Brentwood (Romance Classic). Grace Livingston Hill

Perhaps the father might be dead too!

      Suddenly Marjorie buried her face in her pillow and wept.

      The morning mail brought two invitations to spend Christmas week with friends.

      Christmas was only ten days off and it loomed large and gloomy. The thought of Christmas without the only mother she had ever known seemed intolerable.

      One of the invitations was from a distant cousin of Mrs. Wetherill's, a kindly person with a large house, given to entertaining. The other was from an old schoolmate living in Boston. Both invitations spelled gaiety and good cheer, but they somehow did not appeal to her now. Her grief was too recent, and her feeling of loneliness too poignant to be allayed by mingling with a giddy throng of pleasure-seekers. In fact that kind of Christmas never did appeal to her at any time. She liked simpler pleasures. Besides, her heart was too restless just now to plunge into worldliness and try to forget her loss.

      All day she went about trying to make a decision, now almost decided to accept one of the invitations and end her uncertainty, now playing with the idea of going to search out her people and learn once for all what they were like.

      But when she reasoned that perhaps forgetting was best for the present, and tried to decide which invitation she should accept, she realized that she didn't feel like going to either place.

      Oh, of course they would all be very kind, and put themselves out to make her have a good time, but Christmas couldn't be Christmas this year, no matter how it was planned.

      She was still in her unsettled state of mind when evening came, and Evan Brower arrived to call upon her.

      The Browers were one of the best old families, and among the closest friends of the Wetherills. Evan Brower was three or four years older than Marjorie, and though she had known him practically all her life, it had not been until the last year that he had paid her much attention. Mrs. Wetherill had been very fond of him, and of late he had been often at the house, one of the closest friends Marjorie had. Yet the two were still on the basis of friendship, nothing closer.

      Marjorie was glad of his coming as a relief from the perplexities that had been with her all day, and smiled a real welcome as he took her hand in greeting.

      "You are looking tired and white!" he said scrutinizing her face sharply. "You need a change, and I've come to offer one. Mother wants you to come over and stay a couple of weeks with her. She thought you might like to help her get ready for the family gathering at Christmas time. It will take your mind off your loneliness. You know your mother would never want you to mope. Mother thought maybe you would come over tomorrow and just consider you are on a visit."

      Marjorie's heart sank. Here was the question again! And a family gathering! The hardest kind of a thing to go through, with this thought of her own unknown family in the back of her mind. Suddenly she knew she could not go anywhere till that matter was settled! She had got to know just where she stood before ever she went among people again. She lifted her eyes to Evan's kindly pleasant face and tried to decline his offer in a gracious way.

      "Oh, that is dear of your mother, Evan!" she said. "I do appreciate it a lot, and some other time I'd love to come, but just now I don't feel I could."

      He settled down comfortably to combat her, just as if he had expected to have to do so.

      "Now, you know that isn't a bit sensible, Marjorie. There's no point in stretching out your grief. You've got to go on living, and you know perfectly well your mother would want you to be happy."

      "Yes," said Marjorie sweetly. "I know, and I'm not stretching out my grief. Mother and I talked it over together, and she told me all that. I understand, and I don't intend to mope. But somehow I don't feel I can stand gaiety just yet. I've had two other invitations but I'm declining them both—"

      Marjorie hadn't been quite sure till this minute what she was going to do, but now it was all very clear in her mind.

      "But, Marge, it's only our house. It's almost like home, you know. It isn't as if we were going to have a lot of strangers either. There will be just the cousins and aunts and uncles. You've always known them, and Mother intends to plan it all very quietly. I'm sure there won't be anything to upset you. If you find it's too much I'll take you off in the car to some quiet place for a few hours and rest you up, and you really must see it will be better for you than moping here in this lonely house."

      "You're very kind!" said Marjorie with troubled gaze, but more and more certain that she wasn't going to accept. Then suddenly she lifted frank eyes to his:

      "You see, Evan, there's something I have to do first before I can go anywhere and begin life again."

      "Something you have to do? What do you mean?" He turned puzzled, dominating eyes upon her.

      Marjorie hesitated, then spoke decisively. After all, he was her good friend, why not confide in him? Perhaps he could advise her.

      "You know I'm an adopted child, don't you? You've always known that, haven't you, Evan?"

      A startled, almost cautious look came into his eyes.

      "Why—yes, of course, but what has that got to do with it? You don't mean, Marjorie, that after all these years your mother has cut you out of the property she promised you? I heard her say myself that she was leaving you everything. You don't mean that she tied it up or anything?"

      Marjorie laughed, and drew a deep breath.

      "Oh, no, nothing like that, Evan. I'm very comfortably fixed, of course."

      A relieved look came into the young man's handsome eyes.

      "Well, then, why worry?" he said playfully, and his hand stole across and dropped familiarly, warmly, down upon hers.

      They were sitting on the deep couch, Marjorie at one end, Evan near the other, but now he leaned across with a comforting manner and looked into her eyes.

      She was quite serious as she answered:

      "It's not money worries," she said. "It's something entirely different. It's my family. My own family, I mean."

      "Your own family?" he looked at her startled. "Have they dared turn up and annoy you?"

      "Oh, no!" she said quickly. "Of course not!"

      "Why 'of course not'? They likely would if they knew you were alone and unprotected. A girl with a fortune is never quite safe alone. You ought not to stay a night alone here!"

      "Why, I'm not alone!" smiled Marjorie. "The servants would protect me with their lives if there were need. I'm quite safe. But it's absurd, Evan, for you to talk that way about my own people! Don't, please! It hurts me!"

      "Hurts you?" he said, looking at her incredulously. "Hurts you to hear that people you never saw in your life, and about whom you know nothing, might possibly have some motives that were not of the best?"

      "They are my own people, Evan!"

      "Nonsense! Nothing of the kind!" said Evan lifting his well-modeled chin haughtily. "You are no more connected with them than I am. They gave you up! I should think you would never want to see or hear of them! I should say you are fortunate that they are not troubling you. Let sleeping dogs lie! You have no obligation whatever toward them!"

      Something in the harshness of his tone made Marjorie give a little shiver and draw her hand quietly away from under his.

      "I don't feel that way, Evan!" she said gently, marveling that after her hours of doubt she suddenly felt clear in her mind about the matter. "You don't know all about it, or you wouldn't say that either, I'm quite sure. Mother left a letter telling me about my people and suggesting that I might want to hunt them up and see if there was anything I could do for them."

      "And I still say, 'Let sleeping dogs lie,'" said Evan coldly. And then he laid his hand once more on hers in a possessive way as if he owned her.

      "Of course, if you were very anxious to do a little something in a quiet way for them, it could be arranged anonymously," he added. "I would be glad to see to that for you, and