University of Virginia Library

48. CHAPTER XLVIII.
MRS. CHURCHILL AND EDNA.

IT was Saturday morning, and Mrs. Churchill was
feeling very lonely and desolate, and missing her
late companion more than she did Roy.

“It is strange how she has grown into my love, and how
much she is to me,” she said softly to herself, as she feared
that her dress was not quite as it should be, and her hair
somewhat awry.

She had depended altogether upon Miss Overton to care
for her personal appearance, and felt her absence more sensibly
for it.

“A letter, ma'am,” her maid said, bringing it in and
placing it in her hand.

Mrs. Churchill was sure that Roy had written nothing
which a third person might not see, so she asked her maid
to read it, and listened with a strange feeling to what Roy
said of Edna.

“Thanks: you may go now,” she said to her maid, who
went out and left her alone.

Roy would be there Monday night, and with him Charlie's
wife.

“Poor Charlie,” she whispered to herself, and tried to believe
that the tears which rolled down her cheeks were
prompted by sorrow for him, instead of sorrow for the fact
that Edna was found and was coming there to live. “I
mean to be glad, and I am glad. I am going to like her,
and I do like her,” she said to herself; but she did not sleep
much that night, and nearly all the next day she sat out by
Charlie's grave, trying by thinking of him and his love for

Edna Browning, to awaken a feeling of genuine affection in
her own breast.

But she could not do it. The most she could effect was
a determination to be very kind to the girl, and to make it
as pleasant for her as possible. To this end she gave orders
that the largest and best sleeping-room in the house should
be prepared for her on Monday, and as far as her sight
would admit, gave it her personal inspection.

“If it was only Miss Overton coming to-night, how happy I
should be,” she said, when after all was done, and the day
nearly gone, she sat down by the fire in the library to wait
for the travellers.

It was very quiet and lonely there, and she fell asleep at
last, and did not hear the carriage when it went to the station
nor when it returned. But Roy soon found her, and
putting both his arms around her, kissed her forehead lovingly.

“Wake up, mother,” he said, and there was a ring of
some great joy in the tone of his voice. “Wake up,
mother; I have brought Edna to you. Here she is,—right
here; let me put her hand in yours and see if you have ever
felt one like it.”

Roy was greatly excited, and something of his nervousness
communicated itself to his mother, who trembled like a
leaf, and whose sight seemed dimmer than ever as she turned
her eyes toward the little figure, the rustle of whose dress
she heard, and whose hands took hers in their own and held
them fast, while a voice, which thrilled through every nerve,
said, “Mother, dear mother, Charlie's mother and mine,—
the only one I ever knew! You liked me some, I know, as
Miss Overton; love me, won't you, as Edna, and forgive
the deception.”

Mrs. Churchill was pale as death, and for an instant could
not speak; but she held close to the soft hands, and bent

her face down over the young girl who had knelt before her,
and whose head was in her lap.

“What is it? How is it? I do not understand at all,
Roy, tell me what it means. You bring me one you say is
Edna, Charlie's wife; and she calls me mother with Miss
Overton's voice. Is it, can it be they are the same? That
the girl I already love as my daughter is really mine?”

“Yes, mother, really yours in more senses than one,”
Roy said; and then as briefly as possible he told Edna's
story, and why she had come to them in disguise, and how
he had loved her even when pledged to another, and that
she had promised to love him in return, and was to be his
wife.

“Oh, I am so glad, so glad! Kiss me, Edna,” Mrs.
Churchill said, adopting the new name at once, and holding
her daughter to her in an embrace which assured Roy that
all was well between his mother and his future wife. “You
would think me foolish if you knew how I did dread your
coming here,” Mrs. Churchill said to Edna when she was a
little composed and could talk about the matter calmly. “I
was afraid it would not be so pleasant for Miss Overton and
myself with a third party, but I am so glad now, so glad.”

“It is so nice to have you back, and to know you will
never go again,” she continued; and then Edna told her of
her promise to Aunt Jerry to return to Allen's Hill and
remain there for a time at least before her marriage.

“She has some claim on me; she is all alone, and I must
do so much for her,” Edna said, while Mrs. Churchill did
feel a little chill when she thought of the woman with the
dreadful name who had written so familiarly to her, and who
was Edna's aunt and had a claim on her.

But she loved the niece well enough to tolerate the aunt,
and suggested that the latter should come there if she
wished for her niece's society. But Edna knew this would

never do, and persisted in her plan of returning to the Hill
after a few days at Leighton and a flying visit to Uncle Phil.
Mrs. Burton, who called next day, received the intelligence
quite as well as could be expected. The fact that Georgie
had known who Edna was, and had indorsed her too, and
even spoken to Roy about her, and given her consent, went
a long way toward reassuring her. What Georgie sanctioned
was right, and she kissed Edna kindly, and cried over
her a good deal, and said she should like her for Georgie's
sake, and hoped she would try to fill poor Georgie's place
in Roy's heart, and be a comfort to Mrs. Churchill.

In order to keep Edna with them as long as possible, Roy
telegraphed for Uncle Phil to come to Leighton, and the
next day's train brought the old man with his quaint sayings
and original style of dress. He knew how it was going to
end, and was not surprised, and he wished Edna much joy,
and congratulated Roy upon his good fortune in securing so
great a happiness.

“The neatest, prettiest girl in the world, with the trimmest
ankles except one,—that's Maude; and Roy, Edna must
be married from my house, and in my church. I claim that
as my right. Never should have built the pesky thing that's
been such a plague to me if it had not been for Maude and
Edna, and that sermon about the synagogue. Not that I'm
sorry, though the bother has worn me some thin. We've
got a nice man, too, now; had him two weeks, and like him
tip-top. Neither one nor the other; Ritual nor anti-ritual,
but common sense. Don't mind Ruth Gardner more than
if she was a gnat. Yes, yes; a good fellow, who speaks to
everybody, slaps you on your back sometimes, and acts as
if he liked the old man; and he must marry Dotty. She'll
be the first bride in church, and I'll have it trimmed if it
costs me my farm. Yes, Dot must go from my house.”

Edna favored this, and as Roy did not object, it was arranged

that after a few weeks stay with Aunt Jerry, Edna
should go to Rocky Point and be married in Uncle Phil's
church. Christmas was the very latest time of which Roy
would hear. “Georgie said I was not to wait,” was the
argument which he used with all, and which finally prevailed;
and so, after a week at Leighton, Edna returned to Allen's
Hill, accompanied by Roy, who, during the six weeks that
she staid there, spent nearly half his time there and on the
road. “He was as tickled as a boy with a new top,” Aunt
Jerry said, but she liked him nevertheless, and paid him
every possible attention, and made Parker House rolls and
Graham muffins alternately, and used her best dishes every
day, and hired a little girl to wait upon the table when he
was there, because he “was used to such fol-de-rol,” and it
pleased Edna too. Aunt Jerry seemed greatly changed;
and if uniform kindness and gentleness of manner could
avail to blot out all remembrance of a past which had not
been pleasant, it was surely blotted from Edna's mind, and
she felt only love and gratitude for the peculiar woman who
stood upon the doorstep and cried when at last the carriage
which was to take Roy and Edna to the train, drove away
from her door and left her all alone.