Dorothy's Travels Part 26

But it was on that last open pony-cart, with its load of young folks, that the eye of the hostess rested first and last. Such a gay and laughing quartette that was! Molly and Dolly, the blonde and the brunette, Monty and Melvin, the rotund and the slender; but Dolly the gayest, the sweetest, the darlingest of all!

At least, that was what some of those welcoming people, grouped upon the steps, believed with all their hearts. Father John and Mother Martha, Mr. Seth and "Fairy G.o.dmother," aye and honest Jim, first and faithfullest of comrades--to these there was visible, for one moment, no face save the face of smiling Dorothy.

When they were all housed and supper ended, they gathered in the great parlors, which Alfaretta's capable hands had adorned with ma.s.ses of golden-rod, of scarlet woodbine and snowy wreaths of seeding clematis--feathery and quite "too graceful for words," as Dorothy declared, lovingly hugging Alfaretta who lingered by the door, a new shyness upon her, yet longing to be beside these other girls and lads no older than she, but who had seen so much more of the world in which they all lived.

Then when Mrs. Betty begged:

"Now if all are rested, let's compare our notes of the summer and tell what each found loveliest to remember. Come in, Alfaretta, and cuddle down with the rest upon the rugs before the fire. Old Deerhurst is at its best, to-night, filled with happiness. Now, Dr. Ryall, as once-master of these other 'Boys,' can you give your happiest thought of the summer?"

The venerable collegian leaned back and twirled his thumbs. He had left his boyishness but not his happiness back in the Markland woods, and it was quite gravely yet simply he answered:

"Why yes, Elizabeth, and easily. It was the awakening of Monty yonder to a sense of his own responsibility as a human being, made in his Creator's image. He's got down to bottom facts. He knows it isn't dollars but doings that make G.o.d's true man. Needn't blush, my lad; but be reverently thankful." Then he turned a merry glance upon the company and demanded: "Next?"

And as if he were still in the cla.s.s-room questioned upon a text-book, his merchant-pupil answered:

"The happiest sight to me was the first salmon I landed!"

"A good and honest answer!" laughed Mrs. Betty, and like the president called: "Next!"

One after another the answers came; that of the surgeon being the memory of a wounded fawn whom he had cured and set at liberty again. The Judge's happiest moment had been when he caught sight of Molly's face on that dark night in the forest, when he dreaded lest he should see it no more alive and alight with love.

All had some answer to give, even Miss Greatorex, who wondered why they smiled when she recorded her blest experience in discovering a rare specimen of quartz. Surely, that was the very best gift she was bringing home to "the Rhinelander," and wasn't it a specimen worth the whole trip to a "foreign" land?

Even the youngsters were pressed to tell what they had found choicest and when Molly answered the question put to her, she spoke with a sweet solemnity: "The sound of Melvin's bugle in the wilderness."

There was a momentary silence. All were more moved than they could say, remembering how different a group this would have been had that bugle never blown "a.s.sembly" in that far-away forest. Dorothy said nothing.

Even when it came to her and the last "turn," she could only turn her happy eyes to one and another of the loved faces before her and shake her head. There had been times out there on the Nova Scotia farm when she had not been happy; when the moods of "wondering" had disturbed her peace and made her discontent. That was all past now that she was reunited to Father John and Mother Martha and somehow, best of all, to that beautiful, white-haired "Fairy G.o.dmother," who had caught her to her breast in such a tender fashion and had even left tears of joy from the old, dark eyes upon her own upturned cheek. Why had she loved the lady so? Why did the clasp of her slender arms seem so much more than that of st.u.r.dy Mrs. Martha? Dorothy inwardly upbraided herself for the disloyal feeling, but she was too honest to deny even to herself that her dearest welcome home had come from one on whom she had no claim.

"Well, Dolly Doodles, it isn't fair for all the rest to tell their part and you just sit mum and stare and stare and stare! Honey Doll, I'm ashamed of you!" cried Molly.

Thus goaded into speech, Dorothy answered: "The happiest thing I've known isn't past, in the summer-time, but just right now and here. It's coming home to Deerhurst and--YOU!"

She could not have helped it and she could not have explained why not; but there was a look in Mrs. Betty's eyes, an appealing tenderness that went straight to the heart of the girl, who sped like an arrow shot from the hearth to a place in her hostess's arms.

And again there was silence; while some of that goodly company exchanged most speaking glances. Then with a gesture prouder than the proudest she had ever given, Mrs. Calvert lifted her head and beckoned the Judge.

"Schuyler, you're a lawyer and that rare one, an honest man. I depute you to open this sealed doc.u.ment and read the contents to the company.

Practically, it is my 'last will and testament'--I mean the last one I've made, though I'm likely to alter it a score of times yet! I inscribed it 'to be opened after my death,' but as I feel I've just secured a new lease of life you needn't wait for that but shall open it now."

She spoke with all her old whimsicality but with a tremor in her voice, and somehow Seth Winters managed to place himself a little nearer to her and Dorothy clung the tighter about her neck.

Not yet did the child dream that this sealed packet related to herself or that the irrepressible feeling which had sent her flying to the old gentlewoman's arms had been the call of the blood. She merely felt that her "G.o.dmother" needed soothing and that it was her delightful duty to so soothe.

There is no need to here repeat the technical wording of what the Judge so distinctly read in his clear, strong voice, amid a silence which except for that voice would have echoed the falling of the proverbial "pin." He summed it up after one reading in a brief epitome:

"Dorothy, otherwise Dorothy Elizabeth Somerset Calvert, is the last and nearest living relative of Mrs. Elizabeth Cecil Somerset-Calvert. She is the only child of one Cecil Calvert, deceased, and of Miriam his wife.

Cecil Calvert, herein named, was the only son of the only son of Mrs.

Calvert's only brother. The descent is clear and unmistakable. Cecil Calvert, the father of Dorothy, was early left an orphan and was 'raised' by Mrs. Betty, presumably to be her heir. When he came of age to want a wife she provided one for him. He objected and made his own choice. She cut him off with a limited income, but sufficient for one differently reared, and taking his bride he went to the far West. There he died and his wife soon followed him; but her illness was a lingering one and during it she sought to provide for their baby Dorothy.

"This envelope contains her letters and those of her husband, written after his fatal seizure to Mrs. Calvert, describing everything connected with their young and, as it proved, improvident lives. Neither of them, the sad wife protests, had ever been trained to the wise handling of money or of anything useful. It had not been their fault so much as their misfortunes that they were dying in what was to them real poverty; and the pathetic letters ended with the declaration that, after its mother's death, the child Dorothy would be safely convoyed to its great-great-aunt's door and left to her to be 'fairly dealt with.' It was all quite simple and direct; the commonplace story of many other lives."

But here Mrs. Betty, stifling the emotion which the re-reading of the papers had roused in her, took up the tale herself.

"When the baby came I was indignant. That at first. I felt I was too old to have a squalling infant forced into my house. Then better thoughts prevailed. I saw in the little thing traces of my own family likeness and I would have kept her. It was old Dinah and Ephraim who advised me then and wisely I believe, though there have been times when I've wished I hadn't listened to them. They told me with the privilege of life-long service, that I'd made a brilliant failure of my raising of Cecil. They advised me to hunt up some worthy couple unburdened with children of their own and force the child upon them, to rear in simple, sensible ways, I to pay such a sum as would provide for the child's actual necessities. No more. I listened and the notion falling in somewhat with my own conviction--you behold the result.

"Dorothy is what she is; to me the loveliest little maid in G.o.d's good world. Save what nature implanted in her, all that makes her adorable to me and others is due to her foster-parents, the most unselfish and self-devoted pair of mortals it has ever been my lot to know in my long life. She belongs to them more than to me; but it shall be as she and they elect. Even yet I will try to say it justly.

"My homes are many and ample. There is room in every one of them for a little household of four. Johnnie, Martha, my own Dorothy, shall we not make at last, one unbroken, happy family?"

It was a long speech and it had sorely tried the speaker. One by one her guests withdrew, leaving only the "four" of whom she spoke with that faithful friend of all, the radiant Seth, remaining in that firelit room.

Then cried Dorothy, running to draw her foster-parents to her great-aunt's side:

"Yes, father, yes mother! Come and be--_us!_ I have a name at last and it still must be yours with 'Calvert' at the end, a hyphen between! Say yes, dear ones, who've loved me all my life. We want you, 'G.o.dmother'

and I, and don't you dare--don't either of you dare to be proud and independent now, when your little girl's so happy--_so happy!_"

Who could withstand her? Or the sincere affection which beamed upon them from Mrs. Cecil's fine old eyes? Not "whistling Johnnie" of the big heart, himself; nor faithful Martha, radiant now in the doing away of "mysteries" and the happiness of the girl who had been found a "squalling baby" on her doorstep.

So the night fell on Dorothy Calvert's homecoming and home-finding. Once more she stood on the threshold of a new life. What befell her in it and what use she made of some of the great gifts which had come to her cannot be told here. That telling must be left for other pages and other hours; perhaps the reader will like to go with us to "Dorothy's House party," until then let us bid happy Dorothy a glad

Good night!

THE END