Eagle River review. [volume] (Eagle River, Wis.) 1890-1927, 1905-10-20
CHAPTER XIV.
''Where is that girl, Amp"
I.She is n1t ~ the mark ma'an1 -


"She is out IN the park, ma'am'
"She is always out in the park. 1t
isn't fit for her to be out at all in such
weather, with that cough of hers that
never gets any better. Instead of being
comfort to me, she is nothing but
burden and a responsibility. l am sure
I don't know what to do about her-and
there's nobody that 1 can write to for
orders nowadays, with the master and
mistress gone abroad, and even Mr..
Raikes as has took himself off-the Lord
knows where! l think in my old age,
that it is hard to be saddled with Il use
less child like that"
The speaker was Mrs. Succurden; she
stood at the hall door shading her eyes
from the bright winter sunshine, and
looking out over the snow-covered slopes
that reached away, one below the other.
till they sank into the dazzling whiteness
of the plains below. She had not look
ed long before she espied between the
black trunks of the beech groves some
quarter of mile away a small, dark
robed figure that wandered slowly and
aimlessly over the crisp, snow-covered
grass.
There she is" muttered the house
keeper, with quicker of annoyance on
her rorehead. poor feckless, half-Witted
creature, sauntering along as if it was
| midsummer; with no more notion of tax
ing care of herself than if she was a
baby. Tom," she called out to one of
the gardeners, who was sweeping the
snow in a desultory manner away from
the front door, go and tell Catherine
that [ want her."
She came obedient to the summons.
A small, wisp-like figure of a girl in her
dark dress, with a face that seemed
scarcely human in its absolute transpar-
ent pallor.
You wanted me, Mrs. Succurden?'
Yes. | want you to come in; it is
not fit for you to be wandering about
in the snow like that. Have you washed
the best dinner service, as l told you?"
Yes. | have done all the work you
set me to do
"Come in then, and go and dust the
glass in the octagon room"
Kitten did what she was told She
went into the octagon room. 1t was the
room where Edgar Raikes used to sit
the room which Brian had once used as
his own, and where the photograph of
Miss Gray stood IL its frame with the
closed brass doors, upon the mantelshelf.
1t was place that had a strange fasci-
nation for Kitten. She would stand
whole minutes at time motionless at
the window that looked out over the
now barren trees towards the grey
church tower in the hollow.
Kitten never went into the octagon
room without dreaming by the window
fnr 11-biIa With oil IL
the closed doors at Rosamond Gray's
picture. This self-torture, which kept
her love and her pain alive, became a
sort of religious duty to her.
"Was [ not right to leave him?" she
would say to herself, almost with tri-
umph, since he loved her so much, and
could never, by any effort, have set me
in her place? Are not all the mistakes
of this world made by the women who
struggle for a mans love which there is
no hope of their getting? Better to let
it co.
There was a glass-doored cabinet in
the corner of the octagon room. 1t
was filed up to the topmost shelf with
specimens of old cut glass. 1t was part
of Kittens duty to dust the glass and
the shelves. and to replace these yalua-
bic objects in order in their places. Kit
ten, mounted upon a low pair of steps,
was carefully busting an old goblet of
greenish-hued crystal, which she knew
better than Mrs. Succurden could tell
her, was of untold value. being absolute
" unique and unreplaceable; she was
still dreaming about Brian's youth, about
the beautiful girl whom he had loved
lcng ago.
She could hear Mrs. Succurden's voice
talking yolubly, and with a certain agi-