CHAPTER NINETEENTH.

SURPRISES.

"Expect me Wednesday evening; will wire from St. Louis," so read the telegram from San Francisco; and on Wednesday morning Frances had just exclaimed over her oatmeal, "O dear, what a long day this will be!" when the door opened and there stood a familiar figure, looking, oh, so bright and well!

After some moments of rapturous hugs and incoherent remarks, the traveller was allowed to have some breakfast, while Mrs. Morrison and Frances looked on, too happy to eat.

"I had to surprise you, for a despatch sent after I left St. Louis would have aroused you in the night, or else not have reached you till about this time," Mr. Morrison explained as he helped himself to a muffin.

"Jack, how brown you are, and how well you look! It is a delight to see you," said his wife.

"I never was better in my life; but I can't tell you how I have wished for you and Frances."

"Next time you'll take me, won't you, father?" Frances asked.

"Yes, indeed. Wink, I believe you have grown a foot! You'll soon be a young lady, and I don't like it; people will begin to think your mother and I are elderly, when we are really in the heyday of youth."

In this irrelevant fashion conversation went on through the day. There were all the winter experiences to be related, and Frances could not rest till each person in the house had been brought in to see her father. First of all Mr. Clark ran up to say how glad he was to see the traveller back again; and on her way to school Miss Moore looked in with a merry greeting; then Emma and the General were waylaid in the hall and introduced, the former in a dreadful fit of shyness; and last, Miss Sherwin was pounced upon and dragged reluctantly into the sitting room.

To her Mr. Morrison's return meant the breaking up of the pleasant companionship of the winter, and she was not in the least glad to see him. Mrs. Morrison's exclamation as she entered was somewhat disconcerting.

"Jack, I want you to know Lillian, she has been so good to me!"

"Good! I?" Miss Sherwin cried in a tone that made them all laugh, and then her hand was given a cordial grasp by a tall man with a boyish face, who said, "We shall have to take each other on sufferance, Miss Sherwin, till we can find out for ourselves how much truth there is in what our friends say of us."

"I am very glad we came here; it has really been a delightful winter,—all but those two dreadful days when Frances was so ill,—but I don't think I can ever let you go again," Mrs. Morrison said. It was after lunch, and Frances had gone to get ready for a walk with her father.

"Then, will you go to New York with me next week?" asked her husband.

"I may have to stand that. It will depend on how soon we must leave here permanently. Jack, there is one rather strange thing I must tell you—" but just here Frances danced in, and her mother did not finish her sentence.

When they returned from their walk late in the afternoon they stopped in the shop for a moment to speak to Mr. Clark. Peterkin was the only person to be seen, but the door into the study stood open, and, supposing the Spectacle Man was there, Frances and her father entered. Some one was standing before the mantel looking up at the portrait of Washington, and Frances gave an exclamation of surprise, for it was not the optician, but, of all persons, Mrs. Marvin!

It was not very light, and for a second she thought she must be mistaken, then something very strange happened. Mrs. Marvin turned, and with a little cry stepped forward, holding out her hands appealingly. "Jack, O Jack!" she said.

The astonished child saw the light in her father's eyes as he exclaimed, "Auntie!" and then his arms were around her, her cheek pressed to his.

"Jack, I have wanted you so;" the words came with a sob.

"Dear auntie, I am so glad!"

Mrs. Marvin was not one to lose her self-control for long; she presently lifted her head, with one hand on his shoulder she looked at him. "You have not changed," she said, "but I have grown old."

In truth, she was very white now the first flush of excitement was fading, and with gentle hands Jack put her into the shabby leather chair, and drew another to her side.

"I wonder if I shall wake and find it a dream," she said, smiling up at him.

"It is better than any dream," he answered, bending over her.

"I have been so lonely,—it has been so long. I thought perhaps you had forgotten, and— I am sorry— Jack." It was the proud woman's surrender, and John Morrison was touched to the heart. Tears rose to his eyes.

"It was more my fault than yours, dear,—the years have taught me that, and I have often wished I could tell you so," he said.

Frances had stood an amazed spectator of this scene. What did it mean? Ought she to stay? It was plain she was forgotten. After a little she touched her father's arm, saying softly, "Daddy, I'm here, you know."

The plaintive tone recalled both her companions; her father drew her to his side, but before he could speak Mrs. Marvin took her hand.

"Frances darling, you will love me, won't you? You are my own little niece. The day when I first saw you in my library you reminded me of my dear Jack."

It was Mr. Morrison's turn to be surprised as his daughter impulsively threw her arms round the lady's neck, exclaiming, "I do love you, but I didn't know you knew father."

"And I didn't know you knew each other," he said.

"And I don't understand how you happened to come here," added his aunt.

"Why, we live here, Mrs. Marvin," Frances replied.

"Mrs. Marvin!" echoed Mr. Morrison.

"That is a mistake which I encouraged because I wanted to see more of her," his aunt said; adding, "Is this really the house of the Spectacle Man?"

There was so much to be explained it seemed almost hopeless; Mr. Clark came in and went out again unobserved. It was not an opportune time for selling candlesticks, evidently.

"We will not try to unravel the tangle all at once," Mr. Morrison said, rising. "Auntie, will you come upstairs? I want you to meet Katherine."

This was hardest of all. It brought back one of her old disappointments; and without doubt Katherine Morrison was aware how Jack's aunt felt about his marriage, but she did not hesitate. It was not her custom to do things by halves.

Mrs. Morrison, sitting in the twilight lost in happy thoughts, was aroused by Frances' excited voice: "Mother, what do you think has happened?"

Surprised at sight of the stranger, she rose; her husband met her and drew her forward: "Auntie, this is my wife, to whom I owe my greatest happiness."

His aunt understood. This fair, girlish looking little person filled the first place in his heart; whatever else was changed, this was not.

"You must try to love me for Jack's sake," she said, taking Katherine's hand with that new gentleness her nephew found so touching.

It won his wife. "I shall not have to try," she answered.

"Are you willing to forget and begin again?—that is what we are going to do, is it not, Jack?" his aunt looked from his wife to him. "It will make a great difference in my life," she continued; "I have been very lonely, and I want this little girl;" she put her arm around Frances.

"Then she will certainly have to take us, too; won't she, Katherine?" and Mr. Morrison laughed happily.

Frances still seemed puzzled. "If this is my Aunt Frances—" she said slowly, "who is the little girl? Is she the Girl in the Golden Doorway, truly?—the portrait, I mean.

"I think she must be, and she is also your great-grandmother," her aunt replied.

"Then who is a Certain Person. You said he was abroad, father." Frances evidently thought it time all mysteries were solved.

"Why, yes, auntie, how does it happen you are not abroad? I heard last summer on the best authority that you would spend the winter in Egypt," said her nephew.

"I fully expected to be gone eighteen months when I left, but the death of the mother of my friend, Mrs. Roberts, changed our plans. I did not wish to go alone."

Frances was listening intently. "Father! you don't mean Aunt Frances is a Certain Person?" she cried. "I thought it was a man."

"It is a character we are going to forget. I am your father's aunt and yours, dear, and I am not Mrs. Marvin, but Mrs. Richards. Mrs. Marvin is my cousin. You understand it all now, don't you?"

Frances was not quite certain of this, but there was no doubt about her pleasure in her new relative; and when her father went home with his aunt she was rather impatient at not being allowed to go too.

"Come sit beside me, Wink, and have a little talk," Mrs. Morrison suggested when they were alone.

Frances came and nestled down beside her mother; the day had been so full of excitement she found it hard work to keep still.

"You know, dear, that Aunt Frances and father have not seen each other for years,—not since before you were born,—and of course they have a great deal to say to each other. There was some trouble—a misunderstanding—but now it is over—"

"They have found the bridge like Gladys and me," Frances put in.

"Yes; but what I was going to say is this: we mustn't be selfish. We must let Aunt Frances have father to herself sometimes. Don't you think so?"

As they sat quietly there in the twilight Mrs. Morrison saw opening before her a path she would not have chosen. She was a person of simple tastes and wide sympathies, and the world of wealth and convention to which her husband would return so naturally had few attractions for her. She would have need of love and courage, she told herself.

"What do you think, Kate; auntie wants me to take you to New York with me and leave Frances with her!" said Mr. Morrison, coming in.

"She has never been away from me in her life. What do you say, Wink?" and her mother lifted the face that rested against her shoulder and kissed it.

"I don't know; I believe I'd like it, for then I could see the little girl every day," was the reply.

"I think her great-grandmother has cut out all the rest of her relations," her father remarked, laughing.

"I don't see how she could be my great-grandmother," Frances said meditatively.

Mrs. Richards remembered the candlesticks next day, and they gave her an excuse for an early visit to Mr. Clark. She felt in love and charity with all men, and, finding the optician at leisure, she entered into conversation with him in her most gracious manner. His old-fashioned courtliness pleased her, and she recalled him as one of the proprietors of the large jewellery store of Mason and Clark, years ago.

Mr. Clark remembered her father, Judge Morrison, and all together she spent an exceedingly pleasant hour looking over his valuables and talking of old times. She purchased the candlesticks, and also the two pieces of Wedgwood which exactly matched some her grandfather had brought from England.

"You have shown me all you care to sell?" she asked, rising.

"I believe there is nothing else, madam, except the house. I should like very much to sell it," was Mr. Clark's reply.

When Zenobia ushered her into the sitting room upstairs some minutes later, Mrs. Richards was struck with its cosey beauty. Truly, there were ways of living—pleasant ways—of which she had not dreamed.

Frances was washing the sword fern while she recited her history lesson to her mother, who was sewing.

"I have come to take you home with me to lunch; I can't do without you," Mrs. Richards announced.

"Why don't you stay with us—auntie?" Frances spoke the new title hesitatingly.

"That will be much the better plan, and it will please Jack," added Mrs. Morrison, cordially, and Mrs. Richards stayed.

The next time she and her nephew were alone together she said to him: "Jack, there is something I want you to explain to Katherine. I do not think I could make any difference in my manner of living at my age, even if I wished to, and I do not; but I am beginning to see that there may be a charm about—other ways."

"Yes, auntie," as she paused, "the years I have spent knocking about without any money, having to work hard for Kate and the baby, have been the happiest and best of my life. There was only one drawback to it all—" he laid his hand on hers.

She smiled fondly at him. "I want you to say to Katherine that I know I must seem narrow to her; I realize that she may perhaps fear my influence upon Frances—" her nephew began a protest, but she silenced him. "No, let me finish. I have come to see things differently; I want you to live your own lives in your own way; I want Frances to go on as she has begun—sweet, generous, unconscious, and I only ask to be near you."

When Mr. Morrison repeated this to his wife, tears rose to her eyes. "I haven't been fair to her," she said. "I have been afraid, but I shall not be any more. I shall love her dearly."