BELLE AND MILDRED
The cosmopolitan bachelor living in apartments knows far more of Sanscrit than of a domestic woman's feelings as she explores the place she must call her home. It may be a palace or it may be but two rooms in a decaying tenement, but the same wistful, intent look will reveal one of the deepest needs of her nature. Eve wept not so much for the loss of Eden as for the loss of home—the familiar place whose homeliest objects had become dear from association. The restless woman who has no home-hunger, no strong instinct to make a place which shall be a refuge for herself and those she loves, is not the woman God created. She is the product of a sinister evolution; she is akin to the birds that will not build nests, but take possession of those already constructed, ousting the rightful occupants.
Mrs. Jocelyn and Mildred were unperverted; they were womanly in every fibre, and the interest with which they planned, consulted, and dwelt upon each detail of their small household economy is beyond my power to interpret. They could have made the stateliest mansion in the city homelike; they did impart to their two poor rooms the essential elements of a home. It was a place which no one could enter without involuntary respect for the occupants, although aware of nothing concerning them except their poverty.
"Mrs. Atwood and Susan actually cried when we came to go," Mrs. Jocelyn remarked as they were all busy together, "and even old Mr. Atwood was wonderfully good for him. He and Roger put a great many harvest apples and vegetables in a large box, and Mrs. Atwood added a jar of her nice butter, some eggs, and a pair of chickens. I told them that we must begin life again in a very humble way, and they just overflowed with sympathy and kindness, and I could scarcely induce them to take any money for the last week we were there. It was funny to see old Mr. Atwood: he wanted the money dreadfully—any one could see that, for a dollar is dear to his heart—but he also wanted to be generous like his wife, and to show his strong good-will. They sent heaps of love to you, Millie, and cordially invited us to visit them next summer; they also offered to board us again for just as little as they could afford. Even Jotham appeared to have something on his mind, for he was as helpful as an elephant, and stood around, and stood around, but at last went off muttering to himself."
"Millie," said Belle indignantly, "I think you treated Roger shamefully. After we returned from seeing you off, mamma and I went mooning up to that hill of yours looking toward the south, because you and papa were in that direction. Suddenly we came upon Roger sitting there with his face buried in his hands. 'Are you ill?' mamma asked, as if his trouble might have been a stomach-ache. He started up and looked white in the moonlight. 'She was cruel,' he said passionately; 'I only asked for friendship. I would have given my life for her, but she treated Jotham better than she did me, and she thinks I'm no better than he is—that I'm one of the farm animals.' 'Mr. Atwood,' mamma began, 'she did not mean to be cruel'—he interrupted her with an impatient gesture. 'The end hasn't come yet,' he muttered and stalked away."
Mildred sat down with a little perplexed frown upon her face. "I'm sure I meant him only kindness," she said; "why will he be so absurd?"
"You had a queer way of showing your kindness," snapped Belle.
"What would you have me to do? Encourage him to leave home, and all sorts of folly?"
"You can't prevent his leaving home. Mark my words, he'll soon be in this city, and he'll make his way too. He's a good deal more of a man than your lily-fingered Mr. Arnold, and if he wants to be friendly to me and take me out sometimes, I won't have him snubbed. Of course all my old friends will cut me dead."
"Oh, if he will transfer his devotion to you, Belle, I'll be as friendly as you wish.