CHAPTER II.
"IDA, DEAR IDA!" SHE CRIED.
Cynthia opened the gate and hastened out into the road. "Ida, dear Ida!" she cried, and threw her arms about her sister. "We are so glad to have you back," the tears rushing to her eyes.
"I suppose you're Cynthia," said Ida, withdrawing herself gently from her sister's embrace. "I never would have known you in the world," her gaze travelling critically over the small figure in the plain dark gown. "Is that the maid at the gate? Ask her to come and take my satchel."
"The maid!" stammered Cynthia, with a startled look. "Oh, Ida! that's Aunt Patty! Here, give me your satchel."
"Pray excuse my mistake," said Ida, in a low voice, as she relinquished the satchel. "Remember, I was not eleven years of age when I left here, and one so soon forgets faces."
Aunt Patty, fortunately, had not heard her niece's questions, and as Ida approached the gate the old woman threw it open, her kindly face beaming.
"You're most welcome, dear child," she said, with a kiss and a little embrace. "But, dear me, how you've changed!"
"That was to be expected, of course," said Ida, as she followed her aunt around the house to the kitchen porch. "I have been away more than six years, you know, Aunt Patty. By-the-way," pausing at the corner of the house, with a glance backward, "do you not use your front door?"
"Not for common," answered Aunt Patty. "I guess you've forgot our Brookville ways. Folks here think it's more sociable to run in 'n' out their kitchens."
"Ah! I had forgotten," said Ida. "We must show them something different."
Cynthia now came close behind them, carrying the satchel. She had stopped to hold open the gate for the two men, who followed her with the trunk.
"We'd better lug it up stairs for ye, Cynthy," said the stage-driver. "It's everlastin' heavy; chockful of gold, I guess," and he laughed, good-naturedly.
"My books make it heavy," said Ida, in a dignified tone.
Cynthia opened the door leading from the kitchen into the hall, and showed the men up stairs to the neat but barely furnished room her sister was to occupy.
Ida followed, and, after the men had set the trunk down and gone away, she turned to Cynthia with an expression on her young face which was almost severe.
"Surely you don't allow that coarse common stage-driver to call you by your Christian name?" she said.
"Who? Old Jake Storm!" Cynthia looked surprised. "Why, Ida, of course he does! He has known me since I was two years old! He gave me a pair of pigeons once."
"Because he has known you all your life is no reason why he should be lacking in respect for you," rejoined Ida, still severe. "You are no longer a child."
"He doesn't intend it for disrespect, Ida."
"Perhaps not; but he should be made to know his place. Is this to be my room?"
"Yes, Aunt Patty and I thought you would like it better, perhaps, than the one we had together before you went away. We did what we could toward making it comfortable for you, and I do hope you'll like it."
She looked around the spacious chamber as she spoke. To her eyes it looked very attractive, with its bright rag carpet, light pine furniture, and fresh muslin curtains. There was a big crazy-work cushion in the old rocker; a home-made rug of scarlet and black lay before the bureau; and the blue glass vases on the high old-fashioned mantel were full of fragrant June roses. Over the bureau hung a sample of the needle-work for which Aunt Patty had been famous in her youth—a picture in colored silks of a house on a hill-side, a few trees around it, and several thick-waisted children in long pantalettes playing with an oddly shaped black dog.
Ida glanced at the picture as she approached the bureau to lay upon it her hat, which she had just taken off.
"The room is pleasant enough," she said, carelessly. "I can improve it by the addition of a few unframed water-colors I brought with me—my own work, of course. But this wall-paper is hideous," with a little shudder, "and yet it looks fresh."
"Yes, it is new; Aunt Patty chose it," said Cynthia. "The old paper was so ugly. We both thought you wouldn't like it. But this—why, it looks pretty to me, though, of course, I do not pretend to any great artistic taste."
"No, or you would hardly have left that atrocity over my bureau," rejoined Ida. "I believe I used to think it a work of art when I was a child. Now it offends my eye. Take it down, Cynthia; I couldn't sleep with it in the room."
Cynthia bit her lip; but she stepped up on a convenient chair and took down the offending picture.
"There, that is better," said Ida. "And will you have the servant bring me a pitcher of warm water? I must bathe some of this wretched dust from my face."
"I will bring it," said Cynthia; "we don't keep a servant."
"No servant!" Ida stared at her sister. "Why, how in the world do you ever get along without one?"
"We have a woman come to wash every Monday, and the rest of the work we do ourselves."
"By preference?"
"No; we can't afford a servant, Ida. We have to economize very closely."
"I did not imagine your economy extended to doing without a servant. No wonder your hands look so rough, Cynthia. And what an old-fashioned gown you have on! Aunt Patty is your dressmaker, I suppose?"
"Yes," answered Cynthia, flushing with mortification and wounded feeling. "What is wrong with this dress?"
"The sleeves are of a fashion of two years ago, and the skirt doesn't hang well," was the immediate answer. "Well, I know something about dress-making—Aunt Stina used to say I had a natural talent for it—and I will soon put your wardrobe to rights."
"Thank you; I'll give you full liberty with it," said Cynthia. "I'd like to look as much like you as possible, of course, though I'm plain and you are pretty. Now I'll get you the hot water. We have supper at six."
"Supper? Oh, yes, of course; dinner at noon, I presume." A scornful little smile curled Ida's lip. "At Aunt Stina's we had lunch at two and dinner at seven. But, of course, that can't be expected here. You're forgetting that atrocious picture, Cynthia. You might as well take it away now as later."
Cynthia took up the picture and went out, closing the door behind her. She stood for a moment in the hall, staring down at the carpet; then sighed, threw back her head after a little fashion she had when hurt or annoyed, and then, going into her own room, just opposite the one given to Ida, hung the despised picture on an unoccupied nail over her mantel.
"It won't keep me awake," she muttered.