Part 20 (1/2)
She took up the letter, a pretty rosy pink dyeing her cheeks (she was one of those old maids whose exquisitely delicate complexions retain a babylike freshness) as her eyes met the expression:
Anne was always a sot where her pen was concerned. The habit's growing on her; she can evidently no more resist it than Miles could the bottle.
”It must be from Nora Madigan,” she exclaimed, recognizing the touch.
”Yes, it is from Nora, and it incloses one of your own. There it is.”
He threw down before the ready letter-writer a composition which had cost her much labor, the thought of many days, upon which she had based unnumbered hopes and built air-castles galore, none of which, to do the poor lady justice, was intended directly for her own habitation.
She took the letter and spread it out carefully before her; these epistolary children of hers were tenderly dear to Miss Madigan. Her eye caught a phrase here and there that appeared to be singularly felicitous. This one, for instance:
Poor Francis, of course, knows nothing about this letter. I am writing to you, my dear cousin, relying as much upon your discretion as upon your generosity.
Or this one:
And Cecilia--she is really talented, though a commonplace creature like myself can hardly give you an idea in just what direction.
Or this one:
As to Irene, apart from her voice, which is really exceptional, she is Francis over again--Francis as he was, a high-spirited, reckless, devil-may-care fellow, winning and tyrannical, as we all remember him in the old days when the world was young.
Or even this:
I am afraid Kate will have to teach school, young as she is. I can't tell you how I dread the long years of drudgery I see before this slender, spirited child--she is little more than that. Think, Miles, of these motherless children growing up in this wretched hole without the smallest advantage, and, if you can, help them; or get some one else to. Couldn't you take Kate into your own family? I'm sure she'd marry well, and Nora wouldn't be troubled with her long. She's really very pretty. Or couldn't you send me a little something to spend on clothes for her? Or couldn't Nora be persuaded to send her--
”Well,” thundered Madigan, standing over her, ”it must be pretty familiar to you. Suppose you read what Nora says.”
Miss Madigan put her own letter away with a sigh. It was really unaccountable that Miles could have resisted it.
”Miles pa.s.sed away six weeks ago,”
she read aloud in an awed voice.
”He had been ailing all spring. This letter, which came a fortnight since, I opened, of course, and return it to you that you may be made aware (if you are not already) of the demands Anne makes upon comparative strangers.
”For myself, I regret very much that your affairs are in such a bad state. Anne says that there are six of your children, all girls; but that can't be true--she always loved to exaggerate miseries; it must be that her writing is so illegible that--”
Miss Madigan's voice rebelled. She could read aloud adverse opinions upon her common sense, her judgment, or her pride, but to impugn her penmans.h.i.+p was to commit the unforgivable.
”I think Nora is distinctly insulting,” she declared.
”No!” Madigan laughed wrathfully. ”Do you, now? Why, what has she said?
Only that you're a beggar, and I'm a coward as well as a beggar, because I don't dare to beg in my own name.”
”Does she say that?” exclaimed the literal Miss Madigan, shocked.
”Where?” Her eyes sought the letter again.
”'Where'! Thousand devils--'where'!” Madigan tore it from her and threw it to the floor, stamping upon it in a frenzy.
Sighing, Miss Madigan leaned her head on her hand. It was hard enough to find one's most hopeful appeal wasted, without Francis's flying into such a rage.