Miss Prudence Part 12

Marjorie remembered that she had been taught to say "grandmarm," but as she grew older she had softened it to "grandma."

"I'll bring you her photograph when I come to-morrow to say good-bye.

Now, tell me what you've been looking sad about."

Is it possible that she was forgetting?

"Oh, perhaps you can help me!"

"Help you! Of course I will."

"How did you know I was troubled?" she asked seriously, looking up into his eyes.

"Have I eyes?" he answered as seriously. "Father happened to think that mother had an errand for him to do on this road, so I jumped off and ran after you."

"No, you ran after your mother's errand," she answered, jealously.

"Well, then, I found you, my precise little maiden, and now you must tell me what you were crying about."

"Not spilt milk, but only a broken milk pitcher! _Do_ you think you can find me a yellow pitcher, with yellow figures--a man, or a lion, or something, a hundred or two hundred years old?"

"In New York? I'm rather doubtful. Oh, I know--mother has some old ware, it belonged to her grandmother, perhaps I can beg a piece of it for you.

Will it do if it isn't a pitcher?"

"I'd rather have a pitcher, a yellow pitcher. The one I broke belongs to a friend of Miss Prudence."

"Prudence! Is she a Puritan maiden?" he asked.

Marjorie felt very ignorant, she colored and was silent. She supposed Helen Rheid would know what a Puritan maiden was.

"I won't tease you," he said penitently. "I'll find you something to make the loss good, perhaps I'll find something she'll like a great deal better."

"Mr. Onderdonk has a plate that came from Holland, it's over two hundred years old he told Miss Prudence; oh, if you _could_ get that!" cried Marjorie, clasping her hands in her eagerness.

"Mr. Onderdonk? Oh, the shoemaker, near the schoolhouse. Well, Mousie, you shall have some old thing if I have to go back a century to get it.

Helen will be interested to know all about it; I've told her about you."

"There's nothing to tell about me," returned Marjorie.

"Then I must have imagined it; you used to be such a cunning little thing."

"_Used to be!_" repeated sensitive Marjorie, to herself. She was sure Hollis was disappointed in her. And she thought he was so tall and wise and handsome and grand! She could never be disappointed in him.

How surprised she would have been had she known that Helen's eyes had filled with tears when Hollis told her how his little friend had risen all alone in that full church! Helen thought she could never be like Marjorie.

"I wish you had a picture of how you used to look for me to show Helen."

Not how she looked to-day! Her lips quivered and she kept her eyes on her dusty shoes.

"I suppose you want the pitcher immediately."

Two years ago Hollis would have said "right away."

After that Marjorie never forgot to say "immediately."

"Yes, I would," she said, slowly. "I've hidden the pieces away and n.o.body knows it is broken."

"That isn't like you," Hollis returned, disappointedly.

"Oh, I didn't do it to deceive; I couldn't. I didn't want her to be sorry about it until I could see what I could do to replace it"

"That sounds better."

Marjorie felt very much as if he had been finding fault with her.

"Will you have to pay for it?"

"Not if mother gives it to me, but perhaps I shall exact some return from you."

She met his grave eyes fully before she spoke. "Well, I'll give you all I can earn. I have only seventy-three cents; father gives me one tenth of the eggs for hunting them and feeding the chickens, and I take them to the store. That's the only way I can earn money," she said in her sweet half-abashed voice.

A picture of Helen taking eggs to "the store" flashed upon Hollis'

vision; he smiled and looked down upon his little companion with benignant eyes.

"I could give you all I have and send you the rest. Couldn't I?" she asked.

"Yes, that would do. But you must let me set my own price," he returned in a business like tone.

"Oh I will. I'd do anything to get Miss Prudence a pitcher," she said eagerly.

The faded muslin brushed against him; and how odd and old-fas.h.i.+oned her hat was! He would not have cared to go on a picnic with Marjorie in this attire; suppose he had taken her into the crowd of girls among which his cousin Helen was so noticeable last week, how they would have looked at her! They would think he had found her at some mission school. Was her father so poor, or was this old dress and broad hat her mother's taste?

Anyway, there was a guileless and bright face underneath the flapping hat and her voice was as sweet as Helen's even it there was such an old-fas.h.i.+oned tone about it. One word seemed to sum up her dress and herself--old-fas.h.i.+oned. She talked like some little old grandmother.

She was more than quaint--she was antiquated. That is, she was antiquated beside Helen. But she did not seem out of place here in the country; he was thinking of her on a city pavement, in a city parlor, or among a group of fluttering, prettily dressed city girls, with their modulated voices, animated gestures and laughing, bright replies. There was light and fire about them and Marjorie was such a demure little mouse.

"Don't fret about it any more," he said, kindly, with his grown-up air, patting her shoulder with a light, caressing touch. "I will take it into my hands and you need not think of it again."

"Oh, thank you! thank you!" she cried, her eyes br.i.m.m.i.n.g over.

It was the old Hollis, after all; he could do anything and everything she wanted.

Forgetting her shyness, after that home-like touch upon her shoulder, she chatted all the way home. And he did not once think that she was a quiet little mouse.

He did not like "quiet" people; perhaps because his own spirit was so quiet that it required some effort for him to be noisy. Hollis admired most characteristics unlike his own; he did not know, but he _felt_ that Marjorie was very much like himself. She was more like him than he was like her. They were two people who would be very apt to be drawn together under all circ.u.mstances, but without special and peculiar training could never satisfy each other. This was true of them even now, and, if possible with the enlarged vision of experience, became truer as they grew older. If they kept together they might grow together; but, the question is, whether of themselves they would ever have been drawn very close together. They were close enough together now, as Marjorie chatted and Hollis listened; he had many questions to ask about the boys and girls of the village and Marjorie had many stories to relate.

"So George Harris and Nell True are really married!" he said. "So young, too!"

"Yes, mother did not like it. She said they were too young. He always liked her best at school, you know. And when she joined the Church she was so anxious for him to join, too, and she wrote him a note about it and he answered it and they kept on writing and then they were married."

"Did he join the Church?" asked Hollis,