Lilian wiped her eyes, and pressed Mrs. Dane’s hand fervently. Would Zay proffer her a sister’s love?
She went back to Mrs. Boyd, who suddenly opened her eyes and smiled, then the thin lids fell. How she had wasted away! She tried to recount to herself all the kindnesses, the sacrifices Mrs. Boyd had made. And though the boarding house had been of the commonest sort there had never seemed any real pinches. She had even saved up money. It was the long illness and the changes incident to it that had not only reduced their little store, but broken her health and made her fearful of the future. She had taken up the sewing then. Four years there had been of that. Lilian remembered how proud she had been to enter the High School among the best scholars.
And some day she would teach. It was such a delightful vision. She studied other things beside the ordinary lessons. She loved to play and at times when she had turned her brain almost upside down she ran out and had a game of tag with the girls.
There were other evenings when she overcast long seams and pulled bastings, and the last year she had learned to sew on the machine. With scanty living and steady work, her mother had dropped down and down. But she was glad she had offered to go in the shop. When matters were a little easier she might try night school she had thought.
And this beautiful school was like an entrance into a land of romance. The luxurious living, at least it seemed so to her, would soon restore her mother’s health. The duties were light. She had time for reading and oh, the lovely things! She did at times wish there had been some other position for her mother, like that of Miss Arran’s. But she understood that Mrs. Boyd could not fill that. She lacked something, she had no real dignity, no self-assertion. She allowed the girls to order her, and Lilian wondered how these rich girls, who in some respects had polished manners, could be so ill bred. For somehow she understood the difference.
There were several with whom she might have been good friends, but she was too proud to step outside of what she considered her real station.
And now this wonderful event had come to her and she seemed to understand the thoughts and feelings that had been such a mystery. When she had been clasped to her true mother’s heart, it appeared to her as if a veil had been drawn aside, and she had stepped into a larger room, replete with all she had vaguely dreamed about. That Crawford House was one of the fine old places, she knew, but she never thought of that luxurious living where all the tomorrows had been provided for. She would have gone to the simplest cottage for that mother’s love.
Would Zaidee Crawford give her a sister’s warm welcome? She would never grudge her anything money could buy; but she, Lilian, must seem like an interloper to them. And to share her mother’s love with a stranger!
Miss Arran entered the room.
“You ought to go to bed, Miss Boyd. I will sit here and watch. Your mother seems asleep.”