Cousin Helen was white and tired, but her eyes and smile were as bright as ever. She was delighted with the flowers which Katy presented rather shyly.
“Oh, how lovely!” she said; “I must put them in water right away. Katy dear, don’t you want to bring that little vase on the bureau and set it on this chair beside me? And please pour a little water into it first.”
“What a beauty!” cried Katy, as she lifted the graceful white cup swung on a gilt stand. “Is it yours, Cousin Helen?”
“Yes, it is my pet vase. It stands on a little table beside me at home, and I fancied that the Water Cure would seem more home-like if I had it with me there, so I brought it along. But why do you look so puzzled, Katy? Does it seem queer that a vase should travel about in a trunk?”
“No,” said Katy, slowly, “I was only thinking – Cousin Helen, is it worldly to have pretty things when you’re sick?”
Cousin Helen laughed heartily.
“What put that idea into your head?” she asked.
“Cecy said so when I told her about your beautiful night-gown.”
Cousin Helen smiled again.
“Well,” she said, “I’ll tell you what I think, Katy. Pretty things are no more ‘worldly’ than ugly ones, except when they spoil us by making us vain, or careless of the comfort of other people. And sickness is such a disagreeable thing in itself, that unless sick people take great pains, they soon grow to be eyesores to themselves and everybody about them. I don’t think it is possible for an invalid to be too particular. And when one has the back-ache and the head-ache and the all-over ache,” she added, smiling, “there isn’t much danger of growing vain because of a ruffle more or less on one’s night-gown, or a bit of bright ribbon.”
Then she began to arrange the flowers, touching each separate one gently, as if she loved it.
“What a queer noise!” she exclaimed, suddenly stopping.
It was queer – a sort of snuffling and snorting sound, as if a walrus or a sea-horse were promenading up and down in the hail. Katy opened the door. Behold! there were John and Dorry, very red in the face from flattening their noses against the key-hole, in a vain attempt to see if Cousin Helen were up and ready to receive company.
“Oh, let them come in!” cried Cousin Helen from her sofa.
So they came in, followed, before long, by Clover and Elsie. Such a merry morning as they had! Cousin Helen proved to possess a perfect genius for story-telling, and for suggesting games which could be played about her sofa, and did not make more noise than she could bear. Aunt Izzie, dropping in about eleven o’clock, found them having such a good time that, almost before she knew it, she was drawn into the game too. Nobody had ever heard of such a thing before! There sat Aunt Izzie on the floor, with three long lamp-lighters stuck in her hair, playing “I’m a genteel Lady, always genteel,” in the jolliest manner possible. The children were so enchanted at the spectacle that they could hardly attend to the game, and were always forgetting how many “horns” they had. Clover privately thought that Cousin Helen must be a witch; and Papa, when he came home at noon, said almost the same thing.
“What have you been doing to them, Helen?” he inquired, as he opened the door and saw the merry circle on the carpet. Aunt Izzie’s hair was half pulled down, and Philly was rolling over and over in convulsions of laughter. But Cousin Helen said she hadn’t done anything, and pretty soon Papa was on the floor too, playing away as fast as the rest.
“I must put a stop to this,” he cried, when everybody was tired of laughing, and everybody’s head was stuck as full of paper quills as a porcupine’s back. “Cousin Helen will be worn out. Run away, all of you, and don’t come near this door again till the clock strikes four. Do you hear, chicks? Run – run! Shoo! shoo!”
The children scuttled away like a brood of fowls – all but Katy. “Oh, Papa, I’ll be so quiet!” she pleaded. “Mightn’t I stay just till the dinner-bell rings?”
“Do let her!” said Cousin Helen, so Papa said, “Yes.”
Katy sat on the floor holding Cousin Helen’s hand, and listening to her talk with Papa. It interested her, though it was about things and people she did not know.
“How is Alex?” asked Dr. Carr, at length.
“Quite well, now,” replied Cousin Helen, with one of her brightest looks. “He was run down and tired in the Spring, and we were a little anxious about him; but Emma persuaded him to take a fortnight’s vacation, and he came back all right.”
“Do you see them often?”
“Almost every day. And little Helen comes every day, you know, for her lessons.”
“Is she as pretty as she used to be?”
“Oh yes – prettier, I think. She is a lovely little creature: having her so much with me is one of my greatest treats. Alex tries to think that she looks a little as I used to. But that is a compliment so great I dare not appropriate it.”
Dr. Carr stooped and kissed Cousin Helen as if he could not help it. “My dear child,” he said. That was all; but something in the tone made Katy curious.
“Papa,” she said, after dinner, “who is Alex, that you and Cousin Helen were talking about?”
“Why, Katy? What makes you want to know?”
“I can’t exactly tell – only Cousin Helen looked so; – and you kissed her; – and I thought perhaps it was something interesting.”
“So it is,” said Dr. Carr, drawing her on to his knee. “I’ve a mind to tell you about it, Katy, because you’re old enough to see how beautiful it is, and wise enough (I hope) not to chatter or ask questions. Alex is the name of somebody who long ago, when Cousin Helen was well and strong, she loved, and expected to marry.
“Oh! why didn’t she?” cried Katy.
“She met with a dreadful accident,” continued Dr. Carr. “For a long time they thought she would die. Then she grew slowly better, and the doctors told her that she might live a good many years, but that she would have to lie on her sofa always, and be helpless, and a cripple.
“Alex felt dreadfully when he heard this. He wanted to marry Cousin Helen just the same, and be her nurse, and take care of her always; but she would not consent. She broke the engagement, and told him that some day she hoped he would love somebody else well enough to marry her. So after a good many years, he did, and now he and his wife live next door to Cousin Helen, and are her dearest friends. Their little girl is named ‘Helen.’ All their plans are talked over with her, and there is nobody in the world they think so much of.”
“But doesn’t it make Cousin Helen feel bad, when she sees them walking about and enjoying themselves, and she can’t move?” asked Katy.
“No,” said Dr. Carr, “it doesn’t, because Cousin Helen is half an angel already, and loves other people better than herself. I’m very glad she could come here for once. She’s an example to us all, Katy, and I couldn’t ask anything better than to have my little girls take pattern after her.”
“It must be awful to be sick,” soliloquized Katy, after Papa was gone. “Why, if I had to stay in bed a whole week – I should die, I know I should.”
Poor Katy! It seemed to her, as it does to almost all young people, that there is nothing in the world so easy as to die, the moment things go wrong!
This conversation with Papa made Cousin Helen doubly interesting in Katy’s eyes. “It was just like something in a book,”