Annie Fellows Johnston - Mildred\'s Inheritance
A >>
Annie Fellows Johnston >> Mildred\'s Inheritance
MILDRED'S
INHERITANCE
[Illustration]
ANNIE FELLOWS
JOHNSTON
COSEY CORNER SERIES
MILDRED'S INHERITANCE
----
JUST HER WAY
----
ANN'S OWN WAY
Works of
Annie Fellows Johnston
* * * * *
The Little Colonel Series
(Trade Mark)
The Little Colonel $ .50
The Same. Holiday Edition 1.25
The Giant Scissors .50
The Same. Holiday Edition 1.25
Two Little Knights of Kentucky .50
The Same. Holiday Edition 1.25
The Little Colonel Stories 1.50
(Containing in one volume the three stories, "The
Little Colonel," "The Giant Scissors," and
"Two Little Knights of Kentucky.")
The Little Colonel's House Party 1.50
The Little Colonel's Holidays 1.50
The Little Colonel's Hero 1.50
The Little Colonel at Boarding-School 1.50
The Little Colonel in Arizona 1.50
The Little Colonel's Christmas Vacation 1.50
Other Books
Joel: A Boy of Galilee 1.50
Big Brother .50
Ole Mammy's Torment .50
The Story of Dago .50
Cicely .50
Aunt 'Liza's Hero .50
The Quilt that Jack Built .50
Flip's "Islands of Providence" .50
Mildred's Inheritance .50
In the Desert of Waiting .50
The Three Weavers .50
Keeping Tryst .50
Asa Holmes 1.00
Songs Ysame (Poems, with Albion Fellows
Bacon) 1.00
L.C. PAGE & COMPANY
200 Summer Street Boston, Mass.
[Illustration: "THREE PRETTY COLLEGE GIRLS LEANED OVER THE RAILING OF
THE UPPER DECK." (_See page_ 1).]
Cosy Corner Series
MILDRED'S
INHERITANCE
JUST HER WAY
ANN'S OWN WAY
By
Annie Fellows Johnston
Author of "The Little Colonel" Series, "Big Brother,"
"The Story of Dago," "Joel: A Boy of Galilee," etc.
_Illustrated by_
Diantha W. Horne
[Illustration]
_Boston_
_L.C. Page & Company_
1906
_Copyright, 1899_
BY THE TRUSTEES OF THE PRESBYTERIAN BOARD OF
PUBLICATION AND SABBATH-SCHOOL WORK
_Copyright, 1906_
BY L.C. PAGE & COMPANY
(INCORPORATED)
_All rights reserved_
First Impression, May, 1906
_COLONIAL PRESS_
_Electrotyped and Printed by C.H. Simonds & Co._
_Boston, U.S.A._
[Illustration]
CONTENTS
PAGE
MILDRED'S INHERITANCE 1
JUST HER WAY 27
ANN'S OWN WAY 55
[Illustration]
ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
"THREE PRETTY COLLEGE GIRLS LEANED OVER
THE RAILING OF THE UPPER DECK" (_See Page_ 1) _Frontispiece_
"BEFORE THE DAY WAS OVER THE TWO WERE
TALKING TOGETHER LIKE OLD FRIENDS" 5
"SAT DOWN ON THE BATTERED LITTLE BOX TO
WAIT" 11
"SHE READ THAT POOR MUFFIT HAD OVERTAXED
HER EYES" 21
"THE PASSING OF THE VILLAGE OMNIBUS WAS
AN EXCITING EVENT" 29
"SHE AND MISS BARBARA PORED OVER A MAP
OF WASHINGTON" 42
"'I WISH DAISY AVERY COULD SEE HER NOW,'
SHE MUTTERED, SAVAGELY" 47
"SAT PERCHED AMONG ITS GUARDED BRANCHES" 56
"IT WAS THE BOX THAT HELD THE GREEN KID
SHOES" 63
"ANN FOLLOWED GINGERLY IN THEIR WAKE" 69
MILDRED'S INHERITANCE
As the good ship _Majestic_ went steaming away from the Irish coast, one
sunny September morning, three pretty college girls leaned over the
railing of the upper deck, watching the steerage passengers below. With
faces turned to the shore which they might never see again, the
lusty-throated emigrants were sending their song of "Farewell to Erin"
floating mournfully back across the water.
"Oh, look at that poor old grandmother!" exclaimed one of the girls.
"There; that one sitting on a coil of rope with a shawl over her gray
head. The pitiful way she looks back to land would make me homesick,
too, if I were not already on my way home, with all my family on board,
and all the fun of the sophomore year ahead of me. Let's go down to the
other end of the deck, where it is more cheerful."
They moved away in friendly, schoolgirl fashion, arm in arm, intent
only on finding as much enjoyment as possible in every moment of this
ocean voyage. A young English girl, dressed in deep mourning, who had
been standing near them, followed them with a wistful glance; then she
turned to look over the railing again at the old woman on the coil of
rope.
"I wish that I could change places with her," thought the girl. "She is
so old that she cannot have many homesick years in store, while I--left
alone in the world at seventeen, and maybe never to see dear old England
again--" The thought brought such an overwhelming sense of desolation
that she could not control her tears. Drawing her heavy black veil over
her face, she hurriedly made her way to her deck-chair, and sank down to
sob unseen, under cover of its protecting rugs and cushions.
This was the first time that Mildred Stanhope had ever been outside of
the village where she was born. The only child of an English clergyman,
the walls of the rectory garden had been the boundary of her little
world. She could not remember her mother, but with her father for
teacher, playmate, and constant companion, her life had been complete in
its happiness.
If the violets blooming within the protecting walls of the old rectory
garden had suddenly been torn up by the roots and thrown into the
street, the change in their surroundings could have been no greater than
that which came to Mildred in the first shock of her father's death. She
had been like one in a confused dream ever since. Some one had answered
the letter from her mother's brother in America, offering her a home.
Some one had engaged her passage, and an old friend of her father's had
taken her to Liverpool and put her on board the steamer. Here she sat
for the first three days, staring out at the sea, with eyes which saw
nothing of its changing beauty, but always only a daisy-covered mound in
a little churchyard. All the happiness and hope that her life had, ended
in that.
"Who is the pretty little English girl?" people asked when they passed
her. "She doesn't seem to have an acquaintance on board."
"I never saw such a sad, hopeless face!" exclaimed one of the college
girls whom the others called "Muffit." "If she were an American girl I'd
ask her to walk with us. But English girls are so reserved and shy, and
I am afraid it would frighten her."
If Muffit could have known, that cold, reserved manner hid a heart
hungry for one friendly word. It was the third day out before any one
spoke to her. She had been warned against making the acquaintance of
strangers, but one look at the gentle-voiced, white-haired lady who took
the chair next her own, disarmed every suspicion. The lady was dressed
in deep mourning, like herself, and she had a sweet, motherly face that
drew Mildred irresistibly to her. Before the day was over the two were
talking together like old friends. When she saw how the girl grieved for
her father, she tried to draw her away from her sorrow by questioning
her about her future.
[Illustration: "BEFORE THE DAY WAS OVER THE TWO WERE TALKING TOGETHER
LIKE OLD FRIENDS."]
Mildred answered with a shiver. "Oh, I try not to think about that at
all. I have never seen Uncle Joe or any of his family, and everything
must be so strange and queer in America. Now, if they lived in India I
would not dread going half so much; for there would be something
homelike in feeling that I was still under the protection of our queen.
I cannot bear to think of leaving the ship, for it will be like
leaving the last bit of home, to step from under the dear old Union
Jack. 'A stranger in a strange land,'" she added, her lips quivering.
"No, dear, not as strange as you think," added the lady, with a motherly
hand-clasp. "Don't you know that one corner of our country is called New
England, in loving remembrance of the old; that your blood flows in our
veins regardless of dividing seas, and gives us the same heritage of
that proud past which you hold dear? Don't you know that thousands of us
go back every year, like children of the old homestead, drawn by all
those countless threads of song and story, of common interests and aims
and relationships that have kept the two nations woven together in the
woof of one great family?
"Let me tell you a bit of personal sentiment that links me to the old
town of Chester on the River Dee. There is a house there that, until
recently, was in the possession of my husband's family for nobody knows
how many generations. Thousands of travellers go every year to see the
inscription over its door. Once, over two hundred years ago, an awful
plague swept the town, and every family in it lost one or more of its
household. Only this one house was spared, and in grateful memory of
its escape there was carved over the door the inscription:
"'GOD'S PROVIDENCE IS MINE INHERITANCE.'
"That became the family motto, and it is engraved here in my
wedding-ring. The beautiful thought has helped me over many times of
perplexity and sorrow, and has become the inspiration of my life.
Because we can trace it back to that place, I have grown to love every
stone in the quaint old streets of Chester."
She sat twisting the plain gold circlet on her finger for a moment, and
then added thoughtfully: "In the light of her history America might well
set that inscription over her own door: 'God's providence is mine
inheritance.' It would be none the less appropriate because it reaches
back past the struggling colonists and past the _Mayflower_ to find the
roots of that faith in the mother country, in a little English town
beside the Dee.
"No, my dear," she exclaimed, looking up at Mildred; "it is not a land
of strangers you are going to. We sing 'America' and you sing 'God Save
the Queen,' and we both feel sometimes that there is a vast difference
between the songs. But they are set to the same tune, you know, and to
alien ears, who cannot understand our tongue or our temperament, they
must sound alike."
Life seemed very different to Mildred when she went to her stateroom
that night, and her cheery companion inspired her with so much hope
before the voyage was over that she began to look forward to landing
with some degree of interest. How much of her new-found courage was due
to the presence of her helpful counsellor Mildred did not realize until
she came to the parting. They were standing at the foot of the gangplank
in the New York custom-house.
"I am sorry that I cannot stay to see you safe in your uncle's care,"
the lady said, "but my son tells me there is barely time to catch the
next train to Boston. Good-bye, my child. If you get lonely and
discouraged, think of the motto in my wedding-ring, and take it for your
own."
The next instant Mildred felt, with a terrible sinking of the heart,
that she was all alone in the great, strange, new world.
Following the directions in her uncle's letter, she pushed her way
through the crowds until she came to the section marked "S," where he
was to meet her. There was no one in sight who bore any resemblance to
the description he had written of himself. She stood there until her
trunk was brought up, and then sat down on the battered little box to
wait.
An hour went by, and she began to look around with frightened, nervous
glances. A half-hour more passed. The crowds had diminished, for the
officials were making their custom-house examinations as rapidly as
possible. All around her the sections were being emptied, and the
baggage wheeled off in big trucks. The newsboys and telegraph agents had
all gone. A great fear fell suddenly upon her that her uncle was never
coming, and that she would soon be left entirely alone in this barnlike,
cavernous custom-house, with its bare walls and dusty floors; and night
was coming on, and she had nowhere to go.
She was groping in her pocket for a handkerchief to stop the tears that
would come, despite her brave efforts to wink them back, when some one
spoke to her. It was the pretty college girl whom the others had
called Muffit.
[Illustration: "SAT DOWN ON THE BATTERED LITTLE BOX TO WAIT."]
"Are you having trouble with your baggage too?" she asked, kindly. "One
of our trunks was misplaced, and they would not examine anything until
it was found. It is here at last, thank fortune, so that we shall not be
delayed much longer. Mamma and I have noticed you waiting here, and
wondered if you were in the same predicament. Papa says that he will be
so glad to help you in any way he can, if you need his assistance." She
did not add that her mother had said, "I can't go away with any peace of
mind until I see that child safe in somebody's hands."
"There is some dreadful mistake!" sobbed Mildred. "My uncle was to meet
me here, and I do not know what to do!" She buried her face in her
handkerchief, and the next minute "Muffit's" mother had her arms around
her. Then she found that the girl's name was not Muffit, but Mildred,
like her own, Mildred Rowland.
When Mildred Stanhope told Mrs. Rowland her name, that motherly woman
exclaimed, "Oh, Edward! What if it were our daughter left in such a
trying position! She shall just come to the hotel with us and stay until
we hear from her uncle. Wasn't it fortunate that that old trunk delayed
us so long! We might have hurried off and never known anything about
you. Well, it's all right now. Mr. Rowland shall telegraph to your
uncle, and we will keep you with us until he comes."
The next two days were full of strange experiences to Mildred. The rush
and roar of the great city, the life in the palatial hotel, with its
seeming miles of corridors and hundreds of servants, bewildered her. In
response to Mr. Rowland's telegram the reply came: "Joseph Barnard died
last Wednesday. Call for letter Blank Hotel." The message was signed
Derrick Jaynes. The letter, which was brought up an hour later, bore the
same signature. It had been written at the request of Mrs. Barnard by
her minister. It told Mildred of her uncle's sudden death, occurring the
day that she left Liverpool, and had been sent to the hotel to which Mr.
Barnard had intended to take his niece, Mrs. Barnard supposing that her
husband had given Mildred that address in case of any slip in making
connections.
The kindly old minister seemed to realize the unhappy position in which
the young girl was placed, and gave minute directions regarding the
journey she would have to take alone, while Mr. Rowland arranged for her
comfort in the same fatherly way he would have done for his own Mildred.
"What would I have done without you?" she exclaimed, in a choking voice,
as she clung to Mrs. Rowland at parting. "Now I shall be adrift again,
all alone in the world, as soon as you unclasp your hand."
"No, Providence will take care of you, dear," answered Mrs. Rowland.
"Just keep thinking of that motto you told me about, and let us hear
from you when you are safe in Carlsville."
* * * * *
Easter had always come to Mildred with the freshness of country meadows,
with cowslips and crocuses, with the soft green of budding hedgerows and
a chorus of twittering bird-calls in the old rectory garden. This year,
after her long, dreary winter in Carlsville, she looked out on the roofs
of the smoky little manufacturing town, and saw only red brick factories
and dingy houses and dirty streets. The longing for the spring in her
old English home lay in her heart like a throbbing pain. "Oh, papa," she
sobbed, resting her arms on the window-sill and laying her head wearily
down, "do you know all about it, dearest? Oh, if you could only tell me
what to do!"
A week before, her aunt, Belle Barnard, had said, in her sickly,
complaining voice, "Well, Mildred, I don't like to tell you, but I have
been talking the matter over with the girls, and they think that we
might as well be plain-spoken with you. Everybody thought that your
Uncle Joe was a rich man, and so did we till we got the business settled
up. Now we find that after the lawyers are paid there won't be enough
for us all to live on comfortably. At least there wouldn't be if it
wasn't for a small inheritance that Maud and Blanche have from their
grandmother, and, of course, they couldn't be expected to divide that
with you, and deny themselves every comfort; so I don't see any help for
it but for you to get a place in some store or millinery shop, or
something. We have to move in a smaller house next week."
The week had nearly gone by, and Mildred was growing desperate.
Unfitted for most work, either in strength or education, she scarcely
knew for what to apply, and went from one place to another at her aunt's
recommendation, feeling like a forlorn little waif for whom there was no
place anywhere in the world.
One afternoon she sat by her window, looking out on the early April
sunshine, trying, with the hopelessness of despair, to form some plan
for her future. "Why didn't I have a grandmother to leave me an
inheritance like Blanche and Maud?" she thought, bitterly.
Then her thoughts flew back to the day on shipboard, when she had heard
of the old house in Chester and the inscription in her companion's
wedding-ring. "And she told me to take that motto for my own," she
whispered through her tears. "'God's providence is mine inheritance!' If
it is, the time has certainly come for me to claim it, for I have never
been in such desperate need."
The few times that winter that Mildred had gone to any service, had been
in the church in the next block. Its gray stone walls, with masses of
overhanging ivy, reminded her of the one she had loved at home. God had
seemed so very far away since she came to Carlsville. She prayed as she
had always done before, but her prayers seemed like helpless little
birds, unable to rise high enough to carry her pleadings to the ear of
the great Creator who had so many cries constantly going up to him. She
had not realized before how big the world was and how small a part her
little affairs played in the plan of the great universe. A longing for
some closer communion than she had known before drew her toward this
church, of which Derrick Jaynes was the rector. The door was unlocked,
and the slender black figure slipped in unobserved. In the big empty
church her desolate little moan was all unheard and unheeded, as she
knelt at the altar sobbing, "Oh, God, I don't know what will become of
me if you do not help me now! Oh, show me 'mine inheritance!'"
Three times during that week she went back to that same place with that
same cry. The last time she went some one was in the church. It was the
organist, practising some new Easter music for the next day's services.
A burst of triumphant melody greeted her as she noiselessly opened the
side door. She met the florist coming out, for he had just completed the
decorating, and the place was a mass of bloom. All around the chancel
stood the tall, white Easter lilies, waiting, like the angels in the
open tomb, with their glad resurrection message--"He is risen!"
As Mildred stood with clasped hands, an unspoken prayer rising with the
organ's jubilant tones and the incense of the lilies, she felt a touch
on her shoulder. It was the white-haired old minister.
"I saw you come in," he said, in a whisper. "I have been trying all day
to find time to call at your aunt's to talk with you. You do not know,
but I have been in correspondence several times this winter regarding
you, with a Mr. Rowland. He wrote me when you first came that his wife
and daughter were deeply interested in you, and wanted to be kept
informed of your welfare. This morning I received a letter which needs
your personal answer. I am very busy now, but shall try to see you
Monday in regard to it."
Mildred's heart beat rapidly as he handed her a large,
businesslike-looking letter and went softly out again. In the dim light
of the great stained-glass windows she read that poor Muffit had
over-taxed her eyes, and that they were so badly affected she could not
go back to school for the spring term. In looking for some one who could
be eyes for their Mildred, so that she might go on with her studies at
home, they had thought of this other Mildred, the little English girl,
whose low, musical voice had been so carefully trained by her father in
reading aloud. By one of these strange providences which we never
recognize as such at the time, Mr. Rowland had broken his spectacles the
last evening of Mildred's stay in New York. She had offered to read the
magazine article which he was particularly anxious to hear, and they had
been charmed by her beautifully modulated voice. Now the letter had been
written to offer her a liberal salary and a home for the summer.
Mildred gave a gasp of astonishment. It was not the almost miraculous
finding of what she had come to seek that overwhelmed her. It was a
feeling that swept across her like a flood, warm and sweet and tender;
the sudden realization that a hand stronger than death and wise above
all human understanding had her in its keeping. She dropped on her knees
at the flower-decked altar-rail, with face upturned and radiant; no
longer lonely; no longer afraid of what the future might hold. She had
come into her inheritance.
[Illustration: "SHE READ THAT POOR MUFFIT HAD OVERTAXED HER EYES."]
Kneeling there she looked back again to her father's lowly grave in the
little churchyard across the seas, but she saw it no longer through
hopeless tears. Into her heart the great organ had pealed the gladness
of its exultant Easter message, and in the deep peace of the silence
which followed, the fragrance of the lilies breathed a wordless "Amen!"
JUST HER WAY
"Look out of the window, Judith! Quick! Mrs. Avery is going away!"
Judith Windham, bending over the sewing-machine in her bedroom, started
as her little sister's voice came piping shrilly up the stairs, and
leaving her chair she leaned out of the old-fashioned casement window.
There were so few goings and comings in sleepy little Westbrooke, that
the passing of the village omnibus was an exciting event. With an
imposing rumble of yellow wheels it rattled up to Doctor Allen's gate
across the road. A trunk, a dress suit case, and numerous valises were
hoisted to the top of it, and the doctor's family flocked down to the
gate to watch the departure of the youngest member of their household,
Marguerite.
It had been four years since the first time they watched her go away, a
nineteen-year-old bride. Since then they had visited her, severally and
collectively, in her elegant apartments in Washington, but this had been
her first visit home. Judith, watching her flutter down the walk with
her hand in the old doctor's, thought she looked even prettier and more
girlish than on her wedding-day. Married life had been all roses for
Marguerite.
"She's the same dear old harum-scarum Daisy she always was, in spite of
the efforts of her Lord Chesterfield of a husband to reform her,"
thought Judith, fondly, as her old schoolmate, catching sight of her at
the window, waved her parasol so wildly that the staid old 'bus horses
began to plunge.
The girls had bidden each other good-bye the night before, but
Marguerite stopped in the midst of her final embracings to call out,
"Good-bye, again, Judith. Remember, I shall expect you the first of
February." Then the slender figure in its faultless tailor-made gown
disappeared into the omnibus. Her husband, a distinguished, scholarly
man, lifted his hat once more and stepped in after her. The door banged
behind them, and, creaking and swaying, the ancient vehicle moved off in
a cloud of dust.
[Illustration: "THE PASSING OF THE VILLAGE OMNIBUS WAS AN EXCITING
EVENT."]
Feeling that something very bright and interesting had dropped out of
her life, Judith went back to the sewing-machine. As she picked up her
work an involuntary sigh escaped her.
"That's a very sorry sound, Judith. Are you tired?"