Miss Lochinvar: A Story for Girls

by Marion Ames Taggart

The longer days and greater cold had come. But with the cold was interspersed here and there a day on which there was a vague far-off hint of spring in the air, and the lover of nature who went up on the short Northern road or over into New Jersey to get the full flavor of his Sunday rest came back with reports of swelling twigs and the first note of the bluebird; for it was late February.

Although the doctors would not give better reasons for hope than their more cheerful manner, there was a growing feeling in the Graham household that Gwen was going to escape her hard doom, and it was on one of those illusive days when the atmosphere seems full of light that Doctor Amberton definitely authorized rejoicing by telling them, when he came down from Gwen’s room, that the bandages could be removed from her eyes in a week, and that they would be restored to enjoy the spring sunshine.

Mr. Graham shook the doctor’s hand hard, speechless with the joy of this tidings, while his wife fell sobbing on Jan’s neck, and Viva tumbled down in a burst of emotion such as silent children sometimes give way to, and hugged the andirons, kissing their polished tops and clinging to them hysterically.

Gladys, Sydney, and Jack were not there to hear the good news, but Viva ran to call them, and they were not less stirred by the blessed certainty of Gwen’s escape than were the others; indeed Jack turned so white on being told that his angry hand had not blinded his sister after all that his mother sprang to put her arm around him, thinking that he was fainting.

Who was to take the good news to Gwen, and how was she to be told? Gladys wanted the entire family to go up in a body and rejoice with her, but Mrs. Graham would not permit this, and Mr. Graham suggested that he and her mother went up together to bring comfort to the girl in whom they had always felt so much pride, but who had become very dear in these hard six weeks of courageously borne suffering.

Jan whispered something in her aunt’s ear, and Mrs. Graham hesitated. After a moment she said: “I believe it would be the very thing!” and turning to the others added: “Jan suggests that we let Jack go up, quite alone, and tell Gwen that he and she have escaped the awful consequences of his fit of rage. She says he can tell her that he took her eyes from her, and now he has come to give them back again. It is a pretty idea. Shall we carry it out?”

“Yes,” said Sydney decidedly, and “Ye—es,” voted Gladys doubtfully. But Mr. Graham settled the question by saying: “Go up-stairs to your sister, Ivan, my man, and tell her that you are bringing her back her sight—that Doctor Amberton has said that she is safe, and we are coming up in half an hour to try to tell her how thankful we are.”

“You’re not going to be blind, not one bit!” said Jack.

Jack turned pale, then red; he was not sure whether he liked the errand or not. He was afraid, and it seemed to him very solemn and difficult to go to Gwen on such an embassy. He sat down to think it over on the stairs, and as he thought it rushed over him how Gwen was lying there, not knowing that she was not to be blind; how all this time she had patiently awaited this day, knowing it might never come, and worst of all how his hand had been the one to smite her. A sob rose in his throat and he scrambled to his feet. Yes, it was good that they had let him tell her that she was safe, and he must not lose another moment in doing it. He fell up the stairs, and as he opened Gwen’s door she sprang up in bed, feeling instantly the excitement with which he was quivering as his hand touched the knob.