Elizabeth Hobart at Exeter Hall. Jean Katherine Baird
they passed the open door of the room occupied by Landis Stoner and Min Kean, the voices of the girls came to them. They had evidently taken it for granted that the other students had gone to the parlors and that there wasn’t anyone to hear the conversation.
“Well, for my part, Min,” Landis was saying, “I do not think you look at all well in that blue silk. You look so sallow. You are so much sweeter in your white organdy with your pink sash.”
“But, Landis, I’ve worn it so often.”
“But not here. It will be new to the girls, and it looks perfectly fresh.”
“You said you liked the blue silk when I was buying it.”
“I did and I do yet, but it isn’t suited to you. Now for me, it would be all right, but – ”
“I wish you’d come down, Landis. I always have a better time when you are there.”
“How can I? I haven’t a dress for a reception. You simply cannot get a dress made at home fit to wear, and my staying up in the country all summer with you made my going to the city impossible.”
That was all that reached the girls in the hall, and this was forced upon them. Nancy could not forbear a smile. Elizabeth with the guilelessness of an unexperienced child exclaimed, “Why, Landis seems to have so many beautiful clothes. Her father must be very wealthy. Her rings and pins are simply lovely. Isn’t that a diamond she wears?”
“Yes; but it’s Min’s. Landis has been wearing it for the last two years. Min is an only child. She has no mother and her father, who is a millionaire oil-man, allows her to spend what she pleases.”
“Is Landis’ father an oil-man?”
“No, he isn’t,” was the reply.
Elizabeth was learning how much could be said by silence. During her short acquaintance with Landis, the girl had suggested many of the possibilities of her future – a cruise on a private yacht, a year’s study and travel in Europe. She had not said that money was no consideration with her, yet Elizabeth had gained such an impression from her words.
“I am sorry Landis will miss the reception,” she said.
Nancy smiled. “She will not miss it. She enjoys the social side of school life too much to miss anything of this kind. She will be down after awhile.”
“But you heard what she said – that she had nothing fit to wear.”
“But she will have – or has now. She will appear in a gown that puts all other dresses in the shade. Here we are. How fine the reception committee look. Poor Mary Wilson! this is hard for her. She’s doing her best not to toss back her hair and laugh.”
As she spoke, they entered the parlors. Jimmy Jordan, arrayed in full dress, announced their arrival to Dr. Morgan.
The girls maintained a dignified and elegant composure until they reached the end of the line where Miss Wilson stood. Nancy’s appearance distracted her attention from her social duties.
“You’ve got too much powder on your nose, Nancy,” and with a flutter of her handkerchief, she made Nancy presentable. Then she remembered where she was. Her face flushed. She looked about her. Her words had carried across the room. The smiles of the committee about her were almost audible.
Elizabeth in company with Nancy moved through the room. “Here is someone I wish you to meet,” said Nancy, “that is, if you are really interested in people of strong, though peculiar character. She is a Miss Rice. She owns a little farm not far from where my father preached. She works the whole place herself.”
They came up to Miss Rice, a woman far past middle age. Her features showed exposure to the sun. Her red-bronze hair was turning into a grizzled, faded gray.
“I’m glad to meet Miss Hobart,” she said. “You are from Bitumen, I hear. I have planned to go there as soon as I get my potatoes in, and those odd chores done for the winter. I heard your father had a peculiar plant – something unusual hereabout.”
Elizabeth repeated the story of his having found an odd seed in an importation of tea and having planted it. Miss Rice’s conversation was interesting. Her voice was full and melodious, but even Elizabeth who was used to the eccentricities of Miss Hale’s attire could not repress a smile.
Miss Rice talked of the wheat blight and the damaging effects of potato-bugs, then with equal interest quoted Browning, and debated the question whether there was a present-day literature worthy of the name.
“She’s a quaint character,” Miss Cresswell said later to Elizabeth. “She might have been independently rich, but she has no idea of the value of money, and she is the sort who always finds someone who needs it more than she. It’s been years since she’s had a respectable winter coat because she pledged herself to provide for several old ladies in the Home for the Friendless. She has a whole host of doless relatives, whom she props up whenever they need it, and,” as though an afterthought, “they always need it.”
“Do you know if Landis is coming down?” asked Miss Rice a few moments later, turning to Elizabeth. “I really came purposely to see her. We’ve been a little uncertain about her finishing the year, but last week I sold four hundred bushels of potatoes. That means she can stay. She’ll be pleased, but no more than I’ll be.” Then in a confidential tone, “When I was a girl, I didn’t have the advantages that I’m trying to give Landis. We were poor, and father and mother were getting on in years, and I couldn’t leave them. What I learned I dug out of books and other people’s minds. Julia Hale – you know her – got me interested in botany, and someone else came along with a book or so. I was ambitious to go to Exeter, and then be a missionary. That seemed to be such a beautiful life of self-sacrifice; but it seems it wasn’t to be. There never was a day when someone right there at home didn’t need me, so that after a while I didn’t ever have time to think of going. But there was Landis. I mean to prepare her well and send her in my place. When the potatoes turned out better than I’d been counting on, I just sat down and laughed. Then I got ready and came down here to tell Landis. There she is now.” She arose, a trace of pleasurable excitement showing in her manner and lighting up her weather-beaten face, and moved to where Landis, radiant and self-confident, stood with Min and others of her satellites.
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