Gretchen: A Novel

by Mary Jane Holmes

"Maude may recover—I think she will; but everything must be done to please her, and she cannot talk to you this morning—remember that, and you must not stay too long."

"Mamma—mamma, let Jerrie in," came faintly from the closed room; and then Mrs. Tracy stood aside and let Jerrie pass into the luxurious apartment, where Maude lay upon a silken couch, with a soft, rose-colored shawl thrown over her shoulders, her eyes large and bright, and her face as white almost as a corpse.

One looking at her needed not to be told of the peril there was in exciting her; and Jerrie felt a cold chill creep over her as she went to the couch, and, kneeling beside it, kissed the quivering lips and smoothed the dark hair, while she tried to speak naturally and cheerfully, as if in her mind there was no thought of danger to the beautiful girl, who smiled so lovingly upon her and kept caressing her hands and her face, as if she would thus express her gladness to see her.

"I know all about it, Maude," Jerrie said. "Tom told me, and your mother. You tired yourself out for me. Hush! Don't speak, or I shall go away," she continued, as she saw Maude's lips move. "You are not to talk. You are to listen, just for a day or two, and then you will be better, and come to the cottage and see my lovely room. It is so pretty, and I like it so much, and thank you and Harold so much. He has gone to the Allen farm to-day to paint," she said, in answer to an eager, questioning look in Maude's eyes. "He does not know you are sick. He will come when he can see you—to-morrow, maybe. Would you like to have him?"

A pressure of the hand was Maude's reply, as the moisture gathered upon her heavy eyelashes. But Jerrie kissed it away, and then talked to her of whatever she thought would please her. Once she made her laugh, as she took off little Billy, imitating his voice so perfectly that a person outside would have said he was in the room. Jerrie's talent for imitation and ventriloquism had not deserted her, although she did not so often practice it as when a child; but she brought it into full play now to amuse Maude, and imitated every individual of whom she spoke, except Arthur. He was the one person whose peculiarities she could not take off.

"I have been to Mr. Arthur's room," she said, "but it seemed so desolate without him. Do you hear from him often? I have only had one letter, and then he was in Salt Lake City, at the Continental, in a room which he said was big enough for three rooms, and had not a single bad smell in it, except the curtains, which were new, and in which he did detect a little odor."

Here Maude laughed again, while there came into her face a faint color and a look which made Jerrie's breath come quickly as, for the first time, the thought flashed across her mind that if what she had been foolish enough to dream of were true, Maude was her cousin—her own flesh and blood.

"Maude," she said, suddenly, with a strong desire to fold the frail little body in her arms and tell her what she had thought.

But when Maude looked up inquiringly at her, she only put her head down upon the shawl and began to cry. Then, regardless of consequences, Maude raised herself upon her elbow and laying her face on Jerrie's head, began herself to cry piteously.

"Jerrie, Jerrie," she sobbed, "you think I am going to die, I know you do, and so does everybody, but I am not; I cannot die when there is so much to live for, and my home is so beautiful, and I love everybody so much, and—"