The old hall of Storm, with its memories of many a wild festivity, had
never served as background for a prettier sight than Jemima and
Jacqueline Kildare, coming shyly down the steps in their first
ball-dresses, followed by a girl in gingham, equally young and pretty,
with an anxious proprietary eye upon the hang and set of their fineries.
"Don't you hug 'em, please, Miss Kate," warned this girl as they
descended. "Tulle musses so easy."
There was a long "A-ah!" of delight from the foot of the stairs, where
the entire household was assembled, to the youngest pickaninny from the
quarters. Jemima, exquisite and fragile as a snow-spirit in her white
tulle, descended with the queenly stateliness that seems possible only
to very small women; but Jacqueline, pink as a rose, flushed and dewy as
if she had just been plucked from the garden, took the final steps with
a run and landed in her mother's arms, despite Mag's warning.
"Aren't we perfectly grand?" she demanded. "Did you ever see _anything_
as beautiful as us? See my gloves--almost as long as my arms! And my
neck doesn't look so awfully bony, does it? There's lots of it, anyway,
and it's white." She inflated her chest to full capacity, and looked
around the circle for approval. Philip was there, as well as Professor
Thorpe, who had come to fetch them in the Ark. Each had boxes in their
hands.
"O-oh!" cried Jacqueline in delight. "Presents! What have you brought
us?"
Professor Thorpe's boxes proved to contain flowers, and Philip presented
to each of them a charming antique fan.
"Why, Reverend! How did you know girls used such things? It must be your
French blood cropping out."
"I found them among mother's things," he explained, "and I knew she
would like you to have them."
The girl sobered, and stood on tiptoe to kiss his cheek. Jemima thanked
him quietly, and laid her fan on a table. Philip and Kate exchanged a
quick glance of understanding. It was evident that she meant to accept
nothing from a Benoix. Young Jemima Kildare was of the stuff that makes
the Kentucky blood-feuds possible.
There was an awkward pause, broken by Professor Thorpe. "We ought to be
starting, I think. The Ark, while willing, has its little weaknesses,
and it would not do for my guests to arrive and find neither host nor
guests of honor present."
"Wait a moment," said Kate. "I, too, have presentations to make."
She produced two white velvet boxes bearing the name of a famous New
York jeweler.
"Oh, what pretty little pinky-white beads!" cried Jacqueline, clasping
hers about her throat and prancing to a mirror to observe the effect.
Jemima examined hers, and then looked quickly at her mother.
"Are they pearls?" she asked.
"Yes," said Kate. "Small ones, but a good investment, I think. Some day
when you're older, girlies, perhaps you'll like to remember that your
mother earned the money that bought them." She spoke to both of them,
but it was to Jemima that her unconscious plea was made.
The older girl hesitated. Then she murmured, "Thank you, Mother. They
are beautiful," and fastened them about her throat.
Kate gave a little sigh of relief, echoed by James Thorpe. Both had
feared for a moment that she would refuse her mother's gift as she had
refused Philip's.
"Come, come," said Professor Thorpe, "we really must start. Two hours'
drive before us!"
Jacqueline clung to her mother. "Oh, if you were only coming too, Mummy!
If you only were! Just say the word, and I won't go. Why, you'll be here
alone, Mummy, darling, alone all night! You'll miss us _dreadfully_.
What do I care about beaux and balls. I'd rather be with you than with
any one else in the world--_Almost_ any one else," she added honestly,
flushing.
Kate laughed, and pushed her away. "Mag is looking daggers at us. We
mustn't crumple that finery any more, precious.--Remember not to talk at
the top of your lungs.--Have you got a pocket-handkerchief?"
She followed them out to the waiting automobile, smiling; but Philip
noticed that her lips moved now and then silently, and he suspected that
she was praying. He was right. It was the first time in their lives that
her children had gone out of her own protection.
Mag shrouded them in long dust garments, tucked the robes about them
solicitously, having first wrapped each white-slippered foot in tissue
paper. The passionate interest of the girl in the pleasures of these
other girls, pleasures she could never hope to share, struck two at
least of the onlookers as a rather piteous thing.
"Good-by, good-by!" Jacqueline leaned out to throw last kisses
impartially. "How I wish you were coming too, Mag and Mummy and Phil,
you dears! I'll remember everything to tell you, compliments, and all,
and dresses especially, Mag. I'll bring home all the goodies I can stuff
into my pockets, too--oh, dear, there aren't any pockets to a ball
dress! Never mind--I'll put 'em in Goddy's pockets. Good-by! When next
you see us, we'll be real young ladies."
Kate stood gazing after them as wistfully as Mag, both following with
their thoughts two happy young adventurers into a happy world forever
closed to themselves. "You'd like to be going to a ball yourself,
wouldn't you?" said she, to the girl beside her.
"Would I? Oh, my Gawd! _Would_ I?" gasped Mag, and ran into the house.
The repressed intensity of the reply startled Mrs. Kildare. She looked
at Philip. "Did you hear that? I wonder if the girl isn't happy here."
The past few months had done a great deal for Mag Henderson's body,
whatever they had accomplished for her soul. Maternity had developed her
lissome figure into beautiful lines; health, the result of care and good
feeding, colored her lips and her cheeks and her pretty, shallow eyes;
she had learned not only the trick of dressing becomingly, but of
keeping her hair, her hands, and her feet as neat as those of a lady.
Even her voice had lost something of its uncouth drawl, and its lazy
softness had a charm of its own. She was very imitative.
For some time Philip had been aware that his lady's protégée was
developing into an attractive young woman.
"You say she seems devoted to the child?" he asked thoughtfully.
"I think so, yes. She is always making clothes for the baby, and playing
with it, and petting it--when Jacqueline will let her. But,"--Kate
sighed faintly--"maternity isn't enough for all women, it seems."
It was such remarks as this that gave Philip his strong hope for the
future.
But now he put himself aside to consider the problem of Mag Henderson.
From the first he had foreseen that it was not a problem to be handled
as simply as Kate thought to handle it. The psychological instinct of
the priest was very strong in him--doubtless there had been many a good
curé of souls among past generations of Benoixes, professing an older
faith than his. In moments of clear vision that came to him he battled,
as all thinkers must battle, with a great discouragement, a sense of
helplessness that was almost terrifying. Of what use man's puny human
endeavors against the forces of predestination arrayed against him--the
forces of heredity, temperament, opportunity?
Mag Henderson cost him a wakeful night; and from her his thoughts kept
straying oddly and unaccountably to Jacqueline, little Jacqueline, his
playmate and pupil and chum, with her mischievous, daredevil impulses
and her generous heart. He jerked his thoughts back angrily to poor Mag
Henderson.
Why should he bracket the two together thus, the one a weed shooting up
in a neglected fence corner, the other the loveliest and most lovingly
tended blossom in a garden?--why, indeed, except that both were come,
weed and flower alike, to the period of their blooming.