ILLUSTRATIONS

“MY BROTHER HAD PLANNED THAT THE PLACE SHOULD BE GIVEN TO RAY.” Frontispiece

THE STREAM OF COMPLIMENT WAS STILL FLOWING

WITH THIS PARTING THRUST JEAN VANISHED, LAUGHING AS SHE WENT

“WHO SHOULD WEAR IT BUT HER NAMESAKE?”

CHAPTER I THE ANNOUNCEMENT

THE Formans were at breakfast, at least two of them were. The others were absorbed with the morning mail. The table was neatly spread, the aroma of coffee was in the air, and the plate of home-made cookies invited attention, but Jean, the youngest daughter, and Derrick, the son, were the only ones who paid the slightest attention to breakfast.

Jean was eating grapes, and Derrick, as he reached for the fourth cookie, said: “I wonder if I am expected to eat all these.”

Jean giggled. “You are getting well under way, I think; keep right on; I’m attending to the grapes myself. Only look at them!—I mean the folks, Dickie dear, not the grapes—even mother is lost in a letter. I wonder who it can be from? It’s an awfully long one.” Then she raised her voice: “I think one of you might read aloud for the benefit of Dick and me—and the cookies; mother, there won’t be a single cookie left if you don’t attend to Dick.”

Thus roused Mrs. Forman laid down her letter with a little sigh, and grasped the handle of the coffee pot as she said: “What is it you want, Derrick, a cup of coffee?”

“No, mother; no coffee for me. I’ll just take a cookie or two and be off.” Saying which he reached for his fifth and, to the sound of Jean’s laughing protest, hastily left the room.

Mrs. Forman did not smile; she was still preoccupied; but she tried to rally her thoughts. “Joseph your coffee is getting cold. Girls, will you have coffee? Have you letters from any of the relatives?”

“Mine isn’t,” said Florence, the second daughter. “It is from Nannie Douglass; they are at Delmont, and expect to stay through the month. Oh mother, I wish I could have Nannie spend a week with me while they are so near.”

There was a pathetic note in her voice suggesting the hopelessness of the wish, but the mother, usually quick to sympathize, did not respond to it even by a glance. Ray, the observant oldest daughter, noticed the tightening of muscles about her father’s mouth, and knew that, although he was supposed to be absorbed in his paper, he had heard. She telegraphed a note of warning to her sister, who, however, did not need it. The girl had returned to her neglected muffin, her face grave and sad; but evidently she had thought, and meant to say no more.

“My letter,” said Ray, “was from the girls, all of them; they are at Ocean Beach for a week together; only four of the class missing; isn’t that doing well for so large a class?”

“Eleven girls!” Jean exclaimed. “What a babel they must make! I hope they are not all at the same boarding house! Where are the others?”

“The others? of the class? Why, Edith and Emily Prentiss are still in the East; Edith is studying music in Boston.”

“And the other two?” persisted the heedless Jean. Her sister turned grave eyes upon her.

“Don’t you remember, Jean, that Celia Roberts died only a few weeks after commencement?”

“Oh, I remember; and you are the fourth? Poor Ray! you ought to be there this minute.”

Mr. Forman rose up suddenly, his coffee still waiting. “I must go,” he said. Mrs. Forman protested anxiously; wouldn’t he let her give him a cup of hot coffee? No, he wouldn’t; he murmured something about it being later than he had realized, and hurried away.

Mrs. Forman waited until the door closed after him, then spoke in a discouraged tone: “I wish, Jean, you could learn to be a little more considerate of your father’s feelings; it is hard enough for him to be compelled to deny you all sorts of pleasures, without having it stabbed into him.”

“It was horrid of me, mommie,” said the penitent Jean. “I wish I hadn’t such an awful forgettery; but father knows that I didn’t mean a thing.”

“Where is Dick?” The mother had just awakened to his absence.

“He and the cookies skipped, I guess, while you were reading that long letter,” Florence explained. “Who is it from, mother?”

Mrs. Forman looked down at the closely written pages and sighed, as she answered: “It is from Aunt Caroline, and it is all about your Aunt Elsie; she wants us to let her come here.”

“Aunt Elsie!” Florence exclaimed.

“Oh, mother!” from Jean.

Then Ray: “Why, mother, what is the matter?”

“It is a long story, girls, going back before you were born; but the part that concerns us now is simple enough. The woman who has lived with Aunt Elsie for years, and cared for her like a daughter, has recently died, and there must be an entire change of arrangements.”

“Well,” Florence said, after an ominous silence, “why should that make it—what about Aunt Caroline? Why doesn’t she look after her own sister?”

“Company,” she says. “Two of her husband’s relatives to stay through the fall, one for all winter, perhaps. Besides, she has no suitable downstairs room; and there are half a dozen other reasons; the main one, I imagine, being that she doesn’t want her.”

“Neither do we,” murmured Jean, but no one noticed her, and Mrs. Forman continued.

“Those sisters have not been together, except for a few hours at long intervals, since they were young girls, and they seem to have nothing in common.”

Then Florence interposed: “Why doesn’t she go to Uncle Evarts? He has a large house and servants to wait on her.”

“That, your Aunt Caroline says, is quite out of the question. It seems that the married daughter has come home to spend the winter, and has three little children. Your uncle says it would be very bad for his sister to be shut into a furnace-heated house all winter in the centre of a great city, ‘with three lively children who would fit her for the lunatic asylum before the winter was half over.’”

Mrs. Forman had taken up her letter again and was quoting from it. A silence that suggested consternation fell upon them, broken presently by Jean.

“Mother, will we have to do it?”

“Do what, Jean?”

“Why—have her come here?”

Mrs. Forman’s expressive eyes rested full upon her youngest daughter, with a shade of rebuke in them.

“Isn’t that a strange way to speak of having a visit from your aunt?”

“Well, but—” Jean hesitated, her face flushing under the rebuke, then she hurried on: “Mother, it isn’t just an ordinary visit; you said for all winter, didn’t you? That is what it means, anyway; and she is only a half aunt; it isn’t as though she were father’s own sister; he doesn’t even know her very well; it seems as though he had enough—”

She left her sentence unfinished, but the mother answered what she had meant to say.

“He certainly has, Jean; for that reason we must not do anything to make it harder; he has always looked upon your Aunt Elsie as his sister, and although he left home when he was a mere boy he remembers her perfectly as a little child of whom he was fond; it would break his heart to be compelled, with all the rest, to deny her any kindnesses she may need.”

“But that’s just it; she can’t help being an added burden, and there are her own sister and brother, both of them with plenty of money; they could do a great deal more for her than we possibly can. Do you really think he would want her to come if he realized that?”

Mrs. Forman made a gesture almost like despair, and Ray came to the rescue.

“Of course, Jean, he will want to receive his sister if she wants to come. We can manage to make her comfortable, can’t we, mother?”

“Well, I must say I don’t see how,” Florence said, without waiting for her mother. “You say Aunt Caroline has no downstairs room, and I’m sure we haven’t; why isn’t that an excellent reason for her not coming? For that matter we haven’t an upstairs room, either, that would be nice for her, unless—how could we possibly manage it? Mother, why don’t you speak?”

“You and Jean do not give her any chance,” Ray said, trying to laugh.

Mrs. Forman spoke with evident effort: “There is only one way, Florence; your father and I would have to take an upstairs room.”

“Father move!” Jean’s tone was expressive, and her mother answered it.

“I know—but there is no other way; Aunt Elsie is lame, and stairs for her are out of the question; but I am sure your father would rather move out of the house altogether than be forced to turn down this appeal for his help. We can manage to be comfortable upstairs, I think, in any room that our children are-willing to give up to us.”

She attempted a smile. Ray spoke quickly: “Of course, mother, if it comes to that you and father must have our room; Jean can go with Florence.”

Groans followed from both of the younger girls, but Jean recovered speech quickly and wanted to know what Ray proposed to do with herself; did she mean to dress on the back porch, as well as sleep there? Then, dolefully: “Oh, Ray, your lovely big room, with all your college things in it! how can you?”

“Never mind, Jeanie,” the girl said, brightly. “Don’t you know how often we have said that mother and father ought to have that room? I could manage nicely with the little one back of it, but I was thinking—will it do, mother, to leave Aunt Elsie alone on the first floor?”

Mrs. Forman admitted that it might not be right for a lame person to sleep so far from others, yet she did not know how else to plan; that was certainly the only downstairs sleeping room, and there was no other that could be converted into one. Then Ray wondered if a couch could not be set up in the little trunk room if the trunks were moved to the attic; she believed the room was long enough on the south side for a cot, and, if so, she could sleep there and be within call.

Jean exclaimed: “Why, Ray Forman! that is nothing but a closet. The idea!”

“It has a wide window, Jean dear; I could sleep with my head out of doors if I chose; and think what a nice roomy place I should have upstairs, with the bed out of the way; I can do it nicely, mother, if you want to plan it so.”

Mrs. Forman sighed again, and said that Ray was doing, once more, what she had done ever since she was able to think and plan—sacrificing herself for others; she, the mother, ought to be used to it, but it did seem a pity that it must always be the same one on whom the burden fell heaviest. She arose from the table as she spoke, the others following her lead. Jean, as she clattered the cups and saucers, gathering them for the little maid in the kitchen, continued to express her mind, with no listener save herself. “All I have to say is that I think there are a lot of awfully selfish people in this world, and they don’t all live in this house, either. I just detest rooming with Florence, but, of course, I’ll do it, and mother knows I will; she needn’t think that Ray does all the sacrificing. If I were Aunt Caroline, or Uncle Evarts—which, thank goodness, I’m not—I should be ashamed to look any of us in the face after this.”

Nothing had occurred for months to upheave the Forman household as did this letter from Mr. Forman’s youngest sister. The family had grown accustomed, at least in a degree, to straitened means and careful economies. Mr. Forman’s failure in business had occurred when Jean, the youngest, was a mere child; yet she distinctly remembered the great house on Duval Circle, and especially the fine car in which she daily rode, attended by a maid. The others, of course, had vivid recollections of the refinements and luxuries, as well as of many things that they used to name necessities, that had to be given up when the crash came; but time had softened much of the bitterness connected with the change; they were even growing used to the small, plain house on Fourth Street and one untrained little maid, although they still never went in the vicinity of Duval Circle if it could be avoided; and Florence had not yet trained herself away from occasional outbursts over the changed conditions. These, however, were very rare in her father’s presence. She still remembered with remorse the day when, after an especially harrowing experience, she had burst forth with: “Oh, if father could only have been persuaded not to trust that horrid man who is responsible for all this” and then had heard a heavy book drop to the floor with a thud, and a deep groan from the father whom she had supposed was not in the house. A moment afterwards the door of the little reading room, which now served as his library, was quietly closed, and save for the look of unutterable reproach on her mother’s face as she closed it, no reference was ever made to the incident. But that groan had burned into her heart. Jean, under like circumstances, would have rushed into her father’s arms and fairly smothered

him with kisses while she poured forth a volume of regrets and frantic promises never to do so again; she would also be liable to forget it all, before the day was done, and fail in exactly the same way. Florence was different. However, they all, in their differing ways, had for a central object in life the saving of their father’s feelings.

CHAPTER II PREPARATION

MRS. FORMAN and her two daughters, Ray and Florence, were in the attic studying the possibilities of certain stowed-away pieces of furniture; also arguing as to the merits—or possibly demerits—of a set of old curtains.

Florence was sure that they would not do at all for Aunt Elsie’s room, although while she said it she was oppressed by the thought that new curtains were not even to be mentioned. Only that morning her mother had tried to impress them with the fact that even very small expenditures must be carefully guarded; they really must not for the present spend an unnecessary penny. It evidently comforted the poor lady to use that phrase “for the present,” although they knew she had a haunting fear that the future would not make the pennies more plentiful.

“If we had a new edge to replace this dreadfully frayed one, we might make these curtains answer for the present,” she thought aloud, rather than said, and the sentence closed with that much-worked word “but,” which is capable of eloquently leaving unsaid many things.

“Oh, mother!” was Florence’s dismayed protest, but Ray intercepted her.

“I’ll crochet an edge for them. Don’t you know that little lace edge I made for Jean’s waist? With coarser cotton it would make a pretty curtain trimming, and the pattern is so simple I can make it very fast. I’ll begin it to-night; I have the cotton.”

“Florence,” said Mrs. Forman, “if I should declare that I didn’t know how to get along another day without a new house, don’t you think Ray would say, ‘I’ll make you one?’”

By way of answer Florence said grimly that if Ray had been one of those old Israelites she would have had no trouble at all in making bricks without straw.

Then the front door opened and closed with a bang, and Derrick’s shout was heard through the hall. “Mother! Ray! where are you all? Say, mother, don’t you think they are coming to-day, on the two-fifty!”

“Who are?” Florence asked, appearing at the head of the stairs.

“Uncle Evarts and Aunt Elsie, and I don’t know how many more. Where’s mother? Say, mommie, daddy had a telegram; here it is; he sent over to our school for me to get excused and skip home with it and stay here and help. What do you want first?”

By this time Mrs. Forman had the telegram in hand and read it aloud: “Compelled to go East to-night; must bring Elsie. Reach Welland afternoon train Friday. Evarts.”

“The idea!” said Florence. “Isn’t that cool? He hasn’t even given us time to write and say that she could come.”

“That’s what he’s after,” Derrick explained. “Says he to himself: ‘I’ll rush the old lady off before they have a chance to say no, then they’ll just have to take her in.’ See? Trust Uncle Evarts for being sharp, every time.” But no one was heeding him. Mother and daughters were making a rush for that downstairs room to try to accomplish in breathless haste the dozen or more “last things” that were waiting for a leisure hour.

Left to himself the boy, with hands thrust into his pockets, tramped about the attic for a few minutes, curious to see what the great unfurnished room, which he seldom visited, had, stowed away in its keeping. He passed a number of interesting-looking packages, from whose bulging ends he caught glimpses of things that he could utilize in his “shop,” and mentally resolved to forage here some day and see what he could find. But he carried a divided mind, and although he whistled a few bars as he ran downstairs it was a rather gloomy-faced fellow who presently appeared before his mother for orders.

Being a boy who was distinctly loyal to his father, Derrick Forman had made very few remarks aloud about the family innovation; nobody but himself, at least so he fondly believed, knew how utterly he disliked the thought of it. He did not in the least remember his Aunt Elsie, although there was a tradition in the family that once in his very early childhood she had kissed him fervently and declared that he “looked enough like father” to be her brother.

“I’m awfully glad that I’m not!” he told himself, savagely, as he recalled the incident, “and I wish she were in Jericho. She isn’t a speck like my father, I know that; none of ’em are; but that’s something to be glad over. A fellow can afford to shout over the fact that he isn’t a bit like any of them.”

He had a distinct boyish recollection of his Aunt Caroline and his Uncle Evarts, and disliked them both. Aunt Caroline, as he remembered her, was always saying: “Dear me! Why do you yell so when you talk? None of your family is deaf.” Or: “If you were my boy I should give you a good whipping every time you rolled down stairs in that lubberly fashion.” Or: “For pity’s sake, Dick, don’t whistle all the time! your family do not seem to have any nerves.” “An everlasting nagger,” was the phrase with which he summed up her defects.

Yet after all, the real thorn in his heart was the fact that his aunt had not confined her “nagging” to the girls and himself, but was given to much advising his mother, and finding fault with her ways. He had a vivid memory of Aunt Caroline’s voice, high and insistent, as it came out to him when he stood in the hall waiting for a chance to speak to his mother: “You really ought to insist on Joseph’s having things fixed conveniently for you in the kitchen, at least; you can’t expect to keep a girl unless you furnish her with some of the modern conveniences; in these days they won’t stand it. Joseph ought to know that there are labor-saving devices that all respectable people use. He doesn’t understand, of course; men never do; but you ought to be firm about it; because he chose to trust a man that nobody else would, and so lost all his money, is no reason why he should let his family go without ordinary comforts. I’ll risk that he could raise some money for you if he knew he had to.” Then his mother’s voice, too low for him to hear, and his aunt’s again, in reply: “Oh, now, Louise, there is no use in getting on your dignity just because I mentioned Joseph; I’m sure I didn’t say anything against him; I said not a word more than I would of my own husband if he had been such a fool as to place confidence in that man. You need to remember that I knew Joseph long before you did, and, in some respects, I think I know him better now than you do.”