"how beautiful!" said mary seymour delightedly, as they dismounted from their wheels on the crest of the hill. "ida, who could have supposed that such a view would be our reward for climbing that long, tedious hill with its ruts and stones? don't you feel repaid?"
"yes, but i am dreadfully thirsty," said ida, who was always practical and never as enthusiastic over anything as mary was. yet she, too, felt a keen pleasure in the beauty of the scene before them. almost at their feet lay the sea, creaming and shimmering in the mellow sunshine. beyond, on either hand, stretched rugged brown cliffs and rocks, here running out to sea in misty purple headlands, there curving into bays and coves that seemed filled up with sunlight and glamour and pearly hazes; a beautiful shore and, seemingly, a lonely one. the only house visible from where the girls stood was a tiny grey one, with odd, low eaves and big chimneys, that stood down in the little valley on their right, where the cliffs broke away to let a brook run out to sea and formed a small cove, on whose sandy shore the waves lapped and crooned within a stone's throw of the house. on either side of the cove a headland made out to sea, curving around to enclose the sparkling water as in a cup.
"what a picturesque spot!" said mary.
"but what a lonely one!" protested ida. "why, there isn't another house in sight. i wonder who lives in it. anyway, i'm going down to ask them for a drink of water."
"i'd like to ask for a square meal, too," said mary, laughing. "i am discovering that i am hungry. fine scenery is very satisfying to the soul, to be sure, but it doesn't still the cravings of the inner girl. and we've wheeled ten miles this afternoon. i'm getting hungrier every minute."
they reached the little grey house by way of a sloping, grassy lane. everything about it was very neat and trim. in front a white-washed paling shut in the garden which, sheltered as it was by the house, was ablaze with poppies and hollyhocks and geraniums. a path, bordered by big white clam shells, led through it to the front door, whose steps were slabs of smooth red sandstone from the beach.
"no children here, certainly," whispered ida. "every one of those clam shells is placed just so. and this walk is swept every day. no, we shall never dare to ask for anything to eat here. they would be afraid of our scattering crumbs."
ida lifted her hand to knock, but before she could do so, the door was thrown open and a breathless little lady appeared on the threshold.
she was very small, with an eager, delicately featured face and dark eyes twinkling behind gold-rimmed glasses. she was dressed immaculately in an old-fashioned gown of grey silk with a white muslin fichu crossed over her shoulders, and her silvery hair fell on each side of her face in long, smooth curls that just touched her shoulders and bobbed and fluttered with her every motion; behind, it was caught up in a knot on her head and surmounted by a tiny lace cap.
she looks as if she had just stepped out of a bandbox of last century, thought mary.
"are you cousin abner's girls?" demanded the little lady eagerly. there was such excitement and expectation in her face and voice that both the seymour girls felt uncomfortably that they ought to be "cousin abner's girls."
"no," said mary reluctantly, "we're not. we are only—martin seymour's girls."
all the light went out of the little lady's face, as if some illuminating lamp had suddenly been quenched behind it. she seemed fairly to droop under her disappointment. as for the rest, the name of martin seymour evidently conveyed no especial meaning to her ears. how could she know that he was a multi-millionaire who was popularly supposed to breakfast on railroads and lunch on small corporations, and that his daughters were girls whom all people delighted to honour?
"no, of course you are not cousin abner's girls," she said sorrowfully. "i'd have known you couldn't be if i had just stopped to think. because you are dark and they would be fair, of course; cousin abner and his wife were both fair. but when i saw you coming down the lane—i was peeking through the hall window upstairs, you know, i and juliana—i was sure you were helen and beatrice at last. and i can't help wishing you were!"
"i wish we were, too, since you expected them," said mary, smiling. "but—"
"oh, i wasn't really expecting them," broke in the little lady. "only i am always hoping that they will come. they never have yet, but trenton isn't so very far away, and it is so lonely here. i just long for company—i and juliana—and i thought i was going to have it today. cousin abner came to see me once since i moved here and he said the girls would come, too, but that was six months ago and they haven't come yet. but perhaps they will soon. it is always something to look forward to, you know."
she talked in a sweet, chirpy voice like a bird's. there were pathetic notes in it, too, as the girls instinctively felt. how very quaint and sweet and unworldly she was! mary found herself feeling indignant at cousin abner's girls, whoever they were, for their neglect.
"we are out for a spin on our wheels," said ida, "and we are very thirsty. we thought perhaps you would be kind enough to give us a drink of water."
"oh, my dear, anything—anything i have is at your service," said the little lady delightedly. "if you will come in, i will get you some lemonade."
"i am afraid it is too much trouble," began mary.
"oh, no, no," cried the little lady. "it is a pleasure. i love doing things for people, i wish more of them would come to give me the chance. i never have any company, and i do so long for it. it's very lonesome here at golden gate. oh, if you would only stay to tea with me, it would make me so happy. i am all prepared. i prepare every saturday morning, in particular, so that if cousin abner's girls did come, i would be all ready. and when nobody comes, juliana and i have to eat everything up ourselves. and that is bad for us—it gives juliana indigestion. if you would only stay!"
"we will," agreed ida promptly. "and we're glad of the chance. we are both terribly hungry, and it is very good of you to ask us."
"oh, indeed, it isn't! it's just selfishness in me, that's what it is, pure selfishness! i want company so much. come in, my dears, and i suppose i must introduce myself because you don't know me, do you now? i'm miss sally temple, and this is golden gate cottage. dear me, this is something like living. you are special providences, that you are, indeed!"
she whisked them through a quaint little parlour, where everything was as dainty and neat and old-fashioned as herself, and into a spare bedroom beyond it, to put off their hats.
"now, just excuse me a minute while i run out and tell juliana that we are going to have company to tea. she will be so glad, juliana will. make yourselves at home, my dears."
"isn't she delicious?" said mary, when miss sally had tripped out. "i'd like to shake cousin abner's girls. this is what dot halliday would call an adventure, ida."
"isn't it! miss sally and this quaint old spot both seem like a chapter out of the novels our grandmothers cried over. look here, mary, she is lonely and our visit seems like a treat to her. let us try to make it one. let's just chum with her and tell her all about ourselves and our amusements and our dresses. that sounds frivolous, but you know what i mean. she'll like it. let's be company in real earnest for her."
when miss sally came back, she was attended by juliana carrying a tray of lemonade glasses. juliana proved to be a diminutive lass of about fourteen whose cheerful, freckled face wore an expansive grin of pleasure. evidently juliana was as fond of "company" as her mistress was. afterwards, the girls overheard a subdued colloquy between miss sally and juliana out in the hall.
"go set the table, juliana, and put on grandmother temple's wedding china—be sure you dust it carefully—and the best tablecloth—and be sure you get the crease straight—and put some sweet peas in the centre—and be sure they are fresh. i want everything extra nice, juliana."
"yes'm, miss sally, i'll see to it. isn't it great to have company, miss sally?" whispered juliana.
the seymour girls long remembered that tea table and the delicacies with which it was heaped. privately, they did not wonder that juliana had indigestion when she had to eat many such unaided. being hungry, they did full justice to miss sally's good things, much to that little lady's delight.
she told them all about herself. she had lived at golden gate cottage only a year.
"before that, i lived away down the country at millbridge with a cousin. my uncle ephraim owned golden gate cottage, and when he died he left it to me and i came here to live. it is a pretty place, isn't it? you see those two headlands out there? in the morning, when the sun rises, the water between them is just a sea of gold, and that is why uncle ephraim had a fancy to call his place golden gate. i love it here. it is so nice to have a home of my own. i would be quite content if i had more company. but i have you today, and perhaps beatrice and helen will come next week. so i've really a great deal to be thankful for."
"what is your cousin abner's other name?" asked mary, with a vague recollection of hearing of beatrice and helen—somebody—in trenton.
"reed—abner abimelech reed," answered miss sally promptly. "a.a. reed, he signs himself now. he is very well-to-do, i am told, and he carries on business in town. he was a very fine young man, my cousin abner. i don't know his wife."
mary and ida exchanged glances. beatrice and helen reed! they knew them slightly as the daughters of a new-rich family who were hangers-on of the fashionable society in trenton. they were regarded as decidedly vulgar, and so far their efforts to gain an entry into the exclusive circle where the seymours and their like revolved had not been very successful.
"i'm afraid miss sally will wait a long while before she sees cousin abner's girls," said mary, when they had gone back to the parlour and miss sally had excused herself to superintend the washing of grandmother temple's wedding china. "they probably look on her as a poor relation to be ignored altogether; whereas, if they were only like her, trenton society would have made a place for them long ago."
the seymour girls enjoyed that visit as much as miss sally did. she was eager to hear all about their girlish lives and amusements. they told her of their travels, of famous men and women they had seen, of parties they had attended, the dresses they wore, the little fads and hobbies of their set—all jumbled up together and all listened to eagerly by miss sally and also by juliana, who was permitted to sit on the stairs out in the hall and so gather in the crumbs of this intellectual feast.
"oh, you've been such pleasant company," said miss sally when the girls went away.
mary took the little lady's hands in hers and looked affectionately down into her face.
"would you like it—you and juliana—if we came out to see you often? and perhaps brought some of our friends with us?"
"oh, if you only would!" breathed miss sally.
mary laughed and, obeying a sudden impulse, bent and kissed miss sally's cheek.
"we'll come then," she promised. "please look upon us as your 'steady company' henceforth."
the girls kept their word. thereafter, nearly every saturday of the summer found them taking tea with miss sally at golden gate. sometimes they came alone; sometimes they brought other girls. it soon became a decided "fad" in their set to go to see miss sally. everybody who met her loved her at sight. it was considered a special treat to be taken by the seymours to golden gate.
as for miss sally, her cup of happiness was almost full. she had "company" to her heart's content and of the very kind she loved—bright, merry, fun-loving girls who devoured her dainties with a frank zest that delighted her, filled the quaint old rooms with laughter and life, and chattered to her of all their plans and frolics and hopes. there was just one little cloud on miss sally's fair sky.
"if only cousin abner's girls would come!" she once said wistfully to mary. "nobody can quite take the place of one's own, you know. my heart yearns after them."
mary was very silent and thoughtful as she drove back to trenton that night. two days afterwards, she went to mrs. gardiner's lawn party. the reed girls were there. they were tall, fair, handsome girls, somewhat too lavishly and pronouncedly dressed in expensive gowns and hats, and looking, as they felt, very much on the outside of things. they brightened and bridled, however, when mrs. gardiner brought mary seymour up and introduced her. if there was one thing on earth that the reed girls longed for more than another it was to "get in" with the seymour girls.
after mary had chatted with them for a few minutes in a friendly way, she said, "i think we have a mutual friend in miss sally temple of golden gate, haven't we? i'm sure i've heard her speak of you."
the reed girls flushed. they did not care to have the rich seymour girls know of their connection with that queer old cousin of their father's who lived in that out-of-the-world spot up-country.
"she is a distant cousin of ours," said beatrice carelessly, "but we've never met her."
"oh, how much you have missed!" said mary frankly. "she is the sweetest and most charming little lady i have ever met, and i am proud to number her among my friends. golden gate is such an idyllic little spot, too. we go there so often that i fear miss sally will think we mean to outwear our welcome. we hope to have her visit us in town this winter. well, good-by for now. i'll tell miss sally i've met you. she will be pleased to hear about you."
when mary had gone, the reed girls looked at each other.
"i suppose we ought to have gone to see cousin sally before," said beatrice. "father said we ought to."
"how on earth did the seymours pick her up?" said helen. "of course we must go and see her."
go they did. the very next day miss sally's cup of happiness brimmed right over, for cousin abner's girls came to golden gate at last. they were very nice to her, too. indeed, in spite of a good deal of snobbishness and false views of life, they were good-hearted girls under it all; and some plain common sense they had inherited from their father came to the surface and taught them to see that miss sally was a relative of whom anyone might be proud. they succumbed to her charm, as the others had done, and thoroughly enjoyed their visit to golden gate. they went away promising to come often again; and i may say right here that they kept their promise, and a real friendship grew up between miss sally and "cousin abner's girls" that was destined to work wonders for the latter, not only socially and mentally but spiritually as well, for it taught them that sincerity and honest kindliness of heart and manner are the best passports everywhere, and that pretence of any kind is a vulgarity not to be tolerated. this took time, of course. the reed girls could not discard their snobbishness all at once. but in the end it was pretty well taken out of them.
miss sally never dreamed of this or the need for it. she loved cousin abner's girls from the first and always admired them exceedingly.
"and then it is so good to have your own folks coming as company," she told the seymour girls. "oh, i'm just in the seventh heaven of happiness. but, dearies, i think you will always be my favourites—mine and juliana's. i've plenty of company now and it's all thanks to you."
"oh, no," said mary quickly. "miss sally, your company comes to you for just your own sake. you've made golden gate a veritable mecca for us all. you don't know and you never will know how much good you have done us. you are so good and true and sweet that we girls all feel as if we were bound to live up to you, don't you see? and we all love you, miss sally."
"i'm so glad," breathed miss sally with shining eyes, "and so is juliana."
