FullReads

So she decided to send Periwinkle down. Rob Riley could take her, and Cousin John’s wife had always liked her and she’d be glad to see her. She hadn’t any children of her own, and might be real glad to have the merry little thing about; and as for sending her back, there was always somebody coming up from the city. Of course Grandma Newton didn’t think how large the village of New York had grown to be, and how unlikely it was that Henrietta should find any one going to Weston.

The greatest difficulty was to persuade Rob Riley to take her. His pride was wounded, and he didn’t want to have anything to do with Henrietta and her fine folks. But the old lady persisted, and, above all, little Periwinkle informed Rob that she was going down to see about Henrietta. This touched Rob; he remembered when she had snatched Henrietta out of the jaws of Miss Tucker. He consented to take her to Mr. Willard’s house and ring the door-bell.

Henrietta had recovered from her attack of penitence, and was again floating on the eddying current of excitement. One evening she went with Lowder to see La Dame aux Camelias. She had never before seen “an emotional play” of the French school, and it affected her deeply. Harry took advantage of her softened feelings to envelop her in a cloud of flattery, and to make love to her. Something of the better sense of the girl had heretofore held her back from any committal of her trust to him; but when they reached Mrs. Willard’s parlor, Harry laid direct siege to Henrietta’s affection, telling her what moral miracles her influence had wrought in him, and how nothing but her love was needed to keep him steadfast in the future; and, in truth, he more than half believed what he said. The whole scene was quite in the key of the play, and her overwrought feelings drifted toward the man pleading thus earnestly for affection. Harry saw the advantage of the situation, and urged on her an immediate decision. Henrietta, still shaken by passionate excitement, and without rest in herself, was on the point of promising eternal affection, in the manner of the heroine of the play, when there came a loud ringing of the door-bell. So highly strained were the girl’s nerves, that she uttered a sharp cry at this unexpected midnight alarm. The servants had gone to bed when Henrietta came in. There was nothing for it but to open the door herself. With Harry Lowder behind her for a reserve, she timidly opened the front door, to find a child, muffled in an old-fashioned cloak and hood, standing upon the stoop, while a man was descending the steps. Looking around just enough to see who came to the door, he said, “Your mother said you wanted her, and she would have me bring her to you.”

Then, without a word of good-night, Rob Riley walked away, Henrietta recognizing the voice with a pang.

“I come down to see about you,” spoke the solemn and quizzical figure on the stoop.

“Where on earth did that droll creature come from?” broke out Lowder. “What is the matter, Miss Newton?”

For the suddenness of the apparition, the rude air with which Rob Riley had turned his back upon her, had started a new set of emotions in the mind of Henrietta. A wind from the old farm had blown suddenly over her and swept away the fog. She felt now, with that intuitive quickness that belongs to the artistic temperament, that she had recoiled but just in time from a brink. For a moment she seemed likely to faint, though she was not the kind of woman to faint when startled.

She reached out her hand to Periwinkle, and then, with a reaction of feeling, folded her in her arms and wept. Harry was puzzled. She suddenly became stiff and almost repellent toward him. She seemed impatient for him to be gone. It was a curious effect of surprise upon her nerves, he thought. He mentally confounded his luck, and said good night.