"Mr. Jack went abroad for a year, and it was soon after he came back that they had the trouble. I happened to pa.s.s the library door one evening when I heard Miss Frances say, 'If you have no regard for my wishes perhaps you had better provide for yourself in the future--' and he answered back as cool as you please, 'Thank you for suggesting it, Aunt Frances; I have been an idler on your bounty quite too long.' I never forgot those words. They didn't either of them mean what they said, but were too proud to take it back. Miss Frances had never denied him anything, and had more than enough for both, yet it was natural for her to think he ought to go her way.

"I never knew any more about it, except that Mr. Jack came to my room to tell me he was going, with a face as white as a sheet. He had some property of his own, though not much, for his grandfather made way with almost everything before he died--no one knew how. He had softening of the brain, brought on by grief.

"The next I knew Mr. Jack sent me a paper with a notice of his marriage.

Mrs. Morrison was the daughter of one of the professors in the college where he went. But--" Caroline concluded, with a sigh of content, "it is all right now, and maybe it has all been for the best."

"I suppose they'll be going away soon?" said Mrs. Bond.

"Yes, Mr. Morrison and his wife are going to New York, and Frances is coming to stay with us."

Emma listened to this story with breathless interest. It seemed to her quite the most natural and suitable thing that such good fortune should come to Frances, but it made her feel sorrowful to think she was going away.

After their visitor had gone Mrs. Bond said, as she folded her work: "Now, Emma, I do not want you to be foolish. Make up your mind not to see anything of Frances after this, and you'll not be disappointed."

"Why, mother?"

"Because they are rich and we are poor, and it is not to be expected that they will care for your society. I never go where I am not wanted, and I do not choose to have you. Understand, I am not saying anything against the Morrisons. Frances is a nice child, and her mother is very pleasant and kind, but you can't change the world; birds of a feather will flock together."

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIRST.

OVERHEARD BY PETERKIN.

Peterkin was taking a nap in one corner of the big sofa in the hall. It was a delightful spring afternoon and everybody was out; he knew this, for he had seen them go. First Miss Moore hurried away with some books under her arm; next Frances danced downstairs, followed by her father and mother; a little later Emma and the General started out for a walk; and last of all came Miss Sherwin, and sat beside him while she put on her gloves.

She stroked him gently for a minute before she left, and, bending over him till her face touched his soft fur, said, "Oh, p.u.s.s.y, p.u.s.s.y! so many things are happening, and it's going to be so lonely. It must be nice to be a cat."

Peterkin rubbed his head sympathetically against her hand, for her tone was sad. He had had confidences made to him before and knew how to receive them. He understood it all as well as if she had spent hours in the telling, an advantage a cat possesses over a human confidant.

He had been dozing undisturbed for a long time when he heard the door open again, and a man's voice he did not recognize say: "How fortunate that I met you! I seem to have had the wrong number."

It was Miss Sherwin who replied, "I am very much surprised; I did not know you were in this part of the country."

Then they came and sat on the sofa, and the stranger, who, Peterkin saw, was a pleasant looking young fellow, said he had been back only a short time. "I stopped in Maryville a day, and then at home for two more," he added.

"You have been to Maryville?" Miss Sherwin's voice showed surprise.

Then she began to ask questions about the people there, and to talk of the delightful weather, in all of which her companion seemed to feel little interest. Presently there came a silence.

The young man leaned forward, one elbow on his crossed knee that he might the better look into Miss Sherwin's face, the light in the hall being a little dim. "Lillian," he began, "in this past year I have had a good deal of time for thinking, and naturally our--disagreement has been often in my mind. When I last saw you I thought it was all over forever, and though I had come to look at it differently in these months--feeling that perhaps there had been a mistake--still I don't know that I ever--that is-- I mean the possibility of undoing it never occurred to me till I was on my way home. I hope you don't mind listening to this; I'll try to be brief.

"Perhaps you know I got my position in March,--the one I had been hoping and working for,--and with it the opportunity to come East for a month or two. I can't say I wanted very much to come. The thought of our old plans made it rather bitter, but I owed it to the people at home.

"Not to make the story too long, I picked up on the train a magazine belonging to one of my fellow travellers, and read a little story. It was called 'The Missing Bridge,' and was a sort of fairy story. It seems rather absurd, but there was something in it that impressed me strangely. It was the thought that even when people seem hopelessly separated from each other, if they are brave enough and true enough to try, they will find a way across all barriers.

"I may not be making this clear, for you have not read the story; but you will understand me when I say it made me feel unwilling to have anything I may have said or done in the past, stand between us now; I was to blame for much of the quarrel, and I am sorry for it all. I know how clever you are,--they were all talking about it in Maryville,--and it may seem only a foolish dream to you now, but I want to tell you--"

he paused with his eyes on the floor, as if afraid to read his answer in the face beside him.

It was very still in the hall, and, when he looked up after a moment, Lillian had bowed her head in her hands.

"I don't want to pain you," he began.

"O Aleck!" she cried, putting out one hand, "it was _my_ story!"

At this point Peterkin, seeing matters were likely to be settled satisfactorily, and feeling no interest in details, dozed off again. The next thing he knew the gas was lit, and Mr. Morrison was saying, "Why, how are you, Carter? Delighted to see you. Where did you come from? Let me present you to Mrs. Morrison," and Miss Sherwin, with a becoming color in her face, was explaining that Mr. Carter was an old friend, and they were all talking and laughing at once in the absurd way people have sometimes, so that it was next to impossible to understand anything.

When Mr. Carter left, after declining the Morrisons' invitation to spend the evening, Peterkin followed him out on the porch to get a little air.

The Spectacle Man, coming in from a walk, found him sitting there, looking like some dignified old Quaker in his gray coat and white necktie.

Mrs. Morrison slipped her hand into Miss Sherwin's as they went upstairs. "Am I right in what I guess?" she whispered.

"How could you know it?" Lillian asked, with an answering clasp.

"My dear, if you could see your face!--but I felt certain he would come!"

"O Miss Sherwin!" called Mr. Morrison, who, with Frances, had lingered at the door, "your acquaintance with Mr. Carter partly explains something that puzzled me. I was struck with the resemblance between him and the young farmer in the first ill.u.s.tration in your story. Did he sit for the portrait?"

"Jack, you must be dreaming!" his wife exclaimed.

"I don't understand at all," Lillian said, in great confusion.

"Could it possibly have been accidental?" A mischievous light shone in Mr. Morrison's eyes.

His wife shook her head at him, but Frances ran off to find the magazine. Miss Sherwin recovered herself, and explained with a great deal of dignity that, if it were so, it was quite accidental. That she had known Mr. Carter since they were children, and was, of course, very familiar with his face; then she said good evening, and left them.

"Very well done," Mr. Morrison exclaimed.

"Why, where is Miss Lillian," asked Frances, coming back; "I want to show her the picture. It is like Mr. Carter."

"Not now, dear,--another time," said her mother; adding, "You were aching to tease her, Jack, and I am glad she did not give you an opportunity."

Mr. Morrison laughed. "I suppose congratulations are next in order. It is at least a natural inference when you find a young man's image so deeply graven upon the heart of a young woman that she unconsciously reproduces it in her drawing."

"I am sure he is to be congratulated," remarked Mrs. Morrison.

"Unless I am very much mistaken, so is she," her husband added.

Frances was listening with wide-open eyes. "Is Miss Sherwin going to be married to Mr. Carter?"

"I shouldn't be a bit surprised, Wink, if she were," replied her father, "but you and I are supposed to know nothing about it."

CHAPTER TWENTY-SECOND.