IN REPARATION

New Zealand Tablet, 11 January 1912, Page 5

IN REPARATION

I had been at Spring Lake less than a week when I first noticed her. After that, day by day, I watched : her, come and go, and day by day felt myself more, strangely attracted toward her. ,: Without her that : summer would have been one of the loneliest.and most trying of -my life, for I was far from well, I had no friends in the hotel, and was much troubled about money matters; as it was, I became so much interested in the strange, sad, reserved woman that I was able to forget ( my; weariness and my anxieties. ". v •■-.-:" - : ■'- : One warm afternoon some days after I reached Spring Lake, seeking a shady spot on the great porch which almost encircled the hotel, I found one ,far "to li the -rear—almost at the very door of the kitchens. I had a book with me and some fancy work; but I neither read nor sewed, sitting idly and lazily drinking in the peace of the smiling sunshiny gardens stretched, out before me. ... "-JL .;;:. : -. _ " ".Soon my attention was attracted by! a forlorn, feeble old woman dressed in the garb of poverty which looks so strangely out of place when it intrudes itself within the sacred precincts of the pleasure grounds of the : rich. Slowly she crossed the lawn and went to what -I. took to be the servants' entrance. She rang the bell,and waited patiently for an indefinite length of . time before anyone answered her summons. I heard her voice, low and timid and whining, and another -which answered her rudely and crossly ;• then "the door was slammed shut and the poor woman crept -around :the corner of the building and sank down on one of the lowest steps of a flight quite close to me. .;- : ; She had been there but a minute or two when I heard the soft rustle of silken skirts, and she— 1 Stannard—brushed past me and, going; down to the old. woman, talked to her very gently. I gathered that they had met before and- that it had been for her the old woman had asked at the door, in her humble, unsophisticated way going to the servants' quarters to do so. - -. . . ' s . _ After a short"conversation the beggar went away with a smiling face, carefully tucking something into the palm of her torn, faded glove. As for me I paid ; no further' heed .to her. •'• ' - ... Miss Stannard watched her out. of sight before she turned and mounted the steps rather wearily. ' I looked : at her closely—stared at her, I am- afraid—but she did not notice me at all. She was a tall, slight, graceful" woman, perhaps thirty-five years, of age. Her face' might have been plain, or at least not unusual, had '-ifrnot been for her dark eyes, wonderfully beautiful eyes : which were haunted by an expression of great sadness' 1 perhaps even of horror. As I looked at her I wondered" if she could smile, I wondered, too, if she could be

unkind or .harsh. I- felt convinced: that both were impossible. -" As the weeks passed I became.more'and more interested in Miss Stannard. I saw her often in. the corridors, in ; the dining-room, and at church, and she was always alone. "■.. I asked two or three of the other guests about her, but each one gave me substantially the same answer: ; that she spent every ' summer at Spring Lake but made ; no acquaintances, and that she was those '-' two a things so unpardonable in the eyes - of the world- and ' awfully' religious. vPerhaps because I, too, ; was in the habit of> going to daily. Mass v and suspected that they included me in the latter category, I was annoyed at their unapprcciative, unsympathetic attitude toward her, I felt certain that she had a story, ■■. - tragic one, more certain that she was well worth knowing. ■ , . ;-•-:; Twice during all that .summer did I see her moved out of her customary sad reserve. Once when I was "walking; among the hills I heard merry laughing voices, and spied Miss Stannard -and two of the poor children* of the village in the valley beneath me. They were seated ':' on the grass and had evidently been gathering wild flowers, \ for three bunches of different -sizes lay near by. : On the ground before them a dainty luncheon was spread on a napkin. I caught one glimpse of Miss Stannard's smiling face and then stole away, saying to myself :■/ She must have looked like that when she was a girl, before And I sauntered back to the hotel wondering before what. . ; < I Another day, just as I was about to leave the .church after the seven o'clock Mass, it began to rain heavily.:" I stood at the door and-looked out disconsolately, for ...I; had no umbrella and the hotel was at least a mile away. I had.;.decided that: my best plan would be to run across to Father Burke's house and borrow an umbrella, when Miss Stannard came out into the- vestibule. She saw my predicament and offered

-:,to;share, her umbrella. -W' I know that we go "the same way, she said. , I assented eagerly, glad of the protection Half, of her umbrella would afford and delighted to know that she had noticed me. " ' In all my life I never had a merrier walk. The wind was so high and; it rained in such torrents' that our one umbrella : was ■ almost useless. •' As we V became wetter and wetter and the road more and more muddy, our spirits rose, and all the way home we laughed and talked .nonsense like a pair of sixteen-year-old • girls. At the door: we parted in the most familiar, friendly -manner possible and hurried to ; our rooms K for fresh clothing. -,. • . • . -. : - After that Miss Stannard spoke to me when we met in passing, <but* she never gave me an opportunity to say more than 'good morning ' or ' good night. ' ' Sometimes I was inclined to think that I must have dreamed that merry and delightfully uncomfortable walk. T '- : ; ,; .It was late in August before I learned anything: of her history.- Mrs. Baker, an Void friend of my mother's, came up to New York to spend the remnant of the season. I had not seen her for several years and the first day that she was at Spring Lake we sat on the porch all through the heat of the afternoon talking of old friends and old times. Mrs. Baker loved to listen and she loved to talk, so she always knew all the current gossip and was always ready, or rather eager, to impart it. '.':'r '-■'■'-' ". ■We chatted cosily for. hours ;■ and at half-past five" were beginning to think of going, to our rooms, when Miss Stannard passed us and walked down in the direction of the lake. I.turned to watch as v I ever felt impelled to do, and Mrs. Baker,. anxious to see" what was attracting my attention, also looked at her. ;;"; : f: Suddenly she gripped my arm convulsively 'I do believe that that is Miss Stannard!' she exclaimed^ But how much she has changed : vi: -; r . v

At once I was all excitement. ' Yes, she. is Miss Stannard. Do you know her Who is she?' - Mrs. Baker did not "answer my questions at' once. She kept her kindly old eyes fastened on the retreating figure, murmuring to herself such exclamations - as Poor, poor girl!" How terribly she has changed Poor child! ■■ f Evidently , she has .• never j got v over it. "> 7 ' . r My curiosity, never very latent,, was thoroughly aroused, and again I begged Mrs. Baker to tell me where she had known Miss Stannard and under what circumstances. ' :■-■ :..:- - ■ 'lt was years ago—the year that my husband first developed symptoms of tuberculosis and the;doctors ordered him West. We went to a little mining town ,where - the climate was ideal, because Mr. -Baker had been in Colorado Springs before we were married and had disliked it cordially for some reason which I never could ? fathom. ( Little Creek was a poor . place and scarcely -more than-a-village. -All the men were miners except the doctor, the saloonkeeper, a strange old fellow who kept the genera? store, and Mr. Stannard, her father. He was as rich as Croesus but" veryeccentric, so I was told. In his youth he, too, had worked in the mines, but he had been well educated and, I believe, came of a fine Massachusetts family. In time he made his mint of money, -married an aristocratic New Orleans girl / and instead of going east to live, settled down in a great, unattractive but. substantial - house in Little Creek. His wife died when Miss Stannard, their only child,-was two or three years of age, and lie lived on among his books while the girl grew up at an eastern convent and then went back to the village perfectly content }■ to live there alone with him. , ; : ; '. . ; ; : : o/-,-/v \

; Unfortunately for Miss Stannard there was no Catholic school in the place and the only church was a tiny, poor place which some priest visitedr once a month. She was ' one of those rabid Catholicsyou know con-vent-bred girls are apt to be.' v ■■■■.-. ■-■■..■-.,-■■

Mrs. Baker was forgetting that I was a Catholic, but I let the remark pass unchallenged. ' She was brimful of energy and excessive zeal, and she rented the room above. Mr. Bauer's general store ands- taught the Catholic children' herself day after day. When we were there her school was in full blast, and the people : used ; to'. say that the ; boys and girls under her instruction—there were eight of —were farther advanced than those* of the same'age in the public school.' Mrs. Baker, leaned closer to me and spoke in a lower tone. '• \ • ' :•,:,' Now, this : is the awful ; part of the matter. One winter afternoon fire broke out in the store: ;"• Mr. Bauer had gone to the saloon and no one was near, so it made terrific headway before it was discvoered. Suddenly- it. burst through the floor of,; the upper room where: Miss Stannard ; was teaching her class, and, in an instant the j -side> nearest < the" door was enveloped in flames.; • ■ , , ' Miss ' Stannard was young,' she loved life' as we all do, and I, for one, never thought that she should have been blamed muchbut she was.; ■■' She did the natural i' thing; - any ; other course , would ; have ; been simply . heroic, and most of us aren't heroes -though we expect other people to be.' ■;•*■■•• Mrs. Baker ? finished;' her sentence slowly and thoughtfully and then stoppedr shorti* in a most tantalizing way. ~< ' ■; , Well, what did she do?' I asked impatiently. -. /. (To be concluded next week.)