Queen Hildegarde | Page 3

heartily and cheerily as if he had been in the wide green
forest; but his mistress does not sing. She sits in the easy-chair, with a
book upside-down in her lap, and frowns,--actually frowns, in a

forget-me-not bower! There is not much the matter, really. Her head
aches, that is all. Her German lesson has been longer and harder than
usual, and her father was quite right about the caramels; there is a box
of them on the table now, within easy reach of the slim white hand with
its forget-me-not ring of blue turquoises. (I do not altogether agree with
Mr. Graham about hanging the caramel-maker, but I should heartily
like to burn all his wares. Fancy a great mountain of caramels and
chocolate-creams and marrons glacés piled up in Union Square, for
example, and blazing away merrily,--that is, if the things would burn,
which is more than doubtful. How the maidens would weep and wring
their hands while the heartless parents chuckled and fed the flames with
all the precious treasures of Maillard and Huyler! Ah! it is a pleasant
thought, for I who write this am a heartless parent, do you see?)
As I said before, Hilda had no suspicion of the plot which her parents
were concocting. She knew that her father was obliged to go to San
Francisco, being called suddenly to administer the estate of a cousin
who had recently died there, and that her mother and--as she
supposed--herself were going with him to offer sympathy and help to
the widow, an invalid with three little children. As to the idea of her
being left behind; of her father's starting off on a long journey without
his lieutenant-general; of her mother's parting from her only child,
whom she had watched with tender care and anxiety since the day of
her birth,--such a thought never came into Hilda's mind. Wherever her
parents went she went, as a matter of course. So it had always been, and
so without doubt it always would be. She did not care specially about
going to California at this season of the year,--in fact she had told her
bosom friend, Madge Everton, only the day before, that it was "rather a
bore," and that she should have preferred to go to Newport. "But what
would you?" she added, with the slightest shrug of her pretty shoulders.
"Papa and mamma really must go, it appears; so of course I must go
too."
"A bore!" repeated Madge energetically, replying to the first part of her
friend's remarks. "Hilda, what a very singular girl you are! Here I, or
Nelly, or any of the other girls would give both our ears, and our front
teeth too, to make such a trip; and just because you can go, you sit

there and call it 'a bore!'" And Madge shook her black curls, and
opened wide eyes of indignation and wonder at our ungrateful heroine.
"I only wish," she added, "that you and I could be changed into each
other, just for this summer."
"I wish--" began Hilda; but she checked herself in her response to the
wish, as the thought of Madge's five brothers rose in her mind (Hilda
could not endure boys!), looked attentively at the toe of her little
bronze slipper for a few moments, and then changed the subject by
proposing a walk. "Console yourself with the caramels, my fiery
Madge," she said, pushing the box across the table, "while I put on my
boots. We will go to Maillard's and get some more while we are out.
His caramels are decidedly better than Huyler's; don't you think so!"
A very busy woman was pretty Mrs. Graham during the next two
weeks. First she made an expedition into the country "to see an old
friend," she said, and was gone two whole days. And after that she was
out every morning, driving hither and thither, from shop to dressmaker,
from dressmaker to milliner, from milliner to shoemaker.
"It is a sad thing," Mr. Graham would say, when his wife fluttered in to
lunch, breathless and exhausted and half an hour late (she, the most
punctual of women!),--"it is a sad thing to have married a comet by
mistake, thinking it was a woman. How did you find the other planets
this morning, my dear? Is it true that Saturn has lost one of his rings?
and has the Sun recovered from his last attack of spots? I really fear,"
he would add, turning to Hilda, "that this preternatural activity in your
comet-parent portends some alarming change in the--a--atmospheric
phenomena, my child. I would have you on your guard!" and then he
would look at her and sigh, shake his head, and apply himself to the
cold chicken with melancholy vigor.
Hilda thought nothing