In the house Alice was not idle. From the earliest dawn she had been up, for there was something on her mind which kept her wakeful and restless. Frederic’s letters, which were read to her by the wife of the overseer, who lived near by, had told her of the blue-eyed girl who had been with him in his sickness, and in one letter, written ere he had given up the search, he had said, while referring to the girl: “Darling Alice, I am so glad you sent me here, for I hope to bring you a great and joyful surprise.”
Not the least mention did he make of Marian, but Alice understood at once that he meant her. Marian and the blue-eyed girl were the same, and he would bring her back to them again. She was certain of it, and though in his last letter, dated at Riverside, and apprising them of his intended return, he had not alluded to the subject, it made no difference with her. He wished really to surprise her, she thought, and seeking out Dinah, she said to her, rather cautiously, for she would let no one into her secret:
“Supposing Frederic had never been married to Marian, but had gone now after a bride—I don’t mean Isabel,” she said, as she felt the defiant expression of Dinah’s face—“but somebody else—somebody real nice. Supposing, I say, he was going to bring her home, which room do you think he would wish her to have?”
“The best chamber, in course,” answered Dinah—“the one whar the ’hogany bedstead and silk quilt is. You wouldn’t go to puttin’ Marster Frederic’s wife off with poor truck, I hope. But what made you ask that question? What have you hearn?”
“Nothing in particular,” answered Alice, “only it would be nice if he should bring somebody with him, and I want to fix the room just as though I knew he would. May Lid sweep and dust it for me?”
For a moment Dinah looked at her as if she thought her crazy. Then thinking to herself, “it’ll ’muse her a spell any way, and I may as well humor her whim,” she replied. “Sakes alive, yes, and I’ll ar the bed. Thar haint nobody slep’ in’t sence Marian run away, ’cept Miss Agnes one night and that trollop, Isabel, who consulted me by sayin’ how’t they done clarmbered onto a table afore they could get inter bed, ’twas so high. Ain’t used to feathers whar she was raised, I reckon, and if you’ll b’lieve it, she said how’t she allus slep’ on har afore she come here! Pretty stuff that must be to lie on; but Lord, them Yankees is mostly as poor as poverty, and don’t know no differ.”
Having relieved herself of this speech, which involved both her opinion of Yankees in general and Isabel in particular, the old lady proceeded to business, first arin’ the bed, as she said, and then making it higher, if possible, than it was made on the night when Isabel so injured her feelings by laughing at its height. Lid’s services were next brought into requisition; and when the chamber was swept and dusted, the arrangement of the furniture was left entirely to Alice, who felt that what she did was right, and wished so much that she could see just how Marian’s favorite chair looked standing by the window, from which the gorgeous sunsets Marian so much admired could be plainly seen. Just opposite, and on the other side of the window, Frederic’s easy chair was placed—the one in which he always sat when tired, and where Alice fancied he would now delight to sit with Marian, so near that he could look into her eyes and tell her that he was glad to have her there. He was beginning to love her Alice knew by the tone of his letters; and her heart thrilled with joy as she thought of the happiness in store for them all. She would not be lonely now in her own pleasant chamber, for it was so near to Marian’s. She could leave the doors open between, and that would be so much nicer than having black Ellen sleeping on the floor.
Dear little Alice! She built bright castles in the air that summer day, and they were as real to her as if Frederic had written, “Marian is found, and coming home with me.”
“She loved a great many flowers around her,” she said, and groping her way down the stairs and out into the yard, she gathered from the tree beneath the library window a profusion of buds and half opened roses, which she arranged into bouquets, and placed in vases for Marian, just as Marian had gathered flowers for her from the garden far away on the river.
It was done at last; and very inviting that pleasant, airy apartment looked with its handsome furniture, its bright carpet and muslin curtains of snowy white, to say nothing of the towering bed. There were flowers on the mantle, flowers on the table, flowers in the window, flowers everywhere, and their sweet perfume filled the air with a delicious fragrance which Dinah declared was “a heap sight better than that scent Miss Isabel used to put on her handkercher and fan. Ugh, that fan!” and Dinah’s nose was elevated at the very thought of Isabel’s sandal-wood fan which had been her special abhorrence.