The Pleasant Street Partnership | Page 5

been a bond of union if it had been possible to become really acquainted, but Aunt Virginia held aloof. It was almost as if she were afraid of Charlotte, too. Still there was something rather nice about her. Charlotte hardly realized how often she returned to this opinion.
When they had driven away, she went to the library,--a less formidable apartment than the drawing-room,--and making herself comfortable in an arm-chair by the window, began to consider what she should say to Cousin Francis, for she had decided that pouring out her soul in a letter would, after all, be more satisfactory than tears.
She looked out across the garden to where, on the other side of Pleasant Street, stood the little corner shop with its gray-green shingles, its upper windows all aglow in the afternoon sunshine. Before it stood a furniture van, and Charlotte idly watched the unloading.
She had made up her mind that life here was going to be hopelessly dull. She swung her foot listlessly, and, forgetting her letter, thought of Aunt Cora's home in a gay little suburb where something was always going on,--teas, dinners, receptions, where, although in the background, she had had her share of the excitement.
At the Landors', where she sometimes spent several weeks while Aunt Cora, worn by her strenuous social life, went down to Atlantic City to recuperate, it was much quieter. And still she loved to be there. The elder Mr. Landor was a busy lawyer, his son Francis a literary person, and they lived in a tall, brown stone house in the old part of Philadelphia, among any number of others exactly like it. It was a man's house, overflowing with books and pictures, and yet showing the lack of a woman's presence. Charlotte was very fond of her guardian and his son, who petted and made much of her on the occasions of her visits. She was conscious, however, that Uncle Landor was not quite satisfied with her. He had a way of looking at her long and steadily through his glasses, as if he were studying her.
Cousin Frank, perhaps because he had no responsibility in the matter, treated her as a comrade in a way that was flattering. She was, of course, an ardent admirer of his stories and verses, and upon one or two rare occasions had been made blissfully happy by being allowed to listen to one fresh from the typewriter. But most interesting of all had been a discovery made on her last visit in the spring. Between the leaves of a manuscript she had been allowed to read she found some verses beginning:--
"I love her whether she love me or no, Just as I love the roses where they blow In fragrant crimson there beyond the wall."
There was something more about roses being sweet although out of reach, and teaching a lesson to his heart; but before she had quite grasped the idea, Francis took the paper away from her with an exclamation of impatience.
"Why should Francis have minded, unless those verses meant something personal?" Charlotte wondered. As she thought it over, she recalled some remarks of Aunt Cora's about a little water-color portrait of a child in Uncle Landor's study.
"Who is this?" Mrs. Brent asked one day, pausing before it.
"That is old Peter Carpenter's granddaughter May, when she was ten years old. He had two portraits done of her, and liking the other better, gave this to me not long before he died."
Aunt Cora said, "Ah!" and studied it with interest. "So this is the Miss Carpenter, is it? I presume Francis has a more recent likeness."
"I do not know that he has. We see very little of May in these days. She is a great lady." Uncle Landor spoke as one who dismisses a subject.
Then one rainy afternoon Mrs. Wellington, the Landors' housekeeper, entertained Charlotte with stories of this same young lady who, it turned out, lived just across the street in a house distinguished from the rest of the block by a garden at one side. According to Mrs. Wellington she was beautiful and rich, and if one more touch were needed to make her an irreproachable heroine, the long illness from which she was then beginning to recover supplied it. Watching at the window, Charlotte had the pleasure of seeing her carried out for a drive once or twice, but she never had a glimpse of her face.
Putting two and two together, she became quite sure that this Miss Carpenter was the rose which was out of reach; but though she was on the point of it several times, she never quite dared to question Cousin Francis about her.
Charlotte had woven a charming romance with these slender threads, being at the romantic age when real life is seen beneath the lime-light of