THE REGARD-RING.
Mrs. Clifford wondered why her daughter should return from a picnic so
eager for supper.
"Why, ma, we lost every single thing we carried to eat."
"Lost it! What, not all your five baskets?"
"Yes, ma," replied Grace, uneasily; "that's the solemn truth."
Mrs. Clifford was naturally surprised.
"But, ma, it's a secret. Don't ask me to break my promise, please.
Some time, may be, I'll tell you. I will when I can."
At the tea-table, Horace's curiosity was very active. He wanted to
know where the girls spread out their picnic, what games they played,
and would have gone on with his trying questions if Mrs. Clifford had
not kindly come to her daughter's relief, and turned the boy's
attention to something else. Grace was grateful to her mother, but a
sense of guilt weighed heavily on her mind. She had sunk very low in
her own esteem, and envied little Horace the innocent frankness with
which he dared look people in the face.
Added to these twinges of conscience, Grace was in a state of wretched
doubt regarding Cassy. What charm would be left in this bleak world,
she thought, if this only friend should prove false!
Grace's sleep was haunted that night by witches and goblins. She felt
the fever which had been predicted "coming to pass" in her burning
veins, and was greatly relieved next morning when she awoke as well as
usual.
But the terrors of witchcraft still haunted her. In a few days another
mysterious event took place. Grace lost her regard-ring. When she came
from school one evening she was sure she had it on her finger. It must
be lost in the house. All possible and impossible places were
searched. So strange that Cassy's ring should disappear! Had it melted
away like Cassy's friendship? At last Grace settled down to the
conviction that Phebe, the little nurse, had stolen it. "What else
could have gone with it, unless that wild woman had magicked it away?"
Flying into the nursery, she met Phebe walking the floor with little
Katie, who was wailing with the ache of some invisible little teeth.
"Black people have light fingers, everybody knows," thought Grace, by
way of fortifying herself.
"Phebe Dolan, my beautiful regard-ring is gone--gone; and who do you
suppose took it, Phebe Dolan? _You_ did!"
Phebe's eyes rolled like wheels. In her surprise, she almost dropped
the baby.
"Why, now, I done declar, Miss Grace, I never took it--never seen it;
much as ever I knowed you had a ring."
"O, Phebe Dolan, you're trembling this minute. What could you want of
my ring, you little wretch?"
"I declar for't, Miss Grace, I hope to die fust!"
"No, you mustn't hope to die, Phebe: you're too wicked to die!"
"Then I never, never, in all my born days in this world, and never
did, and never will," moaned Phebe, looking about for a handkerchief.
It was the first time Grace had spoken sharply to her. She had been in
Mrs. Clifford's family for two years, and in that time her excellent
mistress had taught her much in regard to her duty; so, if Phebe had
now broken the eighth commandment, it could not have been a sin of
ignorance.
The moment Grace's whirlwind of anger was over, she regretted her
hasty words to the desolate little orphan. "Everything has gone wrong
since Cassy went away," mused Grace. "I wonder what I'll do or say
next? But there, Phebe needn't steal, I declare! It's good enough for
her, if she did; and where's my ring if she didn't?"
Grace would as soon have suspected one of Horace's pet doves, as
Barbara Kinckle.
Up to this time the little girls had not found their baskets. But one
noon, Captain Clifford came home with a strange account of a crazy
woman who had escaped from an almshouse in an adjoining county. She
had been wandering about the woods for weeks, fancying herself a
prophetess, and sometimes crying out to passers-by, "I am the voice of
one crying in the wilderness; prepare ye the way." She had entered a
country church and cut down one half of a pulpit curtain for a cloak.
She had just been found now at Small's Enlargement, and had become so
raving that she was carried away in a strait jacket.
"They say," said Captain Clifford, helping himself to venison, "she
has been telling fortunes with a pack of dirty cards. I must confess I
was surprised to hear that our Grace had been one of the rabble to
visit her, Maria."
Mrs. Clifford looked at her husband in surprise. "Our Grace?"
"Yes, our Grace. It seems to be new to you. Mr. Harrington told me
to-day that she was ringleader of a party of little girls who went out
to Small's Enlargement on a picnic excursion. The woman stole their
baskets, and said such hobgoblin things that his Isabel has been
nearly frantic ever since."
"My daughter!" said Mrs. Clifford, in a sorrowful voice.
"O, ma, I've wanted every hour and minute to tell you, and pa too; but
I promised not to!"
"Shame, shame!" cried Horace, pointing his index finger at his sister;
"before I'd sneak off to a gypsy that way!"
"That will do, my son," remarked Captain Clifford. "You may finish
your dinner."
"O, pa," said Grace, pushing back her chair, and burying her face in
her handkerchief, "we all promised not to tell, you know, and I
wouldn't, not for my right hand; and here's Isa, pa, she's gone and
broken her word."
"Wrong, I grant," replied Captain Clifford, with a provoking smile;
"there should he honor even among thieves."
Grace winced at this proverb. The subject was now dropped, for what
Mrs. Clifford said to her daughter she preferred to say to her alone.
-----
Cassy Hallock came home. Her father, mother, and brother Johnny were
at the wharf to meet her.
"Where's Gracie?" was her first salutation, after she had quietly
kissed her relatives.
"Why, my dear, I've hardly seen Grace since you went away," said Mrs.
Hallock.
"Goes with Isa Harrington nowadays," remarked brother John, thrusting
his thumbs into his vest pockets: "just the way with girls. It's all
their wonderful friendships amount to."
"O, Johnny!" replied Cassy, faintly; and then she walked on in
silence, for Cassy Hallock was not a little girl who wore her heart on
her sleeve; it was kept out of sight, and usually did its aching in
secret.
The next day was Saturday; but Grace did not come to see Cassy, who
was quite wretched, but too proud to let any one know it. At last, a
happy thought struck her.
"Ma, mayn't I go round to see Gracie, and carry a bottle of your cream
beer? I reckon she doesn't know I'm home again."
"Strange," thought Cassy, as she drew near her friend's house, and
paused to rest. "Strange Johnny should say Grace has changed! Why,
I've only been gone two months, and folks don't change in two months."
Yet she felt strangely agitated as she entered the yard. Gracie must
know she was home again; she almost wished she had waited to see if
she would call.
"I declare, if there isn't Cassy Hallock coming, bless her heart. O,
dear me, no, the hypocrite!" said Grace, looking out of her chamber
window. "I reckon she hasn't seen me; I'll run and hide. She needn't
come here and pretend to be friends!"
Grace stole into the library, and locked the door.
"Miss Gracie," cried the sorrowful voice of black Phebe. No answer. At
last, Phebe came to the library door and rattled it.
Grace whispered through the key-hole,--
"Ask the person into the parlor, Phebe, and say I'll be down very
soon."
_The person!_
"O, won't I be dignified?" thought Miss Grace, walking the floor with
a queen-like tread. But the affection of years was tugging at her
heart-strings.
"I'll not cry." She flung off the bright drop which fell on her hand.
"I'll not be caught crying, when anybody I've loved as I did that
girl--"
Grace hastened down stairs, and "turned her tears to sparks of fire."
"How d'ye, Miss Cassy?"
Her old friend stood looking out of a window, her back towards the
door. She felt the chill in Grace's voice, and was frozen stiff in a
minute.
"How d'ye, Miss Grace?" without moving her head.
"Pleasant day. Please be seated, Miss Cassy."
"Thank you, Miss Grace; I must be going."
Cassy moved forward. The sun shone straight into her honest face.
Grace saw its expression of astonishment, mingled with pride and
grief.
"Cassy Hallock, don't go yet."
"Thank you, Grace Clifford; can't stop--only came to bring your ma
some beer. In the music-room, on the piano."
"Cassy Hallock, what's the matter with you?"
"Gracie Clifford, what's the matter with YOU?"
"You've been talking about me, Cassy," Grace burst forth, impetuously.
"You've slandered me worse than I can bear. You think I'm proud and
forward. Your ma don't like us to be friends. You say my hair is
fire-red. O, Cassy Hallock!"
Cassy's eyes expanded. "Who said that?"
"Isa Harrington."
"The biggest lie that ever was told!"
"O, Cassy Hallock: then _'tisn't_ true!"
"True, Gracie Clifford! and you my best friend!"
"Are you right sure you never said so, Cassy?"
"There, that's enough, Gracie Clifford. I'll not deny it again. If you
believe Isa, and won't believe me, it's just as well. Good by." And
Cassy moved to the door with "majestical high scorn."
"Cassy Hallock," cried Grace, throwing her arms about her friend's
neck, "you're not going one step. I don't believe a word of that lie,
and never did!"
Cassy allowed herself to be detained, but still held the door-knob in
her hand.
"I'll tell you what it is, Gracie Clifford. I'll not say how much I
think of you, because you know; but if you can't trust me, there's the
end of it."
"O, I can trust you, I do trust you, Cassy. You're one of the salts of
the earth--salt, I mean."
"A small pinch," suggested Cassy, almost smiling.
"O, Cassy, there's nobody in this world so splendid as you are!"
But Cassy's indignation was not quite appeased. "Where's your ring,
Gracie?"
"Lost. O, you don't know how I feel about that. I'm afraid our Phebe
stole it."
"Glad of it."
"Why, Cassy, you're crazy! That regard-ring, dear, that your ma gave
you, and you gave me for my emerald, down by the acorn-tree! Why,
Cassy!"
"I said I was glad," replied Cassy, in a softer tone. "I mean glad you
didn't take off the ring and go hide it. I supposed you did, just to
let me see you didn't care for me any more."
A complete revulsion of feeling had come over Grace: she laughed and
cried in a breath.
"O, you old Cassy! to think I ever could--"
"There," said her friend, placidly, "let it all go."
"But I can't let it go; it's a downright wicked shame. Now, Cassy, I
ask you if we ought to allow such a girl as Isa in our R. S. S.?"
"Not if I was queen, we wouldn't," was the decided answer.
Now that the reconciliation was complete, Cassy declared she had a
world to say, and Grace replied that she had "a hemisphere to say,
herself." Then she told the story of the gypsy, and made confession
that her dismal fortune had kept her awake "night after night."
"Humph!" said Cassy; "nothing ever keeps _me_ awake! Thunder can't,
nor cannons; and I'm sure that crazy old woman couldn't. What about
the prize, Gracie?"
"O, I don't know, Cassy; I've taken Mahla into Square Root."
"Why, Gracie, what made you? You won't get that splendid present from
your pa!"
"O, Cassy," sighed Grace, "I thought I'd be good, just once, and do as
the Bible said, and see how it would seem."
"The Bible says so many things!" said Cassy, thoughtfully.
"Yes, Cassy; but I mean the Golden Rule. Why, I never mistrusted that
rule was so beautiful. It just makes me love Mahla dearly."
Cassy's brown eyes kindled with sympathy; but she exclaimed,
suddenly,--
"Come, let's go in the kitchen and talk German with Barby."
Horace set by the white table, sighing over his Geography.
Robert came in, looking mischievous. "What say to a story, girls?"
said he, glancing at Grace. "I'll begin with a landscape,
book-fashion:--
"Twas a lovely evening in May. The aged stars were twinkling as good
as new; the moon was 'resting her chin' against a cloud: the serene
heavens--"
"Stop," cried Horace; "that's not a landscape: it's a skyscape."
"What's that you say? You've interrupted me, and now I'll have to
begin again:--
"The new moon was shaking down her silver hair most mournfully, or, in
other words, she looked at a distance like a slice of green cheese. I
had been giving a few elegant touches to the flower-beds, pulling out
the weeds, pig and chick, you know, and--well, suffice it to say, I
wended my way across a verdant lawn, not twenty miles from here. I
went into a house. It was all papered and pictured. The master of
the house offered me no seat, for he was not at home; but I helped
myself to a sort of feather-bed chair near a window. I took my
handkerchief out of my pocket in this way; a key came out with it, as
you see now, and dropped into the chair. It slipped between the
stuffed cushion and the back of the chair. I put in my thumb, and
drew out--"
"A plum," suggested Horace.
"The key."
The children looked as if they had been trifled with.
"But the key was not all. To my surprise, I also drew out what you
now see me holding up to view."
"My ring!" cried Grace, darting forward. "O, Robin, where did you
find it?"
"Where I told you, in the Elizabeth chair in the parlor."
[Illustration: "My ring! cried Grace."]
Grace's first act was to clap her hands; her next, to rush out,
calling for Phebe, who was in her own room, having a good cry. The
child appeared at the head of the back stairs, and answered, in a
subdued and husky voice, "What is't you want, Miss Gracie?"
"I want _you_, you poor little dear," cried Grace, flying up the
stairs, and hugging the disconsolate Phebe, whose wits were scattered
to the four winds with surprise. "I've found my ring--my regard-ring,
you forlorn little thing. Robin picked it out of the Elizabeth chair;
and if you don't forgive me, I'll bite my tongue right out."
"O, I've done forgive you, Miss Grace, if you'll forgive me too,"
sobbed poor Phebe, who had a confused idea that she must be somehow to
blame for crying so hard. She had for two days been in the depths of
despair; and now, this sudden turn of the wheel of fortune made her
fairly dizzy with delight. Many were the choice tidbits which Phebe
found beside her plate after this, and many were the snips of bright
ribbon or calico which were given to her to put away among her
treasures. If Grace had forgotten that "charity thinketh no evil," and
had spoken rashly, she surely did all she could now to atone for her
fault.