The Portion of Labor Part 51

"There's company out there," said f.a.n.n.y, with embarra.s.sed significance. She blushed as she spoke, and Robert blushed also, without knowing why.

"It's no trouble at all to start a fire," said f.a.n.n.y; "this chimney draws fine. I'll speak to Ellen."

Robert, left alone in the freezing room, felt his dismay deepen.

Barriers of tragedy are nothing to those of comedy. He began to wonder if he were not, after all, doing a foolish thing. The hall door had been left ajar, and he presently became aware of Amabel's little face and luminous eyes set therein.

Robert smiled, and to his intense astonishment the child made a little run to him and snuggled close to his side. He lifted her up on his knee, and wrapped his fur coat around her. Amabel thrust out one tiny hand and began to stroke the sable collar.

"It's fur," said she, with a bright, wise look into Robert's face.

"Yes, it's fur," said he. "Do you know what kind?"

She shook her head, with bright eyes still on his.

"It is sable," said Robert, "and it is the coat of a little animal that lives very far north, where it is as cold and colder than this all the time, and the ice and snow never melts."

Suddenly Amabel slipped off his knee, pushing aside his caressing arm with a violent motion. Then she stood aloof, eying him with unmistakable reproof and hostility. Robert laughed.

"What is the matter?" he said.

"What does he do without his coat if it is as cold as that where he lives?" asked Amabel, severely. There was almost an accent of horror in her childish voice.

"Why, my dear child," said Robert, "the little animal is dead. He isn't running around without his coat. He was shot for his fur."

"To make you a coat?" Amabel's voice was full of judicial severity.

"Well, in one way," replied Robert, laughing. "It was shot to get the fur to make somebody a coat, and I bought it. Come back here and have it wrapped round you; you'll freeze if you don't."

Amabel came back and sat on his knee, and let him wrap the fur-lined garment around her. A strange sensation of tenderness and protection came over the young man as he felt the little, slender body of the child nestle against his own. He had begun to surmise who she was.

However, Amabel herself told him in a moment.

"My mamma's sick, and they took her to an asylum. And my papa has gone away," she said.

"You poor little soul," said Robert, tenderly. Amabel continued to look at him with eyes of keenest intelligence, while one little cheek was flattened against his breast.

"I live with Uncle Andrew and Aunt f.a.n.n.y now," said she, "and I sleep with Ellen."

"But you like living here, don't you, you dear?" asked Robert.

"Yes," said Amabel, "and I like to stay with Ellen, but--but--I want to see my mamma and papa," she wailed, suddenly, in the lowest and most pitiful wail imaginable.

"Poor little darling," said Robert, stroking her flaxen hair. Amabel looked up at him with her little face all distorted with grief.

"If you had been my papa, would you have gone away and left Amabel?"

she asked, quiveringly. Robert gathered her to him in a strong clasp of protection.

"No, you little darling, I never should," he cried, fervently.

At that moment he wished devoutly that he had the handling of the man who had deserted this child.

"I like you most as well as my own papa," said Amabel. "You ain't so big as my papa." She said that in a tone of evident disparagement.

Then the sitting-room door opened, and f.a.n.n.y and Ellen and Andrew appeared, the last with a great basket of wood and kindlings.

Robert set down Amabel, and sprang to his feet to greet Andrew and Ellen. Andrew, after depositing his basket beside the stove, shook hands with a sort of sad awkwardness. Robert saw that the man had aged immeasurably since he had last seen him.

"It is a cold night, Mr. Brewster," he said, and knew the moment he said it that it was not a happy remark.

"It is pretty cold," agreed Andrew, "and it's cold here in this room."

"Oh, it'll be warm in a minute; this stove heats up quick," cried f.a.n.n.y, with agitated briskness. She began pulling the kindlings out of the basket.

"Here, you let me do that," said Andrew, and was down on his knees beside her. The two were cramming the fuel into the little, air-tight stove, while Robert was greeting Ellen. The awkwardness of the situation was evidently overcoming her. She was quite pale, and her voice trembled as she returned his good-evening. Amabel left the young man, and clung tightly to Ellen's hand, drawing her skirt around her until only her little face was visible above the folds.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The awkwardness of the situation was evidently overcoming her]

The fumes from a match filled the room, and the fire began to roar.

"It'll be warm in a minute," said f.a.n.n.y, rising. "You leave the register open till it's real good and hot, Ellen, and there's plenty more wood in the basket. Here, Amabel, you come out in the other room with Aunt f.a.n.n.y."

But Amabel, instead of obeying, made a dart towards Robert, who caught her up, laughing, and smuggled her into the depths of his fur-lined coat.

"Come right along, Amabel," said f.a.n.n.y.

But Amabel clung fast to Robert, with a mischievous roll of an eye at her aunt.

"Amabel," said f.a.n.n.y, authoritatively.

"Come, Amabel," said Andrew.

"Oh, let her stay," Robert said, laughing. "I'll keep her in my coat until it is warm."

"I'm afraid she'll bother you," said f.a.n.n.y.

"Not a bit," replied Robert.

"You are a naughty girl, Amabel," said f.a.n.n.y; but she went out of the room, with Andrew at her heels. She did not know what else to do, since the young man had expressed a desire to keep the child.

She had thought he would have preferred a _tete-a-tete_ with Ellen.

Ellen sat down on the sofa covered with olive-green plush, beyond the table, and the light of the hideous lamp fell full upon her face. She was thin, and much of her lovely bloom was missing between her agitation and the cold; but Robert, looking at her, realized how dear she was to him. There was something about that small figure, and that fair head held with such firmness of pride, and that soul outlooking from steady blue eyes, which filled all his need of life.

His love for the pearl quite ignored its setting of the common and the ridiculous. He looked at her and smiled. Ellen smiled back tremulously, then she cast down her eyes. The fire was roaring, but the room was freezing. The sitting-room door was opened a crack, and remained so for a second, then it was widened, and Andrew peeped in.

Then he entered, tiptoeing gingerly, as if he were afraid of disturbing a meeting. He brought a blue knitted shawl, which he put over Ellen's shoulders.

"Mother thinks you had better keep this on till the room gets warm,"

he whispered. Then he withdrew, shutting the door softly.

Robert, left alone with Ellen in this solemnly important fashion, felt utterly at a loss. He had never considered himself especially shy, but an embarra.s.sment which was almost ridiculous was over him.

Ellen sat with her eyes cast down. He felt that the child on his knee was regarding them both curiously.

"If you have come to see Ellen, why don't you speak to her?"