And Miss Tremont, despite the fact that Patience gave no sign of spiritual thaw, was the most doting of old maid parents. After the first few weeks she ceased to dig in Patience’s soul for the stunted seeds of Christianity, finding that she only irritated her, and trusting to the daily sprinkling of habit and example to promote their ultimate growth.
V
With summer came a cessation of school, Loyal Legion, and sewing school duties; but the Poor took no vacation and gave none. Nevertheless, Patience had far more leisure, and borrowed many books from the town library. She read much of Hugo and Balzac and Goethe, and in the new intellectual delight forgot herself more completely than in her work.
Moreover, the town was very beautiful in summer, and she spent many hours rambling along the shadowy streets whose venerable trees shut the sunlight from the narrow side ways. The gardens too were full of trees; and the town from a distance looked like a densely wooded hillside, a riot of green, out of which housetops showed like eggs in a nest. Over some of the steep old streets the maples met, growing denser and denser down in the perspective, until closed by the flash of water.
The woods on the slope of the Hudson were thick with great trees dropping a leafy curtain before the brilliant river, and full of isolated nooks where a girl could read and dream, unsuspected of the chance pedestrian.
After one long drowsy afternoon by a brook in a hollow of the woods, Patience returned home to find a carriage standing before the door. It was a turnout of extreme elegance. The grey horses were thoroughbreds; a coachman in livery sat on the box; a footman stood on the sidewalk. She looked in wonder. Miss Tremont had no time for the fine people of Mariaville, and they had ceased to call on her long since. Moreover, Patience knew every carriage in the town, and this was not of them.
She went rapidly into the house, youthfully eager for a new experience. Miss Tremont was seated on the sofa in the front parlour, holding the hand of a tall handsomely gowned woman. Patience thought, as she stood for a moment unobserved, that she had never seen so cold a face. It was the face of a woman of fifty, oval and almost regular. The mouth was a straight line. The clear pale eyes looked like the reflection of the blue atmosphere on icicles. The skin was as smooth as a girl’s, the brown hair parted and waved, the tall figure slender and superbly carried. She was smiling and patting Miss Tremont’s hand, but there was little light in her eyes.
As Patience entered, she turned her head and regarded her without surprise; she had evidently heard of her. Miss Tremont’s face illumined, and she held out her hand.
“This is Patience,” she said triumphantly. “I haven’t told you half about the dear child. Patience, this is my cousin, Mrs. Gardiner Peele.”
Mrs. Gardiner Peele bent her head patronisingly, and Patience hated her violently.