Part 20 (1/2)
”This garden used to be the pride of the Island,” he muttered, seeing in its restored trimness something of its old-time beauty. ”But it's young hands that's needed.”
”It's beautiful, _now_,” Nancy had declared. ”It's the loveliest garden I ever saw, Jonathan,” and she thought of Nonie's quaint words: ”Jonathan puts in seeds that grow into pretty flowers and he's ugly!”
Yes, the wrinkled, leathery face under the old hat was not beautiful, and yet something of the beauty of the flowers he grew was reflected in the expression of the old eyes that bent so tenderly over them.
”That's life,” reflected Nancy, indulging in a moment's philosophizing.
”It's really what we think and do that makes us beautiful or not beautiful!”
They had worked late; the long shadows of the afternoon danced in lacy patterns over the gray walls of the house. Nancy, watching them, thought of that first disappointment she had felt upon viewing Happy House. Then it had seemed an ugly pile of stones, severely lined. Now it was more like a breathing Thing. It had sheltered and seen shaped so many lives; it held a future, too; it must stand protectingly for others after Aunt Milly and Aunt Sabrina had gone!
It had, now, with its blinds fastened back, an awakened, expectant look, as of eyes suddenly opened after a long, long sleep.
Then into Nancy's happy meditations flashed the disturbing thought that nothing about the garden or the house belonged in any way to her!
”It's just _like_ me to forget,” she declared aloud, shouldering her hoe and turning toward the carriage barn. ”And like me to get fond of it all!”
”Anyway, Nonie'll have her party, and even if there isn't a harp and a velvet train there'll be lots to eat or B'lindy's name isn't B'lindy.
I wonder,” and Nancy addressed the distant outline of the Judson's barns, ”how Peter Hyde'll _ever_ act at a tea-party!”
CHAPTER XVIII
THE PARTY
Very early, on the morning of the day of the party, Nancy and Aunt Milly and B'lindy and Jonathan and Nonie and Davy and Peter Hyde, each, scanned a sunny, cloudless sky with relief and joy.
”Well, it isn't going to rain, anyway,” each thought.
Even Miss Sabrina, lifting her shade slowly, felt her pulse beat more quickly as a sunbeam danced into her face. This day was a new day for Happy House; she could not count the years since a ”party” had been given in her home; her old hands trembled now as she dressed hurriedly.
”_What_ if something goes wrong!” she thought. Had they forgotten anything?
A little later Nancy, standing with her arms full of girlish finery of thirty years ago, voiced the same fear to Aunt Milly.
”_What_ if something should go wrong!” But there had been a giggle in her voice as she had said it. This was the most delightfully funny party she had ever known, and it was going to be the very jolliest, too.
Directly after breakfast Nonie had run home with the made-over white dress. She thought it much lovelier than velvet and in her joy over a pair of Nancy's slippers the child forgot her cherished dream of a train.
What Miss Milly should wear to the party was a matter that demanded much thought. ”You see, I want you to look _happy_,” Nancy explained to Aunt Milly. She had dragged down from the attic a little trunk in which, after the accident, many of Aunt Milly's girlish possessions had been packed. It was great fun taking them out and selecting from them what Aunt Milly should wear. There were not many things--compared to Nancy's own wardrobe it was pitifully small and spoke eloquently of the limited pleasures of Aunt Milly's girlhood.
”This will be lovely,” Nancy held out a flowered silk. ”And you can wear these darling beads. And this,” picking out a sh.e.l.l comb, ”in your hair. And I will send Jonathan over to Judson's for a bunch of their lovely roses. I _know_ they have some!”
”But isn't this--queer--and out of date? I'm old now, Nancy!”
”You dear, funny Aunt Milly! Don't you know that you're not a bit old?
All this time you've been shut away the years have been rolling right past you and have left you untouched. You're going to be the sweetest picture and you're going to be a--surprise, too!”
She was a picture when Nancy's eager fingers had finished with her.
The pink of the quaintly fas.h.i.+oned dress was not more pink than the color that flushed her delicate cheeks; into her soft hair Nancy had thrust the sh.e.l.l comb and around her neck hung a chain of tiny corals.
Jonathan had returned from Judson's with four bunches of roses and one of them now adorned Miss Milly.