CHAPTER XIX
A MORNING DRIVE
“I declare, Eloise,” said Mrs. Evringham the next morning, “it is almost worth three whole days of storm to have a spell of such heavenly weather to follow. We're sure of several days like this now,” She was standing at the open window, having shown a surprising energy in rising soon after breakfast.
She glanced over her shoulder at her daughter, who was picking up the garments strewn about the room. “Now you can live out of doors, I hope, and get yourself toned up again. Really, last evening things were very comfortable, weren't they?”
“Yes. I thought the lump had begun to be leavened,” returned the girl.
“Talk English, please,” said her mother vivaciously. “Father seemed quite human, and that is all we have ever needed to make things tolerable here. I suppose we reaped the benefit of his relief about the horse.”
“It's all Jewel,” said Eloise, smiling. “That's English, isn't it?”
“Jewel!” Mrs. Evringham exclaimed. “Why, you're all daffy about that child. What is the attraction?”
“That's what I'm trying to find out. It's time for me to go up now and braid her hair and read the lesson.”
Mrs. Evringham regarded her daughter. “Young people are eager for novelty, I know,” she said, “and it would seem as if an interest in a child was an innocent diversion for you at a time when you were growing morbid, but I do think I'm the most unlucky woman in the world! To think that the child should have to be a Christian Scientist, and that you should take this perverse interest in her ideas just now. I haven't spoken of your remarks about the horse last night, but it was in poor taste, to say the least, to mention such nonsense before Dr. Ballard, and apparently do it so seriously. I knew you had been helping Jewel with lessons, but until last evening I didn't suspect that it might all be on that odious subject. Is it, Eloise?”
“Yes, but it isn't odious. I like the fruit of it in her.”
“You've never shown Dr. Ballard your most agreeable side, and now if you're going to parade before him, an Episcopalian and a physician, an interest in this—anarchism, I shan't blame him in the smallest degree if he gives up all thought of you.”
Eloise, the undemonstrative, put an arm around her mother. “Shan't you, really?” she replied wistfully. “If I could only hope that.”
“Do you want to give me nervous prostration?” rejoined Mrs. Evringham sharply. “Eloise,” her voice suddenly breaking, “do you love to torment me?”
“Indeed I don't, poor mother, but I've been so tormented myself, and so desirous not to—oh, not to do anything ignoble! I can't tell you all I've endured since—” She paused, her lips unsteady.
“Since we lost your father,” dismally. “Yes, I know it. I'm the most unlucky woman in the world!”
Eloise's arm tightened about her mother as she went on, “Since I was enchanted and thrown into Castle Discord.” She looked off at the mental picture of her cousin. “Mother,” she turned back suddenly, “what a wonderful thing it is if there really is a God.”
“Why, Eloise Evringham, have you ever doubted it! That's positively ill-bred!”
“But One that would be any good to us! Jewel's mother thinks she knows such a One, and so does the child. I wish you'd look into this Christian Science with me. You might find it better than getting grandfather to pay our bills, better than marrying me to Dr. Ballard.”
Mrs. Evringham raised her eyes to her deity. “What have I ever done,” she ejaculated, “that I should have a queer child! Well, I will not look into it,” she returned decidedly; “and if Dr. Ballard were not the broad, noble type of man that he is, he wouldn't take the trouble to notice and entertain a child who has treated him as she has. It might touch even you to see the lengths to which he goes to please you. I hope you will at least have the grace to go down with Jewel to the buggy and see them off.”
“I couldn't in this wrapper,” replied Eloise, releasing the speaker.
“Of course not, so put on a dress before you go up to Jewel.”
“It's too late, dear. He'll be here by half-past ten. I must have her ready.”
Mrs. Evringham looked after her daughter's retreating figure, and then her lips came together firmly. She untied the ribbons of the loose gown of lace and silk, in which she had keyed herself up by degrees to face the requirements of luncheon and the afternoon's diversions, and donned a conventional dress, in which she composed herself by the window to watch for the doctor's buggy. There was a vista in the park avenue which afforded a fair look at equipages three minutes before they could reach Mr. Evringham's gateway.
From the moment the doctor's office hour was over this stanch supporter set herself to watch that gap. As soon as she saw Hector's dappled coat and easy stride she sprang up and went downstairs, and when the shining buggy paused at the steps and Dr. Ballard jumped out, she appeared on the piazza to greet him.
“What an inspiring morning!” she said, as he removed his hat. “That insane girl!” she thought. “If he had chanced to be awkward and plain, he would have been just as important to us. His good looks are thrown in, and yet she won't behave herself.”
“Glorious indeed!” he replied heartily. “Where's my young lady?”
Mrs. Evringham had plenty of worldly experience, and not even her enemies called her stupid, but at this moment there was but one young lady in the world to her, as she believed there was to him.
“She is upstairs braiding Jewel's hair,” she replied before she realized her own insanity. Then she hastened on, coloring under the odd look in his eyes, “But you mean Jewel, of course. She will be down at once, I'm sure. It's so kind of you to take her.”
“Not at all. She's an original worth cultivating.”
Mrs. Evringham shrugged her shoulders. “I suppose she must be, since you all say so. Eloise gives up a surprising amount of time to her, but I can't judge much from that, because Eloise is so unselfish. For my part, the child's ideas are so strange, and my little girl is still so young and impressionable, I object to having them much together. It may seem very absurd, when Jewel is so young.”
“No; I saw last evening how interested Miss Eloise already is.”
“Oh,” hastily, “she pretends to be, and I assure you I object. Eloise has a good mind, and I hope you will offer a little antidote now and then to the stuff she has begun to read. A word to the wise, Dr. Ballard. I need say no more.”
It was true. Mrs. Evringham had no need to say more. Her ideas, and especially those which related to himself, had always been inscribed in large characters and words of one syllable for her present companion, who was a young man of considerable perception and discrimination.
He had not time to reply before Jewel, radiant of face, appeared in the doorway, where she hesitated, her doll in her arms.
“I brought Anna Belle,” she said doubtfully, “but I can leave her under the stairs if there isn't room.”
“Anna Belle under the stairs on a morning like this! And in such a toilet? Talk about error!” The doctor's tone was tragic as he lifted the happy child into the buggy.
Mrs. Evringham nodded a reply to their smiling farewells as Hector sprang forward, and she looked after them in some perplexity.
“Why should he take the trouble?” she reflected. “It would have been such a splendid morning for them to have gone riding if he had this leisure. Of course it must have been just one of his indirect and lovely ways of trying to please Eloise.”
Just as she was solacing herself with the latter reflection, her daughter stepped out on the piazza, a little black book in her hand.
“Warm enough to sit out, isn't it?” she remarked.
Her mother looked at her critically. She had not seen this care-free look on her child's face since Lawrence died.
“Why didn't you come out a little sooner?”
“I wasn't presentable. How delicious the air is!”
“Yes. Let us sit here and finish that novel.”
“All right.”
“What have you there?”
“Mrs. Eddy's book,—'Science and Health.'”
Mrs. Evringham made a grimace. “I read part of it once. That was enough for me. Think of the price they charge for it, too. Think of pretending it is such a good thing for everybody to have, and then putting a price on it that prohibits the average pocketbook.” Eloise's smile annoyed her mother. “Weren't you with me the day Nat Bonnell's mother said so much about it?”
“How foolish she was not to try it,” said Eloise. “Such a hopeless, monotonous invalid.”
“Well, some of her friends worked hard enough to induce her to, but when she found out the mercenary side of it, she saw at once that it couldn't be trustworthy.”
“I suppose even Christian Scientists must have a roof and food and clothes,” returned Eloise coolly; “but I've thought a good deal the last few days about the criticisms I've heard on the price of the book. The fuss over that three dollars is certainly very funny, when the average pocketbook goes to the theatre sometimes, has flowers for its entertainments, and rejoices to find lace reduced from a dollar and a quarter to ninety-five cents a yard for its gowns. It eagerly hoards and spends three dollars for some passing pleasure or effect, but winces and ponders over paying the same sum for a book that will last a lifetime, and which, if it is worth anything, furnishes the key to every problem in life.”
“But why isn't it as cheap as the Bible if it is so beneficial?”
“It will be, probably, when it is generally respected. For the present it wouldn't be wise to cast it about like pearls before swine.” Eloise smiled at herself. “You see I'm talking as if I knew it all. My wisdom comes partially from what I have extracted from Jewel, and partly from what is obvious. I haven't reached the place yet where I am convinced, but this book is wonderfully interesting. It came to me in the darkest hour I have ever known, and it has—it has seemed to feed me when I was starving. I don't know how else to put it. I can't think of anything else. Mother, why haven't we a Bible? I was ashamed when Jewel asked me.”
Mrs. Evringham, astonished and dismayed by her daughter's earnestness, drew herself up. “We have a Bible, certainly. What an idea!”
“Where is it?” eagerly.
“In the storage warehouse with the other books.”
Eloise's laugh nettled her mother.
“The prayer books are upstairs on my table. What more do you want if you are going to take an interest in such things? I wish you would, dear, and embroider an altar cloth while you are here. I'm sure father would gladly contribute the materials and feel a pride in it.”
“Oh mother,” Eloise still smiled, “you know he never goes to church.”
“But he contributes largely.”
“Well, I haven't time to embroider altar cloths. Shall I get the story?”
“Yes, do. We'll go around the corner, out of the wind.”
Meanwhile Dr. Ballard's buggy was covering the ground rapidly. Through the avenues of the park sped Hector, and joy! Dr. Ballard allowed Jewel to drive as long as they remained within its precincts. Slipping his hand through the reins above where she grasped them, he held Anna Belle on his knee. Jewel had not suspected the size of the park. One could almost see the watered leaves increase in the sunshine, and the birds were swelling their little throats to the utmost. The roses in her cheeks deepened in her happy excitement. She allowed the doctor to do most of the talking, while she kept her eyes on the horse's ears. Just once she ventured to turn enough to glance at him.
“I've had dreams of driving horses,” she said.
“Is this the first time you've done it waking?”
“No, the second. Father took me once in Washington Park just before he came away, but the horse didn't pull like this.” She smiled seraphically.
“So, boy, steady,” said the doctor soothingly, and Hector obeyed the voice.
“Did you play in the Ravine of Happiness when you were a little boy?”
“Where's that?”
“Where the brook is.”
“Oh yes. Are you planning to take me to that brook and wet my feet, Jewel?”
“We've gone long past it. Don't you know?”
“I think my education has been neglected. I don't remember it.”
“We can go,” returned Jewel suggestively.
“Very well, we will; but first I have a couple of visits I must make.”
The horse was now trotting toward the park gate. As they reached it Dr. Ballard returned Anna Belle and took the lines.
Jewel gave an unconscious sigh of rapture. “Trolleys and so on, you know,” explained Dr. Ballard. “When you come back ten years from now you shall drive outside too. How was Essex Maid this morning?”
“She was all right, but grandpa took only a short ride. I guess he was a little—bit—afraid.”
“She's the apple of his eye, or he wouldn't have been so nervous over a trifle last evening,” remarked the doctor.
“Well, she made a great fuss,” replied Jewel. “She fell down in her stall, and everything like that.”
“Did she really?”
“Yes. Zeke said his knees were shaking.”
“But she was all right by the time Dr. Busby arrived?”
“Yes.”
Dr. Ballard looked at his small companion, a quizzical smile curving his mustache.
“I've never thought of taking a partner, Jewel, but I might consider a mascot. What do you say to sharing my office and being my mascot? Special high chair for Anna Belle, be it well understood.”
The little girl eyed him, her head on one side. It was her experience that all men were jokers. “I don't know what a mascot is,” she replied.
“It's something or somebody that brings one good luck.”
“Do you think I could bring you good luck?”
“It looks that way. Of course there are certain rules you would have to observe. It wouldn't do for you to talk against materia medica to the patients in the anteroom.”
“What is an anteroom?”
“The place where my patients wait until I can see them in my office.”
Jewel lifted her shoulders and smiled. “I might read them 'Science and Health' while they waited, and then they wouldn't have to go in.”
Dr. Ballard's laugh rang heartily along the leafy street. “Is that your idea of mascoting a poor young physician?” he inquired.
Jewel laughed in sympathy. She didn't quite understand him, but she knew that they were having a very good time.
Pretty soon her companion drove in at the gate of an imposing old residence, set back from the street where the trolley ran with an air of withdrawing from the intrusion of these modern tracks.
“I thought it wouldn't injure your conscience to wait for me while I made a couple of professional visits, Jewel, eh?” he asked, as he jumped out and fastened Hector to the ring in the hand of a bronze boy. “I won't be any longer than I can help, and don't you go to hoodooing me, now, while I'm upstairs.” The doctor returned to the buggy and took the black case, frowning warningly at the child. “I have troubles enough here without that. This old lady used to trot me on her knee, and she wants to spend half an hour every morning proving that doctors don't know anything before she'll let me get to business.”
“It must be hard for doctors,” returned Jewel, “going to sorry people all the time, and nothing to give them except something on their tongues.”
Dr. Ballard gave his small companion a quick glance. If he secretly considered her beliefs as too richly absurd to excite aught but amusement, she evidently as honestly compassionated the poverty of ideas in his learned profession.
“Well, I'll hurry,” he said, and vanished within the house. Time would not have dragged for Jewel had he stayed all the morning. To sit in the shining buggy in close proximity to the dappled gray Hector, and with Anna Belle for a sympathizer, caused the minutes to be winged.
When the doctor returned, a radiant face welcomed him.
“I thought I should never get away,” he sighed, “but you don't look bored.”
He untied the horse, jumped into the buggy, and they were off again, Hector striding along as if to make up for lost time. “Now only one more call, Jewel, and then we'll get back out of the dust again,” said the doctor cheerily.
“I haven't noticed any dust, Dr. Ballard. I'm having the most fun!”
“Well now, I'm glad of that. It's a great thing to be eight years old, Jewel.”
“That's what cousin Eloise says. She says she'd like to be.”
“Indeed? How is the enchanting—excuse me—I mean the enchanted maiden this morning?”
“She's well. She ties my bows now, so grandpa doesn't have to.”
“Ties your—” The doctor looked at the speaker, mystified.
Jewel put her hand up to the small billows of silk behind her ear. “My hair bows. They were real hard for grandpa to do.”
Dr. Ballard repressed a guffaw, and then turned solemn. “Do you mean to say that Mr. Evringham tied your hair ribbons?”
“Why yes.”
“That settles it, Jewel. You must go into partnership with me and wave wands and things. Setting Essex Maid on her legs wasn't a patch on that.”
Jewel regarded him questioningly a moment and then repeated, “But it was real hard for grandpa.”
“I can believe it!”
“And cousin Eloise is the kindest girl. She's like grandpa about that. Her kindness is inside, too.”
“Is it indeed? You don't know how much I thank you for telling me where to look for it.”
“Oh, she must be kind to you, Dr. Ballard!”
“Once in a while, once in a while,” he replied cautiously, but Jewel couldn't get a look into his eyes, though she tried, he was so busily engaged poking an invisible fly from Hector's side with the point of the whip. “If you'll find a way to make her kind to me all the time, Jewel, then you will be my mascot indeed.”
“All you have to do is to know she is,” replied the child earnestly. “I felt the way you do, at first, but now I've found out just because I stopped being afraid.”
“Ah, that's the recipe, eh? All I've to do is to stop being afraid.”
“That's all!” cried Jewel, beaming at his ready comprehension. “You'll find out there isn't a thing to be afraid of with Cousin Eloise, and oh, Dr. Ballard,” the child smiled at him wistfully, “she's getting so—so—unenchanted.”
“You just waved your wand, I suppose, and said 'Presto change,'” returned the young man.
He turned Hector down a side street and drew rein under a large elm. “Here's my rheumatic gentleman,” he added, as he jumped from the buggy and fastened the horse. “He won't keep me waiting while he abuses doctors, so I shan't be quite so long this time.” The speaker seized his case and went up a garden path to the house, and Jewel, with a luxurious sigh, set Anna Belle in the place he had vacated.
CHAPTER XX
BY THE BROOKSIDE
Scarcely had she seen the doctor admitted and the house door closed when an approaching pedestrian caught her eye. She recognized him at once, and a little more color stole into her round cheeks, while an unconscious smile touched her lips.
The gentleman had observed the doctor enter the house, and glanced idly as he passed, to see what child was waiting in the buggy. The half shy look of recognition which he met surprised him. Somewhere he had seen that rosy face. Going on his way and searching his memory he had left the buggy behind, when in a flash it came to him how, one day, that same shy, pleased smile had beamed wistfully upon him in a trolley car.
Instantly he turned back, and in a minute Jewel saw him standing beside her. He lifted his hat and replaced it as he held out his hand.
“We've met before, haven't we?” he asked kindly.
Jewel shook hands with him, much pleased. “My mother and father have gone to Europe,” she said “and it seemed as if there wasn't a Scientist in the whole world until I saw you.”
“Another proof of what I always say—that we should all wear the pin. I didn't know that Dr. Ballard had any Science relations.”
“Oh, Dr. Ballard and I are not relations,” explained Jewel seriously. “I think he wants to marry my cousin Eloise; but he hasn't ever said so, and I don't like to ask him. He's the kindest man. I just love him, and he's letting me ride around with him while he makes calls.”
“Why, that's very nice, I'm sure,” returned Mr. Reeves, smiling broadly. “Does he know that you're a Christian Scientist?”
“Oh, yes, indeed. I had a claim, and my grandpa called him to help me, so then I told him, but he kept on reflecting love just the same.”
Mr. Reeves scented an interesting experience, but he would not question the child. “Nice fellow, Guy Ballard. He deserves a better fate than to bow down to false gods all his days.”
“Yes, indeed,” returned Jewel heartily.
“But, as you say,” continued Mr. Reeves, “he reflects love, and so we shall hear of his being a successful physician.”
“Yes, I want him to be always happy,” said the child.
“Who is your grandfather, my dear?”
“Mr. Evringham.”
“Is it possible? Then you are—whose child?”
“My father's name is Harry.”
“Of course, of course.” Mr. Reeves nodded, trying to conceal his surprise. “And is he a Scientist now?”
“Yes, my mother is teaching him to be.”
“Well, I'm sure I'm very glad to hear this. Your grandfather is not unkindly disposed toward Science?”
“My grandfather couldn't be unkind to anything! I thought you knew him.”
Mr. Reeves smoothed his mustache vigorously. “I thought I did,” he returned. “You spoke of your cousin. I knew your aunt and cousin were with Mr. Evringham now. Well, I'm glad, I'm sure, that you are so pleasantly situated. You must come to our little hall some Sunday where we have service, you know. It will be rather different from your beautiful churches in Chicago.”
“But I'd love to come,” replied the child eagerly. “I didn't know there was one here. I'll get grandpa to bring me.”
“Mr. Evringham!” The speaker could feel the tendency of his jaw to drop.
“Yes, or else cousin Eloise. She helps me get the lesson every day, and then she takes my book and reads and reads. She told me this morning she read almost all last night.”
Mr. Reeves nodded slowly once or twice. “Still they come,” he murmured meditatively.
“Would you—would you mind writing down where that hall is?” asked the child.
“Certainly I will.” Mr. Reeves suited the action to the word, taking an envelope from his pocket for the purpose. “And if I ever see Mr. Evringham there”—he said slowly, “by the way, please tell your grandfather that we met and had this chat.”
“I don't know your name,” returned the child.
“Why, of course. Pardon me. Reeves. Mr. Reeves. Can you remember that?”
The little girl flashed a bright look at him. “We can't forget,” she reminded him.
“Of course,” he nodded. “Exactly. I'm very likely younger in Science than you are, little one. How long have you known about it?”
Jewel thought. “Seven years,” she replied.
Her companion gave a laughing exclamation. “There, you see. I've known for only one year. What is your name?”
“Jewel Evringham.”
“Good-bye, Jewel, till we meet again, some Sunday soon, I hope.”
They shook hands, and Mr. Reeves went smiling on his way.
“Seven years,” he reflected. “There's the simon pure article. She can't be over nine. I'll wager Bel-Air Park has had its sensations of late. Evringham! The high ball, the billiard ball, and the race track, and now the reputation of being a difficult old martinet. Never unkind to anything! Why, she's a little feminine Siegfried, that precious Jewel. Ballard and the cousin, eh? I've heard that rumor.”
When Dr. Ballard returned to the buggy, Jewel began loquaciously telling him of her pleasant experience.
“And he knows you, Mr. Reeves does, and he said you were a nice fellow,” she finished, beaming.
“Very civil of him, I'm sure,” returned the doctor as the horse started. “I distinctly remember his having a different opinion one night when he caught me in his favorite cherry tree; but I don't yet understand the levity of his behavior in scraping acquaintance with the young lady I left unprotected in my buggy.”
“Oh, we'd met before in a trolley car,” explained Jewel. “I wanted to run right to him when I first saw that he was a Scientist.”
“A what? Mr. Reeves? Oh, go 'way, my little mascot. Go 'way!”
“Yes, he had on the pin—this one, you know.” Jewel touched the small gold symbol, and Dr. Ballard examined it curiously. “So we smiled at each other, and to-day he's told me where I can come to church, and I'm nearly sure cousin Eloise will go with me.”
Dr. Ballard's eyes grew serious as he turned Hector's head toward the park. “I can scarcely believe it of Mr. Reeves,” he said.
“He says you are too nice to bow down to false gods,” added Jewel shyly.
“If mine are false to you, yours are false to me,” said the young man kindly. “You can understand that, can't you, Jewel?”
“Yes, I can.”
“And we should never quarrel over it, should we?” he went on.
“No—o!” returned Jewel scornfully. “We'd get a pain.”
“But you can see,” went on the young doctor seriously, “that the more we cared for one another the more we should regret such a wide difference of opinion.”
“I suppose so,” agreed the child, “and so we'd—”
“You are going back to Chicago after a while, and so you understand that I can better afford to agree to differ with you than I could with some one who was going to stay here—your cousin Eloise, for instance.”
The child looked at him in silence. She had never seen Dr. Ballard wear this expression.
“For this reason, Jewel, I want to ask you if you won't do me the favor not to talk to your cousin about Christian Science, nor ask her to read your books, nor to go to church with you.”
The child's countenance reflected his seriousness.
“You can see, can't you, that if Miss Eloise should become much interested in that fad it would spoil our pleasure in being together, while it lasted?”
The word fad was not in Jewel's vocabulary, but she grasped the doctor's meaning, and understood that he was much in earnest. She felt very responsible for the moment, and in doubt how to express herself.
“I feel sort of mixed up, Dr. Ballard,” she returned after a minute's silent perplexity. “You don't mind cousin Eloise reading the Bible, do you?”
“No.”
“You're glad if she can be happy instead of sorry, aren't you?”
“Yes.”
Jewel looked at him hopefully. “There won't be anything worse than that,” she said.
“Yes, many things worse,” he responded quickly. “You might do me that little favor, Jewel. I understand you go to her with your lessons, as you call it, and your questions.”
“Yes, she helps me; but she takes my books to her room. I don't see how I can help it, Dr. Ballard.”
“Well,” he heaved a quiet sigh, “perhaps the attack will be shorter if it is sharp. We'll hope so.”
“I wouldn't do any harm to you for anything,” said the child earnestly, “but you wait a little while. When people come into Christian Science it makes them twice as nice. If you see cousin Eloise get twice as nice you'll be glad, won't you?”
The young man gave an impatient half laugh.
“I'm not grasping,” he returned. “She does very well for me as she is. Now,” he turned again to the child, who rejoiced in the recovered twinkle in his eyes, “you have my full permission to convert the error fairy.”
“Hush, hush!” ejaculated Jewel, alarmed. “We mustn't hold that law over her.”
Dr. Ballard laughed.
“Convert her, I say. Let us see what she would be like if she were twice as nice. She's a very charming woman now, your aunt Madge. If she were twice as nice—who knows? The fairy might spread wings and float away!”
They had entered the park and Jewel suddenly noted their surroundings. “We're coming to the Ravine of Happiness,” she said.
“That's the way it's been looking to me ever since last evening,” responded her companion meditatively.
The child paid no attention to his words. She was watching eagerly for the bend in the road beside which the gorge lay steepest.
“There!” she said at last, resting her hand on that of her companion. Obediently the doctor stopped his horse. The park was still but for the bird notes, the laughter and babble of the brook far below, and the rustle of the fresh leaves, each one a transparency for a sunbeam.
The two were silent for a minute, Jewel's radiant eyes seeking the pensive ones of her companion.
“Do you hear?” she asked softly at last.
“What?” he returned.
“It is cousin Eloise's Spring Song.”
The doctor's words and looks remained in Jewel's mind after she reached home that day. She mused concerning him while she was taking off Anna Belle's hat and jacket up in her own room.
“I don't suppose you could understand much what he meant, dearie,” she said, her face very sober from stress of thought, “but I did. If I'd been as big as mother I could have helped him; but I knew I was too little, and when people don't understand, mother says it is so easy to make mistakes in what you say to them.”
Anna Belle's silence gave assent, and her sweet expression was always a solace to Jewel, who kissed the hard roses in her cheeks repeatedly before she sat her in the big chair by the window and went down to lunch. Anna Belle's forced abstemiousness had ceased to afflict her. At the lunch table she gave a vivacious account of the morning's diversions, and for once Mrs. Evringham listened to what she said, a curious expression on her face. This lady had expected to endure annoyance with this child on her grandfather's account; but for unkind fate to cause Jewel to be a hindrance and a marplot in the case of Dr. Ballard was adding insult to injury.
The child, suddenly catching the expression of Mrs. Evringham's eyes as they rested upon her, was startled, and ceased talking.
“Aunt Madge does love me,” she declared mentally. “God's children love one another every minute, every minute.”
“So Mr. Reeves told you where you can go to church,” said Eloise, replying to Jewel's last bit of information.
“Yes, and”—the little girl was going on eagerly to suggest that her cousin accompany her, when suddenly Dr. Ballard's eyes seemed looking at her and repeating their protest.
She stopped, and ate for a time in silence. Mrs. Forbes paid little attention to what was being said. She moved about perfunctorily, with an air of preoccupation. She had a more serious trouble now than the care and intrusion of the belongings of Lawrence and Harry Evringham, a worry that for days and nights had not ceased to gnaw at her heart, first as a suspicion and afterward as a certainty.
When luncheon was over, Eloise in leaving the dining-room, put her arm around Jewel's shoulders, and together they strolled through the hall and out upon the piazza.
Mrs. Evringham looked after them. “If only that child weren't a little fanatic and Eloise in such an erratic, wayward state, ready to seize upon anything novel, it would be all very well,” she mused, “for Dr. Ballard seems to find Jewel amusing, and it might be a point of common interest. As it is, if ever I wished any one in Jericho, it's that child.”
Jewel, happy in the proximity of her lovely cousin, satisfied herself by a glance that aunt Madge was not following.
Eloise looked about over the sunny, verdant landscape. “What a deceitful world,” she said. “It looks so serene and easy to live in. So it was very lovely over at your ravine this morning?”
“Oh!” Jewel looked up at her with eager eyes. “Let's go. You haven't been there. It's only a little way. You don't need your hat, cousin Eloise.”
Summer was in the air. The girl was amused at the child's enthusiastic tone. “Very well,” she answered.
Jewel drew her on with an embracing arm, and they descended the steps and walked down the path.
Suddenly the child stopped. “Doesn't it seem unkind to go without Anna Belle!” she exclaimed.
“Oh, nonsense,” returned Eloise, smiling. “You're not going way upstairs to get her. We needn't tell her we went. She's been out driving all the morning. I think it's my turn.”
The child looked happily up into her cousin's face. “I love to see you laugh, cousin Eloise,” she returned, and they strolled on.
The park drives were deserted. The cousins reached the gorge without meeting any one. Leaning upon the slender fence, they gazed down into the green depths, and for a minute listened to the woodland melody.
“Isn't it just like your Spring Song?” asked the child at last.
“It is sweet and comforting and good,” replied the girl slowly, a far-off look in her eyes.
Jewel lifted her shoulders. “Don't you want to get down there, cousin Eloise?” she asked, her eyes sparkling.
“Yes,” replied the girl promptly.
“Will it hurt your dress?” added Jewel, with a sudden memory of Mrs. Forbes, as she looked over her cousin's immaculate black and white costume.
“I guess not,” laughed the girl. “Are you afraid Mrs. Forbes will put me to bed?”
She bent her lithe figure and was under the wire in a twinkling. Jewel crept gleefully after her, but was careful to hold her little skirts out of harm's way as they climbed down the steep bank and at last rested among the ferns by the brook. Its louder babble seemed to welcome them. Nature had been busy at her miracle working since the child's last visit. Without moving she could have gathered a handful of little blossoms. Instead, she rolled over and kissed a near clump of violets. “You darling, darling things!” she said.
Eloise looked up through far boughs to the fleece-flecked sky. “Everything worth living for is right here, Jewel,” she said. “Let's have a tent and not give any one our address.”
“I think we ought to let Dr. Ballard come, don't you?”
“Now why did you pick him out?” returned Eloise plaintively. She was resting her head against her clasped hands as she stretched herself against the incline of her verdant couch. Her companion did not reply at once, and Eloise lazily turned her head to where she could view the eyes fixed upon her.
“What are you thinking of, Jewel?”
“I was just thinking that if my mother made you a thin green dress that swept around you all long and narrow, you'd look like a flower, too.”
The girl smiled back at the sky. “That's very nice. You can think those thoughts all you please.”
“That wasn't all, though, because I was thinking about Dr. Ballard. He feels sorry. I couldn't tell you about it at lunch, because aunt Madge—well, because—”
“Yes,” returned Eloise quietly. “It is better for us to be alone.”
Jewel's brow relaxed. “Yes,” she said contentedly, “in the Ravine of Happiness.”
“Look out, though,” continued the girl in the same quiet tone and looking back at the sky. “Look out what you say here. It is easy now to feel that all is harmonious, and that discords do not exist. I think even if grandfather appeared I could talk with him peacefully.”
“I have thought about it,” returned the child, “and it seems hard to know what to say; but I love you and Dr. Ballard both, so it will be sure to come out right. He feels sorry if you are beginning to like to study Christian Science.”
“Really, did he speak of that to you? I think he might have chosen a man of his size.”
“Of course he spoke of it when he found out I wanted to ask you to take me to our church.”
“Where is the church here?” Eloise abandoned her lazy tone.
“They have a hall. Mr. Reeves wrote it down for me. Do you really care, cousin Eloise? You've been so kind and helped me, but do you really begin to care?”
“Care? Who could help caring, if it is true? I've been reading some of the tales of cures in your magazine. If those people tell the truth”—
“Why, cousin Eloise!” The child's shocked eyes recalled the girl's self-centred thoughts.
“I beg your pardon, dear. It was rude to say that. I'm not ill, Jewel. I'm so well and strong that—I've sometimes wished I wasn't, but life turned petty and disgusting to me. I resented everything. It is just as wonderful and radiant a star of hope to read that there is a sure way out of my tangle as if I had consumption and was promised a cure of that. I don't yet exactly believe it, but I don't disbelieve it. All I know is I want to read, read, read all the time. I was just thinking a minute ago that if we had the books here it would be perfect. This is the sort of place where it would be easiest to see that only the good is the real, and that the unsubstantiality of everything evil can be proved.”
Jewel gave her head a little shake. “Just think of poor Dr. Ballard being afraid to have you believe that.”
“But who wouldn't be afraid to believe it, who wouldn't!” exclaimed the girl vehemently.
“Why, I've always known it, cousin Eloise,” returned the child simply.
“You dear baby. You haven't lived long. I don't want to climb into a fool's paradise only to fall out with a dull thud.”
Jewel looked at her, grasping as well as she could her meaning. “I know I'm only a little girl; but if you should go to church with me,” she said, “you'd see a lot of grown-up people who know it's true. Then we could go on Wednesday evenings and hear them tell what Christian Science has done for them.”
“Oh, I'm sure I shouldn't like that,” responded Eloise quickly. “How can they bear to tell!”
“They don't think it's right not to. There are lots of other people besides you that are sorry and need to learn the truth.”
The rebuke was so innocent and, withal, so direct, that honest Eloise turned toward Jewel and made an impulsive grasp toward her, capturing nothing but the edge of the child's dress, which she held firmly.
“You're right, Jewel. I'm a selfish, thin-skinned creature,” she declared.
The little girl shook her head. “You've got to stop thinking you are, you know,” she answered. “You have to know that the error Eloise isn't you.”
“That's mortal mind, I suppose,” returned Eloise, smiling at the sound of the phrase.
“I should think it was! Old thing! Always trying to cheat us!” said Jewel. “All that you have to do is to remember every minute that God's child must be manifested. He inherits every good and perfect thing, and has dominion over every belief of everything else.”
Eloise stared at her in wonder. “Do you know what you've talking about, you little thing, when you use all those long words?”
“Yes. Don't you?” asked the child. “Oh, listen!” for a bird suddenly poured a wild strain of melody from the treetop.
“And just think,” said Jewel presently, in a soft, awestruck tone, “that some people wear birds sewed on their hats, just as if they were glad something was dead!”
“It is weird,” agreed Eloise. “I never liked it. Jewel, did Dr. Ballard blame you because I am interested in Christian Science?”
“He said he wished I wouldn't talk to you and go to church and everything.”
The girl bit a blade of grass and eyed the child's serious face.
“Well, what are you going to do about it?”
“I asked God to show me. I wish Dr. Ballard would study with you.”
“That is impossible. He has spent years learning his science, and he loves it and is proud of it; so what next?”
“Very queer things happen sometimes,” rejoined Jewel doubtfully.
“But not so queer as that would be,” returned Eloise.
Jewel was pondering. This was very delicate ground, and she still felt some awe of her cousin; however, there was only one thing to consider.
“Do you love him better than anybody, cousin Eloise?” she asked.
A flood of color warmed the girl's face, but she had to smile.
“Would that make the difference?” she asked. “Mustn't we want the truth anyway?”
Jewel heaved a mighty sigh. She was thinking of Dr. Ballard's pensive eyes. “I should think so,” she answered frankly; “because if you just study the truth, and hold on tight, how can things be anything but happy at last? I wish I was more grown up, cousin Eloise,” she added apologetically.
“Oh no, no,” answered the girl, with a little catch in her throat. “I've had so much of grown-up people, Jewel! I'm so grown up myself! Just a little while ago I was a schoolgirl, busy and happy all the time. I never even went out anywhere except with father, and with Nat when he was at home from college. You don't know Nat, but you'd like him.”
“Why! Is he a Christian Scientist?”
For answer Eloise laughed low but heartily. “Nat a Christian Scientist!” she mused aloud. “Not exactly, my little cousin!”
“Then should I like him as well as Dr. Ballard?” asked Jewel incredulously.
“I don't know. Tastes differ.”
“Does he like horses?” asked the child.
“He knows everything about a horse and a yacht except how to pay for them, poor boy,” returned Eloise.
“Is he poor?”
“Yes, he is poor and expensive. It is a bad combination; it is almost as bad as being poor and extravagant. His mother is a widow, and they haven't much, but what there was she has insisted on spending on him—that is, all she could spare from the doctor's bills.”
“She needs Science then, doesn't she?”
“Jewel, that would be one thing that would keep me from wanting to be a Scientist. What's the fun of being one unless everybody else is? My mother, for instance.”
“Yes; but then you'd find out how to help her.”
Eloise glanced at the child curiously. She thought it would be interesting to peep into Jewel's mind and see her estimate of Aunt Madge.
“My mother has a great deal to trouble her,” she said loyally.
“Yes, I know she thinks she has,” returned the child.
Again her response surprised her companion.
“I'll take you as you are, Jewel,” she said. “I'm glad you're not grown up. You're fresher from the workshop.”