CHAPTER V.
Ida did not meet Angela Leverton at church on Sunday morning, as she had expected. Angela had a headache, Mrs. Lennox said, but would call at ten o'clock on Monday morning to take Ida for a drive.
So on Monday Ida, attired in her best, seated herself on the front porch, parasol in hand. Aunt Patty had gone to the village, and Cynthia was attending to the dairy work, so there was no chance that Angela would see either of them.
Promptly at ten o'clock Angela appeared in the Lennox carriage, and Ida hurried to the front gate to meet her.
"I don't suppose you care to come in?" she said.
"No, it is not worth while," answered Angela. "What a dear, picturesque old place you have here!" she added, as, Ida having stepped lightly into the carriage, the coachman turned the horses' heads toward the village. "I know you must have enjoyed the peace and rest of the last three weeks, after the whirl of last winter and spring."
"It is very cool and quiet here," said Ida, who was too proud to wish her friend to suspect her discontent.
"You may not care to accept an invitation I have for you," said Angela. "Mamma suggested I should ask you to spend August with us at Rocky Beach. We are all to go down on Saturday, and I thought it would be perfectly lovely if you would join us in about ten days. We will be settled then, and ready to receive you."
"It is good of you to ask me," said Ida, "and I would love to accept; but indeed I have nothing fit to wear, if you expect to be very gay."
"ISN'T SHE THE MOST ABSURD OBJECT YOU EVER SAW."
"But we don't," cried Angela. "It is oppressively dull at Rocky Beach. Our cottage is a quarter of a mile from any other, and over a mile from the hotel. Sometimes for days we have no company at all. But the air agrees with mamma, and so we go there every summer. Now do promise that you'll come. I simply can't endure it there without—Oh, do look, Ida! What a funny old woman! Did you ever see such a ridiculous parasol? Why, it must surely have been handed down from the ark!"
Ida's heart seemed to stop beating. She looked up, turning pale and then red, for coming along the road from the village, wearing the black embroidered silk cape, the old bonnet trimmed with faded purple ribbon, and holding over her head the ancient green parasol, was Aunt Patty. She was literally coated with dust, her face was flushed with the heat of the sun, and in her arms she carried a large pasteboard box.
"Isn't she the most absurd object you ever saw?" Angela bit her lip to keep from laughing. "I wonder who she is. Did you ever see her before, Ida?"
"Yes; she lives near here," answered Ida, adjusting her veil with both hands, that she might thus screen her flushed face from her friend's view.
At this moment Aunt Patty stepped to one side of the road to avoid the carriage. She looked up, and a sudden smile illumined her face. But Ida looked straight ahead, without making the faintest sign of recognition, though her heart beat so loudly she felt sure Angela must hear it.
Aunt Patty stood still a moment, looking after the carriage, a stunned expression on her face. Then she walked on, clasping tightly the big box.
"She looked like a good-natured old soul," remarked Angela. "And how she stared at us, Ida! She probably doesn't see city people very often. I would like to have her costume for a masquerade."
Ida smiled faintly, but said nothing in reply. She felt that it would not be safe to trust her voice just then. And, oh! what would Aunt Patty say to her when they met again? How would she bear the look of reproach in those kind eyes?
"I wish I had even half of Cynthia's moral courage," she thought. "I was a coward to pass Aunt Patty that way. But there is a taint in my blood, I do believe." But she did not yet realize that it was the taint of selfishness, vanity, and love of luxury, from which grave faults all the unkind and ugly acts of the past three weeks had sprung.
Angela Leverton insisted that Ida should accompany her to Mrs. Lennox's to luncheon, saying that Mrs. Lennox had told her to extend the invitation; and thus it happened that it was late in the afternoon when Ida returned home.
All day she had thought of little else save that unfortunate meeting on the road with Aunt Patty, and she was prepared for coldness and perhaps reproaches—which she felt she richly deserved.
She was ashamed as well as relieved when her aunt greeted her as kindly as ever, and Cynthia assured her that they had both "missed her dreadfully." Evidently Aunt Patty had kept the occurrence of the morning to herself.
"We want to see what is in the box Aunt Patty brought from the express-office this morning," Cynthia said. "Wasn't she good to bring it? She didn't want you to have to wait until stage-time for it."
Ida's cheeks grew crimson. "Yes, very good," she answered, in a low voice. "Where is the box?"
Cynthia brought it from the next room, and looked on with excited interest while Ida cut the strings which bound it.
"It is Aunt Stina's writing on the label," she said. "A parting gift of some old finery, I suppose. I wrote her about the lawn party, and that I expected to wear that old white muslin."
But it was no old finery that was disclosed to view when the cover of the box was removed. Swathed in tissue-paper lay a silk dress pattern of a delicate shade of blue, a pair of kid gloves, a bolt of ribbon, half a dozen yards of lace, a fine handkerchief, and a soft opera cloak of white cashmere lined with silk and trimmed at the neck with swan's-down.
Ida was too much surprised to speak for some moments. "How good of her, and how generous!" she said at last. "She must love me a little, after all."
"Of course she loves you!" cried Cynthia, gazing with childish admiration at her sister, over whose shoulders she had thrown the pretty cloak. "Everybody who knows you loves you, Ida. But you can't thank Aunt Stina; she sails to-morrow, you know."
"But you can make the dress up in time for the lawn party," said Aunt Patty, "and you can have Cynthia's help. I don't need her about the work. I can do it alone for the next two days."
"Suppose we take our meals in the kitchen, as we did when I first came?" suggested Ida; "that will save a good deal of running back and forth."
"Very well," said Aunt Patty. "It was good of you to think of it, dear," and she smiled tenderly. It had been a cross to her to be obliged to make the meals so ceremonious, though she had carefully refrained from saying anything that would indicate it.
"Ida, you will look like a dream in this blue silk," said Cynthia, whose plain little face was radiant. "I can hardly wait for Thursday night to come. I am anxious to see you in it."
This little speech was like an arrow in Ida's heart. She remembered with a pang how, but for her deceit, Cynthia would be looking forward to a share in Thursday's festivities.
"You are both too good to me," she said, with quivering lips, and hastily left the room to conceal her tears.
Hastening up stairs, she entered her own room, closed and bolted the door. Then throwing herself on her bed, she buried her face in the pillows, sobbing unrestrainedly.
She lay there for some time after the tears had spent themselves, thinking of Aunt Patty's magnanimity and her own unworthiness. But communication with her own spirit, while it made her wretched and conscience-stricken, gave her no moral courage. She felt that to apologize to Aunt Patty, and to confess to Cynthia that she had deceived her, would involve a deeper mortification than she would be able to endure.
"Oh, dear!" she sighed. "Somehow I am all out of step with everything."