SOCIETY
Three more days of Alice's visit in Boston had passed, and quickly to
her. Blanch had kept her threat, and literally taken possession of her
new friend, and installed her in the guest room of the Nason residence.
Then she set out to entertain Alice to the best of her ample ability. To
be taken in hand, as it were, by a highly cultured and wealthy young
lady, and to have a liveried and obsequious coachman on duty to convey
them anywhere and everywhere, was a new experience, and a decided change
from Sandgate. The two went shopping mornings, and to matinées or made
calls afternoons, or discussed styles and effects with modistes;
evenings it was a theatre or else a quiet evening at home, when Mr.
Nason was in evidence. As for Frank, he was barely allowed the privilege
of procuring tickets and buying bonbons, or else making one of a rubber
of whist. "Don't you dare to say any sweet things while she is here,"
Blanch had cautioned him at the outset. "In the first place it is not
good form, and in the second it would offend her. Be as gallant as you
know how, but do not let mamma see that you are any more attentive to
Alice than to Ede and I. If you hope to win your pretty schoolma'am you
must pay your court in her own home, not here." It is needless to say
Frank obeyed. It was not long ere Alice began to feel herself quite at
home in the Nason family, and to notice that Mrs. Nason treated her in a
motherly way which was both nice and kind. That excellent lady also
expressed a warm sympathy for Alice in her orphaned condition, and
showed an interest in her occupation at home.
"I see that you are fond of your little charges," she said, after Alice
had described her school and some of the peculiarities of her pupils who
wore out-grown roundabouts or calico pinafores, "and I suppose they grow
fond of you as well."
"I try to make them," replied Alice, "and I find that is the easiest way
to govern them. I seldom have to punish any one, and when I do it hurts
me more than the culprit. In a way, children are like grown people and a
little tact and a few words said in the right way are more potent than
fear of punishment."
"And do you not find life in so small a place rather monotonous?" asked
Mrs. Nason.
"Oh, yes," replied Alice, "it is not much like city life as I
understand it; but having lived in the country all my life, as I have, I
am accustomed to it and do not mind. It is delightful to have theatres
and the excitement of social duties, as I imagine you have all the time,
and yet I am not sure I should like it. I fancy once in a while I should
sigh for a shady spot in the woods in summer where I could read a book
or hear the birds sing. It is only in winter that I should like to live
in the city."
But the pleasant days of Alice's stay in Boston passed rapidly until
only two were left, when Blanch said to her, "I have invited a few of my
friends here to meet you to-night, and I want you to do me a favor, and
that is, sing for me."
"Oh, please do not ask that," replied Alice hastily. "I do not sing well
enough, and fear that some of your friends might be critics, and that
would quite upset me."
"But you sing in church," assented Blanch, "and that is much harder."
"That is nothing," answered Alice, smiling; "not one in ten of those
country people know one note from another, and that fact makes me
indifferent. Here not only all your people, but all your friends, hear
the finest operatic singers, and poor I would cut a sorry figure in
contrast."
"But you will sing just once to please me, won't you?" pleaded Blanch.
"I will not promise," was the answer; "I will see how many are here and
how my courage holds out."
When that evening came Blanch waited until Alice had become somewhat
acquainted with the little gathering and the reserve had worn away, when
she went to her and putting one arm around her waist, whispered, "Come,
now, dear, just one little song; only one to please me." At first Alice
thought to refuse, but somehow the pride that was in her came to the
rescue, and the feeling that she would show her friend that she was not
a timid country girl gave her the needed courage, and she arose and
stepped across the room to the grand piano that stood in one corner. Her
cheeks were flushed, and a defiant curl was on her lips, and then
without a moment's hesitation she seated herself and sang "The Last Rose
of Summer." She had sung it many, many times before, and every trill and
exquisite quiver of its wondrous pathos was as familiar to her as the
music of the brook where she had played in childhood. I am not certain
but some of that brook's sweet melody came as an inspiration to her, for
now she sang as she never had before, and to an audience that listened
entranced. When the last sweet note had passed her red lips she arose
quickly and returned to her seat; and then, had she not been so modest
that she dared not look at any one, she would have seen two little tears
steal out of Mrs. Nason's eyes, to be quickly brushed away with a
priceless bit of lace. Sweet Alice, the motherless little country girl,
had from that moment entered the heart of Mrs. Nason and won a regard
she hardly realized then; in fact, not at all until long afterward. When
the applause had subsided it was Frank that next pleaded.
"Won't you sing one for me now, Miss Page?" he asked. "I bought the song
I wanted to-day," and going to the piano he unrolled and spread upon the
music rack--"Ben Bolt"!
"But I only consented to sing once for Blanch," Alice replied, "and
there are others here who I am sure can do much better."
"Come, please," he said coaxingly, "just this one for me." And then once
more Alice touched the keys.
Back to a simply furnished parlor in Sandgate, with its lamp on the
piano and open fire burning brightly as it had one year ago, went two of
that company in thought, and maybe others there, whose youth had been
among country scenes, were carried back to them by the singer's voice,
and saw a by-way schoolhouse "and a shaded nook by a running brook," in
fancy; or perhaps a little white stone in some grass-grown corner,
where, "obscure and alone," lay a boyhood's sweetheart! For all the
pathos of our lost youth trilled in the voice of Alice Page as she sang
that old, old song of the long ago. And not one in that little audience
but was enthralled by the winsome witchery of her voice, and for the
moment was young again in thought and feeling. As for Mrs. Nason, when
the guests had departed she turned to Alice, and taking her face in her
hands exclaimed, "I want to kiss the lips that have brought tears to my
eyes to-night."
Sweet Alice had won her crown.
The last evening of her visit she decided to spend with her brother, and
when she came to bid adieu to her hostess, that much dreaded haughty
mother had resolved herself into a charming old lady, who said: "Now I
can see why my daughter went into raptures over some one who I hope will
visit us again and stay much longer." It was a graceful tribute, and one
that touched the motherless girl as few words could.
"It is odd, Bertie," she said to her brother that evening, when they
were alone together, "how different people seem when one comes to know
them. Now from one or two things which you have said, and an admission
that Frank made a year ago, I felt I should be sure to hate his mother,
and now I think she is perfectly lovely."
"So she is to those she likes," answered Albert, "but if you had not
shown the tact you have, my dear sis, I am not sure you would now be
praising her. You carried her heart by storm last evening, as well as
the rest of the company, and you deserved it, for I never heard you sing
so well."
"I am glad I didn't break down, anyway," she replied, "for when I
touched the piano my heart seemed in my mouth."
"Yes, and in your voice, too," he replied with pride, "and that is what
carried us all away."
For an hour they discussed the Nasons, while Albert noticed his sister
avoided any mention of Frank, and then he said: "Well, sis, which of the
rents we have looked at do you think I best engage and when will you be
ready to move?"
Alice was silent and for a few minutes she pursed her lips and looked at
the chilly shipwreck scene near her as if it contained a revelation.
"I am not so sure," she answered finally, "that we should make the
change at present. If I were certain your beautiful waif of the sea
would adhere to her filial resolution, it would be different, but I am
not. If you secure this legacy for her that you told me about and she
donates it to those old people, as you say she intends to, why the next
thing will be an invitation to my dear brother's wedding, and that is
one reason why I hesitate to make this change. Another is that I do not
think it would be good for Aunt Susan. She says she is ready and
willing, but when she has left all the associations of her life behind,
she will just sit and grieve her poor old heart away in silence."
Albert did not and could not answer all these surmises, and to a certain
extent he felt that his sister was right. He certainly meant to coax
Telly to marry him, even if she insisted on spending most of her time
where she felt her duty called her. Then he had felt all along that
Alice might be persuaded to become one of the Nason family, though his
Thanksgiving visit had about dispelled that idea. As for Aunt Susan, if
the proposed change was not likely to be a permanent one, it would not
be best to make it at all. Deliberating thus he sat in silence for a
time, and leisurely puffed smoke rings in the air as he studied the
ceiling. Finally an idea came to him.
"My dear sister," he said, "have you considered or do you consider
Frank in your calculations? and if so, where does he come in, may I
ask?"
Alice's blue eyes assumed an expression like unto a pansy, and her face
the placidity of a mill-pond as she answered, "I had quite forgotten his
existence!"