Mildreds Inheritance | Page 9

the little music teacher and waltzed her round and round before the mirror. "It's all your doing, you blessed Cousin Barbara! See how you have metamorphosed me."
Several days later she stood idly turning the calendar. "This is the day of the reception," she said; "the Averys will certainly be going home soon, and I ought to hear from Marguerite."
But no letter came the next day, nor the next, nor all the following week, although she went to the post-office several times daily.
It grew dull waiting, with Miss Barbara gone so much, and with nothing to do. She read the few books at her disposal, she paced up and down in the two little back bedrooms that she and Miss Barbara occupied. She took long walks alone, but the little mining town was even smaller than Westbrooke, and she found scant material with which to fill her letters home.
The two weeks for which she had been invited came to an end, and Judith grew desperate over her fruitless trips to the post-office. She knew that Miss Barbara had just made the payment that was due the Building and Loan Association in which she was putting her little earnings, and would be almost penniless until the end of another term. Besides, she had accepted all that she was willing to take from the hard-worked little music teacher.
"I have packed my trunk and am going home to-morrow, Cousin Barbara," she announced. "Mr. Avery's family have evidently stayed longer than Daisy expected, and she can't have me. Maybe some of them are ill."
"Then she should have written and told you so," said Miss Barbara, waxing so indignant over the neglect of her protégée that she grew eloquent on the subject of her hobby--punctuality, especially in correspondence.
"I suppose you wouldn't want to write again?" she suggested.
But Judith shook her head. "Oh, no, no!" she insisted; "Daisy understands perfectly that I can stay here only two weeks. I explained the situation fully in my letter. I mailed it myself, and I am sure that she received it. And I couldn't thrust myself upon her, you know. She has probably forgotten all about her invitation by this time; this visit doesn't mean as much to her as to me."
"But I can't bear to be disappointed after going so far," said Miss Barbara. "She'll surely write in a few days. You'll just have to stay another week. I can arrange for that long. The landlady wants the room after the twenty-first for a permanent boarder, but you can't go until then."
In spite of all Judith's protestations, Miss Barbara kept her, and never did a week drag by so slowly. It snowed incessantly. Miss Barbara was unusually busy. Judith took a severe cold that confined her to the house. Her eyes ached when she attempted to read, and all she could do was to pace up and down the room and look out of the window, or watch the clock in feverish impatience for Miss Barbara to return with the mail.
But not until the sixteenth, the day of the musicale, did she lose hope. When the hour came in which she should have been listening to the famous violinist in Marguerite's elegant drawing-rooms, she threw herself on the bed and cried as if her heart would break. It had been years since she had given away to her emotions as she did then, but the disappointment was a bitter one. She must go back home without even a glimpse of the city of her dreams, and without meeting a single interesting person. True, she had had a pleasant visit with Cousin Barbara, but they both had thought of it as only the stepping-stone to what lay beyond. Then at the thought of Miss Barbara's disappointment, second only to her own, she cried again. And again for her mother's disappointment and the girls', and her mortification when it should be discussed in every house in Westbrooke. She sobbed so long that finally she fell into a deep sleep of exhaustion.
Miss Barbara, coming in later in the twilight, found her lying on the bed, with a feverish flush on her cheeks. The grieved, childlike droop of the sensitive little mouth told its own story, and Miss Barbara set her lips sternly together.
"I wish Daisy Avery could see her now," she muttered, savagely; "it's cruel to disappoint any one so. I don't care what the cause is, it's wickedly cruel to be so careless."
[Illustration: "'I WISH DAISY AVERY COULD SEE HER NOW,' SHE MUTTERED, SAVAGELY."]
Four days later Judith went home. In the course of a week a letter was forwarded to her from Packertown. It was from Marguerite:
"How can you ever forgive my abominable carelessness? I intended to answer immediately after our guests left, but Mr. Avery and I were invited to