“Dear Uncle Jimmie:

“I said I would write you, but now that I have taken this hour in which to do it, I find it is a very, very hard letter that I have got to write. In the first place I can’t believe that the things you said to me that night were real, or that you were awake and in the world of realities when you said them. I felt as if we were both dreaming; that you were talking as a man does sometimes in delirium when he believes the woman he loves to be by his side, and I was listening the same way. It made me very happy, as dreams sometimes do. I can’t help feeling that your idea of me is a dream idea, and the pain that you said this kind of a letter would give you will be merely dream pain. It is a shock to wake up in the morning and find that all the lovely ways we felt, and delicately beautiful things we had, were only dream things that we wouldn’t even understand if we were thoroughly awake. 262

“In the second place, you can’t want to marry your little niecelet, the funny little ‘kiddo,’ that used to burn her fingers and the beefsteak over that old studio gas stove. We had such lovely kinds of make-believe together. That’s what our association always ought to mean to us,—just chumship, and wonderful and preposterous pretends. I couldn’t think of myself being married to you any more than I could Jack the giant killer, or Robinson Crusoe. You’re my truly best and dearest childhood’s playmate, and that is a great deal to be, Uncle Jimmie. I don’t think a little girl ever grows up quite whole unless she has somewhere, somehow, what I had in you. You wouldn’t want to marry Alice in Wonderland, now would you? There are some kinds of playmates that can’t marry each other. I think that you and I are that kind, Uncle Jimmie.

“My dear, my dear, don’t let this hurt you. How can it hurt you, when I am only your little adopted foster child that you have helped support and comfort and make a beautiful, glad life for? I love you so much,—you are so precious to me that you must wake up out of this distorted, though lovely dream that I was present at! 263

“We must all be happy. Nobody can break our hearts if we are strong enough to withhold them. Nobody can hurt us too much if we can find the way to be our bravest all the time. I know that what you are feeling now is not real. I can’t tell you how I know, but I do know the difference. The roots are not deep enough. They could be pulled up without too terrible a havoc.

“Uncle Jimmie, dear, believe me, believe me. I said this would be a hard letter to write, and it has been. If you could see my poor inkstained, weeping face, you would realize that I am only your funny little Eleanor after all, and not to be taken seriously at all. I hope you will come up for my graduation. When you see me with all the other lumps and frumps that are here, you will know that I am not worth considering except as a kind of human joke.

“Good-by, dear, my dear, and God bless you.

“Eleanor.”

It was less than a week after this letter to Jimmie that Margaret spending a week-end in a town in Connecticut adjoining that in which Eleanor’s school was located, telephoned Eleanor to join her 264 overnight at the inn where she was staying. She had really planned the entire expedition for the purpose of seeing Eleanor and preparing her for the revelations that were in store for her, though she was ostensibly meeting a motoring party, with which she was going on into the Berkshires.

She started in abruptly, as was her way, over the salad and cheese in the low studded Arts and Crafts dining-room of the fashionable road house, contrived to look as self-conscious as a pretty woman in new sporting clothes.

“Your Uncle David and your Uncle Jimmie are going to be married,” she told her. “Did you know it, Eleanor?”

“No, I didn’t,” Eleanor said faintly, but she grew suddenly very white.

“Aren’t you surprised, dear? David gave a dinner party one night last week in his studio, and announced his intentions, but we don’t know the name of the lady yet, and we can’t guess it. He says it is not a society girl.”

“Who do you think it is?”

“Who do you think it is, Eleanor?”

“I—I can’t think, Aunt Margaret.”

“We don’t know who Jimmie is marrying either. 265 The facts were merely insinuated, but he said we should have the shock of our lives when we knew.”

“When did he tell you?”

“A week ago last Wednesday. I haven’t seen him since.”

“Perhaps he has changed his mind by now,” Eleanor said.

“I don’t think that’s likely. They were both very much in earnest. Aren’t you surprised, Eleanor?”

“I—I don’t know. Don’t you think it might be that they both just thought they were going to marry somebody—that really doesn’t want to marry them? It might be all a mistake, you know.”

“I don’t think it’s a mistake. David doesn’t make mistakes.”

“He might make one,” Eleanor persisted.

Margaret found the rest of her story harder to tell than she had anticipated. Eleanor, wrapped in the formidable aloofness of the sensitive young, was already suffering from the tale she had come to tell,—why, it was not so easy to determine. It might be merely from the pang of being shut out from confidences that she felt should have been shared with her at once. 266

She waited until they were both ready for bed (their rooms were connecting)—Eleanor in the straight folds of her white dimity nightgown, and her two golden braids making a picture that lingered in Margaret’s memory for many years. “It would have been easier to tell her in her street clothes,” she thought. “I wish her profile were not so perfect, or her eyes were shallower. How can I hurt such a lovely thing?”

“Are the ten Hutchinsons all right?” Eleanor was asking.

“The ten Hutchinsons are very much all right. They like me better now that I have grown a nice hard Hutchinson shell that doesn’t show my feelings through. Haven’t you noticed how much more like other people I’ve grown, Eleanor?”

“You’ve grown nicer, and dearer and sweeter, but I don’t think you’re very much like anybody else, Aunt Margaret.”

“I have though,—every one notices it. You haven’t asked me anything about Peter yet,” she added suddenly.

The lovely color glowed in Eleanor’s cheeks for an instant. 267

“Is—is Uncle Peter well?” she asked. “I haven’t heard from him for a long time.”

“Yes, he’s well,” Margaret said. “He’s looking better than he was for a while. He had some news to tell us too, Eleanor.”

Eleanor put her hand to her throat.

“What kind of news?” she asked huskily.

“He’s going to be married too. It came out when the others told us. He said that he hadn’t the consent of the lady to mention her name yet. We’re as much puzzled about him as we are about the other two.”

“It’s Aunt Beulah,” Eleanor said. “It’s Aunt Beulah.”

She sat upright on the edge of the bed and stared straight ahead of her. Margaret watched the light and life and youth die out of the face and a pitiful ashen pallor overspread it.

“I don’t think it’s Beulah,” Margaret said. “Beulah knows who it is, but I never thought of it’s being Beulah herself.”

“If she knows—then she’s the one. He wouldn’t have told her first if she hadn’t been.”

“Don’t let it hurt you too much, dear. We’re 268 all hurt some, you know. Gertrude—and me, too, Eleanor. It’s—it’s pain to us all.”

“Do you mean—Uncle David, Aunt Margaret?”

“Yes, dear,” Margaret smiled at her bravely.

“And does Aunt Gertrude care about Uncle Jimmie?”

“She has for a good many years, I think.”

Eleanor covered her face with her hands.

“I didn’t know that,” she said. “I wish somebody had told me.” She pushed Margaret’s arm away from her gently, but her breath came hard. “Don’t touch me,” she cried, “I can’t bear it. You might not want to—if you knew. Please go,—oh! please go—oh! please go.”

As Margaret closed the door gently between them, she saw Eleanor throw her head back, and push the back of her hand hard against her mouth, as if to stifle the rising cry of her anguish.

The next morning Eleanor was gone. Margaret had listened for hours in the night but had heard not so much as the rustle of a garment from the room beyond. Toward morning she had fallen into the sleep of exhaustion. It was then that the stricken child had made her escape. “Miss Hamlin had found that she must take the early train,” 269 the clerk said, “and left this note for Miss Hutchinson.” It was like Eleanor to do things decently and in order.

“Dear Aunt Margaret,” her letter ran. “My grandmother used to say that some people were trouble breeders. On thinking it over I am afraid that is just about what I am,—a trouble breeder.

“I’ve been a worry and bother and care to you all since the beginning, and I have repaid all your kindness by bringing trouble upon you. Perhaps you can guess what I mean. I don’t think I have any right to tell you exactly in this letter. I can only pray that it will be found to be all a mistake, and come out right in the end. Surely such beautiful people as you and Uncle David can find the way to each other, and can help Uncle Jimmie and Aunt Gertrude, who are a little blinder about life. Surely, when the stumbling block is out of the way, you four will walk together beautifully. Please try, Aunt Margaret, to make things as right as if I had never helped them to go wrong. I was so young, I didn’t know how to manage. I shall never be that kind of young again. I grew up last night, Aunt Margaret. 270

“You know the other reason why I am going. Please do not let any one else know. If the others could think I had met with some accident, don’t you think that would be the wisest way? I would like to arrange it so they wouldn’t try to find me at all, but would just mourn for me naturally for a little while. I thought of sticking my old cap in the river, but I was afraid that would be too hard for you. There won’t be any use in trying to find me. I am going where you can not. I couldn’t ever bear seeing one of your faces again. I have done too much harm. Don’t let Uncle Peter know, please, Aunt Margaret. I don’t want him to know,—I don’t want to hurt him, and I don’t want him to know.

“Oh! I have loved you all so much. Good-by, my dears, my dearests. I have taken all of my allowance money. Please forgive me.

“Eleanor.”