A real Cinderella

IT was afternoon, and the Baltimore express was nearing the station at Old Point. From the window of the parlor car three very solemn little faces were looking out at the familiar landscape. It did not seem possible that less than twenty-four hours had elapsed since they had seen it last. It seemed to the children that they must have been away for at least a month. It had not been a cheerful journey, for Mr. Barlow was very much annoyed, and had had a long serious talk with his small son and daughter, in the course of which Jerry and Geraldine had both been reduced to repentant tears.

“When Father scolds he’s much worse than Mother,” Geraldine whispered to Gretel. “He doesn’t get angry often, but when he does it’s something awful. We really have been dreadfully bad. Father says when Mother got our letter, and found the boat had gone, she was so frightened she had hysterics. Did you ever see any one have hysterics?”

Gretel said she never had.

“Then you don’t want to. We’ve seen Mother lots of times and it’s awful. Miss Heath was frightened, too, and so was your brother. I wonder if you’ll be punished when you get home.”

“Of course she won’t,” declared Jerry, indignantly; “it wasn’t her fault; she only came to take care of us. I’m going to tell Mr. Douane so the minute I see him.”

Gretel gave her little friend a grateful glance.

“I shouldn’t like Percy to be angry with me,” she said. “I wonder if he’ll be at the station.”

“I guess he will,” said Jerry. “Father says he would have come on the night train to Baltimore with him, only they couldn’t be quite sure you were with us, so he had to stay and look for you, but Father telegraphed this morning as soon as he found us on the boat, so everybody knows now.”

“Here’s the station,” announced Geraldine from the car window, “and there are Mr. Douane and Miss Heath on the platform. O dear! I wish my hair wasn’t so mussed, and my dress so dirty. Miss Heath always looks so neat.”

They certainly were a dilapidated looking party as they stepped from the train, and were greeted by their waiting friends. The absence of the usual combing and scrubbing was painfully apparent, and all three children looked very much the worse for wear. But Miss Heath and Mr. Douane were so thankful to see the three little faces again that they were quite ready to overlook deficiencies.

“Mr. Douane,” said Jerry, walking straight up to Gretel’s brother, in his honest, fearless way, “we want to tell you right off that you mustn’t punish Gretel. It wasn’t her fault. She only came on the boat to make us go home, but we wouldn’t mind her, and then the boat started, and she had to come along, but she didn’t want to one bit.”

“What did I tell you, Percy?” cried Miss Heath, triumphantly. “I knew Gretel would never do such a thing voluntarily.” And, to everybody’s surprise the pretty young lady caught Gretel in her arms and hugged her.

“How’s Mother?” Geraldine inquired, rather timidly. It was quite wonderful how meek both the twins were at that moment.

Miss Heath looked grave.

“Your mother is better this afternoon,” she said, “but she has been very ill. It was a terrible experience for her.”

Miss Heath spoke in a tone the twins had never heard her use before, and regarded the two little culprits with such sternness in her gaze, that they both quailed beneath it.

“Were you very much frightened, Pussy?” Mr. Douane asked kindly, as he and his little sister walked back to the hotel together.

“It was pretty frightening,” Gretel admitted, slipping her hand into her brother’s as she spoke, “but I thought God would take care of us, and He did. Were you worried about me, Percy?”

“Very much indeed. When I came back from Hampton, and Higgins met me with the astounding news that you had gone out in the storm without even a hat on, I could not imagine what had happened. I went over to the Barlows’ cottage, and found myself in the midst of such a scene of excitement as I had never even imagined. The twins’ note had been discovered, and poor Mrs. Barlow was in violent hysterics. Of course we thought you must have gone with the others, and yet it seemed very strange. Miss Heath and Higgins were both convinced that you would never have done such a thing, and besides, your name was not mentioned in the note. I can tell you it was a great relief to our minds when Mr. Barlow’s telegram arrived this morning.”

“Mr. Barlow was very kind,” said Gretel. “He bought me this hat in Baltimore before we went on the train. I should have hated to come all the way home without a hat. He paid the people on the boat too, and gave the stewardess a present for being so good to the twins when they were seasick. I’m so glad Miss Heath didn’t believe I went because I wanted to. She said she always felt safe about Jerry and Geraldine when I was with them. That’s one reason why I ran after them when I saw them going on the boat.”

“Miss Heath is coming over to see you by and by,” said Mr. Douane, smiling. “I think she has something to talk to you about.”

Gretel looked very much pleased.

It made her feel quite grown-up and important to hear that a young lady wanted to talk to her.

“I love Miss Heath better than any one I ever knew except Father and you,” she said; “I’m so glad you like her, too, Percy. Don’t you hope we shall keep on seeing her when we go back to New York?”

“I most certainly do,” agreed Mr. Douane, and there was such an odd expression in his eyes that Gretel regarded him rather curiously.

“You look as if you were very happy about something,” she remarked wonderingly; “is it because I’ve come back?”

“Partly for that reason, and partly for something else,” her brother answered evasively, and Gretel did not like to ask any more questions on the subject.

“It was nice of Jerry to tell you why I went with them,” she said, by way of changing the subject. “I like Jerry very much; he’s so honest; he doesn’t talk much, but he thinks a lot. He’s very fond of Miss Heath, too. I’m so glad you will want to see Miss Heath after we leave here. It’s very sad to get fond of people, and then never see them any more.”

“It is indeed,” responded her brother. “I have had one experience of that kind myself, and I don’t want another. I lost Miss Heath once, but I don’t intend to lose her again if I can help it.”

Gretel was much interested, and would have liked to ask a number of questions, but at that moment they reached the hotel, and found Higgins eagerly watching for them from the piazza.

Higgins greeted her little charge with a burst of genuine affection. She had grown very fond of Gretel, and her joy and triumph when she discovered that she had been correct in her conviction that the child had not run away voluntarily, was almost as great as Miss Heath’s had been. She took Gretel up-stairs to her room, where she insisted on undressing her at once and putting her to bed.

“You look about ready to drop,” she declared. “To think hof a young lady like you going to bed with ’er clothes on, and running hoff without heven a comb or a tooth-brush, fairly sends chills down my spine.”

Gretel protested that she was not at all tired, but Higgins was firm, and really the warm bath, and soft, comfortable bed were very pleasant.

“A bed is much more comfortable than a berth on a steamboat,” she remarked, with a sigh of content, as she nestled down between the cool, clean sheets. “I wonder if Jerry and Geraldine have gone to bed, too.”

Jerry and Geraldine had gone to bed, but they were not in by any means such good spirits as their friend. The sight of their mother’s white, haggard face and swollen eyes, had been more of a rebuke to the two little sinners than any amount of punishment, and Geraldine’s first action on reaching home was to fling herself on Mrs. Barlow’s neck, with a burst of remorseful tears.

“Oh, Mother dearest, please, please punish us,” she sobbed. “We’d rather be punished than talked to, we really would. We’re so dreadfully sorry, and it was most all my fault, because Jerry never thought of it till I put the idea into his head.”

It was late in the evening when Gretel awoke from a long, refreshing nap, to find the faithful Higgins sewing by her bedside. She was feeling decidedly better, and also very hungry.

“May I have some supper?” was her first question, when Higgins had told her what time it was, and complimented her upon her improved appearance.

Higgins said she would go down-stairs, and order something from the dining-room.

“And I’ll tell Miss ’Eath you’re hawake,” she added. “She’s been up twice halready, but you were asleep both times. Mr. Douane told me to let them know the minute you hawoke; they’re hon the piazza together. I said there was something in the wind; I know the signs.”

Higgins departed, leaving Gretel very much puzzled by her last words. This was not the first time she had heard “there was something in the wind,” and she was beginning to be decidedly curious as to what it could be. She was not kept long in suspense, however, for in a very few minutes the door opened, and Miss Heath herself came in, looking prettier than ever, with all her dimples showing, and the brightest color Gretel had ever seen in her cheeks.

“I’m so glad you came to see me,” said the little girl joyfully, as her friend, after kissing her, drew a chair to the bedside. “I’ve had such a nice nap, and I’m not a bit tired now, only hungry.”

“Higgins has gone to order some supper for you,” said Miss Heath, “and while we are waiting for it I have come to have a little chat. I want to tell you about something which has made me very happy.”

“Oh, I’m so glad,” cried Gretel, and she took Miss Heath’s hand and kissed it in the pretty foreign way her father had taught her. “I know you must be happy; your eyes shine so. Has somebody you love very much come to take care of you, just as Percy came to take care of me? But, oh, I forgot; you haven’t any brothers, have you?”

“No, I haven’t any brothers,” said Miss Heath, smiling, “but you are not so far wrong in your guess, Gretel; some one I love, and who loves me, is going to take care of me, and I am very, very happy.”

“Is it a gentleman?” inquired Gretel, with a sudden flash of intuition, “and do you mean you are going to be married, Miss Heath?”

Miss Heath laughed a rather embarrassed laugh, and kissed Gretel again.

“You clever kiddie,” she said; “what made you guess? Yes, I am going to be married to one of the nicest men in the world—aren’t you glad?”

“Yes,” said Gretel, with a little catch in her voice, “I’m very glad for you, only—only if you get married I suppose you’ll go away, and perhaps I won’t ever see you any more. Percy and I were talking about you this afternoon, and we both hoped so much that we should go on seeing you when we went back to New York.”

“So you shall,” promised Miss Heath. “My home is to be in New York, or near it, and I hope we shall love each other very dearly, Gretel.”

“Then I am just as glad as I can be!” cried impulsive Gretel, and she threw her arms round Miss Heath’s neck and hugged her.

Miss Heath returned the embrace heartily, and then she took Gretel’s hand, and held it, as she went on with her story.

“I have known the—the gentleman for several years,” she said. “We met in China, and he and my father were very good friends, but when my father was taken ill, and we left Hong-Kong suddenly, we lost sight of each other for a time. When my dear father died I was very unhappy and very lonely. I came to New York by myself, and hired a hall bedroom in a boarding-house. I could not afford anything better, for my father was not rich, and when he died there was very little money left. I have an uncle in Chicago, who wanted to help me, but he has a large family of his own, and I did not want to be a burden to him. So I struggled along as well as I could, giving music lessons to the few pupils I could obtain, but it was a very different life from that to which I had been accustomed. When you told me about your life at Mrs. Marsh’s, and how you used to long for a little music, I thought of myself in the sad, lonely days last winter.

“But one day, just when things seemed about as bad and hopeless as they could be, I received a kind letter from Mrs. Barlow, asking me to join her family, come down here with them, and teach the children for the rest of the season. That was less than a month ago, but since then everything has changed for me, and now I am so happy that I don’t feel as if I could ever be sad or lonely again.”

“I’m just as glad as I can be,” declared Gretel, heartily; “it’s the nicest story I ever heard, but—but, would you mind telling me about how you found the gentleman again?”

“I found him right here at Old Point; wasn’t it wonderful, Gretel? We had both come here without having the least idea of finding each other.”

“Do Jerry and Geraldine know about it?” asked Gretel.

“Not yet, but they will to-morrow. I wanted you to know first, because—well, you see, Gretel dear, you know the gentleman.”

“I know him!” cried Gretel, sitting up in bed, and regarding her friend with wide, astonished eyes. “Why, I don’t know any gentleman except Percy and Mr. Barlow, and—oh, Miss Heath, I hope he isn’t that old Mr. Oliver, with the bald head.”

Miss Heath broke into a merry laugh, which was echoed by another laugh, as Mr. Douane—who had been lingering outside the door—suddenly appeared on the threshold.

“Old Mr. Oliver; that is a good guess!” he cried, merrily. “Why, he has had three wives already, I believe. Come now, Gretel, can’t you think who the happy man is?”

Gretel gazed from one happy face to the other in growing bewilderment, but before she could speak, Mr. Douane himself settled the question in her mind by putting his arm round Miss Heath, and kissing her.

“I do believe I’m the happiest girl in the whole world,” sobbed Gretel. “I don’t know what makes me cry when I’m so glad, but I can’t help it. I thought it was beautiful enough to have a brother, but to have a sister too—oh, Miss Heath, dear, I’m going to try so very hard to be good enough to deserve you.”