blouse? I think I’d feel at home in that. Hasn’t it got back from the cleaner’s yet?”
“Yes, it came back three days ago, but I put it away in the third-floor closet. I didn’t think you’d be needing it yet awhile.”
“Oh, get it for me, Gemmie, will you? That’s a dear! It’s just the thing for this morning.”
Sherrill hurried with her dressing, and when Gemmie came back with the dress, she slipped into it and with a happy little wave of her hand hurried downstairs, looking much brighter than she felt.
The next two days were full of hard work. It seemed that Miss Catherwood was in a great rush to get those presents out of the way.
But there does come an end to all things, even unpleasant ones, and Sherrill finally came to her aunt and laid a neatly written envelope in her lap.
“There, Aunt Pat, that’s the last one of those awful notes I have to write. The very last one! And I’m glad! glad! glad! Now, what next?” and she looked drearily out of the window across the wide sweep of lawn and garden.
“Next we’re going to rest,” said the old lady, leaning back in her chair with a gray look about her lips. “I believe I’m tired, and I know you are. I’ve watched you getting thinner and thinner hour by hour. You’ve been a good sport, but now we’ve got to rest a little.”
Sherrill sprang into alarm at once.
“You dear precious Aunt Pattie!” she cried, and was down on her knees beside her aunt’s chair with her arm about her, looking earnestly into the tired old face.
“Oh, it’s nothing,” said Aunt Pat crisply, trying to rouse herself. “I just want a nap. I guess I’ve caught a bit of a cold perhaps. You need a nap, too, and then afterward we’ll plan what we’ll do next. How would you like to take a trip somewhere? You can be thinking about it while you’re going to sleep.”
Chapter 15
The next day was Sunday. Sherrill had been dreading it. Aunt Pat always went to church. Sherrill would be expected to go also, and she shrank inexpressibly from entering that church again, the church that had been decorated for her wedding, the church in which she had gone through that horrible experience, watching her bridegroom given to another woman. She almost decided to beg off, say she had a headache or something, only she knew a headache would bring alarm to the dear old lady and perhaps bring on a lot more complications that might be even worse than going to church. But oh, how she dreaded the soft lights from the stained glass, the exquisite music that would stir her soul to the depths and make her remember all the lovely things she had dreamed of and lost.
A dozen times during the early morning she thought of new excuses to stay at home, and even after she had her hat and gloves on and was on her way downstairs, she had half an idea of telling Aunt Pat plainly how she longed to escape this experience, just this one Sunday anyway.
But when she got downstairs, she found that the old lady was already in the car waiting for her, and there was such a pleasant light of expectancy in her eyes that Sherrill had not the heart to suggest that she would not go.
“I got to thinking,” said the old lady almost shyly, “I’d like to go to an old church where I went once with my best young man. Would you mind, Sherry?”
“Oh, I’d love it of course,” said Sherrill, deep relief in her voice. It would be so good to go to a new place where she would not have to go through that awful wedding again all during service. So good not to have to face the battery of eyes that would be watching to see just how she was taking life without her bridegroom. It would be such a relief not to have to sit and feel them wondering about her, thinking up things to say about her when they got home to their various dinner tables. Oh, many of the people in the home church were friends, nice pleasant people whom she liked, but it was good not to have to be watched this first Sunday after her world had been turned upside down.
Dear Aunt Pat! She had known, of course, that she would feel like that, and had planned this to have something