Queen Hildegarde | Page 5

me!" and she burst into tears, half of anger,
half of grief, and sobbed bitterly.
"Dear child!" said Mrs. Graham, smoothing the fair hair lovingly, "if
you had heard me out, you would have seen that we had no idea of
leaving you alone, or of leaving you in this house either. You are to
stay with--"
"Not with Aunt Emily!" cried the girl, springing to her feet with
flashing eyes. "Mamma, I would rather beg in the streets than stay with
Aunt Emily. She is a detestable, ill-natured, selfish woman."

"Hildegarde," said Mrs. Graham gravely, "be silent!" There was a
moment of absolute stillness, broken only by the ticking of the little
crystal clock on the mantelpiece, and then Mrs. Graham continued: "I
must ask you not to speak again, my daughter, until I have finished
what I have to say; and even then, I trust you will keep silence until you
are able to command yourself. You are to stay with my old nurse, Mrs.
Hartley, at her farm near Glenfield. She is a very kind, good woman,
and will take the best possible care of you. I went to the farm myself
last week, and found it a lovely place, with every comfort, though no
luxuries, save the great one of a free, healthy, natural life. There, my
Hilda, we shall leave you, sadly indeed, and yet feeling that you are in
good and loving hands. And I feel very sure," she added in a lighter
tone, "that by the time we return, you will be a rosy-cheeked country
lass, strong and hearty, with no more thought of headaches, and no
wrinkle in your forehead." As she ceased speaking, Mrs. Graham drew
the girl close to her, and kissed the white brow tenderly, murmuring:
"God bless my darling daughter! If she knew how her mother's heart
aches at parting with her!" But Hilda did not know. She was too angry,
too bewildered, too deeply hurt, to think of any one except herself. She
felt that she could not trust herself to speak, and it was in silence, and
without returning her mother's caress, that she rose and sought her own
room.
Mrs. Graham looked after her wistfully, tenderly, but made no effort to
call her back. The tears trembled in her soft blue eyes, and her lip
quivered as she turned to her work-table; but she said quietly to herself:
"Solitude is a good medicine. The child will do well, and I know that I
have chosen wisely for her."
Bitter tears did Hildegarde shed as she flung herself face downward on
her own blue sofa. Angry thoughts surged through her brain. Now she
burned with resentment at the parents who could desert her,--their only
child; now she melted into pity for herself, and wept more and more as
she pictured the misery that lay before her. To be left alone--alone!--on
a squalid, wretched farm, with a dirty old woman, a woman who had
been a servant,--she, Hildegardis Graham, the idol of her parents, the
queen of her "set" among the young people, the proudest and most

exclusive girl in New York, as she had once (and not with displeasure)
heard herself called!
What would Madge Everton, what would all the girls say! How they
would laugh, to hear of Hilda Graham living on a farm among pigs and
hens and dirty people! Oh! it was intolerable; and she sprang up and
paced the floor, with burning cheeks and flashing eyes.
The thought of opposing the plan did not occur to her. Mrs. Graham's
rule, gentle though it was, was not of the flabby, nor yet of the elastic
sort. Her decisions were not hastily arrived at; but once made, they
were final and abiding. "You might just as well try to oppose the Gulf
Stream!" Mr. Graham would say. "They do it sometimes with icebergs,
and what is the result? In a few days the great clumsy things are
bowing and scraping and turning somersaults, and fairly jostling each
other in their eagerness to obey the guidance of the insidious current.
Insidious Current, will you allow a cup of coffee to drift in my
direction? I shall be only too happy to turn a somersault if it will afford
you--thanks!--the smallest gratification."
So Hildegarde's first lessons had been in obedience and in truthfulness;
and these were fairly well learned before she began her ABC. And so
she knew now, that she might storm and weep as she would in her own
room, but that the decree was fixed, and that unless the skies fell, her
summer would be passed at Hartley's Glen.
CHAPTER II.
DAME AND FARMER.
When the first shock was over, Hilda was rather glad than otherwise to
learn that there was to be no delay