[CHAPTER SECOND.]
PUG.
MRS. PAGET did not go back to the house after all. At the turn of the road she met her carriage, with a note from her daughter telling her of the arrival of friends from a distance; so she got into the carriage and went home, leaving with Amity a note for Miss Julia.
Amity, left alone, turned out of the broad gravel road into a little path which went winding among the shrubs and trees. She knew she would not be wanted at the house, and she felt as if she would like to think over what she had heard.
She thought to such good purpose that her eyes grew bright, her head was raised, and the corners of her mouth lifted themselves up as if somebody had put little pulleys in them. Before she had finished her walk, she had come to the wise conclusion that she had been making herself very unhappy for nothing, and that after all she had a great deal to be thankful for. Every one was good to her—even Aunt Julia, who, after all, had not meant to hurt her feelings, since she could not know that any one was in the summer-house. She had books and flowers, and grandpapa let her have as many pets as ever she liked, and had promised her a pony.
"And if I am not handsome, why, then I am not, and that is all about it," said Amity, very wisely. "Miss Lilly Paget is not handsome either, and every one likes her quite as well as they do Aunt Julia, for aught I know. And if I can't play or paint, or do any of the grand things, I must be content with the little ones, that's all."
And then Amity fell into a still graver way of thinking. She was a thoughtful little girl; she had been her mother's only companion and comfort for years. Mrs. Bogardus had not been a happy woman. I cannot tell you all about it here, but there had been a sad family quarrel, which lasted for years. It grew out of the fact that Mr. Henry Bogardus married the daughter of his father's half-brother, against the will of the parents and other friends on both sides. There was a great deal of money involved, and many lawsuits grew up, and, as I said, the quarrel lasted for years, long after poor foolish young Henry Bogardus was lying in his far-away grave in South America, whither he had gone in hopes of doing something for his wife and child.
But the feud was made up in the last year of Mrs. Bogardus's life, and Grandfather von Schoonhoven, seeing that he could not possibly take his great property into the grave with him, gave it all to little Amity. She was left to the guardianship of old Judge Bogardus, and all the family had come to spend the summer at Pine Ridge.
Amity, having been for some years her mother's only companion, was old—rather too old—for her years.
"The child needs young society," Mrs. Paget said to Miss Julia.