He laid his hand upon her head as if she were indeed the little child, and for a long time no words were spoken.
"Prudence, there is something else, there is the photograph of the little girl--her mother named her Jeroma."
"I will take that," she said, lifting her head, "and I will write to her to-night."
That night before she slept she wrote a long letter to the child with the brown eyes and sunny curls, describing the home in Maple Street, and promising to take her into her heart and keep her there always, to adopt her for her very own little daughter for her own sake and for her father"s sake, whom she knew long ago, ending it thus:
"You cannot come to me too soon, for I am waiting for you with a hungry heart. I knew there was something good coming to me, and I know you will be my blessing.
"Your Loving Aunt Prue."
XV.
JEROMA.
"Whom hast them pitied? And whom forgiven I"--_Wills_.
The child had risen early that she might have a good time looking at the sea lions; the huge creatures covered the rocks two hundred yards away from her, crawling and squirming, or lying still as if as dead as the rock itself, their pointed heads and shining bodies giving her a delightful shiver of affright, their howling and groaning causing her to run every now and then back to her father"s chair on the veranda, and then she would dance back again and stand and watch them--the horrible, misshapen monsters--as they quarrelled, or suckled their young, or furious and wild as they tumbled about and rolled off the craggy cliffs into the sea. She left her chamber early every morning to watch them and never grew weary of the familiar, strange Bight. Not that this sight had been so long familiar, for her father was ever seeking new places along the coast to rest in, or grow strong in. Nurse had told her that morning that there was not any place for her papa to get well in.
He had breakfasted, as usual, upon the veranda, and, the last time that she had brought her gaze from the fascinating monsters to look back at him, he was leaning against the cushions of his rolling chair, with his eyes fixed upon the sea. He often sat for hours and hours looking out upon the sea.
Jeroma had played upon the beach every day last winter, growing ruddy and strong, but the air had revived him only for a little time, he soon sank back into weakness and apathy. He had dismissed her with a kiss awhile ago, and had seemed to suffer instead of respond to her caresses.
"Papa gets tired of loving me," she had said to Nurse last night with a quivering of the lip.
"Papa is very sick," Nurse had answered guardedly, "and he had letters to-day that were too much for him."
"Then he shouldn"t have letters," said the child, decidedly. "I"ll tell him so to-morrow."
As she danced about, her white dress and sunny curls gleaming in and out among the heliotrope and scarlet geranium that one of the flower-loving boarders was cultivating, her father called her name; it was a queer name, and she did not like it. She liked her second name, Prudence, better. But Nurse had said, when she complained to her, that the girls would call her "Prudy" for short, and "Jerrie" was certainly a prettier name than that.
"Jerrie," her father called.
The sound was so weak and broken by a cough that she did not turn her head or answer until he had called more than twice. But she flew to him when she was sure that he had called her, and kissed his flabby cheek and smoothed back the thin locks of white hair. His black eyes were burning like two fires beneath his white brows, his lips were ashy, and his breath hot and hurried. Two letters were trembling in his hand, two open letters, and one of them was in several fluttering sheets; this handwriting was a lady"s, Jeroma recognized that, although she could not read even her own name in script.
"O, papa, those are the letters that made you sick! I"ll throw them away to the lions," she cried, trying to s.n.a.t.c.h them. But he kept them in his fingers and tried to speak.
"I"ll be rested in a moment, eat those strawberries--and then I have--something to talk to you about."
She surveyed the table critically, bread and fruit and milk; there was nothing beside.
"I"ve had my breakfast! O, papa, I"ve forgotten your flowers! Mrs. Heath said you might have them every morning."
"Run and get them then, and never wait for me to call you--it tires me too much."
"Poor papa! And I can howl almost as loud as the lions themselves."
"Don"t howl at me then, for I might want to roll off into the sea," he said, smiling as she danced away.
The child seemed never to walk, she was always frisking about, one hardly knew if her feet touched the ground.
"Poor child! happy child," he groaned, rather than murmured, as she disappeared around the corner of the veranda. She was a chubby, roundfaced child, with great brown eyes and curls like yellow floss; from her childishness and ignorance of what children at ten years of age are usually taught, she was supposed by strangers to be no more than eight years of age; she was an imperious little lady, impetuous, untrained, self-reliant, and, from much intercourse with strangers, not at all shy, looking out upon the world with confiding eyes, and knowing nothing to be afraid of or ashamed of. Nurse had been her only teacher; she could barely read a chapter in the New Testament, and when her father gave her ten cents and then five more she could not tell him how many cents she held in her hand.
"No matter, I don"t want you to count money," he said.
Before he recovered his breath and self-possession she was at his side with the flowers she had hastily plucked--scarlet geranium, heliotrope, sweet alyssum, the gorgeous yellow and orange poppy, and the lovely blue and white lupine. He received them with a listless smile and laid them upon his knee; as he bade her again to eat the strawberries she brought them to his side, now and then coaxing a "particularly splendid" one into his mouth, pressing them between his lips with her stained fingers.
"Papa, your eyes shine to-day! You are almost well. Nurse doesn"t know."
"What does Nurse say?"
"That you will die soon; and then where shall I go?"
"Would you like to know where you will go?"
"I don"t want to go anywhere; I want to stay here with you."
"But that is impossible, Jerrie."
"Why! Who says so?" she questioned, fixing her wondering eyes on his.
"G.o.d," he answered solemnly.
"Does he know all about it?"
"Yes."
"Has it _got_ to be so, then?" she asked, awed.
"Yes."
"Well, what is the rest, then?"
"Sit down and I"ll tell you."
"I"d rather stand, please. I never like to sit down."
"Stand still then, dear, and lean on the arm of my chair and not on me; you take my breath away,"
"Poor papa! Am I so big? As big as a sea lion?"
Not heeding her--more than half the time he heard her voice without heeding her words--he turned the sheets in his fingers, lifted them as if to read them and then dropped his hand.
"Jerrie, what have I told you about Uncle John who lives near the other ocean?"