One errand which Irving Bruce performed in Boston besides buying Betsy’s wedding present, was to seek out a poor relation of his step-mother’s in her suburban home, and carry her back with him to Fairport.
He wired: “Miss Frost is returning with me.”
And such was Mrs. Bruce’s loneliness, and worry, and desire to hide from her friends, that never did poor relation receive a more cordial welcome.
Miss Frost, a bird-like little person with a high apologetic voice, was bewildered with joyful excitement.
“I haven’t a thing to wear, my dear, not a thing!” she cried to her hostess on her arrival; “but Irving was so perfectly lovely, he wouldn’t let me wait for anything; and he told me how you’ve let that valuable Betsy go to this faithful lover of years, so like you, always to think of others, and Irving says you’re tired, so that really perhaps I can take some care of you, and it will be such a joy to feel that I’m not useless in this beautiful, beautiful spot, and you never could look anything but pretty, Laura, but I do think you show the natural fatigue of travel,” etc., etc.
This combination of flattery and confidence bound up some of Mrs. Bruce’s wounds. She did make the newcomer useful, not only in the actual labor of housekeeping, but as an excuse for not going where she did not wish to be.
But meanwhile she lived a life within herself which her cousin never suspected. Daily the battle between love and pride was renewed. Robert Nixon remained with them, and through him, more than through Irving, she learned of Rosalie’s continued vogue.
She declined the sailing party which went out with Captain Salter, and Miss Frost was with difficulty persuaded to go in her place.
Upon her return, blown and dishevelled, but joyful, Mrs. Bruce met her cousin with veiled eagerness.
“Did they think it very strange of me not to come, Lavinia?”