Doctor Hathern's daughters

by Mary Jane Holmes

Then she spoke of her money,—more than she could ever use,—and said nothing would please her better than to give or loan a portion of it to him, if he wished to use it in his business. She closed by signing herself “Yours as always. Fanny.”

It was a letter that any man would understand, and Fanny’s regret at having sent it was so bitter that Annie tried to comfort her by saying that as Jack was constantly moving from place to place he might not get it, especially if, as was possible, he came home sooner than he had expected to when he left. This was a straw, but Fanny clung to it while Annie debated in her mind whether to tell of her engagement as she ought to have done long before.

“I believe it would kill her to tell her now,” she thought. “I’ll wait and possibly—”

Here the little sting, which she had thought gone forever made itself felt. Possibly, when Jack knew from Fanny herself that she loved him, and when he saw her again he might regret he was bound to her, and then?—

She could not answer any more than she could say to Fanny, “Jack belongs to me.”

“You are cold,” she said at last as she saw Fanny shiver and draw her shawl closer around her. “Go to bed and trust Jack, who will do right, whatever happens.”

“But the shame of it,—the shame of it. You would never have done it,” Fanny answered, as she rose slowly and kissing Annie good-night went to her room.

Neither of the sisters slept much, and Annie the least. Regret that she had not told Fanny of her engagement when she was in Washington, and a morbid dread of the possible future, kept her awake long after midnight, and both she and Fanny were tired and white when at a later hour than usual they met at the breakfast table. As usual Fanny was the first to rally. She had dreamed that Jack came upon her unexpectedly at The Plateau and found her in her chair by the window, not watching for him, as she did not expect him, and had no thought he was near until he came behind her and kissed her, saying ‘Fanny!’ in the old-time voice, which sent through her such a thrill of ecstasy that she awoke and had not slept since. This she told to Annie, her face glowing with excitement, while Annie made no reply.

“I know what you think,” Fanny said. “You don’t believe Jack will be quite so ready to respond as all that, but something tells me he will.”

Her feeling of shame was wearing away, and in a few days she was as gay as ever, and Annie often heard her humming Bonny Doon, and once she tried Dixie, which Jack had said she rattled off so fast. The weather now was very hot and sultry, but the sultriest, hottest day found her at The Plateau, which one would have thought she owned from her interest in it. She would not acknowledge that she believed in dreams, but the one in which Jack figured so largely had made a strong impression upon her, filling her with a presentiment that it would come true, and at The Plateau, too. Every day she went there and sat in the bay window of our room, sometimes reading, sometimes half-dozing, and always with a thought of Jack coming up behind her and saying softly, not ‘Mrs. Errington,’ but ‘Fanny,’—a word which would mean all heaven to her.