Mrs. Simpson Kennard was sitting in her pretty morning room with her
baby on her knee. She looked across the room at her sister who was
paying her a visit. "I wish you had a little child to love, Isabelle. It
makes life so different. I am just wrapped up in Florimel."
"For pity's sake, Marion," cried Isabelle peevishly, "don't you grow to
be one of those tiresome women who think the whole world is interested
in a baby's tooth! I certainly do not echo your wish. I think children
are a nuisance."
Marion caught up her baby in dismay. "Why, Isabelle, just think how much
they do for us! They broaden our sympathies--I read that only the other
day, and----"
"Broaden your fiddlesticks!" said Isabelle contemptuously. "Easy for you
to talk when you have everything you want! If you had to live in that
poky little house in Marlborough, I guess you would not find anything
very broadening about them!
"It is perfectly preposterous to think of our being reduced to such a
style of living!" she continued, as Mrs. Kennard strove to soothe her
baby's injured feelings with kisses. "Just fancy, only one servant! I
never thought a Hildreth would fall so low."
"But you and Mamma are comfortable, Isabelle. It is not as if you were
forced to do anything."
"Do anything!" echoed Isabelle. "Are you going crazy?"
"Well, see how hard Evadne has to work? and she is a Hildreth as well as
you."
"Evadne!" said Isabelle sarcastically, "with her nerves of steel and
spine of adamant! Evadne will never kill herself with work. She is too
much taken up with her wealthy private patients. You should have seen
her driving round with the Hawthornes in their elegant carriage And I
reduced to dependence upon the electric cars! I don't see how she
manages to worm her way into people's confidence as she seems to do. I
couldn't, but then I have such a horror of being forward."
"'All doors are open to those who smile.' I believe that is the reason,
Isabelle."
"Stuff and nonsense!" was Miss Hildreth's inelegant reply.
"She is a dear girl, Isabelle. Why will you persist in disliking her
so?"
"Oh, pray spare me any panegyrics!" said Isabelle carelessly. "It is bad
enough to have Louis blazing up like a volcano if one has the temerity
to mention her ladyship's name."
"How is Louis?" asked Mrs. Kennard, finding she was treading on
dangerous ground.
"Oh, the same as usual. He looks like a ghost, and is about as cheerful
as a cemetery. He spends his holidays going over musty old letters in
papa's desk. I'm sure I don't see what fun he finds in it. It is so
selfish in him, when he might be giving mamma and me some pleasure--but
Louis never did think of anyone but himself. One day I found him
stretched across the desk and it gave me such a fright! You know what a
state my nerves are in. I thought he was in a fit or something,--he just
looked like death, and he didn't seem to hear me when I called. He had a
large envelope addressed to papa in his hand and there was another under
his arm that didn't look as if it had ever been opened, but I couldn't
see the address. I ran for mamma, but before we got back he was gone and
the letters with him. Whatever it was, it has had an awful effect upon
him, though he won't give us any satisfaction, you know how provoking he
is. It is my belief he is going into decline, and I have such a horror
of contagious diseases!
"If Evadne is so anxious to work, why doesn't she come and help mamma
and me? It is the least she could do after all we have done for her, but
as mamma says, 'It is just a specimen of the ingratitude there is in the
world.'"
* * * * *
The months rolled by and Evadne sat one afternoon in the
superintendent's reception room reading a letter which the postman had
just delivered. It bore the Vernon postmark.
She had seen but little of Mrs. Everidge through the years which
followed her graduation. She had been constantly busy and her aunt's
hands had been full, for her husband's health had failed utterly and he
demanded continual care. Now her long, beautiful ministry was over, for
Horace Everidge, serenely selfish to the last, had fallen into the
slumber which knows no earthly waking, and Aunt Marthe was free.
"I do not know what it means," she wrote, "but something tells me I
shall not be long in Vernon. I am just waiting to see what work the King
has for me to do."
Evadne pressed the letter to her lips. "Dear Aunt Marthe! If the
majority had had your 'tribulum' they would think they had earned the
right to play!"
She looked up. John Randolph was standing before her with a package in
his hands.
"I have been commissioned by the Hawthornes to give this into your own
possession," he said with a smile.
She opened it wonderingly. Bonds and certificates of stock bearing her
name. What did it mean? John Randolph had drawn a chair opposite her and
was watching her face closely.
"You cannot think what long consultations we have held on the subject of
what you would like," he said, "you seemed to have no wishes of your
own. At last a happy thought struck Reginald, and he sent me a power of
attorney to make the transfer of these bonds and stocks to you. It is a
Trust Fund to be used to help souls. We all thought that would please
you best of all. You are a rich woman, Miss Hildreth."
A great wave of joy swept over her bewildered face. "So God has sent me
the fulfilment of my dream!" she said softly. And John Randolph
understood.
That evening she wrote to Mrs. Everidge.
"Dear Aunt Marthe,--The King's work is waiting for you in Marlborough.
The work that we used to long for--the joy of lifting the shadows from
the hearts of the heavy laden--God has given to you and me!"
* * * * *
"Why should you not come to 'The Willows'?"
John Randolph put the question one afternoon, as they were enjoying Miss
Diana's hospitality in the fragrant porch. Evadne had just finished a
merry recital of their woes.
"We have looked at houses until we are fairly distracted, Aunt Marthe
and I. One had a cellar kitchen, and I am not going to have my good Dyce
buried in a cellar kitchen; and one had no bathroom, and another was all
stairs; and they are all nothing but brick and mortar with a scrap of
sky between. I want trees and water and fields. The poor souls have
enough of masonry in their daily lives."
"I believe it is decreed that you should come here," he continued, after
the first exclamations of surprise were over. "It is just the work our
lady delights in, and she cannot be left alone. Dick goes to College
next month and I must live in town. The house is beautiful for
situation, and a threefold cord of love and faith cannot easily be
broken."
He looked round upon them, this man who found his joy in helping others,
and waited for their answer.
"It would be beautiful, beautiful!" cried Evadne, "if Miss
Chillingworth were willing. But the house is not large enough, Doctor
Randolph, we shall need three or four guest chambers, you know."
"Nothing easier than to build an addition," said John, with the quiet
reserve of power which always made his patients believe in the
impossible.
Evadne laid her hand upon Miss Chillingworth's--"Dear Miss Diana," she
said gently, "you do not say 'No' to us; do you think you could ever
find it in your heart to say 'Yes'? I know it must seem a terrible
innovation, but we could never have imagined anything half so
delightful, Aunt Marthe and I. The atmosphere--outdoors and in--is
perfection!"
Miss Diana looked at the sparkling face and then at Mrs. Everidge with
her gentle smile. "I find myself _very_ glad," she said, "since I have
to lose my boys, but do you think we had better make any definite plans,
dear, until we have talked it over with the Lord?"
And John Randolph said to Evadne with eyes that were suspiciously
bright; "It is impossible for anyone to get very far from the Kingdom,
when they live with our Lady Di."
The talk had wandered then to different subjects, and John Randolph
listened to the soft play of Evadne's fancy and watched the light in
her wonderful eyes. Her nature, so long repressed in an uncongenial
environment, in this new soil of love and sympathy was blossoming richly
and he found her very fair. He had rarely seen her resting. Now the
shapely hands were folded together in a beautiful stillness--and then
the breeze had waved aside a flower, and a sunbeam, darting through the
trellis, fell upon the stone in her ring and made it sparkle with a
baleful fire!
"Poor Louis!" Isabelle had said, the last time he had been called to
prescribe for her frequently recurring attacks of indisposition, "he
will have to wait for promotion now before he can think of marriage. It
is very hard for him."
So again the truth and the lie had mingled.