“Do As I Tell You, Princess, Please”
“Most certainly not,” returned Betty in her most autocratic tones. “If you have anything on your mind that is worrying you, come on downstairs and tell me what it is. You have a dreadful tiresome fashion, Esther, of just hugging your grievances to yourself, when if you just told outright what they were, there would probably be nothing for you to fret about.” Betty was annoyed and her tone was far more irritable than usual. Nevertheless, Esther crossed the short space between them and taking Betty’s lovely face between her hands kissed her two or three times in succession.
“Do as I tell you, Princess, please,” she spoke in unusual tones of authority. “I will join you downstairs in a very little while, but I must get back my self-control first.”
So there seemed to be nothing left for Betty but obedience, so plainly did Esther appear to know what she wanted. Very slowly the younger girl walked down to the drawing room. “Esther did find it difficult to confide things to people, but usually she was willing to tell them to her,” Betty thought. “Well, perhaps her shyness and reticence came from having been raised in an orphan asylum where no one was really deeply interested in her or her personal affairs. Nothing very serious could have happened, however, since Esther had left school only about an hour before.”
In the drawing room everything was far more cheerful, the fire was burning, the window blinds were drawn up, the grand piano was open and on it rested a vase of white roses. It was perfectly impossible for Betty Ashton to learn to be economical all at once, and with the thought of a possible betrothal in the house that afternoon she had stopped at a florist’s and brought the flowers in with her. Now she could not help feeling a little glow of pride over the beauty of their old drawing room, especially noticeable after the simplicity of the living room at the cabin.
Feeling rather nervous over the idea that Esther might probably be continuing with her crying upstairs and so unable to take part in the coming interview, Betty walked slowly around the great room studying the portraits of her ancestors,—a favorite amusement with her so long as she could remember. They were stern persons most of them. Betty did not believe that she could ever have such strict views of the difference between right and wrong, be so harsh in her judgments as they had been, but then the world had moved on to a wider vision since those days. One of her great, great uncles had assisted in the burning of witches. Betty turned from this self-righteous looking portrait to the picture of the aunt whom she had always believed herself to resemble, the young woman in the white dress with the big picture hat, then the girl smiled at her own vanity. How absurd to think that she could look like any one so lovely! And yet here was the auburn hair, only a shade more golden than her own, big eyes that were blue instead of gray and a kind of proud fashion of tilting her chin. Very probably Betty had always held her own head in this fashion because she had always so wished to be thought like this special great aunt.
“Well, it was a good thing to feel a certain pride of ancestry,” the young girl thought, “in spite of all of Polly’s teasing. Surely the possession of a great name ought to keep one away from littleness or meanness, make one strive to fill an honorable position in the world. If she had not the ability to be a great woman certainly she intended to be a good one. And then the recollection of Esther came to her again. Poor Esther, who had not even a name of her own! For this very reason had she not always been more ambitious for her friend than Esther had seemed for herself? If she had no position, no money and no family, Esther did have a real talent and must make a place for herself some day.”
But there sounded the first ring at the door bell! Let one hope it was not Herr Crippen arriving first, since, with Esther still upstairs, how could she ever hope to keep him entertained until the arrival of the others? But probably the elderly violinist had never seen anything quite so handsome as their drawing room. Betty had the grace to laugh and then blush over her own foolishness, snobbishness Polly might call it. What did she know of Herr Crippen, his past, what he had seen, where he had traveled in the forty-five years or more of his life?
With a smile of welcome and her hand extended Betty then moved forward toward the door to receive her first guest.