Part 12 (2/2)

Dear me, how mixed up I am getting. And she is really white! I shall have to remember that. Dear, dear!”

”Here comes Hertha now.”

Looking up Miss Patty saw Hertha in her maid's dress, her cheeks a little whiter than usual, dark shadows under her eyes, but modest, quiet, standing in the doorway. ”My dear,” she began, and collapsed again.

Hertha ran to her all anxious attention. ”Is it bad news?” she asked turning to Miss Witherspoon while she rubbed her mistress's hands.

”No, Hertha,” was the answer, ”it isn't bad news. It's about you.”

The girl grew sick with fright. What had they found out?

”It's this,” Miss Witherspoon said, pus.h.i.+ng over the letter inclosed in Miss Patty's and addressed to the girl.

”What are you doing?” Miss Patty recovered at once when she saw her prerogative as vendor of news about to be destroyed. ”Bostwick Unthank wrote to me that the shock might not be too great. Don't look at that letter, honey,” turning to Hertha with deep affection and concern in her voice. ”Wait till I've told you about it. It's from a lawyer, my dear, and it seems a little money has been left you. We don't know how much but it should be a little help, I'm sure.”

”Who has left it?” Hertha asked.

She was tense with excitement, afraid. She could not dissociate this happening with the night through which she had pa.s.sed. She dared not trust herself to tear open her own letter before these two women.

Despairing, she turned to Miss Witherspoon who stood quiet, composed, just as one of her teachers would have stood at school. ”Please tell me at once,” she asked, ”what this means?”

And Miss Witherspoon answered in a matter-of-fact tone such as a teacher might have used: ”It seems, Hertha, that you are not colored but white.”

The girl turned from one woman to another. ”Don't mock me,” she gasped.

”My darling!” Miss Patty held out her arms to her favorite. ”There, dear, there, don't look so frightened, though I must say,” glancing with scorn at her guest, ”it would be enough to frighten any one into her grave to be told a piece of news that way. You are white, dear, and you have been left some money, and you ought to be very happy.” And with many pats and kisses she told all of the story that she knew.

Hertha's letter was brief and ended by stating that she had been bequeathed two thousand dollars, and that, as all legacies left by the late George Ogilvie were to be paid at once, she was requested to come at her earliest convenience to the lawyer's office.

”What is she thinking about?” the two women asked themselves as the girl read her letter and said no word. But could they have looked into her mind they would have been perplexed to find an answer. Her brain was a blur of strange, magnificent impressions. A dying mother, an old man delaying rest.i.tution until after his death, money, freedom. As she looked down at her maid's dress, as she thought of herself last night crouched under the trees, she drew a deep breath. She was white, of good name. No one should play with her again and throw her away. In the mult.i.tude of emotions that rushed through her being the one that held her longest in its grip was pride. No white man now should expect her to give everything and in return receive only humiliation. ”I'm white, I'm white,” she repeated over and over to herself.

”Two thousand dollars is a good deal of money to get all at once, Hertha--or Miss Ogilvie, as I suppose I ought to say,” Miss Witherspoon remarked, more to take Hertha's mind from herself than anything else. ”I hope you'll use it wisely.”

”Some of it,” Hertha replied, ”belongs to Mammy.”

”She'll never touch it,” Miss Patty said sharply; and in this she prophesied aright.

Hertha rose slowly and went into her mistress's bedroom.

”What are you doing?” Miss Patty called out.

”Making your bed,” was the answer. ”And then, if you don't mind, I'd like to go home.”

Calling the girl to her, Miss Patty rose and said tenderly, ”You're your own mistress now and you mustn't think of work this morning. Pomona can come upstairs and put things to rights. This has been a terrible excitement for you, terrible! If only John and Lee were home. How could they go away this particular morning!”

”I don't see that that makes any difference.”

”Yes, of course it does; one needs a man in a case of business. But sit down, dear, get your sewing and we'll talk about it.” Miss Patty settled herself again. ”To think that you're an Ogilvie! Almost as good a family as the Merryvales.”

”Miss Patty, I'm afraid I can't sit down and talk about it now.”

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