Jewel: A Chapter in Her Life Part 48

"And we should never quarrel over it, should we?" he went on.

"No--o!" returned Jewel scornfully. "We'd get a pain."

"But you can see," went on the young doctor seriously, "that the more we cared for one another the more we should regret such a wide difference of opinion."

"I suppose so," agreed the child, "and so we'd--"

"You are going back to Chicago after a while, and so you understand that I can better afford to agree to differ with you than I could with some one who was going to stay here--your cousin Eloise, for instance."

The child looked at him in silence. She had never seen Dr. Ballard wear this expression.

"For this reason, Jewel, I want to ask you if you won't do me the favor not to talk to your cousin about Christian Science, nor ask her to read your books, nor to go to church with you."

The child's countenance reflected his seriousness.

"You can see, can't you, that if Miss Eloise should become much interested in that fad it would spoil our pleasure in being together, while it lasted?"

The word fad was not in Jewel's vocabulary, but she grasped the doctor's meaning, and understood that he was much in earnest. She felt very responsible for the moment, and in doubt how to express herself.

"I feel sort of mixed up, Dr. Ballard," she returned after a minute's silent perplexity. "You don't mind cousin Eloise reading the Bible, do you?"

"No."

"You're glad if she can be happy instead of sorry, aren't you?"

"Yes."

Jewel looked at him hopefully. "There won't be anything worse than that," she said.

"Yes, many things worse," he responded quickly. "You might do me that little favor, Jewel. I understand you go to her with your lessons, as you call it, and your questions."

"Yes, she helps me; but she takes my books to her room. I don't see how I can help it, Dr. Ballard."

"Well," he heaved a quiet sigh, "perhaps the attack will be shorter if it is sharp. We'll hope so."

"I wouldn't do any harm to you for anything," said the child earnestly, "but you wait a little while. When people come into Christian Science it makes them twice as nice. If you see cousin Eloise get twice as nice you'll be glad, won't you?"

The young man gave an impatient half laugh.

"I'm not grasping," he returned. "She does very well for me as she is. Now," he turned again to the child, who rejoiced in the recovered twinkle in his eyes, "you have my full permission to convert the error fairy."

"Hush, hus.h.!.+" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Jewel, alarmed. "We mustn't hold that law over her."

Dr. Ballard laughed.

"Convert her, I say. Let us see what she would be like if she were twice as nice. She's a very charming woman now, your aunt Madge. If she were twice as nice--who knows? The fairy might spread wings and float away!"

They had entered the park and Jewel suddenly noted their surroundings.

"We're coming to the Ravine of Happiness," she said.

"That's the way it's been looking to me ever since last evening,"

responded her companion meditatively.

The child paid no attention to his words. She was watching eagerly for the bend in the road beside which the gorge lay steepest.

"There!" she said at last, resting her hand on that of her companion.

Obediently the doctor stopped his horse. The park was still but for the bird notes, the laughter and babble of the brook far below, and the rustle of the fresh leaves, each one a transparency for a sunbeam.

The two were silent for a minute, Jewel's radiant eyes seeking the pensive ones of her companion.

"Do you hear?" she asked softly at last.

"What?" he returned.

"It is cousin Eloise's Spring Song."

The doctor's words and looks remained in Jewel's mind after she reached home that day. She mused concerning him while she was taking off Anna Belle's hat and jacket up in her own room.

"I don't suppose you could understand much what he meant, dearie," she said, her face very sober from stress of thought, "but I did. If I'd been as big as mother I could have helped him; but I knew I was too little, and when people don't understand, mother says it is so easy to make mistakes in what you say to them."

Anna Belle's silence gave a.s.sent, and her sweet expression was always a solace to Jewel, who kissed the hard roses in her cheeks repeatedly before she sat her in the big chair by the window and went down to lunch. Anna Belle's forced abstemiousness had ceased to afflict her.

At the lunch table she gave a vivacious account of the morning's diversions, and for once Mrs. Evringham listened to what she said, a curious expression on her face. This lady had expected to endure annoyance with this child on her grandfather's account; but for unkind fate to cause Jewel to be a hindrance and a marplot in the case of Dr.

Ballard was adding insult to injury.

The child, suddenly catching the expression of Mrs. Evringham's eyes as they rested upon her, was startled, and ceased talking.

"Aunt Madge does love me," she declared mentally. "G.o.d's children love one another every minute, every minute."

"So Mr. Reeves told you where you can go to church," said Eloise, replying to Jewel's last bit of information.

"Yes, and"--the little girl was going on eagerly to suggest that her cousin accompany her, when suddenly Dr. Ballard's eyes seemed looking at her and repeating their protest.

She stopped, and ate for a time in silence. Mrs. Forbes paid little attention to what was being said. She moved about perfunctorily, with an air of preoccupation. She had a more serious trouble now than the care and intrusion of the belongings of Lawrence and Harry Evringham, a worry that for days and nights had not ceased to gnaw at her heart, first as a suspicion and afterward as a certainty.

When luncheon was over, Eloise in leaving the dining-room, put her arm around Jewel's shoulders, and together they strolled through the hall and out upon the piazza.

Mrs. Evringham looked after them. "If only that child weren't a little fanatic and Eloise in such an erratic, wayward state, ready to seize upon anything novel, it would be all very well," she mused, "for Dr.

Ballard seems to find Jewel amusing, and it might be a point of common interest. As it is, if ever I wished any one in Jericho, it's that child."

Jewel, happy in the proximity of her lovely cousin, satisfied herself by a glance that aunt Madge was not following.

Eloise looked about over the sunny, verdant landscape. "What a deceitful world," she said. "It looks so serene and easy to live in. So it was very lovely over at your ravine this morning?"

"Oh!" Jewel looked up at her with eager eyes. "Let's go. You haven't been there. It's only a little way. You don't need your hat, cousin Eloise."

Summer was in the air. The girl was amused at the child's enthusiastic tone. "Very well," she answered.