The Letter of Credit. Warner Susan

Carpenter to the Park.

      CHAPTER VIII.

      STATEN ISLAND

      Mr. Digby had a great many thoughts during the next few days; some of which almost went to make Mrs. Carpenter in the wrong. The Mrs. Busby he knew was so very unexceptionable a lady; how could she be the black sheep of the story he had heard? Mrs. Carpenter might labour under a mistake, might she not? Yet facts are said to be stubborn things, and some facts were hard for the truth of the story. Mr. Digby was puzzled. He would perhaps have gone promptly to Mrs. Busby's home, to make observations with a keenness he had never thought worth while when there; but Mrs. Busby and all her family were out of town, spending the hot months at a watering place, or at several watering places. Meanwhile Mr. Digby had his unfulfilled commission to attend to.

      Mrs. Carpenter went driving to the Park now every pleasant day; to the great admiration of Mrs. Marble, the wonderful refreshment of the sick woman herself, and the extravagant delight and pride of Rotha. She said she was sure her mother would get well now. But her mother's eye, as she said it, went to Mr. Digby's, with a warning admonition that he must neither be deceived nor lose time. He understood.

      "I am going down to Staten Island to-morrow," he remarked. "Would you like to go with me, Rotha?"

      "Staten Island?" she repeated.

      "Yes. It is about an hour's sail from New York, or nearly; across the bay. You can become acquainted with the famous bay of New York."

      "Is it famous?"

      "For its beauty."

      "Oh I should like to go very much, Mr. Digby, if it was as ugly as it could be!"

      "Then when your mother comes from the Park in the morning, we will go."

      Rotha was full of delight. But her mother, she thought, was very sober during that morning's drive; she tried in vain to brighten her up. Again and again Mrs. Carpenter's eyes rested on her with a lingering, tender sorrowfulness, which was not their wont.

      "Mother, is anything the matter?" she asked at length.

      "I am thinking of you, my child."

      "Then don't think of me! What about me?"

      "I am grieved that a shadow should ever come over your gay spirits. Yet I am foolish."

      "What makes you think of shadows? I am going to be always as gay as I am to-day."

      "That is impossible."

      "Why?"

      "It is not the way of this world."

      "Does trouble come to everybody?"

      "Yes. At some time."

      "Well, mother dear, you can just wait till it comes. There is no shadow over me now, at any rate. If you were only well, I should be happy enough."

      "I shall never be well, my child."

      "O you say that just because a shadow has come over you. I wish I knew where it comes from; I would scare it away. Mother, mother, look, look! – see that little carriage with the little horses, and the children driving! Oh – !"

      Rotha's expression of intense admiration is not to be given on paper.

      "Shetland ponies, those are," said her mother.

      "What are Shetland ponies?"

      "Ponies that come from Shetland."

      "And do they never grow any bigger?"

      "No."

      "How jolly!"

      "Rotha, that is a boy's word, I think."

      "If it is good for a boy, why isn't it good for me?"

      "I do not know that it is good for a boy. But a lady is bound to be more particular in what she says and does."

      "More than a gentleman?"

      "In some ways, yes."

      "I don't understand in what ways. Right is right, and wrong is wrong, whether one is a boy or a girl."

      Mrs. Carpenter sighed. What would bring just notions, who would teach proper ways, to her inquisitive child when she should be left motherless? Rotha perceived the deep concern which gathered in her mother's eyes again; and anew endeavoured by lively talk to chase it away. In vain. Mrs. Carpenter came home tired and exhausted.

      "I think she was worrying about something," Rotha said, when soon after she and her friend were on their way to Whitehall. "She does, now and then."

      Mr. Digby made no answer; and Rotha's next keen question was, "You look as if you knew what she was worrying about, Mr. Digby?"

      "I think I do."

      "Couldn't I know what it was?"

      "Perhaps. But you must wait."

      It was easy to wait. Even the omnibus ride to Whitehall was charming to Rotha's inexperienced eyes; and when she was on board the ferry boat and away from the quays and the city, and the lively waters of the bay were rolling up all around her, the girl's enjoyment grew intense. She had never seen such an extent of water before, she had no idea of the real look of the waves; a hundred thousand questions came crowding and surging up in her mind, like the broken billows down below her. In her mind; they got no further; merely to have them rise was a delight; she would find the answer to them some day. For the present it was enough to watch the changing forms and varying colours of the water, and to drink in the fresh breeze which brought life and strength with it from the sea. Yet now and then a question was too urgent and must be satisfied.

      "Mr. Digby, nobody could paint water, could they?"

      "Yes."

      "How could they? It is all changing, every instant; it won't stand still to be drawn."

      "Most things can be done, if one is only in earnest enough."

      "But how can this?"

      "Not without a great deal of study and pains. A man must watch the play of the waves and the shapes they take, and the colours of the different parts in any given sort of weather, until he has got them by heart; and then he can put the lines and the colours on the canvas. If he has the gift to do it, that is."

      "What has the weather to do with it? Different colours?"

      "Certainly. The lights and shadows vary with every change of the sky; and the colours vary."

      "Then a person must be very much in earnest," said Rotha, "ever to get it all."

      "There is no doing great things in any line without being very much in earnest. The start isn't the thing; it is the steady pull that tries."

      "Can you draw, Mr. Digby?"

      "Yes, a little."

      Again Rotha was all absorbed in what lay before and around her; getting unconscious education through her eyes, as they received for the first time the images of so many new things. To the people on board she gave scarcely any heed at all.

      Arrived at Brighton, Mr. Digby's first care was to give his charge and himself some refreshment. He took Rotha to a hotel and ordered a simple dinner. Then he desired to have a little wagon harnessed up, and putting the delighted girl into it, he drove to the sea shore and let her feast her eyes on the incoming waves and breaking surf. He himself was full of one thought, waiting for the moment when he could say to her what he had to say; but he was forced to wait a good while. He had made a mistake, he found, in choosing this precise direction for their drive. Rotha's overwhelming pleasure and entranced absorption for some time could not be broken in upon. She was too utterly happy to notice how different was her friend's absorption from her own; unless with a vague, passing perception, which she could not dwell upon.

      At last her friend asked her if she would like a run upon the sand, the tide being then out. He drove up to a straggling bit of fence, tied his horse, and lifted Rotha out; who immediately ran down to the narrow beach and as near to the water as she dared; there stood still and looked. There was but a gentle surf that day, with the ebb tide; but to Rotha it was a scene of unparalleled might and majesty. She was drinking in pleasure, as one can at fourteen, with all the young susceptibilities