THE FLITTING
It was Eliza's last day in the apartment. Out of respect to probable scruples on the part of her future hostess as to travelling on Sunday, she had planned to sit idle this Sabbath day, although everything was packed and she was ready to start.
By Mrs. Wright's advice she had sold nearly all the shabby furnishings of the apartment. She had eaten a picnic luncheon in the forlorn kitchen, from whence even the gambolling kittens had fled to the bottom of Eliza's trunk, and now sat on a camp-chair in the middle of the empty parlor, as solitary as Alexander Selkirk on his island, monarch of all she surveyed, which was a pair of green eyes glowering at her from behind the wire network in the side of a wicker basket, which reposed on the only other chair in the room.
Stern and inexorable looked Eliza sitting in state on the camp-chair, and furious glared the jewel eyes back at her.
"You've got to get used to it, Pluto," she said. "Do you suppose I like it any better than you do? I don't know as you're so bad off either. I think I'd like to be put in a bag and carried to Brewster's Island with no care of cars or boats or anything else. You always do get the best of it."
Eliza looked very haggard. It had been a wrenching week, packing her dear one's belongings, and selling into careless, grudging hands the old furniture with its tender associations.
Philip had been too busy to come to her aid. They had exchanged notes. She had addressed him at the Fabians', and he had replied that he had taken a room, and asked that his belongings be stacked up somewhere. He promised that he would come for them early Sunday afternoon.
So now she was waiting, her capable hands folded in her black alpaca lap, and her face expressing endurance.
"I'm countin' the hours, Pluto," she declared. "This place is misery to me now. I feel just as much in a strange garret as you do in that basket. I just wish Mr. Sidney'd come and take his things and then there won't be much more daylight to look around here in. And I hope you won't act like all possessed when we start for the train nor when we get on it."
"Meow!" cried Pluto, exasperated.
"There now!" exclaimed Eliza, in trepidation – "you do that just once when the train's standin' still, and where'll we be! I've always thought you had a little more intelligence than the law allows; and if you go to actin' like an alley cat you'll disappoint me dreadfully!"
Eliza rose anxiously and threw herself on her knees beside the basket and opened it. Pluto sprang out, and she caught him and pressed her thin cheek against his fur in a rare caress. Her eyes stung in her effort to repress tears.
"Oh, law! I'm sick o' myself," she muttered. "Cryin'! cryin'! gracious, what a fool! I'd ought to sold you to somebody, I suppose," – she clung tighter to the handsome creature and buried her eyes in his glossy coat, – "or given you away, more likely. Who'd want to pay anything for a cat that don't know how bothersome it's goin' to be to get the right train, and hasn't the decency to keep his mouth shut, and – Oh!" as a knock sounded on the door. "There he is now."
The glow of Eliza's one interview with Mrs. Ballard's heir had faded long ago. The sordid and wounding events of the week had eclipsed whatever cheer he had brought her, and it was only as one of the events of her flitting that she looked forward to his advent this afternoon, and the departure of the last and most intimate of her dear one's possessions.
The knock on the door preceded its immediate opening.
"May I come in?"
The long step took the little hall in three strides.
The sight that met the newcomer's eyes was the bare room, with Eliza kneeling in front of an open basket, clasping Pluto to her breast. The woman's face and posture were dramatic.
"Deserted!" was the word that rose to Phil's lips, but he repressed it. He would not twit on facts; but his all-observing eyes shone.
"I'm always wanting to paint you, Eliza," he said. "Sometime I will, too."
"Me!" returned Eliza drearily. "You'll be hard up when you take me."
"So far as that goes, I'm hard up now. That's chronic," responded Phil cheerfully. "What are you doing – not taking leave of that king among cats? If you're leaving him behind, I speak for him."
"H'm!" exclaimed Eliza, loosening her clasp of her pet and rising. "You'd made a bad bargain if you took Pluto." She removed the basket from its chair. "Sit down, Mr. Sidney," she said wearily, resuming her own seat. "It's too forlorn for you to stay, but maybe you'd like to ketch your breath before you take the things."
Philip picked up the basket and looked curiously at its wire window.
"Yes," continued Eliza. "I'm taking Pluto, so I had to have that. It was an extravagance, and he ain't worth it. I despise to see folks cartin' cats and dogs around. I didn't think I'd ever come to it; but somehow I'm – used to that selfish critter, and he's – he's all the folks I've got. It never once came to me that you'd take him."
"Indeed I would," replied Phil; "and wait till you see the place I have for him. Rats and mice while you wait, I suppose, though I haven't seen any yet."
"Oh, well," returned Eliza hastily, her eyes following Pluto as he rubbed himself against Phil's leg. "I've got the basket now. I guess I'll have to use it."
"It's a shame I haven't been here to help you," said Phil. "You've had a hard week, I know, but I've had a busy one."
"You've got a room, you say," said Eliza listlessly. "Rats and mice. That don't sound very good."
Phil smiled. "I don't know, – as I say, I haven't seen them yet; but Pluto would be a fine guard to keep them off my blankets. I don't believe, though, there's been any grain in there for a good while."
"Grain!" repeated Eliza.
Phil laughed. "I'll tell you about it later; but first, may I have the things? I have an expressman down at the door. I rode over here with him in state. Good thing I didn't meet Mrs. Fabian."
Eliza's thin lip curled as she rose. She led Philip to a room, in the middle of which was gathered a heterogeneous collection of articles. "In this box is the paintin' things," she said, touching a wooden case. "In this barrel is some dishes. I couldn't get anything for 'em anyway, and you wrote you was going to get your own breakfasts."
"Capital," put in Phil; "and here's a bedstead."
"Yes, and the spring and mattress," returned Eliza. "It's Mrs. Ballard's bed. I couldn't sell it."
Philip regarded the disconnected pieces dubiously – "I guess I'd have to be amputated at the knees to use that."
"Well," – Eliza shook her head quickly. "Take it anyway, and do what you've a mind to with it, only don't tell me. The beddin''s in the barrel with the dishes – you said you'd be glad of a chair, so here's one, and the two in the parlor are for you. You can take 'em right along. I haven't got very long to wait anyway. I calc'late to go to the station early."
Phil touched her shoulder with his hand.
"I'll see that you get to the station early enough."
"You mustn't think o' me," said Eliza, as Phil picked up some of the furniture and started for the stairs.
When he returned for the next load he brought the expressman with him. Together they took the last of the articles down the stairway.
Eliza stood at the top and watched the final descent.
"Good-bye Mr. Sidney," she said.
He smiled brightly up at her across a couple of chairs, and the easel.
"Good-bye for five minutes."
"No, no," said Eliza; "don't you come back." She winked violently toward the receding cap of the expressman. "You'd better ride right over with the things just the way you came."
"All right," responded Phil laughing. "Bon voyage!"
"Hey?" asked Eliza.
"Have a good trip. My respects to Pluto."
She