Part 29 (1/2)

”I never did, I never did!” she cried. ”Don't I know what you are made of, Ellen Brewster? Don't you think I know? But after all, it might be better for you if you were worse. That was all I meant.”

Ellen, one afternoon, set out in her pretty challis, a white ground with long sprays of blue flowers running over it, and a blue ribbon at her neck and waist, and her leghorn hat with white ribbons, and a knot of forget-me-nots under the brim. She wore her one pair of nice gloves, too, but those she did not put on until she reached the corner of the street where Cynthia lived. Then she rubbed them on carefully, holding up her challis skirts under one arm.

Cynthia was at home, seated on the back veranda, in a rattan chair, with a book which she was not reading. Ellen stood before her, in her cheap attire, which she wore with an air which seemed to make it precious, such faith she had in it. Ellen regarded her coa.r.s.e blue-flowered challis with an innocent admiration which seemed almost able to glorify it into silk. Cynthia took in at a glance the exceeding commonness of it all; she saw the hat, the like of which could be seen in the milliners' windows at fabulously low prices; the foam of spurious lace and the spray of wretched blue flowers made her shudder. ”The poor child, she must have something better than that,” she thought, and insensibly she also thought that the girl must lose her evident faith in the splendor of such attire; must change her standard of taste. She rose and greeted Ellen sweetly, though somewhat reservedly. When the two were seated opposite each other, Cynthia tried to talk pleasantly, but all the time with a sub-consciousness as one will have of some deformity which must be ignored. The girl looked so common to her in this array that she began to have a hopeless feeling of disgust about it all. Was it not manifestly unwise to try to elevate a girl who took such evident satisfaction in a gown like that, in a hat like that?

Ellen wore her watch and chain ostentatiously. The watch was too large for a chatelaine, but she had looped the heavy chain across her bosom, and pinned it with the brooch which Abby Atkins had given her, so it hung suspended. Cynthia riveted her eyes helplessly upon that as she talked.

”I hope you are having a pleasant vacation,” said she, as she looked at the watch, and all at once Ellen knew.

Ellen replied that she was having a very pleasant vacation, then she plunged at once into the subject of her call, though with inward trembling.

”Miss Lennox,” said she--and she followed the lines of a little speech which she had been rehearsing to herself all the way there--”I am very grateful to you for what you propose doing for me.

It will make a difference to me during my whole life. I cannot begin to tell you how grateful I am.”

”I am very grateful to be allowed to do it,” replied Cynthia, with her unfailing refrain of gentle politeness, but a kindly glance was in her eyes. Something in the girl's tone touched her. It was exceedingly earnest, with the simple earnestness of childhood.

Moreover, Ellen was regarding her with great, steadfast, serious eyes, like a baby's who shrinks and yet will have her will of information.

”I wanted to say,” Ellen continued--and her voice became insensibly hushed, and she cast a glance around at the house and the leafy grounds, as if to be sure that no one was within hearing--”that I should never under any circ.u.mstances have said anything regarding what happened so long ago. That I never have and never should have, that I never thought of doing such a thing.”

Then the elder woman's face flushed a burning red, and she knew at once what the girl had suspected. ”You might proclaim it on the house-tops if it would please you,” she cried out, vehemently. ”If you think--if you think--”

”Oh, I do not!” cried Ellen, in an agony of pleading. ”Indeed, I do not. It was only that--I--feared lest you might think I would be mean enough to tell.”

”I would have told, myself, long ago if there had been only myself to consider,” said Cynthia, still red with anger, and her voice strained. All at once she seemed to Ellen more like the woman of her childhood. ”Yes, I would,” said she, hotly--”I will now.”

”Oh, I beg you not!” cried Ellen.

”I will go with you this minute and tell your mother,” Cynthia said, rising.

Ellen sprang up and moved towards her as if to push her back in her chair. ”Oh, please don't!” she cried. ”Please don't. You don't know mother; and it would do no good. It was only because I wondered if you could have thought I would tell, if I would be so mean.”

”And you thought, perhaps, I was bribing you not to tell, with Va.s.sar College,” Cynthia said, suddenly. ”Well, you have suspected me of something which was undeserved.”

”I am very sorry,” Ellen said. ”I did not suspect, really, but I do not know why you do this for me.” She said the last with her steady eyes of interrogation on Cynthia's face.

”You know the reasons I have given.”

”I do not think they were the only ones,” Ellen replied, stoutly. ”I do not think my valedictory was so good as to warrant so much, and I do not think I am so smart as to warrant so much, either.”

Cynthia laughed. She sat down again. ”Well,” she said, ”you are not one to swallow praise greedily.” Then her tone changed. ”I owe it to you to tell you why I wish to do this,” she said, ”and I will.

You are an honest girl, with yourself as well as with other people--too honest, perhaps, and you deserve that I should be honest with you. I am not doing this for you in the least, my dear.”

Ellen stared at her.

”No, I am not,” repeated Cynthia. ”You are a very clever, smart girl, I am sure, and it will be a nice thing for you to have a better education, and be able to take a higher place in the world, but I am not doing it for you. When you were a little child I would have done everything, given my life almost, for you, but I never care so much for children when they grow up. I am not doing this for you, but for your mother.”

”My mother?” said Ellen.

”Yes, your mother. I know what agony your mother must have been in, that time when I kept you, and I want to atone in some way. I think this is a good way. I don't think you need to hesitate about letting me do it. You also owe a little atonement to your mother. It was not right for you to run away, in the first place.”