CHAPTER III

KATHLEEN

“I really think, Miss Kathleen, that you are, without exception, the most discontented child I have ever seen. The idea of a big girl of twelve years old, complaining and making a fuss, just because she’s got to spend a couple of hours by herself.”

Kathleen Crawford colored angrily.

“I’m not discontented, Sarah,” she protested, “and you haven’t any business to say I am either. I don’t believe you’d like it yourself if you had to spend a whole beautiful afternoon in the house with nothing to do, and nobody to talk to.”

Sarah sniffed scornfully. She was a tall, angular woman, and Kathleen sometimes thought her face was the plainest face she had ever seen.

“Nothing to do!” she echoed. “That’s a pretty way for a child like you to talk, isn’t it? How about all those new books your papa ordered for you just before he went away? Then there’s your beautiful new victrola to amuse you, if nothing else will, to say nothing of your lessons for to-morrow. I don’t believe you’ve looked at one of them since Miss Hastings and Madame left on Friday.”

“I studied my lessons yesterday, and I can’t read all day long. I’m tired of all the Victor records. I meant to get some new ones yesterday, but I forgot. So you see I really haven’t anything to do. I think you might take me out for a walk.”

“Well, I’m not going to, even if you do think so,” maintained Sarah. “It’s little enough time I have to myself, goodness knows, and I don’t intend to give up my Sunday afternoon just because you happen to think you’d like a walk, when half the time it’s as much as one’s life is worth to coax you out for the exercise your papa wants you to have. Why, the first week you had that talking-machine, you couldn’t tear yourself away from it. I declare, it makes me sick the way you tire of everything you have. It’s a sin, that’s what it is. When I think of other children I’ve known; dear little Miss Joy, for instance. Left alone all day she was, while her sister was out being companion to an old lady, and she blind, too, and yet never a word of complaint out of her----”

“Oh, do stop talking about that Joy St. Clair,” interrupted Kathleen; “I’m so tired of hearing about her.” And as a means of expressing her weariness of the subject, she flung herself back among the sofa cushions, and closed her eyes.

Sarah looked very much offended.

“Oh, very well,” she said, coldly, and, without another word, she walked out of the room.

For several minutes Kathleen lay still with closed eyes. She had made Sarah angry, she knew, for of all people in the world, this Joy St. Clair held the highest place in the maid’s estimation. According to Sarah, she was a sort of combination of Elsie Dinsmore and Little Lord Fauntleroy. Kathleen had never seen her, but Sarah had lived for several years with relatives of hers, and ever since her advent in the Crawford household, she had talked so much about the little blind girl’s perfection, and had made so many unfavorable comparisons between Joy St. Clair and her present charge, that perhaps there was some excuse for Kathleen’s dislike of the subject.

“I know I should hate her,” remarked Kathleen to herself, suddenly sitting up on the sofa, and tossing back her long curls. “I hate Sarah, too; I’m going to ask Daddy to send her away as soon as he comes home. Augustine was much nicer, even if she did make me speak French. I thought Sarah was going to be nice when she first came, and it was interesting hearing about Joy St. Clair and Gladys Wentworth, but I didn’t suppose she would go on talking about them forever and ever. I suppose I might as well read; there isn’t anything else to do.”

“Miss Kathleen.”

Kathleen looked up from the book, the pages of which she had been idly turning for at least five minutes. Sarah, dressed to go out, was standing in the doorway. Sarah was still deeply offended, but she knew her duty.

“I’m going now, Miss Kathleen. If you want anything you know you can ring for Selma.”

“Why can’t Selma take me out?” inquired Kathleen, springing to her feet.

“Because she has to answer the door-bell. It’s Brown’s afternoon out.”

“Oh, how I do hate afternoons out!” declared Kathleen, but Sarah, who had no desire for further argument, was already half-way down-stairs.

Kathleen sat listening to the maid’s retreating footsteps until the door at the head of the basement stairs closed. Then she rose, tossed aside her book, and went over to the window.

“It really is a beautiful afternoon,” she reflected, gazing down at the crowded avenue, and over to the park. “I wish I hadn’t promised Daddy never to go out by myself again. I’d love to give Sarah a good fright, and Mrs. Anderson too. It was mean of them both to go out at the same time, and leave me alone. They wouldn’t have dared to do it if Daddy had been at home. I don’t suppose that old Joy St. Clair cared whether she stayed in the house all day or not. It can’t make much difference to blind people where they are. Oh, I wish Daddy hadn’t gone away to Bermuda; I do miss him so.” Suddenly Kathleen found it necessary to turn away from the window, and take out her handkerchief.

She was very lonely; perhaps more lonely than Sarah realized. Ever since she could remember she had been a small person of a great deal of consequence. Her father worshipped her, and every member of the household had been taught to do her bidding. All her former maids had been her abject slaves, and it was only since the arrival of the stern Sarah that she had ever been treated to anything like discipline. She was not a particularly ill-natured or unreasonable child and she was rather a favorite with most of the servants, but she was so accustomed to being an object of importance to people that Sarah’s present indifference was quite a new, and not at all pleasant experience.

“I shall tell Daddy about her the minute he comes home,” she told herself, as she wiped her eyes, and went back to the sofa and her book. “She’s only a servant, and the servants have got to do what I want.”

But even this reflection failed to brighten the present moment, and after another vain attempt to interest herself in her story-book, Kathleen jumped up, with an impatient sigh. She was tired of reading; tired of music; tired of everything! She glanced about the pretty, luxurious room, and wished that she were anywhere else in the world at that particular moment.

“I’ll write a letter to Daddy,” she decided. “I can tell him about Sarah, and how horrid everything is, and perhaps he’ll hurry home.”

She crossed the room to the writing-desk, selected a pen and a sheet of paper, and began to write very fast. Her cheeks were flushed, and her eyes flashed indignantly. It was at that very moment that Nora took her seat on the park bench, and fixed her anxious gaze on the empty windows of the Crawford mansion.

“DEAR DADDY:

“I miss you dreadfully, and I do wish you would hurry home. This is Sunday afternoon, and everything is perfectly horrid. I am all alone by myself, and I think everybody is very selfish and unkind. Mrs. Anderson has gone to Brooklyn to a funeral, and won’t be home till tea-time. I didn’t see why she had to go, but she said the man who died was an old friend of her father’s, and it wouldn’t be respectful not to attend his funeral.

“I didn’t mind Mrs. Anderson’s going to the funeral much, because she is so stupid, and never any good to talk to, but Sarah has gone out too. I told her she ought not to leave me alone, but she said it was her Sunday out, and I was old enough to take care of myself. It’s a perfectly beautiful afternoon, and of course I want to go for a walk. I only had time for a little one after church, because Sarah was in such a hurry to get home to lunch. But I promised you I wouldn’t ever go out alone again, and of course there isn’t any one to take me. You said I mustn’t take the car out on Sunday afternoons, so I can’t even have a ride. I am up here in the schoolroom, with nobody to talk to, and not a single thing to do. I know if you were at home you wouldn’t have let Sarah and Mrs. Anderson both go out, and, oh, Daddy darling, I do miss you more and more every day. I cried for several nights after you went away, and I keep wishing for you all the time. If you could just telephone to me sometimes, as you used to do when you were in Florida, it wouldn’t be half so bad, but Miss Hastings says people can’t even telegraph to Bermuda. I wish you wouldn’t go to such very far-away places.

“I went to the theatre yesterday afternoon, and the play was very nice. I invited Muriel to go with me, and Sarah took us. Sarah was very solemn all the time, and hardly laughed at all, even at the funniest parts. She says she doesn’t enjoy plays, which I think is very silly, for Miss Hastings and Madame both like them, and, being teachers, they ought to know more about such things than Sarah. Muriel came to luncheon, and after the play we went to Maillard’s, and had chocolate and cakes. Muriel has asked me to her house next Saturday, and her father is going to take us to the Hippodrome.

“I knew my lessons pretty well all the week, and Miss Hastings and Madame didn’t scold very much. Madame is reading me a lovely French book called ‘Sans Famille.’ It is very interesting, but of course I would like it better if it were in English.

“Mrs. Anderson and I went to the cripples’ home on Wednesday, and I took the children some candy. I think cripples and blind people have very good times, and I don’t think I should mind being one very much. There isn’t much fun in being rich, and having lots of nice things, when your daddy goes away to Bermuda, and you have to stay all by yourself on a beautiful Sunday afternoon. I am so tired of having people tell me I ought to be grateful, and how much I have to make me happy. I think it would be rather fun to be poor, just for a change.

“Aunt Kitty came yesterday, but wouldn’t stay to luncheon, because she said Uncle Stephen was coming up-town early. She says they may go to Bermuda the week after next. Oh, how I do wish I could go with them! Couldn’t I really, Daddy dear? It would make me so very, very happy.

“I am sorry if this letter sounds cross and disagreeable. I don’t want to be horrid, but I am very lonely, and I do miss you so, my own daddy.

“With bushels of love, and a whole wagon full of kisses, I am your own little girl, who loves you better than anybody in the world.

“KATHLEEN CRAWFORD.”

Kathleen laid down her pen, folded her letter, and put it in an envelope. She had just finished writing the address: “Mr. Duncan Crawford, Princess Hotel, Bermuda,” when her attention was attracted by a slight sound, and she turned her head rather curiously in the direction of the door. The next moment she had sprung to her feet, with a cry of astonishment, for there in the doorway stood a little girl with big brown eyes, and long golden curls, so exactly like herself, as she saw herself every day in the mirror, that she felt sure she must be seeing something in a dream.

“Who--who are you?” faltered Kathleen, her eyes round with amazement.

The stranger did not answer, but clasped her hands together with a little cry of distress. She had grown suddenly very pale, and there was a look of something very like terror in her eyes. Kathleen repeated her question.

“Who are you? What do you want?”

“I--I don’t want anything,” stammered the stranger. “I--I didn’t mean to come in, but the woman made me. She watched me all the way up-stairs.”

“But who are you?” repeated Kathleen for the third time. “I never saw you before.”

The strange girl shook her head.

“I mustn’t tell you,” she said. “I must go right straight away again, just as soon as I’m sure that woman isn’t watching me.”

“But--but you’re like somebody I know; you’re just like me. Even your voice is like mine. Tell me who you are. Tell me this minute.” And Kathleen stamped her foot impatiently. She was recovering from her first amazement, and now curiosity--wild, excited curiosity--was fast taking possession of her.

The stranger began to cry.

“Don’t ask me, oh, please don’t,” she sobbed. “You’re not to know anything about us; Mother told me so. Oh, why did I ever come? It was dreadfully wrong, I know it was. It may get Mother into trouble.”

Kathleen was touched. She had a kind heart, after all, and she could never bear to see people cry.

“No, it won’t get your mother into any trouble,” she promised, laying a soothing hand on the visitor’s heaving shoulder. “I won’t let anybody do anything to you or your mother either, but you’ve got to tell me who you are; you’ve just got to. If you don’t tell I’ll call somebody, and make a fuss, and then perhaps you will get your mother into trouble, so you see you’d better tell right away. Nobody will know about your being here unless I want them to, for all the servants are down-stairs, and there isn’t a soul but us on this floor.”

The visitor raised her face, down which the tears were still streaming.

“If you’ll promise never to tell any one--promise faithfully----”

“I promise,” said Kathleen, impatiently.

“Then I’ll tell you, but I suppose you’ll be very much surprised, especially if you have never heard of me before. _I’m your twin sister._”