Carolina Lee. Lilian Bell

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СКАЧАТЬ so generously offered, put the girl under at least civilized bonds of restraint. There were times, however, when she was alone, that she relapsed into such a savage state that she tore her hair and bit her own tender flesh.

      The sight of such rebellion reduced even Kate's mutinous nature to peace and quiet by contrast, and Kate was developed into a gentle friend of Christian sentiments by Carolina's great need.

      The conversations they held with each other were long and intimate. Kate tried to put faith in the series of doctors who succeeded each other like chapters in a book, but the sufferer's clear eyes saw not only through Kate's kind intentions, but through the great surgeon's hopeless hopes, and from the first she knew the worst. Knew that her bright youth was for ever gone; that her usefulness was ended; that never again could she expect even to ornament a social function, crippled as she was and disfigured by ungainly crutches. Her one hope was to die. Thus she made no effort to recover, and her strength, instead of aiding her, gradually faded away until her accident, though not at first of a fatal nature, began to be looked on as her death-blow.

      At this juncture, Addie, struck with remorse, came and offered Carolina a home, but Carolina shook her head.

      "Thank you, Addie, but when I move from here it will be to rest for ever. I want to die here with Kate. She loves me!"

      It was a bitter thrust, and Addie felt it to the verge of tears. Indeed, she was so moved by pity for the frail shadow that Carolina had become, that she forgave the girl for having been so beautiful and began to be fond of her, as one is fond of a crippled child, who had been obnoxious in health.

      Trouble develops people.

      Mrs. Winchester was detained in Boston by the dangerous illness of the niece she had gone to visit, and although greatly fretting at being kept away from Carolina, was fairly obliged to stay.

      Carolina felt that she was welcome at the Howards, for not only Kate's mother but her father often came to sit with her and cheer her and to urge upon her how glad they were to be able to help her when she needed help.

      Carolina was grateful, the more so because she felt that she had not long to live. She had been in bed several months, and while the surgeons said the broken bones had knit, yet it was agony for her to move. She almost fainted with pain when they were obliged to lift her from one position to another.

      Kate spent hours in trying to interest her in the life around her. She felt frightened when she discovered the depth of Carolina's listlessness. Her weakness took a stubborn form.

      "I am only one of the crowd now, Kate dear," she said one day after a long argument from her friend. "There is no use in wasting so much energy over me. Go and forget me and enjoy yourself. I used to be of the exclusive few who got their own ways always. Now I belong to the great mob of malcontents-the anarchists of the social world. I shall not want to blow up kings and presidents, but I would like to throw a bomb at every happy face I see."

      Her voice trailed off to a weak whisper.

      "Y-you wouldn't need many bombs, then," said Kate, "for I never s-see any really happy faces. Did you ever in all your life-either at balls abroad or the opera here, see a perfectly happy face?"

      Carolina shook her head and closed her eyes wearily.

      Suddenly she opened them again.

      "Yes," she said, "I have seen one-the night of 'Faust.' It was Rosemary Goddard!"

      Kate gave a little scream.

      "Well, I'd rather follow you to the grave you seem so bent on f-falling into," she stammered, "than to get happiness from such a source. My dear, Rosemary Goddard is a C-Christian Scientist!"

      Kate's tone indicated that Rosemary had contracted a loathsome disease.

      Carolina fixed her eyes on Kate. She was not of a contrary disposition, yet the difference between Kate Howard's tone and Rosemary Goddard's face made her stop to think.

      "I should like to talk to Rosemary," she said at last. To her surprise and consternation, Kate burst into tears.

      "If you g-go and turn into one of those n-nasty things," she sobbed, "it will end everything. I'd rather you died!"

      "Then never mind," said Carolina, wearily. "I don't want to vex anybody. Perhaps I shall die."

      Kate jumped up. The momentary colour faded from Carolina's face and the strength from her voice. Kate recognized the change.

      "I'll go and f-fetch her," she said, with her old-time change of front. "She may do you good."

      When she came back with Rosemary, she saw what Carolina had seen in Rosemary's face-an illumination which no one could understand. It transfigured her.

      Kate left the two girls together, and walked the floor in tempestuous anger all during Rosemary's stay in the house. Something in Carolina's eyes as they first met Rosemary's told Kate that the poison was already at work, and that Carolina was ripe for the hated new religion.

      CHAPTER VIII

      MAN'S EXTREMITY

      Rosemary approached the bed wherein lay the wreck of the girl she had often, when in the grasp of mortal mind, envied. A great wave of sympathy, not pity, swept over her, as she noted the weary eyes and the lines of dissatisfaction and despair around Carolina's mouth. With an impulse of love, she knelt at the bedside and took Carolina's little thin hand in both of hers.

      "Oh, my dear Carol," she said, "I am so glad to see you. I heard of your accident while I was in California. I only got back yesterday."

      "Would you have come to see me if I had not sent for you?" asked Carolina, childishly.

      "I was coming to-day. Mother suggested it, and I was only too happy to put off everything of less importance and come at once."

      "Your mother!" said Carolina, involuntarily. Then, as she saw Rosemary's face flush, she hastened to cover her awkward exclamation. "I did not know your mother knew me well enough to-to care!"

      "Mother is very much changed since you knew her," said Rosemary, gently. "She has been healed."

      Carolina did not know the nature of Mrs. Goddard's infirmity, so she forbore to ask of what. She only knew, as all the smart world knew, that Mrs. Goddard did something dreadful, and did it to excess. It was whispered that it was a case of drugs, but there were those, less kind, who hinted at a more vulgar excess, either of which would explain the dreadful scenes Mrs. Goddard had occasioned in public. Her intimates asserted that a terrible malady was at the bottom of her habits, whatever they were. At any rate, a somewhat scandalous mystery hung over Mrs. Goddard's name, although she had been at the forefront of every mad scene of pleasure the fashionable world could invent to kill time.

      "You are changed, too," said Carolina, wonderingly, more and more surprised to see Rosemary Goddard-of all girls! – kneeling at her bedside, holding her hand in a warm grasp, pressing it now and then to emphasize an affection she felt shy of expressing, and talking in a gentle, altogether unknown tone of voice. In Carolina's uncompromising vocabulary she had privately stigmatized Rosemary as a snob, and rather ridiculed her exaggeration of aristocracy. But the coldness, the tired expression, the aloofness, were all gone. The weary eyes shone. The bored eyebrows were lowered. The curved lips smiled. The withdrawn hands were reached out to help. The whole attitude was radiant of sympathy and love.

      Rosemary could not forbear to smile at Carolina's unconscious scrutiny.

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