It was very still about the house, and two or three dogs lay in the sunshine asleep on the piazza. At the sound of footsteps they awoke, and recognizing their young master, ran toward him, with a bark of welcome.
The windows of his mother’s room were open, and at the bark of the dogs a girlish face was visible for an instant, then disappeared from view, and Rosamond Hastings came out to meet him, looking very fresh and sweet in her short gingham dress and white apron, with her rippling hair tied with a blue ribbon, and falling down her back.
“Oh, Mr. Everard,” she cried, as she gave him her hand, “I am so glad you have come. Your mother has wanted you so much. She is a little better this morning, and asleep just now; so come in here and rest. You are tired, and worn, and pale. Are you sick?” and she looked anxiously into the handsome face, where even she saw a change, for the shadow of his secret was there, haunting every moment of his life.
“No; I’m just used up, and so hungry,” he said, as he followed her into the cool family room, looking out upon the river, which she had made bright with flowers in expectation of his coming.
“Hungry, are you?” she said. “I’m so glad, for there’s the fattest little chicken waiting to be broiled for you, and we have such splendid black and white raspberries. I’m going to pick them now, while you wash and brush yourself. You will find everything ready in your room, with some curtains, and tidies on the chairs. I did it myself, hoping you’d find it pleasant, and stay home all the vacation, even if your mother gets better, she is so happy to have you here. Will you go up now?”
He went to the room which had always been his,—a large, airy chamber, which, with nothing modern or expensive in it, looked cool and pretty, with its clean matting, snowy bed, fresh muslin curtains, and new blue and white tidies on the high-backed chairs, all showing Rossie’s handiwork. Rossie had been in Miss Beatrice Belknap’s lovely room furnished with blue, and thought it a little heaven, and tried her best to make Mr. Everard’s a blue room too, though she had nothing to do it with except the tidies, and toilet set, and lambrequins made of plain white muslin bordered with strips of blue cambric. The material for this she had bought with her own allowance, at the cost of some personal sacrifice; and when it was all done, and the two large blue vases were filled with flowers and placed upon the mantel, she felt that it was almost equal to Miss Belknap’s, and that Mr. Everard, as she always called him, was sure to like it. And he did like it, and breathed more freely, as if he were in a purer, more wholesome atmosphere than that of the brown house in far-off Holburton, where he had left his secret and his wife. It came to him with a sudden wrench of pain in his quiet room,—the difference between Josephine and all his early associates and surroundings. She was not like anything at the Forrest House, though she was marvelously beautiful and fair,—so much fairer than little Rossie, whose white cape bonnet he could see flitting among the bushes in the garden, where in the hot sunshine she soiled and pricked her fingers gathering berries for him. He had a photograph of Josephine, and he took it out and looked at the great blue eyes and fair, blonde face, which seemed to smile on him, and saying to himself, “She is very lovely,” went down to the sitting-room, where Rossie brought him his breakfast.
It was so hot in the dining-room, she said, and Aunt Axie was so out of sorts this morning, that she was going to serve his breakfast there in the bay window, where the breeze came cool from the river. So she brought in the tray of dishes, and creamed his coffee, and sugared his berries, and carved his chicken, as if he had been a prince, and she his lawful slave.
At Mrs. Fleming’s he had also been treated like a prince, but there it was lame Agnes who served, with her sleeves rolled up, and Josephine had acted the part of the fine lady, and never to his recollection had she soiled her hands with household work of any kind. How soft and white they were,—while Rossie’s hands were thin and tanned from exposure to the sun, and stained and scratched, with a rag around one thumb which a cruel thorn had torn; but what deft, nimble hands they were, nevertheless, and how gladly they waited upon this tired, indolent young man, who took it as a matter of course, for had not Rossie Hastings ministered to him since she was old enough to hunt up his missing cap, and bring him the book he was reading. Now, as she flitted about, urging him to eat, she talked to him incessantly, asking if he had received her letter and its contents safely,—if it was very pleasant at Ellicottville with his friend Stafford, and if,—she did not finish that question, but her large black eyes, clear as crystal, looked anxiously at him, and he knew what she meant.
“No, Rossie,” he said, laughingly, “I do not owe a dollar to anybody, except your dear little self, and that I mean to pay with compound interest; and I haven’t been in a single scrape,—that is, not a very bad one, since I went back;” and a flush crept to the roots of his hair as he wondered what Rosamond would think if she knew just the scrape he was in.
And why should she not know? Why didn’t he tell her, and have her help him keep the secret tormenting him so sorely? He knew he could trust her, for he had done so many a time and she had not betrayed him, but stood bravely between him and his irascible father, who, forgetting that he once was young, was sometimes hard and severe with his wayward son. Yes, he would tell Rossie, and so make a friend for Josephine, but before he had decided how to begin, Rosamond said: