The great dining-room at Hilcrest, the old Spencer homestead, was
perhaps the pleasantest room in the house. The house itself crowned the
highest hill that overlooked the town, and its dining-room windows and
the veranda without, commanded a view of the river for miles, just where
the valley was the greenest and the most beautiful. On the other side of
the veranda which ran around three sides of the house, one might see the
town with its myriad roofs and tall chimneys; but although these same
tall chimneys represented the wealth that made possible the great
Spencer estate, yet it was the side of the veranda overlooking the green
valley that was the most popular with the family. It was said, to be
sure, that old Jacob Spencer, who built the house, and who laid the
foundations for the Spencer millions, had preferred the side that
overlooked the town; and that he spent long hours gloating over the
visible results of his thrift and enterprise. But old Jacob was dead
now, and his son's sons reigned instead; and his son's sons, no matter
how much they might value the whiz and whir and smoke of the town,
preferred, when at rest, to gaze upon green hills and far-reaching
meadows. This was, indeed, typical of the Spencer code--the farther away
they could get from the oil that made the machinery of life run easily
and noiselessly, the better pleased they were.
The dining-room looked particularly pleasant this July evening. A gentle
breeze stirred the curtains at the open windows, and the setting sun
peeped through the vines outside and glistened on the old family plate.
Three generations of Spencers looked down from the walls on the two men
and the woman sitting at the great mahogany table. The two men and the
woman, however, were not looking at the sunlight, the vines, or the
swaying curtains; they were looking at each other, and their eyes were
troubled and questioning.
"You say she is coming next week?" asked the younger man, glancing at
the letter in the other's hand.
"Yes. Tuesday afternoon."
"But, Frank, this is so--sudden," remonstrated the young fellow, laughing
a little as he uttered the trite phrase. "How does it happen that I've
heard so little of this young lady who is to be so unceremoniously
dropped into our midst next Tuesday?"
Frank Spencer made an impatient gesture that showed how great was his
perturbation.
"Come, come, Ned, don't be foolish," he protested. "You know very well
that your brother's stepdaughter has been my ward for a dozen years."
"Yes, but that is all I know," rejoined the young man, quietly. "I have
never seen her, and scarcely ever heard of her, and yet you expect me to
take as a matter of course this strange young woman who is none of our
kith nor kin, and yet who is to be one of us from henceforth
forevermore!"
"The boy is right," interposed the low voice of the woman across the
table. "Ned doesn't know anything about her. He was a mere child himself
when it all happened, and he's been away from home most of the time
since. For that matter, we don't know much about her ourselves."
"We certainly don't," sighed Frank Spencer; then he raised his head and
squared his shoulders. "See here, good people, this will never do in the
world," he asserted with sudden authority. "I have offered the
hospitality of this house to a homeless, orphan girl, and she has
accepted it. There is nothing for us to do now but to try to make her
happy. After all, we needn't worry--it may turn out that she will make us
happy."
"But what is she? How does she look?" catechized Ned.
His brother shook his head.
"I don't know," he replied simply.
"You don't know! But, surely you have seen her!"
"Yes, oh, yes, I have seen her, once or twice, but Margaret Kendall is
not a girl whom to see is to know; besides, the circumstances were such
that--well, I might as well tell the story from the beginning,
particularly as you know so little of it yourself."
Frank paused, and looked at the letter in his hand. After a minute he
laid it gently down. When he spoke his voice was not quite steady.
"Our brother Harry was a physician, as you know, Ned. You were twelve
years old when he married a widow by the name of Kendall who lived in
Houghtonsville where he had been practising. As it chanced, none of us
went to the wedding. You were taken suddenly ill, and neither Della nor
myself would leave you, and father was in Bermuda that winter for his
health. Mrs. Kendall had a daughter, Margaret, about ten years old, who
was at school somewhere in the Berkshires. It was to that school that I
went when the terrible news came that Harry and his new wife had lost
their lives in that awful railroad accident. That was the first time
that I saw Margaret.
"The poor child was, of course, heartbroken and inconsolable; but her
grief took a peculiar turn. The mere sight of me drove her almost into
hysterics. She would have nothing whatever to do with me, or with any of
her stepfather's people. She reasoned that if her mother had not
married, there would have been no wedding journey; and if there had been
no wedding journey there would have been no accident, and that her
mother would then have been alive, and well.
"Arguments, pleadings, and entreaties were in vain. She would not listen
to me, or even see me. She held her hands before her face and screamed
if I so much as came into the room. She was nothing but a child, of
course, and not even a normal one at that, for she had had a very
strange life. At five she was lost in New York City, and for four years
she lived on the streets and in the sweat shops, enduring almost
unbelievable poverty and hardships."
"By Jove!" exclaimed Ned under his breath.
"It was only seven or eight months before the wedding that she was
found," went on Frank, "and of course the influence of the wild life she
had led was still with her more or less, and made her not easily subject
to control. There was nothing for me to do but to leave the poor little
thing where she was, particularly as there seemed to be no other place
for her. She would not come with me, and she had no people of her own to
whom she could turn for love and sympathy.
"As you know, poor Harry was conscious for some hours after the
accident, long enough to make his will and dictate the letter to me,
leaving Margaret to my care--boy though I was. I was only twenty, you
see; but, really, there was no one else to whom he could leave her. That
was something over thirteen years ago. Margaret must be about
twenty-three now."
"And you've not seen her since?" There was keen reproach in Ned's voice.
Frank smiled.
"Yes, I've seen her twice," he replied. "And of course I've written to
her many times, and have always kept in touch with those she was with.
She stayed at the Berkshire school five years; then--with some fear and
trembling, I own--I went to see her. I found a grave-eyed little miss who
answered my questions with studied politeness, and who agreed without
comment to the proposition that I place her in a school where she might
remain until she was ready for college--should she elect to go to
college."
"But her vacations--did she never come then?" questioned Ned.
"No. At first I did not ask her, of course. It was out of the question,
as she was feeling. Some one of her teachers always looked out for her.
They all pitied her, and naturally did everything they could for her, as
did her mates at school. Later, when I did dare to ask her to come here,
she always refused. She wrote me stiff little notes in which she
informed me that she was to spend the holidays with some Blanche or
Dorothy or Mabel of her acquaintance.
"She was nineteen when I saw her again. I found now a charming, graceful
girl, with peculiarly haunting blue eyes, and heavy coils of bronze-gold
hair that kinked and curled about her little pink ears in a most
distracting fashion. Even now, though, she would not come to my home.
She was going abroad with friends. The party included an irreproachable
chaperon, so of course I had nothing to say; while as for money--she had
all of her mother's not inconsiderable fortune besides everything that
had been her stepfather's; so of course there was no question on that
score.
"In the fall she entered college, and there she has been ever since,
spending her vacations as usual with friends, generally traveling. When
she came of age she specially requested me to make no change in her
affairs, but to regard herself as my ward for the present, just as she
had been. So I still call myself her guardian. This June was her
graduation. I had forgotten the fact until I received the little
engraved invitation a week or two ago. I thought of running down for it,
but I couldn't get away very well, and--well, I didn't go, that's all.
But I did write and ask her to make this house her home, and here is her
reply. She thanks me, and will come next Tuesday. There! now you have
it. You know all that I do." And Frank Spencer leaned back in his chair
with a long sigh.
"But I don't know yet what she's like," objected Ned.
"Neither do I."
"Oh, but you've seen her."
"Yes; and how? Do you suppose that those two or three meetings were very
illuminating? No. I've been told this, however," he added. "It seems
that immediately after her return to her mother's home she had the most
absurd quixotic notions about sharing all she had with every ragamuffin
in New York. She even carried her distress over their condition to such
an extent that her mother really feared for her reason. All her
teachers, therefore, were instructed to keep from her all further
knowledge of poverty and trouble; and particularly to instil into her
mind the fact that there was really in the world a great deal of
pleasure and happiness."
Over across the table Mrs. Merideth shivered a little.
"Dear me!" she sighed. "I do hope the child is well over those notions.
I shouldn't want her to mix up here with the mill people. I never did
quite like those settlement women, anyway, and only think what might
happen with one in one's own family!"
"I don't think I should worry, sister sweet," laughed Frank. "I haven't
seen much of the young lady, but I think I have seen enough for that. I
fancy the teachers succeeded in their mission. As near as I can judge,
Miss Margaret Kendall does not resemble your dreaded 'settlement worker'
in the least. However, we'll wait and see."