For two months Austen Blair and his niece lived on in the big house.

Alexina wondered if her uncle were not different from other people, for it must be the abnormal human who would not ask one question about his sister; mere curiosity must have demanded that much, Alexina thought, having a lively curiosity herself. To be sure, Aunt Harriet, from Uncle Austen's standpoint, had outraged every convention to which they had been bred; she had married a man between whom and her family there had been bitterest enmity, between whom and her brother there had been personal encounter; she had gone from her brother's roof to be married in a Catholic inst.i.tution, by a Catholic priest.

It almost made Alexina laugh when she summed up the enormity of the offending. She gloried in it herself; she adored Aunt Harriet and loved her for it.

But the fact that her uncle could thus ignore the whole subject made it harder for Alexina to go to him about a matter which had arisen concerning herself.

A letter had come to her from her mother. Though it was eleven years since she had seen the handwriting, she knew it, as Katy, bringing the mail, handed it to her.

It seemed to Alexina that her pulses stopped and the tide of her blood flowed backward. Katy, closing the door as she went, brought her to herself, and she flung the letter from her the width of the room, her gaze following it.

She sat like one stunned with horror. Then rage succeeded. "What right had this--this so-called mother to write to her?"

But she need not read it, and Alexina sprang up and went about her household duties, as if in interviews with grocery-man and butcher, with cook and laundress, she could forget that her mother had written her, that the letter lay up-stairs awaiting her.

She would not read it, she a.s.sured herself; but all the while she knew that she would, and when the time came she opened it quietly and read it through. Then she put it in its envelope and threw it from her again across the room, and sat immovable, the lines of her young face setting as though by some steeling process. Suddenly she caught sight of her face in the gla.s.s. On it was the look of Uncle Austen.

She sprang up and, dragging forth her cloak and hat and furs, fled from the house. She must turn to some one, she must get away from the horror that was upon her. She would go to Aunt Harriet.

It was a frosty day and a light fall of snow was on the pavements. She met Dr. Ransome and Emily Carringford strolling along as though it were summer. She had introduced him to Emily, and one would say she had done him a good turn. She smiled as they called to her from across the street. He admired Emily and it looked as if Emily--but, then, Emily sparkled and glowed for any man, even for Uncle Austen.

She saw Georgy wave his hat gaily from the platform of a street-car and look as though he meant to swing off and join her. She was seeing a good deal of him these days. She shook her head and pointed with her m.u.f.f, and a moment later turned in at the Infirmary gate. She had walked rapidly and felt better somehow. The Major was daily growing stronger, though the fear was that he might never walk again, but, rather than accept this verdict, he and Aunt Harriet were going East for advice or, if need be, to Paris.

Paris! The horror surged back upon her. She stopped short in her very turning to close the gate and stood engrossed with the misery of it, for it was from Paris her mother had written to say she was coming to her.

"I have reached the end of my money, ma chere," she wrote, "as you come into yours, which Austen, being a Blair, will have cared for. I will teach you to love life, now that you are grown. When you were a child you were impossible, you disconcerted and judged me, but it is unfair to let you taste life according to Blair seasoning only. So write me, ma fille, mon enfant, of your whereabouts, in the care of your Uncle Randolph in Washington, for I follow this steamer across."

And then, as though her mood had changed: "In any case, I shall not trouble you long. It is my lungs, they tell me. It is a curious sensation, may you never know it, having your furniture seized. Le bon Dieu and Celeste have stood between me and much."

Celeste! Tall, gaunt, and taciturn--negro mammy to Alexina and to Molly before her. Celeste! It all stifled the girl. She hated Celeste.

Celeste had chosen to go with the mother, and the child had been left by both.

And where was M. Garnier, the husband--"the promising young French poet," as Uncle Randolph had termed him to some one, in the child Alexina's hearing, those years ago? The letter made no mention of him.

Alexina closed the Infirmary gate and walked up the wide pavement to the entrance. The little Sister knew her well now and smiled a welcome as she let her in. Pa.s.sing along the hall Alexina hesitated before the marble saint in his niche. Hers was no controversial soul; what she wanted was comfort. Perhaps the blend of Presbyterianism and Catholicism may be tolerance. Then she went on through the spotless halls to the second floor.

As the door opened Harriet looked around. She had been writing by the Major's couch, and he had fallen asleep, his hand on hers, the portfolio lying open on her lap. She smiled at Alexina, then nodded at the hand detaining her.

Could it be the same Aunt Harriet, this yearning-eyed woman? Her hair, always beautiful, had loosened and drooped over her temple, and the thought swept upon Alexina, how human, how sweetly dear it made her look, this touch of carelessness because of greater concern. It moved the girl, bending to kiss her, to slip to her knees instead and throw adoring young arms about her.

And then a strange thing happened; the head of the woman drooped for support against the girl's shoulder and, with a sudden trembling all through her, Harriet began to cry. Only for a moment; then, lifting her head and putting the hand of the sleeper gently on the couch, she arose and drew the girl over to the window.

"You go to-morrow?" asked Alexina.

"Yes; Dr. Ransome has arranged to go with us then. I don't know why I cry, for he's better. He's been dictating an editorial. I'm unnerved, I suppose, and it's beginning to tell."

"You are worn out with the two months of strain, Aunt Harriet, and the worry and unhappiness."

"Unhappiness?" Harriet laughed a little wildly. "Unhappiness? I thought you understood better than that. I'm happy, for the first time in all my easy, prosperous, level life. It's out of the depths we bring up happiness, Alexina. And come what may, I've known, am knowing it--nothing can take the knowledge from me now."

She was crying again, her head bent against the window pane. "I never knew how to get near to any one; I've been alone all my life till now.

Maybe you have been lonely all along. I didn't know. Living with Austen and me--oh, I'm sorry for you, Alexina. I'm going away now with Stephen; but when we come back I mean to make it up to you and see that you have opportunities and friends. Oh, Alexina, we do all require it, the joy of having some one needing us. And you'll be nice to Louise for me, won't you, while we're gone?"

Louise was the sister of Stephen, and she and the babies were to remain in Louisville in the house the Major and Harriet had taken against their return, an unpretentious house on a cross street.

"Stephen has arranged it all," Harriet was saying; "he won't let me do a thing. He will not consider for a moment that he isn't going to be able to keep his position on the paper; they're filling it for him among themselves still. If he wasn't so--so fiercely proud! It's Austen that rankles, you see."

There was a movement on the couch. Harriet went swiftly over to the waker. It is on Olympus they take time for deliberate and stately progression; Harriet had come down to the human world.

"It's a soporific thing," quoth the Major, "listening to one's own editorials. I never heard one through before. You there, Alexina?

Where have you been these two days? I hope you're not holding it against us that Georgy is sending all his flowers to me? It's his delicate way, you see; reaching round through me via Harriet to you."

There was a tap and the little Sister entered. It was company. It was always company. The Major's life had been close to the heart and centre of things. It was laughable to see the reserved Harriet's pride in his popularity. It was a certain judge this time, and with him an old comrade-at-arms, come up from the Pennyroyal to see him.

"But had you better?" Harriet expostulated.

The Major caught her hand and laughed at her. "But these are fond farewells, you see, dear lady," he explained.

Was he drawing her to him by the hand he held? For suddenly Harriet bent over and kissed him; nor did Alexina feel any consciousness or shame, and the little Sister went out softly with glistening eyes.

So it came about that Alexina did not open her heart to Harriet after all, and the aunt went away next day without knowing.

Yet Harriet influenced the girl in her decision.

Alexina, standing at her window, watched a sparrow tugging at some morsel that had fallen upon the snow and essaying to fly upward and away with it. She was lonesome; the house was so big; it seemed so empty. She was thinking about Aunt Harriet, who was giving her strength out to some one, who had opened her arms to Louise and the babies, whose days were full of thought and planning, and through whose eyes shone something never there before.

Alexina left the window and re-read the postscript of her letter. "In any case I shall not trouble you long. It is my lungs, they tell me.

It is a curious sensation, may you never know it, having your furniture seized. Le bon Dieu and Celeste have stood between me and much."

It was to her uncle after all that Alexina went with the matter that night. He was in the parlour reading and laid down his paper to give attention. The substance of the letter heard, the two perpendicular lines between his brow relaxed, for it was a case of his judgment being justified, and a man likes to feel he has been right.

"It is what I expected," he said, "only it has been longer coming. She has her father's people in Washington, she has no claim on you." He lifted his paper.

"But--" said Alexina.

He lowered it and waited.

Her mouth grew set. He always made her stubborn. Fingering the upholstery of his chair, she looked at him, though it took courage to look at Austen Blair under some circ.u.mstances. She found herself suddenly disposed to defend her mother. "But if I feel a claim, Uncle Austen? I wanted to tell you I think I ought to write to her to come."

"Come where?" asked Austen Blair.

To be sure--where could she write her to come? There fell a silence.

Then he spoke, and curtly. "In three months you will be of age, a fact which no doubt your mother has remembered. Until then I forbid it; after that it is your affair. In the interim, it has been my intention, and I meant to say as much to you, to make you acquainted with your affairs. I had expected you to live on in my house. Under the conditions you propose you will, of course, make your own arrangements."

Alexina, listening, looked at him. One would have said tears were welling. Had he raised his eyes to hers, put out a hand--

But he returned to his paper.