But Sheila sprang to her feet and stepped back a pace or two. "Don"t you _see_?" she cried tragically.
And then Mrs. Caldwell discovered the transformation of her Cinderella.
No demure little maiden this, in the white muslin and blue ribbons of an ingenuous spirit, but a fashionably clad "young lady," who appeared to have grown suddenly tall and rather stately with the clothing of her slim body in the long, soft gown.
"Sheila!" exclaimed Mrs. Caldwell involuntarily. And then, with her hands outstretched to the impressive young culprit, "Tell me all about it, dear."
And sitting on the floor at her grandmother"s feet, regardless of Charlotte"s crushed flounces, Sheila poured out her impetuous confession, from the first moment of temptation and yielding to the final one of Peter"s awakening words.
"And when he spoke of you, grandmother, I just couldn"t _bear_ it! I wondered how I could have been happy at all--I wondered how I could have forgotten you for a minute! I hated the frock! I hated the party! And I hated myself most of all! I had to come home and ask you to forgive me right away!"
And down went her head into Mrs. Caldwell"s lap. "Do you---think--you can forgive me?" came the m.u.f.fled plea.
For answer Mrs. Caldwell bent and kissed the prostrate head, and it burrowed more comfortably against her knee. But Mrs. Caldwell did not speak. She was waiting for something, and when Sheila continued to burrow, in the contented silence of a penitence achieved, she inquired quietly: "Well, dear?"
Sheila lifted her head at that, and looked straight into the wise, sweet eyes above her: "I wanted something! I wanted something dreadfully! And I didn"t know what it was. And then, when I saw myself in Charlotte"s frock--and so changed--I thought I"d found what I wanted. I thought--I thought I"d wanted to be beautiful!"
"Yes," said Mrs. Caldwell gently, "I used to think that, too."
"Oh, grandmother, did you? Then you understand how I felt! But--but, you see, it didn"t last. I wanted to be good _more_. That"s what made me come home. Grandmother, do you suppose _that"s_ what I"ve wanted all the time, without knowing it--to be good?"
At the question, Mrs. Caldwell, wise gardener that she was, realized that one of the flowers which she had divined, stirring in the depths of Sheila"s being, was pushing its way upward to the light, and that the moment had come for her to help it. She slipped her arms around the girl kneeling before her, as if seeking in love"s touch inspiration for love"s words.
"I think you will always want to be good," she said, "and I think you will always want to be beautiful. Women do, Sheila dear--even the women who are least beautiful and least--good. It"s part of being a woman--just like loving things that are little and helpless.
"But, Sheila, being beautiful isn"t enough! Even being good isn"t enough, though of course it ought to be. It"s essential, but it isn"t enough. Every woman must have something else besides to make her happy--something that is hers, _her own_! She must have that to be beautiful _for_, and to be good for--she must have that to live for!
"And that is what you want, dear--the thing that is your own. You have been born for that--you cannot be complete or content without it."
Mrs. Caldwell"s voice rose, grave and rich with the harmonies of life, through the peaceful room, and Sheila quivered responsively in the circle of her arms. To the young girl, womanhood, that only yesterday had been so far away, now seemed to be drawing thrillingly near with all its attendant mysteries. And in her next question she took a step to meet it:
"Grandmother, what is it?--the thing that will be mine?"
"Dear, how can I tell? It isn"t the same for us all. For one woman it is love; for another it is work; for some it is, blessedly, both work and love. For me--now--it is _you_! How can I tell what it will be for my little girl?"
"I want it!" whispered Sheila. "I want it!"
"You must wait for it, dear. You must wait for it to come to you. You can"t hurry life."
"But can"t I do _anything_?"
"You can be good, and you can be beautiful, so that you"ll be ready for it when it comes. But"--and now Mrs. Caldwell smiled, and with her smile the stress of the moment pa.s.sed--"but not in Charlotte"s frock!
It wouldn"t be fair to make yourself beautiful with borrowed plumage, would it, little bird of paradise? You"d only get a borrowed happiness out of that--one that you hadn"t a right to, and couldn"t keep."
Sheila rose from her knees, smiling, too. "I"ll go right upstairs and take it off," she declared. "I want to play fair from the start--I only _want_ what"s really mine!"
And so, coming back, under Mrs. Caldwell"s tactful guidance, from the deep waters to the pleasant, shallow wavelets that lap the sh.o.r.es of commonplace life, she began to busy herself with the small duties of the night, closing the windows and putting out the lamps. Then, with bed-time candles after the fashion of Mrs. Caldwell"s own girlhood, the two started up the stairs, Sheila leading and lighting the way--as youth always will, despite the riper wisdom of age. Once she smiled over her shoulder; and before they had gained the top of the flight, she paused and reached back her hand to help her grandmother up the last few steps. There was something gracious and strong in the gesture--something that had not been in the nature of the Sheila who had bent her head to Mrs. Caldwell"s knee an hour before. It was as if the womanhood of which Mrs. Caldwell had spoken had already awakened in her and with it, not only the longing for something of her own, but that kindred tenderness for things little and helpless--or helpless and old.
"Take my hand," she said sweetly, and there was in her voice the lovely gentleness that young mothers use toward their children.
The next day, when Charlotte came to inquire why her guest had flown, without warning and apparently without cause, she found a Sheila who, though garbed once more in her own short frock, seemed in some mysterious way more grown-up than she had in the trailing splendor of the night before.
"What"s happened to you?" demanded Charlotte shrewdly, when the two girls were shut into the privacy of Sheila"s little white bedroom, a room that resembled the despised white muslin and blue sash which had been discarded for Charlotte"s furbelows. "I know _something"s_ happened to you. You"re--different. Did somebody make love to you?"
"Goodness, no!" denied Sheila in a horrified tone, and the alarmed young blood rose in a slow, rich tide over her neck and face and temples.
"Oh, you needn"t be so shocked. Somebody will some day!" And Charlotte laughed lightly out of her own precocious experience.
Of the two girls, Sheila was the one to be loved, but Charlotte was the one to be made love to--if the love-making were only the pastime of the hour. Charlotte was clever and daring and cold, and could take care of herself. She knew, even at sixteen, all the rules of the game: when to advance, when to retreat, and, most important of all, when to laugh.
But Sheila would never be able to laugh at love or love"s counterpart.
"Somebody _will_ make love to you some day!" repeated Charlotte teasingly.
"Well, n.o.body has yet!" Sheila a.s.sured her crossly. "And what"s more, I hope n.o.body will! _That_ isn"t what I want!"
"What do you want?" asked Charlotte curiously, detecting the underlying earnestness of the words. But she received no response, and so, bent upon an interesting topic, she harked back to Sheila"s flight from the party: "If n.o.body made love to you, why did you run away? Did your conscience hurt you, Sheila?"
"Yes," admitted Sheila, "that was what made me come home. But I stayed home because of something else."
"What?"
Sheila groped for the language of Mrs. Caldwell"s lesson: "Because I--I didn"t want to be pretty in somebody else"s clothes. I was happy for a little while, but it didn"t last. You see, I"d borrowed that--the happiness--along with the frock. And of course I couldn"t keep it. I just want what belongs to me after this, Charlotte. It isn"t fair to take anything else--and it isn"t any use either."
Charlotte stared at her with puzzled eyes. "You _are_ queer," she remarked reflectively. "You _are_ queer, Sheila. Theodore Kent always said so, and he was right. I wonder what he"ll think of you when he gets back from college."
But Sheila, who had blushed painfully at the suggestion of a lover who did not exist, heard Ted"s name without a flush or a tremor; and in despair of any conversation about dress or beaux, the guest presently took her departure.
A few days later Charlotte went back to her city school for further "finishing," though she had already been sharpened and polished to a bewildering edge and brilliancy. And left to herself, Sheila resumed her unsophisticated, girlish life.
"We aren"t going to have any young ladies at our house after all, Peter," Mrs. Caldwell announced triumphantly over her teacup one afternoon.
And Peter, lounging on the leafy veranda and appreciatively sipping Mrs. Caldwell"s fragrant amber brew, lifted a languidly interested face: "How are you going to stop time for Sheila? Of course you"ve done it for yourself, but not even you, fairy G.o.dmother, can do that for other people."
"I don"t intend to try. I don"t want to try. Because--when my little girl goes--it"s time that will bring me some one better."
"The young lady, dear Mrs. Caldwell. The young lady--inevitably."
"No, Peter--the woman!" And Mrs. Caldwell"s voice rang with pride and confidence. "There"s the making of one in Sheila, Peter--of a real woman!"
"What"s become of the poet you used to see in her?" he inquired.
"Oh, you"ve shut that safely into a cage of books. I"m not afraid of it any more."
"It can still sing behind the bars, you know," he warned her.
"No," she said, growing serious again, "it wouldn"t--in Sheila"s case.
At least it wouldn"t unless it got into just the right cage, hung in the sunshine and the south wind. That"s what I"m afraid of, Peter--that Sheila herself will be snared into the wrong cage!"