The English Orphans Part 31

"It's only a pretence to get me away, I know," said she, "and you may as well confess it at once. You are tired of waiting upon me."

Mr. Lincoln now came in to see his daughter, but all his attempts to soothe her were in vain. She only replied, "Let me stay at home, here in this room, my own room;" adding more in anger than sorrow, "I'll try to die as soon as I can; and be out of the way, if that's what you want!"

"Oh, Rose, Rose! poor father don't deserve that," said Jenny, raising her hand as if to stay her sister's thoughtless words while Mr Lincoln, laying his face upon the pillow so that his silvered locks mingled with the dark tresses of his child, wept bitterly,--bitterly.

And still he could not tell her _why_ she must leave her home. He would rather bear her unjust reproaches, than have her know that they were beggars; for a sudden shock the physician said, might at any time end her life. Thoroughly selfish as she was, Rose still loved her father dearly, and when she saw him thus moved, and knew that she was the cause, she repented of her hasty words, and laying her long white arm across his neck, asked forgiveness for what she had said.

"I will go to Glenwood," said she; "but must I stay there long?"

"Not long, not long, my child," was the father's reply, and Jenny brushed away a tear as she too thought, "not long."

And so, with the belief that her stay was to be short, Rose pa.s.sively suffered them to dress her for the journey, which was to be performed partly by railway and partly in a carriage. For the first time since the night of his engagement with Ella Campbell, Henry was this morning free from intoxicating drinks. He had heard them say that Rose must die, but it had seemed to him like an unpleasant dream, from which he now awoke to find it a reality. They had brought her down from her chamber, and laid her upon the sofa in the parlor, where Henry came unexpectedly upon her. He had not seen her for several days, and when he found her lying there so pale and still, her long eyelashes resting heavily upon her colorless cheek, and her small white hands hanging listlessly by her side, he softly approached her thinking her asleep, kissed her brow, cheek and lips, whispering as he did so, "Poor girl!

poor Rosa! so young and beautiful."

Rose started, and wiping from her forehead the tear her brother had left there, she looked anxiously around. Henry was gone, but his words had awakened in her mind a new and startling idea. Was she going to die? Did they think so, and was this the reason of Henry's unwonted tenderness? and sinking back upon her pillows, she wept as only those weep to whom, in the full flush of youth and beauty, death comes a dreaded and unwelcome guest.

"I cannot die,--I will not die," said she at last, rousing herself with sudden energy; "I feel that within me which says I shall not die.

The air of Glenwood will do me good, and grandma's skill in nursing is wonderful."

Consoled by these reflections, she became more calm, and had her father now given his consent for her to remain in Boston, she would of her own accord have gone to Glenwood.

The morning train bound for Albany stood in the depot, waiting the signal to start; and just before the final "all aboard" was sounded, a handsome equipage drove slowly up, and from it alighted Mr. Lincoln, bearing in his arms his daughter, whose head rested wearily upon his shoulder. Accompanying him were his wife, Jenny, and a gray-haired man, the family physician. Together they entered the rear car, and instantly there was a hasty turning of heads, a shaking of curls, and low whispers, as each noticed and commented upon the unearthly beauty of Rose, who in her father's arms, lay as if wholly exhausted with the effort she had made.

The sight of her, so young, so fair, and apparently so low, hushed all selfish feelings, and a gay bridal party who had taken possession of the ladies' saloon, immediately came forward, offering it to Mr.

Lincoln, who readily accepted it, and laying Rose upon the long settee, he made her as comfortable as possible with the numerous pillows and cus.h.i.+ons he had brought with him. As the creaking engine moved slowly out of Boston, Rose asked that the window might be raised, and leaning upon her elbow, she looked out upon her native city, which she was leaving for ever. Some such idea came to her mind; but quickly repressing it, she turned towards her father, saying with a smile, "I shall be better when I see Boston again."

Mr. Lincoln turned away to hide a tear, for he had no hope that she would ever return. Towards nightfall of the next day they reached Glenwood, and Rose, more fatigued than she was willing to acknowledge, now that she was so determined to get well, was lifted from the carriage and carried into the house. Mrs. Howland hastened forward to receive her, and for once Rose forgot to notice whether the cut of her cap was of this year's fas.h.i.+on or last.

"I am weary," she said. "Lay me where I can rest." And with the grandmother leading the way, the father carried his child to the chamber prepared for her with so much care.

"It's worse than I thought 'twas," said Mrs. Howland, returning to the parlor below, where her daughter, after looking in vain for the big rocking-chair, had thrown herself with a sigh upon the chintz-covered lounge. "It's a deal worse than I thought 'twas. Hasn't she catched cold, or been exposed some way?"

"Not in the least," returned Mrs. Lincoln, twirling the golden stopper of her smelling bottle. "The foundation of her sickness was laid at Mount Holyoke, and the whole faculty ought to be indicted for manslaughter."

Jenny's clear, truthful eyes turned towards her mother, who frowned darkly, and continued: "She was as well as any one until she went there, and I consider it my duty to warn all parents against sending their daughters to a place where neither health, manners, nor any thing else is attended to, except religion and housework."

Jenny had not quite got over her childish habit of occasionally setting her mother right on some points, and she could not forbear saying that Dr. Kleber thought Rose injured herself by attending Mrs.

Russell's party.

"Dr. Kleber doesn't know any more about it than I do," returned her mother. "He's always minding other folks' business, and so are you. I guess you'd better go up stairs, and see if Rose doesn't want something."

Jenny obeyed, and as she entered her sister's chamber, Rose lifted her head languidly from her pillow, and pointing to a window, which had been opened that she might breathe more freely, said, "Just listen; don't you hear that horrid croaking?"

Jenny laughed aloud, for she knew Rose had heard "that horrid croaking" move than a hundred times in Chicopee, but in Glenwood every thing must necessarily a.s.sume a goblin form and sound. Seating herself upon the foot of the bed, she said, "Why, that's the frogs. I love to hear them dearly. It makes me feel both sad and happy, just as the crickets do that sing under the hearth in our old home at Chicopee."

Jenny's whole heart was in the country, and she could not so well sympathize with her nervous, sensitive sister, who shrank from country sights and country sounds. Accidentally spying some tall locust branches swinging in the evening breeze before the east window, she again spoke to Jenny, telling her to look and see if the tree leaned against the house, "for if it does," said she, "and creaks I shan't sleep a wink to-night."

After a.s.suring her that the tree was all right, Jenny added, "I love to hear the wind howl through these old trees, and were it not for you, I should wish it might blow so that I could lie awake and hear it."

When it grew darker, and the stars began to come out. Jenny was told "to close the shutters."

"Now, Rose," said she, "you are making half of this, for you know as well as I, that grandma's house hasn't got any shutters."

"Oh, mercy, no more it hasn't. What _shall_ I do?" said Rose, half crying with vexation. "That coa.r.s.e muslin stuff is worse than nothing, and everybody'll be looking in to see me."

"They'll have to climb to the top of the trees, then," said Jenny, "for the ground descends in every direction, and the road, too, is so far away. Besides that, who is there that wants to see you?"

Rose didn't know. She was sure there was somebody, and when Mrs.

Howland came up with one of the nicest little suppers on a small tea-tray, how was she shocked to find the window covered with her best blankets, which were safely packed away in the closet adjoining.

"Rose was afraid somebody would look in and see her," said Jenny, as she read her grandmother's astonishment in her face.

"Look in and see her!" repeated Mrs. Howland. "I've undressed without curtains there forty years, and I'll be bound n.o.body ever peeked at me. But come," she added, "set up, and see if you can't eat a mouthful or so. Here's some broiled chicken, a slice of toast, some currant jelly that I made myself, and the swimminest cup of black tea you ever see. It'll eenamost bear up an egg."

"Sweetened with brown sugar, ain't it?" said Rose sipping a little of the tea.

In great distress the good old lady replied that she was out of white sugar, but some folks loved brown just as well.

"Ugh! Take it away," said Rose. "It makes me sick and I don't believe I can eat another mite," but in spite of her belief the food rapidly disappeared, while she alternately made fun of the little silver spoons, her grandmother's bridal gift, and found fault because the jelly was not put up in porcelain jars, instead of the old blue earthen tea-cup, tied over with a piece of paper!

Until a late hour that night, did Rose keep the whole household (her mother excepted) on the alert, doing the thousand useless things which her nervous fancy prompted. First the front door, usually secured with a bit of whittled s.h.i.+ngle, must be _nailed_, "or somebody would break in." Next, the windows, which in the rising wind began to rattle, must be made fast with divers knives, scissors, combs and keys; and lastly, the old clock must be stopped, for Rose was not accustomed to its striking, and it would keep her awake.

"Dear me!" said the tired old grandmother, when, at about midnight, she repaired to her own cosy little bedroom, "how fidgety she is. I should of s'posed that livin' in the city so, she'd got used to noises."

In a day or two Mr. Lincoln and Jenny went back to Boston, bearing with them a long list of articles which Rose must and would have. As they were leaving the house Mrs Howland brought out her black leathern wallet, and forcing two ten dollar bills into Jenny's hand, whispered, "Take it to pay for them things. Your pa has need enough for his money, and this is some I've earned along, knitting, and selling b.u.t.ter. At first I thought I would get a new chamber carpet, but the old one answers my turn very well, so take it and buy Rose every thing she wants."

And all this time the thankless girl up stairs was fretting and muttering about her grandmother's _stinginess_, in not having a better carpet "than the old faded thing which looked as if manufactured before the flood!"

CHAPTER XXIX.

A NEW DISCOVERY.

On the same day when Rose Lincoln left Boston for Glenwood, Mrs.

Campbell sat in her own room, gloomy and depressed. For several days she had not been well, and besides that, Ella's engagement with Henry Lincoln filled her heart with dark forebodings, for rumor said that he was unprincipled, and dissipated, and before giving her consent Mrs.

Campbell had labored long with Ella, who insisted "that he was no worse than other young men,--most of them drank occasionally, and Henry did nothing more!"

On this afternoon she had again conversed with Ella, who angrily declared, that she would marry him even if she knew he'd be a drunkard, adding, "But he won't be. He loves me better than all the world, and I shall help him to reform."

"I don't believe your sister would marry him," continued Mrs.

Campbell, who was becoming much attached to Mary.

"I don't believe she would, either, and for a very good reason, too,"

returned Ella, pettishly jerking her long curls. "But I can't see why you should bring her up, for he has never been more than polite to her, and that he a.s.sured me was wholly on my account."