Well, I know a place which I am sure you would like. I was there two summers ago. It is a country place about a hundred miles from here.
Pine Valley is its name. It"s restful and homey, and the people are so nice. If you like, I"ll give you the address of the family I boarded with."
"Thank you," said Constance indifferently. "I might as well go there as anywhere else."
"Yes, but listen to me, dear. Don"t take your morbidness with you.
Open your heart to the summer, and let its sunshine in, and when you come back in the fall, come prepared to let us all be your friends.
We"d like to be, and while friendship doesn"t take the place of the love of one"s own people, still it is a good and beautiful thing.
Besides, there are other unhappy people in the world--try to help them when you meet them, and you"ll forget about yourself. Good-by for now, and I hope you"ll have a pleasant vacation in spite of yourself."
Constance went to Pine Valley, but she took her evil spirit with her.
Not even the beauty of the valley, with its great balmy pines, and the cheerful friendliness of its people could exorcise it.
Nevertheless, she liked the place and found a wholesome pleasure in the long tramps she took along the piney roads.
"I saw such a pretty spot in my ramble this afternoon," she told her landlady one evening. "It is about three miles from here at the end of the valley. Such a picturesque, low-eaved little house, all covered over with honeysuckle. It was set between a big orchard and an old-fashioned flower garden with great pines at the back."
"Heartsease Farm," said Mrs. Hewitt promptly. "Bless you, there"s only one place around here of that description. Mr. and Mrs. Bruce, Uncle Charles and Aunt Flora, as we all call them, live there. They are the dearest old couple alive. You ought to go and see them, they"d be delighted. Aunt Flora just loves company. They"re real lonesome by times."
"Haven"t they any children?" asked Constance indifferently. Her interest was in the place, not in the people.
"No. They had a niece once, though. They brought her up and they just worshipped her. She ran away with a worthless fellow--I forget his name, if I ever knew it. He was handsome and smooth-tongued, but he was a scamp. She died soon after and it just broke their hearts. They don"t even know where she was buried, and they never heard anything more about her husband. I"ve heard that Aunt Flora"s hair turned snow-white in a month. I"ll take you up to see her some day when I find time."
Mrs. Hewitt did not find time, but thereafter Constance ordered her rambles that she might frequently pa.s.s Heartsease Farm. The quaint old spot had a strange attraction for her. She found herself learning to love it, and so unused was this unfortunate girl to loving anything that she laughed at herself for her foolishness.
One evening a fortnight later Constance, with her arms full of ferns and wood-lilies, came out of the pine woods above Heartsease Farm just as heavy raindrops began to fall. She had prolonged her ramble unseasonably, and it was now nearly night, and very certainly a rainy night at that. She was three miles from home and without even an extra wrap.
She hurried down the lane, but by the time she reached the main road, the few drops had become a downpour. She must seek shelter somewhere, and Heartsease Farm was the nearest. She pushed open the gate and ran up the slope of the yard between the hedges of sweetbriar. She was spared the trouble of knocking, for as she came to a breathless halt on the big red sandstone doorstep, the door was flung open, and the white-haired, happy-faced little woman standing on the threshold had seized her hand and drawn her in bodily before she could speak a word.
"I saw you coming from upstairs," said Aunt Flora gleefully, "and I just ran down as fast as I could. Dear, dear, you are a little wet.
But we"ll soon dry you. Come right in--I"ve a bit of a fire in the grate, for the evening is chilly. They laughed at me for loving a fire so, but there"s nothing like its snap and sparkle. You"re rained in for the night, and I"m as glad as I can be. I know who you are--you are Miss Foster. I"m Aunt Flora, and this is Uncle Charles."
Constance let herself be put into a cushiony chair and fussed over with an unaccustomed sense of pleasure. The rain was coming down in torrents, and she certainly was domiciled at Heartsease Farm for the night. Somehow, she felt glad of it. Mrs. Hewitt was right in calling Aunt Flora sweet, and Uncle Charles was a big, jolly, ruddy-faced old man with a hearty manner. He shook Constance"s hand until it ached, threw more pine knots in the fire and told her he wished it would rain every night if it rained down a nice little girl like her.
She found herself strangely attracted to the old couple. The name of their farm was in perfect keeping with their atmosphere. Constance"s frozen soul expanded in it. She chatted merrily and girlishly, feeling as if she had known them all her life.
When bedtime came, Aunt Flora took her upstairs to a little gable room.
"My spare room is all in disorder just now, dearie, we have been painting its floor. So I"m going to put you here in Jeannie"s room.
Someway you remind me of her, and you are just about the age she was when she left us. If it wasn"t for that, I don"t think I could put you in her room, not even if every other floor in the house were being painted. It is so sacred to me. I keep it just as she left it, not a thing is changed. Good night dearie, and I hope you"ll have pleasant dreams."
When Constance found herself alone in the room, she looked about her with curiosity. It was a very dainty, old-fashioned little room. The floor was covered with braided mats; the two square, small-paned windows were draped with snowy muslin. In one corner was a little white bed with white curtains and daintily ruffled pillows, and in the other a dressing table with a gilt-framed mirror and the various knick-knacks of a girlish toilet. There was a little blue rocker and an ottoman with a work-basket on it. In the work-basket was a bit of unfinished, yellowed lace with a needle sticking in it. A small bookcase under the sloping ceiling was filled with books.
Constance picked up one and opened it at the yellowing t.i.tle-page. She gave a little cry of surprise. The name written across the page in a fine, dainty script was "Jean Constance Irving," her mother"s name!
For a moment Constance stood motionless. Then she turned impulsively and hurried downstairs again. Mr. and Mrs. Bruce were still in the sitting room talking to each other in the firelight.
"Oh," cried Constance excitedly. "I must know, I must ask you. This is my mother"s name, Jean Constance Irving, can it be possible she was your little Jeannie?"
A fortnight later Miss Channing received a letter from Constance.
"I am so happy," she wrote. "Oh, Miss Channing, I have found "mine own people," and Heartsease Farm is to be my own, own dear home for always.
"It was such a strange coincidence, no, Aunt Flora says it was Providence, and I believe it was, too. I came here one rainy night, and Aunty put me in my mother"s room, think of it! My own dear mother"s room, and I found her name in a book. And now the mystery is all cleared up, and we are so happy.
"Everything is dear and beautiful, and almost the dearest and most beautiful thing is that I am getting acquainted with my mother, the mother I never knew before. She no longer seems dead to me. I feel that she lives and loves me, and I am learning to know her better every day. I have her room and her books and all her little girlish possessions. When I read her books, with their pa.s.sages underlined by her hand, I feel as if she were speaking to me. She was very good and sweet, in spite of her one foolish, bitter mistake, and I want to be as much like her as I can.
"I said that this was _almost_ the dearest and most beautiful thing.
The very dearest and most beautiful is this--G.o.d means something to me now. He means so much! I remember that you said to me that he meant nothing to me because I had no human love in my heart to translate the divine. But I have now, and it has led me to Him.
"I am not going back to Taunton. I have sent in my resignation. I am going to stay home with Aunty and Uncle. It is so sweet to say _home_ and know what it means.
"Aunty says you must come and spend all your next vacation with us.
You see, I have lots of vacation plans now, even for a year ahead.
After all, there is no need of the blue pills!
"I feel like a new creature, made over from the heart and soul out. I look back with shame and contrition on the old Constance. I want you to forget her and only remember your grateful friend, the _new_ Constance."
Ida"s New Year Cake
Mary Craig and Sara Reid and Josie Pye had all flocked into Ida Mitch.e.l.l"s room at their boarding-house to condole with each other because none of them was able to go home for New Year"s. Mary and Josie had been home for Christmas, so they didn"t really feel so badly off. But Ida and Sara hadn"t even that consolation.
Ida was a third-year student at the Clifton Academy; she had holidays, and nowhere, so she mournfully affirmed, to spend them. At home three brothers and a sister were down with the measles, and, as Ida had never had them, she could not go there; and the news had come too late for her to make any other arrangements.
Mary and Josie were clerks in a Clifton bookstore, and Sara was stenographer in a Clifton lawyer"s office. And they were all jolly and thoughtless and very fond of one another.
"This will be the first New Year"s I have ever spent away from home,"
sighed Sara, nibbling chocolate fudge. "It does make me so blue to think of it. And not even a holiday--I"ll have to go to work just the same. Now Ida here, she doesn"t really need sympathy. She has holidays--a whole fortnight--and nothing to do but enjoy them."
"Holidays are dismal things when you"ve nowhere to holiday," said Ida mournfully. "The time drags horribly. But never mind, girls, I"ve a plummy bit of news for you. I"d a letter from Mother today and, bless the dear woman, she is sending me a cake--a New Year"s cake--a great big, spicy, mellow, delicious fruit cake. It will be along tomorrow and, girls, we"ll celebrate when it comes. I"ve asked everybody in the house up to my room for New Year"s Eve, and we"ll have a royal good time."
"How splendid!" said Mary. "There"s nothing I like more than a slice of real countrified home-made fruit cake, where they don"t scrimp on eggs or b.u.t.ter or raisins. You"ll give me a good big piece, won"t you, Ida?"
"As much as you can eat," promised Ida. "I can warrant Mother"s fruit cake. Yes, we"ll have a jamboree. Miss Monroe has promised to come in too. She says she has a weakness for fruit cake."
"Oh!" breathed all the girls. Miss Monroe was their idol, whom they had to be content to worship at a distance as a general thing. She was a clever journalist, who worked on a paper, and was reputed to be writing a book. The girls felt they were highly privileged to be boarding in the same house, and counted that day lost on which they did not receive a businesslike nod or an absent-minded smile from Miss Monroe. If she ever had time to speak to one of them about the weather, that fortunate one put on airs for a week. And now to think that she had actually promised to drop into Ida"s room on New Year"s Eve and eat fruit cake!
"There goes that funny little namesake of yours, Ida," said Josie, who was sitting by the window. "She seems to be staying in town over the holidays too. Wonder why. Perhaps she doesn"t belong anywhere. She really is a most forlorn-appearing little mortal."
There were two Ida Mitch.e.l.ls attending the Clifton Academy. The other Ida was a plain, quiet, pale-faced little girl of fifteen who was in the second year. Beyond that, none of the third-year Ida Mitch.e.l.l"s set knew anything about her, or tried to find out.
"She must be very poor," said Ida carelessly. "She dresses so shabbily, and she always looks so pinched and subdued. She boards in a little house out on Marlboro Road, and I pity her if she has to spend her holidays there, for a more dismal place I never saw. I was there once on the trail of a book I had lost. Going, girls? Well, don"t forget tomorrow night."
Ida spent the next day decorating her room and watching for the arrival of her cake. It hadn"t come by tea-time, and she concluded to go down to the express office and investigate. It would be dreadful if that cake didn"t turn up in time, with all the girls and Miss Monroe coming in. Ida felt that she would be mortified to death.