Part 48 (2/2)

She leaned towards me, and beauty breathed about her as a spell. I bent till my lips caressed her perfumed hair; and then--I saw among the rubbish on her desk something that made me interrupt the words we might have spoken.

”What's that?” I asked. ”Not--p.a.w.n tickets?”

”For a necklace,” she said; ”and this--this must be my diamond--”

”p.a.w.ned and not paid for!”

She offered me the tickets, only half understanding, her great eyes as innocent as they were lovely.

”I had forgotten,” she said. ”I only found them when I came to--”

She brushed the rubbish of her winter's triumphs and disappointments to the floor, and turned from it with a little, disdainful movement.

”I had to pay the maids,” she said simply.

”Nelly, why--why didn't you come to me sooner?”

With a b.u.mp against the door, Clesta sidled into the room awestruck and s.m.u.tched, bearing a tray.

”Miss Kitty said,” she stammered, ”as how I should make tea.” And as soon as she had found a resting place for her burden, the frightened girl made a dash for the door.

Before Helen had finished drinking, there was a stir in the hall, and then the sound of a familiar voice startled us.

”Wa-al, Helen 'Lizy,” it said. ”How ye do, John? Don't git up; I can set till ye're through.”

And Mr. Wins.h.i.+p himself stood before us, stoop-shouldered, roughly dressed from the cattle cars, his kindly old eyes twinkling, his good face all glorified by the honest love and pride s.h.i.+ning through its plainness.

”Why, Father!” cried Helen with a start.

She looked at him with a nervous repugnance to his appearance, which she tried to subdue. He did not seem to notice it.

”Wa'n't lookin' for me yit-a-while, was ye?” he asked. ”Kind o' thought I'd s'prise ye. Did s'prise the man down in the hall. Didn't want to let me in till I told him who I was. Little gal in the entry says ye're movin'; ye do look all tore up, for a fac'.”

Mr. Wins.h.i.+p has grown old within the year. His hair has whitened and his bushy eyebrows; but the grip of his hand, the sound of his homely speech, seemed to wake me from some ugly dream. Here we were together again in the wholesome daylight, Father Wins.h.i.+p, little Helen 'Lizy and the Schoolmaster, and all must yet be well.

Mr. Wins.h.i.+p sighed with deep content as he sank into a chair, his eyes scarcely leaving Helen. He owned himself beat out and glad of a dish of tea; but when Clesta had served him in her scuttling crab fas.h.i.+on, he would stop in the middle of a sentence, with saucer half lifted, to gaze with perplexed, wistful tenderness at his stately daughter.

She is the child of his old age; I think he must be long past sixty, and fast growing feeble. The instinct of father love has grown in him so refined that he sees the soul and not the envelope. Grand and beautiful as she is to others, to him she is still his little Nelly.

He would not even own that he thought her altered.

”I d'know,” he said, a shade of anxiety blending with the old fond pride.

”Fust-off, Sis didn't look jes' nat'ral, spite of all the picters she's sent us; but that was her long-tailed dress, mebbe. W'en she's a young one, Ma was all for tyin' back her ears and pinchin' her nose with a clo'espin--to make it straight or so'thin'; but I says to Ma, w'en Helen 'Lizy lef' home, 'don't ye be one mite afeard,' I says, 'but what them bright eyes'll outs.h.i.+ne the peaked city gals.' Guess they have, sort o', eh, Sis; f'om what John's been writin'?”

”I don't know, Father.”

”Don't ye--don't ye want t' hear 'bout the folks? Brought ye heaps o'

messages. Frenchy, now--him that worked for us--druv over f'om the Merriam place to know 'f 'twas true that city folks made a catouse over ye. He'd heard the men readin' 'bout ye in the papers.

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