i've found out all about them," said kate trewman to her brother, a day or two after trif, trixy and fenie had gone south. "they've gone to florida, for trixy's health."
"who have gone to florida?" asked harry, trying to appear indifferent.
"whom do you suppose i mean? mrs. highwood, and trixy, and fenie. that child is the apple of their eye. still, i'm inclined to think that fenie herself wanted to get away for a while. i'm sure if i'd been in her place i'd have wanted to, had i known that certain other people knew certain things."
"what people? what things?"
"oh, don't be silly."
"well, my dear, i've been thinking of going south myself—oh, no; not to florida. our firm have a little business at norfolk that requires personal attention, and they want me to attend to it. don't you want to go with me? old point comfort is within an hour's sail of norfolk, and our friends, the braymans, went down there yesterday, to remain a week, and there's a big fort there, full of officers, who are said to [pg 50]work harder and enjoy their leisure better than any other men in the united states."
"we go," said kate, and go they did, the very next day.
meanwhile, in entire ignorance of what some of their acquaintances were doing, trif and fenie found some small shopping necessary; the nearest shopping centre to old point was norfolk. so one morning to norfolk they went, taking trixy with them.
grown people's shopping is very tiresome business to little people, so trixy became so uncomfortable that she begged to be allowed to rest by standing upon the sidewalk and looking at the passers-by, and trif permitted it, stipulating that the child should not go further from the store than the street at either side.
the child soon found herself having a delightful time, and storing her mental picture book with unfamiliar scenes, when suddenly she shouted, "hooray!"
then she dashed across the street, and with one hand pulled the frock of kate trewman, while with the other she grasped harry's sleeve.
"trixy highwood! did you drop down from the sky?"
"i s'pose i did," said trixy, after a moment of thought, "but that was seven years ago. to-day, though, i dropped over here from old point comfort."
"but how do you come to be roaming the streets of norfolk?" asked kate.
"i ain't roamin'. i can't go off of this block, 'cause mamma and aunt fee are in the store there, buyin' things."
"but we thought you'd gone to florida?"
"oh, we're goin' there one of these days, i s'pose, 'cause that's where we started for; but mamma says it's hard to get away from old point, because she keeps findin' old friends there."
"does fenie find any?" discreetly asked kate.
"she doesn't need to," was the reply, "for she keeps findin' new ones all the time. say, army officers is real nice; don't you think so?"
"so i've always heard," said kate, while harry looked so unhappy that his sister pinched him until he complained. just then trif came out of the shop, wondering whether trixy did not need looking after; but she lost none of her self-possession when she found herself face to face with the trewmans. within five minutes trif had made the trewmans promise to run over to old point before they returned to new york. she begged them, also, to return with her to the shop, and surprise fenie, but harry pleaded extreme haste—a matter of business, he said.
"still," said kate, "we may yet surprise her if you won't allude to us until you meet us at old point."
"that will be splendid," exclaimed trif, with glowing cheeks; for she was thinking over the scene with harry's picture.
"harry," said kate, as soon as the party separated, "you've no reason to worry."
"no reason!" echoed the young man. "i think i've a lot of them. don't you remember what trixy said about army officers?"
"oh, to be sure!" then kate lapsed into silence.
"trixy, dear," said trif, before re-entering the shop, "i want you now to be very, very womanly. you mustn't say a word to aunt fee about the people we've just met."
"i understand, mamma dear. say, when's mr. trewman and aunt fee goin' to be married?"
"sh—h—h! perhaps never. who put such an idea into your mind?"
"why, bridget did—our servant, at home; but i thought of it before, 'cause they act just like the folks in the stories that you and aunt fee read out loud to each other sometimes."
trif looked despairing—almost desperate. her cautions must be intensified, so she continued.
"remember, dear! don't say a word about the trewmans to aunt fee when we return to the shop. don't mention them on the boat on the way back. don't mention them in the hotel. don't——"
"oh, mamma!" interrupted trixy. "what an awful lot of dont's! i wish i didn't ever see anythin', or hear anythin', or know anythin'."
"poor, dear little girl," said trif caressingly. "grown people sometimes have 'dont's,' and have a lot of trouble with them, too."
"is that so?" the child asked. "do you ever have to put cotton in your ears, or bite your tongue?"
"you afflicted darling," exclaimed trif, her maternal instinct fully aroused. was her [pg 53]precious darling to be physically afflicted through affairs in which she had no part?—suffer for other people's affairs, for which she was not in any way responsible? no, indeed. she would give fenie a lecture, and at once, which would do that young woman much good and save an innocent little girl from further torment. fenie should learn to hold her own tongue; it was she who did most of the talking which poor little trixy was obliged to hear—how could the child help hearing it? sisterly affection was quite right; trif had long tried to be sister and mother too to her pretty, darling sister, but should a child suffer for an adult,—the weak for the strong? not while the weak, the child, was trif's own, only daughter. trixy should have no more trouble about the affairs of other people.
full of this determination, trif returned to the shop with an air so resolute and aggressive that the clerks shrank in terror and wondered what complaint was about to be made. she strode like a pictured goddess to where fenie was idly wondering which of two patterns of insertion to buy; she turned her sister toward her and exclaimed, softly yet tragically:
"tryphena, i must ask you to keep your affairs to yourself hereafter, except at such times as you and i are alone together. this poor child mustn't be tormented with them any longer. she——"
"yes," said trixy, "i've got to bite my tongue a lot more now, 'cause i just saw—oh, mamma, please don't pinch me so hard!"
"what did you see, trixy?" asked fenie.
"that piece of insertion you have in your hand—" said trif quickly. "trixy, dear, go back to the door, if you like—that piece of insertion, as i was saying, is just what i would get if i were you, for—" and the remaining conversation was closely restricted to garments, although fenie looked somewhat indignant and curious.
the evening chanced to be one of the most delightful that had ever blessed old point. the sky was clear, the air warm yet invigorating; the music was of the best, the guests were in the best of humor with one another, and everything went as merrily as the traditional marriage bell.
best of all, to one small person. trixy had received permission to remain with the older people until nine o'clock, for she had complained that the nine o'clock gun at the fort always woke her, and trif thought it a shame that the dear child had to be roused from sleep in a strange place, where she was alone, and fenie said she was quite willing to sit beside trixy's bed until the dear child fell asleep, and trif did not dare to admit that her one consuming desire was that fenie and trixy should not be alone together a single instant until——
so trixy remained up and awake, and trif had no more thought of it than if she had been an inhabitant of another planet and without any right or title to a little girl who sat or stood near her all the while, as mute as a mouse, and also as observant. bless congenial company! what [pg 55]wonders has it not wrought for tired men and women? trif had not imagined herself tired when she started for the south, but woman's work is never done while woman is at home. so when she finds herself so far from it that she cannot by any possibility attend to it, yet can drop it from her mind, how she does enjoy the chat of other good women similarly situated!
as to fenie, she was the centre of a little group of officers from the fort. her sister was with her, and, although to some of the party the older sister was the more interesting of the two, she who was the younger and unmarried, assumed all the admiration was as entirely for her as if there were no other women at old point. those officers did say such clever and delightful things! as to that, so did two or three civilians who joined the party, but there was something about a uniform that—oh, fenie couldn't explain it, but she was sure that any other girl in similar circumstances would understand exactly what she meant.
besides, was there not in the edge of the mirror the photograph of a man to whom her heart was entirely loyal, although no allegiance had ever been demanded? others might be men, but he—he was harry trewman, the only man she had ever—no, not the only man she had ever loved, for she could not truly say, as yet, that she really loved harry.
just as some one had told a very amusing story, and fenie had laughed heartily at it, and begun to tell a story of which the first had reminded her, she stopped and turned pale. her [pg 56]sister wondered what was the matter, and soon learned, for, through the parlor, on the way to one of the corridors, and preceded by a porter with bags and wraps, came harry trewman and kate. fenie moved from the circle—moved as if she were in a dream. she extended her hand to harry, who took it gravely, respectfully, for a fraction of a second, and then hurried after his sable guide. fenie dropped back to her chair, resumed the story she had been telling, and completed it with such a mass of detail that, when finally the party broke up, one of the junior officers told a comrade that miss wardlow had evidently met her fate, and met him that very evening, too.
it was fenie who broke up the party, for she was sure trixy ought to be in bed—was it not after ten o'clock? no, indeed; trif should not take the child to the room; hadn't she herself promised to look carefully after the dear little invalid?
nevertheless, trif herself was in the room within a few minutes. she found trixy in bed, and fenie kneeling beside her, and trixy was talking, and trif did not like to interrupt, because sometimes trixy said things so odd that her mother liked to hear without seeming to notice.
"trixy, trixy," fenie had just said. "it is very late, and you must be very sleepy. don't you think you can drop off now?"
"i—s'pose so," the child drawled, "but there was somethin' i wanted to ask you. let me see; what was it? oh!" and trixy sprang up and suddenly became very wide awake. "say, aunt fee, did lookin' at him make you well?"
"looking at whom, trixy? i'm not ill, child?"
"why, papa said a look at harry trewman's face was the best medicine you could have."
fenie burst into tears, upon which trif hurried to her, but fenie continued to weep, and for so long that trif wept too, after which trixy sobbed pitifully.
"papa said it, and she's had the look, and it ain't done her no good, for she's cryin' like ev'rythin', and i worked so hard to give it to her, and gave up a dolly to get it, and then he came himself, and that made her cry more than ever."
"oh, trif," exclaimed fenie. "he met me so coldly—and after what he wrote on his picture, too! do you suppose he was jealous of the company he saw me in?"
"did harry write you somethin' on a picture, aunt fee?" asked trixy.
"yes, he—; but you mustn't ask questions about things that don't concern you, trixy."
"oh, i won't, but i just wanted to know——"
"but you mustn't want to know what——"
"but——"
"sh—h—!" don't ever mention the subject to me again. promise me, this instant!"
"sister," protested trif, "you don't yet know how that picture came to you."
i don't want to know anything about the picture, or him, or about——"
"then i shan't tell you, or ask you, or anythin'," said trixy, with a sob that would have softened any heart but that of a young woman who thought she had been treated coldly by the man whom she thought she might learn to love.
