第48章

It was a pretty little cottage, quite fresh and warm with paint, very pleasantly relieved against a platoon of pines, some of whose foremost files had been displaced to give freedom to the fenced enclosure in which it sat.In the vivid sunlight and perfect silence, it had a new, uninhabited look, as if the carpenters and painters had just left it.At the farther end of the lot, a Chinaman was stolidly digging; but there was no other sign of occupancy."The coast," as the colonel had said, was indeed "clear." Mrs.Tretherick paused at the gate.The colonel would have entered with her, but was stopped by a gesture."Come for me in a couple of hours, and I shall have every thing packed," she said, as she smiled, and extended her hand.The colonel seized and pressed it with great fervor.Perhaps the pressure was slightly returned; for the gallant colonel was impelled to inflate his chest, and trip away as smartly as his stubby-toed, high-heeled boots would permit.When he had gone, Mrs.Tretherick opened the door, listened a moment in the deserted hall, and then ran quickly up stairs to what had been her bedroom.

Every thing there was unchanged as on the night she left it.On the dressing-table stood her bandbox, as she remembered to have left it when she took out her bonnet.On the mantle lay the other glove she had forgotten in her flight.The two lower drawers of the bureau were half open (she had forgotten to shut them); and on its marble top lay her shawl-pin and a soiled cuff.What other recollections came upon her I know not; but she suddenly grew quite white, shivered, and listened with a beating heart, and her hand upon the door.Then she stepped to the mirror, and half fearfully, half curiously, parted with her fingers the braids of her blonde hair above her little pink ear, until she came upon an ugly, half-healed scar.She gazed at this, moving her pretty head up and down to get a better light upon it, until the slight cast in her velvety eyes became very strongly marked indeed.Then she turned away with a light, reckless, foolish laugh, and ran to the closet where hung her precious dresses.These she inspected nervously, and missing suddenly a favorite black silk from its accustomed peg, for a moment, thought she should have fainted.But discovering it the next instant lying upon a trunk where she had thrown it, a feeling of thankfulness to a superior Being who protects the friendless, for the first time sincerely thrilled her.Then, albeit she was hurried for time, she could not resist trying the effect of a certain lavender neck-ribbon upon the dress she was then wearing, before the mirror.And then suddenly she became aware of a child's voice close beside her, and she stopped.And then the child's voice repeated, "Is it mamma?"Mrs.Tretherick faced quickly about.Standing in the doorway was a little girl of six or seven.Her dress had been originally fine, but was torn and dirty; and her hair, which was a very violent red, was tumbled serio-comically about her forehead.For all this, she was a picturesque little thing, even through whose childish timidity there was a certain self-sustained air which is apt to come upon children who are left much to themselves.She was holding under her arm a rag doll, apparently of her own workmanship, and nearly as large as herself,--a doll with a cylindrical head, and features roughly indicated with charcoal.A long shawl, evidently belonging to a grown person, dropped from her shoulders, and swept the floor.

The spectacle did not excite Mrs.Tretherick's delight.Perhaps she had but a small sense of humor.Certainly, when the child, still standing in the doorway, again asked, "Is it mamma?" she answered sharply, "No, it isn't," and turned a severe look upon the intruder.

The child retreated a step, and then, gaining courage with the distance, said in deliciously imperfect speech,--"Dow 'way then! why don't you dow away?"

But Mrs.Tretherick was eying the shawl.Suddenly she whipped it off the child's shoulders, and said angrily,--"How dared you take my things, you bad child?""Is it yours? Then you are my mamma; ain't you? You are mamma!"she continued gleefully; and, before Mrs.Tretherick could avoid her, she had dropped her doll, and, catching the woman's skirts with both hands, was dancing up and down before her.

"What's your name, child?" said Mrs.Tretherick coldly, removing the small and not very white hands from her garments.

"Tarry."

"Tarry?"

"Yeth.Tarry.Tarowline."

"Caroline?"

"Yeth.Tarowline Tretherick."

"Whose child ARE you?" demanded Mrs.Tretherick still more coldly, to keep down a rising fear.

"Why, yours," said the little creature with a laugh."I'm your little durl.You're my mamma, my new mamma.Don't you know my ole mamma's dorn away, never to turn back any more? I don't live wid my ol' mamma now.I live wid you and papa.""How long have you been here?" asked Mrs.Tretherick snappishly.

"I fink it's free days," said Carry reflectively.

"You think! Don't you know?" sneered Mrs.Tretherick."Then, where did you come from?"Carry's lip began to work under this sharp cross-examination.With a great effort and a small gulp, she got the better of it, and answered,--"Papa, papa fetched me,--from Miss Simmons--from Sacramento, last week.""Last week! You said three days just now," returned Mrs.Tretherick with severe deliberation.

"I mean a monf," said Carry, now utterly adrift in sheer helplessness and confusion.

"Do you know what you are talking about?" demanded Mrs.Tretherick shrilly, restraining an impulse to shake the little figure before her, and precipitate the truth by specific gravity.

But the flaming red head here suddenly disappeared in the folds of Mrs.Tretherick's dress, as if it were trying to extinguish itself forever.