The butler tapped on a door at the head of the stairs, and a maid swung it
open.
"Why, you're not the girl Mrs. Sands sent the other day," said a querulous
voice from a mass of lace-ruffled pillows on the great bed.
"I am Elizabeth," said the girl, as if that were full explanation.
"Elizabeth? Elizabeth who? I don't see why she sent another girl. Are you
sure you will understand the directions? They're very particular, for I
want my frock ready for to-night without fail." The woman sat up, leaning
on one elbow. Her lace nightgown and pale-blue silk dressing-sack fell
away from a round white arm that did not look as if it belonged to a very
old lady. Her gray hair was becomingly arranged, and she was extremely
pretty, with small features. Elizabeth looked and marvelled. Like a flash
came the vision of the other grandmother at the wash-tub. The contrast was
startling.
"I am Elizabeth Bailey," said the girl quietly, as if she would break a
piece of hard news gently. "My father was your son John."
"The idea!" said the new grandmother, and promptly fell back upon her
pillows with her hand upon her heart. "John, John, my little John. No one
has mentioned his name to me for years and years. He never writes to me."
She put up a lace-trimmed handkerchief, and sobbed.
"Father died five years ago," said Elizabeth.
"You wicked girl!" said the maid. "Can't you see that Madam can't bear
such talk? Go right out of the room!" The maid rushed up with
smelling-salts and a glass of water, and Elizabeth in distress came and
stood by the bed.
"I'm sorry I made you feel bad, grandmother," she said when she saw that
the fragile, childish creature on the bed was recovering somewhat.
"What right have you to call me that? Grandmother, indeed! I'm not so old
as that. Besides, how do I know you belong to me? If John is dead, your
mother better look after you. I'm sure I'm not responsible for you. It's
her business. She wheedled John away from his home, and carried him off to
that awful West, and never let him write to me. She has done it all, and
now she may bear the consequences. I suppose she has sent you here to beg,
but she has made a mistake. I shall not have a thing to do with her of her
children."
"Grandmother!" Elizabeth's eyes flashed as they had done to the other
grandmother a few hours before. "You must not talk so. I won't hear it. I
wouldn't let Grandmother Brady talk about my father, and you can't talk so
about mother. She was my mother, and I loved her, and so did father love
her; and she worked hard to keep him and take care of him when he drank
years and years, and didn't have any money to help her. Mother was only
eighteen when she married father, and you ought not to blame her. She
didn't have a nice home like this. But she was good and dear, and now she
is dead. Father and mother are both dead, and all the other children. A
man killed my brother, and then as soon as he was buried he came and
wanted me to go with him. He was an awful man, and I was afraid, and took
my brother's horse and ran away. I rode all this long way because I was
afraid of that man, and I wanted to get to some of my own folks, who would
love me, and let me work for them, and let me go to school and learn
something. But I wish now I had stayed out there and died. I could have
lain down in the sage-brush, and a wild beast would have killed me
perhaps, and that would be a great deal better than this; for Grandmother
Brady does not understand, and you do not want me; but in my Father's
house in heaven there are many mansions, and He went to prepare a place
for me; so I guess I will go back to the desert, and perhaps He will send
for me. Good-by, grandmother."