Grace Livingston Hill

“ Aunt Crete fairly cringed under Luella’s scornful eyes.
“And you, nothing in the world but a beggar, a beggar! That’s what you are—a beggar dependent upon us; and you swelling around as if you owned the earth, and daring to wear silk dresses [121] and real lace collars and expensive jewelry, and even having a maid, and shaming your own relatives, and getting in ahead of us, who have always been good to you, and taking away our friends, and making us appear like two cents! It’s just fierce, Aunt Crete! ”

“ Luella looked up puzzled, and tried to muster her scattered graces, and respond with her ravishing society air; but somehow the ease and grace of the man before her overpowered her. And was he really her cousin? She tried to think what he could mean by having seen and talked with her before. Surely he must be mistaken, or—perhaps he was referring to the glimpse he had of her when Mr. Grandon bowed the evening before. ”

“ I should think you’d be ashamed, Aunt Crete!” burst forth Luella, arising from the bed in a majesty of wrath. “Sitting there, being waited on like a baby, when you ought to be at home this minute earning your living. What do you think of yourself, anyway, living in this kind of luxury when you haven’t a cent in the world of your own, and your own sister, who has supported you for years, up in a little dark fourth-floor room? ”

“ She looked over her meagre wardrobe, most of it cast-offs from Carrie’s or Luella’s half-worn clothing, and wrote down in a cramped hand a few absolute necessities. The next morning they had an early breakfast, and started at once on their shopping-expedition. Aunt Crete felt like a little child being taken to the circus. The idea of getting a lot of new clothes all for herself seemed too serious a business to be true. She was dazed when she thought of it; and so, when Donald asked what they should look at first, she showed plainly that she would be little help in getting herself fitted out. ”

“ I believe she reminds me of your Aunt Crete!”
“Now, mother!” scorned Luella. “As if Aunt Crete could ever look like that! You must be crazy to see anything in such an elegant lady to remind you of poor old Aunt Crete. Why, ma, this woman is the real thing! Just see how her hair’s put up. Nobody but a French maid could get it like that. Imagine Aunt Crete with a French maid. O, I’d die laughing. She’s probably washing our country cousin’s supper dishes at this very minute. ”

“ Aunt Crete will act after we get home. Like as not she’ll think she’s got to have a maid, and dress in silks and satins. There’s one comfort; probably some of her clothes will fix over for you when she gets off her high horse and comes down to every-day living again. But I wish you’d brace up and forget these Grandons. It’s no use trying to get up in the world higher than you belong. There’s that nice John Peters would have been real devoted to you if you’d just let him; and he owns a house of his own already, and has the name of being the best plumber in Midvale.”
Luella sighed. ”

“ Luella did her work quietly, firmly, and thoroughly. She vanished before Marie had thought of coming to her morning duties.
At breakfast-time Donald found a sad, cowed little woman waiting for him to go down to the dining-room. He tried to cheer her up by telling her how nice a time they were to have in bathing that morning, for the water was sure to be delightful; but Aunt Crete shook her head sadly, and said she guessed she had better not go in bathing any more. Then she sighed, and looked wistfully out on the blue waves dancing in the sunshine. ”

“ Now, Aunt Crete, once for all you must get that idea out of your head. You could never be a [134] burden to me. I want you for a companion. If my mother were here, shouldn’t I just love to take her on a journey with me, and spend every cent I had to make her happy? Well, I haven’t mother here; but you are the nearest to mother I can find, and I somehow feel she’d like me to have you in her place. Will you come? Or is it asking too much to ask you to leave Aunt Carrie and Cousin Luella? They’ve got each other, and they never really needed you as I do. ”

“ Aunt Crete winced. She was devoted to the Woman’s Missionary Society, and it was terrible to be likened to a heathen. She wished Luella had chosen some other word.
“I should think you’d be so ashamed you couldn’t hold your head up before your honest relatives,” went on the shameless girl. “Taking money from a stranger,—that’s what he is, a stranger,—and you whining round and lowering yourself to let him buy you clothes and things, as if you didn’t have proper clothes suited to your age and station. He’s a young upstart coming along and daring to buy you any—and such clothes! ”

“ Who in life are they? Do you know any Miss Ward? You don’t s’pose it’s that lovely gray-silk woman. Miss Ward. Donald Ward Grant. Who can they be, and what do you suppose they want? Grant. Donald Grant. Where have I, why—! O, horrors, ma! It can’t be that dreadful cousin has followed us up, can it? Donald Grant is his name, of course; yes, Donald Ward Grant. It was the Ward that threw me off. But who is the other? Miss Ward. Ma! You don’t——!”
“Luella Burton, that’s just what it is! It’s your Aunt Crete and that dreadful cousin. Crete never did have any sense, if she is my sister. ”

“ She felt that the picnic part of her vacation was almost over now, for Carrie and Luella would be sure to manage to spoil it someway.
Donald looked up from his paper with a welcome in his eyes. It was the first time she had seen him in evening dress, and she thought him handsome as a king.
“You’re a very beautiful woman, Aunt Crete; do you know it?” said Donald with satisfaction. He had felt that the French maid would know how to put just the right touch to Aunt Crete’s pretty hair to take away her odd, “unused” appearance. ”

“ What if it should be those folks you admire so much? I’ve been thinking. We had some New York cousins by the name of Ward. It might be one of them, and Donald might have gone to them first, and they’ve brought him down here. I can’t think he’s very much, though. But we’ll just hope for the best, anyway, till we find out. If it’s Aunt Crete, I shall simply talk to her till she is brought to her senses, and make her understand that she’s got to go right home. I’ll tell her how she’s mortifying you, and spoiling your chances of a good match, perhaps——”
“O ma!” giggled Luella in admiration. ”

“ It would spoil all Luella’s good time to have me around, I’m so short-waisted. She always wants me to wear a coat when I go anywhere with her, so people won’t see how short-waisted I am.”
“Nonsense,” said Donald. “I think you are lovely, Aunt Crete. You’ve got such pretty white hair, all wavy like mother’s; and you’ve got a fine face. Luella ought to be proud to have you.” ”

“ Behind her walked her sister and niece in mortified humiliation. Luella was trying to recall just what she had said about “country cousins” over the telephone, and exactly what she had said to the girl in the pony-cart the morning she left home. The memory did not serve to cool her already heated complexion. It was beginning to dawn upon her that she had made a mighty mistake in running away from such a cousin and in such a manner. ”

“ It was not that she was glad that Carrie’s ankle was so bad, but that she was to have another short reprieve before her pleasure was cut off. Soon enough, she thought, would she be destined to sit in the darkened room and minister to her fussy sister, while Luella took her place in the carriages and automobiles with her handsome young cousin, as young folks should do, of course; but O, it was good, good, that a tired old lady, who had worked hard all her life, could yet have had this bit of a glimpse of the brighter side of life before she died. ”

“ Aunt Crete told him mournfully that Luella was more like herself than like her mother. “And it seems sometimes as if she blamed me for it,” said the patient aunt. “It makes it hard, her being a sort of society girl, and wanting to look so fine. Dumpy figures like mine don’t dress up pretty, you know. No, Luella never went to college. She didn’t take much to books. She liked having a good time with young folks better. She’s been wanting to go down to the shore and be at a real big hotel for three summers now, but Carrie never felt able to afford it before. ”

“ Donald kept up a continual flow of bright conversation during the noon meal, and managed to engage Luella and her mother on the long piazza in looking through the marine-glass at a great ship that went lazily floating by, while Aunt Crete was getting ready to go on the ride; and before Luella and her mother were quite aware of what was happening they stood on the piazza watching Aunt Crete in her handsome black crêpe de chine, which even boasted a modest train, and her black lace wrap and bonnet, being handed into the Grandon motor-car, while Donald carried her long new gray cloak on his arm. ”

“ Luella and her mother brought their dallied dessert to a sudden ending, and followed hard upon the footsteps of the three down the length of the dining-hall; but the lady in gray and her two attendants had disappeared already, and disconsolately they lingered about, looking up and down the length of piazzas in vain hope to see them sitting in one of the great rows of rockers, watching the many-tinted waves in the dying evening light ”

“ A glance into the parlor showed peanut-shells scattered over the floor and on the table. A few of Luella’s friends had come in for a few minutes the evening before, and they had indulged in peanuts, finishing up by throwing the shells at one another amid shouts of hilarious laughter. Aunt Crete went for the broom and dust-pan. If he came early, the hall and parlor must be in order first. ”

“ We’ve been saving up all winter for Luella to have this treat, and I do hope she’ll have a good time. It’s real hard on her, having to stay right home all the time when all her girl friends go off to the shore. But you see she’s got in with some real wealthy people who stay at expensive places, and she isn’t satisfied to go to a common boarding-house. It must be nice to have money and go to a big hotel. I’ve never been in one myself; but Luella has, and she’s told all about it. I should think it would be grand to live that way awhile with not a thing to do. ”

“ The seashore train, with its bamboo seats and its excited groups of children bearing tin pails and shovels and tennis-rackets, filled her with a fine exhilaration. At last, at last, her soul had escaped the bounds of red brick walls that she had expected would surround her as long as she lived. She drew deep breaths, and beamed upon the whole trainful of people, yelling baby and all. She gazed and gazed at the fast-flying Jersey scenery, grown so monotonous to some of the travellers, and admired every little white and green town at which they paused. ”

“ Luella drove the last hairpin into the puffs, and sprang to the door just as her mother opened it. She felt something was about to happen. Could it [87] be that she was to be invited to ride in that automobile at last, or what?
There in the hall, looking very much out of place, and as if he hoped his condescension would be appreciated, but he doubted it, stood the uniformed functionary that usually confined his activities to the second floor front, where the tips were large and the guests of unquestioned wealth, to say nothing of culture. ”

“ Aunt Crete and I have decided to set up a permanent partnership. She has consented to come and mother me. I have accepted a position in my old university, and I am very tired of boarding. I think we shall have a cozy, pleasant home; and we’ll be glad to have you and Luella come and visit us sometimes after we get settled and have some good servants so that Aunt Crete will have plenty of time to take you around and show you the sights. In the meantime, it is very likely that I may have to take a brief trip abroad for the university. ”

“ It was one of the family grievances that Luella was stout like her aunt instead of tall and slender like her mother. The aunt always felt secretly that they somehow blamed her for being of that type. “It makes one so hard to fit,” Luella’s mother remarked frequently, and adding with a disparaging glance at her sister’s dumpy form, “So impossible!”
At such times the aunt always wrinkled up her pleasant little forehead into a V upside down, and trotted off to her kitchen, or her buttonholes, or whatever was the present task, sighing helplessly. She tried to be the best that she could always ”

“ It would make your dresses set a great deal better. If you like, I’ll go get one, and you can be fitted over it. You don’t like anything very tight, do you?”
“No,” said Aunt Crete in a deprecatory tone, “I never could bear anything real tight. That’s what puts Luella out so about me. But, if you say there’s a waist that’s comfortable, I should be so obliged if you’d get it. I’d be willing to pay any price not to look so dumpy.”
She felt that if it took the last cent she possessed, and made all her relatives angry with her, she must have something to fit her once. ”