“That’s just what I told Aunt Burton that people would say,” Maude replied; “and I expect Georgie will be highly scandalized, for she it is who expects to be Mrs. Roy Leighton, some day, and not poor, humble I. Mr. Leighton’s half-brother, Charlie, was killed the very day he was married. Perhaps you saw it in the paper. It was a dreadful thing. I’ll tell you all about it sometime. I was with poor Mrs. Churchill a few days, and Roy, who had a broken leg, and could not sit up, greatly overrated my services, and resolved to make me a present. He had heard me say once or twice that I wanted a watch which was a watch, instead of the great big masculine thing of Uncle Burton’s, and so he concluded to give me one, and asked Aunt Burton, who was going up to Albany, to pick it out. I suppose I should be deceiving you if I did not tell you that the watch was second-hand, and the jeweller sold it a little less because he bought it of a lady who had seen better days. Auntie had admired it very much before he told her that, and she took it just the same. I was perfectly delighted, of course, though I have built all sorts of castles with regard to its first owner, who she was and how she looked, and I’ve even found myself pitying her for the misfortune which compelled her to part with that watch.”
Maude’s toilet was finished by this time, and as Uncle Phil’s voice was heard in the south room below, she asked if they should not go down.
“Yes, you go, please. Don’t wait for me, I have my hair to brush yet,” Edna said, feeling that she must be alone for a few moments, and give vent to the emotion she had so long been trying to repress.
She opened the door for Maude to pass out, and stood listening till she heard her talking to Uncle Phil; then with a sob she crouched upon the hearth and wept bitterly. Maude’s presence had brought back all the dreadful past, and even seemed for a time to have resuscitated her girlish love for Charlie, while in her heart there was a fierce hungering for Charlie’s friends, for recognition by them, or at least recognition by Roy, who had called her his “dear little sister.” It was the memory of these words which quieted Edna at last. He had had her in his mind when he sent the jet, and perhaps he would think of her again, and sometime she might see him and know just how good he was; and as Becky called to say supper was waiting, she hastily bathed her face, and giving a few brushes to her hair, went down to the room where Maude, full of life and spirits, was chatting gayly with Uncle Phil, and showing him the watch which Roy Leighton had given her.
As Edna came in, Uncle Phil glanced anxiously at her, detecting at once the traces of agitation upon her face, and as Maude suddenly remembered leaving her pocket-handkerchief upstairs, and darted away after it before sitting down to the table, he improved her absence by saying, softly:
“What is it, little Lu? Has Maude brought the past all back again? Yes, yes, I was afraid she would.”
“Not that exactly,” Edna said, with a quivering lip and smothered sob; “but, Uncle Phil, that was my watch once,—Charlie gave it to me, and—and—I sold it, you remember, in Albany. I knew it in a moment.”
“Yes, yes. Lord bless my soul! things does work curis. Your watch, and Roy Leighton bought it for Maude! there couldn’t a likelier person have it, but that don’t help its hurting. Poor little Lu! don’t fret; I’ll buy you one, handsomer than that, when I sell my wool. You bet I will. Yes, yes.”
He took a large pinch of snuff, and adroitly threw some of it in Edna’s eyes, so that their redness, and the tears streaming from them, were accounted for to Maude, who came tripping in, all anxiety to know what was the matter with “Little Dot,—that’s what I call her, she is so very small,” she said to Uncle Phil, as she took her seat at the table, talking all the time,—now of her school, now of Aunt Burton, and Georgie who was in Chicago, and at last of Charlie Churchill’s tragical death, and the effect it had on his mother.
When she reached this point Uncle Phil tried to stop her, but Maude was not to be repressed. Uncle Phil knew Charlie, and of course he must be interested to hear the particulars of his death. And she told them, as she had heard them from Georgie, and said she pitied the poor girl for whom nobody seemed to care,—unless it was Roy, who was lame at the time and could do nothing for any one. And Edna heard it all, with an agony in her heart which threatened to betray itself every moment, until Maude spoke of “the poor young wife, for whom nobody seemed to care but Roy.” Then there came a revulsion; the terrible throbbing ceased; her pulse became more even, and though she was paler than usual, she seemed perfectly natural, and her voice was firm and steady as she said, “Then the wife did not come to Leighton?”