It was some moments before she asked in a guilty voice: "What did
you _do_?"
"What did you tell me to do?"
"I asked you to be kind to Harriet," she murmured mournfully.
"You told me to take her out into the darkest place I could find
and to sit there with her and hold her hand."
"I did not tell you to hold her hand. I told you to _try_ to hold
her hand."
"Well! I builded better than you knew: give me my flowers."
"What did you do?" she asked again, in a voice that admitted the
worst.
"How do I know? I was thinking of something else! But here comes
Harriet," he said, quickly standing up and gazing down the street.
"Go in," said Miss Anna, "I want to see Harriet alone."
"_You_ go in. The porch isn't dark; but I'll stay here with her!"
"Please."
When he had gone, Miss Anna leaned over and lifting the bouquet
from the sticking cherry seed tossed it into the yard--tossed it
_far_.
Harriet came out into the porch looking wonderfully fresh. "How do
you do, Anna?" she said with an accent of new cordiality,
established cordiality.
The accent struck Miss Anna's ear as the voice of the bouquet. She
had at once discovered also that Harriet was beautifully
dressed--even to the point of wearing her best gloves.
"Oh, good morning, Harriet," she replied, giving the yellow bowl an
unnecessary shake and speaking quite incidentally as though the
visit were not of the slightest consequence. She did not invite
Harriet to be seated. Harriet seated herself.
"Aren't you well, Anna?" she inquired with blank surprise.
"I am always well."
"Is any one ill, Anna?"
"Not to my knowledge."
Harriet knew Miss Anna to have the sweetest nature of all women.
She realized that she herself was often a care to her friend. A
certain impulse inspired her now to give assurance that she had not
come this morning to weigh her down with more troubles.
"Do you know, Anna, I never felt so well! Marguerite's ball really
brought me out. I have turned over a new leaf of destiny and I am
going out more after this. What right has a woman to give up life
so soon? I shall go out more, and I shall read more, and be a
different woman, and cease worrying you. Aren't women reading
history now? But then they are doing everything. Still that is
no reason why I should not read a little, because my mind is really
a blank on the subject of the antiquities. Of course I can get the
ancient Hebrews out of the Bible; but I ought to know more about
the Greeks and Romans. Now oughtn't I?"
"You don't want to know anything about the Greeks and the Romans,
Harriet," said Miss Anna. "Content yourself with the earliest
Hebrews. You have gotten along very well without the Greeks and
the Romans--for--a--long--time."
Harriet understood at last; there was no mistaking now. She was a
very delicate instrument and much used to being rudely played upon.
Her friend's reception of her to-day had been so unaccountable that
at one moment she had suspected that her appearance might be at
fault. Harriet had known women to turn cold at the sight of a new
gown; and it had really become a life principle not to dress even
as well as she could, because she needed the kindness that flows
out so copiously from new clothes to old clothes. But it was
embarrassment that caused her now to say rather aimlessly:
"I believe I feel overdressed. What possessed me?"
"Don't overdress again," enjoined Miss Anna in stern confidence.
"Never try to change yourself in anyway. I like you better as you
are--a--great--deal--better."
"Then you shall have me as you like me, Anna dear," replied
Harriet, faithfully and earnestly, with a faltering voice; and she
looked out into the yard with a return of an expression very old
and very weary. Fortunately she was short-sighted and was thus
unable to see her bouquet which made such a burning blot on the
green grass, with the ribbon trailing beside it and the card still
holding on as though determined to see the strange adventure
through to the end.
"Good-by, Anna," she said, rising tremblingly, though at the
beginning of her visit.
"Oh, good-by, Harriet," replied Miss Anna, giving a cheerful shake
to the yellow bowl.
As Harriet walked slowly down the street, a more courageously
dressed woman than she had been for years, her chin quivered and
she shook with sobs heroically choked back.
Miss Anna went into the library and sat down near the door. Her
face which had been very white was scarlet again: "What was it you
did--tell me quickly. I cannot stand it."
He came over and taking her cheeks between his palms turned her
face up and looked down into her eyes. But she shut them quickly.
"What do you suppose I did? Harriet and I sat for half an hour in
another room. I don't remember what I did; but it could not have
been anything very bad: others were all around us."
She opened her eyes and pushed him away harshly: "I have wounded
Harriet in her most sensitive spot; and then I insulted her after I
wounded her," and she went upstairs.
Later he found the bouquet on his library table with the card stuck
in the top. The flowers stayed there freshly watered till the
petals strewed his table: they were not even dusted away.
As for Harriet herself, the wound of the morning must have
penetrated till it struck some deep flint in her composition; for
she came back the next day in high spirits and severely
underdressed--in what might be called toilet reduced to its lowest
terms, like a common fraction. She had restored herself to the
footing of an undervalued intercourse. At the sight of her Miss
Anna sprang up, kissed her all over the face, was atoningly cordial
with her arms, tried in every way to say: "See, Harriet, I bare my
heart! Behold the dagger of remorse!"
Harriet saw; and she walked up and took the dagger by the handle
and twisted it to the right and to the left and drove it in deeper
and was glad.
"How do you like this dress, Anna?" she inquired with the sweetest
solicitude. "Ah, there is no one like a friend to bring you to
your senses! You were right. I am too old to change, too old to
dress, too old even to read: thank you, Anna, as always."
Many a wound of friendship heals, but the wounder and the wounded
are never the same to each other afterward. So that the two
comrades were ill at ease and welcomed a diversion in the form of a
visitor. It happened to be the day of the week when Miss Anna
received her supply of dairy products from the farm of Ambrose
Webb. He came round to the side entrance now with two shining tin
buckets and two lustreless eyes.
The old maids stood on the edge of the porch with their arms
wrapped around each other, and talked to him with nervous gayety.
He looked up with a face of dumb yearning at one and then at the
other, almost impartially.
"Aren't you well, Mr. Webb?" inquired Miss Anna, bending over
toward him with a healing smile.
"Certainly I am well," he replied resentfully. "There is nothing
the matter with me. I am a sound man."
"But you were certainly groaning," insisted Miss Anna, "for I heard
you; and you must have been groaning about _something_."
He dropped his eyes, palpably crestfallen, and scraped the bricks
with one foot.
Harriet nudged Miss Anna not to press the point and threw herself
gallantly into the breach of silence.
"I am coming out to see you sometime, Mr. Webb," she said
threateningly; "I want to find out whether you are taking good care
of my calf. Is she growing?"
"Calves always grow till they stop," said Ambrose, axiomatically.
"How high is she?"
He held his hand up over an imaginary back.
"Why, that is _high_! When she stops growing, Anna, I am going to
sell her, sell her by the pound. She is my beef trust. Now don't
forget, Mr. Webb, that I am coming out some day."
"I'll be there," he said, and he gave her a peculiar look.
"You know, Anna," said Harriet, when they were alone again, "that
his wife treats him shamefully. I have heard mother talking about
it. She says his wife is the kind of woman that fills a house as
straw fills a barn: you can see it through every crack. That
accounts for his heavy expression, and for his dull eyes, and for
the groaning. They say that most of the time he sits on the fences
when it is clear, and goes into the stable when it rains."
"Why, I'll have to be kinder to him than ever," said Miss Anna.
"But how do you happen to have a calf, Harriet?" she added, struck
by the practical fact.
"It was the gift of my darling mother, my dear, the only present
she has made me that I can remember. It was an orphan, and you
wouldn't have it in your asylum, and my mother was in a peculiar
mood, I suppose. She amused herself with the idea of making me
such a present. But Anna, watch that calf, and see if thereby does
not hang a tale. I am sure, in some mysterious way, my destiny is
bound up with it. Calves do have destinies, don't they, Anna?"
"Oh, don't ask _me_, Harriet! Inquire of their Creator; or try the
market-house."
It was at the end of this visit that Harriet as usual imparted to
Miss Anna the freshest information regarding affairs at home: that
Isabel had gone to spend the summer with friends at the seashore,
and was to linger with other friends in the mountains during
autumn; that her mother had changed her own plans, and was to keep
the house open, and had written for the Fieldings--Victor's mother
and brothers and sisters--to come and help fill the house; that
everything was to be very gay.
"I cannot fathom what is under it all," said Harriet, with her
hand on the side gate at leaving. "But I know that mother and
Isabel have quarrelled. I believe mother has transferred her
affections--and perhaps her property. She has rewritten her will
since Isabel went away. What have I to do, Anna, but interest
myself in other people's affairs? I have none of my own. And she
never calls Isabel's name, but pets Victor from morning till night.
And her expression sometimes! I tell you, Anna, that when I see
it, if I were a bird and could fly, gunshot could not catch me. I
see a summer before me! If there is ever a chance of my doing
_anything_, don't be shocked if I do it;" and in Harriet's eyes
there were two mysterious sparks of hope--two little rising suns.
"What did she mean?" pondered Miss Anna.