Aunt Crete's Emancipation

by Grace Livingston Hill

They hurried away the next morning in a whirl of bags and suitcases and parasols and umbrellas. They had baggage enough for a year in Europe, although they expected to stay only two or three weeks at the shore at most. Aunt Crete helped them into the station-cab, ran back to the house for Luella’s new raincoat, back again for the veil and her sister’s gloves, and still a third time to bring the new book, which had been set aside for reading on the journey. Then at last they were gone, and with one brief sigh of satisfaction Aunt Crete permitted herself to reflect that she was actually left alone to receive a dear guest all her own.

Never in all her maiden existence had she had this pleasure before. She might use the best china, and have three kinds of pie at once, yes, and plum-cake if she chose. Boys like pie and cake. Donald would be a big, nice boy.

What did it matter to her if he was awkward and from the West? He was in a large sense her own. Hannah was gone, and there was no one else to take a closer place. Who but his mother’s sister should have the right to mother him for a while? He would be her own as Luella never had been, because there was always Luella’s mother to take the first place. Besides, Luella had been a disappointing baby. Even in her infancy she had developed an independence that scorned kissing and cuddling. Luella always had too many selfish interests on hand to have time for breathing out love and baby graces to admiring subjects. Her frown was always quicker than her smile. But somehow Aunt Crete felt that it would be different with this boy, and her heart swelled within her as she hurried into the house to make ready for his coming.

The front hall was littered with rose-leaves. Luella had shaken a bunch of roses to get rid of the loose leaves, and had found they were all loose leaves; therefore she flung them down upon the floor. She had meant to wear them with her new pongee travelling-suit. It looked well to wear roses on a journey, for it suggested a possible admirer. But the roses had not held out, and now Aunt Crete must sweep them up.

A glance into the parlor showed peanut-shells scattered over the floor and on the table. A few of Luella’s friends had come in for a few minutes the evening before, and they had indulged in peanuts, finishing up by throwing the shells at one another amid shouts of hilarious laughter. Aunt Crete went for the broom and dust-pan. If he came early, the hall and parlor must be in order first.

Luella and her mother had little time to waste, for the tickets were barely bought and the trunks checked before the train thundered up. It was a through vestibuled train; and, as Luella struggled up the steps of one car with her heavy suitcase, a tall young man with dark, handsome eyes and a distinguished manner swung himself down the steps of the next car.

“Hello, Luella!” called a voice from a pony-cart by the platform. “You’re not going away to-day, are you? Thought you said you weren’t going till next week.”

“Circumstances made it necessary,” called Luella from the top step of the car while the porter held up the suitcase for her to take. “I’m running away from a backwoods cousin that’s coming to visit. I’ll write and tell you all about it. Good-by. Sorry I can’t be at your house to-morrow night, but it couldn’t be helped.”

Then Luella turned another gaze upon the handsome stranger, who was standing on the platform just below her, looking about interestedly. She thought he had looked at her more than casually; and, as she settled herself in the seat, she glanced down at her pongee travelling-suit consciously, feeling that he could but have thought she looked well.

He was still standing on the platform as the train moved out, and Luella could see the girl in the pony-cart turn her attention to him. She half wished she were sitting in the pony-cart too. It would be interesting to find out who he was. Luella preened herself, and settled her large hat in front of the strip of mirror between the windows, and then looked around the car that she might see who were her fellow passengers.