Arabella | Page 8

'Arabella.' He laughed at that, and then he told me that he had some good news for the girl, and like as not for me, too, and that we'd hear from him in a day or two. I didn't ask him any more questions, for it ain't my way to pry into other folks' consarns."
"And you didn't find out what the good news was?" the little woman inquired, with glistening eyes and bated breath. "Why, the child might be-- anybody."
"Well, we found out a good deal more since then," Mrs. Christie declared, shortly, as if the news were not altogether pleasing to her. It seems that the girl's father had married against his father's consent, and both himself and his young wife had died when their baby was only a few months old. The neighbors, not knowing what to do with the infant, sent it off to the Foundling Asylum with the clothes and the locket and some writing, to tell all they knew about the business. Well, the grandfather, when he found he was goin' to die, got sorry for what he'd done, and made a will, leaving a big pile of money to that there child, provided it was still livin' and could be found. Detectives got on to the story, and they traced Arabella to our house, and it seems she's got folks right here in New York, big bugs over on Fifth Avenue."
Alicia drew in her breath sharply. Her face was aglow. All the romance of her nature was up and astir.
"And her name ain't Arabella at all," added Mrs. Christie, "though Arabella I'll call her as long as I have anything to do with her."
"Isn't it wonderful!" cried the little woman. "Isn't it just like stories we read?"
"Well, I don't know as I ever read a story like that," Mrs. Christie dissented. "I ain't much of a reader, anyway, and I don't hold much with stories. Trash, they mostly is."
"And Arabella is really rich? An heiress?"
"Yes, jest about that. She's got a heap of money and a lot of rich relations."
Mrs. Christie relapsed into silence after she had said that, her ordinarily dull face expressive of some powerful emotion.
"And how did you feel when you heard everything?" the sister asked.
"Well, I was kinder set up at first," Mrs. Christie acknowledged. "It was most as if a fortune had been left to myself, and I began to think of things the money might get for me and for the house."
"Oh!" said Alicia, as if she were disappointed.
"Then," continued Mrs. Christie, "I began to remember that she'd got them rich relations, who would most likely take her away, and-- " She stopped, staring into the fire, while her sister watched her eagerly.
"I jest wish they wouldn't," she declared.
"Because of the things?" the little woman asked in a low voice; then, impulsively laying her hand on her sister's arm, "Surely not on account of the things?"
"No," replied Mrs. Christie, "though it's natural that I'd hanker after them. But it ain't that, Alicia. It ain't that."
Alicia brightened up.
"It's kind o' lonesome down to the old place now. Silas Christie's beginnin' to put on the old man and he never was very lively at the best of times, and I ain't as young as I used to be, and I hate strangers 'round. Arabella, she's a good girl, and I'm fond of her, and I don't want to see her go away. So there."
She ended up defiantly, her rugged face working, and a sudden burst of tears -- the first she had shed in many years-- shaking her stony composure as a storm shakes the trees of the woods.
Alicia watched her in silence, wiping away sympathetic tears from her own eyes, and when the outburst of grief had spent itself she threw two little arms around her big sister's neck.
"I always knew you had a kind heart, Catherine," she said, "though you never were one to show your feelings."
And as Catherine Christie wiped her eyes and sniffled, striving by every means to regain her composure, and as Alicia smiled through her tears like the sun through a snow mist, and gulped and tried to speak, and gulped again, neither of the two was aware that that little scene had had a spectator, who was likewise an auditor.
Arabella, waking suddenly, bewildered by her strange surroundings, got out of bed in her long, white night dress, with her brown hair in a towsled mass on top of her head, and stole into the adjoining room. There she clearly perceived the two women sitting before the fire, and as she gradually began to realize who they were and where she was, she caught the sound of her own name. Almost involuntarily she stood, a fascinated listener, hearing with wonder and amazement the strange