Old Friends and New Part 5

"Hasn't got home yet!" said Mrs. Hilton in dismay. "Why, what can have become of her? She came in before half-past five, in a great hurry; and she left her pitcher here on the table. I suppose she forgot it. I lent her mine, because it was bigger. There's no house between but the Donalds', and they're all off at his mother's funeral to Lancaster.

You don't suppose the cars run over her?"

"I don't know," said Miss Spring's nephew, in real trouble by this time.

They went out together, and looked everywhere along the road, apologizing to each other as they did so. They went up and down the railroad for some little distance, and it was a great relief not to find her there. Joseph asked some men if they had seen his aunt; and when they said no, wonderingly, and expected an explanation, he did not give it, he hardly knew why. They went to the house beyond Miss Catherine's, though Martha and Miss Stanby were sure she had not gone by. They looked in the barn even: they went out into the garden and through the house, for she might possibly have come in without being seen; but she had apparently disappeared from the face of the earth.

It had seemed so foolish at first to tell the neighbors; but by seven o'clock, or nearly that, Martha Spring said decisively, "She cannot have gone far unless she has been carried off. I think you had better get some men, and have a regular hunt for her before it gets any darker. I'm not going home to-night until we find her." And they owned to each other that it was a very serious and frightful thing. Miss Stanby looked most concerned and apprehensive of the three, and suggested what had been uppermost in her mind all the time,--that it would be so awful if poor Miss Spring had been murdered, or could she have killed herself? There was something so uncharacteristic in the idea of Miss Catherine's committing suicide, that for a moment her nephew could not resist a smile; but he was grave enough again directly, for it might be true, after all, and he remembered with a thrill of horror that old Mr. Elden, the lawyer, had told him in confidence, that Miss Spring was somewhat pinched for money,--that her affairs were in rather a bad way, and perhaps he had better talk with her, as he himself did not like to have all the responsibility of advising her.

"Poor old lady!" thought Joseph Spring, who was a tender-hearted man.

"She looked to-day as if she felt bad about something. She has grown old this last year, that's a fact!" It seemed to him as if she were in truth dead already. "You had better look all over the house," said he to his wife. "Did you look in the garret?" He remembered the story that his great-grandfather had been found hanging there, and could not have gone to the garret himself to save his life.

He went hurrying out of the house, determined now to make the disappearance public. He would go to the depot, there were always some men there at this time. The church-bell began to ring for Wednesday-evening meeting, and she had always gone so regularly; he would hurry back there, and tell the people as they came. The train went by slowly to stop at the station, it was a little behind time. He hurried on, looking down as he walked. To tell the truth, he was thinking about the funeral, and suddenly he heard a familiar voice say,--

"Well, Joseph! I suppose you thought I was lost!"

"Heavens and earth, Aunt Catherine! Where have you been?" And he caught her by the shoulder, and felt suddenly like crying and laughing together. "I never had any thing come over me so in all my life," said he to his wife and Miss Stanby, as they went home later that evening.

"I declare, it took the wits right out of me."

Miss Catherine looked brighter than she had that afternoon, the excitement really had done her good; she told her adventure as they hurried home together. When they reached the house Martha Spring and Miss Stanby kissed her, and cried as if their hearts would break.

Joseph looked out of the window a few minutes, and then announced that he would go out and see to the horse.

The tears were soon over with; and, as soon as it seemed decent, Mrs. Martha said, "Aunt Catherine, do tell me where you got that pretty hood! I wish I had seen it when I first got here, to take the pattern. Isn't it a new st.i.tch?"

"Dear me! haven't I taken it off?" said Miss Catherine. "Well, you must excuse me if I am scatter-witted. I feel as if I had been gone a week."

They had supper directly--that very late supper! They were all as hungry as hunters, even poor little Miss Stanby; and the re-action from such suspense made the guests merry enough, while, as was often said, Miss Catherine was always good company. The cream-tartar biscuits were none the less good for being cold. Joseph hadn't eaten such gingerbread since he was there before; and the tea was made fresh over a dry-shingle fire, which blazes in a minute, as every one knows.

There were more than enough pound-cakes; and Martha asked all over again how Miss Catherine made her preserves, for somehow hers were never so good; while Miss Catherine meekly said that she had not had such good luck as usual with the last she made.

At last they drove off down the road. The moon had come up, and was shining through the trees. It was so cool and fresh and bright an evening, with a little yellow still lingering in the west after the sunset! The guests went away very happy and light-hearted, for it seemed as if they had been spared a terrible sorrow.

"I saw the prettiest little old-fashioned table up in the garret,"

said Mrs. Martha. "It only needs fixing up a little. I mean to ask your Aunt Catherine if I can't have it when I go over again."

"No, you won't," said her husband, with more authority than was usual with him.

Miss Catherine stood watching at the gate until they were out of sight. "I must settle down," said she. "I feel as if it had been a wedding or a funeral or something; and I declare if it isn't Wednesday evening, and what will they think has become of me at meeting?" though she could have trusted Mrs. Hilton to spread the story far and wide--by which you must not suppose that good Mrs. Hilton was a naughty gossip.

The next morning Miss Catherine waked up even more heavy-hearted than she had been the day before. I suppose she was tired after the unusual excitement. She wished she had talked to Joseph, she must talk with somebody. She wished she had not been such a fool as to get on those cars, for she was sure she never should hear the last of the joke; and, after the morning work was done, she sat down in the sitting-room with the clock ticking mockingly, and that intolerable feeling of despair and disgust came over her; there is nothing much harder to bear than that, if you know what it is I am sure you will pity her.

The afternoon seemed very long. It rained; and n.o.body came in until the evening, when Mrs. Hilton's boy came with a letter. Miss Catherine had been to the post-office just before dinner, to send the money to Miss Ashton; and this surprised her very much. "It must have come by the seven-o'clock train," said she. "I never get letters from that way;" and she took it to the window, and looked curiously at the address, and at last she opened it. It was a pretty letter to look at, and it proved a pleasant one to read. It was from Alice West, Miss Ashton's niece; and Miss Catherine read it slowly, and felt as if she were in a dream.

"My Dear Miss Spring,--My aunt, Miss Ashton, wishes me to write to you, to ask if it would be convenient for you to take us to board. We are very much disappointed here, and are glad we did not positively engage our rooms until we had seen them. It is a very damp house, and I am sure my aunt ought not to stay, and would be uncomfortable in many ways. We should like two rooms close to each other, and we were each to pay ten dollars a week here, but are perfectly willing to pay more than that. We are almost certain that we shall like your house; but perhaps it will be the better way for me to come down and see you, and then I can make all the arrangements. If Brookton suits my aunt, we may wish to stay as late as October; and should you mind if one of my friends comes to stay with us by and by? She would share my room.

If you will write me to-morrow morning, and if you think you can take us, I will go down in the early afternoon train.

"We hope you reached home all right, and that your friends were not much worried. We begin to think that your adventure was a fortunate thing for us. With kind regards from us both,

"Yours sincerely,

"Alice West."

Did you ever know any thing more fortunate than this? Poor Miss Catherine sat down and cried about it; and the cat came and rubbed against her foot, and purred sympathizingly, and was taken up and wept over, which I believe had never happened to her before. Of all people, who could be pleasanter boarders than these? They had won her heart in the half-hour she had already spent with them. She had wished then that they were coming to her: it would be such a pleasure to make them comfortable. And twenty dollars a week,--that would surely be more than enough for them all to live upon with what she had beside. And there was Katy, who could save so many steps, and could wait on Miss Ashton; she would have the child come at once. She could have Mrs. Brown come every day for a while, beside Mondays and Tuesdays; and how glad she would be of the extra pay! Miss Catherine even went up stairs in the late June twilight, to look at the two familiar front-chambers, with only the small square hall separating them. They looked so pleasant, and were so airy and of such good size, they could not help being suited. She patted the pillow of her best bed affectionately, and thought with pride that they would find no fault with her way of cooking, and her house never was damp; there was not a better house in Brookton. Life had rarely looked brighter to Miss Catherine than it did that night.

Alice West came down the next afternoon, and found the house and the rooms and Miss Catherine herself were all exactly what wise Miss Ashton had said they would be. And the two boarders thought themselves lucky to have found such a pleasant house for the summer; they were so considerate, and became favorites with many people beside their hostess. They brought a great deal of pleasure and good-will to sober little Brookton, as two cultivated, thoughtful, helpful women may make any place pleasanter if they choose. Miss Ashton is a help and a comfort and a pleasure wherever she goes, while Alice West is learning to be like her more and more every year. Miss Catherine remembered sometimes with great thankfulness, that it was the loss of her money for a while that had brought her these friends. Katy Dunning was so happy to go to live at Miss Spring's after all, and did her very best,--a patient, steady, willing little creature she was! and I am sure she never had had so many good times in her life as she did that summer.

I might tell you so much more about these people, but a story must end somewhere. You may hope that Miss Catherine's fortunes bettered, and that she never will have to give up her home; that she can keep Katy all the time; that Miss Ashton will come back to Brookton the next year, and the next.

I am sure you will think, in reading all this, just what I have thought as I told it,--and what Miss Catherine herself felt,--that it was such a wonderfully linked-together chain. All the time she thought she was going wrong, that it was a series of mistakes. "I never will be so miserable again," said she. "It was all ordered for the best; and may the Lord forgive me for doubting his care and goodness as I did that day!" It went straight to her heart the next Sunday, when the old minister said in his sermon, "Dear friends, do not let us forget what the Psalmist says, that the steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord. He plans the way we go; and so let us always try to see what he means in sending us this way or that. Do not let us go astray from wilfulness, or blame him for the work he gives us to do, or the burdens he gives us to carry, since he knows best."

So often, in looking back, we find that what seemed the unluckiest day of the week really proved most fortunate, and what we called bad luck proved just the other thing. We trace out the good results of what we thought must make every thing go wrong: we say, "If it had not been for this or that, I should have missed and lost so much." I once happened to open a book of sermons, and to see the t.i.tle of one, "Every Man's Life a Plan of G.o.d." I did not read the sermon itself, and have never seen the book again; but I have thought of it a great many times. Since it is true that our lives are planned with the greatest love and wisdom, must it not be that our sorrows and hindrances come just from our taking things wrong?

And here, for the last of the story, is a verse that Robert Browning wrote, that Miss Ashton said one morning, and Miss Catherine liked:--

"Grow old along with me!

The best is yet to be, The last of life, for which the first was made: Our times are in His hand Who saith 'A whole I planned, Youth shows but half; trust G.o.d: see all, nor be afraid!'"

MR. BRUCE.

Last summer (said Aunt Mary), while you were with your father in Canada, I met for the first time Miss Margaret Tennant of Boston, whom I had for years a great desire to see and know. My dear friend, Anne Langdon, has had from her girlhood two very intimate friends; and Miss Tennant is one, and I the other. Though we each had known the other through Anne, we had never seen each other before.

I was at the mountains, and upon our being introduced we became very good friends immediately; and, from at first holding complimentary and interesting conversations concerning Anne in the hotel parlor, we came to taking long walks, and spending the most of our time together; and now we are as fond of each other as possible. When we parted in September, I had promised to visit her at her house in Boston in the winter; and, when she was ready for it, I was too.

To my great delight, I found Anne there; and we three old maiden ladies enjoyed ourselves quite as well as if we were your age, my dear, with the world before us. Miss Margaret Tennant certainly keeps house most delightfully.

She lives alone in the old Tennant house, in a pleasant street; and I think most of the Tennants, for a dozen generations back, must have been maiden ladies with exquisite taste and deep purses, just like herself; for every thing there is perfect of its kind, and its kind the right kind. Then she is such a popular person: it is charming to see the delight her friends have in her. For one thing, all the young ladies of her acquaintance--not to mention her nieces, who seem to bow down and worship her--are her devoted friends; and she often gives them dinners and tea parties, takes them to plays and concerts, matronizes them in the summer, takes them to drive in her handsome carriages, and is the repository of all their joys and sorrows, and, I have no doubt, knows them better than their fathers and mothers do, and has nearly as much influence over them. Elly, my dear, I wish you were one of the clan; for I'm afraid, between your careless papa and your wicked aunty, you haven't had the most irreproachable bringing up! But, she is coming to visit me in June, and we'll see what she can do for you!

One night, while I was there, we were just home from a charming dinner-party at the house of her sister, Mrs. Bruce; and, as it was a very stormy night, we had come away early. Not being in the least tired, we sat ourselves down in our accustomed easy-chairs before the fire, for a talk, and were lazily making plans for the morrow; Miss Tennant telling us she should have the eight young ladies whom she knew best; the Quadrille as she calls them; to dine with us. I must tell you about that party some day, Elly. It was the nicest affair in its way I ever saw, and the girls were all such dear ones! I spoke of the company we had just left, and of my admiration of the Bruce family in general, and Mrs. Bruce in particular, and of my enjoyment of the evening.

"Yes," said Margaret, "I think Kitty is quite as young as her two daughters, and at their age she was more brilliant than either." She stopped talking for a moment, and then said, "Girls, are you in a hurry for bed?" (Elly! you ought to be ashamed of yourself for laughing! Just as if Anne Langdon and I were not as young as you and Nelly Cameron. There's no difference, sometimes, if we are fifty, and you twenty!)

We were not in a hurry, and told her so.

"Then," said Margaret, "I will tell you a story. Anne knows it, or used to; but I doubt if she has thought of it these dozen years, and I do not think she will mind hearing it again. It is about Kitty and Mr. Bruce, and their first meeting; also divers singular misunderstandings which followed, finally ending in their peaceful wedding in this very room."

Anne laughed; and I settled myself contentedly in my chair, for I had already found out that Miss Tennant possesses the art of telling a story capitally.

"Kitty Bruce is three years older than I," said Margaret,--"though I dare say you do not believe me,--and consequently, at the time I was fifteen she was eighteen; and whereas I was in my first year at boarding-school, she was about finishing. I was at Mrs. Walkintwo's, where you and I met, Anne; and that, as you know, was a quiet place, where we were taught history and arithmetic, and the other 'solids,'

and from which she had graduated the year before, and gone to Madame Riche's to acquire the extras and be 'finished.' Her beauty was very striking, and she was quite as entertaining and agreeable as she is now,--very witty and original, with the kindest heart in the world, and enjoying life to the utmost. In the Easter vacation of that year we were at home together; and one morning I was sitting with her in her chamber, and she was confiding to me some of the state secrets of her room at school, to my inexpressible delight, for it was my great ambition to be intimate with Kitty; and, you know, that elder sisters are often strangely blind to the virtues of the younger.

"Mamma came in in the midst of it, with her usually cheerful face exceedingly clouded, so much so that both of us immediately asked what had happened.

"'Happened!' said poor mamma, sitting down disconsolately on Kitty's bed, and helping herself, by way of relief, from a box of candy which lay there. 'I'm sure I don't know what I'm to do. Your father has just sent me a note from the office, saying he has invited four gentlemen to dine, and wishes to have every thing as nice as possible. I can send John for the dinner; and, of course, I don't mind that part of it, for there is time enough and to spare, and Peggy never fails me; but you know Hannah is away; and this morning a small Irish boy came for Ann, saying his sister is sick and she went away with him. About an hour ago another little wretch came to say she was obliged to go to Salem with the sister, and would be back to breakfast. Now, children, what shall I do for some one to wait on the table?

"Kitty and I were as much posed as mamma. John, our coachman, was an immense Englishman, and perfectly unavailable as to taking upon himself any of Ann's duties save waiting upon the door. His daughter, who had been our nurse and was at that time seamstress, might have done very well, but she was away at Portsmouth; and as for Peggy, our dear old black cook, though I never knew any one to equal her in her realm, the kitchen, she had no idea of any thing out of it, and never had done any thing of this kind. It was raining in torrents, and none of us could go out; and we sat and looked at each other.