Cloudy Jewel (Romance Classic). Grace Livingston Hill

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СКАЧАТЬ tall and quite mature as he spoke, and there was something about his manly bearing that held Ellen Robinson’s tongue in check as he looked at his watch with a polite “Excuse me,” and then turned to Julia Cloud. “Aunt Jewel, if we are to meet my guardian on that train, I think we shall have to hurry. It’s quite a run into the city, you know.” Julia Cloud arose with a breath of relief.

      “The city!” gasped Ellen. “You’re not going into the city this late in the afternoon, I hope! Do you know how long it takes?”

      Allison glanced out to his high-powered machine confidently.

      “We made it in an hour and a half coming over. I guess we shall have plenty of time to meet the five-o’clock train if we go at once. I’ve got a peach of a car, Aunt Ellen. I’ll have to come round and take you and the kids a ride to-morrow or the next day if Aunt Jewel can spare me.”

      “Thank you! I have a car of my own!” snapped his aunt disagreeably.

      “Oh! I beg your pardon! Well, Aunt Jewel, we really must go if we are to meet Mr. Luddington. Good-by, Aunt Ellen! Good-by, cousins! We’ll see you again before we leave town, of course. Come on, Aunt Jewel!” And he took Julia Cloud lightly, protectingly by the elbow, and steered her out of the room, down the steps, and into the car, while Leslie danced gayly after, chattering away about how nice it was to get back East and meet real relatives.

      But Ellen Robinson was not listening to Leslie. She hurried after her departing guests regardless of a noisy struggle that was going on between her two youngest over the railway train, and stood on her front steps, fairly snorting with indignation.

      “Julia Cloud, what does all this mean? You shan’t go away until you explain. Have you taken leave of your senses? What is this nonsense about going to college?”

      Allison with his hand on the starter gave his aunt a swift, reassuring smile; and Julia Cloud from the safe vantage of the back seat leaned forward, smiling.

      “Why, it’s the children that are going to college, Ellen, not I. I’m only going along to keep house and play mother for them. Isn’t it lovely? I’ll tell you all about it to-morrow when you come down to pick out your things. Be sure to come early, because I want to get started packing the first thing in the morning. Mr. Luddington, the children’s guardian, is coming to-night to complete the arrangements, and we expect to get away just as soon as I can get packed up. So come early.”

      The engine purred softly for a rhythmical second, and the car slid quickly away from the door.

      “But––the very idea!” snorted Aunt Ellen. “Julia Cloud!” she fairly shouted. “Stop! You had no right in the world to go ahead and make plans without consulting me!”

      But the car was beyond ear-shot now, and Leslie was waving a pretty, tantalizing hand from the back seat.

      “The very idea!” Ellen Robinson gasped to the autumn landscape as she stood alone and watched the car, a mere speck down the road, on its way to town. “The idea!” And then as if for self-justification: “Poor mother! What would she think if she could know? Well, I wash my hands of her.”

      But Ellen Robinson did not wash her hands of her sister. Instead, she found that it was going to be very hard indeed to wash her hands of her own affairs without her sister’s help. She had, in fact, been counting on that help for the last several years, after her mother became an invalid and she knew that it was only a matter of time before Julia’s hands would be set free for other labor. It was quite too disconcerting now, after having got along all these years on the strength of the help that was to come, to find her capable sister snatched away from her by two young things in this ridiculous way.

      They talked it over at supper, and Herbert was almost savage about it, as if in some way his wife had misrepresented the possibilities, and led him to expect the assistance that would come from her sister and save him from paying wages to a servant.

      “Well, she’ll be good and sick of it inside of three months, mark my words; and then she’ll come whining back and want us to take her in;––be glad enough to get a home. So don’t you worry. But what I want understood is this: She’s not going to find it so easy to get back. See? You make her thoroughly understand that. You better go down to-morrow and pick out everything you want. Take plenty. You can’t tell but something may happen to the house, and the furniture burn up. We might as well have it as anybody. And you make it good and sure that she understands right here and now that if she goes she doesn’t come back. Of course, I’m not saying she can’t come back if she comes to her senses, and is real humble; but you needn’t let her know that. Just give her to understand it is her last chance, that I can’t be monkeyed with this way. I’ve offered her a very generous thing, and she knows it, and she’s a fool, that’s what she is, a fool I say!” He brought his big fist down heavily on the table, and jarred the dishes; and the children looked up in premature comprehension, storing up the epithet for future use. “She’s no end of a fool, going off with those crazy kids. Some one ought to warn their guardian about her. Why, she has no more idea of how to take care of two high and mighty good-for-nothings like that than an infant in arms!”

      Meantime the subject of their discussion was seated serenely at a table in one of the best hotels of the great city, having the time of her life. In the years that were to come there might be many more delightful suppers, even more elegantly served, perhaps; but none would ever rival this first time in her existence when she had sat among the wealthy and great of the land and been treated like one of them.

      Mr. Luddington was a typical business man, elderly and kind, with wise eyes and a great smile. He turned his eyes keenly on Julia Cloud for an instant at their first meeting, then let his full smile envelop her, and she was somehow made aware of the fact that he had set his seal of approval to the contract already made by his two enthusiastic wards. All the forebodings she had entertained in the little intervals when Leslie and Allison allowed her to think at all were swept aside by his kind look and big, serious tone when he first took her hand and scanned her true face. “I’m glad they’ve picked such a woman!” he said. “You’ll have your hands full, for they’re a pair! But it’s worth it!”

      And, when they all rode home through the moonlight, Julia Cloud nestled under the soft, thick robes of the car, and listened to the pleasant talk between the young people and their guardian with a sense of peace. If this strong, wise business man thought the arrangement was all right, why, then she need not fear any longer. It was real, and not a dream, and she might rely upon the wisdom of her decision. And with that sense of being upheld by something wiser than her own wish she fell asleep that night, haunted by no dreams of her domineering sister.

      CHAPTER VI

       Table of Contents

      The pleasant aromas of coffee and sausages were mingling in the air when “Guardy Lud” woke up and looked about the old-fashioned room with a sense of satisfaction. The very pictures on the walls rested him, they reminded him so much of the rooms in his boyhood home. He had a feeling that old-fashioned things were best, and in spite of the fact that he owned a house most different from this one himself and knew that his wife would not for a minute have tolerated any old-fashioned things about unless they were so old-fashioned that they had become the latest rage, he could not help feeling that a woman brought up amid such simple surroundings would be the very best kind to mother these orphan children who had been left on his helpless hands. He would have loved to take them to his heart and his home; but his wife was not so minded, and that ended it. But it rolled a great burden from his shoulders to feel that he might СКАЧАТЬ