“Yes, but isn’t she pretty?” Emma said, remembering the flowing hair, the soft, blue eyes, and the fair, round face more distinctly than she did Fasquelle, and the airs which had so offended Alice.
“Pretty enough. Such people often are when young, but they always degenerate sadly.”
“Yes, but she is not like such people,” Emma rejoined. “Don’t you remember what the woman said?”
“Yes, I know. The child has a grandmother and forty pounds a year, but for all that I reckon she is about like Mrs. Rogers, and would much better be learning to sew than playing the piano. I wonder if she would not like to practise on your beautiful Steinway.”
Alice spoke contemptuously, not from any feeling toward Gertie especially, but from contempt for those of her class who aspired to something better. They had no business to be ambitious; it was their duty to be content in the station where God had placed them. This was her theory, and she continued to dwell upon it even after she reached home, and made a good deal of fun of the girl with forty pounds a year and a grandmother, who had asked her help in French, and was going to take music lessons!
CHAPTER XXV.
THEY COME.
It was the day after the young ladies’ visit to Vine Cottage and the third week since Mrs. Rogers’ arrival in town. I had dismissed my school earlier than usual that afternoon, and at Gertie’s request, went with her to the Schuyler Cemetery. She had heard that Mr. and Mrs. Schuyler and Godfrey were expected every day, and she wanted to have that grave looking real nice, as she was sure Mr. Godfrey would be pleased to find that somebody had cared for it. So it was for Godfrey’s sake that she weeded, and dug, and trimmed, and watered, while I sat watching her, and thinking of another young girl, who, years ago, had laid her face in the grass and wept for the dead beneath it.
Where was she now? Dead, perhaps, and gone to the lover lost so early; or it might be that she was married and had forgotten that far-off grave, which she had bidden me keep till she came back again. I had neglected it of late, but my work was taken from my hands by little Gertie Westbrooke, who had made a miniature garden of the spot, and brought to light and life the flowers I had put there in the summers past and gone. There were clumps of white daisies and blue forget-me-nots, and the sweet English violet, with other hardy roots which bear our northern winters, while the rose brought from Vine Cottage yard had wound itself round the tall monument, and was reaching out its arms toward the evergreen which grew near by. There were some violets in blossom now, while, better than all, there was a clump of buds upon the rose tree, the summer’s second growth, and Gertie plucked two of them, and gathered some white daisies and blue forget-me-nots, and sitting down upon the grass she made them into a tiny bouquet, with sweet-brier for a background of green, and told me she was going to carry them home and keep them in her room.
I had shown her the little vase which Heloise Fordham left with me, and she had filled it with flowers that afternoon and brought it to the grave, where, just under the shadow of the rose, it stood a sweet offering to the memory of the dead, who, far away in the other world, knew, perhaps, whose feet were treading the sod above him, and whose the little hands so busy with his grave.