“Is anybody going to die in this chapter?” asked a little girl who is
very dear to me, as we were reading aloud last evening. The chapter had
certainly a rather ominous title, and if any one was going to die she
preferred to go to bed. Now if we had happened to have been reading this
story together, I am pretty sure I should have met the same question;
for, what with Joe ill in bed, and Grandma Ellis ill at Ellismere, and
both of them pretty old people, it does look, I admit, as though there
might be something sad to write about it. But, happily, for that happy
summer there was to be no sorrowful ending. Grandma Ellis was soon quite
herself again, and Joe improved so much that it seemed as though he
would probably be able to move about his cabin again some day. And so
everything would have been bright and hopeful enough save for this--the
time had come for Courage and the Bennetts and Mary Duff and Sylvia to
go home, and all hearts as a result were as heavy as lead. The Bennetts
were eager to {106}see their father and mother and the baby, but they
did not want to go back to the great, crowded city. And Courage--well,
she wondered what she possibly could find to do at home that would so
absorb her whole thought and time as this Little Homespun household,
and keep her half as happy and contented. She feared that when she went
back, the old loneliness would surely come surging down upon her, and
that life without Miss Julia would seem again intolerable. She was
thinking just such sad thoughts as these as she sat alone in the little
living-room, stitching away at a dress of Mary Bennett’s that needed
mending for the journey on the morrow. Every one but herself and Mary
Duff had gone up to Arlington for a good-bye call upon Joe. Courage was
not planning to go until late in the day, calculating that the afternoon
mail would surely bring her some word from the asylum; and so, as she
sat alone with her own sad thoughts, she was suddenly surprised by a
little figure in the doorway and a larger figure looming above it.
“Where’s everybody?” asked Brevet. “May we come in?”
“Yes, indeed, come in!” Courage answered, cordially. “Indeed, I am glad
to see you, for I’m as blue as can be.” {107}"So are we,” said Brevet,
sitting disconsolately down in a huge armchair that made him look more
disconsolate than ever “Uncle Harry’s hardly spoken to me all the way.”
Harry made no denial and dropped into the nearest chair.
“And you’ll be bluer still, Brevet, to find that no one’s at home,”
Courage added. “They have all gone up to Arlington.”
“Well, that doesn’t matter,” Brevet replied, philosophically, “we shall
see them all tomorrow when we come down to see you off; but what we all
care the most about is your going, Miss Courage. Grand_na_na a cries
every time she thinks of it, and Uncle Harry says it will be just like a
funeral all the time for him until he is able to go back to the office,
and I’m just as miserable as I can be.”
“Well, it’s very kind of you all,” sighed Courage. “It seems to me there
never were two such dear places as Homespun and Ellis-mere, and you
cannot imagine how I hate to leave them.”
“What will you all do anyway when you get back to New York?” Brevet
asked, a little sullenly, as though he felt in his heart that really
they were to blame for going.
“Well, we are not going because we want to, Brevet,” Courage answered
almost sharply, {108}for she was herself just down-spirited enough to
be a trifle touchy and childish. “There is no reason why Mary Duff and
Sylvia and I should stay since the Bennetts will not be here to be cared
for.”
“But what is the _reason_ for your going home, Miss Courage?” asked
Brevet, determined to have the whole situation explained.
“Well, Mary Duff is needed at the hospital, where she has charge, you
know, of a whole ward full of little babies; and, as for Sylvia and me,
our home is there you know--we belong there--and I shall try very hard
to find something to fill up all my time, for that is the only way for
me to manage now that I no longer have Miss Julia.”
“But do people always belong to just one place?”
“No, not always,” Courage was forced to admit.
“Well, you and Brevet seem to be having things all your own way,” said
Harry, really speaking for the first time since he had entered.
“Yes; I was thinking it would be more polite if you should join in the
conversation,” Courage answered, colouring a little, for she had felt
annoyed at Harry’s apparently moody silence.
“Well,” he added, slowly, “I do not know {109}on the whole that there is
anything for me to say.”
“Then why did you come?”
“Simply to see you once more.”
“And what was the use of that?” Courage asked, she hardly knew why.
“No use, simply to enjoy the pathetic sort of pleasure of all last
times; but I do not myself understand why you could not have stayed on
and made us a visit? You would have made my grandmother very happy.”
“Oh, Harry, come off!” said Brevet, who had unavoidably acquired a boy’s
measure of slang, and who was old enough to appreciate when Harry was
not his frank, honest self. “That’s all stuff about Grand_na_na--you
want Miss Courage to stay for yourself just as much as Grand_na_na wants
her for herself and I want her for myself.”
“‘Children and fools speak the truth,’” said Harry, looking straight at
Courage.
“Yes, that’s the blessed beauty of them,” looking straight back at him.
“Other people don’t dare,” said Harry.
“Other people lack courage.”
“I quite agree with you. I know a fellow who feels that with Courage he
could defy the whole world.”
“Brevet,” said Courage, folding away the {110}mended dress, “there is a
pile of pictures yonder that I have been collecting from the magazines
and papers for your scrap-book. Bring them here and let us look them
over.”
Brevet was not to be diverted. It was always one thing at a time with
him. The pictures could wait--he couldn’t. He had one or two questions
yet to ask, and he came and stood beside Courage as though to compel her
undivided attention.
“But why couldn’t you visit us? Didn’t you want to?”
“Yes, I should have been glad to come, Brevet; I cannot explain to you
why I couldn’t.”
“I suppose it was because there wasn’t anything particular for you to
do; you always want to be doing something. Now, Miss Courage, I have
heard Grand_na_na say that if Uncle Harry would bring a wife home to
Ellismere some day she would give her all the housekeeping. Now, don’t
you think you could come that way, because then you would have a great
deal to do?”
“Can you not stop this child?” said Courage, turning with a look of
indignant appeal to Harry.
“He is doing very well,” Harry answered, without looking up.
{111}Brevet, intent upon his own line of thought, paid not the least
attention to either of the last remarks.
“Now, Miss Courage,” resting one arm on her chair and speaking
thoughtfully and slowly, “couldn’t you--don’t you think you
could--perhaps--be Uncle Harry’s wife and so belong up to our house and
have lots of things to do?”
“Yes, couldn’t you--perhaps?” said Harry, very earnestly.
Courage gave one glance toward Harry, and then sat gazing straight at
Brevet with a look on her face as though endeavouring to frame some
sort of answer; while Brevet, with appeal in his eyes more eloquent than
words, waited in solemn silence for her answer.
“But, Brevet,” she said, at last, “are you sure, perfectly sure that
your Uncle Harry would not mind?”
“Perfectly sure!” but not so much as looking toward Harry, so completely
did he regard the matter as resting wholly between Courage and himself.
“Well, then, Brevet, I believe I could.”
Then for the first time Brevet showed an inclination to include Harry
in the conversation, but for that matter he had to, for Harry was close
beside Courage now. “There,” he {112}said, with a great sigh of relief,
“what did I tell you? Perhaps she doesn’t care enough to do it for you,
but she cares enough to do it for us all three together.”
“Run, Brevet!” said Courage. “See, there is Mary coming with the mail.
Run, and bring it quickly.”
Brevet scampered off in high feather, and Courage instantly straightened
herself up and looked accusingly at Harry.
“Do you mean to say that you actually talked all this over with Brevet?”
[Illustration: 0147]
“No,” he answered, never looking so handsome or so happy in his life.
“He talked it all over with me. He seemed to think it the one way out of
the difficulty.”
“And you knew he was--he was going to say all this to me?”
“No, I never so much as dreamt it for a minute, I assure you, or that he
was going to take matters into his own hands. On the contrary, I wanted
to come alone this afternoon, but come he would. He had evidently
thought out his own course of action, and I shall bless him for it all
my life.”
{113}