CHARLOTTE
With the departure of Mrs. Millard a season of repose came to the Terrace. Charlotte and Miss Virginia actually found life a little tame after the excitement, for their neighbors were just then absorbed in their own affairs.
Miss Sarah and her aunt had some new boarders on which to expend time and thought, and Alexina was living a life of rigid usefulness, studying shorthand in secret and helping with the house work, for the Russell mansion was large and servants not numerous. She also made dainty things for that radiant b.u.t.terfly Madelaine. Alex was a born milliner, but she rather despised her gift, even while acknowledging its usefulness.
The fame of the corner shop was spreading abroad till it was in a fair way to become fashionable. Charlotte, from her window where she studied, could see people pa.s.sing in and out, and not infrequently a carriage stood before the door. Sometimes she would forget her lesson in the interest of recalling her evening visit there. How cheery and cosey it had looked in the lamplight! Should she ever see it again?
Miss Pennington bowed and smiled in a friendly way when they occasionally met, Miss Carpenter she had not seen again.
It occurred to Charlotte quite suddenly one day that it was something of a coincidence that there should be a Miss Carpenter across the street here, and while she was thinking about it she was called down to see--of all persons!--her guardian. Having business in the South, Mr. Landor had made it convenient to stop over a day or two.
She was so glad to see him she came near crying, a most unusual thing for Charlotte, and her guardian eyed her closely as she drew him into the library and seated herself on an ottoman beside his chair. Miss Wilbur was out, and there was nothing to interrupt them.
With her elbow on the arm of his chair, and her chin in her hand as she looked up at him, Charlotte at first had a dozen questions to ask concerning Cousin Frank and Mrs. Wellington, and Spruce Street affairs generally. But after a little, Uncle Landor began to ask the questions, and then came the confession.
She unfolded the whole story, trying not to spare herself, though unable to conceal some resentment against Aunt Caroline. Mr. Landor listened in grave silence, and continued to look at her thoughtfully after she had finished. Charlotte"s eyes fell under his scrutiny, but she quickly lifted them again.
"Was I deceitful? I did not mean to be."
"What do you think yourself?"
"I--but I tried to tell."
"Things were rather against you, Charlotte. I like to see you loyal.
Do you still think this girl the sort of friend you care to have?"
Charlotte hung her head. "I don"t know," she faltered. The truth was, Lucile"s excess of devotion was beginning to grow tiresome. There were other of her schoolmates who, she could not help seeing, were more desirable as friends, but they now held aloof. It was hard to acknowledge that Aunt Caroline had been at least partly right.
Mr. Landor lifted the downcast face, and his gaze was kindly. "I believe you are learning your lesson, little girl, but it has been a sharp one. It is always a mistake not to be straightforward. In all your life I fear you have never truly learned to obey. You are fast growing up now, and the responsibility will rest more and more upon yourself. Are you going to listen to the voice that speaks in your heart, and obey when the conflict comes?" He laid his hand on the brown head. "In spite of it all, you have improved, Charlotte."
"Do you mean my hair?"
"Have you done anything to your hair? I didn"t know; it is very pretty hair. No, you have grown more gentle and womanly."
"I am happy with Aunt Virginia. She is a dear, and I feel so ashamed and sorry when I think how she would have felt if I had run away.
Uncle Landor, is it that voice you spoke of--in our hearts--that makes us feel so dreadfully ashamed sometimes?"
"I suppose we may say it is in this instance. It is the judgment of the higher self upon the lower self."
Mr. Landor was a reserved and somewhat silent man, and never before had he talked to Charlotte just as he did this afternoon. Till now she had been only a child to be petted or reproved. To-day he gently pointed out her faults, showed her how from now on it rested largely with herself what she would make of her life; he spoke of the guiding voice that all may hear who listen and who keep their hearts pure and loving, and last of all he put into her hand a little pocket Testament, in which he said he had marked certain things which had served him as guide-posts on the way, and might help her.
Charlotte was touched and pleased, and took the book with a very earnest promise to read it and follow its guidance.
After this they went on to talk of other matters. Charlotte pointed out the shop over the way, and gave an account of the neighborhood which showed such a keen appreciation of individual foibles, that her guardian found himself laughing heartily.
"Uncle Landor, I wish you would ask Aunt Virginia to let me go to the shop," she said. "I liked Miss Carpenter and Miss Pennington so much, and they were very good to me."
Mr. Landor spent several days in town, and before he left, Miss Virginia herself asked his opinion as to the proper att.i.tude toward the shopkeepers.
"They did me a great service, and in the excitement of that evening I cannot recall thanking Miss Pennington. I went into the shop the day after Caroline left, meaning to give some expression to my grat.i.tude, but both the young women were out. I feel uncomfortable about it. I can"t think as Caroline does, that they are trying to force themselves upon our notice. They really seem to be ladies. What would you advise?"
A smile illumined Mr. Landor"s usually grave countenance at Miss Wilbur"s earnestness.
"It is a thrifty-looking little shop," he said; "Charlotte pointed it out to me. And I should say, Miss Virginia, that you are perfectly safe in following your own instincts in the matter. To suppose their motives in helping Charlotte other than kindly seems to me both ungracious and absurd. You say they appear to be ladies. They probably are, but however that may be, you and Charlotte and I owe them our thanks."
Miss Virginia told Charlotte afterward that she was greatly relieved.
"For Philadelphia people are not likely to go too far in a matter of this kind. Then, too, Mr. Landor is a man, and able to judge whether they could possibly be dangerous persons."
Charlotte opened her eyes. "How could they be dangerous?"
"Well, my dear, they might be burglars, come to spy out the neighborhood, with the shop for a blind."
"Oh, Aunt Virginia!" laughed Charlotte.
"I am sure I have read of such things," the lady insisted stoutly.
Not long after this Charlotte received a letter from Cousin Francis.
"Father tells me you have been having your own troubles, little Char,"
he wrote. "Well, keep up a good heart and work hard. This is what I am doing just now. Things have not gone my way at all, but in spite of it I am going to try to do something worth while this winter. I often wish you were here to be my admiring critic."
A letter came from Mrs. Wellington also, relating chiefly to a package Aunt Cora had commissioned her to send, but at the end she said: "Perhaps you will be interested to know the Carpenter house is closed.
Miss May has gone away--not to be home for a year, they say--so if you were here, you could not watch for her as you used to do."
Was it on account of Miss Carpenter that things were not going Cousin Frank"s way? Charlotte wondered, and began to think once more of the rose that was out of reach.
CHAPTER SEVENTEENTH
AN EVENING CALL
"Alex, I am glad to see you. I was about to send Martha over for you; I am alone this evening. How very nice you look!"
It was an understood thing that if Alex had no other engagement, she was to take supper at the Wilburs" on Fridays. She stood before Miss Virginia pulling off her long gloves, looking indeed unusually handsome in a gown of pale gray and a plumy black hat, which she had made herself with a sort of reluctant pleasure in its becomingness.
"I simply had to go to the Burtons"," she explained. "Madelaine was receiving, and mother insisted if I never went anywhere, people would begin to say she pushed me into the background and showed partiality.
There is no arguing with her when she is in that state of mind, so I went."
"And enjoyed it, I am sure," said Miss Virginia. "I suppose I should have gone if Caroline had been at home, but to tell the truth, I forgot it. Charlotte was asked to a party,--one of her schoolmates,--and I was interested in seeing her dressed. I am glad the child is to have a little diversion; she has been as good as gold lately."
"I am certain you will not have any more trouble with her; Charlotte is a nice child," Alex replied with a half sigh. She felt that Charlotte had never quite forgiven her for her severity, and that Madelaine without any effort or care had won the place she had meant to hold in the little girl"s regard.
Madelaine occasionally joined the Friday tea-party; to fascinate was as natural to her as to breathe, and Charlotte had been quickly won.
"You look sweet with your hair back," Madelaine had said, loosening the waves about Charlotte"s forehead with fairy touches. "It was too extreme before. We could hardly see your eyes, and they are too pretty to hide."