Old Rose and Silver Part 10

"Who?"

"Miss--you know. Isabel."

"Oh, I don't know," responded Juliet, sleepily. "I guess she's kind of a sissy-girl."

V

AN AFTERNOON CALL

"Aunt Francesca," asked Isabel, "is Colonel Kent rich?"

"Very," responded Madame. She had a fine damask napkin stretched upon embroidery hoops and was darning it with the most exquisite of st.i.tches.

"Then why don't they live in a better house and have more servants? That place is old and musty."

"Perhaps they like to live there, and, again, perhaps they haven't enough money to change. Besides, that has been Colonel Kent's home ever since he was married. Allison was born there."

Isabel fidgeted in her chair. "If they're very rich, I should think they'd have enough money to enable them to move into a better house."

"Oh," replied Madame, carefully cutting her thread on the underside, "I wasn't thinking of money when I spoke. I don't know anything about their private affairs. But Colonel Kent has courage, sincerity, an old- fas.h.i.+oned standard of honour, many friends, and a son who is a great artist."

The girl was silent, for intangible riches did not appeal to her strongly.

"Allison is like him in many ways," Madame was saying. "He is like his mother, too."

"When is he going away?"

"In September or October, I suppose--the beginning of the season."

"Is he going to play everywhere?"

"Everywhere of any importance."

"Perhaps," mused Isabel, "he will make a great deal of money himself."

"Perhaps," Madame responded, absently. "I do hope he will be successful." She had almost maternal pride in her foster son.

"Is Cousin Rose going, too?"

"Going where? What do you mean, dear?"

"Why, nothing. Only I heard him ask her if she would go with him on his concert tour and play his accompaniments, providing you or the Colonel went along for chaperone, and Cousin Rose laughed and said she didn't need a chaperone--that she was old enough to make it quite respectable."

"And---" suggested Madame.

"Allison laughed, too, and said: 'Nonsense!'"

"If they are going," said Madame, half to herself, "and decide to take me along, I hope they'll give me sufficient time to pack things decently."

"Would the Colonel go, if you went?"

"I hardly think so. It wouldn't be quite so proper."

"I don't understand," remarked Isabel, wrinkling her pretty brows.

"I don't either," Madame replied, confidentially. "However, I've lived long enough to learn that the conventions of society are all in the interests of morality. If you're conventional, you'll be good, in a negative sense, of course."

"How do you mean, Aunt Francesca?"

"Perfect manners are diametrically opposed to crime. For instance, it is very bad form for a man to shoot a lady, or even to write another man's name on a check and cash it. It saves trouble to be conventional, for you're not always explaining things. Most of the startling items we read in the newspapers are serious lapses from conventionality and good manners."

"The Crosbys aren't very conventional," Isabel suggested.

"No," smiled Madame, "they're not, but their manners proceed from the most kindly and friendly instincts, consequently they're seldom in error, essentially."

"They have lots of money, haven't they?"

"I have sometimes thought that the Crosbys had more than their age and social training fitted them to use wisely, but I've never known them to go far astray. They've done foolish things, but I've never known either to do a wrong or selfish thing. Money is a terrible test of character, but I think the twins will survive it."

"I suppose they've done lots of funny things with it."

Madame's eyes danced and little smiles wrinkled the corners of her mouth. "On the Fourth of July, last year, they presented every orphan in the Orphans' Home with two dollars' worth of fireworks, carefully chosen. Of course the inevitable happened and the orphans managed to set fire to the home, but, after two hours of hard work, the place was saved. Some of the children were slightly injured during the celebration, but that didn't matter, because as Juliet said, they'd had a good time, anyway, and it would give them something to talk about in years to come."

"It would have been better to spend the money on shoes, wouldn't it?"

"I don't know, my dear. The finest gift in the world is pleasure.

Sometimes I think it's better to feed the soul and let the body fast.

There is a time in life when one brief sky-rocket can produce more joy than ten pairs of shoes."

Isabel smiled and glanced at Madame Bernard's lavender satin slipper.

The old lady laughed and the soft colour came into her pretty face.

"I frankly admit that I've pa.s.sed it," she said. "Better one pair of shoes than ten sky-rockets, if the shoes are the sort I like."

"Do they come often?" queried Isabel, reverting to the subject of the twins.

"Not as often as I'd like to have them, but it doesn't do to urge them.

I can only keep my windows open and let the wind from the clover field blow in as it will."

"Do they live near a clover field?" inquired Isabel, perplexed.

"No, but they remind me of it--they're so breezy and wholesome, so free and untrammelled, and, at heart, so sweet."

"I hope they'll come again soon."