ANOTHER STORY
"Oh, Miss Robbins!" exclaimed Belle.
"My dear! I am so sorry to see you ill!"
"Yes, but Cora----"
"Hush, my dear. You will not get strong while you worry so. Of course,
you cannot stop at once, but you must try."
Hazel, Betty and Bess had withdrawn. What a relief it was already to
have some one who just knew how to control Belle. It had been so
difficult for the young girls to try to console her, and her nerves had
worked so sadly upon their own.
"I suppose you thought I was a perfectly dreadful young woman," said Dr.
Robbins cheerily. "But you did not know (she sighed effectively) that
every one has her own troubles, while a doctor has her own and a whole
lot of others."
"Had you trouble?" Belle asked sympathetically.
"Indeed I had, and still have. You should know. But wait, I'll just
call the girls in and make a clean breast of it. It will save me further
trouble."
The tactful young doctor had planned to tell her story as much for the
purpose of diverting Belle's mind as for any other reason. She called to
the girls, who were in an adjoining room. How the strain of that one
dreadful week had told upon their fresh young faces! Bess had almost
lost her peach-blow; Hazel, never highly colored, but always bright of
eye, showed signs even of pallor; Betty had put on too much color, that
characteristic of the excitable disposition when the skin is the
thermometer of the nerves, and her eyes not only sparkled, but actually
glittered. All this was instantly apparent to the trained eye of the
young doctor.
"Come in, girls," she said. "I have decided to make a full confession."
They looked at her in astonishment. What could she mean? Might she have
married the sick man? This thought flashed into the mind of more than
one of the party.
"You thought I deserted you?" began Miss Robbins.
"It looked like it," murmured Bess.
"Well, when I went out on that lawn to work over the injured, I found
there a long-lost brother!"
"Brother?"
"Yes, really. It is a strange story, but for three years mother and I
have tried every means to find Leland. He was such a beautiful young
fellow, and such a joy to us, but he got interested in social problems,
and got to thinking that the poor were always oppressed, and all that
sort of thing. Well, he had just finished college, and we hoped for such
great things, when, after some warning enthusiasm, he disappeared."
"Ran away?" asked Hazel.
"Well, we thought at first he was drowned, for he used to sit for hours
on the beach talking to fishermen. But I never thought he had met with
any such misfortune. Leland is one of the individuals born to live. He
is too healthy, too splendid, a chap to up and die. Of course, mother
thought he must be dead, or he would not keep her in anxiety, but that is
the way these reformer minds usually work--spare your own and lose the
cause."
"And what did happen?" asked Betty, all interested.
"I happened to find him. There he lay, with his wonderful blond hair
burned in ugly spots, and his baby complexion almost----"
"Oh! are all his good looks gone?" gasped Belle--she who always stood up
for the beautiful in everything, even in young men.
"I hope not gone forever," said the doctor, "but, indeed, poor boy, he
had a narrow escape."
"But whatever took him into the kitchen?" asked Bess.
"He went down there among the foreigners to study actual conditions. Did
you ever hear of anything so idiotic? But that is his hobby. He has
been into all kinds of labor during these three long, sorrowful years."
"And you were helping your own brother! And we--blamed you!" It was
Belle who spoke.
"I could not blame you for so doing. I had been enjoined to secrecy the
very moment poor Leland laid his eyes on me. He begged me not even to
send word to mother, as he said it would spoil the research of an entire
year if he had to stop his work before the summer was entirely over."
"But he could not work--he is ill?" said Bess.
"Still, you see, he could keep among the men he had classed himself with,
and that is his idea of duty. I let mother know I had found him in spite
of his 'ideas,' but I did not tell her much more."
"Will he not go home with you?" asked Hazel.
"He has promised to give up cooking by October first. Then I am going to
collect him."
"What an interesting young man he must be," remarked Belle, to whom the
story had already brought some brightness.
"Oh, indeed he is," declared Miss Robbins. "He is younger than I, and
when I went to college he promised to do all sorts of stunts to prove my
problems. He even wanted to try living, or dying, on one sort of food;
wanted to remain up without sleeping until he fell over; wanted to sleep
in dark cellars to see what effect that would have; in fact, I thought we
would have to lock him up with a bodyguard to save his life, he was so
enthusiastic about my profession. And as to anti-vivisection! Why, at
one time he had twenty-five cats and four dogs in our small city yard to
save them from the possible fate of some of their kind. I tell you, we
had our hands full with pretty Leland."
"I should love him," said Belle suddenly and emphatically.
Every one laughed. It was actually the first real smile that had broken
the sadness of their lives in that long, dreary week. Belle returned the
charge with a contemptuous glance.
"I mean, of course, I should love him as a friend of humanity," she
answered.
"Cats and dogs!" exclaimed Betty.
"A friend of dumb animals is always a friend of humans," insisted Belle.
Dr. Robbins smiled. Her cure was already working, and, while her story
was correct, the recital of it had done more for those girls than had any
other attempted cure of their melancholy.
"Well, I cannot agree with you that one fond of animals--that is
excessively fond--is always very fond of mankind," she said. "Still, in
Leland's case, it was a curious mixture of both."
"He will become a great man," prophesied Hazel.
"If he does not kill himself in the trying," said the sister. "He came
too near it in the fire. But suppose he should insist on--on digging
sewers?"
"Oh, you could restrain him. That would be insane!" declared Bess.
"I don't know about that. Sewers have to be dug," contended Leland's
sister.
"I wish we might meet him," ventured Bess. "I am sure he would be an
inspiration."
Poor Bess! Always saying things backwards. He would be an
inspiration--in digging sewers!
"Well, you may some day, if he ever consents to become civilized again,"
said Dr. Robbins. "You see, he may take to the lecture platform, but
very likely the platform will be against his principles. He will want to
shout from the housetops!"
A step in the hall attracted them. It was Ed.
"Jack and I are going to town," he said, his face flushed with
excitement. "The detectives claim to have a clew."
"Oh, good! I knew Dr. Robbins would bring luck," declared Belle,
actually springing up from the couch. "I am going out in the air. I
feel as if Cora were here already!"
"Easy, Belle," cautioned the doctor. "We must insist upon discipline for
your mind and body. You must not waste energy. It is well to be
hopeful, but bad to get excited."
"But I can't help it."
"Now, girls, we will let you know at once over the 'phone if we have any
news," promised Ed, making his adieux. "We really are hopeful."
Hope, as contagious as fear, had sprung into the heart of each of them.
Yes, there must soon be news of Cora!