"Why don"t you write a novel and make some money?"
"I don"t know how."
"Can"t you learn?"
"I study all the time."
"Why don"t you write flowery language?"
"I don"t know how."
"It is Gus that has spoiled you; he has nipped your genius in the bud.
What does he know, a clerk in a bank? I know that he tells you to leave out the long words; and it is the long words that take. I shouldn"t have had my dreadful cough winter after winter if I hadn"t worked hard to spare your time that winter you wrote those three little books for the Sunday School Union; I lay all my sickness and pain to that winter."
Mrs Wadsworth had brought this charge against Tessa several times before, but she had never shivered over it as she did this birthday morning.
"And what did you get for them? Only a hundred dollars for the three.
Your father made a great fuss over them, and he really cried (his tears come very easy) over that piece you called "Making Mistakes." I couldn"t see any thing to cry over; I thought you made out that making mistakes was a very fine thing."
"Four people from away off have written to thank her, any way," exulted Dinah.
"People like your father I suppose."
Dinah sprang up and began to rattle the cups and saucers; she could not bear the look in Tessa"s eyes another second.
"Dinah, I can"t talk if you make so much noise. You are very rude."
"Oh, I forgot to tell you," cried Dinah, standing still with two cups in her hands. "It"s great fun! Nan Gerard refused Mr. John Gesner while she was here."
"I don"t believe it," exclaimed Mrs Wadsworth. "Those brothers are worth nearly a million."
"Naughty Nan didn"t care."
"She"ll jump out of the frying-pan into the fire, then; for the Townes, mother and son, are not worth a quarter of it."
"What does she care? Mr. Lewis Gesner is a gentleman, and he knows something."
"He said once that I was only a little doll," said Mrs. Wadsworth. "I never liked him afterward."
"I like him," said Dinah; "he doesn"t flirt with the girls; he always talks to the old ladies."
"What are you going to do to-day, Tessa?" inquired Mrs. Wadsworth, ignoring Dinah"s remark.
"Oh, I don"t know," she answered, "and don"t care" was the unspoken addition.
There was one thing she was sure to do. On her way to the ten o"clock mail she would take a moment with Miss Jewett for a word, a look; for something to set her heart to beating to a cheerier tune. Ten minutes before mail time she found Miss Jewett as busy as a bee.
"Oh, Tessa," glancing up from her desk, "I knew you would come. I had a good crying spell on my twenty-fifth birthday and I"ve looked through clear eyes ever since. I wish for you that your second quarter may be as full of hard work as mine."
Tessa felt as if the sun were shining warm again. At the office she received her birthday present; the one thing that she most wished for; if ever birthday face were in a glow and birthday heart set to dancing, hers were when her fingers held the check for one hundred and sixty-eight dollars and fifty cents, and when her eyes ran through the brief, friendly letter, with its two lines of praise.
"I am taken with your book. It gives me a humbling-down feeling. I hardly know why."
"Oh, it"s too good! it"s too good," she cried, with her head close to Miss Jewett"s at the desk over the large day-book. "I was feeling as if n.o.body cared, and now he wants another book. As good as this, he says."
Tessa lived in fairy-land for the next two hours. No, she lived in Dunellen on a happy birthday.
"Well! well! well!" exclaimed her father, taking off his spectacles to wipe his eyes, "this is what I call fine. So this is what you grew pale over last winter," he added, looking down into a face as rosy and wide awake as a child"s waking out of sleep.
"What shall you do with so much money?"
"Spend it, of course. I have spent it already a hundred times."
"You must return receipt and reply to the letter."
"I had forgotten that."
"You will find every thing on my desk. Write your name on the back of the check and I will give you the money."
"I don"t want to do that. I want to take it into the bank and surprise Gus with it. His face will be worth another check."
She wrote her name upon the check, her father standing beside her.
Theresa L. Wadsworth. He was very proud of this name among his three girls.
"And you expect to do this thing again?"
"I do. Many times. All I want is a nook and a lead pencil."
"Daughter, I would like something else better."
"I wouldn"t. Nothing else. I shall not change my mind even for a knight in helmet and helmet feather."
Mr. Hammerton"s face _was_ worth another check; he looked down at her from his high stool in a grave, paternal fashion. She remained decorously silent.
"How women _do_ like to spend money," he said. "At six o"clock you will not have a penny left."
"How can I? Father is to have a farm in Mayfield, mother is to go to Europe, and Dine is to have diamond ear-rings!"
"And I?"
"I will buy you a month to go fishing! And myself brains enough to write a better book. Isn"t it comical for me to get more for my book than Milton got for Paradise Lost?"
Tessa laughed as she counted her money at tea-time; there was a twenty dollar bill and seventy-five cents! But in her mother"s chamber stood a suite of black-walnut with marble tops, in one of Dine"s drawers, materials for a black and white striped silk, on the sitting-room table a copy of Shakespeare in three Turkey morocco volumes, for her father; she had also sent a gold thimble to Sue Greyson, several volumes of Ruskin to Mr. Hammerton, Barnes on _Job_ to Miss Jewett, and had purchased a ream of foolscap, a pint of ink, a pair of gloves, and _The Scarlet Letter_ for herself!
"Is there any thing left in the world that you want?" her father asked.
"Yes, but twenty dollars will not buy it," she replied, thinking of Dr.
Lake"s anxious face as she had seen it that day.