"Speaking of harmony--" said Madame Bernard, in a low tone, glancing at Rose and inclining her head toward Isabel.
"Yes," replied Isabel, returning the tray to its place; "it is a lovely one, isn"t it?"
Madame turned toward the window to hide a smile. Rose followed, and drew the little grey lady into the circle of her strong arm.
"Dear Aunt Francesca!" she said softly. "I thank you so much!"
The older woman patted the hand that wore the ruby, then turned to Isabel. "Come," she said, "and be glad you"re indoors."
The three women stood at the wide window, looking out across the snow, lighted only by the stars and a ghostly crescent of moon. The evergreens were huddled closely together as though they kept each other warm.
Beyond, the mountains brooded in their eternal sleep, which riving lightnings and vast, reverberating thunders were powerless to change.
Suddenly, across the purple darkness between the pale stars, flamed a meteor--an uncharted voyager through infinite seas of s.p.a.ce. It left a trail of fire across the heavens, fading at last into luminous mist, the colour of the stars. When the light had quite died out, Madame Bernard spoke.
"A pa.s.sing soul," she sighed.
"A kiss," breathed Rose, dreamily.
"Star-dust!" laughed Isabel.
II
WELCOME HOME
"Great news, my dears, great news!" cried Madame Bernard, gaily waving an open letter as she came into the room where Rose was sewing and Isabel experimenting with a new coiffure. "I"ll give you three guesses!"
"Somebody coming for a visit?" asked Isabel.
"Wrong!"
"Somebody coming, but not for a visit?" queried Rose.
"You"re getting warmer."
"How can anybody come, if not for a visit?" inquired Isabel, mildly perplexed. "That is, unless it"s a messenger?"
"The old Kent house is to be opened," said Madame, "and we"re to open it. At last we shall have neighbours!"
"How exciting," Rose answered. She did not wholly share the old lady"s pleasure, and wondered with a guilty consciousness of the long hours she spent at her music, whether Aunt Francesca had been lonely.
"Listen, girls!" Madame"s cheeks were pink with excitement as she sat down with the letter, which had been written in Paris.
"MY DEAR MADAME FRANCESCA:
""At last we are coming home--Allison and I. The boy has a fancy to see Spring come again on his native heath, so we shall sail earlier than we had otherwise planned.
""I wonder, my dear friend, if I dare ask you to open the house for us?
I am so tired of hotels that I want to go straight back. You have the keys and if you will engage the proper number of servants and see that the place is made habitable, I shall be more than ever your debtor. I will cable you when we start.
""Trusting that all is well with you and yours and with many thanks, believe me, my dear Madame,
""Most faithfully yours,
""RICHARD KENT.""
"How like a man," smiled Rose. "That house has been closed for over ten years, and he thinks there is nothing to be done but to unlock the front door and engage two or three servants who may or may not be trustworthy."
"What an imposition!" Isabel said. "Aunt Francesca, didn"t I meet Allison Kent when I was here before?"
"I"ve forgotten."
"Don"t you remember? Mother brought me here once when I was a little tot. We stayed about a week and the roses were all in bloom. I can see the garden now. Allison used to come over sometimes and tell me fairy stories. He told me that the long, slender gold-trimmed bottles filled with attar of roses came from the roots of the rose bushes--don"t you remember? And I pulled up rose bushes all over the garden to find out."
"Dear me, yes," smiled Aunt Francesca. "How time does fly!"
"You were very cross with Allison--that is, as cross as you ever could be. It seemed so queer for you to be angry at him and not at me, for I pulled up the bushes."
"You were sufficiently punished, Isabel. I believe the thorns hurt your little hands, didn"t they?"
"They certainly did," responded the girl, with a little shudder at the recollection. "I have a scar still. That was--let me see--why, it was fifteen years ago!"
"Just before I came to live with Aunt Francesca," said Rose. "You and your mother went away the same day."
"Yes, we went in the morning," Isabel continued, "and you were to come in the afternoon. I remember pleading with my mother to let me stay long enough to see "Cousin Wose.""
"Fifteen years!" Madame repeated. "Allison went abroad, then, to study the violin, and the house has been open only once since. Richard came back for a Summer, to attend to some business, then returned to Europe.
How the time goes by!"
The letter fell to the floor and Francesca sat dreaming over the interlude of years. Colonel Kent had been her husband"s best friend, and after the pitiless sword had cleaved her life asunder, had become hers.
At forty the Colonel had married a young and beautiful girl. A year later Francesca had gone to him with streaming eyes, carrying his new- born son in her arms, to tell him that his wife was dead.
Drawn together by sorrow, the two had been as dear to each other as friends may be but seldom are. Though childless herself, Francesca had some of the gifts of motherhood, and, at every step, she had aided and counselled the Colonel in regard to his son, who had his mother"s eyes and bore his mother"s name. Discerning the boy"s talent, long before his father suspected it, she had chosen the violin for him rather than the piano, and had herself urged the Colonel to take him abroad for study though the thought of separation caused her many a pang.
When the two sailed away, Francesca had found her heart strangely empty; her busy hands strangely idle. But Life had taught her one great lesson, and when one door of her heart was closed, she opened another, as quickly as possible. So she sent for Rose, who was alone in the world, and, for fifteen years, the two women had lived happily together.
As she sat there, thinking, some of her gay courage failed her. For the moment her mask was off, and in the merciless sunlight, she looked old and worn. Rose, looking at her with tender pity, marvelled at the ignorance of man, in asking a frail little old lady to open and make habitable, in less than a fortnight, a house of fifteen large rooms.
"Aunt Francesca," she said, "let me open the house. Tell me what you want done, and Isabel and I will see to it."
"Certainly," agreed Isabel without enthusiasm. "We"ll do it."
"No," Madame replied stubbornly. "He asked me to do it."
"He only meant for you to direct," said Rose. "You surely don"t think he meant you to do the scrubbing?"