The Girls at Mount Morris by Amanda Minnie Douglas (rooftoppers .txt) 📖

bad rent in my pretty frock and Aunt Kate had to change the skirt. Then I wanted to write some letters and the days are so short."

She kissed her mother rapturously; then went and sat on her father's knee.

"And the Chichesters want us to dinner tomorrow and a little dance afterward. It is Will's last nibble at pleasure. Oh, why didn't you make him choose some real business, you naughty father, so he could have stayed at home like a respectable citizen."

"And had a sweetheart. Then what would you have done?"

"Looked up a sweetheart also. Oh, must he go Wednesday night?"

"Think what a nice long holiday he has had!"

"And think of three desolate years!"

"They may be more desolate for us than for him. But it was his choice."

He entered the room just then. Had Marguerite found any special entertainment? What had Zay been doing?

"Oh, writing letters. Marguerite be glad you have not forty dear friends who are crying write, write all the time."

No there was only one person she had written to. That was Sally Weeks at Laconia, and if Sally answered--well, she was lame on spelling, if she had a good generous heart.

Zay and her aunt had done something beside writing and mending the party frock. They had discussed Marguerite.

"Well," Aunt Kate had said with a long and rather unwilling accent, "she might have been worse. Her table manners are passable. I do suppose she has picked up a good deal at Mrs. Barrington's. But she has a rather uncertain air, and we shall have to hunt her up some clothes. I must talk to your mother about it."

"Oh, dear, what a fuss there will be at school; I wish it was all over! I do wonder what Louie Howe will say! We had some talks--well, I could see how some of the girls felt."

"I think that was very natural. I suppose she _was_ presuming."

"No, she wasn't," returned Zay with heightened color. "I want to be fair to her for she _is_ my sister. I think I'd rather be an only daughter, but father will be just as fond of me, I am sure. I don't know about the boys; but then Vincent won't be home until next summer. I suppose we'll all go to West Point. Of course, I couldn't well have stayed with mother this afternoon, so I don't mind her being there--"

"Zay you are very generous and unsuspecting. I should be sorry to have any influence undermine your love. You have been all to your mother."

"But I can't be all now, I see that. Still I'll have you, aunt Kate, and I won't give up my place in her heart. Oh, trust me to keep that."

Aunt Kate was anxious for her favorite and though she did not mean to be ungenerous, she could not so cordially rejoice. If the girl had been awkward or underbred, she could have taken her in hand with a good grace. But she was not likely to ask anything of her.

Dinner was a rather more elaborate meal. It did seen odd to wait for some one to help to the smallest thing and she wondered how Mrs. Boyd would feel to have some one standing at her back and anticipating her wishes before they were hardly formulated. But there was a certain dignity and pleasure in it with no jar or awkwardness. How did she come to take to it naturally? She did not seem to feel embarrassed, and how lovely the room looked with the lights and the still hanging Christmas greens.

When Zaidee came in to wish her mother good-night, she did indeed look like a fairy being. Her frock was some soft, diaphanous stuff over a pale green slip, some of her curls were tied up high on her head and the ribbon and that of her sash matched. Three strings of pearl beads were about her white throat. Marguerite smiled to herself--Miss Nevins would call that very poor party attire.

"Don't stay late," Major Crawford said to his son.

"Oh, we couldn't," declared Zay laughing. "It's a school girls' 'Small and early.' We begin at eight and the musicians depart at ten and we go to refreshments, and by eleven,


"'The lights are fled the music dead,
And all of us departed.'"


"That is just as it should be," declared aunt Kate, "if you wish to keep roses and bright eyes for pleasure later on."

Zay kissed her parents. Marguerite was sitting a little out of range, but Willard bent over and gave her a tender good-night. Then aunt Kate wrapped her niece in a lovely evening cloak trimmed with white fox and drew the hood up carefully, and the carriage soon whisked them to their destination.

"Oh, how beautiful she looks!" Marguerite exclaimed involuntarily.

The mother smiled tenderly.

"Zaidee has grown up with her beauty," said the father. "I used to be afraid aunt Kate would spoil her and lead her to think beauty was the great thing to strive for, but she takes it as a matter of course. I hope she will be as indifferent about it when she is grown to womanhood, for nothing destroys the charm like that ultraconsciousness and the bid for admiration. So many things beside beauty of feature go to make up the charm of an interesting woman."

She must be interesting, Marguerite thought. There were so many delightful qualities one could cultivate. Mrs. Barrington was charming, and Miss Arran had so many nice quiet ways, that she had insensibly copied; her low toned voice, her never seeming to hurry and yet going about any matter as if it was the first thing to be done; her little orderly methods. She kept her mother's room neat, she put the books back in their places; there was a cluster of autumn leaves in a vase, or a sprig of spruce or cedar that for a long while would put forth new leaves. She was very glad now that she had taken so much pains. Was she rather unpolished when they had first come from Laconia. But her circle there was so different.

She told over only the best of it when her father asked about her life there. Wasn't this what Willard had meant and she had resented? She would try not to be ashamed of the poor and plain living since it was the best Mrs. Boyd could give; but she knew even then she was longing and planning for something better.

And a room like this for her very own! She liked it better because her very own brother had planned it for her. She looked over some of the books and above his name he had written--"For my Sister Marguerite." And she was glad with a sense of mystery she did not care to fathom that her mother's room was between her and Zaidee's.

What a long day it had been. Yet in a certain sense happy, as happy as any strange beautiful place with a father and mother,--the latter she had not even dreamed of when she had thought a father might be found. Oh, she must be very grateful to God for sending her here where the tangle could be resolved in such an honorable manner and she must try to be worthy of all the love lavished upon her. The whole world broadened and she was part of the higher life. She was looking up to the hill tops where human endeavors must aspire even though there were failures, and to the west over beyond the land of eternal love and golden fruition.


CHAPTER XVI

OUT OF HER LOYALTY

Mrs. Van Orden's residence was large and handsome and a-light from top to bottom. There were three daughters from seventeen to thirteen. They had always been very friendly with the Crawfords, and this gathering was a good deal in honor of the young midshipman who was so soon to go on his first cruise of three years.

The girls in the dressing room hovered about Zay. Wasn't it wonderful that her sister had been found and living here all these months? Why it was just like a story!

"A princess in disguise," laughed Zay. "That was what I called her."

"And is she--does she look like you?"

"No, although we are twins you can easily tell us apart. She is taller; I think she will be like mother. Her hair is--well a sort of bronzy light brown, and her eyes are such a dark blue that you might mistake them for black, and she's rather grave; not such a fly-away as I am. Of course, you know, we have only had her one day though the others went over to Mrs. Barrington's to see her."

"And wasn't she something there," asked a girl.

"She was going to study for a teacher. Mrs. Barrington expected to keep her after her--well, I suppose we might call it a foster-mother, died. You see Mrs. Boyd thought the nurse mamma had was her real mother and she felt so sorry for the baby believing the true mother had been killed."

"Why it is a real romance."

Zaidee meant to put it on a right foundation. At school once she had, in a way, stood up for her when Louie Howe tried to establish a distinction. So why shouldn't she now, and always, even if she had not taken Marguerite cordially to her heart. No one outside should offer a slight.

"And you believe it is all true--"

"Well, I think Dr. Kendricks and Mr. Ledwith and Mrs. Barrington couldn't all be deceived. You see, this Mrs. Boyd never knew she belonged to us, but she thought there might be a father somewhere; and the account of the accident tallied; there were only two babies on the train and one was killed. Mrs. Boyd knew the baby she took was not hers. So it is beyond any doubt."

Zaidee Crawford looked brave and beautiful and her voice would have carried conviction anywhere, as well as disarming criticism.

"Oh, you _are_ a darling!" and two or three of the girls kissed her rapturously.

"I wouldn't be without a sister for all the world," declared Evelyn Van Orden, the middle one of the three girls.

The musicians were tuning up. Several of the young gentlemen stood in the hall waiting. Mrs. Van Orden summoned them down.

It was a gay young people's party and numerous were the regrets that Willard Crawford was to be gone for so long.

"But you'll have Vincent all next summer," he said. "And there is no scarcity of other young fellows."

"But they go away, as well. Unless they have a fortune they cannot afford to stay at home."

"And I have all mine to make," he returned, with mock seriousness.

It was true that at ten the music stopped, but there was some gay chatting over the refreshments and then the carriages began to come. They all expressed their pleasure to their hostess. Willard insisted that they should take home two or three of the girls, and they were nothing loth.

"But, you see, Zay is quite certain she owns him, and she gave him about every other dance," said Sophie Lawrence, as she stood on the steps with her sister.

When they were alone Willard reached over and took his sister's hand in a warm clasp.

"Zay, I heard your fine defense for Marguerite. I was waiting at the head of the stairs.