Part 16 (1/2)
”It is a good thing for you to see a New England village,” said Miss Lyndesay, ”as part of the education you came for. And when you get out to Wisconsin, you will think you are in a different country altogether.”
”I did,” laughed Hannah. ”Why, it looked as though it had been laid out with a ruler, and the trees were so little I felt as though they ought to be in flower-pots.”
”Not the beech woods, surely?”
”Dear me, no. But in the town itself. The beech woods are real forest.
Is this the house? O, Aunt Clara, wouldn't Catherine _love_ it?”
Miss Lyndesay was so unused to the house, herself, that she took a keen delight in showing the girls all over it, taking them from one big room into another, and telling them how to appreciate the fine old furniture.
”The hangings are all new,” she explained. ”Aunt Abigail's taste was not like her heart! She kept the old furniture, but she had gaudy wall-papers and thick lace curtains, and I have had them all replaced.
They aren't done yet, everywhere, but these main rooms are. And she had the fireplace bricked up and a stove in the living-room. I found these andirons in the garret.”
”O, let's see the garret,” begged Hannah. ”We haven't any, with old things in it, I mean. You know our house is only a little older than I am, and mother came from the West and she didn't have heirlooms, and father had nothing whatever when they started. I should think this house would have been full of treasures.”
”It was. I found several good chairs and a desk in the garret. I shall have them refinished as soon as I can get around to it. There is a trunk that I have only peeped into. I saved it for you girls to open. But you must come out into the garden now, while the sun is there.”
Frieda had taken only a moderate interest in the house, but when they entered the tangled garden, German exclamations poured from her lips in a rapturous stream.
”_Himmlisch! Reizend! Famos! Ach, wie wunderhubsch! Was nennt man dies? Und dies?_” She flew from one blossom to another, sniffing, admiring, and asking questions about those that were unknown to her, naming the others in German, and altogether showing a degree of enthusiasm which nothing American had hitherto been able to arouse in her. It was not because of Karl's compact, but because of her mighty love of flowers. She seemed to forget the others as she knelt before a little white tea-rose, kissing it and calling it pretty names.
Miss Lyndesay and Hannah watched her.
”Now she seems more like herself,” said Hannah frowning, ”the way she was in Berlin. I wish she would stay that way!”
Miss Lyndesay looked at Hannah searchingly.
”Frieda,” she called, ”will you gather flowers for the luncheon table, please? Hannah is going to pick raspberries with me. I have a most beautiful old gla.s.s bowl to put them in.”
Frieda undertook the task a.s.signed her joyfully, and Hannah followed Miss Lyndesay to the kitchen, where Aunt Abigail's old servant, inherited with the house, supplied them with pails for the berry-picking. The bushes were at the other end of the garden, where they could speak without being overheard.
Miss Lyndesay said nothing at first, but she had not long to wait.
Hannah had poured out her puzzles and worries in letters to this friend often, since the evening at Three Gables, long ago, when she had poured them out in words and tears, and found comfort.
It was a torrent of words this time, but Miss Lyndesay, listening, distinguished between essentials and non-essentials by a divine gift which had always been hers.
”She doesn't seem the same Frieda,” declared Hannah, at last. ”I don't feel acquainted with her. Mamma says it is just because everything is new and strange to her. She hasn't criticised things since she and Karl went off together for a little trip the other day, but she looks bored or unhappy and I don't know what to do. I was a stranger when we were together before, but I'm sure I didn't act so, and I don't see why she should now. So there!”
”Did you go to Germany alone?” Miss Lyndesay put the question casually, and Hannah looked up, surprised.
”Why, no. Dad and Mamma were there all the time, of course. I couldn't have lived without them--O! I see what you mean,” and the berries dropped slowly into the half-full pail while Hannah meditated.
Clara Lyndesay, observing her bent face, felt satisfied. It was not the first time she had seen Hannah Eldred come out of a quandary with very little help.
”She doesn't do things by halves, either,” she thought. ”Frieda won't have such a lonely time from now on.” Aloud she said:
”I wondered, when I heard you speak to Frieda in that careful explanatory way, as you might to a child who had been left in your care rather against your will, if you seemed just natural to Frieda! Frau Lange realized that there was some risk in sending Frieda over here. She told me that she knew young girls changed rapidly in tastes and ideals, and it might be that you two would not care so much for each other now.
But she hoped, for the sake of the friends.h.i.+p between your mother and herself, that the two years would prove not to have separated you greatly. I a.s.sured her that, while there might be some little difficulty at first, you would probably come out better friends than ever. There! I think we have quite enough berries. If you will just take them in to Evangeline, I'll see about Frieda's flowers. You'll find a pitcher of shrub on the ice, and goblets on the tray all ready to bring out. We'll arrange the flowers on the back stoop, I think, and you might bring us some refreshment there.”