MISS FREYLINGHAUSEN
Larry’s surprise included a novel way for Beth and a dozen of her girl
friends to get home for the holidays. These girls, besides Beth and
Molly, lived in the river towns strung along the Nessing between the
school and Hudsonvale. Larry secured a huge sleigh in Jackson City and
a team of well sharpened horses with a sober driver to take them down
the river on the ice. Miss Hammersly approved of the party starting
early in the morning so as to make Hudsonvale before night.
The girls could drop off at their several home towns, while Molly
would remain over night with Beth and go on to Hambro--and the seven
aunts--the next day. Larry was to sit on the driver’s seat and act as
courier for the party.
It was an exciting and novel ride, and all the girls pronounced it a
lovely adventure. They thanked Beth as their hostess, for all seemed to
take it for granted that had it not been for Beth, Larry Haven would
not have done such a thing.
There was a crowd to see them off when the the sleigh slid down upon
the ice, and in it Molly saw Mr. Roland Severn. She beckoned to him to
come close, and whispered:
“Grieve not, brave youth! There are other fish in the sea quite as good
as those already hooked.”
“Thank you, Miss Granger. I am quite sure of it,” he returned, with
gravity. “I shall be in Hambro before New Year. May I call?”
“Cracky-me!” Molly was startled into exclaiming. “I wasn’t looking upon
myself in the light of a fish, nor do I wish to be so considered.”
But she had to admit to Beth that Mr. Severn was quick at repartee. “It
isn’t often that anybody gets the best of lil’ Molly. I wonder if I
could draw a portrait of him--as a cat, of course--or perhaps a fish!”
It was a gay and busy holiday time for Beth. The family seemed
particularly glad to see her. And Beth found a new spirit of
hopefulness in the little cottage.
Marcus had been taking a business course at an evening school for some
time. Young as he was, he had been advanced by his employer to the
typewriter and was drawing eight dollars a week. Mr. Baldwin seemed
very cheerful, too, and Beth thought he seemed a hundred per cent.
better.
Larry and she had been acting the part of very good friends for nearly
a fortnight; but for two days after her return home Beth did not see
the young lawyer at all.
“Was he going to withdraw into his shell again?” she queried. She
scarcely knew what to make of Larry in some of his moods; and she was
old enough now to resent such conduct.
But on the third evening Larry appeared at the Bemis Street cottage,
and evidently in high spirits. He brought from his mother a particular
and written invitation for Beth to be present at an evening function at
Mrs. Haven’s, scheduled to occur in the week between Christmas and New
Year.
“You ought, really, to have a new dress,” Mrs. Baldwin said, all of a
flutter. “Euphemia always has such nice people at her evening parties.”
“Tempt me not!” laughed Beth. “I have been hobnobbing with the rich
so long, that Mrs. Haven’s dressiest affairs have no terrors for me.
Besides, I can’t afford it. Moreover, the black lace and silver is new
here in Hudsonvale.”
“Likewise,” said Ella, with her head on one side like a saucy sparrow,
“Larry has never seen her in that.”
Beth drove her out of the room then; but it was for another reason. She
asked, frankly: “Mamma Baldwin, don’t you think I am old enough now to
wear Great-grandmother Lomis’ corals?”
Her mother fairly gasped. She sat down suddenly and looked up into her
eldest daughter’s face with almost a pleading expression in her own.
“My dear Beth!” she whispered.
“Mother dear! what is the matter?” demanded the girl, a little
frightened by her mother’s air.
“I--I shrink from telling you. Those beautiful corals! Been in the
family so long! And you had been led to expect them!”
Mrs. Baldwin was actually sobbing. Her daughter put both arms around
her and hugged her close.
“There, there, dear! Never mind! If you don’t want me to wear them----”
“But I’d be glad to have you wear them, if----”
“If what?”
“If they were yours to wear!”
“What--what do you mean?” stammered Beth.
“They had to be sold, my child! I had to sell the heirloom that had
been so long in our family. You will never be able to wear the corals
again, dear Beth.”
Beth actually swallowed something that seemed to choke her. “Oh, my
dear!” she said. “I might have known you poor folks at home were having
a worse time than you let selfish me know.”
“No, no, Beth!” cried Mrs. Baldwin. “They were sold before your father
left the Works. They were sold to pay your first year’s tuition!”
“_What?_” almost shouted Beth.
“Yes, my dear. Forgive me----”
“Forgive you?” cried the deliriously happy Beth, trying to dance her
mother about the room. “Why, darling little Mumsy! you have freed my
heart of a great burden of woe! I’m glad to go to Mrs. Haven’s party
to-night----”
“What are you saying, child?”
“Oh, well! I can look everybody straight in the eye and tell each and
every one---- Well! never mind! I am happy--_so_ happy!”
“But, my dear child! Are you crazy? Your Great-grandmother’s corals----”
“Goodness me, Mother mine!” interposed Beth. “What do you suppose I
care about the old corals--really? This that you tell me lifts a load
off my mind. Then you didn’t borrow money to send me to Rivercliff?”
“No-o.”
“And the four hundred dollars hasn’t got to be paid back?”
“No-o.”
“Well then! why not happiness instead of woebegoneness?” cried the
girl. “I am delighted. Only, Mother mine, I wish you had told me this
long, long ago.”
“Why--dear----”
“I should have felt so much happier,” declared Beth. “So very much
happier.”
Another thing happened that day besides Mrs. Euphemia Haven’s
reception. Beth received a letter from Madam Hammersly. The madam wrote
rather a queer letter, containing this important question:
“Is Cynthia Fogg with you in your town? I have received from her a
Christmas present--expressed direct from Hudsonvale--a very beautiful
_lavaliere_ that could not have cost less than ten pounds.” Madam
Hammersly steadfastly refused to think in anything but English money.
It was plain to be seen that Madam Hammersly feared her one-time
parlor-maid had become possessed of the valuable trinket dishonestly.
“What do you suppose that can mean?” Beth asked her mother; but, of
course, Mrs. Baldwin was quite as ignorant as Beth herself of the
whereabouts of Cynthia Fogg.
Beth wondered if she ought to make a house-to-house canvass of
Hudsonvale for the elusive Cynthia. And if the girl was in the village,
why had she not been to the cottage on Bemis Street? Cynthia knew
Beth’s address.
Beth went to the Haven house that evening with several interesting
matters in her busy mind--and she went again in a taxicab. Marcus paid
for it out of his own pocket. He rode along with her, “so as to get his
money’s worth,” he said.
To tell the truth, Beth was rather disappointed when she found it was
not merely an evening dance--for she “adored balls,” so she said. The
larger dancing floor at Mrs. Haven’s was littered with chairs and
benches, and, at first, when the guests came down from the dressing
rooms, they were officiously herded into the rows of seats by ushers.
Mrs. Haven addressed her guests in her very best platform style.
Larry’s mother was president of two clubs, vice-president of another,
and principal speaker at most of their meetings. So she had pat the
public speaker’s manner.
“I have brought you together this evening, dear friends, to be first
entertained in a rather novel way. Afterward we shall have dancing.
I met not long ago a very bright young lady from Philadelphia, who
interested me very much in a subject now coming largely before the
public, and I felt the wish to have her come here to talk to us of
Hudsonvale, who may be helped by her experience.
“The question of domestic service has of late years become of grave
importance. This brave young lady--whose name you will all recognize,
and whose social position you all know--had the temerity to go forth
and gain information at first hand regarding the real conditions
of such service, and of the characters of the girls who enter into
domestic service. I take great pleasure in introducing to you, ladies
and gentlemen, Miss C. Emeline Freylinghausen, of Philadelphia, my
guest for the holidays.”
A lithe girl, in a perfect evening gown, her hair piled high on her
head, a plentiful sprinkle of freckles across the bridge of her nose,
and wonderfully compelling blue eyes, stepped forward and bowed. When
she began to speak it was a pleasure to listen to her--whether or not
one believed in her theories or cared about her subject.
Beth was seated far from the speaker and to one side. Was it----? Could
it be----?
Beth heard the speaker’s tongue arraign mistresses who ill-treated
their servants or were careless of their comfort. Her biting sarcasm
was just what one would expect from Cynthia Fogg’s lips.
But, Miss Freylinghausen, of Philadelphia, the heiress to millions, to
houses and lands; and Cynthia Fogg, of whose green hat with the purple
feather which Molly had knocked overboard from the _Water Wagtail_,
Beth still retained a very vivid memory----
“Why, it is impossible!” gasped Beth, aloud, and forgot to applaud when
the little, earnest talk was over. She sat in her seat, unable to rise,
or even think connectedly, when the talk had ended.
Suddenly, the charming figure came down from the dais and seized Beth
in her arms.
“Well, Chicken Little! who told you the sky had fallen?” demanded Miss
C. Emeline Freylinghausen, shaking Beth, playfully.