Phoebe Deane (Romance Classic). Grace Livingston Hill

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СКАЧАТЬ enmity between them had never grown less. Little did Phoebe know, whenever she wore one of the frocks from that unopened trunk, how she roused her sister-in-law's wrath.

      The trunk had been stored in the deep closet in Phoebe's room, and the key had never left its resting-place against her heart, night or day. Sometimes Phoebe had unlocked it in the still hours of the early summer mornings when no one else was stirring, and had looked long and lovingly at the garments folded within. It was there she kept the daguerreotype of the mother who was the idol of her child heart. Her father she could not remember, as he died when she was but a year old. In the depths of that trunk were laid several large packages, labeled. The mother had told her about them before she died, and with her own hand had placed the boxes in the bottom of the trunk. The upper one was labeled, " For my dear daughter Phoebe Deane on her eighteenth birthday."

      For several days before her birthday Phoebe had felt an undertone of excitement. It was almost time to open the box which had been laid there over eight years ago by that beloved hand. Phoebe did not know what was in that box, but she knew it was something her mother put there for her. It contained her mother's thought for her grown-up daughter. It was like a voice from the grave. It thrilled her to think of it.

      On her birthday morning she had awakened with the light, and slipping out of bed had applied the little black key to the keyhole. Her fingers trembled as she turned the lock, and opened the lid, softly lest she should wake some one. She wanted this holy gift all to herself now, this moment when her soul would touch again the soul of the lost mother.

      Carefully she lifted out the treasures in the trunk until she reached the box, then drew it forth, and placing the other things back closed the trunk and locked it. Then she took the box to her bed and untied it. Her heart was beating so fast she felt almost as if she had been running. She lifted the cover. There lay the buff merino in all its beauty, complete even to the brown knot for the hair, and the locket which had been her mother's at eighteen. And there on the top lay a letter in her mother's handwriting. Ah! This was what she had hoped for—a real word from her mother which should be a guide to her in this grown-up life that was so lonely and different from the life she had lived with her mother. She hugged the letter to her heart and cried over it and kissed it. She felt that she was nestling her head in her dear mother's lap as she cried, and it gave her aching, longing heart a rest just to think so.

      But there were sounds of stirring in the house, and Phoebe knew that she would be expected in the kitchen before long, so she dried her tears and read her letter.

      Before it was half done the clatter in the kitchen had begun, and Emmeline's strident voice was calling up the stairway: " Phoebe! Phoebe! Are you going to stay up there all day?"

      Phoebe had cast a wistful look at the rest of her letter, patted the soft folds of her merino tenderly, swept it out of sight into her closet, and answered Emmeline pleasantly, " Yes, I'm coming!" Not even the interruption could quite dim her pleasure on this day of days. She sprang up conscience stricken. She had not meant to be so late.

      It did not take long to dress, and with the letter tucked in with the key against her heart she hurried down, only to meet Emmeline's frowning words, and be ordered around like a little child. Emmeline had been very disagreeable ever since Hiram Green had proposed to Phoebe.

      The morning had been crowded full of work and the letter had had no chance, except to crackle lovingly against the blue homespun.

      The thought of the buff merino upstairs made her thrill with pleasure, and the morning passed away happily in spite of Emmeline and hard work. Words from her mother's hastily read letter came floating to her, and calling. She longed to pull it out and read once more to be sure just how they had been phrased. But there was no time.

      After dinner, however, as soon as she had finished the dishes, and while Emmeline was looking after something in the wood-shed, she slipped away upstairs, without, as usual, asking if there was anything else to be done. She had decided that she would put on her new frock, for it had been her mother's wish in the letter, and go down to the village and call on that sweet-faced Mrs. Spafford. It was two years since Mrs. Spafford had invited her to spend the afternoon, and she had never plucked up the courage to go, for Emmeline always had something ready for her to do. But she felt that she had a right to a little time to herself on her birthday, and she meant to slip away without Emmeline seeing, if she could. She took her letter out, intending to read it quietly first before she dressed, but a sudden thought of Emmeline and her ability to break in upon her quietness made her decide instead to dress and start, stopping in a maple grove on the way to the village to read her letter undisturbed ; so with all haste she smoothed her hair, fastened in the velvet knot, and put on the pretty frock. For just a moment she paused in front of the glass and looked at herself, thrilling with the thought that this dress was planned by her dear mother, and that the loved hand had set every perfect stitch in its place. And this girl in the glass was the daughter her mother had wished her to be, at least in outward appearance. Was she also in heart life ? She looked earnestly at the face in the glass, longing to ask herself many questions, and unable to answer. Then with the letter safely hidden she hurried down.

      But her conscience would not let her go out the front door unobserved as she had planned. It seemed a mean, sneaking thing to do on her birthday. She would be open and frank. She would step into the kitchen and tell Emmeline that she was going out for the afternoon. That would be the way her mother would desire her to do. So, though much against her own desire, she went.

      And there sat Emmeline with a large basket of dried beans to be shelled and put away for the winter. Phoebe stood aghast, and hesitated.

      " Well, really!" said Emmeline, looking up severely at the apparition in buff that stood in the doorway. " Are you going to play the fine lady while I shell beans? It seems to me that's rather taking a high hand for one who's dependent on her relatives for every mouthful she eats, and seems to be likely to be for the rest of her days. That's gratitude, that is. But I take notice you eat the beans— oh, yes! the beans that Albert provides, and I shell, while you gallivant round in party clo'es."

      The hateful speech brought the color to Phoebe’s cheeks.

      " Emmeline," she broke in, " you know I didn't know you wanted those beans shelled to-day. I would have done them this morning between times if you had said so."

      " You didn't know," sniffed Emmeline. " You knew the beans was to shell, and you knew this was the first chance to do it. Besides, there wasn't any between times this morning. You didn't get up till most noon. Everything was clear put back, and now you wash your white hands and dress up, no matter what the folks that keeps you have to do. That wasn't the way I was brought up, if I didn't have a fine lady mother like yours. My mother taught me gratitude."

      Phoebe reflected on the long hard days of work she had done for Emmeline without a word of praise or thanks, work as hard, and harder than any wage-earner in the house in the some position would have been expected to do. She had earned her board and more, and she knew it. Her clothes she made altogether from the stores her mother had left for her. She had not cost Albert a cent in that way. Nevertheless, her conscience hurt her because of the late hour of her coming down that morning. With one desperate glance at the size of the bean-basket, and a rapid calculation how long it would take her to finish them, she seized her clean apron that hung behind the door, and enveloped herself in it.

      " I have wanted to go out for a little while this afternoon. I have been wanting to go for a long time, but if those beans have got to be done this afternoon I can do them first."

      She said it calmly, and went at the beans with determined fingers, that fairly made the beans shiver as they hustled out of their resisting withered pods.

      Emmeline sniffed.

      "You're a СКАЧАТЬ