A FAMILY CEMENTED BY LOVE.
"Hippolyta Prymmer, I've come to ask your pardon. Let bygones be
bygones. I've been ugly, and I acknowledge it. I'll try to do better in
future. Let's shake hands."
Mrs. Prymmer stood slowly opening and shutting her mouth. Was it really
Jane Gastonguay--rich Jane Gastonguay--that stood in her parlour thus
humbly suing for forgiveness?
"You see," Miss Gastonguay went on, "there has always been something
in our two natures that clashed. I have been the worst, I acknowledge
it, and now I want to know if you will forgive me, and come to see
me sometimes,--not too often, for it is dangerous to see too much of
people."
Mrs. Prymmer usually put her worst foot foremost. Down in her heart
were hidden depths of kindness never explored by herself or by others.
Something away down there now stirred tentatively. "We were girls
together," she said, simply, as she took the hand of her former
schoolmate.
"And now we will be old women together. Thank fortune, this scene is
over. Where is your daughter-in-law?"
"Next door."
"Ah, she likes that conglomerate family."
"And the minister," said Mrs. Prymmer, dryly. "I suppose it's all
right. Married women usen't to run about so much in my day."
"Fie upon you, let others criticise your daughter-in-law."
"You always had a free-hung tongue, Jane Gastonguay," said Mrs.
Prymmer, with spirit.
"True, true, you've got the whip-hand of me now, Hippolyta. My niece is
out in the carriage, she wants to see your daughter-in-law. We'll run
in to the parsonage. Good-bye," and she bustled out of the house.
Derrice was sitting on the well-worn sofa in the parlour of the little
house, awaiting the return of the various members of the family. So
much at home was she that she had picked up a book and was quietly
reading when Miss Gastonguay burst in upon her.
"How do you do, child. Why haven't you been to see me?"
"I don't like to go too often."
"But you enjoy visiting me?"
"Very much indeed."
Miss Gastonguay looked around as if to make sure that she would not
be overheard. "You will not tell any one if I favour you with a
confidence?"
"Certainly not."
"Well, you remind me of a former dear friend. I like to have you with
me. Come to French Cross as often as you will, and never be frightened
by my gruff ways."
"And you," said Derrice, playfully, "you also remind me of some one."
"Who is it?"
"My father."
Miss Gastonguay immediately became interested in an adventurous fly
who, thinking spring had come, had sallied from his retreat in the
wall, and was pursuing a shaky course toward the ceiling.
"Your voice is like his," said Derrice, "particularly when you lower
it. I am fortunate in having Captain White to remind me of his
appearance, and you to call up his very tones."
There were tears in her eyes, and Miss Gastonguay, suddenly losing
interest in the fly, gently patted her head.
"Is there not some one in the hall?" asked Derrice. "I thought I heard
a step."
"No, child. You hear my niece in the kitchen talking to old black
Rebecca,--tell me about this father of yours."
Derrice was only too glad to do so, and, launching herself on a full
tide of happy reminiscences, she soon presented to her interested
hearer an almost perfect picture of an indulgent father who had
presided over her pleasant wandering life.
At last she was interrupted by the entrance of two demure rosy little
girls who came running down the hall to salute her with cries of joyful
welcome.
"Well, papooses," said Miss Gastonguay, as she watched Derrice taking
off their woollen caps and smoothing back their tumbled hair, "are you
not glad to see me?"
"Oh, yes, yes, Miss Gastonguay," they hastened to assure her, "but you
don't come so often."
"My niece does."
"Yes, Miss Chelda," they repeated, without enthusiasm. "She comes
often. Rebecca loves her."
"Rebecca has cause to," muttered Miss Gastonguay. "I suspect a good
many of Chelda's silver pieces find their way into her bag of a
pocket," then, sinking back on the sofa, she allowed her eyes to wander
about the room.
There were no grand apartments at Number 50 Blaine Street, no luxuries
in the way of furnishings and decorations, but the small house
possessed something that many of the finer houses of the town could not
boast of,--an air of quiet cheerfulness and homeliness that made Miss
Gastonguay murmur restlessly, "The woman who presides here is happier
than I am."
"You know the history of that eldest girl," she said, when the two
children ran away to hang up their caps and jackets.
"Yes,--she was taken out of some dreadful house in this town."
"A house--a den, and in it her childish eyes once witnessed a murder.
One would never think it to look at her now. Mary Potts Negus is a
genius at rescuing and bringing up children. One would fancy that she
had had enough trouble in raising her own and settling them in life."
The two girls soon returned. One of them, Marion, excused herself
on the plea of housewifely duties; the other, Bessie, remained with
her callers, and in a gentle and motherly manner received the other
children as they came in.
The baby of the family, laughing and crowing with delight, arrived
first on the shoulder of the eldest lad, who had been giving him an
airing on a hand-sled. This child, Bessie drew to the fire, and with
careful fingers divested him of manifold wraps, much interrupted during
the process by his persistence in throwing his arms around her neck.
Following the baby and the lad came two other boys, orphan twins
deserted by their parents and adopted by the charitable Mrs. Negus.
They stopped long enough in the hall to pull off the fur caps
drawn down over their foreheads, then, with unmitigated pleasure
overspreading their freckled faces, they, too, entered the room, and
greeted Miss Gastonguay with deference, and Derrice with an air of
comradeship.
Miss Gastonguay stared with interest at them, while Derrice said, "What
have you been doing to-day, boys?"
"Trying a new sport,--skeeing. You tie things something like toboggans
on your feet and you slide down hill like the wind. It's great fun.
Will you come and try it to-morrow?"
She was just assuring them that she would do so, when the mistress
of the house entered the room. Derrice had much ado to preserve her
gravity, though she was by this time well used to the sight of her
philanthropic neighbour.
Mrs. Negus was nothing but a bundle of wraps. Broad she was about her
shoulders and chest, tapering gradually down to a scant black dress
and a pair of small feet. After the unwinding and unfolding of several
scarfs, a woollen shawl, and a long veil, she stood revealed,--beaming
face, spectacles, and pepper and salt curls surrounded by a heap of
newspapers that had fallen from her garments.
"Heat preservers, my dear Miss Gastonguay," she said to the elder
of her callers. "When I dress to go out, I run some _Expresses_
up my back and a couple of _Globes_ over my chest. Then I am a
Republican-Democrat, and between the two political parties you have no
idea how warm I keep. Bessie, will you please look in the dictionary
and see what 'napiform' means. I met Cousin Jonah Potts to-day, and he
muttered something about my being 'napiform.' I know he doesn't approve
of my style of dress, but as I am rheumatic I have got to stick to it,
for who would attend to my family of mixed pickles if I were taken
away?"
"Who, indeed?" said Miss Gastonguay. "There's no one in the town would
put up with them, but you, Mary Potts Negus."
"Napiform," said the child, slowly reading from a dictionary that she
had taken off the bookcase, "from the Latin _napus_, a turnip, and
_forma_, a shape. Having the shape of a turnip, or swelled in the upper
part and becoming more slender below."
Mrs. Negus shook her curls. "Saucy Jonah! if any one else had said that
about me he would have been angry. Now I'll go up-stairs. We all have
a bad habit of rushing into the parlour when we come in. We go so fast
when we are out that we have to sink down into the first resting-place
we see when we get home. Bessie, my dear, did Marion put extra tea in
the teapot?"
"Yes, auntie."
"And get a clean cloth?"
"Yes, she did."
"Well, cut some cake, not in too large pieces, and I'll be down
presently," and she was about to dart toward the door when Miss
Gastonguay recalled her.
"Mary Potts Negus, I'm not going to stay to supper."
"Now, now," and the little woman exhibited so much disappointment that
Derrice laid a pleading hand on her new friend's knee.
"I never do such a thing in the world."
"Make a beginning, then, I'd love to have you, particularly as you send
me such good checks for these little ones."
"But I've got my niece here."
"That is no matter; she often comes."
"Very well," said Miss Gastonguay, with resignation. "Go, one of you
boys, and send my carriage home."
The twins whipped out-of-doors, and Miss Gastonguay thoughtfully
watched Derrice, who had seated herself on the hearth-rug and was
tickling the baby's dimpled chin until he shrieked with delight.
"Where's your husband, child?"
"In Bangor," said Derrice.
"And do you always get your meals here when he is absent?"
"Nearly always."
"You must make it up to Mrs. Negus. Her purse isn't very deep and she
keeps on adopting children."
"I have written to my father to send me some money for her."
Miss Gastonguay hastily opened her mouth, then closed it again, for
Chelda stood before her. "You are going to stay, aunt?" she asked, in
slight surprise.
"Yes."
Chelda made no comment, and even went to play with Derrice and the baby
on the hearth-rug, but Miss Gastonguay saw from her manner that she was
not pleased.