A reward of some description was surely due Miss Eliza's niece for her
behaviour on this occasion, for no creature ever felt less like even
the outward semblance of "resting" than did Arethusa. While regard for
the strictest truth will not permit it to be stated that much rest was
obtained from her method of carrying out Miss Eliza's command; still,
she remained in her room with every appearance of obedience and
intervals were spent on the "squshy" green sofa, when she could have
talked and talked to Ross and Elinor the entire afternoon without the
slightest hint of fatigue.
Arethusa's delight in her room more than repaid Elinor for any trouble
which the fixing of it might have been. Her little gasping "Oh!" when
the door was first opened, and the silent, shining-eyed gaze around
afterwards were the most genuine and appreciated tribute of admiration
she could have given.
She would never have dreamed that the mere gathering together of
furniture and pictures and other objects of familiar names which were
the commonplaces of everyday life at the Farm could present an
appearance so beautiful. When once on the sofa, tucked under a fluffy
green coverlid by Elinor's kind hands, she could not stay for long. A
hundred times did she bob up to examine various fascinating objects
that attracted her attention as her eager regard explored while she lay
there, "resting."
The bath-room delighted her beyond any power of her expression. It was
a far more wonderful piece of work as a bath-room than the one at
Timothy's house which she had deeply envied him ever since it had been
put in. That hot and cold water should run together for one's
cleansing without the trouble of fetching them in heavy buckets from a
far-away kitchen, had seemed to Arethusa the acme of luxury when she
had first glimpsed the new bath-room at Timothy's.
There was but one faucet at the Farm, and that was in the kitchen, by
the sink. Miss Eliza had made this one concession to modernity because
she could not help but see that it saved a lot of bother in very cold
weather. The plumbing arrangements, however, were of the most
primitive. She scorned the suggestion that a bath-room be added; an
effete idea.
Arethusa made up her mind immediately to write Timothy of the glories
of her washing paraphernalia as being far superior to his. It was so
far superior, in fact, that there were things in that region of white
tile and flashing nickel whose specific use she failed to see. There
was nothing just like it at Timothy's.
She decided also, after a rather longer interval than usual spent on
the sofa, to take a bath this very afternoon; now, before supper time.
But the dainty little silver clock on her mantel was chiming half-past
six before she had finished her toilet; she had spent so long and
luxurious a time in that wonderful porcelain tub. And there was so much
to be admired all around her.
Her hair, to her great sorrow, she could not make stay up on top of her
head at all, and she was forced to leave it plaited down her back as of
old. She was vaguely dissatisfied with the youthful look it gave her,
so arranged, but it could not be helped. She had lost most of her
hairpins when it had tumbled down, and Miss Eliza had provided but the
one set.
She wondered why there had been no call of "Arethusa!" as when she was
late to supper at the Farm; for she must be late, very late. Six
o'clock was the supper hour at home. She hastily slipped on the skirt
to the blue suit and the pongee waist, without stopping to bother with
anything in her trunk, which had been opened and placed in her room for
her. How dreadful to be so late to her first meal!
Arethusa fairly plunged down the front stairs, but once at the bottom,
she paused uncertainly. She had no idea where the dining-room was. Then
she heard voices not far away and she followed the sound into the
library, where she found Ross and Elinor in front of a gloriously
burning wood fire. But they were both garbed in what to her
inexperienced eyes seemed the most pronounced party garments. Ross had
donned a Tuxedo and pinned a tiny, pink rose in his buttonhole. Elinor
wore a black gown that was very low in the neck to Arethusa, although
in reality it was the most modest of decolletage, and a few of the same
pink roses were clustered at her belt.
"I was so afraid I was late," began Arethusa breathlessly, then she
stopped short, halfway across the room, when she fully realized the
costuming of the pair before the fire.
"Oh, you all are giving a Party and I didn't know anything about it!"
she exclaimed.
Ross raised himself just a trifle from the comfortable depths of his
chair. "Are you quite rested?" he enquired gravely.
But she scarcely heard that he spoke. "Oh, I just wish I'd known it was
a Party!" she repeated. "I wish I'd known!" She glanced down at the
plainness of her own attire and then at Elinor's simple evening frock.
Her face clouded. And then a truly dreadful thought intruded itself.
Perhaps she was not even expected at this Party; that may have been why
she had not been called.
Her troubled grey eyes spelled something of this to Elinor, so she
pulled a plump chair a little nearer to her own and patted it
invitingly, just as Miss Asenath patted the couch for Arethusa to join
her.
"It isn't a party, Arethusa dear," said Elinor. "Come over by us and be
sociable and I'll tell you all about it."
She explained to Arethusa that it was just three years ago on the
twenty-fifth of October (this very night) that she and Ross had first
met each other, at a dinner at the Baronne de Braunecker's in Paris
when she had been visiting the Baronne and Ross had come as a guest to
the dinner given in her honor.
"I fell in love with her on the spot," interrupted Ross, "and I could
hardly wait for morning so I could go back to call on her."
Arethusa flashed her father a brief smile of appreciation for this bit
of information and proceeded to grow more and more enraptured with the
whole affair as Elinor added to the narrative. They were celebrating
the occasion of that meeting this evening, she continued. Ross had sent
her the flowers, touching the cluster at her belt, for she had worn
pink roses at the Baronne's dinner; and they were to have for this
anniversary meal as many things as Elinor had been able to remember
they had eaten together at the first one.
Arethusa's eyes sparkled.
What a darling idea! This keeping of the Anniversary of so Memorable an
Occasion! Her romantic heart thought it came very near being more
thrilling than a Real Party! It was a way of living after her own
conception of life!
"But if I had known about it I could have dressed up, too. _I_ have a
Party Dress!"
"You have plenty of time to go put it on, if you wish." Elinor smiled
for the little air of pride with which the girl had announced her
possession. "There's oceans of time for you to change. Dinner isn't
until seven."
Arethusa bounded from her chair. "Oh, really ... may I?"
Elinor nodded. "Would you like me to help you?" she added.
But Arethusa was already halfway up the front stairs by the time she
had finished her friendly offer.
She dived down into her trunk, recklessly pitching out and aside all
those garments Miss Eliza had folded so carefully and placed into it as
she had considered Arethusa would be needing them. For the one white
dress Miss Letitia had made for parties was far down towards the very
bottom of the trunk. It is well that Miss Eliza did not see this
unpacking!
Still further down, Arethusa lifted up a box she had put there herself,
tucking it in when Miss Eliza had not been present to observe, and from
it she drew that length of green ribbon which she loved. Unknown to her
aunt, it had travelled all the way from the hollow tree to Lewisburg
for Arethusa's adorning.
"I will _not_!" she said aloud, defiantly, as though Miss Eliza were
actually present in person forbidding the tying-on of that decoration,
"I will _not_ wear a blue ribbon! I will wear This!"
Then Arethusa, thus arrayed in her best, descended the stairs once
more.
She crossed the library towards the two by the fire, this time stepping
proudly in a consciousness of clothes, holding her head high. Her
cheeks were adorably flushed, and her eyes were almost black under her
long dark lashes.
The dress was very becoming, even if it were not of the accepted
standards for formal evening wear. Miss Letitia had "spre'd herse'f,"
so Mandy said, on that dress. It was a trifle sheerer than Miss Eliza
had at first intended it to be, thanks to Miss Asenath's gentle
persuasion; round in the neck and even a bit low, for with fingers that
trembled in their excited daring Miss Letitia had cut it down farther
than the line Miss Eliza had indicated as modest and becoming. And then
there was no way to fill it in.
But "'Thusa had such a pretty neck," said the guilty seamstress to
herself; and what did an inch or so matter in the end?
In Arethusa's simple soul, even with her "love of gew-gaws," as Miss
Eliza phrased it, there was no smallest room for envy. This white
garment of hers had been bought and made for a party dress, and it was
the most party "party dress" she had ever possessed; her mother's black
gown was plainly a party dress also: therefore, to Arethusa's mind,
they were similarly arrayed for an Occasion. She could admire
whole-heartedly the soft sweep of the folds of Elinor's gown without
one iota of unhappiness because her own frock hung in straight thick
gathers with but a ruffle edged with lace at the bottom of the skirt
for its trimming.
"I put on my Best Dress," she said happily, "because it was your
Anniversary. I know Aunt 'Liza would say I should have put on my blue
silk, but it's so dark, and it's not dress-up a bit."
Elinor and Ross exchanged glances, but forebore to smile at the "best
dress." Somehow she appealed to them both more at this very moment than
she had in any mood shown before.
Ross sprang from his chair and recklessly denuded a large bowl on the
big mahogany table of most of its burden of pink roses, and gallantly
presented them to his daughter to put in her green belt, so that she
might also be wearing the Anniversary Flowers.
"For the Queen Rose in the rosebud garden of girls," he said, with a
low, sweeping bow as he presented them, which enraptured Arethusa. And
the words had a vaguely familiar sound, as of poetry. Arethusa adored
poetry.
Yet the warm-hearted blossoms themselves, thought Ross, were really no
more fresh and glowing than the girl whose fluttering fingers strove to
tuck them in the ribbon around her waist just as Elinor had her cluster
arranged.
"Bless her heart!" said Elinor to herself, as she noted Arethusa's
little glance at the flowers she wore and the little effort at
imitation. "And she shall have a real party frock to-morrow. The very
prettiest I can find!"
When George, the African Butler, an imposing personage of almost
unnatural blandness, a few moments later announced dinner as served, to
Arethusa's view he appeared to be dressed for the Party also. She was
gladder then than ever that she had gone up and changed her dress.
The round dining-table with its gleaming silver and glass, the tall,
ivory-colored candles, burning without shades in silver candlesticks,
and the huge centerpiece (of the Flowers of the Occasion) was far more
of a picture than Arethusa had ever known such an ordinary thing as a
dining-table to present. And all around the room were more roses, in
bowls and tall vases, until it seemed a veritable bower of them, dimly
lighted away from the candle glow by shaded sconces against the walls.
Arethusa drew a deep, sharp breath of ecstasy at all this loveliness.
She did not want to sit down in the chair George held for her at first,
but just to stand and look, and look. At home, they ate at night under
an oil lamp hanging by chains from the ceiling, and the supper table at
the Farm had never, in all its existence as a supper table, been a
fairy scene such as this. But Ross and Elinor were sitting down, and so
almost unconsciously Arethusa slid into her own chair, still admiring.
She examined the silver articles at her place with interest. There
seemed to be so many for only one person. Why did they put all their
silver on the table this way at once? For it surely looked to Arethusa
as if that was what had been done. It was very pretty, she admitted,
but seemed curious. She made no audible comment, however, remembering
that Miss Eliza had said that it was most ill-bred audibly to remark
anything as curious seen in another person's house. Their ways might be
strangely different, but it was never the part of a lady to allude to
the fact.
Arethusa's bouillon gave her no real trouble. It had a familiar
appearance and one ate soup with a spoon, even at the Farm. She
selected the spoon among that brave array that invited selection spread
so accommodatingly before her, which seemed to her to best fit the cup
in size; and conscious now of the lack of that lunch she could not eat,
for she was very hungry, she ate every bit of this first course with
relish, even lifting the cup as she noticed Elinor do once very
daintily, to drain it of its last drop. She longed for more, but it is
never polite to ask for a second helping, when a guest.
The bouillon drunk, and the gold and white cups removed, came George
bearing a large silver platter whereon reposed what Arethusa at first
thought to be flowers of some description. But it seemed queer to cook
flowers and serve them for food, as they seemed to be intended.
Arethusa did not like the appearance of those strange, spiky,
dark-green things, and it made it very easy to remember one of Miss
Eliza's earliest lessons that something must be left for the servants
in the kitchen, and never to take everything on a dish, there being
only three of these unknown objects on that platter, so she refused
with unforced politeness when they came her way.
"Oh, come now," remonstrated Ross, "surely you want an artichoke!"
"Artichoke!" The name made Arethusa giggle.
"Try one," suggested Elinor, "for this is one of the things I happened
to remember we had at our first dinner together."
Whereupon she changed her mind, servants or no servants in the kitchen,
for Arethusa was Celebrating.
There was no spoon on the platter. There was nothing in the shape of
implements to assist this thing over to her plate save a large, wide
fork and a pancake turner. At least, it resembled a pancake turner. It
was strange to see such use for one, and to help herself to food such
as this and in this manner. It proved a bit awkward in the attempt. The
artichoke, too, made it more awkward. It behaved like something alive,
and hesitated for a second on the tip of the pancake turner, balanced
uncertainly; then plunged to ignominy and darkness, under the table.
And Arethusa had made the noblest of efforts to manage it!
She looked up quickly in Elinor's direction, braced for the reprimand.
Such an occasion would have proved the finest of grist for Miss Eliza's
mill; but Elinor merely smiled kindly at the embarrassed guest, and
requested George to fetch Miss Arethusa another artichoke.
This one was retrieved in triumph.
But once on her plate, Arethusa eyed it distrustfully. How did she eat
it, now that she had it? Did she cut it up before hand, or what? Which
one of her many knives and forks did she use for it? Then her quick
glance noted how Elinor peeled off a leaf, so she did the same.
"Like it?" from Ross, after her first mouthful.
Arethusa looked doubtfully at the artichoke. Recollections of Miss
Eliza as to the criticism of food put before one, made her temporize.
"I know other things I've eaten that I like much better." She was
perfectly courteous in manner, but her tone decidedly lacked in
enthusiasm. Then she added, hastily, fearing that she might have
offended by even this statement, "I may get used to it, if I eat enough
of them. Aunt 'Liza says you can acquire tastes." She smiled at Ross
apologetically. "I never saw one before, you know."
"You'll do, Arethusa," laughed Ross.
And Elinor smilingly told her that its eating was not at all
compulsory, but Arethusa was game. When she celebrated, she celebrated
with no half measure, so she finished her artichoke to the last bitter
leaf, though she did not like that last leaf any better than she had
the first.
But it would be most unfair to chronicle all of Arethusa's vicissitudes
and mistakes during the course of that long dinner; her struggles with
her strange multitude of table-ware, which had a propensity for
disappearing decidedly odd, but to which Ross's own augmented supply
might have given her a clue, had she looked more sharply near his
plate, and the eating of dishes new to her and not always liked. For,
new dishes or not, Arethusa partook with heartiness of everything that
came her way; even to the tiny cup of coffee at the very end, with its
baby spoon which had so enraptured her as like a doll's, and which had
vanished mysteriously before she could use it so that George had had to
bring another.
She sighed the sigh of the well-fed when it was all over.
"I feel just like I would burst," she announced, as she pushed back
from the table. "We don't have half this much to eat at night at home!"
"Would you," asked Ross, most amused, "like to go to bed and sleep it
off? The instinct for which the lower animals are so commended leads
them to some such sensible proceeding after over-feeding, I believe."
"Go to bed!" exclaimed Arethusa, indignant at the bare suggestion.
"Why, we never think of going to bed at the Farm before nine or
half-past; and sometimes, even ten!"
"Ye gods! What hours! I'm surprised at Miss Eliza's permitting it!"
And Arethusa could not possibly tell, from his expression, whether he
was joking or not.
He strolled slowly across the hall to the music room, his daughter
following, the idea stirring within her brain that this new-found
father was inclined to be as much of a tease as Timothy, and that his
teasing was a trifle hard to understand. Elinor was going to play for
them. She played every night to Ross unless they went out somewhere.
"I can plainly see, Arethusa, my child," Ross added, "plainly see where
we're going to prove a most demoralizing influence for Miss Eliza's
careful rearing."