Amazing Grace, Who Proves That Virtue Has Its Silver Lining. Kate Trimble Sharber
and Uncle Lancelot, of course, came in with their gratuitous advice, the one suggesting nasturtium beds with geraniums along the borders—the other slyly whispering that a boat trip from Savannah to Boston was no more than I deserved.
Then, reaching home in this frame of mind, I was confronted with two very perplexing and unusual conditions. Mignon was being played with great violence in the front parlor—and all over the house was the scent of burnt yarn.
"What's up?" I demanded of mother, as she met me at the door—dressed in blue. "Everything seems mysterious and topsyturvy to-day! I believe if I were to go out to the cemetery I'd find the tombstones nodding and whispering to one another."
"Come in here!" she begged in a Santa Claus voice.
I went into the parlor, then gave a little shriek.
"Mother!"
I have neglected to state, earlier in the narrative, that the one desire of my heart which doesn't begin with H was a player-piano! It was there in the parlor, at that moment, shining, and singing its wordless song about the citron-flower land.
"It's the very one we've been watching through the windows up-town," she said in a delighted whisper.
"But did you get it as a prize?" I inquired, walking into the dusky room and shaking hands with my betrothed, who rose from the instrument and made way for me to take possession. "How came it here?"
"I had it sent out—on—on approval," she elucidated. That is, her words took the form of an explanation, but her voice was as appealing as a Salvation Army dinner-bell, just before Christmas.
"On approval? But why, please?"
"Because I want you to get used to having the things you want, darling!"
Then, to keep from laughing—or crying—I ran toward the door.
"What is that burning?" I asked, sniffing suspiciously.
It was a vaguely familiar scent—scorching dress-goods—and suggestive of the awful feeling which comes to you when you've stood too close to the fire in your best coat-suit—or the comfortable sensation on a cold night, when you're preparing to wrap up your feet in a red-hot flannel petticoat.
"What is it? Tell the truth, mother!"
But she wouldn't.
"It's your brown tweed skirt, Grace," Guilford finally explained, as my eyes begged the secret of them both. They frequently had secrets from me.
"My brown tweed skirt?"
"It was as baggy at the knees as if you'd done nothing all winter but pray in it!" mother whimpered in a frightened voice. "I've—I've burned it up!"
For a moment I was silent.
"But what shall I tramp in?" I finally asked severely. "What can I walk out the Waverley Pike in?"
Then mother took fresh courage.
"You're not going to walk!" she answered triumphantly. "You're going to ride—in your very—own—electric—coupé! Here's the catalogue."
She scrambled about for a book on a table near at hand—and I began to see daylight.
"Oh, a player-piano, and an electric coupé—all in one day! I see! My fairy godmother—who was old Aunt Patricia, and she looked exactly like one—has turned the pumpkin into a gold coach! You two plotters have been putting your heads together to have me get rich quick and gracefully!"
"We understand that this stroke of fortune is going to make a great change in your life, Grace," Guilford said gravely. He was always grave—and old. The only way you could tell his demeanor from that of a septuagenarian was that he didn't drag his feet as he walked.
"'Stroke of fortune?'" I repeated.
"The Coburn—" mother began.
"Colt—" he re-enforced, then they both hesitated, and looked at me meaningly.
I gave a hysterical laugh.
"You and mother have counted your Coburn-Colts before they were hatched!" I exclaimed wickedly, sitting down and looking over the music rolls. I did want that player-piano tremendously—although I had about as much use for an electric coupé, under my present conditions in life, as I had for a perambulator.
"Grace, you're—indelicate!" mother said, her voice trembling. "Guilford's a man!"
"A man's a man—especially a Kentuckian!" I answered. "You're not shocked at my mention of colts and—and things, are you, Guilford?"
My betrothed sat down and lifted from the bridge of his nose that badge of civilization—a pair of rimless glasses. He polished them with a dazzling handkerchief, then replaced the handkerchief into the pocket of the most faultless coat ever seen. He smoothed his already well-disciplined hair, and brushed away a speck of dust from the toe of his shoe. From head to foot he fairly bristled with signs of civic improvement.
"I am shocked at your reception of your mother's kind thoughtfulness," he said.
He waited a little while before saying it, for hesitation was his way of showing disapproval. Yet you must not get the impression from this that Guilford was a bad sort! Why, no woman could ride in an elevator with him for half a minute without realizing that he was the flower-of-chivalry sort of man! He always had a little way of standing back from a woman, as if she were too sacred to be approached, and in her presence he had a habit of holding his hat clasped firmly against the buttons of his coat. You can forgive a good deal in a man if he keeps his hat off all the time he's talking to you!
"'Shocked?'" I repeated.
"Your mother always plans for your happiness, Grace."
"Of course! Don't you suppose I know that?" I immediately asked in an injured tone. It is always safe to assume an injured air when you're arguing with a man, for it gives him quite as much pleasure to comfort you as it does to hurt you.
"I didn't—mean anything!" he hastened to assure me.
"Guilford merely jumped at the chance of your freeing yourself of this newspaper slavery," mother interceded. "You know what a humiliation it is to him—just as it is to me and to every member of the—Christie family."
My betrothed nodded so violently in acquiescence that his glasses flew off in space.
"You know that I am a Kentuckian in my way of regarding women, Grace," he plead. "I can't bear to see them step down from the pedestal that nature ordained for them!"
I turned and looked him over—from the crown of his intensely aristocratic fair head to the tip of his aristocratic slim foot.
"A Kentuckian?"
"Certainly!"
"A Kentuckian?" I repeated reminiscently. "Why, Guilford Blake, you ought to be olive-skinned—and black-eyed—and your shoes ought to turn up at the toes—and your head ought to be covered by a red fez—and you ought to sit smoking through a water-bottle of an evening, in front of your—your—"
"Grace!" stormed mother, rising suddenly to her feet. "I will not have you say such things!"
"What things?" I asked, drawing back in hurt surprise.
"H-harems!" she uttered in a blushing whisper, but Guilford caught the word and squared his shoulders importantly.
"But, I say, Grace," he interrupted, his face showing that mixture of anger and pleased vanity which a man always shows when you tell him that he's a dangerous tyrant, or a bold Don Juan—or both. "You don't think I'm a Turk—do you?"
"I do."
He sighed wistfully.
"If I were," he said, shaking his head, "I'd have caught you—and veiled you—long before this."
I