“It will. It always does. Now let’s go out to the shed and bring in a big armful of driftwood. There’s one log that I’ve been saving for some special occasion. Surely this is it.”
As Nann had said, the fog came in soon after midafternoon; the girls had drawn the comfortable willow chair close to the hearth. The wood was in place and eagerly the girls awaited the coming of their hostess. At last the bedroom door opened and Miss Moore, without the apron over her lavender dress, emerged. Although she smiled at them, the discerning Nann decided that the letters had contained some disappointing news. Dories at once set fire to the driftwood and a cheerful blaze leaped up. When Miss Moore was seated the girls sat on lower chairs close together. Their faces told their eager curiosity.
Glancing from one to the other, their hostess said: “Dori, you and Nann have been the best of friends for years, I think you wrote me.”
“Oh, yes, Aunt Jane,” was the eager reply, “we started in kindergarten together and we’ve been in the same classes through first year High, but now Nann’s father has taken her away from me. They are going to live in Boston. And so a favorite dream of ours will never be fulfilled, and that was to graduate together.”
“If only your mother would consent to come and live with me, then your wish would be fulfilled,” the old woman began when Dories exclaimed, “Why, Aunt Jane, I didn’t even know that you wanted us to live with you in Boston.”
Miss Moore nodded gravely. “But I do and have. I have written your mother repeatedly, since my dear nephew died, telling her that I would like you three to make your home with me, but it seems that she cannot forget.”
“Forget what?” Dories leaned forward to inquire. Nann had been right, she was thinking. The something they were to know did relate to her father’s affairs, she was now sure.
The old woman seemed not to have heard, for she continued looking thoughtfully at the fire. “I know that she has forgiven,” she said at last. “Your mother is too noble a woman not to do that, but her pride will not let her forget.” Then, turning toward the girls who sat each with a hand tightly clasped in the others, the speaker continued: “I must begin at the beginning to make the sad story clear. I loved your father, as I would have loved a son. I brought him up when his parents were gone. The money belonged to my father and he used to say that he would leave your father’s share in my keeping, as he believed in my judgment. I was to turn it over to my nephew when I thought best.” She was silent a moment, then said: “When your father was old enough to marry, I wanted him to choose a girl I had selected, but instead, when he went away to study art, he married a school teacher of whom I had never heard. I believed that she was designing and marrying him for his money, and I wrote him that unless he freed himself from the union I would never give him one cent. Of course he would not do that, and rightly. Later, in my anger, I turned over to him some oil stock which had proved valueless and told him that was all he was to have. Then began long, lonely years for me because I never again heard from the nephew whose boyish love had been the greatest joy life had ever brought me. I was too stubborn to give him the money which legally I had the right to withhold from him, and he was so hurt that he would not ask my forgiveness. But, when I heard that my boy had died, my heart broke, and I knew myself for what I was—a selfish, stubborn old woman who had not deserved love and consideration. Then, but far too late, I tried to redeem myself in the eyes of your mother. I wrote, begging her to come and bring her two children to my home. I told her how desolate I had been since my boy, your father, had left. Very courteously your mother wrote that, as long as she could sew for a living for herself and her two children, she would not accept charity. Then I conceived the plan of becoming acquainted with you, for two reasons: one that I might discover if in any way you resembled your father, and the other was that I wanted you to use your influence to induce your mother to forget, as well as forgive, and to live with me in Boston and make my cheerless mansion of a house into a real home.”
She paused and Dories, seeing that there were tears in the grey eyes, impulsively reached out a hand and took the wrinkled one nearest her.
“Dear Aunt Jane, how you have suffered.” Nann noted with real pleasure that her friend’s first reaction had been pity for the old woman and not rebellion because of the act that had caused her to be brought up in poverty. “Mother has always said that you meant to be kind, she was convinced of that, but she never told me the story. This is the first time that I understood what had happened. Truly, Aunt Jane, if you really wish it, I shall urge Mother to let us all three come and live with you. Selfishly I would love to, because I would be near Nann, if for no other reason, but I have another reason. I believe my father would wish it. Mother has often told me that, as a boy, he loved you.”