“Alas! she descends from a goddess to the most prosaic of mortals,” sighs Endicott; then springing through the low window, “I am ready to obey; but that skein is imposing. What is its destiny?”
“And why, oh, why this inseparable devotion to that unfeeling wheel?” adds L’Estrange. “I came for a stroll, and, voilà! she cannot leave her spinning. Is it a trousseau, that must be ready when some lover comes home from the war?”
Dorris’s bright face saddens suddenly, the perfect mouth loses its arch curves, and a shadow creeps into the brown eyes as the long lashes droop over them.
“The skein is to be knit into socks for the soldiers,” she says simply; “and as for my wheel, I love it because it is connected with one who has been more to me than any lover. ’Tis but a homely story, but I will tell it to such old friends as you. I need not tell you that I have a brother in the army, but you do not—you cannot—know how dear he is to me, how he has taken the place of both father and mother. It seems as if brother and sister had never been bound by ties so close, and when this war came upon us I watched him day by day, knowing well the thought in his heart, and trembling for what I knew must come; and yet when Rex came to me and said, ‘Little sister, my country needs me: can you be brave, and bear it, if I go?’ oh, then it seemed to me that I could not bear it! But I thought of the brave Lafayette leaving his home and loved ones to fight for us, a foreign nation, and my heart smote me that I could not be willing to offer my mite for my own dear country, and I bade my brother, ‘Go, and God-speed.’ It was only a few weeks before that he had given me this wheel, and almost his last words were, as he stood smiling in the door-way, ‘Remember, Dorris, I shall expect to find on my return one dozen handkerchiefs spun and woven by yourself and that wonderful wheel.’ I have remembered that careless injunction, and have obeyed it. There lies awaiting his return the pile of snowy linen, but we have not heard from him for long, long weeks, and sometimes my heart seems breaking, with the constant dread that haunts it. Do you wonder now that I love my dear little wheel?”
Impulsive, warm-hearted, patriotic Dorris ends with a little sob in her voice, and L’Estrange welcomes the entrance of the host and hostess of the old-time mansion, as it covers the awkward emotion of the moment. As he advances to pay his devoirs to them Keith Endicott seizes his opportunity to say softly, as he bends over the head buried in the now idle hands:—
“Sweet friend, you said you wished you were a man, to fight for the flag; remember, even though ’tis hard, ‘They also serve who only stand and wait.’”
Then, while Dorris tries to change the sob into words, he follows the others into the wide, long hall, where the breezes, sweeping in through the open doors at either end, fill the summer air with delicious coolness, and the scent of roses mingles with that of newly-mown clover. The breezes, too, bring to Dorris bits of conversation from the hall; but they fall on unheeding ears until an abrupt speech from her uncle claims her attention.
“Endicott,” says his voice, “why don’t you join the army? Such men are being called for,—young, strong, and able. Why don’t you go?”
Dorris almost holds her breath as she awaits the answer. She scarcely knows how many times she has asked herself that very question. The answer comes quietly, almost indolently, though she knows that Endicott’s reticent nature must be annoyed beyond measure.
“Why don’t I? Really, I do not know, sir. Young, strong, and able, an idle fellow enough. I think it must be because it hurts, and I’m a dreadfully selfish fellow.”