Prayer with Alice was no mere form to be gone through; it was a real thing,—a communing with a living Presence,—and she grew quiet and calm under its influence, and sat for a time drinking in the beauty of the night, and looking far off across the valley to the hills beyond,—the hills nearer to New Haven,—where she had been so happy. Then, as she felt strong enough to bear it, she took her lamp, and went noiselessly down the wide hall and through a green baize door into a narrow passage which led away from the front part of the building. Before one of the doors she paused, and felt again the same heart beat she had so many times experienced when she drew near that door and heard the peculiar sound which always made her for a moment faint and sick. But that sound was hushed now, and the room into which Alice finally entered was silent as the grave; and the moon, which came through the windows in such broad sheets of silvery light, showed that it was empty of all human life save that of the young girl who stood looking round, her lip quivering and her eyes filling with tears as one familiar object after another met her view.
There was the cradle in the corner, just where it had stood for years, and the carpet in that spot told of the constant motion which had worn the threads away; and there, too, was the chair by the window, where Alice had so often seen a wasted figure sit, and the bed with its snowy coverings, to which sleep was almost a stranger. Alice knelt by this bed, and with her hand upon the crib which seemed to bring the absent one so near to her, she prayed again, and her tears fell like rain upon the pillows which she kissed for the sake of the feverish, restless head which had so often lain there.
“Poor darling,” she said, “do you know that Alice is here to-night in your own room? Do you know that she is praying for you, and loving you, and pitying you so much?”
Then as the words “if Allie was here I shouldn’t have to go away,” recurred to her mind, she sobbed, “No, darling, if Allie had been here you should not have gone, and now that she is here, she’ll bring you back again ere long, and bear with all your fancies more patiently than she ever did before.”
There was another kiss upon the pillow as if it had been a living face, and Alice’s fair hands petted and caressed and smoothed the ruffled linen, and then she turned away and passed again into the passage and through the green baize door, back into the broader hall, where the air seemed purer, and she breathed free again.
The morning succeeding Alice’s return to Beechwood was cool and beautiful, and the sun shone brightly through the white mist which lay on the river and curled up the mountain side. Alice was awake early, and when Nan came to call her she found her dressed and sitting by the open window, looking out upon the grounds and the park beyond.
“You see I have stolen a march upon you, Nannie,” Alice said; “but you may unlock that largest trunk, and help me put up my things.”
The trunk was opened, and with Nannie’s assistance Alice hung away all her pretty dresses, which were useless in this retired neighborhood, where they saw so few people. The tucked muslin, which Magdalen had admired in the picture, Nan folded carefully, smoothing out the rich Valenciennes lace and laying it away in a drawer, to grow yellow and limp, perhaps, ere it was worn again. Alice’s chief occupation at Beechwood was to wander through the grounds or climb over the mountains and hills, with Nan or the house dog Rover as escorts; and so she seldom wore the dresses which had been the envy of her schoolmates. She cared little for dress, and when at last she went down to the breakfast room to meet her stately aunt, she wore a simple blue gingham, and a white-linen apron, with dainty little pockets all ruffled and fluted and looking as fresh and pure as she looked herself, with her wavy hair, and eyes of violet blue.
Her aunt, in her iron-gray puffs, and morning-gown of silvery gray satin, was very precise and ceremonious, and kissed her graciously, and then presided at the table with as much formality as if she had been giving a state dinner. There were strawberries again, and flaky rolls, and fragrant chocolate, and a nice broiled trout from a brook among the hills, where Tom had caught it for his young lady, who, with a schoolgirl’s keen appetite, ate far too fast to please her aunt, who, nevertheless, would not reprove her that first morning home. Breakfast being over, Alice, who was expecting her father that day, went to his room to see that it was in order. It adjoined the apartment where she had knelt in tears the preceding night, and there was a door between the two; but, while the other had been somewhat bare of ornament and handsome furniture, it would seem as if the master of the house had racked his brain to find rare and costly things with which to deck his own private room. There were marks of wealth and luxury visible everywhere, from the heavy tassels which looped the lace curtains of the alcove where the massive rosewood bedstead stood, to the expensive pictures on the wall,—French pictures many of them,—showing a taste which some would call highly cultivated, and others questionable. Alice detested them, and before one, which she considered the worst, she had once hung her shawl in token of her disapprobation. She was accustomed to them now, and she merely gave them a glance, and then moved on to a pencil sketch, which she had never seen before. It was evidently a graveyard scene, for there were evergreens and shrubs, and a tall monument, and near them a little barefoot girl, with a basket of flowers, which she was laying on the grave. Alice knew it was her father’s drawing, and she studied it intently, wondering where he got his idea, and who was the little girl, and whose the grave she was decorating with flowers. Then she turned from the picture to her father’s writing-desk, and opened drawer after drawer until she came to one containing nothing but a faded bouquet of flowers, such as the girl in the picture might have been putting on the grave, and a little lock of yellow hair. Pinned about the hair was a paper, which bore the same date as did that letter which Roger Irving guarded with so much care.
Alice had heard of Roger Irving from Frank, who called him “uncle” when speaking of him to her. She had him in her mind as quite an elderly man, with iron-gray hair, perhaps, such as her auntie wore, and she had thought she would like to see Frank’s paragon of excellence; but she had no idea how near he was brought to her by that faded bouquet and that lock of golden hair, which so excited her curiosity.