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Page 14
"It is a doll's room," said Gertrude, softly, with an awe-stricken
look.
"I know! I know whose room it was!" cried Hildegarde. "Wait, oh,
wait! I am sure we shall find something else. I will tell you all
about it in a moment, but now let us look and find all we can."
With beating hearts they searched the corners of the little
chamber. Presently Hildegarde uttered a cry, and drew something
forward into the light of the little window; a good-sized object,
carefully covered with white cloth, neatly stitched together.
Hildegarde took out her pocket scissors, and snipped with ardour,
then drew off the cover. It was a doll's bedstead, of polished
mahogany, with four pineapple-topped posts, exactly like the great
one in which Hildegarde herself slept; and in it, under dainty
frilled sheets, blankets and coverlid, lay two of the prettiest
dolls that ever were seen. Their nightgowns were of fine linen;
the nightcaps, tied under their dimpled chins, were sheer lawn,
exquisitely embroidered. One tiny waxen hand lay outside the
coverlid, and in it was a folded piece of paper.
"Oh, Hildegarde!" cried Bell, "what does it mean?"
Gertrude was in tears by this time, the big crystal drops rolling
silently down her cheeks; her heart was wrung, she did not know
why.
"Hester Aytoun," said Hildegarde, softly. "This must have been her
playroom, Bell. She used to live here; it is about her that I
wanted to tell you. But first let us see what she has written
here. I think she would be willing; we are girls, too, and I don't
think Hester would mind."
There were tears in Hildegarde's voice, if not in her eyes, as she
read the writing, now yellow with age:
"I, Hester Aytoun, being now sixteen years old, am putting away my
dear dolls, the dearest dolls in the world. Sister Barbara says I
am far too old for such childish things; but I shall never be too
old in my heart, though I may well busy myself with household
matters, especially if I must marry Tom in three years, as he
says. So I put away my dear dolls, and I shall shut up the
playroom, also, for I could not think to pass by it each day and
not go in to see them, and that Sister Barbara will not allow. It
may be that no one will find my playroom till I show it myself to
my little children, if God wills that I have them, which I shall
pray always, now that I may not have my dolls any more. But if
that should not be, or I should be taken away, then I think no
harm to pray that a girl like myself may one day find my playroom
that father made for me,--my own room, where I have been a very
happy child. A man would never know what it meant, but a girl
would know, and if it should so hap, I pray her to be gentle with
the bedstead, for one leg is weakly; and if she will leave my dear
dolls, when she has well played with them, I shall bless her
always for a gentle maiden, wherever I be. So farewell, says
"HESTER AYTOUN."
All three girls were crying by this time, and little Gertrude laid
her head on her sister's shoulder and sobbed aloud. Bell smoothed
her hair with light, motherly touches, drying her own eyes the
while. Hildegarde sat silent for a while, the letter in her hand;
then she folded it again, and gently, reverently laid it again in
the doll's hand.
"Dear Hester!" she said, "we do know, dear; we do understand,
indeed."
And then, sitting on the floor by the pretty bedstead, and
speaking softly and tenderly, she told the two girls of that other
maiden who had lived and died in this old house,--the bright,
beautiful Hester Aytoun, who faded in her springtime loveliness,
and died at eighteen years; who had left everywhere the traces of
her presence, soft, fragrant, like the smell of the flowers in her
own garden.
"I chose my bedroom, that you like," said Hildegarde, "because I
felt sure, somehow, that it had been hers. I never had a sister,
girls, but Hester seems to me like my sister; and sometimes"--she
hesitated, and her voice fell still lower--"sometimes I have felt
as if she wished it to be so,--as if she liked to come now and
then and see the old home, and give a loving look and word to the
things she used to care for so much. I am glad we found this
place, but I don't think I shall tell anyone else about it, except
mamma, of course, and Jack, when he comes home."
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