Without a Home Part 10

"Mamma's right," added Mildred earnestly. "Papa, you must find a place for us in New York--a place within our means. Let us begin life right this time, and I believe G.o.d will bless and prosper us. It won't be many days before Belle and I will find something to do."

Mr. Jocelyn sighed more deeply than ever, and, indeed, appeared so overcome for a few moments that he could not speak. At last he faltered, "I have all of a Southern man's pride, and it's more bitter than death to me that my wife and daughters must work for their bread."

"Papa," exclaimed Mildred, "would it not be infinitely more bitter to us all to eat the bread of charity? I shall pretend to no unnatural heroism, nor say I like toil and poverty. On the contrary, I think I shrink from such things more than most girls do. But I don't propose to sit down and wring my hands. I can put them to a better use. We must just put away all talk of pride and sentiment, and remember only our poverty and self-respect. As Christian and sensible people we are bound to accept of our life and make the best of it.

You and mother both know how much this change has cost me," she concluded, with a few half-stifled sobs, "and if I am willing to enter on a cheerful, patient effort to make the best of life as it is, I think all the rest might, too. If we give way to despondency we are lost. Let us be together again, and pull together as one."

"The idea of Nan and the children coming back to the city in August!"

said Mr. Jocelyn dejectedly. "You don't either of you realize what you are talking about. We should have to go into a tenement-house."

"Martin, I do realize it," replied his wife earnestly. "The country is doing me no good--indeed I'm failing in health. Nothing does us good when we are unhappy and anxious. Find me two rooms in a tenement-house if we cannot afford more, and let us be together as soon as possible."

"Well," said Mr. Jocelyn, after a long breath, "with such a wife and such children to work for a man ought to be able to do great things; but it's much the same as it was in the army--if one lost his place in the ranks he was hustled about in everybody's way, and if weak and disabled he was left to his fate. The world goes right on and over you if you don't stand aside. I know you've suffered, Nan, and you know that if I had my wish you would never have a care or a pain; but G.o.d knows I suffered too. After you all were gone and my duties to my former partners ceased, I began to learn from experience how difficult it is in these cursed times to get a foothold, and I became almost sleepless from anxiety. Then set in that villanous neuralgia, which always strikes a man when he's down,' and for a week or more it seemed that I should almost lose my reason.

"Oh, Martin, Martin!" his wife exclaimed reproachfully, "and you did not let us know!"

"Why should I? It would only have added to your burden, and would not have helped me. I was glad you knew nothing about it."

"This is another proof that we must be together," said his wife, her eyes filling with tears. "How did you come to get better?"

"Oh, the doctor gave me something that made me sleep, and I seldom have neuralgia now."

"Come, papa," cried Mildred, as she put her arms around his neck and leaned her face against his, "there are thousands worse off than we are, and thousands more have retrieved far worse disasters.

Now take courage; we'll all stand by you, and we'll all help you.

We will one day have a prettier home than ever, and it will be all our own, so that no one can drive us from it;" and with hope springing up in her heart she tried to inspire hope and courage in theirs.

"Oh, Millie," he said, taking her on his lap, "when you coax and pet one you are irresistible. We WILL begin again, and win back all and more than we have lost."

Then, partly to amuse her father and mother, but more for the purpose of hastening their departure, Mildred told them of Roger's peculiar mood, and her conscience smote her a little as she caricatured rather than characterized the youth. Mrs. Jocelyn, in her kindliness, took his part, and said, "Millie, you are satirical and unjust I'm sure he's a well-meaning young man."

"The dear little mother!" cried Mildred, laughing; "when she can't think of anything else good to say of a person, she a.s.sures us that he is 'well-meaning.' Life may bring me many misfortunes, but I shall never marry what mamma calls 'a well-meaning man.'"

"But, Millie, I'm sure he's been very good and kind to us all, and he's kind to his mother and sister, and he seems steady--"

"Well, mamma, admitting it all, what follows?" asked Mildred.

"It follows that we had better go away," said Mrs. Jocelyn, with her low, sweet laugh, that had been rarely heard of late; "but I don't like you to be unjust to the young fellow. After all, he's not so very much to blame, Millie," she added, with a little nod.

"If I were he I fear I might be in the same fix."

"Oh, papa, now we must go; for if mamma's sympathies are once aroused in behalf of this 'steady, well-meaning young man'--there!

I will talk no more nonsense to-night, although I often find nonsense a sort of life preserver that keeps me from sinking. I admit, mamma, that I have been unjust to Mr. Atwood. He's far more clever than I ever imagined him to be, but he's so different"--she finished the sentence with a little repellent gesture that her mother well understood.

They were all comforted, and far more hopeful from their frank interchange of thought and feeling, and both father and mother breathed a fervent "G.o.d bless you, Millie," as they separated, long past midnight.

"G.o.d will bless us," said the young girl, "if we will just simply try to do what is right and best every day. The blessing will come on doing, not waiting."

She had not been in her room very long before hearing the crunching of gravel under the wheels of Roger's buggy. With a smile she thought, "He must have found a more sympathizing ear and heart than mine to have remained out so late."

CHAPTER XI

A SHADOW

"Mrs. Atwood," said Mildred the next morning, "I want to thank you for your kindness in giving us our supper alone with papa the first evening of his arrival; but you need not put yourself to any extra trouble to-day."

"Roger is the one to thank," replied Mrs. Atwood. "He's grown so different, so considerate like, that I scarcely know him any more than I do the old place he's so fixed up. He says he's going to paint the house after the summer work slacks off. I don't see what's come over him, but I like the change very much."

Mildred flushed slightly, but said, with some constraint, "Please thank him then from papa and mamma, but do not let us make you further trouble. We shall all return to the city soon, and then you will have easier times every way."

"I'm sorry to hear that, Miss Jocelyn, for we shall miss you all very much. You've done us good in more ways than one."

Roger did not appear at breakfast. "A young horse strayed from the pasture, and Roger is out looking for him," his mother explained when Mrs. Jocelyn asked after him.

Although not a member of any church, Mr. Jocelyn had great respect for his wife and daughter's faith, and accompanied them to service that morning very readily. Roger appeared in time to take Belle, as usual, but she found him so taciturn and preoccupied that she whispered to Mildred, "You've spoiled him for me. He sits staring like an owl in the sunlight, and seeing just about as much. You ought to be ashamed of yourself to make him so glum. I intend to have a dozen beaux, and to keep them all jolly."

Mildred was obliged to admit to herself that the young fellow was very undemonstrative at dinner, and that he did not exhibit the rusticity that she half hoped to see. She gained the impression that he was observing her father very closely, and that no remark of his escaped him. "He has the eyes of a lynx," she thought, with a frown. Still, apart from a certain annoyance at his deep interest in her and all relating to her, she was rather pleased at the impression which such a man as her father must make on one so unsophisticated.

Mr. Jocelyn was a finished man of the world, and his large experience left its impress on all that he said and did. Although a little courtly in manner, he was so kindly and frank in nature that his superiority was not at all oppressive, and with true Southern bonhomie he made the farmer's family quite at ease, leading them to speak freely of their rural affairs. Susan soon lost all sense of restraint and began to banter her brother.

"You must have had a very affecting time in making up with Amelia Stone to have stayed out so late," she remarked sotto voce.

"I've not seen Amelia Stone since the evening she was here," he answered dryly.

"Indeed! what other charmer then tied you to her ap.r.o.n-strings so tightly? You are very fickle."

"Now you've hit it," he answered, with a slight flush. "I was so undecided that I drove by every door, and was not tied at all."

Belle "made eyes" at Mildred, as much as to say, "It's you who are distracting him."

"Next time," Sue continued, "I think it would be well to make up your mind before Sunday morning."

"My mind is made up," replied Roger--Belle looked at Mildred with an expression of horror, to her intense annoyance--"I shall trouble no one," he added, quietly.

Belle now gave such a great sigh of relief that he turned upon her too swift a glance to leave time for disguise. He smiled a little bitterly, and then began talking in an off-hand way to Mr. Jocelyn about the hotel a few miles distant, saying that it had filled up very rapidly of late. As they rose from the table he remarked, hesitatingly, "My horse and wagon are at your service this afternoon or evening if you would like to take a drive."

Mr. Jocelyn was about to accept, but Mildred trod significantly on his foot. Therefore he thanked Roger cordially, and said he would spend a quiet day with his family.

"I don't wish to be under the slightest obligations to him,"

explained Mildred when they were alone; "and Belle," she warned, "you must stop your nonsense at once. I won't endure another trace of it."

"Oh, indeed! I didn't know you were so touchy about him," cried the girl. "Is it for his sake or your own that you are so careful?

You're stupid not to let him amuse you, since you've spoiled him for me."

Her sister made no reply, but gave the giddy child a glance that quieted her at once. When Mildred was aroused her power over others was difficult to explain, for, gentle as she was, her will at times seemed irresistible.

Roger did not need to be told in so many words that his overtures of "friends.h.i.+p" had been practically declined. Her tones, her polite but distant manner revealed the truth clearly. He was sorely wounded, but, so far from being disheartened, his purpose to win her recognition was only intensified.