MISS SUSAN VAN ANTWERP would never have bought that hat, if it hadn’t been for her nose. All her life, she had been accustomed to buying, not only her hats, but the rest of her wardrobe, to suit that particular feature.
It was not a bad nose; in fact, it had started out in life as a very amiable, inoffensive one; but Miss Van Antwerp had early conceived the idea that it was much too prominent. As a girl, she had been mortified and humiliated by it. As she grew older, she accepted it defiantly; and, at last, having thought so much about it, she was actually proud of it, in a scornful way.
All this had had its effect upon the nose; and now it habitually wore an agreeable “I-am-monarch-of-all-I-survey?’ sort of an expression.
Miss Van Antwerp’s face was not a lovely one. It was too much like her character for that; both were strong, resolute, hard.
The only thing she had ever loved was her nephew, Fred. She had brought him up, from a baby. His little fat hands had petted that defiant nose without a symptom of fear, and the whole strength of this lovely old woman’s heart had gone out to him, as he grew from childhood to manhood.
Of course, she meant to leave him all her money; whom should she leave it to but Fred? She had looked forward to his marrying and bringing his wife home, and to an old age made bright by Fred’s children. But this was just where the trouble came in. She wanted him to marry Margaret Steuben; she had picked her out especially.
Margaret was a nice girl, of a good old family, with plenty of money. “And, be-sides,” said Miss Van Antwerp, as she summed her up to Fred, one night, “her nose is a little like mine.”
Fred had laughed at this, and Miss Van Antwerp hastened to modify it. “Not much like mine,” she said; “only they won’t look badly together.”
But, in spite of this, and all her other excellent reasons, Fred obstinately refused to marry Margaret Steuben. Miss Van Antwerp was angry with him, more angry than she had ever been with Fred; but it was as nothing to her anger when she found that he was engaged to, and actually going to marry, Nellie Martin, “a miserable little snub-nosed nobody.”
After she had called her that, Fred arose.
He looked very tall and white.
“Very well, Aunt Susan,” he said; “we will not discuss the matter. I cannot have Miss Martin insulted, even by you. You have been very kind to me; but, unless you can think differently about this, we had better go our separate ways now.”
“Fred!” cried the old woman in a fury, “I shall never think differently; and I will never forgive you, if you marry that — girl!”
The dash would have been filled in with adjectives, but something in Fred’s face restrained her.
She had never meant it, poor old woman. She would have forgiven Fred anything. Was he not her dead sister’s child, and the only human being that she really loved? But Fred had taken her at her word, and had gone away.
It was over a year ago that all this happened, and Miss Van Antwerp’s nose had grown more and more belligerent, and she was harder and harder to suit in the matter of bonnets and hats. She was trying to find one that pleased her when my story opened. She had tried on seventeen, and the obliging but much fatigued salesman heard her say, with delight, of the eighteenth, “I like that hat; it suits my nose.”
She turned round and round, in front of the long mirror, holding up a hand-glass and surveying herself.
“Yes,” she said, decidedly, “I like that hat. You can send it up.”
Scarcely had it left the store, when a young woman, plainly dressed, hurried in, and walked rapidly to the millinery department. Going directly to the forewoman, she said: “Oh, Miss Allen, can you let me see that brown bonnet that I trimmed for you yesterday. I want it only for a moment.”
“We have just sent it home, I am sorry to say. Old Miss Van Antwerp bought it.”
“Old Miss Van Antwerp!” echoed the younger woman. “Oh, I am so sorry!” she added, her lips trembling.
“Did you want it for anything especial?” inquired the forewoman kindly.
“I’m afraid — I know it sounds perfectly ridiculous, but I’m afraid there’s a twenty-dollar bill in the crown. You see,” she added hurriedly, “my husband threw it down in my lap, just as I was gathering the crown lining. I knew I must finish the hat, so I worked on, and when I was through I couldn’t find the money anywhere. It seems perfectly absurd to think it may be inside of that crown lining, and I don’t believe it is; but I’ve hunted everywhere else, and I thought I would like to look, for I need the money very much.”
“I would go to Miss Van Antwerp, if I were you, and tell her all about it,” said the forewoman. “You see, we can hardly do anything, it not being our money.”
Go to Miss Van Antwerp, to Fred’s aunt, and tell her they were so poor that she, his wife, was trimming hats for a living, and thought she had accidentally lost all her money in the crown of this particular bonnet! It would be an interesting tale, certainly. Nellie laughed hysterically to herself, as she thought of it.
Oh, why, of all the people in the world, need Fred’s aunt have bought that hat, and why had she been so careless as to lose that money? She needed it so! Fred had come home sick the day he gave her the bill, and it was all the money she would have for some time. She hadn’t told Fred yet of this last ridiculous piece of ill-luck.
“I might go to the house and see if she’s in,” thought Nellie; “and, if she’s out, I could say there was some mistake about the hat, and ask to see it. I could find out in a second, whether my bill is there.”
So, slowly and with a heavy heart, she walked to Miss Van Antwerp’s house, to Fred’s old home; but there her heart failed her, and she was about to retrace her steps, when suddenly the door opened, and who should come out but old Miss Susan herself, and wearing that very identical hat.
Nellie watched it, as if fascinated by it.
Miss Van Antwerp did not see her, and walked down the avenue, while Nellie followed, her eyes fixed upon the hat, which she felt she must not let go out of her sight.
“Oh, if a wind would only blow it off,” she sighed. “If she’d only run against a sign or something.”
But nothing of the kind happened. Miss Van Antwerp walked on at a dignified pace, and presently entered a large dry goods store.
Nellie breathlessly followed.
Miss Van Antwerp took the elevator to the story, and Nellie climbed up the stairs and looked around till she saw her.
Could it be-yes — she really was buying breakfast caps, and the brown bonnet lay quite unguarded on the counter.
Nellie’s heart beat so that she was nearly smothered. She crept softly up to the bonnet. No one was looking. She put one hand in it and adroitly broke the gathering-string of the lining. She slipped her fingers inside, and felt a soft something. Yes, it was her ragged old bill!
Fairly quivering with excitement, she drew it out, when, “Young woman! what are you doing with my bonnet?” sounded an awful voice in her ears.
Poor Nellie! She gave a little scream and dropped the hat, still clutching her bill.
“I only wanted my money,” she faltered.
“It got in the crown by mistake when I was trimming the hat. I am very sorry. I didn’t mean — “ Then she stood and trembled like a culprit, and wished Fred’s awful aunt would turn her beak-like nose another way.
By this time, Miss Van Antwerp had recognized “that little snub-nosed thing.” She grew a little stiffer, and her voice was a shade harsher, as she said :
“You trimmed that hat — you — why, where is — “
“Fred is sick,” said Nellie simply.
Then, having recovered herself by this time, she added, holding up her precious bill: “It was such a comical, stupid thing to do I can laugh, now that I have found it, but I am very sorry to have annoyed you,” and with a little bow, she walked away.
Miss Van Antwerp looked after her. It was her turn to follow now. She caught up with Nellie just as she left the store.
“Tell me about Fred,” she said, in an anxious voice, and Nellie noticed that her face was pale and drawn, and that even her nose, that invincible feature, had a subdued look.
“Fred has been well,” said Nellie, with dignity, “until yesterday. I am going home to him now.”
The elder woman clasped her hands nervously.
“Can I — would you — would he like to see me?’ she exclaimed.
“I know he would be very glad,” answered Nellie heartily.
They walked along in silence.
“Is he — are you very poor?” asked Miss Van Antwerp awkwardly, after a little pause.
Nellie colored, and then answered steadily: “It was very hard at first; but, after a little, Fred found a place as reporter. I trimmed hats, because I could do it easily, and because they would let me do it at home. I was trimming that hat of yours when Fred came home. He had just been paid, and he tossed this twenty-dollar bill down in my lap; and, I’m sure I don’t see how I ever did it, but I gathered it up in the crown. I wouldn’t have tried to find it, but I wanted the money for medicines and things for Fred. I had no idea of thrusting myself in your way.” The little woman drew herself up proudly, but old Miss Van Antwerp scarcely heard her.
“Poor Fred! My poor, dear boy!” she murmured to herself, with all the pent-up love and longing of a year.
They nearly surprised Fred out of his senses, when they came walking in together; and how he laughed when he heard about the lost bill and the found bonnet!
Of course, they went home to live with Aunt Susan; and, except for a slight change in the dramatis personae, her old age was just what she always expected it would be, and she grew so fond of Nellie and Nellie’s children that she quite forgot all about Margaret Steuben.
Nellie has always kept a certain old brown bonnet. “It is the talisman,” she says, “that brought us all together,” and she always trims all Aunt Susan’s hats for her.
“Because,” says that lady, “no one has ever suited my nose so well.”
