Nobody Part 46

"It'll be here before you can turn round," said Charity, whose knitting needles flew without her having any occasion to watch them. "And then, straw is cold in winter."

"I can tie a comforter over my ears."

"That would look poverty-stricken."

"I suppose," said Madge slowly, "that is what we are. It looks like it, just now."

"'The Lord maketh poor and maketh rich,'" Mrs. Armadale said.

"Yes, mother," said Charity; "but our cow died because she was tethered carelessly."

"And our hay failed because there was no rain," Madge added. "And our apples gave out because they killed themselves with bearing last year."

"You forget, child, it is the Lord 'that giveth rain, both the former and the latter, in his season.'"

"But he _didn't_ give it, mother; that's what I'm talking about; neither the former _nor_ the latter; though what that means, I'm sure I don't know; we have it all the year round, most years."

"Then be contented if a year comes when he does not send it."

"Grandmother, it'll do for you to talk; but what are we girls going to do without bonnets?"

"Do without," said Lois archly, with the gleam of her eye and the arch of her pretty brow which used now and then to bewitch poor Tom Caruthers.

"We have hardly apples to make sauce of," Charity went on. "If it had been a good year, we could have got our bonnets with our apples, nicely. Now, I don't see where they are to come from."

"Don't wish for what the Lord don't send, child," said Mrs. Armadale.

"O mother! that's a good deal to ask," cried Charity. "It's very well for you, sitting in your arm-chair all the year round; but we have to put our heads out; and for one, I'd rather have something on them.

Lois, haven't you got anything to do, that you sit there with your hands in your lap?"

"I am going to the post-office," said Lois, rising; "the train's in. I heard the whistle."

The village street lay very empty, this brown November day; and so, to Lois's fancy, lay the prospect of the winter. Even so; brown and lightless, with a chill nip in the air that dampened rather than encouraged energy. She was young and cheery-tempered; but perhaps there was a shimmer yet in her memory of the colours on the Isles of Shoals; at any rate the village street seemed dull to her and the day forbidding. She walked fast, to stir her spirits. The country around Shampuashuh is flat; never a hill or lofty object of any kind rose upon her horizon to suggest wider look-outs and higher standing-points than her present footing gave her. The best she could see was a glimpse of the distant Connecticut, a little light blue thread afar off; and I cannot tell why, what she thought of when she saw it was Tom Caruthers.

I suppose Tom was a.s.sociated in her mind with any wider horizon than Shampuashuh street afforded. Anyhow, Mr. Caruthers' handsome face came be fore her; and a little, a very little, breath of regret escaped her, because it was a face she would see no more. Yet why should she wish to see it? she asked herself. Mr. Caruthers could be nothing to her; he _never_ could be anything to her; for he knew not and cared not to know either the joys or the obligations of religion, in which Lois's whole life was bound up. However, though he could be nothing to her, Lois had a woman's instinctive perception that she herself was, or had been, something to him; and that is an experience a simple girl does not easily forget. She had a kindness for him, and she was pretty sure he had more than a kindness for her, or would have had, if his sister had let him alone. Lois went back to her Appledore experiences, revolving and studying them, and understanding them a little better now, she thought, than at the time. At the time she had not understood them at all. It was just as well! she said to herself. She could never have married him. But why did his friends not want him to marry her? She was in the depths of this problem when she arrived at the post-office.

The post-office was in the further end of a grocery store, or rather a store of varieties, such as country villages find convenient. From behind a little lattice the grocer's boy handed her a letter, with the remark that she was in luck to-day. Lois recognized Mrs. Wishart's hand, and half questioned the a.s.sertion. What was this? a new invitation? That cannot be, thought Lois; I was with her so long last winter, and now this summer again for weeks and weeks-- And, anyhow, I could not go if she asked me. I could not even get a bonnet to go in; and I could not afford the money for the journey.

She hoped it was not an invitation. It is hard to have the cup set to your lips, if you are not to drink it; any cup; and a visit to Mrs.

Wishart was a very sweet cup to Lois. The letter filled her thoughts all the way home; and she took it to her own room at once, to have the pleasure, or the pain, mastered before she told of it to the rest of the family. But in a very few minutes Lois came flying down-stairs, with light in her eyes and a sudden colour in her cheeks.

"Girls, I've got some news for you!" she burst in.

Charity dropped her knitting in her lap. Madge, who was setting the table for tea, stood still with a plate in her hand. All eyes were on Lois.

"Don't say news never comes! We've got it to-day."

"What? Who is the letter from?" said Charity.

"The letter is from Mrs. Wishart, but that does not tell you anything."

"O, if it is from Mrs. Wishart, I suppose the news only concerns you,"

said Madge, setting down her plate.

"Mistaken!" cried Lois. "It concerns us all. Madge, don't go off. It is such a big piece of news that I do not know how to begin to give it to you; it seems as if every side of it was too big to take hold of for a handle. Mother, listen, for it concerns you specially."

"I hear, child." And Mrs. Armadale looked interested and curious.

"It's delightful to have you all looking like that," said Lois, "and to know it's not for nothing. You'll look more 'like that' when I've told you--if ever I can begin."

"My dear, you are quite excited," said the old lady.

"Yes, grandmother, a little. It's so seldom that anything happens, here."

"The days are very good, when nothing happens. I think," said the old lady softly.

"And now something has really happened--for once. p.r.i.c.k up your ears, Charity! Ah, I see they are p.r.i.c.ked up already," Lois went on merrily.

"Now listen. This letter is from Mrs. Wishart."

"She wants you again!" cried Madge.

"Nothing of the sort. She asks--"

"Why don't you read the letter?"

"I will; but I want to tell you first. She says there is a certain friend of a friend of hers--a very nice person, a widow lady, who would like to live in the country if she could find a good place; and Mrs.

Wishart wants to know, if _we_ would like to have her in our house."

"To board?" cried Madge.

Lois nodded, and watched the faces around her.

"We never did that before," said Madge.

"No. The question is, whether we will do it now."

"Take her to board!" repeated Charity. "It would be a great bother.

What room would you give her?"

"Rooms. She wants two. One for a sitting-room."

"Two! We couldn't, unless we gave her our best parlour, and had none for ourselves. _That_ wouldn't do."

"Unless she would pay for it," Lois suggested.

"How much would she pay? Does Mrs. Wishart say?"

"Guess, girls! She would pay--twelve dollars a week."

Charity almost jumped from her chair. Madge stood leaning with her hands upon the table and stared at her sister. Only the old grandmother went on now quietly with her knitting. The words were re-echoed by both sisters.