Donald and Dorothy

"It's lovely!" exclaimed Donald, almost indignantly.

"Yes, it's handsome, but I know Mamma wouldn't look that way now. It's so pale and stiff. May be it's the big lace collar, – and even Liddy can't tell me whether it was a good likeness or not. But Aunt Kate's picture in the parlor is so different. I think it's because it was painted when she was a little girl. Oh, it's so sweet and natural, I want to climb up and kiss it! I really do, Uncle. That's why I want to talk about her, and why I love her so very much. You wouldn't speak cross to her, Uncle, if she came to life and tried to talk to you about us. No, I think you'd – Oh, Uncle, Uncle! What is the matter? What makes you look so at me!"

Before Dorry fairly knew what had happened, Donald was at his uncle's feet, looking up at him in great distress, and Uncle George was sobbing! Only for an instant. His face was hidden in his hands, and when he lifted it, he again had control of himself, and Dorry almost felt that she had been mistaken. She never had seen her uncle cry, or dreamed that he could cry; and now, as she stood with her arms clasped about his neck, crying because he had cried, she could only think, with an awed feeling, of his tenderness, his goodness, and inwardly blame herself for being "the hatefullest, foolishest girl in all the world." Glancing at Donald, sure of his sympathy, she whispered, "I'm sorry, Uncle, if I did wrong. I'll try never, never to be so – so – " She was going to say "so wicked again," but the words would not come. She knew that she had not been wicked, and yet she could not at first hit upon the right term. Just as it flashed upon her to say "impetuous," and not to care a fig if Donald did secretly laugh at her using so grand an expression, Mr. George said, gently, but with much seriousness:

"You need not reproach yourself, my child. I can see very clearly just what you wish to say. Don and I can rough it together, but you, poor darling," stroking her hair softly, "need just what we cannot give you, – a woman's, a mother's tenderness."

"Oh, yes, you do! Yes, you do, Uncle!" cried Dorothy, in sudden generosity.

"And it is only natural, my little maid, that you should long – as Donald must, too – to hear more of the mother whom I scarcely knew, whom, in fact, I saw only a few times. Wolcott, I should say, your Papa, and she sailed for Europe soon after their marriage, and from that day we never – "

He checked himself, and Dorry took advantage of the pause to say, timidly:

"But it wasn't so with Aunt Kate. You knew her, Uncle, all her life. Wasn't she sweet, and lovely, and – "

"Yes, yes! Sweet, lovely, everything that was noble and good, dear. You cannot love her too well."

"And Papa," spoke up Donald, sturdily, "he was perfect. You've often told us so, – a true, upright, Christian gentleman." The boy knew this phrase by heart. He had so often heard his uncle use it, in speaking of the lost brother, that it seemed almost like a part of his father's name. "And Mamma we know was good, Dorry. Liddy says every one liked her ever so much. Uncle George says so too. Only, how can he talk to us about our mother if he hardly knew her? She didn't ever live in this house. She lived in New York; and that made a great difference – don't you see?"

"Yes," admitted Dorry, only half satisfied; "but you would have known her, Uncle George, – yes, known Mamma, and Aunty, and our Uncle Robertson [they had never learned to call that uncle by his first name] – we would have known them all – no, not all, not poor dear Papa, because he never lived to set sail from England, but all the rest, even our dear little cousin, Delia, – oh, wouldn't she be sweet, if we had her now to love and take care of! We should all have known each other ever so well – of course we should – if the ship had landed safe."

"Yes, my darlings, if the ship had not gone down, all would have been very, very different. There would have been a happy household indeed. We should have had more joy than I dare to think of."

"But we have each other now, Uncle," said Dorothy, soothingly and yet with spirit. "It can't be so very miserable and dreadful with you and Donald and me left!"

"Bless you, my little comforter! – No. God be praised, we still have a great deal to be thankful for."

"Yes, and there are Liddy and Jack, and dear old Nero," said Donald, partly because he wished to add his mite toward this more cheerful view of things, but mainly because he felt choked, and it would be as well to say something, if only to prove to himself that he was not giving way to unmanly emotion.

"Oh, yes – Jack!" added Dorry. "If it were not for Jack where should we twins be, I'd like to know!"

Said in an ordinary tone of voice, this would have sounded rather flippant, but Dorry uttered the words with true solemnity.

"I think of that often," said Donald, in the same spirit. "It seems so wonderful, too, that we didn't get drowned, or at least die of exposure, and – "

Dorothy interrupted him with an animated "Yes, indeed! Such little teenty bits of babies!"

"It does seem like a miracle," Uncle George said.

"But Jack," continued Donald, warmly, "was such a wonderful swimmer."

"Yes, and wonderful catcher!" said Dorothy. "Just think how he caught us – Ugh! It makes me shiver to think of being tossed in the air over those black, raging waves. We must have looked like little bundles flying from the ship. Wasn't Jack just wonderful, to hold on to us as he did, and work so hard looking for – for the others, too. Mercy! if we only get our feet wet now, Liddy seems to think it's all over with us, – and yet, look what we stood then! Little mites of babies, soaked to the skin, out in an open boat on the ocean all that terrible time."

"Much we cared for that," was Don's comment. "Probably we laughed, or played pat-a-cake, or – "

"Played pat-a-cake!" interrupted Dorry, with intense scorn of Donald's ignorance of baby ways – "babies only six weeks old playing pat-a-cake! I guess not. It's most likely we kicked and screamed like anything; isn't it, Uncle?"

Uncle nodded, with a strange mixture of gravity and amusement, and Donald added, earnestly:

"Whether we cried or not, Jack was a trump. A real hero, wasn't he, Uncle? I can see him now – catching us; then, when the other boat capsized, chucking us into the arms of some one in our boat, and plunging into the sea to save all he could, but able to get back alone, after all." (The children had talked about the shipwreck so often that they felt as if they remembered the awful scene.) "He was nearly dead by that time, you know."

"Yes, and nearly dead or not, if he hadn't come back," chirped Dorothy, who was growing tired of the tragic side of Donald's picture, – "if he hadn't come back to take charge of us, and take us on board the big ship – "

"The Cumberland," said Don.

"Yes, the Cumberland, or whatever she was called; if the Cumberland had not come along the next day, and Jack hadn't climbed on board with us, and wrapped us in blankets, and fed us and so on, it wouldn't have been quite so gay!"

Now, nothing could have been in worse taste than the conclusion of this speech, and Dorothy knew it; but she had spoken in pure defiance of solemnity. There had been quite enough of that for one evening.

Uncle George, dazed, troubled, and yet in some vague way inexpressibly comforted, was quietly looking first at one speaker, then at the other, when Liddy opened the door with a significant, "Mr. Reed, sir, did you ring?"

Oh, that artful Liddy! Uncle read "bed-time" in her countenance. It was his edict that half-past nine should be the hour; and the D's knew that their fate was sealed.

"Good-night, Uncle!" said Donald, kissing his uncle in good, hearty fashion.

"Good-night, Uncle!" said Dorothy, clinging to his neck just an instant longer than usual.

"Good-night, my blessings!" said Uncle George, reluctantly. And as he closed the library door behind them, Nero, shut up in Liddy's room, was barking furiously.

Two more orderly, well-behaved young persons never left an apartment. But I must tell the truth: when they were fairly in the hall, Donald started to go up stairs on the outside, holding on to the balusters, and Dorry ran to the front door, in spite of Liddy's remonstrances, with a frisky, "Oh, do let me have just one breath of fresh air!"

She came back instantly, rushed past Lydia, who was slowly puffing her way up the stairs, met Donald at the first landing (he had condescended by this time to leap over to the regulation side of the balusters), and whispered:

"Upon my sacred word, I saw him! He's out there standing at the front steps!"

"Uncle ought to know it!" exclaimed Donald, turning to run down again.

But he stopped on the next step, for Mr. George came out from the library, opened the front door, and disappeared.

The two D's stole from their rooms, after Liddy bade them good-night, and sat on the top stair, whispering.

"Why did you open your window just now, Donald?"

"Why, because I wanted to look out, of course."

"Now, Don, I know better. You coughed, just to let Uncle know that you were around, if there should be any trouble. You know you did."

"Well, what if I did?" admitted Donald, unwillingly. "Hark!" and he sprang up, ready for action. "No, he's back. It's Uncle. I say, Dorry, it will come hard on us to stay on this side of the hedge, like sheep. I wonder how long it will last."

"Goodness knows! But he didn't say we couldn't go to the Danbys'. I suppose that's because we can get there by going round the back way."

"I suppose so," assented Donald. "So long as we keep off the public road, it's all right."

"How queer!"

"Yes, it is queer," said Donald. "However, Uncle knows best."

"Dear me, how good we are, all of a sudden!" laughed Dorry; but she kissed Donald soberly for good-night, and after going to bed lay awake for at least fifteen minutes, – a great while for her, – thinking over the events of the day and evening.