Six Girls Part 32

"Don't you suppose," began the young doctor rather hurriedly, "that it is very pleasant for me to know that I saved you any pain, and don't you know that I wish I might feel that you would give me the right to do so always? don't you, Beatrice?"

"Oh--I--don't know;" stammered Bea, with a foolish little quaver to her voice, and dropping her face clean out of sight, yet making no resistance when she found her hands imprisoned.

"Please look at me," was the first request, in very tender tones. "I need some encouragement. Won't you give me a little? If you love me ever so little, dear, won't you put your hand in mine again?"

Bea dropped her head still lower, all in a tremor of happy, shy delight, and looked at the hand which he had released, and was waiting to claim from her. Should she give it? She knew she would, even while she hesitated, for didn't she love him from the top to the bottom of her devoted little heart? Yes, of course she did. And didn't she foolishly think that the loveliest music in heaven could never be more delightful to listen to than his voice asking for her love? To be sure she did. Oh, it's wonderful how such times affect us all!

"I'm waiting, Beatrice," said Dr. Walter, with a very proper degree of beseeching impatience. "Don't you love me any, darling?"

Up came her head with a little flash of courage, giving him one glance of the shy, happy eyes, then down it went again, as she held out her hand, and felt it covered with an eager firmness, while something was said close to her rosy ear that did well enough for her to hear, but cannot be told to you.

It is wonderful how much time Miss Lottie managed to consume in putting on a single wrap--a fleecy covering over her head; but she realized the importance of keeping out of the way a while, so loitered and chatted and admired the moon-lit view from the windows, and finally started slowly down stairs, fervently hoping that the important words had been spoken.

They evidently had, for both parties looked so happy, and when the doctor bade the twins good night, it really seemed as though he would shake their hands off, in the excess of some feeling that possessed him; and there is no mistake about it, he certainly kissed Bea in the shadow of the vines, as he said to her in parting:

"To-morrow, I am coming to see your mother, and then I hope to put my seal on this little hand that you have given to me."

At first, Bea did not know whether to tell the girls or not, but then, of course they knew, for after they were alone, what unheard-of capers they did go through with, such winks, and sighs, and groans, and tragic acting. So Bea sat over in the shadow where they couldn't see her face, and said with a laugh:

"Stop your nonsense, if you want me to tell you about it."

"Tell!" echoed Kat. "As if we didn't know, and hadn't seen for months.

I've been nearly dead to tease, 'cause you're such a good subject, but then mama said we shouldn't. Engaged! Oh, here's a go!"

"What did you both say?" asked Kittie, in romantic interest, and feeling as though a great hole had been made in the family, with Bea set apart from them in some way.

"Not much," answered Bea, with a little smile to think how quickly it had all been done. "I hear voices at the gate; it's mama and Mr. Dane; I guess I'll go down and meet her;" so off she went, leaving the twins to laugh and mourn over the event.

Dr. Barnett came the next day, and he and Mrs. Dering talked in the sitting-room together for a long time. Then Bea was sent for, and after a while, when she came out with a quiet, almost sad happiness in her face, she wore a rim of gold on her left hand, and for a long time she sat alone in her room, thinking much, shedding a few tears, and saying a little prayer, as though she felt that she stood on the threshold of something that would require help, and that was hard for her to realize.

After this, the summer days came and went, with little to disturb the quiet life at the Dering's. The heat was so intense that amus.e.m.e.nts of all kinds were laid aside, just as little work done as possible, and the greater portion of the long days spent out on the old roof, where it was constantly shady. So nothing further happened until the time came for Ralph to return to home and studies. The prospect of such an event drove despair into the hearts of the girls and made them extensively rebellious. Even Kat mourned and felt a great deal more than she showed, for with all pretensions to dislike, would it have been possible to have had Ralph Tremayne there for six months, and not like him?

"I'll come back," he would say over and over again, as though in some way, he gained comfort himself from the a.s.sertion. "In two years I'll be through with my studies, and my very first trip will be here and then--"

but somehow, he never finished, but would look thoughtful for a little while, as though the move after _then_, was going to be a very important one.

"I believe you're glad to go," Kittie would say to him when he would often be telling of what he was going to work for and accomplish.

"You'll go back to Boston, and study, and make yourself a great lawyer, and you'll see such elegant ladies in society there, that you will forget all about this little country town, and these little country girls."

"Kittie," Ralph would exclaim in return, as though this little doubt of his faithfulness hurt him, "you know you don't mean it, and if you knew what this summer has been to me, you never would say so."

"Why don't you tell us, then?" asked Kat, who happened to overhear this remark one day.

"Perhaps I will some time, if I find that you are glad to see me when I come back," answered Ralph with a mysterious smile.

"Can you ever doubt that?" asked Bea. "After the blessing and comfort that you have been to us all? I don't know what we ever will do without you, Ralph; it will be so lonesome."

"Why, you ought not to care," said Ralph with a laugh, and touching the hand that wore the gold ring, with a significant gesture. "My place was taken long ago in your fickle heart, mademoiselle."

It did not really seem as though they were going to lose him until September came, and the days crept around, till the one came when a trunk stood packed in the hall, the front room up stairs looked forsaken, and Ralph was really going next morning.

Right after dinner, Kat took her book and went off to the farthest corner of the back-yard, where a gigantic apple-tree stood, with a magnificent seat of curled branches up in its centre, into which, Kat found her way, with some speedy climbing, and then sat down and looked thoughtfully at nothing for nearly half an hour. Yes, she did look very thoughtful, and after a while, she opened her book, but did not read much, for something kept coming between her and the leaves, and two or three times she might have been seen to slide her hand across her eyes, and wink pretty fast, which plainly indicated that something must be the matter. She never could have told afterwards what made her stay there all the afternoon, but stay she did, and never came down until the sun had commenced to throw slanting shadows across the gra.s.s. On the way up to the house, she walked slowly, and appeared to be holding some internal communion or argument with herself, and was seen to shake herself rather fiercely before she went in.

"Well, where in the world have you been?" was the remark that greeted her, as she appeared in the sitting-room door; and the speaker was Bea, who turned from the window with wet eyes.

"Been? Up in the big tree out below the pond."

"Why I thought you had gone up town," exclaimed Kittie, who was crying on the piano-stool, like one bereft. "Ralph's gone."

"Gone!" echoed Kat, slowly.

"Yes, gone," repeated Bea. "He found that he could make connections right through by taking this afternoon's train, and he raced all around town an hour before train-time, to find you. Kittie said you were going after dinner."

"Yes, but I changed my mind," said Kat slowly, then turned and went out.

Gone, and with no good-bye to her! She wondered a little to see how much the thought hurt her. Ralph's old straw hat, with its broad band of blue ribbon, just as he used to wear it around the yard, hung on the rack.

She took it down with a queer little feeling in her throat, and slapped it on to her head, then went out into the yard again.

CHAPTER XVIII.

AT THE OPERA.

The sun came warmly in at the great west window of the picture gallery, and showed Olive sitting before a tall frame, and working busily at the sketch that lay in her lap. Very near to her lay Jean, on a luxurious little divan, with an open book in her hands, from which she read a little now and then, and watching her sister in the meantime. It was very still, for when Olive was at work she was always too absorbed to think of aught else, and objected to being talked to, so the deep silence lay unbroken, and Jean satisfied herself with being allowed to watch to her heart's content.

At last Olive raised her head with a sigh, partly of fatigue, and partly of blissful content, and after taking a professional squint at her subject and her copy, pa.s.sed it over to Jean with the remark:

"There, how do you like that, Jean? Does his nose look right?"

"Just beautiful!" cried Jean with enthusiasm. "How splendidly you do it, Olive. He looks as if he was going to speak. It must be so nice to be an artist; you'll be a great one, some day, won't you?"

"I want to be," answered Olive, who had lately learned that nothing so threw Jean into raptures, as to be appealed to, and confided in. "After I learn to draw heads just as nicely as possible, I am going to sketch yours and Ernestine's for mama."

"Are you really?" exclaimed Jean in delight, "and like that one?"

"Yes, like this," said Olive, looking at her sketch, which was a copy of a magnificent head of Demosthenes, cast in bas-relief against black velvet. "Don't you think she will like it?"

"Oh, she'll just be too happy!" cried Jean, slipping from her lounge, and limping over to Olive with her cane. "I want to talk a little while now, will you, Olive?"

The young artist cast a hasty regretful look at her drawing, and was on the point of putting off the little talk, for her fingers fairly trembled to go on with her work, and catch with her pencil the peculiar life-like expression about the mouth of the great orator; but the temptation was thrust aside, and the next moment, Jean was sitting in her lap, with the contented air of one who expects no rebuffs or unreturned caresses.

"I've been watching you so long," she began, touching with loving fingers, the long, heavy braid of beautiful hair, that had fallen over Olive's shoulder, "and I just wanted to tell you how different you look from the way you used to, you know."

"Yes," answered Olive, who had grown used to these loving bursts of admiration from the observing little girl.

"I used to think," continued Jean, "that you was the most unhappy girl I ever saw, and it made me feel so sorry, 'cause I thought it must be somebody's fault, and then I wanted to kiss you, or something, but you always looked so, I didn't know whether you'd like it or not, and so I never did."