CHAPTER XVI
THE FIRST LESSON
Jewel looked up as she heard a knock. Sarah had made the bed and gone. Who could this be?
At her “Come in,” Eloise entered the room. The child's face brightened questioningly. She rose and gazed at the enchanted maiden, very lovely in the wrapper of white silk, open at the throat, and with little billows of lace cascading down to the toes of her white Turkish slippers.
“Good-morning, cousin Eloise,” said the child, waiting for the message or order which she supposed to be forthcoming.
“Good-morning.” The girl cast a comprehensive glance around the rather bare room. Her eyes bore no traces of the tears so recently shed, but her face was sad. “I heard you singing,” she said.
“Yes. Did I disturb anybody?” asked the child quickly.
“No. It is nice to be like the birds that sing in the rain.”
“Like the robin out there,” returned Jewel, relieved. “Did you hear him?” She ran to the window and threw it open, listening a minute. “No, he has gone.”
“You said you would show me your doll,” went on Eloise when the window was closed again.
“Oh,” returned Jewel pleased, “did you come to see Anna Belle? She's right here. We were just going to have the lesson.” She took the doll from the depths of a big chair and held her up with motherly pride. “Would you—won't you sit down a minute?”
To her great satisfaction, her beautiful visitor condescended to take the chair Anna Belle had vacated, and held out her white, ringless hands for the doll.
“How neatly her clothes are made,” said the girl, examining Anna Belle's garments.
“Yes, my mother made her all new ones when she knew she was going to Europe, so that she would be neat and not mortify me. Would you like to see her clothes?” eagerly.
“Yes, I should.”
Jewel brought them, her quick little fingers turning them back and forth, exhibiting the tiny buttonholes and buttons, and chattering explanations of their good points.
“It was a great deal for your mother to do all this, when she is such a busy woman,” said Eloise.
“Yes, she did it evenings, and then surprised me just when we were coming away. Wasn't it lovely?”
“Very.”
“I love prettiness,” said the child. As she spoke she regarded the grave face beside her. “When I first noticed that my nose wasn't nice, and neither were my eyes, I almost cried.”
Eloise looked up at her, at a loss for a reply.
“But then I remembered that of course God never made anything that wasn't perfectly beautiful, so I knew that it would come right some time, and I asked mother when she thought it would.”
“What did she say?” returned Eloise, wondering at this original optimism.
“She said we could never tell how soon anything would come right to our sense, but so long as we knew that Creation was perfect and beautiful, we could be patient about everything—big things and little things; and then I remember how she talked to me about being careful never to pity myself.” Jewel gave her head a little serious shake. “You know it's very bad error to pity yourself, no matter what kind of a nose you have.”
Eloise had sunk back in the large chair and was attentively watching the child standing beside her, while she still held Anna Belle. She had never before held converse with a Christian Scientist, but her state of mind precluded the perception of a humorous side to anything.
“Wrong to pity yourself no matter what happens?” she asked.
“Yes—because—because—” Jewel looked off. She knew that it was error, but it was hard to explain why to the lovely grown-up cousin who was so strangely sorry. “Well, you see,” she added after the moment's thought, “it isn't having faith in God, it isn't knowing that you're His child, and that He takes care of you.”
“No, I suppose not; but I have never learned how to know that, Jewel.”
“I know you haven't,” returned the little girl, and she slipped her hand toward her cousin's. The girl met it halfway and held it close. “Since I've seen you,” Jewel went on slowly, “I know that prettiness isn't enough to make a person happy—nor all your lovely clothes—nor having people fond of you and sending you presents—nor making the sweetest music; but you can be happy, cousin Eloise, unless you're doing wrong.”
“I am doing wrong, but I can't help it.” The girl took her supporting hand from the doll and pressed it to her eyes a second before dropping it. “What were you doing when I came in?”
“I was just going to get the lesson.”
“Oh, do you go on with your studies? Perhaps I can help you better than Anna Belle.”
“Would you cousin Eloise?” Jewel flushed with pleasure. “Some of the words are so long. I thought I'd ask grandpa to-night.”
“Why didn't you wish to come to me?” questioned Eloise, well knowing why.
The little girl looked a trifle embarrassed. “I didn't want to trouble you. Of course you aren't my real relations,” she said modestly.
“Do you remember that, too!” exclaimed Eloise.
Jewel started at the hurt voice. “Would you like to be?” she asked earnestly. “I wish you were, because”—she hesitated and smiled with her head a little on the side, “because I might look more like you.”
The gravity of Eloise's lips remained unbroken. “I want you to promise me something, Jewel. I want you to promise not to tell your grandfather that I have been with you to-day.”
“Why? He'd be glad I was happy.”
“I have a reason. I will help you with your studies every day if you won't tell him.”
“I might without meaning to,” rejoined the child, her alert little mind busy with the new problem suddenly presented to it.
“I will make a rainbow scarf for Anna Belle if you will never speak of me to your grandfather.”
“Why do you say my grandfather? He's yours, too.”
“Not at all. Didn't you just say I was not your real relation?”
“Oh but, cousin Eloise,” Jewel was sure of the hurt now, though the why or wherefore was a mystery, “of course he wishes you were.”
“Oh no he doesn't.” The answer came quick and sharp, and the child reviewed mentally her own observations of the household. Her heart swelled with the desire to help.
“Now, cousin Eloise,” her breath came a little faster with the thronging thoughts for which her vocabulary was insufficient, “error does try to cheat people so. Just think how kind you were inside all the time, though you wouldn't smile at me. You're willing to make Anna Belle a scarf. I called you the enchanted maiden, because you were too sorry to try to make people happy, and now grandpa's just like that; he's enchanted, too, if he doesn't make you happy, because he's just as kind inside, oh, just as kind as he can be.”
“He likes you,” returned Eloise.
Jewel regarded her for a silent moment. “I noticed when I came,” she said at last, apologetically, “that nobody here seemed to love one another; and the house was so grand and the people were so beautiful that I couldn't understand; and I called it Castle Discord.”
Eloise gave a little exclamation. “I call it the icebox,” she returned.
Jewel's face lighted. “That's it, that's all it is,” she said eagerly. “It's easy to melt ice. Love melts everything.”
“It's pretty slow work sometimes,” said Eloise.
“Then you have to put on more love. That's all. Have you”—the child asked the question a little timidly, “have you put on much love to grandpa?”
“Why should I love him?” asked Eloise. “He doesn't love me.”
“Oh dear,” said Jewel. After a minute's thought her face brightened. “I guess I'll show you my dotted letter.”
She ran to the closet where hung her dotted challie dress and took from the pocket the message that had come to her the evening of her arrival. “My mother put a letter into all my pockets for a happy surprise; and this one came the first night, when I was feeling all sorry and alone, and it comforted me. Perhaps it will comfort you.”
She put the paper into the girl's hand, and Eloise read it. She turned it over and read it a second time.
Jewel stood beside her chair watching, and seeing that her cousin seemed interested, she ran and brought her little wrapper. “Perhaps you'd like to see this one too,” she said feeling in the pocket for the second message.
Eloise accepted and read it. Every word of the two notes came to the mind of the young girl as suggestions from another planet, so foreign were they to any instruction or advice that had ever fallen to her lot.
She gave a slight exclamation as she finished. “Is your mother a saint?” she asked, looking up suddenly.
“No,” returned Jewel innocently. “She's a Christian Scientist.”
Eloise suddenly put out her hand, and drawing Jewel to her, hid her forehead on the child's breast.
“I wish you were older,” she said.
Jewel put her little hands on the shining waves of hair she had admired from afar. “I wish my mother was here,” she answered. “Did you like those things mother said?”
“Oh yes; but they're from heaven, and I'm in the other place,” replied Eloise disconsolately.
“Then let's look in another pocket!” exclaimed Jewel. “I'll look in my best dress. Perhaps she'd put the best one there.”
The girl lifted her head, and the child went eagerly to the closet, coming back with a folded paper. “We'll read it together. You read it out loud, and I'll look over your shoulder.”
The rain slanted against the window in gusts as the two heads bent above the paper. Eloise read:—
“Mother is thinking of you, little daughter, every day and every night, and the thing she hopes the most is, that you never let the day go by without studying the lesson. The words may be hard sometimes, but perhaps some one will read it with you, and if they do not, then you go on trying your best, and you will learn more and more all the time; for truth will shine into your thought and help you. Grandpa will give you plenty of bread and butter, but you must remember that Spirit, not matter, satisfieth. You would starve without the Bible and the text-book, and very soon the joy would go out of everything. Give my love to Anna Belle, and tell her not to go out to play any day until you have read the lesson.”
“Your mother speaks as if you learned Christian Science out of the Bible,” said Eloise.
“Of course,” returned Jewel.
“I thought a woman got it up,” said the girl. “I thought your church worshipped her.”
The child smiled at the phrase. “You know Christ was the first one. That's why we call ourselves that. We couldn't be Christian Scientists if we worshipped any one but God,” she answered. “Of course we love Mrs. Eddy. Just think how good and unselfish a person has to be before they can hear God's teaching. He showed her how to remind people of the things that Christ taught, and how to get rid of their sins and sickness. We love her dearly for helping people so much, and shouldn't you think everybody would? But they don't. Some people think hating thoughts about her, just as if she was teaching bad things instead of good ones. Mother says it reminds her of what the Saviour said, 'For which of these works do ye stone me?'”
“Ah, but you see,” returned Eloise, “Christian Scientists let people die sometimes without a doctor.”
“But lots of people they do cure are the ones doctors said would have to die.”
“I know they claim that.”
“And such a lot of people pass on while doctors are taking care of them I wonder why it makes everybody so angry when a Scientist goes without any.”
Eloise smiled faintly as she shook her head. “It is more respectable to die with a doctor at your side,” she returned.
“Are you really willing to help me with the lesson, cousin Eloise? If you are, it would be nice if you would get your Bible too.”
The girl looked embarrassed. “I haven't any.”
“Well, your mother's would do just as well,” said Jewel politely.
“She hasn't any—here, I'm sure.”
The little girl stood very still a moment. “No wonder they're sorry,” she thought.
“All right. We can both look over one,” she answered, and going to the dresser she brought her books.
“Was this the study you meant?” asked Eloise, looking at the three books curiously. “I thought I was offering to help you with something I knew about. I used to learn verses out of the Bible when I was a little girl in Sunday-school. I don't know anything about it now.”
“But you can read everything, the big words and all,” replied Jewel. “I wish I could.”
Eloise saw that this reply was designed to minister to her self-respect. She took up the small black book lying with the Bible. “What is this?”
“That is 'Science and Health,' that Mrs. Eddy wrote to explain to us what the Bible means; and this other one is to tell us where to pick out the places for the day's lesson.” Jewel pulled up a chair, and seating herself, turned over the leaves of the Quarterly briskly until she found the right date.
“Please find Zechariah, cousin Eloise.”
“What's that?” asked the girl helplessly.
“It's in the Old Testament. Would you rather I'd find them? All right, then you can take 'Science and Health' and find that part.”
“I hope it's easy, for I'm awfully stupid, Jewel.”
“Oh, it's very easy. You'll see.” The child found the chapter and verse in the Bible and read, with her finger on the line. Eloise looked over and read with her. Thus they went through all the verses for the day, then Jewel began to give the page and line to be read in the text-book.
This volume was small and agreeable to handle, the India paper pleasant to the girl's dainty touch. According to the child's request, she read aloud the lines which were called for.
“That's all,” said Jewel at last. “Oh cousin Eloise, it's just lovely and easy to get the lesson with you,” she added gratefully.
Eloise made no response. Her eye had been caught by a statement on the page before her, and she read on in silence.
Jewel waited a minute and then, seeing that her cousin was absorbed, she laid down the Quarterly and took up her doll and sat still, watching the pretty profile, undisturbed by doubts as to what her cousin might think of the book she held, and full of utter confidence that He who healeth all our diseases would minister to her through its pages.
At last Eloise again became conscious of her surroundings. She turned to her companion, a skeptical comment on her lips, but she suppressed the words at sight of the innocent, expectant face. She certainly had nothing to give this child better than what she already possessed.
“You can read it any time when you feel sorry, cousin Eloise, that and my Bible too. Mother always does.”
“Does she ever feel sorry?”
“Sometimes; but it can't last where the Bible is.”
“I never saw that the Bible had anything to do with us,” said Eloise.
“Why—ee!” Jewel suddenly dropped Anna Belle and again took up the Bible.
“What do you think I opened to?” holding the verse with her finger as she looked up. Then she read, “'If ye love them that love you what thank have ye?' Now isn't that something to do with you and grandpa?”
“I don't see how I can love people who don't choose to be lovable,” returned Eloise. “What's the use of pretending?”
“But then,” said the child, “the trouble is that everything that isn't love is hate.”
Her visitor raised her eyebrows. “Ah! I should have to think about that,” she returned.
“Yes, you'd better,” agreed Jewel. Then she turned to the Psalms and read the ninety-first.
When she had finished she looked up at her cousin, an earnest questioning in her eyes.
“That is very beautiful,” said Eloise. “I never heard it before. How well you read it, Jewel.”
“Yes,” replied the child. “It's so much easier to read things when you know them by heart.” Then she turned to the Twenty-third Psalm and read it.
“Yes, I've heard that one. It's beautiful of course, but I never thought of its having anything to do with us.” Eloise was watching her cousin curiously. It seemed too strange for belief that a healthy child of her age should be taking a vital interest in the Bible and endeavoring to prove a position from its pages.
When the girl finally rose to go she turned at the door:—
“Remember your promise not to tell grandfather about this morning,” she said.
Jewel, hovering about her, looked troubled.
“Would you just as lief tell me why?” she asked.
Eloise gave the ghost of a smile. “It would be a long story, and I scarcely think you would understand.”
“I think I could obey you better if you would tell me.”
“Very well. We, my mother and I, are not Mr. Evringham's real relations,—to put it as you do,—and we have come here because my poor father lost his money and we have nowhere else to go. We came without being invited, and it hurts to have to stay where we are not wanted. I don't wish grandfather to think that I am being kind to you, for fear he will believe that I am doing it to make him like me better and because I want to stay here.”
The girl spoke slowly and with great clearness.
Jewel looked at her, speechless with surprise and perplexity.
Eloise went on: “I don't want to stay here, you understand. I wish to go away. I would go to-day if my mother were willing.”
Her large eyes grew dark as she closed, and the child received a sense of the turbulence that underlay her words.
“Thank you for explaining,” she returned in an awed tone. “I wish my mother was here; but God is, and He'll take care of you, cousin Eloise. Mother says we don't ever need to stay in the shadow. There's always the sunshine, only we must do our part, we must come into it.”
“How Jewel? Supposing you don't know how.”
“You can learn how,” replied the child earnestly, “right in those books. Lots of sorry people grow glad studying them.”
CHAPTER XVII
JEWEL'S CORRESPONDENCE
While Jewel still stood turning over in her mind what she had heard, charming strains of music began coming up through the hall. Cousin Eloise had gone to the piano.
“I almost which I hadn't made her tell me,” thought the child, “for how can I help grandpa not to be sorry they are here? Wouldn't I be sorry to have aunt Madge come and live with me when I never asked her to?” She stood for some minutes wrestling with the problem, but suddenly her expression changed. “I was forgetting!” she exclaimed. “I mustn't get sorry too. God is All. Mortal mind can't do anything about it.” She closed her eyes, and pressing her hand to her lips, stood for a minute in mute realization; then with a smile of relief, she took up Anna Belle.
“Let's go down, dearie, and hear the music,” she said light heartedly.
When the summons to luncheon sounded and Mrs. Evringham entered the parlor, she found the child curled up in a big chair, her doll in her lap, listening absorbedly to the last strains of a Chopin Ballade.
“Do you like music, Julia?” she asked patronizingly, as her daughter finished and turned about.
“The child's name is Jewel,” said Eloise.
“Yes, aunt Madge, I love it,” replied the little girl; “and I didn't know people could play the piano the way cousin Eloise does.”
Mrs. Evringham smiled. “I suppose you've not heard much good music.”
“Yes'm, I've heard our organist in church.”
“And Jewel can make good music herself,” said Eloise. “She can sing like a little lark. I've been up in her room this morning.”
Mrs. Evringham welcomed the look on her daughter's face as she made the statement. “Thank fortune Eloise has played herself into good humor,” she thought.
“Indeed? I must hear her sing some time. You're playing unusually well this morning, my dear. I wish Dr. Ballard could have heard you. Come to luncheon.”
The three repaired to the dining-room, where Mrs. Forbes's glance immediately noted the presence of Anna Belle. She took her from Jewel's arms and placed her on a remote corner of the sideboard, in the middle of which glowed the American Beauty roses.
Mrs. Evringham approached them with solicitude.
“They're looking finely, Mrs. Forbes,” she said suavely. “You surely understand the care of roses.” She lifted the silver scissors that hung from her chatelaine and succeeded in severing one of the long stems.
“Here, little girl,” she added, advancing to Eloise, “you need this in your white gown to cheer us up this rainy day.”
The girl shrank and opened her lips to decline, but restrained herself and submitted to have the flower pinned amid her laces.
Jewel gazed at her in open admiration. The glowing color lent a wonderful touch to the girl's beauty. Mrs. Evringham laughed low at the fascinated look in the plain little face, and luncheon began.
To Jewel it differed much from the ones that had preceded it. Mrs. Forbes might hover like a large black cloud, aunt Madge might rail at the weather which cut her off from her afternoon drive, but the morning's experience seemed to have put the child into new relations with all, and Eloise often gave her a friendly glance or smile as the meal progressed.
It was destined to a surprising interruption. In the midst of the discussion of lamb chops and Saratoga chips the door opened, and in walked Dr. Ballard. The shoulders of his becoming raincoat were spangled with drops, his hat was in his hand, a deprecatory smile brightened his face.
“Forgive me, won't you?” he said as he advanced to Mrs. Evringham and clasped the outstretched hand which eagerly welcomed him. “It was my one leisure half hour to-day.”
He brought the freshness of the spring air with him, and he went on around the table shaking hands with the others, and finally drew up a chair beside Jewel.
“No, I can't eat anything,” he declared in response to the urging of Mrs. Evringham and the housekeeper. “Can't stay long enough for that.”
His eyes fastened on the graceful girl opposite him, who was trying to offset her blushes by a direct and nonchalant gaze. The rose on her breast seemed to be scorching her cheeks. She knew that her mother was exulting in the lucky inspiration which had made her set it there.
“How good of you to come and cheer us!” exclaimed Mrs. Evringham. “Do take off your coat and stay for a cosy hour. We will have some music.”
“Don't tempt me. I have an office hour awaiting me. I came principally to see this little girl.”
Jewel had leaned back in her chair and was watching his bright face expectantly.
“I'm glad of it,” rejoined Mrs. Evringham devoutly. “I distrust these sudden recoveries, Dr. Ballard. Do make very sure that she hasn't one of those lingering, treacherous fevers. I've heard of such things.”
Dr. Ballard's eyes laughed into those of his little neighbor. “She doesn't look the part,” he returned.
Jewel gave a glance around the table. “Will you excuse me?” she said politely, then she reached up to the doctor's ear.
“Shall I go and get my money?” she whispered.
He shook his head. “No,” he replied in a low tone. “I came to thank you very much for your note, and to tell you that you don't owe me anything. I'm not usually a 'no cure, no pay' doctor. I take the money anyway, but this time I'm going to make an exception.”
“Why?” asked Jewel, speaking aloud as long as he did.
“Well, you see, you didn't take the medicine. That makes a difference. Most people take it.”
“Ye—es,” rejoined Jewel rather doubtfully. She was not sure of this logic.
“So now we're perfectly square,” went on the doctor, “but don't you fall ill again.” He shook his head at her. “I want us to remain friends.”
“We'd always be friends, wouldn't we?” returned Jewel, smiling into his laughing eyes.
“When is our golf coming off, Miss Eloise?” he asked, looking across the table again.
“When the weather permits,” she responded graciously.
“I guess that's going to be all right,” commented Mrs. Forbes mentally. “She's as pretty as a painting with that rose on, and her mother looks as contented as a cat with her paw on a mouse. She don't mean to play with that mouse, either. She won't run any risks. She'll take it right in. You're pretty near done for, my young feller, and your eyes look willing, I must say.”
The spring rain proved to be a protracted storm. Mr. Evringham made his hours long in the city. Eloise came up to Jewel's room each morning and read the lesson with her, always reading on to herself after it was finished. She made the child tell her of the circumstances of her recent illness and cure, and listened to Jewel's affectionate comments on Dr. Ballard's kindness with an inscrutable expression which did not satisfy the child.
“You love him, don't you?” asked the little girl.
Eloise gave a slight smile. “If everything that isn't love is hate, I suppose I ought to,” she returned.
“Yes, indeed,” agreed Jewel; “and he has been so kind to you I don't see how you can help it.”
The girl sighed. “Don't grow up, Jewel,” she said. “It makes lots of trouble.”
On the second one of her visits to the child's room she put her hand on the flaxen head. “I'd like to fix your hair,” she said. “Mrs. Forbes doesn't part it nicely.”
“I do it myself,” returned Jewel; “but I'd be glad to have you.”
So Eloise washed the thick flaxen locks and dried them. Then she parted and brushed the hair, and when it was finally tied, Jewel regarded the reflection of her smooth head with satisfaction.
“It looks just the way mother makes it,” she said. “I'm going to write to mother and father to-night, and I'm going to tell them how kind you are to me.”
That evening, in Mr. Evringham's library, Jewel wrote the letter.
Her grandfather, after making some extremely uncomplimentary comments upon the weather, had lowered his green-shaded electric light and established himself beneath it with his book.
He looked across at the child, who was situated as before at the table, her crossed feet, in their spring-heeled shoes, dangling beneath.
“May I smoke, Jewel?” he asked, as he took a cigar from the case. He asked the question humorously, but the reply was serious.
“Oh yes, grandpa, of course; this is your room; but you know nobody likes tobacco naturally except a worm.”
Mr. Evringham's deep-set eyes widened. “Is it possible? Well, we're all worms.”
Jewel smiled fondly at him, her head a little on one side, in its characteristic attitude.
“You're such a joker,” she returned.
“If you really dislike smoke,” said the broker after a minute, “perhaps you'd better take your letter up to your room.”
“I don't mind it,” she returned. “Father used to smoke. It's only a little while since it gave him up.”
“You mean since he gave it up.”
“No. When people study Christian Science, the error habits that they have just go away.”
“Indeed? I'm glad you warned me.” Mr. Evringham blew a delicate ring of smoke toward the table, but Jewel had begun to think of her parents, and her pencil was moving. Her grandfather noted the trim appearance of the bowed head.
“I don't know but I was cut out for a man milliner after all,” he mused complacently. “Those bows have really a very chic appearance.”
His book interested him, and he soon became absorbed in its pages. Jewel occasionally coming to an orthographic problem looked up and waited, but he did not observe her, so she patiently kept silence and resumed her work. At last the letter was finished.
She looked again at her grandfather, and opened her cramped little hand with relief. The back of her neck was tired with her bending posture. She leaned back in the heavy chair to rest it while she waited. The eyelids, grown heavy with her labors, wavered and winked. The rain dripped down the panes, as if it had fallen into a monotonous habit. The sound was soothing. Jewel fell asleep.
When finally Mr. Evringham glanced at her he smiled. “Little thoroughbred,” he mused; “she'd never disturb me.” He rose and crossed to the child. There lay the finished letter. He took it up with some anticipation:—
DEAR MOTHER AND FATHER——It is most time to get a leter from you but I will not wait to tell you I am happy and well.
Grandpa is the kindest man and he has the most Beautiful horse, her name is Essecks made. He let me sit on her back and give her Sugar. Cosin Elloees is the prettiest one of all. She has things that make her sorry but she is very kind to me. She washed my hare today and she helps me get the lesson. There is a docter here he is lovly. He tried to cure me when I had a claim but Mrs. Lewis did. Cosin Elloees reads S. and H when we get throo the lesson and I think she will be glad Pretty soon and not afrade Grandpa doesn't want her and Ant maj. She won't let me tell grandpa she is kind to me, but I can Explane beter when you come home.
Grandpa's kindness is inside, and he Looks sorry but noboddy cood help loving him. I love you both every minnit and the leters in my pocket help me so much.
Your dear
JEWEL.
Mr. Evringham had scarcely finished reading this epistle when Jewel's head slipped on the polished woodwork against which she was leaning and bumped against the side of the chair with a jar which awoke her.
Seeing her grandfather standing near she smiled drowsily. “I fell asleep, didn't I?” she said, and rubbed her eyes; then noting the sheet of paper in Mr. Evringham's hand, memory returned to her. She sat up with a start.
“Oh, grandpa, you haven't read my letter!” she exclaimed, with an accent of dismay which brought the blood to the broker's face. He felt a culprit before the shocked blue eyes.
“To—to see if it was spelled right, you know,” he said. “You had me do it before.”
“Yes, I wanted you to then,” returned the child; “but it is error to read people's letters unless they ask you to, isn't it?”
“Yes, it's confoundedly bad form, Jewel. I beg your pardon. You didn't mean me to see those sweet things you said about me, eh?”
“That was no matter. It was cousin Eloise's secret. She trusted me.” The child's eyes filled with tears.
The broker cleared his throat. “No harm done, I'm sure. No harm done,” he returned brusquely, to cover his discomfiture. For the first time he made an advance toward his granddaughter. “Come here a minute, Jewel.” He took her hand and led her to his chair, and seating himself, lifted her into his lap. The corners of her lips were drawing down involuntarily, and as her head fell against his broad shoulder, he took out his handkerchief and dried her eyes. “I hope you'll forgive me,” he said. “After this I will always wait for your permission. Now what is this about cousin Eloise?”
Jewel shook her head, not trusting herself to speak.
“You can't tell me?”
“No.”
“Then don't you think perhaps it was a good thing I read your letter after all, if it is something I ought to know?”
The speaker was not so interested to discover the secrets of his beautiful guest as to set himself right with this admirer. He did not relish falling from his pedestal.
“Do you think perhaps Divine Love made you do it, grandpa?” asked the child tremulously, with returning hope.
Mr. Evringham was quite certain that it had been curiosity, but he was willing to accept a higher sounding hypothesis.
“Mother explained to me about God making 'the wrath of man to praise Him,'” added Jewel after the moment's pause. “If it makes you kind to cousin Eloise, perhaps we can be glad you read it.”
“What is the matter with Eloise?” asked Mr. Evringham.
Jewel sat up, fixed him with her eyes, pressed her lips together, and shook her head.
“You won't tell me?”
The head went on firmly shaking.
“Then let me read the letter again.”
“No, grandpa,” decidedly.
He kept one arm around her as he smoothed his mustache. “Is there something you think I ought to do?”
A light seemed to illumine the eyes that the little girl kept fixed on his, but she did not speak.
“Do you think it discourteous for me to spend my evenings away from those two? They don't want me, child.”
Still she did not speak. Mr. Evringham was divided between a desire to shake her and the wish to see the familiar fondness return to her face.
“You wrote that Eloise thinks I do not want her and her mother here. Her intelligence is of a higher order than I feared. Well, what can be done about it? I've been asking myself that for some time. How would it do to settle some money upon them and then say good-by?”
“If you did it with love,” suggested Jewel.
“It's my impression that they could dispense with the love under those circumstances.” The broker gave a slight smile.
The child put an impulsive little hand on his shoulder. “No indeed, grandpa. Nobody can do without love. It hurts cousin Eloise because she isn't your real relation. She doesn't know how kind you are inside.” The child's lips closed suddenly.
“She fixed your hair very nicely,” Mr. Evringham viewed the flaxen head critically. “That's one thing in her favor.”
“She's full of things in her favor,” returned Jewel warmly. “Error's using you, grandpa, not to love her. If we don't love people we can't be sure anything we do to them is right.”
Mr. Evringham raised one hand and scratched his head slowly, regarding Jewel with what she felt was intended to be a humorous air.
“Couldn't you give me an easier one?” he asked.
“Oh grandpa,” the flaxen head nestled against his breast and the child sighed. “I wish everybody knew how kind you are,” and the broker patted her shoulder and enjoyed the clinging pressure of her cheek, for it assured him that again he stood firmly on the pedestal.
CHAPTER XVIII
ESSEX MAID
The rain and wind lasted for three days, clearing at last on an evening which proved eventful.
Mr. Evringham had taken a long ride into the country roundabout, and Jewel had been down at the gate to greet his return. He swung her up into the saddle with him, and in triumph she rode to the barn.
Mrs. Evringham observed this from the window and reported to Eloise.
“I didn't suppose father would be so indulgent to any living thing as he is to that child,” she said rather dejectedly. “Do you know, Eloise, Mrs. Forbes says that Jewel spends every evening with him in his study.”
“Indeed? I'm not surprised. He had to take pity on her since we would not.”
Mrs. Evringham sighed. “I really believe nobody was ever so exasperating as you are,” she returned. “When Jewel first came, if you remember, I wished to welcome her,—in fact I did,—but you refused to be decently civil. Now you speak as if we had made a mistake, and that it was my fault. I wish you would let Dr. Ballard prescribe for you. I don't think you are well.”
“He does prescribe roses and chocolates, and I take them, don't I?”
“Yes, and after this you can have some golf. It will do you good.”
To-day was the third during which Eloise had helped her cousin with the morning lesson and brushed and braided her hair. Jewel had had many minds about whether to tell Eloise of her escaped secret. An intuition bade her refrain, but the sense of dishonesty was more than the child could bear; so that morning, during the hair braiding, she had confessed. She began thus:—
“I wrote to my father and mother last night how good you were to me.”
“Did you tell them how good you were to me?” asked the girl, so kindly that the child's heart leaped within her and she more than ever wished that she had nothing to confess.
“I wish I could be, cousin Eloise; I meant to be, but error crept in.” The girl was learning something of the new phraseology, and she smiled at Jewel in the glass and was surprised to find what troubled eyes met hers. “I went to sleep that night waiting for grandpa to be through with his book, and when I waked up he had read my letter.”
Eloise's smile faded. “Tell me again what you said in it,” she returned.
Jewel's lips quivered. “I said how kind you were, and washed my hair, and asked me not to tell grandpa—”
“You put that in?” Eloise interrupted eagerly.
The child took courage from her changed tone. “Yes; I said you didn't want him to know you were kind to me.”
The girl smiled slightly and went on with her brushing.
“He wished he hadn't read it when he saw how sorry I was. He asked my pardon and said he had done bad form. I don't know what that is.”
“It's the worst thing that can happen to some people,” returned Eloise. “Good form is said to be the New York conscience.”
“Oh,” responded Jewel, not understanding, but too relieved and grateful that her cousin was not unforgiving to press the matter.
Eloise fell into thought. Mr. Evringham had certainly been more genial at table, conversation had been more general and sustained last evening than ever before the advent of Jewel, and he had not sneered, either. Eloise searched her memory for some word or look that might have given hurt to her self-esteem, but she could find none.
On this evening Mr. Evringham was in unusual spirits at dinner time. He told of the pleasure of Essex Maid at finding herself free of the stable again, and of the gallop he had taken among the hills.
The meat course had just been removed when Sarah came in with a troubled face, saying that Zeke wanted to see Mr. Evringham. Something was the matter with Essex Maid. She seemed “very bad.”
The master's face changed, and he moved back from the table. The countenances of the others showed consternation. Mrs. Forbes turned pale. Had Zeke done anything, or left something undone? She dropped her tray and hastened after Mr. Evringham. Eloise noticed that Jewel's eyes were closed. In a minute the child pushed back from the table, and without a word to the others she hurried to the scene of trouble. She met Mrs. Forbes rushing to the kitchen for hot water.
“Go straight into the house, Jewel,” cried the housekeeper with an anger born of her excitement. “Don't you go near that barn and get in the way.”
The child, scarcely hearing her, fled on. As she entered the barn she heard her grandfather's voice addressing Zeke, who was flinging a saddle on Dick.
“Dr. Busby'll leave anything when he knows it's the Maid.” He didn't need to say “hurry.” Zeke was as anxious as his master to get the veterinary surgeon.
Essex Maid had fallen in her stall and was making her misery apparent, tossing her head and rolling her eyes. Her master's teeth were set.
“Grandpa, may I try to help?” came Jewel's eager voice.
“Go away, child,” sternly. “You'll get hurt.”
“But may I treat her?”
“Do anything,” brusquely; “but don't come near.”
Jewel ran to the back of the barn, dropped on the floor, and buried her face in her hands.
Five minutes passed, ten, fifteen. Zeke rode up to the barn door, white and wild-eyed in the twilight.
“Dr. Busby was away!” he gasped. “They tried to get him on the telephone, and at last did. He'll be here in a few minutes.”
“The Maid's better,” said Mr. Evringham, wiping his forehead. “There hasn't been a repetition of the attack.” Mrs. Forbes stood by, fanning herself with her apron. The mare was standing quietly.
“Great Scott, but I'm glad!” replied Zeke devoutly. “I've seen 'em keel up with that. You can go through me with a fine tooth comb, Mr. Evringham, and you won't find a thing I've neglected for that mare.” Excitement had placed the young fellow beyond his awe for the master.
“I believe you, boy,” returned the broker. In his relief he would have believed anything.
“See the poor kid,” said Zeke, catching sight of the little figure sitting out of earshot, where the twilight touched her.
Mr. Evringham wheeled and strode back to the child. Her face was still hidden.
“Don't cry, Jewel,” he said kindly, his voice unsteady. “She's better.”
The child looked up radiantly. “I knew it!”
The unexpected look and exclamation startled her grandfather. “Zeke says the doctor can't get here for a little while,” he went on, “but the mare is out of pain.”
“It's all right,” rejoined the child joyously. “The doctor ought not to come. We shall do better without him.”
The first gleam of her meaning began to shine across the broker's mind. He stared down at the little figure, uncertain whether to laugh or cry, sufficiently shaken to do either.
“Why, you midget you,” he said, picking the child up in his arms; “have you been trying your tricks over here in the corner?”
“That isn't the way to talk, grandpa, when God has helped us so,” returned Jewel earnestly.
Zeke, following his employer, had heard this colloquy, and stared open mouthed.
When Dr. Busby arrived he was a much injured man. “The mare's perfectly fit,” he grumbled. “You've made me leave an important case.”
“Very sorry,” returned Mr. Evringham, trying to look so. “The fact is the Maid has given us a scare in the last hour that I shouldn't like repeated. Look her over carefully, Busby, carefully.”
“I have.” The veterinary gave a cross look around the group, his glance resting a moment on the upturned face of a little flaxen-haired girl who stood with her hand in Mr. Evringham's.
“He's falling into his dotage, I guess,” said the doctor privately to Zeke, as he prepared to ride away.
“Don't fool yourself,” returned the young fellow. “The mare pretty near scared me into a fit. My knees ain't real steady yet.”
He stood watching the disappearing figure of the veterinary. “That kid believes praying did it,” he mused. “I ain't going to believe that, of course, but the whole thing was the queerest ever.”
Mr. Evringham, after one more visit to the stall of Essex Maid, started back to the house, Jewel skipping beside him.
Mrs. Forbes remained in the barn, one hand still pressed to her ample bosom, a teakettle in the other.
“What'd you calc'late to do, ma?” inquired her son, approaching her.
“Wring out hot flannels. It's sense to treat colic the same, whether it's in a horse or a baby.”
Zeke laughed. “Essex Maid didn't think so, did she?”
“Wouldn't let us do a thing. I saw the tears drip out of Mr. Evringham's eyes plain as I see you now. Zeke Forbes, you'll never know what it was to me to have you come in and speak the way you did. You couldn't have done it if you'd mistreated the horse any way.”
“Thank you,” returned the coachman emphatically. “I ain't monkeying with buzz saws this year.”
“Not knowingly you wouldn't. But, child,”—Mrs. Forbes set down the kettle and pressed the other hand tighter to her bosom as she came closer to him, “last night you'd been drinking when you came home.”
“Ho!” laughed Zeke uncomfortably, “just a smile or two with the boys. By ginger, you've got a nose on you, mother.”
“Can you think of your father and then laugh over it, Zeke? There hasn't a man ever come to be a sot that didn't laugh about it in the first place.”
“Now, mother, now, now,” said the young fellow in half-impatient tones of consolation, as he took the handkerchief from her apron pocket and wiped her eyes, where tears began to spring. “You must trust a chap to do what's right. I ain't a fool. Don't you think about this again. I can take care of myself. Come now, to change the subject, what's your opinion of Christian Science as applied to horses with the colic?”
“What do you mean?” returned the housekeeper in an unusually subdued tone.
“Why, didn't you catch on? The kid was over there in the corner treating the Maid. That's what they call it, treating 'em. Mr. Evringham laughed when he found out, and she jumped on him. Yes, she did; came right out and told him that wasn't the way to show his gratitude, or something like that. Think of the nerve!”
“I ain't surprised. That child can't surprise me.”
“But what do you think of it, ma? I tell you 't was queer, the way that mare's pain stopped. Of course I ain't going to believe—but,” firmly, “I can't get away from a notion that those Christian Science folks know something that we don't. Busby was madder'n a hornet. I didn't scarcely know what to say to him.”
“Don't be soft, Zeke,” returned his mother, picking up the kettle. “The time for superstition has gone by.”
As Jewel and her grandfather entered the house they heard music.
“That's cousin Eloise playing. Have you heard her grandpa?”
“Yes, when they first came.”
“Than you haven't sat with them in the evening for a long time?” suggested the child.
“No. I—I didn't wish to monopolize their society. I wanted to give Dr. Ballard a chance. He is a friend of theirs, you know.”
“Yes, but I think cousin Eloise would be glad if she thought you liked her playing. It's very beautiful, isn't it, grandpa?”
“Yes, I dare say. Then, besides, I'm not at all sure that Mrs. Evringham would permit me to smoke in the drawing-room.”
“But wouldn't it be nice to go in there just a few minutes before you go to your study? I love to hear cousin Eloise play, but I like to be with you, grandpa.”
Mr. Evringham was in a yielding state of mind. He allowed the pressure of the child's hand on his to lead him to the drawing-room, where his entrance made a little stir.
Dr. Ballard was sitting near the piano, listening to the music. Everybody rose as the newcomers entered.
“How are you, Ballard? Jewel wished to hear her cousin's music, and so behold us. If we bring a reminder of the stable, blame her.”
“Oh father, that dear horse is all right, I'm sure,” gushed Mrs. Evringham, “or else you wouldn't be here!”
“What? Something the matter with Essex Maid?” asked Dr. Ballard with concern.
“Yes.” Mr. Evringham seated himself. “A sharp attack, but short. She was relieved before we could get Busby here.” The speaker contracted his eyebrows and looked at the child, who was still beside him. “The mare had received mental treatments meanwhile,” he added gravely.
Dr. Ballard smiled, and drawing Jewel to him, lifted her upon his knee. “Look here,” he said, “can't you let anything around here be sick in peace? We doctors shall have to form a union and manage to get you boycotted.”
The child smiled back at him, her head a little on one side, as her manner was when she was in doubt how to respond.
“What a blessing!” exclaimed Mrs. Evringham vivaciously. “Here, father, is the best cup of coffee you ever drank, if I did make it myself.”
Many weeks had elapsed since the broker had accepted a cup of coffee from that fair hand, but he rose now to take it with good grace.
“Is there going to be some cambric tea for this baby?” inquired Dr. Ballard.
“You must be hungry, Jewel; you hadn't finished your dinner,” said her grandfather, but she protested that she was not.
“How is Anna Belle?” asked Dr. Ballard. “It's a long time since I saw her.”
“Would you like to?” asked Jewel doubtfully.
“Why—of—course!—if she's still up. Don't have her dress on my account.”
“She doesn't go to bed till I do,” responded the child. “I know she'd love to come down!” In a flash she had bounded to the door and disappeared.
Eloise was still sitting on the piano stool, facing the room. “Grandfather,” she said, leaning slightly forward in her earnestness, “did Jewel really treat Essex Maid?”
The broker shrugged his shoulders and smiled as he stirred his coffee.
“I believe she did.”
“And do you think it did the horse any good?”
“Don't be absurd!” cried her mother laughingly, on nettles lest the girl displease the young doctor.
“Don't crowd me, Eloise, don't crowd me,” responded Mr. Evringham. “I'd rather have something a little more substantial doing for a sick horse than the prayers of an infant; eh, Ballard?”
“I've been reading Jewel's Christian Science book a great deal the last few days,” said Eloise. “If it's the truth, then she helped Essex Maid.”
Mrs. Evringham was dismayed. “What a very large if, my dear,” she returned lightly.
“She's a bright little girl,” said Dr. Ballard, and as he spoke Jewel came back.
She brought her doll straight to him, and he took both child and doll on his lap.
“Dear fellow,” thought Mrs. Evringham, “how fond he is of children! I'd like to put Eloise in a strait-jacket. Do play some more, dear, won't you?” she said aloud, eager to return to safe ground.
“Oh yes, cousin Eloise,” added Jewel ardently.
“If you will sing afterward. Will you?” asked the girl.
“Can you sing, Jewel?” asked Mr. Evringham.
“No, grandpa, nothing but the tunes in church.”
“Well,” he responded, half smiling again, “I don't know that a hymn would be so out of place to-night.”
“Do play the lovely running thing about spring, cousin Eloise,” begged the child.
The girl turned back to the piano. “Jewel is so modern that she doesn't know the Mendelssohn 'Spring Song,'” she said, and forthwith she began it.
Jewel's head lay back against Dr. Ballard's shoulder, and her eyes never swerved from the white-robed musician.
When the player had finished and been thanked, the child and the doctor exchanged a look of appreciation. “That sounds the way it does in the Ravine of Happiness,” said Jewel.
“Where is that?”
“Where the brook is.”
“Oh!” Dr. Ballard had unpleasant associations with the brook. “I understand you are fond of horses,” he added irrelevantly.
“Oh yes.”
“Do you want to go driving with me to-morrow morning?”
Jewel's face grew radiant.
“Oh yes!” She looked across at her grandfather.
“I promised to take you driving, didn't I, Jewel? Well, the pleasant weather has come. I guess she'll go with me to-morrow, Ballard.”
“Guess again, Mr. Evringham,” retorted the doctor gayly. “She has accepted my invitation.”
Mrs. Evringham looked on and wondered. “What is it about that child that takes them all?” she soliloquized. “She reminds me of that dreadfully plain Madam what's-her-name, who was so fascinating to everybody at the French court.”
Eloise was smiling. “Now it's your turn, Jewel,” she said.
The child looked from one to another. “I never sang for anybody,” she returned doubtfully.
“Yes indeed, for Anna Belle. I've heard you,” said Eloise.
“Oh, she was singing with me.”
“Very well. Let her sing with you now.”
“What one?”
“The one I heard,—'Father, where Thine own children are I love to be.'”
“Oh, you mean. 'O'er waiting harpstrings.' All right,” and the child, sitting where she was, sang the well-loved hymn to a touched audience.
“Upon my word, Jewel,” said her grandfather when she had finished. “Your music isn't all in your soul.” His eyes were glistening.
“Those are beautiful words,” said Dr. Ballard. “I don't remember any such hymn.”
“Mrs. Eddy wrote it,” returned the child.
“It wasn't Castle Discord to-night,” she said later to Anna Belle, while they were going to bed. “Didn't you notice how much differently people loved one another?”