Mr. Pat's Little Girl Part 35

Celia recovered herself. "Very well, Sally," she said, but it was with a beating heart she walked the length of the hall. Her enemy! What did it mean?

Mrs. Whittredge, her heavy veil thrown back a little, stood beside the table in the centre of the room.

"You are surprised, Celia," she said, as they faced each other, "but there is something I wish to say to you. No, I will stand, thank you."

Celia waited, feeling, even in the midst of a tumult of emotion, the tragic beauty of the dark eyes.

Mrs. Whittredge seemed to find words difficult. She looked down at the table on which her right hand rested. "I have made many mistakes," she began, "but--I have never meant to wrong any one. At the time of my husband's illness I--there were things said--I did not agree with Dr.

Fair, and I may have gone too far. It is my misfortune to be intense. I was very unhappy. I thought the case was not understood. It was my mistake." She paused.

"And my father died, crushed by the knowledge that he was unjustly blamed for the death of his friend! The discovery of your mistake comes too late." Celia's voice was tense with the stored up pain of those two years.

Mrs. Whittredge drew back. "You are hard," she said. "We look at things from different standpoints. I have told you I wish to wrong no one, but--ah, your father was cruel--cruel to me!"

"My father was never cruel," Celia cried.

"Listen! He told me I was killing my husband. I, who worshipped him. I, who--G.o.d knows--would have given my life to--" she broke off in a pa.s.sion of grief, sinking into a chair and burying her lace in her hands.

Celia stood abashed and trembling before this revelation of a sorrow deeper than her own,--the sorrow of self accusation and unavailing regret.

"Have you been wronged, are you hard and bitter? Seek the Kingdom of love.

Your Heavenly Father knoweth. He will take care of your cause." For a moment Celia struggled against the wave of pity that was sweeping over her, then forgetting everything but the suffering of this woman bowed before her, she knelt by her side.

"Forgive me," she whispered. "I do not want to be hard. I, too, have suffered, though not like you. Perhaps we wronged the dead by keeping bitterness in our hearts. Perhaps to them it is all made right now. I will forgive; I will try to forget."

Mrs. Whittredge lifted her head. Her face was drawn and white.

"I cannot forget," she said; "it is my misery. But I have no wish to make other lives as unhappy as my own. Will you believe me when I say I regret the wrong I did, and that I want to interfere with no one's happiness hereafter?"

"I will believe it," Celia said, holding out her hand.

Mrs. Whittredge did not refuse it; but her own was very cold in Celia's clasp. Drawing her veil over her face, without another word she left the house.

Celia sat still, dazed by the sudden onward sweep of things. A meaning, a possible motive, beneath Mrs. Whittredge's words occurred to her as her heart began to beat more quietly. "To interfere with no one's happiness hereafter." Could Allan--but no, she would not let herself think it. She would stay in the Forest, and work and wait, and trust in its beneficent spell.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHTH.

BETTER THAN DREAMS.

"I like this place, And willingly could waste my time in it."

The engagement of Miss Betty Bishop and Dr. Hollingsworth was announced.

As Miss Betty said, there was no use in trying to keep it a secret with Mrs. Parton spreading her suspicions abroad.

"If you had confided in me and asked me not to tell, I shouldn't have breathed it," that lady protested.

"Oh, yes, you would," Miss Betty said, laughing. "You know you tell everything; but, after all, there's no harm done, and no reason why it should not be known. I don't blame people for being surprised, either. I am surprised myself, and I see the absurdity, but--"

"There is no absurdity about it. I am delighted. Dr. Hollingsworth is charming. I'd be willing to marry him myself if it wasn't for the colonel, and you are going to be as happy as happy can be." Mrs. Parton laughed her pleasant laugh, clearly overjoyed at what seemed to her the good fortune of her friend.

Rosalind first heard the news from Belle. "Why," she said, "if he marries Cousin Betty, the president will be related to me."

"Let's frame Dr. Hollingsworth's picture and give it to her," Maurice suggested.

This was hailed as a brilliant idea, and that afternoon the five might have been seen in the picture store in search of a frame for the stolen photograph. It was an excellent likeness of the president, and an equally good one of black Bob, who, happening to pa.s.s at the critical moment, had been included unintentionally.

The proprietor of the store, getting an inkling of the joke, hunted up a small frame which, with the help of a mat, answered very well. Then the Arden Foresters proceeded to Miss Betty's, where they delivered the package into Sophy's hands and scampered away, their courage not being equal to an encounter with her mistress.

At the bank gate they separated, Belle going in with Katherine to practise a duet they were learning, and Jack hurrying home with the fear of his Latin lesson before his eyes. Maurice walked on with Rosalind.

"Come in for a while," she said.

The air was crisp, but the sunshine was bright, and the bench under the bare branches of the white birch seemed more inviting than indoors. As they took their seat there, Rosalind said gayly, "Father will be here this week. We are not sure what day."

"And then you will have to go," Maurice added discontentedly.

"Yes, and I am partly sorry and partly glad. I am so glad I came to Friendship, Maurice. Just think how many friends I have made!"

"How long ago it seems--that day when you spoke to me through the hedge.

You must have thought I was a dreadful m.u.f.f," said Maurice.

Rosalind laughed. "I thought you were cross."

"I was in a horrid temper, but I didn't know how horrid until you told me the story and I read in the book what your cousin wrote about bearing hard things bravely. I suppose if it had not been for you, I should have gone on being a beast."

"I was feeling pretty cross myself that day. I didn't know then what a pleasant place Friendship is. I think I have found a great deal of joy by the way, as Cousin Louis said," Rosalind continued meditatively.

"And I thought my summer was spoiled," Maurice added.

"It just shows you can never tell," Rosalind concluded wisely.

"Are you sure you won't forget us when you go away?" Maurice wanted to say "me," instead of "us," but a sudden shyness prevented.

"Why, Maurice, I couldn't! Especially you; for you were my first friend."

The gray eyes looked into his frankly and happily.

After Maurice had gone, Rosalind still sat there in the wintry sunshine.

Things seemed very quiet just now, with Uncle Allan away for a week and Aunt Genevieve not yet returned. She and her grandmother were keeping each other company, and becoming better acquainted than ever before. Mrs.

Whittredge's glance often rested upon her granddaughter with a sort of wistful affection, and once, when their eyes met, Rosalind, with a quick impulse, had gone to her side and put her arms around her. Mrs. Whittredge returned the caress, saying, "I shall be sorry to give you up, dearie."

On another occasion Rosalind had told how surprised she had been to find that her grandmother did not wear caps and do knitting work. "But I like you a great deal better as you are," she added.

Mrs. Whittredge smiled. "I fear I am in every way far from being an ideal grandmother," she said.