The Tides of Barnegat | Page 9

protect her younger sister, a
fair-haired child of eight, taking his own and her dead mother's place, a
trust which had so dominated Jane's life that it had become the greater
part of her religion.

Since then she had been the one strong hand in the home, looking after
its affairs, managing their income, and watching over every step of her
sister's girlhood and womanhood. Two years before she had placed
Lucy in one of the fashionable boarding- schools of Philadelphia, there
to study "music and French," and to perfect herself in that "grace of
manner and charm of conversation," which the two maiden ladies who
presided over its fortunes claimed in their modest advertisements they
were so competent to teach. Part of the curriculum was an enforced
absence from home of two years, during which time none of her own
people were to visit her except in case of emergency.
To-night, the once famous house shone with something of its old-time
color. The candles were lighted in the big bronze candelabra--the ones
which came from Paris; the best glass and china and all the old plate
were brought out and placed on the sideboard and serving-tables; a
wood fire was started (the nights were yet cold), its cheery blaze
lighting up the brass fender and andirons before which many of
Colonel Cobden's cronies had toasted their shins as they sipped their
toddies in the old days; easy-chairs and hair-cloth sofas were drawn
from the walls; the big lamps lighted, and many minor details perfected
for the comfort of the expected guests.
Jane entered the drawing-room in advance of Lucy and was busying
herself putting the final touches to the apartment,--arranging the sprays
of blossoms over the clock and under the portrait of Morton Cobden,
which looked calmly down on the room from its place on the walls,
when the door opened softly and Martha--the old nurse had for years
been treated as a member of the family--stepped in, bowing and
curtsying as would an old woman in a play, the skirt of her new black
silk gown that Ann Gossaway had made for her held out between her
plump fingers, her mob-cap with its long lace strings bobbing with
every gesture. With her rosy cheeks, silver-rimmed spectacles,
self-satisfied smile, and big puffy sleeves, she looked as if she might
have stepped out of one of the old frames lining the walls.
"What do ye think of me, Miss Jane? I'm proud as a peacock--that I
am!" she cried, twisting herself about. "Do ye know, I never thought

that skinny dressmaker could do half as well. Is it long enough?" and
she craned her head in the attempt to see the edge of the skirt. "Fits you
beautifully, Martha. You look fine," answered Jane in all sincerity, as
she made a survey of the costume. "How does Lucy like it?"
"The darlin' don't like it at all; she says I look like a pall-bearer, and ye
ought to hear her langhin' at the cap. Is there anything the matter with it?
The pastor's wife's got one, anyhow, and she's a year younger'n me."
"Don't mind her, Martha--she laughs at everything; and how good it is
to hear her! She never saw you look so well," replied Jane, as she
moved a jar from a table and placed it on the mantel to hold the
blossoms she had picked in the garden. "What's she doing upstairs so
long?"
"Prinkin'--and lookin' that beautiful ye wouldn't know her. But the
width and the thickness of her"--here the wrinkled fingers measured the
increase with a half circle in the air--"and the way she's plumped
out--not in one place, but all over-- well, I tell ye, ye'd be astonished!
She knows it, too, bless her heart! I don't blame her. Let her git all the
comfort she kin when she's young--that's the time for laughin'--the
cryin' always comes later."
No part of Martha's rhapsody over Lucy described Jane. Not in her best
moments could she have been called beautiful--not even to-night when
Lucy's home-coming had given a glow to her cheeks and a lustre to her
eyes that nothing else had done for months. Her slender figure, almost
angular in its contour with its closely drawn lines about the hips and
back; her spare throat and neck, straight arms, thin wrists and
hands--transparent hands, though exquisitely wrought, as were those of
all her race --all so expressive of high breeding and refinement, carried
with them none of the illusions of beauty. The mould of the head,
moreover, even when softened by her smooth chestnut hair, worn close
to her ears and caught up in a coil behind, was too severe for accepted
standards, while her features wonderfully sympathetic as they were,
lacked the finer modeling demanded in