Astra by Grace Livingston Hill Read Free Book Online Page B

get back home and find me gone. I have been thinking about this move for a long time, and I really feel that it is right and good that I should go. I hope you will agree with me.
    It does not seem fair to Clytie that she should have to share her home and her parents with me. I feel sure she will be a great deal happier with me gone, and it is right that she should have her place in her home.
    Besides, Miriam, I am not a little girl any longer. I am old enough to look out for myself and not to be lonely if I am on my own. It will really be good for me and help me to be more independent. So I think you and Cousin Duke, who have been so exceedingly kind to me in my sorrow and loneliness, have a right to be relieved that you no longer have me as a burden, since in many ways I cannot be quite congenial.
    You need have no worry about me. I have many friends in the old place where my father and I lived so long together, and as soon as I get definitely located, I will write and give you my address.
    So I am sending you my heartfelt gratitude for what you have done for me and many wishes that you have a happy winter.
    Wishing you all a Merry Christmas and a glad New Year,
    Lovingly,
    Astra
    It was very sketchy sleeping that Astra did that night, because there were still so many details of her hasty journey not yet thought out. But she was awake early the next morning and at the telephone, calling for some men to take her box and trunks to the station and calling the station to find out train schedules. When she went down to breakfast, she had everything well in hand, and her heart was filled with a great relief.
    After breakfast she told the maids.
    “I am going back to my old home, Hannah,” she said. “I’ve been planning to do that for some time, and now I think it will be pleasant to be with my old friends at Christmastime.”
    Hannah eyed her in amazement.
    “Does Mrs. Lester know?” she asked coldly. “She didn’t say anything to me about it.”
    “No, she doesn’t know. I decided since she left. But I’ve written her all about it, so I suppose you will hear from her soon as to any directions she may have, since I am not to be here. I think you said she usually left you here in charge of the house before I came, didn’t she?”
    “Oh yes,” said Hannah loftily. “Every summer when they go away to the mountains. I and Nannie stays and cleans house.”
    “Well, then I guess you won’t miss me. And here are two little packages I got for you for Christmas. I sure hope you will have a very happy time.”
    The two prim maids eyed the prettily wrapped boxes that Astra handed out to them, and then the doorbell rang and Nannie hurried away to answer it.
    “That must be the men I sent for,” said Astra. “They said they would come early.”
    So there was little time for further talk. Astra had taken things firmly in hand, and the two maids felt relieved that they were not called upon to be always staying at home to be company for her.
    Soon Astra was riding away to the station in a taxi, and the two maids stood at the door and waved good-bye, all the while fingering the crisp bills that Astra had given each. She had felt she could ill afford to spare them, but yet she knew she must. It was her idea of what was right.
    But in spite of the fact that she was really glad to get away, she yet felt she was going into the world with no one behind to wish her Merry Christmas and no one ahead waiting to bid her welcome and make a happy holiday for her.
    So that was what Astra was going over as she finished her breakfast and sat forlornly staring out through the lace filigree of frost on the windowpane, into a wide white world that seemed so strange and unfriendly now after her experiences of the night before and the uncertainties of what the morning was to bring forth.

Chapter 5
    A stra was seated in a big rocker in the ladies’ waiting room with her baggage at her side, comfortably established there by the old porter from the