“We haven’t seen them yet,” began Mary, then added quickly, seeing that Dorothy looked shocked: “Her boxes have been an endless time coming; they have been here only four days. Mother wanted us to wait until she had everything arranged in order for us to see. It isn’t that we’re not as interested as we can be.”
“Oh, yes!” breathed Gladys Low fervently. “She told us about her little girl costumes and Snow White and the Easter Bunny! And the flower dress! I don’t see how you bear it, girls, to have her right in the house, and to know she is your mother! I’d be crazy!”
“It isn’t so bad,” said Florimel, before Mary could check her. “Perhaps we’d mind it more if she seemed like our mother, but we take care of her as if she were a—soap bubble!”
“Will you call mother, please, Florimel?” Mary interposed. “Mel means that we can’t help feeling as if some one had sent us something frail from England, to be taken care of; not to be bothered by us, you know, Gladys.”
“Of course I know!” Gladys’ assent was almost reverent. “She’s lovely!”
“So glad to see you, girls!” cried Mrs. Garden, floating into the room, in a thin white gown with pink ribbons, with a lightness of motion that suggested the soap bubble which had occurred to Florimel as the most fragile and beautiful simile that she could use to describe her mother’s delicacy. “I have everything laid out in order in the library. It is too warm to enjoy the garden, and Anne has promised us a little treat after you are tired of my pictures.” Mrs. Garden laid her hand caressingly on the shoulder of the girl nearest to her. It was Audrey Dallas, who reddened with delight, raising her eyes adoringly to Mrs. Garden’s deep-blue ones, eyes that were bright yet full of appealing pathos.
Mrs. Garden led the way into the library. Tables, the couch, several chairs were stacked with photographs and scrapbooks.
“It must seem queer to you to see so many, but, when one is before the public, photographs are made constantly of her, and I’ve one of each, at least. And I’ve kept my press notices, the poems, and all such things written to me. It’s great fun; one can’t help feeling as if the whole world were one’s personal friend, though it’s all nonsense, of course.” Mrs. Garden had talked, skimming over her trophies to select her point of beginning. Soon she was in full tide of joyous reminiscence. Win and Mark came in quietly, but nobody noticed them beyond a careless glance of welcome. Illustrating her stories with a photograph of herself as a street sweeper, the White Rabbit, the Easter Bunny, a flower, a bird, a little child, in various childish employments; young shop girls, dreaming maidens, Juliet, Rosalind, endless rôles, Mrs. Garden related something funny, exciting, or sad that had befallen her in each of these characterizations. Her audience laughed till they were weak; or quivered, sharing her danger; or were saddened by her long-dried tears. The gifted little lady herself was in high spirits, reliving her triumphs, seeing again, repeated in this young audience in her American library, the effects she had produced on her mixed audiences in the English halls, theatres, and drawing-rooms. Her voice was gone, but she hummed for them some of her songs, producing by her perfect phrasing, with the words, considerable of the effect her singing had made. She recited for them, and the girls could not contain half their rapture. Her own three girls were entranced. Jane was wrought up to a frenzy of admiring pride in her. Florimel could not repress herself and actually cheered one number, carried beyond remembrance of conventions that forbid mad applause of one’s own.
Mary broke down and actually cried at the end of a pretty bit of child pathos. She was completely overwhelmed, and a little aghast, to discover talent, the like of which her inexperience had never encountered, shut up in her own mother’s slender body. She felt, as Gladys Low had felt for her, that it was almost past bearing to have such a gifted being one’s own mother, living under the same roof.
Win, first of any one, discovered Anne standing with a tray in her hands, which she had forgotten, waiting for the end of a recitation, forgetting that she thus was waiting.