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| author | nfenwick <nfenwick@pglaf.org> | 2025-02-04 08:24:23 -0800 |
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| committer | nfenwick <nfenwick@pglaf.org> | 2025-02-04 08:24:23 -0800 |
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text-align:right; margin-right:.7em; float:left; } - dt .large {font-weight:bold; } - -.clear { clear:both; } -.htab { margin-left:8em; } - /* MAXWIDTH FOR JUVENILE BOOKS */ - p, blockquote, li, dd, dt, div.bcat, pre { text-align:justify; margin-right:auto; margin-left:auto; } - p, li, dd, dt, div.bcat, pre.internal dl { max-width:25em; margin-right:auto; margin-left:auto; } - p.smaller { max-width:40em; } - p.csmallest { max-width:40em; } - p.small { max-width:31.25em; } - blockquote { max-width:23em; } - div.verse { max-width:25em; margin-right:auto; margin-left:auto; } - div.bq { margin-left:auto; margin-right:auto; max-width:23em; } - - /* book advertisements */ - div.bcat dl dd { margin-left:4em; max-width:21em; } - div.bcat dl dt { text-indent:-2em; margin-left:2em; } - p.bkad {font-size:125%; font-weight:bold; margin-top:2em; max-width:20em; margin-right:auto; margin-left:auto; } - p.bkpr {font-size:90%; } - p.bkrv { } - dl.blist dt { margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em; } - dl.blist, dl.biblio { margin-left:auto; margin-right:auto; max-width:25em; } - - dl.int { margin-left:auto; margin-right:auto; max-width:25em; } - dl.int dt {margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em; } - dl.int dd {margin-left:2em; } -</style> -</head> -<body> - - -<pre> - -The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Vanishing Comrade, by Ethel Cook Eliot - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most -other parts of the world 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. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - -Title: The Vanishing Comrade - A Mystery Story for Girls - -Author: Ethel Cook Eliot - -Release Date: October 14, 2020 [EBook #63455] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE VANISHING COMRADE *** - - - - -Produced by Stephen Hutcheson and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net - - - - - - -</pre> - -<div class="img"> -<img class="cover" id="coverpage" src="images/cover.jpg" alt="The Vanishing Comrade" width="500" height="735" /> -</div> -<div class="img" id="pic1"> -<img src="images/p02.jpg" alt="" width="500" height="739" /> -<p class="caption"><i>Was it Kate Marshall? She scarcely knew.</i></p> -</div> -<div class="box"> -<p class="center smaller">YOUNG MODERNS BOOKSHELF</p> -<hr class="dwide" /> -<h1>THE -<br />VANISHING COMRADE -<br /><span class="smaller"><i>A Mystery Story for Girls</i></span></h1> -<p class="center">BY -<br /><span class="large"><b>ETHEL COOK ELIOT</b></span></p> -<div class="img"> -<img src="images/p02a.jpg" alt="Young Moderns Book Shelf" width="155" height="301" /> -</div> -<p class="center">An unusual mystery about a strange orchard house with a brave girl who finally straightens things out</p> -<hr class="dwide" /> -<p class="center"><span class="sc">The Sun Dial Press, Inc.</span> -<br /><span class="smaller">NEW YORK</span></p> -</div> -<div class="pb" id="Page_ii">ii</div> -<p class="center smaller">1937 -<br />THE SUN DIAL PRESS, INC. -<br />CL</p> -<p class="center smaller">COPYRIGHT, 1924, BY -<br />DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY -<br />ALL RIGHTS RESERVED</p> -<p class="center smallest">PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES -<br />AT -<br />THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS, GARDEN CITY, N.Y.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_iii">iii</div> -<p class="tbcenter"><span class="small">AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED -<br />TO</span> -<br />MY SISTER HELEN</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_v">v</div> -<h2>CONTENTS</h2> -<dl class="toc"> -<dt class="jr"><span class="jl"><span class="smallest">CHAPTER</span></span> <span class="smallest">PAGE</span></dt> -<dt><span class="cn">I. </span><a href="#c1"><span class="sc">Great Aunt Katherine Commands</span></a> 1</dt> -<dt><span class="cn">II. </span><a href="#c2"><span class="sc">The Boy in the Flowery, Dragony Picture Frame</span></a> 19</dt> -<dt><span class="cn">III. </span><a href="#c3"><span class="sc">The Comrade Does Not Appear</span></a> 30</dt> -<dt><span class="cn">IV. </span><a href="#c4"><span class="sc">Little Orchard House, Beware</span>!</a> 44</dt> -<dt><span class="cn">V. </span><a href="#c5"><span class="sc">Kate Makes Up a Face</span></a> 59</dt> -<dt><span class="cn">VI. </span><a href="#c6">“<span class="sc">I Will Pay for It</span>”</a> 69</dt> -<dt><span class="cn">VII. </span><a href="#c7">“<span class="sc">Even So</span>——”</a> 86</dt> -<dt><span class="cn">VIII. </span><a href="#c8"><span class="sc">Kate Meets a Detective</span></a> 92</dt> -<dt><span class="cn">IX. </span><a href="#c9"><span class="sc">Something of Fairy in It</span></a> 106</dt> -<dt><span class="cn">X. </span><a href="#c10"><span class="sc">In the Mirror</span></a> 116</dt> -<dt><span class="cn">XI. </span><a href="#c11"><span class="sc">Kate Takes the Helm</span></a> 135</dt> -<dt><span class="cn">XII. </span><a href="#c12"><span class="sc">The Special Delivery</span></a> 149</dt> -<dt><span class="cn">XIII. </span><a href="#c13">“<span class="sc">You Thief</span>!”</a> 160</dt> -<dt><span class="cn">XIV. </span><a href="#c14"><span class="sc">The Stranger in the Garden</span></a> 174</dt> -<dt><span class="cn">XV. </span><a href="#c15"><span class="sc">Kate on Guard</span></a> 194</dt> -<dt><span class="cn">XVI. </span><a href="#c16"><span class="sc">One End of the String</span></a> 204</dt> -<dt><span class="cn">XVII. </span><a href="#c17"><span class="sc">Into the Orchard House</span></a> 219</dt> -<dt><span class="cn">XVIII. </span><a href="#c18"><span class="sc">The Last Room</span></a> 236</dt> -<dt><span class="cn">XIX. </span><a href="#c19"><span class="sc">Elsie Confides</span></a> 249</dt> -<dt><span class="cn">XX. </span><a href="#c20"><span class="sc">A Farewell in the Dark</span></a> 261</dt> -<dt><span class="cn">XXI. </span><a href="#c21"><span class="sc">Like the Stars</span></a> 269</dt> -</dl> -<h1 title="">THE -<br />VANISHING COMRADE</h1> -<div class="img" id="pic2"> -<img src="images/p03.jpg" alt="" width="500" height="722" /> -<p class="caption">“<i>Orchard house, beware! Aunt Katherine’s nieces are here.</i>”</p> -</div> -<div class="pb" id="Page_1">1</div> -<h1 title="">The Vanishing Comrade</h1> -<h2 id="c1"><span class="h2line1">CHAPTER I</span> -<br /><span class="h2line2">GREAT AUNT KATHERINE COMMANDS</span></h2> -<p>Two boys and a girl climbed down out of the -bus from Middletown when it made its final stop -in front of the summer hotel at the head of Broad -Street. The boys, between them, were carrying the -girl’s books and a goodly number of their own, for -they were returning from the last session of the -school year. To-morrow summer holidays would -begin. They nodded a friendly good-bye to the driver -and started off up the steep little elm-roofed street -that sloped directly up to Ashland College, an institution -for girls, perched on the highest plateau of this -hill town. The boys’ father was a professor in that -college and the girl’s mother an instructor. But in -spite of their privilege of living in the lap of learning -these young people had to take a daily nine-mile bus -ride down into the bigger village of Middletown if -they themselves were to get college preparation.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_2">2</div> -<p>The boys were twins. They were tall and spare, -even for boys of sixteen, and seemed all angles. -They had thick thatches of auburn hair, whimsical -faces, and generous, clear-cut mouths. The girl -was sturdy, slightly square in build, with brown, -straight bobbed hair. The bobbed hair was parted -at the side and brushed away in a wing from her -forehead, and this gave her a boyish, ready look. -Her eyes were hazel and very clear and confident in -their level glance, but when she smiled, as she did -often, they crinkled up into mere slits of eyes, because -they were slightly narrow to begin with, and then -she seemed oddly Puckish. Her mouth was wide -and her lips rather full, but for all of that, because of -its uptilted corners, it was really a very nice mouth. -She trudged along now between her two friends, the -corners of her mouth more uptilted than usual.</p> -<p>“Oh, I’m so glad it’s vacation! At last!” she was -saying. “Mother and I are going to have just the -nicest summer. We’re going to take long walks we -never took, make a new vegetable garden, and eat -almost every one of our meals out-of-doors when it -isn’t raining. We may even if it does rain! When -will your tennis court be done?”</p> -<p>“We’re going to get right at it to-morrow morning,” -Sam Hart, the twin on her left, answered. “It -ought to be finished by the middle of July or sooner -if they’ll let us borrow the roller from the Hotel. -Then if your mother is as patient as usual with us, -we may be champions ourselves before the summer’s -over.”</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_3">3</div> -<p>“She’s crazy to play,” Kate assured them. “But -she says we must remember she hasn’t touched a -racket in years and that you have to keep in practice -to be any good at tennis. It was seventeen years ago -she won that cup at the Oakdale Country Club.”</p> -<p>“She must have begun playing when she was in -creepers,” Sam exclaimed. “I thought it was a regular -cup, a real and regular tournament affair.”</p> -<p>“It was, of course. And she was nineteen, foolish.”</p> -<p>“She’s thirty-six now then.” Lee did the arithmetic. -“It’s funny that, being so old as all that, -she has always seemed just one of us. Where did -you ever get such a mother, Kate?”</p> -<p>“Oh, I took my time about choosing,” Kate -answered, apparently seriously. “I didn’t snatch -at the first thing offered. I said ‘better not have -any mother at all than one who isn’t magnificent.’ -So I kept my head and refused to consider anything -commonplace. You know the result, gentlemen.”</p> -<p>The boys did not bother to respond even with a -laugh. They were used to Kate’s nonsense.</p> -<p>But now in their climb up the steep elm-shaded -street they had reached the college campus on the -“Heights” and Professor Hart’s house set into its -corner.</p> -<p>“I’ll take my books,” Kate said. “Thanks for -carrying ’em. If I do a lot of weeding in the court, -perhaps it’ll pay you a little for having been such -good pack-horses for me all this year.”</p> -<p>But Sam shook his head at the outstretched hands. -“I’m coming on with you,” he declared. “How -about you, Lee?”</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_4">4</div> -<p>“Me, too,” Lee responded. “Wait a second till -I pitch these things on to the piazza.”</p> -<p>But Kate protested. “No, don’t. It’s almost -supper time. The bus was late. We’ll be busy, -Mother and I. Come after supper, instead, and help -us decide where the new garden is to be. Perhaps -mother will play Mah Jong with us.”</p> -<p>There was nothing to do but agree when Kate -took a dictatorial tone. The boys meekly gave a -pile of books into her arms and turned in at their -own walk.</p> -<p>Kate’s mouth kept its uptilted corners as she -went on alone, humming to herself and thinking -pleasant thoughts. She skirted the forsaken campus -a little way and then took a short-cut across its -lawns. She knew that the last student had left to-day, -and there would be no “grass police” to shoo -her back to the paths.</p> -<p>“It’s great having all the girls gone,” she mused. -“Now I shall have a little of Mother to myself again.”</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_5">5</div> -<p>Kate was justified in her pleasure in the girls’ departure, -for those older girls did take an unconscionable -amount of Katherine Marshall’s time and -thought. Of course, Katherine had to teach them, -Kate realized—that was how she earned their living. -But she did not understand why, outside of classroom -hours, they need be always underfoot. Kate -was proud of her mother’s popularity, but often -exasperated by it, too; for those older girls never by -any chance paid any attention to Kate herself. -They were polite, of course, but most perfunctorily; -it was her mother they came to see and on her least -word and motion they hung almost with bated breath. -The truth was that these indifferent, superior girls, -always present and never of any use to her, turned -the college year for Katherine into a loneliness that -even her mother scarcely realized.</p> -<p>There were the Hart boys, of course, always. But -boys cannot take the place of a girl comrade. Kate’s -mother was all the girl comrade she had. That was -why she had not let the boys come with her now. -For once, she would be sure to find her mother alone, -and the hour would take on, for Kate, something of -the nature of a reunion.</p> -<p>The house she now approached, across the street -from the campus to which it turned its low and vine-hung -back, had formerly been a barn. The college -had made it over for Kate’s mother into a charming -cottage which despite its turned back was still part -of the college property. Kate found her mother -sitting on the little garden bench at the side of the -big double doors that had once been the carriage entrance -and now stood open all spring and summer -facing the hazy valley. Her cheek was resting on -her hand and the expression in her eyes was a very -far-away one, a farther away than the valley one. -But she became very present when she heard Kate’s -step.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_6">6</div> -<p>“Oh, Kate, I thought you would never come!” -she exclaimed. “Read this letter.” She picked it -up from the bench beside her and handed it to Kate. -“It’s from your Great Aunt Katherine!”</p> -<p>“What! Again?”</p> -<p>Why Kate exclaimed “Again” would be hard to -say, for within her memory Great Aunt Katherine -had only written her mother once before, and that -was all of two years ago! That letter had been to -tell of the sudden death of a semi-relative, a woman of -whom, until that time, Kate had never heard. -Would this have news of another death? It must be -something of importance that had wrung a second -letter from Great Aunt Katherine.</p> -<p>Flinging her books on the grass, and following -them herself to sit at her mother’s feet, Kate opened -the smooth, thick, creamy sheet and read:</p> -<blockquote> -<p><span class="sc">My dear Katherine:</span></p> -<p>I am asking you to send your daughter Katherine to spend the -month of July with me here in my Oakdale house. Unexpected -business in Boston is keeping me from my usual trip abroad this -summer. I do not know whether I told you when acquainting -you with Gloria’s tragic death that her daughter was left without -home or protection of any sort and that I proposed to take -her in. But such was the case. Naturally, ever since, the -child has been peculiarly lonely here in Oakdale. And now that -she no longer has her day school in Boston to occupy her, the -situation is a really trying one. It has occurred to me that -Elsie and your Katherine are very nearly of an age, both fifteen, -and that they might find themselves companionable. So I -am asking you to forget old grievances, as I shall, and send -your daughter to me for a month’s visit. I shall plan parties -and theatres and good times for them, and promise you that it -will be every bit as gay as it was when you were a young girl -here, and not too independent then to let your aunt give herself -pleasure by planning for yours. I have looked up trains and -find that by leaving Middletown at one o’clock, Katherine, -with only one change, will arrive in the South Station in Boston -at six-fifteen. I shall expect her on that train Saturday of -this week, and Bertha, Elsie’s maid, will meet her and bring her -out here in time for dinner. If for any reason that is not a -convenient train for Katherine to take, will you please wire me -what time she <i>will</i> arrive? -<span class="center">Sincerely,</span> -<span class="jr">Aunt Katherine.</span></p> -</blockquote> -<div class="pb" id="Page_7">7</div> -<p>Kate looked up at her mother, dazed. “Just like -that!” she exclaimed. “Does Great Aunt Katherine -expect us to obey her just like that?”</p> -<p>Katherine was grave. “Yes, she has always done -things like this. That’s been the trouble. And -when things don’t go exactly as she has commanded -that they should, she is at first unbelieving and then -furious.”</p> -<p>“Hm. And who is Elsie?”</p> -<p>“Elsie is Nick’s little girl, and a sort of foster-niece -to Aunt Katherine now, I suppose.”</p> -<p>“It was Nick’s wife who was killed in the automobile -accident in France, wasn’t it? But why haven’t -you told me about her, about this Elsie? I’ve always -wanted a cousin so, Mother!”</p> -<p>“Well, she isn’t exactly a cousin, you know. But -even so, if Nick and I hadn’t quarrelled, if we had -stayed as we were, in the course of things you would -have known each other and perhaps have been very -dear friends. It would have been natural.”</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_8">8</div> -<p>“Oh, Mother—quarrels! When you are so lovely, -how have people quarrelled with you so? It’s a—<i>paradox</i>. -Now don’t say I’ve used the wrong word!—But -here’s more, more to the letter!”</p> -<p>Kate had turned the letter over and discovered a -postscript on the back. Katherine, who had missed it, -bent down, and they read it cheek to cheek.</p> -<blockquote> -<p>P.S. I will add, for this will perhaps make your acceptance -the quicker to come to, that Nicholas’s name is never mentioned -here, either by me or the servants, or even Elsie herself. So -that end of things need cause you no anxiety. Elsie is a charming, -well-mannered child.</p> -</blockquote> -<p>That paragraph had not been intended for Kate’s -eyes. Katherine understood that at once, but it -was all that she did understand about it. She -frowned, puzzled.</p> -<p>“Notice how she says ‘Make your acceptance -quicker to come to’,” Kate pointed out sharply. -“She takes it for granted you’ll come to it, apparently. -If there is any question, it’s only one of time. -But why isn’t Nick’s name mentioned?”</p> -<p>Katherine shrugged. “I am afraid she must have -quarrelled with him, too, just as she did with your -father and me. But if that’s so it must be terrible -for both of them, since he owes her so much and she -counted on him so to make up for Father and me and -later you, Kate, and everything! How could he -quarrel with her? Why, he should have put up with -anything!”</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_9">9</div> -<p>Katherine’s cheek was again on her hand. Her -face was all puzzle. “And why should Elsie be -lonely in Oakdale?” she went on aloud, but almost -to herself now. “Oakdale is quite a gay little place, -and I know very well there are plenty of young people -there. Some of them are children of friends of mine, -friends I haven’t seen since I was married. Why, -there are even the Denton children, just next door -to Aunt Katherine’s! It’s all very mysterious, -Elsie’s being lonely.”</p> -<p>But mystery where Great Aunt Katherine was -concerned was no new thing to Kate. Whenever -she thought about Aunt Katherine at all it was always -to wonder. Why should her mother be estranged so -entirely from her only living relative, this aunt for -whom she had been named, and who had been a second -mother to her after her own mother had died, when -she was a very little girl? Kate could never understand -that situation. Katherine was so peculiarly -gentle and forgiving and lovable! How could any -one stay angry with her?</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_10">10</div> -<p>Last year, when Kate was fourteen, Katherine had -tried to explain things to her a little. She had said -then that Great Aunt Katherine’s money was the -cause of the feud. Only it was not the usual -trouble that money makes in families. It was not -that Aunt Katherine was selfish or proud. It was—oh, -absurdity—that she was over-generous! She -expected to force her generosity on her family -whether they wanted it or not. It had begun with -Kate’s Grandfather Frazier. He and Great Aunt -Katherine were half-brother and sister. When -Katherine was about Kate’s age now, Grandfather -Frazier had failed in business and the very same -month Great Aunt Katherine had inherited a -fortune from an uncle on her mother’s side. Until -that turn of fortune’s wheel Aunt Katherine had -been a school teacher living with her half-brother -and giving her spare time to mothering her namesake -niece. When she woke up one morning to find -herself a wealthy—a very wealthy—woman, she immediately -decreed that her brother should share the -good fortune with her just as she had for so long -shared his home with him and his child. But Grandfather -Frazier’s pride forbade him to acquiesce in -that. The uncle was not his uncle, and it was not -only his pride but his sense of propriety that influenced -him in his firm decision not to accept one cent -from Aunt Katherine. All that he would allow her -to do to help his financial situation was to buy the -house from him in which they were living so that with -the money he might pay his debts. Thereafter he -insisted that she was his landlady and he made a -fetish until the month of his death of being on time -with the absurdly small rent.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_11">11</div> -<p>Aunt Katherine had built herself a large and mansionlike -house on part of the land that went with -her brother’s little house. And since he distinctly -limited her in the things she might do for his -daughter, she adopted, suddenly and to every one’s -amazement, a poor young boy, with no background -whatever, who had been brought up in a “Home,” -and who at the time of her discovering him was working -in a factory. She prepared him herself for college, -sent him to Harvard, and thrust him, almost -head first, into the “younger set” in Oakdale. He -had married Gloria, a beautiful young Bostonian -but with no especial “connections.” That was all -that Kate knew of him, except for this late knowledge -that he had a daughter.</p> -<p>Kate could understand her grandfather’s pride, -dimly. But her mother’s case was not so clear to -her, not quite. Her mother had married a rising -young diplomat, a man of supposedly some wealth -and assuredly fine ancestry. But on his death, -not long after Kate’s birth, it was discovered that -there was not a cent to which the young widowed -mother could lay claim. Katherine had never explained -to Kate how this had happened. She -hardly knew herself perhaps, because the processes of -Wall Street were a maze to her. Almost gleefully, -Aunt Katherine had seized upon this opportunity to -offer her niece a home with her and a substantial -allowance so that she might feel independent in that -home. Katherine had refused point blank. And -Aunt Katherine, now very sensitive on the subject -of rejected generosities, had made a clean break with -her namesake, washed her hands, and dropped her -out of her life, much as one might drop a thistle that -had pricked too unreasonably.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_12">12</div> -<p>Katherine, determined to earn her own and her -little daughter’s way, had obtained an instructorship -here at Ashland College, worked hard and happily -ever since, and gloried in her independence.</p> -<p>The whole reason for this choice of poverty and -hard work Katherine had not told Kate. But she -had hinted that there was a very deep reason and one -that justified her. Sometime, perhaps, she would disclose -it. Meanwhile, Kate gave all this little thought, -and was only brooding over it now because of the -letter in her hand.</p> -<p>After a minute she said firmly, “If Great Aunt -Katherine thinks I’m going to leave you here alone -on this deserted hill-top for a whole month of our -precious vacation, she has a surprise in store. Shall -we write or wire our regrets, Mother?”</p> -<p>“We’d better write,” Katherine answered, getting -up suddenly and beginning in an unusually energetic -way to pull up weeds from the lily-of-the-valley bed -under the window. “I shall write that Saturday is -too soon, for there must be some preparation on our -part for such a visit. By next Tuesday, though, I -should think you could be ready.”</p> -<p>Kate turned her head to follow her mother with -amazed eyes. “You don’t mean I’m to go, Mother?”</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_13">13</div> -<p>“Yes, I want you to go. I want you very much -to go. Aunt Katherine apparently needs you. I -think, though, she must be drawing on her imagination -a bit as to the loneliness of Oakdale for Elsie, -especially since she herself says there will be parties -and good times for you. You can’t have parties -without young people! Even so, her saying she -needs you makes our acceptance not only dignified -but imperative.”</p> -<p>“But to leave you here alone! How could I ever -do that? What are you thinking of?”</p> -<p>Katherine laughed at her daughter then. She was -extraordinarily pretty when she laughed, startlingly -pretty. But when she sobered, as she was bound to -do too quickly, she was quite different, still lovely -but not startling. Her face, sober, was intensely -earnest. She had a rather square and strong chin -but with wide, melting gray eyes to offset it. Her -dark curly hair, which when undone came just to her -shoulders, could be held in place at her neck with only -a shell pin or two, it was so amenable in its curly crispness. -Her cheeks and little slim hands were tanned, -but with healthy colour showing through, making -her, Kate often said, exactly the colour of a golden -peach. She was slim and very graceful and not tall.</p> -<p>But in spite of all Katherine’s loveliness and feminine -charm, the impression one gained from her -was one of over-earnestness, a fire of intense purpose -steadily, even fiercely burning under the outwardly -gay and light manner.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_14">14</div> -<p>Now she was laughing. “Why shouldn’t you -leave me alone?” she asked. “And I won’t be so -alone, either. The Harts are staying. The boys -will be my protectors and my playfellows both. I’ve -been a fortunate woman all these years to have two -such boys as well as my girl! And three mornings a -week, you know, I shall be busy helping Mr. Hart -with his cataloguing.... Now we shall have -to collect all our wits and think about suitable clothes -for you.”</p> -<p>Kate’s heart began to beat. When she had read -the letter she had not let herself even contemplate -what going would mean, not for an instant; for she -had not dreamed her mother would so fall in with -Aunt Katherine’s plan. But since she had fallen in -with it, since she wanted her to go—well, it was very -exciting! For the first time she might have for a -comrade a girl, a girl of her own age, a chum! For -if Elsie, that stranger unheard of until a few minutes -ago, was lonely, What was she, Kate Marshall? Oh, -she would surely be gladder of Elsie than Elsie could -possibly be of her!</p> -<p>She went to the border of the lily-of-the-valley bed -and began weeding beside her mother.</p> -<p>“I don’t see what we’ll do about clothes,” she -said a little tremulously, not yet really believing -in this new vista that seemed opening before her, like -the valley there, at her very feet. “If I do go, I suppose -Aunt Katherine will expect me to dress for -breakfast and dinner and supper and in between -times in that splendid house of hers.”</p> -<p>“No, not quite so bad as that; but she certainly -will want you to have—let’s see—two ordinary -gingham dresses, a little dinner frock, a party frock, -a white dress for church, a sport coat and hat, a -garden hat, a street hat, a street suit, a——”</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_15">15</div> -<p>But Kate interrupted this list with a quick laugh. -“She’ll want in vain, then. Let’s get down to business -and just discuss the must-be’s, if I <i>am</i> to be a pig -and go and leave you here alone for July with a vacation -on your hands.”</p> -<p>Katherine straightened up, brushing the soil from -her fingers. Her quick ear had caught a joyous lilt -in the voice and laugh that to an ordinary ear would -have sounded merely dry. Her own heart leapt in -sympathy with Kate’s.</p> -<p>“Fortunately there’s my pink organdie. That -must do for dinners,” the mother began, counting on -her earth-stained fingers.</p> -<p>“Pardon, Mother darling, <i>my</i> pink organdie. It’s -been mine for over a year. Why will you go on calling -things yours for years and years and years after -they have descended? There’s <i>my</i> pink organdie -then. It’ll have to do for church and for parties and -for summer best just as it would if I were here. Two -gingham dresses almost new. The blue flannel—but -that will be too warm and scratchy for July, I’m -afraid. Oh, Mother, that’s just all. I simply can’t go -to Great Aunt Katherine’s, and I’ll never know Elsie!”</p> -<p>“Of course you can. Haven’t we always found a -way to do the things we really wanted? Wait a -minute. There’s my new white linen. I shall fix -that for you. But your gingham dresses will never -do, not for Oakdale. Never!”</p> -<p>“You’re not to give your white linen to me. It’s -the prettiest thing you’ve got.”</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_16">16</div> -<p>“Hush! It will make a charming street suit. It -will need a black silk tie and a patent-leather belt. -I can <i>see</i> you in it.”</p> -<p>“You can, but you won’t!” But when Kate saw -her mother’s dazed, puzzled little frown that invariably -met her rare impertinences, she relented. -“Oh, Mother,” she cried, “if I’m to have your very -best things added to mine, of course I shall be perfectly -fixed. It will be a regular trousseau.”</p> -<p>“I don’t need anything but these old smocks, -staying here,” Katherine insisted. “And that’s -exactly what I shall do, give you everything of mine -that can possibly be of any use. For once in your -life you are going to have just an ordinary young girl -good time. And if you and Elsie do hit it off, perhaps -Aunt Katherine will consent to her coming -back with you for the rest of the vacation. Come, -let’s spread all our possibilities out on the beds and -see what there is!”</p> -<p>“Yes, after we’ve pared the potatoes for supper,” -Kate agreed, trying desperately to hold on to her last -shreds of casualness and poise. “We had better -have supper to-night, I suppose, whether I go to -Great Aunt Katherine’s or not. It must be six -o’clock now.”</p> -<p>Katherine threw an arm across Kate’s shoulder as -they went through the big door. “How fortunate it -is,” she said, not for the first time, “that I have such a -steady, common-sensible little girl!”</p> -<p>But Kate would not abide her own hypocrisy.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_17">17</div> -<p>“Oh, Mother, don’t make me feel cheap!” she exclaimed. -“You know perfectly well that I’m just -bursting with excitement, only I’m ashamed to show -it, for it’s you who are going to be left at home doing -just the same old things and seeing just the same old -people and everything.”</p> -<p>“But I’m happy doing just that,” Katherine hurried -to assure her. “Why, you yourself, Kate, have -been looking forward to your vacation here and planning -it with such pleasure!”</p> -<p>“Ye—es. But that was before this came. Now -I don’t see how I could bear the thought of just staying -here! Now that I’m going to have pretty clothes -and go to parties and meet some boys and girls, and -have a girl chum of my own—why, what I was so -looking forward to doesn’t seem anything at all. I’ve -suddenly waked up, and there’s a big door open right -in front of me, bigger than our funny old front door! -I’m going through it, right into such fun! Only I’m -leaving you behind. That isn’t fair.”</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_18">18</div> -<p>Katherine was quick to understand. Kate’s whole -mood was as real to her as though it were her own. -She said, “But don’t you see, dear, I <i>had</i> all that fun -a thousand times over when I was a girl. Aunt -Katherine gave me parties galore and took me to the -theatre as often as Father would let her and there -was anything worth seeing. And now that you are to -have some of that life for a month, I am delighted. -I only wish Aunt Katherine had asked you sooner. -I have truly always hoped she would. Only, I suppose, -she thought I was like Father and wouldn’t -accept things for you any more than for myself. And -oh, Katie dear, do try to be patient with Aunt Katherine, -no matter what she does or says! Perhaps you -will make up a little to her for what I have taken -away.”</p> -<p>They stood now in the kitchen, facing each other. -Suddenly Kate laughed, her nicest laugh that screwed -up her eyes into slits and turned her into a Puck. -“Let’s put off supper then,” she cried. “Stodgy -old suppers we can have any night. Let’s get out -all the clothes we’ve got and just plan. I’m not going -to let you touch any of your good ones for me. I’m -truly not. But there may be some old things we’ve -forgotten.”</p> -<p>“Now you’re really common-sensible, my dear,” -Katherine affirmed. “Before it was only pretend -common-sensibleness.”</p> -<p>And arm-in-arm, without one look at the kitchen -clock which now was pointing to all of quarter past -six, they went through the funny, merry little barn -house toward the bedrooms.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_19">19</div> -<h2 id="c2"><span class="h2line1">CHAPTER II</span> -<br /><span class="h2line2">THE BOY IN THE FLOWERY, DRAGONY PICTURE FRAME</span></h2> -<p>During the next few days of hurried preparation -for the visit the Hart boys found themselves -almost entirely left out of the life in the little barn -house, the house that ordinarily served as a second -home for them.</p> -<p>“No time for boys to-day,” Kate would call out -crisply when they appeared at windows or door. -“Woman’s business is afoot. We’re too busy even -to look at you.”</p> -<p>And Katherine, who was usually so much more -easily beguiled and quick to see their side in any -argument, for once echoed Kate and upheld her in -her determination to stick to the tasks they had set -themselves.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_20">20</div> -<p>In spite of all Kate’s protests, Katherine’s new -white linen was ripped to pieces and remade for the -traveller into a jaunty street suit. With a black tie -and narrow black patent-leather belt, when it was -finished it looked as though it might have come from -some fashionable shop in New York. Kate could not -help being delighted. The pink organdie, which had -done Kate duty for best all last summer, and Katherine -for best for several summers before that, was now -freshened with new lace and decorated with narrow -black velvet ribbon. It was not only becoming, but -quite up-to-date, and when it was finished and Kate -surveyed herself in it in the glass, standing on a chair -to see it all, they both decided that Kate would be -able to put clothes definitely out of her mind when -she was wearing it, for it was quite appropriate for -all the occasions it was destined to grace.</p> -<p>And finally, Katherine’s pretty bedroom was -robbed of its month-old chintz curtains which, under -her magic, in the space of two days only, became two -simple but unique and pretty morning dresses for -Kate. Now all that remained to be thought of in -the way of clothes was the travelling suit.</p> -<p>“My navy blue silk will do perfectly,” Kate said. -“If I’m a little careful, it won’t hurt it any, and next -winter it will be as good as ever for your teas and -things, Mother, unless I’ve quite grown out of it. -Anyway, travelling won’t spoil it.”</p> -<p>When that was agreed upon it naturally followed -that Katherine’s new spring hat must go with it; for -it was a little navy blue silk hat, light and small and -quite fascinating.</p> -<p>“What you’ll ever do for a hat I don’t see,” Kate -worried.</p> -<p>“Never mind about me,” Katherine told her nonchalantly. -“Here on this hill-top anything does so -long as it gives a shade. And if ever I go down to -Middletown I can wear your black tam.”</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_21">21</div> -<p>In the silk dress and hat and with her last spring’s -blue cape with its orange silk lining Kate felt prepared -to meet the eyes of even Elsie’s maid with -equanimity. But imagine a girl of fifteen having a -lady’s maid!</p> -<p>Katherine thought that was just a glorified title -for nurse, probably. But Kate protested that. A -nurse for a girl of fifteen would be even more absurd -than a maid. Well, Katherine was sure Aunt Katherine -herself wouldn’t have a maid. She was a New -Englander with all a true New Englander’s scorn of -self-indulgence. But she probably did need someone -to keep Elsie mended and possibly to be a sort of -chaperon for her, too; for Aunt Katherine, since her -inheritance, had interested herself in social and charitable -work and was a very busy and even an important -woman.</p> -<p>The two had endless conversations about Aunt -Katherine and the adventures awaiting Kate. And -Katherine talked more than she had ever talked before -about her own girlhood in Oakdale and the little -orchard house where she had always lived and where -she had been so happy.</p> -<p>“If it isn’t rented you must go into it,” she told -Kate. And then she described the rooms for her -and all the important events that had happened in -them. Aunt Katherine’s big newer house she hardly -spoke of at all, for Kate herself was so soon to see it -and know all its corners.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_22">22</div> -<p>All the planning and sewing and the long intimate -conversations about Katherine’s girlhood and bits of -family history that Kate had never heard before, kept -her right up to the eve of departure occupied and -excited. But as bedtime approached that night she -began to be shaken by unexpected qualms. She had -never before been away from her mother for even one -night and they had always <i>shared</i> adventure. That -now she was actually to go off by herself into an adventure -of her own seemed unnatural and almost -impossible.</p> -<p>They were sitting on the bench out beside the big -front doors, breathing in all the cool night air they -could after the last hot and rather hurried day. -Their faces were only palely visible to each other in -the starlight. They had been silent for many minutes -when Kate said suddenly, and a little huskily, -“Mother, may I take the picture of the boy in the -silver, flowery, dragony picture frame along to Oakdale -with me to-morrow? He’s a sort of talisman of -mine.”</p> -<p>Katherine was used to Kate’s abruptnesses and -seldom showed surprise at anything anyway. But -now she did show surprise, and the voice that answered -Kate quivered with more than surprise.</p> -<p>“The silvery, flowery, dragony picture frame? -And the boy? What do you know of him, Kate?”</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_23">23</div> -<p>“Why, he’s always been in the little top drawer of -your desk. He’s <i>always</i> been there. I’ve never told -you how much he meant to me. I’ve made it a -secret. But I’ve known him just about as long as I -can remember. I was an awfully little girl and had -to climb on to a chair at first to see him. But I -didn’t climb to look often. I saved it for—magic. -When something dreadful happened, when I was -punished or lessons were just too hateful, or you -were late coming home, then I’d climb up and look -at that boy in the frame for comfort. I think it -would be very comfortable to have it with me along -with your picture, Mother.”</p> -<p>Katherine did not answer this for some time. She -stayed as still as a graven image in the starlight. -Finally, without moving at all, and in a voice as cool -as starlight, she asked, “But why did you make it a -secret? I don’t understand a bit. I didn’t know -you even knew there was a little upper drawer. It’s -almost hidden, and there is a secret about the catch. -You have to work it just so.”</p> -<p>“Yes, I know. And I can’t remember how or -exactly when I discovered how to work it. At first, -I do remember, it was just the frame I loved. It is -a little wonder of a frame! The silver was so shining, -and then the flowers and the fruit <i>and</i> the dragons -are all so enchanting. I traced the dragons with my -finger over and over and played they were alive. I -thought it was too mysterious and lovely, all of it! -It fascinated me in a way I could never tell you.”</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_24">24</div> -<p>Katherine remained silent and Kate went on: -“It was only when I was older I began to look at the -picture and feel about that so strangely. I discovered -what a wonderful face that boy has. I pretended -he was the Sandman, the one who gave me my -dreams at night. I always had such wonderful -dreams, Mother! Remember?”</p> -<p>Katherine did not answer, and Kate felt somehow -impelled to go on. She was surprising herself in this -account of past childish imaginings. She had never -thought about it in words like this before.</p> -<p>“He’d be just the person to have made those -dreams for me. His face said he knew them all and -thousands and thousands more! Then, when I got -older I forgot about his being the Sandman, and anyway, -my dreams stopped being wonderful and were -just silly. Then I called him the ‘Understander.’ -When I especially wanted an understander I’d open -the secret drawer—I could do it without climbing on -a chair by then—and there he was, looking up at me -out of the dragons and the fruit and the flowers with -<i>understanding</i>.</p> -<p>“It was all just a notion, of course. Oh, am I -talking nonsense, Mother? And was it nonsense to -keep it so secret and all, always?”</p> -<p>Katherine answered emphatically, “No. Not -nonsense a bit. Only surprisingly—intuitive. For, -Kate, he is just the sort of person who <i>could</i> have -made up those wonderful dreams you used to have. -And he was—and is still, I suppose—just a perfect -understander. That is his quality. And it is -startling to me, all you have said, for he has been a -sort of a talisman to me, too, all these years. I’ve -looked at him, at the picture, when <i>I</i> needed understanding. -And that is surprising in itself, for once, -when he was just the age he is in that picture, the -very week the picture was taken, I did him a wrong, -a great wrong. We quarrelled. Since then I have -never seen or heard from him.”</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_25">25</div> -<p>Kate turned upon her mother with real exasperation -at this disclosure. “Oh, Mother! How could -you! Another quarrel!”</p> -<p>Katherine said nothing, and Kate instantly softened. -She felt that she had wounded her mother; -and that was a dreadful thing to have happened on -this their last night! It was in an apologizing tone -and humbly that she asked then, “And may I take -him with me to-morrow?”</p> -<p>“No, I think you’d better not. Let him stay just -where he is, in the secret drawer. I may need his -magic more than you while you are away.”</p> -<p>So her mother wasn’t really hurt at all, or cross. -She had spoken lightly, even airily. Kate sighed -her relief. “I’m not asking you who the boy is, -notice?” she spoke as lightly as her mother. “It -might spoil the magic if I knew a human name for -him. And I don’t believe you ever did him a wrong, -either. For one thing, I don’t believe any one could -do him a wrong. And you never did any one a wrong, -anyway. I know it. You’re too dear and kind.— Look -at those fireflies out there. Watch me catch -one!”</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_26">26</div> -<p>Kate suddenly jumped up and ran away into the -summer evening. Katherine stayed still on the -bench, watching her quick motions, her leaps and -runs and turns. “It’s very like a dance,” she -thought. “Only there should be music.” And she -began humming softly.</p> -<p class="center"><span class="gs">* * * * * * * *</span></p> -<p>Kate slept that night with the twinges of premature -homesickness dulled by fatigue. And when -morning came with the last bustle and scurry, any -doubts that still lingered back in her mind were lost -in the glamour of the adventure whose day had at -last arrived.</p> -<p>“I’m going to take ‘The King of the Fairies’ with -me to read on the train, Mother,” she called from her -bedroom where she was putting the very last things -into her bag.</p> -<p>Katherine came to stand in the doorway, a partly -spread piece of bread for a sandwich for Kate’s -luncheon in her hand. “But you know ‘The King -of the Fairies’ by heart,” she said. “Why not take -the mystery story Sam and Lee gave you?”</p> -<p>“I’ve packed that. I believe you want ‘The King -of the Fairies’ yourself, just as you want the picture!” -Kate said, teasingly.</p> -<p>“Perhaps I do. It’s without exception the nicest -thing that has happened to us this year, I think. -Bring it back safely, for I shall certainly read it again -before the summer’s through. Suppose we had been -so foolish as to decide we couldn’t afford it that day -we stumbled on it in the bookshop and were lost at -the first paragraph!”</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_27">27</div> -<p>Kate gasped at such a supposing. “I simply can’t -imagine having missed it, never read it, can you? If -that had happened, well, everything would be different. -It has made so many things different, hasn’t it—reading -it?”</p> -<p>“Yes, for us both, I think. That’s why I am sure -it is a great book, because it does make such a difference -to you, having read it or not. And I understand -your wanting it with you to-day. Try to get -Aunt Katherine to read it, if you can. She has -enough literary appreciation to realize its beauty, and -the rest of it, what it does to you—well, it wouldn’t -hurt to have it do a little of that to her, too!”</p> -<p>At that minute Sam and Lee whistled from the -road, out at the back of the house, and in a second -they were around and in at the big front door calling -for Kate’s bag and anything that was to be carried. -Katherine hurried to finish the sandwiches and tie up -the lunch, Kate gave her hair a last boyish, brisk -brushing, put on her hat, took her cape on her arm, -and they were off, hurrying down to Broad Street and -the bus there waiting the minute of starting in front -of the Hotel.</p> -<p>“Don’t let your father work Mother too hard on -that old catalogue,” Kate besought the boys. “And -do write me sometimes about everything, the tennis -court and all.”</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_28">28</div> -<p>Sam and Lee promised that they would take turns -writing, much as they disliked it, and Kate should not -lack for news. “And bring Elsie back with you to -repay us,” they commanded. “The Hotel has let -us borrow the roller, and the court will be in fine -shape. We’ll be all practised up, too. You’d better -do some practising yourself while you’re there. Elsie -is probably a shark, anyway.”</p> -<p>They reached the bus in good time and stood chattering -a few minutes before the bus driver facetiously -sang out, “All aboard!” Kate was the only passenger -that morning. One quick hug and kiss passed -between mother and daughter while Sam put in the -suitcase and Lee dropped “The King of the Fairies” -and the box of lunch in at the window. The busman -himself had climbed into his seat and was sitting with -his back to them. The Hotel piazza was deserted -for the minute. There was no one besides themselves -on the street. Sam kissed Kate on one cheek, and -Lee kissed her on the other, quick, sound, affectionate, -brotherly kisses. The driver blew his horn twice -just to make sure no traveller was belated in the -Hotel, started his engine, and the adventurer was off.</p> -<p>Kate stood in the little vestibule, hanging to the -door and looking back as long as she could see the -three people she was leaving. Katherine was between -the boys, hatless, in a blue smocked dress; she was -waving and blowing kisses. She looked like a sister to -the boys, and not even an older sister from the distance -of the speeding bus. Then the vehicle jerked -around a corner and Kate sat down, faced about the -way they were going, and contemplated her own immediate -future.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_29">29</div> -<p>In school she had often sat watching the big clock -over the blackboard in the front of the room; just -before the minute hand reached the hour it had a way -of suddenly jerking itself ahead with a little click. -That was what had happened on the instant of parting -from her mother—time, somehow, or at least her -place in time, had jerked suddenly and unexpectedly -ahead. Now the hour must be striking, she reflected -whimsically, and she was at the beginning of a new -one. So much the better. She expected it to be a -wholly fascinating hour, and Elsie the unknown -comrade was waiting in it.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_30">30</div> -<h2 id="c3"><span class="h2line1">CHAPTER III</span> -<br /><span class="h2line2">THE COMRADE DOES NOT APPEAR</span></h2> -<p>Although Kate kept her book “The King of -the Fairies” on her lap in bus and trains, she -did not look into its pages at all. Still it had its -meaning and its use on the journey. It was something -well known and dearly loved going with her into -strangeness and uncertainty. Its purple cloth binding -spoke to her through the tail of her eye even when -she was most busy taking in the fleeting landscape. -One would have thought her a seasoned traveller and -a very well-poised person if he had seen her sitting -so still, her hands lightly touching the closed book, -her gaze missing little of interest in country and town -as the train rushed along. But in reality her mind -was as busy as the spinning wheels, and her thoughts -ranged everywhere from the commonplace to the -inspired; and as for her emotions, they were in a whir.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_31">31</div> -<p>But the thought that recurred over and over and -from which she never entirely escaped during the -whole five hours of travel was this: was any one else -in the world so happy and elated as she? People she -saw looking from windows, people working in factories, -people working in meadows, people walking on -streets—how dull and uneventful their present hour -was compared to her present hour! And the Hart -boys back at home! How could they bear the commonplaceness -of going on in the same spot all summer, -doing the same things, and seeing the same -people! And only one week ago she herself had been -more than contented, happily expectant even, when -she was facing just such a summer!</p> -<p>Of course, she wondered about Elsie a lot. In -fact, she scarcely thought of Great Aunt Katherine -at all. Would Elsie meet her at the South Station -in Boston? Great Aunt Katherine’s letter had said -Elsie’s maid would meet her. But surely Elsie herself -would be there, too. Kate, for a minute, imagined -herself in Elsie’s place, eagerly waiting among the -crowds at the great terminal for the appearance of the -new friend, wondering and speculating about her, -just as Kate herself was wondering and speculating -about Elsie.</p> -<p>The journey seemed very short. Kate could not -believe they were actually in Boston until the conductor -coming through assured her that in less than -two minutes they would be in. But for Kate the -next two minutes seemed longer than all the rest -of the journey put together. She sat on the edge of -the seat, one hand grasping the handle of her suitcase, -the other clutching “The King of the Fairies.” -And even in her tense excitement the long-drawn-outness -of those two minutes made her think about -the King of the Fairies and what he had taught, or -rather shown, the girl and boy in the book about -<i>time</i>—what a mysterious thing it was, quite man-made -and not real. She could well believe it now. -However, even that two minutes came to an end, as -such eternities will.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_32">32</div> -<p>At the train steps there were “red caps” galore -clamouring for baggage to carry, and a pushing crowd -of passengers who had poured down from the long -line of coaches. Kate shook her head as a matter -of course to the porters, and marched along, her -rather heavy leather bag, marked with the initials -K. M. in white chalk, in one hand, the book and her -purse—not a very good balance—in the other. No -one could come out into the train shed to meet you, -Kate remembered now from the two or three times -she had been in that station with her mother. Well, -Elsie would be up at the entrance, standing on tiptoes, -looking off over heads until their eyes met. -How should they know each other? No special -arrangement had been made to insure Kate’s being -recognized. But Katherine had said, “Don’t worry. -Aunt Katherine’s not one to bungle anything. She -or Elsie or the maid, probably all three, will spot you -at once. And if they don’t, all you have to do is to -find a telephone booth and call up the Oakdale -house.” And now, coming up through the shed, -straining her eyes toward the gate, Kate had not the -slightest doubt that the minute her eyes met Elsie’s -eyes they would know each other. She had lived -in anticipation of this minute now so steadily for so -long that she would feel confident of picking Elsie -out in a crowd of a thousand girls all of the same -age.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_33">33</div> -<p>But she was getting near the gate and still she had -seen no one that might be Elsie. Then, walking on -tiptoes for a second, a difficult feat when you are as -loaded down as she was, she did see a girl standing a -little way back from the gate and watching the passengers -with impatient eagerness as they came -through. For an instant the eyes of the two girls -met. Kate went suddenly, unexpectedly shy at that -encounter. But instantly an inner Kate squared her -shoulders, in a way the inner Kate had, and forbade -the outer Kate to tremble. And when Kate, in a -flash, had restored herself to herself, she knew that -the girl waiting there was certainly not Elsie; she was -too utterly different from anything she had imagined -about her. There! She was right. The girl had -greeted the woman just ahead of Kate and they -hurried off together talking volubly. Kate drew a -relieved sigh. She never could have liked that overdressed -girl as well as she knew she was going to like -Elsie. They would never have become chums and -comrades.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_34">34</div> -<p>But now she herself was outside the gate. She -suddenly realized that her suitcase was very heavy -and put it down. Simultaneously she looked around -confidently for a friendly, welcoming face, for the eyes -of the new comrade. There was no such face, no -such eyes. But she did become aware of a youngish -woman, in a very smart gray tailored suit and Parisian -looking black hat with a gray wing, bearing directly -down upon her. She was certainly too young -to be Great Aunt Katherine; but it was hard to believe -that such smartness and apparent distinction -could belong to a maid.</p> -<p>“Miss Marshall?”</p> -<p>“Yes, I’m Kate Marshall. And you?”</p> -<p>“Bertha, Miss Elsie’s maid.” She turned toward -a middle-aged round little Irishman in brown -livery. “Timothy,” she said, “it’s her.” Alas, for -the distinction of the black toque!</p> -<p>Timothy stepped briskly forward and picked up -Kate’s suitcase, touching his cap, but giving her a -quick, keenly interested glance at the same time. -“Your trunk checks, if you please, Miss?” he said, -holding out his free hand for them.</p> -<p>“Why, there isn’t a trunk. The suitcase is all.”</p> -<p>“Didn’t the trunk catch this train?” Bertha -asked, and added in a commiserating tone, “Service -is wretched—Miss Frazier says so.”</p> -<p>“I didn’t have any trunk at all. The suitcase -holds everything.”</p> -<p>Bertha’s ejaculation of surprise was suddenly -turned into a flow of tactful words. “All the better, -all the better. That makes things very simple, very -simple. We’ve only to go out to the automobile -then, and we’ll be in Oakdale in no time.”</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_35">35</div> -<p>Little round Timothy led the way with the bag and -book, Kate followed him, and Bertha came behind -her. She was not used to walking in processions like -this, and she felt distinctly strange and lonely. But -the thought that Elsie might be waiting in the car -braced her up. Even so she couldn’t imagine why -Elsie hadn’t come in and been the first to greet her -at the gate. If she were Elsie she would never sit -calmly waiting out in the car.</p> -<p>But the car was empty. It was a very handsome, -big, luxurious affair, painted a light glossy brown, the -very shade of Timothy’s uniform. It had a long, -low body, much shining nickel plate, windshields before -the back seat as well as the front, and Great -Aunt Katherine Frazier’s monogram in silver on the -door.</p> -<p>Timothy held back the monogrammed door while -Kate stepped in. Then he slid into the driver’s seat, -leaving Bertha to follow him. So there was Kate -bobbing around on the wide back seat that was richly -though slipperily upholstered in smooth leather. -Her baggage was in front with the servants. She -had not even the cherished book to sustain her. She -wondered, a little whimsically, that they had let her -carry her purse.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_36">36</div> -<p>Where was Elsie? Kate gave herself up to speculation -as they crawled through the crowded city -streets. They crawled, but it was smooth and beautiful -crawling, for Timothy was an artist among chauffeurs. -Kate looked all around her interestedly and -happily in spite of the sharpness of her disappointment -at Elsie’s absence. But although it was exciting -and stimulating to her to be moving through the -streets of the big city she realized the heat uncomfortably -and, used to her high hill air, was over-conscious -of the unsavoury odours that met her on every side. -She unbuttoned and threw back her cape and resisted -just in time an impulse to lift her hat from her -head by the crown, the way a boy does, and toss it -into a corner of the seat so that her head might be a -little cooler. But another inclination she did not -resist in time. She leaned forward and spoke to -Bertha over the windshield: “Elsie, Miss Elsie, -couldn’t she come? Is she well?” she asked.</p> -<p>What an idiotic question! Why was she always -saying things so abruptly, things she hardly meant -to say! Bertha turned her smooth, distinguished-looking -profile. “She is very well. She will be at -dinner.”</p> -<p>Now they were out of the city and they gained -speed; but they gained almost without Kate’s -noticing, for the car was so luxurious and Timothy -was such an artist. But when she observed how the -trees and fences and houses were beginning to rush -by she braced her feet against the nickel footrail and -laid her arm along the padded armrest. She leaned -back, relaxed. She began to feel that she quite belonged -in the car, as though such conveniences had -always been at her service, almost as though private -chauffeurs and ladies’ maids were an everyday -matter. Or was she dramatizing herself? Anyway, -it was fun and very, very new. She hoped there -would be time to write her mother all about it to-night. -She profoundly wished the Hart boys could -see her!</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_37">37</div> -<p>But Bertha had turned her smooth profile again. -“We are just entering Oakdale,” she informed her, -speaking impersonally, so decorously that it might -have been to the air. And instantly Kate’s composure -and assurance were shivered, her relaxed -muscles tensed themselves, her mind became just one -big question mark.</p> -<p>Oakdale was a charming suburb. Most of the -houses seemed to have lawns and gardens that justified -the name of “grounds,” and wealth spoke on -every side, but in a tone of good taste and often even -beauty. Elms and maples lined the street down -which the adventurer’s chariot was bowling.</p> -<p>Oh, which house, which house was Great Aunt -Katherine’s? Would Elsie be standing in the doorway? -Would Kate know the house by that? Or -would she be at a window, or keeping a watch for -them on some garden wall?</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_38">38</div> -<p>They suddenly swerved from the main residential -street and rolled down a delightful lane bordered by -older, more mellowed houses. At the very end of the -lane, before a large white house with green blinds, the -car came to a stop. What a gracious, dignified house -it was, and every bit as imposing and mansionlike as -Kate’s mother had described it. There were balconies -gay with plants and hanging vines, tall windows, and -an absence of anything ambiguous or superfluous. -The wide front door, with its shining brass knocker -and rows of potted plants at either side, was approached -by a dozen or so wide, shallow stone stairs -bordered by tall blue larkspur and a golden bell-shaped -flower for which Kate did not know the -name. The steps were almost upon the lane, but -Kate knew that there were extensive “grounds” at -the back, and somewhere there the little orchard -house.</p> -<p>No Elsie stood at the top of those stone steps or -came running around the house from the gardens -at the sound of the stopping car. Not even Aunt -Katherine made an appearance. Timothy held open -the automobile door, Bertha took the suitcase and -book, and Kate, with a “Thank you,” to Timothy, -started off on the last stage of her journey, that of -the climb of the stone steps to her aunt’s front door. -Bertha followed close behind. Kate wondered -whether she should ring the bell, or wait and let -Bertha ring it for her. Or would Bertha open the -door and they go in without ringing? Oh, dear! -Why hadn’t she asked her mother more explicitly -about correct usage when there is a lady’s maid at -your heels? But then, perhaps Mother couldn’t -have helped her much, for certainly Mother had -never been so attended. And then the inner Kate -asserted herself. “Don’t be a silly,” it said. “How -can it matter which of you rings the doorbell?—and -certainly you’re not going to go in without ringing. -Bertha’s hands are too full either to ring the bell or -open the door. Ring.”</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_39">39</div> -<p>But before her finger had time to reach the button, -the door swung open before her as though by magic -and Kate stepped in. A maid had opened the door -and now stood half-concealed behind it with her face -properly vacant. Kate, when she discovered her, -gave her a nod and a faint “Thank you.” Then she -stood still in the hall, looking about for her aunt. -She had almost given up Elsie for the present; but -surely her aunt would come now from some part of -the house hurrying to greet her with hospitality and -show her her room.</p> -<p>But Bertha had no such idea. <i>She</i> did not look -about as though expecting any one. “I will lead the -way,” she offered, “if you please. There are a good -many turns.” And still carrying Kate’s suitcase she -walked off up the narrow strip of thick gray velvety -material that carpeted the polished stairs. Kate followed. -It was a very complicated house, she decided, -as they went through doors, down unexpected passages, -up steps, and finally around a sharp turn, around -two turns, up two steps, and Bertha threw open a -door. There Bertha stood back for Kate to pass in -ahead of her.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_40">40</div> -<p>The bedroom that had been assigned to her was -exquisitely lovely. It was a little room of beautiful -proportions facing the “grounds.” So much care -had been spent on its decorations and furnishings -that one never thought of all the money that had -been spent <i>with</i> the care. Its three long windows, -their sills almost on the floor, opened out on to a -flowery balcony hung above the garden. The windows -were wide open now because of the heat and -stood back against the walls like doors. The finest -of spiderweb lace was gathered against the panes, -and at their sides hung opal-coloured curtains of very -soft silk. The same colour, in heavier silk, was used -in the spread for the narrow ivory bed, with its -painted crimson ramblers at footboard and top. -There was a low reading table by the bed and in the -centre of it a little crystal lamp with an opal shade. -Across from the bed and table stood an ivory dressing -table reflecting the balcony’s brilliant plants in its -three hinged mirrors. An ivory-coloured chair with -a low back and three legs was placed before the dressing -table. On one creamy wall hung LePage’s “Joan -of Arc,” and on the opposite wall a painting of a little -girl with streaming hair leaping across a bright flower -bed. Through a door with long crystal mirrors -panelled into either side Kate glimpsed a white -bathroom with a huge porcelain tub with shining -taps and a rack hung thick with wide, creamy -towels.</p> -<p>“What a heavenly room!” she exclaimed, enraptured. -“Is it mine?”</p> -<p>“Yes, this is your bedroom.” Bertha spoke almost -deprecatingly of it. “But there is a sitting-room -just across the hall. It is Miss Elsie’s, but while -you are here Miss Frazier says you are to share it. -That is much more comfortable.”</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_41">41</div> -<p>Kate went directly to a window, hoping to find -the orchard house in its view. She was not disappointed. -Beyond lawns and flower gardens there was -the old orchard with its gnarled, twisted trees, and -back among the trees the outlines of a little gray -house. Kate was quite moved by this her first -glimpse of her mother’s home.</p> -<p>Bertha came up behind, and now was engaged in -unbuttoning her cape for her and taking off her hat. -But Kate was almost unconscious of these ministrations. -She was unconscious, too, when Bertha turned -to unpacking her bag.</p> -<p>“There won’t be time for you to change to-night, -Miss Frazier said,” Bertha was informing her. “So -we’ll just wash you up a bit and brush your hair. -Miss Frazier said you were to go down directly, and -there’s the first gong anyway.”</p> -<p>A musical note was sounding through the house.</p> -<p>Reluctantly, Kate turned from the window. -Bertha followed her into the bathroom, filled the -bowl for her with water, and then stood at hand with -soap and a towel. For one wild instant Kate wondered -whether Bertha meant to wash her face for her! -She had a definite feeling of relief when she put the -soap and the towel down at the side of the bowl and -left her alone. Quickly and efficiently Kate removed -the grime of travel. When she went back -into her room Bertha was standing by the dressing -table, brush in hand.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_42">42</div> -<p>Kate sat down on the three-legged chair. She -thought she had never looked into clearer mirrors -than the three hinged ones before her. “Please, I -can brush my own hair, it’s so short. I would -rather.” Just a few quick strokes, a poke or two, and -the bobbed hair with the wing brushed across the forehead -was perfectly tidy and crisp.</p> -<p>“I’ll take you to the top of the stairs,” Bertha -offered. “You mayn’t have noticed the way very -carefully as we came along.”</p> -<p>“No, I am not sure I could find it. But tell me -first, where does that door, the other door, in the -bathroom go?”</p> -<p>“Oh, that’s Miss Elsie’s door.”</p> -<p>“Miss Elsie’s room! So near! Oh, do you suppose -she’s in there?”</p> -<p>“Why, I don’t know. I dressed her for dinner before -starting to town for you. She’s more probably -downstairs. Dinner is served three minutes after -that first gong.”</p> -<p>Kate gave one more glance toward the door that -now had become of so much interest to her, before -following Bertha. She was glad that she and Elsie -were to sleep so near each other. Why, it was a suite -of rooms they had. There was something splendid -about occupying a suite of rooms. And there was -even a sitting-room for them across the hall. How -jolly it was and how independent! But where was -Elsie?</p> -<p>Kate thanked Bertha when she had been guided to -the top of the staircase. “Am I just to go down?” -she asked, a little timidly.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_43">43</div> -<p>“Why, yes. Miss Frazier will be in the drawing-room. -It’s at the left. You can’t miss it.”</p> -<p>Bertha faded discreetly back as she spoke, into the -shadows of the upper hall, leaving Kate suddenly to -her own resources. But after an instant’s hesitation, -during which the inner indomitable Kate was summoned -up, she passed quietly and with dignity down -the gray velvet stair carpet.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_44">44</div> -<h2 id="c4"><span class="h2line1">CHAPTER IV</span> -<br /><span class="h2line2">LITTLE ORCHARD HOUSE, BEWARE!</span></h2> -<p>The drawing-room extended for almost half the -length of the big house. It was the largest room -that Kate had ever seen or imagined outside of a -castle. Just at first she could not discover her aunt -in it. But soon her glance found her sitting down at -the farthest end near one of the French doors that -stood wide open into the garden. Her head was -turned away, but the shape and pose of that head -and the way she sat in her chair, with a book but not -reading, reminded Kate sharply and poignantly of -her mother. Why hadn’t Katherine warned her -that they were so much alike?</p> -<p>She went toward her softly because of her shyness, -her feet hardly making a sound on the Persian rugs, -past the tables and divans and lamps. It was seven -o’clock of a July evening now, and the shadows lent -a lovely charm to the big room that was peculiarly -charming even in broadest daylight. Kate felt as -she went toward her aunt that she was walking in a -dream. And it was a very nice dream, too, for that -glimpse of the likeness of her aunt to her mother had -reassured her completely. All her previous ideas -of her aunt were swept away, and the anticipations -of this visit, which for a little had been dampened, -now returned with fresh life.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_45">45</div> -<p>Miss Frazier turned as Kate came near. Hastily -she put her book, still open as Kate’s mother would -have, on a table at her hand and rose. She kissed -Kate with warmth and dignity and then held her off, -the tips of her fingers on her shoulders.</p> -<p>“You’re not one bit like your mother,” she affirmed. -“Not one least bit.”</p> -<p>“Don’t accuse me,” Kate said, laughing. “I -would have been if I could, of course. But wouldn’t -it have been rather confusing to have had three of us -so much alike? The names are confusing enough.”</p> -<p>If someone could have told Kate an hour—no, two -minutes—ago that on first meeting her aunt she -would speak so easily, so without self-consciousness, -she would not have believed. She had expected to -be constrained, awkward. But then she had never -expected Aunt Katherine to be so agreeable as she -apparently was.</p> -<p>Aunt Katherine was smiling quite brilliantly. -Kate had instantly touched and pleased her. “Does -it really seem to you that I am anything like your -mother?”</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_46">46</div> -<p>Kate nodded. But even as she nodded, she saw -the difference suddenly. Aunt Katherine was taller, -of course; but that was not it. Her firm, squarish -chin was not neutralized by melting gray eyes as -Katherine’s was. Aunt Katherine’s eyes were dark -and their expression echoed the strong chin; it was a -sure expression, penetrating and above all intellectual. -And the lines about the mouth and eyes were lines -that Katherine would never have at any age. They -were lines of loneliness and trouble.</p> -<p>Even as Kate was thinking all this—lightning-quick -thinking it was, of course—she saw the lines -deepen and the mouth and eyes harden perceptibly. -“It is past dinner time. Didn’t Elsie come down -with you?” The hardening was not for Kate’s -tardiness; it was for Elsie’s.</p> -<p>“I haven’t seen her. I don’t believe she was in her -room or she would have heard me.”</p> -<p>“Haven’t seen Elsie? That is strange! She must -be in the orchard or somewhere, and not realize the -time.”</p> -<p>Aunt Katherine moved to the garden door, her -hand still on Kate’s shoulder. “There she comes -now, from the orchard.”</p> -<p>They stepped over the sill and waited for Elsie on -the stone flags outside. She was floating through the -gardens directly from the orchard. Floating is a -better word for it than hurrying because she was such -a light and airy creature and above all so graceful. -Her approach was almost in the nature of a dance. -She was dressed in white, a narrow belt of periwinkle -blue at the low waistline.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_47">47</div> -<p>It was evident when she came nearer that she had -not seen the two waiting for her. Her eyes were -dropped a little and she was smiling! There was a -radiance of happiness about her. At first, in this -impression of her, happiness was even more obvious -than prettiness. But she was pretty, too, quite enchantingly -pretty. Kate, who was not pretty herself, -loved it all the more in others. Her appreciation -always leapt to meet it.</p> -<p>Elsie was slim, with a fairy grace of face and figure. -Her hair, a net of sunlight even now in the growing -dusk, was tied at her neck, and its curls straying on -her shoulders and at her cheeks shone like fairy gold. -Her face was delicately moulded and faintly tinted. -It was her chin that struck Kate most. It was an -elfin, whimsically pointed chin. In fact, she was such -an exquisite creature that Kate, standing there waiting -for the instant when she should look up and their -eyes meet, felt as though her own sturdy young body -belonged to another world.</p> -<p>But Elsie was so absorbed in her happiness that -she did not raise her eyes until she was almost -upon them. It was Aunt Katherine’s voice that recalled -her, and she stopped short a few feet from -where they were standing. “Well, Elsie?”</p> -<p>Then at last the eyes of the destined comrades -met! Kate was smiling, the corners of her mouth -uptilted little wings. Her whole face spoke her delight -in Elsie’s extraordinary prettiness and her -own expectation of comradeship. No one could have -missed what her look meant. But Elsie’s response -was a strange one. Instantly the elfin smile vanished, -the elfin chin became set, the pretty face and -violet eyes hardened. But she took the few remaining -steps forward and gave Kate her hand. -In a correctly polite but delicately cool way she said, -“How do you do?”</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_48">48</div> -<p>Aunt Katherine showed some chagrin at that tone. -“This is your cousin, Elsie,” she said. “You are not -going to stand on any formality with a cousin who -has come for the express purpose of being cousinly. -Dinner was announced some minutes ago. Let us go -in.”</p> -<p>But what had happened to Kate? She hardly -knew herself. She had turned sick, physically sick -and faint, when Elsie had looked at her so coolly and -indifferently. No one had ever treated her so in all -her life before. She had had spats, of course, with -her contemporaries, now and then. There had been -days when either Sam or Lee or some girl in school -refused to speak to her. There had been angry -glances, sharp words. But she had never been -treated like this. Nothing before had ever turned -her <i>sick</i>.</p> -<p>As they moved down the long drawing-room and -across the hall to the dining-room Kate asked herself -desperately whether she had imagined it all. Could -she have heard Elsie’s voice aright? Was the cool, -hard glance from Elsie’s eyes insultingly indifferent? -How could it be? Why should it be? What had -she done? She had done just nothing at all. There -was no reason in the world for Elsie to hate or despise -her. And so, fortified by her reason and by the wise -inner Kate that never wholly forsook her, Kate -decided before they reached the dining-room that -it <i>had</i> been imagination—partly, anyway. Elsie -might not have liked her looks at first, but she had -no reason to hate her.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_49">49</div> -<p>Even so, she did not have the courage to look directly -at Elsie when they were finally seated at the -table. They were in high-backed carved Italian -chairs at a narrow, long, black, much-oiled table. In -the centre of the table two marvellously beautiful -water lilies floated in an enormous shallow jade -bowl. The napkin that Kate half unfolded in -her lap was monogrammed damask and very luxurious -to her fingers’ touch. The dinner was simple, -as simple as the dinners to which Kate was accustomed -at home, but it was served with such -dignity by a lacy-capped and aproned waitress that -before they were finished with the prune-whip dessert -Kate felt they had banqueted.</p> -<p>Very early in the meal Kate learned that she need -not avoid looking directly at Elsie, for Elsie’s own -eyes were averted. Apparently she was languidly -interested in the portraits on the opposite wall. At -any rate, her gaze was always just a little above -Kate’s head or to the right or left of her shoulder. -When Aunt Katherine spoke to her she looked at her -as she replied. But aside from those polite and -clearly spoken answers, she contributed nothing to -the conversation.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_50">50</div> -<p>In contrast to Elsie Aunt Katherine was giving -her whole mind to being entertaining and making -Kate feel at home. She drew her out about the life -in Ashland, the barn that had so ingeniously been -turned into a house, Kate’s school in Middletown, -the Hart boys, their mother and father, the life at -Ashland College, everything that concerned Katherine -and Kate. Although Kate hardly realized it, -during the course of that first meal she had given -her aunt a pretty complete picture of her background, -and incidentally of herself.</p> -<p>Just as the finger bowls were brought in Aunt -Katherine said, “The little orchard house beyond the -garden was your Grandfather Frazier’s, you know, -Kate. You will want to explore it, I imagine. -To-morrow at breakfast I shall give you the key.”</p> -<p>Kate was delighted. “Oh, may I go into it? -Mother wasn’t at all sure it wouldn’t be rented. -She wanted me to see it if I possibly could, and tell -her all about it.”</p> -<p>“Of course it’s not rented. It is too much part -of my grounds, altogether too connected with everything -here. A family there would be intolerable. -And besides, I consider that the house belongs to -your mother. It is only waiting for her.”</p> -<p>But now the eyes of the two girls did meet for the -second time. Kate gasped. Fear and anger spoke -in Elsie’s direct stare. And Kate was sure she was -not imagining now—all the delicate tint had been -swept from Elsie’s face. She was pale.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_51">51</div> -<p>They got up at that minute and followed Aunt -Katherine from the dining-room. Elsie turned her -head away as they walked. But Kate was too -curious now to be definitely unhappy. She wanted -only to know the reason of Elsie’s behaviour. And -she surprised herself more than a little by finding -herself drawn to the sulky, ungracious, frightened -girl. Nothing was at all the way she had dreamed -it and expected it, it is true. But in some ways it -was better. Elsie was more of a <i>person</i> than her -dreams had made her, and friendship with her, if -only they ever did become friends, might be quite -wonderful. Kate did not think this out. It was -just her feeling.</p> -<p>In the drawing-room Aunt Katherine sat down -at her reading table and picked up her book. “It -is after eight,” she told the girls, “and I’m sure -Kate should go to bed early. But you may walk -in the garden together a little first.”</p> -<p>Now Kate glimpsed the Aunt Katherine of tradition. -Neither she nor Elsie had any thought but -to obey the command. They went out together to -walk in the garden. “Just like that,” Kate said -to herself, inwardly smiling. But there was no -rebellion in her thought. She distinctly liked Aunt -Katherine and was ready to take commands from her. -And this command was particularly welcome. Now -Elsie <i>must</i> unbend! Now they must find each other.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_52">52</div> -<p>For a minute they walked in silence and then -Kate said, “Let’s go into the apple orchard. I want -to see my mother’s house nearer. Do you know I -can hardly wait until morning when I shall see it -inside, too. Mother has told me so much about -it!”</p> -<p>“It isn’t your mother’s house,” Elsie answered -quite unexpectedly. “It’s Aunt Katherine’s. And -there’s nothing to see in the dark. Just a little old -gray house with weeds in the front walk. Even the -road to it is all grown over with grass now, for no -one goes there ever.”</p> -<p>“I want to see it all the same. It’s where my -mother and my grandmother and my grandfather -lived. I’m going whether you come or not.”</p> -<p>“Oh, all right,” Elsie acquiesced, sulkily. “But -a lot you’ll see in the dark.”</p> -<p>It was just as Elsie had said. It was a little old -gray house set down in the centre of the apple orchard -with no road leading to it. And weeds stood -high in the gravel front walk.</p> -<p>“Why, it’s a fairy house by starlight!” Kate exclaimed, -quite forgetting Elsie’s mood in her own.</p> -<p>Elsie spoke in a rather high voice then, a voice -that carried all through the orchard: “If it is a fairy -house,” she called, “Fairies, beware! Orchard -house, beware! If there are fairies in the house put -out all lights, hurry away. Aunt Katherine’s nieces -are here and Aunt Katherine doesn’t want the house -occupied.”</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_53">53</div> -<p>Kate was surprised but quickly pleased, too. Elsie -had entered into a game whole-heartedly. Perhaps -she was just an ordinary girl, after all! Perhaps she -had been imagining absurd things about her. This -Elsie calling out into the starry dimness, warning -the little house of their approach, was Elsie as -she should be, with her fairy-gold curls and elfin -chin.</p> -<p>Kate involuntarily drew nearer to her. And then -she raised her voice and called in her turn to the -little orchard house. “But Aunt Katherine’s not -here,” she called. “She is deep in a deep book. -So light all your lights, if you wish, look out of your -windows, open your doors. Little enchanted house, -wake up!”</p> -<p>She was laughing as she finished and holding Elsie’s -hand, for she was quite carried away by her own -fancy. This was the kind of nonsense she loved, and -the little house did seem alive and awake. She <i>felt</i> -it responding there in its dim starlight!</p> -<p>Elsie allowed her hand to be held. But she cried, -softly, but still in a carrying voice, “No, no, no. -Don’t look out! Don’t wake up. There are two of -us here. Two. Not one!”</p> -<p>And then the girls stood silent. The game had -become so real that Kate would not have been at all -astonished to see fairy lights at the windows, to hear -windows opening and fairy laughter. But she heard -nothing except the crickets in the uncut grass and -Elsie’s hurried breathing.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_54">54</div> -<p>“Come,” she whispered. “Let’s go all around the -house”—and off she started, still holding Elsie’s -hand. Elsie could only go, too. And at the back -of the house, the side that was in view only of the -orchard and vacant fields beyond, Kate noticed two -windows wide open in the second story.</p> -<p>“Does Aunt Katherine let those windows stay open -like that?” she asked, curiously. “Those are the windows -in the study. I know from Mother’s telling. -Suppose it should rain to-night? It must be an -oversight. Let’s go back and get the key from -Aunt Katherine now to-night and close them for -her. Won’t it be fun to go in by starlight, just we -two alone!”</p> -<p>Elsie shook her head violently and pulled her hand -away at the same time. There was a break in her -voice almost as though she were in danger of bursting -into tears.</p> -<p>“You needn’t go being a busybody the very first -hour you are here,” she exclaimed. “I guess Aunt -doesn’t need your advice about such things. Come -away. Come out of the orchard.”</p> -<p>Kate followed her, nonplussed, at sea. “What -is the matter?” she demanded. “What are you -afraid of, Elsie Frazier?” Then, stopping suddenly, -“What was that? Listen!” Surely a door had -closed softly up there in the room with the windows -open!</p> -<p>“What was what?”</p> -<p>“Didn’t you hear?”</p> -<p>“No, of course I didn’t hear anything.”</p> -<p>“A door closed up there.”</p> -<p>“Nonsense! How could a door close up there?”</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_55">55</div> -<p>“Well, it did. I heard it just as plain. But perhaps -it was a breeze that closed it. Only I don’t feel -any breeze.”</p> -<p>“It must have been a breeze.”</p> -<p>“Well, it was a <i>careful</i> breeze. It shut the door -ever so gently. Quite as though a door knob was -turned. Oh, Elsie, do you suppose it is fairies—or -something weird?”</p> -<p>“I don’t suppose anything. And Aunt Katherine -will be expecting us in. Come.”</p> -<p>As they went Kate turned to look back several -times at the orchard house. But no fairy lights -twinkled for her in the windows, no doors or windows -opened, no fairy stood on the doorstone beckoning -her back. It was just a little old gray house in an -orchard. But even so Kate felt it <i>alive</i>, awake -somehow. Elsie could not spoil her feeling about it.</p> -<p>Just outside the lighted drawing-room Elsie turned -about and faced Kate. She was not quite so tall -and she was slighter. But her whole body was -drawn up with extraordinary force and her face, in -spite of its delicate elfin quality, was determined.</p> -<p>“Kate Marshall,” she said in a quiet tone, “you’re -not to say one word to Aunt Katherine about those -windows. Not one single word! And what’s more, -you’re not to use the key that she will give you to-morrow. -It’s not your mother’s house any more. -You’ll only be disappointed. There’s nothing of -her in there at all. I shall hate you and hate you -and HATE you if you use that key. You’ve got to -promise me.”</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_56">56</div> -<p>Kate did not flinch before this unexpected attack. -But she was amazed. “Of course I sha’n’t promise -you,” she contradicted. “You’re a silly to think -you can make me. What’s the matter with you, -anyway?”</p> -<p>Elsie still looked at her, but her firmness, her -determination melted. Her lips trembled. Unshed -tears glistened in her eyes. When she spoke her -tone was changed completely. “Please, please,” -she besought Kate. “You are just a girl even if you -are—well, even if you are Kate Marshall. Please -promise me that you’ll wait a week before exploring -the orchard house. After that I won’t care. Go -and live in it, if you like. But just for a week, -promise me.”</p> -<p>“No, I won’t promise.” But Kate was softening. -“I won’t promise. But perhaps, since you care so -much, I won’t go in to-morrow or the next day. Perhaps -I’ll stay away a week. Only I think you’ll have -to tell me <i>why</i>.”</p> -<p>But Elsie shook her head. “I can’t tell you why. -You’ll know for yourself within a few days. You’ve -promised?”</p> -<p>“I have not promised. And I think you ought -to explain to me. Are you sure you won’t? I’m a -pretty good person at keeping a secret. If I knew, -I <i>might</i> promise.”</p> -<p>Elsie shook her head. Kate saw the tears still -glistening in her eyes. She felt brutal to have made -a fairy cry!</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_57">57</div> -<p>“Don’t, don’t cry,” she begged softly. “I won’t -use the key to-morrow, anyway. I promise you -that. And I’ll tell you before I do use it. I don’t -see why I shouldn’t put it off for a week if you care -so much. I’m not a pig.”</p> -<p>“And you won’t even prowl around the orchard -house during that week?”</p> -<p>Kate, instantly forgetting her momentary pity, -grew hot. “I never prowl. What a nasty word!”</p> -<p>“You prowled to-night.”</p> -<p>“I didn’t. We were playing a game with the -house. I’m going in.”</p> -<p>With high-held head, flaming cheeks, and bright -eyes Kate stepped into the drawing-room. Elsie -was at her side, cool, calm, no trace of recent tears. -In spite of Kate’s flash of real anger Elsie was well -satisfied with the outcome of their “walk in the -garden.” For she felt that Kate would be one to -keep her word. Elsie might breathe freely, for a -day more at any rate, and not live in hourly terror of -the discovery of her secret, and the secret of the -orchard house.</p> -<p>Aunt Katherine had been watching them through -the glass of the long door. She smiled, apparently -well pleased, as they came in now. She said, “I am -glad that you are getting acquainted. You should -have a very nice month together, you two. Kate -must be tired, and I advise you both to go right to -bed. Breakfast is at quarter to eight.”</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_58">58</div> -<p>“She was watching us while we talked at the -door,” Elsie whispered as they went up the stairs. -“She thought we couldn’t leave off talking. She -imagines we’re bosom friends already.”</p> -<p>But Kate walked on up with a set face. She did -not trouble to answer.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_59">59</div> -<h2 id="c5"><span class="h2line1">CHAPTER V</span> -<br /><span class="h2line2">KATE MAKES UP A FACE</span></h2> -<p>As they neared their doors Elsie said, “Please -tell Bertha if she’s in your room that I shall be -in the sitting-room when she’s through helping you. -I’m going right to bed then.”</p> -<p>She stopped with her hand on the knob. “Wouldn’t -you like to see the sitting-room? It’s yours, too, -now.”</p> -<p>Kate looked in as Elsie opened the door and stood -back. Now she knew why Bertha had said that -room was more “comfortable” than her bedroom. -In contrast to it her bedroom was almost nun-like. -There were deep chairs upholstered in gay cretonne, -cretonne with parrots and poppies and birds of -paradise glowing against its yellow background. -There was even a little lounge, heaped with yellow -pillows, drawn up under the windows. In the centre -of the room stood a square cherry-wood reading -table, and the walls were almost lined with bookshelves -already about one third filled with books. -On the table stood a glass bowl filled with red roses. -A Japanese floor lamp cast a mellow light over -everything. In one corner a practical old Governor -Winthrop desk with many drawers and a wide -writing leaf drew Kate’s eyes. Imagine having a -desk like that just for one’s own!</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_60">60</div> -<p>But she did not show her appreciation of the room. -She simply glanced about it, as Elsie seemed to expect -her to, and then muttering a crusty “good-night” -crossed the hall to her own room.</p> -<p>Bertha was waiting for her there. Evidently -Aunt Katherine had instructed her that Kate would -retire early. The opal lamp by the bed was shedding -its delicate radiance through the room, the bed was -turned down, Kate’s dressing gown and nightgown -were spread across its foot, and her bedroom slippers -stood near at hand. Her bag had long since been -unpacked and put away. The “King of the Fairies” -and the mystery story—Sam and Lee’s gift—lay on -the bed table under the lamp.</p> -<p>Kate was very glad of her own cool, clear little -room. She liked it better than all that colour and -ease across the hall. And in any case she would -never be able to share that other room with Elsie. -She determined not to go into it at all—no, not even -to look over the books!</p> -<p>“Miss Elsie is in the sitting-room,” she told Bertha. -“She said to tell you that when you were ready she -would go to bed. I don’t need any help, truly.”</p> -<p>“Sha’n’t I even brush your hair, Miss Kate? -That is so restful.”</p> -<p>“You’ve unpacked for me. Thank you very -much. My short hair doesn’t need much brushing.”</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_61">61</div> -<p>So, reluctantly, for Miss Frazier had requested her -to attend to both girls equally, Bertha took her dismissal. -In a minute Kate heard voices on the other -side of Elsie’s door. Then Elsie opened the door and -looked in through the bathroom.</p> -<p>“Aunt Katherine says we’re to leave these doors -open,” she informed Kate, calmly. “That is so -you won’t be lonely.”</p> -<p>Kate nodded an “all right.” But to herself she -said, “I’d be a heap less lonely if you’d close the -door and I’d never see your face again.”</p> -<p>She undressed well out of sight of Elsie’s room. -When she was in nightgown, dressing robe, and slippers, -she sat down on the three-legged ivory stool, -before the hinged mirrors, brush in hand. She was -surprised by the expression of her own face as it -looked back at her grimly out of the glass. All its -humour, its <i>charm</i>, was gone. She was just a rather -plain young girl. And as she looked at this disenchanted -reflection it suddenly went misty and -blurred. She saw tears rising in its eyes.</p> -<p>With an angry hand she dashed them away and -stuck out her tongue at the blurred face in the -mirror. Then came her own laugh, the eyes crinkling -to slits, the mouth freed from its set lines and -lifting wings in a smile.</p> -<p>“Idiot,” she whispered. “To cry about her! -She’s a stuck-up little pig, but you needn’t become -a grouchy glum just for that. Be yourself in spite -of her.”</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_62">62</div> -<p>But as she went toward the windows to push them -a little farther back, for the night was a warm and -beautiful one, she turned her head and looked -through the open doors into Elsie’s room. Elsie -was sitting before her own dressing table, a replica of -Kate’s. She was in an exquisitely soft-looking pink -dressing gown edged about the neck and the long -flowing sleeves with swansdown. Bertha stood behind -her, brushing her curls with long, even strokes. -The eyes of the two girls met in Elsie’s glass. Flashingly, -Kate was glad she had made up a face and got -it over with; otherwise she would certainly have made -up just the same face now, at Elsie, before thinking.</p> -<p>The pairs of eyes held each other in the glass for -an instant. It must have been something deceiving -in the twin lights glowing at either side of Elsie’s -mirror, or in the glass itself, Kate decided afterward, -but for that instant it seemed that a <i>comrade</i> -had looked questioningly out of the mirror at her! -But the hidden comrade, if such it was, vanished even -before Kate had time to turn away.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_63">63</div> -<p>What a delicious bed Aunt Katherine had given -her! She delighted in its scented linen and light covers. -She punched the fluffy pillows up into a bolster, -slipped out of her dressing gown and in between the -smooth, lavender-scented sheets. Sitting there -against the pillows she took “The King of the Fairies” -on to her knee. She couldn’t sleep quite yet, -she knew. Why, at home she seldom went to bed -before her mother, and now it was not yet nine. -The very sight, even the feeling of this book in her -hands filled her with a happy stir deep in the far wells -of imagination. She opened it casually. Any place -would do since she already knew it practically by -heart. The very sight of the smooth, clearly printed -pages with their wide margins freed her. She was -ready for space now and clear, disentangled adventurings -into light.</p> -<p>Although the book was titled “The King of the -Fairies” it was not at all a fairy story for children. -Kate had only just reached the age when it could -be cared about. It began with a girl and a boy -quarrelling on a fence in a meadow. It was a real -quarrel, a horrid quarrel with hot and sharp and -bitter words. But it is interrupted by a tramp happening -by. He asks them a direction and they stop -their recriminations for the time to point him his -way scornfully. Accepting their directions he still -tarries a while to ask them if they themselves don’t -want some pointing. Then the story, the marvellous -story begins. He points to an elder bush and -asks them what it is. They tell him glibly. Then -he gets on to the fence between them and with his -eyes level with theirs asks them to look again. -Everything is changed for the girl and boy in that -instant. They begin seeing as the tramp sees. -They are in Paradise or Fairyland: the author himself -makes no clear distinction. But the elder bush -is now much more than an elder bush. And the meadow -is full of a life the girl and boy had never suspected. -There are other beings moving in it, fairy -beings, perhaps. Not only is the invisible made -visible to the girl and boy seeing as the tramp sees, -but the, until then at least, partly visible—the brook, -the trees, the very stones and the elder bush—are -seen to have more <i>life</i> than could be suspected. -And all colours are changed, too. The boy and girl -are seeing things in a new spectrum.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_64">64</div> -<p>Finally the three get down from the fence and -wander about in this Fairyland that has always been -here truly but is only now seen. The book is their -day in the meadow. And when you have turned the -last page you do not remember it as a <i>book</i>. You -remember it as a day in Fairyland or Paradise—or -as a day on which you saw things clear. And you -never doubt for a minute that the author himself -is one who has certainly seen like that. Perhaps -he only saw it in a flash, but he did see for himself and -with his own eyes.</p> -<p>In the end the boy and girl return to the fence and -the tramp departs on the way they had pointed out -to him. But as he goes, he turns about when he -gets to the elder bush and they realize in that last -glance from his eyes that he is the King of the -Fairies. Then as he turns again and walks on, as -long as he is in their sight, he is simply a common -tramp.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_65">65</div> -<p>But their quarrel has dropped for ever dead between -them. A boy and a girl who have actually -walked in Fairyland together and seen things clear -have nothing to quarrel about, and so long as they -both shall live can have nothing to quarrel about -again.</p> -<p>And though they had surely seen things clear for -a whole day in the meadow—the sun had risen to -the meridian and gone down into the west while -they wandered—now when they look at each other -there is no indication that a minute has passed. -The sun is where it was at the height of their quarrel! -And so it appears that the tramp’s arrival and stay -and departure and their whole day in the meadow -was squeezed into perhaps one straight meeting of -their eyes as they quarrelled.</p> -<p>But they do not spend themselves in wonder. -This boy and girl are Wisdom’s own children, in -spite of the momentary silliness that had plunged -them head-first into the darkness of an enmity; they -accept the gods’ gifts. And for a boy and a girl -who have spent a day in Fairyland together, or for -that matter only spent a minute there together, the -gods’ gift is marriage.</p> -<p>Katherine, when she had finished the book, had -said that it was the most perfect love story she had -ever read; she wished she were rich enough to give -it to all the lovers she knew. And she said, too, that -the author must be a very wonderful person, a -great man in some field of life. Perhaps that was -why he had not signed his name to the work.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_66">66</div> -<p>As Kate read now, the conversation between -Elsie and Bertha in the next room was a humming -undertone to her thoughts. She could not have -caught their words if she had listened. But she had -no inclination to listen. She was moving in a world -where quarrels and bitter feelings were an impossibility. -She was seeing things through the eyes -of the King of the Fairies. She was in the meadows -that she knew at home, feeling the larger life there -that the King of the Fairies had made known to her. -She was standing, tall, in the body of an elm tree, -spreading with its leaves to the sun, feeling with its -roots into the vibrating ground.</p> -<p>Suddenly a voice came to her. It was a long way -she rushed back to find the voice. Bertha was -standing beside her bed.</p> -<p>“Shall I turn out your light, Miss Kate? Or do -you wish to read?”</p> -<p>Kate did not know that Bertha had come into the -room at all. Elsie’s light was out, and if the doors -through must be left open, Kate’s light would disturb -her. Of course she must put out her light and -try to sleep. She was on the verge of saying, “I -will put out my own light, thanks,” but the meadow -from which she had rushed back had, oddly enough -as some might think, put her into more perfect harmony -with her own restricted four walls. So she -said, “You may put the light out, thank you.” -And she did not even smile to herself when Bertha -bent over the table and pulled at the little chain -that was much nearer Kate’s reach than hers. -She accepted the service naturally, since such acceptance -was Aunt Katherine’s wish and the purpose -of Bertha’s presence here.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_67">67</div> -<p>“Good-night,” Bertha spoke out of the sudden -darkness.</p> -<p>“Good-night,” Kate answered. Then soft footfalls, -and she was alone in the room.</p> -<p>But though “The King of the Fairies” had done a -good deal for Kate it had not had time to do enough -to make her call a “good-night” to Elsie. Suppose -Aunt Katherine knew the two girls were going to -sleep without a word to each other!</p> -<p>From her bed, now that the room was dark, Kate -could see the dim apple orchard under starlight. -She rose on her elbow and strained her eyes for the -outlines of the little orchard house. She found it -by hard looking. How mysterious, how lonely, still -how alive out there it stood. And she <i>had</i> heard a -door close softly, just as though a door knob had -turned as they stood below those open back windows. -And why were those windows open? Elsie knew, -Kate was sure. The little orchard house harboured -some secret of Elsie’s.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_68">68</div> -<p>But what was that! Kate sat up in bed and bent -toward the window, her eyes straining. A light, -flickering, was moving down through the house! -Kate watched it as it went by several windows, -breathless. Soon it disappeared altogether, and a -second after Kate thought she heard the front door -of the little orchard house softly closing, or opening; -but that must have been fancy, for the orchard -house was much too far away for a sound of that -quality to carry to her.</p> -<p>As she curled down into bed again her eyes crinkled -with her smile in the darkness. Well, here was -mystery. She would write Sam and Lee that she -would save their mystery story for duller times. -Now she was living in one!</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_69">69</div> -<h2 id="c6"><span class="h2line1">CHAPTER VI</span> -<br /><span class="h2line2">“I WILL PAY FOR IT”</span></h2> -<p>Kate was waked next morning by Elsie moving -about in her room. She opened her eyes quickly -and sat up. To her surprise Elsie was dressed and -ready for the day. She looked as fresh as the July -morning in a blue and white gingham, white sport -shoes and stockings. Her hair was pinned up at -her ears, and that made her look older but not less -pretty than last night.</p> -<p>Kate was not a girl to wake up with a grudge on a -morning like this, or on any morning, in fact. So -she sang out now, “Hello!”</p> -<p>But Elsie, apparently, had not been mellowed by -sleep. She responded to the “hello” with a nod. -Then, much to Kate’s surprise, she came directly -to the bed and picked up “The King of the Fairies” -from the table there.</p> -<p>“Bertha told me you had borrowed my book,” she -said. “I don’t mind your borrowing books. But I -think you ought to ask. And Aunt Katherine didn’t -give me this one. I’m going to read outdoors before -breakfast, and I want ‘The King of the Fairies,’ -if you don’t mind.”</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_70">70</div> -<p>Kate laughed. “It’s my copy, not yours,” she -said. “Mother and I gave it to each other last -Easter. It’s a perfectly great book, Mother thinks, -and I brought it with me here because I love it so.”</p> -<p>Elsie was standing directly in the gilded morning -sunlight. Kate had just waked up and her eyes -were still a little dazed from sleep. That may account -for her seeing again, flashingly, the comrade -she had surprised in the mirror last night. Surely -Elsie’s whole being in that flash radiated comradeship. -And there was something more. Kate could -not remember, but sometime in her life—it felt a -long time ago—she had exchanged glances with that -golden comrade! Or had it been just a vivid dream -she had had, or perhaps only the ideal she had set -up in her mind of the perfect comrade?</p> -<p>But Elsie almost instantly moved out of the sunlight -nearer the bed, and everything was as before.</p> -<p>“Please pardon me,” she said coldly. “I don’t -know why it never entered my head that you might -have a copy of your own. That was stupid of me. -I’ll see you at breakfast.”</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_71">71</div> -<p>“So it is still on,” Kate told herself, as Elsie left -the room. “She hates me. She hates me just -awfully. And that was awfully rude about the book, -even if it had been hers! How <i>could</i> she be so rude—to -a <i>guest?</i> She is afraid of me, too. She is afraid -I will discover the secret of the orchard house. -Why, perhaps she doesn’t hate me, personally at all. -Mayn’t it be just fear that makes her like that? -For she has no reason to hate me, and of course if -she has some secret in the orchard house she has -every reason to think I may discover it. For I do -mean to explore it thoroughly when I get around to -it.”</p> -<p>Somehow the conviction she had come to, that fear -rather than personal dislike was ruling Elsie’s conduct, -comforted her. Moreover, it was a perfect -morning—sunshine, a light breeze at the curtains, -birds carolling (how had she ever slept through the -noise those birds were making?) and the room -pervaded by flower scents from balcony and gardens. -It was with a light heart, then, that Kate -allowed Bertha to run her bath, lay out her clothes, -and finally even brush the bobbed hair. Such unneeded -service seemed absurd to Kate, but it was in -the order of this household, and some fresh sweetness -she had brought from sleep made her eager to harmonize -herself as much as possible with the world -she had come back to. But even so, in a minute -when Bertha’s back was turned, Kate grabbed the -brush from the dressing table and gave a quick, -surreptitious stroke that turned the bang Bertha -had created into a wing across her brows; for Bertha, -experienced lady’s maid as she was, had not caught -the knack of <i>that</i> so quickly.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_72">72</div> -<p>It was with a heart as bright as the morning that -Kate finally went down the long stairs just as the -soft-toned gong was sounding. There was no sign -of breakfast being laid in the dining-room, so she -wandered about the house, in and out of the rooms -she had only glimpsed through open doors last -night.</p> -<p>Everything was quite beautiful. Kate knew that -Aunt Katherine had once been determined to “go in -for art seriously.” But at that time money had been -lacking for such a design, and she had with keen -disappointment submitted to fate and become a -school teacher. When wealth had suddenly come -to her everyone thought she would, of course, take -up study with some great master and become an -artist. But this never came about. Perhaps the first -disappointment had been too keen; perhaps in giving -up her hope so definitely she had made it impossible -for herself ever to renew it under any conditions. -But now, wandering about these rooms that Aunt -Katherine had made, Kate realized that she had -turned artist in a way. Instead of painting on -canvas she had created beauty in her environment. -For her home was like a warmly painted picture with -beautiful lights and shadows. And Kate soon felt -as though she were walking around in a picture. -The morning sunshine outside was its great gilded -frame. That was how the utter silence and absence -of human beings in these big downstairs rooms -explained itself to her fancy; somehow she had walked -into a picture painted by her great aunt, a picture -hung up somewhere in an enormous gilded frame. -This fancy stirred her imagination and she pretended -so hard to herself that it became quite real.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_73">73</div> -<p>That is why she almost started when she finally -did hear voices and the clink of china. Coming -out of the picture into everyday life, suddenly like -that, was something of a jar. And she was probably -late for breakfast wherever it was being served. -She hurried her steps and found Aunt Katherine and -Elsie already at the meal. They were sitting at a -little table under a peach tree growing up between -the flags of a terrace just outside a sunny breakfast-room. -How delightful! Kate was glad now to step -down out of the picture.</p> -<p>Aunt Katherine greeted her with a welcoming -smile. And having just stepped down out of Aunt -Katherine’s picture Kate felt that she understood -her, that they were very close to each other really. -How different, and how pleasantly different, Great -Aunt Katherine was proving herself from Kate’s -preconceived ideas of her.</p> -<p>Kate took the little garden chair waiting for her -and unfolded her napkin. Coffee was percolating -visibly in two large glass globes set one on top of the -other before Aunt Katherine. The silver sugar bowl -and cream pitcher turned all the sunlight that found -them into a million diamond sparkles. A half grapefruit -with ice snuggled about it was at Kate’s place. -Kate lifted the slender pointed spoon made just -for grapefruit, and gratefully tasted the tart pulp -and juice.</p> -<p>“Elsie might have shown you the way,” Aunt -Katherine was saying. “I thought of course you -would come down together.”</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_74">74</div> -<p>“I am sorry I was late. But it was fun wandering -around in the house trying to find you.” And then -Kate told them all about how she had felt herself in a -picture.</p> -<p>Aunt Katherine was pleased. “Was it really like -that to you, my house?” she asked.</p> -<p>“Oh, yes! and more so than I know how to say. -Most of the windows and doors open, the glimpses of -tree branches and flowers and sky, the light and shade -in the rooms, all the flowers in vases in surprising -places, the colours of everything, the hangings——”</p> -<p>Kate stopped, embarrassed by her own enthusiasm, -or perhaps discomfited by Elsie’s cool gaze. But -she had said more than enough to give Aunt Katherine -very real and deep pleasure.</p> -<p>“Then I see,” she told Kate, “why you did not -mind wandering about alone or our seeming inhospitality. -And I think your dress, my dear, fitted -into the picture. It is a very poetic dress.”</p> -<p>Kate flushed with pleasure. “Mother would love -to hear you say that,” she said. “We made it out -of the new chintz curtains in her bedroom. You -see I had to have some dresses, and there were the -curtains. Mother thought——”</p> -<p>But at mention of her mother Kate saw in morning -light what she had failed to see last night in lamplight: -the deepening of pain lines around Aunt -Katherine’s eyes and mouth, a cloud of pain somehow -in her face. So she broke off her account of Katherine’s -ingenuity.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_75">75</div> -<p>“I’m glad you like it,” she finished lamely.</p> -<p>“I have brought you the key to the orchard -house,” Aunt Katherine said, as though it were a -matter she would like to be done with quickly. -“Elsie will show you all over it and around it. Then -I have an errand at the post office I wish you girls -would do for me. I have a very busy morning ahead. -The car is at your disposal this morning, and I should -think you would take a good long ride. It is really -too warm to do anything more energetic. At least, -it promises to be a very warm day.”</p> -<p>Kate looked at the key which Aunt Katherine had -handed her. It was an old-fashioned brass key, -clumsy and heavy but not too big to go into her -pocket. When she had tucked it away there she -raised defiant eyes to Elsie. But her defiance suddenly -turned to pity. Elsie looked so troubled!</p> -<p>Aunt Katherine with a word of apology to the girls -picked up the mail now lying at her place and began -reading the one or two personal letters she found -among the circulars, pleas for charity, and advertisements. -Kate leaned toward Elsie and said -quickly and softly, “Don’t worry. You’re safe to-day -and to-morrow, too, and for as long as you -mind, I guess. If I see the little house sometime, -what does it matter when?”</p> -<p>Elsie nodded to signify that she had caught the -very low words, and her face cleared.</p> -<p>“Ungrateful thing! She might at least have -thanked me,” Kate reflected.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_76">76</div> -<p>But very soon she learned that Elsie was thanking -her for that impulsive gesture of generosity in her -own way. When they joined each other in the big -car that was waiting for them at the door, half an -hour later, Elsie was plainly trying to force herself -to be friendly and natural. But since this friendliness -was forced, Kate’s response to it was of necessity -forced, too. Oh, how different everything -was turning out between these two girls from the -way Kate had dreamed it!</p> -<p>“Don’t you think Oakdale is pretty?” Elsie asked. -“People care so much about their gardens. And -then the streets are all so wide and shady, and where -they aren’t wide they are just little lanes like ours -that end perhaps in a gate or an open meadow. -Those endings of streets seem romantic to me always.”</p> -<p>“Yes, I think they are romantic,” Kate agreed. -“And when your lane turned all the away around and -ended in the orchard, that must have been awfully -romantic. I wonder why Aunt Katherine ever let -the grass grow over it so that it got lost, the end of the -lane!”</p> -<p>Something in Elsie’s restrained silence at this -remark made Kate realize that she had blundered. -Oh, dear! She hadn’t meant to. Truly! She tried -to explain.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_77">77</div> -<p>“You see it was my mother’s house, Elsie. You -can’t know what fun it is to imagine your mother -a little girl, to see for the first time the house where -she was born and the places where she played. -Everything about your mother’s childhood—well, -there’s a kind of mystery about it.”</p> -<p>Elsie deliberately turned away her face. “Oh, -I’m sorry. What an idiot I am! I had forgotten -about your mother! How could I be such a—brute!”</p> -<p>Elsie looked at Timothy’s back steadily. “Don’t -be so sorry as all that,” she replied coolly and without -any apparent emotion in her voice. “My mother -was killed in an automobile accident in France two -years ago. But I never knew her, anyway. When -I was at home she was usually somewhere else, at -house-parties or sanitariums, or abroad. And I -was only home for holidays. She sent me off to -boarding school when I was eight. Her being dead -hasn’t made much difference to me. I was terribly -sorry for her when they told me, that was all. She -was so pretty, and too young-seeming to be a mother. -And she would have hated dying! Sometimes -I <i>ache</i> for her when I think of that. But that’s -all.”</p> -<p>“Oh, how can you! How can you speak about a -dead mother like that!” Kate’s heart was crying. -But she only said, after a second: “There are lots -of jolly-looking girls and boys in this town. Do you -know them all? They keep looking at us, but you -never speak. Don’t you <i>see</i> people? Mother’s -like that. She’s so absent minded.”</p> -<p>But even this was an unfortunate subject. Unlucky -Kate!</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_78">78</div> -<p>“I know who most of them are but of course I -don’t know them socially.”</p> -<p>This was amazing. “Why not?”</p> -<p>But here all Elsie’s attempt at friendliness broke -down. She turned on Kate a tigerish face. “Yes, -why not?” she almost hissed. “You know very -well, Kate Marshall, why not. Here’s the post -office.”</p> -<p>Kate was shocked. “Well, I certainly <i>don’t</i> know -‘why not’,” she contradicted. “I haven’t the least -idea—unless you treat them in the rude, horrid way -you treat me.”</p> -<p>The car had drawn up to the curb and come to a -stand-still before the pride of Oakdale’s civic life, its -white marble post office built on the lines of a Greek -temple. Elsie’s only answer to Kate’s denial was -a shrug.</p> -<p>“Have you letters? And are there any errands?”</p> -<p>Timothy stood on the sidewalk asking for orders.</p> -<p>Elsie stood up quickly. “I’ll post the letters -myself,” she answered him. Kate noticed for the -first time a package that Elsie was carrying. Across -the top the word “Manuscript” was written in a -round hand, and the address was that of a publishing -house and caught Kate’s attention because it was -the same publishing house that had brought out -“The King of the Fairies.” Kate read the large -round black handwriting quite mechanically and -without any motive of curiosity as Elsie stepped -past her out of the car.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_79">79</div> -<p>When Elsie was halfway up the post-office steps -she turned and ran back to the curb. “Tell me,” -she said, “didn’t Aunt Katherine ask us to do something -for her? I’ve quite forgotten what it was.”</p> -<p>“Yes. A dollar book of stamps and ten special -deliveries. She gave you the money.”</p> -<p>“Oh, thanks. Good for your memory.”</p> -<p>“What is she sending to those publishers?” -Kate found herself wondering when the spinning -glass doors had closed on her “cousin.” “There -was a special delivery stamp on it, too. And it -filled her mind so full that she quite forgot Aunt’s -errands. Can Elsie be trying to <i>write</i>? Oh, wouldn’t -that be exciting!”</p> -<p>“Now Holt and Holt’s,” Elsie ordered Timothy -when she returned to the car.</p> -<p>“Holt and Holt’s is a grocery store. I noticed it -as we came by,” Kate said. “I didn’t hear Aunt -Katherine say anything about groceries.”</p> -<p>“Of course not. Julia, the cook, attends to all that -over the telephone. This is my errand. Do you -mind?”</p> -<p>Kate refused to rise to the sarcasm in Elsie’s “Do -you mind?”</p> -<p>But at the grocers’ she said, “I think I’ll come, too, -and stretch my legs.”</p> -<p>“All right.” But Kate distinctly felt that Elsie -did not at all like the idea of having her companionship -in the store. However, her pride would not let -her turn back now, of course.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_80">80</div> -<p>Elsie’s order was given briskly: “A head of crisp -Iceland lettuce,” she said, “a small bottle of salad oil, -genuine Italian, half a pound of almonds, half a -dozen eggs, and the smallest loaf of bread you -have. Oh, yes, and a pound of flour, if you sell so -little.”</p> -<p>“Thanks,” said the young clerk who had written -the order down in his book.</p> -<p>But Elsie waited. He looked at her inquiringly. -“Anything more?”</p> -<p>“No. But I want what I ordered.”</p> -<p>“I thought we’d send it, of course. It will be quite -a load.”</p> -<p>“No. Please do the things up and put them into -my car for me. How much is it all?”</p> -<p>“Oh, that’s all right. You’re Miss Frazier, aren’t -you? You folks have a charge account here.”</p> -<p>“However, I want to pay for these things myself. -Do not by any means put them on Miss Frazier’s -account.” Elsie spoke primly but with flushed -cheeks that contradicted her outward composure.</p> -<p>“Thought I’d just tell you. Yesterday when you -came in and paid for things Mr. Holt said there must -be some mistake.”</p> -<p>“There is no mistake. And will you please put -the box of eggs in a bag? Not just tie them with -a string like that!”</p> -<p>“We’re going up your way, miss, in about ten -minutes. Why don’t we take ’em?”</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_81">81</div> -<p>But Elsie shook her head, biting her lips with annoyance -at the young man’s persistence. She commanded -him to put the things into the car.</p> -<p>“To the Bookshop now,” she ordered Timothy -as they started again.</p> -<p>At the Bookshop Kate did not speak of getting out, -though it certainly attracted her more than the -grocery store. But Elsie herself turned at the door. -“Don’t you want to come, too, Kate?” she called. -“It’s an awfully cunning little place.”</p> -<p>Kate and her mother were always drawn by bookshops -wherever they found them, and they spent in -them during the course of a year a sum that it would -have taken no budget expert to see was all out of -proportion to their income. But then, Katherine -always said when the subject of “budgeting” came -up that it was as foolish to make rules about the -spending of money as it would be to make rules about -the spending of time. It was a matter for the individual, -strictly. Kate followed Elsie eagerly, -now.</p> -<p>It was such a little shop that Kate, although she -immediately gravitated toward a table of books that -interested her particularly, could not avoid hearing -Elsie’s conversation with the Bookshop woman.</p> -<p>“Have you Havelock Ellis’s ‘Dance of Life’?” she -asked.</p> -<p>“Yes, a new order has just come in. I knew -Miss Frazier wanted it and I was sending it up first -thing this afternoon. Would you like to take it?”</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_82">82</div> -<p>“Yes, I’ll take one for my aunt, if she ordered it. -I’ll take two. One is for myself, and I will pay for -it.”</p> -<p>“Your aunt always charges. Sha’n’t I charge them -both?”</p> -<p>“No, I will pay for it. How much is it?”</p> -<p>“Four dollars.”</p> -<p>“Four dollars! Oh, dear! So much?”</p> -<p>The woman was very obliging. “Why not charge -it?” she suggested again, for Elsie was looking woefully -into her purse.</p> -<p>“No. Let me think a minute. Well, I won’t buy -it to-day.”</p> -<p>Elsie’s face had so fallen, she was so obviously disappointed, -that Kate went over to her. “I have -money,” she offered. “Five dollars. You can borrow -from me.”</p> -<p>But as she spoke her glance quite unconsciously -fell upon the purse opened in Elsie’s hand. A little -roll of crisp bills lay there for any one to see, amounting -surely to more than four dollars.</p> -<p>“No, thanks.” Elsie replied, snapping the purse -shut. “Let’s go home.”</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_83">83</div> -<p>Kate turned it over quickly as they went back -to the car. Why had Elsie acted, as she certainly -had acted, as though she did not have four dollars -in her purse when it was perfectly plain that she -had more? And why did she want the book, anyway? -Katherine had bought that book less than a -week ago, and Kate had had an opportunity to look -into it to find what of interest there might be for -herself. She had found nothing. It was decidedly -a book for adults, a rather deep book, and, to Kate’s -mind, a dull book. But perhaps Elsie only wanted -it to give away. Anyway, she would ask no questions. -It was none of her business.</p> -<p>Timothy showed distinct surprise at Elsie’s nonchalant -“Home, Timothy.” And Kate understood -his surprise. Aunt Katherine had given them the -car for the morning and Timothy was all prepared -to start off on a long drive. But Elsie had apparently -forgotten about this in her worry over the -book. And Kate had no impulse to remind her. -If things were only as one might expect them to be, -not all so strangely mysterious and unpleasant, a car -at her disposal and a comrade on a beautiful summer -morning like this would have seemed the height -of pleasure. But such a ride with Elsie would certainly -be no fun, and she did not think until it was -too late that she alone with Timothy might start -off on an exploring adventure.</p> -<p>When they got out of the car in front of their -own door, Timothy, as a matter of course, expected -to take the packages from the grocery store around -to the servants’ entrance. But Elsie held out her -hands for them. He relinquished them to her, -plainly puzzled. Surely they were groceries!</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_84">84</div> -<p>When the two girls stood together in the big front -hall Kate said briefly: “Good-bye. I’m going out -into the garden.”</p> -<p>“Wait on the terrace outside the drawing-room -and I’ll come with you,” Elsie responded, very unexpectedly. -“First I’ll just run up to my room with -these bundles. I know a lot about the kinds of -flowers and things in the garden. Let me show it -all to you.”</p> -<p>Kate was almost dazed by this suggestion. She -had certainly been made to feel that Elsie was only -too eager to get rid of her company. She stood -where she had been left, wondering.</p> -<p>Why had Elsie taken lettuce and oil and bread and -eggs and flour and nuts up to her room? What -could she ever do with them up there?</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_85">85</div> -<p>“I’ll not ask her about it,” she promised herself, -“just not a thing. But I shall write to Mother and -the boys this morning. I won’t tell Mother how -horrid Elsie is being, though. She would be too -disappointed for me. And I’m really not having -such a bad time as it might sound. But I’ll tell the -boys just everything. They will be as mystified as -I am. And to think I was dissatisfied with them -for chums and wanted a <i>girl</i>! I’ll appreciate them -when I get back, that’s certain. Oh, of course! -Why didn’t I think at first! Elsie doesn’t trust me -in the garden alone! That’s why she wants to come -with me. She is afraid I won’t keep my promise. -She’s afraid I will go ‘prowling’ around the orchard -house. I just wish I hadn’t promised not to use the -key. It would be something to do with this morning -she’s spoiled. And something to write Mother -about. And it might explain some of the mystery. -There <i>was</i> a light last night. I saw it plain enough. -The boys will be interested in all that. How soon -can I expect letters from home, I wonder?”</p> -<p>With these thoughts Kate went out through the -cool, shady drawing-room and on to the terrace. -There in the shade of some trellised wisteria she sat -down on a garden bench to wait for Elsie.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_86">86</div> -<h2 id="c7"><span class="h2line1">CHAPTER VII</span> -<br /><span class="h2line2">“EVEN SO——”</span></h2> -<p>Elsie was a very long time in coming. As the -minutes dragged themselves along Kate’s cheeks -began to get hot even before she realized that she -was angry. But after she had waited so long -that she was convinced Elsie was not coming at -all she got up with a shrug. Any one who knew -Kate would have seen at once that she was in no -ordinary mood; for shrugs or any such Latin methods -of self-expression were quite foreign to this girl, -New England bred.</p> -<p>She went up to her room for paper. Now was the -time to write to her mother and Sam and Lee. Certainly -she had enough to tell them!</p> -<p>The door to the sitting-room across the hall was -standing open and a glance assured Kate that it -was empty. And while she did not actually look into -Elsie’s room she heard no sound and felt that Elsie -was not there. But she had no idea where Bertha had -put the writing paper when she unpacked the suitcase -and the envelopes and stamps. She searched -through the drawers of the dressing table. But -there were only her ribbons, her handkerchiefs, her -underclothes arranged artistically. No sign of paper -or fountain pen. So, although she had meant -never to go into the sitting-room, she was forced to -now. Her writing materials must be in the desk -there.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_87">87</div> -<p>She found them at once. And now being in the -room, she took the occasion to look all about. It -was the jolliest place imaginable for a girl to call -her own! And since the morning had grown rather -oppressively hot it was a refuge, too; for there was a -breeze on this side of the house and it was the coolest -spot Kate had found herself in that morning. Tree -shadows stood on the walls, and leaf shadows shook -in a green, cool light. It would be very nice to sit -here and write. But Kate could not bring herself to -do it. She reminded herself that this was Elsie’s -desk and room, and therefore hateful.</p> -<p>Picking up her own property she hurried out and -down the stairs. Once in the garden she made -directly for the apple orchard. She would allow -herself to walk along the edge viewing the orchard -house from that angle. If Elsie called that prowling, -let her! As she walked she felt the brass key in her -pocket. But though now her whole mind was on the -house and her desire to go into it, it never entered -her head to break her promise. Elsie certainly deserved -her anger, but revengeful thinking was quite -outside of Kate’s mentality.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_88">88</div> -<p>When she had walked the whole length of the -orchard she came to a low, broad hedge that marked -the termination of Aunt Katherine’s grounds. Near -it she sat down, not in the orchard but in its shade, -and placing her block of paper on her knee began -to write.</p> -<p>“Dearest Mother”:—And then so suddenly that -it startled her, tears blotted the two words. At the -same minute she heard running feet. Kate winked -fast and furiously and looked up. Elsie was standing -over her. She was flushed from running in the heat -and her eyes were very bright and soft. Again she -was radiating happiness as on Kate’s first glimpse -of her. On her arm swung a straw basket and one -hand held a pair of shining shears. Kate felt that -she would rather die on the spot than let Elsie guess -that she was crying. But if Elsie saw the tears she -showed no sign.</p> -<p>“I’m sorry I didn’t get here sooner, and that I -asked you to wait.” She spoke in a conciliatory tone. -“Truly I’m not so rude as I seemed. But I had an -unexpected opportunity to attend to something that -needed attention and there wasn’t time to run down -and tell you. It had to be done quickly. But now -I’m ready. I thought as we walked around I’d cut -some flowers for our rooms. Aunt Katherine likes -me to keep my vases filled.”</p> -<p>Now it was Kate who was cold and distant. -Her shame in her tears made that necessary. “I’m -writing to my mother,” she answered. “And I -don’t need to be entertained a bit. Some other -time I’ll help you with the flowers.”</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_89">89</div> -<p>Elsie’s glow flickered and went out. “Very well,” -she said, and turned away sharply to cut some -nasturtiums growing around the foot of an apple -tree.</p> -<p>But just as she turned there came a shout from -over the hedge. A boy older than themselves, in -fact a young man of seventeen probably, had come -to the tennis court, only a few paces beyond the -hedge, with a racket and balls in his hand. He was -calling to a girl on the steps of the piazza of the -house next door. “Hurry up,” he shouted. “Come -on.”</p> -<p>“Yes. Just a minute.” The girl was bending over -on the steps, tying her shoe perhaps. In a minute -she had come bounding down the long slope of the -lawn and joined her brother.</p> -<p>Kate looked at them interestedly. “Who are -they?” she asked of Elsie. Elsie gave her the information -without turning. “That’s Rose Denton -and her brother Jack. And they’d ask you to -play, probably, if they saw you, and I weren’t here. -They just barely speak to me.”</p> -<p>“Barely speak to you? And they live right next -door?”</p> -<p>“Yes, queer, isn’t it!” The voice above the nasturtiums -was sarcastic. “Only get yourself noticed -and you’ll soon know them. Hope you have a -good time.”</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_90">90</div> -<p>Elsie straightened up, adjusted her basket on her -arm, and moved away. But Kate called after her, her -voice shaking with anger, “I don’t know why you -are so queer, Elsie Frazier, or why you haven’t -friends. But while I’m visiting you it isn’t likely -I’d play with people who won’t play with you, no -matter how much they asked me. That’s that.”</p> -<p>Elsie turned and walked backward now. “Well, -Kate Marshall, I’m afraid you’ll have just a horrid -month then,” she prophesied. And with a strange, -almost strangled little laugh she whirled about and -was really off with her basket and shears.</p> -<p>Kate watched her as she went, floating toward the -gardens across the smooth lawn. “She walks like a -dryad,” she thought, “and she looks like a Dorothy -Lathrop fairy.” Then she smiled a little woefully -at her own fancy. “She may look like a fairy but -she’s a horrid, stuck-up thing just the same,” she -reminded herself.</p> -<p>But she found relief for her overcharged emotions -when she came to the compositions of her letter to -the Hart boys. There she described Elsie just as she -was and had behaved. Not one unpleasant thing -that Elsie had done was forgotten. Perhaps it was -rather horrid of Kate to complain so unrestrainedly -and set down so much criticism. But she did not -give that a thought—not then. When the letter -was finished and in its envelope she pulled it out -again to add a postscript.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_91">91</div> -<blockquote> -<p>P. S. It’s all true what I have told you about Elsie Frazier, -every bit. But <i>even so</i>, I don’t hate her and now that I’ve written -about her I’m not even angry any more. She’s hardly said -a friendly word or acted a bit as you would expect her to to a -guest, but even so if she only were nice to me I’d be quite crazy -about her. That isn’t just because she’s so pretty, either. I -don’t know why I feel that way, but I do. She’s exactly the -sort of chum I’ve always imagined having some day. And -there’s one thing good I can tell you about her. She likes -“The King of the Fairies,” I think. Anyway, she owns it. So -what do you make of it all? And what about the light in the -orchard house? And why do you suppose Elsie is so set against -my using the key? And why did she buy those groceries and -take them up to her room? Don’t tell Mother a word I’ve told -you about how mean Elsie is. <i>She</i> must think I’m having a -<i>lovely</i> time—at least, until I know whether I can stick it out or -not. K.M.</p> -</blockquote> -<div class="pb" id="Page_92">92</div> -<h2 id="c8"><span class="h2line1">CHAPTER VIII</span> -<br /><span class="h2line2">KATE MEETS A DETECTIVE</span></h2> -<p>When Kate came to luncheon that day she was -surprised to see a letter lying at her place. -So soon? Why, she had not been here a day yet!</p> -<p>“It’s not your mother’s handwriting,” Aunt -Katherine said, a little curiously.</p> -<p>“No, it’s from the boys. Oh, I’m so glad!”</p> -<p>“The boys?”</p> -<p>“Yes, I told you about them last night, you know. -The twins. The Harts. How jolly of them to -write me so soon!”</p> -<p>“But what can they have to tell you since yesterday?”</p> -<p>“It will be all about Mother, and much better than -a letter from her herself because she doesn’t know -how to tell about herself, you know. She’s always so -silent on that subject. Do you mind, Aunt, if I -just open it and peek?”</p> -<p>“Of course, my dear, read it. Elsie and I will -excuse you.”</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_93">93</div> -<p>But there was almost no letter inside. There was -one paragraph in the exact centre of a big square -sheet of yellow notepaper, written in a script so small -and round and legible that it was almost print like. -But the very wide margins were bordered with a -series of pen sketches that told a story in its progressive -action something in the way a moving picture -does. It was the story of a picnic the Harts had -arranged for yesterday afternoon with Katherine -the guest of honour. Professor Hart, in an endeavour -to rescue the lunch basket which had fallen into -a brook, had evidently fallen in after it. That -perhaps was the high mark in the artist’s work. But -the picnic had been chock full of adventure one could -see at a glance; and Lee’s quick humour and real art -had turned even the worst mishaps into fun.</p> -<p>The paragraph was in Sam’s hand, and began: -“Dear Kate, if you are well it is well. We also -are well.” Apparently he had nothing whatsoever -to say, but he said it cheerfully.</p> -<p>Kate crinkled up her eyes and laughed so wholeheartedly -over the nonsense that she felt herself -rude. She passed the paper to Aunt Katherine. -“You will see that I can’t help it,” she explained.</p> -<p>And Aunt Katherine, after she had studied the -pictures a few seconds and skimmed the paragraph, -laughed, too, a light, genuinely amused laugh. “It’s -not only funny, though,” she insisted, “it’s artistic. -Which boy drew these pictures?”</p> -<p>“Lee. He’s always sketching. He means to be -a real artist.”</p> -<p>“I think he is that already. All he needs now is -study. I would say he has a future if he has the will -to stick to it.”</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_94">94</div> -<p>Aunt Katherine now handed the letter to Elsie -and turned back to Kate to remark: “Your mother, -on accepting my invitation for you, mentioned the -fact that you were lonely, in need of friends as much -as Elsie. But I don’t see how any one could be -more companionable or amusing than these boys, -from your descriptions and this letter.”</p> -<p>Kate glowed at Aunt Katherine’s appreciation of -Sam and Lee. “Oh, Mother meant <i>girl</i> friends. -There just doesn’t happen to be any one near my age -in Ashland. And while boys are all right, they -aren’t exactly the same.”</p> -<p>Elsie had lost some of her indifference and coldness -over the letter. She was almost smiling, in fact. -Now she was actually smiling. Kate beamed. -This was certainly the most natural minute and the -happiest since her arrival. She blessed the Hart -boys for having created it.</p> -<p>But Aunt Katherine was surprised when it developed -that the girls had not been exploring the -countryside in the car that morning.</p> -<p>“Didn’t you use Timothy at all?” she asked.</p> -<p>“Just for errands in the town. Kate wrote letters -and I picked and arranged flowers, and read ‘The -King of the Fairies.’”</p> -<p>“One would think, Elsie, you possessed only one -book. When are you going to finish with ‘The -King of the Fairies’?”</p> -<p>“Oh, I don’t know.” Elsie’s tone had fallen -suddenly into sulkiness.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_95">95</div> -<p>But though Aunt Katherine did not seem to notice -the sudden chilling of the atmosphere, Kate did and -spoke quickly, a trifle nervously.</p> -<p>“Haven’t you read ‘The King of the Fairies,’ -Aunt Katherine?”</p> -<p>“Why, no. It’s a fairy story, a child’s book. It -surprises me that Elsie, a big girl of fifteen, finds it -so fascinating.”</p> -<p>“Mother finds it fascinating, too,” Kate hurried -to assure her. “And I know it just about by heart. -Mother keeps saying it’s the most beautiful love -story she ever read. And even the boys like it. -They felt just the way you do about its title. But -once they got into it they couldn’t stop. If you -read it yourself you’d see why.”</p> -<p>Kate was fairly radiant with her enthusiasm about -this book. Her aunt smiled into her eager eyes. “I -shall certainly look it over, then,” she promised. -“It must be an unusual book to inspire such loyalty.”</p> -<p>“I’ll bring my copy down and put it on your -reading table right after luncheon.”</p> -<p>“You have a copy with you! It <i>must</i> be a favourite! -Thank you, Kate.”</p> -<p>But Elsie did not offer a word to this topic. She -sat, colder than ever, looking at the wall to the -right of Kate’s shoulder.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_96">96</div> -<p>“As Timothy hasn’t been working this morning, -I think I shall have him take me in to Boston this -afternoon,” Aunt Katherine said, as she helped the -girls to lemon ice which had just been set before her -in a frosted bowl. “Driving is about the coolest -thing one can do to-day. Will either or both of you -come with me?”</p> -<p>“Oh, yes. <i>I</i> should love to.” Kate was secretly -relieved that with this promise she would not be -thrown alone with Elsie again that afternoon. And -she was even more relieved when Elsie said, “I don’t -believe I’ll go, thank you, Aunt Katherine. I shall -read or do something here.”</p> -<p>As Kate was on her way up to get her hat for the -drive she was stopped at the stair-turning by a -woman who had come through a door connecting -with a different staircase. She was a middle-aged, -plump person with graying curly hair, in a starched -black and white print dress, almost entirely concealed -by a crisp white apron. It was the cook, -Julia.</p> -<p>“How do you do, Miss Kate,” she said, hurriedly, -and almost in a whisper. “Excuse me, but I just -had to ask how is your blessed mother? Miss -Frazier never tells us anything at all. She ain’t sick -or anything, is she, and that’s why you’re here?”</p> -<p>Kate reassured her. “But did you know Mother?” -she asked.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_97">97</div> -<p>“Of course. We all did, ’cept Isadora. She’s new -since. Your mother was for ever in and out of the -house and we all loved her. Didn’t she ever tell -you the time she broke her arm falling on the kitchen -stairs? And she never cried, if you’ll believe me. -Only moaned just a bit, even when the doctor come -and fixed it. Miss Frazier was away and old Mr. -Frazier, too. So I had to manage. Didn’t she ever -tell you?”</p> -<p>Kate had to admit that she had never heard the -story.</p> -<p>“Well, she wan’t one to talk about herself, she -wan’t. Always interested in <i>you</i> and sort of forgot -herself like.”</p> -<p>Kate nodded at that. Evidently Julia did know -her mother.</p> -<p>“And you say she’s perfectly well? We’ll all be -grateful for that.”</p> -<p>Aunt Katherine’s voice came up to them from the -hall at this point. She was talking to Elsie. As -quickly as she had appeared, Julia whisked about and -was out of the door through which she had come. -But quick as a wink, and almost as if by magic, -before she vanished she had produced from somewhere -a gingerbread man and pushed it into Kate’s -hand.</p> -<p>Kate looked at the gift, amused, when Julia was -gone. “She couldn’t have realized how old I am,” -she thought, smiling. “She thinks I’m just Mother’s -‘child.’” Up in her room she hid it under her -pillow.</p> -<p class="center"><span class="gs">* * * * * * * *</span></p> -<p>It was pleasant speeding along with her aunt -toward Boston, creating their own breeze as they -went through the hot July afternoon.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_98">98</div> -<p>“Now tell me, Kate,” Aunt Katherine questioned -her abruptly as soon as they were on their way. -“Are you and Elsie getting on well? Are you becoming -friends?”</p> -<p>This was difficult for Kate. She hesitated. “I -don’t think Elsie likes me,” she said finally. “She -tries to be—polite, I think.”</p> -<p>“Not like you? Nonsense! How could she help -liking you?”</p> -<p>Kate laughed. “I suppose you <i>can’t</i> like everybody,” -she said modestly. “But Elsie doesn’t seem -to like very many people. That boy and girl next -door—she doesn’t play with them.”</p> -<p>“Oh, Rose and Jack Denton. You know the -reason for the coldness there, of course. But you -are quite different.”</p> -<p>“No, I don’t know the reason. Why hasn’t she -friends here? I don’t know anything. She hasn’t -explained at all.”</p> -<p>Aunt Katherine showed real surprise. “Do you -mean your mother hasn’t told you why things are -difficult for Elsie? Is she as ashamed as that? -Well, she feels even more strongly than I had suspected -then.”</p> -<p>Bitterness and sorrow had settled on Aunt Katherine’s -features.</p> -<p>“I don’t think Mother knew anything to tell me,” -Kate protested. “Why are things difficult for -Elsie?”</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_99">99</div> -<p>“If your mother hasn’t told you, she wouldn’t -want <i>me</i> to. That is certain. But I am surprised -she let you come, feeling so. However, since she -did let you come, and you have no prejudice, Elsie -has no business to include you in her rages. You -are the one person in the world she should be friendly -with and grateful to. And, you know, I am sure -she exaggerates other people’s attitude, anyway. -The young people would be friendly enough if she -would only go halfway.”</p> -<p>Aunt Katherine put her hand on Kate’s arm and -continued earnestly: “That is one reason why I -wanted you to come so much, to help us break the -ice. Friday I am giving a party in your honour, -Kate, an informal little dance.”</p> -<p>Kate clasped her hands. For a minute she forgot -all the mystery that had gone before in her aunt’s -speech.</p> -<p>“A dance! Oh, Aunt Katherine, how beautiful -of you!” To herself she added, “Glory, glory! -Already things are beginning to happen just as -Mother said they would.”</p> -<p>“I have asked fifteen boys and thirteen girls. -<i>They have all, every one, accepted!</i> If that doesn’t -prove how mistaken Elsie is, I am a very foolish -woman.”</p> -<p>“Elsie hasn’t mentioned the party to me,” Kate -wondered aloud.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_100">100</div> -<p>“No. I haven’t told her anything about it yet. -I wanted you here and established first. I hoped -that once you and she were having a happy, gay time -together, she would soften, feel more in the mood. -Most of the young people I have asked she had met -when visiting me during school vacations. She was -very popular with them before—well, before. But -there are a few new families who have come to -Oakdale since—well, since.”</p> -<p>“Before what? Since what?” If it was rude of -Kate, she could not help it. It was all too mystifying.</p> -<p>“But that’s just what I can’t tell you, since Katherine -hasn’t. Only, your not knowing makes it a -bit complicated. No, I’m not sure of that. It -may make everything more simple, more natural. -But tell me, can’t you be friends with Elsie? She -needs your friendship and companionship more than -you can guess, my dear.”</p> -<p>“I’m sorry. Perhaps we shall be friends yet. But -she does act awfully <i>queer</i>. Oh, it’s mean of me to -talk about her so. Perhaps I’ve done something. -Perhaps there’s a reason.”</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_101">101</div> -<p>“Well, she’s a strange child. Strange! But she -used to be different. I always thought she seemed -a little lost and lonely, you know. That was mostly -because of her mother—no mother at all, in reality. -Just a butterfly. In spite of that Elsie was agreeable -and tender once. Quite a dear. But since she has -come to live with me she has been entirely a changed -person. You must believe, though, Kate, that there -is no more reason for her to be unfriendly toward -you than there is for her to be unfriendly toward -me. And I am speaking truly when I say there has -hardly been a friendly moment between us since -she came into my home. She is polite, beautifully -polite. I suppose that absurd fashionable boarding -school she was sent to taught her manners. But it -goes no deeper. How do <i>you</i> feel about it? Is there -anything unkind or wrong in the way I treat Elsie? -Have you noticed anything in the brief time you -have been here?”</p> -<p>Kate was amazed to have Aunt Katherine so -appealing to her. All barriers were down between -them. They were talking as two girls might, or -two women.</p> -<p>“Nothing unkind, of course! I don’t know how -you could be kinder. But, Aunt Katherine, do you -truly like Elsie? It may be that she <i>feels</i>, in spite -of your kindness, that you just don’t like her.”</p> -<p>“Does it seem that way to you?”</p> -<p>“No—perhaps not. But there is something in -your voice when you speak to her—a difference. -I don’t know how to express it. If you truly don’t -like her, perhaps you can’t help showing it a little.”</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_102">102</div> -<p>Aunt Katherine said no more for a while. But -she was thinking. “It’s queer,” she said finally, -“very queer, the way I am talking to you. I am -treating you as though you were your mother almost. -And you are like your mother, in deep ways. Only -you are franker, more open. You say right out the -things that she might think but wouldn’t say. -Well, and since I am saying things right out, too—I -<i>don’t</i> like Elsie. You are right there. I tried to. -But I simply couldn’t. She is too unnatural, too -cold and heartless, and perhaps self-seeking. The -irony of it is that she is all I have left to love, the only -person in the world who needs me now—or, rather, -the only person who will let herself use me. But I -can’t like her.”</p> -<p>Kate was embarrassed at this revelation, and at -the same time deeply sorry for her aunt. For the -present the subject dropped between them.</p> -<p class="center"><span class="gs">* * * * * * * *</span></p> -<p>In Boston Kate looked about her with the greatest -interest as the car crept through the crowded business -section. She had been in Boston before on brief -holiday visits with her mother, stopping at little -boarding houses, and spending most of the time in -art galleries or the Museum or on trolley rides to -places of historical interest. But now she was seeing -it from a new angle, leisurely and in comfort. There -was no jostling, no hurrying, no aching feet.</p> -<p>They drew up to a curb in Boylston Street. Timothy -got out and came around for orders. “Go up -and ask Mr. O’Brien to come down to the car, -Timothy. Tell him I have only a minute.”</p> -<p>Almost at once a spruce, energetic-looking young -man stood at the car door, his straw hat in his -hand.</p> -<p>“Wouldn’t it be better to have our interview, no -matter how brief, in my office, Miss Frazier?” he -suggested deferentially.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_103">103</div> -<p>Miss Frazier shook her head with decision. “No. -I just want to ask you one question. Is there any -news?”</p> -<p>Mr. O’Brien glanced toward Kate significantly.</p> -<p>“This is my niece,” Miss Frazier informed him -but not at all in the way of an introduction. “Tell -me, have you the slightest news?”</p> -<p>“Nothing that is very certain. We have a new -clue, perhaps. But I cannot go into that before -your niece, Miss Frazier.”</p> -<p>“Oh, this is not Elsie. It’s another niece, a blood -relation. And I do not intend to climb those stairs -to your office. You can surely give me some hint.”</p> -<p>“There is an elevator. You forget.”</p> -<p>“No matter. I am not going up. Be quick, -please. Naturally, I am impatient.”</p> -<p>Kate was certainly catching a glimpse now of the -bossy Aunt Katherine of tradition.</p> -<p>“Well, we just have an idea. We should like to -know whether your other niece, Miss Elsie, ever comes -into Boston alone. Has she been in this week, say?”</p> -<p>“Why, no. Certainly not. Bertha, her maid, is -with her when I am not. She is a chaperon as well -as a maid. I trust her. She happens to be a very -remarkable woman for a servant.”</p> -<p>“Miss Elsie does come in, then, without you -sometimes? Is she planning to come soon again?”</p> -<p>“Why, yes. But what this has to do with the -business I can’t see. I’m sending her in to-morrow -with her maid and Miss Kate to buy party frocks -and see ‘The Blue Bird.’”</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_104">104</div> -<p>“Excellent!” Mr. O’Brien seemed much pleased. -“Will they go directly to the store?”</p> -<p>“Yes, Pearl’s. A modiste on Beacon Street.”</p> -<p>“Very good. May I have one word in your ear?”</p> -<p>“I see no reason.” But Miss Frazier leaned a -little toward the insistent young man while he -lowered his voice so that Kate did not catch one -word of what he said.</p> -<p>Her aunt laughed, amused apparently. “Much -good that will do you. I have told you, Mr. O’Brien, -there is not a chance in the world that Miss Elsie -knows any more than we do.”</p> -<p>“However, you do not object?”</p> -<p>“No. Except that it is a foolish waste of time.”</p> -<p>“We shall not lose time through it, I assure you. -Other members of my staff are working on other -clues. Precious few there are, though.”</p> -<p>“If that is all I will say ‘good afternoon,’ then.” -Miss Frazier settled back in her seat. “You will -call me up, of course, the minute there is anything -definite.”</p> -<p>“Of course. But does Miss Elsie often answer the -telephone?”</p> -<p>“Sometimes. Very seldom. I tell you, Mr. -O’Brien, there is no rhyme or reason to your suspicions -in that direction.”</p> -<p>“Even so, Miss Frazier, I beg you to adjure Miss -Kate here to secrecy. She should, on no condition, -tell Miss Elsie one word she has heard.”</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_105">105</div> -<p>Miss Frazier nodded, glancing at Kate. Kate’s -return look carried her promise. “I shall hope for -something more definite when next I hear from you, -Mr. O’Brien. Good afternoon. Home, Timothy.”</p> -<p>Mr. O’Brien stood on the curb while the big car -pulled out. There was a troubled, displeased expression -on his face, Kate thought. She knew that -he resented very much the interview not having -been more private.</p> -<p>“Is he a detective?” she asked her aunt curiously.</p> -<p>“Yes, a private detective, and a very good one. -But perhaps he is right, Kate, and you had better -forget all about him. If he is doing the job I suppose -he has a right to do it in his own way.”</p> -<p>A private detective! And what had a detective -to suspect of Elsie! But Kate took her aunt’s hint -and asked no more questions.</p> -<p>Their way home took them by the Green Shutter -Tea Room, a quaint little place built by a stream in -a grove of maples. The tables were set out under -the trees. Aunt Katherine suggested that they -stop. And when they were seated opposite each -other at a little round green table, their order given, -they smiled at each other contentedly, like friends -of long standing.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_106">106</div> -<h2 id="c9"><span class="h2line1">CHAPTER IX</span> -<br /><span class="h2line2">SOMETHING OF FAIRY IN IT</span></h2> -<p>“You haven’t told me a word about how you like -the orchard house!” Aunt Katherine said. -“Did you go all over it? The study is really the -nicest room. Did you like that? And did you see -your mother’s old playroom?”</p> -<p>Kate hesitated to confess to her aunt that she had -not been near the orchard house. It might involve -Elsie too much. She remembered Elsie’s plea last -night. So she hesitated, feeling her cheeks redden. -But after an instant she said, “I think I shall save -it for a day when there isn’t so much to do. It’s a -darling house, but I haven’t been in.”</p> -<p>“After the party on Thursday I am hoping that -all your days here will be full of things to do, yours -and Elsie’s, too. She will begin to have the life of -other girls again. For myself I have hardly cared a -bit. I had rather grown away from my old friends, -anyway, and larger interests, or at least more impersonal -interests, have been absorbing me of late -years. But now I’m pocketing my pride for Elsie’s -sake, and going more than halfway toward reconciliations.... -Madame Pearl, the woman to -whom I am sending you to-morrow for frocks, is an -artist in her way. You two girls must choose dresses -that not only become yourselves but go well together.”</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_107">107</div> -<p>For Kate all the puzzling hints that ran through her -aunt’s conversation were forgotten in this new subject. -“But Mother and I thought my pink organdie -would do for a party, if you gave one. You -haven’t seen it. I shall wear it for dinner to-night.”</p> -<p>“No, I haven’t seen it, but I am sure it is very -dainty and pretty. Even so, this is to be Elsie’s first -real party, and her first real party frock. And it -will be more appropriate for you to have dresses -that match in a way, or contrast with each other -artistically. You <i>will</i> let me give you such a gift, -won’t you, Kate?”</p> -<p>There was surprising entreaty in Aunt Katherine’s -dark eyes, and fear, too. Would Kate be simply an -echo of her mother? Would she rise up in pride and -say, “No charity, thanks”?</p> -<p>Meanwhile, Kate was thinking rapidly. She had -no idea whatever whether her mother would want -her to accept a party frock from Aunt Katherine or -not. But quickly she decided that her mother would -want her to speak for herself now, that this was a -matter between herself and her aunt.</p> -<p>“Of course I shall love to have a party dress,” -she exclaimed. “Oh, but you are good to me, Aunt -Katherine! And it will be my first as well as -Elsie’s.”</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_108">108</div> -<p>Miss Frazier flushed, pleasure all out of proportion -to the event, seemingly, shining from her eyes. -She said “Thank you, my dear,” in as heartfelt accents -as though Kate herself were the donor.</p> -<p>Kate laughed at that, her eyes crinkling, and -after the laugh her mouth still stayed tilted up at -the corners. “Oh, I’m so excited,” she exclaimed. -“But aren’t you going to Boston with us, to Madame -Pearl’s, to help us choose?”</p> -<p>“No, I think not. Bertha has excellent taste, and -Madame Pearl herself would not make a mistake. And -I think that the more I am out of it the better the -chance is that you and Elsie will find each other. -A day together, shopping, lunching at my club, and -seeing ‘The Blue Bird’ afterward ought to give two -girls all the opportunity they need to get over any -strangeness.”</p> -<p>“‘The Blue Bird’! Well, it’s just as Mother said -it would be, wonderful things galore! Oh, dear! -I wish she could know this minute that I’m to see -‘The Blue Bird’! We’ve read it, of course. But to -see it! I shall write her again to-night—and the -boys, too.”</p> -<p>Kate was sitting with clasped hands, her hazel -eyes narrowed and golden with light. She was almost -little-girlish in her excitement and pleasure, and -of course the corners of her mouth were uptilted at -their most winged angle. Aunt Katherine, watching -her, thought, “She is better than pretty, this grand-niece -of mine. She is fascinating. Just to look at -her stirs your imagination.”</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_109">109</div> -<p>But she said, “Eat your toast before it is cold, I advise -you. And don’t neglect the marmalade. It -is unusually good marmalade they serve here at the -Green Shutter.”</p> -<p>And so Kate came to earth. “But such a nice -earth!” she said to herself.</p> -<p>Before they had finished their tea, Aunt Katherine -rose to a pitch of confidences that surprised herself. -But it was just exactly as though in Kate she had -found a friend, a friend to whom she was able to open -her heart. At this moment in her life Miss Frazier -needed this sort of a confidante badly. They were -talking about Elsie again and her coldness and indifference -to Kate.</p> -<p>“There is one obvious explanation for it,” Aunt -Katherine said. “I can think of no other. She -may be jealous. She may have been jealous from the -first minute of your arrival.”</p> -<p>Kate was too surprised to think at all. “Jealous—<i>of -me</i>? Why?”</p> -<p>“That you might take her place with me, cheat -her somehow of what she apparently considers hers. -She sees, as you have guessed, that I do not like her. -May she not be all the more jealous of you just because -of that?”</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_110">110</div> -<p>“Oh, no, no, no.” Kate was thinking clearly again. -“She isn’t horrid like that. I know it. She’s too -beautiful and lovely. There’s something about her -that makes any such idea just impossible. She -mayn’t like me, and I may be cross with her, but for -all that—for all that I know she’s not a <i>mean</i> person, -Aunt Katherine.”</p> -<p>Kate was amazed herself at having so suddenly become -Elsie’s champion. Loyalty to that strange girl -had apparently been born in her all in a second. Or -was it loyalty only to the comrade she had glimpsed -flashingly, once in the mirror last night, and once in -sunshine this morning? Whatever it was to, it was -very real and staunch.</p> -<p>Aunt Katherine’s face lightened remarkably. -“You may be right, and I earnestly hope you are,” -she said. “For if Elsie were unfriendly toward you -for any such reason—well, it would be the last straw, -the very last.”</p> -<p>As they spun along toward home through the cooling -air, Miss Frazier’s expression grew happier and -happier. Kate had done for her what she could not -do for herself: lightened real suspicions, and eased her -heart.</p> -<p>It was almost dinner time when they arrived. If -Kate was to don her pink organdie she would have to -hurry. She raced up the stairs and found Bertha in -her room waiting for her.</p> -<p>“You have only ten minutes, Miss Kate,” she -warned. “Your bath is set.”</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_111">111</div> -<p>A glance showed Kate the pink organdie freshly -pressed, crisp and cool, hung over a chair back, and -the white slip to go under it on the bed. Her pumps -were set down by the dressing table and some fresh -stockings near on a stool. Two baths a day! How -comfortable! Kate, still aglow with her afternoon, -had quite forgotten her self-consciousness with this -lady’s maid.</p> -<p>“Has Miss Elsie dressed?” she asked.</p> -<p>Bertha answered rather worriedly: “No, and -none of us have seen her all afternoon. I do wish -she would come up. I can’t think how she’s been -amusing herself, or where.”</p> -<p>Kate herself began to wonder, when she had had -her bath and was freshly dressed. “There’s the -gong!” she exclaimed.</p> -<p>But simultaneously with the note of the gong -Elsie’s door slammed and there she was in the bathroom -door.</p> -<p>“I’m late,” she called, but not at all ruefully. -“No time to dress, Bertha. Hello, Kate.”</p> -<p>“You’ll have to wash your face, whether there’s -time or not,” Bertha assured her. “And your hair, -it’s a sight! Where did you get like that?”</p> -<p>Elsie laughed, elfin laughter. “Never mind where. -And you aren’t my nurse. You’re my tiring-woman. -Bear that in mind, Mrs. Bertha.”</p> -<p>Bertha’s worried face changed into a beaming one. -Elsie in such good spirits! That was the best that -Bertha asked of life, Kate intuitively felt.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_112">112</div> -<p>But it was true enough. Elsie very much needed -washing and brushing. Her nose and forehead were -beaded with little drops of perspiration, her cheeks -were a burning red, as though she had been sitting -over a fire, or perhaps long in the sun, and there were -smudges of what looked like flour on chin and arms. -As for her hair, it was all in little damp curls across -her brow and over her ears: one side had come completely -undone, and showered down on to her -shoulder.</p> -<p>“I can’t for the life of me see how you ever got -in such a mess,” Bertha murmured happily as she -officiated in Elsie’s hurried cleaning up. “You might -just as well be a cook in a kitchen! But, oh, dear! -What’s that burn?”</p> -<p>“It is horrid, isn’t it?” Elsie agreed.</p> -<p>“Well, I think you need a nurse more than a lady’s -maid! Did Julia let you get near the stove on this -broiling day? Here’s some olive oil.”</p> -<p>After another minute of scurrying Elsie appeared -in Kate’s door. “It was nice of you to wait for me,” -she said. “But I’m afraid I’ve made you late.”</p> -<p>Aunt Katherine lifted her brows when she saw -Elsie still in her blue and white morning dress. But -the fact that the girls had come in together, actually -arm-in-arm, made up for much. In fact, it put Aunt -Katherine into a light and gay mood. Things were -beginning to go as she had planned now. At dinner -she told Elsie about the party set for Friday night. -And Elsie, who herself was in a gay spirit, thanked -her aunt prettily for everything—the coming party, -the promised frock, and the seats for “The Blue -Bird.”</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_113">113</div> -<p>“Why, she is a human being, after all,” Kate admitted. -“This morning and last night seems like -some dream I had about her.” And Kate opened her -hazel eyes a little wider now as she looked at Elsie -across the table. She was on the watch for the -reappearance of the vanishing comrade.</p> -<p>That evening again Miss Frazier sent the girls to -walk in the garden. She herself settled down in the -big winged chair under her especial reading lamp and -picked up “The King of the Fairies,” which Kate -had not forgotten to place there.</p> -<p>The orchard drew all Kate’s attention once they -were out in the growing starlight. She looked toward -it often as they paced back and forth on the -garden paths. At first she talked to Elsie about her -afternoon, the ride, and the Green Shutter Tea -Room. But Elsie, though she listened with interest, -and even took pains to ask questions, in return gave -Kate no information as to how <i>she</i> had spent the -hours. Even so, Elsie was so completely changed -that finally Kate had the hardihood to tell her laughingly -about the light she had seen in the orchard -house last night before falling to sleep.</p> -<p>“I am sure I saw the light. But of course I -couldn’t have heard the door,” she finished. “That -must have been imagination, for sound doesn’t carry -like that.”</p> -<p>But at this mention of the orchard house Elsie’s -new manner fell from her as though she had dropped -a cloak. She stiffened as they walked and her voice -took on restraint.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_114">114</div> -<p>“If you imagined the sound of the door, why wasn’t -the light imagination, too?” she asked reasonably. -“Or it may have been fireflies in the trees. See them -now.”</p> -<p>It was true enough. Over in the orchard fireflies -were twinkling, almost in clouds.</p> -<p>“It wasn’t like firefly light, just the same.”</p> -<p>“Well, you were almost asleep, weren’t you? It -was probably fireflies and sleepiness all mixed up.”</p> -<p>Kate did not acknowledge that she was impressed -by this reasoning. But deep in her mind she was.</p> -<p>“And you’re not to tell Aunt Katherine about the -light. Promise me that. She would go investigating -then. You’ve got to promise.”</p> -<p>Kate’s quick temper flashed up and ruined the new -relation between them at Elsie’s brusque command.</p> -<p>“I haven’t got to promise. Why do you think -you can boss me like that?”</p> -<p>Elsie’s answer to that was a tossed head. “I’m -going in,” she said shortly.</p> -<p>“<i>I’m</i> not.” Kate sat down abruptly in a garden -chair they were passing. When Elsie had gone on -Kate bit her lip, hard, hard to keep back the tears. -“Now I’ve spoiled everything,” she accused herself -bitterly. “Why did I have to go talking about the -orchard house at all? Everything was so jolly, so -right at last! Elsie was beginning to be more than -decent. What an idiot I am!”</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_115">115</div> -<p>She leaned her head down upon the arm of the -chair. Then the inner, more tranquil Kate came -forward. “Think about the King of the Fairies,” -she said. “Look as he looked, see as he saw. Perhaps -if you do, all this trouble will dissolve in light. -Get above the quarrel.”</p> -<p>And as she sat curled up there, she tried hard to -follow the inner Kate’s directions. She tried to look -at the orchard with the different seeing. If she -followed the King of the Fairies’ directions, mightn’t -she see the <i>all</i> of things as the girl and boy on the -fence had seen the all? She stayed very still, and -watched, expectantly.</p> -<p>Elsie came back to her, silent as a shadow. It was -almost as though she could read Kate’s thoughts; for -she knelt down by her on the dewy grass, and putting -her face quite close to Kate’s said in a low voice, but -earnestly: “I’ll tell you this much, Kate Marshall, -<i>there is something fairyish about that little orchard -house</i>. If things fairyish show to you around it or -in it, it is because they <i>are there</i>. This is no lie. I -cross my heart. But you aren’t wanted there. And -unless you are very mean you will keep your promise -to me and not go near.”</p> -<p>Then Elsie floated away, and was lost to Kate in -the garden shadows, like a fairyish thing herself.</p> -<p>Kate started up. Had she dreamed Elsie’s coming -back, and her words? She had been in such a -<i>different</i> state of mind trying to see as the King of the -Fairies saw, that she hardly knew. Anyway, big -girl of fifteen that she was, she began looking again -toward the orchard house with deepened expectancy.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_116">116</div> -<h2 id="c10"><span class="h2line1">CHAPTER X</span> -<br /><span class="h2line2">IN THE MIRROR</span></h2> -<p>If Elsie had thought to tease or bewilder Kate in -the garden last night by asserting that fairies -actually had something to do with the orchard house -she would have been disappointed now if she could -read Kate’s mind as she lay awake in the early -morning. A sense of something exciting in the day -had waked her before dawn. The excitement, of -course, was the party frock that Aunt Katherine had -promised her, and “The Blue Bird.”</p> -<p>“I can hardly believe that I am going to have such -a wonderful day,” she thought. “Is it really happening -to me? Will the morning ever come?”</p> -<p>She had no idea what time it was but she could see -that the sky was beginning to lighten. She felt that -she could never go to sleep again and she felt very -hungry. Ah-ha! She remembered the gingerbread -man under her pillow. She had put it there simply -to hide it and meaning to get rid of it somehow without -Elsie or Bertha seeing. She had not thought she -would ever want to eat it! It was too childish. But -now she pulled it out, and leaning up on her elbow -ate every last crumb.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_117">117</div> -<p>This elbow position brought the orchard into her -view, or rather its growing outlines in the approaching -dawn. She recalled last night and Elsie’s emphatic -assurance that fairies somehow had a hand in the -mystery. Perhaps most other girls of fifteen would -simply have laughed at Elsie and not for an instant -accepted it as a possibility, fairies not entering into -their scheme of things. But fairies did enter into -Kate’s scheme of things and always had. There she -was different. But there was a reason for her -difference.</p> -<p>When she was a little girl of seven she had seen -what she thought was a fairy; and it had made such -an impression on her mind that when she grew older -and came to the age of doubt she simply went on -knowing. She had seen what she had seen, and that -was all there was to it. Moreover, her mother had -seen it, too, or something like it. It was hardly -likely that both of them could have been utterly -deceived.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_118">118</div> -<p>It happened when she and Katherine had gone for -a walk on a June Saturday. They started very early -in the morning and walked very far, for a seven-year-old. -But it was Saturday and they were both free, -Kate from the lessons which her mother set her, and -Katherine from teaching. And it was June. So -they did not seem to get tired a bit, but walked and -walked, and explored. Toward noon they came to -a high meadow hilltop. There they lay down, flat -on their backs among the Queen Anne’s lace, buttercups, -and daisies, their arms across their eyes, their -faces turned directly up toward the sun. It was -luncheon time, but they did not care. The sunshine -soaking into them and the smell of warm grass and -earth were better than food.</p> -<p>They lay still for a long time, not even speaking -to each other. Perhaps the little Kate slept. And -they thought of getting up and starting for home -only when the sun in the sky told Katherine that -it must be past two o’clock.</p> -<p>Halfway down the hill pasture stood a little beach -wood. They took their way through that because it -looked so cool and inviting, and because Katherine -knew there was a spring there among some rocks -where they could get long, satisfying drinks of cold -water. It was there they saw the fairy. They saw -her just as they came out of the bright sunlight into -the green, cool shade of the wood and stood above the -water. She was at the other side of the spring facing -them. She was looking down at her reflection in the -water, not at all aware of their approach.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_119">119</div> -<p>Kate saw her as a lovely girl in a floating green -garment. Her feet and arms were bare and shining -and it was their shining that made Kate know, even -in that first instant before the fairy had glanced up, -that she was unearthly. Kate and Katherine stood -as still as the leaves on the trees in that still wood, -awed and entranced. Then the little Kate whispered -“Mother!” and pointed. At that whisper the fairy -lifted her eyes. Kate saw the surprise in her eyes -and a dawning—something; was it friendliness, or a -smile? There was not time to know; for the fairy -flashed backward and up on to a stone behind her -across which the sunlight fell. And there she was lost -in the sunlight. They simply could not see her any -more.</p> -<p>But Kate had never forgotten that instant when -they stood looking at the fairy while she was plain to -view. And she had never forgotten the expression -on her mother’s face after the fairy had vanished. -It was such a delighted expression, so startlingly -<i>satisfied</i>.</p> -<p>But that night, in talking it over, it came out that -mother and daughter had not seen exactly the same -thing. Katherine was sure that the being who had -stood looking down at the spring was taller than -human, grander, with a more tranquil, noble face, -And her garment, she said, was the colour of sunlight, -not green at all. Little Kate protested that. -No, she was just a slim girl and her garment was -green. Why, Kate remembered exactly how it hung -almost to her bare ankles, without fluttering or -motion in that still wood. The golden gown Katherine -had seen had blown back, she said, as in a -strong wind, although she herself felt no breath of air.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_120">120</div> -<p>The end of their discussion came to this. Katherine -said it might be that the sun in the high meadow -together with their having had no luncheon had made -them see not quite true. When they came suddenly -into the cool, green shaded wood out of the glare their -eyes played them tricks. What seemed like a person -standing above the spring may have been simply an -effect of sunlight striking through leaves.</p> -<p>“You remember, don’t you,” Katherine had ended, -“how she vanished into sunlight when you said -‘Mother’? Well——”</p> -<p>And Katherine had left it at that. “Well——” -But she had warned little Kate not to talk about it.</p> -<p>“People will think I had no business letting you go -without luncheon so,” she gave as her reason, laughingly.</p> -<p>But just because she had promised Katherine that -she would not talk about having seen a fairy, Kate -had thought about it all the more. And she never -went into a cool wood out of hot sunlight without -hoping to surprise a fairy again. What she had -seen she had seen, and that was all there was to it!</p> -<p>So now to Kate the thought that fairies might somehow -be connected with the little orchard house did -not seem at all an impossibility. Elsie certainly -had not acted or looked as though she were lying. -And it was perfectly true that from the minute Kate -herself had first caught sight of the orchard house -she had felt that there was something very special -about it—more special than just the fact that it was -the house where her mother had been born and grown -up and married. When Elsie called out “Fairies, -beware! Orchard House, beware!” Kate had been -pricked with the feeling of listening ears. She had -felt somehow that the warning was truly heard and -taken.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_121">121</div> -<p>She stretched now to her full length between her -scented sheets. “I do wish the dawn would hurry -up and dawn!” she thought. “The minute it’s a bit -light enough I’ll get up, take a cold bath, dress, and -get out into the orchard. If fairies are there, dawn -ought to be as easy a time to see them as any. I’ll -keep my promise about the key. But I’ve a perfect -right in the orchard.”</p> -<p>She fell asleep then and dreamed about the orchard -house. The King of the Fairies was there, waiting -for her on the doorstep. She sat down beside him -and at once began to see things different, to see them, -as the King of the Fairies said, “whole.” There was -a lot to the dream—colour, adventure, and music, -and above all, the sight of things “whole.” But -Kate, when she woke, had quite lost it. The dream -had become just tag ends of brightness left floating -in her mind.</p> -<p class="center"><span class="gs">* * * * * * * *</span></p> -<p>To her surprise morning was fully established, -birds were singing in high chorus, and water was running -loudly into the tub!</p> -<p>Bertha appeared in the bathroom door. “Miss -Elsie got ahead of us,” she informed Kate brightly. -“She must have been quieter than a mouse to have -had her bath and all and not waked you. Now I -suppose she’s out in the orchard or somewhere. It’s -a beautiful day.”</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_122">122</div> -<p>Oh, well, Kate did not allow herself to be downcast -at having missed dawn in the orchard. Not a bit of -it. What a day it was to be! The frock, “The -Blue Bird,” the whole day in Boston with Elsie, and -Aunt Katherine so friendly!</p> -<p>At her place at the little breakfast table under the -peach tree she found a letter from her mother. She -snatched it up and tore it open, hoping she could get -at least the heart out of it before Aunt Katherine and -Elsie should appear.</p> -<p>But she had hardly read the first sentence before -Miss Frazier came out through the breakfast-room -and Elsie floated from the direction of the orchard. -Kate was too absorbed to be aware of the approach -of either until she heard Elsie exclaim, “Letters! -Oh, is there one for me?”</p> -<p>Aunt Katherine’s tone was surprisingly sharp when -she answered, “You never get letters, Elsie. You -have hardly had one in the last year.”</p> -<p>“That’s unfair,” Kate thought hotly. “Aunt -thinks she’s jealous even of my mail. And all the -time she’s probably expecting an answer to that -special delivery she sent yesterday.”</p> -<p>But in spite of the edge in Miss Frazier’s voice -Elsie apparently was not at all dashed. To Kate’s -curious eyes she looked just exactly as one might -who had been skylarking with fairies in the orchard -all early morning. She was ready to laugh, ready -to talk, ready to be friendly. Kate was profoundly -glad, for this kind of an Elsie argued well for the day -they were to have in Boston together.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_123">123</div> -<p>They went by train because Miss Frazier herself -had uses for the car. Bertha was again dressed in -her correct gray tailored suit. “Looking like an aunt -herself,” Kate thought. Kate wore the blue silk -dress she had travelled in and the smart little hat -that was really her mother’s. The white linen -would have done beautifully if they had not been -going to the theatre; but even though they were to -sit in the balcony—seats were sold out so far ahead -that this was the best Aunt Katherine had been able -to do for them—Kate thought the white linen would -hardly be appropriate for that, and Bertha had -agreed with her. Elsie, when she appeared, quite -took Kate’s breath away. She was so lovely, but so -much older looking than she had been in her house -clothes. She was dressed in a straight little three-piece -silk suit of olive green. The rolling collar was -tied by a jaunty orange bow, and on the low belt of -the dress the same colour was embroidered in a conventional -flower pattern. The coat hung loosely -and very full, hooked together only at the collar. -The hat was a limp dark brown straw with olive-green -and orange embroidery all around the crown. -Elsie had pinned her curls up over her ears, and her -hair was a soft crushed aura under the hat. She -looked very much like a city girl but as though the -city might have been New York or Paris rather than -Boston.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_124">124</div> -<p>Kate gasped a little, and in her secret heart was -very glad she herself had decided on her silk. For a -little while she was constrained with Elsie, as though -Elsie had in fact become older suddenly just because -she looked older.</p> -<p>As they came through the gates at their terminal in -Boston Kate noticed a young man in a slouch brown -hat, a polka-dotted brown tie, and very shining pointed -brown shoes, standing about as though expecting -someone to meet him from the train on which they -had come in. Perhaps Kate noticed him so particularly -because he seemed to be noticing them so particularly, -especially Elsie. For the first time that -morning she remembered Mr. O’Brien, the detective. -Was this one of his men, and was he going to “shadow” -them to-day? Kate was sure of it when out of -the tail of her eye she saw him wheel and follow at a -little distance as they moved toward the taxi stand. -He stood prepared to take the next cab that should -move into position as theirs moved out. Kate hardly -understood her own emotions at that moment. Her -cheeks were hot and her knees shook a little. She -was resentful for Elsie. Why was she being shadowed -by a detective as though she were a criminal? -Why had Aunt Katherine let this happen?</p> -<p>Madame Pearl’s establishment was a narrow -three-story house on Beacon Street. “Madame -Pearl” was engraved on a plate above the bell, nothing -more. A daintily capped and aproned maid -answered their ring. She knew their names before -they had given them.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_125">125</div> -<p>“It is the Misses Frazier,” she said, speaking with a -distinct accent. “You have an engagement, and -Madame Pearl is expecting. Please come this -way.”</p> -<p>The front door opened directly into a long narrow -room, panelled in ivory, decorated with wreathed -cupids and flowers. The floor was cool gray and the -hangings at the long windows at the end of the room -were gray, too, silvery. But under their feet were -warm-coloured Persian rugs of the most beautiful -shades and designs. There were little tables in the -room with magazines and books scattered on them, -a few easy chairs, and two long divans. In one -corner by the window there was an exquisite little -writing desk of Italian workmanship. On this stood -a vase of very red roses.</p> -<p>Kate glanced about with surprised eyes. But -Elsie, who had been here before with Aunt Katherine, -nonchalantly followed the maid who was guiding -them. Kate had expected to find herself in a shop. -But there was no evidence of things for sale here. -And they had an appointment! Whoever heard of -having an appointment in a shop?</p> -<p>The maid stood back at the foot of a narrow spiral -staircase at the back of the room. The girls and -Bertha ascended.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_126">126</div> -<p>Still no sign of a shop, or dresses for sale. This -long upper room was simply a boudoir with chaises-longues, -mirrors, and flowers. Madame Pearl swept -to meet them. She was a regal little lady in trailing -gray chiffon. The gown had long flowing sleeves -that just escaped the floor. Miss Frazier had told -Kate at breakfast that morning that Madame Pearl -was really a Russian princess who had escaped at the -time of the Revolution and in just a few years had -made a fortune with this shop. Her real name was -Olga Schwankovsky. So Kate looked at her with -intense curiosity now. But where was the shop?</p> -<p>“Miss Frazier has telephoned,” Madame Pearl -said in the sweetest of voices and almost perfect -accent. “You young ladies are to have party -dresses, your first party dresses. Very simple, very -chic, youthful. We must not hurry but give time to -it and consideration. If you will be so kind as to -come this way——”</p> -<p>“This way” was all down the room to a wider -alcove, walled on the street by big plate-glass windows -and on the two other sides by huge, perfect -mirrors.</p> -<p>There Madame Pearl asked them to be seated. -She herself sat comfortably among cushions on a little -lounge. She inquired as to their favourite colours. -From that the conversation expanded to their other -tastes, to books, music. Elsie told about their plan -for the afternoon.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_127">127</div> -<p>“You are to see ‘The Blue Bird’!” Madame -Pearl exclaimed. “That will be an experience. I -myself saw it when I was about your age—its first -production at the Moscow Art Theatre. I had never -dreamed anything could be so beautiful. You will -think so, too.” Then she added, sighing a little, -“But it cannot be quite the same. Stanislavsky -produced it as it never could be produced by another. -It was superb.”</p> -<p>“You saw it, there, when it was given in Moscow -that first time?” Elsie breathed, sitting on the very -edge of her chair, her cheeks pink with excitement. -“That was wonderful. I know, for my fa——” She -stopped, bit her lip, and continued: “Someone -showed me photographs of the stage sets and costumes -once. I am wondering if it will be anything -like that here.”</p> -<p>“I don’t know,” Madame Pearl replied. “But I -tell you frankly I am not going to see. For the -memory of our Art Theatre production is too vivid -for me to want to expose it to any comparison. It -was done with a richness, a depth, a true sense of -mysticism—— What shall I say? It was so free -of sentimentality. I confess I do not care to see it -attempted again. It had an effect on me, that -play. An effect that is lasting, that runs through—how -shall I say?—my life.”</p> -<p>Elsie nodded and looked at Kate. She said, “Yes, -we understand. ‘The King of the Fairies’ is like that, -too.”</p> -<p>Kate’s heart leapt. At last those two girls had met -face to face, comrades on common ground.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_128">128</div> -<p>“‘The King of the Fairies,’” Madame Pearl murmured, -reflectively. “Ah, yes. I have heard of that -book. Published last year. Very beautiful, I have -heard. And literary people are surprised because it -is so popular. They alone, when they discovered it, -expected to appreciate it and enjoy. They are a -little annoyed that children and simple people and -the unliterary love it, too, that it is a ‘best seller.’ -I have guessed, though I have not yet read it, that -that book must tap some deep wells of truth that all -humanity knows, even the simple. I have a theory -about art——”</p> -<p>There the beautiful voice ceased abruptly. Madame -Pearl rose, smiling enigmatically. “This is -not choosing frocks, is it?” she said. “But while we -have chattered I have studied your types. I have -not been idle. Shall we begin with the one of which -I am the least sure? That is Miss Kate. We may -have to try several frocks before we are suited for -you. But I think we shall begin with an orange -crêpe.”</p> -<p>Madame Pearl touched a button in the wall and almost -instantly a maid appeared, not the one who had -answered the door, but identically dressed. She was -young and pretty and very quick in all her motions. -Kate found a screen placed around her almost before -she knew what was happening. It was a light folding -screen made of gray silk and bamboo and embroidered -with oriental flowers. Bertha hastened to -disrobe her. Then she came forth and stood ready -to try on before one of the huge mirrors.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_129">129</div> -<p>Panels in the wall were slid back and the little -maid brought the dresses from their hiding places one -by one. Bertha and the little maid slipped them -over her head, fastened them, turned her around -lightly by the shoulders. Then everyone looked -at Madame Pearl. She was sitting on her couch -again, her eyes intent. She studied Kate as an -artist studies his picture. And to every frock, when -it was on and Kate had been turned quite around -once or twice, she shook her head decidedly. None of -them, not one would do.</p> -<p>Kate herself could not see why. There was not -one that was positively unbecoming, and three or -four had been quite lovely. She was growing dazed -and tired. The sparkle and colour of the frocks -heaped about her on chairs and thrown over the -screen was almost too much for her eyes. She -thought of the Arabian Nights and imagined herself -a young princess of Arabia being decked for her -wedding. But even as the corners of her mouth -lifted with this dream she was startled by an exclamation -from Madame Pearl.</p> -<p>“At last! It is perfect!”</p> -<p>Kate turned to herself in the mirror.</p> -<p>But was it Kate Marshall at all? She scarcely -knew.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_130">130</div> -<p>The frock was yellow, of softest satin, the color of a -crocus. At the rounded neck it was gathered softly -to a narrow border of tiny pearl-white and blue -blossoms made in satin. At the low waistline the -satin was gathered again at a girdle of the same -exquisitely fashioned flowers, four wreaths of them -loosely twined. The skirt swung out from this girdle -very full and straight, stopping just a little above the -ankles, quite the longest skirt Kate had ever had. -The border of the skirt was cut in deep, sharp scallops -showing an underskirt below of foaming, creamy lace.</p> -<p>“Do you like it?” Madame Pearl asked, interestedly. -Kate was looking at herself without speaking.</p> -<p>“I couldn’t help liking it,” Kate replied. “It’s -beautiful. But—it doesn’t look exactly as though -we belonged—it and I together! It is fluffy! So -delicate!”</p> -<p>“That’s the fault of your hair, the short bob,” -Madame Pearl assured her. “There must be a cap.” -She gave directions to the maid. “The silver cap -with the star points. Yes, the one from Riis’s. -Deep cream stockings. And the pumps—but I see -you know which pumps that frock must have yourself. -I think they will fit, too. Fetch them.”</p> -<p>The maid whisked away to return in a minute with -silk stockings, satin slippers, and a silver cap.</p> -<p>“Your feet first,” Madame Pearl said, quite excitedly. -“The cap we will leave for the finishing -touch. Then you shall see.”</p> -<p>Again, almost in a daze, Kate vanished behind the -painted screen accompanied by both Bertha and -the maid. Each of them dressed a foot, and it was -done in a minute. The pumps were an exact fit. -They were creamy satin embroidered in deeper -creamy-coloured flowers. At the side of each a -small diamond-shaped crystal buckle caught the -light in many facets. The heels were low.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_131">131</div> -<p>Kate was troubled. “My aunt is only giving me -the frock,” she said. “She didn’t mention slippers -and things. I’ve some perfectly good black patent-leather -pumps, anyway.”</p> -<p>“Black pumps! With that frock!”</p> -<p>Madame Pearl gazed at her in horror. Bertha -hurriedly interposed, “Miss Frazier impressed it on -me that the costumes were to be complete.”</p> -<p>Then Madame Pearl arose from the couch and -herself set the silver cap on Kate’s head. It was a -saucy affair fashioned in crisp silver lace with five -star points radiating from its crown. The cap was -indeed the finishing touch. It accomplished almost -a transformation.</p> -<p>“Why, I’m <i>pretty</i>, awfully pretty!” Kate exclaimed -to herself, gazing into the mirror. But -then more modestly, she added, “Any one would be -in that fascinating cap.”</p> -<p>So Kate was ready for the party! Let it come!</p> -<p>And now it was Elsie’s turn. But Madame Pearl -had no trouble in fitting Elsie to just the right frock. -In fact, she had decided which it must be in the first -minutes while they sat discussing “The Blue Bird.” -Elsie was not “difficult.” Madame Pearl whispered -to the maid, who scurried away. She returned -bearing over her arm a cloud of green chiffon. While -Kate was being dressed behind her screen Elsie was -put into this green creation behind another similar -screen. She appeared before Kate was done.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_132">132</div> -<p>Her frock was simplicity itself, just straight -lengths of green chiffon falling straight away from -her slim shoulders. As she moved back and forth -in front of the mirror her draperies floated about -her like filmiest clouds. When she stood still they -fell straight and sheer almost to her ankles. Madame -Pearl signalled and the maid took the pins from -Elsie’s curls and they tumbled, a shower of sunlight.</p> -<p>The effect was perfect. Madame Pearl breathed -softly: “I am satisfied. Exquisitely.” She determined -that white kid sandals, sandals in the Greek -style, were the footwear the frock required. She had -them, too, stored somewhere behind those secret -panels. The maid hurried off, and Elsie in preparation -for her return slipped off the black patent-leather -sandals she was wearing, and out of her stockings.</p> -<p>At the same time Madame Pearl moved to the big -windows. “The light is glaring,” she murmured, -“and it is unreasonably hot.” Untying a cord at -the side of the sash she let down green inner blinds. -Elsie rose, and stood in her bare feet facing herself -meditatively in the mirror. At that instant Kate -came from behind her screen.</p> -<p>“Oh!” It was almost a shriek. Kate actually -reeled against Bertha who was following her and -clutched for support. Bertha led her to the couch. -“Water, a glass of cold water quickly,” Madame -Pearl commanded the little maid. Elsie ran to Kate -and knelt before her, taking her hands. “Kate, -Kate,” she called as though Kate were running away -from her.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_133">133</div> -<p>But Kate was not a girl to faint easily. She -straightened up now and took a deep breath. “It’s -only the way you looked in the glass, Elsie,” she -explained, shakily. “The room just went spinning -when I saw you.”</p> -<p>“‘The way she looked in the glass!’” Madame -Pearl cast a hurried glance toward the big mirror -that now reflected only Kate’s array of discarded -dresses, a few tables and chairs.</p> -<p>But Kate explained further, looking at Elsie -wanly: “You were the fairy—the fairy that Mother -and I saw by the pool that day. You were the fairy -exactly, even the expression on your face when you -looked at me! And the green light——”</p> -<p>Madame Pearl laughed. “The green light is only -because I pulled the blind. But you are right, Miss -Elsie does look exactly like some fairy, some wood -fairy. Perfection.”</p> -<p>“No, not some fairy, <i>the fairy</i>. I have remembered -perfectly.”</p> -<p>Madame Pearl spoke to Bertha aside, but Kate -heard well enough. “It was the heat, and she -was tired from trying on. She ought to lie -down.” Then she turned her attention to Elsie’s -sandals.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_134">134</div> -<p>But Elsie kept looking back over her shoulder at -Kate, resting on the sofa—questioningly. She was -speculating: “Had Kate taken her hint of fairies -in the orchard house seriously? Was it so much on -her mind that she was imagining things? Or had -Kate once really seen a fairy, and Elsie in the mirror -had reminded her?”</p> -<p>When they left the shop and stood on the step -looking about for a taxi Elsie asked Kate eagerly, -“Did you really see a fairy once? Where? When?”</p> -<p>“Yes, Mother and I. But we both saw it differently. -And now—now, how could it have been a -fairy? Why, it was <i>you</i>. But I promised Mother -not to talk about it.”</p> -<p>At the mention of Kate’s mother the cold look -came back to Elsie’s face. She turned away with -feigned indifference while Bertha lifted her hand to -summon a taxi.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_135">135</div> -<h2 id="c11"><span class="h2line1">CHAPTER XI</span> -<br /><span class="h2line2">KATE TAKES THE HELM</span></h2> -<p>But the taxi driver Bertha had signalled shook -his head, giving a sidewise jerk toward the -back of his cab to indicate that he had a fare. There -was the young man of the brown hat and polka-dotted -tie looking away as though he was not one bit -aware of them and smoking a cigarette.</p> -<p>“Well, why do they stand still, then!” Bertha -complained. “How could I know!”</p> -<p>Almost at once, however, another taxi came -cruising up the hill, and they were soon in, whirling -away toward Miss Frazier’s club. It was now almost -one o’clock, and they were quite ready for -luncheon.</p> -<p>Though Kate did not actually lean out to see -whether the detective’s taxi was following, she felt -quite sure that it was. “And he’ll be wherever we -go all day,” she reflected. “What does he expect -us to do—or Elsie, rather? What <i>could</i> she do with -Bertha and me along, anyway? It’s all just too -curious! And I don’t like it a bit. It makes me -angry for Elsie. It isn’t fair to her! I wonder what -Mother and the boys would think if they knew I -was riding around Boston to-day, buying gorgeous -clothes, conversing with princesses, almost fainting, -and being shadowed by a detective!</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_136">136</div> -<p>Both girls, lunching in Miss Frazier’s club, felt -themselves quite emancipated, really adult! Elsie -wrote out their orders on a little pad tendered by a -gray-clad waitress, and acted hostess throughout. -Kate very much admired her worldly air, her poise -and decision, and the way she knew the French names -for things. Apparently she was quite accustomed -to such complicated menus. Kate was proud of -Elsie, proud and stirred. Aunt Katherine herself -could not have conducted things better.</p> -<p>They discussed Madame Pearl and her establishment. -They were both enchanted by her, and full of -surmises about her life. Miss Frazier had told them -that people knew very little about Madame Pearl’s -experiences during the Revolution and her escape, -because she meant to keep out of the papers. That -was why she had taken the name Madame Pearl, and -did not want to be known as a princess at all, except -to a few trusted customers, or rather patients.</p> -<p>“She prescribes clothes just as a doctor prescribes -pills, Aunt Katherine says,” Elsie remarked, laughing.</p> -<p>“I think my dress is too wonderful,” Kate sighed. -“But do you know I am afraid Mother won’t want -me to wear it to high-school dances next winter, if I -go to any. She will say it’s too grand, I’m sure.”</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_137">137</div> -<p>In time, however, they left the topic of clothes and -launched into discussion of “The Blue Bird.” Both -had read it, but in quite different ways. Kate had -read for the story, and Elsie to fit it to the photographs -she had seen of its first production in Moscow. -In fact, this was typical of these two girls. They had -enthusiasm for the same things, but approached -them from different angles. That was why, when -they found themselves talking freely, the air fairly -sparkled between them. They opened new avenues -of thought to each other, took each other’s old ideas -and spun them like balls, showing new sides and -colours. They were animated. They leaned toward -each other over the table, their faces alive and -bright with thinking. Bertha remained mostly -silent, enjoying her luncheon and the interested and -appreciative glances that were turned from every -direction upon her charges.</p> -<p>Luncheon went on slow feet because of conversation’s -wings. But they did not in any way neglect -it. It was a most delicious meal, and quite a complicated -one, because Miss Frazier had given Elsie carte -blanche and told her to make it just as splendid as -she pleased. After the ice they had a demitasse. -Neither of the girls was accustomed to coffee, but -this was a special day and they would do special -things. Besides, the waitress seemed to expect it -of them. It tasted horrible. But each made a -brave effort and drank down the tiny portion without -grimacing.</p> -<p>Now for the theatre!</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_138">138</div> -<p>At the door of the club a footman summoned a -taxi for them. As Kate went down the steps and -got in she looked all about for signs of the detective -but saw none. However, they were in a crowded -section, taxis and autos moving in two rivers, one -north, one south, and the sidewalks were two more -rivers—rivers of human beings. That polka-dotted -young man might well have his eye on them from -some station in that flow of life and Kate never be -aware.</p> -<p>Elsie had the theatre tickets in her purse, and took -them out now to be sure about them. “They’re in -the third row in the first balcony,” she said. “Aunt -Katherine thought they weren’t very good, but I -am sure they are. Why, it will be even better than -as though we were ’way up front downstairs. We -will get all the effects better. Don’t you think so?” -But she asked a trifle anxiously, as though trying to -console herself.</p> -<p>Kate agreed, though to speak truth she knew very -little indeed about the theatre and could hardly be -considered a judge in any way. Both girls were -glowing with anticipation and excitement. Kate -felt that it was all simply too wonderful to be true. -Her heart was almost breaking with happiness—at -least, that is what she told herself was the matter -with it. It certainly was pounding.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_139">139</div> -<p>But arrived in the palace of gold decoration and -purple plush which was the theatre, and ushered to -their seats, there was an unpleasant surprise. One -of the seats was directly behind a large ornate post! -Whoever sat there would have to do a great deal of -craning and stretching to see the stage at all, and -not for one instant would she be able to see its -entirety.</p> -<p>“Don’t you bother,” Bertha reassured them, concealing -her own deep disappointment. “Of course -I shall sit there. It’s only a pity it’s between you.”</p> -<p>Now Elsie showed a new side of her character to -Kate, and a side that she had not suspected. “Don’t -be silly,” she told Bertha emphatically—but not -rudely, merely affectionately—“Of course we shall -take turns. I shall have the post for half the time -and you the other. But it’s mean, just the same.”</p> -<p>“And I, too—I shall certainly take my turn,” Kate -threw in. “But I think it is mean, and a cheat, too!”</p> -<p>“No, you are the guest,” Elsie said firmly. “You -are to sit at the end and stay there. Go in now and -I’ll follow.”</p> -<p>But Kate did not pass in. She stood frowning. -“It isn’t fair,” she insisted. “They had no business -to sell Aunt Katherine that seat.”</p> -<p>Bertha shrugged. “Of course it’s unfair,” she -whispered, “but there’s nothing to do about it.” She -was bothered by the attention they were beginning to -attract. She wished Kate would go in and sit down.</p> -<p>“Then we ought to complain,” Kate insisted, still -blocking up the aisle.</p> -<p>“To whom?” Bertha asked. Her tone said <i>she</i> -would have nothing to do with it.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_140">140</div> -<p>Elsie murmured quickly, “Oh, let’s not,” and gave -Kate a slight push. She, too, was conscious of their -conspicuous situation. “<i>I couldn’t</i>.”</p> -<p>Kate, too, knew that they were attracting the -attention of many people. All the more she was -determined not to accept the injustice of that post -seat meekly. They were early; the curtain would -not go up for ten minutes. The orchestra was only -just coming into the pit.</p> -<p>“You go in and sit down. But give me the ticket -stubs. I’ll make them fix this up.” Kate did not -whisper or even lower her voice. She spoke calmly, -with assurance. Underneath she was as diffident -as the other two, but hers was not a nature to -tolerate such injustice supinely.</p> -<p>Elsie, with one quick, surprised glance, thrust the -stubs into this country cousin’s hand, and Kate was -off up the steep aisle, bent on business. When she -had pushed her way through the incoming crowds -out into the upper foyer the first thing she saw was -the detective, leaning against the wall trying to look -unconcerned and as though he belonged there. In -spite of the crowds their eyes happened to meet. -Kate’s cool look said, “So you are here.” Then she -turned away and fought her passage down the stairs.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_141">141</div> -<p>The young man scowled. Well, this was not the -niece he was to watch. She had light curls, and his -chief had said she would be wearing a green silk -suit. Even so this bobbed-haired one was of the -party. He was troubled by her movements. What -was she leaving her seat for? Where was she going? -He really ought to find out, but, on the other hand, if -he forsook his post here he might miss Miss Elsie if -she should come out. No, he must stay, but it was -annoying all the same.</p> -<p>At the box office they were turning people away. -“No seats left,” Kate heard on every side. But that -did not stop her. “They can put a chair in the -aisle,” she thought. “They <i>must</i> do something. -People should have what they pay for.”</p> -<p>But the man at the ticket window gave her no -hope. “All sold out,” he assured her before she had -had time to say a word. When he heard her complaint -he merely said, “Well, we’ll give you your -money back. I could sell that post seat a hundred -times over in the next five minutes. All you need -is to <i>lean</i> a little. Where’s your stub?”</p> -<p>“I don’t want the money,” Kate protested. “I -want to see the play. It was a cheat, selling a seat -like that. I want another one. In fact, I want three -other seats, for we have to sit together.”</p> -<p>The man laughed, much amused at that. And -several by-standers laughed, too. Kate’s cheeks -fired.</p> -<p>“Where can I find the manager?” she asked, -straightening her spine and looking hard at the -amused young man.</p> -<p>The man strangled his laugh and pointed across -the lobby to a door marked “Private.” “There, if -he’s in. Much good it’ll do you.”</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_142">142</div> -<p>As Kate left the window and crossed to the door -indicated she heard several titters. That made her -determination deeper. She knocked firmly right in -the middle of the word “Private.”</p> -<p>As she got no answer to her knocking she followed -her usual course when uncertain, or embarrassed—abrupt -action. In this instance she simply opened -the door and stepped in. She did this in exactly the -way she often spoke when she had no intention of -speaking. A man turned from a window where he -was leaning looking down into the crowded street -watching the people flooding to “The Blue Bird.” -He was a youngish man with nice lines around his -eyes, smiling lines. But the eyes were very keen. -Whether he was truly the manager or not Kate never -learned, but he was manager enough for her purposes. -She told him her grievance. He listened respectfully -without a word until she had finished. Then, still -without a word to her, he took up a telephone instrument -from his desk and spoke briskly into it: “Box -office, any seats left?” he asked. “Good, that’s fine. -Give the young lady who was at your window a minute -ago one in the lower left.” He hung up and -turned to Kate.</p> -<p>“The house is sold out,” he informed her in a -voice that was fairly jubilant. “And they said it -couldn’t be done in the States in summer!” She -felt that he wanted to dance and was constrained only -by her presence. “All except a few box seats. They -come too high. You can get yours now at the office -all right. I’ve fixed it.”</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_143">143</div> -<p>But Kate did not move to go. “There are three -of us,” she explained. “We have to stay together. -We are with a chaperon. You hung up before I -could tell you.”</p> -<p>The manager was dashed. He had expected gratitude. -“With a chaperon? Why isn’t she here fixing -things instead of you, then?” he asked with reason.</p> -<p>“Well, she didn’t like to. She was willing to sit -behind the post. She’s really my cousin’s maid, -but my aunt lets her chaperon us.”</p> -<p>“Oh, I see.” There was something of humorous -admiration in the manager’s voice now. He liked -Kate’s spirit. He snatched up the telephone again. -“Three seats for that lady just mentioned,” he -commanded into it. “Front ones.”</p> -<p>Then Kate did thank him and smiled—her -peculiar, charming smile. He responded to it with a -beam of his own. But her last words were, “It was a -cheat, wasn’t it, selling that post seat to anybody.”</p> -<p>His reply was simply “Rather!” as he held the door -for her. She had read enough to know by his use of -that word that he was English. He had spoken his -“rather” in the most natural, sincere way possible.</p> -<p>The box-office man eyed her with respect. “Never -thought you’d turn the trick,” he said, admiringly. -But Kate did not deign to answer. Suddenly she -felt her conspicuousness too keenly. She took the -tickets he offered her and fled away up the stairs, not -looking at any one.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_144">144</div> -<p>In the upper foyer the detective was on the watch -for her. He sighed with relief when she appeared -and vanished again through the swinging doors into -the balcony. Well, his “party” was safe now until -after the play. It was unfortunate that he had not -been able to secure a seat inside where he could keep -his eye on them directly. When the curtain went up -he would slip in and stand in the back, of course. -After all, things were pretty satisfactory. They -certainly couldn’t escape his attention now. So -far their doings had been innocent enough, all except -that little excursion of the bobbed-haired one. Had -she taken a note to someone? Perhaps he had been -foolish not to follow her.</p> -<p>“Seats in a box! Oh, Kate, how did you ever!” -Elsie looked at Kate with sincerest admiration shining -in her eyes, and Kate felt for ever repaid for all -her effort. If Elsie had acquitted herself well at -luncheon, Kate had surely acquitted herself well -here. They were equals. Comrades?</p> -<p>An usher hurried toward them as they came out -into the aisle. “The curtain is about to go up,” she -warned. She felt, perhaps, that they had already -made too much disturbance.</p> -<p>“Yes, but we have seats down in a box,” Kate said -with composure. The usher reached her hand for -the tickets. “This way, then. There are stairs -behind these curtains. If you hurry you’ll be there -before the lights go out.”</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_145">145</div> -<p>“Ha, ha, Mr. Detective!” Kate laughed to herself -as she felt her way down the narrow, velvet-carpeted -stairs. “You are losing us now. You’ll watch up -there in vain.”</p> -<p>Their seats were quite perfect, almost on the stage, -three chairs in the very front of the best box in the -house, three throne-like chairs with gilded arms and -cushioned backs!</p> -<p>“We ought to be more dressed,” Bertha whispered, -a little uneasily, as in their conspicuous position she -felt that the eyes of the whole great audience were -upon them. But Elsie laughed softly. “Who cares!” -she exclaimed. “And won’t Aunt Katherine be surprised -when she hears of all this state!”</p> -<p>Music. The asbestos curtain rolling up, revealing -night-coloured velvet curtains with a huge gold -shield. Lights out. The two girls, recently so -estranged, were for the hours of this play closest -sisters. In Fairyland all are friends. They gripped -hands. Soon they simply sat close together, arm-in-arm, -entranced. The theatre, the huge audience, -dissolved for them in mist. The stage was not a -stage. They were moving with Mytil and Tyltyl -through frightening or lovely or saddening scenes, -all equally enthralling. They were moving bodiless. -They <i>were</i> Tyltyl and Mytil.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_146">146</div> -<p>Not until the very last minute of the play, when the -night-coloured curtains had drawn together for the -last time and the blue bird was at large again, perhaps -somewhere in the upper reaches of the gilded theatre, -did the girls again take up their habitations in their -own minds and bodies. They looked at each other -then and sighed, waking as from a dream they had -shared. Bertha was quite pale with emotion and surreptitiously -wiping away her tears.</p> -<p>The first waking thought that Kate had was -gratefulness that Bertha had seen the play as it ought -to be seen and not cut in two by a post, since she -cared for it so much.</p> -<p>All three were almost silent on the journey to the -station, wrapped in the afterglow of the play’s -thraldom. But just outside the gates of the train -shed Elsie looked all about and asked a question: -“That young man in the polka-dotted tie seems to have -disappeared,” she observed. “He was here when -we came, outside of Madame Pearl’s in that taxi, in -the hallway to the club and upstairs at the theatre. -What’s happened to him now?”</p> -<p>“Oh, did you notice him, too?” Kate asked, surprised. -“And in the club? I missed him there. -How did he get in?”</p> -<p>“He was talking to the telephone girl and watching -us while we had lunch. I saw through the door. He -acted like a detective, or something. I was going to -point him out to you, and then every time I got -interested in what we were saying and forgot. What -do you suppose he was doing?”</p> -<p>Kate was suddenly embarrassed. She knew very -well what he was doing, but of course she was bound -not to tell.</p> -<p>“He acted like a detective,” Elsie said, musingly. -“Just exactly the way they act in books.”</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_147">147</div> -<p>“Yes. And we might have been thieves, or something,” -Kate took it up.</p> -<p>But at her words Elsie stiffened. Although Kate -at the minute was not looking at her she <i>felt</i> the -stiffening. And when they were established in their -coach and Kate did turn to look at Elsie she saw at -once that the comrade had vanished again! What -<i>had</i> she done? And how could she bear it after this -perfect day? Oh, no, it was not to be borne. Things -couldn’t happen like that. She leaned toward Elsie -and spoke quickly, urgently but softly.</p> -<p>“Don’t get icy again,” she pleaded. “If I’ve -offended you, I truly don’t know how. And we’ve -had such a splendid day of it. Deep down everything -seems to be all right with us. It’s only on top things -keep going wrong. Don’t look like that. Don’t.”</p> -<p>But Elsie did not respond to Kate’s pleading. She -kept on looking “like that” and merely commented -coldly, “You do say such queer things. I don’t -know what you mean.”</p> -<p>And from then on Elsie, dropping all her city bearing, -curled one foot up under her on the car seat, -turned her shoulder to Kate, leaned her chin on her -hand, and gazed out of the window. Kate sat biting -her lips with clutched hands. After a while, when -she realized that Elsie’s “cold shoulder” was to be -permanent, she got up and crossed the aisle to sit -by herself at a window.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_148">148</div> -<p>“Why am I not furious with her?” she asked -herself. “She has no right to treat me like that! -And I am angry, of course. But I’m not <i>very</i> angry. -Why am I not very angry?”</p> -<p>The conclusion she finally arrived at was that she -couldn’t be very angry until she understood what it -was all about. There was a mystery that needed -solving. Kate felt herself destined to solve it. -There was an elation in that prospect that bore her -up above the moment’s worries and confusions. -“If you’re going to live you’ve got to be willing to -suffer,” she told herself sententiously. “And certainly -I am living!” Then her eyes crinkled into -their nicest Chinese smile. For Kate was perfectly -capable of being amused at herself.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_149">149</div> -<h2 id="c12"><span class="h2line1">CHAPTER XII</span> -<br /><span class="h2line2">THE SPECIAL DELIVERY</span></h2> -<p>Miss Frazier approved, and was even delighted -with the frocks when she came up to -view them after breakfast next morning.</p> -<p>“Shall we try them on for you?” Kate offered -eagerly.</p> -<p>“No, I don’t believe so. I can trust Madame -Pearl, I am sure, to say nothing of you girls yourselves! -And there is a lot to be done now to get ready -for the party.”</p> -<p>Miss Frazier was moving and speaking in suppressed -excitement, any one could see that. This -party to her was to be a significant moment in her -own life as well as in the girls’!</p> -<p>“What can we do?” Kate asked.</p> -<p>“You may help me to decorate the drawing-room -and hall. If I engage a professional person he will -simply load the whole place with flowers in a set and -stuffy way. Besides, this is an informal party, and -we want the decorations to be very simple and unstudied.” -Then Miss Frazier added with a twinkle -in her eye, “That’s why we must study very hard -and fuss and consult.”</p> -<p>Both girls laughed at that.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_150">150</div> -<p>“I’m expecting a man now to help Timothy move -the furniture back for dancing. As soon as they are -done we can begin. The dresses are charming, and I -congratulate you.”</p> -<p>Since getting into the train the afternoon before -the comrade in Elsie had not been visible. The girls -had spoken to each other only in monosyllables and -with eyes usually averted. Almost as though they -had agreed upon it, however, they played up a little -in the presence of their aunt. She had been so kind -to them and counted so much on the day together to -have made them friends, they had not the heart to -let her see just how things stood between them. So -at dinner they had told her of the day’s adventures -vivaciously, dwelling most on their reactions to “The -Blue Bird” and the episode of the post. For some -reason Elsie did not mention the young man who had -shadowed them in such an unshadowy way. That -omission surprised Kate and gave her pause. What -did such reticence mean? Aunt Katherine had been -much diverted by Kate’s account of her interview -with the box-office clerk and the manager. Her -comment had been, “You are a Frazier, Kate! You -have a <i>spine</i>. I imagine the manager sensed that.”</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_151">151</div> -<p>After dinner the three had settled to a quite exciting -game of Mah Jong. No need for Elsie and Kate -to pretend friendliness then, for the game took all -their attention, and they could forget each other as -persons. After that there was a brief stroll in the -garden, Aunt Katherine walking between the girls, -their arms drawn through hers. It had all seemed -very peaceful and congenial. But there had been -no “good-nights” upstairs, though in accordance -with Aunt Katherine’s will the doors stood open -between the two bedrooms.</p> -<p>So now, when Aunt Katherine left to attend to the -moving of the furniture, Kate turned to Bertha and -said, “I shall be in the garden over by the Dentons’ -hedge, writing letters. Will you call me when Miss -Frazier is ready, Bertha?”</p> -<p>Without a glance at Elsie she picked up her pad -and hurried out. She hoped that Elsie realized she -was avoiding using the sitting-room and the desk they -were supposed to share; and she would not have -minded knowing that Elsie’s conscience bothered her -about it. But if it did, Elsie gave no sign. She -herself simply turned away about some business of -her own.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_152">152</div> -<p>There was so much for Kate to tell her mother in -this letter that was interesting and wonderful! First, -of course, there was Madame Pearl and her most -unique shop that didn’t look like a shop a bit. She -must describe the frocks they had chosen, or rather -that Madame Pearl had chosen for them; Kate -realized now that they themselves had done no choosing -at all. Then dining in the luxurious club—she -would describe that in detail. She had never in her -life had quite such a stimulating conversation with -any one before as that conversation at luncheon. -She recalled it now as an hour during which she had -<i>thought</i>, and thought rapidly, and expressed her -thoughts to an attentive listener who in her turn -<i>thought</i> and came back at her in a most provocative -manner. Ideas had spun in the air between them -like iridescent bubbles, changing colour as they -turned and you viewed different sides of them. The -truth about that was that two most congenial minds -had discovered each other, and that is as exciting an -adventure as there is in the world, and not at all an -ordinary one. The thing that gave this experience -its final tang was that the two minds, though comprehending -each other perfectly, worked entirely differently. -It followed that for each other they had great -discoveries and surprises. Together they danced as -one in figures new to both!—Of course, Kate could -not tell her mother exactly this, but she could tell -her enough so that she would understand a little -what had happened. But she must begin.</p> -<p>Instead, unhygienically, she sucked the end of her -pencil.</p> -<p>Would Mother approve of her having accepted the -party frock? That bothered her a little. Knowing -Aunt Katherine now she understood her mother -much less than ever before on these points. The -dress must have cost—no, she would not imagine -what it must have cost since Aunt Katherine had -told her not to give that end of it a thought. Still, -she would describe the dress to Mother, and she -could come to conclusions for herself.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_153">153</div> -<p>“Dearest Mother”:—Oh, there was so much, so -very much, it was quite hopeless to write! There -was the fairy in the glass. That must be told first. -There was not the slightest doubt in Kate’s mind -that the two were exactly the same, the fairy in the -woods that day and the reflection of Elsie in the -mirror at Madame Pearl’s. But what its explanation -could be was unthinkable. At the time the -little Kate had seen the fairy in the woods, Elsie was -only a little girl of her own age. How, then, had -Kate seen her as she would look eight years later -in a mirror in a Boston shop? It was such an unanswerable -question that Kate’s mind turned away -from it. Still, not for one minute did she doubt that -the two visions had been exactly the same. What -would Katherine make of it?</p> -<p>“Hello. Good morning.” Jack Denton, in white -flannels, tall and athletic, was standing the other side -of the hedge, swinging his tennis racket and smiling a -friendly, frank smile. “Excuse me, but you’re Miss -Kate Marshall, aren’t you? My sister and I are -coming to the party in your honour to-night. I’m -Jack Denton, and Rose will be out in a minute. If -you’ll play a set with us I’ll call up another fellow and -make doubles.”</p> -<p>Kate jumped up, delighted. She went to the wall. -“Good morning,” she said. “I was just beginning -a letter. But I’d love to play—that is, for a little -while, till Aunt Katherine needs me. But why don’t -we just shout for Elsie? She likes tennis, I know, -and Aunt Katherine says she plays wonderfully.”</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_154">154</div> -<p>But Jack’s expression had changed queerly. He -grew slightly red and avoided looking directly at -Kate. “No need to get any one yet,” he objected. -“Heaven knows when Rose will be out. She’s awfully -pokey—slow. Let us begin just by ourselves till she -does appear, anyway. Can you jump? Here’s a -hand.”</p> -<p>But Kate shook her head. “No, thanks. I don’t -think I’ll play, after all. I may be called any minute -to help Aunt Katherine, and besides—besides, it’s -very warm, isn’t it?”</p> -<p>Kate was looking at the pad in her hand, about to -turn away.</p> -<p>But Jack kept her a minute. “Oh, I say! You -aren’t offended, are you? I wouldn’t do that for -anything.”</p> -<p>“No, of course not.” But Kate’s negation was -made only out of a spirit of reserve and also embarrassment. -“No.”</p> -<p>“But you are, and I don’t wonder. Of course -you’d be on your cousin’s side. And listen. We are, -too. Rose and I and all of us are, always have been. -We never could see any sense in all the hubbub. It’s -just been Grandmother and Grandmother’s friends. -We all thought Elsie was great stuff when she visited -Miss Frazier before—— And we’re coming to the -party to-night, you bet. Only—at this minute -Grandmother is sitting right up there in a window -where she can see the court, and it might change her, -decide her for some reason not to go to-night. She -feels that her going formally and giving in, as it were, -publicly, is the thing that’s going to turn the trick. -It’s her show, sort of. If we did it first, now, she -might be just as bad as ever again, begin all over -again. Do you see?”</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_155">155</div> -<p>“No, I don’t see,” Kate said in all truth. Jack’s -explanations shed no light whatsoever. His face had -grown steadily redder as he realized that he had -simply made a mess of it. “I don’t see.”</p> -<p>But even as she stood looking at Jack Denton she -was smiling at herself mentally, to hear how her voice -had taken on the very timbre of Elsie’s when she was -being her most unpleasantly polite. What a copy -cat she was. Still, there was a certain satisfaction in -finding herself so successful in a self-made rôle. “All -you say is just Greek to me. And I ought to be -writing my letter. Good morning.”</p> -<p>She turned deliberately and sauntered back to her -place in the shade of the orchard. But Jack did not -leave the wall. He stayed there watching her, a -frown gathering on his brow. When she was seated, -with her back against an apple tree trunk and her pad -ready on her knee, he called again.</p> -<p>“Oh, I say,” he called. “I thought you knew -everything about it all, of course. If you don’t, it’s -a shame. I just can’t be apologetic enough.”</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_156">156</div> -<p>But Kate did not turn to him. “Go away, go -away, go away,” she said, mentally. “I don’t want -to hear any more. It’s not for you to unravel the -mystery. I don’t want to know from a stranger. I -feel very indignant. Very, very indignant, and I -hardly know why.”</p> -<p>Kate’s silence meant as much to Jack Denton as -the thoughts he could not hear. He turned away -and strolled toward the house, swinging his racket -and looking at the ground dejectedly. Kate was -sorry she had been so deliberately rude, but she -simply could not call him back. She was too really -indignant, and at the same time unable to analyze -her indignation. She returned to her letter.</p> -<p>But she found it very difficult to write. There was -just too much ever to begin to put on paper, in spite -of this being only her third day here! What she -must do was simply tell the <i>facts</i> and let the rest go. -The colour of the facts, all that lay underneath and -over them, must wait. The letter that finally -developed was a thin affair, perfunctory and empty -of interest. Kate had never in her life felt so far -from her mother.</p> -<p>The girls and Miss Frazier selected and cut flowers -in the garden. They took them in loosely on their -arms and tossed them down on a damp sheet spread -on the floor just inside the drawing-room doors. -Then came the deciding on receptacles and the placing -of them. It was all very interesting, and exciting, too, -for as the rooms grew in adornment Kate felt the -party itself drawing nearer and nearer. Miss Frazier -seemed very gay as they worked. She laughed and -said whimsical things in a whimsical manner. And -her every touch was deft, and the result artistic.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_157">157</div> -<p>That morning Kate learned more about colour values -and proportion than she had ever learned in all her -years of school. She had not dreamed that so much -<i>mind</i> could be used on such an apparently simple -occupation as placing a few nasturtiums in a vase!</p> -<p>What a good time they were having! Kate moved -about the big drawing-room and hall with almost -dancing steps, she was so happy doing her aunt’s -intelligent bidding and seeing loveliness form before -her eyes and under her hand. And Elsie was laughing -quite spontaneously at Aunt Katherine’s humour -and taking as much delight as Kate in the growing -beauty of the arrangements.</p> -<p>“Someone to speak to you on the telephone, Miss -Frazier.” Isadora had come out from the telephone -booth under the hall stairs.</p> -<p>“Who is it, please? Always get the name, Isadora.”</p> -<p>“Yes, ma’am. I always do when I can. But this -gentleman won’t give his name. Says it’s not necessary. -He wants to speak to you on important business, -he says.”</p> -<p>“Won’t give his name! Nonsense! Tell him, -then——” But suddenly in the middle of this -command Aunt Katherine’s expression changed. -“Oh, well, I think I know now who it must be. -That’s all right, Isadora.”</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_158">158</div> -<p>Aunt Katherine dropped the yellow roses she was -sorting—their wet stems and leaves instantly spreading -white spots on to the polished surface of the little -table. With a quick step she hurried toward the -telephone booth. Kate snatched up the roses and -remedied the harm they had done as well as she -could with her pocket handkerchief. Then she and -Elsie simply stood idly about waiting for the doors -of the telephone booth to open and their Chieftain to -reappear. For having seen Aunt Katherine work -with the flowers they knew themselves incompetent -to go ahead alone.</p> -<p>As Kate leaned against the banister, and Elsie -smoothed her hair before a little gilt mirror on the -wall near the door and secured the shell pins holding -it, the front-door bell suddenly rang and Isadora -came into the hall to answer it. A postman in livery -standing there thrust a pad at her mumbling, “Sign -here.”</p> -<p>Elsie dropped a shell pin on to the floor and rushed -to Isadora. “It’s a special delivery,” she cried. -“For me?”</p> -<p>Yes, it was for Elsie. She almost snatched it out -of the postman’s hands and scrawled her signature -on the pad that Isadora surrendered.</p> -<p>“All right,” she said, pushing the pad at the postman -and the next instant shutting the door directly -in his face. Had she shoved him out? Kate was -not at all sure she hadn’t.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_159">159</div> -<p>Then Elsie ran through the hall with the letter -hugged up under her chin and up the stairs past -Kate. “Tell Aunt Katherine I’ll be right back,” -she called as she went. But she stopped on the first -landing to lean over the banister and whisper down, -“Don’t say anything about my having had a special -delivery, will you, Kate?”</p> -<p>“Of course not, if you don’t want me to. It’s -none of my business, is it?”</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_160">160</div> -<h2 id="c13"><span class="h2line1">CHAPTER XIII</span> -<br /><span class="h2line2">“YOU THIEF!”</span></h2> -<p>Kate was dressed and ready for the party half -an hour before dinner that night. She stood -surveying herself in the long door mirror. Anticipation -had brought unusual colour that glowed -even through the tan on her cheeks, and the corners -of her lips were sharply uptilted.</p> -<p>“The cap is certainly a wonder worker,” she reflected. -“It is magic; it makes me pretty. That’s -even better than having a cap to make you invisible, -much better!” And when she smiled at this idea -the girl in the glass smiled, too, and was fascinatingly -pretty. “Oh, if Mother could only see me! She’d -hardly believe. If the picture telephone were perfected -and Aunt had one I’d spend my last cent to -call Mother up.”</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_161">161</div> -<p>All this was not so conceited as it sounds; for -Kate knew perfectly well that ordinarily she could -lay no claim to prettiness, that the charm of the -person clothed in crocus-yellow satin in the mirror -before her was due to Madame Pearl’s artistic genius -and the pert, star-pointed silver cap. And when -the idea came to her to go down to the kitchen and -display herself to Julia in this enchantment it was -wholly for Julia’s pleasure she intended it; she would -be taking herself down in the same impersonal way -she would take a doll down to turn it round. For -finery of this sort and the kind of glamour that beautiful -clothes give, she did not for a minute associate -with herself, her <i>very</i> self. Ever since Julia had -appeared to her on the stairs, asked eager questions -about her mother and bestowed the gingerbread -man on Kate, she had wanted to see her again. It -seemed so queer and unnatural to be eating the -delicious meals she cooked and ignoring her presence -in the house. Wasn’t she a friend of her mother’s? -But until this minute Kate had been too shy or -too strange in the ways of her aunt’s big smoothly -running establishment to seek Julia out in the -dim, distant servants’ apartments. Now, however, -in her magic cap, looking and feeling like a young -princess, and also disguised in a way, she had no -hesitation about it. She felt sure that Julia would -be interested and pleased, and that Katherine, if -she were in Kate’s place, would do that very thing. -But on second thought she decided to wait until -just after dinner, for this hour would surely be about -the busiest one in a cook’s day.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_162">162</div> -<p>She crossed the room and sat down at her dressing -table again, pulling out a drawer. She would reread -a letter from Sam, a scrawl that had come in -the afternoon’s mail when she was too much occupied -to give it her full attention. She had merely glanced -it down hastily and put it away in this drawer on -top of the key to the orchard house. She read it -now, bending her head and not bothering to pick -it up.</p> -<p>“Don’t let her befool you, Kitty. Take our word, -she’s just a silly snob. You’re worth millions of her -any minute. What a figure she’d cut in that meadow—you -know, with the King of the Fairies! She -just wouldn’t be <i>anything</i>, would she? Teach her -a lesson. We’d like to, Lee and I.” There was -more of the same sort; but she did not pick it up to -turn the page. There was an uneasy stirring in her -heart. It hadn’t been very decent of her, writing -like that about Elsie. She could not remember now -just how she had done it, or why. She knew that -both Sam and Lee must have struggled together over -the composition of this letter in reply. They had -evidently thought it a very important letter indeed, -and spent their best efforts on it. She appreciated -that, and she appreciated their hot partisanship, too. -What she didn’t appreciate at this minute was her -own motives in having so called out their sympathy. -And she had better tear it up. It certainly wasn’t -a letter meant for other eyes to see. With a strange -little ache in her soul somewhere, probably in her -conscience, she picked up the sheet. Then her heart -stood still, and the fingers crumpling the paper turned -cold. She went queerly sick. The key that should -have lain there under the letter was gone. It was -nowhere in the drawer. And whoever had taken -the key could scarcely have failed to read the words -staring there so blackly up at you, all in Sam’s print-like -script!</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_163">163</div> -<p>Moreover—she saw it now—the thief had gone -through the whole dressing table before hitting upon -this particular drawer. Everything was a little -out of place. The thief was Elsie, of course. No -one else wanted the key. Well, serve her right, then, -to have read about herself!</p> -<p>Kate tore the letter into shreds and dropped it -back into the drawer. Then she strode through -the bathroom, and stood in Elsie’s open door. -Elsie was already decked in her fairy green frock, her -curls tied loosely at her neck in a way that Madame -Pearl had begged her to wear them. But quite regardless -of her finery she was curled up in the window -seat, her sandaled feet tucked under her, looking -dreamily out toward the orchard house. She was -lost in her thoughts for she did not hear or feel Kate -when she came striding across the room to stand -over her. Even in the temper she was in, Kate could -not help thinking, “How unconcerned she is about -that beautiful frock! It’s as though she was born -in it. How delicate, how <i>fairy</i> she looks!”</p> -<p>Elsie started out of her reverie at Kate’s voice.</p> -<p>“Give me my key,” she was saying huskily, her -hand held out.</p> -<p>Elsie, in spite of the suddenness of the attack, did -not stir except to turn her head.</p> -<p>“What key?”</p> -<p>“You know very well what key. You stole it.”</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_164">164</div> -<p>Red scorched Elsie’s cheeks at the word “stole.” -Kate rejoiced at that. She would make it scorch -even redder. “You are no better than a thief, to -hunt through my things, to read my letters. To -steal, to steal, to steal!”</p> -<p>Even as Kate stormed she knew, deep where -knowing still had a foothold below the surface of her -anger, that her greatest fury was at herself—fury -that there had been such a letter for Elsie to read -at all, that she had ever written the Hart boys as she -had written them. But in spite of that knowing -she seemed to have no control over the superficial -Kate, the raging, furious Kate.</p> -<p>“You thief! You’re no better than a thief! -Give me back my key.”</p> -<p>But Elsie’s response to this attack surprised Kate -into a little calmness. She stood up, clenching her -hands, and facing her accuser.</p> -<p>“Well, if I am a thief I am proud of it, proud, -proud. So there! If you think I’m ashamed of it -you’re wrong! Call me thief all you like. I like -to be called thief. I like it. I am one. I’ve got -your old key. I’ll give it to you to-night when we -come up to bed, not before. I meant to all along. -Then the orchard house will be yours, all yours. -Go live in it! I won’t care. There’s the gong.”</p> -<p>But in spite of Kate’s growth in calmness her determination -remained. “Aunt Katherine gave the -key to me,” she said. “It belongs to me. Give it -back this instant.”</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_165">165</div> -<p>“If I won’t, what will you do?”</p> -<p>Kate considered. “If you won’t, I’ll go right out -there after dinner and climb in at a window and -explore the whole house. I’ll discover your blessed -secret whatever it is and not even wait till morning. -That’s what I’ll do.”</p> -<p>Elsie stood looking at her. But something changed -in her eyes. For a flash, or was it only Kate’s wild -imagining, a comrade looked out through those -clouded windows, making them in that instant clear -as day, and then vanished. <i>Now Kate knew what -would have been the expression on the face of the fairy -in the wood that June day, eight years ago, if she had not -flashed back into the sunlight too quickly for her to -catch it. It would have been this sky-clear look of -the golden comrade.</i></p> -<p>“Why don’t you say you’ll tell Aunt Katherine?”</p> -<p>Kate looked at Elsie, amazed. Such an idea had -never entered her head. Her face said so. <i>Again -the comrade flashed.</i> But it vanished quicker than -before, and this time definitely. “Well, you told -your wonderful friends, ‘The boys,’ on me. You -<i>do</i> tell, you see.”</p> -<p>Kate had no answer to that.</p> -<p>Elsie whirled about and went to her bed. From -under her pillow she took the key, and returning, -handed it to Kate, coolly. “Here it is,” she said, -“and this is the last time I shall ever ask a favour -of you, Kate Marshall. Please don’t use it to-night.”</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_166">166</div> -<p>Kate accepted the key. “All right,” she promised. -“I won’t use it to-night. There won’t be time, anyway, -with the party and everything.” She was not -speaking to the Elsie who had asked the favour, -however, but to the vanishing comrade, invisible -now, whom she had seen clear enough in that one -flash. Was that comrade within hearing, she wondered.</p> -<p>“Thanks,” Elsie said, as though she meant it, and -in a relieved tone. Then she straightened. “But -just the same, Kate Marshall, I shall never, never, -never, never forgive you for calling me a thief, not -so long as I live, I sha’n’t.”</p> -<p>“You said you were proud of it,” Kate rather -cruelly retorted.</p> -<p>Elsie suddenly threw her arm across her eyes. -To Kate’s dismay she was sobbing.</p> -<p>“Don’t cry, don’t cry,” she begged. “The gong -rang minutes ago. Quick, wash your eyes. For -Aunt Katherine’s sake! She’s been so good to us. -Let’s go on pretending everything’s all right.”</p> -<p>Masterfully, but very wretched in her heart because -of this bitter weeping of which she was the -cause, Kate hurried Elsie into the bathroom, ran -some cold water into the bowl, and put a wash -cloth into her hands. “Quick, wash your eyes. -For Aunt Katherine’s sake!” Kate commanded -again, and Elsie obeyed.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_167">167</div> -<p>Then Kate took her hand and hurried with her out -through the twisted passageways to the main front -hall and down the stairs. Dinner had been announced -some time ago, and Aunt Katherine was -waiting, standing and impatient, in the drawing-room. -But when she saw them hurrying and hand-in-hand -she smiled. When you have dressed for -your first real party in your first real party frock -you may be expected to be a little late!</p> -<p>“How lovely you are, Aunt Katherine.” Elsie -gave her tribute spontaneously in as cool a way -as though the scene upstairs had never taken place; -and Kate echoed “Lovely, Aunt Katherine.”</p> -<p>Miss Frazier was touched. “Thank you, my -dears,” she said. “And I can return the compliment. -In fact, Madame Pearl has outdone herself!”</p> -<p>Miss Frazier deserved their tribute. She was both -handsome and distinguished looking, with her graying -hair done high and topped with a jewelled comb -that sent out shivers of light whenever she moved, -gowned in softest lilac-coloured silk draped with -black lace, and wearing a long black lace scarf in a -most regal manner. The lilac, the green, and the -crocus-yellow figures that passed into the dining-room -arm-in-arm caused the waitress Effie the most -wide-eyed admiration.</p> -<p>“And they were as friendly, just as friendly as -could be,” she told the kitchen when she removed -the service plates. “You’d think Miss Frazier was -their mother, she’s that affectionate. Why, it’s like -a regular family to-night!”</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_168">168</div> -<p>Julia, handing out hot dishes, beamed. “Perhaps -everything’s coming right, after all,” she said. -“Katherine’s child will shed sunshine all about just -as Katherine did.”</p> -<p>Bertha, sitting at a distant table playing cards -with Timothy and the gardener, sniffed at that. -“Miss Elsie is as capable of shedding sunshine as -anybody,” she said, defensively. “She’s just made -of it herself. I’m always telling you.”</p> -<p>“Yes, you’re always telling. But we’re never -seeing,” Julia retorted. “Touched with melancholy, -she seems to me, but as nice as you please. Only -not cheerful to have about. It’s probably her poor -mother’s awful death. Her heart’s broke.”</p> -<p>Bertha shook her head. “I don’t think her heart’s -broken. She’s as gay as anything alone with me -sometimes! And she’s the most generous child living.”</p> -<p>“She does funny things, though,” Timothy offered -his bit. “Carrying groceries up to her room, buying -eggs and bread and stuff and paying for ’em herself. -Holt told me.”</p> -<p>Bertha looked at him, unbelieving. “Groceries -in her room? No such thing. Who takes care of -her room, do you think? I never saw such a thing -in it. What do you mean?”</p> -<p>Then Timothy related how for a week past Elsie -had bought foodstuffs every time she went to the -village, and refused to give them to him to carry -around to the kitchen afterward. Julia had assured -him they were never ordered by her; so of course -Miss Elsie took them to her room. Where else could -she keep them?</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_169">169</div> -<p>Bertha would have nothing to do with that idea. -Indeed, it was impossible there could be any such food -supply as Timothy described in Elsie’s room, for -Bertha knew every inch of that dainty apartment, -and kept it in order. Still, she had respect for -Timothy, and could not doubt his word when he -insisted that Elsie actually had bought bread and -eggs, lettuce, oil, and nuts and brought them -home with her in the car. “What she does with -’em’s none of our business, that I can see,” she -volunteered. “Feeds the birds in the gardens and -orchard perhaps. She’s that unselfish! She’s probably -even kinder to the birds than to human -beings.”</p> -<p>But every one laughed at this explanation. You -don’t feed birds eggs and oil and nuts! No, there -was some mystery about it. Julia had felt mystery -in the air for a week past, and not just because of -Elsie’s queer purchases and the puzzle of what became -of them, either. Mystery was simply “in the -air.” Julia “<i>felt</i>” it.</p> -<p>Timothy nodded his head knowingly. Timothy -was Irish and very romantic. “What can you expect?” -he asked. “In a house with two young things -like that! Why, they’ve just come out of the Fairyland -of their childhood, they’re standing now on the -edges of life. What can you expect but mystery? -They’re all mystery.”</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_170">170</div> -<p>“I don’t mean that kind of mystery, Timothy,” -Julia protested. “I mean regular down-and-out -<i>mystery</i>. I feel it in my bones. You wait and see -if I’m not right.”</p> -<p>Effie had returned from the dining-room again. -“Miss Frazier’s telling them about Rome now,” she -said. “She says she’ll take them both there together -sometime, if Miss Kate’s mother’ll let her go. She -said ‘Katherine’ just as easy as though it didn’t -hurt a bit and as though it might be any name. -Perhaps she wouldn’t mind our speaking it now. -Things are changing.”</p> -<p>It was true. Things were changing with Miss -Frazier. She sat at the head of her table to-night a -light-hearted, spirited person. And she was more -than that. She was intensely interesting. She -said she meant soon to begin to travel, really to travel -and see the world. Arabia attracted her, and all -Asia. A book by a man named Ferdinand Ossendowski -had lately stimulated her roving instincts -and enthralled her imagination. Why should she -not explore a totally different civilization from the -one she had been born into! She recounted some -of Ossendowski’s exploits, adventures, and escapes, -and his stories of the “King of the World.” As she -talked a panorama entirely new to her listeners -unrolled before their minds’ visions. What a place -this world was, what a place to be alive in, and what -a time to be alive! How the importance of personal -affairs evaporated in the face of such contemplation! -The girls were as stirred as Miss Frazier -herself apparently had been stirred; they were lifted -out of themselves. They felt that the world was a -challenge, that life was a challenge—a glorious one. -For the time the party, drawing so near now, sank -into insignificance.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_171">171</div> -<p>But Miss Frazier, looking at their eager faces, suddenly -remembered. She said, “Katherine wouldn’t -let me take you to such out-of-the-way places yet, -Kate, and of course I wouldn’t want to. But when -we go to Rome——” Then she had talked about -Rome and places nearer home. But in speaking -of them she touched them with a new light and interest. -Kate’s dream, as most girls’ dreams, had -often been of some day going “abroad.” Such an -adventure in contemplation had always seemed the -very height of happiness to her. But now, Miss -Frazier’s conversation lent travel new glamour, for -Miss Frazier was steeped in history, the history of -nations and religions and art, and her idea of travel -was not simply of adventure into lands, but into -realms of imagination, and into the past.</p> -<p>“Would you girls like to travel with me for a summer—perhaps -next summer?” she asked.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_172">172</div> -<p>Kate’s joy at such a prospect was too great to allow -of words. She simply glowed at Aunt Katherine. -But Elsie suddenly turned away her head. Somehow -then, in that instant, the spell was broken. -The dinner table with the diners floated back to Miss -Frazier’s house in Oakdale, Massachusetts, and there -they sat, consuming “cottage pudding” with lemon -sauce, dressed and ready for a party.</p> -<p>After dinner Miss Frazier settled down, expecting -to finish “The King of the Fairies” before the guests -began to arrive, leaving the girls to amuse themselves -in their own way. Elsie wandered out on to the star-lighted -terrace, looking exactly like a dreamy fairy. -Kate went with her, not speaking, and soon leaving -her, to find her way around to the kitchen door.</p> -<p>The servants in their own attractive dining-room -were just beginning dinner. Kate had forgotten -how many of them there would be, and was almost -overcome with embarrassment, when they all leapt -to their feet and the maids walked around her in a -circle, exclaiming admiringly. “I just wanted to -show Julia the new frock Aunt Katherine gave me,” -Kate was explaining a little breathlessly. “I never -seem to see you, Julia,” she added, catching her eye -at last in the group, “and I never really thanked you -for the gingerbread man and your kind inquiries -about Mother.”</p> -<p>“To think,” exclaimed Julia, “of my giving you -a gingerbread man! Where were my wits? Why, -you’re a young lady. But your mother liked gingerbread -even after she was a young lady.”</p> -<p>“You’ll have a fine time at your party in that -gown,” Isadora affirmed. “You couldn’t help it. -There’ll be nothing half so beautiful.”</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_173">173</div> -<p>Meanwhile Bertha beamed. In a way she felt -responsible for this young vision of splendour. -Hadn’t she helped choose the dress, and hadn’t she -finally put Kate into it! She was certainly involved -in the display.</p> -<p>Then Julia said, feelingly, “We’re all grateful to -you, Miss Kate, for bringing a party to this house -again, for getting things natural. Miss Frazier’s -acting like herself now, and it’s on account of you.”</p> -<p>“Why, I haven’t done anything,” Kate denied.</p> -<p>But she liked their praise and their warmth, and she -felt now entirely in the mood for the party to begin.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_174">174</div> -<h2 id="c14"><span class="h2line1">CHAPTER XIV</span> -<br /><span class="h2line2">THE STRANGER IN THE GARDEN</span></h2> -<p>Soon after eight Miss Frazier stood regally in -the wide hall between her two nieces, receiving -and introducing the first arrivals. They came -fluttering in at the big wide-open door—girls in -shimmering, fluffy party frocks of rainbow colours; -boys, mostly in white flannels and dark coats, but -a few in tuxedos; and a thin scattering of two older -generations, these latter gray-haired grandmothers -and younger matrons—some of the mothers looking -scarcely older than their own children, in the modern -manner. All was murmuring, laughter. Then the -orchestra placed back in the blue breakfast-room -began tuning their instruments. Jack Denton -claimed Kate for the first dance. He danced perfectly, -much better than Kate, in fact, who had -had little experience; and all the time he kept up a -stream of interesting nonsense. Kate laughed at -him and swung along more and more in harmony -with the music. How gay, how merry it all was! -Elsie floated past, her green chiffon draperies like -airy wings.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_175">175</div> -<p>“Isn’t she lovely!” Kate exclaimed in admiration -that must find voice. “Do you know I think she -is the very prettiest——” She was going to say, -“the very prettiest girl I have ever seen,” but Jack -interrupted, his brown eyes smiling down at her: -“No, I wouldn’t say she’s the <i>prettiest</i>——”</p> -<p>No one in all her life had ever even insinuated -that Kate was pretty before, and the comparison -that Jack indicated now was beyond contemplating. -It was the magic silver cap, of course. Suppose it -should blow off as they danced! How surprised -Jack Denton would be!</p> -<p>As the evening went on Kate entertained more and -more the conceit that she was masquerading in -prettiness. There was no blinking the fact that she -was tremendously popular. And it obviously was -not just the easy popularity of the girl for whom -the party is given. Not a bit of it. It was spontaneous, -joyous. Perhaps she realized the reality -of this popularity all the more because she had never -experienced it before. At the two or three high-school -dances in Middletown which her mother had -allowed her to attend, while not being exactly a wallflower, -she had not particularly shone. There had -been many minutes of suspense when she forced a -semblance of a smile to her lips and intense interest -to her eyes while she watched the more popular -girls swinging by with their partners, while all her -mind was taken up with praying that Jim Walker or -Cecil Quinn would look in from the hall and notice -there was a girl there not dancing. It is true that -Jim or Cecil or some other usually did notice sometime -before the dance was half over and come to -her rescue, for Kate was a good sort and everybody -liked her. At those dances Kate never counted on -the Hart boys for attention, although they were her -escorts to and from; for to them Kate was no better -than a sister. They would have been glad to see -her popular, and taken natural pride to themselves -in it. But it never entered their heads to be gallant -themselves. No, the high-school dances had left -Kate secure in the conviction that she would never be -a success socially and in the philosophical determination -not to care.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_176">176</div> -<p>But to-night all that was changed. Even Elsie, -perfectly beautiful as she was, was not having the -same success. She danced constantly, of course, but -often with a boy whom Kate had had to refuse.</p> -<p>In an intermission a dowager-like old lady beckoned -to Kate from a chair near an open door leading -out on to the terrace. Kate left Jack Denton who -at the minute was fanning her with a magazine which -he had picked up from a table for the purpose, and -went to the dowager.</p> -<p>“Bring a chair,” the bejewelled one commanded, -“and talk to an old woman for a minute.”</p> -<p>And when Kate had drawn up a stool that stood -near and sat down close to her she said, “You are -every bit as pretty as your mother was, Katherine -Marshall. Every bit!”</p> -<p>Kate shook her head, laughing. “It’s just a disguise,” -she affirmed, mysteriously.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_177">177</div> -<p>“A disguise? What do you mean, you funny -child?”</p> -<p>“This cap I am wearing is a magic cap,” Kate informed -her, touching its star points ever so lightly -with her finger tips. “But shh! don’t let them hear. -I will confess to you, though, that it makes me much, -much better looking than I really am, and more -popular.”</p> -<p>The evening had rather gone to Kate’s head. But -the dowager person liked it. She liked it very -much. She tapped Kate’s shoulder with her jewelled -lorgnette. “Well, then, shall I say,” she continued -quite in Kate’s fantastic mood, “you have your -mother’s prettiness to begin with, and on top of that -the magic cap has added a good bit more. But even -better than prettiness you have her spirit. She -was always the belle of every party. And often -I’ve sat right here in this very chair and watched -her gliding past with the young men. Dancers -did glide then, not hop and walk. In spite of -her preoccupation she always gave me a smile as -she drifted. And I was old and ugly even then.”</p> -<p>“Old and ugly! Are you wearing a magic something -yourself to-night, then? Perhaps it’s your -pearls that make you seem stately and lovely!”</p> -<p>There was blarney in this, for while the dowager -was stately enough she certainly was not lovely in -any usual sense of the word.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_178">178</div> -<p>But Kate was scarcely responsible. She hardly -knew what she was saying; she was simply effervescing -with high spirits and a heady self-satisfaction.</p> -<p>The dowager laughed mellowly. She was not often -mellow, and certainly she had not been mellow before -this evening. She had sat perfectly still in her -chair, her hands folded, with the expression of a -judge in court. Now, however, she was a judge no -longer. She had slipped into the spirit of the party, -swept in on Kate’s fantasy. Miss Frazier watching, -but not appearing to watch, from a distant divan -where she conversed with two or three mothers, saw -the mellowing even at that distance and was well -pleased. “Congratulations, Kate,” she said, mentally. -“Congratulations, and thank you.”</p> -<p>Meanwhile the dowager was murmuring in Kate’s -ear: “You are a dear! It’s for your mother’s and -your grandfather’s sake I came to-night and persuaded -my daughter to let the young people come. -And now I am glad I did.”</p> -<p>Kate looked up at her. “Why for their sake? -Why not come, anyway?” But as she spoke automatically, -Kate felt her lips stiffening over the -words. Indignation was suddenly welling up as it -had in the garden with Jack Denton that morning. -Glamour fled away, and Kate was straightening like -a warrior.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_179">179</div> -<p>But the dowager hardly heard her question, and -certainly did not notice the straightening process. -She went on, “I always said no good would come of -it. There’s something in good blood that tells—and -in bad blood, too. Not that we knew the blood -was bad—although in time it showed it was surely -enough—just that we didn’t know anything about -it! How Miss Frazier dared, a person of her race -and blood——”</p> -<p>But Kate interrupted with a strained laugh. -“Blood!” she wanted to exclaim. “You make me -creep. Are you Lady Macbeth’s grandmother?” -But she uttered no sound except the laugh. This -was fortunate for Kate, and remarkable restraint. -She sat with lips stiffened, watching the glamour -gliding away out of her heart, out of the party.</p> -<p>The dowager had paused a minute at Kate’s -laugh, waiting for her to speak. But now she continued, -“Terrible risk. Everyone warned her. But -she would listen to nobody, not even to me. Now -she’s trying to unmake her bed. It’s to be hoped -she sees the folly of expecting anything good to be -made out of bad blood. Environment! Pshaw! -Futile!”</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_180">180</div> -<p>Kate shivered. She looked around for a way of -escape from this murmuring, croaking person whom -but a minute ago she had dubbed stately and lovely. -If she should start now and dance off on the music -that was beginning again might she outdance the -spectre? Might she overtake the glamour? There -was Elsie, standing alone for the minute in the open -doorway a few steps away. Kate knew now why -she had outdistanced Elsie in popularity to-night; -she knew it as she watched her, hardly aware of -thinking about it at all. Elsie was too fine, too -entirely lovely in the real meaning of the word to -appeal to any but those sensitive to loveliness in its -purest essence. She did not belong to the party at -all. She belonged to the starlight beyond the lamplight, -to the dim orchard—to the orchard house!</p> -<p>“Whom will you dance this with?” the dowager -was inquiring in Kate’s ear.</p> -<p>“The first person that gets here,” Kate replied, -quickly. But the dowager did not take offence. -Several were in the race, but a tall, lanky youth won, -a humorous creature with a happy-go-lucky bearing. -When Kate rose to dance off with him, the dowager -took her hand. She smiled up at her in the most -friendly manner. “You must come to call on me -soon,” she said. “Or I will call for you and take you -for a drive and then home for tea. That will be -better, I think. How is that?”</p> -<p>“Thank you.” Kate managed to smile, but it -was a smile her mother would never have recognized.</p> -<p>“I’ll say,” her partner informed her the minute they -were out of hearing, “you’ve made a hit. Do you -know who she is? Jack Denton’s grandmother, -Mrs. Van Vorst-Smith. The social autocrat of Oakdale. -Everything will come your way now.”</p> -<p>But Kate did not respond to this gay assurance. -“What’s the matter?” her partner asked, surprised. -Responsiveness had been Kate’s greatest charm all -the evening, if she had only known it, not the cap.</p> -<p>“Nothing. Only I’m chilly.”</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_181">181</div> -<p>The boy whistled. “No wonder, having sat next -to that old iceberg so long. Though ’twas probably -the air from the door, too. It’s lots cooler and a -storm is coming up, I think. I’d have rescued you -sooner if I’d had the nerve. She looked almost -outlandishly amiable, though. What was her line?”</p> -<p>Kate shivered, a pretend shiver this time, getting -her gaiety back. “Blood! Just blood, if you will -believe me. Is she an ogress as well as a social autocrat? -She discussed blood in several of its phases. -Bad blood, good blood, and talking blood. Like the -singing bone, I suppose.”</p> -<p>The boy laughed heartily. “She didn’t waste -any time in mounting her hobby, I’ll say. But she -can’t worry you. Your blood’s all right. That’s -the word’s been going ’round ever since the invitations -were out. ‘Fraziers, one of the best families -in Massachusetts.’ She was probably congratulating -you and expecting a return of the compliment.”</p> -<p>Kate laughed. But in spite of her new gaiety, the -corners of her mouth had quite lost their winged -tilt.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_182">182</div> -<p>After a few more dances, supper was announced. -Kate had promised Jack Denton early in the evening -that she would take supper with him. She saw him -now looking about for her. In an instant their eyes -would meet and he would hurry across to her where -she stood for the minute alone. But she suddenly -realized that she was tired. She ached with too -much dancing. She would never have acknowledged -this to herself, of course, unless something had gone -wrong with the evening. Hardly knowing why, she -stepped out of the door near which she was for the -instant standing, backward. That step precipitated -her into a different world entirely. The stars had -disappeared behind dark, windy rain clouds. The -air was fresh, and you heard a wind and felt its -edges. Kate took a deep breath. She would stay -here in the blowy dark just for a little. It wouldn’t -hurt Jack to search a minute longer.</p> -<p>She moved, still backward, farther away from the -lighted doorway. She brushed against a garden -chair and sat down. She leaned her head against -its high back. An impulse came to take off the -magic silver cap and be herself. Whimsically she -lifted it from her head and placed it on her knee.</p> -<p>“Now you’re just Kate Marshall,” she spoke to -herself, but aloud. “Just ordinary, plain-as-day -Kate Marshall. Dowagers can’t spoil anything for -you. They wouldn’t pay enough attention to you -now to bother about spoiling. All the magic that’s -really your own, all that isn’t false magic, she can’t -touch. Nothing she could say could touch it.”</p> -<p>Kate sighed, having finished her little heartfelt -speech to herself. She felt relieved and freshened. -She had certainly cast off the dowager’s spell.</p> -<p>“That’s right. All the magic that’s your own, -nobody, even a Mrs. Van Vorst-Smith, can touch. -It’s safer than the stars from troubling!”</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_183">183</div> -<p>That was a low voice speaking directly behind her. -No, it was not simply her own thoughts, although -those words might very well have been in her mind -that minute, for some of them were right out of “The -King of the Fairies.” But it had been a voice, a -man’s voice.</p> -<p>Slowly she turned her head. Directly behind her -chair a man was standing. She could not see his -features at all, because the night was so black, -but she thought that he was hatless, and she knew -he was in dark clothes. The wind, not merely its -edges, had come to earth now. Was it flapping the -borders of a long dark cape enveloping the vague -figure?</p> -<p>The vague figure bent down to her. Yes, it was a -dark cape, blowing away from his shoulders on the -wind. It seemed as though the being himself leaned -down out of the wind. “Give this to Elsie, please,” -he said, in quite a matter-of-fact tone now. Then -the wind took him. At least Kate could not see -him any more. He had stepped back among the -tall lilac bushes that bordered the terrace at that -spot.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_184">184</div> -<p>When he was gone it was just exactly as though he -had never been, except for the folded paper that -Kate found clutched in her hand. That folded -paper, however, definitely fixed him as a reality. -But who could it have been? Mr. O’Brien, the detective, -crossed Kate’s mind, or one of his assistants, -that young man of the polka-dotted tie. But instantly -she laughed, though silently, at such a notion. -They, neither of them, she felt sure, would by any -chance have quoted from “The King of the Fairies” -while doing business. “It’s safer than the stars -from troubling.” Had the King of the Fairies -himself passed her there on the wind? No, hardly. -He wouldn’t be leaving a note for Elsie.</p> -<p>Anyway, whoever it might be, he had spoken in -a voice whose bidding she was ready to follow. -She rose and took the few steps between the chair -and the drawing-room door. But she stepped over -the sill without hurry, with a meditative air. The -man, standing a little way in among the tall lilac -bushes, said to himself; “She’s the right stuff. -Not startled or upset. Good for Kate Marshall!”</p> -<p>Jack Denton pounced upon her almost at once. -“Where <i>have</i> you been?” he cried. “The salad I -fought for and won for you has just been commandeered -by my grandmother. Now will you -agree to stay put while I dash into the fray in the -dining-room again?”</p> -<p>“Yes, after a minute. First I must find Elsie. -I have to see her very specially.”</p> -<p>“Elsie? Haven’t laid eyes on her for some time. -Give me your message and I’ll go hunt.”</p> -<p>“No, but do look around for her. I will, too, and -that will save time.”</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_185">185</div> -<p>Elsie was not to be found anywhere in all the -rooms that were lighted and open that evening on -the first floor of the house. “She’s just not down -here at all, unless she’s somewhere in the servants’ -wing,” Jack finally reported when they met by -chance at the foot of the stairs.</p> -<p>Kate now went to her aunt who was having salad -sitting between two dowagers, one of them Kate’s -dowager. “I am looking for Elsie, Aunt Katherine,” -she said. “Have you seen her recently?”</p> -<p>Miss Frazier shook her head. “Not for some -time. I myself have been wondering what has -become of her.” Miss Frazier’s dark eyes as she -lifted them to Kate were clouded with worried surmise.</p> -<p>Mrs. Van Vorst-Smith laughed. As a laugh, it -sounded a trifle unsure of itself and uneasy for a -dowager person. “I had a few words with the child -myself half an hour or so ago,” she volunteered. -“Strangely enough, she took some offence at some -remarks that were meant only kindly, and flounced -off. Perhaps she is sulking somewhere about it.”</p> -<p>“I am sorry, Mrs. Van Vorst-Smith, if my niece -was rude to you.” But in spite of the words Miss -Frazier’s tone was not at all a sorry tone; it was -rather edged. She herself had just been submitted -to some remarks of Mrs. Van Vorst-Smith’s that were -doubtless meant kindly, and as a consequence her -sympathy was all with Elsie. But even so, if Elsie -were sulking, she was undoing all that Miss Frazier’s -efforts had built up in her behalf. That was a pity.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_186">186</div> -<p>“Don’t apologize for the young person you call -your niece,” Mrs. Van Vorst-Smith said, suavely. -“We will lay it simply at the door of the times. -There is no respect for age, say nothing of <i>birth</i>, in -this generation.”</p> -<p>Miss Frazier paid slight attention to these acid -remarks. She merely said to Kate in a concerned -tone, “I’d go upstairs to look for her, Kate. Under -no circumstances must the party be ruined for her -by <i>anybody</i>. Do persuade her to come back and -forget any hurts she may have received. Do your -best.”</p> -<p>Kate flew away on the errand, her heart rejoiced -that her aunt had answered the dowager exactly as -she had.</p> -<p>There was no light in the girls’ suite. “She can’t -be here,” Kate decided. But just to make absolutely -certain she went through and, fumbling for -it, turned on the switch just inside Elsie’s door.</p> -<p>The first thing that caught her eye under the -shaded lights that blossomed forth so obediently at -the pressure of her finger was the fairy green frock -dropped in a heap exactly in the middle of the floor, -the white sandals topping it! Elsie herself was undressed -and in bed!</p> -<p>“Go away, go away,” she commanded, plaintively, -not even looking to see who was in the room.</p> -<p>Kate stood dumbfounded. Then she remembered -her aunt’s clouded, kind eyes, and the dowager’s -haughty, skeptical nose. She braced herself. “I -can’t go away,” she said softly, evenly. “Not until -you get up and get dressed and come downstairs -with me. How can you treat Aunt Katherine so?”</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_187">187</div> -<p>“I won’t get dressed. I won’t go down again. I -hate the party! It’s your party, anyway. I’m not -needed down there.”</p> -<p>Was Aunt Katherine right in the theory she had -put forward at the Green Shutter Tea Room? Was -Elsie simply jealous? But Kate rejected that -thought almost before it had presented itself. In -fact, she caught only the tail of it as it switched by! -She spoke reasonably.</p> -<p>“Yes, it’s my party so-called. But you know -perfectly well that Aunt Katherine means it even -more for you. It’s so that you’ll get to be friendly -with all the girls and boys who you say hardly speak -to you. My being here was just an opportunity. -Now if you vanish in the very middle of things, -how do you think that will help any of us? It will -be just unspeakable.”</p> -<p>“I want to be unspeakable. Go away.”</p> -<p>“Yes, perhaps you do. You are, anyway. But -do you want Aunt Katherine to be ashamed? Could -you ever forgive yourself for treating her so? She -knows Mrs. Van Vorst-Smith has been rude to you, -and she herself just now has come very near being -rude to Mrs. Van Vorst-Smith on your account. -Whatever all the fuss is about—honestly and truly -I haven’t an idea what it is about myself—Aunt -Katherine is all for you, Elsie. She’s your champion. -You can’t go back on her now, right before -everyone. It doesn’t matter whether you’re having -a good time, not a bit. If you’re any good at all -you’ll get dressed in a jiffy and go back down with -me. You can <i>pretend</i> you’re having a good time.”</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_188">188</div> -<p>Kate finished. Her argument had exhausted her -strangely. She found herself trembling with the -intenseness of her conviction that Aunt Katherine -must be saved from all embarrassment.</p> -<p>For a few minutes Elsie made no visible response -to the harangue but lay perfectly still, her eyes shut, -her head turned away. Kate stood in the middle of -the room, the fairy green dress at her feet, waiting. -“I’ve done all I can,” she told herself. “Now we’ll -just see whether she has any sense at all.”</p> -<p>After a space of utter stillness Elsie stirred, threw -back the coverlet, and sat up. “You’re right, I -suppose,” she said, sulkily. “I’m just a pig, that’s -all. I was only thinking of myself.”</p> -<p>She did not look at Kate but busied herself picking -up her scattered clothes. When Kate started to -leave the room, however, she called her back. “Do -you mind helping me with these?” she asked almost -humbly. “I don’t want to ring for Bertha. Do -you mind?”</p> -<p>“Of course not. Let’s hurry. Everybody’ll be -wondering.”</p> -<p>But now when Kate’s hands were needed she was -recalled to the note still clutched in her fingers.</p> -<p>“Oh, I entirely forgot,” she exclaimed, dismayed. -“Here is a note for you.”</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_189">189</div> -<p>Elsie unfolded the paper. If she had looked -miserable before, when she had finished reading the -few words on that paper she looked tragic. “Who -gave it to you? How did you get it?”</p> -<p>Kate was amazed at the way petulance had turned -to sorrow.</p> -<p>“I don’t know who, or even exactly how,” she -confessed. “I was alone for a second on the terrace. -A man appeared just out of the wind in a blowing, -long cape. He had a singing voice at first so -I hardly knew whether he was real. And he quoted -‘The King of the Fairies.’”</p> -<p>Elsie nodded. Nothing in Kate’s account surprised -her apparently. The girls did not speak to -each other again but silently worked together repairing -the damage done to Elsie’s hair-dressing, -getting her into the fairy green dress, and finally -bathing away evidences of tears. Supper was just -about over downstairs before they were ready to -descend, and dance strains sounding. Jack had not -given Kate up, however, but was faithfully waiting -for her on the stairs.</p> -<p>He saw the girls the minute they appeared at the -upper turning, and bounded up several steps to meet -them. “Where have you been hiding?” he asked, -laughingly, and without any signs of surprise whatever. -“I’ve managed to save some salad for you -both and ices, too, here in the window seat.”</p> -<p>It was a window seat on the stairs, halfway down -the first flight. “Oh, thanks,” Kate said, heartily. -“Have you had some yourself, though?”</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_190">190</div> -<p>“Hardly likely, not until you came. Didn’t you -promise to have supper with me?” Jack looked -feigned surprise and grief.</p> -<p>He was certainly making their return to society -easier. Girls and boys glanced up at them rather -curiously as they danced past the drawing-room door, -and a few of the mothers, sitting where they had a view -of the stairs and the landing, rather stared. But since -the truants could laugh and talk with Jack, who was -acting as though their absence had been in no way -extraordinary, they had no time to be self-conscious.</p> -<p>But suddenly Jack’s face went queer right in the -middle of some nonsense. It was half a laugh, -half dismay that twisted his countenance. Quick -as thought, he pointed up to the second turn of the -stairs. “That’s a fine old clock!” he exclaimed. -“Take me up and show it to me.”</p> -<p>Why they obeyed his command so docilely—put -their plates down again on the window seat and went -back up the stairs—they hardly knew. But they -did go, like lambs. And when they had turned a -corner and were out of sight of dancers and chaperons -Jack stopped, not looking at the clock at all, -and dropped his eyes to Elsie’s feet. Even Elsie -laughed when she saw what he was calling attention -to. In their hurry the girls had forgotten one item, -and here was Elsie ready to appear in the drawing-room -in her pink satin, swansdown-edged boudoir -slippers. They were very dainty slippers, quite -fetching in fact, but they were hardly in harmony -with the fairy green frock.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_191">191</div> -<p>“Run back and change while Kate and I admire -the clock,” Jack advised. And Elsie ran.</p> -<p>When she returned the three sat on the window seat -and ate their long-delayed supper. At first Elsie -said she wasn’t hungry and couldn’t possibly eat, -but Jack laughed her out of that. Soon Rose came -up to join them, carrying her ice, and stopping to -take dainty tastes as she came.</p> -<p>“This is the nicest situation of all,” she exclaimed, -settling down beside Elsie. “And what a view it -offers. Why, it’s like being in a box at the theatre. -We saw you and Kate, by the way, at ‘The Blue -Bird.’ We thought it very grand of you to have a -whole box to yourselves.”</p> -<p>Others followed Rose, some of them with plates -of ice cream. And Kate noticed that the ices and -the ice cream were in every case in a stage of melting. -She suspected then that Jack had overheard the -conversation about the missing Elsie and had collected -this little band, encouraging them to <i>eat slowly</i>. -The realization of his tact and consideration -wiped out for ever any lurking indignation toward him -left over from the morning, when he had squirmed at -the idea of her calling Elsie down to play tennis.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_192">192</div> -<p>A few minutes later, when Miss Frazier came out -into the hall with old Mrs. Van Vorst-Smith who was -leaving and seemed to require her escort, she saw to -her great surprise and relief that the very merriest -part of the party was on the stairs. There were -eight or nine girls and boys crowded about Kate and -Elsie talking eagerly and interrupting themselves -with the lightest-hearted laughter. No need to -worry any more now because her girls were not on -the floor dancing. This was an even better way of -getting acquainted. Mrs. Van Vorst-Smith, feeling -for an instant that she had lost the full attention -of her hostess, followed her gaze upward. Kate -was looking down, and their eyes met. Then old -Mrs. Van Vorst-Smith did an amazing thing. At -least, the few people who observed it were amazed. -She made the motion of “good-night” with her lips -to Kate, and <i>blew her a kiss</i>.</p> -<p>Both her grandchildren stared round-eyed. “I -say,” Jack whispered, “you have certainly charmed -my grandmother. What did you ever do to her?”</p> -<p>He looked at Kate, wonderingly respectful, with -frankest curiosity.</p> -<p>When Miss Frazier returned from seeing the old -lady out of the door, she stood for a minute within -hearing of the conversation on the stairs. They -were discussing “The Blue Bird” now, but presently -it changed to “The King of the Fairies,” a book they -all had read, apparently. She smiled inwardly, -well pleased. “Katherine over again,” she told -herself. But she had to admit, too, that Elsie was -doing her share in keeping the subject at a high-water-mark -of intelligent conversation. “Kate is certainly -having an influence,” she reflected, “an even -finer influence than I could have hoped for.” Then -she passed on into the drawing-room, trailing her -black scarf more regally than ever since she was so -honestly proud of both her nieces.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_193">193</div> -<p>When the last guest had departed Miss Frazier -took an arm of each niece and led them toward the -stairs. “It was all a great success,” she affirmed. -“And it was you girls, yourselves, who made it a -success. Kate, you were what a new girl—at least, -any new girl worth her salt—ought to be, the belle of -the ball. And, Elsie, you did me more than credit. I -am, oh, so very proud of both my girls. Old maiden -aunt that I am, I felt that I had two lovely daughters. -Now I advise you to dash to bed and save all discussion -of the party until morning. Breakfast is ordered -for half-past nine to-morrow, so that you may sleep.”</p> -<p>“But sha’n’t we help you close up?” Elsie offered. -“I heard you tell Isadora to go to bed.”</p> -<p>“No, thank you, my dear. I am going to stay down -here awhile, finishing ‘The King of the Fairies.’ I -was almost at the last chapter when Mrs. Van Vorst-Smith -led the procession of arrivals. It is an enchanting -story, just as you said. Now, good-night.”</p> -<p>For all its finality the “good-night” was spoken -with greatest affection. In the last few hours Aunt -Katherine had flowered into a serenely warm human -being. Both Kate and Elsie realized the change in -her, and each, for a different reason, was disturbed -by it; Kate because now less than ever she understood -how her mother ever could have let such a -lovely person go out of her life; and Elsie—well, -that concerns the secret of the orchard house.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_194">194</div> -<h2 id="c15"><span class="h2line1">CHAPTER XV</span> -<br /><span class="h2line2">KATE ON GUARD</span></h2> -<p>Kate was waked by the flapping of her window -draperies. The rain that had held off during -the evening was upon them now, a wild, windy, heavy -rain, unusual for July. Kate heard it spattering on -the floor of the balcony and pattering on the floor inside -the tall windows. This last would never do. -Much as she liked the fresh wet wind, full of garden -and damp earth smells, she must close those windows -or the room would be damaged. It was pitchy -dark, and Kate could be guided only by sound and -the direction from which the wind blew. Somehow -she got the big door windows closed and fastened, -simply by the sense of touch, and then turned gratefully -bedward. But she did not go back to bed that -night.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_195">195</div> -<p>Elsie’s door had blown shut to only a crack, and -light was coming through that crack. That was -perhaps none of Kate’s business, but instantly she -was concerned. She and Elsie had not said “good-night” -to each other, but parted in silence. And -Kate had gone to sleep wondering just how much -Elsie was truly hurt by whatever it was that old -Mrs. Van Vorst-Smith had said to her, and wanting, -but lacking the courage, to go in and sit on the edge -of her bed to talk it out and comfort her if she -could. If she had heard Elsie so much as turn in -bed she would have taken heart; but not a sound had -come from the other room after the light was out. -In the end Kate had gone to sleep still undecided -as to what she ought to do.</p> -<p>Now the light drew her. Perhaps Elsie had not -been to sleep at all. Perhaps she was too unhappy -to sleep. Kate had no idea what time it was, and -she did not think of the time. Her only anxiety -was that Elsie might not be angry with her for -trying to comfort. On bare feet she crossed the -bathroom floor and pushed at the door.</p> -<p>The lamp by Elsie’s bed was burning, but she had -placed her party frock over it to dull its glow, so -the room was in a queer green light. That was -what Kate noticed first. The bed was empty. But -Kate found Elsie at once, her back turned to her, and -still unconscious of her presence, at the farther end -of the room bending over a suitcase which she was -busy packing. Elsie was fully dressed, even to her -hat. She was wearing the green silk of their Boston -jaunt, and the same brown straw hat. It was perfectly -plain that she was running away, running away -in the middle of a black, stormy night.</p> -<p>Kate pushed the door all the way open. “What -are you doing?” she whispered, loudly.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_196">196</div> -<p>Elsie turned upon her. She had been crying as she -packed, and even in the excitement of the moment -Kate reflected how oddly tears and a set, tragic -face went with the jaunty costume with its brave -flutter of orange at the neck.</p> -<p>“You belong in bed,” Elsie whispered back. -“And any one can see what I’m doing.”</p> -<p>“Yes. Running away!”</p> -<p>“Yes, running away. And no business of yours.”</p> -<p>The warrior in Kate straightened. This was a -clear call to arms. She felt very old and wise. -She certainly would never let that crying little girl -go away like this into the rain and dark night. She -couldn’t expect to walk out right under Kate’s nose!</p> -<p>“Is that what the note I brought you was about?” -she asked. “Was it a plan for this?”</p> -<p>“No. It was telling me <i>not</i> to do this. But I’m -going to, just the same. He didn’t understand—he -couldn’t know.”</p> -<p>Elsie returned to her packing. Kate moved nearer -to her.</p> -<p>“Do you think I’m going to stand here and <i>let</i> -you run away right in the middle of the night like -this?” she asked, curiously.</p> -<p>Elsie did not glance up at her. She simply said, -“Well, what can you do to stop me?”</p> -<p>“Wake the house, of course. Call Aunt Katherine. -Shout for her.”</p> -<p>Elsie stared at Kate in unfeigned surprise. “You’d -tell on me?” she asked in an unbelieving tone. “I -thought you weren’t like that. I thought you were -decent.”</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_197">197</div> -<p>“I am decent. I don’t tell, not about little things, -like the key. But this is entirely different. I should -certainly wake the whole house if you tried to walk -out with that suitcase.”</p> -<p>“You wouldn’t.” Elsie lifted the suitcase which -was filled and closed now, and picking up her hand-bag -from where it lay on the dressing table, took a -step toward the door. But Kate reached it ahead -of her.</p> -<p>“I’ll shout,” Kate warned.</p> -<p>“Kate Marshall, please, please, please don’t!”</p> -<p>“I certainly will.”</p> -<p>Elsie began to cry silently and stood with her -suitcase in one hand, her bag in the other, and her -face turned from Kate, ashamed of her tears. Kate’s -heart softened, but not her determination.</p> -<p>“Get undressed and into bed, and promise you -won’t get out again to-night, or I shall go right to -Aunt Katherine’s room now and tell her,” Kate -said firmly.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_198">198</div> -<p>After a moment of hesitation Elsie began to pull -off her clothes furiously. In about two minutes she -was in bed, her face turned toward the wall. In -silence Kate picked up the cast-off garments Elsie -had scattered, and put them away. The green suit -she hung up on a hanger in the closet and the hat -she put away in the deep hat-drawer. Then the -suitcase claimed her attention. Bertha had better -not find it packed and standing by the door in the -morning. Kate unlatched it and took out the -things. “The King of the Fairies” lay at the bottom -of them all, with a little New Testament. -Kate put the two books on Elsie’s bedside table under -the lamp. Still Elsie did not move or speak; she -might have been asleep for any sign she made that -she knew what was occupying Kate in the room.</p> -<p>But Kate spoke to her: “You’ve burned a hole -in your party dress,” she said.</p> -<p>It was true. The heat from the electric bulb had -been strong enough to scorch the flimsy material.</p> -<p>“No matter,” Elsie muttered from her pillow. -“I’ll never wear it again, anyway.”</p> -<p>She had not taken the trouble even to look at the -damage. That told Kate, if it still needed telling, -how truly desperate Elsie was.</p> -<p>“I’m going into my room,” Kate announced, after -she had hung the ruined party dress away. “But -don’t think I’m going to bed, for I’m not. I shall -be sitting up, wide awake, and surely hear you if -you get up again.”</p> -<p>Elsie did not answer.</p> -<p>Kate did not mind that. If never before, now she -certainly merited Elsie’s wrath. Elsie had hated her -before without any cause. There was a certain comfort -to Kate in knowing the cause of her present -state of mind, a certain satisfaction in no longer -being scorned for nothing, but for something. She -could defend herself to herself now.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_199">199</div> -<p>But could she defend herself adequately? Had -she really any business to have so interfered with -Elsie’s plans? Had she any reason so at a leap to -have become a dyed-in-the-wool tattletale, at least -to have threatened tattletaling? Yes, she thought -she could excuse herself. She thought she was more -than justified. Even so it was a hateful business.</p> -<p>Kate wrapped herself in her dressing gown and -sat in a wicker chair by her reading light. She -did not dare lie in bed to think for fear she would -drop off to sleep. She gave herself up to pondering -the situation, but kept an ear cocked all the while for -the slightest movement in the other room.</p> -<p>What should she do about things in the morning? -Even if Elsie had failed to get off to-night, if Aunt -Katherine were left unwarned, she would certainly -plan so as not to fail the next time. Why, to-morrow -morning itself Elsie might walk out of the -house and never come back. If Elsie had any place -to go to, Kate would not be so worried. But she -knew that Elsie’s mother’s family, what there was -of it, was living in Europe, and that not one member -of it had ever shown the least consciousness of Elsie’s -existence. Aunt Katherine had told her about that -and marvelled at it. So Elsie had just no one to take -her in if she did run away. There was the stranger -in the garden! But he had told her not to run away. -Kate was sure Elsie had spoken truth about that note. -Who <i>was</i> the stranger in the garden? His note had -turned Elsie tragic, whoever he was.</p> -<p>There was no way out of it that Kate could see but -telling. Elsie must be protected against herself.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_200">200</div> -<p>But half an hour’s more pondering brought Kate -to the conclusion that she would not tell <i>Aunt -Katherine</i>. Her whole instinct was against that. -Aunt Katherine, charming as she was, and kind, was -after all only an aunt, and an aunt who had said -herself that she simply could not like Elsie. What -Elsie needed was a <i>mother</i>. This was work for -Katherine. Kate had perfect confidence that if -her mother could talk with Elsie everything would -come clear for everybody. Light suddenly dawned -in Kate’s puzzled mind. Katherine might take -Elsie home with her. They would all three go back -to Ashland together, and there all would be made -right for Elsie. Once with Katherine’s arms around -her shoulders, and Katherine’s gentle, understanding -eyes looking into hers, Elsie would confide. Kate -never doubted for an instant that her mother would -be overjoyed to take the beautiful, unhappy Elsie to -her heart. Why, since Aunt Katherine had failed -so to make her happy, and since she did not even -like this foster-niece, it might become a permanent -arrangement; Elsie would live with them. She -would be a sister!</p> -<p>All this was rather wild dreaming. Kate straightened -mentally and pulled herself back to hard facts. -The facts were simply that Kate could not bring herself -to the idea of delivering Elsie up to Aunt Katherine for -judgment or help, either one. Elsie needed a mother -more than she needed anything else in the world. -Katherine was a mother. Katherine must come.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_201">201</div> -<p>And only a few hours ago Kate had felt very far -away from her mother, very independent of her! -She smiled now, remembering. Well, she had never -needed her more. Sitting alone here in the sleeping -house, with rain and wind at the windows and -Elsie lying hating her in the next room, Kate <i>ached</i> for -her mother.</p> -<p>She decided to write her a special delivery letter. -That would bring her day after to-morrow, or day -after to-day rather, for it must be getting toward -day now. For one day Kate could stand guard -over Elsie. She was glad of her decision to write -as soon as she arrived at it. It seemed automatically -to relieve her from grave responsibility. Besides, -the composition of the letter would keep her awake.</p> -<blockquote> -<p>And so, mother darling, please come on the very first train. -<span class="jr">Your desperate <span class="sc">Kate</span>.</span></p> -</blockquote> -<p>It had been a long, full letter. She had told -Katherine just everything that had to do with Elsie -and her strange behaviour from their very first meeting. -When Kate looked up from her signature she -found the night had passed; dawn was in the room, -at least the gray light of a rainy morning.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_202">202</div> -<p>Kate rose, stretched her cramped limbs, and -yawned prodigiously. Then she crept to Elsie’s -door. Elsie was not asleep. Their eyes met. -There were dark circles under Elsie’s eyes, and her -face in the gray light was almost paper-white. The -girls stared at each other silently. Then Elsie turned -her head away on the pillow.</p> -<p>“How she hates me!” Kate thought, as she stole -back through the bathroom. “She’s a dreadful -hater. I couldn’t hate any one that way, no matter -what they had done.”</p> -<p>She turned out the light that was still burning by -her bed. Then she took a cold shower bath and -dressed in a fresh dress, the second chintz curtain -one. She brushed her hair vigorously.</p> -<p>“Some difference,” she reflected, “between the -party Kate and the morning-after one. Too bad I -haven’t a magic cap for day-times!”</p> -<p>Perhaps she needed one especially to-day. For -tired, sleepless people are rarely pretty people; and -Kate’s eyes were almost as dark-rimmed as Elsie’s.</p> -<p>Her toilet completed, she stole again to Elsie’s -door. Again their eyes met.</p> -<p>“If I were you I’d go to sleep,” Kate whispered. -Elsie’s pallor bothered her. But Elsie did not deign -to answer.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_203">203</div> -<p>Kate, back in her room, with over four hours before -breakfast stretching away ahead of her, curled -up on the foot of the bed with “The King of the -Fairies” in her hands. She opened it just anywhere, -much as one opens conversation with a friend -just anywhere. It is the <i>presence</i> you want. And -the presence of the soul in this book did not fail -her now. How it drove walls backward and pushed -roofs skyward! And as for out-of-doors, it made -that boundless, lifting veils and veils of air disclosing -Fairyland or Paradise, in any case the realler -than real.</p> -<p>Kate was withdrawing from the chintz-curtained -Kate on the bed. She was rising up out of that -drowsy figure. She was floating. But the flowers -from the chintz were still decking her, only they -were living flowers now, smelling all the sweeter for -the rain soaking their petals. And the birds from -the chintz were with her, too, changed to living -birds, soaring, floating, drifting with her, singing -shrilly in the rain. The mysterious, many-coloured -portals of sleep were opening to her far off beyond -the last lifted veil of air.</p> -<p>It was nine-fifteen before she woke.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_204">204</div> -<h2 id="c16"><span class="h2line1">CHAPTER XVI</span> -<br /><span class="h2line2">ONE END OF THE STRING</span></h2> -<p>Breakfast was served in the little blue-and-white -breakfast-room. A fire burned there cheerfully -in the grate, making it possible to leave the doors -open on to the rain-beaten terrace. The storms of the -night had subsided into a steady, hard downpour.</p> -<p>“What a day!” Miss Frazier exclaimed when she -appeared.</p> -<p>Kate had come into the room just ahead of her. -Moved by an impulse of affection she went to her -aunt and kissed her on the cheek. “Thank you for -that beautiful party,” she said. “It was gorgeous.”</p> -<p>Miss Frazier was pleased. “Thank you, my dear, -for paying back so, in being happy about it, the little -that is done for you. ‘It is more blessed to give than -to receive’ may be, but the art of receiving graciously -is a rare and beautiful accomplishment. I -hope Elsie’s experience with Mrs. Van Vorst-Smith -didn’t entirely keep the evening from being ‘gorgeous’ -for her, too. Where is she?”</p> -<p>“Dressing, I think.”</p> -<p>At this moment Miss Frazier was summoned to -the telephone. “The same gentleman who wouldn’t -give his name yesterday,” Isadora informed her.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_205">205</div> -<p>“Don’t wait for me, Kate. I’m not having grapefruit.”</p> -<p>When Aunt Katherine returned it was plain to -see that she was greatly stirred, though trying hard -to be calm and matter-of-fact.</p> -<p>“I shall have to go to town,” she told Kate. -“And I shall be gone all day, probably until rather -late to-night. In spite of the rain I think I had -better take the car.”</p> -<p>Then Elsie came in. She sat down languidly at -the breakfast table and leaned her cheek on her -hand. Everything that Effie offered she refused.</p> -<p>“Aren’t you going to have any breakfast at all?” -Miss Frazier asked.</p> -<p>“No. I thought I could eat. But when I see -things I know I can’t. I think I’ll be excused if I -may.”</p> -<p>Miss Frazier looked at her keenly. “I am afraid -you are ill. Come, let me feel your forehead. Yes, -it is hot. You have a temperature almost certainly. -And the shadows under your eyes! Is this what a -party does to you? What a pity that I must leave -for Boston at once.”</p> -<p>She turned to the maid Effie. “Effie, tell Bertha -to get Doctor Hanscom on the telephone and ask -him to come over here before office hours. Then she -is to help Elsie back to bed.”</p> -<p>“Bed! Oh, no. Please! Please, Aunt Katherine!”</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_206">206</div> -<p>“Why, yes. Bed isn’t so terrible as all that! -You may read or knit, until Doctor Hanscom arrives -and gives other orders, anyway. Kate will sit with -you so that you won’t be lonely. Yes, indeed, you -must go to bed.”</p> -<p>Elsie was very much distressed at this turn of -affairs. Kate saw dismay in her face, and she easily -guessed the reason. Of course, being tucked up in -bed and getting the attention and care of an invalid -would make running away to-day almost impossible. -But there was no question of Miss Frazier’s being -obeyed. She expected obedience and she got it.</p> -<p>When Elsie had left the room Miss Frazier forced -herself to take up conversation lightly and naturally -for the remainder of the meal, but Kate did not fail -to notice that her fingers shook slightly as she lifted -her toast and that her dark eyes were unusually -bright. Evidently the “gentleman who will not -give his name” had had some news of importance. -Kate felt confident that that gentleman was the -detective, Mr. O’Brien.</p> -<p>“I finished your book last night,” Miss Frazier -was saying. “I understand your enthusiasm. It -is literature and much more. The author must have -deep and even esoteric wisdom. One wonders very -much who and what he is, the author. But whoever -he is, even if this book is all he has to show, he is a -great man. Has it occurred to you, Kate, how much, -how extraordinarily, like your mother, Hazel, the -girl in the story, is? It might be a direct portrait.”</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_207">207</div> -<p>Kate laughed. “Oh, have you discovered that, -too? Even Mother had to admit it—that in looks, -anyway, Hazel was exactly herself when she was -that age. But I say she is still like Hazel, old as -she is!”</p> -<p>“Thirty-six isn’t exactly aged, you know. One -might very well keep some remnants of looks even -until then.” Aunt Katherine was smiling. “But -it is a strange coincidence how a person of the imagination -can so echo a person in life. I was fairly -startled last night when I realized how vivid the -resemblance was.”</p> -<p>But though Kate heard and replied to all her -aunt’s remarks during that breakfast, her mind was -most of the time on other matters, and if Miss -Frazier could have known, Kate under her calm exterior -was hiding a heart as perturbed as her own.</p> -<p>Kate was glad when Miss Frazier rose. She assured -her that she was very well able to amuse herself -at home this rainy day, and that she would do -everything for Elsie that she could. Yes, she would -see to it that she stayed in bed! Yes, she would -read to her, if Elsie felt like listening. Yes, Aunt -Katherine was not to worry. And so Miss Frazier -departed, and Kate was left virtually in charge of -the house, the responsibility for things quite hers.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_208">208</div> -<p>Of course, Kate knew perfectly well that Elsie -would not want her to sit with her, no need even to -ask about that. And Kate must hurry to send her -telegram. Beyond the portals of sleep she had decided, -or possibly it had been decided for her, that -the special delivery letter would not make things -happen quickly enough. Katherine must be wired -for. She was needed to-day. Kate had waked with -this determination full-blown. But how could she -risk leaving the house now to send the wire, with -Elsie in the desperate mood that was so obvious? -How could Kate be sure that Bertha would not help -Elsie to run away in her absence? Bertha adored -Elsie, and Kate herself had reason to know that -when Elsie pleaded it was easier to do her wish than -not. She realized, of course, that a telegram may be -given over the telephone; but her inexperience and -shyness made her doubt her ability in such a complicated -procedure. Besides, the bill would be charged -to Aunt Katherine in that case.</p> -<p>“I shall just have to chance it,” she decided. -“Elsie needn’t know I am out of the house at all, -and I can hurry.” She would run up to her room -and get her cape and hat as quietly as possible. -She would have to slip down into the kitchen then -and borrow an umbrella from Julia.</p> -<p>But Bertha, administering to Elsie, heard the door -of Kate’s closet when a surprising little gust of wind -banged it shut while Kate was inside reaching for -her hat. When Kate had fumbled for the knob and -opened the door, Bertha had come into her room. -At once Kate noticed that Bertha, too, was labouring -under great excitement. Her cheeks were on fire -and she was simply quivering with suppressed emotion -of some sort.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_209">209</div> -<p>“Oh, Miss Kate,” she cried, nervously, looking at -the hat in Kate’s hand. “Are you going out?”</p> -<p>Well, no help for it now. Elsie had heard, of -course. But Kate was much bothered. “Yes, on -an errand. I’ll be gone almost no time at all, -though.” This she spoke loudly, meaning that Elsie -should not miss it.</p> -<p>“Oh, if you are really going into the village -<i>could</i> you do an errand for Miss Elsie?”</p> -<p>Ho, ho! Was this the thin ruse Elsie meant to -use, to get her out of the way?</p> -<p>“Perhaps,” Kate said, noncommittally.</p> -<p>“That fixes everything nicely then.” Bertha took -a deep breath of relief. “I would go myself but Miss -Frazier expects me to see the doctor when he comes, -in order to report to her. And then there is all my -work. Wait a minute.”</p> -<p>Bertha hurried back into Elsie’s room and Kate -heard a low murmuring between them. When she -returned she had Elsie’s purse in her hand. “Here -is some money. Miss Elsie says to use only that -that’s tied in the handkerchief.”</p> -<p>So! Elsie was letting her pocketbook go. Last -night, Kate remembered, Elsie had taken it when -starting toward the door. And running away she -would surely need it. Kate recalled her first motion -to decline the purse and tuck the handkerchief with -the coin tied in its corner into her own. With Elsie’s -pocketbook in her possession, Elsie was just so much -the safer.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_210">210</div> -<p>“What does she want?”</p> -<p>“Half a dozen eggs. A head of lettuce. Some -bread.”</p> -<p>Kate stared. Bertha stared back at her, nervously. -But Kate restrained any exclamations and -simply nodded. When Bertha realized that she was -not going to be questioned, relief like sunshine overspread -her flushed face.</p> -<p>“And will you be as quick as possible?” she asked.</p> -<p>Again Kate was pleasantly surprised. “Yes, I’ll -be as quick as I can,” she agreed. “If Elsie will -promise to stay in bed until luncheon time.”</p> -<p>Bertha looked at her in genuine astonishment at -that. “But of course. Miss Frazier has ordered -that she spend the day in bed.”</p> -<p>“No, she must promise me herself. You tell her.”</p> -<p>Elsie had heard. She called out now, “Yes, I -promise. And do please hurry, Kate.”</p> -<p>Kate was deeply relieved. Now she could absent -herself from the house without fear of finding Elsie -flown when she returned. “And whatever you do, -Kate Marshall, and whatever they say about it, -don’t let them charge those things at the store to -Aunt Katherine,” Elsie called again.</p> -<p>“You haven’t an umbrella,” Bertha said, bringing -her Elsie’s, a gay green silk one with an ivory handle. -“It’s a wild day for July, and I’m not at all certain -Miss Frazier would like your going out like this. -If you could only have the car—but it’s gone to town -with her.”</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_211">211</div> -<p>“Yes, I know. And you needn’t feel responsible. -I have an errand on my own account, you know.”</p> -<p>But Kate did wonder much about Elsie’s errand. -“I think,” she mused, “it’s a wild-goose chase Aunt -Katherine is on in town, and those detectives, too. -Where they <i>might</i> do some good, and find some <i>clues</i>, -is right here. Who was that man in the garden? -Why all this buying of groceries? If there is a snarl -of some sort that needs unravelling, and if Elsie has -anything to do with it, the end of the string is right -here. But how do I know the snarl ought to be unravelled -by detectives—that it’s any of their business? -Oh, heavens! I must run to the telegraph office. -Mother is terribly needed this very minute.”</p> -<p>At the Western Union Station she did not study -long over the wording of her message. Time was too -precious, she felt, for even a minute’s delay, if Katherine -was to catch the noon train from Middletown.</p> -<blockquote> -<p>A mix-up here come first train nobody sick or dead <span class="sc">Kate</span>.</p> -</blockquote> -<p>She was aware that those ten words would worry -her mother unspeakably. But how, in the limits of -a telegram (Kate had never conceived of the possibility -of a telegram being over ten words in length!), -was she to persuade her mother to take the next -train if she was not to be worried? No, the only way -to make absolutely sure of her coming was to frighten -her into it.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_212">212</div> -<p>The man who took the message looked at Kate -curiously. He knew perfectly well who Kate was -and wondered very much about the “mix-up.” He -thought Kate peculiarly self-contained for a young -lady who found herself in a situation that necessitated -that message. If he had only known, however, -Kate’s calm exterior was entirely assumed. -She was more excited, perhaps, than she had ever -been in her life before, and full of presentiments of -even greater excitement to come. Sending the wire, -though, was a great relief. In a few minutes Katherine -herself, ’way off in quiet Ashland, would be concerned -in the affair. With Katherine once “in it”, -Kate was assured things must somehow turn out -right.</p> -<p>Now for those puzzling groceries.</p> -<p>When she came out of Holt and Holt’s with her -purchases, Jack Denton suddenly appeared at her -shoulder. He was without an umbrella, but in a raincoat -and felt hat that required none.</p> -<p>“May I walk along with you?” he asked.</p> -<p>Kate was very glad to see him. His high spirits -brought relief from the strain and confusion in her -mind. Gallantly, and with the air of courtesy that -was so delightful in him, he took her bundles from -her and then her umbrella. With laughter and exchange -of party remembrances they started off together -through the rain toward home.</p> -<p>But before they had gone half the distance Jack -turned serious.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_213">213</div> -<p>“Do you know,” he said, “at our dinner last night -(Mother gave a dinner before your dance) some of us -decided to go on strike, to stand up for our own ideas -more practically against our elders. Younger generation -stuff. We all used to like Elsie tremendously, -and now we are going to treat her just exactly as -though nothing had happened, if she’ll let us. I -think she will, too. She was all right last night.”</p> -<p>Kate turned to look up at Jack under the umbrella. -The brown eyes that returned her look had lost their -easy laughter and were earnest with the glow of a -<i>cause</i>.</p> -<p>“Granny’s had her way long enough,” he continued. -“Our mothers and fathers never really cared a -bit, you know. It’s just those more ancient ones. -They barely survived the shock. You see <i>their</i> -daughters and sons had been playing around with -him, and any one of their daughters might have -married him. Granny says her grandson (meaning -me) is going to have the protection her daughter -didn’t have (meaning Mother). It’s really just a joke. -And we only humoured ’em because they were so -rabid. Now we’re sorry we were so soft. I wanted -to tell you.”</p> -<p>“I don’t understand,” Kate said, quickly. “Not -one word. Can’t you explain better? What happened -that was so awful? What was the thing that shocked -them so? And what has it to do with Elsie?”</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_214">214</div> -<p>Until this minute she had not wanted such information, -when it came, to come from outside. She -had felt that to learn that way would be disloyal of -her. But now that her whole mind was turned to -helping Elsie she wanted to know all she could. She -wanted to get hold of the end of the tangle, any way, -and perhaps then there would be some chance of -straightening it out. The information that Jack -was apparently able to give her would surely constitute -that end; once having that in her fingers she -might unravel snarl after snarl for herself.</p> -<p>Jack, however, was not prepared for her questions. -He whistled, startled. “Don’t you know what the -fuss has been about?” he asked. “Don’t you know -about anything? I thought you were only pretending -yesterday.”</p> -<p>“No, truly. Not a thing. Aunt Katherine was -surprised that I didn’t know, too. But she wouldn’t -tell me. You tell me.”</p> -<p>“Why, it doesn’t seem fair. I thought, of course, -you knew. But you did know there was something?”</p> -<p>“Yes, almost the first minute I got here. Elsie -acted so queerly. And then she said she hardly knew -you. And all the time there you were living right -next door. It was puzzling. Now tell me.”</p> -<p>“Well, if they want you to live in ignorance it’s -hardly up to me to enlighten you, is it?” Jack was -very ill at ease.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_215">215</div> -<p>“Your grandmother would have told me if I had -let her. And Elsie herself acts as though I knew. -She has accused me several times. I’ve wired to -my mother to come. I am frightened about Elsie. -She is in danger of doing—oh, something that would -be dreadful for Aunt Katherine, and for herself, too. -Aunt Katherine is away for the day. The more I -know the more I can help. Please tell me just -everything you can.”</p> -<p>“I hate doing that. But if it helps you to help—— Anyway, -it’s only fair to you. You ought to know -what everybody else knows. Elsie’s father, Nick -Frazier, is a thief. He stole some securities, or something, -from Miss Frazier.”</p> -<p>Kate did not even exclaim. She had slowed her -steps for the great revelation and was now gazing -straight ahead. It took some seconds for her to react -at all to what Jack had said.</p> -<p>Jack paced on beside her, protecting her from the -gusty rain by dexterous manipulations of the green -silk umbrella.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_216">216</div> -<p>“That wouldn’t have been enough in itself to make -them so rabid, though,” he went on, worriedly. -“You see they blame your aunt some. She adopted -him, you know—anyway, let him call her ‘aunt’—and -took him into her home and prepared him herself -for Harvard. He wasn’t even in school. He was -working in some mill in spite of being just a kid, -fourteen or something like that, when she discovered -him. He hadn’t any family—didn’t even know who -his family were, had been brought up in some institution -or other. Well, Miss Frazier treated him just -as though he belonged to her, gave him her name and -everything. This is all an old story in this village. -Rose and I were brought up on it. Then when he -was in college Miss Frazier expected him to be asked -everywhere to holiday affairs here, and she gave -parties in her house. She acted just as though he -were a Frazier really. The young people liked him, -though it seems he was something of a diamond in -the rough, you know, ’spite of Harvard and all. -But the parents grumbled. That was our grandmothers, -you see. They only let it go on because -your aunt was a Frazier and could do almost anything, -they being such a fine old New England family. -The parents always said no good would come of it, -though. ‘Blood would tell.’”</p> -<p>“Yes, yes,” Kate agreed, tremulously. “That’s -what your grandmother said last night.”</p> -<p>“What! Still mumbling over that? Talk about -fixed ideas! When he stole those securities—he did -it while your aunt was abroad or somewhere—and -she let him go to prison for it, everybody said, ‘Now -Katherine Frazier’s learned her lesson, I guess.’ -That was two years ago or more. But then right -away his wife died, and Elsie came to live here with -Miss Frazier, and Miss Frazier expected us all to -treat her just as we always had when she visited before, -just as though she <i>were</i> Miss Frazier’s regular -niece and not the daughter of a convict who doesn’t -even know his own name. That got the old folks’ -goat right enough. They said they’d tried that once -on their own children. But would they let it be perpetrated -on their grandchildren? You can bet, no. -And there was a great to-do. And, well, we haven’t -been exactly cordial to Elsie.”</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_217">217</div> -<p>Kate said nothing when he stopped. Jack wondered -what she was thinking. He felt very hot and -ashamed. “But that’s all past now,” he said. -“Elsie isn’t to blame. Why should she suffer?”</p> -<p>“Now I’ll keep my mouth shut until she speaks,” -he told himself.</p> -<p>But Kate did not break the silence until they came -to the foot of the steps leading up to Miss Frazier’s -front door. Then she looked up at Jack as she took -her bundles from him. “Thanks for telling me -everything like that,” she said, gravely. “I think -it’s all pretty hard on Aunt Katherine and just simply -awful for Elsie. No wonder she thought I was a -beast. Why, I called her a ‘thief’ herself, and said -we were being followed by that detective as though -we were thieves. Now I understand a lot of things! -I’ve—I’ve—just <i>wallowed</i> in <i>breaks</i>. I hope my -mother gets here to-night.”</p> -<p>“Do you play Mah Jong?” Jack asked quickly. -“Why don’t you and Elsie come over to play this -afternoon? There’s nothing much we can do out-of-doors.”</p> -<p>“Elsie’s sick in bed, so I’m afraid we can’t. Thank -you for carrying the things—and for everything.” -In spite of her perturbation she flashed her peculiar -Chinese smile when Jack raised his hat. What nice -manners he had!</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_218">218</div> -<p>Jack himself, walking slowly back to his own door, -was obviously deep in thought. But in the midst of -worrying over the ethics of what he had done in going -into all that unpleasant business with Kate, he suddenly -thought, “She isn’t nearly so pretty as -last night. But it’s awfully jolly when she smiles, -and I guess when she isn’t being pestered with sickening -scandal and such stuff she smiles a lot.”</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_219">219</div> -<h2 id="c17"><span class="h2line1">CHAPTER XVII</span> -<br /><span class="h2line2">INTO THE ORCHARD HOUSE</span></h2> -<p>Isadora opened the door for Kate as she came up -the steps. There was a yellow envelope in her -hand.</p> -<p>“A telegram for you, Miss Kate. It came just -a minute ago. Oh, I do hope there’s no bad -news.”</p> -<p>Kate caught a glimpse of Julia wavering at the -farthest end of the hall in shadow, and there was -Effie just inside the drawing-room, deliberately -watching while she opened the envelope.</p> -<p>“I’m sure it’s not bad news,” Kate informed these -anxious friends of her mother’s as she tore open the -end of the envelope. “I <i>expected</i> a wire.” She -felt some importance in saying that, and she was -glad to clear the air, for it was charged with keenest -apprehension.</p> -<p>Kate’s message had gone and Katherine’s reply -arrived all within an hour. Katherine had certainly -not hesitated over a decision. Kate nodded as she -read and smiled.</p> -<blockquote> -<p>Am autoing to Ludlow Junction to catch back way express -Oakdale five-five whatever situation keep cool and brave in a -few hours Mother will be with you rejoiced you’re not sick. K.</p> -</blockquote> -<div class="pb" id="Page_220">220</div> -<p>Katherine certainly had not counted the words!</p> -<p>When Kate looked up, the anxious watchers had -vanished, dispersed by her smile as she read. She -sat down in a chair standing against the wall. Her -arms dropped at her sides and she leaned her head -against the high-carved back of the chair, crushing a -little her mother’s best hat. For the minute she was -too absorbed in her own thoughts and too fatigued—the -fatigue that is apt to come with sudden complete -relief of mind—to remember such an item as a hat.</p> -<p>A step on the stair made her look up. Bertha was -hurrying down, rustling in a raincoat, a scarf tied -over her head.</p> -<p>“You’re here,” she exclaimed. “I saw you coming, -from a window upstairs. Are these the things?”</p> -<p>Kate nodded, and Bertha took the packages and -pocketbook from the floor where Kate had carelessly -dropped them to tear open her telegram. Bearing -them carefully she went away <i>through the drawing-room</i>.</p> -<p>“Well, she can’t get to the kitchen that way,” -Kate mused, hardly caring. “And why the raincoat? -Oh, well, What’s the use of trying to puzzle -anything out any more? Mother’s coming, Mother’s -coming, Mother’s coming!”</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_221">221</div> -<p>After a little while, yawning and half asleep, she -wandered into Aunt Katherine’s own sitting-room—a -graceful, comfortable little retreat tucked away in -an isolated corner of the big house. The outstanding -feature there was an oil painting of Kate’s -mother at the age of sixteen in a blue party frock -standing against dark velvet portières. It was a -painting by Hopkinson in his earlier manner, executed -with finish and most delicate feeling. The painting -was one of Miss Frazier’s most valuable possessions, -and Kate had surmised, when her aunt had shown it -to her, one of the dearest. Certainly it was a painting -with a spell over it, a spell of beauty and something -besides, unnamable and illusive. Perhaps it -was the spirit of youth which the artist had with -such genius caught there, that gave it its magic.</p> -<p>Kate unfolded an afghan that lay conveniently on -the foot of the sofa beneath the portrait, and curling -herself up under it, settled down for a nap. She felt -perfectly safe in losing herself for the time because -Elsie had given her promise to stay in bed until -luncheon.</p> -<p>But at one o’clock Bertha brought down the news -that the doctor had ordered Elsie to remain in bed -all afternoon, too. She was asleep now, and Bertha -thought she would sleep for several hours. Her temperature -had gone down to normal and she was comfortable. -Later, when she woke, Bertha would take -her up a light meal.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_222">222</div> -<p>Lunching alone for Kate was a rather dreary procedure -in spite of the coziness of the breakfast-room -where Miss Frazier had thoughtfully ordered the meal -served, and the merry little fire crackling on the -hearth. Kate had had a good sleep and she was now -so rested in body and mind that she could think about -things with some clarity. She leaned her elbow on -the table and her chin in her hand and regarded the -fire as though it were her companion at the meal.</p> -<p>Elsie’s father was a thief! How would it feel to -have your father a thief and in prison and everybody -knowing it? Kate had never known a father, so she -found it difficult to put herself in Elsie’s place. But -suppose it were her mother? Oh, supposing that was -too painful, and certainly it wasn’t like that for Elsie. -Perhaps Elsie cared as little for her father as she had -for her mother. (Kate had never recovered from -the horrid shock of that disclosure.) She certainly -never mentioned him. But she was not allowed to -mention him. What had Aunt Katherine’s letter -said on that point? “Nick’s name is not mentioned -here, either by Elsie or the servants,”—something -like that. But imagine consenting to forget your -father for <i>any one</i>! No, of course Elsie had no such -devotion for her father as Kate’s for her mother. -Not likely. No use to try to compare, then. Besides, -the mere notion was altogether too painful.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_223">223</div> -<p>Let’s begin at the beginning, though. Why had -Elsie bought bread and eggs and lettuce and nuts -which she surely had no use for herself; and why -had she been so urgent that Kate should buy more -to-day? Surely she didn’t expect to take such perishable -things with her in her flight from Aunt Katherine’s -house! There had been no sign of eatables -when Kate unpacked the runaway’s suitcase last -night. Oh! An idea! Had Elsie planned to run -away only as far as the orchard house, and was the -food supply stored there? Was that the mystery -about the orchard house? Had she discovered a -secret room or something and was planning to live in -it like a hermit without any one’s knowing? Kate -built up quite a plot around that idea. It would be -exciting and fascinating to live right under your -guardian’s nose while that guardian was scouring the -country for you. But in spite of the possibilities of -this story-like mystery, Kate finally let it go as an -explanation. It was too far-fetched.</p> -<p>A better solution! Had Nick, her father, escaped -from prison? Elsie was shielding him, perhaps. -Why, of course, she was hiding him in the orchard -house. Kate’s heart began to hammer. Stupid, -not to have thought of that at once, just the minute -Jack told her about Elsie’s father being a thief. All -the food had been for him. The book she couldn’t -afford to buy, too! She had wanted it for him. -How very simple it all was! And they were going to -escape together. They would escape into Canada -or somewhere. No, vague memories of something -called “extradition papers” came to mind. They -would simply hide themselves in the crowds of some -big city. They would vanish. Oh, well, from the -very first Elsie had been a vanishing comrade. -When she ran away with her father she would vanish -for good.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_224">224</div> -<p>Now, how did the detective work into this solution -of the puzzle? Suddenly there was a snag. If Nick -had escaped from prison, wouldn’t state detectives -be on his trail? Mr. O’Brien, Aunt Katherine had -told her, was a private detective. And if Nick had -really escaped from prison surely Aunt Katherine -would not in any way be concerned in finding him. -That would be simply a matter for the police.</p> -<p>Kate turned her eyes uneasily to the open door, -almost expecting to see a plain-clothes man spying -upon her from the rain out there. But there was -only the drenched garden and beyond, the orchard, -wreathed in a haze of wet weather.</p> -<p>One more snag: surely if Nick had escaped from -prison it would have got into the papers, and someone -in Oakdale have seen it. Then Jack would know, -and he had not even hinted at such a thing.</p> -<p>But now for the most important consideration of -all: the stranger in the garden who had given her the -note for Elsie last night? Who was he, and where did -he come in? The reasonable answer was that he was -Nick himself, Elsie’s father, the thief, the man who -had stolen from his own benefactress. But Kate -did not harbour this idea for the fraction of a second. -That voice was not the voice of such a one, and such a -one would hardly be quoting from “The King of the -Fairies.”</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_225">225</div> -<p>Deep down in her heart, deep beyond reason, Kate -had connected that stranger in the garden with what -Elsie had said about fairies in the orchard house. -This man himself, who had given her the note, was a -human being, of course, She didn’t go so far as to -think him unearthly; but he might very well know -about those fairies who “were in it somehow.” He -seemed a person who would indeed be <i>likely</i> to know. -Kate was ready to connect that stranger with any -mystery so long as it was a pleasant mystery. With -an unpleasant mystery—never. His note had told -Elsie not to run away; Elsie herself had said so. -But he had known that she meant to run away. -That was apparent. Where had he come from out -of the wind last night?</p> -<p>What of that light she had seen in the orchard -house her first night here? Those three open windows? -That closing door in the second story—closing -as though a knob had been turned?</p> -<p>Oh, there were just too many things to think of and -to fit in. The shortest cut to clearing up some of the -mystery and giving her mother a starting point to -work from with Elsie when she should get here at five -o’clock to-night was to explore the orchard house -now, right away. There was her heart whacking at -her sides again! Yes, but she must do it, escaped -convict or not. That was the first step to be taken. -She had the end of the string—Jack Denton had -given her that—the orchard house came next, made -the first knot to be untangled.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_226">226</div> -<p>“No, no dessert, thank you.” You couldn’t eat -with your heart hammering like that, could you? -She walked to the door. The rain was stopping, had -almost entirely stopped. The key was upstairs, -back in the drawer of her dressing table where she -had replaced it after wringing it from Elsie yesterday. -If she went for it now Elsie might hear and again -weep her into a promise to keep away from the orchard -house. The key had been only a matter of form, -anyway. There were always the windows. Kate -was sure they couldn’t all be locked. She would try -getting in that way before she bothered about the key.</p> -<p>She glanced down at her rubber-soled canvas ties. -No need for rubbers. No need for a sweater or -umbrella, either: the little showers of rain blowing -down from trees and bushes would do her chintz no -harm.</p> -<p>She crossed the terrace, hoping neither Elsie nor -Bertha was looking from a window overhead, and -walked through the orchard straight to the orchard -house. Before trying the windows, better try the -door. That was only common sense. The latch -lifted under her fingers! Had the house always stood -open like this, and all that fuss about the key! She -pushed the door softly open and went in.</p> -<p>“Something to do with fairies,” Elsie had said. -Kate remembered the words as she crossed the threshold. -And she felt surely as though it might easily -have something to do with fairies; she might have -been stepping into Fairyland itself for the eerie sensation -that crossing the threshold gave her.</p> -<p>She left the door open behind her, and a gusty wet -wind followed her like a companion. It filled the -hall with the pungent scent of the syringa bush by -the step.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_227">227</div> -<p>There was nothing in the hall but a little oblong -table standing against the wall at the foot of the stairs, -a table with curly legs and a carved top on which -stood an empty card tray, and hung above the table -was a narrow long mirror in a gilded frame.</p> -<p>Kate looked into the mirror. How many, many -times it had reflected her mother’s face. How very -unlike Katherine her daughter was, hair bobbed so -straight, rather slanting narrow eyes, full lips, -freckles across the nose! Kate surveyed this image -with her usual slight sense of annoyance upon meeting -it in a mirror. She imagined Katherine, a -Katherine of her own age, looking over her shoulder -in the glass, their two heads together. It was the -Katherine of the portrait, dark curly head, wide -misty eyes, olive cheeks ever so delicately touched -with rose.</p> -<p>Oh! Had that face actually gleamed out there -for an instant? Her mental vision had been so clear -that she could not be sure it had not, just for a flash, -taken actual form.</p> -<p>Well, if the Katherine of sixteen years ago had -joined her now and was going to accompany her in -her exploration of the orchard house, so much the -better. Kate had always longed for a girl comrade -more than for anything else in the world. Come, -let’s pretend she had one at last, Katherine at fifteen.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_228">228</div> -<p>First the parlour. It opened on the right. The -door stuck. Kate pushed with her knee and lifted -up on the knob simultaneously. It opened explosively. -And a door up in the second story somewhere -opened in sympathy with it. Kate stood very -still, listening. The jarring of the walls was the cause, -of course; but even with this explanation accepted, -it was creepy.</p> -<p>The little parlour was stuffy, as all closed rooms are -stuffy. But almost at once the syringa-scented air -from the open front door had remedied that; it was -so much more vital than the smell of dust and mildew. -But why think of the parlour as “little,” for by any -ordinary standards it was certainly a good-sized room. -Only in comparison with Aunt Katherine’s spacious -drawing-room did Kate feel it now small and quaint.</p> -<p>The furniture was much as it had been left when -Grandfather Frazier died and the house was closed. -But the books were gone from the low bookcases that -lined the walls. Those Aunt Katherine had sent to -her niece, and Kate had grown up in their company.</p> -<p>The bookcases, a Franklin stove with a worn low -bench in front of it, a big square library table between -the windows, some oil paintings on the walls (Kate -guessed some of these to be Aunt Katherine’s work), -a comfortable-looking but very unfashionable chintz-covered -sofa, and several very shabby, very welcoming -easy chairs with deep seats and wide arms and -curving backs—that was the parlour.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_229">229</div> -<p>And the fifteen-year-old Katherine Frazier had -gone in ahead of Kate. She was moving about the -room, poking up the fire (the fire that didn’t exist) -in the grate, throwing her school books on the sofa, -reading absorbedly curled up with her feet under her -in the deepest chair by the window, making toast at -the coals in the grate while the blue teapot kept itself -warm on the stove’s top. Katherine had told -Kate about this room, how she loved it and what she -did in it. Her father was there usually in the picture, -too, and often Aunt Katherine. But somehow Kate -imagined neither of them now.</p> -<p>What a merry, comfortable, <i>spirited</i> room it was. -Its spirit had been created by that dark-eyed girl. -And the smell of the syringa! Now Kate knew why -her mother could never get by the syringa bush at -the corner of Professor Hart’s lawn without stopping -for deep breaths when the syringa was in flower.</p> -<p>The dining-room was across the hall. The dining -table was long and narrow, the handicraft of Great-grandfather -Frazier. It was curly maple and mirror-like -with the polishings of many years. Close at -one end two chairs were drawn up to it. Several -more stood with their backs against the wall. Did -Grandfather Frazier and Katherine sit close together -like that at the end of the long table those years they -lived alone? Kate wondered. Yes, she was sure -they did; for there was the Katherine of her imagination -pouring tea for her father and handing it to -him with a sweet, affectionate smile. No need for -Nora to come in from the kitchen to pass it. This -father and daughter could reach each other.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_230">230</div> -<p>The kitchen failed to hold Kate’s attention. She -missed Katherine there. The young Katherine had -not liked housework. Indeed, it was still a burden -to her, however gracefully she carried the burden. -Perhaps that was why Kate could not find her in the -kitchen.</p> -<p>If stepping across the threshold into this empty -house had stirred Kate’s imagination and made her -feel the possibility of fairies hiding somewhere in the -apparent emptiness, going up the stairs stirred it -even more.</p> -<p>It was a steep, rather narrow, little staircase, -painted black and with the wooden treads deeply -worn by generations of feet. And right in the very -middle of her ascent, on the seventh stair, to be -precise, there happened to her a thing that had sometimes -happened before but never quite so <i>definitely</i>. -She thought and felt that she had done this all before, -that she had come up these stairs on exactly the errand -she was on now; she remembered herself on this -identical stair, with her hand on this identical portion -of the railing. More than that she knew exactly -what was going to happen to her when she reached the -top—why shouldn’t she know when she had experienced -it all before?</p> -<p>But even as she felt this and in fact knew it, her -foot had left that seventh stair and the memory had -vanished. Now she only had a memory of a memory, -or to be exact not even that. She only remembered -that she <i>had</i> remembered. The instant itself, -the connection, was lost.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_231">231</div> -<p>She looked into the guest-room first. It was a -pretty room in spite of the absence of curtains and -bedding. The furniture was painted a creamy yellow. -Katherine had painted it a few days before her -marriage. By the window there was a dainty little -writing table with pens and blotters and even ink-bottle -conveniently placed. But the ink had been -long evaporated and the pens were rusty. Above -the bed there hung, passe-partouted in white, a -flower-wreathed quotation. Had Aunt Katherine -or her mother painted the flowers and illuminated -the letters? The flowers were morning-glories, very -realistically done, and the quotation from “Macbeth”: -“Sleep that knits up the ravelled sleave of -care.”</p> -<p>“Morning-glories are incongruous with the words,” -Kate mused, smiling. She felt more sophisticated -than the fifteen-year-old Katherine who had admired -this crude bit of art enough to hang it in the -guest-room, who perhaps was even herself its perpetrator. -“Yes, morning-glories are incongruous with -the words.”</p> -<p>“<i>Are they. Why?</i>”</p> -<p>“Perhaps they aren’t,” Kate answered, aloud. -She remembered her flight that very morning toward -the slowly opening many-coloured portals of sleep. -Morning-glories might very well be growing on -Sleep’s walls.</p> -<p>But whom had she answered? Who had spoken? -No one, of course. There was no one there <i>to</i> -speak, except Kate herself.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_232">232</div> -<p>On either side the hall there was another bedroom. -Kate merely looked in at their doors. One -had been her mother’s, and it was entirely bare now, -for all the furniture had gone to the barn-house in -Ashland years ago. The other had been Grandfather -Frazier’s room, and somehow Kate felt that -she did not want to pry there. It would be like getting -acquainted with him when his back was turned.</p> -<p>Now there remained only the “playroom” and -the upstairs “study”—a long room at the back of the -house, the room where the windows had stood open -that first night of Kate’s arrival—and ever since, for -all she knew. From her very first entrance into the -house Kate had been <i>listening</i> toward this room. It -was in that room she fully expected to discover Elsie’s -secret. It was really the goal of her pilgrimage -through the house. But the nearer she drew to it -physically the more she drew back mentally. She -was not exactly frightened. What did not frighten -Elsie need not frighten her. It was simply uneasiness -in the face of mystery.</p> -<p>There was the playroom between, though. Kate -was grateful to pause a minute in the playroom.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_233">233</div> -<p>The playroom was down a step, through a little -low door. Kate had to bend her head to go through -the door. It was the smallest room she had ever -been in, about the size of a goodly closet. Shelves -were built in all around the walls, leaving space only -for the one little low window that reached the floor. -Before the shelves, strung on brass rings to brass -rods, hung dusty, faded calico curtains, yellow -flowers on a blue background. Kate pushed back -a curtain, jangling all its rings. The shelves held a -jumble of toys, birds, beasts, carts, engines, and on -the top shelf a row of dolls, some broken almost beyond -recognition as dolls, but two or three still -healthy bisque beauties smiling blandly over her -head at the opposite wall.</p> -<p>There were three lilliputian chairs in the room, -one a black rocker painted on the back and seat with -flowers and fruit. In one corner there was a huge -box of blocks, wooden building blocks that Great-grandfather -Frazier had made for Grandfather -Frazier when he was a little boy.</p> -<p>Kate knelt by that box, and idly began constructing -a house. She had always adored building with -blocks when she was a little girl, and now the old -fascination seized her; besides, she was putting off -the minute when she would open the door of that last -room.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_234">234</div> -<p>But as she completed the second wall of the house -she turned suddenly and looked over her shoulder. -Had she heard something? A rustling, like a dress -coming down the hall and pausing at the door of the -playroom? Whom did she expect to see bending -down at the low door and looking in at her where -she sat on the floor building with blocks like a little -girl? Strangely, it was not the sixteen-year-old -Katherine she had been imagining as her companion -whom she pictured stooping down at that door to -look in. It was Katherine’s mother, Kate’s grandmother, -who had died when Katherine was still a little -girl playing with blocks. Only she would not look -like an ordinary grandmother, of course. For she -had died when she was only twenty-four. She was -a young woman, very graceful, very gentle, lovely.</p> -<p>Of course she wasn’t really there at the door, wondering -who had come in her baby’s stead to play in -the playroom. Of course she wasn’t there with a -spray of syringa flower at her belt. It was just Kate’s -vivid imagination. She was sensible enough to know -that. The rustling of her dress had been the leaves of -the drenched apple tree boughs against the window -pane tossed by a rainy breeze. And the syringa -scent had followed Kate up here and even down into -the little playroom.</p> -<p>It was a low little room, so low that Kate could but -just stand up straight in it. And it was entirely bare -except for the shelves with their treasure trove of -toys, the box of blocks, and the lilliputian chairs. -But for all that the room was alive to Kate now. It -was almost giddy with life. And it was a life that -did not concern her. She was an intruder. She became -uneasy as intruders are uneasy.</p> -<p>But she was not driven away precipitately. She -stayed long enough to replace the blocks in their -place coolly. Then, still coolly, she stood up and -went out of the playroom, closing the door softly -after her.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_235">235</div> -<p>In the hall, however, she allowed herself to hurry. -The door to the last room, the study, was ajar. Had -the figure of Kate’s imagination gone on ahead to -that room—the young mother? For an instant Kate -hesitated with her fingers on the knob.</p> -<p>“Psha! What are you afraid of! Silly!”</p> -<p>Downstairs, the hall door, which she had left open, -blew shut with a bang, A fresh downpour of rain -rattled on the shingles just above her head. (There -was no attic above this part of the house.) Kate’s -impulse was to run down and secure at least the -staying open of the front door, so that she might have -an unimpeded exit in case of panic. The door -fastened open, she would come back and have the fun -of discovering for herself Elsie’s secret which was -the mystery of the orchard house.</p> -<p>But Kate did not follow her impulse. Instead, -she squared her shoulders, lifted her head a little defiantly, -and pushed back that last door. She stepped -in.</p> -<p>“Oh! Oh!” But it was not a shriek. It was -just a soft “oh! oh!” of purest astonishment. For -the room was occupied; but not by the ghost of her -grandmother.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_236">236</div> -<h2 id="c18"><span class="h2line1">CHAPTER XVIII</span> -<br /><span class="h2line2">THE LAST ROOM</span></h2> -<p>A man was sitting leaning forward over a table -with his back to the three windows, his face -toward the door. His arms were spread out on -the table, his hands clasped. He leaned there -waiting for something. It was Kate for whom he -had been waiting, for he had heard every movement -of hers almost since her first light step on the -porch.</p> -<p>Kate stood now, smiling at him across the room. -Her sudden smile following upon her amazed “Oh! -Oh!” surprised him almost as much as his being -there at all surprised her. He was prepared for her -being startled, angry, accusing, anything except -charmed. On the tip of his tongue there waited a -reassuring word. That was why he had not risen -when she entered; he wanted to avoid any movement -that might frighten her. But all his careful precaution -was wasted. Kate was not frightened. She -was charmed, purely and simply charmed.</p> -<p>“Why, you are the boy,” she exclaimed, “the boy -in the dragony, flowery picture frame!”</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_237">237</div> -<p>But even as she spoke she realized that although -it was the boy indeed, it was the boy grown older. -The crisp curly hair was clipped very short and was -almost entirely gray. And there were deep lines -about his eyes and nose and mouth. The light in the -face had grown, too, that peculiar light betokening -gaiety of the spirit and sympathy. Yes, it was truly -the boy, only the boy <i>more so</i>, in spite of lines and -gray hair.</p> -<p>“The dragony, flowery picture frame?” he repeated -after her in the voice of the stranger in the -garden.</p> -<p>He had spoken. He was real. Not just another -one of her fancies.</p> -<p>“Yes, in the top drawer of Mother’s desk. That -boy. Only excuse me, I thought I was talking to a -dream. Are you real?”</p> -<p>The man laughed, a very jolly laugh, and nodded.</p> -<p>“Did Mother know you would be here? Is that -why she insisted that I come into the orchard house -the first minute I could?”</p> -<p>He shook his head. “No, she couldn’t know I -would be here.”</p> -<p>He stood up then. But as he moved Kate noticed -that he took special care to stand between the windows -where he could not be seen by any one who -might be in the orchard.</p> -<p>“You have made a mistake,” he said. “I don’t -think I can be the person you think. My picture -wouldn’t be in your mother’s desk.”</p> -<p>But Kate nodded, perfectly sure of her facts.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_238">238</div> -<p>“Oh, yes, you are. Mother’s always had you. -You’ve been our talisman for years, both of ours. -And that’s funny, for neither of us knew about the -other’s feeling until just before I came away.”</p> -<p>His face had reddened. “Her talisman?” he -asked, incredulously.</p> -<p>“Just as much hers as mine. It was very funny. -But it’s even funnier—of course I don’t mean funny, -I mean strange—that I’ve found you here.”</p> -<p>“But don’t you know who I am?” the man asked.</p> -<p>“Only that you’re the talisman. I don’t know -your name.”</p> -<p>“Exactly. Your mother didn’t want you even to -know his name. Well, time justified her. It fulfilled -all their prophecies. He was a nobody first -and a convict afterward. No wonder she didn’t tell -you his name.”</p> -<p>Kate looked at him steadily, trying to take it in, -to connect it up. He went on:</p> -<p>“Your mother didn’t tell you his name because it -is the same as hers. She is too ashamed. I am Nick -Frazier. Now you know.”</p> -<p>The words sounded bitter, but the man’s manner -belied them. He said it all with a friendly smile, -seeming more concerned that Kate should get -things straight and not be too shocked than airing -personal bitterness. But Kate protested.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_239">239</div> -<p>“No, no. She did you some wrong once. That -is why she couldn’t talk about you to me. But she -did say that she knew it would come right sometime. -She wouldn’t talk about it. So I mustn’t. But -you know it isn’t at all as you say. She isn’t ashamed -of you at all.”</p> -<p>After a minute’s thought she added, “If you’re -that boy, and you are, then she didn’t know anything -about—about——”</p> -<p>“That I am a thief?”</p> -<p>“Yes. Jack Denton told me that this morning. -Well, I’m sure she didn’t know that. And now I -remember she said she had no idea why you and -Aunt Katherine had quarrelled. She was puzzled -by that in the letter asking me to come. She didn’t -even know Elsie was living here. She didn’t know -anything about you at all.”</p> -<p>“Listen, Kate.” Nick spoke rapidly. “Tell your -mother when you go back all that Jack Denton told -you. But tell her, too, that it isn’t so black, not quite -so black as it sounds. And tell her that all the King -of the Fairies taught those two kids in the orchard -I have learned since I went to prison. For I wrote -‘The King of the Fairies.’ I wrote it in prison, -thinking everything over. Tell her I shall never -again accept another penny from any one or let any -one help me. What I took from your aunt I’m paying -back to-day with the royalties on the book. Will -you remember to tell her that?”</p> -<p>Kate nodded. Yes, certainly she would remember. -But her whole mind was taken up with delight that -he, the boy in the dragony, flowery picture frame, -was the author of their precious book. That was -what mattered most, in this minute, to her.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_240">240</div> -<p>He saw that she was not impressed with the fact -of his having been a convict. That he was her talisman -come alive, and the author of “The King of the -Fairies,” both at once, was tremendous enough to -wipe out all the rest.</p> -<p>“Elsie’s father wrote ‘The King of the Fairies,’ -that book! And she never told me!”</p> -<p>Kate sat on the edge of the table and bombarded -him with questions. He answered them all. There -were places that had puzzled even her mother in the -book. He clarified them for Kate now. “My new -book is <i>clearer</i>,” he said. “I am learning better how -to say what I want to say.”</p> -<p>“Your new book! There is another!”</p> -<p>“Yes, it will be published this fall.” He told her -about that. She was enthralled. She clasped her -hands and listened, the corners of her mouth tilting -up like wings.</p> -<p>Then it was her turn to talk. Nick was the sort of -person who draws you out. In all her life Kate had -never experienced such sympathy in a human being. -That was Nick’s rare gift. She told him the story -of her life, quite literally, at least, from the year she -was seven, beginning with the day of her sharpest -memory when she and her mother saw the fairy by the -spring. It was very much on her mind now because -of that experience at Madame Pearl’s and she told it -all to Nick in detail. “How can it be explained?” -she asked. “How could Elsie be just exactly that -fairy?”</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_241">241</div> -<p>“That’s a hard question,” he agreed. “But if -there’s anything in what these fourth dimensional -experts are saying—then it might be explained reasonably -enough, even mathematically. You know -they say time <i>is</i> the fourth dimension. Well, in -that instant in the woods, they might say, you got -somehow into a four-dimension world.”</p> -<p>But Kate did not understand. Nick came from his -station between the windows and sat on the edge -of the table beside her, forgetting the hypothetical -somebody in the orchard, and went into the subject -more deeply. Kate followed his reasoning for a time, -almost as though she were beginning to grasp something -of the meaning of it all, when, bang! She -slipped back to her first position of ignorance. She -didn’t understand a bit.</p> -<p>Nick laughed. “It’s exactly the same with me,” -he confessed. “I get a little farther than you do now -in grasping it perhaps, and then ‘bang!’ just as you -say, I lose the steps by which I got there. However, -we can know that science itself is working toward -some such explanation for that fairy by the spring of -yours and its like.”</p> -<p>“And so you don’t believe in fairies at all? I was -really only looking into the future, at Elsie as she would -be years away, in that mirror of Madame Pearl’s?”</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_242">242</div> -<p>“Nonsense. Just because we have reason to believe -that what you saw wasn’t a fairy—since it -was Elsie and couldn’t be—proves no case against -the existence of fairies. Does it? Yes, I believe in -fairies right enough, but that’s a matter of faith with -me rather than reasonable conviction.”</p> -<p>It was all very fascinating. Nick led Kate’s mind -a race, and she felt as though she were “expanding.” -She called it “expanding” when telling her mother -of it later. Why, Nick did to you exactly what his -book did, pushed roofs skyward and walls horizon-ward. -And all the while he was so jolly. He laughed -and made you laugh often, laughter with a special -quality of joy in it.</p> -<p>But suddenly, right in the midst of everything, he -looked at his watch. “Do you know, it’s after -five,” he said, “and I——”</p> -<p>Kate interrupted what he was about to say. -“After five! Why, Mother may be here already! -I forgot about time! How could I!”</p> -<p>“Your mother? Here!”</p> -<p>“Yes, I telegraphed her to come.”</p> -<p>Kate had quite forgotten her anxieties about Elsie, -and how much she had imagined her in need of Katherine’s -sympathy and help. Now everything came -back with a rush. “I must run.”</p> -<p>But Nick caught at her hand before she could run. -“Kate!” he said, excitedly. “Why didn’t you tell -me?” Then he became calm, but still held Kate back -by the hand. He spoke very earnestly.</p> -<p>“Bring her out here. Your aunt isn’t at home. -No one need know. I must see her. Will you bring -her? Tell her it may be our very last chance to meet -ever. Tell her that and <i>make</i> her come.”</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_243">243</div> -<p>Kate looked into the face so suddenly become passionately -earnest and said in surprise, “But of course -she will want to come.”</p> -<p>But as she sped through the orchard it occurred to -her that she had solved nothing, got nowhere, or -almost nowhere, in the mystery. What was Nick -doing in the orchard house? Was he a fugitive from -the law? Somehow, though she had begun to wonder -again, she was not a bit bothered. Nick was -Nick. Who wanted more?</p> -<p>Katherine had arrived in a taxi from the station a -few minutes earlier and presented herself anxiously -at Miss Frazier’s door. She had no trepidations -about meeting her aunt now, no thought of their -standing quarrel. Her whole mind was taken up -with her daughter. To say that she was worried -would be to describe her state of mind weakly. She -was very nearly frantic. She had read and reread -Kate’s telegram on an average of once every five -minutes since its arrival, and in spite of all this study -was no nearer guessing at the nature of the “mix-up” -than she had been after the first reading.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_244">244</div> -<p>Isadora was not one of the servants who had known -and loved Katherine, and so it is not surprising that -when she opened the door and saw her standing there -with her suitcase she took her for an agent. Katherine -did not enlighten Isadora as to her identity, for -she wanted to see Kate first of all, and for the present -Kate only. She made this very plain, and then -walked past Isadora and into the drawing-room with -such an air that in spite of the old black velvet tam -and general lack of style in the caller’s clothes, Isadora -accorded her all due respect and went in search -of Kate.</p> -<p>But Kate was not to be found in the house. -Would the caller wait? Yes? Very well. Isadora -withdrew with several curious backward glances.</p> -<p>As soon as Isadora was out of the way Katherine -went through the French doors on to the terrace. -She paced back and forth, looking toward the orchard -house. Was Kate there? Had she forgotten the -time? The maid Isadora had appeared calm and -collected enough. There certainly was a sense of -peace in the house. The “mix-up” perhaps was not -such a desperate one, after all. Katherine couldn’t -wait here, though, doing nothing—not after all those -hours of waiting on the train. She walked across the -terrace and down into the garden toward the orchard -house. She met Kate just at the edge of the trees.</p> -<p>Kate returned her mother’s embrace and kiss -almost absently. Then Katherine held her off and -looked at her. “You look all right,” she said, breathlessly. -“Kate, tell me nothing dreadful has happened. -Tell me you <i>are</i> all right. Quick!”</p> -<p>“Yes, yes. Oh, Mother, don’t look like that! -I am perfectly all right. It’s about <i>Elsie</i>. But -even that’s all right now. Mother, her father is here. -Nick is in the orchard house. He wants to see you. -He says it may be the last time you ever see each -other. He wants you to come right now.”</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_245">245</div> -<p>But if Kate’s words reassured Katherine about -Kate’s safety, they flung her into a new anxiety. -“Nick? The last time? Why?”</p> -<p>“Oh, I don’t know. Only come.” Kate pulled -at her mother’s hand.</p> -<p>Nick had come down the stairs and was waiting -in the hall. When Katherine followed Kate dazedly -in, and she and Nick stood facing each other, he exclaimed -involuntarily; to him it was as though the -girl of eighteen he had known years ago had come -back. In the black velvet tam, raindrops sparkling -in her hair that waved so softly at her ears and brow, -raindrops drenching her eyelashes, her face vivid -with emotion, her hands outstretched to him—why, -she was as young and fresh as Kate herself, more -beautiful even than he had remembered her.</p> -<p>“I must talk with you.” He was very intense and -at the same time shy.</p> -<p>“Yes, of course. Of course we must talk.” -Katherine’s tone implied, “Why not? Why shouldn’t -we?”</p> -<p>“In the parlour, then. I’ll put up a window. -No, I can’t do that. Someone in the house might -see.”</p> -<p>“But why shouldn’t someone see? I don’t understand.”</p> -<p>“There’s air enough from the door now. Smell -the syringa!”</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_246">246</div> -<p>Katherine was standing in the window, her back -to them. Kate knew it was to hide strange tears. -“The smell of the syringa did that,” she thought, -with her quick understanding where her mother was -concerned. “Smells are funny that way.”</p> -<p>Nick spoke to Kate then, with gentle imperativeness.</p> -<p>“Elsie will be coming out here in a minute. Yes, -we are running away, if you like. Go to her and tell -her to wait. Tell her we will go surely to-night, but -she is to wait until your mother comes in. You keep -her, Kate—stay with her—<i>until your mother comes -in</i>.”</p> -<p>“I don’t think I could. She will be furious with -me. She wouldn’t do what I said.”</p> -<p>“I’ll write her a note. She will understand that I -want it.”</p> -<p>He pulled an envelope from his pocket and -scrawled a sentence, holding the paper against the -wall. Katherine had taken off her coat and was -now sitting in the deep chair in the window. Her -tears had vanished, if there really had been tears, and -her eyes were clear as happiness itself.</p> -<p>But Kate was anxious as she hurried with the note -to Elsie. If Elsie had hated her before for interfering -now she would hate her all the more.</p> -<p>She was sitting on the window seat in her room, -dressed in the green silk suit and brown straw hat, a -bright green raincoat thrown over a chair back near, -and the suitcase of last night at her feet. Had she -seen Kate come from the orchard house and return -there with her mother? It was obvious that she had, -for the face she turned to Kate was wild and strained.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_247">247</div> -<p>“What have you been doing now?” she asked as -Kate came into the room. “Who was that girl you -took into the orchard house?”</p> -<p>“That wasn’t a girl. It was my mother.”</p> -<p>“Your mother! Why?”</p> -<p>“Your father wanted to talk to her. He sent you -this.”</p> -<p>Elsie took the note and her face lost some of its -wildness as she read. When she looked up she was -puzzled but almost serene.</p> -<p>“It’s all right. We’re going away just the same,” -she said. “Nothing can stop us now. I’m only -to wait until your mother comes in.”</p> -<p>Kate nodded. If it was her father Elsie was running -away with, she, Kate, had no more responsibility. -She didn’t see how it was fair to Aunt -Katherine or in any way right for them to do it that -way, but she had no doubt that somehow it could -be explained. Once understood, there would be no -question of its rightness. So she put all that aside.</p> -<p>She said, “Oh, Elsie, why didn’t you tell me your -father wrote ‘The King of the Fairies’? Your very -own father!”</p> -<p>“So you know now? He told you? Well, now -you know, then, that I didn’t lie. There <i>was</i> something -of fairy in the orchard house; Father had -finished his new book there. It’s all fairies.”</p> -<p>“And you are going away now, for good? Before -Aunt Katherine comes back?”</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_248">248</div> -<p>“If you will let me.” Needless to say this was -spoken sarcastically.</p> -<p>“But of course. Now that I’ve seen your father! -No harm can come to you now, not when you’ve -got our talisman, alive, real, to look after you.”</p> -<p>Elsie looked at Kate, puzzled. “What do you -mean? Your talisman? You do say the queerest -things!”</p> -<p>Then Kate told her about the boy in the silvery, -dragony, flowery picture frame. When she had -finished, it was a new Elsie that faced her.</p> -<p>“And your mother, too, felt like that?”</p> -<p>“Yes, Mother, too. Why not?”</p> -<p>“Why—because——”</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_249">249</div> -<h2 id="c19"><span class="h2line1">CHAPTER XIX</span> -<br /><span class="h2line2">ELSIE CONFIDES</span></h2> -<p>The girls stayed there, sitting on the window -seat, for over an hour, watching for Katherine -to come from the orchard. It was showering again, -sheets of rain silvering the gardens and drawing curtains -of silver magic about the orchard, swirling -them all about the orchard’s borders. There was -plenty of time for the story which Elsie told haphazardly -and in broken sentences, led on by Kate’s -interest, and her assurances that now she had seen -Nick she would never try to interfere with any of -their plans again. Kate’s story of the dragony, -flowery picture frame had knocked all Elsie’s guards -flat, too. Her story, straightened out, was this:</p> -<p>Elsie’s earliest memory was of her father. She -had fallen down the house steps and bumped her -head. Nick, her father, had appeared as by magic -to kiss the hurt away and run back into the house -with her in his arms. She remembered him bending -over her, washing the bruise with cold water; then -came the smell of witch-hazel. And though this -was her first conscious memory, still the very memory -itself held in it the inevitableness of this comfort -from her father; so she was used to his ministrations.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_250">250</div> -<p>The next memory was convalescence after measles -when she was four. She was sitting up in a chair in -a window over the street, wrapped in an eiderdown. -Her father was reading to her from “The Psalms of -David.” The words sang a beautiful song to her, -especially when he came to “The Lord is my Shepherd.” -And it was very comforting to have her -father sitting there so quietly, near her, as though he -meant to stay a long time.</p> -<p>“But your mother?” Kate asked her. “Didn’t -she read to you after measles, too? Don’t you remember -her?”</p> -<p>Yes, Elsie remembered her mother, though she -thought it was a later memory, and it was never a -memory of <i>mothering</i>. Gloria had hummed in and -out of the house like a humming-bird. Later, when -Elsie saw a humming-bird for the first time, she felt -as she watched it exactly as she had always felt -watching her mother; and the pains that she took not -to startle the little spirit away were exactly the pains -she had always taken not to startle her mother away, -when by chance she hummed near. Gloria looked -like a humming-bird, as well as acted like one. -Humming-birds fascinated Elsie, and her mother -had always entranced her with the same fascination, -no more.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_251">251</div> -<p>But sometimes the humming-bird scolded at her -father, pecked at him, hummed all about him pecking. -Then Elsie would run away, not fascinated -any more. The scolding was always about money. -Gloria needed money just as a humming-bird needs -honey, and often there wasn’t enough.</p> -<p>They lived in New York near Washington Square. -Elsie was cared for by nurses—such a fast-marching -procession of nurses in the same chic blue uniforms, -provided by the humming-bird, that Elsie remembered -them as “nurse,” not as individuals. Her -father was the constant human factor in her life, the -one person to be counted on. Gloria was merely a -dash of colour beyond the nursery door somewhere, -a shrill sweet voice at the piano, a swish of silk on -the stairs.</p> -<p>At eight, Elsie was sent to boarding school. But -the school was in New York, and so her father still -saw her almost every day, and on Saturdays he gave -her and sometimes her friends “treats.” He took -them to the theatre or picture galleries, or for beautiful -walks in Central Park. Her mother never -came to the school, but had her home once a month -on Sundays for dinner. This was a grief to Elsie, -not because she felt any need of her mother but -simply because she would have been proud to show -her schoolmates what a magnificent and fashionable -mother she had; also she was humiliated by their -curious questionings and pretended doubts as to -whether she had a real mother at all. But Elsie -was sure that her father was better than twenty -mothers. She wouldn’t take a mother as a gift -except for show purposes.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_252">252</div> -<p>Kate writhed at Elsie’s harshness. “Oh, you -don’t know, Elsie! Don’t talk so! How can you? -It is terrible.”</p> -<p>“That’s what Ermina said when I talked to her -about my mother. Ermina was my best friend, but -she didn’t stay out her first year at school. Her -mother died, and she went home for the funeral and -never came back. I knew that she loved her -mother just as much as I loved my father. I hid -away in my room when they told me her mother -had died. I pretended I was sick. It was awful. -But when I heard her go downstairs, at the very -last minute while they were saying ‘good-bye’ to -her at the door, I rushed down in my nightgown. -I kissed her and hugged her and we cried terribly. -Miss Putnam, the principal of the school, never forgave -me for having made Ermina cry when she had -been brave and not cried at all before, and for having -disgraced the school by standing in the door in my -nightgown. But I have been glad ever since. I had -to say ‘good-bye’ and that I was sorry. And I -don’t think crying out loud was any worse than the -crying <i>inside</i> that Ermina must have been doing. -Do you?”</p> -<p>Kate agreed with Elsie. She, too, was glad Elsie -had gone to her friend in her sorrow, even if she had -waited till the last minute for the courage.</p> -<p>Vacations had been spent either at camps or at -Aunt Katherine’s. When they were spent at Aunt -Katherine’s, her father was usually with her, having -a vacation, too. And those were beautiful times.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_253">253</div> -<p>Then, when she was twelve, came the terrible time. -Nick had done badly in business. He confided this -to Elsie because Gloria only wanted happy confidences, -and besides, she was abroad, travelling -with a party of friends. There was enough to pay -his debts and leave him clear to start fresh, avoiding -bankruptcy. But the debts paid, and his checking -account reduced to zero, money must come from -somewhere to go on with until business picked up. -He knew a way in which two thousand dollars, if -he only had it, could overnight be turned into ten -thousand. He told Elsie about it, walking in Central -Park, and said if he had only waited a little to -pay his debts, and not acted so hastily in his fear of -bankruptcy, everything would have been made right -now. Aunt Katherine would loan him the two -thousand, he felt sure, if he could only explain the -nature of the speculation to her. But she was travelling -somewhere in England, and there would never -be time to get into touch with her. But he had the -key to her safety vault in her Boston bank. He suddenly -told Elsie that he was going to Boston and -would not see her again until Sunday. She understood -that he was going to borrow, on his own account, -two thousand dollars from Aunt Katherine -overnight, trusting to her unfailing generosity.</p> -<p>Nick wrote Aunt Katherine all about it on the -train as he went. From the vault he took two -thousand dollars’ worth of securities which could -easily be replaced.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_254">254</div> -<p>Aunt Katherine sailed for home before Nick’s -troubled letter reached her in England, and the second -letter, telling how the two thousand instead of -blossoming into ten thousand had disappeared altogether, -was never sent, because just as Nick was -going out of his door to post it, the cablegram came -announcing Gloria’s tragic death. That put all -thoughts of the letter out of his mind, and when -he did remember it he thought he had posted it as -he meant to. It was found in the apartment months -later by the people who sublet the place furnished, -and simply dropped into a post box by them and sent -to its address in England. It did not reach Miss -Frazier until six months later.</p> -<p>Miss Frazier on her arrival in Boston, and after -a visit to her bank, reported the missing securities -to the police. Nick’s immediate apprehension followed. -Miss Frazier was on a train bound for California -when that most amazing bit of news reached -her by telegram. She was shocked almost beyond -reason, and so horrified that it was impossible for -her to find any justification for her adopted nephew. -She offered him no help and had no words for him -that were not bitter ones, but she did write to offer -his “innocent child” a home with her on the condition -that she should not speak her father’s name -for the term of his imprisonment, or correspond with -him while she was in her care. That letter ended, -“If I had been one half as level-headed as my -niece Katherine or Mrs. Van Vorst-Smith about you, -Nicholas, I should have protected you against such -temptation, and we might have all been spared this -catastrophe.”</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_255">255</div> -<p>In Elsie’s parting from her father he had shown her -this letter. (Now Kate knew why Elsie had grown -cold always at mention of Katherine!) He had -begged her to accept her aunt’s conditions. Indeed -there was nothing else she could do, for her mother’s -relations were now more estranged from them than -ever. They had not written one word, even bitter -ones.</p> -<p>“Oh, Elsie! That must have been dreadful, not -being allowed even to speak of your father, to act as -though he were dead!”</p> -<p>Elsie looked at her, her eyes black with remembered -grief. “It was. I was so lonely for him, Kate, I -expected to <i>die</i>.”</p> -<p>In time Nick’s two letters about the “overnight -loan,” forwarded and reforwarded, had arrived -in Oakdale. Then Aunt Katherine began to -understand a little how his deed had not been so -pitchy black as it had seemed in the first shock. He -had done what she had always wanted him to do, -counted on her understanding and generosity. It -had been a crime—even Nick had accepted that -judgment from the very first—and an utterly foolish -and desperate deed, but now Aunt Katherine was -sorry she had not lifted a hand to keep him from -paying the penalty of imprisonment. She looked -about to see what could be done, and ultimately was -able to set wheels in motion that brought about his -release at the end of two years instead of three. But -she had not told Elsie. She had not been able to -bring herself to speak of Elsie’s father to her at all.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_256">256</div> -<p>Nick wrote Miss Frazier asking her to meet him -at a certain spot on the Common in Boston the day -he was to be released. He wanted to discuss Elsie -and what they were to do about her. He knew that -his appearance in Oakdale would cause Miss Frazier -painful embarrassment. He meant to avoid that -for her. But when he had waited for hours at the -place he had designated and she had not come, he -had grown desperate. He was obsessed with a fear -that Elsie might be sick. Why, she might be dead, -almost, for all he knew. He had not had one word -from her in two years. He boarded a train, not -stopping to leave his suitcase at a hotel or check it -in the South Station, and started for Oakdale.</p> -<p>Elsie was just coming down the steps of Aunt -Katherine’s house as her father got out of the taxi -he had hired to avoid being seen in Oakdale and to -gain speed to his destination. Aunt Katherine was -away and most of the servants, for it was Thursday -afternoon—a week ago last Thursday. Father and -daughter had longed to be alone, unobserved by any -curious eyes. The orchard house occurred to them -as the best place to talk. They went around the -house and managed to reach it, unseen, through -the gardens. They had climbed in at a window at -the back. Elsie was beside herself with happiness, -and Nick was like a boy in his joy and relief about -her.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_257">257</div> -<p>He told Elsie that the first year in prison he had -written “The King of the Fairies.”</p> -<p>“There was so much in it that he had told -me about the ‘other side of things’ and the <i>more</i> -life that even stones have that we don’t see, that -when the book was published and I looked into it -at the bookshop I knew right away it must be -Father’s. He had always wanted to write. At the -very first sentence I knew. It was like a letter from -him. I read it and read it and read it. Do you -wonder I didn’t want you to snatch it for yourself -that very first morning, Kate?”</p> -<p>The second book was almost finished when Nick -came out of prison. Only a chapter remained. The -publishers had promised an advance on the royalties -as soon as the manuscript was sent them. The first -book had already made over two thousand dollars. -So the two decided, between them, that Nick should -live in the orchard house for a week, long enough to -finish the book, send it to the publishers and get their -check. Then he would leave the two thousand dollars, -the earnings from the first book, for Aunt -Katherine. That was exactly what he had taken -from her vault. With the new check of five hundred -dollars, he and Elsie would go away together. He -could write in the orchard house undisturbed, and -without any one’s knowing he was there. Elsie -could bring him some food now and then. But they -would not run away together until he could leave the -two thousand that really belonged to Aunt Katherine -behind them.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_258">258</div> -<p>Kate interrupted there. “But how can you! How -can you treat Aunt Katherine so?”</p> -<p>“It’s this way. I’ve made Father see that she -doesn’t like me. She is awfully kind, but that’s not -liking. If I vanish, it will be just a relief to her. -But she wouldn’t let me go, probably, if I told her. -She would argue and try to keep me because it was -her duty. Even Father sees that. Well, the new -check has come. That was my special delivery -yesterday. Father wrote Aunt Katherine a long -letter and put the two thousand dollars in checks -from his publishers into it. I’ve pinned the letter to -her pincushion for her to read when she gets back -to-night. Father hopes you’ll stay on here and your -mother come back, too, and everything be set right at -last. We don’t belong in the Frazier family at all, -you know. We are sort of vagabonds, different, -Father and I. Father thinks the quarrel between -Aunt Katherine and your mother was in some way -because of him. When we vanish, it will come right.”</p> -<p>“Oh, but it won’t, and it wasn’t, and you aren’t. -Imagine you a vagabond!” Kate exclaimed.</p> -<p>“That’s the beautiful clothes Aunt Katherine gives -me. They make me look just like anybody. But -really underneath I belong in a tent or something like -that. Anyway, I’d rather tramp the country with -my father than live in a palace with any one else!”</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_259">259</div> -<p>Kate leaned toward her, taking her hand, not -timidly now but with assurance. “So would I,” she -agreed, heartily. “So would any one, he’s so splendid -and wonderful. And we are friends now, you and I, -aren’t we? Will you write to me when you have -gone?”</p> -<p>Tears brimmed Elsie’s eyes. “Really? Do you -want me to write? Of course I will. Let’s be best -friends, chums. Even when I’m in California!”</p> -<p>Kate was embarrassed by the tears, but she was -enraptured, too. She was tingling with happiness, -for she was face to face with the vanishing comrade -at last.</p> -<p>“Why didn’t we feel this way sooner?” she asked -with reason.</p> -<p>“That was my fault. I’m sorry now.”</p> -<p>The girls had almost forgotten why they were -watching the rain-curtained orchard. But they -were recalled sharply to the affairs of the minute by -Effie’s voice in the hall not far from their door. She -was calling down a stairway to Isadora.</p> -<p>“Tell Julia Miss Frazier’s just come in and will be -here for dinner, after all.”</p> -<p>The girls started. Elsie sprang to her feet. Kate -still had her hand. “Don’t worry,” she said, quickly. -“I will help you to get out without her seeing. You -can go later to-night.”</p> -<p>“But Father’s note! Pinned to her pincushion! -She will read it now! Oh, why did she come back!”</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_260">260</div> -<p>“I’ll go to her room and try to get the note before -she notices it,” Kate offered. “You just wait here. -I’ll do my best.”</p> -<p>“It’s on top of the tall bureau against the wall -between the windows. Oh, do you suppose you <i>can</i>, -Kate?”</p> -<p>As Kate hurried through the passageways toward -Miss Frazier’s bedroom she wondered whether she -really could. What excuse should she give for disturbing -Aunt Katherine while she was dressing?</p> -<p>There was no time to think that out. Aunt -Katherine called “Come,” almost before Kate’s -knuckles tapped the door.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_261">261</div> -<h2 id="c20"><span class="h2line1">CHAPTER XX</span> -<br /><span class="h2line2">A FAREWELL IN THE DARK</span></h2> -<p>Miss Frazier was sitting before her dressing -table attired in a blue silk dressing-robe.</p> -<p>“Nothing the matter, Kate?” she asked, the -minute that she realized it was Kate and not one of -the servants who had entered. “Bertha tells me -Elsie is better. I am glad I was able to get back for -dinner, after all. Both you and Elsie have been on -my mind. Was it a dull day?”</p> -<p>“No, not dull a bit.” If Aunt Katherine only -knew how very far from dull!</p> -<p>Aunt Katherine put down the comb with which she -had been “fluffing” her hair. She looked at Kate -questioningly. Why was her niece here, and looking -so discomfited, at the dressing hour?</p> -<p>Kate had already spied the note, across the room, -pinned to the pincushion on the bureau’s top. To -the corner of her eye it appeared as big as a flag! -How had Miss Frazier ever avoided seeing it? It -fairly shrieked in the room.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_262">262</div> -<p>“Well?” Her aunt was expecting something of -her. She must say something to make her presence -reasonable. But what excuse could she ever make -to go ’way across the big room to that bureau? In -this plight Kate blurted out the news that her mother -was there.</p> -<p>“Your mother!”</p> -<p>Aunt Katherine seemed frozen for an instant in -her surprise.</p> -<p>“Not exactly here, but she will be in a few minutes, -I think,” Kate stumbled on. “I wired for her to -come.”</p> -<p>“Why, Kate! Has anything gone wrong to-day? -Elsie——”</p> -<p>“No, nothing. Oh, I can’t tell you now. Will -you wait a little while, until she’s here? I can’t -explain anything yet.”</p> -<p>“What time is she arriving?”</p> -<p>Kate put her hand into her pocket and pulled out -the yellow telegram. “Here, this tells,” she said, -vaguely. Now, oh, now while Aunt Katherine was -studying out that long message was the time to -rescue Elsie’s letter. Kate made a move toward the -bureau. But Miss Frazier moved with her! Her -lorgnette lay beside the pincushion! Was there ever -such luck!</p> -<p>She picked it up, and read, moving the glass along -the paper.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_263">263</div> -<p>She passed over the ambiguity to her of most of -the message and fastened her attention upon the time -of arrival stated there. “Five-five!” she exclaimed. -“The train must be over an hour late. More than -that. It’s half-past six now. Ring the bell, please, -Kate, and tell Isadora to send Timothy to the station. -He knows your mother and will bring her up here in -the car when the train does get in. That back-way -train is seldom on schedule, but this is unusually late. -Tell Isadora to have an extra place laid, too.”</p> -<p>Kate went over to the door and rang the servants’ -bell there. Bertha, not Isadora, answered. Kate -stepped out into the hall and whispered quickly, -“Tell Effie to set another place. My mother will -be here for dinner.” The directions for Timothy -were, of course, not given. Then Kate went back -to her aunt, with how beating a heart!</p> -<p>Aunt Katherine was standing with her face turned -away, reading Nick’s letter. Kate never thought of -fleeing. She stayed stock still, waiting for the storm, -and deciding that even now Aunt Katherine need not -know that Elsie had not yet gone. Kate expected -something quite scenic from her aunt’s temper. -Katherine had warned her that it was rare but -devastating.</p> -<p>After ages and æons, to Kate’s tense mind, Aunt -Katherine folded the letter, check and all. Then -their eyes met. The one thing that the expression -in her aunt’s eyes told Kate was that she was surprised, -though <i>glad</i>, to find her still there. She -stretched both her hands to her.</p> -<p>“Kate, Kate,” she said with a rising inflection of -happiness in her voice. “I’ve been all wrong, wrong -about Elsie’s father, but even more wrong about -Elsie! She has proved that by running away with -her father. The blessed darling! The poor lamb!”</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_264">264</div> -<p>Kate felt that she was on a merry-go-round of -surprises. “You are glad she has run away?”</p> -<p>“How can I be anything but rejoiced!”</p> -<p>Kate turned a little cold at that. “And you -won’t try to stop them?” she asked.</p> -<p>“No, no need. Nick says he will give me their -address as soon as they have one. Then I shall go -to them, wherever it is. I will bring them back. -Kate, she must <i>adore</i> her father! And all the while, -just because she kept the agreement not to speak of -him, I thought her indifferent to his sufferings, and -unnatural. Why, from this, she must have suffered -more than he.” Miss Frazier tapped the folded -letter with her lorgnette. “He says that when he -looked in at your party and saw Elsie so beautifully -gowned, and having such a good time, his heart -failed him; he decided that he must not take her -away from all this. But Elsie herself made him see -that she would never be happy anywhere but with -him no matter how poor they were. It was Elsie -who insisted on this harebrained scheme of running -away! Elsie, who I thought hadn’t a grain of spirit -or affection! Why, I’m just turned topsy-turvy by -it all! Bless that poor child! And Nick wrote ‘The -King of the Fairies.’ I ought to have guessed that -instantly. Bless him, I say, too, the poor, abused, -misguided poet. Do you remember St. Francis? -You know he, too——”</p> -<p>But Miss Frazier broke off in her song of praise.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_265">265</div> -<p>“You poor child, you,” she cried, meaning Kate. -“This must all be a mystery. We’ll wait till your -mother is here. Then we can talk it all over.” She -hugged Kate as she spoke, much as though she herself -were a young girl in the most exuberant of -spirits.</p> -<p>“I shall wear my black lace,” she said, pushing -Kate laughingly away from her. “We must be -gorgeous for your mother. Hurry into your pink -organdie. Why, she may be at the door this minute.”</p> -<p>Thus freed, Kate flew to Elsie. Elsie was waiting, -almost ill with anxiety. “Did you manage it?” she -asked.</p> -<p>“No. And she has read the letter. But she is -<i>glad</i>, Elsie. There’s just to be no trouble about your -getting away with your father at all.”</p> -<p>“Didn’t I tell you!” Elsie exclaimed. “It’s just -as I knew. She is glad to be rid of me.”</p> -<p>“We must plan quickly, though. How will you -get out? It’s so dark now you can’t see the orchard -well at all. Let’s plan.”</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_266">266</div> -<p>Bertha was there, flushed and nervous. That -morning Elsie had found it necessary to confide the -secret of her father’s being in the orchard house to -Bertha, if he was to have any breakfast or lunch that -day at all. They had let the food supply get very -low, she and her father, because, until he had looked -in at the party, they had expected to fly last night. -Bertha was horrified at finding herself part of the -intrigue, but there was no help for it since Elsie -could always “Wind her around her little finger.” -Now, the almost distracted maid promised to stand -by Elsie until the end. It would be the end for her -as well as Elsie, for she would certainly lose her place -to-morrow, and her character with it. For if Miss -Frazier did not become aware for herself that Bertha -had taken food to Nick in the orchard house this -morning, and protected Elsie from the betrayal of -her plans, Bertha meant to confess these things to -her.</p> -<p>The three in conclave now decided that Elsie -should go, after Kate and Miss Frazier were in the -drawing-room, to the window seat on the stair landing. -There she could conceal herself behind the -curtains with her suitcase until Kate came out into -the hall below, on some pretext to be found by her, -and whistled softly. The whistle would mean that -Katherine had come in and that Elsie could slip away -to the orchard house unobserved.</p> -<p>All this was rather fun for Kate except for the sorry -fact that when it was over she would have lost a -comrade. To help stage a real runaway—well, it -doesn’t happen every day that one may be so at -the centre of exciting events.</p> -<p>With Bertha’s help Kate was dashing into her organdie -while Elsie stood in a balcony window watching -the orchard. Elsie had come in to be near Kate -until the very last minute. But when a knock suddenly -sounded on Kate’s door Elsie wisely whisked -away into her own room.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_267">267</div> -<p>“Come,” Kate called in a tremulous voice. Was -it her mother? No, it was Aunt Katherine, and very -fortunate it was that Elsie had been spry in her -whisking.</p> -<p>“I see you are dressed,” Miss Frazier said. “Come -down, with me, then, and we will be together in the -drawing-room when your mother arrives. I have -ordered dinner delayed for her.”</p> -<p>Kate thought quickly. “Just a minute,” she said. -“There’s something in Elsie’s room I need. Will you -wait?”</p> -<p>Kate closed the door behind her as though by -accident. But Elsie was not in the room. Kate -looked all around but it was quite empty. The -vanishing comrade had vanished, physically this -time. There was the closet door. Was she hiding -there? Yes, Kate heard a stir and saw dimly -through the hanging dresses—expensive dresses given -Elsie by Aunt Katherine, which she was not taking -with her—Elsie herself squeezed back against the -farthest wall. Kate closed the closet door behind -her and groped her way across the dark closet. -“It’s I, Kate,” she whispered loudly.</p> -<p>The girls touched hands in the dark. They -hugged and kissed each other, mostly on noses and -ears, but no matter; it was a grief-stricken parting. -“Good-bye, good-bye,” they whispered, and Kate -said, “Write to me from California.” But she must -hurry back before it came into Miss Frazier’s head -to follow her in here with the idea of going through -Elsie’s door into the hall. She ran back to her own -room and in her anxiety created the impression of a -small cyclone appearing.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_268">268</div> -<p>Miss Frazier looked with some surprise on the -violence of her return. Then her eyes softened. -Kate had not given thought to drying her tears. -“You mustn’t take it like this,” Aunt Katherine said, -putting her arm through Kate’s as they went down -the passageways together toward the big upper hall. -“Elsie is happier than she has been in a very long -time; she is off with one of the most satisfying companions -in the world. Nick will take good care of -her, infinitely better care than was ever taken here -by me, for he <i>knows her mind</i>. And oh, Kate, we -mustn’t let your mother run away with you, too. -Then I <i>should</i> be alone! You won’t be without -companionship. There are the Dentons just next -door, and plenty of others who will be wanting to -know you now.”</p> -<p>“But they aren’t Elsie,” Kate responded, shamelessly -using her handkerchief, as the tears would keep -flooding.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_269">269</div> -<h2 id="c21"><span class="h2line1">CHAPTER XXI</span> -<br /><span class="h2line2">LIKE THE STARS</span></h2> -<p>Miss Frazier was too excitedly nervous to -take up a book or knitting when they were in -the drawing-room. She wandered about, looking at -the pictures on the walls, picking up magazines from -tables to stare at them vacantly and replace them -again, changing the arrangements of flowers, and all -the time she was waiting for the sound of the opening -front door and Katherine’s step in the hall. Kate -was listening, too, but not in that direction. She -expected her mother to come through the gardens -and in at one of the French doors, closed now, with -the rain beating against them. Kate was so absorbed -with the consciousness of Elsie waiting up on -the stair landing for her chance to escape that she -forgot her mother had no umbrella and that she -might be waiting in the orchard house until this -particular shower passed. She merely wondered -what was keeping her all this time, and what would -happen when she and Aunt Katherine met. Aunt -Katherine would certainly be surprised when she -caught sight of the expected traveller through the -glass doors on the terrace. There would be questions -and explanations about that. Nick would have -warned Katherine, of course, not to give away the -secret of his being there; but then what <i>would</i> she -give as her explanation to Aunt Katherine?</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_270">270</div> -<p>Would she be expecting to find Aunt Katherine -here at all, though? Wouldn’t Nick have acquainted -her with the fact of Aunt Katherine’s supposed -absence? In that case Katherine, unprepared, would -be hard put to it to give any excuse for entering -through the gardens from the back, rather than by -the front door, ushered in by Isadora. Kate was on -tenter-hooks. She felt that it was she herself who -had caused the muddle. But what could she have -done differently? If she had told Aunt Katherine, -up in her room, that Katherine was here already, -only out in the orchard house, Aunt Katherine would -certainly have gone straight out there, and then -what would have happened to Nick and Elsie?</p> -<p>It was a bad ten minutes for Kate. She sat with -a book open before her—what book she never knew—her -eyes glued to the page, her ears cocked for a -sound beyond the glass doors. Aunt Katherine -stopped before her in her wanderings once or twice, -about to speak, but she had too much respect for a -reader to break into such obvious absorption as was -Kate’s.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_271">271</div> -<p>Now Miss Frazier was standing looking through -the glass of one of the doors into the rain-swept -garden. Kate was seized with an idea. She must -run up to Elsie in the window seat—she must manage -it without her aunt’s noticing, now—and send Elsie -to the orchard house to warn those two that Miss -Frazier had returned. After that, responsibility -would be theirs. They might fix up some scheme -among them. Kate rose, softly, and took a step -toward the hall. But she was halted by an exclamation -from Aunt Katherine.</p> -<p>Miss Frazier had not turned; she was still looking -out through the glass. Kate, looking, too, saw two -figures just at the edge of the orchard. It was her -mother and Nick. Well, she could do nothing now. -They certainly were counting on Aunt Katherine’s -absence, for they were coming toward the house. -They were running toward the house, “between the -drops,” dashing like school children. They were -holding hands, and Nick was always a step ahead, -rather dragging Katherine. Oh, why hadn’t Kate -thought about an umbrella! They were laughing! -Kate heard their laughter through the glass. So did -Aunt Katherine. Her face, taken at that moment, -would have made a perfect mask to personify Surprise.</p> -<p>She opened the doors, and Katherine and Nick -blew through them like two drenched leaves. The -rain had blurred the glass, and the running pair had -thought it was Kate standing there watching them -and letting them in. When they saw that it was -Aunt Katherine they stood and simply <i>stared</i>, with -almost no expression, still gripping each other’s -hands.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_272">272</div> -<p>Miss Frazier’s first words were unexpected ones. -“Where is Elsie?” she asked Nick. That was all, -just “Where is Elsie?” as though that, for the -instant, was the thing of prime importance to her. -It was Kate who could answer, though. Timidly -she said, “Elsie’s up on the stair landing.”</p> -<p>“Well, that’s all right, then. I thought she might -be in search of a father in the South Station or some -place. I thought, Nick, you two, you and Elsie, -had run away.”</p> -<p>Nick said, “We were going to. It is Katherine -who has stopped us at the very minute.” He still -held Katherine’s hand. Now he turned and looked -at her. She looked back at him. Both Aunt -Katherine and Kate, seeing what passed between -their eyes, gasped. But it forewarned them, and -Katherine’s words when she spoke were only an -echo of what they had seen.</p> -<p>“Nick and I are getting married, Aunt Katherine. -We didn’t know you were here, or we wouldn’t have -burst in like this. We had come to tell our children. -Won’t you get Elsie, Kate?”</p> -<p>“You and Nick marrying? So at last you’ve -come to your senses!” That was Aunt Katherine.</p> -<p>“Yes. And oh, Aunt Katherine, she knows everything -about me, and still she wants to.”</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_273">273</div> -<p>“Well, of course she knows everything about you. -I fancy <i>that’s</i> had publicity enough. But if this is -the way you feel, Katherine, why didn’t you write -me one word when Nick got himself into trouble? -Or since? Your silence has been as cruel as any part -of it all. It said plainer than words, ‘Like Mrs. -Van Vorst-Smith, I expected this sort of thing.’”</p> -<p>“Why, Aunt Katherine! How can you? If I -had known Nick was in prison, that something so -terrible had happened, I should have written you -right away. No, I should have come. Trouble like -that would have brought us all together. But how -could I know, when nobody told me?” Katherine’s -beautiful eyes were like a grieved, accusing child’s. -“And what hard-shelled little creatures we are! -Why couldn’t my <i>soul</i> have told me?”</p> -<p>“Don’t talk about your soul telling you.” Aunt -Katherine was brusque. “What about your eyes? -Don’t you ever read the papers?”</p> -<p>Katherine dropped her head. She had probably -often dropped it so in the past before her aunt. -“You know,” she said, softly apologetic, “I never -did read the papers as you do, Aunt Katherine, or -keep up with current events.”</p> -<p>Aunt Katherine laughed. It was a nice laugh. -Kate visualized their brook in Ashland, when the ice -was dissolving under the sun in the spring. (Yes, -she did. It may seem a strange time for her mind to -wander so far, but the fact remains. She saw the -brook that zigzagged through the meadows back of -their barn-house, as she had seen it last spring, its -edges still frosted with ice, but down the centre the -clear, laughing water coursing.)</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_274">274</div> -<p>“Well, the news of Nick would hardly come under -‘current events’,” Aunt Katherine was saying. -“But I do remember now that you never did take a -proper interest in the papers. It never entered my -head, though, that you wouldn’t have learned of this -from a dozen sources.”</p> -<p>Kate had been backing away toward the door, -meaning to go for Elsie. But there was no need. -Elsie had heard her father’s voice the minute he had -come into the drawing-room. She had stolen down -into the room now, and gripped Kate’s hand. Together -the two girls moved back toward the three who -were earnestly talking, still standing near the open -door with the rain, all unobserved, discolouring the -polished floor.</p> -<p>Aunt Katherine was asking Katherine another -question. “Why didn’t you take Nick seventeen -years ago?” she asked. “You seem sure enough of -yourself now. He wasn’t good enough for you -then. Is he good enough now after all that has -happened?”</p> -<p>Again Katherine cried, “How can you!” But -quickly she amended it. “Yes, you have a right. -You know yourself, Aunt Katherine, what was the -matter with me. It was pride of birth, blindness, -love of luxury, Mrs. Van Vorst-Smith’s head-shakings, -a jumble of folly. You know perfectly -what sort of a girl I was. But now I’m different. -Now I’m nearer to being good enough for Nick.”</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_275">275</div> -<p>“Love of luxury!” Miss Frazier picked on that. -“You want me to believe your horrid description -of yourself? If you loved luxury so much, why have -you been living as you have all these years, accepting -nothing of the luxuries I longed to give you?”</p> -<p>“But I tell you I changed. At twenty-two I was -different from nineteen. I welcomed poverty then. -When they told me that Kate and I had actually -nothing to live on, I was delighted.”</p> -<p>“So it has been by way of penance, your hard life -since?”</p> -<p>“If you want to call it that. It’s been fun, too.”</p> -<p>“But not fun for me.” Aunt Katherine’s eyes -filled with tears. For a person of Aunt Katherine’s -character to cry openly like that was as extraordinary -a happening as though she had suddenly begun walking -on her hands. Only Katherine dared speak to -her or try to offer comfort. She put her arms around -her shoulders, and led her to a chair. There she -made her sit down, and knelt by her side, leaning her -head against her arm, stroking her hand.</p> -<p>“Dear, dear, Aunt Katherine. Don’t, don’t,” she -besought. “We can’t bear it. Oh, what have I -done to you! What have we both done to you, -Nick and I? Forgive us, Aunt Katherine. Love us -again.”</p> -<p>At that, even in the midst of her tears, Aunt -Katherine laughed, and as before Kate remembered -the brook. “Again!” Aunt Katherine exclaimed. -“Did you think I had ever stopped loving either of -you mad children?”</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_276">276</div> -<p>Nick nodded. “<i>I</i> have forfeited your affection -right enough. I understand why you couldn’t meet -me, Aunt Katherine, two weeks ago when I asked you -to. At least I understand now. I shouldn’t have -asked it. But how else were we to decide about -Elsie?”</p> -<p>Aunt Katherine looked up at her adopted nephew, -remembering. “But of course I did go to meet -you,” she said. “Did you think I wouldn’t! I read -the day, though, ‘Thursday’ instead of ‘Tuesday.’ -It’s not often I blunder so stupidly. Then I made -frantic efforts to locate you. But you had vanished. -There wasn’t a trace. I set private detectives to -work. To-day they took me all the way to Springfield -on a wild-goose chase. They were sure they -had located you there. Clever, those detectives!”</p> -<p>Aunt Katherine dried her eyes thoroughly as she -spoke. She was scornful of her tears. “That -excursion has tired me,” she explained. “The -disappointment of it. I was so downhearted. Then -having you suddenly here again, right here at home, -without warning, safe and happy—well, perhaps -a sphinx would cry.”</p> -<p>It was Nick’s turn to kneel and rub his cheek -against Aunt Katherine’s shoulder. She lifted a -hand and stroked his hair. Kate, too, got as close -to her aunt as she could. Only Elsie stood aloof, for -an instant not in any way part of the group. It was -Aunt Katherine who beckoned her, and took her -hand.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_277">277</div> -<p>“Elsie,” she said, “I have been thinking you hard -and selfish because you kept my rule not to mention -your father. I have wanted to speak with you of -him, but every time I led up to it I thought you drew -away. It seemed to me that you were suffering, not -for him, but for your own wounded vanity. Now I -understand better. Perhaps, in time, you will forgive -me.”</p> -<p>Then it was Elsie’s turn to cry, and she did it so -whole-heartedly that the family devoted its complete -attention to calming her.</p> -<p>It was later that Miss Frazier exclaimed as though -she had just remembered it: “So you two children -are to be married, and Katherine become a Frazier -again! I wonder what Oakdale will say to that turn -of affairs!”</p> -<p>“If you really care what they say, Aunt Katherine”—Katherine -spoke quickly—“need they know -at all? Ashland society notes will hardly penetrate -here. And you’ve had quite enough to bear.”</p> -<p>“Don’t think you could ever hide such a famous -author as Nick has become, with only his first book, -under a bushel for long, my dear. And as a matter -of fact, quite apart from my joy that you are acting -like a sane girl at last, and for once, I shall be proud -to death of the marriage. I must call up the <i>Gazette</i> -to-morrow, before ten. You remind me, Kate.” As -well as pride there was a gleam of battle from Aunt -Katherine’s eyes.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_278">278</div> -<p>“And it really doesn’t matter a bit what they do -say, except for you, Aunt Katherine,” Katherine -offered. “There are four of us now, four in this -family. Enough of us to stand together, I should -think, and not ask much from society.”</p> -<p>“Four? Five!” Kate left Elsie’s side on the divan -to perch on the arm of her great-aunt’s chair. “Why, -five of us are quite enough to start a colony and make -our own society.”</p> -<p>“Bless you, dear child, for counting me in,” Miss -Frazier said with sheerest gratitude.</p> -<p>“But of course, we all count you in, and there <i>are</i> -five of us,” Katherine cried, “only we don’t want -you to sacrifice too much.” And that was the signal -for a second close formation of happy people about -Aunt Katherine’s chair.</p> -<p>“Sacrifice! Why, all I want in the world is my -family. Don’t talk about sacrifice!”</p> -<p>It was much later that Aunt Katherine began -wondering about dinner. What had become of it? -Nick and Katherine had utterly forgotten that one -does usually dine sometime before bedtime. They -laughed at the suddenness of their return to earth.</p> -<p>“Ring the bell, Kate, and see if the servants are -dead or asleep,” Miss Frazier said.</p> -<p>But at that instant Effie appeared in the door. -She had heard Miss Frazier’s words. “Julia put -dinner off an hour,” she explained. “It’s served -now.”</p> -<p>The “now,” however, was almost lost in Katherine’s -sudden pounce upon the servant and her -hearty handshake.</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_279">279</div> -<p>“Julia often takes a good deal upon herself,” -Miss Frazier observed, as linked with Katherine she -led their little procession toward the dining-room.</p> -<p>And their first view of the table justified Aunt -Katherine in this criticism of Julia. The polished -surface of the cherished antique was hidden under an -enormous damask cloth. But worse than that, the -jade dish with its exquisite floating blossoms had -given way to a huge, and to Miss Frazier’s mind -hideous, cut-glass punch-bowl full of roses, dozens -and dozens of roses, pink, red, and yellow!</p> -<p>“Why, they have made it into a festival,” Katherine -cried, surveying the effect. “Smell those roses.”</p> -<p>“See them, rather,” Miss Frazier responded. -“It’s the servants. They must have known you -both were here; and yes, there are two extra places -set.”</p> -<p>“It’s Julia, the lamb!” Katherine declared. -“Bless her dear heart. I saw her looking from the -kitchen window as we ran in. I’d go and kiss her -this second, but she wouldn’t approve of that until -after dinner. Julia’s a lion for etiquette.”</p> -<p>“Please be so considerate as not to begin spoiling -the servants, Katherine.”</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_280">280</div> -<p>Nick and Kate and Elsie looked at Aunt Katherine, -surprised. But Katherine simply answered lightly, -“It’s they who spoil me.” She accepted the tone -of her aunt’s command without dismay. She knew -that the apparent sharpness had been only Aunt -Katherine’s old habit of criticism reasserting itself -toward a beloved niece, who to her mind could never -possibly be anything but the child she had “brought -up.” Katherine had begun to understand her aunt -to-night for the first time, to see her in the “other -light” that the King of the Fairies knew.</p> -<p>“You’d better excuse yourself to wash your hands -and remove that odd-looking rain-soaked tam,” -Aunt Katherine picked on her again, the minute they -were seated. “Use my bathroom, it’s the nearest. -And hurry right back, or this surprisingly sumptuous-looking -soup that Julia has provided will get cold.”</p> -<p>Katherine, obediently leaving the room, looked -rather like a humble child, but Nick’s eyes, as he -stood, followed as though hers might have been the -departure of an empress.</p> -<p class="center"><span class="gs">* * * * * * * *</span></p> -<p>Late that night the doors between the girls’ rooms -blew shut in the wind that was clearing the air of -storm and rain. Never mind about the doors, -though; the spirit of Miss Frazier’s rule rather than -the letter was being kept to-night. For Kate and -Elsie were curled up within whispering distance of -each other on Kate’s bed. Both were in dressing -gowns; they were supposed to have been asleep for -an hour past.</p> -<p>“I’ve never been abroad, or even anywhere out of -New England,” Kate was whispering. “You went -with Aunt Katherine last summer. Will it be so -wonderful as I expect?”</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_281">281</div> -<p>“We were only in England. And it will be a -million times more wonderful than then, for we shall -be together. Why, two weeks from now, sooner, we -ought to be in Switzerland.”</p> -<p>“And two weeks ago we had never heard of each -other,” Kate added.</p> -<p>“And one day ago,” Elsie took it up, “if you had -told me that I would spend the rest of the summer -away from my father, travelling in Europe with you -and Aunt Katherine, I would have said you were -crazy.”</p> -<p>“Oh, Elsie,” Kate asked quickly, “I haven’t said -anything, but is that awfully hard for you, leaving -them in Ashland, while we go so far away?”</p> -<p>“Not any more awful for me to leave my father -than for you to leave your mother, I guess. Anyway, -when <i>they</i> like the plan so much, we’d be funny -daughters not to be pleased, too.”</p> -<p>“You say ‘My father, your mother’—Oh, Elsie, -do you realize in just a day or two it will be ‘our -father and our mother’?”</p> -<p>Elsie nodded. “Yes, Kate,” she said. “You -have given me a mother and I have given you a -father, and now we are a family. I feel, do you -know, as though my heart might burst!”</p> -<p>“Don’t let it,” Kate warned quickly. “You’ll -need it strong for climbing the Alps! Imagine! Oh, -how glorious it all is!”</p> -<p>“And when we come home again and live in that -funny little barn-house of yours—I am thinking of -that,” Elsie whispered. “That will be better than -travelling.”</p> -<div class="pb" id="Page_282">282</div> -<p>“The Hart boys are going to be simply flabbergasted,” -Kate said, remembering them. “They -kept telling me to bring you home with me, but they -never guessed you’d be my sister when you did -come.”</p> -<p>“But do you think they will want to have anything -to do with me?” Elsie asked, diffidently.</p> -<p>“Why not, I should like to know?”</p> -<p>“Well, you see, that letter they wrote——”</p> -<p>Kate’s face reddened. “What a creature I was! -Of course, they will forget all about that now. Even -if you weren’t my sister and Mother’s daughter, -they’d like you awfully just the first second they saw -you. They couldn’t help it.”</p> -<p>Before going to bed, finally, the girls put out the -lights and went out on to Kate’s flowery balcony to -look at the clearing night. They stood close together, -their arms about each other’s shoulders, -their dressing gowns billowing in the fresh wind. -Elsie lifted her face up toward the sky. “It’s going -to be a fair day to-morrow,” she affirmed. “See -the stars!”</p> -<p>Kate’s face was lifted, too. “Yes,” she said. -“Do you remember what the King of the Fairies told -Hazel and her lover about the magic they had made -their very own, how it’s safer than the stars from -troubling? Well, do you know, <i>as a family</i>, I think -we are going to have a lot of that magic.”</p> -<p class="tbcenter"><span class="smaller">THE END</span></p> -<hr class="dwide" /> -<h3 id="c22">THE VANISHING COMRADE -<br /><i>by Ethel Cook Eliot</i></h3> -<p>Kate Marshall had plenty of -boys for friends and a very -companionable mother. But -when she visited her interesting -Great Aunt Katherine she did -hope to find in Elsie a girl comrade -of her own age to share -her dreams and enthusiasms.</p> -<p>However, this new comrade -had a disturbing way of vanishing -unexpectedly.</p> -<p>And it all centered about the -orchard house, where windows -were found open, doors were -found locked, and lights flickered -at night.</p> -<p>Parties and pretty clothes, -misunderstandings and unusual -mystery make this an unusual -story that girls will enjoy from -start to finish.</p> -<p class="center small">Another of Mrs. Eliot’s distinctive books for girls.</p> -<h2>Transcriber’s Notes</h2> -<ul> -<li>Copyright notice provided as in the original—this e-text is public domain in the country of publication.</li> -<li>Silently corrected palpable typos; left non-standard spellings and dialect unchanged.</li> -<li>In the text versions, delimited italics text in _underscores_ (the HTML version reproduces the font form of the printed book.)</li> -</ul> - - - - - - - -<pre> - - - - - -End of Project Gutenberg's The Vanishing Comrade, by Ethel Cook Eliot - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE VANISHING COMRADE *** - -***** This file should be named 63455-h.htm or 63455-h.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/6/3/4/5/63455/ - -Produced by Stephen Hutcheson and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law 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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