“Aunt Patricia? It is odd, Vera, you have never heard her name mentioned! Yet I confess my personal acquaintance with Aunt Patricia also began this afternoon, although I have known of her for a long time and my mother is one of her great friends.
“Years ago when Tante was first married Aunt Patricia arrived in this country from Ireland, and as she seemed to be frightfully poor she secured a position at the theatre as wardrobe woman. Right away she adopted Tante and Uncle Richard and they have been devoted to one another ever since. Later on Aunt Patricia’s brother died, leaving her an enormous fortune. Then it developed that she had come to this country from Ireland because he had sent for her and afterwards had refused to live with him or accept a cent of his money because he would not do what she wished, or because for some reason or other she disapproved of him.
“After Aunt Patricia inherited the money she has spent as little as possible for her own needs, but instead gives away large sums in eccentric fashions which appeal to her. Nevertheless I confess I am not happy over the prospect of her going to France to be with us, although Tante seems immensely relieved to have her companionship and our families will be glad to know she will not have to bear so much responsibility alone. It is a good deal of a task to look after seven or eight girls.”
Vera frowned somewhat ruefully.
“But I thought we were going to France to care for other people not to be looked after ourselves. However, if Miss Lord’s behavior this afternoon is a fair criterion I shall certainly become as a little child. For the entire time we were together I don’t think I dared do anything except what she commanded. But isn’t it wonderful that our entire Camp Fire unit is to go to France for the reclamation work? I thought when Mrs. Burton offered me the opportunity last summer that I should go alone.”
Within the past months Vera Lagerloff had also changed, but the transformation was unlike Bettina Graham’s.
After Billy Webster’s death in California Vera had made astonishingly little open protest. But for that reason the effect upon her character had been the deeper.
Since her earliest childhood there had been but little in her life for which she cared intensely, save her friendship with the odd dreaming boy, whose ambitions for his own future had absorbed so much of her time and thought. Until Billy died Vera really had never considered her own future apart from his.
In many ways she was superior to the members of her own family, which in itself makes for a certain spiritual loneliness. Yet her parents were Russians, and Russia is at present offering more contradictions in human nature than any other race of people in the world. However, if her parents were peasants and had but little education, they had possessed sufficient courage to emigrate to the United States at a time when the Czar and autocracy ruled in their own land. Afterwards Vera’s father had become a small farmer on Mr. Webster’s large place, and here Vera and Billy had grown up together.
But at least Vera’s family made no effort to interfere with her. The other children appeared content to follow in the ways of their ancestors, living with and by the land. In a measure they were proud that Vera cared for books and people who could never be their friends. Yet perhaps Vera’s character had been largely influenced by her one singular friendship.