Part 26 (1/2)

Her father's arm came about her and she buried her face in his thin shoulder. ”Thank G.o.d!” he said fervently, under his breath. ”Thank the good G.o.d, who knows what we need and gives it to us.”

After a minute's silence: ”But we can't go, Father Davy.”

”Can't we? I could not, of course, but you----”

”I couldn't go without you--to his house. And--we haven't any money.”

”No money? Is it so bad as that?”

”And if we had--I'm not sure that I want to take a journey to a man--so that----”

”Let me see the telegram, my dear,” requested Mr. Warne. When he had read it he regarded his daughter with a curious little smile. She was sitting upon the floor, close beside his couch, her brilliant eyes now raised to his face, now veiled by their heavy lashes. ”It seems clear enough,” he said. ”Concessions must be made to a man who belongs to the people as he does. I don't think it would be a sacrifice to your dignity, daughter, if you were to go.”

”But, Father, darling, don't you see? I didn't want to tell you, but there was no other way. We have quite enough to live on--without extras--till the next rug money comes. But that may not be for a month; they are always slow. And for us to go to New York--well, we could just about get there. We couldn't get clear home. Father Davy, I can't go--penniless--_to him_!”

He lay looking at her down-bent head with its splendid ma.s.ses of dark hair, at the beautiful lines of her neck in her low-cut working frock of blue-and-white print, at the shapely young hands gripping each other with unconscious tenseness in her lap. His eyes were like a woman's for understanding, and his lips were very tender. Slowly he raised himself to his feet.

”Stay just where you are, daughter,” he said, ”till I come back.”

She waited, staring at the old crimson pillow with eyes which saw again the drawing-room in Aunt Olivia's apartment and the profile of Doctor Craig's face as he turned from her at Chester Crofton's interrupting question. That was more than three weeks ago----

Father Davy was gone some little time, but he came back at length at his slow, limping pace, and sat down upon the couch. He held in his hand a little bag of dark blue silk, a little bag whose contents seemed all heavily down in one corner. Georgiana's eyes regarded it with some wonder. She had thought she knew by heart every one of her father's few belongings, but this little bag was new to her.

”I think,” he said softly, ”the time has come for this. It was meant, perhaps, to be given you a little later in your history, but if your mother knew--nay, I feel she does know and approve--she would be the first to say to me: '_Give it to her now, David; she'll never want it more than now._'”

Georgiana leaned forward, her lips parted. She seemed hardly to breathe as her father went on, his slender fingers gently caressing the little blue silk bag:

”From the time you were a baby, a very little baby, she saved this money for you. It came mostly from wedding fees; I always gave her those to do with as she would. They were a country minister's fees--two-and-three-dollar fees mostly--once in a great while some affluent farmer would pay me five dollars. How your mother's eyes would s.h.i.+ne when I could give her a five! She turned all the bills and silver into gold--a great many of these pieces are one-dollar gold pieces. There are none of them in circulation now; it may easily be that they have increased in value, being almost a curiosity in these days. I think I have heard of something like that. At any rate, dear, it is all yours. It was to have been given to you to buy your wedding outfit; but--she would have wanted you to have it when it could help you most.” He held out the little bag.

”She made it of a bit of her wedding dress,” he said, and his hand trembled as it was extended toward his daughter. ”It was not only her wedding dress, it was the best dress she had for many years.”

With a low cry that was like that of a mother's for a child, Georgiana took the little blue silk bag, heavy in its corner with the weight of many small gold pieces, and crushed it against her lips. Then, with it held close to her cheek, she laid her head down on her father's knee and sobbed her heart out for the mother she had missed for ten long years.

In the little bag there proved to be almost a hundred dollars--ninety-two in all.

”She sorely wanted to get it to a hundred,” said Father Davy, when he and Georgiana, their eyes still wet, had counted the tarnished gold pieces that had waited so long to be delivered to their owner. ”There seemed a dearth of marriages the year before she went; the sum increased very slowly.”

”She must have gone without--things she needed,” Georgiana said with difficulty.

”I think she did, but she would never own it. She was very clever, as you are, at making things over and over, and she looked always trim and fine. She was a beautiful woman--and a happy one, in spite of all she was deprived of in her life with a poor country minister. 'If my little daughter can only be as happy as I have been,' she used to say, 'it is all I ask.' My dear, she would have liked--she would have loved--Mr.

Jefferson. I can't get over calling him that,” he added, with his whimsical smile struggling to s.h.i.+ne through the tears which would not quite be mastered.

”O Father Davy!” was all Georgiana could say. But she lifted a flushed and lovely face with all manner of womanly qualities written in it, and kissed her father on brow and cheek and lips, as she would have kissed her mother at such words as those.

”I wonder,” said Mr. Warne, sitting comfortably in the Pullman chair his daughter had insisted upon, ”if I can possibly be awake, not dreaming. I never thought to take another journey.”

”He said it wouldn't hurt you, and it's not. You're not too tired? I haven't seen you look so well for a long time,” declared his daughter.

The eyes of other pa.s.sengers, across the aisle, were irresistibly drawn to these two travelers--the frail, intellectual-looking man with his curly gray hair and his gentle blue eyes, his worn but carefully kept garments, his way of turning to his daughter at every change of scene--the daughter herself, with her face of charm under the close hat with its veil, her clothing the suit of dark summer serge with its lines of distinction, which was still doing duty as the only presentable street suit she possessed.