On went the story, and on went the girls; the sun sank lower and lower, the shadows crept longer and longer, the air grew cool and thin with the coming night. The man with the wooden leg had chopped it up for fuel, and Father Montfort had brought him and all the others in triumph to the ranch, and set them down by the fire, when-- "Oh, dear me!" cried Ethel Fair. "What a shame, girls! Here we are at the gate. I say! let"s go on a little farther, Peggy."
But Peggy was wise, and knew when to stop; besides, now that she was near the house again, the anxiety and distress that had been lulled by the walk and the story-telling, came back like a flood, and filled her heart. They were crossing the lawn; what tidings would greet them at the door? Some one was standing there now; Miss Cortlandt, was it? no, Miss Russell herself. She was waiting for them with the news; would it be good or bad? Peggy hung back for an instant; then she walked steadily forward. "Quiet, girls!" was all she said. "I think Miss Russell has something to tell us."
They were at the foot of the steps now; and Miss Russell was coming down to meet them, running, the grave and stately woman, to meet them, like a girl. Her hands were outstretched, her face was all aglow with joy, the glad tears ran down her cheeks.
"It is over!" she whispered. "Softly, my dear children. Come softly in.
The crisis is over, and the child will live! Come with me, and let us thank G.o.d together!"
CHAPTER XVIII.
THE END AND THE BEGINNING.
It was a month later. The first snow had fallen, and the lawn was white with it, and all the trees and bushes powdered with frost. Coming out of the cla.s.s-room one day, her heart singing of sines and cosines and tangents, Peggy found the Snowy and the Fluffy waiting for her at the door, with radiant faces.
"Oh, what?" cried Peggy. "A letter?"
"Yes," said Gertrude. "It has just come, though the postmark is two or three days ago. Where shall we go to read it? Your room, Peggy? So we will; it"s nearer than the Nest, and I know you can"t wait."
Grace"s letters were indeed things to wait for in those days. She had gone to Lobelia"s home with her; for, on coming to herself, the invalid had still clung to her new friend, with a persistency strange in one so timid and fearful. Convalescence came, with its unwilling fretfulness, its fits of unreason. Still Lobelia clung to Grace, and no one else could make her listen and obey. The nurse laughed, and said she might as well go, and leave her diploma with Miss Wolfe; yet stayed, for the two worked together in pleasant harmony and friendship. At last, Doctor Hendon ordered a change of scene, and now, too, Grace must go with her.
The Parkins mansion was within driving distance of Pentland; the whole school had turned out to see the departure, the sick girl lying on cushions, her thin face already showing the signs of returning health, and really transfigured by the light of love and grat.i.tude that beamed from it, as she looked from Grace to Peggy, and back again to Grace. She beckoned to Peggy, who pressed to her side and bent over her. "What is it, dear?" she whispered.
"Peggy!"
"Yes, Lobelia."
"Peggy, you don"t mind?"
"Mind what? I don"t mind anything, now that you are getting well."
"You--you were my first friend, the only friend I had. You don"t mind--that I love her? I couldn"t help it, Peggy. She kept me alive, you see. Often and often, when I was drifting away, and ready to die, she held me, and would not let me go. You are sure you don"t mind, Peggy?"
Peggy kissed her heartily, and told her not to talk nonsense. "If you didn"t love her," she said, "I"d have nothing to do with you, Lobelia Parkins. Do you hear that? Nothing! I wouldn"t speak to you in the street, if I met you."
Lobelia smiled, and leaned back on the cushions with closed eyes and a look of absolute content. "You are so funny, Peggy!" she murmured. "She is funny, too. I like people who are funny. Good-bye, and thank everybody. Everybody is so kind!"
The carriage drove away, and the last thing the girls saw was Grace"s face, looking down at her charge; grave as ever,--Grace rarely smiled, and they hardly knew the sound of her laugh,--but bright as Lobelia"s own with love and purpose and gladness. So they pa.s.sed out of sight.
And since then had come letters every week, telling of the child"s progress; one to Miss Russell always, and one to the Owls or to Peggy.
It was one of these that Gertrude took from her pocket now and opened, as they sat together on Peggy"s divan.
"You see, it is dated three days ago; probably been carried in a pocket, from the look of it."
"DEAR SNOWY, ALSO FLUFFY:--Tu whit! She has been gaining so fast this week, we shall soon forget she has been ill at all. She can eat anything she likes, and she likes a great deal.
Miss P. keeps exclaiming at her appet.i.te.
Apparently the child never ate anything before she went to school. The rule of the house is, or was, one shredded wheat Abomination for breakfast, one chop for dinner, one smoked herring for supper. All this served on huge and hideous silver dishes. This order is changed.
Miss Parkins almost fainted when I ordered the first meal. She weeps every day over the butcher"s book, but the child fattens apace, and all is well. I had to frighten her--the aunt--a little, though, before things went smoothly.
"Yesterday we explored the house, the Babe and I. The amazing thing is that she lived at all after she got her eyes open. Apparently every article cost a thousand dollars; most awful old mausoleum you can imagine; you never saw such a place, for there couldn"t be two. The bed I sleep in has all-round curtains of apple-green plush, with bead fringe three inches deep. The mantelpiece and table-top and so on are gray marble, and the ornaments are two deformed gilt cherubs holding a slop-jar with a clock-face in the middle of it. Also two unspeakable alabaster jugs, three feet high, and two Parian busts under gla.s.s cases. They are supposed to be Luther and Melanchthon; I think they are Lucifer and Mammon. Well, the poor little thing is used to it, and doesn"t know what is the matter. Wait till Monday week,--I mean till some future day,--and she shall know, but not now. She doesn"t think it a homelike house, she says!
"I shall be coming back almost any time now, as soon as I can get away. It"s dreadful to leave her,--"I"m wae to think upo" yon den, e"en for her sake,"--but I must get back before exams, and she is really all right, only not of course wholly strong yet. She will come back next term; and meanwhile she is to travel with an old servant who was her nurse, and who has some spark of humanity in her composition.
"I"m coming back, I tell you; at least, something is coming back. I don"t say whether it will be the Goat or the Wolf, or what; I"m pretty sure that--
""Lawk a mercy on me, This is none of I!"
"Good-bye, you feathered things! How do feathers feel? How do you get about? There are good points about the creature, I can see that; you can see in the dark--but so could the Wolf!
and it would be nice to be able to ruffle up your feathers and put a tongue in every wound of Puggy"s--but she is gone, isn"t she? Alas!
and if you don"t know Shakespeare when I talk him, why, you are an ignorant set, and don"t deserve your names. This is for the Innocent, too, mind! Give her my love, and tell her--never mind; I"ll tell her myself.
"So no more at present, Respected Fowls, from your most obedient, humble servant,
"THE HYBRID."
The three girls were silent for a moment after Gertrude had folded the letter again. Then, "Do you suppose she will really be changed?" asked Peggy. "I--I don"t think I want Grace to be changed, do you, girls?"
"That depends!" said Bertha, with her chin on her hands, in her favourite judicial att.i.tude. "Of course it would be despair if we should lose her real, true self. If she could only stay Grace Wolfe, and change her point of view, why, then--"
"That is just what she will do, I feel sure of it," said Gertrude, earnestly. "She has been through an experience--oh, we can"t know what it has been, girls, because we are just plain people, you know, and Grace is--well, I think she has genius, or something very like it. If only the power and the sweetness and brightness are turned into helping, you see, instead of hindering--oh, how much she can do! and I believe she"s going to do it, too. But come, Fluffy, I must go home. Won"t you come, Peggy? We have half an hour before study-time."
Peggy followed only too gladly along the corridor; it was always a treat to spend half an hour in the Owl"s Nest. Gertrude was first; she opened the door of her room, and paused on the threshold with a low cry. Bertha and Peggy hurried forward and looked over her shoulder--to see a strange sight.
Something--or somebody--was sitting on the window-seat. Something gray and soft. It had a round feathered head, with two feathery horns jutting from it; it had round bright eyes, which blinked curiously at the astonished girls. Below the head were--arms, were they, or wings? They were feathery too, and they drooped over something that might be a skirt, though no feet were visible. In the gathering twilight the figure sat on the window-seat and blinked, looking like nothing that was in heaven or earth; and the three girls stood and stared, holding each other"s hands. Presently the silence was broken.
"Bubo Virginia.n.u.s!" said a grave, melodious voice from under the feathers. "The Great Horned Owl. Description: Large and strongly organised; ear-tufts large, erectile; bill strong, fully curved; wing rather long; third quill usually longest; tail short; legs and toes--"
"Grace!" cried Gertrude Merryweather.
"Tu whit!" replied the figure. "I may also in this connection remark, tu whoo! This well-known bird is a resident in all the New England schools--I should say States--throughout the year. It is not so common in Ma.s.sachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island as in the other States, where, in the vast tracts of forest, it is quite abundant. Samuels. Easy there! spare the Plumage!"
The three girls had flung themselves upon the strange figure, which flapped its arms for a moment, as if contemplating flight. Then, waving them off with one arm, it lifted the feathered head, and gazed at them with melancholy blue eyes.
"Tu whit!" repeated the Scapegoat. "I may be allowed, _in_ this connection, to repeat, tu whoo! Don"t kill me, Innocent; I should be less useful dead."
It did seem as if they would hug her to death. They laughed, they cried, they questioned, they talked, all in one breath; no one would have recognised the sedate Owls or the sensible Peggy. Grace regarded them with grave benignity, as she untied the owl"s head, and loosed the feathered cape from her shoulders.
"Rather neat, I thought?" she said, turning the head around on her hand.
"The beak is a little wobbly, but the general character--eh?--is pretty good? I couldn"t manage the toes and claws; there wasn"t time, and, besides, they would have excited remark, even if the weather had been warm enough to make them comfortable for travelling. Well, my Snowy, my Fluffy, how is it? Is there room for another Owl in the forest?"
"Oh, Grace!" cried Bertha.
"Oh, my dear!" cried Gertrude; and their arms were around her again, while Peggy sat down on the floor and fairly burst into tears.
Grace was silent for a little, her head resting on Gertrude"s shoulder.
When she spoke, her voice had not its usual even flow, but hesitated, almost faltered, now and then.