THEY COME.
It was the day after the young ladies’ visit to Vine Cottage and the
third week since Mrs. Rogers’ arrival in town. I had dismissed my school
earlier than usual that afternoon, and at Gertie’s request, went with
her to the Schuyler Cemetery. She had heard that Mr. and Mrs. Schuyler
and Godfrey were expected every day, and she wanted to have that grave
looking real nice, as she was sure Mr. Godfrey would be pleased to find
that somebody had cared for it. So it was for Godfrey’s sake that she
weeded, and dug, and trimmed, and watered, while I sat watching her, and
thinking of another young girl, who, years ago, had laid her face in the
grass and wept for the dead beneath it.
Where was she now? Dead, perhaps, and gone to the lover lost so early;
or it might be that she was married and had forgotten that far-off
grave, which she had bidden me keep till she came back again. I had
neglected it of late, but my work was taken from my hands by little
Gertie Westbrooke, who had made a miniature garden of the spot, and
brought to light and life the flowers I had put there in the summers
past and gone. There were clumps of white daisies and blue
forget-me-nots, and the sweet English violet, with other hardy roots
which bear our northern winters, while the rose brought from Vine
Cottage yard had wound itself round the tall monument, and was reaching
out its arms toward the evergreen which grew near by. There were some
violets in blossom now, while, better than all, there was a clump of
buds upon the rose tree, the summer’s second growth, and Gertie plucked
two of them, and gathered some white daisies and blue forget-me-nots,
and sitting down upon the grass she made them into a tiny bouquet, with
sweet-brier for a background of green, and told me she was going to
carry them home and keep them in her room.
I had shown her the little vase which Heloise Fordham left with me, and
she had filled it with flowers that afternoon and brought it to the
grave, where, just under the shadow of the rose, it stood a sweet
offering to the memory of the dead, who, far away in the other world,
knew, perhaps, whose feet were treading the sod above him, and whose the
little hands so busy with his grave.
How pretty my darling was that afternoon, with the flush on her face and
the sparkle in her eyes, as, with the bouquet in her hands, she walked
with me back to the cottage, where I was going to help her a little in
her French; and how gayly she chattered, sometimes about herself and
what she meant to be, and then of the young ladies from the Hill who had
called at the cottage the day before.
“I don’t think Miss Creighton very pretty,” she said, “though she looks
just like the pictures in the fashion books. Miss Emma is handsomer than
she, but neither are half as handsome as Mrs. Schuyler.”
“I believe you think Mrs. Schuyler very pretty,” I said, and she
replied:
“Pretty, I guess she is! She is beautiful,—just like a grand duchess.”
“How old is she?” I asked.
“Oh, I don’t know. How old are you, Miss Armstrong?”
I told her almost twenty-seven, and she exclaimed:
“That is very old! I don’t think Mrs. Schuyler can be half as old as
that. She looks just like a girl. Oh! oh! oh! there she is! There she
is! Look, look, Miss Armstrong, they come! they come!”
We were very near Gertie’s home, and the excited child pointed toward an
open barouche which had turned the corner and was just opposite the
cottage. I recognized Colonel Schuyler at once, but not for an instant
did my gaze rest on him; it wandered to the lady at his side, the
peerless creature whose fine-cut face, framed in masses of golden-brown
hair, was white and pure as a water-lily, and whose dark eyes scanned
eagerly the cottage and its surroundings, and then rested upon Gertie
and myself with a curious, wondering look.
“I mean to throw her this as a welcome,” Gertie cried, and the bouquet
gathered from Abelard’s grave went whirling through the air, and fell
directly in Edith’s lap, while Gertie snatched her bonnet from her head
and shook it toward the carriage, her hair falling in rippling waves
around her shoulders, and her face radiant with joy.
How the lady’s eyes gleamed, while the expression of her face and the
wondrous smile which wreathed her lips and showed her white, even teeth,
I never shall forget. She held the bouquet in her hand, and we heard her
distinctly utter the word “thanks,” as the carriage went rapidly by.
Twice she looked back, the same smile on her face and the same pleased
look in her eye, as Gertie kissed the tips of her fingers and threw them
toward her.
“Isn’t she beautiful?” Gertie asked.
“Yes, very beautiful, I replied,” as I stood looking after her, and
wondering at the opinion so different held of her at Schuyler Hill, and
wondering, too, what they would think of her when they found what she
was like.
Afterward I heard from one and another what they thought, and said, and
did, and will narrate in