Part 32 (1/2)

”A great bunch of wild roses! Oh, then I know something about Patsey. It was one day in August. And-and I had the roses.”

Dil's face was a rare study. Virginia Deering bent over and kissed it.

Then the ice of strangeness was broken, and they were friends.

This was Patsey's ”stunner.” She was very sweet and lovely, with pink cheeks, and teeth like pearls. Dil looked into the large, serious eyes, and her heart warmed until she gave a soft, glad, trusting laugh.

”Patsey'll be so glad to have me find you! They were the beautifullest things, withered up some, but so sweet. Me an' Bess hadn't never seen any; an' I put them in a bowl of water, an' all the baby buds come out, an' they made Bess so glad she could a-danced if she'd been well, 'cause she used to 'fore she was hurted, when the hand-organs come. They was on the winder-sill by where she slept, an' every day we'd take out the poor dead ones. 'N' there was jes' a few Sat'day when we went up to the Square an' met the man. 'N' I allers had to wheel Bess, 'cause she couldn't walk.”

”What hurt her?”

”Well-pappy did. He was dreadful that night along a-drinkin', an' he slammed her against the wall, an' her poor little hurted legs never grew any more. An' the man said jes' the same as you,-that he'd been stayin'

where there was hundreds of thim, an' he made the beautifullest picture of Bess-she was pritty as an angel.”

Miss Deering's eyes fell on the little trail of freckles across Dil's nose. They were very small, but quite distinct on the waxen, pale skin.

”And he painted a picture of you! He put you in that wild-rose dell. I know now. I thought I must have seen your face.”

Dil looked almost stupidly amazed.

”Bess was so much prittier,” she said simply. ”_Do_ you know 'bout him?

He went away ever so far, crost the 'Lantic Oshun. But he said he'd come back in the spring.”

She lifted her grave, perplexed eyes to a face whose wavering tints were struggling with keen emotion.

”He couldn't come back in the spring. He went abroad with a cousin who loved him very much, who was ill, and hoped to get well; but he grew worse and weaker, and died only a little while ago. And Mr. Travis came in on Monday, I think.”

Her voice trembled a little.

”Oh, I knew he would come!” The glad cry was electrifying.

And she, this little being, one among the waifs of a big city, had looked for him, had a right to look for him.

”He ain't the kind to tell what he don't mean. Bess was so sure. An' I want to ast him so many things I can't get straight by myself. I ain't smart like Bess was, an' we was goin' to heaven when he come back; he said he'd go with us. An' now Bess is dead.”

”My dear little girl,” Virginia held her close, and kissed the cool, waxen cheek, the pale lips, ”will you tell me all the story, and about going to heaven?”

It was an easy confidence now. She told the plans so simply, with that wonderful directness one rarely finds outside of Bible narratives. Her own share in the small series of tragedies was related with no consciousness that it had been heroic. Virginia could see the Square on the Sat.u.r.day afternoon, and Bess in her wagon, when she ”ast Mr. Travis to go to heaven with them.” And the other time-the singing. Ah, she well knew the beauty and pathos of the voice. How they had hoped and planned-and that last sad night, with its remembrance of wild roses.

Dil's voice broke now and then, and she made little heart-touching pauses; but Virginia was crying softly, moved from the depths of her soul. And Dil's wonderful faith that she could have brought Bess back to life bordered on the sublime.

”Oh, my dear,” and Virginia's voice trembled with tenderness, ”you need never doubt. Bess _is_ in heaven.”

”No,” returned Dil, with a curious certainty in her tone, ”she ain't quite gone, 'cause I've seen her. We all went up to Cent'l Park, Sunday week ago. I was all alone, the boys goin' off walkin', an' me bein'

tired. I wanted her so much, I called to her; an' she come, all beautiful an' well, like _his_ picture of her. I c'n talk to her, but she can't answer. There's a little ketch in it I can't get straight, not bein' smart like to understand. But she's jes' waitin' somewheres, 'n'

he kin tell me how it is. You see, Bess wouldn't go to heaven 'thout me, an' he would know just where she is. For she couldn't get crost the river 'n' up the pallis steps 'les I had hold of her hand. For she never had any one to love her so, 'n' she wouldn't go back on me for a whole world.”

Miss Deering could readily believe that. But, oh, what should she say to this wonderful faith? Had it puzzled John Travis as well?

”And who sent you here?” she asked, to break the tense strain.

Dil told of the fainting spell, and Mrs. Wilson and Miss Lawrence, who had been so good.