Mr. Wayt's Wife's Sister. Marion Harland
to brother and sister, the nearest window being lowered a few inches from the top. Hester loved heat and light as well as a salamander, but could not breathe freely in a closed room. To-night was one of her “bad times,” and nothing but Hetty’s singing could win her a moderate degree of ease.
“Blow winds!” [sang Hetty]
“And waft through all the rooms
The snowflakes of the cherry blooms!
Blow winds! and bend within my reach
The fiery blossoms of the peach!
“O Life and Love! O happy throng
Of thoughts whose only speech is song!
O heart of man! canst thou not be
Blithe as the air is, and as free?”
March moved forward hastily to ring the bell. He felt like an eavesdropping spy upon the unconscious girls. Without any knowledge of the isolation and mutual dependence of the two, the visitors perceived pathos in the scene—in the clinging helplessness of one and the brooding tenderness expressed in the close clasp and bent head of the other.
The singing ceased instantly at the sound of the gong. “By George! what an alarm!” muttered March, discomfited by the clang succeeding his touch. “And I gave it such a genteel pull!”
His attitude was apologetic still, when Mr. Wayt’s wife’s sister opened the door.
“I seem fated to be heralded noisily!” he said regretfully. “I had as little idea of the tone of your doorbell as you had of the power of Thor’s lungs. Miss Alling, let me introduce my sister! She gave me no peace until I brought her to see you.”
May extended her hand with unmistakable intention of good fellowship.
“I scolded him for stealing a march upon me this afternoon while I, like a dutiful Christian, was in church,” she said. Her smile was her brother’s, her blithe, refined tones her own. “But I mean to improve my advantages the more diligently on that account.”
The genial persiflage had bridged over the always awkward transit from front door to drawing room when the host is the conductor. It was the more embarrassing in this case because the two meagerly furnished parlors were unlighted except as a glimmer from the hall gas added to the sense of space and emptiness.
“Allow me!” March took from Hetty’s fingers the match she had lighted, and reached up to the chandelier. The white illumination flashed upon a pleasing study of an up-looking manly face, with honest, hazel eyes, drooping mustache, and teeth that gleamed in the smile attending the question: “I hope your niece is none the worse for her fright?”
“Thank you! I think not. She is rather nervous than timid, and not usually afraid of dogs.”
“I hope we can see her to-night?” May took up the word. “My brother says she is such a dainty, bright little creature that I am impatient to meet her.”
Hetty’s eyes glowed with gratitude and surprise. No other visitor had ever named the afflicted daughter of the house in this tone. The frank, cordial praise kept back no implication of pitying patronage. Mr. Wayt’s wife’s sister had knocked about the world of churches and parishes long enough to know that the perfect breeding which ignores deformity without overlooking the deformed is the rarest of social gifts. In any other circumstances, she would have refused steadfastly to subject Hester to the scrutiny of a stranger. As it was, she hesitated visibly.
“She is seldom able to receive company in the evening. But I will see how she is feeling to-night.”
She had remarkable self-possession, as March had noted already. She got herself out of the room without mumble or halt. She walked well, and with a single eye to her destination, with no diffident conjectures as to how she moved or looked. March had keen perceptions and critical notions upon such points.
“What an interesting looking girl,” observed May, in an undertone.
And March, as cautiously—“I hope she will let us see the little one! She is the jolliest grig you can conceive of.”
Both tried not to look about them while waiting for the hostess’ return. The place was forlornly clean, and the new carpets gave forth the ungoodly smell of oily wool that nothing but time and use can dissipate. Plaintive efforts to abolish stiffness were evident in chairs grouped in conversational attitudes near the summer-fronted fireplace, and a table pulled well away from the wall, with books and photographs lying about on it. March could fancy Hetty doing these things, then standing disheartened, in the waste of moquette, under the consciousness that there was not one-fifth enough furniture for the vast rooms. At this point, he spoke again subduedly:
“What possessed the church to build these desolate barns and call them family parlors?”
May was a parish worker, and looked her surprise.
“A parsonage must have plenty of parlor room for church sociables.”
“Then those who use them ought to furnish them. Or, say! it wouldn’t be amiss to keep them up as show places are abroad—by charging a shilling admission fee.”
Hetty’s return saved him from deserved rebuke.
“My niece will be very happy to see you,” she reported, rather formally, her eyes darkling into vague trouble or doubt as she said it. On the way across the hall she added hurriedly to May: “We never overpersuade her to meet strangers. In this case there was no need.”
May’s gloved hand sought hers with a swift, involuntary gesture. It was the merest touch that emphasized the low “Thank you!” but both struck straight home to Hetty’s heart. The Gilchrist tact was inimitable.
Hester lay upon a lounge, propped into a sitting posture with pillows. Her hair and drapings were cunningly disposed. A casual eye would not have penetrated the secret of the withered limbs and curved spine. A red spot like a rose-leaf rested upon each cheek, her eyes shone, and her silent smile revealed small, perfect teeth like a two-year-old baby’s. She was so winsome that May stooped impulsively to kiss her as she would a pretty child.
“I came to tell you how angry we all are—my father, mother, and I—with my brother and his dog for scaring you to-day,” she said, seating herself on an ottoman by the lounge, and retaining hold of the wee hand until it ceased to twitch and burn in hers. “I did think Thor knew better! His tail committed innumerable apologies to me when I told him I hoped to see you this evening.”
March and Hetty, chatting together near the crackling wood fire, caught presently sentences relative to colors and pencils and portfolios, and slackened their talk to listen. May had elicited the confession that Hester’s brush was a solace and the only pastime she had “except reading and Hetty’s music.”
“But it’s only trying with me,” said the tuneless voice. “I have had no teacher except Hetty.”
“My dear Hester!” cried the person named. “Be candid, and say ‘worse than none!’”
Hester colored vividly at this evidence that her confidences to her new friend were shared by others, but rallied gallantly to support her assertion.
“She doesn’t think she has any talent for drawing, but she took lessons for three months that she might teach me how to shade and manage perspective, and use water colors. She and I amuse ourselves with caricatures and all that, and I make drawings—very poor ones—to illustrate poems and stories, while she reads to me, and I do a little—you can’t imagine how little and how badly!—in color. Just bits, you know—grass and mossy sticks, and brambles running over stones, and frost-bitten leaves—and such things. Hetty is always on the lookout for studies for me. I cannot sit up long enough to undertake anything more important if I had the skill. And I shouldn’t dare venture to copy anything really beautiful—such as apple blossoms,” with a short-lived smile at March that left a plait between her eyes.
Intercepting Hetty’s apprehensive glance, he smiled in return,