The Other Girls - Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney (free novels to read TXT) 📗

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"Leading--_by the hand_; giving--_morsel by morsel_," said Mr. Kirkbright, emphasizing the near and dear detail.

"That makes me think," said Miss Euphrasia, suddenly. "Desire," she went on, without explaining why, "we are going up to Brickfield Farms next week, Christopher and I. Why shouldn't you go too,--and bring her home, you know?"

As true as she lived, Miss Euphrasia hadn't a thought--whatever _you_ may think--of this and that, or anything, when she said it.

Except the simple fact, that it was beautiful October weather, and that _she_ should like it, and that Sylvie and Desire would get acquainted.

"It will do you good. You'd better," said Mr. Vireo, kindly.

Christopher Kirkbright said nothing, of course. There was nothing for him to say. He did not think very much. He only had a passing feeling that it would be pleasant to see this grave-faced girl again, and to understand her, perhaps, a little.


CHAPTER XV.

BONNY BOWLS.

The great show house at Pomantic was almost finished. The architect's and builder's cares were over. There was a stained glass window to go in upon the high second landing of the splendid carved oak staircase, through which gold and rose and purple light should pour down upon the panels of the soft-tinted walls and the rich inlaying of the floors. There was a little polishing of walnut work and oiling of dark pine in kitchen and laundry, and the fastening on of a few silver knobs and faucets here and there, up-stairs, remaining to be done; then it would be ready for the upholsterer.

Mr. Newrich had builded better than he thought; thanks to the delicate taste and the genius of his architect, and the careful skill of his contractor. He was proud of his elegant mansion, and fancied that it expressed himself, and the glory that his life had grown to.

Frank Sunderline knew that it expressed _him_-self; for he had put himself--his hope, his ambition, his sense of right and fitness--into every stroke and line. Now that it was done, it was more his than the man's who paid the bills,--"out of his waistcoat pocket," as he exultingly said to his wife. The designer and the builder had paid for it out of brain and heart and will, and were the real men who had got a new creation and possession of their own, though they should turn their backs upon their finished labor, and never go within the walls again.

It was a kind of a Sunday feeling with which Frank Sunderline was glad, though it was the middle of the week. The sense of accomplishment is the Sunday feeling. It is the very feeling in which God Himself rested; and out of his own joy, bade all his sons rest likewise in their turn, every time that they should end a six days' toil.

Frank Sunderline had been in Boston all the afternoon, making up accounts and papers with his employer. He came round to Pilgrim Street to tea.

He had got into a way of coming in to tell the Ingrahams the story of his work as it went on, at the same time that he continued his friendly relation with their own affairs, as always ready to do any little turn for them in which a man could be of service. This Sunday rest of his,--though a busier day had not gone over his head since the week began,--must be shared and crowned by them.

There is no subtler test of an unspoken--perhaps an unexamined--relation of a man with his women friends, than this instinctive turning with his Sabbath content and rest to the companionship he feels himself most moved to when it is in his heart. All custom, however homely, grows out of some reality, more than out of any mere convenience; this is why the Sunday coming of the country lover means so much more than his common comings, and sets an established seal upon them all.

Walking down Roulstone Street, the lowering afternoon sun full in his face across the open squares, Frank Sunderline thought how pleasant it would be to have Ray Ingraham go out to Pomantic such an afternoon as this, and see what he had done; just now, while it was still his work, warm from his hand, and before it was shut away from her and him by the Newrich carpets and curtains and china and servants going in and fastening the doors upon them.

He would make a treat of it,--a holiday,--if she would go; he would come and take her with a horse and buggy. He would not ask her to go with him in the cars and be stared at.

He had never thought of asking her to go to ride, or of showing her any set "attention" before. Frank Sunderline was not one of the young fellows who begin, and begin in a hurry, at that end.

He walked faster, as it came into his head at that moment; something of the same perception that would come to her,--if she cared for this asking of his,--came to him with the sudden suggestion that it was the next, the natural thing to do; that their friendship had grown so far as that. The story comes to a man with some such beautiful, scarce-anticipated steps of revelation as it does to a woman, when he takes his life in the true, whole, patient order, and does not go about to make some pretty sham of living before he has done any real living at all.

Yes; he would ask her to ride out to Pomantic with him to-morrow; and he thought she would go.

He liked her looks, to-night; he looked at her with this plan in his thoughts, and it lighted her up; he was conscious of his own notice of her, and of what it had grown to in him, insensibly, knowing her so well and long. He analyzed, or tried to analyze, his rest and pleasure in her; the reason why all she did and wore and said had such a sweet and winning fitness to him. What was it that made her look so different from other girls, and yet so nice?

"I like the way you dress, Ray; you and Dot;" he said to her, when tea was over and taken away, and she was replacing the cloth and setting the sewing-lamp down upon the table. "You don't snarl yourselves up. I can't bear a tangle of things."

Ray colored.

"You mean skirts, I suppose," she said, laughing "We can't afford two apiece, at a time. So we have taken to aprons."

It was a very simple expedient, and yet it came near enough to custom to avoid a strait and insufficient look. They wore plain black cashmere dresses, plaited in at the waist, and belted to their pretty figures, over these, round, full aprons, tied behind with broad, hemmed bows. They were of cross-barred muslin, for every day,--cheap and pretty and fresh; black silk ones replaced them upon serious occasions. This was their house wear; in the street they contented themselves with their plain basquines; and I think if anybody missed the bunches and festoons, it was only as Frank Sunderline said, with an unexplained impression of the absence of a "snarl."

"There's one thing certin," put in Mrs. Ingraham. "Women can't be dolls and live women too. I don't ever want anything on that'll hender me from goin' right into whatever there is to be gone into. It's cloe's that makes all the diffikelty nowadays. Young women can't do housework because of their cloe's; 'tisn't because they ain't as strong as their grandmothers; their grandmothers didn't try to wear a load and move one too. Folks that live a little nicer than common, and keep girls, don't have more than five hours to their day; the rest of the time, they're dressed up; and that means _tied_ up. They can't _see_ to their girls; they grow helplesser all the time and the help grows sozzlier; and so it comes to sauciness and upstrupperousness, and changes; and there's an up-stairs and a down-stairs to every house, and no _home_ anywhere. That's how it is, and how it must be, till women take down some of their furbelows and live real, and keep house, and take old-fashioned comfort in it. Why, the help has to get into _their_ humpty-dumpties by three or four o'clock, and see _their_ company. If there's sickness or anything, that they can't, they're up a tree and off. I've known of folks breakin' up and goin' to board, because they were _afraid_ of sickness; they knew their girls would clear right out if there was gruel to make and waitin' up and down to do. There ain't much left to depend on but hotels and hospitals. _Home_ is too big a worry. And I do believe, my soul, its cloe's that's at the bottom of it. It's been growin' wuss and wuss ever since tight waists and holler biasses came in, and that's five and twenty years ago."

Mrs. Ingraham grew more Yankee in her dialect,--as the Scotch grow more Scotch,--with warming up to the subject.

Sunderline laughed.

"Well, I must go," he said; "though you do look so bright and cosy here. Half past seven's the last train, and there's a little job at home I promised mother I'd do to-night. I've been so busy lately that I haven't had any hammer and nails of my own. Ray!"

He had come round behind her chair, where she had seated herself at her sewing.

"It's pleasant out of town these fall days; and I want you to see my house before I give it over. If I come for you to-morrow, will you ride out with me to Pomantic?"

Ray felt half a dozen things at that moment between his question and her reply. She felt her mother's eyes just lifted at her, without another movement, over the silver rims of her spectacles; she felt Dot's utter stillness; she felt her own heart spring with a single quick beat, and her cheeks grow warm, and a moisture at her fingers' ends as they held work and needle determinedly, and she set two or three stitches with instinctive resolution of not stopping. She felt, inwardly, the certainty that this would count for much in Mrs. Ingraham's plain, old-fashioned way of judging things; she was afraid of a misjudgment for Frank Sunderline, if he did not, perhaps, mean anything particular by it; she would have refused him ten times over, and let the refusal rest with her, sooner than have him blamed; for what business had she, after all,--

"Well, Ray?"

She felt his hand upon the back of her chair, close to her shoulder; she felt that he leaned down a little. She heard something in that "Well, Ray," that she could not turn aside, though in an hour afterward she would be taking herself to task that she had let it seem like "anything."

"I was thinking," she said, quietly. "Yes, I think I could go. Thank you, Frank."

Frank Sunderline was not sure, as he walked up Roulstone Street afterward, whether Ray cared much. She made it seem all matter of course, in a minute, with that calm, deliberate answer of hers. And she sat so still, and let him go out of the room with hardly another word or look. She never stopped sewing, either.

Well,--he did not see those ten stitches! He might not have been the wiser if he had. They were not carpenter-work.

But Ray knew better than to pick them out, while her mother and Dot were by.

That next day