"MOTHERS ARE QUEER!"

It was but the week before Alice's expected return, and Mrs. Burnham was out paying afternoon visits. She had confessed to Erskine that she wanted to get them off of her mind before Alice came, and be able to give undivided attention to her for a while.

"I don't suppose you can imagine how I have missed her," she added in a voice that she intended to express archness, but which was almost wistful. He felt the wistfulness and mistook its cause, and said tenderly:—

"Poor little mother! you need a daughter, don't you?"

She had turned from him abruptly to hide the glimmer of tears; and she had told herself almost angrily afterward that it was time she had learned self-control.

At the home of one of her friends she met a Mrs. Carson, with whom she had also a calling acquaintance. Mrs. Carson had been spending some weeks in Boston, and had no sooner exchanged greetings with Mrs. Burnham than she brought out with eager hand from her news budget a choice morsel.

"And what do you both think I heard just before I left the city? At first I could scarcely believe my ears; in fact, I did not credit the news at all; I said it could not be so; I am sure, dear Mrs. Burnham, you will understand why. But afterward it was so signally confirmed that I was obliged to accept it."

"Dear me!" said the hostess, "this is quite exciting. Do enlighten us, Mrs. Carson. We have been so humdrum here this fall that news is thrice welcome."

"You would never guess my news, I am sure, that is, you would not, Mrs. Webster; but there sits our dear Mrs. Burnham, looking as calm and unconcerned as usual, though I presume she has known all about it this long time."

"Now you arouse my curiosity, certainly," that lady said with a quiet smile. "I don't recall any special news from Boston, of late."

"Oh, well, I don't suppose it is late news to you, but it certainly was to me. Why, Mrs. Webster, I have it on excellent authority that our friend Alice Warder is engaged to her cousin, Ranford Colchester, and the marriage is to take place very soon. Now do you wonder that I was simply amazed over such an announcement?"

Mrs. Burnham took her startled nerves into instant and stern check, and was entirely silent while Mrs. Webster exclaimed and expostulated.

"I told you you wouldn't be able to believe it," said the gratified news-dealer. "Such a surprise to us all! and yet you see this naughty woman doesn't express any, and hasn't a word to say for herself! Dear Mrs. Burnham, it isn't necessary I suppose for us to confess that we have been waiting these many weeks for the formal announcement of her engagement to an entirely different person? Her cousin, indeed! why I thought they were the same as brother and sister. I was never more surprised in my life. At first I simply disputed it and assured my friends that Alice Warder was as good as married, already. But it came to me too straight to be disputed. It's this way. My aunt has a young niece living with her this year who is a very intimate friend of Miriam Stevens, and she, you know, is Mr. Colchester's stepdaughter; and she told her all about it. It seems, although they have been engaged for a very long time, years and years, Miriam said, the engagement has just been announced. Mr. Colchester, the father, of course, has opposed the match, because it interfered with some of his pet plans. There was an old love story connected with it, don't you know, and a good deal of sentiment and obstinacy on the part of the old gentleman, who has always thought that the world was made for his convenience. But he found that his son could be obstinate too; he was willing to marry Alice Warder, and he would never, no never, marry anybody else. Then Alice decided that she would show a little spirit, and she refused to come into the family so long as there was a breath of opposition. Nobody knows just what has happened, at least Miriam doesn't; but she says that her stepfather has not only withdrawn his opposition, but seems quite as eager as his son to have the marriage take place. Miriam did not think that the day had been fixed yet, but she felt sure it would be not later than Christmas. Now, isn't that a romantic story, and a startling one? Just think how that girl has stolen a march on us when we thought we understood all about her future, and were breathlessly awaiting our invitations to the wedding! And here sits our dear Mrs. Burnham, looking as unconcerned as possible; though all this while she has been helping deceive us into the belief that Alice Warder was almost her daughter!"

How Ruth Burnham got away from their volubility and their playful accusations and their congratulations she was never afterward able to clearly explain, even to herself. She knew that her brain felt on fire, and every nerve in her body seemed to be quivering, but she also knew that she had one supreme determination, not by word or glance to betray consternation or surprise or indeed feeling of any sort. Since these women believed that she had deceived them, let them by all means continue to do so, at least until she could determine what she thought, or what she was to say.

She knew that she preserved her outward calm, and made some commonplace reply to the eager questioning exclamations showered upon her. She remembered murmuring something about young people's secrets being sacred to themselves, and then she got herself away and walked the seven squares between her and her home, and wished that there were more of them, that she might have time to steady herself and plan what step to take next. How, for instance, was she to break this terrible piece of news to Erskine?

To her astonishment she found that she was giving full credit to the story. Although the details had been too minute and the source of information too terribly reliable to admit of reasonable doubt, yet her reason told her that she ought to be able to turn in contempt from such a story. How was it possible for Alice Warder to be guilty of such long-drawn-out unpardonable hypocrisy as this? Alice Warder of all women in the world! How had it been possible for her to deceive Erskine in this way? Why had she done it? What could have been her motive? Had she simply and deliberately flirted with him, to show that insufferable old man that there were others besides his son who wanted her? Poor Erskine! poor trusting, deceived heart! What could his mother do or say to soften such a revelation as this! Finally she walked quite past her own door, adding several more blocks to the already long distance, before she had herself under sufficient control to meet her son. For the first time in her life she was glad that he was not in when she reached home; and glad again that when he came a friend was with him, who remained to dinner. This enabled her to watch Erskine closely, without his observing it, and to determine whether he might have heard from some other source the strange news.

She decided that he had not; he was even more full of good cheer than usual, and referred several times to Alice, as his guest was also her friend.

Mrs. Burnham's unusual quiet finally called forth solicitous inquiries from her son. Had she overwearied herself that afternoon? Had there been any accident or detention that had worn upon her? She made haste to reassure him, and struggled to appear at ease; while all the time her mind was busy with the problem of how to break her news to Erskine. The more she thought about it, the more strangely improbable it seemed. Alice Warder engaged to be married to any one but Erskine! As for the cruel wickedness of the girl whom she had loved and trusted as a daughter, the woman who felt herself betrayed could not trust her thoughts just yet in that direction. She must give all there was of her to Erskine.

When their visitor had gone, Erskine gave himself in earnest to anxiety about his mother.

"I cannot remember ever to have seen you look so wan and worn. Is it simply the making calls that has exhausted you? I remember I used to notice that that was an exhausting function for you. I wouldn't do it any more, Mommie; let people come to you. Where did you go? and what was said to tire you so? or was it what they didn't say? I have noticed that ladies when making calls never seem to really say anything. They talk a good deal, but then!—"

If he only knew what they had said that day! How should she tell him?

They went to the library; Erskine bemoaning the fact that he had some work which must be done, and could not read to her. But he would establish her among the cushions where she could rest, and he could look at her occasionally. So she lay there, outwardly quiet, looking steadily at him as though she must see his very soul, and going on with her problem. Was she being cruel, too, lying quietly there concealing a weapon with which she was presently to stab him? If she could only decide upon the least terrible way of telling him what she had heard! She planned and discarded a dozen forms of speech, and finally plunged headlong into the baldest and most commonplace of them.

Erskine had risen to close a door, and then had come to adjust her cushions and ask if she were comfortable. And then—should she like him by and by, when he had run over two or three more pages, to read to her? There was a magazine article he had been saving up to enjoy with her. Or was she too tired to-night for reading?

And she had caught his hand and held it in a nervous grip while she exploded her news.

"I heard something very strange this afternoon, Erskine; something that I do not in the least understand. I don't know how to credit it, yet it came to me very straight. Mrs. Carson has just returned from Boston, and has it, she says, from one of the family that Alice Warder is soon to be married to her cousin."

She felt breathless. She did not know whether to look at her victim or to look mercifully away from him. He was leaning forward in the act of tucking a refractory cushion into place, and he persisted in conquering the cushion before he spoke. Then he said cheerfully:

"That is out at last, is it? Alice must feel relieved."

His mother pushed all the cushions recklessly and sat upright.

"Erskine," she said eagerly, "what do you mean? You don't mean, you can't mean that you knew it all the while!"

"Why not, mother? have known it for months, might say years. It had to be a profound secret, though, on account of old Mr. Colchester's state of mind; he had other plans, you see, and at first he utterly refused to side with the young people; then Alice refused to enter the family so long as there was any objection to her, and also refused to have her engagement made public; it has been a long, wearisome time; I am glad for both of them that the struggle is over. I have served them to the best of my abilities, but I can see that the new order of things will be a comfort to both; to all three of us indeed."

He laughed a little over that last admission, but his mother had not yet recovered from her first amazement.

"Erskine, why didn't you tell me?"

He laughed again and bent over to kiss her.

"Mommie, you speak as though at the least I had committed forgery. How could I tell you, dearest? It was another's secret. Alice was absurdly sensitive, it is true, but of course I had to respect her wishes. She is not accustomed to being objected to, you know. There was a sense in which I came upon their secret at first, by accident, which served to make me doubly careful; I did not feel that I could speak of it even to you; though I will own that I thought it extremely foolish in Alice not to do so.

"Do you feel like being read to, mamma, or would you rather be entirely quiet to-night? Do you feel a little bit rested?"

"Yes, indeed," she told him eagerly. She was very much rested; in fact she did not feel tired at all; she would like exceedingly to be read to; or she was ready to do anything that he wished.

He looked at her curiously, and a trifle anxiously. There was something about his mother this evening that he did not understand. A few minutes ago she had looked pale and worn to a degree that was unusual; now her cheeks were flushed and her eyes were very bright. Could she be feverish? he wondered. And he mentally vowed vengeance on all formal calls.

It was nearly a week afterward that Erskine and Alice, walking home together from some society function, lapsed into confidential talk.

"How did you find my mother?" Erskine asked. "Was she able to be as glad over it all as you could wish?"

"She was lovely," said Alice, enthusiastically. "An own mother could not have shown more tenderness and lovingness. I have missed my mother all my life, Erskine, but I shall miss her less, even during this time when a girl needs her mother most, because you are so kind in lending me yours."

"And yet, do you know, I think she has lately suffered a shock and a disappointment? I am nearly certain that she had cherished hopes which included us both. I did not realize until very lately indeed that she too was being deceived; else I must have insisted on her being taken into confidence."

Alice's merry laugh astonished and almost vexed him, her first words were more surprising still.

"So you thought she was disappointed? What bats men are, to be sure!"

"What do you mean? Do you not know that to my mother you are the one young woman?"

"Oh, indeed I do, and rejoice in it. But I know also, my dear simpleton, that she is almost deliriously happy at this moment over her late discovery. I know she loves me almost as she could a daughter, and I also know that she loves me more, oh, far more, because her son Erskine is a brother to me instead of—something else."

His puzzled look made her laugh again.

But after that he studied his mother from a new standpoint. Certainly she was very fond of Alice and was about to lose her; yet certainly she was happy—happier than he had ever known her to be.

"Mothers are queer!" was his grave conclusion.