Mrs. Van Dorn shrugged her shoulders. Thank Heaven she should not be like that when she came near the hundred mark.
"Now I will drive around a little while you make your call. It must not be very long, or we shall be late for dinner."
Helen sprang out with an airy lightness. The front windows were all darkened as usual. She ran up the path, around the side of the house. Aurelia was weeding among the late planted beets where dwarf peas had taken the early part of the season.
"Oh, Helen!" She sprang up with the trowel in her hand, "I'm so glad you've come. Are you going to stay all night? I miss you so much. I have such lots of work to do, and mother's cross a good deal of the time. We all miss you so. I s'pose its real nice over at Mrs. Dayton's, but I shall be so glad when you come back."
"No, I can't stay all night – "
"But the carriage went away – "
"'Reely, you come in and peel the potatoes. You ought to have had that weeding done long ago. Oh, Helen," as the girl had turned around the corner that led to the kitchen. "Well I declare! I began to think you had grown so fine that the Center would never see you again!"
She looked Helen over from head to foot and gave a little sniff.
"Are you coming in?" rather tartly.
"Why – yes," forcing herself to smile.
How different from Joanna's tidy kitchen! It was clean but in confusion with the odds and ends of everything. The green paper shade was all askew, there were two chairs with the backs broken off, the kitchen table was littered, the closet door was open and betrayed a huddle of articles.
"You don't seem to be very sociable, I must say. Why didn't you come over Saturday? Your uncle felt quite hurt about it. Seems to me you're mighty taken up with those people," nodding her head northward.
"I couldn't on so short a notice. Mrs. Van Dorn had not been well. I read her to sleep nearly every night. And there are so many little things to do."
"Well, if she'd employ herself about something useful she wouldn't need to be read to sleep, nor want so much waiting on."
"That is what I am hired to do," Helen returned with a good-natured intonation that she kept from being flippant.
"Well, if I had ever so much money I couldn't find it in my conscience to dawdle away time and have someone wait upon me. And how's Mrs. Dayton? All the boarders staying?"
"Yes, the house is full."
"Mrs. Dayton does have the luck of things! But she hasn't a chick nor a child, nor a husband and a lot of boys to mend for. I was foolish to let you go over there, Helen, when I needed you so much myself. It isn't even as if you were learning anything, just fiddling round waiting on a woman who hasn't an earthly thing to do. And I'm so put about, I don't know what to take up first. 'Reely, you hurry with the potatoes or you'll get a good slap."
There was a diversion with Fan and Tommy who shook sand over the kitchen floor. Fan's face was stained with berries but she flung her arms about Helen and kissed her rapturously, while Tom dug his elbows into her lap.
"Did you come in a horse and carriage?" asked Fan, wide-eyed.
"I came in the carriage."
"You know well enough what she meant, Helen. You'll get so fine there'll be hardly any living with you when you come back."
"When she came back." A tremor ran through Helen's nerves. Oh, must she come back!
"How is Jenny?" she inquired.
"Oh, Jenny's first rate, working like a beaver. There's a girl worth something, if she is mine! And the house is getting done up just splendid. Joe's crazy to be married right off, but Jenny's like me, when her mind's made up it's made up. There's a good deal of Cummings in her. Why don't you take off your hat? You're going to stay to supper?"
"No, I can't," Helen returned gently. "Mrs. Van Dorn was going to drive round a little – "
"She could have come in," snapped Aunt Jane. "We could have had the horse put out and you could both have stayed to supper. I dare say we have as good things to eat as Mrs. Dayton. She doesn't refuse our butter and eggs nor chickens when we have 'em to spare."
"They all think the butter splendid, Aunt Jane. And Mrs. Disbrowe wishes they could get such eggs in the city. She is sure what they get must be a month old," said Helen, with an attempt at gayety.
"I do make good butter. Mrs. Dayton's folks are not the first to find it out," bridling her head. "And I'll say for Mrs. Dayton she's willing to pay a fair price. But I s'pose that old woman pays well?"
Helen wondered how the woman in the carriage would look if she heard that!
"I'd like to know the prices myself. Haven't you heard Mrs. Dayton say? I might want to keep boarders, some day."
"No," answered Helen. "But there are a good many boarders at North Hope, and some of them look as if they didn't mind about money."
"Carriage has come," announced Nathan, running in. Aurelia had finished the potatoes and put them on to cook and now stood with one arm around Helen's neck.
"Stay! stay! Can't you stay?" cried a chorus of voices in various keys.
"I am not my own mistress," answered Helen, cheerfully. "And when you are paid to do a certain thing, paid for your time, it belongs to someone else."
She loosened the children's arms and rose.
"Well it is a mean little call," said her aunt, "and your uncle will be awful disappointed. But when you live with grand people I s'pose you must be grand. Do come when you can stay longer," with a sort of sarcasm in her tone.
"I'll try." Helen kept her temper bravely, left her love for Jenny and Uncle Jason. Aunt Jane had gone at making shortcake. The children followed their cousin out to the gate and showered her with good-bys, staring hard at the old lady in the carriage.
CHAPTER V
A GIRL'S DREAMS
Helen's face was flushed as she stepped into the carriage, but she held her head up with dignity and smiled. The curious two sides of her, was it brain, or mind, or that perplexing inner sight? saw the wide difference between Mrs. Van Dorn and Aunt Jane. And she liked the Van Dorn side a hundred times better than the Mulford side. The delicacy, the ease, the sort of graciousness, even if it was a garment put on and sometimes slipped off very easily. Mrs. Van Dorn was never quite satisfied. She was always reaching out for something, a pleasure and entertainment. Aunt Jane was thoroughly satisfied with herself. She scolded Uncle Jason and insisted that he lacked common sense, energy, and a host of virtues, yet she often said of her neighbors' husbands: "Well, if I had that man I'd ship him off to the Guinea Coast," though she hadn't the slightest idea of its location. She often held him up to the admiration of her friends, though she always insisted she had been the making of him. And she would not admit that there was a smarter girl in Hope Center than Jenny.
The peculiar contrast flashed over Helen. What made the complacency – content?
"Did you have a pleasant call?" When Mrs. Van Dorn didn't feel cross her voice had a certain sweetness. Helen thought the word mellifluous expressed it. She was fond of pretty adjectives.
"Aunt Jane was very busy and they
