The following June Priscilla Glenn graduated. She and John Boswell grew
quite merry over the event.
"I really can't let you spend anything on me," she said laughingly;
"nothing more than the cost of a few flowers. I have the awful weight of
debt upon me at the beginning of my career. One hundred dollars to Master
Farwell, and----"
"The funeral expenses of that poor waif you were so interested in! My
dear child, you are as niggardly with your philanthropies as you are with
your favours. Why not be generous with me? And, by the way, can you tell
me just why that young fellow appealed to you so? I daresay other
'unknowns' drift into St. Albans."
"He looked--you will think me foolish, Mr. Boswell--but he looked like
some one I once knew in Kenmore."
The warm June day drifted sunnily into Boswell's study window. There was
a fragrance of flowers and the note of birds. Priscilla, in her plain
white linen dress, was sitting on the broad window seat, and Boswell,
from his winged chair, looked at her with a tightening of the throat.
There were times when she made him feel as he felt when Farwell Maxwell
used to look at him before the shadow fell between them--the shadow that
darkened both their lives.
"And that was why you had a--a Kenmore name graven on the stone?"
"Yes, Mr. Boswell, Jerry-Jo McAlpin. Jerry-Jo is dead, too, you know.
They name living people after dead ones. Why not dead people?"
"Why, indeed? It's quite an idea. Quite an original idea. But as to my
spending money on your graduation, a little more added to what you
already owe me will not count, and, besides, there is that trifle left
from Farwell's loan still to your credit."
"Now, Mr. Boswell, don't press me too close! I was a sad innocent when
I came from the In-Place, and a joke is a joke, but you mustn't bank on
it."
The bright head nodded cheerfully at the small, crumpled figure in the
deep chair.
"After you live in New York three years, Mr. Boswell, you never mistake
a shilling for a dollar, sir. But just because it is such a heavenly
day--and between you and me, how much of that magic fund is left?"
"I've mislaid my account," Boswell replied, the look that Toky watched
for stealing over his thin face; "but, roughly speaking, I should say
that, with the interest added, about fifty dollars, perhaps a trifle
more."
Priscilla threw back her head and laughed merrily.
"I can understand why people say your style is so absorbing," she said
presently; "you make even the absurd seem probable."
"Who have you heard comment on my style?" Boswell leaned forward. He was
as sensitive as a child about his work.
"Oh, one of the doctors at St. Albans told me that, to him, you were the
Hans Christian Andersen of grown-ups. He always reads you after a long
strain."
A flush touched the sallow cheeks, and the long, white fingers tapped the
chair arms nervously.
"Well!" with a satisfied laugh, "I can prove the amount to your credit in
this case without resorting to my style. Would you mind going into your
old room and looking at the box that you will find on the couch?"
Priscilla ran lightly from the study, her eyes and cheeks telling the
story of her delight.
The box was uncovered. Some sympathetic hand, as fine as a woman's, had
bared the secret for her. No mother could possibly have thought out
detail and perfection more minutely. There it lay, the gift of a generous
man to a lonely girl, everything for her graduating night! The filmy gown
with its touch of colour in embroidered thistle flowers; the slippers and
gloves; even the lace scarf, cloud-like and alluring; the long gloves and
silken hose.
Down beside the couch Priscilla knelt and pressed her head against the
sacred gift. She did not cry nor laugh, but the rapt look that used to
mark her hours before the shrine in Kenmore grew and grew upon her face.
"You will accept? You think I did well in my--shopping?"
Boswell stood in the doorway, just where a long path of late June
sunlight struck across the room. For the girl, looking mutely at him with
shining eyes, he was transfigured, translated. Only the great, tender
soul was visible to her; the unasking, the kind spirit. Moved by a sudden
impulse, Priscilla rose to her feet and walked to him with outstretched
hands; when she reached him he took her hands in his and smiled up at
her.
"I--I accept," she whispered with a break in her voice. "You have made
me--happier than I have ever been in my life!"
Boswell drew her hands to his lips and kissed them.
"And you will come and see me in them"--Priscilla turned her eyes to the
box--"when I--dance?"
"You are to dance?"
"We are all to dance."
"I have not seen you dance for many a day. If you dance as you once did
there will be only you dancing. Yes, I will come."
And Boswell went. The exercises were held in the little chapel. From his
far corner he watched the young women, in uniforms of spotless white,
file to the platform for their diplomas. They all merged, for him, into
one--a tall, lithe creature with burnished hair, coppery and fine, and an
exalted face. Later, from behind the mass of palms and ferns in the
dancing hall, he saw only one girl--a girl in white with the tints of
the thistle flower matching the deep eyes.
And Priscilla danced. Some one, a young doctor, asked her, and
fortunately for him he was a master hand at following. After a moment of
surprise, tinged with excited determination, he found himself, with his
brilliant partner, the centre of attraction.
"Look! oh, do look at the little Canuck!" cried a classmate.
"I never saw any one dance as she does"--it was Doctor Travers who spoke
from the doorway beside Mrs. Thomas--"but once before. It's quite
primeval, an instinct. No one can teach or acquire such grace as that."
Then, suddenly, and apropos of nothing, apparently:
"By the way, Mrs. Thomas, Miss Moffatt has been ordered abroad by Doctor
Ledyard. He spoke to-day about securing a companion-nurse for her. She's
not really ill, but in rather a curious nervous condition. I was
wondering if----" His eyes followed Priscilla, who was nearing the
cluster of palms behind which Boswell sat.
"Of course!" Mrs. Thomas smiled broadly; "Miss Glynn, of course! She's
made to order. The girl has her way to make. She's been rather overdoing
lately. I don't like the look in her eyes at times. She never asks for
sympathy or consideration, you understand, but she makes every woman, and
man, too, judging by that rich cripple, Mr. Boswell, yearn over her.
She'd be the merriest soul on earth, with half a chance, and she's the
most capable girl I have: ready for an emergency; never weary. Why, of
course, Miss Glynn!"
"I'll speak to Doctor Ledyard to-night," said Travers.
Then, strangely enough, Travers realized that he was very tired. He
excused himself, and, walking back through the dim city streets to the
Ledyard home, he thought of Kenmore and the old lodge as he had not for
years.
"I believe I'll run up there this summer," he muttered half aloud. "I'll
take mother and urge Doctor Ledyard to join us. I would like to see how
far I've travelled from the In-Place in--why it's years and years! All
the way from boyhood to manhood."
But Ledyard changed the current of his desire. The older man was sitting
in his library when Travers entered, and Helen Travers was in the deep
window opening to the little garden space behind the house.
Time had dealt so gently with Helen that now, in her thin white gown, she
looked even younger than in the Kenmore days, when her dress had been
more severe.
"You're late," said Ledyard, looking keenly at him.
"Very late," echoed Helen, smiling. "I had dinner here and am waiting to
be escorted home."
"She's refused my company. Where have you been, Dick?"
"I had to give out the diplomas, you know, at St. Albans."
"It's after eleven now, Dickie." Helen's gaze was full of gentle pride.
"I stopped for an hour to see those little girls play."
"The nurses?" Ledyard frowned. "Girls and nurses are not one and the same
thing, to a doctor."
"Oh, come, come, dear friend!" Helen Travers went close to the two who
were dearest to her in the world. "Do not be unmerciful. Being a woman,
I must stand up for my sex. Did they play prettily, Dick? I'm sure they
did not look as dear as they do in their uniforms."
"One did. She was--well, to put it concisely, she was a--dance!"
"Umph! That ruddy-headed one, I bet!" Ledyard turned on another electric
light. "See here, Dick, do you think that girl could go abroad with
Gordon Moffatt's daughter? Moffatt spoke about her. She rather impressed
him while he was in St. Albans. She stood up against him. He never
forgets that sort; he swears at it, but he trusts it. The old housekeeper
is going along to keep the party in order, but a trained hand ought to
go, too. The Moffatt girl has the new microbe--Unrest. It's playing the
devil with her nerves. She's got to be jogged into shape."
"I think we could prevail upon Miss Glynn to go. She has her way to make.
She's been rather----" Travers stopped short; he was quoting Mrs. Thomas
too minutely.
"Rather what, Dick?" Helen had her head against her boy's shoulder.
"Hunting a job," he lied manfully. "Most of those girls are up against it
once the training is over."
"And Dick," Helen raised her eyes, "Doctor Ledyard and I were talking
of a trip abroad this summer for--ourselves. Will you come? We want the
off-the-track places. Little by-products, you know. I'm hungry for--well,
for detachment; but with those I love."
"Just the thing, little mother, just the thing!" The In-Place faded from
sight. In its stead rose a lonely mountain peak that caught the first
touch of day and held it longest. A little lake lay at its foot, and
there was the old house where he and Helen had spent so much of the
summer while he and she were abroad!
"Where does Miss Moffatt intend to go?" asked Travers.
"That's it. Her ideas at present are typical of her condition. 'Snip
the cord that holds me,' she said to me to-day; 'beg father to give
me a handful of blank checks and old Mousey'--that's what she calls
the housekeeper--'buy a nice nurse for me in case I need one--a nice
un-nurse-like nurse,' she stipulated--'and let me play around the world
for a few months to see if I can find my real self hiding in some cranny;
then I'll come back and be good!' The girl's a fool, but most girls are
when they've been brought up as she has been. Moffatt is at his wits'
end. Young Clyde Huntter is on the carpet just now. Think of that match!
think of what it would mean to Moffatt! There are times when I regret the
club and cliff-dwelling age where women are concerned."
"Now, now, my dear friend, please remember my sex."
Helen ran from Richard to Ledyard. "We're all fagged, and the June night
is sultry. After all, girls, even women, should be allowed a mind of
their own! Take me home, Dick, I'm deeply offended." She smiled and held
out her hands.
"If they were all as sane as you, Helen," Ledyard's glance softened. "You
are exceptional."
"Every woman is an exceptional something, good friend, if only an
exceptional fool. I'm rather proud of Margaret Moffatt's determination to
have her way, and that idea of finding herself in some cranny of the old
world is simply beautiful. I wonder----"
"What, Helen?"
"I wonder if an old lady like me, a lady with hair turning frosty, might,
by any possibility, find _her_ real self left back there--oh! ages, ages
before--well, before things happened which she never understood?"
Ledyard's eyes grew moist, but he made no reply.
It was three days later that Priscilla Glenn received a note from
Margaret Moffatt, but she had already been prepared for it by Doctor
Ledyard and Mrs. Thomas.
"Since they think I need a nurse," the note ran, "will you call at eleven
to-morrow and see if you consider me sufficiently damaged to require your
care? From what father says, I am prepared to succumb to you at once.
Both father and I like strong oppositions!"
The June weather had turned chilly after the brief spell of heat, and
when Priscilla was ushered into Margaret Moffatt's private library she
found a bright cannel coal fire in the little grate, beside which sat a
tall, handsome girl in house gown of creamy white.
"And so you are--Miss Glynn?"
As a professional accepts a non de plume, Priscilla had accepted her
name.
"Yes. And you are--Miss Moffatt?"
"Please sit down--no, not way off there! Won't you take this chair beside
me? I'm rather an uncanny person, I warn you. If I do not like to have
you close to me now, we could never get on--across the water! What
belongs to me, and what I ought to have, is mine from the first. Besides,
I want you to know the worst of me--for your own sake. Would you mind
taking off your hat? You have the most cheerful hair I ever saw."
Priscilla laid her broad-brimmed hat aside and laughed lightly. She was
as uncanny as Margaret Moffatt, but she could not have described the
charm that drew her to the girl across the hearth.
"I'm rather a hopelessly cheerful person," she said, settling herself
comfortably; "it's probably my chief virtue--or shortcoming."
"You know I am not a bit sick--bodily, Miss Glynn. It's positively
ridiculous to have a nurse for me, but if I am to get my way with my
father I must humour him. A dear old family servant is going with me.
Father did want a private cook and guide, but we've compromised on--you!
I do hope you'll undertake the contract. I'm not half bad when I have my
way. Do you think, now that you have seen me for fifteen minutes, that
you could--tolerate me; take the chance?"
"I should be very glad to be with you." Priscilla beamed.
"Your eyes are--blue, I declare! Miss Glynn, by all the laws of nature
you should have eyes as dark as mine."
"Yes; an old nurse back in my Canadian home used to say I was made of the
odds and ends of all the children my mother had and lost."
"What a quaint idea! I believe she was right, too. That will make you
adaptable. Miss Glynn, let me tell you something, just enough to begin
on, about myself--as a case. I'm tired to death of everything that has
gone before; I do not fit in anywhere. I believe I'm quite a different
person from what every one else believes; I've never had a chance to
know myself; I've been interpreted by--by generations, traditions, and
those who love me. I want to get far enough away to--get acquainted with
myself, and then if I am what I hope I am, I will return like a happy
queen and triumphantly enter my kingdom. If I am not worthy--well, we
will not talk about that! Something, I may tell you some day, has
suddenly awakened me. I'm rather blinded and deafened. I must have time.
Can you bear with me?"
Margaret Moffatt leaned forward in her chair. Priscilla saw that her
large brown eyes were tear-filled; the strong, white, outstretched
hands trembling. A wave of sympathy, understanding, and great liking
overwhelmed Priscilla, and she rose suddenly and stood beside the girl.
"I--think I was meant--to help you," she said so simply that she could
not be misunderstood. "When do we--go?"
"Go? Oh! you mean on the hunt for myself?"
"Yes."
"Father has the refusal of staterooms on two steamers. Could you start
in--a week? Or shall we say three weeks?"
"It will not take me a day to get ready. My uniforms----"
"Please, Miss Glynn, leave them behind. I'm sure you're just a nice girl
besides being a splendid nurse. I want the nice girl with me."
"Very well. That may take two days longer."
"We'll sail, then, in a week. And will you--will you--will you accept
something in advance, since time is so short?"
"Something----?"
"Yes. Your--your salary, you know."
"Oh, you mean money? I had forgot. I shall be glad to have some. I am
very poor."
Again the simple, frank dignity touched Margaret Moffatt with pleasurable
liking.
"It's to be a hundred and fifty dollars a month and all expenses paid,
Miss Glynn."
"A hundred and fifty? Oh! I cannot----"
"Doctor Ledyard arranged it with my father. You see, they know what you
are to undergo. I rather incline to the belief that they consider they
are making quite a bargain. I hate to see you cover your hair. Somehow
you seem to be dimming the sunshine. Good-bye until----"
"Day after to-morrow."
"I will send a check to St. Albans to-night, Miss Glynn."
And she did. A check for two hundred dollars with a box of yellow
roses--Sunrise roses they were called.