THE SPINET.
"Thou art not for the fashion of these times."
"Where are you going to put it, Celia?" asked Mrs. Fair.
"In Saint Cecilia's room, I suppose," her daughter replied. Her father had given this name to the sitting room which was her own special property, and in which she would have nothing that was not associated in some way with her great-grandmother.
"I don't believe you ever enter it now," Mrs. Fair continued discontentedly.
"The spinet won't mind that; it is used to being alone," Celia answered cheerfully, standing before the mirror, fastening an oak leaf on her dress. It reminded her that even if her heart was heavy and her life full of difficulties, she could still be courageous.
"Things are sure to come right in the Forest," she had said to herself again and again. Not because she believed it, but because she longed to, and sometimes she did believe it,—just for a little while,—as she looked from Patricia's Arbor across to that bit of sunny road.
Since the adventure of the Arden Foresters the cellar windows of the Gilpin house had been securely fastened, and its bolts and bars made proof against more experienced house breakers than they. And now preparations for the sale became evident. Circulars containing an inventory of the things to be disposed of were spread abroad, and it was known that the proprietor of the new mills, a stranger in Friendship, had been through the house with the idea of purchasing.
As she unlocked the door of Saint Cecilia's room, Celia could not help remembering the days when she had looked forward so happily to owning the spinet, and seeing it stand beneath her great-grandmother's portrait.
From the cushioned window-seat, where there was a glimpse of the river through the trees, she had loved to survey the calm orderliness of the little room. At heart something of a Puritan, the straight-backed chairs and unreposeful sofa, the secretary with its diamond-paned doors and glass knobs, the quaint old jardinières brought from China a century ago, pleased her fancy.
How Genevieve Whittredge had smiled and shrugged her shoulders! In those days their half antagonistic friendship had not suffered a complete break. She must have color and warmth and lavishness, and Celia acknowledged her unerring taste and admired the beauty and richness Genevieve found necessary to her happiness, even while she returned contentedly to her own prim little room.
It had been her dreaming place, and when dreams were crowded out by an exacting present, she had closed the door and turned the key. It was so much the less to take care of.
"I don't see why Mr. Gilpin couldn't have left you some money," her mother said, following her. "It would be such a help just now. How are we to keep Tom at the university another year?"
Mrs. Fair had a way of bringing up problems just when her daughter had succeeded in putting them aside.
"I think we can manage in some way, mother. Don't worry," she said.
"But some one has to worry."
"Then let me do it," Celia answered, smiling.
Half an hour later she was standing by the spinet, absently touching the tuneless keys, when a voice from the window startled her. It was Morgan, who with his elbows on the sill, was looking in.
"Better sell it, Miss Celia."
Sell it! The idea had never occurred to her. "What could I get for it?" she asked, going to the window.
"Two hundred—maybe more."
Two hundred dollars would be a great help toward Tom's expenses, but to give up her grandmother's spinet? It took on a new value.
"Let me have it to do over and I guarantee you two hundred dollars," said Morgan.
"I'll think of it and let you know," was Celia's answer.
"It seems like the irony of fate," she told herself, "to have to sell it almost before it is really mine; and yet when two hundred dollars lie within my reach, I can't refuse to take them. Poor old spinet, it is too bad to send you away. I shouldn't do it if I could help it; but you don't fit in with these times. Or rather, you are helping me out; that is the way to look at it."
So it was that the spinet did not long keep company with the portrait of Saint Cecilia, its original owner, but was harked away to the shop of the magician and the society of the clock case and the claw-footed sofa.
Here Allan Whittredge saw and recognized it one day, and questioned Morgan. Allan remembered the prim little sitting room, and how Celia had looked forward to owning the spinet, and it troubled him to think she was compelled to part with it. When he left the shop he went over to Miss Betty's.
After talking for a while about other things, he asked, "Betty, is it true that Dr. Fair left his family with very little?"
"True? Of course it is. Have you just found that out? Celia is working her fingers to the bone, and I wish I were sure those boys are worth it," was her reply.
"How did it happen?"
"Well, I don't think Dr. Fair had the best judgment in the world when it came to investments; at the same time, a lot of other people lost in the West View coal mines. His death was a great shock; I loved Dr. Fair."
"I too," said Allan. "He was a good man."
"I don't know whether you know it, Allan. Perhaps I ought not to tell you; but there was some talk of Dr. Fair's treatment having done your father harm. I really believe your mother was out of her mind with anxiety, and you know she disliked the doctor. He was dismissed, you remember; and this was whispered about and exaggerated until I think it almost broke his heart. Of course there was no truth in it—that was made clear in the end—and his death put a stop to the talk, for everybody loved and respected Dr. Fair; but it has been terribly hard on Celia."
Allan sat looking at Miss Betty absently. "Terribly hard on Celia,"—the words repeated themselves over and over in his mind.
"This is the first I ever heard of it," he said at length.
Miss Betty watched him as he walked away. "As usual I have been minding some one else's business," she said to herself; "but he ought to know it. Allan is a fine fellow."