Katherine's Sheaves Part 50

"Well, but it was you who made me 'ready' for it," the girl persisted. "You were so dear yourself you made me want to be dear, too, and so my heart opened to receive the Truth. And, Katherine"- -impressively--"every day since I got your letter, just after auntie went away, I have said over to myself what you wrote me, and tried to believe it. It was this: 'Your ident.i.ty is not lost; you are G.o.d's child, and that child can never be deprived of her birthright, or any other good necessary to her happiness and well- being'; only I put it in the first person."

"Dear, you have made it a true prayer, and to-day you have received in part the answer to it," said Katherine, softly.

"Do you think so?" said Jennie, earnestly.

"Indeed, I do. You know the promise, 'If ye ask anything in My name, believing'? But I suppose I must go down," and Katherine turned to leave the room.

Jennie stood still, thinking deeply for a moment. Then, before her friend could reach the stairs, she called out, the old cheery ring in her tones:

"You needn't send up anything, you blessing; I'll wash my face and come down. I don't care if my eyes are red; you all love me and won't mind."

So, after a little, this child of impulse joined the family below, her face radiant with happiness, in spite of the evidences of recent tears, and everybody exhibited the liveliest interest in the wonderful sequel to her life of mystery, and expressed, most cordially, their joy in view of her good fortune in finding some one akin to her.

"Tell me what he looks like, honey. I'm just expiring with curiosity and impatience to see this great magician who has transformed everything for you," said Sadie, with her good-natured drawl, after Jennie had given them a more detailed account of the interview with her relative.

"You just wait till you see this 'magician,' as you call him,"

retorted the girl, with a proud little toss of her head. "Anyone can tell, with half a glance, that he's an out-and-out gentleman.

And, don't you know"--with a long sigh of content--"it is such a comfortable feeling, for I've often had a very lively squirming time all by myself when I've tried to focus my mental kodak upon some imaginary shade of my ancestors to see what he was like."

It was a very happy company that congregated on the verandas the next morning to complete the preparations for the reunion of the afternoon.

Dr. Stanley and the Seabrooks came over again to help arrange flowers, hang the lanterns, etc., and they were no less rejoiced than her other friends when informed of Jennie's happy discoveries of the previous day.

"What are we going to do without our 'Jennie Wild'?" smilingly inquired Prof. Seabrook, as he laid a friendly hand on her curly black head. "I am afraid a good many tongues will trip a good many times before they get used to 'Miss Mildred Arnold Jennison.'"

"Well, professor, you'll have the same Jennie--at least for the next two years; for I'm never going to be called anything else by my old friends," returned the girl, in a positive tone. "I don't quite know how we are going to manage about the name," she added, reflectively. "I'm free to admit, though"--with an arch look--"I think my new tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs are rather swell; but I can't give up the Jennie. I'm sure Jennie Jennison wouldn't do--too much Jennie, you know. But I'm not going to worry about that to-day; I'm too happy, and there's too much to be done. Mrs. Minturn, where is Katherine?" she suddenly inquired, with a roguish glance at a stalwart form that was restlessly pacing the veranda.

"She is in the library, answering a letter for me; she will be through very shortly. Do you want her particularly, dear?"

innocently questioned the lady who was absorbed in filling a jardiniere with scarlet geraniums.

"N-o, not very; only I've been growing conscious during the last few minutes that there is a--er--something lacking in the atmosphere. Dr. Stanley, do have this rocker," she interposed, with a sly smile, and pus.h.i.+ng one towards him, "it's too warm this morning for such a waste of energy."

Either by chance or intention, she had swung the chair directly opposite a low window that commanded a view of the library, where Katherine, in a familiar gown of pale yellow chambrey, was oblivious to all but the work in hand. The young man shot a searching look at the mischievous elf; then, with a quiet "thank you," deliberately took the proffered seat, but, ten minutes later, he also was missing from the company.

He found Katherine seated before her own private desk, and in the act of stamping the letter which he had just seen her addressing.

"I hope I do not intrude?" he observed, in a tone of polite inquiry.

"No, I am just through," she replied, as she carefully pressed the still moist stamp in place with a small blotter.

"I have come to ask if you have a copy of that flashlight picture of the 'Flower Carnival'" he resumed. "Dorrie's is at home, but she wishes to have some more copies, and as I am going to town to- morrow I thought I would attend to it."

"Yes, I have mine right here," said Katherine, as she took a small key from a drawer and proceeded to unlock a compartment in her desk, smilingly explaining as she did so: "This is where I keep my choicest treasures--things that I do not let everyone see."

"Must I look away?" demanded her companion, in a mock-injured tone.

"Oh! no"--with a silvery ripple--"I am not quite so secretive as that."

Removing a box, she carefully placed it one side, then brought forth a package nicely wrapped in tissue paper. Unfolding this, she disclosed several photographs, and among them was the one he had asked for.

"How fortunate you were to get so good a picture!" she observed, and studied it a moment before giving it to him. "How happy Dorrie looks! Although, to see her now, one would scarcely believe that this was ever taken for her."

"No, indeed! What a marvelous change a year has made in that child!" said Dr. Stanley, in an animated tone.

"'A year!' I am sure you do not quite mean that," and she lifted a questioning look to him.

"No, I do not--thank you for correcting me," he gravely rejoined.

"I know time has had nothing to do with it--that we owe it all to Christ--Truth. How watchful one needs to be of one's words, in Science."

"Yes, or one is liable to give wrong impressions without meaning to. It is scientific to be exact, and"--with a soft sigh--"we all have to learn that by being continually on guard."

There was a moment of silence, after she ceased speaking, during which Katherine began to be conscious that the atmosphere was becoming charged with an unaccustomed element, and she hastened to observe, as she glanced towards the veranda:

"How lovely the house is looking! Have you your camera here?"

"I am sorry I have not, for we ought to have some views of it. We will have," he added. "I will have a photographer from the village come up before the day is over and take some."

As he concluded, by some careless handling, the picture of the Flower Carnival slipped from his grasp, and in trying to recover it his arm came in contact with the box, which Katherine had taken from her treasure closet, displacing the cover and almost upsetting it.

"Oh!" cried the girl, in a startled tone, but flus.h.i.+ng scarlet as she saved it from falling and hastily replaced the cover. She was not quick enough, however, to prevent her companion seeing, with a sudden heart bound of joy, that the box contained a spray of dried and faded moss rosebuds.

He turned a radiant face to her, and her eyes drooped in confusion before the look in his, while the color burned brighter in her cheeks.

"Miss Minturn--Katherine! Did you prize them enough to keep them-- here?" and he touched the door of her "treasure closet"

"They are a--a souvenir of a delightful evening--my last at Hilton," she faltered.

His countenance fell; yet something in the tense att.i.tude of the figure beside him, in her quickened breathing and fluctuating color emboldened him to ask:

"Did they convey no message to you? had they any special significance? Tell me--tell me, please!"

"They had not--then," she confessed, almost inaudibly.

"Then?" he repeated, eagerly.

"I did not know--I had not looked---"

"You did not know their language then; but you do now, dear?" he said, a glad ring in his tones. "And may I tell you that my heart and all its dearest hopes went with those little voiceless messengers? That was Why--"

"Oh! Uncle Phillip, the carriage has come for us and we are waiting for you," cried Dorothy's voice from the low, open window on the opposite side of the room, and for the first time in his life a feeling of impatience with his niece stirred in Phillip Stanley's heart. "Why! is anything the matter?" she added, as she observed Katherine's averted eyes and unusual color and her uncle's unaccustomed intensity.

"I'll be with you in a minute, Dorrie," he said. "Just one word,"

he pleaded, bending nearer to Katherine, "have you treasured my messengers because of their message?"

But Katherine could not speak even the "one word"--the fluttering of her startled heart, the throbbing in her throat robbed her of the power to make a sound. The most she could do was to lift her eyes, for one brief instant, and smile faintly into the fond face looking down upon her. It was enough, however. Phillip Stanley stood erect and drew in a long, free breath.

"Coming, Dorrie!" he called out, as the girl made a movement to step over the low sill into the room; "no, there is nothing the matter--I came to ask Miss Minturn for the Flower Carnival picture, to have it copied for you."

"How nice of you, Uncle Phillip! You are always so thoughtful for me!" said unsuspicious Dorothy.