has not forgotten her,” replied Alice, almost indignantly. “And you and I have no right to doubt that he loved her even better than we. But I know not why that should render it impossible for him to appreciate loveliness in another. He was very desolate, and I am thankful that he has found such a friend.”
“Such a friend? I see nothing remarkably lovely about her.”
“Why, I think she is very attractive.”
“Attractive! Pray what has attracted you, dear? She is, certainly, very plain.”
“I do not think she is.”
“She looks as though she meant to rule the world, with her great black eyes and military form.”
“Her ‘great black eyes’ are soft, I am sure, and I admire her form. Then she looks so animated when she speaks, and her smile is absolutely fascinating.”
“Only look at the picture you hold in your hand, Alice, and say, if you can, that you admire her.”
“Nobody is so lovely as mother. But, if you were not determined to find fault, I know this face would please you. At any rate, you cannot dislike her manner; she is very ladylike. She dresses, too, in perfect taste.”
“I suppose she is well-bred, and I have no reason to doubt her dress-maker’s taste. But once more, Alice, I never shall like her, and I beg you never to speak to me of her except from necessity. You, of course, can love her just as well as you have a mind to, but you must not expect me to. I shall try to be civil to her.”
“Oh, I wish you could see Aunt Mary, I am sure she could convince you that you are wrong.
“You think that I cannot understand your feelings, and that nothing is easier for me than to receive a stranger here. But, Clara, you do know that you love not our precious mother more devotedly than I, nor cherish her memory more sacredly; I am quite sure that no child could. It was terrible for me, at first, to think of seeing another here in her place, of calling another by her consecrated name. It was sacrilege to me. But Aunt Mary talked to me so kindly, and taught me to think calmly and reasonably about it, and I became certain that I ought to be an affectionate, dutiful child to my father’s wife if it were in my power. And I am sure it will be easy, for she is loveable.
“I am grateful to father for giving me so excellent a friend. I shall never love her better than Aunt Mary, indeed; but it is so pleasant for us to be together once more in our own home. Only think – you at boarding-school, Neddie at grandfather’s, I at Uncle Talford’s, and poor father here alone. I am sure we shall be vastly happier here together, if you will only be a good girl.”
“I am not going to be!” said Clara, with a pouting smile.
“Ah! not another word,” cried Alice, with a playful menace. “I shall call it treason to listen to you. I shall go away so that you may have nobody to say wicked things to.”
And with the words she ran from the room and shut the culprit in.
CHAPTER III
Weeks flitted over the Gregorys, whose course it is needless to trace.
Aunt Debby became fully satisfied that if there was a woman in the world fit for Dr. Gregory it was the one he had married. Few children ever had a step-mother like her, very few indeed. Never a loud word nor a cross look had she seen, never! She guessed, too, there were not many women, ladies born and bred, that knew when work was done about right better than she, not many. She didn’t know who should be a judge if she wasn’t, that had kept Dr. Arthur Gregory’s house for upward of twenty years – twenty years last August.
What was that gentleman’s private opinion in the matter, these closing sentences of an epistle given under his hand will tell.
“… A strangely excellent wife is this same Catharine Gregory. Alone in her society, I love her; with my children, I am grateful to her; among my friends, I am proud of her. Every day convinces me more perfectly that I have found in her such a combination of virtues as I have never seen or hoped to see since departed
‘The being beauteous
Who unto my youth was given.’
Hoping, for your sake, my dear Ashmun, (though with doubt I confess,) that this planet bears such another, I am yours,
And many were the doctor’s patients whose pale faces lighted at the sight of her, and whose wo-laden hearts beat freer to the music of her step.
“Ah, Nell!” sighed old, bed-ridden Betty Begoin, “Dr. Gregory is a good doctor, as nobody may better believe than I, for the Lord knows you would have been in your grave nine years ago, Christmas, if He hadn’t put it in the doctor’s heart to save ye. The doctor’s a good doctor, I say, but his wife is better than all his medicines to a poor old thing like me! Nobody looks so kindly and sunny like, nobody reads the Scriptures so plain and clear as she.
“The first Mrs. Gregory was a fine lady, I dare say; I have often heard it. But she never came near us. Well, well! she had a young family to look to, and was weakly and ailin’ toward the last, poor thing! I have nothing against her now she’s dead and gone, anyway.
“A’n’t the gruel hot, dear?
“The doctor is a good doctor as anybody need have, but his wife is better than all his medicines to a poor, sick, old thing like me.”
And many a sufferer was there in whose breast old Betty’s sentiment would find an echo. For, while her husband labored to upbuild the outer man, Mrs. Gregory breathed courage into the fainting heart, and braced it to the effort of recovery. Then, nobody could keep wide awake all night like her; nobody’s cordials were so grateful, yet so harmless; nobody knew so exactly just what one wanted.
And in that dark, dark hour, when life’s last promise is broken, and science can do no more, and loving hearts are quivering under the first keen anguish of despair, how often did they implore that her voice might tell the dying one his doom, that in its gentleness the death-warrant might lose its terror.
How tenderly did she try to undo the ties that bound the trembling spirit to this world and commit it to the arms of Him, who should bear it safe above the swelling waters! How trustingly did she point the guilt-stricken, despairing soul to the “Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the world.” And who shall conceive an intenser thrill of joy than was hers, as she witnessed the sublimity of that weak Child of Earth triumphant over Death, passing away not as to “pleasant dreams,” but as to “an exceeding and eternal weight of glory.”
It was only in the inner circle of her life that hearts were cold toward Mrs. Gregory. Alice, it is true, clung to her with the fond dependence of a child upon its parent. Eddie was a wayward and ungovernable creature, perfectly subject to his passionate impulses; in one moment, foaming in a frenzy of infantine rage, the next, exhausting his childish resources for expressions of his extravagant love.
It was no light or transient task to teach such a nature self-control. She unspeakably dreaded to employ that rigid firmness which she saw so indispensible to gaining a permanent ascendency over him. Watchful eyes were upon her and lithe tongues were aching to be busy. She well knew how the thrilling tale would fly of the heartless hardness of the step-mother toward the little innocent.
He had been the darling of most doating grand-parents, to whom he had been committed, a mere baby, at his mother’s death.
