But of course we did make plans, for all her stiffness. We sat in the red cedar grove, playing at tea-parties with a beautiful china tea-set, and Master Dick was to marry her, and I was to live with them and be nurse to the children, with one named for me!
Dear, dear! I've forgot much that's come in between and many that's been kind to me (more shame to me!) but I can see the sun on her curls now and him sharpening his new knife on the granite rocks that were so thick in the grove.
"Rhoda and Dick," says she, very solemn, after a little, "I'm going to tell you a great secret. Come close to me."
You can believe we listened with all our ears; we worshipped the ground she trod on, both of us, do you see, even then.
"I mean to do a great deal of good in the world before I die," says she, "as I mentioned before, at dinner. I don't mean just ordinary being good, you know, but doing it. At school I always meant to go as a missionary, and I was saving all my money for a fund for it, but I couldn't seem to keep it, somehow. Two or three of the girls were poor girls, and if they hadn't their birthdays remembered, it would have been dreadful. And the cook's little boy was lame in his spine and he was so fond of flowers! And I hadn't so much money, anyway. Then, all my time was full, because we had to do things every hour, just so. But now I'm to have a governess and I shall have a great deal of time, so I can study hard for a missionary and perhaps go to South America—if there are any heathens there, as I suppose there are."
"Yes, miss," says I.
"So now my new life is beginning," she says very low and solemn, "and I feel that everything will be different. I wish I could be sure, though, that it would be!"
"Why don't you try the larkspurs, miss," says I. "They'll tell you."
My mother, you must know, was a great believer in signs. Not being much educated, she went by them, I suppose, the way plain people will, be it ever so. There's no use saying it's against religion—mother was as religious as any one, take who you will—they will do it. If a bird flew into the house, there was death for sure, and she never would let three candles be lighted, no matter whose the house. And so my sister and I had many of these ways and signs, and always told how things would be by larkspurs. So I told Miss Lisbet how to strip them off for "yes, no, yes, no," and she asked her question very solemn:
"Larkspur, larkspur, tell me true,
Or never again I'll trust to you!