Part 23 (2/2)

Though she had yielded very reluctantly to her brother's wish to keep Grace apart from her family and wholly his own for so many years, she now saw there was good in it. Her little girl had developed into a resolute, capable and strong sort of young woman, who could make use of whatever tools her education had put into her hands.

”This hasn't been quite the right kind of Sunday talk, mother,” said Grace, ”but I haven't been here three days without seeing there's a cloud, and I don't like to give up to clouds. I'm like the old woman who must take her broom and sweep the cobwebs out of the sky.”

”G.o.d helping you, my dear, you will succeed. You have swept some cobwebs out of my sky already.”

”G.o.d helping me, yes, dear. Thank you for saying that. Now don't you want me to sing to you? I'll darken your room and set the door ajar, and then I'll go to the parlor and play soft, rippling, silvery things, and sing to you, and you will fall asleep while I'm singing, and have a lovely nap before they all come home.”

As Grace went down the stairs, she paused a moment at the door of the big dining-room, ”large as a town hall,” her father sometimes said.

Everything at Wis.h.i.+ng-Brae was of ample size--great rooms, lofty ceilings, big fire-places, broad windows.

”I missed the sideboard, the splendid old mahogany piece with its deep winy l.u.s.tre, and the curious carved work. Mother must have grieved to part with it. Surely uncle and aunt couldn't have known of these straits. Well, I'm at home now, and they need somebody to manage for them. Uncle always said I had a business head. G.o.d helping me, I'll pull my people out of the slough of despond.”

The young girl went into the parlor, where the amber light from the west was beginning to fall upon the old Wainwright portraits, the candelabra with their prisms pendent, and the faded cus.h.i.+ons and rugs.

Playing softly, as she had said, singing sweetly ”Abide with me” and ”Sun of my soul,” the mother was soothed into a peaceful little half-hour of sleep, in which she dreamed that G.o.d had sent her an angel guest, whose name was Grace.

CHAPTER IV.

TWO LITTLE SCHOOLMARMS.

”And so you are your papa's good fairy? How happy you must be! How proud!” Amy's eyes shone as she talked to Grace, and smoothed down a fold of the pretty white alpaca gown which set off her friend's dainty beauty. The girls were in my mother's room at the Manse, and Mrs.

Raeburn had left them together to talk over plans, while she went to the parlor to entertain a visitor who was engaged in getting up an autumn _fete_ for a charitable purpose. Nothing of this kind was ever done without mother's aid.

There were few secrets between Wis.h.i.+ng-Brae and the Manse, and Mrs.

Wainwright had told our mother how opportunely Grace had been able to a.s.sist her father in his straits. Great was our joy.

”You must remember, dear,” said mamma, when she returned from seeing Miss Gardner off, ”that your purse is not exhaustless, though it is a long one for a girl. Debts have a way of eating up bank accounts; and what will you do when your money is gone if you still find that the wolf menaces the door at Wis.h.i.+ng-Brae?”

”That is what I want to consult you about, Aunt Dorothy.” (I ought to have said that our mother was Aunt Dorothy to the children at the Brae, and more beloved than many a real auntie, though one only by courtesy.) ”Frances knows my ambitions,” Grace went on. ”I mean to be a money-maker as well as a money-spender; and I have two strings to my bow. First, I'd like to give interpretations.”

The mother looked puzzled. ”Interpretations?” she said. ”Of what, pray?--Sanscrit or Egyptian or Greek? Are you a seeress or a witch, dear child?”

”Neither. In plain English I want to read stories and poems to my friends and to audiences--Miss Wilkins' and Mrs. Stuart's beautiful stories, and the poems of Holmes and Longfellow and others who speak to the heart. Not mere elocutionary reading, but simple reading, bringing out the author's meaning and giving people pleasure. I would charge an admission fee, and our dining-room would hold a good many; but I ought to have read somewhere else first, and to have a little background of city fame before I ask Highland neighbors to come and hear me. This is my initial plan. I could branch out.”

To the mother the new idea did not at once commend itself. She knew better than we girls did how many twenty-five-cent tickets must be sold to make a good round sum in dollars. She knew the thrifty people of Highland looked long at a quarter before they parted with it for mere amus.e.m.e.nt, and still further, she doubted whether Dr. Wainwright would like the thing. But Amy clapped her hands gleefully. She thought it fine.

”You must give a studio reading,” she said. ”I can manage that, mother; if Miss Antoinette Drury will lend her studio, and we send out invitations for 'Music and Reading, and Tea at Five,' the prestige part will be taken care of. The only difficulty that I can see is that Grace would have to go to a lot of places and travel about uncomfortably; and then she'd need a manager. Wouldn't she, Frances?”

”I see no trouble,” said I, ”in her being her own manager. She would go to a new town with a letter to the pastor of the leading church, or his wife, call in at the newspaper office and get a puff; puffs are always easily secured by enterprising young women, and they help to fill up the paper besides. Then she would hire a hall and pay for it out of her profits, and the business could be easily carried forward.”

”Is this the New Woman breaking her sh.e.l.l?” said mother. ”I don't think I quite like the interpretation scheme either as Amy or as you outline it, though I am open to persuasion. Here is the doctor. Let us hear what he says.”

It was not Dr. Wainwright, but my father, Dr. Raeburn, except on a Friday, the most genial of men. Amy perched herself on his knee and ran her slim fingers through his thick dark hair. To him our plans were explained, and he at once gave them his approval.

”As I understand you, Gracie,” Dr. Raeburn said, ”you wish this reading business as a stepping-stone. You would form cla.s.ses, would you not? And your music could also be utilized. You had good instruction, I fancy, both here and over the water.”

<script>