Part 44 (1/2)

”I promised to take you driving, didn't I, Jewel? Well, the pleasant weather has come. I guess she'll go with me to-morrow, Ballard.”

”Guess again, Mr. Evringham,” retorted the doctor gayly. ”She has accepted my invitation.”

Mrs. Evringham looked on and wondered. ”What is it about that child that takes them all?” she soliloquized. ”She reminds me of that dreadfully plain Madam what's-her-name, who was so fascinating to everybody at the French court.”

Eloise was smiling. ”Now it's your turn, Jewel,” she said.

The child looked from one to another. ”I never sang for anybody,” she returned doubtfully.

”Yes indeed, for Anna Belle. I've heard you,” said Eloise.

”Oh, she was singing with me.”

”Very well. Let her sing with you now.”

”What one?”

”The one I heard,--'Father, where Thine own children are I love to be.'”

”Oh, you mean. 'O'er waiting harpstrings.' All right,” and the child, sitting where she was, sang the well-loved hymn to a touched audience.

”Upon my word, Jewel,” said her grandfather when she had finished. ”Your music isn't all in your soul.” His eyes were glistening.

”Those are beautiful words,” said Dr. Ballard. ”I don't remember any such hymn.”

”Mrs. Eddy wrote it,” returned the child.

”It wasn't Castle Discord to-night,” she said later to Anna Belle, while they were going to bed. ”Didn't you notice how much differently people loved one another?”

CHAPTER XIX

A MORNING DRIVE

”I declare, Eloise,” said Mrs. Evringham the next morning, ”it is almost worth three whole days of storm to have a spell of such heavenly weather to follow. We're sure of several days like this now,” She was standing at the open window, having shown a surprising energy in rising soon after breakfast.

She glanced over her shoulder at her daughter, who was picking up the garments strewn about the room. ”Now you can live out of doors, I hope, and get yourself toned up again. Really, last evening things were very comfortable, weren't they?”

”Yes. I thought the lump had begun to be leavened,” returned the girl.

”Talk English, please,” said her mother vivaciously. ”Father seemed quite human, and that is all we have ever needed to make things tolerable here. I suppose we reaped the benefit of his relief about the horse.”

”It's all Jewel,” said Eloise, smiling. ”That's English, isn't it?”

”Jewel!” Mrs. Evringham exclaimed. ”Why, you're all daffy about that child. What _is_ the attraction?”

”That's what I'm trying to find out. It's time for me to go up now and braid her hair and read the lesson.”

Mrs. Evringham regarded her daughter. ”Young people are eager for novelty, I know,” she said, ”and it would seem as if an interest in a child was an innocent diversion for you at a time when you were growing morbid, but I do think I'm the most unlucky woman in the world! To think that the child should have to be a Christian Scientist, and that you should take this perverse interest in her ideas just now. I haven't spoken of your remarks about the horse last night, but it was in poor taste, to say the least, to mention such nonsense before Dr. Ballard, and apparently do it so seriously. I knew you had been helping Jewel with lessons, but until last evening I didn't suspect that it might all be on that odious subject. Is it, Eloise?”