University of Virginia Library

16. XVI.
ON THE STAIRS.

AUGUST drew toward its close, and guests
departed from the neighborhood.

“What a short little thing summer is,” meditated
Aunt Jane, “and butterflies are caterpillars
most of the time after all. How quiet
it seems. The wrens whisper in their box
above the window, and there has not been a
blast from the peacock for a week. He seems
ashamed of the summer shortness of his tail.
He keeps glancing at it over his shoulder to
see if it is not looking better than yesterday,
while the staring eyes of the old tail are in the
bushes all about.”

“Poor, dear little thing!” said coaxing
Katie. “Is she tired of autumn, before it is
begun?”

“I am never tired of anything,” said Aunt
Jane, “except my maid Ruth, and I should
not be tired of her, if it had pleased Heaven
to endow her with sufficient strength of mind
to sew on a button. Life is very rich to me.

There is always something new in every season;
though to be sure I cannot think what
novelty there is just now, except a choice variety
of spiders. There is a theory that spiders
kill flies. But I never miss a fly, and
there does not seem to be any natural scourge
divinely appointed to kill spiders, except Ruth.
Even she does it so feebly, that I see them
come back and hang on their webs and make
faces at her. I suppose they are faces; I do
not understand their anatomy, but it must be
a very unpleasant one.”

“You are not quite satisfied with life, to-day,
dear,” said Kate; “I fear your book did
not end to your satisfaction.”

“It did end, though,” said the lady, “and
that is something. What is there in life
so difficult as to stop a book?” If I wrote
one, it would be as long as ten `Sir Charles
Grandisons,' and then I never should end it,
because I should die. And there would be
nobody left to read it, because each reader
would have been dead long before.”

“But the book amused you!” interrupted
Kate. “I know it did.”

“It was so absurd that I laughed till I
cried; and it makes no difference whether

you cry laughing or cry crying; it is equally
bad when your glasses come off. Never mind.
Whom did you see on the Avenue?”

“O, we saw Philip on horseback. He rides
so beautifully; he seems one with his horse.”

“I am glad of it,” interposed her aunt.
“The riders are generally so inferior to
them.”

“We saw Mr. and Mrs. Lambert, too.
Emilia stopped and asked after you, and sent
you her love, auntie.”

“Love!” cried Aunt Jane. “She always
does that. She has sent me love enough to
rear a whole family on, — more than I ever
felt for anybody in all my days. But she does
not really love any one.”

“I hope she will love her husband,” said
Kate, rather seriously.

“Mark my words, Kate!” said her aunt.
“Nothing but unhappiness will ever come of
that marriage. How can two people be happy
who have absolutely nothing in common?”

“But no two people have just the same
tastes,” said Kate, “except Harry and myself.
It is not expected. It would be absurd for
two people to be divorced, because the one
preferred white bread and the other brown.”

“They would be divorced very soon,” said
Aunt Jane, “for the one who ate brown bread
would not live long.”

“But it is possible that he might live, auntie,
in spite of your prediction. And perhaps
people may be happy, even if you and I do
not see how.”

“Nobody ever thinks I see anything,” said
Aunt Jane, in some dejection. “You think
I am nothing in the world but a sort of old
oyster, making amusement for people, and
having no more to do with real life than oysters
have.”

“No, dearest!” cried Kate. “You have a
great deal to do with all our lives. You are a
dear old insidious sapper-and-miner, looking
at first very inoffensive, and then working
your way into our affections, and spoiling us
with coaxing. How you behave about children,
for instance!”

“How?” said the other meekly. “As well
as I can.”

“But you pretend that you dislike them.”

“But I do dislike them. How can anybody
help it? Hear them swearing at this moment,
boys of five, paddling in the water
there! Talk about the murder of the innocents!

There are so few innocents to be
murdered! If I only had a gun and could
shoot!”

“You may not like those particular boys,”
said Kate, “but you like good, well-behaved
children, very much.”

“It takes so many to take care of them!
People drive by here, with carriages so large
that two of the largest horses can hardly
draw them, and all full of those little beings.
They have a sort of roof, too, and seem to
expect to be out in all weathers.”

“If you had a family of children, perhaps
you would find such a travelling caravan very
convenient,” said Kate.

“If I had such a family, said her aunt, “I
would have a separate governess and guardian
for each, very moral persons. They
should come when each child was two, and
stay till it was twenty. The children should
all live apart, in order not to quarrel, and
should meet once or twice a day and bow to
each other. I think that each should learn a
different language, so as not to converse, and
then, perhaps, they would not get each other
into mischief.”

“I am sure, auntie,” said Kate, “you have

missed our small nephews and nieces ever
since their visit ended. How still the house
has been!”

“I do not know,” was the answer. “I hear
a great many noises about the house. Somebody
comes in late at night. Perhaps it is
Philip; but he comes very softly in, wipes his
feet very gently, like a clean thief, and goes
up stairs.”

“O auntie!” said Kate, “you know you
have got over all such fancies.”

“They are not fancies,” said Aunt Jane.
“Things do happen in houses! Did I not
look under the bed for a thief during fifteen
years, and find one at last? Why should I
not be allowed to hear something now?”

“But, dear Aunt Jane,” said Kate, “you
never told me this before.”

“No,” said she. “I was beginning to tell
you the other day, but Ruth was just bringing
in my handkerchiefs, and she had used so
much bluing they looked as if they had been
washed in heaven, so that it was too outrageous,
and I forgot everything else.”

“But do you really hear anything?”

“Yes,” said her aunt. “Ruth declares she
hears noises in those closets that I had

nailed up, you know; but that is nothing; of
course she does. Rats. What I hear at night
is the creaking of stairs, when I know that
nobody ought to be stirring. If you observe,
you will hear it too. At least, I should think
you would, only that somehow everything
always seems to stop, when it is necessary
to prove that I am foolish.”

The girls had no especial engagement that
evening, and so got into a great excitement on
the stairway over Aunt Jane's solicitudes.
They convinced themselves that they heard all
sorts of things, — footfalls on successive steps,
the creak of a plank, the brushing of an arm
against a wall, the jar of some suspended
object that was stirred in passing. Once
they heard something fall on the floor, and roll
from step to step; and yet they themselves
stood on the stairway, and nothing passed.
Then for some time there was silence, but
they would have persisted in their observations,
had not Philip come in from Mrs. Meredith's
in the midst of it, so that the whole
thing turned into a frolic, and they sat on the
stairs and told ghost stories half the night.