YOUNG LOVE.
“A poor girl’s lot is indeed hard and cruel. She must bear with wrong
and injustice without daring to complain,” thought Eva the next
morning, reviewing the disquieting incident of the night before with
the conviction that it was better, after all, to take Ada Winton’s
practical advice.
For where could she go if she left the asylum as she had first meant to
do--where could she shelter her homeless head?
The Browns were her only friends outside the hospital, and she did not
know whether they would receive her under their roof or not.
Besides, she had no money to get away with--not even a penny. And she
could not adventure another railway trip on credit. Then she gave a
little gasp of dismay, suddenly remembering the gentleman who had paid
her fare when she ran away from the asylum.
“Oh, dear, oh, dear, what must he think of me?” she sighed. “Oh, why
did he withhold his name, and say he would call on gran’ther next week
for his money? What did he think if he went and found no one to pay
him? That I was a wretched little cheat, of course.”
Scalding tears rushed to her eyes and she crimsoned with mortification.
She had liked the kind New Yorker so much that she hated for him to
believe her mean and dishonest.
A bright thought came into her mind and she seized a pen and wrote
rapidly on a slip of paper:
“If the gentleman who paid a young girl’s fare on the train
going to Clarksburg will send his address to Miss Groves,
Weston, stating the amount paid, he will receive the money at
once, with the thanks of the one benefited.”
“I called myself Miss Groves because he called me that,” she thought;
“and now if dear Doctor Bertrand will lend me enough money to pay for
this advertisement I will pay the nice gentleman as soon as I begin to
earn a salary here. I should like to see the kind stranger again some
time.”
She made up her mind to work on at the asylum patiently until some
better opening presented itself, and she would be so distant and
dignified with the superintendent he would not presume on her poverty
again to offer her a love that was a cruel insult.
But her cheeks were burning, and she trembled like a leaf when she
entered his office next morning to be assigned to her ward. Her spirits
rose the minute she saw Miss Blue looking over the newspapers, and she
knew she would not be alone with him.
The doctor was curt and cold. He looked her over as though she were a
stranger, and dismissed her with a few sharp orders. But she did not
mind; she was only too glad to escape.
She could not guess at the mingled rage and love seething in his
undisciplined heart. It was his misfortune that he could never resist
a fair face. He was like a butterfly, roving from flower to flower,
culling sweets wherever he could. To Miss Blue he remarked, with fine
sarcasm:
“Such a shy, trembling little birdie; one would never take her for the
heroine of a terrible scandal, would they, my dear Mattie?”
She flashed her keen black eyes at him, shrugged her shoulders, and
retorted poutingly:
“You would make her the heroine of another great scandal if you had
your way, sir!”
“Bah! you’re jealous, Mattie,” he answered gayly, and the pert young
lady kicked over his waste basket, tousled his gray locks with her
white fingers, threw him a saucy kiss, and flirted out of the room.
He gazed after her admiringly, muttering:
“Great fun, that girl! I wish little Eva had her spirit and liked me as
well. She is only acting the prude, of course. The heroine of so awful
a scandal cannot be hard to win. She is worth an effort, the proud
little beauty, and I will not give her up, though I will act distant
and offended till I throw her off her guard. Ah, those pouting red
lips! A kiss were well worth half my year’s salary, would she but sell
it at that price!”
He let Eva severely alone for a week, and she faithfully performed her
duties, silently looking and hoping every day for a sight of Doctor
Rupert again. Every day of his absence was like a month to her heart,
and she caught herself wishing that he would write her a few lines just
to let her know that she was not forgotten.
But no letter came, no token save a beautiful box by mail of her
favorite bonbons. Inside the lid was a card with his name only, but
it was traced in the same familiar writing as the love poems, and Eva
instantly thrilled with joy, though presently came a perplexing thought:
“How did he know me before I came to the asylum, when I lived at Stony
Ledge? I never saw any one there like him. It is very strange.”
She racked her memory hopelessly for some means of identifying him with
her past.
She remembered at last that on infrequent occasions the whole family
had sometimes attended worship at a church seven miles away, going all
together in gran’ther’s large Jersey wagon.
Eva decided that Doctor Rupert must have made one of the congregation
at this Methodist church in the woods.
“He must have fallen in love with me at first sight! How charming! One
must certainly be quite pretty to win a lover’s heart at first sight,”
she thought, lingering before the mirror and noting each several charm
with questioning eyes.
She decided that, after all, she must be rather pretty, although she
had not given much thought to it before, in the quiet days at Stony
Ledge. Cousin Tabby and the twins had always insinuated that she would
never “set the river afire with her beauty.”
Perhaps they thought it wise to throw a damper on any little maidenly
vanity that she might be cherishing. Now that they had wickedly thrown
her upon the world they could not keep her ignorant of her charms any
longer.
She would read the truth in men’s eyes that she was wondrous fair.
Doctor St. Clair had not hesitated to tell her so with eager lips.
But she remembered his words with detestation, and thought only of
the flash in Doctor Rupert’s eyes that told her without words she was
lovely and adorable.
She cared for his praise and no other, with her heart just awakened to
love’s sweet song.
How slowly the days passed in her uncongenial labor of caring for the
wretched insane patients for the sake of daily bread, while the twins
were fine and rich on gran’ther’s inheritance.
Eva would have felt bitter over it, but she knew that her grandfather
had not wished it to be so; that if she had gone for the lawyer as he
wished that night she might have been his heiress.
“I would not have left him alone for all the money in the State!” she
murmured.