Agatha Lee's inheritance

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SUNDAY-HOUR SERIES. Y

Agatha Lee’s Inheritance.

Chapter I

“ Agatha ! Agatha ! ”

I stopped to listen, just holding the door in my hand, but with no thought of obediently answering the summons.

“ Agatha ! Agatha ! ”

It was Aunt Martha’s voice plainly. I closed the door very softly, and once out on the lawn sped away fast as possible to a little nook among the trees, under a high bank, dark, thick and cool, with shadows and. swaying, singing branches. This was the spot above all others that I loved to call “ home.” There was nothing in or out of the house I cared for. We lived a little way from the great, noisy city, whose roar and turmoil surged around, but never quite reached us. The

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house was beautiful, quiet, and orderly; far too orderly to suit me. I would have given worlds to but romp around it as I pleased, and verily believe I could have smashed my long-suffering aunt’s one solitary mirror, and her slender display of bijouterie as 'well, for the mere pleasure of forcing things out of their unnatural calm. The carpet seemed altogether too fine for my rough feet to tread upon, and the painful air of propriety about the whole place absolutely stifled me. Only when I was out under the trees, in my favorite hidingplace, with not even the sun to reach me — alone — while I fancied I was thinking — instead of which I was wantonly idling — only here did I call it “ Home.” So I lay down upon the short grass, soft and smooth as velvet to the touch, and resting my head upon the trunk of an old gnarled tree, I shut my eyes and sailed away into dreamland, while the drowsy wind just murmured a lullaby, soft and tender enough to wrap me into the most delicious rest. I could not frame my thoughts. I only knew I was very happy when I was out there alone, and very much cast down when I was in the house with Aunt Martha, and I longed with an eagerness I hardly dared acknowledge to myself, for the time to come when I could

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put the present life away and be my own mistress. I could hardly wait for the years to come and go and make me in their flight a woman. One castle I was forever building, and Phil, the rude fellow, was forever demolishing. A far-away, shadowy dream it was to me, but sometimes my fancy built it very clearly. Somebody was going to die and leave me a home. “ If somebody were only kind, they would die now,” I said poutingly to Phil one day.

“ Oh, Aggie, for shame ! ” Phil made answer, opening his round, brown eyes, and giving me such a reproving glance, for he wouldn’t have spoken a harsh word to me for the world — dear boy !

Now Phil was my playmate, my counselor, my friend above all friends ; Phil was my cousin, and we were both orphans and wards of Aunt Martha’s. She was never unkind to us. She was always the same unvarying, monotonous, placid Aunt Martha. Duty and propriety divided her so completely that there was nothing at all of her beyond those two principles. She was rigid in her orthodoxy, and she was a “ model of deportment.” And Phil and I didn’t care and didn’t know anything about either. Phil was older than I. I was ten, he

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twelve, but I knew far more than he, I thought, so I ordered him about as I pleased, and led him something of a dog’s life, capriciously caring for him one instant, and casting him off the next. That very day had he wickedly put out my dollie’s eyes, and then gone off to the city, riding on his little shag pony, as placidly as if he had never perpetrated such cruelty. “ I would never speak to Phil again ! ” I said bitterly, and not caring to see any one, least of all Aunt Martha. I would not listen to her call, but came out in the old place to dream. I forgot all about dollie’s eyes when I had settled myself in my favorite nook. It was so quiet and solemn, with the sun shining all around so brightly, so still, so clear, and not a ray of light to pierce through and reach me. And the birds twittering about from limb to limb, the bees humming, the leaves softly stirring, and the sky so blue and without a cloud overhead. Yes, it was soothing and lovely to even my child heart, and I shut my eyes and dreamed my dream and I built up my castle very high and fair that day, and forgot all about Phil’s misconduct, and planned a great many charming impossibilities for us both, when, as he used often to say, £C our ship comes from over the sea.” Was it really a ship, and

AGATHA LEE'S INHERITANCE. H would it ever spread white sails, and come home laden to me ? Phil said it would, but Phil said a vast deal of nonsense, and was never to be depended upon, that I knew.

Somebody came walking soberly down the garden walk, crossing the lawn and coming toward me. Somebody was Jane, my aunt’s maid, and “somebody ” always knew where to find me. I shut my eyes, feigning sleep. I didn’t like Jane very much more than I did Aunt Martha. She was Aunt Martha’s echo, shadow, counterpart, only on an humbler scale. She was propriety itself, and she had considered me, that I well knew, a very wicked child. I lay there peering at her between my halfclosed eyes, breathing very heavily, in utter unconsciousness that she detected the fraud instantly.

“ Miss,” she said severely, putting aside the branches, “you are wanted in the house directly.”

I breathed quite regularly, trying to keep my eyelids from trembling.

“ Wicked, deceitful child,” she went on, “ to try me in this way, and put your poor, dear aunt all of a tremble on your account. She has been calling you everywhere, and Dr. Milnor has been with her above an hour, waiting to see you. Wake up, you wicked child ! ”

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“ Dr. Milnor ? ” and I jumped up instantly. “ Why didn’t you tell me at once, Jane ? ”

And I ran past her, never heeding her prayers that I would stop and put on a clean pinafore and smooth my disordered hair and wash my soiled face and hands. Dr. Milnor very seldom came to the cottage. He was an old man and quite feeble I knew. Long ago he had given up his church and duties to a younger and not nearly (I thought) as pleasant a man.

But he clung to his people yet, and the dear, old hills of home, and his only wish was to die among those who for so many years had been like his children to him. Once, by my mother’s sickbed, yes, by her death-bed, I, a fearful wondering child, had received the old man’s benediction that had seemed to enter into my heart, child though I was, and in a manner sanctified all my future life to me. Yet I knew nothing of my own great needs, or the longing wants of an unregenerate soul. I only knew that I was once blessed — blessed solemnly and tenderly in the name of the great All Father and the dear Son, who once took such little, ignorant children in His arms, suffering them to come unto Him. My heart opened and took in the blessing I think I was never very

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bad without the touch of the old man’s hand coming back to me suddenly. Sometimes I felt it as a reproach — sometimes a warning — always a restraint. Sometimes I checked the hasty words, feeling almost as if back again in the dim room with the yearning white face of my mother, looking into mine as she gave up her only child to God. This was the way I remembered and loved Dr. Milnor. What did I care for soiled frock or hands ? I left Jane far, very far, behind me, and bursting open the little parlor door, and never once noticing Aunt Martha’s shocked face or warning finger, I threw myself into his arms and held up my mouth for him to kiss. Such a mouth ! There were traces of jelly, surreptitiously taken from the store-room in an auspicious moment, and there were still more recent traces of dirt and tears lingering there, for had not one of my hapless children lost her eyesight that day, and had I not lifted up my voice and wept ? But I forgot it all, and the good, kind Doctor never thought of it either as he stooped to take the little, dirty face in his two hands and lifting it up, kissed forehead and lips, saying very tenderly, “ God love the child and keep her always.” I clung to him delightedly, though my aunt tried vainly by little

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Freemasonry signs, well understood by me, to beguile me into going to the nursery and Jane, for a change of attire. But no, obstinacy was an inherent part of my nature. By Dr. Milnor’s side I dropped, feeling the kind hands once more upon my head, and going back instantly in thought to the dim room, by my mother’s bedside. I did not care to talk. The sight of the placid face with the silver hair falling around it, and the touch of the gentle hand was only another blessing to me. I listened as he talked to Aunt Martha of the great good that I might yet do in the world — of the proper training I should require — of the great future so wrapped in cloud, but which was surely waiting for me. Why for me ? Why should he seem so earnest and grave, and why, when he looked down at me, were the kincl blue eyes dim with tears ? I listened in wonder, never saying a word, but nestling closer to his side and feeling a sense of vague alarm.

Aunt Martha spoke to me first.

“Agatha,” she said, measuring every word after her usual, composed, prim fashion, “ Dr. Milnor is the bearer of very important news to you. Mr. Hilton is dead.”

A long pause. I had not the faintest idea who

Mr. Hilton was, and breathed a great sigh of relief. Very clearly it was neither Phil nor the dogs nor one of my long array of waxen children who had come to grief. So I said very briskly, and with much' relish, “Yes, Aunt Martha, I don’t know Mr. Hilton, so I don’t care, you know.”

“ But you must care,” she said. “ It is a great deal to you ; Mr. Hilton was very rich. He had no one to leave his money to.”

“ But a little child,” interrupted Dr. Milnor softly, “ who God grant may live to His honor and glory, and make good use of the wealth He has given her. Will she try ? ” stooping down to kiss my forehead again. “Will she remember it is God who has given her this goodly heritage? Will she always ask Him to help her spend it wisely and in His service ? ”

I was too young to realize all the enormous benefits and advantages thus suddenly thrown upon me. I only knew my castle stood out firm and clear as I had built it that day. “ You shall have beautiful new eyes, dollie, my love,” I whispered to the mutilated image closely wrapped in my arms, as I lay upon my little, white bed that night. “ You shall have beautiful new eyes every day in the year if you like, my pet. We will not care for

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Phil, he is so cruel and bad a boy. We will live for ourselves hereafter, you and I — Jane,” I said, calling her to me, “ is it a very fine thing to be rich ? ”

“ Very fine, Miss,” with a little more softness in her tone than she usually employed in addressing me.

“ Will I ride in a carriage and have new dollies whenever I please, and ever and ever so much candy when I like to buy it ? ”

“ You will, Miss, but wouldn’t it be better to say your prayers and go to sleep just now ? You haven’t thanked God for His goodness to you to-day.”

“ But I have thanked Mr. Hilton,” I said practically, “ and that is far better, I think, Jane,” not noticing her shocked look, “ and now if you please you may put the light out, and dollie and I will go to sleep.”

Dear Dr. Milnor ! How little I thought of his solemn words — how meager the thanks my child heart gave to the great Giver of all this bounty. Very clearly it was Mr. Hilton who had done it all, and my gratitude went to him. An inheritance ! God alone knew if it would bring me good or ill ; but my careless visions were darkened by no shadows that night. An inheritance ! I clasped dollie closer in my arms as I fell asleep, whispering to her comforting words, and promising her eyes of every color she desired — beautiful eyes every day in the year if she liked.

This is the way the castle I had builded shaped itself solidly in the future for me. This is the way the Esperanza spread her white sails and came floating over the waves to little Agatha Lee — child — orphan — but after that night — mistress of Hilton Lee.

Chapter II

A long, rocky line of coast — a strip of smooth, shining sand at its base, over which, far as the eye could reach, the boiling surf crept and curled. A great arch of blue sky overhead, and a great arch of blue water below ; and spreading sails like white-winged birds, forever coming and going — ah ! what a spot for dreams ! To run to the rocky headland — to find a place where I might descend, from point to point, and reach the sands below — to sit in the warm sunlight and feel the fresh air upon my cheek, and wonder how far the winds and waves had come that day — to hear the dirgelike burden of the waters — the great ocean chant — the weird, wonderful whisperings that crept up to me from the sea, and which charmed me into listening and dreaming away part of that first summer down on the sands at Hilton Lee. Many and many a day alone — for Phil only stayed through the first four weeks of his vacation, and then went • (iS)

away with some school chum to finish the remainder. The remembrance of those days, lonely for a child — and never entirely lonely either, because of the whispering voices around me, so dreamlike, misty, and far away — yet in a manner stay by me still. Every wave, as it broke, had a voice for my ear. Sometimes a wail, a longing, a regret — sometimes a glad whispering of the shores it had washed — of the strange, wild countries it had seen ; of the famous cities, frowning towers, and ruined castles it hurried past; or, leaping fearfully and high, it spoke of sudden storm and wreck, and despair and death. And then I *fled away, frightened and trembling, trying to deafen my ears to the long, sullen booming of the angry breakers as they moaned and tossed upon the bar.

The house was far away, back from the rocky headland, sheltered from the storm and wind, bosomed in by tall, old trees. A long sloping lawn led to the road. A high stone wall divided it from our neighbors, although, truth to tell, we knew nothing of them, or indeed if there were people living there at all. We had only come down to the Lee — Aunt Martha, Jane, Phil, and I — for the summer months, and to see, as my good aunt prudently suggested, “ into the state of affairs.”

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Jane found out- for us, in the surreptitious way of servants generally, that our nearest neighbors were the Endicotts — beyond that we knew nothing — we saw no one. Phil stayed with us his allotted four weeks, and together we explored every part of the farm and shore, and knew it all by heart.

I was three years older than when I received my great, new gift, through the hands of Dr. Milnor. I had given my dollie the beautiful new eyes for which I had been sighing, and then wearying of the multitude of cares these waxen children brought with them, I had put them aside and taken up other longings and pursuits. And Dr. Milnor had gone peacefully to rest, leaving a great void in my life — how great I had not begun to realize until he had gone away from me forever. I was such a child when my mother died, and the dear old Doctor was the only link left between us, between me and heaven — between me and the great hereafter, which came so solemnly before me when I felt no longer the touch of the hand which had once conveyed blessings with it.

Phil no longer practiced cruelties on my children or teased and bullied me. I was thirteen years old, and mistress of Hilton Lee ! In that month he was with us we had not a single quarrel

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or difference of any kind. From morning until night we wandered about together; oftenest out on the sands, his arm about me as we walked up and down, planning great things for the future, and sending out our tiny fleets of childish longings — to sail serenely into port some day, or to wreck as many a noble ship has been wrecked — who could tell ?

The day Phil left us I felt my loneliness more than ever before in my life. I slipped from the house and Aunt Martha, nodding complacently over her embroidery in an easy-chair, and wandered off alone by myself. It was a relief to me to be out of the house and feel the fresh breeze blowing around me, as I took our old path to the beach. I clambered over the rocks until I reached the sands below, where Phil and I had wandered every day, and finding out the big flat rock where we had sat and talked in the moonlight the night before, I seated myself upon it and looked around. A boat lay on the sands, drawn up high out of reach of the creeping waves, but nobody was in sight ; lonely, still, and white, the beach lay like a long shining path of silver, and the ocean, rocking placidly, lulled me into profoundest dreams. It was warm July weather, and one of the loveliest days of that sweet midsummer time. But I could not thoroughly enjoy this loveliness just then. There was enough of loneliness and yearning want in my heart to make even the sun shine less brightly for a season. The tide was coming in, but the waters were quite glassy and smooth beyond the bar, and a golden gossamer haze hung over sea and sky, melting it all in one great illimitable blue. On the smooth sands the white surf seethed and gurgled, creeping up nearer and nearer my resting-place, until it seemed to me the water was trying to reach my feet. I threw off my slippers and put my foot down to meet the coming wave. I loved to feel the soft, cool water rippling around me. But I was lonely. The day before, Phil and I had run up and down the beach, frolicking and dashing in the spray, and with never a thought of anything but pleasure. Now I was alone. It would be six long months before I should see my old playfellow again, and another year, probably, before we should “ come unto these yellow sands.” A year. A great deal could befall me of good or ill in that time. Was I always to be alone, this way ? My eyes wandered over the waters— a vast, misty, wonderful circle — and only this little point of land on which I stood

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seemed stable and real. Over beyond all this blue I knew lay great, busy worlds — above me, wheeling into space, still other worlds were hovering. I felt like an atom — a grain of sand on the shore of this far-reaching sea. f “ It is like eternity,” I said to myself, my eyes filling. “ It is like eternity to stand here alone and think of what lies beyond and around me. And I am alone in it all — I shall be alone all my life, as now.” And my eyes, brimming and running over, blotted out sea and sky with fast-falling tears. I thought it all over once more — the life I had planned for Agatha Lee — the ships I had freighted and sent out sailing over the seas — the hopes, the fears, the longings — but they wpre all of this world. Nothing did the waves ever whisper to me of the life beyond this — or if it whispered, I did not listen. It was all of life here that I dreamed, not the unending life hereafter. When Phil had done with school and college and gone out into the world, a man — when Aunt Martha should grow old and feeble, and finally die, like Dr. Milnor, who, who on the great, broad earth, would care for me ? — what good would my inheritance do me if I were alone ; alone in the future as now ? It was a great thought for a child to grapple. It was a lonely song the se£ was

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singing. I covered my face with my hands and burst into an uncontrollable fit of crying. When once : fairly roused I could not stay the torrent of tears. It seemed to me for a moment that I forgot my youth and looked my life resolutely in the face, J feeling how like, how very like it was, to one of those atoms of shifting sand under my feet. I slipped from my seat, and throwing both arms around the damp rock, I leaned my head down upon it and sobbed aloud. There was no one near to inquire into my grief, or to soothe it either, and I indulged in the unrestrained luxury with never ' a thought of any one hearing or heeding me. How long I lay there I could not tell. I felt quite worn out and exhausted and was only sobbing softly to myself when I was roused by hearing a voice, apparently close by my side. The low, quiet tones \ seemed to come up to me out of the sea and blend- ' ing singularly with the music of the waves, scarcely startled me, it seemed so impossible it should be I any living person. Nevertheless, the voice said | very plainly, “ My little maiden, what is the matter ? ” And I sprang to my feet, brushing away the tears, and instantly aware the voice was no trick of my fancy, or song of the sea. A tall, - beardless youth stood before me, looking down j with surprise, and kindly scrutiny as well, in his blue eyes. The voice and the face were instantly reassuring, but I shrank instinctively from the thought of a stranger seeing me thus and in tears.

“ My little maiden,” the voice was saying, “ sitting like Dorothea by the water’s side and uttering saddest plaints — do not cry any more — let me turn comforter and wipe all these tears away.”

I said nothing. I could not be frightened when I looked into the blue eyes and heard the kindly voice, but I could utter no word, and only covered my face with my hands. Then he sat down on the rock and tried to take them away and look into my eyes, but I hung my head so that he could not see them at all.

“Don’t cry any more,” he whispered softly. “ You are too much of a child to be troubled with any grief as yet deeper than the loss of a toy. I never could abide tears. Tell me — what can I say to comfort you ? Speak, Dorothea ! ”

I had never in all my life heard of “ Miguel De Cervantes Saavedra,” and as I sprang to my feet, I explained my name was Agatha Lee, and not Dorothea , at all.

“ Oh ! then,” said the stranger, lifting his eyebrows with an air of mock surprise, “but I am more than ever lost in amazement. I looked around the rock for Sancho, and the knight and priest, and came down hither to offer to mount you on the famous mule and give you ‘ bon voyage * toward your kingdom of Micomacon.”

Clearly a crazy man ! And yet the tone was full of jesting laughter, and the eyes kindly and serene- in spite . of a sparkle of mischief resting there ; but clearly he was crazy — and I alone with him on the beach; only a moment before, his hands in mine — and Aunt Martha, dozing placidly over her tapestries in the little summer parlor, with no thought of where or with whom I was tarrying ! I gave one bound and sprang from his side and in an instant was clambering up the rocks. He could not have followed me if he had wished, for fear added wings to my speed, and I knew the exact spot to place every footstep. I made no pause to look back until I gained the flat ledge of rock hanging over the sands — the top of the terrace, beyond which lay the smooth grass and meadows of home. Then I looked back and saw I was not pursued. My unknown friend had reached the little boat and was pushing away. But as he saw me he rose in the stern and took off his hat, waving it gracefully. The wind tossed his

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yellow hair about his face — the sunlight glittered upon it in light and shade — and then, rising and falling with the slow, majestic sweep of each incoming wave, the little boat shot through the foam and out to sea. I dropped upon the grass, watching the tiny bark with eager eyes. How gracefully it rose and fell ! How strong the arm which i steered it clear through the smooth blue, and then, i without any apparent effort, mounted the crest of : the wave, toppling down over it — shooting over and through it and on to another. “ He was used to the sea,” I said to myself. None but the fishermen about here, on the beach, whom I had watched going out day by day with their nets and lines, could manage a boat like that. Who was he? and where had he come from? — “ out of the depths,” as he had appeared ? I watched the I boat until it became only a black speck — a point. I saw it rounding to and nearing a little yacht which lay with furled sails, rocking idly upon the curling sea. And then, as 1 still sat watching for the speck which I had lost, and which apparently the sea had swallowed up, I saw the canvas flutter, then, spreading its wings like a white sea-gull, it disappeared in the mists of sea and sky. He had vanished as suddenly and mysteriously as he had come.

Chapter III

“ My dear Agatha,” said Aunt Martha, sleepily, as I came in the house an hour afterward, “ where have you been all this long time ? I have finished the bud I was doing, and had, I am positively certain, an undue amount of sleep. I woke twice and asked Jane for you, but she knew no better than I where to go.”

“ I have been on the beach, aunt,” I said quietly, taking a stool at her feet.

“ And not bathing ? ” she leaned forward and touched my dress, which was quite dry. “ That is right. We know nothing of the tides, and unless Phil or some proper person were with you, it would be extremely dangerous. I think I don’t quite approve of your wandering off so much alone by yourself. I really wish I were able to go with you, sometimes, but the sea air has a most surprising effect upon me. It is impossible to keep this drowsiness away. But I can soon go with you, I hope.”

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“ By no means,” I said quickly, resolving not to tell her of my rencontre that day. “ The beach is perfectly quiet and safe, and, indeed, you would be tired out if you were to take one of my long tramps.”