Miss Johns meets the new-comer with as large a share of kindness as she
can force into her manner; but her welcome lacks, somehow, the
sympathetic glow to which Adele has been used; it has not even the
spontaneity and heartiness which had belonged to the greeting of that
worldly woman, Mrs. Brindlock. And as the wondering little stranger
passes up the path, and into the door of the parsonage, with her hand in
that of the spinster, she cannot help contrasting the one cold kiss of
the tall lady in black with the shower of warm ones which her old
godmother had bestowed at parting. Yet in the eye of the Doctor sister
Eliza had hardly ever worn a more beaming look, and he was duly grateful
for the strong interest which she evidently showed in the child of his
poor friend. She had equipped herself indeed in her best silk and with
her most elaborate toilet, and had exhausted all her strategy,--whether
in respect of dress, of decorations for the chamber, or of the profuse
supper which was in course of preparation,--to make a profound and
favorable impression upon the heart of the stranger.
The spinster was not a little mortified at her evident want of success,
most notably in respect to the elaborate arrangements of the chamber of
the young guest, who seemed to regard the dainty hangings of the little
bed, and the scattered ornaments, as matters of course; but making her
way to the window which commanded a view of both garden and orchard,
Adele clapped her hands with glee at sight of the flaming hollyhocks and
the trees laden with golden pippins. It was, indeed, a pretty scene:
silvery traces of the brook sparkled in the green meadow below the
orchard, and the hills beyond were checkered by the fields of buckwheat
in broad patches of white bloom, and these again were skirted by masses
of luxuriant wood that crowned all the heights. To the eye of Adele,
used only to the bare hill-sides and scanty olive-orchards of
Marseilles, the view was marvellously fair.
"_Tiens!_ there are chickens and doves," said she, still gazing eagerly
out; "oh, I am sure I shall love this new home!"
And thus saying, she tripped back from the window to where Miss Eliza
was admiringly intent upon the unpacking and arranging of the little
wardrobe of her guest. Adele, in the flush of her joyful expectations
from the scene that had burst upon her out of doors, now prattled more
freely with the spinster,--tossing out the folds of her dresses, as they
successively came to light, with her dainty fingers, and giving some
quick, girlish judgment upon each.
"This godmother gave me, dear, good soul!--and she sewed this bow upon
it; isn't it coquette? And there is the white muslin,--oh, how
crushed!--that was for my church-dress, first communion, you know; but
papa said, 'Better wait,'--so I never wore it."
Thus woman and child grew into easy acquaintance over the great trunk of
Adele: the latter plunging her little hands among the silken folds of
dress after dress with the careless air of one whose every wish had been
petted; and the spinster forecasting the pride she would herself take in
accompanying this little sprite, in these French robes, to the house of
her good friends, the Hapgoods, or in exciting the wonderment of those
most excellent people, the Tourtelots.
Meantime Reuben, with a resolute show of boyish indifference, has been
straying off with Phil Elderkin, although he has caught a glimpse of the
carriage at the door. Later he makes his way into the study, where the
Doctor, after giving him kindly reproof for not being at home to welcome
them, urges upon him the duty of kindness to the young stranger who has
come to make her home with them, and trusts that Providence may overrule
her presence there to the improvement and blessing of both. It is, in
fact, a little lecture which the good, but prosy Doctor pronounces to
the boy; from which he slipping away, so soon as a good gap occurs in
the discourse, strolls with a jaunty affectation of carelessness into
the parlor. His Aunt Eliza is there now seated at the table, and Adele
standing by the hearth, on which a little fire has just been kindled.
She gives a quick, eager look at him, under which his assumed
carelessness vanishes in an instant.
"This is Adele, our little French guest, Reuben."
The lad throws a quick, searching glance upon her, but is abashed by the
look of half-confidence and half-merriment that he sees twinkling in her
eye. The boy's awkwardness seems to infect her, too, for a moment.
"I should think, Reuben, you would welcome Adele to the parsonage," said
the spinster.
And Reuben, glancing again from under his brow, sidles along the table,
with far less of ease than he had worn when he came whistling through
the hall,--sidles nearer and nearer, till she, with a coy approach that
seems to be full of doubt, meets him with a little furtive hand-shake.
Then he, retiring a step, leans with one elbow on the friendly table,
eying her curiously, and more boldly when he discovers that her look is
downcast, and that she seems to be warming her feet at the blaze.
Miss Johns has watched narrowly this approach of her two _proteges_,
with an interest quite uncommon to her; and now, with a policy that
would have honored a more adroit tactician, she slips quietly from the
room.
Reuben feels freer at this, knowing that the gray eye is not upon the
watch; Adele too, perhaps; at any rate, she lifts her face with a look
that invites Reuben to speech.
"You came in a ship, didn't you?"
"Oh, yes! a big, big ship!"
"I should like to sail in a ship," said Reuben; "did you like it?"
"Not very much," said Adele, "the deck was so slippery, and the waves
were so high, oh, so high!"--and the little maid makes an explanatory
gesture with her two hands, the like of which for grace and
expressiveness Reuben had certainly never seen in any girl of Ashfield.
His eyes twinkled at it.
"Were you afraid?" said he.
"Oh, not much."
"Because you know," said Reuben, consolingly, "if the ship had sunk, you
could have come on shore in the small boats." He saw a merry laugh of
wonderment threatening in her face, and continued authoritatively, "Nat
Boody has been in a sloop, and he says they always carry small boats to
pick up people when the big ships go down."
Adele laughed outright. "But how would they carry the bread, and the
stove, and the water, and the anchor, and all the things? Besides, the
great waves would knock a small boat in pieces."
Reuben felt a humiliating sense of being no match for the little
stranger on sea topics, so he changed the theme.
"Are you going to Miss Onthank's?"
"_That's_ a funny name," says Adele; "that's the school, isn't it? Yes,
I suppose I'll go there: you go, don't you?"
"Yes," says Reuben, "but I don't think I'll go very long."
"Why not?" says Adele.
"I'm getting too big to go to a girls' school," said Reuben.
"Oh!"--and there was a little playful malice in the girl's observation
that piqued the boy.
"Do the scholars like her?" continued Adele.
"Pretty well," said Reuben; "but she hung up a little girl about as big
as you, once, upon a nail in a corner of the school-room."
"_Quelle bete!_" exclaimed Adele.
"That's French, isn't it?"
"Yes, and it means she's a bad woman to do such things."
In this way they prattled on, and grew into a certain familiarity: the
boy entertaining an immense respect for her French, and for her
knowledge of the sea and ships; but stubbornly determined to maintain
the superiority which he thought justly to belong to his superior age
and sex.
That evening, after the little people were asleep, the spinster and the
Doctor conferred together in regard to Adele. It was agreed between them
that she should enter at once upon her school duties, and that
particular inquiry concerning her religious beliefs, particular
instruction on that score,--further than what belonged to the judicious
system of Miss Onthank,--should be deferred for the present. At the same
time the Doctor enjoined upon his sister the propriety of commencing
upon the next Saturday evening the usual instructions in the Shorter
Catechism, and of insisting upon punctual attendance upon the family
devotions. The good Doctor hoped by these appointed means gradually to
ripen the religious sensibilities of the little stranger, so that she
might be prepared for that stern denunciation of those follies of the
Romish Church amid which she had been educated, and that it would be his
duty at no distant day to declare to her.
The spinster had been so captivated by a certain air of modish elegance
in Adele as to lead her almost to forget the weightier obligations of
her Christian duty toward her. She conceived that she would find in her
a means of recovering some influence over Reuben,--never doubting that
the boy would be attracted by her frolicsome humor, and would be eager
for her companionship. It was possible, moreover, that there might be
some appeal to the boy's jealousies, when he found the favors which he
had spurned were lavished upon Adele. It was therefore in the best of
temper and with the airiest of hopes (though not altogether spiritual
ones) that Miss Eliza conducted the discussion with the Doctor. In two
things only they had differed, and in this each had gained and each lost
a point. The Doctor utterly refused to conform his pronunciation to the
rigors which Miss Eliza prescribed; for him Adele should be always and
only Adaly. On the other hand, the parson's exactions in regard to
sundry modifications of the little girl's dress miscarried: the spinster
insisted upon all the furbelows as they had come from the hands of the
French modiste; and in this she left the field with flying colors.
The next day Doctor Johns wrote to his friend Maverick, announcing the
safe arrival of his child at Ashfield, and spoke in terms which were
warm for him, of the interest which both his sister and himself felt in
her welfare. "He was pained," he said, "to perceive that she spoke
almost with gayety of serious things, and feared greatly that her keen
relish for the beauties and delights of this sinful world, and her
exuberant enjoyment of mere temporal blessings, would make it hard to
wean her from them and to centre her desires upon the eternal world.
But, my friend, all things are possible with God: and I shall diligently
pray that she may return to you, in a few years, sobered in mind, and a
self-denying missionary of the true faith."