"SENTIMENTAL" PEOPLE

Erskine came up the stairs in quick leaps. "Mother!" he was calling. "Mother! Where are you? Why, mommie!" and he had her in his arms.

"I thought I should be sure to see you the moment the carriage turned the corner! Are you ill, mother? What is the matter?"

Was there reproach in his voice? There was something that gave back his mother's self-command.

"It is tardiness," she said lightly. "The carriage came sooner than I had thought it possible. O Erskine, it is good to hear your voice again."

He kept his arms about her and was half smothering her in kisses while he talked. Yet his tones had that note in them which held her in check.

"Irene will think this a strange welcome home, I am afraid; I had to leave her in the hall with the maids while I came in search of you."

"We will go down at once," said his mother; and she withdrew herself from his arms and led the way.

"She is very pretty." This was Mrs. Burnham's mental tribute to her new daughter, as they stood together on the side porch after breakfast. It was the morning after the arrival of the bride and groom. They had been drawn thither by Erskine, who had walked back and forth with an arm about each, bewailing the fact that he could not spare even one day for his wife in her new home, but must get at once to business. In the midst of his regretful sentence his car was heard at the crossing above, and he had hurried away, calling back to them to take care of themselves, and get well acquainted while he was gone.

The two ladies had each returned a gay answer, and then had watched their opportunity to glance furtively at each other, uncertain how to begin the formidable task set them.

Ruth Burnham had it in her heart to be almost sorry for the younger woman, left thus without Erskine to lean upon, her only companion in this new, strange home, a woman to whom the place had been home for a generation. Did this give her a special advantage? Ought she to do something to make the other woman feel at home? What should it be? What ideas had they in common? There was Erskine, of course. It was not hard for the mother to understand why this woman had been attracted to him. How indeed could she help it? But what was it in her that had won him?

"She is certainly very pretty," she said again, as she studied the shapely figure leaning meditatively against one of the porch pillars; she was looking down into the garden gay with autumn blooms.

She was rather above medium height, with a fair skin and a wealth of golden brown hair and eyes that were very blue. Ruth did not like her eyes. That is, she would not have liked them if they had not belonged to her daughter-in-law. In the solitude of her strangely solitary room, the night before, she had fought out again one of her battles, and had resolved anew that there should be nothing about this new daughter that she would not like.

Certainly she was pretty; so was her dress. She was all in white; not a touch of color anywhere. Was that her taste, or Erskine's fancy? Could his mother make it a stepping-stone to conversation?

"You dressed for Erskine, this morning, I fancy," she said with a winsome smile. "I presume you have already discovered how fond he is of white?"

"Oh, yes, he has held forth to me on that subject. Some of his ideas are absurd, but they serve me very well just now. All white answers as a substitute for mourning, under the circumstances. I hate black, and I am glad that Erskine did not want me to wear it."

This was the first reference that had been made to her bereavement. Mrs. Burnham had not known how to touch it. Neither had her daughter's words suggested what should be said. She murmured some commonplace about the peculiar hardness of the situation.

"Yes, indeed," said the younger woman. "It was simply dreadful! Aunt Mary had been an invalid always,—ever since I knew her, at least,—but nobody supposed that she would ever die. She was one of the nervous kind, you know, full of aches and pains; a fresh list each morning, and a detailed description of each. I did get so tired of it! If it hadn't been for Erskine, I don't know what I should have done. Poor auntie was very fond of him, and no wonder. He bore with all her stories and her whims like a hero. I used to tell him that he had not lived with his mother all his life, for nothing."

"Her sudden death must have been a great shock to you."

The new mother made a distinct effort to keep her voice from sounding cold. Something in the words or the tones of the younger woman had jarred.

"Oh yes," she said, and sighed. "You cannot imagine what a perfectly dreadful time it was! You know when people are always ill and always fussing, you get used to it, and expect them to go on forever. If I had had the least idea that she was going to die, I should have planned differently, of course. What I should have done without Erskine, as things turned out, it makes me shudder to think. What a queer old place this is, isn't it? Erskine tells me that he has always lived here and that the garden looks much as it did when he was a child. Is that so? It seems so strange to me! I have moved about so much that I cannot imagine how it would be to live always, anywhere. I don't believe I should like it. The everlasting sameness, you know, would be such a bore. Don't you find it so?"

Ruth tried to smile. "I am very much attached to the place. I came to it, as you have, a bride; and now I am afraid I should have difficulty in making any other place seem like home."

"Yes, that is because you are old. Poor auntie was forever sighing for home. Nothing in all France or Italy was at all to be compared to the delights of her room at home with four south windows and long curtains that she had hemstitched herself."

She laughed lightly and flitted away from the subject.

"Is that an oak tree over there by the south gateway? Don't you think oaks are ugly? They haven't the least bit of grace. I like elm trees better than any other; every movement of their limbs is graceful. There isn't one about the place, is there?"

"Oh, yes, indeed, the other entrance from the east is lined with them the entire length of the carriage drive. Was your aunt compelled to remain abroad on account of the climate? It seems sad to think that she had to be away from her home when she missed it and mourned for it." Ruth could not keep her thoughts from reverting to the aunt who had been so large a part of the younger woman's life for many years and had been so recently removed from it.

"Oh, I suppose she could have lived at home. In fact she was worse after leaving it, or thought she was; I didn't see any great difference. It was a lonesome, poky old house where she lived. Older than this, and awfully dreary in winter. I couldn't have stayed there a winter, after I once got away, to have saved her life. It was back in the country, you know, two miles from town; think of it! I hate the country. Little cities like this one are bad enough, but the country! Deliver me from ever having to live in it again. I thought I should die when I was there as a girl.

"Is Erskine very much attached to this place, do you suppose, or has he stayed here just for your sake? I should think it would be much better for him to live where his business is. Think how much of his time is consumed in going back and forth! and then, too, it is so disagreeable for him to never be within call when one wants him."

"As to the length of time it takes to go back and forth, that is no more than is taken by those who live in the best residence portions of the large city; we have rapid transit, and all the business men who can afford to do so, keep their homes out here. Erskine has never known any other home than this, and it would be strange indeed if he were not attached to it. Of course it is associated with his father as no other place can ever be."

This time it was not possible for the elder lady to keep her voice from sounding cold and constrained. The thought of Erskine in any other home than this one that had been improved from time to time and made beautiful, always with his interests in view, had not so much as occurred to her. She recoiled from the mere suggestion, and also from the easy and careless manner in which it was made.

The young woman's manner was still careless.

"Oh, of course; but young people do not feel such attachments much; it isn't natural. We talk a great deal about sentimental youth, but I think it is the old who are sentimental, don't you? Auntie was an illustration of that. She had the greatest quantity of old duds that she carried about with her wherever she went, just because they were keepsakes, souvenirs, and all that sort of thing. They were of no real value, you know, the most of them, and some were mere rubbish. I had the greatest time when we were packing to go abroad; she wanted to lug ever so much of that stuff with her! I just had to set my foot down that it couldn't be done; and it was fortunate that I did, as things turned out. We had a horrid time getting packed; if Erskine had had all that rubbish to see to with the rest, I don't know what would have become of him. I don't believe he has sentimental notions; he is too sensible. He ought to be in the city; that is the place for a man to rise; and you want him to rise, don't you? Aren't you ambitious for him? I am. I want him to stand at the very head of his profession. I tell him that if he doesn't, it will not be for lack of brains, but on account of a morbid conscience. Don't you think he is inclined to be over-conscientious, sometimes? What an odd, old-fashioned plant that is beyond the rose arbor; it looks like a weed."

She had a curious fashion of mixing the important and the trivial in a single sentence. The mother, whose nerves quivered with her desire to answer that remark about over-conscientiousness, restrained herself and explained the plant that looked like a weed.

"It is a very choice variety of begonia and has a lovely blossom in its season. It is the first thing that Erskine planted quite by himself. He was a tiny boy then, with yellow curls."

The mother's voice trembled. A vision of her boy in his childish beauty, in the long-ago days when he was all her own, came back to her, bringing with it a strange new pang.

The wife laughed carelessly.

"And you have kept it all these years, ugly as it is, on that account? I told you it was old people who were sentimental."

Mrs. Burnham turned abruptly away, murmuring something about household duties. She went to the kitchen and gave the cook some directions that she did not need; then went swiftly to her room and closed and locked her door. Then she passed through to her sitting room, the door of which was opposite her son's, and stood always open, inviting his entrance, and closed and locked it. She had a feeling that she must be alone. More alone than closed and locked doors would make her. She must shut out something that had come in unawares and taken hold of her life. But could she shut it out, or get away from it?

"I must pray," she said aloud, clasping both hands over her throbbing forehead. "I must pray a great deal. I am not alone; God is with me; and nothing dreadful has happened, or is about to happen. There is nothing and there must be nothing but peace and joy in our home. I must be quiet and sensible and not sentimental. Oh, I must not be sentimental at all!"

She laughed a little over that word—the kind of laugh that does not help one; but it was followed immediately by tears, and they relieved a little of the strain.

Then she went to her knees; and when she arose, was quiet and ready for life. The thought came to her that it was well that she was acquainted with God and did not have to seek him at this time as one unknown. He had kept his everlasting arms underneath her through trying years, certainly she could trust him now.

She went out at once in search of her daughter, intending to propose a drive; but Ellen met her in the hall with a message.

"I was to tell you, ma'am, that young Mrs. Burnham has gone to lie down and doesn't want to be disturbed. She doesn't want to be awakened even for luncheon; she says she has been on a steady strain for weeks, and has a lot of sleeping to make up; she shouldn't wonder if she slept all day."

"Very well, Ellen, we will keep the house quiet and let her rest as long as she will."

The mother's voice was quietness itself, yet, despite that phrase "young Mrs. Burnham," which, some way, jarred, her heart was filled with compunction. Had the poor young wife, a stranger in a strange home, shut herself up to sleep, or to cry? She had been through nerve-straining experiences so recently; death and marriage coming into one short week; and now, a new home, and Erskine away for the day, and no one within sight or sound whom she had ever seen before. Would it be any wonder if the tears wanted to come? Could not her new mother have helped her through this first strange day? Why had she not put tender arms about her and kissed her, and called her "daughter," and said how glad she was to have a daughter? That was what she had meant to do. This morning when she came from her night vigil, she had almost the words on her lips that she meant to say as soon as they two were alone. She had meant the words in their fulness; so at least she believed. They had come to her in answer to her cry for help. What had kept her from saying them?

Even while she asked herself the question, a faint weary smile hovered about her lips.

Had she done so, would she have been thought "sentimental?"