she said as Julia began to gather up more dishes from the breakfast table. “I suppose you think you’ve done something smart now, don’t you, getting that old snob here and fixing things all up without consulting any of your relatives?”
“Really, Ellen, this has all been so sudden that I had no opportunity,” said Julia gently. “But it did not seem likely that you would object, for you suggested yourself that I rent the house, and you said you did not want me to stay here alone. This seemed quite providential.”
“Providential!” sniffed Ellen. “Providential to take you away from your own home and your own people, and send you out into a world where nobody really cares for you, and where all they want of you is to make a drudge of you! You call that providential, do you? Well, I don’t! And when I object, and try to save you from yourself, and offer you a good home where you will be cared for all the rest of your days, right among your own, where mother would have wanted to see you, you will probably get high-headed, and say I am interfering with your rights. But I can’t help it. I’ve got to speak. I can’t see you put the halter around your neck to hang yourself without doing everything I can to stop it. My own sister!”
“Why, Ellen, dear!” said Julia Cloud eagerly, sitting down beside her sister. “You don’t understand. It isn’t in the least that way. I’m sorry I had to spring it on you so suddenly and give you such a wrong impression. You know I couldn’t think of coming to live on you and Herbert. It was kind of you to suggest it, and I am grateful and all that; but I know how it would be to have some one else, even a sister, come into the home, and I couldn’t think of it. I have always resolved that I would never be dependent on my relatives while I had my health.”
Ellen sat up bristling.
“And yet you are willing to go away to some strange place where nobody knows you, and slave for a couple of little snobs!”
“O Ellen!” said Julia pleadingly. “You don’t understand. I am not going to slave. I’m just going to be a sort of mother to them. And you oughtn’t to call them snobs. They are your own brother’s children.”
“Own brother’s children, nothing!” sneered Ellen. “He’s been away so many years he was just like a stranger when he came back the last time, and as for the children they are just like his stuck-up wife and her family. Yet you’ll leave the children that were born and raised close beside you, and go and slave for them. Mother! fiddlesticks! You’ll slave all right. I know you. In six weeks you’ll be a drudge for them the way you’ve been all your life! I know how it is, and you may not believe it; but I have feelings for my sister, and I don’t like to see her put upon.”
Ellen fumbled for her handkerchief, and managed a comely tear or two that quite touched Julia’s heart. Affection between them even when Ellen was a child had been quite one-sided; for Ellen had always been a selfish, spoiled little thing, and Julia had looked in vain for any signs of tenderness. Now her heart warmed toward her younger sister in this long-delayed thoughtfulness, and her tone grew gentler.
“That’s dear of you, Ellen, and I appreciate it; but I haven’t been able to make you understand yet, I see. I’m not to be a worker, nor even a housekeeper. I’m to be just a sort of mother, or aunt, if you please, to see that the house runs all right, to be with the children and have a happy time with them and their young friends, and to see that they are cared for in every way necessary; just a housemother, you understand. I am to have servants to do the work, although I’m sure one servant will be all that I shall want in a little household like that. But Mr. Luddington quite insisted there should be servants, and that no work of any sort should fall upon me. He said that as their nearest relative I was to be in the position of mother and guardian to them, and to preside over their home.”
“That’s ridiculous!” put in Ellen. “Why don’t they go to college and board like any other reasonable young folks if they must go to college at all? I think it’s all nonsense for ’em to go. What do they do it for? They’ve got money, and don’t have to teach or anything. What do they need of learning? They’ve got enough now to get along. That girl thinks she’s too smart to live. I call her impudent, for my part!”
“They want a home,” said Julia, waiving the subject of higher education; “and they have chosen me, and I mean to do my best.”
There was a quiet finality in her tone that impressed her sister. She looked at her angrily.
“Well, if you will, you will, I suppose. Nobody can stop you. But I see just what will come of it. You’ll fool away a little while there, and find out how mistaken you were; and then you’ll come back to Herbert to be taken care of. And you don’t realize how offended Herbert is going to be by your actions, and how he’ll feel about letting you come back after you have gone away in such high feather. You haven’t anything to speak of to support yourself, of course, and how on earth do you expect to live anyway after these children get through their college and get married or something? They won’t want you then.”
Julia arose and went to the window to get calmed. She was more angry than she had been for years. The thought of Herbert’s having to take care of her ever was intolerable. But she was able to hold her tongue until she could get her eyes on those hills out of the window. “I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help.” That had been the verse which she had read from her little Bible before leaving her room in the early morning and she was grappling it close to her heart, for she had known it would be a hard day.
Ellen was watching her silently. Almost she thought she had made an impression. Perhaps this was the time to repeat Herbert’s threat.
“Herbert feels,” she began, “that if you refuse his offer now he can’t promise to keep it open. He can’t be responsible for you if you take this step. He said he wanted you to understand thoroughly.”
Julia Cloud turned and walked with swift step to the little parlor where lay the paper she and Mr. Luddington had just signed, and a copy of which he had taken with him. She returned to her astonished sister with the paper in her hand.
“Perhaps it would be just as well for you to read this,” she said with dignity, and put the paper into Ellen’s hands, going back to her clearing of the table.
There was silence in the dining-room while Ellen read, Julia moving on quiet feet about the table, putting things to rights. She had finished her part of the argument. She was resolutely putting out of her mind the things her sister had just said, and refusing altogether to think of Herbert. She knew in her heart just how Herbert had looked when he had said those things, even to the snarl at the corner of his nose. She knew, too, that Ellen had probably not reported the message even so disagreeably as the original, and she knew that it would be better to forget.
“Well,” said Ellen, rising after a long perusal, laying the paper on the table, “that sounds all very well in writing. The thing is to see how it comes out. The proof of the pudding is in the eating, and you needn’t tell me that any man in his senses will pay all that salary merely for a ‘chaperon,’ as he calls it. If he does, he’s a fool; that’s all I’ve got to say. But I suppose nothing short of getting caught in a trap will make you see it; so I better save my breath. I’m sure I hope you won’t go to the poorhouse through your stubbornness. I’ve done all I could to keep you from it, and it’s pretty hard to have my only sister leave me––so soo-oo-on after mother’s––death.”
“Well, Ellen,” said Julia Cloud, looking at her speculatively, “I’m sure I never dreamed you cared about having me away from here. You’ve never shown much interest in being with me. But I’m sorry if you feel it that way, and I’m sure I’ll write to you and try to do little things for the children
