"He may want to provide for her future if she"s really an orphan, as he says."
"I don"t believe she is an orphan. Before her precious uncle drowned her reply with one of his roars I distinctly heard her say that her father was alive," retorted the exasperated Mr. Clark.
"The child would be truly fortunate to have all of you dear people to look after her," Mrs. Smith smiled, "but if her welfare isn"t his reason, what is?"
"I believe it has something to do with that piece of land," conjectured Mr. Clark. "He never said a word about it to-night. That"s a bad sign.
He wants that land and he"s made up his mind to have it and this has something to do with it."
"How could it have?" inquired Mrs. Smith.
"This is all I can think of. Before we can sell that land or any of our land we must have the consent of all the living heirs or else the t.i.tle isn"t good, as you very well know. Now Emily Leonard and her descendants are the only heirs missing. This man says that the child, Mary, is Emily Leonard"s grandchild and that Emily and her son, the child"s father, are dead. That would mean that if we wanted to sell that land we"d be obliged to have the signatures of my sisters and my nephew, Stanley, and myself, and also of the guardian of this child. Of course Hapgood will say he"s the child"s guardian. Do you suppose, Mrs. Smith, that he"s going to sign any deed that gives you that land? Not much! He"ll say it"s for the child"s best interests that the land be not sold now, because it contains valuable clay or whatever it is he thinks he has found there. Then he"ll offer to buy the land himself and he"ll be willing enough to sign the deed then."
"But _we_ might not be," interposed Miss Maria.
"I should say not," returned her brother emphatically, "but he"d probably make a lot of trouble for us and be constantly appealing to us on the ground that we ought to sell the land for the child"s good--or he might even say for Stanley"s good or our good, the brazen, persistent animal."
"Brother," remonstrated Miss Maria. "You forget that you may be speaking of the uncle of our little cousin."
"Little cousin nothing!" retorted Mr. Clark fiercely. "It"s all very nice for the Mortons to find that that charming girl who takes care of the Belgian baby is a relative. This is a very different proposition!
However, I suppose you girls--" meaning by this term the two ladies of more than seventy--"won"t be happy unless you have the youngster here, so you might as well send for her, but you"d better have the length of her visit distinctly understood."
"We might say a week," suggested Miss Eliza hesitatingly.
"Say a week, and say it emphatically," approved her brother, and trotted off to his study, leaving the ladies to compose, with Mrs. Smith"s help, a note that would not be so cordial that Brother would forbid its being sent, but that would nevertheless give a hint of their kindly feeling to the forlorn child, so roughly cared for by her strange uncle.
Mary Smith went to them, and made a visit that could not be called a success in any way. She was painfully conscious of the difference between her clothes and the Ethels" and Dorothy"s and Della"s, though why theirs seemed more desirable she could not tell, since her own were far more elaborate. The other girls wore middy blouses constantly, even the older girls, Helen and Margaret, while her dresses were of silk or some other delicate material and adorned with many ruffles and much lace.
She was conscious, too, of a difference between her manners and theirs, and she could not understand why, in her heart, she liked theirs better, since they were so gentle as to seem to have no spirit at all, according to her views. She was always uncomfortable when she was with them and her efforts to be at ease caused her shyness to go to the other extreme and made her manners rough and impertinent.
Mrs. Smith found her crying one day when she came upon her suddenly in the hammock on the Clarks" veranda.
"Can I help?" she asked softly, leaning over the small figure whose every movement indicated protest.
"No, you can"t," came back the fierce retort. "You"re one of "em. You don"t know."
"Don"t know what?"
"How I feel. n.o.body likes me. Miss Clark just told me to go out of her room."
"Why were you in her room?"
"Why, shouldn"t I go into her room? When I woke up this morning I made up my mind I"d do my best to be nice all day long. They"re so old I don"t know what to talk to "em about, but I made up my mind I"d stick around "em even if I didn"t know what to say. Right after breakfast they always go upstairs--I think it"s to be rid of me--and they don"t come down for an hour, and then they bring down their knitting and their embroidery and they sit around all day long except when that Belgian baby that lives at your house comes in--then they get up and try to play with her."
Mrs. Smith smiled, remembering the efforts of the two old ladies to play with "Ayleesabet." Mary noticed the smile.
"They do look fools, don"t they?" she cried eagerly.
"I think they look very dear and sweet when they are playing with Ayleesabet. I was not smiling _at_ them but because I sympathized with their enjoyment of the baby."
"Well, I made up my mind they needn"t think they had to stay upstairs because I wasn"t nice; I"d go upstairs and be nice. So I went upstairs to Miss Maria"s room and walked in."
"Walked right in? Without knocking?"
"I walked right in. She was sitting in front of that low table she has with the looking gla.s.s and all the bottles and boxes on it. Her hair was down her back--what there was of it--and she was doing up her switch."
Mrs. Smith was so aghast at this intrusion and at the injured tone in which it was told that she had no farther inclination to smile.
"I said, "I thought I"d come up and sit with you a while," and she said, "Leave the room at once, Mary," just like that. She was as mad as she could be."
"Do you blame her?"
"Why should she be mad, when I went up there to be nice to her? She"s an old cat!"
"Dear child, come and sit on this settee with me and let"s talk it over."
Mrs. Smith put her arm over the shaking shoulders of the angry girl and drew her toward her. After an instant"s stiffening against it Mary admitted to herself that it was pleasant; she didn"t wonder Dorothy was sweet if her mother did this often.
"Now we"re comfortable," said Mrs. Smith. "Tell me, dear, aren"t there some thoughts in your mind that you don"t like to tell to any one?
thoughts that seem to belong just to you yourself? Perhaps they"re about G.o.d; perhaps they"re about people you love, perhaps they"re about your own feelings--but they seem too private and sacred for you to tell any one. They"re your own, ownest thoughts."
Mary nodded.
"Do you remember your mother?"
Mary nodded again.
"Sometimes when you recall how she took you in her arms and cuddled you when you were hurt, and how you loved her and she loved you I know you think thoughts that you couldn"t express to any one else."
Mary gave a sniff that hinted of tears.
"Everybody has an inner life that is like a church. You know you wouldn"t think of running into a church and making a noise and disturbing the worshippers. It"s just so with people"s minds; you can"t rush in and talk about certain things to any one--the things that he considers too sacred to talk about."
"How are you going to tell?"
Mrs. Smith drew a long breath. How was she to make this poor, untutored child understand.
"You have to tell by your feelings," she answered slowly. "Some people are more reserved than others. I believe you are reserved."
"Me?" asked Mary wonderingly.
"It wouldn"t surprise me if there were a great many things that you might have talked about with your mother, if she had lived, but that you find it hard to talk about with your uncle."
Mary nodded.
"He"s fierce," she commented briefly.
"If he should begin to talk to you about some of the tender memories that you have of your mother, for instance, it might be hard for you to answer him. You"d be apt to think that he was coming into your own private church."
"I see that," the girl answered; "but," returning to the beginning of the conversation, "I didn"t want to talk secrets with Miss Maria; I just wanted to be nice."