diff --git "a/data/test/28444.txt" "b/data/test/28444.txt" --- "a/data/test/28444.txt" +++ "b/data/test/28444.txt" @@ -1,7112 +1,7112 @@ - - - - -Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net - - - - - - - - - -TURN ABOUT ELEANOR - - - - -[Illustration: Eleanor] - - - - -Turn About Eleanor - -By - -ETHEL M. KELLEY - -ILLUSTRATED BY - -F. GRAHAM COOTES - -INDIANAPOLIS - -THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY - -PUBLISHERS - - - - -Copyright 1917 -The Bobbs-Merrill Company - -Printed in the United States of America - -PRESS OF - -BRAUNWORTH & CO. - -BOOK MANUFACTURERS - -BROOKLYN, N. Y. - - - - -TO MY MOTHER - - - - -CONTENTS - - CHAPTER PAGE - - I Enter Eleanor 1 - - II The Cooperative Parents 14 - - III The Experiment Begins 27 - - IV Peter Elucidates 40 - - V Eleanor Enjoys Herself in Her Own Way 48 - - VI Jimmie Becomes a Parent 63 - - VII One Descent into Bohemia 72 - - VIII The Ten Hutchinsons 84 - - IX Peter 101 - - X The Omniscient Focus 113 - - XI Gertrude Has Trouble with Her Behavior 124 - - XII Madam Bolling 138 - - XIII Brook and River 158 - - XIV Merry Christmas 167 - - XV Growing Up 181 - - XVI Margaret Louisa's Birthright 195 - - XVII A Real Kiss 203 - - XVIII Beulah's Problem 219 - - XIX Mostly Uncle Peter 234 - - XX The Makings of a Triple Wedding 251 - - XXI Eleanor Hears the News 261 - - XXII The Search 271 - - XXIII The Young Nurse 281 - - XXIV Christmas Again 292 - - XXV The Lover 304 - - - - -TURN ABOUT ELEANOR - - - - -TURN ABOUT ELEANOR - -CHAPTER I - -ENTER ELEANOR - - -A child in a faded tam-o'-shanter that had once been baby blue, and a -shoddy coat of a glaring, unpropitious newness, was sitting -uncomfortably on the edge of a hansom seat, and gazing soberly out at -the traffic of Fifth Avenue. - -The young man beside her, a blond, sleek, narrow-headed youth in -eye-glasses, was literally making conversation with her. That is, he -was engaged in a palpable effort to make conversation--to manufacture -out of the thin crisp air of that November morning and the random -impressions of their progress up the Avenue, something with a general -resemblance to tete-a-tete dialogue as he understood it. He was -succeeding only indifferently. - -"See, Eleanor," he pointed brightly with his stick to the flower shop -they were passing, "see that building with the red roof, and all -those window boxes. Don't you think those little trees in pots outside -look like Christmas trees? Sometimes when your Aunts Beulah and -Margaret and Gertrude, whom you haven't met yet--though you are on -your way to meet them, you know--sometimes when they have been very -good, almost good enough to deserve it, I stop by that little flower -shop and buy a chaste half dozen of gardenias and their accessories, -and divide them among the three." - -"Do you?" the child asked, without wistfulness. She was a good child, -David Bolling decided,--a sporting child, willing evidently to play -when it was her turn, even when she didn't understand the game at all. -It was certainly a new kind of game that she would be so soon expected -to play her part in,--a rather serious kind of game, if you chose to -look at it that way. - -David himself hardly knew how to look at it. He was naturally a -conservative young man, who had been brought up by his mother to -behave as simply as possible on all occasions, and to avoid the -conspicuous as tacitly and tactfully as one avoids a new disease germ. -His native point of view, however, had been somewhat deflected by his -associations. His intimate circle consisted of a set of people who -indorsed his mother's decalogue only under protest, and with the most -stringent reservations. That is, they were young and healthy, and -somewhat overcharged with animal spirits, and their reactions were all -very intense and emphatic. - -He was trying at this instant to look rather more as if he were likely -to meet one of his own friends than one of his mother's. His mother's -friends would not have understood his personal chaperonage of the -shabby little girl at his elbow. Her hair was not even properly -brushed. It looked frazzled and tangled; and at the corner of one of -her big blue eyes, streaking diagonally across the pallor in which it -was set, was a line of dirt,--a tear mark, it might have been, though -that didn't make the general effect any less untidy, David thought; -only a trifle more uncomfortably pathetic. She was a nice little girl, -that fact was becoming more and more apparent to David, but any friend -of his mother's would have wondered, and expressed him or herself as -wondering, why in the name of all sensitiveness he had not taken a -taxicab, or at least something in the nature of a closed vehicle, if -he felt himself bound to deliver in person this curious little -stranger to whatever mysterious destination she was for. - -"I thought you'd like a hansom, Eleanor, better than a taxi-cab, -because you can see more. You've never been in this part of New York -before, I understand." - -"No, sir." - -"You came up from Colhassett last Saturday, didn't you? Mrs. O'Farrel -wrote to your grandmother to send you on to us, and you took the -Saturday night boat from Fall River." - -"Yes, sir." - -"Did you travel alone, Eleanor?" - -"A friend of Grandpa's came up on the train with me, and left me on -the vessel. He told the lady and gentleman to see if I was all -right,--Mr. Porter and Mrs. Steward." - -"And were you all right?" David's eyes twinkled. - -"Yes, sir." - -"Not sea sick, nor homesick?" - -The child's fine-featured face quivered for a second, then set again -into impassive stoic lines, and left David wondering whether he had -witnessed a vibration of real emotion, or the spasmodic twitching of -the muscles that is so characteristic of the rural public school. - -"I wasn't sea sick." - -"Tell me about your grandparents, Eleanor." Then as she did not -respond, he repeated a little sharply, "Tell me about your -grandparents, won't you?" - -The child still hesitated. David bowed to the wife of a Standard Oil -director in a passing limousine, and one of the season's prettiest -debutantes, who was walking; and because he was only twenty-four, and -his mother was very, very ambitious for him, he wondered if the tear -smudge on the face of his companion had been evident from the -sidewalk, and decided that it must have been. - -"I don't know how to tell," the child said at last, "I don't know what -you want me to say." - -"I don't want you to say anything in particular, just in general, you -know." - -David stuck. The violet eyes were widening with misery, there was no -doubt about it. "Game, clean through," he said to himself. Aloud he -continued. "Well, you know, Eleanor.--Never say 'Well,' if you can -possibly avoid it, because it's a flagrant Americanism, and when you -travel in foreign parts you're sure to regret it,--well, you know, if -you are to be in a measure my ward--and you are, my dear, as well as -the ward of your Aunts Beulah and Margaret and Gertrude, and your -Uncles Jimmie and Peter--I ought to begin by knowing a little -something of your antecedents. That is why I suggested that you tell -me about your grandparents. I don't care what you tell me, but I think -it would be very suitable for you to tell me something. Are they -native Cape Codders? I'm a New Englander myself, you know, so you may -be perfectly frank with me." - -"They're not summer folks," the child said. "They just live in -Colhassett all the year round. They live in a big white house on the -depot road, but they're so old now, they can't keep it up. If it was -painted it would be a real pretty house." - -"Your grandparents are not very well off then?" - -The child . "They've got lots of things," she said, "that -Grandfather brought home when he went to sea, but it was Uncle Amos -that sent them the money they lived on. When he died they didn't have -any." - -"How long has he been dead?" - -"Two years ago Christmas." - -"You must have had some money since then." - -"Not since Uncle Amos died, except for the rent of the barn, and the -pasture land, and a few things like that." - -"You must have had money put away." - -"No," the little girl answered. "We didn't. We didn't have any money, -except what came in the way I said. We sold some old-fashioned dishes, -and a little bit of cranberry bog for twenty-five dollars. We didn't -have any other money." - -"But you must have had something to live on. You can't make bricks -without straw, or grow little girls up without nourishing food in -their tummies." He caught an unexpected flicker of an eyelash, and -realized for the first time that the child was acutely aware of every -word he was saying, that even his use of English was registering a -poignant impression on her consciousness. The thought strangely -embarrassed him. "We say tummies in New York, Eleanor," he explained -hastily. "It's done here. The New England stomick, however, is almost -entirely obsolete. You'll really get on better in the circles to which -you are so soon to be accustomed if you refer to it in my own simple -fashion;--but to return to our muttons, Eleanor, which is French for -getting down to cases, again, you must have had something to live on -after your uncle died. You are alive now. That would almost seem to -prove my contention." - -"We didn't have any money, but what I earned." - -"But--what you earned. What do you mean, Eleanor?" - -The child's face turned crimson, then white again. This time there was -no mistaking the wave of sensitive emotion that swept over it. - -"I worked out," she said. "I made a dollar and a half a week running -errands, and taking care of a sick lady vacations, and nights after -school. Grandma had that shock, and Grandpa's back troubled him. He -tried to get work but he couldn't. He did all he could taking care of -Grandma, and tending the garden. They hated to have me work out, but -there was nobody else to." - -"A family of three can't live on a dollar and a half a week." - -"Yes, sir, they can, if they manage." - -"Where were your neighbors all this time, Eleanor? You don't mean to -tell me that the good, kindly people of Cape Cod would have stood by -and let a little girl like you support a family alone and unaided. -It's preposterous." - -"The neighbors didn't know. They thought Uncle Amos left us something. -Lots of Cape Cod children work out. They thought that I did it because -I wanted to." - -"I see," said David gravely. - -The wheel of their cab became entangled in that of a smart delivery -wagon. He watched it thoughtfully. Then he took off his glasses, and -polished them. - -"Through a glass darkly," he explained a little thickly. He was really -a very _young_ young man, and once below the surface of what he was -pleased to believe a very worldly and cynical manner, he had a -profound depth of tenderness and human sympathy. - -Then as they jogged on through the Fifty-ninth Street end of the Park, -looking strangely seared and bereft from the first blight of the -frost, he turned to her again. This time his tone was as serious as -her own. - -"Why did you stop working out, Eleanor?" he asked. - -"The lady I was tending died. There wasn't nobody else who wanted me. -Mrs. O'Farrel was a relation of hers, and when she came to the -funeral, I told her that I wanted to get work in New York if I -could,--and then last week she wrote me that the best she could do was -to get me this place to be adopted, and so--I came." - -"But your grandparents?" David asked, and realized almost as he spoke -that he had his finger on the spring of the tragedy. - -"They had to take help from the town." - -The child made a brave struggle with her tears, and David looked away -quickly. He knew something of the temper of the steel of the New -England nature; the fierce and terrible pride that is bred in the bone -of the race. He knew that the child before him had tasted of the -bitter waters of humiliation in seeing her kindred "helped" by the -town. "Going out to work," he understood, had brought the family pride -low, but taking help from the town had leveled it to the dust. - -"There is, you know, a small salary that goes with this being adopted -business," he remarked casually a few seconds later. "Your Aunts -Gertrude and Beulah and Margaret, and your three stalwart uncles -aforesaid, are not the kind of people who have been brought up to -expect something for nothing. They don't expect to adopt a perfectly -good orphan without money and without price, merely for the privilege -of experimentation. No, indeed, an orphan in good standing of the best -New England extraction ought to exact for her services a salary of at -least fifteen dollars a month. I wouldn't consent to take a cent less, -Eleanor." - -"Wouldn't you?" the child asked uncertainly. She sat suddenly erect, -as if an actual burden had been dropped from her shoulders. Her eyes -were not violet, David decided, he had been deceived by the depth of -their coloring; they were blue, Mediterranean blue, and her lashes -were an inch and a half long at the very least. She was not only -pretty, she was going to be beautiful some day. A strange premonition -struck David of a future in which this long-lashed, stoic baby was in -some way inextricably bound. - -"How old are you?" he asked her abruptly. - -"Ten years old day before yesterday." - -They had been making their way through the Park; the searer, yellower -Park of late November. It looked duller and more cheerless than David -ever remembered it. The leaves rattled on the trees, and the sun went -down suddenly. - -"This is Central Park," he said. "In the spring it's very beautiful -here, and all the people you know go motoring or driving in the -afternoon." - -He bowed to his mother's milliner in a little French runabout. The -Frenchman stared frankly at the baby blue tam-o'-shanter and the -tangled golden head it surmounted. - -"Joseph could make you a peachy tam-o'-shanter looking thing of blue -velvet; I'll bet I could draw him a picture to copy. Your Uncle David, -you know, is an artist of a sort." - -For the first time since their incongruous association began the child -met his smile; her face relaxed ever so little, and the lips quivered, -but she smiled a shy, little dawning smile. There was trust in it and -confidence. David put out his hand to pat hers, but thought better of -it. - -"Eleanor," he said, "my mother knows our only living Ex-president, and -the Countess of Warwick, one Vanderbilt, two Astors, and she's met Sir -Gilbert Parker, and Rudyard Kipling. She also knows many of the stars -and satellites of upper Fifth Avenue. She has, as well, family -connections of so much weight and stolidity that their very approach, -singly or in conjunction, shakes the earth underneath them.--I wish we -could meet them all, Eleanor, every blessed one of them." - - - - -CHAPTER II - -THE COOPERATIVE PARENTS - - -"I wonder how a place like this apartment will look to her," Beulah -said thoughtfully. "I wonder if it will seem elegant, or cramped to -death. I wonder if she will take to it kindly, or with an ill -concealed contempt for its limitations." - -"The poor little thing will probably be so frightened and homesick by -the time David gets her here, that she won't know what kind of a place -she's arrived at," Gertrude suggested. "Oh, I wouldn't be in your -shoes for the next few days for anything in the world, Beulah Page; -would you, Margaret?" - -The third girl in the group smiled. - -"I don't know," she said thoughtfully. "It would be rather fun to -begin it." - -"I'd rather have her for the first two months, and get it over with," -Beulah said decisively. "It'll be hanging over your head long after my -ordeal is over, and by the time I have to have her again she'll be -absolutely in training. You don't come until the fifth on the list you -know, Gertrude. Jimmie has her after me, then Margaret, then Peter, -and you, and David, if he has got up the courage to tell his mother -by that time." - -"But if he hasn't," Gertrude suggested. - -"He can work it out for himself. He's got to take the child two months -like the rest of us. He's agreed to." - -"He will," Margaret said, "I've never known him to go back on his word -yet." - -"Trust Margaret to stick up for David. Anyway, I've taken the -precaution to put it in writing, as you know, and the document is -filed." - -"We're not adopting this infant legally." - -"No, Gertrude, we can't,--yet, but morally we are. She isn't an -infant, she's ten years old. I wish you girls would take the matter a -little more seriously. We've bound ourselves to be responsible for -this child's whole future. We have undertaken her moral, social and -religious education. Her body and soul are to be--" - -"Equally divided among us," Gertrude cut in. - -Beulah scorned the interruption. - -"--held sacredly in trust by the six of us, severally and -collectively." - -"Why haven't we adopted her legally then?" Margaret asked. - -"Well, you see, there are practical objections. You have to be a -corporation or an institution or something, to adopt a child as a -group. A child can't have three sets of parents in the eyes of the -law, especially when none of them is married, or have the least -intention of being married, to each other.--I don't see what you want -to keep laughing at, Gertrude. It's all a little unusual and modern -and that sort of thing, but I don't think it's funny. Do you, -Margaret?" - -"I think that it's funny, but I think that it's serious, too, -Beulah." - -"I don't see what's funny about--" Beulah began hotly. - -"You don't see what's funny about anything,--even Rogers College, do -you, darling? It is funny though for the bunch of us to undertake the -upbringing of a child ten years old; to make ourselves financially and -spiritually responsible for it. It's a lot more than funny, I know, -but it doesn't seem to me as if I could go on with it at all, until -somebody was willing to admit what a _scream_ the whole thing is." - -"We'll admit that, if that's all you want, won't we, Beulah?" Margaret -appealed. - -"If I've got this insatiable sense of humor, let's indulge it by all -means," Gertrude laughed. "Go on, chillun, go on, I'll try to be good -now." - -"I wish you would," Margaret said. "Confine yourself to a syncopated -chortle while I get a few facts out of Beulah. I did most of my voting -on this proposition by proxy, while I was having the measles in -quarantine. Beulah, did I understand you to say you got hold of your -victim through Mrs. O'Farrel, your seamstress?" - -"Yes, when we decided we'd do this, we thought we'd get a child about -six. We couldn't have her any younger, because there would be bottles, -and expert feeding, and well, you know, all those things. We couldn't -have done it, especially the boys. We thought six would be just about -the right age, but we simply couldn't find a child that would do. We -had to know about its antecedents. We looked through the orphan -asylums, but there wasn't anything pure-blooded American that we could -be sure of. We were all agreed that we wanted pure American blood. I -knew Mrs. O'Farrel had relatives on Cape Cod. You know what that stock -is, a good sea-faring strain, and a race of wonderfully fine women, -'atavistic aristocrats' I remember an author in the _Atlantic Monthly_ -called them once. I suppose you think it's funny to groan, Gertrude, -when anybody makes a literary allusion, but it isn't. Well, anyway, -Mrs. O'Farrel knew about this child, and sent for her. She stayed with -Mrs. O'Farrel over Sunday, and now David is bringing her here. She'll -be here in a minute." - -"Why David?" Gertrude twinkled. - -"Why not David?" Beulah retorted. "It will be a good experience for -him, besides David is so amusing when he tries to be, I thought he -could divert her on the way." - -"It isn't such a crazy idea, after all, Gertrude." Margaret Hutchinson -was the youngest of the three, being within several months of her -majority, but she looked older. Her face had that look of wisdom that -comes to the young who have suffered physical pain. "We've got to do -something. We're all too full of energy and spirits, at least the rest -of you are, and I'm getting huskier every minute, to twirl our hands -and do nothing. None of us ever wants to be married,--that's settled; -but we do want to be useful. We're a united group of the closest kind -of friends, bound by the ties of--of--natural selection, and we need a -purpose in life. Gertrude's a real artist, but the rest of us are not, -and--and--" - -"What could be more natural for us than to want the living clay to -work on? That's the idea, isn't it?" Gertrude said. "I can be serious -if I want to, Beulah-land, but, honestly, girls, when I come to face -out the proposition, I'm almost afraid to. What'll I do with that -child when it comes to be my turn? What'll Jimmie do? Buy her a string -of pearls, and show her the night life of New York very likely. How'll -I break it to my mother? That's the cheerful little echo in my -thoughts night and day. How did you break it to yours, Beulah?" - -Beulah flushed. Her serious brown eyes, deep brown with wine- -lights in them, met those of each of her friends in turn. Then she -laughed. - -"Well, I do know this is funny," she said, "but, you know, I haven't -dared tell her. She'll be away for a month, anyway. Aunt Ann is here, -but I'm only telling her that I'm having a little girl from the -country to visit me." - -Occasionally the architect of an apartment on the upper west side of -New York--by pure accident, it would seem, since the general run of -such apartments is so uncomfortable, and unfriendly--hits upon a plan -for a group of rooms that are at once graciously proportioned and -charmingly convenient, while not being an absolute offense to the eye -in respect to the details of their decoration. Beulah Page and her -mother lived in such an apartment, and they had managed with a few -ancestral household gods, and a good many carefully related modern -additions to them, to make of their eight rooms and bath, to say -nothing of the ubiquitous butler's-pantry, something very remarkably -resembling a home, in its most delightful connotation: and it was in -the drawing room of this home that the three girls were gathered. - -Beulah, the younger daughter of a widowed mother--now visiting in the -home of the elder daughter, Beulah's sister Agatha, in the expectation -of what the Victorians refer to as an "interesting event"--was -technically under the chaperonage of her Aunt Ann, a solemn little -spinster with no control whatever over the movements of her determined -young niece. - -Beulah was just out of college,--just out, in fact, of the most -high-minded of all the colleges for women;--that founded by Andrew -Rogers in the year of our Lord eighteen hundred and sixty-one. There -is probably a greater percentage of purposeful young women graduated -from Rogers College every year, than from any other one of the -communities of learning devoted to the education of women; and of all -the purposeful classes turned out from that admirable institution, -Beulah's class could without exaggeration be designated as the most -purposeful class of them all. That Beulah was not the most purposeful -member of her class merely argues that an almost abnormally high -standard of purposefulness was maintained by practically every -individual in it. - -At Rogers every graduating class has its fad; its propaganda for a -crusade against the most startling evils of the world. One year, the -sacred outlines of the human figure are protected against -disfigurement by an ardent group of young classicists in Grecian -draperies. The next, a fierce young brood of vegetarians challenge a -lethargic world to mortal combat over an Argentine sirloin. The year -of Beulah's graduation, the new theories of child culture that were -gaining serious headway in academic circles, had filtered into the -class rooms, and Beulah's mates had contracted the contagion -instantly. The entire senior class went mad on the subject of child -psychology and the various scientific prescriptions for the direction -of the young idea. - -It was therefore primarily to Beulah Page, that little Eleanor Hamlin, -of Colhassett, Massachusetts, owed the change in her fortune. At least -it was to Beulah that she owed the initial inspiration that set the -wheel of that fortune in motion; but it was to the glorious enterprise -and idealism of youth, and the courage of a set of the most intrepid -and quixotic convictions that ever quickened in the breasts of a mad -half dozen youngsters, that she owed the actual fulfillment of her -adventure. - -The sound of the door-bell brought the three girls to their feet, but -the footfalls in the corridor, double quick time, and accentuated, -announced merely the arrival of Jimmie Sears, and Peter Stuyvesant, -nicknamed _Gramercy_ by common consent. - -"Has she come?" Peter asked. - -But Jimmie struck an attitude in the middle of the floor. - -"My daughter, oh! my daughter," he cried. "This suspense is killing -me. For the love of Mike, children, where is she?" - -"She's coming," Beulah answered; "David's bringing her." - -Gertrude pushed him into the _chaise-lounge_ already in the -possession of Margaret, and squeezed in between them. - -"Hold my hand, Jimmie," she said. "The feelings of a father are -nothing,--_nothing_ in comparison to those which smolder in the -maternal breast. Look at Beulah, how white she is, and Margaret is -trembling this minute." - -"I'm trembling, too," Peter said, "or if I'm not trembling, I'm -frightened." - -"We're all frightened," Margaret said, "but we're game." - -The door-bell rang again. - -"There they come," Beulah said, "oh! everybody be good to me." - -The familiar figure of their good friend David appeared on the -threshold at this instant, and beside him an odd-looking little figure -in a shoddy cloth coat, and a faded blue tam-o'-shanter. There was a -long smudge of dirt reaching from the corner of her eye well down into -the middle of her cheek. A kind of composite gasp went up from the -waiting group, a gasp of surprise, consternation, and panic. Not one -of the five could have told at that instant what it was he expected to -see, or how his imagination of the child differed from the concrete -reality, but amazement and keen disappointment constrained them. Here -was no figure of romance and delight. No miniature Galatea half hewn -out of the block of humanity, waiting for the chisel of a composite -Pygmalion. Here was only a grubby, little unkempt child, like all -other children, but not so presentable. - -"What's the matter with everybody?" said David with unnatural -sharpness. "I want to present you to our ward, Miss Eleanor Hamlin, -who has come a long way for the pleasure of meeting you. Eleanor, -these are your cooperative parents." - -The child's set gaze followed his gesture obediently. David took the -little hand in his, and led the owner into the heart of the group. -Beulah stepped forward. - -"This is your Aunt Beulah, Eleanor, of whom I've been telling you." - -"I'm pleased to make your acquaintance, Aunt Beulah," the little girl -said, as Beulah put out her hand, still uncertainly. - -Then the five saw a strange thing happen. The immaculate, inscrutable -David--the aristocrat of aristocrats, the one undemonstrative, -super-self-conscious member of the crowd, who had been delegated to -transport the little orphan chiefly because the errand was so -incongruous a mission on which to despatch him--David put his arm -around the neck of the child with a quick protecting gesture, and then -gathered her close in his arms, where she clung, quivering and -sobbing, the unkempt curls straggling helplessly over his shoulder. - -He strode across the room where Margaret was still sitting upright in -the _chaise-lounge_, her dove-gray eyes wide, her lips parted. - -"Here, you take her," he said, without ceremony, and slipped his -burden into her arms. - -"Welcome to our city, Kiddo," Jimmie said in his throat, but nobody -heard him. - -Peter, whose habit it was to walk up and down endlessly wherever he -felt most at home, paused in his peregrination, as Margaret shyly -gathered the rough little head to her bosom. The child met his gaze as -he did so. - -"We weren't quite up to scratch," he said gravely. - -Beulah's eyes filled. "Peter," she said, "Peter, I didn't mean to -be--not to be--" - -But Peter seemed not to know she was speaking. The child's eyes still -held him, and he stood gazing down at her, his handsome head thrown -slightly back; his face deeply intent; his eyes softened. - -"I'm your Uncle Peter, Eleanor," he said, and bent down till his lips -touched her forehead. - - - - -CHAPTER III - -THE EXPERIMENT BEGINS - - -Eleanor walked over to the steam pipes, and examined them carefully. -The terrible rattling noise had stopped, as had also the choking and -gurgling that had kept her awake because it was so like the noise that -Mrs. O'Farrel's aunt, the sick lady she had helped to take care of, -made constantly for the last two weeks of her life. Whenever there was -a sound that was anything like that, Eleanor could not help shivering. -She had never seen steam pipes before. When Beulah had shown her the -room where she was to sleep--a room all in blue, baby blue, and pink -roses--Eleanor thought that the silver pipes standing upright in the -corner were a part of some musical instrument, like a pipe organ. When -the rattling sound had begun she thought that some one had come into -the room with her, and was tuning it. She had drawn the pink silk puff -closely about her ears, and tried not to be frightened. Trying not to -be frightened was the way she had spent a good deal of her time since -her Uncle Amos died, and she had had to look out for her -grandparents. - -Now that it was morning, and the bright sun was streaming into the -windows, she ventured to climb out of bed and approach the uncanny -instrument. She tripped on the trailing folds of that nightgown her -Aunt Beulah--it was funny that all these ladies should call themselves -her aunts, when they were really no relation to her--had insisted on -her wearing. Her own nightdress had been left in the time-worn -carpetbag that Uncle David had forgotten to take out of the "handsome -cab." She stumbled against the silver pipes. They were _hot_; so hot -that the flesh of her arm nearly blistered, but she did not cry out. -Here was another mysterious problem of the kind that New York -presented at every turn, to be silently accepted, and dealt with. - -Her mother and father had once lived in New York. Her father had been -born here, in a house with a brownstone front on West Tenth Street, -wherever that was. She herself had lived in New York when she was a -baby, though she had been born in her grandfather's house in -Colhassett. She had lived in Cincinnati, Ohio, too, until she was four -years old, and her father and mother had died there, both in the same -week, of pneumonia. She wished this morning, that she could remember -the house where they lived in New York, and the things that were in -it. - -There was a knock on the door. Ought she to go and open the door in -her nightdress? Ought she to call out "Come in?" It might be a -gentleman, and her Aunt Beulah's nightdress was not very thick. She -decided to cough, so that whoever was outside might understand she was -in there, and had heard them. - -"May I come in, Eleanor?" Beulah's voice called. - -"Yes, ma'am." She started to get into bed, but Miss--Miss--the nearer -she was to her, the harder it was to call her aunt,--Aunt Beulah might -think it was time she was up. She compromised by sitting down in a -chair. - -Beulah had passed a practically sleepless night working out the theory -of Eleanor's development. The six had agreed on a certain sketchily -defined method of procedure. That is, they were to read certain books -indicated by Beulah, and to follow the general schedule that she was -to work out and adapt to the individual needs of the child herself, -during the first phase of the experiment. She felt that she had -managed the reception badly, that she had not done or said the right -thing. Peter's attitude had shown that he felt the situation had been -clumsily handled, and it was she who was responsible for it. Peter was -too kind to criticize her, but she had vowed in the muffled depths of -a feverish pillow that there should be no more flagrant flaws in the -conduct of the campaign. - -"Did you sleep well, Eleanor?" she asked. - -"Yes, ma'am." - -"Are you hungry?" - -"No, ma'am." - -The conversation languished at this. - -"Have you had your bath?" - -"I didn't know I was to have one." - -"Nice little girls have a bath every day." - -"Do they?" Eleanor asked. Her Aunt Beulah seemed to expect her to say -something more, but she couldn't think of anything. - -"I'll draw your bath for you this morning. After this you will be -expected to take it yourself." - -Eleanor had seen bathrooms before, but she had never been in a -bath-tub. At her grandfather's, she had taken her Saturday night baths -in an old wooden wash-tub, which had water poured in it from the tea -kettle. When Beulah closed the door on her she stepped gingerly into -the tub: the water was twice too hot, but she didn't know how to turn -the faucet, or whether she was expected to turn it. Mrs. O'Farrel had -told her that people had to pay for water in New York. Perhaps Aunt -Beulah had drawn all the water she could have. She used the soap -sparingly. Soap was expensive, she knew. She wished there was some way -of discovering just how much of things she was expected to use. The -number of towels distressed her, but she finally took the littlest and -dried herself. The heat of the water had nearly parboiled her. - -After that, she tried to do blindly what she was told. There was a -girl in a black dress and white apron that passed her everything she -had to eat. Her Aunt Beulah told her to help herself to sugar and to -cream for her oatmeal, from off this girl's tray. Her hand trembled a -good deal, but she was fortunate enough not to spill any. After -breakfast she was sent to wash her hands in the bathroom; she turned -the faucet, and used a very little water. Then, when she was called, -she went into the sitting-room and sat down, and folded her hands in -her lap. - -Beulah looked at her with some perplexity. The child was docile and -willing, but she seemed unexpectedly stupid for a girl ten years old. - -"Have you ever been examined for adenoids, Eleanor?" she asked -suddenly. - -"No, ma'am." - -"Say, 'no, Aunt Beulah.' Don't say, 'no, ma'am' and 'yes, ma'am.' -People don't say 'no, ma'am' and 'yes, ma'am' any more, you know. They -say 'no' and 'yes,' and then mention the name of the person to whom -they are speaking." - -"Yes, ma'am," Eleanor couldn't stop herself saying it. She wanted to -correct herself. "No, Aunt Beulah, no, Aunt Beulah," but the words -stuck in her throat. - -"Well, try to remember," Beulah said. She was thinking of the case in -a book of psychology that she had been reading that morning, of a girl -who was "pale and sleepy looking, expressionless of face, careless of -her personal appearance," who after an operation for adenoids, had -become "as animated and bright as before she had been lethargic and -dull." She was pleased to see that Eleanor's fine hair had been -scrupulously combed, and neatly braided this morning, not being able -to realize--as how should she?--that the condition of Eleanor's fine -spun locks on her arrival the night before, had been attributable to -the fact that the O'Farrel baby had stolen her comb, and Eleanor had -been too shy to mention the fact, and had combed her hair -mermaid-wise, through her fingers. - -"This morning," Beulah began brightly, "I am going to turn you loose -in the apartment, and let you do what you like. I want to get an idea -of the things you do like, you know. You can sew, or read, or drum on -the piano, or talk to me, anything that pleases you most. I want you -to be happy, that's all, and to enjoy yourself in your own way." - -"Give the child absolute freedom in which to demonstrate the worth and -value of its ego,"--that was what she was doing, "keeping it carefully -under observation while you determine the individual trend along which -to guide its development." - -The little girl looked about her helplessly. The room was very large -and bright. The walls were white, and so was the woodwork, the mantle, -and some of the furniture. Gay figured curtains hung at the windows, -and there were little stools, and chairs, and even trays with glass -over them, covered with the same bright material. Eleanor had -never seen a room anything like it. There was no center-table, no -crayon portraits of different members of the family, no easels, or -scarves thrown over the corners of the pictures. There were not many -pictures, and those that there were didn't seem to Eleanor like -pictures at all, they were all so blurry and smudgy,--excepting one of -a beautiful lady. She would have liked to have asked the name of that -lady,--but her Aunt Beulah's eyes were upon her. She slipped down from -her chair and walked across the room to the window. - -"Well, dear, what would make this the happiest day you can think of?" -Beulah asked, in the tone she was given to use when she asked Gertrude -and Margaret and Jimmie--but not often Peter--what they expected to do -with their lives. - -Eleanor turned a desperate face from the window, from the row of bland -elegant apartment buildings she had been contemplating with unseeing -eyes. - -"Do I have to?" she asked Beulah piteously. - -"Have to what?" - -"Have to amuse myself in my own way? I don't know what you want me to -do. I don't know what you think that I ought to do." - -A strong-minded and spoiled younger daughter of a widowed -mother--whose chief anxiety had been to anticipate the wants of her -children before they were expressed--with an independent income, and a -beloved and admiring circle of intimate friends, is not likely to be -imaginatively equipped to explore the spiritual fastnesses of a -sensitive and alien orphan. Beulah tried earnestly to get some -perspective on the child's point of view, but she could not. The fact -that she was torturing the child would have been outside of the limits -of her comprehension. She searched her mind for some immediate -application of the methods of Madame Montessori, and produced a lump -of modeling clay. - -"You don't really have to do anything, Eleanor," she said kindly. "I -don't want you to make an effort to please me, only to be happy -yourself. Why don't you try and see what you can do with this modeling -clay? Just try making it up into mud pies, or anything." - -"Mud pies?" - -"Let the child teach himself the significance of contour, and the use -of his hands, by fashioning the clay into rudimentary forms of -beauty." That was the theory. - -"Yes, dear, mud pies, if you wish to." - -Whereupon Eleanor, conscientiously and miserably, turned out a neat -half-dozen skilful, miniature models of the New England deep dish -apple-pie, pricked and pinched to a nicety. - -Beulah, with a vision related to the nebulous stages of a study by -Rodin, was somewhat disconcerted with this result, but she brightened -as she thought at least she had discovered a natural tendency in the -child that she could help her develop. - -"Do you like to cook, Eleanor?" she asked. - -In the child's mind there rose the picture of her grim apprenticeship -on Cape Cod. She could see the querulous invalid in the sick chair, -her face distorted with pain and impatience; she could feel the sticky -dough in her fingers, and the heat from the stove rising round her. - -"I hate cooking," she said, with the first hint of passion she had -shown in her relation to her new friends. - -The day dragged on wearily. Beulah took her to walk on the Drive, but -as far as she was able to determine the child saw nothing of her -surroundings. The crowds of trimly dressed people, the nursemaids and -babies, the swift slim outlines of the whizzing motors, even the -battleships lying so suggestively quiescent on the river before -them--all the spectacular, vivid panorama of afternoon on Riverside -Drive--seemed absolutely without interest or savor to the child. -Beulah's despair and chagrin were increasing almost as rapidly as -Eleanor's. - -Late in the afternoon Beulah suggested a nap. "I'll sit here and read -for a few minutes," she said, as she tucked Eleanor under the covers. -Then, since she was quite desperate for subjects of conversation, and -still determined by the hot memory of her night's vigil to leave no -stone of geniality unturned, she added: - -"This is a book that I am reading to help me to know how to guide and -educate you. I haven't had much experience in adopting children, you -know, Eleanor, and when there is anything in this world that you don't -know, there is usually some good and useful book that will help you to -find out all about it." - -Even to herself her words sounded hatefully patronizing and pedagogic, -but she was past the point of believing that she could handle the -situation with grace. When Eleanor's breath seemed to be coming -regularly, she put down her book with some thankfulness and escaped to -the tea table, where she poured tea for her aunt, and explained the -child's idiosyncrasies swiftly and smoothly to that estimable lady. - -Left alone, Eleanor lay still for a while, staring at the design of -pink roses on the blue wall-paper. On Cape Cod, pink and blue were not -considered to be colors that could be combined. There was nothing at -all in New York like anything she knew or remembered. She sighed. Then -she made her way to the window and picked up the book Beulah had been -reading. It was about _her_, Aunt Beulah had said,--directions for -educating her and training her. The paragraph that caught her eye -where the book was open had been marked with a pencil. - -"This girl had such a fat, frog like expression of face," Eleanor -read, "that her neighbors thought her an idiot. She was found to be -the victim of a severe case of ad-e-noids." As she spelled out the -word, she recognized it as the one Beulah had used earlier in the day. -She remembered the sudden sharp look with which the question had been -accompanied. The sick lady for whom she had "worked out" had often -called her an idiot when her feet had stumbled, or she had failed to -understand at once what was required of her. - -Eleanor read on. She encountered a text replete with hideous examples -of backward and deficient children, victims of adenoids who had been -restored to a state of normality by the removal of the affliction. She -had no idea what an adenoid was. She had a hazy notion that it was a -kind of superfluous bone in the region of the breast, but her anguish -was rooted in the fact that this, _this_ was the good and useful book -that her Aunt Beulah had found it necessary to resort to for guidance, -in the case of her own--Eleanor's--education. - -When Beulah, refreshed by a cup of tea and further sustained by the -fact that Margaret and Peter had both telephoned they were coming to -dinner, returned to her charge, she found the stolid, apathetic child -she had left, sprawling face downward on the floor, in a passion of -convulsive weeping. - - - - -CHAPTER IV - -PETER ELUCIDATES - - -It was Peter who got at the heart of the trouble. Margaret tried, but -though Eleanor clung to her and relaxed under the balm of her gentle -caresses, the child remained entirely inarticulate until Peter -gathered her up in his arms, and signed to the others that he wished -to be left alone with her. - -By the time he rejoined the two in the drawing-room--he had missed his -after-dinner coffee in the long half-hour that he had spent shut into -the guest room with the child--Jimmie and Gertrude had arrived, and -the four sat grouped together to await his pronouncement. - -"She thinks she has adenoids. She wants the doll that David left in -that carpetbag of hers he forgot to take out of the 'Handsome cab.' -She wants to be loved, and she wants to grow up and write poetry for -the newspapers," he announced. "Also she will eat a piece of bread and -butter and a glass of milk, as soon as it can conveniently be provided -for her." - -"When did you take holy orders, Gram?" Jimmie inquired. "How do you -work the confessional? I wish I could make anybody give anything up to -me, but I can't. Did you just go into that darkened chamber and say to -the kid, 'Child of my adoption,--cough,' and she coughed, or are you -the master of some subtler system of choking the truth out of 'em?" - -"Anybody would tell anything to Peter if he happened to want to know -it," Margaret said seriously. "Wouldn't they, Beulah?" - -Beulah nodded. "She wants to be loved," Peter had said. It was so -simple for some people to open their hearts and give out -love,--easily, lightly. She was not made like that,--loving came hard -with her, but when once she had given herself, it was done. Peter -didn't know how hard she had tried to do right with the child that -day. - -"The doll is called the rabbit doll, though there is no reason why it -should be, as it only looks the least tiny bit like a rabbit, and is a -girl. Its other name is Gwendolyn, and it always goes to bed with her. -Mrs. O'Farrels aunt said that children always stopped playing with -dolls when they got to be as big as Eleanor, but she isn't never -going to stop.--You must get after that double negative, Beulah.--She -once wrote a poem beginning: 'The rabbit doll, it is my own.' She -thinks that she has a frog-like expression of face, and that is why -Beulah doesn't like her better. She is perfectly willing to have her -adenoids cut out, if Beulah thinks it would improve her, but she -doesn't want to 'take anything,' when she has it done." - -"You are a wonder, Gram," Gertrude said admiringly. - -"Oh! I have made a mess of it, haven't I?" Beulah said. "Is she -homesick?" - -"Yes, she's homesick," Peter said gravely, "but not for anything she's -left in Colhassett. David told you the story, didn't he?--She is -homesick for her own kind, for people she can really love, and she's -never found any of them. Her grandfather and grandmother are old and -decrepit. She feels a terrible responsibility for them, but she -doesn't love them, not really. She's too hungry to love anybody until -she finds the friends she can cling to--without compromise." - -"An emotional aristocrat," Gertrude murmured. "It's the curse of -taste." - -"Help! Help!" Jimmie cried, grimacing at Gertrude. "Didn't she have -any kids her own age to play with?" - -"She had 'em, but she didn't have any time to play with them. You -forget she was supporting a family all the time, Jimmie." - -"By jove, I'd like to forget it." - -"She had one friend named Albertina Weston that she used to run around -with in school. Albertina also wrote poetry. They used to do poetic -'stunts' of one poem a day on some subject selected by Albertina. I -think Albertina was a snob. She candidly admitted to Eleanor that if -her clothes were more stylish, she would go round with her more. -Eleanor seemed to think that was perfectly natural." - -"How do you do it, Peter?" Jimmie besought. "If I could get one -damsel, no matter how tender her years, to confide in me like that I'd -be happy for life. It's nothing to you with those eyes, and that -matinee forehead of yours; but I want 'em to weep down my neck, and I -can't make 'em do it." - -"Wait till you grow up, Jimmie, and then see what happens," Gertrude -soothed him. - -"Wait till it's your turn with our child," Margaret said. "In two -months more she's coming to you." - -"Do I ever forget it for a minute?" Jimmie cried. - -"The point of the whole business is," Peter continued, "that we've got -a human soul on our hands. We imported a kind of scientific plaything -to exercise our spiritual muscle on, and we've got a real specimen of -womanhood in embryo. I don't know whether the situation appalls you as -much as it does me--" He broke off as he heard the bell ring. - -"That's David, he said he was coming." - -Then as David appeared laden with the lost carpetbag and a huge box of -chocolates, he waved him to a chair, and took up his speech again. "I -don't know whether the situation appalls you, as much as it does -me--if I don't get this off my chest now, David, I can't do it at -all--but the thought of that poor little waif in there and the -struggle she's had, and the shy valiant spirit of her,--the sand that -she's got, the _sand_ that put her through and kept her mouth shut -through experiences that might easily have killed her, why I feel as -if I'd give anything I had in the world to make it up to her, and yet -I'm not altogether sure that I could--that we could--that it's any of -our business to try it." - -"There's nobody else who will, if we don't," David said. - -"That's it," Peter said, "I've never known any one of our bunch to -quit anything that they once started in on, but just by way of -formality there is one thing we ought to do about this proposition -before we slide into it any further, and that is to agree that we want -to go on with it, that we know what we're in for, and that we're -game." - -"We decided all that before we sent for the kid," Jimmie said, "didn't -we?" - -"We decided we'd adopt a child, but we didn't decide we'd adopt this -one. Taking the responsibility of this one is the question before the -house just at present." - -"The idea being," David added, "that she's a fairly delicate piece of -work, and as time advances she's going to be _delicater_." - -"And that it's an awkward matter to play with souls," Beulah -contributed; whereupon Jimmie murmured, "Browning," sotto voice. - -"She may be all that you say, Gram," Jimmie said, after a few minutes -of silence, "a thunderingly refined and high-minded young waif, but -you will admit that without an interpreter of the same class, she -hasn't been much good to us so far." - -"Good lord, she isn't refined and high-minded," Peter said. "That's -not the idea. She's simply supremely sensitive and full of the most -pathetic possibilities. If we're going to undertake her we ought to -realize fully what we're up against, and acknowledge it,--that's all -I'm trying to say, and I apologize for assuming that it's more my -business than anybody's to say it." - -"That charming humility stuff, if I could only remember to pull it." - -The sofa pillow that Gertrude aimed at Jimmie hit him full on the -mouth and he busied himself pretending to eat it. Beulah scorned the -interruption. - -"Of course, we're going to undertake her," Beulah said. "We are signed -up and it's all down in writing. If anybody has any objections, they -can state them now." She looked about her dramatically. On every young -face was reflected the same earnestness that set gravely on her own. - -"The 'ayes' have it," Jimmie murmured. "From now on I become not only -a parent, but a soul doctor." He rose, and tiptoed solemnly toward the -door of Eleanor's room. - -"Where are you going, Jimmie?" Beulah called, as he was disappearing -around the bend in the corridor. - -He turned back to lift an admonitory finger. - -"Shush," he said, "do not interrupt me. I am going to wrap baby up in -a blanket and bring her out to her mothers and fathers." - - - - -CHAPTER V - -ELEANOR ENJOYS HERSELF IN HER OWN WAY - - -"I am in society here," Eleanor wrote to her friend Albertina, with a -pardonable emphasis on that phase of her new existence that would -appeal to the haughty ideals of Miss Weston, "I don't have to do any -housework, or anything. I sleep under a pink silk bedquilt, and I have -all new clothes. I have a new black pattern leather sailor hat that I -sopose you would laugh at. It cost six dollars and draws the sun down -to my head but I don't say anything. I have six aunts and uncles all -diferent names and ages but grown up. Uncle Peter is the most elderly, -he is twenty-five. I know becase we gave him a birthday party with a -cake. I sat at the table. I wore my crape da shine dress. You would -think that was pretty, well it is. There is a servant girl to do evry -thing even passing your food to you on a tray. I wish you could come -to visit me. I stay two months in a place and get broghut up there. -Aunt Beulah is peculiar but nice when you know her. She is stric and -at first I thought we was not going to get along. She thought I had -adenoids and I thought she dislikt me too much, but it turned out not. -I take lessons from her every morning like they give at Rogers -College, not like publick school. I have to think what I want to do a -good deal and then do it. At first she turned me loose to enjoy myself -and I could not do it, but now we have disapline which makes it all -right. My speling is weak, but uncle Peter says Stevanson could not -spel and did not care. Stevanson was the poat who wrote the birdie -with a yellow bill in the reader. I wish you would tel me if Grandma's -eye is worse and what about Grandfather's rheumatism. - -"Your fond friend, Eleanor. - -"P. S. We have a silver organ in all the rooms to have heat in. I was -afrayd of them at first." - - * * * * * - -In the letters to her grandparents, however, the undercurrent of -anxiety about the old people, which was a ruling motive in her life, -became apparent. - - * * * * * - -"Dear Grandma and Dear Grandpa," she wrote, - -"I have been here a weak now. I inclose my salary, fifteen dollars -($15.00) which I hope you will like. I get it for doing evry thing I -am told and being adoptid besides. You can tell the silectmen that I -am rich now and can support you just as good as Uncle Amos. I want -Grandpa to buy some heavy undershurts right of. He will get a couff if -he doesn't do it. Tell him to rub your arm evry night before you go to -bed, Grandma, and to have a hot soapstone for you. If you don't have -your bed hot you will get newmonia and I can't come home to take care -of you, becase my salary would stop. I like New York better now that I -have lived here some. I miss seeing you around, and Grandpa. - -"The cook cooks on a gas stove that is very funny. I asked her how it -went and she showed me it. She is going to leve, but lucky thing the -hired girl can cook till Aunt Beulah gets a nother cook as antyseptic -as this cook. In Rogers College they teach ladies to have their cook's -and hired girl's antyseptic. It is a good idear becase of sickness. I -inclose a recipete for a good cake. You can make it sating down. You -don't have to stir it much, and Grandpa can bring you the things. I -will write soon. I hope you are all right. Let me hear that you are -all right. Don't forget to put the cat out nights. I hope she is all -right, but remember the time she stole the butter fish. I miss you, -and I miss the cat around. Uncle David pays me my salary out of his -own pocket, because he is the richest, but I like Uncle Peter the -best. He is very handsome and we like to talk to each other the best. -Goodbye, Eleanor." - - * * * * * - -But it was on the varicolored pages of a ruled tablet--with a picture -on its cover of a pink cheeked young lady beneath a cherry tree, and -marked in large straggling letters also varicolored "The Cherry -Blossom Tablet"--that Eleanor put down her most sacred thoughts. On -the outside, just above the cherry tree, her name was written with a -pencil that had been many times wet to get the desired degree of -blackness, "Eleanor Hamlin, Colhassett, Massachusetts. Private Dairy," -and on the first page was this warning in the same painstaking, -heavily shaded chirography, "This book is sacrid, and not be trespased -in or read one word of. By order of owner. E. H." - -It was the private diary and Gwendolyn, the rabbit doll, and a small -blue china shepherdess given her by Albertina, that constituted -Eleanor's _lares et penates_. When David had finally succeeded in -tracing the ancient carpetbag in the lost and found department of the -cab company, Eleanor was able to set up her household gods, and draw -from them that measure of strength and security inseparable from their -familiar presence. She always slept with two of the three beloved -objects, and after Beulah had learned to understand and appreciate the -child's need for unsupervised privacy, she divined that the little -girl was happiest when she could devote at least an hour or two a day -to the transcribing of earnest sentences on the pink, blue and yellow -pages of the Cherry Blossom Tablet, and the mysterious games that she -played with the rabbit doll. That these games consisted largely in -making the rabbit doll impersonate Eleanor, while the child herself -became in turn each one of the six uncles and aunts, and exhorted the -victim accordingly, did not of course occur to Beulah. It did occur to -her that the pink, blue and yellow pages would have made interesting -reading to Eleanor's guardians, if they had been privileged to read -all that was chronicled there. - - * * * * * - -"My aunt Beulah wears her hair to high of her forrid. - -"My aunt Margaret wears her hair to slic on the sides. - -"My aunt Gertrude wears her hair just about right. - -"My aunt Margaret is the best looking, and has the nicest way. - -"My aunt Gertrude is the funniest. I never laugh at what she says, but -I have trouble not to. By thinking of Grandpa's rheumaticks I stop -myself just in time. Aunt Beulah means all right, and wants to do -right and have everybody else the same. - -"Uncle David is not handsome, but good. - -"Uncle Jimmie is not handsome, but his hair curls. - -"Uncle Peter is the most handsome man that ere the sun shown on. That -is poetry. He has beautiful teeth, and I like him. - -"Yesterday the Wordsworth Club--that's what Uncle Jimmie calls us -because he says we are seven--went to the Art Museum to edjucate me in -art. - -"Aunt Beulah wanted to take me to one room and keep me there until I -asked to come out. Uncle Jimmie wanted to show me the statures. Uncle -David said I ought to begin with the Ming period and work down to Art -Newvoo. Aunts Gertrude and Margaret wanted to take me to the room of -the great masters. While they were talking Uncle Peter and I went to -see a picture that made me cry. I asked him who she was. He said that -wasn't the important thing, that the important thing was that one man -had nailed his dream. He didn't doubt that lots of other painters had, -but this one meant the most to him. When I cried he said, 'You're all -right, Baby. You know.' Then he reached down and kissed me." - - * * * * * - -As the month progressed, it seemed to Beulah that she was making -distinct progress with the child. Since the evening when Peter had won -Eleanor's confidence and explained her mental processes, her task had -been illumined for her. She belonged to that class of women in whom -maternity arouses late. She had not the facile sympathy which accepts -a relationship without the endorsement of the understanding, and she -was too young to have much toleration for that which was not perfectly -clear to her. - -She had started in with high courage to demonstrate the value of a -sociological experiment. She hoped later, though these hopes she had -so far kept to herself, to write, or at least to collaborate with some -worthy educator, on a book which would serve as an exact guide to -other philanthropically inclined groups who might wish to follow the -example of cooperative adoption; but the first day of actual contact -with her problem had chilled her. She had put nothing down in her -note-book. She had made no scientific progress. There seemed to be no -intellectual response in the child. - -Peter had set all these things right for her. He had shown her the -child's uncompromising integrity of spirit. The keynote of Beulah's -nature was, as Jimmie said, that she "had to be shown." Peter pointed -out the fact to her that Eleanor's slogan also was, "No compromise." -As Eleanor became more familiar with her surroundings this spirit -became more and more evident. - -"I could let down the hem of these dresses, Aunt Beulah," she said one -day, looking down at the long stretch of leg protruding from the chic -blue frock that made her look like a Boutet de Monvil. "I can't hem -very good, but my stitches don't show much." - -"That dress isn't too short, dear. It's the way little girls always -wear them. Do little girls on Cape Cod wear them longer?" - -"Yes, Aunt Beulah." - -"How long do they wear them?" - -"Albertina," they had reached the point of discussion of Albertina -now, and Beulah was proud of it, "wore her dresses to her ankles, -be--because her--her legs was so fat. She said that mine was--were -getting to be fat too, and it wasn't refined to wear short dresses, -when your legs were fat." - -"There are a good many conflicting ideas of refinement in the world, -Eleanor," Beulah said. - -"I've noticed there are, since I came to New York," Eleanor answered -unexpectedly. - -Beulah's academic spirit recognized and rejoiced in the fact that with -all her docility, Eleanor held firmly to her preconceived notions. She -continued to wear her dresses short, but when she was not actually on -exhibition, she hid her long legs behind every available bit of -furniture or drapery. - -The one doubt left in her mind, of the child's initiative and -executive ability, was destined to be dissipated by the rather heroic -measures sometimes resorted to by a superior agency taking an ironic -hand in the game of which we have been too inhumanly sure. - -On the fifth week of Eleanor's stay Beulah became a real aunt, the -cook left, and her own aunt and official chaperon, little Miss -Prentis, was laid low with an attack of inflammatory rheumatism. -Beulah's excitement on these various counts, combined with -indiscretions in the matter of overshoes and overfatigue, made her an -easy victim to a wandering grip germ. She opened her eyes one morning -only to shut them with a groan of pain. There was an ache in her head -and a thickening in her chest, the significance of which she knew only -too well. She found herself unable to rise. She lifted a hoarse voice -and called for Mary, the maid, who did not sleep in the house but was -due every morning at seven. But the gentle knock on the door was -followed by the entrance of Eleanor, not Mary. - -"Mary didn't come, Aunt Beulah. I thought you was--were so tired, I'd -let you have your sleep out. I heard Miss Prentis calling, and I made -her some gruel, and I got my own breakfast." - -"Oh! how dreadful," Beulah gasped in the face of this new calamity; -"and I'm really so sick. I don't know what we'll do." - -Eleanor regarded her gravely. Then she put a professional hand on her -pulse and her forehead. - -"You've got the grip," she announced. - -"I'm afraid I have, Eleanor, and Doctor Martin's out of town, and -won't be back till to-morrow when he comes to Aunt Ann. I don't know -what we'll do." - -"I'll tend to things," Eleanor said. "You lie still and close your -eyes, and don't put your arms out of bed and get chilled." - -"Well, you'll have to manage somehow," Beulah moaned; "how, I don't -know, I'm sure. Give Aunt Annie her medicine and hot water bags, and -just let me be. I'm too sick to care what happens." - -After the door had closed on the child a dozen things occurred to -Beulah that might have been done for her. She was vaguely faint for -her breakfast. Her feet were cold. She thought of the soothing warmth -of antiphlogistine when applied to the chest. She thought of the -quinine on the shelf in the bathroom. Once more she tried lifting her -head, but she could not accomplish a sitting posture. She shivered as -a draft from the open window struck her. - -"If I could only be taken in hand this morning," she thought, "I know -it could be broken." - -The door opened softly. Eleanor, in the cook's serviceable apron of -gingham that would have easily contained another child the same size, -swung the door open with one hand and held it to accommodate the -passage of the big kitchen tray, deeply laden with a heterogeneous -collection of objects. She pulled two chairs close to the bedside and -deposited her burden upon them. Then she removed from the tray a -goblet of some steaming fluid and offered it to Beulah. - -"It's cream of wheat gruel," she said, and added ingratiatingly: "It -tastes nice in a tumbler." - -Beulah drank the hot decoction gratefully and found, to her surprise, -that it was deliciously made. - -Eleanor took the glass away from her and placed it on the tray, from -which she took what looked to Beulah like a cloth covered omelet,--at -any rate, it was a crescent shaped article slightly yellow in tone. -Eleanor tested it with a finger. - -"It's just about right," she said. Then she fixed Beulah with a stern -eye. "Open your chest," she commanded, "and show me the spot where -it's worst. I've made a meal poultice." - -Beulah hesitated only a second, then she obeyed meekly. She had never -seen a meal poultice before, but the heat on her afflicted chest was -grateful to her. Antiphlogistine was only Denver mud anyhow. Meekly, -also, she took the six grains of quinine and the weak dose of jamaica -ginger and water that she was next offered. She felt encouraged and -refreshed enough by this treatment to display some slight curiosity -when the little girl produced a card of villainous looking -safety-pins. - -"I'm going to pin you in with these, Aunt Beulah," she said, "and then -sweat your cold out of you." - -"Indeed, you're not," Beulah said; "don't be absurd, Eleanor. The -theory of the grip is--," but she was addressing merely the vanishing -hem of cook's voluminous apron. - -The child returned almost instantly with three objects of assorted -sizes that Beulah could not identify. From the outside they looked -like red flannel and from the way Eleanor handled them it was evident -that they also were hot. - -"I het--heated the flatirons," Eleanor explained, "the way I do for -Grandma, and I'm going to spread 'em around you, after you're pinned -in the blankets, and you got to lie there till you prespire, and -prespire good." - -"I won't do it," Beulah moaned, "I won't do any such thing. Go away, -child." - -"I cured Grandma and Grandpa and Mrs. O'Farrel's aunt that I worked -for, and I'm going to cure you," Eleanor said. - -"No." - -Eleanor advanced on her threateningly. - -"Put your arms under those covers," she said, "or I'll dash a glass of -cold water in your face,"--and Beulah obeyed her. - -Peter nodded wisely when Beulah, cured by these summary though -obsolete methods, told the story in full detail. Gertrude had laughed -until the invalid had enveloped herself in the last few shreds of her -dignity and ordered her out of the room, and the others had been -scarcely more sympathetic. - -"I know that it's funny, Peter," she said, "but you see, I can't help -worrying about it just the same. Of course, as soon as I was up she -was just as respectful and obedient to my slightest wish as she ever -was, but at the time, when she was lording it over me so, she--she -actually slapped me. You never saw such a--blazingly determined little -creature." - -Peter smiled,--gently, as was Peter's way when any friend of his made -an appeal to him. - -"That's all right, Beulah," he said, "don't you let it disturb you for -an instant. This manifestation had nothing to do with our experiment. -Our experiment is working fine--better than I dreamed it would ever -work. What happened to Eleanor, you know, was simply this. Some of the -conditions of her experience were recreated suddenly, and she -reverted." - - - - -CHAPTER VI - -JIMMIE BECOMES A PARENT - - -The entrance into the dining-room of the curly headed young man and -his pretty little niece, who had a suite on the eighth floor, as the -room clerk informed all inquirers, was always a matter of interest to -the residents of the Hotel Winchester. They were an extremely -picturesque pair to the eye seeking for romance and color. The child -had the pure, clear cut features of the cameo type of New England -maidenhood. She was always dressed in some striking combination of -blue, deep blue like her eyes, with blue hair ribbons. Her -good-looking young relative, with hair almost as near the color of the -sun as her own, seemed to be entirely devoted to her, which, -considering the charm of the child and the radiant and magnetic spirit -of the young man himself, was a delightfully natural manifestation. - -But one morning near the close of the second week of their stay, the -usual radiation of resilient youth was conspicuously absent from the -young man's demeanor, and the child's face reflected the gloom that -sat so incongruously on the contour of an optimist. The little girl -fumbled her menu card, but the waitress--the usual aging pedagogic -type of the small residential hotel--stood unnoticed at the young -man's elbow for some minutes before he was sufficiently aroused from -his gloomy meditations to address her. When he turned to her at last, -however, it was with the grin that she had grown to associate with -him,--the grin, the absence of which had kept her waiting behind his -chair with a patience that she was, except in a case where her -affections were involved, entirely incapable of. Jimmie's -protestations of inability to make headway with the ladies were not -entirely sincere. - -"Bring me everything on the menu," he said, with a wave of his hand in -the direction of that painstaking pasteboard. "Coffee, tea, fruit, -marmalade, breakfast food, ham and eggs. Bring my niece here the same. -That's all." With another wave of the hand he dismissed her. - -"You can't eat it all, Uncle Jimmie," Eleanor protested. - -"I'll make a bet with you," Jimmie declared. "I'll bet you a dollar -to a doughnut that if she brings it all, I'll eat it." - -"Oh! Uncle Jimmie, you know she won't bring it. You never bet so I can -get the dollar,--you never do." - -"I never bet so I can get my doughnut, if it comes to that." - -"I don't know where to buy any doughnuts," Eleanor said; "besides, -Uncle Jimmie, I don't really consider that I owe them. I never really -say that I'm betting, and you tell me I've lost before I've made up my -mind anything about it." - -"Speaking of doughnuts," Jimmie said, his face still wearing the look -of dejection under a grin worn awry, "can you cook, Eleanor? Can you -roast a steak, and saute baked beans, and stew sausages, and fry out a -breakfast muffin? Does she look like a cook to you?" he suddenly -demanded of the waitress, who was serving him, with an apologetic eye -on the menu, the invariable toast-coffee-and-three-minute-egg -breakfast that he had eaten every morning since his arrival. - -The waitress smiled toothily. "She looks like a capable one," she -pronounced. - -"I _can_ cook, Uncle Jimmie," Eleanor giggled, "but not the way you -said. You don't roast steak, or--or--" - -"Don't you?" Jimmie asked with the expression of pained surprise that -never failed to make his ward wriggle with delight. There were links -in the educational scheme that Jimmie forged better than any of the -cooperative guardians. Not even Jimmie realized the value of the -giggle as a developing factor in Eleanor's existence. He took three -swallows of coffee and frowned into his cup. "I can make coffee," he -added. "Good coffee. Well, we may as well look the facts in the face, -Eleanor. The jig's up. We're moving away from this elegant hostelry -to-morrow." - -"Are we?" Eleanor asked. - -"Yes, Kiddo. Apologies to Aunt Beulah (mustn't call you Kiddo) and the -reason is, that I'm broke. I haven't got any money at all, Eleanor, -and I don't know where I am going to get any. You see, it is this way. -I lost my job six weeks ago." - -"But you go to work every morning, Uncle Jimmie?" - -"I leave the house, that is. I go looking for work, but so far no nice -juicy job has come rolling down into my lap. I haven't told you this -before because,--well--when Aunt Beulah comes down every day to give -you your lessons I wanted it to look all O. K. I thought if you didn't -know, you couldn't forget sometime and tell her." - -"I don't tattle tale," Eleanor said. - -"I know you don't, Eleanor. It's only my doggone pride that makes me -want to keep up the bluff, but you're a game kid,--you--know. I tried -to get you switched off to one of the others till I could get on my -feet, but--no, they just thought I had stage fright. I couldn't -insist. It would be pretty humiliating to me to admit that I couldn't -support one-sixth of a child that I'd given my solemn oath to -be-parent." - -"To--to what?" - -"Be-parent, if it isn't a word, I invent it. It's awfully tough luck -for you, and if you want me to I'll own up to the crowd that I can't -swing you, but if you are willing to stick, why, we'll fix up some -kind of a way to cut down expenses and bluff it out." - -Eleanor considered the prospect. Jimmie watched her apparent -hesitation with some dismay. - -"Say the word," he declared, "and I'll tell 'em." - -"Oh! I don't want you to tell 'em," Eleanor cried. "I was just -thinking. If you could get me a place, you know, I could go out to -work. You don't eat very much for a man, and I might get my meals -thrown in--" - -"Don't, Eleanor, don't," Jimmie agonized. "I've got a scheme for us -all right. This--this embarrassment is only temporary. The day will -come when I can provide you with Pol Roge and diamonds. My father is -rich, you know, but he swore to me that I couldn't support myself, and -I swore to him that I could, and if I don't do it, I'm damned. I am -really, and that isn't swearing." - -"I know it isn't, when you mean it the way they say in the Bible." - -"I don't want the crowd to know. I don't want Gertrude to know. She -hasn't got much idea of me anyway. I'll get another job, if I can only -hold out." - -"I can go to work in a store," Eleanor cried. "I can be one of those -little girls in black dresses that runs between counters." - -"Do you want to break your poor Uncle James' heart, Eleanor,--do -you?" - -"No, Uncle Jimmie." - -"Then listen to me. I've borrowed a studio, a large barnlike studio on -Washington Square, suitably equipped with pots and pans and kettles. -Also, I am going to borrow the wherewithal to keep us going. It isn't -a bad kind of place if anybody likes it. There's one dinky little -bedroom for you and a cot bed for me, choked in bagdad. If you could -kind of engineer the cooking end of it, with me to do the dirty work, -of course, I think we could be quite snug and cozy." - -"I know we could, Uncle Jimmie," Eleanor said. "Will Uncle Peter come -to see us just the same?" - -It thus befell that on the fourteenth day of the third month of her -residence in New York, Eleanor descended into Bohemia. Having no least -suspicion of the real state of affairs--for Jimmie, like most -apparently expansive people who are given to rattling nonsense, was -actually very reticent about his own business--the other members of -the sextette did not hesitate to show their chagrin and disapproval at -the change in his manner of living. - -"The Winchester was an ideal place for Eleanor," Beulah wailed. "It's -deadly respectable and middle class, but it was just the kind of -atmosphere for her to accustom herself to. She was learning to manage -herself so prettily. This morning when I went to the studio--I wanted -to get the lessons over early, and take Eleanor to see that exhibition -of Bavarian dolls at Kuhner's--I found her washing up a trail of -dishes in that closet behind the screen--you've seen it, -Gertrude?--like some poor little scullery maid. She said that Jimmie -had made an omelet for breakfast. If he'd made fifty omelets there -couldn't have been a greater assortment of dirty dishes and kettles." - -Gertrude smiled. - -"Jimmie made an omelet for me once for which he used two dozen eggs. -He kept breaking them until he found the yolks of a color to suit him. -He said pale yolks made poor omelets, so he threw all the pale ones -away." - -"I suppose that you sat by and let him," Beulah said. "You would let -Jimmie do anything. You're as bad as Margaret is about David." - -"Or as bad as you are about Peter." - -"There we go, just like any silly, brainless girls, whose chief object -in life is the--the other sex," Beulah cried inconsistently. "Oh! I -hate that kind of thing." - -"So do I--in theory--" Gertrude answered, a little dreamily. "Where do -Jimmie and Eleanor get the rest of their meals?" - -"I can't seem to find out," Beulah said. "I asked Eleanor point-blank -this morning what they had to eat last night and where they had it, -and she said, 'That's a secret, Aunt Beulah.' When I asked her why it -was a secret and who it was a secret with, she only looked worried, -and said she guessed she wouldn't talk about it at all because that -was the only way to be safe about tattling. You know what I think--I -think Jimmie is taking her around to the cafes and all the shady -extravagant restaurants. He thinks it's sport and it keeps him from -getting bored with the child." - -"Well, that's one way of educating the young," Gertrude said, "but I -think you are wrong, Beulah." - - - - -CHAPTER VII - -ONE DESCENT INTO BOHEMIA - - -"Aunt Beulah does not think that Uncle Jimmie is bringing me up -right," Eleanor confided to the pages of her diary. "She comes down -here and is very uncomforterble. Well he is bringing me up good, in -some ways better than she did. When he swears he always puts out his -hand for me to slap him. He had enough to swear of. He can't get any -work or earn wages. The advertisement business is on the bum this year -becase times are so hard up. The advertisers have to save their money -and advertising agents are failing right and left. So poor Uncle -Jimmie can't get a place to work at. - -"The people in the other studios are very neighborly. Uncle Jimmie -leaves a sine on the door when he goes out. It says 'Don't Knock.' -They don't they come right in and borrow things. Uncle Jimmie says not -to have much to do with them, becase they are so queer, but when I am -not at home, the ladies come to call on him, and drink Moxie or -something. I know becase once I caught them. Uncle Jimmie says I shall -not have Behemiar thrust upon me by him, and to keep away from these -ladies until I grow up and then see if I like them. Aunt Beulah thinks -that Uncle Jimmie takes me around to other studios and I won't tell -but he does not take me anywhere except to walk and have ice-cream -soda, but I say I don't want it because of saving the ten cents. We -cook on an old gas stove that smells. I can't do very good -housekeeping becase things are not convenient. I haven't any oven to -do a Saturday baking in, and Uncle Jimmie won't let me do the washing. -I should feel more as if I earned my keap if I baked beans and made -boiled dinners and layer cake, but in New York they don't eat much but -hearty food and saluds. It isn't stylish to have cake and pie and -pudding all at one meal. Poor Grandpa would starve. He eats pie for -his breakfast, but if I told anybody they would laugh. If I wrote -Albertina what folks eat in New York she would laugh. - -"Uncle Jimmie is teaching me to like salud. He laughs when I cut up -lettice and put sugar on it. He teaches me to like olives and dried -up sausages and sour crought. He says it is important to be edjucated -in eating, and everytime we go to the Delicate Essenn store to buy -something that will edjucate me better. He teaches me to say 'I beg -your pardon,' and 'Polly vous Fransay?' and to courtesy and how to -enter a room the way you do in private theatricals. He says it isn't -knowing these things so much as knowing when you do them that counts, -and then Aunt Beulah complains that I am not being brought up. - -"I have not seen Uncle Peter for a weak. He said he was going away. I -miss him. I would not have to tell him how I was being brought up, and -whether I was hitting the white lights as Uncle Jimmie says.--He would -know." - - * * * * * - -Eleanor did not write Albertina during the time when she was living in -the studio. Some curious inversion of pride kept her silent on the -subject of the change in her life. Albertina would have turned up her -nose at the studio, Eleanor knew. Therefore, she would not so much as -address an envelope to that young lady from an interior which she -would have beheld with scorn. She held long conversations with -Gwendolyn, taking the part of Albertina, on the subject of this -snobbishness of attitude. - - * * * * * - -"Lots of people in New York have to live in little teny, weeny rooms, -Albertina," she would say. "Rents are perfectly awful here. This -studio is so big I get tired dusting all the way round it, and even if -it isn't furnished very much, why, think how much furnishing would -cost, and carpets and gold frames for the pictures! The pictures that -are in here already, without any frames, would sell for hundreds of -dollars apiece if the painter could get anybody to buy them. You ought -to be very thankful for such a place, Albertina, instead of feeling so -stuck up that you pick up your skirts from it." - - * * * * * - -But Albertina's superiority of mind was impregnable. Her spirit sat in -judgment on all the conditions of Eleanor's new environment. She -seemed to criticize everything. She hated the nicked, dun -dishes they ate from, and the black bottomed pots and pans that all -the energy of Eleanor's energetic little elbow could not restore to -decency again. She hated the cracked, dun walls, and the -mottled floor that no amount of sweeping and dusting seemed to make an -impression on. She hated the compromise of housekeeping in an -attic,--she who had been bred in an atmosphere of shining -nickle-plated ranges and linoleum, where even the kitchen pump gleamed -brightly under its annual coat of good green paint. She hated the -compromise, that was the burden of her complaint--either in the person -of Albertina or Gwendolyn, whether she lay in the crook of Eleanor's -arm in the lumpy bed where she reposed at the end of the day's labor, -or whether she sat bolt upright on the lumpy cot in the studio, the -broken bisque arm, which Jimmie insisted on her wearing in a sling -whenever he was present, dangling limply at her side in the relaxation -Eleanor preferred for it. - -The fact of not having adequate opportunity to keep her house in order -troubled the child, for her days were zealously planned by her -enthusiastic guardians. Beulah came at ten o'clock every morning to -give her lessons. As Jimmie's quest for work grew into a more and more -disheartening adventure, she had difficulty in getting him out of bed -in time to prepare and clear away the breakfast for Beulah's arrival. -After lunch, to which Jimmie scrupulously came home, she was supposed -to work an hour at her modeling clay. Gertrude, who was doing very -promising work at the art league, came to the studio twice a week to -give her instruction in handling it. Later in the afternoon one of the -aunts or uncles usually appeared with some scheme to divert her. -Margaret was telling her the stories of the Shakespeare plays, and -David was trying to make a card player of her, but was not succeeding -as well as if Albertina had not been brought up a hard shell Baptist, -who thought card playing a device of the devil's. Peter alone did not -come, for even when he was in town he was busy in the afternoon. - -As soon as her guests were gone, Eleanor hurried through such -housewifely tasks as were possible of accomplishment at that hour, but -the strain was telling on her. Jimmie began to realize this and it -added to his own distress. One night to save her the labor of -preparing the meal, he took her to an Italian restaurant in the -neighborhood where the food was honest and palatable, and the service -at least deft and clean. - -Eleanor enjoyed the experience extremely, until an incident occurred -which robbed her evening of its sweetness and plunged her into the -purgatory of the child who has inadvertently broken one of its own -laws. - -Among the belongings in the carpetbag, which was no more--having been -supplanted by a smart little suit-case marked with her initials--was a -certificate from the Massachusetts Total Abstinence Society, duly -signed by herself, and witnessed by the grammar-school teacher and the -secretary of the organization. On this certificate (which was -decorated by many presentations in dim black and white of -mid-Victorian domestic life, and surmounted by a collection of -scalloped clouds in which drifted three amateur looking angels amid a -crowd of more professional cherubim) Eleanor had pledged herself to -abstain from the use as a beverage of all intoxicating drinks, and -from the manufacture or traffic in them. She had also subscribed -herself as willing to make direct and persevering efforts to extend -the principles and blessings of total abstinence. - -"Red ink, Andrea," her Uncle Jimmie had demanded, as the black-eyed -waiter bent over him, "and ginger ale for the offspring." Eleanor -giggled. It was fun to be with Uncle Jimmie in a restaurant again. He -always called for something new and unexpected when he spoke of her to -the waiter, and he was always what Albertina would consider "very -comical" when he talked to him. "But stay," he added holding up an -admonitory finger, "I think we'll give the little one _eau rougie_ -this time. Wouldn't you like _eau rougie_, tinted water, Eleanor, the -way the French children drink it?" - -Unsuspectingly she sipped the mixture of water and ice and sugar, and -"red ink" from the big brown glass bottle that the glowing waiter set -before them. - -As the meal progressed Jimmie told her that the grated cheese was -sawdust and almost made her believe it. He showed her how to eat -spaghetti without cutting it and pointed out to her various Italian -examples of his object lesson; but she soon realized that in spite of -his efforts to entertain her, he was really very unhappy. - -"I've borrowed all the money I can, Angelface," he confessed finally. -"Tomorrow's the last day of grace. If I don't land that job at the -Perkins agency I'll have to give in and tell Peter and David, or wire -Dad." - -"You could get some other kind of a job," Eleanor said; "plumbing or -clerking or something." On Cape Cod the plumber and the grocer's clerk -lost no caste because of their calling. "Couldn't you?" - -"I _could_ so demean myself, and I will. I'll be a chauffeur, I can -run a car all right; but the fact remains that by to-morrow -something's got to happen, or I've got to own up to the bunch." - -Eleanor's heart sank. She tried hard to think of something to comfort -him but she could not. Jimmie mixed her more _eau rougie_ and she -drank it. He poured a full glass, undiluted, for himself, and held it -up to the light. - -"Well, here's to crime, daughter," he said. "Long may it wave, and us -with it." - -"That isn't really red ink, is it?" she asked. "It's an awfully pretty -color--like grape juice." - -"It is grape juice, my child, if we don't inquire too closely into the -matter. The Italians are like the French in the guide book, 'fond of -dancing and light wines.' This is one of the light wines they are fond -of.--Hello, do you feel sick, child? You're white as a ghost. It's the -air. As soon as I can get hold of that sacrificed waiter we'll get -out of here." - -Eleanor's sickness was of the spirit, but at the moment she was -incapable of telling him so, incapable of any sort of speech. A great -wave of faintness encompassed her. She had broken her pledge. She had -lightly encouraged a departure from the blessings and principles of -total abstinence. - -That night in her bed she made a long and impassioned apology to her -Maker for the sin of intemperance into which she had been so -unwittingly betrayed. She promised Him that she would never drink -anything that came out of a bottle again. She reviewed sorrowfully her -many arguments with Albertina--Albertina in the flesh that is--on the -subject of bottled drinks in general, and decided that again that -virtuous child was right in her condemnation of any drink, however -harmless in appearance or nomenclature, that bore the stigma of a -bottled label. - -She knew, however, that something more than a prayer for forgiveness -was required of her. She was pledged to protest against the evil that -she had seemingly countenanced. She could not seek the sleep of the -innocent until that reparation was made. Through the crack of her -sagging door she saw the light from Jimmie's reading lamp and knew -that he was still dressed, or clothed at least, with a sufficient -regard for the conventionalities to permit her intrusion. She rose and -rebraided her hair and tied a daytime ribbon on it. Then she put on -her stockings and her blue Japanese kimono--real Japanese, as Aunt -Beulah explained, made for a Japanese lady of quality--and made her -way into the studio. - -Jimmie was not sitting in the one comfortable studio chair with his -book under the light and his feet on the bamboo tea table as usual. He -was not sitting up at all. He was flung on the couch with his face -buried in the cushions, and his shoulders were shaking. Eleanor seeing -him thus, forgot her righteous purpose, forgot her pledge to -disseminate the principles and blessings of abstinence, forgot -everything but the pitiful spectacle of her gallant Uncle Jimmie in -grief. She stood looking down at him without quite the courage to -kneel at his side to give him comfort. - -"Uncle Jimmie," she said, "Uncle Jimmie." - -At the sound of her voice he put out his hand to her, gropingly, but -he did not uncover his face or shift his position. She found herself -smoothing his hair, gingerly at first, but with more and more -conviction as he snuggled his boyish head closer. - -"I'm awfully discouraged," he said in a weak muffled voice. "I'm sorry -you caught me at it, Baby." - -Eleanor put her face down close to his as he turned it to her. - -"Everything will be all right," she promised him, "everything will be -all right. You'll soon get a job--tomorrow maybe." - -Then she gathered him close in her angular, tense little arms and held -him there tightly. "Everything will be all right," she repeated -soothingly; "now you just put your head here, and have your cry out." - - - - -CHAPTER VIII - -THE TEN HUTCHINSONS - - -"My Aunt Margaret has a great many people living in her family," -Eleanor wrote to Albertina from her new address on Morningside -Heights. "She has a mother and a father, and two (2) grandparents, one -(1) aunt, one (1) brother, one (1) married lady and the boy of the -lady, I think the married lady is a sister but I do not ask any one, -oh--and another brother, who does not live here only on Saturdays and -Sundays. Aunt Margaret makes ten, and they have a man to wait on the -table. His name is a butler. I guess you have read about them in -stories. I am taken right in to be one of the family, and I have a -good time every day now. Aunt Margaret's father is a college teacher, -and Aunt Margaret's grandfather looks like the father of his country. -You know who I mean George Washington. They have a piano here that -plays itself like a sewing machine. They let me do it. They have -after-dinner coffee and gold spoons to it. I guess you would like to -see a gold spoon. I did. They are about the size of the tin spoons we -had in our playhouse. I have a lot of fun with that boy too. At first -I thought he was very affected, but that is just the way they teach -him to talk. He is nine and plays tricks on other people. He dares me -to do things that I don't do, like go down-stairs and steal sugar. If -Aunt Margaret's mother was my grandma I might steal sugar or plum -cake. I don't know. Remember the time we took your mother's hermits? I -do. I would like to see you. You would think this house was quite a -grand house. It has three (3) flights of stairs and one basement. I -sleep on the top floor in a dressing room out of Aunt Margaret's only -it isn't a dressing room. I dress there but no one else can. Aunt -Margaret is pretty and sings lovely. Uncle David comes here a lot. I -must close. With love and kisses." - - * * * * * - -In her diary she recorded some of the more intimate facts of her new -existence, such facts as she instinctively guarded from Albertina's -calculating sense. - - * * * * * - -"Everybody makes fun of me here. I don't care if they do, but I can't -eat so much at the table when every one is laughing at me. They get -me to talking and then they laugh. If I could see anything to laugh -at, I would laugh too. They laugh in a refined way but they laugh. -They call me Margaret's protegay. They are good to me too. They say to -my face that I am like a merry wilkins story and too good to be true, -and New England projuces lots of real art, and I am art, I can't -remember all the things, but I guess they mean well. Aunt Margaret's -grandfather sits at the head of the table, and talks about things I -never heard of before. He knows the govoner and does not like the way -he parts his hair. I thought all govoners did what they wanted to with -their hairs or anything and people had to like it because (I used to -spell because wrong but I spell better now) they was the govoners, but -it seems not at all. - -"Aunt Margaret is lovely to me. We have good times. I meant to like -Aunt Beulah the best because she has done the most for me but I am -afrayd I don't. I would not cross my heart and say so. Aunt Margaret -gives me the lessons now. I guess I learn most as much as I learned I -mean was taught of Aunt Beulah. Oh dear sometimes I get descouraged -on account of its being such a funny world and so many diferent people -in it. And so many diferent feelings. I was afrayd of the hired -butler, but I am not now." - - * * * * * - -Eleanor had not made a direct change from the Washington Square studio -to the ample house of the Hutchinsons, and it was as well for her that -a change in Jimmie's fortunes had taken her back to the Winchester and -enabled her to accustom herself again to the amenities of gentler -living. Like all sensitive and impressionable children she took on the -color of a new environment very quickly. The strain of her studio -experience had left her a little cowed and unsure of herself, but she -had brightened up like a flower set in the cheerful surroundings of -the Winchester and under the influence of Jimmie's restored spirits. - -The change had come about on Jimmie's "last day of grace." He had -secured the coveted position at the Perkins agency at a slight advance -over the salary he had received at the old place. He had left Eleanor -in the morning determined to face becomingly the disappointment that -was in store for him, and to accept the bitter necessity of admitting -his failure to his friends. He had come back in the late afternoon -with his fortunes restored, the long weeks of humiliation wiped out, -and his life back again on its old confident and inspired footing. - -He had burst into the studio with his news before he understood that -Eleanor was not alone, and inadvertently shared the secret with -Gertrude, who had been waiting for him with the kettle alight and some -wonderful cakes from "Henri's" spread out on the tea table. The three -had celebrated by dining together at a festive down-town hotel and -going back to his studio for coffee. At parting they had solemnly and -severally kissed one another. Eleanor lay awake in the dark for a long -time that night softly rubbing the cheek that had been so caressed, -and rejoicing that the drink Uncle Jimmie had called a high-ball and -had pledged their health with so assiduously, had come out of two -glasses instead of a bottle. - -Her life at the Hutchinsons' was almost like a life on another planet. -Margaret was the younger, somewhat delicate daughter of a family of -rather strident academics. Professor Hutchinson was not dependent on -his salary to defray the expenses of his elegant establishment, but -on his father, who had inherited from his father in turn the -substantial fortune on which the family was founded. - -Margaret was really a child of the fairies, but she was considerably -more fortunate in her choice of a foster family than is usually the -fate of the foundling. The rigorous altitude of intellect in which she -was reared served as a corrective to the oversensitive quality of her -imagination. - -Eleanor, who in the more leisurely moments of her life was given to -visitations from the poetic muse, was inspired to inscribe some lines -to her on one of the pink pages of the private diary. They ran as -follows, and even Professor Hutchinson, who occupied the chair of -English in that urban community of learning that so curiously bisects -the neighborhood of Harlem, could not have designated Eleanor's -description of his daughter as one that did not describe. - - "Aunt Margaret is fair and kind, - And very good and tender. - She has a very active mind. - Her figure is quite slender. - - "She moves around the room with grace, - Her hands she puts with quickness. - Although she wears upon her face - The shadow of a sickness." - -It was this "shadow of a sickness," that served to segregate Margaret -to the extent that was really necessary for her well being. To have -shared perpetually in the almost superhuman activities of the family -might have forever dulled that delicate spirit to which Eleanor came -to owe so much in the various stages of her development. - -Margaret put her arm about the child after the ordeal of the first -dinner at the big table. - -"Father does not bite," she said, "but Grandfather does. The others -are quite harmless. If Grandfather shows his teeth, run for your -life." - -"I don't know where to run to," Eleanor answered seriously, whereupon -Margaret hugged her. Her Aunt Margaret would have been puzzling to -Eleanor beyond any hope of extrication, but for the quick imagination -that unwound her riddles almost as she presented them. For one -terrible minute Eleanor had believed that Hugh Hutchinson senior did -bite, he looked so much like some of the worst of the pictures in -Little Red Riding Hood. - -"While you are here I'm going to pretend you're my very own child," -Margaret told Eleanor that first evening, "and we'll never, never tell -anybody all the foolish games we play and the things we say to each -other. I can just barely manage to be grown up in the bosom of my -family, and when I am in the company of your esteemed Aunt Beulah, but -up here in my room, Eleanor, I am never grown up. I play with dolls." - -"Oh! do you really?" - -"I really do," Margaret said. She opened a funny old chest in the -corner of the spacious, high studded chamber. "And here are some of -the dolls that I play with." She produced a manikin dressed primly -after the manner of eighteen-thirty, prim parted hair over a small -head festooned with ringlets, a fichu, and mits painted on her -fingers. "Beulah," she said with a mischievous flash of a grimace at -Eleanor. "Gertrude,"--a dashing young brunette in riding clothes. -"Jimmie,"--a curly haired dandy. "David,"--a serious creature with a -monocle. "I couldn't find Peter," she said, "but we'll make him some -day out of cotton and water colors." - -"Oh! can you make dolls?" Eleanor cried in delight, "real dolls with -hair and different eyes?" - -"I can make pretty good ones," Margaret smiled; "manikins like -these,--a Frenchwoman taught me." - -"Oh; did she? And do you play that the dolls talk to each other as if -they was--were the persons?" - -"Do I?" Margaret assembled the four manikins into a smart little -group. The doll Beulah rose,--on her forefinger. "I can't help -feeling," mimicked Margaret in a perfect reproduction of Beulah's -earnest contralto, "that we're wasting our lives,--criminally -dissipating our forces." - -The doll Gertrude put up both hands. "I want to laugh," she cried, -"won't everybody please stop talking till I've had my laugh out. Thank -you, thank you." - -"Why, that's just like Aunt Gertrude," Eleanor said. "Her voice has -that kind of a sound like a bell, only more ripply." - -"Don't be high-brow," Jimmie's lazy baritone besought with the slight -burring of the "r's" that Eleanor found so irresistible. "I'm only a -poor hard-working, business man." - -The doll David took the floor deliberately. "We intend to devote the -rest of our lives," he said, "to the care of our beloved cooperative -orphan." On that he made a rather over mannered exit, Margaret -planting each foot down deliberately until she flung him back in his -box. "That's the kind of a silly your Aunt Margaret is," she -continued, "but you mustn't ever tell anybody, Eleanor." She clasped -the child again in one of her warm, sudden embraces, and Eleanor -squeezing her shyly in return was altogether enraptured with her new -existence. - -"But there isn't any doll for _you_, Aunt Margaret," she cried. - -"Oh! yes, there is, but I wasn't going to show her to you unless you -asked, because she's so nice. I saved the prettiest one of all to be -myself, not because I believe I'm so beautiful, but--but only because -I'd like to be, Eleanor." - -"I always pretend I'm a princess," Eleanor admitted. - -The Aunt Margaret doll was truly a beautiful creation, a little more -like Marie Antoinette than her namesake, but bearing a not -inconsiderable resemblance to both, as Margaret pointed out, -judicially analyzing her features. - -Eleanor played with the rabbit doll only at night after this. In the -daytime she looked rather battered and ugly to eyes accustomed to the -delicate finish of creatures like the French manikins, but after she -was tucked away in her cot in the passion flower dressing-room--all of -Margaret's belongings and decorations were a faint, pinky -lavender,--her dear daughter Gwendolyn, who impersonated Albertina at -increasingly rare intervals as time advanced, lay in the hollow of her -arm and received her sacred confidences and ministrations as usual. - - * * * * * - -"When my two (2) months are up here I think I should be quite sorry," -she wrote in the diary, "except that I'm going to Uncle Peter next, -and him I would lay me down and dee for, only I never get time enough -to see him, and know if he wants me to, when I live with him I shall -know. Well life is very exciting all the time now. Aunt Margaret -brings me up this way. She tells me that she loves me and that I've -got beautiful eyes and hair and am sweet. She tells me that all the -time. She says she wants to love me up enough to last because I never -had love enough before. I like to be loved. Albertina never loves any -one, but on Cape Cod nobody loves anybody--not to say so anyway. If a -man is getting married they say he _likes_ that girl he is going to -marry. In New York they act as different as they eat. The Hutchinsons -act different from anybody. They do not know Aunt Margaret has adoptid -me. Nobody knows I am adoptid but me and my aunts and uncles. Miss -Prentis and Aunt Beulah's mother when she came home and all the -bohemiar ladies and all the ten Hutchinsons think I am a little -visiting girl from the country. It is nobody's business because I am -supported out of allowances and salaries, but it makes me feel queer -sometimes. I feel like - - "'Where did you come from, baby dear, - Out of the nowhere unto the here?' - -Also I made this up out of home sweet home. - - "'Pleasures and palaces where e'er I may roam, - Be it ever so humble I wish I had a home.' - -"I like having six homes, but I wish everybody knew it. I am nothing -to be ashamed of. Speaking of homes I asked Aunt Margaret why my aunts -and uncles did not marry each other and make it easier for every one. -She said they were not going to get married. That was why they adoptid -me. 'Am I the same thing as getting married?' I ast. She said no, I -wasn't except that I was a responsibility to keep them unselfish and -real. Aunt Beulah doesn't believe in marriage. She thinks its beneth -her. Aunt Margaret doesn't think she has the health. Aunt Gertrude has -to have a career of sculpture, Uncle David has got to marry some one -his mother says to or not at all, and does not like to marry anyway. -Uncle Jimmie never saw a happy mariage yet and thinks you have a beter -time in single blesedness. Uncle Peter did not sign in the book where -they said they would adopt me and not marry. They did not want to ask -him because he had some trouble once. I wonder what kind! Well I am -going to be married sometime. I want a house to do the housework in -and a husband and a backyard full of babies. Perhaps I would rather -have a hired butler and gold spoons. I don't know yet. Of course I -would like to have time to write poetry. I can sculpture too, but I -don't want a career of it because it's so dirty." - - * * * * * - -Physically Eleanor throve exceedingly during this phase of her -existence. The nourishing food and regular living, the sympathy -established between herself and Margaret, the regime of physical -exercise prescribed by Beulah which she had been obliged guiltily to -disregard during the strenuous days of her existence in Washington -Square, all contributed to the accentuation of her material -well-being. She played with Margaret's nephew, and ran up and down -stairs on errands for her mother. She listened to the tales related -for her benefit by the old people, and gravely accepted the attentions -of the two formidable young men of the family, who entertained her -with the pianola and excerpts from classic literature and folk lore. - - * * * * * - -"The We Are Sevens meet every Saturday afternoon," she wrote--on a -yellow page this time--"usually at Aunt Beulah's house. We have tea -and lots of fun. I am examined on what I have learned but I don't mind -it much. Physically I am found to be very good by measure and waite. -My mind is developing alright. I am very bright on the subject of -poetry. They do not know whether David Copperfield had been a wise -choice for me, but when I told them the story and talked about it they -said I had took it right. I don't tell them about the love part of -Aunt Margaret's bringing up. Aunt Beulah says it would make me self -conscioush to know that I had such pretty eyes and hair. Aunt Gertrude -said 'why not mention my teeth to me, then,' but no one seemed to -think so. Aunt Beulah says not to develope my poetry because the -theory is to strengthen the weak part of the bridge, and make me do -arithmetic. 'Drill on the deficiency,' she says. Well I should think -the love part was a deficiency, but Aunt Beulah thinks love is weak -and beneath her and any one. Uncle David told me privately that he -thought I was having the best that could happen to me right now being -with Aunt Margaret. I didn't tell him that the David doll always gets -put away in the box with the Aunt Margaret doll and nobody else ever, -but I should like to have. He thinks she is the best aunt too." - - * * * * * - -Some weeks later she wrote to chronicle a painful scene in which she -had participated. - - * * * * * - -"I quarreled with the ten Hutchinsons. I am very sorry. They laughed -at me too much for being a little girl and a Cape Codder, but they -could if they wanted to, but when they laughed at Aunt Margaret for -adopting me and the tears came in her eyes I could not bare it. I did -not let the cat out of the bag, but I made it jump out. The -Grandfather asked me when I was going back to Cape Cod, and I said I -hoped never, and then I said I was going to visit Uncle Peter and Aunt -Gertrude and Uncle David next. They said 'Uncle David--do you mean -David Bolling?' and I did, so I said 'yes.' Then all the Hutchinsons -pitched into Aunt Margaret and kept laughing and saying, 'Who is this -mysterious child anyway, and how is it that her guardians intrust her -to a crowd of scatter brain youngsters for so long?' and then they -said 'Uncle David Bolling--_what_ does his mother say?' Then Aunt -Margaret got very red in the face and the tears started to come, and I -said 'I am not a mysterious child, and my Uncle David is as much my -Uncle David as they all are,' and then I said 'My Aunt Margaret has -got a perfect right to have me intrusted to her at any time, and not -to be laughed at for it,' and I went and stood in front of her and -gave her my handkercheve. - -"Well I am glad somebody has been told that I am properly adoptid, but -I am sorry it is the ten Hutchinsons who know." - - - - -CHAPTER IX - -PETER - - -Uncle Peter treated her as if she were grown up; that was the -wonderful thing about her visit to him,--if there could be one thing -about it more wonderful than another. From the moment when he ushered -her into his friendly, low ceiled drawing-room with its tiers upon -tiers of book shelves, he admitted her on terms of equality to the -miraculous order of existence that it was the privilege of her life to -share. The pink silk coverlet and the elegance of the silver coated -steampipes at Beulah's; the implacable British stuffiness at the -Winchester which had had its own stolid charm for the lineal -descendant of the Pilgrim fathers; the impressively casual atmosphere -over which the "hired butler" presided distributing after-dinner gold -spoons, these impressions all dwindled and diminished and took their -insignificant place in the background of the romance she was living -and breathing in Peter's jewel box of an apartment on Thirtieth -Street. - -Even to more sophisticated eyes than Eleanor's the place seemed to be -a realized ideal of charm and homeliness. It was one of the older -fashioned duplex apartments designed in a more aristocratic decade for -a more fastidious generation, yet sufficiently adapted to the modern -insistence on technical convenience. Peter owed his home to his -married sister, who had discovered it and leased it and settled it and -suddenly departed for a five years' residence in China with her -husband, who was as she so often described him, "a blooming -Englishman, and an itinerant banker." Peter's domestic affairs were -despatched by a large, motherly Irishwoman, whom Eleanor approved of -on sight and later came to respect and adore without reservation. - -Peter's home was a home with a place in it for her--a place that it -was perfectly evident was better with her than without her. She even -slept in the bed that Peter's sister's little girl had occupied, and -there were pictures on the walls that had been selected for her. - -She had been very glad to make her escape from the Hutchinson -household. Her "quarrel" with them had made no difference in their -relation to her. To her surprise they treated her with an increase of -deference after her outburst, and every member of the family, -excepting possibly Hugh Hutchinson senior, was much more carefully -polite to her. Margaret explained that the family really didn't mind -having their daughter a party to the experiment of cooperative -parenthood. It appealed to them as a very interesting try-out of -modern educational theory, and their own theories of the independence -of the individual modified their criticism of Margaret's secrecy in -the matter, which was the only criticism they had to make since -Margaret had an income of her own accruing from the estate of the aunt -for whom she had been named. - -"It is very silly of me to be sensitive about being laughed at," -Margaret concluded. "I've lived all my life surrounded by people -suffering from an acute sense of humor, but I never, never, never -shall get used to being held up to ridicule for things that are not -funny to me." - -"I shouldn't think you would," Eleanor answered devoutly. - -In Peter's house there was no one to laugh at her but Peter, and when -Peter laughed she considered it a triumph. It meant that there was -something she said that he liked. The welcome she had received as a -guest in his house and the wonderful evening that succeeded it were -among the epoch making hours in Eleanor's life. It had happened in -this wise. - -The Hutchinson victoria, for Grandmother Hutchinson still clung to the -old-time, stately method of getting about the streets of New York, had -left her at Peter's door at six o'clock of a keen, cool May evening. -Margaret had not been well enough to come with her, having been -prostrated by one of the headaches of which she was a frequent -victim. - -The low door of ivory white, beautifully carved and paneled, with its -mammoth brass knocker, the row of window boxes along the cornice a few -feet above it, the very look of the house was an experience and an -adventure to her. When she rang, the door opened almost instantly -revealing Peter on the threshold with his arms open. He had led her up -two short flights of stairs--ivory white with carved banisters, she -noticed, all as immaculately shining with soap and water as a Cape Cod -interior--to his own gracious drawing-room where Mrs. Finnigan was -bowing and smiling a warmhearted Irish welcome to her. It was like a -wonderful story in a book and her eyes were shining with joy as Uncle -Peter pulled out her chair and she sat down to the first meal in her -honor. The grown up box of candy at her plate, the grave air with -which Peter consulted her tastes and her preferences were all a part -of a beautiful magic that had never quite touched her before. - -She had been like a little girl in a dream passing dutifully or -delightedly through the required phases of her experience, never quite -believing in its permanence or reality; but her life with Uncle Peter -was going to be real, and her own. That was what she felt the moment -she stepped over his threshold. - -After their coffee before the open fire--she herself had had "cambric" -coffee--Peter smoked his cigar, while she curled up in silence in the -twin to his big cushioned chair and sampled her chocolates. The blue -flames skimmed the bed of black coals, and finally settled steadily at -work on them nibbling and sputtering until the whole grate was like a -basket full of molten light, glowing and golden as the hot sun when it -sinks into the sea. - -Except to offer her the ring about his slender Panatela, and to ask -her if she were happy, Peter did not speak until he had deliberately -crushed out the last spark from his stub and thrown it into the fire. -The ceremony over, he held out his arms to her and she slipped into -them as if that moment were the one she had been waiting for ever -since the white morning looked into the window of the lavender -dressing-room on Morningside Heights, and found her awake and quite -cold with the excitement of thinking of what the day was to bring -forth. - -"Eleanor," Peter said, when he was sure she was comfortably arranged -with her head on his shoulder, "Eleanor, I want you to feel at home -while you are here, really at home, as if you hadn't any other home, -and you and I belonged to each other. I'm almost too young to be your -father, but--" - -"Oh! are you?" Eleanor asked fervently, as he paused. - -"--But I can come pretty near feeling like a father to you if it's a -father you want. I lost my own father when I was a little older than -you are now, but I had my dear mother and sister left, and so I don't -know what it's like to be all alone in the world, and I can't always -understand exactly how you feel, but you must always remember that I -want to understand and that I will understand if you tell me. Will you -remember that, Eleanor?" - -"Yes, Uncle Peter," she said soberly; then perhaps for the first time -since her babyhood she volunteered a caress that was not purely -maternal in its nature. She put up a shy hand to the cheek so close to -her own and patted it earnestly. "Of course I've got my grandfather -and grandmother," she argued, "but they're very old, and not very -affectionate, either. Then I have all these new aunts and uncles -pretending," she was penetrating to the core of the matter, Peter -realized, "that they're just as good as parents. Of course, they're -just as good as they can be and they take so much trouble that it -mortifies me, but it isn't just the same thing, Uncle Peter!" - -"I know," Peter said, "I know, dear, but you must remember we mean -well." - -"I don't mean you; it isn't you that I think of when I think about my -co--co-woperative parents, and it isn't any of them specially,--it's -just the idea of--of visiting around, and being laughed at, and not -really belonging to anybody." - -Peter's arms tightened about her. - -"Oh! but you do belong, you do belong. You belong to me, Eleanor." - -"That was what I hoped you would say, Uncle Peter," she whispered. - -They had a long talk after this, discussing the past and the future; -the past few months of the experiment from Eleanor's point of view, -and the future in relation to its failures and successes. Beulah was -to begin giving her lessons again and she was to take up music with a -visiting teacher on Peter's piano. (Eleanor had not known it was a -piano at first, as she had never seen a baby grand before. Peter did -not know what a triumph it was when she made herself put the question -to him.) - -"If my Aunt Beulah could teach me as much as she does and make it as -interesting as Aunt Margaret does, I think I would make her feel very -proud of me," Eleanor said. "I get so nervous saving energy the way -Aunt Beulah says for me to that I forget all the lesson. Aunt Margaret -tells too many stories, I guess, but I like them." - -"Your Aunt Margaret is a child of God," Peter said devoutly, "in spite -of her raw-boned, intellectual family." - -"Uncle David says she's a daughter of the fairies." - -"She's that, too. When Margaret's a year or two older you won't feel -the need of a mother." - -"I don't now," said Eleanor; "only a father,--that I want you to be, -the way you promised." - -"That's done," Peter said. Then he continued musingly, "You'll find -Gertrude--different. I can't quite imagine her presiding over your -moral welfare but I think she'll be good at it. She's a good deal of a -person, you know." - -"Aunt Beulah's a good kind of person, too," Eleanor said; "she tries -hard. The only thing is that she keeps trying to make me express -myself, and I don't know what that means." - -"Let me see if I can tell you," said Peter. "Self-expression is a part -of every man's duty. Inside we are all trying to be good and true and -fine--" - -"Except the villains," Eleanor interposed. "People like Iago aren't -trying." - -"Well, we'll make an exception of the villains; we're talking of -people like us, pretty good people with the right instincts. Well -then, if all the time we're trying to be good and true and fine, we -carry about a blank face that reflects nothing of what we are feeling -and thinking, the world is a little worse off, a little duller and -heavier place for what is going on inside of us." - -"Well, how can we make it better off then?" Eleanor inquired -practically. - -"By not thinking too much about it for one thing, except to remember -to smile, by trying to be just as much at home in it as possible, by -letting the kind of person we are trying to be show through on the -outside. By gosh! I wish Beulah could hear me." - -"By just not being bashful, do you mean?" - -"That's the idea." - -"Well, when Aunt Beulah makes me do those dancing exercises, standing -up in the middle of the floor and telling me to be a flower and -express myself as a flower, does she just mean not to be bashful?" - -"Something like that: she means stop thinking of yourself and go -ahead--" - -"But how can I go ahead with her sitting there watching?" - -"I suppose I ought to tell you to imagine that you had the soul of a -flower, but I haven't the nerve." - -"You've got nerve enough to do anything," Eleanor assured him, but she -meant it admiringly, and seriously. - -"I haven't the nerve to go on with a moral conversation in which you -are getting the better of me at every turn," Peter laughed. "I'm sure -it's unintentional, but you make me feel like a good deal of an ass, -Eleanor." - -"That means a donkey, doesn't it?" - -"It does, and by jove, I believe that you're glad of it." - -"I do rather like it," said Eleanor; "of course you don't really feel -like a donkey to me. I mean I don't make you feel like one, but it's -funny just pretending that you mean it." - -"Oh! woman, woman," Peter cried. "Beulah tried to convey something of -the fact that you always got the better of every one in your modest -unassuming way, but I never quite believed it before. At any rate it's -bedtime, and here comes Mrs. Finnigan to put you to bed. Kiss me good -night, sweetheart." - -Eleanor flung her arms about his neck, in her first moment of -abandonment to actual emotional self-expression if Peter had only -known it. - -"I will never really get the better of you in my life, Uncle Peter," -she promised him passionately. - - - - -CHAPTER X - -THE OMNISCIENT FOCUS - - -One of the traditional prerogatives of an Omnipotent Power is to look -down at the activities of earth at any given moment and ascertain -simultaneously the occupation of any number of people. Thus the Arch -Creator--that Being of the Supreme Artistic Consciousness--is able to -peer into segregated interiors at His own discretion and watch the -plot thicken and the drama develop. Eleanor, who often visualized this -proceeding, always imagined a huge finger projecting into space, -cautiously tilting the roofs of the Houses of Man to allow the sweep -of the Invisible Glance. - -Granting the hypothesis of the Divine privilege, and assuming for the -purposes of this narrative the Omniscient focus on the characters most -concerned in it, let us for the time being look over the shoulder of -God and inform ourselves of their various occupations and -preoccupations of a Saturday afternoon in late June during the hour -before dinner. - -Eleanor, in her little white chamber on Thirtieth Street, was engaged -in making a pink and green toothbrush case for a going-away gift for -her Uncle Peter. To be sure she was going away with him when he -started for the Long Island beach hotel from which he proposed to -return every day to his office in the city, but she felt that a slight -token of her affection would be fitting and proper on the eve of their -joint departure. She was hurrying to get it done that she might steal -softly into the dining-room and put it on his plate undetected. Her -eyes were very wide, her brow intent and serious, and her delicate -lips lightly parted. At that moment she bore a striking resemblance to -the Botticelli head in Beulah's drawing-room that she had so greatly -admired. - -Of all the people concerned in her history, she was the most -tranquilly occupied. - -Peter in the room beyond was packing his trunk and his suit-case. At -this precise stage of his proceedings he was trying to make two -decisions, equally difficult, but concerned with widely different -departments of his consciousness. He was gravely considering whether -or not to include among his effects the photograph before him on the -dressing-table--that of the girl to whom he had been engaged from the -time he was a Princeton sophomore until her death four years -later--and also whether or not it would be worth his while to order a -new suit of white flannels so late in the season. The fact that he -finally decided against the photograph and in favor of the white -flannels has nothing to do with the relative importance of the two -matters thus engrossing him. The health of the human mind depends -largely on its ability to assemble its irrelevant and incongruous -problems in dignified yet informal proximity. When he went to his desk -it was with the double intention of addressing a letter to his tailor, -and locking the cherished photograph in a drawer; but, the letter -finished, he still held the picture in his hand and gazed down at it -mutely and when the discreet knock on his door that constituted the -announcing of dinner came, he was still sitting motionless with the -photograph propped up before him. - -Up-town, Beulah, whose dinner hour came late, was rather more -actively, though possibly not more significantly, occupied. She was -doing her best to evade the wild onslaught of a young man in glasses -who had been wanting to marry her for a considerable period, and had -now broken all bounds in a cumulative attempt to inform her of the -fact. - -Though he was assuredly in no condition to listen to reason, Beulah -was reasoning with him, kindly and philosophically, paying earnest -attention to the style and structure of her remarks as she did so. Her -emotions, as is usual on such occasions, were decidedly mixed. She was -conscious of a very real dismay at her unresponsiveness, a distress -for the acute pain from which the distraught young man seemed to be -suffering, and the thrill, which had she only known it, is the -unfailing accompaniment to the first eligible proposal of marriage. In -the back of her brain there was also, so strangely is the human mind -constituted, a kind of relief at being able to use mature logic once -more, instead of the dilute form of moral dissertation with which she -tried to adapt herself to Eleanor's understanding. - -"I never intend to marry any one," she was explaining gently. "I not -only never intend to, but I am pledged in a way that I consider -irrevocably binding never to marry,"--and that was the text from which -all the rest of her discourse developed. - -Jimmie, equally bound by the oath of celibacy, but not equally -constrained by it apparently, was at the very moment when Beulah was -so successfully repulsing the familiarity of the high cheek-boned -young man in the black and white striped tie, occupied in encouraging -a familiarity of a like nature. That is, he was holding the hand of a -young woman in the darkened corner of a drawing-room which had been -entirely unfamiliar to him ten days before, and was about to impress a -caress on lips that seemed to be ready to meet his with a certain -degree of accustomed responsiveness. That this was not a peculiarly -significant incident in Jimmie's career might have been difficult to -explain, at least to the feminine portion of the group of friends he -cared most for. - -Margaret, dressed for an academic dinner party, in white net with a -girdle of pale pink and lavender ribbons, had flung herself face -downward on her bed in reckless disregard of her finery; and because -it was hot and she was homesick for green fields and the cool -stretches of dim wooded country, had transported herself in fancy and -still in her recumbent attitude to the floor of a canoe that was -drifting down-stream between lush banks of meadow grass studded with -marsh lilies. After some interval--and shift of position--the way was -arched overhead with whispering trees, the stars came out one by one, -showing faintly between waving branches; and she perceived dimly that -a figure that was vaguely compounded of David and Peter and the -handsomest of all the young kings of Spain, had quietly taken its -place in the bow and had busied itself with the paddles,--whereupon -she was summoned to dinner, where the ten Hutchinsons and their guests -were awaiting her. - -David, the only member of the group whose summer vacation had actually -begun, was sitting on the broad veranda of an exclusive country club -several hundreds of miles away from New York and looking soberly into -the eyes of a blue ribbon bull dog, whose heavy jowl rested on his -knees. His mother, in one of the most fashionable versions of the -season's foulards, sleekly corseted and coifed, was sitting less than -a hundred yards away from him, fanning herself with three inches of -hand woven fan and contemplating David. In the dressing-room above, -just alighted from a limousine de luxe, was a raven-haired, -crafty-eyed ingenue (whose presence David did not suspect or he would -have recollected a sudden pressing engagement out of her vicinity), -preening herself for conquest. David's mind, unlike the minds of the -"other gifted members of the We Are Seven Club," to quote Jimmie's -most frequent way of referring to them, was to all intents and -purposes a total blank. He answered monosyllabically his mother's -questions, patted the dog's beetling forehead and thought of nothing -at all for practically forty-five minutes. Then he rose, and offering -his arm to his mother led her gravely to the table reserved for him in -the dining-room. - -Gertrude, in her studio at the top of the house in Fifty-sixth Street -where she lived with her parents, was putting the finishing touches on -a faun's head; and a little because she had unconsciously used -Jimmie's head for her model, and a little because of her conscious -realization at this moment that the roughly indicated curls over the -brow were like nobody's in the world but Jimmie's, she was thinking of -him seriously. She was thinking also of the dinner on a tray that -would presently be brought up to her, since her mother and father were -out of town, and of her coming two months with Eleanor and her recent -inspiration concerning them. - -In Colhassett, Cape Cod, Massachusetts, the dinner hour and even the -supper hour were long past. In the commodious kitchen of Eleanor's -former home two old people were sitting in calico valanced rockers, -one by either window. The house was a pleasant old colonial structure, -now badly run down but still marked with that distinction that only -the instincts of aristocracy can bestow upon a decaying habitation. - -A fattish child made her way up the walk, toeing out unnecessarily, -and let herself in by the back door without knocking. - -"Hello, Mis' Chase and Mr. Amos," she said, seating herself in a -straight backed, yellow chair, and swinging her crossed foot -nonchalantly, "I thought I would come in to inquire about Eleanor. Ma -said that she heard that she was coming home to live again. Is she, -Mr. Amos?" - -Albertina was not a peculiar favorite of Eleanor's grandfather. Amos -Chase had ideas of his own about the proper bringing up of children, -and the respect due from them to their elders. Also Albertina's father -had come from "poor stock." There was a strain of bad blood in her. -The women of the Weston families hadn't always "behaved themselves." -He therefore answered this representative of the youngest generation -rather shortly. - -"I don't know nothing about it," he said. - -"Why, father," the querulous old voice of Grandmother Chase protested, -"you know she's comin' home somewhere 'bout the end of July, she and -one of her new aunties and a hired girl they're bringing along to do -the work. I don't see why you can't answer the child's question." - -"I don't know as I'm obligated to answer any questions that anybody -sees fit to put to me." - -"Well, I _be_. Albertina, pass me my glasses from off the -mantel-tree-shelf, and that letter sticking out from behind the clock -and I'll read what she says." - -Albertina, with a reproachful look at Mr. Amos, who retired coughing -exasperatedly behind a paper that he did not read, allowed herself to -be informed through the medium of a letter from Gertrude and a -postscript from Eleanor of the projected invasion of the Chase -household. - -"I should think you'd rather have Eleanor come home by herself than -bringing a strange woman and a hired girl," Albertina contributed a -trifle tartly. The distinction of a hired girl in the family was one -which she had long craved on her own account. - -"All nonsense, I call it," the old man ejaculated. - -"Well, Eleena, she writes that she can't get away without one of 'em -comin' along with her and I guess we can manage someways. I dunno what -work city help will make in this kitchen. You can't expect much from -city help. They ain't clean like home folks. I shall certainly be -dretful pleased to see Eleena, and so will her grandpa--in spite o' -the way he goes on about it." - -A snort came from the region of the newspaper. - -"I shouldn't think you'd feel as if you had a grandchild now that six -rich people has adopted her," Albertina suggested helpfully. - -"It's a good thing for the child," her grandmother said. "I'm so lame -I couldn't do my duty by her. Old folks is old folks, and they can't -do for others like young ones. I'd d'ruther have had her adopted by -one father and mother instead o' this passel o' young folks passing -her around among themselves, but you can't have what you'd d'ruther -have in this world. You got to take what comes and be thankful." - -"Did she write you about having gold coffee spoons at her last place?" -Albertina asked. "I think they was probably gilded over like ice-cream -spoons, and she didn't know the difference. I guess she has got a lot -of new clothes. Well, I'll have to be getting along. I'll come in -again." - -At the precise moment that the door closed behind Albertina, the clock -in Peter Stuyvesant's apartment in New York struck seven and Eleanor, -in a fresh white dress and blue ribbons, slipped into her chair at the -dinner table and waited with eyes blazing with excitement for Peter to -make the momentous discovery of the gift at his plate. - - - - -CHAPTER XI - -GERTRUDE HAS TROUBLE WITH HER BEHAVIOR - - -"Dear Uncle Peter," Eleanor wrote from Colhassett when she had been -established there under the new regime for a week or more. "I slapped -Albertina's face. I am very awfully sorry, but I could not help it. -Don't tell Aunt Margaret because it is so contrary to her teachings -and also the golden rule, but she was more contrary to the golden rule -that I was. I mean Albertina. What do you think she said? She said -Aunt Gertrude was homely and an old maid, and the hired girl was -homely too. Well, I think she is, but I am not going to have Albertina -think so. Aunt Gertrude is pretty with those big eyes and ink like -hair and lovely teeth and one dimple. Albertina likes hair fuzzed all -over faces and blonds. Then she said she guessed I wasn't your -favorite, and that the gold spoons were most likely tin gilded over. I -don't know what you think about slapping. Will you please write and -say what you think? You know I am anxsuch to do well. But I think I -know as much as Albertina about some things. She uster treat me like a -dog, but it is most a year now since I saw her before. - -"Well, here we are, Aunt Gertrude and me, too. Grandpa did not like -her at first. She looked so much like summer folks, and acted that -way, too. He does not agree with summer folks, but she got him talking -about foreign parts and that Spanish girl that made eyes at him, and -nearly got him away from Grandma, and the time they were wrecked going -around the horn, and showing her dishes and carvings from China. Now -he likes her first rate. She laughs all the time. Grandma likes her -too, but not when Grandpa tells her about that girl in Spain. - -"We eat in the dining-room, and have lovely food, only Grandpa does -not like it, but we have him a pie now for breakfast,--his own pie -that he can eat from all the time and he feels better. Aunt Gertrude -is happy seeing him eat it for breakfast and claps her hands when he -does it, only he doesn't see her. - -"She is teaching me more manners, and to swim, and some French. It is -vacation and I don't have regular lessons, the way I did while we -were on Long Island. - -"Didn't we have a good time in that hotel? Do you remember the night I -stayed up till ten o'clock and we sat on the beach and talked? I do. I -love you very much. I think it is nice to love anybody. Only I miss -you. I would miss you more if I believed what Albertina said about my -not being your favorite. I am. - -"I wish you could come down here. Uncle Jimmie is coming and then I -don't know what Albertina will say. - -"About teaching me. Aunt Gertrude's idea of getting me cultivated is -to read to me from the great Masters of literature and funny books -too, like Mark Twain and the Nonsense Thology. Then I say what I think -of them, and she just lets me develop along those lines, which is -pretty good for summer. - -"Here is a poem I wrote. I love you best. - - "The sun and wind are on the sea, - The waves are clear and blue, - This is the place I like to be, - If I could just have you. - - "The insects chirrup in the grass, - The birds sing in the tree, - And oh! how quick the time would pass - If you were here with me." - -"What do you think of slapping, Aunt Gertrude?" Eleanor asked one -evening when they were walking along the hard beach that the receding -tide had left cool and firm for their pathway, and the early moon had -illumined for them. "Do you think it's awfully bad to slap any one?" - -"I wouldn't slap you, if that's what you mean, Eleanor." - -"Would you slap somebody your own size and a little bigger?" - -"I might under extreme provocation." - -"I thought perhaps you would," Eleanor sighed with a gasp of relieved -satisfaction. - -"I don't believe in moral suasion entirely, Eleanor," Gertrude tried -to follow Eleanor's leads, until she had in some way satisfied the -child's need for enlightenment on the subject under discussion. It was -not always simple to discover just what Eleanor wanted to know, but -Gertrude had come to believe that there was always some excellent -reason for her wanting to know it. "I think there are some quarrels -that have to be settled by physical violence." - -Eleanor nodded. Then, - -"What about refinement?" she asked unexpectedly. "I want to bring -myself up good when--when all of my aunts and uncles are too busy, or -don't know. I want to grow up, and be ladylike and a credit, and I'm -getting such good culture that I think I ought to, but--I get worried -about my refinement. City refinement is different from country -refinement." - -"Refinement isn't a thing that you can worry about," Gertrude began -slowly. She realized perhaps better than any of the others, being a -better balanced, healthier creature than either Beulah or Margaret, -that there were serious defects in the scheme of cooperative -parentage. Eleanor, thanks to the overconscientious digging about her -roots, was acquiring a New England self-consciousness about her -processes. A child, Gertrude felt, should be handed a code ready made -and should be guided by it without question until his maturer -experience led him to modify it. The trouble with trying to explain -this to Eleanor was that she had already had too many things -explained to her, and the doctrine of unselfconsciousness can not be -inculcated by an exploitation of it. "If you are naturally a fine -person your instinct will be to do the fine thing. You must follow it -when you feel the instinct and not think about it between times." - -"That's Uncle Peter's idea," Eleanor said, "that not thinking. Well, -I'll try--but you and Uncle Peter didn't have six different parents -and a Grandpa and Grandma and Albertina all criticizing your -refinement in different ways. Don't you ever have any trouble with -your behavior, Aunt Gertrude?" - -Gertrude laughed. The truth was that she was having considerable -trouble with her behavior since Jimmie's arrival two days before. She -had thought to spend her two months with Eleanor on Cape Cod helping -the child to relate her new environment to her old, while she had the -benefit of her native air and the freedom of a rural summer. She also -felt that one of their number ought to have a working knowledge of -Eleanor's early surroundings and habits. She had meant to put herself -and her own concerns entirely aside. If she had a thought for any one -but Eleanor she meant it to be for the two old people whose guest she -had constituted herself. She explained all this to Jimmie a day or two -before her departure, and to her surprise he had suggested that he -spend his own two vacation weeks watching the progress of her -experiment. Before she was quite sure of the wisdom of allowing him to -do so she had given him permission to come. Jimmie was part of her -trouble. Her craving for isolation and undiscovered country; her -eagerness to escape with her charge to some spot where she would not -be subjected to any sort of familiar surveillance, were all a part of -an instinct to segregate herself long enough to work out the problem -of Jimmie and decide what to do about it. This she realized as soon as -he arrived on the spot. She realized further that she had made -practically no progress in the matter, for this curly headed young -man, bearing no relation to anything that Gertrude had decided a young -man should be, was rapidly becoming a serious menace to her peace of -mind, and her ideal of a future lived for art alone. She had -definitely begun to realize this on the night when Jimmie, in his -exuberance at securing his new job, had seized her about the waist and -kissed her on the lips. She had thought a good deal about that kiss, -which came dangerously near being her first one. She was too clever, -too cool and aloof, to have had many tentative love-affairs. Later, as -she softened and warmed and gathered grace with the years she was -likely to seem more alluring and approachable to the gregarious male. -Now she answered her small interlocutor truthfully. - -"Yes, Eleanor, I do have a whole lot of trouble with my behavior. I'm -having trouble with it today, and this evening," she glanced up at the -moon, which was seemingly throwing out conscious waves of effulgence, -"I expect to have more," she confessed. - -"Oh! do you?" asked Eleanor, "I'm sorry I can't sit up with you then -and help you. You--you don't expect to be--provocated to _slap_ -anybody, do you?" - -"No, I don't, but as things are going I almost wish I did," Gertrude -answered, not realizing that before the evening was over there would -be one person whom she would be ruefully willing to slap several times -over. - -As they turned into the village street from the beach road they met -Jimmie, who had been having his after-dinner pipe with Grandfather -Amos, with whom he had become a prime favorite. With him was -Albertina, toeing out more than ever and conversing more than -blandly. - -"This virtuous child has been urging me to come after Eleanor and -remind her that it is bedtime," Jimmie said, indicating the pink -gingham clad figure at his side. "She argues that Eleanor is some six -months younger than she and ought to be in bed first, and personally -she has got to go in the next fifteen minutes." - -"It's pretty hot weather to go to bed in," Albertina said. "Miss -Sturgis, if I can get my mother to let me stay up half an hour more, -will you let Eleanor stay up?" - -Just beyond her friend, in the shadow of her ample back, Eleanor was -making gestures intended to convey the fact that sitting up any longer -was abhorrent to her. - -"Eleanor needs her sleep to-night, I think," Gertrude answered, -professionally maternal. - -"I brought Albertina so that our child might go home under convoy, -while you and I were walking on the beach," Jimmie suggested. - -As the two little girls fell into step, the beginning of their -conversation drifted back to the other two, who stood watching them -for a moment. - -"I thought I'd come over to see if you was willing to say you were -sorry," Albertina began. "My face stayed red in one spot for two hours -that day after you slapped me." - -"I'm not sorry," Eleanor said ungraciously, "but I'll say that I am, -if you've come to make up." - -"Well, we won't say any more about it then," Albertina conceded. "Are -Miss Sturgis and Mr. Sears going together, or are they just friends?" - -"Isn't that Albertina one the limit?" Jimmie inquired, with a piloting -hand under Gertrude's elbow. "She told me that she and Eleanor were -mad, but she didn't want to stay mad because there was more going on -over here than there was at her house and she liked to come over." - -"I'm glad Eleanor slapped her," Gertrude said; "still I'm sorry our -little girl has uncovered the clay feet of her idol. She's through -with Albertina for good." - -"Do you know, Gertrude," Jimmy said, as they set foot on the -glimmering beach, "you don't seem a bit natural lately. You used to be -so full of the everlasting mischief. Every time you opened your mouth -I dodged for fear of being spiked. Yet here you are just as docile as -other folks." - -"Don't you like me--as well?" Gertrude tried her best to make her -voice sound as usual. - -"Better," Jimmie swore promptly; then he added a qualifying--"I -guess." - -"Don't you know?" But she didn't allow him the opportunity to answer. -"I'm in a transition period, Jimmie," she said. "I meant to be such a -good parent to Eleanor and correct all the evil ways into which she -has fallen as a result of all her other injudicious training, and, -instead of that, I'm doing nothing but think of myself and my own -hankerings and yearnings and such. I thought I could do so much for -the child." - -"That's the way we all think till we tackle her and then we find it -quite otherwise and even more so. Tell me about your hankerings and -yearnings." - -"Tell me about your job, Jimmie." - -And for a little while they found themselves on safe and familiar -ground again. Jimmie's new position was a very satisfactory one. He -found himself associated with men of solidity and discernment, and for -the first time in his business career he felt himself appreciated and -stimulated by that appreciation to do his not inconsiderable best. -Gertrude was the one woman--Eleanor had not yet attained the inches -for that classification--to whom he ever talked business. - -"Now, at last, I feel that I've got my feet on the earth, Gertrude; as -if the stuff that was in me had a chance to show itself, and you don't -know what a good feeling that is after you've been marked trash by -your family and thrown into the dust heap." - -"I'm awfully glad, Jimmie." - -"I know you are, 'Trude. You're an awfully good pal. It isn't -everybody I'd talk to like this. Let's sit down." - -The moonlight beat down upon them in floods of sentient palpitating -glory. Little breathy waves sought the shore and whispered to it. The -pines on the breast of the bank stirred softly and tenderly. - -"Lord, what a night," Jimmie said, and began burying her little white -hand in the beach sand. His breath was not coming quite evenly. "Now -tell me about your job," he said. - -"I don't think I want to talk about my job tonight." - -"What do you want to talk about?" - -"I don't know." There was no question about her voice sounding as -usual this time. - -Jimmie brushed the sand slowly away from the buried hand and covered -it with his own. He drew nearer, his face close, and closer to hers. -Gertrude closed her eyes. It was coming, it was coming and she was -glad. That silly old vow of celibacy, her silly old thoughts about -art. What was art? What was anything with the arms of the man you -loved closing about you. His lips were on hers. - -Jimmie drew a sharp breath, and let her go. - -"Gertrude," he said, "I'm incorrigible. I ought to be spanked. I'd -make love to--Eleanor's grandmother if I had her down here on a night -like this. Will you forgive me?" - -Gertrude got to her feet a little unsteadily, but she managed a -smile. - -"It's only the moon," she said, "and--and young blood. I think -Grandfather Amos would probably affect me the same way." - -Jimmie's momentary expression of blankness passed and Gertrude did not -press her advantage. They walked home in silence. - -"It's awfully companionable to realize that you also are human, -'Trude," he hazarded on the doorstep. - -Gertrude put a still hand into his, which is a way of saying "Good -night," that may be more formal than any other. - -"The Colonel's lady, and July O'Grady," she quoted lightly. "Good -night, Jimmie." - -Up-stairs in her great chamber under the eaves, Eleanor was composing -a poem which she copied carefully on a light blue page of her private -diary. It read as follows: - - "To love, it is the saddest thing, - When friendship proves unfit, - For lots of sadness it will bring, - When e'er you think of it. - - Alas! that friends should prove untrue - And disappoint you so. - Because you don't know what to do, - And hardly where to go." - - - - -CHAPTER XII - -MADAM BOLLING - - -"Is this the child, David?" - -"Yes, mother." - -Eleanor stared impassively into the lenses of Mrs. Bolling's -lorgnette. - -"This is my mother, Eleanor." - -Eleanor courtesied as her Uncle Jimmie had taught her, but she did not -take her eyes from Mrs. Bolling's face. - -"Not a bad-looking child. I hate this American fashion of dressing -children like French dolls, in bright colors and smart lines. The -English are so much more sensible. An English country child would have -cheeks as red as apples. How old are you?" - -"Eleven years old my next birthday." - -"I should have thought her younger, David. Have her call me madam. It -sounds better." - -"Very well, mother. I'll teach her the ropes when the strangeness -begins to wear off. This kind of thing is all new to her, you know." - -"She looks it. Give her the blue chamber and tell Mademoiselle to -take charge of her. You say you want her to have lessons for so many -hours a day. Has she brains?" - -"She's quite clever. She writes verses, she models pretty well, -Gertrude says. It's too soon to expect any special aptitude to -develop." - -"Well, I'm glad to discover your philanthropic tendencies, David. I -never knew you had any before, but this seems to me a very doubtful -undertaking. You take a child like this from very plain surroundings -and give her a year or two of life among cultivated and well-to-do -people, just enough for her to acquire a taste for extravagant living -and associations. Then what becomes of her? You get tired of your -bargain. Something else comes on the docket. You marry--and then what -becomes of your protegee? She goes back to the country, a thoroughly -unsatisfied little rustic, quite unfitted to be the wife of the farmer -for whom fate intended her." - -"I wish you wouldn't, mother," David said, with an uneasy glance at -Eleanor's pale face, set in the stoic lines he remembered so well from -the afternoon of his first impression of her. "She's a sensitive -little creature." - -"Nonsense. It never hurts anybody to have a plain understanding of his -position in the world. I don't know what foolishness you romantic -young people may have filled her head with. It's just as well she -should hear common sense from me and I intend that she shall." - -"I've explained to you, mother, that this child is my legal and moral -responsibility and will be partly at least under my care until she -becomes of age. I want her to be treated as you'd treat a child of -mine if I had one. If you don't, I can't have her visit us again. I -shall take her away with me somewhere. Bringing her home to you this -time is only an experiment." - -"She'll have a much more healthful and normal experience with us than -she's had with any of the rest of your violent young set, I'll be -bound. She'll probably be useful, too. She can look out for Zaidee--I -never say that name without irritation--but it's the only name the -little beast will answer to. Do you like dogs, child?" - -Eleanor started at the suddenness of the question, but did not reply -to it. Mrs. Bolling waited and David looked at her expectantly. - -"My mother asked you if you liked dogs, Eleanor; didn't you -understand?" - -Eleanor opened her lips as if to speak and then shut them again -firmly. - -"Your protegee is slightly deaf, David," his mother assured him. - -"You can tell her 'yes,'" Eleanor said unexpectedly to David. "I like -dogs, if they ain't treacherous." - -"She asked you the question," David said gravely; "this is her house, -you know. It is she who deserves consideration in it." - -"Why can't I talk to you about her, the way she does about me?" -Eleanor demanded. "She can have consideration if she wants it, but she -doesn't think I'm any account. Let her ask you what she wants and I'll -tell you." - -"Eleanor," David remonstrated, "Eleanor, you never behaved like this -before. I don't know what's got into her, mother." - -"She merely hasn't any manners. Why should she have?" - -Eleanor fixed her big blue eyes on the lorgnette again. - -"If it's manners to talk the way you do to your own children and -strange little girls, why, then I don't want any," she said. "I guess -I'll be going," she added abruptly and turned toward the door. - -David took her by the shoulders and brought her right about face. - -"Say good-by to mother," he said sternly. - -"Good-by, ma'am--madam," Eleanor said and courtesied primly. - -"Tell Mademoiselle to teach her a few things before the next audience, -David, and come back to me in fifteen minutes. I have something -important to talk over with you." - -David stood by the open door of the blue chamber half an hour later -and watched Eleanor on her knees, repacking her suit-case. Her face -was set in pale determined lines, and she looked older and a little -sick. Outside it was blowing a September gale, and the trees were -waving desperate branches in the wind. David had thought that the -estate on the Hudson would appeal to the little girl. It had always -appealed to him so much, even though his mother's habits of migration -with the others of her flock at the different seasons had left him so -comparatively few associations with it. He had thought she would like -the broad sweeping lawns and the cherubim fountain, the apple orchard -and the kitchen garden, and the funny old bronze dog at the end of the -box hedge. When he saw how she was occupied, he understood that it was -not her intention to stay and explore these things. - -"Eleanor," he said, stepping into the room suddenly, "what are you -doing with your suit-case? Didn't Mademoiselle unpack it for you?" He -was close enough now to see the signs of tears she had shed. - -"Yes, Uncle David." - -"Why are you packing it again?" - -Her eyes fell and she tried desperately to control a quivering lip. - -"Because I am--I want to go back." - -"Back where?" - -"To Cape Cod." - -"Why, Eleanor?" - -"I ain't wanted," she said, her head low. "I made up my mind to go -back to my own folks. I'm not going to be adopted any more." - -David led her to the deep window-seat and made her sit facing him. He -was too wise to attempt a caress with this issue between them. - -"Do you think that's altogether fair to me?" he asked presently. - -"I guess it won't make much difference to you. Something else will -come along." - -"Do you think it will be fair to your other aunts and uncles who have -given so much care and thought to your welfare?" - -"They'll get tired of their bargain." - -"If they do get tired of their bargain it will be because they've -turned out to be very poor sports. I've known every one of them a long -time, and I've never known them to show any signs of poor -sportsmanship yet. If you run away without giving them their chance to -make good, it will be you who are the poor sport." - -"She said you would marry and get tired of me, and I would have to go -back to the country. If you marry and Uncle Jimmie marries--then Uncle -Peter will marry, and--" - -"You'd still have your Aunts Beulah and Margaret and Gertrude," David -could not resist making the suggestion. - -"They could do it, too. If one person broke up the vow, I guess they -all would. Misfortunes never come singly." - -"But even if we did, Eleanor, even if we all married, we'd still -regard you as our own, our child, our charge." - -"_She_ said you wouldn't." The tears came now, and David gathered the -little shaking figure to his breast. "I don't want to be the wife of -the farmer for whom fate intended me," she sobbed. "I want to marry -somebody refined with extravagant living and associations." - -"That's one of the things we are bringing you up for, my dear." This -aspect of the case occurred to David for the first time, but he -realized its potency. "You mustn't take mother too seriously. Just -jolly her along a little and you'll soon get to be famous friends. -She's never had any little girls of her own, only my brother and me, -and she doesn't know quite how to talk to them." - -"The Hutchinsons had a hired butler and gold spoons, and they didn't -think I was the dust beneath their feet. I don't know what to say to -her. I said ain't, and I wasn't refined, and I'll only just be a -disgrace to you. I'd rather go back to Cape Cod, and go out to work, -and stand Albertina and everything." - -"If you think it's the square thing to do," David said slowly, "you -may go, Eleanor. I'll take you to New York to-morrow and get one of -the girls to take you to Colhassett. Of course, if you do that it will -put me in rather an awkward position. The others have all had you for -two months and made good on the proposition. I shall have to admit -that I couldn't even keep you with me twenty-four hours. Peter and -Jimmie got along all right, but I couldn't handle you at all. As a -cooperative parent, I'm such a failure that the whole experiment goes -to pieces through me." - -"Not you--her." - -"Well, it's the same thing,--you couldn't stand the surroundings I -brought you to. You couldn't even be polite to my mother for my -sake." - -"I--never thought of that, Uncle David." - -"Think of it now for a few minutes, won't you, Eleanor?" - -The rain was beginning to lash the windows, and to sweep the lawn in -long slant strokes. The little girl held up her face as if it could -beat through the panes on it. - -"I thought," she said slowly, "that after Albertina I wouldn't _take_ -anything from anybody. Uncle Peter says that I'm just as good as -anybody, even if I have been out to work. He said that all I had to do -was just to stand up to people." - -"There are a good many different ways of standing up to people, -Eleanor. Be sure you've got the right way and then go ahead." - -"I guess I ought to have been politer," Eleanor said slowly. "I ought -to have thought that she was your own mother. You couldn't help the -way she acted, o' course." - -"The way you acted is the point, Eleanor." - -Eleanor reflected. - -"I'll act different if you want me to, Uncle David," she said, "and I -won't go and leave you." - -"That's my brave girl. I don't think that I altogether cover myself -with glory in an interview with my mother," he added. "It isn't the -thing that I'm best at, I admit." - -"You did pretty good," Eleanor consoled him. "I guess she makes you -kind of bashful the way she does me," from which David gathered with -an odd sense of shock that Eleanor felt there was something to -criticize in his conduct, if she had permitted herself to look for -it. - -"I know what I'll do," Eleanor decided dreamily with her nose against -the pane. "I'll just pretend that she's Mrs. O'Farrel's aunt, and then -whatever she does, I shan't care. I'll know that I'm the strongest and -could hit her if I had a mind to, and then I shan't want to." - -David contemplated her gravely for several seconds. - -"By the time you grow up, Eleanor," he said finally, "you will have -developed all your cooperative parents into fine strong characters. -Your educational methods are wonderful." - - * * * * * - -"The dog got nearly drownded today in the founting," Eleanor wrote. -"It is a very little dog about the size of Gwendolyn. It was out with -Mademoiselle, and so was I, learning French on a garden seat. It -teetered around on the edge of the big wash basin--the founting looks -like a wash basin, and suddenly it fell in. I waded right in and got -it, but it slipped around so I couldn't get it right away. It looked -almost too dead to come to again, but I gave it first aid to the -drownded the way Uncle Jimmie taught me to practicing on Gwendolyn. -When I got it fixed I looked up and saw Uncle David's mother coming. I -took the dog and gave it to her. I said, 'Madam, here's your dog.' -Mademoiselle ran around ringing her hands and talking about it. Then I -went up to Mrs. Bolling's room, and we talked. I told her how to make -mustard pickles, and how my mother's grandpa's relation came over in -the Mayflower, and about our single white lilac bush, and she's going -to get one and make the pickles. Then I played double Canfield with -her for a while. I'm glad I didn't go home before I knew her better. -When she acts like Mrs. O'Farrel's aunt I pretend she is her, and we -don't quarrel. She says does Uncle David go much to see Aunt Beulah, -and I say, not so often as Uncle Jimmie does. Then she says does he go -to see Aunt Margaret, and I say that he goes to see Uncle Peter the -most. Well, if he doesn't he almost does. You can't tell Mrs. Madam -Bolling that you won't tattle, because she would think the worst." - - * * * * * - -Eleanor grew to like Mademoiselle. She was the aging, rather wry -faced Frenchwoman who had been David's young brother's governess and -had made herself so useful to Mrs. Bolling that she was kept always on -the place, half companion and half resident housekeeper. She was glad -to have a child in charge again, and Eleanor soon found that her -crooked features and severe high-shouldered back that had somewhat -intimidated her at first, actually belonged to one of the kindest -hearted creatures in the world. - -Paris and Colhassett bore very little resemblance to each other, the -two discovered. To be sure there were red geraniums every alternating -year in the gardens of the Louvre, and every year in front of the -Sunshine Library in Colhassett. The residents of both places did a -great deal of driving in fine weather. In Colhassett they drove on the -state highway, recently macadamized to the dismay of the taxpayers who -did not own horses or automobiles. In Paris they drove out to the Bois -by way of the Champs Elysees. In Colhassett they had only one -ice-cream saloon, but in Paris they had a good many of them -out-of-doors in the parks and even on the sidewalk, and there you -could buy all kinds of sirups and 'what you call cordials' and -_aperitifs_; but the two places on the whole were quite different. The -people were different, too. The people of Colhassett were all -religious and thought it was sinful to play cards on Sundays. -Mademoiselle said she always felt wicked when she played them on a -week day. - -"I think of my mother," she said; "she would say 'Juliette, what will -you say to the Lord when he knows that you have been playing cards on -a working day. Playing cards is for Sunday.'" - -"The Lord that they have in Colhassett is not like that," Eleanor -stated without conscious irreverence. - -"She is a vary fonny child, madam," Mademoiselle answered Mrs. -Bolling's inquiry. "She has taste, but no--experience even of the most -ordinary. She cooks, but she does no embroidery. She knits and knows -no games to play. She has a good brain, but Mon Dieu, no one has -taught her to ask questions with it." - -"She has had lessons this year from some young Rogers graduates, very -intelligent girls. I should think a year of that kind of training -would have had its effect." Mrs. Bolling's finger went into every pie -in her vicinity with unfailing direction. - -"Lessons, yes, but no teaching. If she were not vary intelligent I -think she would have suffered for it. The public schools they did -somesing, but so little to elevate--to encourage." - -Thus in a breath were Beulah's efforts as an educator disposed of. - -"Would you like to undertake the teaching of that child for a year?" -Mrs. Bolling asked thoughtfully. - -"Oh! but yes, madam." - -"I think I'll make the offer to David." - -Mrs. Bolling was unsympathetic but she was thorough. She liked to see -things properly done. Since David and his young friends had undertaken -a venture so absurd, she decided to lend them a helping hand with it. -Besides, now that she had no children of her own in the house, -Mademoiselle was practically eating her head off. Also it had -developed that David was fond of the child, so fond of her that to -oppose that affection would have been bad policy, and Mrs. Bolling was -politic when she chose to be. She chose to be politic now, for -sometime during the season she was going to ask a very great favor of -David, and she hoped, that by first being extraordinarily complaisant -and kind and then by bringing considerable pressure to bear upon him, -he would finally do what he was asked. The favor was to provide -himself with a father-in-law, and that father-in-law the -multi-millionaire parent of the raven-haired, crafty-eyed ingenue, who -had begun angling for him that June night at the country club. - -She made the suggestion to David on the eve of the arrival of all of -Eleanor's guardians for the week-end. Mrs. Bolling had invited a -house-party comprised of the associated parents as a part of her -policy of kindness before the actual summoning of her forces for the -campaign she was about to inaugurate. - -David was really touched by his mother's generosity concerning -Eleanor. He had been agreeably surprised at the development of the -situation between the child and his mother. He had been obliged to go -into town the day after Eleanor's first unfortunate encounter with her -hostess, and had hurried home in fear and trembling to try to smooth -out any tangles in the skein of their relationship that might have -resulted from a day in each other's vicinity. After hurrying over the -house and through the grounds in search of her he finally discovered -the child companionably currying a damp and afflicted Pekinese in his -mother's sitting-room, and engaged in a grave discussion of the -relative merits of molasses and sugar as a sweetening for Boston baked -beans. - -It was while they were having their after-dinner coffee in the -library, for which Eleanor had been allowed to come down, though -nursery supper was the order of the day in the Bolling establishment, -that David told his friends of his mother's offer. - -"Of course, we decided to send her to school when she was twelve -anyway," he said. "The idea was to keep her among ourselves for two -years to establish the parental tie, or ties I should say. If she is -quartered here with Mademoiselle we could still keep in touch with her -and she would be having the advantage of a year's steady tuition under -one person, and we'd be relieved--" a warning glance from Margaret, -with an almost imperceptible inclination of her head in the direction -of Beulah, caused him to modify the end of his sentence--"of the -responsibility--for her physical welfare." - -"Mentally and morally," Gertrude cut in, "the bunch would still -supervise her entirely." - -Jimmie, who was sitting beside her, ran his arm along the back of her -chair affectionately, and then thought better of it and drew it away. -He was, for some unaccountable reason, feeling awkward and not like -himself. There was a girl in New York, with whom he was not in the -least in love, who had recently taken it upon herself to demonstrate -unmistakably that she was not in love with him. There was another girl -who insisted on his writing her every day. Here was Gertrude, who -never had any time for him any more, absolutely without enthusiasm at -his proximity. He thought it would be a good idea to allow Eleanor to -remain where she was and said so. - -"Not that I won't miss the jolly times we had together, Babe," he -said. "I was planning some real rackets this year,--to make up for -what I put you through," he added in her ear, as she came and stood -beside him for a minute. - -Gertrude wanted to go abroad for a year, "and lick her wounds," as she -told herself. She would have come back for her two months with -Eleanor, but she was glad to be relieved of that necessity. Margaret -had the secret feeling that the ordeal of the Hutchinsons was one that -she would like to spare her foster child, and incidentally herself in -relation to the adjustment of conditions necessary to Eleanor's visit. -Peter wanted her with him, but he believed the new arrangement would -be better for the child. Beulah alone held out for her rights and her -parental privileges. The decision was finally left to Eleanor. - -She stood in the center of the group a little forlornly while they -awaited her word. A wave of her old shyness overtook her and she -blushed hot and crimson. - -"It's all in your own hands, dear," Beulah said briskly. - -"Poor kiddie," Gertrude thought, "it's all wrong somehow." - -"I don't know what you want me to say," Eleanor said piteously and -sped to the haven of Peter's breast. - -"We'll manage a month together anyway," Peter whispered. - -"Then I guess I'll stay here," she whispered back, "because next I -would have to go to Aunt Beulah's." - -Peter, turning involuntarily in Beulah's direction, saw the look of -chagrin and disappointment on her face, and realized how much she -minded playing a losing part in the game and yet how well she was -doing it. "She's only a straight-laced kid after all," he thought. -"She's put her whole heart and soul into this thing. There's a look -about the top part of her face when it's softened that's a little like -Ellen's." Ellen was his dead fiancee--the girl in the photograph at -home in his desk. - -"I guess I'll stay here," Eleanor said aloud, "all in one place, and -study with Mademoiselle." - -It was a decision that, on the whole, she never regretted. - - - - -CHAPTER XIII - -BROOK AND RIVER - - - "Standing with reluctant feet, - Where the brook and river meet." - -"I think it's a good plan to put a quotation like Kipling at the top -of the page whenever I write anything in this diary," Eleanor began in -the smart leather bound book with her initials stamped in black on the -red cover--the new private diary that had been Peter's gift to her on -the occasion of her fifteenth birthday some months before. "I think it -is a very expressive thing to do. The quotation above is one that -expresses me, and I think it is beautiful too. Miss Hadley--that's my -English teacher--the girls call her Haddock because she does look -rather like a fish--says that it's undoubtedly one of the most -poignant descriptions of adolescent womanhood ever made. I made a note -to look up adolescent, but didn't. Bertha Stephens has my dictionary, -and won't bring it back because the leaves are all stuck together -with fudge, and she thinks she ought to buy me a new one. It is very -honorable of her to feel that way, but she never will. Good old -Stevie, she's a great borrower. - - "'Neither a borrower nor a lender be, - For borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.' - "Shakespeare. - -"Well, I hardly know where to begin. I thought I would make a resume -of some of the events of the last year. I was only fourteen then, but -still I did a great many things that might be of interest to me in my -declining years when I look back into the annals of this book. To -begin with I was only a freshie at Harmon. It is very different to be -a sophomore. I can hardly believe that I was once a shivering looking -little thing like all the freshmen that came in this year. I was very -frightened, but did not think I showed it. - - "'Oh! wad some power the giftie gie us, - To see ourselves as others see us.' - -"Robert Burns had twins and a rather bad character, but after he met -his bonnie Jean he wrote very beautiful poetry. A poet's life is -usually sad anyhow--full of disappointment and pain--but I digress. - -"I had two years with Mademoiselle at the Bollings' instead of one the -way we planned. I haven't written in my Private Diary since the night -of that momentous decision that I was to stay in one place instead of -taking turns visiting my cooperative parents. I went to another school -one year before I came to Harmon, and that brings me to the threshold -of my fourteenth year. If I try to go back any farther, I'll never -catch up. I spent that vacation with Aunt Margaret in a cottage on -Long Island with her sister, and her sister's boy, who has grown up to -be the silly kind that wants to kiss you and pull your hair, and those -things. Aunt Margaret is so lovely I can't think of words to express -it. 'Oh! rare pale Margaret,' as Tennyson says. She wears her hair in -a coronet braid around the top of her head, and all her clothes are -the color of violets or a soft dovey gray or white, though baby blue -looks nice on her especially when she wears a fishyou. - -"I went down to Cape Cod for a week before I came to Harmon, and while -I was there my grandmother died. I can't write about that in this -diary. I loved my grandmother and my grandmother loved me. Uncle Peter -came, and took charge of everything. He has great strength that holds -you up in trouble. - -"The first day I came to Harmon I saw the girl I wanted for my best -friend, and so we roomed together, and have done so ever since. Her -name is Margaret Louise Hodges, but she is called Maggie Lou by every -one. She has dark curly hair, and deep brown eyes, and a very silvery -voice. I have found out that she lies some, but she says it is because -she had such an unhappy childhood, and has promised to overcome it for -my sake. - -"That Christmas vacation the 'We Are Sevens' went up the Hudson to the -Bollings' again, but that was the last time they ever went there. -Uncle David and his mother had a terrible fight over them. I was sorry -for Madam Bolling in a way. There was a girl she wanted Uncle David to -marry, a rich girl who looked something like Cleopatra, very dark -complexioned with burning eyes. She had a sweet little Pekinese -something like Zaidee. - -"Uncle David said that gold could never buy him, and to take her away, -but Madam Bolling was very angry, of course. She accused him of -wanting to marry Aunt Margaret, and called her a characterless, faded -blonde. Then it was Uncle David's turn to get angry, and I have never -seen any one get any angrier, and he told about the vow of celibacy, -and how instead of having designs on him the whole crowd would back -him up in his struggle to stay single. It was an awful row. I told -Madam Bolling that I would help her to get Uncle David back, and I -did, but she never forgave the other aunts and uncles. I suppose the -feelings of a mother would prompt her to want Uncle David settled down -with a rich and fashionable girl who would soon be the mother of a lot -of lovely children. I can't imagine a Cleopatra looking baby, but she -might have boys that looked like Uncle David. - -"Vacations are really about all there is to school. Freshman year is -mostly grinding and stuffing. Having six parents to send you boxes of -'grub' is better than having only two. Some of the girls are rather -selfish about the eats, and come in and help themselves boldly when -you are out of the room. Maggie Lou puts up signs over the candy box: -'Closed for Repairs,' or 'No Trespassing by Order of the Board of -Health,' but they don't pay much attention. Well, last summer vacation -I spent with Uncle Jimmie. I wouldn't tell this, but I reformed him. I -made him sign the pledge. I don't know what pledge it was because I -didn't read it, but he said he was addicted to something worse than -anything I could think of, and if somebody didn't pull him up, he -wouldn't answer for the consequences. I asked him why he didn't choose -Aunt Gertrude to do it, and he groaned only. So I said to write out a -pledge, and sign it and I would be the witness. We were at a hotel -with his brother's family. It isn't proper any more for me to go -around with my uncles unless I have a chaperon. Mademoiselle says that -I oughtn't even to go down-town alone with them but, of course, that -is French etiquette, and not American. Well, there were lots of pretty -girls at this hotel, all wearing white and pink dresses, and carrying -big bell shaped parasols of bright colors. They looked sweet, like so -many flowers, but Uncle Jimmie just about hated the sight of them. He -said they were not girls at all, but just pink and white devices of -the devil. On the whole he didn't act much like my merry uncle, but we -had good times together playing tennis and golf, and going on parties -with his brother's family, all mere children but the mother and -father. Uncle Jimmie was afraid to go and get his mail all summer, -although he had a great many letters on blue and lavender note paper -scented with Roger et Gallet's violet, and Hudnut's carnation. We used -to go down to the beach and make bonfires and burn them unread, and -then toast marshmallows in their ashes. He said that they were -communications from the spirits of the dead. I should have thought -that they were from different girls, but he seemed to hate the sight -of girls so much. Once I asked him if he had ever had an unhappy -love-affair, just to see what he would say, but he replied 'no, they -had all been happy ones,' and groaned and groaned. - -"Aunt Beulah has changed too. She has become a suffragette and thinks -only of getting women their rights and their privileges. - -"Maggie Lou is an anti, and we have long arguments about the cause. -She says that woman's place is in the home, but I say look at me, who -have no home, how can I wash and bake and brew like the women of my -grandfather's day, visiting around the way I do? And she says that it -is the principle of the thing that is involved, and I ought to take a -stand for or against. Everybody has so many different arguments that I -don't know what I think yet, but some day I shall make up my mind for -good. - -"Well, that about brings me up to the present. I meant to describe a -few things in detail, but I guess I will not begin on the past in that -way. I don't get so awfully much time to write in this diary because -of the many interruptions of school life, and the way the monitors -snoop in study hours. I don't know who I am going to spend my -Christmas holidays with. I sent Uncle Peter a poem three days ago, but -he has not answered it yet. I'm afraid he thought it was very silly. I -don't hardly know what it means myself. It goes as follows: - - "A Song - - "The moon is very pale to-night, - The summer wind swings high, - I seek the temple of delight, - And feel my love draw nigh. - - "I seem to feel his fragrant breath - Upon my glowing cheek. - Between us blows the wind of death,-- - I shall not hear him speak. - -"I don't know why I like to write love poems, but most of the women -poets did. This one made me cry." - - - - -CHAPTER XIV - -MERRY CHRISTMAS - - -Margaret in mauve velvet and violets, and Gertrude in a frock of smart -black and white were in the act of meeting by appointment at Sherry's -one December afternoon, with a comfortable cup of tea in mind. -Gertrude emerged from the recess of the revolving door and Margaret, -sitting eagerly by the entrance, almost upset the attendant in her -rush to her friend's side. - -"Oh! Gertrude," she cried, "I'm so glad to see you. My family is -trying to cut me up in neat little quarters and send me north, south, -east and west, for the Christmas holidays, and I want to stay home and -have Eleanor. How did I ever come to be born into a family of giants, -tell me that, Gertrude?" - -"The choice of parents is thrust upon us at an unfortunately immature -period, I'll admit," Gertrude laughed. "My parents are dears, but -they've never forgiven me for being an artist instead of a dubby bud. -Shall we have tea right away or shall we sit down and discuss life?" - -"Both," Margaret said. "I don't know which is the hungrier--flesh or -spirit." - -But as they turned toward the dining-room a familiar figure blocked -their progress. - -"I thought that was Gertrude's insatiable hat," David exclaimed -delightedly. "I've phoned for you both until your families have given -instructions that I'm not to be indulged any more. I've got a surprise -for you.--Taxi," he said to the man at the door. - -"Not till we've had our tea," Margaret wailed. "You couldn't be so -cruel, David." - -"You shall have your tea, my dear, and one of the happiest surprises -of your life into the bargain," David assured her as he led the way to -the waiting cab. - -"I wouldn't leave this place unfed for anybody but you, David, not if -it were ever so, and then some, as Jimmie says." - -"What's the matter with Jimmie, anyhow?" David inquired as the taxi -turned down the Avenue and immediately entangled itself in a hopeless -mesh of traffic. - -"I don't know; why?" Gertrude answered, though she had not been the -one addressed at the moment. "What's the matter with this hat?" she -rattled on without waiting for an answer. "I thought it was -good-looking myself, and Madam Paran robbed me for it." - -"It is good-looking," David allowed. "It seems to be a kind of -retrieving hat, that's all. Keeps you in a rather constant state of -looking after the game." - -"What about my hat, David?" Margaret inquired anxiously. "Do you like -that?" - -"I do," David admitted. "I'm crazy about it. It's a lovely cross -between the style affected by the late Emperor Napoleon and my august -grandmother, with some frills added." - -The chauffeur turned into a cross street and stopped abruptly before -an imposing but apparently unguarded entrance. - -"Why, I thought this was a studio building," Gertrude said. "David, if -you're springing a tea party on us, and we in the wild ungovernable -state we are at present, I'll shoot the way my hat is pointing." - -"Straight through my left eye-glass," David finished. "You wait till -you see the injustice you have done me." - -But Margaret, who often understood what was happening a few moments -before the revelation of it, clutched at his elbow. - -"Oh! David, David," she whispered, "how wonderful!" - -"Wait till you see," David said, and herded them into the elevator. - -Their destination was the top floor but one. David hurried them around -the bend in the sleekly carpeted corridor and touched the bell on the -right of the first door they came to. It opened almost instantly and -David's man, who was French, stood bowing and smiling on the -threshold. - -"Mr. Styvvisont has arrive'," he said; "he waits you." - -"Welcome to our city," Peter cried, appearing in the doorway of the -room Alphonse was indicating with that high gesture of delight with -which only a Frenchman can lead the way. "Jimmie's coming up from the -office and Beulah's due any minute. What do you think of the place, -girls?" - -"Is it really yours, David?" - -"Surest thing you know." He grinned like a schoolboy. "It's really -ours, that's what it is. I've broken away from the mater at last," he -added a little sheepishly. "I'm going to work seriously. I've got an -all-day desk job in my uncle's office and I'm going to dig in and see -what I can make of myself. Also, this is going to be our headquarters, -and Eleanor's permanent home if we're all agreed upon it,--but look -around, ladies. Don't spare my blushes. If you think I can interior -decorate, just tell me so frankly. This is the living-room." - -"It's like that old conundrum--black and white and red all over," -Gertrude said. "I never saw anything so stunning in all my life." - -"Gosh! I admire your nerve," Peter cried, "papering this place in -white, and then getting in all this heavy carved black stuff, and the -red in the tapestries and screens and pillows." - -"I wanted it to look studioish a little," David explained, "I wanted -to get away from Louis Quartorze." - -"And drawing-rooms like mother used to make," Gertrude suggested. "I -like your Oriental touches. Do you see, Margaret, everything is Indian -or Chinese? The ubiquitous Japanese print is conspicuous by its -absence." - -"I've got two portfolios full of 'em," David said, "and I always have -one or two up in the bedrooms. I change 'em around, you know, the way -the s do themselves, a different scene every few days and the rest -decently out of sight till you're ready for 'em." - -"It's like a fairy story," Margaret said. - -"I thought you'd appreciate what little Arabian Nights I was able to -introduce. I bought that screen," he indicated a sweep of Chinese line -and color, "with my eye on you, and that Aladdin's lamp is yours, of -course. You're to come in here and rub it whenever you like, and your -heart's desire will instantly be vouchsafed to you." - -"What will Eleanor say?" Peter suggested, as David led the way through -the corridor and up the tiny stairs which led to the more intricate -part of the establishment. "This is her room, didn't you say, David?" -He paused on the threshold of a bedroom done in ivory white and -yellow, with all its hangings of a soft golden silk. - -"She once said that she wanted a yellow room," David said, "a -daffy-down-dilly room, and I've tried to get her one. I know last -year that Maggie Lou child refused to have yellow curtains in that -flatiron shaped sitting-room of theirs, and Eleanor refused to be -comforted." - -A wild whoop in the below stairs announced Jimmie; and Beulah arrived -simultaneously with the tea tray. Jimmie was ecstatic when the actual -function of the place was explained to him. - -"Headquarters is the one thing we've lacked," he said; "a place of our -own, hully gee! It makes me feel almost human again." - -"You haven't been feeling altogether human lately, have you, Jimmie?" -Margaret asked over her tea cup. - -"No, dear, I haven't." Jimmie flashed her a grateful smile. "I'm a bad -egg," he explained to her darkly, "and the only thing you can do with -me is to scramble me." - -"Scrambled is just about the way I should have described your behavior -of late,--but that's Gertrude's line," David said. "Only she doesn't -seem to be taking an active part in the conversation. Aren't you -Jimmie's keeper any more, Gertrude?" - -"Not since she's come back from abroad," Jimmie muttered without -looking at her. - -"Eleanor's taken the job over now," Peter said. "She's made him swear -off red ink and red neckties." - -"Any color so long's it's red is the color that suits me best," Jimmie -quoted. "Lord, isn't this room a pippin?" He swam in among the bright -pillows of the divan and so hid his face for a moment. It had been a -good many weeks since he had seen Gertrude. - -"I want to give a suffrage tea here," Beulah broke in suddenly. "It's -so central, but I don't suppose David would hear of it." - -"Angels and Ministers of Grace defend us--" Peter began. - -"My _mother_ would hear of it," David said, "and then there wouldn't -be any little studio any more. She doesn't believe in votes for -women." - -"How any woman in this day and age--" Beulah began, and thought better -of it, since she was discussing Mrs. Bolling. - -"Makes your blood boil, doesn't it--Beulahland?" Gertrude suggested -helpfully, reaching for the tea cakes. "Never mind, I'll vote for -women. I'll march in your old peerade." - -"The Lord helps those that help themselves," Peter said, "that's why -Gertrude is a suffragist. She believes in helping herself, in every -sense, don't you, 'Trude?" - -"Not quite in every sense," Gertrude said gravely. "Sometimes I feel -like that girl that Margaret describes as caught in a horrid way -between two generations. I'm neither old-fashioned nor modern." - -"I'd rather be that way than early Victorian," Margaret sighed. - -"Speaking of the latest generation, has anybody any objection to -having our child here for the holidays?" David asked. "My idea is to -have one grand Christmas dinner. I suppose we'll all have to eat one -meal with our respective families, but can't we manage to get together -here for dinner at night? Don't you think that we could?" - -"We can't, but we will," Margaret murmured. "Of course, have Eleanor -here. I wanted her with me but the family thought otherwise. They've -been trying to send me away for my health, David." - -"Well, they shan't. You'll stay in New York for your health and come -to my party." - -"Margaret's health is merely a matter of Margaret's happiness anyhow. -Her soul and her body are all one," Gertrude said. - -"Then cursed be he who brings anything but happiness to Margaret," -Peter said, to which sentiment David added a solemn "Amen." - -"I wish you wouldn't," Margaret said, shivering a little, "I feel as -if some one were--were--" - -"Trampling the violets on your grave," Gertrude finished for her. - -Christmas that year fell on a Monday, and Eleanor did not leave school -till the Friday before the great day. Owing to the exigencies of the -holiday season none of her guardians came to see her before the dinner -party itself. Even David was busy with his mother--installed now for a -few weeks in the hotel suite that would be her home until the opening -of the season at Palm Beach--and had only a few hurried words with -her. Mademoiselle, whom he had imported for the occasion, met her at -the station and helped her to do her modest shopping which consisted -chiefly of gifts for her beloved aunts and uncles. She had arranged -these things lovingly at their plates, and fled to dress when they -began to assemble for the celebration. The girls were the first -arrivals. Then Peter. - -"How's our child, David?" Gertrude asked. "I had a few minutes' talk -with her over the telephone and she seemed to be flourishing." - -"She is," David answered. "She's grown several feet since we last saw -her. They've been giving scenes from Shakespeare at school and she's -been playing Juliet, it appears. She has had a fight with another girl -about suffrage--I don't know which side she was on, Beulah, I am -merely giving you the facts as they came to me--and the other girl was -so unpleasant about it that she has been visited by just retribution -in the form of the mumps, and had to be sent home and quarantined." - -"Sounds a bit priggish," Peter suggested. - -"Not really," David said, "she's as sound as a nut. She's only going -through the different stages." - -"To pass deliberately through one's ages," Beulah quoted, "is to get -the heart out of a liberal education." - -"Bravo, Beulah," Gertrude cried, "you're quite in your old form -to-night." - -"Is she just the same little girl, David?" Margaret asked. - -"Just the same. She really seems younger than ever. I don't know why -she doesn't come down. There she is, I guess. No, it's only Alphonse -letting in Jimmie." - -Jimmie, whose spirits seemed to have revived under the holiday -influence, was staggering under the weight of his parcels. The -Christmas presents had already accumulated to a considerable mound on -the couch. Margaret was brooding over them and trying not to look -greedy. She was still very much of a child herself in relation to -Santa Claus. - -"Merry Christmas!" Jimmie cried. "Where's my child?" - -"Coming," David said. - -"Look at the candy kids. My eyes--but you're a slick trio, girls. Pale -lavender, pale blue, and pale pink, and all quite sophisticatedly -decollete. You go with the decorations, too. I don't know quite why -you do, but you do." - -"Give honor where honor is due, dearie. That's owing to the cleverness -of the decorator," David said. - -"No man calls me dearie and lives to tell the tale," Jimmie remarked -almost dreamily as he squared off. "How'll you have it, Dave?" - -But at that instant there was an unexpected interruption. Alphonse -threw open the big entrance door at the farther end of the long room -with a flourish. - -"Mademoiselle Juliet Capulet," he proclaimed with the grand air, and -then retired behind his hand, smiling broadly. - -Framed in the high doorway, complete, cap and curls, softly rounding -bodice, and the long, straight lines of the Renaissance, stood -Juliet--Juliet, immemorial, immortal, young--austerely innocent and -delicately shy, already beautiful, and yet potential of all the beauty -and the wisdom of the world. - -"I've never worn these clothes before anybody but the girls before," -Eleanor said, "but I thought"--she looked about her appealingly--"you -might like it--for a surprise." - -"Great jumping Jehoshaphat," Jimmie exclaimed, "I thought you said she -was the same little girl, David." - -"She was half an hour ago," David answered, "I never saw such a -metamorphosis. In fact, I don't think I ever saw Juliet before." - -"She is the thing itself," Gertrude answered, the artist in her -sobered by the vision. - -But Peter passed a dazed hand over his eyes and stared at the delicate -figure advancing to him. - -"My God! she's a woman," he said, and drew the hard breath of a man -just awakened from sleep. - -[Illustration: "I thought"--she looked about her appealingly--"you might -like it--for a surprise"] - - - - -CHAPTER XV - -GROWING UP - - -"Dear Uncle Jimmie: - -"It was a pleasant surprise to get letters from every one of my uncles -the first week I got back to school. It was unprecedented. You wrote -me two letters last year, Uncle David six, and Uncle Peter sixteen. He -is the best correspondent, but perhaps that is because I ask him the -most advice. The Christmas party was lovely. I shall never forget the -expressions on all the different faces when I came down in my Juliet -suit. I thought at first that no one liked me in it, but I guess they -did. - -"You know how well I liked my presents because you heard my wild -exclamations of delight. I never had such a nice Christmas. It was -sweet of the We Are Sevens to get me that ivory set, and to know that -every different piece was the loving thought of a different aunt or -uncle. I love the yellow monogram. It looks entirely unique, and I -like to have things that are not like anybody else's in the world, -don't you, Uncle Jimmie? I am glad you liked your cuff links. They are -'neat,' but not 'gaudy.' You play golf so well I thought a golf stick -was a nice emblem for you, and would remind you of me and last -summer. - -"I am glad you think it is easier to keep your pledge now. I made a -New Year's resolution to go without chocolates, and give the money -they would cost to some good cause, but it's hard to pick out a cause, -or to decide exactly how much money you are saving. I can eat the -chocolates that are sent to me, however!!!! - -"Uncle David said that he thought you were not like yourself lately, -but you seemed just the same to me Christmas, only more affectionate. -I love you very much. I was really only joking about the chocolates. -Eleanor." - - * * * * * - -"Dear Uncle David: - -"I was glad to get your nice letter. You did not have to write in -response to my bread and butter letter, but I am glad you did. When I -am at school, and getting letters all the time I feel as if I were -living two beautiful lives all at once, the life of a 'cooperative -child' and the life of Eleanor Hamlin, schoolgirl, both together. -Letters make the people you love seem very near to you, don't you -think they do? I sleep with all my letters under my pillow whenever I -feel the least little bit homesick, and they almost seem to breathe -sometimes. - -"School is the same old school. Maggie Lou had a wrist watch, too, for -Christmas, but not so pretty as the one you gave me. Miss Hadley says -I do remarkable work in English whenever I feel like it. I don't know -whether that's a compliment or not. I took Kris Kringle for the -subject of a theme the other day, and represented him as caught in an -iceberg in the grim north, and not being able to reach all the poor -little children in the tenements and hovels. The Haddock said it -showed imagination. - -"There was a lecture at school on Emerson the other day. The speaker -was a noted literary lecturer from New York. He had wonderful waving -hair, more like Pader--I can't spell him, but you know who I -mean--than Uncle Jimmie's, but a little like both. He introduced some -very noble thoughts in his discourse, putting perfectly old ideas in -a new way that made you think a lot more of them. I think a tall man -like that with waving hair can do a great deal of good as a lecturer, -because you listen a good deal more respectfully than if they were -plain looking. His voice sounded a good deal like what I imagine -Romeo's voice did. I had a nice letter from Madam Bolling. I love you, -and I have come to the bottom of the sheet. Eleanor." - - * * * * * - -"Dear Uncle Peter: - -"I have just written to my other uncles, so I won't write you a long -letter this time. They deserve letters because of being so unusually -prompt after the holidays. You always deserve letters, but not -specially now, any more than any other time. - -"Uncle Peter, I wrote to my grandfather. It seems funny to think of -Albertina's aunt taking care of him now that Grandma is gone. I -suppose Albertina is there a lot. She sent me a post card for -Christmas. I didn't send her any. - -"Uncle Peter, I miss my grandmother out of the world. I remember how I -used to take care of her, and put a soapstone in the small of her -back when she was cold. I wish sometimes that I could hold your hand, -Uncle Peter, when I get thinking about it. - -"Well, school is the same old school. Bertha Stephens has a felon on -her finger, and that lets her out of hard work for a while. I will -enclose a poem suggested by a lecture I heard recently on Emerson. It -isn't very good, but it will help to fill up the envelope. I love you, -and love you. Eleanor. - - "Life - - "Life is a great, a noble task, - When we fulfill our duty. - To work, that should be all we ask, - And seek the living beauty. - We know not whence we come, or where - Our dim pathway is leading, - Whether we tread on lilies fair, - Or trample love-lies-bleeding. - But we must onward go and up, - Nor stop to question whither. - E'en if we drink the bitter cup, - And fall at last, to wither. - -"P. S. I haven't got the last verse very good yet, but I think the -second one is pretty. You know 'love-lies-bleeding' is a flower, but -it sounds allegorical the way I have put it in. Don't you think so? -You know what all the crosses stand for." - - * * * * * - -Eleanor's fifteenth year was on the whole the least eventful year of -her life, though not by any means the least happy. She throve -exceedingly, and gained the freedom and poise of movement and -spontaneity that result from properly balanced periods of work and -play and healthful exercise. From being rather small of her age she -developed into a tall slender creature, inherently graceful and erect, -with a small, delicate head set flower-wise on a slim white neck. -Gertrude never tired of modeling that lovely contour, but Eleanor -herself was quite unconscious of her natural advantages. She preferred -the snappy-eyed, stocky, ringleted type of beauty, and spent many -unhappy quarters of an hour wishing she were pretty according to the -inexorable ideals of Harmon. - -She spent her vacation at David's apartment in charge of Mademoiselle, -though the latter part of the summer she went to Colhassett, quite by -herself according to her own desire, and spent a month with her -grandfather, now in charge of Albertina's aunt. She found Albertina -grown into a huge girl, sunk in depths of sloth and snobbishness, who -plied her with endless questions concerning life in the gilded circles -of New York society. Eleanor found her disgusting and yet possessed of -that vague fascination that the assumption of prerogative often -carries with it. - -She found her grandfather very old and shrunken, yet perfectly taken -care of and with every material want supplied. She realized as she had -never done before how the faithful six had assumed the responsibility -of this household from the beginning, and how the old people had been -warmed and comforted by their bounty. She laughed to remember her -simplicity in believing that an actual salary was a perquisite of her -adoption, and understood for the first time how small a part of the -expense of their living this faithful stipend had defrayed. She looked -back incredulously on that period when she had lived with them in a -state of semi-starvation on the corn meal and cereals and very little -else that her dollar and a half a week had purchased, and the "garden -sass," that her grandfather had faithfully hoed and tended in the -straggling patch of plowed field that he would hoe and tend no more. -She spent a month practically at his feet, listening to his stories, -helping him to find his pipe and tobacco and glasses, and reading the -newspaper to him, and felt amply rewarded by his final acknowledgment -that she was a good girl and he would as soon have her come again -whenever she felt like it. - -On her way back to school she spent a week with her friend, Margaret -Louise, in the Connecticut town where she lived with her comfortable, -commonplace family. It was while she was on this visit that the most -significant event of the entire year took place, though it was a -happening that she put out of her mind as soon as possible and never -thought of it again when she could possibly avoid it. - -Maggie Lou had a brother of seventeen, and one night in the corner of -a moonlit porch, when they happened to be alone for a half hour, he -had asked Eleanor to kiss him. - -"I don't want to kiss you," Eleanor said. Then, not wishing to convey -a sense of any personal dislike to the brother of a friend to whom -she was so sincerely devoted, she added, "I don't know you well -enough." - -He was a big boy, with mocking blue eyes and rough tweed clothes that -hung on him loosely. - -"When you know me better, will you let me kiss you?" he demanded. - -"I don't know," Eleanor said, still endeavoring to preserve the -amenities. - -He took her hand and played with it softly. - -"You're an awful sweet little girl," he said. - -"I guess I'll go in now." - -"Sit still. Sister'll be back in a minute." He pulled her back to the -chair from which she had half arisen. "Don't you believe in kissing?" - -"I don't believe in kissing _you_," she tried to say, but the words -would not come. She could only pray for deliverance through the -arrival of some member of the family. The boy's face was close to -hers. It looked sweet in the moonlight she thought. She wished he -would talk of something else besides kissing. - -"Don't you like me?" he persisted. - -"Yes, I do." She was very uncomfortable. - -"Well, then, there's no more to be said." His lips sought hers and -pressed them. His breath came heavily, with little irregular catches -in it. - -She pushed him away and turned into the house. - -"Don't be angry, Eleanor," he pleaded, trying to snatch at her hand. - -"I'm not angry," she said, her voice breaking, "I just wish you -hadn't, that's all." - -There was no reference to this incident in the private diary, but, -with an instinct which would have formed an indissoluble bond between -herself and her Uncle Jimmie, she avoided dimly lit porches and boys -with mischievous eyes and broad tweed covered shoulders. - -For her guardians too, this year was comparatively smooth running and -colorless. Beulah's militant spirit sought the assuagement of a fierce -expenditure of energy on the work that came to her hand through her -new interest in suffrage. Gertrude flung herself into her sculpturing. -She had been hurt as only the young can be hurt when their first -delicate desires come to naught. She was very warm-blooded and eager -under her cool veneer, and she had spent four years of hard work and -hungry yearning for the fulness of a life she was too constrained to -get any emotional hold on. Her fancy for Jimmie she believed was -quite over and done with. - -Margaret, warmed by secret fires and nourished by the stuff that -dreams are made of, flourished strangely in her attic chamber, and -learned the wisdom of life by some curious method of her own of -apprehending its dangers and delights. The only experiences she had -that year were two proposals of marriage, one from a timid professor -of the romance languages and the other from a young society man, -already losing his waist line, whose sensuous spirit had been stirred -by the ethereal grace of hers; but these things interested her very -little. She was the princess, spinning fine dreams and waiting for the -dawning of the golden day when the prince should come for her. Neither -she nor Gertrude ever gave a serious thought to the five-year-old vow -of celibacy, which was to Beulah as real and as binding as it had -seemed on the first day she took it. - -Peter and David and Jimmie went their own way after the fashion of -men, all of them identified with the quickening romance of New York -business life. David in Wall Street was proving to be something of a -financier to his mother's surprise and amazement; and the pressure -relaxed, he showed some slight initiative in social matters. In fact, -two mothers, who were on Mrs. Bolling's list as suitable -parents-in-law, took heart of grace and began angling for him -adroitly, while their daughters served him tea and made unabashed, -modern-debutante eyes at him. - -Jimmie, successfully working his way up to the top of his firm, -suffered intermittently from his enthusiastic abuse of the privileges -of liberty and the pursuit of happiness. His mind and soul were in -reality hot on the trail of a wife, and there was no woman among those -with whom he habitually foregathered whom his spirit recognized as his -own woman. He was further rendered helpless and miserable by the fact -that he had not the slightest idea of his trouble. He regarded himself -as a congenital Don Juan, from whom his better self shrank at times -with a revulsion of loathing. - -Peter felt that he had his feet very firmly on a rather uninspired -earth. He was getting on in the woolen business, which happened to be -the vocation his father had handed down to him. He belonged to an -amusing club, and he still felt himself irrevocably widowed by the -early death of the girl in the photograph he so faithfully cherished. -Eleanor was a very vital interest in his life. It had seemed to him -for a few minutes at the Christmas party that she was no longer the -little girl he had known, that a lovelier, more illusive creature--a -woman--had come to displace her, but when she had flung her arms -around him he had realized that it was still the heart of a child -beating so fondly against his own. - -The real trouble with arrogating to ourselves the privileges of -parenthood is that our native instincts are likely to become deflected -by the substitution of the artificial for the natural responsibility. -Both Peter and David had the unconscious feeling that their obligation -to their race was met by their communal interest in Eleanor. Beulah, -of course, sincerely believed that the filling in of an intellectual -concept of life was all that was required of her. Only Jimmie groped -blindly and bewilderedly for his own. Gertrude and Margaret both -understood that they were unnaturally alone in a world where lovers -met and mated, but they, too, hugged to their souls the flattering -unction that they were parents of a sort. - -Thus three sets of perfectly suitable and devoted young men and -women, of marriageable age, with dozens of interests and sympathies in -common, and one extraordinarily vital bond, continued to walk side by -side in a state of inhuman preoccupation, their gaze fixed inward -instead of upon one another; and no Divine Power, happening upon the -curious circumstance, believed the matter one for His intervention nor -stooped to take the respective puppets by the back of their -unconscious necks, and so knock their sluggish heads together. - - - - -CHAPTER XVI - -MARGARET LOUISA'S BIRTHRIGHT - - -"I am sixteen years and eight months old to-day," Eleanor wrote, "and -I have had the kind of experience that makes me feel as if I never -wanted to be any older. I know life is full of disillusionment and -pain, but I did not know that any one with whom you have broken bread, -and slept in the same room with, and told everything to for four long -years, could turn out to be an absolute traitor and villainess. Let me -begin at the beginning. For nearly a year now I have noticed that -Bertha Stephens avoided me, and presented the appearance of disliking -me. I don't like to have any one dislike me, and I have tried to do -little things for her that would win back her affection, but with no -success. As I was editing the Lantern I could print her essayettes (as -she called them) and do her lots of little favors in a literary way, -which she seemed to appreciate, but personally she avoided me like the -plague. - -"Of course Stevie has lots of faults, and since Margaret Louise and I -always talked everything over we used to talk about Stevie in the same -way. I remember that she used to try to draw me out about Stevie's -character. I've always thought Stevie was a kind of piker, that is -that she would say she was going to do a thing, and then from sheer -laziness not do it. My dictionary was a case in point. She gummed it -all up with her nasty fudge and then wouldn't give it back to me or -get me another, but the reason she wouldn't give it back to me was -because her feelings were too fine to return a damaged article, and -not fine enough to make her hump herself and get me another. That's -only one kind of a piker and not the worst kind, but it was -_pikerish_. - -"All this I told quite frankly to Maggie--I mean Margaret Louise, -because I had no secrets from her and never thought there was any -reason why I shouldn't. Stevie has a horrid brother, also, who has -been up here to dances. All the girls hate him because he is so -spoony. He isn't as spoony as Margaret Louise's brother, but he's -quite a sloppy little spooner at that. Well, I told Margaret Louise -that I didn't like Stevie's brother, and then I made the damaging -remark that one reason I didn't like him was because he looked so much -like Stevie. I didn't bother to explain to Maggie--I will not call her -Maggie Lou any more, because that is a dear little name and sounds so -affectionate,--Margaret Louise--what I meant by this, because I -thought it was perfectly evident. Stevie is a peachy looking girl, a -snow white blonde with pinky cheeks and dimples. Well, her brother is -a snow white blond too, and he has pinky cheeks and dimples and his -name is Carlo! We, of course, at once named him Curlo. It is not a -good idea for a man to look too much like his sister, or to have too -many dimples in his chin and cheeks. I had only to think of him in the -same room with my three uncles to get his number exactly. I don't mean -to use slang in my diary, but I can't seem to help it. Professor -Mathews says that slang has a distinct function in the language--in -replenishing it, but Uncle Peter says about slang words, that 'many -are called, and few are chosen,' and there is no need to try to -accommodate them all in one's vocabulary. - -"Well, I told Margaret Louise all these things about Curlo, and how -he tried to hold my hand coming from the station one day, when the -girls all went up to meet the boys that came up for the dance,--and I -told her everything else in the world that happened to come into my -head. - -"Then one day I got thinking about leaving Harmon--this is our senior -year, of course--and I thought that I should leave all the girls with -things just about right between us, excepting good old Stevie, who had -this queer sort of grouch against me. So I decided that I'd just go -around and have it out with her, and I did. I went into her room one -day when her roommate was out, and demanded a show down. Well, I found -out that Maggie--Margaret Louise had just repeated to Stevie every -living thing that I ever said about her, just as I said it, only -without the explanations and foot-notes that make any kind of -conversation more understandable. - -"Stevie told me all these things one after another, without stopping, -and when she was through I wished that the floor would open and -swallow me up, but nothing so comfortable happened. I was obliged to -gaze into Stevie's overflowing eyes and own up to the truth as well as -I could, and explain it. It was the most humiliating hour that I ever -spent, but I told Stevie exactly what I felt about her 'nothing -extenuate, and naught set down in malice,' and what I had said about -her to our mutual friend, who by the way, is not the mutual friend of -either of us any longer. We were both crying by the time I had -finished, but we understood each other. There were one or two things -that she said she didn't think she would ever forget that I had said -about her, but even those she could forgive. She said that my dislike -of her had rankled in her heart so long that it took away all the -bitterness to know that I wasn't really her enemy. She said that my -coming to her that way, and not lying had showed that I had lots of -character, and she thought in time that we could be quite intimate -friends if I wanted to as much as she did. - -"After my talk with Stevie I still hoped against hope that Margaret -Louise would turn out to have some reason or excuse for what she had -done. I knew she had done it, but when a thing like that happens that -upsets your whole trust in a person you simply can not believe the -evidence of your own senses. When you read of a situation like that -in a book you are all prepared for it by the author, who has taken the -trouble to explain the moral weakness or unpleasantness of the -character, and given you to understand that you are to expect a -betrayal from him or her; but when it happens in real life out of a -clear sky you have nothing to go upon that makes you even _believe_ -what you know. - -"I won't even try to describe the scene that occurred between Margaret -Louise and me. She cried and she lied, and she accused me of trying to -curry favor with Stevie, and Stevie of being a backbiter, and she -argued and argued about all kinds of things but the truth, and when I -tried to pin her down to it, she ducked and crawled and sidestepped in -a way that was dreadful. I've seen her do something like it before -about different things, and I ought to have known then what she was -like inside of her soul, but I guess you have to be the object of such -a scene before you realize the full force of it. - -"All I said was, 'Margaret Louise, if that's all you've got to say -about the injury you have done me, then everything is over between us -from this minute;' and it was, too. - -"I feel as if I had been writing a beautiful story or poem on what I -thought was an enduring tablet of marble, and some one had come and -wiped it all off as if it were mere scribblings on a slate. I don't -know whether it would seem like telling tales to tell Uncle Peter or -not; I don't quite know whether I want to tell him. Sometimes I wish I -had a mother to tell such things to. It seems to me that a real mother -would know what to say that would help you. Disillusion is a very -strange thing--like death, only having people die seems more natural -somehow. When they die you can remember the happy hours that you spent -with them, but when disillusionment comes then you have lost even your -beautiful memories. - -"We had for the subject of our theme this week, 'What Life Means to -Me,' which of course was the object of many facetious remarks from the -girls, but I've been thinking that if I sat down seriously to state in -just so many words what life means to _me_, I hardly know what I would -transcribe. It means disillusionment and death for one thing. Since my -grandfather died last year I have had nobody left of my own in the -world,--no real blood relation. Of course, I am a good deal fonder of -my aunts and uncles than most people are of their own flesh and blood, -but own flesh and blood is a thing that it makes you feel shivery to -be without. If I had been Margaret Louise's own flesh and blood, she -would never have acted like that to me. Stevie stuck up for Carlo as -if he was really something to be proud of. Perhaps my uncles and aunts -feel that way about me, I don't know. I don't even know if I feel that -way about them. I certainly criticize them in my soul at times, and -feel tired of being dragged around from pillar to post. I don't feel -that way about Uncle Peter, but there is nobody else that I am -certain, positive sure that I love better than life itself. If there -is only one in the world that you feel that way about, I might not be -Uncle Peter's one. - -"Oh! I wish Margaret Louise had not sold her birthright for a mess of -pottage. I wish I had a home that I had a perfect right to go and live -in forevermore. I wish my mother was here to comfort me to-night." - - - - -CHAPTER XVII - -A REAL KISS - - -At seventeen, Eleanor was through at Harmon. She was to have one year -of preparatory school and then it was the desire of Beulah's heart -that she should go to Rogers. The others contended that the higher -education should be optional and not obligatory. The decision was -finally to be left to Eleanor herself, after she had considered it in -all its bearings. - -"If she doesn't decide in favor of college," David said, "and she -makes her home with me here, as I hope she will do, of course, I don't -see what society we are going to be able to give her. Unfortunately -none of our contemporaries have growing daughters. She ought to meet -eligible young men and that sort of thing." - -"Not yet," Margaret cried. The two were having a cozy cup of tea at -his apartment. "You're so terribly worldly, David, that you frighten -me sometimes." - -"You don't know where I will end, is that the idea?" - -"I don't know where Eleanor will end, if you're already thinking of -eligible young men for her." - -"Those things have got to be thought of," David answered gravely. - -"I suppose they have," Margaret sighed. "I don't want her to be -married. I want to take her off by myself and growl over her all alone -for a while. Then I want Prince Charming to come along and snatch her -up quickly, and set her behind his milk white charger and ride away -with her. If we've all got to get together and connive at marrying her -off there won't be any comfort in having her." - -"I don't know," David said thoughtfully; "I think that might be fun, -too. A vicarious love-affair that you can manipulate is one of the -most interesting games in the world." - -"That's not my idea of an interesting game," Margaret said. "I like -things very personal, David,--you ought to know that by this time." - -"I do know that," David said, "but it sometimes occurs to me that -except for a few obvious facts of that nature I really know very -little about you, Margaret." - -"There isn't much to know--except that I'm a woman." - -"That's a good deal," David answered slowly; "to a mere man that seems -to be considerable of an adventure." - -"It is about as much of an adventure sometimes as it would be to be a -field of clover in an insectless world.--This is wonderful tea, David, -but your cream is like butter and floats around in it in wudges. No, -don't get any more, I've got to go home. Grandmother still thinks it's -very improper for me to call upon you, in spite of Mademoiselle and -your ancient and honorable housekeeper." - -"Don't go," David said; "I apologize on my knees for the cream. I'll -send out and have it wet down, or whatever you do to cream in that -state. I want to talk to you. What did you mean by your last remark?" - -"About the cream, or the proprieties?" - -"About women." - -"Everything and nothing, David dear. I'm a little bit tired of being -one, that's all, and I want to go home." - -"She wants to go home when she's being so truly delightful and -cryptic," David said. "Have you been seeing visions, Margaret, in my -hearth fire? Your eyes look as if you had." - -"I thought I did for a minute." She rose and stood absently fitting -her gloves to her fingers. "I don't know exactly what it was I saw, -but it was something that made me uncomfortable. It gives me the -creeps to talk about being a woman. David, do you know sometimes I -have a kind of queer hunch about Eleanor? I love her, you know, -dearly, dearly. I think that she is a very successful kind of -Frankenstein; but there are moments when I have the feeling that she's -going to be a storm center and bring some queer trouble upon us. I -wouldn't say this to anybody but you, David." - -As David tucked her in the car--he had arrived at the dignity of -owning one now--and watched her sweet silhouette disappear, he, too, -had his moment of clairvoyance. He felt that he was letting something -very precious slip out of sight, as if some radiant and delicate gift -had been laid lightly within his grasp and as lightly withdrawn again. -As if when the door closed on his friend Margaret some stranger, more -silent creature who was dear to him had gone with her. As soon as he -was dressed for dinner he called Margaret on the telephone to know if -she had arrived home safely, and was informed not only that she had, -but that she was very wroth at him for getting her down three flights -of stairs in the midst of her own dinner toilet. - -"I had a kind of hunch, too," he told her, "and I felt as if I wanted -to hear your voice speaking." - -But she only scoffed at him. - -"If that's the way you feel about your chauffeur," she said, "you -ought to discharge him, but he brought me home beautifully." - -The difference between a man's moments of prescience and a woman's, is -that the man puts them out of his consciousness as quickly as he can, -while a woman clings to them fearfully and goes her way a little more -carefully for the momentary flash of foresight. David tried to see -Margaret once or twice during that week but failed to find her in when -he called or telephoned, and the special impulse to seek her alone -again died naturally. - -One Saturday a few weeks later Eleanor telegraphed him that she -wished to come to New York for the week-end to do some shopping. - -He went to the train to meet her, and when the slender chic figure in -the most correct of tailor made suits appeared at the gateway, with an -obsequious porter bearing her smart bag and ulster, he gave a sudden -gasp of surprise at the picture. He had been aware for some time of -the increase in her inches and the charm of the pure cameo-cut -profile, but he regarded her still as a child histrionically assuming -the airs and graces of womanhood, as small girl children masquerade in -the trailing skirts of their elders. He was accustomed to the idea -that she was growing up rapidly, but the fact that she was already -grown had never actually dawned on him until this moment. - -"You look as if you were surprised to see me, Uncle David,--are you?" -she said, slipping a slim hand, warm through its immaculate glove, -into his. "You knew I was coming, and you came to meet me, and yet you -looked as surprised as if you hadn't expected me at all." - -"Surprised to see you just about expresses it, Eleanor. I am surprised -to see you. I was looking for a little girl in hair ribbons with her -skirts to her knees." - -"And a blue tam-o'-shanter?" - -"And a blue tam-o'-shanter. I had forgotten you had grown up any to -speak of." - -"You see me every vacation," Eleanor grumbled, as she stepped into the -waiting motor. "It isn't because you lack opportunity that you don't -notice what I look like. It's just because you're naturally -unobserving." - -"Peter and Jimmie have been making a good deal of fuss about your -being a young lady, now I think of it. Peter especially has been -rather a nuisance about it, breaking into my most precious moments of -triviality with the sweetly solemn thought that our little girl has -grown to be a woman now." - -"Oh, does _he_ think I'm grown up, does he really?" - -"Jimmie is almost as bad. He's all the time wanting me to get you to -New York over the weekend, so that he can see if you are any taller -than you were the last time he saw you." - -"Are they coming to see me this evening?" - -"Jimmie is going to look in. Peter is tied up with his sister. You -know she's on here from China with her daughter. Peter wants you to -meet the child." - -"She must be as grown up as I am," Eleanor said. "I used to have her -room, you know, when I stayed with Uncle Peter. Does Uncle Peter like -her?" - -"Not as much as he likes you, Miss Green-eyes. He says she looks like -a heathen Chinee but otherwise is passable. I didn't know that you -added jealousy to the list of your estimable vices." - -"I'm not jealous," Eleanor protested; "or if I am it's only because -she's blood relation,--and I'm not, you know." - -"It's a good deal more prosaic to be a blood relation, if anybody -should ask you," David smiled. "A blood relation is a good deal like -the famous primrose on the river's brim." - -"'A primrose by the river's brim a yellow primrose was to him,--and -nothing more,'" Eleanor quoted gaily. "Why, what more--" she broke off -suddenly and slightly. - -"What more would anybody want to be than a yellow primrose by the -river's brim?" David finished for her. "I don't know, I'm sure. I'm a -mere man and such questions are too abstruse for me, as I told your -Aunt Margaret the other day. Now I think of it, though, you don't look -unlike a yellow primrose yourself to-day, daughter." - -"That's because I've got a yellow ribbon on my hat." - -"No, the resemblance goes much deeper. It has something to do with -youth and fragrance and the flowers that bloom in the spring." - -"The flowers that bloom in the spring, tra la," Eleanor returned -saucily, "have nothing to do with the case." - -"She's learning that she has eyes, good Lord," David said to himself, -but aloud he remarked paternally, "I saw all your aunts yesterday. -Gertrude gave a tea party and invited a great many famous tea party -types, and ourselves." - -"Was Aunt Beulah there?" - -"I said all your aunts. Beulah was there, like the famous Queenie, -with her hair in a braid." - -"Not really." - -"Pretty nearly. She's gone in for dress reform now, you know, a kind -of middy blouse made out of a striped portiere with a kilted skirt of -the same material and a Scotch cap. She doesn't look so bad in it. -Your Aunt Beulah presents a peculiar phenomenon these days. She's -growing better-looking and behaving worse every day of her life." - -"Behaving worse?" - -"She's theory ridden and fad bitten. She'll come to a bad end if -something doesn't stop her." - -"Do you mean--stop her working for suffrage? I'm a suffragist, Uncle -David." - -"And quite right to remind me of it before I began slamming the cause. -No, I don't mean suffrage. I believe in suffrage myself. I mean the -way she's going after it. There are healthy ways of insisting on your -rights and unhealthy ways. Beulah's getting further and further off -key, that's all. Here we are at home, daughter. Your poor old -cooperative father welcomes you to the associated hearthstone." - -"This front entrance looks more like my front entrance than any other -place does," Eleanor said. "Oh! I'm so glad to be here. George, how is -the baby?" she asked the black elevator man, who beamed delightedly -upon her. - -"Gosh! I didn't know he had one," David chuckled. "It takes a -woman--" - -Jimmie appeared in the evening, laden with violets and a five pound -box of the chocolates most in favor in the politest circles at the -moment. David whistled when he saw them. - -"What's devouring you, papa?" Jimmie asked him. "Don't I always place -tributes at the feet of the offspring?" - -"Mirror candy and street corner violets, yes," David said. "It's only -the labels that surprised me." - -"She knows the difference, now," Jimmie answered, "what would you?" - -The night before her return to school it was decreed that she should -go to bed early. She had spent two busy days of shopping and "seeing -the family." She had her hours discussing her future with Peter, long -visits and talks with Margaret and Gertrude, and a cup of tea at -suffrage headquarters with Beulah, as well as long sessions in the -shops accompanied by Mademoiselle, who made her home now permanently -with David. She sat before the fire drowsily constructing pyramids out -of the embers and David stood with one arm on the mantel, smoking his -after-dinner cigar, and watching her. - -"Is it to be college, Eleanor?" he asked her presently. - -"I can't seem to make up my mind, Uncle David." - -"Don't you like the idea?" - -"Yes, I'd love it,--if--" - -"If what, daughter?" - -"If I thought I could spare the time." - -"The time? Elucidate." - -"I'm going to earn my own living, you know." - -"I didn't know." - -"I am. I've got to--in order to--to feel right about things." - -"Don't you like the style of living to which your cooperative parents -have accustomed you?" - -"I love everything you've ever done for me, but I can't go on letting -you do things for me forever." - -"Why not?" - -"I don't know why not exactly. It doesn't seem--right, that's all." - -"It's your New England conscience, Eleanor; one of the most specious -varieties of consciences in the world. It will always be tempting you -to do good that better may come. Don't listen to it, daughter." - -"I'm in earnest, Uncle David. I don't know whether I would be better -fitted to earn my living if I went to business college or real -college. What do you think?" - -"I can't think,--I'm stupefied." - -"Uncle Peter couldn't think, either." - -"Have you mentioned this brilliant idea to Peter?" - -"Yes." - -"What did he say?" - -"He talked it over with me, but I think he thinks I'll change my -mind." - -"I think you'll change your mind. Good heavens! Eleanor, we're all -able to afford you--the little we spend on you is nothing divided -among six of us. It's our pleasure and privilege. When did you come to -this extraordinary decision?" - -"A long time ago. The day that Mrs. Bolling talked to me, I think. -There are things she said that I've never forgotten. I told Uncle -Peter to think about it and then help me to decide which to do, and I -want you to think, Uncle David, and tell me truly what you believe -the best preparation for a business life would be. I thought perhaps I -might be a stenographer in an editorial office, and my training there -would be more use to me than four years at college, but I don't -know." - -"You're an extraordinary young woman," David said, staring at her. -"I'm glad you broached this subject, if only that I might realize how -extraordinary, but I don't think anything will come of it, my dear. I -don't want you to go to college unless you really want to, but if you -do want to, I hope you will take up the pursuit of learning as a -pursuit and not as a means to an end. Do you hear me, daughter?" - -"Yes, Uncle David." - -"Then let's have no more of this nonsense of earning your own -living." - -"Are you really displeased, Uncle David?" - -"I should be if I thought you were serious,--but it's bedtime. If -you're going to get your beauty sleep, my dear, you ought to begin on -it immediately." - -Eleanor rose obediently, her brow clouded a little, and her head held -high. David watched the color coming and going in the sweet face and -the tender breast rising and falling with her quickening breath. - -"I thought perhaps you would understand," she said. "Good night." - -She had always kissed him "good night" until this visit, and he had -refrained from commenting on the omission before, but now he put out -his hand to her. - -"Haven't you forgotten something?" he asked. "There is only one way -for a daughter to say good night to her parent." - -She put up her face, and as she did so he caught the glint of tears in -her eyes. - -"Why, Eleanor, dear," he said, "did you care?" And he kissed her. Then -his lips sought hers again. - -With his arms still about her shoulder he stood looking down at her. A -hot tide of crimson made its way slowly to her brow and then receded, -accentuating the clear pallor of her face. - -"That was a real kiss, dear," he said slowly. "We mustn't get such -things confused. I won't bother you with talking about it to-night, or -until you are ready. Until then we'll pretend that it didn't happen, -but if the thought of it should ever disturb you the least bit, dear, -you are to remember that the time is coming when I shall have -something to say about it; will you remember?" - -"Yes, Uncle David," Eleanor said uncertainly, "but I--I--" - -David took her unceremoniously by the shoulders. - -"Go now," he said, and she obeyed him without further question. - - - - -CHAPTER XVIII - -BEULAH'S PROBLEM - - -Peter was shaving for the evening. His sister was giving a dinner -party for two of her husband's fellow bankers and their wives. After -that they were going to see the latest Belasco production, and from -there to some one of the new dancing "clubs,"--the smart cabarets that -were forced to organize in the guise of private enterprises to evade -the two o'clock closing law. Peter enjoyed dancing, but he did not as -a usual thing enjoy bankers' wives. He was deliberating on the -possibility of excusing himself gracefully after the theater, on the -plea of having some work to do, and finally decided that his sister's -feelings would be hurt if she realized he was trying to escape the -climax of the hospitality she had provided so carefully. - -He gazed at himself intently over the drifts of lather and twisted his -shaving mirror to the most propitious angle from time to time. In the -room across the hall--Eleanor's room, he always called it to -himself--his young niece was singing bits of the Mascagni intermezzo -interspersed with bits of the latest musical comedy, in a rather -uncertain contralto. - -"My last girl came from Vassar, and I don't know where to class her." - -Peter's mind took up the refrain automatically. "My last girl--" and -began at the beginning of the chorus again. "My last girl came from -Vassar," which brought him by natural stages to the consideration of -the higher education and of Beulah, and a conversation concerning her -that he had had with Jimmie and David the night before. - -"She's off her nut," Jimmie said succinctly. "It's not exactly that -there's nobody home," he rapped his curly pate significantly, "but -there's too much of a crowd there. She's not the same old girl at all. -She used to be a good fellow, high-brow propaganda and all. Now she's -got nothing else in her head. What's happened to her?" - -"It's what hasn't happened to her that's addled her," David explained. -"It's these highly charged, hypersensitive young women that go to -pieces under the modern pressure. They're the ones that need licking -into shape by all the natural processes." - -"By which you mean a drunken husband and a howling family?" Jimmie -suggested. - -"Yes, or its polite equivalent." - -"That is true, isn't it?" Peter said. "Feminism isn't the answer to -Beulah's problem." - -"It is the problem," David said; "she's poisoning herself with it. I -know what I'm talking about. I've seen it happen. My cousin Jack -married a girl with a sister a great deal like Beulah, looks, -temperament, and everything else, though she wasn't half so nice. She -got going the militant pace and couldn't stop herself. I never met her -at a dinner party that she wasn't tackling somebody on the subject of -man's inhumanity to woman. She ended in a sanitorium; in fact, they're -thinking now of taking her to the--" - -"--bug house," Jimmie finished cheerfully. - -"And in the beginning she was a perfectly good girl that needed -nothing in the world but a chance to develop along legitimate lines." - -"The frustrate matron, eh?" Peter said. - -"The frustrate matron," David agreed gravely. "I wonder you haven't -realized this yourself, Gram. You're keener about such things than I -am. Beulah is more your job than mine." - -"Is she?" - -"You're the only one she listens to or looks up to. Go up and tackle -her some day and see what you can do. She's sinking fast." - -"Give her the once over and throw out the lifeline," Jimmie said. - -"I thought all this stuff was a phase, a part of her taking herself -seriously as she always has. I had no idea it was anything to worry -about," Peter persisted. "Are you sure she's in bad shape--that she's -got anything more than a bad attack of Feminism of the Species in its -most virulent form? They come out of _that_, you know." - -"She's batty," Jimmie nodded gravely. "Dave's got the right dope." - -"Go up and look her over," David persisted; "you'll see what we mean, -then. Beulah's in a bad way." - -Peter reviewed this conversation while he shaved the right side of his -face, and frowned prodigiously through the lather. He wished that he -had an engagement that evening that he could break in order to get to -see Beulah at once, and discover for himself the harm that had come to -his friend. He was devoted to Beulah. He had always felt that he saw -a little more clearly than the others the virtue that was in the girl. -He admired the pluck with which she made her attack on life and the -energy with which she accomplished her ends. There was to him -something alluring and quaint about her earnestness. The fact that her -soundness could be questioned came to him with something like a shock. -As soon as he was dressed he was called to the telephone to talk to -David. - -"Margaret has just told me that Doctor Penrose has been up to see -Beulah and pronounces it a case of nervous breakdown. He wants her to -try out -analysis, and that sort of thing. He seems to feel that -it's serious. Margaret is fearfully upset, poor girl. So'm I, to tell -the truth." - -"And so am I," Peter acknowledged to himself as he hung up the -receiver. He was so absorbed during the evening that one of the -ladies--the wife of the fat banker--found him extremely dull and -decided against asking him to dinner with his sister. The wife of the -thin banker, who was in his charge at the theater, got the benefit of -his effort to rouse himself and grace the occasion creditably, and -found him delightful. By the time the evening was over he had decided -that Beulah should be pulled out of whatever dim world of dismay and -delusion she might be wandering in, at whatever cost. It was -unthinkable that she should be wasted, or that her youth and splendid -vitality should go for naught. - -He found her eager to talk to him the next night when he went to see -her. - -"Peter," she said, "I want you to go to my aunt and my mother, and -tell them that I've got to go on with my work,--that I can't be -stopped and interrupted by this foolishness of doctors and nurses. I -never felt better in my life, except for not being able to sleep, and -I think that is due to the way they have worried me. I live in a world -they don't know anything about, that's all. Even if they were right, -if I am wearing myself out soul and body for the sake of the cause, -what business is it of theirs to interfere? I'm working for the souls -and bodies of women for ages to come. What difference does it make if -my soul and body suffer? Why shouldn't they?" Her eyes narrowed. Peter -observed the unnatural light in them, the apparent dryness of her -lips, the two bright spots burning below her cheek-bones. - -"Because," he answered her slowly, "I don't think it was the original -intention of Him who put us here that we should sacrifice everything -we are to the business of emphasizing the superiority of a sex." - -"That isn't the point at all, Peter. No man understands, no man can -understand. It's woman's equality we want emphasized, just literally -that and nothing more. You've pauperized and degraded us long -enough--" - -"Thou canst not say I--" Peter began. - -"Yes, you and every other man, every man in the world is a party to -it." - -"I had to get her going," Peter apologized to himself, "in order to -get a point of departure. Not if I vote for women, Beulah, dear," he -added aloud. - -"If you throw your influence with us instead of against us," she -conceded, "you're helping to right the wrong that you have permitted -for so long." - -"Well, granting your premise, granting all your premises, Beulah--and -I admit that most of them have sound reasoning behind them--your -battle now is all over but the shouting. There's no reason that you -personally should sacrifice your last drop of energy to a campaign -that's practically won already." - -"If you think the mere franchise is all I have been working for, -Peter,--" - -"I don't. I know the thousand and one activities you women are -concerned with. I know how much better church and state always have -been and are bound to be, when the women get behind and push, if they -throw their strength right." - -Beulah rose enthusiastically to this bait and talked rationally and -well for some time. Just as Peter was beginning to feel that David and -Jimmie had been guilty of the most unsympathetic exaggeration of her -state of mind--unquestionably she was not as fit physically as -usual--she startled him with an abrupt change into almost hysterical -incoherence. - -"I have a right to live my own life," she concluded, "and -nobody--nobody shall stop me." - -"We are all living our own lives, aren't we?" Peter asked mildly. - -"No woman lives her own life to-day," Beulah cried, still excitedly. -"Every woman is living the life of some man, who has the legal right -to treat her as an imbecile." - -"Hold on, Beulah. How about the suffrage states, how about the women -who are already in the proud possession of their rights and -privileges? They are not technical imbeciles any longer according to -your theory. The vote's coming. Every woman will be a super-woman in -two shakes,--so what's devouring you, as Jimmie says?" - -"It's after all the states have suffrage that the big fight will -really begin," Beulah answered wearily. "It's the habit of wearing the -yoke we'll have to fight then." - -"The anti-feminists," Peter said, "I see. Beulah, can't you give -yourself any rest, or is the nature of the cause actually suicidal?" - -To his surprise her tense face quivered at this and she tried to -steady a tremulous lower lip. - -"I am tired," she said, a little piteously, "dreadfully tired, but -nobody cares." - -"Is that fair?" - -"It's true." - -"Your friends care." - -"They only want to stop me doing something they have no sympathy with. -What do Gertrude and Margaret know of the real purpose of my life or -my failure or success? They take a sentimental interest in my health, -that's all. Do you suppose it made any difference to Jeanne d'Arc how -many people took a sympathetic interest in her health if they didn't -believe in what she believed in?" - -"There's something in that." - -"I thought Eleanor would grow up to take an interest in the position -of women, and to care about the things I cared about, but she's not -going to." - -"She's very fond of you." - -"Not as fond as she is of Margaret." - -Peter longed to dispute this, but he could not in honesty. - -"She's a suffragist." - -"She's so lukewarm she might just as well be an anti. She's naturally -reactionary. Women like that aren't much use. They drag us back like -so much dead weight." - -"I suppose Eleanor has been a disappointment to you," Peter mused, -"but she tries pretty hard to be all things to all parents, Beulah. -You'll find she won't fail you if you need her." - -"I shan't need her," Beulah said, prophetically. "I hoped she'd stand -beside me in the work, but she's not that kind. She'll marry early and -have a family, and that will be the end of her." - -"I wonder if she will," Peter said, "I hope so. She still seems such -a child to me. I believe in marriage, Beulah, don't you?" - -Her answer surprised him. - -"Under certain conditions, I do. I made a vow once that I would never -marry and I've always believed that it would be hampering and limiting -to a woman, but now I see that the fight has got to go on. If there -are going to be women to carry on the fight they will have to be born -of the women who are fighting to-day." - -"Thank God," Peter said devoutly. "It doesn't make any difference why -you believe it, if you do believe it." - -"It makes all the difference," Beulah said, but her voice softened. -"What I believe is more to me than anything else in the world, -Peter." - -"That's all right, too. I understand your point of view, Beulah. You -carry it a little bit too far, that's all that's wrong with it from my -way of thinking." - -"Will you help me to go on, Peter?" - -"How?" - -"Talk to my aunt and my mother. Tell them that they're all wrong in -their treatment of me." - -"I think I could undertake to do that"--Peter was convinced that a -less antagonistic attitude on the part of her relatives would be more -successful--"and I will." - -Beulah's eyes filled with tears. - -"You're the only one who comes anywhere near knowing," she said, "or -who ever will, I guess. I try so hard, Peter, and now when I don't -seem to be accomplishing as much as I want to, as much as it's -necessary for me to accomplish if I am to go on respecting myself, -every one enters into a conspiracy to stop my doing anything at all. -The only thing that makes me nervous is the way I am thwarted and -opposed at every turn. I haven't got nervous prostration." - -"Perhaps not, but you have something remarkably like _idee fixe_," -Peter said to himself compassionately. - -He found her actual condition less dangerous but much more difficult -than he had anticipated. She was living wrong, that was the sum and -substance of her malady. Her life was spent confronting theories and -discounting conditions. She did not realize that it is only the -interest of our investment in life that we can sanely contribute to -the cause of living. Our capital strength and energy must be used for -the struggle for existence itself if we are to have a world of -balanced individuals. There is an arrogance involved in assuming -ourselves more humane than human that reacts insidiously on our health -and morals. Peter, looking into the twitching hectic face before him -with the telltale glint of mania in the eyes, felt himself becoming -helpless with pity for a mind gone so far askew. He felt curiously -responsible for Beulah's condition. - -"She wouldn't have run herself so far aground," he thought, "if I had -been on the job a little more. I could have helped her to steer -straighter. A word here and a lift there and she would have come -through all right. Now something's got to stop her or she can't be -stopped. She'll preach once too often out of the tail of a cart on the -subject of equal guardianship,--and--" - -Beulah put her hands to her face suddenly, and, sinking back into the -depths of the big cushioned chair on the edge of which she had been -tensely poised during most of the conversation, burst into tears. - -"You're the only one that knows," she sobbed over and over again. -"I'm so tired, Peter, but I've got to go on and on and on. If they -stop me, I'll kill myself." - -Peter crossed the room to her side and sat down on her chair-arm. - -"Don't cry, dear," he said, with a hand on her head. "You're too tired -to think things out now,--but I'll help you." - -She lifted a piteous face, for the moment so startlingly like that of -the dead girl he had loved that his senses were confused by the -resemblance. - -"How, Peter?" she asked. "How can you help me?" - -"I think I see the way," he said slowly. - -He slipped to his knees and gathered her close in his arms. - -"I think this will be the way, dear," he said very gently. - -"Does this mean that you want me to marry you?" she whispered, when -she was calmer. - -"If you will, dear," he said. "Will you?" - -"I will,--if I can, if I can make it seem right to after I've thought -it all out.--Oh! Peter, I love you. I love you." - -"I had no idea of that," he said gravely, "but it's wonderful that -you do. I'll put everything I've got into trying to make you happy, -Beulah." - -"I know you will, Peter." Her arms closed around his neck and -tightened there. "I love you." - -He made her comfortable and she relaxed like a tired child, almost -asleep under his soothing hand, and the quiet spell of his -tenderness. - -"I didn't know it could be like this," she whispered. - -"But it can," he answered her. - -In his heart he was saying, "This is best. I am sure this is best. It -is the right and normal way for her--and for me." - -In her tri-cornered dormitory room at the new school which she was not -sharing with any one this year Eleanor, enveloped in a big brown and -yellow wadded bathrobe, was writing a letter to Peter. Her hair hung -in two golden brown braids over her shoulders and her pure profile was -bent intently over the paper. At the moment when Beulah made her -confession of love and closed her eyes against the breast of the man -who had just asked her to marry him, two big tears forced their way -between Eleanor's lids and splashed down upon her letter. - - - - -CHAPTER XIX - -MOSTLY UNCLE PETER - - -"Dear Uncle Peter," the letter ran, "I am very, very homesick and -lonely for you to-day. It seems to me that I would gladly give a whole -year of my life just for the privilege of being with you, and talking -instead of writing,--but since that can not be, I am going to try and -write you about the thing that is troubling me. I can't bear it alone -any longer, and still I don't know whether it is the kind of thing -that it is honorable to tell or not. So you see I am very much -troubled and puzzled, and this trouble involves some one else in a way -that it is terrible to think of. - -"Uncle Peter, dear, I do not want to be married. Not until I have -grown up, and seen something of the world. You know it is one of my -dearest wishes to be self-supporting, not because I am a Feminist or a -new woman, or have 'the unnatural belief of an antipathy to man' that -you're always talking about, but just because it will prove to me once -and for all that I belong to myself, and that my _soul_ isn't, and -never has been cooperative. You know what I mean by this, and you are -not hurt by my feeling so. You, I am sure, would not want me to be -married, or to have to think of myself as engaged, especially not to -anybody that we all knew and loved, and who is very close to me and -you in quite another way. Please don't try to imagine what I mean, -Uncle Peter--even if you know, you must tell yourself that you don't -know. Please, please pretend even to yourself that I haven't written -you this letter. I know people do tell things like this, but I don't -know quite how they bring themselves to do it, even if they have -somebody like you who understands everything--everything. - -"Uncle Peter, dear, I am supposed to be going to be married by and by -when the one who wants it feels that it can be spoken of, and until -that happens, I've got to wait for him to speak, unless I can find -some way to tell him that I do not want it ever to be. I don't know -how to tell him. I don't know how to make him feel that I do not -belong to him. It is only myself I belong to, and I belong to you, but -I don't know how to make that plain to any one who does not know it -already. I can't say it unless perhaps you can help me to. - -"I am different from the other girls. I know every girl always thinks -there is something different about her, but I think there are ways in -which I truly am different. When I want anything I know more clearly -what it is, and why I want it than most other girls do, and not only -that, but I know now, that I want to keep myself, and everything I -think and feel and am,--_sacred_. There is an inner shrine in a -woman's soul that she must keep inviolate. I know that now. - -"A liberty that you haven't known how, or had the strength to prevent, -is a terrible thing. One can't forget it. Uncle Peter, dear, twice in -my life things have happened that drive me almost desperate when I -think of them. If these things should happen again when I know that I -don't want them to, I don't think there would be any way of my bearing -it. Perhaps you can tell me something that will make me find a way out -of this tangle. I don't see what it could be, but lots of times you -have shown me the way out of endless mazes that were not grown up -troubles like this, but seemed very real to me just the same. - -"Uncle Peter, dear, dear, dear,--you are all I have. I wish you were -here to-night, though you wouldn't be let in, even if you beat on the -gate ever so hard, for it's long after bedtime. I am up in my tower -room all alone. Oh! answer this letter. Answer it quickly, quickly." - - * * * * * - -Eleanor read her letter over and addressed a tear splotched envelope -to Peter. Then she slowly tore letter and envelope into little bits. - -"He would know," she said to herself. "I haven't any real right to -tell him. It would be just as bad as any kind of tattling." - -She began another letter to him but found she could not write without -saying what was in her heart, and so went to bed uncomforted. There -was nothing in her experience to help her in her relation to David. -His kiss on her lips had taught her the nature of such kisses: had -made her understand suddenly the ease with which the strange, sweet -spell of sex is cast. She related it to the episode of the unwelcome -caress bestowed upon her by the brother of Maggie Lou, and that half -forgotten incident took on an almost terrible significance. She -understood now how she should have repelled that unconscionable boy, -but that understanding did not help her with the problem of her Uncle -David. Though the thought of it thrilled through her with a strange -incredible delight, she did not want another kiss of his upon her -lips. - -"It's--it's--like that," she said to herself. "I want it to be from -somebody--else. Somebody _realer_ to me. Somebody that would make it -seem right." But even to herself she mentioned no names. - -She had definitely decided against going to college. She felt that she -must get upon her own feet quickly and be under no obligation to any -man. Vaguely her stern New England rearing was beginning to indicate -the way that she should tread. No man or woman who did not understand -"the value of a dollar," was properly equipped to do battle with the -realities of life. The value of a dollar, and a clear title to -it--these were the principles upon which her integrity must be founded -if she were to survive her own self-respect. Her Puritan fathers had -bestowed this heritage upon her. She had always felt the irregularity -of her economic position; now that the complication of her relation -with David had arisen, it was beginning to make her truly -uncomfortable. - -David had been very considerate of her, but his consideration -frightened her. He had been so afraid that she might be hurt or -troubled by his attitude toward her that he had explained again, and -almost in so many words that he was only waiting for her to grow -accustomed to the idea before he asked her to become his wife. She had -looked forward with considerable trepidation to the Easter vacation -following the establishment of their one-sided understanding, but -David relieved her apprehension by putting up at his club and leaving -her in undisturbed possession of his quarters. There, with -Mademoiselle still treating her as a little girl, and the other five -of her heterogeneous foster family to pet and divert her at intervals, -she soon began to feel her life swing back into a more accustomed and -normal perspective. David's attitude to her was as simple as ever, and -when she was with the devoted sextet she was almost able to forget the -matter that was at issue between them--almost but not quite. - -She took quite a new kind of delight in her association with the -group. She found herself suddenly on terms of grown up equality with -them. Her consciousness of the fact that David was tacitly waiting -for her to become a woman, had made a woman of her already, and she -looked on her guardians with the eyes of a woman, even though a very -newly fledged and timorous one. - -She was a trifle self-conscious with the others, but with Jimmie she -was soon on her old familiar footing. - - * * * * * - -"Uncle Jimmie is still a great deal of fun," she wrote in her diary. -"He does just the same old things he used to do with me, and a good -many new ones in addition. He brings me flowers, and gets me taxi-cabs -as if I were really a grown up young lady, and he pinches my nose and -teases me as if I were still the little girl that kept house in a -studio for him. I never realized before what a good-looking man he is. -I used to think that Uncle Peter was the only handsome man of the -three, but now I realize that they are all exceptionally good-looking. -Uncle David has a great deal of distinction, of course, but Uncle -Jimmie is merry and radiant and vital, and tall and athletic looking -into the bargain. The ladies on the Avenue all turn to look at him -when we go walking. He says that the gentlemen all turn to look at -me, and I think perhaps they do when I have my best clothes on, but in -my school clothes I am quite certain that nothing like that happens. - -"I have been out with Uncle Jimmie Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday -and Friday,--four days of my vacation. We've been to the Hippodrome -and Chinatown, and we've dined at Sherry's, and one night we went down -to the little Italian restaurant where I had my first introduction to -_eau rougie_, and was so distressed about it. I shall never forget -that night, and I don't think Uncle Jimmie will ever be done teasing -me about it. It is nice to be with Uncle Jimmie so much, but I never -seem to see Uncle Peter any more. Alphonse is very careful about -taking messages, I know, but it does seem to me that Uncle Peter must -have telephoned more times than I know of. It does seem as if he -would, at least, try to see me long enough to have one of our old time -talks again. To see him with all the others about is only a very -little better than not seeing him at all. He isn't like himself, -someway. There is a shadow over him that I do not understand." - - * * * * * - -"Don't you think that Uncle Peter has changed?" she asked Jimmie, -when the need of speaking of him became too strong to withstand. - -"He is a little pale about the ears," Jimmie conceded, "but I think -that's the result of hard work and not enough exercise. He spends all -his spare time trying to patch up Beulah instead of tramping and -getting out on his horse the way he used to. He's doing a good job on -the old dear, but it's some job, nevertheless and notwithstanding--" - -"Is Aunt Beulah feeling better than she was?" Eleanor's lips were dry, -but she did her best to make her voice sound natural. It seemed -strange that Jimmie could speak so casually of a condition of affairs -that made her very heart stand still. "I didn't know that Uncle Peter -had been taking care of her." - -"Taking care of her isn't a circumstance to what Peter has been doing -for Beulah. You know she hasn't been right for some time. She got -burning wrong, like the flame on our old gas stove in the studio when -there was air in it." - -"Uncle David thought so the last time I was here," Eleanor said, "but -I didn't know that Uncle Peter--" - -"Peter, curiously enough, was the last one to tumble. Dave and I got -alarmed about the girl and held a consultation, with the result that -Doctor Gramercy was called. If we'd believed he would go into it quite -so heavily we might have thought again before we sicked him on. It's -very nice for Mary Ann, but rather tough on Abraham as they said when -the lady was deposited on that already overcrowded bosom. Now Beulah's -got suffrage mania, and Peter's got Beulah mania, and it's a merry -mess all around." - -"Is Uncle Peter with her a lot?" - -"Every minute. You haven't seen much of him since you came, have -you?--Well, the reason is that every afternoon as soon as he can get -away from the office, he puts on a broad sash marked 'Votes for -Women,' and trundles Beulah around in her little white and green -perambulator, trying to distract her mind from suffrage while he talks -to her gently and persuasively upon the subject. Suffrage is the only -subject on her mind, he explains, so all he can do is to try to cuckoo -gently under it day by day. It's a very complicated process but he's -making headway." - -"I'm glad of that," Eleanor said faintly. "How--how is Aunt Gertrude? -I don't see her very often, either." - -"Gertrude's all right." It was Jimmie's turn to look self-conscious. -"She never has time for me any more; I'm not high-brow enough for her. -She's getting on like a streak, you know, exhibiting everywhere." - -"I know she is. She gave me a cast of her faun's head. I think it is -lovely. Aunt Margaret looks well." - -"She is, I guess, but don't let's waste all our valuable time talking -about the family. Let's talk about us--you and me. You ask me how I'm -feeling and then I'll tell you. Then I'll ask you how you're feeling -and you'll tell me. Then I'll tell you how I imagine you must be -feeling from the way you're looking,--and that will give me a chance -to expatiate on the delectability of your appearance. I'll work up -delicately to the point where you will begin to compare me favorably -with all the other nice young men you know,--and then we'll be off." - -"Shall we?" Eleanor asked, beginning to sparkle a little. - -"We shall indeed," he assured her solemnly. "You begin. No, on second -thoughts, I'll begin. I'll begin at the place where I start telling -you how excessively well you're looking. I don't know, considering its -source, whether it would interest you or not, but you have the biggest -blue eyes that I've, ever seen in all my life,--and I'm rather a judge -of them." - -"All the better to eat you with, my dear," Eleanor chanted. - -"Quite correct." He shot her a queer glance from under his eyebrows. -"I don't feel very safe when I look into them, my child. It would be a -funny joke on me if they did prove fatal to me, wouldn't -it?--well,--but away with such nonsense. I mustn't blither to the very -babe whose cradle I am rocking, must I?" - -"I'm not a babe, Uncle Jimmie. I feel very old sometimes. Older than -any of you." - -"Oh! you are, you are. You're a regular sphinx sometimes. Peter says -that you even disconcert him at times, when you take to remembering -things out of your previous experience." - -"'When he was a King in Babylon and I was a Christian Slave?'" she -quoted quickly. - -"Exactly. Only I'd prefer to play the part of the King of Babylon, if -it's all the same to you, niecelet. How does the rest of it go, 'yet -not for a--' something or other 'would I wish undone that deed beyond -the grave.' Gosh, my dear, if things were otherwise, I think I could -understand how that feller felt. Get on your hat, and let's get out -into the open. My soul is cramped with big potentialities this -afternoon. I wish you hadn't grown up, Eleanor. You are taking my -breath away in a peculiar manner. No man likes to have his breath -taken away so suddint like. Let's get out into the rolling prairie of -Central Park." - -But the rest of the afternoon was rather a failure. The Park had that -peculiar bleakness that foreruns the first promise of spring. The -children, that six weeks before were playing in the snow and six weeks -later would be searching the turf for dandelions, were in the listless -between seasons state of comparative inactivity. There was a deceptive -balminess in the air that seemed merely to overlay a penetrating -chilliness. - -"I'm sorry I'm not more entertaining this afternoon," Jimmie -apologized on the way home. "It isn't that I am not happy, or that I -don't feel the occasion to be more than ordinarily propitious; I'm -silent upon a peak in Darien,--that's all." - -"I was thinking of something else, too," Eleanor said. - -"I didn't say I was thinking of something else." - -"People are always thinking of something else when they aren't talking -to each other, aren't they?" - -"Something else, or each other, Eleanor. I wasn't thinking of -something else, I was thinking--well, I won't tell you exactly--at -present. A penny for your thoughts, little one." - -"They aren't worth it." - -"A penny is a good deal of money. You can buy joy for a penny." - -"I'm afraid I couldn't--buy joy, even if you gave me your penny, Uncle -Jimmie." - -"You might try. My penny might not be like other pennies. On the other -hand, your thoughts might be worth a fortune to me." - -"I'm afraid they wouldn't be worth anything to anybody." - -"You simply don't know what I am capable of making out of them." - -"I wish I could make something out of them," Eleanor said so -miserably that Jimmie was filled with compunction for having tired her -out, and hailed a passing taxi in which to whiz her home again. - - * * * * * - -"I have found out that Uncle Peter is spending all his time with Aunt -Beulah," she wrote in her diary that evening. "It is beautiful of him -to try to help her through this period of nervous collapse, and just -like him, but I don't understand why it is that he doesn't come and -tell me about it, especially since he is getting so tired. He ought to -know that I love him so dearly and deeply that I could help him even -in helping her. It isn't like him not to share his anxieties with me. -Aunt Beulah is a grown up woman, and has friends and doctors and -nurses, and every one knows her need. It seems to me that he might -think that I have no one but him, and that whatever might lie heavy on -my heart I could only confide in him. I have always told him -everything. Why doesn't it occur to him that I might have something to -tell him now? Why doesn't he come to me? - -"I am afraid he will get sick. He needs a good deal of exercise to -keep in form. If he doesn't have a certain amount of muscular -activity his digestion is not so good. There are two little creases -between his eyes that I never remember seeing there before. I asked -him the other night when he was here with Aunt Beulah if his head -ached, and he said 'no,' but Aunt Beulah said her head ached almost -all the time. Of course, Aunt Beulah is important, and if Uncle Peter -is trying to bring her back to normality again she is important to -him, and that makes her important to me for his sake also, but nobody -in the world is worth the sacrifice of Uncle Peter. Nobody, nobody. - -"I suppose it's a part of his great beauty that he should think so -disparagingly of himself. I might not love him so well if he knew just -how dear and sweet and great his personality is. It isn't so much what -he says or does, or even the way he looks that constitutes his charm, -it's the simple power and radiance behind his slightest move. Oh! I -can't express it. He doesn't think he is especially fine or beautiful. -He doesn't know what a waste it is when he spends his strength upon -somebody who isn't as noble in character as he is,--but I know, and it -makes me wild to think of it. Oh! why doesn't he come to me? My -vacation is almost over, and I don't see how I could bear going back -to school without one comforting hour of him alone. - -"I intended to write a detailed account of my vacation, but I can not. -Uncle Jimmie has certainly tried to make me happy. He is so funny and -dear. I could have so much fun with him if I were not worried about -Uncle Peter! - -"Uncle David says he wants to spend my last evening with me. We are -going to dine here, and then go to the theater together. I am going to -try to tell him how I feel about things, but I am afraid he won't give -me the chance. Life is a strange mixture of things you want and can't -have, and things you can have and don't want. It seems almost disloyal -to put that down on paper about Uncle David. I do want him and love -him, but oh!--not in that way. Not in that way. There is only one -person in a woman's life that she can feel that way about. -Why--why--why doesn't my Uncle Peter come to me?" - - - - -CHAPTER XX - -THE MAKINGS OF A TRIPLE WEDDING - - -"Just by way of formality," David said, "and not because I think any -one present"--he smiled on the five friends grouped about his dinner -table--"still takes our old resolution seriously, I should like to be -released from the anti-matrimonial pledge that I signed eight years -ago this November. I have no announcement to make as yet, but when I -do wish to make an announcement--and I trust to have the permission -granted very shortly--I want to be sure of my technical right to do -so." - -"Gosh all Hemlocks!" Jimmie exclaimed in a tone of such genuine -confusion that it raised a shout of laughter. "I never thought of -that." - -"Nor I," said Peter. "I never signed any pledge to that effect." - -"We left you out of it, Old Horse, regarding you as a congenital -celibate anyway," Jimmie answered. - -"Some day soon you will understand how much you wronged me," Peter -said with a covert glance at Beulah. - -"I wish I could say as much," Jimmie sighed, "since this is the hour -of confession I don't mind adding that I hope I may be able to soon." - -Gertrude clapped her hands softly. - -"Wonderful, wonderful!" she cried. "We've the makings of a triple -wedding in our midst. Look into the blushing faces before us and hear -the voice that breathed o'er Eden echoing in our ears. This is the -most exciting moment of my life! Girls, get on your feet and drink to -the health of these about-to-be Benedicts. Up in your chairs,--one -slipper on the table. Now!"--and the moment was saved. - -Gertrude had seen Margaret's sudden pallor and heard the convulsive -catching of her breath,--Margaret rising Undine-like out of a filmy, -pale green frock, with her eyes set a little more deeply in the -shadows than usual. Her quick instinct to the rescue was her own -salvation. - -David was on his feet. - -"On behalf of my coadjutors," he said, "I thank you. All this is -extremely premature for me, and I imagine from the confusion of the -other gentlemen present it is as much, if not more so, for them. -Personally I regret exceedingly being unable to take you more fully -into my confidence. The only reason for this partial revelation is -that I wished to be sure that I was honorably released from my oath of -abstinence. Hang it all! You fellows say something," he concluded, -sinking abruptly into his chair. - -"Your style always was distinctly mid-Victorian," Jimmie murmured. -"I've got nothing to say, except that I wish I had something to say -and that if I _do_ have something to say in the near future I'll -create a real sensation! When Miss Van Astorbilt permits David to link -her name with his in the caption under a double column cut in our -leading journals, you'll get nothing like the thrill that I expect to -create with my modest announcement. I've got a real romance up my -sleeve." - -"So've I, Jimmie. There is no Van Astorbilt in mine." - -"Some simple bar-maid then? A misalliance in our midst. Now about you, -Peter?" - -"The lady won't give me her permission to speak," Peter said. "She -knows how proud and happy I shall be when I am able to do so." - -Beulah looked up suddenly. - -"It is better we should marry," she said. "I didn't realize that when -I exacted that oath from you. It is from the intellectual type that -the brains to carry on the great work of the world must be -inherited." - -"I pass," Jimmie murmured. "Where's the document we signed?" - -"I've got it. I'll destroy it to-night and then we may all consider -ourselves free to take any step that we see fit. It was really only as -a further protection to Eleanor that we signed it." - -"Eleanor will be surprised, won't she?" Gertrude suggested. Three -self-conscious masculine faces met her innocent interrogation. - -"_Eleanor_," Margaret breathed, "_Eleanor_." - -"I rather think she will," Jimmie chuckled irresistibly, but David -said nothing, and Peter stared unseeingly into the glass he was still -twirling on its stem. - -"Eleanor will be taken care of just the same," Beulah said decisively. -"I don't think we need even go through the formality of a vote on -that." - -"Eleanor will be taken care of," David said softly. - -The Hutchinsons' limousine--old Grandmother Hutchinson had a motor -nowadays--was calling for Margaret, and she was to take the two other -girls home. David and Jimmie--such is the nature of men--were -disappointed in not being able to take Margaret and Gertrude -respectively under their accustomed protection. - -"I wanted to talk to you, Gertrude," Jimmie said reproachfully as she -slipped away from his ingratiating hand on her arm. - -"I thought I should take you home to-night, Margaret," David said; -"you never gave me the slip before." - -"The old order changeth," Gertrude replied lightly to them both, as -she preceded Margaret into the luxurious interior. - -"It's Eleanor," Gertrude announced as the big car swung into Fifth -Avenue. - -"Which is Eleanor?" Margaret cried hysterically. - -"What do you mean?" Beulah asked. - -"Jimmie or David--or--or both are going to marry Eleanor. Didn't you -see their faces when Beulah spoke of her?" - -"David wants to marry Eleanor," Margaret said quietly. "I've known it -all winter--without realizing what it was I knew." - -"Well, who is Jimmy going to marry then?" Beulah inquired. - -"Who is Peter going to marry for that matter?" Gertrude cut in. "Oh! -it doesn't make any difference,--we're losing them just the same." - -"Not necessarily," Beulah said. "No matter what combinations come -about, we shall still have an indestructible friendship." - -"Indestructible friendship--shucks," Gertrude cried. "The boys are -going to be married--married--married! Marriage is the one thing that -indestructible friendships don't survive--except as ghosts." - -"It should be Peter who is going to marry Eleanor," Margaret said. -"It's Peter who has always loved her best. It's Peter she cares for." - -"As a friend," Beulah said, "as her dearest friend." - -"Not as a friend," Margaret answered softly, "she loves him. She has -always loved him. It comes early sometimes." - -"I don't believe it. I simply don't believe it." - -"I believe it," Gertrude said. "I hadn't thought of it before. Of -course, it must be Peter who is going to marry her." - -"If it isn't we've succeeded in working out a rather tragic -experiment," Margaret said, "haven't we?" - -"Life is a tragic experiment for any woman," Gertrude said -sententiously. - -"Peter doesn't intend to marry Eleanor," Beulah persisted. "I happen -to know." - -"Do you happen to know who he is going to marry?" - -"Yes, I do know, but I--I can't tell you yet." - -"Whoever it is, it's a mistake," Margaret said. "It's our little -Eleanor he wants. I suppose he doesn't realize it himself yet, and -when he does it will be too late. He's probably gone and tied himself -up with somebody entirely unsuitable, hasn't he, Beulah?" - -"I don't know," Beulah said; "perhaps he has. I hadn't thought of it -that way." - -"It's the way to think of it, I know." Margaret's eyes filled with -sudden tears. "But whatever he's done it's past mending now. There'll -be no question of Peter's backing out of a bargain--bad or good, and -our poor little kiddie's got to suffer." - -"Beulah took it hard," Gertrude commented, as they turned up-town -again after dropping their friend at her door. The two girls were -spending the night together at Margaret's. "I wonder on what grounds. -I think besides being devoted to Eleanor, she feels terrifically -responsible for her. She isn't quite herself again either." - -"She is almost, thanks to Peter." - -"But--oh! I can't pretend to think of anything else,--who--who--who--are -our boys going to marry?" - -"I don't know, Gertrude." - -"But you care?" - -"It's a blow." - -"I always thought that you and David--" - -Margaret met her eyes bravely but she did not answer the implicit -question. - -"I always thought that you and Jimmie--" she said presently. "Oh! -Gertrude, you would have been so good for him." - -"Oh! it's all over now," Gertrude said, "but I didn't know that a -living soul suspected me." - -"I've known for a long time." - -"Are you really hurt, dear?" Gertrude whispered as they clung to each -other. - -"Not really. It could have been--that's all. He could have made me -care. I've never seen any one else whom I thought that of. I--I was so -used to him." - -"That's the rub," Gertrude said, "we're so used to them. They're -so--so preposterously necessary to us." - -Late that night clasped in each other's arms they admitted the extent -of their desolation. Life had been robbed of a magic,--a mystery. The -solid friendship of years of mutual trust and understanding was the -background of so much lovely folly, so many unrealized possibilities, -so many nebulous desires and dreams that the sudden dissolution of -their circle was an unthinkable calamity. - -"We ought to have put out our hands and taken them if we wanted them," -Gertrude said, out of the darkness. "Other women do. Probably these -other women have. Men are helpless creatures. They need to be firmly -turned in the right direction instead of being given their heads. -We've been too good to our boys. We ought to have snitched them." - -"I wouldn't pay that price for love," Margaret said. "I couldn't. By -the time I had made it happen I wouldn't want it." - -"That's my trouble too," Gertrude said. Then she turned over on her -pillow and sobbed helplessly. "Jimmie had such ducky little curls," -she explained incoherently. "I do this sometimes when I think of them. -Otherwise, I'm not a crying woman." - -Margaret put out a hand to her; but long after Gertrude's breath began -to rise and fall regularly, she lay staring wide-eyed into the -darkness. - - - - -CHAPTER XXI - -ELEANOR HEARS THE NEWS - - -"Dear Uncle Jimmie: - -"I said I would write you, but now that I have taken this hour in -which to do it, I find it is a very, very hard letter that I have got -to write. In the first place I can't believe that the things you said -to me that night were real, or that you were awake and in the world of -realities when you said them. I felt as if we were both dreaming; that -you were talking as a man does sometimes in delirium when he believes -the woman he loves to be by his side, and I was listening the same -way. It made me very happy, as dreams sometimes do. I can't help -feeling that your idea of me is a dream idea, and the pain that you -said this kind of a letter would give you will be merely dream pain. -It is a shock to wake up in the morning and find that all the lovely -ways we felt, and delicately beautiful things we had, were only dream -things that we wouldn't even understand if we were thoroughly awake. - -"In the second place, you can't want to marry your little niecelet, -the funny little 'kiddo,' that used to burn her fingers and the -beefsteak over that old studio gas stove. We had such lovely kinds of -make-believe together. That's what our association always ought to -mean to us,--just chumship, and wonderful and preposterous _pretends_. -I couldn't think of myself being married to you any more than I could -Jack the giant killer, or Robinson Crusoe. You're my truly best and -dearest childhood's playmate, and that is a great deal to be, Uncle -Jimmie. I don't think a little girl ever grows up quite _whole_ unless -she has somewhere, somehow, what I had in you. You wouldn't want to -marry Alice in Wonderland, now would you? There are some kinds of -playmates that can't marry each other. I think that you and I are that -kind, Uncle Jimmie. - -"My dear, my dear, don't let this hurt you. How can it hurt you, when -I am only your little adopted foster child that you have helped -support and comfort and make a beautiful, glad life for? I love you so -much,--you are so precious to me that you _must_ wake up out of this -distorted, though lovely dream that I was present at! - -"We must all be happy. Nobody can break our hearts if we are strong -enough to withhold them. Nobody can hurt us too much if we can find -the way to be our bravest all the time. I know that what you are -feeling now is not real. I can't tell you how I know, but I do know -the difference. The roots are not deep enough. They could be pulled up -without too terrible a havoc. - -"Uncle Jimmie, dear, believe me, believe me. I said this would be a -hard letter to write, and it has been. If you could see my poor -inkstained, weeping face, you would realize that I am only your funny -little Eleanor after all, and not to be taken seriously at all. I hope -you will come up for my graduation. When you see me with all the other -lumps and frumps that are here, you will know that I am not worth -considering except as a kind of human joke. - -"Good-by, dear, my dear, and God bless you. - -"Eleanor." - - * * * * * - -It was less than a week after this letter to Jimmie that Margaret -spending a week-end in a town in Connecticut adjoining that in which -Eleanor's school was located, telephoned Eleanor to join her -overnight at the inn where she was staying. She had really planned the -entire expedition for the purpose of seeing Eleanor and preparing her -for the revelations that were in store for her, though she was -ostensibly meeting a motoring party, with which she was going on into -the Berkshires. - -She started in abruptly, as was her way, over the salad and cheese in -the low studded Arts and Crafts dining-room of the fashionable road -house, contrived to look as self-conscious as a pretty woman in new -sporting clothes. - -"Your Uncle David and your Uncle Jimmie are going to be married," she -told her. "Did you know it, Eleanor?" - -"No, I didn't," Eleanor said faintly, but she grew suddenly very -white. - -"Aren't you surprised, dear? David gave a dinner party one night last -week in his studio, and announced his intentions, but we don't know -the name of the lady yet, and we can't guess it. He says it is not a -society girl." - -"Who do you think it is?" - -"Who do you think it is, Eleanor?" - -"I--I can't think, Aunt Margaret." - -"We don't know who Jimmie is marrying either. The facts were merely -insinuated, but he said we should have the shock of our lives when we -knew." - -"When did he tell you?" - -"A week ago last Wednesday. I haven't seen him since." - -"Perhaps he has changed his mind by now," Eleanor said. - -"I don't think that's likely. They were both very much in earnest. -Aren't you surprised, Eleanor?" - -"I--I don't know. Don't you think it might be that they both just -thought they were going to marry somebody--that really doesn't want to -marry them? It might be all a mistake, you know." - -"I don't think it's a mistake. David doesn't make mistakes." - -"He might make one," Eleanor persisted. - -Margaret found the rest of her story harder to tell than she had -anticipated. Eleanor, wrapped in the formidable aloofness of the -sensitive young, was already suffering from the tale she had come to -tell,--why, it was not so easy to determine. It might be merely from -the pang of being shut out from confidences that she felt should have -been shared with her at once. - -She waited until they were both ready for bed (their rooms were -connecting)--Eleanor in the straight folds of her white dimity -nightgown, and her two golden braids making a picture that lingered in -Margaret's memory for many years. "It would have been easier to tell -her in her street clothes," she thought. "I wish her profile were not -so perfect, or her eyes were shallower. How can I hurt such a lovely -thing?" - -"Are the ten Hutchinsons all right?" Eleanor was asking. - -"The ten Hutchinsons are very much all right. They like me better now -that I have grown a nice hard Hutchinson shell that doesn't show my -feelings through. Haven't you noticed how much more like other people -I've grown, Eleanor?" - -"You've grown nicer, and dearer and sweeter, but I don't think you're -very much like anybody else, Aunt Margaret." - -"I have though,--every one notices it. You haven't asked me anything -about Peter yet," she added suddenly. - -The lovely color glowed in Eleanor's cheeks for an instant. - -"Is--is Uncle Peter well?" she asked. "I haven't heard from him for a -long time." - -"Yes, he's well," Margaret said. "He's looking better than he was for -a while. He had some news to tell us too, Eleanor." - -Eleanor put her hand to her throat. - -"What kind of news?" she asked huskily. - -"He's going to be married too. It came out when the others told us. He -said that he hadn't the consent of the lady to mention her name yet. -We're as much puzzled about him as we are about the other two." - -"It's Aunt Beulah," Eleanor said. "It's Aunt Beulah." - -She sat upright on the edge of the bed and stared straight ahead of -her. Margaret watched the light and life and youth die out of the face -and a pitiful ashen pallor overspread it. - -"I don't think it's Beulah," Margaret said. "Beulah knows who it is, -but I never thought of it's being Beulah herself." - -"If she knows--then she's the one. He wouldn't have told her first if -she hadn't been." - -"Don't let it hurt you too much, dear. We're all hurt some, you know. -Gertrude--and me, too, Eleanor. It's--it's pain to us all." - -"Do you mean--Uncle David, Aunt Margaret?" - -"Yes, dear," Margaret smiled at her bravely. - -"And does Aunt Gertrude care about Uncle Jimmie?" - -"She has for a good many years, I think." - -Eleanor covered her face with her hands. - -"I didn't know that," she said. "I wish somebody had told me." She -pushed Margaret's arm away from her gently, but her breath came hard. -"Don't touch me," she cried, "I can't bear it. You might not want -to--if you knew. Please go,--oh! please go--oh! please go." - -As Margaret closed the door gently between them, she saw Eleanor throw -her head back, and push the back of her hand hard against her mouth, -as if to stifle the rising cry of her anguish. - - * * * * * - -The next morning Eleanor was gone. Margaret had listened for hours in -the night but had heard not so much as the rustle of a garment from -the room beyond. Toward morning she had fallen into the sleep of -exhaustion. It was then that the stricken child had made her escape. -"Miss Hamlin had found that she must take the early train," the clerk -said, "and left this note for Miss Hutchinson." It was like Eleanor to -do things decently and in order. - - * * * * * - -"Dear Aunt Margaret," her letter ran. "My grandmother used to say that -some people were trouble breeders. On thinking it over I am afraid -that is just about what I am,--a trouble breeder. - -"I've been a worry and bother and care to you all since the beginning, -and I have repaid all your kindness by bringing trouble upon you. -Perhaps you can guess what I mean. I don't think I have any right to -tell you exactly in this letter. I can only pray that it will be found -to be all a mistake, and come out right in the end. Surely such -beautiful people as you and Uncle David can find the way to each -other, and can help Uncle Jimmie and Aunt Gertrude, who are a little -blinder about life. Surely, when the stumbling block is out of the -way, you four will walk together beautifully. Please try, Aunt -Margaret, to make things as right as if I had never helped them to go -wrong. I was so young, I didn't know how to manage. I shall never be -that kind of young again. I grew up last night, Aunt Margaret. - -"You know the other reason why I am going. Please do not let any one -else know. If the others could think I had met with some accident, -don't you think that would be the wisest way? I would like to arrange -it so they wouldn't try to find me at all, but would just mourn for me -naturally for a little while. I thought of sticking my old cap in the -river, but I was afraid that would be too hard for you. There won't be -any use in trying to find me. I am going where you can not. I couldn't -ever bear seeing one of your faces again. I have done too much harm. -Don't let Uncle Peter _know_, please, Aunt Margaret. I don't want him -to know,--I don't want to hurt him, and I don't want him to know. - -"Oh! I have loved you all so much. Good-by, my dears, my dearests. I -have taken all of my allowance money. Please forgive me. - -"Eleanor." - - - - -CHAPTER XXII - -THE SEARCH - - -Eleanor had not bought a ticket at the station, Margaret ascertained, -but the ticket agent had tried to persuade her to. She had thanked him -and told him that she preferred to buy it of the conductor. He was a -lank, saturnine individual and had been seriously smitten with -Eleanor's charms, it appeared, and the extreme solicitousness of his -attitude at the suggestion of any mystery connected with her departure -made Margaret realize the caution with which it would be politic to -proceed. She had very little hope of finding Eleanor back at the -school, but it was still rather a shock when she telephoned the school -office and found that there was no news of her there. She concocted a -somewhat lame story to account for Eleanor's absence and promised the -authorities that she would be sent back to them within the week,--a -promise she was subsequently obliged to acknowledge that she could not -keep. Then she fled to New York to break the disastrous news to the -others. - -She told Gertrude the truth and showed her the pitiful letter Eleanor -had left behind her, and together they wept over it. Also together, -they faced David and Jimmie. - -"She went away," Margaret told them, "both because she felt she was -hurting those that she loved and because she herself was hurt." - -"What do you mean?" David asked. - -"I mean--that she belonged body and soul to Peter and to nobody else," -Margaret answered deliberately. - -David bowed his head. Then he threw it back again, suddenly. - -"If that is true," he said, "then I am largely responsible for her -going." - -"It is I who am responsible," Jimmie groaned aloud. "I asked her to -marry me and she refused me." - -"I asked her to marry me and didn't give her the chance to refuse," -David said; "it is that she is running away from." - -"It was Peter's engagement that was the last straw," Margaret said. -"The poor baby withered and shrank like a flower in the blast when I -told her that." - -"The damned hound--" Jimmie said feelingly and without apology. "Who's -he engaged to anyway?" - -"Eleanor says it's Beulah, and the more I think of it the more I think -that she's probably right." - -"That would be a nice mess, wouldn't it?" Gertrude suggested. -"Remember how frank we were with her about his probable lack of -judgment, Margaret? I don't covet the sweet job of breaking it to -either one of them." - -Nevertheless she assisted Margaret to break it to them both late that -same afternoon at Beulah's apartment. - -"I'll find her," Peter said briefly. And in response to the halting -explanation of her disappearance that Margaret and Gertrude had done -their best to try to make plausible, despite its elliptical nature, he -only said, "I don't see that it makes any difference why she's gone. -She's gone, that's the thing that's important. No matter how hard we -try we can't really figure out her reason till we find her." - -"Are you sure it's going to be so easy?" Gertrude asked. "I -mean--finding her. She's a pretty determined little person when she -makes up her mind. Eleanor's threats are to be taken seriously. She -always makes good on them." - -"I'll find her if she's anywhere in the world," Peter said. "I'll find -her and bring her back." - -Margaret put out her hand to him. - -"I believe that you will," she said. "Find out the reason that she -went away, too, Peter." - -Beulah pulled Gertrude aside. - -"It wasn't Peter, was it?" she asked piteously. "She had some one else -on her mind, hadn't she?" - -"She had something else on her mind," Gertrude answered gravely, "but -she had Peter on her mind, too." - -"She didn't--she couldn't have known about us--Peter and me. We--we -haven't told any one." - -"She guessed it, Beulah. She couldn't bear it. Nobody's to blame. It's -just one of God's most satirical mix-ups." - -"I was to blame," Beulah said slowly. "I don't believe in shifting -responsibility. I got her here in the first place and I've been -instrumental in guiding her life ever since. Now, I've sacrificed her -to my own happiness." - -"It isn't so simple as that," Gertrude said; "the things we start -going soon pass out of our hands. Somebody a good deal higher up has -been directing Eleanor's affairs for a long time,--and ours too, for -that matter." - -"Don't worry, Beulah," Peter said, making his way to her side from the -other corner of the room where he had been talking to Margaret. "You -mustn't let this worry you. We've all got to be--soldiers now,--but -we'll soon have her back again, I promise you." - -"And I promise you," Beulah said chokingly, "that if you'll get her -back again, I--I will be a soldier." - - * * * * * - -Peter began by visiting the business schools in New York and finding -out the names of the pupils registered there. Eleanor had clung firmly -to her idea of becoming an editorial stenographer in some magazine -office, no matter how hard he had worked to dissuade her. He felt -almost certain she would follow out that purpose now. There was a fund -in her name started some years before for the defraying of her college -expenses. She would use that, he argued, to get herself started, even -though she felt constrained to pay it back later on. He worked on this -theory for some time, even making a trip to Boston in search for her -in the stenography classes there, but nothing came of it. - -Among Eleanor's effects sent on from the school was a little red -address book containing the names and addresses of many of her former -schoolmates at Harmon. Peter wrote all the girls he remembered hearing -her speak affectionately of, but not one of them was able to give him -any news of her. He wrote to Colhassett to Albertina's aunt, who had -served in the capacity of housekeeper to Eleanor's grandfather in his -last days, and got in reply a pious letter from Albertina herself, who -intimated that she had always suspected that Eleanor would come to -some bad end, and that now she was highly soothed and gratified by the -apparent fulfillment of her sinister prognostications. - -Later he tried private detectives, and, not content with their -efforts, he followed them over the ground that they covered, searching -through boarding houses, and public classes of all kinds; canvassing -the editorial offices of the various magazines Eleanor had admired in -the hope of discovering that she had applied for some small position -there; following every clue that his imagination, and the acumen of -the professionals in his service, could supply;--but his patient -search was unrewarded. Eleanor had apparently vanished from the -surface of the earth. The quest which had seemed to him so simple a -matter when he first undertook it, now began to assume terrible and -abortive proportions. It was unthinkable that one little slip of a -girl untraveled and inexperienced should be able permanently to elude -six determined and worldly adult New Yorkers, who were prepared to tax -their resources to the utmost in the effort to find her,--but the fact -remained that she was missing and continued to be missing, and the -cruel month went by and brought them no news of her. - -The six guardians took their trouble hard. Apart from the emotions -that had been precipitated by her developing charms, they loved her -dearly as the child they had taken to their hearts and bestowed all -their young enthusiasm and energy and tenderness upon. She was the -living clay, as Gertrude had said so many years before, that they had -molded as nearly as possible to their hearts' desire. They loved her -for herself, but one and all they loved her for what they had made of -her--an exquisite, lovely young creature, at ease in a world that -might so easily have crushed her utterly if they had not intervened -for her. - -They kept up the search unremittingly, following false leads and -meeting with heartbreaking discouragements and disappointments. Only -Margaret had any sense of peace about her. - -"I'm sure she's all right," she said; "I feel it. It's hard having her -gone, but I'm not afraid for her. She'll work it out better than we -could help her to. It's a beautiful thing to be young and strong and -free, and she'll get the beauty out of it." - -"I think perhaps you're right, Margaret," David said. "You almost -always are. It's the bread and butter end of the problem that worries -me." - -Margaret smiled at him quaintly. - -"The Lord provides," she said. "He'll provide for our ewe lamb, I'm -sure." - -"You speak as if you had it on direct authority." - -"I think perhaps I have," she said gravely. - -Jimmie and Gertrude grew closer together as the weeks passed, and the -strain of their fruitless quest continued. One day Jimmie showed her -the letter that Eleanor had written him. - -"Sweet, isn't she?" he said, as Gertrude returned it to him, smiling -through her tears. - -"She's a darling," Gertrude said fervently. "Did she hurt you so much, -Jimmie dear?" - -"I wanted her," Jimmie answered slowly, "but I think it was because I -thought she was mine,--that I could make her mine. When I found she -was Peter's,--had been Peter's all the time, the thought somehow cured -me. She was dead right, you know. I made it up out of the stuff that -dreams are made of. God knows I love her, but--but that personal thing -has gone out of it. She's my little lost child,--or my sister. A man -wants his own to be his own, Gertrude." - -"Yes, I know." - -"My--my real trouble is that I'm at sea again. I thought that I -cared,--that I was anchored for good. It's the drifting that plays the -deuce with me. If the thought of that sweet child and the grief at her -loss can't hold me, what can? What hope is there for me?" - -"I don't know," Gertrude laughed. - -"Don't laugh at me. You've always been on to me, Gertrude, too much so -to have any respect for me, I guess. You've got your work," he waved -his arm at the huge cast under the shadow of which they were sitting, -"and all this. You can put all your human longings into it. I'm a poor -rudderless creature without any hope or direction." He buried his face -in his hands. "You don't know it," he said, with an effort to conceal -the fact that his shoulders were shaking, "but you see before you a -human soul in the actual process of dissolution." - -Gertrude crossed her studio floor to kneel down beside him. She drew -the boyish head, rumpled into an irresistible state of curliness, to -her breast. - -"Put it here where it belongs," she said softly. - -"Do you mean it?" he whispered. "Sure thing? Hope to die? Cross your -heart?" - -"Yes, my dear." - -"Praise the Lord." - -"I snitched him," Gertrude confided to Margaret some days later,--her -whole being radiant and transfigured with happiness. "You snitch -David." - - - - -CHAPTER XXIII - -THE YOUNG NURSE - - -The local hospital of the village of Harmonville, which was ten miles -from Harmon proper, where the famous boarding-school for young ladies -was located, presented an aspect so far from institutional that but -for the sign board tacked modestly to an elm tree just beyond the -break in the hedge that constituted the main entrance, the gracious, -old colonial structure might have been taken for the private residence -for which it had served so many years. - -It was a crisp day in late September, and a pale yellow sun was spread -thin over the carpet of yellow leaves with which the wide lawn was -covered. In the upper corridor of the west wing, grouped about the -window-seat with their embroidery or knitting, the young nurses were -talking together in low tones during the hour of the patients' -siestas. The two graduates, dark-eyed efficient girls, with skilled -delicate fingers taking precise stitches in the needlework before -them, were in full uniform, but the younger girls clustered about -them, beginners for the most part, but a few months in training, were -dressed in the simple blue print, and little white caps and aprons, of -the probationary period. - -The atmosphere was very quiet and peaceful. A light breeze blew in at -the window and stirred a straying lock or two that escaped the -starched band of a confining cap. Outside the stinging whistle of the -insect world was interrupted now and then by the cough of a passing -motor. From the doors opening on the corridor an occasional restless -moan indicated the inability of some sufferer to take his dose of -oblivion according to schedule. Presently a bell tinkled a summons to -the patient in the first room on the right--a gentle little old lady -who had just had her appendix removed. - -"Will you take that, Miss Hamlin?" the nurse in charge of the case -asked the tallest and fairest of the young assistants. - -"Certainly." Eleanor, demure in cap and kerchief as the most ravishing -of young Priscillas, rose obediently at the request. "May I read to -her a little if she wants me to?" - -"Yes, if you keep the door closed. I think most of the others are -sleeping." - -The little old lady who had just had her appendix out, smiled weakly -up at Eleanor. - -"I hoped 'twould be you," she said, "and then after I'd rung I lay in -fear and trembling lest one o' them young flipperti-gibbets should -come, and get me all worked up while she was trying to shift me. I -want to be turned the least little mite on my left side." - -"That's better, isn't it?" Eleanor asked, as she made the adjustment. - -"I dunno whether that's better, or whether it just seems better to me, -because 'twas you that fixed me," the little old lady said. "You -certainly have got a soothin' and comfortin' way with you." - -"I used to take care of my grandmother years ago, and the more -hospital work I do, the more it comes back to me,--and the better I -remember the things that she liked to have done for her." - -"There's nobody like your own kith and kin," the little old lady -sighed. "There's none left of mine. That other nurse--that black -haired one--she said you was an orphan, alone in the world. Well, I -pity a young girl alone in the world." - -"It's all right to be alone in the world--if you just keep busy -enough," Eleanor said. "But you mustn't talk any more. I'm going to -give you your medicine and then sit here and read to you." - - * * * * * - -On the morning of her flight from the inn, after a night spent staring -motionless into the darkness, Eleanor took the train to the town some -dozen miles beyond Harmonville, where her old friend Bertha Stephens -lived. To "Stevie," to whom the duplicity of Maggie Lou had served to -draw her very close in the ensuing year, she told a part of her story. -It was through the influence of Mrs. Stephens, whose husband was on -the board of directors of the Harmonville hospital, that Eleanor had -been admitted there. She had resolutely put all her old life behind -her. The plan to take up a course in stenography and enter an -editorial office was to have been, as a matter of course, a part of -her life closely associated with Peter. Losing him, there was nothing -left of her dream of high adventure and conquest. There was merely the -hurt desire to hide herself where she need never trouble him again, -and where she could be independent and useful. Having no idea of her -own value to her guardians, or the integral tenderness in which she -was held, she sincerely believed that her disappearance must have -relieved them of much chagrin and embarrassment. - -Her hospital training kept her mercifully busy. She had the -temperament that finds a virtue in the day's work, and a balm in its -mere iterative quality. Her sympathy and intelligence made her a good -nurse and her adaptability, combined with her loveliness, a general -favorite. - -She spent her days off at the Stephens' home. Bertha Stephens had been -the one girl that Peter had failed to write to, when he began to -circulate his letters of inquiry. Her name had been set down in the -little red book, but he remembered the trouble that Maggie Lou had -precipitated, and arrived at the conclusion that the intimacy existing -between Eleanor and Bertha had not survived it. Except that Carlo -Stephens persisted in trying to make love to her, and Mrs. Stephens -covertly encouraged his doing so, Eleanor found the Stephens' home a -very comforting haven. Bertha had developed into a full breasted, -motherly looking girl, passionately interested in all vicarious -love-affairs, though quickly intimidated at the thought of having any -of her own. She was devoted to Eleanor, and mothered her clumsily. - -It was still to her diary that Eleanor turned for the relief and -solace of self-expression. - - * * * * * - -"It is five months to-day," she wrote, "since I came to the hospital. -It seems like five years. I like it, but I feel like the little old -woman on the King's Highway. I doubt more every minute if this can be -I. Sometimes I wonder what 'being I' consists of, anyway. I used to -feel as if I were divided up into six parts as separate as -protoplasmic cells, and that each one was looked out for by a -different cooperative parent. I thought that I would truly be I when I -got them all together, and looked out for them myself, but I find I am -no more of an entity than I ever was. The puzzling question of 'what -am I?' still persists, and I am farther away from the right answer -than ever. Would a sound be a sound if there were no one to hear it? -If the waves of vibration struck no human ear, would the sound be in -existence at all? This is the problem propounded by one of the nurses -yesterday. - -"How much of us lives when we are entirely shut out of the -consciousness of those whom we love? If there is no one to _realize_ -us day by day,--if all that love has made of us is taken away, what is -left? Is there anything? I don't know. I look in the glass, and see -the same face,--Eleanor Hamlin, almost nineteen, with the same bow -shaped eyebrows, and the same double ridge leading up from her nose to -her mouth, making her look still very babyish. I pinch myself, and -find that it hurts just the same as it used to six months ago, but -there the resemblance to what I used to be, stops. I'm a young nurse -now in hospital training, and very good at it, too, if I do say it as -shouldn't; but that's all I am. Otherwise, I'm not anybody _to_ -anybody,--except a figure of romance to good old Stevie, who doesn't -count in this kind of reckoning. I take naturally to nursing they tell -me. A nurse is a kind of maternal automaton. I'm glad I'm that, but -there used to be a lot more of me than that. There ought to be some -heart and brain and soul left over, but there doesn't seem to be. -Perhaps I am like the Princess in the fairy story whose heart was an -auk's egg. Nobody had power to make her feel unless they reached it -and squeezed it. - -"I feel sometimes as if I were dead. I wish I could know whether Uncle -Peter and Aunt Beulah were married yet. I wish I could know that. -There is a woman in this hospital whose suitor married some one else, -and she has nervous prostration, and melancholia. All she does all day -is to moan and wring her hands and call out his name. The nurses are -not very sympathetic. They seem to think that it is disgraceful to -love a man so much that your whole life stops as soon as he goes out -of it. What of Juliet and Ophelia and Francesca de Rimini? They loved -so they could not tear their love out of their hearts without -lacerating them forever. There is that kind of love in the -world,--bigger than life itself. All the big tragedies of literature -were made from it,--why haven't people more sympathy for it? Why isn't -there more dignity about it in the eyes of the world? - -"It is very unlucky to love, and to lose that which you cherish, but -it is unluckier still never to know the meaning of love, or to find -'Him whom your soul loveth.' I try to be kind to that poor forsaken -woman. I am sorry for his sake that she calls out his name, but she -seems to be in such torture of mind and body that she is unable to -help it. - -"They are trying to cut down expenses here, so they have no regular -cook, the housekeeper and her helper are supposed to do it all. I said -I would make the desserts, so now I have got to go down-stairs and -make some fruit gelatin. It is best that I should not write any more -to-day, anyway." - - * * * * * - -Later, after the Thanksgiving holiday, she wrote: - - * * * * * - -"I saw a little boy butchered to-day, and I shall never forget it. It -is wicked to speak of Doctor Blake's clean cut work as butchery, but -when you actually see a child's leg severed from its body, what else -can you call it? - -"The reason that I am able to go through operations without fainting -or crying is just this: _other people do_. The first time I stood by -the operating table to pass the sterilized instruments to the -assisting nurse, and saw the half naked doctors hung in rubber -standing there preparing to carve their way through the naked flesh of -the unconscious creature before them, I felt the kind of pang pass -through my heart that seems to kill as it comes. I thought I died, or -was dying,--and then I looked up and saw that every one else was ready -for their work. So I drew a deep breath and became ready too. I don't -think there is anything in the world too hard to do if you look at it -that way. - -"The little boy loved me and I loved him. We had hoped against hope -that we would be able to save his poor little leg, but it had to go. I -held his hand while they gave him the chloroform. At his head sat -Doctor Hathaway with his Christlike face, draped in the robe of the -anesthetist. 'Take long breaths, Benny,' I said, and he breathed in -bravely. It was over quickly. To-morrow, when he is really out of the -ether, I have got to tell him what was done to him. Something happened -to me while that operation was going on. He hasn't any mother. I think -the spirit of the one who was his mother passed into me, and I knew -what it would be like to be the mother of a son. Benny was not without -what his mother would have felt for him if she had been at his side. -I can't explain it, but that is what I felt. - -"To-night it is as black as ink outside. There are no stars. I feel as -if there should be no stars. If there were, there might be some -strange little bit of comfort in them that I could cling to. I do not -want any comfort from outside to shine upon me to-night. I have got to -draw all my strength from a source within, and I feel it welling up -within me even now. - -"I wonder if I have been selfish to leave the people I love so long -without any word of me. I think Aunt Gertrude and Aunt Beulah and Aunt -Margaret all had a mother feeling for me. I am remembering to-night -how anxious they used to be for me to have warm clothing, and to keep -my feet dry, and not to work too hard at school. All those things that -I took as a matter of course, I realize now were very significant and -beautiful. If I had a child and did not know to-night where it would -lie down to sleep, or on what pillow it would put its head, I know my -own rest would be troubled. I wonder if I have caused any one of my -dear mothers to feel like that. If I have, it has been very wicked and -cruel of me." - - - - -CHAPTER XXIV - -CHRISTMAS AGAIN - - -The ten Hutchinsons having left the library entirely alone in the hour -before dinner, David and Margaret had appropriated it and were sitting -companionably together on the big couch drawn up before the fireplace, -where a log was trying to consume itself unscientifically head first. - -"I would stay to dinner if urged," David suggested. - -"You stay," Margaret agreed laconically. - -She moved away from him, relaxing rather limply in the corner of the -couch, with a hand dangling over the farther edge of it. - -"You're an inconsistent being," David said. "You buoy all the rest of -us up with your faith in the well-being of our child, and then you -pine yourself sick over her absence." - -"It's Christmas coming on. We always had such a beautiful time on -Christmas. It was so much fun buying her presents. It isn't like -Christmas at all with her gone from us." - -"Do you remember how crazy she was over the ivory set?" - -"And the bracelet watch?" - -"Do you remember the Juliet costume?" David's eyes kindled at the -reminiscence. "How wonderful she was in it." - -Margaret drew her feet up on the couch suddenly, and clasped her hands -about her knees. David laughed. - -"I haven't seen you do that for years," he said. - -"What?" - -"Hump yourself in that cryptic way." - -"Haven't you?" she said. "I was just wondering--" but she stopped -herself suddenly. - -"Wondering what?" David was watching her narrowly, and perceiving it, -she flushed. - -"This is not my idea of an interesting conversation," she said; "it's -getting too personal." - -"I can remember the time when you told me that you didn't find things -interesting unless they were personal. 'I like things very personal,' -you said--in those words." - -"I did then." - -"What has changed you?" David asked gravely. - -"The chill wind of the world, I guess; the most personal part of me is -frozen stiff." - -"I never saw a warmer creature in my life," David protested. "On that -same occasion you said that being a woman was about like being a field -of clover in an insectless world. You don't feel that way nowadays, -surely,--at the rate the insects have been buzzing around you this -winter. I've counted at least seven, three bees, one or two beetles, a -butterfly and a worm." - -"I didn't know you paid that much attention to my poor affairs." - -"I do, though. If you hadn't put your foot down firmly on the worm, I -had every intention of doing so." - -"Had you?" - -"I had." - -"On that occasion to which you refer I remember I also said that I had -a queer hunch about Eleanor." - -"Margaret, are you deliberately changing the subject?" - -"I am." - -"Then I shall bring the butterfly up later." - -"I said," Margaret ignored his interruption, "that I had the feeling -that she was going to be a storm center and bring some kind of queer -trouble upon us." - -"Yes." - -"She did, didn't she?" - -"I'm not so sure that's the way to put it," David said gravely. "We -brought queer trouble on her." - -"She made--you--suffer." - -"She gave my vanity the worst blow it has ever had in its life," David -corrected her. "Look here, Margaret, I want you to know the truth -about that. I--I stumbled into that, you know. She was so sweet, and -before I knew it I had--I found myself in the attitude of making love -to her. Well, there was nothing to do but go through with it. I wanted -to, of course. I felt like Pygmalion--but it was all potential, -unrealized--and ass that I was, I assumed that she would have no other -idea in the matter. I was going to marry her because I--I had started -things going, you know. I had no choice even if I had wanted one. It -never occurred to me that she might have a choice, and so I went on -trying to make things easy for her, and getting them more tangled at -every turn." - -"You never really--cared?" Margaret's face was in shadow. - -"Never got the chance to find out. With characteristic idiocy I was -keeping out of the picture until the time was ripe. She really ran -away to get away from the situation I created and she was quite right -too. If I weren't haunted by these continual pictures of our offspring -in the bread line, I should be rather glad than otherwise that she's -shaken us all till we get our breath back. Poor Peter is the one who -is smashed, though. He hasn't smiled since she went away." - -"You wouldn't smile if you were engaged to Beulah." - -"Are they still engaged?" - -"Beulah has her ring, but I notice she doesn't wear it often." - -"Jimmie and Gertrude seem happy." - -"They are, gloriously." - -"That leaves only us two," David suggested. "Margaret, dear, do you -think the time will ever come when I shall get you back again?" - -Margaret turned a little pale, but she met his look steadily. - -"Did you ever lose me?" - -"The answer to that is 'yes,' as you very well know. Time was when we -were very close--you and I, then somehow we lost the way to each -other. I'm beginning to realize that it hasn't been the same world -since and isn't likely to be unless you come back to me." - -"Was it I who strayed?" - -"It was I; but it was you who put the bars up and have kept them -there." - -"Was I to let the bars down and wait at the gate?" - -"If need be. It should be that way between us, Margaret, shouldn't -it?" - -"I don't know," Margaret said, "I don't know." She flashed a sudden -odd look at him. "If--when I put the bars down, I shall run for my -life. I give you warning, David." - -"Warning is all I want," David said contentedly. He could barely reach -her hand across the intervening expanse of leather couch, but he -accomplished it,--he was too wise to move closer to her. "You're a -lovely, lovely being," he said reverently. "God grant I may reach you -and hold you." - -She curled a warm little finger about his. - -"What would Mrs. Bolling say?" she asked practically. - -"To tell you the truth, she spoke of it the other day. I told her the -Eleanor story, and that rather brought her to her senses. She wouldn't -have liked that, you know; but now all the eligible buds are plucked, -and she wants me to settle down." - -"Does she think I'm a settling kind of person?" - -"She wouldn't if she knew the way you go to my head," David murmured. -"Oh, she thinks that you'll do. She likes the ten Hutchinsons." - -"Maybe I'd like them better considered as connections of yours," -Margaret said abstractedly. - -David lifted the warm little finger to his lips and kissed it -swiftly. - -"Where are you going?" he asked, as she slipped away from him and -stood poised in the doorway. - -"I'm going to put on something appropriate to the occasion," she -answered. - -When she came back to him she was wearing the most delicate and -cobwebby of muslins with a design of pale purple passion flowers -trellised all over it, and she gave him no chance for a moment alone -with her all the rest of the evening. - -Sometime later she showed him Eleanor's parting letter, and he was -profoundly touched by the pathetic little document. - -As the holidays approached Eleanor's absence became an almost -unendurable distress to them all. The annual Christmas dinner party, a -function that had never been omitted since the acquisition of David's -studio, was decided on conditionally, given up, and again decided on. - -"We do want to see one another on Christmas day,--we've got presents -for one another, and Eleanor would hate it if she thought that her -going away had settled that big a cloud on us. She slipped out of our -lives in order to bring us closer together. We'll get closer together -for her sake," Margaret decided. - -But the ordeal of the dinner itself was almost more than they had -reckoned on. Every detail of traditional ceremony was observed even to -the mound of presents marked with each name piled on the same spot on -the couch, to be opened with the serving of the coffee. - -"I got something for Eleanor," Jimmie remarked shamefacedly as he -added his contributions to the collection. "Thought we could keep it -for her, or throw it into the waste-basket or something. Anyhow I had -to get it." - -"I guess everybody else got her something, too," Margaret said. "Of -course we will keep them for her. I got her a little French party -coat. It will be just as good next year as this. Anyhow as Jimmie -says, I had to get it." - -"I got her slipper buckles," Gertrude admitted. "She has always wanted -them." - -"I got her the Temple _Shakespeare_," Beulah added. "She was always -carrying around those big volumes." - -"You're looking better, Beulah," Margaret said. "Are you feeling -better?" - -"Jimmie says I'm looking more human. I guess perhaps that's it,--I'm -feeling more--human. I needed humanizing--even at the expense of -some--some heartbreak," she said bravely. - -Margaret crossed the room to take a seat on Beulah's chair-arm, and -slipped an arm around her. - -"You're all right if you know that," she whispered softly. - -"I thought I was going to bring you Eleanor herself," Peter said. "I -got on the trail of a girl working in a candy shop out in Yonkers. My -faithful sleuth was sure it was Eleanor and I was ass enough to -believe he knew what he was talking about. When I got out there I -found a strawberry blonde with gold teeth." - -"Gosh, you don't think she's doing anything like that," Jimmie -exclaimed. - -"I don't know," Peter said miserably. He was looking ill and unlike -himself. His deep set gray eyes were sunken far in his head, his brow -was too white, and the skin drawn too tightly over his jaws. "As a -de-tec-i-tive, I'm afraid I'm a failure." - -"We're all failures for that matter," David said. "Let's have -dinner." - -Eleanor's empty place, set with the liqueur glass she always drank her -thimbleful of champagne in, and the throne chair from the drawing-room -in which she presided over the feasts given in her honor, was almost -too much for them. Margaret cried openly over her soup. Peter shaded -his eyes with his hand, and Gertrude and Jimmie groped for each -other's hands under the shelter of the table-cloth. - -"This--this won't do," David said. He turned to Beulah on his left, -sitting immovable, with her eyes staring unseeingly into the -centerpiece of holly and mistletoe arranged by Alphonse so lovingly. -"We must either turn this into a kind of a wake, and kneel as we -feast, or we must try to rise above it somehow." - -"I don't see why," Jimmie argued. "I'm in favor of each man howling -informally as he listeth." - -"Let's drink her health anyhow," David insisted. "I cut out the -Sauterne and the claret, so we could begin on the wine at once in this -contingency. Here's to our beloved and dear absent daughter." - -"Long may she wave," Jimmie cried, stumbling to his feet an instant -after the others. - -While they were still standing with their glasses uplifted, the bell -rang. - -"Don't let anybody in, Alphonse," David admonished him. - -They all turned in the direction of the hall, but there was no sound -of parley at the front door. Eleanor had put a warning finger to her -lips, as Alphonse opened it to find her standing there. She stripped -off her hat and her coat as she passed through the drawing-room, and -stood in her little blue cloth traveling dress between the portieres -that separated it from the dining-room. The six stood transfixed at -the sight of her, not believing the vision of their eyes. - -"You're drinking my health," she cried, as she stretched out her arms -to them. "Oh! my dears, and my dearests, will you forgive me for -running away from you?" - - - - -CHAPTER XXV - -THE LOVER - - -They left her alone with Peter in the drawing room in the interval -before the coffee, seeing that he had barely spoken to her though his -eyes had not left her face since the moment of her spectacular -appearance between the portieres. - -"I'm not going to marry you, Peter," Beulah whispered, as she slipped -by him to the door, "don't think of me. Think of her." - -But Peter was almost past coherent thought or speech as they stood -facing each other on the hearth-rug,--Eleanor's little head up and her -breath coming lightly between her sweet, parted lips. - -"Where did you go?" Peter groaned. "How could you, dear--how could -you,--how could you?" - -"I'm back all safe, now, Uncle Peter. I took up nursing in a -hospital." - -"I didn't even find you. I swore that I would. I've searched for you -everywhere." - -"I'm sorry I made you all that trouble," Eleanor said, "but I thought -it would be the best thing to do." - -"Tell me why," Peter said, "tell me why, I've suffered so -much--wondering--wondering." - -"You've suffered?" Eleanor cried. "I thought it was only I who did the -suffering." - -She moved a step nearer to him, and Peter gripped her hard by the -shoulders. - -"It wasn't that you cared?" he said. Then his lips met hers dumbly, -beseechingly. - - * * * * * - -"It was all a mistake,--my going away," she wrote some days after. "I -ought to have stayed at the school, and graduated, and then come down -to New York, and faced things. I have my lesson now about facing -things. If any other crisis comes into my life, I hope I shall be as -strong as Dante was, when he 'showed himself more furnished with -breath than he was,' and said, 'Go on, for I am strong and resolute.' -I think we always have more strength than we understand ourselves to -have. - -"I am so wonderfully happy about Uncle David and Aunt Margaret, and I -know Uncle Jimmie needs Aunt Gertrude and has always needed her. Did -my going away help those things to their fruition? I hope so. - -"I can not bear to think of Aunt Beulah, but I know that I must bear -to think of her, and face the pain of having hurt her as I must face -every other thing that comes into my life from this hour. I would give -her back Peter, if I could,--but I can not. He is mine, and I am his, -and we have been that way from the beginning. I have thought of him -always as stronger and wiser than any one in the world, but I don't -think he is. He has suffered and stumbled along, trying blindly to do -right, hurting Aunt Beulah and mixing up his life like any man, just -the way Uncle Jimmie and Uncle David did. - -"Don't men know who it is they love? They seem so often to be -struggling hungrily after the wrong thing, trying to get, or to make -themselves take, some woman that they do not really want. When women -love it is not like that with them. - -"When women love! I think I have loved Peter from the first minute I -saw him, so beautiful and dear and sweet, with that _anxious_ look in -his eyes,--that look of consideration for the other person that is -always so much a part of him. He had it the first night I saw him, -when Uncle David brought me to show me to my foster parents for the -first time. It was the thing I grew up by, and measured men and their -attitude to women by--just that look in his eyes, that tender warm -look of consideration. - -"It means a good many things, I think,--a gentle generous nature, and -a tender chivalrous heart. It means selflessness. It means being a -good man, and one who _protects_ by sheer unselfish instinct. I don't -know how I shall ever heal him of the hurt he has done Aunt Beulah. -Aunt Margaret tells me that Aunt Beulah's experience with him has been -the thing that has made her whole, that she needed to live through the -human cycle of emotion--of love and possession and renunciation before -she could be quite real and sound. This may be true, but it is not the -kind of reasoning for Peter and me to comfort ourselves with. If a -surgeon makes a mistake in cutting that afterwards does more good than -harm, he must not let that result absolve him from his mistake. -Nothing can efface the mistake itself, and Peter and I must go on -feeling that way about it. - -"I want to write something down about my love before I close this book -to-night. Something that I can turn to some day and read, or show to -my children when love comes to them. 'This is the way I felt,' I want -to say to them, 'the first week of my love--this is what it meant to -me.' - -"It means being a greater, graver, and more beautiful person than you -ever thought you could be. It means knowing what you are, and what you -were meant to be all at once, and I think it means your chance to be -purified for the life you are to live, and the things you are to do in -it. Experience teaches, but I think love forecasts and points the way, -and shows you what you can be. Even if the light it sheds should grow -dim after a while, the path it has shown you should be clear to your -inner eye forever and ever. Having been in a great temple is a thing -to be better for all your life. - -"It means that the soul and the things of the soul are -everlasting,--that they have got to be everlasting if love is like -this. Love between two people is more than the simple fact of their -being drawn together and standing hand in hand. It is the holy truth -about the universe. It is the rainbow of God's promise set over the -land. There comes with it the soul's certainty of living on and on -through time and space. - -"Just my loving Peter and Peter's loving me isn't the important -thing,--the important thing is the way it has started the truth going; -my knowing and understanding mysterious laws that were sealed to me -before; Peter taking my life in his hands and making it consecrated -and true,--so true that I will not falter or suffer from any -misunderstandings or mistaken pain. - -"It means warmth and light and tenderness, our love does, and all the -poetry in the world, and all the motherliness, (I feel so much like -his mother). Peter is my lover. When I say that he is not stronger or -wiser than any one in the world I mean--in living. I mean in the way -he behaves like a little bewildered boy sometimes. In loving he is -stronger and wiser than any living being. He takes my two hands in his -and gives me all the strength and all the wisdom and virtue there is -in the world. - -"I haven't written down anything, after all, that any one could read. -My children can't look over my shoulder on to this page, for they -would not understand it. It means nothing to any one in the world but -me. I shall have to translate for them or I shall have to say to them, -'Children, on looking into this book, I find I can't tell you what -love meant to me, because the words I have put down would mean nothing -to you. They were only meant to inform me, whenever I should turn back -to them, of the great glory and holiness that fell upon me like a -garment when love came.' - -"And if there should be any doubt in my heart as to the reality of the -feeling that has come to them in their turn, I should only have to -turn their faces up to the light, and look into their eyes and -_know_. - -"I shall not die as my own mother did. I know that. I know that Peter -will be by my side until we both are old. These facts are established -in my consciousness I hardly know how, and I know that they are -there,--but if such a thing could be that I should die and leave my -little children, I would not be afraid to leave them alone in a world -that has been so good to me, under the protection of a Power that -provided me with the best and kindest guardians that a little orphan -ever had. God bless and keep them all, and make them happy." - -THE END - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Turn About Eleanor, by Ethel M. Kelley - + + + + +Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + +TURN ABOUT ELEANOR + + + + +[Illustration: Eleanor] + + + + +Turn About Eleanor + +By + +ETHEL M. KELLEY + +ILLUSTRATED BY + +F. GRAHAM COOTES + +INDIANAPOLIS + +THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY + +PUBLISHERS + + + + +Copyright 1917 +The Bobbs-Merrill Company + +Printed in the United States of America + +PRESS OF + +BRAUNWORTH & CO. + +BOOK MANUFACTURERS + +BROOKLYN, N. Y. + + + + +TO MY MOTHER + + + + +CONTENTS + + CHAPTER PAGE + + I Enter Eleanor 1 + + II The Cooperative Parents 14 + + III The Experiment Begins 27 + + IV Peter Elucidates 40 + + V Eleanor Enjoys Herself in Her Own Way 48 + + VI Jimmie Becomes a Parent 63 + + VII One Descent into Bohemia 72 + + VIII The Ten Hutchinsons 84 + + IX Peter 101 + + X The Omniscient Focus 113 + + XI Gertrude Has Trouble with Her Behavior 124 + + XII Madam Bolling 138 + + XIII Brook and River 158 + + XIV Merry Christmas 167 + + XV Growing Up 181 + + XVI Margaret Louisa's Birthright 195 + + XVII A Real Kiss 203 + + XVIII Beulah's Problem 219 + + XIX Mostly Uncle Peter 234 + + XX The Makings of a Triple Wedding 251 + + XXI Eleanor Hears the News 261 + + XXII The Search 271 + + XXIII The Young Nurse 281 + + XXIV Christmas Again 292 + + XXV The Lover 304 + + + + +TURN ABOUT ELEANOR + + + + +TURN ABOUT ELEANOR + +CHAPTER I + +ENTER ELEANOR + + +A child in a faded tam-o'-shanter that had once been baby blue, and a +shoddy coat of a glaring, unpropitious newness, was sitting +uncomfortably on the edge of a hansom seat, and gazing soberly out at +the traffic of Fifth Avenue. + +The young man beside her, a blond, sleek, narrow-headed youth in +eye-glasses, was literally making conversation with her. That is, he +was engaged in a palpable effort to make conversation--to manufacture +out of the thin crisp air of that November morning and the random +impressions of their progress up the Avenue, something with a general +resemblance to tete-a-tete dialogue as he understood it. He was +succeeding only indifferently. + +"See, Eleanor," he pointed brightly with his stick to the flower shop +they were passing, "see that building with the red roof, and all +those window boxes. Don't you think those little trees in pots outside +look like Christmas trees? Sometimes when your Aunts Beulah and +Margaret and Gertrude, whom you haven't met yet--though you are on +your way to meet them, you know--sometimes when they have been very +good, almost good enough to deserve it, I stop by that little flower +shop and buy a chaste half dozen of gardenias and their accessories, +and divide them among the three." + +"Do you?" the child asked, without wistfulness. She was a good child, +David Bolling decided,--a sporting child, willing evidently to play +when it was her turn, even when she didn't understand the game at all. +It was certainly a new kind of game that she would be so soon expected +to play her part in,--a rather serious kind of game, if you chose to +look at it that way. + +David himself hardly knew how to look at it. He was naturally a +conservative young man, who had been brought up by his mother to +behave as simply as possible on all occasions, and to avoid the +conspicuous as tacitly and tactfully as one avoids a new disease germ. +His native point of view, however, had been somewhat deflected by his +associations. His intimate circle consisted of a set of people who +indorsed his mother's decalogue only under protest, and with the most +stringent reservations. That is, they were young and healthy, and +somewhat overcharged with animal spirits, and their reactions were all +very intense and emphatic. + +He was trying at this instant to look rather more as if he were likely +to meet one of his own friends than one of his mother's. His mother's +friends would not have understood his personal chaperonage of the +shabby little girl at his elbow. Her hair was not even properly +brushed. It looked frazzled and tangled; and at the corner of one of +her big blue eyes, streaking diagonally across the pallor in which it +was set, was a line of dirt,--a tear mark, it might have been, though +that didn't make the general effect any less untidy, David thought; +only a trifle more uncomfortably pathetic. She was a nice little girl, +that fact was becoming more and more apparent to David, but any friend +of his mother's would have wondered, and expressed him or herself as +wondering, why in the name of all sensitiveness he had not taken a +taxicab, or at least something in the nature of a closed vehicle, if +he felt himself bound to deliver in person this curious little +stranger to whatever mysterious destination she was for. + +"I thought you'd like a hansom, Eleanor, better than a taxi-cab, +because you can see more. You've never been in this part of New York +before, I understand." + +"No, sir." + +"You came up from Colhassett last Saturday, didn't you? Mrs. O'Farrel +wrote to your grandmother to send you on to us, and you took the +Saturday night boat from Fall River." + +"Yes, sir." + +"Did you travel alone, Eleanor?" + +"A friend of Grandpa's came up on the train with me, and left me on +the vessel. He told the lady and gentleman to see if I was all +right,--Mr. Porter and Mrs. Steward." + +"And were you all right?" David's eyes twinkled. + +"Yes, sir." + +"Not sea sick, nor homesick?" + +The child's fine-featured face quivered for a second, then set again +into impassive stoic lines, and left David wondering whether he had +witnessed a vibration of real emotion, or the spasmodic twitching of +the muscles that is so characteristic of the rural public school. + +"I wasn't sea sick." + +"Tell me about your grandparents, Eleanor." Then as she did not +respond, he repeated a little sharply, "Tell me about your +grandparents, won't you?" + +The child still hesitated. David bowed to the wife of a Standard Oil +director in a passing limousine, and one of the season's prettiest +debutantes, who was walking; and because he was only twenty-four, and +his mother was very, very ambitious for him, he wondered if the tear +smudge on the face of his companion had been evident from the +sidewalk, and decided that it must have been. + +"I don't know how to tell," the child said at last, "I don't know what +you want me to say." + +"I don't want you to say anything in particular, just in general, you +know." + +David stuck. The violet eyes were widening with misery, there was no +doubt about it. "Game, clean through," he said to himself. Aloud he +continued. "Well, you know, Eleanor.--Never say 'Well,' if you can +possibly avoid it, because it's a flagrant Americanism, and when you +travel in foreign parts you're sure to regret it,--well, you know, if +you are to be in a measure my ward--and you are, my dear, as well as +the ward of your Aunts Beulah and Margaret and Gertrude, and your +Uncles Jimmie and Peter--I ought to begin by knowing a little +something of your antecedents. That is why I suggested that you tell +me about your grandparents. I don't care what you tell me, but I think +it would be very suitable for you to tell me something. Are they +native Cape Codders? I'm a New Englander myself, you know, so you may +be perfectly frank with me." + +"They're not summer folks," the child said. "They just live in +Colhassett all the year round. They live in a big white house on the +depot road, but they're so old now, they can't keep it up. If it was +painted it would be a real pretty house." + +"Your grandparents are not very well off then?" + +The child . "They've got lots of things," she said, "that +Grandfather brought home when he went to sea, but it was Uncle Amos +that sent them the money they lived on. When he died they didn't have +any." + +"How long has he been dead?" + +"Two years ago Christmas." + +"You must have had some money since then." + +"Not since Uncle Amos died, except for the rent of the barn, and the +pasture land, and a few things like that." + +"You must have had money put away." + +"No," the little girl answered. "We didn't. We didn't have any money, +except what came in the way I said. We sold some old-fashioned dishes, +and a little bit of cranberry bog for twenty-five dollars. We didn't +have any other money." + +"But you must have had something to live on. You can't make bricks +without straw, or grow little girls up without nourishing food in +their tummies." He caught an unexpected flicker of an eyelash, and +realized for the first time that the child was acutely aware of every +word he was saying, that even his use of English was registering a +poignant impression on her consciousness. The thought strangely +embarrassed him. "We say tummies in New York, Eleanor," he explained +hastily. "It's done here. The New England stomick, however, is almost +entirely obsolete. You'll really get on better in the circles to which +you are so soon to be accustomed if you refer to it in my own simple +fashion;--but to return to our muttons, Eleanor, which is French for +getting down to cases, again, you must have had something to live on +after your uncle died. You are alive now. That would almost seem to +prove my contention." + +"We didn't have any money, but what I earned." + +"But--what you earned. What do you mean, Eleanor?" + +The child's face turned crimson, then white again. This time there was +no mistaking the wave of sensitive emotion that swept over it. + +"I worked out," she said. "I made a dollar and a half a week running +errands, and taking care of a sick lady vacations, and nights after +school. Grandma had that shock, and Grandpa's back troubled him. He +tried to get work but he couldn't. He did all he could taking care of +Grandma, and tending the garden. They hated to have me work out, but +there was nobody else to." + +"A family of three can't live on a dollar and a half a week." + +"Yes, sir, they can, if they manage." + +"Where were your neighbors all this time, Eleanor? You don't mean to +tell me that the good, kindly people of Cape Cod would have stood by +and let a little girl like you support a family alone and unaided. +It's preposterous." + +"The neighbors didn't know. They thought Uncle Amos left us something. +Lots of Cape Cod children work out. They thought that I did it because +I wanted to." + +"I see," said David gravely. + +The wheel of their cab became entangled in that of a smart delivery +wagon. He watched it thoughtfully. Then he took off his glasses, and +polished them. + +"Through a glass darkly," he explained a little thickly. He was really +a very _young_ young man, and once below the surface of what he was +pleased to believe a very worldly and cynical manner, he had a +profound depth of tenderness and human sympathy. + +Then as they jogged on through the Fifty-ninth Street end of the Park, +looking strangely seared and bereft from the first blight of the +frost, he turned to her again. This time his tone was as serious as +her own. + +"Why did you stop working out, Eleanor?" he asked. + +"The lady I was tending died. There wasn't nobody else who wanted me. +Mrs. O'Farrel was a relation of hers, and when she came to the +funeral, I told her that I wanted to get work in New York if I +could,--and then last week she wrote me that the best she could do was +to get me this place to be adopted, and so--I came." + +"But your grandparents?" David asked, and realized almost as he spoke +that he had his finger on the spring of the tragedy. + +"They had to take help from the town." + +The child made a brave struggle with her tears, and David looked away +quickly. He knew something of the temper of the steel of the New +England nature; the fierce and terrible pride that is bred in the bone +of the race. He knew that the child before him had tasted of the +bitter waters of humiliation in seeing her kindred "helped" by the +town. "Going out to work," he understood, had brought the family pride +low, but taking help from the town had leveled it to the dust. + +"There is, you know, a small salary that goes with this being adopted +business," he remarked casually a few seconds later. "Your Aunts +Gertrude and Beulah and Margaret, and your three stalwart uncles +aforesaid, are not the kind of people who have been brought up to +expect something for nothing. They don't expect to adopt a perfectly +good orphan without money and without price, merely for the privilege +of experimentation. No, indeed, an orphan in good standing of the best +New England extraction ought to exact for her services a salary of at +least fifteen dollars a month. I wouldn't consent to take a cent less, +Eleanor." + +"Wouldn't you?" the child asked uncertainly. She sat suddenly erect, +as if an actual burden had been dropped from her shoulders. Her eyes +were not violet, David decided, he had been deceived by the depth of +their coloring; they were blue, Mediterranean blue, and her lashes +were an inch and a half long at the very least. She was not only +pretty, she was going to be beautiful some day. A strange premonition +struck David of a future in which this long-lashed, stoic baby was in +some way inextricably bound. + +"How old are you?" he asked her abruptly. + +"Ten years old day before yesterday." + +They had been making their way through the Park; the searer, yellower +Park of late November. It looked duller and more cheerless than David +ever remembered it. The leaves rattled on the trees, and the sun went +down suddenly. + +"This is Central Park," he said. "In the spring it's very beautiful +here, and all the people you know go motoring or driving in the +afternoon." + +He bowed to his mother's milliner in a little French runabout. The +Frenchman stared frankly at the baby blue tam-o'-shanter and the +tangled golden head it surmounted. + +"Joseph could make you a peachy tam-o'-shanter looking thing of blue +velvet; I'll bet I could draw him a picture to copy. Your Uncle David, +you know, is an artist of a sort." + +For the first time since their incongruous association began the child +met his smile; her face relaxed ever so little, and the lips quivered, +but she smiled a shy, little dawning smile. There was trust in it and +confidence. David put out his hand to pat hers, but thought better of +it. + +"Eleanor," he said, "my mother knows our only living Ex-president, and +the Countess of Warwick, one Vanderbilt, two Astors, and she's met Sir +Gilbert Parker, and Rudyard Kipling. She also knows many of the stars +and satellites of upper Fifth Avenue. She has, as well, family +connections of so much weight and stolidity that their very approach, +singly or in conjunction, shakes the earth underneath them.--I wish we +could meet them all, Eleanor, every blessed one of them." + + + + +CHAPTER II + +THE COOPERATIVE PARENTS + + +"I wonder how a place like this apartment will look to her," Beulah +said thoughtfully. "I wonder if it will seem elegant, or cramped to +death. I wonder if she will take to it kindly, or with an ill +concealed contempt for its limitations." + +"The poor little thing will probably be so frightened and homesick by +the time David gets her here, that she won't know what kind of a place +she's arrived at," Gertrude suggested. "Oh, I wouldn't be in your +shoes for the next few days for anything in the world, Beulah Page; +would you, Margaret?" + +The third girl in the group smiled. + +"I don't know," she said thoughtfully. "It would be rather fun to +begin it." + +"I'd rather have her for the first two months, and get it over with," +Beulah said decisively. "It'll be hanging over your head long after my +ordeal is over, and by the time I have to have her again she'll be +absolutely in training. You don't come until the fifth on the list you +know, Gertrude. Jimmie has her after me, then Margaret, then Peter, +and you, and David, if he has got up the courage to tell his mother +by that time." + +"But if he hasn't," Gertrude suggested. + +"He can work it out for himself. He's got to take the child two months +like the rest of us. He's agreed to." + +"He will," Margaret said, "I've never known him to go back on his word +yet." + +"Trust Margaret to stick up for David. Anyway, I've taken the +precaution to put it in writing, as you know, and the document is +filed." + +"We're not adopting this infant legally." + +"No, Gertrude, we can't,--yet, but morally we are. She isn't an +infant, she's ten years old. I wish you girls would take the matter a +little more seriously. We've bound ourselves to be responsible for +this child's whole future. We have undertaken her moral, social and +religious education. Her body and soul are to be--" + +"Equally divided among us," Gertrude cut in. + +Beulah scorned the interruption. + +"--held sacredly in trust by the six of us, severally and +collectively." + +"Why haven't we adopted her legally then?" Margaret asked. + +"Well, you see, there are practical objections. You have to be a +corporation or an institution or something, to adopt a child as a +group. A child can't have three sets of parents in the eyes of the +law, especially when none of them is married, or have the least +intention of being married, to each other.--I don't see what you want +to keep laughing at, Gertrude. It's all a little unusual and modern +and that sort of thing, but I don't think it's funny. Do you, +Margaret?" + +"I think that it's funny, but I think that it's serious, too, +Beulah." + +"I don't see what's funny about--" Beulah began hotly. + +"You don't see what's funny about anything,--even Rogers College, do +you, darling? It is funny though for the bunch of us to undertake the +upbringing of a child ten years old; to make ourselves financially and +spiritually responsible for it. It's a lot more than funny, I know, +but it doesn't seem to me as if I could go on with it at all, until +somebody was willing to admit what a _scream_ the whole thing is." + +"We'll admit that, if that's all you want, won't we, Beulah?" Margaret +appealed. + +"If I've got this insatiable sense of humor, let's indulge it by all +means," Gertrude laughed. "Go on, chillun, go on, I'll try to be good +now." + +"I wish you would," Margaret said. "Confine yourself to a syncopated +chortle while I get a few facts out of Beulah. I did most of my voting +on this proposition by proxy, while I was having the measles in +quarantine. Beulah, did I understand you to say you got hold of your +victim through Mrs. O'Farrel, your seamstress?" + +"Yes, when we decided we'd do this, we thought we'd get a child about +six. We couldn't have her any younger, because there would be bottles, +and expert feeding, and well, you know, all those things. We couldn't +have done it, especially the boys. We thought six would be just about +the right age, but we simply couldn't find a child that would do. We +had to know about its antecedents. We looked through the orphan +asylums, but there wasn't anything pure-blooded American that we could +be sure of. We were all agreed that we wanted pure American blood. I +knew Mrs. O'Farrel had relatives on Cape Cod. You know what that stock +is, a good sea-faring strain, and a race of wonderfully fine women, +'atavistic aristocrats' I remember an author in the _Atlantic Monthly_ +called them once. I suppose you think it's funny to groan, Gertrude, +when anybody makes a literary allusion, but it isn't. Well, anyway, +Mrs. O'Farrel knew about this child, and sent for her. She stayed with +Mrs. O'Farrel over Sunday, and now David is bringing her here. She'll +be here in a minute." + +"Why David?" Gertrude twinkled. + +"Why not David?" Beulah retorted. "It will be a good experience for +him, besides David is so amusing when he tries to be, I thought he +could divert her on the way." + +"It isn't such a crazy idea, after all, Gertrude." Margaret Hutchinson +was the youngest of the three, being within several months of her +majority, but she looked older. Her face had that look of wisdom that +comes to the young who have suffered physical pain. "We've got to do +something. We're all too full of energy and spirits, at least the rest +of you are, and I'm getting huskier every minute, to twirl our hands +and do nothing. None of us ever wants to be married,--that's settled; +but we do want to be useful. We're a united group of the closest kind +of friends, bound by the ties of--of--natural selection, and we need a +purpose in life. Gertrude's a real artist, but the rest of us are not, +and--and--" + +"What could be more natural for us than to want the living clay to +work on? That's the idea, isn't it?" Gertrude said. "I can be serious +if I want to, Beulah-land, but, honestly, girls, when I come to face +out the proposition, I'm almost afraid to. What'll I do with that +child when it comes to be my turn? What'll Jimmie do? Buy her a string +of pearls, and show her the night life of New York very likely. How'll +I break it to my mother? That's the cheerful little echo in my +thoughts night and day. How did you break it to yours, Beulah?" + +Beulah flushed. Her serious brown eyes, deep brown with wine- +lights in them, met those of each of her friends in turn. Then she +laughed. + +"Well, I do know this is funny," she said, "but, you know, I haven't +dared tell her. She'll be away for a month, anyway. Aunt Ann is here, +but I'm only telling her that I'm having a little girl from the +country to visit me." + +Occasionally the architect of an apartment on the upper west side of +New York--by pure accident, it would seem, since the general run of +such apartments is so uncomfortable, and unfriendly--hits upon a plan +for a group of rooms that are at once graciously proportioned and +charmingly convenient, while not being an absolute offense to the eye +in respect to the details of their decoration. Beulah Page and her +mother lived in such an apartment, and they had managed with a few +ancestral household gods, and a good many carefully related modern +additions to them, to make of their eight rooms and bath, to say +nothing of the ubiquitous butler's-pantry, something very remarkably +resembling a home, in its most delightful connotation: and it was in +the drawing room of this home that the three girls were gathered. + +Beulah, the younger daughter of a widowed mother--now visiting in the +home of the elder daughter, Beulah's sister Agatha, in the expectation +of what the Victorians refer to as an "interesting event"--was +technically under the chaperonage of her Aunt Ann, a solemn little +spinster with no control whatever over the movements of her determined +young niece. + +Beulah was just out of college,--just out, in fact, of the most +high-minded of all the colleges for women;--that founded by Andrew +Rogers in the year of our Lord eighteen hundred and sixty-one. There +is probably a greater percentage of purposeful young women graduated +from Rogers College every year, than from any other one of the +communities of learning devoted to the education of women; and of all +the purposeful classes turned out from that admirable institution, +Beulah's class could without exaggeration be designated as the most +purposeful class of them all. That Beulah was not the most purposeful +member of her class merely argues that an almost abnormally high +standard of purposefulness was maintained by practically every +individual in it. + +At Rogers every graduating class has its fad; its propaganda for a +crusade against the most startling evils of the world. One year, the +sacred outlines of the human figure are protected against +disfigurement by an ardent group of young classicists in Grecian +draperies. The next, a fierce young brood of vegetarians challenge a +lethargic world to mortal combat over an Argentine sirloin. The year +of Beulah's graduation, the new theories of child culture that were +gaining serious headway in academic circles, had filtered into the +class rooms, and Beulah's mates had contracted the contagion +instantly. The entire senior class went mad on the subject of child +psychology and the various scientific prescriptions for the direction +of the young idea. + +It was therefore primarily to Beulah Page, that little Eleanor Hamlin, +of Colhassett, Massachusetts, owed the change in her fortune. At least +it was to Beulah that she owed the initial inspiration that set the +wheel of that fortune in motion; but it was to the glorious enterprise +and idealism of youth, and the courage of a set of the most intrepid +and quixotic convictions that ever quickened in the breasts of a mad +half dozen youngsters, that she owed the actual fulfillment of her +adventure. + +The sound of the door-bell brought the three girls to their feet, but +the footfalls in the corridor, double quick time, and accentuated, +announced merely the arrival of Jimmie Sears, and Peter Stuyvesant, +nicknamed _Gramercy_ by common consent. + +"Has she come?" Peter asked. + +But Jimmie struck an attitude in the middle of the floor. + +"My daughter, oh! my daughter," he cried. "This suspense is killing +me. For the love of Mike, children, where is she?" + +"She's coming," Beulah answered; "David's bringing her." + +Gertrude pushed him into the _chaise-lounge_ already in the +possession of Margaret, and squeezed in between them. + +"Hold my hand, Jimmie," she said. "The feelings of a father are +nothing,--_nothing_ in comparison to those which smolder in the +maternal breast. Look at Beulah, how white she is, and Margaret is +trembling this minute." + +"I'm trembling, too," Peter said, "or if I'm not trembling, I'm +frightened." + +"We're all frightened," Margaret said, "but we're game." + +The door-bell rang again. + +"There they come," Beulah said, "oh! everybody be good to me." + +The familiar figure of their good friend David appeared on the +threshold at this instant, and beside him an odd-looking little figure +in a shoddy cloth coat, and a faded blue tam-o'-shanter. There was a +long smudge of dirt reaching from the corner of her eye well down into +the middle of her cheek. A kind of composite gasp went up from the +waiting group, a gasp of surprise, consternation, and panic. Not one +of the five could have told at that instant what it was he expected to +see, or how his imagination of the child differed from the concrete +reality, but amazement and keen disappointment constrained them. Here +was no figure of romance and delight. No miniature Galatea half hewn +out of the block of humanity, waiting for the chisel of a composite +Pygmalion. Here was only a grubby, little unkempt child, like all +other children, but not so presentable. + +"What's the matter with everybody?" said David with unnatural +sharpness. "I want to present you to our ward, Miss Eleanor Hamlin, +who has come a long way for the pleasure of meeting you. Eleanor, +these are your cooperative parents." + +The child's set gaze followed his gesture obediently. David took the +little hand in his, and led the owner into the heart of the group. +Beulah stepped forward. + +"This is your Aunt Beulah, Eleanor, of whom I've been telling you." + +"I'm pleased to make your acquaintance, Aunt Beulah," the little girl +said, as Beulah put out her hand, still uncertainly. + +Then the five saw a strange thing happen. The immaculate, inscrutable +David--the aristocrat of aristocrats, the one undemonstrative, +super-self-conscious member of the crowd, who had been delegated to +transport the little orphan chiefly because the errand was so +incongruous a mission on which to despatch him--David put his arm +around the neck of the child with a quick protecting gesture, and then +gathered her close in his arms, where she clung, quivering and +sobbing, the unkempt curls straggling helplessly over his shoulder. + +He strode across the room where Margaret was still sitting upright in +the _chaise-lounge_, her dove-gray eyes wide, her lips parted. + +"Here, you take her," he said, without ceremony, and slipped his +burden into her arms. + +"Welcome to our city, Kiddo," Jimmie said in his throat, but nobody +heard him. + +Peter, whose habit it was to walk up and down endlessly wherever he +felt most at home, paused in his peregrination, as Margaret shyly +gathered the rough little head to her bosom. The child met his gaze as +he did so. + +"We weren't quite up to scratch," he said gravely. + +Beulah's eyes filled. "Peter," she said, "Peter, I didn't mean to +be--not to be--" + +But Peter seemed not to know she was speaking. The child's eyes still +held him, and he stood gazing down at her, his handsome head thrown +slightly back; his face deeply intent; his eyes softened. + +"I'm your Uncle Peter, Eleanor," he said, and bent down till his lips +touched her forehead. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +THE EXPERIMENT BEGINS + + +Eleanor walked over to the steam pipes, and examined them carefully. +The terrible rattling noise had stopped, as had also the choking and +gurgling that had kept her awake because it was so like the noise that +Mrs. O'Farrel's aunt, the sick lady she had helped to take care of, +made constantly for the last two weeks of her life. Whenever there was +a sound that was anything like that, Eleanor could not help shivering. +She had never seen steam pipes before. When Beulah had shown her the +room where she was to sleep--a room all in blue, baby blue, and pink +roses--Eleanor thought that the silver pipes standing upright in the +corner were a part of some musical instrument, like a pipe organ. When +the rattling sound had begun she thought that some one had come into +the room with her, and was tuning it. She had drawn the pink silk puff +closely about her ears, and tried not to be frightened. Trying not to +be frightened was the way she had spent a good deal of her time since +her Uncle Amos died, and she had had to look out for her +grandparents. + +Now that it was morning, and the bright sun was streaming into the +windows, she ventured to climb out of bed and approach the uncanny +instrument. She tripped on the trailing folds of that nightgown her +Aunt Beulah--it was funny that all these ladies should call themselves +her aunts, when they were really no relation to her--had insisted on +her wearing. Her own nightdress had been left in the time-worn +carpetbag that Uncle David had forgotten to take out of the "handsome +cab." She stumbled against the silver pipes. They were _hot_; so hot +that the flesh of her arm nearly blistered, but she did not cry out. +Here was another mysterious problem of the kind that New York +presented at every turn, to be silently accepted, and dealt with. + +Her mother and father had once lived in New York. Her father had been +born here, in a house with a brownstone front on West Tenth Street, +wherever that was. She herself had lived in New York when she was a +baby, though she had been born in her grandfather's house in +Colhassett. She had lived in Cincinnati, Ohio, too, until she was four +years old, and her father and mother had died there, both in the same +week, of pneumonia. She wished this morning, that she could remember +the house where they lived in New York, and the things that were in +it. + +There was a knock on the door. Ought she to go and open the door in +her nightdress? Ought she to call out "Come in?" It might be a +gentleman, and her Aunt Beulah's nightdress was not very thick. She +decided to cough, so that whoever was outside might understand she was +in there, and had heard them. + +"May I come in, Eleanor?" Beulah's voice called. + +"Yes, ma'am." She started to get into bed, but Miss--Miss--the nearer +she was to her, the harder it was to call her aunt,--Aunt Beulah might +think it was time she was up. She compromised by sitting down in a +chair. + +Beulah had passed a practically sleepless night working out the theory +of Eleanor's development. The six had agreed on a certain sketchily +defined method of procedure. That is, they were to read certain books +indicated by Beulah, and to follow the general schedule that she was +to work out and adapt to the individual needs of the child herself, +during the first phase of the experiment. She felt that she had +managed the reception badly, that she had not done or said the right +thing. Peter's attitude had shown that he felt the situation had been +clumsily handled, and it was she who was responsible for it. Peter was +too kind to criticize her, but she had vowed in the muffled depths of +a feverish pillow that there should be no more flagrant flaws in the +conduct of the campaign. + +"Did you sleep well, Eleanor?" she asked. + +"Yes, ma'am." + +"Are you hungry?" + +"No, ma'am." + +The conversation languished at this. + +"Have you had your bath?" + +"I didn't know I was to have one." + +"Nice little girls have a bath every day." + +"Do they?" Eleanor asked. Her Aunt Beulah seemed to expect her to say +something more, but she couldn't think of anything. + +"I'll draw your bath for you this morning. After this you will be +expected to take it yourself." + +Eleanor had seen bathrooms before, but she had never been in a +bath-tub. At her grandfather's, she had taken her Saturday night baths +in an old wooden wash-tub, which had water poured in it from the tea +kettle. When Beulah closed the door on her she stepped gingerly into +the tub: the water was twice too hot, but she didn't know how to turn +the faucet, or whether she was expected to turn it. Mrs. O'Farrel had +told her that people had to pay for water in New York. Perhaps Aunt +Beulah had drawn all the water she could have. She used the soap +sparingly. Soap was expensive, she knew. She wished there was some way +of discovering just how much of things she was expected to use. The +number of towels distressed her, but she finally took the littlest and +dried herself. The heat of the water had nearly parboiled her. + +After that, she tried to do blindly what she was told. There was a +girl in a black dress and white apron that passed her everything she +had to eat. Her Aunt Beulah told her to help herself to sugar and to +cream for her oatmeal, from off this girl's tray. Her hand trembled a +good deal, but she was fortunate enough not to spill any. After +breakfast she was sent to wash her hands in the bathroom; she turned +the faucet, and used a very little water. Then, when she was called, +she went into the sitting-room and sat down, and folded her hands in +her lap. + +Beulah looked at her with some perplexity. The child was docile and +willing, but she seemed unexpectedly stupid for a girl ten years old. + +"Have you ever been examined for adenoids, Eleanor?" she asked +suddenly. + +"No, ma'am." + +"Say, 'no, Aunt Beulah.' Don't say, 'no, ma'am' and 'yes, ma'am.' +People don't say 'no, ma'am' and 'yes, ma'am' any more, you know. They +say 'no' and 'yes,' and then mention the name of the person to whom +they are speaking." + +"Yes, ma'am," Eleanor couldn't stop herself saying it. She wanted to +correct herself. "No, Aunt Beulah, no, Aunt Beulah," but the words +stuck in her throat. + +"Well, try to remember," Beulah said. She was thinking of the case in +a book of psychology that she had been reading that morning, of a girl +who was "pale and sleepy looking, expressionless of face, careless of +her personal appearance," who after an operation for adenoids, had +become "as animated and bright as before she had been lethargic and +dull." She was pleased to see that Eleanor's fine hair had been +scrupulously combed, and neatly braided this morning, not being able +to realize--as how should she?--that the condition of Eleanor's fine +spun locks on her arrival the night before, had been attributable to +the fact that the O'Farrel baby had stolen her comb, and Eleanor had +been too shy to mention the fact, and had combed her hair +mermaid-wise, through her fingers. + +"This morning," Beulah began brightly, "I am going to turn you loose +in the apartment, and let you do what you like. I want to get an idea +of the things you do like, you know. You can sew, or read, or drum on +the piano, or talk to me, anything that pleases you most. I want you +to be happy, that's all, and to enjoy yourself in your own way." + +"Give the child absolute freedom in which to demonstrate the worth and +value of its ego,"--that was what she was doing, "keeping it carefully +under observation while you determine the individual trend along which +to guide its development." + +The little girl looked about her helplessly. The room was very large +and bright. The walls were white, and so was the woodwork, the mantle, +and some of the furniture. Gay figured curtains hung at the windows, +and there were little stools, and chairs, and even trays with glass +over them, covered with the same bright material. Eleanor had +never seen a room anything like it. There was no center-table, no +crayon portraits of different members of the family, no easels, or +scarves thrown over the corners of the pictures. There were not many +pictures, and those that there were didn't seem to Eleanor like +pictures at all, they were all so blurry and smudgy,--excepting one of +a beautiful lady. She would have liked to have asked the name of that +lady,--but her Aunt Beulah's eyes were upon her. She slipped down from +her chair and walked across the room to the window. + +"Well, dear, what would make this the happiest day you can think of?" +Beulah asked, in the tone she was given to use when she asked Gertrude +and Margaret and Jimmie--but not often Peter--what they expected to do +with their lives. + +Eleanor turned a desperate face from the window, from the row of bland +elegant apartment buildings she had been contemplating with unseeing +eyes. + +"Do I have to?" she asked Beulah piteously. + +"Have to what?" + +"Have to amuse myself in my own way? I don't know what you want me to +do. I don't know what you think that I ought to do." + +A strong-minded and spoiled younger daughter of a widowed +mother--whose chief anxiety had been to anticipate the wants of her +children before they were expressed--with an independent income, and a +beloved and admiring circle of intimate friends, is not likely to be +imaginatively equipped to explore the spiritual fastnesses of a +sensitive and alien orphan. Beulah tried earnestly to get some +perspective on the child's point of view, but she could not. The fact +that she was torturing the child would have been outside of the limits +of her comprehension. She searched her mind for some immediate +application of the methods of Madame Montessori, and produced a lump +of modeling clay. + +"You don't really have to do anything, Eleanor," she said kindly. "I +don't want you to make an effort to please me, only to be happy +yourself. Why don't you try and see what you can do with this modeling +clay? Just try making it up into mud pies, or anything." + +"Mud pies?" + +"Let the child teach himself the significance of contour, and the use +of his hands, by fashioning the clay into rudimentary forms of +beauty." That was the theory. + +"Yes, dear, mud pies, if you wish to." + +Whereupon Eleanor, conscientiously and miserably, turned out a neat +half-dozen skilful, miniature models of the New England deep dish +apple-pie, pricked and pinched to a nicety. + +Beulah, with a vision related to the nebulous stages of a study by +Rodin, was somewhat disconcerted with this result, but she brightened +as she thought at least she had discovered a natural tendency in the +child that she could help her develop. + +"Do you like to cook, Eleanor?" she asked. + +In the child's mind there rose the picture of her grim apprenticeship +on Cape Cod. She could see the querulous invalid in the sick chair, +her face distorted with pain and impatience; she could feel the sticky +dough in her fingers, and the heat from the stove rising round her. + +"I hate cooking," she said, with the first hint of passion she had +shown in her relation to her new friends. + +The day dragged on wearily. Beulah took her to walk on the Drive, but +as far as she was able to determine the child saw nothing of her +surroundings. The crowds of trimly dressed people, the nursemaids and +babies, the swift slim outlines of the whizzing motors, even the +battleships lying so suggestively quiescent on the river before +them--all the spectacular, vivid panorama of afternoon on Riverside +Drive--seemed absolutely without interest or savor to the child. +Beulah's despair and chagrin were increasing almost as rapidly as +Eleanor's. + +Late in the afternoon Beulah suggested a nap. "I'll sit here and read +for a few minutes," she said, as she tucked Eleanor under the covers. +Then, since she was quite desperate for subjects of conversation, and +still determined by the hot memory of her night's vigil to leave no +stone of geniality unturned, she added: + +"This is a book that I am reading to help me to know how to guide and +educate you. I haven't had much experience in adopting children, you +know, Eleanor, and when there is anything in this world that you don't +know, there is usually some good and useful book that will help you to +find out all about it." + +Even to herself her words sounded hatefully patronizing and pedagogic, +but she was past the point of believing that she could handle the +situation with grace. When Eleanor's breath seemed to be coming +regularly, she put down her book with some thankfulness and escaped to +the tea table, where she poured tea for her aunt, and explained the +child's idiosyncrasies swiftly and smoothly to that estimable lady. + +Left alone, Eleanor lay still for a while, staring at the design of +pink roses on the blue wall-paper. On Cape Cod, pink and blue were not +considered to be colors that could be combined. There was nothing at +all in New York like anything she knew or remembered. She sighed. Then +she made her way to the window and picked up the book Beulah had been +reading. It was about _her_, Aunt Beulah had said,--directions for +educating her and training her. The paragraph that caught her eye +where the book was open had been marked with a pencil. + +"This girl had such a fat, frog like expression of face," Eleanor +read, "that her neighbors thought her an idiot. She was found to be +the victim of a severe case of ad-e-noids." As she spelled out the +word, she recognized it as the one Beulah had used earlier in the day. +She remembered the sudden sharp look with which the question had been +accompanied. The sick lady for whom she had "worked out" had often +called her an idiot when her feet had stumbled, or she had failed to +understand at once what was required of her. + +Eleanor read on. She encountered a text replete with hideous examples +of backward and deficient children, victims of adenoids who had been +restored to a state of normality by the removal of the affliction. She +had no idea what an adenoid was. She had a hazy notion that it was a +kind of superfluous bone in the region of the breast, but her anguish +was rooted in the fact that this, _this_ was the good and useful book +that her Aunt Beulah had found it necessary to resort to for guidance, +in the case of her own--Eleanor's--education. + +When Beulah, refreshed by a cup of tea and further sustained by the +fact that Margaret and Peter had both telephoned they were coming to +dinner, returned to her charge, she found the stolid, apathetic child +she had left, sprawling face downward on the floor, in a passion of +convulsive weeping. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +PETER ELUCIDATES + + +It was Peter who got at the heart of the trouble. Margaret tried, but +though Eleanor clung to her and relaxed under the balm of her gentle +caresses, the child remained entirely inarticulate until Peter +gathered her up in his arms, and signed to the others that he wished +to be left alone with her. + +By the time he rejoined the two in the drawing-room--he had missed his +after-dinner coffee in the long half-hour that he had spent shut into +the guest room with the child--Jimmie and Gertrude had arrived, and +the four sat grouped together to await his pronouncement. + +"She thinks she has adenoids. She wants the doll that David left in +that carpetbag of hers he forgot to take out of the 'Handsome cab.' +She wants to be loved, and she wants to grow up and write poetry for +the newspapers," he announced. "Also she will eat a piece of bread and +butter and a glass of milk, as soon as it can conveniently be provided +for her." + +"When did you take holy orders, Gram?" Jimmie inquired. "How do you +work the confessional? I wish I could make anybody give anything up to +me, but I can't. Did you just go into that darkened chamber and say to +the kid, 'Child of my adoption,--cough,' and she coughed, or are you +the master of some subtler system of choking the truth out of 'em?" + +"Anybody would tell anything to Peter if he happened to want to know +it," Margaret said seriously. "Wouldn't they, Beulah?" + +Beulah nodded. "She wants to be loved," Peter had said. It was so +simple for some people to open their hearts and give out +love,--easily, lightly. She was not made like that,--loving came hard +with her, but when once she had given herself, it was done. Peter +didn't know how hard she had tried to do right with the child that +day. + +"The doll is called the rabbit doll, though there is no reason why it +should be, as it only looks the least tiny bit like a rabbit, and is a +girl. Its other name is Gwendolyn, and it always goes to bed with her. +Mrs. O'Farrels aunt said that children always stopped playing with +dolls when they got to be as big as Eleanor, but she isn't never +going to stop.--You must get after that double negative, Beulah.--She +once wrote a poem beginning: 'The rabbit doll, it is my own.' She +thinks that she has a frog-like expression of face, and that is why +Beulah doesn't like her better. She is perfectly willing to have her +adenoids cut out, if Beulah thinks it would improve her, but she +doesn't want to 'take anything,' when she has it done." + +"You are a wonder, Gram," Gertrude said admiringly. + +"Oh! I have made a mess of it, haven't I?" Beulah said. "Is she +homesick?" + +"Yes, she's homesick," Peter said gravely, "but not for anything she's +left in Colhassett. David told you the story, didn't he?--She is +homesick for her own kind, for people she can really love, and she's +never found any of them. Her grandfather and grandmother are old and +decrepit. She feels a terrible responsibility for them, but she +doesn't love them, not really. She's too hungry to love anybody until +she finds the friends she can cling to--without compromise." + +"An emotional aristocrat," Gertrude murmured. "It's the curse of +taste." + +"Help! Help!" Jimmie cried, grimacing at Gertrude. "Didn't she have +any kids her own age to play with?" + +"She had 'em, but she didn't have any time to play with them. You +forget she was supporting a family all the time, Jimmie." + +"By jove, I'd like to forget it." + +"She had one friend named Albertina Weston that she used to run around +with in school. Albertina also wrote poetry. They used to do poetic +'stunts' of one poem a day on some subject selected by Albertina. I +think Albertina was a snob. She candidly admitted to Eleanor that if +her clothes were more stylish, she would go round with her more. +Eleanor seemed to think that was perfectly natural." + +"How do you do it, Peter?" Jimmie besought. "If I could get one +damsel, no matter how tender her years, to confide in me like that I'd +be happy for life. It's nothing to you with those eyes, and that +matinee forehead of yours; but I want 'em to weep down my neck, and I +can't make 'em do it." + +"Wait till you grow up, Jimmie, and then see what happens," Gertrude +soothed him. + +"Wait till it's your turn with our child," Margaret said. "In two +months more she's coming to you." + +"Do I ever forget it for a minute?" Jimmie cried. + +"The point of the whole business is," Peter continued, "that we've got +a human soul on our hands. We imported a kind of scientific plaything +to exercise our spiritual muscle on, and we've got a real specimen of +womanhood in embryo. I don't know whether the situation appalls you as +much as it does me--" He broke off as he heard the bell ring. + +"That's David, he said he was coming." + +Then as David appeared laden with the lost carpetbag and a huge box of +chocolates, he waved him to a chair, and took up his speech again. "I +don't know whether the situation appalls you, as much as it does +me--if I don't get this off my chest now, David, I can't do it at +all--but the thought of that poor little waif in there and the +struggle she's had, and the shy valiant spirit of her,--the sand that +she's got, the _sand_ that put her through and kept her mouth shut +through experiences that might easily have killed her, why I feel as +if I'd give anything I had in the world to make it up to her, and yet +I'm not altogether sure that I could--that we could--that it's any of +our business to try it." + +"There's nobody else who will, if we don't," David said. + +"That's it," Peter said, "I've never known any one of our bunch to +quit anything that they once started in on, but just by way of +formality there is one thing we ought to do about this proposition +before we slide into it any further, and that is to agree that we want +to go on with it, that we know what we're in for, and that we're +game." + +"We decided all that before we sent for the kid," Jimmie said, "didn't +we?" + +"We decided we'd adopt a child, but we didn't decide we'd adopt this +one. Taking the responsibility of this one is the question before the +house just at present." + +"The idea being," David added, "that she's a fairly delicate piece of +work, and as time advances she's going to be _delicater_." + +"And that it's an awkward matter to play with souls," Beulah +contributed; whereupon Jimmie murmured, "Browning," sotto voice. + +"She may be all that you say, Gram," Jimmie said, after a few minutes +of silence, "a thunderingly refined and high-minded young waif, but +you will admit that without an interpreter of the same class, she +hasn't been much good to us so far." + +"Good lord, she isn't refined and high-minded," Peter said. "That's +not the idea. She's simply supremely sensitive and full of the most +pathetic possibilities. If we're going to undertake her we ought to +realize fully what we're up against, and acknowledge it,--that's all +I'm trying to say, and I apologize for assuming that it's more my +business than anybody's to say it." + +"That charming humility stuff, if I could only remember to pull it." + +The sofa pillow that Gertrude aimed at Jimmie hit him full on the +mouth and he busied himself pretending to eat it. Beulah scorned the +interruption. + +"Of course, we're going to undertake her," Beulah said. "We are signed +up and it's all down in writing. If anybody has any objections, they +can state them now." She looked about her dramatically. On every young +face was reflected the same earnestness that set gravely on her own. + +"The 'ayes' have it," Jimmie murmured. "From now on I become not only +a parent, but a soul doctor." He rose, and tiptoed solemnly toward the +door of Eleanor's room. + +"Where are you going, Jimmie?" Beulah called, as he was disappearing +around the bend in the corridor. + +He turned back to lift an admonitory finger. + +"Shush," he said, "do not interrupt me. I am going to wrap baby up in +a blanket and bring her out to her mothers and fathers." + + + + +CHAPTER V + +ELEANOR ENJOYS HERSELF IN HER OWN WAY + + +"I am in society here," Eleanor wrote to her friend Albertina, with a +pardonable emphasis on that phase of her new existence that would +appeal to the haughty ideals of Miss Weston, "I don't have to do any +housework, or anything. I sleep under a pink silk bedquilt, and I have +all new clothes. I have a new black pattern leather sailor hat that I +sopose you would laugh at. It cost six dollars and draws the sun down +to my head but I don't say anything. I have six aunts and uncles all +diferent names and ages but grown up. Uncle Peter is the most elderly, +he is twenty-five. I know becase we gave him a birthday party with a +cake. I sat at the table. I wore my crape da shine dress. You would +think that was pretty, well it is. There is a servant girl to do evry +thing even passing your food to you on a tray. I wish you could come +to visit me. I stay two months in a place and get broghut up there. +Aunt Beulah is peculiar but nice when you know her. She is stric and +at first I thought we was not going to get along. She thought I had +adenoids and I thought she dislikt me too much, but it turned out not. +I take lessons from her every morning like they give at Rogers +College, not like publick school. I have to think what I want to do a +good deal and then do it. At first she turned me loose to enjoy myself +and I could not do it, but now we have disapline which makes it all +right. My speling is weak, but uncle Peter says Stevanson could not +spel and did not care. Stevanson was the poat who wrote the birdie +with a yellow bill in the reader. I wish you would tel me if Grandma's +eye is worse and what about Grandfather's rheumatism. + +"Your fond friend, Eleanor. + +"P. S. We have a silver organ in all the rooms to have heat in. I was +afrayd of them at first." + + * * * * * + +In the letters to her grandparents, however, the undercurrent of +anxiety about the old people, which was a ruling motive in her life, +became apparent. + + * * * * * + +"Dear Grandma and Dear Grandpa," she wrote, + +"I have been here a weak now. I inclose my salary, fifteen dollars +($15.00) which I hope you will like. I get it for doing evry thing I +am told and being adoptid besides. You can tell the silectmen that I +am rich now and can support you just as good as Uncle Amos. I want +Grandpa to buy some heavy undershurts right of. He will get a couff if +he doesn't do it. Tell him to rub your arm evry night before you go to +bed, Grandma, and to have a hot soapstone for you. If you don't have +your bed hot you will get newmonia and I can't come home to take care +of you, becase my salary would stop. I like New York better now that I +have lived here some. I miss seeing you around, and Grandpa. + +"The cook cooks on a gas stove that is very funny. I asked her how it +went and she showed me it. She is going to leve, but lucky thing the +hired girl can cook till Aunt Beulah gets a nother cook as antyseptic +as this cook. In Rogers College they teach ladies to have their cook's +and hired girl's antyseptic. It is a good idear becase of sickness. I +inclose a recipete for a good cake. You can make it sating down. You +don't have to stir it much, and Grandpa can bring you the things. I +will write soon. I hope you are all right. Let me hear that you are +all right. Don't forget to put the cat out nights. I hope she is all +right, but remember the time she stole the butter fish. I miss you, +and I miss the cat around. Uncle David pays me my salary out of his +own pocket, because he is the richest, but I like Uncle Peter the +best. He is very handsome and we like to talk to each other the best. +Goodbye, Eleanor." + + * * * * * + +But it was on the varicolored pages of a ruled tablet--with a picture +on its cover of a pink cheeked young lady beneath a cherry tree, and +marked in large straggling letters also varicolored "The Cherry +Blossom Tablet"--that Eleanor put down her most sacred thoughts. On +the outside, just above the cherry tree, her name was written with a +pencil that had been many times wet to get the desired degree of +blackness, "Eleanor Hamlin, Colhassett, Massachusetts. Private Dairy," +and on the first page was this warning in the same painstaking, +heavily shaded chirography, "This book is sacrid, and not be trespased +in or read one word of. By order of owner. E. H." + +It was the private diary and Gwendolyn, the rabbit doll, and a small +blue china shepherdess given her by Albertina, that constituted +Eleanor's _lares et penates_. When David had finally succeeded in +tracing the ancient carpetbag in the lost and found department of the +cab company, Eleanor was able to set up her household gods, and draw +from them that measure of strength and security inseparable from their +familiar presence. She always slept with two of the three beloved +objects, and after Beulah had learned to understand and appreciate the +child's need for unsupervised privacy, she divined that the little +girl was happiest when she could devote at least an hour or two a day +to the transcribing of earnest sentences on the pink, blue and yellow +pages of the Cherry Blossom Tablet, and the mysterious games that she +played with the rabbit doll. That these games consisted largely in +making the rabbit doll impersonate Eleanor, while the child herself +became in turn each one of the six uncles and aunts, and exhorted the +victim accordingly, did not of course occur to Beulah. It did occur to +her that the pink, blue and yellow pages would have made interesting +reading to Eleanor's guardians, if they had been privileged to read +all that was chronicled there. + + * * * * * + +"My aunt Beulah wears her hair to high of her forrid. + +"My aunt Margaret wears her hair to slic on the sides. + +"My aunt Gertrude wears her hair just about right. + +"My aunt Margaret is the best looking, and has the nicest way. + +"My aunt Gertrude is the funniest. I never laugh at what she says, but +I have trouble not to. By thinking of Grandpa's rheumaticks I stop +myself just in time. Aunt Beulah means all right, and wants to do +right and have everybody else the same. + +"Uncle David is not handsome, but good. + +"Uncle Jimmie is not handsome, but his hair curls. + +"Uncle Peter is the most handsome man that ere the sun shown on. That +is poetry. He has beautiful teeth, and I like him. + +"Yesterday the Wordsworth Club--that's what Uncle Jimmie calls us +because he says we are seven--went to the Art Museum to edjucate me in +art. + +"Aunt Beulah wanted to take me to one room and keep me there until I +asked to come out. Uncle Jimmie wanted to show me the statures. Uncle +David said I ought to begin with the Ming period and work down to Art +Newvoo. Aunts Gertrude and Margaret wanted to take me to the room of +the great masters. While they were talking Uncle Peter and I went to +see a picture that made me cry. I asked him who she was. He said that +wasn't the important thing, that the important thing was that one man +had nailed his dream. He didn't doubt that lots of other painters had, +but this one meant the most to him. When I cried he said, 'You're all +right, Baby. You know.' Then he reached down and kissed me." + + * * * * * + +As the month progressed, it seemed to Beulah that she was making +distinct progress with the child. Since the evening when Peter had won +Eleanor's confidence and explained her mental processes, her task had +been illumined for her. She belonged to that class of women in whom +maternity arouses late. She had not the facile sympathy which accepts +a relationship without the endorsement of the understanding, and she +was too young to have much toleration for that which was not perfectly +clear to her. + +She had started in with high courage to demonstrate the value of a +sociological experiment. She hoped later, though these hopes she had +so far kept to herself, to write, or at least to collaborate with some +worthy educator, on a book which would serve as an exact guide to +other philanthropically inclined groups who might wish to follow the +example of cooperative adoption; but the first day of actual contact +with her problem had chilled her. She had put nothing down in her +note-book. She had made no scientific progress. There seemed to be no +intellectual response in the child. + +Peter had set all these things right for her. He had shown her the +child's uncompromising integrity of spirit. The keynote of Beulah's +nature was, as Jimmie said, that she "had to be shown." Peter pointed +out the fact to her that Eleanor's slogan also was, "No compromise." +As Eleanor became more familiar with her surroundings this spirit +became more and more evident. + +"I could let down the hem of these dresses, Aunt Beulah," she said one +day, looking down at the long stretch of leg protruding from the chic +blue frock that made her look like a Boutet de Monvil. "I can't hem +very good, but my stitches don't show much." + +"That dress isn't too short, dear. It's the way little girls always +wear them. Do little girls on Cape Cod wear them longer?" + +"Yes, Aunt Beulah." + +"How long do they wear them?" + +"Albertina," they had reached the point of discussion of Albertina +now, and Beulah was proud of it, "wore her dresses to her ankles, +be--because her--her legs was so fat. She said that mine was--were +getting to be fat too, and it wasn't refined to wear short dresses, +when your legs were fat." + +"There are a good many conflicting ideas of refinement in the world, +Eleanor," Beulah said. + +"I've noticed there are, since I came to New York," Eleanor answered +unexpectedly. + +Beulah's academic spirit recognized and rejoiced in the fact that with +all her docility, Eleanor held firmly to her preconceived notions. She +continued to wear her dresses short, but when she was not actually on +exhibition, she hid her long legs behind every available bit of +furniture or drapery. + +The one doubt left in her mind, of the child's initiative and +executive ability, was destined to be dissipated by the rather heroic +measures sometimes resorted to by a superior agency taking an ironic +hand in the game of which we have been too inhumanly sure. + +On the fifth week of Eleanor's stay Beulah became a real aunt, the +cook left, and her own aunt and official chaperon, little Miss +Prentis, was laid low with an attack of inflammatory rheumatism. +Beulah's excitement on these various counts, combined with +indiscretions in the matter of overshoes and overfatigue, made her an +easy victim to a wandering grip germ. She opened her eyes one morning +only to shut them with a groan of pain. There was an ache in her head +and a thickening in her chest, the significance of which she knew only +too well. She found herself unable to rise. She lifted a hoarse voice +and called for Mary, the maid, who did not sleep in the house but was +due every morning at seven. But the gentle knock on the door was +followed by the entrance of Eleanor, not Mary. + +"Mary didn't come, Aunt Beulah. I thought you was--were so tired, I'd +let you have your sleep out. I heard Miss Prentis calling, and I made +her some gruel, and I got my own breakfast." + +"Oh! how dreadful," Beulah gasped in the face of this new calamity; +"and I'm really so sick. I don't know what we'll do." + +Eleanor regarded her gravely. Then she put a professional hand on her +pulse and her forehead. + +"You've got the grip," she announced. + +"I'm afraid I have, Eleanor, and Doctor Martin's out of town, and +won't be back till to-morrow when he comes to Aunt Ann. I don't know +what we'll do." + +"I'll tend to things," Eleanor said. "You lie still and close your +eyes, and don't put your arms out of bed and get chilled." + +"Well, you'll have to manage somehow," Beulah moaned; "how, I don't +know, I'm sure. Give Aunt Annie her medicine and hot water bags, and +just let me be. I'm too sick to care what happens." + +After the door had closed on the child a dozen things occurred to +Beulah that might have been done for her. She was vaguely faint for +her breakfast. Her feet were cold. She thought of the soothing warmth +of antiphlogistine when applied to the chest. She thought of the +quinine on the shelf in the bathroom. Once more she tried lifting her +head, but she could not accomplish a sitting posture. She shivered as +a draft from the open window struck her. + +"If I could only be taken in hand this morning," she thought, "I know +it could be broken." + +The door opened softly. Eleanor, in the cook's serviceable apron of +gingham that would have easily contained another child the same size, +swung the door open with one hand and held it to accommodate the +passage of the big kitchen tray, deeply laden with a heterogeneous +collection of objects. She pulled two chairs close to the bedside and +deposited her burden upon them. Then she removed from the tray a +goblet of some steaming fluid and offered it to Beulah. + +"It's cream of wheat gruel," she said, and added ingratiatingly: "It +tastes nice in a tumbler." + +Beulah drank the hot decoction gratefully and found, to her surprise, +that it was deliciously made. + +Eleanor took the glass away from her and placed it on the tray, from +which she took what looked to Beulah like a cloth covered omelet,--at +any rate, it was a crescent shaped article slightly yellow in tone. +Eleanor tested it with a finger. + +"It's just about right," she said. Then she fixed Beulah with a stern +eye. "Open your chest," she commanded, "and show me the spot where +it's worst. I've made a meal poultice." + +Beulah hesitated only a second, then she obeyed meekly. She had never +seen a meal poultice before, but the heat on her afflicted chest was +grateful to her. Antiphlogistine was only Denver mud anyhow. Meekly, +also, she took the six grains of quinine and the weak dose of jamaica +ginger and water that she was next offered. She felt encouraged and +refreshed enough by this treatment to display some slight curiosity +when the little girl produced a card of villainous looking +safety-pins. + +"I'm going to pin you in with these, Aunt Beulah," she said, "and then +sweat your cold out of you." + +"Indeed, you're not," Beulah said; "don't be absurd, Eleanor. The +theory of the grip is--," but she was addressing merely the vanishing +hem of cook's voluminous apron. + +The child returned almost instantly with three objects of assorted +sizes that Beulah could not identify. From the outside they looked +like red flannel and from the way Eleanor handled them it was evident +that they also were hot. + +"I het--heated the flatirons," Eleanor explained, "the way I do for +Grandma, and I'm going to spread 'em around you, after you're pinned +in the blankets, and you got to lie there till you prespire, and +prespire good." + +"I won't do it," Beulah moaned, "I won't do any such thing. Go away, +child." + +"I cured Grandma and Grandpa and Mrs. O'Farrel's aunt that I worked +for, and I'm going to cure you," Eleanor said. + +"No." + +Eleanor advanced on her threateningly. + +"Put your arms under those covers," she said, "or I'll dash a glass of +cold water in your face,"--and Beulah obeyed her. + +Peter nodded wisely when Beulah, cured by these summary though +obsolete methods, told the story in full detail. Gertrude had laughed +until the invalid had enveloped herself in the last few shreds of her +dignity and ordered her out of the room, and the others had been +scarcely more sympathetic. + +"I know that it's funny, Peter," she said, "but you see, I can't help +worrying about it just the same. Of course, as soon as I was up she +was just as respectful and obedient to my slightest wish as she ever +was, but at the time, when she was lording it over me so, she--she +actually slapped me. You never saw such a--blazingly determined little +creature." + +Peter smiled,--gently, as was Peter's way when any friend of his made +an appeal to him. + +"That's all right, Beulah," he said, "don't you let it disturb you for +an instant. This manifestation had nothing to do with our experiment. +Our experiment is working fine--better than I dreamed it would ever +work. What happened to Eleanor, you know, was simply this. Some of the +conditions of her experience were recreated suddenly, and she +reverted." + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +JIMMIE BECOMES A PARENT + + +The entrance into the dining-room of the curly headed young man and +his pretty little niece, who had a suite on the eighth floor, as the +room clerk informed all inquirers, was always a matter of interest to +the residents of the Hotel Winchester. They were an extremely +picturesque pair to the eye seeking for romance and color. The child +had the pure, clear cut features of the cameo type of New England +maidenhood. She was always dressed in some striking combination of +blue, deep blue like her eyes, with blue hair ribbons. Her +good-looking young relative, with hair almost as near the color of the +sun as her own, seemed to be entirely devoted to her, which, +considering the charm of the child and the radiant and magnetic spirit +of the young man himself, was a delightfully natural manifestation. + +But one morning near the close of the second week of their stay, the +usual radiation of resilient youth was conspicuously absent from the +young man's demeanor, and the child's face reflected the gloom that +sat so incongruously on the contour of an optimist. The little girl +fumbled her menu card, but the waitress--the usual aging pedagogic +type of the small residential hotel--stood unnoticed at the young +man's elbow for some minutes before he was sufficiently aroused from +his gloomy meditations to address her. When he turned to her at last, +however, it was with the grin that she had grown to associate with +him,--the grin, the absence of which had kept her waiting behind his +chair with a patience that she was, except in a case where her +affections were involved, entirely incapable of. Jimmie's +protestations of inability to make headway with the ladies were not +entirely sincere. + +"Bring me everything on the menu," he said, with a wave of his hand in +the direction of that painstaking pasteboard. "Coffee, tea, fruit, +marmalade, breakfast food, ham and eggs. Bring my niece here the same. +That's all." With another wave of the hand he dismissed her. + +"You can't eat it all, Uncle Jimmie," Eleanor protested. + +"I'll make a bet with you," Jimmie declared. "I'll bet you a dollar +to a doughnut that if she brings it all, I'll eat it." + +"Oh! Uncle Jimmie, you know she won't bring it. You never bet so I can +get the dollar,--you never do." + +"I never bet so I can get my doughnut, if it comes to that." + +"I don't know where to buy any doughnuts," Eleanor said; "besides, +Uncle Jimmie, I don't really consider that I owe them. I never really +say that I'm betting, and you tell me I've lost before I've made up my +mind anything about it." + +"Speaking of doughnuts," Jimmie said, his face still wearing the look +of dejection under a grin worn awry, "can you cook, Eleanor? Can you +roast a steak, and saute baked beans, and stew sausages, and fry out a +breakfast muffin? Does she look like a cook to you?" he suddenly +demanded of the waitress, who was serving him, with an apologetic eye +on the menu, the invariable toast-coffee-and-three-minute-egg +breakfast that he had eaten every morning since his arrival. + +The waitress smiled toothily. "She looks like a capable one," she +pronounced. + +"I _can_ cook, Uncle Jimmie," Eleanor giggled, "but not the way you +said. You don't roast steak, or--or--" + +"Don't you?" Jimmie asked with the expression of pained surprise that +never failed to make his ward wriggle with delight. There were links +in the educational scheme that Jimmie forged better than any of the +cooperative guardians. Not even Jimmie realized the value of the +giggle as a developing factor in Eleanor's existence. He took three +swallows of coffee and frowned into his cup. "I can make coffee," he +added. "Good coffee. Well, we may as well look the facts in the face, +Eleanor. The jig's up. We're moving away from this elegant hostelry +to-morrow." + +"Are we?" Eleanor asked. + +"Yes, Kiddo. Apologies to Aunt Beulah (mustn't call you Kiddo) and the +reason is, that I'm broke. I haven't got any money at all, Eleanor, +and I don't know where I am going to get any. You see, it is this way. +I lost my job six weeks ago." + +"But you go to work every morning, Uncle Jimmie?" + +"I leave the house, that is. I go looking for work, but so far no nice +juicy job has come rolling down into my lap. I haven't told you this +before because,--well--when Aunt Beulah comes down every day to give +you your lessons I wanted it to look all O. K. I thought if you didn't +know, you couldn't forget sometime and tell her." + +"I don't tattle tale," Eleanor said. + +"I know you don't, Eleanor. It's only my doggone pride that makes me +want to keep up the bluff, but you're a game kid,--you--know. I tried +to get you switched off to one of the others till I could get on my +feet, but--no, they just thought I had stage fright. I couldn't +insist. It would be pretty humiliating to me to admit that I couldn't +support one-sixth of a child that I'd given my solemn oath to +be-parent." + +"To--to what?" + +"Be-parent, if it isn't a word, I invent it. It's awfully tough luck +for you, and if you want me to I'll own up to the crowd that I can't +swing you, but if you are willing to stick, why, we'll fix up some +kind of a way to cut down expenses and bluff it out." + +Eleanor considered the prospect. Jimmie watched her apparent +hesitation with some dismay. + +"Say the word," he declared, "and I'll tell 'em." + +"Oh! I don't want you to tell 'em," Eleanor cried. "I was just +thinking. If you could get me a place, you know, I could go out to +work. You don't eat very much for a man, and I might get my meals +thrown in--" + +"Don't, Eleanor, don't," Jimmie agonized. "I've got a scheme for us +all right. This--this embarrassment is only temporary. The day will +come when I can provide you with Pol Roge and diamonds. My father is +rich, you know, but he swore to me that I couldn't support myself, and +I swore to him that I could, and if I don't do it, I'm damned. I am +really, and that isn't swearing." + +"I know it isn't, when you mean it the way they say in the Bible." + +"I don't want the crowd to know. I don't want Gertrude to know. She +hasn't got much idea of me anyway. I'll get another job, if I can only +hold out." + +"I can go to work in a store," Eleanor cried. "I can be one of those +little girls in black dresses that runs between counters." + +"Do you want to break your poor Uncle James' heart, Eleanor,--do +you?" + +"No, Uncle Jimmie." + +"Then listen to me. I've borrowed a studio, a large barnlike studio on +Washington Square, suitably equipped with pots and pans and kettles. +Also, I am going to borrow the wherewithal to keep us going. It isn't +a bad kind of place if anybody likes it. There's one dinky little +bedroom for you and a cot bed for me, choked in bagdad. If you could +kind of engineer the cooking end of it, with me to do the dirty work, +of course, I think we could be quite snug and cozy." + +"I know we could, Uncle Jimmie," Eleanor said. "Will Uncle Peter come +to see us just the same?" + +It thus befell that on the fourteenth day of the third month of her +residence in New York, Eleanor descended into Bohemia. Having no least +suspicion of the real state of affairs--for Jimmie, like most +apparently expansive people who are given to rattling nonsense, was +actually very reticent about his own business--the other members of +the sextette did not hesitate to show their chagrin and disapproval at +the change in his manner of living. + +"The Winchester was an ideal place for Eleanor," Beulah wailed. "It's +deadly respectable and middle class, but it was just the kind of +atmosphere for her to accustom herself to. She was learning to manage +herself so prettily. This morning when I went to the studio--I wanted +to get the lessons over early, and take Eleanor to see that exhibition +of Bavarian dolls at Kuhner's--I found her washing up a trail of +dishes in that closet behind the screen--you've seen it, +Gertrude?--like some poor little scullery maid. She said that Jimmie +had made an omelet for breakfast. If he'd made fifty omelets there +couldn't have been a greater assortment of dirty dishes and kettles." + +Gertrude smiled. + +"Jimmie made an omelet for me once for which he used two dozen eggs. +He kept breaking them until he found the yolks of a color to suit him. +He said pale yolks made poor omelets, so he threw all the pale ones +away." + +"I suppose that you sat by and let him," Beulah said. "You would let +Jimmie do anything. You're as bad as Margaret is about David." + +"Or as bad as you are about Peter." + +"There we go, just like any silly, brainless girls, whose chief object +in life is the--the other sex," Beulah cried inconsistently. "Oh! I +hate that kind of thing." + +"So do I--in theory--" Gertrude answered, a little dreamily. "Where do +Jimmie and Eleanor get the rest of their meals?" + +"I can't seem to find out," Beulah said. "I asked Eleanor point-blank +this morning what they had to eat last night and where they had it, +and she said, 'That's a secret, Aunt Beulah.' When I asked her why it +was a secret and who it was a secret with, she only looked worried, +and said she guessed she wouldn't talk about it at all because that +was the only way to be safe about tattling. You know what I think--I +think Jimmie is taking her around to the cafes and all the shady +extravagant restaurants. He thinks it's sport and it keeps him from +getting bored with the child." + +"Well, that's one way of educating the young," Gertrude said, "but I +think you are wrong, Beulah." + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +ONE DESCENT INTO BOHEMIA + + +"Aunt Beulah does not think that Uncle Jimmie is bringing me up +right," Eleanor confided to the pages of her diary. "She comes down +here and is very uncomforterble. Well he is bringing me up good, in +some ways better than she did. When he swears he always puts out his +hand for me to slap him. He had enough to swear of. He can't get any +work or earn wages. The advertisement business is on the bum this year +becase times are so hard up. The advertisers have to save their money +and advertising agents are failing right and left. So poor Uncle +Jimmie can't get a place to work at. + +"The people in the other studios are very neighborly. Uncle Jimmie +leaves a sine on the door when he goes out. It says 'Don't Knock.' +They don't they come right in and borrow things. Uncle Jimmie says not +to have much to do with them, becase they are so queer, but when I am +not at home, the ladies come to call on him, and drink Moxie or +something. I know becase once I caught them. Uncle Jimmie says I shall +not have Behemiar thrust upon me by him, and to keep away from these +ladies until I grow up and then see if I like them. Aunt Beulah thinks +that Uncle Jimmie takes me around to other studios and I won't tell +but he does not take me anywhere except to walk and have ice-cream +soda, but I say I don't want it because of saving the ten cents. We +cook on an old gas stove that smells. I can't do very good +housekeeping becase things are not convenient. I haven't any oven to +do a Saturday baking in, and Uncle Jimmie won't let me do the washing. +I should feel more as if I earned my keap if I baked beans and made +boiled dinners and layer cake, but in New York they don't eat much but +hearty food and saluds. It isn't stylish to have cake and pie and +pudding all at one meal. Poor Grandpa would starve. He eats pie for +his breakfast, but if I told anybody they would laugh. If I wrote +Albertina what folks eat in New York she would laugh. + +"Uncle Jimmie is teaching me to like salud. He laughs when I cut up +lettice and put sugar on it. He teaches me to like olives and dried +up sausages and sour crought. He says it is important to be edjucated +in eating, and everytime we go to the Delicate Essenn store to buy +something that will edjucate me better. He teaches me to say 'I beg +your pardon,' and 'Polly vous Fransay?' and to courtesy and how to +enter a room the way you do in private theatricals. He says it isn't +knowing these things so much as knowing when you do them that counts, +and then Aunt Beulah complains that I am not being brought up. + +"I have not seen Uncle Peter for a weak. He said he was going away. I +miss him. I would not have to tell him how I was being brought up, and +whether I was hitting the white lights as Uncle Jimmie says.--He would +know." + + * * * * * + +Eleanor did not write Albertina during the time when she was living in +the studio. Some curious inversion of pride kept her silent on the +subject of the change in her life. Albertina would have turned up her +nose at the studio, Eleanor knew. Therefore, she would not so much as +address an envelope to that young lady from an interior which she +would have beheld with scorn. She held long conversations with +Gwendolyn, taking the part of Albertina, on the subject of this +snobbishness of attitude. + + * * * * * + +"Lots of people in New York have to live in little teny, weeny rooms, +Albertina," she would say. "Rents are perfectly awful here. This +studio is so big I get tired dusting all the way round it, and even if +it isn't furnished very much, why, think how much furnishing would +cost, and carpets and gold frames for the pictures! The pictures that +are in here already, without any frames, would sell for hundreds of +dollars apiece if the painter could get anybody to buy them. You ought +to be very thankful for such a place, Albertina, instead of feeling so +stuck up that you pick up your skirts from it." + + * * * * * + +But Albertina's superiority of mind was impregnable. Her spirit sat in +judgment on all the conditions of Eleanor's new environment. She +seemed to criticize everything. She hated the nicked, dun +dishes they ate from, and the black bottomed pots and pans that all +the energy of Eleanor's energetic little elbow could not restore to +decency again. She hated the cracked, dun walls, and the +mottled floor that no amount of sweeping and dusting seemed to make an +impression on. She hated the compromise of housekeeping in an +attic,--she who had been bred in an atmosphere of shining +nickle-plated ranges and linoleum, where even the kitchen pump gleamed +brightly under its annual coat of good green paint. She hated the +compromise, that was the burden of her complaint--either in the person +of Albertina or Gwendolyn, whether she lay in the crook of Eleanor's +arm in the lumpy bed where she reposed at the end of the day's labor, +or whether she sat bolt upright on the lumpy cot in the studio, the +broken bisque arm, which Jimmie insisted on her wearing in a sling +whenever he was present, dangling limply at her side in the relaxation +Eleanor preferred for it. + +The fact of not having adequate opportunity to keep her house in order +troubled the child, for her days were zealously planned by her +enthusiastic guardians. Beulah came at ten o'clock every morning to +give her lessons. As Jimmie's quest for work grew into a more and more +disheartening adventure, she had difficulty in getting him out of bed +in time to prepare and clear away the breakfast for Beulah's arrival. +After lunch, to which Jimmie scrupulously came home, she was supposed +to work an hour at her modeling clay. Gertrude, who was doing very +promising work at the art league, came to the studio twice a week to +give her instruction in handling it. Later in the afternoon one of the +aunts or uncles usually appeared with some scheme to divert her. +Margaret was telling her the stories of the Shakespeare plays, and +David was trying to make a card player of her, but was not succeeding +as well as if Albertina had not been brought up a hard shell Baptist, +who thought card playing a device of the devil's. Peter alone did not +come, for even when he was in town he was busy in the afternoon. + +As soon as her guests were gone, Eleanor hurried through such +housewifely tasks as were possible of accomplishment at that hour, but +the strain was telling on her. Jimmie began to realize this and it +added to his own distress. One night to save her the labor of +preparing the meal, he took her to an Italian restaurant in the +neighborhood where the food was honest and palatable, and the service +at least deft and clean. + +Eleanor enjoyed the experience extremely, until an incident occurred +which robbed her evening of its sweetness and plunged her into the +purgatory of the child who has inadvertently broken one of its own +laws. + +Among the belongings in the carpetbag, which was no more--having been +supplanted by a smart little suit-case marked with her initials--was a +certificate from the Massachusetts Total Abstinence Society, duly +signed by herself, and witnessed by the grammar-school teacher and the +secretary of the organization. On this certificate (which was +decorated by many presentations in dim black and white of +mid-Victorian domestic life, and surmounted by a collection of +scalloped clouds in which drifted three amateur looking angels amid a +crowd of more professional cherubim) Eleanor had pledged herself to +abstain from the use as a beverage of all intoxicating drinks, and +from the manufacture or traffic in them. She had also subscribed +herself as willing to make direct and persevering efforts to extend +the principles and blessings of total abstinence. + +"Red ink, Andrea," her Uncle Jimmie had demanded, as the black-eyed +waiter bent over him, "and ginger ale for the offspring." Eleanor +giggled. It was fun to be with Uncle Jimmie in a restaurant again. He +always called for something new and unexpected when he spoke of her to +the waiter, and he was always what Albertina would consider "very +comical" when he talked to him. "But stay," he added holding up an +admonitory finger, "I think we'll give the little one _eau rougie_ +this time. Wouldn't you like _eau rougie_, tinted water, Eleanor, the +way the French children drink it?" + +Unsuspectingly she sipped the mixture of water and ice and sugar, and +"red ink" from the big brown glass bottle that the glowing waiter set +before them. + +As the meal progressed Jimmie told her that the grated cheese was +sawdust and almost made her believe it. He showed her how to eat +spaghetti without cutting it and pointed out to her various Italian +examples of his object lesson; but she soon realized that in spite of +his efforts to entertain her, he was really very unhappy. + +"I've borrowed all the money I can, Angelface," he confessed finally. +"Tomorrow's the last day of grace. If I don't land that job at the +Perkins agency I'll have to give in and tell Peter and David, or wire +Dad." + +"You could get some other kind of a job," Eleanor said; "plumbing or +clerking or something." On Cape Cod the plumber and the grocer's clerk +lost no caste because of their calling. "Couldn't you?" + +"I _could_ so demean myself, and I will. I'll be a chauffeur, I can +run a car all right; but the fact remains that by to-morrow +something's got to happen, or I've got to own up to the bunch." + +Eleanor's heart sank. She tried hard to think of something to comfort +him but she could not. Jimmie mixed her more _eau rougie_ and she +drank it. He poured a full glass, undiluted, for himself, and held it +up to the light. + +"Well, here's to crime, daughter," he said. "Long may it wave, and us +with it." + +"That isn't really red ink, is it?" she asked. "It's an awfully pretty +color--like grape juice." + +"It is grape juice, my child, if we don't inquire too closely into the +matter. The Italians are like the French in the guide book, 'fond of +dancing and light wines.' This is one of the light wines they are fond +of.--Hello, do you feel sick, child? You're white as a ghost. It's the +air. As soon as I can get hold of that sacrificed waiter we'll get +out of here." + +Eleanor's sickness was of the spirit, but at the moment she was +incapable of telling him so, incapable of any sort of speech. A great +wave of faintness encompassed her. She had broken her pledge. She had +lightly encouraged a departure from the blessings and principles of +total abstinence. + +That night in her bed she made a long and impassioned apology to her +Maker for the sin of intemperance into which she had been so +unwittingly betrayed. She promised Him that she would never drink +anything that came out of a bottle again. She reviewed sorrowfully her +many arguments with Albertina--Albertina in the flesh that is--on the +subject of bottled drinks in general, and decided that again that +virtuous child was right in her condemnation of any drink, however +harmless in appearance or nomenclature, that bore the stigma of a +bottled label. + +She knew, however, that something more than a prayer for forgiveness +was required of her. She was pledged to protest against the evil that +she had seemingly countenanced. She could not seek the sleep of the +innocent until that reparation was made. Through the crack of her +sagging door she saw the light from Jimmie's reading lamp and knew +that he was still dressed, or clothed at least, with a sufficient +regard for the conventionalities to permit her intrusion. She rose and +rebraided her hair and tied a daytime ribbon on it. Then she put on +her stockings and her blue Japanese kimono--real Japanese, as Aunt +Beulah explained, made for a Japanese lady of quality--and made her +way into the studio. + +Jimmie was not sitting in the one comfortable studio chair with his +book under the light and his feet on the bamboo tea table as usual. He +was not sitting up at all. He was flung on the couch with his face +buried in the cushions, and his shoulders were shaking. Eleanor seeing +him thus, forgot her righteous purpose, forgot her pledge to +disseminate the principles and blessings of abstinence, forgot +everything but the pitiful spectacle of her gallant Uncle Jimmie in +grief. She stood looking down at him without quite the courage to +kneel at his side to give him comfort. + +"Uncle Jimmie," she said, "Uncle Jimmie." + +At the sound of her voice he put out his hand to her, gropingly, but +he did not uncover his face or shift his position. She found herself +smoothing his hair, gingerly at first, but with more and more +conviction as he snuggled his boyish head closer. + +"I'm awfully discouraged," he said in a weak muffled voice. "I'm sorry +you caught me at it, Baby." + +Eleanor put her face down close to his as he turned it to her. + +"Everything will be all right," she promised him, "everything will be +all right. You'll soon get a job--tomorrow maybe." + +Then she gathered him close in her angular, tense little arms and held +him there tightly. "Everything will be all right," she repeated +soothingly; "now you just put your head here, and have your cry out." + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +THE TEN HUTCHINSONS + + +"My Aunt Margaret has a great many people living in her family," +Eleanor wrote to Albertina from her new address on Morningside +Heights. "She has a mother and a father, and two (2) grandparents, one +(1) aunt, one (1) brother, one (1) married lady and the boy of the +lady, I think the married lady is a sister but I do not ask any one, +oh--and another brother, who does not live here only on Saturdays and +Sundays. Aunt Margaret makes ten, and they have a man to wait on the +table. His name is a butler. I guess you have read about them in +stories. I am taken right in to be one of the family, and I have a +good time every day now. Aunt Margaret's father is a college teacher, +and Aunt Margaret's grandfather looks like the father of his country. +You know who I mean George Washington. They have a piano here that +plays itself like a sewing machine. They let me do it. They have +after-dinner coffee and gold spoons to it. I guess you would like to +see a gold spoon. I did. They are about the size of the tin spoons we +had in our playhouse. I have a lot of fun with that boy too. At first +I thought he was very affected, but that is just the way they teach +him to talk. He is nine and plays tricks on other people. He dares me +to do things that I don't do, like go down-stairs and steal sugar. If +Aunt Margaret's mother was my grandma I might steal sugar or plum +cake. I don't know. Remember the time we took your mother's hermits? I +do. I would like to see you. You would think this house was quite a +grand house. It has three (3) flights of stairs and one basement. I +sleep on the top floor in a dressing room out of Aunt Margaret's only +it isn't a dressing room. I dress there but no one else can. Aunt +Margaret is pretty and sings lovely. Uncle David comes here a lot. I +must close. With love and kisses." + + * * * * * + +In her diary she recorded some of the more intimate facts of her new +existence, such facts as she instinctively guarded from Albertina's +calculating sense. + + * * * * * + +"Everybody makes fun of me here. I don't care if they do, but I can't +eat so much at the table when every one is laughing at me. They get +me to talking and then they laugh. If I could see anything to laugh +at, I would laugh too. They laugh in a refined way but they laugh. +They call me Margaret's protegay. They are good to me too. They say to +my face that I am like a merry wilkins story and too good to be true, +and New England projuces lots of real art, and I am art, I can't +remember all the things, but I guess they mean well. Aunt Margaret's +grandfather sits at the head of the table, and talks about things I +never heard of before. He knows the govoner and does not like the way +he parts his hair. I thought all govoners did what they wanted to with +their hairs or anything and people had to like it because (I used to +spell because wrong but I spell better now) they was the govoners, but +it seems not at all. + +"Aunt Margaret is lovely to me. We have good times. I meant to like +Aunt Beulah the best because she has done the most for me but I am +afrayd I don't. I would not cross my heart and say so. Aunt Margaret +gives me the lessons now. I guess I learn most as much as I learned I +mean was taught of Aunt Beulah. Oh dear sometimes I get descouraged +on account of its being such a funny world and so many diferent people +in it. And so many diferent feelings. I was afrayd of the hired +butler, but I am not now." + + * * * * * + +Eleanor had not made a direct change from the Washington Square studio +to the ample house of the Hutchinsons, and it was as well for her that +a change in Jimmie's fortunes had taken her back to the Winchester and +enabled her to accustom herself again to the amenities of gentler +living. Like all sensitive and impressionable children she took on the +color of a new environment very quickly. The strain of her studio +experience had left her a little cowed and unsure of herself, but she +had brightened up like a flower set in the cheerful surroundings of +the Winchester and under the influence of Jimmie's restored spirits. + +The change had come about on Jimmie's "last day of grace." He had +secured the coveted position at the Perkins agency at a slight advance +over the salary he had received at the old place. He had left Eleanor +in the morning determined to face becomingly the disappointment that +was in store for him, and to accept the bitter necessity of admitting +his failure to his friends. He had come back in the late afternoon +with his fortunes restored, the long weeks of humiliation wiped out, +and his life back again on its old confident and inspired footing. + +He had burst into the studio with his news before he understood that +Eleanor was not alone, and inadvertently shared the secret with +Gertrude, who had been waiting for him with the kettle alight and some +wonderful cakes from "Henri's" spread out on the tea table. The three +had celebrated by dining together at a festive down-town hotel and +going back to his studio for coffee. At parting they had solemnly and +severally kissed one another. Eleanor lay awake in the dark for a long +time that night softly rubbing the cheek that had been so caressed, +and rejoicing that the drink Uncle Jimmie had called a high-ball and +had pledged their health with so assiduously, had come out of two +glasses instead of a bottle. + +Her life at the Hutchinsons' was almost like a life on another planet. +Margaret was the younger, somewhat delicate daughter of a family of +rather strident academics. Professor Hutchinson was not dependent on +his salary to defray the expenses of his elegant establishment, but +on his father, who had inherited from his father in turn the +substantial fortune on which the family was founded. + +Margaret was really a child of the fairies, but she was considerably +more fortunate in her choice of a foster family than is usually the +fate of the foundling. The rigorous altitude of intellect in which she +was reared served as a corrective to the oversensitive quality of her +imagination. + +Eleanor, who in the more leisurely moments of her life was given to +visitations from the poetic muse, was inspired to inscribe some lines +to her on one of the pink pages of the private diary. They ran as +follows, and even Professor Hutchinson, who occupied the chair of +English in that urban community of learning that so curiously bisects +the neighborhood of Harlem, could not have designated Eleanor's +description of his daughter as one that did not describe. + + "Aunt Margaret is fair and kind, + And very good and tender. + She has a very active mind. + Her figure is quite slender. + + "She moves around the room with grace, + Her hands she puts with quickness. + Although she wears upon her face + The shadow of a sickness." + +It was this "shadow of a sickness," that served to segregate Margaret +to the extent that was really necessary for her well being. To have +shared perpetually in the almost superhuman activities of the family +might have forever dulled that delicate spirit to which Eleanor came +to owe so much in the various stages of her development. + +Margaret put her arm about the child after the ordeal of the first +dinner at the big table. + +"Father does not bite," she said, "but Grandfather does. The others +are quite harmless. If Grandfather shows his teeth, run for your +life." + +"I don't know where to run to," Eleanor answered seriously, whereupon +Margaret hugged her. Her Aunt Margaret would have been puzzling to +Eleanor beyond any hope of extrication, but for the quick imagination +that unwound her riddles almost as she presented them. For one +terrible minute Eleanor had believed that Hugh Hutchinson senior did +bite, he looked so much like some of the worst of the pictures in +Little Red Riding Hood. + +"While you are here I'm going to pretend you're my very own child," +Margaret told Eleanor that first evening, "and we'll never, never tell +anybody all the foolish games we play and the things we say to each +other. I can just barely manage to be grown up in the bosom of my +family, and when I am in the company of your esteemed Aunt Beulah, but +up here in my room, Eleanor, I am never grown up. I play with dolls." + +"Oh! do you really?" + +"I really do," Margaret said. She opened a funny old chest in the +corner of the spacious, high studded chamber. "And here are some of +the dolls that I play with." She produced a manikin dressed primly +after the manner of eighteen-thirty, prim parted hair over a small +head festooned with ringlets, a fichu, and mits painted on her +fingers. "Beulah," she said with a mischievous flash of a grimace at +Eleanor. "Gertrude,"--a dashing young brunette in riding clothes. +"Jimmie,"--a curly haired dandy. "David,"--a serious creature with a +monocle. "I couldn't find Peter," she said, "but we'll make him some +day out of cotton and water colors." + +"Oh! can you make dolls?" Eleanor cried in delight, "real dolls with +hair and different eyes?" + +"I can make pretty good ones," Margaret smiled; "manikins like +these,--a Frenchwoman taught me." + +"Oh; did she? And do you play that the dolls talk to each other as if +they was--were the persons?" + +"Do I?" Margaret assembled the four manikins into a smart little +group. The doll Beulah rose,--on her forefinger. "I can't help +feeling," mimicked Margaret in a perfect reproduction of Beulah's +earnest contralto, "that we're wasting our lives,--criminally +dissipating our forces." + +The doll Gertrude put up both hands. "I want to laugh," she cried, +"won't everybody please stop talking till I've had my laugh out. Thank +you, thank you." + +"Why, that's just like Aunt Gertrude," Eleanor said. "Her voice has +that kind of a sound like a bell, only more ripply." + +"Don't be high-brow," Jimmie's lazy baritone besought with the slight +burring of the "r's" that Eleanor found so irresistible. "I'm only a +poor hard-working, business man." + +The doll David took the floor deliberately. "We intend to devote the +rest of our lives," he said, "to the care of our beloved cooperative +orphan." On that he made a rather over mannered exit, Margaret +planting each foot down deliberately until she flung him back in his +box. "That's the kind of a silly your Aunt Margaret is," she +continued, "but you mustn't ever tell anybody, Eleanor." She clasped +the child again in one of her warm, sudden embraces, and Eleanor +squeezing her shyly in return was altogether enraptured with her new +existence. + +"But there isn't any doll for _you_, Aunt Margaret," she cried. + +"Oh! yes, there is, but I wasn't going to show her to you unless you +asked, because she's so nice. I saved the prettiest one of all to be +myself, not because I believe I'm so beautiful, but--but only because +I'd like to be, Eleanor." + +"I always pretend I'm a princess," Eleanor admitted. + +The Aunt Margaret doll was truly a beautiful creation, a little more +like Marie Antoinette than her namesake, but bearing a not +inconsiderable resemblance to both, as Margaret pointed out, +judicially analyzing her features. + +Eleanor played with the rabbit doll only at night after this. In the +daytime she looked rather battered and ugly to eyes accustomed to the +delicate finish of creatures like the French manikins, but after she +was tucked away in her cot in the passion flower dressing-room--all of +Margaret's belongings and decorations were a faint, pinky +lavender,--her dear daughter Gwendolyn, who impersonated Albertina at +increasingly rare intervals as time advanced, lay in the hollow of her +arm and received her sacred confidences and ministrations as usual. + + * * * * * + +"When my two (2) months are up here I think I should be quite sorry," +she wrote in the diary, "except that I'm going to Uncle Peter next, +and him I would lay me down and dee for, only I never get time enough +to see him, and know if he wants me to, when I live with him I shall +know. Well life is very exciting all the time now. Aunt Margaret +brings me up this way. She tells me that she loves me and that I've +got beautiful eyes and hair and am sweet. She tells me that all the +time. She says she wants to love me up enough to last because I never +had love enough before. I like to be loved. Albertina never loves any +one, but on Cape Cod nobody loves anybody--not to say so anyway. If a +man is getting married they say he _likes_ that girl he is going to +marry. In New York they act as different as they eat. The Hutchinsons +act different from anybody. They do not know Aunt Margaret has adoptid +me. Nobody knows I am adoptid but me and my aunts and uncles. Miss +Prentis and Aunt Beulah's mother when she came home and all the +bohemiar ladies and all the ten Hutchinsons think I am a little +visiting girl from the country. It is nobody's business because I am +supported out of allowances and salaries, but it makes me feel queer +sometimes. I feel like + + "'Where did you come from, baby dear, + Out of the nowhere unto the here?' + +Also I made this up out of home sweet home. + + "'Pleasures and palaces where e'er I may roam, + Be it ever so humble I wish I had a home.' + +"I like having six homes, but I wish everybody knew it. I am nothing +to be ashamed of. Speaking of homes I asked Aunt Margaret why my aunts +and uncles did not marry each other and make it easier for every one. +She said they were not going to get married. That was why they adoptid +me. 'Am I the same thing as getting married?' I ast. She said no, I +wasn't except that I was a responsibility to keep them unselfish and +real. Aunt Beulah doesn't believe in marriage. She thinks its beneth +her. Aunt Margaret doesn't think she has the health. Aunt Gertrude has +to have a career of sculpture, Uncle David has got to marry some one +his mother says to or not at all, and does not like to marry anyway. +Uncle Jimmie never saw a happy mariage yet and thinks you have a beter +time in single blesedness. Uncle Peter did not sign in the book where +they said they would adopt me and not marry. They did not want to ask +him because he had some trouble once. I wonder what kind! Well I am +going to be married sometime. I want a house to do the housework in +and a husband and a backyard full of babies. Perhaps I would rather +have a hired butler and gold spoons. I don't know yet. Of course I +would like to have time to write poetry. I can sculpture too, but I +don't want a career of it because it's so dirty." + + * * * * * + +Physically Eleanor throve exceedingly during this phase of her +existence. The nourishing food and regular living, the sympathy +established between herself and Margaret, the regime of physical +exercise prescribed by Beulah which she had been obliged guiltily to +disregard during the strenuous days of her existence in Washington +Square, all contributed to the accentuation of her material +well-being. She played with Margaret's nephew, and ran up and down +stairs on errands for her mother. She listened to the tales related +for her benefit by the old people, and gravely accepted the attentions +of the two formidable young men of the family, who entertained her +with the pianola and excerpts from classic literature and folk lore. + + * * * * * + +"The We Are Sevens meet every Saturday afternoon," she wrote--on a +yellow page this time--"usually at Aunt Beulah's house. We have tea +and lots of fun. I am examined on what I have learned but I don't mind +it much. Physically I am found to be very good by measure and waite. +My mind is developing alright. I am very bright on the subject of +poetry. They do not know whether David Copperfield had been a wise +choice for me, but when I told them the story and talked about it they +said I had took it right. I don't tell them about the love part of +Aunt Margaret's bringing up. Aunt Beulah says it would make me self +conscioush to know that I had such pretty eyes and hair. Aunt Gertrude +said 'why not mention my teeth to me, then,' but no one seemed to +think so. Aunt Beulah says not to develope my poetry because the +theory is to strengthen the weak part of the bridge, and make me do +arithmetic. 'Drill on the deficiency,' she says. Well I should think +the love part was a deficiency, but Aunt Beulah thinks love is weak +and beneath her and any one. Uncle David told me privately that he +thought I was having the best that could happen to me right now being +with Aunt Margaret. I didn't tell him that the David doll always gets +put away in the box with the Aunt Margaret doll and nobody else ever, +but I should like to have. He thinks she is the best aunt too." + + * * * * * + +Some weeks later she wrote to chronicle a painful scene in which she +had participated. + + * * * * * + +"I quarreled with the ten Hutchinsons. I am very sorry. They laughed +at me too much for being a little girl and a Cape Codder, but they +could if they wanted to, but when they laughed at Aunt Margaret for +adopting me and the tears came in her eyes I could not bare it. I did +not let the cat out of the bag, but I made it jump out. The +Grandfather asked me when I was going back to Cape Cod, and I said I +hoped never, and then I said I was going to visit Uncle Peter and Aunt +Gertrude and Uncle David next. They said 'Uncle David--do you mean +David Bolling?' and I did, so I said 'yes.' Then all the Hutchinsons +pitched into Aunt Margaret and kept laughing and saying, 'Who is this +mysterious child anyway, and how is it that her guardians intrust her +to a crowd of scatter brain youngsters for so long?' and then they +said 'Uncle David Bolling--_what_ does his mother say?' Then Aunt +Margaret got very red in the face and the tears started to come, and I +said 'I am not a mysterious child, and my Uncle David is as much my +Uncle David as they all are,' and then I said 'My Aunt Margaret has +got a perfect right to have me intrusted to her at any time, and not +to be laughed at for it,' and I went and stood in front of her and +gave her my handkercheve. + +"Well I am glad somebody has been told that I am properly adoptid, but +I am sorry it is the ten Hutchinsons who know." + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +PETER + + +Uncle Peter treated her as if she were grown up; that was the +wonderful thing about her visit to him,--if there could be one thing +about it more wonderful than another. From the moment when he ushered +her into his friendly, low ceiled drawing-room with its tiers upon +tiers of book shelves, he admitted her on terms of equality to the +miraculous order of existence that it was the privilege of her life to +share. The pink silk coverlet and the elegance of the silver coated +steampipes at Beulah's; the implacable British stuffiness at the +Winchester which had had its own stolid charm for the lineal +descendant of the Pilgrim fathers; the impressively casual atmosphere +over which the "hired butler" presided distributing after-dinner gold +spoons, these impressions all dwindled and diminished and took their +insignificant place in the background of the romance she was living +and breathing in Peter's jewel box of an apartment on Thirtieth +Street. + +Even to more sophisticated eyes than Eleanor's the place seemed to be +a realized ideal of charm and homeliness. It was one of the older +fashioned duplex apartments designed in a more aristocratic decade for +a more fastidious generation, yet sufficiently adapted to the modern +insistence on technical convenience. Peter owed his home to his +married sister, who had discovered it and leased it and settled it and +suddenly departed for a five years' residence in China with her +husband, who was as she so often described him, "a blooming +Englishman, and an itinerant banker." Peter's domestic affairs were +despatched by a large, motherly Irishwoman, whom Eleanor approved of +on sight and later came to respect and adore without reservation. + +Peter's home was a home with a place in it for her--a place that it +was perfectly evident was better with her than without her. She even +slept in the bed that Peter's sister's little girl had occupied, and +there were pictures on the walls that had been selected for her. + +She had been very glad to make her escape from the Hutchinson +household. Her "quarrel" with them had made no difference in their +relation to her. To her surprise they treated her with an increase of +deference after her outburst, and every member of the family, +excepting possibly Hugh Hutchinson senior, was much more carefully +polite to her. Margaret explained that the family really didn't mind +having their daughter a party to the experiment of cooperative +parenthood. It appealed to them as a very interesting try-out of +modern educational theory, and their own theories of the independence +of the individual modified their criticism of Margaret's secrecy in +the matter, which was the only criticism they had to make since +Margaret had an income of her own accruing from the estate of the aunt +for whom she had been named. + +"It is very silly of me to be sensitive about being laughed at," +Margaret concluded. "I've lived all my life surrounded by people +suffering from an acute sense of humor, but I never, never, never +shall get used to being held up to ridicule for things that are not +funny to me." + +"I shouldn't think you would," Eleanor answered devoutly. + +In Peter's house there was no one to laugh at her but Peter, and when +Peter laughed she considered it a triumph. It meant that there was +something she said that he liked. The welcome she had received as a +guest in his house and the wonderful evening that succeeded it were +among the epoch making hours in Eleanor's life. It had happened in +this wise. + +The Hutchinson victoria, for Grandmother Hutchinson still clung to the +old-time, stately method of getting about the streets of New York, had +left her at Peter's door at six o'clock of a keen, cool May evening. +Margaret had not been well enough to come with her, having been +prostrated by one of the headaches of which she was a frequent +victim. + +The low door of ivory white, beautifully carved and paneled, with its +mammoth brass knocker, the row of window boxes along the cornice a few +feet above it, the very look of the house was an experience and an +adventure to her. When she rang, the door opened almost instantly +revealing Peter on the threshold with his arms open. He had led her up +two short flights of stairs--ivory white with carved banisters, she +noticed, all as immaculately shining with soap and water as a Cape Cod +interior--to his own gracious drawing-room where Mrs. Finnigan was +bowing and smiling a warmhearted Irish welcome to her. It was like a +wonderful story in a book and her eyes were shining with joy as Uncle +Peter pulled out her chair and she sat down to the first meal in her +honor. The grown up box of candy at her plate, the grave air with +which Peter consulted her tastes and her preferences were all a part +of a beautiful magic that had never quite touched her before. + +She had been like a little girl in a dream passing dutifully or +delightedly through the required phases of her experience, never quite +believing in its permanence or reality; but her life with Uncle Peter +was going to be real, and her own. That was what she felt the moment +she stepped over his threshold. + +After their coffee before the open fire--she herself had had "cambric" +coffee--Peter smoked his cigar, while she curled up in silence in the +twin to his big cushioned chair and sampled her chocolates. The blue +flames skimmed the bed of black coals, and finally settled steadily at +work on them nibbling and sputtering until the whole grate was like a +basket full of molten light, glowing and golden as the hot sun when it +sinks into the sea. + +Except to offer her the ring about his slender Panatela, and to ask +her if she were happy, Peter did not speak until he had deliberately +crushed out the last spark from his stub and thrown it into the fire. +The ceremony over, he held out his arms to her and she slipped into +them as if that moment were the one she had been waiting for ever +since the white morning looked into the window of the lavender +dressing-room on Morningside Heights, and found her awake and quite +cold with the excitement of thinking of what the day was to bring +forth. + +"Eleanor," Peter said, when he was sure she was comfortably arranged +with her head on his shoulder, "Eleanor, I want you to feel at home +while you are here, really at home, as if you hadn't any other home, +and you and I belonged to each other. I'm almost too young to be your +father, but--" + +"Oh! are you?" Eleanor asked fervently, as he paused. + +"--But I can come pretty near feeling like a father to you if it's a +father you want. I lost my own father when I was a little older than +you are now, but I had my dear mother and sister left, and so I don't +know what it's like to be all alone in the world, and I can't always +understand exactly how you feel, but you must always remember that I +want to understand and that I will understand if you tell me. Will you +remember that, Eleanor?" + +"Yes, Uncle Peter," she said soberly; then perhaps for the first time +since her babyhood she volunteered a caress that was not purely +maternal in its nature. She put up a shy hand to the cheek so close to +her own and patted it earnestly. "Of course I've got my grandfather +and grandmother," she argued, "but they're very old, and not very +affectionate, either. Then I have all these new aunts and uncles +pretending," she was penetrating to the core of the matter, Peter +realized, "that they're just as good as parents. Of course, they're +just as good as they can be and they take so much trouble that it +mortifies me, but it isn't just the same thing, Uncle Peter!" + +"I know," Peter said, "I know, dear, but you must remember we mean +well." + +"I don't mean you; it isn't you that I think of when I think about my +co--co-woperative parents, and it isn't any of them specially,--it's +just the idea of--of visiting around, and being laughed at, and not +really belonging to anybody." + +Peter's arms tightened about her. + +"Oh! but you do belong, you do belong. You belong to me, Eleanor." + +"That was what I hoped you would say, Uncle Peter," she whispered. + +They had a long talk after this, discussing the past and the future; +the past few months of the experiment from Eleanor's point of view, +and the future in relation to its failures and successes. Beulah was +to begin giving her lessons again and she was to take up music with a +visiting teacher on Peter's piano. (Eleanor had not known it was a +piano at first, as she had never seen a baby grand before. Peter did +not know what a triumph it was when she made herself put the question +to him.) + +"If my Aunt Beulah could teach me as much as she does and make it as +interesting as Aunt Margaret does, I think I would make her feel very +proud of me," Eleanor said. "I get so nervous saving energy the way +Aunt Beulah says for me to that I forget all the lesson. Aunt Margaret +tells too many stories, I guess, but I like them." + +"Your Aunt Margaret is a child of God," Peter said devoutly, "in spite +of her raw-boned, intellectual family." + +"Uncle David says she's a daughter of the fairies." + +"She's that, too. When Margaret's a year or two older you won't feel +the need of a mother." + +"I don't now," said Eleanor; "only a father,--that I want you to be, +the way you promised." + +"That's done," Peter said. Then he continued musingly, "You'll find +Gertrude--different. I can't quite imagine her presiding over your +moral welfare but I think she'll be good at it. She's a good deal of a +person, you know." + +"Aunt Beulah's a good kind of person, too," Eleanor said; "she tries +hard. The only thing is that she keeps trying to make me express +myself, and I don't know what that means." + +"Let me see if I can tell you," said Peter. "Self-expression is a part +of every man's duty. Inside we are all trying to be good and true and +fine--" + +"Except the villains," Eleanor interposed. "People like Iago aren't +trying." + +"Well, we'll make an exception of the villains; we're talking of +people like us, pretty good people with the right instincts. Well +then, if all the time we're trying to be good and true and fine, we +carry about a blank face that reflects nothing of what we are feeling +and thinking, the world is a little worse off, a little duller and +heavier place for what is going on inside of us." + +"Well, how can we make it better off then?" Eleanor inquired +practically. + +"By not thinking too much about it for one thing, except to remember +to smile, by trying to be just as much at home in it as possible, by +letting the kind of person we are trying to be show through on the +outside. By gosh! I wish Beulah could hear me." + +"By just not being bashful, do you mean?" + +"That's the idea." + +"Well, when Aunt Beulah makes me do those dancing exercises, standing +up in the middle of the floor and telling me to be a flower and +express myself as a flower, does she just mean not to be bashful?" + +"Something like that: she means stop thinking of yourself and go +ahead--" + +"But how can I go ahead with her sitting there watching?" + +"I suppose I ought to tell you to imagine that you had the soul of a +flower, but I haven't the nerve." + +"You've got nerve enough to do anything," Eleanor assured him, but she +meant it admiringly, and seriously. + +"I haven't the nerve to go on with a moral conversation in which you +are getting the better of me at every turn," Peter laughed. "I'm sure +it's unintentional, but you make me feel like a good deal of an ass, +Eleanor." + +"That means a donkey, doesn't it?" + +"It does, and by jove, I believe that you're glad of it." + +"I do rather like it," said Eleanor; "of course you don't really feel +like a donkey to me. I mean I don't make you feel like one, but it's +funny just pretending that you mean it." + +"Oh! woman, woman," Peter cried. "Beulah tried to convey something of +the fact that you always got the better of every one in your modest +unassuming way, but I never quite believed it before. At any rate it's +bedtime, and here comes Mrs. Finnigan to put you to bed. Kiss me good +night, sweetheart." + +Eleanor flung her arms about his neck, in her first moment of +abandonment to actual emotional self-expression if Peter had only +known it. + +"I will never really get the better of you in my life, Uncle Peter," +she promised him passionately. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +THE OMNISCIENT FOCUS + + +One of the traditional prerogatives of an Omnipotent Power is to look +down at the activities of earth at any given moment and ascertain +simultaneously the occupation of any number of people. Thus the Arch +Creator--that Being of the Supreme Artistic Consciousness--is able to +peer into segregated interiors at His own discretion and watch the +plot thicken and the drama develop. Eleanor, who often visualized this +proceeding, always imagined a huge finger projecting into space, +cautiously tilting the roofs of the Houses of Man to allow the sweep +of the Invisible Glance. + +Granting the hypothesis of the Divine privilege, and assuming for the +purposes of this narrative the Omniscient focus on the characters most +concerned in it, let us for the time being look over the shoulder of +God and inform ourselves of their various occupations and +preoccupations of a Saturday afternoon in late June during the hour +before dinner. + +Eleanor, in her little white chamber on Thirtieth Street, was engaged +in making a pink and green toothbrush case for a going-away gift for +her Uncle Peter. To be sure she was going away with him when he +started for the Long Island beach hotel from which he proposed to +return every day to his office in the city, but she felt that a slight +token of her affection would be fitting and proper on the eve of their +joint departure. She was hurrying to get it done that she might steal +softly into the dining-room and put it on his plate undetected. Her +eyes were very wide, her brow intent and serious, and her delicate +lips lightly parted. At that moment she bore a striking resemblance to +the Botticelli head in Beulah's drawing-room that she had so greatly +admired. + +Of all the people concerned in her history, she was the most +tranquilly occupied. + +Peter in the room beyond was packing his trunk and his suit-case. At +this precise stage of his proceedings he was trying to make two +decisions, equally difficult, but concerned with widely different +departments of his consciousness. He was gravely considering whether +or not to include among his effects the photograph before him on the +dressing-table--that of the girl to whom he had been engaged from the +time he was a Princeton sophomore until her death four years +later--and also whether or not it would be worth his while to order a +new suit of white flannels so late in the season. The fact that he +finally decided against the photograph and in favor of the white +flannels has nothing to do with the relative importance of the two +matters thus engrossing him. The health of the human mind depends +largely on its ability to assemble its irrelevant and incongruous +problems in dignified yet informal proximity. When he went to his desk +it was with the double intention of addressing a letter to his tailor, +and locking the cherished photograph in a drawer; but, the letter +finished, he still held the picture in his hand and gazed down at it +mutely and when the discreet knock on his door that constituted the +announcing of dinner came, he was still sitting motionless with the +photograph propped up before him. + +Up-town, Beulah, whose dinner hour came late, was rather more +actively, though possibly not more significantly, occupied. She was +doing her best to evade the wild onslaught of a young man in glasses +who had been wanting to marry her for a considerable period, and had +now broken all bounds in a cumulative attempt to inform her of the +fact. + +Though he was assuredly in no condition to listen to reason, Beulah +was reasoning with him, kindly and philosophically, paying earnest +attention to the style and structure of her remarks as she did so. Her +emotions, as is usual on such occasions, were decidedly mixed. She was +conscious of a very real dismay at her unresponsiveness, a distress +for the acute pain from which the distraught young man seemed to be +suffering, and the thrill, which had she only known it, is the +unfailing accompaniment to the first eligible proposal of marriage. In +the back of her brain there was also, so strangely is the human mind +constituted, a kind of relief at being able to use mature logic once +more, instead of the dilute form of moral dissertation with which she +tried to adapt herself to Eleanor's understanding. + +"I never intend to marry any one," she was explaining gently. "I not +only never intend to, but I am pledged in a way that I consider +irrevocably binding never to marry,"--and that was the text from which +all the rest of her discourse developed. + +Jimmie, equally bound by the oath of celibacy, but not equally +constrained by it apparently, was at the very moment when Beulah was +so successfully repulsing the familiarity of the high cheek-boned +young man in the black and white striped tie, occupied in encouraging +a familiarity of a like nature. That is, he was holding the hand of a +young woman in the darkened corner of a drawing-room which had been +entirely unfamiliar to him ten days before, and was about to impress a +caress on lips that seemed to be ready to meet his with a certain +degree of accustomed responsiveness. That this was not a peculiarly +significant incident in Jimmie's career might have been difficult to +explain, at least to the feminine portion of the group of friends he +cared most for. + +Margaret, dressed for an academic dinner party, in white net with a +girdle of pale pink and lavender ribbons, had flung herself face +downward on her bed in reckless disregard of her finery; and because +it was hot and she was homesick for green fields and the cool +stretches of dim wooded country, had transported herself in fancy and +still in her recumbent attitude to the floor of a canoe that was +drifting down-stream between lush banks of meadow grass studded with +marsh lilies. After some interval--and shift of position--the way was +arched overhead with whispering trees, the stars came out one by one, +showing faintly between waving branches; and she perceived dimly that +a figure that was vaguely compounded of David and Peter and the +handsomest of all the young kings of Spain, had quietly taken its +place in the bow and had busied itself with the paddles,--whereupon +she was summoned to dinner, where the ten Hutchinsons and their guests +were awaiting her. + +David, the only member of the group whose summer vacation had actually +begun, was sitting on the broad veranda of an exclusive country club +several hundreds of miles away from New York and looking soberly into +the eyes of a blue ribbon bull dog, whose heavy jowl rested on his +knees. His mother, in one of the most fashionable versions of the +season's foulards, sleekly corseted and coifed, was sitting less than +a hundred yards away from him, fanning herself with three inches of +hand woven fan and contemplating David. In the dressing-room above, +just alighted from a limousine de luxe, was a raven-haired, +crafty-eyed ingenue (whose presence David did not suspect or he would +have recollected a sudden pressing engagement out of her vicinity), +preening herself for conquest. David's mind, unlike the minds of the +"other gifted members of the We Are Seven Club," to quote Jimmie's +most frequent way of referring to them, was to all intents and +purposes a total blank. He answered monosyllabically his mother's +questions, patted the dog's beetling forehead and thought of nothing +at all for practically forty-five minutes. Then he rose, and offering +his arm to his mother led her gravely to the table reserved for him in +the dining-room. + +Gertrude, in her studio at the top of the house in Fifty-sixth Street +where she lived with her parents, was putting the finishing touches on +a faun's head; and a little because she had unconsciously used +Jimmie's head for her model, and a little because of her conscious +realization at this moment that the roughly indicated curls over the +brow were like nobody's in the world but Jimmie's, she was thinking of +him seriously. She was thinking also of the dinner on a tray that +would presently be brought up to her, since her mother and father were +out of town, and of her coming two months with Eleanor and her recent +inspiration concerning them. + +In Colhassett, Cape Cod, Massachusetts, the dinner hour and even the +supper hour were long past. In the commodious kitchen of Eleanor's +former home two old people were sitting in calico valanced rockers, +one by either window. The house was a pleasant old colonial structure, +now badly run down but still marked with that distinction that only +the instincts of aristocracy can bestow upon a decaying habitation. + +A fattish child made her way up the walk, toeing out unnecessarily, +and let herself in by the back door without knocking. + +"Hello, Mis' Chase and Mr. Amos," she said, seating herself in a +straight backed, yellow chair, and swinging her crossed foot +nonchalantly, "I thought I would come in to inquire about Eleanor. Ma +said that she heard that she was coming home to live again. Is she, +Mr. Amos?" + +Albertina was not a peculiar favorite of Eleanor's grandfather. Amos +Chase had ideas of his own about the proper bringing up of children, +and the respect due from them to their elders. Also Albertina's father +had come from "poor stock." There was a strain of bad blood in her. +The women of the Weston families hadn't always "behaved themselves." +He therefore answered this representative of the youngest generation +rather shortly. + +"I don't know nothing about it," he said. + +"Why, father," the querulous old voice of Grandmother Chase protested, +"you know she's comin' home somewhere 'bout the end of July, she and +one of her new aunties and a hired girl they're bringing along to do +the work. I don't see why you can't answer the child's question." + +"I don't know as I'm obligated to answer any questions that anybody +sees fit to put to me." + +"Well, I _be_. Albertina, pass me my glasses from off the +mantel-tree-shelf, and that letter sticking out from behind the clock +and I'll read what she says." + +Albertina, with a reproachful look at Mr. Amos, who retired coughing +exasperatedly behind a paper that he did not read, allowed herself to +be informed through the medium of a letter from Gertrude and a +postscript from Eleanor of the projected invasion of the Chase +household. + +"I should think you'd rather have Eleanor come home by herself than +bringing a strange woman and a hired girl," Albertina contributed a +trifle tartly. The distinction of a hired girl in the family was one +which she had long craved on her own account. + +"All nonsense, I call it," the old man ejaculated. + +"Well, Eleena, she writes that she can't get away without one of 'em +comin' along with her and I guess we can manage someways. I dunno what +work city help will make in this kitchen. You can't expect much from +city help. They ain't clean like home folks. I shall certainly be +dretful pleased to see Eleena, and so will her grandpa--in spite o' +the way he goes on about it." + +A snort came from the region of the newspaper. + +"I shouldn't think you'd feel as if you had a grandchild now that six +rich people has adopted her," Albertina suggested helpfully. + +"It's a good thing for the child," her grandmother said. "I'm so lame +I couldn't do my duty by her. Old folks is old folks, and they can't +do for others like young ones. I'd d'ruther have had her adopted by +one father and mother instead o' this passel o' young folks passing +her around among themselves, but you can't have what you'd d'ruther +have in this world. You got to take what comes and be thankful." + +"Did she write you about having gold coffee spoons at her last place?" +Albertina asked. "I think they was probably gilded over like ice-cream +spoons, and she didn't know the difference. I guess she has got a lot +of new clothes. Well, I'll have to be getting along. I'll come in +again." + +At the precise moment that the door closed behind Albertina, the clock +in Peter Stuyvesant's apartment in New York struck seven and Eleanor, +in a fresh white dress and blue ribbons, slipped into her chair at the +dinner table and waited with eyes blazing with excitement for Peter to +make the momentous discovery of the gift at his plate. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +GERTRUDE HAS TROUBLE WITH HER BEHAVIOR + + +"Dear Uncle Peter," Eleanor wrote from Colhassett when she had been +established there under the new regime for a week or more. "I slapped +Albertina's face. I am very awfully sorry, but I could not help it. +Don't tell Aunt Margaret because it is so contrary to her teachings +and also the golden rule, but she was more contrary to the golden rule +that I was. I mean Albertina. What do you think she said? She said +Aunt Gertrude was homely and an old maid, and the hired girl was +homely too. Well, I think she is, but I am not going to have Albertina +think so. Aunt Gertrude is pretty with those big eyes and ink like +hair and lovely teeth and one dimple. Albertina likes hair fuzzed all +over faces and blonds. Then she said she guessed I wasn't your +favorite, and that the gold spoons were most likely tin gilded over. I +don't know what you think about slapping. Will you please write and +say what you think? You know I am anxsuch to do well. But I think I +know as much as Albertina about some things. She uster treat me like a +dog, but it is most a year now since I saw her before. + +"Well, here we are, Aunt Gertrude and me, too. Grandpa did not like +her at first. She looked so much like summer folks, and acted that +way, too. He does not agree with summer folks, but she got him talking +about foreign parts and that Spanish girl that made eyes at him, and +nearly got him away from Grandma, and the time they were wrecked going +around the horn, and showing her dishes and carvings from China. Now +he likes her first rate. She laughs all the time. Grandma likes her +too, but not when Grandpa tells her about that girl in Spain. + +"We eat in the dining-room, and have lovely food, only Grandpa does +not like it, but we have him a pie now for breakfast,--his own pie +that he can eat from all the time and he feels better. Aunt Gertrude +is happy seeing him eat it for breakfast and claps her hands when he +does it, only he doesn't see her. + +"She is teaching me more manners, and to swim, and some French. It is +vacation and I don't have regular lessons, the way I did while we +were on Long Island. + +"Didn't we have a good time in that hotel? Do you remember the night I +stayed up till ten o'clock and we sat on the beach and talked? I do. I +love you very much. I think it is nice to love anybody. Only I miss +you. I would miss you more if I believed what Albertina said about my +not being your favorite. I am. + +"I wish you could come down here. Uncle Jimmie is coming and then I +don't know what Albertina will say. + +"About teaching me. Aunt Gertrude's idea of getting me cultivated is +to read to me from the great Masters of literature and funny books +too, like Mark Twain and the Nonsense Thology. Then I say what I think +of them, and she just lets me develop along those lines, which is +pretty good for summer. + +"Here is a poem I wrote. I love you best. + + "The sun and wind are on the sea, + The waves are clear and blue, + This is the place I like to be, + If I could just have you. + + "The insects chirrup in the grass, + The birds sing in the tree, + And oh! how quick the time would pass + If you were here with me." + +"What do you think of slapping, Aunt Gertrude?" Eleanor asked one +evening when they were walking along the hard beach that the receding +tide had left cool and firm for their pathway, and the early moon had +illumined for them. "Do you think it's awfully bad to slap any one?" + +"I wouldn't slap you, if that's what you mean, Eleanor." + +"Would you slap somebody your own size and a little bigger?" + +"I might under extreme provocation." + +"I thought perhaps you would," Eleanor sighed with a gasp of relieved +satisfaction. + +"I don't believe in moral suasion entirely, Eleanor," Gertrude tried +to follow Eleanor's leads, until she had in some way satisfied the +child's need for enlightenment on the subject under discussion. It was +not always simple to discover just what Eleanor wanted to know, but +Gertrude had come to believe that there was always some excellent +reason for her wanting to know it. "I think there are some quarrels +that have to be settled by physical violence." + +Eleanor nodded. Then, + +"What about refinement?" she asked unexpectedly. "I want to bring +myself up good when--when all of my aunts and uncles are too busy, or +don't know. I want to grow up, and be ladylike and a credit, and I'm +getting such good culture that I think I ought to, but--I get worried +about my refinement. City refinement is different from country +refinement." + +"Refinement isn't a thing that you can worry about," Gertrude began +slowly. She realized perhaps better than any of the others, being a +better balanced, healthier creature than either Beulah or Margaret, +that there were serious defects in the scheme of cooperative +parentage. Eleanor, thanks to the overconscientious digging about her +roots, was acquiring a New England self-consciousness about her +processes. A child, Gertrude felt, should be handed a code ready made +and should be guided by it without question until his maturer +experience led him to modify it. The trouble with trying to explain +this to Eleanor was that she had already had too many things +explained to her, and the doctrine of unselfconsciousness can not be +inculcated by an exploitation of it. "If you are naturally a fine +person your instinct will be to do the fine thing. You must follow it +when you feel the instinct and not think about it between times." + +"That's Uncle Peter's idea," Eleanor said, "that not thinking. Well, +I'll try--but you and Uncle Peter didn't have six different parents +and a Grandpa and Grandma and Albertina all criticizing your +refinement in different ways. Don't you ever have any trouble with +your behavior, Aunt Gertrude?" + +Gertrude laughed. The truth was that she was having considerable +trouble with her behavior since Jimmie's arrival two days before. She +had thought to spend her two months with Eleanor on Cape Cod helping +the child to relate her new environment to her old, while she had the +benefit of her native air and the freedom of a rural summer. She also +felt that one of their number ought to have a working knowledge of +Eleanor's early surroundings and habits. She had meant to put herself +and her own concerns entirely aside. If she had a thought for any one +but Eleanor she meant it to be for the two old people whose guest she +had constituted herself. She explained all this to Jimmie a day or two +before her departure, and to her surprise he had suggested that he +spend his own two vacation weeks watching the progress of her +experiment. Before she was quite sure of the wisdom of allowing him to +do so she had given him permission to come. Jimmie was part of her +trouble. Her craving for isolation and undiscovered country; her +eagerness to escape with her charge to some spot where she would not +be subjected to any sort of familiar surveillance, were all a part of +an instinct to segregate herself long enough to work out the problem +of Jimmie and decide what to do about it. This she realized as soon as +he arrived on the spot. She realized further that she had made +practically no progress in the matter, for this curly headed young +man, bearing no relation to anything that Gertrude had decided a young +man should be, was rapidly becoming a serious menace to her peace of +mind, and her ideal of a future lived for art alone. She had +definitely begun to realize this on the night when Jimmie, in his +exuberance at securing his new job, had seized her about the waist and +kissed her on the lips. She had thought a good deal about that kiss, +which came dangerously near being her first one. She was too clever, +too cool and aloof, to have had many tentative love-affairs. Later, as +she softened and warmed and gathered grace with the years she was +likely to seem more alluring and approachable to the gregarious male. +Now she answered her small interlocutor truthfully. + +"Yes, Eleanor, I do have a whole lot of trouble with my behavior. I'm +having trouble with it today, and this evening," she glanced up at the +moon, which was seemingly throwing out conscious waves of effulgence, +"I expect to have more," she confessed. + +"Oh! do you?" asked Eleanor, "I'm sorry I can't sit up with you then +and help you. You--you don't expect to be--provocated to _slap_ +anybody, do you?" + +"No, I don't, but as things are going I almost wish I did," Gertrude +answered, not realizing that before the evening was over there would +be one person whom she would be ruefully willing to slap several times +over. + +As they turned into the village street from the beach road they met +Jimmie, who had been having his after-dinner pipe with Grandfather +Amos, with whom he had become a prime favorite. With him was +Albertina, toeing out more than ever and conversing more than +blandly. + +"This virtuous child has been urging me to come after Eleanor and +remind her that it is bedtime," Jimmie said, indicating the pink +gingham clad figure at his side. "She argues that Eleanor is some six +months younger than she and ought to be in bed first, and personally +she has got to go in the next fifteen minutes." + +"It's pretty hot weather to go to bed in," Albertina said. "Miss +Sturgis, if I can get my mother to let me stay up half an hour more, +will you let Eleanor stay up?" + +Just beyond her friend, in the shadow of her ample back, Eleanor was +making gestures intended to convey the fact that sitting up any longer +was abhorrent to her. + +"Eleanor needs her sleep to-night, I think," Gertrude answered, +professionally maternal. + +"I brought Albertina so that our child might go home under convoy, +while you and I were walking on the beach," Jimmie suggested. + +As the two little girls fell into step, the beginning of their +conversation drifted back to the other two, who stood watching them +for a moment. + +"I thought I'd come over to see if you was willing to say you were +sorry," Albertina began. "My face stayed red in one spot for two hours +that day after you slapped me." + +"I'm not sorry," Eleanor said ungraciously, "but I'll say that I am, +if you've come to make up." + +"Well, we won't say any more about it then," Albertina conceded. "Are +Miss Sturgis and Mr. Sears going together, or are they just friends?" + +"Isn't that Albertina one the limit?" Jimmie inquired, with a piloting +hand under Gertrude's elbow. "She told me that she and Eleanor were +mad, but she didn't want to stay mad because there was more going on +over here than there was at her house and she liked to come over." + +"I'm glad Eleanor slapped her," Gertrude said; "still I'm sorry our +little girl has uncovered the clay feet of her idol. She's through +with Albertina for good." + +"Do you know, Gertrude," Jimmy said, as they set foot on the +glimmering beach, "you don't seem a bit natural lately. You used to be +so full of the everlasting mischief. Every time you opened your mouth +I dodged for fear of being spiked. Yet here you are just as docile as +other folks." + +"Don't you like me--as well?" Gertrude tried her best to make her +voice sound as usual. + +"Better," Jimmie swore promptly; then he added a qualifying--"I +guess." + +"Don't you know?" But she didn't allow him the opportunity to answer. +"I'm in a transition period, Jimmie," she said. "I meant to be such a +good parent to Eleanor and correct all the evil ways into which she +has fallen as a result of all her other injudicious training, and, +instead of that, I'm doing nothing but think of myself and my own +hankerings and yearnings and such. I thought I could do so much for +the child." + +"That's the way we all think till we tackle her and then we find it +quite otherwise and even more so. Tell me about your hankerings and +yearnings." + +"Tell me about your job, Jimmie." + +And for a little while they found themselves on safe and familiar +ground again. Jimmie's new position was a very satisfactory one. He +found himself associated with men of solidity and discernment, and for +the first time in his business career he felt himself appreciated and +stimulated by that appreciation to do his not inconsiderable best. +Gertrude was the one woman--Eleanor had not yet attained the inches +for that classification--to whom he ever talked business. + +"Now, at last, I feel that I've got my feet on the earth, Gertrude; as +if the stuff that was in me had a chance to show itself, and you don't +know what a good feeling that is after you've been marked trash by +your family and thrown into the dust heap." + +"I'm awfully glad, Jimmie." + +"I know you are, 'Trude. You're an awfully good pal. It isn't +everybody I'd talk to like this. Let's sit down." + +The moonlight beat down upon them in floods of sentient palpitating +glory. Little breathy waves sought the shore and whispered to it. The +pines on the breast of the bank stirred softly and tenderly. + +"Lord, what a night," Jimmie said, and began burying her little white +hand in the beach sand. His breath was not coming quite evenly. "Now +tell me about your job," he said. + +"I don't think I want to talk about my job tonight." + +"What do you want to talk about?" + +"I don't know." There was no question about her voice sounding as +usual this time. + +Jimmie brushed the sand slowly away from the buried hand and covered +it with his own. He drew nearer, his face close, and closer to hers. +Gertrude closed her eyes. It was coming, it was coming and she was +glad. That silly old vow of celibacy, her silly old thoughts about +art. What was art? What was anything with the arms of the man you +loved closing about you. His lips were on hers. + +Jimmie drew a sharp breath, and let her go. + +"Gertrude," he said, "I'm incorrigible. I ought to be spanked. I'd +make love to--Eleanor's grandmother if I had her down here on a night +like this. Will you forgive me?" + +Gertrude got to her feet a little unsteadily, but she managed a +smile. + +"It's only the moon," she said, "and--and young blood. I think +Grandfather Amos would probably affect me the same way." + +Jimmie's momentary expression of blankness passed and Gertrude did not +press her advantage. They walked home in silence. + +"It's awfully companionable to realize that you also are human, +'Trude," he hazarded on the doorstep. + +Gertrude put a still hand into his, which is a way of saying "Good +night," that may be more formal than any other. + +"The Colonel's lady, and July O'Grady," she quoted lightly. "Good +night, Jimmie." + +Up-stairs in her great chamber under the eaves, Eleanor was composing +a poem which she copied carefully on a light blue page of her private +diary. It read as follows: + + "To love, it is the saddest thing, + When friendship proves unfit, + For lots of sadness it will bring, + When e'er you think of it. + + Alas! that friends should prove untrue + And disappoint you so. + Because you don't know what to do, + And hardly where to go." + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +MADAM BOLLING + + +"Is this the child, David?" + +"Yes, mother." + +Eleanor stared impassively into the lenses of Mrs. Bolling's +lorgnette. + +"This is my mother, Eleanor." + +Eleanor courtesied as her Uncle Jimmie had taught her, but she did not +take her eyes from Mrs. Bolling's face. + +"Not a bad-looking child. I hate this American fashion of dressing +children like French dolls, in bright colors and smart lines. The +English are so much more sensible. An English country child would have +cheeks as red as apples. How old are you?" + +"Eleven years old my next birthday." + +"I should have thought her younger, David. Have her call me madam. It +sounds better." + +"Very well, mother. I'll teach her the ropes when the strangeness +begins to wear off. This kind of thing is all new to her, you know." + +"She looks it. Give her the blue chamber and tell Mademoiselle to +take charge of her. You say you want her to have lessons for so many +hours a day. Has she brains?" + +"She's quite clever. She writes verses, she models pretty well, +Gertrude says. It's too soon to expect any special aptitude to +develop." + +"Well, I'm glad to discover your philanthropic tendencies, David. I +never knew you had any before, but this seems to me a very doubtful +undertaking. You take a child like this from very plain surroundings +and give her a year or two of life among cultivated and well-to-do +people, just enough for her to acquire a taste for extravagant living +and associations. Then what becomes of her? You get tired of your +bargain. Something else comes on the docket. You marry--and then what +becomes of your protegee? She goes back to the country, a thoroughly +unsatisfied little rustic, quite unfitted to be the wife of the farmer +for whom fate intended her." + +"I wish you wouldn't, mother," David said, with an uneasy glance at +Eleanor's pale face, set in the stoic lines he remembered so well from +the afternoon of his first impression of her. "She's a sensitive +little creature." + +"Nonsense. It never hurts anybody to have a plain understanding of his +position in the world. I don't know what foolishness you romantic +young people may have filled her head with. It's just as well she +should hear common sense from me and I intend that she shall." + +"I've explained to you, mother, that this child is my legal and moral +responsibility and will be partly at least under my care until she +becomes of age. I want her to be treated as you'd treat a child of +mine if I had one. If you don't, I can't have her visit us again. I +shall take her away with me somewhere. Bringing her home to you this +time is only an experiment." + +"She'll have a much more healthful and normal experience with us than +she's had with any of the rest of your violent young set, I'll be +bound. She'll probably be useful, too. She can look out for Zaidee--I +never say that name without irritation--but it's the only name the +little beast will answer to. Do you like dogs, child?" + +Eleanor started at the suddenness of the question, but did not reply +to it. Mrs. Bolling waited and David looked at her expectantly. + +"My mother asked you if you liked dogs, Eleanor; didn't you +understand?" + +Eleanor opened her lips as if to speak and then shut them again +firmly. + +"Your protegee is slightly deaf, David," his mother assured him. + +"You can tell her 'yes,'" Eleanor said unexpectedly to David. "I like +dogs, if they ain't treacherous." + +"She asked you the question," David said gravely; "this is her house, +you know. It is she who deserves consideration in it." + +"Why can't I talk to you about her, the way she does about me?" +Eleanor demanded. "She can have consideration if she wants it, but she +doesn't think I'm any account. Let her ask you what she wants and I'll +tell you." + +"Eleanor," David remonstrated, "Eleanor, you never behaved like this +before. I don't know what's got into her, mother." + +"She merely hasn't any manners. Why should she have?" + +Eleanor fixed her big blue eyes on the lorgnette again. + +"If it's manners to talk the way you do to your own children and +strange little girls, why, then I don't want any," she said. "I guess +I'll be going," she added abruptly and turned toward the door. + +David took her by the shoulders and brought her right about face. + +"Say good-by to mother," he said sternly. + +"Good-by, ma'am--madam," Eleanor said and courtesied primly. + +"Tell Mademoiselle to teach her a few things before the next audience, +David, and come back to me in fifteen minutes. I have something +important to talk over with you." + +David stood by the open door of the blue chamber half an hour later +and watched Eleanor on her knees, repacking her suit-case. Her face +was set in pale determined lines, and she looked older and a little +sick. Outside it was blowing a September gale, and the trees were +waving desperate branches in the wind. David had thought that the +estate on the Hudson would appeal to the little girl. It had always +appealed to him so much, even though his mother's habits of migration +with the others of her flock at the different seasons had left him so +comparatively few associations with it. He had thought she would like +the broad sweeping lawns and the cherubim fountain, the apple orchard +and the kitchen garden, and the funny old bronze dog at the end of the +box hedge. When he saw how she was occupied, he understood that it was +not her intention to stay and explore these things. + +"Eleanor," he said, stepping into the room suddenly, "what are you +doing with your suit-case? Didn't Mademoiselle unpack it for you?" He +was close enough now to see the signs of tears she had shed. + +"Yes, Uncle David." + +"Why are you packing it again?" + +Her eyes fell and she tried desperately to control a quivering lip. + +"Because I am--I want to go back." + +"Back where?" + +"To Cape Cod." + +"Why, Eleanor?" + +"I ain't wanted," she said, her head low. "I made up my mind to go +back to my own folks. I'm not going to be adopted any more." + +David led her to the deep window-seat and made her sit facing him. He +was too wise to attempt a caress with this issue between them. + +"Do you think that's altogether fair to me?" he asked presently. + +"I guess it won't make much difference to you. Something else will +come along." + +"Do you think it will be fair to your other aunts and uncles who have +given so much care and thought to your welfare?" + +"They'll get tired of their bargain." + +"If they do get tired of their bargain it will be because they've +turned out to be very poor sports. I've known every one of them a long +time, and I've never known them to show any signs of poor +sportsmanship yet. If you run away without giving them their chance to +make good, it will be you who are the poor sport." + +"She said you would marry and get tired of me, and I would have to go +back to the country. If you marry and Uncle Jimmie marries--then Uncle +Peter will marry, and--" + +"You'd still have your Aunts Beulah and Margaret and Gertrude," David +could not resist making the suggestion. + +"They could do it, too. If one person broke up the vow, I guess they +all would. Misfortunes never come singly." + +"But even if we did, Eleanor, even if we all married, we'd still +regard you as our own, our child, our charge." + +"_She_ said you wouldn't." The tears came now, and David gathered the +little shaking figure to his breast. "I don't want to be the wife of +the farmer for whom fate intended me," she sobbed. "I want to marry +somebody refined with extravagant living and associations." + +"That's one of the things we are bringing you up for, my dear." This +aspect of the case occurred to David for the first time, but he +realized its potency. "You mustn't take mother too seriously. Just +jolly her along a little and you'll soon get to be famous friends. +She's never had any little girls of her own, only my brother and me, +and she doesn't know quite how to talk to them." + +"The Hutchinsons had a hired butler and gold spoons, and they didn't +think I was the dust beneath their feet. I don't know what to say to +her. I said ain't, and I wasn't refined, and I'll only just be a +disgrace to you. I'd rather go back to Cape Cod, and go out to work, +and stand Albertina and everything." + +"If you think it's the square thing to do," David said slowly, "you +may go, Eleanor. I'll take you to New York to-morrow and get one of +the girls to take you to Colhassett. Of course, if you do that it will +put me in rather an awkward position. The others have all had you for +two months and made good on the proposition. I shall have to admit +that I couldn't even keep you with me twenty-four hours. Peter and +Jimmie got along all right, but I couldn't handle you at all. As a +cooperative parent, I'm such a failure that the whole experiment goes +to pieces through me." + +"Not you--her." + +"Well, it's the same thing,--you couldn't stand the surroundings I +brought you to. You couldn't even be polite to my mother for my +sake." + +"I--never thought of that, Uncle David." + +"Think of it now for a few minutes, won't you, Eleanor?" + +The rain was beginning to lash the windows, and to sweep the lawn in +long slant strokes. The little girl held up her face as if it could +beat through the panes on it. + +"I thought," she said slowly, "that after Albertina I wouldn't _take_ +anything from anybody. Uncle Peter says that I'm just as good as +anybody, even if I have been out to work. He said that all I had to do +was just to stand up to people." + +"There are a good many different ways of standing up to people, +Eleanor. Be sure you've got the right way and then go ahead." + +"I guess I ought to have been politer," Eleanor said slowly. "I ought +to have thought that she was your own mother. You couldn't help the +way she acted, o' course." + +"The way you acted is the point, Eleanor." + +Eleanor reflected. + +"I'll act different if you want me to, Uncle David," she said, "and I +won't go and leave you." + +"That's my brave girl. I don't think that I altogether cover myself +with glory in an interview with my mother," he added. "It isn't the +thing that I'm best at, I admit." + +"You did pretty good," Eleanor consoled him. "I guess she makes you +kind of bashful the way she does me," from which David gathered with +an odd sense of shock that Eleanor felt there was something to +criticize in his conduct, if she had permitted herself to look for +it. + +"I know what I'll do," Eleanor decided dreamily with her nose against +the pane. "I'll just pretend that she's Mrs. O'Farrel's aunt, and then +whatever she does, I shan't care. I'll know that I'm the strongest and +could hit her if I had a mind to, and then I shan't want to." + +David contemplated her gravely for several seconds. + +"By the time you grow up, Eleanor," he said finally, "you will have +developed all your cooperative parents into fine strong characters. +Your educational methods are wonderful." + + * * * * * + +"The dog got nearly drownded today in the founting," Eleanor wrote. +"It is a very little dog about the size of Gwendolyn. It was out with +Mademoiselle, and so was I, learning French on a garden seat. It +teetered around on the edge of the big wash basin--the founting looks +like a wash basin, and suddenly it fell in. I waded right in and got +it, but it slipped around so I couldn't get it right away. It looked +almost too dead to come to again, but I gave it first aid to the +drownded the way Uncle Jimmie taught me to practicing on Gwendolyn. +When I got it fixed I looked up and saw Uncle David's mother coming. I +took the dog and gave it to her. I said, 'Madam, here's your dog.' +Mademoiselle ran around ringing her hands and talking about it. Then I +went up to Mrs. Bolling's room, and we talked. I told her how to make +mustard pickles, and how my mother's grandpa's relation came over in +the Mayflower, and about our single white lilac bush, and she's going +to get one and make the pickles. Then I played double Canfield with +her for a while. I'm glad I didn't go home before I knew her better. +When she acts like Mrs. O'Farrel's aunt I pretend she is her, and we +don't quarrel. She says does Uncle David go much to see Aunt Beulah, +and I say, not so often as Uncle Jimmie does. Then she says does he go +to see Aunt Margaret, and I say that he goes to see Uncle Peter the +most. Well, if he doesn't he almost does. You can't tell Mrs. Madam +Bolling that you won't tattle, because she would think the worst." + + * * * * * + +Eleanor grew to like Mademoiselle. She was the aging, rather wry +faced Frenchwoman who had been David's young brother's governess and +had made herself so useful to Mrs. Bolling that she was kept always on +the place, half companion and half resident housekeeper. She was glad +to have a child in charge again, and Eleanor soon found that her +crooked features and severe high-shouldered back that had somewhat +intimidated her at first, actually belonged to one of the kindest +hearted creatures in the world. + +Paris and Colhassett bore very little resemblance to each other, the +two discovered. To be sure there were red geraniums every alternating +year in the gardens of the Louvre, and every year in front of the +Sunshine Library in Colhassett. The residents of both places did a +great deal of driving in fine weather. In Colhassett they drove on the +state highway, recently macadamized to the dismay of the taxpayers who +did not own horses or automobiles. In Paris they drove out to the Bois +by way of the Champs Elysees. In Colhassett they had only one +ice-cream saloon, but in Paris they had a good many of them +out-of-doors in the parks and even on the sidewalk, and there you +could buy all kinds of sirups and 'what you call cordials' and +_aperitifs_; but the two places on the whole were quite different. The +people were different, too. The people of Colhassett were all +religious and thought it was sinful to play cards on Sundays. +Mademoiselle said she always felt wicked when she played them on a +week day. + +"I think of my mother," she said; "she would say 'Juliette, what will +you say to the Lord when he knows that you have been playing cards on +a working day. Playing cards is for Sunday.'" + +"The Lord that they have in Colhassett is not like that," Eleanor +stated without conscious irreverence. + +"She is a vary fonny child, madam," Mademoiselle answered Mrs. +Bolling's inquiry. "She has taste, but no--experience even of the most +ordinary. She cooks, but she does no embroidery. She knits and knows +no games to play. She has a good brain, but Mon Dieu, no one has +taught her to ask questions with it." + +"She has had lessons this year from some young Rogers graduates, very +intelligent girls. I should think a year of that kind of training +would have had its effect." Mrs. Bolling's finger went into every pie +in her vicinity with unfailing direction. + +"Lessons, yes, but no teaching. If she were not vary intelligent I +think she would have suffered for it. The public schools they did +somesing, but so little to elevate--to encourage." + +Thus in a breath were Beulah's efforts as an educator disposed of. + +"Would you like to undertake the teaching of that child for a year?" +Mrs. Bolling asked thoughtfully. + +"Oh! but yes, madam." + +"I think I'll make the offer to David." + +Mrs. Bolling was unsympathetic but she was thorough. She liked to see +things properly done. Since David and his young friends had undertaken +a venture so absurd, she decided to lend them a helping hand with it. +Besides, now that she had no children of her own in the house, +Mademoiselle was practically eating her head off. Also it had +developed that David was fond of the child, so fond of her that to +oppose that affection would have been bad policy, and Mrs. Bolling was +politic when she chose to be. She chose to be politic now, for +sometime during the season she was going to ask a very great favor of +David, and she hoped, that by first being extraordinarily complaisant +and kind and then by bringing considerable pressure to bear upon him, +he would finally do what he was asked. The favor was to provide +himself with a father-in-law, and that father-in-law the +multi-millionaire parent of the raven-haired, crafty-eyed ingenue, who +had begun angling for him that June night at the country club. + +She made the suggestion to David on the eve of the arrival of all of +Eleanor's guardians for the week-end. Mrs. Bolling had invited a +house-party comprised of the associated parents as a part of her +policy of kindness before the actual summoning of her forces for the +campaign she was about to inaugurate. + +David was really touched by his mother's generosity concerning +Eleanor. He had been agreeably surprised at the development of the +situation between the child and his mother. He had been obliged to go +into town the day after Eleanor's first unfortunate encounter with her +hostess, and had hurried home in fear and trembling to try to smooth +out any tangles in the skein of their relationship that might have +resulted from a day in each other's vicinity. After hurrying over the +house and through the grounds in search of her he finally discovered +the child companionably currying a damp and afflicted Pekinese in his +mother's sitting-room, and engaged in a grave discussion of the +relative merits of molasses and sugar as a sweetening for Boston baked +beans. + +It was while they were having their after-dinner coffee in the +library, for which Eleanor had been allowed to come down, though +nursery supper was the order of the day in the Bolling establishment, +that David told his friends of his mother's offer. + +"Of course, we decided to send her to school when she was twelve +anyway," he said. "The idea was to keep her among ourselves for two +years to establish the parental tie, or ties I should say. If she is +quartered here with Mademoiselle we could still keep in touch with her +and she would be having the advantage of a year's steady tuition under +one person, and we'd be relieved--" a warning glance from Margaret, +with an almost imperceptible inclination of her head in the direction +of Beulah, caused him to modify the end of his sentence--"of the +responsibility--for her physical welfare." + +"Mentally and morally," Gertrude cut in, "the bunch would still +supervise her entirely." + +Jimmie, who was sitting beside her, ran his arm along the back of her +chair affectionately, and then thought better of it and drew it away. +He was, for some unaccountable reason, feeling awkward and not like +himself. There was a girl in New York, with whom he was not in the +least in love, who had recently taken it upon herself to demonstrate +unmistakably that she was not in love with him. There was another girl +who insisted on his writing her every day. Here was Gertrude, who +never had any time for him any more, absolutely without enthusiasm at +his proximity. He thought it would be a good idea to allow Eleanor to +remain where she was and said so. + +"Not that I won't miss the jolly times we had together, Babe," he +said. "I was planning some real rackets this year,--to make up for +what I put you through," he added in her ear, as she came and stood +beside him for a minute. + +Gertrude wanted to go abroad for a year, "and lick her wounds," as she +told herself. She would have come back for her two months with +Eleanor, but she was glad to be relieved of that necessity. Margaret +had the secret feeling that the ordeal of the Hutchinsons was one that +she would like to spare her foster child, and incidentally herself in +relation to the adjustment of conditions necessary to Eleanor's visit. +Peter wanted her with him, but he believed the new arrangement would +be better for the child. Beulah alone held out for her rights and her +parental privileges. The decision was finally left to Eleanor. + +She stood in the center of the group a little forlornly while they +awaited her word. A wave of her old shyness overtook her and she +blushed hot and crimson. + +"It's all in your own hands, dear," Beulah said briskly. + +"Poor kiddie," Gertrude thought, "it's all wrong somehow." + +"I don't know what you want me to say," Eleanor said piteously and +sped to the haven of Peter's breast. + +"We'll manage a month together anyway," Peter whispered. + +"Then I guess I'll stay here," she whispered back, "because next I +would have to go to Aunt Beulah's." + +Peter, turning involuntarily in Beulah's direction, saw the look of +chagrin and disappointment on her face, and realized how much she +minded playing a losing part in the game and yet how well she was +doing it. "She's only a straight-laced kid after all," he thought. +"She's put her whole heart and soul into this thing. There's a look +about the top part of her face when it's softened that's a little like +Ellen's." Ellen was his dead fiancee--the girl in the photograph at +home in his desk. + +"I guess I'll stay here," Eleanor said aloud, "all in one place, and +study with Mademoiselle." + +It was a decision that, on the whole, she never regretted. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +BROOK AND RIVER + + + "Standing with reluctant feet, + Where the brook and river meet." + +"I think it's a good plan to put a quotation like Kipling at the top +of the page whenever I write anything in this diary," Eleanor began in +the smart leather bound book with her initials stamped in black on the +red cover--the new private diary that had been Peter's gift to her on +the occasion of her fifteenth birthday some months before. "I think it +is a very expressive thing to do. The quotation above is one that +expresses me, and I think it is beautiful too. Miss Hadley--that's my +English teacher--the girls call her Haddock because she does look +rather like a fish--says that it's undoubtedly one of the most +poignant descriptions of adolescent womanhood ever made. I made a note +to look up adolescent, but didn't. Bertha Stephens has my dictionary, +and won't bring it back because the leaves are all stuck together +with fudge, and she thinks she ought to buy me a new one. It is very +honorable of her to feel that way, but she never will. Good old +Stevie, she's a great borrower. + + "'Neither a borrower nor a lender be, + For borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.' + "Shakespeare. + +"Well, I hardly know where to begin. I thought I would make a resume +of some of the events of the last year. I was only fourteen then, but +still I did a great many things that might be of interest to me in my +declining years when I look back into the annals of this book. To +begin with I was only a freshie at Harmon. It is very different to be +a sophomore. I can hardly believe that I was once a shivering looking +little thing like all the freshmen that came in this year. I was very +frightened, but did not think I showed it. + + "'Oh! wad some power the giftie gie us, + To see ourselves as others see us.' + +"Robert Burns had twins and a rather bad character, but after he met +his bonnie Jean he wrote very beautiful poetry. A poet's life is +usually sad anyhow--full of disappointment and pain--but I digress. + +"I had two years with Mademoiselle at the Bollings' instead of one the +way we planned. I haven't written in my Private Diary since the night +of that momentous decision that I was to stay in one place instead of +taking turns visiting my cooperative parents. I went to another school +one year before I came to Harmon, and that brings me to the threshold +of my fourteenth year. If I try to go back any farther, I'll never +catch up. I spent that vacation with Aunt Margaret in a cottage on +Long Island with her sister, and her sister's boy, who has grown up to +be the silly kind that wants to kiss you and pull your hair, and those +things. Aunt Margaret is so lovely I can't think of words to express +it. 'Oh! rare pale Margaret,' as Tennyson says. She wears her hair in +a coronet braid around the top of her head, and all her clothes are +the color of violets or a soft dovey gray or white, though baby blue +looks nice on her especially when she wears a fishyou. + +"I went down to Cape Cod for a week before I came to Harmon, and while +I was there my grandmother died. I can't write about that in this +diary. I loved my grandmother and my grandmother loved me. Uncle Peter +came, and took charge of everything. He has great strength that holds +you up in trouble. + +"The first day I came to Harmon I saw the girl I wanted for my best +friend, and so we roomed together, and have done so ever since. Her +name is Margaret Louise Hodges, but she is called Maggie Lou by every +one. She has dark curly hair, and deep brown eyes, and a very silvery +voice. I have found out that she lies some, but she says it is because +she had such an unhappy childhood, and has promised to overcome it for +my sake. + +"That Christmas vacation the 'We Are Sevens' went up the Hudson to the +Bollings' again, but that was the last time they ever went there. +Uncle David and his mother had a terrible fight over them. I was sorry +for Madam Bolling in a way. There was a girl she wanted Uncle David to +marry, a rich girl who looked something like Cleopatra, very dark +complexioned with burning eyes. She had a sweet little Pekinese +something like Zaidee. + +"Uncle David said that gold could never buy him, and to take her away, +but Madam Bolling was very angry, of course. She accused him of +wanting to marry Aunt Margaret, and called her a characterless, faded +blonde. Then it was Uncle David's turn to get angry, and I have never +seen any one get any angrier, and he told about the vow of celibacy, +and how instead of having designs on him the whole crowd would back +him up in his struggle to stay single. It was an awful row. I told +Madam Bolling that I would help her to get Uncle David back, and I +did, but she never forgave the other aunts and uncles. I suppose the +feelings of a mother would prompt her to want Uncle David settled down +with a rich and fashionable girl who would soon be the mother of a lot +of lovely children. I can't imagine a Cleopatra looking baby, but she +might have boys that looked like Uncle David. + +"Vacations are really about all there is to school. Freshman year is +mostly grinding and stuffing. Having six parents to send you boxes of +'grub' is better than having only two. Some of the girls are rather +selfish about the eats, and come in and help themselves boldly when +you are out of the room. Maggie Lou puts up signs over the candy box: +'Closed for Repairs,' or 'No Trespassing by Order of the Board of +Health,' but they don't pay much attention. Well, last summer vacation +I spent with Uncle Jimmie. I wouldn't tell this, but I reformed him. I +made him sign the pledge. I don't know what pledge it was because I +didn't read it, but he said he was addicted to something worse than +anything I could think of, and if somebody didn't pull him up, he +wouldn't answer for the consequences. I asked him why he didn't choose +Aunt Gertrude to do it, and he groaned only. So I said to write out a +pledge, and sign it and I would be the witness. We were at a hotel +with his brother's family. It isn't proper any more for me to go +around with my uncles unless I have a chaperon. Mademoiselle says that +I oughtn't even to go down-town alone with them but, of course, that +is French etiquette, and not American. Well, there were lots of pretty +girls at this hotel, all wearing white and pink dresses, and carrying +big bell shaped parasols of bright colors. They looked sweet, like so +many flowers, but Uncle Jimmie just about hated the sight of them. He +said they were not girls at all, but just pink and white devices of +the devil. On the whole he didn't act much like my merry uncle, but we +had good times together playing tennis and golf, and going on parties +with his brother's family, all mere children but the mother and +father. Uncle Jimmie was afraid to go and get his mail all summer, +although he had a great many letters on blue and lavender note paper +scented with Roger et Gallet's violet, and Hudnut's carnation. We used +to go down to the beach and make bonfires and burn them unread, and +then toast marshmallows in their ashes. He said that they were +communications from the spirits of the dead. I should have thought +that they were from different girls, but he seemed to hate the sight +of girls so much. Once I asked him if he had ever had an unhappy +love-affair, just to see what he would say, but he replied 'no, they +had all been happy ones,' and groaned and groaned. + +"Aunt Beulah has changed too. She has become a suffragette and thinks +only of getting women their rights and their privileges. + +"Maggie Lou is an anti, and we have long arguments about the cause. +She says that woman's place is in the home, but I say look at me, who +have no home, how can I wash and bake and brew like the women of my +grandfather's day, visiting around the way I do? And she says that it +is the principle of the thing that is involved, and I ought to take a +stand for or against. Everybody has so many different arguments that I +don't know what I think yet, but some day I shall make up my mind for +good. + +"Well, that about brings me up to the present. I meant to describe a +few things in detail, but I guess I will not begin on the past in that +way. I don't get so awfully much time to write in this diary because +of the many interruptions of school life, and the way the monitors +snoop in study hours. I don't know who I am going to spend my +Christmas holidays with. I sent Uncle Peter a poem three days ago, but +he has not answered it yet. I'm afraid he thought it was very silly. I +don't hardly know what it means myself. It goes as follows: + + "A Song + + "The moon is very pale to-night, + The summer wind swings high, + I seek the temple of delight, + And feel my love draw nigh. + + "I seem to feel his fragrant breath + Upon my glowing cheek. + Between us blows the wind of death,-- + I shall not hear him speak. + +"I don't know why I like to write love poems, but most of the women +poets did. This one made me cry." + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +MERRY CHRISTMAS + + +Margaret in mauve velvet and violets, and Gertrude in a frock of smart +black and white were in the act of meeting by appointment at Sherry's +one December afternoon, with a comfortable cup of tea in mind. +Gertrude emerged from the recess of the revolving door and Margaret, +sitting eagerly by the entrance, almost upset the attendant in her +rush to her friend's side. + +"Oh! Gertrude," she cried, "I'm so glad to see you. My family is +trying to cut me up in neat little quarters and send me north, south, +east and west, for the Christmas holidays, and I want to stay home and +have Eleanor. How did I ever come to be born into a family of giants, +tell me that, Gertrude?" + +"The choice of parents is thrust upon us at an unfortunately immature +period, I'll admit," Gertrude laughed. "My parents are dears, but +they've never forgiven me for being an artist instead of a dubby bud. +Shall we have tea right away or shall we sit down and discuss life?" + +"Both," Margaret said. "I don't know which is the hungrier--flesh or +spirit." + +But as they turned toward the dining-room a familiar figure blocked +their progress. + +"I thought that was Gertrude's insatiable hat," David exclaimed +delightedly. "I've phoned for you both until your families have given +instructions that I'm not to be indulged any more. I've got a surprise +for you.--Taxi," he said to the man at the door. + +"Not till we've had our tea," Margaret wailed. "You couldn't be so +cruel, David." + +"You shall have your tea, my dear, and one of the happiest surprises +of your life into the bargain," David assured her as he led the way to +the waiting cab. + +"I wouldn't leave this place unfed for anybody but you, David, not if +it were ever so, and then some, as Jimmie says." + +"What's the matter with Jimmie, anyhow?" David inquired as the taxi +turned down the Avenue and immediately entangled itself in a hopeless +mesh of traffic. + +"I don't know; why?" Gertrude answered, though she had not been the +one addressed at the moment. "What's the matter with this hat?" she +rattled on without waiting for an answer. "I thought it was +good-looking myself, and Madam Paran robbed me for it." + +"It is good-looking," David allowed. "It seems to be a kind of +retrieving hat, that's all. Keeps you in a rather constant state of +looking after the game." + +"What about my hat, David?" Margaret inquired anxiously. "Do you like +that?" + +"I do," David admitted. "I'm crazy about it. It's a lovely cross +between the style affected by the late Emperor Napoleon and my august +grandmother, with some frills added." + +The chauffeur turned into a cross street and stopped abruptly before +an imposing but apparently unguarded entrance. + +"Why, I thought this was a studio building," Gertrude said. "David, if +you're springing a tea party on us, and we in the wild ungovernable +state we are at present, I'll shoot the way my hat is pointing." + +"Straight through my left eye-glass," David finished. "You wait till +you see the injustice you have done me." + +But Margaret, who often understood what was happening a few moments +before the revelation of it, clutched at his elbow. + +"Oh! David, David," she whispered, "how wonderful!" + +"Wait till you see," David said, and herded them into the elevator. + +Their destination was the top floor but one. David hurried them around +the bend in the sleekly carpeted corridor and touched the bell on the +right of the first door they came to. It opened almost instantly and +David's man, who was French, stood bowing and smiling on the +threshold. + +"Mr. Styvvisont has arrive'," he said; "he waits you." + +"Welcome to our city," Peter cried, appearing in the doorway of the +room Alphonse was indicating with that high gesture of delight with +which only a Frenchman can lead the way. "Jimmie's coming up from the +office and Beulah's due any minute. What do you think of the place, +girls?" + +"Is it really yours, David?" + +"Surest thing you know." He grinned like a schoolboy. "It's really +ours, that's what it is. I've broken away from the mater at last," he +added a little sheepishly. "I'm going to work seriously. I've got an +all-day desk job in my uncle's office and I'm going to dig in and see +what I can make of myself. Also, this is going to be our headquarters, +and Eleanor's permanent home if we're all agreed upon it,--but look +around, ladies. Don't spare my blushes. If you think I can interior +decorate, just tell me so frankly. This is the living-room." + +"It's like that old conundrum--black and white and red all over," +Gertrude said. "I never saw anything so stunning in all my life." + +"Gosh! I admire your nerve," Peter cried, "papering this place in +white, and then getting in all this heavy carved black stuff, and the +red in the tapestries and screens and pillows." + +"I wanted it to look studioish a little," David explained, "I wanted +to get away from Louis Quartorze." + +"And drawing-rooms like mother used to make," Gertrude suggested. "I +like your Oriental touches. Do you see, Margaret, everything is Indian +or Chinese? The ubiquitous Japanese print is conspicuous by its +absence." + +"I've got two portfolios full of 'em," David said, "and I always have +one or two up in the bedrooms. I change 'em around, you know, the way +the s do themselves, a different scene every few days and the rest +decently out of sight till you're ready for 'em." + +"It's like a fairy story," Margaret said. + +"I thought you'd appreciate what little Arabian Nights I was able to +introduce. I bought that screen," he indicated a sweep of Chinese line +and color, "with my eye on you, and that Aladdin's lamp is yours, of +course. You're to come in here and rub it whenever you like, and your +heart's desire will instantly be vouchsafed to you." + +"What will Eleanor say?" Peter suggested, as David led the way through +the corridor and up the tiny stairs which led to the more intricate +part of the establishment. "This is her room, didn't you say, David?" +He paused on the threshold of a bedroom done in ivory white and +yellow, with all its hangings of a soft golden silk. + +"She once said that she wanted a yellow room," David said, "a +daffy-down-dilly room, and I've tried to get her one. I know last +year that Maggie Lou child refused to have yellow curtains in that +flatiron shaped sitting-room of theirs, and Eleanor refused to be +comforted." + +A wild whoop in the below stairs announced Jimmie; and Beulah arrived +simultaneously with the tea tray. Jimmie was ecstatic when the actual +function of the place was explained to him. + +"Headquarters is the one thing we've lacked," he said; "a place of our +own, hully gee! It makes me feel almost human again." + +"You haven't been feeling altogether human lately, have you, Jimmie?" +Margaret asked over her tea cup. + +"No, dear, I haven't." Jimmie flashed her a grateful smile. "I'm a bad +egg," he explained to her darkly, "and the only thing you can do with +me is to scramble me." + +"Scrambled is just about the way I should have described your behavior +of late,--but that's Gertrude's line," David said. "Only she doesn't +seem to be taking an active part in the conversation. Aren't you +Jimmie's keeper any more, Gertrude?" + +"Not since she's come back from abroad," Jimmie muttered without +looking at her. + +"Eleanor's taken the job over now," Peter said. "She's made him swear +off red ink and red neckties." + +"Any color so long's it's red is the color that suits me best," Jimmie +quoted. "Lord, isn't this room a pippin?" He swam in among the bright +pillows of the divan and so hid his face for a moment. It had been a +good many weeks since he had seen Gertrude. + +"I want to give a suffrage tea here," Beulah broke in suddenly. "It's +so central, but I don't suppose David would hear of it." + +"Angels and Ministers of Grace defend us--" Peter began. + +"My _mother_ would hear of it," David said, "and then there wouldn't +be any little studio any more. She doesn't believe in votes for +women." + +"How any woman in this day and age--" Beulah began, and thought better +of it, since she was discussing Mrs. Bolling. + +"Makes your blood boil, doesn't it--Beulahland?" Gertrude suggested +helpfully, reaching for the tea cakes. "Never mind, I'll vote for +women. I'll march in your old peerade." + +"The Lord helps those that help themselves," Peter said, "that's why +Gertrude is a suffragist. She believes in helping herself, in every +sense, don't you, 'Trude?" + +"Not quite in every sense," Gertrude said gravely. "Sometimes I feel +like that girl that Margaret describes as caught in a horrid way +between two generations. I'm neither old-fashioned nor modern." + +"I'd rather be that way than early Victorian," Margaret sighed. + +"Speaking of the latest generation, has anybody any objection to +having our child here for the holidays?" David asked. "My idea is to +have one grand Christmas dinner. I suppose we'll all have to eat one +meal with our respective families, but can't we manage to get together +here for dinner at night? Don't you think that we could?" + +"We can't, but we will," Margaret murmured. "Of course, have Eleanor +here. I wanted her with me but the family thought otherwise. They've +been trying to send me away for my health, David." + +"Well, they shan't. You'll stay in New York for your health and come +to my party." + +"Margaret's health is merely a matter of Margaret's happiness anyhow. +Her soul and her body are all one," Gertrude said. + +"Then cursed be he who brings anything but happiness to Margaret," +Peter said, to which sentiment David added a solemn "Amen." + +"I wish you wouldn't," Margaret said, shivering a little, "I feel as +if some one were--were--" + +"Trampling the violets on your grave," Gertrude finished for her. + +Christmas that year fell on a Monday, and Eleanor did not leave school +till the Friday before the great day. Owing to the exigencies of the +holiday season none of her guardians came to see her before the dinner +party itself. Even David was busy with his mother--installed now for a +few weeks in the hotel suite that would be her home until the opening +of the season at Palm Beach--and had only a few hurried words with +her. Mademoiselle, whom he had imported for the occasion, met her at +the station and helped her to do her modest shopping which consisted +chiefly of gifts for her beloved aunts and uncles. She had arranged +these things lovingly at their plates, and fled to dress when they +began to assemble for the celebration. The girls were the first +arrivals. Then Peter. + +"How's our child, David?" Gertrude asked. "I had a few minutes' talk +with her over the telephone and she seemed to be flourishing." + +"She is," David answered. "She's grown several feet since we last saw +her. They've been giving scenes from Shakespeare at school and she's +been playing Juliet, it appears. She has had a fight with another girl +about suffrage--I don't know which side she was on, Beulah, I am +merely giving you the facts as they came to me--and the other girl was +so unpleasant about it that she has been visited by just retribution +in the form of the mumps, and had to be sent home and quarantined." + +"Sounds a bit priggish," Peter suggested. + +"Not really," David said, "she's as sound as a nut. She's only going +through the different stages." + +"To pass deliberately through one's ages," Beulah quoted, "is to get +the heart out of a liberal education." + +"Bravo, Beulah," Gertrude cried, "you're quite in your old form +to-night." + +"Is she just the same little girl, David?" Margaret asked. + +"Just the same. She really seems younger than ever. I don't know why +she doesn't come down. There she is, I guess. No, it's only Alphonse +letting in Jimmie." + +Jimmie, whose spirits seemed to have revived under the holiday +influence, was staggering under the weight of his parcels. The +Christmas presents had already accumulated to a considerable mound on +the couch. Margaret was brooding over them and trying not to look +greedy. She was still very much of a child herself in relation to +Santa Claus. + +"Merry Christmas!" Jimmie cried. "Where's my child?" + +"Coming," David said. + +"Look at the candy kids. My eyes--but you're a slick trio, girls. Pale +lavender, pale blue, and pale pink, and all quite sophisticatedly +decollete. You go with the decorations, too. I don't know quite why +you do, but you do." + +"Give honor where honor is due, dearie. That's owing to the cleverness +of the decorator," David said. + +"No man calls me dearie and lives to tell the tale," Jimmie remarked +almost dreamily as he squared off. "How'll you have it, Dave?" + +But at that instant there was an unexpected interruption. Alphonse +threw open the big entrance door at the farther end of the long room +with a flourish. + +"Mademoiselle Juliet Capulet," he proclaimed with the grand air, and +then retired behind his hand, smiling broadly. + +Framed in the high doorway, complete, cap and curls, softly rounding +bodice, and the long, straight lines of the Renaissance, stood +Juliet--Juliet, immemorial, immortal, young--austerely innocent and +delicately shy, already beautiful, and yet potential of all the beauty +and the wisdom of the world. + +"I've never worn these clothes before anybody but the girls before," +Eleanor said, "but I thought"--she looked about her appealingly--"you +might like it--for a surprise." + +"Great jumping Jehoshaphat," Jimmie exclaimed, "I thought you said she +was the same little girl, David." + +"She was half an hour ago," David answered, "I never saw such a +metamorphosis. In fact, I don't think I ever saw Juliet before." + +"She is the thing itself," Gertrude answered, the artist in her +sobered by the vision. + +But Peter passed a dazed hand over his eyes and stared at the delicate +figure advancing to him. + +"My God! she's a woman," he said, and drew the hard breath of a man +just awakened from sleep. + +[Illustration: "I thought"--she looked about her appealingly--"you might +like it--for a surprise"] + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +GROWING UP + + +"Dear Uncle Jimmie: + +"It was a pleasant surprise to get letters from every one of my uncles +the first week I got back to school. It was unprecedented. You wrote +me two letters last year, Uncle David six, and Uncle Peter sixteen. He +is the best correspondent, but perhaps that is because I ask him the +most advice. The Christmas party was lovely. I shall never forget the +expressions on all the different faces when I came down in my Juliet +suit. I thought at first that no one liked me in it, but I guess they +did. + +"You know how well I liked my presents because you heard my wild +exclamations of delight. I never had such a nice Christmas. It was +sweet of the We Are Sevens to get me that ivory set, and to know that +every different piece was the loving thought of a different aunt or +uncle. I love the yellow monogram. It looks entirely unique, and I +like to have things that are not like anybody else's in the world, +don't you, Uncle Jimmie? I am glad you liked your cuff links. They are +'neat,' but not 'gaudy.' You play golf so well I thought a golf stick +was a nice emblem for you, and would remind you of me and last +summer. + +"I am glad you think it is easier to keep your pledge now. I made a +New Year's resolution to go without chocolates, and give the money +they would cost to some good cause, but it's hard to pick out a cause, +or to decide exactly how much money you are saving. I can eat the +chocolates that are sent to me, however!!!! + +"Uncle David said that he thought you were not like yourself lately, +but you seemed just the same to me Christmas, only more affectionate. +I love you very much. I was really only joking about the chocolates. +Eleanor." + + * * * * * + +"Dear Uncle David: + +"I was glad to get your nice letter. You did not have to write in +response to my bread and butter letter, but I am glad you did. When I +am at school, and getting letters all the time I feel as if I were +living two beautiful lives all at once, the life of a 'cooperative +child' and the life of Eleanor Hamlin, schoolgirl, both together. +Letters make the people you love seem very near to you, don't you +think they do? I sleep with all my letters under my pillow whenever I +feel the least little bit homesick, and they almost seem to breathe +sometimes. + +"School is the same old school. Maggie Lou had a wrist watch, too, for +Christmas, but not so pretty as the one you gave me. Miss Hadley says +I do remarkable work in English whenever I feel like it. I don't know +whether that's a compliment or not. I took Kris Kringle for the +subject of a theme the other day, and represented him as caught in an +iceberg in the grim north, and not being able to reach all the poor +little children in the tenements and hovels. The Haddock said it +showed imagination. + +"There was a lecture at school on Emerson the other day. The speaker +was a noted literary lecturer from New York. He had wonderful waving +hair, more like Pader--I can't spell him, but you know who I +mean--than Uncle Jimmie's, but a little like both. He introduced some +very noble thoughts in his discourse, putting perfectly old ideas in +a new way that made you think a lot more of them. I think a tall man +like that with waving hair can do a great deal of good as a lecturer, +because you listen a good deal more respectfully than if they were +plain looking. His voice sounded a good deal like what I imagine +Romeo's voice did. I had a nice letter from Madam Bolling. I love you, +and I have come to the bottom of the sheet. Eleanor." + + * * * * * + +"Dear Uncle Peter: + +"I have just written to my other uncles, so I won't write you a long +letter this time. They deserve letters because of being so unusually +prompt after the holidays. You always deserve letters, but not +specially now, any more than any other time. + +"Uncle Peter, I wrote to my grandfather. It seems funny to think of +Albertina's aunt taking care of him now that Grandma is gone. I +suppose Albertina is there a lot. She sent me a post card for +Christmas. I didn't send her any. + +"Uncle Peter, I miss my grandmother out of the world. I remember how I +used to take care of her, and put a soapstone in the small of her +back when she was cold. I wish sometimes that I could hold your hand, +Uncle Peter, when I get thinking about it. + +"Well, school is the same old school. Bertha Stephens has a felon on +her finger, and that lets her out of hard work for a while. I will +enclose a poem suggested by a lecture I heard recently on Emerson. It +isn't very good, but it will help to fill up the envelope. I love you, +and love you. Eleanor. + + "Life + + "Life is a great, a noble task, + When we fulfill our duty. + To work, that should be all we ask, + And seek the living beauty. + We know not whence we come, or where + Our dim pathway is leading, + Whether we tread on lilies fair, + Or trample love-lies-bleeding. + But we must onward go and up, + Nor stop to question whither. + E'en if we drink the bitter cup, + And fall at last, to wither. + +"P. S. I haven't got the last verse very good yet, but I think the +second one is pretty. You know 'love-lies-bleeding' is a flower, but +it sounds allegorical the way I have put it in. Don't you think so? +You know what all the crosses stand for." + + * * * * * + +Eleanor's fifteenth year was on the whole the least eventful year of +her life, though not by any means the least happy. She throve +exceedingly, and gained the freedom and poise of movement and +spontaneity that result from properly balanced periods of work and +play and healthful exercise. From being rather small of her age she +developed into a tall slender creature, inherently graceful and erect, +with a small, delicate head set flower-wise on a slim white neck. +Gertrude never tired of modeling that lovely contour, but Eleanor +herself was quite unconscious of her natural advantages. She preferred +the snappy-eyed, stocky, ringleted type of beauty, and spent many +unhappy quarters of an hour wishing she were pretty according to the +inexorable ideals of Harmon. + +She spent her vacation at David's apartment in charge of Mademoiselle, +though the latter part of the summer she went to Colhassett, quite by +herself according to her own desire, and spent a month with her +grandfather, now in charge of Albertina's aunt. She found Albertina +grown into a huge girl, sunk in depths of sloth and snobbishness, who +plied her with endless questions concerning life in the gilded circles +of New York society. Eleanor found her disgusting and yet possessed of +that vague fascination that the assumption of prerogative often +carries with it. + +She found her grandfather very old and shrunken, yet perfectly taken +care of and with every material want supplied. She realized as she had +never done before how the faithful six had assumed the responsibility +of this household from the beginning, and how the old people had been +warmed and comforted by their bounty. She laughed to remember her +simplicity in believing that an actual salary was a perquisite of her +adoption, and understood for the first time how small a part of the +expense of their living this faithful stipend had defrayed. She looked +back incredulously on that period when she had lived with them in a +state of semi-starvation on the corn meal and cereals and very little +else that her dollar and a half a week had purchased, and the "garden +sass," that her grandfather had faithfully hoed and tended in the +straggling patch of plowed field that he would hoe and tend no more. +She spent a month practically at his feet, listening to his stories, +helping him to find his pipe and tobacco and glasses, and reading the +newspaper to him, and felt amply rewarded by his final acknowledgment +that she was a good girl and he would as soon have her come again +whenever she felt like it. + +On her way back to school she spent a week with her friend, Margaret +Louise, in the Connecticut town where she lived with her comfortable, +commonplace family. It was while she was on this visit that the most +significant event of the entire year took place, though it was a +happening that she put out of her mind as soon as possible and never +thought of it again when she could possibly avoid it. + +Maggie Lou had a brother of seventeen, and one night in the corner of +a moonlit porch, when they happened to be alone for a half hour, he +had asked Eleanor to kiss him. + +"I don't want to kiss you," Eleanor said. Then, not wishing to convey +a sense of any personal dislike to the brother of a friend to whom +she was so sincerely devoted, she added, "I don't know you well +enough." + +He was a big boy, with mocking blue eyes and rough tweed clothes that +hung on him loosely. + +"When you know me better, will you let me kiss you?" he demanded. + +"I don't know," Eleanor said, still endeavoring to preserve the +amenities. + +He took her hand and played with it softly. + +"You're an awful sweet little girl," he said. + +"I guess I'll go in now." + +"Sit still. Sister'll be back in a minute." He pulled her back to the +chair from which she had half arisen. "Don't you believe in kissing?" + +"I don't believe in kissing _you_," she tried to say, but the words +would not come. She could only pray for deliverance through the +arrival of some member of the family. The boy's face was close to +hers. It looked sweet in the moonlight she thought. She wished he +would talk of something else besides kissing. + +"Don't you like me?" he persisted. + +"Yes, I do." She was very uncomfortable. + +"Well, then, there's no more to be said." His lips sought hers and +pressed them. His breath came heavily, with little irregular catches +in it. + +She pushed him away and turned into the house. + +"Don't be angry, Eleanor," he pleaded, trying to snatch at her hand. + +"I'm not angry," she said, her voice breaking, "I just wish you +hadn't, that's all." + +There was no reference to this incident in the private diary, but, +with an instinct which would have formed an indissoluble bond between +herself and her Uncle Jimmie, she avoided dimly lit porches and boys +with mischievous eyes and broad tweed covered shoulders. + +For her guardians too, this year was comparatively smooth running and +colorless. Beulah's militant spirit sought the assuagement of a fierce +expenditure of energy on the work that came to her hand through her +new interest in suffrage. Gertrude flung herself into her sculpturing. +She had been hurt as only the young can be hurt when their first +delicate desires come to naught. She was very warm-blooded and eager +under her cool veneer, and she had spent four years of hard work and +hungry yearning for the fulness of a life she was too constrained to +get any emotional hold on. Her fancy for Jimmie she believed was +quite over and done with. + +Margaret, warmed by secret fires and nourished by the stuff that +dreams are made of, flourished strangely in her attic chamber, and +learned the wisdom of life by some curious method of her own of +apprehending its dangers and delights. The only experiences she had +that year were two proposals of marriage, one from a timid professor +of the romance languages and the other from a young society man, +already losing his waist line, whose sensuous spirit had been stirred +by the ethereal grace of hers; but these things interested her very +little. She was the princess, spinning fine dreams and waiting for the +dawning of the golden day when the prince should come for her. Neither +she nor Gertrude ever gave a serious thought to the five-year-old vow +of celibacy, which was to Beulah as real and as binding as it had +seemed on the first day she took it. + +Peter and David and Jimmie went their own way after the fashion of +men, all of them identified with the quickening romance of New York +business life. David in Wall Street was proving to be something of a +financier to his mother's surprise and amazement; and the pressure +relaxed, he showed some slight initiative in social matters. In fact, +two mothers, who were on Mrs. Bolling's list as suitable +parents-in-law, took heart of grace and began angling for him +adroitly, while their daughters served him tea and made unabashed, +modern-debutante eyes at him. + +Jimmie, successfully working his way up to the top of his firm, +suffered intermittently from his enthusiastic abuse of the privileges +of liberty and the pursuit of happiness. His mind and soul were in +reality hot on the trail of a wife, and there was no woman among those +with whom he habitually foregathered whom his spirit recognized as his +own woman. He was further rendered helpless and miserable by the fact +that he had not the slightest idea of his trouble. He regarded himself +as a congenital Don Juan, from whom his better self shrank at times +with a revulsion of loathing. + +Peter felt that he had his feet very firmly on a rather uninspired +earth. He was getting on in the woolen business, which happened to be +the vocation his father had handed down to him. He belonged to an +amusing club, and he still felt himself irrevocably widowed by the +early death of the girl in the photograph he so faithfully cherished. +Eleanor was a very vital interest in his life. It had seemed to him +for a few minutes at the Christmas party that she was no longer the +little girl he had known, that a lovelier, more illusive creature--a +woman--had come to displace her, but when she had flung her arms +around him he had realized that it was still the heart of a child +beating so fondly against his own. + +The real trouble with arrogating to ourselves the privileges of +parenthood is that our native instincts are likely to become deflected +by the substitution of the artificial for the natural responsibility. +Both Peter and David had the unconscious feeling that their obligation +to their race was met by their communal interest in Eleanor. Beulah, +of course, sincerely believed that the filling in of an intellectual +concept of life was all that was required of her. Only Jimmie groped +blindly and bewilderedly for his own. Gertrude and Margaret both +understood that they were unnaturally alone in a world where lovers +met and mated, but they, too, hugged to their souls the flattering +unction that they were parents of a sort. + +Thus three sets of perfectly suitable and devoted young men and +women, of marriageable age, with dozens of interests and sympathies in +common, and one extraordinarily vital bond, continued to walk side by +side in a state of inhuman preoccupation, their gaze fixed inward +instead of upon one another; and no Divine Power, happening upon the +curious circumstance, believed the matter one for His intervention nor +stooped to take the respective puppets by the back of their +unconscious necks, and so knock their sluggish heads together. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +MARGARET LOUISA'S BIRTHRIGHT + + +"I am sixteen years and eight months old to-day," Eleanor wrote, "and +I have had the kind of experience that makes me feel as if I never +wanted to be any older. I know life is full of disillusionment and +pain, but I did not know that any one with whom you have broken bread, +and slept in the same room with, and told everything to for four long +years, could turn out to be an absolute traitor and villainess. Let me +begin at the beginning. For nearly a year now I have noticed that +Bertha Stephens avoided me, and presented the appearance of disliking +me. I don't like to have any one dislike me, and I have tried to do +little things for her that would win back her affection, but with no +success. As I was editing the Lantern I could print her essayettes (as +she called them) and do her lots of little favors in a literary way, +which she seemed to appreciate, but personally she avoided me like the +plague. + +"Of course Stevie has lots of faults, and since Margaret Louise and I +always talked everything over we used to talk about Stevie in the same +way. I remember that she used to try to draw me out about Stevie's +character. I've always thought Stevie was a kind of piker, that is +that she would say she was going to do a thing, and then from sheer +laziness not do it. My dictionary was a case in point. She gummed it +all up with her nasty fudge and then wouldn't give it back to me or +get me another, but the reason she wouldn't give it back to me was +because her feelings were too fine to return a damaged article, and +not fine enough to make her hump herself and get me another. That's +only one kind of a piker and not the worst kind, but it was +_pikerish_. + +"All this I told quite frankly to Maggie--I mean Margaret Louise, +because I had no secrets from her and never thought there was any +reason why I shouldn't. Stevie has a horrid brother, also, who has +been up here to dances. All the girls hate him because he is so +spoony. He isn't as spoony as Margaret Louise's brother, but he's +quite a sloppy little spooner at that. Well, I told Margaret Louise +that I didn't like Stevie's brother, and then I made the damaging +remark that one reason I didn't like him was because he looked so much +like Stevie. I didn't bother to explain to Maggie--I will not call her +Maggie Lou any more, because that is a dear little name and sounds so +affectionate,--Margaret Louise--what I meant by this, because I +thought it was perfectly evident. Stevie is a peachy looking girl, a +snow white blonde with pinky cheeks and dimples. Well, her brother is +a snow white blond too, and he has pinky cheeks and dimples and his +name is Carlo! We, of course, at once named him Curlo. It is not a +good idea for a man to look too much like his sister, or to have too +many dimples in his chin and cheeks. I had only to think of him in the +same room with my three uncles to get his number exactly. I don't mean +to use slang in my diary, but I can't seem to help it. Professor +Mathews says that slang has a distinct function in the language--in +replenishing it, but Uncle Peter says about slang words, that 'many +are called, and few are chosen,' and there is no need to try to +accommodate them all in one's vocabulary. + +"Well, I told Margaret Louise all these things about Curlo, and how +he tried to hold my hand coming from the station one day, when the +girls all went up to meet the boys that came up for the dance,--and I +told her everything else in the world that happened to come into my +head. + +"Then one day I got thinking about leaving Harmon--this is our senior +year, of course--and I thought that I should leave all the girls with +things just about right between us, excepting good old Stevie, who had +this queer sort of grouch against me. So I decided that I'd just go +around and have it out with her, and I did. I went into her room one +day when her roommate was out, and demanded a show down. Well, I found +out that Maggie--Margaret Louise had just repeated to Stevie every +living thing that I ever said about her, just as I said it, only +without the explanations and foot-notes that make any kind of +conversation more understandable. + +"Stevie told me all these things one after another, without stopping, +and when she was through I wished that the floor would open and +swallow me up, but nothing so comfortable happened. I was obliged to +gaze into Stevie's overflowing eyes and own up to the truth as well as +I could, and explain it. It was the most humiliating hour that I ever +spent, but I told Stevie exactly what I felt about her 'nothing +extenuate, and naught set down in malice,' and what I had said about +her to our mutual friend, who by the way, is not the mutual friend of +either of us any longer. We were both crying by the time I had +finished, but we understood each other. There were one or two things +that she said she didn't think she would ever forget that I had said +about her, but even those she could forgive. She said that my dislike +of her had rankled in her heart so long that it took away all the +bitterness to know that I wasn't really her enemy. She said that my +coming to her that way, and not lying had showed that I had lots of +character, and she thought in time that we could be quite intimate +friends if I wanted to as much as she did. + +"After my talk with Stevie I still hoped against hope that Margaret +Louise would turn out to have some reason or excuse for what she had +done. I knew she had done it, but when a thing like that happens that +upsets your whole trust in a person you simply can not believe the +evidence of your own senses. When you read of a situation like that +in a book you are all prepared for it by the author, who has taken the +trouble to explain the moral weakness or unpleasantness of the +character, and given you to understand that you are to expect a +betrayal from him or her; but when it happens in real life out of a +clear sky you have nothing to go upon that makes you even _believe_ +what you know. + +"I won't even try to describe the scene that occurred between Margaret +Louise and me. She cried and she lied, and she accused me of trying to +curry favor with Stevie, and Stevie of being a backbiter, and she +argued and argued about all kinds of things but the truth, and when I +tried to pin her down to it, she ducked and crawled and sidestepped in +a way that was dreadful. I've seen her do something like it before +about different things, and I ought to have known then what she was +like inside of her soul, but I guess you have to be the object of such +a scene before you realize the full force of it. + +"All I said was, 'Margaret Louise, if that's all you've got to say +about the injury you have done me, then everything is over between us +from this minute;' and it was, too. + +"I feel as if I had been writing a beautiful story or poem on what I +thought was an enduring tablet of marble, and some one had come and +wiped it all off as if it were mere scribblings on a slate. I don't +know whether it would seem like telling tales to tell Uncle Peter or +not; I don't quite know whether I want to tell him. Sometimes I wish I +had a mother to tell such things to. It seems to me that a real mother +would know what to say that would help you. Disillusion is a very +strange thing--like death, only having people die seems more natural +somehow. When they die you can remember the happy hours that you spent +with them, but when disillusionment comes then you have lost even your +beautiful memories. + +"We had for the subject of our theme this week, 'What Life Means to +Me,' which of course was the object of many facetious remarks from the +girls, but I've been thinking that if I sat down seriously to state in +just so many words what life means to _me_, I hardly know what I would +transcribe. It means disillusionment and death for one thing. Since my +grandfather died last year I have had nobody left of my own in the +world,--no real blood relation. Of course, I am a good deal fonder of +my aunts and uncles than most people are of their own flesh and blood, +but own flesh and blood is a thing that it makes you feel shivery to +be without. If I had been Margaret Louise's own flesh and blood, she +would never have acted like that to me. Stevie stuck up for Carlo as +if he was really something to be proud of. Perhaps my uncles and aunts +feel that way about me, I don't know. I don't even know if I feel that +way about them. I certainly criticize them in my soul at times, and +feel tired of being dragged around from pillar to post. I don't feel +that way about Uncle Peter, but there is nobody else that I am +certain, positive sure that I love better than life itself. If there +is only one in the world that you feel that way about, I might not be +Uncle Peter's one. + +"Oh! I wish Margaret Louise had not sold her birthright for a mess of +pottage. I wish I had a home that I had a perfect right to go and live +in forevermore. I wish my mother was here to comfort me to-night." + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +A REAL KISS + + +At seventeen, Eleanor was through at Harmon. She was to have one year +of preparatory school and then it was the desire of Beulah's heart +that she should go to Rogers. The others contended that the higher +education should be optional and not obligatory. The decision was +finally to be left to Eleanor herself, after she had considered it in +all its bearings. + +"If she doesn't decide in favor of college," David said, "and she +makes her home with me here, as I hope she will do, of course, I don't +see what society we are going to be able to give her. Unfortunately +none of our contemporaries have growing daughters. She ought to meet +eligible young men and that sort of thing." + +"Not yet," Margaret cried. The two were having a cozy cup of tea at +his apartment. "You're so terribly worldly, David, that you frighten +me sometimes." + +"You don't know where I will end, is that the idea?" + +"I don't know where Eleanor will end, if you're already thinking of +eligible young men for her." + +"Those things have got to be thought of," David answered gravely. + +"I suppose they have," Margaret sighed. "I don't want her to be +married. I want to take her off by myself and growl over her all alone +for a while. Then I want Prince Charming to come along and snatch her +up quickly, and set her behind his milk white charger and ride away +with her. If we've all got to get together and connive at marrying her +off there won't be any comfort in having her." + +"I don't know," David said thoughtfully; "I think that might be fun, +too. A vicarious love-affair that you can manipulate is one of the +most interesting games in the world." + +"That's not my idea of an interesting game," Margaret said. "I like +things very personal, David,--you ought to know that by this time." + +"I do know that," David said, "but it sometimes occurs to me that +except for a few obvious facts of that nature I really know very +little about you, Margaret." + +"There isn't much to know--except that I'm a woman." + +"That's a good deal," David answered slowly; "to a mere man that seems +to be considerable of an adventure." + +"It is about as much of an adventure sometimes as it would be to be a +field of clover in an insectless world.--This is wonderful tea, David, +but your cream is like butter and floats around in it in wudges. No, +don't get any more, I've got to go home. Grandmother still thinks it's +very improper for me to call upon you, in spite of Mademoiselle and +your ancient and honorable housekeeper." + +"Don't go," David said; "I apologize on my knees for the cream. I'll +send out and have it wet down, or whatever you do to cream in that +state. I want to talk to you. What did you mean by your last remark?" + +"About the cream, or the proprieties?" + +"About women." + +"Everything and nothing, David dear. I'm a little bit tired of being +one, that's all, and I want to go home." + +"She wants to go home when she's being so truly delightful and +cryptic," David said. "Have you been seeing visions, Margaret, in my +hearth fire? Your eyes look as if you had." + +"I thought I did for a minute." She rose and stood absently fitting +her gloves to her fingers. "I don't know exactly what it was I saw, +but it was something that made me uncomfortable. It gives me the +creeps to talk about being a woman. David, do you know sometimes I +have a kind of queer hunch about Eleanor? I love her, you know, +dearly, dearly. I think that she is a very successful kind of +Frankenstein; but there are moments when I have the feeling that she's +going to be a storm center and bring some queer trouble upon us. I +wouldn't say this to anybody but you, David." + +As David tucked her in the car--he had arrived at the dignity of +owning one now--and watched her sweet silhouette disappear, he, too, +had his moment of clairvoyance. He felt that he was letting something +very precious slip out of sight, as if some radiant and delicate gift +had been laid lightly within his grasp and as lightly withdrawn again. +As if when the door closed on his friend Margaret some stranger, more +silent creature who was dear to him had gone with her. As soon as he +was dressed for dinner he called Margaret on the telephone to know if +she had arrived home safely, and was informed not only that she had, +but that she was very wroth at him for getting her down three flights +of stairs in the midst of her own dinner toilet. + +"I had a kind of hunch, too," he told her, "and I felt as if I wanted +to hear your voice speaking." + +But she only scoffed at him. + +"If that's the way you feel about your chauffeur," she said, "you +ought to discharge him, but he brought me home beautifully." + +The difference between a man's moments of prescience and a woman's, is +that the man puts them out of his consciousness as quickly as he can, +while a woman clings to them fearfully and goes her way a little more +carefully for the momentary flash of foresight. David tried to see +Margaret once or twice during that week but failed to find her in when +he called or telephoned, and the special impulse to seek her alone +again died naturally. + +One Saturday a few weeks later Eleanor telegraphed him that she +wished to come to New York for the week-end to do some shopping. + +He went to the train to meet her, and when the slender chic figure in +the most correct of tailor made suits appeared at the gateway, with an +obsequious porter bearing her smart bag and ulster, he gave a sudden +gasp of surprise at the picture. He had been aware for some time of +the increase in her inches and the charm of the pure cameo-cut +profile, but he regarded her still as a child histrionically assuming +the airs and graces of womanhood, as small girl children masquerade in +the trailing skirts of their elders. He was accustomed to the idea +that she was growing up rapidly, but the fact that she was already +grown had never actually dawned on him until this moment. + +"You look as if you were surprised to see me, Uncle David,--are you?" +she said, slipping a slim hand, warm through its immaculate glove, +into his. "You knew I was coming, and you came to meet me, and yet you +looked as surprised as if you hadn't expected me at all." + +"Surprised to see you just about expresses it, Eleanor. I am surprised +to see you. I was looking for a little girl in hair ribbons with her +skirts to her knees." + +"And a blue tam-o'-shanter?" + +"And a blue tam-o'-shanter. I had forgotten you had grown up any to +speak of." + +"You see me every vacation," Eleanor grumbled, as she stepped into the +waiting motor. "It isn't because you lack opportunity that you don't +notice what I look like. It's just because you're naturally +unobserving." + +"Peter and Jimmie have been making a good deal of fuss about your +being a young lady, now I think of it. Peter especially has been +rather a nuisance about it, breaking into my most precious moments of +triviality with the sweetly solemn thought that our little girl has +grown to be a woman now." + +"Oh, does _he_ think I'm grown up, does he really?" + +"Jimmie is almost as bad. He's all the time wanting me to get you to +New York over the weekend, so that he can see if you are any taller +than you were the last time he saw you." + +"Are they coming to see me this evening?" + +"Jimmie is going to look in. Peter is tied up with his sister. You +know she's on here from China with her daughter. Peter wants you to +meet the child." + +"She must be as grown up as I am," Eleanor said. "I used to have her +room, you know, when I stayed with Uncle Peter. Does Uncle Peter like +her?" + +"Not as much as he likes you, Miss Green-eyes. He says she looks like +a heathen Chinee but otherwise is passable. I didn't know that you +added jealousy to the list of your estimable vices." + +"I'm not jealous," Eleanor protested; "or if I am it's only because +she's blood relation,--and I'm not, you know." + +"It's a good deal more prosaic to be a blood relation, if anybody +should ask you," David smiled. "A blood relation is a good deal like +the famous primrose on the river's brim." + +"'A primrose by the river's brim a yellow primrose was to him,--and +nothing more,'" Eleanor quoted gaily. "Why, what more--" she broke off +suddenly and slightly. + +"What more would anybody want to be than a yellow primrose by the +river's brim?" David finished for her. "I don't know, I'm sure. I'm a +mere man and such questions are too abstruse for me, as I told your +Aunt Margaret the other day. Now I think of it, though, you don't look +unlike a yellow primrose yourself to-day, daughter." + +"That's because I've got a yellow ribbon on my hat." + +"No, the resemblance goes much deeper. It has something to do with +youth and fragrance and the flowers that bloom in the spring." + +"The flowers that bloom in the spring, tra la," Eleanor returned +saucily, "have nothing to do with the case." + +"She's learning that she has eyes, good Lord," David said to himself, +but aloud he remarked paternally, "I saw all your aunts yesterday. +Gertrude gave a tea party and invited a great many famous tea party +types, and ourselves." + +"Was Aunt Beulah there?" + +"I said all your aunts. Beulah was there, like the famous Queenie, +with her hair in a braid." + +"Not really." + +"Pretty nearly. She's gone in for dress reform now, you know, a kind +of middy blouse made out of a striped portiere with a kilted skirt of +the same material and a Scotch cap. She doesn't look so bad in it. +Your Aunt Beulah presents a peculiar phenomenon these days. She's +growing better-looking and behaving worse every day of her life." + +"Behaving worse?" + +"She's theory ridden and fad bitten. She'll come to a bad end if +something doesn't stop her." + +"Do you mean--stop her working for suffrage? I'm a suffragist, Uncle +David." + +"And quite right to remind me of it before I began slamming the cause. +No, I don't mean suffrage. I believe in suffrage myself. I mean the +way she's going after it. There are healthy ways of insisting on your +rights and unhealthy ways. Beulah's getting further and further off +key, that's all. Here we are at home, daughter. Your poor old +cooperative father welcomes you to the associated hearthstone." + +"This front entrance looks more like my front entrance than any other +place does," Eleanor said. "Oh! I'm so glad to be here. George, how is +the baby?" she asked the black elevator man, who beamed delightedly +upon her. + +"Gosh! I didn't know he had one," David chuckled. "It takes a +woman--" + +Jimmie appeared in the evening, laden with violets and a five pound +box of the chocolates most in favor in the politest circles at the +moment. David whistled when he saw them. + +"What's devouring you, papa?" Jimmie asked him. "Don't I always place +tributes at the feet of the offspring?" + +"Mirror candy and street corner violets, yes," David said. "It's only +the labels that surprised me." + +"She knows the difference, now," Jimmie answered, "what would you?" + +The night before her return to school it was decreed that she should +go to bed early. She had spent two busy days of shopping and "seeing +the family." She had her hours discussing her future with Peter, long +visits and talks with Margaret and Gertrude, and a cup of tea at +suffrage headquarters with Beulah, as well as long sessions in the +shops accompanied by Mademoiselle, who made her home now permanently +with David. She sat before the fire drowsily constructing pyramids out +of the embers and David stood with one arm on the mantel, smoking his +after-dinner cigar, and watching her. + +"Is it to be college, Eleanor?" he asked her presently. + +"I can't seem to make up my mind, Uncle David." + +"Don't you like the idea?" + +"Yes, I'd love it,--if--" + +"If what, daughter?" + +"If I thought I could spare the time." + +"The time? Elucidate." + +"I'm going to earn my own living, you know." + +"I didn't know." + +"I am. I've got to--in order to--to feel right about things." + +"Don't you like the style of living to which your cooperative parents +have accustomed you?" + +"I love everything you've ever done for me, but I can't go on letting +you do things for me forever." + +"Why not?" + +"I don't know why not exactly. It doesn't seem--right, that's all." + +"It's your New England conscience, Eleanor; one of the most specious +varieties of consciences in the world. It will always be tempting you +to do good that better may come. Don't listen to it, daughter." + +"I'm in earnest, Uncle David. I don't know whether I would be better +fitted to earn my living if I went to business college or real +college. What do you think?" + +"I can't think,--I'm stupefied." + +"Uncle Peter couldn't think, either." + +"Have you mentioned this brilliant idea to Peter?" + +"Yes." + +"What did he say?" + +"He talked it over with me, but I think he thinks I'll change my +mind." + +"I think you'll change your mind. Good heavens! Eleanor, we're all +able to afford you--the little we spend on you is nothing divided +among six of us. It's our pleasure and privilege. When did you come to +this extraordinary decision?" + +"A long time ago. The day that Mrs. Bolling talked to me, I think. +There are things she said that I've never forgotten. I told Uncle +Peter to think about it and then help me to decide which to do, and I +want you to think, Uncle David, and tell me truly what you believe +the best preparation for a business life would be. I thought perhaps I +might be a stenographer in an editorial office, and my training there +would be more use to me than four years at college, but I don't +know." + +"You're an extraordinary young woman," David said, staring at her. +"I'm glad you broached this subject, if only that I might realize how +extraordinary, but I don't think anything will come of it, my dear. I +don't want you to go to college unless you really want to, but if you +do want to, I hope you will take up the pursuit of learning as a +pursuit and not as a means to an end. Do you hear me, daughter?" + +"Yes, Uncle David." + +"Then let's have no more of this nonsense of earning your own +living." + +"Are you really displeased, Uncle David?" + +"I should be if I thought you were serious,--but it's bedtime. If +you're going to get your beauty sleep, my dear, you ought to begin on +it immediately." + +Eleanor rose obediently, her brow clouded a little, and her head held +high. David watched the color coming and going in the sweet face and +the tender breast rising and falling with her quickening breath. + +"I thought perhaps you would understand," she said. "Good night." + +She had always kissed him "good night" until this visit, and he had +refrained from commenting on the omission before, but now he put out +his hand to her. + +"Haven't you forgotten something?" he asked. "There is only one way +for a daughter to say good night to her parent." + +She put up her face, and as she did so he caught the glint of tears in +her eyes. + +"Why, Eleanor, dear," he said, "did you care?" And he kissed her. Then +his lips sought hers again. + +With his arms still about her shoulder he stood looking down at her. A +hot tide of crimson made its way slowly to her brow and then receded, +accentuating the clear pallor of her face. + +"That was a real kiss, dear," he said slowly. "We mustn't get such +things confused. I won't bother you with talking about it to-night, or +until you are ready. Until then we'll pretend that it didn't happen, +but if the thought of it should ever disturb you the least bit, dear, +you are to remember that the time is coming when I shall have +something to say about it; will you remember?" + +"Yes, Uncle David," Eleanor said uncertainly, "but I--I--" + +David took her unceremoniously by the shoulders. + +"Go now," he said, and she obeyed him without further question. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +BEULAH'S PROBLEM + + +Peter was shaving for the evening. His sister was giving a dinner +party for two of her husband's fellow bankers and their wives. After +that they were going to see the latest Belasco production, and from +there to some one of the new dancing "clubs,"--the smart cabarets that +were forced to organize in the guise of private enterprises to evade +the two o'clock closing law. Peter enjoyed dancing, but he did not as +a usual thing enjoy bankers' wives. He was deliberating on the +possibility of excusing himself gracefully after the theater, on the +plea of having some work to do, and finally decided that his sister's +feelings would be hurt if she realized he was trying to escape the +climax of the hospitality she had provided so carefully. + +He gazed at himself intently over the drifts of lather and twisted his +shaving mirror to the most propitious angle from time to time. In the +room across the hall--Eleanor's room, he always called it to +himself--his young niece was singing bits of the Mascagni intermezzo +interspersed with bits of the latest musical comedy, in a rather +uncertain contralto. + +"My last girl came from Vassar, and I don't know where to class her." + +Peter's mind took up the refrain automatically. "My last girl--" and +began at the beginning of the chorus again. "My last girl came from +Vassar," which brought him by natural stages to the consideration of +the higher education and of Beulah, and a conversation concerning her +that he had had with Jimmie and David the night before. + +"She's off her nut," Jimmie said succinctly. "It's not exactly that +there's nobody home," he rapped his curly pate significantly, "but +there's too much of a crowd there. She's not the same old girl at all. +She used to be a good fellow, high-brow propaganda and all. Now she's +got nothing else in her head. What's happened to her?" + +"It's what hasn't happened to her that's addled her," David explained. +"It's these highly charged, hypersensitive young women that go to +pieces under the modern pressure. They're the ones that need licking +into shape by all the natural processes." + +"By which you mean a drunken husband and a howling family?" Jimmie +suggested. + +"Yes, or its polite equivalent." + +"That is true, isn't it?" Peter said. "Feminism isn't the answer to +Beulah's problem." + +"It is the problem," David said; "she's poisoning herself with it. I +know what I'm talking about. I've seen it happen. My cousin Jack +married a girl with a sister a great deal like Beulah, looks, +temperament, and everything else, though she wasn't half so nice. She +got going the militant pace and couldn't stop herself. I never met her +at a dinner party that she wasn't tackling somebody on the subject of +man's inhumanity to woman. She ended in a sanitorium; in fact, they're +thinking now of taking her to the--" + +"--bug house," Jimmie finished cheerfully. + +"And in the beginning she was a perfectly good girl that needed +nothing in the world but a chance to develop along legitimate lines." + +"The frustrate matron, eh?" Peter said. + +"The frustrate matron," David agreed gravely. "I wonder you haven't +realized this yourself, Gram. You're keener about such things than I +am. Beulah is more your job than mine." + +"Is she?" + +"You're the only one she listens to or looks up to. Go up and tackle +her some day and see what you can do. She's sinking fast." + +"Give her the once over and throw out the lifeline," Jimmie said. + +"I thought all this stuff was a phase, a part of her taking herself +seriously as she always has. I had no idea it was anything to worry +about," Peter persisted. "Are you sure she's in bad shape--that she's +got anything more than a bad attack of Feminism of the Species in its +most virulent form? They come out of _that_, you know." + +"She's batty," Jimmie nodded gravely. "Dave's got the right dope." + +"Go up and look her over," David persisted; "you'll see what we mean, +then. Beulah's in a bad way." + +Peter reviewed this conversation while he shaved the right side of his +face, and frowned prodigiously through the lather. He wished that he +had an engagement that evening that he could break in order to get to +see Beulah at once, and discover for himself the harm that had come to +his friend. He was devoted to Beulah. He had always felt that he saw +a little more clearly than the others the virtue that was in the girl. +He admired the pluck with which she made her attack on life and the +energy with which she accomplished her ends. There was to him +something alluring and quaint about her earnestness. The fact that her +soundness could be questioned came to him with something like a shock. +As soon as he was dressed he was called to the telephone to talk to +David. + +"Margaret has just told me that Doctor Penrose has been up to see +Beulah and pronounces it a case of nervous breakdown. He wants her to +try out -analysis, and that sort of thing. He seems to feel that +it's serious. Margaret is fearfully upset, poor girl. So'm I, to tell +the truth." + +"And so am I," Peter acknowledged to himself as he hung up the +receiver. He was so absorbed during the evening that one of the +ladies--the wife of the fat banker--found him extremely dull and +decided against asking him to dinner with his sister. The wife of the +thin banker, who was in his charge at the theater, got the benefit of +his effort to rouse himself and grace the occasion creditably, and +found him delightful. By the time the evening was over he had decided +that Beulah should be pulled out of whatever dim world of dismay and +delusion she might be wandering in, at whatever cost. It was +unthinkable that she should be wasted, or that her youth and splendid +vitality should go for naught. + +He found her eager to talk to him the next night when he went to see +her. + +"Peter," she said, "I want you to go to my aunt and my mother, and +tell them that I've got to go on with my work,--that I can't be +stopped and interrupted by this foolishness of doctors and nurses. I +never felt better in my life, except for not being able to sleep, and +I think that is due to the way they have worried me. I live in a world +they don't know anything about, that's all. Even if they were right, +if I am wearing myself out soul and body for the sake of the cause, +what business is it of theirs to interfere? I'm working for the souls +and bodies of women for ages to come. What difference does it make if +my soul and body suffer? Why shouldn't they?" Her eyes narrowed. Peter +observed the unnatural light in them, the apparent dryness of her +lips, the two bright spots burning below her cheek-bones. + +"Because," he answered her slowly, "I don't think it was the original +intention of Him who put us here that we should sacrifice everything +we are to the business of emphasizing the superiority of a sex." + +"That isn't the point at all, Peter. No man understands, no man can +understand. It's woman's equality we want emphasized, just literally +that and nothing more. You've pauperized and degraded us long +enough--" + +"Thou canst not say I--" Peter began. + +"Yes, you and every other man, every man in the world is a party to +it." + +"I had to get her going," Peter apologized to himself, "in order to +get a point of departure. Not if I vote for women, Beulah, dear," he +added aloud. + +"If you throw your influence with us instead of against us," she +conceded, "you're helping to right the wrong that you have permitted +for so long." + +"Well, granting your premise, granting all your premises, Beulah--and +I admit that most of them have sound reasoning behind them--your +battle now is all over but the shouting. There's no reason that you +personally should sacrifice your last drop of energy to a campaign +that's practically won already." + +"If you think the mere franchise is all I have been working for, +Peter,--" + +"I don't. I know the thousand and one activities you women are +concerned with. I know how much better church and state always have +been and are bound to be, when the women get behind and push, if they +throw their strength right." + +Beulah rose enthusiastically to this bait and talked rationally and +well for some time. Just as Peter was beginning to feel that David and +Jimmie had been guilty of the most unsympathetic exaggeration of her +state of mind--unquestionably she was not as fit physically as +usual--she startled him with an abrupt change into almost hysterical +incoherence. + +"I have a right to live my own life," she concluded, "and +nobody--nobody shall stop me." + +"We are all living our own lives, aren't we?" Peter asked mildly. + +"No woman lives her own life to-day," Beulah cried, still excitedly. +"Every woman is living the life of some man, who has the legal right +to treat her as an imbecile." + +"Hold on, Beulah. How about the suffrage states, how about the women +who are already in the proud possession of their rights and +privileges? They are not technical imbeciles any longer according to +your theory. The vote's coming. Every woman will be a super-woman in +two shakes,--so what's devouring you, as Jimmie says?" + +"It's after all the states have suffrage that the big fight will +really begin," Beulah answered wearily. "It's the habit of wearing the +yoke we'll have to fight then." + +"The anti-feminists," Peter said, "I see. Beulah, can't you give +yourself any rest, or is the nature of the cause actually suicidal?" + +To his surprise her tense face quivered at this and she tried to +steady a tremulous lower lip. + +"I am tired," she said, a little piteously, "dreadfully tired, but +nobody cares." + +"Is that fair?" + +"It's true." + +"Your friends care." + +"They only want to stop me doing something they have no sympathy with. +What do Gertrude and Margaret know of the real purpose of my life or +my failure or success? They take a sentimental interest in my health, +that's all. Do you suppose it made any difference to Jeanne d'Arc how +many people took a sympathetic interest in her health if they didn't +believe in what she believed in?" + +"There's something in that." + +"I thought Eleanor would grow up to take an interest in the position +of women, and to care about the things I cared about, but she's not +going to." + +"She's very fond of you." + +"Not as fond as she is of Margaret." + +Peter longed to dispute this, but he could not in honesty. + +"She's a suffragist." + +"She's so lukewarm she might just as well be an anti. She's naturally +reactionary. Women like that aren't much use. They drag us back like +so much dead weight." + +"I suppose Eleanor has been a disappointment to you," Peter mused, +"but she tries pretty hard to be all things to all parents, Beulah. +You'll find she won't fail you if you need her." + +"I shan't need her," Beulah said, prophetically. "I hoped she'd stand +beside me in the work, but she's not that kind. She'll marry early and +have a family, and that will be the end of her." + +"I wonder if she will," Peter said, "I hope so. She still seems such +a child to me. I believe in marriage, Beulah, don't you?" + +Her answer surprised him. + +"Under certain conditions, I do. I made a vow once that I would never +marry and I've always believed that it would be hampering and limiting +to a woman, but now I see that the fight has got to go on. If there +are going to be women to carry on the fight they will have to be born +of the women who are fighting to-day." + +"Thank God," Peter said devoutly. "It doesn't make any difference why +you believe it, if you do believe it." + +"It makes all the difference," Beulah said, but her voice softened. +"What I believe is more to me than anything else in the world, +Peter." + +"That's all right, too. I understand your point of view, Beulah. You +carry it a little bit too far, that's all that's wrong with it from my +way of thinking." + +"Will you help me to go on, Peter?" + +"How?" + +"Talk to my aunt and my mother. Tell them that they're all wrong in +their treatment of me." + +"I think I could undertake to do that"--Peter was convinced that a +less antagonistic attitude on the part of her relatives would be more +successful--"and I will." + +Beulah's eyes filled with tears. + +"You're the only one who comes anywhere near knowing," she said, "or +who ever will, I guess. I try so hard, Peter, and now when I don't +seem to be accomplishing as much as I want to, as much as it's +necessary for me to accomplish if I am to go on respecting myself, +every one enters into a conspiracy to stop my doing anything at all. +The only thing that makes me nervous is the way I am thwarted and +opposed at every turn. I haven't got nervous prostration." + +"Perhaps not, but you have something remarkably like _idee fixe_," +Peter said to himself compassionately. + +He found her actual condition less dangerous but much more difficult +than he had anticipated. She was living wrong, that was the sum and +substance of her malady. Her life was spent confronting theories and +discounting conditions. She did not realize that it is only the +interest of our investment in life that we can sanely contribute to +the cause of living. Our capital strength and energy must be used for +the struggle for existence itself if we are to have a world of +balanced individuals. There is an arrogance involved in assuming +ourselves more humane than human that reacts insidiously on our health +and morals. Peter, looking into the twitching hectic face before him +with the telltale glint of mania in the eyes, felt himself becoming +helpless with pity for a mind gone so far askew. He felt curiously +responsible for Beulah's condition. + +"She wouldn't have run herself so far aground," he thought, "if I had +been on the job a little more. I could have helped her to steer +straighter. A word here and a lift there and she would have come +through all right. Now something's got to stop her or she can't be +stopped. She'll preach once too often out of the tail of a cart on the +subject of equal guardianship,--and--" + +Beulah put her hands to her face suddenly, and, sinking back into the +depths of the big cushioned chair on the edge of which she had been +tensely poised during most of the conversation, burst into tears. + +"You're the only one that knows," she sobbed over and over again. +"I'm so tired, Peter, but I've got to go on and on and on. If they +stop me, I'll kill myself." + +Peter crossed the room to her side and sat down on her chair-arm. + +"Don't cry, dear," he said, with a hand on her head. "You're too tired +to think things out now,--but I'll help you." + +She lifted a piteous face, for the moment so startlingly like that of +the dead girl he had loved that his senses were confused by the +resemblance. + +"How, Peter?" she asked. "How can you help me?" + +"I think I see the way," he said slowly. + +He slipped to his knees and gathered her close in his arms. + +"I think this will be the way, dear," he said very gently. + +"Does this mean that you want me to marry you?" she whispered, when +she was calmer. + +"If you will, dear," he said. "Will you?" + +"I will,--if I can, if I can make it seem right to after I've thought +it all out.--Oh! Peter, I love you. I love you." + +"I had no idea of that," he said gravely, "but it's wonderful that +you do. I'll put everything I've got into trying to make you happy, +Beulah." + +"I know you will, Peter." Her arms closed around his neck and +tightened there. "I love you." + +He made her comfortable and she relaxed like a tired child, almost +asleep under his soothing hand, and the quiet spell of his +tenderness. + +"I didn't know it could be like this," she whispered. + +"But it can," he answered her. + +In his heart he was saying, "This is best. I am sure this is best. It +is the right and normal way for her--and for me." + +In her tri-cornered dormitory room at the new school which she was not +sharing with any one this year Eleanor, enveloped in a big brown and +yellow wadded bathrobe, was writing a letter to Peter. Her hair hung +in two golden brown braids over her shoulders and her pure profile was +bent intently over the paper. At the moment when Beulah made her +confession of love and closed her eyes against the breast of the man +who had just asked her to marry him, two big tears forced their way +between Eleanor's lids and splashed down upon her letter. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +MOSTLY UNCLE PETER + + +"Dear Uncle Peter," the letter ran, "I am very, very homesick and +lonely for you to-day. It seems to me that I would gladly give a whole +year of my life just for the privilege of being with you, and talking +instead of writing,--but since that can not be, I am going to try and +write you about the thing that is troubling me. I can't bear it alone +any longer, and still I don't know whether it is the kind of thing +that it is honorable to tell or not. So you see I am very much +troubled and puzzled, and this trouble involves some one else in a way +that it is terrible to think of. + +"Uncle Peter, dear, I do not want to be married. Not until I have +grown up, and seen something of the world. You know it is one of my +dearest wishes to be self-supporting, not because I am a Feminist or a +new woman, or have 'the unnatural belief of an antipathy to man' that +you're always talking about, but just because it will prove to me once +and for all that I belong to myself, and that my _soul_ isn't, and +never has been cooperative. You know what I mean by this, and you are +not hurt by my feeling so. You, I am sure, would not want me to be +married, or to have to think of myself as engaged, especially not to +anybody that we all knew and loved, and who is very close to me and +you in quite another way. Please don't try to imagine what I mean, +Uncle Peter--even if you know, you must tell yourself that you don't +know. Please, please pretend even to yourself that I haven't written +you this letter. I know people do tell things like this, but I don't +know quite how they bring themselves to do it, even if they have +somebody like you who understands everything--everything. + +"Uncle Peter, dear, I am supposed to be going to be married by and by +when the one who wants it feels that it can be spoken of, and until +that happens, I've got to wait for him to speak, unless I can find +some way to tell him that I do not want it ever to be. I don't know +how to tell him. I don't know how to make him feel that I do not +belong to him. It is only myself I belong to, and I belong to you, but +I don't know how to make that plain to any one who does not know it +already. I can't say it unless perhaps you can help me to. + +"I am different from the other girls. I know every girl always thinks +there is something different about her, but I think there are ways in +which I truly am different. When I want anything I know more clearly +what it is, and why I want it than most other girls do, and not only +that, but I know now, that I want to keep myself, and everything I +think and feel and am,--_sacred_. There is an inner shrine in a +woman's soul that she must keep inviolate. I know that now. + +"A liberty that you haven't known how, or had the strength to prevent, +is a terrible thing. One can't forget it. Uncle Peter, dear, twice in +my life things have happened that drive me almost desperate when I +think of them. If these things should happen again when I know that I +don't want them to, I don't think there would be any way of my bearing +it. Perhaps you can tell me something that will make me find a way out +of this tangle. I don't see what it could be, but lots of times you +have shown me the way out of endless mazes that were not grown up +troubles like this, but seemed very real to me just the same. + +"Uncle Peter, dear, dear, dear,--you are all I have. I wish you were +here to-night, though you wouldn't be let in, even if you beat on the +gate ever so hard, for it's long after bedtime. I am up in my tower +room all alone. Oh! answer this letter. Answer it quickly, quickly." + + * * * * * + +Eleanor read her letter over and addressed a tear splotched envelope +to Peter. Then she slowly tore letter and envelope into little bits. + +"He would know," she said to herself. "I haven't any real right to +tell him. It would be just as bad as any kind of tattling." + +She began another letter to him but found she could not write without +saying what was in her heart, and so went to bed uncomforted. There +was nothing in her experience to help her in her relation to David. +His kiss on her lips had taught her the nature of such kisses: had +made her understand suddenly the ease with which the strange, sweet +spell of sex is cast. She related it to the episode of the unwelcome +caress bestowed upon her by the brother of Maggie Lou, and that half +forgotten incident took on an almost terrible significance. She +understood now how she should have repelled that unconscionable boy, +but that understanding did not help her with the problem of her Uncle +David. Though the thought of it thrilled through her with a strange +incredible delight, she did not want another kiss of his upon her +lips. + +"It's--it's--like that," she said to herself. "I want it to be from +somebody--else. Somebody _realer_ to me. Somebody that would make it +seem right." But even to herself she mentioned no names. + +She had definitely decided against going to college. She felt that she +must get upon her own feet quickly and be under no obligation to any +man. Vaguely her stern New England rearing was beginning to indicate +the way that she should tread. No man or woman who did not understand +"the value of a dollar," was properly equipped to do battle with the +realities of life. The value of a dollar, and a clear title to +it--these were the principles upon which her integrity must be founded +if she were to survive her own self-respect. Her Puritan fathers had +bestowed this heritage upon her. She had always felt the irregularity +of her economic position; now that the complication of her relation +with David had arisen, it was beginning to make her truly +uncomfortable. + +David had been very considerate of her, but his consideration +frightened her. He had been so afraid that she might be hurt or +troubled by his attitude toward her that he had explained again, and +almost in so many words that he was only waiting for her to grow +accustomed to the idea before he asked her to become his wife. She had +looked forward with considerable trepidation to the Easter vacation +following the establishment of their one-sided understanding, but +David relieved her apprehension by putting up at his club and leaving +her in undisturbed possession of his quarters. There, with +Mademoiselle still treating her as a little girl, and the other five +of her heterogeneous foster family to pet and divert her at intervals, +she soon began to feel her life swing back into a more accustomed and +normal perspective. David's attitude to her was as simple as ever, and +when she was with the devoted sextet she was almost able to forget the +matter that was at issue between them--almost but not quite. + +She took quite a new kind of delight in her association with the +group. She found herself suddenly on terms of grown up equality with +them. Her consciousness of the fact that David was tacitly waiting +for her to become a woman, had made a woman of her already, and she +looked on her guardians with the eyes of a woman, even though a very +newly fledged and timorous one. + +She was a trifle self-conscious with the others, but with Jimmie she +was soon on her old familiar footing. + + * * * * * + +"Uncle Jimmie is still a great deal of fun," she wrote in her diary. +"He does just the same old things he used to do with me, and a good +many new ones in addition. He brings me flowers, and gets me taxi-cabs +as if I were really a grown up young lady, and he pinches my nose and +teases me as if I were still the little girl that kept house in a +studio for him. I never realized before what a good-looking man he is. +I used to think that Uncle Peter was the only handsome man of the +three, but now I realize that they are all exceptionally good-looking. +Uncle David has a great deal of distinction, of course, but Uncle +Jimmie is merry and radiant and vital, and tall and athletic looking +into the bargain. The ladies on the Avenue all turn to look at him +when we go walking. He says that the gentlemen all turn to look at +me, and I think perhaps they do when I have my best clothes on, but in +my school clothes I am quite certain that nothing like that happens. + +"I have been out with Uncle Jimmie Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday +and Friday,--four days of my vacation. We've been to the Hippodrome +and Chinatown, and we've dined at Sherry's, and one night we went down +to the little Italian restaurant where I had my first introduction to +_eau rougie_, and was so distressed about it. I shall never forget +that night, and I don't think Uncle Jimmie will ever be done teasing +me about it. It is nice to be with Uncle Jimmie so much, but I never +seem to see Uncle Peter any more. Alphonse is very careful about +taking messages, I know, but it does seem to me that Uncle Peter must +have telephoned more times than I know of. It does seem as if he +would, at least, try to see me long enough to have one of our old time +talks again. To see him with all the others about is only a very +little better than not seeing him at all. He isn't like himself, +someway. There is a shadow over him that I do not understand." + + * * * * * + +"Don't you think that Uncle Peter has changed?" she asked Jimmie, +when the need of speaking of him became too strong to withstand. + +"He is a little pale about the ears," Jimmie conceded, "but I think +that's the result of hard work and not enough exercise. He spends all +his spare time trying to patch up Beulah instead of tramping and +getting out on his horse the way he used to. He's doing a good job on +the old dear, but it's some job, nevertheless and notwithstanding--" + +"Is Aunt Beulah feeling better than she was?" Eleanor's lips were dry, +but she did her best to make her voice sound natural. It seemed +strange that Jimmie could speak so casually of a condition of affairs +that made her very heart stand still. "I didn't know that Uncle Peter +had been taking care of her." + +"Taking care of her isn't a circumstance to what Peter has been doing +for Beulah. You know she hasn't been right for some time. She got +burning wrong, like the flame on our old gas stove in the studio when +there was air in it." + +"Uncle David thought so the last time I was here," Eleanor said, "but +I didn't know that Uncle Peter--" + +"Peter, curiously enough, was the last one to tumble. Dave and I got +alarmed about the girl and held a consultation, with the result that +Doctor Gramercy was called. If we'd believed he would go into it quite +so heavily we might have thought again before we sicked him on. It's +very nice for Mary Ann, but rather tough on Abraham as they said when +the lady was deposited on that already overcrowded bosom. Now Beulah's +got suffrage mania, and Peter's got Beulah mania, and it's a merry +mess all around." + +"Is Uncle Peter with her a lot?" + +"Every minute. You haven't seen much of him since you came, have +you?--Well, the reason is that every afternoon as soon as he can get +away from the office, he puts on a broad sash marked 'Votes for +Women,' and trundles Beulah around in her little white and green +perambulator, trying to distract her mind from suffrage while he talks +to her gently and persuasively upon the subject. Suffrage is the only +subject on her mind, he explains, so all he can do is to try to cuckoo +gently under it day by day. It's a very complicated process but he's +making headway." + +"I'm glad of that," Eleanor said faintly. "How--how is Aunt Gertrude? +I don't see her very often, either." + +"Gertrude's all right." It was Jimmie's turn to look self-conscious. +"She never has time for me any more; I'm not high-brow enough for her. +She's getting on like a streak, you know, exhibiting everywhere." + +"I know she is. She gave me a cast of her faun's head. I think it is +lovely. Aunt Margaret looks well." + +"She is, I guess, but don't let's waste all our valuable time talking +about the family. Let's talk about us--you and me. You ask me how I'm +feeling and then I'll tell you. Then I'll ask you how you're feeling +and you'll tell me. Then I'll tell you how I imagine you must be +feeling from the way you're looking,--and that will give me a chance +to expatiate on the delectability of your appearance. I'll work up +delicately to the point where you will begin to compare me favorably +with all the other nice young men you know,--and then we'll be off." + +"Shall we?" Eleanor asked, beginning to sparkle a little. + +"We shall indeed," he assured her solemnly. "You begin. No, on second +thoughts, I'll begin. I'll begin at the place where I start telling +you how excessively well you're looking. I don't know, considering its +source, whether it would interest you or not, but you have the biggest +blue eyes that I've, ever seen in all my life,--and I'm rather a judge +of them." + +"All the better to eat you with, my dear," Eleanor chanted. + +"Quite correct." He shot her a queer glance from under his eyebrows. +"I don't feel very safe when I look into them, my child. It would be a +funny joke on me if they did prove fatal to me, wouldn't +it?--well,--but away with such nonsense. I mustn't blither to the very +babe whose cradle I am rocking, must I?" + +"I'm not a babe, Uncle Jimmie. I feel very old sometimes. Older than +any of you." + +"Oh! you are, you are. You're a regular sphinx sometimes. Peter says +that you even disconcert him at times, when you take to remembering +things out of your previous experience." + +"'When he was a King in Babylon and I was a Christian Slave?'" she +quoted quickly. + +"Exactly. Only I'd prefer to play the part of the King of Babylon, if +it's all the same to you, niecelet. How does the rest of it go, 'yet +not for a--' something or other 'would I wish undone that deed beyond +the grave.' Gosh, my dear, if things were otherwise, I think I could +understand how that feller felt. Get on your hat, and let's get out +into the open. My soul is cramped with big potentialities this +afternoon. I wish you hadn't grown up, Eleanor. You are taking my +breath away in a peculiar manner. No man likes to have his breath +taken away so suddint like. Let's get out into the rolling prairie of +Central Park." + +But the rest of the afternoon was rather a failure. The Park had that +peculiar bleakness that foreruns the first promise of spring. The +children, that six weeks before were playing in the snow and six weeks +later would be searching the turf for dandelions, were in the listless +between seasons state of comparative inactivity. There was a deceptive +balminess in the air that seemed merely to overlay a penetrating +chilliness. + +"I'm sorry I'm not more entertaining this afternoon," Jimmie +apologized on the way home. "It isn't that I am not happy, or that I +don't feel the occasion to be more than ordinarily propitious; I'm +silent upon a peak in Darien,--that's all." + +"I was thinking of something else, too," Eleanor said. + +"I didn't say I was thinking of something else." + +"People are always thinking of something else when they aren't talking +to each other, aren't they?" + +"Something else, or each other, Eleanor. I wasn't thinking of +something else, I was thinking--well, I won't tell you exactly--at +present. A penny for your thoughts, little one." + +"They aren't worth it." + +"A penny is a good deal of money. You can buy joy for a penny." + +"I'm afraid I couldn't--buy joy, even if you gave me your penny, Uncle +Jimmie." + +"You might try. My penny might not be like other pennies. On the other +hand, your thoughts might be worth a fortune to me." + +"I'm afraid they wouldn't be worth anything to anybody." + +"You simply don't know what I am capable of making out of them." + +"I wish I could make something out of them," Eleanor said so +miserably that Jimmie was filled with compunction for having tired her +out, and hailed a passing taxi in which to whiz her home again. + + * * * * * + +"I have found out that Uncle Peter is spending all his time with Aunt +Beulah," she wrote in her diary that evening. "It is beautiful of him +to try to help her through this period of nervous collapse, and just +like him, but I don't understand why it is that he doesn't come and +tell me about it, especially since he is getting so tired. He ought to +know that I love him so dearly and deeply that I could help him even +in helping her. It isn't like him not to share his anxieties with me. +Aunt Beulah is a grown up woman, and has friends and doctors and +nurses, and every one knows her need. It seems to me that he might +think that I have no one but him, and that whatever might lie heavy on +my heart I could only confide in him. I have always told him +everything. Why doesn't it occur to him that I might have something to +tell him now? Why doesn't he come to me? + +"I am afraid he will get sick. He needs a good deal of exercise to +keep in form. If he doesn't have a certain amount of muscular +activity his digestion is not so good. There are two little creases +between his eyes that I never remember seeing there before. I asked +him the other night when he was here with Aunt Beulah if his head +ached, and he said 'no,' but Aunt Beulah said her head ached almost +all the time. Of course, Aunt Beulah is important, and if Uncle Peter +is trying to bring her back to normality again she is important to +him, and that makes her important to me for his sake also, but nobody +in the world is worth the sacrifice of Uncle Peter. Nobody, nobody. + +"I suppose it's a part of his great beauty that he should think so +disparagingly of himself. I might not love him so well if he knew just +how dear and sweet and great his personality is. It isn't so much what +he says or does, or even the way he looks that constitutes his charm, +it's the simple power and radiance behind his slightest move. Oh! I +can't express it. He doesn't think he is especially fine or beautiful. +He doesn't know what a waste it is when he spends his strength upon +somebody who isn't as noble in character as he is,--but I know, and it +makes me wild to think of it. Oh! why doesn't he come to me? My +vacation is almost over, and I don't see how I could bear going back +to school without one comforting hour of him alone. + +"I intended to write a detailed account of my vacation, but I can not. +Uncle Jimmie has certainly tried to make me happy. He is so funny and +dear. I could have so much fun with him if I were not worried about +Uncle Peter! + +"Uncle David says he wants to spend my last evening with me. We are +going to dine here, and then go to the theater together. I am going to +try to tell him how I feel about things, but I am afraid he won't give +me the chance. Life is a strange mixture of things you want and can't +have, and things you can have and don't want. It seems almost disloyal +to put that down on paper about Uncle David. I do want him and love +him, but oh!--not in that way. Not in that way. There is only one +person in a woman's life that she can feel that way about. +Why--why--why doesn't my Uncle Peter come to me?" + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +THE MAKINGS OF A TRIPLE WEDDING + + +"Just by way of formality," David said, "and not because I think any +one present"--he smiled on the five friends grouped about his dinner +table--"still takes our old resolution seriously, I should like to be +released from the anti-matrimonial pledge that I signed eight years +ago this November. I have no announcement to make as yet, but when I +do wish to make an announcement--and I trust to have the permission +granted very shortly--I want to be sure of my technical right to do +so." + +"Gosh all Hemlocks!" Jimmie exclaimed in a tone of such genuine +confusion that it raised a shout of laughter. "I never thought of +that." + +"Nor I," said Peter. "I never signed any pledge to that effect." + +"We left you out of it, Old Horse, regarding you as a congenital +celibate anyway," Jimmie answered. + +"Some day soon you will understand how much you wronged me," Peter +said with a covert glance at Beulah. + +"I wish I could say as much," Jimmie sighed, "since this is the hour +of confession I don't mind adding that I hope I may be able to soon." + +Gertrude clapped her hands softly. + +"Wonderful, wonderful!" she cried. "We've the makings of a triple +wedding in our midst. Look into the blushing faces before us and hear +the voice that breathed o'er Eden echoing in our ears. This is the +most exciting moment of my life! Girls, get on your feet and drink to +the health of these about-to-be Benedicts. Up in your chairs,--one +slipper on the table. Now!"--and the moment was saved. + +Gertrude had seen Margaret's sudden pallor and heard the convulsive +catching of her breath,--Margaret rising Undine-like out of a filmy, +pale green frock, with her eyes set a little more deeply in the +shadows than usual. Her quick instinct to the rescue was her own +salvation. + +David was on his feet. + +"On behalf of my coadjutors," he said, "I thank you. All this is +extremely premature for me, and I imagine from the confusion of the +other gentlemen present it is as much, if not more so, for them. +Personally I regret exceedingly being unable to take you more fully +into my confidence. The only reason for this partial revelation is +that I wished to be sure that I was honorably released from my oath of +abstinence. Hang it all! You fellows say something," he concluded, +sinking abruptly into his chair. + +"Your style always was distinctly mid-Victorian," Jimmie murmured. +"I've got nothing to say, except that I wish I had something to say +and that if I _do_ have something to say in the near future I'll +create a real sensation! When Miss Van Astorbilt permits David to link +her name with his in the caption under a double column cut in our +leading journals, you'll get nothing like the thrill that I expect to +create with my modest announcement. I've got a real romance up my +sleeve." + +"So've I, Jimmie. There is no Van Astorbilt in mine." + +"Some simple bar-maid then? A misalliance in our midst. Now about you, +Peter?" + +"The lady won't give me her permission to speak," Peter said. "She +knows how proud and happy I shall be when I am able to do so." + +Beulah looked up suddenly. + +"It is better we should marry," she said. "I didn't realize that when +I exacted that oath from you. It is from the intellectual type that +the brains to carry on the great work of the world must be +inherited." + +"I pass," Jimmie murmured. "Where's the document we signed?" + +"I've got it. I'll destroy it to-night and then we may all consider +ourselves free to take any step that we see fit. It was really only as +a further protection to Eleanor that we signed it." + +"Eleanor will be surprised, won't she?" Gertrude suggested. Three +self-conscious masculine faces met her innocent interrogation. + +"_Eleanor_," Margaret breathed, "_Eleanor_." + +"I rather think she will," Jimmie chuckled irresistibly, but David +said nothing, and Peter stared unseeingly into the glass he was still +twirling on its stem. + +"Eleanor will be taken care of just the same," Beulah said decisively. +"I don't think we need even go through the formality of a vote on +that." + +"Eleanor will be taken care of," David said softly. + +The Hutchinsons' limousine--old Grandmother Hutchinson had a motor +nowadays--was calling for Margaret, and she was to take the two other +girls home. David and Jimmie--such is the nature of men--were +disappointed in not being able to take Margaret and Gertrude +respectively under their accustomed protection. + +"I wanted to talk to you, Gertrude," Jimmie said reproachfully as she +slipped away from his ingratiating hand on her arm. + +"I thought I should take you home to-night, Margaret," David said; +"you never gave me the slip before." + +"The old order changeth," Gertrude replied lightly to them both, as +she preceded Margaret into the luxurious interior. + +"It's Eleanor," Gertrude announced as the big car swung into Fifth +Avenue. + +"Which is Eleanor?" Margaret cried hysterically. + +"What do you mean?" Beulah asked. + +"Jimmie or David--or--or both are going to marry Eleanor. Didn't you +see their faces when Beulah spoke of her?" + +"David wants to marry Eleanor," Margaret said quietly. "I've known it +all winter--without realizing what it was I knew." + +"Well, who is Jimmy going to marry then?" Beulah inquired. + +"Who is Peter going to marry for that matter?" Gertrude cut in. "Oh! +it doesn't make any difference,--we're losing them just the same." + +"Not necessarily," Beulah said. "No matter what combinations come +about, we shall still have an indestructible friendship." + +"Indestructible friendship--shucks," Gertrude cried. "The boys are +going to be married--married--married! Marriage is the one thing that +indestructible friendships don't survive--except as ghosts." + +"It should be Peter who is going to marry Eleanor," Margaret said. +"It's Peter who has always loved her best. It's Peter she cares for." + +"As a friend," Beulah said, "as her dearest friend." + +"Not as a friend," Margaret answered softly, "she loves him. She has +always loved him. It comes early sometimes." + +"I don't believe it. I simply don't believe it." + +"I believe it," Gertrude said. "I hadn't thought of it before. Of +course, it must be Peter who is going to marry her." + +"If it isn't we've succeeded in working out a rather tragic +experiment," Margaret said, "haven't we?" + +"Life is a tragic experiment for any woman," Gertrude said +sententiously. + +"Peter doesn't intend to marry Eleanor," Beulah persisted. "I happen +to know." + +"Do you happen to know who he is going to marry?" + +"Yes, I do know, but I--I can't tell you yet." + +"Whoever it is, it's a mistake," Margaret said. "It's our little +Eleanor he wants. I suppose he doesn't realize it himself yet, and +when he does it will be too late. He's probably gone and tied himself +up with somebody entirely unsuitable, hasn't he, Beulah?" + +"I don't know," Beulah said; "perhaps he has. I hadn't thought of it +that way." + +"It's the way to think of it, I know." Margaret's eyes filled with +sudden tears. "But whatever he's done it's past mending now. There'll +be no question of Peter's backing out of a bargain--bad or good, and +our poor little kiddie's got to suffer." + +"Beulah took it hard," Gertrude commented, as they turned up-town +again after dropping their friend at her door. The two girls were +spending the night together at Margaret's. "I wonder on what grounds. +I think besides being devoted to Eleanor, she feels terrifically +responsible for her. She isn't quite herself again either." + +"She is almost, thanks to Peter." + +"But--oh! I can't pretend to think of anything else,--who--who--who--are +our boys going to marry?" + +"I don't know, Gertrude." + +"But you care?" + +"It's a blow." + +"I always thought that you and David--" + +Margaret met her eyes bravely but she did not answer the implicit +question. + +"I always thought that you and Jimmie--" she said presently. "Oh! +Gertrude, you would have been so good for him." + +"Oh! it's all over now," Gertrude said, "but I didn't know that a +living soul suspected me." + +"I've known for a long time." + +"Are you really hurt, dear?" Gertrude whispered as they clung to each +other. + +"Not really. It could have been--that's all. He could have made me +care. I've never seen any one else whom I thought that of. I--I was so +used to him." + +"That's the rub," Gertrude said, "we're so used to them. They're +so--so preposterously necessary to us." + +Late that night clasped in each other's arms they admitted the extent +of their desolation. Life had been robbed of a magic,--a mystery. The +solid friendship of years of mutual trust and understanding was the +background of so much lovely folly, so many unrealized possibilities, +so many nebulous desires and dreams that the sudden dissolution of +their circle was an unthinkable calamity. + +"We ought to have put out our hands and taken them if we wanted them," +Gertrude said, out of the darkness. "Other women do. Probably these +other women have. Men are helpless creatures. They need to be firmly +turned in the right direction instead of being given their heads. +We've been too good to our boys. We ought to have snitched them." + +"I wouldn't pay that price for love," Margaret said. "I couldn't. By +the time I had made it happen I wouldn't want it." + +"That's my trouble too," Gertrude said. Then she turned over on her +pillow and sobbed helplessly. "Jimmie had such ducky little curls," +she explained incoherently. "I do this sometimes when I think of them. +Otherwise, I'm not a crying woman." + +Margaret put out a hand to her; but long after Gertrude's breath began +to rise and fall regularly, she lay staring wide-eyed into the +darkness. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +ELEANOR HEARS THE NEWS + + +"Dear Uncle Jimmie: + +"I said I would write you, but now that I have taken this hour in +which to do it, I find it is a very, very hard letter that I have got +to write. In the first place I can't believe that the things you said +to me that night were real, or that you were awake and in the world of +realities when you said them. I felt as if we were both dreaming; that +you were talking as a man does sometimes in delirium when he believes +the woman he loves to be by his side, and I was listening the same +way. It made me very happy, as dreams sometimes do. I can't help +feeling that your idea of me is a dream idea, and the pain that you +said this kind of a letter would give you will be merely dream pain. +It is a shock to wake up in the morning and find that all the lovely +ways we felt, and delicately beautiful things we had, were only dream +things that we wouldn't even understand if we were thoroughly awake. + +"In the second place, you can't want to marry your little niecelet, +the funny little 'kiddo,' that used to burn her fingers and the +beefsteak over that old studio gas stove. We had such lovely kinds of +make-believe together. That's what our association always ought to +mean to us,--just chumship, and wonderful and preposterous _pretends_. +I couldn't think of myself being married to you any more than I could +Jack the giant killer, or Robinson Crusoe. You're my truly best and +dearest childhood's playmate, and that is a great deal to be, Uncle +Jimmie. I don't think a little girl ever grows up quite _whole_ unless +she has somewhere, somehow, what I had in you. You wouldn't want to +marry Alice in Wonderland, now would you? There are some kinds of +playmates that can't marry each other. I think that you and I are that +kind, Uncle Jimmie. + +"My dear, my dear, don't let this hurt you. How can it hurt you, when +I am only your little adopted foster child that you have helped +support and comfort and make a beautiful, glad life for? I love you so +much,--you are so precious to me that you _must_ wake up out of this +distorted, though lovely dream that I was present at! + +"We must all be happy. Nobody can break our hearts if we are strong +enough to withhold them. Nobody can hurt us too much if we can find +the way to be our bravest all the time. I know that what you are +feeling now is not real. I can't tell you how I know, but I do know +the difference. The roots are not deep enough. They could be pulled up +without too terrible a havoc. + +"Uncle Jimmie, dear, believe me, believe me. I said this would be a +hard letter to write, and it has been. If you could see my poor +inkstained, weeping face, you would realize that I am only your funny +little Eleanor after all, and not to be taken seriously at all. I hope +you will come up for my graduation. When you see me with all the other +lumps and frumps that are here, you will know that I am not worth +considering except as a kind of human joke. + +"Good-by, dear, my dear, and God bless you. + +"Eleanor." + + * * * * * + +It was less than a week after this letter to Jimmie that Margaret +spending a week-end in a town in Connecticut adjoining that in which +Eleanor's school was located, telephoned Eleanor to join her +overnight at the inn where she was staying. She had really planned the +entire expedition for the purpose of seeing Eleanor and preparing her +for the revelations that were in store for her, though she was +ostensibly meeting a motoring party, with which she was going on into +the Berkshires. + +She started in abruptly, as was her way, over the salad and cheese in +the low studded Arts and Crafts dining-room of the fashionable road +house, contrived to look as self-conscious as a pretty woman in new +sporting clothes. + +"Your Uncle David and your Uncle Jimmie are going to be married," she +told her. "Did you know it, Eleanor?" + +"No, I didn't," Eleanor said faintly, but she grew suddenly very +white. + +"Aren't you surprised, dear? David gave a dinner party one night last +week in his studio, and announced his intentions, but we don't know +the name of the lady yet, and we can't guess it. He says it is not a +society girl." + +"Who do you think it is?" + +"Who do you think it is, Eleanor?" + +"I--I can't think, Aunt Margaret." + +"We don't know who Jimmie is marrying either. The facts were merely +insinuated, but he said we should have the shock of our lives when we +knew." + +"When did he tell you?" + +"A week ago last Wednesday. I haven't seen him since." + +"Perhaps he has changed his mind by now," Eleanor said. + +"I don't think that's likely. They were both very much in earnest. +Aren't you surprised, Eleanor?" + +"I--I don't know. Don't you think it might be that they both just +thought they were going to marry somebody--that really doesn't want to +marry them? It might be all a mistake, you know." + +"I don't think it's a mistake. David doesn't make mistakes." + +"He might make one," Eleanor persisted. + +Margaret found the rest of her story harder to tell than she had +anticipated. Eleanor, wrapped in the formidable aloofness of the +sensitive young, was already suffering from the tale she had come to +tell,--why, it was not so easy to determine. It might be merely from +the pang of being shut out from confidences that she felt should have +been shared with her at once. + +She waited until they were both ready for bed (their rooms were +connecting)--Eleanor in the straight folds of her white dimity +nightgown, and her two golden braids making a picture that lingered in +Margaret's memory for many years. "It would have been easier to tell +her in her street clothes," she thought. "I wish her profile were not +so perfect, or her eyes were shallower. How can I hurt such a lovely +thing?" + +"Are the ten Hutchinsons all right?" Eleanor was asking. + +"The ten Hutchinsons are very much all right. They like me better now +that I have grown a nice hard Hutchinson shell that doesn't show my +feelings through. Haven't you noticed how much more like other people +I've grown, Eleanor?" + +"You've grown nicer, and dearer and sweeter, but I don't think you're +very much like anybody else, Aunt Margaret." + +"I have though,--every one notices it. You haven't asked me anything +about Peter yet," she added suddenly. + +The lovely color glowed in Eleanor's cheeks for an instant. + +"Is--is Uncle Peter well?" she asked. "I haven't heard from him for a +long time." + +"Yes, he's well," Margaret said. "He's looking better than he was for +a while. He had some news to tell us too, Eleanor." + +Eleanor put her hand to her throat. + +"What kind of news?" she asked huskily. + +"He's going to be married too. It came out when the others told us. He +said that he hadn't the consent of the lady to mention her name yet. +We're as much puzzled about him as we are about the other two." + +"It's Aunt Beulah," Eleanor said. "It's Aunt Beulah." + +She sat upright on the edge of the bed and stared straight ahead of +her. Margaret watched the light and life and youth die out of the face +and a pitiful ashen pallor overspread it. + +"I don't think it's Beulah," Margaret said. "Beulah knows who it is, +but I never thought of it's being Beulah herself." + +"If she knows--then she's the one. He wouldn't have told her first if +she hadn't been." + +"Don't let it hurt you too much, dear. We're all hurt some, you know. +Gertrude--and me, too, Eleanor. It's--it's pain to us all." + +"Do you mean--Uncle David, Aunt Margaret?" + +"Yes, dear," Margaret smiled at her bravely. + +"And does Aunt Gertrude care about Uncle Jimmie?" + +"She has for a good many years, I think." + +Eleanor covered her face with her hands. + +"I didn't know that," she said. "I wish somebody had told me." She +pushed Margaret's arm away from her gently, but her breath came hard. +"Don't touch me," she cried, "I can't bear it. You might not want +to--if you knew. Please go,--oh! please go--oh! please go." + +As Margaret closed the door gently between them, she saw Eleanor throw +her head back, and push the back of her hand hard against her mouth, +as if to stifle the rising cry of her anguish. + + * * * * * + +The next morning Eleanor was gone. Margaret had listened for hours in +the night but had heard not so much as the rustle of a garment from +the room beyond. Toward morning she had fallen into the sleep of +exhaustion. It was then that the stricken child had made her escape. +"Miss Hamlin had found that she must take the early train," the clerk +said, "and left this note for Miss Hutchinson." It was like Eleanor to +do things decently and in order. + + * * * * * + +"Dear Aunt Margaret," her letter ran. "My grandmother used to say that +some people were trouble breeders. On thinking it over I am afraid +that is just about what I am,--a trouble breeder. + +"I've been a worry and bother and care to you all since the beginning, +and I have repaid all your kindness by bringing trouble upon you. +Perhaps you can guess what I mean. I don't think I have any right to +tell you exactly in this letter. I can only pray that it will be found +to be all a mistake, and come out right in the end. Surely such +beautiful people as you and Uncle David can find the way to each +other, and can help Uncle Jimmie and Aunt Gertrude, who are a little +blinder about life. Surely, when the stumbling block is out of the +way, you four will walk together beautifully. Please try, Aunt +Margaret, to make things as right as if I had never helped them to go +wrong. I was so young, I didn't know how to manage. I shall never be +that kind of young again. I grew up last night, Aunt Margaret. + +"You know the other reason why I am going. Please do not let any one +else know. If the others could think I had met with some accident, +don't you think that would be the wisest way? I would like to arrange +it so they wouldn't try to find me at all, but would just mourn for me +naturally for a little while. I thought of sticking my old cap in the +river, but I was afraid that would be too hard for you. There won't be +any use in trying to find me. I am going where you can not. I couldn't +ever bear seeing one of your faces again. I have done too much harm. +Don't let Uncle Peter _know_, please, Aunt Margaret. I don't want him +to know,--I don't want to hurt him, and I don't want him to know. + +"Oh! I have loved you all so much. Good-by, my dears, my dearests. I +have taken all of my allowance money. Please forgive me. + +"Eleanor." + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +THE SEARCH + + +Eleanor had not bought a ticket at the station, Margaret ascertained, +but the ticket agent had tried to persuade her to. She had thanked him +and told him that she preferred to buy it of the conductor. He was a +lank, saturnine individual and had been seriously smitten with +Eleanor's charms, it appeared, and the extreme solicitousness of his +attitude at the suggestion of any mystery connected with her departure +made Margaret realize the caution with which it would be politic to +proceed. She had very little hope of finding Eleanor back at the +school, but it was still rather a shock when she telephoned the school +office and found that there was no news of her there. She concocted a +somewhat lame story to account for Eleanor's absence and promised the +authorities that she would be sent back to them within the week,--a +promise she was subsequently obliged to acknowledge that she could not +keep. Then she fled to New York to break the disastrous news to the +others. + +She told Gertrude the truth and showed her the pitiful letter Eleanor +had left behind her, and together they wept over it. Also together, +they faced David and Jimmie. + +"She went away," Margaret told them, "both because she felt she was +hurting those that she loved and because she herself was hurt." + +"What do you mean?" David asked. + +"I mean--that she belonged body and soul to Peter and to nobody else," +Margaret answered deliberately. + +David bowed his head. Then he threw it back again, suddenly. + +"If that is true," he said, "then I am largely responsible for her +going." + +"It is I who am responsible," Jimmie groaned aloud. "I asked her to +marry me and she refused me." + +"I asked her to marry me and didn't give her the chance to refuse," +David said; "it is that she is running away from." + +"It was Peter's engagement that was the last straw," Margaret said. +"The poor baby withered and shrank like a flower in the blast when I +told her that." + +"The damned hound--" Jimmie said feelingly and without apology. "Who's +he engaged to anyway?" + +"Eleanor says it's Beulah, and the more I think of it the more I think +that she's probably right." + +"That would be a nice mess, wouldn't it?" Gertrude suggested. +"Remember how frank we were with her about his probable lack of +judgment, Margaret? I don't covet the sweet job of breaking it to +either one of them." + +Nevertheless she assisted Margaret to break it to them both late that +same afternoon at Beulah's apartment. + +"I'll find her," Peter said briefly. And in response to the halting +explanation of her disappearance that Margaret and Gertrude had done +their best to try to make plausible, despite its elliptical nature, he +only said, "I don't see that it makes any difference why she's gone. +She's gone, that's the thing that's important. No matter how hard we +try we can't really figure out her reason till we find her." + +"Are you sure it's going to be so easy?" Gertrude asked. "I +mean--finding her. She's a pretty determined little person when she +makes up her mind. Eleanor's threats are to be taken seriously. She +always makes good on them." + +"I'll find her if she's anywhere in the world," Peter said. "I'll find +her and bring her back." + +Margaret put out her hand to him. + +"I believe that you will," she said. "Find out the reason that she +went away, too, Peter." + +Beulah pulled Gertrude aside. + +"It wasn't Peter, was it?" she asked piteously. "She had some one else +on her mind, hadn't she?" + +"She had something else on her mind," Gertrude answered gravely, "but +she had Peter on her mind, too." + +"She didn't--she couldn't have known about us--Peter and me. We--we +haven't told any one." + +"She guessed it, Beulah. She couldn't bear it. Nobody's to blame. It's +just one of God's most satirical mix-ups." + +"I was to blame," Beulah said slowly. "I don't believe in shifting +responsibility. I got her here in the first place and I've been +instrumental in guiding her life ever since. Now, I've sacrificed her +to my own happiness." + +"It isn't so simple as that," Gertrude said; "the things we start +going soon pass out of our hands. Somebody a good deal higher up has +been directing Eleanor's affairs for a long time,--and ours too, for +that matter." + +"Don't worry, Beulah," Peter said, making his way to her side from the +other corner of the room where he had been talking to Margaret. "You +mustn't let this worry you. We've all got to be--soldiers now,--but +we'll soon have her back again, I promise you." + +"And I promise you," Beulah said chokingly, "that if you'll get her +back again, I--I will be a soldier." + + * * * * * + +Peter began by visiting the business schools in New York and finding +out the names of the pupils registered there. Eleanor had clung firmly +to her idea of becoming an editorial stenographer in some magazine +office, no matter how hard he had worked to dissuade her. He felt +almost certain she would follow out that purpose now. There was a fund +in her name started some years before for the defraying of her college +expenses. She would use that, he argued, to get herself started, even +though she felt constrained to pay it back later on. He worked on this +theory for some time, even making a trip to Boston in search for her +in the stenography classes there, but nothing came of it. + +Among Eleanor's effects sent on from the school was a little red +address book containing the names and addresses of many of her former +schoolmates at Harmon. Peter wrote all the girls he remembered hearing +her speak affectionately of, but not one of them was able to give him +any news of her. He wrote to Colhassett to Albertina's aunt, who had +served in the capacity of housekeeper to Eleanor's grandfather in his +last days, and got in reply a pious letter from Albertina herself, who +intimated that she had always suspected that Eleanor would come to +some bad end, and that now she was highly soothed and gratified by the +apparent fulfillment of her sinister prognostications. + +Later he tried private detectives, and, not content with their +efforts, he followed them over the ground that they covered, searching +through boarding houses, and public classes of all kinds; canvassing +the editorial offices of the various magazines Eleanor had admired in +the hope of discovering that she had applied for some small position +there; following every clue that his imagination, and the acumen of +the professionals in his service, could supply;--but his patient +search was unrewarded. Eleanor had apparently vanished from the +surface of the earth. The quest which had seemed to him so simple a +matter when he first undertook it, now began to assume terrible and +abortive proportions. It was unthinkable that one little slip of a +girl untraveled and inexperienced should be able permanently to elude +six determined and worldly adult New Yorkers, who were prepared to tax +their resources to the utmost in the effort to find her,--but the fact +remained that she was missing and continued to be missing, and the +cruel month went by and brought them no news of her. + +The six guardians took their trouble hard. Apart from the emotions +that had been precipitated by her developing charms, they loved her +dearly as the child they had taken to their hearts and bestowed all +their young enthusiasm and energy and tenderness upon. She was the +living clay, as Gertrude had said so many years before, that they had +molded as nearly as possible to their hearts' desire. They loved her +for herself, but one and all they loved her for what they had made of +her--an exquisite, lovely young creature, at ease in a world that +might so easily have crushed her utterly if they had not intervened +for her. + +They kept up the search unremittingly, following false leads and +meeting with heartbreaking discouragements and disappointments. Only +Margaret had any sense of peace about her. + +"I'm sure she's all right," she said; "I feel it. It's hard having her +gone, but I'm not afraid for her. She'll work it out better than we +could help her to. It's a beautiful thing to be young and strong and +free, and she'll get the beauty out of it." + +"I think perhaps you're right, Margaret," David said. "You almost +always are. It's the bread and butter end of the problem that worries +me." + +Margaret smiled at him quaintly. + +"The Lord provides," she said. "He'll provide for our ewe lamb, I'm +sure." + +"You speak as if you had it on direct authority." + +"I think perhaps I have," she said gravely. + +Jimmie and Gertrude grew closer together as the weeks passed, and the +strain of their fruitless quest continued. One day Jimmie showed her +the letter that Eleanor had written him. + +"Sweet, isn't she?" he said, as Gertrude returned it to him, smiling +through her tears. + +"She's a darling," Gertrude said fervently. "Did she hurt you so much, +Jimmie dear?" + +"I wanted her," Jimmie answered slowly, "but I think it was because I +thought she was mine,--that I could make her mine. When I found she +was Peter's,--had been Peter's all the time, the thought somehow cured +me. She was dead right, you know. I made it up out of the stuff that +dreams are made of. God knows I love her, but--but that personal thing +has gone out of it. She's my little lost child,--or my sister. A man +wants his own to be his own, Gertrude." + +"Yes, I know." + +"My--my real trouble is that I'm at sea again. I thought that I +cared,--that I was anchored for good. It's the drifting that plays the +deuce with me. If the thought of that sweet child and the grief at her +loss can't hold me, what can? What hope is there for me?" + +"I don't know," Gertrude laughed. + +"Don't laugh at me. You've always been on to me, Gertrude, too much so +to have any respect for me, I guess. You've got your work," he waved +his arm at the huge cast under the shadow of which they were sitting, +"and all this. You can put all your human longings into it. I'm a poor +rudderless creature without any hope or direction." He buried his face +in his hands. "You don't know it," he said, with an effort to conceal +the fact that his shoulders were shaking, "but you see before you a +human soul in the actual process of dissolution." + +Gertrude crossed her studio floor to kneel down beside him. She drew +the boyish head, rumpled into an irresistible state of curliness, to +her breast. + +"Put it here where it belongs," she said softly. + +"Do you mean it?" he whispered. "Sure thing? Hope to die? Cross your +heart?" + +"Yes, my dear." + +"Praise the Lord." + +"I snitched him," Gertrude confided to Margaret some days later,--her +whole being radiant and transfigured with happiness. "You snitch +David." + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +THE YOUNG NURSE + + +The local hospital of the village of Harmonville, which was ten miles +from Harmon proper, where the famous boarding-school for young ladies +was located, presented an aspect so far from institutional that but +for the sign board tacked modestly to an elm tree just beyond the +break in the hedge that constituted the main entrance, the gracious, +old colonial structure might have been taken for the private residence +for which it had served so many years. + +It was a crisp day in late September, and a pale yellow sun was spread +thin over the carpet of yellow leaves with which the wide lawn was +covered. In the upper corridor of the west wing, grouped about the +window-seat with their embroidery or knitting, the young nurses were +talking together in low tones during the hour of the patients' +siestas. The two graduates, dark-eyed efficient girls, with skilled +delicate fingers taking precise stitches in the needlework before +them, were in full uniform, but the younger girls clustered about +them, beginners for the most part, but a few months in training, were +dressed in the simple blue print, and little white caps and aprons, of +the probationary period. + +The atmosphere was very quiet and peaceful. A light breeze blew in at +the window and stirred a straying lock or two that escaped the +starched band of a confining cap. Outside the stinging whistle of the +insect world was interrupted now and then by the cough of a passing +motor. From the doors opening on the corridor an occasional restless +moan indicated the inability of some sufferer to take his dose of +oblivion according to schedule. Presently a bell tinkled a summons to +the patient in the first room on the right--a gentle little old lady +who had just had her appendix removed. + +"Will you take that, Miss Hamlin?" the nurse in charge of the case +asked the tallest and fairest of the young assistants. + +"Certainly." Eleanor, demure in cap and kerchief as the most ravishing +of young Priscillas, rose obediently at the request. "May I read to +her a little if she wants me to?" + +"Yes, if you keep the door closed. I think most of the others are +sleeping." + +The little old lady who had just had her appendix out, smiled weakly +up at Eleanor. + +"I hoped 'twould be you," she said, "and then after I'd rung I lay in +fear and trembling lest one o' them young flipperti-gibbets should +come, and get me all worked up while she was trying to shift me. I +want to be turned the least little mite on my left side." + +"That's better, isn't it?" Eleanor asked, as she made the adjustment. + +"I dunno whether that's better, or whether it just seems better to me, +because 'twas you that fixed me," the little old lady said. "You +certainly have got a soothin' and comfortin' way with you." + +"I used to take care of my grandmother years ago, and the more +hospital work I do, the more it comes back to me,--and the better I +remember the things that she liked to have done for her." + +"There's nobody like your own kith and kin," the little old lady +sighed. "There's none left of mine. That other nurse--that black +haired one--she said you was an orphan, alone in the world. Well, I +pity a young girl alone in the world." + +"It's all right to be alone in the world--if you just keep busy +enough," Eleanor said. "But you mustn't talk any more. I'm going to +give you your medicine and then sit here and read to you." + + * * * * * + +On the morning of her flight from the inn, after a night spent staring +motionless into the darkness, Eleanor took the train to the town some +dozen miles beyond Harmonville, where her old friend Bertha Stephens +lived. To "Stevie," to whom the duplicity of Maggie Lou had served to +draw her very close in the ensuing year, she told a part of her story. +It was through the influence of Mrs. Stephens, whose husband was on +the board of directors of the Harmonville hospital, that Eleanor had +been admitted there. She had resolutely put all her old life behind +her. The plan to take up a course in stenography and enter an +editorial office was to have been, as a matter of course, a part of +her life closely associated with Peter. Losing him, there was nothing +left of her dream of high adventure and conquest. There was merely the +hurt desire to hide herself where she need never trouble him again, +and where she could be independent and useful. Having no idea of her +own value to her guardians, or the integral tenderness in which she +was held, she sincerely believed that her disappearance must have +relieved them of much chagrin and embarrassment. + +Her hospital training kept her mercifully busy. She had the +temperament that finds a virtue in the day's work, and a balm in its +mere iterative quality. Her sympathy and intelligence made her a good +nurse and her adaptability, combined with her loveliness, a general +favorite. + +She spent her days off at the Stephens' home. Bertha Stephens had been +the one girl that Peter had failed to write to, when he began to +circulate his letters of inquiry. Her name had been set down in the +little red book, but he remembered the trouble that Maggie Lou had +precipitated, and arrived at the conclusion that the intimacy existing +between Eleanor and Bertha had not survived it. Except that Carlo +Stephens persisted in trying to make love to her, and Mrs. Stephens +covertly encouraged his doing so, Eleanor found the Stephens' home a +very comforting haven. Bertha had developed into a full breasted, +motherly looking girl, passionately interested in all vicarious +love-affairs, though quickly intimidated at the thought of having any +of her own. She was devoted to Eleanor, and mothered her clumsily. + +It was still to her diary that Eleanor turned for the relief and +solace of self-expression. + + * * * * * + +"It is five months to-day," she wrote, "since I came to the hospital. +It seems like five years. I like it, but I feel like the little old +woman on the King's Highway. I doubt more every minute if this can be +I. Sometimes I wonder what 'being I' consists of, anyway. I used to +feel as if I were divided up into six parts as separate as +protoplasmic cells, and that each one was looked out for by a +different cooperative parent. I thought that I would truly be I when I +got them all together, and looked out for them myself, but I find I am +no more of an entity than I ever was. The puzzling question of 'what +am I?' still persists, and I am farther away from the right answer +than ever. Would a sound be a sound if there were no one to hear it? +If the waves of vibration struck no human ear, would the sound be in +existence at all? This is the problem propounded by one of the nurses +yesterday. + +"How much of us lives when we are entirely shut out of the +consciousness of those whom we love? If there is no one to _realize_ +us day by day,--if all that love has made of us is taken away, what is +left? Is there anything? I don't know. I look in the glass, and see +the same face,--Eleanor Hamlin, almost nineteen, with the same bow +shaped eyebrows, and the same double ridge leading up from her nose to +her mouth, making her look still very babyish. I pinch myself, and +find that it hurts just the same as it used to six months ago, but +there the resemblance to what I used to be, stops. I'm a young nurse +now in hospital training, and very good at it, too, if I do say it as +shouldn't; but that's all I am. Otherwise, I'm not anybody _to_ +anybody,--except a figure of romance to good old Stevie, who doesn't +count in this kind of reckoning. I take naturally to nursing they tell +me. A nurse is a kind of maternal automaton. I'm glad I'm that, but +there used to be a lot more of me than that. There ought to be some +heart and brain and soul left over, but there doesn't seem to be. +Perhaps I am like the Princess in the fairy story whose heart was an +auk's egg. Nobody had power to make her feel unless they reached it +and squeezed it. + +"I feel sometimes as if I were dead. I wish I could know whether Uncle +Peter and Aunt Beulah were married yet. I wish I could know that. +There is a woman in this hospital whose suitor married some one else, +and she has nervous prostration, and melancholia. All she does all day +is to moan and wring her hands and call out his name. The nurses are +not very sympathetic. They seem to think that it is disgraceful to +love a man so much that your whole life stops as soon as he goes out +of it. What of Juliet and Ophelia and Francesca de Rimini? They loved +so they could not tear their love out of their hearts without +lacerating them forever. There is that kind of love in the +world,--bigger than life itself. All the big tragedies of literature +were made from it,--why haven't people more sympathy for it? Why isn't +there more dignity about it in the eyes of the world? + +"It is very unlucky to love, and to lose that which you cherish, but +it is unluckier still never to know the meaning of love, or to find +'Him whom your soul loveth.' I try to be kind to that poor forsaken +woman. I am sorry for his sake that she calls out his name, but she +seems to be in such torture of mind and body that she is unable to +help it. + +"They are trying to cut down expenses here, so they have no regular +cook, the housekeeper and her helper are supposed to do it all. I said +I would make the desserts, so now I have got to go down-stairs and +make some fruit gelatin. It is best that I should not write any more +to-day, anyway." + + * * * * * + +Later, after the Thanksgiving holiday, she wrote: + + * * * * * + +"I saw a little boy butchered to-day, and I shall never forget it. It +is wicked to speak of Doctor Blake's clean cut work as butchery, but +when you actually see a child's leg severed from its body, what else +can you call it? + +"The reason that I am able to go through operations without fainting +or crying is just this: _other people do_. The first time I stood by +the operating table to pass the sterilized instruments to the +assisting nurse, and saw the half naked doctors hung in rubber +standing there preparing to carve their way through the naked flesh of +the unconscious creature before them, I felt the kind of pang pass +through my heart that seems to kill as it comes. I thought I died, or +was dying,--and then I looked up and saw that every one else was ready +for their work. So I drew a deep breath and became ready too. I don't +think there is anything in the world too hard to do if you look at it +that way. + +"The little boy loved me and I loved him. We had hoped against hope +that we would be able to save his poor little leg, but it had to go. I +held his hand while they gave him the chloroform. At his head sat +Doctor Hathaway with his Christlike face, draped in the robe of the +anesthetist. 'Take long breaths, Benny,' I said, and he breathed in +bravely. It was over quickly. To-morrow, when he is really out of the +ether, I have got to tell him what was done to him. Something happened +to me while that operation was going on. He hasn't any mother. I think +the spirit of the one who was his mother passed into me, and I knew +what it would be like to be the mother of a son. Benny was not without +what his mother would have felt for him if she had been at his side. +I can't explain it, but that is what I felt. + +"To-night it is as black as ink outside. There are no stars. I feel as +if there should be no stars. If there were, there might be some +strange little bit of comfort in them that I could cling to. I do not +want any comfort from outside to shine upon me to-night. I have got to +draw all my strength from a source within, and I feel it welling up +within me even now. + +"I wonder if I have been selfish to leave the people I love so long +without any word of me. I think Aunt Gertrude and Aunt Beulah and Aunt +Margaret all had a mother feeling for me. I am remembering to-night +how anxious they used to be for me to have warm clothing, and to keep +my feet dry, and not to work too hard at school. All those things that +I took as a matter of course, I realize now were very significant and +beautiful. If I had a child and did not know to-night where it would +lie down to sleep, or on what pillow it would put its head, I know my +own rest would be troubled. I wonder if I have caused any one of my +dear mothers to feel like that. If I have, it has been very wicked and +cruel of me." + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + +CHRISTMAS AGAIN + + +The ten Hutchinsons having left the library entirely alone in the hour +before dinner, David and Margaret had appropriated it and were sitting +companionably together on the big couch drawn up before the fireplace, +where a log was trying to consume itself unscientifically head first. + +"I would stay to dinner if urged," David suggested. + +"You stay," Margaret agreed laconically. + +She moved away from him, relaxing rather limply in the corner of the +couch, with a hand dangling over the farther edge of it. + +"You're an inconsistent being," David said. "You buoy all the rest of +us up with your faith in the well-being of our child, and then you +pine yourself sick over her absence." + +"It's Christmas coming on. We always had such a beautiful time on +Christmas. It was so much fun buying her presents. It isn't like +Christmas at all with her gone from us." + +"Do you remember how crazy she was over the ivory set?" + +"And the bracelet watch?" + +"Do you remember the Juliet costume?" David's eyes kindled at the +reminiscence. "How wonderful she was in it." + +Margaret drew her feet up on the couch suddenly, and clasped her hands +about her knees. David laughed. + +"I haven't seen you do that for years," he said. + +"What?" + +"Hump yourself in that cryptic way." + +"Haven't you?" she said. "I was just wondering--" but she stopped +herself suddenly. + +"Wondering what?" David was watching her narrowly, and perceiving it, +she flushed. + +"This is not my idea of an interesting conversation," she said; "it's +getting too personal." + +"I can remember the time when you told me that you didn't find things +interesting unless they were personal. 'I like things very personal,' +you said--in those words." + +"I did then." + +"What has changed you?" David asked gravely. + +"The chill wind of the world, I guess; the most personal part of me is +frozen stiff." + +"I never saw a warmer creature in my life," David protested. "On that +same occasion you said that being a woman was about like being a field +of clover in an insectless world. You don't feel that way nowadays, +surely,--at the rate the insects have been buzzing around you this +winter. I've counted at least seven, three bees, one or two beetles, a +butterfly and a worm." + +"I didn't know you paid that much attention to my poor affairs." + +"I do, though. If you hadn't put your foot down firmly on the worm, I +had every intention of doing so." + +"Had you?" + +"I had." + +"On that occasion to which you refer I remember I also said that I had +a queer hunch about Eleanor." + +"Margaret, are you deliberately changing the subject?" + +"I am." + +"Then I shall bring the butterfly up later." + +"I said," Margaret ignored his interruption, "that I had the feeling +that she was going to be a storm center and bring some kind of queer +trouble upon us." + +"Yes." + +"She did, didn't she?" + +"I'm not so sure that's the way to put it," David said gravely. "We +brought queer trouble on her." + +"She made--you--suffer." + +"She gave my vanity the worst blow it has ever had in its life," David +corrected her. "Look here, Margaret, I want you to know the truth +about that. I--I stumbled into that, you know. She was so sweet, and +before I knew it I had--I found myself in the attitude of making love +to her. Well, there was nothing to do but go through with it. I wanted +to, of course. I felt like Pygmalion--but it was all potential, +unrealized--and ass that I was, I assumed that she would have no other +idea in the matter. I was going to marry her because I--I had started +things going, you know. I had no choice even if I had wanted one. It +never occurred to me that she might have a choice, and so I went on +trying to make things easy for her, and getting them more tangled at +every turn." + +"You never really--cared?" Margaret's face was in shadow. + +"Never got the chance to find out. With characteristic idiocy I was +keeping out of the picture until the time was ripe. She really ran +away to get away from the situation I created and she was quite right +too. If I weren't haunted by these continual pictures of our offspring +in the bread line, I should be rather glad than otherwise that she's +shaken us all till we get our breath back. Poor Peter is the one who +is smashed, though. He hasn't smiled since she went away." + +"You wouldn't smile if you were engaged to Beulah." + +"Are they still engaged?" + +"Beulah has her ring, but I notice she doesn't wear it often." + +"Jimmie and Gertrude seem happy." + +"They are, gloriously." + +"That leaves only us two," David suggested. "Margaret, dear, do you +think the time will ever come when I shall get you back again?" + +Margaret turned a little pale, but she met his look steadily. + +"Did you ever lose me?" + +"The answer to that is 'yes,' as you very well know. Time was when we +were very close--you and I, then somehow we lost the way to each +other. I'm beginning to realize that it hasn't been the same world +since and isn't likely to be unless you come back to me." + +"Was it I who strayed?" + +"It was I; but it was you who put the bars up and have kept them +there." + +"Was I to let the bars down and wait at the gate?" + +"If need be. It should be that way between us, Margaret, shouldn't +it?" + +"I don't know," Margaret said, "I don't know." She flashed a sudden +odd look at him. "If--when I put the bars down, I shall run for my +life. I give you warning, David." + +"Warning is all I want," David said contentedly. He could barely reach +her hand across the intervening expanse of leather couch, but he +accomplished it,--he was too wise to move closer to her. "You're a +lovely, lovely being," he said reverently. "God grant I may reach you +and hold you." + +She curled a warm little finger about his. + +"What would Mrs. Bolling say?" she asked practically. + +"To tell you the truth, she spoke of it the other day. I told her the +Eleanor story, and that rather brought her to her senses. She wouldn't +have liked that, you know; but now all the eligible buds are plucked, +and she wants me to settle down." + +"Does she think I'm a settling kind of person?" + +"She wouldn't if she knew the way you go to my head," David murmured. +"Oh, she thinks that you'll do. She likes the ten Hutchinsons." + +"Maybe I'd like them better considered as connections of yours," +Margaret said abstractedly. + +David lifted the warm little finger to his lips and kissed it +swiftly. + +"Where are you going?" he asked, as she slipped away from him and +stood poised in the doorway. + +"I'm going to put on something appropriate to the occasion," she +answered. + +When she came back to him she was wearing the most delicate and +cobwebby of muslins with a design of pale purple passion flowers +trellised all over it, and she gave him no chance for a moment alone +with her all the rest of the evening. + +Sometime later she showed him Eleanor's parting letter, and he was +profoundly touched by the pathetic little document. + +As the holidays approached Eleanor's absence became an almost +unendurable distress to them all. The annual Christmas dinner party, a +function that had never been omitted since the acquisition of David's +studio, was decided on conditionally, given up, and again decided on. + +"We do want to see one another on Christmas day,--we've got presents +for one another, and Eleanor would hate it if she thought that her +going away had settled that big a cloud on us. She slipped out of our +lives in order to bring us closer together. We'll get closer together +for her sake," Margaret decided. + +But the ordeal of the dinner itself was almost more than they had +reckoned on. Every detail of traditional ceremony was observed even to +the mound of presents marked with each name piled on the same spot on +the couch, to be opened with the serving of the coffee. + +"I got something for Eleanor," Jimmie remarked shamefacedly as he +added his contributions to the collection. "Thought we could keep it +for her, or throw it into the waste-basket or something. Anyhow I had +to get it." + +"I guess everybody else got her something, too," Margaret said. "Of +course we will keep them for her. I got her a little French party +coat. It will be just as good next year as this. Anyhow as Jimmie +says, I had to get it." + +"I got her slipper buckles," Gertrude admitted. "She has always wanted +them." + +"I got her the Temple _Shakespeare_," Beulah added. "She was always +carrying around those big volumes." + +"You're looking better, Beulah," Margaret said. "Are you feeling +better?" + +"Jimmie says I'm looking more human. I guess perhaps that's it,--I'm +feeling more--human. I needed humanizing--even at the expense of +some--some heartbreak," she said bravely. + +Margaret crossed the room to take a seat on Beulah's chair-arm, and +slipped an arm around her. + +"You're all right if you know that," she whispered softly. + +"I thought I was going to bring you Eleanor herself," Peter said. "I +got on the trail of a girl working in a candy shop out in Yonkers. My +faithful sleuth was sure it was Eleanor and I was ass enough to +believe he knew what he was talking about. When I got out there I +found a strawberry blonde with gold teeth." + +"Gosh, you don't think she's doing anything like that," Jimmie +exclaimed. + +"I don't know," Peter said miserably. He was looking ill and unlike +himself. His deep set gray eyes were sunken far in his head, his brow +was too white, and the skin drawn too tightly over his jaws. "As a +de-tec-i-tive, I'm afraid I'm a failure." + +"We're all failures for that matter," David said. "Let's have +dinner." + +Eleanor's empty place, set with the liqueur glass she always drank her +thimbleful of champagne in, and the throne chair from the drawing-room +in which she presided over the feasts given in her honor, was almost +too much for them. Margaret cried openly over her soup. Peter shaded +his eyes with his hand, and Gertrude and Jimmie groped for each +other's hands under the shelter of the table-cloth. + +"This--this won't do," David said. He turned to Beulah on his left, +sitting immovable, with her eyes staring unseeingly into the +centerpiece of holly and mistletoe arranged by Alphonse so lovingly. +"We must either turn this into a kind of a wake, and kneel as we +feast, or we must try to rise above it somehow." + +"I don't see why," Jimmie argued. "I'm in favor of each man howling +informally as he listeth." + +"Let's drink her health anyhow," David insisted. "I cut out the +Sauterne and the claret, so we could begin on the wine at once in this +contingency. Here's to our beloved and dear absent daughter." + +"Long may she wave," Jimmie cried, stumbling to his feet an instant +after the others. + +While they were still standing with their glasses uplifted, the bell +rang. + +"Don't let anybody in, Alphonse," David admonished him. + +They all turned in the direction of the hall, but there was no sound +of parley at the front door. Eleanor had put a warning finger to her +lips, as Alphonse opened it to find her standing there. She stripped +off her hat and her coat as she passed through the drawing-room, and +stood in her little blue cloth traveling dress between the portieres +that separated it from the dining-room. The six stood transfixed at +the sight of her, not believing the vision of their eyes. + +"You're drinking my health," she cried, as she stretched out her arms +to them. "Oh! my dears, and my dearests, will you forgive me for +running away from you?" + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + +THE LOVER + + +They left her alone with Peter in the drawing room in the interval +before the coffee, seeing that he had barely spoken to her though his +eyes had not left her face since the moment of her spectacular +appearance between the portieres. + +"I'm not going to marry you, Peter," Beulah whispered, as she slipped +by him to the door, "don't think of me. Think of her." + +But Peter was almost past coherent thought or speech as they stood +facing each other on the hearth-rug,--Eleanor's little head up and her +breath coming lightly between her sweet, parted lips. + +"Where did you go?" Peter groaned. "How could you, dear--how could +you,--how could you?" + +"I'm back all safe, now, Uncle Peter. I took up nursing in a +hospital." + +"I didn't even find you. I swore that I would. I've searched for you +everywhere." + +"I'm sorry I made you all that trouble," Eleanor said, "but I thought +it would be the best thing to do." + +"Tell me why," Peter said, "tell me why, I've suffered so +much--wondering--wondering." + +"You've suffered?" Eleanor cried. "I thought it was only I who did the +suffering." + +She moved a step nearer to him, and Peter gripped her hard by the +shoulders. + +"It wasn't that you cared?" he said. Then his lips met hers dumbly, +beseechingly. + + * * * * * + +"It was all a mistake,--my going away," she wrote some days after. "I +ought to have stayed at the school, and graduated, and then come down +to New York, and faced things. I have my lesson now about facing +things. If any other crisis comes into my life, I hope I shall be as +strong as Dante was, when he 'showed himself more furnished with +breath than he was,' and said, 'Go on, for I am strong and resolute.' +I think we always have more strength than we understand ourselves to +have. + +"I am so wonderfully happy about Uncle David and Aunt Margaret, and I +know Uncle Jimmie needs Aunt Gertrude and has always needed her. Did +my going away help those things to their fruition? I hope so. + +"I can not bear to think of Aunt Beulah, but I know that I must bear +to think of her, and face the pain of having hurt her as I must face +every other thing that comes into my life from this hour. I would give +her back Peter, if I could,--but I can not. He is mine, and I am his, +and we have been that way from the beginning. I have thought of him +always as stronger and wiser than any one in the world, but I don't +think he is. He has suffered and stumbled along, trying blindly to do +right, hurting Aunt Beulah and mixing up his life like any man, just +the way Uncle Jimmie and Uncle David did. + +"Don't men know who it is they love? They seem so often to be +struggling hungrily after the wrong thing, trying to get, or to make +themselves take, some woman that they do not really want. When women +love it is not like that with them. + +"When women love! I think I have loved Peter from the first minute I +saw him, so beautiful and dear and sweet, with that _anxious_ look in +his eyes,--that look of consideration for the other person that is +always so much a part of him. He had it the first night I saw him, +when Uncle David brought me to show me to my foster parents for the +first time. It was the thing I grew up by, and measured men and their +attitude to women by--just that look in his eyes, that tender warm +look of consideration. + +"It means a good many things, I think,--a gentle generous nature, and +a tender chivalrous heart. It means selflessness. It means being a +good man, and one who _protects_ by sheer unselfish instinct. I don't +know how I shall ever heal him of the hurt he has done Aunt Beulah. +Aunt Margaret tells me that Aunt Beulah's experience with him has been +the thing that has made her whole, that she needed to live through the +human cycle of emotion--of love and possession and renunciation before +she could be quite real and sound. This may be true, but it is not the +kind of reasoning for Peter and me to comfort ourselves with. If a +surgeon makes a mistake in cutting that afterwards does more good than +harm, he must not let that result absolve him from his mistake. +Nothing can efface the mistake itself, and Peter and I must go on +feeling that way about it. + +"I want to write something down about my love before I close this book +to-night. Something that I can turn to some day and read, or show to +my children when love comes to them. 'This is the way I felt,' I want +to say to them, 'the first week of my love--this is what it meant to +me.' + +"It means being a greater, graver, and more beautiful person than you +ever thought you could be. It means knowing what you are, and what you +were meant to be all at once, and I think it means your chance to be +purified for the life you are to live, and the things you are to do in +it. Experience teaches, but I think love forecasts and points the way, +and shows you what you can be. Even if the light it sheds should grow +dim after a while, the path it has shown you should be clear to your +inner eye forever and ever. Having been in a great temple is a thing +to be better for all your life. + +"It means that the soul and the things of the soul are +everlasting,--that they have got to be everlasting if love is like +this. Love between two people is more than the simple fact of their +being drawn together and standing hand in hand. It is the holy truth +about the universe. It is the rainbow of God's promise set over the +land. There comes with it the soul's certainty of living on and on +through time and space. + +"Just my loving Peter and Peter's loving me isn't the important +thing,--the important thing is the way it has started the truth going; +my knowing and understanding mysterious laws that were sealed to me +before; Peter taking my life in his hands and making it consecrated +and true,--so true that I will not falter or suffer from any +misunderstandings or mistaken pain. + +"It means warmth and light and tenderness, our love does, and all the +poetry in the world, and all the motherliness, (I feel so much like +his mother). Peter is my lover. When I say that he is not stronger or +wiser than any one in the world I mean--in living. I mean in the way +he behaves like a little bewildered boy sometimes. In loving he is +stronger and wiser than any living being. He takes my two hands in his +and gives me all the strength and all the wisdom and virtue there is +in the world. + +"I haven't written down anything, after all, that any one could read. +My children can't look over my shoulder on to this page, for they +would not understand it. It means nothing to any one in the world but +me. I shall have to translate for them or I shall have to say to them, +'Children, on looking into this book, I find I can't tell you what +love meant to me, because the words I have put down would mean nothing +to you. They were only meant to inform me, whenever I should turn back +to them, of the great glory and holiness that fell upon me like a +garment when love came.' + +"And if there should be any doubt in my heart as to the reality of the +feeling that has come to them in their turn, I should only have to +turn their faces up to the light, and look into their eyes and +_know_. + +"I shall not die as my own mother did. I know that. I know that Peter +will be by my side until we both are old. These facts are established +in my consciousness I hardly know how, and I know that they are +there,--but if such a thing could be that I should die and leave my +little children, I would not be afraid to leave them alone in a world +that has been so good to me, under the protection of a Power that +provided me with the best and kindest guardians that a little orphan +ever had. God bless and keep them all, and make them happy." + +THE END + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Turn About Eleanor, by Ethel M. Kelley + *** \ No newline at end of file