There was no sound but the snip of Grandmother’s scissors as she clipped off the thread from the napkins she was making out of a much-worn tablecloth.

Sherrill finished first and looked up, watching her mother’s face as she carefully turned her own letter back to the beginning and read it over.

“Well?” she asked at last, as her mother completed the last page for the second time and folded the letter in her lap, looking up. “Did you get one, too? Of course I can’t go, but what on earth do you suppose made him think of it? Who wrote yours? Not Uncle Weston, for I know his writing. You don’t mean to tell me that Aunt Eloise has broken the silence of years at last?”

The mother came back as from some sudden perplexity and turned her eyes on Sherrill.

“Really, dear, you ought not to speak that way of your aunt,” she reproved. “This letter is quite—well—kind, I think, and after all, we may have misjudged her. You know we don’t really know her at all.”

“Well, what is it all about, anyway?” asked Grandmother Sherrill impatiently. “Read out your letter, Sherrill. There is little enough to break the monotony.”

“Yes, read your letter,” said the mother with a smile. “Is it from your uncle?”

Sherrill read her letter.

My dear niece:

Your aunt and I want you to come and spend a few months in the city with us this winter. We think it is time that you and your cousin got acquainted and had some good times together.

We expect to be back from the shore early in November and shall expect you as soon as you can make your arrangements to come on. Your aunt is writing your mother so I will not go into details, for she will tell you all you need to know. I am enclosing my check to cover railroad expenses and hope that we shall be able to give you a good time.

Affectionately your uncle,

Weston Washburn

 

Sherrill crumpled the paper briskly in her fingers and looked up.

“Now read yours,” she said, “or rather, let me read it. For I’m morally certain you’ll leave out something or soften it down somehow, and I think I have a right to know the whole inwardness of this matter, even if it does show up that aunt of mine in a bad light.”

Laughing, she took possession of the other letter and began to read, while her mother, half smiling, half troubled, sat back in her seat and listened.

Dear Mary:

Weston thinks we ought to do something for Sherrill, so I am writing to say that she is invited to spend the winter with us and see a little of New York life. You do not need to trouble about getting her any new clothes, for Carol has plenty of things she isn’t using anymore that can be altered by my maid, and anyway you wouldn’t know what to get.

We expect to be back in New York on the eighteenth of November at the latest, and you can arrange for her to come to us at once. I am sure a winter in New York will be a great advantage to her, and if she is clever at all, she may be able to make valuable acquaintances and a good marriage.

As ever,

Eloise

 

There was something mocking and sharp in Sherrill’s voice as she finished reading the letter and folded it elaborately, putting it back into its envelope.

“Won’t that be nice?” she mocked. “Mother, wouldn’t you just love my making a good marriage? Lots of money, I suppose, and family, and all that! Anything that would lift this family out of obscurity and place it where it would not be a disgrace to her highness—”

“Sherrill! Don’t!” said her mother sharply. “You really mustn’t make fun of your aunt. Especially if you are going to accept her hospitality!”

“Her hospitality! My eye! You don’t for a minute suppose that it’s going to be her hospitality, do you? I’ll wager Uncle West had to lay down the law like a tyrant before he ever got all that letter out of her. But what do you suppose he did it for? Why did he want to do it?”

“My dear, he was your father’s twin brother. He was very much attached to him.”

“Then why didn’t he come across with something after Daddy died? When Keith was struggling to keep the business together and we couldn’t get security, why did he hedge out of everything?”

There was an almost bitter edge to Sherrill’s tone.

“I—don’t know—” answered Sherrill’ mother with a clouding of her sweet, serious eyes. “I have always thought—your aunt was a great expense just then. She had to have an operation, and she was used to everything that money could buy—and—well, I suppose he wasn’t as well off at that time as he is now. And I think he likely wants to make up for it.”

“You don’t mean you want me to go?” demanded Sherrill almost haughtily.

“Well, of course, you haven’t had as many advantages as if your father had lived,” said Sherrill’s mother wistfully. “I’ve always wanted you to get out in the world a little. I had expected, of course, that you would be able to go to college, just as your brother did.”

“Well,” said Sherrill a trifle bitterly, “New York isn’t college. I’m sure I don’t see just what I should get out of a winter in New York, especially as I don’t care for the clever marriage that Aunt Eloise expects me to pull off.”

Grandmother broke into the silence that followed, in a tone of amused soliloquy. “ ‘As ever,’ “ she murmured, with a musical little chuckle. “ ‘As ever, Eloise.’ She need not have said that. We know she’s just what she always was. Yes, she’ll never change. She’ll always be Eloise.