FullReads

Inside the green-painted door, with its white trim and brass knocker and knobs, there was a narrow hall hung with old portraits, opening into a room literally all fireplace. Here there were gouty sofas, and five or six big easy-chairs ranged in a half-circle, with arms held out as if begging somebody to sit in them; and here, too, was an embroidered worsted fire screen that slid up and down a standard, to shield one’s face from the blazing logs; and there were queer tables and old-gold curtains looped back with brass rosettes–ears really–behind which the tresses of the parted curtains were tucked; and there were more old portraits in dingy frames, and samplers under glass, and a rug which some aunt had made with her own hands from odds and ends; and a huge work-basket spilling worsteds, and last, and by no manner of means least, a big chintz-covered rocking-chair, the little lady’s very own–its thin ankles and splay feet hidden by a modest frill. There were all these things and a lot more–and yet I still maintain that the room was just one big fireplace. Not alone because of its size (and it certainly was big: many a doubting curly head, losing its faith in Santa Claus, has crawled behind the old fire-dogs, the child’s fingers tight about the Little Gray Lady’s, and been told to look up into the blue–a lesson never forgotten all their lives), but because of the wonderful and never-to-be-told-of things which constantly took place before its blazing embers.

For this fireplace was the Little Gray Lady’s altar. Here she dispensed wisdom and cheer and love. Everybody in Pomford village had sat in one or the other of the chairs grouped about it and had poured out their hearts to her. All sorts of pourings: love affairs, for instance, that were hopeless until she would take the girl’s hand in her own and smooth out the tangle; to-say nothing of bickerings behind closed doors, with two lives pulling apart until her dear arms brought them together.

But all this is only the outside of the old mahogany high-boy with its meerschaum-pipe polish, spraddling legs, and rattling handles.

Now for the Little Gray Lady’s own particular drawer.

II

It was Christmas Eve, and Kate Dayton, one of Pomford’s pretty girls, had found the Little Gray Lady sitting alone before the fire gazing into the ashes, her small frame almost hidden in the roomy chair. The winter twilight had long since settled and only the flickering blaze of the logs and the dim glow from one lone candle illumined the room. This, strange to say, was placed on a table in a corner where its rays shed but little light in the room.

“Oh! Cousin Annie,” moaned Kate (everybody in Pomford who got close enough to touch the Little Gray Lady’s hand called her “Cousin Annie”–it was only the outside world who knew her by her other sobriquet), “I didn’t mean anything. Mark came in just at the wrong minute, and–and–” The poor girl’s tears smothered the rest.

“Don’t let him go, dearie,” came the answer, when she had heard the whole story, the girl on her knees, her head in her lap, the wee hand stroking the fluff of golden hair dishevelled in her grief.

“Oh, but he won’t stay!” moaned Kate. “He says he is going to Rio–way out to South America to join his Uncle Harry.”

“He won’t go, dearie–not if you tell him the truth and make him tell you the truth. Don’t let your pride come in; don’t beat around the bush or make believe you are hurt or misunderstood, or that you don’t care. You do care. Better be a little humble now than humble all your life. It only takes a word. Hold out your hand and say: ‘I’m sorry, Mark–please forgive me.’ If he loves you–and he does–“

The girl raised her head: “Oh! Cousin Annie! How do you know?”