More Bed-Time Stories

by Louise Chandler Moulton

The long car-ride next day was almost a silent one. Agatha would have rejected with hot juvenile scorn, the idea that the presence or absence of any material comforts could affect her grief; and yet she would have felt a little less desolate, I think, if the heat had not been so intense, the dust so choking, and the seat so hard and straight.

When she had made the journey in other years with her mother, how much shorter the way had seemed. The fresh linen frocks she used to wear were so much easier and cooler than the stifling black gown she had on to-day; and somehow her mother knew just when to open the windows and when to shut them, and if the seat was straight and hard, there was always mamma's lap or shoulder to lean against; and she forgot to be weary when mamma beguiled the time by poem or story. But her father rode silently, looking into vacancy for a face he would never see again; and after he had once bought Agatha's ticket, and seated her beside him, it did not occur to him to do any thing to relieve the monotony of the long, dusty ride.

It was dusk when the stage from the railway station set them down at Aunt Irene's door. Agatha walked up the path timidly. It was a long, straight path, and either side of it grew thoroughly well-disciplined flowers; a rosebush on one side, just opposite to a rosebush on the other,—Agatha wondered if either of them would have dared to bear one rose more than the other did,—a peony on one side and its mate opposite; so of a syringa bush, a flowering almond, and a root of lilies. Between the well-marshalled ranks of flowers, which somehow made the child think of soldiers on guard, she followed her father up to the door, where Aunt Irene waited, grim chatelaine.

Mr. Raymond shook hands with his sister, and then said gravely,—

"Irene, I have brought you my poor, motherless little girl," and Aunt Irene put out her firm, strong, unyielding hand and took the child's into it, then bent and—not kissed her, kisses belonged to the dead days—but laid her lips on her cheek, and so Agatha went in.

Every thing was good and substantial in Aunt Irene's house. You found there no frail stands which a careless touch might throw over, no brittle ornaments, no egg-shell china. The carpets were dark and rich and sombre. The tables and chairs were all of solid wood, and stood high and square. The sofas were heavy and firm, and the whole air of the place was grave and respectable, as Aunt Irene's surroundings should have been. I am not sure that any light, modern, fancy articles, suggestive of elegant idleness, had they been placed in her rooms, would not themselves have perceived their unsuitableness, and trundled off on their own castors.

The supper which awaited the travellers followed the prevailing fashion of the house. The biscuits were three times as large as the biscuits on other tea-tables. There were no frisky rolls, no light-minded whips or wafers. But there were good old-fashioned preserve, serious-looking cake, and substantial slices of cold meat.

Aunt Irene herself, sitting behind the tea-urn—solid silver, of course—comported with all the rest. She was a solid woman, with no superfluous flesh, and yet with a well-fed, well-to-do aspect, which was unmistakable. Her head was high and narrow, her features good, her strong hair had disdained to turn gray, and her eyes were keen if cold. Her lips, which had never cooed over babies, or soothed the sorrows of little children, or talked nonsense to any listener, were thin, as to such seldom-used lips seemed natural. They shut tightly over all her secrets.

Agatha's head began to ache furiously, and she could not eat. The room swam round and round till she felt as if she were the centre of a rolling ball, and her chair rocked, she thought, and she was slipping off it, when her father saw her white, strange face and wavering figure, and sprang up just in time to catch her in his arms.