Chapter 11

AT WISHING-BRAE.

Grace Wainwright, a slender girl, in a trim tailor-made gown, stepped off the train at Highland Station. She was pretty and distinguished looking. Nobody would have passed her without observing that. Her four trunks and a hat-box had been swung down to the platform by the baggage-master, and the few passengers who, so late in the fall, stopped at this little out-of-the-way station in the hills had all tramped homeward through the rain, or been picked up by waiting conveyances. There was no one to meet Grace, and it made her feel homesick and lonely. As she stood alone on the rough unpainted boardwalk in front of the passenger-room a sense of desolation crept into the very marrow of her bones. She couldn't understand it, this indifference on the part of her family. The ticket agent came out and was about to lock the door. He was going home to his mid-day dinner.

"I am Grace Wainwright," she said, appealing to him. "Do you not suppose some one is coming to meet me?"

"Oh, you be Dr. Wainwright's darter that's been to foreign parts, be you? Waal, miss, the doctor he can't come because he's been sent for to set Mr. Stone's brother's child's arm that he broke jumping over a fence, running away from a snake. But I guess somebody'll be along soon. Like enough your folks depended on Mr. Burden; he drives a stage, and reckons to meet passengers, and take up trunks, but he's sort o' half-baked, and he's afraid to bring his old horse out when it rains--'fraid it'll catch the rheumatiz. You better step over to my house 'long o' me; somebody'll be here in the course of an hour."

Grace's face flushed. It took all her pride to keep back a rush of angry, hurt tears. To give up Paris, and Uncle Ralph and Aunt Hattie, and her winter of music and art, and come to the woods and be treated in this way! She was amazed and indignant. But her native good sense showed her there was, there must be, some reason for what looked like neglect. Then came a tender thought of mamma. She wouldn't treat her thus.

"Did a telegram from me reach Dr. Wainwright last evening?" Grace inquired, presently.

The agent fidgeted and looked confused. Then he said coolly: "That explains the whole situation now. A dispatch did come, and I calc'lated to send it up to Wishin'-Brae by somebody passing, but nobody came along goin' in that direction, and I clean forgot it. Its too bad; but you step right over to my house and take a bite. There'll be a chance to get you home some time to-day."

At this instant, "Is this Grace Wainwright?" exclaimed a sweet, clear voice, and two arms were thrown lovingly around the tired girl. "I am Mildred Raeburn, and this is Lawrence, my brother. We were going over to your house, and may we take you? I was on an errand there for mamma. Your people didn't know just when to look for you, dear, not hearing definitely, but we all supposed you would come on the five o'clock train. Mr. Slocum, please see that Miss Wainwright's trunks are put under cover till Burden's express can be sent for them." Mildred stepped into the carryall after Grace, giving her another loving hug.

"Mildred, how dear of you to happen here at just the right moment, like an angel of light! You always did that. I remember when we were little things at school. It is ages since I was here, but nothing has changed."

"Nothing ever changes in Highland, Grace. I am sorry you see it again for the first on this wet and dismal day. But to-morrow will be beautiful, I am sure."

"Lawrence, you have grown out of my recollection," said Grace. "But we'll soon renew our acquaintance. I met your chum at Harvard, Edward Gerald at Geneva, and he drove with our party to Paris." Then, turning to Mildred, "My mother is no better, is she? Dear, patient mother! I've been away too long."

"She is no better," replied Mildred, gently, "but then she is no worse. Mrs. Wainwright will be so happy when she has her middle girl by her side again. She's never gloomy, though. It's wonderful."

They drove on silently. Mildred took keen notice of every detail of Grace's dress--the blue cloth gown and jacket, simple but modish, with an air no Highland dressmaker could achieve, for who on earth out of Paris can make anything so perfect as a Paris gown, in which a pretty girl is sure to look like a dream? The little toque on the small head was perched over braids of smooth brown hair, the gloves and boots were well-fitting, and Grace Wainwright carried herself finely. This was a girl who could walk ten miles on a stretch, ride a wheel or a horse at pleasure, drive, play tennis or golf, or do whatever else a girl of the period can. She was both strong and lovely, one saw that.

What could she do besides? Mildred, with the reins lying loosely over old Whitefoot's back, thought and wondered. There was opportunity for much at the Brae.

Lawrence and Grace chatted eagerly as the old pony climbed hills and descended valleys, till at last he paused at a rise in the path, then went on, and there, the ground dipping down like the sides of a cup, in the hollow at the bottom lay the straggling village.

"Yes," said Grace, "I remember it all. There is the post-office, and Doremus' store, and the little inn, the church with the white spire, the school-house, and the Manse. Drive faster, please, Mildred. I want to see my mother. Just around that fir grove should be the old home of Wishing-Brae."

Tears filled Grace's eyes. Her heart beat fast.

The Wainwrights' house stood at the end of a long willow-bordered lane. As the manse carryall turned into this from the road a shout was heard from the house. Presently a rush of children tearing toward the carriage, and a chorus of "Hurrah, here is Grace!" announced the delight of the younger ones at meeting their sister. Mildred drew up at the doorstep, Lawrence helped Grace out, and a fair-haired older sister kissed her and led her to the mother sitting by the window in a great wheeled chair.

The Raeburns hurried away. As they turned out of the lane they met Mr. Burden with his cart piled high with Grace's trunks.

"Where shall my boxes be carried, sister?" said Grace, a few minutes later. She was sitting softly stroking her mother's thin white hand, the mother gazing with pride and joy into the beautiful blooming face of her stranger girl, who had left her a child.

"My middle girl, my precious middle daughter," she said, her eyes filling with tears. "Miriam, Grace, and Eva, now I have you all about me, my three girls. I am a happy woman, Gracie."

"Hallo!" came up the stairs; "Burden's waiting to be paid. He says it's a dollar and a quarter. Who's got the money? There never is any money in this house."

"Hush, Robbie!" cried Miriam, looking over the railing. "The trunks will have to be brought right up here, of course. Set them into our room, and after they are unpacked we'll put them into the garret. Mother, is there any change in your pocketbook?"

"Don't trouble mamma," said Grace, waking up to the fact that there was embarrassment in meeting this trifling charge. "I have money;" and she opened her dainty purse for the purpose--a silvery alligator thing with golden clasps and her monogram on it in jewels, and took out the money needed. Her sisters and brother had a glimpse of bills and silver in that well-filled purse.

"Jiminy!" said Robbie to James. "Did you see the money she's got? Why, father never had as much as that at once."

Which was very true. How should a hard-working country doctor have money to carry about when his bills were hard to collect, when anyway he never kept books, and when his family, what with feeding and clothing and schooling expenses, cost more every year than he could possibly earn? Poor Doctor Wainwright! He was growing old and bent under the load of care and expense he had to carry. While he couldn't collect his own bills, because it is unprofessional for a doctor to dun, people did not hesitate to dun him. All this day, as he drove from house to house, over the weary miles, up hill and down, there was a song in his heart. He was a sanguine man. A little bit of hope went a long way in encouraging this good doctor, and he felt sure that better days would dawn for him now that Grace had come home. A less hopeful temperament would have been apt to see rocks in the way, the girl having been so differently educated from the others, and accustomed to luxuries which they had never known. Not so her father. He saw everything in rose-color.

As Doctor Wainwright toward evening turned his horse's head homeward he was rudely stopped on a street corner by a red-faced, red-bearded man, who presented him with a bill. The man grumbled out sullenly, with a scowl on his face:

"Doctor Wainwright, I'm sorry to bother you, but this bill has been standing a long time. It will accommodate me very much if you can let me have something on account next Monday. I've got engagements to meet--pressing engagements, sir."

"I'll do my best, Potter," said the doctor. Where he was to get any money by Monday he did not know, but, as Potter said, the money was due. He thrust the bill into his coat pocket and drove on, half his pleasure in again seeing his child clouded by this encounter. Pulling his gray mustache, the world growing dark as the sun went down, the father's spirits sank to zero. He had peeped at the bill. It was larger than he had supposed, as bills are apt to be. Two hundred dollars! And he couldn't borrow, and there was nothing more to mortgage. And Grace's coming back had led him to sanction the purchase of a new piano, to be paid for by instalments. The piano had been seen going home a few days before, and every creditor the doctor had, seeing its progress, had been quick to put in his claim, reasoning very naturally that if Doctor Wainwright could afford to buy a new piano, he could equally afford to settle his old debts, and must be urged to do so.

The old mare quickened her pace as she saw her stable door ahead of her. The lines hung limp and loose in her master's hands. Under the pressure of distress about this dreadful two hundred dollars he had forgotten to be glad that Grace was again with them.

Doctor Wainwright was an easy-going as well as a hopeful sort of man, but he was an honest person, and he knew that creditors have a right to be insistent. It distressed him to drag around a load of debt. For days together the poor doctor had driven a long way round rather than to pass Potter's store on the main street, the dread of some such encounter and the shame of his position weighing heavily on his soul. It was the harder for him that he had made it a rule never to appear anxious before his wife. Mrs. Wainwright had enough to bear in being ill and in pain. The doctor braced himself and threw back his shoulders as if casting off a load, as the mare, of her own accord, stopped at the door.

The house was full of light. Merry voices overflowed in rippling speech and laughter. Out swarmed the children to meet papa, and one sweet girl kissed him over and over. "Here I am," she said, "your middle daughter, dearest. Here I am."