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Page 53
CHAPTER XVIII.
THE CHILDREN'S HOUR: REPORTED IN A LETTER BY AN EYE-WITNESS.
It was the last Monday in March, and I had come in from my country home
to see if I could find my old school friend, Margaret Crosby, who is
now Mrs. Donald Bird, and who is spending a few years in California.
The directory gave me her address, and I soon found myself on the
corner of two beautiful streets and before a very large and elegant
house. This did not surprise me, as I knew her husband to be a very
wealthy man. There seemed to be various entrances, for the house stood
with its side to the main street; but when I had at last selected a
bell to ring, I became convinced that I had not, after all, gone to the
front door. It was too late to retreat, however, and very soon the
door was opened by a pretty maid-servant in a white cap and apron.
"You need n't have rung, 'm; they goes right in without ringing
to-day," she said pleasantly.
"Can I see Mrs. Bird?" I asked.
"Well, 'm," she said hesitatingly, "she 's in Paradise."
"Lovely Margaret Crosby dead! How sudden it must have been," I
thought, growing pale with the shock of the surprise; but the pretty
maid, noticing that something had ruffled my equanimity, went on
hastily:--
"Excuse me, 'm. I forgot you might be a stranger, but the nurses and
mothers always comes to this door, and we 're all a bit flustered on
account of its bein' Miss Pauline's last 'afternoon,' and the mothers
call the music-room 'Paradise,' 'm, and Mr. John and the rest of us
have took it up without thinkin' very much how it might sound to
strangers."
"Oh, I see," I said mechanically, though I did n't see in the least;
but although the complicated explanation threw very little light on
general topics, it did have the saving grace of assuring me that
Margaret Bird was living.
"Could you call her out for a few minutes?" I asked. "I am an old
friend, and shall be disappointed not to see her."
"I 'm sorry, 'm, but I could n't possibly call her out; it would be as
much as my place is worth. Her strict orders is that nobody once
inside of Paradise door shall be called out."
"That does seem reasonable," I thought to myself.
"But," she continued, "Mrs. Bird told me to let young Mr. Noble up the
stairs so 't he could peek in the door, and as you 're an old friend I
hev n't no objections to your goin' up softly and peekin' in with him
till Miss Pauline 's through,--it won't be long, 'm."
My curiosity was aroused by this time, and I came to the conclusion
that "peekin' in the door" of Paradise with "young Mr. Noble" would be
better than nothing; so up I went, like a thief in the night.
The room was at the head of the stairs, and one of the doors was open,
and had a heavy portiere hanging across it. Behind this was young Mr.
Noble, "peekin'" most greedily, together with a middle-aged gentleman
not described by the voluble parlor maid. They did n't seem to notice
me; they were otherwise occupied, or perhaps they thought me one of the
nurses or mothers. I had heard the sound of a piano as I crossed the
hall, but it was still now. I crept behind young Mr. Noble, and took a
good "peek" into Paradise.
It was a very large apartment, one that looked as if it might have been
built for a ball-room; at least, there was a wide, cushioned bench
running around three sides of it, close to the wall. On one side,
behind some black and gold Japanese screens, where they could hear and
not be seen, sat a row of silent, capped and aproned nurse-maids and
bonneted mammas. Mrs. Bird was among them, lovely and serene as an
angel still, though she has had her troubles. There was a great
fireplace in the room, but it was banked up with purple and white
lilacs. There was a bowl of the same flowers on the grand piano, and a
clump of bushes sketched in chalk on a blackboard. Just then a lovely
young girl walked from the piano and took a low chair in front of the
fireplace.
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