Grandmamma and Aunt Genevieve sat in the hall.
"Have you had a pleasant time?" Mrs. Whittredge asked.
"A beautiful time, grandmamma. I do like to know people. And Miss Betty--I mean Cousin Betty--told us about the lost ring and--was she my aunt?--Patricia? Did you ever see her, grandmamma?"
"Yes, a number of times. She visited at our house when I was a child. She died a few years after my marriage. Your Aunt Genevieve is thought to resemble the miniature done of her in her girlhood."
Rosalind looked in the direction of the arm-chair where her aunt half reclined, her eyes on a book, her clear profile in relief against the dark leather, the mellow lamp-light bringing out the copper tints in her hair.
"Then I know she must have been lovely," she said.
Mrs. Whittredge laughed, and Genevieve lifted her eyes to ask, "What is that?"
"Rosalind is sure Patricia Gilpin must have been handsome if you resemble her," her mother replied.
Genevieve shrugged her shoulders, and her lips curled a little, although she smiled; "Thank you, Rosalind," she said.
"I don"t believe," thought Rosalind, as she slowly prepared for bed, "that Miss Patricia--Aunt Patricia--looked as if she didn"t care about anything.
She bore hard things bravely, Miss Betty said, and I believe people who do that have a kind look." Here her glance fell upon the miniature on her dressing-table. The sweet eyes smiled on her. Taking it up she pressed it to her lips; "Like you, my dear beautiful," she whispered.
CHAPTER TENTH.
CELIA.
"One out of suits with fortune."
"O Celia!" called Miss Betty Bishop, from her front door, "come in a minute. I had a tea party last night, and I want to send your mother some of Sophy"s marshmallow cake. I am so glad you happened by," she added, as Celia came up the walk, "I was wondering how I should get it to her."
"It is very kind of you, Miss Betty," said Celia, following her into the dining room.
"There is no kindness about it," a.s.serted Miss Betty, opening the cake box. "I am just proud of Sophy"s good things and like to make other people envy me."
"That is not hard," Celia answered, thinking that life seemed easy and pleasant in this snug little house. Miss Betty had had her hard times, she knew, but the troubles of others are apt to seem easier to bear than one"s own, just as in bad weather the best walking is always on the other side of the street.
Celia was warm and tired, and the dim, cool room was grateful to her as she sat resting in silence while Miss Betty fluttered back and forth.
"Perhaps you"ll think I"d better mind my own business," she said, returning after a moment"s absence, "but here is something I saw in the _Gazette_. It might be worth trying."
Celia knew by heart the advertis.e.m.e.nt held out to her. "Work at home.
Fifteen dollars a week made with ease, etc." She accepted it meekly, however, not wishing to hurt her friend"s feelings.
"Talking about minding your own business," continued Miss Betty, "in my experience it does not pay. I once saw Cousin Anne Gilpin looking at taffeta at Moseley"s, and I knew as well as I knew my name that the piece she selected wouldn"t wear. At first I thought I"d tell her; then I decided it was none of my business,--Cousin Anne was old enough to know about the quality of silk. And what do you think? She sent me a waist pattern off it for a Christmas gift!"
Celia laughed as she rose to go. "Thank you for the cake, even if it isn"t a kindness. Mother will enjoy it," she said.
"You haven"t noticed my hall paper," Miss Betty remarked, escorting her visitor to the door. "I don"t expect you to say it is pretty, for it isn"t. I have to confess wall paper is too much for me. This entry is so small I could not put anything big and bright on it, so I thought I was getting the very thing when I selected this,--and what does it look like?
Nothing in the world but a clean calico dress. Now it is done I see it would have been better with plain paper."
"It is clean and un.o.btrusive," Celia agreed, smiling. Her smiles were a little forced this morning, it was easy to see; and Miss Betty, laying a kind hand on her arm, said, "Don"t worry too much, Celia. I know something about hard times, and you will work through after a while."
Celia felt the tears rising, and she left Miss Betty with an abruptness that made her ashamed of herself as she recalled it. After the exertion of climbing the hill she stopped to rest on the rustic seat just inside her own gate. "I wonder," she asked herself, "if there is anything much harder to bear than seeing a house you love going to ruin and not to be able to save it."
A branch of the honeysuckle that twined about the gate-post touched her shoulder, as if to remind her there was still some sweetness in life after all; but she did not heed it, nor the rose vines and clematis which made the old gray house beautiful in spite of needed repairs. Celia saw only rotting woodwork and sagging steps. She thought how the flower garden had been her father"s pride, and how in his spare moments, few as they were, he was sure to be found digging and tr.i.m.m.i.n.g and training, with the happiness of the born gardener. Ah, those days! She remembered the half-incredulous wonder with which she had been used to hear people speak of the certainty of trouble. She had felt so certain that joy overbalanced sorrow, that smiles were more frequent than tears. Now she understood, since she had tried to hide her own grief under a smiling face.
From her babyhood she had been her father"s companion and confidante, driving about the country with him, interested in all that concerned his large practice. A warm-hearted, impulsive man, open handed to the point of extravagance, Dr. Fair had had few enemies and many friends; and loving his work, life had been full of joy to him. In contrast with those happy years the bitterness of his last days seemed doubly cruel to Celia.
Whenever she was tired and discouraged, the memory of that dark time rose before her.
She had been only a child when Patterson Whittredge left home, but she could remember how warmly her father had taken his side, and how this had caused the first coolness between him and his boyhood friend, Judge Whittredge. The judge was influenced by his wife, and between the stubborn doctor and imperious Mrs. Whittredge there had been no love lost.
The storm had pa.s.sed after a while, and when the judge"s health began to fail Dr. Fair had been called in. But Mrs. Whittredge had not forgotten, and the doctor"s position was not an easy one. Only his devotion to his old friend had kept him from giving up the case at the beginning. The Gilpin will and her father"s testimony to the old man"s sanity had added to the trouble, and upon this had come the accusation which, whispered about, had broken the doctor"s heart. Hara.s.sed by the hard times and the failure of investments, denied a place at the bedside of his friend, he had fallen an easy victim to pneumonia, outliving Judge Whittredge only a few days. The memory of it lay like lead upon Celia"s heart.
"I have left you nothing but a heritage of misfortune, Celia," had been his last words to her.
"Don"t think of that, father; I"ll manage," she answered; and she had tried, but the solving of the problem was costing her the bloom of her youth. There were the two brothers to be educated, and a delicate, almost invalid mother to be cared for, and an income that would little more than pay the taxes on their home. To sell or rent it was not at present practicable, and she could not take boarders, for no one boarded in Friendship. Neither could she leave to try her fortune in the city, so she had been doing whatever her hand found to do. Sewing, embroidering, a little teaching, and, in season, pickling and preserving. Friends had been kind, but Celia was proud and determined to fight her own battle, and sometimes, as this morning, kindness made her burden seem harder to bear.
The worst of it was the root of bitterness in her heart. She could never forgive Mrs. Whittredge. Few guessed the intensity hidden beneath Celia"s gentle manner. Only now and then a spark from her dark blue eyes revealed it. The general construction put upon her proud reserve was that she was unsociable.
There is no loneliness like that of the unforgiving heart. Celia had never felt it so strongly as after her meeting with Rosalind Whittredge in the cemetery. There had been something in the soft gaze of the gray eyes that she could not forget. It had made her take up the rose again after she flung it away and carry it home with her.
But she must not linger here any longer. There was an order from the Exchange in the city which should be promptly filled if she hoped for others. As she rose she confronted Morgan entering the gate.
"Good morning," he said, and there was an odd sort of embarra.s.sment in his manner as he added, "Some of your window frames need fixing, Miss Celia."
She smiled and shook her head. "Can"t afford it."
"Miss Celia, let me do it, I"ve lots of time, and the doctor was very good to me," he said.
Again Celia shook her head, but the hurt look on Morgan"s face made her relent. "Well, perhaps the worst ones," she spelled. She would trust to being able to make it up to him sometime.
"That"s right," he exclaimed, joyfully, adding, as he turned to go, "Don"t you worry, Miss Celia. There"s good in it somewhere."
CHAPTER ELEVENTH.
MAKING FRIENDS.
"Is not that neighborly?"
Miss Betty"s tea party was the beginning of a new and happier state of affairs for Rosalind; one pleasant thing followed another. There were letters from the travellers, long and delightful and full of the genial spirit of the Forest, making her more than ever certain that they and she were alike journeying beneath its shelter, and at some turn of the road would surely meet again.
Mrs. Whittredge also had a letter, "I trust you will not keep Rosalind secluded," her son wrote. "I want her to have companions of her own age, and to learn to know and love the old town as I loved it. She has lived too much with Louis and me and story books; it is time she was waking up."