Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards

“ She went in, and found the dear old lady sitting in her great white dimity armchair.
"Come here, my dear," said Miss Wealthy, gently. "I have something to show you, which I think you will like to see."
She had a miniature in her hand,—the portrait of a young and handsome man, with flashing dark eyes, and a noble, thoughtful face.
"It is my Victor!" said the old lady, tenderly. "I am an old woman, but he is always my true love, young and beautiful. Look at it, my child! It is the face of a good and true man."
"You do not mind my knowing?" Hildegarde asked, kissing the soft, wrinkled hand. ”

“ Often they took the little boat, and made long expeditions down the pleasant river,—Hildegarde rowing, Rose couched at [202] her ease in the stern. Once they came to the mouth of a stream which they pleased themselves by imagining to be unknown to mankind. Dipping the oars gently, Hildegarde drew the boat on and on, between high, dark banks of hemlock and pine and white birch. Here were cardinal-flowers, more than they had ever seen before, rank behind rank, all crowding down to the water's edge to see their beauty mirrored in the clear, dark stream. They were too beautiful to pick. ”

“ They both laughed at this, and then Hildegarde bent with renewed energy over a bed of feathered pinks of all shades of crimson and rose-color.
"A mountain!" said Rose, slowly and thoughtfully, as she laid the blossoms together and tied them up in small posies. "Yes, Hilda, so it is! but a mountain to climb, not to be buried under. To think that we can go on climbing, learning, all our lives, and always with higher and higher peaks above us, soaring up and up,—oh, it is glorious! ”

“ Having always walked, you cannot know the wonder of it. To think that I can stand up—so! and walk—so! actually one foot before the other, just like other people. Oh! and I used to wonder how they did it. I don't now understand how 'four-leggers,' as Bubble calls them, [44] move so many things without getting mixed up."
"Dear Rose! you are happy, aren't you?" exclaimed Hildegarde, with delight.
"Happy!" echoed Rose, her sweet face glowing like her own name-flower. "But I was always happy, you know, dear. Now it is happiness, with fairyland thrown in. ”

“ Bubble flew, as if he had been shot from a gun, and returned, wide-eyed and open-mouthed, to find his sister in tears, and his adored Miss Hilda pacing up and down the piazza with hasty and agitated steps. [306]
"What is it?" he cried in dismay. "What did I do? What is the matter with everybody? Why, I never—"
Hildegarde quieted him with a gesture, and then told him, briefly, the story of the house in the wood. Poor Bubble was quite overcome. He punched his head severely, and declared that he was the most stupid idiot that ever lived. ”

“ Read, or write letters? No! that she could do when the glory had begun to fade. She walked about here and there,—"just enjoying herself," she said. She touched the white heads of the daisies; but did not pick them, because they looked so happy. She put her arms round the most beautiful elm-tree, and gave it a little hug, just to thank it for being so stately and graceful, and for bending its branches over her so lovingly. Then a butterfly came fluttering by. It was a Camberwell Beauty, and Hildegarde followed it about a little as it hovered lazily from one daisy to another. ”

“ Miss Wealthy, perhaps, could have told another story,—of kind deeds and words; of hours spent in reading aloud, in winding wools, in arranging flowers, in the thousand little helpfulnesses by which a girl can make herself beloved and necessary in a household. To the gentle, dreamy, delicate Rose, Hildegarde had really been the summer. Without this strong arm always round her, this strong sunny nature, helping, cheering, amusing, how could she have come out of the life-long habits of invalidism, and learned to face the world standing on both feet? She could not have done it, Rose felt ”

“ Is it true, I wonder? I never see those flying shadows without thinking of 'Charon sweeping over them.' It is such a comfort, Rose, that we like the same things, isn't it?"
"Indeed it is!" said Rose, heartily. "But, oh! Hilda dear, stop a moment! There is some yellow clover. Why, I had no idea it grew so far north as this!"
"Yellow clover!" repeated Hildegarde, looking about her. "Who ever heard of yellow clover? I don't see any."
"No, dear," said Rose; "it does not grow in the sides of buggies, nor even on stone-walls. ”

“ She would bring Rose here some day, if good Martha would make them another chicken-pie; perhaps Cousin Wealthy would come too. Dear Cousin Wealthy! how good and kind and pretty she was! One would not mind growing old, if one could be sure of being good and pretty, and having everybody love one.
At this moment, as Hildegarde turned her boat up river, something very astonishing happened. Not ten yards away from her, a huge body shot up out of the water, described a glittering arc, and fell again, disappearing with a splash which sent the spray flying in all directions and made the rocks echo. ”

“ Very carefully Hildegarde drew the ferns aside, and lo! a wonderful thing,—a round nest, neatly built of moss and tiny twigs; and in it four white eggs spotted with brown.
"It is too good to be true," thought the girl. "I am asleep, and I shall wake in a moment. I haven't done anything to deserve seeing this. Rose is good enough; I wish she were here."
But the little brown bird was by this time in a perfect frenzy of maternal alarm; and very reluctantly, with an apology to the angry matron, Hildegarde let the ferns swing back into place, and pulled the boat away from the bank. ”

“ But she said nothing, and the saint in gray print trotted away to her kitchen.
"Dear Martha!" said Miss Wealthy, settling herself comfortably among her cushions. "It is a great privilege to have Martha. I do hope these dear girls will not put her out. She grows a little set in her ways as she grows older, my good Martha. I don't think that blind is quite half-way down. It makes the whole room look askew, doesn't it?"
She rose, and pulled the blind straight, patted a tidy on the back of a chair, and settled herself among her cushions again, with another critical glance at the river. ”

“ She had visited girls of her own age or more, in the New York hospitals, but she was not used to little children, being herself an only child. In the first cot lay a little girl, a mite of five years, with a pale patient face. She could not move her hands, but she turned her face toward the bunch of sweet-peas that Hildegarde laid on the pillow, and murmured, "Pitty! pitty!"
"Aren't they sweet?" said Hildegarde. "Do you see that they have little wings, almost like butterflies? When the wind blows, they flutter about, and seem to be alive, almost." ”

“ I used to be very sorry for Sir Scraggo."
"What a shame!" cried Hildegarde, warmly. "Couldn't you make her care for the poor dear?"
"Oh, no!" said Rose. "She was very self-willed, that gentle Eglantine, in spite of her soft, pretty ways. There was no moving her. She turned her back as nearly as she could on Sir Scraggo, and bent farther and farther toward the south, stretching her arms out as if imploring her heartless lover to stay with her. I fastened her back to the wall once with strips of list, for she was spoiling her figure by stooping so much ”

“ Thence they reappeared in a few minutes, clad in close-fitting raiment of blue flannel, their arms bare, their hair knotted in Gothic fashion on top of their heads. Then Hildegarde stood on the edge of the wharf, and rose on the tips of her toes, and joined her palms high above her head, then sprang [225] into the air, describing an arc, and disappeared with a silver splash which rivalled that of her own sturgeon. But Rose, who could not dive, just sat down on the wharf and then rolled off it, in the most comfortable way possible. ”

“ All these years—fifty long years, Miss Hilda!—she has kept that house in apple-pie order. Once a month I go over, as old Mary did before me, and sweep it from top to bottom, and wash the windows. And three times a week she—Miss Bond—goes over herself, as you saw her to-day, and sits an hour or so, and puts fresh pansies in the vases; and Jeremiah keeps the lawn mowed, odd times, and everything in good shape. It's a strange fancy, to my idea; but there! it's her pleasure. In winter, when she can't go, of course, for the snow, she is always low-spirited, poor lady! ”

“ You are a dear, as I may have said before."
Martha chuckled and withdrew, after telling the girls that the flowers must be ready in an hour.
"Now, Rose," said Hildegarde, "you will sit there and arrange the pretty dears as I bring them to you. The question is now, where to begin. I never, in all my life, saw so many flowers!"
"Begin with those that will not crush easily," said Rose, "and I will lay them at the bottom. Some of those splendid sweet-williams over there, and mignonette, and calendula, and sweet alyssum, and—"
"Oh, certainly!" cried Hildegarde. ”

“ They came up quite out of breath, and sat laughing and panting on the willow root, which in one place curved out in such a way as to make a charming seat.
"Look at Grandfather Bullfrog!" said Rose. "He is shocked at our behavior. We are big enough to know better, aren't we, sir?" She addressed with deep respect an enormous brown bullfrog, who had come up to see what was the matter, and who sat on a stone surveying the pair with a look of indignant amazement.
"Coax! coax! Brek-ke-ke-kex!" cried Hildegarde. ”

“ I am coming to kiss you in one moment. Carefully, Rose dear! Lean on me, so! there you are! now take my arm. Slowly, slowly! See, Cousin Wealthy! see how well she walks! Isn't it delightful?"
"It is, indeed!" said the old lady, heartily, kissing first the glowing cheek and then the pale one, as the girls came up to her. "And how do you do, my dears? I am very glad indeed to see you. Rose, you [26] look so much better, I should hardly have known you; and you, Hilda, look like June itself. I must call Martha—" But Martha was there, at her elbow. "Oh, Martha! here are the young ladies." ”

“ The child laughed, and clapped his hands with delight.
"Where did you get it?" asked Hildegarde in a low tone, as she held the mug to Benny's lips.
"Saint Martha!" replied Rose, smiling. "It belonged to her grandmother. She brought it down just now, and said she had seen many a child quieted with it, and the little one would very likely be for crying at first, in a strange place! Isn't it nice?"
"Nice!" said Hildegarde; "I never want to drink out of anything else but a brown cow. Dear Martha! and observe the effect!" ”

“ Good-by, dear pretties! I should like to take you home to Rose, but it would be a wickedness to pick you."
She kissed her hand to the friendly blossoms, and they nodded a pleasant good-by, as she floated slowly down stream. A little farther on, she came to a point of rock that jutted out into the river; on it a single pine stood leaning aslant, throwing a perfect double of itself on the glassy water. Hildegarde rested in the shadow. "To be in a boat and in a tree at the same moment," she thought, "is a thing that does not happen to every one. Rose will not believe me when I tell her ”

“ Now it lay in glittering fragments on the floor, and timid Rose felt as if she were too wicked to live, and wished she were back at the Farm, where there were no vases, but only honest blue willow-ware.
At this very moment the door opened, and Miss Wealthy came in. Rose shrank back for a moment behind the tall Japanese screen; not to conceal herself, but to gather her strength together for the ordeal. Her long years of illness had left her sensitive beyond description ”

“ Hildegarde smiled approval, and Rose patted the flaxen head, and said, "Yes, I am sure you can, dear boy. Do you remember how you set the chicken's leg last year?"
"I told the doctor about that," said Bubble, "and he said I did it right. Wasn't I proud! I held accidents for him two or three times this summer," he added proudly. "It never made me faint at all, though it does most people at first."
"Held accidents?" asked Hildegarde, innocently. "What do you mean, laddie?"
"People hurt in accidents!" replied the boy. "While he set the bones, you know. There were some very fine ones!" ”

“ Such cookies! crisp and thin, with what Martha called a "pale bake" on them, and just precisely the right quantity of ginger.
"Miss Rose doesn't look over and above strong," she explained, as the girls exclaimed with delight, "and 't would be a pity for her to eat alone. The cookies is fresh, and maybe they're pretty good." [52]
"Martha," said Hildegarde, as she nibbled a cooky, "you are a saint! Where do you keep your aureole, for I am sure you have one?"
"There's a pair of 'em, Miss Hilda," replied Martha. "They build every year in the big elm by the back door, and they do sing beautiful." ”