GETTING ACQUAINTED.
After the disease left her, if there had been any disease, Elithe’s
recovery was rapid. Of her illness she remembered nothing, except a
feeling that she was having a delicious rest and a dream of Mr.
Pennington and the diamond ring. Where was her dress and the box, she
wondered, and was about to inquire, when, as if guessing her thoughts,
her aunt said to her, “I’ve washed your things, dress and all. There was
a box in the pocket. I don’t know what was in it, if anything, but I put
it in your trunk.”
At first Elithe thought to tell her aunt about the ring and ask her what
to do with it. Her father had written that Mr. Pennington had again left
Samona and it was uncertain when he would return. She could not send the
ring direct to him, and she decided that her better way was to keep it
until she went home, and then give it to her father, who would return it
to Mr. Pennington. With her aunt she did not feel quite at ease, but the
acquaintance progressed rapidly during the days of convalescence, when
she sat in the large easy chair in the pleasant front room, looking out
upon the sea and the passers-by. Every day Paul Ralston came in for a
few moments, and Elithe found herself looking forward to his coming with
a good deal of interest. Clarice had not called, nor did she intend to.
Paul had given her Miss Hansford’s message, and several times had
suggested going with her after Elithe was able to see people, but she
always had some reason for not going, and at last said pettishly, “Don’t
bother me any more, please. The fact is, I am not specially interested
in Miss Hansford or her niece, and I have more acquaintances now than I
can do justice to.”
After that Paul said no more on the subject, but went oftener himself to
make amends for Clarice’s neglect. This was the reason he gave to
himself, and at first it was partially true. But he could not see Elithe
day after day and not get interested in her, she was so sweet and
unaffected, and her eyes welcomed him so gladly when he came, and she
was so pretty in her short hair and white negligee jackets which her
aunt had bought for her. Paul carried a picture of her with him when he
left her and insensibly found himself looking forward to the next day
when he could see her again. In this he had no thought of disloyalty to
Clarice. She was the rare rose which belonged to him, while Elithe was
the simple wild flower, whose perfume he could inhale with no harm to
him or any one. Every day he spent hours with Clarice. They went in
bathing together; they rode on wheels together on the smooth asphalt
pavement, and in the afternoon he took her to drive with his tandem
team, the first in Oak City, and greatly admired in consequence. Elithe
had seen him go by on his wheel with Clarice and made no comment, except
to wonder if she could learn to ride and how much a wheel would cost.
Her aunt did not reply and set her lips together in a way which Elithe
had learned meant disapprobation. Evidently, Miss Hansford did not
believe in wheels.
The next day the tandem turnout went by, with Clarice driving and Paul
sitting by her side, radiant with happiness and content. Clarice was
handling the reins skillfully and looking very handsome as she sat
beside him. He saw Elithe in the door and touched his hat to her, but
Clarice’s attention was centered on the fleet horses, which required all
her strength to keep well in hand.
“Miss Percy drives a good deal with Mr. Ralston. They must be great
friends,” Elithe said.
“They are engaged,” Miss Hansford answered shortly, biting off rather
viciously the end of the thread she was trying to put through the point
instead of the eye of her needle.
“Engaged!” Elithe repeated, with a feeling for a moment as if the day
were not quite as bright as it had been an hour ago.
“Yes,” Miss Hansford replied, “more’s the pity, but if he’s suited I
ought to be. They are to be married the last of August, here in Oak
City, with a great spread. You’ll be invited, of course, with me. Paul
brought me a new grey silk from Paris as a present to wear. It is not
made yet. I must get about it pretty soon. Time enough, though. I wonder
what you’ve got to wear.”
Elithe had not quite heard all her aunt was saying. Paul’s engagement
was a surprise to her and not altogether a satisfaction. She did not
know that she had attached any importance to his attentions to herself.
She only knew that they had been very pleasing, and could never be quite
the same with her knowledge of his engagement to Clarice Percy.
Remembering the young lady’s manner towards her, and, contrasting it
with Paul’s affability, she felt how unlike they were to each other, and
was disappointed that Paul should thus have chosen. For a moment there
was a little pang in her heart, making her forget that her aunt was
talking of the grand wedding in August and asking what she had that was
suitable to wear. As yet, she knew nothing of the elegant toilets worn
at watering places. Her changeable silk, made from her mothers gown, was
quite equal to any emergency, and she assured her aunt that she was
quite well equipped for the wedding, should she be fortunate enough to
be invited.
The next time Paul came he staid longer than usual,—complimented Elithe
on her rapid improvement, and said she would soon be able to drive with
him behind his tandem.
“Thanks. I saw you go by yesterday with Miss Percy. She is very
beautiful, and your horses, too,” Elithe replied, conscious at once that
she had made an odd speech in associating Paul’s betrothed with his
horses. He did not seem to mind it, but chatted on pleasantly, talking a
great deal about his horses and a little about Clarice after Miss
Hansford said to him, “I told Elithe you was going to be married in
August.”
“Oh, yes; certainly, certainly; expect a great time. Glad you are here,”
Paul rejoined, mopping his face with his handkerchief, as the morning
was very warm.
Then he began to talk of the guests he expected and when they would
arrive.
“Is Jack coming?” Miss Hansford asked, and Paul replied, “Doubtful.
Clarice don’t know where he is, and don’t wish to know. She is afraid of
the consequences. It takes so little to upset him. He generally carries
a bottle in his pocket and is very noisy and quarrelsome when over the
bay.”
Miss Hansford was a strong supporter of the W. C. T. U., and had less
sympathy for a man easily affected than for one who could take quarts
with no bad result. So far as Jack was concerned, whether he could take
much or little, did not matter. He was better out of the way, and she
said so, with sundry uncomplimentary remarks concerning him, while Paul
defended him. The only subject on which he and Miss Hansford ever openly
differed was the luckless Jack, whom Paul declared a pretty good fellow,
but for one fault, while she denounced him as wholly bad. There was no
reason why Elithe should be interested in him; and yet she was, and,
after Paul had gone, she asked her aunt why Clarice did not try to
reform him instead of turning against him.
“There’s no reform in him,” her aunt replied. “I know Jack Percy,—a bad
egg when he was a boy, and a worse one now he is a man, I dare say,
though I haven’t known much of him lately. Such as he can’t reform.”
“He must be pretty bad, then,” Elithe said, thinking of Mr. Pennington
as he was in the miners’ camp and as he was when she saw him last.
She spoke of him to her aunt, who asked when she had finished, “Is he
anything to you?”
“To me? No; nothing but a friend. We all liked him. We couldn’t help
it,” was Elithe’s answer, given with no change of voice or color.
She was untouched; but Miss Hansford was not so sure of the man. He
could not be insensible to Elithe’s beauty,—no man could. It had
impressed Paul, engaged though he was; it must have impressed Mr.
Pennington, who might appear on the scene at any moment, and Miss
Hansford’s bones began to tell her that trouble would come from Elithe’s
reformed friend. She was studying Elithe carefully, and as yet could
find no fault with her. She neither sang, nor whistled, nor slatted her
things; she was so helpful about the house, so sunny and bright and
willing that her aunt wondered how she had ever lived without her, and
began to dread the time when she would be gone. There was no Potter
blood in her, she decided, unless it were manifest in the flower-like
beauty of her face and the supple grace of her figure. So much she
conceded to the Potters. For the rest Elithe was all Hansford.
“I hain’t an atom of fault to find with her, nor her bringin’ up,” she
said to a neighbor. “Nothing at all, except that she’s never read the
Bible through, and she a minister’s daughter. But what can you expect of
a ’Piscopal who puts the Prayer Book before everything. She knows that
about by heart, same as I did once.”
Reading the Bible through was one of Miss Hansford’s tests of religious
training, and she had learned with surprise that Elithe was remiss in
this respect.
“Never read the Bible through! My soul! What’s your father been thinking
about?” she said, when Elithe confessed her shortcoming. “Why, I’d read
it through before I was a dozen years old,—five chapters every Sunday
and three every week day will do it in a year.”
Then she began to question Elithe’s knowledge of the Scriptures, finding
that she neither knew how old Adam was when he died, nor how old he was
when Seth was born. Ages were Miss Hansford’s specialty, and she could
give you the birthdays at once of most of the noted people in the Bible
and the date of their death.
“I suppose you know your catechism from A to izzard,” she suggested to
Elithe, who replied, “No, I don’t. I never could manage the long answer
about my duty to God and my neighbor. Heathenish, I know, and if you say
so I’ll learn them at once. Any way, I’ll begin the three chapters in
the Bible to-day, and will soon catch up with the old fellows’ ages.”
Every morning after that Elithe spent an hour or so in her room poring
over the Bible until she knew a good deal about Adam and Seth and many
more of the patriarchs. If she had a longing for the flesh-pots as
represented by the Rink and Casino and the dances at the hotel, she did
not show it. But the fun was in her just the same, and she never heard
the band in the distance that she did not keep time to it with her hands
or her feet, and more than one waltz the little kitchen saw when she was
alone, with no one to criticise. She had not yet joined the bathers on
the beach, although urged to do so by Paul, who promised to teach her to
swim and to float and to help her in every way, if he knew when she was
to be there.
“I am going to-morrow,” she said to him one day when he called.
“All right. I’ll find you, if I don’t go blue fishing. Some of us
fellows are talking of it,” he answered, as he bade her good afternoon
and started across the fields in the direction of the Percy cottage.
When he was gone Elithe brought out her bathing suit and tried it on for
her aunt’s inspection.
“That’s decent,” Miss Hansford said, “and doesn’t show your arms and
legs as some of ’em do,—Clarice Percy’s, for instance. I declare to
goodness it makes me blush when I see her and some of ’em like her, with
nothing on but a little skirt, you may say!”
Elithe had been down to the beach and seen the little skirts and thought
them and their wearers immodest. Hers, however, was right. It came some
ways below her knees, and if the sleeves were rather short it did not
matter so much. Her arms were very pretty and she knew it, and her aunt
knew it and thought with a good deal of satisfaction that Clarice
couldn’t beat them. That night Elithe dreamed she was in the surf with
Paul and Mr. Pennington, both contending for her and holding her under
the water till she woke to find a soft shower falling outside and the
rain beating upon her face from the open window.