was not observant—in this case, at least—and she went on quietly.
“Yes; but on the whole I’m inclined to doubt that now.”
“Oh, you are,” laughed Ned, a little nervously. His brother did not speak.
“Yes,” repeated Mrs. Merideth; “but I haven’t decided yet what it is.”
“Well, I for one don’t believe it’s anything,” declared Ned, stubbornly. “To me she seems happy, and I believe she is.”
Frank shook his head.
“No,” he said. “By her own confession she has been flitting from one place to another all over the world; and, though perhaps she does not realize it herself, I believe her coming here was merely another effort on her part to get away from this something—this something that while within herself, perhaps, is none the less pursuing her, and making her restless and unhappy.”
“But what can it be?” argued Ned. “She’s not so different from other girls—only nicer. She likes good times and pretty clothes, and is always ready for any fun that’s going. I’m sure it isn’t anything about those socialistic notions that Della used to worry about,” he added laughingly. “She’s got well over those—if she ever had them, indeed. I don’t believe she’s looked toward the mills since she’s been here—much less wanted to know anything about the people that work in them!”
“No, it isn’t that,” agreed Frank.
“Perhaps it isn’t anything,” broke in Della, with sudden cheeriness. “Maybe it is a little dull here for her after all her gay friends and interesting travels. Perhaps she is a little homesick, but is trying to make us think everything is all right,and she overdoes it. Anyway, we’ll ask some nice people up for a week or two. I fancy we all need livening up. We’re getting morbid. Come, whom shall we have?”