Hildegarde's Home

"Never any more will I call him it," cried Hugh, "if he is really the angel. But he does look like one. Must we go?" he asked wistfully, as Hildegarde rose, and held out her hand to him.

"Yes, dear, I am going to the village, you know. I thought we would come this way because I wanted you to see the Ladies' Garden. Now we must go across the meadow, and round by the back of Roseholme to find the road again."

They crossed the brook by some mossy stepping-stones, and climbed the dark slope on the further side, thick-set with ferns and dusky hemlock-trees. Then came the wall, and then the sudden break into the sunny meadow. Hugh threw off his grave mood with the shadow, and danced and leaped in the sunshine.

"Shall I run with Merlin?" he asked. "You have never seen us run, Beloved!"

Hildegarde nodded, and with a shout and a bark the two were off. A pretty sight they were! the boy's golden head bobbing up and down in full energy of running, the dog bounding beside him with long, graceful leaps. They breasted the long, low hill, then swept round in a wide circle, and came rushing past Hildegarde, breathless and radiant. This was more than our heroine could bear. With a merry "Hark, follow!" she started in pursuit, and was soon running abreast of the others, with head thrown back, eyes sparkling, cheeks glowing.

"Hurrah!" cried Hugh.

"Hurrah it is!" echoed the Purple Maid.

"Wow, wow!" panted Merlin, ecstatically.

As the chase swept round the hill the second time, two gentlemen came out of the woods, and paused in amazement at the sight. Hildegarde's long hair had come down, and was flying in the wind; her two companions were frantic with delight, and bobbed and leaped, shouting, beside her. So bright was the sunshine, so vivid in colour, so full of life the three runners, they seemed actually to flash as they moved.

"Harry Monmouth!" cried Colonel Ferrers. "Here is a girl who knows how to run. Look at that action! It's poetry, sir! it's rhythm and metre and melody.

"'Nor lighter does the swallow skim
Along the smooth lake's airy rim.'

After her, Master Milksop, and let me see what your long legs can do!"

Jack Ferrers needed no second bidding, and though his running was not graceful, being rather a hurling himself forward, as if he were catapult and missile in one, he got over the ground with great rapidity, and caught his cousin up as she came flying round the meadow for the third time. Hildegarde stopped short, in great confusion.

"Jack!" she faltered, panting. "How – where did you come from? You must have started up out of the earth."

Turning to capture her flying tresses, she caught sight of Colonel Ferrers, and her confusion was redoubled.

"Oh!" she cried, the crimson mounting from her cheeks to her forehead, bathing her in a fiery tide. "Oh! how could you? He – he will be sure I am a tomboy now."

"Nothing of the kind, my fair Atalanta!" exclaimed the Colonel, who had the ears of a fox. He advanced, beaming, and flourishing his stick. "Nothing of the kind!" he repeated. "He is delighted, on the contrary, to see a young creature who can make the free movements of nature with nature's grace and activity. Harry Monmouth! Miss Hildegarde, I wish I were twenty years younger, and I would challenge you to a race myself!"

CHAPTER XI

A CALL AND A CONSPIRACY

"And you really seriously intend passing the winter here?" asked Miss Leonie Loftus.

This young lady had come to make a parting call at Braeside. It was near the end of August, and three months of country life were all that she could possibly endure, and she was going with her mother to Long Branch, and thence to Saratoga.

"You really mean it?" she repeated, looking incredulous.

"Assuredly!" replied Hildegarde, smiling. "Winter and summer, and winter again, Miss Loftus. This is our home now, and we have become attached to it even in these few months."

"Oh, you look at it in a sentimental light," said Miss Loftus, with a disagreeable smile. "The domestic hearth, and that sort of thing. Rather old-fashioned, isn't it, Miss Grahame?"

"Possibly; I have never thought of it as a matter of fashion," was the quiet reply.

"And how do you expect to kill time in your wilderness?" was the next question.

"Kill him?" Hildegarde laughed. "We never can catch him, even for a moment, Miss Loftus. He flies faster at Braeside than even in New York. I sometimes think there are only two days in the week, Monday and Saturday."

"I hear you have a sewing-school in the village. I suppose that will take up some time."

"I hope so! The children seem interested, and it is a great pleasure to me. Then, too, I expect to join some of Miss Wayland's classes in the fall, and that will keep me busy, of course."

"Miss Wayland, over in Dorset? Why, it is three miles off."

"And even if so? I hear it is a delightful school, and Miss Wayland herself is very lovely. Do you know her?"

"No!" said Miss Loftus, who had been "dying" as she would have put it, to get into Miss Wayland's school three years before. "A country boarding-school isn't my idea of education."

"Oh!" said Hildegarde civilly. "But to go back for a moment, Miss Loftus. Your speaking of the children reminds me to ask you, is little Hugh going with you to Long Branch?"

Miss Loftus coloured. "Oh, dear, no!" she replied. "A child at such places, you know, is out of the question. He is to be sent to school. He is going next week."

"But – pardon me! are not all schools in vacation now?"

"I believe so! But these people – the Miss Hardhacks – are willing to take him now, and keep him."

"Poor little lad!" murmured Hildegarde, regardless of the fact that it was none of her business. "Will he not be very lonely?"

"Beggars must not be choosers, Miss Grahame!" was the reply, with another unamiable smile. Miss Loftus really would not have smiled at all, if she had known how she looked.

No sooner was the visitor gone, than Hildegarde flew up to her mother with the news. The Loftuses were going away; they were going to send Hugh to school. What was to be done? He could not go! He should not go.

She was greatly excited, but Mrs. Grahame's quiet voice and words restored her composure. "'Can't' and 'shan't' never won a battle!" said that lady. "We must think and plan."

Hildegarde had lately discovered, beyond peradventure, from some chance words let fall by little Hugh, that his mother had been the sister of Mr. Loftus; and she felt no doubt in her own mind that good Mrs. Beadle was aunt to both. The sister had been a school teacher, had married a man of some education, who died during the second year of their marriage, leaving her alone, in a Western town, with her little baby. She had struggled on, not wishing to be a burden either on her rich brother (who had not approved her marriage) or her aunt, who had nothing but her savings and her comfortable berth at Roseholme. At length, consumption laying its deadly hand on her, she sent for her brother, and begged him to take the boy to their good aunt, who, she knew, would care for him as her own. "But he didn't!" said Hugh. "He did not do that. He said he would make a man of me, but I don't believe he could make a very good one, do you, Beloved?"

Now the question was, how to bring about a meeting between the boy and his great-aunt, if great-aunt she were.

No child was allowed to enter the sacred precincts of Roseholme, for Colonel Ferrers regarded children, and especially boys, as the fountain-head of all mischief, flower-breaking, bird-nesting, turf-destroying. His own nephew had had to wait eighteen years for an invitation. How could it be possible to introduce little Hugh, a boy and a stranger, into the charmed garden?

If "Mammina" could only take him! No one could resist her mother, Hildegarde thought; certainly not Colonel Ferrers, who admired her so much. But this dear mother had sprained her ankle a week before, slipping on a mossy stone in the garden, and was only now beginning to get about, using a crutched stick.

Mrs. Grahame and Hildegarde put their heads together, and talked long and earnestly. Then they sent for Jack, and took counsel with him; and a plan was made for the first act of what Hildegarde called the Drama of the Conspirators.

A day or two after, when Mrs. Beadle drove to the town of Whitfield, some miles off, on her weekly marketing trip, it was Jack Ferrers, instead of Giuseppe, the faithful manservant, who held the reins and drove the yellow wagon with the stout brown cob. He wanted to buy some things, he said: a necktie, and some chocolate, and – oh, lots of things; and Mrs. Beadle was only too glad of his company. The good housekeeper was dressed, like Villikins' Dinah, in gorgeous array, her cashmere shawl being of the finest scarlet, her gown of a brilliant blue, while her bonnet nodded with blue and yellow cornflowers. Not a tradesman in Whitfield but came smiling to his door when he saw Mrs. Beadle's yellow cart; for she was a good customer, and wanted everything of the best for her Colonel. When they at last turned Chow-chow's head homeward, the wagon was nearly filled with brown-paper parcels, and Jack's pockets bulged out in all directions. As they drove along the pleasant road, fringed with oaks and beeches, Jack broke silence with, "Biddy, did you ever have any children?"

"Bless me, Master Jack, how you startled me!" cried Mrs. Beadle, who was deep in a problem of jelly and roly-poly pudding. "No, dear! no jelly – I should say, no chick nor child had I ever. I wasn't good enough, I suppose."

"Nonsense. Biddy!" said Jack. "But you must have had some relations; some – nieces or nephews, or something of that sort."

Mrs. Beadle sighed, and fell straightway into the trap.