Through One Administration

by Frances Hodgson Burnett

"There is no actual necessity for it," he said, "and I find the life here delightful. Bertha and the children will probably join me in the spring, and we may ramble about for a year or so." And he evidently felt he had no reason to doubt the truth of this latter statement. Bertha had been present at her friend's marriage. She had been with her almost constantly during the last days preceding it. She found great pleasure in Agnes' happiness. There had been no change in her own mode of life. Janey and Jack went out with her often, and when she was at home spent the greater part of the time with her. She helped them with their lessons, played with them, and made a hundred plans for them. They found her more entertaining than ever. Others found her no less entertaining. The old bright circle closed about her as before, and was even added to. Mr. Amory had been called abroad by business, and might return at any moment. The professor was rarely absent from his daughter's parlors when she had her guests about her. The people who had been interested in the Westoria scheme disappeared or became interested in something else. Senator Planefield had made one call after Richard's departure, and then had called no more. Bertha had seen him alone for a short time, and before he took his leave, looking a trifle more florid than usual, he had thrown into the grate a bouquet of hothouse roses.

"Damn all this!" he cried, savagely. "What a failure it has been!"

"Yes," said Bertha; "it has been a great failure."

Senator Blundel did not disappear. He began to like the house again, and to miss his occasional evening there if anything deprived him of it. He used to come and talk politics with the professor, and hear Bertha sing his favorite ballads of sentiment. During the excitement preceding the presidential election the professor found him absorbingly interesting. The contest was a close and heated one, and the usual national disasters were prophesied as the inevitable results of the final election of either candidate. Bertha read her way industriously through the campaign, and joined in their arguments with a spirit which gave Blundel keen delight. She read a great deal to her father, and made herself his companion, finding that she was able to help him with his work.

"I find great comfort in you, my child," he said gently to her once, when she had been reading.

"Do you, dearest?" she answered, and she went to him, and, standing near him, touched his gray hair with her cheek. "I find great comfort in you," she said, in a low voice. "We seem to belong to each other as if—a little as if we had been left together on a desert island."

When she went away for the summer with her children the professor went with her. He had never wondered at and pondered over her as he did in these days. Her incomings and outgoings were as they had always been. She shared the summer gayeties and went her way with her world, but it was but a short time before the kind old eyes looking on detected in her the lack of all that had made her what she had been in the past. They returned to Washington the day after the election of the new President. Their first evening at home was spent in reading the newspapers and discussing the termination of the campaign.

When Bertha rose to go to her room she stood a moment looking at the fire, and there was something in her face which attracted the professor's attention.

"My dear," he said, "tell me what you are thinking of."

She lifted her eyes and made an effort to smile, but the smile died out and left her face blank and cold.