“She puts them in the vases, and wears them.”
“Do they give her anything else?” Henriette’s tone was so awful that Mysie dropped her work.
“Do they?” persisted Henriette.
“They sent over the magazines a few times, but that was just borrowing, and once they—they—sent over some shortcake and some—bread.”
Henriette sat bolt-upright in bed, reckless of the pain every movement gave her.
“Mysilla Beaumont, do you see where your sister is drifting? Are you both crazy? But I shall put a stop to this nonsense this very day. I am going to write a note to John Perley, and you will have to take it. Bring me the paper. If there isn’t any in my desk, take some out of Pauline’s.”
“Oh, Henriette,” whimpered Mysie, “what are you going to do?”
“You will soon see, and you will have to help me. After they have been disgraced and laughed at, we’ll see whether she will care to lean over their fence and talk to them.”
It was true that Pauline did talk to the Armstrongs; she did lean over the Armstrong fence. It had come to pass by degrees. She knew perfectly well it was wrong. Henriette never allowed her to have any acquaintances. But Henriette could not see her from the bed, and Mysie did not mind; and so she fell into the habit of stopping at the Armstrong gate to inquire for Mrs. Armstrong’s turkeys, or to ask advice about the forlorn little geraniums which fought for life in the Beaumont yard, or to lend her own nimble fingers to the adorning of Mrs. Armstrong’s bonnets. She saw Ike often. Once she actually ventured to enter “those mechanics’” doors and play on the detested organ. Her musical gifts could not be compared to her sister’s. A sweet, true voice, op no great compass, a touch that had only sympathy and a moderate facility—these the highly cultivated Beaumonts rated at their very low artistic value; but the ignorant Armstrongs listened to Pauline’s hymns in rapture. The tears filled Mrs. Armstrong’s eyes: impulsively she kissed the girl. “Oh, you dear child!” she cried. Ike said nothing. Not a word. He was standing near enough to Pauline to touch the folds of her dress. His fingers almost reverently stroked the faded pink muslin. He swallowed something that was choking him. Joel Armstrong nodded and smiled. Then his eyes sought his wife’s. He put out his hand and held hers. When the music was done and the young people were gone, he puffed hard on his dead pipe, saying, “It’s the best thing that can happen to a young man, mother, to fall in love with a real good girl, ain’t it?”
“Yes, I guess it is.”