A Little Country Girl Part 14

"Is Miss Collisham at home?" asked Mrs. Joy, at the same time inserting her foot deftly between the door and the door-frame, to insure that the door should not be closed against her.

"No, 'm," said the child. "She's gone out."

"Dear me, what a shame! where is she?" demanded the visitor, in an aggrieved tone, as if Miss Colishaw had no right to be out when wanted by the owner of such a fine equipage.

"She's over to old Miss Barnes's. She's sick," replied the little girl.

"Who's sick?--old Miss Barnes? And where does she live?"

"Just over there in First Street," said the child, staring at Candace, whose big red hat had caught her fancy. "'Tain't but a little way," she added.

"Ah, indeed!" said Mrs. Joy, pus.h.i.+ng her way into the entry. "Well, then, you just run over to this place, dear, and tell Miss Collisham that there's a lady waiting to speak to her on business. Be quick, that's a good little girl! This young lady and I will sit down here and wait till you come back."

The small maiden looked uncertain and rather frightened; but Mrs. Joy marched resolutely into the little parlor on one side of the hall, and seated herself; so, after a pause of hesitation, the child seized a sun-bonnet which lay on a chair, and set off at a run in the direction indicated. The moment she was gone Mrs. Joy jumped briskly up.

"Such a piece of good luck!" she cried. "One so rarely gets the chance to examine a place like this without the bother of a family standing by to watch everything you do." Then, to Candace's horror and astonishment, she walked straight across the room to a cupboard which her experienced eye had detected in the side of the chimney, opened the door, and took a survey of the contents.

"Nothing there," she remarked, locking it up, "only medicine bottles and trash. Let's try again." She opened a closet door, and emitted a sigh of satisfaction.

"These must be the very plates I heard of," she said. "Let me see,--five, six, eight,--a complete dozen, I declare, and all in good order,--and a platter, and two dishes! Well, this _is_ a find; and such lovely china, too,--I must have it. Mrs. Kinglake's,--that she's so proud of--isn't half so handsome; and _she_ has only eight plates. Now, where are those chairs that they told me about, I wonder?"

Candace was sitting in one of the very chairs, as it proved; the other Mrs. Joy presently discovered in a little back-room which opened from the parlor, and which she lost no time in rummaging. She had just unlocked another closet door, and was standing before it with a pitcher in her hand, when the mistress of the house appeared,--a tall, thin, rather severe-looking woman, whose cheeks still wore the fresh color which cheeks retain till old age in the Narragansett country.

Candace, who had remained in her chair in a state of speechless and helpless dismay, watching Mrs. Joy's proceedings through the open door, saw her coming, but had no time to warn Mrs. Joy.

"You wanted to see me on business?" said Miss Colishaw, fixing a pair of wrathful eyes on Mrs. Joy, the pitcher, and the open door of the closet.

"Oh, is it Miss Collisham?" replied that lady, neither noticing nor caring for the very evident indignation of look and tone. "Your little girl was so kind as to say that she would go and call you; and while we were waiting we thought we would look at this curious old--"

"We! are there more of you, then?" demanded Miss Colishaw, glaring into the closet as if she expected to see other audacious visitors concealed in its depths. Finding none, she closed the door and turned its stout wooden b.u.t.ton with a good deal of energy.

"If you've any business with me, ma'am," she said, "perhaps you'll be so kind as to step into the parlor and say what it is."

"Certainly," responded Mrs. Joy, airily. "But before we go do tell me about this curious old jug. It's Spode, is it not? I'm almost sure that it must be Spode, or some other of the very old English wares. Do you know about it?"

"I know that it was my mother's yeast-pitcher, and that's all that I care to know," replied Miss Colishaw, grimly, taking it out of her hand.

"I use it to keep corks in."

"Corks! How amusing! But it's really a nice old piece, you know. I'd like to buy it if you don't care any more for it than that. You could put your corks in something else just as well."

"It ain't for sale," said Miss Colishaw, decidedly, putting the pitcher again into the closet, and leading the way into the parlor.

Candace, who had heard all, and was feeling awkward and guilty to the last degree, rose as they entered, and courtesied to Miss Colishaw.

Perhaps her face showed something of the shame and annoyance with which her heart was filled; for Miss Colishaw's iron expression relaxed a little, and the "Good-afternoon" she vouchsafed her sounded a shade less implacable.

"Oh, I forgot!" said Mrs. Joy, turning back to the rear room. "There's this old chair, Miss Collisham."

"_Colishaw_'s my name," interposed her hostess.

"I beg your pardon, I'm sure; so it is, of course. Well, as I was saying, I noticed a delightful old arm-chair in this room,--ah, there it is! It exactly matches some without arms which I bought at Sypher's.

If you'd like to part with this and the other in the front room, Miss--Miss Collishall, I should be glad to buy them; and I'd give you a very good price for them because of the match."

Miss Colishaw made no answer.

"Then there's some china that I _observed_ in another closet," went on Mrs. Joy, returning again to the parlor, and opening the door of the closet in question. "This red and blue, I mean. I see you have a good deal of it, and it's a kind I particularly fancy. It's like some which my dear old grandmother used to have." Mrs. Joy's tone became quite sentimental. "I'd give almost anything for it, for the sake of old a.s.sociations. I wish you'd fix a price on this, Miss Collisham."

"Very well, then, I will,--one million of dollars," replied Miss Colishaw, losing all command over her temper. "No, ma'am, I'm not joking. One million of dollars!--not a cent less; and not even that would pay me for my mother's china, and the chair my father used to sit in when he was old. They ain't for sale; and when I've said that once, I've said it for always."

"But, my dear Miss Collishall--"

"I ain't your dear, and my name ain't Collishall. Colishaw's what I'm called; and it's a good old Newport name, though you don't seem to be able to remember it."

"I beg your pardon," said Mrs. Joy, loftily. "It's rather an unusual name, and I never happened to hear it till to-day. Then you don't care to sell any of these old things?"

"No, ma'am, not one thing."

"Well, I must say that I consider you very foolish. This sort of old stuff won't always be the fas.h.i.+on; and the minute the fas.h.i.+on goes out, they won't be worth anything. n.o.body will want to buy them."

"They'll be worth just the same to _me_ then that they are now,"

responded Miss Colishaw, more gently. She evidently saw the hopelessness of trying to impress her point of view on Mrs. Joy.

"I dare say you have an attic-full of delightful old spinning-wheels and things," remarked that lady, quick to mark the change of tone and hoping to profit by it. She glanced toward the stair-foot as she spoke. Miss Colishaw quickly stepped in front of the stairs, and stood there with the air of an ancient Roman defending his household G.o.ds.

"Yes, ma'am, I _have_ an attic," she said dryly. "It's a very good attic, and it's stuffed full of old things. There's a fender and two pairs of fire-dogs--"

Mrs. Joy's eyes sparkled. "Oh, do let us go up and see it!" she cried.

"No, you don't!" said Miss Colishaw, taking a firmer grasp of the bal.u.s.ter. "There's a wool-wheel, and a flax-wheel, and a winder, and three warming-pans--"

"Dear me! What a delightful place!" put in Mrs. Joy.

"There's lots and lots of old truck," continued the implacable Miss Colishaw. "It all belonged to my mother and my grandmother and her mother before her. It's all up there; and there it's going to stay, if all the rich ladies in Newport come down to try to wheedle me out of it.

Not a soul of them shall set foot in my attic."

"Well, I must say that I think you very foolish," said Mrs. Joy, settling the wrists of her long gloves. "You're very poor, and these old things are no use to you in the way you live; and you'd far better take the money they would bring, and make yourself comfortable."

Miss Colishaw was now pale with anger.

"And who told you I was poor?" she demanded. "Did I ever come a-begging to you? Did I ever walk into your house to pry and rummage, and tell you that your things were no use? When I do you'll have a right to come here and behave as you have, but not a minute before. Use! They _are_ of use.

They remind me of my family,--of the time I was young, when we all lived in this house together, before Newport grew to be a fas.h.i.+onable boarding-place and was spoiled for people of the old sort. If that's all the business you have with me, madam, I think we have got through with it."

"Really, there's no occasion for being so very rude," said Mrs. Joy.

"Rude!" Miss Colishaw gave an acrid laugh. "Mine ain't fas.h.i.+onable manners, I know; but I guess they're about as good." She opened the front door, and held it suggestively wide. Mrs. Joy swept through.

"Come, Miss Arden," she called back over her shoulder.

Candace could do nothing but look as apologetic as she felt. "I'm so sorry," she murmured, as she pa.s.sed Miss Colishaw.