Esther Part 15

"Here you are, little woman. Welcome home! We have missed Dame Bustle dreadfully;" and as he kissed me heartily I could not help stroking his rough, wet coat sleeve in a sort of penitent way.

"Have you really missed me? It is good of you to say so, Uncle Geoff."

"The house has not felt the same," he returned, pus.h.i.+ng me in before him, and bidding me shake my cloak as I took it off in the pa.s.sage.

And then the door opened, and dear mother came out to help me. As I felt her gentle touch, and heard Dot's feeble "Hurrah! here is Esther!" the uncomfortable, discontented feelings vanished, and my better self regained the mastery. Yes, it was homely and shabby; but oh! so sunny and warm! I forgot Miss Ruth when Dot's beautiful little face raised itself from the cus.h.i.+ons of the sofa, on which I had placed him, and he put his arms round me as I knelt down beside him, and whispered that his back was bad, and his legs felt funny, and he was so glad I was home again, for Martha was cross, and had hard scrubby hands, and hurt him often, though she did not mean it. This and much more did Dot whisper in his childish confidence.

Then Jack came flying in, with Smudge, as usual, in her arms, and a most tumultuous welcome followed. And then came Carrie, with her soft kiss and few quiet words. I thought she looked paler and thinner than when I left home, but prettier than ever; and she, too, seemed pleased to see me. I took off my things as quickly as I could--not stopping to look round the somewhat disorderly room, where Jack had worked her sweet will for the last month--and joined the family at the tea-table. And afterward I sat close to mother, and talked to her as I mended one of Dot's s.h.i.+rts.

Now and then my thoughts strayed to a far different scene--to a room lighted up with wax candles in silver sconces, and the white china lamp that always stood on Miss Ruth's little table.

I could see in my mind's eye the trim little figure in black silk and lace ruffles, the diamonds gleaming on the small white hands.

Flurry would be on the rug in her white frock, playing with the Persian kittens; most likely her father would be watching her from his armchair.

I am afraid I answered mother absently, for, looking up, I caught her wistful glance at me. Carrie was at her night school, and Uncle Geoffrey had been called out. Jack was learning her lessons in the front parlor, and only Dot kept us company.

"You must find it very different from the Cedars," she said, regretfully; "all that luxury must have spoiled you for home, Esther.

Don't think I am complaining, my love, if I say you seem a little dull to-night."

"Oh, mother!" flus.h.i.+ng up to my temples with shame and irritation at her words; and then another look at the worn face under the widow's cap restrained my momentary impatience. Dot, who was watching us, struck in in his childish way.

"Do you like the Cedars best, Essie? Would you rather be with Flurry than me?"

My own darling! The bare idea was heresy, and acted on me like a moral _douche_.

"Oh! mother and Dot," I said, "how can you both talk so? I am not spoiled--I refuse to be spoiled. I love the Cedars, but I love my own dear little home best." And at this moment I believed my own words.

"Dot, how can you be so faithless--how could I love Flurry best? And what would Allan say? You are our own little boy, you know; he said so, and you belong to us both." And Dot's childish jealousy vanished.

As for dear mother, she smiled at me in a sweet, satisfied way.

"That is like our own old Esther. You were so quiet all tea-time, my dear, that I fancied something was amiss. It is so nice having you working beside me again," she went on, with a little gentle artifice.

"I have missed your bright talk so much in the evenings."

"Has Carrie been out much?" I asked; but I knew what the answer would be.

"Generally three evenings in the week," returned mother, with a sigh, "and her home evenings have been so engrossed of late. Mrs.

Smedley gives her all sorts of things to do--mending and covering books; I hardly knew what."

"Carrie never sings to us now," put in Dot.

"She is too tired, that is what she always says; but I cannot help thinking a little music would be a healthy relaxation for her; but she will have it that with her it is waste of time," said mother.

Waste of time to sing to mother! I broke my thread in two with indignation at the thought. Yes, I was wanted at home, I could see that; Deborah told me so in her taciturn way, when I went to the kitchen to speak to her and Martha.

I had sad work with my room before I slept that night, when Jack was fast asleep; and I was tired out when I crept s.h.i.+vering into my cold bed. I hardly seemed to have slept an hour before I saw Martha's unlovely face bending over me with the flaming candle, so different from Miss Ruth's trim maid.

"Time to get up, Miss Esther, if you are going to dress Master Dot before breakfast. It is mortal cold, to be sure, and raw as raw; but I have brought you a cup of hot tea, as you seemed a bit down last night."

The good creature! I could have hugged her in my girlish grat.i.tude.

The tea was a delicious treat, and put new heart into me. I was quite fresh and rested when I went into Dot's little room. He opened his eyes widely when he saw me.

"Oh, Esther! is it really you, and not that ugly old Martha?" he cried out, joyfully. "I do hate her, to be sure. I will be a good boy, and you shall not have any trouble." And thereupon he fell to embracing me as though he would never leave off.

CHAPTER XIV.

PLAYING IN TOM TIDLER'S GROUND.

We had had an old-fas.h.i.+oned winter--weeks of frost to delight the hearts of the young skaters of Milnthorpe; clear, cold bracing days, that made the young blood in our veins tingle with the sense of new life and buoyancy; long, dark winter evenings, when we sat round the clear, red fire, and the footsteps of the few pa.s.sengers under our window rang with a sort of metallic sound on the frozen pavements.

What a rush of cold air when the door opened, what snow-powdered garments we used to bring into Deborah's spotless kitchen! Dot used to s.h.i.+ver away from my kisses, and put up a little mittened hand to ward me off. "You are like a snow-woman, Essie," he would say. "Your face is as hard and cold and red as one of the haws Flurry brought me."

"She looks as blooming as a rose in June," Uncle Geoffrey answered once, when he heard Dot's unflattering comparison. "Be off, la.s.sie, and take off those wet boots;" but as I closed the door he added to mother, "Esther is improving, I think; she is less angular, and with that clear fresh color she looks quite bonnie."

"Quite bonnie." Oh, Uncle Geoffrey, you little knew how that speech pleased me.

Winter lasted long that year, and then came March, rough and boisterous and dull as usual, with its cruel east wind and the dust, "a peck of which was worth a king's ransom," as father used to say.

Then came April, variable and bright, with coy smiles forever dissolving in tears; and then May in full blossom and beauty giving promise of summer days.

We used to go out in the lanes, Flurry and I, to gather the spring flowers that Miss Ruth so dearly loved. We made a primrose basket once for her room, and many a cowslip ball for Dot, and then there were dainty little bunches of violets for mother and Carrie, only Carrie took hers to a dying girl in Nightingale lane.

The roads round Milnthorpe were so full of lovely things hidden away among the mosses, that I proposed to Flurry that we should collect basketsful for Carrie's sick people. Miss Ruth was delighted with the idea, and asked Jack and Dot to join us, and we all drove down to a large wood some miles from the town, and spent the whole of the spring afternoon playing in a new Tom Tidler's ground, picking up gold and silver. The gold lay scattered broadcast on the land, in yellow patches round the trunks of trees, or beyond in the gleaming meadows; and we worked until the primroses lay heaped up in the baskets in wild confusion, and until our eyes ached with the yellow gleam. I could hear Dot singing softly to himself as he picked industriously. When he and Flurry got tired they seated themselves like a pair of happy little birds on the low bough of a tree. I could hear them twittering softly to each other, as they swung, with their arms interlaced, backward and forward in the sunlight; now and then I caught fragments of their talk.

"We shall have plenty of flowers to pick in heaven," Dot was saying as I worked near them.

"Oh, lots," returned Flurry, in an eager voice, "red and white roses, and lilies of the valley, miles of them--millions and millions, for all the little children, you know. What a lot of children there will be, Dot, and how nice to do nothing but play with them, always and forever."

"We must sing hymns, you know," returned Dot, with a slight hesitation in his voice. Being a well brought up little boy, he was somewhat scandalized by Flurry's views; they sounded somewhat earthly and imperfect.

"Oh, we can sing as we play," observed Flurry, irreverently; she was not at all in a heavenly mood this afternoon. "We can hang up our harps, as they do in the Psalms, you know, and just gather flowers as long as we like."

"It is nice to think one's back won't ache so much over it, there,"

replied poor Dot, who was quite weak and limp from his exertions.

"One of the best things about heaven is, though it all seems nice enough, that we shan't be tired. Think of that, Flurry--never to be tired!"

"I am never tired, though I am sleepy sometimes," responded Flurry, with refres.h.i.+ng candor, "You forget the nicest part, you silly boy, that it will never be dark. How I do hate the dark, to be sure."

Dot opened his eyes widely at this. "Do you?" he returned, in an astonished voice; "that is because you are a girl, I suppose. I never thought much about it. I think it is nice and cozy when one is tucked up in bed. I always imagine the day is as tired as I am, and that she has been put to bed too, in a nice, warm, dark blanket."

"Oh, you funny Dot," crowed Flurry. But she would not talk any more about heaven; she was in wild spirits, and when she had swung enough she commenced pelting Dot with primroses. Dot bore it stoutly for awhile, until he could resist no longer, and there was a flowery battle going on under the trees.

It was quite late in the day when the tired children arrived home.

Carrie fairly hugged Dot when the overflowing baskets were placed at her feet.

"These are for all the sick women and little children," answered Dot, solemnly; "we worked so hard, Flurry and I."