Chapter 12

The great dining-room at Hilcrest, the old Spencer homestead, was perhaps the pleasantest room in the house. The house itself crowned the highest hill that overlooked the town, and its dining-room windows and the veranda without, commanded a view of the river for miles, just where the valley was the greenest and the most beautiful. On the other side of the veranda which ran around three sides of the house, one might see the town with its myriad roofs and tall chimneys; but although these same tall chimneys represented the wealth that made possible the great Spencer estate, yet it was the side of the veranda overlooking the green valley that was the most popular with the family. It was said, to be sure, that old Jacob Spencer, who built the house, and who laid the foundations for the Spencer millions, had preferred the side that overlooked the town; and that he spent long hours gloating over the visible results of his thrift and enterprise. But old Jacob was dead now, and his son's sons reigned instead; and his son's sons, no matter how much they might value the whiz and whir and smoke of the town, preferred, when at rest, to gaze upon green hills and far-reaching meadows. This was, indeed, typical of the Spencer code�the farther away they could get from the oil that made the machinery of life run easily and noiselessly, the better pleased they were.

The dining-room looked particularly pleasant this July evening. A gentle breeze stirred the curtains at the open windows, and the setting sun peeped through the vines outside and glistened on the old family plate. Three generations of Spencers looked down from the walls on the two men and the woman sitting at the great mahogany table. The two men and the woman, however, were not looking at the sunlight, the vines, or the swaying curtains; they were looking at each other, and their eyes were troubled and questioning.

"You say she is coming next week?" asked the younger man, glancing at the letter in the other's hand.

"Yes. Tuesday afternoon."

"But, Frank, this is so�sudden," remonstrated the young fellow, laughing a little as he uttered the trite phrase. "How does it happen that I've heard so little of this young lady who is to be so unceremoniously dropped into our midst next Tuesday?"

Frank Spencer made an impatient gesture that showed how great was his perturbation.

"Come, come, Ned, don't be foolish," he protested. "You know very well that your brother's stepdaughter has been my ward for a dozen years."

"Yes, but that is all I know," rejoined the young man, quietly. "I have never seen her, and scarcely ever heard of her, and yet you expect me to take as a matter of course this strange young woman who is none of our kith nor kin, and yet who is to be one of us from henceforth forevermore!"

"The boy is right," interposed the low voice of the woman across the table. "Ned doesn't know anything about her. He was a mere child himself when it all happened, and he's been away from home most of the time since. For that matter, we don't know much about her ourselves."

"We certainly don't," sighed Frank Spencer; then he raised his head and squared his shoulders. "See here, good people, this will never do in the world," he asserted with sudden authority. "I have offered the hospitality of this house to a homeless, orphan girl, and she has accepted it. There is nothing for us to do now but to try to make her happy. After all, we needn't worry�it may turn out that she will make us happy."

"But what is she? How does she look?" catechized Ned.

His brother shook his head.

"I don't know," he replied simply.

"You don't know! But, surely you have seen her!"

"Yes, oh, yes, I have seen her, once or twice, but Margaret Kendall is not a girl whom to see is to know; besides, the circumstances were such that�well, I might as well tell the story from the beginning, particularly as you know so little of it yourself."

Frank paused, and looked at the letter in his hand. After a minute he laid it gently down. When he spoke his voice was not quite steady.

"Our brother Harry was a physician, as you know, Ned. You were twelve years old when he married a widow by the name of Kendall who lived in Houghtonsville where he had been practising. As it chanced, none of us went to the wedding. You were taken suddenly ill, and neither Della nor myself would leave you, and father was in Bermuda that winter for his health. Mrs. Kendall had a daughter, Margaret, about ten years old, who was at school somewhere in the Berkshires. It was to that school that I went when the terrible news came that Harry and his new wife had lost their lives in that awful railroad accident. That was the first time that I saw Margaret.

"The poor child was, of course, heartbroken and inconsolable; but her grief took a peculiar turn. The mere sight of me drove her almost into hysterics. She would have nothing whatever to do with me, or with any of her stepfather's people. She reasoned that if her mother had not married, there would have been no wedding journey; and if there had been no wedding journey there would have been no accident, and that her mother would then have been alive, and well.

"Arguments, pleadings, and entreaties were in vain. She would not listen to me, or even see me. She held her hands before her face and screamed if I so much as came into the room. She was nothing but a child, of course, and not even a normal one at that, for she had had a very strange life. At five she was lost in New York City, and for four years she lived on the streets and in the sweat shops, enduring almost unbelievable poverty and hardships."

"By Jove!" exclaimed Ned under his breath.

"It was only seven or eight months before the wedding that she was found," went on Frank, "and of course the influence of the wild life she had led was still with her more or less, and made her not easily subject to control. There was nothing for me to do but to leave the poor little thing where she was, particularly as there seemed to be no other place for her. She would not come with me, and she had no people of her own to whom she could turn for love and sympathy.

"As you know, poor Harry was conscious for some hours after the accident, long enough to make his will and dictate the letter to me, leaving Margaret to my care�boy though I was. I was only twenty, you see; but, really, there was no one else to whom he could leave her. That was something over thirteen years ago. Margaret must be about twenty-three now."

"And you've not seen her since?" There was keen reproach in Ned's voice.

Frank smiled.

"Yes, I've seen her twice," he replied. "And of course I've written to her many times, and have always kept in touch with those she was with. She stayed at the Berkshire school five years; then�with some fear and trembling, I own�I went to see her. I found a grave-eyed little miss who answered my questions with studied politeness, and who agreed without comment to the proposition that I place her in a school where she might remain until she was ready for college�should she elect to go to college."

"But her vacations�did she never come then?" questioned Ned.

"No. At first I did not ask her, of course. It was out of the question, as she was feeling. Some one of her teachers always looked out for her. They all pitied her, and naturally did everything they could for her, as did her mates at school. Later, when I did dare to ask her to come here, she always refused. She wrote me stiff little notes in which she informed me that she was to spend the holidays with some Blanche or Dorothy or Mabel of her acquaintance.

"She was nineteen when I saw her again. I found now a charming, graceful girl, with peculiarly haunting blue eyes, and heavy coils of bronze-gold hair that kinked and curled about her little pink ears in a most distracting fashion. Even now, though, she would not come to my home. She was going abroad with friends. The party included an irreproachable chaperon, so of course I had nothing to say; while as for money�she had all of her mother's not inconsiderable fortune besides everything that had been her stepfather's; so of course there was no question on that score.

"In the fall she entered college, and there she has been ever since, spending her vacations as usual with friends, generally traveling. When she came of age she specially requested me to make no change in her affairs, but to regard herself as my ward for the present, just as she had been. So I still call myself her guardian. This June was her graduation. I had forgotten the fact until I received the little engraved invitation a week or two ago. I thought of running down for it, but I couldn't get away very well, and�well, I didn't go, that's all. But I did write and ask her to make this house her home, and here is her reply. She thanks me, and will come next Tuesday. There! now you have it. You know all that I do." And Frank Spencer leaned back in his chair with a long sigh.

"But I don't know yet what she's like," objected Ned.

"Neither do I."

"Oh, but you've seen her."

"Yes; and how? Do you suppose that those two or three meetings were very illuminating? No. I've been told this, however," he added. "It seems that immediately after her return to her mother's home she had the most absurd quixotic notions about sharing all she had with every ragamuffin in New York. She even carried her distress over their condition to such an extent that her mother really feared for her reason. All her teachers, therefore, were instructed to keep from her all further knowledge of poverty and trouble; and particularly to instil into her mind the fact that there was really in the world a great deal of pleasure and happiness."

Over across the table Mrs. Merideth shivered a little.

"Dear me!" she sighed. "I do hope the child is well over those notions. I shouldn't want her to mix up here with the mill people. I never did quite like those settlement women, anyway, and only think what might happen with one in one's own family!"

"I don't think I should worry, sister sweet," laughed Frank. "I haven't seen much of the young lady, but I think I have seen enough for that. I fancy the teachers succeeded in their mission. As near as I can judge, Miss Margaret Kendall does not resemble your dreaded �settlement worker' in the least. However, we'll wait and see."