"Miss Rogers shall have a larger, handsomer _boudoir_ than yours, Sally," remarked her mother. "The entire suite of rooms on this floor is at her disposal, if she will only allow us to persuade her to remain with us. My dear daughters, you must add your entreaties on this point to your father"s and mine."
"How can I ever repay you for your deep interest in a lone body like me?" murmured Miss Rogers.
The eyes of the girls and those of their mother met; but they did not dare express in words the thought that had leaped simultaneously into their minds at her words.
"You have had no one to look after your wardrobe, dear Aunt Rogers,"
said Mrs. Pendleton; "so do, I beseech you, accept some of my gowns until you desire to lay them aside for fresher ones."
"I am bewildered by so much kindness," faltered Miss Rogers. And she was more bewildered still at the array of silks and satins and costly laces with which the three ladies deluged her.
The very finest rooms in the house were given her. Miss Sally made her a strong punch with her own hands, "just the way she said she liked it,"
and Louisa bathed her face in fragrant cologne, and tried on a lace night-cap with a great deal of fuss.
Some one came in to turn down the night-lamp a little later on--a quiet, slender figure in a dark-brown gown. It was not Mrs. Pendleton, nor was it either of her daughters.
"Who are you?" asked Miss Rogers, perceiving at a glance that she was evidently no servant of the household. A sweet, pale, wan face was turned toward her.
"I an Patience Pendleton," replied a still sweeter voice.
"Dear me!" exclaimed Miss Rogers, "I never heard that there were three daughters in this family." She could see, even in that dim light, the pink flush steal quickly over the wan, white face.
"I am a daughter by my father"s first marriage," she answered, quietly.
"My step-mother and her daughters seldom mention me to any one."
There was no suspicion of malice in her tone, only sadness; and without another word, save a gentle good-night, she glided from the room.
It was Sally, bright, jolly Sally, who awakened Miss Rogers the next morning. Louisa insisted upon helping her to dress, while Mr. and Mrs.
Pendleton tapped at the door, and eagerly inquired if she had rested well.
She was given the seat of honor at the breakfast-table, and a huge bouquet of hot-house roses lay at her plate.
Sally had inquired the night before as to her favorite viands, and they were soon placed before her deliciously prepared.
Louisa brought a dainty ha.s.sock for her feet, and Mrs. Pendleton a silken scarf, to protect her from the slightest draught from the open windows.
"You treat me as though I were a queen," said Miss Rogers, smiling through her tears.
She could scarcely eat her breakfast, Sally and Louisa hung about her chair so attentively, ready to antic.i.p.ate her slightest wish. But looking around, she missed the sweet, wistful face that she had seen in her room the night before.
"Are all the family a.s.sembled here?" she inquired, wondering if it had not been a dream she had had of a sweet white face and a pair of sad gray eyes.
"All except Patience," replied Mrs. Pendleton, with a frown. "She"s rather queer, and prefers not to join us at table or in the drawing-room. She spends all her time up in the attic bedroom reading the Bible and writing Christmas stories for children for the religious papers. We don"t see her for weeks at a time, and actually forget she lives in this house. She"s quite a religious crank, and you won"t see much of her."
Miss Rogers saw the girls laugh and t.i.tter at their mother"s remarks; and from that moment they lowered in her estimation, while sweet Patience was exalted.
CHAPTER XVII.
The next few days that pa.s.sed were like a dream to Miss Rogers. Every one was so kind and considerate it seemed that she was living in another world.
Mrs. Pendleton had cautioned the girls against mentioning the fact of Sally"s coming marriage, explaining that she might change her mind about leaving her fortune to the family if she knew there was a prospect of wealth for them from any other source.
"But it would not be fair to let her make sister Sally her heiress,"
said Louisa, bitterly. "She ought not to get both fortunes. She will come into a magnificent fortune through marrying Jay Gardiner. Why should you want her to have Miss Rogers" money, too? You ought to influence that eccentric old lady to leave her fortune to _me_."
"Hush, my dear. Miss Rogers might hear you," warned her mother.
But the warning had come too late. In coming down the corridor to join the family in the general sitting-room, as they had always insisted on her doing, she had overheard Miss Louisa"s last remark.
She stopped short, the happy light dying from her eyes, and the color leaving her cheeks.
"Great Heaven! have I been deceived, after all? Was the kindness of the Pendleton girls and their parents only a.s.sumed? Was there a monetary reason back of it all?" she mused.
A great pain shot through her heart; a wave of intense bitterness filled her soul.
"I will test these girls," muttered Miss Rogers, setting her lips together; "and that, too, before another hour pa.s.ses over my head."
After a few moments more of deliberation, she arose, and with firm step pa.s.sed slowly down the broad hall to the sitting-room.
Mrs. Pendleton and her eldest daughter Louisa had left the apartment.
Sally alone was there, lounging on a divan, her hair in curl-papers, reading the latest French novel.
On her entering, down went the book, and Sally sprung up, her face wreathed in smiles.
"I was just wondering if you were lonely or taking a nap," she murmured, sweetly. "Do come right in, Miss Rogers, and let me draw the nicest easy-chair in the room up to the cool window for you and make you comfortable."
"How considerate you are, my dear child," replied Miss Rogers, fairly hating herself for believing this sweet young girl could dissemble. "I am glad to find you alone, Sally," she continued, dropping into the chair with a weary sigh. "I have been wanting to have a confidential little chat with you, my dear, ever since I have been here. Have you the time to spare?"
Sally Pendleton"s blue eyes glittered. Of course Miss Rogers wanted to talk to her about leaving her money to her.
Sally brought a ha.s.sock, and placing it at her feet, sat down upon it, and rested her elbows on Miss Rogers" chair.
"Now," she said, with a tinkling little laugh that most every one liked to hear--the laugh that had given her the _sobriquet_, jolly Sally Pendleton, among her companions--an appellation which had ever since clung to her--"now I am ready to listen to whatever you have to tell me."
After a long pause, which seemed terribly irksome to Sally, Miss Rogers slowly said:
"I think I may as well break right into the subject that is on my mind, and troubling me greatly, without beating around the bush."
"That will certainly be the best way," murmured Sally.
"Well, then, my dear," said Miss Rogers, with harsh abruptness, "I am afraid I am living in this house under false colors."
Sally"s blue eyes opened wide. She did not know what to say.
"The truth is, child, I am not the rich woman people credit me with being. I did not tell you that I had lost my entire fortune, and that I was reduced to penury and want--ay, I would have been reduced to starvation if you had not so kindly taken me in and done for me."