While Henry was at Sidney Meeks's, Horace sat alone smoking and
reading the evening paper. He kept looking up from the paper and
listening. He was hoping that Rose, in spite of the fact that she had
not been able to come down to supper, might yet make her appearance.
He speculated on her altered looks and manner at dinner. He could not
help being a little anxious, in spite of all Mrs. Ayres's assurances
and the really vague nature of his own foreboding. He asked himself
if he had had from the beginning anything upon which to base
suspicion. Given the premises of an abnormal girl with a passion for
himself which humiliated him, an abnormal woman like Miss Farrel with
a similar passion, albeit under better control, the melodramatic
phases of the candy, and sudden death, and traces of arsenical
poison, what should be the conclusion?
He himself had eaten some of presumably the same candy with no ill
effects. Mrs. Ayres had assured him of her constant watchfulness over
her daughter, who was no doubt in an alarmingly nervous state, but
was she necessarily dangerous? He doubted if Mrs. Ayres had left the
two girls a moment to themselves during the drive. What possible
reason, after all, had he for alarm?
When he heard Sylvia mounting the stairs, and caught a glimpse of a
little tray borne carefully, he gave up all hope of Rose's coming
down. Presently he went out and walked down the village street,
smoking. As he passed out of the yard he glanced up at Rose's
windows, and saw the bright light behind the curtains. He felt glad
that the girl had a woman like Sylvia to care for her.
As he looked Sylvia's shadow passed between the window and the light.
It had, in its shadowy enlargement, a benignant aspect. There was an
angelic, motherly bend to the vague shoulders. Sylvia was really in
her element. She petted and scolded the girl, whom she found flung
upon her bed like a castaway flower, sobbing pitifully.
"What on earth is the matter?" demanded Sylvia, in a honeyed tone,
which at once stung and sweetened. "Here you are in the dark, crying
and going without your victuals. You ought to be ashamed of yourself."
As she spoke Sylvia struck a match and lit the lamp. Rose buried her
face deeper in the bed.
"I don't want any lamp," she gasped.
"Don't want any lamp? Ain't you ashamed of yourself? I should think
you were a baby. You are going to have a lamp, and you are going to
sit up and eat your supper." Sylvia drew down the white shades
carefully, then she bent over the girl. She did not touch her, but
she was quivering with maternal passion which seemed to embrace
without any physical contact. "Now, what is the matter?" she said.
"Nothing."
"What is the matter?" repeated Sylvia, insistently.
Suddenly Rose sat up. "Nothing is the matter," she said. "I am just
nervous." She made an effort to control her face. She smiled at
Sylvia with her wet eyes and swollen mouth. She resolutely dabbed at
her flushed face with a damp little ball of handkerchief.
Sylvia turned to the bureau and took a fresh handkerchief from the
drawer. She sprinkled it with some toilet water that was on the
dressing-table, and gave it to Rose. "Here is a clean handkerchief,"
she said, "and I've put some of your perfumery on it. Give me the
other."
Rose took the sweet-smelling square of linen and tried to smile
again. "I just got nervous," she said.
"Set down here in this chair," said Sylvia, "and I'll draw up the
little table, and I want you to eat your supper. I've brought up
something real nice for you."
"Thank you, Aunt Sylvia; you're a dear," said Rose, pitifully,
"but--I don't think I can eat anything." In spite of herself the
girl's face quivered again and fresh tears welled into her eyes. She
passed her scented handkerchief over them. "I am not a bit hungry,"
she said, brokenly.
Sylvia drew a large, chintz-covered chair forward. "Set right down in
this chair," she said, firmly. And Rose slid weakly from the bed and
sank into the chair. She watched, with a sort of dull gratitude,
while Sylvia spread a little table with a towel and set out the tray.
"There," said she. "Here is some cream toast and some of those new
pease, and a little chop, spring lamb, and a cup of tea. Now you just
eat every mite of it, and then I've got a saucer of strawberries and
cream for you to top off with."
Rose looked hopelessly at the dainty fare. Then she looked at Sylvia.
The impulse to tell another woman her trouble got the better of her.
If women had not other women in whom to confide, there are times when
their natures would be too much for them. "I heard some news this
morning," said she. She attempted to make her voice exceedingly light
and casual.
"What?"
"I heard about Mr. Allen's engagement."
"Engagement to who?"
"To--Lucy."
"Lucy!"
"Lucy Ayres. She seems to be a very sweet girl. She is very pretty. I
hope she will make him very happy." Rose's voice trembled with sad
hypocrisy.
"Who told you?" demanded Sylvia.
"She told me herself."
"Did her mother hear it?"
"She did, but I think she did not understand. Lucy spoke in French.
She talks French very well. She studied with Miss Farrel, you know. I
think Lucy has done all in her power to fit herself to become a good
wife for an educated man."
"What did she tell you in French for? Why didn't she speak in
English?"
"I don't know."
"Well, I know. She did it so her mother wouldn't hear, and say in
English that she was telling an awful whopper. Mr. Allen is no more
engaged to Lucy Ayres than I am."
Rose gazed at Sylvia with sudden eagerness. "What makes you think so,
Aunt Sylvia?"
"Nothing makes me think what I know. Mr. Allen has never paid any
attention to Lucy Ayres, beyond what he couldn't help, and she's made
a mountain out of a mole-hill. Lucy Ayres is man-crazy, that's all.
You needn't tell me."
"Then you don't think--?"
"I know better. I'll ask Mr. Allen."
"If you asked him it would make it very hard for him if it wasn't
so," said Rose.
"I don't see why."
"Mr. Allen is a gentleman, and he could not practically accuse a
woman of making an unauthorized claim of that sort," said Rose.
"Well, I won't say anything about it to him if you think I had better
not," said Sylvia, "but I must say I think it's pretty hard on a man
to have a girl going round telling folks he's engaged to her when he
ain't. Eat that lamb chop and them pease while they're hot."
"I am going to. They are delicious. I didn't think I was hungry at
all, but to have things brought up this way--"
"You've got to eat a saucer of strawberries afterwards," said Sylvia,
happily.
She watched the girl eat, and she was in a sort of ecstasy, which
was, nevertheless, troubled. After a while, when Rose had nearly
finished the strawberries, Sylvia ventured a remark.
"Lucy Ayres is a queer girl," said she. "I've known all about her for
some time. She has been thinking young men were in love with her,
when they never had an idea of such a thing, ever since she was so
high."
Sylvia indicated by her out-stretched hand a point about a foot and a
half from the floor.
"It seems as if she must have had some reason sometimes," said Rose,
with an impulse of loyalty towards the other girl. "She is very
pretty."
"As far as I know, no young man in East Westland has ever thought of
marrying her," said Sylvia. "I think myself they are afraid of her.
It doesn't do for a girl to act too anxious to get married. She just
cuts her own nose off."
"I have never seen her do anything unbecoming," began Rose; then she
stopped, for Lucy's expression, which had caused a revolt in her, was
directly within her mental vision.
It seemed as if Sylvia interpreted her thought. "I have seen her
making eyes," said she.
Rose was silent. She realized that she, also, had seen poor Lucy
making eyes.
"What a girl is so crazy to get married for, anyway, when she has a
good mother and a good home, I can't see," said Sylvia, leading
directly up to the subject in the secret place of her mind.
Rose blushed, with apparently no reason. "But she can't have her
mother always, you know, Aunt Sylvia," said she.
"Her mother's folks are awful long-lived."
"But Lucy is younger. In the course of nature she will outlive her
mother, and then she will be all alone."
"What if she is? 'Ain't she got her good home and money enough to be
independent? Lucy won't need to lift a finger to earn money if she's
careful."
"I always thought it would be very dreadful to live alone," Rose
said, with another blush.
"Well, she needn't be alone. There's plenty of women always in want
of a home. No woman need live alone if she don't want to."
"But it isn't quite like--" Rose hesitated.
"Like what?"
"It wouldn't seem quite so much as if you had your own home, would
it, as if--" Rose hesitated again.
Sylvia interrupted her. "A girl is a fool to get married if she's got
money enough to live on," said she.
"Why, Aunt Sylvia, wouldn't you have married Uncle Henry if you had
had plenty of money?" asked the girl, exactly as Henry had done.
Sylvia colored faintly. "That was a very different matter," said she.
"But why?"
"Because it was," said Sylvia, bringing up one of her impregnable
ramparts against argument.
But the girl persisted. "I don't see why," she said.
Sylvia colored again. "Well, for one thing, your uncle Henry is one
man in a thousand," said she. "I know every silly girl thinks she has
found just that man, but it's only once in a thousand times she does;
and she's mighty lucky if she don't find out that the man in a
thousand is another woman's husband, when she gets her eyes open.
Then there's another thing: nothing has ever come betwixt us."
"I don't know what you mean."
"I mean we've had no family," said Sylvia, firmly, although her color
deepened. "I know you think it's awful for me to say such a thing,
but look right up and down this street at the folks that got married
about the same time Henry and I did. How many of them that's had
families 'ain't had reason to regret it? I tell you what it is,
child, girls don't know everything. It's awful having children, and
straining every nerve to bring them up right, and then to have them
go off in six months in consumption, the way the Masons lost their
three children, two boys and a girl. Or to worry and fuss until you
are worn to a shadow, the way Mrs. George Emerson has over her son,
and then have him take to drink. There wasn't any consumption in the
Mason family on either side in a straight line, but the three
children all went with it. And there ain't any drink in the Emerson
family, on her side or his, all as straight as a string, but Mrs.
Everson was a Weaver, and she had a great-uncle who drank himself to
death. I don't believe there's a family anywhere around that hasn't
got some dreadful thing in it to leak out, when you don't expect it,
in children. Sometimes it only leaks in a straight line, and
sometimes it leaks sidewise. You never know. Now here's my family. I
was a White, you know, like your aunt Abrahama. There's consumption
in our family, the worst kind. I never had any doubt but what Henry
and I would have lost our children, if we'd had any."
"But you didn't have any," said Rose, in a curiously naive and
hopeful tone.
"We are the only ones of all that got married about the time we did
who didn't have any," said Sylvia, in her conclusive tone.
"But, Aunt Sylvia," said Rose, "you wouldn't stop everybody's getting
married? Why, there wouldn't be any people in the world in a short
time."
"There's some people in the world now that would be a good sight
better off out of it, for themselves and other folks," said Sylvia.
"Then you don't think anybody ought to get married?"
"If folks want to be fools, let them. Nothing I can say is going to
stop them, but I'll miss my guess if some of the girls that get
married had the faintest idea what they were going into they would
stop short, if it sent them over a rail-fence. Folks can't tell girls
everything, but marriage is an awful risk, an awful risk. And I say,
as I said before, any girl who has got enough to live on is a fool to
get married."
"But I don't see why, after all."
"Because she is," replied Sylvia.
This time Rose did not attempt to bruise herself against the elder
woman's imperturbability. She did not look convinced, but again the
troubled expression came over her face.
"I am glad you relished your supper," said Sylvia.
"It was very nice," replied Rose, absently. Suddenly the look of
white horror which had overspread her countenance on the night of her
arrival possessed it again.
"What on earth is the matter?" cried Sylvia.
"I almost remembered, then," gasped the girl. "You know what I told
you the night I came. Don't let me remember, Aunt Sylvia. I think I
shall die if I ever do."
Sylvia was as white as the girl, but she rose briskly. "There's
nothing to remember," she said. "You're nervous, but I'm going to
make some of that root-beer of mine to-morrow. It has hops in it, and
it's real quieting. Now you stop worrying, and wait a minute. I've
got something to show you. Here, you look at this book you've been
reading, and stop thinking. I'll be back in a minute. I've just got
to step into the other chamber."
Sylvia was back in a moment. She never was obliged to hesitate for a
second as to the whereabouts of any of her possessions. She had some
little boxes in her hand, and one rather large one under her arm.
Rose looked at them with interest. "What is it, Aunt Sylvia?" said
she.
Sylvia laughed. "Something to show you that belongs to you," she said.
"Why, what have you got that belongs to me, Aunt Sylvia?"
"You wait a minute."
Sylvia and Rose both stood beside the white dressing-table, and
Sylvia opened the boxes, one after another, and slowly and
impressively removed their contents, and laid them in orderly rows on
the white dimity of the table. The lamplight shone on them, and the
table blazed like an altar with jewelled fires. Rose gasped. "Why,
Aunt Sylvia!" said she.
"All these things belonged to your aunt Abrahama, and now they belong
to you," said Sylvia, in a triumphant tone.
"Why, but these are perfectly beautiful things!"
"Yes; I don't believe anybody in East Westland ever knew she had
them. I don't believe she could have worn them, even when she was a
girl, or I should have heard of them. I found them all in her bureau
drawer. She didn't even keep them under lock and key; but then she
never went out anywhere, and if nobody even knew she had them, they
were safe enough. Now they're all yours."
"But they belong to you, Aunt Sylvia."
Sylvia took up the most valuable thing there, a really good pearl
necklace, and held it dangling from her skinny hand. "I should look
pretty with this around my neck, shouldn't I?" she said. "I wanted to
wear that pink silk, but when it comes to some things I ain't quite
out of my mind. Here, try it on."
Rose clasped the necklace about her white, round throat, and smiled
at herself in the glass. Rose wore a gown of soft, green China silk,
and the pearls over its lace collar surrounded her face with soft
gleams of rose and green.
"These amethysts are exquisite," said Rose, after she had done
admiring herself. She took up, one after another, a ring, a bracelet,
a necklace, a brooch, and ear-rings, all of clear, pale amethysts in
beautiful settings.
"You could wear these," she said to Sylvia.
"I guess I sha'n't begin to wear jewelry at my time of life,"
declared Sylvia. Her voice sounded almost angry in its insistence.
"Everything here is yours," she said, and nodded her head and set her
mouth hard for further emphasis.
The display upon the dressing-table, although not of great value, was
in reality rather unusual. All of the pieces were, of course, old,
and there were more semi-precious than precious stones, but the
settings were good and the whole enough to delight any girl. Rose
hung over them in ecstasy. She had not many jewels. Somehow her
income had never seemed to admit of jewels. She was pleased as a
child. Finally she hung some pearl ear-rings over her ears by bits of
white silk, her ears not being pierced. She allowed the pearl
necklace to remain. She clasped on her arms some charming cameo
bracelets and a heavy gold one set with a miniature of a lady. She
covered her slender fingers with rings and pinned old brooches all
over her bosom. She fastened a pearl spray in her hair, and a heavy
shell comb. Then she fairly laughed out loud. "There!" said she to
Sylvia, and laughed again.
Sylvia also laughed, and her laugh had the ring of a child's. "Don't
you feel as if you were pretty well off as you are?" said she.
Rose sprang forward and hugged Sylvia. "Well off!" said she. "Well
off! I never knew a girl who was better off. To think of my being
here with you, and your being as good as a mother to me, and Uncle
Henry as good as a father; and this dear old house; and to see myself
fairly loaded down with jewels like a crown-princess. I never knew I
liked such things so much. I am fairly ashamed."
Rose kissed Sylvia with such vehemence that the elder woman started
back, then she turned again to her mirror. She held up her hands and
made the gems flash with colored lights. There were several very good
diamonds, although not of modern cut; there was a fairly superb
emerald, also pearls and amethysts and green-blue turquoises, on her
hands. Rose made a pounce upon a necklace of pink coral, and clasped
it around her neck over the pearls.
"I have them all on now," she said, and her laugh rang out again.
Sylvia surveyed her with a sort of rapture. She had never heard of
"Faust," but the whole was a New England version of the "Jewel Song."
As Marguerite had been tempted to guilty love by jewels, so Sylvia
was striving to have Rose tempted by jewels to innocent celibacy. But
she was working by methods of which she knew nothing.
Rose gazed at herself in the glass. A rose flush came on her cheeks,
her lips pouted redly, and her eyes glittered under a mist. She
thrust her shining fingers through her hair, and it stood up like a
golden spray over her temples. Rose at that minute was wonderful.
Something akin to the gleam of the jewels seemed to have waked within
her. She felt a warmth of love and ownership of which she had never
known herself capable. She felt that the girl and her jewels, the
girl who was the greatest jewel of all, was her very own. For the
first time a secret anxiety and distress of mind, which she had
confided to no one, was allayed. She said to herself that everything
was as it should be. She had Rose, and Rose was happy. Then she
thought how she had found the girl when she first entered the room,
and had courage, seeing her as she looked now, to ask again: "What
was the matter? Why were you crying?"
Rose turned upon her with a smile of perfect radiance. "Nothing at
all, dear Aunt Sylvia," she cried, happily. "Nothing at all."
Sylvia smiled. A smile was always somewhat of an effort for Sylvia,
with her hard, thin lips, which had not been used to smiling. Sylvia
had no sense of humor. Her smiles would never be possible except for
sudden and unlooked-for pleasures, and those had been rare in her
whole life. But now she smiled, and with her lips and her eyes. "Rose
wasn't crying because she thought Mr. Allen was going to marry
another girl," she told herself. "She was only crying because a girl
is always full of tantrums. Now she is perfectly happy. I am able to
make her perfectly happy. I know that all a girl needs in this world
to make her happy and free from care is a woman to be a mother to
her. I am making her see it. I can make up to her for everything.
Everything is as it should be."
She stood gazing at Rose for a long moment before she spoke. "Well,"
said she, "you look like a whole jewelry shop. I don't see, for my
part, how your aunt came to have so many--why she wanted them."
"Maybe they were given to her," said Rose. A tender thought of the
dead woman who had gone from the house of her fathers, and left her
jewels behind, softened her face. "Poor Aunt Abrahama!" said she.
"She lived in this house all her life and was never married, and she
must have come to think that all her pretty things had not amounted
to much."
"I don't see why," said Sylvia. "I don't see that it was any great
hardship to live all her life in this nice house, and I don't see
what difference it made about her having nice things, whether she got
married or not. It could not have made any difference."
"Why not?" asked Rose, looking at her with a mischievous flash of
blue eyes. A long green gleam like a note of music shot out from the
emerald on her finger as she raised it in a slight gesture. "To have
all these beautiful things put away in a drawer, and never to have
anybody see her in them, must have made some difference."
"It wouldn't make a mite," said Sylvia, stoutly.
"I don't see why."
"Because it wouldn't."
Rose laughed, and looked again at herself in the glass.
"Now you had better take off those things and go to bed, and try to
go to sleep," said Sylvia.
"Yes, Aunt Sylvia," said Rose. But she did not stir, except to turn
this way and that, to bring out more colored lights from the jewels.
Sylvia had to mix bread that night, and she was obliged to go. Rose
promised that she would immediately go to bed, and kissed her again
with such effusion that the older woman started back. The soft,
impetuous kiss caused her cheek to fairly tingle as she went
down-stairs and about her work. It should have been luminous from the
light it made in her heart.
When Henry came home, with a guilty sense of what he was to do next
day, and which he had not courage enough to reveal, he looked at his
wife with relief at her changed expression. "I declare, Sylvia, you
look like yourself to-night," he said. "You've been looking kind of
curious to me lately."
"You imagined it," said Sylvia. She had finished mixing the bread,
and had washed her hands and was wiping them on the roller-towel in
the kitchen.
"Maybe I did," admitted Henry. "You look like yourself to-night,
anyhow. How is Rose?"
"Rose is all right. Young girls are always getting nervous kinks. I
took her supper up to her, and she ate every mite, and now I have
given her her aunt's jewelry and she's tickled to pieces with it,
standing before the looking-glass and staring at herself like a
little peacock." Sylvia laughed with tender triumph.
"I suppose now she'll be decking herself out, and every young man in
East Westland will be after her," said Henry. He laughed, but a
little bitterly. He, also, was not altogether unselfish concerning
the proprietorship of this young thing which had come into his
elderly life. He was not as Sylvia, but although he would have denied
it he privately doubted if even Horace was quite good enough for this
girl. When it came to it, in his heart of hearts, he doubted if any
but the fatherly love which he himself gave might be altogether good
for her.
"Rose is perfectly contented just the way she is," declared Sylvia,
turning upon him. "I shouldn't be surprised if she lived out her days
here, just as her aunt did."
"Maybe it would be the best thing," said Henry. "She's got us as long
as we live." Henry straightened himself as he spoke. Since his
resolve to resume his work he had felt years younger. Lately he had
been telling himself miserably that he was an old man, that his
life-work was over. To-night the pulses of youth leaped in his veins.
He was so pleasantly excited that after he and Sylvia had gone to bed
it was long before he fell asleep, but he did at last, and just in
time for Rose and Horace.
Rose, after Sylvia went down-stairs, had put out her light and sat
down beside the window gazing out into the night. She still wore her
jewels. She could not bear to take them off. It was a beautiful
night. The day had been rather warm, but the night was one of
coolness and peace. The moon was just rising. Rose could see it
through the leafy branches of an opposite elm-tree. It seemed to be
caught in the green foliage. New shadows were leaping out of the
distance as the moon increased. The whole landscape was dotted with
white luminosities which it was bliss not to explain, just to leave
mysteries. Wonderful sweetnesses and fresh scents of growing things,
dew-wet, came in her face.
Rose was very happy. Only an hour before she had been miserable, and
now her whole spirit had leaped above her woe as with the impetus of
some celestial fluid rarer than all the miseries of earth and of a
necessity surmounting them. She looked out at the night, and it was
to her as if that and the whole world was her jewel-casket, and the
jewels therein were immortal, and infinite in possibilities of giving
and receiving glory and joy. Rose thought of Horace, and a delicious
thrill went over her whole body. Then she thought of Lucy Ayres, and
felt both pity and a sort of angry and contemptuous repulsion. "How a
girl can do so!" she thought.
Intuitively she knew that what she felt for Horace was a far nobler
love than Lucy's. "Love--was it love, after all?" Rose did not know,
but she gave her head a proud shake. "I never would put him in such a
position, and lie about him, just because--" she said to herself.
She did not finish her sentence. Rose was innately modest even as to
her own self-disclosures. Her emotions were so healthy that she had
the power to keep them under the wings of her spirit, both to guard
and hold the superior place. She had a feeling that Lucy Ayres's love
for Horace was in a way an insult to him. After what Sylvia had said,
she had not a doubt as to the falsity of what Lucy had told her
during their drive. She and Lucy had been on the front seat of the
carriage, when Lucy had intimated that there was an understanding
between herself and Horace. She had spoken very low, in French, and
Rose had been obliged to ask her to repeat her words. Immediately
Lucy's mother's head was between the two girls, and the bunch of
violets on her bonnet grazed Rose's ear.
"What are you saying?" she had asked Lucy, sharply. And Lucy had
lied. "I said what a pleasant day it is," she replied.
"You said it in French."
"Yes, mother."
"Next time say it in English," said Mrs. Ayres.
Of course, if Lucy had lied to her mother, she had lied to her. She
had lied in two languages. "She must be a very strange girl," thought
Rose. She resolved that she could not go to see Lucy very often, and
a little pang of regret shot through her. She had been very ready to
love poor Lucy.
Presently, as Rose sat beside the window, she heard footsteps on the
gravel sidewalk outside the front yard, and then a man's figure came
into view, like a moving shadow. She knew the figure was a man
because there was no swing of skirts. Her heart beat fast when the
man opened the front gate and shut it with a faint click. She
wondered if it could be Horace, but immediately she saw, from the
slightly sidewise shoulders and gait, that it was Henry Whitman. She
heard him enter; she heard doors opened and closed. After a time she
heard a murmur of voices. Then there was a flash of light across the
yard, from a lighted lamp being carried through a room below. The
light was reflected on the ceiling of her room. Then it vanished, and
everything was quiet. Rose thought that Sylvia and Henry had retired
for the night. She almost knew that Horace was not in the house. She
had heard him go out after supper and she had not heard him enter. He
had a habit of taking long walks on fine nights.
Rose sat and wondered. Once the suspicion smote her that possibly,
after all, Lucy had spoken the truth, that Horace was with her. Then
she dismissed the suspicion as unworthy of her. She recalled what
Sylvia had said; she recalled how she herself had heard Lucy lie. She
knew that Horace could not be fond of a girl like that, and he had
known her quite a long time. Again Rose's young rapture and belief in
her own happiness reigned. She sat still, and the moon at last sailed
out of the feathery clasp of the elm branches, and the whole
landscape was in a pale, clear glow. Then Horace came. Rose started
up. She stood for an instant irresolute, then she stole out of her
room and down the spiral stair very noiselessly. She opened the front
door before Horace could insert his key in the latch.
Horace started back.
"Hush," whispered Rose. She stifled a laugh. "Step back out in the
yard just a minute," she whispered.
Horace obeyed. He stepped softly back, and Rose joined him after she
had closed the door with great care.
"Now come down as far as the gate, out of the shadows," whispered
Rose. "I want to show you something."
The two stole down to the gate. Then Rose faced Horace in full glare
of moonlight.
"Look at me," said she, and she stifled another laugh of pure,
childish delight.
Horace looked. Only a few of the stones which Rose wore caught the
moonlight to any extent, but she was all of a shimmer and gleam, like
a creature decked with dewdrops.
"Look at me," she whispered again.
"I am looking."
"Do you see?"
"What?"
"They are poor Aunt Abrahama's jewels. Aunt Sylvia gave them to me.
Aren't they beautiful? Such lovely, old-fashioned settings. You can't
half see in the moonlight. You shall see them by day."
"It is beautiful enough now," said Horace, with a sort of gasp.
"Those are pearls around your neck?"
"Yes, really lovely pearls; and such carved pink coral! And look at
the dear old pearl spray in my hair. Wait; I'll turn my head so the
moon will show on it. Isn't it dear?"
"Yes, it is," replied Horace, regarding the delicate spray of seed
pearls on Rose's head.
"And only look at these bracelets and these rings; and I had to tie
the ear-rings on because my ears are not pierced. Would you have them
pierced and wear them as they are--I believe ear-rings are coming
into vogue again--or would you have them made into rings?"
"Rings," said Horace, emphatically.
"I think that will be better. I fancy the ear-rings dangling make me
a little nervous already. See all these brooches, and the rings."
Rose held up her hands and twirled her ring-laden fingers, and
laughed again.
"They are pretty large, most of the rings," said she. "There is one
pearl and one emerald that are charming, and several of the dearest
old-fashioned things. Think of poor Aunt Abrahama having all these
lovely things packed away in a bureau drawer and never wearing them."
"I should rather have packed away my name," said Horace.
"So should I. Isn't it awful? The Abrahama is simply dreadful, and
the way it comes down with a sort of whack on the White! Poor Aunt
Abrahama! I feel almost guilty having all her pretty jewels and being
so pleased with them."
"Oh, she would be pleased, too, if she knew."
"I don't know. She and my mother had been estranged for years, ever
since my mother's marriage. Would she be pleased, do you think?"
"Of course she would, and as for the things themselves, they are
fulfilling their mission."
Rose laughed. "Maybe jewels don't like to be shut up for years and
years in a drawer, away from the light," said she. "They do seem
almost alive. Look, you can really see the green in that emerald!"
Horace was trembling from head to foot. He could hardly reply.
"Why, you are shivering," said Rose. "Are you cold?"
"No--well, perhaps yes, a little. It is rather cool to-night after
the hot day."
"Where have you been?"
"I walked to Tunbury and back."
"That is seven miles. That ought to have warmed you. Well, I think we
must go in. I don't know what Aunt Sylvia would say."
"Why should she mind?"
"I don't know. She might not think I should have run out here as I
did. I think all these jewels went to my head. Come. Please walk very
softly."
Horace hesitated.
"Come," repeated Rose, imperatively, and started.
Horace followed.
The night before they had been on the verge of a love scene, now it
seemed impossible, incongruous. Horace was full of tender longing,
but he felt that to gratify it would be to pass the impossible.
"Please be very still," whispered Rose, when they had reached the
house door. She herself began opening it, turning the knob by slow
degrees. All the time she was stifling her laughter. Horace felt that
the stifled laughter was the main factor in prohibiting the
love-making.
Rose turned the knob and removed her hand as she pushed the door
open; then something fell with a tiny tinkle on the stone step. Both
stopped.
"One of my rings," whispered Rose.
Horace stooped and felt over the stone slab, and finally his hand
struck the tiny thing.
"It's that queer little flat gold one," continued Rose, who was now
serious.
A sudden boldness possessed Horace. "May I have it?" he said.
"It's not a bit pretty. I don't believe you can wear it."
Horace slipped the ring on his little finger. "It just fits."
"I don't care," Rose said, hesitatingly. "Aunt Sylvia gave me the
things. I don't believe she will care. And there are two more flat
gold rings, anyway. She will not notice, only perhaps I ought to tell
her."
"If you think it will make any trouble for you--"
"Oh no; keep it. It is interesting because it is old-fashioned, and
as far as giving it away is concerned, I could give away half of
these trinkets. I can't go around decked out like this, nor begin to
wear all the rings. I certainly never should have put that ring on
again."
Horace felt daunted by her light valuation of it, but when he was in
the house, and in his room, and neither Sylvia nor Henry had been
awakened, he removed the thing and looked at it closely. All the
inner surface was covered with a clear inscription, very clear,
although of a necessity in minute characters--"Let love abide
whate'er betide."
Horace laughed tenderly. "She has given me more than she knows," he
thought.