"Take upon command what we have,
That to your wanting may be ministered."
"Celia Fair, do you realize what you have done?"
It was Celia who asked herself the question. She was suffering, as
reserved people must, from the reaction that follows an unusual outburst
of feeling. That had been a happy morning in the arbor; she had let
herself go, had listened to her heart and forgotten her pride, and in the
company of the merry Arden Foresters, the old joy of youth had asserted
itself. The brightness had stayed with her for days; she had dreamed she
could make a fairy tale of life, spending her hours in an enchanted
forest, and now had come the awakening.
It seemed destined from the beginning to be a day of misfortunes. She woke
with a dull, listless feeling, and the first thing to greet her eyes when
she went downstairs was the woolly head of Bob, the grandson of her sole
dependence, Aunt Sally, waiting on the doorstep to impart the cheering
information that granny had the "misery" in her side mighty bad, and
couldn't come to-day.
At another time it might not have mattered so much, for the boys were away
from home, and breakfast for two did not offer any insuperable
difficulties to Celia, but there were currants and raspberries waiting to
be made into jelly and preserves. To complicate matters, Mrs. Fair had one
of her severe headaches.
The fruit would not keep another day, and Celia couldn't leave the house
to go down the hill in search of help, even if she had known just where to
seek it. After making her mother as comfortable as possible, she began on
the currants with sombre energy.
"May I come in, Miss Celia? Will you lend me a cup?" It was Jack who stood
in the door.
"Help yourself," she replied, "I am too busy to stop."
"We want to get some water from the spring," he explained. "Aren't you
coming over to-day?"
Celia shook her head.