“Your brother, Roy.”
It was a very blithe, merry little girl which went singing about the farm-house after the receipt of this letter, which came through the medium of Aunt Jerusha; and Uncle Phil stopped more than once to look after her, wondering to see her so different from what she had been when she first came to Rocky Point. Then she was a sad, pale-faced woman, with a dreary, pitiful expression in the brown eyes, which now sparkled and danced, and changed their color with every passing emotion, while her face glowed again with health and girlish beauty. All the circumstances of her life at Rocky Point had been tending to this result, but it was Roy’s letter which produced the culminating effect, and took Edna back to her old self, the gay, light-hearted girl, who had known no greater care than Aunt Jerry’s rasping manner. From this she was free now, and life began to look as bright and beautiful to her as did the hill-sides and the mountain-tops when decked in their fresh spring robes.
She answered Roy’s letter at once, and told him how glad she was to know that he had an interest in her, but that she must pay him every dollar before she could feel perfectly free again, and that for the present she preferred to remain where she was. In reply to this, Roy sent her a few hurried lines saying that early in June he should sail for Europe with his mother, whose health required a change. They might be gone a year or more, and they might return at any time. It all depended on his mother, and how the change agreed with her. Edna cried over this letter, and when she knew that Roy had sailed, her face wore a sober, anxious look, and she said often to herself the prayer for those upon the sea, and watched eagerly for tidings of the arrival of the “Adriatic” across the water. And when they came, and she knew Roy was safe, there was a kind of jubilee within her heart, and she offered a prayer of thanksgiving to Him who rules the winds and waves, and had suffered no harm to befall her brother, Roy Leighton.
CHAPTER XXIV.
GEORGIE AND JACK.
Georgie staid in Chicago nearly two months, and for that sacrifice mentally arrogated to herself the right to a martyr’s crown, if not to be canonized as a saint. She had found Annie better than she expected, and that of itself was in some sort a grievance, as it implied undue anxiety, if not actual deception, on Jack’s part. In order to get her there, he had represented Annie as worse than she was, Georgie thought; and at first she was inclined to resent it, and made herself generally disagreeable, to Jack and Aunt Luna, but not to Annie, whose arms closed convulsively around her neck, and whose whole body quivered with emotion when she first saw her sister, and knew she had really come. For two days Georgie sat by her, continually gazing at her, and listening to her prattle, until there came a softer look into her face, and her eyes lost somewhat of their cold, haughty expression. Annie told her everything she could think of about Mrs. Churchill, who had gone, no one knew where, and about herself and her little joys, and griefs, and faults. Everything bad which she had done was confessed, her impatience and fretfulness, and the falsehoods she had told, and then with a faltering voice Annie said:
“I have asked Jesus to forgive, and I most know He has, for I don’t feel afraid of the dark any more, and I love to think He is here with me when my back aches, and I lies awake nights and can’t sleep a bit. And will you forgive me too, sister Georgie; and did you ever tells a lie, though in course you never. You’s always so good. I wonder what makes me bad? Do you know, sister Georgie?”
Oh, how abased and sinful Georgie felt while listening to this innocent little child, whose garment she was not worthy to touch, but who had exalted her so highly, and held her as something perfect. Perhaps she might have solved the mystery which troubled Annie so much as to what made her so given to the bad, when she wanted to be good. She might have told of blood, so tainted with deceit that a single drop of it in one’s veins would make the fountain impure. But she did not; she kissed and comforted the child, and folding her arms about her said, with a gush of real, womanly feeling:
“Oh, Annie, my darling, what would I give to be as innocent as you; continue what you are; shun a lie or deceit of any kind as you would shun the plague, and pray for me that I may be half as good as you.”
She lifted herself up, panting with emotion, while Annie looked wonderingly at her.