“There’s our cottage in Oak City. We can go there if you think you can endure it,” Mrs. Percy suggested.
For a moment Clarice made no reply. The loss of Paul had hurt her cruelly, but she was too proud to let any one know that she cared. She would go there and show them she did not need their pity, she said, and, towards the last of August, the Percy cottage was again opened and made ready for Clarice and her mother.
CHAPTER XLIV.
LAST GLIMPSE OF OAK CITY.
There was much surprise when it was known that Mrs. Percy and Clarice were again in their cottage, and many remarks were made as to the probable state of Clarice’s feelings, and much wonder expressed at her changed demeanor. She had studied her role and decided to make herself popular. She was affable to every one. She went at once to call upon Mrs. Ralston to tell her about Paul, appearing as natural when she talked of him as if he had never been more than an ordinary acquaintance. From the Ralston House she went to see Miss Hansford to tell her of Elithe, and how much she was admired in the American colony, and was so gracious and sweet that Miss Hansford concluded she must have met with a change and thought she would find out. Referring to the camp-meeting, which had been unusually interesting, she spoke of some young people whom Clarice knew and who, she said, had come forward and were enjoying religion.
“I wish you were of the number. Maybe you are,” she added.
Clarice laughed and replied, “I hope I always enjoyed it in a measure.”
“Pretty small measure, if I am any judge,” was Miss Hansford’s mental comment.
She was, however, very sociable, and gave Clarice a glass of root beer and introduced her to Roger when he came in from a long walk across the fields, where he had been to visit a sick family. Clarice had not expected much of a poor missionary from Samona, and was surprised to find him so courteous and gentlemanly. He was very glad to meet her, for she could tell him of his daughter, and, for a full half hour, she sat answering his questions and asking some of her own concerning Jack, to whom he had been so kind. Evidently, the two were much pleased with each other, and before Clarice had left she had promised to attend a sewing society to be held in the church parlors for the purpose of working on cassocks for the surpliced choir the rector was training.
Up to this point Miss Hansford had joined in the conversation, but, at the mention of cassocks, she left the room hurriedly, banging the door hard, and did not return to say good-bye to Clarice. She was very proud of Roger and he was very popular, as a new rector, earnest in his work, good-looking, fairly young and unmarried, is apt to be. He had entered heart and soul into his work and in an atmosphere more congenial than that of Samona was expanding and developing in more ways than one. All this pleased Miss Hansford, who gave liberally for the maintenance of the church, and went occasionally to hear him preach, until he began to intone the services, when she quit, saying she couldn’t stand that whang-tang, and she didn’t believe the Lord could, either. At the cassocks, which she at first called hassocks she rebelled more hotly than at the whang-tang, and gave Roger many a sharp lecture, but never made the slightest impression upon him. He laughed at her good-humoredly and told her she was behind the times, and conducted his services in his own way. Once she thought of suggesting to him to find another boarding place, not on account of his ritualistic proclivities, but on account of his four boys, who nearly drove her wild.
They had very early made the acquaintance of Sherry, who had been left at the Ralston House, and who spent the greater part of every day at the cottage. They picked up two stray cats and brought them home, to the infinite disgust of Jim, growing old and fat, and jealous of intruders. They had a wheel and a kite and stilts. They played ball and croquet on her grounds; they chewed gum, and left little balls of it everywhere. They raced through the house, with Sherry after them. They brought all the boys in the neighborhood to play with them and the place resounded with the merry shouts from morning till night. With all this, they were lovable boys, with bright, handsome faces and pleasing manners, and Miss Hansford doted upon them and, knowing she would be very lonely without them, decided finally to keep them and “stand the racket.” It was something to have so good a man as Roger under her roof and she was very happy until Clarice came as a disturbing element.