Old Rose and Silver | Page 8

fireplace in the hall. Motes danced in the beam, and the house somehow seemed less despairing, less alone. A portrait of Colonel Kent, in uniform, hung above the great mantel. Rose smiled at it with comprehension, but the painted lips did not answer, nor the unseeing eyes swerve from their steady searching of Beyond.
"How was it?" asked Madame, when they reached home. "Dirty and bad?"
"Rather soiled," admitted Rose.
"And colder than Greenland," Isabel continued, warming her hands at the open fire.
"We'll soon change all that," Madame said. "I've ordered coal and engaged people to do the cleaning since you've been gone, and I have my eye upon two permanent retainers, provided their references are satisfactory."
"I've measured for all the curtains," Rose went on. "Shall we make them or buy them?"
"We'll make them. If we have help enough we can get them done in time."
The following day a small army, with Rose at the head of it, took possession of the house. Every night she came home exhausted, not from actual toil, but from the effort to instill the pride of good service into unwilling workers who seemed to rejoice in ignorance.
"I'm tired," Rose remarked, one night. "I've cerebrated all day for seven bodies besides my own and I find it wearing."
"I don't wonder," answered Madame. "I'll go over to-morrow and let you rest."
"Indeed you won't," declared Rose, with emphasis. "I've begun it and I'm going to finish it unless the Seven Weary Workers fail me absolutely."
At last the task was completed, and even Rose could find no speck of dust in the entire establishment. The house was fresh with the smell of soap-suds and floor wax and so warm that several windows had to be kept open. The cablegram had come while the curtains were being made, but everything was ready two days before the wayfarers could possibly reach home.
On the appointed day, Rose and Isabel were almost as excited as Madame Bernard herself. She had chosen to go over alone to greet the Colonel and his son. They were expected to arrive about four in the afternoon.
At three, Madame set forth in her carriage. She wore her best gown, of lavender crepe, trimmed with real lace, and a bunch of heliotrope at her belt. Rose had twined a few sprays of heliotrope into her snowy hair and a large amethyst cross hung from her neck by a slender silver chain. She wore no other jewels except her wedding ring.
Fires blazed cheerily in every fireplace on the lower floor, and there was another in the sitting-room upstairs. She had filled the house with the flowers of Spring--violets, daffodils, and lilies of the valley. A silver tea-kettle with a lamp under it waited on the library table.
When she heard the wheels creaking in the snowy road, Madame lighted the lamp under the kettle with her own hands, then opened the door wide. Followed by their baggage, the two men came up the walk--father and son.
The Colonel was a little older, possibly, but still straight and tall-- almost as tall as the son who walked beside him, carrying a violin case under his arm. He wore the familiar slouch hat, the same loose overcoat, and the same silvery goatee, trimmed most carefully. His blue eyes lighted up warmly at the sight of the figure in the doorway.
"Welcome home!" cried Madame Francesca, stretching a hand toward each. "Welcome home!"
Allison only smiled, taking the little hand in his strong young clasp, but his father bent, hat in hand, to kiss the one she offered him.
"Oh," cried Madame, "I'm so glad to see you both. Come in!"
They entered their own hospitable house, where fires blazed and the kettle sang. "Say," said Allison, "isn't this great! Why did we ever leave it? Isn't it fine, Father?"
But "father" still had his eyes upon the dainty little lady who had brought forth the miracle of home from a wilderness of dust and ashes. He bent again over the small, white hand.
"A woman, a fire, and a singing kettle," he said. "All the dear, familiar spirits of the house to welcome us home."

III
THE VOICE OF THE VIOLIN
Madame Bernard and Isabel had not yet come down when Rose entered the living-room, half an hour before dinner. The candles were lighted, and in the soft glow of the reading lamp was a vase of pink roses, sent by Colonel Kent to his old friend. The delicate sweetness filled the room and mingled with the faint scent of attar of roses and dried rose petals which, as always, hung about the woman who stood by the table, idly rearranging the flowers.
The ruby ring caught the light and sent tiny crimson gleams dancing into the far shadows. Her crepe gown was almost the colour of the ruby; warm and blood-red. It was cut low