"A STUDY"

A tall, pale girl with delicate features and great brown eyes and a wealth of gold-brown hair.

"A study in black and white," was the phrase that floated through Ruth's mind as she looked at her. The girl was in deep mourning unrelieved even by a touch of white, and her face was intensely pale. Yet there was something about her, a nameless something, that claimed instant interest, and Mrs. Burnham, who, ever since she had heard of the girl's existence, had been struggling with an unreasonable desire to hate her, felt instantly drawn toward her. She felt rather than realized that, whatever might have been Irene's appearance in girlhood, the two had nothing in common now, for her eyes.

"I have heard your name," the pale girl said, much as she might have addressed a book agent, "but I did not know that you were coming to New York."

"My dear," broke in Madame Sternheim, reproof in her tone, "I am sure it is very kind in Mrs.—yes, Mrs. Burnham to take all this trouble for your sake. She tells me that she is not related to you in any way, and it is certainly quite unusual for strangers to be so kind."

"It is very kind," the girl said coldly, and stood irresolute apparently as to what she should do or say next; while Ruth, sorry for her and for herself and unreasonably annoyed with Madame Sternheim, was at a loss how to proceed.

The Madame came to her aid, addressing the young girl.

"Do be seated, my dear, and make yourself at least look comfortable." There was a strong emphasis laid upon the word "look" and the reproof in the tone was still marked, as she continued:—

"Mrs. Burnham will naturally want to have a talk with you, and learn what little you may be able to explain to her about this sad matter, although I am too fully aware that it will be very unsatisfactory." Then she turned to Ruth.

"With your permission, dear madam, I will retire and leave my charge in your care for the present. I assure you it is a great relief to me to find that there is some one willing to share with me this heavy responsibility."

The girl turned at this, and with slow, languid steps preceded the Madame to the door, which she held open for her to pass, and bowed respectfully as she did so. Then, waiting until a turn in the hall hid the lady from sight she carefully closed the door.

Ruth, meantime, was watching her with a half-terrified fascination. She was so calm, so self-possessed, so utterly without feeling of any sort, apparently. What was to be said to her? and what good could come in any way from that which now began to look like interference? She was not in the least prepared for the sudden change which the closing of that door seemed to make.

The girl turned with an impetuous movement and seemed to fly, rather than walk, over the space between them, and, flinging herself in a crushed little heap in front of her guest, hid her face on Mrs. Burnham's lap and burst into a passion of weeping.

"Poor little girl!" Ruth said softly, and laid her hand tenderly on the bowed head. There seemed no other word that could be spoken until the storm of weeping had in a degree subsided.

"Oh, do forgive me!" the child said, after a minute, but without raising her head. "I did not mean to cry, I meant to control myself; I thought I could, through it all, but I am so wretched! and she—she freezes me! she wants me to be resigned, and to remember how much better off I am than some other girls who have no one to look after them, and it doesn't help me one bit. I am so glad that you have come! You are Aunt Mamie's friend, so you can't be like Madame Sternheim; and you won't tell me that Aunt Mamie isn't related to me in the most distant degree and in the nature of things cannot be, will you? I can see that you are not like the Madame the least bit in the world, and I am glad, glad! Oh! I am a very wicked girl! I ought not to have said that; she is good, she is very good; and she is patient with my faults and follies; and yet—there are times when I almost hate her! Oh, dear! what will you think of me? I don't act like this very often; I don't cry often—I don't cry at all! but now I must, or I shall die!"

Then followed another outburst of passionate weeping.

"Cry as much as you want to, dear child," Ruth said. "It is only natural, and will do you good."

All the time her hand was moving over the tumbled masses of hair, making quiet, soothing passes.

After a little the girl sat up and brushed away the tears. "I can't think what made me," she said. "Only you reminded me of Aunt Mamie, and then—it all came back. I don't know what I am to do; it seems to me that I cannot live without her, but I have got to; and without—everybody. It does seem sometimes as though there was never another girl in the world so utterly alone; but Madame Sternheim says there are, hundreds of them, even in this city! I am so sorry for them all! I wish they could die and go to heaven. I wish I could, with papa. But Madame Sternheim says—" she stopped abruptly and struggled for self-control, and spoke almost fiercely.

"I won't tell you what she says about my father, nor think about it. It isn't true, and if it were, she—"

Ruth felt a curious feeling of indignation rising against Mamie Parker. How could she have deserted this child? so soon, at least, after her bereavement? Surely she needed her more than the brother did, who had been alone for years! Then came a great gust of shame and shook her heart. Why should Mamie Parker, a stranger, be expected to show compassion for this lonely girl when her own family, her own mother—But that would not bear thinking about.

"Poor little girl!" she said again, with infinite tenderness. "Will you take me for a friend? I will do the best I can to be a true one."

"Oh, thank you," the child said impulsively. "I am so glad, so glad for you! and only last night I thought I could never be glad about anything again! Aunt Mamie had to go, of course, at the time appointed. It isn't like other journeys, you know; they have to sail when they are told; missionaries do, I mean. That is,—oh, you understand. But Aunt Mamie felt very badly about leaving me; and she said she thought you would love me; but of course I couldn't see why you should. It isn't that I am not cared for, Mrs. Burnham. I have been with Madame Sternheim for six years and I am sure that I have every care and attention that a girl possibly could; she has always made that plain to me; but—She did not like papa, Mrs. Burnham. She never did; and she—almost spoke against him, even to me! Could a girl ever care very much for one who talked and felt as she did about the dearest, kindest, most loving papa that ever lived? oh!"

She clenched her hands, and the tears threatened to choke her; but she put them back with a strong will, and even faintly smiled.

"I shall not cry again," she said. "Madame thinks it is wicked. Mrs. Burnham, I wish you could have known my papa. He was—I mean he was not—oh, I don't know how to say it; and I am not sure that I want to say it, ever. He was good to me always; a girl like me couldn't have had a better father; and I don't know how to live in this world without him. It kills me to have to stay all the time among people who say always; 'Your poor father!' and shake their heads and look as though they could say volumes of ugly things about him if they chose. They shall not! I will not have people talking about my father! the dearest, the best! a great deal better than the self-righteous creatures made of icicles that they admire!"

Ruth was amazed at the suppressed fury of her tones, and at her eyes which, but a moment before dim with weeping, now blazed with indignation. Evidently the child had passed through a severe mental strain.

"Don't, dear," she said gently. "No one could be so cruel as to want to speak against your father. I am glad you love him so dearly; he can always help you. You will not want to disappoint him in any way, you know."

The girl looked at her searchingly as one startled. This was evidently a new thought; it took hold of her heart. A softened light came into her unusually expressive eyes and after a moment she said very gently:—

"No one ever said anything to me like that, before. It helps."

They made great strides toward intimacy even in that first morning. So great that when Ruth, pitying the girl's loneliness and evident dread of the people by whom she was surrounded, proposed that she send for her to come and take dinner with Mrs. Roberts and herself, she caught at the suggestion with an eagerness which showed what a relief it was to her; and then almost immediately demurred.

"But I ought not to presume in that way. I am certain the Madame will think so. Will not your friend think it very strange in me, a stranger, to intrude upon her home?"

"Wait until you see her," Ruth said, smiling. "Mrs. Roberts and I are very old friends, and I am almost as much at home in her house as I am in my own."

As she spoke, she felt a sudden stricture at her heart over those commonplace words. Was she not in these later days almost more at home in Flossy's house than in her own?

But Maybelle's face had gloomed over.

"I think I must not go, Mrs. Burnham," she said. "I suppose I ought not to wish, or even be willing to go; I am sure Madame Sternheim will be shocked at the idea. I am in deep mourning, you know, and my loss is so recent."

Unconsciously the child had imitated the prim decorum of her Mentor, and it had changed her entire face.

Ruth leaned forward impulsively and kissed her, while she spoke with a smile:—

"Dear child, be yourself, and not Madame Sternheim. Adopt me, will you, and let me attend to the decorum part, and all the rest. Mrs. Roberts is quite alone, save for me; her husband is away on a business trip, and her children have scattered for the vacation; so we shall be very quiet, we three; and there is no reason in the world why you should not come to us. I want you to know Mrs. Roberts; she is anxious to see you, and would have come with me this morning, if she had not thought it better that you and I should make each other's acquaintance first. As for you, you will love her the first time you look at her. Shall I speak to Madame Sternheim myself about it?"

When this was done, Madame Sternheim was discovered to be graciousness itself. She might be doubtful as to Mrs. Burnham's place in the world, her knowledge of people being limited and very local, but the name of Mrs. Evan Roberts called for instant approval, and to know that Mrs. Burnham was her friend and guest was sufficient passport for her. It was very kind and thoughtful in dear Mrs. Roberts, she was sure, to send for the poor child; and very like her too, if all that the Madame had heard concerning her was true. Did Mrs. Burnham know that her friend had the name of always doing the most delicate kindnesses that no one else would have thought of? She was really a wonderful woman? Madame Sternheim had long wanted to know her. They need not trouble to send the dear child home, she herself was going out this evening, and would have pleasure in calling for Miss Somerville at ten o'clock.

"Isn't it beautiful here?" Maybelle said, a few hours later, as she sank among the cushions of a "Sleepy Hollow" and feasted her beauty-loving eyes on the harmonies of Mrs. Roberts's living-room. "It is like a poem, or no, a picture; that is what it is like, Mrs. Burnham; one of papa's pictures. How he would have loved this room! He was always making sketches of sweet, dear, home rooms, and there was always a beautiful mother in them with a baby in her arms. I think my mother must have been very beautiful, for it was always the same face, and I know it was intended for mamma, though he never told me so; I could not talk with papa about her, ever, it made him cry. Don't you think it is dreadful to see a man cry? When I started the tears in his dear blue eyes, I always felt like a wretch! and for that reason I gave up trying to say anything about mamma, though I should so love to have heard every little thing about her. Papa must simply have adored her, but I have had to dream her out for myself. I have spent hours and hours over it, studying papa's sketches, you know, and trying to clothe them with flesh. I believe I know just how she looked. Sometimes she would grow so real to me that I almost expected her to hold out her arms and clasp me to them. I was a wee baby, you know, when mamma went away."