the queen of farrandale had long passed the time for waiting patiently for anything she wished for, so it was the very next day that millicent duane came to the big house for a trial reading.
she gave such perfect satisfaction that it was scarcely five minutes after she began that a delicate snore began to proceed from miss frink’s slender nose. millicent regarded the recumbent figure in some embarrassment, and stopped reading.
miss frink’s eyes opened at once. “well, well, child, what are you waiting for?” she asked testily. “got a big word?”
millicent, crimsoning to the tips of her ears, began again to read. she was afraid to stop, although the snoring began again almost immediately, and read on and on in the novel of the day. although miss frink was a lady of the old school, she proposed to know what was going on in the world at the present time, and she always bought the book which received the best reviews, though millicent came to wonder[104] how she made anything of it in the hashed condition in which it penetrated her consciousness.
at last, when the lady was positively fast asleep, millicent closed the book, took her hat and wrap in her hand, and went noiselessly out into the hall and down the stairs.
mrs. lumbard met her at the foot, and the young girl accosted her.
“this is mrs. lumbard, isn’t it?” she said shyly. “i am millicent duane. miss frink didn’t tell me what to do if she went to sleep.”
“you guessed right,” returned the other. “there is nothing to do but leave her until she has her nap out. you have evidently qualified.” mrs. lumbard laughed; it was not a pleasant laugh millicent thought. “i tried to read to her, but she wouldn’t have me. won’t you sit down a minute, or are you too busy?”
millicent hesitated, but seated herself near the other in the spacious hall with its broad fireplace. “i am not busy at all,” she said, “and it seems so strange after being a whole year in the store.”
“i suppose you mean the ross-graham establishment. that is the store in farrandale, is it not?”
[105]
“yes, indeed, and i suppose it is the finest one anywhere,” returned millicent seriously.
adèle gazed upon her earnest face with its youthful color and nimbus of blonde hair.
“have you known miss frink long?”
“oh, we all know her by sight, but i never spoke to her until yesterday when she came in to buy a dressing-gown, and i happened that day to have been put on the dressing-gowns. wasn’t i lucky?—for this came of it.”
millicent’s happy smile revealed a dimple. mrs. lumbard’s eyes scrutinized her.
“i’ll warrant she bought a handsome one,” she said.
“oh, gorgeous. the handsomest one we had. i told her it was fit for prince charming.” the young girl gave a little laugh.
“well, one would do that for the man who had saved one’s life,” remarked adèle.
the guest’s lips formed a round o. “does he still live here?” she asked, “and is he getting well?”
mrs. lumbard shrugged her shoulders. “i hear so, but i’ve never seen him.”
millicent looked about her in some awe. “i suppose in such a great place as this, people might not meet for days. grandfather and i live in a little cubby-house”—the admiring[106] eyes came back to mrs. lumbard’s brown, curious stare—“but it has a big yard and we love it.”
the older woman leaned back and shrugged her shoulders again. at this juncture miss frink appeared on the stairs.
millicent saw her, and, springing up, met her where the brass jardinières filled with ferns grew at the foot of the wide descent.
“i didn’t know what to do about leaving, miss frink. i saw you were resting so well.”
the hostess, with a sharp glance at adèle’s luxurious posture, laid a kind hand on the girl’s shoulder as she returned the sweet, eager look.
“you did quite right,” she replied. “leave me when you see i am dead to the world, and then—you may go right home.”
“right home,” repeated the girl, a little falteringly.
“yes,” said miss frink pleasantly. “when you leave me, go right home. you read well.”
“thank you,” said millicent. “i hadn’t thought to ask you. good-afternoon, miss frink. good-afternoon, mrs. lumbard.”
her cheeks were hot as she hurried into her hat and jacket and out the door. when she reached home, her heart was still quickening with a vague sense of having done wrong. the[107] pretty white-haired lady’s eyes and laugh were curious and cold. miss frink had been displeased that she had stayed and talked with her. perhaps she ought not to have told about the dressing-gown.
old colonel duane was bending his white head and smooth-shaven face over the little green sprouts in a garden plot when his granddaughter flung open the gate and rushed to him.
he raised himself slowly and looked around at her flushed cheeks. she pushed her hand through his arm and clutched it.
“well, how did you get along, milly? does it beat fitting on gloves?”
“i’m so mortified, grandpa,” was the rather breathless reply. “i had to be sent home.”
“oh, come, now! you can stay home if that’s the case. is miss frink an old pepper-pot as folks say?”
“no, no; she was kind to me, and i read her to sleep, which is what she wants; but i wasn’t sure what to do then, so when i met mrs. lumbard in the reception hall downstairs she asked me to sit down and i did. you remember my telling you about the white-haired lady who looks like a beauty of the french court with big brown eyes? well—there’s something[108] queer—i don’t like her—and you know the prince charming dressing-gown i told you miss frink bought of me? well, i told mrs. lumbard about it and she hadn’t known it.” big tears began to form and run down the girl’s cheeks. “you know how we tell each other everything and show each other everything? well, they don’t, for she didn’t know it, and she said it was for that man who stopped the runaway, and he’s still there and she has never seen him, and—and miss frink suddenly came downstairs, and said hereafter i was to go right home when i left her. oh”—millicent raised her handkerchief to her burning cheek—“very pleasantly she said it, but what will she think when she hears that i told about the dressing-gown? she’ll think i’m a common gossipy girl.” the tears flowed fast. “it’s worse than damaris bobbing her hair. perhaps i’ll get word to-morrow morning not to come, and i’ve given up ross graham’s—” the speaker’s voice encountered a large obstruction in her throat and stopped suddenly, while she mopped her eyes.
her grandfather patted the hand clutching his arm and gave a comforting little laugh.
“don’t make a mountain out of a molehill, child. i judge miss frink doesn’t care much[109] for the french beauty. she didn’t like finding you together.”
“do you think it might be that? why, she is her niece.”
“yes, but i’ve heard of such phenomena as lack of devotion between aunt and—grand-niece, isn’t it?”
“yes—i believe so, but how funny that you know, grandpa!” millicent sniffed and mopped.
“what i don’t know about what goes on in farrandale has never been known by anybody. i’m an easy mark for every one who has anything to tell. always doddering around the house or the estate,” waving his hand about the fifty feet of yard, “if people can’t find anybody else to unburden themselves to, there is always old silas duane.”
“you’re so charming, grandpa,” exclaimed the girl, clasping his arm tighter than before and trying to check her tears, “that’s why they come; and if you told me everything you hear, i shouldn’t be such a greenie and lose my job.”
“you won’t lose your job. you succeeded, and that’s what miss frink wants. no failures need apply.”
“but, grandpa”—millicent swallowed a[110] sob—“did you know that the man, the hero, was still at miss frink’s?”
“surely i did. leonard grimshaw was here day before yesterday. he has troubles of his own.” colonel duane laughed.
“does mr. grimshaw confide in you?” millicent asked it with some awe. “now i know that you don’t tell me anything.”
“yes, so long as i always have the rent ready, grimshaw is quite talkative. this mr. stanwood is somewhat of a thorn in his flesh evidently. he says it is because a sick person in the house upsets everything, and it is a nervous strain on miss frink; but i imagine her personal interest in the young man is a little disturbing.”
“is he a young man?”
“yes; according to grimshaw a young nobody from nowhere, who was on his way to look for a job at ross graham’s.”
millicent’s pretty eyes, apparently none the worse for their salt bath, looked reflective. “he may have been a nobody, but any one who miss frink believes saved her life becomes somebody right away.” the girl paused. “i see now why she seemed pleased to have me say it was fit for prince charming. oh, that hateful old dressing-gown! if only mrs. lumbard didn’t say[111] anything to miss frink about it after i came away! grandpa, i can’t bear to do that the first thing.”
the girl buried her eyes against the arm she was holding. “miss frink doesn’t know that i didn’t know she had a young man in her house, and i calling him prince charming. mrs. lumbard has never seen him. miss frink doesn’t know that i have a grandfather who never tells me anything when i tell him every thing.”
colonel duane smiled and patted her. “just go on telling me everything, and don’t tell it to anybody else. you laugh at me when you catch me talking to myself; but i’m like that man who had the same habit, and said he did it because he liked to talk to a sensible man, and liked to hear a sensible man talk.”
then, as millicent did not lift her head, he went on. “i’ll give you another quotation: a comforting one. it was our own mr. emerson who said: ‘don’t talk. what you are thunders so loud above what you say, that i can’t hear you.’ now, miss frink is, i suppose, as shrewd a woman as ever lived; and something that you are has thundered so loud above all that dressing-gown business that you needn’t lose any sleep to-night or quake in your little shoes to-morrow when you go back to her.”
[112]
millicent breathed a long sigh and straightened up.
“then i think i’ll go in and make a salad for supper,” she replied. “it’s such fun to have time—and it—it seems so ungrateful—”
“tut-tut,” warned her grandfather; and just then damaris came in at the gate.
“i heard you began reading to her to-day,” she said eagerly and without preface. “you look sort of pale. did she scare you to death?”
“no. she went right to sleep. how could you hear about it, damaris? i was coming to tell you.”
“dr. morton had to come to see mother, and he told us. he told us all about that mr. stanwood, too. he’s nearly well. dr. morton says he’s so handsome all the girls in town will mob him; and there you will be right on the inside. some people’s luck!”
“oh, don’t—i don’t want to see him,” said millicent, so genuinely aghast that the girl with the bobbed hair laughed.
“why, perhaps you’ll see that dressing-gown. he must have been the one she was buying it for.”
“damaris, did i tell you about that dressing-gown?” the girl’s tone was tragic.
[113]
“why, of course—you were telling me only last night the way you met miss frink.”
millicent caught her breath. “never speak of it again, damaris.”
“how exciting!” the flapper’s eyes sparkled. “what’s up?”
“nothing. nothing at all.” millicent’s usual serenity had entirely vanished. “it’s dangerous to have to do with powerful people, that’s all. i was so safe in the glove section and my customers liked me”—another sob caught in the speaker’s throat. “everything is your fault, grandpa, if your eyes hadn’t been injured in the cuban war i shouldn’t have begun to read aloud when i was knee-high to a grasshopper and i shouldn’t read so well—and you never tell me anything, and—damaris, i lay awake last night thinking that if i did leave the gloves, you ought to have my place. what could we do with your hair!”
damaris shook it ruefully.
“let’s go in the house and see what we can do with ribbons and an invisible net—and i’ll ask miss frink—if i ever see her again.”
