It was Nell's fourth birthday anniversary, and the child was to have a little party in the afternoon; in the evening Mrs. Newby had arranged for a small farewell party for Beth and Dolly. Both affairs would be more or less informal, but they would be none the less enjoyable for that reason. Nell was wild with delight.

Fifteen of her small friends had been sent pretty invitations, and she told everyone of the wonderful birthday cake that Bridget had made, and that would have four little wax candles on it for her to blow out.

"I don't like that part of the program myself," Mrs. Newby remarked in a low tone to the two girls. "I am always so afraid of some accident; but I really believe that Nell would feel she had not been given a party at all, if she did not have her birthday cake and her four candles."

"Don't worry, Mrs. Newby," Dolly said comfortingly. "If you chance to be out of the room when the wonderful cake comes in, Beth and I will watch Nell carefully until the candles are extinguished."

"Thank you, Dolly. I presume I am foolish, but such dreadful things do happen, you know."

Dolly a.s.sented, and then in the bustle of preparations for the two parties, which unfortunately came on the same day, she forgot all about her promise. Afterward, she reproached herself bitterly for her neglect.

The day was bright and sunny. The small folks had had a glorious time, and were now sitting around the table enjoying Nell's birthday feast.

The sandwiches and other substantials had been pa.s.sed, and Mrs. Newby had gone into the kitchen a moment to see about the ices. Dolly and Beth had been waiting on the little people and enjoying the fun as much as they. The butler brought in the grand birthday cake and put it in front of the small hostess. Then he, too, went into the kitchen. Nell looked at her cake for a few moments in silent rapture, enjoying the exclamations of admiration which she heard from all her little guests. Suddenly it seemed to her, that one of the candles leaned a little to one side. She stretched out her hand to straighten it. Instantly a flame leaped up from the thin white fabric of her sleeves. In a second it had sprung to her curls and the children were shrieking in horror and affright.

In another second Beth had pulled the child from her chair, wrapped a rug around her, and crushed the flames from the pretty curls with her own unprotected hands.

It was all over before Peter had reappeared with the ices, but the cries had reached Mrs. Newby, and with a dreadful premonition she had rushed to the dining-room with her husband, who had returned early from his office, in honor of Nell's birthday.

As they entered, Beth was unwrapping the rug from Nell. The flames were extinguished and the child was safe, though the fright had completely unnerved her, and she was sobbing hysterically.

Her dainty dress was burned, and her curls were singed in front, but that was the extent of the damage.

Mrs. Newby caught her child to her arms in a gush of unspeakable thankfulness, while Dolly poured out her remorse and sorrow with a flood of tears.

Mr. Newby stood by, looking more shaken than Dolly had ever believed possible for so self-contained a man. He questioned Dolly and Beth closely, and when the full particulars of the accident had been told, he put his arms around Beth and called her his "brave, sensible daughter;" but his voice trembled and Dolly was sure there were tears in his eyes.

Peter waited on the little folks for the remainder of the meal, while Mrs. Newby carried Nell off to change her dress and to look after Beth's hands. They were badly burned; not seriously, however, and while Beth might suffer considerably from them for two or three weeks, there would probably be no permanent scars. Mr. Newby had insisted on summoning a physician at once, despite Beth's protests. Her hands had been dressed, and she had been told that she must consent to be waited upon for the next week or two like a baby.

"But I must go back to college tomorrow, Doctor, that is a positive fact."

Dr. Thornton looked rather grave. "If you are careless, Miss Newby, your hands will be permanently scarred. They should be dressed every day, and you should use them as little as possible."

"I do not think that I can consent to your going, Beth," said her father gravely.

"And I cannot consent to staying at home, Father," Beth returned decidedly. "Dr. Randolph, our college physician, will dress my hands for me every day. I promise to be very careful."

"If you are willing to have her go," Dolly said anxiously, "I will do everything that I can for her during the next two or three weeks.

I feel as if this were all my fault, anyway, for I had promised Mrs.

Newby that I would look after the birthday cake. Then I was attending to something else when it came in and I forgot all about it. If it had not been for Beth--" She stopped shudderingly.

"I know that you would do all you possibly could for Beth," Mr. Newby said slowly. "Still I do not feel that she ought to go."

"I must, Father," and Beth turned away with an air of finality, as if the matter were settled once for all. Mr. Newby said nothing more at the moment, but he looked far from satisfied. He followed Beth from the room presently, leaving Dolly and his wife alone, for Baby Nell had fallen asleep and the tiny guests had all gone home.

Mrs. Newby turned to Dolly with tears in her eyes. "Elizabeth has saved me from a lifetime of sorrow, but she will not even let me thank her.

If she only loved me--" She broke off as if afraid to trust her voice.

Dolly broke in impetuously: "I do not see how anyone can help loving you, Mrs. Newby."

Mrs. Newby smiled rather sadly. "I cannot blame Beth at all, nor myself, either, for that matter. I believe I will tell you about it, Dolly, if you care to hear. I have never discussed the subject with anyone before, but Elizabeth's coldness and want of affection have been very hard to bear."

"Yet you said that you did not blame her, Mrs. Newby?" Dolly said, a little wonderingly.

"And I do not. It is rather strange that I should be mentioning this subject to you at all, when you are such a mere child yet; but you understand Elizabeth, and she seems more like a girl with you than I ever saw her before. I have tried to give her everything that I have fancied she wanted, but there were some things that I could not give her--that she would not let me give her. I do not know whether Elizabeth has ever talked to you about her own mother or not. She must have been a very beautiful woman; she and Elizabeth were pa.s.sionately devoted to each other. They were always together, and I have been told by the old servants here in the family, that they seldom saw such absolute love as Elizabeth gave her mother. She deserved it, for she was an ideal mother in every respect." Mrs. Newby stopped and caught her breath.

The hardest part of her story was still to be told.

"She caught a cold the fall that Elizabeth was nine years old, and it developed into pneumonia. In a week she was dead. They feared at first that the child, too, would die; but her mother had had a long, loving talk with her after she knew that there was no hope of her recovery.

Exactly what she said to Elizabeth, of course, no one ever knew, but her Christian faith was one of her most marked characteristics, and she must have succeeded in imparting it to her child in a very vivid manner, for while Elizabeth grieved intensely, her grief was more like one who sorrowed for a person gone on a long journey, than like one bereft by death. Of course, everything that her mother had said or done was sacred in her eyes. She did not like anyone to touch her room, her chair, or any of her belongings. That was all perfectly right and natural. And now, Dolly, comes the hard part of my story. I cannot tell it without seeming to censure my husband, and yet I presume that he thought he was doing all for the best. He and I have never discussed the subject since the first night when I came to this house. I learned the truth then, and I know that I spoke to him very bitterly and harshly. Since then the subject has not been mentioned between us; nevertheless, it has been a cloud on all our married life. I would not be telling you all this so frankly, Dolly, if I did not want you to understand Elizabeth fully, and to help her. She is honest as the day. I often feel hungry for her affection. I shall never be satisfied without it, but the manner in which I came here rendered it impossible for me to win her love."

Mrs. Newby paused again, and Dolly waited in growing bewilderment.

"The winter after Elizabeth's mother died, Mr. Newby went west on business. He met me there. He was lonesome, and we were congenial in many ways. He came west several times, and we became engaged. We were married quietly the next summer. There were no invitations because of my mother's recent death; we sent announcement cards, but that was all. Of course, I knew that John had been married before, and that he had a daughter. What I did not know was that his wife had been dead less than a year, and that Elizabeth knew nothing of his marriage. Dolly, I believe that many men are cowards in their own families. I cannot imagine why my husband acted as he did. I can see Elizabeth's startled, shocked face yet, as her father took me into the house and told her that he had brought her a new mother."

"Hadn't the servants told her?"

"They did not know of it either, Dolly, as I learned later. The child then was shocked and stunned. She said very little, but I heard her cry herself to sleep that night and countless nights afterward. A little tact would have saved all the trouble. If she had been told kindly and tenderly beforehand, that her father was lonely, and that he was going to bring me here--not to be a mother to Elizabeth--but to be a friend and helper to them both, there would have been no trouble. As it was, the child was too hurt ever to care for me. My chance of winning her affection had been lost. Had things been different, there would have been no trouble. Had she been old enough then to understand matters, I should have told her the truth. But she was too young then. Can you wonder, Dolly, that I felt bitter and heartsick that night? I spoke very angrily to John, and that did not mend matters in the least."

Dolly slipped her hand into Mrs. Newby's. "I am so dreadfully sorry, for it all seems to me to have been so needless. I hardly see why Mr.

Newby did not tell both you and Beth everything."

"He was afraid to tell Elizabeth, my dear, for he felt at a disadvantage with her. He did not want to take the time and patience necessary to make her see the subject from his standpoint. In fact, he meant to have his own way, and he did not mean to run any chance of obstacles being placed in his path. He was afraid to tell me the truth for fear I would insist upon delaying our marriage, and I certainly should have done so. Had we waited a little, and had Elizabeth come to visit me first, my married life would have been a very different thing. John had his own way, but I think that he found that it hardly paid in the end.

Selfishness does not pay in the long run, Dolly."

"I wonder, Mrs. Newby, that you never explained things to Beth when she grew older."

"As I said, Dolly, she was too young at first to tell her the facts of the case. She was merely hurt and heartbroken then. As she grew older and comprehended the situation better, she judged me more harshly. How could she believe I had married her father in less than a year from the time of her mother's death without knowing that fact, and how could she know, too, that I had supposed her to be a mere baby, not older than Nell, at most, whose love could be won after our marriage instead of before, as should have been the case with her? There has never been a time when I felt that I could tell her, and yet, in justice to myself, I wish that she knew."

"Won't you tell her now, Mrs. Newby? I do wish you would."

"It is too late," Mrs. Newby said despairingly. "One cannot alter the habits and feelings of years at a moment's notice."

"But still--"

"Never mind, Dolly, I understand now--for I was guilty of listening. I did it purposely, Mother--I couldn't help it. Will you forgive me? When I came back, you had commenced to talk to Dolly, and I heard my name. I stopped, for I wanted to hear what you were saying; it was a dreadful thing for me to do, of course, but I'm not a bit sorry. I am awfully stupid to have lived with you all these years, and yet to have supposed you were such a person as I have always pictured you in my thoughts. I wonder if you are going to forgive me at this late day--"

And then Dolly slipped out of the room, glad to the inmost depths of her heart that things were getting "straightened out" as she phrased it.

Mr. Newby had had two sensitive natures with which to deal in the days gone by, and he had not appreciated the fact in the least. One of the persons had been only a child, and he had not counted on her as being a definite influence at all. _There_ he had made a great mistake.

Even after his marriage, however, if he could have had the courage to tell his story frankly to Beth, and confess his loneliness to her, she would have viewed the matter in a different light. Mrs. Newby knew that in his so doing, lay her only hope of winning the child's heart; but she was proud, too, and if he would not do this voluntarily, she would not beg him to do it. And so, during all these years, for lack of the word never spoken, she and Beth had missed the mutual love and helpfulness which they might have given each other, and which would have made their lives so much sweeter and brighter.

Despite the accident of the afternoon, the evening party was a great success, and Beth, much to her open disgust, found herself regarded as something of a heroine.

Once during the course of the evening, Mr. Newby heard Beth address his wife as "Mother." A new light had come into his eyes at the time, and a look of quiet determination. The look was still there when he sought his wife in the library after their young guests had gone.