“Nor to me either,” Gwen laughingly protested. “Mamma must have been having rather a pleasant time all by herself, fooling all three of us. Well, it’s all the nicer. Now, what made me send for you was that I want to give you your first birthday present, and let you take these linens off my eyes—I believe you’re such an unselfish old darling that you’d rather do it than have millions left you.”
Jan’s color went and came; no one had ever known—hardly she herself—what a grief the prospect of Gwen’s great sorrow had been to her. And now this little ceremony moved her proportionately. Her hands trembled as she unfastened the strings holding Gwen’s long eclipse of her eyes, and the linen bandages slipped down, and were gone—gone, thank Heaven, forever! “I’m truly glad to see you, blessed Miss Lochinvar,” said Gwen as she gazed lovingly at the tearful face of her cousin, the first she had seen for seven dreary weeks. “Come, now; let me go with you. Steady me, Jan—the light and walking by sight seems queer to me.”
Jan steadied Gwen with her arm around her waist, and felt her tremble, but she knew that it was with joy. Then, with Gwen’s hand resting on her shoulder, Jan led her triumphantly down to the parlor. All her school friends clustered around her, and for a few moments Gwen held court. Then Sydney came into the middle of the room, and said: “Ladies and gentlemen, this is a surprise party. Gwen is surprised that Gladys and Jan have a party, and they are surprised that Gwen has one. So you are the party and they are the surprise—which isn’t the usual way of having surprise parties. Gladys and Jan’s party is to celebrate Gwen’s recovery. Gwen’s party is because it is Jan’s birthday. So you can consider yourself celebrating which you prefer—for myself I’m celebrating both with all my might. When our cousin came on we called her ‘Miss Lochinvar,’ because she ‘came out of the West,’ and now we think we were sort of prophets, because the name fits her in lots of ways—chiefly because no one ‘e’er heard of gallant like young Lochinvar.’ There never was such an all-round trump of a girl as our cousin Janet Howe, alias Miss Lochinvar. We couldn’t find a picture of that hero, Jan,” he added, turning to poor Jan, who looked ready to sink through the floor from embarrassment. “But we wanted to give you a picture, because you like them so much, and so you could have something to remember this day by at home if ever you go back—and don’t you dare to try going! So we got you this copy of Rembrandt’s Polish Rider; it was the nearest we could come to young Lochinvar.” Sydney then gave place to Jack, who proudly bore the picture to Jan, remarking briefly: “Here, Jan. I made the verse.”
Jan received the large picture timidly, but suddenly she laughed, for on its wrapping she read this verse of Jack’s:
Jan:
From Ivan
And the Clan.
Gwen’s gift was a small, but exquisite, old Italian lamp. “Because you were my light in darkness,” she whispered, and Jan choked.
Gladys had characteristically chosen a ring, a slender circle of turquoise, for her gift. “I want you to wear something to remind you of me every minute,” she said.
Viva and Jerry had been included with Jack in the gift of the picture, but Mrs. Graham gave Jan all the Waverley novels, bound in soft morocco, and her uncle’s gift was a check for fifty dollars, to do with as she pleased, and which Jan looked at with wildly joyous visions of what it would purchase for the young folk in Crescendo.