Chapter I: Three Sisters

"MILLICENT! My dear! Hey—I say! Millicent! Milli-'cent!'"

The last syllable rose to a shout. Mr. Josiah Crosbie, a ruddy-complexioned old gentleman, benevolent as to his head, gouty as to his feet, and impatient as to his manners, paused thereafter, and listened. No response came. Evidently unaccustomed to wait other people's convenience, he made his way with some difficulty to the study door, brought down his stick with a sounding rap, and sent forth a stentorian summons,—

"Millicent! I say Milli-'cent!'"

"I am coming, uncle."

The silver voice was not raised or hurried.

A lady entered by the back garden door, and crossed the hall to his side, with the question, "Did you want anything?"

"Of course I did. I shouldn't have called you otherwise," said the old gentleman testily, as he hobbled back.

Millicent followed him, and stood awaiting his pleasure. She was young-looking still, with a pale complexion, features of faultless regularity, and almond-shaped brown eyes, below pencilled brows. It was a Madonna-like face, in calmness and purity, albeit certain lines and shadows told of tempests past. Her slight figure was clothed in some soft black material, closely fitting, plainly made, and graceful in its fall; and her hair was brushed smoothly back under a widow's cap. No one could induce Millicent Cumming to discard this cap; yet, though in age only thirty-two, she was a ten years' widow.

Mr. Crosbie dropped into his arm-chair, with, a grunt of discomfort, possibly also of annoyance. The sunshine of a lovely spring day showed through the window, but he had been shivering all the morning over a blazing fire.

"You don't mean to say you have been guilty of the folly of going into the garden without your bonnet," said Mr. Crosbie.

"I did not mean to say anything about it," she answered, with a smile.

"Keen east wind,—and your chest,—enough to lay you by for a month! Folly!" repeated Mr. Crosbie, who was rather given to the use of strong expressions. "But of course my opinion is worth nothing in the matter. I thought you were a sensible woman. What were you doing out there?"

"Only seeing Ivor and Escott off to school."

"As if they were not big enough to see themselves off! You just spoil those boys out and out, Millicent! It will be the ruination of them. I believe you think of nothing else from morning till night."

"Of my boys and you,—yes. Is it not natural?"

Millicent's gentle face was irresistible, and Mr. Crosbie looked mollified. "Well, well!—There, there!—You are a good girl, Millie." He often called his nieces "girls," though two were widows, and the other had reached the questionable age for spinsterhood of eight-and-twenty.

Millicent smiled at the term, but let it pass.

"You are a good girl," he repeated, "but you should be at hand when I call, my dear,—you should take care to be at hand. And mind, it won't pay to spoil those boys of yours. They are fine fellows, but mothers shouldn't be slaves to their children."

"I don't think they are spoilt yet," she said, with a gleam of motherly pride.

"Well, well, don't do it, that's all. They are nice lads, so far,—promising on the whole,—but thirteen is an awkward age. Fourteen,—dear me, I forgot. It's an awkward age, Millie, just the age when boys begin to think too much of themselves. But now, what I wanted you for, was this letter from Di. Can't make head or tail of it, and that's a fact. Di has no business to write letters, if she can't say her say in plain English. Read it, Millie, read it, and tell me, if you can, what she means. Why on earth doesn't she come and see me, and ask what she wants to know? I shouldn't think ten minutes' walk so much more trouble than four sheets of writing. And what's all this fuss and rubbish about not saying anything to Marian? Why isn't Marian to know? 'I' can't make it out at all, my dear: so I hope you'll be able."

Millicent was patiently endeavouring to decipher the illegible scrawl, while listening to her uncle's remarks.

"Hey!" he said, after a brief pause. "Found any sense in it, Millie?"

Mrs. Cumming put down the sheet. "I saw Di this morning for a minute, and she told me she was anxious to consult you."

"To consult me! Eh, indeed! What about? What about?"

"About those poor children, the little Fordyces. She has heard again from Mr. Bishop—"

"Bishop! Bishop! Who's he?"

"The clergyman of the place where they have been living. Di has heard from him again, and he speaks of them as quite friendless and destitute."

"Why didn't their own parents provide for them, I should like to know. Tell me that, Millie."

"I believe the father was a man of very small means, and they have been some years orphans, living with their aunt. Most of her income seems to have consisted of a life annuity, and whatever else she possessed goes to a distant relative. Mr. Bishop is in great perplexity to know what can be done with the little girls."

"I'm not going to have them here," said Mr. Crosbie resolutely. "Two boys are enough. I won't have my house turned into an orphanage. I hate children swarming about everywhere, like bees in a hive. You understand, Millicent! I wouldn't consent under any consideration. That's flat."

"No one thought of such a thing," Millicent answered serenely, as the old gentleman bit the head of his stick with an indignant air. "The Fordyces are no connections of yours, uncle. Of course they can scarcely be said to have a positive claim upon even Diana; still she seems to be the nearest relative that they possess."

"No relative at all. It's a mere pretence. Let them go to the workhouse," said Mr. Crosbie, showing a severity greatly at variance with his real tenderness of heart.

Millicent knew what all this was worth, for he would have been the first to cry out against such an arrangement; but she only said—

"Poor children! I should not like the workhouse for my boys."

"'Your' boys!! But I tell you, the little brats are not related to Diana."

"No; only she seems to feel that if her husband were living, he would feel bound to do something."

"Frank Fenwick would have felt bound to do nothing that his spoilt pet of a wife didn't wish. Besides, he 'isn't' living. And Di will marry again."

"She says not."

"Absurd."

Millicent was silent.

"Absurd," repeated Mr. Crosbie. "Married for nine months to a man old enough to be her father, and left a widow at twenty-one! Why, she has life before her. She's but a chicken still."

Silence still on Millicent's part. Mr. Crosbie reflected for the space of twenty seconds.

"Well," he burst out, "and what does Di want to do? Adopt the children?"

"That is her idea."

"She'll sicken of the sight of them in a week."

Mrs. Cumming had nothing to say to this. Probably she would have controverted the idea had she been able.

"Di's conscientiousness isn't always in so active a state. There's something else at the bottom. Is she afraid of what might be said of her? Or does she want to enact a pretty tableau? Mrs. Fenwick going about with two elegant protégés under her wing! Pshaw!"

Millicent Cumming could not control a smile.

"Ay, that's it, eh? Absurd, Millie. Why doesn't she get them into an orphanage, and be content to pay so much towards their keep?"

"Di does not think she could afford that. She has not always command of ready money."

"And this plan is to cost less than the other, hey?"

"Di is not very good at money calculations, uncle."

"And why, pray, is Marian to know nothing of the scheme? Why is Marian to be kept in the dark? The bother of the whole will rest on Marian's shoulders. Di will just make a plaything of the children till she is tired, and then toss them into Marian's keeping."

"Don't you think the interest and occupation would be good for Di?"

"No, I don't," Mr. Crosbie answered brusquely. Then he relented. "That is to say—anything would be good for Di, if she would keep to it. But she won't."

Millicent was silent again.

"And why isn't Marian to know, pray? I hate mysteries. Why can't the thing be open and above-board?"

"She will know, of course, but Di seems anxious to have your opinion first. She said Marian was certain to throw cold water on the scheme."

"I shall throw it—and much good that will do. Di likes the importance of a secret, that's what it is. But look here, Millie, if Di's income isn't enough for her own wants, how is she to support two children in addition?"

"She does not think it will cost much. A little bread-and-butter, and a print frock or so—"

"Humph!" said Mr. Crosbie. "I won't have her coming to me to supply deficiencies."

"I think you had better talk the matter over with Di, dear uncle. If you would place the matter before her in a common-sense light—"

"How can I, if she doesn't come and see me? Am I to go to her, pray?"

"She is coming presently. She told me she would write first, that you might have time to consider the matter."

"And save her the trouble. I shall let it alone till I see her." And Mr. Crosbie chucked the pink note-sheets into the fire.

Finding her presence no longer required, Millicent went to the drawing-room, and sat down with her work near one of the open French windows. This was the side of the house, and a pretty lawn swept away outside, bordered by a fringe of lilacs and laburnums bursting into flower. A high wall, lined with young trees, shut off in great measure the house and garden which lay beyond.

While her fingers were busied in stitching a linen collar for one of her boys, Millicent's thoughts were busied about the two little orphans left in so forlorn a position. Would Diana take them in? Would they find a happy home with Diana if she did? Millicent had doubts on this point, knowing her sister's impulsive and inconsequent ways; yet a home with Diana was better than no home, and the unmarried sister, Marian, would supply ballast to the scheme.

A shadow darkening her work made Millicent look up, to meet the gaze of this same sister, Marian Crosbie, resident in the same place, under the roof of Mrs. Fenwick, the other widowed sister.

Strangers would have noticed a resemblance between Millicent Cumming and Marian Crosbie, yet it was a resemblance with a difference. Marian was as tall as Millicent, and had much the same general contour; but the slightness of the one was angular thinness in the other. The outline of features, in both regular, was in the one delicate, in the other sharp; and the sweet gravity of the one was in the other almost austerity. Marian had been one of a lovely trio in early girlhood; but at twenty-eight, though a woman to be noticed, she was no longer lovely.

"What is the matter with Di to-day?" she asked, after first greetings.

"Can't you guess, Marian?"

"Guessing is not of much use unless you have some one to say 'No' and 'Yes.' Don't tell me particulars if you think you ought not. Di is confidential with all the world except me. Yes, of course I guess. Some plan about the little Fordyces is evidently on the 'tapis.'"

"I wish she would talk it over with you."

"Better not. Whichever side I took, she would take the opposite."

"Then she has said nothing?"

"Di never can resist saying something, but I am not supposed to be in her counsels. I only wish she may decide to take the children to live with her. O yes—" at a glance of surprise—"of course Di gave you to understand that she was the victim of opposition from me."

"Why not tell her that you would like it?"

"Because I should not like it. I think it would be the right thing to do, and that is not the same as liking it. Besides, Millie, I don't think you ever will really understand Di. If I took up the idea, she would drop it immediately. I am not to manage anything in the house. She must arrange, and I may acquiesce meekly. I suppose that if only I were five years her junior, instead of her senior, she would not be quite so sensitive."

"Poor Di!"

"Poor Marian, I think. However, it is good discipline. Di's only objection to the plan seems to be that there are two children. She would rather have had only one, and thinks two will be cumbersome. If I were more independent as to means, I would consider whether to adopt one and leave the other to Di. But even if I could afford it, I don't think I should be right to leave Di, and to set up a separate establishment. She wants looking after—little as I can do. And for each of us to have a child, in the same house, would result in the sort of rivalry which takes place when two children have each a tame kitten,—a perpetual domestic contest of 'I' and 'mine.' If the children do come, I shall take the opportunity to get away for some visits."

"Di would need you then."

"Not at first. Better to let her have full swing with them for a time, till she really wants my help. To be present during the first spoiling process, would be to sacrifice all future authority over the poor little waifs."

"Uncle Josiah says she will tire of them in a week."

"No, I think we may give her a month or two,—possibly a quarter of a year."