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diff --git a/39594-8.txt b/39594-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d4688b6 --- /dev/null +++ b/39594-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7488 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Little Colonel's Knight Comes Riding, by +Annie Fellows Johnston + +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: The Little Colonel's Knight Comes Riding + +Author: Annie Fellows Johnston + +Illustrator: Etheldred B. Barry + +Release Date: May 2, 2012 [EBook #39594] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LITTLE COLONEL'S KNIGHT *** + + + + +Produced by David Edwards, Emmy and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was +produced from images generously made available by The +Internet Archive) + + + + + + + + + + +[Illustration: Cover] + + + + +THE LITTLE COLONEL'S KNIGHT COMES RIDING + + + + +Works of ANNIE FELLOWS JOHNSTON + + +The Little Colonel Series + +(_Trade Mark, Reg. U. S. Pat. Of._) + +Each one vol., large 12mo, cloth, illustrated + + The Little Colonel Stories $1.50 + (Containing in one volume the three stories, + "The Little Colonel," "The Giant Scissors," and + "Two Little Knights of Kentucky.") + The Little Colonel's House Party 1.50 + The Little Colonel's Holidays 1.50 + The Little Colonel's Hero 1.50 + The Little Colonel at Boarding-School 1.50 + The Little Colonel in Arizona 1.50 + The Little Colonel's Christmas Vacation 1.50 + The Little Colonel: Maid of Honor 1.50 + The Little Colonel's Knight Comes Riding 1.50 + Mary Ware: The Little Colonel's Chum 1.50 + The above 10 vols., _boxed_ 15.00 + + + The Little Colonel Good Times Book 1.50 + + + Illustrated Holiday Editions + + Each one vol., small quarto, cloth, illustrated, and printed in colour + + The Little Colonel $1.25 + The Giant Scissors 1.25 + Two Little Knights of Kentucky 1.25 + Big Brother 1.25 + + + Cosy Corner Series + + Each one vol., thin 12mo, cloth, illustrated + + The Little Colonel $.50 + The Giant Scissors .50 + Two Little Knights of Kentucky .50 + Big Brother .50 + Ole Mammy's Torment .50 + The Story of Dago .50 + Cicely .50 + Aunt 'Liza's Hero .50 + The Quilt that Jack Built .50 + Flip's "Islands of Providence" .50 + Mildred's Inheritance .50 + + + Other Books + + Joel: A Boy of Galilee $1.50 + In the Desert of Waiting .50 + The Three Weavers .50 + Keeping Tryst .50 + The Legend of the Bleeding Heart .50 + The Rescue of the Princess Winsome .50 + Asa Holmes 1.00 + Songs Ysame (Poems, with Albion Fellows Bacon) 1.00 + + L. C. PAGE & COMPANY + 200 Summer Street Boston, Mass. + +[Illustration: "WITH THE DONNING OF THE ANCIENT DRESS SHE SEEMED TO HAVE +PUT ON THE SWEET SHY MANNER THAT HAD BEEN THE CHARM OF ITS FIRST +WEARER." + +(_See page 142_)] + + + + +THE LITTLE COLONEL'S KNIGHT COMES RIDING + + +BY ANNIE FELLOWS JOHNSTON + + AUTHOR OF + "THE LITTLE COLONEL SERIES," "BIG BROTHER," + "OLE MAMMY'S TORMENT," "JOEL: A BOY + OF GALILEE," "ASA HOLMES," ETC. + + + Illustrated by + ETHELDRED B. BARRY + + + "And sometimes in the mirror blue, + The knights come riding, two by two." + THE LADY OF SHALOTT. + +[Illustration] + + BOSTON + L. C. PAGE & COMPANY + PUBLISHERS + + + + + _Copyright, 1907_ + BY L. C. PAGE & COMPANY + (INCORPORATED) + + _Entered at Stationers' Hall, London_ + + _All rights reserved_ + + First impression, October, 1907 + Second impression, April, 1909 + + _COLONIAL PRESS + Electrotyped and Printed by C. H. Simonds & Co. + Boston, U. S. A._ + + + + +CONTENTS + + + CHAPTER PAGE + I. THE HANGING OF THE MIRROR 1 + II. BED-TIME CONFIDENCES 27 + III. A KNIGHT COMES RIDING 46 + IV. BETTY'S NOVEL 68 + V. A CAMERA HELPS 97 + VI. "GARDEN FANCIES" 116 + VII. SPANISH LESSONS 134 + VIII. "SHADOWS OF THE WORLD APPEAR" 161 + IX. MORE SHADOWS 181 + X. BY THE SILVER YARD-STICK 199 + XI. THE END OF SEVERAL THINGS 221 + XII. SIX MONTHS LATER 242 + XIII. THE MIRACLE OF BLOSSOMING 266 + XIV. THE ROYAL MANTLE 285 + XV. "AS IT WAS WRITTEN IN THE STARS" AND BETTY'S DIARY 308 + + + + +LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS + + + PAGE + "WITH THE DONNING OF THE ANCIENT DRESS SHE SEEMED + TO HAVE PUT ON THE SWEET SHY MANNER THAT HAD + BEEN THE CHARM OF ITS FIRST WEARER" + (_See page 142_) _Frontispiece_ + + "THE OTHER GRASPED SOME DARK OBJECT THAT SEEMED TO + BE A PICTURE FRAME" 6 + + "DREW REIN A MOMENT AT THE GATE, TO LOOK DOWN THE + STATELY AVENUE" 47 + + "HE WAS BENDING ANXIOUSLY OVER A BUBBLING SAUCEPAN" 87 + + "MAKING A CUP OF HER WHITE HANDS" 126 + + "FOR ONCE THE RED AND GREEN BIRD WAS ON ITS GOOD + BEHAVIOUR" 180 + + "SHE POURED THE CORN INTO THE POPPER AND BEGAN TO + SHAKE IT OVER THE RED COALS" 261 + + "'SHE LOOKED TO ME JUST LIKE ONE OF HER OWN LILIES'" 315 + + + + +THE LITTLE COLONEL'S KNIGHT COMES RIDING + + +CHAPTER I + +THE HANGING OF THE MIRROR + + +IT was a June morning in Kentucky. The doctor's nephew coming at a +gallop down the pike into Lloydsboro Valley, reined his horse to a walk +as he reached the railroad crossing, and leaning forward in his saddle, +hesitated a moment between the two roads. + +The one along the railroad embankment was sweet with a tangle of wild +honeysuckle, and led straight to the little post-office where his +morning mail awaited him. The other would take him a mile out of his +way, but it was through a thick beech woods, and the cool leafage of its +green aisles tempted him. A red-bird darting on ahead suddenly decided +his course, for following some quick impulse, as if the cardinal wings +had beckoned him, he turned off the highway into the woods. + +"I might as well go around and have a look at that Lindsey Cabin," he +said to himself, as an excuse for turning aside. "If it's in as good +shape as I think it is, maybe I can persuade the Van Allens to rent it +for the summer. It's a pity to have a picturesque place like that +standing empty when it has such possibilities for hospitality, and the +Van Allen girls a positive genius for giving jolly house-parties. To get +that family out to Lloydsboro for the summer would be paving the way to +no end of good times." + +The farther he rode into the cool woods the better the idea pleased him, +and where the bridle-path crossed a narrow creek he paused a moment +before plunging down the bank. Somewhere up the ravine a spring was +trickling out in a ceaseless flow. He could not see it, but he could +hear the gurgle of the water, as cold and crystal clear it splashed down +into its rocky basin. + +"They could picnic here to their hearts' content," he said aloud, +glancing up and down the ravine at the rank growth of fern and +maidenhair which festooned the rocks. + +Alex Shelby had spent only part of two summers in Lloydsboro Valley, but +the woodsy smell of mint and pennyroyal, mingling with the fern, brought +back the recollection of at least a dozen picnics he had enjoyed near +this spot, most of them moonlight affairs, and all of them so pleasant +that he was determined to bring about their repetition if possible. Of +course this summer he would not have as much time for outings as he had +had then. Now that he had finished his medical course he intended to +shoulder as much as possible of his uncle's work. The old doctor's +practice had grown far too heavy for him. But at the same time there +need be no limit to the pleasant things that the summer could bring +forth, especially if the Van Allen family could be installed in the +Lindsey Cabin. + +A quarter of a mile more brought him almost to the edge of the woods and +to the beginning of the Lindsey place. The spacious, two-story log cabin +standing back among the great forest trees, might have been a relic of +Daniel Boone's day, so carefully had his pioneer pattern been copied by +skilful architects. But the resemblance was only outward. Inside it was +luxuriously equipped with every modern convenience. For a year it had +stood tenant-less, and Alex Shelby never passed it without regretting +that such a charming old place should be abandoned to dust and spiders. +The last time he had gone by it, he had noticed that it was beginning to +show the effect of its long neglect. Some of the windows were completely +overgrown by ragged rose-vines and Virginia Creeper, and a tin +waterspout that had blown loose from its fastenings, dangled from the +eaves. + +Now as he came near he saw in surprise that the place seemed to have an +alert, live air, as if just awakened from sleep. The windows were all +thrown open, the vines were trimmed, and were a mass of bloom, the dead +leaves were raked neatly in piles and the cobwebs no longer hung from +the cornices in dusty festoons. + +A long ladder leaning against the front of the house, rested on the sill +of an upper window, and Alex wondered if the agents had painters at +work. He hoped so. The more thorough the renovation, the more attractive +it would be to the Van Allens. + +Suddenly his pleased expression changed to one of surprise and dismay, +as he saw that the place was already inhabited. Empty packing-boxes, +excelsior and wrapping paper littered the front porch. A new hammock +hung between the posts. Somebody's garden-hat lay on the steps. +Moreover, a slender girl in a white dress stood at the foot of the +ladder, evidently about to ascend, for she shook it to test its balance, +and then cautiously stepped up on the first round. + +Her back was toward Alex, and he fervently hoped that she would turn +around so that he might see her face, then more fervently hoped that she +wouldn't, since it would be somewhat embarrassing to be caught staring +as inquisitively as he was doing. Unconsciously at sight of her he had +brought his horse to a standstill, and now sat wondering who she could +be and what she was about to do. It was as if a curtain had gone up on +the first scene of an intensely interesting play, and for the moment he +forgot everything else in admiration of the stage setting, and the +graceful little figure poised on the ladder. + +"Probably going up for an armful of roses," he thought. + +"Hold tight, Ca'line Allison! Don't let it slip!" she called in a high +sweet voice, almost as if she were singing the words, and Alex noticed +for the first time, a small coloured girl behind the ladder, bracing +herself against it to hold it steady. + +The ascent was a slow one. Twice she tripped on her skirts, and with a +little shriek almost slipped through between the rounds. Only one hand +was free for climbing. The other grasped some dark object that seemed to +be a picture frame, though why one should be carrying a picture frame up +the outside of a house was more than the young man could imagine, and he +concluded he must be mistaken. + +[Illustration: "THE OTHER GRASPED SOME DARK OBJECT THAT SEEMED TO BE A +PICTURE FRAME."] + +The last step brought her head on a level with the second story window, +and up where the sun struck through the trees in a broad shaft of light. +Her hair had been beautiful in the shadow; a rare tint of auburn with +bronze gold glints, but now in the sunshine it was an aureole. What was +it it reminded him of? A fragment of a half-forgotten poem came to his +mind, although he was not given to remembering such things: + + "Sandalphon the angel of glory, + Sandalphon the angel of prayer." + +Then he almost laughed aloud at the comparison, for a dazzling flash of +light, blinding him for an instant, was reflected into his eyes from the +object she carried, and he saw that it was a looking-glass that she was +taking up the ladder with such care. + +"What a very human and very feminine angel of glory it is," he +thought. But the next instant, still with the amused smile on his face, +he was spurring his horse down the road as fast as it could gallop. The +girl on the ladder had caught sight of his reflection in the mirror as +she reached up to lay it on the window sill, and had turned a startled +face towards him. Not for worlds would he have had her know that he had +been so discourteous as to sit staring at her. He had forgotten himself +in the interest of the moment. + +Eager to find out who the new tenants were at the Lindsey Cabin, he rode +rapidly on, turning from the woodland road into a maple-lined avenue +leading back to the post-office. Just as he made the turn another +surprise confronted him. He almost collided with two girls who were +hurrying along arm in arm, under a red parasol. + +Both Lloyd Sherman and Kitty Walton were old friends of his, but he had +to look twice to assure himself that he saw aright. They had been away +at school all year, and he had not heard of their return. + +"I thought you were still at Warwick Hall!" he exclaimed, dismounting +and stepping forward with bared head, to shake hands in his most cordial +way. "When did you get home?" + +"Only this mawning," answered Lloyd. "All the Commencement exercises +were ovah last Thursday, and we're school girls no longah. '_Beyond, the +Alps lies Italy!_' Kitty can tell you all about it, for she had the +Valedictory." + +Kitty met Alex's amused smile with a flash of her black eyes, but before +she could deny having used the trite subject that had been so popular in +the old Lloydsboro seminary as to have become a standing joke, Alex +answered, "Well, you've certainly lost no time in starting out to +explore the wide world that lies before you. I've always heard that +there's nothing to equal the zeal of a sweet girl graduate about to +scale her Alps. You've barely reached home, haven't been off the cars +three hours, I'll bet, and yet here you are on the war-path again. What +Italy are you climbing after now?" + +Ordinarily his banter would have been promptly resented by both girls, +but now it served only to recall the amazing news that had sent them +hurrying away from the post-office on an excited quest. With a dramatic +gesture, Kitty drew a letter from her belt and held it out to him. + +"Think of it!" she exclaimed, her cheeks pink with excitement. "Gay +Melville's here in the Valley! Right here in Lloydsboro! Settled in the +Lindsey Cabin for the summer, and we didn't know anything about it till +ten minutes ago." + +"Gay Melville," repeated Alex, instantly alert at mention of the cabin. + +"Oh he doesn't know her, Kitty," interposed Lloyd. "He wasn't out in the +Valley the wintah she spent her Christmas vacation with you." + +"Then you've something to live for!" declared Kitty with emphasis. +"She's one of the old Warwick Hall girls. Was in last year's class with +Allison and Betty, and she's just the sweetest, dearest--" + +"Don't tell him any moah," interrupted Lloyd. "Let him find out for +himself." + +"What's she doing at the Lindsey Cabin?" he asked. He kept a straight +face, although inwardly chuckling over the fact that he knew well enough +what she was doing, at least what she had been doing three minutes ago. + +"They've taken it for the summer, that is, her sister Lucy and husband +have, Mr. and Mrs. Jameson Harcourt. They're from San Antonio, and you +know the Lindseys spend their winters there. It seems they interested +Mr. Harcourt in the Cabin, and of course Gay was wild to get back to +the Valley, and she persuaded them to come. She wrote to me just as soon +as it was decided, but the letter never reached me till this morning. +She thought I would get it before I started home; but it's just like Gay +to mix up her address with mine. She was so excited when she wrote that +she addressed it to Warwick Hall Station, Texas, instead of District of +Columbia. It has been travelling all over the country, and it's a wonder +that it ever reached me at all." + +"And the worst of it is," added Lloyd, "of co'se she expected we'd all +be heah to meet her. But we stayed ovah in Washington two days, and when +they came in last night there wasn't a soul at the station to welcome +them. The ticket agent told me about it just now as we came past. She +seemed surprised, he said, and disappointed. She must have thought it +queah that none of us were there." + +"Won't she be funny when she's found what a mistake she's made!" +exclaimed Kitty. "She's always making mistakes, and is always perfectly +ridiculous over them when she finds it out. We're going to take you to +call on her, Alex, just as soon as they're settled. She plays the violin +divinely." + +"I'll go right back with you now," he offered promptly. + +"No you won't," they cried in the same breath, and Kitty explained, "No +telling what sort of a mess they'll be in with their unpacking. But if +they're ready to see company by night, I'll telephone to you, and we'll +all go over." + +"I shall live only for that moment," he declared, laughing, then added +as he turned to mount his horse, "I'm mighty glad I met you, and I'm +more than glad that you've both come home to stay." + +A flourish of the red parasol answered the courtly sweep of his hat as +they parted. He rode on rapidly towards the post-office, wondering if +they would find the girlish, white-clad figure still perched on the +ladder, up among the roses, with the sun making an aureole of her +shining hair. He had never seen such hair. "Sandalphon, the angel of +glory"--but the quotation broke off with a laugh. Her name was Gay, and +it was a looking glass that she was carrying up the ladder. "Well, she's +an original little thing," he mused, "and if she lives up to her name +the Lindsey Cabin will be just as lively a social centre as if the Van +Allen girls had possession." + +The encounter with Alex had delayed the girls but a moment or two, still +they walked on faster than ever to make up the lost time. + +"What do you suppose we'll find her doing?" queried Lloyd. + +"Something unexpected, I'll be bound," was the answer. "Will you ever +forget that first time we saw her, when she came out to play the violin +at the Freshman reception? Such a pretty white dress, and that rapt, +uplifted look on her face that makes you think of St. Cecilias and +seraphim, and with one foot in a white kid shoe, and the other in that +awful old red felt bedroom slipper, edged in black fur!" + +"Or the time she lost her belt in Washington," suggested Lloyd. +"Probably we'll find her unpacking if the trunks came. But Gay's trunks +nevah were known to arrive on time. We may have to be lending her +shirtwaists and collahs for a month." + +By this time they had reached the rustic footbridge leading over a +ravine to the Cabin, and were in full view of the front windows. Gay was +still on the ladder. She had made several trips up and down it since +Alex passed. It was hard to decide at what angle to hang the mirror on +the window casing, as she had seen them in old Dutch houses in Holland; +and in marking the place with the point of the only nail that she had +provided on which to hang the mirror, she dropped the nail. Several +minutes had been wasted in a fruitless search for it. Others were to be +had for the pulling, if one could extract them from the empty +packing-boxes, but no hammer could be found on the premises, and it was +only after much twisting and struggling that the little coloured girl +finally managed to pull one with her teeth. + +Another five minutes had been wasted in searching for something with +which to drive the nail. Then Gay gingerly ascended the ladder again, +armed with a pair of heavy old tongs, taken from the porch fireplace. +She had just reached the top of the ladder when the girls caught sight +of her. + +"Mercy!" exclaimed Kitty in a low tone. "It'll never do in the world to +appear at _this_ juncture. She's pretty sure to drop through the ladder +anyhow, or upset herself, or have some exhibition of the usual Melville +luck, even if she's left to herself. And if she should suddenly discover +us there's no telling what dreadful thing might happen." + +"Let's slip up behind the arbour and watch till she's safely down to +earth," whispered Lloyd. "What _do_ you suppose she's trying to do, and +where do you suppose she managed to pick up Ca'line Allison?" + +"Sh!" was the answer. "That's the Dutch mirror she got in Amsterdam +last summer. She wrote that it was the triumph of her life when she got +home with it whole. She carried it all the way, instead of packing it in +her trunk. Listen! What's that she's saying?" + +The words floated down to them distinctly. "Ca'line Allison, you'll have +to get me something besides these tongs to drive this nail with. I might +as well try to do it with a pair of stilts. Besides it's making dents in +them, and it's wicked to spoil such beautiful old brasses. Mercy! Don't +get up _yet_!" she shrieked wildly, as the shifting of Ca'line Allison's +small body made the ladder slip a trifle. + +"Wait till I poke these tongs through the window and take hold with both +hands. Now! Hunt around and find me a stone or a piece of brick." + +The girls behind the arbour could not see her face, but the sight of the +familiar little figure clinging to the ladder, and the sound of the +beloved voice made them long to rush out and squeeze her. + +"Isn't her hair a glory, up there in the sunshine?" whispered Kitty. +"The idea of anybody calling it plain red--such a fluff of bronzy auburn +with all those little crinkles of gold! And listen to that whistle! +You'd think it was a real mocking bird." + +Wholly unconscious of her audience, Gay teetered on the ladder, +whistling and trilling like a happy bobolink, until the little black +girl climbed up after her with a brick which she had dug out from the +well curb. The girls waited until the nail was securely in place, the +mirror hung and Gay had begun to crawl down the ladder backward, before +they rushed out from their hiding-place. + +They pounced upon her just as she reached the bottom round, and then +ensued what Kitty called a pow-wow--an enthusiastic welcome known only +to old school chums who have been separated so long a time as a whole +twelvemonth. Questions, answers, explanations, a bubbling over of +delight at once more being together, kept them talking all at once for +nearly ten minutes. Then Gay, remembering her duty as hostess led the +way into the house. + +"Come in and see Lucy and her fond spouse," she exclaimed. "They're +still at breakfast although it's ten o'clock. None of us could make a +fire in the range. It simply wouldn't burn. But we had brought a chafing +dish in one of the boxes, and we found another in the pantry, and +they've been mussing around for the last two hours with them, having the +time of their lives. Lucy made fudge and omelette and tea for her +breakfast, being the things she knows best how to make, and brother +Jameson is trying flap-jacks and coffee." + +"What did you have?" asked Lloyd. + +"I? Oh I emulated the example of 'The old person of Crewd' who said + + "'We use sawdust for food. + It's cheap by the ton + And it nourishes one, + And that's the main object of food.' + +I munched a handful of some sort of new breakfast straw, but it wasn't +very satisfying, and I was just going in to get a cup of brother +Jameson's coffee. I told him to put my name in the pot. Come on in and +have some too." + +Throwing open the dining-room door she began a series of breezy +introductions that set them all to laughing and swept away every vestige +of formality. + +Both Lloyd and Kitty protested against taking a single mouthful at that +hour, but the young host poured out a cup of very muddy coffee with such +a beaming smile, and the little bride offered a very bitter cup of tea +in competition, with a merry insistence so like Gay's, that they could +not refuse. + +"It's going to be lovely," Kitty managed to whisper under cover of the +bustle of bringing in more hot water. "They're almost as harum-scarum +and hap-hazard as Gay herself, and 'brother Jameson' looks as if he +might be the 'Gibson man's' youngest brother." + +"These 'babes in the wood' would have perished but for me," began Gay, +who was rattling along as if she were wound up. "_I_ was the robin who +came to the rescue. I went over to Stumptown bright and early--you see I +remembered the short cut through the woods--and as luck would have it, +found some one willing to come, at the very first house where I +inquired. (But she can't come till nearly noon, hence this disorderly +feasting and rioting.) Ca'line Allison was swinging on the gate, with +her finger in her mouth. I didn't know her, but she remembered me, and +complimented me by asking if I'd done brought my fiddle along. I think +I'll engage her for the summer for my little maid-in-waiting. She's as +quick as a monkey and would look so cunning diked up in a cap and apron. +What's that rhyme Betty made about her when she was flower-girl at her +own mother's wedding? Oh by the way, where _is_ Betty? Why didn't she +come with you?" + +"For the good reason that we didn't know we were coming heah ourselves +when we left home," answered Lloyd. "Betty went on to Commencement with +all the rest of the family, but it was hard for her to tear herself away +from her beloved writing. We hadn't been back at Locust half an houah +this mawning till she was at it again." + +"Betty is Mrs. Sherman's god-daughter," explained Gay in an aside to her +brother-in-law. "The one who I told you is such a genius. She's writing +a book." Then turning to Lloyd. "It isn't that same old one she was at +work on at school, is it?" + +"No, it's something she began last fall. Mothah wanted her to make her +début in Louisville when she was through school, just as I am going to +do next wintah, but Betty begged to be allowed to stay in the country. +She said she'd nevah be a brilliant success socially, but that she'd do +her best to be a credit to the family in some other way." + +"She will, too," prophesied Gay. "Some day we'll all be proud of the +little song-bird you rescued from the Cuckoo's Nest. Dear old Betty! I'd +like to hug her this very minute." + +The grandfather's clock in the hall was striking eleven when they rose +from the table, but Gay would not listen when the girls attempted to +take their leave. "You haven't seen my room," she insisted, "nor my +mirror. Come on up stairs and look into my mirror. It's the joy of my +heart, and maybe we'll all see our fate in it. I like to pretend that +it's a sort of magic glass--that some wizard of the wood has laid a +spell on it, so that at certain times all the figures that have ever +been reflected in it must march across it again. Wouldn't it be lovely +if all the good times it is going to reflect this summer could be made +to pass over it again whenever I wanted to recall them?" + +"We'd lead the procession," announced Kitty, "for we were the first +objects that crossed the path after you got it hung. If we were not 'a +group of damsels glad' we were at least a couple of them." + +"But you were not the first," confessed Gay. "Just as I held it up to +adjust it, I had such a thrillingly romantic experience that I nearly +fell off the ladder. It showed me the reflection of an awfully good +looking young man on horse-back. But when I turned to look over my +shoulder at the original he was galloping down the road like a blue +streak." + +"I wondah who it could have been," mused Lloyd. "We met Alex Shelby on +hawseback just a few minutes befoah we got heah, but he nevah said a +word about having seen anybody, and he seemed surprised when we told him +that the cabin had been rented." + +They were up in Gay's room now, and running to the window, Kitty seated +herself in the low chair beside it. "Oh how fine!" she called. "It's at +exactly the right angle, for I can see everything along the path without +looking out. It'll be a sort of Hildegarde's mirror, won't it! Like the +Lady of Shalott's." + +Half under her breath she began to recite the lines they had learned so +long ago, and from force of habit Lloyd joined the sing-song chant: + + "And moving through the mirror clear + That hangs before her all the year, + Shadows of the world appear." + +Smiling to see how well they remembered it, they went on in unison down +to the couplet: + + "And sometimes through the mirror blue + The knights come riding two by two." + +There Kitty broke off to say "I don't see how that can happen here +_this_ summer. It will be sheer luck if they come even in singles. There +never were so few boys left in the Valley, and it's too bad to have it +happen so the summer that you're here. Nearly everybody is going away. +You can count on the fingers of one hand the few who will stay." + +"What about the two knights of Kentucky?" asked Gay. "You're a lucky +girl, Kitty, to have two such splendid cousins as Keith and Malcolm +MacIntyre." + +"They are already gone. They sailed for England with Uncle Sydney and +Aunt Elise last week. You know I wrote you they were going and that +Allison was to be in the party too. And oh Gay! Didn't you get that +letter? Then you haven't heard the most important thing of all! _Allison +is engaged!_ It didn't happen till a few days before they sailed, and it +isn't announced yet, but of course she wanted you to know and I wrote to +you right away." + +Gay bounced out of her chair as if a bomb exploded in the room. + +"Oh you don't mean it!" she cried tragically, clasping her hands. "Why +she's only been out of school a year! The first of our class to go! Oh +tell me all about it! Begin at the beginning and don't skip a thing!" + +Throwing herself down on the floor at Kitty's feet, she propped her chin +on her hands, and her elbows in Kitty's lap, prepared to listen. + +"There isn't much to tell. You know the fortune that Mammy Easter +predicted for her was nice, but it wasn't very exciting. She was to 'wed +wid de quality and ride in her ca'iage.' Well, his family is certainly +quality, the Claibornes of Virginia, and she'll live in Washington and +have several kinds of carriages. Isn't it odd? We knew him when he was +just a boy. He was on the same transport with us when we went to the +Philippines, and we never imagined then that we'd ever see him again." + +"But I thought that that young Lieutenant Logan," began Gay. + +Kitty interrupted her with a laugh. "Why my dear, he is a mere _child_ +compared to Raleigh Claiborne. That little affair was the mere A. B. C. +of romance. He's paying attention to our youngest now. He sends music +and bon bons to _Elise_." + +"Think of Elise being old enough to receive such attentions!" groaned +Gay. "It makes me feel like a patriarch. But never mind my hoary +sensations, go on and tell me some more. She's going to get her +trousseau abroad I suppose." + +"Only part of it, for the wedding isn't to take place for a year. +Allison didn't care much about going--thought she'd rather wait and take +the trip with Raleigh. But he is so busy it may be several years before +he can get off for a whole summer, and Aunt Elise persuaded her to go +with them. She said it wouldn't be so easy for her to go when she once +assumed the responsibility of a big establishment." + +Gay clasped her hands around her knees and rocked herself back and forth +on the floor. + +"I'm glad she's sensible enough to wait a year," she declared. "I don't +see why girls are in such a hurry to tie themselves up in a knot. I +suppose it's perfectly fascinating to be engaged and to have the +choosing of a lovely trousseau, and the opening of all the wedding +presents. Everybody takes so much interest in a prospective bride. But +the fun comes to an end so quickly. It's like Fourth of July fire works. +There's a big blaze and excitement while it lasts. Then it's all over +and they settle down to be just prosy common-place married people. I +should think that the reaction would be deadly, and that if a girl could +see past the time of the rocket's shooting up, and realize that it can't +stay among the stars, but must fall to earth again with a dull thud, +she'd profit by other people's experiences, and not give up all the good +times of her girlhood before she'd half enjoyed them." + +Gay spoke so feelingly that her two listeners exchanged glances of +surprise. This was not the way Gay had been wont to talk a year ago, and +each wondered to herself if Lucy's marriage had caused this radical +change in her opinion. + +Suddenly she changed the subject, with the unexpectedness of a +grasshopper's leap. "Which one of you girls is going to stay all night +with me?" + +Kitty answered first. "Neither of us ought to, for we've only just +returned to the bosom of our families. You could hardly call us entirely +arrived yet, for our trunks haven't come." + +Lloyd started up, and looked at her watch in alarm. "It's a good thing +you reminded me that I have a home," she laughed. "I told mothah I'd +just stroll down to the post-office and be right back, and when I met +Kitty with yoah lettah it drove everything else out of my head. She'll +be wondering what has happened to me. I'll come some night next week and +be glad to." + +"No, one of you has to come back and stay with me _to-night_," Gay +insisted. "So settle it between yourselves. You may as well draw straws +to decide which is to be my victim." Then, glancing around the room--"I +don't happen to see any straws at hand, but you might pull hairs for +the honour. Here! My head is at your service, ladies." + +Dropping to her knees she made a profound salaam, and waited for them to +draw. "The one who pulls the shortest hair comes back." + +Laughing over the absurd manner of deciding such a matter, each girl +reached out and plucked a hair by its roots, so vigorously that the pull +was followed by a long drawn "ouch!" + +"Mine's the shortest," giggled Lloyd, comparing it with the one that +Kitty held up. "But I'm suah my family will object if I propose leaving +them the very first night of my arrival, aftah I've been away at school +all yeah." + +"Don't leave them then," said Gay. "Bring them all over here to spend +the evening. I'm wild for Lucy and brother Jameson to meet them as soon +as possible. Then when bedtime comes let them leave you. Tell them that +Kitty is going to bring all her family, and that everybody in the valley +who is anybody is coming to the Harcourt's Housewarming to-night at the +'Cabin in the Wood.'" + +Kitty began unfurling her red parasol. "That certainly sounds alluring. +You can count on all my family, especially Ranald, and I'll go straight +home and telephone to Alex Shelby." + +"Who may he be?" inquired Gay, scrambling up from the floor, to follow +her guests down stairs. + +Kitty began an enthusiastic description of him, which Lloyd cut short +with the laughing remark, "Go look in your little Dutch mirror. I'm not +positive, but I _think_ he's yoah first 'Knight of the Looking-glass.'" + + + + +CHAPTER II + +BED-TIME CONFIDENCES + + +THAT night a series of interesting shadows trooped across the little +Dutch mirror, in the moonlight, but nobody watched beside it to see how +faithfully it reflected the procession of guests, straggling up the path +below. After the first pleased glance Gay had flown down-stairs to throw +open the front door and bid them welcome. It was almost more than she +had dared to hope that the old Colonel would come, and "Papa Jack" and +Kitty's Grandmother MacIntyre. But they had needed no urging. Gay was +reaping the aftermath now, of her first visit to the Valley. They had +not forgotten the obliging little guest who had entertained them with +her violin playing, amused them with her quaint unexpected speeches, and +charmed old and young alike with her enthusiastic interest in everything +and everybody. + +Ranald had more than that to remember, for he had carried on a vigorous +correspondence with Gay for the last six months, started by a "dare" +from Allison. Alex Shelby's memory of her dated back only to that +morning, but the picture of a sunny little head up among the roses, and +that line "Sandalphon the angel of glory" had been in his thoughts all +day. + +Their effort to show the newcomers how cordial a Lloydsboro welcome +could be, was met by a hospitality which held them in its spell till +after midnight. Lucy was in her element. As the popular daughter of a +popular army officer, she had played gracious hostess ever since she had +learned to talk. As for Gay, so anxious was she that her friends should +be pleased with her family and her family with her friends, that she +threw herself with all her might into the task of making each show off +to the other. + +An outside fire-place on the broad front porch was one of the features +of the Cabin. The June night was cool enough to make the blaze on its +hearth acceptable, and Lucy turned the picturesque old kettle, bubbling +on the crane, to practical use, making coffee to serve with the +marsh-mallows, which Jameson handed around on long sticks, that each one +might toast his own over the glowing coals. + +The informality of it all, and the good cheer, made every one relax into +his jolliest mood, and Gay, hearing the old Colonel's laugh, as +stretched out on the settle by the fire, he told stories and toasted +marsh-mallows with a zest, felt that they had struck the right key-note +in this first evening's entertainment. It was the harbinger of many +others that would follow during the summer. + +It was her violin that held them longest. Standing just inside the door +where Kitty could accompany her on the piano, she played one after +another of the favourite tunes that were called for in turn, till the +fire burned low on the porch hearth, and even the voices of the night +were stilled in the dense beech woods around the Cabin. + +It was later than any one had supposed when Mrs. Sherman made the +discovery that the hall clock had stopped. + +"She didn't know that I stopped it on purpose," confessed Gay, when the +last carriage had driven away, and Lloyd was following her sleepily +up-stairs. She paused to bolt the bed-room door behind them. + +"This has been a lovely evening for me. It gives one such a comfortable +I-told-you-so sort of feeling to have everything turn out as you +prophesied it would. Of course I knew that Lucy would feel the charm of +the Valley, and like it a thousand times better than the mountains or +seashore or anywhere else, but I wasn't so sure of Jameson. Now my mind +is completely at rest for the summer. I stopped worrying when I saw him +hobnobbing with the Colonel and your father about those Lexington horses +he wants to buy. He was so tickled over those letters of introduction +they gave him. And he was so charmed to air his knowledge of the +Philippines to Mrs. Walton. He spent a month there you know. I fairly +patted myself on the back all the time he was talking. Somehow I feel so +responsible for this household. There! I forgot to remind them to bring +that bothersome old silver pitcher upstairs!" + +Hastily unbolting the door she called out in sepulchral tones that +echoed through the dark house, "_Remember the Maine!_" + +There was a laugh in the room across the hall, then her brother-in-law +who had just come up-stairs, shuffled down again in his slippers. + +"I suppose I'll have to remind them every night this summer," continued +Gay. "I don't like to call out 'remember the silver pitcher that was our +great-great-grandmother Melville's, and the soup ladle that some old +Spanish grandee gave to one of Jameson's Castilian ancestors,' for if a +burglar were prowling around he would be all the more anxious to break +in. So the month I visited them, before we came here, I adopted that +slogan for my war-cry: '"_Remember the main_" thing in life to be saved +from burglars!' It always sends one or the other of them skipping, for +they feel the responsibility of preserving such heirlooms for posterity. +I used to wish that I were the oldest daughter, so that that pitcher +would be handed down to me on my wedding day. I didn't realize what a +bore it would be to be tied for life to such a responsibility. I asked +Jameson why he didn't put it and the ladle in a safety vault and be done +with it, and he read me such a lecture on the sacredness of old +associations and family ties that I somehow felt that his old soup-ladle +expected me to send it a written apology." + +Gay had bolted the door again, and as she talked, drew the curtains +across the casement windows. Now she sat on the edge of the bed, shaking +out her wealth of sunny hair, to brush and braid it for the night. It +was a cosy room, with low ceiling and old-fashioned wall paper. With the +curtains drawn and the candles in the quaint pewter sticks lighting up +the claw-footed mahogany furniture, it was an ideal place for the +exchanging of bedtime confidences. Gay was the first to break the +silence. + +"What was the matter with Betty tonight? She was as quiet as a mouse. +Hardly had a word to say, and all the time I was playing, she sat +looking out into the night as if she were ready to cry." + +"No wondah! They were so beautiful, some of those nocturnes and things, +that we all had lumps in our throats. Nothing's the mattah with Betty. +It's just the last chaptah she can't get to suit her. She's gone around +in a sawt of dream all day." + +"Who's playing the devoted to her now?" + +"Nobody as far as I know. _All_ the boys love Betty. They've been +perfectly devoted to her ever since she came to Locust to live; but +not--not in the sentimental way you mean; for instance the way that Alex +Shelby cares for Kitty." + +"Oh _don't_ tell me there is anything in that," wailed Gay, "at least on +Kitty's part, for I've set my heart on her marrying a friend of mine in +San Antonio, so she'll always be near me. You know when Mammy Easter +told her fortune, it was that her fate would come through running water +when the weather vane points _West_. I'm wild to have her visit me at +Fort Sam Houston next year, and this Frank Percival is the very one of +all others for her. He's a banker and as good as gold and--oh well, +there's no use wasting time singing his praises to _you_ when I want him +for Kitty! But about this Alex Shelby, Kitty told me this very afternoon +that it is _you_ he admires so much. She told me all about that Bernice +Howe affair, and said that ever since Katie Mallard up and told him how +honourably you acted in the matter, he has put you on a pedestal and +given you a halo. She said you could have him crazy about you if you'd +so much as lift an eyelash in encouragement." + +"Don't you believe it!" cried Lloyd. "That's just Kitty's way of +throwing you off the track. We've been unusually good friends evah since +he found out why I broke my engagement to go riding with him, but he is +at The Beeches every bit as much as he is at The Locusts, and it's you +he'll be in love with befoah the summah is ovah. He was the first one +reflected in yoah looking glass, for he confessed this evening how he +sat and watched you on the laddah, and how he'd thought of you all day; +and he even quoted poetry about it, and that's a very serious symptom +for Alex to show. He nevah was known to do such things befoah! Then +tonight he was simply carried away by yoah playing. He adores a violin +and you played all his favourites. Oh I see yoah finish!" + +There was a pause in which Gay kicked off her slippers and sat absently +gazing at them, while Lloyd tied the ribbons which fastened the lace in +the collar of her dainty gown. Again it was Gay who spoke first. + +"Doesn't it seem queer to think of Allison's being engaged? It is such a +little while since we were all school girls together. Nobody knows whose +turn will come next. It makes me feel like a soldier on a battle +field--comrades being shot down all around you right and left and you +never knowing how soon it'll be your turn to fall. It's awful! Lloyd, +what's become of that boy out in Arizona, the one who sent you those +orange-blossoms in Joyce's letter when I was here before? He was best +man at Eugenia Forbes' wedding." + +"Oh, you mean Phil Tremont!" answered Lloyd placidly, without the +conscious blush that Gay had expected to see. "He is out West again, +doing splendidly, Eugenia writes." + +"I thought you wrote to him yourself." + +Lloyd, stooping to pick up her dress and hang it over a chair, did not +see with what keen interest Gay watched her as she questioned. + +"Oh, we still keep up a sawt of hit and miss correspondence. He writes +every few weeks and I manage to reply once in two months or so. It's +dreadfully uphill work for me to write to people whom I nevah see. It's +been two yeahs since he was heah, and I nevah know what he'll be +interested in." + +"I suppose it's easier writing to some one you've known all your life, +like Malcolm MacIntyre for instance. I'm so sorry he and Keith are +abroad this summer." + +Lloyd's face dimpled mischievously as she began to see the drift of +Gay's questioning. "I can't tell you how easy it is to write to Malcolm, +because I've nevah done it. Now it's my turn to ask questions. Where did +you get this new photograph of Ranald Walton on yoah dressing table? Beg +it from Kitty as you did that one at Warwick Hall, when he was a little +cadet, or get it from headquartahs?" + +"Direct from headquarters," confessed Gay with a laugh. "He isn't so +afraid of girls as he used to be. Wasn't he charming tonight?" + +So the questioning and answering went on for quarter of an hour longer, +each anxious to find how far the other had drifted into the unexplored +country of their dreams. Then Gay blew out the candles and climbed into +the high four-posted bed beside Lloyd, where they lay looking out +through the open window into the starlight. The moon had been down for +some time. It was so still here in the heart of the beech woods that the +silence could almost be felt. The girls spoke in whispers. + +"It settles down on one like a pall," said Gay. "Are you sleepy?" + +"Not very," answered Lloyd, stifling a yawn. + +"Then there's one more person in the valley I want to ask about. I +believe I've heard an account of every one else. Where's Rob Moore and +what is he doing? I thought he would come over with you all tonight." + +"Poah old Rob," answered Lloyd, swallowing another yawn. "His fathah +died a little ovah a yeah ago, and he's nevah been like himself since. +He seemed to grow into a man in just a few hours. It was awfully +sudden--Mistah Moore's death. The shock neahly killed Rob's mothah, and +the deah old judge, his grandfathah, you know, was simply heartbroken. +Rob just gave up his entire time to them aftah that. He was such a +comfort. Nevah left the place, and took charge of all the business +mattahs, to spare them every worry. When things were settled up they +found there wasn't as much left as they had thought there would be, and +Rob wouldn't touch a cent to finish his law course. He was afraid his +mothah would have to deny herself some luxury she had always been used +to, and he didn't want her to miss a single one she had had in his +fathah's lifetime. So he took a position in Louisville, and has been +working like a dawg evah since. He reads law at night with the old +Judge, so I scarcely evah see him. We've just drifted apart, till it +seems as if the little old Bobby I grew up with is dead and gone. I +missed him dreadfully at first, all last summah, for he'd almost lived +at our house, and was just like a brothah. I haven't seen him at all +this vacation, though to be suah I've only been home this one day." + +In the dim starlight Lloyd could not see the complacent smile on Gay's +face, but her voice showed that she was well pleased with the answers to +her string of questions. + +"Now I'll tell you why I put you through such a catechism," she began. +"I wanted to make sure that the coast is clear, so that you can +undertake a mission that is to be laid at your door this summer. +Jameson's brother Leland will be here to-morrow afternoon. If he takes a +fancy to the place he will probably stay as long as we do, and we are +all very anxious for him to stay. He's only three years younger than +Jameson, but the two were left alone in the world when they were just +little tots, and Jameson has been like a father to him. He feels so +responsible for him and so does Lucy. I do too, now, although he's only +my brother-in-law's brother, because I persuaded them to come here for +the summer, and Jameson wanted to go somewhere where Leland would be +satisfied to stay." + +"What's the mattah with him, that he needs so much looking aftah? If +he's twenty-three yeahs old it seems to me that he might take the +responsibility of himself on his own shouldahs. Is he wild?" + +"No. Jameson says he's always been too high-minded to do the things men +mean when they talk about sowing their wild oats; but he is as utterly +irresponsible as a will-o-the-wisp. He won't stay tied down to +anything--just drifts around, here and there, having a good time. It's a +pity that he isn't as poor as a church mouse. Then he'd have to do +something. He's so bright he easily could make something splendid of +himself. Now Jameson has good sensible ideas about not squandering his +money, and although he doesn't have to work any more than Leland does, +he looks after the details of his own business as a man should. + +"He knows all about the mines he has stock in down in Mexico, and he +studies mineralogy and labour problems and investments, and has an +office that he goes to regularly every morning. He takes after his +father's side of the house, practical English people. But Leland is like +his mother's family (they were proud old Spaniards just a generation or +so back). He is adventurous and roving and romantic, and has the _dolce +far niente_ in the blood. Jameson says that all that Leland needs is to +be kept keyed up to the right pitch, for he is so impetuous and +headstrong that he always gets what he starts after, no matter what +stands in the way; and that if he could just fall heels over head in +love with some girl with great force of character, who wouldn't look at +him till he'd measured up to her standards, it would be the making of +him." + +Lloyd yawned. "Excuse me for saying it," she began teasingly, "but I +don't see how you can get up so much interest in anybody like that, even +if he is yoah brothah-in-law's brothah. It sounds to me as if he is just +plain _lazy_ and I nevah did have any use for a man that had to be +nagged all the time to keep his ambition up to high-watah mark." + +Gay sat up in bed in her earnestness. "Oh Lloyd, don't say that!" she +protested. "Don't judge him till you've seen him. He's perfectly dear in +lots of ways, in spite of his faults. You'll find him fascinating. +Everybody does. And I'm going to be entirely honest with you--I've +fairly _prayed_ that you'd like him. You are so strong yourself, the +strongest character of any girl I know, and you influence people so +forcibly in spite of themselves, that I've felt from the start it would +be the making of Leland if you'd take him in hand this summer." + +Lloyd smothered a laugh in the pillow. "'Why don't you speak for +yourself, John,'" she said mischievously. "Why don't _you_ take him in +hand? You are already interested so much that you'd only be combining +pleasuah with duty." + +Gay was too much in earnest to tolerate any levity, and went on in her +intense eager way. "Oh I've already worn myself out trying to influence +him, but it's of no use. He knows me too well. He's called me 'Pug' and +'Red-bird' ever since we went to kindergarten together. I'm just one of +the family. But I've showed him your picture and told him what an +unapproachable, unattainable creature you are, and whetted his curiosity +till it's as keen as a razor. Oh I've played my little game like an +expert, and he doesn't suspect in the faintest degree what I want. He +thinks I'm trying to interest him in Kitty Walton. I told him she's the +darlingest, jolliest, prettiest thing in ten states, and that I'd +guarantee he wouldn't feel bored once this entire summer if he'd make +her acquaintance. + +"But you--I've painted as so indifferent and entirely above his reach, +that just to prove to me I'm mistaken, he'll nearly break his neck to +put himself on good terms with you. It's just as Jameson says, he'll +ride rough-shod over everything that stands in his way, to get what he +wants." + +Lloyd raised herself on her elbow and turned a protesting face towards +her eloquent bed-fellow. + +"Well of all cool things," she began, half inclined to be indignant, yet +so amused at Gay's masterly management that the exclamation ended in a +giggle. "Where do _I_ come in, pray? You say he always gets what he goes +aftah. Did it evah occur to you that I might not want to be taken +possession of in that high-handed way? That _I_ might have something to +say in the mattah? Haven't you as much interest in my welfare as in +yoah sistah's husband's brothah?" + +"Of course! you blessed little goose!" exclaimed Gay, giving the arm +next hers an impetuous squeeze. "Don't I know the haughty Princess well +enough to be sure that all the king's horses and all the king's men +couldn't budge her against her will? I'm not looking ahead any farther +than this summer. But if you could just shake him up and put him on his +mettle that long, that's all I ask of you. And seriously, dear, you +might go the world over and not find one who measures up to your ideals +in more ways. He's well born and talented and rich and fairly +good-looking. He's so entertaining one never tires of his company, +good-hearted and generous to a fault, and--Oh Lloyd, _please_ say you'll +take enough interest to keep him keyed up to the right pitch for awhile. +It's all he lacks to make a splendid man." + +"Do you know, I think that's a mighty big lack," said Lloyd, honestly. +"I've had strings on my harp that wouldn't stay strung. It's the most +exasperating thing in the world. You know how it is, with a violin. +Right in the midst of the loveliest passages one will begin to slip +back--just a trifle, maybe, not more than a hair's breadth, but enough +to make it flat and spoil the harmony. Then you stop and tune it up +again, and go on for awhile, but back it will slip just when you've +gotten to depending on it. You know I couldn't have any respect for a +man who had to be kept up to the notch that way. It would spoil the +whole thing to have him flat on a single note when I'd depended on him +to ring clear and true." + +Gay had no reply ready for this unexpected argument, and her experience +with stringed instruments made it very forcible. It was several minutes +before she answered, then she spoke triumphantly. + +"But you know what a master can do where a novice would fail. He can fit +the keys to hold any position he gives them. Leland has never felt the +touch of a master-hand. No one has ever controlled him. He has always +been petted and spoiled. He has never known a girl like you. I'm sure +that if you were only willing to make the attempt to arouse his pride +and ambition, you could do wonders for him." + +It was the most potent appeal Gay could have made. To feel that her +influence may sway a man to higher, better things, will make even the +most frivolous girl draw quicker breath with a sense of power, and to a +conscientious girl like Lloyd this seemed an opportunity and a +responsibility that could not be lightly thrust aside. + +"Well," she said finally, after a moment of hesitation, "I'll try." + +Gay reached over with an impulsive kiss. "Oh you _dear_! I knew you +would. Now I can let you go to sleep in peace. 'Something accomplished, +something done, has earned a night's repose.' It must be awfully late. +Goodnight dear." + +Long after Gay had fallen asleep, Lloyd lay thinking of the mission thus +thrust upon her. If this Leland Harcourt had needed reforming, she told +herself, she wouldn't have had anything to do with him. Her poor +Violet's experience with Ned Bannon had taught her one lesson--how +mistaken any girl is who thinks she can accomplish _that_. But to be the +master-hand that could put in tune some really splendid instrument (ah, +Gay's appeal was subtle and strong) _any_ girl would be glad and proud +to be _that_: the inspiration, the power for good, the beckoning hand +that would lead a man to the noblest heights of attainment. + +There was something exhilarating, uplifting in the thought, that +banished sleep. Night often brings exalted moods that seem absurd next +day. Lying there, looking out at the stars, the pleasing fancy came to +her that each one was a sacred altar-flame, given into the keeping of +some unseen vestal virgin. Now she too had joined this star-world +Sisterhood, and had lighted a vestal fire on the altar of a promise. In +its constant watch, she would keep tryst with all that Life demanded of +her. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +A KNIGHT COMES RIDING + + +NEXT morning Lloyd found that her exalted mood had faded away with the +stars. Any fire must pale before the broad light of day, and her +vestal-maiden fervour had given place to a very lively but mundane +interest in the brother-in-law's brother. + +She was glad to hear at breakfast that he liked tennis, was a good +horseman, that private theatricals were always a success when he had a +hand in them. She stored away in her memory for future use, the +information that he had lived several years in Spain and Mexico, and +spoke Spanish like a native, that unlike Jameson he was prouder of his +Castilian ancestors than his English ones, and that two of his fads were +collecting pipes and rare old ivory carvings. + +[Illustration: "DREW REIN A MOMENT AT THE GATE, TO LOOK DOWN THE STATELY +AVENUE."] + +The more she heard about him the less sure she felt of being able to +keep her promise to Gay. It began to seem presumptuous to her that a +mere school-girl should imagine that she could exert any influence +over such an accomplished man of the world as he evidently was. All that +day she pictured to herself at intervals how she should meet him and +what she should say. It was a new experience for the haughty Princess +who had always been so indifferent to the opinions of her boy friends. +Gay's request had made her self-conscious. Fortunately she had a glimpse +of him before he saw her, which helped her to adjust herself to the rôle +she wanted to assume. + +The morning after his arrival in the Valley, he and Ranald rode past the +Locusts, and drew rein a moment at the gate, to look down the stately +avenue which was always pointed out to strangers. Lloyd watched their +approach from behind a leafy screen of lilac bushes. The gleam of a wild +strawberry had lured her over there from the path, a few minutes before. +Then the discovery of a patch of four-leaf clovers near by had tempted +her to a seat on the grass. She was arranging the long stems of the +clovers in a cluster when the sound of hoof-beats made her look up. + +So thickset were the lilacs between her and the road that not a glimpse +of her white dress or the flutter of a ribbon betrayed her presence, and +they paused to admire the avenue, unknowing that a far prettier picture +was hidden away a few yards from them, in full sound of their voices--a +girl half lying in the grass, with June's own fresh charm in her glowing +face, and the sunshine throwing dappled leaf shadows over her soft fair +hair. The mischievous light in her hazel eyes deepened as she watched +them. + +"'The knights come riding two by two,'" she quoted in a whisper, closely +scrutinizing the stranger. + +"He rides well, anyhow," was her first thought. The next was that he +looked much older than Gay's description had led her to imagine. +Probably it was because he wore a moustache, while Rob and Malcolm and +Alex and Ranald were all smooth-shaven. Maybe it was that same black +moustache, with the gleam of white teeth and the flashing glance of his +black eyes that gave him that dashing cavalier sort of look. How +wonderfully his dark face lighted up when he smiled, and how distinctly +one recalled it when he had passed on. And yet it wasn't a handsome +face. She wondered wherein lay its charm. + +Gay's words recurred to her: "So fiery and impetuous he would ride +rough-shod over anything that stood in his way to get what he wants." + +"He looks it," she thought, raising her head a trifle to watch them out +of sight. "I'm afraid I can't do as much for him as Gay expects for I'll +simply not stand his putting on any of his lordly ways with _me_." +Gathering up her clovers, she started back to the house, her head held +high unconsciously, in her most Princess-like pose. + +Some one else had watched the passing of the two young men on horseback. +From his arm chair on the white pillared porch, old Colonel Lloyd +reached out to the wicker table beside him for his field-glass, to focus +it on the distant entrance gate. + +"I don't seem to place them," he said aloud. "It looks like young Walton +on the roan, but the other one is a stranger in these parts." + +Then as he saw they were not coming in, he shifted the glass to other +objects. Slowly his gaze swept the landscape from side to side, till it +rested on Lloyd, sitting on the grass by the lilac thicket, sorting her +lapful of clovers. + +Something in her childish occupation and the sunny gleam of the proud +little head bowed intently over her task, recalled another scene to the +old Colonel; that morning when through this same glass he had watched +her first entrance into Locust. Was it fourteen or fifteen years ago? It +seemed only yesterday that he had found her near that same spot coolly +feeding his choicest strawberries to an elfish looking dog. Time had +gone so fast since his imperious little grand-daughter had come into his +life to fill it with new interests and deeper meaning. Yes, it certainly +seemed no longer ago than yesterday that she was tyrannizing over him in +her adorable baby fashion, making an abject slave of him, whom every one +else feared. And now here she was coming towards him across the lawn, a +tall, fair girl in the last summer of her teens. Why Amanthis was no +older than she when he had brought her home to Locust, a bride. And no +doubt some one would be coming soon, wanting to carry away Lloyd, the +light of his eyes and the life of the place. + +It made him angry to think of it, and when she stopped beside his chair +to give him a soft pat on the cheek her first remark sent a jealous +twinge through him. + +"So _that's_ who the stranger was with young Walton," he responded. +"_Humph!_ I don't think much of him." + +"But grandfathah, how could you tell at such a distance?" laughed Lloyd. +"It isn't fair to form an opinion at such long range. You'd bettah come +with us tonight again ovah to the Cabin, and make his acquaintance. +There's to be anothah housewahming, especially for him. Kitty and Ranald +are engineering it. They've invited all the young people in the +neighbourhood--sawt of a surprise you know. At least they call it that, +although Gay and Lucy are expecting us. Even Rob is going, for Kitty +waylaid him as he got off the train yestahday evening, and talked him +into consenting." + +"I'm glad of that," answered the old Colonel heartily. "'All work and no +play makes Jack a dull boy.' This last year has been hard on the lad. +The Judge tells me he's never left the place a single night since his +Daddy died. He just grinds along in that hardware store all day, and is +into his law books as soon as he gets home. He's getting to be an old +man before his time. I'm glad your little friend Gay is here this +summer, on his account, if for no other reason. She'll draw him out of +his shell if anybody can. I remember how much he seemed to be taken with +her that Christmas Vacation she spent in the Valley." + +Lloyd gaped at him in astonishment. "Why grandfathah! I nevah dreamed +that you noticed things like _that_!" + +"I certainly do, my dear," he answered playfully. "I was young myself +once upon a time. It's easy to recognize familiar landmarks on a road +you've travelled. But why," he said suddenly in a changed tone, "if I +may be so bold as to ask, _why_ is this young Texan to be ushered into +the valley with this blare of trumpets and torchlight effect? Is he +anything out of the ordinary?" + +"No, but it will make him feel that he hasn't dropped down into a poky +inland village with nothing doing, but into a lovely social whirl +instead. They want him to be so pleased with the place that he'll be +satisfied to stay all summah." + +It was almost on the tip of her tongue to tell why his family were so +desirous of keeping him with them, but another scornful "_humph!_" +checked her. For some unaccountable reason the old Colonel seemed to +have taken a dislike to this stranger, and she knew that this +information would deepen it to such an extent, that he would not want +her to have anything to do with him. + +"He'd be furious if he knew what I promised Gay," she thought, "for he +takes such violent prejudices that the least thing 'adds fuel to the +flame.' He might not want me to let him call heah or anything." + +"What do you keep saying '_humph!_' to me foh?" she asked saucily, +"when I'm trying to tell you the news and am so kind and polite as to +ask you to go to the pahty with us. It's dreadful to have such an old +ogah of a grandfathah, who makes you shake in yoah shoes every time he +opens his mouth." + +Her arm was round his neck as she spoke, and her cheek pressed against +his. The caress drove away every other thought save that it was good to +have his little Colonel home again, and he gave a pleased chuckle as she +went on scolding him in a playful manner that no one else in the world +ever dared assume with him. But all the while that she was twisting his +white moustache, and braiding his Napoleon-like goatee into a funny +little tail, she was thinking about the evening, and the indifferent air +with which she intended to meet Leland Harcourt. She would have to be +indifferent, and oblivious of his existence as far as she could +politely, because Gay had told him that she was unapproachable and +unattainable. She would talk to Rob most of the evening, she decided. +She was glad that she would have the opportunity, for she had not seen +him since coming home. He had called at The Locusts the night after her +return from school, but that was the night she had stayed at the Cabin +with Gay, and she had missed him. + +"Did you know that your trunks came while you were at the post-office?" +asked the Colonel presently. Owing to some mistake in checking their +baggage in Washington, Lloyd's trunks had been delayed, and she had been +wearing some of Betty's clothes the two days she had been at home. + +"Why didn't you tell me soonah?" she asked, springing up from her seat +on the arm of his chair. "I've been puzzling my brains all mawning ovah +what I could weah tonight." Hastily gathering up the handful of clovers +that she had dropped on the wicker table, she ran upstairs. Everything +in her pink bower of a room was in confusion. Her Commencement gown lay +on the bed like an armful of thistledown, with her gloves and lace fan +beside it. On the mantel stood the little white slippers in which she +had tripped across the rostrum at Warwick Hall to receive her diploma +from Madam Chartley's hands. Now the diploma with its imposing red seals +and big blue satin bow, was reposing on top of the clock on the same +mantel with the slippers, and from the open trunks which Mom Beck was +unpacking, a motley collection of books, clothing, sorority banners and +school-girl souvenirs flowed out all over the floor. + +The old coloured woman was garrulous this morning. Her trip to +Washington "with all her white folks, to her baby's Finishment" (she +couldn't understand why it should be called Commencement), had been the +event of her life; and when she could get no one else to listen, she +talked to herself, recounting each incident of her journey with unctuous +enjoyment. + +She was on her knees now before one of the trunks, talking so earnestly +into its depths, that Lloyd, entering the room, looked around to see who +her audience could be. At the sound of Lloyd's step the monologue came +to a sudden stop, and the wrinkled old face turned with a smile. + +"What you want me to do with all these yeah school books, honey, now you +done with 'em fo' evah?" + +"Mercy, Mom Beck! don't talk as if I had come to the end of every thing, +and am too old to study any moah! I expect to keep up my French and +German all next wintah, even if I am a débutante. Don't you remembah +what Madam Chartley said in her lovely farewell speech to the +graduating class? What's the good of taking you to Commencement, if +that's all the impression it made?" + +A pleased cackle of a laugh answered her. "Law, honey, I couldn't listen +to speeches! I was too busy thinkin' of Becky Potah in her black silk +dress that ole Cun'l give me for the grand occasion, an' the purple +pansies in my bonnet. The queen o' Sheby couldn't held a can'le to me +_that_ day." + +She was off on another chapter of reminiscences now, but Lloyd paid no +attention. As she picked up the books and found places for them on the +low shelves that filled one side of the room, she felt as if she were +assisting at the last sad rites of something very dear; for each page +was eloquent with happy memories of her last year at school. Every +scribbled margin recalled some pleasant recitation hour, and most of the +fly-leaves were decorated by Kitty's ridiculous caricatures. She and +Kitty had been room-mates this last year. + +In order to find place for these books, which she had just brought home, +she had to carry a row of old ones down to the library. They were +juvenile tales, most of them, which she laid aside; girls' stories that +had once been a never failing source of delight. She could remember the +time (and not so very long ago, either) when it had seemed impossible +that she could out-grow them. And now as she trailed down stairs with an +armful of her old favourites, she felt as if the shadowy figure of her +childhood, the little Lloyd that used to be, followed her with +reproachful glances for her disloyalty to these discarded friends. + +On her way back to her room for a second armful, she stopped outside +Betty's door for a moment, hoping to hear some noise within, which would +indicate that Betty was not at her desk. There was so much that she +wanted to talk to her about. One of the things she had looked forward to +most eagerly in her home-coming was the long, sisterly talks they would +have together. Now it was a disappointment to find her so absorbed in +her writing that she was as inaccessible as if she had withdrawn into a +cloister. + +"I'll be glad when the old book is finished," thought Lloyd impatiently +as she tip-toed away from the door. To her, Betty's ability to write was +a mysterious and wonderful gift. Not for anything would she have +interrupted her when "genius burned," but she resented the fact that it +should rise between them as it had done lately. Even when Betty was not +shut up in her room actually at work, her thoughts seemed to be on it. +She was living in a world of her own creating, more interested in the +characters of her fancy than those who sat at table with her. Since +beginning the last chapter she had been so preoccupied and +absent-minded, that Lloyd hardly knew her. She was so unlike the old +Betty, the sympathetic confidante and counsellor, who had been +interested in even the smallest of her griefs and joys. + +If Lloyd could have looked on the other side of the closed door just +then, the expression on Betty's face would have banished every feeling +of impatience or resentment, and sent her quietly away to wait and +wonder, while Betty passed through one of the great hours of her life. + +With a tense, earnest face bent over the manuscript, she reached the +climax of her story--the last page, the last paragraph. Then with a +throbbing heart, she halted a moment, pen in hand, before adding the +words, _The End_. She wrote them slowly, reverently almost, and then +realizing that the ambition of her life had been accomplished, looked up +with an expression of child-like awe in her brown eyes. It was done at +last, the work that she had pledged herself to do so long ago, back +there in the little old wooden church at the Cuckoo's Nest. + +For a time she forgot the luxurious room where she sat, and was back at +the beginning of her ambition and high resolves, in that plain old +meeting house in the grove of cedars. Again she tiptoed down the empty +aisle, that was as still as a tomb, save for the buzzing of a wasp at +the open window through which she had climbed. Again she opened the +little red book-case above the back pew, that held the remnants of a +scattered Sunday-school library. The queer musty smell of the +time-yellowed volumes floated out to her as strong as ever, mingling +with the warm spicy scent of pinks and cedar, from the graveyard just +outside the open window. + +Those tattered books, read in secret to Davy on sunny summer afternoons, +had been the first voices to whisper to her that she too was destined to +leave a record behind her. And now that she had done it, they seemed to +call her back to that starting place. Sitting there in happy reverie, +she wished that she could make a pilgrimage back to the little church. +She would like to slip down its narrow aisle just when the afternoon sun +was shining yellowest on its worn benches and old altar, and dropping on +her knees as she had done years ago in a transport of gratitude, whisper +a happy "Thank you, God" from the depths of a glad little heart. + +Presently the whisper did go up from her desk where she sat with her +face in her hands. Then reaching out for the last volume of the white +and gold series that chronicled her good times, she opened it to where a +blotter kept the place at a half written page, and added this entry. + +"June 20th. Truly a red-letter day, for hereon endeth my story of +'_Aberdeen Hall_.' The book is written at last. Two chapters are still +to be copied on the typewriter, but the 'web' itself is woven, and ready +to be cut from the loom. I am glad now that I waited; that I did not +attempt to publish anything in my teens. The world looks very different +to me now at twenty. I have outgrown my early opinions and ideals with +my short dresses, just as Mrs. Walton said we would. Now the critics can +say 'Thou waitedst till thy woman's fingers wrought the best that lay +within thy woman's heart.' I can say honestly I have put the very best +of me into it, and the feeling of satisfaction that I have accomplished +the one great thing I started out to do so many years ago, gives me more +happiness I am sure, than any 'diamond leaf' that any prince could +bring." + +Such elation as was Betty's that hour, seldom comes to one more than +once in a life-time. Years afterward her busy pen produced far worthier +books, which were beloved and bethumbed in thousands of libraries, but +none of them ever brought again that keen inward thrill, that wave of +intense happiness which surged through her warm and sweet, as she sat +looking down on that first completed manuscript. She was loath to lay it +aside, for the joy of the creator possessed her, and in the first flush +of pleased surveyal of her handiwork, she humbly called it good. + +She went down to lunch in such an uplifted frame of mind that she seemed +to be walking on air. But Betty was always quiet, even in her most +intense moments. Save for the brilliant colour in her cheeks and the +unusual light in her eyes there was no sign of her inward excitement. +She slipped into her seat at table with the careless announcement "Well, +it's finished." + +It was Lloyd who made all the demonstration amid the family +congratulations. Waving her napkin with one hand and clicking two spoons +together like castanets, she sprang from her chair and rushed around the +table to give vent to her pleasure by throwing her arms around Betty in +a delighted embrace. + +"Oh you little mouse!" she cried. "How can you sit there taking it so +calmly? If I had done such an amazing thing as to write a book, I'd have +slidden down the ban'istahs with a whoop, to announce it, and come +walking in on my hands instead of my feet. + +"Of co'se I'm just as proud of it as the rest of the family are," she +added when she had expended her enthusiasm and gone back to her seat, +"but now that it's done I'll confess that I've been jealous of that old +book evah since I came home, and I'm mighty glad it's out of the way. +Now you'll have time to take some interest in what the rest of us are +doing, and you'll feel free to go in, full-swing, for the celebration at +the Cabin tonight." + +All the rest of that day seemed a fête day to Betty. Her inward glow +lent a zest to the doing of even the most trivial things, and she +prepared for the gaieties at the Cabin, as if it were her own +entertainment, pleased that this red-letter occasion of her life should +be marked by some kind of a celebration. It was to do honour to the day +and not to the Harcourt's guest, that she arrayed herself in her most +becoming gown. + +Rob dropped in early, quite in the old way as if there had never been a +cessation of his daily visits, announcing that he had come to escort the +girls to the Cabin. Lloyd who was not quite ready, leaned over the +banister in the upper hall for a glimpse of her old playmate, intending +to call down some word of greeting; but he looked so grave and dignified +as he came forward under the hall chandelier to shake hands with Betty, +that she drew back in silence. + +The next instant she resented this new feeling of reserve that seemed to +rise up and wipe out all their years of early comradery. Why shouldn't +she call down to him over the banister as she had always done? she asked +herself defiantly. He was still the same old Rob, even if he had grown +stern and grave looking. She leaned over again, but this time it was the +sight of Betty that stopped her. She had never seen her so beaming, so +positively radiant. In that filmy yellow dress, she might have posed as +the Daffodil Maid. Her cheeks were still flushed, her velvety brown eyes +luminous with the joy of the day's achievement. + +Lloyd watched her a moment in fascinated admiration, as she stood +laughing and talking under the hall light. Then she saw that Rob was +just as much impressed with Betty's attractiveness as she was, and was +looking at her as if he had made a discovery. + +His pleased glance and the frank compliment that followed sent a thought +into Lloyd's mind that made her wonder why it had never occurred to her +before. How well Betty would fit into the establishment over at Oaklea. +What a dear daughter she would make to Mrs. Moore, and what a joy she +would be to the old Judge! Rob seemed to be finding her immensely +entertaining. Well, there was no need for her to hurry down now. She +could take her time about changing her dress. + +Lloyd could not have told what had made her decide so suddenly that her +dress needed changing. She had put on a pale green dimity that she liked +because it was simple and cool-looking, but now after a glance into the +mirror she began to slip it off. + +"It looks like a wilted lettuce leaf," she said petulantly to her +reflection, realizing that nothing but white could hold its own when +brought in contact with Betty's gown. That pale exquisite shade of +glowing yellow would be the dominating colour in any place it might be +worn. + +"I must live up to Gay's expectations," she thought, "so white it shall +be, Señor Harcourt!" + +His dark face with its flashing smile rose before her, and stayed in the +foreground of her thoughts, all the time she was arraying herself in her +daintiest, fluffiest white organdy. Clasping the little necklace of +Roman pearls around her throat, and catching up her lace fan, she swept +up to the mirror for a last anxious survey. It was a thoroughly +satisfactory one, and with a final smoothing of ribbons she smiled over +her shoulder at the charming reflection. + +"Now I'll go down and practise my airs and graces on Rob and Betty for +awhile. But I'll leave them in peace after we get to the Cabin, for if +there should be any possibility of their beginning to care for each +othah, I wouldn't get in the way for worlds. Now _this_ is the way I'll +sail in to meet Mistah Harcourt!" + +Thus it happened that the hauteur with which she intended to impress him +was in her manner when she swept in to greet Rob. It was not meant for +Rob but it had the same effect as if it were, making him feel as if she +wished to drop the friendly familiarity of their school days, and meet +him on the footing of a recent acquaintance. He had been looking forward +all year to her home-coming, and now it gave him a vague sense of +disappointment and injury, that she should be as conventionally +gracious to him as if he were the veriest stranger. His eyes followed +her wistfully, as if looking for something very precious which he had +lost. + +Wholly unconscious of the way she was spoiling the evening for him Lloyd +went on playing the part of Serene Highness, laid out for her. Never to +Gay's admiring eyes had she seemed more beautiful, more the fair +unattainable Princess, than she was in her meeting with Leland Harcourt. +Gay wanted to pat her on the back, for she saw that she had made the +very impression expected of her. Long practice had made Gay quick in +interpreting Leland's slightest change of expression, and she was well +pleased now with what she read in his face. + +But to Lloyd, the dark, smiling eyes, regarding everything with a +slightly amused expression, showed nothing more than the superficial +interest which ordinary politeness demanded of him. He made some pretty +speech about the Valley and his pleasure in meeting its charming people, +and then stood talking only long enough to make her feel that Gay was +right in her estimate of him. He was entertaining, even fascinating in +his manner, more entertaining than any man she had ever met. But just as +she reached this conclusion she found herself handed over in some +unaccountable way to some one else, and that was the last of his +attention to her that night. + +He seemed immensely entertained by Kitty, and much interested in Betty +and the fact that she had finished writing a book that very day. Gay +heralded her advent with that news. Lloyd could overhear little scraps +of conversation that made her long to have a share in it. His repartee +was positively brilliant she found herself thinking; the kind that one +reads of in books, but never hears elsewhere. + +For the first time in her life Lloyd felt herself calmly and +deliberately ignored, just as she had planned to ignore him. + +"Maybe it's because Gay told him that I would be so indifferent," she +thought, "and he doesn't think it worth the effort to put himself out to +make me be nice to him. I don't care." + +Nevertheless a little feeling of disappointment and pique crept in to +spoil her evening also, for in the limited wisdom of her school-girl +experiences she did not recognize that this worldly-wise young man was +ignoring her because he was interested; that he had only adopted her own +tactics as the surest way of gaining his end. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +BETTY'S NOVEL + + +IT was Gay's voice over the telephone. "Oh Lloyd, _can't_ you come? Do +arrange it some way. Lucy is frightened stiff at the thought of being +left here alone all night with just me. And she thought it would be such +a good time for Betty to read us her novel, as she promised, before she +sends it away to the publishers. There'll be no callers to interrupt us +on such a rainy day." + +"Hold the phone a minute," answered Lloyd. "I'll see. It's Gay," she +explained to her mother who had come out into the hall at the first +tinkle of the bell, thinking the summons might be for her. + +"Mistah Harcourt and his brothah went to Lexington this mawning to buy +those hawses, and Gay and Lucy are afraid to stay there tonight. The +cook had promised to sleep at the house, but something turned up at her +home a little while ago to prevent. So they want Kitty and Betty and me +to come ovah right away and spend the aftahnoon and night. It's raining +cataracts and I know you don't like to take the new carriage out in such +weathah, but couldn't Alec put the curtains on the old one?" + +Mrs. Sherman glanced dubiously towards the windows, against which the +rain was beating in torrents. + +"And leave me all alone, when I've been looking forward to this same +good, rainy afternoon with you," almost slipped from Mrs. Sherman's +tongue. But the eager desire shining in the faces of both girls kept +back the words. + +"It's only a warm summer rain," interposed Betty, seeing her hesitate. + +"Very well, then," consented Mrs. Sherman with a smile, but as she went +back to her room she stifled a little sigh of disappointment. "I suppose +it's only natural they should want to be going," she thought. "But if it +wasn't so selfish I could almost wish that Gay hadn't come to the Valley +for the summer. She will take Lloyd away from home so often, and I have +looked forward so long to the companion she would be when her school +days were ended." + +Wholly unconscious of her mother's disappointment Lloyd was answering +merrily, "We'll be ovah right away! Ring up Kitty again, and tell her +we'll drive by for her." + +An hour later the five girls (for the bride of a year seemed the +youngest of them all at times) were seated in an upstairs room at the +Lindsey Cabin, each in a comfortable rocking chair. Lucy had taken them +to her room saying it was cozier up near the roof where they could hear +the rain patter on the shingles. Also her dormer windows faced the West, +and they would have daylight longer there. + +It took a little while for them to get settled for the reading. Lucy +brought out the family darning with a matronly air, when she saw that +Lloyd had brought a square of linen to start a piece of drawn-work, and +Kitty had some napkins to hem. Mrs. Walton had turned over the +management of the house to Kitty only that day (Allison had had it the +year before) and with house-wifely zeal she had begun with an +exploration of the linen closet where she had found a pile of unhemmed +linen. + +Not wanting to be idle while all the rest were occupied, Gay kept them +waiting while she burrowed through her trunk for an intricate piece of +knitting work which she had begun two years before. It had been +intended for a Christmas present, and she had brought it with her +intending to finish it before another Christmas or perish in the +attempt. "Don't pay any attention to me," she warned. "There'll be +places where I have to stop and count stitches and fairly wrestle with +it, but I'll be listening in spite of my bodily contortions." + +They were all ready at last, so Betty picked up the first chapter and +cleared her throat. She had been anxious to read her novel to the girls, +she had been so sure of its merit. But now as she glanced down the page +she was assailed by misgivings. After all she might not have been an +impartial judge, and maybe it wasn't as good as it seemed to her. + +"You'll recognize some of the incidents," she explained, "and one +character is a composite portrait of three Lloydsboro people. He looks +like Mr. Jaynes, stutters like Captain Bedel and has experiences that +once happened to Doctor Shelby. I've put Miss Marietta Waring's romance +into it too." + +Betty read well. She loved the characters she had fashioned, and with +her sympathetic voice to interpret them, they became almost as real to +her listeners as they were to herself. Presently the girls began to +exchange approving nods. She watched them from the corner of her eye. +Now and then there were low murmurs of approbation at some particularly +pleasing incident or turn of expression, and at the end of the first +chapter there was outspoken applause. They complimented enthusiastically +while Betty rested and took breath for the next. + +As she felt the genuine pleasure she was affording them, all her fears +as to its short-comings fled. She began to see that her story was even +better than she had thought it. She saw it in better perspective through +their eyes. Its plot moved so smoothly. There was more life, more _go_ +in it than she had been conscious of in her solitary readings. It was +certainly worth all the painstaking effort it had cost her. She could +look at it now and no longer humbly, but confidently call it good. + +When in one scene she stole a furtive glance around to note the effect, +and caught Lucy stealthily slipping out her handkerchief, Gay looking up +with tears on her lashes and Lloyd with the peculiar tightening of the +lips that showed she was trying to swallow the lump in her throat, she +was so happy she could have sung for joy. She read on and on, and they +forgot the rain beating against the windows, forgot everything but +their interest in the story. + +Lucy pushed her darning basket aside and leaned back in her chair, her +hands clasped behind her head. The work over which Lloyd had been +bending, dropped in her lap and her little gold thimble rolled away into +a corner unheeded. There was a personal interest in the story for each +of them. Lloyd saw herself as plainly in Betty's heroine as she could +see her reflection in the mirror door of the huge mahogany wardrobe +opposite her. Some of Kitty's ridiculous speeches that had become +historical in her family, found a place here and there, and once Lucy +laughed outright, exclaiming, "Why that's just like Gay! You must have +been thinking of her when you wrote it." + +The reading went on without interruption until it was so dark that Betty +had to hold her manuscript close to the window. "I'll ring for lights," +thought Lucy, "just as soon as she comes to the end of this chapter." +But with the end of the chapter came Ca'line Allison with a message from +the kitchen. Lucy started up in dismay. + +"There! I forgot all about that salad. How could I be so careless when +I'm to have a real live authoress to dinner? I was so interested I +hadn't a thought for anything but the story." + +"Such appreciation is a thousand times better than salad," laughed +Betty, so jubilant over her triumph that her eyes were full of a happy +light. "This is a good place to stop until after dinner. I've read until +my throat is tired." + +Lucy hurried down stairs to hasten the dinner preparations, in order +that they might get back to the reading as soon as possible. The four +girls folded their work, and sat in the twilight, talking. + +"What does this make you think of?" asked Lloyd. + +"I know what's in your mind," answered Kitty. "I was just about to speak +of it myself; that rainy day at Boarding School, when Ida Shane read +'The Fortune of Daisy Dale' to us, behind locked doors. Wasn't it +thrilling?" + +Gay who had heard the incident mentioned many times at Warwick Hall, +said plaintively, "You girls always make me feel that I have missed half +my life, because I wasn't with you when Ida Shane read that story. I'd +certainly like to get my hands on such a wonderful piece of literature." + +"But it wasn't wonderful," Betty hastened to explain. "It made that deep +impression on us simply because it was the first novel we had ever +read. It was sentimental and melodramatic and trashy as we've since +discovered, but then it seemed all that was lovely and romantic. It gave +us thrills up and down our spines and sent us around with our heads in +the clouds for days. We were seeing embryo Guy Wolverings in every boy +we met. As I listened to Ida I thought that if I could only write a book +that would hold my listeners spellbound as that held us, I'd ask no more +of life. I could die happy." + +"Well, you've done it, dear," said Gay warmly. "We scarcely breathed +during the last two chapters, and I'm so eager to know how it ends that +I'd willingly cut dinner to go on with it." + +"Now how does that make you feel, Miss Elizabeth Lloyd Lewis?" asked +Kitty teasingly. "Fair uplifted, I've nae doot." + +"Yes, it does," was the honest answer. "It's what I've hoped for and +worked for and prayed for these last ten years. Can you wonder that it +makes me radiantly happy to have you girls think that I have in a +measure succeeded?" + +Dinner was announced a little later, and when the girls went into the +dining-room, they found Lucy herself bringing it in. + +"Poor Sylvia had another message from home," she explained, "so I told +her and Ca'line Allison to go on; that we'd wait on ourselves and clear +the table, and they could wash the dishes in the morning. It's not +raining quite so hard now, but it is dark as a pocket outside." + +As she placed the soup tureen on the table, they heard the outer kitchen +door close, and Sylvia turn the key in the lock. + +"Ugh!" exclaimed Lucy with a shiver. "Now we're abandoned to our fate! I +wish you'd pull that window-shade farther down, Gay. There's just room +for somebody to peep under it, and there's nothing more terrifying to me +than the thought of eyes peering in at one from the outer darkness." + +"'The gobelins will git you if you don't watch out,'" sang Gay. "Do for +pity's sake put your mind on something else, Lucy, and don't spoil this +festive occasion with a case of high jinks!" + +Seeing that their little hostess was really nervous and timid, Kitty +began to divert them all by impersonating different characters in the +Valley. She was a fine mimic, and kept them laughing all through the +first course. Lucy carried out the plates, and hurried back with the +second course. + +"You've got to get the salad when the time comes," she said to Gay. +"It's so spooky out there in the kitchen with Sylvia gone, that I was +afraid to look over my shoulder. Queer, isn't it! For it's just as warm +and well-lighted and cheerful now as when she was there. I wouldn't go +into the pantry alone for a fortune." + +"Nonsense!" cried Kitty. "Five valiant females are enough to keep any +Lloydsboro foe at bay. We'll be your brave defenders." + +Gay, who had risen to circle around the table with a plate of hot +biscuit, paused dramatically beside Lucy's chair to say in a stage +whisper, "Hist! I have a weapon of defence ye wot not of. One that a +doughty knight did leave behind him." + +"Oh," said the literal Lucy. "I suppose you mean Mr. Shelby's +boxing-glove that he left on the piano, when he came in yesterday to +bring you those books. It was awfully funny, girls, the way he _seemed_ +to leave it by accident. I couldn't help laughing, for it was so evident +he did it on purpose, to have an excuse to come again sooner than he +would have done otherwise." + +Gay smiled knowingly. It was not a boxing-glove she meant, but for +reasons of her own she did not enlighten Lucy as to the kind of weapon +she had in reserve. It was after eight when they rose from the table, +and they made such a frolic of carrying out the dishes, that the +grandfather clock on the stairs chimed the half-hour as they finished. + +Before Ca'line Allison left she had started a cheerful blaze in the +fireplace of the huge living room, for the night was chilly as well as +damp. But Lucy partly covered it with ashes, and proposed spending the +evening up-stairs. + +"Somehow one feels so much safer up-stairs when there are no men in the +house," she explained. "We'll light two big lamps, and that will make it +as warm and cosy as if we had a fire." + +So in a body they made the rounds of the down-stairs rooms, bolting +windows and locking doors. Then satisfied that every entrance was +securely fastened, they went up-stairs to resume the reading. This time +there was no attempt to do any needlework. With folded hands they waited +in expectant silence, while Betty found her place. But just as she +raised the sheet of paper, the great door of the mahogany wardrobe swung +slowly and stealthily open. Not a sound did it make, and there was +something so ghostly in its silent undoing that Lucy gave a little +shriek and hid her face in her hands. Each one of them acknowledged to +a queer chilly sensation just for an instant, even Gay, who explained +that it was only a little habit that the wardrobe had. "I don't mind it +in the day-time," she added, "but it _is_ spooky at night when +everything is still to have it unexpectedly pop open, and swing out with +that slow gliding motion." + +"It's because the latch is worn and the catch works loose," said +matter-of-fact Kitty, who had crossed the room to examine it. She turned +the key. "Now it will not interrupt us for awhile. Go on with the story, +Betty." + +Again the manuscript was raised and again Lucy stopped her with the +wail, "Oh, Gay! We've forgotten to bring up the silver pitcher and +Jameson's ladle. I put them on the dining-room table after I'd washed +them, and then marched off and forgot them." + +"Well, I'll go down for them," volunteered Gay. "There's no use in your +doing it and getting another fit of shivers." + +The other three sprang up, but Gay waved Betty back. + +"Save your breath for the reading. Kitty and Lloyd will be enough. I +don't mind acknowledging that I'll be glad to have both a rear and a +vanguard going through that dark hall." + +Lighting a candle and holding it high above her head, Lloyd led the way +down-stairs. Gay was inwardly quaking, for she was almost as timid as +her sister, but the fearlessness of her two companions made her keep up +a pretence of bravery. As the three pairs of little heels clattered down +the dark polished steps, Lloyd and Kitty kept time in a singsong chant: + + "There was a man and he had naught + And robbers came to rob him. + He got up on the chimney top + And then they thought they had him. + But he got down on the other side + And then they couldn't find him + He went _fourteen miles in fifteen days_ + And never looked behind him." + +It was almost cruel of Kitty to seize that opportunity to tell the +scariest burglar tale that she had ever heard, but a fine appreciation +of dramatic situations urged her to it. + +"Ugh! Don't!" begged Gay, as they filed into the dining-room and began +looking around for the silver heirlooms. Lucy was mistaken. It was the +kitchen table on which she had left them. + +"The goose-flesh is standing out all over me! That's the most gruesome +tale I ever heard." + +"But I'm in the most interesting part," insisted Kitty. "When she saw +the black face leering over the transom--" + +"Hush!" chattered Gay. "I won't listen to another word. It's so creepy I +can feel things grabbing at my ankles. Let me have the candle a minute, +please, Lloyd, I want to get something out of the hat-rack drawer." + +There was a faint glow on the hearth from the few embers Lucy had left +uncovered, and the two stood within it as they waited for Gay to come +back with the candle. Kitty went on with her tale, for Lloyd was as +fearless as herself. She did not get further than a sentence or two, +however, before Gay came hurrying back. To their astonishment she blew +out the candle as she reached them, and in the brief glimpse they had of +her face they saw that it was ghastly white. In the dim glow of the +embers they were scarcely visible to each other. She clutched them with +trembling fingers. + +"There's some one prowling around the house!" she whispered. "Some one +was creeping around under the windows, and then up on the porch. I +heard them plain as day. I blew out the light so they couldn't see in!" + +"Pooh!" began Lloyd, but enough of Gay's excitement had been +communicated to both her listeners to make their hearts thump a little +faster, when they, too, heard a noise at the window. There certainly +were steps on the porch. Then the knocker on the front door was lifted +and a hollow clang echoed through the hall. + +"Burglars don't knock," said Lloyd with a sigh of relief. "Let's all go +to the doah togethah and ask who's there. We needn't open it." + +"No, don't!" begged Gay, almost in tears. "It's just like that awful +story Kitty started to tell--the knock at the door, the lone woman's +voice answering, and the burglar forcing his way over the transom! Our +only safety is in keeping perfectly still. If worst comes to worst, +_then_ I'll make them think there's a man in the house, but I won't do +it till I'm driven to it." + +"If it's one of the neighbours he'll knock again," said Kitty. + +For a moment they waited, their hearts in their mouths, as they +remembered what a lonely place was this dark beech woods, and how near +it was to Stumptown, with its many drunken negroes. The knock was not +repeated, but the steps sounded as if the intruder were prowling back +and forth on the porch. Then the slats of the window-shutters turned +stealthily. + +"Thank heaven the shades are down!" chattered Gay hysterically. "Oh, +girls, I'm growing gray-headed. I can't stand this suspense another +second." Then as the steps once more crossed the porch, "Cut up-stairs! +Quick! Both of you! I'll follow." + +She darted out of the dim circle of light on the hearth, and they could +not see what happened, but almost instantly a pistol shot rang out. Up +till that moment neither Kitty nor Lloyd had been much alarmed. Now they +clutched each other wildly. + +"It's some crazy man escaped from the Lakeland asylum," began Kitty, but +her words were cut short by another shot, then another and another and +another, in such rapid succession that they lost count. A series of +piercing screams from Lucy, up-stairs, made their blood run cold, but +the shrieks were not half as terrifying as the sight of Gay staggering +back out of the hall. As they sprang towards her she leaned against them +limply. + +"Is she shot?" gasped Kitty in a horrified whisper. "Oh, _where's_ the +light?" + +With shaking hands Lloyd caught up the daily paper, left lying on the +settle, and threw it on the coals. It blazed up instantly, and by its +light she found the candle. + +The shrieks were still going on up-stairs and Betty was calling out +frantically to know what was the matter. She could not come down to see +for herself, for Lucy had caught her in a hysterical grasp and was +holding her like a vise. As the candle flared up something fell from +Gay's nerveless hand to the floor. The girls looked at each other in +blank astonishment. It was a revolver. Gay herself had fired the shots. + +Now in the midst of their bewilderment they became conscious of shouts +outside. Some one was calling: "Mrs. Harcourt! Miss Melville! Don't be +alarmed! It's only Alex Shelby!" + +Recognizing the voice, Lloyd flew to open the door, candle in hand. + +"Oh, you gave us such a scare!" she began in a tone of relief. "We +thought it was a burglar doing the shooting. We nevah dreamed that _Gay_ +had a revolvah." + +"It was mine," explained Alex, laughing so that he could hardly close +his umbrella. "I loaded it for her and loaned it to her yesterday, but I +had no idea it would come back at me in that boomerang fashion. She +popped loose and shot at me bang through the front door. The first shot +whistled just over my head, and if I hadn't dodged behind a post I +surely would have stopped them all. Hottest welcome I ever had." + +Then as he came on in, he continued, apologetically, "I'm mighty sorry I +gave you all such a fright. I ought to have gone away without knocking +when I saw there was no light down-stairs, but I knew you were all here, +and it was so early, I never dreamed of being taken for a burglar." + +He kept on with his apologies after he came into the hall, but Gay was +not there to hear. Mortified that she had been so rash, and horrified by +the thought of how serious the consequences of her wild shooting might +have been, she could not face him. At the first sound of his voice she +ran for the stairs, her wild dash almost upsetting Lucy and Betty on +their way down. When repeated callings failed to bring her back, Kitty +went up to look for her and found her in a woebegone heap on the foot of +her bed. + +"Oh, you mustn't take it to heart that way," she said soothingly, in +response to Gay's tearful protests that she could never look him in the +face again, never, _never_! That he'd always think what a fool she was +and how near she came to killing him. + +"Nonsense!" was Kitty's brisk answer. "He insists that it is all his own +fault, that he ought to have known what to expect when he called on a +native Texan. He says he's always heard that they punctuate their +remarks with bullets and will shoot at the drop of a hat. Hereafter he +will herald his approach by telephone or else come in a coat of mail +warranted to turn even the fire of a Gatling gun. He's making a joke of +it, and it's silly of you not to do the same. Get up this minute and +come down-stairs, and make him have such a good time that he'll gladly +risk another shooting to come again." + +[Illustration: "HE WAS BENDING ANXIOUSLY OVER A BUBBLING SAUCEPAN."] + +It was a long time before Gay could screw her courage to the point of +following Kitty meekly down-stairs, and in the meantime Lucy took an +effective way to make him forget his inhospitable reception. Her chafing +dish was her panacea for many ills. She had tried it at the Post too +many times with the different boys who flocked there, not to know its +full value. So when Gay came into the room she found Alex already +being initiated into the mysteries of candy-making. With a white apron +tied around his waist, and a big spoon in his hand, he was bending +anxiously over a bubbling sauce-pan. + +Heretofore his calls at the Cabin had been of the most formal kind; but +this little escapade was doing more to further their acquaintance and +put him on the same privileged footing that the boys at the Post +enjoyed, than dozens of casual meetings could have done. It was a novel +experience to Alex, and he made the most of it, exerting himself to be +entertaining, in hopes of having the occasion repeated. + +After the first painful moment of greeting and apology, Gay subsided +into a corner of the old settle, but she did not stay there long. It was +impossible to resist the infection of Alex's high spirits. When the +reaction began it swung her to the farthest extreme, into an +irresistible gale of merriment. + +Betty's thoughts turned regretfully to the manuscript up-stairs. She was +sorry that the reading had been interrupted. She knew the girls would +have gained a better impression of the book if they could have heard it +without this interruption. There was no telling when there would be an +opportunity to finish it as good as this would have been. Once she had +a hope that Alex would not stay long and that there would still be time +to finish the reading after his departure. But while the candy cooled +Gay started Lloyd and Alex to singing duets, she and Kitty accompanying +them with violin and piano, and she knew that it was useless to hope any +longer. So she settled down to enjoy the sweets and the music as +heartily as the rest of them. + +In one of the pauses, while they were searching through a pile of songs +for some duet they wanted, Lloyd crossed over to the settle where Lucy +was sitting beside the candy, and helped herself to a piece. + +"I'm sorry Leland is missing this," said Lucy. "It was a time like this +that gave him his nickname of 'Brer Tarrypin.' He used to be devoted to +candy-pulls, and came up to the Post every time he thought we were going +to have one; and he always was like Brer Tarrypin, you know, in the +Uncle Remus stories." + +"How is that?" inquired Lloyd, keenly interested. She knew the Uncle +Remus stories by heart and wondered in what way this one had been +applied to the elegant and fastidious Mr. Harcourt. + +"Why, you know, Brer B'ar he helped Miss Meadows bring the wood, Brer +Fox he mend the fire, Brer Wolf he kept the dogs off, Brer Rabbit he +greased the bottoms of the plates to keep the candy from sticking, but +'Brer Tarrypin he klum up in a cheer an' say he watch an' see dat de +'lasses didn't bile over.' The boys always used to say that the only +part in the game Leland would take was _watching the lasses_. He'd talk +to their girls while they did the work." + +Gay, over at the piano, drew her brows together in a little frown. She +wished that Lucy would be more discreet in her reminiscences, for she +felt that Lloyd was already prejudiced against Leland more than was +desirable. She called out suddenly, "Sister, can't you find that duet +for us? You had it last." + +Lucy rose obediently, but lingered a moment to add, as Lloyd laughed, +"Leland doesn't mind it a bit. The boys all got to hailing him in Uncle +Remus fashion, 'Heyo, Brer Tarrypin, wha'r you bin dis long-come-short?' +and he'd answer as a matter of course, 'Lounjun roun', Brer Fox, lounjun +roun'." + +"It's mighty interesting to know the history of a nickname," observed +Lloyd, with an amused smile, which Gay interpreted as meaning that this +bit of history was being tucked away for future use. + +It was late when Alex went home, taking his revolver with him. He would +be staying all night near by, with a friend of his, he told them, and if +anything else frightened them they were to telephone. He'd come +post-haste to their rescue. Then he made the rounds of all the +down-stairs windows and doors, seeing that each was properly fastened, +and started Lucy on her way up-stairs with the silver pitcher and ladle +safe in her hands. He seemed to leave the sense of his strong protecting +presence behind him. As they bolted the door and heard him go whistling +cheerily down the road, Lucy declared enthusiastically: "He's a nice boy +and he's made us have such a jolly evening that I'm all wound up and +don't feel a bit sleepy. Let's make a night of it and hear the rest of +Betty's story. It doesn't make any difference if it is nearly midnight. +We can sleep as late as we please in the morning, for Jameson isn't +here, and we won't have to consider his convenience." + +For once they were of the same mind, all loath to go to bed. So Betty +slipped into a borrowed kimona, shook down her hair and settled herself +comfortably in a cushioned chair beside the lamp. + +"If they keep awake to the end," she thought, "that will be a good test. +I'll know then that it has real interest and I'll not be afraid to give +it to the public." So she kept an anxious watch out of the corner of her +eye, intending to stop at the first sign of weariness. But the attention +of her audience was as profound as it had been during the afternoon. +Stifling an occasional yawn herself, she read on and on. It was +half-past two when she laid aside the last page of her manuscript and +looked up timidly to receive the verdict. Lloyd spoke first. + +"Betty Lewis, it's perfectly splendid! I'm so proud of you--I've always +been suah you'd make a name for yoahself some day, but I nevah dreamed +you'd do it so early in life, at only twenty!" + +"I haven't made it yet, you know," Betty reminded her smiling. "My +friends may be willing to 'pass my imperfections by,' but I've still to +run the gauntlet of the critics." + +There was a chorus of protests from the other girls, and Betty's heart +grew warm as she listened to their cordial praise and predictions of +success. + +"I'm dying to have a finger in the launching of this little bark," said +Gay. "Let's wrap it up tonight and have it all ready to send off in the +morning. It would be so fine to be able to brag to my grandchildren +that _I_ helped. I have a strong flat box just the size of the +manuscript. I'm sure it will fit it exactly. Wait and I'll go and get +it." + +She ran out of the room, and, while she rummaged through a trunk to find +it, Lucy climbed up on a chair to look on the wardrobe shelf for some +heavy wrapping-paper which she had folded away. + +"Let me have some part in it too," cried Kitty. "Although I've no idea +what it can be when I'm so far from the source of supplies. Oh, I know +now," she said after an instant's thought. "You'll need a string to tie +around the box. Here's something that will do." + +Opening the wicker satchel she had brought with her she took out a +dainty nightgown. It was the work of only a moment to slip out the +fresh, new pink ribbons that had been run through the lace beading. + +"Now let me tie it!" she insisted. "See what an artistic bow I can +make!" + +When the manuscript had been placed in Gay's box, tied with Kitty's +ribbon and wrapped in Lucy's paper, it was gravely handed over to Lloyd, +who had suggested that as it was to be sent by express it ought to be +sealed. + +"There's a stick of sealing-wax in the drawer of the library table," +said Lucy, "if anybody's brave enough to go down and get it at this 'wee +sma' hour.' It must be nearly three o'clock." + +Before she had finished her sentence Lloyd had lighted a candle to carry +down-stairs. She was back in a moment. They all stood around in a circle +while she melted the red wax in the heat of the candle. "Somebody ought +to say an abracadabra charm ovah it," she suggested. "You do it, Kitty." +Then she looked around her helplessly. "What am I going to do for a +seal? Quick, somebody, hand me something off the dressing-table. The +stoppah of that vinaigrette will do." + +Before Lucy could hand her the bottle Gay caught up the old silver ladle +and pressed the end of its handle down on the soft wax. + +"There's a crest on it," she explained, holding it firmly in place. "The +motto will read backwards, but that won't make any difference. There!" +She lifted the ladle, and they all crowded around to see the clear-cut +impression left in the red wax, of a dagger thrust through a crown. The +tiny reversed letters of the motto were undecipherable, but Gay +translated them. + +"Jameson says it's the Latin for 'I strive till I overcome,' and that's +a fine war-cry for Betty. She's striven so long it's bound to bring a +crown, only that other thing ought to be a pen instead of a dagger." + +"Let me put one seal on, just for luck," begged Kitty when Lloyd had +carefully fastened both ends of the package. She held the wax to the +flame. "Everybody make a wish," she ordered. "Wish _hard_." + +They wished in silence. In silence they looked on while Kitty dropped +the third red drop on the package and pressed into it the crown and the +dagger of the ladle's crest. Then they stood over Betty while she +addressed it to the publisher to whom long ago she had decided to send +it. Then Gay laid it solemnly beside the silver heirlooms as one of the +things "to be carried out first in case of fire." + +"Three o'clock and all is well," called Kitty as the chime on the stair +began its warning. "The deed is done and all the omens are auspicious." + +"That will be a scene to remember always," thought Betty gratefully, +looking around at the four pretty girls in the candlelight, as they made +a ceremony of the launching of her little ship, their faces filled with +loving interest. + +The chickens were crowing for daylight before she fell asleep, for she +could not hinder her happy thoughts from straying off to the future, +when this same little ship should come home from sea with its cargo of +fame and fortune that the girls had predicted. She had dedicated the +book simply "To my Godmother," and she pictured to herself the supreme +moment when she could lay the published volume in her hands. She would +send one to Madam Chartley, she decided, and one to Miss Chilton, whose +instructions in English had been such an inspiration to her. Then, of +course, each one of the girls must have one. + +Strangers would write to her, people would thrill with pleasure over her +pages as she had thrilled over other authors, and--oh, yes! _Davy_ must +have one of the very first copies of the book, since he had been the +first lover of her stories. She almost sat up in bed in the excitement +of her next thought. She wondered why it never had occurred to her +before. If the book should be really successful it would bring her money +of her own. She could be the good fairy of the Cuckoo's Nest. How many +comforts she could slip into it to make life easier for poor tired, +over-worked cousin Hetty! And--_Davy could go away to school_! + +That last thought sent a warm glad tingle over her. How good God had +been to give her this delightful way of making a Road of the Loving +Heart in every one's memory--with her pen! She felt that her whole life +ought to be a perpetual Thanksgiving, and when she fell asleep with a +smile on her lips, she was repeating drowsily: "My lines have fallen to +me in pleasant places. Yea, I have a goodly heritage." + + + + +CHAPTER V + +A CAMERA HELPS + + +SEVERAL days after his return from Lexington, Leland Harcourt sauntered +out of the house, after a late breakfast alone. The bored expression on +his face showed plainly what he thought of the Valley as a summer +resort. His brother and Lucy were off somewhere about the grounds, and +for more than an hour the faint sound of Gay's violin had been floating +up from the rustic arbour, which she claimed as her private domain. + +It was a pleasant little retreat, far back from the road in the dense +beech shade, and at such a distance from the house that her energetic +practising could disturb no one. Here every morning before the +distractions of the day began, she religiously devoted an hour to her +music. The time always slipped past that limit if no one came to stop +her, for an absorbing devotion to her work made her oblivious to +everything else when her beloved violin was once tucked under her chin. +Scales and trills and chords, all the finger exercises that kept her +touch supple and sure, were gone through with in faithful routine. Then +the new music she was mastering had its share of careful attention, and +after that she played on and on, as a bird sings, from sheer love of it. + +She was improvising when Leland came out on the porch, a light +rollicking little tune, to fit a verse from an Uncle Remus song. It was +a verse which Alex Shelby had repeated as he escorted them over to The +Beeches, the time they spent the night there, the next night after their +burglar scare at the Cabin. Lucy had been so frightened that she gladly +accepted Mrs. Walton's invitation to stay with her until the men of the +family returned. + +They had had such a good time. Now the recollection of it was finding +voice in the tune which Gay was trying to manufacture for the words +which Alex had laughingly sung when Lucy stuck in the barb wire fence on +the way over: + + "Hop light, ladies, Oh, Miss Loo, + Hit take a heap er scrougin' + Fer to git you throo. + Hop light, ladies, oh, Miss Loo!" + +Gay recalled the straggling little procession through the woods with a +smile, as her bow quavered again through the refrain. They must have +looked ridiculous. There was Lucy lugging the heavy silver pitcher and +Jameson's ladle because she was afraid to leave them behind, and she +herself with her violin case, and Alex carrying the Lindsey spoons and +forks and the enormous seven-branched silver candle-sticks, because Lucy +felt responsible for their safety, since she had rented them with the +house. And there was Ranald bringing up the rear with their suit-cases, +and Kitty laughing at them all for bringing these household gods. She +called Lucy "Ephraim joined to his idols," because she would not put +down the pitcher and ladle even while she crawled through the barb wire +fence. They had cut across lots in the twilight, instead of going around +by the road, not wanting to be seen with a load which looked so much +like burglar's booty. + +"If Leland only could have been with us then!" thought Gay regretfully. +"And the night before that when we had such a jolly time with the taffy +and the duets. He would have been on a real friendly footing with them +all by this time. But he's beginning to find it dull. I know he is. +He'll be off again before long if we can't get him interested in +something." + +While she was worrying over his evident restlessness and discontent, the +odour of his cigar came floating out to her, and she knew by that token +that he had finished breakfast and needed to be amused. Locking her +violin in its case, she carried it back to the house, prepared to +shoulder her share of this responsibility. + +"Good morning, Brer Tarrypin," she called as she came in sight of him +lolling in the hammock. "Lounjoun' roun' as usual, I see. Well, the mail +train is in, so you can come with me to the post-office as soon as I get +my hat." + +"Good heavens, Pug!" he groaned. "I vow you're worse than a little +volcano--always in action." + +Nevertheless he got up, as she knew he would, and strolled along beside +her. The road in front of the post-office was almost blocked with +carriages. On summer mornings like this nearly every one in the Valley +found some excuse to be at the station when the mail train came in; for +while they waited for the delivery window to open, there was time not +only to attend to the day's marketing, but to meet all one's friends. At +such times the little box of a post-office was the very centre of +neighbourhood sociability, and since everybody knew everybody else, the +gathering was as informal as a family reunion. + +Even Gay felt like an old settler. Her previous visit to the Valley had +given her so many acquaintances. As she passed down the straggling line +of men and boys who were leaning against the fence or sitting on the top +rail while they waited, hats were swept off as if a sudden breeze had +scurried along the path. Several of the old Confederate soldiers spoke +her name as they saluted. She had played for them up at the Home twice +on that former visit. + +"Oh, the dear little, queer little Valley," she began, but was +interrupted by Leland's calling her attention to the Sherman carriage, +which was moving in and out at a snail's pace through the blockade of +vehicles, stopping repeatedly as greetings were called out to it from +the other carriages. Gay's face brightened as she saw Lloyd on the back +seat, looking as fresh as a snowdrop in her white linen dress. + +"Oh, if she'd only ask us up to Locust to spend the morning!" thought +Gay so earnestly that it seemed to her that Lloyd must feel the force of +the "thought-wave" she was trying to project. "It's high time for her +to remember her promise if she expects to accomplish anything." + +Lloyd was remembering her promise. It recurred to her the instant that +she caught sight of Leland's dark interesting face as he turned the +corner. As instantly she had looked away, remembering how pointedly he +had ignored her that night at the Cabin. This was the first time she had +seen him since. Now Gay's request seemed utterly absurd. The colour +surged up in her face as she remembered her high resolve about lighting +a vestal fire on the altar of a promise. How ridiculous of her to have +worked herself up into such an exalted mood over nothing. A positive +dislike for the man who had been the cause of it took possession of her, +and she wished heartily that she need never meet him again. + +But an encounter could not be avoided long. Gay was pushing eagerly +through the crowd towards the carriage. She would call her in a moment, +then she would have to turn around and at least be decently polite. Just +then a stylish little runabout stopped opposite the carriage, and a lady +leaned out to accost Lloyd. Thankful for the opportunity, Lloyd turned +her back squarely on the post-office and plunged into an animated +conversation. Without glancing in their direction she was conscious +that Gay and Mr. Harcourt were on the curbstone directly behind her, and +would come up the moment that she stopped talking. + +"Yes, of co'se, Miss Jennie," they heard her say. "I'm going to town on +the next car, and I'll be glad to get it for you. Yes, we're all going +in for a day's shopping. Mothah and Betty are ovah at the trolley +station now, waiting for me to get the mail." + +Miss Jennie, giving voluble directions, began hunting through her +pocketbook for a sample of ribbon which she wanted matched. Gay's hopes +fell. She had counted confidently on taking Leland up to the Locusts to +spend the morning. But just then Lloyd waved her handkerchief to some +one coming down the avenue, and turning, Gay's face brightened. It was +Kitty Walton to whom Lloyd had waved. Strolling along under a white +parasol, in a pale pink dress and with a great bunch of sweet peas in +her hand, she looked so attractive, that Gay felt that Leland would find +The Beeches fully as entertaining a loafing-place as The Locusts. She +decided to take him up there. Again she was doomed to disappointment, +for Kitty's cordial greeting was followed by the almost breathless +announcement that she was about to take her departure from the Valley. + +"Oh, when?" called Lloyd, turning to the girls with the friendliest of +smiles, and acknowledging Mr. Harcourt's greeting with a frosty little +bow. "When, where and whyfoah?" + +"This evening," answered Kitty, "over to the Martinsville Springs in +Indiana, and because mother is firmly convinced that they are the +panacea for all the ills that flesh is heir to. Really they do help her +wonderfully, and she needs the change, and I like the place myself so +I'm not sorry to go for some reasons. But I do hate to take ten whole +days out of your visit, Gay." + +"You can't hate it half as much as I do," answered Gay gloomily, who had +not overlooked Lloyd's cool little bow to Leland. For Lloyd to act +snippy and Kitty to be away ten whole days right in the beginning of +things was fatal to all her plans. + +It was just then that help came from a most unexpected source. Not that +she realized then that it was help, but weeks afterward she traced back +several important things to that small beginning. + +Miss Katherine Marks came out of the post-office with a handful of +letters. She was about to pass the group beside the Sherman carriage +with only a brief "good morning," when the sight of Kitty's sweet peas +made her pause. + +"That reminds me, Kitty," she said. "I've finished mounting that garden +photograph. You may see it now, whenever you come over." + +"I'll come right now, Miss Katherine," was the eager response. "I'm wild +to see it, and as we're going to Martinsville this evening this will be +my only chance." + +Seeing the unspoken wish in Gay's eager eyes, Miss Marks included all of +them in the invitation. Lloyd glanced at her watch and excused herself, +finding that the car she wanted to take was almost due. She would have +to hurry to reach the station she said. But even in her haste she +noticed that Leland did not join in the regret which the others +expressed, and grown unduly sensitive in regard to his opinion, she +fancied that he looked pleased when she refused. He lifted his hat +perfunctorily, not even glancing at her as he moved away, seemingly +absorbed in adjusting Kitty's parasol, which he had taken possession of, +and was holding over her. + +Gay walked on with Miss Marks. Kitty had to stop a moment at the Bisbee +cottage, to leave the sweet peas with a message from her mother. Leland +waited for her at the gate. + +"What is this you're getting me into?" he asked, nodding towards Miss +Marks and Gay, who were almost out of sight. + +If he had asked the question of Gay she would have explained eagerly +that they were on their way to Clovercroft, to see a collection of +amateur photographs which had taken prizes and gold medals all over the +country, and among them were three at least, that she knew he would want +so desperately, that he would fall all over himself trying to get them. +But it would be of no use to try. He could neither beg, borrow, buy nor +steal them. He might thank his lucky stars that he was permitted just to +stand afar off and gaze at them in hopeless admiration. + +But Kitty, instead of enlightening him in any such way turned the talk +into channels of more personal interest, and made the short stroll so +agreeable that it came to an end entirely too soon. He followed her +through the gate wishing that he could invent some excuse whereby to +prolong the pleasure of making her blush and seeing her dark eyes look +up laughingly at him from under the white parasol. At the same time he +wanted to escape the bore of being expected to grow enthusiastic over +some amateur collection in which he felt no interest. + +Something of this he expressed in an undertone to Kitty as they stepped +up on to the porch. + +"Don't flatter yourself," she advised him, dropping into a seat, "that +you'll be allowed a peep into Miss Katherine's studio. Strangers never +get any farther than the Court of the Gentiles." + +"Gay has gone in," he answered, "and her introduction antedates mine not +more than two seconds. Why shouldn't I?" + +"Gay is one of the elect. She has the artist soul herself, and Miss +Katherine recognizes the earmarks." + +"You insinuate that I haven't them?" + +Kitty smiled tantalizingly, and swung her parasol back and forth by its +ivory crook. "No, indeed. I'm not insinuating anything. I'm simply +stating a broad truth. You can't get in. She'll bring out dozens of +pictures for your inspection, but she'll not invite you inside that +studio. Very few people are so favoured." + +Up to that moment he had not had the faintest wish to set foot inside +the studio, but her provoking assertions suddenly seemed to make it the +one desirable spot for him to enter. "I'll show you," he declared +rashly. "I'll see it before we leave here. I always get what I want. Now +watch me." + +Miss Marks came out with a large photograph exquisitely tinted. So +artistic it was, both in colouring and composition, that Leland's +admiration was as great as his surprise. He had expected to see some +little snap shots such as he had made himself when he had the kodak +fever, the kind that are interesting only to those who take them and +those who are taken. This was so beautiful that no sooner was it in his +hands than he was fired with a desire to possess it. It was the picture +of a rose garden, every bush a glory of bloom, and in the path, her pink +dress caught by a clinging brier, was Kitty herself like another rose, +looking down over her shoulder at the bramble which held her a prisoner +in its thorny clasp. + +"It is to illustrate a fairy-tale," explained Miss Marks. "When naughty +Esmerelda runs away from the good prince, everything in the garden is in +league to help him, and Brier Rose catches at her skirts as she hurries +by, and holds her fast." + +"Isn't it lovely?" cried Gay, flashing out of the studio with an armful +which Miss Marks had given her permission to show. "Here's Betty taken +as a nun--_Sister Doloroso_--and Lloyd as an Easter angel. It's +perfectly fascinating to hear Miss Marks tell how she got that effect of +flying. Arranged the draperies with Lloyd lying on the floor, and +photographed her from a trap door above. Tell him how you added the +doves' wings please." + +Much to her surprise Miss Marks found herself telling things to this +young man that she would not have dreamed of telling to another +stranger; some of the remarkable makeshifts she had used in costumes and +backgrounds. His flattering air of interest drew these confidences from +her as irresistibly as a magnet draws steel. + +"You ought to do a series of these garden pictures," he declared, "and +call them 'Garden Fancies' after that poem of Browning's. By the way, +there is a couplet in that which would lend itself charmingly to +illustration, and I saw the very garden that you should use for it, +while I was out driving yesterday. It was one of those straight walk +prim bordered affairs that go with old English cottages." + +He could have found no surer path to Miss Marks's good graces. Gay, not +knowing that he had a purpose to gain by it, listened in amazement as he +proceeded to outline picture after picture for the series of Garden +Fancies, even planning costumes and suggesting clever means by which +various obstacles might be overcome. Her astonishment showed itself in +her face, when he even consented to pose himself, as a Spanish +troubadour in a moonlit garden with a guitar. + +Kitty, who knew the object of this sudden interest in photography, +laughed outright, but nobody noticed her irrelevant mirth. Miss Marks +was too interested in the new plan, and Gay was too puzzled over his +rapidly growing enthusiasm. Presently, darting a triumphant look at +Kitty, from the corner of his eye, he rose to follow Miss Marks. She was +actually taking him into her inner courts. Kitty made a little grimace +behind his back. She resented his I-told-you-so air, but she could not +help admiring the masterful way in which he had gained his end. + +One hasty glance around the studio changed his assumed interest into +real. Impressed by the wonderful results Miss Marks had obtained by the +combination of brush and camera, he was seized by a wish to do something +in the same line himself. Accustomed to the impulsiveness of his +enthusiasms, Gay was not surprised when he began to persuade Miss Marks +to start to work on the Garden Fancies then and there. + +The English garden was too far away for them to attempt that morning, +but Miss Marks finally agreed that the moonlight scene might be managed. +It was just the right time of day to take a moonlight picture, while the +sunshine was so direct that it would cast the blackest of shadows. She +could retouch the plate to give it the right effect, and paint in a +moon. + +"You'll have to hurry if I'm to be in it," ordered Kitty, "for Mother is +waiting for me this blessed minute. I've a world of things to do in the +next few hours." + +"Give us just a quarter of one of them," begged Leland. "I'll attend to +the balcony part if Miss Marks will look after the costumes and tell me +where to find a step-ladder." + +"Leland has plenty to amuse him now," thought Gay happily, as she +watched him giving directions to Frazer, the coloured man, who came in +answer to Miss Marks's call. "His foot is on his native heath and his +name's 'McGregor' when it comes to a thing of this sort." + +Ten minutes later Kitty found herself looking out of an improvised +balcony, a charming affair outwardly, but most laughable within. A tall +step-ladder had been dragged into the bay window of the music room, and +the upper sash of the middle window pushed down from the top. The thick +vines that grew over it were pulled back to leave an oval opening. It +was out of this leafy oval she leaned from her seat on the top of the +ladder, to smile down on the troubadour below. There was a rose in her +dark hair, a half-furled fan in her hand, and a coquettish glance in her +laughing black eyes. + +Leland's costume had been hastily constructed from scraps of stage +property kept for such occasions. It took but a moment to drape a long +cape over one shoulder in graceful folds, twist a piece of velvet into a +little cap and pin a white plume on one side. A row of potted plants +laboriously put in place by Frazer hid the fact that he wore modern +trousers instead of the more picturesque knee breeches which such a +costume demanded. + +"Fire away," he ordered, adjusting the guitar to a more comfortable +position. + +"Suppose you sing a verse of a real serenade," suggested Miss Marks, "so +as to get into the proper spirit of the thing. Then just as you finish, +while you're looking soulfully into each other's eyes, I'll squeeze the +bulb." + +Kitty, seeing the seamy side of his improvised cap, and feeling the +absurdity of her position on the top of the step-ladder, could only +giggle when she tried to look soulful. But Leland had taken part in too +many private theatricals to be disconcerted now. With as impassioned a +gaze as any Romeo ever fixed on his Juliet, he struck the soft chords of +a Spanish serenade, and began to sing so meaningly that Kitty's giggle +was silenced, and she looked down with a conscious blush: + + "Thine eyes are stars of morning, + Thy lips are crimson flowers. + Good night, good night, beloved, + While I count the weary hours." + +"There! That ought to be perfect," cried Miss Marks, emerging from under +the black cloth which covered the camera. "Mr. Harcourt, you're the most +satisfactory man I've ever had pose for me. It's easy enough to get a +score of pretty girls any time I need them, but it isn't once in a +decade one finds such an altogether desirable model of a man. You seem +to know by intuition exactly the right positions to fall into. I'm sure +the series will be a success now." + +Leland bowed his appreciation of the compliment, and Gay, knowing his +vulnerable spot and how secretly pleased he was, could have danced a +breakdown in her delight. + +As they were all eager to see the result, Miss Marks took herself at +once to the dark room with the plate, promising they should have a proof +before time for the Martinsville train. Then Gay and Leland walked home +with Kitty, and stayed talking awhile on the shady porch. + +"It's been a very decent sort of morning," Leland admitted on his way +home to lunch. A siesta in the hammock shortened the afternoon. He was +in a most agreeable mood when they drove over to the station to see the +Waltons off on their train. + +Better than her promise, Miss Marks had sent a finished picture instead +of a proof. It was fully as good as the one of Brier Rose and Esmerelda, +and Leland was enthusiastic in his admiration of the balcony he had +improvised, and the Spanish beauty within it. When it had passed around +the circle he coolly took possession of it, although Kitty claimed it, +as Frazer had brought it up to The Beeches. + +"I'll keep it till your return, Miss Kitty," he said. "You have your +mirror, so you don't need this. It may inspire me to run over to the +Springs myself a few days to see the original if you stay away too +long." + +Something in the light tone made Gay glance up quickly. She groaned as +she saw the admiration his expressive eyes showed so plainly. + +"Now he's gone and done it!" she thought in dismay. "He's taken a fancy +to Kitty instead of Lloyd, when I've set my heart on saving Kitty for +Frank Percival. May blessings light on those old Martinsville Springs +for taking her out of the way for awhile! Maybe I can get him switched +off on the other track before she comes back." + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +"GARDEN FANCIES" + + +"OH, where are you going, my pretty maid?" It was Alex Shelby who called +out the question, leaning forward from the doctor's buggy, to look down +the locust avenue. Lloyd was coming toward the gate, swinging a hunter's +horn back and forth by its green cord. She waved it gaily as she sang in +response: + +"I'm going a posing, sir, she said." + +He turned the wheel and sprang out, asking eagerly, "Is it anywhere that +I can take you?" + +"No, you're going in exactly the opposite direction, for I'm bound for +the spring in the Lindsey woods. Miss Marks asked me to meet her there +at eleven o'clock, but her note didn't come until aftah mothah had gone +out with the carriage." + +Alex glanced at his watch. "If you could wait till I take this case of +instruments up to Uncle, I could drive you over as well as not. It would +detain you ten minutes, but even then you'd get to the Spring much +sooner than if you were to walk." + +"I'll certainly accept yoah offah," exclaimed Lloyd gratefully, looking +down the long hot way that lay between her and the Lindsey woods. + +"No, I'll not drive ovah to the doctah's with you, thanks. That is such +a hot, dusty stretch of road. I'll just sit heah in the shade and wait." +Laying the hunter's horn on the stone bench near the gate, she sat down +beside it and began to fan herself with her hat. + +"What's going on at the spring?" he asked as he climbed back into the +buggy. + +"I can't tell you. All I know is that old Frazer came up with a note +asking me to pose as Olga, the Flax-spinnah's maiden. Miss Marks is +always illustrating some old fairy-tale. She wanted me to bring +grandfathah's hunting hawn for the prince. I've been wondering evah +since who she's found to take that paht." + +"Harcourt, I'll bet you anything!" was Alex's emphatic answer as he +gathered up the reins. "I saw him over at Clovercroft yesterday morning, +setting up a tripod in front of the bay window. Well, here goes. I'll be +back in ten minutes." + +As Lloyd watched the cloud of dust whirling along behind the rapidly +disappearing buggy, the impulse seized her to call out after him that he +needn't come back to take her to the spring, for she was not going. +Several times that morning the suspicion had crossed her mind that Miss +Marks's new model might prove to be Leland Harcourt, and Alex's emphatic +answer seemed to confirm her misgivings. If that were the case she felt +that she could not possibly go. He had made such a point of avoiding her +that night at the Cabin, that even Betty had noticed it, and she was +very sure she didn't want to have her picture taken with a man who had +showed his aversion to her so plainly as all that. It would be horribly +awkward, she thought, if Miss Marks had asked him to pose with her. He +would have to stoop and drink out of her hands as the prince had done +out of Olga's. Of course he couldn't refuse, and it would be +disagreeable to him and embarrassing to her, knowing as she did how he +felt towards her. + +It was unlike Lloyd to be sensitive over little things, and to magnify +trifles, and she had been unhappy for several days because she had done +so in this instance. If she had met Leland Harcourt like any other +stranger, she would not have given his manner toward her a second +thought; but Gay's plea beforehand in his behalf made her +self-conscious. Of course he couldn't possibly know that she had lain +awake, looking at the stars, picturing herself as a sort of guardian +angel, who should lead him to great heights of achievement (as Gay had +assured her she could do). But she felt that he must have divined her +intentions toward him, and was secretly amused at her presumption. Her +face burned every time she thought of the regal manner in which she had +swept into the room, trying to make her entrance impressive, and then +the polite way in which he had handed her over to some one else as if +she were a mere child to whom he must be civil, but whose school-girl +prattle bored him. + +"I can't _beah_ him!" she said in a disgusted tone to a black ant, which +was crawling along towards the stone bench where she sat. But the little +ant, intent on its own affairs, hurried past her as unheedingly as if +she had been part of the bench. + +"And I suppose my opinion is of no moah impawtance to him than it is to +you," she added, with a shrug of the shoulders. Then she laughed, for +the comparison suddenly seemed to put the affair in a different light. + +"I'm certainly glad you happened along this way, Mistah Ant," she said, +bending over to stop him with a stick while she made her whimsical +speech. "Because I'm going to profit by yoah example from now on. Heah +me? I'm going to quit worrying over what people may think of me and go +along about my business just as you are doing. _You_ nevah think about +yoahself, do you! You don't even know that you _have_ a self, so of +co'se you can't feel slighted and sensitive." + +Lifting the stick so that the little creature might go on its eager way +again, she watched it disappear, and then began idly tracing figures in +the dust at her feet. + +"I wish I had an enchanted necklace like Olga's," she mused, recalling +the old fairy-tale for which she was soon to pose. "Not one that could +give me gorgeous dresses whenevah I repeated the charm, but one that +would sawt of clothe my mind--put me into such a beautifully serene +mental state that I wouldn't mind slights, and would be as unconscious +of self as that little old ant." + +Then a surprised, pleased expression lighted her face, as a sudden +recollection seemed to illuminate the old fairy-tale, and give it a new +meaning. + +"Why, it's like that lovely verse in the Psalms that Miss Allison read +to the King's Daughters, the first time I went to a meeting of the +Circle. '_The King's Daughter is all glorious within. Her clothing is +of wrought gold._'" Sentences from Miss Allison's earnest little talk of +long ago began coming back to Lloyd like fragments of forgotten music. +Something about being anointed with the "oil of gladness" and wearing +garments that smelled of myrrh and aloes and cassia "out of the ivory +palaces whereby they have made thee glad." + +Now in the story when Olga would change her gown of tow to one befitting +her royal station, she had only to clasp a bead of her magic rosary and +whisper: + + "For love's sweet sake, in my hour of need, + Blossom and deck me, little seed," + +and straightway she would be clad in a garment, fine and fair as the +shimmer of moonbeams. And Lloyd, casting about in her mind for a like +charm that would make her "all glorious within" as Olga's made her +glorious without, suddenly bethought herself of her little necklace of +Roman pearls. She had not taken it back to school with her in her Senior +year, for she felt that she had outgrown its childish symbolism. She +could "keep tryst" with life's obligations now without the visible +reminder of a little white bead, slipped daily over a silken cord. +Still, it had helped her to remember, so many times in the past, that +she was strongly tempted to try the efficacy of her little talisman just +once more. Glancing at her watch, she saw that Alex had been gone only +five minutes. Then dropping the stick with which she had been writing in +the dust, she ran lightly up the avenue, into the house and up to her +room. + +"Maybe it is sawt of childish," she thought as she opened the +sandal-wood box and clasped the rosary around her neck. "But I don't +care, if it will only help me to remembah not to be snippy and sensitive +and to go about my business like that little black ant. It's funny how +such a little thing started me on the right path." + +When Alex came back she met him with such a shining face that he glanced +at her curiously. "You look as if you had heard good news," he said as +he helped her into the buggy. "What's happened?" + +"Oh, nothing," she laughed. "I've just been practising my paht while I +waited for you. I'm the Princess Olga, and I've gotten rid of my gown of +tow, and I'm so relieved to find the real King's-daughtah attire, that +I'm as happy as a June-bug." + +He did not understand her allusion, but it would have made no difference +if she had talked to him in Greek, with that charming dimple coming and +going as she laughed. It was a pleasure just to sit and watch her, while +she rattled on in her inimitable way about June-bugs, wondering how +happy they were anyhow, and why people chose them as the unit of +measurement when they were measuring joy. + + * * * * * + +Over at the spring while they waited for Lloyd to come, Miss Marks and +Leland Harcourt experimented at picture-making with Gay for a victim. +Stretched out on the rocks of the creek bank, with her hands lying in +the shallow water and her hair streaming over her shoulders, she was +obligingly trying to obey instructions to "look as wet and dead as +possible." + +Lloyd and Alex, coming on her unexpectedly as they picked their way up +the ravine, having tied the horse where the woodland road ended, were +horrified to find her lying there so limp and still. But the next +instant Leland's voice sounded somewhere up among the bushes: "That's +great, Pug. Try to keep the pose a little longer till we get one more +plate. With a sea-gull and some rolling waves painted in in the +background, it will be a perfect copy of that painting I saw in +Brittany." + +"Well, hurry, please!" called Gay plaintively. "I can't stand it much +longer. The sun on my wet face is burning it to a blister, and the rocks +are cutting my elbow, and I know it's a spider that's crawling over the +back of my neck." + +Lloyd gave a toot of the hunter's horn to warn them of their approach +and the extra plate was never made. For with a little shriek the +"Drowned Fishermaiden" scrambled up from the rocks in embarrassed haste, +and when she caught sight of Alex, fled away into the bushes to gather +up her dishevelled hair and otherwise put herself to rights. She was too +agitated to notice Lloyd's meeting with Leland, but while she made +herself presentable the sound of laughter floated in among the bushes to +her most reassuringly. + +"They're laughing at me," she thought, "but I don't care how ridiculous +I looked. _Anything to_ break the ice between them and put them on a +friendly footing." + +At the sight of Leland's dark face with its cynical, slightly amused +expression, Lloyd's resentment returned, but the touch of the little +necklace recalled her resolve. "I'll _not_ be snippy and sensitive," she +repeated to herself, clasping one of the beads in her fingers as if it +really held some potent charm to help her change her mental attitude. + +So when Gay joined them she found that Lloyd had dropped her distant, +disdainful manner of the day before and was her own sweet, winsome self. +It was with a sigh of relief that Gay left them to the discussion of +poses and costumes, and turned to Alex, who was about to take his +departure. The one word, picnic, was enough to stop him. It was what he +had been hoping for ever since the Harcourts had taken the Cabin. Gay's +appeal for help set him to work with the zest of a truant school-boy. + +While he made a fire and carried water from the spring, Gay emptied the +baskets they had brought, and spread the contents out on a great flat +rock. Then while the water boiled for the coffee, and the potatoes were +roasting in the ashes, she sent him to look for a wild grape-vine. + +"I want a lot of grape-leaves to make into little baskets to serve the +berries in," she told him. "And bring them up here where I can keep an +eye on what is going on at the spring. There seems to be a hitch in the +performance somewhere." + +The difficulty was with the prince's costume. Nothing they had brought +gave quite the effect they wanted, so finally Leland proposed bringing +the story down to date. + +"The modern Princess is the Summer Girl," he said. "So take Miss +Sherman just as she is, and I'll go back to the Cabin and put on a +bicycle suit." + +[Illustration: "MAKING A CUP OF HER WHITE HANDS."] + +"They are getting on famously," thought Gay as she listened to Lloyd's +merry response to something he called back, as he went crashing away +through the bushes. The last little basket was made and filled with +berries before Leland came back, dragging his wheel up the ravine. Gay +and Alex, having finished their preparations, climbed up the bank to +watch the pretty tableau, Lloyd making a cup of her white hands and +catching the water in them, that the prince might stoop and drink. + +"Let's try it again, Miss Marks," cried Leland enthusiastically. "How is +this pose?" He dropped gracefully to one knee, baring his head as he +bowed it over Lloyd's hands. + +"Is the change in him or is it in me?" thought Lloyd as the dark eager +face smiled up at her, with its quick flashing smile that she found so +peculiarly attractive. "He certainly is the most entahtaining man I evah +talked to." + +"The show is over," called Gay as Miss Marks began to put up her camera. +"If your royal highnesses will deign to descend, dinner will be served +immediately." It was an attractive table she led them to, the red +berries shining in luscious heaps in their little green baskets, +mounds of fresh watercress beside every plate, and a big bouquet of +wildflowers in the centre of the rock table. + +"What is the peculiar charm of a picnic?" queried Alex as he fished an +ant out of the sugar and opened a half-cooked potato. + +"At home one would send such a dish back to the kitchen in red-hot +wrath. Here one eats it in a sort of solemn joy." + +"It's the spell of the June woods," suggested Miss Marks. + +"No, it's youth in the blood," said Leland. "All the Junes in the world +and all outdoors wouldn't make a half-baked potato fit for the gods +unless one has 'the sun and the wind in his pulses.'" + +"No," insisted Gay. "It can't be that, for Jameson isn't much older than +you, and he despises prowling around in the woods, as he calls it. He +made so much fun of it that Lucy went driving with him instead of coming +with us, and she adores such outings, just as much now as she did before +she was married." + +"Maybe no one feels the charm unless the gods have given him a sort of +Midas touch that will turn everything disagreeable, like ants and +underdone potatoes, into golden experiences," said Alex. "The Midas +imagination let us call it. And the way to keep it in good working order +is to give it constant practice. Let's have a picnic every day." + +"To-morrow," announced Leland, "I'll take you all over to that old +English garden that I discovered, to take that Garden fancy of +Browning's we were discussing." + +Gay looked up quickly. It had been understood only yesterday that they +were to wait for Kitty's return for that picture. His taking it for +granted that Lloyd would assume the part augured well for her hopes. + +"You know that poem of Browning's, don't you, Miss Sherman?" he asked, +smiling across at her. + +Now Lloyd had never cared for Browning. In fact she frankly admitted +that she had never got far enough into many of his poems to know what he +was talking about. At Warwick Hall Miss Chilton had been such an +enthusiastic interpreter of his that ten of the girls in Lloyd's class +had formed a Browning club. Although she declined their invitation to +join them, she was more complimented by that invitation than any other +of that school term, and envied them their apparent enjoyment of what to +her was a tangle of vague meanings. Now when, she saw Leland take a well +worn copy from his pocket and flip over the leaves to find the place, +with an ease that showed long familiarity with it, she wished that she +had joined the club. It made her feel childish and immature to think +that she could not discuss this subject with him as any one of those ten +girls could have done. But it was one of the simple poems to which the +book opened. From her seat opposite, Lloyd could see the marked margins +and underscored lines, as he read aloud: + + "'Here is the garden she walked across + Arm in my arm such a short while since. + + * * * * * + + Down this side of the gravel walk + She went, while her robe's edge brushed the box. + And here she paused in her gracious talk + To point me a moth on the milk-white phlox.'" + +"Oh, I can just _see_ that picture," cried Miss Marks enthusiastically. +"I wish we had time to take it to-day." + +"But wait, here's a better one," he added, turning the page. + + "'This flower she stopped at, finger on lip, + Stooped over in doubt, as settling its claim, + Till she gave me with pride to make no slip, + Its soft, meandering Spanish name. + What a name! Was it love or praise? + Speech half-asleep or song half-awake? + I must learn Spanish one of these days + Only for that slow, sweet name's sake.'" + +Lloyd picked up the book open at the place where he laid it, face +downward, on the rock. + +"I wondah what flowah Browning meant," she said, "that had such a 'soft, +meandering Spanish name. Speech half-asleep or song half-awake--' It +must have been something exquisitely beautiful or he wouldn't have been +willing to learn a language just for the sake of knowing that one name." + +Farther down the page were other underscored lines. She read them +softly, almost under her breath. + + "'Where I find her not, beauties vanish. + Whither I follow her beauties flee. + Is there no method to tell her in Spanish + June is twice June since she's breathed it with me?'" + +"Isn't that sweet?" cried Gay. "Say it for us, Leland. Say it in Spanish +so we can hear how it sounds." + +With an indulgent smile, as if amused at her childishness, he lazily did +Gay's bidding, then as she began exclaiming over the musical syllables +to Alex, he turned to Lloyd and repeated the line with an emphasis which +made it altogether personal. Of course she could not understand it, but +the words were like bird-notes, and there was no mistaking the language +of those dark expressive eyes that held hers a moment in their admiring +gaze. They said as plainly as if they had spoken aloud, "June is twice +June, since _you've_ breathed it with me." + +Lloyd felt the colour surge up into her face, and to hide it, turned +quickly and began examining a grass stain on the hem of her skirt, with +apparent concern. But an exultant little thrill flashed over her. He +liked her. She was sure of it, and it made her glad, so glad that it +amazed her to think that only two hours before she had confided +emphatically to a little black ant crawling over her path, that she +couldn't bear him. + +When she had finished a critical examination of the grass stain she +glanced back again, hoping that Gay had not seen her embarrassment. To +her relief Gay's entire attention was absorbed in an argument with Alex +as to the exact meaning of the quotation, whether twice June meant a +lengthening of the calendar or an intensifying of its pleasures. Miss +Marks, like a good chaperone, could not have noticed, for she was busy +gathering up the dishes, and Lloyd sprang up to help her. + +Presently, as they started away from the spring, Leland came around to +Lloyd's side. "You must let me teach you Spanish, Miss Sherman," he said +in his masterful way which seemed to leave her no choice in the matter. +"An hour a day wouldn't take much of your time, and would be enough to +give you some idea of the charm of the language. Gay tells me you play +the harp. Some of the songs are exquisite." + +"Oh, I nevah in the world could learn it, I am suah!" she answered +lightly, with a shrug that seemed to indicate the uselessness of +undertaking such a task. + +"You don't know," he answered authoritatively. "You've never had me for +a teacher." + +Again that flashing look that made his eyes deepen so wonderfully and +curved the cynical lips into an altogether gentle and winning smile. It +seemed to photograph itself on Lloyd's memory, recurring to her again +and again in the most unexpected moments. She saw it on the way home +with Alex, all the time she was laughingly recounting some of her +Warwick Hall escapades. It came between her and her book when she tried +to read herself to sleep that afternoon, and the last thing that night +when her eyes were closed and the lights were out she saw again that +glance that said as plainly as the slow music of his Spanish words, +"June is _twice_ June since _you've_ breathed it with me." + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +SPANISH LESSONS + + +THE Harcourt carriage swung rapidly along the road, for the Little +Colonel held the reins, and was testing the speed of the new horses, +just sent down from Lexington. + +"Isn't it glorious?" she cried, with a quick glance over her shoulder at +Gay and Miss Marks on the back seat. "It's like flying, the way they +take us through the air, and they're the best matched team in the +country." + +Leland, on the seat beside her, watched with growing admiration her +expert handling of the horses, and Gay watched him. Swathed in a white +chiffon veil, she was paying the penalty for being so obliging the day +before. She had lain so long on the rocks in her pose of the drowned +fishermaiden, that her face was burned to a blister, and she could not +touch it without groaning. But she would willingly go through the ordeal +again, she told herself, in order to bring about the present desirable +state of affairs. + +"Now which way?" asked Lloyd as they came to a turn. "I feel like a +Columbus on an unsailed sea. I thought I knew every gah'den around heah +within a radius of five miles, but I've nevah seen any that fits the +description of the one you're taking us to." + +"Turn to the right," Leland directed. "Then it's just a short way down a +woodland road. You'll come to an old-fashioned wicket gate and a +straight, box-bordered walk leading up to the back of such a quaint +vine-covered old house with a red door, that you'll expect to see a +thatched roof and hear an English skylark." + +"Well, of all things," laughed Lloyd, "why didn't you say little red +doah in the first place. That would have located it for me. You've +simply discovahed the back premises of old Doctah Shelby's place, and +yoah wondahful English gah'den is their kitchen gah'den. We could have +reached their front gate in ten minutes from our house, and heah you +have led us all around Robin Hood's bahn to find it. That loop around +Rollington took us a good two miles out of the way." + +"Well, that's the only way I knew how to reach it," he answered, with +the flashing smile she had learned to look for. "I hope that you don't +feel that it has been time wasted. _I_ don't." + +"Not behind hawses like these," she answered. "We'll forgive you for the +sake of the ride. I nevah get tiahed of driving when I can go this +fast." + +She turned into a narrow lane leading around to the front of the house, +and waited for Leland to open the gate. + +"How natural everything looks," she exclaimed. "I haven't been heah for +yeahs, and when I was a little thing of six or seven I used to be a +weekly visitah. I'd bring my dawg Fritz, and stay from breakfast till +bedtime. I called Doctah Shelby 'Mistah-_my_-doctah' and his wife 'Aunt +Alicia,'" she went on as Leland resumed his seat in the carriage. "They +said that I reminded them of their only daughtah, who was dead, and they +used to borrow me by the day. They spoiled me so that it was perfectly +scandalous the way I acted sometimes." + +"Why did you stop coming?" asked Gay. + +"Mrs. Shelby had a fall that made an invalid of her, and she has been +away at sanitariums and hospitals most of the time since. I've seen her +often, of co'se, but not heah. It's only lately that they've opened up +the house and come home to live." + +Places exercised a strong influence over Lloyd. Just as she felt the +challenge of the locust-trees in the avenue at home, and could not pass +those old family sentinels without an unconscious lifting of the head +and that pride of bearing which they seemed to expect from all the +Lloyds, so this old homestead had its peculiar effect upon her. As she +went up the path she had the same feeling of absolute sovereignty that +she had had a dozen years before when her slightest wish was law in this +adoring household, and where every act of hers, no matter how +outbreaking, passed unchided. If she chose to empty the sugar into the +middle of the garden walk and fill the bowl with pebbles, "Aunt Alicia" +took her afternoon tea unsweetened, rather than ring for more, and thus +call Mom Beck's attention to the naughtiness of her little charge. + +Once, some babyish whim prompting her to order every picture turned to +the wall, the doctor meekly obeyed, and when some chance caller +remonstrated, he protested that it was a very small thing to do to give +a child pleasure, and that there was no reason why she shouldn't have +them upside down if she wished. So strong was the old spell now, that +as she stepped up on the porch and saw the same ugly little Chinese +idol sitting against the front door to prop it open, that had sat there +on all her former visits, she stooped and stood it on its head. + +"Why on earth did you do that?" gasped Gay. + +"Simply fo'ce of habit," laughed Lloyd. "I used to hate it so because it +was such an ugly old thing that I always stood it on its head to punish +it for staring at me. I did it this time without thinking." + +Leland laughed. Never in the short time he had known her had she seemed +quite so adorable as she did at this moment, relapsing into the childish +imperiousness of her Little Colonel ways. While they waited for Mrs. +Shelby to come down he watched her going around the room, renewing her +acquaintance with all the old objects that had once held a fascination +for her. She called his attention to the tapestry on the wall, a +shepherd and shepherdess beside a trellis on which hung roses as big as +cabbages, and told him the quaint fancies she had once had about the +romantic figures. The stuffed birds under the glass case on the mantel +each had a name she had given it. She remembered them all, from the +yellow canary, to the mite of a humming-bird, poised at the top. + +Stopping before a queer old whatnot, filled with bric-à-brac and shells, +she caught up a round china box. A gilt eagle, hovering over a nest of +little eaglets formed the lid, and her face began to dimple as she +lifted the china bird by its imposing beak. + +"There ought to be peppahmints inside," she said. "There always used to +be, because I'd howl if there wasn't, and they couldn't beah to have me +disappointed. Well, I wish you'd look! Deah old Aunt Alicia! She's +remembahed all these yeahs and kept it ready for me." + +She held the box out towards him, and he saw that it had been freshly +filled with delectable little striped drops. + +"It hurts my conscience," she said, looking up wistfully, as the +familiar odour of the peppermint greeted her, "to think how I have +neglected her. Heah I have been going to picnics and pahties and all +sawts of things evah since I came home from school, and have nevah been +neah her. I'm going to find her this minute, and not wait for her to +come down as if I were some strangah." + +The quaintly furnished old room straightway lost its charm for Leland +when she left it, but Gay, pushing aside her veil to taste the contents +of the eagle's nest, which Lloyd had deposited in her lap, scrutinized +everything with interest. This was Alex's home now, and she wondered how +he would look in the midst of such surroundings. She couldn't imagine +him with such an antiquated background. Miss Marks picked up a basket of +daguerreotypes from the marble-topped table, and began examining them. + +They could hear Lloyd calling at the top of the stairs, "Aunt Alicia," +and then Mrs. Shelby's voice, tremulous with pleased surprise: "Why it's +the Little Colonel! Oh, my dear! My _dear_! what a joy it is to have you +here again!" Then they heard Lloyd laughingly explaining their mission, +and after that they seemed to pass into another room, for a low hum of +voices was all that could be distinguished. + +Presently Mrs. Shelby came down alone. She was a gentle little old lady, +with faded blue eyes, and a sweet patient face. She wore a bunch of gray +curls over each ear in the fashion of her girlhood. There was a +lingering charm of youth about her, just as there was a faint suggestion +of lavender still clinging to the fine old lace that fell over her +little hands. Almost as soon as she had finished welcoming them an old +coloured man followed her into the room, bearing a huge tray with +tinkling glasses, a decanter of raspberry shrub, and a plate of little +nut-cakes. While he served the guests she explained Lloyd's delay with +almost girlish eagerness. + +"I have taken a great liberty with your model, Miss Marks, but Lloyd +assured me you would be perfectly willing. This last day of June is a +very happy anniversary of mine and the doctor's. I have been thinking of +it all morning, and when Lloyd came up the stairs just now, so glowing +and bright, it seemed to me I saw my own lost youth rising up before me, +and I asked her to put on a gown I have treasured many years, and be +photographed in that. + +"It is the one I had on when Richard proposed to me," she explained, a +faint pink tingeing her soft old cheeks. "Fifty years ago to-day, in +that same old garden. This was my grandmother's place then. Richard +bought it afterwards. And a year from to-day if we live, we will keep +our golden wedding. If you can use the gown in the photograph it will +make me very happy, for it is falling to pieces, despite my care of it. +Lloyd thought it very picturesque and appropriate." + +While Miss Marks was expressing her delight over the privilege, for the +unearthing of old costumes was one of her pet diversions, Lloyd came +down the stairs and stopped shyly in the doorway. She had tucked up her +shining hair with a tall ivory comb, and it hung in soft curls on each +side of her glowing face, in the old fashion of Mrs. Shelby's girlhood. +The thin, clinging dress enveloped her like a pale blue cloud, and a +flat, wide-brimmed garden hat swung from her arm by its blue ribbons. +With the donning of the ancient dress she seemed to have put on the +sweet shy manner that had been the charm of its first wearer. + +A long-drawn "oh!" of admiration from Gay and Miss Marks greeted her +appearance, and she turned a timid glance towards Leland, who had risen +quickly. His glance and his silence were more eloquent than their words, +for she turned away blushing. + +"Now if I may have a bit of paper to make a moth to pin on the +milk-white phlox," began Miss Marks, but Mrs. Shelby stopped her +eagerly. + +"Oh, my dear, we will have the picture perfect in every way. Richard has +a case of butterflies and moths in his office. I shall send a servant to +bring it and to call him over, for he will want to see Lloyd in that +gown I am sure. How I wish Alex were here to be photographed with her. +He is so broad shouldered and erect he reminds me daily of what his +uncle was at his age." + +"Maybe he will come before we are through," suggested Miss Marks. At the +mere thought of his coming, Gay pulled her veil down hastily over her +blistered face. Behind its protecting screen she watched the old couple +keenly, when the doctor arrived. They had eyes for nothing but Lloyd, +and their gaze followed her tenderly wherever she went. + +"They're just _daffy_ about her," thought Gay. "It's plain to be seen +they'd give anything in the world to get her into the family. I hope +Doctor Alex won't come in time to be photographed with her. If he'd +never fallen in love with her before he'd have to do it now. He couldn't +help himself when she looks like that, and then where would all my plans +be for poor Leland?" + +But Leland was taking care of his own interests. As soon as Miss Marks +had taken enough plates to satisfy herself he led Lloyd off to the end +of the garden to show her a flower which he had found with a soft +meandering Spanish name. + +"We'll begin the lessons to-morrow," he said, as if it were all settled. +The masterfulness of his tone had pleased her the day before, but here +in the place where she had done all the dictating and others had +obeyed, it aroused a feeling that Mom Beck would have labelled "the +Lloyd stubbo'ness." She didn't want to consent, simply because he had +taken it for granted that she would, so she laughingly contradicted him. + +"We'll begin to-morrow," he repeated, smiling down at her so insistently +that she dropped her eyes before his. Then to her surprise she found +that her opposition had completely vanished. She felt that it would be +one of the pleasantest pastimes that could be devised, to study such a +musical language under such a teacher. But she had no intention of +letting him know how she felt about it for a long while, so she was +thankful for the interruption which came just then. + +Miss Marks, who was exploring the rest of the premises in search of +further possibilities, sent Gay to summon her to the front of the house. + +"She says to 'come into the garden, Maud.' She is going to add a +Tennysonian pose to her series of Fancies, and she's found a place where +there's a bit of terrace for you to come tripping down, à la Maud, to +the tune of 'She is coming, my own, my sweet!'" + +Catching up her long filmy blue skirt, Lloyd hurried away, leaving Gay +and Leland to follow as they chose. Leland finished the verse in a +clear tenor voice as if singing to himself, but it followed Lloyd down +the walk as if meant for her alone: + + "'She is coming, my own, my sweet! + Were it ever so airy a tread + My heart would hear her and beat + Though 'twere earth in an earthy bed. + Would start and tremble under her feet + And blossom in purple and red.'" + +Then he hummed it almost under his breath, the entire verse again, +forgetful of Gay at his elbow until she spoke. + +"Wouldn't Kitty have looked adorable in that darling old hat tied under +her chin? It's too bad she couldn't have been here to pose as Maud." + +"Oh, I don't know," he answered absently. "She's too dark for the part. +Miss Lloyd looks it to perfection." + +Gay's eyes shone delightedly behind the white veil, and for a few steps +she could not help skipping, as she blessed the Martinsville Springs, +which had taken Kitty off in the nick of time to save her for a +different fate. By the time Maud's picture was taken Alex arrived, and +Miss Marks was promptly seized with an inspiration. + +"I am going to have two pictures of _Darby and Joan_," she exclaimed, +"to add to the series. Alex, you take Lloyd down into the garden again +beside the phlox, and turn so that I'll get your profile. It is so like +your uncle's. I'll call that one '_Hand in hand when our life was May._' +Then I'll take Mrs. Shelby and the doctor in exactly the same position +as a companion piece, and call that '_Hand in hand when our hair is +gray._'" + +They made a joke of it, the two old people, and obligingly took the +places that Lloyd and Alex left, but a mist sprang to Lloyd's eyes a +moment later, watching the devoted old couple who for fifty years had +been lovers and for forty-nine years had been wed. Marriage like that +seemed a beautiful thing; she wondered if such an experience would ever +be hers. She wished Mammy Easter had found a better fortune for her than +the one she told over her tea-cup. + +It was noon by the time the pictures were all taken, and Leland took +Miss Marks home in the carriage while Lloyd went up-stairs to change her +dress. She wanted Gay and Leland to stop at The Locusts for lunch, but +Gay refused because she couldn't go to the table in a veil and under the +circumstances she couldn't go without one. She got out of the carriage, +however, and sat on the porch while Leland took the old Colonel for a +short spin down the road, to try the new horses. + +"It's been a mighty nice morning," she said. "I wish Lucy could have +been with us. She adores discovering old places like that and doing +unexpected things. It almost spoiled my good times thinking of the +wistful way she looked after us when we drove off." + +"But she's married!" exclaimed Lloyd. "I shouldn't think she'd care for +those things in quite the same way as she did before. I should think +she'd rather stay with her husband." + +"Bosh!" said Gay. "Being married doesn't change a person's disposition +and make tame old hens out of lively little humming-birds. That's just +what Lucy was, a dear little humming-bird, always in a flutter of doing +and going; and you needn't tell me that she enjoys poking there at home +with nobody but Jameson, as much as she would enjoy going out with us +and doing things." + +"But he's her husband!" insisted Lloyd, as if that term covered all that +could be desired of human companionship. Then she hummed meaningly: + + "'Hand in hand when our life was May, + Hand in hand when our hair is gray!'" + +Gay shrugged her shoulders impatiently. "Oh, that Darby and Joan +business is all right when your hair _is_ gray, but Lucy is only a year +older than I am, and Jameson doesn't interest himself in a single thing +that she likes. He's devoted to her, so devoted he doesn't want her out +of his sight; but it's the kind of devotion that has taught me a lesson. +If ever I tie myself up that way it will not be while life is May. I'll +have a good time first." + +Lloyd had no answer for such heresy. She was going over in her mind the +list of people from whom she had unconsciously taken her exalted +impressions of married life: her mother and Papa Jack, the old Colonel +and Amanthis, Doctor Shelby and Aunt Alicia, Rob's father and mother. +She felt that Gay was mistaken. To be sure there were old Mr. and Mrs. +Apwall, who quarrelled like cats and dogs, but somehow even they had +given her the impression that they enjoyed their little encounters, and +quarrelled to pass the time, rather than because they bore each other +any ill-will. Then she reflected that these were all people of an older +generation than Lucy, and maybe there was a difference in the times. +Surely Gay must have good reason for speaking so feelingly. This was not +the first time that she had spoken of Lucy with tears in her eyes, and +when she did that, Lloyd, recalling Mammy Easter's tea-cups, was vaguely +glad that it had been foretold that hers would be empty. + +The old Colonel came back in a few minutes loud in his praise of the new +horses, and to Lloyd's surprise, in high good humour with their owner. +Evidently Leland had improved his opportunity and had exerted himself to +make friends with the old Colonel, for to Lloyd's amazement he cordially +insisted on Leland's considering The Locusts a second home as long as he +should be in the Valley, and to come at any hour he chose. The +latch-string would be out for him. + +"I shall certainly avail myself of the privilege very soon," he +responded, "for to-morrow I have the honour to begin giving Miss Lloyd +lessons in Spanish. So few young ladies nowadays play the harp, that +when one has the ability she owes it to the world to learn the Spanish +songs. Don't you think so?" + +Lloyd opened her mouth to protest that she had not yet given her +consent, but closed it again as the old Colonel began expressing his +pleasure at such an arrangement. She felt trapped. It was to please him +that she had learned to play on her grandmother's harp. Any reference to +it always put him in a gentle humour. She wanted him to be cordial and +friendly with Leland, and was glad that he was no longer prejudiced +against him, so she held her peace; but it exasperated her to have her +consent taken for granted in such a high-handed way. He had ridden over +her objection as regardlessly as if she had never made any. + +She had boasted to herself, "He needn't put on any of his lordly ways +with _me_!" and here she was submitting meekly, without a word. It +worried her after they had driven away. All the time she was up in her +room, getting ready for lunch, she kept thinking about it. + +"I'll just give him to undahstand that it was on grandfathah's account," +she decided finally. "Instead of my influencing him as Gay expected, it +looks as if _he_ were winding _me_ around his fingah. But he isn't! He +sha'n't! I'll take the lessons, but I'll have no foolishness about it. +I'll surprise him by sticking strictly to business, and I'll set him a +good example of the way to live up to his own family motto." + +Mrs. Sherman, who made no objection to the lessons since the old Colonel +approved of them so heartily, was on the front porch with her embroidery +when Leland came up the next morning, the first of July, to give the +first lesson. She smiled to see how energetically Lloyd threw herself +into it, thinking it was a matter of pride with her to show him what +rapid progress she could make. + +It certainly was a matter of pride with the Colonel, who enjoyed being +waylaid to hear how beautifully she could count to one hundred or name +the months of the year. It became his habit to take the book, while, +perched on the arm of his chair, she rattled off the vocabulary for the +day's lesson, and reviewed all the others. + +"That's right! That's right!" he would say encouragingly. "At this rate +you'll soon be ready for a trip to the Alhambra, and I'm blessed if I +don't take you some of these days. I've always wanted to go." + +When Kitty came home from the springs Lloyd insisted on her joining the +class, but she declared she was too far behind to attempt catching up. +Besides she was in charge of affairs at home now, and Elise was to have +a house-party soon. There were half a dozen good reasons why she could +not take the time. The principal one, which she did not give however, +was that it was plain to be seen that Leland was more interested in +studying Lloyd than in teaching her a language, and under such +circumstances, Kitty preferred not to make the third party. + +So while Kitty's mornings were filled with her housekeeping duties, +Betty's with her writing and Gay's with her music and plans to keep Lucy +occupied, it gradually came about that Leland spent more and more of his +time at The Locusts. The lessons lasted only an hour, but after that he +usually found some excuse to stay: there was a new song that he wanted +to hear, or a game of tennis, or a stroll down to the post-office. +Sometimes when he had no excuse at all he lingered anyhow, lounging on +the shady porch, and talking of anything that happened to come +uppermost. Then at night he was often there again, either because The +Locusts was the gathering place of the Clan, and a frolic was afoot, or +he went to escort Lloyd and Betty to the Cabin or The Beeches to some +entertainment the other girls had planned. + +"My oh! What a buttahfly I'm getting to be!" laughed Lloyd one evening +as she went into her mother's room to have her dress buttoned. "A +hawse-back ride this mawning, a picnic this aftahnoon, and now the +rustic dance in the Mallards' barn to-night. But nevah mind, little +mothah," she added with a hug, as she caught a wistful look on Mrs. +Sherman's face. "It'll all be ovah soon. This is the last summah of my +teens. When I am old and twenty I'll nevah leave yoah side. 'I'll sit on +a cushion and sew a fine seam' and take all the housekeeping cares off +yoah shouldahs as a dutiful daughtah should." + +Mrs. Sherman gave her shoulder a caressing pat as she fastened the last +button. "I'm glad to have you go, dear," she answered, "especially to +all the out-door merry-makings. They keep you young and well. Papa Jack +and I will walk over after awhile and look on." + +"The Mallard barn dances are always so much fun," said Lloyd, lingering +to give a final touch to her mother's toilet. "Wait! Yoah side combs are +in too high, and yoah collah isn't pinned straight in the back. How did +you evah manage to dress yoahself right befoah I grew up to tend to +you?" + +As she made the changes with all a young girl's particularity about +trifles, she went on, "That last one they had three yeahs ago was +lovely. Will you evah forget the way Rob cake-walked with Mrs. Bisbee? +It makes me laugh to this day, whenevah I think of it." + +"I suppose Rob will hardly be there to-night," said Mrs. Sherman, +smiling as she recalled the ridiculous appearance he had made. His +cake-walk had been the feature of the evening. + +"No, indeed," answered Lloyd. "He's no moah likely to be there than the +man in the moon. I wish he would though. He used to be the life of +everything. We saw him this evening as we drove home from the picnic. He +had just come out from town, and he looked so hot and dusty and ti'ahed +it made me feel bad. He's like a strangah now, didn't stop to speak, +only lifted his hat and turned in at the gate at Oaklea, as if he hadn't +gone on a thousand drives with us. He ought to have been interested in +what we were doing for old times' sake." + +Lloyd had not thought of Rob for days, but she was reminded of him many +times that evening, the affair at the Mallards' barn was so much like +the one to which he had taken her three years before. The same old negro +fiddlers furnished the music. The same flickering lantern light made +weird shadows on the rough walls, and the same sweet smell of new hay +filled the place. As the music of the Virginia reel began she thought of +the way Rob had romped through it that other time, and wished she could +see him once more as jolly and care-free as he was then. + +"Why can one nevah have two good times exactly alike?" she wondered +wistfully. She was standing near the wide double doors, looking out +across the fields as she thought about it later, recalling how many +things were alike on the two occasions, even the colour of the dress she +wore. She remembered that because Rob had said she looked like an +apple-blossom, and it was rare indeed for him to make such complimentary +speeches. It wasn't best for girls to hear nice things about themselves +often, he said. It made them hard to get along with, too uppity. + +The music stopped and Leland Harcourt came to find her. She was looking +so pensively past the gay scene that he bent over her, humming in a low +tone: + + "'What's this dull town to me? + Robin Adair? + What was 't I wished to see? + What wished to hear?'" + +She started with a little laugh, blushing slightly because he seemed to +have read her thoughts. "Robin Adair" was one of Mrs. Moore's old names +for Rob, and she _had_ been wishing for him. + +Over at Oaklea, Rob sat scowling at a book spread out before him on the +library table. He was thinking of Harcourt as he had seen him on the +front seat beside Lloyd, in his cool-looking white flannels, the very +embodiment of gentlemanly leisure. No doubt she noticed the contrast +between them, he all dusty and dishevelled from his day's work and the +trip home on the hot car. Not that he would change places, not that he +regretted for an instant the part he had to take in the grimy working +world. But the chance encounter had suddenly opened his eyes to all that +he had had to sacrifice for that work. Until now it had not even left +him time to realize how much he had given up. Now to find this stranger +enjoying all that was once his, stung him to envy. He smiled grimly as +he recognized it as envy. He had thought himself free from such a +childish trait. But he could not smile away the feeling. It persisted +till it accomplished more than the old Judge's advice and his mother's +pleadings, that all work and no play was bad for him. Closing his book +he announced his intention of walking over to The Locusts. + +As he went up the avenue he heard the distant scraping of fiddles and +the rhythmic beating of feet in the Mallard barn. He had forgotten that +it was the night of the rustic dance. + +He was disappointed at finding no one at home but the old Colonel. But +his welcome was so cordial that he stayed even longer than he had +intended. The Colonel always had the latest news of every one, but +to-night he had to talk first of the wonderful progress Lloyd was making +in Spanish, and what a fine fellow that young Harcourt was. + +"Didn't like the chap at all at first," he confided. "Thought he was too +much of a confounded foreigner; but I'm a big enough man I hope to +acknowledge a mistake, and I own up I was prejudiced." + +When Rob finally rose to start home, the Colonel would not let him go +until he had promised to come again the next night, when Lloyd and Betty +should be at home. Afterwards he regretted having made the promise. +Although he went early Harcourt was already there, seemingly as much at +home as if he were a member of the family. It made Rob feel like a +stranger to see this newcomer usurping the place that he had always +filled in the Sherman household. + +It grated on him also to hear Lloyd saying, "Si, señor" and "gracias" +when she addressed Harcourt, and grated still more for Harcourt to turn +to her as he did continually with some aside in Spanish. Never more than +a phrase or a word, and "just for practice," they laughingly explained, +but it seemed to emphasize a tie that had drawn them together, +and--Rob's remoteness. + +He left early. Walking slowly down the avenue he thought of the hundreds +of times he had passed under those old locust-trees on sweet starlighted +summer nights like this. What a goodly company of old friends they were! +The kind that never change. He looked up, vaguely grateful for the soft +lisping of leaves above him. They seemed to understand why he was going, +why he could not stay. + +Half-way down the avenue he heard the tinkle of Lloyd's harp, and then +her voice beginning to sing. The seat beside the measuring tree was just +ahead and he made his way to it, quietly, on tip-toe almost, that he +might lose no note. But it was an unknown tongue she was singing, a song +that Harcourt had taught her, and Rob could not understand a word. It +was so symbolical of the change that had come between them that a fierce +impulse seized him to rush back to the house and throw the interloper +out of the window. Then he smiled bitterly at his own vehemence. What +right had he to be so savage over her friendship? He was her big brother +only, and even that merely in name, because she had chosen to call him +so in those years that they had been such loyal good chums. It was +little and mean and selfish of him to begrudge her the slightest thing +that would give her pleasure. This man with his fortune, his +accomplishments, his rare social gifts had everything to offer, while +he,--he had not even _time_ to put at her disposal. Time to find bypaths +to happiness for her-- + +The sweet clear voice sang on, the old locusts rustled softly as the +night wind stirred them. Then the song stopped, and for a long time he +sat staring ahead of him with unseeing eyes. At last he rose, and taking +a step towards the tree beside the bench, passed his hand over the bark, +groping for the notches he knew were there but could not see. + +He paused at the one a little higher than his shoulder, and then his +fingers found the four leaf clover he had carved beside it, the last +time Lloyd had stood up to be measured. He could almost see her standing +there again like Elaine, the lily-maid, fair-haired and smiling while he +repeated the charm of the four leaf clover: + + "'Love be true to her-- + Joy draw near to her-- + Fortune find what your + Gifts can do for her--'" + +He had forgotten how the lines went but it made no difference. Anyhow +they voiced what had always been his dearest wish for her, and standing +there in the dark he vowed savagely that any man who stood in the way of +the old charm's coming true, should have him to reckon with. + +When he swung off down the path, taking the short cut to Oaklea, his hat +was pulled grimly down over his eyes, and his mouth was set in a firm +hard line. He did not open his books again that night. Lying on the +couch by his open window, he watched the lights at The Locusts shining +through the trees, till the last one went out, and he knew that Harcourt +had gone. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +"SHADOWS OF THE WORLD APPEAR" + + +THE long July days slipped by, and Lloyd, looking back on them as +Hildegarde looked into her magic glass, saw only pleasant scenes +mirrored in their memory. The fortunate things, the smiling faces, the +pleasant happenings were hers, and for a time even other people's +troubles, those shadows of the world that are always with us, left her +daily outlook undimmed. + +Like Hildegarde, too, she went on with her weaving, but wholly +unconscious that the shuttle of her thoughts was shaping her web to fit +the shoulders of the dark-eyed knight who came oftenest. Mrs. Sherman +saw it and was troubled. + +"Jack," she said to her husband one afternoon, when he had come out from +town earlier than usual, and they were wandering around the shady +grounds together, planning some improvements, "I'm afraid those Spanish +lessons are a mistake. Lloyd is seeing entirely too much of Mr. +Harcourt. He is here morning, noon and night." + +Mr. Sherman gave a quick glance towards the tennis court where the two +were finishing a lively game. "Don't you worry, Elizabeth," was his +placid answer. "It isn't as if she'd never been used to such devotion. +She's never known anything else. Malcolm and Keith used to spend fully +as much time with her, and Rob Moore fairly lived over here." + +"Yes, but this is different," protested Mrs. Sherman. "They were mere +boys, and she dominated them, but Leland Harcourt is a man, and an +experienced one socially, and he is dominating her. I can see it in her +quick deference to his opinions, and her evident desire to please him. +Not evident to him, perhaps, but plain enough to me. I've been thinking +that it might be a good thing for us to go to the springs for awhile or +to the sea-shore or some place where she'd meet other people. In a quiet +little country place like this a man like Leland Harcourt looms up big +on a young girl's horizon; a girl just out of school, eager for new +interests. It isn't wise in us to allow her to be restricted just to his +society, when we could so easily give her the safe-guard of contrasts." + +Mr. Sherman looked down at his wife with an indulgent smile. + +"Don't you worry," he repeated. "Lloyd will do a lot of romantic +day-dreaming probably, but she has my 'yard-stick' and I have her +promise." + +"But Jack, I verily believe the child thinks he measures up to all your +requirements. And really there is nothing one can urge against his +character. It's more a matter of temperament. I am sure she couldn't be +happy with him. She's just at the romantic age now to be very much +impressed with that kind of a man. If she were older she would see his +shallowness--his lack of purpose, his intense selfishness. I don't think +that we ought to shut our eyes to the possible outcome of this constant +companionship we are allowing." + +"Well," he answered hesitatingly, slow to acknowledge his wife's +distrust of Lloyd's judgment, yet quick to see the wisdom of her point +of view. "Maybe you are right. But," he added wistfully, "I had hoped to +keep her home this summer. She has been away at school so long--and +she'll be in town so much next winter if she makes her début. Wait till +I have had a talk with her before you plan any trips." + +"But don't you see," urged Mrs. Sherman, "it is something too +intangible to discuss. To speak to her about it now, to make any +opposition to him at all, may quicken her interest in him and make her +champion his cause. That would be fatal, and yet it's just as dangerous +to wait. Love at that age is like a fog. It comes creeping up so +gradually that you don't realize what is enveloping you, till you're +completely lost in it, and all the rest of the world shut out." + +"You speak from experience?" he said teasingly. + +"You know very well," she confessed laughingly, "what a befogged state +_I_ was in. All papa's breathing out of 'threatening and slaughter' +didn't make the slightest difference. I was blind and deaf to everything +but you. And I'd want Lloyd to be the same," she added hastily, "if you +were as unreasonable as papa was then. But the circumstances are too +different to be compared. I'm simply warning you that the Little +Colonel's name was not lightly given. She has not only all my +determination in her makeup, but her grandfather's as well." + +Here the gardener met them, and the conversation dropped. The next half +hour was spent in consultation over some changes to be made in the +conservatory. + +When they went back to the house Leland Harcourt had gone, and Lloyd was +just stepping into Doctor Shelby's buggy, which was drawn up in front of +the house. The old doctor waited for them to come within hearing +distance before he leaned out and called: + +"I'm just borrowing the Little Colonel for awhile. There's a case over +at Rollington that needs the attention of her King's Daughters Circle, +and I'm taking her over to investigate it. We'll be home before dark." + +"All right," called Mr. Sherman, waving his hat as Lloyd looked back at +them with a smile and a flutter of her handkerchief. During the winter +that Lloyd had joined the Circle, and in the summer vacations following, +it had been a matter of frequent occurrence for the old doctor to take +her with him on such errands. Remembering how interested Lloyd had +become in many of the cases, Mrs. Sherman breathed a sigh of +thankfulness, hoping that this might prove to be one that would enlist +her sympathies and occupy so much of her time that it would make a +serious break in the Spanish lessons. + +It had been a happy afternoon for Lloyd. If she had stopped and tried to +recall what made it so, she could not have mentioned any particular +thing. To be young and well and filled with the same glow that made the +summer day a joy was enough, but to feel that some one whose opinion she +valued very much found her charming, and said so with every glance of +his dark eyes, was more than enough. It made her cup of happiness +complete and brimmed it over. + +The doctor was pouring out a tale of somebody's woes, but the trace of a +smile lingered on her lips as she made a polite attempt to listen. She +could not quite shut out the thought of that last game of tennis, and +the trivial pleasantries that had gone to make up the sum of her great +content. There was a dreamy, far-away look in her eyes as she listened. +The Spanish serenade that Leland Harcourt had sung before he left kept +repeating itself over and over, a sort of undercurrent to what the +doctor was saying. She beat time to it with her finger-tips on the side +of the buggy. Once it rose so insistently that she lost what the doctor +was saying, and came to herself with a start when a familiar name +arrested her attention. + +"Ned Bannon's wife!" she repeated in astonishment. "You suahly can't +mean that it's Ida Shane who's sick ovah in that tumbledown cottage of +the McCarty's!" + +"I surely do," he answered. "She didn't want to come back to this part +of the country, goodness knows. She remembers what a commotion it raised +when she eloped from the Seminary with Ned, five years ago. But Ned has +scarcely drawn a sober breath for the last year. She's sure of getting +needlework here, and with little Wardo to consider there was nothing for +her to do but put her pride in her pocket and come." + +"Little Wardo!" breathed Lloyd wonderingly. The ride seemed full of +surprises. + +"Yes, she has a little son about four years old, I judge. And it is on +his account that I have asked the help of the King's Daughters. He'll +have to be taken away from her till she's better, for she is morbidly +sensitive about keeping Ned's failings from him. She has never allowed +him to find out that his father is a drunkard. She makes a hero of him +to the little fellow. Seems to think that he'll blame her for giving him +such a father by marrying a man whom she had been warned would bring her +nothing but trouble and disgrace. She's desperately ill, and of course +in her weak condition she magnifies the matter. It has become a mania +with her." + +"Poah Violet!" exclaimed Lloyd in distress, her thoughts flying back to +the scene in the school orchard five years ago, when watching the +glimmer of the pearl on Ida's white hand in the moonlight she had been +thrilled by her whisper: "He says that's what my life means to him--a +pearl; and that my influence can make him the man I want him to be. Oh, +Princess! I'd give my life to keep him straight!" + +Not even an echo of the serenade was in her memory now. Her knowledge of +Ida's nearness seemed to bring her old school-friend actually before +her: the faint odour of violets, the shy glance of her appealing violet +eyes under the long lashes, the bewitching dimple at the corner of her +mouth, the flash of her rings, the sweep of her long skirts, the soft +hair gleaming under the big-plumed picture hat, more than all the air of +romance and mystery that surrounded her because of the pearl and the +secret engagement to her "Edwardo." + +"I hadn't intended for her to see you," said the doctor, when her +exclamations and questions revealed to him the intimacy that had once +existed between them. "But under the circumstances it will be the best +thing I can do. I'll go in first and prepare her for the meeting, +however. She thinks she hasn't a friend left on earth, on account of her +unhappy marriage. Everybody warned her against it." + +The front door stood open, and Lloyd sat down on the broken step to +wait. It seemed impossible that she was going to find Ida, the +embodiment of daintiness and refinement, in this dilapidated old place. +The whitewash had long ago dropped in scales from the rough walls. The +window-panes were broken, the shutters sagging, half the pickets off the +fence. Not a spear of grass ventured up in the barren yard, where a rank +unpruned peach-tree struggled for its life in the baked earth. The house +stood so near the road that the thick summer dust rolled in +suffocatingly whenever a vehicle passed. + +"How can people exist in such an awful desolate, forsaken spot?" she +wondered, looking around with a shudder of disgust. That Ida, dainty +beauty-loving Ida, who scorned everything that was common and coarse, +should be lying inside in that dark room was more than she could +believe. + +A wagon rattled by, and she put her handkerchief up to her face, stifled +by the cloud of dust that rose in its wake. When she ventured to take +it down again and draw a long breath, a chubby, barefooted child was +standing in the path in front of her, regarding her curiously. The wagon +made so much noise that she had not heard his bare feet pattering around +the house. She gave a little start of surprise, then smiled at him, for +he was an attractive little fellow, despite the fact that his face was +smeared with the remains of the bread and jam he had just been enjoying +at one of the neighbours, and his gingham apron was in rags. He had +caught it on the barb wire fence as he climbed through. + +As he smiled back at her shyly from under his long lashes, Lloyd's +interest quickened, for there was no mistaking the likeness of those +violet eyes and the dimple that came at the corner of his cupid's bow of +a mouth. They were so like Ida's that she smiled and said confidently, +"You're Wardo. Aren't you!" + +He nodded gravely, then after another long silent scrutiny, turned away +to pour the sand out of the old tin can he was carrying, in a pile under +the peach-tree. If it had not been for the jam and the dirt Lloyd would +have caught him up and kissed him, he was such a dear little thing, with +a thatch of short golden curls. But her fastidious dislike of touching +anything dirty made her draw back. It was well for the furtherance of +their acquaintance that she did so. He was not accustomed to caresses +from strangers. He accepted her presence on the door-step without +question, and presently, as the moments passed and she made no movement +towards him, he went up to her with friendly curiosity. + +"Is you got a sand-pile to your house?" he asked. + +"No," she confessed, feeling that he would consider her lacking on that +account and that she must hasten to mention other attractions. "But I +have a red and green bird that can talk, and a little black pony named +'Tarbaby.' It's so little that there's nobody at my house now small +enough to ride it. So it stays all day long in the field and eats +grass." + +"I'm little enough to ride it," he began confidently. + +Just then the doctor came out, and she sprang up, her heart throbbing. +"I'm going now for the nurse," he said in a low tone. "She's due on the +next train. Keep her as quiet as possible. Of course you'll have to let +her free her mind, but promise her almost anything to soothe her. I'll +be back in quarter of an hour." + +Frightened at being left alone with such a weight of responsibility +thrust upon her, Lloyd tiptoed into the house. In the dim light she +almost stumbled over the cot on which Ned Bannon lay in a drunken +stupor, and her first glance at the bed beyond made her draw back in +dismay. She never would have recognized the white face on the pillow as +Ida's, had it not been for the appealing eyes turned towards her. + +Five years of poverty and illness and neglect had changed the pretty +little school-girl into a faded, care-worn woman. She had been crying +ever since she was taken sick, and now was so weak and hysterical that +she caught at Lloyd with a cry, and clung to her sobbing. + +"Oh, it kills me to have you find me this way!" she gasped, "when I've +tried so long to hide what we've come to. But I'm glad you've come, for +the baby's sake! Oh, Lloyd, what's going to become of my little Wardo!" + +It was several minutes before she could talk coherently, and then she +began to sob out the story of her married life, her miserable failure to +reform Ned. Lloyd tried to stop her presently, thinking she was +becoming delirious, but she might as well have tried to stop a high +tide. + +"Oh, I have been so proud!" she sobbed. "I couldn't tell anybody. I +couldn't tell you now if I wasn't afraid that I might die, like that +poor woman across the street last night. She's left five little +children. But I can't leave my little Wardo like that!" she broke out +desperately. "I _know_ he has inherited Ned's awful appetite. I must +stay and help him fight it, _for it's all my fault_. I gave him such a +father. A father that he can never be proud of! A father that will be +only a disgrace to him! Oh, why didn't somebody warn me that it was not +only a husband I was choosing but my little Wardo's father! Nobody ever +told me _that_, and I was so young I never thought of any one but +myself. And now the poor little innocent soul will have to suffer for it +all his life long!" + +She was throwing herself about so wildly that Lloyd was frightened, and +rose from her chair to call one of the neighbours. But she could not +break away. Ida caught at her dress and held her fast in her frenzied +clasp. + +"But I tell you I won't let him grow up to be like that!" she cried with +her eyes glaring wildly at the drunken man on the cot across the room. +"I'll kill him with my own hands first, while he is little and good. God +would understand, wouldn't he? He couldn't blame me for trying to save +my baby! But if he did I'd have to do it anyway. I'd have to do it and +take the punishment. I can't have my little Wardo grow up to be like +_that_." + +The sound of his name brought the child to the door. He came pattering +in, and climbing up on the bed beside his mother, stroked her face with +his dirty little dimpled hand. The soft touch quieted Ida in an instant, +and with an effort to speak calmly she looked up at Lloyd. + +"The doctor said the baby must go away for awhile, for fear of the +fever. But I can't give him up to just anybody, Lloyd. The neighbours +have been good and kind, but I'm afraid he might find out from some of +the children about Ned--you know. But with you--Oh, Lloyd, would it be +asking too much if--" + +She stopped with her question half uttered, but the imploring look in +her eyes was a prayer that Lloyd could not resist, and she held out her +arms toward the little figure cuddled up on the bed. + +"I'll take him till you're better," she promised impulsively. + +The tears welled up in Ida's eyes again. She was so weak the least thing +started them. + +"He's never been away from me a single night in his life," she said +brokenly. "I couldn't give him up to anybody but you." Then seeing the +frightened look that crept into the child's face as he listened to the +conversation which he but half understood, she wiped her eyes and smiled +at him tremulously. + +"Dear little son, you want to help mother get well, don't you, lamb? +Then go with mother's dearest friend for awhile. She'll take care of you +while the good doctor makes me well. And she'll tell you stories and +make you have such a happy time." + +"And let you ride on the black pony," broke in Lloyd eagerly, anxious to +clear away the troubled pucker on the child's face that came at mention +of a separation. + +"An' hear the wed and gween bird talk!" he added himself, his face +lighting up at the thought. Then he laid his plump little hand on Ida's +hot cheek to compel her attention. It was a gesture she loved, and she +kissed his fingers passionately as he said with an eager voice, "She has +a bird that can talk, muv'ah. I'll go and hear what it says an' n'en +I'll come back an' tell you." + +Evidently his idea of separation was based on the length of the +neighbourhood visits he had made, and he accepted Lloyd's invitation +willingly, expecting a speedy return. + +"Let's go wite away, Dea'st Fwend," he exclaimed, wriggling down off the +bed. "I'll get my hat." + +If anything had been needed to complete Lloyd's surrender to the little +fellow's charms, it was the sweet way in which he gave her the title +"Dearest Friend." That was what his mother had called her, and he +thought it was her name. She caught him up and kissed him, despite the +jam streaks and the dirt. + +"Come on and have yoah face washed and yoah curls brushed, so we'll be +all ready when the buggy comes back," she said, hurrying to make him +presentable before his mood could change. + +As she gathered his clothes together and packed them for the short +journey in a dress box which she found under the bed, it made an ache +grip her throat to see how Ida had thrown the shield of her mother-love +around him in every way possible. There was no mark of poverty here. +She had cut up her own clothes, relics of a happier time, to make the +little linen suits that were so pretty and becoming. No child in the +Valley was better clad, or looked so much like a little aristocrat, as +long as she was able to give him her daily attention. + +He was so accustomed to being washed and brushed and dressed that he +made no objection to what most children of that age consider an +unnecessary process, and when Lloyd went about it with unpractised +fingers, he gravely corrected her mistakes, and laughed when she made a +play of the buttonholes being hungry mouths, that swallowed the buttons +in a hurry. Never in her life had she exerted herself so much to be +entertaining, for she wanted to take him away without a scene. She +wanted, too, for him to look his best, that he might win his own way at +The Locusts. She thought with a trifle of uneasiness that her impulsive +act might not meet her family's entire approval. + +Ida's separation from him was a painful one, for she realized her +condition, and knew that it was possible that this might be her last +sight of him. As Lloyd turned away with her parting cry ringing in her +ears, "Oh, be good to him! Be good to him!" a great tenderness sprang up +in her heart for the child who put his hand in hers so trustingly, and +trotted away beside her obediently at his mother's bidding. At the cot +he stopped to clamber up and kiss the red face, burrowed down in the +pillows in a sodden sleep. "My poor farvah's sick too," he explained +looking up at her, as if bespeaking sympathy for him also. + +Once in the buggy, while they waited for the doctor to unfasten the +hitch-rein, he reached up and put his hand on her cheek in his baby +fashion to ask her a question. The touch brought the tears to her eyes, +it was so confiding, and she was still so shaken by the scene she had +just witnessed. In a great throb of tenderness for the helpless little +body given over to her care, she drew him closer, with a hasty kiss on +the top of his curly head. + +"Dea'st Fwend," he said, smiling up at her as if he understood the +reason of her sudden caress. Then he cuddled his head against her +shoulder in a satisfied way, saying, "Tell me again what the wed and +gween bird says." + +As they drove in at the entrance gate to The Locusts, Lloyd recalled an +experience she had not thought of in years; an autumn day, when only a +baby herself, not yet six, she had been left to make her way alone up +this same avenue. She had never spent a night away from her mother, and +she was to stay a week alone with her grandfather, who did not know how +to sing her to sleep and kiss her eye-lids down so she wouldn't be +afraid of the black shadows in the corners. Here by this very gate she +had stood, assailed by such a great ache of loneliness and homesickness +that she was sure she would die if she had to endure it another moment. +And there was the spot where, rustling around in the dead leaves, Fritz +had found the little gray glove her mother had dropped when she stooped +to kiss her good-bye. + +As she remembered how she had carried that glove, all week, rolled up in +a little wad in her pocket, to help her to be good and not to cry, she +resolved that Wardo should not have the same experience if any effort of +hers could prevent it. She would devote her time to him night and day +and keep him so happily employed, there would be no time for "the sorry +feelin's" that had been her childish undoing. There was no care or +accustomed tenderness he should miss. + +It was nearly dark when she reached home, and so afraid was she that the +nightfall itself would make Wardo homesick, that she began to provide +for his entertainment even before she made any explanation to her +astonished family. + +[Illustration: "FOR ONCE THE RED AND GREEN BIRD WAS ON ITS GOOD +BEHAVIOUR."] + +"Oh, Papa Jack," she called. "Please find the parrot right away for +Wardo to see, then I'll explain everything." + +For once the red and green bird was on its good behaviour, and began to +show off as soon as it was brought to the front. While Wardo watched it, +wide-eyed and absorbed, Lloyd gave an excited and tearful account of her +visit to Ida. The old Colonel said something about the fever and the +danger of infection, but when she had finished her story nobody else had +the heart to show displeasure at what she had done. + +"And I won't let him be a trouble to anybody!" she added. "I'll take +care of him every bit myself, and keep him out of the way." + +As Mrs. Sherman watched her leading the child up-stairs, talking to him +at every step to keep his thoughts diverted from home, and then heard +her giving orders to Walker about her old high chair and little white +crib to be brought down from the attic, she turned to Mr. Sherman with a +sigh of relief. + +"She's found her own antidote for the Spanish lessons, Jack. We won't +have to go away to the springs or the mountains now, I'm sure." + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +MORE SHADOWS + + +FROM that first night, Wardo had the entire household at his feet. Lloyd +scarcely touched her own dinner in her anxiety to anticipate his wants. +He was very near tears sometimes, when his furtive glances around the +table showed only strange faces, but he was "a game little chap" as the +Colonel said, and "a credit to whoever had taught him his manners." + +He could not be induced to speak save in whispers, when Lloyd put a +protecting arm around the high chair where he sat, and with an indulgent +smile leaned over with her ear almost touching his lips. Before the +dinner was over he fell asleep, worn out by the unusual excitement of +the day, his curly head laid confidingly on "Dea'st Fwend's" shoulder. + +"Sh!" whispered Lloyd warningly to the coloured man who came in to +change the plates for dessert. "Wait a minute. Carry him up-stairs +first, please, Papa Jack. If I can get him undressed without waking him +he'll miss one homesick crying spell anyhow." + +Leland Harcourt came just as she had accomplished the task, and Betty +tiptoed into the room to tell her. Lloyd looked down at the little +white-gowned figure in the crib, and shook her head as it stirred +restlessly. "I'll stay with him," offered Betty. + +"No, I must wait till I'm suah he's sound asleep. You explain to Mistah +Harcourt, please, and I'll come down aftah awhile. Oh, Betty! Isn't he a +darling? It's going to be moah fun taking care of him than dressing +dolls used to be!" + +It wasn't so much fun next morning, however, when he cried to be taken +to his mother. Every sob that shook the little shoulders tore Lloyd's +heart also, for remembering the violence of her own childish grieving, +she put herself into Wardo's place so completely that she cried too. +Then everybody in the house rose to the occasion. Papa Jack brought out +Tarbaby, and walked him up and down the avenue as long as Wardo was +pleased to sit in the saddle. Mrs. Sherman took him to the stables to +see half a dozen gray kittens that had made their home in the hay, and +Walker carried him pick-a-back to look at the calves. + +After that the old Colonel unsheathed his sword and got out his spurs, +and started to tell the bloodiest battle tales he knew, and when they +did not meet with the approval he expected, he actually invented a game +of bear, which they played in his den. They played it till Wardo began +shrieking with thrills of real fear at the fearsome growling and the big +fur gloves thrust at him from behind the leather couch. He grew so +nervous and excited that the Colonel was at a loss to know how to calm +the whirlwind he had unintentionally stirred up. + +It was Betty who came to the rescue. She led him down to the orchard, +and taking him on her lap in the old swing, swung him so high up into +the top of the apple-tree that they could look over and see the eggs in +a blue-bird's nest. Then little by little she stopped their swinging, +till presently they were swaying very gently back and forth near the +ground, and she had charmed him into quietness with one of the old tales +that she used to tell Davy, about the elves who live in the buttercups +and ride far miles on the bumblebees. + +Glancing up towards the house, she saw Leland Harcourt mounting the +steps. It was the hour for Lloyd's lesson. So although she had intended +to spend the morning outlining a magazine story which she had in mind, +she took a fresh grip on the swing rope, and began another tale. + +That was the way Wardo's entertainment went on for the next few days. He +was not allowed an idle moment in which to think of going home. So what +with all these amusements and the novelty of constant attention from his +elders, it was not long before he developed into a veritable little +tyrant, demanding attention every moment of his waking hours. But when +her unremitting service grew irksome Lloyd had only to think of Ida, +tossing helpless and delirious at the mercy of the wasting fever. Her +daily visits to the cottage kept her in full realization of the +seriousness of the case, and a deeper feeling of tenderness swept over +her whenever she came back to Wardo after one of these visits, for each +time she knew that the dreaded crisis was nearer, and she could not bear +to think of his being left motherless. + +"It will just kill him!" she thought with tears in her eyes, as she +watched the pitiful quivering of his mouth and the manly attempt to +choke back his sobs, whenever Ida's name was mentioned. So to make sure +that he was happily employed she took him wherever she went, except on +that one short drive which she made daily to Rollington. When she and +Betty spent the day at The Beeches or the Cabin, he was one of the +party. When Miss Marks had another expedition to finish her Garden +Fancies, he was included in the group, and a charming picture he made, +as with a butterfly net in his hand, he stooped to point to the figures +on the old sun-dial, that marked the flight of the happy summer. + +It was from this expedition that they drove back one evening in the +early August twilight. He had been asleep most of the way home, but +roused up as the carriage turned in at the gate. Betty, leaning forward +in her seat, drew a long breath. + +"Oh, smell the lilies!" she exclaimed, looking across the lawn to where +they stood, like tall white ghosts in the twilight. "How heavenly sweet! +Such a delicious ending to such a nice day. Do you know, Lloyd, I've +been feeling all the way home as if I were going to hear from my book +to-night. The publishers have had plenty of time to read it since I sent +it. I feel it in my bones that there'll be a letter waiting for me." + +"_How_ do you feel fings wif your bones, Betty?" asked Wardo, sleepily +raising his curly head from Lloyd's shoulder. + +"Oh, I couldn't make you understand," she answered. "It's just a sort of +happy flutter all through you that tells you something nice is going to +happen." + +"What's flutter?" asked the tireless questioner, but Betty paid no heed. +The carriage had reached the steps, and with a spring she was out, +calling eagerly as she stepped into the broad path of light streaming +across the porch from the hall door, "Any mail for me, godmother?" + +"Nothing but a package," answered Mrs. Sherman, coming out to meet them. +"And it will keep. Better run on in and eat your dinner first. Cindy has +been keeping it hot for you all." + +But Betty could not wait. As she darted into the hall Mrs. Sherman +turned to Lloyd, who was half dragging, half lifting the sleepy Wardo up +the steps. + +"Poor little girl," she said in a low tone. "I wanted to put off her +disappointment as long as possible, and not spoil her happy day with +such an ending. Her manuscript has come back from the publishers." + +"Oh, mothah!" exclaimed Lloyd in distress. "You don't mean that they've +refused it! They suahly couldn't have done _that_! Maybe they've just +sent it back for her to make some changes in it." + +Betty's voice in the door stopped her. As long as she lived, Lloyd never +again smelled the odour of August lilies when they were heavy with dew, +that she did not see the tragic misery of Betty's white face as it +appeared that moment in the light of the hall lamp. + +"They've sent it back, godmother," she said in a low even tone. "It +wasn't good enough. It's all a miserable mistake to think that I can +write, for I put the very best of myself into this and it is a failure." + +"No! No!" began Lloyd, but Betty would not wait for any attempted +comfort. "I don't want any dinner," she said, then with her mouth +twitching piteously as she fought back the tears, she ran up-stairs, and +they heard the door close and the key turn in the lock. + +Nobody ever knew what went on behind that locked door, for Betty was as +quiet in her griefs as she was in her joy and made no audible moan. She +threw herself across the foot of the bed and lay there staring out of +the window in the hopelessness of utter defeat. The katydids shrilling +in the Locusts seemed to fill the night with an unbearable discord. She +put her hands over her ears to shut out the hateful sound. It seemed to +her that nothing mattered any more. As she slowly recalled all her +months of painstaking work, the keen pleasure that each hour of it had +afforded her was turned into bitterness by the thought that it had +proved a failure. + +Only once before had she felt such hopelessness. That was at the first +house-party, when she thought she was doomed to be blind. They had +brought her the newspaper containing her first published poem. It was +called "Night," and as they guided her finger over the page that it +might rest proudly on the place where her name was printed, she had +faltered, "It's going to be such a long night, and there are no stars in +this one!" + +Now the outlook seemed even more hopeless, bereft of the star of her +great hope. The ambition to be an author had been a part of her so long, +that it seemed even more indispensable than her eye-sight. + +The slow hot tears began to drop down on her pillow after awhile, tears +of mortification as well as disappointment. The girls would have to +know. She had been foolish to make such a parade of her attempt. She +should have waited. But then she had been so _sure_ that her story was +a good one. That was the hardest part to bear, that she had been so +mistaken. It would have been easier, she thought bitterly, if her +rebuffs had come earlier; if some of her first contributions had been +returned. But the way had been made so easy for her. Her very first +poems had been accepted, printed, praised. Everybody had predicted +success, everybody expected great things of her, even old Bishop +Chartley. The girls at school had openly proclaimed her as a genius, the +teachers had praised every effort and urged her to greater, the whole +Valley looked upon her as one set apart by a special gift. + +Was it any wonder, she asked herself, that she had come to believe in +her own ability. It was as if she had been urged down a flowery path by +each one she met, to find that every guide was mistaken, and that the +way they pointed out ended in a dismal slough of disappointment. + +Presently she heard Wardo's little feet on the stairs, pattering up to +bed, and his voice raised in his ceaseless questioning; then a little +later Lloyd's voice singing him to sleep. After that there was the sound +below of people coming and going, Leland Harcourt's laugh and the scrape +of wheels on the gravelled drive. + +She felt a dull throb of gratitude that the family left her alone. + +A long time after she heard the closing and locking of doors, and then +steps again on the stairs. Some one stopped outside her door. + +"Good-night, Betty deah." + +"Good-night," she answered in a voice which she tried to keep steady, +but there was a sob in it, and divining that the kindest thing would be +not to notice it, Lloyd choked back the word of sympathy she longed to +speak, and went on to her room. + +Nearly an hour after Betty got up, and lighting her lamp, sat down at +the desk where the rejected manuscript lay. Turning it over listlessly, +she read a paragraph here and there, trying to see it through the eyes +of the publisher who had returned it. If he had sent merely a printed +notice of refusal, such as she had been told was customary, stating +impersonally that it was returned with regret because unavailable, she +would have started it off again at daybreak to another place, knowing +that what does not fill the special need of one firm may be seized with +alacrity by another. But this man had taken the trouble to explain why +it was unavailable. + +Now, in the light of that explanation, she wondered with burning cheeks +how she could have thought for one instant that it was good. She could +see, herself, that it was crude and childish and ineffectual; not the +style in which it was written. Betty was sure of her ability there. She +was as conscious that her diction and composition measured up to the +best standards, as an athlete is conscious of his strength. It was her +view-point of life that had amused the great publisher. He hadn't +ridiculed it in words, but she felt his covert smile at her schoolgirl +attempt to deal with the world's big problems, and the knowledge that he +had been amused cut her like a knife. + +Pushing the package aside, she took out the last volume of her diary, +and from force of habit made an entry, the record of the return of her +manuscript. "It has come back to me, the little bark that the girls +launched so gaily, with ceremony and good wishes. It has come back a +shipwreck! It was almost easier to face blindness than it is to face +this failure. How can I give up this hope that has grown with my growth +till it means more than everything else in the world to me? How can I +live all the rest of my life without it? Somehow for years I have felt +that the Lord wanted me to write. The feeling was like the King's call +to Edryn, and I have gone on answering it as he did: + + "'Oh list! + Thou heart and hand of mine, keep tryst, + Keep tryst or die!' + +"Of course it would be folly for me to go on now, when it has been +proved beyond all doubt that I am not able to keep the great tryst +worthily, and yet--life seems so empty with this one high hope and +purpose taken out of it, that I am not brave enough to face it +cheerfully." + +It had long been a habit of Betty's, formed in the early days at the +Cuckoo's Nest, to comfort herself when things went wrong by imagining +how much worse they might have been. Now there was a drop of consolation +in the fact that she had never displayed her pride in her book to any +but the girls. It had been a temptation to show it to her godmother and +Papa Jack and the Colonel, especially after the girls had applauded it +so enthusiastically; but the wish for them to see it at its best had +made her withhold it in its manuscript form. The climax of her triumph +was to be when she placed in their hands a real, full-fledged book. +Their criticism might have spared her the humiliation of a rejected +manuscript, but she acknowledged to herself that it was easier to have +the sentence passed on it by a stranger than by the three whose opinion +she valued most. + +Tiptoeing noiselessly around the room in order not to disturb any one at +that late hour, she undressed slowly, and creeping into bed sobbed +herself to sleep. Betty had always been a sensible little soul, taking +her small troubles like a philosopher, and next morning, when she was +awakened by the first bird-calls and lay watching the light creep up the +wall, the old childish habit of thought asserted itself, bringing an +unexpected balm to her sore heart. She had always loved allegories. At +the Cuckoo's Nest she had helped herself over all the rough places in +her road by imagining that she was Christian in "Pilgrim's Progress," +and that no matter how hard a time she was having then, the House +Beautiful and the Delectable Mountains and the City of the Shining Ones +lay just ahead. + +Now in her greater trouble it was the allegory of Edryn that brought +comfort, because he, too, had heard the King's call and striven to keep +tryst, and she remembered that when he knelt to receive his knighthood, +something else besides pearls and diamonds flashed on his vestment above +his heart, to form the letters "semper fidelis." + +"_An amethyst glowed on his breast in purple splendour to mark his +patient meeting with Defeat!_" + +"Maybe without that amethyst he couldn't have spelled all the motto +perfectly," thought Betty. She sat up in bed, her face alight with the +inspiration of the thought. She had met defeat and she had fallen into a +grievous Dungeon of Disappointment, but she needn't stay in it. She +sprang out of bed echoing Edryn's words: "Full well I know that Heaven +always finds a way to help the man who helps himself, and even dungeon +walls must harbour help for him who boldly grasps the first thing that +he sees and makes it serve him!" + +It was a brave way to begin the day, and it carried her over the first +part of it so cheerfully that Mrs. Sherman began to think that she had +overestimated Betty's disappointment. It surely could not have been as +overwhelming as she imagined. She did not know how many times that day +Betty's courage failed her. Edryn's high-sounding words seemed like a +hollow mockery and she brooded over the failure till she began to grow +morbid and ultra-sensitive. + +Late that afternoon Mrs. Sherman met her in the back hall with the +manuscript in her hands. She was on her way to put it in the kitchen +stove. Promptly rescuing it, Mrs. Sherman finally obtained her +reluctant consent to let her read it. + +"It is your right," said Betty bitterly, "no matter how much it +humiliates me. You have done everything for me, lavished everything on +me as if I were really your daughter, and I have disappointed you at +every turn. I couldn't be the brilliant social success you hoped for, it +was useless to try. And I couldn't be the success in literature you had +a right to expect, though I did try that with all my soul, mind and +strength. I've been thinking about it all day, and I made up my mind at +last, that I'd burn up that miserable story that I wasted so many months +on, and then I'd go to you and tell you that under the circumstances it +would be better for me to go away, and not be an expense to you any +longer. As long as there was a prospect of my amounting to something +some day that would make you proud of me, that would repay you in part +for all you've done, I didn't mind deepening my obligation to you, but +_now_--" + +She turned to the window to hide her face, but the next instant she +found herself sitting on the top stair with her head on her godmother's +shoulder, listening to such loving remonstrances that they should have +driven away the last vestige of her bitter self-condemnation. It did +help wonderfully to hear that her godmother and Papa Jack were not +disappointed in _her_ though grieved for her disappointment; that they +loved her for her own dear little self alone, and not for the things +they hoped she would achieve, and that they couldn't let her go away, +for nobody could ever fill the place of their dear little daughter +Betty. + +She wiped her eyes after awhile and smiled like an April day, but she +still persisted that she must go away somewhere and teach if only to +prove that she was good for something. + +Much troubled by her evident distress, Mrs. Sherman finally went to talk +the matter over with the old Colonel. Mr. Sherman was away from home. +Several days after she called Betty into her room. + +"Papa has read your manuscript," she said, "and he thinks it would be a +good thing to let you have your own way, and go off somewhere for +awhile. He says that in his opinion your writing shows unusual promise, +and that its only lack is the lack of nearly all young writers, your +ignorance of life. You must know more of the world before you can have a +message for it that it will stop to listen to. You must live and grow +and gain experience, and he thinks the best way for you to do all that, +is to depend on your own resources for awhile, and that the kindest +thing we can do is to open the cage and give the little bird a chance to +try its own wings. It will never learn to fly as long as we keep it +hedged about so carefully. + +"He finally convinced me by quoting that legend of 'Camelback Mountain' +to me. He says you are like Shapur now, a vendor of salt who as yet can +only follow in the train of others--write what has already been written. +You haven't _the wares_ with which to gain a royal entrance to the City +of your Desire. You need some desert of waiting in which to learn the +secret of Omar's alchemy." + +"I know," said Betty. "I know now what my writing lacks--the attar that +gained him his royal entrance." She quoted softly, "'And no man fills +his crystal vase with it until he has first been pricked by the world's +disappointments and bowed by its tasks.'" + +"Oh, Betty, my dear little girl," said Mrs. Sherman taking the earnest +face between her hands and looking down fondly into the trusting brown +eyes raised to hers. "I suppose it's true, but I can't help wanting to +save you from the pricks and the burdens. Still I won't stand in your +way. Go ahead, little Shapur, and may the golden gates swing wide for +you, for I know you'll force them open some day, with the filling of +your crystal vase." + +A quarter of an hour later Betty was hurrying down the road in happy +haste, a telegram in her hand for Warwick Hall. It was to Madam Chartley +asking if she knew of any vacant position for teachers, in any of the +schools of her acquaintance. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +BY THE SILVER YARD-STICK + + +WITH her days shadowed by anxiety over Ida's illness, the care and +responsibility of Wardo and her sympathy for Betty's disappointment, +Lloyd still found one bright spot, untouched by other people's troubles. +If, like the old sun-dial at Warwick Hall, she had taken for her motto: +"I only mark the hours that shine," those hours when Leland Harcourt +came to teach her Spanish were the ones that would have been numbered. + +If she had felt that he regarded it as a bore, or that it cost him the +slightest effort, she would have dropped the study immediately; but when +he made it plain that it was the chief interest of his days, and the one +thing that made his summer in the Valley endurable, she could not help +being flattered by his assertions, and exerted herself all the more to +make the hour a pleasant one. + +It was an agreeable sensation to know that she could interest a man who +had known so many interests; that it was she who held him in +Lloydsboro; that every turn of her head, every inflection of her voice, +every phase of her varying moods had a charm for him. It made her tingle +with satisfaction when she realized that she had justified Gay's +confidence in her power, but sometimes after he had gone she felt that +she was not exerting it to the extent she had promised. She wasn't +"keying him up to any higher pitch." She wasn't inspiring him with the +ambition which his family seemed to think was all that was necessary to +make him capable of any achievement. The idea of her influencing him did +not seem as preposterous and ridiculous as it had the first few weeks of +their acquaintance, but somehow it did not seem so necessary. Sometimes +she wondered if the "sweet doing nothing" that Gay said was in his blood +had not affected her also. Maybe that was why she liked his very +indolence, and forgave in him what she would have condemned in any other +chronic idler. Maybe he was influencing _her_. + +"But he sha'n't!" she declared to herself when the thought first +startled her, and to prove that he hadn't she seized the first +opportunity which came in her way to take him to task. His signet ring +bore the same crest that was on the silver ladle, and he used it one +morning to seal a note for her. With a significant glance in its +direction she asked saucily, "Señor Tarrypin, when are you going to put +your family motto into actual use? When are you going to begin striving +till you ovahcome--till you do something really worth while in the +world?" + +With the question came the quick remembrance of a winter day by the +churchyard stile, and Malcolm's boyish voice protesting earnestly--"I'll +be anything you want me to be, Lloyd." And then like a flash came that +other scene and Phil's pleading voice, "I say it in all humility, Lloyd, +this little bit of turquoise kept me 'true blue.'" + +If she had expected any such earnestness in Leland's reply she was soon +disillusioned, for with an amused side-glance at her, as if he found +this serious mood the most diverting of all, he said indifferently: + +"Oh--_mañana_." + +"To-morrow!" she translated quickly. "But to-morrow never comes." + +"Then neither need the effort." + +"But without the effort--the striving," she persisted, looking down at +the imprint of the tiny dagger on the seal, "there never will be any +crown." + +He shrugged his shoulders carelessly. "What's the odds, when one doesn't +care for a crown?" + +"You're just plain lazy!" she cried, provoked that her effort to inspire +him had met with such a reception. + +He smiled as if she had paid him the greatest of compliments, then sat +up with an air of interest. + +"This is a topic we've never struck before," he said lightly. "It's like +coming across an inviting bypath we've never travelled over. Now suppose +you tell me just what is your ideal way for a man to spend his life in +order to get the most out of it." + +Lloyd stole a quick glance at him to see if he were in earnest. The +light tone seemed almost mocking, but the half-closed eyes gazing out +across the lawn were serious enough, and she studied her reply a moment, +feeling that maybe her opportunity had come at last. + +"I think," she began timidly, "that the man who gets the most out of +life is the one who makes most of himself--who starts out as they did in +the old days to win his spurs and his accolade. Maybe you know the story +of Edryn, the one that gave Warwick Hall its motto." + +He nodded, with that slightly amused smile which always disconcerted +her. "Yes, I know. That's Gay's pet war-cry--'Keep tryst.' But go on, +I'd like to hear your version of it." + +In the face of such an invitation she found it very hard to proceed, but +after a moment's hesitation she said almost defiantly: + +"Oh, I know you'll considah it a bit of school-girl sentiment to look at +life in such a figurative way, but I think it's beautiful: + +"'_To duty and to sorrow_,'" she quoted softly, "'_to disappointment and +defeat thou mayst be called. No matter what the tryst there is but one +reply if thou wouldst win thy knighthood!_'" + +"But suppose one never hears any call," he asked teasingly. "Never feels +the spirit move him to make any particular exertion." + +"Then it's yoah own fault!" cried Lloyd. "It's just as it says in the +legend. '_Only those will hear who wake at dawn to listen in high +places, and only those will heed who keep the compass needle of their +soul true to the North star of a great ambition!_'" + +"Pretty strenuous work, isn't that, for an August day?" he answered. +"And that's all very well for poets and priests and young idealists to +dream of, but when all's said and done, what's the good? What's the +use?" + +Clasping his hands behind his head he leaned back in his chair and began +reciting in a dreamy way, as if he were chanting the rhythmical lines, a +poem called "Drifting." It was like an incantation, and Lloyd sat +listening as if he were weaving some spell around her: + + "'My soul to-day + Is far away + Sailing the Vesuvian Bay. + My winged boat, + A bird afloat, + Swims round the purple peaks remote. + + * * * * * + + "'I heed not if + My rippling skiff + Float swift or slow from cliff to cliff; + With dreamful eyes + My spirit lies, + Under the walls of Paradise.'" + +As he went musically on, verse after verse, Lloyd sat listening, wholly +under the spell of his voice, yet with a baffled impotent sense of being +carried along by a current in exactly the opposite direction from the +one in which she had started to go. + + "'No more, no more + The worldly shore + Upbraids me with its wild uproar--'" + +It was a Lotus land of irresponsibility and ease and personal +gratification that he was revealing to her as his ideal of life. He +hadn't openly made fun of her enthusiasm and zeal, but he had chilled +her ardour and silenced her, and left her with the feeling that her +knights with their struggles after accolades and ambitions and all those +things were silly folk who made much ado about nothing. It made her +cross. + +In the silence that followed there was a shriek from Wardo, somewhere +back near the servants' quarters, and then such a lusty crying that +Lloyd sprang up frightened, and ran to the rescue. She was +conscience-smitten for having left him so long to the care of Enoch, +Cindy's little grandson, whom she had bribed to amuse him for an hour. +It was only because his constant presence and interruptions seemed to +bore Leland that she had done it. Wardo did make tyrannical demands on +her attention, she had to admit, dearly as she loved the child. But when +she found him crying from a bee-sting, and his poor little lip swollen +out of all resemblance to a Cupid's bow she felt a twinge of resentment +towards Leland. If she hadn't sent Wardo away from her, she thought +reproachfully, he wouldn't have been stung, and she wouldn't have sent +him if Leland had acted nicer about having him around. He had actually +muttered in Mom Beck's hearing that it was "a beastly bore always having +that kid poking in." + +She had resented it at the time Mom Beck repeated it, but excused it on +the ground that he was not used to children, and that Wardo's persistent +questions and demands did tax one's patience dreadfully sometimes. But +now as he clung to her, sobbing and screaming, she thought +reproachfully, "He might at least have come around to find out what was +the mattah, when he knows how devoted I am to the poah little thing, +even if he didn't take any interest in him himself. I'll keep Wardo with +me all the time aftah this, even if it does bo'ah him." + +Leading him back to the porch she took him in her lap and quieted him +with the promise of a wonderful box of paints which he should have next +day, with which to colour all the pretty pictures in all the magazines. +And she quite ignored Leland for awhile to punish him, not knowing that +he understood her pique and was amused at it, and that he was enjoying +the picture she made rocking back and forth in the low chair, with +Wardo's golden curls pressed against her shoulder, and the dimpled arms +clinging around her neck. + +Next day she forgot the paints until it was too late for her to get +them, and Betty who was going over to The Beeches and past the store, +offered to take Wardo and let him have the pleasure of buying them +himself. After they had gone she went down to the porch to wait for +Leland. It was almost lesson time. Yesterday's feeling of resentment had +entirely passed, and she looked down the avenue expectantly from her +seat behind the vines. Any moment he might turn in at the gate. The +thought gave her a pleasant thrill of anticipation. As the moments +slipped by she opened her book and began repeating the verses marked for +her to memorize. + +Presently she looked up to see a small coloured boy wandering up the +avenue as if he had no particular destination in view and no great +desire to arrive anywhere. She supposed he was the bearer of a message +to the cook, but instead of going around the house he came towards her +with a note in his hand. It was from Leland she saw at the first glance, +and written in Spanish at the second. + +She could read enough of it to understand that he was not coming that +morning, but for the rest of it she had to turn to her lexicon for help +in translating. After some time and with much difficulty she managed to +make out the reason. He had gone to Louisville for the day quite +unexpectedly with his brother--a matter of business. He was sorry not to +be able to keep his engagement with her. Only dire necessity kept him +away, and he would be with her in the evening. Until then adieu. She had +to turn to her lexicon again for that next word, and having found it +wondered how he had dared to put it in--that caressing little name, that +word of endearment which he would not have presumed to use in English. +It made the colour flame up in her face. + +But he was not coming. She let the note fall to her lap with an +exclamation of disappointment. Then wide eyed and surprised she sat up +straight, suddenly aware how deep that disappointment was; suddenly +realizing what she had never known till this moment, how large a place +Leland Harcourt had grown to hold in her thoughts. Everywhere she turned +she could see his face with that quick flashing smile she loved to bring +to it. She could see that impetuous toss of the head, the eager gesture +of his long slender hand, the easy grace of his manner that gave him +his distinguished, patrician air. + +"Why, I'm like Hildegarde!" she whispered wonderingly. "'His eyes are so +blue they fill all my dreams!' Only Mistah Harcourt's are dark." + +Now if Lloyd had never heard the story of the Three Weavers, never been +a member of the Order of Hildegarde, never made the promise to her +father about the silver yard-stick, her reverie in the hammock that +morning might have led to a very different result. But because she had +promised, and because she must keep tryst no matter how hard it was to +do, she faced the matter squarely. + +"He wouldn't have put that word in the note if he wasn't beginning to +care for me," she admitted, "and it wouldn't make me have that queah +little sawt of half-way glad feeling if I wasn't beginning to care for +him." + +The hammock swung faster. She was thinking of a day on the seashore +years before, when she had been playing out on the rocks. And while she +built her little castles the tide came creeping in, creeping so quietly +that she did not know it was there until all the sand between her and +safety was covered and a fisherman had to wade in and carry her out. +Although she did not put the comparison into words, that was what she +felt was happening now, and much as she liked him and loved to be with +him and missed him when he did not come, she felt that his influence +over her was creeping up like a tide that would surely drown her ability +to keep her promise to her father. + +"He _does_ influence me," she admitted to herself. "I might as well be +honest about it. Sometimes he can almost make me believe that black is +white. How do I know but what I might grow to be like poah mistaken +Hertha? He was only a page, but she called him prince in her thought +until she really believed him one." + +Then as yesterday's conversation came back to her she sprang from the +hammock saying to herself, "And he isn't even a knight, or he wouldn't +have made fun of my poah little attempt to make him listen to the King's +call. I'll not think about him a minute longah. It would only be +squandahing the golden thread that Clotho left me." + +Running up the stairs she got her hat and started to follow Betty. But +all the way up and all the way down and all the way that she went +towards The Beeches that little word at the end of the letter--that +sweet caressing bird-note of a name, sang itself over and over to her. +He had called her that, and to-night he was coming. + +She did not go all the way to The Beeches, for she met Betty on the way +back, Wardo proudly bearing his box of paints, and Betty re-reading a +letter which she had found in the office. It was from Madam Chartley. +There was a vacancy in Warwick Hall itself and she was to fill it; was +to be her beloved Miss Chilton's assistant in the English classes. Her +happiness was as great over this news as her disappointment had been +over the return of her manuscript. As Madam Chartley wanted her at the +school by the first of September there were only two weeks in which to +make her preparations to leave. + +Although Lloyd had heard the matter discussed she never fully believed +that Betty was going away from Locust until she had the letter in her +own hands and read Madam Chartley's expression of pleasure at the +prospect of having Betty with her permanently. It swept away all thought +of her own affairs, for Betty had grown as dear to her as a sister in +the years they had been together. She followed her mournfully into the +white and gold room, offering to help her with her preparations, and +pouring out her regret and her disapproval of Betty's plans. It wasn't +necessary at all she insisted for Betty to leave them, and Locust +wouldn't be the same place with her gone. + +Wardo required less attention than usual that afternoon, for charmed +with his new paints, he sat at a low table in Betty's room while the +girls sewed and talked, and coloured the pictures in every magazine he +could lay his hands on. It was sunset when Lloyd noticed how long he had +been bending over the table, and persuaded him to lay aside his brush +till next day. + +"Look at the pretty red sunset," she urged, trying to interest him in +something else. "It's as red as a cherry." + +He looked at it solemnly, considering her comparison. "No, it's wed as +the blood of a thousand dwagons," he answered. + +Lloyd looked at him in astonishment. "What do you know about dragons, +child?" + +"Betty telled me, when I painted one wif my paints, here in this book." +He began turning the leaves of one of the magazines. "Dwagons is the +stwongest fings there is," he added with a knowing wag of his head, +feeling that she needed enlightenment. "But my fahvah could fight +one--He's so stwong. My fahvah could fight anyfing." + +"Always the same old story," said Lloyd in a low tone to Betty. "Isn't +it dreadful? Always harping on the perfection of his hero. Seems to me +it would have been bettah if she had not tried to keep the truth from +him. The disillusionment is going to be feahful some of these days. It +will shake his belief in everything." + +As she rocked back and forth with his warm little body nestled against +her, she thought how differently Ida would have chosen could she have +known that this precious little soul was to be given into her keeping. +If somebody had only gone to her with old Hildgardmar's +warning--"Remember that in the right weaving of this web depends not +only thy own happiness but the happiness of _all those who come after +thee,_" it might have made a world of difference. But nobody had opened +her eyes to the enormity of the responsibility she was assuming, and +now, maybe despite all her careful training and frantic efforts to make +her little son what she would have him be, she might not be able to turn +his life out of the channel of his inherited tastes and appetites. + +It must be _awful_ she thought, hugging him closer, to love a child with +the passionate devotion that Ida loved this one, and have it grow up +into a worthless vagabond like Ned Bannan. Then a stray wonder crossed +her mind if Leland Harcourt's mother would have been disappointed in him +if she could have lived to see him wasting his splendid talents and +opportunities; just drifting along in an aimless, thistledown sort of +existence when he might be such a power for good if he would only exert +himself. + +"He doesn't measuah up to the third notch at all," she admitted with a +feeling of regret. + +Just then there was a long distance call for her at the telephone, and +hastily putting Wardo down she went to answer it. + +"It's from Mistah Harcourt," she called carelessly, in answer to her +mother's inquiry from the next room. "He was coming ovah to-night but +something detained him in Louisville, and he called me up to tell me not +to expect him." + +She hoped that she had kept the flutter out of her voice that the sound +of his voice brought into her pulses. For at the close of this +commonplace message was the request that she make no engagement with any +one else for the next night. He had something to tell her, and +then--there was that same word with which he had closed his note--that +soft musical name, seeming twice as personal and significant because of +the tone in which he said it. She felt that he must be conscious of the +quick blush it brought to her face as she hastily hung up the receiver. + +That night for the first time that summer Lloyd was alone with her +father and mother. Betty had Madam Chartley's letter to answer, and the +old Colonel had gone out to dinner. The three sat on the broad +white-pillared porch in the moonlight, Lloyd on the step at her father's +feet, her arm on his knee. Ever since the telephone message her thoughts +had been in a tumult. It was useless for her to pretend that she didn't +know why Leland wanted to see her alone, and what it was he was coming +to tell her. She was glad and sorry and half frightened and altogether +confused. "He isn't the prince at all," she kept saying to herself as if +it were a charm that would help her ward off his approach and keep her +true to her Hildegarde promise. + +And yet--his wooing was the kind one reads of in books. She would be +sorry to have _that_ come to an end. It was so delightful to have some +one write poems to her and sing songs in such a way that every tone and +glance dedicated them to her alone. If one could only go on that way +through all the summers, being adored in that fashion, knowing she was +crowned queen in somebody's heart, how delightful it would be. But she +didn't want things to come to a crisis when she would have to make grave +decisions and solemn promises. She didn't want to go one step farther +than this borderland of romance where they lingered now. What she wanted +was just to go on building her little castles as she had done that day +on the sea-shore, and yet be assured that the tide wouldn't come +creeping up any farther. It was just far enough now to be interesting. +She wished they would begin to talk about things like that, but she +shrank from bringing up such a subject herself. After awhile she +broached one almost akin. + +"Mothah," she asked, breaking a long comfortable silence that had fallen +on them, "do you think that Lucy is happy?" + +"No, not entirely--that is just at present," Mrs. Sherman answered +slowly, as if considering. "She's hardly adjusted herself yet to the new +order of things, but she will in time because she's such a yielding +little soul, and is really devoted to her husband. For instance, when he +insisted she gave up her church to please him and joined his. It meant a +great struggle and a sacrifice on her part, and he is not at all devout, +doesn't attend services more than twice a year; so it couldn't have +made such a vital difference to him where she went. Then at home her +father always placed a certain amount in the bank every month to his +wife's credit, so there never was any unpleasantness about money +matters. While Jameson is very wealthy and lavishes luxuries and +beautiful clothes on her, he reserves the pleasure of buying and +spending entirely to himself. Treats her like a child in their financial +arrangements, and doles out little allowances as if she couldn't be +trusted to spend it intelligently. She's so sensitive that she'd rather +go without than ask him for a cent, and it often puts her in an +embarrassing position to be without." + +"In other words," put in Papa Jack, "he's thoroughly inconsiderate and +selfish, although I imagine he'd be mightily amazed if any one applied +that term to him since he is so lavish in giving things in his own way." + +"Yes, he is," was the answer. "I've noticed it in a dozen little ways. +It's always _his_ wishes and _his_ tastes that have to be consulted, +never Lucy's. Yet aside from that trait he is a thoroughly fine man, and +because she respects him and looks up to him and is such a sweet +yielding little creature, he'll come in time to be the centre of her +universe, and she'll revolve around him like a loyal little planet. But +a girl of a different temperament wouldn't. If she were impetuous and +highstrung like you for instance," she added with a smile at Lloyd, "she +would see the injustice of it and resent it so bitterly that there would +be continual friction and jar. With your temperament you couldn't live +peaceably with anybody like that." + +"I know I couldn't," admitted Lloyd frankly, "especially if he showed +any jealousy. Mistah Jameson is jealous of every friend Lucy evah had at +the Post. He doesn't like it a bit when she refers to the good times she +used to have with the boys there, even when they were just ordinary +friends. Half a dozen times I've seen the tears come to her eyes at some +inconsiderate thing he'd say, and I'd think if I were Lucy I couldn't +sit there and take it like a martyr. I'd have to jump up and shake him +till his teeth rattled." + +"What a cat and dog time you would have," laughed Mrs. Sherman. "Worse +than little Mary Ware's nightmare that she had after Eugenia's wedding." + +"By the way," exclaimed Mr. Sherman, slapping his pockets to find a +letter he had placed in one of them, "I knew there was something I +intended to tell you. Jack Ware is on his way here now." + +Then in answer to the surprise and the questions that greeted his +announcement he explained, "I suggested making him assistant manager of +the mines and the Company wants to have a look at him, and put him +through a sort of examination. He's so young they rather doubt my +judgment in the matter. But they'll find out when they see him. We +telegraphed him to come, and he left Arizona several days ago. He'll be +here only a day and night probably." + +Lloyd left her seat on the step and took a chair beside her father, +sitting straight and alert in her interest. It was hard to realize that +Jack Ware was grown. He was only fourteen when she had known him on the +desert. "Oh, will you evah forget," she laughed, "the way he looked when +we surprised him at the washtub, all tied up in an apron, helping Joyce +with the family washing?" + +"His readiness to pitch in to whatever is to be done is his chief +characteristic," was the answer. "That is what makes him so valuable at +the mines. Patient and reliable and strong, he is one of the finest +young fellows of my acquaintance. He'll be one of the big men of the +West some day, for young as he is, he is into everything that makes for +the welfare and development of the territory he lives in." + +All the rest of the evening was spent in recalling that visit to Ware's +Wigwam, and when Lloyd went up to bed, although Leland Harcourt's name +had not been mentioned, she felt that her doubts and unspoken questions +about him had been answered. She must not listen any more to that little +name, that caressing little name that left such a thrill in its wake. + +"Wise old Hildgardmar," said Mrs. Sherman in a playful tone after Lloyd +had left them. "I don't suppose when you sent for Jack that it entered +your head you were giving her the very safeguard of contrast that I +hoped she might have, but you will be doing it all the same." + +"No, I didn't," he confessed, "but I think you are magnifying the +interest she has in Harcourt. She never mentioned his name all evening." + +"But she talked all around him," answered Mrs. Sherman, "and I think she +came to the conclusion before she went up-stairs that he does not +measure up to your standards, and is almost sure that he does not even +meet hers." + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +THE END OF SEVERAL THINGS + + +THE old Colonel was in the library, telling for the hundredth time to +the small listener on his knee the story of the battle that had taken +his right arm. For since Wardo had found that his father's father was in +the same wild charge against the Yankees, and had fought like a tiger +till a wound in the head and another in the knee sent him to the rear on +a stretcher, he could not hear the story often enough. And that led to +other tales of things that had happened when the two soldier-friends +were schoolboys. It puzzled Wardo to find any resemblance between the +mischievous boy whom the Colonel referred to as Cy Bannon, and the +dignified judge whose picture hung on the wall of the Colonel's den. + +"Oh, his name was Cyrus Edward then, just as yours is now," explained +the Colonel when he finally understood the difficulty. "But it was too +long a name for such a grasshopper of a lad. He'd have been out of +sight before you could say it all. So they cut it down to Cy, just as +yours is cut to Wardo." + +"Will I be Judge Cywus Edwa'd Bannon then when I'm gwoed up?" asked +Wardo. + +The seriousness of the big innocent eyes fixed on him made the Colonel +move uneasily. "Heaven knows," he muttered. "_I_ don't. But it's to be +hoped you'll take after him instead of the one next in line of +succession." + +The question made such a profound impression on him he could not shake +it off, and acting on the impulse of the moment he decided to take it to +the Judge himself for an answer. He would show him the winsome little +lad who bore his name. He would demand of him what right he had to +withhold from him the protection and shelter that was his heritage. The +child's father had been cast off in proud scorn for his profligate ways. +Secretly the Colonel had always thought that his old friend had shirked +responsibility, and that the open repudiation of him by his family had +given Ned his final downward shove. + +It made no difference to the Colonel that Ned's name was a forbidden one +in the household. _He'd_ tell Cy Bannon a few things. Then his face +softened and he smiled a trifle foolishly, muttering something about its +being a case of the pot calling the kettle black. The Judge might come +back at him with the argument that he had been just as harsh with his +own child for far less cause; but that would only give him a chance to +urge a reconciliation on the ground that _he_ had surrendered +gracefully, and had been glad of it ever since. Cy would be a mighty +queer sort of man, he concluded, if he could hold out against such a +little grandson as Wardo. He was a child to walk into anybody's +affections. + +Lloyd had left the pair so deeply absorbed in war-stories, that she was +surprised on her return to the library a little later, to find no trace +of either of them. They'd gone for a trolley ride Walker told her, and +expected to be gone most of the morning. So relieved of her +responsibility Lloyd made a longer visit in Rollington than usual. The +crisis had been passed some time now, and Ida was so much better she was +beginning to talk about Wardo's return. She would be able to sit up in a +few days. As Lloyd entertained her with accounts of Wardo's sayings and +doings she realized more and more what a large place he had come to fill +in the household, and how sorely they would all miss him when they had +to give him up. Ida's future looked so hopeless. It would be a long time +before she would be strong enough to begin sewing again. She talked +wearily of the burden she must assume as soon as possible, and Lloyd +came away weighed down with a sense of the injustice and wrong in the +world and her helplessness to right it. + +It was nearly noon when she reached the house. Wardo, who had just come +in with her grandfather, rushed down the steps to meet her, his sailor +hat on the back of his head, and his arms outstretched to give her glad +welcome. He clasped her around the knees, and put up his face to be +kissed. His morning's adventures made him feel that he had been away an +age. Then his voice trembling with the importance of his news, he +announced the three things of his visit which had made the most +impression on him. + +"I saw the place on my gwan'fahvah's head where the Yankee bullet hit +him, wite over his eye! An' the Colonel he shaked his stick at my +gwan'fahvah, and got wed in the face when he talked." Then digging down +into the mite of a pocket that graced his blouse, he triumphantly +brought out the third item, a silver dollar that Judge Bannon had given +him. + +By this time the Colonel had come out, and in answer to Lloyd's excited +questions confessed the truth of Wardo's tale. He _had_ shaken his stick +at the Judge. They had had a stormy interview and he lost his temper. He +was sorry at first that he had taken Wardo, the child was so frightened, +but it proved a good move, for his appealing little face pleaded his +cause better than anything else could have done, and in the end the +Judge was completely won over by his handsome little namesake. + +"_And_," concluded the Colonel triumphantly, "he's promised to take Ned +back and give him one more chance. He'll keep the lad and his mother in +any event, and he's to send for them just as soon as she's able to be +moved." + +"Oh, you blessed old peace-makah!" cried Lloyd running up the steps to +throw her arms around his neck and give him as rapturous a hug as Wardo +had given her. "You're a perfect darling, and you've made me so happy I +don't know what to do or say. I believe I'm as happy as Ida will be when +she heahs it, and I'm going ovah there the minute I've had lunch, to +tell her. You're a public benefactah and everything else in the +dictionary that's extra nice and fine." + +It was joy to the Colonel to have his praises sung like that, and he +went around the rest of the week with a self-satisfied virtuous feeling +that kept him beaming benignly on everything and everybody. In such an +angelic humour was he, that Walker confided to Mom Beck that he was +"right sma'ht worried 'bout ole Marse." + +It was a day of surprises for the whole family. On Lloyd's return from +her second visit to Rollington, about the middle of the afternoon, she +saw Jack Ware on the rear platform of the trolley-car, which passed the +carriage when she was nearly home. He had arrived two days sooner than +any one expected he could. Taller, broader and browner by far than the +slim lad who waved her farewell from the Wigwam, he was unmistakably the +same Jack, and she would have recognized him anywhere. + +The second glance showed her father standing just behind him. They both +leaned out and waved their hats as they passed the carriage. A moment +later they were stepping off the car opposite the entrance gate, and +waiting for her to come up. + +"Anothah knight comes riding," she thought with a smile, wondering what +put the whimsical notion in her head, for she did not count Jack in +that class. He was simply her good comrade of the plains, nothing +picturesque about _him_. + +"I don't suppose there could be about the modern knight," she thought, +amused that such fancies should come to her. "His only thought is to +'get there.' When young Lochinvar comes out of the West now, his 'steed +_is_ the best' from that standpoint, but you can't make the pictuahs and +poems out of trolley-cars that you can out of hawses in those old-time +fancy trappings." + +Stepping out of the carriage, she sent it on ahead and turned to Jack +with such a cordial welcome that he reddened with pleasure under the +brown of his sunburned cheeks. + +"This is my 'Promised Land' as well as Mary's," he said as they walked +slowly towards the house, and he paused to look up at the grand old +trees arching over them. "You've no idea how I've looked forward to +seeing all this. Mother always pictured it as a sort of Beulah land. +Then Joyce took up the same tune, and lastly Mary. She's the most +enthusiastic of all, and sat up till midnight the day she found I was +coming, to make a list of all the things she said I mustn't fail to see +or ask about." + +Taking a memorandum book from his pocket he opened it and held it out +for Lloyd and her father to see. There were three pages whereon Mary had +set down instructions for him to follow. Lloyd laughed as she glanced at +the head-line. + + THINGS TO DO WITHOUT FAIL + + 1 Make Mr. Rob Moore's acquaintance, and see Oaklea. + + 2 See The Beeches and all Mrs. Walton's curios, + especially the bells of Luzon and mother-of-pearl + fire-screen. + + 3 See if Elise Walton is as pretty as she used to be, + and notice how she does her hair now. + + 4 Ask Lloyd to play on the harp and sing the Dove + Song, when the candles are lighted in the + drawing-room. + +The list was such a long one that Lloyd did not read farther, but +glanced at the page headed-- + + THINGS NOT SO IMPORTANT, BUT I'D LIKE TO KNOW + + 1 Ask about Girlie Dinsmore if you have a chance. Is + she as much of a baby as ever? + + 2 What has become of that horrid Bernice Howe? + + 3 Does Betty still correspond with the "Pilgrim + Father?" + + 4 Look in the book-case on the north side of the + library, and copy the name of that book on Spiders. + + 5 Find out all you can about the man Allison is going + to marry. + +There were a dozen similar items. + +"Isn't that characteristic of Mary?" exclaimed Lloyd. "She's such a deah +little bunch of curiosity. Maybe I oughtn't to call it that. A live, +intense interest in everything and everybody would be moah like it. But +only twenty-foah hours to do it all in! How can we manage it?" + +"Not even that," answered Mr. Sherman, "for part of it must be spent +with the stock-holders." + +"And you couldn't stay longah?" began Lloyd. + +"No, I'm due back at the mines very shortly, and I want to make a flying +visit to Joyce in New York before I return, and stop over at Annapolis +for a glimpse of Holland. You know I've never been East before, and I +want to make the most of it." + +"Well," said Lloyd, planning rapidly as they walked on. "We'll crowd +just as much as possible into this one evening. There'll be time for a +drive befoah dinnah, that will give you a bird's-eye view of the Valley, +and a short call at Oaklea and The Beeches. We can ansah Mary's +questions as we drive along. Befoah we start I'll telephone in to town +and ask Rob to come ovah and take dinnah with you to-night, and we'll +ask the Waltons to come ovah--" + +She would have paused just there even if they had not reached the house +and her sentence been interrupted by Jack's introduction to her mother +and Betty, for as she mentioned telephoning it flashed across her what +Leland had telephoned her, not to make any engagement for that evening, +that he wanted to see her alone. + +"But suahly," she thought, "he'll undahstand that that is impossible +undah the circumstances--the only night Jack will be heah." + +The next few hours flew by as if winged. They caught Lloyd up out of the +dream-world in which she had been living and thoroughly wakened her. It +was such a busy, breezy world from Jack's outlook, so much to do and see +and conquer. As she listened to his description of the little mining +camp that had grown into a town in the short time he had been there, and +then to the enthusiastic plans he unfolded to her father of what the +mine owners might do to develop and civilize it, she found herself +regarding this young Aladdin of the West with growing consideration. + +He and Rob found mutual interests from the moment of meeting. She noted +with surprise how oddly alike they were in their views. She hadn't known +before that Rob was interested in so many things that she knew nothing +about, political situations and Juvenile Court reforms, and trusts and +unions and all those things. But then she had scarcely seen him since he +had taken a man's place in the world. Good old Rob! She was proud of the +way he was discussing these things with Jack and her father and the +Colonel. There was a note of authority in what he said that the older +men respected. But it did seem so funny for him to be talking of +anything weightier than tennis and skating and his Latin exams, or +college scrapes. He talked almost as well as Leland Harcourt she +admitted. + +After dinner Jack took out his memorandum and crossed off all the items +that had been attended to. While they were laughing over Mary's +questions and dictating answers for him to write lest he forget them, +the Waltons arrived with Gay, who had been spending the day with them. +A little later Alex Shelby followed. He was on Mary's list, and had a +number of messages to send to the little girl who had amused him so +greatly at Eugenia's wedding with her quaint speeches and unexpected +questions. + +From the sound of voices and the number of people in the drawing-room, +one might have imagined that a reception was in full swing when Leland +Harcourt came up on the porch. Lloyd, recognizing his step, hurried out +to meet him and explain why she had been unable to grant his request. +She ushered him into the drawing-room to meet their guest, anxious that +they should be favourably impressed with each other. One could always +count on Leland for doing the graceful thing socially she thought +complacently, but this one time he failed her. + +He had been at the house so constantly all summer that she did not think +it necessary to make any special effort for his entertainment now, other +than to draw him into the conversation with Jack and Rob. They were the +comparative strangers and she was giving them the most of her attention. +Rob had been at the house only twice that summer. He was as interested +as she in hearing about Joyce and Mary, so when she found that Leland +did not seem to care to talk, she went back to their former +conversation, recalling the duck hunt, the picnic at Hole-in-the-rock, +and their dinner at "Coffe Al's" with Phil Tremont. + +Everybody else was talking. Everybody else seemed in good spirits but +Leland Harcourt. Lloyd could almost feel his silence it became so +marked. + +"He's sulky," she thought. "It's just his horrid jealousy cropping out +like his brothah Jameson's. He doesn't want me to be nice to my oldest +and deahest friends. I wish he wouldn't act that way." + +Then she sang, since it was next in order on Mary's memorandum, and +while she sang, although she did not once look at him directly, she was +uncomfortably conscious that his eyes were fixed on her with the +determined gaze which they always wore when he had some resolve which he +intended to carry out at all hazards. + +As she turned from the harp he was the first to rise and place a chair +for her. Bending over her he said, under cover of the applause, "I'll +not be put off any longer. You must let me see you a few minutes just as +soon as I can make an opportunity for you to slip out of the room." + +Low as his voice was, Rob, who was sitting just behind him, heard what +he said, and then something else that he added in Spanish. Just a word, +but it seemed to carry some potent appeal, for with a slight flush she +rose. Leland made the opportunity he wished, by saying to Jack that one +of the pleasures not to be missed was hearing Gay play the violin. Of +course Jack immediately asked for the nocturne which he suggested, and +Gay, always obliging, at once complied. + +Under cover of the music Leland stepped into the hall, holding the +portière aside with a bow for Lloyd to pass through. Rob's glance +followed them across the hall, across the moonlighted porch to the +avenue, where the locust shadows fell dense and black. Then he turned +his attention resolutely to the music, listening as if in rapt +enjoyment, but in reality never hearing a note. + +The nocturne came to an end, and there was an encore and still another +before Lloyd came back into the room. She was alone, and Rob, in one +quick glance, saw that all the bright colour had left her face. She was +gripping her little lace fan nervously, and her hazel eyes had deepened +almost to black as they always did under the strain of unusual +excitement or emotion. He was sure that she was very near tears, and +with his usual impulse to shield her from all that was unpleasant, he +moved his chair so that no one else saw her agitation and began talking +volubly about the first thing he could think of. It happened to be Mary +Ware's method of getting rid of an unwelcome guest by playing Fox and +Stork, and as she listened to the lengthy story he purposely made of it, +she had time to regain her composure before any one else came up. + +Afterwards he heard her explaining to Mrs. Walton, "Mistah Harcourt had +to leave early, and didn't want to break up the pah'ty by coming in to +say good night." + +When Rob heard next day that Leland was leaving the Valley at once for a +trip to South America, he thought he understood the cause of Lloyd's +agitation. It distressed her to have him go so far away. He had been +positive for some time that there was some understanding between them. +Now this confirmed his suspicions. + +Lloyd was grieved over the parting, but not to the extent Rob imagined. +Many a night after, she sat curled up on the window-seat in her room, +looking down through the trees to the place where she had stood with +Leland the night she bade him good-bye. She had not dreamed of such a +stormy interview as that, she had not imagined any wooing could be so +impassioned, reaching to such heights and depths. He hadn't paid the +slightest attention when she tried to stop him, but had asserted +triumphantly that he always got what he started out to win, and that +this was a matter of life and death, and he'd win her love or die in the +attempt. Sometimes, in thinking it over, she was afraid he would make +his threats true, and then sometimes she thought with a quick indrawn +breath, remembering how his wild protestations had thrilled her, that it +would have been sweet to listen if she could only have been sure that it +was right. He vowed he would come back when he could prove to her that +he had won the accolade which she seemed to think was so essential, but +she did not look for him. In her heart she said that the one real +romance of her life was at an end. + +Everything seemed to come to an end just then. Jack left the next +morning, and before the close of the week Wardo was taken away. Ida was +able to be moved to the old Bannon homestead near Anchorage. Although it +was the one great thing Lloyd had wished for, she missed her little +charge at every turn, and the days stretched out ahead of her long and +empty. + +The first of September Betty went away with Elise Walton under her wing, +happy in the fact that she was to enter Freshman at Warwick Hall, where +the older girls had had such glorious times. The next day the Harcourts +closed the Cabin and went back to San Antonio. Gay spent her last night +in the Valley at The Locusts, and there were more bed-time confidences +before they fell asleep, long after midnight. + +"Seems as if the end of the summah brings the end of everything," sighed +Lloyd regretfully. + +"It's more like the beginning of everything for you," contradicted Gay. +"You'll be beginning your shopping soon, and your trips to the tailor +and the dressmaker and the milliner, and you know you'll enjoy getting +all the lovely clothes you're to have as a débutante. It'll be as much +fun as planning a trousseau. Then there'll be your début party in your +Aunt Jane's lovely big town house, and all the rest that's to follow. +It'll be just _grand_! A regular procession of social successes and +triumphs. + +"And as for Leland," she continued, mentioning him for the first time +since his departure. "You needn't worry about _that_. Of course we knew +what had happened just as soon as he bounced in looking like a +thunder-cloud, and announced his intention of leaving next morning. +We'd seen it coming on all summer. Jameson is tickled to death over it, +for this trip to South America is one he has been wanting him to take +for a long time. They have some property there that needs looking after, +and he thinks now that his ambition is roused he'll take some interest +in things." + +"But no mattah what he does," said Lloyd firmly, "I'll nevah change my +mind. I don't want to get married, Gay," she added almost tearfully. "I +read a story the othah day, the diary of a young girl that made me think +of myself. She said, 'I don't want to be married. Just to be loved and +adored and written to and crowned Queen of Somebody's heart.' Of co'se +any girl wants _that_." + +"That's just the way I feel," confided Gay after a moment's pause. Then, +"You've been so busy this summer with your own affairs I don't suppose +you've noticed what's been going on around you; but I'm afraid I've got +myself into a pickle. You see I've already invited Kitty down to San +Antonio to spend Lent with me, and I've written to Frank Percival about +her, and told her about him and got them interested in each other. You +know ever since I've been so intimate with Kitty I've wanted her to +marry Frank, so that she'd always live near me. And now--now I'm not so +sure that I'm going to live there myself." + +"You dreadful little match-makah," laughed Lloyd, so amused by Gay's +confession that she never thought to inquire what had caused her change +of mind about her own residence. "You oughtn't to meddle in such things. +Just look what a pickle you got _me_ into. If you hadn't made me promise +what you did about being nice to Mistah Harcourt, and told him the +things you did about me, we'd nevah have had the scene we did, and would +have been good friends always. But look what you've done. Sent him on a +hopeless chase aftah a shadow, for he says he'll nevah change his mind, +and I _know_ I won't change mine." + +Gay giggled. "When an irresistible force meets an immovable body, what +_does_ happen? I've always wondered." + +"Just what will happen when Mistah Harcourt comes back," was Lloyd's +dignified answer. "_I'll_ not be moved." + +"And he's not to be resisted," said Gay. "So there we go in the same old +circle. But I'm glad for some reasons that you're so determined, for if +I _should_ make up my mind to live in the Valley then I'd be glad you +were here instead of in San Antonio." + +"Oh, are you all going to buy the Cabin?" exclaimed Lloyd, sitting up in +bed in her eagerness. "How lovely." + +"No, 'we all' are not," confessed Gay. "I _knew_ you didn't have any +idea of what was going on this summer. But--well, you know who my first +'Knight of the Looking-glass' was. He says the Scripture says that 'the +first shall be last,' and he insists he is _both_. He wants to buy the +Cabin some day, so that my little mirror can hang there always, up among +the roses where he first saw me. It _would_ be sweet and romantic, +wouldn't it? But it doesn't seem exactly fair to Kitty to get her tied +up down there and then skip out and leave her." + +"Kitty isn't tied up yet, by a long shot," laughed Lloyd, who found it +hard to take Gay's shy confession seriously. "But I can't get used to +this lightning change in you. You were so suah you'd not have any Darby +and Joan emotions in yours while 'Life is May.' You've talked all summah +against early marriages." + +"I'm not an 'immovable body' like you. And I would be a little nearer +gray hairs if we waited for two years as we'd certainly have to do, but +even if we didn't wait it wouldn't be the same as it is with Lucy and +Jameson, and some other young married people I know. Alex is so +_different_. Well, he is," she insisted indignantly. "What are you +laughing at? You know he's different." + +"Yes, I do know it," answered Lloyd, instantly sobered by her +realization of the fact that Gay was no longer joking, but was laying +bare her heart's dearest secret. "He's a deah, good fellow, and he'll be +just as loving and true and sweet to you always as the old Doctah is to +Aunt Alicia. Nobody could want moah than that I'm suah. So heah's my +blessing and the hope that you'll live to keep yoah Golden Wedding as +happily as they are going to do." She leaned over and kissed her +tenderly. + +They talked so late that night that Gay almost missed her train next +morning, but as she scrambled breathlessly on to the rear platform she +called back happily, "What's the odds, even if it did make me late? It +was such a nice wind-up to such a glorious summer." + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +SIX MONTHS LATER + + +IT was a cold snowy afternoon, late in January. Rob Moore, looking at +his watch as he hurried along the street, found that he was ten minutes +ahead of the time at which the next car was due to start to the Valley. +Rather than wait on the windy corner or take refuge in the already +crowded drug-store, he walked on down to the car-shed. He rarely left +town this early. As he sprang up the steps and took his seat in the +waiting car, he saw that it was the one usually filled by the +school-children living in the suburbs. It was already nearly filled now +by half-grown boys and girls, flocking in with their book straps and +lunch-baskets. It made him think of his own High school days. They +laughed and joked and called messages back and forth as freely as if +they were at home. Here and there he recognized the younger sisters and +brothers of some of his old classmates, so like them that it gave him a +curious sense of having stepped backward several years. There was Wat +Sewall wriggling and writhing out of his overcoat with the same +contortions that Fred always went through with. That slap on the back +with its accompanying "Hi, there, old man," was exactly like T. D. +Williams' salutation. He nearly always laid a fellow out flat when he +spoke to him. And the couple on the seat in front of him, exchanging +class pins, was only a repetition of a scene he had witnessed dozens of +times. + +With a reminiscent smile he shook out the pages of the evening paper +which he had bought as he came along and glanced at the head-lines. But +before he had time to read further the girl in front of him exclaimed, +"Look, Harry! Here comes Miss Sherman! Isn't she perfectly stunning in +that dark blue broadcloth? I think she's the prettiest débutante of the +season." + +"She's a peach," was the enthusiastic answer. "I say, Ethel, she looks +like you." + +Rob did not see the girlish blush which rose to Ethel's cheeks, for at +the first exclamation he had lowered his paper to peer quickly through +the window. He had just a glimpse of a slender stylish figure hurrying +into the ticket office. + +The girl in front was speaking. "I suppose I've been more interested in +the débutantes this year than any other because Cousin Amy is one of +them. She comes out to Anchorage for a week-end now and then to rest up, +and I keep her talking the whole time about what they do. She says that +Miss Sherman is the most popular of them all, with the girls as well as +the men. She's had so many beautiful entertainments given in her honour, +and she's been asked to help receive or pour tea or do something or +other at every single function that's been given in Louisville this +winter. I think it's perfectly grand to be out in society when you can +be as great a success as that. They say that the American Beauties sent +to her in just one day sometimes would fill a florist's shop window. +There's a man from Cincinnati who sends them all the time. He's crazy +about her. I should be too if I were a man. Cousin Amy has a photograph +of her taken in evening dress, and she's simply regal looking. I don't +wonder she makes a sensation wherever she goes." + +"Here she comes now," interrupted the boy, turning with a stare of frank +admiration. Rob turned too, as Lloyd came down the aisle, glancing from +one side to another for an empty seat. Her face was glowing from her +walk in the cold wind, and the little hat of dark blue velvet and her +rich dark furs made her seem fairer than ever by contrast. Hers was a +delicate, patrician style of beauty, and Rob in one critical glance saw +that this winter in society had given the graceful girl the ease and +poise of a charming woman. The little school-girl on the seat in front +had good reason for admiring her so extravagantly. He rose as she came +nearer, and stepped out in the aisle to give her the seat by the window. + +"Oh, Rob! This is great!" the little school-girl heard her exclaim +cordially. "I haven't seen you for an age. How does it happen you are +going out on such an early train?" + +Much as she was interested in "Harry's" remarks, she wished he would +keep still at least until the car started. She wanted to hear how this +big handsome man answered her adorable Miss Sherman. She would have been +shocked could she have heard his second remark. + +"There's a big flake of soot on your nose, Lloyd." + +"Thanks," she said, almost looking cross-eyed in her endeavour to locate +it. "There usually is in this dirty town. There! Is it off?" She +scrubbed away with a bit of a handkerchief she took from her muff. "And +I was flattering myself as I came along that I looked especially spick +and span," she sighed. "It's refreshing to have somebody tell you the +truth about yoahself, and you nevah were one to mince mattahs, Bobby." + +The old name on the lips of this pretty girl so like the old Lloyd in +some ways, yet so bewilderingly unlike in others, stirred him strangely. + +"Better throw off your furs and that heavy jacket in this over-heated +car," was his only answer. "You'll take cold when you get off if you +don't." She thanked him for the suggestion, and, as he hung her wraps +over the back of the seat, settled herself comfortably for the hour's +ride. + +"Now tell me all about it," he began as the car started. "All that +you've been doing these last months. Of course I've kept up with you in +the papers. I know that you went here and went there, and that you wore +sky-blue pink folderols at this banquet and velvet satin crêpe de chine +at the Country Club dinner, with feathers and jewels to match, but +that's no more than all the rest of the world knows. I want to be let in +on the ground floor and told about the inner workings of this social +whirl. How have you managed to do it all? To vibrate between town and +country and not peg out. You look as fresh as a daisy; as if the pace +that kills agrees with you." + +"I haven't vibrated much," she answered. "I've made Aunt Jane's house my +headquartahs, and you know what a crank she is about hygiene. Every +moment not actually engaged in 'whirling' she had reduced to a system of +simple living. What I have suffered in the way of naps in a darkened +room when I wasn't sleepy, and hot milk when I loathed the idea of +swallowing anything, and gymnastic exercises in the attic when the +weathah was too bad for long walks, would fill a volume." + +"Is the game worth the candle?" he asked soberly. + +She hesitated. "Well, yes. For a season anyhow. I wouldn't want to keep +up such a round yeah aftah yeah, but I _have_ had a good time, and I +must confess it's awfully nice to be really grown up and have everybody +treat you with the consideration due yoah age." + +They were out in the open country now. The car stopped, and as the door +opened to admit a passenger, the shrill voices of some children skating +on an ice pond near the road floated cheerily in. Lloyd looked out the +window with a smile at the gay scene. + +"I'd like to be out there with them," she confessed. "Look at that +little girl in the red mittens and Tam O'Shanter. She skates exactly the +way Katie Mallard used to. Oh, deah, didn't we used to have fun with her +down on our ice pond?" + +"Do you remember the day Malcolm broke through when he was trying to +cake-walk on the ice?" asked Rob with a reminiscent grin. + +"He was laughing about that only last week when he took me to the +Country Club dinnah. I've seen a lot of Malcolm this wintah." + +"I thought he was rushing Molly Standforth." + +"Well, he is, pah't of the time, but he's rushed me too, as you call it, +just as much." + +Rob gave her a keen glance, but she made the announcement in such a calm +way that he said to himself there couldn't be much in it as far as she +was concerned, or she wouldn't have spoken of it in the way she did. + +At Anchorage the boy and girl in front left the car, he with such open +solicitude for her comfort as he helped her off that Lloyd's eyes met +Rob's with a twinkle. + +"Aftah all, it's good to be young like that," she said. "Don't you +remembah Kitty and Guy Ferris at that age? How we used to tease Kitty +for keeping a dead rose and a valentine and a brass button from his +military coat, tied up with a blue ribbon in a candy box?" + +"But we boys had a better time teasing Guy about the lock of Kitty's +hair that he carried around in the back of his watch. His watch got out +of order, and when the jeweller opened it and found all that hair in the +back, he didn't say a word, but with a most disgusted look tossed it +into the wastebasket as if it hadn't been Guy's most sacred possession. +I was along with him, and I simply roared. Guy didn't have the nerve to +ask for it, just stood there looking like the big silly he must have +felt." + +The series of reminiscences that this story started lasted all the way +out to the Valley. The red streak of the wintry sunset had faded out of +the west when the car stopped there, and Lloyd looking out into the cold +gray gloaming saw that the snow was beginning to fall again. + +"Let's get out and walk the rest of the way," she exclaimed impetuously, +snatching up her jacket and furs as she rose. + +"I haven't had a twilight walk in the country this wintah, when it's +all good and gray like this, with snow-flakes in yoah face." + +They were off in another instant, and as he stood on the station +platform helping her on with her wraps, she held up her face to feel the +stray flakes blowing cold and soft against it. He smiled at her childish +delight in them, and seeing the smile she started up the narrow path +ahead of him, laughing over her shoulder. + +"There's no use denying it," she called back. "When I want to be the +propah dignified young lady I'll have to stay in town. Just the smell of +the country, the fresh earth, the fallen leaves, has such a rejuvenating +effect that I want to tuck up my skirts and skip and run as I used to." + +"Come on," he exclaimed gaily, falling in with her mood. "I'll race you +to that dead sycamore up the road." + +She looked up at him, her face dimpling as she noticed how he towered +above her and how broad were the shoulders in the big overcoat. Then she +shook her head sadly. + +"Nevah again, Bobby! We're too old and dignified. I'd almost as soon +think of racing with the Judge as with you now. What if somebody should +see us? They'd be shocked to death. There's some one now," she added, +peering forward through the dusk. + +"Only old Unc' Andy coming back from his rabbit traps," answered Rob, as +the grizzled old coloured man shuffled nearer. Uncle Andy had been the +gardener at Oaklea more years than Lloyd could remember, and now as he +stepped out of the path with elaborate courtesy to let her pass, she +delighted his soul by stopping with a friendly inquiry about himself and +family. + +"Lawd, if it aint the Little Cun'l herself!" he chuckled. "All growed up +and a bloomin' like a piney! I reckon, Miss Lloyd, youse forgot the time +that you pulled up all the pansies in my flowah beds 'cause you said +they was makin' faces at you." + +"No, indeed, Uncle Andy," she answered with a laugh, and started to pass +on. But the encounter with the old servant seemed somehow to set her +back among the days when she had been almost as much at home at Oaklea +as she was at The Locusts, and prompted by some sudden impulse she +called over her shoulder as she had often called then: "Unc' Andy, tell +Mrs. Moore that Mistah Rob won't be home for dinnah. He's going to stay +at The Locusts." + +It was a familiar message although it had been several years since Andy +had heard it. He looked back bowing and scraping, and then walked on +chuckling to himself. + +Taken by surprise, Rob did not remonstrate when she thus took his +consent for granted. If she had waited to ask his permission to send +such a message home he would have made some excuse to decline, and then +left her at the gate. That night under the measuring tree when he +listened to her singing he had resolutely made up his mind to keep out +of the way of temptation. Since then he had become convinced that she +was engaged to Leland Harcourt and had put her out of his dreams as far +as possible. Now that she had left him no choice, he gladly accepted the +opportunity that fate seemed to throw in his way, and gave himself up to +the enjoyment of it. + +The fitful snow had stopped falling again by the time they reached the +gate, and the stars were beginning to glimmer through the bare branches +of the locust-trees. As Lloyd looked up the avenue, and saw the lights +from many windows streaming out across the white-pillared porch into the +winter night, her gay mood suddenly changed to one of intense feeling. + +"Isn't it deah?" she said in a low voice. "I nevah had it come ovah me +so overwhelmingly, how good it is to come back to the things that nevah +change--that nevah fail! The home-lights and the home-loves, the same +old trees and the same old sta'hs and the same old chum!" + +Rob made no answer, but his silence was only another proof to Lloyd that +she had found her old chum unchanged. He never answered at the times +when she knew he felt most deeply. Rob's silences expressed more +sometimes than other people's speeches. + +He was talkative enough at dinner, however, and between them he and +Lloyd made the meal such a lively one that the old Colonel heaved a sigh +when it was over. + +"I'd give a good deal if our whist club didn't meet to-night," he said +in response to Lloyd's question. "I surely would have asked them to +postpone it if I had known you were coming out to-night." + +"Suahly not a time-honahed institution like that!" exclaimed Lloyd +teasingly, "and when it's yoah turn to entahtain it. Rob, we haven't +found out what refreshments mothah has for them. Think of wasting all +this time without knowing." + +It had always been a matter of interest with them in earlier times to +have a finger in this particular pie. It was one thing in which Mrs. +Sherman was most careful to humour her father's whims, and she always +pleased him by giving her personal attention to the dainty little +suppers which she served after the game. + +Lloyd led the way to the pantry and they lifted covers and opened doors, +smelling and peering around till they unearthed all the tempting dishes +that had been so carefully prepared for the occasion. + +"We'll be in at the end," warned Lloyd as the Colonel's old cronies +began to arrive, "and in the meantime I'll pop some cawn. I used to +think that old Majah Timberly came for my cawn as much as he did for the +game." + +To his great annoyance a telephone message called Mr. Sherman over to +the Confederate Home. He had looked forward to a quiet evening in front +of the great log fire, and was loath to leave the cosy room and cheerful +company. Presently some household matters claimed Mrs. Sherman's +presence up-stairs, and she too had to go, leaving Lloyd at the piano, +playing runs and trills and snatches of songs as a sort of undercurrent +to their conversation. Rob in a big armchair in front of the fire, +looking comfortable enough to want to purr, glanced around the familiar +old room that long association had made as dear to him as home. + +"Why don't you read your letters?" he asked, his gaze happening to rest +on a pile of various sized envelopes lying on the table near him, all +bearing Lloyd's name. + +She turned around on the piano stool and held out her hand for them as +he rose to take them to her. + +"I forgot all about the possibility of there being any mail for me," she +said, tearing open the first one. "This is from Betty. I know you want +to hear that, so I'll read it aloud." + +Crossing the room she seated herself under one of the silver sconces in +the chimney corner, so that the candlelight fell on the paper. She had +never relinquished the idea that came to her on her return from school +that Rob was growing especially fond of Betty. It seemed to her such a +desirable state of affairs that she longed to deepen his interest in +her. + +"I am not being carried to the skies on flowery beds of ease, by any +manner of means," wrote Betty. "Life at Warwick Hall as a pupil is one +thing. It is quite another to be a teacher. But I'm gaining experience +and that's what I came for, and best of all I'm having some little +successes that make me take heart and feel like attempting more. I have +had two little sketches of school-girl life accepted and _paid for_ +(mark the paid for) by the _Youth's Companion_, and a request for more. +'_True hope is swift and flies with swallows' wings. Kings it makes +gods, and meaner creatures kings._' You can imagine how happy I am over +it, and what castles in the air I am already building again." + +It was a long newsy letter, telling of a reception she had attended at +the White House, to which she took half a dozen girls in Madam +Chartley's place, and describing a famous lecturer who had been at the +Hall the day before. + +"Betty's a girl in a thousand!" said Rob approvingly as she slipped the +letter back in its envelope. "She's a dear little piece, with sense and +pluck enough for a dozen." + +His hearty tone confirmed Lloyd's suspicions, and she looked as pleased +as if he had paid her a compliment instead of Betty. She led him on to +express a still deeper appreciation, by telling of some of the things +that Elise Walton had written home about Betty's kindness to the new +girls and how they all adored her. Then she opened the next letter. + +"From Phil Tremont," she said, glancing down the page. "He's back in New +York and has just seen Eugenia, who is still delighted with +housekeeping, and makes an ideal home for Stewart and the doctor. And +he's seen Joyce," she added, turning the page, "and Joyce is as happy as +a clam, struggling along with a lot of art-students in a flat, and +really doing well with her book-cover designs and illustrations." + +She read a paragraph aloud here and there, then hastily looked over the +last part in silence, laying it down with a little sigh. Rob glanced up +inquiringly. "I wish he wouldn't make such a to-do about my writing moah +regularly. It makes a task of a correspondence instead of a pleasuah, to +know that every two weeks, rain or shine, I'm expected to send an +answah. I like to write if I can choose my own time, and wait till the +spirit moves me, but I despise to be nagged into doing it." + +"You write to Betty every week," he suggested. + +"Yes, sometimes twice or three times. But that's different. I haven't +seen Phil for two yeahs and when you don't see people for a long time +you can't keep in touch with them." + +"The song says, 'Absence makes the heart grow fonder,'" quoted Rob +mischievously. + +"Maybe it does if you're old friends, and have lots to remembah +togethah, but it seems to me that absence builds up a sawt of wall +between people sometimes, especially if you've known each othah only a +little while, and at a time when you're both growing up and changing all +the time. Do you know," she added musingly, dropping the letter into her +lap and leaning forward to gaze into the fire, "I believe if Phil and I +had been togethah daily I'd have grown awfully fond of him. When we were +out on the desert in Arizona, I was only fou'teen that spring, he was my +ideal of all that was lovely and romantic, and I believe if it hadn't +been for those talks Papa Jack and I used to have about Hildegarde and +her weaving, I'd have done like foolish Hertha, cut my web for him then +and there. I did imagine for awhile that he was a prince, and the one +written for me in the sta'hs." + +"And now?" asked Rob, in a low tone, as if afraid of interrupting the +confession she was making more to the fire and herself than to him. + +"Now," she answered, "when he came back to be best man at Eugenia's +wedding I still liked him awfully well, but I could see that my ideals +had changed and that they didn't fit him any moah 'as the falcon's +feathahs fit the falcon.' Still I don't know, maybe if we had been +thrown togethah a great deal from the time I first met him, it might +have been different, but as I say, absence made a sawt of wall between +us and we seem to be growing farthah and farthah apart." + +"And now you're sure he's not the one the stars have destined for you?" + +"Perfectly suah," she answered with a laugh, then leaning back in the +chimney corner again, opened the third letter. The envelope slipped to +the floor as she read, and stooping over to return it, he saw quite +unintentionally that it bore a South American stamp. She was reading so +intently that she did not notice when he laid it in her lap, but as soon +as she finished she tossed it into the fire without a word. Her face +flushed and her eyes had an angry light in them. As she caught his grave +look, she shrugged her shoulders with a careless little laugh, to hide +the awkward pause, and then said lightly: + +"I think Mammy Eastah's fortune will come true. There won't be any +prince in my tea-cup." + +"Why?" + +"Wait till I get the cawn-poppah and I'll tell you." + +She was back in a moment with the popper and several ears of corn which +she divided with Rob, and started to shell into the big dish which she +placed on the floor between them. She shelled in silence a moment or +two. + +"It's this wintah in society that's given me that opinion," she said +finally. "The view I've had of it through my Hildegarde mirror. The +knights have come riding, lots of them, and maybe among them I might +have found my prince in disguise, but the shadows of the world blurred +everything. Out heah in the country I'd grown up believing that it's a +kind, honest old world. I'd seen only its good side. I took my +conception of married life from mothah and Papa Jack, Doctah Shelby and +Aunt Alicia, and yoah fathah and mothah. They made me think that +marriage is a great strong sanctuary, built on a rock that no storm can +hurt and no trouble move. But this wintah I found that that kind of +marriage has grown out of fashion. It's something to jest about, and +it's a mattah of scandal and divorce and unhappiness. Sometimes it made +me heart-sick, the tales I heard and the things I saw. I came to +little Mary Ware's conclusion, that it's safah to be an old maid." + +[Illustration: "SHE POURED THE CORN INTO THE POPPER AND BEGAN TO SHAKE +IT OVER THE RED COALS."] + +Drawing a low stool nearer the fire, she poured the corn into the popper +and began to shake it over the red coals. + +"It's dreadful to be disillusioned," said Rob, smiling at her serious +face. "That's one reason why I keep so 'far from the madding crowd.' My +old friends have been good about remembering me with invitations and +I've been sorely tempted to accept some of them just to see what kind of +a show was going on. But I couldn't accept one and refuse another and I +couldn't afford to go in wholesale; carriages and flowers and the bummed +up feeling that follows make it too expensive for a poor man like me. +It's nearly over now, I suppose, anyway." + +"Yes, the fancy dress ball on Valentine's night will be the last big +thing befoah Lent." + +"Who is to be your escort?" + +"Mistah Whitlow, probably. He hasn't asked me yet, but he saw Aunt Jane +this mawning and told her not to let me make any engagement, for he was +coming to ask me as soon as I got back to town Monday." + +"Bartrom Whitlow!" exclaimed Rob, shifting his easy lounging position +to an upright one, and looking very stern. "Lloyd, you don't mean to say +you're going with _that_ man! He isn't fit to be invited to decent +people's houses, much less fit to shake hands with their daughters. Some +of the others are bad enough, goodness knows, but he is the limit. You +simply can't go with him." + +"Well, you needn't ro'ah so," exclaimed Lloyd with a little pout, as if +she resented his dictatorial, big-brother tone. Secretly it pleased her, +for it had been a long time since she had heard it. + +"Rather than let you go with him I'll accept my invitation and take you +myself!" + +"What a sweet martyr-like spirit!" laughed Lloyd, teasingly. "I +certainly feel flattered at the way you put it, and I appreciate the +great sacrifice you're willing to make for my sake. Of co'se I don't +want to go with Mistah Whitlow if that's the kind of man he is, but it +seems rathah late in the day to raise a row. He's called on me several +times this wintah and sent me flowahs and danced with me, just as he +does with all the othah girls. I know Aunt Jane believes he is all +right, because she is very particulah about my company. I can't see any +way to get out of going with him as long as she's given him to +undahstand that I would, but for me to hold you to yoah offah and make +you make a martyr of yoahself on the altah of friendship." + +"You know very well, Lloyd Sherman, _no_ fellow would count it martyrdom +to escort the most popular débutante of the season to the last great +function." + +She opened her eyes wide, astonished at such an unusual thing as a +compliment from Rob. + +"Oh, I'm just quoting," he added to tease her. "That's what I heard an +enthusiastic admirer of yours call you on the car this evening. But I'm +in dead earnest, too. My offer is a sincere one." + +"Very well," responded Lloyd quickly, "I'll hold you to it. I suppose +you've seriously considahed it. You'll have to go in fancy costume, you +know." + +His face showed plainly that he had not thought how much his offer +involved, but after an instant's hesitation he made a wry grimace and +laughed. "That's all right. I die game. I haven't been to anything for +two years, but I'll see you through on this deal. 'I'll never desert +Micawber.' Name the character I'm to represent and I'll get the +costume." + +"I think a Teddy beah would be most in keeping if you're going to glowah +and growl the way you did a moment ago, or anything fierce and furious; +Bluebeard for instance. That would be fine, and I'll carry a bloody key +and you can drag me around by the hair as an object lesson to all +thoughtless girls who weave their mantles to fit unworthy shouldahs +instead of using their yah'd sticks to do it right." + +"That old tale seems to worry you a lot, Lloyd." + +"It does," she confessed. "I've thought about it every day this wintah. +Now this is all ready for the salt and buttah," she added as the last +grain in the wire cage burst into snowy bloom. "I'll take it ovah to the +old gentlemen while it's hot. You can be popping the next lot while I'm +gone." + +Mrs. Sherman joined them presently, and the question of costumes was +settled. "There's no use of yoah going to any expense for one," said +Lloyd, with her usual delicate consideration. "There are trunkfuls of +lovely things still in the attic. Come ovah next week and we'll look +through them." + +So it came to pass that the old intimacy was, in a measure, resumed, for +several calls were necessary to complete the arrangements for Valentine +night. That those arrangements were highly satisfactory might have been +inferred from the account of the affair which appeared in the Society +columns next day, in which Miss Sherman and Mr. Rob Moore were awarded +the palm for the most unique and striking costumes. They had gone as +Bluebeard and his beautiful Fatima. It was the crowning good time of the +season, Lloyd declared, for Rob under cover of his disguise entered into +the spirit of the occasion with all his old zest, and when Rob tried, +nobody could be better company than he. After that he fell into the way +of an occasional call at The Locusts. He was too busy to spare many +evenings, but when Lloyd came back to the Valley, nearly every Sunday +afternoon was spent in their old way, taking long tramps together +through the quiet country lanes and winter woods. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +THE MIRACLE OF BLOSSOMING + + +THE beginning of Lent was the end of all the social gaieties and most of +the girls who had flittered through the season with Lloyd fluttered away +like a bevy of scattered butterflies to various resorts on the Florida +coast. Kitty departed to make her long-talked-of visit to Gay in San +Antonio, Katie Mallard went with an invalid aunt to Biloxi, and Lloyd +came back to the country. She was almost as much alone as she had been +that winter when she had not been allowed to return to Warwick Hall +after the Christmas vacation. + +True, Allison was at home after her interesting trip abroad, with the +MacIntyres, and Lloyd spent many hours at The Beeches. But Raleigh +Claiborne's sister from Washington was there on a visit part of the +time, and Raleigh himself made several flying trips, and although +Allison's engagement made her doubly interesting to the younger girls, +it seemed to rise up as a sort of wall between them and their old +intimacy. She had so many new interests now that she did not enter quite +so heartily into the old ones. + +So it came about that Lloyd fell quite naturally into her former habit +of dropping in to see Mrs. Bisbee and Mrs. Apwell and all the other old +ladies, who welcomed her with open arms. One blowy afternoon in March +she took her embroidery and went to sit with Mrs. Bisbee awhile, beside +the window that Mrs. Walton had laughingly dubbed the "window in +Thrums." The old lady, growing chatty and confidential over her +quilt-piecing, seemed so unusually companionable, that Lloyd remarked: + +"It really seems as if I'm catching up to you all, Mrs. Bisbee. As I get +oldah everybody else gets youngah. Why, this wintah mothah has been just +like a sistah. I had no idea she could be so much fun. We do everything +togethah now. I help with the housekeeping so that she can hurry through +with it early in the mawning and then we practise, piano and harp, or +she plays the accompaniments for my songs. And then we read French +awhile and we go for long walks and we discuss every subject undah the +sun, just as Betty and I used to do. And we plan things to do in the +deliciously long cosy evenings--surprises, you know, for grandfathah +and Papa Jack. I believe I'm enjoying this pah't of my yeah bettah than +the first." + +Mrs. Bisbee looked out of the window wistfully at nothing. + +"That's the way that it used to be here when daughter was at home," she +sighed. "Sometimes I think if I'd had the planning of the universe I'd +have fixed it differently. Just when your little girl is grown up to be +a comfort and a joy, and the best company in the world, some man steps +in and takes her away from you. I had daughter to myself only one short +year after she got through school. Then she married. Of course it would +have been selfish to have stood in the way of her happiness, yet--" + +She shook her head with another sigh, and left the sentence unfinished. +"I have often wondered how I could have stood it if her marriage had +been an unhappy one, like poor Amy Cadwell's. You know her." + +"Only slightly," answered Lloyd, recalling a face that always aroused +her interest; a face with thin compressed lips and watchful defiant +eyes, that seemed to have grown so from the long guarding of a family +skeleton. + +It was not gossip the way Mrs. Bisbee told the story, only the plain +recital of a sad bit of human history that had fallen under her +observation. The cloud of it rested on Lloyd's face as she listened. + +"That's the worst thing about growing up," she exclaimed bitterly when +Mrs. Bisbee paused, "the finding out that everybody isn't good and happy +as I used to think they were. Lately, just these last few months that +I've been out in society I've heard so much of people's jealousies and +rivalries and meannesses and insincerity, that I'd sometimes be tempted +to doubt everybody, if it were not for my own family and some of the +people out in this little old Valley that I've trusted all my life. + +"There's Minnie Wayland, whose engagement was announced last month to +Mistah Maybrick. I don't see how she dares marry when her own fathah and +mothah made such a failure of it, that they can't live togethah, and +Mistah Maybrick's wife got a divorce from him on account of some +dreadful scandal the papahs were full of. I couldn't go up and wish her +joy when the othah girls did. She talked about it in such a flippant +mattah of business way, as if millions atoned for everything. One of the +girls laughed at me for taking it so seriously, and said that matches +aren't made in heaven nowadays, and that I'd have to get ovah my +old-fashioned Puritanical notions and ideals if I expected to keep up +with the sma'ht set. I thought for awhile that maybe it was only the +sma'ht set who are that way, but what you've just told me about Mrs. +Cadwell, and what I've heard lately about several families right in our +own little neighbahhood, shows that it's _all_ a bad old world, and +these yeahs I've been thinking it so good I've been blind and ignorant. +I suppose it's for the best, but I'm sorry sometimes that my eyes have +been opened." + +Mrs. Bisbee sighed again at her vehemence, and then quite unexpectedly +piped up in a thin tremulous voice, with one of the songs of her youth. +In a high minor key and full of quavers, it was so ridiculous that they +both laughed. + + "'I sat beneath a hollow tree, + The blast it hollow blew. + I thought upon the hollow world, + And all its hollow crew. + Ambition and its hollow schemes, + The hollow hopes we follow, + The world and all its hollow dreams-- + All hollow, hollow, hollow!'" + +"That's the way it seems to you now," she said. "It's the reaction. But +you mustn't let it make you pessimistic. When you get to feeling like +that you'll have to do like old Abraham did, quit looking at all the +sinners in Sodom, and hunt around for the ten good men." + +A whole row of Sunday-school lessons rose up in Mrs. Bisbee's mind. She +had taught a class for thirty years in the vine-covered stone church +whose spire she could see from her window, and Lloyd was used to her +startling and unexpected application of Scripture texts. + +"Or better still," she continued, "turn your back on entire Sodom, and +look away to the plains where the faithful pitched their tents. The +world is full of that kind of people to-day as it was then, the faithful +who never join themselves to the idols of the heathen, but who tend +their flocks and live good peaceful lives, and in all their journeyings, +wherever they go, _raise an altar to the Lord_. + +"It's the marriages that are founded on _that_ rock that never fall," +she added reverently, her mind skipping from the tent-dwellers of +Genesis to the wise builder in the parables with the ease of long +practice. "'_And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds +blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not; for it was founded upon +a rock._'" + +"Sometimes just the wife's part is built on it. She's the only one that +raises the altar. Sometimes the man is the one. Of course that's better +than all being on the sand, and saves many a marriage from being the +wreck it would have been if they'd left God out of it altogether. There! +I never did think it all out in words quite as straight and clear and +convincing to myself before. But I've often had the idea come to me when +I'd be sitting in church looking at old Judge Moore's white head in the +front pew, and thinking of the trouble _he'd_ had--the sorrow and +accidents and misfortune that have beat on _his_ house--and his faith +standing up bigger and stronger than ever. Even his wife's death +couldn't shake it." + +Here she paused to lean nearer the window and nod and smile at some one +driving past the house. + +"It's Agnes Waring," she explained, as Lloyd looked up too late. "Or +Agnes Bond, I should say. I never can remember to call her that, +although she's been married over two years. Now _there's_ a happy +marriage if ever there was one. The good old-fashioned sort like the +Judge's, for they're both of the faithful. And do you know, my dear," +she continued lightly, "I shall always hold you responsible for that. It +was your making such a picture out of Agnes at that Martha Washington +affair that brought her out of her shell and gave John Bond a chance to +discover her. Miss Sarah thinks so too. By the way, she was here +yesterday, and she told me that she has about consented to break up +housekeeping and go to live with Agnes. It's so lonely for her since +poor Miss Marietta died." + +"Yes, I know," said Lloyd softly, thinking of the happy release that had +come to Miss Marietta only the week before. + +"Now, there was another case," resumed Mrs. Bisbee. "Nobody who saw her +lying there in that beautiful dress that was to have been her wedding +gown, and with that wonderful smile lighting up her face, could doubt +what sort of a foundation she and Murray Cathright built on. That was a +love that outlasted time and reached past even death into eternity +itself. So don't you go to doubting that it doesn't exist any more, my +dear." + +Lloyd made one more call on the way home, stopping in at the Apwalls' +with a magazine which Mrs. Bisbee had asked her to leave. Oddly enough +the conversation turned to the same subject that she and Mrs. Bisbee had +been discussing, but she went away in a very different mood from the one +in which she left the first place. Old Mr. Apwall irritated her. He was +in one of his sprightly facetious humours, when he delighted in making +personal remarks in a teasing way. + +"Well, my little lady," he began. "I hear you've had a whole string of +admirers dangling in your wake this last year. Oh, you needn't deny it!" +he added, shaking a finger at her in a way he considered playful. "We've +heard the gossip about that young Texas fellow and that man from the +North who nearly wore out his private car coming down to see you every +whip-stitch and that old duck from Cincinnati that you refused. Refused +them all! Oh, yes, you did, though. We heard about it. But you must +remember the story of the lass who went through the forest looking for a +straight stick. She kept throwing them away and throwing them away, +getting harder to please at every step, until she'd gone through the +whole forest, and had to pick up a crooked one at the last." + +He laughed childishly at his own tale. "Look out that you don't get a +crooked stick!" + +Mrs. Apwall broke in sourly. "That's about all there is left lying +around to choose from these days, to _my_ notion. But land sakes, +Alexander, quit teasing the child. You talk as if all her chances are +gone by and that she's doomed to be an old maid. The happiest lot of +all, _I_ say, for there's no man living but has some crook in him, and +most of 'em are all crookedness." She darted a warlike glance in his +direction. + +Lloyd left as soon as she could get away politely, wondering how they +had heard so much of her affairs. She had refused both proposals, but +she didn't know that any one outside the family knew anything about it. +She wondered now if she had been over particular, for the crook that +Mrs. Apwall insisted was in every man was only a slight one in the case +of the owner of the private car, principally a matter of little +refinements of speech and appearance which one had a right to expect of +a man in his position and whose lack argued to a dainty girl like Lloyd +some corresponding coarseness of nature. She had seen the other man +slightly intoxicated one night at a theatre party, and could never quite +forget the maudlin smile with which he poured out complimentary speeches +by the wholesale. + +The conversation at the Apwalls' brought back two very disagreeable +occasions that she did not care to remember, and she made up her mind as +she walked rapidly along towards home that it would be many a day before +she went back there. They always gave her a gloomy impression of life. + +The roads were so muddy that she had to take to the railroad track, +stepping from one cross-tie to another to avoid the sharp cinders +between. Presently she found herself walking along the rail as she and +Betty used to do on the way to school, balancing themselves with +outstretched arms and counting how many steps they could take without +slipping off. That was the way she and Rob had taken their walk the week +before. It had been too muddy to go anywhere save along the track and +they had walked the cross-ties for two miles in the face of a keen March +wind. It was soft and balmy to-day, fluttering her hair and skirts in a +playful way wholly unlike the boisterous flapping with which it had +ushered in the month. + +As she went along she peered into fence corners and up at the budding +branches, happy over every sign of spring. If the roads were dry enough +by the end of the week she and Rob intended to take a long tramp through +Tanglewood in search of wild flowers. Anemones, harebells and +spiderwort, foxgloves and dog-tooth violets, she knew them all, and the +haunts where they came the earliest. She rarely gathered them, but went +from one hiding-place to another for a glimpse of their shy faces, +welcoming them as she would old friends. Lloyd loved the woods like an +Indian, and one of the most satisfactory things about Rob's +companionship was that he enjoyed them in the same way. Often they +tramped along, scarcely saying a word a mile, finding the vibrant +silences of the wood better than speech, and their mutual pleasure in +them sufficient. After the winter in town, which had been an unusually +cold and severe one, Lloyd longed for the beginning of spring, and from +the call of the first robin and the budding of the first pussy-willow, +spent as much time as possible out of doors. + +April came in with a week of sunny days which hurried everything into +luxuriant leafage and bud. When Rob came over one warm day for his usual +Sunday afternoon walk, the whole world seemed so near the verge of +bursting into full bloom that the very air was aquiver with its +half-whispered secrets. Faint delicious odours stole up from the moist +earth and the green growing things that crowded up out of it. Even the +old locusts, conscious of a hidden wealth of sweetness which was soon to +make a glory of their gnarled branches, nodded in sympathy with all that +was young and riotous. + +There were so many things to discover near at hand that Lloyd and Rob +sauntered about the place first, before starting farther afield. There +were spring beauties covering the little knolls in the pasture, like a +fall of rosy snow. There were violets down by the ice-house, and early +columbines starting out from the crevices of the rockery, holding up +slender stems, whereon by and bye their airy blossoms would poise like a +flock of light-winged butterflies. Lloyd, happy over every tiny frond +she found unfolding itself in the fern bed, and every yellow dandelion +that added its mite of gold to the young year's coffers, was so absorbed +in her quest that she did not notice any difference in Rob's manner. + +He walked along beside her, saying little, but with the same air of +repressed eagerness that the whole April day seemed to share, as if like +the locusts, he too was conscious of some inner wealth of bloom, some +secret happiness whose time for sharing with the spring had not yet +come. Once when he answered her enthusiastic discovery of a snowdrop +with only an absent-minded monosyllable, she glanced up at him +curiously. There was such a light in his eyes and such an unwonted +tenderness in his expression that she wondered what he could be thinking +about. + +Across the pasture they went, down through the orchard where the +peach-trees were turning pink and the clusters of tiny white plum buds +were already calling the bees, and around again to the beech-grove at +the back of the house. It was a sweet flower-starred way, and Lloyd, +bubbling over with the spirit of the hour, began to hum a happy little +tune. Suddenly she stopped short in the path, turning her head slightly +with the alert motion of a young fawn. + +"What is it that smells so delicious?" she demanded. "It's almost +heavenly, it's so sweet." Then after another long indrawn breath, "I'd +think it was lilies-of-the-valley if it were any place but out heah on +the edge of the wood-lot. They _couldn't_ be way out heah. It must be +some rare kind of wild flowah we've nevah discovered." + +Leaving the path, they both began searching through the underbrush, +pushing aside the dead leaves, and stooping now and then to examine some +plant that did not seem entirely familiar. + +"I'm positive it's a _white_ flowah," declared Lloyd, closing her eyes +and drawing in another breath of the faint, elusive fragrance. "Only a +white flowah could have such an ethereal odah. It makes you think of +white things, doesn't it? Snow crystals and angel wings! Oh, they _are_ +lilies-of-the-valley!" she cried the next instant, stooping over a bed +of green from which Rob was raking the dead leaves with a stick. + +"And don't you remembah now," she cried, her eyes like eager stars as +she recalled the incident, "_we_ planted them heah ourselves, yeahs ago. +I remembah digging up a whole apronful of some thrifty green things out +of the flowah bed undah yoah mothah's window and lugging them ovah home +all the way from Oaklea. You planted them in this place for me, because +we thought we'd build a play-house heah, but aftahwards we changed our +minds and built it by the grape-vine swing." + +"It seems to me I do have a faint recollection of something of that +sort," Rob answered. "I know I had a row with Unc' Andy once for digging +up some of his pet borders and transplanting them over here, but I +didn't know they were lilies." + +"I suppose we didn't know because we nevah happened to wandah this way +aftahward when they were in bloom," she continued, seating herself +beside them and parting the thickest sheaths of green to reveal the +perfect white flowers hidden away among them. Throwing aside her hat, +she bent over to thrust her face into their midst, revelling in the +purity and exquisite fragrance. + +"There's nothing like them!" she exclaimed, so intent on the beauty of +the tiny white bells that she did not see the expression with which Rob +was looking down on her. There was a likeness between the two, he was +thinking, the white-gowned girl and the white, white blossoms. They +seemed spiritually akin. She touched one of the racemes softly. + +"It's a miracle, isn't it!" she said in a low, reverent tone. + +"A miracle that anything so sweet and white and perfect can suddenly +come into being like this. It must have made those old lily bulbs wondah +at themselves the first time they unfolded and woke up to find that such +a heavenly thing had happened to them,--their hearts filled with this +unearthly beauty and sweetness. Don't you suppose it made the whole +world seem different, that they're not yet done wondering ovah the +surprise and joy of it?" + +She said it with a shy side-glance as if half-afraid he would laugh at +such a childish fancy. Then she looked up startled, at the unexpected +intensity of his answer. + +"I _know_ it made the whole world different," he said in such a strange +exultant voice that she hardly knew it for Rob's. Dropping to one knee +beside her he singled out one of the lilies just beginning to burst +from its sheath, and folded it close shut again in its green leaves. + +"Look!" he said in the same exultant voice. "That's the way I've been +for years, with something hidden away in my heart, unrecognized at +first, then its sweetness only half-guessed at. And I kept it hid, and I +thought never to tell you. But this morning in church it happened to +_me_, this miracle of blossoming. I was sitting looking at you as I've +done a thousand times before, and all of a sudden it came over me, just +as sweet and unexpected as the bursting of these lilies, the knowledge +that life is dear and the world beautiful because _you_ are in it. I +think I've always held the thought of you in my heart, Lloyd, but it has +come to such full flower now, dear, I couldn't hide it from you long, +even if I tried. It seems to me now that all of my life must have been a +gradual growing up for this one thing--to love you!" + +Then his face, glowing with an eager gladness that almost transfigured +it, paled a little before the mute misery in hers. + +"Oh, Rob!" she stammered, finding it hard to believe that she had heard +aright. "_Don't_ tell me that! I've always loved you deahly, but not +_that_ way." Then as she saw all the light fade out of his eyes and his +face settle into grim stern lines, she reached out both hands crying, +"Oh, you deah old Bobby! I wouldn't have had it happen for the world! I +can't _beah_ to hurt you this way!" + +Her eyes filled and two big tears splashed down on the hands she had +thrust impulsively into his. With a gentleness that stirred her even +more than his words had done, he bent and touched them with his lips. + +"Never mind, dear," he said with a great tenderness that brought a sob +up into her throat. "Don't think of it any more if it makes you unhappy. +If you could have loved me it would have been heaven, but as you can't +we won't talk about it any more. And--I still have my miracle. Nothing +can change that." + +She could not answer, the tears came crowding so fast, and as they +walked back towards the house together all the brightness seemed to have +dropped out of the April day. The sweetness of the lilies still followed +them, however, and when she glanced around, wondering why, she saw that +Rob still held the one he had knelt to pick for her. He twirled it +absently in his fingers, but as they parted at the steps he held it out +to her with a smile so tender and full of understanding, that another +sob came up in her throat and she took it without a word. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +THE ROYAL MANTLE + + +THE week that followed was an unhappy one for Lloyd. Everywhere she went +it seemed to her that lilies-of-the-valley were thrust into her face. On +the way to town people got on the car at nearly every station with great +bunches of them that they were carrying to offices or to their friends. +The florists' windows were full of them. Men passed her on the street +wearing them on their coats, and even the little shop-girl, who waited +on her at the ribbon counter, had them stuck in her belt. When she +called at Mrs. Bisbee's there was a box of them growing on her +window-sill, and at home the whole house was permeated by the fragrance +that floated out from the great crystal bowl on the library table. She +could not get away from them, and they kept Rob constantly in her +thoughts. + +She told herself that she had never known anything quite so considerate +and sweet as the way he had taken her answer. The more she thought of +his quick putting aside of self in order that she might not be unhappy, +the more it grieved her that he must be disappointed. She did not see +him again until the following Sunday. He came into church behind the old +Judge and Mrs. Moore, and Lloyd dropped her eyes to her hymn-book, her +heart in such a flutter that it sent a queer little tingle all over her. +She was afraid to meet his glance, for fear the consciousness of their +last meeting would send the telltale red to her face. + +In the pew just behind the Moores' sat Katie Mallard with a girl from +Frankfort, who was visiting her, and as Rob took his seat Lloyd saw the +guest's pretty eyes fixed inquiringly on him. Then she whispered +something to Katie behind her fan. Instantly the wonder crossed Lloyd's +mind what the newcomer thought of him, and then she wondered how he +would appear to her if she could see him with the eyes of a stranger, +without the intimate knowledge their long acquaintance had given her. + +She stole a glance in his direction, as the organist pulled out the +stops and struck the opening chords of the voluntary. He was certainly +good to look at, and, she concluded, the veriest stranger, if he were +any judge at all of such things, must see at a glance that his was a +strong character, that he would scorn to do a dishonourable thing and +that the years behind him were clean and honest. Then with a start she +realized that she had been holding him up to her silver yardstick, and +that he not only met its three requirements, but went far beyond. He had +family, social position, everything that her father had desired for her +save wealth, and she remembered how earnestly he had added, on that +solemn watch-night, "but all these are nothing when weighed in the +balance with the love of an honest man." + +This greatest of all had been given her, but she could not accept +because--well, she didn't know why--but probably because it was just +_Bobby_ who had offered it, and she couldn't think of _him_ as being the +one the stars had destined for her--a boy that she had made mud pies +with. The old Hildegarde story had been good for her in many ways, but +it had made the prince of her dreams a vague personality unlike any man +she had ever met. She had never put into words, even to herself, what +she expected him to be like, but the shadowy image that her imagination +sometimes held up had no flaw like ordinary mortals, no human faults +and failings. And she would know him when he came, in some strange, +mysterious way that needed no speech--his coming would be heralded like +Hebe's: "_Before her ran an influence sweet, that bowed my heart like +barley bending._" + +The congregation rose for the Gloria and her eyes met Rob's. For one +instant in the quick lighting of his face she had a revelation of all +that his "miracle of blossoming" meant to him, then he flashed her a +reassuring smile that seemed to say: "Never mind, old chum. We'll go on +just as we've always done." + +That she had interpreted it aright Lloyd knew when he came that +afternoon as usual and proposed a walk over past the Lindsey Cabin. He +seemed to have put himself into her place so fully that he understood +just how she felt towards him; knew that it hurt her to have to withhold +the one great thing he desired, and that his friendship was still as +dear to her as ever. So with a fine consideration that she was quick to +appreciate, he came back to his old place so naturally, and as such a +matter of course, that it put her at her ease with him and made it +possible for her to ignore the episode of the lilies as if it had never +been. + +May came with its locust blossoms and the birthday anniversary that +made her "old and twenty." One of her gifts was a beautiful +saddle-horse, and she began her daily rides again. Several times when +Rob could arrange to leave town earlier than usual he rode with her. + +Early in June Betty wrote that she was going up into the pine woods of +Maine for her vacation. She had been offered a position to teach an hour +a day in a sort of summer school, a girls' camp, and the position had +too many advantages to refuse. She would be back in time for a week or +ten days at The Locusts before the opening of the fall term at Warwick +Hall. Lloyd, who had looked forward to Betty's companionship for the +entire summer, was sorely disappointed. The same day that that letter +came, Rob told her that he was going away for awhile. Some investments +his father had made years ago had turned out to be worth investigating, +and he was sure he could dispose of them advantageously. At any rate he +was going to Birmingham to try. He might be back in a week or two, and +he might be away the entire month of June. If Betty had been at home +probably Lloyd would not have missed him at all, but because she had to +take so many of her walks and rides alone, he was often in her +thoughts. + +"I can't expect to have every summah as gay as last one was," she said +to herself one morning, as she busied herself about her room, changing +the arrangement of the pictures. She leaned over to dust the ones above +her low bookcase. They ran in a long panel, just above it, the series of +garden fancies that Leland Harcourt had suggested. It was on a June +morning like this almost a year ago that she had posed for some of them +in Doctor Shelby's old garden. It seemed at least four times as long as +that. She had grown so much older and wiser. She stooped to look again +at the picture of Darby and Joan, under which was written, "Hand in hand +while our hair is gray." As she passed her duster lightly over the glass +which covered the two dear old faces, she remembered that next week this +devoted couple were to celebrate their golden wedding, and that she had +promised to let them "borrow" her for a whole week before, to help with +the preparations. + +An hour later she was opening the gate that led to the old-fashioned +door where the ugly little Chinese idol still kept guard and held it +open. She found Mrs. Shelby out on her cool upper piazza, behind the +moon-vines, in a low sewing chair. She was stitching daintily away on a +bit of fine linen. "A wristband for one of Richard's shirts," she +explained, after her first moments of delighted greeting. "And I'll go +right on with it, for I'm making him a set all by hand for my +anniversary present to him. He's always been so proud of my needlework +and had so much sentiment for the things I've made myself. I can't begin +to tell you how glad I am to have you here. I've been sitting here all +morning thinking that if my little Alicia had lived what an interest she +would have taken in all my preparations. I keep forgetting that she +wouldn't be a young girl like you. It's Alicia's granddaughter who would +have been your age." + +It took only a question or two to open the gates into this gentle old +soul's happy yesterdays, and Lloyd listened and questioned, enjoying the +quiet romance that she gathered bit by bit as one gathers the posies of +an old garden and clasps them into a full-rounded nosegay. + +"Aunt Alicia," she asked presently, "were you _suah_ at the time that +you were making no mistake? Didn't you have any doubts or misgivings +about the doctah's being the right one?" + +Mrs. Shelby laughed. "I must confess that I was a very silly girl who +had read so many sentimental stories that my head was full of dreams of +some faultless being who should appear like the prince to the Sleeping +Beauty and change the whole world for me with a kiss. It was a long time +before I could recognize him in the disguise of a poor country doctor. +But I think we are apt to be that way about most things in life, my +dear. Familiarity disguises the real worth of most of our blessings. We +don't appreciate them till we are forced to miss them for awhile." + +"But what finally showed you?" persisted Lloyd. "What made you see +through the disguise?" + +"Oh, my dear," laughed Mrs. Shelby again. "I couldn't explain a thing +like that! How do these moon-flowers know what calls them to open, or +the tide when it is time to rise? They _feel_ it, I suppose. They just +_know_! That is the way it was with me." + +Lloyd came again next day prepared to spend the week. It would be hard +to tell who enjoyed the visit the most. Gentle Aunt Alicia fluttered +around, hugging the sweet pretence to her heart that for this little +space at least she had a real own daughter beside her, hers to call upon +for any service that the little Alicia would have gladly tendered. The +old doctor spent every moment he could spare from his office in the +spacious screened porch leading from the kitchen, where all the +preparations were carried gaily forward. + +Here, after the invitations were sent, Lloyd spent her time. Under her +supervision the old satin wedding gown was brought out and aired and +pressed and slightly altered. Its white folds had turned to a mellow +ivory in the years it had been laid away, just as the sentiment which +cherished it had grown deeper and richer with time. Once as Lloyd +intercepted a glance the old doctor exchanged with his wife as they +brought out these reminders of their far-away bridal, it made her feel +that she was touching with intimate fingers the heart of a sweet and +tender old romance. + +From the yellowed pages of an old diary, she read a description of the +original wedding feast, and with an enthusiasm which went ahead of Mrs. +Shelby's own prepared to copy it in every detail for the golden wedding. +Jellies and cakes and salads, candied rose-leaves and rare spiced +confections that had graced the first were all reproduced for this great +occasion. Lloyd beat eggs and shelled nuts and stirred icing with a +zest, while she planned the decorations and gave orders right and left +to a household who joyed to do her bidding. + +It was not until next to the last great day that Mrs. Shelby made the +discovery they had overlooked a certain gold-cake, whose recipe was +missing. "And I don't suppose it's to be found anywhere in the Valley," +she mourned, "unless they've kept Phronie Moore's old cook-book. She was +one of my bridesmaids, and she made it with her own hands. It was one of +her own special recipes that she was noted for, and I wouldn't have lost +it for anything." + +"You know the Judge must have kept it, Alicia," the old doctor gently +insisted. "You know the slightest thing she ever handled was sacred to +him, and it stands to reason that anything she'd taken so much pride in, +and written every page with her own hands, as you say, would be +preserved. No doubt his daughter-in-law can find it for you without the +least trouble." + +"Even if she could I wouldn't want to borrow it," began Mrs. Shelby, but +Lloyd interrupted briskly. "I'll fix it all right for you, Aunt Alicia. +I'll run right ovah to Oaklea as soon as Daphne gets this in the oven, +and ask Mrs. Moore to let me copy the recipe for you." + +So that is how it came about that late that afternoon, Lloyd opened the +great iron gate at Oaklea, and, following the familiar path under the +giant oaks, reached the house to which she had long been a stranger. + +Rob's dog, a fine Gordon setter, came out with a boisterous barking, but +seeing who it was, leaped up, licking her hands and wagging a friendly +welcome. It seemed as if Rob ought to be somewhere near. Everything +about the place suggested him. A familiar wide-brimmed gray hat lay on +the hall table, his riding-whip beside it. Up-stairs whither the +coloured maid led her, there were other reminders of him: Indian clubs +and a tennis racquet in a corner of the hall, and a cabinet holding the +various collections that had been his fads from time to time. + +"Come in here, dear," called Mrs. Moore from the depths of a sleepy +hollow chair. "I'm too tired to move, so I knew you'd excuse my sending +down for you to come up-stairs." + +It was Rob's room into which she was ushered. Mrs. Moore held out both +cordial hands without rising, and drew her down for a kiss. + +"Rob's coming home to-night," she explained, "so of course everything +had to be swept and garnished for so grand an occasion, and I've nearly +used myself up making things fine in his honour." + +Her eyes filled with tears. "It's the first time he's been away since +the dear 'Daddy' left us, and I had no idea four weeks could be such an +age. I'm so excited and happy over his coming that I can scarcely talk +about it calmly. But you know what a dear good son my 'Robin Adair' is +to me, so you can make allowances for a fond mother's foolishness." + +It was some moments before Lloyd had an opportunity to make known her +errand, apologizing profusely for putting her to any exertion when she +was so tired. + +"Oh, it's no trouble," answered Mrs. Moore. "I think I know right where +to put my hand on the book in father's room. I'll step across the hall +and see." + +Left to herself Lloyd gave a shy glance around the room, remembering the +time when it had been a familiar playground, but now she had an +embarrassed sense of intruding. Many an hour she had spent romping in it +while Mom Beck and Dinah gossiped by the fire. They had had their +menagerie and lions' den in that curtained alcove. Here on the hard-wood +floor between the chimney-corner and the window they had chalked the +ring for their marble games. She leaned over and examined the floor at +her feet with a smile. Those were undoubtedly the dents that their +top-spinning had left. Mom Beck had told them at the time, no amount of +polishing could ever wipe out such holes. + +The little tin soldiers that used to stand guard on the window-sill had +given place to other things now. The rocking-horse that had carried them +such long journeys of adventure together had been stabled for years in +the attic at The Locusts. College trophies and pennants hung on the +walls. A rifle and a shotgun stood in the corner where a wooden gun and +a toy sword used to stay. The low table and the picture books had given +place to a massive desk and rows on rows of heavy volumes bound in +leather. + +Then she recognized several things belonging to a later period. There +was the shaving-paper case she made him the day he bought his first +razor. She had been so proud of the monogram she burnt into the leather. +It looked decidedly amateurish to her now. On the leather couch among +its many cushions was the pillow she had embroidered in his fraternity +colours and sent to him while he was at college. + +Between the front windows where the desk stood, and just above it, ran +four long rows of photographs set in narrow panels. Most of them were +group pictures, the first dating back to the time of her first +house-party, and ending with some that had been taken the week of +Eugenia's wedding. It was like a serial story of all their good times, +and hastily changing her seat she leaned her elbows on the desk for +another look. But the nearer view revealed something that she had not +seen at the first glance. _She_ was the central figure of every group. +It was _her_ face that one noticed first, laughing back from every +picture. + +Abashed at her discovery, she scuttled back to her former seat, but not +before her quick glance had showed her another photograph on the desk, +in a silver frame. It was the last one Miss Marks had taken of her, in +her commencement gown. She did not know that Rob had one of them. She +had not given it to him. + +Mrs. Moore called out something to her from across the hall, and as she +turned to reply she faced still another picture of herself, this one in +an old-fashioned silver locket swinging from the side of the mirror. It +was the Princess Winsome with the dove. She was afraid to look any +further. She felt like an eavesdropper, for the very walls were calling +out to her those words of Rob's that she had been trying for weeks to +forget: "All my life seems to have been a growing up for this one +thing--to love you!" + +She sprang up with the impulse to leave the room, to get away from these +telltale voices that she had no right to listen to. But just then Mrs. +Moore came back with the book. + +"You can copy it here at the desk," she said, laying out a sheet of +paper and Rob's big heavy-handled pen. She did not sit down while Lloyd +wrote the few lines, but stood with her hand on the back of the chair +till she had finished. Then she said with an amused smile, "I want to +show you something funny, Lloyd. I came across it this morning while I +was looking over some old things of Rob's. It's your first piece of +needlework. You made it over here one rainy day under Mom Beck's +instructions. It's so long ago I suppose you've forgotten, but I +remember that Rob tried to make one too, and stuck his fingers so often +that he cried and gave it up, and you gave him yours to comfort him." + +Opening a box which she brought from some drawer, she took out a sorry +little pin-cushion. All puckered and drawn, its long straggling stitches +scarcely kept in place the cotton with which it was stuffed. The faded +blue silk was streaked and dirty as if it had been used for a foot-ball +at some stage of its existence, and the pins that formed the crooked +letter L had rusted in their places. But that it was accounted something +precious, one could see from the way in which it was tied and wrapped +and carefully put away in this box by itself. + +It was a relief to Lloyd to find that Mrs. Moore did not attach any +significance to the fact that Rob thus treasured her old gift. She only +laughed and said he was like her in that regard. She couldn't bear to +throw away anything connected with his childhood. Only that morning she +had come across the little blue shoes that he had learned to walk in, +and nearly cried over them, they recalled so plainly those happy days. + +"We are both full of sentiment for old things," she continued. "I +believe it will hurt him nearly as much as me if we decide to leave +Oaklea and try to make a home somewhere else." + +"Leave Oaklea!" repeated Lloyd wonderingly. + +"Yes, Rob has had such a splendid opening offered him in Birmingham that +he has been strongly tempted to move there. Oh, I haven't told you the +good news, have I! He succeeded in selling that property to a big +corporation that needed it to extend their manufactories, and was able +to get such a fine figure for it that now he can give up that horrid +grind in the hardware business and go away in the fall for the last year +of his law course. He has studied so hard with his grandfather that this +one year is all that is necessary, and he will be the youngest lawyer to +be admitted to the Louisville bar when he gets through. His grandfather +is prouder of that possibility than anything else connected with the +boy." + +"But about your going away," began Lloyd, anxiously, when she had +expressed proper interest in the news. "Oaklea won't be the same place +with strangahs living heah. I can't imagine such a thing." + +"It isn't settled yet," Mrs. Moore answered cheerfully, and then rambled +on to some other topic. But Lloyd heard no word of what she was saying. +A sudden panic had seized her at the possibility of Rob's being taken +out of her life for ever. The bare thought gave her a sinking of the +heart and a sense of desolation such as a little child might have at +being left alone in the dark. As she sat there trying to imagine how it +would seem never to see him again, such a revelation of her own self +came to her that it sent the colour surging up in her face and set her +heart to fluttering like a startled bird. She knew now for whom she had +been weaving all these years. This moment of self insight had torn away +the disguise. _Her Prince had come into his kingdom!_ + +A pause in Mrs. Moore's remarks brought the embarrassing knowledge that +she had not heard the question whose reply was being waited for, and she +started to stammer some incoherent excuse, when a shrill whistle from +below made them both start. The familiar sound was followed by a joyous +barking from the Gordon setter, and then Rob's voice called gaily, +"Where are you, mother? Six whole hours ahead of time, just to surprise +you!" + +Mrs. Moore sprang up, all her weariness forgotten, and ran down-stairs +to meet him. Lloyd stood hesitating in the middle of the floor. She +didn't want to intrude on this meeting, yet she couldn't stay there in +his room, the room that babbled his secrets and reflected him on every +side like a mirror. Still hesitating, then going forward and halting +again, she reached the landing midway on the stairs and saw him standing +with his arm around his mother, who had forgotten everything else save +the joy of his return. + +Then he glanced up and saw her standing there, one hand on the polished +rail, and her white dress trailing down the steps behind her. And the +late afternoon sunshine stealing through the amber medallion window +above her rested with such soft touch on her fair hair that it seemed +that a halo of dim gold surrounded her. For an instant he thought he +must be dreaming, and stood gazing at her with a look of happy wonder as +if this were only another vision of the dream-saint always enshrined in +his heart. + +But his next glance showed him that it was Lloyd in reality, for at his +adoring gaze she went all rosy red, and looked away in shy confusion. +Stopping only for the briefest greeting, she hurried past him, saying +that Aunt Alicia was waiting, and the wonderful cake wouldn't be done in +time, that his mother would tell him about it, and she'd see him at the +wedding to-morrow. + +What happened afterward was all a sort of golden haze to Lloyd. The +afternoon of the anniversary came and went. She greeted the guests who +came in a constant stream with their gifts and good wishes. She sang the +old songs when they asked her to, she saw that every one was served to +the sumptuous refreshments in the dining-room; she played her rôle of +daughter of the house to such perfection that Aunt Alicia caught her +hand gratefully every time she passed, and followed her with loving +eyes as she flitted from room to room. She carried away the impression +that it was all a beautiful sacred occasion, for the whole Valley bared +its heart for that little space to show its love for the good doctor who +for half a century had been its standby in its times of stress and +anxiety and bitter bereavement. + +Yet the only moment that stood out quite clearly was the one when Rob +passed down the receiving line and stopped for a word about the perfect +June day, and how sweet the white-haired bride of fifty years looked in +her old-time satin gown and white roses. Lloyd had answered gaily, +fluttering her fan and adjusting the slender bracelet on her arm, in a +careless way, but she had not looked up at him in her usual +straightforward fashion. + +The festivities were not extended into the evening. Because Aunt Alicia +was not strong the invitations were only for the afternoon, and by +sundown the last guest had departed. Even Lloyd went, saying merrily +that she left them to begin their second honeymoon, but that she would +be back next morning to help put things in order. + +There was company at The Locusts that night, some business acquaintances +of Mr. Sherman's whom he had invited to dinner, and who were interested +in nothing but statistics about the South and other like stupid things. +Tired by the day's exhausting demands, Lloyd left them when they went +into the drawing-room, and stepping out on the porch sat down on the +steps. The moon was coming up, turning the locusts to silver. + +Presently she heard the sound of hoof-beats down the pike, and as she +listened a solitary horseman turned in at the gate. She was not +expecting Rob, but even at that distance she recognized the familiar +slouch of his broad-brimmed hat and the erect way he sat in the saddle. +And she knew before a word was spoken, the moment he dismounted and +stood before her that he had not come for a call, only to bring some +message. But he did not deliver it at once, only asked who the guests +were, and sat down beside her on the steps and talked about the trivial +happenings of the afternoon. + +Then a few minutes later she was walking along beside him under the +locusts. The moonlight lay in silver patches among the black shadows and +the air was heavy with the breath of roses. They stopped at the old +measuring tree, and Rob dropped the light tone in which he had been +jesting, and his face grew tense in his deep earnestness. + +"It's no use trying any longer, Lloyd," he said abruptly. "I can't give +you up. The golden wedding to-day was too much for me." He took a step +nearer. "Dear, isn't there _anything_ I could do to make myself worthier +in your sight? In the old days knights could go out and _prove_ their +valour and fealty. Couldn't you give me some such chance? Set me a task? +I'd go to the world's end to do it!" + +Lloyd did not answer for a moment. Leaning against the trunk of the +gnarled locust, she stood idly tracing the outline of the four-leaf +clover that he had cut beside the date the last time they measured +there. Then she said in a low tone: + +"Yes, you can bring me the diamond leaf that we've talked about so +often. By that token you'd prove that you were not only a true knight, +but that all these yeahs you've been my prince in disguise." + +He smiled ruefully, thinking she had purposely set him a hopeless task. +They had read the legend together, and he knew full well that Abdallah +found the diamond leaf of happiness only in Paradise, but he took out +his watch and opened the back of the case, saying hopefully, "My lucky +charm has never failed me yet, how long will you give me to find it?" + +She held out her hand for the little talisman, the four-leaf clover she +had given him so many years ago, but as he picked it up, the dry leaves +crumbled to dust at his touch, and only one fell unbroken into her +outstretched palm. + +"My good omen has failed me when I needed it most!" he said bitterly, +but Lloyd answered shyly, "No, don't you see? This is the _fo'th_ leaf. +You have brought me what I asked for." + +For an instant he stood there, an incredulous joy dawning in his face, +then grasping the little hand that closed over the clover, he asked +wonderingly, "And my unworthy shoulders really fit your royal mantle +_now_, dear? You are sure?" + +She looked up at him then, not a doubt in her trusting face as she +slowly made answer, "Yes, Rob, 'as the falcon's feathahs fit the +falcon!'" + +And then the old locusts, looking down on the ending of a story that +they had watched from its beginning, stopped their swaying for a space, +with a soft "Sh!" each to each as one lays finger on lip in holy +places. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +"AS IT WAS WRITTEN IN THE STARS" AND BETTY'S DIARY + + +"THE lights are out and gone are all the guests." It is very late, but I +must sit up and write the full account of it while it is all fresh and +clear in my mind. Besides I am too wide awake to sleep even if I should +try. It was a beautiful, beautiful wedding; but I must go back ever so +far if I am to have no gaps in this record. + +It is three years now since I went away to Warwick Hall to teach; full, +hard years, but so rich in experiences and so helpful in my work that +I'd gladly go on with them if I were not needed here at home. But they +do need me now that Lloyd is married and gone, and although she has not +gone far and will be in and out every day, and her room is just as she +left it, and her place will always be hers, still I am the daughter of +the house in many ways, and can in a measure make up to godmother and +Papa Jack all they have done for me. I think they do feel repaid to a +great extent by my little successes and the prospect of more to follow +by and by. It made me so glad and proud when I heard Papa Jack telling +the doctor to-day about the essays the _Atlantic_ had accepted of mine, +and how pleased he was over the series of sketches that the New York +publishers are going to bring out in book form in time for the holidays. +The same publishers that refused my poor old novel too. + +It does not seem possible that two years and a half have gone by since +Lloyd wrote to me of her engagement, but it seemed a long time to look +forward to then. Her father and mother would not have consented to give +her up any sooner even if Rob had been in a position to ask it. Now he +has been a member of his grandfather's firm for a full year, and +everybody says he is one of the most promising young lawyers ever +admitted to the Louisville bar. He has gone into his life work as he +went into all his games--to win! And he is so big and strong and +_dependable_, I know that godmother and Papa Jack feel perfectly safe in +giving Lloyd up to him. I think that even the old Colonel finds it a +little easier to be reconciled to the idea of her leaving because he is +so fond and proud of Rob. But he seems to take it to heart more than +any one else. + +Lloyd thought he did, too, and when she first began to plan her wedding +she asked her father if he would feel hurt if she asked her grandfather +instead of him to go with her to the altar and give her away. "You know, +Papa Jack," she said in that saucy way of hers that no one about the +place can resist, "you cut him off from the one chance he should have +had to perform that ceremony, by running away with mothah. So it's only +fair you should make it up to him now by giving him the honah of +escorting me. Besides you and she have each othah, and he feels so left +out and lonely and is making such a deadly serious affair of my going +away." + +Papa Jack saw it from her point of view and was entirely willing to do +as she wished. When the old Colonel found out what Lloyd wanted, he was +so touched and pleased and complimented that I think he must have lain +awake nights trying to think of things to show his appreciation. This +last week she called presentation week, because every single day he +surprised her with some lovely present. + +The first day he gave her the little silver sugar-bowl with butterfly +handles and the cream-pitcher shaped like a lily that he had promised +her the first time she had a "pink party" up in his room, when she was +a tiny little girl. The next day it was a purse full of bright new gold +pieces, and the next a locket that had been his mother's, all set round +with sapphires, and with sapphires strung at intervals on the slender +chain that held it. One day the gift was a treasure of a rosewood chair +and writing-desk that had belonged to Lloyd's grandmother Amanthis, with +all the little mother-of-pearl articles that go with a desk, just as she +had used them. She was too surprised for anything the day he gave her +the harp. It had been called hers since she started to learn to play on +it, but she never for a moment supposed he would allow it taken away +from The Locusts. The sixth present had no intrinsic value, but he had +treasured it for years, a medal bestowed on one of his Virginia +ancestors by the king, as a reward for his services to the crown in +those early days of struggle and stress in the colonies. + +Then last and best of all in Lloyd's eyes was a splendid copy of the +beautiful portrait of her grandmother Amanthis. I cannot distinguish it +from the original that has always hung over the mantel in the +drawing-room. The Colonel had a fine artist come on from New York to +paint it, while Lloyd was at the seashore this summer. + +She was so happy over it and all her heirlooms. She said she didn't want +her father and mother to give her any new silver. They had talked about +a full set. She said there was so much old family plate over at Oaklea, +which she would far rather use. So godmother gave her a chest of linen, +and Papa Jack some shares in the Arizona mines. She has actually seemed +to take pleasure in the thought that she is marrying a poor man, and has +been preparing for it all during her engagement by keeping her expenses +within a certain limit instead of spending in the lavish way she has +always been accustomed to. She's taken such pride too in learning all +the housewifely arts that her grandmother and the Judge's wife were so +noted for. + +Eugenia and Stuart Tremont came several days ago, and Joyce came with +them to be one of the bridesmaids. Phil could not leave his work just +now long enough to come, but he sent the dearest little gift--a +cut-glass honey dish and cover, with a honey spoon to go with it. The +spoon is a flat gold one with a cluster of bees on the handle. The note +he sent with it was dear, too, thanking her so beautifully for the +inspiration and help her friendship had been to him, and for her good +advice that sent him to "The School of the Bees." + +Lloyd was so pleased that she hunted up a little unset turquoise he had +once given her as a friendship stone, and Rob took it to town and had a +jeweller set it into a tiny stick-pin for her, and she wore it as the +"something blue" at her wedding. + +Rob couldn't afford to give her an expensive present like the diamond +pendant that Raleigh Claiborne gave Allison when they were married last +summer, but it pleased Lloyd more than a queen's tiara could have done. +It was just a little clasp to fasten her bridal veil. He had it made to +order--only a four-leaf clover, but the fourth leaf was diamond-set, +because, like the one Abdallah found in Paradise, it was the leaf of +happiness. + +It was just a quiet church wedding, as simple as it could possibly be +made, in the late afternoon of one of the sweetest, goldenest October +days that ever shone on the Valley. Only her most intimate friends were +invited to the ceremony, because the little stone church is so small, +but the doors were thrown open to everybody at the reception that +followed at The Locusts. + +Since the church has been frescoed inside and done over in soft cool +greens, it makes me think of the heart of a deep beech woods. The light +slips in through its narrow deep-set windows just as it does between +the trees in the dim forest aisles. Lloyd wouldn't have it filled with +hothouse roses. She said nothing could be as appropriate as the wild +flowers growing all around it in the country lanes and meadows. So there +was nothing but tall plumes of goldenrod nodding in every open window, +while the altar was a bank of snowy asters. She wanted them she said +because aster means star, and it was at the altar her happiness would be +written for her in the stars. + +She said, too, that as long as it was in the country and she needn't +think of the conventions and could have things just as she pleased, she +wanted it to be a white wedding--everybody in the bridal party to wear +white. She said the old Colonel wouldn't look natural to her in anything +else that time of year, and all the others would appear to better +advantage. Every one said afterward what a beautiful picture it made. +Rob and Malcolm and Keith and Ranald and Alex are all handsome young +fellows anyhow, and they looked bigger and handsomer than ever in their +immaculate white suits. Malcolm was best man and I was maid of honour. +Kitty and Joyce and Katie Mallard were the bridesmaids. We girls carried +armfuls of the starry asters and the men wore them as boutonnières. + +[Illustration: "'SHE LOOKED TO ME JUST LIKE ONE OF HER OWN LILIES.'"] + +As for Lloyd, when she came out of her room, her dress trailing behind +her like a soft, pure-white cloud, so light and airy it seemed as if it +must have been woven on some fairy loom, and with a great cluster of +lilies-of-the-valley in her hands, she looked to me just like one of her +own lilies. Poor old Mom Beck, who had dressed her, stood behind her +with the tears streaming down her black face, saying, "Honey, you sho'ly +nevah will look moah like a blessed angel when you git through the +pearly gates than you do this minute!" + +From the look on Rob's face as he met her at the white starry-crowned +altar, I am sure he felt that he had already gone through "the pearly +gates." It was all so sweet and solemn, and as we listened to the words, +"_Whom God hath joined together_," I think we all felt that heaven's own +benediction rested on them, and would follow them all their way to the +"Land o' the Leal." + +How the people of the Valley poured in at The Locusts afterward to wish +them joy! Old and young, rich and poor, white and black, for of course +all the old servants of both families had to come in to pay their +respects. I am sure that no more heartfelt good wishes were uttered than +their "God bless you, Miss Lloyd, honey," or "I wish you joy, Mistah +Rob," as the faithful black hands that had served them from babyhood +grasped theirs with loyal good-will. They seem to count this year that +joins the two old families and estates as a sort of year of jubilee. + +It isn't often that a wedding has everybody's approval as this one has. +Lloyd has always been as much of a favourite at Oaklea as Rob is at The +Locusts. The Judge is radiantly happy and Mrs. Moore has been as sweet +and considerate about everything as if Lloyd were really her own +daughter. She wants Lloyd to take the place as mistress of the house +just as she did when _she_ went there a bride. She and Rob's father +didn't take a wedding journey, but went straight home to Oaklea to spend +their honeymoon, and she was so pleased when she found that Lloyd and +Rob wanted to do the same. She and the Judge waited just long enough to +welcome them home to-night, and then took the train for Alabama to visit +some of her people. They have long been wanting to make the trip, and so +chose this time. + +All the details of the supper were carried out just as they were at +Eugenia's wedding, excepting the charms. Lloyd vowed she had lost faith +in them since Mammy Easter's fortune had failed to come true. By rights +Joyce should have been married before either Allison or herself because +she caught Eugenia's bouquet. But because the girls still believed in +them she did throw her bouquet from the top of the steps just before she +left, and Kitty caught it. + +It is only a step over to Oaklea, so she went away in her bridal gown +and veil. I'll never forget the picture she made as she stood there in +the moonlight, waiting for the carriage to drive up for them, or the +adoring look in Rob's eyes as he turned to lead her down the steps. +Somehow it makes the tears come crowding up in such a mist I can hardly +see to write. + +And now I have come to the last page of this volume of my Good-times +book. Dear Lloyd, dear little sister who was the beginning of all my +good times, I am glad that heaven has sent you this happy day for me to +chronicle! What a beautiful Road of the Loving Heart your girlhood has +left in the memory of all your friends! What a spirit of joy you have +been in this old home, and what an aching void you have left behind you! +No matter what the years may hold in store, you will _be_ a blessing +wherever you go, for you have learned to keep tryst with all that life +demands of you. And because you were true to your Hildegarde promise +and wove only according to the silver yardstick, I can close this record +in the same words that end the old story we have both loved so long: +"_So with her father's blessing light upon her, she rode away beside the +prince; and ever after all her life was crowned with happiness as it had +been written for her in the stars!_" + + +THE END. + + * * * * * + +Transcriber's Notes: + +Obvious punctuation errors repaired. Varied hyphenation retained, for +example, upstairs and up-stairs. + +Page 16, "vestage" changed to "vestige" (swept away every vestige) + +Page 52, "It" changed to "Is" (Is he anything) + +Page 95, "van guard" changed to "vanguard" (rear and a vanguard) + +Page 131, "ilke" changed to "like" (Marks, like a good) + +Page 236, "thinkng" changed to "thinking" (in thinking it over) + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Little Colonel's Knight Comes +Riding, by Annie Fellows Johnston + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LITTLE COLONEL'S KNIGHT *** + +***** This file should be named 39594-8.txt or 39594-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/9/5/9/39594/ + +Produced by David Edwards, Emmy and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was +produced from images generously made available by The +Internet Archive) + + +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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