"Oh, are we home?" she said, as she bounded out. She grasped the umbrella, and ran up the pathway to the big piazza of the mansion.
She was so gleeful that she bolted toward the door, which was not opened soon enough to suit her impetuous haste to get within; and when it was opened, she rushed in, forgetting to lower the umbrella. This action caused the footman to look aghast at the dripping water and her much bedraggled skirts. And not till she had gone to the center of the big reception room, and had left a trail of water behind on the polished floors and turkish rugs, on curtains, chairs and settees, much to their ruination, did she notice her absentmindedness.
"Why, Edith!" exclaimed her mother, with uplifted hands.
"Oh, mamma! mamma!" exclaimed Edith, out of breath, almost.
"What is the matter, Edith?" asked her mother, excitedly, as she came rushing toward her from her cozy corner, where she had been embowered this dreary night, among richly-scented cushions. "One would think it raining in here, Edith, from the way your umbrella is shedding water.
Put it down, and explain yourself, Edith!"
"My, oh, my," laughed Edith, for the first time realizing that she was still carrying the umbrella.
"What is it, Edith? What has happened?" continued her mother. "My! Your clothing are so wet! What has happened to that hat?"
"Enough for one night, mamma--enough," returned Edith, now lowering the umbrella, and looking it over searchingly--at the handle, at the material, at the ferrule, at the ta.s.sel, at the "J. W." on the silver plated strip that formed a narrow ring around the briar root handle.
Then, without answering her mother definitely, she went into the great hall and deposited "J. W."s" rain shade into a glistening receptacle of pottery with a dragon"s head looking viciously at her from one side.
"Mamma! Mamma!" she exclaimed, joyfully, with soiled hat, wet coat and soaked shoes still on.
"What is it, Edith? Do tell me! What has happened?" questioned her mother for the third time, as she stood with her hands clasped before her in expectation of hearing something terrible, and wringing them sometimes to give vent to her wrought up feelings.
"I had a most extraordinary experience this evening, mamma," answered Edith, slowly pulling off her wet gloves that seemed to want to adhere to the flesh. Edith was looking down at her hands, with a very pleasant smile lighting up her face, which she turned into gyratory expressions now and then as she pulled and jerked at the clinging glove fingers.
"Tell me, Edith--tell me quickly, before something happens to me," said her mother, now impatient at Edith"s slowness.
"It was such an extraordinary affair, mamma," answered Edith, finally getting off her gloves, and then reaching up to remove her hat, "that I am still all excited about it, mamma--and the old hat is ruined--call the maid to a.s.sist me into dry clothing--look at that hat, mamma; it fell into the gutter," and she turned it round and round, just as John had done, looking at it admiringly--not that she admired it for its beauty in its present condition, oh, no; but for something else; and she touched it in several spots with her little bare hands, which she could not forbore doing on any other occasion.
"Edith! Why are you so procrastinating? I cannot tolerate your delay longer! Answer me! What has happened?" demanded the little bouncing mother, with some pretention toward exasperation.
"Oh, mamma," answered Edith, with charming affection, "I will, I will, if you will only give me time. It was such an extraordinary event that I want plenty of breath to proceed with the story. Nothing serious has happened, mamma--but it was unusual."
"Go to your room, Edith, and then return to me with changed clothing, and tell me what it is that excites you so," said her mother, now reconciled and satisfied that her daughter had not met with any serious mishap.
Edith, thereupon, kissed her mother, fondly patted her cheek, and then, when her maid came, tripped lightly to her dressing room.
"Sarah, I never before felt like doing things for myself as I do now,"
said Edith to her maid, as she sat down to have her shoes removed.
"And would you?" meekly asked the maid, looking up at her mistress.
"Indeed, I would," returned Edith. "I would commence to learn at once were it not for giving offense to my parents."
"And leave me without my lady to wait on and love?" asked the maid, apprehensive of her position. "I could not bear it, dear lady. Why, Miss Edith, I have been with you since you were a teeny baby, and I love you so that I imagine sometimes you are my own dear child."
"Never mind, Sarah; don"t be alarmed," returned Edith. "I will keep you if I do learn to wait on myself. But I was thinking, Sarah, that you cannot always tell what might happen. Every one of we mortals is a possible subject for the poorhouse; and if it should come to anything like that I should want to know how to bear my own burdens."
"Don"t tell me, Edith," cried Sarah, now alarmed, "that it has come to that!"
"Oh, no, indeed, Sarah," replied Edith, consolingly. "At least not that I know of anything of the kind as being likely to happen. But that was not it, Sarah--not it--why, what am I saying?--it is something else."
Sarah looked up quickly at Edith. Edith was half serious, half mirthful in the little laugh that followed her words. And she toyed with Sarah"s graying hairs.
"Edith, are you keeping any secrets from me?" asked the suspicious Sarah.
"Now, Sarah, do not be cross with me, will you, if I tell you?" asked Edith, with some hesitancy about revealing what had so recently happened to give her such a wonderful new vision of life.
"Never--never, Edith--unless you say," promised Sarah.
"I met the finest young man this evening, Sarah," began Edith, slowly, blushingly, still toying with Sarah"s hair, Sarah still being on her knees before her mistress. "There--I have let it out! Now, don"t you tell, Sarah. No, of course, you will not?"
"Since you have forbidden any of the young bloods of your own set coming to see you, I am anxious to know just where you got your "finest young man,"" said Sarah, sarcastically.
"I found him!"
"Is he rich?" asked Sarah.
"Never thought of that!"
"Where did you find him, Edith?"
"b.u.mped into him in the streets--now, don"t scold me, Sarah!"
"Why, Edith!" exclaimed Sarah, rising, and holding up her hands, and opening wide her prudish eyes. Sarah"s sense of the proper fitness of things old-maidenishly would not permit her even to meditate on such a horrible deed.
"Do not be unduly alarmed, Sarah," calmly remarked Edith. "It was an accident--oh, such an extraordinary accident, Sarah, and so ridiculous on my part that I still feel the effects of it on my mirthful nature."
"Tell me all about it, my dear Edith?" said Sarah, now b.u.t.toning up the back of Edith"s dinner gown.
"If you will not tell--promise?"
"You have my promise, Edith; but you wouldn"t keep such a secret from your mother, would you?"
"I do not want to, Sarah; but I am afraid, if I tell her, she will scold me."
"Now, what did you do, Edith?" asked Sarah.
"Stood in the rain the longest time talking to the strange young man."
"Why, Edith!" exclaimed Sarah, for the fifth or sixth time.
"No why about it, Sarah. It was an unavoidable accident. I ran into him, he into me. My hat fell off, rolled into the gutter, and my umbrella was rendered limp in one of its poor wings. Now, could I help that, Sarah?"
"Perhaps not."
"Well, he recovered my hat, held his umbrella over me while I put it on again, gave me his umbrella and he took my crippled one."
"Is that all?"