Susan Coolidge - Just Sixteen.

When the final sledge-load creaked away over the hard frozen crust, Georgie experienced a sense of relief.

"The sooner 'tis over, the sooner to sleep,"

she sang below her breath. Everything was in order. She had generalled all ably; nothing was omitted or forgotten. With steady care she raked out the fire in the kitchen stove, which the new owner of the house had taken off her hands, and saw to the fastenings of the windows. Then she tied on her bonnet and black veil, gave the weeping Bethia a good-by kiss on the door-step, closed and locked the door, and waded wearily through the half-broken paths to the boarding-house of Miss Sally Scannell, where Cousin Vi, otherwise Miss Violet Talcott, had lived for years.

No very enthusiastic reception awaited her. Cousin Vi's invitation had been given from a sense of duty. She "owed it to the child," she told herself, as she cleared out a bureau-drawer, and made a place for Georgie's trunk in the small third-story room which for sixteen years had represented to her all the home she had known. Of course such a visit must be a brief one.

"So you're come!" was her greeting as Georgie appeared. "I thought you'd be here sooner; but I suppose you've had a good deal to do. I should have offered to help if the day had not been so cold. Come in and take your things off."

Georgie glanced about her as she smoothed her hair. The room bore the unmistakable marks of spinsterhood and decayed gentility. It was crammed with little belongings, some valuable, some perfectly valueless. Two or three pieces of spindle-legged and claw-footed mahogany made an odd contrast to the common painted bedroom set. Miniatures by Malbone and lovely pale-lined mezzotints and line engravings hung on the walls amid a maze of photographs and Japanese fans and Christmas cards and chromos; an indescribable confusion of duds encumbered every shelf and table; and in the midst sat Miss Vi's tall, meager, dissatisfied self, with thin hair laboriously trained after the prevailing fashion, and a dress whose antique material seemed oddly unsuited to its modern cut and loopings. Somehow the pitifulness of the scene struck Georgie afresh.

"Shall I ever be like this?" she reflected.

"Now tell me what has happened since the funeral," said her cousin. "I had neuralgia all last week and week before, or I should have got down oftener. Who has called? Have the Hanburys been to see you?"

"Ellen came last week, but I was out," replied Georgie.

"What a pity! And how did it happen that you were out? You ought not to have been seen in the street so soon, I think. It's not customary."

"How could I help it?" responded Georgie, sadly. "I had all the move to arrange for. Mr. Custer wanted the house for Saturday. There was no one to go for me."

"I suppose you couldn't; but it's a pity. It's never well to outrage conventionalities. Have Mrs. St. John and Mrs. Constant Carrington called?"

"Mrs. Carrington hasn't, but she wrote me a little note. And dear Mrs. St. John came twice, and brought flowers, and was ever so kind. She always has been so very nice to me, you know."

"Naturally! The St. Johns were nobodies till Mr. St. John made all that money in railroads. She is glad enough to be on good terms with the old families, of course."

"I don't think it's that," said Georgie, rather wearily. "I think she's nice because she's naturally so kind-hearted, and she likes me."

The tea-bell put an end to the discussion. Miss Sally's welcome was a good deal warmer than Cousin Vi's had been.

"You poor dear child," she exclaimed, "you look quite tired out! Here, take this seat by the fire, Georgie, and I'll pour your tea out first of all. She needs it, don't she?" to Cousin Vi.

" Miss Talcott is rather tired, I dare say," said that lady, icily. Cousin Vi had lived for sixteen years in daily intercourse with Miss Sally, one of the sunniest and most friendly of women, and had never once relaxed into cordiality in all that time. Her code of manners included no approximation toward familiarity between a Talcott and a letter of lodgings.

Georgie took a different view. "Thank you so much, dear Miss Sally," she said. "How good you are! I am tired."

"I wish you wouldn't call Miss Sally 'dear,'" her cousin remarked after they had gone upstairs. "That sort of thing is most disagreeable to me. You have to be on your guard continually in a house like this, or you get mixed up with all sorts of people."

Georgie let it pass. She was too tired to argue.

"Now, let us talk about your plans," Miss Talcott said next morning. "Have you made any yet?"

"N – o; only that I must find some work to do at once."

"Don't speak like that to any one but me," her cousin said sharply. "There are lady-like occupations, of course, in which you can – can – mingle; but they need not be mentioned, or made known to people in general."

"What do you mean?"

"I don't know, I'm sure. I've never had occasion to look into the matter, but I suppose a girl situated as you are could find something, – embroidery, for instance. You could do that for the Decorative Art. They give you a number, and nobody knows your real name."

"I thought of embroidery," said Georgie; "but I never was very good at it, and so many are doing it nowadays. Besides, it seems to me that people are getting rather tired of all but the finer sort of work."

"What became of that nephew of Mr. Constant Carrington whom you used to see so much of two or three years ago?" demanded Miss Vi, irrelevantly.

"Bob Curtis? I don't quite know where he is. His father failed, don't you remember, and lost all his money, and Bob had to leave Harvard and go into some sort of business?"

"Oh, did he? He's of no consequence, then. I don't know what made me think of him. Well, you could read to an invalid, perhaps, or go to Europe with some lady who wanted a companion."

"Or be second-best wing-maker to an angel," put in Georgie, with a little glint of humor. "Cousin Vi, all that would be very pleasant, but I don't think it is likely to happen. I'm dreadfully afraid no one wants me to go to Europe; and I must have something to do at once, you know. I must earn my bread."

"Don't use such a phrase. It sounds too coarse for anything."

"I don't think so, Cousin Vi. I don't mind working a bit, if only I can hit on something that somebody wants, and that I can do well."

"This is exactly what I have been afraid of," said Miss Vi, despairingly. "I've always had a fear that old Jacob Talcott would break out in you sooner or later. He has skipped two generations, but he was bound to show himself some day or other. He had exactly that common sort of way of looking at things and talking about them, – the only Talcott I ever knew of that did! Don't you recollect how he insisted on putting his son into business, and the boy ran away and went to the West Indies and married some sort of Creole, – all his father's fault?

"Now, I'll tell you," she went on after a pause. "I've been thinking over this matter, and have made up my mind about it. You're not to do anything foolish, Georgie. If you do, you'll be sorry for it all your life, and I shall never forgive you besides. Such a good start as you have made in society, and all; it will be quite too much if you go and spoil your chances with those ridiculous notions of yours. Now, listen. If you'll give up all idea of supporting yourself, unless it is by doing embroidery or something like that, which no one need know about, I'll – I'll – well – I'll agree to pay your board here at Miss Sally's, and give you half this room for a year. As likely as not you'll be married by the end of that time, or if not, something else will have turned up! Any way, I'll do it for one year. When the year is over, we can talk about the next." And Miss Talcott folded her hands with the manner of one who has offered an ultimatum.