It was a white-faced girl that appeared before Walter McAndrew and his
wife as they were seated at the dining-room table. Gloria had stood what
seemed to her an age by the window in her room, looking down upon the
card Dinney had left with her. At last she threw off her hat and jacket,
and, turning, went below.
As Mr. McAndrew caught sight of the white, strained face of the girl he
pushed back his chair and sprang to his feet.
“What is it?” he exclaimed.
But his wife gave one startled look and then bowed her head as though
waiting for a storm to pass.
“I've found it out, Uncle Em!” said Gloria, in a voice that was not
Gloria's. “Found out about Pleasant Street and No. 80.” Not a jot did
her voice falter. She was looking straight into her guardian's eyes. “I
don't suppose you could have helped it. It was my property and you kept
it in trust. But--” There was a little wail, and the girl buried her
face in her hands and burst into sobs.
“Gloria, don't!” begged Mr. McAndrew, while his wife let the tears of
sympathy drip slowly from her face. _“I could have helped it--I could
have helped it!_ It is a miserably mean thing.” Mr. McAndrew was drawing
his breath sharply. “As you say, the property was left in my trust for
you by your father, but I had no need to turn it over to Richards. It
should have been fixed up. It serves me right that this has come upon
me.” It was the lawyer's voice that broke now.
Gloria raised her head and wiped her drenched face. To hear the words
her uncle spoke was a relief to her. Still the fact remained. All she
had thought to do toward righting a wrong of somebody's must be done to
right a wrong that lay at her own door.
She tried to stand up bravely under it, this girl who had been sheltered
and petted and cared for, but it was a hard task. And then there was
the shock to all the dreams she had had of playing Lady Bountiful to
another. For a few days she struggled and kept up, but a cold she had
taken on the last day of her travel, aggravated by excitement, settled
into a downright ailment. Very tenderly they coaxed her to stay within
the blankets and among the soft pillows for the first few days, and then
she stayed without coaxing. The District Nurse was at her side, and
another was placed as substitute on her district.
The weeks went by, and gradually the white face took on a tinge of
color. Still more weeks went by and the pillows were forsaken for the
chair, and gradually Gloria crept back to the life waiting for her.
Uncle Em and she had had little snatches of talks.
“It shall be straightened; it shall be made beautiful, this crooked way
of ours!” her guardian assured her.
And Gloria had answered with a smile. In the olden days it would have
been a laugh, but Gloria must wait for strength to laugh.
It was on a clear early September morning that Uncle Em and Aunt Em took
Gloria on her first drive. The small figure of the District Nurse sat
beside Aunt Em on the back seat. Gloria sat with Uncle Em.
“Which way?” Uncle Em awaited orders. He did not look at Gloria, but
Gloria looked at him. Her eyes were shining.
“As if you didn't know!” she cried. “As if I hadn't been holding my
breath to go to the New Street!” But at the corner, as they were about
to turn, she caught at the reins. “No, let's leave that for the dessert,
the New Street. I'd rather, after all. We'll go to Dinney's House
first, Uncle Em.”
[Illustration: “OH, UNCLE EM, NEW EVERYTHING.”]
Uncle Em nodded gravely. “So much the better,” he said. “Gives 'em time
to lay a few more bricks on New Street.”
The radiance of the day seemed to have entered into Gloria. Her laugh
ran on in a little silver stream, and people plodding up and down the
sidewalks turned and laughed in sheer sympathy.
“It feels so good to get back!” Gloria cried. “As if I had been a long
way off. Why doesn't somebody point out the 'sights'? That big stone
building, now--”
“The library,” said Uncle Em, and again Gloria's sweet-toned laugh
rippled out.
“I don't care, it looks different! I believe it's _grown_. And that
block of brick houses--did I ever see that before?”
“You took music lessons in it every week for two years, my dear,”
remarked Aunt Em, gently prosaic.
“Oh, I suppose so, in another age! I've never seen it in this one. This
is the Golden Age!”
Passing the hospital they saw Sal. She was sunning herself with other
convalescents before the door. Her childlike face expressed only calm.
She gazed at them, unsmiling.
“Oh, yes, she is about well,” an attendant volunteered, “but we can't
bear to send her home. She's having such a good time in her way. No, she
will never be any different. It was hoped she might be.”
“Sal!” Gloria called gently, “I'm going to No. 80 Pleasant Street. Do
you want to send a message?”
“Number Eighty?” Sal repeated slowly.
“Yes, where mother is, Sal. Shall I take a message to your mother for
you?”
“Tell her I ain't been beat once--not nary.”
Pleasant Street was still “Treeless Street,” to Gloria's regret. And
they passed the same dreary succession of tenements. The same old little
children played in the street. But at Dinney's House Gloria's eyes
shone.
“Oh, Uncle Em! New windows, new steps, new everything!” She was helped
gently down, and Rose was there to greet her. How happy Rose looked!
And there was Sal's mother in the background, and then came Dinney and
Hunkie.
“Ain't it fine!” cried Dinney. Gloria looked at the boy and laughed.
“Look at the new stairs!”
They took her here and there, then made her rest a moment in Rose's
room.
But it was not for long that Gloria was allowed to linger even in her
own house. Her eyes were growing tired, and Aunt Em pressed forward
solicitously.
“Yes, yes, now for the dessert, Uncle Em!” said Gloria. She was helped
back to the carriage, and then they drove through streets with trees
bright in their September dress. At last Gloria bowed her head and
pressed her fingers over her eyes.
“You say, Uncle Em, there is green grass at the new house, and trees?”
“Trees,” answered Uncle Em.
The girl still had her head bowed and her fingers pressed upon her eyes.
“I used to shut my eyes as I am shutting them now, Uncle Em, when I
wanted to open them just at a right place. You count three when you are
ready for me to open my eyes.”
The carriage bowled along over new and smoother roads. Gloria was
conscious that it was making several turns.
“One!” Uncle Em said, and Gloria drew in whiffs of warm September air.
“Two!”
Gloria was sure she heard a bird singing--of course, in a tree. “Hurry,
hurry!” she said. “Say 'Three,' Uncle Em!”
“Th-ree!”
It was, after all, not much more than a hole in a wide stretch of green
grass, with an uneven wall of bricks defining the excavation. But it was
the beginning! The beginning!
And trees were dropping gold leaves down upon the men as they worked.
The little singing bird was in one of the trees.
“Oh!” murmured Gloria, shutting her eyes again, “I can see better with
my eyes shut! I can see a beautiful big house, Uncle Em--my house! It's
straight and whole and--_happy_. I can see Rose and Hunkie at one of the
windows and Sal coming down the stairs. 'Miss Districk,' you're there,
too. And Dinney, don't you see, is playing on the grass!”
Mary Winship laughed a sweet, indulgent laugh.
“Yes, I see all of it, Gloria, just as you do.” She was gazing with the
eyes of faith at the small beginning of Gloria's model tenement house.
But gentle, prosaic Aunt Em saw only the hole in the ground and the
untidy litter around it.
“I guess we've seen it all,” Aunt Em said. “I'm afraid Gloria will get
too tired, Walter. Oughtn't we to go home now?”
“In a minute, dear Aunt Em. Just a little minute more!” pleaded Gloria.
“I want to take another look--it's such a beautiful house!”