Round the Corner in Gay Street

by Grace S. Richmond

"I didn't," said Jane, looking regretfully at her mother-in-law's handsome face, which betrayed a slight annoyance. It certainly had been trying to receive daily telegrams from the travellers throughout the past week, announcing delays at this place and that on the homeward way.

"Of course it's of no consequence now that you are safely here. I 'm only sorry Jane will have no chance to rest and visit. The florist's men will arrive within an hour, and the house will be generally upset."

"I 'll run away over to Gay Street, then," said Jane. "Murray 's going down to the office, and mother and Nan will be looking for me."

"My dear, I 'm sorry, but Olive has asked a few friends informally for luncheon, people from out of town who are coming for to-night. It would hardly do for you not to meet them--since two are cousins."

So Jane had had to be content with one brief hour in the little home round the corner in Gay Street, and then she had come back to the big house in Worthington Square, there to begin to act the part expected of her. Murray had been more than sorry to leave her on this first day, but his father's affairs were pressing, the office work had suffered in his absence, and he felt it a necessity to get back into the harness without an hour's delay. He had expected to be early at home, but his message showed Jane that even for her he did not mean to cut short the work of taking up again the routine of business at the point where he had left it two months ago.

Selecting half a dozen of the finest of her roses, Jane, with a long, light coat slipped on over her finery, opened the door and peeped cautiously out into the large, square gallery of the upper hall. Nobody was in sight. The doors of Mrs. Townsend's and Olive's rooms were closed, the ladies dressing for the affair of the evening. The door of a guest-room, occupied by the two cousins from out of town, was slightly ajar, and a maid was to be seen inside, offering a cup of tea on a tray. One of the cousins had a headache, and was fortifying herself for a fatiguing evening.

Jane slipped quietly by this door and round the gallery to the point where a staircase led to the lower landing, a place just now embowered in palms, which were to serve as a screen for the string orchestra. She paused an instant on this landing, to look down upon the brilliant picture presented by the entrance-hall and its opening rooms below. The look of it reminded her of an evening long ago, the first upon which she had set foot as a guest in the great unknown house in Worthington Square, when Murray had taken charge of her and brought her up here on the landing, to look down upon the scene in which neither of them had much cared to take part.

"Can this really be my home?" thought Jane, feeling as if it could not all be true, even yet. She ran quickly on downstairs and round the foot of the staircase to a door beneath, which furnished an inconspicuous exit from the big hall, and which opened upon a short passage and a side entrance not much used by the family. This had long been a favourite entrance for Murray himself, for it shortened the way to Gay Street.

A very short cut Jane made of it, for a flood of light from the long row of windows in the dining-room fell across the path, and turned it into one less obscure than she wished it to be just now. Holding her delicate skirts well away from the dust of the road, she hurried across, through the warm air of the May evening.

There was nobody to be seen downstairs in the old house, although lamps were lighted and the small rooms wore their usual air of home-likeness and order. Jane ran up the steep little staircase which led to the sleeping-rooms above. She understood that, as at the big house, the family were engaged in arraying themselves for the Townsend reception. She paused at the top of the stairs to listen and observe, for the various doors were all more or less ajar, and the usual atmosphere of friendly family comradeship gave her a little pang of homesickness.