CHAPTER XVI. THE HEART OF A SNOB
The Colonel glanced anxiously at his young guest the next morning. Shehad been so bright and animated for days that the good man was beginningto hope that the city girl was becoming acclimated, but again she waslooking pale and disinterested. When she had finished her breakfast andhad retired to her room, the Colonel called Mrs. Gray into his study andtogether they had a long talk about Geraldine.
"Poor little girl," the kind old lady said. "She has never known amother's love and I would be glad to help her, but I can't reach herheart. She treats me courteously, but her attitude says as plainly aswords: 'Mrs. Gray, you are only an upper servant from whom I wish nofamiliarity.' I have tried ever since I came to find something whichwould be the open sesame of this stone barrier which the little girl hasraised between us, but I am beginning to think that there is none."
"Try just once more," the Colonel said anxiously, "and then, if you donot succeed, I will comply with her father's suggestion and send her awayto a boarding school if she is unhappy here."
The little old lady went directly to Geraldine's room and tapped on thedoor. There was no reply and so she softly entered.
The girl had thrown herself down on the window seat and her shoulderswere shaken with sobs. Strangely enough in one hand she held a stockingwhich she had evidently been attempting to darn.
Truly touched, the kind old lady went toward her and said with infinitetenderness: "Dear, dear little girl! Won't you tell me why you areunhappy?" She sat beside Geraldine and smoothed her hair.
"Oh, why didn't my mother live?" was the sobbing reply. "She would havetaught me the things that other girls know how to do, and then no onecould have called me a pretty dolled-up butterfly."
Mrs. Grey realized that someone had deeply hurt Geraldine's pride, butperhaps this was the very cleft in the stone wall for which she had beenseeking.
"Little girl," she said kindly, "you cannot know how my heart has yearnedthrough the years, first for a daughter of my own and then for agranddaughter to whom I might teach the things that would help her tobecome a truly womanly woman. It would mean so much to me, Geraldine; itwould give me so much happiness, if you would let me just pretend thatyou are that little girl."
The wondering lassie sat up, her beautiful violet eyes brimming withunshed tears. There were also tears in the eyes of the old lady, and,perhaps, for the first time in her sixteen years the girl felt a rush ofsympathy in her heart for someone not herself.
"You, too, are lonely, Mrs. Gray?" she asked. Then she added sorrowfully:"I guess I never really knew what I had missed until I heard the boys andgirls here telling about their wonderful mothers. Father has often toldme that my mother was wonderful, too. She would have taught me to sew andmake my own dresses and hats and to cook, if that is what a girl shouldknow."
The housekeeper marveled. This was not the Geraldine of yesterday. Whathad happened? Mrs. Gray could not know, but what she did know was that itwas a moment to seize upon, and this she did.
"Geraldine," she said, "let me teach you these things."
"Oh, will you?" was the eager reply. "How long will it take me to learn,do you think? May I begin a dress today?"
Mrs. Gray laughed, and, stooping, she kissed the girl's wet cheek, thenshe said: "Get on your coat, dearie, and we will go into town and buy thematerial."
This was the beginning of happy days for these two.
A week later Geraldine stood in front of the long mirror in hersun-flooded room, gazing with shining eyes at her own graceful self,clothed, for the very first time, in a garment of her own making.
She had begged Mrs. Gray to permit her to put in every stitch so that shemight truthfully say that she made it all herself. To whom she wished tosay this, the little old lady could not surmise.
"Isn't it the prettiest color, Mrs. Gray?" Geraldine asked for thetwentieth time as she looked at the clinging folds of soft blue cashmere.
"It is indeed, dearie," the housekeeper replied, "and it's the blue thatmakes your eyes look like two lovely violets."
The girl's gaze wandered to the reflection of her face and she smiled."Daddy says that my eyes are just like Mother's. I'm so glad." Then sheadded happily: "It's all done, isn't it, Mrs. Gray, except a collar, andwe haven't decided how to make that yet, have we? Oh, there's thetelephone. I wonder who it is?"
Skipping to the little table near her bed, she lifted the receiver andcalled, "Good morning."
Merry's voice said: "Geraldine, we want you to come over this afternoon."
"I'll be there!" the seamstress replied, and then, whirling around, sheexclaimed: "It was Merry Lee. She wants me to be at her house aboutthree. How I wish I could wear my new dress."
"Why, so you can, dearie. I'll cut out a deep muslin collar and you cansew tiny ruffles around the edge and the dress will be complete longbefore that hour."
In the early afternoon, all alone, Geraldine tramped down the snowy roadand her heart was singing. She could not understand why she felt sohappy.
The girls were gathered in the cheerful library of the Lee home whenGeraldine entered.
They welcomed her gladly, and when her wraps were removed Merry, inlittle girl fashion, exclaimed: "Oh, do look, everybody. Isn't that thesweetest new dress Geraldine has on?"
The wearer of the dress, with flushed cheeks and glowing eyes, turnedaround that the girls might all examine her gown, and then, unable longerto keep her wonderful secret, she exclaimed: "You'll never believe it,but it's honestly true. I made every stitch of this dress myself. Ofcourse, Mrs. Gray cut it out and showed me how, but truly I made it, andI never enjoyed doing anything more in my whole life."
Then it was that Geraldine chanced to glance at the open door of themusic room, and the rose in her cheeks deepened, for Jack, with book inhand, was standing there. Luckily he had completely forgotten theconversation of the week before and so he did not even dream that histheories had been the incentive for Geraldine's experiments indressmaking.
"Jack," his sister called, "isn't this a pretty dress? Geraldine made itall herself."
"It surely is!" the lad replied as he entered the room. "It's the color Ilike best." Then, as Merry and Doris served hot chocolate and cookies,the lad sat on the window seat beside Geraldine and talked about hisfavorite subject, cattle-raising in Arizona. An hour later, when thegirls were about to depart, he reappeared to announce that he would takethem all home in his father's big sleigh if they did not mind beingcrowded. It was with a happy heart that Geraldine noticed that one by oneJack left the town girls at their homes, and then went round the longestway to the Wainright place.