“I think it is not ‘presently’ yet,--Jane wouldn’t come till
‘presently.’”
“Do you love Jane?” the doctor asked, looking down at the flower-like
face.
“Jane is not mamma. She is only Jane,” was the answer.
When the moon rose, the little girl went willingly to bed; and all
night long Miss Ellen Harding held her in her arms, as she used to hold
her little sister, before the angels took her. Since Aggie’s death,
people said Miss Ellen had grown cold and stiff and silent. She felt,
herself, as if she had been frozen; but the ice was melting, as she lay
there, feeling the soft, round little lump of breathing bliss in her
arms; and a tender flower of love was to spring up and bloom in that
heart that had grown hard and cold.
There was no talk of sending Rosebud away, though some people wondered
much at the doctor, and even almost blamed him for keeping this child,
of whom he knew nothing. But he wanted her, and Miss Ellen wanted her;
and, indeed, she was the joy and life and blessing of the long-silent
household.
She was by no means a perfect child. A well-mannered little creature
she was,--some lady had brought her up evidently,--but she was
self-willed and obstinate. When she had said, “I’m doing to do” such
and such a thing, it was hard to move her from her purpose; unless,
indeed, the doctor interposed, and to him she always yielded instantly.
But, just such as she was, they found her altogether charming. The
doctor never came home without something in his pocket to reward her
search; Miss Ellen was her bond-slave; and Mistress Mulloney in the
kitchen was ready to work her hands off for her.
Often, when she had gone to bed, the doctor and Miss Ellen used to talk
over her strange coming.
“We shall lose her some day,” the doctor would say, with a sigh. “No
one ever voluntarily abandoned such a child as that. She is only
trusted to our protection for a little while, and presently we shall
have to give her up.”
“Should you be sorry, father,” Miss Ellen would inquire, “that we had
had her at all?”
And the doctor would answer thoughtfully “No, for she has made me young
again. I will not grumble when the snows come because we have had
summer, and know how bright it is.”
But the child lived with them as if she were going to live with them
for ever. If she had any memories of days before she came there, she
never alluded to them. After the first, she never mentioned Jane,--she
never spoke of a father or mother. But she was happy as the summer days
were long,--a glad, bright, winsome creature as ever was the delight of
any household.
And so the days and the weeks and the months went on, and it was
October. And one day the bell rang, and Mistress Mulloney went to the
door, and in a moment came to the room where Miss Ellen was sitting,
with Rosebud playing beside her, and beckoned to her mistress.
“It’s some one asking for the child,” she said. “Can’t we jist hide her
away? It’ll be hard for the doctor if she’s took.”
“No; we must see who it is, and do what is right,” Miss Ellen answered;
but her lips trembled a little. She went into the hall, and there, at
the door, stood a woman, looking like a nursery-maid of the better sort.
“I have come,” the stranger began; but Rosebud had caught the sound of
her voice, and came on the scene like a flash of light.
“It is ‘presently!’” she cried; “and there, oh, _there_ is mamma!”
And down the path she flew, and into the very arms of a lady who was
waiting at a little distance.
Miss Harding went down the steps. “You have come, I see, to claim our
Rosebud, and she is only too ready to be claimed. I thought we had made
her happy.”
The child caught the slight accent of reproach in Miss Ellen’s voice,
and turned towards her.
“You have been dood, oh, so very, very dood!” she said, “but _this_ is
mamma.”
“I trusted my darling to you in a very strange way,” the lady began,
“but not, believe me, without knowing in whose hands I placed her. I
was in mortal terror, then, lest she should be taken from me, and I
dared not keep her until she had been legally made mine, and mine only.
But you have made me your debtor for life, and I shall try to show it
some day.”
“But, at least, you will come in and wait until my father returns. He
loves Rosebud so dearly, that it would be a cruelty to take her away
until he has had time to bid her good-by.”
“You are right,” the stranger answered courteously. “Jane, go with the
carriage to the hotel, and I will come or send for you when I want you.”
In a few moments more the strange lady was seated in the doctor’s
parlor. Miss Harding saw now where Rosebud had got her bright, wilful
beauty.
“I must explain,” the mother said, as she lifted her child upon her
lap. “I am Mrs. Matthewson. My husband is dead, and Rosebud has a
very, very large fortune of her own. Her uncles, who were to have the
management of her property, by her father’s will, claimed her also;
and I have had such a fight for her! They were unscrupulous men, and
I feared to keep Rosebud with me, lest by some means they should get
some hold on her. So I resolved to lend her to you for the summer;
and, indeed, I never can reward you for all your care of her.”
“You can reward us only by not altogether taking her away from us. We
have learned to love her very dearly.”
And, after a while, the doctor came home and heard all the story.
And it was a week before Mrs. Matthewson had the heart to take away
the child she had lent them. Then it was not long before the doctor
and Miss Ellen had to go to see Rosebud. And then, very soon, Mrs.
Matthewson had to bring her back again; and, really, so much going back
and forth was very troublesome; and they found it more convenient,
after a while, to join their households.
Before Rosebud came, the doctor had thought himself an old man, though
he was only forty-five; but, as he said, Rosebud had made him young
again; and Rosebud’s mamma found it possible to love him very dearly.
But Miss Ellen always said it was Rosebud and nobody else whom her
father married, and that he had been in love with the borrowed blossom
from the first.