Page images
PDF
EPUB

draw it back at once should he see his morning call as befalling inopportunely. Aurora was so far from expecting him that for a second or two she actually did not recognize him, and waited to understand what was wanted of her. Her head was tied in a white cloth, her sleeves were turned back, she had on an apron, and she held a broom. The furniture was pushed together out of the corners, some of it covered with sheets; the windows were open. No mistake possible: Aurora was sweeping the floor.

A burst of laughter rang; the broomhandle knocked on the floor.

"Yes, I 'm sweeping," she cried. "Come right in! You find me practising one of my accomplishments. I can't play the piano, I can't speak languages, I can't paint bunches of flowers on black velvet; but I can sweep, I can cook, I can wash dishes-or babies, one just as well as the other, and I can nurse the sick."

"I am afraid I have come at an inconvenient moment."

"Not at all. I'm glad to see you. was 'most through, anyhow."

She had pulled the cloth off her head, and was patting her hair before the glass. She turned down her cuffs, untied her apron, and came to shake hands, smiling as usual.

"You caught me," she said. "When I feel a certain way, I 've got to work off steam, and there's nothing that does it like sweeping."

"I beg of you-I beg of you to let me close those windows for you!"

"All right. I 'm awfully hot, but I guess the room 's cold. We can have a fire in a minute. Everything 's there to make it."

"I beg you will not trouble! I shall only remain a moment and leave you to finish."

"No, now, no; don't go and leave me. I was only sweeping to be doing something. To clean the room was n't my real object. I took their work from Zaira and Vitale, who are the ones to do it usually, in a way that 's new to me, with damp sawdust. It's nearly finished, any

how. All I've got to do is fold the sheets
and push things back into their places."
"O Mrs. Hawthorne, please, please, al-
low me!"

He tried to help her, waking to the fact that she was as strong as he, if not stronger.

The room in a minute looked as usual, and she knelt in front of the hearth, piling up a kindling of pine-cones and little fagots, on which she laid a picturesque old root of olive-wood.

"You seem to be alone," he remarked. "Yes; Estelle 's gone out." The mention of Estelle seemed to change the color of Mrs. Hawthorne's thoughts, casting a shadow over them. "Estelle and I had a spat this morning," she thereupon told him.

"Oh!"

"That 's why I was sweeping and why she's gone for a walk by herself."

"I 'm so sorry!" was all he found to

say.

"It does n't amount to anything," she I cheered him. "We've had times of quarreling all our lives, and we 've known each other since we were children. Her aunt and my grandmother had houses side by side in the country; there was just a fence between our yards. That's how we first came to be friends. All our lives we 've had the way of sometimes saying what the other does n't like. And do you know what's always at the bottom of it? That each one thinks she knows what would be most for the other's good to do. We get so mad because the other won't do what we ourself think would be best for her! Just as some people abuse you because you 're a pig, we as likely as not abuse the other because she is n't a pig. One of the biggest fights we ever had was because once late at night, when she was dead tired, tired as a yellow dog, I wanted her to sit still and let me pack for her, or, anyhow, let me help her pack. And she said I was as tired as she, -as if that was possible, and if I did n't go to bed and get some rest myself and let her alone to get through her packing as she pleased if it was daylight before she finished, she

[ocr errors]

would have a fit. And from one thing to another we went on getting madder and madder till we said things you would have thought made it impossible for us ever to speak to each other again. But the first thing next morning, when we opened our eyes, we just looked at each other and began to laugh. Another time we fought like cats and dogs because I wanted to give her something and she refused to let me."

She went to take the object referred to from her desk, and held it before him, examining it at the same time as he did.

"Do you see what it is? Can you tell at once?"

"H-m, I 'm not sure. Is it intended for a portrait of Queen Margherita?"

"Right you are! Of course that 's what it is. It's a picture of the queen, done by hand with pen and ink; but that 's not all. If you should take a magnifying"I don't call those quarrels, Mrs. Haw- glass, you would see that every line is a thorne."

"You would if you could hear us; you would have if you could have heard us this morning. And it was only a little one. You see, two people are n't best friends for nothing. It gives you a sort of freedom; you are n't a bit afraid. And when you know it's only the other's good you have at heart, it makes you awfully firm and fast-set in your point of view. I don't mind telling you that I'm always the one in the wrong."

"Are you?"

"Of course I am. But I like to have my way, even if it 's wrong. Hear me talk! How that does sound! And I was brought up so strict! But it 's so. I want to do as I please. I want to have fun. It began this morning with Hat saying I spent too much money."

line of writing-fine, fine pen-writing, the very finest possible, and if you begin reading at this pearl of her crown, and just follow through all the querligiggles and everything to the end, you will have read the whole history of Italy in a condensed form! Isn't it wonderful? Don't you think it extraordinary, a real curiosity? Don't you think I was right to buy it?"

"My opinion on that point, dear Mrs. Hawthorne, would rather depend on what you paid for it."

"Oh, would it?" She lost impetus, and gave a moment to reflection. "Well, I shall never know, then, for I 'm not going to tell you. One 's enough blaming me for extravagance."

"My dear Mrs. Hawthorne, pray don't suppose me bold enough to-"

"Oh, you 're bold enough, my friend. "Did she say that? How unreasonable, But while I like my friends to speak their how far-fetched!" minds, I 've had just enough of it for one ""What 's the good of having it, I day, d' you see? I 've had enough, in said, 'if I can't spend it?' fact, to make me sort of homesick."

"You 'd buy anything,' she said, 'that anybody wanted you to buy, if it was a mangy stuffed monkey. It is n't generosity,' she said; 'it's just weakness.'

"Oh, suck an orange!' I said. 'Chew gum! It 's anything you choose to call it. But when a thing takes my fancy, I 'm going right on to buy it. And if it enables a greasy little Italian to buy himself and his children more garlic,' I said, 'that 's not going to stop me,' I said. I don't mind showing you-" she dropped her selections from the morning's dialogue -"the thing I bought which started our little discussion. The artist who made it brought it himself to show me."

She looked it, and not as far as could be from tears. The small vexation of his failure to think her treasure worth anything she might have paid for it, the intimation that he might join the camp of the enemy in finding her, extravagant, had acted apparently as a last straw.

"Oh, Mrs. Hawthorne, I beg of you not to feel homesick!" he cried, compunctious and really eager. "It's such a poor compliment to Florence and to us, you know, us Florentines, who owe you so much for bringing among us this winter your splendid laughter and good spirits and the dimples which it does u so much good to see." :

"No," she said ruefully, "you can't rub me the right way till I 'm contented here as I was yesterday. Florence is all right, and the Florentines are mighty polite; but-" She looked at the fire a moment, while he tried, and failed, to find something effectively soothing to say. "In the State of Massachusetts there 's a sort of spit running into the sea, and on a sandhill of this there's a little shingled house never had a touch of paint outside it, nor of plumbing inside. And there, Geraldino, is where Auroretta would like to be."

He had the impulse to reach out and touch the ends of his fingers to her hand, fondly, as one might do to a child, but he prudently refrained. His eyes, however, dwelt on her with a smile that conveyed sympathy. He said, after her, amusedly: "Auroretta!"

She brightened.

assure him that she neither had done, nor ever would dream of doing, such a low thing, he went on, with the liberty of speech that amazingly prevailed between them: "Extraordinary as it seems, you would be perfectly capable of it. And it would be a grave mistake."

"I 've done it for Italo when he was playing my accompaniment. For nobody else."

Gerald was reminded that since Christmas Ceccherelli had been wearing, instead of his silver turnip, a fine gold watch, her overt gift and his frank boast, which he conspicuously extracted from its chamois-skin case every time he needed to know the hour.

"Mrs. Hawthorne," said Gerald, "you have repeatedly said that you have what you call lots of fun with Ceccherelli. Would you mind giving me an idea of what the fun consists in? I wish to have

"After I 've been bad," she said, "I light-that I may do the man justice. always am blue."

But within the hour he had come near quarreling with her, he also, and on more than one score.

It began with his making a pleasant remark upon her voice, which seemed to him worth cultivating. She brushed aside the idea of devoting study to the art of singing.

"But," she said, "Italo has brought me some songs. He plays them over and shows me how to sing them. We have lots of fun." To give him an example, she broke forth, adapting her peculiarly American pronunciation to Ceccherelli's peculiarly Italian intonations, "'Non so resistere, sei troppo bella!'"

Gerald winced and darkened.

"Then there 's this one," she went on, ""Mia piccirella, deh, vieni allo mare! Do you want to hear me sing it like Miss Felixson, together with her dog, which always bursts out howling before she 's done? I 've heard them three times, and can do the couple of them to a T."

"Please don't!" he hurriedly requested. "I hope," he added doubtfully, "that you won't do it to amuse any of your other friends, either." As she did not quickly

Left to myself, I should judge him to be the dullest, commonest, cheapest of inexpressibly vulgar, insignificant, pretentious, ugly, and probably dishonest little men." The adjectives came rolling out irrepressibly.

"Perhaps he is," Aurora said serenely; "but have n't you noticed, Stickly-prickly, that about some things you and I don't feel alike? Italo plays the piano in a way that perfectly delights me, he's goodhearted, and he makes me laugh. Is n't that enough? Do you happen to know Italo's sister Clotilde?"

"I have not that advantage, no." "You soon will have, if you care for it, for she 's coming to live with us." He stared.

"Yes, she 's coming to keep house. She speaks English quite well, because she 's had so much to do with English and Americans, being a teacher of Italian and French. It began with Italo wanting us to take lessons of her. But, bless you, I don't want to study! I can pick up all I need without. We said, however, 'Bring her to see us.' And he did. She 's real nice."

"Does she resemble her brother?"

"In some ways. I've an idea, though, that you 'd like her better than you seem to do him. I believe we shall be very well satisfied with her, and shall save money. Since we seem to have got on to the subject of money to-day, Luigi, the butler, who has everything under him now, Estelle says is a caution to snakes, the way he robs us. Now, we 're easygoing and, I dare say, fools; but not darn, darn fools. It's a mistake to think we would n't see a thing big 's a mountain, and that you could cheat us the way that handsome, fine-mannered, dignified villain Loo-ee-gy thinks he can. So we 're going to put in his place a nice woman who is, in part, our friend, and will care to see that we 're dealt fairly with. Clotilde does n't seem to mind giving up her lessons to come and be a sort of elegant housekeeper for us."

"I understand."

"Charlie Hunt is disgusted about it, because when we complained of Luigi before him, he said he would find us exactly the right person to take his place. But, you see, we did n't wait. I don't see that we were bound to. What do you think?"

"It is a case, dear Mrs. Hawthorne, where I must not allow myself to say what I think."

"Personally, I must say I was rather glad to have Clotilde step in as she did, because I don't mind telling you-you won't tell anybody else? - I find just the least little bit of a disposition in that young man Charlie to run things in this house. D' you know what I mean? I suppose it 's the way he 's made. He has been awfully kind, and helped a lot in all sorts of ways, and I like him ever so much; but I was glad to check him just a little, and put who I pleased over my own servants, and then go on just as good friends with him as ever."

"Mrs. Hawthorne, why don't you make Mrs. Foss your adviser in all such matters? She is so kind always and of such good counsel. It would be so much the safest thing."

"Of course; but it was she who found Luigi for us, you see. She can't always

know. As far as Charlie Hunt is concerned, I don't want you to think that we think any less of him than before. He 's good and kind as can be, and does ever so many nice things for us. We were at his apartment the other day, where he had a tea-party expressly for us, with his cousins there, and Mr. Landini and two or three others. And then when he heard me say I like dogs he promised to give me a dog, one of those lovely clown dogs, poodles, with their hair cut in a fancy pattern, when he can lay his hand on a real beauty."

"Mrs. Hawthorne," - Gerald almost lifted himself off his seat with the emphasis of his cry,-"don't let him give you a dog!"

She looked at him in amazement. "Why, what 's wrong?"

"Don't! don't! Can't you see that you must not let him give you a dog?" "No, I can't. Why on earth-" "After what you said a few minutes ago," he stammered, feeling blindly for reasons, "which shows that you have something to complain of in his conduct toward you, you ought not to allow him to give you a dog. A dog-you don't understand, and I can't make you. It will be too awful!"

"You surely are the queerest man I have ever known," she said sincerely. To which he did not reply.

He restrained himself from blurting out that Charlie Hunt, for such and such reasons, could never deserve the extreme privilege of giving her a dog.

Mrs. Hawthorne was looking at him, trying to make him out. She could not. One thing, however, was plain, and it being so plain simplified all. He felt actual pain because Charlie Hunt was going to give her a dog. The wherefore it was vain to seek. But she had no desire to give pain of any kind, even by way of teasing him, to this funnily sensitive fellow whose shoulders looked so sharp under his coat.

"All right," she said. "If he says anything more about it, I 'll tell him I 've changed my mind and don't want a dog.

[graphic]

"With hands thrust in his pockets he took a purposeless half-turn in the

room, then came back to her side"

« PreviousContinue »