In a Mysterious Way. Warner Anne
she take many?"
Alva laughed. "She told me that she only had a double-bed and a half-bed, so she was limited to eight."
"Oh!"
"I know, my dear, I thought that very same 'Oh' myself; but that's what she said. And that really is as naught compared to the rest of her capabilities."
"What else does she do?"
"I'm afraid I can't remember it all at once, but among other things she runs a farm, raises chickens, takes in sewing, cuts hair, canes chairs and is sexton of the church. She's postmistress, too, and does several little things around town."
Lassie drew back in amazement. "You're joking."
"No, dear, I'm not joking. She's the eighth wonder in the world, in my opinion."
"She must be quite a character."
"Every one's quite a character in the country. Country life develops character. I expect to become a character myself, very soon; indeed I'm not very positive but that I am one already."
"But how does the woman find time to do so much?"
"There is more time in the country than in the city; you'll soon discover that. One gets up and dresses and breakfasts and goes for the mail, and reads the letters and answers them, and then its only quarter past ten, – in the country."
Lassie withdrew from the arm that held her. "It won't be so with me to-day, at all events," she laughed. "What will they think of me if every one here is as prompt as that?"
"It doesn't matter to-day; we'll be prompt ourselves to-morrow. But you'd better run now. I'm in a hurry to get to my house; I'm as silly over that house as a little child with a new toy, – sillier, in fact, for my interest is in ratio with my growth, and I've wanted a home for so long."
"But you've had a home."
"Not of my very ownest own, not such as this will be."
The young girl looked up into her face. "I'm so very curious," she said, with emphasis; "I want so to know the story."
Alva touched her cheek caressingly, "I'll tell you soon," she promised, "after you've seen the house."
Lassie went back into her room and proceeded to make her toilet, which was soon finished.
They went down into the little hotel dining-room then for breakfast, and found it quite deserted, but neat and sweet, and pleasantly odorous of bacon.
"Such a dolls' house of a hotel," said Lassie.
"It's a cozy place," Alva answered. "I like this kind of hotel. It's sweet and informal. If they forget you, you can step to the kitchen and ask for more coffee. I'm tired of the world and the world's conventionality. I told Mrs. Lathbun yesterday that Ledge would spoil me for civilization hereafter. I like to live in out-of-the-way places."
"Mrs. Lathbun is the hostess, I suppose?"
"No, Mrs. O'Neil is the hostess, or rather, she's the host's wife. You must meet her to-day. Such a pretty, brown-eyed, girlish creature, – the last woman in the world to bring into a country hotel. She says herself that when you've been raised with a faucet and a sewer, it's terrible to get used to a cistern and a steep bank. She was born and brought up in Buffalo."
By this time Mary Cody had entered, beaming good morning, and placed the hot bacon and eggs, toast and coffee, before them.
"I'm going for the mail after breakfast, Mary," Alva said; "shall I bring yours?"
"Can't I bring yours?" said Mary Cody. "I can run up there just as well as not." Mary Cody was all smiles at the mere idea.
"No, I'll have to go myself to-day, I think. I'm expecting a registered letter."
"I'll be much obliged then if you will bring mine."
"If there are any for the house, I'll bring them all," Alva said; "will you tell Mrs. Lathbun that?"
"I'll tell her if I see her, but they're both gone. They went out early – off chestnutting, I suppose."
"Oh!"
"Who is Mrs. Lathbun?" Lassie asked, when Mary Cody had gone out of the room.
"I spoke of her before and you asked about her then, didn't you? And I meant to tell you and forgot. She's another boarder, a lady who is here with her daughter. Such nice, plain, simple people. You'll like them both."
"I thought that we were to be here all alone."
"We are, to all intents and purposes. The Lathbuns won't trouble us. They are not intrusive, only interesting when we meet at table or by accident."
"Every one interests you, Alva; but I don't like strangers."
Alva sighed and smiled together.
"I learned to fill my life with interest in people long ago," she said simply; "it's the only way to keep from getting narrow sometimes."
Lassie looked at her earnestly.
"Does every one that you meet interest you really?" she asked.
"I think so; I hope so, anyway."
"Don't you ever find any one dull?"
Alva looked at her with a smile, quickly repressed. "No one is really dull, dear, or else every one is dull; it's all in the view-point. The interest is there if we want it there; or it isn't there, if we so prefer. That's all."
There was a little pause, while the young girl thought this over.
"I suppose that one is happiest in always trying to find the interest," she said then slowly; "but do tell me more about the Lathbuns."
"Presupposing them in the dull catalogue?"
Lassie blushed, "Not necessarily," she said, half confusedly.
Alva laughed at her face, "I don't know so very much about them, except that they interest me. The mother is large and rather common looking, but a very fine musician, and the daughter is a pale, delicate girl with a romance."
Lassie's face lit up: "Oh, a romance! Is it a nice romance? Tell me about it."
"It's rather a wonderful romance in my eyes. I'll tell it all to you sometime, but that was the train that came in just now, and I want to get the mail and go on over to the house, so we'll have to put off the romance for the present, I'm afraid."
"I don't hear the train."
"Maybe not – but it went by."
"Went by! And the mail! How does the mail get off by itself?"
"Oh, my dear, I must leave you to learn about the mail from Mrs. Ray. She'll explain to you all about what happens to the Ledge mail when the train rushes by. It's one of her pet subjects."
"Do you know you're really very clever, Alva; you seem to be plotting to fill me full of curiosity about everything and everybody in this little out-of-the-way corner in the world? Nobody could ever be dull where you are."
A sudden shadow fell over the older's face at that; a wistful wonder crept to her eyes.
"I wish I could believe that," she said.
"But you can, dear. You've always seemed to me to be just like that French woman who was the only one who could amuse the king, even after she'd been his wife for forty years. You'd be like that."
Alva rose, laughing a little sadly. "God grant that it may be so," she said, "there are so many people who need amusing after forty years. But, dear, you know I told you last night that I sent for you to come and teach and learn, and you are teaching already."
"What am I teaching?" Lassie's eyes opened widely.
"You are teaching me what I really am, and that's a lesson that I need very much just now. It would be so very easy to forget what I really am these days. My head is so often dizzy."
"Why, dear? What makes you dizzy?"
"Oh, because the world seems slipping from me so fast. I could so easily quit it altogether. And I must not quit it. I have too much to do. And I am to have a great task left me to perform, perhaps.