"Oh, mother, it doesn't seem as if so many lovely things should come to me!"

"Why not, when you have been in the desert all these years?"

They clasped each other in a fond embrace. Oh, was it really true that she was a daughter of the house, that she had a right to the love and care? Could she ever give enough to repay?

There was a stir down stairs and some merry voices. Major Crawford rejoined his wife presently.

"The two Chichester girls to see if the children are sure to go to the Van Ordens, though I think their eagerness is most for Will," laughing.

"His gay time will soon be over. Zay's as well. Next week school will begin, and Marguerite must come under rules. The chief one is that there is no frollicking until Friday evening, no holiday until Sat.u.r.day."

"Oh, I wish girls did not have to grow up so fast. Think how soon they will be sixteen," bemoaned the mother.

"I kept another birthday," said Marguerite. "I am glad to go back even the few months."

"You look as if you were beginning to feel at home," said her father.

"Oh, I hope we shall have many, many happy years together."

Marguerite's heart was too full to reply. She looked at him with eyes like her mother's, only they were a little deeper.

Zay came flying up stairs.

"Have I neglected you all the afternoon? We found a bad rent in my pretty frock and Aunt Kate had to change the skirt. Then I wanted to write some letters and the days are so short."

She kissed her mother rapturously; then went and sat on her father's knee.

"And the Chichesters want us to dinner tomorrow and a little dance afterward. It is Will's last nibble at pleasure. Oh, why didn't you make him choose some real business, you naughty father, so he could have stayed at home like a respectable citizen."

"And had a sweetheart. Then what would you have done?"

"Looked up a sweetheart also. Oh, must he go Wednesday night?"

"Think what a nice long holiday he has had!"

"And think of three desolate years!"

"They may be more desolate for us than for him. But it was his choice."

He entered the room just then. Had Marguerite found any special entertainment? What had Zay been doing?

"Oh, writing letters. Marguerite be glad you have not forty dear friends who are crying write, write all the time."

No there was only one person she had written to. That was Sally Weeks at Laconia, and if Sally answered--well, she was lame on spelling, if she had a good generous heart.

Zay and her aunt had done something beside writing and mending the party frock. They had discussed Marguerite.

"Well," Aunt Kate had said with a long and rather unwilling accent, "she might have been worse. Her table manners are pa.s.sable. I do suppose she has picked up a good deal at Mrs. Barrington's. But she has a rather uncertain air, and we shall have to hunt her up some clothes. I must talk to your mother about it."

"Oh, dear, what a fuss there will be at school; I wish it was all over!

I do wonder what Louie Howe will say! We had some talks--well, I could see how some of the girls felt."

"I think that was very natural. I suppose she _was_ presuming."

"No, she wasn't," returned Zay with heightened color. "I want to be fair to her for she _is_ my sister. I think I'd rather be an only daughter, but father will be just as fond of me, I am sure. I don't know about the boys; but then Vincent won't be home until next summer. I suppose we'll all go to West Point. Of course, I couldn't well have stayed with mother this afternoon, so I don't mind her being there--"

"Zay you are very generous and unsuspecting. I should be sorry to have any influence undermine your love. You have been all to your mother."

"But I can't be all now, I see that. Still I'll have you, aunt Kate, and I won't give up my place in her heart. Oh, trust me to keep that."

Aunt Kate was anxious for her favorite and though she did not mean to be ungenerous, she could not so cordially rejoice. If the girl had been awkward or underbred, she could have taken her in hand with a good grace. But she was not likely to ask anything of her.

Dinner was a rather more elaborate meal. It did seen odd to wait for some one to help to the smallest thing and she wondered how Mrs. Boyd would feel to have some one standing at her back and antic.i.p.ating her wishes before they were hardly formulated. But there was a certain dignity and pleasure in it with no jar or awkwardness. How did she come to take to it naturally? She did not seem to feel embarra.s.sed, and how lovely the room looked with the lights and the still hanging Christmas greens.

When Zaidee came in to wish her mother good-night, she did indeed look like a fairy being. Her frock was some soft, diaphanous stuff over a pale green slip, some of her curls were tied up high on her head and the ribbon and that of her sash matched. Three strings of pearl beads were about her white throat. Marguerite smiled to herself--Miss Nevins would call that very poor party attire.

"Don't stay late," Major Crawford said to his son.

"Oh, we couldn't," declared Zay laughing. "It's a school girls' 'Small and early.' We begin at eight and the musicians depart at ten and we go to refreshments, and by eleven,

"'The lights are fled the music dead, And all of us departed.'"

"That is just as it should be," declared aunt Kate, "if you wish to keep roses and bright eyes for pleasure later on."

Zay kissed her parents. Marguerite was sitting a little out of range, but Willard bent over and gave her a tender good-night. Then aunt Kate wrapped her niece in a lovely evening cloak trimmed with white fox and drew the hood up carefully, and the carriage soon whisked them to their destination.

"Oh, how beautiful she looks!" Marguerite exclaimed involuntarily.

The mother smiled tenderly.

"Zaidee has grown up with her beauty," said the father. "I used to be afraid aunt Kate would spoil her and lead her to think beauty was the great thing to strive for, but she takes it as a matter of course. I hope she will be as indifferent about it when she is grown to womanhood, for nothing destroys the charm like that ultraconsciousness and the bid for admiration. So many things beside beauty of feature go to make up the charm of an interesting woman."

She must be interesting, Marguerite thought. There were so many delightful qualities one could cultivate. Mrs. Barrington was charming, and Miss Arran had so many nice quiet ways, that she had insensibly copied; her low toned voice, her never seeming to hurry and yet going about any matter as if it was the first thing to be done; her little orderly methods. She kept her mother's room neat, she put the books back in their places; there was a cl.u.s.ter of autumn leaves in a vase, or a sprig of spruce or cedar that for a long while would put forth new leaves. She was very glad now that she had taken so much pains. Was she rather unpolished when they had first come from Laconia. But her circle there was so different.

She told over only the best of it when her father asked about her life there. Wasn't this what Willard had meant and she had resented? She would try not to be ashamed of the poor and plain living since it was the best Mrs. Boyd could give; but she knew even then she was longing and planning for something better.

And a room like this for her very own! She liked it better because her very own brother had planned it for her. She looked over some of the books and above his name he had written--"For my Sister Marguerite." And she was glad with a sense of mystery she did not care to fathom that her mother's room was between her and Zaidee's.

What a long day it had been. Yet in a certain sense happy, as happy as any strange beautiful place with a father and mother,--the latter she had not even dreamed of when she had thought a father might be found.

Oh, she must be very grateful to G.o.d for sending her here where the tangle could be resolved in such an honorable manner and she must try to be worthy of all the love lavished upon her. The whole world broadened and she was part of the higher life. She was looking up to the hill tops where human endeavors must aspire even though there were failures, and to the west over beyond the land of eternal love and golden fruition.

CHAPTER XVI

OUT OF HER LOYALTY

Mrs. Van Orden's residence was large and handsome and a-light from top to bottom. There were three daughters from seventeen to thirteen. They had always been very friendly with the Crawfords, and this gathering was a good deal in honor of the young midshipman who was so soon to go on his first cruise of three years.