The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, July 21, 1901, Page 5

THREEC OF he Unitea States of Amere by D. T. Pierce.) HERE were three of us. The date story is in the dark ages, cycles were in fashion. and railway only came as far 1; and in those da eight miles from the e mile and a half-off vou had to stay a good were put. < I began by saying, three t. There were oniy which I mean to say, only three 1 level, for though the Park and knew the re me soc hey did not count for , and besidey were often farmers’ daughters and ple, of course, we did We three, then, were sitting on the stile outside Cooper's Wood. talking about our 1 For it was a cold, sun- April, and we had been and anemones. Of ere are only three of you, see each other every day, you er everything. We thought that ng to do, but then we had there was. We taught we decorated the nd managed the choir and looked e sh. We trimmed each oth- er's hats, and invited each other to go for long walks. Sometimes we took each other into Longford in the donkey cart. We tried experiments in making cakes, end asked each other to tea to eat them. read eac , and all our fdeas were o We were very #0, but sometim talk ov there was no to do eve at is, we thought ~now—on a spring day when the light lasts long, and the air blows cold, and primroses are being sold in the street, I feel balf inclined to alter the old proverb and say, “Oh, the amus. ing old days when we used to be dull? T've never talked as much, nor laughed as much, nor taken such a wild intcrest in my life as 1 did then. One or other of us used sometimes to si r a “great * We didn’t know we were “great * to each other. We were only 1 don’t know if we were like , because I never nad a sister, but e certainly like schoolfellows, yme and affectionate, and crit- 1 intimat girls are at school. nk either of us sighed for a all éxpected one In due time, the eldest of us, was only 2 and I had not long turned 19, e going to be trimmed high,” “I have seen it in the Queen 't have ours too sho and le in the village.” y proper girl. about appearances, and our Mrs. Grundy. Kitty wa ow and lazy, but then she was you could always fall i she was mever cross or May always sald that though 1 never knew how to carry somebody, however, must be- th and 1 don’t believe that out me she and Kitty would have s0 much to carry out. It was I who rions She al- back on her urry. thought of having a working party for the girls who had left school—though Kitty cut outthe work and May looked them up and read aloud at the meetings. 1 knew they did it; but they never would have done it without me. And everything thz gan to happen on that day when And we sat on the stile began with me. @s 1 bad the blamé I may as well have the ci it for it. The reason why we had so much “say" in the parish was that our rector, Mr. Courtland, was elderly and a widower with no children. None of us could re- he member his coming to Mirehurst, but came there alone. The people were fond of him, and he knew them all v well; but nobody could say that we were a “highly organized” parish, and when we went to school treats or choir festi- vals in the neighboring parishes our feel- ings were hurt because we had so few new plans at work at Mirehurs However, as we alwa id, we did what we could. There never was any- thing like a squabble in our parish, and everybody was glad when the rector, in his shabby old coat and hat, dropped in upon them. Sometimes, indeed, he went up to see the Bishop or to visit at the k, and then he wore a tall hat and a coat of such beautiful smooth, glossy cloth as I never see any one wear now. Then no Archbishop could have looked more ecclesiastical. He had been at col- lege with Lord Fayhurst, who gave him the living; they were friends. Altogether he belonged to the ‘“county”—there was no mistake about that. We didn’t exactl Kitty's cousins did in another county—but her mother was widow, and they lived in Mirehurs cause it was cheap. May was the doc tor's eldest daughter, and my father was Loru Fayhurst’s agent, and I had five brothers at school—so, though of course we knew the Ladies Gresham and the Sinclairs at High Court and went to their garden partlies and now and then to a Christmas dance, for real comfortable equal companionship we had nobody but each other. “I'm sure, Ma; I remarked, u be- gan to come to church in a hat because Lady Lucy did. Every one must copy some one. We shouldn’t like loud looking things ourselves and if our new things are pretty enough to be noticed, if I was Kate fe Canton, I'm sure I “It's quite different. Of course said May. the village girls will imitate us, and I do think the Home Farm girls get them- we seives up ridiculously. So, as I say, should be quiet and correct. “I think the Heme Farm girls get very pretiy things,” said Kitty. *“In spite of the Queen and paper patterns it's awfully hard to make a dress nicely. “It takes up £0 much time,” said May. ‘Grace Curtis is worse than no good,” T said, “and Miss Lowe at Longford is so expensive.” “We shall really want some nice things this summer. Besides the usual garden parties, there s to be the Duncombe Bazaar and Fred Sinclair's coming of age,” sald Kitty. We were silent. 1 remember that an early nightingale stepped into the breach and sang madly against a background of rooks, hawks and wood-pigeons. Those sweet noises make my heart thrill now- adays, but then they were so natural that 1 hardly noticed them. Waggy, our ter- rier puppy, barked at the nightingale. Wagzgy ought to*have been a Skye, but he t. He had a lovely face, but his legs were t0o long, and his tail curled like that of a pig. Waggy lived at May’s home. I adored him, and he preferred Kitty, and generally “boarded” round; so, like most other things, he was really “ours.” “I've got an idea,” T sald suddenly. ‘l thought you had, you looked so silly,” said Kitty. “is it a new trimming?” said May, “or a new story?” (I made up stories some- times. o neither. There are going to be tweive dressmaking classes at Longford. ‘Why shouldn’t we go in the donkey cart?"* “Look here,” I went on, the idea devel- oping, “Gertrude Black sent me the pros- pectus. The teacher is a Miss Carteret, a lady dressmaker—that's a new thing, you know. They’re on Wednesday ufter- a noons at half-past 2. Ten shillings the set. Could we?” “\We should have to go without dinner. We couldn’t be at all certain of the Arab doing it in two hou We ought to allow three with putting him up at the Crown.” The Arab w the donkey's name. It poke stic.” He, too, was joint property. He belonged to my mother. The cart was Kitty's and the turnout was kept In a stable at Ma house. “But he would be quite sure, if we came at half-past 4, to get home in time h tea at T. hat’s all that mat- To make a long story short, we went. We could do commissions in Longford at the same time. There was a Longford carrier came out on Thursday: you or- dered things one week and he brought them to you the next. So if you wanted, say, a pound of sausage on a Friday you could not have it till Thursday week: The postman brought over small parcels for twopence each. It was before the parcels post, and we never ordered anything by letter. 1 don't know why. Dressmaking classes were quite a novelty, and cookery and ambulance ones had just been heard of. New ideas were stirring in the air. ‘We began to ask each other if we should like to “be anything,” but on the whole we admired ourselves for being content with our own village. And I would write stories and I thought of putting them in print. Miss Carteret was a tall, thin girl, with straight eyebrows, bright, gray-blue eyes and quantities of brown hair. She was very well dressed, and she was a brilliant teacher. We knew a little about teaching —we had to do it. May got up her facts by heart, Kitty taught out of a book, I— well, I came of a line of teachers—and. like Professor Owen I was a “bone ahead” of my class, I managed. But we had néver been really taught, and it set us all on fire. We ‘‘dress made’ at every spare minute—and though there werc three wet Wednesdays and the Arab took advantage of the mud to be slower than usual, we went every week. Once we lunched at the Blacks’ and met Miss Carteret, and felt her to be a new sort of being. We thought her dress a little too tasteful, her eyes a little too steady and her manners almost too free from awkwardness, but we thought and talked of no one else but the Lady Dressmaker. For she did dressmake as well as teach. Sometimes she ““went out to work,” as she called it, and then, she said, she “had very good times.” Odr own dressmaking quite ceased to give us any satlsfaction. May was ai- ways turning Kitty and me around and criticizing “the set of our backs,” and Kitty, who had always made up neat bows for trimming all exactly alike, quite even and with a great many stitches, tried one with one of its legs longer than the other, and didn’t like it. Then 1 had another idea. “Suppose,” 1 =aid on the fourth Wed- nesday on which the Arab took us in to Longford, ‘suppose we could get Miss Carteret to come out and stay with us for a’ fortnight and do up our thimgs. She might come in with us to the classes.” “Nora! What a first-class notlon! But where should she stay? “Well, there'd be more time at Kitty's if our boys came home for Easter. Would your mother, Kit—?" Mrs. Kestrell, Kitty's mother, always had things pretty and nice. They had a sweet little spare room. I used some- times to wish I could go away to live, and come back and stay In it, and as she was very indulgent and kind most of our experiments were tried at the cottage. We rushed in upon her, and propounded the idea, and rche came into it without @ifficulty. She “thought it was a very good plan.” My mother and May's made 0 objectton, so Kitty wrote a note to 1ss Carteret asking her to come back with us on the next Thursday, and she 1greed at once—with a warm expression »f pleasure. She was three or four years older than ve were, and though four people made a (ght fit for the donkey cart, and her box @d to stand on its head between us, she ecmed to enjoy the fun. She did not piud walking a good part of the way to get the Arab on, she told us to call her flelen, ana we were excellent friends’ by J~e time that we came trotting—no. [ L.cn't think that I can honestly s that he Arab trotted—but we came ambiing into the village and met the Rector tak- ing a stroll. We stopped. and at once In- troduced Miss Carteret to him, and he raised his hat and welcomed her in his dear, polite old way, but he looked rather hard at her, and she bilushed up all over \n & way that made her look very pretty. ‘We began by having a perfectly de- Mghtful time. May and I brought all our old clothes anl new materials down io Kitty's, and we planned and cogsulted and contrived. and Helen had lovely ideas for everything. Sae had read so much, too, and was so sympathetic. 1 showed her my story—the story—which was grow- ing slowly, pretty much as I grew, and she made good criticisms, and could tell me just the practical things which are so puzzling—such as what makes a will valid, and what you call a bishop if you want to speak to him. She was quite a woman of the world. The first thing that began the trouble was that a friend of Mr. Crofter's—have I said that May's name was Crofter— came down for the night, and sald to May: “Oh, T see that you have that pretty Miss Benson staying in the village.” “Not Miss Benton—Miss Carteret,” said May. “ She’'s a lady dressmaker.’ Well, it was very hard to convince him it was not Miss Benson, and when he was gone, and they mentioned it, Helen did look very odd. She turned quite pale, and sald likenesses were curious things. The next thing was that Miss Jones, who Is a horrid gossip, said that she had seen Helen in Hazelbridge copse talking to a young man. She knew her hat, she said. We all declared that we should not think of telling Helen anything so ridicu- lous, ang just then the Rector asked us all to tea, and tc see his tulips in flower. We went. He was always very kind, and we were fond of him, but with Helen he was more than a dear old thing; we saw that he was a fine, courtly gentle- man, and her way with him was lovely. He showed her all his pictures and books, and she looked at them and talked about them—just in the right way. We all liked her better than ever, and we went home ang worked on our colored muslin dresses for the bazaar. All this time 1 felt in an odd way as it Helen was speclally my property. We had more to say to each other. Dear Kitty ‘never talked much except about things in the village, and May was very decided in her opinions, and thought it wrong to ad- mire any book that was not just on the lines which we all thought correct. But Helen had read a great many other things and she made one think, and to be made to think, to have new thoughts given to one, 15 the greatest of all delights when one i{s young. One day I went into Hazelbridge copse to see if .the bluebells were out. The stalks of the primroses were pretty long, and the trees got greener every day. The nightingales were singing like mad. Mirehurst was a lovely place in spring. As I came up to the dell where the blue- bells opened first, there I saw Helen, standing under a young beech tree, and— yes—there was a strange young man by her side—a tall. handsome fellow he was. They were standing close together and talking very earnestly. I stopped short, and then, I don’t know if I did right or not—but I turned and ran away. I could not force myself on Helen's secrets, and 1 did not mean to betray them; but T felt sure that we should hear nothing of her friend. It felt very strange when I went down to Kitty's for our afternoon work.” I knew something that I did not mean to tell her and May. I knew they would think that I ought to have told them; but I simply could not. Helen was there, looking just as usual. She was nét a bit conscious or confused, whereas 1 could not help blushing and forgetting what I was going to say, till Mayv said: ““What is the matter, Nora? You look as if you had a secret. Has the Rector told you something about the parish tea? he could not mean you not to tell us. *“] don’t know anything about the par- ‘What nonsense!" “Do you tell each other everything?"” asked Helen, as she measured the distance tor the frills on May’'s skirt. “We've never had anything much that we didn’t want to tell, except, of course, about birthday presents and things of that sort,” sald Kitty. “We shouldn’t tell any one else's secrets,” I sald emphatically “I'm sure you're a loyal little person, Nora,” said Helen, “but I hope you'll never have secrets to keep or to tell,” Py = & ’ e N But she never sald a word about the young man. And then somehow the doubt grew. Mr. Crofter's friend, it ap- peared, wrote to say that he was quite sure that the girl we called Miss Carteret was really Miss Benson, that she lived with her mother in South Kensington, and Lad been daily governess in a family he knew. There was nothing against her, but she was certainly going under a false name—which was odd. And Miss Jones saw that young man again on the same day that I saw him. She suy him go Into the wood and come out of it, and she saw Helen come out by herself afterward. The mothers talked it over. My mother wanted to speak kindly to Helen and ask her it she had taken the name of Carteret Bs seeming more effective for professional Erpoxs_ Mrs. - Crofter wanted Mrs. strell to say that she had a visltor and » break up the arrangement, but Mrs. Kestrell, who was.very shy, could not m;mke up her mind to do anything. suppose I cught to have told mother wliat I had seen, but somehow I could not bring myself to do it. But Helen found out. T think Miss Jones spoke to her, and she must have seen that we were difterent and that all our happiness was gone. She came in cone day with flushed cheeks and eves that looked as if she had been crying and said that she was very sorry not to finish her engagement: but she 4 found that her mother wanted her and ghe must go back to London that evening. Bhe had been to the Crown, she said, and found out that she could get their little trap to take her to Longford in time for khe 5 o'clock train. And there was no outery. Mrs. Kestrell wolored up and murmured something mbout being sorry, but that was all. and Helen went out of the room. I ran after her, and she threw her arms around me Bnd cried and sobbed in a violent girlish way, then fled upstairs to her own room. I heard May and Kitty ccming, and I ran away down behind the raspberry canes and cried by myself. Oh gear, my by 1 Helen an “‘adventures indeed? ad read one or two novels about fascinating ** turesse: but I at!least had n ized that these superlative belngs were made of flesh and blood. . I believed with all my heart in Helen's self, in her eyes, in her tears, in all her frank, girlish talk—and yet—and false name, and secret mee young man? these? Helen would go. and we should ne eee her again; there would always be & dreadful memory left. I felt that I should never be able to wear any of the dresses over which we had laughed worked together, and that so should never like our innucent in the same way again. I cried bitterly and I prayed for Helen. I was always the naughtiest of us three. I did not vay unfailing attention im church as May did, and I had tempers that never disturbed Kitty. but I did pray then with all my heart, and I felt that there was some cne to hear me. Suddenly an idea darted into my mind. I would go and tell the Rector. If thers was a way of mercy anywhere he would find it. Indeed, we often thought him much too kind. He would let naughty children go to the school feast when we thought it mest injudicious of him to overlook their bad behavior. But, some- how, now, I felt that in that large mercy there was hope. And he- was wise, and a man who knew the world and could judge. I ran out at the side gate of Mrs. Kes- trell's garden and hurried along the lane to the rectory. Perhaps the Rector was in the garden, and, sure enough, there he was, walking along by his tall hedge, in his long shabby coat and soft hat, his fine old head bent a little, and his hands behind him. Somehow he looked lonely. lish life 1 did not wait to be frightened; I ran up to him and said: “Please, Mr. Courtland—" and the words would 10t come. . ) He took me by the hand and led me to the seat under the lilac trees, and then I found words und told him the story. He listened, with his kind, thoughtful eyes upon me, and he looked very grave— though his first words were kind. “She is indeed a sweet girl,” he said, and then he thought a little. “It does not scem to me that there is any adequate motive for a deception on this young lady's part. I think it would be kinder to question her on the point.” “Oh, yes—yes!" 1 said. “I do not see why a perhaps foolish but quite innocent construction should not be put on the young man's visits. But a false name? 1f Mr. Jex is not misled by a strong likenes “He says that he is quite sure it is Miss Benson,” I said, and the rector turned suddenly upon me. “Benson?" he sald, and all of a sudden his face was alive with feelings—feelings of his own, not thoughts for other people. “Yes, and she lives In South Kensing- ton with Mrs, Benson, her mother.” 5 “T will come and sce this young lady; said the Rector, and he set off down the path so fast that I had to run to keep up with him. He walked into the Kestrells’ garden and right up to Mrs. Kestrell. “I should be glad to speek to the young lady who is staying with you, alone,” he said. Mrs. Kestrell took him in% the drawing- , talking as she went, and Kitty and fell on me, and talked to me, and lded me, and wondered at me. We all sat on a bench at the end of the garden. 1 rememt the lock of it all, the polyan- es and the blossoms and Waggy barking at I know what room, because she She w. learned t came In And shaki old me afterward. nt down in a minute waen she at the Rector was there and she and shut the door. he just looked at her gnd said, 1son?" and she cried and flew right inte It S not moere than ten minutes be- fore they me out om the lawn, Mr. Courtland hoic len by tne hand and looking as none of us had ever seen him look befere, Irs. Kestrell,” id, “it is I who t explain these mysteries. Before I e here, my only daughter, Helen, t me (o marry a man of whom I could nGt approve. I did not seek her out, nor I e her. She went abroad, and soon rned that vi—aead. and t to me, unf . That, however, was not so. She and her husband es- caped from the burni ship—I have much to learn of r lives in Melbourne. But this is thei yghter, and after her b¢ er's death she came back to England with her mother, and has ed herself to earn her living. And then And then,” sald Helen as he paused, “when I found cut who my grandfather was, 1 wanted to be frien I thought [ would try. But, of cou I did not t him to hear my name—so I took another when I came to give the dress- making lessons. And I was so glad to go to the rectory—and so happy. But— you see I am engaged to be married, and Jack Wilford—be thought I should have no one to look after me, and he would come and see me, and spoil everything. And it was so hard to explain. I would not seek out my grandfather when [ was doubtea and susbected— “But when little Nora told me your case—I knew how the likeness that had gone to my heart had come. Now it'is all_clear. ““Mrs. Kestrell couldn't help suspecting * said Helen. And there was a great confusion of kissing, and explaining, and wondering—and 1—I went right up and ed the Rector. I knew how giad he was, and that he was the happiest of us all. “And now,” he said, “Helen and I will go by the 3 o'clock train, and bring my daughter home again.” Of course there were a great many ex- planations, and at least eighteen days' wonder, for things did not often happen in_ Mirehurst. Mirs. Benson came back and kept house for the Rector. She was very quiet and gentle, and I think she had had a very hard life. We had Helen for a time to make a fourth (I should put in that she finished smaking), and she woks up Mire- . good deal. But before long she T 4 Jack Wilford, and we three went on again together. UP TO THE DELL WHERE THE BLUE - BELLS OPENED TIRST, THERE 1 SAW HELEN- AND T.H'!R! WAS A STRANGE YOUNG MAN BY HER sSiDE Weti, years have gone by. May married an India civil servant and lives her life over the sea. And dear Kitty went & longer voyage still, and —her boat with salls of snow, Came safe to port, I know. And I, T have written and published a great many stories, and had a full big sort of life, with Helen for my friend. There is a railway to Mirehurst, and it_is all over little villas. But when the nightingales sing, and the daffodils are out, I think of the dear, dull old times, befor~ thers were any changes, and I wonder if I have ever been as havov since.