"She warn't thar," replied the farmer. "She had a headache, the gals said, and had gone to bed. I sh'd think she would have had a headache,—but thar," he added, rising suddenly and beginning to search in his capacious pockets, "I declar' for 't, if I hain't forgotten Huldy's letter! Sary an' her bunnit put everything else out of my head."
Hilda sprang up in delight to receive the envelope which the farmer handed to her; but her face fell a little when she saw that it was not from her parents. She reflected, however, that she had had a double letter only two days before, and that she could not expect another for a week, as Mr. and Mrs. Graham wrote always with military punctuality. There was no doubt as to the authorship of the letter. The delicate pointed handwriting, the tiny seal of gilded wax, the faint perfume which the missive exhaled, all said to her at once, "Madge Everton."
With a feeling which, if not quite reluctance, was still not quite alacrity, Hildegarde broke the pretty seal, with its Cupid holding a rose to his lips, and read as follows:—
Saratoga, July 20.
My dearest, sweetest Hilda,—Can it be possible that you have been away a whole month, and that I have not written to you? I am awfully ashamed! but I have been so too busy, it has been out of the question. Papa decided quite suddenly to come here instead of going to Long Branch; and you can imagine the frantic amount of work Mamma and I had to get ready. One has to dress so much at Saratoga, you know; and we cannot just send an order to Paris, as you do, my dear Queen, for all we want, but have to scratch round (I know you don't allow your subjects to use slang, but we do scratch round, and nothing else can express it), and get things made here. I have a lovely pale blue Henrietta-cloth, made like that rose-colored gown of yours that I admire so much, and that you said I might copy. Mamma says it was awfully good of you, and that she wouldn't let any one copy her French dresses if she had them; but I told her you were awfully good, and that was why. Well, then I have a white nun's-veiling, made with triple box-plaits, and a lovely pointed overskirt, copied from a Donovan dress of Mamma's; and a dark-red surah, and oh! a perfect "frou-frou" of wash-dresses, of course; two sweet white lawns, one trimmed with valenciennes (I hate valenciennes, you know, but Mamma will make me have it, because she thinks it is jeune fille!), and one with the new Russian lace; and a pink sateen, and two or three light chambrays.
But now I know you will be dying to hear about my hats; for you always say that the hat makes the costume; and so it does! Well, my dearest, I have one Redfern hat, and only one. Mamma says I cannot expect to have more until I come out, which is bitter. However, this one is a beauty, and yet cost only thirty dollars. It goes well with nearly all my dresses, and is immensely becoming, all the girls say: very high, with long pointed wings and stiff bows. Simple, my dear, doesn't express it! You know I love simplicity; but it is Redferny to a degree, and everybody has noticed it.
Well, my dearest Queen, here am I running on about myself, as if I were not actually expiring to hear about you. What my feelings were when I called at your house on that fatal Tuesday and was told that you had gone to spend the summer on a farm in the depths of the country, passes my power to tell. I could not ask your mother many questions, for you know I am always a little bit afraid of her, though she is perfectly lovely to me! She was very quiet and sweet, as usual, and spoke as if it were the most natural thing in the world for a brilliant society girl (for that is what you are, Hilda, even though you are only a school-girl; and you never can be anything else!) to spend her summer in a wretched farm-house, among pigs and cows and dreadful ignorant people. Of course, Hilda dearest, you know that my admiration for your mother is simply immense, and that I would not for worlds say one syllable against her judgment and that of your military angel of a father; but I must say it seemed to me more than strange. I assure you I hardly closed my eyes for several nights, thinking of the misery you must be undergoing; for I know you, Hildegarde! and the thought of my proud, fastidious, high-bred Queen being condemned to associate with clowns and laborers was really more than I could bear. Do write to me, darling, and tell me how you are enduring it. You were always so sensitive; why, I can see your lip curl now, when any of the girls did anything that was not tout à fait comme il faut! and the air with which you used to say, "The little things, my dear, are the only things!" How true it is! I feel it more and more every day. So do write at once, and let me know all about your dear self. I picture you to myself sometimes, pale and thin, with the "white disdain" that some poet or other speaks of, in your face, but enduring all the horrors that you must be subjected to with your own dignity. Dearest Hilda, you are indeed a heroine!
Always, darling,
Your own deeply devoted and sympathizing
Madge.
Hildegarde looked up after reading this letter, and, curiously enough, her eyes fell directly on a little mirror which hung on the wall opposite. In it she saw a rosy, laughing face, which smiled back mischievously at her. There were dimples in the cheeks, and the gray eyes were fairly dancing with life and joyousness. Where was the "white disdain," the dignity, the pallor and emaciation? Could this be Madge's Queen Hildegarde? Or rather, thought the girl, with a sudden revulsion of feeling, could this Hildegarde ever have been the other? The form of "the minx," long since dissociated from her thoughts and life, seemed to rise, like Banquo's ghost, and stare at her with cold, disdainful eyes and supercilious curl of the lip. Oh dear! how dreadful it was to have been so odious! How could poor dear Papa and Mamma, bless them, have endured her as they did, so patiently and sweetly? But they should see when they came back! She had only just begun yet; but there were two months still before her, and in that time what could she not do? They should be surprised, those dear parents! And Madge—why, Madge would be surprised too. Poor Madge! To think of her in Saratoga, prinking and preening herself like a gay bird, in the midst of a whirl of dress and diamonds and gayety, with no fields, no woods, no glen, no—no kitchen! Hilda looked about the room which she had learned so to love, trying to fancy Madge Everton in it; remembering, too, the bitterness of her first feeling about it. The lamplight shone cheerily on the yellow painted walls, the shining floor, the gleaming brass, copper, and china. It lighted up the red curtains and made a halo round good Nurse Lucy's head as she bent over her sewing; it played on the farmer's silver-bowed spectacles as he pored with knitted brows and earnest look over the weekly paper which he had brought from the village. The good, kind farmer! Hilda gazed at him as he sat all unconscious, and wondered why she had not seen at once how handsome he really was. The broad forehead, with its deep, thoughtful furrows; the keen, yet kindly blue eyes; the "sable-silvered" hair and beard, which, if not exactly smooth, were still so picturesque, so leonine; the firm, perhaps obstinate, mouth, which could speak so wisely and smile so cordially,—all these combined to make up what the newspapers would call a "singularly attractive exterior." And "Oh! how good he has been to me!" thought Hilda. "I believe he is the best man in the world, next to papa." Then she thought of Madge again, and tried to fancy her in her Redfern hat,—pretty Madge, with her black eyes and curly fringe, under the "simplicity" of the heaven-aspiring wings and bows; and as she smiled at the image, there rose beside it the fair head of Pink Chirk, looking out like a white rose from the depths of her dingy straw tunnel. Then she fancied herself saying airily (she knew just how she used to say it), "The little things, my dear, are the only things!" and then she laughed aloud at the very funniness of it.
"Hut! tut!" said Farmer Hartley, looking up from his paper with a smile. "What's all this? Are ye keepin' all the jokes to yerself, Huldy?"