Constance had grown taller, the slight figure is more rounded, though still girlish. She still has the wonderfully sweet, frank expression, in spite of her two years out in the business world, for after her graduation she took firmer hold than ever of her business venture and branched out in many directions. New booths were opened in adjacent towns, private orders were filled for patrons in New York City, holiday consignments were made to more remote ones, to which her fame had spread through friends and friends’ friends. Of course some losses had been sustained, but in comparison with her output and returns they were trivial, and her success was an established fact. But the work continued, her aim being absolute independence for her mother, and for Jean the home and the atmosphere their mother had formerly known and loved.
And the silent partner of the firm, old Baltie, how had the three years dealt with him? A horse which has attained twenty-five years and is sightless is supposed to be out of the running, but Baltie lived apparently to prove the fallacy of such a supposition. At twenty-eight he was younger and more active than at twenty-four, his age when rescued by Jean. Nothing could restore his sight, but with each year his hearing seemed to have grown keener, and the ears were as sensitive as a wild animal’s. But Baltie needs a chapter to himself.
[CHAPTER II—The Silent Partner and Others.]
“Mother, have you seen Jean?” asked Constance, popping her head into her mother’s room shortly after breakfast one glorious October morning.
“She was here but a few moments ago, dear,” answered Mrs. Carruth, looking up from her desk at which she sat writing out the marketing list for Mammy.
“I want her to leave this parcel at Mrs. Morgan’s on her way to school, and, by the same token, she ought to be on her way there this very minute. I wonder where she has gone?”
“Not very far, I think. She knows she must start at once.”
Constance laughed as she replied: “I wonder if she ever will know? Time doesn’t exist for her, or perhaps I would better say that it exists only for her; she so calmly takes all she wishes. But she really must start now. I’ll go hunt her up and get her headed in the right direction.”
“Yes, do, Honey,” urged Mrs. Carruth, as Constance hurried away in quest of the youngest member of the household.
Mrs. Carruth resumed her writing. The past three years had dealt kindly with her: Mammy and the daughters of the home had seen to that. Nothing could ever alter the gentle expression of her eyes, or change the tender curves of her lips. Each told its story of love for those nearest and dearest to her, as well as her sympathy and interest in her fellow-beings. Mrs. Carruth had passed her forty-seventh birthday, but did not look more than thirty-eight. The hardest years of her life were those following upon her husband’s death, and the serious financial losses she was then forced to meet. Since Constance’s venture and the success which had almost immediately attended it, the outlook for all had been more hopeful, and if now living less pretentiously than she had lived during her husband’s lifetime, she was none the less comfortable. Upon Hadyn Stuyvesant’s advice Mrs. Carruth had not rebuilt the old home, although by careful economy she could have done so. But Hadyn was looking farther into the future than Mrs. Carruth looked. Perhaps his wish had some bearing upon the thought, for from the moment Hadyn Stuyvesant had met Constance Carruth his future was settled so far as he was concerned. But he was too wise to let the sixteen-year-old girl guess his feelings. The gulf between sixteen and twenty-three is a wide one. As the years advance it mysteriously narrows. At nineteen Constance often wondered why Hadyn seemed younger to her in his twenty-sixth year than he had at twenty-three. Never by look or word had he betrayed any warmer feeling for her than the good-comradeship established at the beginning of their acquaintance. He was like a brother in that dear home. Mrs. Carruth consulted him freely upon all occasions. Eleanor accepted him as a matter-of-course; that was Eleanor’s way. Constance found in him the jolliest companion. Jean adored him openly, and he was her valiant champion whenever she needed one. From the day he had taken his first meal in her home she had been to him the “Little Sister,” and he never called her by any other name. Not long after that event she had coined a name for him—a funny enough one, too. Rushing into Constance’s room in her impetuous way one day, she demanded: “Connie, when knights used to fight for their ladies, ever ever so long ago, what did they call them?—the knights I mean.”