WOULD SHE "DO"?

The next morning Mrs. Burnham came into her pretty parlor, where a dainty breakfast table was laid for two, prepared to be as wise as a serpent over the new situation. She was genial, sympathetic, and not too penetrative in her questions. Erskine had come home late, much later than he had ever been before; yet apparently his mother had not noticed it.

She did not even ask at what time he had come. In truth she needed no information, but how was Erskine to know that?

Did he have a pleasant evening, and was the occasion all that it should have been? He was not enthusiastic. It was pleasant enough, he said. In some respects very pleasant; only—well, a few of the boys were noisier than was agreeable, and two or three of them did not apparently know how to treat ladies.

"Oh, nothing objectionable, of course," he said quickly, in response to her startled look.

"They are so used to being alone that they grow loud-voiced and careless about the small proprieties, or at least courtesies; I fancy some of their ways must have seemed peculiar to Miss Parker."

"The other girls? Oh, they are used to such things; they were the sisters and cousins of the boys, and the ways of a lot of fellows accustomed chiefly to their own society would not seem so strange to the others; but Miss Parker is—at least I hope, I mean I think she—" He caught himself and left the sentence unfinished save by a half-embarrassed laugh, which changed into a slight frown.

While his mother rang her table bell and gave low-voiced directions to the maid, she pondered. What was it that Erskine hoped? That Miss Parker was by nature more refined than the other ladies? And was the hope well founded? She was slightly acquainted with some of the sisters and cousins who were probably at this gathering. At least she had met them once or twice and had felt no fear as to their influence over Erskine. Was this Mamie Parker different? She felt her face flush a little even over her thoughts. Must she learn to say "Mamie"? One thing was certain: she must make the acquaintance of the girl at once. She ventured a move.

"Is this Mr. Parker so much your friend, Erskine, that he will expect your mother to call on his sister, or is that unnecessary?"

Her heart beat in steady thumps while she waited for his answer. If only he would say in his pleasant, indifferent tone:—

"Oh, it isn't necessary, mother; Parker and I are not especially intimate, and he has no reason to expect such attentions from you." But there was no indifference in the quick response.

"Mommie, you know just what, and how, always, don't you? I was wishing for that very thing and not wanting to trouble you. Parker and I cannot be said to be inseparable; but he is a good fellow, and I think you would like him better on closer acquaintance. His sister is very much alone here; none of those girls who were there last night have homes or mothers; I mean of course that they are away from home; though I must admit that some of them acted last night as though they had no mothers anywhere, worthy of the name. It would mean very much to Miss Parker, mother, if she could know you; and of course Parker would appreciate it more than anything else that could be done for her. You don't know how much the boys admire my mother."

His mother managed to smile cheerfully, and assure him that she would make the proposed call. When he went away to his recitation he kissed her fervently and told her she was the dearest mother in the world; and as she watched him out of sight, she turned from the window and said with a kind of strange gravity:—

"I think it has come: I must pray for grace to do right."

For several days thereafter the hours that Mrs. Burnham spent alone were unusually thoughtful and prayerful. The feeling grew upon her that her son had reached a critical point in his life. It is true he was very young, not yet twenty; but none knew better than she that boys of twenty sometimes glorify and sometimes mar all their future by reason of their interest in one young woman. Also, she knew that a single false step on her part, just now, might spoil all her future with her son and hasten a condition of things that she longed to postpone for him. But she could not plan her way, could not indeed see a single step before her until that first one was taken: she must make that call on Mamie Parker. While she allowed one triviality after another to delay her, the conviction grew upon her that the step was important. Erskine's interest was keen; despite the sympathy there had always been between them he had never before shown such a lively desire to hear about each moment of his mother's time while they were separated. That he chose not to ask in so many words whether or not she had yet made that call but emphasized the situation. When, before, had he hesitated to urge what he desired? Moreover, he was often absent-minded and constrained; seeming to be almost embarrassed over his own thoughts. He could not mention the girl's name without a heightened color, yet he evidently planned ways of introducing it that would sound accidental.

All things considered, Mrs. Burnham, as she dressed carefully for calling, gravely admitted to herself that she was evidently about to meet one who, for good or ill, had taken a strong hold upon her son's life.

As she waited in the large ugly parlor, where the wall-paper was gaudily angry over the colors in the carpet, and where every article of furniture or ornament—of which last there were many—seemed ready to fight with every other one, she wondered what Erskine the fastidious thought of this room. It seemed almost profane to think of meeting one's ideal in such a room. Yet she must be reasonable; of course the girl was not to blame for the taste, or want of taste, displayed in her brother's boarding-house.

She had to wait an unreasonable length of time, and despite her furs she felt the chill of the half-warmed room. There were a few books on the table, but she tried in vain to find one that would hold her thoughts. Perhaps no book could have been expected to do that under the circumstances.

Presently she became aware that some one else had entered an adjoining room where there had been brisk moving about ever since her arrival. With the coming of another, a sharp little voice could be distinctly heard:—

"Oh, say, Lucile, do come here and fasten this waist; I'm scared to pieces and my fingers all feel like thumbs. Don't you think 'Ma' has come to look me over and see if I will do! Oh dear! can't you hook it? It's awful tight, but I've got to be squeezed into it somehow; I'm keeping her waiting an awful while. I had on that fright of a wrapper when she came, and my hair in crimps. I didn't get up to breakfast this morning; we were so horrid late last night, I couldn't."

"'Ma' who?" said another voice. "Not Erskine Burnham's mother? You don't say so! My land! I should think you would be scared. They say she's awful particular who she calls on. You must mind your p's and q's, Mamie, or you'll never see that handsome boy of hers again. They say she keeps him right under her thumb all the time."

Mamie's response was in too low a tone to penetrate into the next room, but it was followed by explosive giggles from both talkers. Meanwhile, the caller's face was glowing, not only with shame for them, but with indignation. What might not those coarse girls—she was sure they were both coarse—be saying about her son!

The door opened at last and a mass of fluffy hair entered; behind which peeped a pert little face with pink cheeks and bright, keen eyes.

The girl was dressed in the extreme of the prevailing style,—quite too much dressed for morning, though the material of which her garments were made was flimsy and cheap-looking. Plainly if she had money she had not learned how to spend it to advantage. Still the clothes were worn with an air that hinted at her ability to learn how to play the fine lady if she were given the opportunity.

Her manner to her caller suggested a curious mixture of timidity and bravado. She chattered incessantly and showered slang words and phrases about her freely; yet all the while kept up a nervous little undertone of movement and manner that showed she was not at ease.

"Oh, indeed, she was having an awfully good time. Brother Jim was doing the best he could to give her a lark. She had never been much away from home and they lived in a stupid little village where there was nothing going on. Oh, Jim was an elegant brother; he wanted her to stay all winter and look after his buttons and things."

"I expect you have heard a good deal about Jim, haven't you, from your son? Only he calls him 'Parker' instead of Jim; the boys all do that, you know. It's 'Parker,' and 'Burnham,' and all the rest of them. Ain't it funny, instead of using their first names? I s'pose that's the college of it; but your son has such a pretty name it seems a pity not to use it. Don't you think Erskine is an awful pretty name? I do. It has such an aristocratic sound. Ma says I ought to have been born with a silver spoon in my mouth, I like aristocratic things so well. Not but what we've got money enough;"—this with an airy toss of the frizzed head. Then, in a confidential tone: "But I may as well own to you that it didn't pan out until a little while ago."

Mrs. Burnham, as she took her thoughtful way home, too much exhausted with this effort to think of making another call, studied in vain the problem of her son's enthralment.

The girl was pretty, certainly, with a kind of garish, unfinished beauty, not unlike that of a pert doll; and her chatter, if one could divest one's self of all thought of interest in the chatterer save in the way of a moment's diversion, was rather entertaining than otherwise, when it was not too much mixed with slang; but what Erskine, her cultivated and always fastidious son, could find in the empty little brain to attract him was beyond the mother's comprehension. But he must have been pronounced in his attentions. Had she not been reported as having called to see if the girl would "do"? Ruth's sensitive face flushed over the memory. Should she tell that to Erskine? What should she tell to Erskine? How should the place and the interview and her impressions of the entire scene be described? It required serious thought. The more the mother considered it, the more sure she felt that much of Erskine's future might turn on the way in which she, his mother, conducted herself just now. She puzzled long and reached no clearer conclusion than that until she saw her way clearer she would take no steps at all, and would be entirely noncommittal in her statements. This she found hard; Erskine was curious, more curious than she had ever before known him to be. He cross-questioned her closely as to her call, and was openly regretful, almost annoyed, at her having so little to tell. In the course of the next few days the watching mother, who yet did not wish to appear to watch, knew of at least two social functions that included her son and Miss Parker. One was a sleigh-ride which fell on the evening of the mid-week prayer-meeting in the church they were attending. Erskine had been scrupulous in his attendance on this meeting, declining for it social and business engagements alike, sometimes to his own inconvenience.

"There was no use in compromising about these matters," he said. "Busy people can find something important to detain them every week of their lives if they once admit an exception. The only way is to set one's face like a flint and march ahead."

But he came to her with profuse apologies for this exception; Parker had planned, without knowing anything about the prayer-meeting; he had not been brought up to think of such things, and it was going to embarrass him very much if he declined. He wouldn't have had it happen in this way for a great deal, and he should take care to let Parker know in the future that Thursday evening belonged to his mother and to no one else. He himself arranged for her to have agreeable company to and from the church, and she had grace to be sweet and cheerfully acquiescent in all his plans. Nevertheless she owned, quite to herself, that she felt in a strange, new sense alone. She was more straitened in her praying that evening than she had been for months, almost for years. There was a miserable undertone question hovering about each petition: Could it be possible that she must teach herself to pray for Mamie Parker, not as a passing acquaintance but as one of her very own? and could she learn such a lesson? She had by no means settled it that such a catastrophe must come upon them, but she could not keep down her forebodings.

It was two days afterwards that Mrs. Burnham, having at last reached a decision, made another very careful move. It was discussed over the cosey breakfast which she and Erskine took together in her parlor.

"Would he like to have her ask Mr. Parker and his sister in to dinner on some evening soon? or would that indicate a greater degree of intimacy with the young man than he cared to live up to?"

There was a sudden stricture at her heart over the flash of pleasure on her son's face.

"Mommie, you are a jewel!" this was his first outburst. "Parker would be everlastingly obliged to you for such an attention. You see he knows very few people here of the sort that he would care to have his sister visit. Most of his friends are just college boys away from home, and Parker has ideas about his sister's associates. He is a real good fellow, Mommie; if he had had one-third of my opportunities, he would have made more of them, I believe, than I have."

His mother did not choose to argue that question. She felt a wicked temptation to say that she would be glad if she need never hear his name again; but she restrained herself and asked another question.