Mrs. Hallam's companion; and The Spring Farm, and other tales

by Mary Jane Holmes

“I’ll go, and hear, and see,” she decided, and when the evening came Grace was there in the Raynor pew listening while Maude Graham sang, her bright face glowing with excitement and her full, rich voice rising higher and higher, clearer and clearer, until it filled the church as it had never been filled before, and thrilled every nerve of the woman watching her so intently.

“Yes, she is pretty and good, too; I cannot be deceived in that face,” she said to herself, and when, after the services were over and Maude came up the aisle past the pew where she was sitting, she put out her hand and said, “Come here, my dear, and let me thank you for the pleasure you have given me. You have a wonderful voice and some time you must come and sing to me. I am Miss Raynor, and you are Maude Graham.”

This was their introduction to each other, and that night Maud dreamed of the lovely face which had smiled upon her, and the voice, which had spoken so kindly to her.

Two weeks afterwards Grace’s note was brought to her and she read it with her feet upon the stove hearth and the low January sun shining in upon her.

Miss Raynor wanted her for a companion and friend, to read and sing to and soothe her in the hours of languor and depression, which were many.

“I am lonely,” she wrote, “and, as you know, wholly incapacitated from mingling with the world, and I want some one with me different from my maid. Will you come to me, Miss Graham? I will try to make you happy. If money is any object I will give you twice as much as you are now receiving, whatever that may be. Think of it and let me know your decision soon.

“Yours very truly,

“Grace Raynor.”

“Oh,” Maude cried. “Eight dollars a week and a home at the Cedars, instead of four dollars a week and boarding around. Of course I will go, though not till my present engagement expires. This will not be until some time in March,” and she began to wonder if she could endure it so long, and, now that the pressure was lifting, how she had ever borne it at all.

But whatever may be the nature of our surroundings, time passes quickly, and leaves behind a sense of nearly as much pleasure as pain, and when at last the closing day of school came, it was with genuine feelings of regret that Maude said good-bye to the pupils she had learned to love and the patrons who had been so kind to her.