Part 12

Wrapped up with this letter was a very different one. On the cover was written, in her mother's hand:

"I have been, two or three times, on the point of destroying this letter; but have refrained, thinking it might, at some time, be of use. I wish to record my firm belief that General Stanfield never saw it or ordered it written."

Calista opened the letter. It was in Miss Priscilla's clear, cramped hand, and read as follows:

"Mrs. Richard Stanfield's letter is received. Mrs. Richard Stanfield is hereby informed that General Stanfield wishes to hold no communication with her or her husband on any subject whatever; and that no letters from either of them will meet with any attention.

(Signed) "PRISCILLA STANFIELD,

"For Richard Stanfield."

At the end was written:

"Nevertheless, I wrote to my husband's father and to his sister at the time when my child was born, but I never received the slightest answer."

Calista sat with burning cheeks, holding this letter in her hands. Her lips were compressed, and her eyes full of trouble. She was not thinking of the loss of property, not at all of herself in connection with it, but of the cruel injury done to her mother.

"Then she did know. She knew all the time. But Mr. Settson said grandfather did not know of my existence, and it would certainly seem so from what Miss Betsy said. She must have contrived some way to keep the letters from grandfather altogether. Oh, how could she—how could she be so cruel! And there was my poor mother working herself to death to support herself and me. I never can forgive her—never. If it had been myself—but my mother—to write so to my mother! If I cannot be a Christian without forgiving Aunt Priscilla, I shall never be one. But there is the bell. I must go down. Oh, how I did want these things, and now I almost wish I had never seen them."

"Forever by the goal are set Pale disappointment and regret."

As soon as breakfast was over and she could get away, she renewed her examinations. The trunk contained much that was of interest to her—books of various sorts, chiefly religious and poetical; scraps carefully preserved from newspapers; an old-fashioned water-color box, well furnished with colors, brushes, &c.; a white frock, began but not finished; and divers other matters of no interest to the reader. When she had gone through them all once, she locked up the trunks and went to Miss Druett's room, where she was pretty sure to find her alone at this time, when Miss Priscilla, always methodical, was engaged in her daily scolding match with Chloe.

"See here, Miss Druett, what shall I do with these?" said she, showing her the watch and ornaments she had found.

Miss Druett looked at them with great interest.

"I suppose your father gave your mother these things," said she. "You must not keep them here. If Priscilla gets wind of them, she will leave no stone unturned to get them into her hands."

"She will never get them into her hands," said Calista.

"She will try, though. You might give them to Mr. Settson, only he is not at home. I believe the better way will be to leave them with Mr. Fabian, at the bank. I could make an errand for you there, and give you a note to Mr. Fabian. And yet you ought not to walk into town carrying such a treasure, either. Let me think a little. Here, quick, child, let me put them in my desk. I hear Priscilla coming."

Miss Priscilla came in, evidently in a great fume.

"Druey, I want you to go to town," was her salutation.

"What now?" asked Miss Druett, with her usual coolness.

"That man Anderson was to have been here day before yesterday, to pay his interest, and he hasn't come. I want you to go and see about it."

"I can't possibly go to-day. What does it signify? I dare say he will be here to-morrow. He is always pretty punctual."

"But I want the money."

"Nonsense; you are not suffering for it."

"But I want it," said Miss Priscilla, fretfully; "and you don't know whether I am suffering or not."

"I know I am," said Miss Druett. "I had earache all night, and if I should ride to town in this wind, I should have it for a month."

"You can wrap your head up," pleaded Miss Priscilla. "Come, Druey, do; just to oblige me."

"I would if I could, Priscilla. I want to go myself, but I am not able. Why not let the child go?"

"The child, indeed! What good can she do?"

"She can carry a note as well as I, and do my errand at the same time. Let her take the pony. You don't mind, do you, Calista?"

"No, I should like it," said Calista.

Miss Priscilla grumbled and complained, but finally decided that Calista might do the errand, if she would be careful and not drive the pony too fast.

"I should like to see myself doing it," said Calista, laughing in spite of her trouble. "Never fear, aunt; Jeff and I are old friends. I will run and tell David to get up the chaise."

"He knows about it already," said Miss Priscilla. "I counted on Druey's going, but she thinks so much of her precious ears."

"They are all I have, you see, and I might not find another pair to fit me," said Miss Druett. "Never mind, Priscilla, the child will do the errand just as well. Come to me when you are ready."

Calista dressed herself as neatly as she could, and it was with a mingled feeling of pain and pleasure that she hung over her arm a long, soft, gray cloth cloak, which she had found among her mother's things. Miss Druett noticed it as soon as she entered the room.

"That is a very nice, pretty cloak; was it in the trunk?"

"Yes, ma'am. The air is so damp and chilly that I knew I should need something, and my old shawl is all in holes. I thought perhaps mother would like to have me use it."

"No doubt she would like to have you use all the things. Be careful of them, that is all. And, by the way, stop at Mrs. Dare's and see when she can fit your frocks."

"Oh, she cannot do them at all," said Calista; "she has broken her arm, and her niece has all she can do with the girls' examination dresses. But I heard Cassius say that his step-daughter, Drusella Pine, was coming here directly to set up dressmaking. I know Miss Alice had her last summer, and was very much pleased with her. I might find out when she is expected."

"True, and with the horse you will not be afraid to come round that way. If I were a little richer, you should have a pretty white frock. However, we will talk of that another time. Here are your trinkets and a note to Mr. Fabian. Take care you don't lay the bag out of your hand, and go straight to the bank the first thing."

"May I go up to the school and ask for Miss McPherson? She had one of her bad headaches yesterday."

"Yes, but don't stay. I shall feel rather anxious till you are safe at home."

"Why to-day more than any day?"

"Because I am an old fool, child."

"How foolish I have been!" she said to herself. "I believe I have been of some use to the child as it was, but what comfort we might have been to each other if I had not been so determined to nurse my anger and grief all my life! Even now, at my age, I can hardly help being jealous of the dead mother's cloak. Truly, the sorrow of the world worketh death."

Miss Druett did not often quote Scripture, but she had done so once or twice lately. After Calista had gone, she went into her room to see that everything was safely secured. Her eyes fell upon Calista Folsom's Bible, and taking it in her hand, she sat down and read a long time.

"What have you been about all the morning, Druey?" said Miss Priscilla, as they sat down to their twelve o'clock dinner. They were alone, for Calista had not yet returned.

"You would never believe it if I were to tell you, Priscilla," was the answer. "I have been reading the Bible."

"What ails everybody?" was Miss Priscilla's comment. "Here Chloe tells me that old Mr. Alger is going to preach in the old meeting-house every Sunday evening. There must be something in the air. We shall have you turning Methodist and leading a class yet."

"I might do worse," said Miss Druett.

I incline to think Miss Priscilla was right, and that there was something stirring in the air about the Stanfield neighborhood, a-going in the tops of the trees, as it were, which might be a sign that a gracious rain was about to fall on that hitherto dry and barren ground.

CHAPTER THIRTEENTH.

THE OLD MEETING-HOUSE.

CALISTA had truly said that she and Jeff understood each other. To oblige her, he even condescended to trot. Just as she reached the town, she met the delinquent Joseph Anderson, and stopped to talk with him.

"Good-morning, Friend Anderson. I was just coming to bring you a note from my aunt."

"I was on my way to see her," was the reply. "I suppose she is in a fret about her interest, as usual. I have had it by me these ten days, but my poor sister Rolfe was so ill, I did not like to be out of the way."

"I heard yesterday she was not as well."

"She is not long for this world, though she is more comfortable this morning," said the old man, shaking his head. "Well, it will be a glorious exchange for her, that is one comfort."

"A great one, I am sure," said Calista.

"Yes, yes, thee is right; but then thee knows the heart will cling to those it loves. Well, I must go on my errand and get back. Thee had better give me the note, perhaps."

Calista did so, and drove on to the bank, where she found Mr. Fabian, an elderly white-haired man, of precise, polite manners, who shook her by the hand, and complimented her on her growing resemblance to her father.

Calista presented her note, which Mr. Fabian read with interest.

"Quite right, quite right, and very sensible on your part, my dear young lady. Yes, I will take care of the things, and have them put into the vault. I knew your father and grandfather well. Pray, call upon me without hesitation if I can be of any service to you."

As Calista was waiting a moment for Mr. Fabian to write a receipt and a note for Miss Druett, she heard an old gentleman, who had been sitting in the back office, say to him—

"Is not that old Richard Stanfield's granddaughter?"

"Granddaughter and heir, if every one had their rights," answered Mr. Fabian in the same tone. "But the second will, if indeed he ever made one, will never be found."

"It may turn up yet."

"Possibly; and then the girl would be a great heir, for the property has increased tenfold in value. I fear the will will never be found. I suspect some one took care of that."

At another time this conversation would have set Calista off into one of the day dreams in which she had so much delighted; but now her head and heart were full of something else.

She asked at the school for Miss McPherson, and heard that she was better, and had gone out driving with Miss Meeks and Tessy; for Miss McPherson kept a handsome, roomy carriage, and drove out with some of her young ladies almost every day. It was not till she was on her way home, and had turned into the river road, that Calista remembered Mary Burns and the missing working-case.

In fact, Calista's mind and head were full of a new and strange trouble. A fierce contention was going on for that small empire—so small, so great—a human soul.

The night before she had fully determined to follow her mother's counsel—to give herself heart and soul to him who had given himself for her. But since then, she had read Miss Priscilla's letter, and her mother's remarks upon it, and hence arose her trouble. This it was which had waked up the lions which disputed her passage, and if the lions were chained, she saw not the chains. She knew that to follow the footsteps of her Lord she must forgive not only her own enemy—she thought that would be almost easy—but her mother's.

"Forgive if ye would be forgiven," rung in her ears, and she felt the words were true.

"If it had been only myself,—" she said over and over again—"but my mother, my dear precious mother, who never did harm to any one in all her days—no, no! I never can! Oh, why did she keep that letter! She might have known! Oh, what shall I do!—What shall I do!"

In her trouble of mind, she had nearly passed Cassius's modest little house, but was recalled by a cheerful greeting from the old man, who was cutting some wood outside the gate.

"Morning, Missy! Don't you mean to stop and give us a call?"

"Yes, of course," answered Calista, recalled from her abstraction, and pulling up Jeff, nothing loth, at the gate. "I will come in if you will fasten the pony."

Cassius tied the pony, and brought him an armful of fragrant new hay from the next field, with which the attention of that ancient sage was soon wholly engrossed.

Meantime, Calista had alighted, and was receiving a hearty welcome from Aunt Sally, who conducted her to the house and seated her in the best chintz-covered rocking-chair, bringing her a fan, and sending a little girl to the well for cool water.

"Who is that little thing?" asked Calista, as the child disappeared. "Your grandchild?"

"Lord bless you, honey, no. My grandchillen's no such peaked, puny little things as that, thanks to Massy. No, that's poor Maria Jackson's child, that works to Mrs. Dare's, the dressmaker. You see, Mrs. Dare she can't very well have the child round—she can't, really—and Maria boarded the little thing out, down to Gouldtown. But the woman that had her didn't do her justice—made her work far too hard, though Maria paid her regular. Besides, she didn't give her half enough to eat. One day I met Maria in the street, and says she,—

"'Just look at this child, will you!'

"And says I, 'For Massy, Maria, what ails her?'

"So she up and told me, and Sister Wilson, that was with her, said it was all so.

"And says I, 'Maria, you just let me have her a few weeks, and you won't know her. Don't you never send her back to that woman,' says I.

"'But I don't know as I can afford to pay what it is worth,' says she.

"'Never mind,' says I; 'you pay what you can, or don't pay anything. Just let me have her a few weeks, and see what I can do with her. And Cassius says the same.'

"So we brought her home, and she's picked up wonderful in a week."

"But I thought the Gouldtowners were pretty nice people," said Calista, as she fanned herself and admired the cool, cheerful aspect of the room.

"So they are—so they are; but Missy knows there's a black sheep in every flock!"

"They's all middling black sheep up to Gouldtown!" said old Cassius, who had entered in time to hear the last remark.

Calista smiled, and the old woman laughed they heartily.

"So they are, old man—so they are; but that's only the outside. Bless the Master's name, he don't look at their skins. And old Sister Williams, she told me herself that the folks was up in arms about the way this child was treated. But I'm most sorry we took her, for she's such a smart, clever, lively little piece, I sha'n't never want to part with her."

All this time Sally had been, on hospitable thoughts intent, covering a little table with a white cloth, and setting thereon white bread, golden butter, a great pitcher of milk and cream, and various other good things. Having finished her preparations, she invited Calista to draw her chair to the table, excusing herself for having no meat cooked.

"This hot weather we don't do much cooking. We generally eats bread and milk, or some such thing, at noon, and I cooks something for supper. But I can make a fire and boil Missy some eggs in a minute."

"No, thank you," said Calista. "I like this beautiful, cool milk better than anything."

"That's just what Drusella Pine says," replied old Sally, much delighted. "She says, 'Aunt, we can get meat in the city, but we can't get such milk as you have here—not for no price,' says she."

"Philadelphy's pretty well off for milk, too, for a city," remarked Cassius. "Not like New York."

Cassius always spoke of New York with a kind of pitying contempt, as a place which might come to something some time, but could never hope to vie, either in beauty or importance, with "Philadelphy."

"I wanted to ask about Drusella," said Calista. "When is she coming?"

"We expect her to-night," answered Cassius. "I'm going to meet her at the Cohansey stage and bring her out here. She'll stay with us a few weeks, and then, I expect, she'll have to rent a room in Cohansey. It is too far out here for her business."

"I asked because I thought she would, perhaps, do some work for me," said Calista. "Miss Druett wants me to have a couple of dresses made, and she told me to call and see if Drusella could take them home and cut and fit them."

"I'll speak to her about it the first thing Monday morning," said Cassius. "I don't doubt she'll be glad to do the work. I hope Missy means to go to the preaching to-morrow night?"

"Oh, yes, I shall go," said Calista. "Thank you very much, Aunt Sally, for your nice lunch. I only wish I could make you any return for all your kindness to me."

"Law, Missy, don't you think of such a thing!" said Sally. "Your family has done more for us than we can ever pay."

"Well, I'm glad the poor child is going to have some new frocks, for once in her life," she added as Cassius came back to the house. "I only wonder how she came by them. Have a drink, old man?"

"Maybe Miss Priscilla's turning liberal," observed Cassius, accepting the offer.

"Maybe the sky's turning pea-green!" returned Sally, scornfully. "Maybe that milk you're a-drinking is made of melted pearls!"

"Don't taste like it," said Cassius. "Tastes like first-rate cow's milk."

"Much you know how melted pearls taste! There, now, don't go to work in the sun right off. Sit down in the big chair and have a nap. Naps in the middle of the day is good for old folks."

Calista arrived at home just as Friend Anderson and Miss Priscilla had finished their business, which had not been done without some wrangling; Miss Priscilla maintaining that the money was twenty-five cents short.

"Thee is in the wrong," said Jacob Anderson, "but I will pay the money rather than dispute longer. I will thank thee for a receipt."

"What is the use of a receipt when it is endorsed on the bond?" snapped Miss Priscilla.

"I'll trouble thee for the receipt all the same," said the old Friend. "Accidents sometimes happen, and there is so harm in a double security."

"Won't you have a cup of tea, Friend Anderson?" said Miss Druett, struck with the old man's weary expression. "You look very tired."

"No, thank thee, Friend Druett. I am a poor man, but I don't think I could swallow grudged victuals. They would stick in my throat. Thank thee for the offer all the same. Farewell, Priscilla; I hope thee may some day come to a better mind. Remember, if riches don't leave thee, thee will have to leave them. When thee comes to lie on a death-bed, like my poor sister, twenty-five cents won't look quite so big to thee as it does now."

And Jacob Anderson took his departure, having certainly taken the worth of his twenty-five cents out of Miss Priscilla.

"So you had your ride for nothing," remarked Miss Druett.

"Not altogether. I did your errand at the bank, and stopped to see about Drusella Pine. She is coming to-night, and Cassius says he will send her over Monday morning."

"What on earth do you want with Drusella Pine?" asked Miss Priscilla.

"I want her to cut and fit the child's new frocks, and perhaps make one of them. She has not a decent thing to wear."

"She is not coming here to make it, I can tell you that," said Miss Priscilla, in alarm. "I won't have a dressmaker eating more than her day's wages, and telling and tattling about family matters all over."

"Don't alarm yourself, I have no intention of having her here," replied Miss Druett; "she need not come into the house, if you prefer she should not. Calista and I can go over there. Don't you want some dinner, child?"

"No, thank you, Miss Druett. I had a good lunch of bread and milk and gingerbread at Aunt Sally's?"

"Sally makes a great deal of you, it seems to me," said Miss Priscilla. "I dare say she would not offer me so much as a crust."

"Oh, yes, she would, aunt; try her and see."

"Did you hear any news?" asked Miss Druett.

"Only about Mrs. Rolfe; they say she cannot live but a few days, at the outside."

"That will be a great relief to her family," said Miss Priscilla; "it must cost a great deal to have her ill so long."

"I don't believe they feel in that way," observed Calista; "they are all very fond of 'Aunty Rolfe,' as they call her. Can I do anything for you, Miss Druett?"

"No, child, unless you can find a brick to heat for my face. I am going to try to get a little sleep, for I had none last night."

Calista found the brick and heated it, and having done all in her power to make Miss Druett comfortable, she betook herself to her own room.

How she would have liked to set her mother's work-box and writing-desk on the table; but she knew it would never do, though she did venture to arrange her small store of books on two shelves which had long ago been put up in a corner. These books were, as I have said, chiefly religious; but there was a thick, fine-printed but handsome Shakespeare, with her father's name in it, and some volumes of English poetry—Cowper, Goldsmith, Young's "Night Thoughts," and others of that stamp. There was a "Saint's Rest," much used and blotted here and there with tears; a "Pilgrim's Progress," apparently quite new, and the "Life of Mrs. Fletcher," by H. More.

The next morning, Miss Druett was really ill with a severe cold, and Calista, was kept busy all day running and waiting on her. As it came towards night, however, Miss Druett felt better, and insisted on Calista going to the meeting. Calista had felt a dull, miserable pain at her heart all day; she could see no way of deliverance, and she did not hope for much help at the meeting; but she had promised to go, and she went.

She was surprised to see what a large congregation had been collected by the exertions of Cassius and the others who had interested themselves in the matter. Sally and her husband had washed the windows and floor, dusted the benches and pulpit, and really made the poor deserted old sanctuary look bright and cheerful. Cassius, who was acting as sexton, assigned Calista a seat near the desk, where the minister was already seated.

He was an elderly, somewhat hard-featured man, who looked as some one said of another minister, as if he had been through the fire and come out brightened and also a little hardened by the process. He glanced at Calista with peculiar interest, and Calista wondered whether he was thinking that she looked like her father. That, however, was not the case. He was thinking, "That child looks as if she were in some great trouble. I wonder what it is. God help her."

The service began with a hymn, then a chapter in the Bible—the first of St. John's gospel—then a prayer, and then came the announcement of the text, taken from the same chapter:

"Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world."

The style was so plain that a child could have understood it; plain with the simplicity of high cultivation and much reading, and also that of deep feeling. It was evident that the preacher meant every word he said. Calista drank it in as a man dying in the alkaline desert would take in a draught of cool, fair water brought from a mountain spring. Here was the Saviour she needed—he who was called Jesus, because he came to save his people from their sins; because his blood cleansed away sin; because he suffered in their stead; because he blotted out transgression in the past and promised help for the future.