“O Cousin Margaret, do give it! Give it, surely. And let me care for you now as you cared for me when I was a girl. The only mother I ever knew—what so fitting as that you should turn your own proud back on this ‘society’ of fashion and come home with me to that other, better, more worth-while society of labor, honesty, and love. You’ll come, dear? Surely, you will come.”
“And leave our Jessica to the snares of this eastern ‘society,’ which ‘toils not, neither does it spin’? We’re a long way from that question of dinner we started with, and you’re here for the summer, at least. One request I have to make. Do me a personal favor. When you go to town, to-morrow, to buy that Sophy Nestor a set of furniture, please also buy yourself a decent gown. Even a ready-made one from a store is preferable to that thing you have on. The sleeves—Why, my dear girl, the sleeves are at least seven years behind the fashion! and there’s nothing so betrays the age of one’s clothes as the sleeves they wear. Since you came here before you got Jessica’s letter—that’s the worst of your California, it takes an age for letters to go to and fro!—since you came before then you must know that I have already ordered a few things for her. They should be finished by this time and sent up. You can inquire about them. Also, you can see Melanie and find out about my own things. Really, Gabriella, you are coming in very handy! I’ve been wanting a trustworthy woman to send shopping, since I’m to live in the country myself.”
She was in a merry mood, this proud old dame, happy through all her love-hungry nature to have her old ward with her once more. A merry party all; though the mother sometimes thought longingly of little Ned and his “shadow,” Luis; wondering what sort of mischief occupied their busy brains at that especial moment. But mostly she was as gay as her own girl. She had come away for a holiday and she was wise enough to take it to the utmost; leaving home cares and fortunes in the capable hands of Aunt Sally Benton, Mr. Ninian Sharp, and the faithful “boys.” That Sobrante would not seem really the old Sobrante to them there, with her and Jessica and “Forty-niner” absent, she was sure; but that her welcome, returning, would be all the more delightful and heartsome she was also sure.
“All summer together.”
Alas! How swift are summer days! And that one came whereon was parting. Another summer would come and all these with it, it was hoped; but it was a very sad-faced, if most patient, Sophy Nestor who looked about her dainty chamber to bid it a winter’s farewell. All that pretty furniture, of white, with rosebud decorations, which had been given to her for her “very, very own”; those soft swaying curtains; that adorable rosebush outside her window, whereon had been the roses right at hand to gather freely as she would; all the love and gayety of that simple cottage life; with Granny grown a happy-faced old lady, and with her beloved Jessica attendant on her as on a precious sister—this was ended.
The surgeon had come; the nurse had on her street costume and was waiting; she had herself been capped and wrapped against some adverse draught; and would presently be lifted in strong arms and carried on a comfortable stretcher back to that hospital she now called home.
Then—Why, then, so quick one couldn’t realize it—everything was over. Sophy was back on her own little cot in the children’s ward, there to become its very life and comfort, so confident and hopeful and uncomplaining was she. She had bidden Granny good-by. Granny who, despising conventions, had been installed in the dearest little flat that could be found near the hospital, and was there to keep house just as they did in “Cawnco’d”—baked beans and all—with Ephraim Marsh as boarder and sole companion. Buster had been put out to board in the village where he had disgraced himself by his own odd behavior. Tipkins—Well, Tipkins, erect and immaculate as of old, had purchased his own new livery and was ready to attend his mistress into those western wilds whither that deluded creature now was bound. Tipkins had his opinion of anybody, even his faultless Madam, who would forsake the “higher civilization” of New York, at this time of year, to live in a frame house on a sort of prairie, with nobody but workmen and horses, and wild ostriches around. Oh! Tipkins knew! he hadn’t listened all these weeks to the talk that went on among his betters, without understanding the entire situation, even though he gave no sign.
“Madam is getting into her second childhood!” he had said in a burst of confidence to Ephraim. “She’d never have done such a thing as this, if she wasn’t.”
“Shucks! Lots of folks and towerists come to Californy to spend the winter. ’Tain’t no fool of a trip, either. It costs money.”
“Well, yes, maybe. But they go to the hotels, the big ones, and pay high and live like the Waldronses had ought to. But I ain’t forgetting what she used to be; and I’m wearing my livery constant, to remind her that there’s others that remember it too. I’ll show them cowboys and Chinese laundry-cooks, that I knows what’s what, even if they don’t; and I’ll teach them what a first-class English butler is like.”