Jewel: A Chapter in Her Life

CHAPTER XIV

FAMILY AFFAIRS

He continued to watch the child furtively, while she made her arrangements for writing. Finding that no chair in the room would bring her to a proper height for the table, she looked all about, and finally skipped over to the morocco lounge and tugged from it a pillow almost too heavy for her to carry; but she arrived with it at the chair, much to the amusement of Mr. Evringham, who affected absorption in his papers, while he enjoyed the exhibition of the child's energy and independence.

“She's the kind that 'makes old shears cut,' as my mother used to say,” he mused, and turning, the better to view the situation, he found Jewel mounted on her perch and watching him fixedly.

She looked relieved. “I didn't want to disturb you, grandpa, but may I ask one question?”

“Yes.”

“Did I consult Dr. Ballard this afternoon?”

“Not that I noticed,” returned Mr. Evringham; and Jewel suspected from his expression that she had said something amusing.

“Well, it was a word that sounded like consult that Mrs. Forbes said I did.”

“Insult, perhaps,” suggested Mr. Evringham.

“Oh yes. How do you spell it, grandpa?”

Mr. Evringham told her, and added dryly, “That was rather too strong language for Mrs. Forbes to apply to the fact.”

“Yes,” replied the child. “I knew it was a hating word.” Then without further parley she squared her elbows on the table and bent over her sheet of paper.

“I wonder what version of it she'll give her mother,” thought the broker, rummaging vaguely in the pigeon holes of his desk. His labors finally sifted down to the unearthing of a late novel from a drawer at his right hand, and lowering a convenient, green-shaded electric light, he lit his cigar, and was soon lost in the pages of the story.

At last he became conscious that the pencil at the table had ceased to move, and lowering his book he looked up. His granddaughter had been watching for this happy event, and she no sooner met his eyes than, with a smile of satisfaction, she jumped from her morocco perch and brought him a sheet of paper well and laboriously covered.

“I suppose it isn't all spelled right,” she said. “I didn't want to disturb you to ask; but will you please direct this to Dr. Ballard?”

“To Dr. Ballard!” repeated Mr. Evringham. His curiosity impelled him. “Shall I see if it is spelled right?”

Jewel assenting, he read the following in a large and waving hand.

DEAR DOCTOR BALUD—Mrs. Forbs felt bad because I did not take your Medsin. She said it was an insult. I want to tell you I did not meen an Insult. We can't help loving God beter than any body, but I love you and if I took any medsin I would rather take yours than any boddy's. Mrs. Forbs says you will send a big Bill to Grandpa and that it was error to waist it. Please send the Bill to me because I have Plenty of munny, and I shall love to pay you. You were very kind and did not put any thing on my Tung.

Your loving JEWEL.

Mr. Evringham continued to look at the signature for a minute before he spoke. Jewel was leaning against his arm and reading with him. The last lines slanted deeply, there being barely room in the lower corner for the writer's name.

“I can't write very straight without lines,” she said.

“You do very well indeed,” he returned. “About that bill, Jewel,” he added after a moment. “Perhaps you would better let me pay it. I believe you said you had three dollars, but even that won't last forever, you know. You've spent some of it, too. How much, now?”

“I've spent fifty cents.” Jewel cast a furtive look around at the chicken, “And, oh yes, fifty cents more for the telegram. How much do you think Dr. Ballard's bill will be?”

“I think it will take every cent you have left,” returned Mr. Evringham, gravely, curious to hear what his granddaughter would say in this dilemma.

Her reply came promptly and even eagerly. “Well, that's all right, because Divine Love will send me more if I need it.”

“Indeed? How can you be sure?”

Jewel smiled at him affectionately. “Do you mean it grandpa?”

“Why yes. I really want to know.”

“Even after God sent you Essex Maid?” she asked incredulously.

“You think the mare is the best thing in my possession, eh?”

“Ye—es! Don't you?”

“I believe I do.” As Mr. Evringham spoke, this kinship of taste induced him to turn his face toward the one beside him. Instantly he found himself kissed full on the lips, and while he was recovering from the shock, Jewel proceeded:—

“God has given you so many things, grandpa, that's why it surprised me to have you look so sorry when I first came.” The child examined his countenance critically. “I don't think you look so sorry as you used to. I know you must have lots of error to meet, and perhaps,” lowering her voice to an extra gentleness, “perhaps you don't know how to remember every minute that God is a very present help in trouble. Mother says that even grown-up people are just finding out about it.”

As she paused Mr. Evringham hesitated, somewhat embarrassed under the blue eyes. “We all have plenty to learn, I dare say,” he returned vaguely.

He had more than once wished that he had taken more notice of Harry's wife during his opportunity at the hotel. He had looked upon the interview as a distasteful necessity to be disposed of as cursorily as possible.

His son had married beneath him, some working girl probably, whose ability to support herself had turned out to be a deliverance for her father-in-law when the ne'er-do-well husband shirked his responsibilities; and Mr. Evringham had gone to the hotel that evening intending to make it clear that although he performed a favor for his son, there were no results to follow.

His granddaughter's fearlessness, courtesy, and affection had forced him to wonder as to the mother who had fostered these qualities. He remembered the eloquence of his son's face when Harry expressed the wish that he might know Julia, and a vague admiration and respect were being born in the broker's heart for the deserted woman who had worked with hand and brain for her child—his grandchild was the way he put it—with such results as he saw.

Some perception of what Harry's sensations must have been during the last six months came to him as he sat there with the little girl's arm about him. Harry had come home and discovered his child, his Jewel. A frown gathered on the broker's brow as he realized the hours of vain regret his son must have suffered for those lost years of the child's life.

“Served him right, served him perfectly right!”

“What grandpa?”

The question made Mr. Evringham aware that the indignant words had been muttered above his breath.

“I was thinking of your father,” he replied. “Has he learned these things that your mother has taught you?”

“Oh yes,” with soft eagerness; “father is learning everything.” Jewel saw her grandfather's frown and she lowered her voice almost to a whisper. “Don't feel sorry about father, grandpa. He says he's the happiest man in the world. Mother didn't find out about God till after father had gone to California, or he wouldn't have gone; and for a long time she didn't know where he was, and I was only beginning to walk around, so I couldn't help her; but when I got bigger I had father's picture, and we used to talk to it every day, and at last mother knew that Divine Love would bring father back; and pretty soon he began to write to her, and he said he couldn't come home because he felt so sorry, and he was going to the war. So then mother and I prayed a great deal every day, and we knew father would be taken care of. And then mother kept writing to him not to be sorry, because error was nothing and the child of God could always have his right place, and everything like that, and at last the war was over and he came home.” Jewel paused.

Mr. Evringham wondered what she was seeing with that far-away look.

Presently she turned to him with the smile of irresistible sweetness—Harry's smile—and a surprising fullness came in the broker's throat. “Father's just splendid,” she finished.

Her grandfather was not wholly pleased with the verdict. He had gained a taste for incense himself.

“He has been at home over six months, I believe,” he returned.

“Yes, all winter; and we have more fun!”

“Your father is not a Christian Scientist, I presume,” remarked Mr. Evringham.

“Oh yes, he's learning to be. Of course he goes to church—”

“He does, eh?” put in the broker, surprised.

“Of course; and he studies the lesson with us every day. He had been sorry so much and so long, you know, mother said he was all ready; and beside—beside”—Jewel hesitated and became silent.

“Beside what?”

She began very softly and half reluctantly. “Father had a sickness two or three times when he first came home, and he was healed, and so he was very grateful and wanted to know about God.”

“H'm. I'm glad he was. I hope he will make your mother very happy after this.”

“He does.” The child lost her seriousness and laughed reminiscently. “Father and I have the best times. Mothers says he's younger than I am.”

“You miss him, eh?” Mr. Evringham half frowned into the fresh little face.

“Oh yes, I do,” with a sigh, “but it would be error to be sorry when I could come to see you, grandpa.”

Mr. Evringham cogitated a minute on the probable loneliness of the last three days, and began to wonder what this philosophy could be which gave practical help to a child of eight years. He was still holding the letter to Dr. Ballard in his hand.

“I think I'll let you direct this yourself, Jewel,” he said. He rose and brought the morocco cushion to his desk chair. “Sit up here and I will tell you the address.”

She obeyed, and Mr. Evringham watched the little fingers clenched around the pen as she strove to resist its tendency to write down hill on the envelope.

“And you're quite sure that more money will be forthcoming when yours is gone, eh?” he asked when the feat was accomplished.

“Oh yes; if I need it.”

“How will it come, for instance?”

She looked up quickly. “I don't need to know that,” she replied.

Mr. Evringham bit his lip. “That's unanswerable,” he thought, “and rather neat.”

At this moment a knock sounded at the library door, and a moment afterward Mrs. Forbes presented herself.

“Excuse me, Mr. Evringham. I'm afraid Julia has been in your way, staying so long.”

“No, Mrs. Forbes, thank you,” he returned. “She had a letter to write, and I have been reading.”

“Very well. It is her bedtime now.” The housekeeper's tone was inexorable, and Jewel lifted her shoulders as she glanced up at her grandfather, and again he found himself taken into a confidence which excluded his excellent housekeeper. “It is better for us to yield,” said Jewel's shoulders and mute lips. Before Mr. Evringham could suspect her intention, she had jumped up on the cushion nimbly as a squirrel, and hugging him in a business-like manner, kissed him twice.

“Good-night, grandpa.”

“Good-night, Jewel,” he returned, going to the length of patting her shoulder.

She jumped down and ran to Mrs. Forbes. “You needn't come with me, you know,” she said, holding up her face. Mrs. Forbes hesitated a moment. She had not as yet recovered from this latest liberty taken with the head of the house.

“Let me feel of your hands, Julia.” She took them in hers and touched the child's cheeks and forehead as well. “You seem to feel all right, do you?”

“Yes'm.”

“No soreness or pain anywhere?”

“No'm. Good-night, Mrs. Forbes.”

The housekeeper stooped from her height and accepted the offered kiss.

“Do you prefer to go alone, Jewel? Isn't it lonely for you?” asked Mr. Evringham.

“No—o, grandpa! Anna Belle is up there.”

“You're not afraid of the dark then?”

Jewel looked at the speaker, uncertain of his seriousness. He seemed in earnest, however. “The dark is easy to drive away in this house,” she replied. “It is so interesting, just like a treatment. The room seems full of darkness, error, and I just turn the switch,” she illustrated with thumb and finger in the air, “and suddenly—there isn't any darkness! It's all bright and happy, just like me to-day!”

“Indeed!” returned Mr. Evringham, standing with his feet apart and his arms folded. “Is that what the lady in Chicago did for you to-day?”

“Yes, grandpa,” Jewel nodded eagerly. She was so glad to have him understand. “She just turned the light, Truth, right into me.”

“She prayed to the Creator to cure you, you mean.”

Jewel looked off. “No, not that,” she answered slowly, searching for words to make her meaning plain. “God doesn't have to be begged to do anything, because He can't change, He is always the same, and always perfect, and always giving us everything good, and it's only for us—not to believe—in the things that seem to get in the way. I was believing there was something in the way, and that lady knew there wasn't, and she knew it so well that the old dark fever couldn't stay. Nothing can stay that God doesn't make—not any longer than we let it cheat us.”

“And she was a thousand miles away,” remarked Mr. Evringham.

“Why, grandpa,” returned Jewel, “there isn't any space in Spirit.” She gave a little sigh. “I'm real sorry you're too big to be let into the Christian Science Sunday-School.”

Mrs. Forbes lips fell apart.

“One moment more, Jewel,” said Mr. Evringham. “Mrs. Forbes was telling me of the gentleman who spoke to you on the trolley car yesterday.”

“Oh yes,” returned the child, smiling at the pleasing memory. “The Christian Scientist!”

“What makes you think he is a Christian Scientist?” asked Mr. Evringham.

“I know he was. He had on the pin.” Jewel showed the one she wore, and her grandfather examined the little cross and crown curiously.

“I wonder if it's possible,” he soliloquized aloud.

“Oh yes, grandpa, he is one, and if he's a friend of yours he can explain to you so much better than a little girl can.”

After the child had left the room Mr. Evringham and his housekeeper stood regarding one another. His usually unsmiling countenance was relaxed. Mrs. Forbes observed his novel expression, but did not suspect that the light twinkling in his deep-set eyes was partly due to the sight of her own pent-up emotion.

He hooked one thumb in his vest and balanced his eyeglasses in his other hand.

“Well, what do you think of her?” he inquired.

“I think, sir,” returned the housekeeper emphatically, “that if anybody bought that child for a fool he wouldn't get his money's worth.”

“Even though she is a Scientist?” added Mr. Evringham, his mustache curving in a smile.

“She's too smart for me. I don't like children to be so smart. The idea of her setting up to teach you Mr. Evringham!”

“That shouldn't be so surprising. I read a long time ago something about certain things being concealed from the wise and prudent and revealed unto babes.”

“Babes!” repeated Mrs. Forbes. “We've been the babes. If that young one can lie in bed with a fever, and wind every one of us around her finger the way she's done to-day, what can we expect when she's up and around?”

The broker laughed. “She's an Evringham, an Evringham!” he said.

“You may laugh, sir, but what do you think of her wheedling me into sending Zeke up, and then getting him off on the sly with that telegram? I faced him down with it to-night, and Zeke isn't any good at fibbing.”

“I'll be hanged if I don't think it was a pretty good thing for me,” rejoined Mr. Evringham, “and money in my pocket. It looked as if I was in for Ballard for a matter of weeks.”

“But the—the—the audacity of it!” protested Mrs. Forbes. “What do you think she said after you and Dr. Ballard had done downstairs? I tried to bring her to a sense of what she'd done, and all she answered was that she had known that God would deliver her out of the snare of the fowler. Now I should like to ask you, Mr. Evringham,” added Mrs. Forbes in an access of outraged virtue, “which of us three do you think she called the fowler?”

“Give it up, I'm sure,” returned the broker; “but I can imagine that we seemed three pretty determined giants for one small girl to outwit.”

“She'd outwit a regiment, sir; and I don't see how you can permit it.”

Mr. Evringham endeavored to compose his countenance. “We must allow her religious liberty, I suppose, Mrs. Forbes. It's a matter of religion with her—that is, we must allow it as long as she keeps well. If Ballard had found her worse to-night, I assure you I should have consigned all Christian Scientists to the bottom of the sea, and that little zealot would have taken her medicine from my own hand. All's well that ends well, eh?”

Mrs. Forbes had caught sight of the incongruous adornment of her employer's desk.

With majestic strides she advanced upon the yellow chicken and swept it into her apron. “Julia must be taught not to litter your room, sir.”

“I beg your pardon,” returned the broker firmly, also advancing and holding out his hand. “That is my chicken.”

Slowly Mrs. Forbes restored the confiscated property, and Mr. Evringham examined it carefully to see that it was intact, and then set it carefully on his desk.

Mrs. Forbes recalled the confectioner's window. “She must have bought that chicken when my back was turned!” she thought. “That young one could have given points to Napoleon.”

CHAPTER XV

A RAINY MORNING

The next morning it rained so heavily that Mr. Evringham was obliged to forego his ride. Wet weather was an unmixed ill to him. It not only made riding and golf miserable, but it reminded him that rheumatism was getting a grip on one of his shoulders.

“It is disgusting, perfectly disgusting to grow old,” he muttered as he descended the broad staircase. On the lower landing Jewel rose up out of the dusk, where she had been sitting near the beautiful clock. Her bright little face shone up at him like a sunbeam.

“You didn't expect to see me, grandpa, did you?” she asked, and as it did not even occur to him to stoop his head to her, she seized his hand and kissed it as they went on down the stairs.

“I was so disappointed because it rained so hard. I was going to see you ride.”

“Yes. Beastly weather,” assented Mr. Evringham.

“But the flowers and trees want a drink, don't they?”

“'M. I suppose so.”

“And the brook will be prettier than ever.”

“'M. See that you keep out of it.”

“Yes, I will, grandpa; and I thought the first thing this morning, I'll wear my rubbers all day. I was so afraid I might forget I put them right on to make sure.”

They had reached the hall, and Jewel exhibited her feet encased in the roomy storm rubbers.

“Great Scott, child!” ejaculated Mr. Evringham, viewing the shiny overshoes. “What size are your feet?”

“I don't know,” returned the little girl, “but I only have to scuff some, and then they'll stay on. Mrs. Forbes said I'd grow to them.”

“So you will, I should think, if you're going to wear them in the house as well as out.” It was against Mr. Evringham's principles to smile before breakfast, at all events at any one except Essex Maid; but the large, shiny overshoes that looked like overgrown beetles, and Jewel's optimistic determination to make him happy, even offset his painful arm.

“The house doesn't leak anywhere,” he said. “I think it will be safe for you to take them off until after breakfast.”

Jewel lifted her shoulders and looked up at him with the glance he knew.

“Unless we're going out to the stable,” she said suggestively.

He hesitated a moment. “Very well,” he returned. “Let us go to the stable.”

“But first we must tie the ribbons,” she said with a joyous chuckle. She would have skipped but for the rubbers. As it was, she proceeded circumspectly to the library, drawing the broker by the hand. “I want you to see, grandpa, if you don't think I made my parting real straight this morning,” she said as she softly closed the door.

“Gently on my arm, Jewel,” he remonstrated, wincing as she returned, flinging her energetic little body against him. “I have the rheumatism like the devil—pardon me.”

She looked at him suddenly, wondering and wistful. “Oh, have you?” she returned sympathetically. “But it is only like the devil, grandpa,” she added hopefully, “and you know there isn't any devil.”

“I can't discuss theology before breakfast,” he returned briefly.

“Dear grandpa, you shan't have a single pain!” She held her head back and looked at him lovingly.

“Very likely not, when I've begun playing the harp. Now where are those con—those ribbons?”

Jewel's eyes and lips grew suddenly serious and doubtful, and he observed the change.

“Yes, your hair ribbons, you know,” he added hastily and with an attempt at geniality.

“Not if you don't like to, grandpa.”

“I love to,” he protested. “I've been looking forward to it all the morning. I thought 'never mind if I can't go riding, I can tie Jewel's hair ribbons.'”

The child laughed a little, even though her companion did not. “Oh grandpa, you're such a joker,” she said; “just like father.”

But he saw that she doubted his mood, and the toe of one of the overshoes was boring into the carpet as she stood where she had withdrawn from him.

“Let us see if you parted your hair better,” he said in a different and gentler tone, and instantly the flaxen head was bent before him, and Jewel felt in her pocket for the ribbons. He had not the heart to say what he thought; namely, that her parting looked as though a saw had been substituted for a comb.

“Very well, very well,” he said kindly.

When the ribbons were at last tied, the two proceeded to the dining-room. Here an open fire of logs furnished the cheerful light that was lacking outside. The morning paper hung over the back of a chair, warming before the blaze.

Mrs. Forbes entered from the butler's pantry and looked surprised. “I didn't expect you down for half an hour yet, sir. Shall I hurry breakfast?”

“No; I'm going to take Jewel to the stable.” Mr. Evringham stopped and took a few lumps of sugar from the bowl.

“Julia, where are your rubbers?” asked the housekeeper.

“On,” said the child, lifting her foot.

“I only hope they'll stay there,” remarked her grandfather. “I think, Mrs. Forbes, you must buy shoes as I've heard that Chinamen do,—the largest they can get for the money.”

He disappeared with his happy little companion, and the housekeeper looked after them disapprovingly.

“They're both going out bareheaded,” she mused. “I'd like to bet—I would bet anything that she asked him to take her. He never even stopped to look at the paper. He's just putty in her hands, that's what he is, putty; and she's been here three days.”

Mr. Evringham's apprehensions proved to have foundation. Halfway to the barn Jewel stepped in a bit of sticky mud and left one rubber. Her companion did not stop to let her get it, but picking her up under his well arm, strode on to the barn, where they appeared to the astonished Zeke.

Jewel was laughing in high glee. She was used to being caught up in a strong arm and run with.

Mr. Evringham shook the drops from his head. “Get Jewel's rubber please, Zeke,” he said, pointing with his thumb over his shoulder.

“I was Cinderella,” cried the child gayly. “That's my glass slipper out there in the mud.”

Zeke would have liked to joke with her, but that was an impossibility in the august presence. He cast a curious glance at the little girl as he left the barn. He had received his mother's version of yesterday's experience. “Well, it looks to me as if there was something those Christian Science folks know that the rest of us don't,” he soliloquized. “I saw her with my own eyes, and felt her with my own hands. Mother says children get up from anything twice as quick as grown folks, but I don't know.”

“Don't you love a stable, grandpa?” exclaimed Jewel. “Oh, I'm too happy to scuff,” and she kicked off the other rubber. Even while she spoke Essex Maid looked around and whinnied at sight of her master.

“She knows you, she knows you,” cried the little girl joyously, hopping up and down.

“Of course,” said Mr. Evringham, holding out his hand to the delighted child and leading her into the stall. The mare rubbed her nose against him. “We couldn't get out this morning, eh, girl?” said the broker, caressing her neck, while Jewel smoothed the bright coat as high as she could reach. Her grandfather lifted her in his arms. “Here, my maid, here's a new friend for you. In my pocket, Jewel.”

The child took out the lumps of sugar one by one, and Essex Maid ate them from the little hand, touching it gently with her velvet lips. Zeke came in and whistled softly as he glanced at the group in the stall.

“Whew,” he mused. “He's letting her feed the Maid. I guess she can put her shoes in his trunk all right.”

Mr. Evringham set Jewel on the mare's back and she smoothed the bright mane and patted the beautiful creature.

“I'd like to gallop off now over the whole country,” she said, her face glowing.

“I shouldn't be surprised either if you could do it bareback,” returned Mr. Evringham; “but you must never come into either of the stalls without me. You understand, do you?”

“Yes, grandpa. I'm glad you told me though, because I guess I should have.” The child gave a quick, unconscious sigh.

“Well we'd better go in now.”

“How kind you are to me,” said the child gratefully, as she slid off the horse's back with her arms around her grandfather's neck.

He had forgotten his rheumatic shoulder for the time.

“You can bring those rubbers in later,” he said to Zeke, and so carried Jewel out of the barn, through the rain, and into the house.

Mrs. Forbes watched the entrance. “Breakfast is served, sir,” she said with dignity. She thought her employer should have worn a hat.

Jewel was not offered eggs this morning. Instead she had, after her fruit and oatmeal, a slice of ham and a baked potato.

Her roses were fresh this morning and opening in the warmth of the fire, but Mr. Evringham's eyes were caught by a mass of American Beauties which stood in an alcove close to the window.

“Where did those come from?” he demanded.

“They belong to Miss Eloise,” replied Mrs. Forbes. “She asked me to take care of them for her.”

“Humph! Ballard again, I suppose,” remarked the broker.

“I hope so,” responded Mrs. Forbes devoutly.

Mr. Evringham had spoken to himself, and he glanced up from his paper, surprised by the prompt fervor of the reply. The housekeeper looked non-committal, but her meaning dawned upon him, and he smiled slightly as he returned to the news of the day.

“Dr. Ballard must love Cousin Eloise very much,” said Jewel, mashing her potato. “He sent her a splendid box of candy, too.”

She addressed her remark to Mrs. Forbes, and in a low tone, in order not to disturb her grandfather's reading.

“Any girl can get candy and flowers and love, if she's only pretty enough,” returned Mrs. Forbes; “but she mustn't forget to be pretty.”

The speaker's tone appealed to Jewel as signifying a grievance. She looked up.

“Why, somebody married you, Mrs. Forbes,” she said kindly.

Mr. Evringham's paper hid a face which suddenly contorted, but the housekeeper's quick-glancing eyes could not see a telltale motion.

She gave a hard little laugh. “You think there's hope for you then, do you?” she returned.

“I guess I'm not going to be married,” replied Jewel. “Father says I'm going to be his bachelor maid when I grow up.”

“Shouldn't wonder if you were,” said Mrs. Forbes dryly.

The owner of the American Beauties and the beribboned bonbon box was taking her coffee as usual in bed. This luxurious habit had never been hers until she came to Bel-Air; but it was her mother's custom, and rather than undergo a tete-a-tete breakfast with her host, she had adopted it.

Now she had made her toilet deliberately. There was nothing to hurry for. Her mother's voice came in detached sentences and questions from the next room.

“Dear me, this rain is too trying, Eloise! Didn't you have some engagement with Dr. Ballard to-day?”

“He thought he could get off for some golf this afternoon.”

“What a disappointment for the dear fellow,” feelingly. “He has so little time to himself!”

Eloise gave a most unsympathetic laugh. “More than he wishes he had, I fancy,” she returned.

She came finally in her white negligee into her mother's room. Mrs. Evringham was still in bed. Her eyeglasses were on and she regarded her daughter critically as she came in sight. She had begun to look upon her as mistress of the fine old Ballard place on Mountain Avenue, and the setting was very much to her mind. The girl sauntered over to the window, and taking a low seat, leaned her head against the woodwork, embowered in the lace curtains.

“How it does come down!” said Mrs. Evringham fretfully. “And I lack just a little of that lace braid, or I could finish your yoke. I suppose Forbes would think it was a dreadful thing if I asked her to let Zeke get it for me.”

“Don't ask anything,” returned Eloise.

“When you are in your own home!” sighed Mrs. Evringham.

“Don't, mother. It's indecent!”

“If you would only reassure me, my child, so I wouldn't have to undergo such moments of anxiety as I do.”

“Oh, you have no mercy!” exclaimed the girl; and when she used that tone her mother usually became tearful. She did now.

“You act as if you weren't a perfect treasure, Eloise—as if I didn't consider you a treasure for a prince of the realm!”

A knock at the door heralded Sarah's arrival for the tray, and Mrs. Evringham hastily wiped her eyes.

“Yes, you can take the things,” she said as the maid approached. “I can't tip you as I should, Sarah. I'm going to get you something pretty the next time I go to New York.”

Sarah had heard this before.

“And if you know of any one going to the village this morning, I want a piece of lace braid. Have you heard how Miss Julia is?”

“She was down at breakfast, ma'am, and Mr. Evringham had her out to the stable to see Essex Maid.”

“He did? In the rain? How very imprudent!”

After Sarah had departed with her burden, Mrs. Evringham took off her eyeglasses.

“There, Eloise, you heard that? It's just as I thought. He is taking a fancy to her.”

The girl smiled without turning her head. “Oh no, that wasn't your prophecy, mother. You said she was too plain to have a chance with our fastidious host.”

“Well, didn't she look forlorn last night at the dinner table?” demanded Mrs. Evringham, a challenge in her voice.

“Indeed she did, the poor baby. She looked exactly as if she had two female relatives in the house, neither of whom would lift a finger to help her, even though she was just off a sick bed. The same relatives don't know this minute how or where she spent the evening.”

“I felt very glad she was content somewhere away from the drawing-room,” returned Mrs. Evringham practically. “You know we expected Dr. Ballard up to the moment the roses arrived, and from all I gathered at the dinner table, it would have been awkward enough for him to walk in upon that child. Besides, I don't see why you use that tone with me. It has been your own choice to let her paddle her own canoe, and you've had an object lesson now that I hope you won't forget. You wouldn't believe me when I begged you to exert yourself for your grandfather, and now you see even that plain little thing could get on with him just because she dared take him by storm. She has about everything in her disfavor. The child of a common working woman, with no beauty, and a little crank of a Christian Scientist into the bargain, and yet now see! He took her out to the stable to see Essex Maid! I never knew you contradictory and disagreeable until lately, Eloise. You even act like a stick with Dr. Ballard just to be perverse.” Mrs. Evringham flounced over in bed, with her back to the white negligee.

Eloise had seen what she had been watching for. Her grandfather had driven away to the station, so she arose and came over to the foot of the bed.

“I know I'm irritable, mother,” she said repentantly. “The idleness and uselessness of my life have grated on me until I know I'm not fit to live with. If I had had any of the training of a society girl, I could bear it better; but papa kept my head full of school,—for which I bless him,—and now that the dream of college is hopeless, and that the only profession you wish for me is marriage, I dread to wake up in the mornings.”

The young voice was unsteady.

Mrs. Evringham heaved a long sigh. “Give me patience!” she murmured, then added mentally, “It can't be many days, and she won't refuse him.”

“Go down to the piano and play yourself good-natured,” she returned. “Then come up and we'll go on with that charming story. It quite refreshed me to read of that coming-out ball. It was so like my own.”

Eloise, her lips set in a sad curve, rose and left the room. Once in the hall, she paused for a minute. Then instead of descending the stairs, she ran noiselessly up the next flight. The rain was pelting steadily on the dome of golden glass through which light fell to the halls. She stole, as she had done yesterday, to the door of Jewel's room.

Again as yesterday she heard a voice, but this time it was singing. The tones were very sweet, surprisingly strong and firm to proceed from lips which always spoke so gently. The door was not quite closed, and Eloise pressed her ear to the crack. Thus she could easily hear the words of Jewel's song:—

The hymn stopped for a minute, and the child appeared to be conversing with some one.

Eloise waited, openly, eagerly listening, hoping the singer would resume. Something in those unexpected words in the sweet child voice stirred her. Presently Jewel sang on:—

The lump that rose in the listener's throat forced a moisture into her eyes.

“I never could hear a child sing without crying,” she said to herself in excuse, as she leaned her forehead on her hand against the jamb of the door and waited for the strange stir at her heart to quiet.

The house was still. The rain swept against the panes, and tears stole from under the girl's long lashes—tears for her empty, vapid life, for the hopelessness of the future, for the humiliations of the present, for the lack of a love that should be without self-interest.

“I like that verse, Anna Belle,” said the voice within. “Let's sing that again,” and the hymn welled forth:—

“Is there a haven?” thought the swelling, listening heart outside. “Is there a place far alike from tired joy and grief?”

“'Father, where Thine own children are,'” quoted Jewel. “We know where a lot of them are, don't we, Anna Belle, and we do love to be with them.” A pause, and a light sigh, which did not reach the listener. “But we're at grandpa's now,” finished the child's voice.

Eloise's breaths came long and deep drawn, and she stood motionless, her eyes hidden.