So it came to pa.s.s that on the Sunday after the Packards' arrival, Miss Clarice Packard, rustling into her father's pew in all the conscious glory of a flowered organdie muslin and the biggest hat in town, found in the corner of the pew something that made her open her pale blue eyes wider than usual. It was a large heart of red sugar, tied round with a true-lover's knot of white satin ribbon. Looking round, she became aware of a pair of eyes fixed eagerly on her, the brightest eyes she had ever seen. They belonged to a little girl--well, not so very little, either; rather a tall girl, on the whole, but evidently very young--sitting across the aisle. This girl was ridiculously dressed, Miss Packard thought, with no style at all about her; and yet, somehow--well, she was pretty, certainly. It seemed to be one of the best pews in the church. Her mother--that must be her mother--was "real stylish," certainly, though her gown was too plain; and, after all, the girl had style, too, in her way. It would be nice to have some one to speak to in this dreadful, poky little place that "Puppa" would insist on bringing her to. The idea of his not trusting her to stay alone at the boarding-house! Clarice had wept tears of vexation at being "cruelly forced," as she said, to come with her father to Hilton. She had called it a hole, and a desert, and everything else that her rather scanty vocabulary could afford. But now, here was a pretty little girl, who looked as if she were somebody, evidently courting her acquaintance. There was no mistaking the eager, imploring gaze of the clear hazel eyes. Clarice nodded slightly, and smiled. The younger girl flushed all over, and her face seemed to quiver with light in a way different from anything Clarice had ever seen. There might be some fun here, after all, if she had a nice little friend who would adore her, and listen to all her stories, which the other girls were sometimes disagreeable about.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "MISS CLARICE PACKARD RUSTLED INTO HER FATHER'S PEW."]

Two people in church, that Sunday, heard little of the excellent sermon. Sue could not even take her usual interest in the great east window, which was generally her mainstay through the parts of the sermon she could not follow. To begin with, there were the figures that made the story; but these were so clear and simple that they really said less, when once one knew the story by heart, than some other features. There were the eight blue scrolls that looked almost exactly like knights' helmets; and when you looked at them the right way, the round blue dots underneath made the knights' eyes; and there you had them, all ready for tournaments or anything. Scruples of conscience obliged Sue to have them always Templars or Knights of Malta, and they only fought against infidels. One of the knights had lost an eye; and the number of ways and places in which he had lost it was amazing: Saladin had run a lance into it at Acre; he had been tilting, just for fun, with Tancred, and Tancred hit him by mistake and put his eye out; and so on and so on. Then, there were the jewels, high up in the window; the small, splendid spots of ruby and violet and gold, which Sue was in the habit of taking out and making into jewels for her own adornment. The tiara of rubies, the long, dangling ear-rings of crystal set in gold, the necklace of sapphires--how often had she worn them to heart's content! And to-day she did, indeed, make use of them, but it was to adorn her new beauty, her new friend. She would bring them all to Clarice! She would put the tiara on her head, and clasp the necklace round her slender neck, and say, "All is yours!" And then she, Sue, would go by dale and would go by down with a single rose in her hair, just like Lady Clare; but Clarice would call her back and say: "Beloved, let us share our jewels and our joys!"

Oh! Sue quivered at the thought, and looked so brightly and earnestly at the minister that the good old man was surprised and pleased, and said to himself that he should hardly have supposed his comments on Ezra would so impress even the young and, comparatively speaking, thoughtless!

When Clarice Packard came out of church, she found her would-be acquaintance dimpling and quivering on the door-step.

"Hallo!" said Clarice, with kind condescension, just exactly as she had done when Sue waked her up, in the dream!

"Hallo!" whispered Sue, in a rapturous whisper. This, she told herself, was the great moment of her life. Till now she had been a child; now she was--she did not stop to explain what, and it might have been difficult.

"Did you put this in my pew?" the new-comer went on, secretly displaying the sugar heart. Sue nodded, but could not trust herself to speak.

"It was just perfectly sweet of you!" said Clarice. "I'm real glad to have somebody to speak to; I was feeling real homesick."

Sue was dimly conscious that it was not good English to say "real" in that way; but perhaps people did say it in New York; and in any case, she could not stop to think of such trifles. She was in a glow of delight; and when Clarice asked her to walk down the street with her, the cup of happiness seemed br.i.m.m.i.n.g over. She, Sue Penrose, who had never in her life been out of Hilton, except now and then to go to Chester, the neighboring town--she was the one chosen by this wonderful stranger, this glittering princess from afar, to walk with her.

Sue did not see Mary at first. At length she became aware of her, gazing in wonder, and she gave a little quick, rapturous nod. There was no time to explain. She could only catch Mary's hand, in pa.s.sing, and give it a squeeze, accompanied by a look of intense, dramatic significance. Mary would see, would understand.

Of course Mary would share her treasure, her new joy, sooner or later; but just now she could not surrender it to any one, not even to Mary.

As Clarice pa.s.sed her arm through hers, Sue straightened her slight figure, and looked as if the world were at her feet. And so they pa.s.sed down the street; and Mary, left alone for the first time since she could remember, stood in the church porch and looked after them.

CHAPTER III

MARY'S VIEW

"Mammy, I have seen her!"

"Well, Mary dear?"

"Oh, Mammy, it isn't well! It isn't a bit well; it's just horrid! I don't like her a bit, and I never shall like her, I know."

Mrs. Hart made room beside her on the wide sofa in the corner of which she sat knitting. "Come and tell me, dear!" she said comfortably. "Let us take the trouble out and look at it; it may be smaller than you think. Tell Mammy all about it!"

Mary drew a long breath, and rubbed her head against her mother's arm.

"Oh, Mammy, you do smooth me out so!" she said. "I feel better already; perhaps it isn't quite so bad as it seems to me, but I'm afraid it is. Well, I told you how they made friends?"

"Yes; Sue put a red sugar heart in the corner of the Packard pew, and she and the little girl--she isn't little? well, then, the big girl--made eyes at each other all through the service, and fell upon each other's neck afterward. My dear, it wasn't the thing to do, of course; but Sue meant no harm, and it was a truly Susannic proceeding.

What came next?"

"You know I was busy all day Monday, helping you with the strawberry-jam. Well, they were together all day; and yesterday, when I went over to see Sue, she was at the hotel with Clarice, and had been invited to stay to dinner. I stayed and played with Lily, who seemed pretty forlorn; and I kept hoping Sue would come back; but she didn't. Mammy!"

"Yes, dear."

"I _do_ think Lily has a forlorn time! You spoke to me about it once, and I said then I didn't think so. I--I think it was just that I didn't see, then; now I do!"

Mrs. Hart patted Mary's arm, but said nothing; and the girl went on:

"Well, then, this morning, about an hour ago, Sue came flying over in the wildest excitement. Clarice Packard was there at her house, and I must come over that very minute. She was the dearest and loveliest creature in the world; and we must love each other, too; and we should be three hearts that beat as one; and she never was so happy in her life! You must have heard her, Mammy; all this was in the front entry, and she was swinging on the door all the time she was talking; she hadn't time to let go the handle, she said."

"Yes, I heard; but I was busy, and did not notice much. She seemed to be rather unusually 'quicksilvery,' I thought. And did you fly over with her?"

"Why, no; I was just going to feed the dogs,--I promised the boys I would, because they wanted to go fishing early,--and I had the chickens to see to, and I couldn't go that minute. I oughtn't to have gone at all, Mammy, for you needed me, though you would say you didn't. Well, Sue went off quite huffy; but when I did go over, she forgot all about it, and was all beaming and rippling. She _is_ a darling, if she does provoke me sometimes! She flew downstairs to meet me, and hugged me till I had no breath left, and almost dragged me upstairs to her room. She was out of breath as well as I, and she could only say: 'Oh, Clarice, this is Mary! Mary, this is Clarice Packard, my new friend. She doesn't care a bit about being two years older than we are! And now we shall all three be friends, like--like the Dauntless Three, don't you know? Oh, isn't this splendid! Oh, I never was so happy in my life!'

"Mammy, Clarice Packard didn't look as if she had ever heard of the Dauntless Three! but she smiled a little, thin smile, and opened her eyes at me, and said, 'So glad!' I shook hands, of course, and her hand just flopped into mine, all limp and froggy. I gave it a good squeeze, and she made a face as if I had broken her bones."

"You have a powerful grip, you know, Mary! Everybody isn't used to wrestling with boys; you probably did hurt her."

"I know, Mammy; I suppose I did squeeze too hard. Well! Sue had been showing her everything--all _our_ things, that we play with together.

She didn't say much,--well, perhaps she could not have said very much, for Sue was talking all the time,--but I felt--Mammy, I felt sure that she didn't really care about any of them. I know she laughed at the telephone, because I saw her.

"'I have a real telephone in my room at home,' she said, 'a long-distance one. My dearest friend lives in Brooklyn, and we have a line all to ourselves. Puppa is one of the directors, you know, and I told him I couldn't have other people listening to what Leonie and I said to each other, so he gave us a private line.' Mammy, do you believe that? I don't!"

"I cannot say, my dear!" said Mrs. Hart, cautiously. "It sounds unlikely, but I cannot say it is not true. Go on."

"I think Sue had been showing Clarice her dresses before I came, for the closet door was open, and her pink gingham was on the bed; and presently Clarice said: 'Have you any jewelry?'

"Sue ran and brought her box, and took out all her pretty little things. You know what pretty things Sue has, Mammy! You remember the blue mosaic cross her G.o.dmother sent her from Italy, with the white dove on it, and the rainbow-sh.e.l.l necklace, and that lovely enameled rose-leaf pin with the pearl in the middle?"

"Yes; Sue has some very pretty trinkets, simple and tasteful, as a child's should be. Mrs. Penrose has excellent taste in all such matters. Sue must have enjoyed showing them to a new person."

"Dear Sue! she was so pleased and happy, she never noticed; but I could see that that girl was just laughing at the things. Of course none of them are showy--I should hope not!--but you would have thought they were nothing but make-believe, the way she looked at them. She kept saying, 'Oh, very pretty! quite sweet!' and then she would open her eyes wide and smile; and Sue just quivered with delight every time she did it. Sue thinks it is perfectly beautiful; she says it is Clarice's soul overflowing at her eyes. _I_ want to shake her every time she does it. Well, then she said in a sort of silky voice she has--Sue calls it 'silken,' and I call it 'silky'; and I think, somehow, Mammy, that shows partly the way she strikes us both, don't you?--she said in that soft, silky way, 'Any diamonds, dear?' Of course she knew Sue had no diamonds! The idea! I never heard anything so ridiculous. And when Sue said no, she said: "I wish I had brought my chain; I should like to show it to you. Puppa thought it hardly safe for me to bring it down here into the backwoods, he said. It goes all round my neck, you know, and reaches down to my belt. It cost a thousand dollars.' Mammy, do you believe that?"

"I don't think it at all likely, my dear! I am afraid Clarice is given to romancing. But of course she may have a good deal of jewelry. Some very rich people who have not just our ideas about such matters often wear a great many jewels--more than we should like to wear, even if we had the means. But people of good taste would never allow a young girl to wear diamonds."

"I should think not, Mammy! Clarice Packard had no diamonds on, but her hands were just covered with rings--rather cheap, showy rings, too. There was one pretty one, though, that took Sue's fancy greatly, and mine too, for that matter. It was a ring of gold wire, with a tiny gold mouse running loose round it--just loose, Mammy, holding on by its four little feet. Oh, such a pretty thing! Sue was perfectly enchanted with it, and could not give over admiring it; and at last Clarice took it off, and put it on Sue's finger, and said she must wear it a little while for her sake. I wish, somehow, Sue had said no; but she was so happy, and 'quicksilvered' all over so, it was pretty to see her. She threw her arms round Clarice's neck, and told her she was a dear, beautiful, royal darling. Then Clarice whispered something in Sue's ear, and looked at me out of the corner of her eye, and Sue colored and looked distressed; and--and so I came away, Mammy dear, and here I am!"

"Rather hot, and a little cross?" said Mrs. Hart.

"Yes, Mammy."

"And with a sore spot in your heart?"

"Yes, Mammy."

Mrs. Hart put down her knitting and held out her arms, and Mary curled up in her lap, and tried to shorten her long legs and make herself as small as might be.

"You know what I am afraid of, Mammy!" she said.

Her mother nodded, and pressed the comforting arms closer round her little girl, but said nothing.

"I am afraid I am going to lose my Sue, my own Sue, who has always belonged to me. It doesn't seem as if I could bear it, Mammy. It has come--so--don't you know?--so all of a sudden! We never thought anything could possibly come between us. I never should think of wanting any one but Sue, and I thought--it was the same--with her.

And--and now--she does not see herself how it is, not a bit; she is just as sweet and loving as ever, and she thinks that I can start right in as she has done, and love this girl, and that there will be three of us instead of two. Mammy, it cannot be. You see that, I'm sure; of course you do! And--and I am very sad, Mammy."