CHAPTER VII.
The little stir which the arrival of the Forsythes made in Ashurst was delightful.
"Of course," as Mrs. Dale said, "Arabella Forsythe had not been born there, and could not be expected to be just like Ashurst people; but it was something to have a new person to talk to, even if you had to talk about medicines most of the time."
Lois Howe enjoyed it, for there were very few young people in Ashurst that summer; the two Drayton girls had gone away to visit a married brother, and there were no young men now Gifford had gone. So it was pleasant to have a person of her own age to talk to, and sometimes to walk with, though the rector never felt quite sure what his sister would say to that. However, Mrs. Dale had nothing to say; she shut her eyes to any impropriety, and even remarked severely to Miss Deborah Woodhouse that those old-fashioned ideas of a girl's being always under her mother's eye, were prim and old maidish; "and beside, Lois's mother is dead," she added, with a sort of triumph in her voice.
As for Lois, she almost forgot that she had thought Ashurst lonely when Helen had gone, and Gifford; for of course, in so small a place, every one counted. She had wondered, sometimes, before the Forsythes came, with a self-consciousness which was a new experience, if any one thought she missed Gifford. But her anxiety was groundless,—Ashurst imagination never rose to any such height; and certainly, if the letters the young man wrote to her could have been seen, such a thought would not have been suggested. They were pleasant and friendly; very short, and not very frequent; mostly of Helen and what she did; there was almost nothing of himself, and the past, at least as far as a certain night in June was concerned, was never mentioned. At first this was a relief to Lois, but by and by came a feeling too negative to be called pique, or even mortification at having been forgotten; it was rather an intangible soreness in her memory of him.
"It is just as Miss Deborah says," she said to herself: "young men always forget those things. And it is better that they do. Gifford never thinks of what he said to me, and I'm sure I'm glad he doesn't—but still!" And then that absurd suggestion of Miss Deborah's about Helen would creep into her mind; she might banish it, because it was silly and impossible, yet she did not utterly forget it. However, she really thought very little about it; the presence of Mrs. Forsythe and her son gave her plenty of occupation. There was the round of teas and dinners which Ashurst felt it incumbent to give to a new arrival, and Lois was to have two new gowns in consequence of so much gayety.
She spent a good deal of time with Mrs. Forsythe, for the elder lady needed her, she said. It was not altogether the companionship which fascinated Lois: the sunny drawing-room of the house the Forsythes had hired was filled with dainty things, and light, graceful furniture, and many harmlessly silly novels; there was a general air about it of belonging to a life she had never seen which made it a pleasure to come into it. The parlors in Ashurst had such heavy, serious chairs and tables, she said to herself, and the pictures were all so dark and ugly, and she was so tired of the carpets.
So she was very glad when Mrs. Forsythe begged her to come and read aloud, or fix her flowers, or even stroke her soft white hair when she had a headache. "Dick may be at home, my dear," Mrs. Forsythe would say in her deprecating voice, "but you won't mind him?" And soon Lois did not mind him at all.
At first she was very shy in the presence of this light-hearted young fellow, whose indifference to Ashurst opinion was very impressive; but by and by that wore off, and Mrs. Forsythe's drawing-room echoed with their young laughter. Lois began to feel with Dick the freedom and friendliness which had once been only for Gifford. "Why couldn't Giff have been like this?" she thought; yet she did not say that she and Mr. Forsythe were like "brother and sister," for she was always conscious of a possibility in their friendship; but it was enough that Mr. Forsythe was very interesting, and that that summer, life was very delightful.