The month was one of trouble and anxiety to us, which made the matter wow. Bills had come in, which we could not tell how to meet, and worries and fears pressed heavily.
Then we heard of an opening for Cress in a mercantile house, and Cress fought against the notion, in a way that distressed us all much. I longed for Maimie to help us in persuading him. He was angry and excited. He said he had always hoped to go to college, somehow. Robert patiently explained to him the impossibility of any such thing. Cress argued and protested, and gave way to temper, and seemed thoroughly out of sorts. He had to go to bed at last for a whole day, to be nursed and comforted. But Robert would have no further putting off of the decision. He said it was an opening too good to be refused, and Cress must make up his mind to what was a necessity. Cress had to yield, but the boy looked wretched, and for days he spoke hardly a pleasant word to anybody.
So the month of Maimie’s absence was altogether a trying time to us.
Jack went once to see her, and found her very bright, only longing to come back to us. Aunt Briscoe seemed “awfully” fond of her, Jack said, and he thought Maimie liked Aunt Briscoe better than at first, only “not like mother.” And Aunt Briscoe had declared her intention of keeping Maimie exactly one month, which she did to the very day.
She brought Maimie back herself, at the month’s end, remaining again to tea with us. I never can forget how Maimie rushed into my arms, whispering. “O Aunt Marion, I thought I should never get home again!” Her sweet face was glowing with happiness, and the old look of health had fully come back. So I was very grateful to Aunt Briscoe.
While we were having our tea together, the postman came. Nobody seemed to notice the rap particularly, we were talking so much: but presently Ted ran out, and brought back a letter addressed to Maimie.
She sprang up with a little cry, as he dropped it on the table, and a glow flushed her cheeks.
“It’s from father!” she exclaimed. “Aunt Marion! A letter from father at last!”
There seemed no chance at first of the letter being read. Almost before I had gathered the sense of the words, Maimie was clinging to me, clasping the envelope, and sobbing violently. I had never quite known till that moment how the poor child had suffered under her stepfather’s long silence. Aunt Briscoe sat looking at her with an odd mystified expression.
“Don’t cry, Maimie,” I whispered. “You are not sorry, are you?”