106“Darling Lady Love of Mine:“Are you in Ventnor still? Shall you be there the 23d? I don’t know what I shall do, if you leave the Isle of Wight before the 27th. I wanted to cable, but father thought it was unnecessary and of course I couldn’t afford to do it on my own account. They charge terribly for cabling. And this letter may not reach you till you are gone, ortheyare. Odear!It just worries me to death to think about it. And there you are so near and I have wanted you and Frieda to meet so long. You may even be passing each other on the street or somewhere and not recognizing each other.Haveyou seen her? You’d surely know her, if you stopped to think, for Mother always said she looks like Mona Lisa and you’d notice Mona Lisa if you saw her. Even if she did have on a sailor suit too big for her, and a funny soup-bowl hat. Only perhaps she doesn’t wear such things now. It’s two years since I saw her, almost, that is, and I don’t know how she dresses.“Aunt Clara! I was just going to sign my name and read this over and I haven’t told you what I was writing for at all. You will think me a dreadful rattlebrain! It’s just that we got a post card to-day from the Langes saying that they were on the Isle of Wight for several days, and I thought right away that you simply must meet them. It’s such a little island! They wrote from Ryde.107O, I’ll enclose the postal. It will tell you all about where they are to be, and you will try your very hardest to see them, won’t you? You couldn’t help loving them, every one, dear Frau Marie and the funny Herr Professor. And nothing is far in England.“Your loving lovingHannah.”“P. S. I wrote Frieda to look for you.”
106“Darling Lady Love of Mine:
“Are you in Ventnor still? Shall you be there the 23d? I don’t know what I shall do, if you leave the Isle of Wight before the 27th. I wanted to cable, but father thought it was unnecessary and of course I couldn’t afford to do it on my own account. They charge terribly for cabling. And this letter may not reach you till you are gone, ortheyare. Odear!It just worries me to death to think about it. And there you are so near and I have wanted you and Frieda to meet so long. You may even be passing each other on the street or somewhere and not recognizing each other.Haveyou seen her? You’d surely know her, if you stopped to think, for Mother always said she looks like Mona Lisa and you’d notice Mona Lisa if you saw her. Even if she did have on a sailor suit too big for her, and a funny soup-bowl hat. Only perhaps she doesn’t wear such things now. It’s two years since I saw her, almost, that is, and I don’t know how she dresses.
“Aunt Clara! I was just going to sign my name and read this over and I haven’t told you what I was writing for at all. You will think me a dreadful rattlebrain! It’s just that we got a post card to-day from the Langes saying that they were on the Isle of Wight for several days, and I thought right away that you simply must meet them. It’s such a little island! They wrote from Ryde.107O, I’ll enclose the postal. It will tell you all about where they are to be, and you will try your very hardest to see them, won’t you? You couldn’t help loving them, every one, dear Frau Marie and the funny Herr Professor. And nothing is far in England.
“Your loving lovingHannah.”
“P. S. I wrote Frieda to look for you.”
The blue eyes were full of laughter this time.
“Rattlebrain! I should say so. And of course,–yes, she did forget to enclose the postal. It’s a wonder she didn’t cable. Now here am I, exhorted to meet three German people of whom I know these facts: Professor Lange of Berlin, the Frau Professor and their daughter Frieda, who looks like Mona Lisa and–perhaps–wears sailor suits too large for her and a funny soup-bowl hat. Were in Ryde some time ago, and, I judge, expected to be on the Isle until the 27th. To-day is the 26th. Well, I’m afraid, Hannah dear, you’ll have to learn to keep your head a little better, when you wish to carry out your pleasant ideas. I wonder what she wrote to Frieda.”
She rose from her seat on the ivy-covered grass, and strolled leisurely back toward her hotel. The afternoon light was low and the little church she passed on her way seemed more than usually quaint108and inviting. Half-way by, she turned irresolutely, then entered the churchyard.
A local guide was showing a party of tourists about.
Miss Lyndesay was turning away to avoid them, when a deep“Ach, so!”followed by a feminine“Wunderhübsch! Ganz malerisch!”fell on her ear. She looked more closely at the little group. A gentleman in a long linen duster, with a loosely rolled umbrella under his arm, was gazing at the church most earnestly. He stepped back to get a better view, and colliding with a mossy headstone, turned and bowed to it politely with an apology. The little woman at his side paid no attention to him or to the guide, but followed with her eyes a plump young girl in a sailor-suit, who was stooping to gather flowers.
“Frieda,” she called, “pluck not those blossoms!”
Miss Lyndesay approached the young girl. Mona Lisa’s inscrutable eyes and elusive smile looked up from below an impossible hat.
“I was looking for you, Frieda,” said Miss Lyndesay. “But Hannah said you were in Ryde.”
“Yesterday, gracious lady,” said Frieda, ducking in a courtesy, “but to-day, no. We have sought you, too, and vainly.Vater,Mütterchen, behold Hannah’s beloved lady. We have found ourselves at last!”
“O Dear! It seems as though I couldn’t wait a minute longer. It takes such an eternity for them to get in. Do you think you can see her, Karl? Take the glasses and look. See if you don’t think that little red speck in the bow is her?”
“After the verb ‘to be’–”
“O, bother, Karl! You are fussier about my English than my German.”
The tall fair young man smiled, but answered stubbornly: “It’s a fact, Hannah, you are more careless about English than about German. Not in grammar only, but in pronunciation. How is a poor foreigner to guess that ’sumpn’ for instance means ‘something’?”
“If it didn’t mean anything, I wouldn’t say it,” retorted Hannah saucily. “Is there any other criticism you have to make upon my use of my native tongue, Mr. Germany?”
“You drop your final ‘g’ occasionally, and always your final ‘r’,” went on the accuser.
Hannah laughed. “You can’t hear an ‘r’ unless110it’s rolled over the tongue like macaroni, Karl Von Arndtheim! Just wait till you hear the western girls talk, and you’ll be satisfied. Look! Look! It’s as much as an inch nearer. Give me the glasses again. I do believe that’s Frieda. No, not the red one, but the blue one with the veil floating. Can you see?”
Karl pushed his way through the crowd, drawing Hannah safely along into a little open space at one side. Stationing himself against a pile of boxes, he helped her climb to the top and support herself by clinging to his shoulder.
“There, child, you can sit and watch, and she’ll see you better than if you were mixed up in the crowd. Put up that sunshade and wave it. She will think you are a great blue bird ready to fly out and meet her.”
“I wish I were a gull. I’d fly right to her dear shoulder and peck her cheek. But are you sure I’m not too heavy, Karl? This thing is wobbly and I lean on you awfully for such a fat lady as I am.”
“I can endure it! I say, Hannah, now she is so nearly here, I’m beginning to get excited myself.Die niedliche Kleine!It doesn’t seem two years ago that you youngsters used to send cakes and things down to my window from yours. You were a pair of ministering angels.”
“Wasn’t it fun? Poor Karl! I did pity you so,111cooped up in the house that way. And you played the violin like an angel yourself, like a grieving one.”
“Well, we’ve all given up the angel hypothesis by this time, though it was useful in getting us interested in each other. There! This time I see her, not in red nor in blue, but in brown. See! She is jumping up and down and waving to us.”
The moments that followed while the great vessel swung heavily into place alongside the pier, and the ropes were made fast, and the gangplank was flung across, seemed interminable to impatient Hannah. Frieda was almost the first to land, and as she stepped on shore, she found herself lifted in a mighty hug, which she returned with all the strength of two muscular arms, gasping little cries of “Ach, meine Hannah!” as she did so.
When the embracing stopped for a moment, Karl stepped forward, hat in hand, to greet Frieda in his turn. She seized his hand and wrung it, repeating: “Ach, my heart could burst for gladness. My dears! My dears! But where is Miss Lyndesay?”
“Miss Lyndesay?” cried Hannah, looking wildly about. “Not my Miss Lyndesay?” But as she spoke, some one bent down and kissed her mouth, rounded with amazement.
“Yes, your Miss Lyndesay, and Frieda’s guardian for the present. We must get out of the crowd a little, Hannah, and then we can tell you all about112it. Is this Mr. Von Arndtheim? I think I shall have to introduce myself. Will you find the way to our trunks, please? I had the hand luggage taken off at once. It’s fortunate we both belong in L.”
Somehow the little group made its way inside the great roofed-over place where the customs inspectors were doing their disagreeable duty to trunks and suitcases. Under a great black “L” Karl soon had Miss Lyndesay’s and Frieda’s trunks opened and passed upon, while Hannah struggled to collect her wits, and control her unspeakable rapture. Frieda was intent upon seeing that no harm was done her belongings, which were piled up about her, umbrella, hand-bags, a carryall, a shawl-strap, a brown linen roll withGute Reiseembroidered on it, and a long trunk with rounded edges. She resented the inspector’s opening anything, but Miss Lyndesay and Karl ignored her protest and at last the ordeal was over, and all four were seated in a carriage, driving to the club where they were to lunch with Miss Lyndesay.
“Frieda! Frieda! Put your head back in here!” said the harassed guardian of that head, in a tone of mingled amusement and weariness. “If you get her safely to Mrs. Eldred to-night, Mr. Von Arndtheim, you will do well. Frieda has escaped various sorts of peril on the voyage, rather by miraculous intervention than by any skill of mine as chaperon. Tell me, Hannah dear, how are your family?”
“‘Sure I am not too heavy, Karl?’”–Page112.
“‘Sure I am not too heavy, Karl?’”–Page112.
113Hannah had been sitting very quietly beside her beloved lady, too dazed yet to realize her unexpected good fortune. She squeezed the gloved hand hard now and answered mechanically, her eyes telling the feelings that were surging within her.
“That is good. We left Frieda’s parents well, too, and quite content after some excitement. You see, they had made plans for Frieda to come with an English friend of theirs, who was obliged only a few days before sailing-time to change her plans. Then the Professor thought he might send Frieda in the captain’s care, but that distressed Frau Lange, and they were on the point of giving it up altogether when they happened to tell me about it. I had been intending to come over soon, anyhow, and could easily arrange to take their friend’s place, and did so gladly. It was a much more interesting passage than I have usually known!”
Miss Lyndesay smiled at Frieda and Frieda smiled in return, but had almost immediately to be drawn forcibly into the carriage by Karl.
“You can see enough of America without putting your head out,” he suggested. “It is an interesting country, but not worth so much effort, I assure you.”
114They were driving down Commonwealth Avenue by this time, and even Frieda’s Berlin had never shown her a pleasanter and more decorous street. Karl thought, as she leaned forward, that she was trying to get a better view of the trumpeting angels on the spire of the church they were passing, but he was destined to be undeceived.
“I care nothing for America,” said Frieda scornfully. “But I do not trust that man. I cannot see all myHandgepäck, only the ends of two bags. Let us stop him and count them!”
“Americans don’t steal!” said Hannah hotly.
“Neither do Germans!” cried Frieda, and Karl looked at the two with consternation.
“See here,Kinder,” he put in. “This is a little too much like old times. You are two years older now, and shouldn’t be so belligerent.”
“Bell-i-gerent?” Frieda fumbled in her coat pocket and brought out a little red book. “I do not know that word. I will seek him.”
“O, dear,” moaned Hannah. “Are you going around seeking words in a dictionary all the time, Frieda? I’ll put a stop to that, you’d better believe.”
Miss Lyndesay watched the little scene in silence. On the way across the ocean she had wondered more than once what effect Frieda’s decidedly young and aggressive nature would have on Hannah, whom she knew to be easily affected by her companions.
115“Catherine will have her hands full, keeping them soothed,” she thought now, and was glad when the carriage stopped before the familiar house with the mail-box between the posts, and Karl helped her out.
“B-e-l-l-i-g-e-r-e-n-t!” spelled Frieda triumphantly, stumbling out of the carriage, “‘Inclined to fight; war-like; pug-na-cious–’ Ah!”
Her eyes fell upon theHandgepäck. “Eins, zwei, drei, vier, fünf,–wo denn? So! fünf, sechs. Es sind alle hier!”
“There!” said Hannah. “I told you the man wouldn’t steal!”
Frieda opened her lips to answer, but Karl caught up all the luggage he could carry and led the way to the steps where Miss Lyndesay was waiting, and the two girls followed him, forgetting national disputes in common interest in their surroundings, as they had done more than once before.
At luncheon in the pretty club dining-room, Frieda ate industriously and silently, as Hannah remembered seeing her do of old. Hannah herself did justice to the good dishes, though she could hardly take her eyes from Miss Lyndesay’s beautiful face, and could think of nothing whatever to say on any subject. Karl and his hostess chatted pleasantly and liked each other warmly. After luncheon, Karl went out to send cablegrams, and116Miss Lyndesay took the girls up to the attractive white and green room which had been assigned to her.
“Can’t you come out home with us?” asked Hannah wistfully. “I know Mamma would love to have you. She couldn’t come in to meet the boat, because we’ve been at the shore until two days ago, and she was getting the house open; and Dad was too busy, so they sent me down with Karl. But I know if they were here, they would beg you to come. Can’t you, please?”
Miss Lyndesay took Hannah into her arms and kissed the warm red cheeks. As she did so, she saw a queer little look of annoyance cross Frieda’s face, and she put out her arm and drew Frieda close, too.
“I’d like nothing better than to be with both of you for days and days. Think how I shall miss my little roommate! But I must stay in town a day or two to do some necessary shopping. You know, I am going to spend the rest of the summer in Brookmeadow, a beautiful little village, not far from your home, Hannah. I’m going to fit up a studio there, out of an old house I own. And listen, both of you! Before Frieda goes out West, you two are to come over and spend a day and night with me in my home there. Shall you like that?”
The sunshine on their faces answered her, but Hannah’s grew wistful again.
117“You are going to be so near my home all summer, and I’m going away, myself.”
“But you are going to Winsted and Catherine. Don’t forget that. And I shall be at Brookmeadow still when you come home. Hannah, Hannah, haven’t you learned yet that one can’t have everything that is delightful all at once?”
“I suppose you mean about sorrows making you appreciate blessings and so on,” pouted Hannah. “But I don’t believe it. I know I could be happy all the time, if I could have all the things I want just when I want them!”
Miss Lyndesay did not smile. “Perhaps you could!” she said slowly. “You will never have a chance to prove it. It’s not within the limits of possibility. But I had an idea, Hannah, that you were one of the people who could manage pretty well to be happy with things as they came.”
Hannah flushed and buried her face on Miss Lyndesay’s shoulder. Frieda looked restless.
“Bitte, sprechen Sie mal Deutsch,” she said suddenly. “Es tut mir furchtbar weh, immer Englisch zu hören!”
Quick as a flash Hannah’s head came up, and she laughed a delicious laugh. “Poor Frieda,” she said in German, “does it hurt you awfully to hear English all the time? There! There! I know how you feel. Did you talk German to her coming over, Miss Lyndesay?”
118Miss Lyndesay looked guilty. “I’m afraid I did. You see, it was such a fine opportunity for me to practise, and I didn’t want her to be homesick, as well as–”
“I was not seasick,” declared Frieda stoutly, and both the others laughed.
“I have crossed the seas full many times,” said Clara Lyndesay smiling, “but never have I known any one who was seasick! But to change the subject, it’s almost time for Karl to be back to take you to the train, children; and Frieda has a spot on her coat which I can remove if you will open my suitcase, Hannah, and bring me the little bottle of benzine in the left-hand corner. Mrs. Eldred must not think I have brought her an untidy littleMädchen!”
They spent a cozy half hour chatting in German or English, as the spirit or their respective inabilities moved them, and when Karl arrived to escort them to the station, they were in a blithe mood, which even the ordeal of parting from Miss Lyndesay did not shake.
“You are coming very soon to visit me,” she said, as she kissed them good-by, “and you are both to be good until then, and not belligerent. Remember you are children no longer.”
“Aren’t you a child any longer, Frieda?” asked Hannah with interest, as they entered the carriage.
119“Indeed, I am not. Did you not see that I make no moreKnixes?”
“That’s so. Isn’t it fun not to? Don’t you ever forget?”
“Only once. When I met Miss Lyndesay in the churchyard,” said Frieda, dwelling on the memory.
“No wonder!” said Karl. “I would salaam before her, myself.”
“So would I!” agreed Hannah. “But Frieda, then, if you are no longer a child, at last you have a will?”
Frieda nodded her head emphatically.
“Now,” she said, “I have a will.”
And Karl, looking into her sturdy face, into the eyes which he had sometimes seen dancing with mischief, sometimes flashing anger, and sometimes brimming with sorrow, murmured a prayer under his breath, for gracious guidance for that new-claimed “will.”
At the end of the short railway journey, Mr. Eldred met the girls and conducted them to the house where Mrs. Eldred waited with a heart-warming welcome for her little guest.
It was a pretty home and Frieda felt the charm of it instantly as she went up stairs with Hannah to the little square room which she was to occupy. At the same time, however, she felt strange and out of place. She was conscious of a contrast between her own hat and Hannah’s, between her heavy wool dress and Hannah’s blue linen suit, between her strong, serviceable–and ugly–shoes, and Hannah’s pumps, also strong and serviceable, but far from ugly. The six pieces of hand luggage and the queer steamer trunk, when deposited in the center of the little room, with its crisp ruffled curtains, and its plain mahogany furniture, disturbed the harmony that had reigned before from the etching over the bed to the bowl of ferns on the table. Hannah was friendly and beaming, and not at all belligerent. Mrs. Eldred was all sweet, cheery thoughtfulness,121but Frieda looking at herself in the oval mirror of the dressing-table, felt a sudden throb of pity for the girl she saw there.
Hannah helped her remove her thick jacket, tucked it and her hat away in the closet, piled up the bags and asked for the trunk key.
“Mutter hat uns immer gesagt, alles an seinen Ort zu legen,” she said in a kind of chant. Frieda looked up, her eyes brightening with fun.
“Mother always told us to gargle every morning and use plenty of tooth-powder,” she said, and Hannah shrieked with glee.
“O, have you been learning English out of that ridiculous Edith and Mary book, too? I hoped you would have it, and we can do beautiful dialogues in German and English. I’ve always wanted to, but I never knew any one who could do the responses. I’ll be Edith and you can be Mary.”
Mrs. Eldred came in as Hannah flung the lid of the trunk back. Frieda’s fun died away as she reached into a little pocket and took out a letter.
“It’s for you, Tante Edith,” she said, holding it as though she loved it. “It’s from my mother–” and the tears came into her eyes as she said the word. Mrs. Eldred and Hannah exchanged glances of understanding, and Hannah caught up the water pitcher.
“I’ll get this full of warm water for you,” she said briskly, “and you must hurry and get ready122to come down stairs, for we are going to haveKaffeejust as you do in Berlin. Won’t that be fun?”
“Mamma can comfort her,” she thought to herself, as she emptied the pitcher which Sarah had filled a few minutes before, and refilled it with water a shade cooler. “I’ll leave them alone a few minutes and go down and see about the coffee. I know she will like those little currant cakes of Sarah’s.”
Frieda, however, seemed little inclined to ask consolation from Mrs. Eldred. She stood helplessly looking into her trunk, and Mrs. Eldred, feeling suddenly shy, looked helplessly at her. The clouded, silent face was so different from Hannah’s.
“Aren’t you rather warm, dear, with that heavy gown on? Let’s find something thinner to slip on before we go down stairs.”
Frieda stooped, rummaged a minute, and then produced a dress of pink cotton, fussily trimmed with lace and ribbons. “This is thinner,” she said, stonily.
“That will do though it is rather fine for home dinner,” said Mrs. Eldred gently. “But put it on, if you will, dear. I’ll tell that forgetful Hannah to bring your water at once. O, I see, she left it outside the door. There! If you want any help, just call me. I’ll go into my own room across the hall and read your mother’s letter.” She wanted to kiss the child, but Frieda’s manner forbade it.
123The pink frock had alarmed Mrs. Eldred. “Clothes make such a difference to girls,” she thought in distress. “How can I help her? She will be proud and shy, and sure to think I am criticising her mother’s taste. Dear Marie!” Whereupon she wisely suspended her puzzling and read the letter.
“I am sending Frieda with as few new clothes as possible, my dear Edith, relying upon your taste and kindness to fit her out with what she needs. I remember how differently you dressed when you came to Heidelberg, and how odd Hannah’s clothes looked to Frieda’s friends, and I want Frieda to start without a handicap. American girls are less accustomed to seeing foreigners than German girls are, and a little difference in the way of dressing might make a great difference in happiness. I am afraid my Frieda will be peculiar in many ways that cannot be remedied, so once more I ask you, will you choose for her a simple outfit such as Hannah herself would approve, and make me more than ever your grateful debtor?”
Mrs. Eldred sighed with relief. The solution of one difficulty in sight, she felt braver about all others. It was a theory of hers that food and clothes were more important to happiness than most of the subtleties poets and philosophers write about. “Homesickness is very often hunger, andWeltschmerzcan124frequently be cured by a becoming frock, or brought on by an ill-fitting one,” she meditated, as she fastened the pink and lace for Frieda.
Downstairs Hannah was busily setting forth upon a round table an appetizing array of cakes and cookies with a copper pot of coffee. Mr. Eldred had arranged to be present at this unwonted function, and Hannah chattered to him as she worked.
“Be sure you shake hands with her often, Daddy dear,” she admonished him. “She is used to so very many hand-shakings a day, you know, and we mustn’t cut her down to none at all, the very first thing. It’s little matters like that that make you homesick. And homesickness is agony, Father. I know, for I’ve been through it.”
Mr. Eldred pinched the plump cheek which showed no trace of past anguish, and Hannah seated herself upon his knee, being watchful of the pleats of her skirt as she did so!
“There’s one good thing,” she philosophized. “She can’t miss her father as I should miss you, for he is so absent-minded that he really doesn’t know her from the furniture. For all she is such a mischief inside, she acts so quiet-like and well-behaved around the house that she might almost as well be a sofa and done with it. And they have plenty of sofas, so he won’t miss her and she won’t miss him so very much, either.”
125“You imply that if you were better behaved, you would not miss me so much when we are separated! It’s sufficiently complicated. I suppose you pine for my fearful reprimands?”
That was such a delightful joke that they both laughed aloud and Mrs. Eldred and Frieda were quite in the room before they realized it, and sprang up to greet them with cordiality, if not with the ceremony Hannah had planned for.
Those first days Frieda lived in a busy whirl. Hannah, once at home, and recovered from the excitement of the day in Boston, was ashamed of her conduct on that occasion, and tried to make up for it by all sorts of thoughtful attentions to Frieda, which, with the shade of formality they involved, added a little to the loneliness they were meant to combat. Mrs. Eldred, giving up, or suspending for a time, the apparently hopeless task of winning Frieda’s confidence, attended to her wardrobe with a rapidity and fervor which astonished Frieda, accustomed to long deliberations on such matters, and no reckless buying. Even the pretty frocks and hats and shoes did not please her. She felt loyalty demanded that she should wear the things she had brought from home, and it was not till Mrs. Eldred had given her her mother’s letter to read that she consented to lay aside the German garments. Mr. Eldred took her about the city, and thoroughly enjoyed her comments on126things American, a scorn thinly veiled by polite phrases, or by an expressive silence.
She was silent most of the time, for the language was her greatest obstacle. She remembered vividly the superior feeling she had had in Berlin, when she had watched Mr. Eldred wrestle with a conditional or had heard Mrs. Eldred struggle to pronounce “ch.” It was not nearly so pleasant to be struggling one’s self, with a quite senseless “th,” for instance. Her heart filled with rage when she caught Hannah listening intently to her carefully enunciated words, and then saying suddenly with relief, “O!” as their meaning dawned upon her. Frieda had been at the head of her class in English.
“It’s really because you pronounce so very well,” Hannah explained apologetically, on one of these occasions. “You are so much more exact than we ever think of being, that it gives an unfamiliar sound to words. And besides, yours is English English and ours is United States.”
“But English English must be best,” protested Frieda, and Hannah forgot Miss Lyndesay’s warning and “flared up” for a minute, but immediately recollected herself, and ordered an ice-cream soda as a peace-offering, notwithstanding the fact that Frieda found the taste disagreeable.
“You’ll like it, when you are used to it,” she said comfortingly. “You don’t have them at home, you know.”
127“No,” growled Frieda, choking on a spoonful. “And I’m glad we don’t. Sundaes aren’t so bad, but the name is foolish! I do not wonder Miss Lyndesay lives most of the time in Europe!”
The fifth day matters came to a climax. Karl had come over from Cambridge to spend Sunday. Hannah and he seemed to be on the best of terms. They talked English faster than Frieda could understand, and they seemed to have an endless stock of jokes that had no meaning for her. Suddenly, after sitting with a brow like a thunder-cloud for a while, listening to them and declining to join in the fun, she started up and ran up stairs with a swift pounding gait that recalled to Hannah the way she used to tear madly off to school in the morning, fearful of being late.
Karl and Hannah, left behind, looked solemnly at each other. Karl whistled.
“Die Kleineis irritated about something,” he remarked.
“I don’t wonder,” said Hannah sympathizingly. “I always remember when it’s too late to do any differently. She felt left out, I suppose, and you know you do use a terrible amount of slang, nowadays. I’m awfully ashamed of us, Karl!”
Karl pondered a moment. Then he said: “I’ll fix it up all right. Here, you take this note up to Frieda. Just shove it under the door, if she won’t let you in.”
128He wrote a few lines on a card and gave it to Hannah, who promptly ran away up stairs with it. Then Karl went into the study and telephoned a garage.
In a few minutes, Frieda, shy and somewhat red-eyed, came down stairs. Hannah was nowhere to be seen, and Mrs. Eldred was out for the afternoon. At the door was a snorting automobile, with seats for just two.
“I knew Hannah would forgive us if we ran away by our two selves,” said Karl in German, meeting Frieda in the hall, and conducting her out to the machine. “She knows enough about being in a foreign country to understand that sometimes you want to be with your very own people. There! I’ll have this thing running like a charm in about a minute. Sure you’re not afraid to go out alone with me? I’ve learned a good deal about this kind of thing lately. It’s one of the courses I’m taking at Harvard. Here we go!” And there they went, speeding down the street at a rate that made a policeman, half asleep on the corner, look about him with a start. Frieda’s eyes shone, and she began to feel better.
Karl had evidently acquitted himself well in his course in motoring. He drove skilfully and easily, and they were soon outside the city in a pleasant country road. Almost any place would have seemed pleasant to Frieda just then, though, for129Karl was talking cheerily, merrily, talking in German, talking of topics she knew about, and talking exclusively to her. She discovered that the day was much more of a day than she had thought. There was a quality in the air she had not noticed earlier in the afternoon. Presently she even became confidential. Karl, with eyes and hands busy, guiding the machine, bent an attentive ear as Frieda poured out her suppressed irritation of days.
“They think it is such a fine country, Karl. I cannot understand them. If they had never travelled–but they have been over Europe! They have been in Berlin! And still they find matter for admiration in this dirty little city with its buildings all heights, and its no trees anywhere except in the parks. Where are their beautiful statues? Where is their Victory Avenue? Where are their bridges?Ach!It is a poor cheap country. Tante Edith and Mr. Eldred are heavenly kind, and Hannah I have loved with a great love, but they have very little taste, and no sense at all.”
Karl puckered up his lips in a low whistle, and Frieda blushed.
“I did not mean to say that, Karl,” she said penitently. “I am their guest. They are heavenly kind, yes.ButI do not like the country.”
It was a beautiful shady road they had come into then, and the hills at the end of it showed gracious curves.
130“This reminds me,” said Karl meditatively, “of a place I went through near the Rhine one summer vacation. It’s really quite as charming, I believe. Look here, Frieda. I’m interested in the impression you make in this country. You’re going to spend this year with a lot of girls who don’t know much about Germany or Germans, and I don’t mind telling you that I’m rather anxious to have you do us credit.”
“I shall do Germany credit, everywhere,” answered Frieda stoutly, but somewhat perturbed.
“I’d like to think that,” answered Karl, “and on the whole I guess it’s true, but if you keep on this way, I’m not so sure of it. You are sitting here this afternoon making general statements about America when you have seen only one of the less important cities. That doesn’t strike me as the way one should judge. It doesn’t seem like the kind of thing Professor Lange would do. He is very accurate and careful in his judgments. And next, you haven’t shown much enthusiasm over the things the Eldreds have done for you the last day or two. Now, I never knew any one who was so unfailingly appreciative as Frau Professor Lange.”
Frieda pouted. “But Hannah shows off.”
“Shows off? Frieda, I’m afraid your sense of humor is rather one-sided. Hannah may take advantage of your not understanding perfectly, but who taught her that that sort of thing was131funny? Who told her the brass plate over the barber’s door meant that cakes were for sale there, so that she almost went in to buy one?”
Frieda chuckled. “It was not long I could fool her. She soon learned too much. Besides, my mother would not let me.”
“You still think it was justifiable and humorous, I notice. But what would you have said if Hannah had told you to say: ‘So am I’ when strangers said: ‘I am glad to meet you’? That was what some one told me, when I first began talking English.”
“If Hannah should tell me wrong, I would tell her what I think of her!” blazed Frieda. “But you need not lecture any more, Karl. I understand, and I will be good. I will be better than Hannah. I will be better than yourself, than the saints, even. I will admire all things. Behold the ravishing country! The wonder of that sky! Not Italy, not Spain has such a dull gray color! The beauty of the dirty streets! The charm of the crowded street-cars! Only five cents a ride, sitting upon the laps of others! I will no longer sew on Sunday. I will never ask for beer. I will eat every morning little dry cushions of curled grain. I will rock madly. I will–”
“Hold on, Frieda!” shouted Karl. “Don’t reform so fast. I can’t keep within speaking distance of you. You know, the reason I scolded you so hard was because I sometimes feel just as you do about the whole country!”
132Frieda put out her hand. “Let us make a compact. For the honor of Germany, we will be scrupulously careful of what we say about America, but sometimes, all by ourselves, we can say just what we feel like saying.” Karl took her hand solemnly. “It’s a bargain, and you are a Cor-r-rker-r-r!”
Clara Lyndesay stood in the doorway of her Brookmeadow house, listening for the coming trolley. As she waited, she looked about her with satisfaction.
The big square house, freshly painted white, with green blinds at the windows, stood just at the edge of the broad elm-shaded road, known as the Albany Road because it had been, in stage-coach days, the main line between Albany and Boston. Just opposite the house was a broad meadow with a single elm in the center, and a clear line of hills for background. Boulder walls enclosed the meadow, and vines ran riot over them. The artist, looking, drew a deep breath.
“‘The lot is fallen unto me in a fair ground. Yea, I have a goodly heritage,’” she thought to herself. “I think I shall call my wander-years over, and settle down here as Aunt Abigail hoped I would, and care for her old mahogany as she did, painting a picture now and then from my own doorway. The doorway itself is the most beautiful134thing about the house,” she added, stepping down the flagged path, to view it for the hundredth time that week. Brookmeadow houses were famous for their wonderful old doorways, with carved lintels, and this was not surpassed by any of them.
Its owner’s contemplation was cut short by the far-off whir of the trolley, sounding clearly through the still morning. Miss Lyndesay walked quickly along the curving road to the Common where she was to receive her guests. Reaching the long narrow green, where a few cows nibbled placidly as in the days when a green in the center of the village was a necessary defensive measure, she walked idly up and down. The straggling road under the great elms passed the plain white meeting-house, dating from 1813, the Academy with its belfry, the little general store and post-office combined, and wound out of sight between dignified old houses, “like Aunt Abigail’s–mine now,” she corrected her thought happily. No one was in sight. Up the road came the trolley, jogging comfortably along. It stopped at the Common and its two passengers almost fell into the arms that waited to receive them.
“O-eeeeee!” sighed Hannah, getting as close to Miss Lyndesay as she could on one side, while Frieda did the same on the other with a similar ejaculation.
“Two blue girls this time!” exclaimed Miss Lyndesay.135“That is a very becoming suit, Frieda,” and then forestalling any answer, for she had known of Frau Lange’s letter to Mrs. Eldred and had guessed that Frieda would not take altogether kindly to the new clothes, she inquired of Hannah as to the health of her father and mother.
“They’re all right,” answered Hannah briefly. “And I am so glad to be here! Isn’t it just the dearest, sleepiest place you ever saw in all your life?”
“Is it your first visit here?” asked Miss Lyndesay. “I supposed you knew these villages by heart.”
“I don’t,” confessed Hannah. “I go to school all winter, and in the summer we go to the shore, and we haven’t any aunts or grandmothers or things like that living around here, so I don’t see places like this except in passing through them.”
“Well, you have a sort of aunt and grandmother combined living in Brookmeadow now, and I shall expect you to visit her often. How does it seem to you, Frieda?”
“It’s bigger than I thought it would be,” answered Frieda. “Hannah said it was aDorf. I thought there would be only two or three houses, and many little huts all close together, but we passed many houses.”
“It is a good thing for you to see a New England village,” said Miss Lyndesay, “as part of the136education you came for. And when you get out to Wisconsin, you will think you are in a different country altogether.”
“I did,” laughed Hannah. “Why, it looked as though it had been laid out with a ruler, and the trees were so little I felt as though they ought to be in flower-pots.”
“Not the beech woods, surely?”
“Dear me, no. But in the town itself. The beech woods are real forest. Is this the house? O, Aunt Clara, wouldn’t Catherineloveit?”
Miss Lyndesay was so unused to the house, herself, that she took a keen delight in showing the girls all over it, taking them from one big room into another, and telling them how to appreciate the fine old furniture.
“The hangings are all new,” she explained. “Aunt Abigail’s taste was not like her heart! She kept the old furniture, but she had gaudy wall-papers and thick lace curtains, and I have had them all replaced. They aren’t done yet, everywhere, but these main rooms are. And she had the fireplace bricked up and a stove in the living-room. I found these andirons in the garret.”
“O, let’s see the garret,” begged Hannah. “We haven’t any, with old things in it, I mean. You know our house is only a little older than I am, and mother came from the West and she didn’t have heirlooms, and father had nothing whatever137when they started. I should think this house would have been full of treasures.”
“It was. I found several good chairs and a desk in the garret. I shall have them refinished as soon as I can get around to it. There is a trunk that I have only peeped into. I saved it for you girls to open. But you must come out into the garden now, while the sun is there.”
Frieda had taken only a moderate interest in the house, but when they entered the tangled garden, German exclamations poured from her lips in a rapturous stream.
“Himmlisch! Reizend! Famos! Ach, wie wunderhübsch! Was nennt man dies? Und dies?” She flew from one blossom to another, sniffing, admiring, and asking questions about those that were unknown to her, naming the others in German, and altogether showing a degree of enthusiasm which nothing American had hitherto been able to arouse in her. It was not because of Karl’s compact, but because of her mighty love of flowers. She seemed to forget the others as she knelt before a little white tea-rose, kissing it and calling it pretty names.
Miss Lyndesay and Hannah watched her.
“Now she seems more like herself,” said Hannah frowning, “the way she was in Berlin. I wish she would stay that way!”
Miss Lyndesay looked at Hannah searchingly.
138“Frieda,” she called, “will you gather flowers for the luncheon table, please? Hannah is going to pick raspberries with me. I have a most beautiful old glass bowl to put them in.”
Frieda undertook the task assigned her joyfully, and Hannah followed Miss Lyndesay to the kitchen, where Aunt Abigail’s old servant, inherited with the house, supplied them with pails for the berry-picking. The bushes were at the other end of the garden, where they could speak without being overheard.
Miss Lyndesay said nothing at first, but she had not long to wait. Hannah had poured out her puzzles and worries in letters to this friend often, since the evening at Three Gables, long ago, when she had poured them out in words and tears, and found comfort.
It was a torrent of words this time, but Miss Lyndesay, listening, distinguished between essentials and non-essentials by a divine gift which had always been hers.
“She doesn’t seem the same Frieda,” declared Hannah, at last. “I don’t feel acquainted with her. Mamma says it is just because everything is new and strange to her. She hasn’t criticised things since she and Karl went off together for a little trip the other day, but she looks bored or unhappy and I don’t know what to do. I was a stranger when we were together before, but I’m139sure I didn’t act so, and I don’t see why she should now. So there!”
“Did you go to Germany alone?” Miss Lyndesay put the question casually, and Hannah looked up, surprised.
“Why, no. Dad and Mamma were there all the time, of course. I couldn’t have lived without them–O! I see what you mean,” and the berries dropped slowly into the half-full pail while Hannah meditated.
Clara Lyndesay, observing her bent face, felt satisfied. It was not the first time she had seen Hannah Eldred come out of a quandary with very little help.
“She doesn’t do things by halves, either,” she thought. “Frieda won’t have such a lonely time from now on.” Aloud she said:
“I wondered, when I heard you speak to Frieda in that careful explanatory way, as you might to a child who had been left in your care rather against your will, if you seemed just natural to Frieda! Frau Lange realized that there was some risk in sending Frieda over here. She told me that she knew young girls changed rapidly in tastes and ideals, and it might be that you two would not care so much for each other now. But she hoped, for the sake of the friendship between your mother and herself, that the two years would prove not to have separated you greatly. I assured her that, while140there might be some little difficulty at first, you would probably come out better friends than ever. There! I think we have quite enough berries. If you will just take them in to Evangeline, I’ll see about Frieda’s flowers. You’ll find a pitcher of shrub on the ice, and goblets on the tray all ready to bring out. We’ll arrange the flowers on the back stoop, I think, and you might bring us some refreshment there.”
Frieda had gathered flowers eagerly, but without much discrimination. Miss Lyndesay helped her sort them and make several bouquets instead of one variegated one, talking with her the while of incidents of their journey, till Frieda was entirely at her ease. By the time Hannah came out with the cool drink, the slight constraint that had existed for days between Frieda and herself seemed to have vanished. Joyfully, Hannah entered into the new spirit, and when Miss Lyndesay went in to answer Evangeline’s questions about luncheon, her guests were bubbling with mirth over some reminiscence of their Berlin days.
Immediately after luncheon, a caller arrived, with the obvious intention of spending some time. Miss Lyndesay gave the girls a trunk key and sent them off to do their garret exploring by themselves, giving them permission to do whatever they liked with anything they might find. They climbed the polished stairs, with arms interlaced, chattering141in German and English mixed, and reached the big shadowy garret out of breath. The trunks were piled in a cobwebby corner, and their key proved to belong to the lowest one in the pile. That meant much mighty tugging, but at last the encumbering ones were removed and they turned the key in the lock and lifted the heavy lid.
“O!” They spoke softly and leaned over, clinging to each other with excitement. In the top tray lay a doll dressed as if for a wedding. She wore a white satin gown, short-waisted, with a long panel down the front, embroidered with tiny pearls and gold thread. Her little feet were adorned with high-heeled slippers of white silk, also embroidered in the tiny pearls. A necklace of shining stones, and two little earrings made them gasp with delight. In the soft wavy hair was a high shell comb. The little lady held a book in her clasped hands, and her eyes, half closed, looked sleepily out from under long eyelashes.
“See! Here is a card,” said Frieda, touching the soft folds of yellowed tissue paper that lay around the little figure in the tray.
Hannah lifted the card with awe, and read: “The doll of Millicent Wadsworth, as she dressed it on her own Wedding Day, to be put aside and never played with more. The Bishop said it was a sinful Waste to dress her so, but my Husband said he did not care!”
142“What a reckless man My Husband was!” said Hannah, looking back at the doll once more. “Think of playing with dolls up to your wedding day! I wonder how old she was.”
“Let’s look in the other trays,” suggested Frieda. They removed the top one carefully, to find almost as delightful treasures in the next. Quite as delightful, perhaps, for here was the little Millicent’s wedding-gown, with her slippers and necklace and high shell comb, all like those the doll wore. Here, too, was a card, but written in an older hand:
“The Wedding Clothes of Millicent Wadsworth Berryfield, married on the 16th anniversary of her birth to John Berryfield, Esq., a Devoted Lover and Husband. She died three months and two days after of an Unknown Malady. John Berryfield returned to England, leaving these, Her Possessions, to be kept sacredly till he should come after them.”
“It’s dated almost a hundred years ago. Of course, he is dead too, now. I wonder if she pined for her doll to play with.”
Frieda, leaving speculation to Hannah, was taking the pretty garments out, one by one.
“Here is another dress!” she exclaimed. “A pink one. O, Hannah, you would look so pretty in this!” She held it up, quaint in style as the other, with a little train, flowered silk over a straight front panel of plain pink, tight sleeves with a little puff at the shoulder.
143“I wonder–Do you suppose we dare try them on? They look almost big enough.”
“Of course, we dare. Miss Lyndesay told us to do what we liked and she had peeped into this trunk, so she knew what was in it. We will be as careful as careful can be.”
They piled their arms with the delicate old fabrics and carried them down to their own room where they proceeded to dress up. It was not an easy process, for they dared not tug too hard, and Millicent had been slenderer than they, though quite as tall. The little slippers defied them, and the necklace of pearls they did not touch. “I think her husband gave her that, and no one else should ever wear it,” said Hannah, and Frieda agreed.
By the time they had finished dressing, they were flushed and rosy. They stole out into the hall and peered over the banisters to see if the caller showed signs of departure. Miss Lyndesay was just closing the door upon her. As she turned back, she heard steps on the stairs and, looking up, saw a sight she loved always afterward to remember. Two little Old World ladies, one in white and brocade, the other in flowered pink satin, came down the winding stairs, their eyes bright with excitement, their hair rough, and the big blue hair-ribbons, which they had quite forgotten to remove, showing incongruously above their minuet gowns.
144“O you pretty children!” cried Miss Lyndesay. “Millicent herself wasn’t sweeter, I’m sure, when the Bishop married her off to John. Why didn’t you bring the doll?”
“We were afraid we’d drop her,” said Hannah, stepping to the floor. “There! I’m glad I’m safely down. You can’t think what awkward skirts these are to walk in. O!”
For as she turned, Frieda stepped on her train, and with shrieks both fell to the floor, splitting their hundred-year-old seams.
Miss Lyndesay helped them up, laughing at their rueful faces, and kissing away the tears that would come at the sight of the havoc they had wrought.
“Cheer up, dear hearts! It was purest accident. And Millicent’s pretty gowns have served their purposes long ago. I’ve no doubt they can be put together again well enough, and in any case you must not care! I forbid it. Come, let’s get back into our own century, and take a walk before the sun goes down. I have no end of pretty by-paths to show you.”
That evening, there was enough chill in the air for a small fire in the living-room fireplace, and Miss Lyndesay seated herself before it on a high-backed settle, with a girl on either side of her.
“If I didn’t remember that one of the things Hannah liked me for first was my habit of sitting quietly without work,” she said, “I should be145tempted to improve these minutes by finishing the carving design I am making to go over the fireplace.”
“What is it? Let us see it, and maybe we’ll let you. You have such a peaceful way of working you don’t make me nervous as some people do.”
“It is there on the desk.”
Hannah brought the brown paper, and she and Frieda bent over it together.
“L-a-e,” spelled Hannah, but Frieda looked up, delighted.
“I know.Laetus sorte mea!It means ‘Happy in my lot!’ It is in the book Tante Edith sent me for my birthday, about the little cripple.”
“O, yes,The Story of a Short Life. I’ve read that, too,” said Hannah, “but I didn’t recognize it just at first. I should think, if it is to be your motto, you’d have to change the gender and make it ’laeta,’ Aunt Clara.”
Miss Lyndesay laughed. “I’m glad you both know the story. I expected Hannah to, but hardly Frieda. Did you read it all by yourself, dear?”
“Yes,” answered Frieda proudly. “I have read seven English books, and I like that best. Mother and I made a list of Poor Things the way Leonard did.”
“O, how nice!” cried Hannah. “Did you put Bertha’s lame sister on it?”
“Yes, and Onkel Heinrich’s brother who can not146see and is always cheerful, and the little woman who sells string and roses in the shop under us, and Edna Helm who had to stop school and go to work because her father couldn’t afford to take care of her.”
“Poor Edna!” said Hannah. “I liked her best of all your friends. I’m going to start a Poor Things book myself, when I get home.”
“Have you ever heard of the Guild of Brave Poor Things in England?” asked Miss Lyndesay, and as the girls showed their interest she went on to tell them of the organization which took its name and its motive from Mrs. Ewing’s little story, and has grown into a large organization with industrial schools and shops.
“So all these people, boys and men and women and girls who cannot work in factories, because of some infirmity, are enabled to make beautiful things and to sell them. I bought some of their doll furniture when I was last in London. Let me see. Yes, it was in the box I unpacked yesterday.”
“Let me get it,” begged Frieda, and as soon as she had been told where to look she was off. She came quickly back again bringing a doll’s white-wood bed, strong and well-made as the fine old furniture which had outlived Aunt Abigail and her parents.
“It is just right for Millicent’s doll,” cried Frieda, as she brought it in. “Couldn’t we put her in it,147Tante Clara, to make up for having torn the pretty dresses?”
“Indeed you may. I had no one in mind to give it to, but bought it because I had enjoyed visiting the school at Chailey.”
“Can all the cripples make pretty things like this?” asked Hannah, wondering, as Frieda placed the bed in her hands.
“O, no, only a very few. But the Guild of Brave Poor Things does many other things, besides establishing the schools. All maimed persons may belong, and the guild makes investigations, finds out if they can be helped by surgery, and, if not, tries to make their lives happier in every possible way. Of course, those of them who can use their hands are happier doing so than they could be in any other way. Every Friday afternoon, from three to six, they meet in the settlement rooms and have music and games and reading, and hear talks on interesting subjects by ladies and gentlemen who are glad to tell them of their particular lines of work. Then they have a short service of prayer–”
“Do they sing the tug-of-war hymn?” asked Hannah eagerly. “I remember about that better than anything else in the book.”
“Yes, they almost always sing that. I heard them, myself,” and Miss Lyndesay’s eyes grew sweeter at the thought. “I have never heard anything more affecting than that singing: