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Page 7
She peered wistfully into the mirror, thinking, "Maybe just being in her
old room will help, because I shall be reminded of her at every turn."
For a moment the selfish wish was uppermost that she need not share the
room with any one. It seems almost desecration for a person who did not
know and love Lloyd to be so intimately associated with her. But Mary's
love of companionship was strong. Half the fun of boarding school in her
opinion was in having a room-mate, and she could not forego that
pleasure even for the sake of a very deep and tender sentiment. But she
made the most of her solitude while she had it. From kodak pictures she
had seen of the room, she knew at a glance which of the narrow white
beds had been Lloyd's, and immediately pre-empted it for herself,
staking out her claim by depositing her hat and gloves upon it.
As soon as her trunk was brought up stairs she fell to work unpacking,
with an energy in no wise diminished by the fatigue of the tiresome
journey. She had been cooped up on the cars so long that she was fairly
aching for something to do. In an hour's time all her clothes were
neatly folded or hung away, her shoe-pocket tacked inside the closet
door, her laundry-bag hung on a convenient nail, her few pictures
arranged in a group over her bed, and exactly half of the table laid out
with her portfolio, books and work-basket. She had been not only just
but generous in the division of property. She had left more than half
the drawer space and closet hooks for the use of the unknown Ethelinda;
the most comfortable chair, and the best lighted end of the table. That
was because she herself had had first choice in the matter of bed and
dressing table, and having seized upon the most desirable from her point
of view, felt that she owed the other girl some reparation. Because they
had been Lloyd's she wanted them so strongly that she was ready to
sacrifice everything else in the room for them, or even fight for their
possession if necessary.
By the time all was in order, the tall Lombardy poplars were throwing
long shadows on the green sward of the terraces, and from the window she
could see the garden, lying so sweet and still in the drowse of the late
afternoon that she longed to be down in it. She hurried to change the
rumpled shirt-waist in which she had finished her journey and done her
unpacking, for a fresh white dress. It was proof that the room was
exerting some influence to make her like her model, that even in her
haste she made a careful toilet. Remembering how dainty and
thorough-going Lloyd always was in her dressing, she scrubbed away until
every vestige of travel-stain was gone. All fresh and rosy, down to her
immaculate finger-tips, she scanned herself in the mirror, from the
carefully tied bow in her hair to the carefully tied bows on her
slippers, and nodded approvingly. She could stand inspection now from
the whole row of them--all those girls on the other side of the
looking-glass, who somehow seemed so near and real to her.
As she turned away from the mirror, her glance rested on the little
group of home pictures she had put up over her bed. The tents and tiny
two-roomed cottage that they called Ware's Wigwam looked small and
cramped compared to this great Hall with its wide corridors and spacious
rooms. It had always seemed to Mary that she was born to live in kings'
houses, she so enjoyed luxurious surroundings, but a homesick pang
seized her now, as she looked down on the picture and remembered that
she could never go back to it.
"It doesn't seem as if I have any home now," she sighed, "for I didn't
stay long enough in the new place at Lone-Rock to get used to it. I know
I shall always love the Wigwam best, and when I think of it standing
empty or maybe turned over to strangers, it makes me feel as if one of
my best friends had died. I'm glad we took so many pictures of it, and
that I kept a record of all the good times we had there. Oh, that
reminds me! There's one more thing I must do before sundown--bring my
diary up to date. I haven't written a line in it for six weeks."
The out-doors was too alluring to waste another moment in the house,
however, so gathering up her diary and fountain-pen, she went down
stairs and out into the garden, feeling as the gate swung to behind her
that she was stepping into an old, old English garden belonging to some
ducal estate. Coming as she did straight from the edge of the desert,
with its burning stretches of sand, its cactus and greasewood, its bare
red buttes and lank rows of cotton-wood trees, this Eden of green and
bloom had a double charm for her.
For a long time she wandered up and down its winding paths, finding many
a shady pleasance hidden away among its labyrinths of hedges, where one
might be tempted to stop and dream away a whole long summer afternoon.
But she did not pause until she came to a sort of court surrounded by
rustic arbours, where a fountain splashed in the centre, and an ancient
sun-dial marked the hours. With a pleased cry of recognition she ran
across the closely clipped turf, to read the motto carved on the dial's
face: "I only mark the hours that shine."
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