“A deuced pretty girl, after all,” the Major thought, as she beamed on him her brightest smile when Phil introduced her, and then the parties separated. And returning to Margery, Queenie led her in triumph to the carriage, while Mrs. La Rue followed after them.
Her black gauze vail was drawn closely over her face, but both girls caught a sound like a suppressed sigh, and turning to her, Margery said:
“I believe mother is homesick, and pining for France she seems so low spirited.”
“Oh, I hope not. America is a great deal better than France, and Merrivale is best of all,” Queenie said, glancing at Mrs. La Rue, and noting for the first time how pale and tired she looked, noticing, too, that she was all in black, though not exactly in mourning.
“She has lost some friend, perhaps,” she thought, and then chatted on with Margery, unmindful of the woman who leaned wearily back among the soft cushions of the luxurious carriage.
Of what was she thinking?—the tired, sad woman, as the carriage wound up the hill, across the common, past the church where Margaret Ferguson used to say her prayers, and past the yellowish-brown house which Queenie pointed out as her Aunt Lydia’s, and where, on the door-step Anna sat fanning herself, rejoicing that she was now a grocer’s daughter. It would be hard to fathom her thoughts, which were straying far back over the broad gulf which lay between the present and the days of her girlhood. And yet nothing escaped her, from Anna Ferguson on the door-step to the handsome house and grounds at the Knoll, which Queenie said was her Aunt Rossiter’s house; but when at last the cottage was reached, and she alighted from the carriage, she was so weak and faint that Margery led her into the house, and even Queenie was alarmed at the death-like pallor of her face, and stood by her while Margery hunted through her bags for some restorative.
“You are very tired, aren’t you?” Queenie said, kindly, to her, at the same time laying her hand gently upon her head, for her bonnet had been removed.
At the touch of those cool, slender fingers and the sound of the pitying voice Mrs. La Rue gave way entirely, and grasping both Queenie’s hands, covered them with tears and kisses; as she said:
“Forgive me, Queenie, and let me call you once by that pet name; let me thank you for all you have done for us—for Margery and me. God bless you, Queenie! God bless you!”
“Mother, mother, you frighten Miss Hetherton!” Margery said, coming quickly forward, and guessing from the expression of Queenie’s face, that so much demonstration was distasteful to her. “You are tired and nervous; let me take you up stairs,” she continued as she led the unresisting woman to her room, where she made her lie down upon the couch, and then went back to Queenie, who was standing in the door-way and beating her little foot impatiently, as she thought: