Wythie

“ Then the entire eight departed atticward with Polly and her doll, Roberta Charlotte, bringing up the rear.
"Go on, Wythie; I must put Polly's jacket on," said Rob, pausing at her chamber door. "Queer, that little bodies take cold more easily than larger ones, which have more surface to catch cold on."
"What an absurd girl she is!" sighed grave Hester with supreme content in the qualities which she lacked and which Rob possessed in excess.
"She talks nonsense all the day long, and acts sense more than any one," said Wythie, with her loving smile. ”

“ Wythie smiled her quiet smile and left the room. Just beyond the door she met with Kiku-san, grown into a mountain of a cat, but more clingingly kittenfied and dependent than ever. Wythie swung him to her shoulder just as she had always done since he had come to them, a white down-ball with pink trimmings, and continued her way to the kitchen to interview Lydia.
Lydia was the young woman who had come to preside over that department when the sale of the bricquette machine patent had made it possible for the Greys to have some one to help them in the tiresome routine of housework. ”

“ You are so young, dear, and Basil is still in college. But we understand, as we have understood all along, that by and by your friendship is to broaden and deepen into much more."
"It can't, Mardy," said Wythie.
"Ah, Oswyth, everything broadens and deepens with time. Youth feels tempestuously, but years bring profounder depths. You are too much a child to know the truth of what I say to you. Be a young girl still, my Wythie, and be happy. Basil is all we could wish him to be," said Mrs. Grey, speaking out of the knowledge of her years of sacrificial love and her widowhood. ”

“ I declare you are very like our Lydia! She convulsed Wythie last night by suddenly demanding, when poor Wythiekins came into the kitchen, if she didn't think she ought to take the pledge! Wythie felt satisfied with her naturally temperate tendencies, but Lydia thought she should sign as an example, chiefly to the Rutherfords, who are sobriety itself! Don't you think you magnify your office more as Lyddie does than as St. Paul did?"
Hester laughed. "I think one ought to make up one's mind definitely to something," she insisted. [33] "Rob, truthfully, do you think you would like to marry?" ”

“ Rob went up the street in the bright September sunshine, wondering at her vague dissatisfaction, which made her feel unlike her usual blithe self. It was worse than foolish, she told herself, but Wythie's blissful contentment had a bad effect upon her mind. ”

“ To think you are now one of the possibilities!" persisted Wythie.
"And if I am, what then?" demanded Rob. "I may be a possibility, but you are an extreme probability, Oswyth, my dear. You are at once a column and a foundation. I'll never be half as useful as you are. Put out the light, Oswyth Grey, and don't talk nonsense! ”

“ Like all early houses the grey house had many doors, letting its guests step forth under its trees with but a brief delay upon broad flagstone steps. Wythie was to be married in the big wainscotted room in which her father had spent most of his dreaming days. Hester, Frances, Rob, and Prue, with the help of Bruce and Bartlemy, with Lester, had covered the walls between wainscotting and low ceiling with mountain laurel, and the effect was most beautiful. ”

“ Wythie hastily glanced around the room which her mother was dusting, while she herself was polishing silver, with newspapers carefully spread over the fine old mahogany dining-table. Aunt Azraella had been another Aunt Azraella since his family had been established in comfort by the success of the machine over which poor Sylvester Grey had spent the apparently fruitless hours which she had then so fiercely denounced. ”

“ ITS BURDEN
"Poor and content is rich and rich enough, but poor and genteel is—pardon slang—most tough!" remarked Rob, looking over her shoulder as she knelt before the oven, and making a wry face at Wythie, unconscious of the streak of soot on her chin. ”

“ She tossed her head as she spoke, and Wythie and Rob felt that her beauty made hers no idle boast.
Rob arose and, putting both arms around her, kissed Prue as her mother might have done. "Go your ways, dear," she said. "We fear nothing for you but that they will be harder ways than ours, and that in the end its youngest child will look back longingly at these peaceful years in the little grey house." ”

“ Prue came back dissolved in tears from closing the door behind her aunt; she found her mother, Wythie, and Rob sitting silent and sad around the fire.
"Oh, Rob, dear Rob," cried Prue, hysterically, "you mean well, but how can you be so obstinate? Don't listen to her, Mardy; we shall never be happy again; we shall lose our home, too, if you do!" And Prue dropped, sobbing, in the big chair Mrs. Winslow had vacated. ”

“ Hester and Rob are not like us—we are not brilliant like Rob, nor intense and tremendous like Hester; we are background figures, Oswyth."
"Well, of all things!" expostulated Rob. "Why we lean on Wythie like—like—oh, like gravity! I don't mean seriousness, because for that we should have to lean on Lydia, but gravitation gravity. She is our pillar of reliance, and our pillow of soothing in the little grey house. You know that as well as I do, Francie. And as to you, you founded my story-telling, and you are always a rock of common sense and efficiency." ”

“ It isn't only that Mardy thinks this; I feel it, or nobody knows what mad things I might do, for I'm fearfully impatient at times. It won't harm her, Wythie; the only difference is that what you and I know Prue must be taught by experience and disappointment."
"You talk like all the prophets melted into one," said Prue, impressed in spite of herself, for Rob's flashing dark eyes saw far, as her family well knew.
"Nothing that ends can satisfy any one with a mind, and much more with a soul, Prue. It is simple enough to understand, if once you realize that. Your world is too brief, dear Prudy. ”

“ But perhaps Wythie and Rob and Prue can coax you here to share in the mother feeling. We're fond of motherliness in the little grey house, Basil, and we do have good times in it. I must run away, or there will be a sad time in it when the girls come in hungry. They will tell you about our little grey house and its Grey denizens. Will you come often, and help us have good times? ”

“ But I won't marry, Mardy; I never, never will! I don't want to. I want to be Rob Grey, just nobody but Rob Grey of the little grey house to the end." And Rob dropped a kiss on her mother's glossy brown hair as she went out of the room to get her hat for her call on Wythie. "You could not be any one better or more beloved," her mother called after her, and resumed her accounts. ”

“ Prue was very particular as to her raiment; poor child, it was hard to be the prettiest girl, and at the same time the poorest one, in the school. Wythie sympathetically thought and wrought to make her gowns as pretty and becoming as possible to offset their many reappearances, and the hardship of wearing the clothes one's elders had outgrown. Even Rob, though she scoffed at Prue's little vanities, in her heart was sorry for the child who alone of the three was forced out among her contemporaries, and could not hide her deficiencies within the friendly walls of the little grey house. ”

“ But her mother had gone to Aunt Azraella's, Wythie and Rob were out, Lydia sat in the kitchen darning long black hose to a wailing accompaniment, and Kiku-san was too sleepy at that hour to be observant of Prue's expression.
But the instant she crossed the threshold of the lean-to room, Miss Charlotte dropped her knitting—as usual she was making soft wrappings for little babies—and said: "Why, Prudy, dear girl, what has happened?"
"No one ever sees things as quickly as you do, Cousin Peace!" ”

“ Silsby wouldn't think of letting Frances marry for ever so long," said Wythie, her colour mounting. "She is such a good, sensible mother! But I wish when the time does come Lester would have his way. He is right to choose Frances; she is as true and trusty and good as a girl can be. Wouldn't you like it, Hester?"
"Yes; I like Frances, but I could find it in my heart to wish it were a Grey girl," said Hester. "Only there aren't enough to go around, and Lester stayed too long in Japan."
"Fiddle-dedee!" remarked Rob. "Grey girls aren't going around—do you take us for tops, Hester?" ”

“ If you doubt that the Greys are of Mayflower descent on the maternal side, just go ask their aunt-in-law, Azraella Winslow."
"Oh, Rob; how can you?" cried Oswyth, distressed.
"Why, that's true, Wythie; they won't have to ask her, will they?" said Rob, innocently.
"No, don't ask; just listen. Well, the Greys [22] are poor, but respectable. I hope that they are very respectable, for I can testify from accurate knowledge that they are very poor. ”

“ Prue ran away, not deigning to notice this piece of advice, and came back as quickly as was consistent with the attainment of perfect beauty, looking really lovely in her snowy muslin gown, and her big brown eyes alight under her masses of sunny hair.
"I'm going to take my darning," announced Wythie.
"Oh, dear," sighed Rob. "If only you good people didn't shame others into being good, too! I suppose I ought to take some work—I'll shell the peas!" ”

“ Grey caught her breath, with a sob of gratitude that, in spite of her greater loss, the dear little old homestead was left her.
The girls caught the sound and understood her thought—it was too recent a joy to them all ever to be far beyond the mind of each of them. Wythie, Rob, and Prue ran over to their Mardy and twined their arms around her, all three, and hugged her close.
"We have it safe, and we have one another," whispered sweet Oswyth. ”

“ Rob answered, shaking her hair out over the dressing-sacque Hester laid over her shoulders. "I haven't anything to put on, except clean collars and cuffs."
"It doesn't matter; we're alone, and black is always full dress and full undress," said Hester. "If I had your hair I shouldn't care about dresses. Are your sisters pretty, too?"
"They are very pretty. Wythie—Oswyth—is older than I, a year, and she's just sweetness—looks, and character, and all. And Prue, the youngest, is a beauty," said Rob, proudly. ”

“ But, Prudy, don't you expect to use your eyes to good purpose, wherever you are, and is it a little thing that your bonny face will give pleasure to your loved ones? I am afraid you want an audience, my little cousin, but remember that anything outside doesn't matter seriously; it is the close heart things that count, especially to women. I don't mean to underrate your gift of beauty, Prue, nor to have you underrate it, but don't overrate it. Wythie is very sweet and pretty, and Rob's charm exceeds her good looks, which are not insignificant. You have fallen into the Grey heritage—that's all. ”

“ Through this path they soon saw Basil's head towering above his surroundings, and behind him another even taller than he—Bruce? Ah, thank God, thank God! The relief of seeing him was so great that both Rob and Bartlemy groaned with the pain of it. Mrs. Grey and Wythie looked at them in new terror; they had not known the fear for Bruce shared by the other three.
Bruce was being helped along by Basil; he was hurt. Behind them came—yes, Dr. Fairbairn, and he was carrying something in his arms. A woman? It certainly was. The Greys clasped each other close, their throats tightening. ”

“ But I stand for the source of gold, and she regards me no longer as fighting 'Bobs,' but as a sort of Kimberley."
[259]
"Oh, Rob!" exclaimed Wythie, "don't hunt for motives! It's so much pleasanter to take people at their face value, when it doesn't matter. And Aunt Azraella is really quite nice now, Cousin Peace."
She opened her mother's chamber-door as she spoke, and Mrs. Grey sprang from her big chair to fold in a close embrace her husband's nearest of kin and most of kind.
"Try to bear up under the infliction, Mardy," said incorrigible Rob. ”

“ I did not mean this kind of pull," smiled Basil.
"I know. Where are you taking us?" asked Wythie; she could not bear just then to hear an allusion to another year.
"Up here to a tree which we discovered yesterday, and which other little boys haven't discovered—it's full of chestnuts," said Bruce.
The boat glided toward the right bank, crowned by flaming maples, and into a narrow creek, so narrow that the boys had to draw in [141] their oars and pull The Graces along by the shrubs on either hand. ”

“ I'm tired, dead tired, of fighting, Oswyth. I'd like to lie down and be taken care of, like a little ewe lamb. There are two Robs in me; one is sneakingly cowardly, and wants only to curl up in a hole and hide; and the other says: 'S't, boy! sic 'em, Rob!' And I'm up and at it again—at fate, and hard times, and Aunt Azraella, and house-work, and Mr. Flinders, and all those horrors. And then the tired, meek Rob tears around obediently, and no one dreams it's all like thumb-screws and rack to her. I'm tired of my rôle of snapping-turtle, Wythie. ”

“ You are going to enjoy your little eighteen-year-old self till you won't believe it's you. And Arthur is a nice fellow, who has behaved beautifully all through this trying period, and I'm glad you are to be set in such a way as to show our jewel to her best advantage. We are envious old foxes, looking at your grapes! Ask us, Wythie and me, to your splendid mansion—when you get one—and you'll see how worldly we shall be, too!"
Prue laughed, but she did not need Rob's consideration. ”

“ I have told you truly that Polly is welcome for just as long a time as you care to trust her to us—weeks, months, or years. She is a dear, quiet, gentle child, and we have plenty of room to shelter her and plenty of bread and butter to nourish her till life has something better to offer her than we can give her. And you know, Mrs. Flinders, that my girls and I will give the child the same care, in body, mind, and soul that Wythie, Rob, and Prue received. ”