Title: The Little Colonel's Chum: Mary Ware
Author: Johnston, Annie F. (Annie Fellows), 1863-1931
Language: English
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  The Little Colonel's
    Chum: Mary Ware


By ANNIE FELLOWS JOHNSTON

Author of "The Little Colonel Series," "Big Brother," "Ole Mammy's
Torment," "Joel: A Boy of Galilee," "Asa Holmes," etc.

Illustrated by ETHELDRED B. BARRY

[Illustration]

L.C. PAGE & COMPANY

BOSTON PUBLISHERS

   _Copyright, 1908_
BY L.C. PAGE AND COMPANY
   (INCORPORATED)

       *       *       *       *       *

_Entered at Stationers' Hall, London_

       *       *       *       *       *

_All rights reserved_


Made in U.S.A.


Twenty-third Impression, July, 1944
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
BY THE COLONIAL PRESS INC., CLINTON, MASS.



       To
     M.G.J.

[Illustration: "HER KEEN GRAY EYES SWEPT HIM ONE QUICK LOOK."
(_See page 4_)]



Preface


=Dear Boys and Girls Who Are Old Friends of the Little Colonel:=

When I finished the eighth volume of the Little Colonel Stories, The
Maid of Honour, I thought I had reached the end of the series, but such
a flood of letters came pouring in demanding to know what happened next,
that I could not ignore such a plea, and in consequence The Little
Colonel's Knight came riding by.

But even with Lloyd married and "living happily ever after" her friends
were not satisfied. "You skipped" they complained by the hundreds. "You
never told what happened between the time of her engagement and the
wedding, and you never told what happened to Betty and Joyce and Mary
and Phil and all the rest of them. Even if you haven't time for another
book, couldn't you just please write _me_ a little letter and satisfy my
curiosity about each character."

Of course I couldn't begin granting all those requests, and finally I
was persuaded it would be easier to answer your questions with a new
book. So here is Mary Ware, taking up the thread of the story at the
first of the skipped places. The time is September, the same September
that Betty went away to Warwick Hall to teach and Lloyd began to prepare
for her debut in Louisville.

Now this volume covers only one short year, so of course it can not tell
you all you want to know. But if you are disappointed because it does
not take you to the final milestone, remember that had we gone that far
it would have been the end of all our journeying together. And we have
it from our _Tusitala_ himself, that best beloved of travellers, for
whom in a far island of the sea was dug "a Road to last for ever," that
"_to travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive_."       A.F.J.



CONTENTS

CHAPTER                                           PAGE
   I. MARY ENTERS WARWICK                           1
  II. "THE KING'S CALL"                            18
 III. ROOM-MATES                                   37
  IV. "AYE, THERE'S THE RUB!"                      56
   V. A FAD AND A CHRISTMAS FUND                   81
  VI. JACK'S WATCH-FOB                            103
 VII. IN JOYCE'S STUDIO                           125
VIII. CHRISTMAS DAY AT EUGENIA'S                  141
  IX. THE BRIDE-CAKE SHILLING COMES TO LIGHT      163
   X. HER SEVENTEENTH BIRTHDAY                    190
  XI. TROUBLE FOR EVERYBODY                       205
 XII. THE GOOD-BYE GATE                           222
XIII. THE JESTER'S SWORD                          237
 XIV. BACK AT LONE-ROCK                           262
  XV. KEEPING TRYST                               286



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS


                                                        PAGE

"HER KEEN GRAY EYES SWEPT HIM ONE QUICK LOOK"
(_See page_ 4)                                   _Frontispiece_

"LAY BACK UNDER ITS SHELTERING CANOPY WITH A
SUPPRESSED GIGGLE"                                        52

"INSTEAD, IT SEEMED AS IF A SMALL CYCLONE SWEPT
THROUGH THE ROOM"                                         79

"THE GIRLISH FIGURE ENVELOPED IN A LONG LOOSE
WORKING APRON"                                           125

"SHE WAS A FASCINATING LITTLE CREATURE, ALL SMILES
AND DIMPLES"                                             153

"ALL SHE SAW WAS THE TELLER'S WINDOW, WITH A
SHREWD-EYED MAN BEHIND ITS BARS"                         172

"OUT ON THE PORCH SHE HEARD FROM NORMAN HOW
IT HAD HAPPENED"                                         263

"WHEN SHE DROVE A NAIL IT HELD THINGS TOGETHER"          280



THE LITTLE COLONEL'S CHUM: MARY WARE



CHAPTER I

MARY ENTERS WARWICK HALL


The bus running between Warwick Hall Station and Warwick Hall school
drew up at the door of the great castle-like building with as grand a
flourish as if it carried the entire Senior class, and deposited one
lone passenger upon the steps. As it was several days before the opening
of the Fall term, no pupils were expected so soon, and but few of the
teachers had returned. There was no one to see the imposing arrival of
the little Freshman except the butler, who had been drawn to the front
window by the sound of wheels. It devolved on him to answer the knocker
this afternoon. In the general confusion of house-cleaning the man who
attended the door had been sent up stairs to hang curtains.

That the newcomer was a prospective pupil, Hawkins saw at a glance. He
had not been in Madam Chartley's service all these years without
learning a few things. That she was over-awed by the magnificence of her
surroundings he readily guessed, for she made no movement towards the
knocker, only stood and looked timidly up at the massive portal and then
across the lawn, where a line of haughty peacocks stood drawn up in
gorgeous dress parade on the highest terrace.

"She's feeling like a cat in a strange garret," said the butler to
himself with a grin. It was a matter of personal pride with him when
strangers seemed duly impressed by the grandeur of this aristocratic old
manor-house, now used as a boarding-school. It was a personal affront
when they were not. Needless to say his dignity had suffered much at the
hands of American school-girls, and although this one seemed impressed
by her surroundings almost to the point of panic, he eyed her
suspiciously.

"'Eaven knows they lose their shyness soon henough!" he said under his
breath. "She can just cool 'er 'eels on the doorstep till she gets
courage to knock. 'Twull do 'er good."

But she waited so long that he began to grow uneasy. After that first
glance she had turned her back on the door as if she repented coming,
and, satchel in hand, stood hesitating on the top step ready for flight.
At least that is the way Hawkins interpreted her attitude. He could not
see her face.

It was a plain little face, sunburned as a gypsy's, with a generous
sprinkling of freckles on her inquisitive nose. But it was a lovable
face, happy and eager, with a sweet mouth and alert gray eyes that
seemed to see to the bottom of everything. Sometimes its expression made
it almost beautiful. This was one of the times.

She was not gazing regretfully after the departed 'bus as Hawkins
surmised, but with a pleasure so keen that it fairly made her catch her
breath, she was looking at the strange landscape and recognizing places
here and there, made familiar by kodak pictures, and the enthusiastic
descriptions of old pupils. There was the long flight of marble steps
leading down the stately terraces to the river--the beautiful
willow-fringed Potomac. There was the pergola overhung with Abbotsford
ivy, and the wonderful old garden with the sun-dial, and the
rhododendrons from Killarney. She had heard so much about this place
that it had grown to be a sort of enchanted land of dreams to her, and
now the thought that she was actually here in the midst of it made her
draw in her breath with a delicious little shiver.

Hawkins, from his peep-hole through one of the mullioned sidelights of
the great entrance, to which he had now advanced, saw the shiver, and
misinterpreting it, suddenly opened the door. It gave her such a start,
so absorbed had she been in her surroundings, that she almost toppled
down the steps. But the next instant it was Hawkins who was having the
start. Unabashed by his pompous manner, her keen gray eyes swept him one
quick look from his sphinx-like face to his massive shoe-buckles, as if
she had been given some strange botanical specimen to label and
classify. Without an instant's hesitation she exclaimed in the tone of
one making a delightful discovery, "Why, it's _Hawkins_!"

It was positively uncanny to the man that this stranger on whom he had
never laid eyes before should call him by name. He wondered if she were
one of these new-fangled mind-readers he had been hearing so much about.
It was also upsetting to find that he had been mistaken about her delay
in knocking. There was anything but timidity in the grand air with
which she gave him her card, saying, "Announce me to Madam Chartley,
Hawkins."

She was a plump little body, ill adapted to stately airs and graces, but
she had been rehearsing this entrance mentally for days, and she swept
into the reception room as if she were the daughter of a duke.

"There!" she said to herself as the portières dropped behind her. "I
hope he was properly impressed." Then catching sight of her reflection
in a long mirror opposite, she wilted into an attitude of abject
despair. A loop of milliner's wire, from which the ribbon had slipped,
stood up stiff and straight in the bow on her hat. She proceeded to put
it back in place with anxious pats and touches, exclaiming in an
anguished whisper,

"Oh, _why_ is it, that whenever I feel particularly imposing and Queen
Annish inside, I always look so dishevelled and Mary Annish outside!
Here's my hat cocked over one eye and my hair straggling out in wisps
like a crazy thing. I wonder what Hawkins thought."

Hawkins, on his way up stairs was spelling out the name on the card he
carried. "Miss Mary Ware, Phoenix, Arizona."

"Humph!" was his mental exclamation. "From one of the jumping hoff
places." Then his mind reverted to the several detective tales that made
up his knowledge of the far West. "'Ope she doesn't carry a gun 'idden
hon 'er person."

Now that the first ordeal was over and she was safely inside the doors
of Warwick Hall, the new pupil braced herself for the next one, the
meeting with Madam Chartley. She wouldn't have been quite so nervous
over it if she had been sure of a welcome, but the catalogue stated
distinctly that no pupils could be received before the fifteenth of
September, and this was only the twelfth. She had the best of reasons
for coming ahead of time, and was sure that Madam Chartley would make an
exception in her case when once the matter was properly explained. The
friends in whose care she had travelled from Phoenix had expected to
spend several days in Washington, sight-seeing, and she was to have been
their guest until the opening of school. But a telegram met them calling
them immediately to Boston. She couldn't stay alone at a strange hotel,
she knew no one in the entire city, and there was no course open to her
but to come on to school.

It was easy enough for her to see why she might not be welcome. There
was a vigorous washing of windows going on over the whole establishment,
a sound of carpenters in the background and a smell of fresh paint and
furniture polish to the fore. Everything was out of its usual orbit in
the process of getting ready for the opening day.

Lying awake the night before in the upper berth of the hot Pullman car,
Mary had carefully planned her little speech of explanation, and had
rehearsed it a dozen times since. But now her heart was beating so fast
and her throat was so dry she knew the words would stick at the very
time she needed them most. Feeling as if she were about to have a tooth
pulled, she sank into a large upholstered rocking chair to wait. It
tipped back so far that her toes could not reach the floor, and she
sprang out again in a hurry. One could never feel at ease in an
infantile position like that.

Then she tried a straight chair, imitating the pose of a majestic
gentlewoman in one of the portraits on the panelled wall. It was one of
Madam's grand ancestors she conjectured. A glance into the tell-tale
mirror made her sigh despairingly again. She was not built on majestic
lines herself. No matter how queenly and imposing she might feel in that
attitude, she only looked ridiculously stiff.

Once more she changed her seat, flouncing down on a low sofa, and
struggling for a graceful position with one elbow leaning on a huge silk
cushion. It was in all seriousness that she made these changes,
realizing that she could not appear at her best unless she felt at ease.
But the humour of the situation was not lost on her. An amused smile
dimpled her face as she gave the sofa cushion a thump and once more
changed her seat. "I'm worse than Goldilocks trying all the chairs of
the three bears, but that's too loppy!"

She whisked into a fourth seat, this time opposite the portières. To her
consternation the parted curtains revealed an appalling fact. Not only
could the winding stairway be seen from where she sat, but the entire
interior of the reception room must be equally visible to any one coming
down the steps. The dignified white-haired Personage now on the bottom
step must have seen every move she made as she darted around the room
trying the chairs in turn.

The faint gleam of suppressed amusement on Madam Chartley's face as she
entered, confirmed the girl's fears. It was unthinkable that such a
mortifying situation should go unexplained, yet for a moment after
Madam's courteous greeting Mary stood tongue-tied. Then she burst out,
her face fairly purple:

"Oh, I _wish_ you could change places with me for just five minutes!
Then you'd know how it feels to always put your worst foot first and
make a mess of everything!"

Madam Chartley had welcomed many types of girls to her school and was
familiar with every shade of embarrassment, but she had never been
greeted with quite such an outburst as this. Desperate to make herself
understood, Mary began in the middle of her carefully planned speech and
breathlessly explained backward, as to why she had arrived at this
inopportune time. The explanation was so characteristic of her, so
heart-felt and utterly honest, that it revealed far more than she
intended and opened a wide door into Madam's sympathies. As she stood
looking down at the girl with grave kind eyes, Mary suddenly became
aware of a strangely comforting thing. This was not an awesome
personage, but a dear adorable being who could _understand_. The
discovery made the second part of her explanation easier. She plunged
into it headlong as soon as they were seated.

"You see, I've heard so much about Hawkins and the way he sometimes
confuses the new girls with his grand London airs till they're too
rattled to eat, that I made up my mind that even if I am from Arizona,
I'd made him think that I've always 'dwelt in marble halls, with vassals
and serfs at my side.' I thought I was making a perfectly regal
entrance, till I looked into the mirror and saw how dilapidated I was
after my long journey. It took all the heart out of me and made me
dreadfully nervous about meeting you. I was trying to get into an easy
attitude that would make me feel more self-possessed when you came down.
That is why I was experimenting with all the sofas and chairs. Oh,
you've no idea how the Walton girls and Lloyd Sherman and Betty Lewis
have talked about you," she went on hurriedly, eager to justify herself.
"They made me feel that you were--well--er--sort of like _royalty_ you
know. That one ought to courtesy and back out from your presence as they
do at court."

Madam laughed an appreciative little laugh that showed a thorough
enjoyment of the situation. "But when you saw that the girls were
mistaken--"

Mary interrupted hurriedly, blushing again in her confusion. "No, no!
they were not mistaken! You're exactly as they described you, only they
didn't tell me how--how--er," she groped frantically for the word and
finished lamely, "how _human_ you are."

She had started to say "how _adorable_ you are," but checked herself,
afraid it would sound too gushing on first acquaintance, although that
was exactly what she felt.

"I mean," she continued, in her effort to be understood, "it seems from
the way you put yourself in my place so quickly, that once upon a time
you must have been the same kind of girl that I am. But of course I know
you were not. You were Lloyd Sherman's kind. She just naturally does the
right thing in the right place, and there's no occasion for her being a
copy-cat. That's what Jack calls me. Jack is my brother."

Madam laughed again, such an appreciative, friendly laugh, that Mary
joined in, wondering how the other girls could think her cold and
unapproachable. It seemed to her that Madam was one of the most
responsive and sympathetic listeners she had ever had, and it moved her
to go on with her confidences.

"Jack says I am not built on the same lines as the Princess. Princess
Winsome is one of our names for Lloyd. And he says it is ridiculous for
me to try to do things the way she does. He is always quoting Epictetus
to me: 'Were I a nightingale I would act the part of a nightingale; were
I a swan, the part of a swan.' He says that trying to copy her is what
makes me just plain goose so much of the time."

Madam Chartley, long accustomed to reading girls, knew that it was not
vanity or egotism which prompted these confessions, only a girlish
eagerness to be measured by her highest ideals and not by appearances.
She saw at a glance the possibilities of the material that lay here at
her hand. Out of it might be wrought a strong, helpful character such as
the world always needs, and such as she longed to send out with every
graduate who passed through her doors. Many things were awaiting her
attention elsewhere, but she lingered to extend their acquaintance a
trifle further.

"You know Lloyd Sherman well, I believe," she said. "I remember that you
gave Mrs. Sherman as one of your references when you applied for
admission to the school, and I had a highly satisfactory letter from her
about you in reply to my inquiry. Now that we speak of it I am reminded
that Lloyd added a most enthusiastic post-script concerning you."

Mary's face flushed with a pleasure so intense it was almost painful.
"Oh, did she?" she cried eagerly. "We've been friends always, even with
half a continent between us. Our mothers were school-mates. Lloyd was
more Joyce's friend than mine at first, because they are nearer of an
age. (Joyce is my sister. She's an artist now in New York City, and we
think she's going to be famous some day. She does such beautiful
designing.) Lloyd has been my model ever since I was eleven years old.
I'd rather be like her than anybody I ever knew or read of, so I don't
mind Jack calling me a copy-cat for trying. One of the reasons I wanted
to come to Warwick Hall was that she had been here. Would you believe
it?" she rattled on, "Last night on the sleeping-car I counted up
forty-two good reasons for wanting to come here to school."

It had been many a moon since Mary's remarks had met with such
flattering attention. Not realizing she was being studied she felt that
Madam was genuinely interested. It encouraged her to go on.

"Jack gave me my choice of all the schools in the United States, and I
chose this without hesitating an instant. Jack is paying my expenses you
know. I couldn't have come a step if it hadn't been for him, and there
wouldn't have been the faintest shadow of a hope of coming if he hadn't
been promoted to the position of assistant manager at the mines. Oh,
Madam Chartley, I _wish_ you knew Jack! He's just the dearest brother
that ever lived! So unselfish and so ambitious for us all"--

She stopped abruptly, feeling that she was letting her enthusiasm run
away with her tongue. But Madam, noting the quick leap of light to her
eyes and the eager clasping of her hands as she spoke of him wanted to
hear more. She was sure that in these naïve confessions she would find
the key-note to Mary's character. So with a few well chosen questions
she encouraged her to go on, till she had gathered a very accurate idea
of the conditions which had produced this wholesome enthusiastic little
creature, almost a woman in some respects, the veriest child in others.

Mary had had an uneventful life, she judged, limited to the narrow
bounds of a Kansas village, and later to the still narrower circle of
experiences in the lonely little home they had made on the edge of the
desert, when Mrs. Ware's quest of health led them to Arizona. But it was
a life that had been lifted out of the ordinary by the brave spirit
which made a jest of poverty, and held on to the refining influences
even while battling back the wolf from the door. It had made a family of
philosophers of them, able to extract pleasure from trifles, and to
find it where most people would never dream of looking.

As she listened, Madam began to feel warmly drawn to the entire family
who had taken the good old Vicar of Wakefield for an example, and
adopted one of his sayings as a rule of life: "Let us be inflexible and
fortune will at last turn in our favour."

Mary had no intention of revealing so much personal history, but she had
to quote the motto to show how triumphantly it had worked out in their
case and what a grand turn fortune had taken in their favour after so
many years of struggle to keep inflexible in the face of repeated
disappointments and troubles. It had turned for all of them. Joyce,
after several years of work and worry with her bees, had realized enough
from them to start on her career as an artist. Holland was at Annapolis
in training for the navy. Within the last six weeks Jack's promotion had
made possible his heart's desire, to send Mary to school and to bring
his mother and thirteen year old brother to Lone-Rock, the little mining
town where he had been boarding, ever since Mr. Sherman gave him his
first position there, several years before.

Mary was so bubbling over with the pleasure these things gave her that
it was impossible not to feel some share of it when one looked at her.
As Madam Chartley led the way to the office she felt a desire to add
still more to her pleasure. It was refreshing to see some one who could
enjoy even little things so thoroughly. She bent over the ledger a
moment, scanning the page containing the list of Freshmen who had passed
the strict entrance requirements.

"I had already assigned you to a room," she said, "but from what you
tell me I fancy you would count it a privilege to be given Lloyd's old
room. If that is so I'll gladly make the change, although I do not know
whether the other girl assigned to that room will prove as congenial a
companion to you as the first selection. Her mother asked for that
particular room, so I cannot well change."

Mary's face grew radiant. "Oh, Madam Chartley!" she cried. "I'd room
with a Hottentot for a chance to stay inside the four walls that held
the Princess all her school-days. You don't know how much it means to
me! You've made me the happiest girl on the face of the globe."

"It's a far cry from Ethelinda Hurst to a Hottentot," laughed Madam
Chartley. "She comes from one of the wealthiest homes in the suburbs of
Chicago, and has had every advantage that civilization can offer. She's
been abroad eight times, I believe, and has always studied at home under
private tutors. She's an only daughter."

"How interesting! That will be lots more diverting than a room-mate who
has always done the same common-place things that I have. Oh, you've no
idea how hard I'm going to work to deserve all this! I wrote to Jack
last night that I intend to tackle school this year just the way I used
to kill snakes--with all my might and main!"

An amused expression crossed Madam Chartley's face again. She was
thinking of Ethelinda and the possible effect the two girls might have
on each other. At any rate it was an experiment worth trying. It might
prove beneficial to them both. She turned to Mary with a smile, and
pressed a button beside her desk.

"Your trunk shall be sent up as soon as the men find time to attend to
it. In the meantime you may take possession of your room as soon as you
please."



CHAPTER II

"THE KING'S CALL"


Left to herself in the room which she was to occupy for the year, Mary
stood looking around with the keen interest of an explorer. It was a
pleasant room, with two windows looking out over the river and two over
the garden. To an ordinary observer it had no claim to superiority over
the other apartments, but to Mary it was a sort of shrine. Here in the
low chair by the window her Princess Winsome had sat to read and study
and dream all through her school days.

Here was the mirror that had caught her passing reflection so often,
that it still seemed to hold a thousand shadowy semblances of her in its
shining depths. Only the June before (three short months ago) she had
stood in front of it in all the glory of her Commencement gown.

Mary crossed the room on tiptoe, smiling at the recollection of one of
her early make-believes. Oh, if it were only true that one could pass
through the looking-glass into the wonderland behind it, what a
charming picture gallery she would find! All the girls who had occupied
the room since Warwick Hall had been a school! Blue eyes and brown,
laughing faces and wistful ones, girls in gorgeous full dress, pluming
themselves for some evening entertainment, girls in dainty undress and
unbound hair, exchanging bed-time confidences as they prepared for the
night, ambitious little saints and frivolous little sinners--they were
all there, somewhere in the dim background of the mirror, and because of
them there was a subtle charm about the room to Mary, which she would
not have felt if she had been its first occupant.

"It's like opening an old drawer to drop in a handful of fresh
rose-leaves, and finding it sweet with the roses of a dozen Junes gone
by," she said to herself, so pleased with the fancy that she went on
elaborating it.

"And Lloyd has been here so lately that _her_ rose-leaves haven't even
begun to wither."

There is no loyalty like the loyalty of a little school-girl for the
older girl whom she has enshrined in her heart as her ideal; no
sentiment like the intense admiration which puts a halo around
everything the beloved voice ever praised, or makes sacred everything
the beloved fingers have touched. Mary Ware at sixteen had not outgrown
any of the ardent admiration for Lloyd Sherman which had seized her when
she was only eleven, and now the desire to be like her flared up
stronger than ever.

She peered wistfully into the mirror, thinking, "Maybe just being in her
old room will help, because I shall be reminded of her at every turn."

For a moment the selfish wish was uppermost that she need not share the
room with any one. It seems almost desecration for a person who did not
know and love Lloyd to be so intimately associated with her. But Mary's
love of companionship was strong. Half the fun of boarding school in her
opinion was in having a room-mate, and she could not forego that
pleasure even for the sake of a very deep and tender sentiment. But she
made the most of her solitude while she had it. From kodak pictures she
had seen of the room, she knew at a glance which of the narrow white
beds had been Lloyd's, and immediately pre-empted it for herself,
staking out her claim by depositing her hat and gloves upon it.

As soon as her trunk was brought up stairs she fell to work unpacking,
with an energy in no wise diminished by the fatigue of the tiresome
journey. She had been cooped up on the cars so long that she was fairly
aching for something to do. In an hour's time all her clothes were
neatly folded or hung away, her shoe-pocket tacked inside the closet
door, her laundry-bag hung on a convenient nail, her few pictures
arranged in a group over her bed, and exactly half of the table laid out
with her portfolio, books and work-basket. She had been not only just
but generous in the division of property. She had left more than half
the drawer space and closet hooks for the use of the unknown Ethelinda;
the most comfortable chair, and the best lighted end of the table. That
was because she herself had had first choice in the matter of bed and
dressing table, and having seized upon the most desirable from her point
of view, felt that she owed the other girl some reparation. Because they
had been Lloyd's she wanted them so strongly that she was ready to
sacrifice everything else in the room for them, or even fight for their
possession if necessary.

By the time all was in order, the tall Lombardy poplars were throwing
long shadows on the green sward of the terraces, and from the window she
could see the garden, lying so sweet and still in the drowse of the late
afternoon that she longed to be down in it. She hurried to change the
rumpled shirt-waist in which she had finished her journey and done her
unpacking, for a fresh white dress. It was proof that the room was
exerting some influence to make her like her model, that even in her
haste she made a careful toilet. Remembering how dainty and
thorough-going Lloyd always was in her dressing, she scrubbed away until
every vestige of travel-stain was gone. All fresh and rosy, down to her
immaculate finger-tips, she scanned herself in the mirror, from the
carefully tied bow in her hair to the carefully tied bows on her
slippers, and nodded approvingly. She could stand inspection now from
the whole row of them--all those girls on the other side of the
looking-glass, who somehow seemed so near and real to her.

As she turned away from the mirror, her glance rested on the little
group of home pictures she had put up over her bed. The tents and tiny
two-roomed cottage that they called Ware's Wigwam looked small and
cramped compared to this great Hall with its wide corridors and spacious
rooms. It had always seemed to Mary that she was born to live in kings'
houses, she so enjoyed luxurious surroundings, but a homesick pang
seized her now, as she looked down on the picture and remembered that
she could never go back to it.

"It doesn't seem as if I have any home now," she sighed, "for I didn't
stay long enough in the new place at Lone-Rock to get used to it. I know
I shall always love the Wigwam best, and when I think of it standing
empty or maybe turned over to strangers, it makes me feel as if one of
my best friends had died. I'm glad we took so many pictures of it, and
that I kept a record of all the good times we had there. Oh, that
reminds me! There's one more thing I must do before sundown--bring my
diary up to date. I haven't written a line in it for six weeks."

The out-doors was too alluring to waste another moment in the house,
however, so gathering up her diary and fountain-pen, she went down
stairs and out into the garden, feeling as the gate swung to behind her
that she was stepping into an old, old English garden belonging to some
ducal estate. Coming as she did straight from the edge of the desert,
with its burning stretches of sand, its cactus and greasewood, its bare
red buttes and lank rows of cotton-wood trees, this Eden of green and
bloom had a double charm for her.

For a long time she wandered up and down its winding paths, finding many
a shady pleasance hidden away among its labyrinths of hedges, where one
might be tempted to stop and dream away a whole long summer afternoon.
But she did not pause until she came to a sort of court surrounded by
rustic arbours, where a fountain splashed in the centre, and an ancient
sun-dial marked the hours. With a pleased cry of recognition she ran
across the closely clipped turf, to read the motto carved on the dial's
face: "I only mark the hours that shine."

"The very words that Betty wrote in my Good Times Book the day she gave
it to me," she said, opening her diary to verify the motto on the
fly-leaf.

"It was beyond my wildest dreams then that I'd ever be standing here in
Warwick Hall garden, reading them for myself! I mustn't wait another
minute to make a record of this good time."

Choosing a seat in one of the arbours where a humming bird was darting
in and out through a tangle of vines, she opened the thick red book in
which she had kept a faithful record of her doings and goings for the
last two years, and glanced at the last entry. The date was such an old
one that she read the last few pages to refresh her memory.

                                   "THE WIGWAM, Thursday, August 4th.

     "Jack came home yesterday to our joyful surprise. Mr. Sherman had
     telegraphed him to come at once to Kentucky, on a flying trip to
     consult with the directors of the mine. As he had to pass through
     Phoenix anyhow, he managed it so that he could stay over night
     with us. I am so happy over the prospect of his having a chance at
     last to see our 'Promised Land' that I am fairly beside myself. I
     sat up half the night making cookies and gingerbread and rolls, and
     broiling chickens for his lunch. He says he's been hungry for
     home-cooking so long that it will go away ahead of dining-car fare.

     "Everything turned out beautifully, and while I waited for them to
     bake I wrote a list of the things he must see and questions he must
     ask at The Locusts; things I've wanted to know ever since I came
     back from Lloydsboro Valley, and yet you can't very well find out
     just in letters. He left on this morning's early train. If he finds
     he can take the time, he's going on to Annapolis for a day, just to
     get a glimpse of Holland, and then to New York for a day and a half
     with Joyce. Good old Jack! He's certainly earned his holiday. I can
     hardly wait for him to come home and tell all about it."


Spreading the book out on her knees, Mary adjusted her pen and began to
write rapidly, for words always crowded to her pen-point as they did to
her tongue, with a rush.

                                   "WARWICK HALL, September 12.

     "Little did I think when I wrote that last line, that six whole
     weeks would pass before I added another, or that my next entry
     would be made in this beautiful old garden that I have dreamed of
     so long. Little did I think I would be sitting here beside the old
     sun-dial, or that such an hour could shine for me as the happy hour
     when Jack came back.

     "I drove into Phoenix to meet him, and I knew from the way he
     waved his hat and swung off the steps before the train stopped that
     he had good news, and it was! Perfectly splendid! They had made
     him assistant manager of the mines, with a great big salary that
     would make a change in all our fortunes. I thought it was queer
     that he should bring a trunk back with him, for he went away with
     only a suit-case, but I was so busy asking questions about Joyce
     and Holland and everybody at The Locusts, that there wasn't time or
     breath to ask about the trunk. We were half way home before he got
     around to that.

     "He said his first thought when they told him of his promotion
     was, 'Now Mary can have her heart's desire and go away to school.'
     And on the way to New York he planned it all out, how we'd give up
     the Wigwam, and take a house in Lone-Rock, and he'd get some one to
     help Mamma with the work, and he'd have Norman under his eye all
     the time when he was out of school, and keep him out of mischief.
     He's been wanting to do that ever since he went to the mines, for
     there never was such a home-body. He can't bear to board.

     "Nearly all of that little scrap of a visit he and Joyce had
     together, those blessed children spent in getting my clothes. Joyce
     has all my measurements, and they got me three dresses and a hat
     and a lot of shirt-waists and gloves and fixings, all so beautiful
     and stylish and New Yorkey, _and_ the fine big trunk to put them
     in. There was even a new brush and comb and mirror, for she
     remembered how ratty looking my old things were. And there was a
     letter portfolio and a silk umbrella and a lot of odds and ends
     that all school-girls need. I don't believe they overlooked a thing
     to make my outfit complete, and I know they're as nice as any the
     others will have, for Joyce has such good taste and always knows
     just what is fit and proper. I feel so elegant in my pretty blue
     travelling suit, and I'm just aching for a chance to wear the
     beautiful little evening dresses they chose, one white pongee, and
     the other some new sort of goods that looks just like a soft
     shimmery cloud, a regular picture dress.

     "Jack went on to the mines next day, and after that everything was
     in a whirl till we were moved and settled, for there was so much to
     do, packing the furniture to be shipped, and after we got to the
     new house unpacking again and shifting things around till it got
     all liveable and homelike. By that time it was time for me to get
     my things together and go down to Phoenix to meet the people who
     had offered to take me under their wing on their way back East.
     Judge and Mrs. Stockton brought me. I must remember the date of
     Mrs. Stockton's birthday, November the fourth, and send her one of
     those bead purses. She admired the one she saw me making so much
     that I know she would like it, and she certainly was an angel to me
     on the trip. It seems to me it's my luck to meet nice people
     everywhere I go.

     "I'm not going to wait till the last Thursday in November for my
     Thanksgiving Day. I've got seven good reasons for thanksgiving this
     very minute. First, we got here without a wreck. Second, the ribbon
     on my hat doesn't show a single spot, after all the hard shower
     that we got caught in, that I thought had ruined it. Third, I
     _think_ I impressed Hawkins as I hoped to, even if I was a bit
     nervous. Fourth, while my introduction to Madam Chartley was
     horribly mortifying, all's well that ends well, and she didn't lay
     it up against me. I think she must have taken quite a fancy to me
     instead or she wouldn't have given me my fifth and greatest reason
     for thankfulness, the privilege of occupying Lloyd's old room.
     Maybe I oughtn't to put that as the greatest reason, for of course
     it's greater just to be here at all, and seventh, I'll never get
     done being thankful that I've got Jack for a brother. That really
     is the best of all, and I'm going to make so much out of my
     opportunities this year, that he'll feel repaid for all he's done
     for me, and be glad and proud that he could do it."

Filling another page with an account of her journey and her impressions
of the place, Mary closed her journal with a sigh of relief that the
long-neglected entry had been made. Then she leaned back on the rustic
bench and gave herself up to the enjoyment of her surroundings. The
fountain splashed softly. A lazy breeze stirred the vines, and fanned
her face. Far below, the shining Potomac took its slow way to the sea
between its lines of drooping willows. The calm and repose of the
stately old place seemed to steal in on her soul not only through eye
and ear and sense of touch, but at every pore.

"It's the strangest thing," she mused. "I must be a sort of chameleon,
the way I change with my surroundings. It doesn't seem possible that
only last week I was scrambling around with my head tied up in a towel,
scrubbing and cleaning and dragging furniture around at a break-neck
speed. I could almost believe I've never done anything all my life but
trail around this garden at my elegant leisure like some fine
lady-in-waiting."

There was time for a stroll down to the river before the falling
twilight recalled her to the house. As she went down the flight of
marble steps it was with the self-conscious feeling that she was a girl
in a play, and this was one of the scenes in Act I. She had seen a
setting like this on a stage one time, when a beautiful lady trailed
down the steps of a Venetian palace to the gondola waiting in the lagoon
below. To be sure Mary's dress did not trail, and she was not tall and
willowy outwardly, but it made no difference as long as she could _feel_
that she was. For a long time she walked slowly back and forth along the
river path, pausing now and then to look up at the great castle-like
building above her. She had never seen one before so suggestive of
old-world grandeur. Already it was giving her more than she would find
inside in its text-books. Peculiarly susceptible to surroundings, she
unconsciously held herself more erect, as if such a stately habitation
demanded it of her. And when she climbed the steps again, with it
looming up before her in the red afterglow, the dignity and repose of
its lines, from its massive portal to its highest turret, awakened a
response in her beauty-loving little soul that thrilled her like music.

She went softly through the great door and up the stair-case, pausing
for a moment on the landing to look at the coat-of-arms in the stained
glass window. It was a copy of the window in the old ancestral castle in
England, that belonged to Madam Chartley's family. Mary already knew the
story of its traditional founder, the first Edryn who had won his
knighthood in valiant deeds for King Arthur. In the dim light the
coat-of-arms gleamed like jewels in an amber setting, and the heart in
the crest, the heart out of which rose a mailed hand grasping a spear,
was like a great ruby.

"I keep the tryste," whispered Mary, reading the motto of the scroll
underneath. "No wonder Madam Chartley grew up to be so patrician.
Anybody might with a window like that in the house."

Some one began striking loud full chords on a piano in one of the rooms
below; some one with a strong masterful touch. Mary was sure it was a
man. By leaning over the banister until she almost lost her balance, she
caught a glimpse of a pair of black coat-tails swinging awkwardly over a
piano bench. Herr Vogelbaum, the musical director, must have arrived.
Probably she would meet him at dinner. That was something to look
forward to--an artist who had played before crowned heads and had been
lionized all over Germany. And then the chords rolled into something so
beautiful and inspiring that Mary knew that for the first time in her
life she was hearing really great music, played by a master. She sat
down on the steps to listen.

The self-conscious feeling that she was acting a part in a play came
back afresh, and made her hastily pull down her skirts and assume a
listening attitude. Thinking how effective she would look on a stage she
leaned back against the carved banister, clasping her hands around her
knees, and gazing up at the ruby heart in the stained glass window above
her. But in a moment both self and pose were forgotten. She had never
dreamed that the world held such music as the flood of melody which
came rolling up from below. It seemed to lift her out of herself and
into another world; a world of nameless longings and exalted ambitions,
of burning desire to do great deeds. Something was calling her--calling
and calling with the compelling note of a far-off yet insistent trumpet,
and as she gazed at the mailed hand with the spear rising triumphantly
out of the ruby heart, she began to understand. A feeling of awe crept
over her, that she, little Mary Ware, should be hearing the same call
that Edryn heard. Somewhere, some day, some great achievement awaited
her. Now she knew that that was why she had been born into the world.
That was why, too, that Providence had opened a way for her to come to
Warwick Hall, that she might learn what was to be "the North-star of her
great ambition," and how "to keep the compass needle of her soul" ever
true to it.

Clasping her hands together as reverently and humbly as if she were
before an altar, she looked up at the ruby heart, her face all alight,
whispering Edryn's answer:

     "'Tis the King's call! O list!
       O heart and hand of mine keep tryst--
         Keep tryst or die!"

The music stopped as suddenly as it had begun, and all a-tingle with the
exalted mood in which it left her, she ran up to her room and knelt by
the window, looking out into the dusk with eager shining eyes. As yet it
was all vague and shadowy, that mysterious future which awaited her.
With what great duty to the universe she was to keep tryst she did not
know; but whatever it was she would do it at any cost. To callow wings
no flight is too high to attempt. At sixteen all things are possible.

All girls of Mary's imaginative impulsive temperament have had such
moments, under the spell of some unusual inspiration, but their dreams
are apt to vanish at contact with the earth again, as suddenly as a
bubble breaks when some material object touches it. But with Mary the
vision stayed. True, it had to retire into the background when dinner
was announced, and her over-weening curiosity brought her down to the
consideration of common everyday affairs, but she did not lose the sense
of having been set apart in some way by that supreme moment on the
stair. To the world she might be only an ordinary little Freshman, but
inwardly she knew she was a sort of Joan of Arc, called and consecrated
to some high destiny.

She went down to dinner in an uplifted frame of mind that made her
passage down the long dining room in the wake of Madam and the few
returned teachers a veritable march of triumph. The feeling that the
curtain had gone up on an interesting play in which she was chief actor
came back stronger than ever when she took her seat in one of the
high-backed ebony chairs, with the carved griffins atop, and unfolded
her napkin in the gaze of a long line of ancestral portraits.

Madam Chartley, who had been looking forward to the dinner hour with
some apprehension on the new pupil's account, knowing she would be
obliged to curb the lively little tongue if she talked at the table as
she had done in the reception room, was amazed at the change in her.
Warwick Hall had done its work. Already the little chameleon had taken
on the colour of her surroundings. Hawkins, in all his years of London
service, had never served a more demure, self-possessed little English
maiden, or one who listened with greater deference to the conversation
of her elders.

She spoke only when she was spoken to, but some of her odd, unexpected
replies made Herr Vogelbaum look up with an interest he rarely took in
anything outside of his music and his dinner. Miss Chilton was so amused
at her accounts of Arizona life, that she invited her up to her room,
and led her into a conversation that revealed her most original traits.

"She's a bright little thing," Miss Chilton reported to Madam afterward,
"The kind of a girl who is bound to be popular in a school, just because
she's so different and interesting."

"She is more than that," answered Madam, smiling over the recollection
of some of her quaint speeches. "She is lovable. She has 'the divine
gift of making friends,'"



CHAPTER III

ROOM-MATES


Up in her orderly room, on opening day, Mary listened to the bustle of
arrivals, and the stir of unpacking going on all over the house. The
cordial greetings called back and forth from the various rooms and the
laughter in the halls made her long to have a part in the general
sociability. She wished that it were necessary for her to borrow a
hammer or to ask information about the trunk-room and the porter, as the
other new girls were doing. That would give her an excuse for going into
some of the rooms and making acquaintance with their occupants. But
everything was in absolute order, and she was already familiar with the
place and its rules. There was nothing for her to do but take out her
bead-work and occupy herself with that as best she could until the
arrival of her room-mate.

She set her door invitingly open, ready to meet more than half way any
advances her neighbours might choose to make. While she sorted her beads
she amused herself by fitting together the scraps of conversation which
floated her way, and making guesses as to the personality of the
speakers. Twice her open door brought the reward of a transient visitor.
Once a jolly Sophomore glanced in to say "I just wanted to see who has
the American Beauty room. That's what we called it last term when Kitty
Walton and Lloyd Sherman had it."

Soon after, a girl across the hall whom Mary had already identified as
one Dora Irene Derwent, called Dorene for short, darted in
unceremoniously with an agonized plea for a bit of court-plaster.

"I cut my finger on a piece of glass in a picture frame that got broken
in my trunk," she explained, unwinding her handkerchief to see if the
bleeding had stopped. "I can't find my emergency case, and Cornie Dean
never was known to keep anything of the sort. All the other rooms are so
upset I knew it was of no use to apply to them."

Happy that such an opportunity had come at last and that she could
supply the demand, Mary examined the injured finger and began to trim a
strip of plaster the required size. At the moment of cutting herself
Dorene had dropped the broken glass, but for some unaccountable reason
had thrust the frame under her arm, and was holding it hugged tight to
her side by her elbow. Now as she put out her hand for Mary's
inspection, she sat down on the edge of the bed, and let the frame slip
from her grasp to the counterpane. The photograph side lay uppermost,
and Mary, glancing at it casually, gave an exclamation of surprise.

"Why, it's _Betty_! Betty Lewis! Do _you_ know her?"

"Well, rather!" was the emphatic answer. "She was my crush all my
Freshman year. I suppose you know what that means if you've ever had a
case yourself. I simply adored her, and could hardly bear to come back
the next year because she was graduated and gone. I haven't seen her
since, but you can imagine my delight when I found her name in this
year's catalogue, as one of the teachers. We never imagined she'd teach,
for she has such a wonderful gift for writing; but it will be simply
delightful to have her back again. She's such a dear. But where did
_you_ happen to know her?" she added as an afterthought. "Are you from
Lloydsboro Valley, too?"

"No, but I visited there once at Lloyd Sherman's home where Betty lives.
Lloyd's mother is Betty's god-mother, you know, and Betty's mother was
my sister Joyce's god-mother. We're all mixed up that way on account of
our mothers being old school friends, as if we were related. Of course,
I shall call her Miss Lewis before the other girls. Mamma says it
wouldn't be showing proper respect not to. But it's such a comfort to be
able to call her Betty behind the scenes. She came yesterday. Last night
she was up in my room for more than an hour with me, talking about the
places and people we both know in the valley. It made me so happy I
could hardly go to sleep. Elise Walton came with her, Kitty's sister,
you know."

"Oh, is she as bright and funny as Kitty?" demanded Dorene. "If she is
we certainly shall lay siege to you two for our sorority. We ought to
have first claim, for all the other Lloydsboro Valley girls belong to
us. Come over and see Cornie."

Conscious that as a friend of the Valley girls she had gone up many
degrees in Dorene's estimation, Mary put away her scissors and
plaster-case, and followed her newfound acquaintance across the hall.
Her cordial reception gave her what she had been longing for all
morning, the sense of being in intimate touch with things in the inner
circle of school life. Because she knew Lloyd and Betty so well, they
took her in as one of themselves, gave her a seat on a suit-case, the
chairs all being full, and climbed over her and around her as they went
on with their unpacking. Mary was in her element, and blossomed out into
such an interesting visitor, that Dorene was glad that she had
discovered her. This was the beginning of the fourth year that she and
Cornie had roomed together, and to Mary their companionship seemed
ideal.

"I hope my room-mate will prove as congenial as you two," she said,
after listening half an hour to their laughing repartee and their
ridiculous discussions as to the arrangement of their pictures and
bric-a-brac. "I've been looking forward all morning to her coming. Every
time I think of her I have the same excited, creepy feeling that I used
to have when I opened a prize pop-corn box. My little brother and I used
to save all our pennies for them when we were little tots back in
Kansas. We didn't eat the pop-corn, that is _I_ didn't. It was the
flutter and thrill I wanted, that comes when you've almost reached the
bottom of the box, and know the next grab will bring the prize into your
fingers. I was always hoping I might find one of those little rings with
a red setting that I could pretend was a real garnet. No matter if it
did always turn out to be nothing but a toy soldier or a tin whistle,
there was always some kind of a surprise, and that delicious uncertain
creepy feeling first."

"Well, you don't always draw a prize in your pop-corn when you're
drawing room-mates, I can tell you _that_!" announced Cornie
emphatically.

"I was at a school the year before I came here, where I had to room with
a girl who almost drove me to distraction. She was a mild, modest little
thing, who, as Cowper says:

     "'Would not with a peremptory tone
       Assert the nose upon her face her own.'

Yet she'd do things that would provoke me beyond endurance. Sometimes I
could hardly keep from choking her."

"What kind of things for instance?" asked Mary.

"Well, for one thing, and it does seem a little one when you tell it, we
had about a thousand photographs, more or less, perched around on the
mantel and walls. Essie was so painfully modest that she couldn't bear
to undress with them looking at her, so she'd turn their faces to the
wall, and then next morning she'd be so slow about getting down to
breakfast that there wouldn't be time to turn them back. There my poor
family and friends would have to stay with their faces to the wall all
day as if they were in disgrace, unless I went around and turned them
all back myself.

"Then she was such a queer little mouse; didn't really come out of her
hole and get sociable until after dark. As soon as the lights were out
and we were in bed, she'd want to talk. No matter how sleepy I was, that
was the time to tell all her troubles. She was so humble and respectful
in asking my advice that I couldn't throw a pillow at her and shut her
up, so there she'd lie and talk in a stage whisper till after midnight.
Then it was like pulling teeth to get her up in the morning. She took to
setting an alarm clock for awhile, to rouse her early and give her half
an hour to wake up in. It never made the slightest difference to her,
but always wakened me. Finally I unscrewed the alarm key and hid it. She
was so sensitive that I couldn't scold and fuss about things. Now with
Dorene here, I simply gag her when she talks too much, shut her in the
closet when she gets in my way, and scalp her when she doesn't do as she
is bid."

Without any reason for forming such a mental picture of her prospective
room-mate, Mary had imagined her to be a blue-eyed, golden-haired little
creature, with a sort of wax-doll prettiness: a girl made to be petted
and considered and shielded like a delicate flower. The type appealed to
her. Independent and capable herself, she was prepared to be almost
motherly in her care for Ethelinda's comfort. With this preconceived
notion it was somewhat of a shock when she went back to her room and
found the real Ethelinda being ushered into it.

She was not blue-eyed and appealing. She was large, she was
self-assured, and she took possession of the room in an expansive
all-pervading sort of way that made Mary feel very small and
insignificant. The room itself that heretofore had been so spacious
suddenly seemed to shrink, and when a huge trunk was brought in, it was
fairly crowded.

Mary drew her chair into the narrow space between the bed and the
window, but even there she felt in the way. "I don't see why I should,"
she thought with vague resentment. "It's as much my room as hers."

It was one of the requirements of the school that all trunks must be
emptied and sent to the store-room on arrival, and presently, as
Ethelinda seemed ignorant of the rule, Mary told her and offered to help
her unpack. The answer was excessively polite, so polite that it left
Mary at greater arm's length than before. Fanchon was to do the
unpacking. She had come on purpose for that. In a few moments Fanchon
came in, a middle-aged woman who had accompanied her from home, and who
was to return as soon as her charge was properly settled. The two
conversed in French, as Ethelinda, with her hands clasped behind her
head, tipped back in a rocking chair and lazily watched proceedings. She
was utterly regardless of Mary's presence.

"I might as well be the door-knob for all the notice she takes of me,"
thought Mary resentfully, "Well, she may prove to be as much as a tin
whistle, but she certainly isn't the prize I had hoped to find."

She cast another furtive glance at her over her lead-stringing, slowly
making up her estimate of her.

"She's what Joyce would call a drab blonde--washed out complexion and
sallow hair. She looks drab all the way through to me, but she may be
the kind that improves on acquaintance. She certainly has a good figure,
and looks as stylish as one of those fashion ladies in _Vogue_."

From time to time Mary proffered bits of information as occasion
offered, as to which of the drawers were empty and how to pull the
wardrobe door a certain way when it stuck, but her friendly advances
were so coldly received, that presently she slipped out of the room and
went over to the East wing to see what Elise Walton was doing.

Elise had already made friends with her room-mate, a little dumpling of
a girl by the name of Agnes Olive Miggs, and was calling her A.O. as
every one else did. In five minutes Mary was calling her A.O. too, and
wishing a little enviously that either one of these bright friendly
girls could have fallen to her lot instead of the polite iceberg she had
run away from.

"But I won't complain of her to them," she thought loyally. "Maybe
she'll improve on acquaintance and be so nice that I'd be sorry some day
that I said anything against her."

Several other girls came in while she sat there, and a box of candy was
passed around. Finding herself in the company of congenial young spirits
was a new experience for Mary.

"Now I know what it means to be 'in the swim,'" she thought exultantly.
"I feel like a duck who has found a whole lake to swim in, when it has
never had anything bigger than a puddle before."

The sensation was so exhilarating that it prompted her to exert herself
to keep on saying funny things and send her audience off into gales of
laughter. And all the time the consciousness deepened that they really
liked her, that she was really entertaining them.

After lunch the day went by in a rush. Each teacher met her classes,
programmes were arranged and lessons assigned. By night Mary had made
the acquaintance of every girl in the Freshman class and many of the
others. She started to her room all aglow with the new experiences,
thinking that if she could only find Ethelinda responsive it would put
the finishing touch to a perfect day. Betty was in the upper hall
surrounded by an admiring circle, for all the old girls who remembered
her as the star of her class, and all the new ones who had been
attracted to her from the moment they saw her were crowding around her
as if she were holding some kind of court. It was a moment of triumph
for Mary when Betty laughingly excused herself from them all and drew
her aside.

"Come into my room a few minutes," she said. "I've something to show
you," While she was looking through her desk to find it she asked,
"Well, how goes it, little girl? Is school all you dreamed it would be?"

"Betty, she won't thaw out a bit."

"Who, dear?"

"That Miss Ethelinda Hurst. When I went up stairs to dress for dinner I
tried my best to be sociable, and brought up every subject that I
thought would interest her. She barely answered till she found that I
had come out to Warwick Hall from the city alone. That horrified her, to
think I'd taken a step without a chaperon, and she said it in such a way
that I couldn't help saying that I thought one must feel like a poodle
tied to a string--always fastened to a chaperon. As for me give me
liberty or give me death. And she answered, 'Oh, aren't you _queer_!'
Then after awhile I tried again, but she wouldn't draw out worth a cent.
Said she had never roomed with any one before, but supposed it was one
of the disagreeable things one had to put up with when one went away to
school. Imagine! Pleasant for me, wasn't it!"

"Try letting her alone for awhile," advised Betty. "Beat her at her own
game. Play dumb for--say a week."

"But that is so much good time wasted, when we might be chums from the
start. When you're going to bed is the cream of the day. You see you
always had Lloyd, so you don't know what it is like to room with an
oyster."

"Here it is," announced Betty, unwrapping the package she had just
found, and passing it to Mary. "Lloyd's latest photograph, the best she
has ever had taken, in my opinion. It's so lifelike you almost wait to
hear her speak. And I like it because it's so simple and girlish. I
suppose the next one will be taken in evening gown after she makes her
debut."

"Oh, is it for me?" was the happy cry.

"Yes, frame, picture, nail to hang it on and all. Lloyd sent it with her
love. The day the photographs came home, she found that funny slip of
paper with all the questions on it Jack was to ask. And you wanted so
especially to know just how the Princess looked and how she was wearing
her hair and all that, that she said, 'I believe I'll send one of these
to Mary. She'll admire it whether any one else does or not.'"

"Tell me about her," begged Mary, propping the frame up in front of her
that she might watch the beloved face while she listened.

Nothing loath, Betty sat down and began to talk of the gay summer just
gone, of the picnics and the barn parties, the moonlight drives, the
rainy days at the Log Cabin, the many knights who came a-riding by to
pay court to the fair daughter of the house. Then she told of her own
good times and the disappointment when her manuscript had been returned,
and the reason for her coming to Warwick Hall to teach.

"I have come to serve my apprenticeship," she explained. "The old
Colonel advised me to. He said I must live awhile--have some experiences
that go deeper than the carefree existence I have been living, before I
can write anything worth while. I am sure he is right."

When Mary had heard all that Betty could remember to tell, she took her
departure, carrying the picture and the nail on which to hang it. She
wanted to show it to Ethelinda, she was so proud of it, but heroically
refrained. Early as it was Ethelinda was undressing.

Mary had intended to do many things before bed-time, write in her
journal, mend the rip in her skirt, start a letter to Jack, and maybe
make some break in the wall of reserve which Ethelinda still kept
persistently between them. But when she saw the preparations for
retiring she hesitated, perplexed.

"She's tired from her long journey," she thought, "so maybe I ought not
to sit up and keep the light burning. Maybe she'll appreciate it if I go
to bed, too. I can lie and think even if I'm not sleepy."

The rip in the skirt had to be mended, however, or she would not be
presentable in the morning. It was a small one, and she did not sit down
to the task, but in order that she might work faster stood up and took
short hurried stitches. Next, taking off her shoe to use the heel as a
hammer, she drove the nail in the wall over the side of her bed, and
hung the picture where she could see it the last thing at night and the
first in the morning. Then, retiring behind her screen, she made her
preparations for the night. They were completed long before Ethelinda's,
and climbing into bed she lay looking at the new picture, glad for this
opportunity to gaze at it to her heart's content.

It made her think of so many things that she loved to recall--little
incidents of her visit to The Locusts; and the smiling lips seemed to be
saying, "Don't you remember" in such a friendly companionable way that
she whispered to herself, "Oh, you dear! If you were only here this
year, what an angel of a chum you would make!"

Then she looked across at Ethelinda, who had arranged the windows to her
satisfaction and was now stretching the electric light cord from her
dressing table to her bed, so that the bulb would hang directly over it.
In another moment she had propped herself comfortably against the
pillows, and settled down with a book.

Mary sat up astonished. She had sacrificed her own plans and come to bed
for Ethelinda's sake, and now here was the electric light blazing full
in her eyes, utterly regardless of _her_ comfort. She was about to
sputter an indignant protest when she looked up at the picture. It
seemed to smile back at her as if it were a real person with whom she
might exchange amused glances. "Did you ever see such colossal
unconcern?" she whispered, as if the pictured Lloyd could hear.

For a moment she thought she would get up and do the things she had
intended doing when she came up stairs, but it required too much of an
effort to dress again, and she was more tired than she had realized
after her exciting day. So she lay still. She began to get drowsy
presently, but she could not go to sleep with that irritating light in
her eyes. She threw a counterpane over the foot-board, but it was too
low to shield her. Finally in desperation she slipped out of bed and got
her umbrella. Then opening it over her she thrust its handle under the
pillow to hold it in place, and lay back under its sheltering canopy
with a suppressed giggle.

[Illustration: "LAY BACK UNDER ITS SHELTERING CANOPY WITH A SUPPRESSED
GIGGLE."]

Again she looked up at Lloyd's picture, thinking, "I'd have been awfully
mad if you hadn't been here to smile with me over it."

The bulb began to sway, throwing shadows across the wall. Ethelinda had
struck the cord in reaching up to pull her pillows higher. The
flickering shadows made Mary think of something--a verse that Lloyd had
written in her autograph album once, because it was the motto of the
Seminary Shadow Club.

     "This learned I from the shadow on a tree
      That to and fro did sway upon the wall,
      Our shadowy selves--our influence, may fall
      Where we can never be."

She repeated it drowsily, peering out from under her umbrella at the
swaying shadows, till something the lines suggested made her sit up,
wide awake.

"Why, I can take _you_ for my chum, of course," she thought. "Your
_shadow-self_. Then it won't make any difference whether Miss
Haughtiness Hurst talks to me or not, _You'll_ understand and sympathize
with me."

All her life when Mary's world did not measure up to her expectations,
she had been in the habit of making a world of her own; a beautiful
make-believe place that held all her heart's desires. It had given her
gilded coaches and Cinderella ball-attire in her nursery days, and
enchanted orchards whose trees bore all manner of confections. It had
bestowed beauty and fortune and accomplishments on her, and sent dashing
cavaliers to seek her hand when she came to the romance-reading age.
Friends and social pleasures were hers at will when the lonely desert
life grew irksome. Whatever was dull the Midas touch of her imagination
made golden, so now it was easy to close her eyes and conjure up a
make-believe chum that for the time was as good as a real one.

Absorbed in her book, Ethelinda read on until the signal sounded for
lights out. Never before accustomed to such restrictions, she looked up
impatiently. She had forgotten where she was for the moment in the
interest of her book. When her glance fell on the umbrella, spread over
Mary's bed like a tent, she raised herself on her elbow with a look of
astonishment. It took her some time to understand why it had been put
there.

Never having roomed with any one before, and never having had to
consider any one's convenience besides her own, it had not occurred to
her that she might be making Mary uncomfortable. The mute umbrella
called attention to the fact more eloquently than any protest could have
done. Ethelinda had endured having a room-mate as she endured all the
other disagreeable requirements of the school. Now for the first time it
dawned upon her that there might be two sides to this story, also that
this strange girl who seemed so eager to intrude herself on her notice
might be worth knowing after all. If Mary could have seen her bewildered
stare and then the amused expression which twitched her mouth for an
instant, she would have had hopes that the thawing out process had
begun.



CHAPTER IV

"AYE, THERE'S THE RUB!"

True to the course she had laid out for herself, Mary was as dumb next
morning as if she had really lost the power of speech. Judging from her
manner one would have thought that she was alone in the room, and that
she was having a beautiful time all by herself. She was waiting for
Ethelinda to make the advances this time, and as she did not see fit
even to say good-morning, the dressing proceeded in a silence so
profound that it could almost be felt.

There was a broad smile on Mary's face most of the time. She was ready
to laugh outright over the absurd situation, and from time to time she
cast an amused glance at Lloyd's picture, as if her amusement were
understood and shared. It was wonderful how that life-like picture
seemed to bring Lloyd before her and give her a delightful sense of
companionship, and she fell into the way of "thinking to it," as she
expressed it. The things she would have said aloud had Lloyd been with
her, she said mentally, finding a satisfaction in this silent communion
that a less imaginative person could not have experienced.

"I wish you could go down to breakfast with me, Princess," she thought,
turning for a last glance when she was dressed, and pausing with her
hand on the door-knob. "I dread to go down alone before all those
strangers."

Dinner, the night before, had been a very stately affair, with Madam at
the head of the table in the long banquet hall, and Hawkins in solemn
charge of his corps of waiters. But breakfasts were to be delightfully
informal, Mary found a few minutes later, when she paused at the dining
room door and saw many small round tables, each cozily set for six: five
pupils and a teacher. Betty, presiding at one, looked up and beckoned to
her.

"You're a trifle early, but come on in. You're to have a seat here by
me, with Elise and A.O. just around the corner. Now tell me what has
happened to give you that 'glorious morning face,' as Stevenson puts it.
You look as if you had found some rare good fortune."

"I have, but I didn't know I showed it." Mary's hands went up to her
face as if she expected to feel the expression that Betty saw. "I am so
happy to think that I'm to be at your table. And I'm glad that I can
stop playing dumb for awhile. Oh, but it has been funny up in our room
this morning. I took your advice, and I want to tell you about it before
the other girls come down."

Betty laughed heartily as Mary pictured herself in bed under the
umbrella, and smiled understandingly when she told about finding a
make-believe chum in Lloyd's picture.

"I know, dear," she answered. "I used to do that way with god-mother's
picture when I was a lonely little thing at the Cuckoo's nest. I'd
whisper my troubles and show her my treasures, and feel that she kept
watch over me while I slept. It comforted me many a time, when there was
no one else to go to, and is one of my dearest recollections now of
those days when I felt so little and lonesome and uncared for."

"How Jack would laugh at me," exclaimed Mary, presently, "if he knew
that one of my air-castles had collapsed. He is always teasing me about
building sky-scrapers without any foundation. On my way out here Mrs.
Stockton told me a lot of stories about her school days. She roomed with
the Judge's sister, and she heard so much about him and he heard so
much about her through this sister, that they got to sending messages to
each other in her letters. Then they exchanged photographs, and finally
they met when he came on the Commencement, and the romance of their
lives grew out of it. I kept thinking how romantic it would be to have
your brother marry your dearest chum, someone you already loved like a
sister--and that if my room-mate turned out to be lovely and sweet and
charming, all that I hoped she'd be, how interesting I could make it for
Jack. There's no society at all in Lone-Rock, and he never can meet any
nice girls as long as he stays there."

"And you don't think he would be interested in Ethelinda?" asked Betty
mischievously. "An heiress and a girl with such a distinguished air? She
certainly has that even if she doesn't measure up to your standard of
beauty. He might be charmed with her. You never can tell what a man is
going to like."

"Not that--that--_clam_!" Mary answered warmly, with an expression of
disgust. "I know Jack! You've no idea how she can shut herself up in her
shell. She never would fit in our family and I know he'd never--"

The signal announcing breakfast made her stop in the middle of her
sentence, for at that same instant the girls began to file in.

"Well, it's good-bye, 'Betty.' I must begin talking to 'Miss Lewis'
now." Giving Betty's hand a quick squeeze under the table, she drew
herself up sedately.

The Old Girls' Welcome to the New was the chief topic of conversation
that morning. It was to take place that night, and as the invitations
would not be delivered until the opening of the first mail, every
Freshman was in a flutter of expectancy, wondering who her escort was to
be.

"I hope mine will be either Cornie Dean or Dorene Derwent," confided
Mary to Betty in an undertone, "because I know them so well. But if I
should have to choose a stranger I'd rather have that quiet girl in
gray, over at Miss Chilton's table. She looks like a girl in an English
story-book. I mean the one that Ethelinda is talking to now. And I wish
you'd notice how she _is_ talking," Mary continued in amazement. "Did
you ever see more animation? She's making up for lost time."

"Oh, that's Evelyn Berkeley," answered Betty. "She _is_ English; a
distant relative of Madam's with such an interesting history. The year I
finished school she came in the middle of the spring term, such a
sad-looking creature all in black. Her mother had just died, and her
father, who only a short time before had succeeded to the title and
estates, sent her over here to be with Madam for awhile. He didn't know
what to do with her, as she seemed to be going into a decline. She isn't
like the same girl now."

"Oh, is she a real 'My-lady-the-carriage-waits'?" asked Mary, her eyes
wide with interest.

"Yes, she belongs to a very ancient and noble family," said Betty,
amused at her enthusiasm. "But I thought you were such a little
American-revolution patriot that you would not be impressed by anything
like that."

"I'm not impressed, exactly," Mary answered stoutly, "but this is the
first girl I ever saw who is own daughter to a lord, and it does add a
flavour to one's interest in her. Oh, I see, now. _That_ is why
Ethelinda is so friendly," she added, with sudden intuition of the
truth. "She thinks that Miss Berkeley is somebody worth cultivating, and
that I'm not."

"Maybe it's a case of 'birds of a feather,'" said Elise, who had heard
part of the conversation. "Ethelinda aspires to a family tree and a
coat-of-arms, too. I saw her box of stationery spilled out over your
table when I was in your room yesterday, and it had quite an imposing
crest on the paper--a unicorn or griffin or something, pawing away at a
crown."

Mary pursed her lips together thoughtfully. "That might explain it.
Maybe she thinks I'm only a sort of wild North American Indian because
our place is named Ware's Wigwam, and that it is beneath her dignity to
be intimate with her inferiors. But if that is what is the matter, she's
just a snob, and can't be very sure of her own position."

"She is only sixteen," Betty reminded her, "even if she does look so
mature and imposing. I have an idea that the way she has been brought up
is responsible for her attitude now. It has given her a false standard
of values. Now, Mary, here is a chance for you to do some real
missionary work, and teach her that '_the rank is but the guinea's
stamp_,' and that we're all pure gold, 'for a' that and a' that,' no
matter if we are not members of the British peerage."

"I wouldn't mind telling her anything if she were a real heathen," was
Mary's earnest answer. "But trying to break through her reserve is a
harder task than butting a hole through the Chinese wall. You've no idea
how haughty she is. Well, I don't care--much."

She cared enough, however, to take a lively interest in her room-mate's
pedigree, after seeing the crest on her note paper. Later in the morning
when some literature references made it necessary for her to go to the
library, she looked around for a certain fat volume she had pored over
several times during those idle days before the beginning of school. It
was Burke's Peerage. She had looked into it because of the story of
Edryn, finding many mottoes as interesting as the one in the great amber
window on the stairs. Now she turned to the B's and rapidly scanned the
columns till she came to the Berkeleys. For generations there had been
an Evelyn in the family. What a long, long time they had had to shape
their lives by their motto, and grow worthy of their family traditions!
No wonder that Evelyn had that air of gentle breeding and calm poise
like Madam Chartley's.

Mary had already on a previous occasion looked in vain for the name of
Ware, and when she failed to find it, consoled herself with the thought
that for three hundred years it had been handed down with honour in the
annals of New England. Staunch patriots the Wares had been in the old
colony days, sturdy and stern of conscience, and Mary had been taught to
believe that their struggle to wrest a living from the rocky hills
while they built up a state was as worthy of honour as any knightly deed
of the Round Table. She was prouder of those early ancestors who delved
and spun and toiled with their hands at yeoman tasks, than the later
ones, who were ministers and judges and college professors.

Until now she had never attached any importance to the fact that a
branch of her mother's family had been a titled one, because she was
such a patriotic little American, and because so many years had elapsed
since that particular branch had severed its connection with the family
in the old world. But now Mary felt a peculiar thrill of satisfaction
when she found the name in the peerage and realized that some of the
blue blood which had inspired those great-great-grandfathers to knightly
deeds was coursing through her own veins. The crest was a winged spur,
with the motto, "Ready, aye ready."

"Maybe that is the reason the 'King's call' has come to me as it did to
Edryn," she mused, her chin in her hand and her eyes gazing dreamily out
of the window. Then she forgot all about her quest for the literature
references, for in her revery she was listening to the Voices again, and
seeing herself in a dimly foreshadowed future, the centre of an
acclaiming crowd. What great part she was to play she did not know, but
when the time should come for the fulfilment of her high destiny, she
would rise to meet it like the winged spur, crying "Ready, aye ready,"
as all those brave ancestors had done. It was in the blood to respond
thus.

The hunter's horn on the terrace outside, sounding the call to
recreation, roused her from her day-dreams, and she came to herself with
a start. But before she hurried away to the office where the mail was
being distributed, she made a quick survey of the H's. To her surprise
the name of Hurst was not among them. She fairly ran down the stairs to
report her discovery to Elise.

When the invitations for the evening were all distributed Mary went up
stairs wailing out her consternation to A.O. She was to be escorted by
Jane Ridgeway, the most dignified senior in the school.

"She's the kind that knows such an awful lot, and you have to be on your
p's and q's with her every single minute. Cornie says her father is in
the Cabinet, and her mother is a shining intellectual light. And now
that I've been warned beforehand, I'll not be able to utter a syllable
of sense; I know that I'll just gibber."

When she went to her room to dress for the occasion that night there
was a great hunch of hot-house roses waiting for her with Jane's card.
She knew from the other girls' description of this opening festivity
that the seniors spared no expense on this occasion, but it rather
overawed her to receive such an extravagant offering. She looked across
at the modest bunch of white and purple violets which had come from the
Warwick Hall conservatory for Ethelinda, and wondered if there had not
been some mistake. Then to her surprise, Ethelinda, who had noticed her
glance, spoke to her.

"Sweet, aren't they! Miss Berkeley sent them, or rather Lady Evelyn, I
should say. She is to be my escort to-night."

It was Mary's besetting sin to put people right whom, she thought were
mistaken, so she answered hastily, "Oh, no! You oughtn't to call her
Lady Evelyn. She doesn't like it. She wants to be just like the other
girls as long as she is in an American school."

Ethelinda drew herself up with a stare, and asked in a patronizing tone
that nettled Mary:

"May I ask how _you_ happen to know so much about her?"

Equally lofty in her manner, and in a tone comically like Ethelinda's,
Mary answered, "You may. Miss Lewis gave me that bit of information,
and for the rest I looked her up in Burke's Peerage. She comes of a very
illustrious and noble family, so of course she feels perfectly sure of
her position, and doesn't have to draw the lines about herself to
preserve her dignity as some people do. Cornie Dean was telling me about
a girl who was in the school last year who made such a fuss about her
pedigree that she couldn't be friends with more than three of the girls.
The rest weren't high enough caste for her. She sported a crest and all
that, and they found out that she hadn't a particle of right to it. Her
father had struck it rich in some lumber deal, and _bought_ a gallery of
ancestral portraits, and paid a man a small fortune to fix him up a coat
of arms. She had no end of money, but she wasn't the real thing, and
Cornie says that paste diamonds won't go down with _this_ school. They
can spot them every time."

Ethelinda made no comment for a moment, but presently asked in a
strained tone, "Did you have any doubts of Miss Berkeley's claims? Is
that why you looked her up in the peerage?"

"No," said Mary, honestly. "I was looking for my own name. But there
wasn't a single Ware in it. And then"--she couldn't resist this thrust,
especially as she felt it was a part of the missionary work she had
undertaken--"I looked for Hurst, too, as the girls said you had a
crest."

"Well?" came the question, a trifle defiantly.

"It's not in the Peerage."

Ethelinda drew herself up haughtily as if she disdained an explanation,
yet felt forced to make one. "It is not my father's crest I use," she
announced. "It came from back in my mother's family."

"Oh!" said Mary, with significant emphasis. "I see!" Then she added
cheerfully, "I could have one, too, on a count like _that_, way back
among my great-grandmothers. But I wouldn't have any real right to it.
You have to be in the direct line of descent, you know, and it is silly
for us Americans to try to hang on by a hair to the main trunk of the
family tree, when all the world knows we belong on the outside
branches."

There was no answer to this and the dressing proceeded in a silence as
profound as the morning's, until Mary saw that Ethelinda was struggling
in a frantic effort to free herself from the hooks of her dress which
had caught in her hair.

"Wait," she called, hurrying to the rescue. "Let me hook it for you.
What a perfect dream of a gown it is!" she added in frank admiration,
as she deftly fastened it up the back. "It looks like the kind in the
fairy tales that are woven out of moon-beams. Here, let me fix your
hair, where the hooks pulled it loose."

She tucked in the straggling locks with a few soft pats and touches
which, with the compliment, mollified Ethelinda a trifle, in spite of
her resentment over the former speech. But it still rankled, and she
could not forbear saying a little spitefully, "Thanks! What a soft,
light touch you have. Quite like a maid I had last year. By the way, her
name was Mary. And it was awfully funny. It happened at that time that
every maid in the house was named that, and whenever mamma called 'Mary'
five or six of them would come running. I used to tell my maid that if I
had as common a name as that I'd change it."

Something in the way she said it set Mary's teeth on edge. She had never
known any one before who purposely said disagreeable things. She often
said them herself in her blundering, impetuous way, but was heartily
sorry as soon as they were uttered. Now for the first time in her life
she wanted to retaliate by saying the meanest thing she could think of.
So she answered, hotly, "Oh, I don't know. I'd rather be named Mary
than a name that means _noble snake_, like Ethelinda."

"Who told you it means that?" was Ethelinda's astonished demand. "I
don't believe it."

"You've only to consult Webster," was the dignified reply. "I looked
your name up in the dictionary the day I first heard it. Ethel means
noble, but Ethelinda means noble _snake_. I suppose nobody ever calls
you just _Inda_," she added meaningly.

Ethelinda's eyes flashed, but she had no answer for this queer girl who
seemed to have the Dictionary and the Peerage and no telling how many
other sources of information at her tongue's end.

Again the dressing went on in silence. Mary finished first, all but a
hook or two which she could not reach, and which she could not muster up
courage to ask Ethelinda to do for her. Finally, gathering up her armful
of roses, she went across the hall to ask Dorene's assistance.

"Why, of course!" she cried, opening the door wide at Mary's knock. "You
poor child! Think of having a room-mate who is such a Queen of Sheba she
couldn't do a little thing like that for you!"

"But I didn't ask her," Mary hurried to explain, eager to be perfectly
honest. "I had just made such a mean remark to her that I hadn't the
courage to ask a favour."

"_You!_" laughed Cornie. "I can't imagine a good natured little puss
like you saying anything very savage to anybody."

"But I did," confessed Mary. "I _wanted_ to hurt her feelings. I fairly
ached to do it. I should have said something meaner still if I could
have thought of it quick enough. Isn't it awful? Only the second day of
the term to have things come to such a pass! Everything we do seems to
rub the other's fur up the wrong way."

"I'd ask Madam to change me to some other room," said Dorene, but Mary
resented the suggestion.

"No, indeed! I'll not have it said that I was such a fuss-cat as all
that. I'll make myself get along with her."

"Well, I don't envy you the task," was Cornie's rejoinder. "I never can
resist the temptation to take people down when they get high and mighty.
I heard her telling one of the girls at the breakfast table that she'd
never ridden on a street-car in all her life till she came to
Washington. She made Fanchon take her across the city in one instead of
calling a carriage as they always do. They have a garage full of
machines at home, and I don't know how many horses. She said it in a way
to make people who had always ridden in public conveyances feel mighty
plebeian and poor-folksy, although she insisted that street-cars are
lots of fun. 'They give you a funny sensation when they stop.' Those
were her very words."

"Well, of all things!" cried Mary, then after a moment's silent musing,
"It never struck me before, what different worlds we have been brought
up in. But if a street-car ride is as much of a novelty to her as an
automobile ride would be to me, I don't wonder that she spoke about it.
I know I'd talk about my sensations in an auto if I'd ever been in one,
and it wouldn't be bragging, either. Maybe all our other experiences
have been just as different," she went on, her judicial mind trying to
look at life from Ethelinda's view-point, in order to judge her fairly.

"I wonder what sort of a girl I would have been, if instead of always
having the Wolf at the door, we'd have had bronze lions guarding the
portals, and all the money that heart could wish."

"Money!" sniffed Cornie. "It isn't that that makes the difference in
Ethelinda. Look at Alta Westman, a million in her own right. There
isn't a sweeter, jollier, friendlier girl in the school."

"Any way," continued Mary, "I'd like to be able to put myself in
Ethelinda's place for about an hour, and see how things look to
her--especially how _I_ look to her. I'm glad I thought about that. It
will make it easier for me to get along with her, for it will help me to
make allowances for lots of things."

The door stood ajar, and catching sight of Jane Ridgeway coming up the
hall, Mary started to meet her.

"Remember," called Cornie after her. "We've taken you under our wing,
and claim you for our sorority. We're not going to have any of the
Lloydsboro Valley girls imposed on, and if she gets too uppity she'll
find herself boycotted."

As the door closed behind her Dorene remarked, "She's a dear little
thing. I'm going to see that she has so much attention to-night that
Ethelinda will wake up to the fact that she's worth having for a friend.
I'm going to ask Evelyn Berkeley to make a special point of being nice
to her."

The thought that Cornie considered her one of the Lloydsboro girls sent
Mary away with a pleasurable thrill that made her cheeks glow all
evening. There was something in the donning of party clothes that
always loosened her tongue, and conscious of looking her best she
plunged into the festivity of the hour with such evident enjoyment that
others naturally gravitated towards her to share it.

"Congratulations!" whispered Betty, happening to pass her towards the
close of the evening. "You're quite one of the belles of the ball."

"Isn't it simply perfect?" sighed Mary, her face beaming.

Herr Vogelbaum had just come in and was settling himself at the piano,
in place of the musicians who had been performing. This was an especial
treat not on the programme, and all that was needed in Mary's opinion to
complete a heavenly evening. He played the same improvisation that had
caught her up in its magic spell the day of her arrival, and she went to
her room in the uplifted frame of mind which finds everything
perfection. Even her strained relations with Ethelinda seemed a trifle,
the tiniest thorn in a world full of roses. Her last waking thought was
a resolution to be so good and patient that even that thorn should
disappear in time.

Mary's popularity was not without its effect upon Ethelinda, especially
the Lady Evelyn's evident interest in her. It argued that she was worth
knowing. Then, too, it would have been a hard heart which could have
steeled itself against Mary's persistent efforts to be friendly. It was
a tactful effort also, making her daily put herself in Ethelinda's place
and consider everything from her view-point before speaking. Many a time
it helped her curb her active little tongue, and many a time it helped
her to condone the one fault which particularly irritated her.

"Of course it is hard for her to keep her half of the room in order,"
she would say to herself. "She's always had a maid to wait on her, and
has never been obliged to pick up even her own stockings. She doesn't
know how to be neat, and probably I shouldn't, either, if I hadn't been
so carefully trained."

Then she would hang the rumpled skirts back in the wardrobe where they
belonged, rescue her overturned work-basket from some garment that
Ethelinda had carelessly thrown across it, and patiently straighten out
the confusion of books and papers on the table they shared in common.
Although there were no more frozen silences between them their
conversations were far from satisfactory. They were totally uncongenial.
But after the first week, that part of their relationship did not
affect Mary materially. She was too happily absorbed in the work and
play of school life, throwing herself into every recitation, every
excursion and every experience with a zest that left no time for
mourning over what might have been. At bed-time there was always her
shadow-chum to share the recollections of the day. One of her letters to
Joyce gave a description of the state of resignation to which she
finally attained.

"Think of it!" she wrote. "Me with my Puritan conscience and big bump of
order, and my r.m. calmly embroidering this Sabbath afternoon! Her
dressing table, her bed and the chairs look like rubbish heaps. Her
bed-room slippers in the middle of the floor this time of day make me
want to gnash my teeth. Really it is a disaster to live with some one
who scrambles her things in with yours all the time. The disorder gets
on my nerves some days till I want to scream. There are times when I
think I shall be obliged to rise up in my wrath like old Samson, and
smite her 'hip and thigh with a great slaughter.'

"In most things I have been able to 'compromise.' Margaret Elwood, one
of the Juniors, taught me that. She tried it with one of her
room-mates, now happily a back number. Margaret said this girl loved
cheap perfumes, for instance, and she herself loathed them. So she
filled all the drawers and wardrobes with those nasty camphor
moth-balls, which the r.m. couldn't endure, and when she protested,
Margaret offered a compromise. She would cut out the moth-balls, even at
the expense of having her clothes ruined, if the r.m. would swear off on
musk and the like.

"I tried that plan to break E. of keeping the light on when I was
sleepy. One night I lay awake until I couldn't stand it any longer, and
then began to hum in a low, droning chant, sort of under my breath, like
an exasperating mosquito: '_Laugh_-ing _wa_-ter! _Big_ chief's
_daugh_-ter!' till I nearly drove my own self distracted. I could see
her frown and change her position as if she were terribly annoyed, and
after I had hummed it about a thousand times she asked, 'For heaven's
sake, Mary, is there anything that will induce you to stop singing that
thing? I can't read a word.'

"'Why, yes,' I answered sweetly. 'Does it annoy you? I was only singing
to pass the time till you turn off the light. I can't sleep a wink.
We'll just compromise.'

"She turned it out in a jiffy and didn't say a word, but I notice that
she pays attention to the signals now, and does her reading before they
sound 'taps.' All this is teaching yours truly a wonderful amount of
self control, and I have come to the conclusion that everything at
Warwick Hall, disagreeables and all, are working together for my good."

So matters went on for several weeks. Mary meekly hung up Ethelinda's
dresses and put the room in order whenever it was disarranged, and
Ethelinda, always accustomed to being waited upon, took it as a service
due her from one whom necessity had placed in a position always to
serve. If she had accepted it silently Mary might have gone on to the
end of the term making excuses for her, and making good her neglect; but
Ethelinda remarked one day to one of the Sophomores that if Mary Ware
ever wanted a recommendation as lady's maid she would gladly give it.
She seemed naturally cut out for that.

The remark was repeated without loss of time, and in the same
patronizing tone in which it was made. Mary's boasted self-control flew
to the four winds. She was half way down the stairs when she heard it,
but turning abruptly she marched back to her room, her cheeks red and
her eyes blazing. Throwing open the door she gave one glance around
the room. The disorder happened to be a little worse than usual. A
wet umbrella leaned against her bed, and Ethelinda's damp coat lay
across the white counterpane, for she had been walking in the rain, and
had thrown them down in the most convenient spot on entering. Other
articles were scattered about promiscuously, but Mary made no attempt as
usual to put them in place.

[Illustration: "INSTEAD, IT SEEMED AS IF A SMALL CYCLONE SWEPT THROUGH
THE ROOM."]

Instead, it seemed as if a small cyclone swept through the room. The wet
umbrella was sent flying across to Ethelinda's bed. Gloves, coat, and
handsome plumed hat followed, regardless of where they lit, or in what
condition. Half a dozen books went next, tumbling pell mell into a
corner. Then Ethelinda's bed-room slippers, over which Mary was always
stumbling, hurtled through the air, and an ivory hair-brush that had
been left on her dressing-table. They whizzed perilously near
Ethelinda's head.

"There!" exclaimed Mary, choking back the angry tremble in her voice.
"I'm worn out trying to keep this room in order for order's sake! The
next time I find your things on my side of the room I'll pitch them out
of the window! It's no excuse at all to say that you've always had
somebody to wait on you. You've always had your two hands, too. A
_lady_ is supposed to have some sense of her own obligations and of
other people's rights. Now don't you _dare_ get on my side again!"

With her knees trembling under her till she could scarcely move, Mary
ran out of the room, so frightened by what she had done that she did not
venture back till bedtime. Ethelinda refused to speak to her for several
days, but the outburst of temper had two good results. One was that
there was no need for its repetition, and Ethelinda treated her with
more respect from then on.

It had come to her with a shock, that Mary was looking down on _her_,
Ethelinda Hurst, pitying her for some things and despising her for
others; and though she shrugged her shoulders at first and was angry at
the thought, she found herself many a time trying to measure up to
Mary's standards. She couldn't bear for those keen gray eyes to look her
through, as if they were weighing her in the balance and finding her
wanting.



CHAPTER V

A FAD AND A CHRISTMAS FUND


For a Freshman to start a fad popular enough to spread through the
entire school was an unheard of thing at Warwick Hall, but A.O. Miggs
had that distinction early in the term. Her birthday was in October, and
when she appeared that morning with a zodiac ring on her little finger,
set with a brilliant fire opal, there was a mingled outcry of admiration
and horror.

"Oh, I wouldn't wear an opal for worlds!" cried one superstitious girl.
"They're dreadfully unlucky."

"Not if it is your birthstone," announced A.O., calmly turning her hand
to watch the flashing of red and blue lights in the heart of the gem.
"It's bad luck _not_ to wear one if you were born in October. It says on
the card that came in the box with this:

     "'October's child is born for woe
       And life's vicissitudes must know,
       Unless she wears the opal's charm
       To ward off every care and harm.'

"And they say too that you are beloved of the gods and men as long as
you keep your faith in it."

"Then I'll certainly have to get one," laughed Jane Ridgeway, who had
joined the group, "for I am October's child. Let me see it, A.O."

She adjusted her glasses and took the plump little hand in hers for
inspection. "I always have thought that opals are the prettiest of all
the stones. Write the verse out for me, A.O., that's a good child. I'll
send it home for the family to see how important it is that I should be
protected by such a charm."

This from a senior, the dignified and exclusive Miss Ridgeway, put the
seal of approval on the fashion, and when, a week later, she appeared
with a beautiful Hungarian opal surrounded by tiny diamonds, with her
zodiac signs engraved on the wide circle of gold, every girl in school
wanted a birth-month ring.

Elise wrote home asking if agates were expensive, and if she might have
one. Not that she thought they were pretty, but it was the stone for
June, so of course she ought to wear one. The answer came in the shape
of an old heirloom, a Scotch agate that had been handed down in the
family, almost since the days of Malcolm the Second. It had been a
small brooch, worn on the bosom of many a proud MacIntyre dame, but
never had it evoked such interest as when, set in a ring, it was
displayed on Elise's little finger.

After that there was a general demand for a jeweller's catalogue which
appeared in their midst about that time. One page was devoted to
illustrations of such stones with a rhyme for each month. The firm which
issued the catalogue would have been surprised at the rush of orders had
they not had previous dealings with Girls' Schools. The year before
there had been almost as great a demand for tiny gold crosses, and the
year before for huge silver horse-shoes. This year the element of
superstition helped to swell the orders. When the verse said,

     "The August born, without this stone,
      'Tis said must live unloved and lone,"

of course no girl born in August would think of living a week longer
without a sardonyx, especially when the catalogue offered the genuine
article as low as $2.75. The daughters of April and May, July and
September had to pay more for their privileges, but they did it gladly.
When Cornie Dean read,

     "Who wears an emerald all her life
      Shall be a loved and honoured wife,"

she sold her pet bangle bracelet that afternoon for ten dollars, and
added half her month's allowance to buy an emerald large enough to hold
some potency.

Mary pored over the catalogue longingly when it came her turn to have
it. She liked her verse:

     "Who on this world of ours their eyes
      In March first open shall be wise.
      In days of peril firm and brave,
      And wear a bloodstone to their grave."

When she had considered sizes and prices for awhile she took out her
bank book and Christmas list and began comparing them anxiously. Betty,
coming into the room presently, found her so absorbed in her task that
she did not notice the open letter Betty carried, and the gay samples of
chiffon and silk fluttering from the envelope. She looked up with a
little puckered smile as Betty drew a chair to the opposite side of the
table, asking as she seated herself, "What's the matter? You seem to be
in some difficulty."

"It's just the same old wolf at the door," said Mary, soberly. "I have
enough for this term's expenses, all the necessary things, but there's
nothing for the extras. There isn't a single person I can cut off my
Christmas list. I've put down what I've decided to make for each one,
and what the bare materials will cost, and although I've added it up and
added it down, it always comes out the same; nothing left to get the
ring with."

She sat jabbing her pencil into the paper for a moment. "I wish there
were ways to earn money here as there are at some schools. There are so
many things I need it for. They'll expect me to contribute something to
the mock Christmas tree fund, and I want to get Jack something nice. I
couldn't take his own money to buy him a present even if there were
enough, which there isn't. I've already made him everything I know how
to make, that he can use, and men don't care for things they can't use,
but that are just pretty, as girls do. Just look what a beauty bright of
a watch-fob I've found in this catalogue."

She turned the pages eagerly. "It is a bloodstone. The very thing for
Jack, for his birthday is in March, too, and it is such a dark,
unpretentious stone that he would like it. _But_--it costs eight
dollars."

She said it in an awed tone as if she were naming a small fortune.

"Maybe we can think of some way for you to earn it," said Betty,
encouragingly. "I'll set my wits to work this evening as soon as I've
finished looking over the A class themes. Because none of the girls has
ever done such a thing before in the school is no reason why you should
not. Look! This is what I came in to show you."

It was several pages from Lloyd's last letter, and the samples of some
new dresses she was having made. For a little space the wolf at the door
drew in its claws, and Mary forgot her financial straits. Early in the
term Betty had divined how much the sharing of this correspondence meant
to Mary. She could not fail to see how eagerly she followed the winsome
princess through her gay social season in town, rejoicing over her
popularity, interested in everything she did and wore and treasuring
every mention of her in the home papers. The old Colonel sent Betty the
_Courier-Journal_, and the society page was regularly turned over to
Mary. There was a corner in her scrap-book marked, "My Chum," rapidly
filling with accounts of balls, dinners and house-parties at which she
had been a guest. This last letter had several messages in it for Mary,
so Betty left the page containing them with her, knowing they would be
folded away in the scrap-book with the samples, as soon as her back was
turned.

"I was out at Anchorage for this last week-end," ran one of the
messages. "And it rained so hard one night that what was to have been an
informal dance was turned into an old-fashioned candy-pull. Not more
than half a dozen guests managed to get there. Tell Mary that I tried to
distinguish myself by making some of that Mexican pecan candy that they
used to have such success with at the Wigwam. But it was a flat failure,
and I think I must have left out some important ingredient. Ask her to
please send me the recipe if she can remember it."

"Probably it failed because she didn't have the real Mexican sugar,"
said Mary, at the end of the reading. "It comes in a cone, wrapped in a
queer kind of leaf, so I'm sure she didn't have it. I'll write out the
recipe as soon as I get back from my geometry recitation, and add a
foot-note, explaining about the sugar."

Somehow it was hard for Mary to keep her mind on lines and angles that
next hour. She kept seeing a merry group in the Wigwam kitchen. Lloyd
and Jack and Phil Tremont were all ranged around the white table,
cracking pecans, and picking out the firm full kernels, while Joyce
presided over the bubbling kettle on the stove. She wondered if Lloyd
had enjoyed her grown-up party as much as she had that other one, when
Jack said such utterly ridiculous things in pigeon English, like the old
Chinese vegetable man, and Phil cake-walked and parodied funny
coon-songs till their sides ached with laughing.

At the close of the recitation a hastily scribbled note from Betty was
handed to her.

"I have just found out," it ran, "that Mammy Easter will be unable to
furnish her usual pralines and Christmas sweets to her Warwick Hall
customers this year. Why don't you try your hand at that Mexican candy
Lloyd mentioned. If the girls once get a taste it will be 'advertised by
its loving friends' and you can sell quantities. I am going to the city
this afternoon, and can order the sugar for you. If they wire the order
you ought to be able to get it within a week. _E.S._"

Mary went up stairs two steps at a bound, stepping on the front of her
dress at every other jump, and only saving herself from sprawling
headlong as she reached the top, by catching at A.O., who ran into her
on the way down. She could not get back to her bank book and her
Christmas list soon enough, to see how much cash she had on hand, and
compute how much she dared squeeze out to invest in material.

A week later the Domestic Science room was turned over to her during
recreation hour, and presently a delicious odour began to steal out into
the halls, which set every girl within range to sniffing hungrily. Betty
explained it to several, and there was no need to do anything more.
Every one was on hand for her share when the samples were passed around,
and the new business venture was discussed in every room.

"Wouldn't you like to know Jack Ware?" asked Dorene of Cornie, her mouth
so full of the delicious sweets that she could only mumble. "Any man who
can inspire such adoration in his own sister must be nothing short of a
wonder."

"I feel that I do know him," responded Cornie, "That I am quite well
acquainted with him, in fact. And I quite approve of 'my brother Jack.'
It's queer, too, for usually when you hear a person quoted morning, noon
and night you get so that you want to scream when his name is mentioned.
Now there's Babe Meadows. Will you ever forget the way she rang the
changes on 'my Uncle Willie'? I used to quote that line from Tennyson
under my breath--'_A quinsy choke thy cursèd note!_' It was 'Uncle
Willie says this isn't good form' and 'Uncle Willie says they don't do
that in England' till you got worn to a frazzle having that old
Anglomaniac eternally thrown at your head. But the more Mary quotes Jack
the better you like him."

"I wonder how he feels about Mary taking this way to earn his Christmas
present."

"Oh, of course he doesn't know she is doing it, and of course he
wouldn't like it if he did. But he'd have hard work stopping her. She is
as full of energy and determination as a locomotive with a full head of
steam on, and I imagine he's exactly like her. She fondly imagines that
he will be governor of Arizona some day."

"There!" exclaimed Dorene. "That suggests the dandiest thing for us to
put on the mock Christmas tree for her. A Jack-in-the-box! She's always
springing him on an unsuspecting public, and just about as unexpectedly
as those little mannikins bob up. She has used him so often to 'point
her morals and adorn her tales' that every girl in school will see the
joke."

"Well, the future governor of Arizona will get his bloodstone fob all
right as far as my patronage will help," said Cornie, when she had
laughingly applauded Dorene's suggestion. She carefully picked up the
last crumb. "I shall speak for three pounds of this right off. Papa has
such a sweet tooth that he'd a thousand times rather have a box of this
than a dozen silk mufflers and shaving cases and such things that
usually fall to a man's lot at Christmas."

If the girls in this exclusive school thought it strange that one of
their number should start a money-making enterprise, no whisper of it
reached Mary. Her sturdy independence forbade any air of patronage, and
she was such a general favourite that whatever she did was passed over
with a laugh. The few who might have been inclined to criticize found it
an unpopular thing to do. The object for which she was working enlisted
every one's interest. Jack would have ground his teeth with
mortification had he known that every girl in school was interested in
his getting a bloodstone watch-fob in his Christmas stocking, and daily
discussed the means by which it was being procured.

Orders came in rapidly, and Mary spent every spare moment in cracking
pecans, and picking out the kernels so carefully that they fell from the
shells in unbroken halves. It was a tedious undertaking and even her
study hours were encroached upon. Not that she ever neglected a lesson
for the sake of the pecans, for, as she said to Elise, "I've set my
heart on taking the valedictory for Jack's sake, and of course I
couldn't sacrifice that ambition for all the watch-fobs in the
catalogue. He wouldn't want one at that price. But I've found that I can
pick out nuts and learn French verbs at the same time. If you and A.O.
will come up to the Dom. Sci. this afternoon at four thirty, and not let
any of the other girls know, I'll let you scrape the kettle and eat the
scraps that crumble from the corners when I cut the squares. But I can
not let any one in while I'm measuring and boiling. I couldn't afford to
make a mistake."

Promptly at the time set, the girls tapped for admission, for there was
no denying the drawing qualities of Mary's wares. The pun was common
property in the school.

"Elise," said A.O., pausing in her critical tasting, when they had been
at it some time. "I really believe that this is better than Huyler's hot
fudge Sun-balls. And it is lots better than the candy that Lieutenant
Logan sent you last week."

Elise made a face expressing both surprise and reproof. "Considering
that you ate the lion's share of it, Miss Miggs, that speech is neither
pretty nor polite."

"I wonder," continued A.O., paying no attention to her, "if the
Lieutenant knows what a public benefactor he is, when he sends you
bon-bons and books and things." She had enjoyed his many offerings to
Elise as much as the recipient and thought it wise to follow her first
speech with a compliment.

"Well, Agnes Olive, if you feel that you have profited so much by his
benefactions, then you are not playing fair if you don't invite some of
us down to meet your 'special,' when he comes next week. Mary, what do
you think? A.O. has a _suitor_! A boy from home. He is to come next
week, armed with a note from her 'fond payrents,' giving him permission
to call. After talking about him all term and getting my curiosity up to
fever heat about such a paragon as she makes him out to be, she blasts
all my hopes by flatly refusing to let me meet him. Pig!" she made a
grimace of mock disgust at A.O.

"I wouldn't care, if you weren't such an awful tease," admitted A.O.
"But I know how you'll criticize him afterward. You'll make a byword of
everything he said and quote it to me till kingdom come. _You_ know how
it would be, don't you, Mary?" turning to her. "You wouldn't want her
taking notes on everything he said if you had a--a--a friend--"

"'Oh, call it by some better name, for friendship sounds too cold,'"
interrupted Elise.

"Well, I haven't any a--a--whatever it is Elise wants to call it," said
Mary, laughing. "I only wish I had. I've always thought it would be nice
to have one, but I suppose I'll have to go to the end of my days
singing: 'Every lassie has her laddie, Nane they say hae I.' That has
always seemed such a sad song to me."

"Oh, oh!" cried Elise, perversely, who seemed to be in a mood for
teasing everybody. She pointed an accusing spoon at her before putting
it back in her mouth.

"What about Phil Tremont, I'd like to know! He saved her from an Indian
once, A.O., out on the desert. It was dreadfully romantic. And when he
was best man at Eugenia Forbes's wedding, and Mary was flower girl, Mary
got the shilling that was in the bride's cake. It was an old English
shilling, coined in the reign of Bloody Mary, with Philip's and Mary's
heads on it. That is a sure sign they were meant for each other. Phil
said right out at the table before everybody that fate had ordered that
he should be the lucky man. Mary has that shilling this blessed minute,
put away in her purse for a pocket piece, and she carries it everywhere
she goes. I saw it yesterday when she was looking in her purse for a
key, and she got as red as--as red as she is this minute."

Elise finished gleefully, elated with the success of her teasing. "My!
How you are blushing, Mary. Look at her, A.O." Her dark eyes twinkled
mischievously as she sang in a meaning tone:

     "Amang the train there is a swain
        I dearly lo'e mysel'.
      But what's his name or where's his hame
        I dinna choose to tell."

"I'm not blushing," protested Mary, hotly. "And it is silly to talk that
way when everybody knows that Phil Tremont never cared anything for any
girl except Lloyd Sherman."

"Maybe not at one time," insisted Elise. "And neither did Lieutenant
Logan care about any girl but my beloved sister Allison at one time. I'm
not mentioning names, but you know very well that she's not the one he
is crazy about now. Just wait till fate brings you and Phil together
again. You'll probably meet him during the Christmas vacation if you go
to New York."

Mary made no answer, only thrust a knife under the edge of the candy in
the largest plate, as if her sole interest in life was testing its
hardness. Then she spread out several sheets of paraffine paper with a
great show of indifference. It had its effect on Elise, and she promptly
changed her target back to A.O. There was no fun in teasing when her
arrows made no impression.

Usually A.O. enjoyed it, but she had tangled herself in a web of her own
weaving lately, and for the last few days had been in terror lest Elise
should find her out. Inspired by the picture of the handsome young
lieutenant on Elise's desk, and not wanting to seem behind her room-mate
in romantic experiences, silly little A.O. had drawn on her imagination
for most of the confidences she gave in exchange. When Elise talked of
the lieutenant, A.O. talked of "Jimmy," adding this trait and that grace
until she had built up a beautiful ideal, but a being so different from
the original on which she based her tales, that Jimmy himself would
never have recognized her dashing hero as the bashful fellow he was
accustomed to confront in his mirror.

He had carried her lunch basket when they went to school together, he
had patiently worked the sums on her slate with his big clumsy fingers
when she cried over the mysteries of subtraction. Later, when shy and
overgrown, and too bashful to speak his admiration, he had followed her
around at picnics and parties with a dog-like devotion that touched her.
He had sent her valentines and Christmas cards, and at the last High
School commencement when the graduating exercises marked the parting of
their ways, he had presented her with a photograph album bound in
celluloid, with a bunch of atrociously gaudy pansies and forget-me-nots
painted thereon.

In matching stories with Elise, the album and his awkwardness and his
plodding embarrassed speech somehow slipped into the background, and it
was his devotion and his chivalry she enlarged upon. Elise, impressed by
her hints and allusions, believed in the idealized Jimmy as thoroughly
as A.O. intended she should.

For several days A.O. had been in a quandary, for her mother's last
letter had announced a danger which had never entered her thoughts as
being imminent. "Jimmy Woods will be in Washington soon. He is going up
with his uncle, who has some business at the patent office. I have given
him a note to Madam Chartley, granting him my permission to call on you.
He is in an agony of apprehension over the trip to Warwick Hall. He is
so afraid of meeting strange girls. But I tell him it will be good for
him. It is really amusing to see how interested everybody in town is
over Jimmy's going. Do be kind to the poor fellow for the sake of your
old childish friendship, no matter if he does seem a bit countrified and
odd. He is a dear good boy, and it would never do to let him feel
slighted or unwelcome."

When A.O. read that, much as she liked Jimmy Woods, she wished that the
ground would open and swallow him before he could get to Washington, or
else that it had opened and swallowed her before she drew such a picture
of him for Elise to admire. There were only two ways out of the dilemma
that she could see: confession or a persistent refusal to let her see
him. She must not even be allowed to hang over the banister and watch
him pass through the hall, as she had proposed doing.

The more she persisted in her refusal the more determined Elise was to
see him. A.O. imagined she could feel herself growing thin and pale from
so much lying awake of nights to invent some excuse to circumvent her.
If she only knew what day Jimmy was to be in Washington she could
arrange to meet him there. So she could plan a trip to the dentist with
Miss Gilmer, the trained nurse, as chaperon. She wouldn't have minded
introducing him to Elise if she had never painted him to her in such
glowing colours as her hero. She wished she hadn't told her it was Jimmy
who was coming. She could have called him by his middle name,
Gordon--Mr. Gordon, and passed him off as some ordinary acquaintance in
whom Elise could have no possible interest.

It was a relief when Elise turned her attention to Mary's affairs, and
when she saw that her turn was coming again, she set her teeth together
grimly, determined to make no answer.

Presently, to her surprise, Elise relapsed into silence, and stood
looking out of the window, tapping on the kettle with her spoon in a
preoccupied way. Then she laughed suddenly as if she saw something
funny, and being questioned, refused to give the reason.

"I just thought of something," she said, laughing again. "Something too
funny for words. I'll have to go now," she added, as if the cause of her
mysterious mirth was in some way responsible for her departure.

"Thanks mightily for the candy, Mary. It's the best ever. You're going
to be overflowed with orders, I'm sure. Well, farewell friends and
fellow citizens, I'll see you later."

"What do you suppose it was that made her laugh so," asked A.O.,
suspiciously. "There's always some mischief brewing when she acts that
way. I don't dare leave her by herself a minute for fear she'll plot
something against me. I'll have to be going, too, Mary."

Left to herself, Mary began washing the utensils she had used. By the
time she had removed every trace of her candy-making, the confections
set out on the window sill in the wintry air were firm and hard, all
ready to be wrapped in the squares of paraffine paper and packed in the
boxes waiting for them. She whistled softly as she drew in the plates,
but stopped with a start when she realized that it was Elise's song she
was echoing:

     "Amang the train there is a swain
        I dearly lo'e mysel'."

"It must be awfully nice," she mused, "to have somebody as devoted to
you as the Lieutenant is to Elise and Jimmy is to A.O. If I were A.O. I
wouldn't care if the whole school came down to meet him. I'd _want_ them
to see him. I made up my mind at Eugenia's wedding that it was safer to
be an old maid, but I'd hate to be one without ever having had an
'affair' like other girls. It must be lovely to be called the Queen of
Hearts like Lloyd, and to have such a train of admirers as Mister Rob
and Mister Malcolm and Phil and all the others."

There was a wistful look in the gray eyes that peered dreamily out of
the window into the gathering dusk of the December twilight. But it was
not the wintry landscape that she saw. It was a big boyish figure,
cake-walking in the little Wigwam kitchen. A handsome young fellow
turning in the highroad to wave his hat with a cheery swing to the
disconsolate little girl who was flapping a farewell to him with her old
white sunbonnet. And then the same face, older grown, smiling at her
through the crowds at the Lloydsboro Valley depot, as he came to her
with outstretched hands, exclaiming, "Good-bye, little Vicar! Think of
the Best Man whenever you look at the Philip on your shilling."

She was thinking of him now so intently that she lost count of the
pieces she had packed into the box she was filling with the squares of
sweets, and had to empty them all out and begin again. But as she
recalled other scenes, especially the time she had overheard a
conversation not intended for her about a turquoise he was offering
Lloyd, she said to herself, "He is for Lloyd. They are just made for
each other, and I am glad that the nicest man I ever knew happens to
like the dearest girl in the world. And I hope if there ever should be
'a swain amang the train' for me, he'll be as near like him as possible.
I don't know where I'd ever meet him, though. Certainly not here and
most positively not in Lone-Rock."

"Not like other girls," she laughed presently, recalling the title of
the book Ethelinda was reading. "That fits me exactly. No Lieutenant, no
Jimmy, and no birthstone ring, and no prospect of ever having any. But I
don't care--much. The candy is a success and Jack is going to have his
bloodstone fob."

With her arms piled full of boxes, she started down to her room. As she
opened the door a burst of music came floating out from the gymnasium
where the carol-singers were practising for the yearly service. This one
was a new carol to her. She did not know the words, but to the swinging
measures other words fitted themselves; some lines which she had read
that morning in a magazine. She sang them softly in time with the
carol-singers as she went on down the stairs:

     "For should he come not by the road, and come not by the hill
      And come not by the far sea way, _yet come he surely will_.
      Close all the roads of all the world, _love's road is open still_."



CHAPTER VI

JACK'S WATCH-FOB


Elise spent Saturday and Sunday in Washington with the Claiborne family,
and A.O. almost prayed that Jimmy would make his visit in her absence.
On her return she had so much to tell that she did not mention his name,
and A.O. hoped that he was forgotten. All Monday afternoon she went
around in a flutter of nervousness, "feeling in her bones" that Jimmy
would be there that night, and afraid that Elise would find some way in
which to carry out her threat of seeing him at all hazards. One of the
ways she had suggested trying, was to sound a burglar or a fire alarm,
so that every one would rush out into the hall. But when the dreaded
moment actually arrived and A.O. stood in the middle of the floor with
his card in her hand, Elise merely looked up from her book with a
provoking grin.

"Oh, haven't I had you going for the last week!" she exclaimed. "Really
made you believe that I wanted to see your dear Jimmy-boy! A.O., you
are dead easy! I haven't had so much fun out of anything for ages."

Almost giddy with the sense of relief, A.O. hurried away, leaving Elise
poring over her French lesson. At the lower landing she paused to tear
Jimmy's card to atoms and drop them in a waste basket which was standing
there. Even his card might betray him, for it was not an elegant correct
bit of engraved board like the Lieutenant's. It was a large square card
inscribed by a professional penman; the kind who sets up stands on
street corners or in convenient doorways, and executes showy scrolls and
tendrils in the way of initial letters "while you wait."

As the door closed behind A.O., Elise sent her book flying across the
room, and the next moment was groping under the bed for a dress-box
which she had hidden there. A blond wig that she had bought while in
Washington for next week's tableaux tumbled out first, with a motley
collection of borrowed articles, which she had been at great pains to
procure.

Laughing so that she could hardly dress, Elise began to make a hurried
change. Five minutes later she stood before the glass completely
disguised. Cornie Dean's long black skirt trailed around her. A.O.'s
own jacket fitted her snugly, with Margaret Elwood's new black feather
boa, which had just been sent her from home, hiding the cut of its
familiar collar. Jane Ridgeway's second best spectacles covered her
mischievous eyes, and a black veil was draped over the small toque and
blond hair in such a way that its broad band of crape hid the lower part
of her face. As a finishing touch a piece of gold-leaf, pressed over
part of an upper front tooth, gave the effect of a large gold filling,
whenever she smiled.

She had provided herself with a pair of black gloves, but at the last
moment the left-hand glove could not be found. When all her frantic
overturnings failed to bring it to light, she gave up the search, not
wanting to lose any more valuable time. The little flat feather muff
which went with the boa would hide the fact that she had only one glove.
Thrusting her bare hand into it, she stopped for only one thing more, a
black bordered card, which bore the name in old English type, _Mrs.
Robertson Redmond_. It was one which had been sent up to her by one of
her mother's friends, who called at the Claiborne's, and was partly
responsible for this disguise. It had suggested the black veil with the
crape border.

Dodging past several open doors she reached the south corridor in safety
and raising the window that opened on a back court, she stepped out on
the fire escape. Cornie's long skirt nearly tripped her, and it was no
easy matter to cling to the rounds of the iron ladder, with a muff in
one hand and her skirts constantly wrapping around her. Luckily she had
only one flight to descend. Stopping a moment to smooth her ruffled
plumage and get her breath, she walked around to the front of the house,
climbed the steps, and boldly lifted the great knocker.

It was a dark, cold night, and the sudden appearance of a lady on the
doorstep, so far from the station, astonished the footman who opened the
door. He had heard no sound of wheels, and he peered out past her,
expecting to see some manly escort emerge from the night. None came. But
she was unmistakably a lady, and her mourning costume seemed to furnish
the necessary credentials. When she handed him a black-bordered card and
asked for Miss Mary Ware of Arizona, with an air of calm assurance and
with the broadest of English accents, he bowed obsequiously and ushered
her into the drawing room.

In the far end of it Herr Vogelbaum was talking lustily in German to two
young men, evidently fellow musicians. Otherwise it was deserted,
except for A.O., and a bashful, overgrown boy of seventeen, who sat
opposite her on a chair far too low for him. It gave him the effect of
sprawling, and he was constantly drawing in his long legs and thrusting
them out again. The teacher who was to be drawing room chaperon for the
evening had not yet come down.

The lady in black glided into the room with the air of being so absorbed
in her own affairs that she looked upon the other occupants as she did
the furniture. Without even a direct glance at the young people in the
corner she swept up to a chair within a few feet of them and sat down to
wait. Jimmy, in the midst of some tale about a prank that the High
School Invincibles had played on a rival base-ball team, faltered, grew
confused and finished haltingly. For all her spectacles and crape the
golden haired stranger was fascinatingly young and pretty.

A.O. was provoked that her visitor should show to such disadvantage even
before this unknown lady who apparently was taking no notice of them.
But when he paused she could think of nothing to say herself for a
moment or two. Then, to break the silence which was growing painful, she
plunged into an account of one of the last escapades of her wicked
room-mate, whom she pictured as a most fascinating, but a desperately
reckless creature. It was funny, the way she told it, and it sent Jimmy
off into a spasm of mirth. But she would almost rather have bitten her
tongue out than to have caused Jimmy to explode in that wild bray of a
laugh. He slapped his knee repeatedly, and doubled up as if he could
laugh no longer, only to break out in a second bray, louder than the
first. It made the gentlemen in the other end of the room look around
inquiringly.

A.O. was so mortified she could have cried. Jimmy, feeling the instant
change in her manner, and not able to account for it, grew self
conscious and ill at ease. The conversation flagged, and presently
stopped for such a long time that the lady in black turned a slow glance
in their direction.

Meanwhile, Mary Ware, up in the Domestic Science room, was anxiously
watching a kettle which refused to come to the proper boiling point,
where it could be safely left. What was to be the last batch of her
Christmas candy was in that kettle, for she had emptied the last pound
of Mexican sugar into it. If it wasn't cooked exactly right it would
turn to sugar again when it was cold, and not be of the proper
consistency to hold the nuts together. She did not know what effect it
might have on the mixture to set it off the fire while she went down to
receive her unknown visitor, and then bring it to the boiling point
again after it had once grown cold. She was afraid to run any risks. If
the watch-fob was to reach Jack on time, it would have to be started on
its way in a few days, and on the success of this last lot of candy
depended the getting of the last few dollars necessary to its purchase.
She wished that she had ordered more of the sugar in the first place.
There wouldn't be time now. She had twice as many orders as she had been
able to fill. It would have been so delightful to have gone shopping
with a whole pocket full of money which she had earned herself.

She looked at the clock and then back again at the black-bordered card
on the table. "Mrs. Robertson Redmond." She had never heard of her.
Burning with curiosity, she tried to imagine what possible motive the
stranger had for calling. It was unpardonable that a mere school-girl
should keep a lady waiting so long; a lady in mourning, too, who since
she could not be making social calls, must have a very important reason
for coming. Fidgeting with impatience she bent over the kettle, testing
the hot liquid once more by dropping a spoonful into a cup of cold
water. Still it refused to harden. Finally with a despairing sigh she
slipped off her apron and turned down the gas so low that only a thin
blue circle of flame flickered under the kettle. "In that way it can't
boil over and it can't get cold," she thought. Then she washed her hands
and hurried down to the drawing room.

Until that moment she had forgotten that A.O. was there with her
"suitor," but one hasty glance was all she had time to give him. The
tall lady in black was rising from her chair, was trailing forward to
meet her, was exclaiming in that low full voice which had so impressed
the footman. "Ah! Joyce Ware's own little sister! You've probably never
heard of me, dear, but I've heard of _you_, often. And I knew that Joyce
would want me to take back some message direct from you, so I just came
out to-night for a glimpse."

Not giving the bewildered Mary opportunity to speak a word, she drew her
to a seat beside her and went on rapidly, talking about Joyce and the
success she was making in New York, and the many friends she had among
famous people. Mary grew more and more bewildered. She had not heard
that at the studio receptions which Joyce and her associates in the flat
gave fortnightly, that all these world-known artists and singers and
writers were guests. It was strange Joyce had never mentioned them. But
Mrs. Redmond named them all so glibly and familiarly, that she could not
doubt her.

Almost petrified at seeing Mary walk into the room, A.O. had relapsed
into a silence which she could not break. Jimmy, too, sat tongue-tied,
staring in fascination at the strange blonde lady whose fluent, softly
modulated speech seemed to exert some kind of hypnotic influence over
him. Even through Mary's absorbing interest in Mrs. Robertson Redmond's
tales, came the consciousness that A.O. and her friend were sitting
there, perfectly dumb, and she stole a curious glance in their
direction, wondering why.

"And I have just learned," said Mrs. Redmond, her gold tooth gleaming
through her smile, "overheard it, in fact, quite by accident, that a
dear little friend of mine is in the school--General Walton's youngest
daughter, Elise. I should be so glad to see her also this evening. I
should have sent up a card for her, too, had I known. Would it be too
much trouble for you to send word to her now?"

A.O. blushed furiously, knowing full well how and where the stranger had
overheard that Elise was in the school. She tried frantically to recall
just what it was she had said about her, in her endeavour to amuse
Jimmy. Something extravagant, she knew, or he would not have laughed so
horribly loud.

As Mary rose to send the message to Elise the lady dropped her muff.
They both stooped to pick it up. Mary was first to reach it, and as she
gave it back two things met her astonished gaze. On the little finger of
the bare hand held out for the muff shone the agate that none but
MacIntyres had owned since the days of Malcolm the Second. And through
the parted lips, where an instant before a gold-crowned tooth had
gleamed, shone only perfect little white teeth, with not a glint of
dentist's handiwork about them. The gold-leaf had slipped off.

Mary gasped, but before the others had a chance to see her amazed face,
the lady had risen and linked her arm through hers, and was drawing her
towards the door, saying. "Let me go with you. I am sure that Elise will
not mind receiving such a very old friend as I am up in her room."

Although the lady in black clung to her, shaking hysterically with
repressed laughter, behind her crape-bordered veil, it was not till they
had passed the footman, climbed the stairs and paused at Elise's door
that Mary was sure of the identity of her guest. The disguise had been
so complete that she could not believe the evidence of her own eyes,
until the blond wig was torn off and the spectacles laid aside. Then
Elise threw herself across her bed, laughing until she gasped for
breath. Her mirth was so contagious that Mary joined in, laughing also
until she was weak and breathless, and could only cling to the bedpost,
wiping her eyes.

"And wasn't Jimmy a whole menagerie!" Elise exclaimed as soon as she
could speak. "You should have been there to have heard him howl and tear
his hair at something A.O. told him about me. And I sat there with a
perfectly straight face through the whole of it, while she made up
dreadful things about me. I'm going away off in the pasture to-morrow
and practise that bray all by myself till I can do it to perfection.
Then when A.O. begins to sing his praises again, I won't say a word.
I'll just give her Jimmy's laugh. Won't she be astonished? She's bound
to recognize it, for it's the only one of its kind in the world. I shall
keep her guessing until after Christmas, where I heard it."

"Don't _you_ tell her till then!" she exclaimed, sitting up on the side
of the bed. "She would be so furious she wouldn't speak to me. But after
the holidays, it won't be so fresh in her mind. Promise you won't tell
her."

Still laughing, Mary promised, and Elise began to gather up the various
articles of her disguise, saying, "It was worth a five-pound box of
chocolates to hear her describe me as a reckless scape-grace in that
sorority racket we had."

The mention of candy had the effect of an electric shock on Mary.
"Mercy!" she cried. "I forgot all about that stuff I left upstairs."

Instantly sobered, she hurried away to its rescue. She had intended to
go down only long enough to discover the caller's errand, and then
excuse herself until the candy could be safely left. But more than a
quarter of an hour had gone by. Somewhere about the premises, and for
some reason unknown to her, a greater pressure of gas had been turned
on, and the thin blue flame under the kettle had shot up to a full
blazing ring. A smell of burnt sugar greeted her as she opened the door.
There was no need to look into the kettle. She knew before she did so
that the candy was burnt black, and Jack's fob no longer attainable.

Her first impulse was to run to Betty for comfort. It would be easy
enough to borrow the money she needed from her, and pay her back after
the holidays, but--a sober second thought stopped her. Probably the
girls wouldn't want her candy then. Each of the boxes had been ordered
as a special Christmas offering for some relative with a well-known
sweet tooth. And Mary had a horror of debt, that was part of her
heritage from her grandfather Ware. It was his frequent remark that "who
goes a-borrowing goes a-sorrowing," and it lay heavy on the conscience
of every descendant of his who stepped aside even for a moment from the
path of his teachings. She felt that it would be dishonest to send Jack
a present that wasn't fully paid for, and yet the disappointment of not
being able to send it was so deep, that she could not keep the tears
back. They splashed down like rain into the kettle as she scraped away
at the scorched places on the bottom.

It was a long time before she went back to her room. Ethelinda looked up
curiously.

"Where's your candy?" she asked.

"Spoiled. It scorched and I had to throw it out." Her face was turned
away, under pretence of searching for a book, but her voice was subdued
and not altogether steady.

"Too bad," was the indifferent answer, and Ethelinda went on with her
lesson, but presently a faint sniff made her glance up to see that Mary
was not studying, only staring at her book with big tears dropping
quietly on the page. In all the weeks they had been together she had
never seen Mary in this mood before, and it seemed as strange that she
should be crying as that rain should drop from a cloudless sky.

The sight of Mary in trouble awakened a feeling that seldom came to the
surface in Ethelinda. She felt moved to pick her up and comfort her and
put her out of harm's way as she would have done to a helpless little
kitten. But she did not know how to begin. Naturally undemonstrative,
any expression of sympathy was hard for her to make. They had grown into
very friendly relations this last month. Warwick Hall had widened
Ethelinda's horizon, until she was able to take an interest in many
things now outside of her own narrow self-centred circle.

As they started to undress she managed to ask, "Well, have you sent for
that watch-fob yet?"

Mary shook her head, trying hard to swallow a sob, as she bent over an
open bureau drawer. "I've decided not to order it."

Then Ethelinda, putting two and two together, guessed the reason. If
Mary could have known how long she lay awake that night, devising some
scheme to help her out of her difficulty, she would not have been so
surprised next morning when a hesitating voice spoke up from the
opposite bed, just after the rising bell.

"Mary, will you promise not to get mad and throw things at me if I ask
you something?" She went on hurriedly, for they both recalled a scene
when such a thing had happened. She felt she had blundered by alluding
to it.

"I wouldn't dare ask it at all if I didn't know that you had failed with
your candy, and might want to raise your Christmas funds some other way.
No, I guess I'd better not ask you, after all. It might make you
furious."

Mary sat up in bed, not only curious to know what it is Ethelinda was
afraid to ask, but wondering at her hesitancy. Heretofore she had
stopped at nothing; the most cutting allusions to Mary's appearance,
behaviour and friends. They had both been appallingly frank at times.
Their growing friendship seemed to thrive on this outspokenness.

"Oh, go on!" begged Mary. "I'd rather you'd make me furious than to keep
me so curious, and I'll give you my word of honour I won't get mad."

"Well, then," began Ethelinda, slowly, "you know I had such a cold last
week when the hair-dresser came, that I couldn't have my usual shampoo,
and she always charges a dollar when she makes an extra trip just for
one head. She wouldn't come this week anyhow, no matter how much I paid
her, because she is so busy, and I simply must have my hair washed
before the night of the tableaux. So I thought--if you didn't mind doing
a thing like that--for me--you might as well have the dollar."

There was a pause. A long one. Ethelinda knew that Mary was recalling
her speech about a lady's maid, and felt that the silence, so long and
oppressive, was ominous. If she had asked it as a favour, Mary would not
have hesitated an instant. The other girls often played barber for each
other, making a frolic out of the affair. But for _Ethelinda_, and for
_money_! That made a menial task of it, and her pride rose up in arms at
the thought.

"Now you _are_ mad! I knew you'd be!" came in anxious tones from the
other bed. "I wish I had kept my mouth shut."

"No, I'm not," asserted Mary, stoutly. "I'm making up my mind. I was
just thinking that you wouldn't do it if you were in my place, and I
wouldn't do it to keep myself from starving, if it were just for myself,
but it's for _Jack_. I'd get down and black the shoes of my worst enemy
for Jack, and under the circumstances, I'm very glad to accept your
offer, and I think it is very sweet of you to give me such a chance. You
shall have the best shampoo in my power to give as soon as you are ready
for it."

Later, she paused in her dressing, thinking maybe she had not been
gracious enough in expressing her appreciation, and said emphatically,
"Ethelinda, that was awfully good of you to think of a way to help me
out of my difficulty. Last night I was so down in the dumps, and so
disappointed over Jack's Christmas present, that I thought I never could
smile again. But now I'm so sure it is coming out all right that I am as
light-hearted as a bit of thistledown."

Ethelinda made some trivial reply, but immediately began to hum in a
happy undertone. She was feeling surprisingly light-hearted herself. The
rôle of benefactor was an unusual one, and she enjoyed the sensation.

For all her appreciative speeches, Mary approached her task that
afternoon with inward reluctance. Only a grim determination to do her
best to earn that dollar was her motive at first, and she helped herself
by imagining it was the Princess Winsome's sunny hair which she was
lathering and rubbing so vigorously. Ethelinda closed her eyes,
enjoying the touch of the light fingers, and wishing the operation
could be prolonged indefinitely. Somehow this intimate, personal contact
seemed to create a friendliness for each other they had never known
before. Presently Mary was chatting away almost as cordially as if it
were Elise's dusky curls she had in her fingers, or A.O.'s brown braids.

Under promise of secrecy she told of Elise's masquerade the night
before, and of A.O.'s wild curiosity about the lady in black. She had
persecuted them all morning with questions, and they were almost worn
out trying to evade them and to baffle her. Ethelinda appreciated being
taken into her confidence, for she had been more lonely than her pride
would allow her to admit. Her patronizing airs and ill-guarded speech
about being exclusive in the choice of friends had offended most of the
lower-class girls. Slowly she was learning that her old standards would
not bear comparison with Madam Chartley's and the Lady Evelyn's and that
she must accept theirs if she would have any friends at Warwick Hall.
Her friendship with Mary took a long stride forward that afternoon.

The rest of the money came in various ways. Mary found appropriate
quotations for a set of unique dinner cards, to fit the pen and ink
illustrations which one of the Seniors bought to give her sister, a
prominent club-woman, whose turn it was to give the yearly club dinner.
She did some indexing for the librarian and some copying for Miss
Chilton, and by the end of the week not only was Jack's fob on its way
to Arizona, with presents for the rest of the family, but there was
enough left in her purse to pay her share towards the mock Christmas
tree.

It gave her a thrill to think that out of the entire school she had been
chosen as one of the committee of nine for the delightful task of tying
up the parcels for that tree. It was such bliss to share all the secrets
and anticipate the surprise and laughter each ridiculous gift would call
forth. And when all the joking and rollicking was over there was the
carol service on the last night of the term, so sweet and solemn and
full of the real Christmas gladness, that it was something to remember
always as the crowning beauty of that beautiful time.

Old Bishop Chartley came down as usual for the service, and the chapel,
fragrant with pine and spicy cedar boughs and lighted only by tall white
candles, was just as Lloyd had described it, when she told of the
Bishop's talk about keeping the White Feast on the birthday of the King.
When the great doors swung wide for the white-robed choir to enter,
Mary knew that it was only the Dardell twins leading in the processional
with flute and cornet. But as they came slowly up the dim aisle under
the arches of Christmas greens, their wide, flowing sleeves falling back
from their arms, they made her think of two of Fra Angelico's
trumpet-blowing angels, and she clasped her hands with a quick indrawing
of breath. The high silvery flute notes and the mellow alto of the deep
horn were like the voices of the Seraphim, leading all the others in
their pean of "Glad tidings of great joy." Oh, it was good to be at a
school like this she thought with a throb of deep thankfulness. And it
was so good to know that all her plans had worked out happily, and her
Christmas gifts for the girls were just what she wanted them to be. Her
thoughts strayed away from the service a moment to recall the little
bundles she had hidden in Elise's and A.O.'s suit-cases, and the package
she had ready for Ethelinda, a prettily scalloped linen cover for her
dressing-table with her initials, worked in handsome block letters in
the centre.

No regrets clouded her face next morning, when she stood at the door,
watching the last 'bus load of merry girls start home for the holidays.
She was not going home herself. Arizona was too far away. But she had
something more thrilling than that in prospect--a visit to Joyce in New
York, she and Betty, and Christmas day with Eugenia, at the beautiful
Tremont home out on the Hudson. She had been hearing about it for the
last two years. And there was Eugenia's baby she was eager to see, the
mischievous little year-old Patricia, "as beautiful as her father and as
bad as her naughty Uncle Phil," Eugenia had written, in her letter of
invitation.

And Phil himself would be there,--_maybe_. He was trying to get his work
in shape so that he could be home at Christmas time. Mary did not
realize how much her anticipations of this visit were tinged by the glow
of that maybe. Her thoughts ran ahead to that day at Eugenia's oftener
than to any other part of the grand outing. There was to be a whole week
of sight-seeing in New York sandwiched in between the cozy hours at home
with Joyce in her studio, and then on the roundabout way back to school
a stop-over at Annapolis, for a few hours with Holland.

Filled with such an ineffable spirit of content that she would not have
exchanged places with any one in the whole world, she watched the last
'bus load drive away, waving their handkerchiefs all down the avenue,
and singing:

     "O Warwick Hall, dear Warwick Hall,
      The joys of Yule now homeward call.
      Yet still we'll keep the tryst with you,
      Though for a time we say adieu.
             Adieu! Adieu!"

[Illustration: "THE GIRLISH FIGURE ENVELOPED IN A LONG LOOSE WORKING
APRON."]



CHAPTER VII

IN JOYCE'S STUDIO


The short winter day was almost at an end. High up in the top flat of a
New York apartment house, Joyce Ware sat in her studio, making the most
of those last few moments of daylight. In the downstairs flats the
electric lights were already on. She moved her easel nearer the window,
thankful that no sky-scraper loomed between it and the fading sunset,
for she needed a full half hour to complete her work.

There were a number of good pictures on the walls, among them some
really fine old Dutch interiors, but any artist would have turned from
the best of them to study the picture silhouetted against the western
window. The girlish figure enveloped in a long loose working apron was
all in shadow, but the light, slanting across the graceful head bending
towards the easel, touched the brown hair with glints of gold, and gave
the profile of the earnest young face, the distinctive effect of a
Rembrandt portrait.

Wholly unconscious of the fact, Joyce plied her brush with capable
practised fingers, so absorbed in her task that she heard nothing of the
clang and roar of the streets below, seething with holiday traffic. The
elevator opposite her door buzzed up and down unheeded. She did not even
notice when it stopped on her floor, and some one walked across the
corridor with a heavy tread. But the whirr of her door bell brought her
to herself with a start, and she looked up impatiently, half inclined to
pay no attention to the interruption. Then thinking it might be some
business message which she could not afford to delay, she hurried to the
door, brush and palette still in hand.

"Why, Phil Tremont!" she exclaimed, so surprised at sight of the tall
young man who filled the doorway that she stood for an instant in
open-mouthed wonder. "Where did _you_ drop from? I thought you were in
the wilds of Oregon or some such borderland. Come in."

"I got in only a few hours ago," he answered, following her down the
hall and into the studio. "I have only been in town long enough to make
my report at the office. I'm on my way out to Stuart's to spend
Christmas with him and Eugenia, but I couldn't resist the temptation of
staying over a train to run in and take a peep at you. It has been
nearly six months, you know, since I've had such a chance."

Joyce went back to her easel, as he slipped off his overcoat. "Don't
think that because I keep on working that I'm not delighted to see you,
but my orders are like time and tide. They wait for no man. This must be
finished and out of the house to-night, and I've not more than fifteen
minutes of good daylight left. So just look around and make yourself at
home and take my hospitable will for the deed till I get through. In the
meantime you can be telling me all about yourself."

"There's precious little to tell, no adventures of any kind--just the
plain routine of business. But _you've_ had changes," he added, looking
around the room with keen interest. "This isn't much like the bare barn
of a place I saw you in last. You must have struck oil. Have you taken a
partner?"

"Several of them," she replied, "although I don't know whether they
should be called partners or boarders or adopted waifs. They are all
three of these things in a way. It began with two people who sat at the
same table with me those first miserable months when I was boarding. One
was a little cheerful wren of a woman from a little Western town, a
Mrs. Boyd. That is, she is cheerful now. Then she was like a bird in a
cage, pining to death for the freedom she had been accustomed to, and
moping on her perch. She came to New York to bring her niece, Lucy, who
is all she has to live for. Some art teacher back home told her that
Lucy is a genius--has the makings of a great artist in her, and they
believed it. She'll never get beyond fruit-pieces and maybe a dab at
china-painting, but she's happy in the hope that she'll be a
world-wonder some day. Neither of them have a practical bone in their
body, whereas I have always been a sort of Robinson Crusoe at furnishing
up desert islands.

"So I proposed to these two castaways that we go in together and make a
home to suit ourselves. We were so dead tired of boarding. About that
time we picked up Henry, and as Henry has a noble bank account we went
into the project on a more lavish scale than we could have done
otherwise."

"_Henry!_" ejaculated Phil, who was watching the silhouette against the
window with evident pleasure.

"Yes, Miss Henrietta Robbins, a bachelor maid of some--well, I won't
tell how many summers, but she's 'past the freakish bounds of youth,'
and a real artist. She's studied abroad, and she's done things worth
while. That group of fishermen on the Normandy coast is hers," nodding
towards the opposite wall, "and that old woman peeling apples, and those
three portraits. Oh, she's the real thing, and a constant inspiration to
me. And she's brought so much towards the beautifying of our Crusoe
castle: all these elegant Persian rugs, and those four "old masters,"
and the bronzes and the teakwood carvings--you can see for yourself.
Lucy wasn't quite satisfied with the room at first. She missed the
fish-net draperies and cozy corners and the usual clap-trap of amateur
studios. But she's educated up to it now, and it's a daily joy to me. On
the other hand my broiled steaks and feather-weight waffles and
first-class coffee are a joy to poor Henry, who can't even boil an egg
properly, and who hasn't the first instinct of home-making."

"You don't mean to say that you do the cooking for this happy family!"

Joyce laughed at his surprised tone. "That's what makes it a happy
family. No domestic service problems. With a gas range, a fireless
cooker and all the conveniences of our little kitchenette, it's mere
play after my Wigwam experiences. We have a woman come several times a
week to clean and do extras, so I don't get more exercise than I need to
keep me in good condition."

"But doesn't all this devotion to the useful interfere with your pursuit
of the beautiful? Where do you find time for your art?"

"Oh, my art is all useful," sighed Joyce. "I used to dream of great
things to come, but I've come down to earth now--practical designing.
Magazine covers and book plates and illustrating. I can do things like
that and it is work I love, and work that pays. Of course I'd _rather_
do Madonnas than posters, but since the pot must boil I am glad there
are book-covers to be done. And _some_ day--well, I may not always have
to stay tied to the earth. My wings are growing, in the shape of a
callow bank account. When it is full-fledged, then I shall take to my
dreams again. Already Henry and I are talking of a flight abroad
together, to study and paint. In two years more I can make it, if all
goes well."

The striking of a clock made her glance up, exclaiming over the lateness
of the hour. "Phil," she asked, "would you mind telephoning down to the
station to find out if that Washington train is on time? That's a good
boy. That little sister of mine will think the sky has fallen if I'm not
at the station to meet her."

"You don't mean to tell me that _Mary_ is on her way here," exclaimed
Phil, as he rose to do her bidding. "Then I certainly have something to
live for. Her first impressions of New York will be worth hearing." He
scanned the pages of the telephone directory for the number he wanted.

"Yes, she and Betty are to spend their vacation with me. We are going
out to Eugenia's to-morrow afternoon to spend Christmas eve and part of
Christmas day."

"Then that was the surprise that Eugenia wrote about," said Phil, taking
out his watch. "She wouldn't tell what it was, but said that it would be
worth my while to come. Yes, the train is on time."

He hung up the receiver. "I won't be able to wait for it, if I get out
to Eugenia's for dinner, but I can see you safely to the station on my
way. It is about time we were starting if you expect to reach it."

Joyce made a final dab at her picture, dropped the brush and hurried
into the next room for her wraps. It seemed to Phil that he had scarcely
turned around till she was back again, hatted and gloved. The artist in
the long apron had given place to a stylish tailor-made girl in a brown
street-suit. Phil looked down at her approvingly as they stepped out
into the wintry air together.

The great show windows were ablaze with lights by this time, and the
rush of the crowds almost took her off her feet. Phil at her elbow
piloted her along to a corner where they were to take a car.

"I'm glad that I happened along to take you under my wing," he said.
"You ought not to be out alone on the streets at night."

"It isn't six o'clock yet," she answered. "And this is the first time
that I had no escort arranged for. Mrs. Boyd always comes with me. She's
little and meek, but her white hair counts for a lot. She would have
gone to the station with me, but she and Lucy are dining out. We girls
will be all alone to-night. I wish they were not expecting you out at
Eugenia's to dinner. I'd take you back with me. I have prepared quite a
company spread, things that you especially like."

"There's a telephone out to the place," he suggested. "I could easily
let them know if I missed my train, and I could easily miss it--if my
invitation were pressing enough."

"Then _do_ miss it," she insisted, smiling up at him so cordially that
he laughed and said in a complacent tone, "We'll consider it done. I'll
telephone Eugenia from the station, that I'll not be out till morning.
Really," he added a moment later, "it will be more like a sure-enough
home-coming to come back to you and that little chatterbox of a Mary
than to go out to my brother's. Eugenia is a dear, but I've never known
her except as a bride or a dignified young matron, so of course we have
no youthful experiences in common to hark back to together. That is the
very back-bone of a family reunion in my opinion. Now that year in
Arizona, when you all took me in as one of yourselves, is about all that
I can remember of real home-life, and somehow, when I think of home, it
is the Wigwam that I see, and the good cheer and the jolly times that I
always found there."

Joyce looked up again, touched and pleased. "I'm so glad that you feel
that way, for we always count you in, right after Jack and the little
boys. Mamma always speaks of you as 'my other' boy, and as for Mary, she
quotes you on all occasions, and thinks you are very near perfection.
She is going to be so delighted when she sees you, that I'd not be a bit
surprised if she should jump up and down and squeal, right in the
station."

The mention of this old habit of Mary's brought up to each of them the
mental picture of the child, as she had looked on various occasions when
her unbounded pleasure was forced to find expression in that way. In
the year that Joyce had been away from her she had been in her thoughts
oftener as that quaint little creature of eight, than the sixteen-year
old school girl she had grown into.

Phil, too, accustomed to thinking of Mary as he had known her at the
Wigwam, could hardly believe he saw aright, when the train pulled in and
she flew down the steps to throw her arms around Joyce. It was the same,
lovable, eager little face that looked up into his, the same impetuous
unspoiled child, yet a second glance left him puzzled. There was some
intangible change he could not label, and it interested him to try to
analyze it.

She was taller, of course, almost as tall as Joyce, with skirts almost
as long, but it was not that which impressed him with the sense of
change. It was a certain girlish winsomeness, something elusive, which
cannot be defined, but which lends a charm like nothing else in all the
world to the sweet unfolding of early maidenhood.

If Phil had been asked to describe the girl that Mary would grow into,
he never would have pictured this development. He expected her desert
experiences to give her a strong forceful character. She would be like
the pioneer women of early times, he imagined; rugged and energetic and
full of resources. But he had not expected this gentleness of manner,
this unconscious dignity and a certain poise that reminded him of--he
was puzzled to think of what it _did_ remind him. Later, it came to him,
as he continued to watch her. Not for naught had Mary set up a shrine to
her idolized Princess Winsome and striven to grow like her in every way
possible. Not in feature, of course, but often in manner there was a
fleeting, shadowy undefinable something that recalled her.

In her younger days she would have appropriated Phil as her rightful
audience, and would have swung along beside him, amusing him with her
original and unsolicited opinions of everything they passed. But a
strange shyness seized her when she looked up and saw how much older he
was in reality than he had been in her recollections. She had no answer
ready when he began his accustomed teasing. Instead she clung to Joyce
when they left the street-car, leaving Betty to walk with Phil as they
threaded their way through the crowded thoroughfares. It was so good to
be with her again, and as they hurried along she squeezed the arm linked
in hers to emphasize her delight.

For the time, Joyce found no change in her, for with child-like abandon
she exclaimed over the strange sights. "Oh, Joyce! Snow!" she cried,
when a falling flake brushed her face. "After all these years of
orange-blossoms and summer sun at Christmas, how good it seems to have
real old Santa Claus weather! I can almost see the reindeer and smell
the striped peppermint and pop-corn. And oh, _oh_! look at that
shop-window. It is positively dazzling! And the racket--" she put her
hands over her ears an instant. "I feel that I've never really heard a
loud noise till now."

Joyce laughed indulgently, and stopped with her whenever she wanted to
gaze in at some particularly attractive show window. When they reached
the flat, Mary still kept near her, "tagging after her," as she would
have expressed it in her earlier days, so much like the little sister of
that time, that Joyce still failed to see how much she had changed
during their separation.

"You see it's just like a doll-house," Joyce said as she led them
through the tiny rooms on a tour of inspection. "All except the studio.
We had a partition taken out and two rooms thrown together for that. Now
the company will have to go in there and entertain themselves while I
put the finishing touches to the dinner. The kitchenette will only hold
one at a time."

Betty and Phil obediently went into the studio to renew their
acquaintance of two years before, begun at Eugenia's wedding, and
wandered around the room looking at the various specimen's of Joyce's
handicraft pinned about on the walls. One of the first pauses was before
a sketch of Lloyd, done from memory, a little wash drawing of her. Mary,
standing in the doorway, heard Phil say, "Tell me about her, Miss Betty.
She writes so seldom that I can only imagine her conquests."

For a moment Mary watched him, as he studied the sketch intently. Then
she turned away to the kitchenette to help Joyce, thinking how lovely it
must be to have a handsome man like that bend over your picture so
adoringly, and speak of you in such a fashion.

It was a merry little dinner party, and afterwards it was almost like
old times at the Wigwam, for Phil insisted on helping wipe the dishes,
and was so boyish and jolly with his teasing reminiscences that she
almost forgot her new awe of him. But afterward when they sat around the
woodfire in the studio ("a piece of Henry's much enjoyed extravagance,"
Joyce explained, "and only lighted on gala occasions like this") they
were suddenly all grown up and serious again. Joyce talked about her
work, and the friends she had made among editors and illustrators, and
ambitious workaday people whose acquaintance was both a delight and an
inspiration. It was Henrietta who brought them to the studio, along with
the Persian rugs and the "old masters," and Joyce could never get done
being thankful that she had found such a friend in the beginning of her
career.

Phil told of his work too, and his travels, and in the friendly shadows
cast by the flickering firelight talked intimately of his plans and
ambitions, and what he hoped ultimately to achieve.

Betty confessed shyly some of her hopes and dreams, warranted now, by
the success of several short flights in essay writing and verse, and
then Phil said laughingly, "Do you remember what Mary's dearest wish
used to be? How we roared the day she gravely informed us that it was
her highest ambition to be 'the toast of two continents,' Is it still
that, Mary?"

"No," she answered, laughing with the rest, but blushing furiously. "I
had just been reading the biography of a great Baltimore belle who was
called that, and it appealed to me as the most desirable thing on earth
to be honoured with such a title. But that was away back in the dark
ages. Of course I wouldn't wish such a silly thing now."

"But aren't you going to tell us what _is_ your greatest ambition?"
persisted Phil. "We have all confessed. It isn't fair for you to
withhold your confidence when we've given ours."

Mary shook her head. "I've had my lesson," she declared. "You'll never
have the chance to laugh twice, and this one is such a sky-scraper it
would astonish you."

When she spoke, she was thinking of that moment on the stair, under the
amber window, when through the music she heard the king's call, and was
first awakened to the knowledge that a high destiny awaited her. What it
was to be was still unrevealed to her, but of the voice and the vision
she had no doubt. Whatever it was she was sure it would be higher and
greater than anything any one she knew aspired to. Yet somehow, sitting
there in the friendly shadows, with the firelight shining on the earnest
manly face opposite, she did not care so much about a Joan of Arc career
as she had. It would be glorious, of course, but it might be lonesome.
People on pedestals were shut off from dear delightful intimacies like
this.

And then those lines began running through her head that she had not
been able to get rid of, since the morning she read them in the
magazine:

     "For if he come not by the road, and come not by the hill,
      And come not by the far seaway--"

She wished that she was certain that she could add that last part of the
line, "_Yet come he surely will!_" Just then, to have one strong true
face bending towards hers in the firelight, with a devotion all for her,
seemed worth a lifetime of public plaudits, and having one's name handed
down to posterity on monoliths and statues.

     "For if he come not by the road, and come not by the hill,
      And come not by the far seaway--"

"Yes, it certainly would be lonesome," she decided. She would miss the
best that earth holds for a home-loving, hero-worshipping woman.



CHAPTER VIII

CHRISTMAS DAY AT EUGENIA'S


"Although this is only the twenty-fourth of December, my Christmas has
already begun," wrote Mary in her diary next day; "for this morning when
I looked out of the window everything was white with snow. It has been
so long since I have seen such a sight, all the roofs and chimney tops
a-glisten, that I could hardly keep away from the window long enough to
dress.

"Phil stayed quite late last night. Just as he was leaving, Mrs. Boyd
and Miss Lucy came home, and of course we had to stay up a little while
longer to meet them. By the time Joyce had turned the davenport in the
studio into a bed for me, it was past midnight, and I couldn't go to
sleep for hours. There was so much to think about.

"The next thing I knew I smelled coffee, and heard Joyce whistling just
as she used to at home when she was getting breakfast, and I didn't
waste many minutes in going out to her in that cunning kitchenette. It
is all white tiling and shining nickel-plate, as easy to keep clean as a
china dish, and just a delight to work in. I never thought so before,
but now it seems to me that it is just as nice to know how to serve a
delicious meal as easily as Joyce does as it is to put a picture on
canvas. I can see now what a good thing it was for both of us that we
had to serve such a long apprenticeship in work and housekeeping, even
if it did seem hard at the time.

"'It gives a girl a sort of Midas touch,' Phil said last night; 'makes
her able to gild even a garret and to turn any old place into a home,'
He was so charmed with everything about the flat that he said he wanted
to move into one right away, and make biscuits himself on a glass-topped
table, and do stunts with the fireless cooker like Joyce. He has had a
surfeit of cafés and hotels and boarding-houses.

"While we were at breakfast the postman came, and there were letters and
packages for everybody. Lloyd sent a present to each of us. Mine was a
darling little lace fan all spangled, like a cobweb with dew-drops
caught in its meshes. We opened everything then and there, as we had
already had part of our presents. Jack's to me was this holiday trip,
and Mamma's was the shirt-waist that I travelled in from Washington.

"Joyce got a check that she hadn't expected before next month, and
another one that she hadn't expected at all. It was for some initial
letter sketches and tail-pieces that had been travelling around to
different magazines for months. Besides, there was an order for a
frontispiece for a child's magazine. She was so happy she could hardly
finish her breakfast, and said now she could give me the present she had
planned to give me in the beginning. She had been disappointed about
some other work she had counted on, and thought she would have to cut my
present down to some gloves and a book, but now she could play Santa
Claus in fine style, and carry out her original intention. Just as soon
as things were in order, she would take me down town and let me choose
it.

"It was so exciting, not knowing what it was going to be, and hurrying
along with the crowds of shoppers; everybody so smiling and happy and
good-natured, no matter how much they were bumped into. I felt
Christmasey down to my finger-tips, although they were nearly frozen.
Last night's snow was almost a blizzard, and left it stinging cold.

"At last, after buying a lot of little things to put on the tree at
Eugenia's, and keeping me guessing for over an hour about my present,
Joyce took us into a furrier's, and bought me a beautiful set of furs;
a lovely long boa and a muff like the one Lloyd had her picture taken in
the first year she was at Warwick Hall. I've always wanted furs like
them. They look so opulent and luxurious. And maybe I wasn't proud and
happy when I saw myself in the mirror! They just _make_ my costume, and
they made a world of difference in my comfort when we went out into the
icy air again. I certainly would have squealed if I hadn't remembered
that we were on Broadway, when Joyce told me that I looked so stunning
that she could not keep her eyes off me. I knew just how happy it made
her to be able to give me such a present, for I remembered what pleasure
I had in sending Jack the watch-fob that I had earned all myself.

"Then we went to Wanamaker's and by that time it was so late she said
we'd better go up stairs and take lunch there. There wouldn't be time to
go home and prepare it ourselves. There was music playing, and it was
all so gay and lively that I kept getting more and more excited every
moment. Finally, while we were waiting for our orders to be filled,
Betty said, 'It is so festive, I believe I'll give Mary my present now,
instead of waiting till we get to Eugenia's.' Then she took a jeweller's
box from her shopping bag, and, lo and behold, when I opened it, the
little _bloodstone ring_ that I'd been longing for all these weeks! I
was so happy I nearly cried.

"After lunch we came back to the flat to get our suit-cases. Joyce is
packing hers now. In just a few minutes she will be ready, and then we
will turn the key in the door and be off for Eugenia's. Mrs. Boyd and
Miss Lucy have gone to Brooklyn to spend Christmas, and Miss Henrietta
is away on a month's vacation."

The suburban train was crowded when the girls reached it. Even the
aisles were full of bundle-laden passengers, until the first few
stations were past. Then Betty and Joyce found seats together, and a fat
old lady good-naturedly drew herself up as far as possible, in order
that Mary might squeeze past her to the vacant seat next the window.

"I can't set there myself, on account of the cold coming in the cracks
so," she wheezed apologetically. "But young people don't feel draughts,
and anyway, you can put your muff up between you and it if you do."

"Mary has a travelling companion after her own heart," laughed Joyce to
Betty, as they watched the old lady's bonnet bobbing an energetic
accompaniment to her remarks. "She's always picking up acquaintances on
the train. She can get more enjoyment out of a day's railroad journey
than some people get in a trip around the world."

"It is the same way at school," answered Betty. "You have no idea how
popular she is, just because she is interested in everybody in that
sweet friendly way."

They went on to talk of other things, so absorbed in their own
conversation that they thought no more about Mary's. So they did not see
that presently she turned away from her garrulous companion, and,
wrapped in her own thoughts, sat gazing at the flying landscape. It was
not at the snowy fields she was smiling with that happy light in her
eyes, nor at the gleaming river. She was only dimly conscious of them
and had forgotten entirely that it was the famous Hudson whose
shore-line they were following. For once she was finding her own
thoughts more interesting than the conversation of an unexplored
stranger, although the old lady had taken her generously into her
confidence during the first quarter of an hour. Indeed, it was one of
those very confidences which had sent Mary off into her revery.

"I tell Silas that no one ever does keep Christmas just right till they
get to be grand-parents like us, and have the children bringing _their_
children home to hang up their stockings in the old chimney corner.
'Peared like, that first Christmas that Silas and me spent together in
our own house couldn't be happier, but it didn't hold a candle to them
that came afterwards, when there was little Si and Emmy and Joe to buy
toys for. Silas says we get a triple extract out of the day now, because
we not only have _our_ enjoyment of it, but what we get watching our
children enjoy watching _their_ children's fun."

She reached forward and with some difficulty extracted a toy from the
covered basket on the floor at her feet, a wooden monkey on a stick.
"I'm just looking forward to seeing Pa's face when he drops that into
Joe's baby's little sock."

Her own kindly old face was a study, as she slid the grotesque monkey up
and down the rod, chuckling in pleased anticipation. And Mary, with her
readiness to put herself into another's place, smiled with her, sharing
sympathetically the anticipation of her return. Straightway in her
imagination, she herself was a grandmother, going home to some adoring
old Silas, who had shared her joys and troubles for over half a century.

Up to this moment she had been thinking that it could not be possible
for any one to have a happier Christmas than she was having. A dozen
times she had smoothed the soft fur of her boa with a caressing hand,
and slipped back her glove to delight her eyes with the sight of her
bloodstone ring, while her thoughts ran on ahead to the house-party
towards which they were speeding. But the old lady's words had opened up
a vista that set her to day-dreaming.

If by the road or by the hill or by the far seaway "he" should really
come, some day, then of course the Christmases they would spend together
would be happier than this. Jack had always said that she would have her
"innings" when she was a grandmother. All her life Mary had been
dreaming romances about other people, now in a vague sweet way those
dreams began to centre around herself.

It was almost dark when they left the train. Phil was at the station to
meet them with a sleigh and a team of spirited black horses.

"Oh, sleighbells!" sighed Joyce, ecstatically, as she climbed into the
back seat beside Betty. "I haven't been behind any since I left
Plainsville. I wish we had forty miles to go. Nothing makes me feel so
larky as the sound of sleighbells."

Phil glanced back over his shoulder. "It is a bare mile and a half to
the house, but I told Eugenia I'd bring you home the roundabout way to
make the drive longer, if you all were not cold. What do you say?"

"The long way by all means!" cried Joyce and Betty in the same breath.

Phil laughed. "The ayes have it. Even Mary's eyes, although she doesn't
say anything," he added, seeing the beaming smile that crossed her face
at the prospect of a longer drive. "They are shining like two stars," he
went on mischievously, amused to see the colour flame up into her
cheeks, and noticing how becoming it was. Then his mettlesome horses
claimed his attention for awhile.

Later, as he looked back from time to time, in conversation with the
older girls, his glance rested on Mary, sitting beside him as contented
and happy as a kitten in those becoming furs, and he thought with
satisfaction that the little Vicar was growing up to be a very pretty
girl after all. Her eyes were positively starry under her long, curling
lashes.

That Eugenia regarded their coming as a great event, they felt from the
moment the sleigh drew up to the house. From every window streamed a
welcoming light, and the front door, flung open at their approach,
showed that the wide reception hall had been transformed into a bower of
Christmas greens. Eugenia, radiant in her most becoming dinner gown of
holly red, came running down the steps to meet them.

Ever since she had been established as mistress of this beautiful
country place, she had longed for them to visit her. Guests she had in
plenty, for young Doctor Tremont and his wife were noted for their
lavish hospitality, but the welcome accorded her new friends and
neighbours was nothing to the one reserved for these old friends of her
girlhood. She wanted them to see for themselves that she had made no
mistake in her weaving, and that marriage had indeed brought her the
"diamond leaf" that Abdallah found only in Paradise.

"Patricia had just dropped asleep," she told them as she led the way up
stairs. Not that it was the proper time, but she was always doing
unexpected things. That very day she had surprised them with four new
words which they had not dreamed she could say. Eliot had orders to
bring her in the moment that she awakened, so they could soon see the
most remarkable child in the world. Yes, Eliot was still with her, good
old Eliot. She intended to keep her always. Not as a maid, however. She
had earned the position of guardian angel to Patricia by all her years
of devoted service, and she played her part to perfection.

While the girls opened their suit-cases and changed their dresses to
costumes more suitable for evening, Eugenia stood in the door between
the two rooms, turning first one way and then the other to answer the
questions rapidly propounded. Mary, thankful that her white pongee had
not wrinkled, divided her attention between the donning of that, and the
information that Eugenia was imparting.

She had named the baby for Stuart's great-aunt Patricia, who for so many
years had been like a mother to the boys and Elsie. She felt that she
owed the dear, prim old lady that much as a sort of reparation for all
she had suffered at the hands of the boys whom she had loved so dearly
in spite of her inability to understand them. Father Tremont had been so
touched and pleased when she proposed it. No, he could not be with them
this Christmas. He had taken Elsie to the south of France. She was not
very strong. Yes, Phil approved of her choice of names, but he said just
as soon as she was old enough he intended to buy her a monkey and name
it Dago, so that there would be one Patricia who was not afraid of such
a pet.[1]

FOOTNOTES:

[1: See "The Story of Dago" for an account of Phil's and
Stuart's childhood.]

Mary, who had watched with keen interest the unwrapping of the dozens of
beautiful wedding gifts at The Locusts, took a peculiar pleasure in
looking around for them now, and recognizing them among the handsome
furnishings of the different rooms. Heretofore the Locusts had been her
ideal of all that a home should be, but this far surpassed anything she
had ever seen in luxurious fittings.

As the girls followed their hostess over the house, with admiring
exclamations for each room, Mary thought with inward amusement of the
cold shivers she had had, as she stood with the bridal party between the
Rose-gate and the flower crowned altar, listening to the solemn vow: "I,
Eugenia,--take thee, Stuart--for better, for worse--" There had been no
worse. It was all better, infinitely better, and the shivers had been
entirely unnecessary.

Stuart came in presently, from a long round of professional visits. The
young doctor had nearly as large a practise as his father, and had been
riding all afternoon. Mary caught a glimpse of his meeting with Eugenia,
in the hall, and when he came in, cordial as a boy in his welcome, and
by numberless little courtesies showing himself the most considerate of
hosts and husbands, she thought again, "This is one time it was
_certainly_ all 'for better.'"

[Illustration: "SHE WAS A FASCINATING LITTLE CREATURE, ALL SMILES AND
DIMPLES."]

"Where is 'Pat's Pill'?" he asked, looking around for Phil. "That is
Patricia's name for him, as near as she can say it. Wouldn't you know
that she was a doctor's daughter, by giving her doting uncle a pill
for a name?"

Phil and Mr. Forbes came in together. To Betty, one of the pleasantest
parts of her visit was this meeting with the "Cousin Carl," who had
added such vistas of delight to her life by taking her to Europe the
year she was threatened with blindness. His hair was grayer now than
then, and the years had added a few lines to his kind face, but he was
not nearly so grave. He smiled oftener, and she noticed with
satisfaction his evident pride in Eugenia since she had blossomed into
such a happy, enthusiastic housewife, and his devotion to little
Patricia, when she was brought in for awhile just after dinner.

She was a fascinating little creature, all smiles and dimples and
coquettish shrugs, and she held royal court the few moments she was
allowed to monopolize the attention of the company. It was her second
Christmas eve, and she had been brought down for the first public
ceremony of hanging her stocking in the great chimney corner. Even after
she was carried away it was plain to be seen how the interest of the
house centred around her. There was a tender glow in Eugenia's eyes
every time she looked at the tiny white stocking hanging from the holly
wreathed mantel. And it was also plain to be seen that the little
stocking gave a deeper meaning to the words carved underneath, to every
one gathered around the fire: "East or West, Home is best." When the
trimming of the great tree in the library began, it was found that each
member of the household had bought her enough toys to stock a
show-window.

"There is really too much for one kid," said Phil gravely, surveying his
own lavish contributions. "What can she do with them when it is all
over?"

Eugenia glanced from the long row of dolls she was counting, to the
assortment of stuffed animals and toys already weighting the
tinsel-decked branches. "She shall keep them only a day. I have made up
my mind that she shall not grow up to be the selfish child that I was
before Betty came along with her Tusitala story and her Road of the
Loving Heart. She is to begin to build one now, even before she is old
enough to understand. This is her first Christmas tree. To-morrow she
shall choose one gift from each person's assortment of offerings.
To-morrow night the tree and all the rest of the presents are to be
turned over to the little orphans of St. Boniface Refuge."

"Daddy's name for her is Blessing,'" explained Stuart. "So you see
she is in a fair way to be trained up to fit it."

Since the tree was for children only, no gifts for the older people
appeared among its branches, but in the night some silent-footed Kriss
Kringle made his stealthy rounds, and left a gay little red and white
stocking by every bedside. Mary discovered hers early in the morning,
after the maid had been in to turn on the heat in the radiator, and
close the windows. She wondered how it could have been placed there
without her knowledge, for the slightest motion set the tiny bells on
heel and toe a-jingling. She touched it several times just to start the
silvery tinkle, then sitting up in bed emptied its treasures out on the
counterpane. It was filled with bon-bons and many inexpensive trifles,
but down in the toe was a little gold thimble, from Patricia.

It was in the chair under the stocking that she found the gloves from
Eugenia, the book from "Cousin Carl" and a long box that she opened with
breathless interest because Phil's card lay atop. On it was scribbled,
"The 'Best Man's' best wishes for a Merry Christmas to Mary."

Tearing off the ribbons and the tissue paper wrappings she lifted the
lid, and then drew a long rapturous breath, exclaiming, "Roses! American
Beauty roses! The first flowers a man ever sent me--and from the _Best_
Man!"

She laid her face down among the cool velvety petals and closed her
eyes, drinking in the fragrance. Then she lifted each perfect bud and
half blown flower to examine it separately, revelling in the sweetness
and colour. Then the uncomfortable thought occurred to her that she was
happier over this gift than she had been over the furs or the
long-wished-for ring, and she began to make excuses to herself.

"Maybe if I'd always had them sent to me as Lloyd and Betty and the
other girls have, it wouldn't seem such a big thing. But this is the
first time. Of course it doesn't mean anything as it would if he had
sent them to Lloyd. He is in love with _her_. Still--I'm glad he chose
roses."

She touched the last one to her lips. It was so cool and sweet that she
held it there a moment before she slipped out of bed and ran across the
room to thrust the long stems into the water pitcher. She would ask the
maid for a more fitting receptacle after awhile, but in the meantime she
would keep them fresh as possible.

When she went down to breakfast she wore one thrust in her belt, and
some of its colour seemed to have found its way into her cheeks when
she thanked Phil for his gift. The same rose was pinned on her coat,
when later in the morning they went to a Christmas service at St.
Boniface, the little stone church in the village, a mile away. Eugenia
had suggested their going. She said it would be such a picture with the
snow on its ivy-covered belfry, and the icicles hanging from the eaves.
Some noted singer was to be in the choir, and would sing several solos.
The walking would be fine through the dry crunching snow, and as they
had right of way through all of the neighbouring estates between them
and the village, it would be like going through an English park.

Stuart had an urgent round of professional visits to make and could not
join them, and at the last moment some message came from the Orphanage
in reference to the tree, which kept Eugenia at home to make some
alteration in her plans. So when the time came to start only the four
guests set out across the snowy lawn, down the woodland path leading to
the village. They went Indian file at first in order that Phil might
make a trail through the snow, until they reached the beaten path.

It was colder than they had expected to find it, and presently Mary
dropped back to the rear, so that she might hold her muff up,
unobserved, to shield the rose she wore. She could not bear to have its
lovely petals take on a dark purplish tinge at the edges where the frost
curled them. In the church the steam-heated atmosphere brought out its
fragrance till it was almost overpoweringly sweet, but when she glanced
down she saw that it was no longer crisp and glowing. It had wilted in
the sudden change, and hung limp and dying on its stem.

"I'll put it away in an envelope when I get back to the house," thought
Mary. "When they all fade I'll save the leaves and make a potpourri of
them like we made of Eugenia's wedding roses, and put them away in my
little Japanese rose-jar, to keep always."

Then the music began, and she entered heartily into the beautiful
Christmas service. The offering was to be divided among the various
charities of the parish, it had been announced, and Mary, remembering
the bright new quarter in her purse, was glad that she had earned that
bit of silver herself. It made it so much more of a personal offering
than if she had saved it from her allowance. She slipped her purse out
of her jacket pocket as the prelude of the offertory filled the aisles
and rose to the arches of the vaulted roof.

The man who carried the plate was slowly making his way towards the pew
in which she sat, and with her gaze fixed on him, she began fumbling
with the clasp of her purse, under cover of her muff. She had never seen
such a rubicund portly gentleman, with two double chins and expansive
bald spot on his crown. She held the coin between her fingers awaiting
his slow approach. Just as he reached the end of their pew where Phil
was sitting, she sneezed. Not a loud sneeze, but one of those inward
convulsions that makes the whole body twitch spasmodically.

It sent a handful of petals from the wilted rose showering down into her
lap. The coin dropped back into her purse as she made an instinctive
grab to save them from going to the floor. Then blushing and embarrassed
as the plate paused in front of her, she fumbled desperately in her
purse to regain the dropped quarter. The instant the coin left her
fingers she saw the mistake she had made, and reached out her hand as if
to snatch it back. But it was too late, even if she had had the courage
to reclaim it. She had dropped her English shilling into the plate
instead of the quarter! Her precious talisman from the bride's cake,
that she had carried as a pocket piece ever since Eugenia's wedding.

Betty, who sat next to her, was the only one who saw her confusion, and
her sudden movement towards the plate after it passed. She glanced at
her curiously, wondering at her agitation, but the next moment forgot it
in listening to the wonderful voice that took up the solo.

But the solo, as far as Mary was concerned, might have been a siren
whistle or a steam calliope. She was watching the man of the bald head
and the double chins, who had walked off with her shilling. Down the
central aisle went the pompous gentleman at last in company with two
others, and the three plates were received by the rector and blessed and
deposited on the altar, all in the most deliberate fashion, while Mary
twisted her fingers and thought of desperate but impossible plans to
rescue her shilling.

If she had been alone she would have hurried to the front at the close
of the service, and watched to see who became the custodian of the alms.
Then she could have pounced upon him and begged to be allowed to rectify
her mistake. But Phil and the girls would think she had lost her mind if
they should see her do such a thing, unless she explained to them.
Somehow she shrank from letting anybody know how highly she valued that
shilling. All at once she had grown self-conscious. She had not known
herself, just how much she cared for it until it was gone beyond recall.
Aside from the sentiment for which she cherished it she had a
superstitious feeling that her fate was bound up with it in such a way
that the gods would cease to be propitious if she lost the talisman that
influenced them.

No feasible plan occurred to her, however. The choir passed out in slow
recessional. The congregation as slowly followed. Mary loitered as long
as possible, even going back for her handkerchief, which she had
purposely dropped in the pew to give her an excuse to return. But her
anxious glances revealed nothing. The vestry door was closed, and nobody
was inside the chancel rail.

As they passed down the steps Phil turned to glance at a small bulletin
board outside the door, on which the hours of the service were printed
in gilt letters. "Dudley Eames, Rector," he read in a low tone. "Strange
I never can remember that man's name, when Stuart is always quoting him.
They are both great golf players, and were eternally making engagements
with each other over the phone, when I was here last summer. I heard it
often enough to remember it, I'm sure."

He did not see the expression of relief which his remark brought to
Mary's face. It held a suggestion which she resolved to act upon as soon
as she could find opportunity. She would telephone to the rector about
it.



CHAPTER IX

THE BRIDE-CAKE SHILLING COMES TO LIGHT


All the way home she kept nervously rehearsing to herself the
explanation which she intended to make, so absorbed in her thoughts,
that she started guiltily when the girls laughed, and she found that
Phil had asked her a question three times without attracting her
attention. When they reached the house it was some time before she could
slip upstairs unobserved. No amateur burglar, afraid of discovery, ever
made a more stealthy approach towards his booty than she made towards
the telephone. At any moment some one might come running up to the
nursery. Three times she started out of her door, and each time the
upstairs maid came through the hall and she drew back again.

When she finally screwed up her courage to sit down at the desk and find
the rector's number, her heart was beating so fast that her voice
trembled, as if she were on the verge of tears. Luckily the Reverend
Eames had just returned to his study and answered immediately. In her
embarrassment she plunged as usual into the middle of her carefully
prepared speech, explaining so tremulously and incoherently that for a
moment her puzzled listener was doubtful of his questioner's sanity.
Finally, when made to understand, he was very kind and very sympathetic,
but his answer merely sent her on another quest. She would have to apply
to the treasurer, he told her, Mr. Charles Oatley, who always took
charge of all collections of the church, depositing them in the bank in
the city, in which he was a director. That was all the information he
could give her about it. Yes, Mr. Oatley lived in the country, near the
village, at Oatley Crest. As this was a holiday, probably he would not
take the money to the bank until the following morning.

Hastily thanking him, Mary listened a moment for coming footsteps, then
called up Oatley Crest. To her disappointment a maid answered her. The
family had all gone to take dinner with the James Oatleys, and would not
be home until late at night. No, she did not know where the place
was--some twenty miles away she thought. They had gone in a touring-car.

Baffled in her pursuit, Mary turned away, perplexed and anxious. She had
forgotten to ask the name of the bank. But the glimpse she caught of
her worried face in a mirror in the hall made her pause to smooth the
pucker out of it.

"It is foolish of me to let it spoil my Christmas day like this," she
reasoned with herself. "If I can't keep inflexible any better than this
I don't deserve to have fortune change in my favour."

So armed with the good vicar's philosophy, she went down to the group in
the library. Almost immediately she had her reward.

"Well, what did _you_ think of the offertory, Miss Mary?" asked Stuart,
who had just come in, and was listening to the account that the girls
were giving Eugenia of the morning's music. "Your sister thinks the
soloist had the voice of an angel."

"I'll have to confess that I didn't pay as much attention to that as I
did to the first solos," said Mary honestly. "I was so busy staring at
the fat man who took up the collection in our aisle. He had at least
four chins and was so bald and shiny he fascinated me. His poor head
looked so bare and chilly I really think that must have been what made
me sneeze--just pure sympathy."

"Oh, you mean Oatley," laughed Stuart. "He considers himself the biggest
pillar in St. Boniface, if not its chief corner-stone. Awfully pompous
and important, isn't he? But they couldn't get along without him very
well. He is a joke at the bank, where he is a sort of fifth wheel. They
made a place for him there, because he married the president's daughter,
and it was necessary for him to draw a salary."

One question more and Mary breathed easier. She had learned the name of
the bank, and early in the morning she intended to start out to find it.
With that matter settled it was easy for her to throw herself into the
full enjoyment of all that followed. The Christmas dinner was served in
the middle of the day instead of at night, and the afternoon flew by so
fast that Eugenia protested against their going when the time came,
saying that she had had no visit at all. Joyce explained that she had
promised Mrs. Boyd to help with an entertainment that night for a free
kindergarten over on the East Side, and that she must get to work again
early in the morning to fill an order for some menu cards she had
promised to have ready for the twenty-seventh.

Betty, also, had promised to go back. Mrs. Boyd was sure she would find
material and local colour for several stories, and she felt that it was
an opportunity that she could not afford to miss.

"Then Mary must stay with me," declared Eugenia, and Mary found it hard
to refuse her hospitable insistence. Had it not been for the lost
shilling she would have stayed gladly, and once, she was almost on the
verge of confessing the real reason to Eugenia.

"I don't see why I should mind her knowing how much I think of it," she
mused. "But I don't want anybody to know. They'd remember about its
being a 'Philip and Mary shilling,' and they'd smile at each other
behind my back as if they thought I attached some importance to it on
that account."

To the delight of each of the girls, the invitation which they felt
obliged to decline was changed to one for the week-end, so when they
waved good-bye from the sleigh on their way to the station, it was with
the prospect of a speedy return.

"'And they had feasting and merry-making for seventy days and seventy
nights,'" quoted Mary, as the train drew into the city. "I used to
wonder how they stood it for such a long stretch, but I know now. We
have been celebrating ever since the mock Christmas tree at Warwick
Hall--ages ago it seems--but there has been such constant change and
variety that my interest is just as keen as when I started."

Mrs. Boyd and Lucy were at the flat waiting for them when they arrived,
and after a light supper, eaten picnic fashion around the chafing-dish,
they started off for the novel experience of a Christmas night among the
children of the slums. Betty did find the material which Mrs. Boyd had
promised, and came home so eager to begin writing the tale, that she was
impatient for morning to arrive. Joyce found suggestions for two
pictures for a child's story which she had to illustrate the following
week, and Mary came home a bundle of tingling sympathies and burning
desires to sacrifice her life to some charitable work for neglected
children.

She was also a-tingle with another thought. At the corner where they
changed cars on the way to the Mission, she had made a discovery. The
bank where St. Boniface deposited its money loomed up ahead of them,
massive and grim. The name showed so plainly on the brilliantly
illuminated corner, that it almost seemed to leap towards them. It would
be an easy matter to find by herself. Now she need not ask anybody, but
could slip away from the girls early in the morning, and be on the steps
first thing when the doors opened.

Fortunately for her plans, Joyce announced that they would have an early
breakfast, in order that she might begin work as soon as possible. Mrs.
Boyd and Lucy had not returned with them the night before, but had gone
back to Brooklyn to finish their visit with their friends immediately
after the exercises at the Mission. So only a small pile of dishes
awaited washing when their simple breakfast was over. Mary insisted on
attending to them by herself so that Betty could begin her story at
once.

"Strike while the iron is hot!" she commanded dramatically. "Open while
opportunity knocks at the door, lest she never knock again! I'll gladly
be cook-and-bottle-washer in the kitchen while genius burns for artist
and author in the studio! Scat! Both of you!"

So they left her, glad to be released from household tasks when others
more congenial were calling. They heard her singing happily in the
kitchenette, as she turned the faucet at the sink, and then forgot all
about her, in the absorbing interest of the work confronting them. With
so many conveniences at hand the washing of the dainty china was a
pleasure to Mary, after her long vacation from such work. Quickly and
deftly, with the ease of much practise, she polished the glasses to
crystal clearness, laid the silver in shining rows in its allotted
place, and put everything in spotless order.

Joyce heard her go into the bath-room to wash her hands, and thought
complacently of Mary's wonderful store of resources for her own
entertainment, wondering what she would do next. She had been asking
questions about the roof garden, and how to open the scuttle. Probably
she would be investigating that before long, getting a bird's-eye view
of the city from the chimney tops.

"I believe she could find some occupation on the top of a church
steeple," thought Joyce, recalling some of the things with which she had
seen Mary amuse herself. There was the time in Plainsville when a burned
foot kept her captive in the house, and she couldn't go to the
neighbours. Always an indefatigable visitor, she amused herself with a
pile of magazines, visiting in imagination each person and place
pictured in the illustrations, and on the advertising pages. She played
with the breakfast-food children, talked to the smiling tooth-powder
ladies, and invented histories for the people who were so particular
about their brands of soap and hosiery.

There was always something her busy fingers could turn to when tired of
household tasks; bead-work and basket-weaving, embroidery, knitting,
even strange feats of upholstering, and any repair work that called for
a vigorous use of hammer and saw and paint-brush. A girl who could sit
by the hour watching ants and spiders and bees, who could quote poems by
the yard, who loved to write letters and could lose herself to the world
any time in a new book, was not a difficult guest to entertain. She
could easily find amusement for herself even in the top flat of a New
York apartment house. So Joyce went on with her painting with a
care-free mind.

Meanwhile Mary was slipping into her travelling suit, hurrying on hat
and gloves and furs, and with her heart beating loud at her own daring,
boldly stepping out into the strange streets by herself. It was easy to
find the corner where they had taken the car the night before. Only one
block to the right and then one down towards a certain building whose
mammoth sign served her as a landmark. But the night before she had not
noticed that the track turned and twisted many times before it reached
the corner where they changed for the East Side car, and she had not
noticed how long it took to travel the distance. Rigid with anxiety lest
she should pass the place she kept a sharp look-out, till she began to
fear that she must have already done so, and finally mustered up courage
to tell the conductor the name of the bank at which she wished to stop.

"Quarter of an hour away, Miss," he answered shortly. So she relaxed her
tension a trifle, but not her vigilance. There were a thousand things to
look at, but she dared not become too interested, for fear the conductor
should forget her destination, and she should pass it.

At last she spied the grim forbidding building for which she was
watching, and almost the next instant was going up the steps, just three
minutes before the clock inside pointed to the hour of opening. She
could not see the time, however, as the heavy iron doors were closed,
and the moments before they were swung open seemed endless. It seemed to
her that people stared at her curiously, and her face grew redder than
even the cold wind warranted. Then she heard the porter inside shoot the
bolts back and turn the key, and as the door swung open she darted past
him so suddenly that he fell back with a startled exclamation.

In her confusion all she saw was the teller's window, with a shrewd-eyed
man behind its bars, looking at her so keenly that she was covered with
confusion, and forgot the name of the man she wanted to see.

[Illustration : "ALL SHE SAW WAS THE TELLER'S WINDOW, WITH A SHREWD-EYED
MAN BEHIND ITS BARS"]

"I--I--think it is Wheatley," she stammered. "Any way he is awfully fat,
and has two double chins, and married the president's daughter, and he
takes up the collection at St. Boniface."

The man's mouth twitched under his bristling moustache, but he only said
politely, "You probably mean Mr. Oatley. He's just come in." Then to
Mary's horror, the man she had described rose from a desk somewhere
behind the teller, and came forward pompously. It seemed to Mary that
she stood there a week, explaining and explaining as one runs in a
nightmare without making any progress, about dropping the wrong coin in
the St. Boniface collection; an old family heirloom, something she would
not have parted with for a fortune; then about telephoning to the
rectory and to Oatley Crest. The perspiration was standing out on her
forehead when she finished.

But in a moment the ordeal was over. A clerk was at that instant in the
act of counting the money which Mr. Oatley had brought in to deposit.
The shilling rolled out from among the quarters, and as she hurriedly
repeated the date and inscription to prove her story, the coin was
passed back to her with a polite bow.

She looked into her purse for the quarter which she had started to put
into the collection, then remembered that she had loaned it to Joyce for
car-fare the night before. There was a dollar in the middle compartment,
and eager to get away, she plumped it down on the marble slab, saying
hastily, "That's for the plate--what I should have put in instead of the
shilling, and I can never begin to tell you how grateful I am to get
this back."

In too great haste to see the amused glances that followed her, she
hurried out to the corner to wait for a home-going car. While she stood
there she opened her purse again for one more look at the rescued
shilling. Then she gave a gasp. When she left the house the purse had
held a nickel and a dollar. She had spent the nickel for car fare and
left the dollar at the bank. Nothing was in it now but the shilling, and
that was not a coin of the realm, even had she been willing to spend it.
She would have to walk home.

"Now I _am_ in for an adventure," she groaned, looking helplessly around
at the hundreds of strange faces sweeping past her. "It's like 'water,
water everywhere, and not a drop to drink.' People, people everywhere,
and not a soul that I dare speak to."

Knowing that she could never find her way home should she undertake to
walk all those miles, and that she would attract unpleasant attention if
she stood there much longer, she started to stroll on, trying to decide
what to do next. One block, two blocks and nearly three were passed, and
she had reached no decision, when she came upon a motherly-looking woman
and two half-grown girls, who had stopped in front of a window to look
at a display of hats, marked down to half price. Mary stopped too. Not
that she was interested in hats, but because she felt a sense of
protection in their company.

"No, mamma," one of the girls was saying, "I'm _sure_ we'll find
something at Wanamaker's that will suit us better, and it's only a few
blocks farther. Let's go there."

Wanamaker's had a familiar sound to Mary. The place where she had
lunched only two days before would seem like home after these
bewildering stranger-filled streets. So when the bargain-hunting trio
started in that direction, she followed in their wake. They paused often
to look in at the windows, and each time Mary paused too, as far from
them as possible, since she did not want to call attention to the fact
that she was following them.

The last of these stops was before a window which looked so familiar
that Mary glanced up to see the name of the firm. Then she felt that she
had indeed reached a well-known haven, for the name was the same that
was woven in gold thread in the tiny silk tag inside her furs. It was
the place where Joyce had brought her to select her Christmas present,
and there inside the window was the pleasant saleswoman who had sold
them to her. She had been so nice and friendly and seemed to take such
an interest in pleasing them that Joyce had spoken of it afterward.

Then the woman recognized her--looked from the furs to the eager little
face above them and smiled. It seemed incredible to Mary that she should
have been remembered out of all the hundreds of customers who must pass
through the shop every day, but she did not know that the sight of her
delight over her gift had been the one bright spot in the saleswoman's
tiresome day.

Instantly her mind was made up, and darting into the shop in her
impetuous way, she told her predicament to the amused woman, and asked
permission to telephone to her sister.

Joyce, painting away with rapid strokes, in a hurry to finish the stent
she had set for herself, looked up a trifle impatiently at the ringing
of the telephone bell. Her first impulse was to call Mary to answer it,
but reflecting that probably the call would require her personal
attention sooner or later, laid down her brush and went to answer it
herself. She could hardly credit the evidence of her own ears when a
meek little voice called imploringly, "Oh, Joyce, could you come and get
me? I'm at the furrier's where you bought my Christmas present, and I
haven't a cent in my pocket and don't know the way home."

"What under the canopy!" gasped Joyce, startled out of her
self-possession. All morning she had been so sure that Mary was in the
next room that it was positively uncanny to hear her voice coming from
so far away.

"I've never known anything so spooky," she called. "I can't be sure its
you."

"Well, I wish it wasn't," came the almost tearful reply. "I'm awfully
sorry to interfere with your work, and you needn't stop till you get
through. They'll let me wait here until noon. I've got a comfortable
seat where I can peep out at the people on the street, and I don't feel
lost now that you know where I am." Then with a little giggle, "I'm like
the Irishman's tea-kettle that he dropped overboard. It wasn't lost
because he knew where it was--in the bottom of the sea."

"Well, you're Mary, all right," laughed Joyce. "That speech certainly
proves it. Don't worry, I'll get you home as soon as possible."

"Telephones are wonderful things," confided Mary to the saleswoman.
"They are as good as genii in a bottle for getting you out of trouble. I
should think the man who invented them would feel so much like a wizard,
that he'd be sort of afraid of himself."

The woman answered pleasantly, and would, gladly have continued the
conversation, but was called away just then to a customer. Hidden from
view of the street by a large dummy lady in a sealskin coat and
fur-trimmed skirt, Mary peeped out from behind it at the panorama
rolling past the window. At first she was intensely interested in the
endless stream of strange faces, but when an hour had slipped by and
still they came, always strange, always different, a sense of littleness
and loneliness seized her, that amounted almost to panic. She longed to
get away from this great myriad-footed monster of a city, back to
something small and familiar and quiet; to neighbourly greetings and
friendly faces. The loneliness caused by the strange crowds depressed
her. It was like a dull ache.

The moments dragged on. She had no way to judge how long she waited,
but the hour seemed at least two. Then suddenly, through the mass of
people came a well-known figure with a firm, athletic tread. A man, who
even in this crowd of well-dressed cosmopolitans attracted a second
look.

"Oh, it's Phil!" she exclaimed aloud, her face brightening as if the sun
had suddenly burst out on a cloudy day. She wondered if she dared do
such a thing as to tap on the window to attract his attention. She would
not have hesitated in Plainsville or Phoenix, but here everything was
so different. Somebody else might look and Phil never turn his head.

While she waited, half-rising from her chair, he stopped, looked up at
the sign, and then came directly towards the door. Wondering at the
strange coincidence that should bring him into the one shop in all New
York in which she happened to be sitting, she started up, thinking to
surprise him. Then the surprise was hers, for she saw that he was in
search of _her_. With a word to the obsequious salesman who met him, he
came directly towards her hiding-place behind the dummy in sealskin. His
face lighted with a merry smile that was good to see as he crossed over
to her with outstretched hand, saying laughingly:

"The lost is found! Well, young lady, this is a pretty performance! What
do you mean by shocking your fond relatives and friends almost into
catalepsy? I happened to drop in at the studio just as Joyce got your
message, and she and Betty were at their wits' end to account for your
disappearance."

"Oh, I'm so _glad_ to see you," answered Mary. "You can't imagine! I'm
even as glad as I was that time you happened along when the Indian
chased me." She ignored his question as entirely as if he had not asked
it.

He asked it again when they were presently seated on a homeward bound
car. "What I want to know is, what made you wander from your own
fireside?"

Mary felt her cheeks burn. She was prepared to make a full confession to
the girls, but not for worlds would she make it to him. Quickly turning
her back on him as if to look at something that had attracted her
attention in the street, she groped frantically around in her mind for
an answer. He leaned forward, peering around till he could see her face,
and repeated the question.

"Oh," she answered indifferently, bending slightly to examine the toe of
her shoe with a little frown, as if it interested her more than the
question. "I just went out into the wide world to seek my fortune. You
know I never had a chance before."

"And did you find it?"

She laughed. "Well, some people might not think so, but I'm satisfied."

"Did you have any adventures?" he persisted.

"Yes, heaps and heaps, but I'm saving them to go in my memoirs, so you
needn't ask what they were."

"Lost on Broadway, or Arizona Mary's Mystery!" exclaimed Phil. "I shall
never rest easy until I unearth it."

"Then you'll have a long spell of uneasiness," was the grim reply.
"Horses couldn't drag it from me."

He had begun his questioning merely in a spirit of banter, but as she
stubbornly persisted in her refusals, he began to think that she really
had had some ridiculous adventure, and was determined to find out what
it was. So he set traps for her, and cross-questioned her, secretly
amused at the quick-witted way in which she continually baffled him.

"I see that you are sadly changed," he said finally, with a shake of the
head. "The little Mary I used to know would have given the whole thing
away by this time--would have blurted out the truth before she knew what
she was doing. She was too honest and straight-forward to evade a
question. But you've grown as worldly-wise as an old trout--won't bite
at any kind of bait. Never mind, though, I'll get you yet."

Thus put on her guard, Mary refused to tell even the girls what had
possessed her to take secret leave that morning, but as she passed Joyce
in the hall she whispered imploringly, "_Please_ don't ask me to tell
now. It isn't much, but I don't want to tell while he's in the house. He
has been teasing me so."

"I'd stay to lunch if anybody would ask me three times," announced Phil,
presently. "I have to have my welcome assured."

"I'll ask you if Mary is willing," said Joyce, who had gone back to her
work. "She has promised to be chef to-day."

Mary regarded him doubtfully, as if weighing the matter, then said, "I'm
willing if he'll promise not to mention what happened this morning
another single time. And he can order any two dishes in the cook-book
that can be prepared in an hour, and I'll make them; that is, of course,
if the materials are in the house."

"Then I choose doughnuts," was the ready answer. "Doughnuts with holes
in them and sugar sprinkled over the top, and light as a feather; the
kind you used to keep in a yellow bowl with a white stripe around it, on
the middle shelf in the Wigwam pantry. Gee! But they were good! I've
never come across any like them since except in my dreams. And for the
second choice--let me see!" He pursed up his lips reflectively. "I
believe I'd like that to be a surprise, so Mistress-Mary-quite-contrary,
you may choose that yourself."

"All right," she assented. "But if it is to be a surprise I must have a
clear coast till everything is ready."

Arrayed in a long apron of Joyce's, Mary stood a moment considering the
resources of refrigerator and pantry. There were oysters on the ice. An
oyster stew would make a fine beginning this cold day. There was a
chicken simmering in the fireless cooker. Joyce had put it on while they
were getting breakfast, intending to make some sort of boneless
concoction of it for dinner. But it would be tender enough by the time
she was ready for it, to make into a chicken-pie. In the days when Phil
had been a daily guest at the Wigwam, chicken-pie was his favourite
dish. That should be the surprise for him.

It was queer how all his little preferences and prejudices came back to
her as she set about getting lunch. He preferred his lemon cut in
triangles instead of slices, and he liked the cauliflower in mixed
pickles, but not the tiny white onions, and he wanted his fried eggs
hard and his boiled eggs soft. But then, after all, it wasn't so queer
that she should remember these things, she thought, for the likes and
dislikes of a frequent guest would naturally make an impression on an
observant child who took part in all the household work. It was just the
same with other people. She'd never forget if she lived to be a hundred
how Holland put salt in everything, and Norman wouldn't touch
apple-sauce if it were hot, but would empty the dish if it were cold.

"I can't paint like Joyce, and I can't write like Betty," she thought as
she sifted flour vigorously, "but thank heaven, I can cook, and give
pleasure that way, and I like to do it."

An hour would have been far too short a time for inexperienced hands to
do what hers accomplished, and even Joyce, who knew how quickly she
could bring things to pass, was surprised when she saw the table to
which they were summoned. The oyster stew was the first success, and
good enough to be the surprise they all agreed. Then the chicken-pie
was brought in, and Phil, cutting into the light, delicately browned
crust, declared it a picture in the first place, and a piece of
perfection in the second place, tasting the rich, creamy gravy, and
thirdly "a joy for ever," to remember that once in life he had partaken
of a dish fit for the gods.

"Honestly, Mary, it's the best thing I ever ate," he protested, "and I'm
your debtor for life for giving me such a pleasure."

Mary laughed at his elaborate compliments and shrugged her shoulders at
his ridiculous exaggerations, but in her heart she knew that everything
was good, and that he was enjoying each mouthful. A simple salad came
next, with a French dressing. She had longed to try her hand at
mayonnaise, but there wasn't time, and lastly the doughnuts, crisp and
feather-light and sugary, with clear, fragrant coffee, whose very aroma
was exhilarating.

"Here's a toast to the cook," said Phil, lifting the fragile little cup,
and smiling at her through the steam that crowned it:

"_Vive Marie!_ Had Eve served her Adam ambrosia half as good as this,
raw apples would have been no temptation, and they would have stayed on
in Eden for ever!"

It certainly was pleasant to have scored such a success, and to have it
appreciated by her little world.

They might have lingered around the table indefinitely had not a knock
on the door announced that Mrs. Maguire had come. It was her afternoon
to clean.

"So don't cast any anxious eyes at the dishes, Mary," announced Phil.
"We planned other fish for you to fry, this afternoon. I proposed to the
girls to take all three of you out for an automobile spin for awhile,
winding up at a matinee, but Joyce and Betty refuse to be torn from
their work. They've seen all the sights of New York and they've seen
Peter Pan, and they won't 'play in my yard any more.' The only thing
they consented to do was to offer your services to help me dispose of
this last day of my vacation. Will you go?"

"Will I _go_!" echoed Mary, sinking back into the chair from which she
had just risen. "Well, the only thing I'm afraid of is that my enjoyer
will be totally worn out. It has stood the wear and tear of so many good
times I don't see how it can possibly stand any more. Why, I've been
fairly _wild_ to see Peter Pan, and I've felt so green for the last few
years because I've never set foot in an automobile that you couldn't
have chosen anything that would please me more."

"Hurry, then," laughed Phil. "You've no time to lose in getting ready.
And don't you worry about your 'enjoyer'--it's the strongest part of
your anatomy in my opinion. I've never known any one with such a
capacity. It's forty-horse power at the very least."

Only a matinee programme was all that she brought back with her from
that memorable outing, but long after it had grown yellowed and old, the
sight of it in her keepsake box brought back many things. One was that
sensation of flying, as they whirled through snowy parks and along
Riverside drive, past historic places and world-famous buildings. And
the delightful sense of being considered and cared for, and entertained,
quite as if she had been a grown lady of six and twenty instead of just
a little school-girl, six and ten.

How different the streets looked! Not at all as they had that morning,
when she wandered through them, bewildered and lost. It was a gay
holiday world, as she looked down on it from her seat beside Phil. She
wished that the drive could be prolonged indefinitely, but there was
only time for the briefest spin before the hour for the matinee. More
than all, the programme brought back that bewitching moment when, keyed
to the highest pitch of expectation by the entrancing music of the
orchestra, the curtain went up, and the world of Peter Pan drew her into
its magic spell.

It was a full day, so full that there was no opportunity until nearly
bedtime to explain to the girls the cause of her morning disappearance.
It seemed fully a week since she had started out to find her lost
shilling, and such a trivial affair now, obscured by all that had
happened afterward. But the girls laughed every time they thought about
it while they were undressing, and Mary heard an animated conversation
begin some time after she had gone to bed in the studio davenport. She
was too sleepy to take any interest in it till Betty called out:

"Mary, your escapade has given me the finest sort of a plot for a
_Youth's Companion_ story. I'm going to block it out while I am here,
and finish it when we get back to school. If it is accepted I'll divide
the money with you, and we'll come back on it to spend our Easter
vacation here."

Mary sat up in bed, blinking drowsily. "I'm honestly afraid my enjoyer
_is_ wearing out," she said in a worried tone. "Usually the bare promise
of such a thing would make me so glad that I'd lie awake, half the
night to enjoy the prospect. But somehow I can't take it all in."

Fortunately it was a tired body instead of a tired spirit that brought
this sated feeling, and after a long night's sleep and a quiet day at
home, Mary was ready for all that followed: a little more sight-seeing,
a little shopping, another matinee, and then the week-end at Eugenia's.
The short journey to Annapolis and the few hours with Holland did not
take much time from the calendar, but judged by the pages they filled in
her journal, and all they added to her happy memories, they prolonged
her holidays until it seemed she had been away from Warwick Hall for
months, instead of only two short weeks.



CHAPTER X

HER SEVENTEENTH BIRTHDAY


"Please, Miss Lewis, _please_ do," came in a chorus of pleading voices,
as half a dozen Freshmen surrounded Betty in the lower hall, one snowy
morning late in January. "I think you _might_ consent when we all want
one so tremendously."

"Come on down, Mary Ware," called A.O., catching sight of a wondering
face peering over the bannister, curious to see the cause of the
commotion. "Come down here and help us beg Miss Lewis to be
photographed. There's a man coming out from town this morning to take
some snow scenes of the place, and we want her to pose for him. Sitting
at the desk, you know, where she wrote her stories, with the editor's
letter of acceptance in her hand. Some day when her fame is world-wide a
picture of her wearing her first laurels will be worth a fortune."

"Oh, Betty! Have they really been accepted?" cried Mary, almost tumbling
down the stairs in her excitement, and forgetting the respectful "Miss"
with which she always prefaced her name when with the other girls.

Betty waved a letter which she had just received. "Yes, the editor took
them both, and wants more--a series of boarding-school stories. One of
these girls heard me telling Miss Chilton about it," she added,
laughing, "and to hear them you would think it is an event of national
importance."

"It is to us," insisted A.O. "We are so proud to think it is _our_
teacher, our special favourite one, who's turned out to be a sure-enough
author, and we aren't going to let you go until you promise to sit for a
picture for us."

"Then I suppose I shall be forced to promise," said Betty, smiling down
into the eager faces which surrounded her, and breaking away from the
encircling arms which held her determinedly. It was good to feel that
she had the ardent admiration of her pupils, though it was burdensome
sometimes to contemplate that so many of them took her as a model.

"I'm going to write too, some day," she overheard one of them say as she
made her laughing escape. "I'd rather be an author than anything else in
the world. It's so nice to dash off a new book every year or so and have
a fortune come rolling in, and everybody praising you and trying to
make your acquaintance and begging for your autograph."

"It is not so easy as it sounds, Judith," Betty paused to say. "There's
a long hard road to travel before one reaches such a mountain top as
that. I've been at it for years, and I can only count that I've made a
very small beginning of the journey."

Still, it seemed quite a good-sized achievement, when later in the
morning she beckoned Mary into her room, and watched her eyes grow wide
over the check which she showed her.

"One hundred dollars for just two short stories!" Mary exclaimed. "And
you wrote most of them during Christmas vacation. Oh, Betty! How
splendid!" Then she looked at her curiously. "How does it feel to be so
successful at last, after being so bitterly disappointed?"

Betty, leaning forward against the desk, her chin in her hand, looked
thoughtfully out of the window. Then after a pause she answered, "Glad
and thankful--a deep quiet sort of gladness like a bottomless well, and
a queer, uplifted buoyant feeling as if I had been given wings, and
could attempt anything. There's nothing in the world," she added slowly,
as if talking to herself, "quite so sweet as the realization of one's
ambitions. I was almost envious of Joyce when I saw her established in a
studio, at last accomplishing the things she has always hoped to do. And
it was the same way when I saw Eugenia so radiantly happy in the
realizing of _her_ ambition, to make an ideal home for Stuart and her
father and to be an ideal mother to little Patricia. In their eyes she
is not only a perfect house-keeper, but an adorable home-maker.

"Lloyd, too, is having what she wanted this winter, the social triumph
that godmother and Papa Jack coveted for her. Her ambition is to measure
up to all their fond expectations, and to leave a Road of the Loving
Heart in every one's memory. And she is certainly doing that. Her
popularity is the kind that cannot be bought with lavish dinners and
extravagant balls. She's just so winsome and dear and considerate of
everybody that she's earned the right to be called the Queen of Hearts."

"And now all four of you are happy," remarked Mary, "for your dreams
have come true. And seeing that makes me all the more determined to make
mine come true."

"Oh, the valedictory that you are to win for Jack's sake," said Betty,
coming out of the revery into which she had fallen for a moment.

"That's only one of the things," began Mary. "The others--" Then she
stopped, hesitating to put in words the future she foresaw for herself.
Sometimes in the daylight it seemed presumptuous for her to aspire to
such heights. It was only when she lay awake at night with the moonlight
stealing into the room, that such a future seemed reasonable and sure.

Unknowing that the hesitation held a half-escaped confidence, Betty did
not wait for her to go on, but held up the check, saying, "You know this
is a partnership story, and you are to get another trip to New York out
of it. Putting your shilling in the Christmas offering was a good
investment for both of us. If you hadn't I never would have thought of
the plot which your adventure suggested."

"But you've made your story so different from what actually happened,
that I don't see how I can have any claim on it at all," said Mary.
"It's just your sweet way of giving me Easter Vacation with Joyce."

"Indeed it is not," protested Betty. "Some day I'll follow out the whole
train of suggestions for you, how your shilling made me think of an old
rhyme, and that rhyme of something else, and so on, until the whole
plot lay out before me. There isn't time now. It is almost your Latin
period."

Mary rose to go. "Once I should have been doubtful about accepting such
a big favour from any one," she said slowly. "But I've found out now how
delightful it is to do things for people you love with money you've
earned yourself. Now Jack's watch-fob, for instance. He was immensely
pleased with it. I know, not only from what he wrote himself, but from
what mamma said. Yet his pleasure in getting it was not a circumstance
to mine in giving it. Not that I mean it will be that way about the New
York visit," she added hastily, seeing the amused twinkle in Betty's
eyes. "Oh, _you_ know what I mean," she cried in confusion. "That
usually it's that way, but in this case it will be a thousand times
blesseder to _receive_, and I never can thank you enough."

Throwing her arms around Betty's neck she planted an impetuous kiss on
each cheek and ran out of the room.

Part of that first check went to the photographer, for every one of the
fifteen Freshmen claimed a picture, and many of the Seniors who had
worshipped her from afar when they were Freshmen, and she the star of
the Senior class, begged the same favour. The one which fell to Mary's
share stood on her dressing-table several days and then disappeared. She
felt disloyal when some of the other girls who kept theirs prominently
displayed, came in and looked around inquiringly. She evaded their
questions but was moved to confess to Betty herself one day.

"I--I--sent your picture to Jack. Just for him to look at and send right
back, you know, but he won't send it, I hope you don't mind. He says he
needs it to keep him from forgetting what the ideal American girl is
like. They don't have them in Lone-Rock. There isn't any young society
there at all. And he was so interested in hearing about your literary
successes. You know he has always been interested in you ever since
Joyce came back from the first house-party and told us about you."

That Betty blushed when Mary proceeded to further confessions and quoted
Jack's remarks about her picture is not to be wondered at, and that Mary
should see the blush and promptly report it in her next letter to Jack
was quite as inevitable. She had no idea how many times during his busy
days his glance rested on the photograph on his desk.

It was not the typical American girl as portrayed by Gibson or Christy,
but it pleased him better in every way. He liked the sweet seriousness
of the smooth brows, the steady glance of the trustful brown eyes, and
the little laughter lines about the mouth. Back in God's country, he
sometimes mused, fellows knew girls like that. Played golf and tennis
with them, rode with them, picnicked with them, sat out in the moonlight
with them, talking and singing in a spirit of gay comradery that they
only half-appreciated, because they had never starved for want of it as
he was doing.

It hadn't been so bad at the Wigwam, for Joyce was always doing
something to keep things stirred up; making the most of the material at
hand. It wasn't that he minded the grind and the responsibility of his
work. He would gladly have shouldered more in his zeal to push ahead. It
was the thought that all work and no play was making him the proverbial
dull boy, and that he would be an old man before his time, if he went on
without anything to relieve the deadly monotony. The spirit of youth in
him was crying out for kindred companionship.

All unconscious of the interest she was arousing, Mary filled her
letters with reference to Betty; how they all adored her, and how she
was always in demand as a chaperon, because she was just a girl herself
and could understand how they felt and was such good fun. Presently
when word came that she had scored another triumph, that one of the
leading magazines had accepted a short story, Jack was moved to send her
a note of congratulation.

Now Jack had been as well known to Betty as she to him since the days of
the long-ago house-party. When he made his brief visit to The Locusts
just before she left for Warwick Hall, they had met like old friends,
each familiar with the other's past Unquestioningly she had accepted
Papa Jack's estimate of him as the squarest young fellow he had ever
met--"true blue in every particular, and a hustler when it comes to
bringing things to pass."

Now for five months Mary had talked of him so incessantly, especially
while they were visiting Joyce, that Betty had it impressed upon her
mind beyond forgetting, that no matter what else he might be he was
quite the best brother who had ever lived in the knowledge of man. In
answer to her cordial little note of acknowledgment came a letter
explaining in a frank straightforward way why he had kept her picture,
and how he longed sometimes for the friendships and social life he could
not have in a little mining-town. And because there was a question in it
about Mary, asking the advisability of her taking some extra course she
had mentioned, Betty answered it promptly.

Thus it came about without her realizing just how it happened, that she
was drawn into a regular correspondence. Regular on Jack's side, at
least, for no matter whether she wrote or not, promptly every Thursday
morning a familiar looking envelope, addressed in his big businesslike
hand, appeared on her desk.

February came, not only with its George Washington tea and Valentine
party, but musicales and receptions and many excursions to the city. No
day with any claim to celebration was allowed to pass unheeded. March
held fewer opportunities, so Saint Patrick was made much of, and Mary's
sorority planned a spread up in the gymnasium in his honour. She had
never once mentioned that her birthday fell on the seventeenth also, not
even when she first proudly displayed her bloodstone ring, which they
all knew was the stone for March.

Nobody would have known that she had any especial interest in the date,
had not Jack mentioned in one of his letters to Betty that Mary would be
seventeen on the seventeenth, and he was afraid that his remembrance
would not reach her in time, as he had forgotten the day was so near
until that very moment of writing.

The whisper that went around never reached Mary. She helped decorate
the table with sprigs of artificial shamrock and Irish flags, hunted up
verses from various poets of Erin to write on the little harp-shaped
place cards, and suggested a menu which typified the "wearin' o' the
green" in every dish, from the olive sandwiches to the creme de menthe.
To further carry out the colour scheme, the girls all came in their
gymnasium suits of hunter's green, and the unconventional attire tended
to make the affair more of a frolic than the elegant function which the
sorority yearly aspired to give.

A huge birthday cake had been ordered in the jovial saint's honour, but
nobody could tell how many candles it ought to hold since no one knew
how many years he numbered. But Dorene solved the difficulty by saying,
"Let X equal the unknown quantity, and just make a big X across the cake
with the green candles."

Never once did Mary suspect that the spread was in her honour also, till
she was led to the seat at the head of the table, where another birthday
cake stood like a mound of snow with seventeen green candles all
a-twinkle. She was overwhelmed with so much distinction at first. The
musical little acrostic by the sorority poet gratified her beyond
expression. Cornie Dean's toast almost brought the tears it was so
sweet and appreciative, and the affectionate birthday wishes that
circled around the table at candle-blowing time made her feel with a
thankful heart that this early in her college life she had reached the
best it has to offer, the inner circle of its friendships.

Each one told the funniest Irish bull she had ever heard, and then all
sorts of conundrums and foolish questions were propounded, like, "Which
would you prefer, to be as green as you look or to look as green as you
are?" When the conversation touched on the birthstone for March, some
one suggested that Mary ought to be made to do some stunt to show that
she was worthy to wear a bloodstone, since it called for such high
courage.

"Make her kiss the Blarney stone!" cried Judith Ettrick.

"At Blarney castle they let you down by the heels. That's the only way
you can kiss the real stone. But Mary can hang by her knees from one of
the turning-pole bars, and we'll build up a pyramid under her to put the
Blarney stone on, so that she can barely reach it, you know. Make a
shaky one that will topple over at a breath. That will make it harder to
reach."

The suggestion was enthusiastically received by all but Mary, who felt
somewhat dubious about making the attempt, when she saw them begin to
catch up glasses and plates from the table with which to build the
pyramid. But by the time the structure was completed and topped by a
little china match-safe in the shape of a cupid, to represent the
Blarney stone, she was ready for her part of the performance.

"That's what you get for being born in Mars' month," said Elise, as Mary
balanced herself a moment on the bar, and then made a quick turn around
it to limber herself.

"You wouldn't be expected to do such things if the signs of your zodiac
were different."

"Look out!" warned Cornie. "You'll see more stars than the ones in your
horoscope if you lose your grip."

"Abracadabra!" cried Mary gamely. "May I hold on to the pole, and the
pole hold on to me till we've done all that's expected of us."

It was a dizzy moment for Mary, and a breathless one for all of them as
she swung head downward over the tottering pile of china and glass ware.
The china cupid was almost beyond her reach, but by a desperate effort
she managed to swing a fraction of an inch nearer, and seizing its head
in her mouth came up gasping and purple.

"Now what about being born in Mars' month!" she demanded triumphantly of
Elise as soon as she could get her breath. "A bloodstone will do more
for you any day than an agate."

Taking this as a challenge, all sorts of feats were attempted to prove
the superior virtues of each girl's birthstone charm, so that the
performance ended in a gale of romping and laughter. Then at the last,
to the tune of "They kept the pig in the parlour and that was Irish
too," Mary was gravely presented on behalf of the sorority with the gift
it had chosen for her.

"For your dowry," it was marked. It was a toy savings-bank in the form
of a china pig, with a slit in its back, into which each member dropped
seventeen pennies, as they sang in jolly chorus,

     "Because it's your seventeenth birthday,
      March seventeen shall be mirth-day.
      Oh, may you long on the earth stay,
        With pence a-plenty too."

"That's an example in mental arithmetic," cried A.O. "Quick, Mary! Tell
us how much your dowry amounts to. Seventeen times sixteen--"

But Mary was occupied with a discovery she had just made. "There are
just seventeen of us counting me!" she cried. "I never knew such a
strange coincidence in numbers."

"If you save all your pennies till you have occasion for a dowry you'll
have enough to buy a real pig," counselled Cornie wisely.

"More like a whole drove of them," laughed Mary. "That time is so far
off."

"Not necessarily so far," was Cornie's answer. "Sometimes it is only a
few steps farther when you are seventeen. Come on, before they turn out
the lights on us."

Mary stopped in the door to look back at the room in which they had
spent such a jolly evening. "I'd like to stop the clock right here," she
declared, "and stay just at this age for years and years. It's so nice
to be as _old_ as seventeen, and yet at the same time to be as _young_
as that."

Then she went skipping off to her room with the dowry pig in one hand
and a green candle from the cake in the other, to report the affair to
Ethelinda. They were not members of the same sorority, but they had many
interests in common now. They had learned how to adjust themselves to
each other. Mary still reserved her deepest confidences for her
shadow-chum, but Ethelinda shared the rest.



CHAPTER XI

TROUBLE FOR EVERYBODY


Up in Joyce's studio, Easter lilies had marked the time of year for
nearly a week. They had been ordered the day that Betty and Mary arrived
to spend the spring vacation, and still stood fresh and white at all the
windows, in the glory of their newly opened buds. They were Henrietta's
contribution. Mrs. Boyd and Lucy were away.

On the wall over the desk the calendar showed a fanciful figure of
Spring, dancing down a flower-strewn path, and Mary, opening her journal
for the first time since her arrival, paused to read the couplet at the
bottom of the calendar. Then she copied it at the top of the page which
she was about to fill with the doings of the last five days.

     "How noiseless falls the foot of time
      That only treads on flowers."

"That must be the reason that I can hardly believe that three whole
months have gone by since the Christmas holidays. I've trodden on
nothing _but_ flowers. Even though the school work was a hard dig
sometimes, I enjoyed it, and there was always so much fun mixed up with
it, that it made the time fairly fly by. As for the five days we have
been here in New York, they have simply whizzed past. Miss 'Henry' has
done so much to make it pleasant for us. She is great. She calls herself
a bachelor maid, and if she is a fair sample of what they are, I'd like
to be one. The day after we came she gave a studio reception, so that we
could meet some of her famous friends. She wrote on a slip of paper,
beforehand, just what each one was famous for, and the particular statue
or book or painting that was his best known work, and instead of copying
it, I'll paste the page in here to save time.

"It was a great event for Betty. Mrs. LaMotte, who does such beautiful
illustrating for the magazines had seen Betty's last story, and asked
her for her next manuscript. If _she_ illustrates it, the pictures will
be an open sesame to any editor's attention. She gave her so much
encouragement too, and made some suggestions that Betty said would help
her tremendously.

"One of the best parts of the whole affair to me was to see Joyce
playing hostess in such a distinguished company. They all seem so fond
of her, and so interested in her work, that Miss Henrietta calls her
'Little Sister to the Great.'

"I thought that I'd be so much in awe of them that I couldn't say a
word. But I wasn't. They were all so friendly and ordinary in their
manners and so extraordinary in the interesting things they talked about
that I had a beautiful time. I helped serve refreshments and poured tea.
After they had all gone Joyce came over and took me by the shoulders,
and said 'Little Mary, is it Time or Warwick Hall that has made such a
change in you? You are growing up. You've lost your self-conscious
little airs with strangers and you are no longer a chatter-box. I was
_proud_ of you!'

"Maybe I wasn't happy! Joyce never paid me very many compliments. None
of my family ever have, so I think that ought to have a place in my good
times book.

"I've had a perfect orgy of sight-seeing--gone to all the places
strangers usually visit, and lots besides. We've been twice to the
matinee. Phil has been here once to lunch, and is coming this afternoon
to take us away out of town in a big touring-car. We're to stop at some
wayside inn for dinner. Then we'll see him again when we go out to
Eugenia's for a day and night. We've saved the best till the last."

"Letters," called Joyce, coming into the room with a handful. "The
postman was good to every one of us." She tossed two across the room to
Betty, who sat reading on the divan, and one to Henrietta, who had just
finished cleaning some brushes.

"Oh, mine is from Jack!" cried Mary joyfully. "But how queer," she added
in a disappointed tone, when she had torn open the envelope. "There are
only six lines." Then exclaiming, "I wish you'd listen to this!" She
read aloud:

"Mamma thinks that your clothes may be somewhat shabby by this time, so
here's a little something to get some fine feathers with which to make
yourself a fine bird. You will find check to cover remainder of year's
expenses waiting for you on your return to school. Glad you are having
such a grand time. Keep it up, little pard.--_Jack_."

If Mary had not been so carried away with her good fortune, and so
immediately engrossed in discussing the best way to spend the check she
would have noticed that the envelope in Betty's lap was exactly like the
one in her own, and that the same hand had addressed them both. Betty's
first impulse was to read her letter aloud. It was so unusually breezy
and amusing. But remembering that she had never happened to mention her
correspondence with Jack to Mary, and that her surprise over it might
lead her to say something before Henrietta that would be embarrassing,
she dropped it into her shopping bag as soon as she had read it, and
said nothing about it.

That is how it happened to be with her when she accompanied Mary that
afternoon on her joyful quest of "fine feathers." They went to many
places, and at last found a dress which suited her and Joyce exactly.
Some slight alteration was needed, and while the two were in the fitting
room, Betty passed the time by taking out the letter for a second
reading. A glance at the post-mark showed that it had been delayed
somewhere on the road. It should have reached her the day that she left
Warwick Hall. It had been forwarded from there. She had grown so
accustomed to his weekly letter that she missed it when it did not come,
and had wondered for several days why he had failed to write. Now she
confessed to herself that she was glad the fault was with some postal
clerk, and that Jack had not forgotten. She turned to the last page.

"I don't know why I should be telling you all this. I hope it does not
bore you. I usually wait till my hopes and plans work out into something
practical before I mention them; but lately everything has gone so well
that I can't help being sanguine over these new plans, and it makes
their achievement seem nearer to talk them over with you. It certainly
is good to be young and strong and feel your muscle is equal to the
strain put upon it. This old world looks just about all right to me this
morning."

When Mary came dancing out of the fitting room a few minutes later her
first remark was so nearly an echo of Jack's that Betty smiled at the
coincidence.

"Oh, isn't this a good old world? Everybody is so obliging. They are
going to make a special rush order of altering my dress, and send it out
by special messenger early in the morning, so that I can have it to take
out to Eugenia's. I'm holding fast to my new spring hat, though. I can't
risk that to any messenger boy. Phil will just have to let me take it in
the automobile with us."

Promptly at the hour agreed upon, Phil met them at the milliner's. As
Betty predicted he did laugh at the huge square bandbox which Mary clung
to, and inquired for the bird-cage which was supposed to be its
companion piece. But Mary paid little heed to his teasing, upheld by the
thought of that perfect dream of a white hat which the derided box
contained. Her only regret was that she could not wear it for him to
see. Joyce and the mirror both assured her that it was the most becoming
one she ever owned, and it seemed a pity that it was not suitable for
motoring. The wearing of it would have added so much to her pleasure.
However, the thought of it, and of the new dress that was to be sent up
in the morning, ran through her mind all that afternoon, like a happy
undercurrent. She said so once, when Phil asked her what she was smiling
about all to herself.

"It's just as if they were singing a sort of alto to what we are doing
now, and making a duet of my pleasure; a _double_ good time. Oh, I
_wish_ Jack could be here to see how happy he has made me!"

The grateful thought of him found expression a dozen times during the
course of the drive. When they stopped for dinner at the quaint wayside
inn she wished audibly that he were there. Somehow, into the keen
enjoyment of the day crept a wistful longing to see him again, and the
ache that caught her throat now and then was almost a homesick pang.
Going back, as they sped along in the darkness towards the twinkling
lights of the vast city, she decided that she would write to him that
very night, before she went to sleep, and make it clear to him how much
she appreciated all he had done for her. He was the best brother in the
world, and the very dearest.

Phil went up with them when they reached the entrance to the flats. He
could not stay long, he said, but he must see the contents of that
bandbox. The air of the studio was heavy with the fragrance of the
Easter lilies, and he went about opening windows at Joyce's direction,
while she and the other girls unwound themselves from the veils in which
they had been wrapped, and put a few smoothing touches to their
wind-blown hair. Joyce was the first to come back to the studio. She
carried a letter which she had picked up in the hall.

"This seems to be a day for letters," she remarked. "This is a good
thick one from home." She made no movement to open it then, thinking to
read it aloud after Phil had taken his leave. But when Mary joined them,
and he seemed absorbed in the highly diverting process they made of
trying on the new hat, she opened the envelope to glance over the first
few pages. She read the first paragraph with one ear directed to the
amusing repartee. Then the smile suddenly left her face, and with a
startled exclamation she turned back to re-read it, hurrying on to the
bottom of the page.

"Oh, what is it?" cried Mary in alarm. Joyce had looked up with a groan,
her face white and shocked. She was trembling so that the letter shook
perceptibly in her hand.

"There has been an accident out at the mines," she answered, trying to
steady her voice, "and Jack was badly hurt. So very badly that mamma
didn't telegraph us, but waited to see how it would terminate. Oh, he's
better," she hurried to add, seeing Mary grow faint and white, and sit
down weakly on the floor beside the bandbox. "He is going to live, the
doctors say, but they're afraid--" Her voice faltered and she began to
sob. "They're afraid he'll be a cripple for life! Never walk again!"

Throwing herself across the couch, she buried her face in the cushions,
crying chokingly, "Oh, I can't _bear_ to think of it! Oh, Jack! how
could such an awful thing happen to _you_!"

Sick and trembling, Mary sat as if dazed by a blow on the head, her
stunned senses trying to grasp the fact that some awful calamity had
befallen them; that out of a clear sky had dropped a deadly bolt to
shatter all the happiness of their little world. For an instant the
thought came to her that maybe she was only having a dreadful dream,
and in a few moments would come the blessed relief of awakening. But
instead came only the sickening realization of the truth, for Joyce,
with an imploring gesture, held the letter out to Phil for him to read
aloud.

Mrs. Ware had written as bravely as she could, trying not to alarm or
distress them unduly, but there could be no disguising or softening one
terrible fact. Jack, strong, sinewy, broad-shouldered Jack, whose
strength had been his pride, lay as helpless as a baby, and all the hope
the physicians could give was that in a few months he might be able to
go about in a wheeled chair. They had had three surgeons up from
Phoenix for a consultation. A trained nurse was with him at present
and they must not worry. Of course they mustn't think of coming home.
Joyce could do most good where she was, if later on they should have to
depend on her partly, as one of the bread-winners. And Mary must make
the most of the rest of the year at school. Jack had sent the check for
the balance of her expenses only the morning before the accident
occurred.

Mary waited to hear no more. With the tears streaming down her face, and
her lips working pitifully, she scrambled up from the floor, and ran
into the next room, shutting the door behind her. The hurt was too deep
for her to bear another moment, in any one's presence. She must go off
with it into the dark alone.

There was a page or two more, giving some details of the accident. Some
heavy timbers had fallen while they were making some extensions, and
Jack had been crushed under them. The blow on the spine had caused
paralysis of both limbs. When Phil finished the last sentence, he sat
staring helplessly at the floor, wishing he could think of something to
say; something comforting and hopeful, for Joyce's shoulders still
heaved convulsively, and Betty was crying quietly over by the window.
But he could find no grain of comfort in the whole situation. Mrs. Ware
had rejoiced in the fact that his life had been spared, but to Phil,
death seemed infinitely preferable to the crippled helpless
half-existence which the future held out for poor Jack.

Of all the young fellows of his acquaintance, he could think of none on
whom such a blow would fall more crushingly. He had counted so much on
his future. Phil got up and began to pace back and forth at the end of
the long studio, his hands in his pockets, recalling the days of their
old intimacy on the desert. Scene after scene came up before him, till
he felt a tightening of the throat that made him set his teeth together
grimly. Then Joyce sat up and began to talk about him brokenly, with
gushes of tears now and then, as one recalls the good traits of those
who have passed out of life.

"He was so little when papa died, but he's tried to take his place in
every way possible, ever since. So unselfish and uncomplaining--always
taking the brunt of everything! _You_ know how it was, Phil. You saw him
a thousand times giving up his own pleasure to make life easier for us.
And it doesn't seem right that just when things were getting where he
could reach out for what he wanted most, it should be snatched away from
him!"

"I wish Daddy were home," sighed Phil. "I'd take him out for a look at
him. I can't believe that it is so hopeless as all that. And anyhow,
I've always felt that Daddy could put me together again if I were all
broken to bits. He has almost performed miracles several times when
everybody else gave the case up. But he won't be back for months and
maybe a whole year."

"Oh, it's no use hoping, when the three best surgeons in Phoenix give
such a report," said Joyce gloomily. "If it was anything but his spine,
it wouldn't be so bad. We've just got to face the situation and
acknowledge that it means he'll be a life-long invalid. And I know he'd
rather have been killed outright."

"And it was just before his accident," said Betty, wiping her eyes,
"that he wrote to me so jubilantly about his plans. He said he couldn't
help being sanguine over them. It was so good to be young and strong and
feel that your muscle was equal to the strain put upon it, and that the
old world looked about all right to him that morning. It is going to be
such a disappointment to him not to be able to send Mary back to
school."

"Poor little Mary!" said Phil. "All this is nearly going to kill her.
She is so completely wrapped up in Jack, I am afraid that it will make
her bitter."

"Isn't it strange?" asked Betty. "I was wondering about that while we
were out at the Inn this evening. She was in such high spirits, that I
thought of that line from Moore:

     "'The heart that is soonest awake to the flowers,
       Is always the first to be touched by the thorns,'

and thought if she should take sorrow as intensely as she does her
pleasures, any great grief would overwhelm her."

They had been discussing the situation for more than an hour, when the
door from the bedroom opened, and Mary came out. Her eyes were red and
swollen as if she had been crying a week, but she was strangely calm and
self-possessed. She had rushed away from them an impetuous child in an
uncontrollable storm of grief. Now as she came in they all felt that
some great change had taken place in her, even before she spoke. She
seemed to have grown years older in that short time.

"I am going home to-morrow," she announced simply. "I would start
to-night if it wasn't too late to get the Washington train. I shall have
to go back there to pack up all my things."

"But, Mary," remonstrated Joyce, "mamma said not to. She said positively
we were to stay here and you were to make the most of what is left to
you of this year at school."

"I know," was the quiet answer. "I've thought it all over, and I've made
up my mind. Of course _you_ mustn't go back. For no matter if the
company does pay the expenses of Jack's illness and allows him a pension
or whatever it was mamma called it, for awhile, you couldn't make fifty
cents there where you could make fifty dollars here. So for all our
sakes you ought to stay. But as long as I can't finish my course, a few
weeks more or less can't make any difference to me. And I know very well
I am needed at home."

"But Jack--he'll be so disappointed if you don't get even one full
year," argued Joyce, who had never been accustomed to Mary's deciding
anything for herself. Even in the matter of hair-ribbons she had always
asked advice as to which to wear.

"Oh, I can make it all right with Jack," said Mary confidently. "I
wouldn't have one happy moment staying on at school knowing I was needed
at home. And I _am_ needed every hour, if for nothing more than to keep
them all cheered up. When I think of how busy Jack has always been, and
then those awful days and weeks and years ahead of him when he can't do
anything but lie and think and worry, I'm afraid he'll almost lose his
mind."

"If mamma only hadn't been so decided," was Joyce's dubious answer. "It
does seem that you are right, and yet--we've never gone ahead and done
things before without her consent. I wish we could talk it over with
her."

"Well, I don't," persisted Mary. "I'm going home and I'm perfectly sure
that down in her heart she'll be glad that I took matters in my own
hands and decided to come--for Jack's sake if nothing else."

"Then we'd better telegraph her to-night--"

"No," interrupted Mary, "not until I'm leaving Washington. Then it will
be too late for her to stop me."

"Oh, dear, I don't know what to do about it," sighed Joyce wearily,
passing her hand over her eyes.

"Just help me gather up my things," was the firm reply. The big bandbox
still stood open in the middle of the floor and the hat with its wreath
of white lilacs lay atop just as Mary had dropped it. She stooped to
pick it up with a pathetic little smile that hurt Phil worse than tears,
and stood looking down on it as if it were something infinitely dear.

"The last thing Jack ever gave me," she said as if speaking to herself.
"It doesn't seem possible that it was only this afternoon we bought it.
It seems months since then--my last happy day!"

Henrietta's latch-key sounded in the lock of the front door, and Phil
rose to go, knowing the situation would all have to be explained to her.
No, there was nothing he could do, they assured him. Nothing anybody
could do. And promising to come around before train-time next morning
he took his leave, heart-sick over the tragedy that had ruined Jack's
life, and would always shadow the little family that had grown as dear
to him as his own.



CHAPTER XII

THE GOOD-BYE GATE


Fortunately they were so late in getting to the station that there was
no time for a prolonged leave-taking. Phil hurried away to the
baggage-room to check their trunks. Henrietta made a move as if to
follow. Her overwrought sympathies kept her nervously opening and
shutting her hands, for she dreaded scenes, and would not have put
herself in the way of witnessing a painful parting, had she not thought
she owed it to Joyce to stand by her to the last.

Joyce noticed the movement, and divining the cause, said with a little
smile, as she laid a detaining hand on her arm, "Don't be scared, Henry.
We are not going to have any high jinks, are we, Mary. We made the old
Vicar's acquaintance too early in the game and have been practising his
motto too many years to go back on him now. We're going to keep
inflexible, no matter what happens. Aren't we, Mary?"

For several minutes Mary had been seeing things through a blur of tears,
which came at the thought of what a long parting this might be. There
was no telling when she would see Joyce again. It might be years. But
she answered a resolute yes, and Joyce went on.

"Why, we taught it even to Norman when he wasn't more than a baby.
'Swallow your sobs, and stiffen,' we'd say, and he'd gulp them down
every time, and brace up like a little soldier. Oh, if I'd just flop and
let myself go I could cry myself into a shoestring in five minutes. But
thanks to early discipline we're not going to do it. Are we, Mary?"

By this time Mary could only shake her head in reply, but she did it
resolutely, and the determination carried her safely through the parting
with Joyce. But Phil almost broke down the self-control she was
struggling to maintain, when he came back with the checks and hurried
aboard the train with her and Betty. Taking both her hands in his he
looked down with both voice and face so full of tender sympathy, that
her lips quivered and her eyes filled with tears.

"You brave little thing!" he exclaimed in a low tone. "If there is ever
anything that I can do to make it easier, let me know, and I'll come.
Promise me now. You'll let me know."

"I--I promise," she answered, faltering over the sob that rose in her
throat as she tried to speak, but smiling bravely up at him.

With one more hand-clasp that spoke sympathy and understanding even more
than his words had done, and somehow left her with a sense of being
comforted and protected, he went away. But half way down the aisle he
turned and dashed back, drawing a little package from his pocket as he
came.

"Something to read on the way," he explained. "Wait till you get to that
lonesome stretch of desert," Then with a smile that she carried in her
memory for years, he said once more, "Good-bye, little Vicar! Remember,
I'll come!"

He swung down the steps at the front end of the car just as the train
started, and through the open window she had one more glimpse of him, as
he stood there lifting his hat. Farther back, at the station gate Joyce
waited with her arm linked in Henrietta's, for the moment when Mary's
last glance should be turned to seek her. She met it with a blithe wave
of her handkerchief, and Mary waved vigorously in response. It was a
long time before she turned away from the window. When she did she had
nearly recovered her self-control, and grateful for Betty's considerate
silence, she busied herself with her suit-case a few minutes, fumbling
with the lock, and making a pretence of repacking, in order to find room
for the book that Phil had brought.

The night before, in the first numb apathy of the shock, it had seemed
to her that nothing mattered any more. Nothing could make the dreadful
state of affairs more bearable; but now she acknowledged to herself that
some things did help. How wonderfully comforting Phil's assurance of
sympathy had been; the silent assurance of that firm, tender hand-clasp.
It was easier to be brave since he had called her so and expected it of
her.

Betty, in a seat across the aisle, opened a magazine, but Mary could not
settle down to read. A nervous unrest kept her going over and over in
her mind, as she had done through the previous night, the scenes that
lay ahead of her. There was the packing, and she checked off on her
fingers the many details that she must be sure to remember. There were
those borrowed books she mustn't forget to return. Her scissors were in
Cornie's room. Miss Gilmer had her best basketry patterns. There were so
many things that finally she made a memorandum of them, dully wondering
as she did so how she could think of them at all. One would have
supposed that the awful disaster that was continually in her thoughts
would have blotted out these little commonplace trivial concerns. But
they didn't. She couldn't understand it.

Presently the sound of a low crooning in the seat behind her made her
glance over her shoulder. An old coloured mammy, in the whitest of
freshly starched aprons and turbans, was rocking a child to sleep in her
arms. He was a dear little fellow, pink and white as an apple-blossom,
with a Teddy bear hugged close in his arms. One furry paw rested on his
dimpled neck. The bit of Uncle Remus song the nurse was singing had a
soothing effect on him, but it fell dismally on Mary's ears:

     "Oh, don't stay long! Oh, don't stay late!
           My honey, my love.
      Hit ain't so mighty fur ter de Good-bye Gate,
           My honey, my love!"

"The Good-bye Gate!" she repeated to herself. That was what they had
come to now, she and Jack. Not a little wicket through which one might
push his way back some day, but a great barred thing that was clanging
behind them irrevocably, shutting them away for ever from the fair road
along which they had travelled so happily. Shutting out even the
slightest view of those far-off "Delectable Mountains," towards which
they had been journeying. In the face of Jack's misfortune and all that
he was giving up, her part of the sacrifice sank into comparative
insignificance. Her suffering for him was so great that it dulled the
sharpness of her own renunciations, and even dulled her disappointment
for Joyce. The year in Paris had meant as much to her as the course at
Warwick Hall had meant to Mary.

All through the trip she sat going round and round the same circle of
thoughts, ending always with the hopeless cry, "Oh, _why_ did it have to
be? It isn't right that _he_ should have to suffer so!" Once when the
train stopped for some time to take water and wait on a switch for the
passing of a fast express, she opened her suit-case and took out her
journal and fountain-pen. Going on with the record from the place where
she had dropped it the day before when Jack's letter interrupted it, she
chronicled the receipt of the check, the shopping expedition that
followed, and the gay outing afterward in the touring-car. Then down
below she wrote:

"But now I have come to the Good-bye Gate. Good-bye to all my good
times. So good-bye, even to you, little book, since you were to mark
only the hours that shine. Here at the bottom of the page I must write
the words, '_The End_.'"

When they reached Warwick Hall she was too tired to begin any
preparations that night for the longer journey, and still so dazed with
the thought of Jack's calamity to be keenly alive to the fact that this
was the last night she would ever spend in the beloved room. She was
thankful to have it to herself for these last few hours, and thankful
when Betty and Madam Chartley finally went out and left her alone. She
was worn out trying to keep up before people and to be brave as they
bade her. It was a relief to put out the light and, lying there alone in
the dark, cry and cry till at last she sobbed herself to sleep.

Not till the next morning did she begin to feel the wrench of leaving,
when the fresh fragrance of wet lilacs awakened her, blowing up from the
old garden where all the sweetness of early April was astir. Then she
remembered that she would be far, far away when the June roses bloomed
at Commencement, and that this was the last time she would ever be
wakened by the blossoms and bird-calls of the dear old garden.

She sat up and looked around the room from one familiar object to
another, oppressed and miserable at the thought that she would never see
them again. Then her glance rested on Lloyd's picture, and for once the
make-believe companionship of Lloyd's shadow-self brought a comfort as
deep as if her real self had spoken. She held out her arms to it,
whispering brokenly:

"Oh, _you_ understand how hard it is, don't you, dear? You're the only
one in the world who does, because you had to give up all this, too."

Gazing at the pictured face through her tears, she recalled how Lloyd
had met _her_ disappointment, trying to live each day so unselfishly
that she could go on, stringing the little pearls on her rosary.

"If you could do it, I can too," she said presently. "And the best of
having such a chum is I needn't leave you behind when I leave school.
You are one thing that I don't have to give up."

That picture was the last thing she put into her trunk. She left it
hanging on the wall while she did all the rest of her packing, that she
might glance at it now and then. It helped wonderfully to remember that
Lloyd had had the same experience. Madam Chartley came in while she was
in the midst of her preparations for leaving, glad to find her making
them with her usual energy and interest When in answer to her offers of
assistance Mary assured her there was nothing any one could do, she
said, "I'll not stay then, except to say one thing that I may not have
opportunity for later." She paused and laid her hands on Mary's
shoulders, looking down at her searchingly and kindly.

"I want you to know this--that I have never had a pupil whom I parted
from as reluctantly as I shall part from you. Your enthusiasm and love
of school have been a joy to your teachers and an inspiration to every
girl in Warwick Hall. If it were merely a matter of expense I would not
let you go, but under the circumstances I have no right to interfere.
You ought to go. And my dear little girl, remember this, whenever
regrets come up for the school days brought so suddenly to a close, that
school is only to prepare us to meet the tests of life, and already you
have met one of its greatest--'_To renounce when that shall be
necessary, and not be embittered_!' And you are doing that so bravely
that I want you to know how much I admire and love you for it."

To Madam's surprise the words of praise did not carry the comfort she
intended. Mary's arms were thrown around her neck and a tearful face
hidden on her shoulder, as leaning against her she sobbed, "Oh, Madam
Chartley! I wish you could feel that way about me, but honestly I
haven't stood the test. I can renounce for myself, and not feel bitter,
but I can't renounce for Jack! It makes me _wild_ whenever I think of
all he has to give up. It isn't right! How could God let such an awful
thing happen to him, when he has always lived such a beautiful unselfish
life?"

Drawing her to a seat beside the window, Madam sat with an arm around
her, until the sobs grew quiet, and then began to answer her
question--the same old cry that has gone up from stricken souls ever
since the world began. And Mary, listening, felt the comfort and the
uplift of a strong faith that had learned to go unfaltering through the
sorest trials, knowing that out of the worst of them some compensating
good should be wrested in the end. For months afterwards, whenever that
bitter cry rose to her lips again, she stilled it with the remembrance
of those words. Sometime, somehow, even this terrible calamity should be
made the stepping-stone to better things. How such a thing could come to
pass Mary could not understand, but Madam's faith that such would be so,
comforted her. It was as if one little glimmering star struggled out
through the blackness of the night, and in the light of that she plucked
up courage to push on hopefully through the dark.

That afternoon just as her trunk was being carried out, the 'bus drove
up, bringing back its first instalment of returning pupils. Cornie Dean
was among them, and Elise and A.O. Mary, looking out of the window,
heard the familiar voices, and feeling that their questions and sympathy
would be more than she could bear, caught up her hat and hand-baggage,
and ran over to Betty's room to wait there until time to go.

"No, I can't see any of them, _please_." she begged, when Betty came in
to say how distressed and shocked they all were to hear about Jack, and
to know that she was leaving school. They were all crying over it, and
wanted to see her, if only for a moment.

"No," persisted Mary. "It would just start me all off again to hear one
sympathetic word, and my eyes are like red flannel now. I've already
said good-bye to Madam, and I'm going to slip out without speaking to
another soul."

"You'll have to speak to Hawkins," said Betty. "For he is lying in wait
for you with such a box of lunch as never went out of this establishment
before. He asked Madam's permission to put it up for you himself. He
told her about your binding up his hands the day the chafing-dish turned
over and burned him so badly, and about the letter you wrote for one of
the maids that got her sister into a school for the blind, and several
other things, winding up with 'There's a young lady with a _'eart_ in
'er, Ma'am!'"

Betty mimicked his accent so well that Mary laughed for the first time
since her return. "Well, he's got a 'eart in _'im_!" she answered,
"though I never would have imagined it the day I made my entrance here.
He was like a grand, graven image. Oh, Betty, it _is_ nice to know that
people like you and are sorry that you are going. Even if it does make
you feel sort of weepy it takes a big part of the sting out of leaving."

Betty went with her in to Washington, and stayed with her until the
train left. Hawkins was the only one they encountered on their way out,
and Mary took the proffered lunch-box with a smile that was very close
to tears. Her voice faltered over her words of thanks, and when she had
been handed into the 'bus she dared not trust herself to look back at
the faithful old servitor in the doorway. Once, just as they swung
around the curve that hid the beautiful grounds from sight, she leaned
out for one more look, then hastily pulled down her veil.

At the station, as they sat waiting for her train, Betty said, "I'll
write every week and tell you all the news, but don't feel that you must
answer regularly. I know how your time will be occupied. But I should
like a postal now and then, telling me how Jack is. You know," she went
on, stooping to retie her shoe, "he and I have been corresponding for
some time, and I think of him as one of my oldest and best friends. I
shall always be anxious for news of him."

Betty could fairly feel the surprise in Mary's face, even though she was
stooping forward too far to see it, and she heard with inward amusement
her astonished exclamations. "Well, of all things! I didn't know you
were writing to each other! Jack never said a word about it, and yet he
sent you a message nearly every time he wrote to me!"

She was still puzzling about it when her train was called, and she had
to take leave of Betty. All too soon the last familiar face was out of
sight, and the long, lonely journey home was begun.

It was near the close of the third day's journey when she remembered
Phil's book and took it out of its wrappings. She was not in a reading
humour, but time hung heavy, and he had said to open it when she reached
the desert. Besides, she was a trifle curious to see what kind of a book
he had chosen for her. It was a very small one. She could soon skim
through it.

"_The Jester's Sword_" was the title. Not a very attractive subject for
any one in her mood, she thought. It would be a sorry smile at best that
the gayest of jesters could bring to her. She turned the leaves
listlessly, then sat up with an air of attention. There on the
title-page was a line from Stevenson, the very thing Madam Chartley had
said to her the day she left Warwick Hall. "_To renounce when that shall
be necessary, and not be embittered._"

Phil had chosen wisely after all if his little tale were to tell her how
to do it. Then a paragraph on the first page claimed her attention.
"_Because he was born in Mars' month, the bloodstone became his signet,
sure token that undaunted courage would be the jewel of his soul._"

Why, she and Jack were both born in Mars' month, and each had a
bloodstone, and each had to answer to an awful call for courage. It was
dear of Phil to choose such an appropriate story. Settling herself
comfortably back in the seat, she began to read, never dreaming what a
difference in all her after life the little tale was to make.



CHAPTER XIII

THE JESTER'S SWORD


Because he was born in Mars' month, which is ruled by that red war-god,
they gave him the name of a red star--Aldebaran; the red star that is
the eye of Taurus. And because he was born in Mars' month, the
bloodstone became his signet, sure token that undaunted courage would be
the jewel of his soul.

Now all his brothers were as stalwart and as straight of limb as he, and
each one's horoscope held signs foretelling valorous deeds. But
Aldebaran's so far out-blazed them all, with comet's trail and planets
in most favourable conjunction, that from his first year it was known
the Sword of Conquest should be his. This sword had passed from sire to
son all down a line of kings. Not to the oldest one always, as did the
throne, though now and then the lot fell so, but to the one to whom the
signs all pointed as being worthiest to wield it.

So from the cradle it was destined for Aldebaran, and from the cradle
it was his greatest teacher. His old nurse fed him with such tales of
it, that even in his play the thought of such an heritage urged him to
greater ventures than his mates dared take. Many a night he knelt beside
his casement, gazing through the darkness at the red eye of Taurus,
whispering to himself the words the old astrologers had written, "_As
Aldebaran the star shines in the heavens, so Aldebaran the man shall
shine among his fellows_."

Day after day the great ambition grew within him, bone of his bone and
strength of his sinew, until it was as much a part of him as the strong
heart beating in his breast. But only to one did he give voice to it, to
the maiden Vesta, who had always shared his play; Now it chanced that
she, too, bore the name of a star, and when he told her what the
astrologers had written, she repeated the words of her own destiny:

"_As Vesta the star keeps watch in the heavens above the hearths of
mortals, so Vesta the maiden shall keep eternal vigil beside the heart
of him who of all men is the bravest._"

When Aldebaran heard that he swore by the bloodstone on his finger that
when the time was ripe for him to wield the sword he would show the
world a far greater courage than it had ever known before. And Vesta
smiling, promised by that same token to keep vigil by one fire only, the
fire that she had kindled in his heart.

One by one his elder brothers grew up and went out into the world to win
their fortunes, and like a restless steed that frets against the rein,
impatient to be off, he chafed against delay and longed to follow. For
now the ambition that had grown with his growth had come to be more than
bone of his bone and strength of his sinew. It was an all-consuming
desire which coursed through him even as his heart's blood; for with the
years had come an added reason for the keeping of his youthful vow. Only
in that way could Vesta's destiny be linked with his.

When the great day came at last for the Sword to be put into his hands,
with a blare of trumpets the castle gates flew open, and a long
procession of nobles filed through. To the sound of cheers and ringing
of bells, Aldebaran fared forth on his quest. The old king, his father,
stepped down in the morning sun, and with bared head Aldebaran knelt to
receive his blessing. With his hand on the Sword he swore that he would
not come home again, until he had made a braver conquest than had ever
been made with it before, and by the bloodstone on his finger the old
king knew that Aldebaran would fail not in the keeping of that oath.

With the godspeed of the villagers ringing in his ears, he rode away.
Only once he paused to look back, when a white hand fluttered at a
casement, and Vesta's sorrowful face shone down on him like a star. Then
she, too, saw the bloodstone on his finger as he waved her a farewell,
and she, too, knew by that token he would fail not in the keeping of his
oath.

'Twas passing wonderful how soon Aldebaran began to taste the sweets of
great achievement. His name was on the tongue of every troubador, his
deeds in every minstrel's song. And though he travelled far to alien
lands, scarce known by hearsay even to the folk at home, his fame was
carried back, far over seas again, and in his father's court his name
was spoken daily in proud tones, as they recounted all his honours.

Young, strong, with the impetuous blood begotten of success tingling
through all his veins, he had no thought that dire mishap could seize on
_him_; that pain or malady or mortal weakness could pierce _his_ armour,
which youth and health had girt about him. From place to place he went,
wherever there was need of some brave champion to espouse a weak one's
cause. It mattered not who was arrayed against him, whether a tyrant
king, a dragon breathing fire, or some hideous scaly monster that preyed
upon the villages. His Sword of Conquest was unsheathed for each; and as
his courage grew with every added victory, he thirsted for some greater
foe to vanquish, remembering his youthful vow.

And as he journeyed on he pictured often to himself the day of his
returning, the day on which his vow should find fulfilment. How wide the
gates would be thrown open for his welcome! How loud would swell the
cheers of those who thronged to do him honour! His dreams were always of
that triumphal entrance, and of Vesta's approving smile. Never once the
shadow of a thought stole through his mind that it might be far
otherwise. Was not he born for conquest? Did not the very stars foretell
success?

One night, belated in a mountain pass, he sought the shelter of a
shelving rock, and with his mantle wrapped about him lay down to sleep.
Upon the morrow he would sally forth and beard the Province Terror in
his stronghold; would challenge him to combat, and after long and
glorious battle would rid the country of its dreaded foe. Already
tasting victory, he fell asleep, a smile upon his lips.

But in the night a storm swept down the mountain pass with sudden fury,
uprooting trees a century old, and rending mighty rocks with sword
thrusts of its lightning. And when it passed Aldebaran lay prone upon
the earth borne down by rocks and fallen trees. Lay as if dead until two
passing goat-herds found him and bore him down in pity to their hut.

Long weeks went by before the fever craze and pains began to leave him,
and when at last he crawled out in the sun, he found himself a poor
misshapen thing, all maimed and marred, with twisted back and face all
drawn awry, and foot that dragged. One hand hung nerveless by his side.
Never more would it be strong enough to use the Sword. He could not even
draw it from its scabbard.

As in a daze he looked upon himself, thinking some hideous nightmare had
him in its hold. "This is not _I_!" he cried, in horror at the thought.
Then as the truth began to pierce his soul, he sat with starting eyes
and lips that gibbered in cold fear, the while they still persisted in
their fierce denial. "This is not _I_!"

Again he said it and again as if his frenzied words could work a
miracle and make him as he was before. Then when the sickening sense of
his calamity swept over him like a flood in all its fulness, he cast
himself upon the earth and prayed to die. Despair had seized him. But
Death comes not at such a call; kind Death, who waits that one may have
a chance to rise again and grapple with the foe that downed him, and
conquering, wipe the stigma coward from his soul.

So with Aldebaran. At first it seemed that he could not endure to face
the round of useless days now stretching out before him. An eagle,
broken-winged and drooping in a cage, he sat within the goat-herd's hut
and gloomed upon his lot, and cursed the vital force within that would
not let him die.

To fall asleep with all the world within one's grasp and waken
empty-handed--that is small bane to one who may spring up again, and by
sheer might wrest all his treasures back from Fortune. But to wake
helpless as well as empty-handed, the strength for ever gone from arms
that were invincible; to crawl, a poor crushed worm, the mark for all
men's pity, where one had thought to win the meed of all men's praise,
ah, then to live is agony! Each breath becomes a venomed adder's sting.

Most of all Aldebaran thought of Vesta. The stroke that marred his
comeliness and took his strength had robbed him of all power to win his
happiness. It was written "by the hearth of him who is the bravest she
shall keep eternal vigil." As yet he had not risen above the level of
his forbears' bravery, only up to it. Now 'twas impossible to show the
world a greater courage, shorn as he was of strength. And even had her
horoscope willed otherwise, and she should come to him all filled with
maiden pity to share his ruined hearth, he could not say her yea. His
man's pride rose up in him, rebellious at the thought of pity from one
in whose sight he fain would be all that is strong and comely. Looking
down upon his twisted limbs, the pain that racked him was greater
torture than mere flesh can feel. Although 'twas casting heaven from
him, he drew his mantle closer, hiding his disfigured form, and prayed
with groans and writhings that she might never look on him again. So
days went by.

There came a time when, even through his all-absorbing thought of self,
there pierced the consciousness that he no longer could impose upon the
goat-herds' bounty. Food was scarce within the hut, and even though he
groaned to die, the dawns brought hunger. So at the close of day he
dragged him down the mountainside, thinking that under cover of the
dusk he would steal into the village and seek a chance to earn his
bread.

But as he neared the little town and the sound of evening bells broke on
his ear, and lighted windows marked the homes where welcome waited other
men, he winced as from a blow. This was the village he had thought to
enter in the midst of loud acclaims, its brave deliverer from the
Province Terror. Then every window in the hamlet would have blazed for
him. Then every door would have been set wide to welcome Aldebaran, the
royal son of kings, fittest to bear the Sword of Conquest. And now
Aldebaran was but the crippled makeshift of a man, who could not even
draw that Sword from out its scabbard; at whose wry features all must
turn away in loathing, and some perchance might even set the dogs to
snarling at his heels, in haste to have him gone.

"In all the world," he cried in bitterness, "there breathes no other man
whom Fate hath used so cruelly! Emptied of hope, robbed of my all, life
doth become a prison-house that dooms me to its lowest dungeon! Why
struggle any longer 'gainst my lot? Why not lie here and starve, and
thus force Death to turn the key, and break the manacles which bind me
to my misery?"

While he thus mused, footsteps came up the mountainside, a lusty voice
was raised in song, and before he could draw back into cover, a head in
a fantastic cap appeared above the bushes. It was the village Jester
capering along the path as if the world were thistledown and every day a
holiday. But when he saw Aldebaran he stopped agape and crossed himself.
Then he pushed nearer.

Now those who saw the Jester only on a market day or at the country fair
plying his trade of merriment for all 'twas worth knew not a sage was
hid behind that motley or that his sympathies were tender as a saint's.
Yet so it was. The motto written deep across his heart was this: _"To
ease the burden of the world!"_ It was beyond belief how wise he'd grown
in wheedling men to think no load lay on their shoulders. Now he stood
and gazed upon the prostrate man who turned away his face and would not
answer his low-spoken words: "What ails thee, brother?"

It boots not in this tale what wiles he used to gain Aldebaran's ear and
tongue. Another man most surely must have failed, because he shrank from
pity as from salt rubbed in a wound, and felt that none could hear his
woeful history and not bestow that pity. But if the Jester felt its
throbs he gave no sign. Seated beside him on the grass he talked in the
light tone that served his trade, as if Aldebaran's woes were but a
flight of swallows 'cross a summer sky, and would as soon be gone. And
when between his quirks he'd drawn the piteous tale entirely from him,
he doubled up with laughter and smote his sides.

"And I'm the fool and thou'rt the sage!" he gasped between his peals of
mirth. "Gadzooks! Methinks it is the other way around. Why, look ye,
man! Here thou dost go a-junketing through all the earth to find a
chance to show unequalled courage, and when kind Fate doth shove it
underneath thy very nose, thou turn'st away, lamenting. I've heard of
those who know not beans although the bag be opened, and now I laugh to
see one of that very kind before me."

Then dropping his unseemly mirth and all his wanton raillery, he stood
up with his face a-shine, and spake as if he were the heaven-sent
messenger of hope.

"Rise up!" he cried. "_Knowest thou not it takes a thousandfold more
courage to sheathe the sword when one is all on fire for action than to
go forth against the greatest foe?_ Here is thy chance to show the
world the kingliest spirit it has ever known! Here is a phalanx thou
mayst meet all single-handed--a daily struggle with a host of hurts that
cut thee to the quick. This sheathed sword upon thy side will stab thee
hourly with deeper thrusts than any adversary can give. 'Twill be a
daily 'minder of thy thwarted hopes. For foiled ambition is the
hydra-headed monster of the Lerna marsh. Two heads will rise for every
one thou severest. 'Twill be a fight till death. Art brave enough to
lift the gauntlet that Despair flings down and wage this warfare to thy
very grave?"

Such call to arms seemed mockery as Aldebaran looked down upon his
twisted limbs, but as the bloodstone on his finger met his sight his
kingly soul leapt up. "I'll keep the oath!" he cried, and struggling to
his feet laid hand upon the jewelled hilt that decked his side.

"By sheathèd sword, since blade is now denied me," he swore. "I'll win
the future that my stars foretold!"

In that exalted moment all things seemed possible, and though his body
limped as haltingly he followed on behind his new-found friend, his
spirit walked erect, and faced his future for the time, undaunted.

His merry-Andrew of a host made festival when they at last came to his
dwelling; lit a great fire upon the hearth, brewed him a drink that
warmed him to the core, brought wheaten loaves and set a bit of savoury
meat to turning on the spit.

"Ho, ho!" he laughed. "They say it is an ill wind that blows good to
none. Now thou dost prove the proverb. The tempest that didst blow thee
from thy course mayhap may send me on my way rejoicing. I long have
wished to leave this land and seek the distant province where my kindred
dwell, but there was never one to take my place. And when I spake of
going, my townsmen said me nay. 'Twas quite as bad, they vowed, as if
the priest should suddenly desert his parish, with none to shepherd his
abandoned flock. 'Who'll cheer us in our doldrums?' they demanded.
'Who'll help us bear our troubles by making us forget them? Thou canst
not leave us, Piper, until some other merry soul comes by to set our
feet a-dancing.' Now thou art come."

"Yes, _I_! A merry soul indeed!" Aldebaran cried in bitterness.

"Well, maybe not quite that," his host admitted. "But thou couldst pass
as one. Thou couldst at least put on my grotesque garb, couldst learn
the quips and quirks by which I make men laugh. Thou wouldst not be the
first man who has hid an aching heart behind a smile. The tune thou
pipest may not bring _thee_ pleasure, but if it sets the world to
dancing it is enough. And, too, it is an honest way to earn thy bread.
Canst think of any other?"

Aldebaran hid his face within his hands. "No, no!" he groaned. "There is
no other way, and yet my soul abhors the thought, that I, a king's son,
should descend to this! The jester's motley and the cap and bells. How
can _I_ play such a part?"

"Because thou _art_ a king's son," said the Jester. "That in itself is
ample reason that thou shouldst play more royally than other men
whatever part Fate may assign thee."

Aldebaran sat wrapped in thought. "Well," was the slow reply after long
pause, "an hundred years from now, I suppose, 'twill make no difference
how circumstances chafe me now. A poor philosophy, but still there is a
grain of comfort in it. I'll take thy offer, friend, and give thee
gratitude."

And so next day the two went forth together. Aldebaran showed a brave
front to the crowd, glad of the painted mask that hid his features, and
no one guessed the misery that lurked beneath his laugh, and no one knew
what mighty tax it was upon his courage to follow in the Jester's lead
and play buffoon upon the open street. It was a thing he loathed, and
yet, 'twas as the Jester said, his training in the royal court had made
him sharp of wit and quick to read men's minds; and to the countrymen
who gathered there agape, around him in the square, his keen replies
were wonderful as wizard's magic.

And when he piped--it was no shallow fluting that merely set the rustic
feet a-jig, it was a strange and stirring strain that made the simplest
one among them stand with his soul a-tiptoe, as he listened, as if a
kingly train with banners went a-marching by. So royally he played his
part, that even on that first day he surpassed his teacher. The Jester,
jubilant that this was so, thought that his time to leave was near at
hand, but when that night they reached his dwelling Aldebaran tore off
the painted mask and threw himself upon the hearth.

"'Tis more than flesh can well endure!" he cried. "All day the thought
of what I've lost was like a constant sword-thrust in my heart. Instead
of deference and respect that once was mine from high and low, 'twas
laugh and jibe and pointing finger. And, too," (his voice grew shrill
and querulous) "I saw young lovers straying in the lanes together. How
can I endure that sight day after day when my arms must remain for ever
empty? And little children prattled by their father's side no matter
where I turned. I, who shall never know a little son's caress felt like
a starving man who looks on bread and may not eat. Far better that I
crawl away from haunts of men where I need never be tormented by such
contrasts."

The Jester looked down on Aldebaran's wan face. It was as white and
drawn as if he had been tortured by the rack and thumbscrew, so he made
no answer for the moment. But when the fire was kindled, and they had
supped the broth set out in steaming bowls upon the table, he ventured
on a word of cheer.

"At any rate," he said, "for one whole day thou hast kept thy oath. No
matter what the anguish that it cost thee, from sunrise till sunsetting
thou hast held Despair at bay. It was the bravest stand that thou hast
ever made. And now, if thou hast lived through this one day, why not
another? 'Tis only one hour at a time that thou art called on to endure.
Come! By the bloodstone that is thy birthright, pledge me anew thou'lt
keep thy oath until the going down of one more sun."

So Aldebaran pledged him one more day, and after that another and
another, until a fortnight slowly dragged itself away. And then because
he met his hurt so bravely and made no sign, the Jester thought the
struggle had grown easier with time, and spoke again of going to his
kindred.

"Nay, do not leave me yet," Aldebaran plead. "Wouldst take my only
crutch? It is thy cheerful presence that alone upholds me."

"Yet it would show still greater courage if thou couldst face thy fate
alone," the Jester answered. "Despair cannot be vanquished till thou
hast taught thyself to really feel the gladness thou dost feign. I've
heard that if one will count his blessings as the faithful tell their
rosary beads he will forget his losses in pondering on his many
benefits. Perchance if thou wouldst try that plan it might avail."

So Aldebaran went out determined to be glad in heart as well as speech,
if so be it he could find enough of cheer. "I will be glad," he said,
"because the morning sun shines warm across my face." He slipped a
golden beam upon his memory string.

"I will be glad because that there are diamond sparkles on the grass and
larks are singing in the sky." A dew-drop and a bird's trill for his
rosary.

"I will be glad for bread, for water from the spring, for eyesight and
the power to smell the budding lilacs by the door; for friendly
greetings from the villagers."

A goodly rosary, symbol of all the things for which he should be glad,
was in his hand at close of day. He swung it gaily by the hearth that
night, recounting all his blessings till the Jester thought, "At last
he's found the cure."

But suddenly Aldebaran flung the rosary from him and hid his face within
his hands. "'Twill drive me mad!" he cried. "To go on stringing baubles
that do but set my mind the firmer on the priceless jewel I have lost.
May heaven forgive me! I am not really glad. 'Tis all a hollow mockery
and pretence!"

Then was the Jester at his wit's end for reply. It was a welcome sound
when presently a knocking at the door broke on the painful silence. The
visitor who entered was an aged friar beseeching alms at every door, as
was the custom of his brotherhood, with which to help the sick and poor.
And while the Jester searched within a chest for some old garments he
was pleased to give, he bade the friar draw up to the hearth and tarry
for their evening meal, which then was well-nigh ready. The friar, glad
to accept the hospitality, spread out his lean hands to the blaze, and
later, when the three sat down together, warmed into such a
cheerfulness of speech that Aldebaran was amazed.

"Surely thy lot is hard, good brother," he said, looking curiously into
the wrinkled face. "Humbling thy pride to beg at every door, forswearing
thine own good in every way that others may be fed, and yet thy face
speaks of an inward joy. I pray thee tell me how thou hast found
happiness."

"_By never going in its quest_," the friar answered. "Long years ago I
learned a lesson from the stars. Our holy Abbot took me out one night
into the quiet cloister, and pointing to the glittering heavens showed
me my duty in a way I never have forgot. I had grown restive in my lot
and chafed against its narrow round of cell and cloister. But in a word
he made me see that if I stepped aside from that appointed path, merely
for mine own pleasure, 'twould mar the order of God's universe as surely
as if a planet swerved from its eternal course.

"'No shining lot is thine,' he said. 'Yet neither have the stars
themselves a light. They but reflect the Central Sun. And so mayst thou,
while swinging onward, faithful to thy orbit, reflect the light of
heaven upon thy fellow men.'

"Since then I've had no need to go a-seeking happiness, for bearing
cheer to others keeps my own heart a-shine. I pass the lesson on to
thee, good friend. Remember, men need laughter sometimes more than food,
and if thou hast no cheer thyself to spare, why, thou mayst go
a-gathering it from door to door as I do crusts, and carry it to those
who need."

Long after the good friar had supped and gone, Aldebaran sat in silence.
Then crossing to the tiny casement that gave upon the street, he stood
and gazed up at the stars. Long, long he mused, fitting the friar's
lesson to his own soul's need, and when he turned away, the old
astrologer's prophecy had taken on new meaning.

"As Aldebaran the star shines in the heavens" _(no light within itself,
but borrowing from the Central Sun),_ "so Aldebaran the man might shine
among his fellows." _(Beggared of joy himself, yet flashing its
reflection athwart the lives of others._)

When next he went into the town he no longer shunned the sights that
formerly he'd passed with face averted, for well he knew that if he
would shed joy and hope on others he must go to places where they most
abound. What matter that the thought of Vesta stabbed him nigh to
madness when he looked on hearth-fires that could never blaze for him?
With courage almost more than human he put that fond ambition out of
mind as if it were another sword he'd learned to sheathe. At first it
would not stay in hiding, but flew the scabbard of his will to thrust
him sore as often as he put it from him. But after awhile he found a way
to bind it fast, and when he'd found that way it gave him victory over
all.

A little child came crying towards him in the market-place, its world a
waste of woe because the toy it cherished had been broken in its play.
Aldebaran would have turned aside on yesterday to press the barbed
thought still deeper in his heart that he had been denied the joy of
fatherhood. But now he stooped as gently as if he were the child's own
sire to wipe its tears and soothe its sobs. And when with skilful
fingers he restored the toy, the child bestowed on him a warm caress out
of its boundless store.

He passed on with his pulses strangely stirred. 'Twas but a crumb of
love the child had given, yet, as Aldebaran held it in his heart, behold
a miracle! It grew full-loaf, and he would fain divide it with all
hungering souls! So when a stone's throw farther on he met a man
well-nigh distraught from many losses, he did not say in bitterness as
once he would have done, that 'twas the common lot of mortals; to look
on him if one would know the worst that Fate can do. Nay, rather did he
speak so bravely of what might still be wrung from life though one were
maimed like he, that hope sprang up within his hearer and sent him on
his way with face a-shine.

That grateful smile was like a revelation to Aldebaran, showing him he
had indeed the power belonging to the stars. Beggared of joy, no light
within himself, yet from the Central Sun could he reflect the hope and
cheer that made him as the eye of Taurus 'mong his fellows.

The weeks slipped into months, months into years. The Jester went his
way unto his kindred and never once was missed, because Aldebaran more
than filled his place. In time the town forgot it ever had another
Jester, and in time Aldebaran began to feel the gladness that he only
feigned before.

And then it came to pass whenever he went by men felt a strange,
strength-giving influence radiating from his presence,--a sense of hope.
One could not say exactly what it was, it was so fleeting, so
intangible, like warmth that circles from a brazier, or perfume that is
wafted from an unseen rose.

Thus he came down to death at last, and there was dole in all the
Province, so that pilgrims, journeying through that way, asked when
they heard his passing-bell, "What king is dead, that all thus do him
reverence?"

"'Tis but our Jester," one replied. "A poor maimed creature in his
outward seeming, and yet so blithely did he bear his lot, it seemed a
kingly spirit dwelt among us, and earth is poorer for his going."

All in his motley, since he'd willed it so, they laid him on his bier to
bear him back again unto his father's house. And when they found the
Sword of Conquest hidden underneath his mantle, they marvelled he had
carried such a treasure with him through the years, all unbeknown even
to those who walked the closest at his side.

When, after many days, the funeral train drew through the castle gate,
the king came down to meet it. There was no need of blazoned scroll to
tell Aldebaran's story. All written in his face it was, and on his
scarred and twisted frame; and by the bloodstone on his finger the old
king knew his son had failed not in the keeping of his oath. More regal
than the royal ermine seemed his motley now. More eloquent the sheathed
sword that told of years of inward struggle than if it bore the blood of
dragons, for on his face there shone the peace that comes alone of
mighty triumph.

The king looked round upon his nobles and his stalwart sons, then back
again upon Aldebaran, lying in silent majesty.

"Bring royal purple for the pall," he faltered, "and leave the Sword of
Conquest with him! No other hands will ever be found worthier to claim
it!"

That night when tall white candles burned about him there stole a
white-robed figure to the flower-strewn bier. 'Twas Vesta, decked as for
a bridal, her golden tresses falling round her like a veil. They found
her kneeling there beside him, her face like his all filled with starry
light, and round them both was such a wondrous shining, the watchers
drew aside in awe.

"'Tis as the old astrologers foretold," they whispered. "Her soul hath
entered on its deathless vigil. In truth he was the bravest that this
earth has ever known."

The porter was lighting the lamps when Mary finished reading. There was
one directly above her. She moved her hand so that the light fell on her
zodiac ring, and sat turning it this way and that to watch the dull
gleams. By the bloodstone on her finger she was vowing that her courage
should fail not in helping Jack "pick up the gauntlet which Despair
flung down, and wage the warfare to his very grave."

All the way through the story she had read Jack for Aldebaran, and it
should be her part to play the rôle of the Jester who had led him back
to hope. She opened the book again at the sentence, "The motto written
deep across his heart was this: '_To ease the burden of the world._'"
Henceforth that should be her aim in life, to ease Jack's burden.
Together, "by sheathed sword since blade was now denied him," they would
prove his right to the Sword of Conquest.

Some great load seemed to lift itself from her own shoulders as she made
this resolution. She was glad that she had been born in Mars' month. She
was glad that this little story had fallen in her way.

It gave her hope and courage. Beggared of joy himself, Jack should yet
be "as the eye of Taurus 'mong his fellows."



CHAPTER XIV

BACK AT LONE-ROCK


All the rest of the way to Lone-Rock, Mary's waking moments were spent
in anticipating her arrival and planning diversions for the days to
follow. Now that she was so near, she could hardly wait to see the
family. The seven months that she had been away seemed seven years,
judging by her changed outlook on life. She felt that she had gone away
a mere child, and that she was coming back, years old and wiser. She
wondered if they would notice any difference in her.

That Mrs. Ware did, was evident from their moment of greeting. Never
before had she broken down and sobbed on Mary's shoulder as she did now.
Always she had been the comforter and Mary the one to be consoled, but
for a few moments their positions were reversed. Conscious that her
coming had lifted a burden from her mother's shoulders, the burden of
enduring her anxiety alone, she tiptoed into Jack's room, ready to begin
playing the Jester at once with some merry speech which she was sure
would bring a smile.

But he was lying asleep, and the jest died on her lips as she stood and
gazed at him. She had expected him to look ill, but his face, white and
drawn with great dark shadows under his closed eyes, was so much
ghastlier than she had pictured, that it was a shock to find him so. She
stole out of the room again to the sunny little back porch, as sick at
heart as if she had seen him lying in his coffin. He was no more like
the strong jolly big brother she had left, than the silent shadow of
him. She was thankful that her first sight of him had been while he was
asleep. Otherwise she must have betrayed her surprise and distress.

[ILLUSTRATION: "OUT ON THE PORCH SHE HEARD FROM NORMAN HOW IT HAD
HAPPENED."]

Out on the porch she heard from Norman how it had happened. Jack had
seen the danger that threatened two of the workmen, and had sprung
forward with a warning cry in time to push them out of the way, but had
been caught himself by the falling timbers. The miners had always liked
Jack, Norman told her. He could do anything with them. And now they
would get down and crawl for him if it would do any good.

From her mother and the nurse Mary heard about the operation that had
been made to relieve the pressure on the spinal cord. It seemed
successful as far as it went. They could not hope to do more than to
make it possible for him to sit up in a wheeled chair. The injury had
been of such a peculiar character that they were fortunate to accomplish
even that much. It would be several weeks before he could attempt it.
Jack did not know yet how seriously he had been injured. They were
afraid to tell him until he was stronger. The Company was paying all the
expenses of his illness, and there was an accident insurance.

At first Mary insisted on sending away Huldah, the faithful woman who
had been the maid of all work in her absence, protesting that "a penny
saved was a penny earned," and that she herself was amply able to do the
work, and that she could economize even if she couldn't bring in any
money to the family treasury. But she was soon persuaded of the wisdom
of keeping her. The nurse was to leave as soon as Jack was able to sit
up, and Mary would have her hands full then. He would need constant
attendance at first, the nurse told her, and since he could never take
any exercise, only daily massage would keep up his strength.

"I shall begin teaching you how to give it just as soon as he rallies a
little more," the nurse promised, "You will have to be both hands and
feet for him for many a week to come, poor boy, and feet always. It is
good that you are so strong and untiring yourself."

For awhile Mary went about feeling like a visitor, since there was
little for her to do either in kitchen or sick-room. Jack had not yet
reached the stage when he needed amusement. He seemed glad that she was
home, and his eyes followed her wistfully about the room, but he did not
attempt to talk much. Sometimes the emptiness of the hours palled on her
till she felt that she could not endure it. She wrote long letters to
Joyce and Betty and all the school-girls with whom she wanted to keep up
a correspondence. She mended everything she could find that needed
mending, and she spent many hours telling her mother all that had
happened in her absence. But for once in her life her usual resources
failed her.

The little mining camp of Lone-Rock was high up in the hills, so that
April there was not like the Aprils she had known at the Wigwam. There
were still patches of snow under the pine trees above the camp. But the
stir of spring was in the air, and every afternoon, while Mrs. Ware was
resting, Mary slipped away for a long walk. Sometimes she would
scramble up the hill-side to the great over-hanging rock which gave the
place its name, and sit looking down at the tiny village below. It was
just a cluster of miners' shacks, most of them inhabited by Mexicans.
There were the Company's stores and the post-office, and away at the
farther end of the one street were the houses of the few American
families who had found their way to Lone-Rock, either on account of the
mines or the healthful climate of the pine-covered hills. She could
distinguish the roof of their own cottage among them, and the chimney of
the little, unpainted school-house.

She wondered what the outcome of all their troubles was to be. She
couldn't go on in this aimless way, day after day. She must find
something to do that would pay her a salary, and it must be something
that she could do at home, where she would be needed sorely as soon as
the nurse left. Then she would go over and over the same little round.
She might teach. She knew that she could pass the examination for a
license, but the school was already supplied with a competent teacher,
of many years' experience, whom the trustees would undoubtedly prefer to
a seventeen year old girl just fresh from school herself.

There was stenography--that was something she could master by herself,
and at home, but there was already a stenographer in the Company office,
and there was no other place for one in Lone-Rock. Round and round she
went like one in a treadmill, always to come back to the starting point,
that there was nothing she could do in Lone-Rock to earn money, and she
_must_ earn some, and she could not go away from home. Sometimes the
hopelessness of the situation gave her a wild caged feeling, as if she
must beat herself against the bars of circumstance and make them give
way for her pent-up forces to find an outlet.

The only thing that Mrs. Ware could suggest was that they might
advertise in the Phoenix papers for summer boarders. She had been told
that the year before several camping parties had pitched tents near
Lone-Rock, and they had said that if there were a good boarding place in
the village it could be filled to overflowing with a desirable class of
guests.

So Mary spent an evening, pencil in hand, calculating the probable
expenses and income from such a venture. They could not go into it on a
large scale, the house was too small. The cost of living was high in
Lone-Rock, and the market limited to the canned goods on the shelves of
the Company's stores. Her careful figuring proved that there would be
so little profit in the undertaking that it would not pay to try. But
the evening was not lost. It suggested the vegetable garden, which with
Norman's help she proceeded to start the very next morning.

Plain spading in unbroken sod is not exactly what a boy of thirteen
would call sport, and Norman started at the task with little enthusiasm.
But Mary, following vigorously in his wake with hoe and rake, spurred
him on with visions of the good things they should have to eat and the
fortune they should make selling fresh garden stuff to the summer
campers, till he caught some of her indomitable spirit, and really grew
interested in the work. Mary confined her energies to the vegetables
which she knew would grow in that locality, and which would be sure to
find a ready sale, but Norman gradually enlarged the borders to make
experiments of his own, till all the lot back of the house was a well
tilled garden.

If it had done nothing but keep her employed out of doors many hours of
the day it would have been well worth the effort, for it kept her from
brooding over her troubles, and largely took away the caged feeling
which had made her so desperate. As the fresh green shoots came up
through the soil and she counted the long straight rows, she counted
also the dimes each one ought to bring to the family purse, and drew a
breath of relief. They would amount to a neat little sum by the end of
the season, and by that time maybe some other way would be opened up for
her to earn money at home. True, not all the things they planted came
up. Fully a third of the garden "failed to answer to roll call," Norman
said, but those that did respond to their diligent care amply made up
for the failure of the others.

Jack's room in the wing of the cottage had a south door over-looking the
garden, and it was a happy day for the entire household when he asked to
know what was going on out there. He could not see the garden from the
corner where his bed stood, but the nurse propped a large mirror up
against a chair in a way to reflect the entire scene. Norman was
vigorously hoeing weeds, and Mary, armed with a large magnifying glass,
was on a hunt for the worms that were threatening the young plants.

The scene seemed to amuse Jack immensely, and entirely aroused out of
his apathy, he began to ask questions, and to suggest various dishes
that he would like to sample as soon as the garden could furnish them.
Every morning after that he called for the mirror to see how much the
garden had grown in the night. It was an event when the first tiny
radish was brought in for him to taste, and a matter of family
rejoicing, when the first crisp head of lettuce was made into a salad
for him, because his enjoyment of it was so evident.

About that time he was able to be propped up in bed a little while each
day, and was so much like his old cheerful self that Mary wrote long
hopeful letters to Joyce and Betty about his improvement. He joked with
the nurse and talked so confidently about going back to work, that Mary
began to feel that her worst fears had been unfounded, and that much of
her mental anguish on his account had been unnecessary. Sometimes she
shared his hopefulness to such an extent that she half regretted leaving
school before the end of the year. When the girls wrote about the
approaching Commencement and the good times they were having, and of how
they missed her, she thought how pleasant it would have been to have had
at least the one whole year with them. She was afraid she would be sorry
all the rest of her life that she had missed those experiences of
Commencement time. The exercises were always so beautiful at Warwick
Hall.

She could not wholly regret her return, however, when she saw how much
Jack depended on her for entertainment. He was ready to hear all about
her escapades at school now, and hours at a time she talked or read to
him, choosing with unerring instinct the tales best suited to his mood.
Phil kept them supplied with all the current magazines. Phil had been so
thoughtful about that, and his occasional letters to Jack had made
red-letter days on Mary's calendar. They had been almost as good as
visits, they were so charged with his jolly, light-hearted spirit.

But it happened, that the story she intended to read Jack first, _The
Jester's Sword_, still lay unopened on her table. She could not even
suggest his likeness to Aldebaran while he talked so hopefully of what
he intended to do as soon as he was out of bed. It was evident that he
did not realize the utter hopelessness of his condition, or he could not
have made such big plans for the future.

"Of course I appreciate your leaving school in the middle of the term,"
he told her. "It's good for mamma to have you here, and it's fine for
me, too, to have you look after me. But I'm sorry you were so badly
frightened that you thought it necessary. You'll have to pay up for this
holiday, Missy. I shall expect you to study all summer to make up lost
time, so that you can catch up with your class and enter Sophomore with
them next fall."

To please him she brought out her books and studied awhile every day,
reciting her French and Latin to her mother, and wrestling along with
the others as best she could. Then, too, it was impossible not to be
affected to some extent by his spirit of hopefulness, and several times
she gave herself up to the bliss of dreaming of the joyful thing it
would be, if he should prove to be right and she could go back to
Warwick Hall in the fall. Then, one day the surgeons came up from
Phoenix again and made their examination and experiments, and after
that the lessons and the day-dreams stopped. Everything stopped, it
seemed.

They told him the truth because he would have nothing else, although
they shrank from doing it until the last moment of their stay. They knew
it would be like giving him his death-blow. Mary, standing in the door,
saw the look of unspeakable horror that stole slowly over his face, then
his helpless sinking back among the pillows, and the twitching of his
hands as he clenched them convulsively. Not a word or a groan escaped
him, but the wild despair of his set face and staring eyes was more
than she could endure. She rushed out of the room and out of the house
to the little loft above the woodshed, where no one could hear her
frantic sobbing. It was hours before she ventured back into the house.
It would only add to his misery to see her distress, she knew, so she
left him to the little mother's ministrations.

Anticipating such a result, the surgeons had brought several appliances
to make his confinement less irksome. There was a hammock arrangement
with pulleys, by which he might be swung into different positions, and
out into a wheeled chair. They fastened the screws into walls and
ceiling, put the apparatus in place and carefully tested it before
leaving. Then they were at the end of their skill. They could do nothing
more. There was nothing that could be done.

Several times in the days that followed, the nurse spoke of the brave
way in which Jack seemed to be meeting his fate. But Mrs. Ware shook her
head sadly. She knew why no complaint escaped him. She had seen him act
the Spartan before to spare her. Mary, too, knew what his persistent
silence meant. He was not always so careful to veil the suffering which
showed through his eyes when he was alone with her. She knew that half
the time when he appeared to be listening to what she was reading, he
was so absorbed in his bitter thoughts that he did not hear a word. "_An
eagle, broken-winged and drooping in a cage, he gloomed upon his lot and
cursed the vital force within that would not let him die._"

One morning, when he had been settled in his wheeled chair, she brought
out the story of the Jester's Sword, saying, tremulously, "Will you do
something for me? Jack? Read this little book yourself. I know you don't
halfway listen to what I read any more, and I don't blame you, but this
seems to have been written just on purpose for you."

He took the book from her listlessly, and opened it because she wished
it. Watching him from the doorway, she waited until she saw him glance
up from the opening paragraph to the watch-fob lying on the stand at his
elbow. Then he looked back at the page, with a slight show of interest,
and she knew that the reference to Mars' month and the bloodstone had
caught his attention as it had hers. Then she left him alone with it,
hoping fervently it would arouse in him at least a tithe of the interest
it had awakened in her.

When she came back after awhile he merely handed her the book, saying
in an indifferent way, "A very pretty little tale, Mary," and leaned
back in his chair with closed eyes, as if dismissing it from his
thoughts. She was disappointed, but later she saw him sitting with it in
his hand again, closed over one finger as if to keep the place, while he
looked out of the window with a faraway expression in his eyes. Later
the nurse asked her what book it was he kept under his pillow. He drew
it out occasionally, she said, and glanced at one of the pages as if he
were trying to memorize it.

That he had at last read it as she read it, putting himself in the place
of Aldebaran, Mary knew one day from an unconscious reference he made to
it. A sudden wind had blown up, scattering papers and magazines across
the room, and fluttering his curtains like flags. She ran in to pick up
the wind-blown articles and close the shutters. When everything was in
order, as she thought, she turned to go out, but he stopped her, saying
almost fretfully, "You haven't picked up that picture that blew down."
When she glanced all around the room, unable to discover it, he pointed
to the hearth. A photograph had fallen from the mantel, face downward.

"There! _Vesta's_ picture!"

Mary picked it up and turned it over, exclaiming, "Why, no, it is
Betty's!"

"That's what I said," he answered, wholly unconscious of his slip of the
tongue that had betrayed his secret. Her back was turned towards him, so
that he could not see the tears which sprang to her eyes. If already it
had come to this, that Betty was the Vesta of his dreams, then his
renunciation must be an hundredfold harder than she had imagined.

With a pity so deep that she could not trust herself to speak, she
busied herself in blowing some specks of dust from the mantel, as an
excuse to keep her back turned. She was relieved when the nurse came in
with a glass of lemonade and she could slip out without his seeing her
face. She sat down on the back steps, her arms around her knees to think
about the discovery she had just made. It made her heart-sick because it
added so immeasurably to the weight of Jack's misfortune.

"Oh, _why_ did it have to be?" she demanded again of fate. "It is too
cruel that everything the dear boy wanted most should be denied him."

With her thoughts centred gloomily on his injuries, it seemed almost an
insult for the sun to shine or for any one to be happy, and she was in
no mood to meet any one in a different humour from her own. Added to
her dull misery on Jack's account, was a baffled, disappointed feeling
that she had not been the comfort to him she had hoped to be. True, she
was learning to give him the massage he needed with almost as skilful a
touch as the nurse, but she could not see that she had eased his burden
mentally, in the least, although she had tried faithfully to carry out
the good friar's suggestion. It seemed so hard, when she was ready to
make any sacrifice for him, no matter how great, even to exchanging her
strength for his helplessness, that the means should be denied her.

While she sat there, longing for some great Angel of Opportunity to open
the way for her to help him, a little one was coming in at the back
gate, so disguised that she did not recognize it as such. She was even
impatient at the interruption. Norman, followed by a half grown Mexican
boy trundling a wheel-barrow, came up from the barn, with a whole train
of smaller boys running along-side, to support the chicken coop he was
wheeling. Norman's face shone with importance, and he called excitedly
as he fumbled at the gate latch, "Look, Mary! You can't guess what we've
got in this box! A young wild-cat! Lúpe wants to sell him."

"For mercy's sake, Norman Ware," she answered, impatiently, "haven't we
enough trouble now without your bringing home a wild-cat to add to them?
And _now_, of all times!"

The tone carried even more disapproval than her words. It seemed to
insinuate that if he had the proper sympathy for Jack he would not be
thinking of anything else but his affliction. Instantly the bright face
clouded, and in an injured tone he began to explain:

"I thought brother would like to see it, and he could make the trade for
me. He talks Mexican, and I only know a few words, I couldn't make the
boys understand more than that they were to bring it along. I don't see
why Jack's being sick should keep me from having a nice pet like a
wild-cat. He isn't a bit mean, and I haven't had a single thing since
the puppy was poisoned."

The procession had paused, and the piercingly bright eyes of each one of
the little Mexicans seemed also to be asking why. Mary suddenly had to
acknowledge to herself that there wasn't any good reason to prevent.
Because one brother was desperately unhappy was no reason why she should
cloud the enjoyment of the other one by refusing him something on which
he had set his heart.

Norman could not understand the lightning change in her, but he
followed joyfully when she answered with a brief, "Well, come on," and
led the way around to the south door of Jack's room, and called his
attention to the embryo menagerie outside.

To her surprise, for the first time since the surgeons' last visit, Jack
laughed. It was an amusing group, the wild-cat in the chicken-coop with
its body-guard of dirty, grinning little Mexicans, and Norman circling
excitedly around them, explaining that Lúpe asked a dollar for it, but
that he could only give fifty cents, and for Jack to make him
understand.

Jack did make him understand, and conducted the trade to Norman's entire
satisfaction. Then recognizing Lúpe as one of the boys he had seen
around the office, he began to question him in Mexican about the mines
and the men. Then it developed that Lúpe was the son of one of the men
who had been saved by Jack's quick warning, and when the boy repeated
what some of the miners had said about him, Jack grew red and did not
translate it all. The part he did translate was to the effect that the
men wanted him back at the mine. They were having trouble with the "fat
boss," their name for the new manager.

The little transaction and talk with the boys seemed to cheer Jack up so
much that Mary mentally apologized to the wild-cat for her inhospitable
reception, and electrified Norman by an offer to help him build a more
suitable cage for it than the coop in which it was confined. Norman, who
had unbounded faith in Mary's ability as a carpenter, accepted her offer
joyfully. She wasn't like some girls he had known. When she drove a nail
it held things together, and whatever she built would be strong enough
to hold any beast he might choose to put in it.

[ILLUSTRATION "WHEN SHE DROVE A NAIL IT HELD THINGS TOGETHER."]

"Now, if I could get a couple of coyotes and a badger and a fox or two,"
he remarked, "I'd be fixed."

Mary, who was sorting over a pile of old boards back of the woodshed,
paused in alarm.

"It strikes me, young man," she said, a trifle sarcastically, "that the
more some people get the more they want. Your wishes seem to be on the
Jack's Bean-stalk scale. They grow to reach the sky in a single night.
Suppose you did have those things, you wouldn't be satisfied. It would
be a zebra and a giraffe and a jungle tiger next."

"No, it wouldn't," he declared. "I wouldn't know how to take care of
them, but I do know how to feed the things that live around here."

"What do you want them for?"

"Well, you know what Huldah said about summer campers. There's always a
lot of boys along, and if I had a sort of menagerie they'd want to come
over and play circus, and then they'd let me in on their ball-games and
things. It's awful lonesome with school out and Billy Downs gone back
East. There's so few fellows here my age, and Jack won't let me play
much with the little Mexicans. They aren't much fun anyhow when I can't
talk their lingo."

Mary straightened up, hammer in hand, and squinted her eyes
thoughtfully, a way she had when something puzzled her. It had not
occurred to her that Norman had social longings like her own which
Lone-Rock failed to satisfy. He watched her anxiously. That preoccupied
squint always meant that interesting developments would follow.

"Norman Ware," she said, slowly, "I didn't give you credit for being a
genius, but you are as great in one way as Emerson. You've hit on one of
his ideas all by yourself. He said, 'If a man can write a better book,
preach a better sermon or make a better mouse-trap than his neighbours,
though he build his house in the woods, the world will make a beaten
track to his door,' If you want company as bad as all that, you _shall_
have a beaten track to your door. We'll build something better than the
neighbours ever dreamed of, and it won't be a mouse-trap, either.
There's enough old lumber here to build half a dozen cages, and if
you'll pay for the wire netting out of your share of the garden profits,
I'll help you put up a menagerie that P.T. Barnum himself wouldn't have
been ashamed of."

Norman's answer was a whoop and a double somersault, and he came up on
his feet again remarking that she was worth all the fellows in Lone-Rock
put together.

"According to what you've just said that isn't very much of a
compliment," laughed Mary. Still it gratified her so much that presently
she was planning a side-show for the menagerie. There were all her
mounted specimens of trap-door spiders and butterflies and desert
insects. She would loan the collection occasionally, and her stuffed
Gila monster and the arrow-heads and rattle-snake skins that she and
Holland had collected.

As she hammered and sawed she told Norman the story of _The Jester's
Sword_. "That is one reason I am taking so much interest in this," she
explained. "I've been thinking for days about what the old friar said,
that men need laughter sometimes more than food, and if we haven't any
cheer to spare ourselves, we may go a-gathering it from door to door as
he did crusts and carry it to those who need. That is why I have gone on
long walks and made so many calls on the few people that are here, so
that I'd have something amusing to tell Jack when I came home. But he
has seemed to find my 'crusts of cheer' mighty dry food, and he didn't
take half the interest in them that he did in talking to Lúpe to-day."

"Lúpe will make a beaten track to _his_ door fast enough," prophesied
Norman, "when he finds we want to buy more animals. I'll send word
to-night to him to set his traps for those coyotes and foxes."

That evening after supper, Jack wheeled himself out on to the porch. It
was the first time he had attempted it, and when he had made the trip
successfully, he sat a few minutes watching the stars. They seemed
unusually brilliant, and he amused himself in tracing the constellations
with which he was familiar. It had been a family study at the Wigwam,
and they had learned many things from the little Atlas of the Heavens
which Mrs. Ware kept among her other old school books. Presently he
called Mary.

"I've located Taurus. See, just over that tree top. And there is its red
eye, Aldebaran. I wanted you to see what a jolly twinkle he has
to-night."

It was the first direct reference he had made to the story, and Mary
waited expectantly for him to go on.

"Don't you worry, little pard," he said, after a pause. "I've known all
along how you felt about me. But I'm not knocked quite out of the game,
even if I am such a wreck. I felt so until I had that talk with Lúpe, as
if there was no use of my cumbering the ground any longer. But I found
out a lot from him. The men want me back. They don't understand the new
boss at all. They will do anything for me. So even if I can't walk I can
be worth at least half a man to the Company, in just being on the spot
to interpret and to keep things running smoothly. I could attend to the
correspondence, too, for my head and hands are all right. I know I am as
helpless as a baby yet, but if you'll just stand by me, and keep up that
treatment, and help me get my strength back, I'll make good, some way or
another, just as well as Aldebaran did. By the bloodstone on my
watch-fob!" he added, laughingly. "How is that for a fine swear?"

The old hopeful note in his voice made his helplessness more pathetic
than ever to Mary, but she answered gaily, "You know I'll stand by you
till 'the last cock crows and the last trump blows!' _You_ didn't have
to be born in Mars month to make undaunted courage the jewel of your
soul."

Perched on the arm of his chair she sat watching the red star for a
moment, thinking of the events which had led to his resolution. "It's
queer, isn't it," she said aloud. "I almost drove Norman away this
afternoon with his beast and his train of little Mexicans. I was so out
of patience with him for bringing them here. But how is one to know an
Opportunity when it comes in a chicken-coop disguised as a Wild-cat?"



CHAPTER XV

KEEPING TRYST


An hundred times that summer, Jack made the story of Aldebaran his own.
He had his rare, exalted moments, when all things seemed possible; when
despite his helpless body his spirit walked erect, and faced his future
for the time undaunted. He had his daily struggle with the host of hurts
which cut him to the quick, the reminders of his thwarted hopes and
foiled ambitions. Then, too, there were times when the only way he could
keep up his courage was to repeat grimly through set teeth, "Tis only
one hour at a time that I am called on to endure. By the bloodstone that
is my birthright, I'll keep my oath until the going down of one more
sun." Before the summer was over it came to pass that more than one
soul, given fresh courage by his brave example, looked upon him as the
villagers had upon Aldebaran: "A poor, maimed creature in his outward
seeming, and yet so blithely does he bear his lot it seems a kingly
spirit dwells among us."

Mary's letters to Joyce began to take on a cheerful tone that was vastly
encouraging to the toiler in the studio.

"We have revised Emerson," she wrote one July morning. "It is fully as
true to say, 'If one can make a better garden, show a bigger circus or
put up a more cheerful front to Fate than his neighbours, though he
build his house in Lone-Rock, the world will make a beaten track to his
door.' The path it has made to ours is a wide one. The boys swarm here
all hours of the day, to Norman's delight, the summer campers make our
garden the Mecca of their morning pilgrimages, and the cheerful front we
put up to Fate seems to be the magnet that draws them back again in the
afternoons.

"Really, our shady front porch reminds me sometimes of a popular Summer
Resort piazza, it is so gay and chatty. The ladies of the camp come over
nearly every day and bring their sewing and fancy work, and Huldah and I
serve tea. It would do you good to see how mamma enjoys Mrs. Levering
and Mrs. Seldon. They're like the friends she used to have back in
Plainsville, and this is the first really good social time she has had
since we left there.

"Professor Levering and Professor Seldon seem to find Jack so
congenial. They talk to him by the hour on the scientific subjects he
loves. It is a Godsend to him to have such a diversion. Mrs. Levering
said to me this morning that he is a daily wonder to them all, and a
rebuke as well. 'We think _we_ have troubles,' she said, 'until we come
over here. Then you make them seem so insignificant that we are ashamed
to label them troubles. Oh, you Wares; I never saw such a family! You
fairly radiate cheerfulness. I wish you'd tell me how you do it.'

"I told her I supposed it was because we were all such copy-cats. First
we imitated the old Vicar of Wakefield so many years that it gave us a
cheerful bent of mind, and lately we'd taken the story of Aldebaran to
heart and were imitating him and the other Jester. She said, 'Commend me
to copy-cats. I'm glad I discovered the species.'

"I am telling you all this in order that you may see that we have
managed to keep inflexible to the extent of impressing our neighbours,
at least, and there is no need for you to worry about us any more. I
hope you will accept Eugenia's invitation and spend that two weeks at
the sea-shore in the idlest, most care-free way you can think of, and
not give one anxious thought to us. True, our day of great things is
over. We no longer lay large plans, and sweep the heavens with a
telescope, looking for pleasure on a large scale, among the stars. But
it is wonderful how many little things we find now that we used to let
slip unheeded, since we've gone to looking for them with a microscope."

Two days later another letter was sent post-haste to Joyce, written in a
hurried scrawl with a pencil, clearly showing Mary's agitation.

"Something exciting has happened at last! The Leverings brought a friend
to call this afternoon, who has just arrived in Lone-Rock to spend the
rest of vacation with them; a grumpy, middle-aged, absent-minded, old
professor from the East, who seemed rather bored with us at first. But
when he was taken out to the side-show in the 'Zoo,' he waked up in a
hurry. His very spectacles gleamed and his gray whiskers bristled with
interest when he saw my assortment of pressed wild-flowers from the
desert, and the collection of butterflies and trap-door spiders and
other insects in my 'Buggery,' as Norman calls it. When I showed him all
the data I had collected from text-books and encyclopædias about the
insect and plant life of the desert, and all the notes I had made myself
from my own observations, he actually whistled with surprise. He sat
and fired questions at me like a Gatling gun for nearly an hour,
winding up by asking me if I had any idea what a valuable collection I
had made, and if I would be willing to part with it.

"Then it came out that he is a noted naturalist who is preparing a set
of books on insects and their relation to plant life, and is spending a
year in the West on purpose to study the varieties here. Some of my
specimens are so rare he has not come across them before, and he said my
notes would save him weeks of time--in fact, would be like a blazed
trail through a wilderness, showing him where to go to verify my
observations without loss of time.

"Of course, when it comes to the pinch, I _don't_ want to part with my
beautiful collection of specimens. It means a great deal to me; I was
over four years making it. But it is too great an opportunity to let
pass. He is to name the price to-morrow after he has made a careful
estimate, so I don't know how much he will offer, but Mrs. Levering says
it is sure to be far more than an inexperienced teacher or stenographer
could earn in a whole summer.

"How I have worried and fretted and fumed because I had no way to make
money here! Now besides what I get for my specimens I am to have a
chance to earn a little more. Professor Carnes will be here till cold
weather, and since I can give him 'intelligent assistance,' as he calls
it, he will have work for me in connection with his notes, copying and
indexing them, and gathering new material.

"Now you can go back to saving up for your year abroad, and give the
family the honour of claiming _one_ member with a career. Jack is really
going back to the office the first of September for a part of every day,
at quite a respectable salary considering the length of time he will
work. He's too valuable a man to the company for them to part with. As
for me, I'm _sure_ something else will turn up as soon as my work for
Professor Carnes comes to an end. We Wares can look back over so many
_Eben-Ezers_ raised to mark some special time when Providence came to
our rescue, that we have no right ever to be discouraged again.
Professor Carnes is my last one, though nobody would be more astonished
than he to know that he is regarded in the light of an old Israelitish
Memorial stone. You will not have such frequent letters from me after
this, as I shall be so busy. But Jack says he will attend to my
correspondence. He is beginning to write a little every day. Yesterday
he wrote to Betty. He has enjoyed her letters so much, telling about
her lovely time up in the Maine woods. I am so glad you are to have a
vacation, too. So no more at present from your happy little sister."

Like all people who are limited to one hobby, and who pursue one line of
study for years regardless of other interests, Professor Carnes took
little notice of anything outside of his especial work. If Mary had been
a new kind of bug he would have studied her with profound interest,
spending days in learning her peculiarities, and sparing no pains in
classifying her and assigning her to the place she occupied in the great
plan of creation. But being only a human being she attracted his
attention only so far as she contributed to the success of his work.

He would go tramping through the woods wherever she led, only vaguely
aware of the fact that she had enlisted half a dozen small boys in her
service, and that she was turning them into enthusiastic young
naturalists before his very eyes. She was not doing this consciously,
however. Her motive for inviting them on these expeditions, was simply
to include Norman and his friends in her own enjoyment of the summer
woods. It was so easy to turn each excursion into a picnic, to build a
fire near some spring and set out a simple lunch that seemed a feast of
the gods to voracious boyish appetites.

The goodly smell of corn, roasting in the ashes, or fresh fish sizzling
on hot stones gave a charm to the learning of wood-lore that it never
could have possessed otherwise. At first with the heedlessness of
city-bred boys, they crashed through the under-brush with unseeing eyes,
and unhearing ears, but it was not long until they had learned the
alertness of young Indians, following by signs of bark and leaf and
fallen feather, trails more interesting than any detective story.

Gradually the old professor, aroused to the fact that they were valuable
assistants, began to take some notice of them. They awakened memories of
his own barefooted boyhood, and sometimes when he had had a particularly
successful morning, he threw off his habitual abstraction, and as Mary
reported to Jack, was "as human as anybody."

It seemed, too, that at these times he saw Mary in a new light; saw her
as the boys did, fearless as one of themselves, tireless as a squaw, and
a happy-go-lucky comrade who could turn the most ordinary occasion into
a jolly outing. Her knack of inventing substitutes when he had left some
necessary article at home filled him with mild wonder. He came to
believe that her resources were unlimited;

One morning, early in September, he forgot his memorandum book and
pencil, and did not discover the fact until he was ready to note some
measurements which he could not trust to memory. It was no matter, she
assured him cheerfully, as he stood peering helplessly around over his
spectacles and slapping his pockets in vain.

"You know Lysander says, 'Where the lion's skin will not reach it must
be pieced with the fox's,' I'll find some kind of a substitute for your
pencil, somewhere."

After a few moments' absence she came up the hill again with some broad
sycamore leaves which she laid on a flat rock. "There!" she exclaimed.
"You dictate, and I'll write on these leaves with a hair-pin. Hazel Lee
and I used to write notes on them by the hour, playing post-office back
at the Wigwam."

Several times during the dictation he looked at her as if about to make
some personal remark, then changed his mind. What he had to say needed
more explanation than he felt equal to making, and he decided to send
Mrs. Levering as his spokesman. Being a relative, she understood the
situation he wanted to make plain, and he felt she could deal with the
subject better than he. So that afternoon, Mrs. Levering came over on
his errand. Mrs. Ware and Mary were sewing, and she plunged at once
into her story.

Professor Carnes had been left the guardian of a fifteen-year-old niece,
who was born into the world with a delicate constitution, an unhappy
disposition and the proverbial gold spoon in her mouth as far as
finances were concerned. The poor professor felt that he had been left
with something worse than a white elephant on his hands, for he knew
absolutely nothing about girls, and Marion, with her morbid,
super-sensitive temperament, was a constant puzzle to him. She had been
in a convent school until recently. But now her physicians advised that
she be taken out and sent to some place in the country where she could
lead an active out-door life for an entire year. They recommended a
climate similar to the one at Lone-Rock.

The Professor could make arrangements for her to board in Doctor Gray's
family, quite near the Wares, and felt that she would be well taken care
of there, physically, but he recognized the necessity of providing for
her in other ways. She had no resources of her own for entertainment,
and he knew she would fret herself into a decline unless some means were
provided to interest and amuse her. He had been wonderfully impressed
with Mary's ability to make the best of every situation, and after he
had once been awakened to the fact that she was an unusual specimen of
humanity, had studied her carefully. Now he confided to Mrs. Levering
his greatest desire for Marion was that she might grow up to be as self
reliant and happy-hearted a young girl as Mary.

Seeing how she had aroused such a love for nature study in the boys, he
felt that she might do the same for Marion. It was really a marvel, Mrs.
Levering insisted, how she had bewitched both her Carl and Tommy Seldon.
They were in a fair way to become as great cranks as the old professor
himself. Now this was the proposition he wanted to make. That Mary
should take the place of teachers and text-books, for awhile, and devote
herself to the task of making Marion forget herself and her imaginary
grievances; to interest her in wood-lore to the extent of making her
willing to spend much time out of doors, and to imbue her if possible
with some of the cheerful philosophy that made the entire Ware family
such delightful companions.

"Of course," explained Mrs. Levering, "he understands that one could
never be adequately repaid for such a service. It would be worth more
than any course at college or any fortune, to Marion, if she could be
changed from a listless, unhappy girl to one like yourself. She will tax
your ingenuity and require infinite tact and patience, but he feels that
you can do more for her than any older person, because she needs
healthy, young companionship more than anything else in the world. If
you will devote your mornings to her, trying to attain the result he
wants in any way you see fit, he will gladly pay you anything in reason.
Just let me take back word that you will consider his offer and he will
be over here post-haste to make terms with you."

Mary looked inquiringly across at her mother, too bewildered by this
sudden prospect of such good fortune, to answer for herself, but Mrs.
Ware consented immediately. "I think it a very fortunate arrangement for
both girls. There is no one near Mary's age in Lone-Rock, and I have
been dreading the winter for her on that account. I am sure she can make
a real friend and companion out of Marion, and I can say this for my
little girl, it will never be dull for anybody who follows her trail
through life."

Mrs. Levering rose to go. "Then it's as good as settled. I'm sure the
poor old professor will feel that you've taken a great burden off his
shoulders, and that this will be the most profitable year's education
that Marion will ever have."

Hardly had their visitor departed, when Mrs. Ware was seized around the
waist by a young cyclone that waltzed her through the kitchen, down the
garden walk and out to the shade of the tree where Jack sat reading in
his wheeled chair. "Tell him, mamma," Mary demanded, breathless and
panting. "I'm too happy for words. Then call in the neighbours, and sing
the Doxology!"

Later, as she and Jack sat discussing the situation with a zest which
left no phase of it untouched, he said teasingly, "You needn't be
pluming yourself complacently over all those compliments. Do you realize
when all's said and done, they've asked nothing more of you than simply
to put on cap and bells and play the jester awhile for that girl's
benefit?"

"I don't care," retorted Mary. "I'm not proud, and I can stand the
motley as long as it brings in the ducats. It isn't the career I had
planned, but--"

She broke off abruptly, and began hunting for her spool of thread which
had rolled off into the grass. When she found it she stitched away in
silence as if she had forgotten her unfinished sentence.

"What career _did_ you have planned, little sister?" asked Jack, gently,
when the silence had lasted a long time. She looked up with a start as
if her thoughts had been far away, then said with a deprecatory smile,
"I hardly know myself, Jack. I don't mind confessing to you, though I
couldn't to any one else, it was so big I couldn't see the top of it."

With her eyes bent on her sewing she told him about the Voice and the
Vision that had come to her when she looked up at Edryn's Window for the
first time, and how she had been wondering ever since what great duty it
was with which she was to keep tryst some day.

"I can always tell _you_ things without fear of being laughed at," she
ended, "so I don't mind saying that I believed at the time, it really
was the King's Call, and that some great destiny, oh far greater than
Joyce's or Betty's awaited me. It seemed so real I don't see how I could
have been mistaken, and yet--now--it _does_ seem foolish for me to
aspire so high. Doesn't it?"

There was a little break in her voice although she ended with a laugh.
Jack watched the brown head bent over her sewing for several minutes
before he replied. Then he said in a grave kind tone that Mary always
liked, because it seemed so intimate and as if he regarded her as his
own age, "Since I've been hurt, I've done a lot of thinking, and I've
come to the conclusion that the highest thing a man can aspire to, and
the blessedest, is 'to ease the burden of the world.' Either consciously
or unconsciously that is what every artist does who paints a
master-piece. He helps us bear our troubles by making us forget them--at
least, as long as the uplift and the inspiration stay with us. Every
author and musician whose work lives, does the same. Every inventor who
creates something to make toil easier, and life happier, eases that
burden to a degree.

"So I don't think you were mistaken about that call. Your achievement
_may_ be greater than the other girls, even here in Lone-Rock, as much
bigger and better, as a whole life is bigger and better than a few books
and pictures. You've begun on me, and you'll have Marion to try your
hand on next. No telling where you will stop. You may be the Apostle of
Cheerfulness to the entire far West before you are done. Who knows?"

Although the last words were spoken lightly, Mary felt the seriousness
underlying them, and looked up, her face shining, as if some mystery had
suddenly been made clear to her.

"Oh, Jack!" she cried. "You don't know how easy that makes every thing.
I've looked at life at Lone-Rock as something to be endured merely as a
stepping stone to better things. But if you think that this is the
beginning of my real tryst, I can answer the call in such a different
spirit. By the winged spur of our ancestors," she cried, gaily waving,
the ruffle she was hemming, "I'll be 'Ready, aye ready' for whatever
comes."

Jack did not go back to the office the first of September. It was the
middle of the month before he made the attempt. Norman wheeled him over
on his way to school, and Mary, standing in the door to watch them
start, felt the tears spring to her eyes as she compared this pitiful
going to the buoyant stride with which he used to start to work. Still,
he was so much better than they had dared to hope he would be, that when
she went back to her room she picked up a red pencil and marked the date
on her calendar with a star.

Then she remembered that this was the day the girls would be trooping
back to Warwick Hall, and she recalled the opening day the year before,
when she had been among them. She wondered who was taking possession of
her room, and if the new girls would be as devoted to Betty as the old
ones were. She could picture them all, driving up the avenue, singing as
they came; then Hawkins's imposing reception and Madam Chartley's
greeting. How she longed to be in the bustle of unpacking, and to make
the rounds of all her favourite haunts by the river and in the beautiful
old garden! Dorene and Cornie wouldn't be there. They were graduated and
gone. But Elsie and A.O. and Margaret Elwood and Betty--as she named
them over such a homesick pang seized her, that it seemed as if she
could not bear the thought of never going back.

The thought of all she was missing, drove her as it used to do, to her
shadow-chum for sympathy, and Lloyd was in her thoughts all day.
Somehow, when Huldah came back from the grocery, bringing her a letter
from Lloyd, she was not at all surprised, although it was the first one
she had received from her since she left school, except a little note of
sympathy right after Jack's accident.

The surprise came when she opened the letter. She read it over and over,
and then, because Jack was at the office and her mother at a
neighbour's, she turned to her long-neglected journal for a confidante.
She had to hunt through all the drawers of her desk for it, it had been
hidden away so long. She felt that the news in the letter was worthy a
place in her good times book, for it recorded Lloyd's happiness, which
was as dear to her as her own.

"Oh, little Red Book," she wrote, "what an amazing secret I am going to
give you to hold! _Lloyd is engaged, and not to Phil!_ She has been
engaged since last June to Rob Moore. It is not to be announced formally
until Christmas, and they are not to be married for a long time, but
Eugenia knows, and Joyce, and her very most intimate friends. She wanted
me to know, and to hear it from herself, because she felt that no one
could wish her joy more sincerely than her '_little chum_.' I am so glad
she really called me that, after all my months of make believe.

"But it was the surprise of my life to find that Rob is The Prince and
not Phil. Poor Phil! I am sure he was disappointed, and somehow I keep
thinking of that more than of Lloyd's happiness. I don't see how she
_could_ prefer anybody else to the Best Man."

Here she paused, and began fingering the unwritten leaves of the diary,
wondering if the time would ever come when they would hold the record of
other engagements. Nearly a third of the pages were still blank. How
many nice things she could think of that she would like to be able to
write thereon. Maybe they would hold the date of a visit to Oaklea some
day, to _Mrs. Rob Moore_. How odd that sounded. Or what was more
probable, since he had already mentioned it in his letters to Jack, a
visit from Phil, if he went back to California with his father and Elsie
on their return.

And maybe, it might hold the news of Joyce's engagement, some day, or
Betty's, and maybe--some far, far-off day, it might hold her own! That
seemed a very unlikely thing just now. Princes were an unknown quantity
in Lone-Rock. And yet--she looked dreamily away across the hills--there
were the words of that song:

     "And if he come not by the road, and come not by the hill,
      And come not by the far seaway, yet come he surely will.
      Close all the roads of all the world, love's road is open still."

Seizing her pen, she wrote just below her last entry, "It is five months
since that dismal day on the train, when I closed the record in this
book, as I thought, forever, and wrote after the last of my good times,
_The End_. But it wasn't that at all, and now, no matter how dark the
outlook may be after this, I shall _never_ believe that I have reached
the end to happiness."


THE END.





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