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diff --git a/24875.txt b/24875.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..0bcb323 --- /dev/null +++ b/24875.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5836 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1904, by +Lucy Maud Montgomery + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1904 + +Author: Lucy Maud Montgomery + +Release Date: March 19, 2008 [EBook #24875] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MONTGOMERY SHORT STORIES *** + + + + +Produced by Alicia Williams, Jeannie Howse and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + +Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1904 + + +Lucy Maud Montgomery was born at Clifton (now New London), Prince +Edward Island, Canada, on November 30, 1874. She achieved +international fame in her lifetime, putting Prince Edward Island and +Canada on the world literary map. Best known for her "Anne of Green +Gables" books, she was also a prolific writer of short stories and +poetry. She published some 500 short stories and poems and twenty +novels before her death in 1942. The Project Gutenberg collection of +her short stories was gathered from numerous sources and is presented +in chronological publishing order: + +Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1896 to 1901 +Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1902 to 1903 +Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1904 +Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1905 to 1906 +Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1907 to 1908 +Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1909 to 1922 + + + * * * * * + + + + +Short Stories 1904 + + A Fortunate Mistake 1904 + An Unpremeditated Ceremony 1904 + At the Bay Shore Farm 1904 + Elizabeth's Child 1904 + Freda's Adopted Grave 1904 + How Don Was Saved 1904 + Miss Madeline's Proposal 1904 + Miss Sally's Company 1904 + Mrs. March's Revenge 1904 + Nan 1904 + Natty of Blue Point 1904 + Penelope's Party Waist 1904 + The Girl and the Wild Race 1904 + The Promise of Lucy Ellen 1904 + The Pursuit of the Ideal 1904 + The Softening of Miss Cynthia 1904 + Them Notorious Pigs 1904 + Why Not Ask Miss Price? 1904 + + + + +A Fortunate Mistake + + +"Oh, dear! oh, dear!" fretted Nan Wallace, twisting herself about +uneasily on the sofa in her pretty room. "I never thought before that +the days could be so long as they are now." + +"Poor you!" said her sister Maude sympathetically. Maude was moving +briskly about the room, putting it into the beautiful order that +Mother insisted on. It was Nan's week to care for their room, but Nan +had sprained her ankle three days ago and could do nothing but lie on +the sofa ever since. And very tired of it, too, was wide-awake, active +Nan. + +"And the picnic this afternoon, too!" she sighed. "I've looked forward +to it all summer. And it's a perfect day--and I've got to stay here +and nurse this foot." + +Nan looked vindictively at the bandaged member, while Maude leaned out +of the window to pull a pink climbing rose. As she did so she nodded +to someone in the village street below. + +"Who is passing?" asked Nan. + +"Florrie Hamilton." + +"Is she going to the picnic?" asked Nan indifferently. + +"No. She wasn't asked. Of course, I don't suppose she expected to be. +She knows she isn't in our set. She must feel horribly out of place at +school. A lot of the girls say it is ridiculous of her father to send +her to Miss Braxton's private school--a factory overseer's daughter." + +"She ought to have been asked to the picnic all the same," said Nan +shortly. "She is in our class if she isn't in our set. Of course I +don't suppose she would have enjoyed herself--or even gone at all, for +that matter. She certainly doesn't push herself in among us. One would +think she hadn't a tongue in her head." + +"She is the best student in the class," admitted Maude, arranging her +roses in a vase and putting them on the table at Nan's elbow. "But +Patty Morrison and Wilhelmina Patterson had the most to say about the +invitations, and they wouldn't have her. There, Nannie dear, aren't +those lovely? I'll leave them here to be company for you." + +"I'm going to have more company than that," said Nan, thumping her +pillow energetically. "I'm not going to mope here alone all the +afternoon, with you off having a jolly time at the picnic. Write a +little note for me to Florrie Hastings, will you? I'll do as much for +you when you sprain your foot." + +"What shall I put in it?" said Maude, rummaging out her portfolio +obligingly. + +"Oh, just ask her if she will come down and cheer a poor invalid up +this afternoon. She'll come, I know. And she is such good company. Get +Dickie to run right out and mail it." + +"I do wonder if Florrie Hamilton will feel hurt over not being asked +to the picnic," speculated Maude absently as she slipped her note into +an envelope and addressed it. + +Florrie Hamilton herself could best have answered that question as she +walked along the street in the fresh morning sunshine. She did feel +hurt--much more keenly than she would acknowledge even to herself. It +was not that she cared about the picnic itself: as Nan Wallace had +said, she would not have been likely to enjoy herself if she had gone +among a crowd of girls many of whom looked down on her and ignored +her. But to be left out when every other girl in the school was +invited! Florrie's lip quivered as she thought of it. + +"I'll get Father to let me to go to the public school after vacation," +she murmured. "I hate going to Miss Braxton's." + +Florrie was a newcomer in Winboro. Her father had recently come to +take a position in the largest factory of the small town. For this +reason Florrie was slighted at school by some of the ruder girls and +severely left alone by most of the others. Some, it is true, tried at +the start to be friends, but Florrie, too keenly sensitive to the +atmosphere around her to respond, was believed to be decidedly dull +and mopy. She retreated further and further into herself and was +almost as solitary at Miss Braxton's as if she had been on a desert +island. + +"They don't like me because I am plainly dressed and because my father +is not a wealthy man," thought Florrie bitterly. And there was enough +truth in this in regard to many of Miss Braxton's girls to make a very +uncomfortable state of affairs. + +"Here's a letter for you, Flo," said her brother Jack at noon. "Got it +at the office on my way home. Who is your swell correspondent?" + +Florrie opened the dainty, perfumed note and read it with a face that, +puzzled at first, suddenly grew radiant. + +"Listen, Jack," she said excitedly. + + "Dear Florrie: + + "Nan is confined to house, room, and sofa with a sprained + foot. As she will be all alone this afternoon, won't you come + down and spend it with her? She very much wants you to + come--she is so lonesome and thinks you will be just the one + to cheer her up. + + "Yours cordially, + "Maude Wallace." + +"Are you going?" asked Jack. + +"Yes--I don't know--I'll think about it," said Florrie absently. Then +she hurried upstairs to her room. + +"Shall I go?" she thought. "Yes, I will. I dare say Nan has asked me +just out of pity because I was not invited to the picnic. But even so +it was sweet of her. I've always thought I would like those Wallace +girls if I could get really acquainted with them. They've always been +nice to me, too--I don't know why I am always so tongue-tied and +stupid with them. But I'll go anyway." + +That afternoon Mrs. Wallace came into Nan's room. + +"Nan, dear, Florrie Hamilton is downstairs asking for you." + +"Florrie--Hamilton?" + +"Yes. She said something about a note you sent her this morning. Shall +I ask her to come up?" + +"Yes, of course," said Nan lamely. When her mother had gone out she +fell back on her pillows and thought rapidly. + +"Florrie Hamilton! Maude must have addressed that note to her by +mistake. But she mustn't know it was a mistake--mustn't suspect it. +Oh, dear! What shall I ever find to talk to her about? She is so quiet +and shy." + +Further reflections were cut short by Florrie's entrance. Nan held out +her hand with a chummy smile. + +"It's good of you to give your afternoon up to visiting a cranky +invalid," she said heartily. "You don't know how lonesome I've been +since Maude went away. Take off your hat and pick out the nicest chair +you can find, and let's be comfy." + +Somehow, Nan's frank greeting did away with Florrie's embarrassment +and made her feel at home. She sat down in Maude's rocker, then, +glancing over to a vase filled with roses, her eyes kindled with +pleasure. Seeing this, Nan said, "Aren't they lovely? We Wallaces are +very fond of our climbing roses. Our great-grandmother brought the +roots out from England with her sixty years ago, and they grow nowhere +else in this country." + +"I know," said Florrie, with a smile. "I recognized them as soon as I +came into the room. They are the same kind of roses as those which +grow about Grandmother Hamilton's house in England. I used to love +them so." + +"In England! Were you ever in England?" + +"Oh, yes," laughed Florrie. "And I've been in pretty nearly every +other country upon earth--every one that a ship could get to, at +least." + +"Why, Florrie Hamilton! Are you in earnest?" + +"Indeed, yes. Perhaps you don't know that our 'now-mother,' as Jack +says sometimes, is Father's second wife. My own mother died when I was +a baby, and my aunt, who had no children of her own, took me to bring +up. Her husband was a sea-captain, and she always went on his +sea-voyages with him. So I went too. I almost grew up on shipboard. We +had delightful times. I never went to school. Auntie had been a +teacher before her marriage, and she taught me. Two years ago, when I +was fourteen, Father married again, and then he wanted me to go home +to him and Jack and our new mother. So I did, although at first I was +very sorry to leave Auntie and the dear old ship and all our lovely +wanderings." + +"Oh, tell me all about them," demanded Nan. "Why, Florrie Hamilton, to +think you've never said a word about your wonderful experiences! I +love to hear about foreign countries from people who have really been +there. Please just talk--and I'll listen and ask questions." + +Florrie did talk. I'm not sure whether she or Nan was the more +surprised to find that she could talk so well and describe her travels +so brightly and humorously. The afternoon passed quickly, and when +Florrie went away at dusk, after a dainty tea served up in Nan's room, +it was with a cordial invitation to come again soon. + +"I've enjoyed your visit so much," said Nan sincerely. "I'm going down +to see you as soon as I can walk. But don't wait for that. Let us be +good, chummy friends without any ceremony." + +When Florrie, with a light heart and a happy smile, had gone, came +Maude, sunburned and glowing from her picnic. + +"Such a nice time as we had!" she exclaimed. "Wasn't I sorry to think +of you cooped up here! Did Florrie come?" + +"One Florrie did. Maude, you addressed that note to Florrie Hamilton +today instead of Florrie Hastings." + +"Nan, surely not! I'm sure--" + +"Yes, you did. And she came here. Was I not taken aback at first, +Maude!" + +"I was thinking about her when I addressed it, and I must have put her +name down by mistake. I'm so sorry--" + +"You needn't be. I haven't been entertained so charmingly for a long +while. Why, Maude, she has travelled almost everywhere--and is so +bright and witty when she thaws out. She didn't seem like the same +girl at all. She is just perfectly lovely!" + +"Well, I'm glad you had such a nice time together. Do you know, some +of the girls were very much vexed because she wasn't asked to the +picnic. They said that it was sheer rudeness not to ask her, and that +it reflected on us all, even if Patty and Wilhelmina were responsible +for it. I'm afraid we girls at Miss Braxton's have been getting +snobbish, and some of us are beginning to find it out and be ashamed +of it." + +"Just wait until school opens," said Nan--vaguely enough, it would +seem. But Maude understood. + +However, they did not have to wait until school opened. Long before +that time Winboro girlhood discovered that the Wallace girls were +taking Florrie Hamilton into their lives. If the Wallace girls liked +her, there must be something in the girl more than was at first +thought--thus more than one of Miss Braxton's girls reasoned. And +gradually the other girls found, as Nan had found, that Florrie was +full of fun and an all-round good companion when drawn out of her +diffidence. When Miss Braxton's school reopened Florrie was the class +favourite. Between her and Nan Wallace a beautiful and helpful +friendship had been formed which was to grow and deepen through their +whole lives. + +"And all because Maude in a fit of abstraction wrote 'Hamilton' for +'Hastings,'" said Nan to herself one day. But that is something +Florrie Hamilton will never know. + + + + +An Unpremeditated Ceremony + + +Selwyn Grant sauntered in upon the assembled family at the homestead +as if he were returning from an hour's absence instead of a western +sojourn of ten years. Guided by the sound of voices on the still, +pungent autumnal air, he went around to the door of the dining room +which opened directly on the poppy walk in the garden. + +Nobody noticed him for a moment and he stood in the doorway looking at +them with a smile, wondering what was the reason of the festal air +that hung about them all as visibly as a garment. His mother sat by +the table, industriously polishing the best silver spoons, which, as +he remembered, were only brought forth upon some great occasion. Her +eyes were as bright, her form as erect, her nose--the Carston +nose--as pronounced and aristocratic as of yore. + +Selwyn saw little change in her. But was it possible that the tall, +handsome young lady with the sleek brown pompadour and a nose +unmistakably and plebeianly Grant, who sat by the window doing +something to a heap of lace and organdy in her lap, was the little +curly-headed, sunburned sister of thirteen whom he remembered? The +young man leaning against the sideboard must be Leo, of course; a +fine-looking, broad-shouldered young fellow who made Selwyn think +suddenly that he must be growing old. And there was the little, thin, +grey father in the corner, peering at his newspaper with nearsighted +eyes. Selwyn's heart gave a bound at the sight of him which not even +his mother had caused. Dear old Dad! The years had been kind to him. + +Mrs. Grant held up a glistening spoon and surveyed it complacently. +"There, I think that is bright enough even to suit Margaret Graham. I +shall take over the whole two dozen teas and one dozen desserts. I +wish, Bertha, that you would tie a red cord around each of the handles +for me. The Carmody spoons are the same pattern and I shall always be +convinced that Mrs. Carmody carried off two of ours the time that +Jenny Graham was married. I don't mean to take any more risks. And, +Father----" + +Something made the mother look around, and she saw her first-born! + +When the commotion was over Selwyn asked why the family spoons were +being rubbed up. + +"For the wedding, of course," said Mrs. Grant, polishing her +gold-bowed spectacles and deciding that there was no more time for +tears and sentiment just then. "And there, they're not half done--and +we'll have to dress in another hour. Bertha is no earthly use--she is +so taken up with her bridesmaid finery." + +"Wedding? Whose wedding?" demanded Selwyn, in bewilderment. + +"Why, Leo's, of course. Leo is to be married tonight. Didn't you get +your invitation? Wasn't that what brought you home?" + +"Hand me a chair, quick," implored Selwyn. "Leo, are _you_ going to +commit matrimony in this headlong fashion? Are you sure you're grown +up?" + +"Six feet is a pretty good imitation of it, isn't it?" grinned Leo. +"Brace up, old fellow. It's not so bad as it might be. She's quite a +respectable girl. We wrote you all about it three weeks ago and broke +the news as gently as possible." + +"I left for the East a month ago and have been wandering around +preying on old college chums ever since. Haven't seen a letter. There, +I'm better now. No, you needn't fan me, Sis. Well, no family can get +through the world without its seasons of tribulations. Who is the +party of the second part, little brother?" + +"Alice Graham," replied Mrs. Grant, who had a habit of speaking for +her children, none of whom had the Carston nose. + +"Alice Graham! That child!" exclaimed Selwyn in astonishment. + +Leo roared. "Come, come, Sel, perhaps we're not very progressive here +in Croyden, but we don't actually stand still. Girls are apt to +stretch out some between ten and twenty, you know. You old bachelors +think nobody ever grows up. Why, Sel, you're grey around your +temples." + +"Too well I know it, but a man's own brother shouldn't be the first to +cast such things up to him. I'll admit, since I come to think of it, +that Alice has probably grown bigger. Is she any better-looking than +she used to be?" + +"Alice is a charming girl," said Mrs. Grant impressively. "She is a +beauty and she is also sweet and sensible, which beauties are not +always. We are all very much pleased with Leo's choice. But we have +really no more time to spare just now. The wedding is at seven o'clock +and it is four already." + +"Is there anybody you can send to the station for my luggage?" asked +Selwyn. "Luckily I have a new suit, otherwise I shouldn't have the +face to go." + +"Well, I must be off," said Mrs. Grant. "Father, take Selwyn away so +that I shan't be tempted to waste time talking to him." + +In the library father and son looked at each other affectionately. + +"Dad, it's a blessing to see you just the same. I'm a little dizzy +with all these changes. Bertha grown up and Leo within an inch of +being married! To Alice Graham at that, whom I can't think of yet as +anything else than the long-legged, black-eyed imp of mischief she +was when a kiddy. To tell you the truth, Dad, I don't feel in a mood +for going to a wedding at Wish-ton-wish tonight. I'm sure you don't +either. You've always hated fusses. Can't we shirk it?" + +They smiled at each other with chummy remembrance of many a family +festival they had "shirked" together in the old days. But Mr. Grant +shook his head. "Not this time, sonny. There are some things a decent +man can't shirk and one of them is his own boy's wedding. It's a +nuisance, but I must go through with it. You'll understand how it is +when you're a family man yourself. By the way, why aren't you a family +man by this time? Why haven't I been put to the bother and +inconvenience of attending your wedding before now, son?" + +Selwyn laughed, with a little vibrant note of bitterness in the +laughter, which the father's quick ears detected. "I've been too busy +with law books, Dad, to find me a wife." + +Mr. Grant shook his bushy grey head. "That's not the real reason, son. +The world has a wife for every man; if he hasn't found her by the time +he's thirty-five, there's some real reason for it. Well, I don't want +to pry into yours, but I hope it's a sound one and not a mean, +sneaking, selfish sort of reason. Perhaps you'll choose a Madam Selwyn +some day yet. In case you should I'm going to give you a small bit of +good advice. Your mother--now, she's a splendid woman, Selwyn, a +splendid woman. She can't be matched as a housekeeper and she has +improved my finances until I don't know them when I meet them. She's +been a good wife and a good mother. If I were a young man I'd court +her and marry her over again, that I would. But, son, when _you_ pick +a wife pick one with a nice little commonplace nose, not a family +nose. Never marry a woman with a family nose, son." + +A woman with a family nose came into the library at this juncture and +beamed maternally upon them both. "There's a bite for you in the +dining room. After you've eaten it you must dress. Mind you brush your +hair well down, Father. The green room is ready for you, Selwyn. +Tomorrow I'll have a good talk with you, but tonight I'll be too busy +to remember you're around. How are we all going to get over to +Wish-ton-wish? Leo and Bertha are going in the pony carriage. It won't +hold a third passenger. You'll have to squeeze in with Father and me +in the buggy, Selwyn." + +"By no means," replied Selwyn briskly. "I'll walk over to +Wish-ton-wish. Ifs only half a mile across lots. I suppose the old way +is still open?" + +"It ought to be," answered Mr. Grant drily; "Leo has kept it well +trodden. If you've forgotten how it runs he can tell you." + +"I haven't forgotten," said Selwyn, a little brusquely. He had his own +reasons for remembering the wood path. Leo had not been the first +Grant to go courting to Wish-ton-wish. + +When he started, the moon was rising round and red and hazy in an +eastern hill-gap. The autumn air was mild and spicy. Long shadows +stretched across the fields on his right and silvery mosaics patterned +the floor of the old beechwood lane. Selwyn walked slowly. He was +thinking of Esme Graham or, rather, of the girl who had been Esme +Graham, and wondering if he would see her at the wedding. It was +probable, and he did not want to see her. In spite of ten years' +effort, he did not think he could yet look upon Tom St. Clair's wife +with the proper calm indifference. At the best, it would taint his own +memory of her; he would never again be able to think of her as Esme +Graham but only as Esme St. Clair. + +The Grahams had come to Wish-ton-wish eleven years before. There was a +big family of girls of whom the tall, brown-haired Esme was the +oldest. There was one summer during which Selwyn Grant had haunted +Wish-ton-wish, the merry comrade of the younger girls, the boyishly, +silently devoted lover of Esme. Tom St. Clair had always been there +too, in his right as second cousin, Selwyn had supposed. One day he +found out that Tom and Esme had been engaged ever since she was +sixteen; one of her sisters told him. That had been all. He had gone +away soon after, and some time later a letter from home made casual +mention of Tom St. Clair's marriage. + +He narrowly missed being late for the wedding ceremony. The bridal +party entered the parlour at Wish-ton-wish at the same moment as he +slipped in by another door. Selwyn almost whistled with amazement at +sight of the bride. _That_ Alice Graham, that tall, stately, blushing +young woman, with her masses of dead-black hair, frosted over by the +film of wedding veil! Could that be the scrawny little tomboy of ten +years ago? She looked not unlike Esme, with that subtle family +resemblance that is quite independent of feature and colouring. + +Where was Esme? Selwyn cast his eyes furtively over the assembled +guests while the minister read the marriage ceremony. He recognized +several of the Graham girls but he did not see Esme, although Tom St. +Clair, stout and florid and prosperous-looking, was standing on a +chair in a faraway corner, peering over the heads of the women. + +After the turmoil of handshakings and congratulations, Selwyn fled to +the cool, still outdoors, where the rosy glow of Chinese lanterns +mingled with the waves of moonshine to make fairyland. And there he +met her, as she came out of the house by a side door, a tall, slender +woman in some glistening, clinging garment, with white flowers shining +like stars in the coils of her brown hair. In the soft glow she looked +even more beautiful than in the days of her girlhood, and Selwyn's +heart throbbed dangerously at sight of her. + +"Esme!" he said involuntarily. + +She started, and he had an idea that she changed colour, although it +was too dim to be sure. "Selwyn!" she exclaimed, putting out her +hands. "Why, Selwyn Grant! Is it really you? Or are you such stuff as +dreams are made of? I did not know you were here. I did not know you +were home." + +He caught her hands and held them tightly, drawing her a little closer +to him, forgetting that she was Tom St. Clair's wife, remembering only +that she was the woman to whom he had given all his love and life's +devotion, to the entire beggaring of his heart. + +"I reached home only four hours ago, and was haled straightway here to +Leo's wedding. I'm dizzy, Esme. I can't adjust my old conceptions to +this new state of affairs all at once. It seems ridiculous to think +that Leo and Alice are married. I'm sure they can't be really grown +up." + +Esme laughed as she drew away her hands. "We are all ten years older," +she said lightly. + +"Not you. You are more beautiful than ever, Esme. That sunflower +compliment is permissible in an old friend, isn't it?" + +"This mellow glow is kinder to me than sunlight now. I am thirty, you +know, Selwyn." + +"And I have some grey hairs," he confessed. "I knew I had them but I +had a sneaking hope that other folks didn't until Leo destroyed it +today. These young brothers and sisters who won't stay children are +nuisances. You'll be telling me next thing that 'Baby' is grown up." + +"'Baby' is eighteen and has a beau," laughed Esme. "And I give you +fair warning that she insists on being called Laura now. Do you want +to come for a walk with me--down under the beeches to the old lane +gate? I came out to see if the fresh air would do my bit of a headache +good. I shall have to help with the supper later on." + +They went slowly across the lawn and turned into a dim, moonlight lane +beyond, their old favourite ramble. Selwyn felt like a man in a dream, +a pleasant dream from which he dreads to awaken. The voices and +laughter echoing out from the house died away behind them and the +great silence of the night fell about them as they came to the old +gate, beyond which was a range of shining, moonlight-misted fields. + +For a little while neither of them spoke. The woman looked out across +the white spaces and the man watched the glimmering curve of her neck +and the soft darkness of her rich hair. How virginal, how sacred, she +looked! The thought of Tom St. Clair was a sacrilege. + +"It's nice to see you again, Selwyn," said Esme frankly at last. +"There are so few of our old set left, and so many of the babies grown +up. Sometimes I don't know my own world, it has changed so. It's an +uncomfortable feeling. You give me a pleasant sensation of really +belonging here. I'd be lonesome tonight if I dared. I'm going to miss +Alice so much. There will be only Mother and Baby and I left now. Our +family circle has dwindled woefully." + +"Mother and Baby and you!" Selwyn felt his head whirling again. "Why, +where is Tom?" + +He felt that it was an idiotic question, but it slipped from his +tongue before he could catch it. Esme turned her head and looked at +him wonderingly. He knew that in the sunlight her eyes were as mistily +blue as early meadow violets, but here they looked dark and +unfathomably tender. + +"Tom?" she said perplexedly. "Do you mean Tom St. Clair? He is here, +of course, he and his wife. Didn't you see her? That pretty woman in +pale pink, Lil Meredith. Why, you used to know Lil, didn't you? One of +the Uxbridge Merediths?" + +To the day of his death Selwyn Grant will firmly believe that if he +had not clutched fast hold of the top bar of the gate he would have +tumbled down on the moss under the beeches in speechless astonishment. +All the surprises of that surprising evening were as nothing to this. +He had a swift conviction that there were no words in the English +language that could fully express his feelings and that it would be a +waste of time to try to find any. Therefore he laid hold of the first +baldly commonplace ones that came handy and said tamely, "I thought +you were married to Tom." + +"You--thought--I--was--married--to--Tom!" repeated Esme slowly. "And +have you thought _that_ all these years, Selwyn Grant?" + +"Yes, I have. Is it any wonder? You were engaged to Tom when I went +away, Jenny told me you were. And a year later Bertha wrote me a +letter in which she made some reference to Tom's marriage. She didn't +say to _whom_, but hadn't I the right to suppose it was to you?" + +"Oh!" The word was partly a sigh and partly a little cry of +long-concealed, long-denied pain. "It's been all a funny +misunderstanding. Tom and I _were_ engaged once--a boy-and-girl affair +in the beginning. Then we both found out that we had made a +mistake--that what we had thought was love was merely the affection of +good comrades. We broke our engagement shortly before you went away. +All the older girls knew it was broken but I suppose nobody mentioned +the matter to Jen. She was such a child, we never thought about her. +And you've thought I was Tom's wife all this time? It's--funny." + +"Funny. You mean tragic! Look here, Esme, I'm not going to risk any +more misunderstanding. There's nothing for it but plain talk when +matters get to such a state as this. I love you--and I've loved you +ever since I met you. I went away because I could not stay here and +see you married to another man. I've stayed away for the same reason. +Esme, is it too late? Did you ever care anything for me?" + +"Yes, I did," she said slowly. + +"Do you care still?" he asked. + +She hid her face against his shoulder. "Yes," she whispered. + +"Then we'll go back to the house and be married," he said joyfully. + +Esme broke away and stared at him. "Married!" + +"Yes, married. We've wasted ten years and we're not going to waste +another minute. We're _not_, I say." + +"Selwyn! It's impossible." + +"I have expurgated that word from my dictionary. It's the very +simplest thing when you look at it in an unprejudiced way. Here is a +ready-made wedding and decorations and assembled guests, a minister on +the spot and a state where no licence is required. You have a very +pretty new dress on and you love me. I have a plain gold ring on my +little finger that will fit you. Aren't all the conditions fulfilled? +Where is the sense of waiting and having another family upheaval in a +few weeks' time?" + +"I understand why you have made such a success of the law," said Esme, +"but--" + +"There are no buts. Come with me, Esme. I'm going to hunt up your +mother and mine and talk to them." + +Half an hour later an astonishing whisper went circulating among the +guests. Before they could grasp its significance Tom St. Clair and +Jen's husband, broadly smiling, were hustling scattered folk into the +parlour again and making clear a passage in the hall. The minister +came in with his blue book, and then Selwyn Grant and Esme Graham +walked in hand in hand. + +When the second ceremony was over, Mr. Grant shook his son's hand +vigorously. "There's no need to wish you happiness, son; you've got +it. And you've made one fuss and bother do for both weddings, that's +what I call genius. And"--this in a careful whisper, while Esme was +temporarily obliterated in Mrs. Grant's capacious embrace--"she's got +the right sort of a nose. But your mother is a grand woman, son, a +grand woman." + + + + +At the Bay Shore Farm + + +The Newburys were agog with excitement over the Governor's picnic. As +they talked it over on the verandah at sunset, they felt that life +could not be worth living to those unfortunate people who had not been +invited to it. Not that there were many of the latter in Claymont, for +it was the Governor's native village, and the Claymonters were getting +up the picnic for him during his political visit to the city fifteen +miles away. + +Each of the Newburys had a special reason for wishing to attend the +Governor's picnic. Ralph and Elliott wanted to see the Governor +himself. He was a pet hero of theirs. Had he not once been a Claymont +lad just like themselves? Had he not risen to the highest office in +the state by dint of sheer hard work and persistency? Had he not won a +national reputation by his prompt and decisive measures during the big +strike at Campden? And was he not a man, personally and politically, +whom any boy might be proud to imitate? Yes, to all of these +questions. Hence to the Newbury boys the interest of the picnic +centred in the Governor. + +"I shall feel two inches taller just to get a look at him," said Ralph +enthusiastically. + +"He isn't much to look at," said Frances, rather patronizingly. "I saw +him once at Campden--he came to the school when his daughter was +graduated. He is bald and fat. Oh, of course, he is famous and all +that! But I want to go to the picnic to see Sara Beaumont. She's to be +there with the Chandlers from Campden, and Mary Spearman, who knows +her by sight, is going to point her out to me. I suppose it would be +too much to expect to be introduced to her. I shall probably have to +content myself with just looking at her." + +Ralph resented hearing the Governor called bald and fat. Somehow it +seemed as if his hero were being reduced to the level of common clay. + +"That's like a girl," he said loftily; "thinking more about a woman +who writes books than about a man like the Governor!" + +"I'd rather see Sara Beaumont than forty governors," retorted Frances. +"Why, she's famous--and her books are perfect! If I could ever hope to +write anything like them! It's been the dream of my life just to see +her ever since I read _The Story of Idlewild_. And now to think that +it is to be fulfilled! It seems too good to be true that +tomorrow--tomorrow, Newburys,--I shall see Sara Beaumont!" + +"Well," said Cecilia gently--Cecilia was always gentle even in her +enthusiasm--"I shall like to see the Governor and Sara Beaumont too. +But I'm going to the picnic more for the sake of seeing Nan Harris +than anything else. It's three years since she went away, you know, +and I've never had another chum whom I love so dearly. I'm just +looking forward to meeting her and talking over all our dear, good old +times. I do wonder if she has changed much. But I am sure I shall know +her." + +"By her red hair and her freckles?" questioned Elliott teasingly. +"They'll be the same as ever, I'll be bound." + +Cecilia flushed and looked as angry as she could--which isn't saying +much, after all. She didn't mind when Elliott teased her about her pug +nose and her big mouth, but it always hurt her when he made fun of +Nan. + +Nan's family had once lived across the street from the Newburys. Nan +and Cecilia had been playmates all through childhood, but when both +girls were fourteen the Harrises had moved out west. Cecilia had never +seen Nan since. But now the latter had come east for a visit, and was +with her relatives in Campden. She was to be at the picnic, and +Cecilia's cup of delight brimmed over. + +Mrs. Newbury came briskly into the middle of their sunset plans. She +had been down to the post office, and she carried an open letter in +her hand. + +"Mother," said Frances, straightening up anxiously, "you have a +pitying expression on your face. Which of us is it for--speak +out--don't keep us in suspense. Has Mary Spearman told you that Sara +Beaumont isn't going to be at the picnic?" + +"Or that the Governor isn't going to be there?" + +"Or that Nan Harris isn't coming?" + +"Or that something's happened to put off the affair altogether?" cried +Ralph and Cecilia and Elliott all at once. + +Mrs. Newbury laughed. "No, it's none of those things. And I don't know +just whom I do pity, but it is one of you girls. This is a letter from +Grandmother Newbury. Tomorrow is her birthday, and she wants either +Frances or Cecilia to go out to Ashland on the early morning train and +spend the day at the Bay Shore Farm." + +There was silence on the verandah of the Newburys for the space of ten +seconds. Then Frances burst out with: "Mother, you know neither of us +can go tomorrow. If it were any other day! But the day of the picnic!" + +"I'm sorry, but one of you must go," said Mrs. Newbury firmly. "Your +father said so when I called at the store to show him the letter. +Grandmother Newbury would be very much hurt and displeased if her +invitation were disregarded--you know that. But we leave it to +yourselves to decide which one shall go." + +"Don't do that," implored Frances miserably. "Pick one of us +yourself--pull straws--anything to shorten the agony." + +"No; you must settle it for yourselves," said Mrs. Newbury. But in +spite of herself she looked at Cecilia. Cecilia was apt to be looked +at, someway, when things were to be given up. Mostly it was Cecilia +who gave them up. The family had come to expect it of her; they all +said that Cecilia was very unselfish. + +Cecilia knew that her mother looked at her, but did not turn her face. +She couldn't, just then; she looked away out over the hills and tried +to swallow something that came up in her throat. + +"Glad I'm not a girl," said Ralph, when Mrs. Newbury had gone into the +house. "Whew! Nothing could induce me to give up that picnic--not if a +dozen Grandmother Newburys were offended. Where's your sparkle gone +now, Fran?" + +"It's too bad of Grandmother Newbury," declared Frances angrily. + +"Oh, Fran, she didn't know about the picnic," said Cecilia--but still +without turning round. + +"Well, she needn't always be so annoyed if we don't go when we are +invited. Another day would do just as well," said Frances shortly. +Something in her voice sounded choked too. She rose and walked to the +other end of the verandah, where she stood and scowled down the road; +Ralph and Elliott, feeling uncomfortable, went away. + +The verandah was very still for a little while. The sun had quite set, +and it was growing dark when Frances came back to the steps. + +"Well, what are you going to do about it?" she said shortly. "Which of +us is to go to the Bay Shore?" + +"I suppose I had better go," said Cecilia slowly--very slowly indeed. + +Frances kicked her slippered toe against the fern _jardiniere_. + +"You may see Nan Harris somewhere else before she goes back," she said +consolingly. + +"Yes, I may," said Cecilia. She knew quite well that she would not. +Nan would return to Campden on the special train, and she was going +back west in three days. + +It was hard to give the picnic up, but Cecilia was used to giving +things up. Nobody ever expected Frances to give things up; she was so +brilliant and popular that the good things of life came her way +naturally. It never seemed to matter so much about quiet Cecilia. + + * * * * * + +Cecilia cried herself to sleep that night. She felt that it was +horribly selfish of her to do so, but she couldn't help it. She awoke +in the morning with a confused idea that it was very late. Why hadn't +Mary called her, as she had been told to do? + +Through the open door between her room and Frances's she could see +that the latter's bed was empty. Then she saw a little note, addressed +to her, pinned on the pillow. + + Dear Saint Cecilia [it ran], when you read this I shall be on + the train to Ashland to spend the day with Grandmother + Newbury. You've been giving up things so often and so long + that I suppose you think you have a monopoly of it; but you + see you haven't. I didn't tell you this last night because I + hadn't quite made up my mind. But after you went upstairs, I + fought it out to a finish and came to a decision. Sara + Beaumont would keep, but Nan Harris wouldn't, so you must go + to the picnic. I told Mary to call me instead of you this + morning, and now I'm off. You needn't spoil your fun pitying + me. Now that the wrench is over, I feel a most delightful glow + of virtuous satisfaction! + + Fran. + +If by running after Frances Cecilia could have brought her back, +Cecilia would have run. But a glance at her watch told her that +Frances must already be halfway to Ashland. So she could only accept +the situation. + +"Well, anyway," she thought, "I'll get Mary to point Sara Beaumont out +to me, and I'll store up a description of her in my mind to tell Fran +tonight. I must remember to take notice of the colour of her eyes. +Fran has always been exercised about that." + +It was mid-forenoon when Frances arrived at Ashland station. +Grandmother Newbury's man, Hiram, was waiting for her with the pony +carriage, and Frances heartily enjoyed the three-mile drive to the Bay +Shore Farm. + +Grandmother Newbury came to the door to meet her granddaughter. She +was a tall, handsome old lady with piercing black eyes and thick white +hair. There was no savour of the traditional grandmother of caps and +knitting about her. She was like a stately old princess and, much as +her grandchildren admired her, they were decidedly in awe of her. + +"So it is Frances," she said, bending her head graciously that Frances +might kiss her still rosy cheek. "I expected it would be Cecilia. I +heard after I had written you that there was to be a gubernatorial +picnic in Claymont today, so I was quite sure it would be Cecilia. Why +isn't it Cecilia?" + +Frances flushed a little. There was a meaning tone in Grandmother +Newbury's voice. + +"Cecilia was very anxious to go to the picnic today to see an old +friend of hers," she answered. "She was willing to come here, but you +know, Grandmother, that Cecilia is always willing to do the things +somebody else ought to do, so I decided I would stand on my rights as +'Miss Newbury' for once and come to the Bay Shore." + +Grandmother Newbury smiled. She understood. Frances had always been +her favourite granddaughter, but she had never been blind, +clear-sighted old lady that she was, to the little leaven of +easy-going selfishness in the girl's nature. She was pleased to see +that Frances had conquered it this time. + +"I'm glad it is you who have come--principally because you are +cleverer than Cecilia," she said brusquely. "Or at least you are the +better talker. And I want a clever girl and a good talker to help me +entertain a guest today. She's clever herself, and she likes young +girls. She is a particular friend of your Uncle Robert's family down +south, and that is why I have asked her to spend a few days with me. +You'll like her." + +Here Grandmother Newbury led Frances into the sitting-room. + +"Mrs. Kennedy, this is my granddaughter, Frances Newbury. I told you +about her and her ambitions last night. You see, Frances, we have +talked you over." + +Mrs. Kennedy was a much younger woman than Grandmother Newbury. She +was certainly no more than fifty and, in spite of her grey hair, +looked almost girlish, so bright were her dark eyes, so clear-cut and +fresh her delicate face, and so smart her general appearance. Frances, +although not given to sudden likings, took one for Mrs. Kennedy. She +thought she had never seen so charming a face. + +She found herself enjoying the day immensely. In fact, she forgot the +Governor's picnic and Sara Beaumont altogether. Mrs. Kennedy proved to +be a delightful companion. She had travelled extensively and was an +excellent _raconteur_. She had seen much of men and women and +crystallized her experiences into sparkling little sentences and +epigrams which made Frances feel as if she were listening to one of +the witty people in clever books. But under all her sparkling wit +there was a strongly felt undercurrent of true womanly sympathy and +kind-heartedness which won affection as speedily as her brilliance won +admiration. Frances listened and laughed and enjoyed. Once she found +time to think that she would have missed a great deal if she had not +come to Bay Shore Farm that day. Surely talking to a woman like Mrs. +Kennedy was better than looking at Sara Beaumont from a distance. + +"I've been 'rewarded' in the most approved storybook style," she +thought with amusement. + +In the afternoon, Grandmother Newbury packed Mrs. Kennedy and Frances +off for a walk. + +"The old woman wants to have her regular nap," she told them. +"Frances, take Mrs. Kennedy to the fern walk and show her the famous +'Newbury Bubble' among the rocks. I want to be rid of you both until +tea-time." + +Frances and Mrs. Kennedy went to the fern walk and the beautiful +"Bubble"--a clear, round spring of amber-hued water set down in a cup +of rock overhung with ferns and beeches. It was a spot Frances had +always loved. She found herself talking freely to Mrs. Kennedy of her +hopes and plans. The older woman drew the girl out with tactful +sympathy until she found that Frances's dearest ambition was some day +to be a writer of books like Sara Beaumont. + +"Not that I expect ever to write books like hers," she said hurriedly, +"and I know it must be a long while before I can write anything worth +while at all. But do you think--if I try hard and work hard--that I +might do something in this line some day?" + +"I think so," said Mrs. Kennedy, smiling, "if, as you say, you are +willing to work hard and study hard. There will be a great deal of +both and many disappointments. Sara Beaumont herself had a hard time +at first--and for a very long first too. Her family was poor, you +know, and Sara earned enough money to send away her first manuscripts +by making a pot of jelly for a neighbour. The manuscripts came back, +and Sara made more jelly and wrote more stories. Still they came back. +Once she thought she had better give up writing stories and stick to +the jelly alone. There did seem some little demand for the one and +none at all for the other. But she determined to keep on until she +either succeeded or proved to her own satisfaction that she could make +better jelly than stories. And you see she did succeed. But it means +perseverance and patience and much hard work. Prepare yourself for +that, Frances, and one day you will win your place. Then you will look +back to the 'Newbury Bubble,' and you will tell me what a good +prophetess I was." + +They talked longer--an earnest, helpful talk that went far to inspire +Frances's hazy ambition with a definite purpose. She understood that +she must not write merely to win fame for herself or even for the +higher motive of pure pleasure in her work. She must aim, however +humbly, to help her readers to higher planes of thought and +endeavour. Then and only then would it be worth while. + +"Mrs. Kennedy is going to drive you to the station," said Grandmother +Newbury after tea. "I am much obliged to you, Frances, for giving up +the picnic today and coming to the Bay Shore to gratify an old woman's +inconvenient whim. But I shall not burden you with too much gratitude, +for I think you have enjoyed yourself." + +"Indeed, I have," said Frances heartily. Then she added with a laugh, +"I think I would feel much more meritorious if it had not been so +pleasant. It has robbed me of all the self-sacrificing complacency I +felt this morning. You see, I wanted to go to that picnic to see Sara +Beaumont, and I felt quite like a martyr at giving it up." + +Grandmother Newbury's eyes twinkled. "You would have been beautifully +disappointed had you gone. Sara Beaumont was not there. Mrs. Kennedy, +I see you haven't told our secret. Frances, my dear, let me introduce +you two over again. This lady is Mrs. Sara Beaumont Kennedy, the +writer of _The Story of Idlewild_ and all those other books you so +much admire." + + * * * * * + +The Newburys were sitting on the verandah at dusk, too tired and too +happy to talk. Ralph and Elliott had seen the Governor; more than +that, they had been introduced to him, and he had shaken hands with +them both and told them that their father and he had been chums when +just their size. And Cecilia had spent a whole day with Nan Harris, +who had not changed at all except to grow taller. But there was one +little cloud on her content. + +"I wanted to see Sara Beaumont to tell Frances about her, but I +couldn't get a glimpse of her. I don't even know if she was there." + +"There comes Fran up the station road now," said Ralph. "My eyes, +hasn't she a step!" + +Frances came smiling over the lawn and up the steps. + +"So you are all home safe," she said gaily. "I hope you feasted your +eyes on your beloved Governor, boys. I can tell that Cecilia +forgathered with Nan by the beatific look on her face." + +"Oh, Fran, it was lovely!" cried Cecilia. "But I felt so sorry--why +didn't you let me go to Ashland? It was too bad you missed it--and +Sara Beaumont." + +"Sara Beaumont was at the Bay Shore Farm," said Frances. "I'll tell +you all about it when I get my breath--I've been breathless ever since +Grandmother Newbury told me of it. There's only one drawback to my +supreme bliss--the remembrance of how complacently self-sacrificing I +felt this morning. It humiliates me wholesomely to remember it!" + + + + +Elizabeth's Child + + +The Ingelows, of Ingelow Grange, were not a marrying family. Only one +of them, Elizabeth, had married, and perhaps it was her "poor match" +that discouraged the others. At any rate, Ellen and Charlotte and +George Ingelow at the Grange were single, and so was Paul down at +Greenwood Farm. + +It was seventeen years since Elizabeth had married James Sheldon in +the face of the most decided opposition on the part of her family. +Sheldon was a handsome, shiftless ne'er-do-well, without any violent +bad habits, but also "without any backbone," as the Ingelows declared. +"There is sometimes hope of a man who is actively bad," Charlotte +Ingelow had said sententiously, "but who ever heard of reforming a +jellyfish?" + +Elizabeth and her husband had gone west and settled on a prairie farm +in Manitoba. She had never been home since. Perhaps her pride kept her +away, for she had the Ingelow share of that, and she soon discovered +that her family's estimate of James Sheldon had been the true one. +There was no active resentment on either side, and once in a long +while letters were exchanged. Still, ever since her marriage, +Elizabeth had been practically an outsider and an alien. As the years +came and went the Ingelows at home remembered only at long intervals +that they had a sister on the western prairies. + +One of these remembrances came to Charlotte Ingelow on a spring +afternoon when the great orchards about the Grange were pink and white +with apple and cherry blossoms, and over every hill and field was a +delicate, flower-starred green. A soft breeze was blowing loose petals +from the August Sweeting through the open door of the wide hall when +Charlotte came through it. Ellen and George were standing on the steps +outside. + +"This kind of a day always makes me think of Elizabeth," said +Charlotte dreamily. "It was in apple-blossom time she went away." The +Ingelows always spoke of Elizabeth's going away, never of her +marrying. + +"Seventeen years ago," said Ellen. "Why, Elizabeth's oldest child must +be quite a young woman now! I--I--" a sudden idea swept over and left +her a little breathless. "I would really like to see her." + +"Then why don't you write and ask her to come east and visit us?" +asked George, who did not often speak, but who always spoke to some +purpose when he did. + +Ellen and Charlotte looked at each other. "I would like to see +Elizabeth's child," repeated Ellen firmly. + +"Do you think she would come?" asked Charlotte. "You know when James +Sheldon died five years ago, we wrote to Elizabeth and asked her to +come home and live with us, and she seemed almost resentful in the +letter she wrote back. I've never said so before, but I've often +thought it." + +"Yes, she did," said Ellen, who had often thought so too, but never +said so. + +"Elizabeth was always very independent," remarked George. "Perhaps she +thought your letter savoured of charity or pity. No Ingelow would +endure that." + +"At any rate, you know she refused to come, even for a visit. She said +she could not leave the farm. She may refuse to let her child come." + +"It won't do any harm to ask her," said George. + +In the end, Charlotte wrote to Elizabeth and asked her to let her +daughter visit the old homestead. The letter was written and mailed in +much perplexity and distrust when once the glow of momentary +enthusiasm in the new idea had passed. + +"What if Elizabeth's child is like her father?" queried Charlotte in a +half-whisper. + +"Let us hope she won't be!" cried Ellen fervently. Indeed, she felt +that a feminine edition of James Sheldon would be more than she could +endure. + +"She may not like us, or our ways," sighed Charlotte. "We don't know +how she has been brought up. She will seem like a stranger after all. +I really long to see Elizabeth's child, but I can't help fearing we +have done a rash thing, Ellen." + +"Perhaps she may not come," suggested Ellen, wondering whether she +hoped it or feared it. + +But Worth Sheldon did come. Elizabeth wrote back a prompt acceptance, +with no trace of the proud bitterness that had permeated her answer to +the former invitation. The Ingelows at the Grange were thrown into a +flutter when the letter came. In another week Elizabeth's child would +be with them. + +"If only she isn't like her father," said Charlotte with foreboding, +as she aired and swept the southeast spare room for their expected +guest. They had three spare rooms at the Grange, but the aunts had +selected the southeast one for their niece because it was done in +white, "and white seems the most appropriate for a young girl," Ellen +said, as she arranged a pitcher of wild roses on the table. + +"I think everything is ready," announced Charlotte. "I put the very +finest sheets on the bed, they smell deliciously of lavender, and we +had very good luck doing up the muslin curtains. It is pleasant to be +expecting a guest, isn't it, Ellen? I have often thought, although I +have never said so before, that our lives were too self-centred. We +seemed to have no interests outside of ourselves. Even Elizabeth has +been really nothing to us, you know. She seemed to have become a +stranger. I hope her child will be the means of bringing us nearer +together again." + +"If she has James Sheldon's round face and big blue eyes and curly +yellow hair I shall never really like her, no matter how Ingelowish +she may be inside," said Ellen decidedly. + +When Worth Sheldon came, each of her aunts drew a long breath of +relief. Worth was not in the least like her father in appearance. +Neither did she resemble her mother, who had been a sprightly, +black-haired and black-eyed girl. Worth was tall and straight, with a +long braid of thick, wavy brown hair, large, level-gazing grey eyes, a +square jaw, and an excellent chin with a dimple in it. + +"She is the very image of Mother's sister, Aunt Alice, who died so +long ago," said Charlotte. "You don't remember her, Ellen, but I do +very well. She was the sweetest woman that ever drew breath. She was +Paul's favourite aunt, too," Charlotte added with a sigh. Paul's +antagonistic attitude was the only drawback to the joy of this +meeting. How delightful it would have been if he had not refused to be +there too, to welcome Elizabeth's child. + +Worth came to hearts prepared to love her, but they must have loved +her in any case. In a day Aunt Charlotte and Aunt Ellen and shy, +quiet Uncle George had yielded wholly to her charm. She was girlishly +bright and merry, frankly delighted with the old homestead and the +quaint, old-fashioned, daintily kept rooms. Yet there was no +suggestion of gush about her; she did not go into raptures, but her +pleasure shone out in eyes and tones. There was so much to tell and +ask and remember the first day that it was not until the second +morning after her arrival that Worth asked the question her aunts had +been dreading. She asked it out in the orchard, in the emerald gloom +of a long arcade of stout old trees that Grandfather Ingelow had +planted fifty years ago. + +"Aunt Charlotte, when is Uncle Paul coming up to see me? I long to see +him; Mother has talked so much to me about him. She was his favourite +sister, wasn't she?" + +Charlotte and Ellen looked at each other. Ellen nodded slyly. It would +be better to tell Worth the whole truth at once. She would certainly +find it out soon. + +"I do not think, my dear," said Aunt Charlotte quietly, "that your +Uncle Paul will be up to see you at all." + +"Why not?" asked Worth, her serious grey eyes looking straight into +Aunt Charlotte's troubled dark ones. Aunt Charlotte understood that +Elizabeth had never told Worth anything about her family's resentment +of her marriage. It was not a pleasant thing to have to explain it all +to Elizabeth's child, but it must be done. + +"I think, my dear," she said gently, "that I will have to tell you a +little bit of our family history that may not be very pleasant to hear +or tell. Perhaps you don't know that when your mother married +we--we--did not exactly approve of her marriage. Perhaps we were +mistaken; at any rate it was wrong and foolish to let it come between +us and her as we have done. But that is how it was. None of us +approved, as I have said, but none of us was so bitter as your Uncle +Paul. Your mother was his favourite sister, and he was very deeply +attached to her. She was only a year younger than he. When he bought +the Greenwood farm she went and kept house for him for three years +before her marriage. When she married, Paul was terribly angry. He was +always a strange man, very determined and unyielding. He said he would +never forgive her, and he never has. He has never married, and he has +lived so long alone at Greenwood with only deaf old Mrs. Bree to keep +house for him that he has grown odder than ever. One of us wanted to +go and keep house for him, but he would not let us. And--I must tell +you this although I hate to--he was very angry when he heard we had +invited you to visit us, and he said he would not come near the Grange +as long as you were here. Oh, you can't realize how bitter and +obstinate he is. We pleaded with him, but I think that only made him +worse. We have felt so bad over it, your Aunt Ellen and your Uncle +George and I, but we can do nothing at all." + +Worth had listened gravely. The story was all new to her, but she had +long thought there must be a something at the root of her mother's +indifferent relations with her old home and friends. When Aunt +Charlotte, flushed and half-tearful, finished speaking, a little +glimmer of fun came into Worth's grey eyes, and her dimple was very +pronounced as she said, + +"Then, if Uncle Paul will not come to see me, I must go to see him." + +"My dear!" cried both her aunts together in dismay. Aunt Ellen got her +breath first. + +"Oh, my dear child, you must not think of such a thing," she cried +nervously. "It would never do. He would--I don't know what he would +do--order you off the premises, or say something dreadful. No! No! +Wait. Perhaps he will come after all--we will see. You must have +patience." + +Worth shook her head and the smile in her eyes deepened. + +"I don't think he will come," she said. "Mother has told me something +about the Ingelow stubbornness. She says I have it in full measure, +but I like to call it determination, it sounds so much better. No, the +mountain will not come to Mohammed, so Mohammed will go to the +mountain. I think I will walk down to Greenwood this afternoon. There, +dear aunties, don't look so troubled. Uncle Paul won't run at me with +a pitchfork, will he? He can't do worse than order me off his +premises, as you say." + +Aunt Charlotte shook her head. She understood that no argument would +turn the girl from her purpose if she had the Ingelow will, so she +said nothing more. In the afternoon Worth set out for Greenwood, a +mile away. + +"Oh, what will Paul say?" exclaimed the aunts, with dismal +forebodings. + +Worth met her Uncle Paul at the garden gate. He was standing there +when she came up the slope of the long lane, a tall, massive figure of +a man, with deep-set black eyes, a long, prematurely white beard, and +a hooked nose. Handsome and stubborn enough Paul Ingelow looked. It +was not without reason that his neighbours called him the oddest +Ingelow of them all. + +Behind him was a fine old farmhouse in beautiful grounds. Worth felt +almost as much interested in Greenwood as in the Grange. It had been +her mother's home for three years, and Elizabeth Ingelow had loved it +and talked much to her daughter of it. + +Paul Ingelow did not move or speak, although he probably guessed who +his visitor was. Worth held out her hand. "How do you do, Uncle Paul?" +she said. + +Paul ignored the outstretched hand. "Who are you?" he asked gruffly. + +"I am Worth Sheldon, your sister Elizabeth's daughter," she answered. +"Won't you shake hands with me, Uncle Paul?" + +"I have no sister Elizabeth," he answered unbendingly. + +Worth folded her hands on the gatepost and met his frowning gaze +unshrinkingly. "Oh, yes, you have," she said calmly. "You can't do +away with natural ties by simply ignoring them, Uncle Paul. They go on +existing. I never knew until this morning that you were at enmity with +my mother. She never told me. But she has talked a great deal of you +to me. She has told me often how much you and she loved each other and +how good you always were to her. She sent her love to you." + +"Years ago I had a sister Elizabeth," said Paul Ingelow harshly. "I +loved her very tenderly, but she married against my will a shiftless +scamp who--" + +Worth lifted her hand slightly. "He was my father, Uncle Paul, and he +was always kind to me; whatever his faults may have been I cannot +listen to a word against him." + +"You shouldn't have come here, then," he said, but he said it less +harshly. There was even a certain reluctant approval of this composed, +independent niece in his eyes. "Didn't they tell you at the Grange +that I didn't want to see you?" + +"Yes, they told me this morning, but _I_ wanted to see you, so I came. +Why cannot we be friends, Uncle Paul, not because we are uncle and +niece, but simply because you are you and I am I? Let us leave my +father and mother out of the question and start fair on our own +account." + +For a moment Uncle Paul looked at her. She met his gaze frankly and +firmly, with a merry smile lurking in her eyes. Then he threw back his +head and laughed a hearty laugh that was good to hear. "Very well," he +said. "It is a bargain." + +He put his hand over the gate and shook hers. Then he opened the gate +and invited her into the house. Worth stayed to tea, and Uncle Paul +showed her all over Greenwood. + +"You are to come here as often as you like," he told her. "When a +young lady and I make a compact of friendship I am going to live up to +it. But you are not to talk to me about your mother. Remember, we are +friends because I am I and you are you, and there is no question of +anybody else." + +The Grange Ingelows were amazed to see Paul bringing Worth home in his +buggy that evening. When Worth had gone into the house Charlotte told +him that she was glad to see that he had relented towards Elizabeth's +child. + +"I have not," he made stern answer. "I don't know whom you mean by +Elizabeth's child. That young woman and I have taken a liking for each +other which we mean to cultivate on our own account. Don't call her +Elizabeth's child to me again." + +As the days and weeks went by Worth grew dearer and dearer to the +Grange folk. The aunts often wondered to themselves how they had +existed before Worth came and, oftener yet, how they could do without +her when the time came for her to go home. Meanwhile, the odd +friendship between her and Uncle Paul deepened and grew. They read and +drove and walked together. Worth spent half her time at Greenwood. +Once Uncle Paul said to her, as if speaking half to himself, + +"To think that James Sheldon could have a daughter like you!" + +Up went Worth's head. Worth's grey eyes flashed. "I thought we were +not to speak of my parents?" she said. "You ought not to have been the +first to break the compact, Uncle Paul." + +"I accept the rebuke and beg your pardon," he said. He liked her all +the better for those little flashes of spirit across her girlish +composure. + +One day in September they were together in the garden at Greenwood. +Worth, looking lovingly and regretfully down the sun-flecked avenue of +box, said with a sigh, "Next month I must go home. How sorry I shall +be to leave the Grange and Greenwood. I have had such a delightful +summer, and I have learned to love all the old nooks and corners as +well as if I had lived here all my life." + +"Stay here!" said Uncle Paul abruptly. "Stay here with me. I want you, +Worth. Let Greenwood be your home henceforth and adopt your crusty old +bachelor uncle for a father." + +"Oh, Uncle Paul," cried Worth, "I don't know--I don't think--oh, you +surprise me!" + +"I surprise myself, perhaps. But I mean it, Worth. I am a rich, lonely +old man and I want to keep this new interest you have brought into my +life. Stay with me. I will try to give you a very happy life, my +child, and all I have shall be yours." + +Seeing her troubled face, he added, "There, I don't ask you to decide +right here. I suppose you have other claims to adjust. Take time to +think it over." + +"Thank you," said Worth. She went back to the Grange as one in a +dream and shut herself up in the white southeast room to think. She +knew that she wanted to accept this unexpected offer of Uncle Paul's. +Worth's loyal tongue had never betrayed, even to the loving aunts, any +discontent in the prairie farm life that had always been hers. But it +had been a hard life for the girl, narrow and poverty-bounded. She +longed to put forth her hand and take this other life which opened so +temptingly before her. She knew, too, that her mother, ambitious for +her child, would not be likely to interpose any objections. She had +only to go to Uncle Paul and all that she longed for would be given +her, together with the faithful, protecting fatherly love and care +that in all its strength and sweetness had never been hers. + +She must decide for herself. Not even of Aunt Charlotte or Aunt Ellen +could she ask advice. She knew they would entreat her to accept, and +she needed no such incentive to her own wishes. Far on into the night +Worth sat at the white-curtained dormer window, looking at the stars +over the apple trees, and fighting her battle between inclination and +duty. It was a hard and stubbornly contested battle, but with that +square chin and those unfaltering grey eyes it could end in only one +way. Next day Worth went down to Greenwood. + +"Well, what is it to be?" said Uncle Paul without preface, as he met +her in the garden. + +"I cannot come, Uncle Paul," said Worth steadily. "I cannot give up my +mother." + +"I don't ask you to give her up," he said gruffly. "You can write to +her and visit her. I don't want to come between parent and child." + +"That isn't the point exactly, Uncle Paul. I hope you will not be +angry with me for not accepting your offer. I wanted to--you don't +know how much I wanted to--but I cannot. Mother and I are so much to +each other, Uncle Paul, more, I am sure, than even most mothers and +daughters. You have never let me speak of her, but I must tell you +this. Mother has often told me that when I came to her things were +going very hard with her and that I was heaven's own gift to comfort +and encourage her. Then, in the ten years that followed, the three +other babies that came to her all died before they were two years old. +And with each loss Mother said I grew dearer to her. Don't you see, +Uncle Paul, I'm not merely just one child to her but I'm _all_ those +children? Six years ago the twins were born, and they are dear, bright +little lads, but they are very small yet, so Mother has really nobody +but me. I know she would consent to let me stay here, because she +would think it best for me, but it wouldn't be really best for me; it +couldn't be best for a girl to do what wasn't right. I love you, Uncle +Paul, and I love Greenwood, and I want to stay so much, but I cannot. +I have thought it all over and I must go back to Mother." + +Uncle Paul did not say one word. He turned his back on Worth and +walked the full length of the box alley twice. Worth watched him +wistfully. Was he very angry? Would he forgive her? + +"You are an Ingelow, Worth," he said when he came back. That was all, +but Worth understood that her decision was not to cause any +estrangement between them. + +A month later Worth's last day at the Grange came. She was to leave +for the West the next morning. They were all out in Grandfather +Ingelow's arcade, Uncle George and Aunt Charlotte and Aunt Ellen and +Worth, enjoying the ripe mellow sunshine of the October day, when Paul +Ingelow came up the slope. Worth went to meet him with outstretched +hands. He took them both in his and looked at her very gravely. + +"I have not come to say goodbye, Worth. I will not say it. You are +coming back to me." + +Worth shook her brown head sadly. "Oh, I cannot, Uncle Paul. You +know--I told you--" + +"Yes, I know," he interrupted. "I have been thinking it all over every +day since. You know yourself what the Ingelow determination is. It's a +good thing in a good cause but a bad thing in a bad one. And it is no +easy thing to conquer when you've let it rule you for years as I have +done. But I have conquered it, or you have conquered it for me. Child, +here is a letter. It is to your mother--my sister Elizabeth. In it I +have asked her to forgive me, and to forget our long estrangement. I +have asked her to come back to me with you and her boys. I want you +all--all--at Greenwood and I will do the best I can for you all." + +"Oh, Uncle Paul," cried Worth, her face aglow and quivering with +smiles and tears and sunshine. + +"Do you think she will forgive me and come?" + +"I know she will," cried Worth. "I know how she has longed for you and +home. Oh, I am so happy, Uncle Paul!" + +He smiled at her and put his arm over her shoulder. Together they +walked up the golden arcade to tell the others. That night Charlotte +and Ellen cried with happiness as they talked it over in the twilight. + +"How beautiful!" murmured Charlotte softly. "We shall not lose Worth +after all. Ellen, I could not have borne it to see that girl go +utterly out of our lives again." + +"I always hoped and believed that Elizabeth's child would somehow +bring us all together again," said Ellen happily. + + + + +Freda's Adopted Grave + + +North Point, where Freda lived, was the bleakest settlement in the +world. Even its inhabitants, who loved it, had to admit that. The +northeast winds swept whistling up the bay and blew rawly over the +long hill that sloped down to it, blighting everything that was in +their way. Only the sturdy firs and spruces could hold their own +against it. So there were no orchards or groves or flower gardens in +North Point. + +Just over the hill, in a sheltered southwest valley, was the North +Point church with the graveyard behind it, and this graveyard was the +most beautiful spot in North Point or near it. The North Point folk +loved flowers. They could not have them about their homes, so they had +them in their graveyard. It was a matter of pride with each family to +keep the separate plot neatly trimmed and weeded and adorned with +beautiful blossoms. + +It was one of the unwritten laws of the little community that on some +selected day in May everybody would repair to the graveyard to plant, +trim and clip. It was not an unpleasant duty, even to those whose +sorrow was fresh. It seemed as if they were still doing something for +the friends who had gone when they made their earthly resting places +beautiful. + +As for the children, they looked forward to "Graveyard Day" as a very +delightful anniversary, and it divided its spring honours with the +amount of the herring catch. + +"Tomorrow is Graveyard Day," said Minnie Hutchinson at school recess, +when all the little girls were sitting on the fence. "Ain't I glad! +I've got the loveliest big white rosebush to plant by Grandma +Hutchinson's grave. Uncle Robert sent it out from town." + +"My mother has ten tuberoses to set out," said Nan Gray proudly. + +"We're going to plant a row of lilies right around our plot," said +Katie Morris. + +Every little girl had some boast to make, that is, every little girl +but Freda. Freda sat in a corner all by herself and felt miserably +outside of everything. She had no part or lot in Graveyard Day. + +"Are you going to plant anything, Freda?" asked Nan, with a wink at +the others. + +Freda shook her head mutely. + +"Freda can't plant anything," said Winnie Bell cruelly, although she +did not mean to be cruel. "She hasn't got a grave." + +Just then Freda felt as if her gravelessness were a positive disgrace +and crime, as if not to have an interest in a single grave in North +Point cemetery branded you as an outcast forever and ever. It very +nearly did in North Point. The other little girls pitied Freda, but at +the same time they rather looked down upon her for it with the +complacency of those who had been born into a good heritage of family +graves and had an undisputed right to celebrate Graveyard Day. + +Freda felt that her cup of wretchedness was full. She sat miserably on +the fence while the other girls ran off to play, and she walked home +alone at night. It seemed to her that she could _not_ bear it any +longer. + +Freda was ten years old. Four years ago Mrs. Wilson had taken her from +the orphan asylum in town. Mrs. Wilson lived just this side of the +hill from the graveyard, and everybody in North Point called her a +"crank." They pitied any child she took, they said. It would be worked +to death and treated like a slave. At first they tried to pump Freda +concerning Mrs. Wilson's treatment of her, but Freda was not to be +pumped. She was a quiet little mite, with big, wistful dark eyes that +had a disconcerting fashion of looking the gossips out of countenance. +But if Freda had been disposed to complain, the North Point people +would have found out that they had been only too correct in their +predictions. + +"Mrs. Wilson," Freda said timidly that night, "why haven't we got a +grave?" + +Mrs. Wilson averred that such a question gave her the "creeps." + +"You ought to be very thankful that we haven't," she said severely. +"That Graveyard Day is a heathenish custom, anyhow. They make a +regular picnic of it, and it makes me sick to hear those school girls +chattering about what they mean to plant, each one trying to outblow +the other. If I _had_ a grave there, I wouldn't make a flower garden +of it!" + +Freda did not go to the graveyard the next day, although it was a +holiday. But in the evening, when everybody had gone home, she crept +over the hill and through the beech grove to see what had been done. +The plots were all very neat and prettily set out with plants and +bulbs. Some perennials were already in bud. The grave of Katie Morris' +great-uncle, who had been dead for forty years, was covered with +blossoming purple pansies. Every grave, no matter how small or old, +had its share of promise--every grave except one. Freda came across it +with a feeling of surprise. It was away down in the lower corner where +there were no plots. It was shut off from the others by a growth of +young poplars and was sunken and overgrown with blueberry shrubs. +There was no headstone, and it looked dismally neglected. Freda felt a +sympathy for it. She had no grave, and this grave had nobody to tend +it or care for it. + +When she went home she asked Mrs. Wilson whose it was. + +"Humph!" said Mrs. Wilson. "If you have so much spare time lying round +loose, you'd better put it into your sewing instead of prowling about +graveyards. Do you expect me to work my fingers to the bone making +clothes for you? I wish I'd left you in the asylum. That grave is +Jordan Slade's, I suppose. He died twenty years ago, and a worthless, +drunken scamp he was. He served a term in the penitentiary for +breaking into Andrew Messervey's store, and after it he had the face +to come back to North Point. But respectable people would have nothing +to do with him, and he went to the dogs altogether--had to be buried +on charity when he died. He hasn't any relations here. There was a +sister, a little girl of ten, who used to live with the Cogswells over +at East Point. After Jord died, some rich folks saw her and was so +struck with her good looks that they took her away with them. I don't +know what become of her, and I don't care. Go and bring the cows up." + +When Freda went to bed that night her mind was made up. She would +adopt Jordan Slade's grave. + +Thereafter, Freda spent her few precious spare-time moments in the +graveyard. She clipped the blueberry shrubs and long, tangled grasses +from the grave with a pair of rusty old shears that blistered her +little brown hands badly. She brought ferns from the woods to plant +about it. She begged a root of heliotrope from Nan Gray, a clump of +day lilies from Katie Morris, a rosebush slip from Nellie Bell, some +pansy seed from old Mrs. Bennett, and a geranium shoot from Minnie +Hutchinson's big sister. She planted, weeded and watered faithfully, +and her efforts were rewarded. "Her" grave soon looked as nice as any +in the graveyard. + +Nobody but Freda knew about it. The poplar growth concealed the corner +from sight, and everybody had quite forgotten poor, disreputable +Jordan Slade's grave. At least, it seemed as if everybody had. But one +evening, when Freda slipped down to the graveyard with a little can +of water and rounded the corner of the poplars, she saw a lady +standing by the grave--a strange lady dressed in black, with the +loveliest face Freda had ever seen, and tears in her eyes. + +The lady gave a little start when she saw Freda with her can of water. + +"Can you tell me who has been looking after this grave?" she said. + +"It--it was I," faltered Freda, wondering if the lady would be angry +with her. "Pleas'm, it was I, but I didn't mean any harm. All the +other little girls had a grave, and I hadn't any, so I just adopted +this one." + +"Did you know whose it was?" asked the lady gently. + +"Yes'm--Jordan Slade's. Mrs. Wilson told me." + +"Jordan Slade was my brother," said the lady. "He went sadly astray, +but he was not all bad. He was weak and too easily influenced. But +whatever his faults, he was good and kind--oh! so good and kind--to me +when I was a child. I loved him with all my heart. It has always been +my wish to come back and visit his grave, but I have never been able +to come, my home has been so far away. I expected to find it +neglected. I cannot tell you how pleased and touched I am to find it +kept so beautifully. Thank you over and over again, my dear child!" + +"Then you're not cross, ma'am?" said Freda eagerly. "And I may go on +looking after it, may I? Oh, it just seems as if I couldn't bear not +to!" + +"You may look after it as long as you want to, my dear. I will help +you, too. I am to be at East Point all summer. This will be our +grave--yours and mine." + +That summer was a wonderful one for Freda. She had found a firm friend +in Mrs. Halliday. The latter was a wealthy woman. Her husband had died +a short time previously and she had no children. When she went away in +the fall, Freda went with her "to be her own little girl for always." +Mrs. Wilson consented grudgingly to give Freda up, although she +grumbled a great deal about ingratitude. + +Before they went they paid a farewell visit to their grave. Mrs. +Halliday had arranged with some of the North Point people to keep it +well attended to, but Freda cried at leaving it. + +"Don't feel badly about it, dear," comforted Mrs. Halliday. "We are +coming back every summer to see it. It will always be our grave." + +Freda slipped her hand into Mrs. Halliday's and smiled up at her. + +"I'd never have found you, Aunty, if it hadn't been for this grave," +she said happily. "I'm so glad I adopted it." + + + + +How Don Was Saved + + +Will Barrie went whistling down the lane of the Locksley farm, took a +short cut over a field of clover aftermath and through a sloping +orchard where the trees were laden with apples, and emerged into the +farmhouse yard where Curtis Locksley was sitting on a pile of logs, +idly whittling at a stick. + +"You look as if you had a corner in time, Curt," said Will. "I call +that luck, for I want you to go chestnutting up to Grier's Hill with +me. I met old Tom Grier on the road yesterday, and he told me I might +go any day. Nice old man, Tom Grier." + +"Good!" said Curtis heartily, as he sprang up. "If I haven't exactly a +corner in time, I have a day off, at least. Uncle doesn't need me +today. Wait till I whistle for Don. May as well take him with us." + +Curtis whistled accordingly, but Don, his handsome Newfoundland dog, +did not appear. After calling and whistling about the yard and barns +for several minutes, Curtis turned away disappointedly. + +"He can't be anywhere around. It is very strange. Don never used to go +away from home without me, but lately he has been missing several +times, and twice last week he wasn't here in the morning and didn't +turn up until midday." + +"I'd keep him shut up until I broke him of the habit of playing +truant, if I were you," said Will, as they turned into the lane. + +"Don hates to be shut up, howls all the time so mournfully that I +can't stand it," responded Curtis. + +"Well," said Will, hesitatingly, "maybe that would be better after all +than letting him stray away with other dogs who may teach him bad +habits. I saw Don myself one evening last week ambling down the +Harbour road with that big brown dog of Sam Ventnor's. Ventnor's dog +is beginning to have a bad reputation, you know. There have been +several sheep worried lately, and--" + +"Don wouldn't touch a sheep!" interrupted Curtis hotly. + +"I daresay not, not yet. But Ventnor's dog is under suspicion, and if +Don runs with him he'll learn the trick sure as preaching. The farmers +are growling a good bit already, and if they hear of Don and Ventnor's +dog going about in company, they'll put it on them both. Better keep +Don shut up awhile, let him howl as he likes." + +"I believe I will," said Curtis soberly. "I don't want Don to fall +under suspicion of sheep-worrying, though I'm sure he would never do +it. Anyhow, I don't want him to run with Ventnor's dog. I'll chain him +up in the barn when I go home. I couldn't stand it if anything +happened to Don. After you, he's the only chum I've got--and he's a +good one." + +Will agreed. He was almost as fond of Don as Curtis was. But he did +not feel so sure that the dog would not worry a sheep. Will knew that +Don was suspected already, but he did not like to tell Curtis so. And +of course there was as yet no positive proof--merely mutterings and +suggestions among the Bayside farmers who had lost sheep and were +anxious to locate their slayer. There were many other dogs in Bayside +and the surrounding districts who were just as likely to be the guilty +animals, and Will hoped that if Don were shut up for a time, suspicion +might be averted from him, especially if the worryings still went on. + +He had felt a little doubtful about hinting the truth to Curtis, who +was a high-spirited lad and always resented any slur cast upon Don +much more bitterly than if it were meant for himself. But he knew that +Curtis would take it better from him than from the other Bayside boys, +one or the other of whom would be sure soon to cast something up to +Curtis about his dog. Will felt decidedly relieved to find that Curtis +took his advice in the spirit in which it was offered. + +"Who have lost sheep lately?" queried Curtis, as they left the main +road and struck into a wood path through the ranks of beeches on Tom +Grier's land. + +"Nearly everybody on the Hollow farms," answered Will. "Until last +week nobody on the Hill farms had lost any. But Tuesday night old Paul +Stockton had six fine sheep killed in his upland pasture behind the +fir woods. He is furious about it, I believe, and vows he'll find out +what dog did it and have him shot." + +Curtis looked grave. Paul Stockton's farm was only about a quarter of +a mile from the Locksley homestead, and he knew that Paul had an old +family grudge against his Uncle Arnold, which included his nephew and +all belonging to him. Moreover, Curtis remembered with a sinking heart +that Wednesday morning had been one of the mornings upon which Don was +missing. + +"But I don't care!" he thought miserably. "I know Don didn't kill +those sheep." + +"Talking of old Paul," said Will, who thought it advisable to turn the +conversation, "reminds me that they are getting anxious at the Harbour +about George Finley's schooner, the _Amy Reade_. She was due three +days ago and there's no sign of her yet. And there have been two bad +gales since she left Morro. Oscar Stockton is on board of her, you +know, and his father is worried about him. There are five other men on +her, all from the Harbour, and their folks down there are pretty wild +about the schooner." + +Nothing more was said about the sheep, and soon, in the pleasures of +chestnutting, Curtis forgot his anxiety. Old Tom Grier had called to +the boys as they passed his house to come back and have dinner there +when the time came. This they did, and it was late in the afternoon +when Curtis, with his bag of chestnuts over his shoulder, walked into +the Locksley yard. + +His uncle was standing before the open barn doors, talking to an +elderly, grizzled man with a thin, shrewd face. + +Curtis's heart sank as he recognized old Paul Stockton. What could +have brought him over? + +"Curtis," called his uncle, "come here." + +As Curtis crossed the yard, Don came bounding down the slope from the +house to meet him. He put his hand on the dog's big head and the two +of them walked slowly to the barn. Old Paul included them both in a +vindictive scowl. + +"Curtis," said his uncle gravely, "here's a bad business. Mr. +Stockton tells me that your dog has been worrying his sheep." + +"It's a--" began Curtis angrily. Then he checked himself and went on +more calmly. + +"That can't be so, Mr. Stockton. My dog would not harm anything." + +"He killed or helped to kill six of the finest sheep in my flock!" +retorted old Paul. + +"What proof have you of it?" demanded Curtis, trying to keep his anger +within bounds. + +"Abner Peck saw your dog and Ventnor's running together through my +sheep pasture at sundown on Tuesday evening," answered old Paul. +"Wednesday morning I found this in the corner of the pasture where the +sheep were worried. Your uncle admits that it was tied around your +dog's neck on Tuesday." + +And old Paul held out triumphantly a faded red ribbon. Curtis +recognized it at a glance. It was the ribbon his little cousin, Lena, +had tied around Don's neck Tuesday afternoon. He remembered how they +had laughed at the effect of that frivolous red collar and bow on +Don's massive body. + +"I'm sure Don isn't guilty!" he cried passionately. + +Mr. Locksley shook his head. + +"I'm afraid he is, Curtis. The case looks very black against him, and +sheep-stealing is a serious offence." + +"The dog must be shot," said old Paul decidedly. "I leave the matter +in your hands, Mr. Locksley. I've got enough proof to convict the dog +and, if you don't have him killed, I'll make you pay for the sheep he +worried." + +As old Paul strode away, Curtis looked beseechingly at his uncle. + +"Don mustn't be shot, Uncle!" he said desperately. "I'll chain him up +all the time." + +"And have him howling night and day as if we had a brood of banshees +about the place?" said Mr. Locksley sarcastically. He was a stern man +with little sentiment in his nature and no understanding whatever of +Curtis's affection for Don. The Bayside people said that Arnold +Locksley had always been very severe with his nephew. "No, no, Curtis, +you must look at the matter sensibly. The dog is a nuisance and must +be shot. You can't keep him shut up forever, and, if he has once +learned the trick of sheep-worrying, he will never forget it. You can +get another dog if you must have one. I'll get Charles Pippey to come +and shoot Don tomorrow. No sulking now, Curtis. You are too big a boy +for that. Tie the dog up for the night and then go and put the calves +in. There is a storm coming. The wind is blowing hard from the +northeast now." + +His uncle walked away, leaving the boy white and miserable in the +yard. He looked at Don, who sat on his haunches and returned his gaze +frankly and open-heartedly. He did not look like a guilty dog. Could +it be possible that he had really worried those sheep? + +"I'll never believe it of you, old fellow!" Curtis said, as he led the +dog into a corner of the carriage house and tied him up there. Then he +flung himself down on a pile of sacks beside him and buried his face +in Don's curly black fur. The boy felt sullen, rebellious and +wretched. + +He lay there until dark, thinking his own bitter thoughts and +listening to the rapidly increasing gale. Finally he got up and flung +off after the calves, with Don's melancholy howls at finding himself +deserted ringing in his ears. + +He'll be quiet enough tomorrow night, thought Curtis wretchedly, as he +went upstairs to bed after housing the calves. For a long while he lay +awake, but finally dropped into a heavy slumber which lasted until +his aunt called him for milking. + +The wind was blowing more furiously than ever. Up over the fields came +the roar and crash of the surges on the outside shore. The Harbour to +the east of Bayside was rough and stormy. + +They were just rising from breakfast when Will Barrie burst into the +kitchen. + +"The _Amy Reade_ is ashore on Gleeson's rocks!" he shouted. "Struck +there at daylight this morning! Come on, Curt!" + +Curtis sprang for his cap, his uncle following suit more deliberately. +As the two boys ran through the yard, Curtis heard Don howling. + +"I'll take him with me!" he muttered. "Wait a minute, Will." + +The Harbour road was thronged with people hurrying to the outside +shore, for the news of the _Amy Readers_ disaster had spread rapidly. +As the boys, with the rejoicing Don at their heels, pelted along, Sam +Morrow overtook them in a cart and told them to jump in. Sam had +already been down to the shore and had gone back to tell his father. +As they jolted along, he screamed information at them over the shriek +of the gale. + +"Bad business, this! She's pounding on a reef 'bout a quarter of a +mile out. They're sure she's going to break up--old tub, you +know--leaky--rotten. The sea's tremenjus high, and the surfs going +dean over her. There can't be no boat launched for hours yet--they'll +all be drowned. Old Paul's down there like a madman--offering +everything he's got to the man who'll save Oscar, but it can't be +done." + +By this time they had reached the shore, which was black with excited +people. Out on Gleeson's Reef the ill-fated little schooner was +visible amid the flying spray. A grizzled old Harbour fisherman, to +whom Sam shouted a question, shook his head. + +"No, can't do nothin'! No boat c'd live in that surf f'r a moment. The +schooner'll go to pieces mighty soon, I'm feared. It's turrible! +turrible! to stan' by an' watch yer neighbours drown like this!" + +Curtis and Will elbowed their way down to the water's edge. The +relatives of the crew were all there in various stages of despair, but +old Paul Stockton seemed like a man demented. He ran up and down the +beach, crying and praying. His only son was on the _Amy Reade_, and he +could do nothing to save him! + +"What are they doing?" asked Will of Martin Clark. + +"Trying to get a line ashore by throwing out a small rope with a stick +tied to it," answered Martin. "It's young Stockton that's trying now. +But it isn't any use. The cross-currents on that reef are too +powerful." + +"Why, Don will bring that line ashore!" exclaimed Curtis. "Here, Don! +Don, I say!" + +The dog bounded back along the shore with a quick bark. Curtis grasped +him by the collar and pointed to the stick which young Stockton had +just hurled again into the water. Don, with another bark of +comprehension, dashed into the sea. The onlookers, grasping the +situation, gave a cheer and then relapsed into silence. Only the +shriek of the gale and the crash of the waves could be heard as they +watched the magnificent dog swimming out through the breakers, his big +black head now rising on the crest of a wave and now disappearing in +the hollow behind it. When Don finally reached the tossing stick, +grasped it in his mouth and turned shoreward, another great shout went +up from the beach. A woman behind Curtis, whose husband was on the +schooner, dropped on her knees on the pebbles, sobbing and thanking +God. Curtis himself felt the stinging tears start to his eyes. + +When Don reached the shore he dropped the stick at Curtis's feet and +gave himself a tremendous shake. Curtis caught at the stick, while a +dozen men and women threw themselves bodily on Don, hugging him and +kissing his wet fur like distracted creatures. Old Paul Stockton was +among them. Over his shoulder Don's big black head looked up, his eyes +asking as plainly as speech what all this fuss was about. + +Meanwhile some of the men had already pulled a big hawser ashore and +made it fast. In half an hour the crew of the _Amy Reade_ were safe on +shore, chilled and dripping. Before they were hurried away to warmth +and shelter, old Paul Stockton caught Curtis's hand. The tears were +running freely down his hard, old face. + +"Tell your uncle he is not to lay a finger on that dog!" he said. "He +never killed a sheep of mine--he couldn't! And if he did I don't care! +He's welcome to kill them all, if nothing but mutton'll serve his +turn." + +Curtis walked home with a glad heart. Mr. Locksley heard old Paul's +message with a smile. He, too, had been touched by Don's splendid +feat. + +"Well, Curtis, I'm very glad that it has turned old Paul in his +favour. But we must shut Don up for a week or so, no matter how hard +he takes it. You can see that for yourself. After all, he might have +worried the sheep. And, anyway, he must be broken of his intimacy with +Ventnor's dog." + +Curtis acknowledged the justice of this and poor Don was tied up +again. His captivity was not long, however, for Ventnor's dog was soon +shot. When Don was released, Curtis had an anxious time for a week or +two. But no more sheep were worried, and Don's innocence was +triumphantly established. As for old Paul Stockton, it seemed as if +he could not do enough for Curtis and Don. His ancient grudge against +the Locksleys was completely forgotten, and from that date he was a +firm friend of Curtis. In regard to Don, old Paul would say: + +"Why, there never was such a dog before, sir, never! He just talks +with his eyes, that dog does. And if you'd just 'a' seen him swimming +out to that schooner! Bones? Yes, sir! Every time that dog comes here +he's to get the best bones we've got for him--and more'n bones, too. +That dog's a hero, sir, that's what he is!" + + + + +Miss Madeline's Proposal + + +"Auntie, I have something to tell you," said Lina, with a blush that +made her look more than ever like one of the climbing roses that +nodded about the windows of the "old Churchill place," as it was +always called in Lower Wentworth. + +Miss Madeline, sitting in the low rocker by the parlour window, seemed +like the presiding genius of the place. Everything about her matched +her sweet old-fashionedness, from the crown of her soft brown hair, +dressed in the style of her long ago girlhood, to the toes of her +daintily slippered feet. Outside of the old Churchill place, in the +busy streets of the up-to-date little town, Miss Madeline might have +seemed out of harmony with her surroundings. But here, in this dim +room, faintly scented with whiffs from the rose garden outside, she +was like a note in some sweet, perfect melody of old time. + +Lina, sitting on a little stool at Miss Madeline's feet with her curly +head in her aunt's lap, was as pretty as Miss Madeline herself had +once been. She was also very happy, and her happiness seemed to +envelop her as in an atmosphere and lend her a new radiance and charm. +Miss Madeline loved her pretty niece very dearly and patted the curly +head tenderly with her slender white hands. + +"What is it, my dear?" + +"I'm--I'm engaged," whispered Lina, hiding her face in Miss Madeline's +flowered muslin lap. + +"Engaged!" Miss Madeline's tone was one of surprise and awe. She +blushed as she said the word as deeply as Lina had done. Then she went +on, with a little quiver of excitement in her voice, "To whom, my +dear?" + +"Oh, you don't know him, Auntie, but I hope you will soon. His name is +Ralph Wylde. Isn't it pretty? I met him last winter, and we became +very good friends. But we had a quarrel before I came down here and, +oh, I have been so unhappy over it. Three weeks ago he wrote me and +begged my pardon--so nice of him, because I was really all to blame, +you know. And he said he loved me and--all that, you know." + +"No, I don't know," said Miss Madeline gently. "But--but--I can +imagine." + +"Oh, I was so happy. I wrote back and I had this letter from him +today. He is coming down tomorrow. You'll be glad to see him, won't +you, Auntie?" + +"Oh, yes, my dear, and I am glad for your sake--very glad. You are +sure you love him?" + +"Yes, indeed," said Lina, with a little laugh, as if wondering how +anyone could doubt it. + +Presently, Miss Madeline said in a shy voice, "Lina, did--did you ever +receive a proposal of marriage from anybody besides Mr. Wylde?" + +Lina laughed roguishly. "Why, yes, Auntie, ever so many. A dozen, at +least." + +"Oh, my dear!" cried Miss Madeline in a slightly shocked tone. + +"But I did, really. Sometimes it was horrid and sometimes it was +funny. It all depended on the man. Dear me, how red and uncomfortable +most of them looked--all but the fifth. He was so cool and business +like that he almost surprised me into accepting him." + +"And--and what did you feel like, Lina?" + +"Oh, frightened, mostly--but I always wanted to laugh too. You must +know how it is yourself, Auntie. What did you feel like when somebody +proposed to you?" + +Miss Madeline flushed from chin to brow. + +"Oh, Lina," she faltered as if she were confessing something very +disgraceful, yet to which she was impelled by her strict truthfulness, +"I--I--never had a proposal in my life--not one." + +Lina opened her big brown eyes in amazement. "Why, Aunt Madeline! And +you so pretty! What was the reason?" + +"I've often wondered," said Miss Madeline faintly. "I _was_ pretty, as +you say--it's so long ago I can say that now. And I had many gentlemen +friends. But nobody ever wanted to marry me. I sometimes wish +that--that I could have had just one proposal. Not that I wanted to +marry, you know, I do not mean that, but just so that it wouldn't have +seemed that I was different from anybody else. It is very foolish of +me to wish it, I know, and even wicked--for if I had not cared for the +person it would have made him very unhappy. But then, he would have +forgotten and I would have remembered. It would always have been +something to be a little proud of." + +"Yes," said Lina absently; her thoughts had gone back to Ralph. + +That evening a letter was left at the front door of the old Churchill +place. It was addressed in a scholarly hand to Miss Madeline +Churchill, and Amelia Kent took it in. Amelia had been Miss Madeline's +"help" for years and had grown grey in her service. In Amelia's loyal +eyes Miss Madeline was still young and beautiful; she never doubted +that the letter was for her mistress. Nobody else there was ever +addressed as "Miss Madeline." + +Miss Madeline was sitting by the window of her own room watching the +sunset through the elms and reading her evening portion of Thomas a +Kempis. She never liked to be disturbed when so employed but she read +her letter after Amelia had gone out. + +When she came to a certain paragraph, she turned very pale and Thomas +a Kempis fell to the floor unheeded. When she had finished the letter +she laid it on her lap, clasped her hands, and said, "Oh, oh, oh," in +a faint, tremulous voice. Her cheeks were very pink and her eyes very +bright. She did not even pick up Thomas a Kempis but went to the door +and called Lina. + +"What is it, Auntie?" asked Lina curiously, noticing the signs of +unusual excitement about Miss Madeline. + +Miss Madeline held out her letter with a trembling hand. + +"Lina, dear, this is a letter from the Rev. Cecil Thorne. It--it is--a +proposal of marriage. I feel terribly upset. How very strange that it +should come so soon after our talk this morning! I want you to read +it! Perhaps I ought not to show it to anyone--but I would like you to +see it." + +Lina took the letter and read it through. It was unmistakably a +proposal of marriage and was, moreover, a very charming epistle of its +kind, albeit a little stiff and old-fashioned. + +"How funny!" said Lina when she came to the end. + +"Funny!" exclaimed Miss Madeline, with a trace of indignation in her +gentle voice. + +"Oh, I didn't mean that the letter was funny," Lina hastened to +explain, "only that, as you said, it is odd to think of it coming so +soon after our talk." + +But this was a little fib on Lina's part. She _had_ thought that the +letter or, rather, the fact that it had been written to Miss Madeline, +funny. The Rev. Cecil Thorne was Miss Madeline's pastor. He was a +handsome, scholarly man of middle age, and Lina had seen a good deal +of him during her summer in Lower Wentworth. She had taught the infant +class in Sunday School and sometimes she had thought that the minister +was in love with her. But she must have been mistaken, she reflected; +it must have been her aunt after all, and the Rev. Cecil Thorne's +shyly displayed interest in her must have been purely professional. + +"What a goose I was to be afraid he was in love with me!" she thought. +Aloud she said, "He says he will call tomorrow evening to receive your +answer." + +"And, oh, what can I say to him?" murmured Miss Madeline in dismay. +She wished she had a little of Lina's experience. + +"You are going to--you will accept him, won't you?" asked Lina +curiously. + +"Oh, my dear, no!" cried Miss Madeline almost vehemently. "I couldn't +think of such a thing. I am very sorry; do you think he will feel +badly?" + +"Judging from his letter I feel sure he will," said Lina decidedly. + +Miss Madeline sighed. "Oh, dear me! It is very unpleasant. But of +course I must refuse him. What a beautiful letter he writes too. I +feel very much disturbed by this." + +Miss Madeline picked up Thomas a Kempis, smoothed him out repentantly, +and placed the letter between his leaves. + + * * * * * + +When the Rev. Cecil Thorne called at the old Churchill place next +evening at sunset and asked for Miss Madeline Churchill, Amelia showed +him into the parlour and went to call her mistress. Mr. Thorne sat +down by the window that looked out on the lawn. His heart gave a bound +as he caught a glimpse of an airy white muslin among the trees and a +ripple of distant laughter. The next minute Lina appeared, strolling +down the secluded path that curved about the birches. A young man was +walking beside her with his arm around her. They crossed the green +square before the house and disappeared in the rose garden. + +Mr. Thorne leaned back in his chair and put his hand over his eyes. He +felt that he had received his answer, and it was a very bitter moment +for him. He had hardly dared hope that this bright, beautiful child +could care for him, yet the realization came home to him none the less +keenly. When Miss Madeline, paling and flushing by turns, came shyly +in he had recovered his self-control sufficiently to be able to say +"good evening" in a calm voice. + +Miss Madeline sat down opposite to him. At that moment she was +devoutly thankful that she had never had any other proposal to refuse. +It was a dreadful ordeal. If he would only help her out! But he did +not speak and every moment of silence made it worse. + +"I--received your letter, Mr. Thorne," she faltered at last, looking +distressfully down at the floor. + +"My letter!" Mr. Thorne turned towards her. In her agitation Miss +Madeline did not notice the surprise in his face and tone. + +"Yes," she said, gaining a little courage since the ice was broken. +"It--it--was a very great surprise to me. I never thought you--you +cared for me as--as you said. And I am very sorry because--because I +cannot return your affection. And so, of course, I cannot marry you." + +Mr. Thorne put his hand over his eyes again. He understood now that +there had been some mistake and that Miss Madeline had received the +letter he had written to her niece. Well, it did not matter--the +appearance of the young man in the garden had settled that. Would he +tell Miss Madeline of her mistake? No, it would only humiliate her and +it made no difference, since she had refused him. + +"I suppose it is of no use to ask you to reconsider your decision?" he +said. + +"Oh, no," cried Miss Madeline almost aghast. She was afraid he might +ask it after all. "Not in the least use. I am sorry--so very +sorry--but I could not answer differently. We--I hope--this will make +no difference in our friendly relations, Mr. Thorne?" + +"Not at all," said Mr. Thorne gravely. "We will try to forget that it +has happened." + +He bowed sadly and went out. Miss Madeline watched him guiltily as he +walked across the lawn. He looked heart-broken. How dreadful it had +been! And Lina had refused twelve men! How could she have lived +through it? + +"Perhaps one gets accustomed to doing it," reflected Miss Madeline. +"But I am sure I never could." + +"Did Mr. Thorne feel very badly?" whispered Lina that night. + +"I'm afraid he did," confessed Miss Madeline sorrowfully. "He looked +so pale and sad, Lina, that my heart ached for him. I am very thankful +that I have never had any other proposals to decline. It is a very +unpleasant experience. But," she added, with a little tinge of +satisfaction in her sweet voice, "I am glad I had one. It--it has made +me feel more like other people, you know, dear." + + + + +Miss Sally's Company + + +"How beautiful!" said Mary Seymour delightedly, as they dismounted +from their wheels on the crest of the hill. "Ida, who could have +supposed that such a view would be our reward for climbing that long, +tedious hill with its ruts and stones? Don't you feel repaid?" + +"Yes, but I am dreadfully thirsty," said Ida, who was always practical +and never as enthusiastic over anything as Mary was. Yet she, too, +felt a keen pleasure in the beauty of the scene before them. Almost at +their feet lay the sea, creaming and shimmering in the mellow +sunshine. Beyond, on either hand, stretched rugged brown cliffs and +rocks, here running out to sea in misty purple headlands, there +curving into bays and coves that seemed filled up with sunlight and +glamour and pearly hazes; a beautiful shore and, seemingly, a lonely +one. The only house visible from where the girls stood was a tiny grey +one, with odd, low eaves and big chimneys, that stood down in the +little valley on their right, where the cliffs broke away to let a +brook run out to sea and formed a small cove, on whose sandy shore the +waves lapped and crooned within a stone's throw of the house. On +either side of the cove a headland made out to sea, curving around to +enclose the sparkling water as in a cup. + +"What a picturesque spot!" said Mary. + +"But what a lonely one!" protested Ida. "Why, there isn't another +house in sight. I wonder who lives in it. Anyway, I'm going down to +ask them for a drink of water." + +"I'd like to ask for a square meal, too," said Mary, laughing. "I am +discovering that I am hungry. Fine scenery is very satisfying to the +soul, to be sure, but it doesn't still the cravings of the inner girl. +And we've wheeled ten miles this afternoon. I'm getting hungrier every +minute." + +They reached the little grey house by way of a sloping, grassy lane. +Everything about it was very neat and trim. In front a white-washed +paling shut in the garden which, sheltered as it was by the house, was +ablaze with poppies and hollyhocks and geraniums. A path, bordered by +big white clam shells, led through it to the front door, whose steps +were slabs of smooth red sandstone from the beach. + +"No children here, certainly," whispered Ida. "Every one of those clam +shells is placed just so. And this walk is swept every day. No, we +shall never dare to ask for anything to eat here. They would be afraid +of our scattering crumbs." + +Ida lifted her hand to knock, but before she could do so, the door was +thrown open and a breathless little lady appeared on the threshold. + +She was very small, with an eager, delicately featured face and dark +eyes twinkling behind gold-rimmed glasses. She was dressed +immaculately in an old-fashioned gown of grey silk with a white muslin +fichu crossed over her shoulders, and her silvery hair fell on each +side of her face in long, smooth curls that just touched her shoulders +and bobbed and fluttered with her every motion; behind, it was caught +up in a knot on her head and surmounted by a tiny lace cap. + +She looks as if she had just stepped out of a bandbox of last century, +thought Mary. + +"Are you Cousin Abner's girls?" demanded the little lady eagerly. +There was such excitement and expectation in her face and voice that +both the Seymour girls felt uncomfortably that they ought to be +"Cousin Abner's girls." + +"No," said Mary reluctantly, "we're not. We are only--Martin Seymour's +girls." + +All the light went out of the little lady's face, as if some +illuminating lamp had suddenly been quenched behind it. She seemed +fairly to droop under her disappointment. As for the rest, the name of +Martin Seymour evidently conveyed no especial meaning to her ears. How +could she know that he was a multi-millionaire who was popularly +supposed to breakfast on railroads and lunch on small corporations, +and that his daughters were girls whom all people delighted to honour? + +"No, of course you are not Cousin Abner's girls," she said +sorrowfully. "I'd have known you couldn't be if I had just stopped to +think. Because you are dark and they would be fair, of course; Cousin +Abner and his wife were both fair. But when I saw you coming down the +lane--I was peeking through the hall window upstairs, you know, I and +Juliana--I was sure you were Helen and Beatrice at last. And I can't +help wishing you were!" + +"I wish we were, too, since you expected them," said Mary, smiling. +"But--" + +"Oh, I wasn't really expecting them," broke in the little lady. "Only +I am always hoping that they will come. They never have yet, but +Trenton isn't so very far away, and it is so lonely here. I just long +for company--I and Juliana--and I thought I was going to have it +today. Cousin Abner came to see me once since I moved here and he said +the girls would come, too, but that was six months ago and they +haven't come yet. But perhaps they will soon. It is always something +to look forward to, you know." + +She talked in a sweet, chirpy voice like a bird's. There were pathetic +notes in it, too, as the girls instinctively felt. How very quaint and +sweet and unworldly she was! Mary found herself feeling indignant at +Cousin Abner's girls, whoever they were, for their neglect. + +"We are out for a spin on our wheels," said Ida, "and we are very +thirsty. We thought perhaps you would be kind enough to give us a +drink of water." + +"Oh, my dear, anything--anything I have is at your service," said the +little lady delightedly. "If you will come in, I will get you some +lemonade." + +"I am afraid it is too much trouble," began Mary. + +"Oh, no, no," cried the little lady. "It is a pleasure. I love doing +things for people, I wish more of them would come to give me the +chance. I never have any company, and I do so long for it. It's very +lonesome here at Golden Gate. Oh, if you would only stay to tea with +me, it would make me so happy. I am all prepared. I prepare every +Saturday morning, in particular, so that if Cousin Abner's girls did +come, I would be all ready. And when nobody comes, Juliana and I have +to eat everything up ourselves. And that is bad for us--it gives +Juliana indigestion. If you would only stay!" + +"We will," agreed Ida promptly. "And we're glad of the chance. We are +both terribly hungry, and it is very good of you to ask us." + +"Oh, indeed, it isn't! It's just selfishness in me, that's what it is, +pure selfishness! I want company so much. Come in, my dears, and I +suppose I must introduce myself because you don't know me, do you now? +I'm Miss Sally Temple, and this is Golden Gate Cottage. Dear me, this +_is_ something like living. You are special providences, that you are, +indeed!" + +She whisked them through a quaint little parlour, where everything was +as dainty and neat and old-fashioned as herself, and into a spare +bedroom beyond it, to put off their hats. + +"Now, just excuse me a minute while I run out and tell Juliana that we +are going to have company to tea. She will be so glad, Juliana will. +Make yourselves at home, my dears." + +"Isn't she delicious?" said Mary, when Miss Sally had tripped out. +"I'd like to shake Cousin Abner's girls. This is what Dot Halliday +would call an adventure, Ida." + +"Isn't it! Miss Sally and this quaint old spot both seem like a +chapter out of the novels our grandmothers cried over. Look here, +Mary, she is lonely and our visit seems like a treat to her. Let us +try to make it one. Let's just chum with her and tell her all about +ourselves and our amusements and our dresses. That sounds frivolous, +but you know what I mean. She'll like it. Let's be company in real +earnest for her." + +When Miss Sally came back, she was attended by Juliana carrying a tray +of lemonade glasses. Juliana proved to be a diminutive lass of about +fourteen whose cheerful, freckled face wore an expansive grin of +pleasure. Evidently Juliana was as fond of "company" as her mistress +was. Afterwards, the girls overheard a subdued colloquy between Miss +Sally and Juliana out in the hall. + +"Go set the table, Juliana, and put on Grandmother Temple's wedding +china--be sure you dust it carefully--and the best tablecloth--and be +sure you get the crease straight--and put some sweet peas in the +centre--and be sure they are fresh. I want everything extra nice, +Juliana." + +"Yes'm, Miss Sally, I'll see to it. Isn't it great to have company, +Miss Sally?" whispered Juliana. + +The Seymour girls long remembered that tea table and the delicacies +with which it was heaped. Privately, they did not wonder that Juliana +had indigestion when she had to eat many such unaided. Being hungry, +they did full justice to Miss Sally's good things, much to that little +lady's delight. + +She told them all about herself. She had lived at Golden Gate Cottage +only a year. + +"Before that, I lived away down the country at Millbridge with a +cousin. My Uncle Ephraim owned Golden Gate Cottage, and when he died +he left it to me and I came here to live. It is a pretty place, isn't +it? You see those two headlands out there? In the morning, when the +sun rises, the water between them is just a sea of gold, and that is +why Uncle Ephraim had a fancy to call his place Golden Gate. I love it +here. It is so nice to have a home of my own. I would be quite content +if I had more company. But I have you today, and perhaps Beatrice and +Helen will come next week. So I've really a great deal to be thankful +for." + +"What is your Cousin Abner's other name?" asked Mary, with a vague +recollection of hearing of Beatrice and Helen--somebody--in Trenton. + +"Reed--Abner Abimelech Reed," answered Miss Sally promptly. "A.A. +Reed, he signs himself now. He is very well-to-do, I am told, and he +carries on business in town. He was a very fine young man, my Cousin +Abner. I don't know his wife." + +Mary and Ida exchanged glances. Beatrice and Helen Reed! They knew +them slightly as the daughters of a new-rich family who were +hangers-on of the fashionable society in Trenton. They were regarded +as decidedly vulgar, and so far their efforts to gain an entry into +the exclusive circle where the Seymours and their like revolved had +not been very successful. + +"I'm afraid Miss Sally will wait a long while before she sees Cousin +Abner's girls," said Mary, when they had gone back to the parlour and +Miss Sally had excused herself to superintend the washing of +Grandmother Temple's wedding china. "They probably look on her as a +poor relation to be ignored altogether; whereas, if they were only +like her, Trenton society would have made a place for them long ago." + +The Seymour girls enjoyed that visit as much as Miss Sally did. She +was eager to hear all about their girlish lives and amusements. They +told her of their travels, of famous men and women they had seen, of +parties they had attended, the dresses they wore, the little fads and +hobbies of their set--all jumbled up together and all listened to +eagerly by Miss Sally and also by Juliana, who was permitted to sit on +the stairs out in the hall and so gather in the crumbs of this +intellectual feast. + +"Oh, you've been such pleasant company," said Miss Sally when the +girls went away. + +Mary took the little lady's hands in hers and looked affectionately +down into her face. + +"Would you like it--you and Juliana--if we came out to see you often? +And perhaps brought some of our friends with us?" + +"Oh, if you only would!" breathed Miss Sally. + +Mary laughed and, obeying a sudden impulse, bent and kissed Miss +Sally's cheek. + +"We'll come then," she promised. "Please look upon us as your 'steady +company' henceforth." + +The girls kept their word. Thereafter, nearly every Saturday of the +summer found them taking tea with Miss Sally at Golden Gate. Sometimes +they came alone; sometimes they brought other girls. It soon became a +decided "fad" in their set to go to see Miss Sally. Everybody who met +her loved her at sight. It was considered a special treat to be taken +by the Seymours to Golden Gate. + +As for Miss Sally, her cup of happiness was almost full. She had +"company" to her heart's content and of the very kind she +loved--bright, merry, fun-loving girls who devoured her dainties with +a frank zest that delighted her, filled the quaint old rooms with +laughter and life, and chattered to her of all their plans and frolics +and hopes. There was just one little cloud on Miss Sally's fair sky. + +"If only Cousin Abner's girls would come!" she once said wistfully to +Mary. "Nobody can quite take the place of one's own, you know. My +heart yearns after them." + +Mary was very silent and thoughtful as she drove back to Trenton that +night. Two days afterwards, she went to Mrs. Gardiner's lawn party. +The Reed girls were there. They were tall, fair, handsome girls, +somewhat too lavishly and pronouncedly dressed in expensive gowns and +hats, and looking, as they felt, very much on the outside of things. +They brightened and bridled, however, when Mrs. Gardiner brought Mary +Seymour up and introduced her. If there was one thing on earth that +the Reed girls longed for more than another it was to "get in" with +the Seymour girls. + +After Mary had chatted with them for a few minutes in a friendly way, +she said, "I think we have a mutual friend in Miss Sally Temple of +Golden Gate, haven't we? I'm sure I've heard her speak of you." + +The Reed girls flushed. They did not care to have the rich Seymour +girls know of their connection with that queer old cousin of their +father's who lived in that out-of-the-world spot up-country. + +"She is a distant cousin of ours," said Beatrice carelessly, "but +we've never met her." + +"Oh, how much you have missed!" said Mary frankly. "She is the +sweetest and most charming little lady I have ever met, and I am proud +to number her among my friends. Golden Gate is such an idyllic little +spot, too. We go there so often that I fear Miss Sally will think we +mean to outwear our welcome. We hope to have her visit us in town this +winter. Well, good-by for now. I'll tell Miss Sally I've met you. She +will be pleased to hear about you." + +When Mary had gone, the Reed girls looked at each other. + +"I suppose we ought to have gone to see Cousin Sally before," said +Beatrice. "Father said we ought to." + +"How on earth did the Seymours pick her up?" said Helen. "Of course we +must go and see her." + +Go they did. The very next day Miss Sally's cup of happiness brimmed +right over, for Cousin Abner's girls came to Golden Gate at last. They +were very nice to her, too. Indeed, in spite of a good deal of +snobbishness and false views of life, they were good-hearted girls +under it all; and some plain common sense they had inherited from +their father came to the surface and taught them to see that Miss +Sally was a relative of whom anyone might be proud. They succumbed to +her charm, as the others had done, and thoroughly enjoyed their visit +to Golden Gate. They went away promising to come often again; and I +may say right here that they kept their promise, and a real friendship +grew up between Miss Sally and "Cousin Abner's girls" that was +destined to work wonders for the latter, not only socially and +mentally but spiritually as well, for it taught them that sincerity +and honest kindliness of heart and manner are the best passports +everywhere, and that pretence of any kind is a vulgarity not to be +tolerated. This took time, of course. The Reed girls could not discard +their snobbishness all at once. But in the end it was pretty well +taken out of them. + +Miss Sally never dreamed of this or the need for it. She loved Cousin +Abner's girls from the first and always admired them exceedingly. + +"And then it is so good to have your own folks coming as company," she +told the Seymour girls. "Oh, I'm just in the seventh heaven of +happiness. But, dearies, I think you will always be my favourites--mine +and Juliana's. I've plenty of company now and it's all thanks to you." + +"Oh, no," said Mary quickly. "Miss Sally, your company comes to you +for just your own sake. You've made Golden Gate a veritable Mecca for +us all. You don't know and you never will know how much good you have +done us. You are so good and true and sweet that we girls all feel as +if we were bound to live up to you, don't you see? And we all love +you, Miss Sally." + +"I'm so glad," breathed Miss Sally with shining eyes, "and so is +Juliana." + + + + +Mrs. March's Revenge + + +"I declare, it is a real fall day," said Mrs. Stapp, dropping into a +chair with a sigh of relief as Mrs. March ushered her into the cosy +little sitting-room. "The wind would chill the marrow in your bones; +winter'll be here before you know it." + +"That's so," assented Mrs. March, bustling about to stir up the fire. +"But I don't know as I mind it at all. Winter is real pleasant when it +does come, but I must say, I don't fancy these betwixt-and-between +days much. Sit up to the fire, Theodosia. You look real blue." + +"I feel so too. Lawful heart, but this is comfort. This chimney-corner +of yours, Anna, is the cosiest spot in the world." + +"When did you get home from Maitland?" asked Mrs. March. "Did you +have a pleasant time? And how did you leave Emily and the children?" + +Mrs. Stapp took this trio of interrogations in calm detail. + +"I came home Saturday," she said, as she unrolled her knitting. "Nice +wet day it was too! And as for my visit, yes, I enjoyed myself pretty, +well, not but what I worried over Peter's rheumatism a good deal. +Emily is well, and the children ought to be, for such rampageous young +ones I never saw! Emily can't do no more with them than an old hen +with a brood of ducks. But, lawful heart, Anna, don't mind about my +little affairs! The news Peter had for me about you when I got home +fairly took my breath. He came down to the garden gate to shout it +before I was out of the wagon. I couldn't believe but what he was +joking at first. You should have seen Peter. He had an old red shawl +tied round his rheumatic shoulder, and he was waving his arms like a +crazy man. I declare, I thought the chimney was afire! Theodosia, +Theodosia!' he shouted. 'Anna March has had a fortune left her by her +brother in Australy, and she's bought the old Carroll place, and is +going to move up there!' That was his salute when I got home. I'd have +been over before this to hear all about it, but things were at such +sixes and sevens in the house that I couldn't go visiting until I'd +straightened them out a bit. Peter's real neat, as men go, but, lawful +heart, such a mess as he makes of housekeeping! I didn't know you had +a brother living." + +"No more did I, Theodosia. I thought, as everyone else did, that poor +Charles was at the bottom of the sea forty years ago. It's that long +since he ran away from home. He had a quarrel with Father, and he was +always dreadful high-spirited. He went to sea, and we heard that he +had sailed for England in the _Helen Ray_. She was never heard of +after, and we all supposed that my poor brother had perished with her. +And four weeks ago I got a letter from a firm of lawyers in Melbourne, +Australia, saying that my brother, Charles Bennett, had died and left +all his fortune to me. I couldn't believe it at first, but they sent +me some things of his that he had when he left home, and there was an +old picture of myself among them with my name written on it in my own +hand, so then I knew there was no mistake. But whether Charles did +sail in the _Helen Ray_, or if he did, how he escaped from her and got +to Australia, I don't know, and it isn't likely I ever will." + +"Well, of all wonderful things!" commented Mrs. Stapp. + +"I was glad to hear that I was heir to so much money," said Mrs. March +firmly. "At first I felt as if it were awful of me to be glad when it +came to me by my brother's death. But I mourned for poor Charles forty +years ago, and I can't sense that he has only just died. Not but what +I'd rather have seen him come home alive than have all the money in +the world, but it has come about otherwise, and as the money is +lawfully mine, I may as well feel pleased about it." + +"And you've bought the Carroll place," said Mrs. Stapp, with the +freedom of a privileged friend. "Whatever made you do it? I'm sure you +are as cosy here as need be, and nobody but yourself. Isn't this house +big enough for you?" + +"No, it isn't. All my life I've been hankering for a good, big, roomy +house, and all my life I've had to put up with little boxes of places, +not big enough to turn round in. I've been contented, and made the +best of what I had, but now that I can afford it, I mean to have a +house that will suit me. The Carroll house is just what I want, for +all it is a little old-fashioned. I've always had a notion of that +house, although I never expected to own it any more than the moon." + +"It's a real handsome place," admitted Mrs. Stapp, "but I expect it +will need a lot of fixing up. Nobody has lived in it for six years. +When are you going to move in?" + +"In about three weeks, if all goes well. I'm having it all painted and +done over inside. The outside can wait until the spring." + +"It's queer how things come about," said Mrs. Stapp meditatively. "I +guess old Mrs. Carroll never imagined her home was going to pass into +other folks' hands as it has. When you and I were girls, and Louise +Carroll was giving herself such airs over us, you didn't much expect +to ever stand in her shoes, did you? Do you remember Lou?" + +"Yes, I do," said Mrs. March sharply. A change came over her sonsy, +smiling face. It actually looked hard and revengeful, and a cruel +light flickered in her dark brown eyes. "I'll not forget Lou Carroll +as long as I live. She is the only person in this world I ever hated. +I suppose it is sinful to say it, but I hate her still, and always +will." + +"I never liked her myself," admitted Mrs. Stapp. "She thought herself +above us all. Well, for that matter I suppose she was--but she needn't +have rubbed it in so." + +"Well, she might have been above me," said Mrs. March bitterly, "but +she wasn't above twitting and snubbing me every chance she got. She +always had a spite at me from the time we were children together at +school. When we grew up it was worse. I couldn't begin to tell you all +the times that girl insulted me. But there was once in particular--I'll +never forgive her for it. I was at a party, and she was there too, and +so was that young Trenham Manning, who was visiting the Ashleys. Do you +remember him, Dosia? He was a handsome young fellow, and Lou had a +liking for him, so all the girls said. But he never looked at her that +night, and he kept by me the whole time. It made Lou furious, and at +last she came up to me with a sneer on her face, and her black eyes +just snapping, and said, 'Miss Bennett, Mother told me to tell you to +tell your ma that if that plain sewing isn't done by tomorrow night +she'll send for it and give it to somebody else; if people engage to +have work done by a certain time and don't keep their word, they +needn't expect to get it.' Oh, how badly I felt! Mother and I were +poor, and had to work hard, but we had feelings just like other +people, and to be insulted like that before Trenham Manning! I just +burst out crying then and there, and ran away and hid. It was very +silly of me, but I couldn't help it. That stings me yet. If I was ever +to get a chance to pay Lou Carroll out for that, I'd take it without +any compunction." + +"Oh, but that is unchristian!" protested Mrs. Stapp feebly. + +"Perhaps so, but it's the way I feel. Old Parson Jones used to say +that people were marbled good and bad pretty even, but that in +everybody there were one or two streaks just pure wicked. I guess Lou +Carroll is my wicked streak. I haven't seen or heard of her for +years--ever since she married that worthless Dency Baxter and went +away. She may be dead for all I know. I don't expect ever to have a +chance to pay her out. But mark what I say, Theodosia, if I ever have, +I will." + +Mrs. March snipped off her thread, as if she challenged the world. +Mrs. Stapp felt uncomfortable over the unusual display of feeling she +had evoked, and hastened to change the subject. + +In three weeks' time Mrs. March was established in her new home, and +the "old Carroll house" blossomed out into renewed splendour. +Theodosia Stapp, who had dropped in to see it, was in a rapture of +admiration. + +"You have a lovely home now, Anna. I used to think it fine enough in +the Carrolls' time, but it wasn't as grand as this. And that reminds +me, I have something to tell you, but I don't want you to get as +excited as you did the last time I mentioned her name. You remember +the last day I was to see you we were talking of Lou Carroll? Well, +next day I was downtown in a store, and who should sail in but Mrs. +Joel Kent, from Oriental. You know Mrs. Joel--Sarah Chapple that was? +She and her man keep a little hotel up at Oriental. They're not very +well off. She is a cousin of old Mrs. Carroll, but, lawful heart, the +Carrolls didn't used to make much of the relationship! Well, Mrs. Joel +and I had a chat. She told me all her troubles--she always has lots of +them. Sarah was always of a grumbling turn, and she had a brand-new +stock of them this time. What do you think, Anna March? Lou +Carroll--or Mrs. Baxter, I suppose I should say--is up there at Joel +Kent's at Oriental, dying of consumption; leastwise, Mrs. Joel says +she is." + +"Lou Carroll dying at Oriental!" cried Mrs. March. + +"Yes. She came there from goodness knows where, about a month +ago--might as well have dropped from the clouds, Mrs. Joel says, for +all she expected of it. Her husband is dead, and I guess he led her a +life of it when he was alive, and she's as poor as second skimmings. +She was aiming to come here, Mrs. Joel says, but when she got to +Oriental she wasn't fit to stir a step further, and the Kents had to +keep her. I gather from what Mrs. Joel said that she's rather touched +in her mind too, and has an awful hankering to get home here--to this +very house. She appears to have the idea that it is hers, and all +just the same as it used to be. I guess she is a sight of trouble, and +Mrs. Joel ain't the woman to like that. But there! She has to work +most awful hard, and I suppose a sick person doesn't come handy in a +hotel. I guess you've got your revenge, Anna, without lifting a finger +to get it. Think of Lou Carroll coming to that!" + +The next day was cold and raw. The ragged, bare trees in the old +Carroll grounds shook and writhed in the gusts of wind. Now and then a +drifting scud of rain dashed across the windows. Mrs. March looked out +with a shiver, and turned thankfully to her own cosy fireside again. + +Presently she thought she heard a low knock at the front door, and +went to see. As she opened it a savage swirl of damp wind rushed in, +and the shrinking figure leaning against one of the fluted columns of +the Grecian porch seemed to cower before its fury. It was a woman who +stood there, a woman whose emaciated face wore a piteous expression, +as she lifted it to Mrs. March. + +"You don't know me, of course," she said, with a feeble attempt at +dignity. "I am Mrs. Baxter. I--I used to live here long ago. I thought +I'd walk over today and see my old home." + +A fit of coughing interrupted her words, and she trembled like a leaf. + +"Gracious me!" exclaimed Mrs. March blankly. "You don't mean to tell +me that you have walked over from Oriental today--and you a sick +woman! For pity's sake, come in, quick. And if you're not wet to the +skin!" + +She fairly pulled her visitor into the hall, and led her to the +sitting-room. + +"Sit down. Take this big easy-chair right up to the fire--so. Let me +take your bonnet and shawl. I must run right out to tell Hannah to get +you a hot drink." + +"You are very kind," whispered the other. "I don't know you, but you +look like a woman I used to know when I was a girl. She was a Mrs. +Bennett, and she had a daughter, Anna. Do you know what became of her? +I forget. I forget everything now." + +"My name is March," said Mrs. March briefly, ignoring the question. "I +don't suppose you ever heard it before." + +She wrapped her own warm shawl about the other woman's thin shoulders. +Then she hastened to the kitchen and soon returned, carrying a tray of +food and a steaming hot drink. She wheeled a small table up to her +visitor's side and said, very kindly, + +"Now, take a bite, my dear, and this raspberry vinegar will warm you +right up. It is a dreadful day for you to be out. Why on earth didn't +Joel Kent drive you over?" + +"They didn't know I was coming," whispered Mrs. Baxter anxiously. +"I--I ran away. Sarah wouldn't have let me come if she had known. But +I wanted to come so much. It is so nice to be home again." + +Mrs. March watched her guest as she ate and drank. It was plain enough +that her mind, or rather her memory, was affected. She did not +realize that this was no longer her home. At moments she seemed to +fancy herself back in the past again. Once or twice she called Mrs. +March "Mother." + +Presently a sharp knock was heard at the hall door. Mrs. March excused +herself and went out. In the porch stood Theodosia Stapp and a woman +whom Mrs. March did not at first glance recognize--a tall, +aggressive-looking person, whose sharp black eyes darted in past Mrs. +March and searched every corner of the hall before anyone had time to +speak. + +"Lawful heart!" puffed Mrs. Stapp, as she stepped in out of the biting +wind. "I'm right out of breath. Mrs. March, allow me to introduce Mrs. +Kent. We're looking for Mrs. Baxter. She has run away, and we thought +perhaps she came here. Did she?" + +"She is in my sitting-room now," said Mrs. March quietly. + +"Didn't I say so?" demanded Mrs. Kent, turning to Mrs. Stapp. She +spoke in a sharp, high-pitched tone that grated on Mrs. March's +nerves. "Doesn't she beat all! She slipped away this morning when I +was busy in the kitchen. And to think of her walking six miles over +here in this wind! I dunno how she did it. I don't believe she's half +as sick as she pretends. Well, I've got my wagon out here, Mrs. March, +and I'll be much obliged if you'll tell her I'm here to take her home. +I s'pose we'll have a fearful scene." + +"I don't see that there is any call for a scene," said Mrs. March +firmly. "The poor woman has just got here, and she thinks she has got +home. She might as well think so if it is of any comfort to her. You'd +better leave her here." + +Theodosia gave a stifled gasp of amazement, but Mrs. March went +serenely on. + +"I'll take care of the poor soul as long as she needs it--and that +will not be very long in my opinion, for if ever I saw death in a +woman's face, it is looking out of hers. I've plenty of time to look +after her and make her comfortable." + +Mrs. Joel Kent was voluble in her thanks. It was evident that she was +delighted to get the sick woman off her hands. Mrs. March cut her +short with an invitation to stay to tea, but Mrs. Kent declined. + +"I've got to hurry home straight off and get the men's suppers. Such a +scamper to have over that woman! I'm sure I'm thankful you're willing +to let her stay, for she'd never be contented anywhere else. I'll send +over what few things she has tomorrow." + +When Mrs. Kent had gone, Mrs. March and Mrs. Stapp looked at each +other. + +"And so this is your revenge, Anna March?" said the latter solemnly. +"Do you remember what you said to me about her?" + +"Yes, I do, Theodosia, and I thought I meant every word of it. But I +guess my wicked streak ran out just when I needed it to depend on. +Besides, you see, I've thought of Lou Carroll all these years as she +was when I knew her--handsome and saucy and proud. But that poor +creature in there isn't any more like the Lou Carroll I knew than you +are--not a mite. The old Lou Carroll is dead already, and my spite is +dead with her. Will you come in and see her?" + +"Well, no, not just now. She wouldn't know me, and Mrs. Joel says +strangers kind of excite her--a pretty bad place the hotel would be +for her at that rate, I should think. I must go and tell Peter about +it, and I'll send up some of my black currant jam for her." + +When Mrs. Stapp had gone, Mrs. March went back to her guest. Lou +Baxter had fallen asleep with her head pillowed on the soft plush back +of her chair. Mrs. March looked at the hollow, hectic cheeks and the +changed, wasted features, and her bright brown eyes softened with +tears. + +"Poor Lou," she said softly, as she brushed a loose lock of grey hair +back from the sleeping woman's brow. + + + + +Nan + + +Nan was polishing the tumblers at the pantry window, outside of which +John Osborne was leaning among the vines. His arms were folded on the +sill and his straw hat was pushed back from his flushed, eager face as +he watched Nan's deft movements. + +Beyond them, old Abe Stewart was mowing the grass in the orchard with +a scythe and casting uneasy glances at the pair. Old Abe did not +approve of John Osborne as a suitor for Nan. John was poor; and old +Abe, although he was the wealthiest farmer in Granville, was bent on +Nan's making a good match. He looked upon John Osborne as a mere +fortune-hunter, and it was a thorn in the flesh to see him talking to +Nan while he, old Abe, was too far away to hear what they were saying. +He had a good deal of confidence in Nan, she was a sensible, +level-headed girl. Still, there was no knowing what freak even a +sensible girl might take into her head, and Nan was so determined when +she did make up her mind. She was his own daughter in that. + +However, old Abe need not have worried himself. It could not be said +that Nan was helping John Osborne on in his wooing at all. Instead, +she was teasing and snubbing him by turns. + +Nan was very pretty. Moreover, Nan was well aware of the fact. She +knew that the way her dark hair curled around her ears and forehead +was bewitching; that her complexion was the envy of every girl in +Granville; that her long lashes had a trick of drooping over very +soft, dark eyes in a fashion calculated to turn masculine heads +hopelessly. John Osborne knew all this too, to his cost. He had called +to ask Nan to go with him to the Lone Lake picnic the next day. At +this request Nan dropped her eyes and murmured that she was sorry, but +he was too late--she had promised to go with somebody else. There was +no need of Nan's making such a mystery about it. The somebody else was +her only cousin, Ned Bennett, who had had a quarrel with his own girl; +the latter lived at Lone Lake, and Ned had coaxed Nan to go over with +him and try her hand at patching matters up between him and his +offended lady-love. And Nan, who was an amiable creature and +tender-hearted where anybody's lover except her own was concerned, had +agreed to go. + +But John Osborne at once jumped to the conclusion--as Nan had very +possibly meant him to do--that the mysterious somebody was Bryan Lee, +and the thought was gall and wormwood to him. + +"Whom are you going with?" he asked. + +"That would be telling," Nan said, with maddening indifference. + +"Is it Bryan Lee?" demanded John. + +"It might be," said Nan reflectively, "and then again, you know, it +mightn't." + +John was silent; he was no match for Nan when it came to a war of +words. He scowled moodily at the shining tumblers. + +"Nan, I'm going out west," he said finally. + +Nan stared at him with her last tumbler poised in mid-air, very much +as if he had announced his intention of going to the North Pole or +Equatorial Africa. + +"John Osborne, are you crazy?" + +"Not quite. And I'm in earnest, I can tell you that." + +Nan set the glass down with a decided thud. John's curtness displeased +her. He needn't suppose that it made any difference to her if he took +it into his stupid head to go to Afghanistan. + +"Oh!" she remarked carelessly. "Well, I suppose if you've got the +Western fever your case is hopeless. Would it be impertinent to +inquire why you are going?" + +"There's nothing else for me to do, Nan," said John, "Bryan Lee is +going to foreclose the mortgage next month and I'll have to clear out. +He says he can't wait any longer. I've worked hard enough and done my +best to keep the old place, but it's been uphill work and I'm beaten +at last." + +Nan sat blankly down on the stool by the window. Her face was a study +which John Osborne, watching old Abe's movements, missed. + +"Well, I never!" she gasped. "John Osborne, do you mean to tell me +that Bryan Lee is going to do that? How did he come to get your +mortgage?" + +"Bought it from old Townsend," answered John briefly. "Oh, he's within +his rights, I'll admit. I've even got behind with the interest this +past year. I'll go out west and begin over again." + +"It's a burning shame!" said Nan violently. + +John looked around in time to see two very red spots on her cheeks. + +"You don't care though, Nan." + +"I don't like to see anyone unjustly treated," declared Nan, "and that +is what you've been. You've never had half a chance. And after the way +you've slaved, too!" + +"If Lee would wait a little I might do something yet, now that Aunt +Alice is gone," said John bitterly. "I'm not afraid of work. But he +won't; he means to take his spite out at last." + +Nan hesitated. + +"Surely Bryan isn't so mean as that," she stammered. "Perhaps he'll +change his mind if--if--" + +Osborne wheeled about with face aflame. + +"Don't you say a word to him about it, Nan!" he cried. "Don't you go +interceding with him for me. I've got some pride left. He can take the +farm from me, and he can take you maybe, but he can't take my +self-respect. I won't beg him for mercy. Don't you dare to say a word +to him about it." + +Nan's eyes flashed. She was offended to find her sympathy flung back +in her face. + +"Don't be alarmed," she said tartly. "I shan't bother myself about +your concerns. I've no doubt you're able to look out for them +yourself." + +Osborne turned away. As he did so he saw Bryan Lee driving up the +lane. Perhaps Nan saw it too. At any rate, she leaned out of the +window. + +"John! John!" Osborne half turned. "You'll be up again soon, won't +you?" + +His face hardened. "I'll come to say goodbye before I go, of course," +he answered shortly. + +He came face to face with Lee at the gate, where the latter was tying +his sleek chestnut to a poplar. He acknowledged his rival's +condescending nod with a scowl. Lee looked after him with a satisfied +smile. + +"Poor beggar!" he muttered. "He feels pretty cheap I reckon. I've +spoiled his chances in this quarter. Old Abe doesn't want any +poverty-stricken hangers-on about his place and Nan won't dream of +taking him when she knows he hasn't a roof over his head." + +He stopped for a chat with old Abe. Old Abe approved of Bryan Lee. He +was a son-in-law after old Abe's heart. + +Meanwhile, Nan had seated herself at the pantry window and was +ostentatiously hemming towels in apparent oblivion of suitor No. 2. +Nevertheless, when Bryan came up she greeted him with an unusually +sweet smile and at once plunged into an animated conversation. Bryan +had not come to ask her to go to the picnic--business prevented him +from going. But he meant to find out if she were going with John +Osborne. As Nan was serenely impervious to all hints, he was finally +forced to ask her bluntly if she was going to the picnic. + +Well, yes, she expected to. + +Oh! Might he ask with whom? + +Nan didn't know that it was a question of public interest at all. + +"It isn't with that Osborne fellow, is it?" demanded Bryan +incautiously. + +Nan tossed her head. "Well, why not?" she asked. + +"Look here, Nan," said Lee angrily, "if you're going to the picnic +with John Osborne I'm surprised at you. What do you mean by +encouraging him so? He's as poor as Job's turkey. I suppose you've +heard that I've been compelled to foreclose the mortgage on his farm." + +Nan kept her temper sweetly--a dangerous sign, had Bryan but known it. + +"Yes; he was telling me so this morning," she answered slowly. + +"Oh, was he? I suppose he gave me my character?" + +"No; he didn't say very much about it at all. He said of course you +were within your rights. But do you really mean to do it, Bryan?" + +"Of course I do," said Bryan promptly. "I can't wait any longer for my +money, and I'd never get it if I did. Osborne can't even pay the +interest." + +"It isn't because he hasn't worked hard enough, then," said Nan. "He +has just slaved on that place ever since he grew up." + +"Well, yes, he has worked hard in a way. But he's kind of shiftless, +for all that--no manager, as you might say. Some folks would have been +clear by now, but Osborne is one of those men that are bound to get +behind. He hasn't got any business faculty." + +"He isn't shiftless," said Nan quickly, "and it isn't his fault if he +has got behind. It's all because of his care for his aunt. He has had +to spend more on her doctor's bills than would have raised the +mortgage. And now that she is dead and he might have a chance to pull +up, you go and foreclose." + +"A man must look out for Number One," said Bryan easily, admiring +Nan's downcast eyes and rosy cheeks. "I haven't any spite against +Osborne, but business is business, you know." + +Nan opened her lips to say something but, remembering Osborne's +parting injunction, she shut them again. She shot a scornful glance at +Lee as he stood with his arms folded on the sill beside her. + +Bryan lingered, talking small talk, until Nan announced that she must +see about getting tea. + +"And you won't tell me who is going to take you to the picnic?" he +coaxed. + +"Oh, it's Ned Bennett," said Nan indifferently. + +Bryan felt relieved. He unpinned the huge cluster of violets on his +coat and laid them down on the sill beside her before he went. Nan +flicked them off with her fingers as she watched him cross the lawn, +his own self-satisfied smile upon his face. + + * * * * * + +A week later the Osborne homestead had passed into Bryan Lee's hands +and John Osborne was staying with his cousin at Thornhope, pending his +departure for the west. He had never been to see Nan since that last +afternoon, but Bryan Lee haunted the Stewart place. One day he +suddenly stopped coming and, although Nan was discreetly silent, in +due time it came to old Abe's ears by various driblets of gossip that +Nan had refused him. + +Old Abe marched straightway home to Nan in a fury and demanded if this +were true. Nan curtly admitted that it was. Old Abe was so much taken +aback by her coolness that he asked almost meekly what was her reason +for doing such a fool trick. + +"Because he turned John Osborne out of house and home," returned Nan +composedly. "If he hadn't done that there is no telling what might +have happened. I might even have married him, because I liked him very +well and it would have pleased you. At any rate, I wouldn't have +married John when you were against him. Now I mean to." + +Old Abe stormed furiously at this, but Nan kept so provokingly cool +that he was conscious of wasting breath. He went off in a rage, but +Nan did not feel particularly anxious now that the announcement was +over. He would cool down, she knew. John Osborne worried her more. She +didn't see clearly how she was to marry him unless he asked her, and +he had studiously avoided her since the foreclosure. + +But Nan did not mean to be baffled or to let her lover slip through +her fingers for want of a little courage. She was not old Abe +Stewart's daughter for nothing. + +One day Ned Bennett dropped in and said that John Osborne would start +for the west in three days. That evening Nan went up to her room and +dressed herself in the prettiest dress she owned, combed her hair +around her sparkling face in bewitching curls, pinned a cluster of +apple blossoms at her belt, and, thus equipped, marched down in the +golden sunset light to the Mill Creek Bridge. John Osborne, on his +return from Thornhope half an hour later, found her there, leaning +over the rail among the willows. + +Nan started in well-assumed surprise and then asked him why he had not +been to see her. John blushed--stammered--didn't know--had been busy. +Nan cut short his halting excuses by demanding to know if he were +really going away, and what he intended to do. + +"I'll go out on the prairies and take up a claim," said Osborne +sturdily. "Begin life over again free of debt. It'll be hard work, but +I'm not afraid of that. I will succeed if it takes me years." + +They walked on in silence. Nan came to the conclusion that Osborne +meant to hold his peace. + +"John," she said tremulously, "won't--won't you find it very lonely +out there?" + +"Of course--I expect that. I shall have to get used to it." + +Nan grew nervous. Proposing to a man was really very dreadful. + +"Wouldn't it be--nicer for you"--she faltered--"that is--it wouldn't +be so lonely for you--would it--if--if you had me out there with you?" + +John Osborne stopped squarely in the dusty road and looked at her. +"Nan!" he exclaimed. + +"Oh, if you can't take a hint!" said Nan in despair. + +It was all of an hour later that a man drove past them as they +loitered up the hill road in the twilight. It was Bryan Lee; he had +taken from Osborne his house and land, but he had not been able to +take Nan Stewart, after all. + + + + +Natty of Blue Point + + +Natty Miller strolled down to the wharf where Bliss Ford was tying up +the _Cockawee_. Bliss was scowling darkly at the boat, a trim new one, +painted white, whose furled sails seemed unaccountably wet and whose +glistening interior likewise dripped with moisture. A group of +fishermen on the wharf were shaking their heads sagely as Natty drew +near. + +"Might as well split her up for kindlings, Bliss," said Jake McLaren. +"You'll never get men to sail in her. It passed the first time, seeing +as only young Johnson was skipper, but when a boat turns turtle with +Captain Frank in command, there's something serious wrong with her." + +"What's up?" asked Natty. + +"The _Cockawee_ upset out in the bay again this morning," answered +Will Scott. "That's the second time. The _Grey Gull_ picked up the men +and towed her in. It's no use trying to sail her. Lobstermen ain't +going to risk their lives in a boat like that. How's things over at +Blue Point, Natty?" + +"Pretty well," responded Natty laconically. Natty never wasted words. +He had not talked a great deal in his fourteen years of life, but he +was much given to thinking. He was rather undersized and insignificant +looking, but there were a few boys of his own age on the mainland who +knew that Natty had muscles. + +"Has Everett heard anything from Ottawa about the lighthouse business +yet?" asked Will. + +Natty shook his head. + +"Think he's any chance of getting the app'intment?" queried Adam +Lewis. + +"Not the ghost of a chance," said Cooper Creasy decidedly. "He's on +the wrong side of politics, that's what. Er rather his father was. A +Tory's son ain't going to get an app'intment from a Lib'ral +government, that's what." + +"Mr. Barr says that Everett is too young to be trusted in such a +responsible position," quoted Natty gravely. + +Cooper shrugged his shoulders. + +"Mebbe--mebbe. Eighteen is kind of green, but everybody knows that +Ev's been the real lighthouse keeper for two years, since your father +took sick. Irving Elliott wants that light--has wanted it for +years--and he's a pretty strong pull at headquarters, that's what. +Barr owes him something for years of hard work at elections. I ain't +saying anything against Elliott, either. He's a good man, but your +father's son ought to have that light as sure as he won't get it, +that's what." + +"Any of you going to take in the sports tomorrow down at Summerside?" +asked Will Scott, in order to switch Cooper away from politics, which +were apt to excite him. + +"I'm going, for one," said Adam. "There's to be a yacht race atween +the Summerside and Charlottetown boat clubs. Yes, I am going. Give you +a chance down to the station, Natty, if you want one." + +Natty shook his head. + +"Not going," he said briefly. + +"You should celebrate Victoria Day," said Adam, patriotically. +"'Twenty-fourth o' May's the Queen's birthday, Ef we don't get a +holiday we'll all run away,' as we used to say at school. The good old +Queen is dead, but the day's been app'inted a national holiday in +honour of her memory and you should celebrate it becoming, Natty-boy." + +"Ev and I can't both go, and he's going," explained Natty. "Prue and +I'll stay home to light up. Must be getting back now. Looks squally." + +"I misdoubt if we'll have Queen's weather tomorrow," said Cooper, +squinting critically at the sky. "Looks like a northeast blow, that's +what. There goes Bliss, striding off and looking pretty mad. The +_Cockawee's_ a dead loss to him, that's what. Nat's off--he knows how +to handle a boat middling well, too. Pity he's such a puny youngster. +Not much to him, I reckon." + +Natty had cast loose in his boat, the _Merry Maid_, and hoisted his +sail. In a few minutes he was skimming gaily down the bay. The wind +was fair and piping and the _Merry Maid_ went like a bird. Natty, at +the rudder, steered for Blue Point Island, a reflective frown on his +face. He was feeling in no mood for Victoria Day sports. In a very +short time he and Ev and Prue must leave Blue Point lighthouse, where +they had lived all their lives. To Natty it seemed as if the end of +all things would come then. Where would life be worth living away from +lonely, windy Blue Point Island? + +David Miller had died the preceding winter after a long illness. He +had been lighthouse keeper at Blue Point for thirty years. His three +children had been born and brought up there, and there, four years +ago, the mother had died. But womanly little Prue had taken her place +well, and the boys were devoted to their sister. When their father +died, Everett had applied for the position of lighthouse keeper. The +matter was not yet publicly decided, but old Cooper Creasy had sized +the situation up accurately. The Millers had no real hope that Everett +would be appointed. + +Victoria Day, while not absolutely stormy, proved to be rather +unpleasant. A choppy northeast wind blew up the bay, and the water was +rough enough. The sky was overcast with clouds, and the May air was +raw and chilly. At Blue Point the Millers were early astir, for if +Everett wanted to sail over to the mainland in time to catch the +excursion train, no morning naps were permissible. He was going alone. +Since only one of the boys could go, Natty had insisted that it should +be Everett, and Prue had elected to stay home with Natty. Prue had +small heart for Victoria Day that year. She did not feel even a thrill +of enthusiasm when Natty hoisted a flag and wreathed the Queen's +picture with creeping spruce. Prue felt as badly about leaving Blue +Point Island as the boys did. + +The day passed slowly. In the afternoon the wind fell away to a dead +calm, but there was still a heavy swell on, and shortly before sunset +a fog came creeping up from the east and spread over the bay and +islands, so thick and white that Prue and Natty could not even see +Little Bear Island on the right. + +"I'm glad Everett isn't coming back tonight," said Prue. "He could +never find his way cross the harbour in that fog." + +"Isn't it thick, though," said Natty. "The light won't show far +tonight." + +At sunset they lighted the great lamps and then settled down to an +evening of reading. But it was not long before Natty looked up from +his book to say, "Hello, Prue, what was that? Thought I heard a +noise." + +"So did I," said Prue. "I sounded like someone calling." + +They hurried to the door, which looked out on the harbour. The night, +owing to the fog, was dark with a darkness that seemed almost +tangible. From somewhere out of that darkness came a muffled shouting, +like that of a person in distress. + +"Prue, there's somebody in trouble out there!" exclaimed Natty. + +"Oh, it's surely never Ev!" cried Prue. + +Natty shook his head. + +"Don't think so. Ev had no intention of coming back tonight. Get that +lantern, Prue. I must go and see what and who it is." + +"Oh, Natty, you mustn't," cried Prue in distress. "There's a heavy +swell on yet--and the fog--oh, if you get lost--" + +"I'll not get lost, and I must go, Prue. Maybe somebody is drowning +out there. It's not Ev, of course, but suppose it were! That's a good +girl." + +Prue, with set face, had brought the lantern, resolutely choking back +the words of fear and protest that rushed to her lips. They hurried +down to the shore and Natty sprang into the little skiff he used for +rowing. He hastily lashed the lantern in the stern, cast loose the +painter, and lifted the oars. + +"I'll be back as soon as possible," he called to Prue. "Wait here for +me." + +In a minute the shore was out of sight, and Natty found himself alone +in the black fog, with no guide but the cries for help, which already +were becoming fainter. They seemed to come from the direction of +Little Bear, and thither Natty rowed. It was a tough pull, and the +water was rough enough for the little dory. But Natty had been at home +with the oars from babyhood, and his long training and tough sinews +stood him in good stead now. Steadily and intrepidly he rowed along. +The water grew rougher as he passed out from the shelter of Blue Point +into the channel between the latter and Little Bear. The cries were +becoming very faint. What if he should be too late? He bent to the +oars with all his energy. Presently, by the smoother water, he knew he +must be in the lea of Little Bear. The cries sounded nearer. He must +already have rowed nearly a mile. The next minute he shot around a +small headland and right before him, dimly visible in the faint light +cast by the lantern through the fog, was an upturned boat with two men +clinging to it, one on each side, evidently almost exhausted. Natty +rowed cautiously up to the one nearest him, knowing that he must be +wary lest the grip of the drowning man overturn his own light skiff. + +"Let go when I say," he shouted, "and don't--grab--anything, do you +hear? Don't--grab. Now, let go." + +The next minute the man lay in the dory, dragged over the stern by +Netty's grip on his collar. + +"Lie still," ordered Natty, clutching the oars. To row around the +overturned boat, amid the swirl of water about her, was a task that +taxed Netty's skill and strength to the utmost. The other man was +dragged in over the bow, and with a gasp of relief Natty pulled away +from the sinking boat. Once clear of her he could not row for a few +minutes; he was shaking from head to foot with the reaction from +tremendous effort and strain. + +"This'll never do," he muttered. "I'm not going to be a baby now. But +will I ever be able to row back?" + +Presently, however, he was able to grip his oars again and pull for +the lighthouse, whose beacon loomed dimly through the fog like a great +blur of whiter mist. The men, obedient to his orders, lay quietly +where he had placed them, and before long Natty was back again at the +lighthouse landing, where Prue was waiting, wild with anxiety. The men +were helped out and assisted up to the lighthouse, where Natty went to +hunt up dry clothes for them, and Prue flew about to prepare hot +drinks. + +"To think that that child saved us!" exclaimed one of the men. "Why, I +didn't think a grown man had the strength to do what he did. He is +your brother, I suppose, Miss Miller. You have another brother, I +think?" + +"Oh, yes--Everett--but he is away," explained Prue. "We heard your +shouts and Natty insisted on going at once to your rescue." + +"Well, he came just in time. I couldn't have held on another +minute--was so done up I couldn't have moved or spoken all the way +here even if he hadn't commanded me to keep perfectly still." + +Natty returned at this moment and exclaimed, "Why, it is Mr. Barr. I +didn't recognize you before." + +"Barr it is, young man. This gentleman is my friend, Mr. Blackmore. We +have been celebrating Victoria Day by a shooting tramp over Little +Bear. We hired a boat from Ford at the Harbour Head this morning--the +_Cockawee_, he called her--and sailed over. I don't know much about +running a boat, but Blackmore here thinks he does. We were at the +other side of the island when the fog came up. We hurried across it, +but it was almost dark when we reached our boat. We sailed around the +point and then the boat just simply upset--don't know why--" + +"But I know why," interrupted Natty indignantly. "That _Cockawee_ does +nothing but upset. She has turned turtle twice out in the harbour in +fine weather. Ford was a rascal to let her to you. He might have known +what would happen. Why--why--it was almost murder to let you go!" + +"I thought there must be something queer about her," declared Mr. +Blackmore. "I do know how to handle a boat despite my friend's gibe, +and there was no reason why she should have upset like that. That Ford +ought to be horsewhipped." + +Thanks to Prue's stinging hot decoctions of black currant drink, the +two gentlemen were no worse for their drenching and exposure, and the +next morning Natty took them to the mainland in the _Merry Maid_. When +he parted with them, Mr. Barr shook his hand heartily and said: "Thank +you, my boy. You're a plucky youngster and a skilful one, too. Tell +your brother that if I can get the Blue Point lighthouse berth for him +I will, and as for yourself, you will always find a friend in me, and +if I can ever do anything for you I will." + +Two weeks later Everett received an official document formally +appointing him keeper of Blue Point Island light. Natty carried the +news to the mainland, where it was joyfully received among the +fishermen. + +"Only right and fair," said Cooper Creasy. "Blue Point without a +Miller to light up wouldn't seem the thing at all, that's what. And +it's nothing but Ev's doo." + +"Guess Natty had more to do with it than Ev," said Adam, perpetrating +a very poor pun and being immensely applauded therefor. It keyed Will +Scott up to rival Adam. + +"You said that Irving had a pull and the Millers hadn't," he said +jocularly. "But it looks as if 'twas Natty's pull did the business +after all--his pull over to Bear Island and back." + +"It was about a miracle that a boy could do what he did on such a +night," said Charles Macey. + +"Where's Ford?" asked Natty uncomfortably. He hated to have his +exploit talked about. + +"Ford has cleared out," said Cooper, "gone down to Summerside to go +into Tobe Meekins's factory there. Best thing he could do, that's +what. Folks here hadn't no use for him after letting that death trap +to them two men--even if they was Lib'rals. The _Cockawee_ druv ashore +on Little Bear, and there she's going to remain, I guess. D'ye want a +berth in my mackerel boat this summer, Natty?" + +"I do," said Natty, "but I thought you said you were full." + +"I guess I can make room for you," said Cooper. "A boy with such grit +and muscle ain't to be allowed to go to seed on Blue Point, that's +what. Yesser, we'll make room for you." + +And Natty's cup of happiness was full. + + + + +Penelope's Party Waist + + +"It's perfectly horrid to be so poor," grumbled Penelope. Penelope did +not often grumble, but just now, as she sat tapping with one +pink-tipped finger her invitation to Blanche Anderson's party, she +felt that grumbling was the only relief she had. + +Penelope was seventeen, and when one is seventeen and cannot go to a +party because one hasn't a suitable dress to wear, the world is very +apt to seem a howling wilderness. + +"I wish I could think of some way to get you a new waist," said Doris, +with what these sisters called "the poverty pucker" coming in the +centre of her pretty forehead. "If your black skirt were sponged and +pressed and re-hung, it would do very well." + +Penelope saw the poverty pucker and immediately repented with all her +impetuous heart having grumbled. That pucker came often enough without +being brought there by extra worries. + +"Well, there is no use sitting here sighing for the unattainable," she +said, jumping up briskly. "I'd better be putting my grey matter into +that algebra instead of wasting it plotting for a party dress that I +certainly can't get. It's a sad thing for a body to lack brains when +she wants to be a teacher, isn't it? If I could only absorb algebra +and history as I can music, what a blessing it would be! Come now, +Dorrie dear, smooth that pucker out. Next year I shall be earning a +princely salary, which we can squander on party gowns at will--if +people haven't given up inviting us by that time, in sheer despair of +ever being able to conquer our exclusiveness." + +Penelope went off to her detested algebra with a laugh, but the pucker +did not go out of Doris' forehead. She wanted Penelope to go to that +party. + +Penelope has studied so hard all winter and she hasn't gone anywhere, +thought the older sister wistfully. She is getting discouraged over +those examinations and she needs just a good, jolly time to hearten +her up. If it could only be managed! + +But Doris did not see how it could. It took every cent of her small +salary as typewriter in an uptown office to run their tiny +establishment and keep Penelope in school dresses and books. Indeed, +she could not have done even that much if they had not owned their +little cottage. Next year it would be easier if Penelope got through +her examinations successfully, but just now there was absolutely not a +spare penny. + +"It is hard to be poor. We are a pair of misfits," said Doris, with a +patient little smile, thinking of Penelope's uncultivated talent for +music and her own housewifely gifts, which had small chance of +flowering out in her business life. + +Doris dreamed of pretty dresses all that night and thought about them +all the next day. So, it must be confessed, did Penelope, though she +would not have admitted it for the world. + +When Doris reached home the next evening, she found Penelope hovering +over a bulky parcel on the sitting-room table. + +"I'm so glad you've come," she said with an exaggerated gasp of +relief. "I really don't think my curiosity could have borne the strain +for another five minutes. The expressman brought this parcel an hour +ago, and there's a letter for you from Aunt Adella on the clock shelf, +and I think they belong to each other. Hurry up and find out. Dorrie, +darling, what if it should be a--a--present of some sort or other!" + +"I suppose it can't be anything else," smiled Doris. She knew that +Penelope had started out to say "a new dress." She cut the strings +and removed the wrappings. Both girls stared. + +"Is it--it isn't--yes, it is! Doris Hunter, I believe it's an old +quilt!" + +Doris unfolded the odd present with a queer feeling of disappointment. +She did not know just what she had expected the package to contain, +but certainly not this. She laughed a little shakily. + +"Well, we can't say after this that Aunt Adella never gave us +anything," she said, when she had opened her letter. "Listen, +Penelope." + + _My Dear Doris_: + + _I have decided to give up housekeeping and go out West to + live with Robert. So I am disposing of such of the family + heirlooms as I do not wish to take with me. I am sending you + by express your Grandmother Hunter's silk quilt. It is a + handsome article still and I hope you will prize it as you + should. It took your grandmother five years to make it. There + is a bit of the wedding dress of every member of the family in + it. Love to Penelope and yourself._ + + _Your affectionate aunt, + Adella Hunter._ + +"I don't see its beauty," said Penelope with a grimace. "It may have +been pretty once, but it is all faded now. It is a monument of +patience, though. The pattern is what they call 'Little Thousands,' +isn't it? Tell me, Dorrie, does it argue a lack of proper respect for +my ancestors that I can't feel very enthusiastic over this +heirloom--especially when Grandmother Hunter died years before I was +born?" + +"It was very kind of Aunt Adella to send it," said Doris dutifully. + +"Oh, very," agreed Penelope drolly. "Only don't ever ask me to sleep +under it. It would give me the nightmare. O-o-h!" + +This last was a little squeal of admiration as Doris turned the quilt +over and brought to view the shimmering lining. + +"Why, the wrong side is ever so much prettier than the right!" +exclaimed Penelope. "What lovely, old-timey stuff! And not a bit +faded." + +The lining was certainly very pretty. It was a soft, creamy yellow +silk, with a design of brocaded pink rosebuds all over it. + +"That was a dress Grandmother Hunter had when she was a girl," said +Doris absently. "I remember hearing Aunt Adella speak of it. When it +became old-fashioned, Grandmother used it to line her quilt. I +declare, it is as good as new." + +"Well, let us go and have tea," said Penelope. "I'm decidedly hungry. +Besides, I see the poverty pucker coming. Put the quilt in the spare +room. It is something to possess an heirloom, after all. It gives one +a nice, important-family feeling." + +After tea, when Penelope was patiently grinding away at her studies +and thinking dolefully enough of the near-approaching examinations, +which she dreaded, and of teaching, which she confidently expected to +hate, Doris went up to the tiny spare room to look at the wrong side +of the quilt again. + +"It would make the loveliest party waist," she said under her breath. +"Creamy yellow is Penelope's colour, and I could use that bit of old +black lace and those knots of velvet ribbon that I have to trim it. I +wonder if Grandmother Hunter's reproachful spirit will forever haunt +me if I do it." + +Doris knew very well that she would do it--had known it ever since +she had looked at that lovely lining and a vision of Penelope's vivid +face and red-brown hair rising above a waist of the quaint old silk +had flashed before her mental sight. That night, after Penelope had +gone to bed, Doris ripped the lining out of Grandmother Hunter's silk +quilt. + +"If Aunt Adella saw me now!" she laughed softly to herself as she +worked. + +In the three following evenings Doris made the waist. She thought it a +wonderful bit of good luck that Penelope went out each of the evenings +to study some especially difficult problems with a school chum. + +"It will be such a nice surprise for her," the sister mused +jubilantly. + +Penelope was surprised as much as the tender, sisterly heart could +wish when Doris flashed out upon her triumphantly on the evening of +the party with the black skirt nicely pressed and re-hung, and the +prettiest waist imaginable--a waist that was a positive "creation" of +dainty rose-besprinkled silk, with a girdle and knots of black velvet. + +"Doris Hunter, you are a veritable little witch! Do you mean to tell +me that you conjured that perfectly lovely thing for me out of the +lining of Grandmother Hunter's quilt?" + +So Penelope went to Blanche's party and her dress was the admiration +of every girl there. Mrs. Fairweather, who was visiting Mrs. Anderson, +looked closely at it also. She was a very sweet old lady, with silver +hair, which she wore in delightful, old-fashioned puffs, and she had +very bright, dark eyes. Penelope thought her altogether charming. + +"She looks as if she had just stepped out of the frame of some lovely +old picture," she said to herself. "I wish she belonged to me. I'd +just love to have a grandmother like her. And I do wonder who it is +I've seen who looks so much like her." + +A little later on the knowledge came to her suddenly, and she thought +with inward surprise: Why, it is Doris, of course. If my sister Doris +lives to be seventy years old and wears her hair in pretty white +puffs, she will look exactly as Mrs. Fairweather does now. + +Mrs. Fairweather asked to have Penelope introduced to her, and when +they found themselves alone together she said gently, "My dear, I am +going to ask a very impertinent question. Will you tell me where you +got the silk of which your waist is made?" + +Poor Penelope's pretty young face turned crimson. She was not troubled +with false pride by any means, but she simply could not bring herself +to tell Mrs. Fairweather that her waist was made out of the lining of +an old heirloom quilt. + +"My Aunt Adella gave me--gave us--the material," she stammered. "And +my elder sister Doris made the waist for me. I think the silk once +belonged to my Grandmother Hunter." + +"What was your grandmother's maiden name?" asked Mrs. Fairweather +eagerly. + +"Penelope Saverne. I am named after her." + +Mrs. Fairweather suddenly put her arm about Penelope and drew the +young girl to her, her lovely old face aglow with delight and +tenderness. + +"Then you are my grandniece," she said. "Your grandmother was my +half-sister. When I saw your dress, I felt sure you were related to +her. I should recognize that rosebud silk if I came across it in +Thibet. Penelope Saverne was the daughter of my mother by her first +husband. Penelope was four years older than I was, but we were +devoted to each other. Oddly enough, our birthdays fell on the same +day, and when Penelope was twenty and I sixteen, my father gave us +each a silk dress of this very material. I have mine yet. + +"Soon after this our mother died and our household was broken up. +Penelope went to live with her aunt and I went West with Father. This +was long ago, you know, when travelling and correspondence were not +the easy, matter-of-course things they are now. After a few years I +lost touch with my half-sister. I married out West and have lived +there all my life. I never knew what had become of Penelope. But +tonight, when I saw you come in in that waist made of the rosebud +silk, the whole past rose before me and I felt like a girl again. My +dear, I am a very lonely old woman, with nobody belonging to me. You +don't know how delighted I am to find that I have two grandnieces." + +Penelope had listened silently, like a girl in a dream. Now she patted +Mrs. Fairweather's soft old hand affectionately. + +"It sounds like a storybook," she said gaily. "You must come and see +Doris. She is such a darling sister. I wouldn't have had this waist if +it hadn't been for her. I will tell you the whole truth--I don't mind +it now. Doris made my party waist for me out of the lining of an old +silk quilt of Grandmother Hunter's that Aunt Adella sent us." + +Mrs. Fairweather did go to see Doris the very next day, and quite +wonderful things came to pass from that interview. Doris and Penelope +found their lives and plans changed in the twinkling of an eye. They +were both to go and live with Aunt Esther--as Mrs. Fairweather had +said they must call her. Penelope was to have, at last, her longed-for +musical education and Doris was to be the home girl. + +"You must take the place of my own dear little granddaughter," said +Aunt Esther. "She died six years ago, and I have been so lonely +since." + +When Mrs. Fairweather had gone, Doris and Penelope looked at each +other. + +"Pinch me, please," said Penelope. "I'm half afraid I'll wake up and +find I have been dreaming. Isn't it all wonderful, Doris Hunter?" + +Doris nodded radiantly. + +"Oh, Penelope, think of it! Music for you--somebody to pet and fuss +over for me--and such a dear, sweet aunty for us both!" + +"And no more contriving party waists out of old silk linings," laughed +Penelope. "But it was very fortunate that you did it for once, sister +mine. And no more poverty puckers," she concluded. + + + + +The Girl and The Wild Race + + +"If Judith would only get married," Mrs. Theodora Whitney was wont to +sigh dolorously. + +Now, there was no valid reason why Judith ought to get married unless +she wanted to. But Judith was twenty-seven and Mrs. Theodora thought +it was a terrible disgrace to be an old maid. + +"There has never been an old maid in our family so far back as we know +of," she lamented. "And to think that there should be one now! It just +drags us down to the level of the McGregors. They have always been +noted for their old maids." + +Judith took all her aunt's lamentations good-naturedly. Sometimes she +argued the subject placidly. + +"Why are you in such a hurry to be rid of me, Aunt Theo? I'm sure +we're very comfortable here together and you know you would miss me +terribly if I went away." + +"If you took the right one you wouldn't go so very far," said Mrs. +Theodora, darkly significant. "And, anyhow, I'd put up with any amount +of lonesomeness rather than have an old maid in the family. It's all +very fine now, when you're still young enough and good looking, with +lots of beaus at your beck and call. But that won't last much longer +and if you go on with your dilly-dallying you'll wake up some fine day +to find that your time for choosing has gone by. Your mother used to +be dreadful proud of your good looks when you was a baby. I told her +she needn't be. Nine times out of ten a beauty don't marry as well as +an ordinary girl." + +"I'm not much set on marrying at all," declared Judith sharply. Any +reference to the "right one" always disturbed her placidity. The real +root of the trouble was that Mrs. Theodora's "right one" and Judith's +"right one" were two different people. + +The Ramble Valley young men were very fond of dancing attendance on +Judith, even if she were verging on old maidenhood. Her prettiness was +undeniable; the Stewarts came to maturity late and at twenty-seven +Judith's dower of milky-white flesh, dimpled red lips and shining +bronze hair was at its fullest splendor. Besides, she was "jolly," and +jollity went a long way in Ramble Valley popularity. + +Of all Judith's admirers Eben King alone found favor in Mrs. +Theodora's eyes. He owned the adjoining farm, was well off and +homely--so homely that Judith declared it made her eyes ache to look +at him. + +Bruce Marshall, Judith's "right one" was handsome, but Mrs. Theodora +looked upon him with sour disapproval. He owned a stony little farm at +the remote end of Ramble Valley and was reputed to be fonder of many +things than of work. To be sure, Judith had enough capability and +energy for two; but Mrs. Theodora detested a lazy man. She ordered +Judith not to encourage him and Judith obeyed. Judith generally obeyed +her aunt; but, though she renounced Bruce Marshall, she would have +nothing to do with Eben King or anybody else and all Mrs. Theodora's +grumblings did not mend matters. + +The afternoon that Mrs. Tony Mack came in Mrs. Theodora felt more +aggrieved than ever. Ellie McGregor had been married the previous +week--Ellie, who was the same age as Judith and not half so good +looking. Mrs. Theodora had been nagging Judith ever since. + +"But I might as well talk to the trees down there in that hollow," she +complained to Mrs. Tony. "That girl is so set and contrary minded. She +doesn't care a bit for my feelings." + +This was not said behind Judith's back. The girl herself was standing +at the open door, drinking in all the delicate, evasive beauty of the +spring afternoon. The Whitney house crested a bare hill that looked +down on misty intervals, feathered with young firs that were golden +green in the pale sunlight. The fields were bare and smoking, although +the lanes and shadowy places were full of moist snow. Judith's face +was aglow with the delight of mere life and she bent out to front the +brisk, dancing wind that blew up from the valley, resinous with the +odors of firs and damp mosses. + +At her aunt's words the glow went out of her face. She listened with +her eyes brooding on the hollow and a glowing flame of temper +smouldering in them. Judith's long patience was giving way. She had +been flicked on the raw too often of late. And now her aunt was +confiding her grievances to Mrs. Tony Mack--the most notorious gossip +in Ramble Valley or out of it! + +"I can't sleep at nights for worrying over what will become of her +when I'm gone," went on Mrs. Theodora dismally. "She'll just have to +live on alone here--a lonesome, withered-up old maid. And her that +might have had her pick, Mrs. Tony, though I do say it as shouldn't. +You must feel real thankful to have all your girls married +off--especially when none of them was extry good-looking. Some people +have all the luck. I'm tired of talking to Judith. Folks'll be saying +soon that nobody ever really wanted her, for all her flirting. But she +just won't marry." + +"I will!" + +Judith whirled about on the sun warm door step and came in. Her black +eyes were flashing and her round cheeks were crimson. + +"Such a temper you never saw!" reported Mrs. Tony afterwards. "Though +'tweren't to be wondered at. Theodora was most awful aggravating." + +"I will," repeated Judith stormily. "I'm tired of being nagged day in +and day out. I'll marry--and what is more I'll marry the very first +man that asks me--that I will, if it is old Widower Delane himself! +How does that suit you, Aunt Theodora?" + +Mrs. Theodora's mental processes were never slow. She dropped her +knitting ball and stooped for it. In that time she had decided what to +do. She knew that Judith would stick to her word, Stewart-like, and +she must trim her sails to catch this new wind. + +"It suits me real well, Judith," she said calmly, "you can marry the +first man that asks you and I'll say no word to hinder." + +The color went out of Judith's face, leaving it pale as ashes. Her +hasty assertion had no sooner been uttered than it was repented of, +but she must stand by it now. She went out of the kitchen without +another glance at her aunt or the delighted Mrs. Tony and dashed up +the stairs to her own little room which looked out over the whole of +Ramble Valley. It was warm with the March sunshine and the leafless +boughs of the creeper that covered the end of the house were tapping a +gay tattoo on the window panes to the music of the wind. + +Judith sat down in her little rocker and dropped her pointed chin in +her hands. Far down the valley, over the firs on the McGregor hill and +the blue mirror of the Cranston pond, Bruce Marshall's little gray +house peeped out from a semicircle of white-stemmed birches. She had +not seen Bruce since before Christmas. He had been angry at her then +because she had refused to let him drive her home from prayer meeting. +Since then she had heard a rumor that he was going to see Kitty Leigh +at the Upper Valley. + +Judith looked sombrely down at the Marshall homestead. She had always +loved the quaint, picturesque old place, so different from all the +commonplace spick and span new houses of the prosperous valley. Judith +had never been able to decide whether she really cared very much for +Bruce Marshall or not, but she knew that she loved that rambling, +cornery house of his, with the gable festooned with the real ivy that +Bruce Marshall's great-grandmother had brought with her from England. +Judith thought contrastingly of Eben King's staring, primrose-colored +house in all its bare, intrusive grandeur. She gave a little shrug of +distaste. + +"I wish Bruce knew of this," she thought, flushing even in her +solitude at the idea. "Although if it is true that he is going to see +Kitty Leigh I don't suppose he'd care. And Aunt Theo will be sure to +send word to Eben by hook or crook. Whatever possessed me to say such +a mad thing? There goes Mrs. Tony now, all agog to spread such a +delectable bit of gossip." + +Mrs. Tony had indeed gone, refusing Mrs. Theodora's invitation to stay +to tea, so eager was she to tell her story. And Mrs. Theodora, at that +very minute, was out in her kitchen yard, giving her instructions to +Potter Vane, the twelve year old urchin who cut her wood and did +sundry other chores for her. + +"Potter," she said, excitedly, "run over to the Kings' and tell Eben +to come over here immediately--no matter what he's at. Tell him I want +to see him about something of the greatest importance." + +Mrs. Theodora thought that this was a master stroke. + +"That match is as good as made," she thought triumphantly as she +picked up chips to start the tea fire. "If Judith suspects that Eben +is here she is quite likely to stay in her room and refuse to come +down. But if she does I'll march him upstairs to her door and make him +ask her through the keyhole. You can't stump Theodora Whitney." + +Alas! Ten minutes later Potter returned with the unwelcome news that +Eben was away from home. + +"He went to Wexbridge about half an hour ago, his ma said. She said +she'd tell him to come right over as soon as he kem home." + +Mrs. Theodora had to content herself with this, but she felt troubled. +She knew Mrs. Tony Mack's capabilities for spreading news. What if +Bruce Marshall should hear it before Eben? + +That evening Jacob Plowden's store at Wexbridge was full of men, +sitting about on kegs and counters or huddling around the stove, for +the March air had grown sharp as the sun lowered in the creamy sky +over the Ramble Valley hills. Eben King had a keg in the corner. He +was in no hurry to go home for he loved gossip dearly and the +Wexbridge stores abounded with it. He had exhausted the news of Peter +Stanley's store across the bridge and now he meant to hear what was +saying at Plowden's. Bruce Marshall was there, too, buying groceries +and being waited on by Nora Plowden, who was by no means averse to the +service, although as a rule her father's customers received scanty +tolerance at her hands. + +"What are the Valley roads like, Marshall?" asked a Wexbridge man, +between two squirts of tobacco juice. + +"Bad," said Bruce briefly. "Another warm day will finish the +sleighing." + +"Are they crossing at Malley's Creek yet?" asked Plowden. + +"No, Jack Carr got in there day before yesterday. Nearly lost his +mare. I came round by the main road," responded Bruce. + +The door opened at this point and Tony Mack came in. As soon as he +closed the door he doubled up in a fit of chuckles, which lasted until +he was purple in the face. + +"Is the man crazy?" demanded Plowden, who had never seen lean little +Tony visited like this before. + +"Crazy nothin'," retorted Tony. "You'll laugh too, when you hear it. +Such a joke! Hee-tee-tee-hee-e. Theodora Whitney has been badgering +Judith Stewart so much about bein' an old maid that Judith's got mad +and vowed she'll marry the first man that asks her. +Hee-tee-tee-hee-e-e-e! My old woman was there and heard her. She'll +keep her word, too. She ain't old Joshua Stewart's daughter for +nothin'. If he said he'd do a thing he did it if it tuck the hair +off. If I was a young feller now! Hee-tee-tee-hee-e-e-e!" + +Bruce Marshall swung round on one foot. His face was crimson and if +looks could kill, Tony Mack would have fallen dead in the middle of +his sniggers. + +"You needn't mind doing up that parcel for me," he said to Nora. "I'll +not wait for it." + +On his way to the door Eben King brushed past him. A shout of laughter +from the assembled men followed them. The others streamed out in their +wake, realizing that a race was afoot. Tony alone remained inside, +helpless with chuckling. + +Eben King's horse was tied at the door. He had nothing to do but step +in and drive off. Bruce had put his mare in at Billy Bender's across +the bridge, intending to spend the evening there. He knew that this +would handicap him seriously, but he strode down the road with a +determined expression on his handsome face. Fifteen minutes later he +drove past the store, his gray mare going at a sharp gait. The crowd +in front of Plowden's cheered him, their sympathies were with him for +King was not popular. Tony had come out and shouted, "Here's luck to +you, brother," after which he doubled up with renewed laughter. Such a +lark! And he, Tony, had set it afoot! It would be a story to tell for +years. + +Marshall, with his lips set and his dreamy gray eyes for once +glittering with a steely light, urged Lady Jane up the Wexbridge hill. +From its top it was five miles to Ramble Valley by the main road. A +full mile ahead of him he saw Eben King, getting along through mud and +slush, and occasional big slumpy drifts of old snow, as fast as his +clean-limbed trotter could carry him. As a rule Eben was exceedingly +careful of his horses, but now he was sending Bay Billy along for all +that was in him. + +For a second Bruce hesitated. Then he turned his mare down the field +cut to Malley's Creek. It was taking Lady Jane's life and possibly his +own in his hand, but it was his only chance. He could never have +overtaken Bay Billy on the main road. + +"Do your best, Lady Jane," he muttered, and Lady Jane plunged down the +steep hillside, through the glutinous mud of a ploughed field as if +she meant to do it. + +Beyond the field was a ravine full of firs, through which Malley's +Creek ran. To cross it meant a four-mile cut to Ramble Valley. The ice +looked black and rotten. To the left was the ragged hole where Jack +Carr's mare had struggled for her life. Bruce headed Lady Jane higher +up. If a crossing could be made at all it was only between Malley's +spring-hole and the old ice road. Lady Jane swerved at the bank and +whickered. + +"On, old girl," said Bruce, in a tense voice. Unwillingly she +advanced, picking her steps with cat-like sagacity. Once her foot went +through, Bruce pulled her up with hands that did not tremble. The next +moment she was scrambling up the opposite bank. Glancing back, Bruce +saw the ice parting in her footprints and the black water gurgling up. + +But the race was not yet decided. By crossing the creek he had won no +more than an equal chance with Eben King. And the field road before +him was much worse than the main road. There was little snow on it and +some bad sloughs. But Lady Jane was good for it. For once she should +not be spared. + +Just as the red ball of the sun touched the wooded hills of the +valley, Mrs. Theodora, looking from the cowstable door, saw two +sleighs approaching, the horses of which were going at a gallop. One +was trundling down the main road, headlong through old drifts and +slumpy snow, where a false step might send the horse floundering to +the bottom. The other was coming up from the direction of the creek, +full tilt through Tony Mack's stump land, where not a vestige of snow +coated the huge roots over which the runners bumped. + +For a moment Mrs. Theodora stood at a gaze. Then she recognized both +drivers. She dropped her milking pail and ran to the house, thinking +as she ran. She knew that Judith was alone in the kitchen. If Eben +King got there first, well and good, but if Bruce Marshall won the +race he must encounter her, Mrs. Theodora. + +"He won't propose to Judith as long as I'm round," she panted. "I know +him--he's too shy. But Eben won't mind--I'll tip him the wink." + +Potter Vane was chopping wood before the door. Mrs. Theodora +recognizing in him a further obstacle to Marshall's wooing, caught him +unceremoniously by the arm and hauled him, axe and all, over the +doorstone and into the kitchen, just as Bruce Marshall and Eben King +drove into the yard with not a second to spare between them. There was +a woeful cut on Bay Billy's slender foreleg and the reeking Lady Jane +was trembling like a leaf. The staunch little mare had brought her +master over that stretch of sticky field road in time, but she was +almost exhausted. + +Both men sprang from their sleighs and ran to the door. Bruce Marshall +won it by foot-room and burst into the kitchen with his rival hot on +his heels. Mrs. Theodora stood defiantly in the middle of the room, +still grasping the dazed and dismayed Potter. In a corner Judith +turned from the window whence she had been watching the finish of the +race. She was pale and tense from excitement. In those few gasping +moments she had looked on her heart as on an open book; she knew at +last that she loved Bruce Marshall and her eyes met his fiery gray +ones as he sprang over the threshold. + +"Judith, will you marry me?" gasped Bruce, before Eben, who had first +looked at Mrs. Theodora and the squirming Potter, had located the +girl. + +"Yes," said Judith. She burst into hysterical tears as she said it and +sat limply down in a chair. + +Mrs. Theodora loosed her grip on Potter. + +"You can go back to your work," she said dully. She followed him out +and Eben King followed her. On the step she reached behind him and +closed the door. + +"Trust a King for being too late!" she said bitterly and unjustly. + +Eben went home with Bay Billy. Potter gazed after him until Mrs. +Theodora ordered him to put Marshall's mare in the stable and rub her +down. + +"Anyway, Judith won't be an old maid," she comforted herself. + + + + +The Promise of Lucy Ellen + + +Cecily Foster came down the sloping, fir-fringed road from the village +at a leisurely pace. Usually she walked with a long, determined +stride, but to-day the drowsy, mellowing influence of the Autumn +afternoon was strong upon her and filled her with placid content. +Without being actively conscious of it, she was satisfied with the +existing circumstances of her life. It was half over now. The half of +it yet to be lived stretched before her, tranquil, pleasant and +uneventful, like the afternoon, filled with unhurried duties and +calmly interesting days, Cecily liked the prospect. + +When she came to her own lane she paused, folding her hands on the top +of the whitewashed gate, while she basked for a moment in the warmth +that seemed cupped in the little grassy hollow hedged about with young +fir-trees. + +Before her lay sere, brooding fields sloping down to a sandy shore, +where long foamy ripples were lapping with a murmur that threaded the +hushed air like a faint minor melody. + +On the crest of the little hill to her right was her home--hers and +Lucy Ellen's. The house was an old-fashioned, weather-gray one, low in +the eaves, with gables and porches overgrown with vines that had +turned to wine-reds and rich bronzes in the October frosts. On three +sides it was closed in by tall old spruces, their outer sides bared +and grim from long wrestling with the Atlantic winds, but their inner +green and feathery. On the fourth side a trim white paling shut in the +flower garden before the front door. Cecily could see the beds of +purple and scarlet asters, making rich whorls of color under the +parlor and sitting-room windows. Lucy Ellen's bed was gayer and larger +than Cecily's. Lucy Ellen had always had better luck with flowers. + +She could see old Boxer asleep on the front porch step and Lucy +Ellen's white cat stretched out on the parlor window-sill. There was +no other sign of life about the place. Cecily drew a long, leisurely +breath of satisfaction. + +"After tea I'll dig up those dahlia roots," she said aloud. "They'd +ought to be up. My, how blue and soft that sea is! I never saw such a +lovely day. I've been gone longer than I expected. I wonder if Lucy +Ellen's been lonesome?" + +When Cecily looked back from the misty ocean to the house, she was +surprised to see a man coming with a jaunty step down the lane under +the gnarled spruces. She looked at him perplexedly. He must be a +stranger, for she was sure no man in Oriental walked like that. + +"Some agent has been pestering Lucy Ellen, I suppose," she muttered +vexedly. + +The stranger came on with an airy briskness utterly foreign to +Orientalites. Cecily opened the gate and went through. They met under +the amber-tinted sugar maple in the heart of the hollow. As he passed, +the man lifted his hat and bowed with an ingratiating smile. + +He was about forty-five, well, although somewhat loudly dressed, and +with an air of self-satisfied prosperity pervading his whole +personality. He had a heavy gold watch chain and a large seal ring on +the hand that lifted his hat. He was bald, with a high, Shaksperian +forehead and a halo of sandy curls. His face was ruddy and weak, but +good-natured: his eyes were large and blue, and he had a little +straw-colored moustache, with a juvenile twist and curl in it. + +Cecily did not recognize him, yet there was something vaguely familiar +about him. She walked rapidly up to the house. In the sitting-room she +found Lucy Ellen peering out between the muslin window curtains. When +the latter turned there was an air of repressed excitement about her. + +"Who was that man, Lucy Ellen?" Cecily asked. + +To Cecily's amazement, Lucy Ellen blushed--a warm, Spring-like flood +of color that rolled over her delicate little face like a miracle of +rejuvenescence. + +"Didn't you know him? That was Cromwell Biron," she simpered. Although +Lucy Ellen was forty and, in most respects, sensible, she could not +help simpering upon occasion. + +"Cromwell Biron," repeated Cecily, in an emotionless voice. She took +off her bonnet mechanically, brushed the dust from its ribbons and +bows and went to put it carefully away in its white box in the spare +bedroom. She felt as if she had had a severe shock, and she dared not +ask anything more just then. Lucy Ellen's blush had frightened her. It +seemed to open up dizzying possibilities of change. + +"But she promised--she promised," said Cecily fiercely, under her +breath. + +While Cecily was changing her dress, Lucy Ellen was getting the tea +ready in the little kitchen. Now and then she broke out into singing, +but always checked herself guiltily. Cecily heard her and set her firm +mouth a little firmer. + +"If a man had jilted me twenty years ago, I wouldn't be so +overwhelmingly glad to see him when he came back--especially if he had +got fat and bald-headed," she added, her face involuntarily twitching +into a smile. Cecily, in spite of her serious expression and intense +way of looking at life, had an irrepressible sense of humor. + +Tea that evening was not the pleasant meal it usually was. The two +women were wont to talk animatedly to each other, and Cecily had many +things to tell Lucy Ellen. She did not tell them. Neither did Lucy +Ellen ask any questions, her ill-concealed excitement hanging around +her like a festal garment. + +Cecily's heart was on fire with alarm and jealousy. She smiled a +little cruelly as she buttered and ate her toast. + +"And so that was Cromwell Biron," she said with studied carelessness. +"I thought there was something familiar about him. When did he come +home?" + +"He got to Oriental yesterday," fluttered back Lucy Ellen. "He's going +to be home for two months. We--we had such an interesting talk this +afternoon. He--he's as full of jokes as ever. I wished you'd been +here." + +This was a fib. Cecily knew it. + +"I don't, then," she said contemptuously. "You know I never had much +use for Cromwell Biron. I think he had a face of his own to come down +here to see you uninvited, after the way he treated you." + +Lucy Ellen blushed scorchingly and was miserably silent. + +"He's changed terrible in his looks," went on Cecily relentlessly. +"How bald he's got--and fat! To think of the spruce Cromwell Biron got +to be bald and fat! To be sure, he still has the same sheepish +expression. Will you pass me the currant jell, Lucy Ellen?" + +"I don't think he's so very fat," she said resentfully, when Cecily +had left the table. "And I don't care if he is." + +Twenty years before this, Biron had jilted Lucy Ellen Foster. She was +the prettiest girl in Oriental then, but the new school teacher over +at the Crossways was prettier, with a dash of piquancy, which Lucy +Ellen lacked, into the bargain. Cromwell and the school teacher had +run away and been married, and Lucy Ellen was left to pick up the +tattered shreds of her poor romance as best she could. + +She never had another lover. She told herself that she would always be +faithful to the one love of her life. This sounded romantic, and she +found a certain comfort in it. + +She had been brought up by her uncle and aunt. When they died she and +her cousin, Cecily Foster, found themselves, except for each other, +alone in the world. + +Cecily loved Lucy Ellen as a sister. But she believed that Lucy Ellen +would yet marry, and her heart sank at the prospect of being left +without a soul to love and care for. + +It was Lucy Ellen that had first proposed their mutual promise, but +Cecily had grasped at it eagerly. The two women, verging on decisive +old maidenhood, solemnly promised each other that they would never +marry, and would always live together. From that time Cecily's mind +had been at ease. In her eyes a promise was a sacred thing. + +The next evening at prayer-meeting Cromwell Biron received quite an +ovation from old friends and neighbors. Cromwell had been a favorite +in his boyhood. He had now the additional glamour of novelty and +reputed wealth. + +He was beaming and expansive. He went into the choir to help sing. +Lucy Ellen sat beside him, and they sang from the same book. Two red +spots burned on her thin cheeks, and she had a cluster of lavender +chrysanthemums pinned on her jacket. She looked almost girlish, and +Cromwell Biron gazed at her with sidelong admiration, while Cecily +watched them both fiercely from her pew. She knew that Cromwell Biron +had come home, wooing his old love. + +"But he sha'n't get her," Cecily whispered into her hymnbook. Somehow +it was a comfort to articulate the words, "She promised." + +On the church steps Cromwell offered his arm to Lucy Ellen with a +flourish. She took it shyly, and they started down the road in the +crisp Autumn moonlight. For the first time in ten years Cecily walked +home from prayer-meeting alone. She went up-stairs and flung herself +on her bed, reckless for once, of her second best hat and gown. + +Lucy Ellen did not venture to ask Cromwell in. She was too much in awe +of Cecily for that. But she loitered with him at the gate until the +grandfather's clock in the hall struck eleven. Then Cromwell went +away, whistling gaily, with Lucy Ellen's chrysanthemum in his +buttonhole, and Lucy Ellen went in and cried half the night. But +Cecily did not cry. She lay savagely awake until morning. + +"Cromwell Biron is courting you again," she said bluntly to Lucy Ellen +at the breakfast table. + +Lucy Ellen blushed nervously. + +"Oh, nonsense, Cecily," she protested with a simper. + +"It isn't nonsense," said Cecily calmly. "He is. There is no fool like +an old fool, and Cromwell Biron never had much sense. The presumption +of him!" + +Lucy Ellen's hands trembled as she put her teacup down. + +"He's not so very old," she said faintly, "and everybody but you likes +him--and he's well-to-do. I don't see that there's any presumption." + +"Maybe not--if you look at it so. You're very forgiving, Lucy Ellen. +You've forgotten how he treated you once." + +"No--o--o, I haven't," faltered Lucy Ellen. + +"Anyway," said Cecily coldly, "you shouldn't encourage his attentions, +Lucy Ellen; you know you couldn't marry him even if he asked you. You +promised." + +All the fitful color went out of Lucy Ellen's face. Under Cecily's +pitiless eyes she wilted and drooped. + +"I know," she said deprecatingly, "I haven't forgotten. You are +talking nonsense, Cecily. I like to see Cromwell, and he likes to see +me because I'm almost the only one of his old set that is left. He +feels lonesome in Oriental now." + +Lucy Ellen lifted her fawn-colored little head more erectly at the +last of her protest. She had saved her self-respect. + +In the month that followed Cromwell Biron pressed his suit +persistently, unintimidated by Cecily's antagonism. October drifted +into November and the chill, drear days came. To Cecily the whole +outer world seemed the dismal reflex of her pain-bitten heart. Yet she +constantly laughed at herself, too, and her laughter was real if +bitter. + +One evening she came home late from a neighbor's. Cromwell Biron +passed her in the hollow under the bare boughs of the maple that were +outlined against the silvery moonlit sky. + +When Cecily went into the house, Lucy Ellen opened the parlor door. +She was very pale, but her eyes burned in her face and her hands were +clasped before her. + +"I wish you'd come in here for a few minutes, Cecily," she said +feverishly. + +Cecily followed silently into the room. + +"Cecily," she said faintly, "Cromwell was here to-night. He asked me +to marry him. I told him to come to-morrow night for his answer." + +She paused and looked imploringly at Cecily. Cecily did not speak. She +stood tall and unrelenting by the table. The rigidity of her face and +figure smote Lucy Ellen like a blow. She threw out her bleached little +hands and spoke with a sudden passion utterly foreign to her. + +"Cecily, I want to marry him. I--I--love him. I always have. I never +thought of this when I promised. Oh, Cecily, you'll let me off my +promise, won't you?" + +"No," said Cecily. It was all she said. Lucy Ellen's hands fell to her +sides, and the light went out of her face. + +"You won't?" she said hopelessly. + +Cecily went out. At the door she turned. + +"When John Edwards asked me to marry him six years ago, I said no for +your sake. To my mind a promise is a promise. But you were always weak +and romantic, Lucy Ellen." + +Lucy Ellen made no response. She stood limply on the hearth-rug like a +faded blossom bitten by frost. + +After Cromwell Biron had gone away the next evening, with all his +brisk jauntiness shorn from him for the time, Lucy Ellen went up to +Cecily's room. She stood for a moment in the narrow doorway, with the +lamplight striking upward with a gruesome effect on her wan face. + +"I've sent him away," she said lifelessly. "I've kept my promise, +Cecily." + +There was silence for a moment. Cecily did not know what to say. +Suddenly Lucy Ellen burst out bitterly. + +"I wish I was dead!" + +Then she turned swiftly and ran across the hall to her own room. +Cecily gave a little moan of pain. This was her reward for all the +love she had lavished on Lucy Ellen. + +"Anyway, it is all over," she said, looking dourly into the moonlit +boughs of the firs; "Lucy Ellen'll get over it. When Cromwell is gone +she'll forget all about him. I'm not going to fret. She promised, and +she wanted the promise first." + +During the next fortnight tragedy held grim sway in the little +weather-gray house among the firs--a tragedy tempered with grim comedy +for Cecily, who, amid all her agony, could not help being amused at +Lucy Ellen's romantic way of sorrowing. + +Lucy Ellen did her mornings' work listlessly and drooped through the +afternoons. Cecily would have felt it as a relief if Lucy Ellen had +upbraided her, but after her outburst on the night she sent Cromwell +away, Lucy Ellen never uttered a word of reproach or complaint. + +One evening Cecily made a neighborly call in the village. Cromwell +Biron happened to be there and gallantly insisted upon seeing her +home. + +She understood from Cromwell's unaltered manner that Lucy Ellen had +not told him why she had refused him. She felt a sudden admiration for +her cousin. + +When they reached the house Cromwell halted suddenly in the banner of +light that streamed from the sitting-room window. They saw Lucy Ellen +sitting alone before the fire, her arms folded on the table, and her +head bowed on them. Her white cat sat unnoticed at the table beside +her. Cecily gave a gasp of surrender. + +"You'd better come in," she said, harshly. "Lucy Ellen looks +lonesome." + +Cromwell muttered sheepishly, "I'm afraid I wouldn't be company for +her. Lucy Ellen doesn't like me much--" + +"Oh, doesn't she!" said Cecily, bitterly. "She likes you better than +she likes me for all I've--but it's no matter. It's been all my +fault--she'll explain. Tell her I said she could. Come in, I say." + +She caught the still reluctant Cromwell by the arm and fairly dragged +him over the geranium beds and through the front door. She opened the +sitting-room door and pushed him in. Lucy Ellen rose in amazement. +Over Cromwell's bald head loomed Cecily's dark face, tragic and +determined. + +"Here's your beau, Lucy Ellen," she said, "and I give you back your +promise." + +She shut the door upon the sudden illumination of Lucy Ellen's face +and went up-stairs with the tears rolling down her cheeks. + +"It's my turn to wish I was dead," she muttered. Then she laughed +hysterically. + +"That goose of a Cromwell! How queer he did look standing there, +frightened to death of Lucy Ellen. Poor little Lucy Ellen! Well, I +hope he'll be good to her." + + + + +The Pursuit of the Ideal + + +Freda's snuggery was aglow with the rose-red splendour of an open fire +which was triumphantly warding off the stealthy approaches of the dull +grey autumn twilight. Roger St. Clair stretched himself out +luxuriously in an easy-chair with a sigh of pleasure. + +"Freda, your armchairs are the most comfy in the world. How do you get +them to fit into a fellow's kinks so splendidly?" + +Freda smiled at him out of big, owlish eyes that were the same tint as +the coppery grey sea upon which the north window of the snuggery +looked. + +"Any armchair will fit a lazy fellow's kinks," she said. + +"I'm not lazy," protested Roger. "That you should say so, Freda, when +I have wheeled all the way out of town this dismal afternoon over the +worst bicycle road in three kingdoms to see you, bonnie maid!" + +"I like lazy people," said Freda softly, tilting her spoon on a cup of +chocolate with a slender brown hand. + +Roger smiled at her chummily. + +"You are such a comfortable girl," he said. "I like to talk to you and +tell you things." + +"You have something to tell me today. It has been fairly sticking out +of your eyes ever since you came. Now, 'fess." + +Freda put away her cup and saucer, got up, and stood by the fireplace, +with one arm outstretched along the quaintly carved old mantel. She +laid her head down on its curve and looked expectantly at Roger. + +"I have seen my ideal, Freda," said Roger gravely. + +Freda lifted her head and then laid it down again. She did not speak. +Roger was glad of it. Even at the moment he found himself thinking +that Freda had a genius for silence. Any other girl he knew would have +broken in at once with surprised exclamations and questions and +spoiled his story. + +"You have not forgotten what my ideal woman is like?" he said. + +Freda shook her head. She was not likely to forget. She remembered +only too keenly the afternoon he had told her. They had been sitting +in the snuggery, herself in the inglenook, and Roger coiled up in his +big pet chair that nobody else ever sat in. + +"'What must my lady be that I must love her?'" he had quoted. "Well, I +will paint my dream-love for you, Freda. She must be tall and slender, +with chestnut hair of wonderful gloss, with just the suggestion of a +ripple in it. She must have an oval face, colourless ivory in hue, +with the expression of a Madonna; and her eyes must be 'passionless, +peaceful blue,' deep and tender as a twilight sky." + +Freda, looking at herself along her arm in the mirror, recalled this +description and smiled faintly. She was short and plump, with a +piquant, irregular little face, vivid tinting, curly, unmanageable +hair of ruddy brown, and big grey eyes. Certainly, she was not his +ideal. + +"When and where did you meet your lady of the Madonna face and +twilight eyes?" she asked. + +Roger frowned. Freda's face was solemn enough but her eyes looked as +if she might be laughing at him. + +"I haven't met her yet. I have only seen her. It was in the park +yesterday. She was in a carriage with the Mandersons. So beautiful, +Freda! Our eyes met as she drove past and I realized that I had found +my long-sought ideal. I rushed back to town and hunted up Pete +Manderson at the club. Pete is a donkey but he has his ways of being +useful. He told me who she was. Her name is Stephanie Gardiner; she is +his cousin from the south and is visiting his mother. And, Freda, I am +to dine at the Mandersons' tonight. I shall meet her." + +"Do goddesses and ideals and Madonnas eat?" said Freda in an awed +whisper. Her eyes were certainly laughing now. Roger got up stiffly. + +"I must confess I did not expect that you would ridicule my +confidence, Freda," he said frigidly. "It is very unlike you. But if +you are not interested I will not bore you with any further details. +And it is time I was getting back to town anyhow." + +When he had gone Freda ran to the west window and flung it open. She +leaned out and waved both hands at him over the spruce hedge. + +"Roger, Roger, I was a horrid little beast. Forget it immediately, +please. And come out tomorrow and tell me all about her." + +Roger came. He bored Freda terribly with his raptures but she never +betrayed it. She was all sympathy--or, at least, as much sympathy as a +woman can be who must listen while the man of men sings another +woman's praises to her. She sent Roger away in perfect good humour +with himself and all the world, then she curled herself up in the +snuggery, pulled a rug over her head, and cried. + +Roger came out to Lowlands oftener than ever after that. He had to +talk to somebody about Stephanie Gardiner and Freda was the safest +vent. The "pursuit of the Ideal," as she called it, went on with vim +and fervour. Sometimes Roger would be on the heights of hope and +elation; the next visit he would be in the depths of despair and +humility. Freda had learned to tell which it was by the way he opened +the snuggery door. + +One day when Roger came he found six feet of young man reposing at +ease in his particular chair. Freda was sipping chocolate in her +corner and looking over the rim of her cup at the intruder just as she +had been wont to look at Roger. She had on a new dark red gown and +looked vivid and rose-hued. + +She introduced the stranger as Mr. Grayson and called him Tim. They +seemed to be excellent friends. Roger sat bolt upright on the edge of +a fragile, gilded chair which Freda kept to hide a shabby spot in the +carpet, and glared at Tim until the latter said goodbye and lounged +out. + +"You'll be over tomorrow?" said Freda. + +"Can't I come this evening?" he pleaded. + +Freda nodded. "Yes--and we'll make taffy. You used to make such +delicious stuff, Tim." + +"Who is that fellow, Freda?" Roger inquired crossly, as soon as the +door closed. + +Freda began to make a fresh pot of chocolate. She smiled dreamily as +if thinking of something pleasant. + +"Why, that was Tim Grayson--dear old Tim. He used to live next door to +us when we were children. And we were such chums--always together, +making mud pies, and getting into scrapes. He is just the same old +Tim, and is home from the west for a long visit. I was so glad to see +him again." + +"So it would appear," said Roger grumpily. "Well, now that 'dear old +Tim' is gone, I suppose I can have my own chair, can I? And do give me +some chocolate. I didn't know you made taffy." + +"Oh, I don't. It's Tim. He can do everything. He used to make it long +ago, and I washed up after him and helped him eat it. How is the +pursuit of the Ideal coming on, Roger-boy?" + +Roger did not feel as if he wanted to talk about the Ideal. He noticed +how vivid Freda's smile was and how lovable were the curves of her +neck where the dusky curls were caught up from it. He had also an +inner vision of Freda making taffy with Tim and he did not approve of +it. + +He refused to talk about the Ideal. On his way back to town he found +himself thinking that Freda had the most charming, glad little laugh +of any girl he knew. He suddenly remembered that he had never heard +the Ideal laugh. She smiled placidly--he had raved to Freda about that +smile--but she did not laugh. Roger began to wonder what an ideal +without any sense of humour would be like when translated into the +real. + +He went to Lowlands the next afternoon and found Tim there--in his +chair again. He detested the fellow but he could not deny that he was +good-looking and had charming manners. Freda was very nice to Tim. On +his way back to town Roger decided that Tim was in love with Freda. He +was furious at the idea. The presumption of the man! + +He also remembered that he had not said a word to Freda about the +Ideal. And he never did say much more--perhaps because he could not +get the chance. Tim was always there before him and generally +outstayed him. + +One day when he went out he did not find Freda at home. Her aunt told +him that she was out riding with Mr. Grayson. On his way back he met +them. As they cantered by, Freda waved her riding whip at him. Her +face was full of warm, ripe, kissable tints, her loose lovelocks were +blowing about it, and her eyes shone like grey pools mirroring stars. +Roger turned and watched them out of sight behind the firs that cupped +Lowlands. + +That night at Mrs. Crandall's dinner table somebody began to talk +about Freda. Roger strained his ears to listen. Mrs. Kitty Carr was +speaking--Mrs. Kitty knew everything and everybody. + +"She is simply the most charming girl in the world when you get really +acquainted with her," said Mrs. Kitty, with the air of having +discovered and patented Freda. "She is so vivid and unconventional and +lovable--'spirit and fire and dew,' you know. Tim Grayson is a very +lucky fellow." + +"Are they engaged?" someone asked. + +"Not yet, I fancy. But of course it is only a question of time. Tim +simply adores her. He is a good soul and has lots of money, so he'll +do. But really, you know, I think a prince wouldn't be good enough for +Freda." + +Roger suddenly became conscious that the Ideal was asking him a +question of which he had not heard a word. He apologized and was +forgiven. But he went home a very miserable man. + +He did not go to Lowlands for two weeks. They were the longest, most +wretched two weeks he had ever lived through. One afternoon he heard +that Tim Grayson had gone back west. Mrs. Kitty told it mournfully. + +"Of course, this means that Freda has refused him," she said. "She is +such an odd girl." + +Roger went straight out to Lowlands. He found Freda in the snuggery +and held out his hands to her. + +"Freda, will you marry me? It will take a lifetime to tell you how +much I love you." + +"But the Ideal?" questioned Freda. + +"I have just discovered what my ideal is," said Roger. "She is a dear, +loyal, companionable little girl, with the jolliest laugh and the +warmest, truest heart in the world. She has starry grey eyes, two +dimples, and a mouth I must and will kiss--there--there--there! Freda, +tell me you love me a little bit, although I've been such a besotted +idiot." + +"I will not let you call my husband-that-is-to-be names," said Freda, +snuggling down into the curve of his shoulder. "But indeed, Roger-boy, +you will have to make me very, very happy to square matters up. You +have made me so unutterably unhappy for two months." + +"The pursuit of the Ideal is ended," declared Roger. + + + + +The Softening of Miss Cynthia + + +"I wonder if I'd better flavour this cake with lemon or vanilla. It's +the most perplexing thing I ever heard of in my life." + +Miss Cynthia put down the bottles with a vexed frown; her perplexity +had nothing whatever to do with flavouring the golden mixture in her +cake bowl. Mrs. John Joe knew that; the latter had dropped in in a +flurry of curiosity concerning the little boy whom she had seen about +Miss Cynthia's place for the last two days. Her daughter Kitty was +with her; they both sat close together on the kitchen sofa. + +"It _is_ too bad," said Mrs. John Joe sympathetically. "I don't wonder +you are mixed up. So unexpected, too! When did he come?" + +"Tuesday night," said Miss Cynthia. She had decided on the vanilla and +was whipping it briskly in. "I saw an express wagon drive into the +yard with a boy and a trunk in it and I went out just as he got down. +'Are you my Aunt Cynthia?' he said. 'Who in the world are you?' I +asked. And he says, 'I'm Wilbur Merrivale, and my father was John +Merrivale. He died three weeks ago and he said I was to come to you, +because you were his sister.' Well, you could just have knocked me +down with a feather!" + +"I'm sure," said Mrs. John Joe. "But I didn't know you had a brother. +And his name--Merrivale?" + +"Well, he wasn't any relation really. I was about six years old when +my father married his mother, the Widow Merrivale. John was just my +age, and we were brought up together just like brother and sister. He +was a real nice fellow, I must say. But he went out to Californy years +ago, and I haven't heard a word of him for fifteen years--didn't know +if he was alive or dead. But it seems from what I can make out from +the boy, that his mother died when he was a baby, and him and John +roughed it along together--pretty poor, too, I guess--till John took +a fever and died. And he told some of his friends to send the boy to +me, for he'd no relations there and not a cent in the world. And the +child came all the way from Californy, and here he is. I've been just +distracted ever since. I've never been used to children, and to have +the house kept in perpetual uproar is more than I can stand. He's +about twelve and a born mischief. He'll tear through the rooms with +his dirty feet, and he's smashed one of my blue vases and torn down a +curtain and set Towser on the cat half a dozen times already--I never +was so worried. I've got him out on the verandah shelling peas now, to +keep him quiet for a little spell." + +"I'm really sorry for you," said Mrs. John Joe. "But, poor child, I +suppose he's never had anyone to look after him. And come all the way +from Californy alone, too--he must be real smart." + +"Too smart, I guess. He must take after his mother, whoever she was, +for there ain't a bit of Merrivale in him. And he's been brought up +pretty rough." + +"Well, it'll be a great responsibility for you, Cynthia, of course. +But he'll be company, too, and he'll be real handy to run errands +and--" + +"_I'm_ not going to keep him," said Miss Cynthia determinedly. Her +thin lips set themselves firmly and her voice had a hard ring. + +"Not going to keep him?" said Mrs. John Joe blankly. "You can't send +him back to Californy!" + +"I don't intend to. But as for having him here to worry my life out +and keep me in a perpetual stew, I just won't do it. D'ye think I'm +going to trouble myself about children at my age? And all he'd cost +for clothes and schooling, too! I can't afford it. I don't suppose his +father expected it either. I suppose he expected me to look after him +a bit--and of course I will. A boy of his age ought to be able to +earn his keep, anyway. If I look out a place for him somewhere where +he can do odd jobs and go to school in the winter, I think it's all +anyone can expect of me, when he ain't really no blood relation." + +Miss Cynthia flung the last sentence at Mrs. John Joe rather +defiantly, not liking the expression on that lady's face. + +"I suppose nobody could expect more, Cynthy," said Mrs. John Joe +deprecatingly. "He would be an awful bother, I've no doubt, and you've +lived alone so long with no one to worry you that you wouldn't know +what to do with him. Boys are always getting into mischief--my four +just keep me on the dead jump. Still, it's a pity for him, poor little +fellow! No mother or father--it seems hard." + +Miss Cynthia's face grew grimmer than ever as she went to the door +with her callers and watched them down the garden path. As soon as +Mrs. John Joe saw that the door was shut, she unburdened her mind to +her daughter. + +"Did you ever hear tell of the like? I thought I knew Cynthia +Henderson well, if anybody in Wilmot did, but this beats me. Just +think, Kitty--there she is, no one knows how rich, and not a soul in +the world belonging to her, and she won't even take in her brother's +child. She must be a hard woman. But it's just meanness, pure and +simple; she grudges him what he'd eat and wear. The poor mite doesn't +look as if he'd need much. Cynthia didn't used to be like that, but +it's growing on her every day. She's got hard as rocks." + +That afternoon Miss Cynthia harnessed her fat grey pony into the +phaeton herself--she kept neither man nor maid, but lived in her big, +immaculate house in solitary state--and drove away down the dusty, +buttercup-bordered road, leaving Wilbur sitting on the verandah. She +returned in an hour's time and drove into the yard, shutting the gate +behind her with a vigorous snap. Wilbur was not in sight and, fearful +lest he should be in mischief, she hurriedly tied the pony to the +railing and went in search of him. She found him sitting by the well, +his chin in his hands; he was pale and his eyes were red. Miss Cynthia +hardened her heart and took him into the house. + +"I've been down to see Mr. Robins this afternoon, Wilbur," she said, +pretending to brush some invisible dust from the bottom of her nice +black cashmere skirt for an excuse to avoid looking at him, "and he's +agreed to take you on trial. It's a real good chance--better than you +could expect. He says he'll board and clothe you and let you go to +school in the winter." + +The boy seemed to shrink. + +"Daddy said that I would stay with you," he said wistfully. "He said +you were so good and kind and would love me for his sake." + +For a moment Miss Cynthia softened. She had been very fond of her +stepbrother; it seemed that his voice appealed to her across the grave +in behalf of his child. But the crust of years was not to be so easily +broken. + +"Your father meant that I would look after you," she said, "and I mean +to, but I can't afford to keep you here. You'll have a good place at +Mr. Robins', if you behave yourself. I'm going to take you down now, +before I unharness the pony, so go and wash your face while I put up +your things. Don't look so woebegone, for pity's sake! I'm not taking +you to prison." + +Wilbur turned and went silently to the kitchen. Miss Cynthia thought +she heard a sob. She went with a firm step into the little bedroom off +the hall and took a purse out of a drawer. + +"I s'pose I ought," she said doubtfully. "I don't s'pose he has a +cent. I daresay he'll lose or waste it." + +She counted out seventy-five cents carefully. When she came out, +Wilbur was at the door. She put the money awkwardly into his hand. + +"There, see that you don't spend it on any foolishness." + + * * * * * + +Miss Cynthia's Action made a good deal of talk in Wilmot. The women, +headed by Mrs. John Joe--who said behind Cynthia's back what she did +not dare say to her face--condemned her. The men laughed and said that +Cynthia was a shrewd one; there was no getting round her. Miss Cynthia +herself was far from easy. She could not forget Wilbur's wistful eyes, +and she had heard that Robins was a hard master. + +A week after the boy had gone she saw him one day at the store. He was +lifting heavy bags from a cart. The work was beyond his strength, and +he was flushed and panting. Miss Cynthia's conscience gave her a hard +stab. She bought a roll of peppermints and took them over to him. He +thanked her timidly and drove quickly away. + +"Robins hasn't any business putting such work on a child," she said to +herself indignantly. "I'll speak to him about it." + +And she did--and got an answer that made her ears tingle. Mr. Robins +bluntly told her he guessed he knew what was what about his hands. He +weren't no nigger driver. If she wasn't satisfied, she might take the +boy away as soon as she liked. + +Miss Cynthia did not get much comfort out of life that summer. Almost +everywhere she went she was sure to meet Wilbur, engaged in some hard +task. She could not help seeing how miserably pale and thin he had +become. The worry had its effect on her. The neighbours said that +Cynthy was sharper than ever. Even her church-going was embittered. +She had always enjoyed walking up the aisle with her rich silk skirt +rustling over the carpet, her cashmere shawl folded correctly over her +shoulders, and her lace bonnet set precisely on her thin shining +crimps. But she could take no pleasure in that or in the sermon now, +when Wilbur sat right across from her pew, between hard-featured +Robins and his sulky-looking wife. The boy's eyes had grown too large +for his thin face. + +The softening of Miss Cynthia was a very gradual process, but it +reached a climax one September morning, when Mrs. John Joe came into +the former's kitchen with an important face. Miss Cynthia was +preserving her plums. + +"No, thank you, I'll not sit down--I only run in--I suppose you've +heard it. That little Merrivale boy has took awful sick with fever, +they say. He's been worked half to death this summer--everyone knows +what Robins is with his help--and they say he has fretted a good deal +for his father and been homesick, and he's run down, I s'pose. Anyway, +Robins took him over to the hospital at Stanford last night--good +gracious, Cynthy, are you sick?" + +Miss Cynthia had staggered to a seat by the table; her face was +pallid. + +"No, it's only your news gave me a turn--it came so suddenly--I didn't +know." + +"I must hurry back and see to the men's dinners. I thought I'd come +and tell you, though I didn't know as you'd care." + +This parting shot was unheeded by Miss Cynthia. She laid her face in +her hands. "It's a judgement on me," she moaned. "He's going to die, +and I'm his murderess. This is the account I'll have to give John +Merrivale of his boy. I've been a wicked, selfish woman, and I'm +justly punished." + +It was a humbled Miss Cynthia who met the doctor at the hospital that +afternoon. He shook his head at her eager questions. + +"It's a pretty bad case. The boy seems run down every way. No, it is +impossible to think of moving him again. Bringing him here last night +did him a great deal of harm. Yes, you may see him, but he will not +know you, I fear--he is delirious and raves of his father and +California." + +Miss Cynthia followed the doctor down the long ward. When he paused by +a cot, she pushed past him. Wilbur lay tossing restlessly on his +pillow. He was thin to emaciation, but his cheeks were crimson and his +eyes burning bright. + +Miss Cynthia stooped and took the hot, dry hands in hers. + +"Wilbur," she sobbed, "don't you know me--Aunt Cynthia?" + +"You are not my Aunt Cynthia," said Wilbur. "Daddy said Aunt Cynthia +was good and kind--you are a cross, bad woman. I want Daddy. Why +doesn't he come? Why doesn't he come to little Wilbur?" + +Miss Cynthia got up and faced the doctor. + +"He's _got_ to get better," she said stubbornly. "Spare no expense or +trouble. If he dies, I will be a murderess. He must live and give me a +chance to make it up for him." + +And he did live; but for a long time it was a hard fight, and there +were days when it seemed that death must win. Miss Cynthia got so thin +and wan that even Mrs. John Joe pitied her. + +The earth seemed to Miss Cynthia to laugh out in prodigal joyousness +on the afternoon she drove home when Wilbur had been pronounced out of +danger. How tranquil the hills looked, with warm October sunshine +sleeping on their sides and faint blue hazes on their brows! How +gallantly the maples flaunted their crimson flags! How kind and +friendly was every face she met! Afterwards, Miss Cynthia said she +began to live that day. + +Wilbur's recovery was slow. Every day Miss Cynthia drove over with +some dainty, and her loving gentleness sat none the less gracefully on +her because of its newness. Wilbur grew to look for and welcome her +coming. When it was thought safe to remove him, Miss Cynthia went to +the hospital with a phaeton-load of shawls and pillows. + +"I have come to take you away," she said. + +Wilbur shrank back. "Not to Mr. Robins," he said piteously. "Oh, not +there, Aunt Cynthia!" + +"Of course not," Miss Cynthia said. + + + + +Them Notorious Pigs + + +John Harrington was a woman-hater, or thought that he was, which +amounts to the same thing. He was forty-five and, having been handsome +in his youth, was a fine-looking man still. He had a remarkably good +farm and was a remarkably good farmer. He also had a garden which was +the pride and delight of his heart or, at least, it was before Mrs. +Hayden's pigs got into it. + +Sarah King, Harrington's aunt and housekeeper, was deaf and crabbed, +and very few visitors ever came to the house. This suited Harrington. +He was a good citizen and did his duty by the community, but his bump +of sociability was undeveloped. He was also a contented man, looking +after his farm, improving his stock, and experimenting with new bulbs +in undisturbed serenity. This, however, was all too good to last. A +man is bound to have some troubles in this life, and Harrington's were +near their beginning when Perry Hayden bought the adjoining farm from +the heirs of Shakespeare Ely, deceased, and moved in. + +To be sure, Perry Hayden, poor fellow, did not bother Harrington much, +for he died of pneumonia a month after he came there, but his widow +carried on the farm with the assistance of a lank hired boy. Her own +children, Charles and Theodore, commonly known as Bobbles and Ted, +were as yet little more than babies. + +The real trouble began when Mary Hayden's pigs, fourteen in number and +of half-grown voracity, got into Harrington's garden. A railing, a fir +grove, and an apple orchard separated the two establishments, but +these failed to keep the pigs within bounds. + +Harrington had just got his garden planted for the season, and to go +out one morning and find a horde of enterprising porkers rooting about +in it was, to put it mildly, trying. He was angry, but as it was a +first offence he drove the pigs out with tolerable calmness, mended +the fence, and spent the rest of the day repairing damages. + +Three days later the pigs got in again. Harrington relieved his mind +by some scathing reflections on women who tried to run farms. Then he +sent Mordecai, his hired man, over to the Hayden place to ask Mrs. +Hayden if she would be kind enough to keep her pigs out of his garden. +Mrs. Hayden sent back word that she was very sorry and would not let +it occur again. Nobody, not even John Harrington, could doubt that she +meant what she said. But she had reckoned without the pigs. They had +not forgotten the flavour of Egyptian fleshpots as represented by the +succulent young shoots in the Harrington domains. A week later +Mordecai came in and told Harrington that "them notorious pigs" were +in his garden again. + +There is a limit to everyone's patience. Harrington left Mordecai to +drive them out, while he put on his hat and stalked over to the +Haydens' place. Ted and Bobbles were playing at marbles in the lane +and ran when they saw him coming. He got close up to the little low +house among the apple trees before Mordecai appeared in the yard, +driving the pigs around the barn. Mrs. Hayden was sitting on her +doorstep, paring her dinner potatoes, and stood up hastily when she +saw her visitor. + +Harrington had never seen his neighbour at close quarters before. Now +he could not help seeing that she was a very pretty little woman, with +wistful, dark blue eyes and an appealing expression. Mary Hayden had +been next to a beauty in her girlhood, and she had a good deal of her +bloom left yet, although hard work and worry were doing their best to +rob her of it. But John Harrington was an angry man and did not care +whether the woman in question was pretty or not. Her pigs had rooted +up his garden--that fact filled his mind. + +"Mrs. Hayden, those pigs of yours have been in my garden again. I +simply can't put up with this any longer. Why in the name of reason +don't you look after your animals better? If I find them in again I'll +set my dog on them, I give you fair warning." + +A faint colour had crept into Mary Hayden's soft, milky-white cheeks +during this tirade, and her voice trembled as she said, "I'm very +sorry, Mr. Harrington. I suppose Bobbles forgot to shut the gate of +their pen again this morning. He is so forgetful." + +"I'd lengthen his memory, then, if I were you," returned Harrington +grimly, supposing that Bobbles was the hired man. "I'm not going to +have my garden ruined just because he happens to be forgetful. I am +speaking my mind plainly, madam. If you can't keep your stock from +being a nuisance to other people you ought not to try to run a farm at +all." + +Then did Mrs. Hayden sit down upon the doorstep and burst into tears. +Harrington felt, as Sarah King would have expressed it, "every which +way at once." Here was a nice mess! What a nuisance women were--worse +than the pigs! + +"Oh, don't cry, Mrs. Hayden," he said awkwardly. "I didn't mean--well, +I suppose I spoke too strongly. Of course I know you didn't mean to +let the pigs in. There, do stop crying! I beg your pardon if I've hurt +your feelings." + +"Oh, it isn't that," sobbed Mrs. Hayden, wiping away her tears. "It's +only--I've tried so hard--and everything seems to go wrong. I make +such mistakes. As for your garden, sir. I'll pay for the damage my +pigs have done if you'll let me know what it comes to." + +She sobbed again and caught her breath like a grieved child. +Harrington felt like a brute. He had a queer notion that if he put his +arm around her and told her not to worry over things women were not +created to attend to he would be expressing his feelings better than +in any other way. But of course he couldn't do that. Instead, he +muttered that the damage didn't amount to much after all, and he hoped +she wouldn't mind what he said, and then he got himself away and +strode through the orchard like a man in a desperate hurry. + +Mordecai had gone home and the pigs were not to be seen, but a chubby +little face peeped at him from between two scrub, bloom-white cherry +trees. + +"G'way, you bad man!" said Bobbles vindictively. "G'way! You made my +mommer cry--I saw you. I'm only Bobbles now, but when I grow up I'll +be Charles Henry Hayden and you won't dare to make my mommer cry +then." + +Harrington smiled grimly. "So you're the lad who forgets to shut the +pigpen gate, are you? Come out here and let me see you. Who is in +there with you?" + +"Ted is. He's littler than me. But I won't come out. I don't like you. +G'way home." + +Harrington obeyed. He went home and to work in his garden. But work as +hard as he would, he could not forget Mary Hayden's grieved face. + +"I was a brute!" he thought. "Why couldn't I have mentioned the matter +gently? I daresay she has enough to trouble her. Confound those pigs!" + + * * * * * + +After that there was a time of calm. Evidently something had been done +to Bobbles' memory or perhaps Mrs. Hayden attended to the gate +herself. At all events the pigs were not seen and Harrington's garden +blossomed like the rose. But Harrington himself was in a bad state. + +For one thing, wherever he looked he saw the mental picture of his +neighbour's tired, sweet face and the tears in her blue eyes. The +original he never saw, which only made matters worse. He wondered what +opinion she had of him and decided that she must think him a cross old +bear. This worried him. He wished the pigs would break in again so +that he might have a chance to show how forbearing he could be. + +One day he gathered a nice mess of tender young greens and sent them +over to Mrs. Hayden by Mordecai. At first he had thought of sending +her some flowers, but that seemed silly, and besides, Mordecai and +flowers were incongruous. Mrs. Hayden sent back a very pretty message +of thanks, whereat Harrington looked radiant and Mordecai, who could +see through a stone wall as well as most people, went out to the barn +and chuckled. + +"Ef the little widder hain't caught him! Who'd a-thought it?" + +The next day one adventurous pig found its way alone into the +Harrington garden. Harrington saw it get in and at the same moment he +saw Mrs. Hayden running through her orchard. She was in his yard by +the time he got out. + +Her sunbonnet had fallen back and some loose tendrils of her auburn +hair were curling around her forehead. Her cheeks were so pink and her +eyes so bright from running that she looked almost girlish. + +"Oh, Mr. Harrington," she said breathlessly, "that pet pig of Bobbles' +is in your garden again. He only got in this minute. I saw him coming +and I ran right after him." + +"He's there, all right," said Harrington cheerfully, "but I'll get him +out in a jiffy. Don't tire yourself. Won't you go into the house and +rest while I drive him around?" + +Mrs. Hayden, however, was determined to help and they both went around +to the garden, set the gate open, and tried to drive the pig out. But +Harrington was not thinking about pigs, and Mrs. Hayden did not know +quite so much about driving them as Mordecai did; as a consequence +they did not make much headway. In her excitement Mrs. Hayden ran over +beds and whatever came in her way, and Harrington, in order to keep +near her, ran after her. Between them they spoiled things about as +much as a whole drove of pigs would have done. + +But at last the pig grew tired of the fun, bolted out of the gate, and +ran across the yard to his own place. Mrs. Hayden followed slowly and +Harrington walked beside her. + +"Those pigs are all to be shut up tomorrow," she said. "Hiram has been +fixing up a place for them in his spare moments and it is ready at +last." + +"Oh, I wouldn't," said Harrington hastily. "It isn't good for pigs to +be shut up so young. You'd better let them run a while yet." + +"No," said Mrs. Hayden decidedly. "They have almost worried me to +death already. In they go tomorrow." + +They were at the lane gate now, and Harrington had to open it and let +her pass through. He felt quite desperate as he watched her trip up +through the rows of apple trees, her blue gingham skirt brushing the +lush grasses where a lacy tangle of sunbeams and shadows lay. Bobbles +and Ted came running to meet her and the three, hand in hand, +disappeared from sight. + +Harrington went back to the house, feeling that life was flat, stale, +and unprofitable. That evening at the tea table he caught himself +wondering what it would be like to see Mary Hayden sitting at his +table in place of Sarah King, with Bobbles and Ted on either hand. +Then he found out what was the matter with him. He was in love, +fathoms deep, with the blue-eyed widow! + +Presumably the pigs were shut up the next day, for Harrington's garden +was invaded no more. He stood it for a week and then surrendered at +discretion. He filled a basket with early strawberries and went across +to the Hayden place, boldly enough to all appearance, but with his +heart thumping like any schoolboy's. + +The front door stood hospitably open, flanked by rows of defiant red +and yellow hollyhocks. Harrington paused on the step, with his hand +outstretched to knock. Somewhere inside he heard a low sobbing. +Forgetting all about knocking, he stepped softly in and walked to the +door of the little sitting-room. Bobbles was standing behind him in +the middle of the kitchen but Harrington did not see him. He was +looking at Mary Hayden, who was sitting by the table in the room with +her arms flung out over it and her head bowed on them. She was crying +softly in a hopeless fashion. + +Harrington put down his strawberries. "Mary!" he exclaimed. + +Mrs. Hayden straightened herself up with a start and looked at him, +her lips quivering and her eyes full of tears. + +"What is the matter?" said Harrington anxiously. "Is anything wrong?" + +"Oh, nothing much," Said Mrs. Hayden, trying to recover herself. "Yes, +there is too. But it is very foolish of me to be going on like this. I +didn't know anyone was near. And I was feeling so discouraged. The +colt broke his leg in the swamp pasture today and Hiram had to shoot +him. It was Ted's colt. But there, there is no use in crying over it." + +And by way of proving this, the poor, tired, overburdened little woman +began to cry again. She was past caring whether Harrington saw her or +not. + +The woman-hater was so distressed that he forgot to be nervous. He sat +down and put his arm around her and spoke out what was in his mind +without further parley. + +"Don't cry, Mary. Listen to me. You were never meant to run a farm and +be killed with worry. You ought to be looked after and petted. I want +you to marry me and then everything will be all right. I've loved you +ever since that day I came over here and made you cry. Do you think +you can like me a little, Mary?" + +It may be that Mrs. Hayden was not very much surprised, because +Harrington's face had been like an open book the day they chased the +pig out of the garden together. As for what she said, perhaps Bobbles, +who was surreptitiously gorging himself on Harrington's strawberries, +may tell you, but I certainly shall not. + +The little brown house among the apple trees is shut up now and the +boundary fence belongs to ancient history. Sarah King has gone also +and Mrs. John Harrington reigns royally in her place. Bobbles and Ted +have a small, blue-eyed, much-spoiled sister, and there is a pig on +the estate who may die of old age, but will never meet his doom +otherwise. It is Bobbles' pig and one of the famous fourteen. + +Mordecai still shambles around and worships Mrs. Harrington. The +garden is the same as of yore, but the house is a different place and +Harrington is a different man. And Mordecai will tell you with a +chuckle, "It was them notorious pigs as did it all." + + + + +Why Not Ask Miss Price? + + +Frances Allen came in from the post office and laid an open letter on +the table beside her mother, who was making mincemeat. Alma Allen +looked up from the cake she was frosting to ask, "What is the matter? +You look as if your letter contained unwelcome news, Fan." + +"So it does. It is from Aunt Clara, to say she cannot come. She has +received a telegram that her sister-in-law is very ill and she must go +to her at once." + +Mrs. Allen looked regretful, and Alma cast her spoon away with a +tragic air. + +"That is too bad. I feel as if our celebration were spoiled. But I +suppose it can't be helped." + +"No," agreed Frances, sitting down and beginning to peel apples. "So +there is no use in lamenting, or I would certainly sit down and cry, I +feel so disappointed." + +"Is Uncle Frank coming?" + +"Yes, Aunt Clara says he will come down from Stellarton if Mrs. King +does not get worse. So that will leave just one vacant place. We must +invite someone to fill it up. Who shall it be?" + +Both girls looked rather puzzled. Mrs. Allen smiled a quiet little +smile all to herself and went on chopping suet. She had handed the +Thanksgiving dinner over to Frances and Alma this year. They were to +attend to all the preparations and invite all the guests. But although +they had made or planned several innovations in the dinner itself, +they had made no change in the usual list of guests. + +"It must just be the time-honoured family affair," Frances had +declared. "If we begin inviting other folks, there is no knowing when +to draw the line. We can't have more than fourteen, and some of our +friends would be sure to feel slighted." + +So the same old list it was. But now Aunt Clara--dear, jolly Aunt +Clara, whom everybody in the connection loved and admired--could not +come, and her place must be filled. + +"We can't invite the new minister, because we would have to have his +sister, too," said Frances. "And there is no reason for asking any one +of our girl chums more than another." + +"Mother, you will have to help us out," said Alma. "Can't you suggest +a substitute guest?" + +Mrs. Allen looked down at the two bright, girlish faces turned up to +her and said slowly, "I think I can, but I am not sure my choice will +please you. Why not ask Miss Price?" + +Miss Price! They had never thought of her! She was the pale, +timid-looking little teacher in the primary department of the +Hazelwood school. + +"Miss Price?" repeated Frances slowly. "Why, Mother, we hardly know +her. She is dreadfully dull and quiet, I think." + +"And so shy," said Alma. "Why, at the Wards' party the other night she +looked startled to death if anyone spoke to her. I believe she would +be frightened to come here for Thanksgiving." + +"She is a very lonely little creature," said Mrs. Allen gently, "and +doesn't seem to have anyone belonging to her. I think she would be +very glad to get an invitation to spend Thanksgiving elsewhere than in +that cheerless little boarding-house where she lives." + +"Of course, if you would like to have her, Mother, we will ask her," +said Frances. + +"No, girls," said Mrs. Allen seriously. "You must not ask Miss Price +on my account, if you do not feel prepared to make her welcome for her +own sake. I had hoped that your own kind hearts might have prompted +you to extend a little Thanksgiving cheer in a truly Thanksgiving +spirit to a lonely, hard-working girl whose life I do not think is a +happy one. But there, I shall not preach. This is your dinner, and you +must please yourselves as to your guests." + +Frances and Alma had both flushed, and they now remained silent for a +few minutes. Then Frances sprang up and threw her arms around her +mother. + +"You're right, Mother dear, as you always are, and we are very selfish +girls. We will ask Miss Price and try to give her a nice time. I'll go +down this very evening and see her." + + * * * * * + +In the grey twilight of the chilly autumn evening Bertha Price walked +home to her boarding-house, her pale little face paler, and her grey +eyes sadder than ever, in the fading light. Only two days until +Thanksgiving--but there would be no real Thanksgiving for her. Why, +she asked herself rebelliously, when there seemed so much love in the +world, was she denied her share? + +Her landlady met her in the hall. + +"Miss Allen is in the parlour, Miss Price. She wants to see you." + +Bertha went into the parlour somewhat reluctantly. She had met Frances +Allen only once or twice and she was secretly almost afraid of the +handsome, vivacious girl who was so different from herself. + +"I am sorry you have had to wait, Miss Allen," she said shyly. "I went +to see a pupil of mine who is ill and I was kept later than I +expected." + +"My errand won't take very long," said Frances brightly. "Mother wants +you to spend Thanksgiving Day with us, Miss Price, if you have no +other engagement. We will have a few other guests, but nobody outside +our own family except Mr. Seeley, who is the law partner and intimate +friend of my brother Ernest in town. You'll come, won't you?" + +"Oh, thank you, yes," said Bertha, in pleased surprise. "I shall be +very glad to go. Why, it is so nice to think of it. I expected my +Thanksgiving Day to be lonely and sad--not a bit Thanksgivingy." + +"We shall expect you then," said Frances, with a cordial little +hand-squeeze. "Come early in the morning, and we will have a real +friendly, pleasant day." + +That night Frances said to her mother and sister, "You never saw such +a transfigured face as Miss Price's when I asked her up. She looked +positively pretty--such a lovely pink came out on her cheeks and her +eyes shone like stars. She reminded me so much of somebody I've seen, +but I can't think who it is. I'm so glad we've asked her here for +Thanksgiving!" + + * * * * * + +Thanksgiving came, as bright and beautiful as a day could be, and the +Allens' guests came with it. Bertha Price was among them, paler and +shyer than ever. Ernest Allen and his friend, Maxwell Seeley, came out +from town on the morning train. + +After all the necessary introductions had been made, Frances flew to +the kitchen. + +"I've found out who it is Miss Price reminds me of," she said, as she +bustled about the range. "It's Max Seeley. You needn't laugh, Al. It's +a fact. I noticed it the minute I introduced them. He's plump and +prosperous and she's pinched and pale, but there's a resemblance +nevertheless. Look for yourself and see if it isn't so." + +Back in the big, cheery parlour the Thanksgiving guests were amusing +themselves in various ways. Max Seeley had given an odd little start +when he was introduced to Miss Price, and as soon as possible he +followed her to the corner where she had taken refuge. Ernest Allen +was out in the kitchen talking to his sisters, the "uncles and cousins +and aunts" were all chattering to each other, and Mr. Seeley and Miss +Price were quite unnoticed. + +"You will excuse me, won't you, Miss Price, if I ask you something +about yourself?" he said eagerly. "The truth is, you look so +strikingly like someone I used to know that I feel sure you must be +related to her. I do not think I have any relatives of your name. Have +you any of mine?" + +Bertha flushed, hesitated for an instant, then said frankly, "No, I do +not think so. But I may as well tell you that Price is not my real +name and I do not know what it is, although I think it begins with S. +I believe that my parents died when I was about three years old, and I +was then taken to an orphan asylum. The next year I was taken from +there and adopted by Mrs. Price. She was very kind to me and treated +me as her own daughter. I had a happy home with her, although we were +poor. Mrs. Price wished me to bear her name, and I did so. She never +told me my true surname, perhaps she did not know it. She died when I +was sixteen, and since then I have been quite alone in the world. That +is all I know about myself." + +Max Seeley was plainly excited. + +"Why do you think your real name begins with S?" he asked. + +"I have a watch which belonged to my mother, with the monogram 'B.S.' +on the case. It was left with the matron of the asylum and she gave it +to Mrs. Price for me. Here it is." + +Max Seeley almost snatched the old-fashioned little silver watch, from +her hand and opened the case. An exclamation escaped him as he pointed +to some scratches on the inner side. They looked like the initials +M.A.S. + +"Let me tell my story now," he said. "My name is Maxwell Seeley. My +father died when I was seven years old, and my mother a year later. My +little sister, Bertha, then three years old, and I were left quite +alone and very poor. We had no relatives. I was adopted by a +well-to-do old bachelor, who had known my father. My sister was taken +to an orphan asylum in a city some distance away. I was very much +attached to her and grieved bitterly over our parting. My adopted +father was very kind to me and gave me a good education. I did not +forget my sister, and as soon as I could I went to the asylum. I found +that she had been taken away long before, and I could not even +discover who had adopted her, for the original building, with all its +records, had been destroyed by fire two years previous to my visit. I +never could find any clue to her whereabouts, and long since gave up +all hope of finding her. But I have found her at last. You are Bertha +Seeley, my little sister!" + +"Oh--can it be possible!" + +"More than possible--it is certain. You are the image of my mother, as +I remember her, and as an old daguerreotype I have pictures her. And +this is her watch--see, I scratched my own initials on the case one +day. There is no doubt in the world. Oh, Bertha, are you half as glad +as I am?" + +"Glad!" + +Bertha's eyes were shining like stars. She tried to smile, but burst +into tears instead and her head went down on her brother's shoulder. +By this time everybody in the room was staring at the extraordinary +tableau, and Ernest, coming through the hall, gave a whistle of +astonishment that brought the two in the corner back to a sense of +their surroundings. + +"I haven't suddenly gone crazy, Ernest, old fellow," smiled Max. +"Ladies and gentlemen all, this little school-ma'am was introduced to +you as Miss Price, but that was a mistake. Let me introduce her again +as Miss Bertha Seeley, my long-lost and newly-found sister." + +Well they had an amazing time then, of course. They laughed and +questioned and explained until the dinner was in imminent danger of +getting stone-cold on the dining-room table. Luckily, Alma and Frances +remembered it just in the nick of time, and they all got out, somehow, +and into their places. It was a splendid dinner, but I believe that +Maxwell and Bertha Seeley didn't know what they were eating, any more +than if it had been sawdust. However, the rest of the guests made up +for that, and did full justice to the girls' cookery. + +In the afternoon they all went to church, and at least two hearts were +truly and devoutly thankful that day. + +When the dusk came, Ernest and Maxwell had to catch the last train for +town, and the other guests went home, with the exception of Bertha, +who was to stay all night. Just as soon as her resignation could be +effected, she was to join her brother. + +"Meanwhile, I'll see about getting a house to put you in," said Max. +"No more boarding out for me, Ernest. You may consider me as a family +man henceforth." + +Frances and Alma talked it all over before they went to sleep that +night. + +"Just think," said Frances, "if we hadn't asked her here today she +might never have found her brother! It's all Mother's doing, bless +her! Things do happen like a storybook sometimes, don't they, Al? And +didn't I tell you they looked alike?" + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, +1904, by Lucy Maud Montgomery + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MONTGOMERY SHORT STORIES *** + +***** This file should be named 24875.txt or 24875.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/4/8/7/24875/ + +Produced by Alicia Williams, Jeannie Howse and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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