.. -*- encoding: utf-8 -*-

.. meta::
   :PG.Id: 42370
   :PG.Title: Round the Corner in Gay Street
   :PG.Released: 2013-03-18
   :PG.Rights: Public Domain
   :PG.Producer: Al Haines
   :DC.Creator: Grace \S. Richmond
   :MARCREL.ill: Maud Thurston
   :MARCREL.ill: Charles \M. Relyea
   :DC.Title: Round the Corner in Gay Street
   :DC.Language: en
   :DC.Created: 1908
   :coverpage: images/img-cover.jpg

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ROUND THE CORNER IN GAY STREET
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   .. _`Cover`:

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      Cover

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   .. _`"'HERE YOU ARE--YOU DON'T HALF LET ME HELP YOU'"`:

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      "'HERE YOU ARE--YOU DON'T HALF LET ME HELP YOU'"

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      *ROUND THE CORNER
      IN GAY STREET*

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      *By* GRACE S. RICHMOND

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      AUTHOR OF
      "With Juliet in England,"
      "The Indifference of Juliet," etc.

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      ILLUSTRATED BY
      MAUD THURSTON AND CHARLES M. RELYEA

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      *A. L. BURT COMPANY*
      *Publishers -- New York*

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      COPYRIGHT, 1907, 1908, BY
      PERRY MASON COMPANY

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      COPYRIGHT, 1908, BY
      DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY
      PUBLISHED, AUGUST, 1908

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      ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THAT OF TRANSLATION
      INTO FOREIGN LANGUAGES, INCLUDING THE SCANDINAVIAN

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      PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES
      AT
      THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS, GARDEN CITY, N.Y.

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      TO
      MARJORIE, GUERNSEY AND JEAN

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   CONTENTS

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   BOOK I.  GAY STREET

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CHAPTER

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  I. `An Introduction by Telephone`_
  II. `Gay Street Settles Down`_
  III. `Peter Sees a Light`_
  IV. `Forrest Plays a Trick`_
  V. `Without Gloves`_
  VI. `Weeds and Flowers`_
  VII. `Jane Puts a Question`_
  VIII. `Murray Gives an Answer`_
  IX. `Snap Shots`_
  X. `Hide and Seek`_
  XI. `In the Garden`_

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   BOOK II.  WORTHINGTON SQUARE

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  I. `Jane Wears Pearls`_
  II. `Shirley Has Grown Up`_
  III. `Luncheon for Twelve`_
  IV. `Pot-hooks`_
  V. `Black Care`_
  VI. `A Breakdown`_
  VII. `Christmas Greens`_
  VIII. `Peter Reads Rhymes`_
  IX. `A Red Glare`_
  X. `Peter Prefers the Porch`_

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.. _`AN INTRODUCTION BY TELEPHONE`:

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   BOOK I.  GAY STREET

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   CHAPTER I

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   AN INTRODUCTION BY TELEPHONE

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The hour for breakfast at the home of
Mr. Harrison Townsend, in Worthington
Square, was supposed to be eight o'clock.  In
point of fact, however, breakfast was usually
served from that hour on, until the last laggard
had appeared.

The head of the house himself was always
promptly on hand at eight.  On the morning of
April second he had, as usual, nearly finished
his breakfast before the door opened to admit a
second member of the family.  Mr. Townsend
raised his eyes as a tall and slender figure limped
slowly across the floor.

"Morning, Murray!" he said, and dropped
his eyes again to his paper.

"Good morning, sir!" responded his son,
and glanced indifferently over the table as he
sat down.  "Bring me grapefruit and a cup of
coffee," he said to the maid.  "No, nothing
else.  Be sure the grapefruit is fixed as I like it."

Mr. Townsend finished his newspaper and his
coffee at the same moment, and rose from the
table.  Although five minutes had elapsed since
the elder of his two sons came into the room,
no conversation had passed between them.
Mr. Townsend's glance dropped upon the young man,
who, with his look of ill health, would have
appeared to a stranger to have lived several
more than the twenty-three years which were
really his.

"You're not feeling well this morning, Murray?"

"About as usual."

"It's not strange that you have no strength,
when you take nothing substantial with your
morning meal."

"How can I, when I can't bear the sight of
anything but fruit?"

"You don't get out enough."

"I suppose I don't.  There's nothing to take me out."

Mr. Townsend turned away.  As he passed
through the door, he met his daughter Olive,
and greeted her.

This very pretty, dark-skinned, dark-eyed
girl of eighteen evidently had been keeping late
hours on the previous evening.  Her long lashes
drooped sleepily over her eyes as she nodded
to her brother.

"Grapefruit any good?" she asked.

"Fair, if it wasn't sweetened like a bonbon."

"I like mine sweet.  Annie, tell Gretchen
to put half a dozen maraschino cherries in my
grapefruit and some crushed ice."

"You must like the mess that will be," Murray
observed.

"I do--very much," replied his sister, decidedly.

The two continued their breakfast in silence,
which was presently interrupted by the advent
of a fourth member of the family.  Forrest
Townsend, flinging into the room with a rush,
dressed in riding clothes, and casting hat and
crop upon a chair as he passed it, offered a
picturesque contrast to the two dark-eyed young
persons.  Of a little more than medium height,
strongly built, fair-haired and blue-eyed, he
looked the young athlete that he was.

"Hello!" was his morning greeting, as he
dropped into a chair.  He proceeded instantly
to give his directions to the maid.  No invalid
order was his.

"No--no grapefruit.  I want my chop, and
some bacon and eggs; tell Gretchen to brown
the eggs better than she did yesterday.  Muffins
this morning?  What?  Oh bother!  You know
I hate toast, Annie!  Oh, waffles--that's better!
Coffee, of course."


"Sounds like an order you 'd give at a hotel,"
observed his sister, with scorn.  "I wonder
Gretchen does n't make a fuss at having to cook
a whole breakfast like that just for you.
Nobody else wants such a heavy meal at this hour."

"The bigger geese you all are then.  If I
picked at my breakfast the way the rest of you
do, I 'd soon lose this good muscle and wind of
mine."

"I never heard that hot waffles and syrup
were good for muscle and wind."  Murray looked
cynical under his dark eyebrows.  "They
would n't be allowed at any training-table."

Forrest leaned back in his chair and surveyed
his brother.  "A lot you know about training
tables--a fellow who spent his two college years
cramming for honours," he said, pointedly.  "No
wonder you look like a pale ghost on such rations.
Here comes mother at last."

Mrs. Harrison Townsend, in a trailing pale
blue gown, her fair hair piled high upon her
head, came in with an air of abstraction.

"Out late last night?" Forrest asked her,
attacking his chop with relish.  "A dissipated
lot you all look but me.  Even Murray would
be taken for a chap that got in toward morning.
That comes of reading in bed.  Now look at me.
I was in after the last of you, and I 'm as fresh
as a daisy."

"For a boy not out of his teens your hours
strike me as peculiar."  Murray rose slowly
as he spoke.  He glanced at his mother.  She
was busy with letters she had found at her plate.

Murray limped slowly over to the end of the
room, where a great semi-circular alcove, filled
with windows, a cushioned seat running round
its whole extent, looked out upon the shrubbery
and the street beyond.  He sank down upon
this seat, and gazed indifferently out of the
window.

Across the narrow side street which led away
from stately Worthington Square into a much
less pretentious neighborhood stood a big
furniture van, unloading its contents before a small
brown house.  Although upon the left side of
the Townsend place lay a fine stretch of lawn, at
the right the house stood not more than ten yards
away from the side street.  Its present owner
had attempted to remedy this misfortune of site
by planting a thick hedge and much shrubbery,
but a narrow vista remained through which,
from the dining-room windows, the little brown
house opposite could be seen with the effect of
being viewed through a field-glass and brought
into close range.

"What's that over there in Gay Street?"  Olive
had caught a glimpse of the furniture-van.
"New people moving in?  Goodness!  How many
tenants has that house had?  They 're always
moving out and moving in--nobody can keep
track of them."

Mrs. Townsend, looking up from her letter,
glanced out in her turn.  "There is certainly
no need to keep track of them," she observed.
"What your Grandfather Townsend could have
been thinking of when he built this house on the
very edge of such a fine lot----"

"Grandfather Townsend was a shrewd old
man, and had an eye to the sale of lots on the
farther side of the house when land got high here,"
was Forrest's explanation.

Five minutes later he was out of the house
and crossing the lawn to the stables--a gay and
gallant young figure in his riding clothes.  From
the window of his own room upstairs Murray
watched his brother go, feeling bitterly, as he
often did, the contrast between Forrest's superb
young health and his own crippled condition,
the result of an accident two years before, and
the illness which had followed it.

"Don't get outdoors enough!" he said to
himself.  "I fancy if I could go tearing out of
the house like that every morning, jump on
Bluebottle, and gallop off down Frankfort
Boulevard I could get outdoor air enough to keep me
healthy."

An hour afterward there was a knock at his
door, and a child's voice called: "O Murray,
may I come in?"

His thirteen-year-old sister Shirley somehow
seemed nearer to Murray than any other
member of his family.  "Come in!" he responded.

"O Murray," the little sister began instantly,
"some new people are moving into the little
brown house, and there 's a girl just my age!
She looks so nice!  I 've been watching her.
She 's helping wash windows.  Oh, please come
into the den and let me show you!"

From the 'den' it could all be seen.  There
were two girls on the small porch, each washing
a window.  The elder girl looked as if she were
about eighteen, her abundant curly hair, of a
decided reddish brown, being worn low at her
neck after the fashion of girls of that age.  Even
across the street the observers could see that
she had a merry face, full of life and colour.

The younger girl, was about Shirley's size,
round-faced and sturdy, and apparently of
an amiable frame of mind, for having accidentally
tipped over her pail, she took the mishap
in the jolliest spirit, and throwing back her thick
brown braids of hair, mopped up the swimming
porch with lively flourishes.

"I wish we could see 'em closer," suggested
Shirley.  "They look so nice--don't you think
they do?--not a bit like the other people that
have lived in that house.  I saw their mother,
I 'm sure I did, a little while ago--she had the
dearest face!  Murray, don't you think you 'd
like to take a little walk?  It would be such fun
to go past the house while they 're out there, and
they 'd be sure to turn and look, so we could see
their faces.  Please, Murray!  We may not have so
good a chance after they get the windows washed."

It was something to do, certainly.  Motives
of interest for the daily walk upon which the
doctors insisted were few, and the older brother
gladly followed his anxious young leader out into
the spring sunshine.  Slowly, Murray's cane
tapping their advance, they turned the corner
from Worthington Square into Gay Street.

Coming rapidly toward them from the opposite
direction was a young fellow of about Murray's
age.  This youth, looking toward the brown
house, gave a low whistle.  The girls upon the
porch turned and waved their cloths, and the
newcomer, making three leaps of the short path
to the house, and one jump of the low porch,
was with them.

They did not shout, those three, and the elder
girl's voice, Murray noted, was delightfully
modulated; but he and Shirley were close now,
and they could not help hearing the greeting.

"Hard at it already?  Everything come?  I
got off for an hour, and thought I 'd rush up and
do what I could."

"That was lovely of you, Pete," said the elder
girl.  A surreptitious glance from Murray, and
a frank stare from Shirley, proved her to possess
a very attractive face, indeed, as she smiled at
the stoutly built young man before her.  "Yes,
everything has come, and mother can keep you
busy every minute.  Window-washing would n't
*seem* to come first, but we thought we 'd get at
least this little front room in order by night, so
that when you all came home----"

Her voice was growing indistinct as the passers-by
moved reluctantly on.  But the younger girl
at this point broke in, and her voice, high and
eager like Shirley's own, carried farther:

"O Petey, Jane and I are to have the dearest,
littlest room you ever saw, right under the eaves.
Jane can't stand up all over, but I can--except
close to the wall.  It's so little, Jane thinks
we can paper it ourselves.  If we can only----"

Here the deeper voice of the youth interrupted,
and nothing more was distinguishable.  Murray
and Shirley walked on, both, it must be confessed,
wishing they had eyes in the backs of their heads.

"Oh, do let's turn and go back!" begged
Shirley, with one quick glance behind.  But
Murray made her keep on to the corner, and
then insisted on crossing the street.

"Even now they may guess that we 're watching
them," he said.  "Don't stare so at them, child."

"But they're going in.  Oh, look,"--she
clutched his arm--"there's the mother!  I'm
sure she is.  Look!  Isn't she dear?"

She did look "dear."  She was enveloped
in an apron, and her sleeves were rolled up to
the elbows revealing a pair of round, white,
capable arms.  Her abundant gray hair rolled
and puffed about her face in a most girlish fashion,
her bright, dark eyes were set under arching
eyebrows, and her face, almost as fresh in
colouring as her daughter's, was full of charm.

The young man, laughing, put an arm about
her shoulders, and drew her back with him into
the house.  The two girls, gathering up their
pails and cloths, and exchanging low, gay talk,
followed, and the door was closed.

The April sunshine suddenly faded out of the
narrow side street and left it as commonplace
as ever.  Yet not quite.  Murray and Shirley,
gazing across at the dull little brown house.
were longing to enter it.  It was quite evident
that life of a sort they hardly knew was about
to be lived within.

With this new interest to stimulate him, it
was perhaps not strange that Murray should
have found it rather easier than usual to get
out for his afternoon walk, or that it should
have ended by a slow progress through Gay
Street.  There were somehow so few young people
he cared for, and the faces of the three he had
seen had struck him as so interesting, that he
wondered, as he tapped along with his cane,
by what means he could learn to know them.

Just as Murray came along the street, the
younger of the two girls he had seen opened the
door, and holding it ajar, addressed somebody
inside in her childishly penetrating voice:

"I 'm going to find a telephone somewhere,
Janey, if I have to ring at every door.  No--I 'll
*tell* them we are n't the sort of people who borrow
molasses and telephones and things all the time,
but----  Why, I 'll say it's *very* important--*anybody*
would understand about wall-paper not
coming and the man waiting.  No, I don't suppose
they have in such a little house, but it won't do
any harm to ask.  Of course, across the street
they'd have--but I don't quite----  No, of
course I won't, but----"

She ended an interview which evidently was
not proceeding according to her satisfaction by
closing the door and running down the steps
into the street.  Murray wanted very much to
speak to her and offer the use of his telephone,
but she whisked away so fast he had no time.
He walked more slowly than ever, saw her
turn away from two Gay Street doors, and then
retraced his steps, and met her as she was
preparing to ascend the third small porch.

"I beg your pardon," he said, "but I thought
I heard you say something about needing to
use a telephone.  Won't you please come over
and use ours--the house on the corner?"

"Oh, thank you!"  She looked relieved.
"That's good of you.  We hate to bother
anybody like this, and Jane--my sister--did n't
want me to, but the paper man is waiting, and
he 's getting very cross, and we do want to get
the dining-room done before night.  I 'll go and
tell Jane.  She 'll have to telephone.  I
can't--I don't know how!"

She ran into the house, and a moment later
the elder sister emerged, and came down to Murray
to accept his courtesy.

"It's very kind of you," she said, as he
accompanied her across the street and in at the
hedge gate.  "To-morrow happens to be a legal
holiday, you know, and the paperer says if he
does n't have the right paper this afternoon it
will be three days before he can finish."

"That would be an awful bother," Murray
declared, "just as you 're getting settled.  I 'm
glad we 're so near.  Come in.  This way,
please.  Take this chair here by the desk.
I 'll just wait in the hall and show you the
way out."

As he waited, Murray could not help hearing.
The business did not seem to be easily
accomplished.  When his visitor had succeeded in
getting the paper house on the telephone she
had a very bad time making the man at the
other end of the line understand about the
mistake in the paper, and when it became plain that
he did understand, Jane's surprised little
sentences showed that he was a most
unaccommodating person, and would not do what she
requested.

"You can't do it?" she asked, and Murray
observed that with all the trouble she was having
her voice did not lose its courteous intonations.

"Not this afternoon *at all*?  We are very
anxious to get the room settled and the paperer
says----  Yes, I know, but it surely was n't
our mistake.  I beg your pardon--it 's only
three o'clock, I think, not four.  He says
there 's plenty of time if----  No, I 've nobody
to send."

"Look here!"  Murray's disgusted voice was
at her ear.  He was gently attempting to take
the receiver away from her.  "Let me tackle
that person, please."

The next moment Jane was standing beside
the desk, her cheeks rosy with a quite reasonable
indignation at the treatment she had been
receiving from the surly unknown.  At the
telephone sat her new acquaintance, sending rapid
requests over the wire in a tone which plainly
was making somebody attend.

"Not fix up your own mistake to-night--with
to-morrow a holiday?  Why not?  There's
plenty of time.  Send by a special messenger,
of course, and tell him to be quick.  Who's
talking to you?  That does n't make any special
difference, does it?  It may be a small order--I
don't see what that has to do with it.
Mrs. Bell needs that paper up within half an hour.
Yes--well, this is Harrison Townsend's
house--Worthington Square, and I 'm telephoning for
our friends.  What?  Oh, you will!  Well, thank
you!  I 'm glad you see your way clear.
Yes--half an hour--I say, make it twenty minutes,
can't you, please?  Very well."  And Murray
broke off, and hung up the receiver with an
impatient click which expressed his contempt
for a clerk who would hurry up an order for
Worthington Square when he would n't do it
for Gay Street.

"Idiot!" he remarked.

The girl beside him moved toward the door,
smiling.  "It was ever so kind of you," she
said.  "The paper is for the dining-room, and
you can guess how it upsets things to have the
dining-room in confusion."

"I hope you didn't mind my telling that
fellow you were our friends," said Murray, as
he accompanied his guest to the door.  "Such
near neighbours----"

"Oh, I understood!  That was what made
it so easy for him to get a messenger!
Only--please don't think we----"

"Yes?"  Murray was smiling encouragingly at her.

"It sounds absurd, but--it's so dreadfully
soon to be borrowing telephones----"

"Or molasses?"

They both laughed.  Murray's hand lingered
upon the door knob, which at this moment it
became timely for him to turn for her.  "I
could n't help hearing your sister assuring you
that she would tell people you never borrowed
molasses.  I don't see why not.  We might need
to borrow it of you some time, but of course if
you feel there's something especially prohibitive
about molasses----"

He knew he was not saying anything brilliant,
but it made her laugh again, and laughing is an
excellent way of getting over a trying situation.

But he was obliged to open the door for her
without delay, for she plainly was not going
to be tempted into lingering.  She ran down
the steps, and he saw her bronze-red hair catch
the sunshine as she went.  As she reached the
bottom he called after her: "I hope you'll like
that paper mighty well when it's on!"

"Thank you!" he heard her answer, over
her shoulder, and he was sure that she was still
smiling.  It seemed to him reasonably certain
that the Bells were pleasant people to know.





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.. _`GAY STREET SETTLES DOWN`:

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   CHAPTER II

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   GAY STREET SETTLES DOWN

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Tramp, tramp, upon the little porch.
Peter flung the door wide, and in marched
the four male members of the house of Bell.  The
door opened hospitably at once into the living-room,
so that the four were able at a glance to
see what had been accomplished, and they
immediately gave voice to their surprise.  "Hi!"  This
was fifteen-year-old Rufus's exclamation.
"Hi! hi!  Hip, hip, hurray-ay!"

"Well, well, they must have worked!" said
Peter.  "I was up here an hour this morning,
and they had n't got further than washing the
windows."

"When it comes to hustling work, Mother
Bell and corps can't be beaten," declared Ross
McAndrew, the cousin of the Bells, a pleasant-faced
lad of eighteen.

There was a rush from the rear of the house,
and Nancy was upon them--Nancy, the
twelve-year-old, with the thick brown braids and the
round, bright face.  Ross caught her and swung
her up to his shoulder, where she struggled
frantically.

"I 'm too old, Ross!" she pleaded, rumpling
his curly fair hair in revenge until it stood on
end.  "Put me down!  Put me down at once!
O-oh, you 're bumping my head against the ceiling!"

He looked up and laughing swung her
gently down.  "It is n't a very lofty apartment,
is it, Nan?  Did it hurt?"

"Only my feelings.  Does n't it look nice
here?  Mother worked at the kitchen, and Jane
and I did all this.  We wanted it to look like
home when you came."

"It does, indeed.  But I must admit I 'm
glad mother kept at the kitchen," laughed her
father, with a tweak of one fat braid.  "It seems
too much to expect that we should have a meal
to-night in all the disorder, but Peter brought
back word this morning that we were to come."

"Indeed you are," said a voice from an inner
doorway, and everybody turned.  A fresh white
apron tied about her trim waist--where did
she find it in the confusion?--her beautiful hair
in careful order, Mrs. Bell beamed at her big
family.  "We've nothing but an Irish stew for
you, but we had it on this morning as soon as
the fire was built, and it's tender and fine."

"Good for you!  We like nothing better.
Where's Janey?"

"In the kitchen, trying to make places for
you all at the kitchen table.  We could n't do
anything with the dining-room.  The paperer
has only just gone."

"Come on, you people!" called a blithe voice
from the next room, and Jane's face looked over
her mother's shoulder.  "Turn to the right as
you come through the door, and follow the wall
round.  I 've made a passage that way, but
you 're likely to get into perilous places if you
try to steer for yourselves."

In single file they followed directions, all but
young Rufus, who preferred leaping from box
to barrel, and from table to trunk, and so reached
the haven of the kitchen first.

"*Whoo-p!*" he ejaculated.  "Say, but this
is jolly!  *Mm-m*!  Smell that stew?  Hope
you 've lots of it?"

"All you can eat," responded Jane, confidently.
"Now if you 'll let me seat you all, I 'll make
a place for every one.  Mother to go first, at the
other end, in the chair--our only one available
as yet.  Next, Ross, on the cracker-box, and
Nan on the wood-box.  Daddy's to have this
soap-box all to himself, with a cushion on it.
Peter can sit on that coal-hod, turned upside down."

There was a roar at this, and a protest from
Peter.  "'Can't I have a newspaper to pad the
top of it, sis?"

"If you will find one," Jane responded,
unmoved.  "Rufe will have to take the top of that
flour-barrel, and we 'll hand up his things."

Mrs. Bell was a famous cook, and understood
well the quantity of food necessary to appease
the keen appetites of her big family, so the bowls
were replenished again and again, until all were
satisfied, and still the kettle was not quite empty.

"You're not much like a girl I saw to-day,
Janey," remarked Peter, balancing himself in the
attempt to sit comfortably back upon his coal-hod,
while his sister removed the plates and set forth
a dish of baked apples and cream.  Peter laughed
at the recollection.  "She was too stately and
languid to lift her eyes to look at me, after the
first frosty glance.  We rode up town on the same
street car yesterday, when I was coming here
to make sure the house was ready for us.  It was
the rush hour, of course, and I gave her my seat.
I think--yes, I really think"--Peter paused to
reflect--"she said, 'Thank you,' though since
of course I was n't looking at her as I took off
my hat I did n't see her lips move.  She and I
got off the car together, and came up Gay
Street together----"

.. _`"'YOU 'RE NOT MUCH LIKE A GIRL I SAW TODAY, JANEY'"`:

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   :alt: "'YOU 'RE NOT MUCH LIKE A GIRL I SAW TODAY, JANEY'"

   "'YOU 'RE NOT MUCH LIKE A GIRL I SAW TODAY, JANEY'"

"Together!" from Jane.

"On opposite sides of the street.  She was a
little ahead, for the car stopped on her side.  I
looked across at her with interest as I came
along--wanted to find out what our neighbors were
like, you know.  She was carrying a big muff,
and had some things in it--been shopping, of
course.  Oh, I don't mean parcels--she
would n't be caught carrying a parcel--but
letters and a purse and a card-case and a
pocket-handkerchief, and so forth.  Well, as we came
along I noticed she had dropped
something--handkerchief, by the way it fluttered down.
Of course I bolted across the street, through
six inches of spring mud, grasped the article,
and rushed after her.  I said, 'Pardon me, but
you dropped your handkerchief,' and held it
out.  She took it, murmured 'Thank you!'--I
saw her lips move this time--"and sailed on
like a queen.  I took off my hat, waded back
through the mud, and was continuing on my
thankless way----"

"Thankless!--I thought you just admitted
she thanked you," objected Ross, with a twinkle.

"It was one of those thankless thank-yous,
just the same," explained Peter, with gravity.
"Well, as I say, I went on--like this
story--meditating upon her cordial manner, when I
saw something else fall from the capacious muff."

"You didn't!"  Jane looked incredulous.

"Pardon me, I did.  This time I did not
bolt across the street; indeed, I stopped to
consider whether I should not shout, 'Hi, hi, there,
you 've dropped your purse, lady!' like a street
gamin.  But reflecting on the embarrassment
this might cause me at some future date, when
she and I should really meet, I picked my way
across again, seized the pocketbook, and was
about to pursue her, when she looked round and
caught me in the act of scrutinizing it, as one
naturally does upon picking up a gold-mounted,
aristocratic affair like that, the like of which he
expects never----"

"Oh, go on!" Rufus could no longer endure
his brother's tantalising eloquence.

"I hastened to her side," continued Peter,
who was gifted in the art of putting things
elaborately when he chose, "and remarked, 'I believe
this is yours?'  She--now what, friends, would
you naturally expect a girl to do on receiving
the third favour from a stranger within fifteen
minutes?"

"What did you expect?  Did you suppose
she would fly into your----"

"Did you want her to open the pocketbook
and hand you a quarter, saying, 'Here, my honest
lad----'"

"Think she 'd say, 'You must call and see
father.  He will give you a position in his----'"

"Your suggestions are far-fetched and improbable.
I expected none of these things to happen.
But consider the situation.  Here was I, crossing
the street for the third time in the mud----"

"Go on!"

"Would n't you have thought, considering the
absurdity of the affair--her strewing things
along the street like that--the least she could
have done would have been to----"

"Smile!" supplied Jane.  "*Did n't* she, Peter?"

"She did not," avowed Peter.  "She just
looked at me as if she thought I had been about
to steal her purse, took it, and went on, this time
without saying thank you!"

"Good gracious!"  This from Ross.  "She must
be a nice girl to know.  And you look pretty well,
too, Pete, in that blue suit."

"Where does she live?" Nancy inquired, her
round face sympathetic with Peter's mock humiliation.

"In the big house across the street.  If you
get out of milk or eggs, Janey, don't hesitate to
run across and borrow some," counselled Peter.

"Now if you 'll just make use of us all this
evening," proposed Mr. Bell, rising, "we can
accomplish a good deal--eh, boys?  Shall I open
the boxes and barrels, Martha?"

At this suggestion three more pairs of strong
arms were put at Mrs. Bell's service.  She set
every one at work at once.

"Yes, Joe, dear," she agreed, "if you will open
the boxes, I 'll take out the things and put them
in place as far as I can.  That's right, Nancy,
you help Jane with the dishes, and when they
are done you can go up stairs and make up the
beds.  Ross and Peter----"

"Yes, we 'll set up the beds," said Peter, with
alacrity, anticipating the division of work, "and
uncrate the chests of drawers and the bedroom
furniture generally.  Come on, Ross.  You 're as much
one of the family as any of us now, since you
helped us move, and a little family labour like this
will complete the job.  Whoever lives with us
has to learn to be handy man about the house."

"I 'm ready."  Ross looked it.  There was
an air of alertness about him, for he was slimmer
and lighter than Peter, and his fair curly hair
made him appear much younger, although only
two years separated the ages of the cousins.

"You will find the furniture mostly in the
rooms where it belongs," Mrs. Bell called after
them.  "Jane will be up soon and straighten
you out, if you get mixed.  Rufus, suppose you
go round after the others and bring away all
the litter they leave after the uncrating, and
make a neat pile of it in the wood-shed."

The steep and narrow little staircase ascended
abruptly between walls from the dining-room
and led to low-ceiled regions above, which, to
the eyes of Murray and Shirley Townsend, from
the big house across the street, facing Worthington
Square, would have seemed too cramped and
small of dimensions to be habitable, to say nothing
of the possibility of their ever being made
comfortable.  But the Bells were of the sort who make
the best of everything, and so far none of them
had suggested that the little house was not an
abode fit for the finest.

"Jane and Nan in one room, Rufe and I in
another, and Mr. Ross McAndrew alone in state
in this little one in the corner.  I judge by the
signs that's the stowing of the crowd intended,"
speculated Peter, surveying each room in turn.

"That corner room's as big as any.  I don't
think I ought to have it all to myself," objected
Ross.

"What, not that spacious eight-by-nine
apartment, with one whole side under the eaves?"
laughed Peter.  "Well, since we can't split
ourselves into halves, and like the family of the
famous poem 'we are seven,' I don't see but
you 'll have to make the best of your loneliness.
The beds are only three-quarters size, and Rufe
takes up less room than you do, so he and I
naturally chum it."

"All right.  Let's make a start.  Catch hold
of that bureau, and heave it around into place."

They fell to work with a will.  Ross, the more
lightly built, showed the greater energy of the
two, though Peter worked away quite as steadily.
But after an hour of hard labour Peter called a halt.

"Oh, let's put it through," and Ross bent
over a box with undiminished ardour.

His attitude appealed to Peter, spoiling for
fun after a long day at the factory, and in a
twinkling he had tipped his cousin head first
into the nearly empty box.  Shouts, laughter
and a lively scuffle ensued--so lively a scuffle,
indeed, that Mr. Bell, Jane and Nancy, in the
dining-room below, energetically sweeping up
the litter made by the paperer, smiled at one
another in mock dismay as the floor above
resounded with the pounding and scraping of
boot-heels, and the very walls of the small house
trembled with the fray.

"Goodness, I should think it was elephants
up there!" cried Nancy, and ran half-way up
the stairs to see what was going on.

Mr. Bell opened his mouth to say, "Tell
them it's an old house, Nan, and the ceiling 's
cracked"--when the thing happened.

The ceiling was old, the house was not too
solidly built, and the battle above had reached
its height when, quite without warning, down
upon the freshly cleaned floor fell a great mass
of plaster.  The powdery lime rose in a suffocating
cloud and covered Jane and her father with dust
and debris.

It was a minute more before the combatants,
wrestling furiously over the bare floors above,
could be made to understand by a horrified young
person, who shrieked the news at them from the
top of the staircase, the havoc they had wrought.

But when they comprehended what had
happened they hurried downstairs.

"Well, of all the----"  Ross was too shocked
to finish.

"I say, but we've done it now, have n't we?"
exclaimed Peter, in disgust.  "Janey--dad--it
did n't hurt you, did it?"

"Only my pride--and my hair," answered
Jane, as she vainly tried to brush her curly locks
free from plaster.

"It's a shame!  Why didn't you stop us?
Clumsy louts!  Pulling the place down about
our ears the very first night!"

"And how we hurried that paper man, to get
him through to-night!" lamented Nancy, brushing
off her father with anxious fingers.  "We were
going to have the dining-room all settled to-morrow----"

"And to-morrow 's a holiday," murmured Jane,
from under her hair.

She was bending forward, with her head at
her knees, while Mrs. Bell shook out the clinging
lumps from the tangle of hair in which they were
caught.

"It's a quarter of ten," announced Rufus, cheerfully.
"Do we have to clear this up to-night?"

"I should say so!"  Ross caught up a broom.

"It's the least we can do.  Get a box, will
you, Rufe, and let's have the worst over.  Pete
and I will do the job, and the rest of you can go
upstairs and dance a hornpipe over our heads.
If you will throw things at us from time to time
down the stairs it may relieve your feelings."

"Don't feel too badly.  I had a notion all the
time that that ceiling ought to have been pulled
down before we papered the room; it looked old
and shaky to me.  Now we 'll have a new one
that will stand pillow-fights as long as we live
here," said Mrs. Bell, smiling at the rueful
countenance of her nephew.

"Right you are, and I'll have a man here
to put that plaster on in the morning, holiday or
no holiday," promised Peter.

In ten minutes the plaster had been swept
up, Jane's hair had received a thorough brushing,
Mr. Bell had been relieved of several lumps
which had worked their way down his back,
and the family went to bed in as good spirits as
if nothing had happened.

The next morning Peter started early in quest
of a plasterer to restore the ceiling, and finding
it by no means easy to discover one who cared
to work when he might play, came home after
two hours' search baffled but still determined.
A passing acquaintance gave him a clue, and
he was presently hurrying across the street in
search of the Townsends' coachman, whose
brother, the acquaintance had said, might be
persuaded to do the job.

In the stables, much to his astonishment, he
came fairly upon the girl whose propensity for
losing things he had described with so much gusto
the evening before.

"I beg your pardon," he said, quickly--he
seemed to be always begging her pardon--"but
I was looking for your coachman.  I--he--I
hoped he could tell me the name--that
is, of course he knows the name--I mean, I
wanted his brother's address."

Peter was no stammerer, and it irritated him
very much to be saying all this so awkwardly,
but there was something about the cool dark
eyes of this girl, as she stood looking at him,
which rather disconcerted him.  She had evidently
just dismounted from her horse, and now Peter
observed two things--first that she was rather
oddly pale, and second, that her side-saddle had
slipped, and rested at an altogether improper
angle upon the horse's back.  As he saw this he
came forward.

"What is the matter?" he asked quickly.
"You haven't had a fall?  You didn't ride
this way, of course?"

"Yes, I did," she answered, lifting her head
rather high, and then suddenly drooping it again.

"How far?  When did it slip?  Were you
alone?"  Peter examined the side-saddle.

"It began to slip--back--at--the boulevard,"
said the girl, rather slowly.  "I--I
don't know just how I kept on, but I did.  Lewis
is n't here.  He ought to be.  I can't put up
Blackthorn myself."

"Let me do it for you."  Peter took the bridle
from her.  He soon had the horse in the stall and
had put away the saddle and bridle.

"That was a plucky thing to do," declared
Peter, coming back to the stable door, where
the girl had dropped into the coachman's chair,
"to ride home with a slipping saddle.  But you
ought not to have done it, you know.  It might
have slipped a lot more with a jerk, and thrown
you.  See here, you 're not feeling just right, are
you?  Shall I call somebody?"

"No, no!"  She started up.  "If mother knew
the least thing went wrong she would n't let me
ride at all.  If you--if you just would n't mind
staying here a little, till I feel like myself
again----"

"Why, of course I will"--and Peter stayed.

It was only for a few minutes, and meanwhile
Lewis, the coachman, had returned, and the
matter of the loose saddle-girth had been fully
discussed by all three.  Then Peter took his
way home.

Jane met him at the door.  "Did you find
where the plasterer lives?" she asked, eagerly.

Peter stared at her, turned about, and gazed
across the street, as if he expected to see a plasterer
following in his path, trowel and float in hand.
Then he burst into a laugh.  He mumbled
something which sounded like a very peculiar name,
if it was a name, and rapidly retraced his footsteps
across the street, to make his inquiry of Lewis, the
coachman.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`PETER SEES A LIGHT`:

.. class:: center large

   CHAPTER III


.. class:: center medium

   PETER SEES A LIGHT

.. vspace:: 2

The Bells had been at home for a fortnight
in Gay Street.

The little house was in order from cellar to
roof, and its occupants had settled down to the
routine of their daily living, well content with
the new abode.  In a way they missed the larger
house and freer environments of the remote
suburban place they had left, but the early
hour at which Mr. Bell and the boys were
now able to reach home, and the later one at
which they could leave in the morning, amply
compensated for the more cramped quarters
made necessary by the higher rates of rental in
the city.

"It's not a very friendly neighborhood, though,
is it, Janey?" commented Peter one evening,
as he and Jane stood on the porch, enjoying the
mild mid-April evening.  "How many calls have
you had?  Two?"

"Three," corrected Jane, cheerfully.  "The
two old ladies on the right, the mother of six
the left, and one odd person from Westlake
Street.  The rest are still looking us over."

"Nobody from Worthington Square?"  Peter's
tone was quizzical.

"Absolutely nobody," Jane laughed.  "But
we have one acquaintance in Worthington Square,
Peter--the little Townsend girl with the sweet,
pale face.  She wants to know us dreadfully,
and she's such a dear, democratic little person the
smiles positively tremble on her mouth when I
meet her--which I do almost every day.  So
does Nancy.  It 's the oddest thing!  Nan says
she almost never stirs out that the Townsend
child does n't appear."

"She wants to get acquainted.  I don't blame
her.  They 're the dullest lot over there.  There
seems to be one stirabout--the good-looking
chap who 's off on horseback every day.  But
the other son 's a paleface, and the
daughter--hum--well----"  Peter's pause was eloquent.
"I think she's----  Hello!  What's that?"

He had looked over at the big house as he spoke
of its inmates, and his eye had been caught by
an appearance which struck him as unusual.
The house was dimly lighted everywhere, but
in one room, the upper one with the semicircular
window, there was an effect of brilliancy of a
ruddier color than is ordinarily produced by
electric lights.  As Peter and Jane now stared
at it, it seemed to grow in intensity, and there
showed a wavering and flashing of this singular
light which looked suspiciously like fire.

"Do you suppose there can be anything wrong?"
speculated Peter, anxiously.  "Of course a fire
of coke or cannel in a fireplace might give that
effect, through those thin curtains, but
we--haven't seen--anything like it--before--and--By
George!" as the light flared more ruddily
than ever for an instant and then grew dull again,
"I believe there *is* trouble there!  Anyhow,
I 'll run over and find out!  They can't blame me
for that."

He was starting off at a run when Jane darted
after him.  "I 'm sure I saw flames jump up,
Pete!" she called, excitedly.  "The window's
open, and the curtain blew to one side.  Oh,
hurry!  Most of them are away; I saw them
drive off an hour ago."

She was running at Peter's side, fleet of foot
as he.  Her mind had leaped to the youngest
member of the unknown household, the one who
did not drive away after nightfall to dinners and
parties, like the others.  Only that day she had
met Shirley and exchanged with her the few
bright words the little girl seemed to welcome
so eagerly.  They ran up the steps of the great
portico, with its stately columns, and hurrying
across it, came to a partly opened door.  Peter
rang the bell, peering impatiently through the
vestibule into the large, square, half-lighted
interior.  "I 'll wait just one minute for an
answer," he said with his foot on the threshold,
"and then I 'll be up that gorgeous staircase back
there."

Jane put her head in at the door.  "I smell
smoke!" she breathed, and Peter pushed past
her.  Delaying no longer, he ran across the hall
and up the staircase, closely followed by Jane.

As he reached the top, a little white-clad figure
ran screaming toward him.  He rushed by, but
Jane, at his heels, caught the little girl up in her
arms.

"There, there, darling," she soothed the
frightened, sobbing child, "you 're all safe!  Peter
will take care of the fire.  Are they all away?
There, don't be frightened, dear!"

Over Shirley's head Jane saw Peter vanish
through a doorway--beyond which she could
see a mass of smoke and flame--slam down a
window, and dash out again, closing the door
behind him.  Then he was off down the stairs,
shouting for help as he went, and getting no
response from any quarter of the strangely deserted
house.

"Take her away!" he called back to Jane,
as he ran, and Jane attempted to obey.

"Where are your clothes, dear?" she asked
the child in her arms, but could get no coherent
answer.

She looked about her, and carrying Shirley,
who was slender and as light of weight as a much
younger child, soon discovered the little girl's
room.  She caught up the pile of clothes on a
chair, and attempted to dress her charge.  But
Shirley only cried and clung.  Jane pulled a
silken blanket from the little brass bed, and
wrapping the child in it, and rolling her clothes
into a bundle, which she tucked under one arm,
carried her downstairs and into a small
reception-room near the front entrance.

Peter, dashing through the silent house toward
the rear, hoping to come upon a man-servant
somewhere, was met at last by a startled maid.

"A room upstairs is on fire," he said.  "Any
men here to help me put it out?  If there are n't
I must send in an alarm.  Any fire-extinguishers
about?"

The girl's wits scattered at the news, but she
managed to recall the fact that the coachman
must be at the stable again by this time, and
flew to call him.  Peter ran back to keep track
of events.  He saw that the walls were heavy,
that the fire was thus far confined to the one room,
and that if help came speedily it would not be
necessary to call out the fire department, an
expedient to be avoided, he felt sure, unless
the danger to the house was greater than he
thought.

But the frightened maid forestalled him in this
plan.  She ran to the telephone and sent in the
alarm herself, although in the confusion of her
fright she lost some minutes in getting the message
properly reported.  Meanwhile, the coachman
having arrived to aid Peter, bringing with him
the apparatus kept in the stables for the purpose
of extinguishing fire, the two were soon successfully
fighting the flames without further aid.

Shirley, downstairs, was still trembling in
Jane's arms, and incoherently crying for her
brother Murray, who, she insisted, had not gone
out with the others that evening, but had been
reading in the room which was now on fire.  At
that moment Murray himself came limping in at
the open door.  The maid met him at the threshold.

"O Mr. Murray," she began--and Jane, in
the reception-room, heard her--"the house is
on fire, and----"

"What?  Where?  Where's Shirley?  Who's----"

Jane, with the child in her arms, appeared
at the door of the reception-room.  "She 's
here--quite safe," she said; and with an exclamation,
Murray came anxiously toward the two.  Then
he paused and looked up the staircase, for through
the distant closed door upstairs could be heard
the sounds of voices, shouting directions.  The
maid was beginning an excited explanation when
Jane interrupted her:

"My brother is here, and he and your coachman
are putting it out, I 'm sure."

"Has anybody sent in an alarm?"

"I did," said the maid.  "The young man
told me not to, but how did he know he could
put it out?  And the master 'd be blamin'
me----"

"We don't want the firemen here if we don't
need them," Murray was beginning, when the
distant and familiar clang of a gong stopped the
words upon his lips.  In a moment more it became
evident that a fire-engine and its train were upon
them.  Murray turned away, and started hurriedly
up the stairs.

At the approaching noises, which to the delicate
child had always been peculiarly terrifying,
little Shirley began to cry afresh.  Jane gathered
her up with an air of determination.

"I'm going to take her to our house across
the street," she said to the maid.  "There's no
need of her staying here to be so frightened."

The girl made no remonstrance.  She was too
excited to do more than bewail the absence of the
other servants, and the misfortune of her having
been left alone in charge.  "I 'd just stepped out of
the door a minute, miss," she explained, "to speak
to a friend of mine that was passing.  'T was a
mercy I left the door open, or the young gentleman
couldn't have----.  There's the gong!--There 's
the fire-engine!--Oh, my--but look at the crowd
comin' after 'em!"

"Show me a side door where I can slip out,
please," requested Jane hurriedly, and the maid
obeyed.

As the firemen ran in at the front door, Jane,
with Shirley in her arms, hurried out at a low
side entrance, from which a path through the
shrubbery led to a gateway in the high hedge next
the street.

As she reached her own porch, the rest of her
family came rushing out, having heard the
commotion in the street.  She almost ran into Nancy
who stopped abruptly to stare at Jane's burden.

"Come back into the house with me, Nan,"
said Jane, quickly.  "Here 's our frightened
little neighbour.  The fire will soon be out, but
I thought she'd be happier over here, for the
family are all away."

In the house she put Shirley down upon the
couch in the front room, and the child, staring up,
her big eyes full of tears and fright, beheld the face
of the girl she had so longed to know smiling
down at her.

"This is splendid!" said Nancy Bell.  "I've
wanted to know you like everything, and now
I 've got you right here in my own house.  Won't
you let me help you get dressed?  I 'd love to."

Seeing that Nancy would be better for the shy
little visitor than any number of older persons,
Jane left the two together, and went out to see
what was happening.

It was very little.  The fire-engine was already
turning to leave, the driver grumbling at a needless
alarm.  "All out!" a voice was shouting, and the
crowd was reluctantly pausing upon the edge of
the lawn, disappointed that no further excitement
was to be had.  Upstairs the firemen had found
the fire subdued to a mere dying smother of smoke,
the efficient chemical having made quick work
of the blaze, which had not had time to attack
the walls of the room, but had been confined to its
furnishings.

Peter, his hands and clothes grimy, made light
of the affair to Murray, who was looking in at
the ruin of the room.

"I took a few liberties with your front door,"
Peter said, "finding it open and no one about.
Oh, no, it hadn't much headway; I saw that
when I decided not to call out the department.
It was quite a blaze, but mostly the light stuff
about.  It must have caught from the curtains
blowing into that student-lamp."

"That's my fault," Murray owned.  "I hate
electric lights to read by, so I lighted that lamp
here.  I was reading, but the room began to
feel stuffy, and I opened the window.  It looked
so pleasant outside I thought I 'd take a turn
round the square.  I 'm not a fast walker"--he
glanced at his lame leg--"and I was probably
at the other side of the square when you came in.
Look here, you must have been mighty quick to
take in the situation, for I couldn't have been
away over five minutes when you saw the blaze."

"My sister and I happened to be standing out
on our porch--you see, we live just round the
corner in Gay Street--about opposite these
windows here----"

"I know," Murray nodded.  "I 've seen you."

"We thought at first it was a cannel-coal
fire--you know how they flash with a red light.
But when we suspected, we just ran across.  I
hope your little sister wasn't too badly frightened?"

"Her room's next to this.  Poor child, she
*was* frightened.  I deserve a thrashing, you know,
for my carelessness.  Every one of the family is
out, and all the servants except my mother's maid.
It was very kind of your sister to take Shirley in
charge.  She's downstairs with her now."

"Will your people be getting news of the
fire-alarm and be frightened?" Peter asked, putting
on his coat.

"I don't think so.  Father and mother are out
of town at a dinner, and my sister's at a party in a
country house.  They won't be likely to hear.
I don't know where my brother is.  Don't go.
Must you?  I--you know I'm awfully obliged
to you for this----"

"It's nothing.  Glad I happened to be on
hand," and Peter would have said good night
and run down the stairs, but he saw that his host
meant to go down with him.  So he descended
slowly, keeping pace with the other's halting steps,
and talking with him as he went.

"Your sister was here when I came in," said
Murray, glancing into the small reception-room.
The maid, who had been watching the departure
of the crowd from the window of this room,
turned to him.

"The young lady took Miss Shirley home
with her," she explained.  "I was that flustered
I let her go without so much as asking you,
Mr. Murray, but----"

"It's all right," Murray put in, hastily.  "It
was just the thing to do, the child was so scared.
If they 're at your house, I 'll just step over there
with you, if you don't mind."

"Glad to have you," said Peter, wondering
what Jane would say to this second unexpected
introduction.

Murray, as he walked slowly toward the house
in Gay Street, felt distinctly glad of the chance.
Since his illness he had led a lonely life, and he
longed for comrades near at hand.  From behind
the curtains he had done not a little watching of
the coming and going in Gay Street, and had
been strongly attracted toward each one of the
household across the way.  He liked the faces
of those people.  He had wished that he could
make their acquaintance.

"Walk in!" invited Peter, throwing the door
hospitably open; and Murray, his quick, curious
eyes taking in everything at a glance, entered
the small front room, which was just then unoccupied.
He heard voices and laughter near at hand,
but for the moment, while Peter went to summon
his mother, he had time to look about him.

There was not very much in the room,
and there was nothing of value, as that word
was used in the Townsend house, yet the visitor
could not help finding the place warmly attractive.
There was a homelike look about it, and there
was an indefinable air of refinement.  The furniture
was old and very nearly shabby, but it was not
the cheap and tawdry furniture one might have
expected to find in such a house.  The pictures
on the walls were all good copies of great pictures,
or photographs set under glass.  Piles of music
lay on the old-fashioned square piano, and a
few papers and magazines, all of good selection,
were upon the table, in the centre of which burned
a brilliant lamp.  But most of all, the character
of the household was shown by the books--as
it inevitably is.

Of these there were a surprising number.
Murray felt his respect for the Bell family rising
immensely as he noted the contents of the rows
of home-made book-shelves.  They were in plain,
worn bindings, most of them, quite unlike the
stately rows in the great library at home; but
they were the same old friends, in common clothes,
and Murray rejoiced at the sight.

Peter was quickly back, bringing with him
the lady whom Murray recognised as the mother
of the family.  She *was* a lady--no doubt of
that.  He had been sure of it before.  Now, as
he listened to her voice--the test
incontrovertible--he knew beyond question.

She greeted him cordially.  He was charmed
with her face, with her manner, with everything
about her.  Then Peter brought all the others in,
and Murray shook hands with them all.  Shirley
appeared, clinging to Nancy's hands, and Shirley
was so happy, and begged so hard in his ear to
stay a few minutes longer, that he willingly delayed
their departure.

Fine fellows, Peter and Ross and Rufus proved
to be on acquaintance.  Not in the least overawed
by the presence of the rich man's son from
Worthington Square, they talked business and
football and politics and various other things
in those few minutes, in a hearty, half-boyish,
decidedly manly fashion that he thoroughly enjoyed.

It happened that Murray said less to Jane
than to any of the others, but he noticed her not
a little.  He thought he had never seen a girl
who looked so spirited and sweet and gay and
gentle all in one.  He felt that his sister Olive
must learn to know her at once, that she might
learn what it is to be pretty without seeming
aware of the fact, and how it is possible to make
a stranger feel wholly at his ease without
appearing to exercise any arts.

"I suppose I ought to be taking my sister
home," Murray said at last, getting to his feet.
"The truth is, she has wanted to know Miss
Nancy since she first saw her, and so----"

"Murray wanted to know you, too," said
Shirley, in Nancy's ear; but as her brother paused,
the words were audible to everybody.

"To know *me*?" queried Nancy, in surprise,
and everybody smiled.

"I'm sure my mother and sister will call--soon,"
said Murray, trying to feel sure of that
rather doubtful proposition as he made it.

The moment would have been an awkward
one in some small houses, for it was impossible
not to remember that the Worthington Squares
do not make many calls in the Gay Streets, but
young Rufus, studying Shirley with interest,
broke in, without intention, upon his mother's
reply.  Rufus was quite untroubled by the social
inequalities existing between localities divided
only by a stone's throw.

"That 's a dandy tennis-court you will have
there when you put it out," he remarked.

"It's pretty fair--and we shall have it in
shape early this year," replied Murray, smiling.
There was a beauty about Murray's rare smile
which quite transformed his pale face.  His eyes
met Jane's as he spoke.

"It 's too bad to grow up past the point of
breaking the ice so easily, is n't it?" she said,
merrily, as he shook hands.

"We 'll have to follow their wise example,"
he replied.

"I hope that you 'll find your way over to Gay
Street often in the future," declared Peter, shaking
hands.

"I mean to, thank you, if you'll let me?"  Murray
looked into Mrs. Bell's eyes, and a shade
of wistfulness crept into his own, which she saw,
and recognising, was sure she understood.

"Please come, if you care to," she said, cordially,
and he felt her warm, firm hand give his a friendly
pressure, which quite completed the capturing of
his heart.

A ringing step on the porch outside, a knock
at the door--it boasted no bell--and everybody
looked up surprised, for it was nearly ten o'clock.
Ross opened the door.

"I beg your pardon," said a gay and careless
voice outside, "but I came to look for my brother
and sister.  They seem to be lost, and I 'm
told they 're here."

"Come in!" said Ross, and the owner of the
voice appeared upon the threshold.  Standing
there, surveying the company with his characteristically
assured expression, his handsome face
taking on a saucy smile as his eyes fell on his
brother, Forrest Townsend was carefully and
formally presented by Murray to each one of
the household in turn.

He looked a fine figure in his evening clothes,
his long outer coat falling open, his hat in his hand.
His audacious young eyes fell on Jane before
he was presented to her, and his manner acquired
a sort of laughing gallantry rather effective.
"It was a very lucky fire for us," he said, gaily,
as he bowed.  "I only wish I had been at home."





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`FORREST PLAYS A TRICK`:

.. class:: center large

   CHAPTER IV


.. class:: center medium

   FORREST PLAYS A TRICK

.. vspace:: 2

"It's no more than civil, mother, that you
and Olive should go over and call!" insisted
Murray Townsend, with heat.

"I can't see that it is necessary at all," replied
Mrs. Townsend, with offsetting coolness.  "The
young man has been properly thanked for his
services; indeed, I should say that between you
and Forrest and Shirley the entire family have
had quite fuss enough made over them."

"I didn't make much of the fuss," Forrest
said.  "I was only there five minutes at the
end of the show.  Time enough to see, though,
that those people are n't off the same piece as
the usual tenants of that house.  They 've seen
better days, or I miss my guess."

"Not at all.  They 've never had much
money, but they 're educated people, just the
same--self-educated, a mighty good sort.
You 've only to look at the books that fairly
line that little room to see for yourself.  Is n't
there any rule for sizing up men but by the dollars
they 've made--or women but by the clothes they
wear?"

The vehemence of Murray's speech was so
unusual, and his ordinarily quiet and indifferent
expression had given place to one so eager, that
the family all turned with one accord to look at
him.  They were at dinner, one late April evening,
a week after the fire.  The dining-room was
the one place in the house where all the family
were accustomed to meet; therefore any question
of the sort which Murray had proposed was
brought up there as a matter of course.

Mr. Townsend himself answered his son's
pointed observation, forestalling the rejoinder
about to fall from his wife's lips:

"It's the way of the world, Murray, and an
unjust one in many cases.  Still, one can't help
feeling that a man who has lived to the age of
Joseph Bell without reaching a position higher
than the one he holds with the Armstrong
Company can't be possessed of a very unusual
endowment of brains."

"I should say that depends on whether making
money has been his ambition, or something else."

"He certainly hasn't achieved the something
else," was Olive's comment.  "Not even a decent
home."

"Decent!"  Murray turned on her.  "It's a
home worthy the name--I can tell you that!
And if you refuse to call on these people that live
in it, after Peter Bell saved ours over our heads,
I say you 're acting like snobs!"

"Murray!"  His mother spoke very sharply.
Forrest laughed.  He enjoyed the scene, being
inclined, by his remembrance of Jane, to take his
brother's side.  Mr. Townsend came to the rescue.

"You are rather rough in your language, Murray,
but I think you are right in your notions about
the call.  It's only a courtesy, surely, Eloise,
to go over and make one call.  You don't need
to continue the acquaintance unless you wish,
but I should be glad myself if you would go.
It is several days now since----"

"It's a week," said Murray.

"He knows--no doubt of that!" laughed
Forrest.  "He's cultivated the acquaintance,
anyhow.  I saw him walking up the street
yesterday with the pretty girl of the family."

"You walked up with her yourself the day
before!" cried Shirley.

Forrest threw back his head and laughed.
"You 're a little spy.  Well, I don't mind owning
that I did.  She's a trim-looking girl on the street,
too, if she does n't wear the furbelows Olive
does.  She----"

"We may as well go over and call, mother,"
said Olive, with emphasis.  "If both the boys
are running after the family, we ought to find
out what they are."

"You won't be so condescending as you think,"
Murray said to her, as he left the room at her side.
"Mrs. Bell is n't the sort to be impressed with the
honour you do her."

Mrs. Townsend and Olive, realising that the
wishes of the three male members of the family
were not to be lightly disregarded, made the call
without further delay.  Dressed as carefully as
if they had been calling in Worthington Square,
they knocked upon the door of the little house
in Gay Street, and were admitted by Nancy.

It chanced that this was a Saturday afternoon.
And Saturday was a half-holiday for nearly all
workers in the city.  Thus it came about that in
the middle of the stiff little call--stiff in spite
of Mrs. Bell and Jane, who had received their
visitors with all simplicity and naturalness--Peter
arrived at home.  Being burdened with
small parcels, he hurried round to the kitchen door,
and depositing his parcels on the table there,
started in search of his sisters.

"Jane--Nan--where are you?" he shouted
through the little house, and before Nancy,
springing down the stairs, could stop him, he had
bolted into the front room.

Olive Townsend, turning quickly, recognised
the big, fresh-coloured youth, with the
good-humoured, clever-looking face, who had several
times been of assistance to her.  Peter was
presented to the visitors by his mother, who seemed
quite undisturbed by the interruption.  Jane
only laughed, and Peter himself recovered his
balance with but a momentary show of confusion.

"It was important business, you see," he said,
smiling, and explaining to Jane.  "I brought
home the flower-seeds you wanted, and I had
an idea they must get into the ground within
the next fifteen minutes, or it would be too late."

"I don't wonder he thought so," Jane said
to Olive, glancing from her brother to her guest.
"I impressed upon him this morning the fact
that if the sweet peas were n't planted to-day
we should n't have any growing before August.
Don't go, Peter.  Perhaps Miss Townsend can
tell us what else we ought to have in our garden."

Peter obediently drew up a chair and sat down.

Olive, responding that she knew nothing
whatever about gardens, because the gardener
always attended to whatever flower-beds there
were about the grounds, was conscious of a keen
and steady scrutiny from Peter's cool gray eyes,
quite as if he were not in the least abashed by
her distinguished presence.

She was, moreover, forced to acknowledge,
as the moments went by, that Peter could talk,
and talk well.  He came to the assistance of
Jane, who had begun to feel the difficulties of
entertaining the visitor, and told an amusing
incident of the morning's experience.  Before
she knew it, Olive was laughing, for Peter's clever
mimicry was quite irresistible.

As she rose to go Olive made an immense
condescension: "I believe it must have been you,
Mr. Bell," she said, "who picked up my
handkerchief for me one day."

Peter laid his hand on his heart with a droll
gesture and a formal bow--an interesting
combination.--"I think I had the honour," he
admitted, with a twinkle.

And now something unforeseen happened.
Exactly as the visitors rose to go, the April skies,
which five minutes before had been smiling,
suddenly opened, and poured out one of those
astonishing spring downfalls which arrest street
traffic on the instant.

Mrs. Townsend and Olive, with the door opening
to let them out, stood still upon the threshold in
dismay, glancing down at their delicate spring attire.

"You can't go in this," said Mrs. Bell,
cordially.  "It will be over soon.  Please come
back and sit down."

The fates must surely have intended from
the first to mix up things between these two
families of Townsend and Bell.  With that end
in view nothing could have been more opportune
than this shower, for it lasted a good half-hour
without showing signs of slackening, and it
contributed also lightning and thunder, which
made Olive shrink and shudder.  Also Ross,
McAndrew and young Rufus Bell, coming home
in the late afternoon, and being caught at the
corner in the downpour, dashed for the little front
porch for shelter, and then into the living-room.

Ross, making apologies on account of his
moist condition, and getting through the room
and out with Rufus as fast as possible, was
yet able to take in the surprising fact that Peter
was sitting in the corner with the girl from the
aristocratic square, chatting cheerfully with her,
and eliciting not altogether unwilling smiles in
response.

Out in the kitchen, with the door closed, Ross
and Rufus interviewed Nancy.

"How on earth did old Peter get into it like
this?" Ross inquired, as he hung his coat to
dry by the stove.  "I could hardly believe my
eyes to see him confabulating with Miss Worthington
Square.  She seems quite human, does n't
she--when you get her indoors?"

"I don't know," said Nancy.  "I only let them
in.  She looks awfully pretty, don't you think?
And maybe she's nice when you get to know her."

"If you ever do," qualified Ross.  "Pretty?
Well, all I saw was a gorgeous hat and a pair of
big eyes; I felt as if somebody was looking at me
with a spy-glass.  She is n't in it with our Janey,
if you're talking about prettiness."

"No, of course not!" cried loyal Nancy.

By the time the storm had ceased, a good
deal of the stiffness in the little front room had
melted away.  It may be possible for some people
to be formal and frigid for the space of a
ten-minute call, but to keep it up for full
three-quarters of an hour longer, while rain pours, and
lightning flashes, and unconventional young
persons dash in and out, and a youth like Peter
tells jolly stories--that becomes much more
difficult.  Mrs. Townsend maintained a peculiar
dignity to the end, but Olive--well, in spite
of her prejudices, Olive was young, and liked
young associates, and as she looked and listened,
it became more and more difficult for her to refuse
to recognise that the people in this little house
were not ordinary, not commonplace, not uneducated,
as she had fancied them, but bright, and
gay, and interesting.

When she gave Jane her hand, as she took
her leave--the April storm having at last given
place again to brilliant April sunshine--she
found herself wishing she might know this
prepossessing maid.  There was a straightforward
sweetness in the glance of Jane's rich hazel eyes,
a captivating charm in her free smile, which the
other girl had never encountered in quite so
beguiling a form.  Olive Townsend, of all the
girls whom Jane had ever met least likely to
succumb to the fascinations of another girl not
in her own "set," fell, nevertheless, considerably
under Jane's influence on that very first encounter.
In taking leave she said to Jane that which she
had not dreamed of saying, commonplace an
expression of friendliness as it was: "I shall
hope to see you often, since we live so near."

"Gone--gone--all gone?" queried Ross,
putting in his head cautiously at the living-room
door, as the visitors turned the corner.

"All gone," replied Peter.  "Gone forever--silks
and velvets and new spring hats."

"Ribbons and laces, and sweet, pretty faces,"
chanted Ross, reminded of the old child-rhyme.
"'Sugar and spice, and everything nice.'  Not much
sugar about Miss Worthington Square, eh, Pete?"

"Oh, I don't know," mused Peter, gazing
absently out of the window toward the square,
where Olive's spring finery was just fluttering out
of sight.  "She 's not so bad at close range.  I
should n't wonder if an earthquake shock might
stir her up into quite an interesting girl.
Lacking that, some lesser convulsion of nature might
possibly----"

"The Bell family certainly did their best
to shock her.  If daddy and Nan could have
just burst in from somewhere, I think the effect
would have been complete," declared Jane,
merrily.

The subject of these comments, upon reaching
home, found herself called upon for an opinion
of the Bells.

Forrest Townsend, encountering his sister
upon the stairs, followed her to her room.

"Own up that they 're not as odd as you
thought," he demanded.

"They 're very well--of their sort," was
Olive's reply, observing herself in her mirror,
and congratulating herself on the fact that the
new spring hat was undoubtedly becoming.

"See here, why not send Jane and Peter an
invitation to your party?"

"'*Jane and Peter!*'  You seem to be pretty
intimate with them already."

"I don't call them that to their faces.  But
you 've seen for yourselves they 're all right.
Ask them over; it won't hurt you."

"Why, Forrest Townsend--people who don't
know a soul in our set!  What an idea!"

"A mighty good idea.  Nobody 'll know they
live in Gay Street--and you won't be ashamed
of them either."

"I shall not do anything of the sort."  Olive
took off the hat and laid it in its box.  "I don't
know what in the world has got into you and
Murray; you 're both perfectly mad over the
Bells.  If you 're so charmed with that girl
you can go and call on her, I suppose."

She recalled with some surprise her own
liking for Jane, wondering, now that her brother
showed his prepossessions so strongly, how she
could have fancied her.  It seemed sometimes
to be a matter of principle with Olive never to like
the people whom Forrest or Murray liked.

"See here," said Forrest, frowning, "I think
it's pretty ill-natured of you not to invite one
or two persons I ask you to, whether you happen
to want them or not.  This party may be your
birthday affair, but there 's no reason why
somebody else should n't have a hand in the
inviting.  Let's see your list, will you?"

Olive unwillingly handed him a sheet of paper,
upon which the names of her prospective guests
were written.  He scanned it sharply.

"Same old crowd," he observed, his
handsome brows knit into a scowl.  "I should think
you 'd want a little fresh blood, to liven things up."

"For you to sit in a corner with, you mean."

"Will you do it to please me?"

"No!"  Olive snatched the list out of his hand
and returned it to a box, which she laid in a
drawer of her desk.

Forrest stood looking at her for a moment, then,
without a further word, shrugged his shoulders
and walked out of the room.

Two hours later he came quietly back.  Olive
had gone out, as he knew.  He crossed the
room to the desk, searched and found the box
into which he had seen the list put, and
discovered, as he had expected, the invitations to the
birthday party folded and partially addressed.
He knew that they were to go out upon the
morrow, and that Olive doubtless would finish
the task of addressing them that evening.  He
had heard her bewailing the fact that this labour
consumed so much time, but he had not cared
to offer to assist her.

Forrest looked the invitations over, smiling to
himself, took out two unaddressed envelopes
and put them into his pocket, closed the door
and strolled away.  In his own room he took
them out again, and wrote upon them in his
best hand, "Peter Bell, Esq.," and "Miss Jane
Bell," adding the street and number, and stamping
and sealing them, still with the laugh in the
corners of his mischievous mouth.

The next day, when Olive's invitations went
into the letter-box on the corner, they were
shortly followed by two of which the giver of
the party had no knowledge.

It happened that the early morning mail in
Gay Street always arrived just before the departure
of the family workers for their place of business.
So when Nancy, after answering the postman's
ring, came back to the table with the mail, both
Peter and Jane, just finishing breakfast, were
on hand to receive it.

"Whose handwriting can this be, I wonder?"
speculated Jane, intently studying the dashing
address.

Peter glanced over her shoulder.  "Same as
mine," he observed, ripping his envelope open.
"Looks like a wedding invitation; but since none
of our friends, Janey, are so much as thinking
of getting married--   Hello, what's this?"

"Oh, why--"  Jane was stammering, eagerly.
"O Petey--how lovely--why--  There, I
knew she was n't as cold and proud as you thought her!"

"Who--what?" demanded Nancy, with excitement.

"Miss Olive Townsend," explained Jane,
flushing with pleasure.

"What!  Miss Worthington Square invited
you two every-day folks to her party?" Ross
inquired, getting up from the table and reaching
for his hat.  "Pete, you 'll lose your car if you
stand mooning over that thing."

"How did you know she was to have a party?"

"Little Miss Shirley confided it to me."

"Me, too!" cried Nancy, proudly.  "But
she did n't tell me her sister would ask you."

"Miss Olive probably didn't intend to,"
hazarded Peter, folding up his note and putting
it carefully in his pocket, "until she came to call
and saw our charms.  She came--she saw--we
conquered--eh, Janey?--with our sweet smiles
and our stories.  How about it, sister?  Do we go?"

"If," began Jane slowly, the smile fading
a little on her bright face, "if----"

"If we've anything to wear!" supplied Ross,
and began to whistle gaily.  "*Oh, ye shall walk
in silk attire*," breaking off to glance at the clock
and start hastily for the door, with Peter and
Rufus after him.  Jane turned to Mrs. Bell,
who, sitting quietly in her place at the head of
the table, was regarding her young daughter as
if she understood all the doubts which had
instantly risen in the girl's mind.

"I think we can manage it, dear," she said,
"if the party dress does n't have to match the
invitation."

Jane's face grew flushed again.  "I can wear
anything, mother, if I have some fresh ribbons.
But Peter----"

"Yes--Peter--" agreed Mrs. Bell.  She rose
and came round to Jane.  "Peter shall have
a new cravat," said she, and smiled into Jane's
eyes.

Jane smiled back.  Each knew that the other
was thinking of Peter's best black suit--in
which he went to church on Sundays.  Each
knew that the Townsend sons would wear evening
clothes.

"Yes, with a new cravat Petey will be all
right," said Jane.  "Dear boy, he was pleased,
was n't he?  And it *is* nice of her to ask us!"





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`WITHOUT GLOVES`:

.. class:: center large

   CHAPTER V


.. class:: center medium

   WITHOUT GLOVES

.. vspace:: 2

"O Jane, the big porch is all shut in with
white stuff, and there's a striped awning
where the carriages stop, just as if it was a great
grown-up party or a wedding.  And I saw them
carrying in loads of palms and things.  Oh,
are n't you excited to be going?"

This was Nancy Bell, flying into the front room
upstairs, where Mrs. Bell and Jane were putting
the finishing touches to Jane's frock, to be worn
that evening.

"Awfully excited, darling," admitted Jane,
smiling at the eager little sister.

"Oh, how pretty that is!"  Nancy clasped
her hands in ecstasy over the dainty ruffled skirt,
with its tiny yellow flowers scattered over a white
ground.  Then she caught up the long sash belt
of primrose-yellow ribbon, its graceful rosettes
and flowing ends promising an effective finish to
the simple toilet.  "You 'll be the prettiest girl
at the party!" she declared, joyously.

Mrs. Bell and Jane laughed across at each
other.  "In a ten-cent dimity," their eyes said,
with congratulations, "reduced from eighteen!"

"My ribbon is what rejoices my soul," said
Jane, touching the soft silk.  "That was a
bargain we just happened on--the price cut
in two because of a few soiled places.  We simply
did n't use those at all, and there were enough long
lengths to make the streamers.  It's such a
beautiful quality it makes the whole dress look finer
than it is."

"How can you ever wait till evening?" sighed
Nancy.  "O Jane, Shirley wants me to hide in
the shrubbery over there by the hedge, and she's
going to slip out with some ice-cream and cake
for me!"

Mrs. Bell's eyes and Jane's met again with
a smile.  Jane's eyebrows went up in interrogation.
Mrs. Bell nodded.  "I think Nancy may have
that much of the party," she said.

Evening came at last, although Nancy had
moments of feeling sure that it never would.
Jane, her curly auburn locks tied up in charming
fashion, with various rebellious tendrils waving
about her face, slipped into the pretty frock, and
Mrs. Bell arranged the primrose girdle, which set
off the whole effect.  Peter, in his best black
suit and wearing the new cravat, looked at his
sister approvingly.

"My, but I 'm proud of my girl!" he said.

"Not prouder than I am of my big brother,"
responded Jane.

The family saw them off, rejoicing in their
youthful good looks, and sure they would hold
their own in appearance with anybody in
Worthington Square.  Peter and Jane, not feeling quite
so confident, yet experiencing a pleasant stir
of anticipation, walked slowly round the corner.

Nearly all the guests were arriving in carriages,
and the brother and sister, as they crossed the
porch, encountered a number of these, entering
from the *porte-cochère*.  As Jane's eyes fell upon
the gaily dressed young people, the first thing
she observed about them gave her an unpleasant
shock.  They all, youths and girls, were wearing
gloves.  Jane glanced from her own round white
arms, bare from the elbows, to Peter's uncovered
hands.

"Peter, we never once thought of gloves,"
she murmured in his ear, as they lingered to let
the party from the carriages go in at the door
ahead of them.

Peter stared from her to the other guests.
Then his gay twinkle replaced the look of
dismay.  "Gloves--on youngsters like us!  Don't
you care a bit," he whispered back in her ear.

It was a little difficult not to care, especially
for Jane, as in the dressing-room upstairs she
met many curious glances.  The maid in charge
even offered to help her put on her gloves, and
Jane could not help feeling a bit unhappy as
she replied that she was not wearing gloves.

But the sight of Peter, smiling serenely at her
from the head of the staircase, where he awaited
her, strengthened her resolution not to mind.
A glance at the mirror had assured her that the
inexpensive little dimity with its primrose ribbons
was irreproachable in its dainty distinction of
style--thanks to Mrs. Bell's clever fingers--and
this knowledge was very comforting.  Her face
was as bright as ever when she joined Peter, whose
hearty whisper: "You 're all right!" put her
quite on her feet again.

Downstairs, where Olive Townsend stood
receiving with her mother, with Forrest and
Murray close at hand, a brief but interesting
colloquy took place just before Jane and Peter
came into the reception room.  Forrest had been
keeping sharp watch on the hall entrance, and
the moment that he saw the two Bells arrive
and make their way toward the staircase, he
watched for a chance to get a word in the
ears of his family.  A lull in the arrivals gave
him his opportunity.

"Olive," he said coolly to his sister in an
undertone, "I took the liberty of sending Jane and
Peter Bell an invitation--and they 're here.
I want you to brace up and give them just as nice
a welcome as you 're giving the rest.  Hold on!
If you 're angry at anybody, it's at me, and
you 've no right to take it out of them for that.
One thing I can tell you; if you are frosty to
them you 'll settle with me afterward."

He had his sister in a corner--so to speak.
Olive cared very much for appearances.  There
were many eyes upon her; she could make no
angry response or show chagrin in any way
without attracting notice and comment.  All
she could do--which she promptly did--was
to whisper back, with lips which smiled for the
sake of those who looked at her:

"You wretch, I 'll pay you off--never fear!"

"Do; I don't mind," and Forrest approached
his mother.  He was her favourite son, and she
was a thorough woman of the world.  He had
reckoned on her making the best of the situation;
and when he had told her, with a gay glance
and a furtive squeeze of her hand, he received
no more severe threat of punishment than he
had expected in her light: "You naughty boy!
You 'll have to take care of them; nobody else
knows them, or will care to."

"I'll see to them," was her son's careless
reply, and he crossed over to Murray, who was
indifferently playing his part of young host.
To him, as Jane and Peter appeared at the
doorway, Forrest made a hasty explanation.

Murray's face instantly brightened, and he
answered promptly: "It was a risky thing to do,
but I 'm glad they 're here.  Between us we 'll
make sure they have a good time."

There was nothing in the greeting of
Mrs. Townsend or of Olive to give Peter and Jane a
hint of their position.  The Bells had expected
only a formal reception on an occasion like this,
and when they received it, felt no special lack.
And whatever was wanting in the greeting of the
hostesses was made up by the masculine half of the
receiving party.

"This is jolly," said Forrest, giving each a hearty
grasp of the hand.  "'I 'm immensely glad you
could come," and as others pressed toward him, he
passed them on to Murray.

"Do you know," said Murray, "having you
two come to-night makes up to me for the whole
thing.  I detest parties, as a rule, never go to them,
and would n't come downstairs at our own affairs
if I could get out of it.  But I 'm glad I could
n't--this time--.  See here, you don't know many
of these people, do you?"

"Nobody at all."

"Of course not--having only just moved into the
neighbourhood.  I can't do much myself except
sit about and look on, and I 'm going to be so
bold as to beg your company, Miss Bell, for so
much of the evening as you 'll give me.  There are
a lot of pleasant nooks about the rooms and halls,
and I 'd like to try them all with you.  That's
a selfish plan, is n't it?" and he smiled at her.

"It's lovely of you, of course, and you know
it," she answered.

"It's a risk for me, lest I lose you, but I 'll
present a few of these chaps to you, first, so if
you care to dance----"

"I don't--truly."

"I 'm glad.  But I 'll do it, for the sake of my
conscience," and Murray began the task on the spot.

Half a dozen youths accordingly bowed
ceremoniously to Jane, gazed with interest at her
charming face, said something or other in the way
of an attempt at conversation, and got away again.
Not one asked Jane to dance.

"She needs Olive's guardianship, not mine,"
thought Murray, resentfully.  "If Olive backed
her up, the rest would accept her in a jiffy.  But
Olive won't do it--I know that well enough,--so
I 'll do my best in my way, and thank my
stars for the chance.  There is n't a girl in the
house to match her, that's sure."

The moment that his duties in the reception-room
were over Murray convoyed Jane away to one
of the attractive retreats he had mentioned, a
beflowered nook on the staircase landing, from
which they could view the hall below, and see the
greater part of the long drawing-room, where the
dancing had begun.  Strains of gay music from
the orchestra floated pleasantly up to them.

"Now this is something like!" said Murray,
sinking back upon the soft divan behind the
palms.  He pulled off his gloves as he spoke,
rolled them into a ball and crammed them into
his pocket.  He did not put them on again that
evening--a bit of kindliness which two guests
understood and appreciated.

"If I 'm not monopolising the host when he
ought to be looking after his other guests," replied
Jane, as her eyes followed the distant dancers.

"If there is any monopoly, I 'm the guilty
one--and enjoying my guilt.  Honestly, Miss Bell,
it's a fine chance for me to get acquainted with my
neighbour, if she 'll let me.  And as for my being
missed--"  A shake of the head told Jane more
than its owner meant of his loneliness, at which
she had hitherto only guessed.

Meanwhile, Peter had also fallen into friendly
hands, if youthful ones.  Shirley, allowed to play
a modest part in the affairs of the evening, but
finding nobody willing to give her more than a
smile and nod, fell upon Peter as a possible ally.
He had been standing at one side of the crush, in
the doorway of the drawing-room, looking on with
interested eyes, but feeling a trifle deserted,
nevertheless, when he felt a warm little hand slide into
his own.  Looking down, surprised, he met
Shirley's friendly smile.

"You don't know many people, do you?"
asked that frank young person.

"I don't know anybody," returned Peter.
"No, I ought not to say that, for your brother
Forrest presented me to a number of girls.  But
I don't know how to dance, and they soon left me
for livelier company."

"'Nobody asks me to dance, either," said Shirley,
"because Olive would n't invite any boys of my
age, and the big ones want the big girls."

"I don't," Peter assured her.  "I want one
about thirteen years old, dressed in a jolly white
lacy frock, with pink ribbons and pink slippers.
I feel more at home with a girl like that than with
any of those I was introduced to.  You see, their
hair was so--done up!"

"Done up!  Was n't your sister's hair done up?"
queried Shirley.  "Oh no, I remember!  Those
lovely thick curls of hers were tied in a bunch at
her neck--such a lovely way; none of the others
do theirs like that.  She 's awfully pretty, is n't
she?  Prettier than Olive, I think."

"I admire my sister very much," agreed Peter,
"but it would be hard for anybody to be prettier
than your sister."

His eyes turned to Olive as he spoke.  She
stood near by, exchanging gay talk with a tall
youth in the interval between dances.  More
beautifully dressed than any young girl he had
ever seen, her dark face lighted into brilliancy by
excitement, the rare colour in her cheeks set
off by the big bunch of red roses she carried, she
was a picturesque figure indeed.

"Yes, Olive does look pretty," admitted Olive's
little sister.  "Excuse me a minute, please," she
added, and slipped over to Olive's side.  If Peter
could have heard the brief whispered conversation
exchanged, he would hardly have dared to stand
watching it, as he did.

"Olive," begged Shirley, when with difficulty
she had secured her sister's reluctant attention, "if
I take care of Peter Bell for a while, won't you be
nice to him?  He does n't dance, and he does n't
know anybody----"

"It's enough that he 's here!" retorted Olive,
with a frown.  "I didn't ask him or his sister,
so I----"

"You did n't ask him?"

"No, no--run along!

"But who----"

"Forrest--without saying a word to me."

"Oh!" Shirley gasped, and was silent for a
minute.  Then she pulled at Olive's arm again.

"Olive, but they 're our guests just the same,
and----"

"Shirley, don't bother me now!"

"Listen, Olive, just a minute.  Peter says
nobody could be prettier than you."

It was a shot which told.  Olive's grudging
attention was arrested.  She glanced over her
sister's head, in the direction of Peter.  Her eyes
met his, and she turned away again, but not before
the momentary vision of the strong, intent face
had impressed itself upon her as rather better
worth consideration than many of the others.

The thought of such a compliment as Shirley
had reported coming from those firm-set lips of
Peter Bell gave the recipient rather a novel
sensation.

Olive had been out of patience with Peter from
the moment that she caught sight of his unconventional
attire, but she felt all at once more tolerant
of his presence.  "He did n't tell you to tell me
that, I suppose?" she whispered to Shirley.

"Oh, no, I only----"

"Go back, and tell him to save some time for
me after this dance.  I 'll keep the next one for him."

"But, Olive, you know he does n't dance----"

"I'll sit it out with him, since he doesn't
know enough to come and ask me for himself."

Half an hour later Jane, passing through the
hall with Murray, on the way to the library,
where he was to show her certain books of which
they had been talking, caught sight of her brother
just mounting the staircase to the retreat on the
landing.  To her surprise and relief--for she
had anxiously looked for him from time to time,
and had seen him with nobody but little Shirley--she
noted that he was now in the company of his
girlish hostess, and that that young person was
turning upon him a gracious face.

To Jane the remainder of the evening passed
in full pleasure.  She spent an interesting hour
in the library with Murray, who made himself
a delightful companion, expanding in the
sympathetic atmosphere of her good comradeship
into a more genial warmth and sincerity of manner
than she had imagined him capable of showing.
Then Forrest came in search of her, and bore her
away to join a company of young people who were
going to supper together.

Under Forrest's wing she found her position
secure, for he was a much-admired youth, and
whatsoever girl he chose to favour must--as he
had known--be treated with friendliness by all
his companions.  Jane's own charms came to
her aid also, and brought several unattached young
gentlemen to her side, so that before the evening
was over she had made what Forrest inwardly
congratulated himself upon as "a respectable
success."

Upon the landing Peter established Olive and
himself on the divan among the palms.  He
studied his companion's face a moment, then
said abruptly, "I want to tell you, Miss Townsend,
that I 'm more than sorry to be here by an
accident."

She looked up at him, startled, but met only a
quiet smile.  "How did you--I didn't mean
you----"

"I know you did n't--and you were very
kind not to show how you must have felt.  Perhaps
it would be in better taste for me not to mention
it at all.  But I wanted you to know that I
appreciated your courtesy in accepting the situation."

"But how----"

"I found out--from a little slip of Miss
Shirley's.  I wanted to go home, of course,
but--I could n't make up my mind to spoil my sister's
evening, and besides--I thought your brother's
invitation made it right for us to be here."

Olive's dark face was colouring warmly.  She
looked down at her roses, wondering what to say.
Somehow she found herself unwilling to let Peter
Bell think she did n't want him at her party, for
it was becoming clear to her that she did.

"I'm so sorry," she murmured.  "But I'm
very glad you did n't go home.  If I had known
you longer I 'm sure I should have invited----"

"Don't bother to explain," urged Peter's low
voice.  "'I did n't tell you to make you uncomfortable.
Perhaps you won't mind my saying that
looking on at this sort of thing is very interesting
to me.  I 've never seen it before."

"How do you like it?" asked Olive, glancing
up at him curiously.

Peter laughed, looking off for a moment toward
the drawing-room.  "I 'm an outdoor sort of
chap, I think," he said.  "Yet it's very pretty,
all that down there, and I like to look at it.  Miss
Townsend, do you ride horseback much?"

"Sometimes--not often.  I don't care for it."

"Neither should I, down the boulevard or
in the park, but out on a country road.  I 'm
a country boy, and I like a good gallop down
the old Northboro Road--miles of it as smooth
as a floor.  As for cross-country--ah, there's
sport!"

"I 've never seen you ride."

Peter's face changed.  "No, I don't ride now,"
he said.

"But you have Saturday afternoons free?"

"Oh, yes."

"There are three saddle-horses in the stable,"
said Olive, making a sudden resolve, "and only
one of them gets much use.  Would you--care
to take me for a gallop down the Northboro
Road some day?"

That she should make such a proposition as
this would have seemed to Olive Townsend but
an hour before preposterous.  But now, looking
up at the sturdy figure before her, noting the
wistful smile with which Peter had spoken of past
experiences, it had come to her all at once that a
new pleasure might be hers.  She saw plainly
that she should not be ashamed of Peter as an
escort anywhere.

Peter stared at his hostess for a moment as if
he could hardly believe that he had heard aright.
"Do you really mean that, Miss Townsend?"
he asked.

"Indeed I do.  I 'm not in the habit of saying
things I don't mean."

"Then, thank you, I should like it immensely,"
he said, with a smile and bow, more attractive,
Olive admitted to herself, than any she had
received that evening.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`WEEDS AND FLOWERS`:

.. class:: center large

   CHAPTER VI


.. class:: center medium

   WEEDS AND FLOWERS

.. vspace:: 2

"Good morning, Miss Jane Bell!  May I come in?"

Jane lifted her head quickly from over the
phlox-bed she was weeding in the little garden back
of the house, to see Forrest Townsend looking
over the wooden gate which shut away the garden
from the surrounding neighborhood.

"Good morning!  Yes, indeed, come in," she
responded blithely, waving a discarded white
ruffled sunbonnet at her guest.  He vaulted over
the low barrier and came swinging down the
narrow path to the end of the enclosure, where
the phlox-bed lay.  Here he stood still, regarding
with favour the girl in the blue dress, whose
bronze-tinted hair glinted in the early June sunlight.

"Always busy at something, are n't you?" he
said, tipping over a bushel-basket half-filled
with weeds, and seating himself upon it.  "Yes,
I know I 've spilled out the weeds, but I 'll pick
'em up again when I 'm through.  I came over
to have a serious talk with you, and I 've got to
be down here near you, where I can look you in
the eye.  The grass is too damp yet to sit on
in white trousers."

Jane laughed.  "It can't be a very serious
matter that's troubling you, or you would n't
think of your clothes."

"It is serious, though.  I 'm full of it, and
can't stop to talk about the weather, so here
goes.--I 've quarrelled with my father."

Jane, who had thus far not ceased her weeding,
stopped work and sat still to look at her neighbour.
He met her gaze defiantly.

"Yes, I know.  You think this is another
case of schoolboy heroics, like the last fuss I
told you I had with him--"

"I wish you would n't tell me."

"I 've got to tell somebody.  Come, Jane--you 've
grown to seem like the best friend I have--don't
turn the cold shoulder on me just when
I need you.  You know what my mother and
sister are like----"

With a gesture of disapproval Jane turned
away to her work.

Forrest watched her for a moment in silence;
then he began again:

"All right, I won't complain if you 'll just
let me tell you about this last scrape.  There 's
nobody else I can talk to--you know enough
about us to know that."

"There ought to be.  Your brother----"

"Oh, Murray!  With all respect to him--since
you insist on respect--he 's not off the
same piece of cloth with me, and can't
understand me any more than I can him.  His blood
is n't good red blood at all; it's white, I think,
and I----"

Jane rose up from her knees and stood above
her visitor, determination on her frank face.

"Forrest Townsend," said she, "if you can talk
to me without running down your family, I 'll
listen, but not otherwise.  I don't think you
ought to tell me your affairs at all, but if you 're
sure I can be of use I 'll hear them, on that one
condition."

Forrest studied her a moment without replying,
while her clear hazel eyes returned his gaze.
Then he laughed rather awkwardly.

"You 're the soul of honour, are n't you?" he
said. "And that's just why I need your advice.
I don't want to do anything dishonourable, but
I 'm in a corner, and don't see any way out except
a jump over the wall.  Let me tell you--please!"

Jane dropped upon her knees again and gave
her attention to her work.  Taking this as
permission, Forrest began, picking up a long,
pink-headed weed and pulling it through his fingers
as he talked.

"I 've known all the while father wanted me
in the house with him, and wanted me to go to
college with that end in view.  We 've had a
few brushes on the subject from time to time,
and I 've told him over and over I never meant
to go to college, or to go into the business, either,
but he 's thought it boy talk, I suppose.  Anyhow,
it turns out he's never taken me seriously when
I 've told him I meant to live my own life in my
own way.  He had me tutored all last winter,
to get me ready for my entrance examinations,
and he expects me to go down and take them
next week.  That 's where I balked.  He tackled
me last night, and I had it out with him.  The
result was"--Forrest tried to keep up the
nonchalant manner he had assumed when he began
this explanation, but his voice showed his strong
feeling as he ended the sentence--"the result
was--he gave it to me hot and heavy, and
I--talked back at him.  In short, I----"

Jane, her pretty lips set close together, her
troubled eyes on the ground, listened anxiously
for the words.

"You don't mean----" she began, slowly.

Forrest nodded, and she caught the gesture.
It brought her head round and her eyes to search
his.  "You didn't--say you wouldn't do what
he wants?"

"I did--and meant it."

Jane drew a long breath.  She forgot her
weeding and sat back upon the walk, pulling off
her gloves.  Forrest waited silently for her first
comment.

"Imagine my brother Peter doing that," she murmured.

"I can't imagine it--though Peter's no
soft-head.  But your father's human, Jane.
Mine--isn't."

"Oh, he is--he is!  Don't say that!  He may
seem stern and hard, but that 's only on the
surface, I 'm sure."

"Much you know about it!" muttered Forrest.
"But, anyhow, hard or not, I 'm not going to be
put into a business life I hate."

"What would you like to do?"

"Go into the army."

Jane stared at him, astonished.  This idle
youth live that sort of life?  Her lips curved
slowly into a smile, at which Forrest promptly
took umbrage.

"See here," he said, sitting up straight, "you 're
not to judge me, you know, from what you 've
seen of me in the two months you 've lived in Gay
Street.  I 've been on vacation, I admit, ever since
my tutor left in March.  Besides, it 's not enlisting
as a private I 'm thinking of--no, no!  I want
to enter the army by the way of West Point, and
get my lieutenant's commission at graduation.
That 's a very different thing."

"Yes, that's true.  It means, I believe, four
years of the severest training in the world.  I
know a boy who went--he could n't stand it."

Forrest flushed hotly under his fair skin.  "And
you think I could n't.  That settles it.  I 'll go,
if only to prove you 're mistaken."

The girl looked up quickly, startled by his
tone.  "Ah, please," she began, "don't talk
that way.  Tell me--will your brother go into
the business?"

"Not much!  His health settles that for him.
Besides, he 's too bookish, and father 'll let him
do what he pleases, anyway--he does n't mind
having one son of that stripe.  But the other
son--he must go into the mill, whether he wants
to or not!"

"Could you get to West Point without your
father's permission?  Don't you have to be sent
by somebody--your Congressman, is n't it?"

"Oh, there 's a lot of red tape, and father
could block the whole game, I suppose.  If he
does--well, I 'd enlist and get into the ranks
and work my way up, rather than go into that
dingy old office and tie myself to a desk and a
telephone."

Forrest got upon his feet as he spoke, brushed
a clinging weed leaf or two from his clothes,
and stood looking gloomily down at Jane, who
had risen also.  "It 's evident I get no sympathy
from you," he said.  "I thought you were a girl
who could understand a fellow's ambitions--not
wet-blanket them."

Jane looked up at him, smiling, although her
eyes were still troubled.  "I can, I think," she
said.  "Yet--somehow--I'm imagining the
disappointment it must be to a father who has
built up a great business like Townsend &
Company's to have his son take no interest in it.  I
can't help thinking--"

"What?"--as Jane paused abruptly.

"Never mind."

"But I want to know what you can't help thinking."

"Well, I 'm wondering if it would be any
harder for you to go into your father's office than
it is for Peter to work with my father in the
note-paper factory.  Do you know what Peter wants
to be?"

"No.  I know he has a good position for his
age, with the Armstrongs."

"Yes, but Peter wants--has wanted for six
years--to be a chemist--an expert, you know.
Oh, I 'm not sure I ought to tell you--please
never speak of it.  Even father does n't know
it's any more than a boy's fancy.  Peter could n't
afford the years of training, of course--and
father can't spare him.  There are"--as Forrest
looked surprised--"more people dependent on
father and the boys than you know of--and I
must n't tell you.  All I want you to know is
that"--Jane smiled wistfully--"there are other
people who can't have their own way--and
who are making the best of it, and pretty bravely,
too."

Mrs. Bell came to the door of the house, and
with a pleasant nod and smile to Forrest, told
Jane that a certain bowl of bread-dough had
reached a critical condition of lightness.  The
girl picked up her basket, and Forrest bent to
toss into it the weeds he had thrown out.

"Please don't feel I 'm an unsympathetic
listener," begged Jane, as her visitor took his
leave.

"I won't.  I know you mean it all right.  I
just think you don't understand all the facts in
the case.  Much obliged to you for hearing me
out.  If I turn up missing some day, you 'll
know you did your part, and gave me the proper
grandmotherly advice."  And Forrest swung away
through the gate with a reckless air, which Jane
thought rather melodramatic, and quite in keeping
with a certain staginess sometimes apparent in
the youth's bearing.

.. vspace:: 2

Jane's acquaintance with Olive Townsend had
progressed very slowly.  Olive was not a girl who
possessed the gift of making many warm friendships.
She was not well liked even by the young
people of her own chosen circle.  Girl visitors
were not frequent at the Townsend house, and
Olive was seldom seen coming or going with one or
another of such friends.  Yet there was something
about her personality which held a strong
attraction for Jane, and made her want to know
Olive well.

When Peter returned from his first horseback
ride in Olive's company, Jane had waited with
interest for his description of the event.  Peter
always told Jane his experiences--for the reason,
perhaps, that she never demanded them from
him, never betrayed his confidences, and invariably
showed her appreciation of his comradeship.

"She 's an odd girl," said Peter to Jane.  "She
seemed principally occupied, for the first two
miles, in noticing how I rode, whether I kept
elbows in, head up, back stiff, like herself, and
whether I held my whip in the proper position.
We jogged along at a fussy little pace, talking
about nothing in particular, and minding our p's
and q's as if we were at Professor Miller's riding
academy, with the eye of the master on us."

"I hope she was satisfied with your correct
style," Jane said.  "I saw you start, and I
thought you looked more at home in the saddle
than she."

"I probably am.  After riding everything on
grandfather's farm ever since I was a little shaver,
and breaking every colt he had for the three years
we lived there, I ought to feel fairly comfortable
on a model saddle-horse like the one she
gave me.  She's been trained in the school,
which leaves a lot of things to be desired, to my
way of thinking.  She broke loose all right,
though, when I got my chance to show her what
my idea of the sport is."

Peter's face took on a comical expression,
and Jane hurried him on with an eager "Well?"

"We got out on the Northboro Road.  You
know that long stretch where there are so few
houses--just a sort of lane between big trees,
shady and cool, and the road like a
training-track at this time of year?"

Jane nodded.

"I proposed that we let out a reef or two.  She
agreed, and we broke into a baby canter.  I
kept hitting up the pace a little.  Her horse
caught the idea, and began to quicken.  She
bumped about a bit, but I saw she would know
how to stay on, even if she moved faster than
she ever had before.  Just as we got up a fairly
decent speed, one of those little *crack-a-cracks*
of motor-cycles came bursting out of a driveway,
and both our horses shied and threatened to bolt.

"It was nothing, you know; they were over it
in a jiffy, and she kept her seat all right, and
showed she was game.  But it stirred both horses
to take the rest of that stretch at as pretty a gallop
as you 'd care to see; and when I saw the girl
was all right, I shouted, 'Come on!' and let them
have it.  I tell you, she forgot the riding academy
and Professor Miller, and rode for fair.  It was
jolly good fun, and she enjoyed it, too."

Peter laughed reminiscently.  Jane remarked
that she had noticed Olive's masses of black hair
were not in quite such trim shape when she came
home from that ride as upon setting forth; and
Peter admitted that upon that joyous gallop she
had dropped not only her whip, but most of her
hairpins, of which latter articles he had been
able to recover for her only a few.

"That's all the girl needs," he observed, sagely.
"Just shake out a few of her hairpins each time
you 're with her, and she 'll learn how to be
good friends with you."

"I don't have much chance to shake out her
hairpins," Jane objected.

"You will.  You're to go next time--some
day when her brother Forrest is away, and I
can ride his horse and you the one I had.  I
told her a pitiful tale of how you loved to ride,
how well you could do it, and----"

"Peter!"

"Oh, I didn't whine--just let her know I
was n't the only horseman in the family.  She 'll
ask you--see if she doesn't; if she doesn't I
won't go my self."

Olive did not ask Jane, however, and after
one more ride with her, Peter suddenly became
too busy to accept her invitations.  Olive went
off by herself one day, suffered a fall and a sprained
shoulder, and was thereby initiated at last into
Jane's friendship.

"My sister sent me over," said Murray
Townsend, one June evening, to Jane, who,
hemming a tiny ruffle, sat in the western sunlight
upon the little back porch, where the family now
spent their evenings, enjoying the first blossomings
of the small garden.  "She's been fretting
all day with that shoulder of hers she hurt last
week, and vows she can't get through the evening
with me.  The others are all away--as usual.
Won't you do us the favour of coming over?"

"Was it really her suggestion--or yours?"
Jane challenged him, for it was not the first time
he had made the attempt, upon one excuse or
or another, to get her across the street.

"Hers, on my honour, though I 'll admit I
seconded the motion.  She really wants you.
She's lying on a couch round on the side porch.
It's a jolly place, or would be if it--had you in
it," he nearly said, but discreetly substituted--"had
such a nice crowd in it as this."

He glanced from one to another of the group
upon the little porch.  Ross was softly breathing
notes from a flute.  Mr. and Mrs. Bell sat side
by side, in happy comradeship.  Peter, his long
legs extending well out upon the grass before the
porch, whittled at a bit of wood; and Nancy,
close beside her cousin Ross, was holding for
him a page of music, which he evidently was trying
for the first time.

"Stay with them, if you 'd like to," suggested
Jane, softly, as she put away her work and
prepared to accept his invitation.  "You know
they always like to have you--every one
of them--and I can slip across by myself.
I 'll take her some of my mignonette and June roses."

"Thank you for your kind permission,"
answered Murray, following Jane's white-clad
figure slowly down to the mignonette-bed at the
farther end of the garden, "but I 'd rather accept
it some evening when Miss Jane Bell is to be at
home.  'Hamlet' with Ophelia left out would n't
be much more of a play than it would be minus
the melancholy gentleman himself."

Armed with a great bunch of the fragrant
blossoms from the garden, Jane accompanied Murray
across Gay Street, through the gate in the high
hedge, and over the lawn and round the house
to the great sheltered porch on the other side,
its tall columns making it as great a contrast to
the miniature place she had just left as could be
imagined.  Rugs carpeted the floor, big bamboo
and rush chairs invited repose, and screens hung
ready to be dropped, and to shut it quite away
from invading breezes.

On a wide, richly cushioned settee lay Olive,
listless and unhappy.  She scanned Jane closely,
noted that her visitor was not less attractively,
if far less expensively, dressed than herself, and
lifted to her face eyes into which had suddenly
come a look of relief and interest.

"For me?" she asked, as Jane put the flowers
into her outstretched hands.  "Oh, how sweet!
Why don't we have such mignonette as that in
our gardens?"

"There are a lot of flowers," thought Murray,
as he watched Jane take her seat by his sister
and begin to entertain her, "that they grow in
Gay Street which we don't know the smell of
over here.  If we could just transplant the one
I brought over to-night, what a beginning of a
garden we should have!"





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.. _`JANE PUTS A QUESTION`:

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   CHAPTER VII


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   JANE PUTS A QUESTION

.. vspace:: 2

On her way home from a trip to a not
far-distant fruit-shop, Nancy Bell caught
sight of her friend, Shirley Townsend, waving
an eagerly summoning hand from the gateway
in the hedge.

It was a hot morning in early July, and Nancy,
after running into the house to report her return
to her mother, joined Shirley in a shady corner
under the shrubbery, which had become a favourite
trysting-place of the two children.

Half an hour afterward Nancy, her eyes wide
with excitement, sought out her mother and
Jane upon the small back porch, where each
was busy with the morning's work--at this
moment the looking-over of raspberries and the
shelling of peas.

"O mother--O Jane!" the child began, "the
dreadfullest thing has happened over at the
big house!  Forrest Townsend 's run away, and
they don't know where he is!"

"Why, Nan!"  Jane's busy fingers, red with
raspberry stains, stopped their work, as she stared
at her sister in dismay.  "That can't be so!"

"Yes, it can--it is!  Shirley told me.  He's
been gone three days, but they thought he must
be off on a visit till they got a letter this morning.
And they don't even know where the letter was
mailed from.  Mrs. Townsend 's sick in bed about
it, and Shirley says her father won't say a
word--just looks white and angry and queer."

"The poor father and mother!" murmured
Mrs. Bell, her eyes full of sympathy.

"But he can't have gone away to stay," said
Jane, staring at Nancy, still incredulous.  "He's
an impulsive fellow--quick tempered, hot-headed--and
he and his father don't get on well together.
But to run away----"

"But he has," persisted Nancy.  "The letter
said it was no use looking for him; he'd come
back some time when he 'd shown he could look
after his own--oh, I don't remember just what
he said--Shirley was n't sure what it meant.
But she said her mother just cried and cried,
and told her father she'd always known his harsh
ways----"

"Don't, dear--don't tell us!" Mrs. Bell
interrupted, quickly.  "Shirley should n't have
told you anything that was said; we have no right
to know.  When people are hurt and sad, they
say bitter things they are very sorry for
afterward.  The only thing for us to know is that
this trouble has come to our neighbours.  We
must think how we can help them.  I would
go over at once if I thought I could be of use to
poor Mrs. Townsend--and were sure she was
willing I should know."

They discussed the situation, Mrs. Bell and
Jane, as they went on with their work; and Jane
told her mother all she knew of Forrest's differences
with his father.  "It bothers me so," she ended,
sorrowfully, "that I did n't realise he was in
earnest about taking things into his own hands,
and do something to let the others know.  Do
you suppose that foolish threat about enlisting
in the army could really have been what he meant
to do?  Do you suppose he has done it?"

"It is a possible clue.  I think they ought to
know it, if they have nothing else to guide them.
When your father comes home I will talk with
him about it, and he may think it best to go to
Mr. Townsend himself, tell him what we know,
and offer to help."

But it proved not necessary to wait until the
evening to consult about offering sympathy and counsel
to the troubled family in Worthington Square.
Early in the afternoon, while Mrs. Bell lay
resting in her room, and Nancy and Jane sat in
the shadow of one of the big maples at the end
of the garden--their special retreat on hot
days--the tap of Murray's cane was heard on the
walk outside.

"Run into the house, dear, please!" Jane
whispered, quickly.  "It 's Murray, and I believe
he's come to talk with me about Forrest."

Her surmise proved correct, as she knew from
her first glance at the pale face and grave eyes
of her friend.  He was her friend--that she
had come to know very clearly in the last few
weeks--her friend in quite a different way from
that in which Forrest had shown her friendship.
There had developed a genuine congeniality of
interests between the quiet, book-loving youth
and the girl who had not gone to college, but
who was persistently giving herself the higher
education she longed for.  Books he was lending
her, lessons in French and German he had been
lately begging to be allowed to give her, and many
inspiring talks he had with her on the subjects
both loved, whenever a chance offered or he could
make one.

So now, as Murray came toward her, his eyes
fixed upon her as if he were sure that here he
would find something he sorely needed, Jane
felt an added longing to show her power to be
of use in time of trouble; and dropping her
book--one that belonged to Murray--she came
forward to meet him with outstretched hand,
and a look which showed him that she already
understood.

"You 've heard?" he asked, in surprise.  "I
don't know how, but I 'm glad, for I dreaded
to tell it."

"Shirley told Nancy--just the bare facts--and
of course my little sister told my mother
and me.  We 've been thinking of you all ever
since, wishing we could help you."

"You can; we need you.  Even mother feels
it.  Olive says when she asked her if she wanted
a nurse, she refused to have one except her maid,
but said, 'I wish I dared to ask that kind-faced
Mrs. Bell.  I feel as if she could tell me what to do.'"

"Mother will be so glad.  She will go over
by and by.  She loves to help people, and always
knows how better than anybody else in the world."

"I can believe it.  She makes a fellow feel
as if he belonged to her, somehow, and she was
interested in him."

"She is--that's why she makes you feel so.--Come
over here in the shade, please, and tell
me what I can do."

Murray dropped upon the grass beside Jane's
low chair with a sigh of weariness, and ran his
hand through the thick locks of his hair, pushing
them away from his forehead with an impatient
gesture, as if he would like thus easily to clear
away the clouds which bothered him.

"You see," he began slowly, "I feel more or
less responsible myself for this outbreak.  I can't
help thinking that if things had been between us as
they ought to be between brothers Forrest would
have brought his notions and troubles to me."

"But you--but he----"  Jane paused, surprised
at the tone he took.  "You have n't been
able to be with Forrest much, because--because
he has been so active and lived such a different
life----"

"You are kind to excuse me, but I don't see
how that makes it any better.  I could have
shown interest and sympathy enough with his
tastes and plans to have made him come naturally
to me.  I 'm the elder brother, and I have n't
been a brother, only a querulous, fault-finding,
elderly relative, as if he were fourteen and I
forty.  He did come to you with his grievances
against father, did n't he?"

Jane coloured a little as his eyes keenly questioned her.

"Yes, though I did n't want him to tell me,
and would n't listen to very much of it.  I felt
guilty to let him talk at all, but he was so----"

"I 'm glad you did.  If anybody could have
given him advice that he would take it would
have been you.  I was pretty sure he had been
to you, by the way I saw him fling over here
just after he 'd had a bout with father."

"He said something that day I feel as if your
father ought to know, and I 've been wondering
how I could let him know," and with this
introduction, Jane told Murray all she had learned
of Forrest's inclination toward the army and
its varied experiences, ending as gently as she
could with the boyish threat of enlisting if he
could not bring about his own appointment
to West Point.  Murray listened to her very soberly.

"Father would veto the West Point proposition
from the first word," he said, "merely because
he has no notion of the sort of fascination the idea
would have for a restless chap like my brother.
So if Forrest asked him to let him go, I 've no
doubt he refused him, and then--well, I can
easily imagine Forrest carrying out his threat
out of pure bravado.  It gives us something to
go by, anyhow.  We can soon find out if he 's
had the folly to enlist.  He may have the dash
and bravery to do a gallant deed, to fight stoutly
enough at a time of need, but the patience and
endurance for the every-day army life----"  He
shook his head.  "He's only a boy, you know.
You could n't expect it of him."

Just here Peter opened the little garden gate
and came swinging in.  "Hello!" he called, at sight
of the pair under the maple-tree.  "You two
look cool and restful out there.  May I join the
picnic party when I 've freshened up a bit?
A breakdown in the power at the factory sent
fifty or sixty of us in our department home for
a quarter-holiday."

"That 's luck for us, too!" called back Murray,
cordially.

Jane bent forward eagerly.  "Do you mind
Peter's knowing?" she asked.  "Pete's so big and
strong and--ingenious; he 's like mother at
knowing what to do."

"I want Peter to know," Murray replied,
without hesitation.  "We 're going to try to keep
this thing out of the papers, of course, and away
from our acquaintances as long as we can, but
your family must all know.  I feel, somehow, as if
having the Bell family stand by us would be worth
a lot."

When Peter came out, in fresh clothes, his
brown hair damp from the splashing shower he
had just taken, and joined the two others under the
maple, he was told the whole story.  He listened
in clear-eyed gravity, with once or twice a short
exclamation of regret.  As Murray ended with
Jane's suggestion about the runaway's possible
enlistment in the army, Peter drew a long breath.

"I believe I can understand how he felt about
it," he said, throwing his head back and staring
up at the sky for a moment.  Then, coming back
to earth with a squaring of his broad shoulders,
he added, with a rueful smile at Jane, "And that's
not because my home is n't the happiest one on
earth.  It 's just the feeling a fellow gets once in
a while that he 'd like to jump over something and
make a dash for the horizon line--to see what's
beyond it!  And I can see how he----"  Then
he broke off suddenly, looking at Murray.  "That
does n't mean I don't appreciate what this is
to all his family.  And if there's anything I can
do to help, I 'm your man."

"You 'd be a good one to send after him,"
Murray answered, with a slight smile.  "You 'd
know better than to pounce on him like an officer
of the law.  You 'd treat him like a brother--a
better brother than I 've been,"--and the smile
faded.

"Look here, don't take it that way.  There
are few brothers I know who stand shoulder
to shoulder as they ought to do.  It's odd, but
it's so, and a pity it is, too.  I think our family
is different from most--for the reason----"  Here
Peter stopped abruptly once more, meeting
Jane's eyes.  He could not say that early
training, given by wise parents, had made all
the difference in the world with their family life.

"Yes, I fancy I know the reason," said Murray,
wistfully, "and I congratulate you on it."

"I 'm a stupid sort of Job's comforter," Peter
went on.  "But one thing is sure; if you 'd like
an extra brother, to stand by in this difficulty,
here he is."

He laid his hand on Murray's arm as he spoke,
and Murray flushed with pleasure.  He turned
and held out his own hand, and Peter's closed
on it with a grip.  Then both began to talk
with a will about other things.

When Murray went home he took Mrs. Bell
with him.  He watched her vanish through the
doorway of his mother's room, where that poor
lady had been all day in a state of nervous prostration,
and felt that he had brought her a friend
worth while.

The moment that his father came home
Murray went to him with the news he had obtained
in Gay Street.  The two had a long conference,
during which Murray discovered his father to be
watching him with a peculiar expression, as if
surprised to find this reserved son so ready with
suggestions.

Mr. Townsend shook his head over the notion
that Forrest could have carried his revolt against
authority so far as to have taken the step of
enlisting in the army; but when Murray urged
that the clue should be followed up, the elder
man said slowly:

"I don't know whether it would do any good
to hunt him up and bring him home.  He's
taken things into his own hands.  I feel like
letting him manage his own affairs for a while.
He has n't the force of character to deprive
himself of the comforts of life very long.  If he has
enlisted, he 'd better take the consequences.  I 'm
not so sure but a term of service in the army
would do him good, take the conceit out of him,
and show him that he cannot escape discipline
anywhere;--life itself means discipline of one
sort or another."

"If we should find he had enlisted, then, you
wouldn't take the steps to get him off?  You
could, you know, sir, since he 's under age.  Peter
says so."

"Peter?  Peter who?"

"Peter Bell--in Gay Street."

"Oh, yes.  You see a good deal of the Bells,
Murray?"

"Yes, sir."

"I don't think I should apply to have him
released from service," said Mr. Townsend,
slowly, grim lines settling about his mouth.

A week went by.  At its close a second briefly
letter arrived from Forrest, addressed to his
mother.  It stated that Forrest had enlisted in
the army, and had, at his own application, been
allowed to join a regiment just leaving for
San Francisco, to be sent for a term of three
years' service in the Philippines.  By the time
the letter reached home, Forrest would have sailed.

The letter was written in a spirit of boyish
bravado, like the first, but although it upset
Mrs. Townsend again and sent her back to her
bed, it relieved the tension of the family.  It
furnished definite news of the young fellow's
whereabouts, and made it possible to
communicate with him when he should have reached
his destination.

Mrs. Townsend spent many days thereafter
in urging her husband to apply at headquarters
to have her son returned.  It could be done, she
was sure, because the boy was but nineteen,
and having enlisted without his father's
permission, must have misrepresented his age at
the recruiting-station.  But Mr. Townsend
remained firm.  He said that Forrest, having
chosen this course, must abide by it, at least for
the term of service for which he had enlisted.
He would not have a turncoat for a son, he said
sternly, although with a suspicious lowering of
the voice; and he was more and more impressed
with the conviction that the hard realities of life
would make a man out of Forrest if the stuff
of which men are made was in him.

"Meanwhile," he said to Murray, with a
sadness which the other detected, "it is the
father, rather than the son, after all, who has
the bitterest dose of medicine to take."

"I 'm sorry, sir," was all Murray could say,
wondering if his father meant the fact that his
plan for taking Forrest into the business would
have to be given up.

He suggested this to Jane Bell, in the little
garden one evening, down by the phlox-bed,
where she had gone to pick a bunch of flowers
for Olive, who sat upon the porch with Ross
and Peter.  Olive had at last learned the way
over to Gay Street, and having found it, had
discovered that the knowledge lent interest to a
life she had felt to be very dull.

"I suppose he feels badly about it," said
Murray, holding the phlox Jane gave him while
she picked a cluster of lilies to go with it.

"Indeed, he must."

"It is the thing he has looked forward to
for years--ever since he realised he could n't
make a business man out of me."

"Yes, and I suppose, even if your brother
came back after two or three years, less
head-strong than now, he might not be any more
willing to settle down to that life."

"No, I doubt if he would.  It's all up for
father, and it's a tremendous disappointment."

"I am very, very sorry for him," said Jane,
gravely, musing over her lilies.  There was
silence for a moment; then she looked up.  "You
don't think," she ventured, her hazel eyes scanning
his, "that anybody could possibly make it up
to him?"

"Anybody?  Who?"

"Who, indeed?"  Jane was breathing a little quickly.

Murray stared at her in mingled astonishment,
questioning and dismay.  Then he spoke, abruptly
and roughly: "In the name of all absurdity,
you can't mean *me*?"

Jane dropped her eyes, flushing deeply.  She
bit her lips.  "It would be very, very hard,
would n't it?"

Murray drew a deep, impatient breath.
"*Hard!*" he exploded, and turned away.  Then
he wheeled back.  "You're not serious?" he
said, hurriedly.  "You can't be serious in even
suggesting such a thing.  I--bookworm, cripple,
weakling----"

Jane raised her eyes once more.  In the
deepening twilight Murray felt as if they were
searching his soul.

"And yet," she said, slowly, and almost
wistfully, "it would be such a magnificent thing
to do.  It would take hero stuff, I know--yet,"
she smiled, "I think--you--could----"  Then
she stopped short.  "Oh, forgive me!" she
cried, softly, under her breath.  "What am
I that I should suggest hero deeds to you?  A
girl who cries nearly every night of her life because
she can't go to college!"





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.. _`MURRAY GIVES AN ANSWER`:

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   CHAPTER VIII


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   MURRAY GIVES AN ANSWER

.. vspace:: 2

"I wish I knew," observed Olive Townsend
to Jane Bell, "what in the world is the
matter with Murray.  He acts as if he had
lost his head completely.  I went into his room
this morning, and almost fell over a pile of Indian
clubs and dumb-bells; and I saw a set of chest
weights hanging against the wall.  It's the
queerest thing!  He's never gone in for that sort of
thing at all--and I shouldn't think he was
strong enough for it, either."

The two girls were driving along the park
roadway in a high-hung phaeton of Olive's,
behind a very smartly harnessed horse.  This
was the third time Olive had asked Jane to drive
with her, and although Jane would have enjoyed
excursions into the country much more than
these drives about the fashionable city streets,
she appreciated the honour Olive meant to do
her in thus exhibiting their friendship to all
beholders.  Olive had grown to be rather proud
of Jane's company upon these drives, for she
was conscious that they attracted considerable
admiring attention, and she fancied that Jane's
quiet daintiness of attire set off her own rather
more striking style.

Jane laughed at the notion that Murray was
not strong enough to put himself in the way of
being stronger.  She knew it was Peter who
had suggested this course of proceedings in
response to an envious comment from Murray,
when he had seen Peter scantily garbed for some
severe physical labor about the house.

"Biceps?"  Peter had laughed, as Murray
grasped the sinewy arm and expressed his
admiration for the fine development thereof.  "And
deltoid?--Oh yes, that's easy.  If your particular
form of daily toil does n't give you muscle
where you want it, get it for yourself with exercise.
You can build up anything you like in a
gymnasium--or in your own room, if you have the
persistence."

"You could, with your splendid health to
begin on, of course," Murray replied, with a
sigh, for he had begun to suspect that Peter's
unusual level-headedness and efficiency came in
considerable degree from his well-developed body.

"So could you.  A year of solid work with a
good instructor would make another chap of
you.  Two years, an athlete."

"Oh, no--not with my constitution."

"Your constitution, man!"  Peter had almost
shouted.  "What's constitution?  Something to
be made just about what you will of.  Fellows
with a direct tendency toward consumption have
made themselves giants by living outdoors and
sawing wood."

This had been the beginning, the first result
of which serious talk had been the dumb-bells
and chest-weights which had called forth Olive's
suspicion of her brother's sanity.

"But he's never cared for anything but
books--and to be let alone," objected Olive, when
Jane replied that she thought nothing better
could happen to Murray than to become interested
in building up his physical being.  "It's just
since Forrest has been gone--only think, that's
six weeks now--that Murray has been at this."

"It's telling on him already, too," said Jane,
feeling a sense of elation over the fact which she
could not quite account for.  "He has a better
colour.  I noticed it yesterday."

"That was sunburn," declared Olive, skeptically.
"He spent the afternoon lying on the ground
with a book down by the hedge, right squarely
in the hot August sun.  I think it was ridiculous."

"He's lived in the house ever so much more
than was good for him," Jane insisted, gently.
"So does everybody in cities.  My idea of
happiness--one sort--is a day on my grandfather's
farm.  It's only about ten miles out, and we 've
a plan.  Should you, Murray, and Shirley, care to
spend a day with us out there?  A sort of picnic,
you know.  Down by the river there are the
loveliest places you can imagine, and Peter says
he 'll take you fishing if you care for it."

"Indeed I should, I 'm sure," agreed Olive,
with real pleasure.  She loved new sensations,
and the notion of going fishing with Peter Bell
appealed to her strongly.  She was growing
more and more to respect and admire Peter;
in a way, it was true, in which she quite failed to
appreciate his best qualities, but in which she
responded, nevertheless, to those which his family
would have rated as his second best.

"Don't forget the picnic," was Olive's last
word, as she set Jane down at her own door.
"I shall begin to get an outing hat ready now."

"If I should forget, Peter would remind me.
It's his plan,"  Jane reassured her--a fact which
of itself pleased Olive, for she was confident that
it meant his regard for her entertainment.

If she had known, however, the whole plan
was a plot of Peter's for Murray's diversion.

"The fellow 's worrying about something,"
Peter had said.  "He's pitching into the exercises
I showed him, but his mind 's counting against
him.  I know what he wants to build himself
up for.  He told me that if he had to be the
family's sole representative in the matter of
sons for the next three years, he wanted to put
up a better showing, and I 'm decidedly glad he
takes it that way.  I 'd hate myself to be five
feet ten and weigh only one hundred and thirty.
Let 's take him--and the girls if you like--out
for a day on Grandfather Bell's farm.  What
do you say?  Do you suppose we could make
the thing acceptable to Miss Worthington
Square?"  After due consideration of the matter,
and some consultation with her mother, Jane
had enthusiastically agreed.  Now, upon returning
from the drive, she was able to tell Peter that
Olive had accepted the invitation with alacrity.

"What--fishing and all?" he laughed.
"Really, I think better of her ladyship than ever
for coming down to earth like that.  The question
is now, how to get them there without resorting
to hay-wagons--a form of conveyance I judge
Miss Olive would n't deign to accept."

"Imagine one rolling up to the *porte-cochère*
on the Worthington Square front!" and Jane
broke into such a merry laugh that everybody
joined in--for Jane had told Peter her news
at the dinner-table.

"Let Miss Olive and Murray and Shirley
drive in their own trap, and have Pete bring
out grandfather's new surrey for us.  I 'm sure
it's as trim a looking vehicle as any, if his horses
don't have quite the smartest harness going,"
suggested Ross McAndrew.  "The horses
themselves are crack-a-jacks."

"That will have to do, I think," Jane agreed,
"though it seems too bad to ask our guests to
take themselves."

"No matter in what order we go, you 'll find
we 'll come home democratically mixed up,"
prophesied Ross.  "I defy Miss Worthington
Square to withstand the leveling influences of a
day on Grandfather Bell's farm.  I 've no doubt
Peter will drive the trap home, with Rufe hanging
on the back seat, and Murray will learn what it
means to coax a pair of shy farm horses past
the electric cars.  As for me, I may come home
as jockey on young Major's back, the city youth
having proved not up to the situation."

With such merry comments the preparation
for the picnic was made.  And if the Bells had
known it, their guests looked forward to the
affair with quite as pleasant anticipations as
themselves.  When the day came--a sultry
August morning, with signs of thunder-showers
in the west--Olive and Murray and Shirley
found themselves as willing to risk a possible
wetting as the Bells themselves, who never
minded such small things as thunder-showers
in the least.

The farm horses--Grandfather Bell's pride,
and with reason, for they were a fine pair of
blacks--led the way, the new surrey carrying
such a jolly company that the guests, following
close behind in the smart trap, tried in vain to
rival their hilarity.  The three Townsends were
all arrayed in white linen from head to foot,
and presented a cool and attractive spectacle;
but Murray's eyes watched with envy the
parti-coloured group in the conveyance ahead, and
Olive reluctantly owned to herself that Jane's
fresh little blue cotton frock, while better suited
to a farm picnic than one of white linen, was also
a charming spot of colour upon the landscape.

"Now, who's going fishing?" called back
Peter, as he drove his steeds briskly in through
Grandfather Bell's gateway, followed by the trap
at its best pace.  "It's clouding over now, so
that we ought to have some good sport--if the
rain holds off, and I think it will, judging by the
wind.  Grandfather Bell can tell us that," he
added, as a tall old man of a hale and vigorous
aspect came out of the house to greet his guests.

"The rain won't bother you before afternoon,
I guess," prophesied Grandfather Bell, shaking
hands cordially with his guests.  "When it
does, you 'd better put for the house.  You can
have your picnic indoors, where you won't get
your clothes wet," and his glance fell on the
three white-clad young people from the city.

"Never mind our clothes," said Murray.  "We
were thinking of the hot day coming when we
put them on.  It would have been more sensible
to dress like you fellows," and he glanced from
Ross's worn gray corduroys to Peter's faded blue
flannels, in which costumes both young men
looked ruggedly--and not unattractively--ready
for roughing it.

"Picnics appeal to people from different points
of view," suggested Ross.  "Now, Miss Olive
can certainly sit on a rock and watch Peter,
Rufe, Nan and myself fish, giving us practical
suggestions from time to time--in a whisper.
Perhaps she 'll photograph us with that camera
she has there.  But I would advise that
Mr. Murray Townsend, Miss Shirley Townsend,
and Miss Jane Bell, sit apart on some mossy
bank and read some pleasant tale *about* fishing."

"Nonsense.  You talk like a stage manager,"
jeered Peter.  "Miss Olive 's going to do some
real fishing if Grandmother Bell has to lend her
a dress to go home in--and so are the rest.
Fishing is the first thing on this programme
and fishing is to be done.  You saw to the rods
and lines, Rufe--where are they?"

Rufe raced away to the barns, and came back
with a full fishing equipment for everybody.
After greeting Grandmother Bell, a pleasant
little old lady, with a warm welcome for every
one, the party proceeded through the orchard
and down a long, maple-Leaded lane to the river--a
picturesque spot, which had been the paradise
of the Bell family from its earliest recollections.

Here sport reigned for an hour, although few
fish were caught.  The spirit of hilarity ruled
the holiday too thoroughly to admit of much
wooing of the frightened prey; but nobody minded
except Rufus, who finally left the others and
wandered away up-stream, whence he returned
after a time, triumphant, with a respectable
showing of fish.

"The clouds don't look as threatening as they
did.  Could n't we climb that small hill on the
other side of the river?  I 've been looking at
that winding path for an hour, wishing I could
see where it leads," said Murray to Jane, propping
his fishing-rod against a tree.

"It leads to a little hemlock grove, and a field of
corn beyond," answered Jane, fanning her flushed
and laughing face with her wide-brimmed hat.

"Oh, don't tell me!  Come and explore it
with me, will you?"  Murray gave her such a
pleading look that she could not refuse him,
although she and Peter had agreed that this
picnic was not to be a "pairing off" affair, because
that would leave Ross in the lurch, and Ross
had been working hard of late, and needed an
outing, his cousins thought, more than anybody.

"We'll just go over and back, if you like--to
satisfy your curiosity," and Jane let him walk
away with her.

They slowly climbed the hill path, Murray
stopping to cut himself a stout staff in lieu of
the cane he no longer used.  "I shall always
be lame," he said to Jane, "but I 'm not going
to depend on canes any longer except for such
special occasions as this.  Do you know, I think
I 'm growing a shade brawnier--thanks to
Peter's training."

"I 'm sure you are; you look it," responded
Jane, warmly, "and I 'm so glad."

"There has been wonderful work done in the
world by people in ill health.  But I 'm afraid
I could never be a Carlyle or a Stevenson, no
matter how bright the fires of genius burned.
They worked for the love of it, but when the
task a fellow sees before him is one he dislikes,
he certainly needs the backing of a sound body."

As they attained the top of the hill, panting
a little for breath, Murray stared ahead into the
hemlock grove.

"That 's a cool-looking spot.  Can't we sit
down there a few minutes?  I 'll have to rest a
bit before I do more," he urged.  "It's three
years since I climbed a hill like that--just the
day before I had my accident.  I seem to have
got started on the uninteresting subject of myself,
so I may as well go on a little further and tell
you my plans about the same chap, if you don't
mind listening."

"I 'd love to hear them.  Here's a fine mossy
spot, and two trees to lean against," and Jane
dropped at the foot of one of the trees she had
pointed out.  Murray, casting aside his stick,
threw himself down at full length near by, his
arms clasped under his head.

"Ah, this is great!" he murmured.  "Smell
those balsams?  It makes one want to live
outdoors.  And that's what I'm thinking of doing."

"Really?  How?  Will you pitch a tent on
the lawn?  That would be fine for you, and
we should all envy you."

"No, I want a more radical change to outdoor
life than that--or at least I want the results.
I 've made up my mind that to live my life out
as a bookish invalid, if I might do better, is 'too
poor a way of playing the game of life,' as one
author I like immensely puts it.  I shall stick
to the books all I can, but--I want some good
red blood in my veins besides."

Forrest's words spoken weeks ago, charging
Murray with the very lack of "red blood," came
to Jane's mind, and she smiled and sighed,
thinking what a change those weeks had made
in the relations of the two brothers.  And here
was Murray wishing for the very thing the want
of which his vigorous brother had deplored.

"I 'm sure you can have it, and all the good
things that go with it."

"Which are many, as you people have already
taught me.  Honestly, it's seeing your family so
alive and hearty and happy that's brought me
to be dissatisfied with myself.  I 'm going to
have need of all I can put into Murray Townsend,
and so--I 've about made up my mind----"

He hesitated, pulling a hemlock branch through
his slim fingers with nervous energy.  Then he
began again: "I 've been reading a lot lately
about life on one of those Western ranches--real
ranch life, I mean; not Eastern play at it.
I 've a cousin who went to Montana six years
ago.  I get a letter from him once in a while.
He's a Westerner now, full-fledged.  I doubt
if he ever comes East again to stay.  I 've written
him to ask if he has any room for a tenderfoot
on his ranch, and if he says he 'll take me in,
I think I 'll go."

"Right away?"

"Right away, if father agrees--and I think
he will.  He 'll be only too glad to have me take
the chance of making a man out of myself,
instead of a bloodless bookworm."  Murray turned
over with a short laugh, and propping his chin
on his elbows, lay looking at Jane.

"How long shall you stay?"

"Long enough to do the business.  A year,
if necessary.  When I come back, I 'll probably
be wearing leather leggings with fringes, a
handkerchief round my neck, and a sombrero.  I 've
no doubt the cowboys will have played tricks
enough on me to prove satisfactorily to all
concerned whether I 'm a man or a mushroom."

Jane looked steadily down at the face below
her, and realised that it was a face of strength
as well as of fineness.  The eyes which met
hers were enlivened by a determination she had
never seen in them before, and her answer brought
into them a light which surprised and pleased her.

"I think it's the best plan in the world," she
said, heartily, "and I know it will succeed.
Nobody ever set himself to accomplishing anything
without accomplishing either that thing or
something better."

"What could the 'something better' be in my case?"

"I don't know.  Do you?"

The question was a challenge.  Murray sat
up.  A tinge of red crept into his cheek.  "Yes,
I know," he answered.  "So do you, I think.
You put it into my head.  Am I a coward,
that I can't decide to give myself over to my
father and the business?"

"No.  But you are planning to put your
shoulder to his wheel somehow--I know you
are, or you would n't be trying so hard to
strengthen that shoulder."

"You're a wizard--or a witch."  Murray
spoke soberly; then he laughed, as the two pairs
of eyes met, and he caught the fire in Jane's.
"Are you always so sure of your friends?"

"Always.  If I have a friend, I believe
in--her--whether she wants me to or not.  She
always proves me right."

"Suppose it 'him'?

"I don't know so much about the 'hims,'"
said Jane, "except my brothers.  The rule
works with them."

"You must be an inspiring sister.  You 've
brothers enough already, I suppose, but I wish
you 'd adopt another.  My sister--she can't be
far from your age, but she seems years younger.
She has n't thought about things the way you
have.  Look here!  If I go to Montana for a
year, I shall be pretty lonesome sometimes, I
expect.  Will you let me write to you?"

"It would be great fun," answered Jane,
simply, "to have letters from a real cowboy
with six-shooters in his belt."

"I 'll take them out when I write to you.
Must we go back?  Well, if you think we
ought--though I 'd like to lie here all day and dream
dreams about the great things I 'm going to do.
But a fellow can't dream much in the society
of the Bells--he has to be up and doing."

"With a heart for any fate," quoted Jane,
blithely, as she led the way.  "I 'll tell you a
better motto than that, though, fine as it is."

"What is it?  Give it to me, will you?"

"I 'll write it out for you."

"When?"

"To-morrow, perhaps."

"To-day, please.  I 'm an impatient chap."

"Very well.  You shall have it when we
get home.  It's one I can't talk about,
somehow--it gives me a choke in my throat--I don't
know why."

Hours later Murray found out why.  By the
time he and Jane had rejoined the rest of the
party the threatening storm-clouds had brought
the promised rain.  The lunch had to be eaten in
Grandmother Bell's pleasant kitchen, but the
guests enjoyed it almost as much as they could have
done in the sylvan spot that Peter had picked
out.  By three o'clock in the afternoon the storm
had passed.  It had cooled the air a little, so
that it was possible for the party to spend three
long and delightful hours upon the river before
going home.

"We three in what was once white," said
Murray, as he stood by the trap, "are a pretty
sorry-looking crowd to go back all together.
Why may I not change places with Peter, and
drive the Bell family home?"

Ross chuckled as he winked at Jane, and she
recalled his prophecy of some days earlier.  But
it was he and Nancy who took the back seat of
the trap, leaving Rufus and Shirley in the surrey,
to carry on an acquaintance which had developed
to great friendliness in the Townsend tennis-court,
where the children had played every evening
throughout the summer.

Up in his own room Murray took from his
pocket a slip of paper Jane had given him as
she said good night, and unfolding it as if it
were a message from a royal hand, he read it
slowly through.  The expectation of this
message had been warm all through the pleasant
drive home in the twilight.

The words of Jane's quotation were these:--and
as it happened that he had never seen
them before, they came to him at this crisis of
his life with peculiar force.

   |  "Life is an arrow--therefore you must know
   |  What mark to aim at, how to use the bow--
   |  Then draw it to the head, and let it go!"
   |

There was a little constriction in Murray's own
throat as he studied the brave words.  He saw
at a flash their deeper meaning.  "Make myself
fit to live my life," he thought "and then--whether
it's the life I want to live or not--let
it go!  Jane, you know how to fit the arrow to
my hand--bless you!  I will *draw* it to the
head--*and let it go*!"





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.. _`SNAP SHOTS`:

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   CHAPTER IX


.. class:: center medium

   SNAP SHOTS

.. vspace:: 2

"A letter from Montana for Miss Jane
Bell," observed Peter, distributing the
mail at the breakfast-table one May morning,
nine months after the picnic at Grandfather
Bell's farm.  "It strikes me these Montana
letters are beginning to arrive with astonishing
regularity."

"They began," declared Ross, enjoying the
sight of the sudden colour in Jane's face, as she
tucked the letter into her belt and tried vainly
to look unconscious as she went on serving the
family from a big dish of oatmeal porridge,
"by coming modestly once in about three or four
weeks.  Then they got to once a fortnight--that
was in midwinter.  Along about April----"

"If I were a big, grown man," murmured
Jane, "I 'd never condescend to keep track
of----"

"Along in April," pursued Ross, unmoved,
"once in ten days was the schedule.  But this
last, coming as it does just one short week after
its predecessor, and carrying, as it does, two
large red postage-stamps--which, I am
confident, is underpayment----"

"Stop teasing!" cried Nancy, always loyal to
her sister.  "Every one of you is envying Jane,
wishing you could have letters from a real cowboy."

"A real cowboy!" laughed Ross.  "I think
I see Murray Townsend getting himself up in
that rig.  With his pale face and thin shoulders
he 'd look like the tenderest kind of a tenderfoot."

Jane pulled the letter out of her belt.  The
previous letter had promised that this one should
bring some snap-shot pictures of the writer and
his surroundings.  She hoped, as she broke the
seal, that she should find them, feeling sure that
the extra thick letter indicated that it carried the
promised enclosures.

As she pulled out the sheets a little packet
of blue-prints dropped into her lap.  She picked
them up and fell to looking at them.  Peter,
sitting next to her, laughed to himself, as he
reached for his dish of oatmeal, Jane having
forgotten to serve him.  But everybody forgot
breakfast, as the blue-prints went round the table.
All but one were scenes of ranch and camp life,
bringing into view horses and cowboys of all sorts
and conditions, each carefully labelled with its
descriptive title.  But the one at the bottom of
the pack was called "the tenderfoot"--the only
one of the set in which Jane's correspondent
was in evidence.

"Can it be possible this is Murray?" exclaimed
Mrs. Bell, studying incredulously the erect figure
on horseback, life and energy in every outline,
from the tilt of the wide hat to the set of the leg
in the saddle.  "Why, he looks as if he weighed
thirty pounds more than when he went away."

"By George, the fellow has n't roughed it
nearly a year for nothing, has he?" admitted
Ross.  "He doesn't look the stage cowboy,
either--I 'll say that for him.  Those clothes
have seen wear and rain, and that hat has had
the true Western shape knocked into it.  It
makes you envy him, does n't it?"

Peter said nothing, but his eyes dwelt upon
the figure in the saddle with a look of longing
so intense that if anyone had been observing
him it must have told his story plainly.  One
person was observing him, and as Peter looked up
at last, with an involuntary glance at his father,
who had just made some observation on the
advantage it had been to the rich man's son to get out
among the ranchmen and gain a new view of
life, he met his father's eyes.  Joseph Bell
understood just what it meant to Peter to stay at home
and work as foreman in a note-paper factory
when there were such places as Montana in
the world waiting for young men to come and
explore them.  And there was that in his father's
look which told Peter that his sacrifice was
appreciated.

Up in her own room, when a dozen duties had
been done, Jane read her letter.  It was to her
a deeply interesting letter, as had been all those
which came before it, for Murray wielded a
graphic pen, and his pictures of the sort of life
he had been living were vivid as colour-sketches.
He was rejoicing in the coming of spring and
summer, after the long, cold winter, and his
delight seemed to Jane so unlike any pleasure
in outdoor life she had seen him show at home
that it filled her with joy.  The letter said, as it
neared the close and fell into the personal vein,
as letters do:

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.. class:: small

I never knew before what it was to breathe way down to
the bottom of my lungs.  My existence--after my accident,
and up to the time I came here--seems now to me like that
of some pale monk in his cell, feeding on other men's thoughts,
but never living them himself.  I've learned to live!  You,
who have long known that secret, will be glad with me, won't
you?

.. class:: small

All through the winter I was wrapped to the eyes whenever
I put my head out of the cabin door.  Men dress warmly
here in the winter--flannel-lined canvas overcoats--"blanket
coats" they call them--felt boots, and all that.  But they
don't make grannies of themselves as I did--at first.  As the
winter advanced, though, I began to get hardened to it, and
before spring I could stand a pretty low temperature without
feeling my blood congeal.  But when spring came--spring
in this Western country!  I wish I could describe it.  The
air like wine, the sunshine like--nothing I can think of.
When spring came I began to expand mentally and physically--and
in still another way, I think.  Anyhow, I 'm not the
same fellow who went to the doctor for an outfit of drugs
before he dared start West.

.. class:: small

I 've learned a lot from these men I 've been associated
with.  A rough set they would seem to you, most of
them--they did to me at first.  But when I got to know them,
underneath the roughness I found--men.  It's no use trying
to put it into a letter.  I must talk with you, face to
face--and just what that means to me when I think of it I won't
venture to say.  I 'll be home in the fall, and then--I 'm
going into my father's business.  I have n't said that before,
have I?  You 'll please not mention it to anyone, except
Peter, if you like; I want to surprise father.  That's going
to be my reward for doing my duty.  It is my duty--I see
it plainly at last, and every ounce of determination I can
grow from now till fall is going to be just so much more to
offer him.  But I won't brag about that.  Do the best I can,
it won't be a wonderful gift, for I 'm afraid my talents don't
lie in that direction.  But if honest effort can make
up--Jane, I have n't watched some of these heroic chaps for
nothing.  I 'm simply shamed into taking my medicine, and
shutting my mouth tight after it.  And that's the last word
about it's being medicine.  I 'm going to get interested in
the business if pitching in all over will do it.

.. class:: small

This is a long letter, and I 'm done--except to tell you
that the West does n't deserve all the credit for my altered
views of life.  A certain girl I know, who wanted to go to
college, but gave up all thought of it because, besides the
family, her father and brothers had half a dozen helpless
elderly relatives to support, isn't the poorest sort of
inspiration to her friend, when he happens to be a fellow who never
gave up anything for anybody in his life.  He values her
friendship far more than he dares to tell her now.
Somebody--Ruskin?--said a knight's armour never fitted him quite
so well as when the lady's hand had braced it--and I 'm
beginning to understand what that rather picturesque
metaphor may mean.  Do I sound sentimental, and are you
laughing at me?  Don't do it!  I 've not a "gun" in my belt, but
I'm rather a rough looking customer nevertheless.  I came
in an hour ago, wet to the skin--caught out in a cloudburst
without my slicker--and while my clothes dry am attired
in my cousin's (seven sizes too big!) being averse to putting
on any of the clothes in my trunk, the foolish clothes of
civilisation.

.. class:: small

I weigh one hundred and sixty-five.  What do you think
of that?  And it's not flesh, but worked-on muscle and sinew.
Did I say I was done?  I am.  But I am also

.. class:: noindent small white-space-pre-line

Faithfully your friend,
    MURRAY TOWNSEND.

.. vspace:: 2

"You look it," agreed Jane, studying the
photograph.  "You certainly look it."  She gave
the little print one more careful examination,
noting the steady gaze the pictured face gave back,
a spirited expression very different from the
half-moody look she had first known; then she put the
photographs away and went about her work.  And
as she went, a little song sang itself over and over
in her heart--the song of trust in a ripening
friendship of the sort that makes life worth living.

Spring and summer passed slowly by, marking a
growing interchange of amenities between the little
house in Gay Street and the big one in
Worthington Square.  Things had happened during
the winter, things kept on happening as the year
advanced, to draw the two families together.
In January Shirley had had a long and severe
illness, during which Mrs. Bell and Jane made
their way into the inmost heart of every member
of the household.  There were nights during
that illness when Joseph Bell, feeling that
difference of social position counted for nothing when
a father was in trouble, went over to shake Harrison
Townsend's hand, bidding him be of courage--and
found himself detained as a friend in need.

By and by, when the anxiety was over and the
Bells ceased coming often in and out, the
Townsends began to summon them.  Mr. Townsend
discovered the shrewd wisdom and genial philosophy
of Joseph Bell to be of value, and often went to
sit with him in the little front room, where his
eyes noted with approval the rows of books.  He
discovered that Armstrongs's head man knew
more that lay between the covers of those books
than did Harrison Townsend himself.

As for Mrs. Townsend and Mrs. Bell, while
they were too different in temperament and taste
to get far into each other's lives, they found
enough in common to bring them together rather
oftener than could naturally have been expected.
There was a quiet poise about Mrs. Bell which
the other woman, accomplished woman of the
world though she was, could only study in despair
of ever being able to attain.  But she found
a rest and refreshment in her neighbour's society
which none of her more fashionable friends
could give her, and she sent often for Mrs. Bell
to keep her company.

"Olive's taken one big step in advance,"
Peter said to his mother, one day in early summer.
"She has begun to write regularly to Forrest."

"I'm very glad," said Mrs. Bell.  "Does he
answer her letters?"

"He does--only too glad to, I should say.
She's shown me some of his letters.  There 's
a homesick grunt to them, that's sure.  Life in
the army, and particularly life in the Philippines,
is n't unmitigated bliss, and he's finding it out.
He does n't exactly squeal, but you can see how
it is with him."

"It will do Olive good to take up such a sisterly
duty.  Was it your suggestion?" asked Mrs. Bell.

"How did you guess that?  I did give her a
talk one day, when she happened to say that
Shirley was the only one of the family who wrote to
Forrest with any regularity.  She was pretty angry
with me for a day or two, but she came round,
and now she writes once a fortnight.  There 's
really more to that girl than you would think."

"She is improving very much, I am sure,"
agreed his mother, warmly.  "With a different
early training, Olive would have been by now
a much more lovable girl than she has seemed.
But, happily, it 's not too late to give her new
ideals, and I think you have helped in that
direction."

"Ideals?" mused Peter.  "I don't think I
have any of those--at least, I don't call them
by that name.  Rules of the game--how will
that do, instead?  The foreman of Room 8 in a
note-paper factory is n't supposed to have ideals,
is he?"

"I don't know about that.  Suppose you ask
the men and women under you.  I fancy they
would protest your ideals were pretty hard for
them to live up to?"

Peter laughed to himself.  "Maybe they
would.  But they would n't put it that way.
'The boss is a tough one to suit,' they 'd say."

"Call it what you will--rules of the game,
if you like.  But, as the children used to say,
'Peter Bell plays fair!'"

"I hope he does.  If he does n't, it is n't the
fault of his trainer."  And the gray eyes met
the brown ones for an instant in a glance which
said many things Peter could not have spoken.

The days went on; June gave place to July;
August heat melted into September mildness;
and October, with its falling leaves, marked the
end of the days of outdoor life lived from April
to November in the little garden.

"The twenty-fifth is Jane's birthday," observed
Nancy to Shirley, several days before that event.
"We 're wondering what to do in celebration."

"Why, it's mine, too!" cried Shirley.  "How
funny that we did n't know it!  We ought to
celebrate it together."

This remark was duly reported to Mrs. Bell,
who said at once that they must invite Shirley
over to have her birthday cake with Jane's.
But before this plan could be carried into effect,
an invitation arrived from the big house, asking
every member of the Bell household to be present
at a small dinner of Shirley's own planning.

"This is the first time we 've all been asked over
there together--it's quite an occasion," declared
Peter, on the evening of the twenty-fifth, as he
stood waiting in the doorway for everybody to
be ready.  "I say," he exclaimed, "but we're
gorgeous!"

And he fastened admiring eyes on his mother,
who was dressed in a pale gray gown of her own
making, and therefore of faultless effect.  The
quality was fine also, for Peter had looked after that.

"Gorgeous does n't seem exactly the word,"
Ross commented.  "Demure but coquettish, I
should call that gown."

The party proceeded in a body to the corner
of Worthington Square, where Jane, under escort
of Peter, came to a sudden halt.  "Oh, I 've
forgotten something to go with my present to
Shirley," she said to him.  "Give me the key,
please.  I 'll run back and get it.  Don't wait.
I want to slip into the dining-room over there,
anyway, before I see anybody, and I 'll come
in by the side door."

So Jane ran back alone, and let herself into
the dark house, the lamps having, for safety,
been all extinguished before the family went
out.  She hurriedly lighted the lamp in the front
room, for she meant to fill out a card with a certain
appropriate quotation, to put with Shirley's
gift, and the book she needed was in this room.

The quotation was not as easily found as she
had thought it would be, and hurriedly searching
for it, Jane consumed considerable time, but
did not want to give it up, for the words fitted
Shirley delightfully, and would give point to
the gift.

So bending over the book, still unsuccessful,
she heard with regret the sound of a quick step
upon the porch, followed by a ring at the bell.
She sprang up, book in hand, wishing she had
taken her affairs, with her light, into the dining-room.
Hoping that her appearance, in her evening
frock, would warn the chance visitor that the
time was inopportune, she opened the door.

"Jane!" exclaimed a joyful voice.  "Ah, but
this is good luck!"  And Jane looked up into
a face so brown and rugged and strong that
for an instant she did not know it.  But the
eyes gazing eagerly into her own told her in the
next breath who stood before her.  She put out
both hands, speechless with surprise.  They
were grasped and held, as Murray Townsend
closed the door behind him with a sturdy shoulder.

"I--you--why, I thought you were n't coming
for a month yet," she said, half shyly, for in
spite of the smile and the warm handclasp, it
seemed as if this must be a stranger who stood
before her, radiating health and happiness, and
looking so different from the pale young man
who had gone away a year before.

"I was hit by a sudden wave of homesickness that
swept me off my feet," Murray explained, releasing
the hands which were gently drawing themselves
away, but continuing to stare down at the engaging
young figure in its modest evening attire, as if
he had seen nothing so attractive in all Montana,
in spite of his fine tales of its glories.  "I began
to think about it, and that was fatal.  Once
the notion of coming home a bit ahead of the date
I 'd set took hold of me, I was no more use to
anybody.  They told me to pack up and start,
for I was n't fit to brand a calf, and could n't earn
my salt."  He laughed.  "Tell me you 're not
sorry."

"Indeed, I'm not.  This happens to be my
birthday, and it's the nicest surprise I've had yet."

"Thank you--that's the welcome I wanted.
But"--he glanced at her dress again, and his
face fell--"you were going out?"

"Only to Worthington Square," laughed Jane.
"It's Shirley's birthday, too, and we're all to be
there at dinner.  Why, you must know!  You 've
just come from there."

"That is a joke on me.  I rang--no latch-key,
you know--and a new maid I 've never seen
let me in.  I saw everything lighted up and
flowers all about, and asked if they were
entertaining.  She said they were, and everybody
was dressing.  So I just turned and ran, thinking
I 'd slip over here and see you first, since I could n't
see much of my family till the affair was over.
Well, well--so I may spend the evening in your
company.  Talk about luck!"

They stood there, exchanging questions and
replies in the laughing, disconnected way in
which people are wont to address each other in
the first excitement of an unexpected and welcome
meeting, neither of them knowing quite what they
were saying, but each feeling that something of great
importance had happened.  Then Jane gathered
up her wraps and Shirley's gift, and said, with
a startled glance at the clock, "It is later than
I thought!  We must go this minute."

"Shall I put out the light?" and Murray
strode across the floor.  Jane noted with gladness
that his walk was the walk of a strong man.

They crossed the street to the hedge gate, and
came to the side entrance.  As he put his thumb
to the bell, Murray said, half under his breath,
"I've imagined all sorts of home-comings, but
never one quite so nice as this.  To make my
entrance with you----"

"Oh, you 're not going to make it with me!"
said Jane, gaily.  "I shall stay in the dining-room,
arranging Shirley's plate, until you are
safe in the midst of them."

And plead as he would, Murray found there
was no way to make her change this decision.
So, at last, hearing the voices of the others
in the big hall, where they were gathered
about the fireplace, in which roared a royal
October fire, he went to the door and opened it
a crack.  From this position, he looked back
at Jane, where she stood by Shirley's chair
watching him across the gala decorations of
roses which crowned the handsome table.

"I 'm at home again!" he called to her softly,
and she nodded, smiling.

Then, hat in hand, he threw the door wide and
marched through, shoulders back, head up,
eyes intent upon the faces which, at the opening
of the door, had turned that way.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`HIDE AND SEEK`:

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   CHAPTER X


.. class:: center medium

   HIDE AND SEEK

.. vspace:: 2

There was a moment's astonished hush
as the group about the fire stared at the
erect young figure.  Then Murray's father was
the first across the floor to meet him; and in an
instant more the whole family was upon him,
while the Bells rose, smiling, to do him honour.

"My dear boy!"  There was a great gladness
in Harrison Townsend's voice and he wrung his
son's hand as if he would wring it off.  Murray's
mother, too--he had not known she was capable
of so much tenderness, and he kissed her with a
feeling that in his thoughts he had n't done her
love for him justice.

As for Olive and Shirley, there was nothing
lacking in the way they showed their joy in
having him at home again.  Murray himself,
during this long year of absence, was not the
only one who had learned a few enlightening
truths about the great business of living.

To the full, also, Murray enjoyed the surprising
fact that the Bells were grouped about the fire
in a way which indicated that they were entirely
at home.  He rejoiced in the heartiness with
which the male members of that family gripped
his hand--they seemed like brothers.  And
when the sweet-faced, bright-eyed lady in gray
pressed his hand in both her own and looked
at him as if her pleasure in his return was
very great, Murray, quite unable to help it,
stooped and kissed her also.  Surely,
homecoming was a happier thing than he had dared
to picture it.

He was off upstairs to his room presently,
while word was sent to an exasperated cook to
delay the dinner yet a little longer.  In less
time than could have been expected, however,
Murray was down again, and in his evening
clothes showed even more plainly than before the
astonishing increase in his weight.

"These shoulders," cried Peter, inspecting
them, "can they be the shoulders of the delicate
young gentleman who went away last year looking
so long and lean and lank?  I wonder you could
get them into your coat."

"I could n't," Murray answered, laughing.
"I had to borrow father's dinner-jacket and
one of his waistcoats."

"It was fortunate for you that the old coat
was n't given away when the new one came home,"
his father observed, regarding the shoulders in
evidence with great satisfaction.

They went out to dinner in the gayest spirits,
and if everybody remembered with regret the
one absent, everybody still rejoiced that this
promising son of the house was once more at
its board.  For there could be no question that
the eldest son looked now a fit representative of
the family of Townsend.

The dinner which followed was an elaborate
one, for it was not within the range of the hostess's
notions to entertain in any simple fashion, even
when the occasion was the birthday of a
fourteen-year-old.  But the young people at the board
succeeded in infusing so much of their own
joyousness into the affair that the time passed
swiftly.  There were birthday gifts at Jane's
plate as well as at Shirley's, and it would have
been hard to tell, at the close of the feast, which
pair of cheeks was the pinker, or which pair
of eyes the brighter.  It is safe to guess
however, that there were elements in the pleasure
of one recipient which must have been lacking
in that of the other, and that the presence of
one birthday guest counted for more to her than
all the gifts put together.  The fact that she could
hardly look up without encountering the interested
glance of the newly arrived traveller was just a
trifle disconcerting, and it must be admitted
that when Jane and Shirley gathered up their
gifts at the close of the dinner, the little girl knew
better than the older one just what she had received.

Dinner over, a short and not especially
dramatic little scene took place behind closed library
doors.  Scenes which mean the most are often
quietest of all.

"I just wanted to tell you, sir," said Murray
to his father, "something I thought you might
like to know right away.  I--went West to
make myself strong enough to--to go into the
business, if you care to have me.  I mean,"
he went on quickly, as his father looked at
him as if he could not quite believe the purport
of these words, "I mean in whatever capacity
you can use me.  Shipping-clerk, if you think
I 'd better begin at the bottom"--and his smile
was not a smile which supplied "but of course
you won't."

Mr. Townsend stood looking at Murray, studying
the straightforward gaze which met his; noting
the tints of health, the signs of vigour in the
fine face.  "Murray, do you mean it?" he asked.

"I do, sir."

"And yet you don't like the prospect of a
business life any more than you ever did, do you?"

"Not much, sir."

"You make this offer knowing fully what it
entails?  I have little expectation that your
brother will ever agree to my wishes."

"That's what decided me."

"You are willing to give up your books?
You could complete your college course now,
with your renewed health."

If Murray winced at this he did not let it show.

"I think you need me now, sir.  And as for
the college course--and the books--I shall
have my evenings."

Mr. Townsend studied his son's face a full
minute in silence.  Then he held out his hand.
Murray seized it with a grasp which banished the
elder man's doubts and showed him that his
boy's heart was in this offer of himself.  The
two shook hands without speaking.  There seemed
no need of further words just then.

It being Shirley's birthday, that young
person's wishes ruled the hour.  Prompted by
Rufus, who thirsted for something lively, she
decreed a game of hide-and-seek over the whole
house, and succeeded in enticing the elder people
into the frolic.  Mr. Townsend and Murray,
coming from the library, found things in full swing.

Mr. Bell was just emerging from a small
closet under the staircase, his hair much
rumpled.  Mrs. Bell, laughing blithely, had run
round a corner of the reception-room and touched
"goal" before her son Rufus could swing himself
down the stairs and get in ahead of her.
Mrs. Townsend--and her husband could not quite
credit his eyes as he saw her--was, with trailing
skirts held close, squeezing out of a very small
corner behind the grand piano in the drawing-room.

"Well, well!" cried the newcomers, enthusiastically.
"Let us into the game."

"Come on!" shouted Rufus.  "Father 's 'it'!
Let's play it in another way, and hide for keeps.
Everybody stay hid till found, and each man
found join the hunt.  Makes it nice and
exciting for the last fellow."

"You 'll have to tell us our bounds pretty
carefully," said Mr. Bell, smiling at his hostess.
"In our excitement we may open the wrong doors."

"Open any door," responded Mrs. Townsend
promptly, feeling more like a girl again than she
had felt in many years of formal entertaining,
and preparing, as she spoke, to hurry up the
staircase to a retreat that she felt would be secure.
It proved great fun, and a full half-hour went
by before the last one was found.  Murray had
been the first to be discovered, his head so full
of the late talk in the library that he had
somewhat dazedly secreted himself in a position easily
come upon by Mr. Bell.  So when the second
round began, it was Murray who stood counting
the tale of numbers in the hall below, while his
quarry scurried away over the house.

"He knows every nook and corner of it, of
course," whispered Ross to Jane, as they ran
lightly up the second flight of stairs, "so we 'll
have to hide pretty close to escape him.  I 'm
for a closet I know of where there's a pile of
blankets as big as a barn.  Will you come?"

"No--I know a better place," and Jane
slipped away by herself.  She meant to be the
last found, and to elude Murray as long as she
could, a very girlish feeling having taken
possession of her that the time to run away is the time
when you see somebody looking uncommonly
as if he would like to be with you.  Although
she longed to hear the outcome of the conference
in the library, she was somehow just a little
afraid of the new Murray, and it was with a
delightful sense of exhilaration that she made
her quick and quiet way up a third flight of stairs
to one of Shirley's haunts in an unused portion
of the regions under the eaves.

It was a long time before she heard the sounds
of the hunt, in which at last the whole party
had come to join, approaching her hiding place.
But suddenly a lower door was thrown open,
and Murray's voice sounded far down in a
determined challenge:

"We'll have you now, Jane--it's no use.
Shirley 's kept us away so far--the rascal--but
your time 's up!"

She *could not* be caught!  There was a tiny
door low down in the side of the closet where
she was hiding, and dark though she knew it
must be in the unknown region beyond this
door, she opened it, slipped through, closed it,
and crept along the bare beams beyond.

Murray was carrying a little electric searchlight,
which he was flashing into every nook and crevice.
Its sharp beam had penetrated the hole in the
blankets Ross had kept for a breathing space.
It had likewise sought out the hems of skirts,
the soles of shoes, fingers clutching concealing
draperies, and elbows sticking unwarily out from
sly nooks.  Jane saw its rays outline the edges
of the small door beyond which she crouched;
then she heard Murray's triumphant cry, "O-ho,
she's dropped her handkerchief!  Now we 're
hot on the trail.  She's gone through this door,
the crafty lady!"

There was a shout of mingled laughter and
expostulation.  "She wouldn't go through that
rat-hole!  It's too dark in there for a girl.  There 's
no floor, either."

But Murray was attempting to open the door.
It was a sliding door, not a hinged one, and for
a moment it delayed him, for he was not familiar
with these regions, so dear to Shirley.

During that moment, Jane, with the breathless
unreadiness to be discovered which takes hold
of the hiding one, even in a game, had desperately
retreated over the rafters, in the hope of coming
upon some sheltering corner.  The next instant,
with a smothered cry, she had fallen over the
edge of something, *splash* into three feet of water!

Nobody had heard her, and somehow, in the
intensity of the game, Jane's second emotion,
after the startling sensation of her sudden
immersion, was one of absurd relief at finding herself,
after all, safe from discovery.  For, as the little
door at last flew open, and Murray's brilliant
light leaped into the space under the eaves, it
disclosed to Jane that she had dropped into a
cistern, the top of which lay level with the floor
beams, and at the bottom thereof, where, having
scrambled to her feet, she stood stooping, was
out of sight of the faces peering in at the small door.

"Not here," was Murray's disappointed observation,
after one wave of his light round the
small space, "unless she's in mother's special
rain-water tank, white frock and all.  Come
on.  I thought we had her then, sure.  Where
can she be?  She's been here--witness that
handkerchief.  And if there's a cranny we have n't
explored, I 'll----"

The little door closed with a slam; the light
faded away from its edges.  The voices of the
party were heard retreating down the stairs,
and Jane was left alone to realise the humour
of the situation.

It was undoubtedly humorous.  It could hardly
be dangerous, for October had been a mild
month, and Jane was well used to cold plunges.
The wetting of the pretty frock was of no consequence,
for it was quite washable.  It was fairly
easy to scramble back to the rafters--Jane
had done that the moment the searching party
was out of hearing, and was carefully wringing
out her drenched skirts.  Her impromptu bath
had wet her to the shoulders, besides bruising
her arm rather badly.  But the trying thing
was to get downstairs and away without being
discovered--and the whole company in full
cry over the house!

Jane laughed rather hysterically, shivering a
little, more from excitement and chagrin than
from chill.  She crept carefully to the small
door, meaning to push it open and listen, when
suddenly it began to slide quietly aside of itself.
The next instant she saw a sunburned hand upon
its fastening, and heard a cool voice, close by,
say quietly:

"It's all right.  Nobody knows but me.
They 've given it up, and sat down to await your
own sweet will in showing up.  Here 's a big
steamer rug.  Will you have it to wrap up in?
I 'll get you home without a soul knowing, and
we 'll play it off as a joke, somehow."

"Thank you," answered Jane, in a very meek
voice, which shook with mingled irritation and
merriment, as the rug came through the opening.
"Perhaps I could put it on better if I were not
balancing myself on these rafters."

"I beg your pardon.  I 'll get out of this
closet, and you can get in.  I just thought you
would n't leave so--so damp a trail behind you
if you were wrapped up in something.  Here
are a--er--a pair of Olive's rubbers for your
feet, so you won't show any tracks."

Murray's voice was shaking also, and in a
minute more the two were laughing together.
Jane, shrouded in her rug, emerged from the
closet into the attic, and Murray regarded her
by the light of his electric searcher.

"You don't look much the worse for having
taken such desperate measures to escape me,"
he remarked, noting with keen enjoyment the
rich colour on the cheek near which he was rather
mercilessly holding his torch.  "Rather meet
a cold ducking than a warm friend any time,
wouldn't you?"

"Not at all.  I--you know how one hates
to be caught."

"Does one?  Now I can't conceive jumping
into a tank of water to escape you, if you had
been after me!"

"Please stop laughing at me and help me to
get home."

"I'm not laughing at you.  I'm--I may
pretend to be laughing, but inside, I assure you,
I 'm tremendously worried lest this running
away indicates a state of mind--"

"Please take me home!"

"Come, then."  He led the way, by back
staircases, to a quiet side entrance, and so quickly
across the street, and into her own house.  Then
he went back to the others, to evade their questioning
so cleverly that nobody but Jane's mother
suspected that anything out of the ordinary had
happened.  In a very short time indeed Jane
drifted inconspicuously in upon the company
again, and when inquiries from the younger
members of the party as to the change in her
costume fell thick and fast upon her, Murray
protected her with the nonchalant explanation:

"Don't bother her.  She's very kindly trying
to shield me for being the cause of a little accident
that happened to the other dress.  It was
confoundedly awkward of me, but she cheers me by
declaring that she can easily repair damages!"

It was Murray who took Jane home again
by and by, and who lingered on the porch, after
the others had gone in, to tell her how his father
had received the good news.

"I 'm so glad!"  Jane's hands were clasped
tight together.  "I knew it would be just as
you tell me.  Are n't you wonderfully happy?"

"Wonderfully.  Happier than ever in my
life--except for just one thing."

"Nothing serious?"

"Well--I certainly hope not.  What bothers
me is that--you seem, somehow--not exactly
afraid of me, but--different.  I don't know
how to express it--but I----"  He stopped,
his tone growing anxious.  "You know, I could n't
bear that," he added.  "Unless I thought it
meant----  See here, Jane--are we just as
good friends as ever?"

"Why, of course we are!"  She said it shyly.
She was very glad it was so dark on the little porch.

"Friends for always?"

"I don't change, I think," she answered,
with a proud little lift of the head.

"Don't you?  Well, as I don't either, that
ought to satisfy me.  Yet it does n't quite, after
all.  It's odd, but I believe just being good
friends who don't change is n't enough.  Oh,
don't go!  You're not angry?  Yes, I know
it's late, but I 've hardly seen you yet.  You
will go?--But you 'll let me come over early
to-morrow--after more than a year away?
Well, then, to-morrow I 'll have to teach you
not to be afraid of me.  On my honour I 'm not
carrying a 'gun!'  Wait a minute--just a
minute! ... *How did I ever stay away from you so
long?* ... --Good night, little Jane--good night!"





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.. _`IN THE GARDEN`:

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   CHAPTER XI


.. class:: center medium

   IN THE GARDEN

.. vspace:: 2

Winter--long and cold; spring--late
and slow; then, all at once, in June,
radiant summer and the little garden round the
corner in Gay Street was a place of richly bursting
bloom--a riot of colours against the leafy green
background of its vine-hung walls.

Toward the end of June a week of almost
tropical heat had made the evenings outdoors,
on the little porch, and in the garden itself, events
to be looked forward to throughout the day,
Joseph Bell, Peter, Ross, and Rufus,
thought of them many times during the hottest
day of all--midsummer, the twenty-first of the
month--and came home at night to find the
table laid for a cool-looking supper out under
the shadow of the maple, and Mrs. Bell, Jane,
and Nancy, in thin summer frocks, putting the
finishing touches to the attractive meal about
to be served there.

Up in a window of the house next door,
behind closed blinds, an elderly neighbour had
watched Jane wreathing a big glass bowl full
of strawberries with a crisp little green vine spray.

"The Bells certainly are the queerest people
anybody ever lived neighbour to," she said over
her shoulder to her sister, a withered little spinster,
who, in this hot, small upstairs room, was sewing
at another window, which did not look out upon
the garden, and therefore could have its blinds
open.  "Anybody 'd think life was just one
picnic to them.  Think of lugging all those dishes
outdoors this hot night, and then lugging 'em
all in again--and they all dressed out in flowered
muslins!"

The sister came to the window and peered
somewhat wistfully out through the closed blinds.
"It does look sort of pleasant out there," she
said.  "And we certainly can't say they 're
not good neighbours.  Mrs. Bell sent over a
whole tin of those light rolls of hers this morning.
They 'll come in handy for supper."

"There come the men."  Mrs. Hunter brought
her gaze to bear upon the four who had stolen
up to the gate, and who, as she spoke, burst
out suddenly with a crisp clapping of hands
which brought the three in the "flowered-muslins"
to the right-about.  If Mrs. Hunter and Miss
Maria, watching those four advance, could have
heard what they were saying as they caught
sight of the flower-decked table, they might have
had a new light shed upon the question whether
the trouble of bringing forth all those dishes
from the house had been worth while.

The neighbours saw the merry little meal eaten,
and saw all hands clear it away at the end, making
short work of the many dishes.  But afterward
twilight fell, and little could be discerned except
the gleam of the light dresses and the presence
near of dark forms lying on the grass.

It was after the midsummer moon was lighting
the garden into a small fairy-land that Peter,
springing up, exclaimed, "There's Olive and
Murray!" and ran to greet them.

There was a third person with them, and a
moment later the others heard Peter exclaim, in
a tone of surprise:

"Well, well, well!  You don't mean to say
this is----Why, how are you?  How are you?
I 'm tremendously glad to see you!"

"Thank you!  I 'm a good deal gladder to be
home than anybody possibly can be to have
me."  And Jane, recognising first the peculiar
quality of the voice, cried out:

"Why, it's Forrest!" and led the others, as a
general uprising took place.

"Yes, it's Forrest," said the voice, and in
the bright moonlight Jane looked up into the
face whose outlines in these two years of absence
had grown dim in her memory.  It was the same
face, but she thought it looked older and thinner,
and she realised then and there that Forrest
was not the same careless boy who had gone so
lightly away to lead a soldier's life.

When the greetings were over and the company
had settled down again on the turf under the
maple, Jane found Forrest next to herself, and
had her first little insight into his thoughts.

"I feel like a stranger from a foreign country,
I assure you," he was saying to her, presently,
as the talk and laughter of the others made a
bit of confidence possible.  "And the strangest
thing of all to me is the sight of my brother
grinding away down there in the office, looking
like the healthiest fellow in town.  I can't
understand it; it took me off my feet!"

"We have grown so used to the change," said
Jane, smiling to herself, in the dim light, "that
we don't think about it any more."

"You see," Forrest pursued, "I came home
on the quiet--just wanting to see, you know,
how they would take it.  I thought if they really
still cared, I should know it by the look on their
faces----"

"Oh, how could you think----" Jane began, eagerly.

But he interrupted.  "A fellow thinks a good
many things when he 's on the other side of the
world, and I--well, I got to wanting to know
some things so badly, I was n't sorry when I
had my fever.  Yes--you did n't know that, did
you?  Oh, I had it all right!  And I wasn't
sorry when they sent me home with a lot of other
convalescents.  So I made for the office the
minute I had seen my mother and the girls, for
they told me that Murray was down there for
good--a thing I had n't known.  Maybe they
thought I 'd be jealous--and maybe I was--in
a way, though I don't want the job any more
than I ever did.

"Father gave me a good warm greeting--I 'll
say that.  And Murray--well, when he got up
and came toward me with his hand out, looking
like the strongest kind of a young business man,
I felt as if--But I can't tell you about that now."

There was a general movement of the younger
people of the party, in response to a request
from Ross, who was entertaining them with
some new tricks, at which he was an adept.
During the confusion Murray came and flung
himself upon the grass beside Jane.

"Take me into the conference, will you?" he
said.  "I'm envious of anybody my brother
talks to, I 'm so glad to get him back."

Under cover of the subdued light, Jane found
her hand, which had been resting on the cool
grass where she sat, taken into a warm, significant
grasp, as familiar now as it was dear.  She
gave back a little answering pressure, without
turning her head toward Murray, at whose close
presence she had grown instantly happier.

"Take you in?" Forrest answered slowly.
"Well, if you--and all the others--will only
take me in, and never turn me out--or let me
turn myself out again--I 'll be--satisfied."

With one hand holding tight the small one
buried in the grass, Murray's other hand went
out toward the fist clenched on Forrest's
knee.  "Old fellow," he said, warmly, "if you 'll
just stay where you can get over often into this
garden in Gay Street, you 'll find it will do as
much toward making life worth living as it has
done for every other one of the Townsend family."

"I believe you," answered Forrest, and gave
the brotherly hand an answering grip.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`JANE WEARS PEARLS`:

.. class:: center large white-space-pre-line

   BOOK II
   WORTHINGTON SQUARE

.. vspace:: 3

.. class:: center large

   CHAPTER I

.. class:: center medium

   JANE WEARS PEARLS

.. vspace:: 2

A tap upon her door sent Mrs. Murray
Townsend flying across the room to answer
it.  She expected to find her husband there,
awaiting her permission to come in and see her
in the cloud-like white gown which she had worn
but once before--two months ago.  He had
vowed since that he had never seen that wedding-gown,
being occupied wholly upon the occasion
on which it was worn in keeping his head, in
order to play his own part with dignity and self-command.

But to Jane's disappointment, she opened the
door only to a maid with a florist's box.  The
box, upon being examined, yielded up among
a mass of roses Murray's card, which bore this
message:

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: small

Sorry to be delayed, dear, but father wanted to go over
everything that has happened at the office during my absence.
Will be up in time for the pow-wow.  Wear one of these for

.. class:: small noindent

MURRAY.

.. vspace:: 2

Jane smiled regretfully.  It had seemed a long
day.  Only that morning she and Murray had
returned, belated, from their wedding journey
across the continent, to find cards out for a reception
in their honour to take place that very evening.

"You knew the date," Mrs. Harrison Townsend
had said to her elder son, when, upon being
told that his delay had caused much anxiety
to the givers of the affair, he turned to his bride
with a soft whistle of recollection and chagrin.

"I certainly did," he had owned.  "I forgot,
I 'm afraid, that there were such things as
after-wedding festivities due to society, and that this
was the date for the first of the series.  I don't
think Jane even knew."

"I didn't," said Jane, looking regretfully at her
mother-in-law's handsome face, which betrayed
a slight annoyance.  It certainly had been
trying to receive daily telegrams from the
travellers throughout the past week, announcing delays
at this place and that on the homeward way.

"Of course it's of no consequence now that you
are safely here.  I 'm only sorry Jane will have
no chance to rest and visit.  The florist's men
will arrive within an hour, and the house will
be generally upset."

"I 'll run away over to Gay Street, then,"
said Jane.  "Murray 's going down to the office,
and mother and Nan will be looking for me."

"My dear, I 'm sorry, but Olive has asked
a few friends informally for luncheon, people
from out of town who are coming for to-night.
It would hardly do for you not to meet them--since
two are cousins."

So Jane had had to be content with one brief
hour in the little home round the corner in Gay
Street, and then she had come back to the big
house in Worthington Square, there to begin to
act the part expected of her.  Murray had been
more than sorry to leave her on this first day,
but his father's affairs were pressing, the office
work had suffered in his absence, and he felt it
a necessity to get back into the harness without
an hour's delay.  He had expected to be early
at home, but his message showed Jane that even
for her he did not mean to cut short the work of
taking up again the routine of business at the
point where he had left it two months ago.

Selecting half a dozen of the finest of her roses,
Jane, with a long, light coat slipped on over
her finery, opened the door and peeped cautiously
out into the large, square gallery of the upper
hall.  Nobody was in sight.  The doors of
Mrs. Townsend's and Olive's rooms were closed,
the ladies dressing for the affair of the evening.
The door of a guest-room, occupied by the two
cousins from out of town, was slightly ajar, and
a maid was to be seen inside, offering a cup of
tea on a tray.  One of the cousins had a headache,
and was fortifying herself for a fatiguing evening.

Jane slipped quietly by this door and round
the gallery to the point where a staircase led
to the lower landing, a place just now embowered
in palms, which were to serve as a screen for the
string orchestra.  She paused an instant on this
landing, to look down upon the brilliant picture
presented by the entrance-hall and its opening rooms
below.  The look of it reminded her of an evening
long ago, the first upon which she had set foot
as a guest in the great unknown house in Worthington
Square, when Murray had taken charge of
her and brought her up here on the landing, to
look down upon the scene in which neither of
them had much cared to take part.

"Can this really be my home?" thought Jane,
feeling as if it could not all be true, even yet.
She ran quickly on downstairs and round the
foot of the staircase to a door beneath, which
furnished an inconspicuous exit from the big
hall, and which opened upon a short passage and
a side entrance not much used by the family.
This had long been a favourite entrance for Murray
himself, for it shortened the way to Gay Street.

A very short cut Jane made of it, for a flood
of light from the long row of windows in the
dining-room fell across the path, and turned it
into one less obscure than she wished it to be
just now.  Holding her delicate skirts well away
from the dust of the road, she hurried across,
through the warm air of the May evening.

There was nobody to be seen downstairs in
the old house, although lamps were lighted and
the small rooms wore their usual air of home-likeness
and order.  Jane ran up the steep little
staircase which led to the sleeping-rooms above.
She understood that, as at the big house, the family
were engaged in arraying themselves for the Townsend
reception.  She paused at the top of the stairs
to listen and observe, for the various doors were
all more or less ajar, and the usual atmosphere
of friendly family comradeship gave her a little
pang of homesickness.

The first thing distinguishable was the fact
that Peter seemed to be having a bad time with
his neck-gear, and that his cousin, Ross McAndrew,
was enjoying his perturbation of mind.

"Either my neck is bigger than it was, or this
neckband has shrunk."  Peter's growl rolled
out into the tiny hall, and brought a dimple into
Jane's cheek as she listened.

"Probably both catastrophes have happened."  This
was Ross's voice in reply.  "Anybody
who has seen you stow away buckwheat cakes
and maple-syrup all winter could n't be surprised
if your neck should take a seventeen collar this
spring."

"Seventeen nothing!  Sixteen's my size, and
when I wear a bigger it 'll be because----  O
jiminy, I 've burst that buttonhole!  What on
earth am I to do now?  I don't own but one
dress shirt that 'll fit the barn-door opening in
my white waistcoat."

"Your mother 'll sew that up on your back.
I 'll do it myself if you won't howl at a prick
or two."

"Much obliged, but I know the general style
of your repairs in a case like this.  Nan 'll do
it, if she's dressed," and Peter's door swung open.
Intent on reaching his younger sister, whose
door was next beyond his own, he did not observe
the figure at the head of the stairs in the shadow.
He proceeded to perform a double tattoo upon
Nancy's door.

"What's the matter, Petey?" sounded an
amiable voice from within.

"Neckband of my shirt's a wreck.  Want
you to come and splice the main brace."

"All right--if you 'll button me up the back.
I can't reach below the fourth button, and mother's
busy dressing, too.  It's so inconvenient having
Janey married."

"Give and take's fair play," agreed Peter,
as a charming young figure in pink-flowered
muslin backed out of the door, both bare arms
strenuously demonstrating that they could not
reach below the fourth button.  "Stand still
now--no fidgeting.  What on earth a girl
wants her rigging fastened behind for is beyond
me!  If it must be, why not use buttons big
enough to get hold of?"

"Look out, don't treat my buttonholes as you
did your own, or I 'll have to be sewed up, too."

"All right--you're done.  Turn round and
let's see how you look in front.  Good work!
You 're a stunner, and tremendously grown up,
too, with your hair that way.  Put it up the day
you were eighteen, did n't you?"

"Of course," admitted Nancy, with her comely
head held high.  Then, as Jane's white skirts in
the shadow caught her eye, "Why, there 's
Janey!  You dear!  Oh, how good it looks to
see you standing there!"

At the cry three doors flew wide open, and
Mr. Bell, Ross, and Rufus appeared simultaneously
upon their respective thresholds, while a voice
from within called, "Is Jane there?  Come
here, dear!"

"O mother, let me do your hair, will you?"
offered Jane, eagerly, when she had succeeded in
making her way past the embraces of her delighted
family.

"Not in that dress, child!  Mercy, remember
it's your wedding-gown, and don't whisk round
so!  Sit down there and let me look at you while
I put my hair up; it won't take but a minute,
and then you shall help me into my dress."

"If you won't let me do your hair, I 'll go sew
up Pete's buttonhole.  I must do something
for somebody.  It seems so funny to have got
dressed over in the big house.  I just had to come
over here and see the rest of you getting ready
and consulting each other on details as usual.
Where's your work-basket, mother dear?  Nan,"
running to the door--"don't you *dare* to mend
Peter's shirt!  I want to do it myself."

"All right, Mrs. Townsend, nothing will suit
me better," declared Peter, with satisfaction,
kneeling in front of his sister with his back to
her, while she sat on the edge of his splint-bottomed
armchair and threaded her needle.  "What does
Murray think, by the way, of having his bride
rush over here to assist her family, and leave
him to shift for himself?  Why are n't you
putting in his studs and things, like a dutiful wife?"

"He could n't get home from the office till
the last minute.  Mr.--Father Townsend
wanted to consult him on so much that's happened
while we 've been gone.  Of course I 'm going
back before he comes," responded Jane.  "Dear
me--wreck is certainly the word for this
buttonhole.  Did you try to put your thumb
through it?"

"Tried to climb through it myself bodily at
the last.  Anything better calculated to put a
fellow into a lovely frame of mind for an affair
where's he's expected to make himself agreeable
I don't know.  Wrestling to get an iron collar
on a steel neckband is--well--it's a trifle
upsetting to the nerves.  Be sure you get that
buttonhole the right size.  Better try the
collar-button in it before you make fast."

"When you 're done with him you can tie
my tie for me, if you 're looking for work,"
announced Rufus, appearing in the doorway.  "I
can't seem to get the right curve on the thing."

"Janey, would you wear this bracelet Shirley
gave me last Christmas, or would n't you?"  Nancy
looked in over Rufus's shoulder.  At
eighteen she was tall for her years; at twenty-one
Rufus, although sturdily built, had no advantage
of her in inches.  It was Peter, with his six feet
of brawn, who was the family pride in the matter
of size.

Jane snipped off her thread and turned to
look at her younger sister.  "Do as you like, Nan,
of course," said she, "but--if you want to look
quite perfect in my eyes you 'll leave it off."

"Good for you!"  Peter observed Nancy's
simple frock and fair neck with approval.  "Lots
of time for the gewgaws when they 're needed
to cover up the hollows."

"Now I 'll go help mother," said Jane, having
adjusted Rufus's cravat to his satisfaction,
mended a tiny rip in Ross's glove, and given
her father a hug, since his dressing was
completed, and there seemed to be nothing else she
could do for him.  He had held her fast, regardless
of her bridal attire, for he had missed her
sorely during her two months' absence, and
the thought that, however often she might seek
it, his roof was no longer hers, was one not easily
assimilated.

"I should really not have felt properly dressed,"
averred Mrs. Bell, as Jane hovered about her,
performing all sorts of small offices, "if you had
not been here to assure me that I was quite right
in all points."

As Jane smiled, first at her mother, then at
her father, wondering how she had ever been
able, even for Murray's sake, to leave two people
so dear, a low call, apparently proceeding from
downstairs, reached her ear, and she turned
quickly to listen.

"Jane?" came the voice again, interrogatively.
"Gentle Jane, you 're not lost to me for good
and all?"

Jane ran to the head of the small stairway
and looked down.  In the light from a bracket
lamp at the foot, her husband's face smiled up
at her.  A bright, strong face it was, ruddy with
health, and alert with interest in that which he
beheld at the top of the stairs.  Murray was in
evening dress, and as Jane observed the fact she
cried softly and regretfully:

"Why, it must be later than I thought!  I
did n't mean to be away when you came--I 'm
so sorry!  It doesn't seem as if I 'd been here
five minutes."

"No excuses necessary, dear," he answered.
"When I sent you word, I did n't expect to be
able to get away till the last minute, but a telegram
from a man who had an appointment with father
let us out, and I followed my message home.  I
came after you because mother is getting a bit
uneasy.  She wants to be sure the bride is at her
elbow, ready for the fray, though not a soul will
show up, of course, till long after the hour on the
cards."

"I 'll come this minute," and Jane caught up
her long coat, threw a kiss at her family, and
hurried down.  "You 'll all come right away,
won't you?" she called back, and let Murray
walk off with her.

At the curb she paused.  "I meant to have
borrowed Nan's rubbers," she said, looking
down at her white-shod feet.  "I forgot when
I came over."

"That's easy," and Murray had her across
the street before she could protest that she was
too heavy for him.

"You could n't have done that when I first
knew you, could you?" laughed Jane, with pride
in his strength of arm.

"Not much.  What a slim and sickly whiffet
I was!  I wonder you ever looked twice at me,
with Pete at hand as a contrast."

"I liked muscle, but I like brains too,"
explained Jane, as if this were the first time the
matter had been made clear.

"Thank you.  I 'm afraid I had none too
many of those, either.  The house looks festive,
does n't it?  Have you seen the dining-room?
Mother seemed to be particularly pleased with the
decorations there."

"I 'm afraid I ran away in too much of a hurry
to notice."

Murray gave his young wife an amused look as
they stood together on the steps of the small side
entrance by which Jane had come out an hour before.

"Do you know where you are to stand in the
receiving line?" he inquired.

Jane shook her head.

"Do you know whether you are to shake hands
with the guests or merely bow?"

"No.  You 'll tell me, won't you?"

"Do you know whether I 'm to present people
you don't know to you, or whether you 're to
depend on mother for that?"

"I suppose I'll find that out when the time comes."

"Do you know whether you ought to look
beamingly happy or coolly composed?"

"Which do you prefer?"

Murray laughed.  "A judicious mixture of both,
I should say.  Well, my small bride, ignorant as
you profess to be of your part, I 'm not worried
about you.  Just the same, I expect we 'd better
hunt up mother and be coached as to the precise
line of conduct she expects of us.  I 've never
played the leading man's part in a bridal 'At
Home' myself, and mother's something of a
stickler for doing things according to the latest
revision of the code.  Well, well," he added in
surprise, glancing at his watch as they entered
the hall, "it's later than I thought.  Do you
need to go upstairs?"

"Just a minute--to smooth my unruly hair,"
and Jane ran away, leaving him gazing after her.

"Murray!"  His mother came toward him
from the library, a striking, even imposing, figure
in black and white lace and amethysts.  "Between
you and Jane, I was getting anxious.  I have n't
seen the child since I went to her room, at least
two hours ago."

"She is all ready--dressed early so she might
run home, since I sent her word I should be late."

"But where is she now?"

"Ran upstairs to see if her hair was right.
Is n't that the invariable custom at the last
minute?"

"She is wearing her wedding-gown, of course?"

"She surely is."

"No ornaments?"

"I sent her some roses.  She 'll carry them, or
wear one, or something, I suppose."

"But no jewels?"

"I think she 's wearing the pearl pin I gave her."

"Murray!  You are quite as bad as Jane!
To be sure, her girlish way of dressing has been
very pretty and appropriate in view of her father's
lack of means.  But her position now, as your
wife, is different.  Olive insists that Jane does
not care for ornaments of any sort, but I am sure
she would not object, Murray, to wearing that
beautiful pearl necklace of Grandmother
Townsend's--if you explain to her that it's an heirloom
and that it will give me great pleasure to have her
wear it?  Pearls are not becoming to Olive,"
added Mrs. Townsend, and her son smiled.

"If you want Jane to wear that, mother, you
will have to ask her yourself.  She 's coming
now, I think.  Yes"--as Jane looked over the
gallery rail and nodded down at him--"here she
is.  Do you really think she needs 'ornaments'?
They strike me as superfluous."

Mother and son were watching Jane as she
came down the staircase, her white figure
outlined against the dark green of the palms and
foliage.  Her bronze-tinted hair shone like a
crown under the radiance of the lights, and her
softly blooming face made one forget the
simplicity of her attire.  At least, it made Murray
forget it.  But Mrs. Harrison Townsend saw
in the white neck and arms a background for
her pearls.  She picked up a case from the table
where she had laid it.

"My dear," she said, "you are very sweet,
and I shall be very proud to present you as my
daughter.  And you won't mind wearing, to
please me, these pearls of Murray's great-grandmother's,
will you?  They are just what you need
to set off your colouring."

Jane's face grew warm as her eyes fell upon
the pearls, lying in a worn old case lined with
faded green velvet.  She looked from them to
Murray--an appealing little glance and a
questioning one.  He nodded ever so slightly in
return, smiling at her.

"You are very kind," said Jane, simply, to
her mother-in-law.  "I will wear them--if you wish."

She let Mrs. Townsend clasp the necklace,
received that lady's kiss and approving comment
on the difference it made in her appearance, and
allowed herself to be led to a mirror to see the
effect.  As she stood before it, her lashes falling
after one glance of a pair of unwilling eyes,
somebody called Murray's mother away.  Jane looked
at her husband again.

"Yes, I know you hate it, little modesty," said
he.  "And I own I like to see you without any
jewels.  Yet there can be no doubt you become
those pearls.  You set them off, not they you.
And seeing they 're not diamonds----"

Jane's eyes flashed.  "Not even for you----"

His eyes responded with an answering
brilliance, as he shook his head, laughing.  "Not
even for me!  Are you sure?  But you need n't
fear.  Diamonds, little Jane Townsend, were
not made for you.  Let those sparkle who want
to.  I prefer a steady glow!"

An hour later Ross McAndrew and Peter
Bell, making their entrance to the long drawing-room
together, and waiting their turn to advance
toward the receiving party, exchanged a series
of low-voiced comments, under cover of the
general hum of talk.

"My word, Pete!  Can that be our small
girl, standing up there like a young queen?
Watch her!  I say, watch her!"

"I am watching her," said Peter, with great
satisfaction.  "If you see my eyes drop out,
pick 'em up, will you?"

"Not that we might n't have expected it of
her.  I knew well enough she 'd be sweet and
charming--but that little gracious manner--that
self-possession--jolly, she's great!"

"Look at Murray!  Is he proud of her, or is n't he?"

"Proud as Lucifer.  And has a right to be.
His mother looks pretty complacent herself.  And
Olive--she's stunning, as usual.  But our Jane--"

The time to go forward had arrived.  With
head up and shoulders squared Peter led the
way.  As he passed his host and hostess he was
a model of well-trained propriety, but when he
reached Jane and Murray his formal manner
relaxed, and he grasped each hand with a
hearty grip.

"You're a delightful pair," he murmured,
"and the sight of you takes me off my feet."

"You look perfectly composed, even bored,"
retorted Murray, laughing, glad to greet a brother
who could be relied upon not to say the usual
thing.

But Jane whispered as she smiled up at him,
"I 'm dreadfully frightened, Petey, and I can't
do it well at all."

"Keep on being frightened, then," advised
her brother.  "The result's perfectly satisfactory,
is n't it, Murray?"

"You're not really frightened?" whispered
her husband, taking advantage of a slight lull
in his duties to detain Peter.  "She does n't
look it, does she?"

"Not a bit."

"You 've only to look at mother," was Murray's
comforting assurance, "to know that she's entirely
satisfied.  If she were not--well--she'd look
different, that 's all!"





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`SHIRLEY HAS GROWN UP`:

.. class:: center large

   CHAPTER II


.. class:: center medium

   SHIRLEY HAS GROWN UP

.. vspace:: 2

As Peter Bell abruptly rounded the
corner from Gay Street into Worthington
Square he saw coming toward him an attractive
young figure in a white frock.  He glanced at
it and away again; then back, as he came nearer;
once more away; then returned to look steadily,
positive that his second impression had been
the right one, after all.  It must be that he knew
this girl.  If he did, he must give her a chance
to recognise him.

She not only recognised him, she smiled
outright, and stopping short held out her hand.
The eyes which were laughing at him were eyes
he had surely seen before.

Peter's hat had come off promptly; when she
stopped, he stopped.  When she held out her
hand he took it, and stood staring down into the
merry eyes with puzzled interest.

"O Mr. Peter Bell!" she jeered softly.  "To
be so slow to recognise an old friend--a
connection of your own family.  Dear, dear, you
should go to an oculist!  Has it been coming
on long?  Can you still distinguish trees and
houses?"

The voice told him who its owner was, though
it was a degree richer in quality than when he
had heard it last, two years before. "Shirley
Townsend!" he cried.  "Miss Shirley, I mean,
of course.  Well, well!  No wonder I----  When
did you come?  And you've grown up!"

"Of course I have.  Has n't Nancy grown up?
I 'm a year older than she, too.  And I came last
night--a whole month before they expected
me.  I was supposed to be going to stop in New
York with Aunt Isabel for a month--after
two long years away off in England at school!
But Marian Hille's mother met her at the
ship--she 's the girl who went with me, you
know--and they came right along home.  I could n't
stand it to stop in New York, and I came with
them.  And you don't mean 'Miss Shirley' at all,
of course--with Jane married to Murray!"

"Then you don't mean 'Mr. Peter Bell.'"

"You look terribly elderly yourself.  But I
knew you!  The mere fact that you are not
wearing the same clothes you were when I went
away----"

"It was n't your clothes--except the extension
on the length of them.  It was--it was----"

"I understand.  My hair is up.  I no longer
wear two big black bows behind my ears."

"Your cheeks," protested Peter.  "You--the
English air, I suppose----"

"No, I 'm not a pale little, frail little girl any
more, thanks to miles and miles of walking.  You
don't look very frail, either.  Are n't we
delightfully frank--after staring each other out of
countenance?  Is Nancy at home, and Mrs. Bell?"

"They 'll be delighted to see you."

"They 'll *know* me, too," laughed Shirley.

"She certainly has grown up," thought Peter,
when Shirley had walked away from him toward
Gay Street.  He rather wished he had not been
so obviously rushing away from home when he
met this new-old acquaintance.  The little Shirley
had always been a good friend of his; the older
Shirley looked distinctly better worth knowing.
But Peter's days were busy ones; he had few
moments for lingering by the side of pretty girls;
nor was he wont to spend much time lamenting
his deprivations.

Shirley Townsend's appearance at the door of
the Bell house caused a flurry of welcoming.
Nancy, after two minutes of shyness at the sight
of her former chum looking so like and so unlike
herself, discovered that the unlikeness was going
to make no difference.  It was a great relief, for
somebody who had seen Marian Hille at the end
of one year at the English school had declared
her grown insufferably consequential, and had
prophesied that Shirley Townsend would come
home "spoiled."

But almost the first remark Shirley made was,
"Isn't Jane the dearest thing you ever saw?
And are n't we just the luckiest people to get her
into the family?"  So then Nancy knew it was
precisely the same Shirley, and was glad.

"I don't suppose she's really as good-looking
as Olive," commented Rufus, when he, too, had
seen his old-time partner at tennis, and had had
a game with her, "but she 's a lot more alive, and
jollier, ten times over.  And her playing form 's
improved; she can serve a ball that keeps you up
and doing for fair.  She knows cricket too; she 's
going to teach us.  I 'm glad she 's got home.
It 'll be a good deal pleasanter for Jane over there.
Shirley won't go in for society, like Olive and
Mrs. Harrison."

Rufus's prophecy proved a true one.  Upon
the second day after Shirley's return, Mrs. Townsend,
Senior, announced--with some languor, as
if she herself found summer affairs wearisomer
after a winter which had been unusually full--that
a garden-party and *musicale* would that
afternoon claim all four feminine members of the
household.  "Our men ought to go, too," she
added, "but your father simply will go to nothing
that takes him away from his business, and
Murray seems to be lapsing into the same
attitude.  Forrest, when he is at home, is my only
standby, but this freak of his to spend his time
travelling makes him seldom to be counted on.
Shirley, I hope you have something suitable to
wear.  It was a strange idea for you to come
home, after being two years within an hour of
London, with nothing but tennis suits and cricketing
shoes.  If you had stopped in New York, as I
expected, your Aunt Isabel would have remedied
all deficiencies in your wardrobe.  But as it is----"

"As it is, I 've nothing suitable, mother mine.
So you won't ask me to go, will you?"

"You must have something that will do.  The
Hildreths will expect you, now that every one
knows you are at home.  Marian Hille will be
sure to be there, and you ought to be, quite as
much."

"I 've had two years of Marie Anne--as she
wishes to be called now.  I can do without her
very comfortably for a day or two," objected
Shirley, smiling at Jane.

Jane was indeed rejoicing in her new young
sister's return.  The relations between herself
and Olive, although cordial and affectionate, were
not based on so strong a congeniality of tastes as
existed between Jane and Shirley.  The girl,
before she went away, had shown decided
promise of originality and force of character.
Looking at her now, as she stood before them
in short tennis dress and fly-away hat, with
vivacious, wide-awake face full of clear colour,
it needed small discernment to make sure of
the fact that here was a girl out of the common,
and quite irresistibly out of the common, too.

"I don't like to insist, Shirley, and I would
not, if you were showing the slightest fatigue
after your journey.  But since all the apology I
could make for you would be that you preferred
to play tennis in the sun with Nancy Bell----"

"I see.  It's evident I must face the music--Miss
Antoinette Southwode's searching soprano,
and Mr. Clifford Burnham-Brisbane's wabbly
tenor--and tea and little cakes.  Since it's my
duty I 'll do it.  But, mother dear, please don't
make many engagements for me.  Give it out
that I 'm eccentric--that Miss Cockburn told me
positively, before I came away from Helmswood,
that after a severe course of study under her
unexceptionable tutelage I must have absolute
relaxation.  Say that I have no fine clothes, no
floppy hats covered with roses, suitable for
lawn-parties.  Say anything, but after to-day don't
make me go--unless I most awfully want to.
Promise--*please*!"

Two firm tanned hands clasped themselves
behind Mrs. Townsend's neck, two importunate
black-lashed blue eyes looked at her beseechingly.
The mother sighed.

"Child, what shall I do, with two of you?
Here is Jane, accepting her invitations under
protest, and now you are going to be still more
unreasonable."

"Is Jane another?  Then why not just make
a simple division of labour?  You and Olive play
the society parts, and give Jane and me the
domestic ones."

"My dear, nothing can be so unfortunate for a
girl, or for a young married woman, as to become
known as peculiar.  Of course you are not serious--no
girl of your age is ever serious in declaring
that she wants nothing to do with society--but
it distresses me to have you even talk as you
are doing.  Go and dress, and look your best,
dear, and don't worry me with this sort of thing.
I am quite worn out already.  Doctor Warrener
advises a course of baths at a rest-cure, and I
think I shall have to follow his advice."

"I'm sorry," and Shirley kissed her mother,
with a pat upon the smooth white cheek, where
faint lines were beginning to show.  Then she
went away to dress, discarding the short skirt
and canvas shoes with a smothered breath of
regret, but appearing, in due course of time, in a
costume eminently suitable for a garden-party,
at least from her own point of view.  Her mother
did not see her until the carriage was at the door,
and then it was too late for her to do more than
to murmur:

"My dear, if that is the best you can do, I
must take you to a dressmaker at once.  White
linen is well enough for some occasions, and that
hat----Did you tell me that Miss Cockburn
advised it, and you got it in Bond Street?  But the
effect is decidedly more girlish than is necessary."

"I should think you would want me as infantile
as possible, with Olive to do the dressy young
lady.  You and Jane and Olive, with your

   |  'Ribbons and laces,
   |  And sweet, pretty faces,'

need a plain little schoolgirl to set you off.  And
I shall not be 'out' until next winter.  I 'm all
right, mother dear.  Miss Cockburn was always
delighted with white linen, and discouraged
fussy frocks.  I 'm really beautifully 'English,'
and you should be satisfied.  Girls are n't allowed
to grow up half so fast over there as here, and I
think it is a sensible thing."

Mrs. Townsend said no more until, crossing
the Hildreth lawn an hour later, she caught
sight of Marian Hille.  At the first opportunity
thereafter, she said in Shirley's ear, "Miss
Cockburn certainly did not advise Marian to cling
to the schoolgirl style of dressing.  If that is not
a French frock she is wearing, my eyes deceive
me.  She is charming in it, too, and not at all
overdressed.  That rose-covered hat is exquisite,
and quite girlish enough."

Shirley smiled, a protesting little smile, but
she did not argue the question further.  To
her mind, "Marie Anne" looked like a Parisian
fashion-plate, and her manner was certainly
that of a young person of considerable social
experience.  Shirley did not like it.  Her eye
went from Miss Marian Hille to Mrs. Murray
Townsend, and rejoiced at the contrast.  The
two were close together, taking their seats for the
outdoor *musicale*, which was about to begin.
No fault could possibly be found with Jane's
attire, but in it she looked, beside Marian, like a
dainty gray pigeon beside a golden pheasant.

"I beg your pardon, but may I ask what you
are staring at so intently?" said a voice beside
her, and Shirley turned to confront the interested
gaze of Brant Hille, Marian's elder brother.
"I 've been standing beside you here all of three
minutes, waiting for you to come back to earth
and recognise me.  Do you realise we have n't
met since you and Marian came back?  And
won't you let me find you a chair over on the
edge of the crowd, where we can talk?"

This suited Shirley, and she let him establish
her in a corner where a clump of shrubbery
screened the two from a part of the audience.
Until the music began, young Hille plied her
with questions about her experiences at Miss
Cockburn's school, evidently enjoying the fact
that her point of view seemed decidedly to differ
from that of his sister.

"I should n't know you had been at the same
place," was his whispered comment, as the first
notes of the initial number on the programme smote
the summer air and caused a partial hush to fall
upon the assemblage.  He had been noting,
with interest, the change in her.  He had known
Shirley since their earliest days, but beyond the
friendly liking she had always inspired in him,
as in everybody, by her girlish good humour and
love of sport, he had not thought her especially
attractive.  Now, however, as Peter Bell had
done, he found himself discovering in her qualities
distinctly noteworthy.

"So they took you to a lot of old churches and
cathedrals," he began suddenly to Shirley, after
an interval during which they had listened politely
to Miss Antoinette Southwode's truly "searching"
soprano and Mr. Burnham-Brisbane's astonishingly
"wabbly" tenor, intermingled in an elaborate
Italian duet.  "Did n't you find that sort of thing
deadly dull?"

"Not a bit," denied Shirley, promptly.  "It
was such fun to hear the dear old vergers proudly
recite the histories of the antiquities.  And the
antiquities themselves!  In one very, very old
church there was a tablet of a man and his six
wives, all kneeling before a shrine.  He knelt
first and they came after, all in profile.  The poor
dears were all dressed alike--they must have
worn the same dress, handed down.  One's
head was gone--that made her more touching
than the others.  You could n't help feeling that
her husband had been harder on her than on the
rest.  He looked that sort, you see."

"No doubt he was," agreed Hille, laughing.
"Did you see anything else equal to that?"

"No end of things.  Of course there was ever
so much that was dignified and beautiful, but
one could n't help being glad to find something
funny now and then.  One tablet in another
ancient chapel showed three men, one above
another on their painted wooden tombs, all
lying sidewise and half rising on their elbows,
and staring right down at you with their eyes
wide open.  They had pink cheeks and black
hair.  They were father, son, and grandson,
and the father looked the youngest.  Their wives
were all lying quietly asleep at one side.  It
did n't seem fair for the men to be so wide awake,
while the poor wives had to slumber and see
nothing.--Oh, there goes Mr. Brisbane again!
Why *does* his voice shake so much harder than
when I heard him last?"

"He 's that much more celebrated," said Hille.
"See here, are n't you and Marian about the
same age."

Shirley shook her head.  But when the song
was over he asked the question again.

"I 'm three months older," admitted Shirley.

"She looks three years older.  Why is it?"

Shirley shook her head again.  It was one
thing to air her views to her family, quite another
to tell Brant that Marian was leaping into young
ladyhood and its signs too fast.  But Brant
studied his sister.  Her blond head, the hair
elaborately waved, could be seen between the
heads and shoulders in front, the striking
rose-crowned hat conspicuous among other elaborate
hats of all patterns.

"She looks twenty-five, at least," he commented,
approvingly.  "She looks older than your
sister Olive.  And she seems to have that cad
Maltbie glued to her for the afternoon.  If that 's
the best she can do, she 'd better take me.  But
she 's no use for brothers.  Look here, when 's
Forrest coming home?"

"I 've no idea.  He was leaving Ecuador before
the hot season began, and was intending to stay at
Jamaica as long as it was comfortable.  He wrote
he might be off for the South Sea Islands soon.
He 's had a tempting invitation."

"He 's a rover.  His taste of army life gave him
the fever.  I wish he 'd get enough of it and come
back.  Things always 'go' while Forrest's home."

Altogether, between Brant Hille and two or
three other young people, Shirley found the
garden-party endurable.  But its cakes and ices
spoiled her appetite for dinner, and the moment
that meal was over, she was off to the tennis-court.
Here she and Rufus played several sets
in so spirited a fashion that Murray and Jane,
strolling over the lawn to watch them, were
moved to comment upon Shirley's vigour.

"I 'm just working off the garden-party,"
declared the girl, when her brother asked the cause
of so much energy upon so warm an evening.

"You should have put on your tennis skirt,
dear," said Jane, as Shirley came up to her,
racquet in hand.

"So I ought, but I was afraid mother would
be made ill by the sight of me, if I did, after
dinner.  Oh, how good it is to be at home!  Let's
camp down here on the grass and send for the
rest of the clan.  Run over, Rufie, will you, and
get all the Bells that will come?"

As she spoke, Shirley dropped upon the smooth
turf close by the big wicker chair that Murray
had just drawn up for Jane, on the terrace at
the edge of the court.  Her cheeks were flushed
by the lively exercise she had been taking, her
hair curled moistly about her forehead.  Jane
looked at her with a touch of envy in her
affectionate glance.  Being Mrs. Murray Townsend,
she supposed it became her to sit demurely
in a chair, instead of putting herself, as she longed
to do, beside Shirley, on the grass.  But Murray,
with no such restraining thought in his head,
cast himself upon the turf beside his sister, at his
wife's feet.

Presently Rufus returned, bringing Nancy and
Ross McAndrew.  Olive, spying the group upon
the lawn, came trailing out in all her pretty finery
of the afternoon.  Two or three young neighbours
appeared.  By and by Peter Bell, just home from
the paper-factory, looked across from the Gay
Street porch and descried the distant group.
Somebody had brought a banjo, and somebody
else was essaying to sing a boating-song to the
accompaniment.

"Shall I go over?" thought Peter, when he
had had his bath and his supper, and had come
out upon the porch again.

He was quite alone, for his mother, after serving
his supper, had hurried out to see a neighbour
who had been long ill, and who depended upon
Mrs. Bell for her daily cheer.  Mr. Bell had
driven out to Grandfather Bell's farm.  The
little house seemed strangely silent, and the
porch, in the early summer twilight, more
companionable.  A hammock swung behind the vines,
and after a moment's indecision, Peter stretched
his long form in it, clasping his hands under his
head.  He was unusually weary, for the day had
been very hot.  He lay quietly listening to the
distant 'plunkings' of the banjo and to the
faint sounds of talk and laughter which floated
across the space to him.  So, after a little, he
fell asleep.

He was awakened by the sound of voices on
the step.  The Bell porch, unlike that of the
Townsends, possessed no electric lamps, and
the nearest illumination to-night came from an
arc-light on the corner.  Peter, in his hammock,
lay shrouded wholly in darkness.  He could see
a gleam of white between the vines which
sheltered him, and the voices were those of his sister
Nancy and Shirley Townsend.

"It's such a relief," Shirley was saying, "to
get away from that banjo.  I seem to have been
listening all day to the sorts of music I like least.
Rodman Fielding and his banjo are the last
straw.  Nan, what do you suppose is the matter
with me that I don't seem to care for the things
most girls do--clothes and boys and--banjos.
I detest banjos!"

"What do you care for?" Nancy asked.  "Tennis,
anyhow.  And you like Rufus and Ross and
Peter, don't you?  As for banjos--I don 't
think anybody thinks they 're very musical.
They just like the funny songs that go with them."

"Rufus is like a brother, and Ross like an
uncle--a young one.  As for Peter--I don't
seem to know Peter.  He 's changed.  What 's
he been doing to make him look so old and
sober?  I almost thought I saw a gray
hair--and he 's no older than Murray."

"Peter old and sober?"--Peter himself was
growing fairly awake, although not fully enough
roused to the situation to realise that he was
playing eavesdropper.--"What an idea!  He
has n't changed a particle.  Gray hair!  It
could n't be.  Why, Peter 's stronger than all
the rest of us put together!"

"He's been taxing his strength, then.  He
looks as if he had been carrying loads of
responsibility--solving problems--worrying over some
he could n't solve.  He's working too hard."

Nancy laughed incredulously, and said that
Peter's work was quite the same as it had been,
and that her friend's absence had made her see
things unnaturally.  But Peter's eyes, in the
darkness, opened wide.  Here was extraordinary
discernment for a nineteen-year-old girl, who
had met him only once since her return, casually
upon the street, during which time she had merely
laughed at him for not knowing her immediately,
and then had walked on.  Was it possible that
she had seen that which he had been carefully
guarding from the eyes of his family for a long,
long time, and at which even his mother did not
guess?

But here was Shirley again, speaking low and
thoughtfully: "I seem to see everybody, since
I came home, as if I had never seen them before.
I see father looking as if he thought it did n't
pay to have made so much money, after all; and
mother looking worn-out playing the grand
lady; Olive following after, and not finding much
in it.  Murray and Jane absorbed in each other,
but Jane wishing--no, I 'll not say what I think
Jane is wishing.  She would n't admit it, I know.
Ross and Rufus and you, busy and happy.  Your
father and mother contented as ever.  But Peter----"

It would not do.  He was fully awake now.  If
she was going on to talk about him again he must
let her know he was there.  Besides, if she really
divined something of the truth, he must not let
her make Nancy anxious.

Shirley had paused with his name upon her
lips, as if soberly thinking.  Peter sat up.  But
at the fortunate instant a figure dashed across
Gay Street.

"You runaways!" Rufus called, reproachfully.
"A fine hostess you are, Shirley Townsend!
They 're asking for you.  You 'll have to come back."

So they went away and Peter was left alone
upon the porch.  There was a queer feeling
tugging at his heart.  Nobody else had seen,
nobody else had even noticed the slightest change
in him.  Of course it was not possible that Shirley
could know the least thing about his situation,
but it was something that she appreciated one
fact--that he was working to the limit of his
capacity, and that, although he was not yet
overdone, the strain was beginning to tell.  Not the
strain of work, but the greater and more exhausting
drain of anxiety.





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.. _`LUNCHEON FOR TWELVE`:

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   CHAPTER III


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   LUNCHEON FOR TWELVE

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"Mrs. Murray, Mrs. Townsend would like
you to come to her room, if you please."

"Yes, Sophy, certainly.  Is Mrs. Townsend's
headache better this morning?"

"It's very bad, Mrs. Murray.  And she's
that upset about the luncheon she's giving.
Cook's taken sick, too--the bad luck!"

"Since breakfast, Sophy?"

"'T was Norah and Mary served breakfast.
Cook but got out of bed and went back.
Mr. Townsend bade me send for the doctor.  He
says she 'll not leave her bed again the day.  And
Mrs. Townsend says the luncheon must go on,
and not a bit of outside help to be had at this
short notice."

Jane hurried down the hall, Sophy's laments
in her ears.  She found Olive sitting on the foot
of her mother's bed talking perturbedly with
the elder woman, in the effort to dissuade her
from the purpose of attempting to entertain any
guests whatever in the circumstances.  But it
became evident to Jane at once that Mrs. Townsend
was not to be dissuaded.

"There must be somebody to be had," she
asserted, as Jane drew up a chair, after laying a
cool hand on the aching forehead and expressing
her sympathy with the headache.  "It can't be
possible that Lemare could n't send me somebody
if he understood the necessity--or Perceval.
We don't need much done.  Cook had all the
preliminary baking done yesterday.  It's only to
get everything together."

"But that's the whole of it, mother," Olive
urged.  "You may say it's only a simple luncheon,
but Norah and Mary are certainly not equal
to it.  Is n't it excuse enough to send those
women word that you 're ill?  I 'll telephone--or
write notes, if you prefer."

She rose as she spoke, but Mrs. Townsend
waved an agitated hand, and shook her head
violently.  "You don't understand," she moaned,
pressing her hand to her head and falling back
among the pillows.  "There are reasons why I
can't have this thing fail.  Mrs. Arlo Stevenson
is a most difficult person to get for any affair
whatever--and this is particularly in her honour.
I could have had a caterer, of course, but I
consider it not good form to put small entertaining
into any hands but one's cook's.  I am indebted
to Mrs. Wister very deeply, and she is bringing
a guest whom she is very anxious to have meet
Mrs. Stevenson.  There are other reasons----"

"But, mother"--Olive's tone was growing
impatient--"what can't be, can't be.  We can't
get any one."

"Perhaps I could do it," Jane began, with
some hesitation.  "If it's really a simple
luncheon----"

"It is!"  Mrs. Townsend spoke with eagerness.

"I might not be able to manage the most
elaborate dishes----"

"Cook can't be too ill to tell you what is
necessary."

"But, mother," Olive protested, "Jane must
be at the table.  She can't be in the kitchen,
sending in courses."

"That's of no consequence," declared Jane,
quickly.  "I don't mind missing the luncheon
in the least."

"They are all older women," murmured
Mrs. Townsend, closing her eyes wearily.  When
Olive took things in hand, it was always difficult
to oppose her.

"Yes, but Jane is our bride.  And you expect
me to be there.  If Jane stays in the kitchen,
so shall I."

"I don't know what to do," and the poor
lady on the bed, among her pillows, looked as
if she were indeed suffering.

There was a minute's silence.  Then Jane
spoke with gentle decision.

"Olive, dear, that is very nice of you, but I
truly don't mind in the least.  It is n't as if you
had n't already introduced me everywhere, and I
had n't been entertained over and over.  If mother's
guests are older ladies, my absence surely won't
be noticed.  And I 'd love to try what I can do.
You know I 've had years of training at cookery,
and if I can't manage all of Cook's dishes, perhaps
I can substitute others that are n't at all common.
I can promise at least that nothing will be burned."

"You are a dear child," said Mrs. Townsend
fervently.  She wiped away a nervous tear or two.

Olive followed Jane to her room to watch
her new sister exchange her morning dress for
one more suitable for the affairs she meant to
take in hand.

"This is going to be fun," said Jane gaily.

"I don't see how you can think so.  It's
certainly very foolish of mother to persist against
all odds.  One would think her life depended
on that luncheon."

"It does--in a way.  Her poor nerves are
quite worn out.  I 've seen it for a long time.
Having things go wrong just now is the last straw."

"Why, Jane, what's going to happen?"
called Shirley, five minutes later, encountering
Jane on the stairs which led to the servants'
rooms on the third floor.  Shirley had been
up to see Cook, who adored her.

"Is Bridget able to see me?" asked Jane.

"She 'll be much flattered.  It's sciatica, and
it lays her low, but she can converse with intelligence,
even with brilliancy.  She 's in a terrible
state over not being able to get up that luncheon."

"I 'm going to hold a council of war with her,"
and Jane disappeared into Cook's room.

Half an hour later she came out again, her
eyes dancing with anticipation, pencil and paper
in hand.  As she ran downstairs, Sophy came
up with a tray, and caught the overflow of
Bridget's emotions.

"The cleverness of her!" exclaimed the
invalid.  "To take the menyou into her own
pretty hands and think she can see to it all!
She can, too, or I 'm deceived.  Consultin' with
me and gettin' my directions, and tellin' me
where she makes bold to follow, and where she 's
not quite sure.  It's a pity she 's not mistress of
the house in Mrs. Townsend's place--and her so
wore out she ought to be at a sanitarium this
minute.  Look to it, Sophy, that Norah and
Mary does their duty by Mrs. Murray this day,
If they 're inclined to be triflin', bid them come
up to me.  I 'll soon put them in mind of what
Mr. Murray says to me when he brought home
his wife.  'Whatever you do to please her will
be appreciated,' he says, 'by me.'  And it's
nothing I would n't do for Mr. Murray and Miss
Shirley, these seven years I 've lived here.  And
now I 'm feelin' the same way toward Mrs. Murray."

Whether it was the potency of the message
which reached scullery maid and waitress by
way of Sophy, or whether it was Jane's own
engaging manner, together with the respect she
soon inspired by the assured and competent way
in which she "took hold," there could be no
question that by the end of the first hour not only
Norah and Mary, but also Ellen, the laundress,
were flying about as they had rarely done before,
even for Bridget, who certainly knew how to get
out of them work enough and to spare.

At a moment when they chanced to be all
together, Jane had said to them, as with deft
fingers she mixed a bowlful of ingredients, that
if with their help she could only bring about the
serving of a luncheon which the guests would
like to eat, she should be happier than over any
entertainment she herself had ever been offered.
And she had been able to tell from their smiling
interested faces that she was to have from that
moment the best service they could give her.

Shirley, when affairs were well under way,
had gone to the telephone and called up Murray's
office.

"I want you to come home for a few minutes
at two o'clock!" she said, imperatively.

"What for?  Anything the matter?" asked
her brother.

"Not a thing," said Shirley, reassuringly
"But there 's something happening up here at
the house that you must see."

"I 'm pretty busy."

"You 'll never forgive yourself, when you hear
about it, if you don't see with your own eyes."

"All right, I 'll try to make it.  Anything
connected with Jane?"

"Of course.  Do you suppose I 'd ask you if
it was n't?"

"I'll be there."

"I thought you would," and Shirley laughed
as she hung up the receiver.  No doubt Murray
was a happy man.

"Do you suppose Jane is going to be able to
do it?" queried Mrs. Townsend, dressing with
the help of Shirley and Sophy.  As the hour
for the arrival of her guests approached, doubts
were beginning to assail her.  Jane was no
doubt an extremely capable young matron, but
the preparing of such a luncheon as Bridget had
planned meant not only accomplished cookery,
but much skill and care in the details of serving.
Had Jane's eyes been open during the brief
period of her entertainment at various fine tables!
It was too late to do anything but hope so.

"Don't worry, mother," Shirley had urged.
"Jane's doing wonders.  If she can keep it up
she 'll surprise you."

"I had a bit sip of the booly-on just now when
I was down in the kitchen," offered Sophy, "and
it was elegant.  And you know yourself 'm,
Bridget says that's one of the most trying things
of all to get tasty."

Mrs. Townsend went wanly down into her
rooms, to find flowers all about, distributed by
Olive's skilful fingers.  She looked into the
dining-room.  Her table was faultlessly laid,
to the last detail, and a charming arrangement
of lilies was mirrored in the polished mahogany.

"Now come and rest until the last minute,"
urged Shirley.  "And don't worry.  Mrs. Arlo
Stevenson won't have a thing to criticise--except
the conversation."

An hour afterward, Murray, letting himself in
with his latch-key, found Shirley awaiting him
inside the door.  "Don't say a word," she
whispered.  "Just walk straight past the dining-room
without looking in.  Mother 's entertaining
Mrs. Stevenson at luncheon, you know, and it's a very
solemn occasion."

Wondering, Murray, hat in hand, followed his
sister as she walked demurely by the wide entrance
to the dining-room, from within which he could
hear a subdued murmur of voices.  But once
past, she hurried him, by a circuitous route,
to a narrow hallway at the back of the house,
which led to the kitchen.  Here she stationed
him, and bade him push the door open a cautious
crack and peep within.  He obeyed her.  Shirley
stood behind him, alive with anticipation, while
she watched her brother's shoulders.

Shirley could not see his face, but she heard
his subdued exclamation as he gazed at the scene
within.  She knew what it was.  The luncheon
had reached the salad course.  Jane was arranging
plates picturesque with an enticing combination
of ingredients, parti-coloured, crisp and cool.
Her fair arms were bared to the elbow, her cheeks
were flushed.  At her right hand Mary was
ready with assistance, her eyes respectfully
studying the arrangement--not of the salad, but of
her young mistress's hair, which was certainly
worth studying for its effective simplicity.  The
maid could never hope to match that daintiness
of arrangement with her own ash-coloured locks,
but she meant to try.

Murray turned about at last.  "Well, by Jove!"
he exploded, softly.  "How does this come about?"

Shirley noiselessly closed the door and
explained in a whisper.  Murray's eyes grew
eloquent as he listened.  "The little trump!" was
his comment.  "I wish I could stay till she's
finished.  I suppose it would n't do to call her out
now?"

"Mercy, no!  You might upset her.  So far
I don't think the least thing has gone wrong."

"What possessed mother to put the thing
through, anyhow?  Jane ought to be in there
with the others."

"It was something about entertaining
Mrs. Arlo Stevenson.  Mother felt it must be done,
though the heavens fell.  They nearly did fall,
till Jane came under and held them up.  As for
Jane's being at the table--she did n't want
to be there.  And Olive would n't be, without
her, so there's nothing noticeable.  They 're all
women of mother 's age--on some special board
of charities, or something like that, that makes
them congenial."

"Its making them congenial does n't necessarily
follow, unfortunately.  So Olive stayed
out, did she?  That's one count for Olive.  Why
is n't she helping Jane, though?"

"Jane would n't have either of us in the kitchen.
Olive did the flowers, and Norah and I the table.
I got in an English fashion or two that will either
drive mother to distraction or fill her with pride.
I forgot to tell her," and Shirley began to laugh.
She led Murray away to safer regions, but he
looked at his watch and said he must be off.

"Wasn't it worth coming up for?" she demanded.

"No question of that.  Much obliged for letting
me know.  I 'll settle with Jane later.  Take
her out for a drive, or something, to cool her off,
will you?  Good bye!"  And Murray vanished,
smiling to himself.  "That ought to make her
pretty solid with mother," he reflected, as he
raced to his car.

But when the last guest had rustled away,
Mrs. Townsend was in no condition to fall upon
Jane's neck and overwhelm her with thanks.
Instead she had to be carried to her room by
Phelps, the coachman--summoned in haste from
the stable--and put to bed by her daughters.
Her physician arrived in short order, and his edict,
when he had telephoned for a nurse, was stern.

"When you society women stop putting yourselves
through a grind that no strong man could
stand up under, you will get a grip upon your
nerves," said he.  "Mrs. Townsend was at the
end of her forces two months ago, and I told her
so.  She has simply been keeping up on will--with
the inevitable result.  The moment she is
fit to travel she must get off to the quietest place
on my list--and stay there.  Home would be a
better place for her, if she would obey the rules;
but she won 't, so that settles it.  And you, Miss
Olive"--he turned abruptly to the elder daughter
of the house--"would do well to go with her.
It's evident you 've been travelling along the
same road."

"O Doctor Warrener, how absurd you are!
I 'm perfectly well.  And I 've half a dozen
invitations to lovely places.  They 'll do me far more
good than going to some invalid resort and taking baths."

He shook his head.  "You're all alike," said
he.  "I may talk till I 'm dumb--you 'll pay the
price.  And when you 've paid it, you 'll remember."

"There are two," said Olive, indicating Jane
and Shirley, "who will never have nervous
prostration on account of overdoing society."

Doctor Warrener surveyed them, and the
grimness of his face relaxed.  "I'll acquit them
on their faces," said he.  "Tell your husband,
Mrs. Murray, to shut you up in a bandbox--or,
better, take you off West to that place where
he got back his health--before he lets you drift
into the swirl.  As for Shirley,"--he laid his
hand upon her shoulder--"if I'm any reader
of destiny--and I ought to be--she 's going to
swing that tennis racquet for several years yet
before she gives up and settles down."

All this had happened before Mr. Townsend
and Murray came home.  Mrs. Townsend's
breakdowns after fatigue in fulfilling her
engagements, and the summoning of the doctor, had
become too frequent occurrences to imply the
sending for her husband.  The orders away,
for rest and recuperation, were also, within the
last few years, of semi-annual recurrence.

"It simply means," said Murray, pacing with
Jane up and down the long flower-bordered walk
between the house and the tennis-court, "it
simply means six weeks or two months for you
to try your hand at being mistress of the
establishment.  And judging by what I saw that hand
do to-day----"

Jane looked quickly up at him.

"I should say that it was competent to run
anything.  That salad was a--what do women
say?--a symphony--a star.  Not that I care
much for salads myself, but to see you putting
it together----"

"Murray--you didn 't!"

"Didn't I?  You had on a pink-and-white
checked apron that came up over your shoulders.
Your sleeves were short, and your hair curled
round your ears, the way it does on damp days.
You----"

"Where were you?  How did you know!  Who----"

"I was on the other side of the door, which you
forgot to lock.  Never in my life was I so bowled
over by the sight of a girl in a kitchen."

"If I had known you were looking----"

"Precisely.  That was why Shirley wouldn't
let me call you out.  Of course I should have
kissed you--I never felt more like it--and that
might have endangered the composition of the
salad."

"I 'm afraid it would," laughed Jane.
"As it was, I made the one real mistake of the
luncheon--I sent that salad in on the game
plates!  The girls were in such a flurry they
did n't notice till the plates began to come out
again.  I hope mother did n't mind very much."

"I 'll warrant nobody else did.  Mrs. Arlo
Stevenson is as short-sighted as an owl in the
day-time, and as I understand it, Mrs. Stevenson
was the guest who counted--goodness knows
why!  I think she's insufferable.  I 'm glad
mother 's got her off her mind, for the time being.
It will give her a chance to recuperate.  Poor
mother!  She misses a lot of fun, does n't she?"

"She thinks it's we who miss it."

"Perhaps we can show her better some day--when
we 've been very good and earned that
house by ourselves.  Hi!  What?" exclaimed
Murray.  "How you jumped!  Did you think
that house by ourselves was n't really to
materialise some day?"

"I--wasn't sure."  Jane's voice was low.
She did not mean to show how much she cared,
or how she longed to believe definitely in a
prospect which, as yet, had not been in so many
words held out to her.

"Why, it's a certainty!  Have n't I made that
clear, little girl?  You know, when I told you
how anxious father was to have us live with
them, I said it would n't be for all time.  Don't
you remember that?"

"I know.  But I thought----"

"You thought, I see, it meant while he needed
me, which would be as long as he lived.  No, he
does n't insist on that.  It was to be only while
he stayed an active partner in the business.  He
wanted me at his elbow, and I did n't feel like
refusing him.  He means to retire within five
years--or sooner, if his health shows signs of
breaking.  Then he understands that I 'm to
have a home by myself--build one, you know.
Well, well, what a squeeze my arm is getting!
Are you so glad?"

"I'm pretty glad.  It's not that--that this
place is n't pleasant, and everybody more than
kind, but----"

"You needn't be afraid to tell me--in fact,
you don't need to tell me.  You 're too much of a
born Jenny Wren not to want to feather your own
nest.  And I want to see you do it.  We 'll begin
to look over plans.  We can talk about it
and think about it----"

"No, we can't, Murray."

"Why not?  Isn't anticipation----"

"Yes, but it would make it harder to wait.
Now I know it's sure, I can----"

"Be good?" said her husband.  "You are
being good--heavenly.  What you did to-day--well,
if you could have known what I thought
about you when I saw you out there putting
those pretty shoulders to the domestic wheel--proud
is n't the name for it.  And let me tell you,
Janey Townsend, it is n't every girl who could
take command of the forces and have them
working for you at the top of their ability, like
that.  Norah has n't a nose and chin of that
perky shape for nothing; and Mary can soldier
for fair when she chooses.  As for Sophy--but
you had Sophy for your own from the start.  And
it 's not been done with tips, either, has it?
Honestly, now, have you ever given Sophy a tip
since you came to the house?"

"A tip?" said Jane.  "Money, you mean?
Why, no.  Should I?  I never thought of it.
Does she expect it?"

"She probably doesn't now--from you--or
want it, as long as you reward her with your
smiles and ask about her invalid brother, the
way I overheard you doing the other day.  She'd
probably rather have your friendly interest than
all Olive's dollar bills.  Oh, there are several
ways of winning people's loyalty, dear--and
yours is the best.  Only everybody can't do it.
Do you know, gentle Jane, I 'm a good deal
interested in seeing you in the role of mistress of
this house for a while?"

"Murray, I 'm so doubtful about it!"

"You need n't be.  The commanding officer
who has proved to his regiment that in an
emergency he can work with them, shoulder to
shoulder--and work better than they can--need
have no fears.  It 'll just be a case of 'Bridget,
Norah, Sophy, Mary, Ellen--fall in!  Shoulder
arms!  March!'  And off the regiment will go,
heads up, chests out, eyes to the front."





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.. _`POT-HOOKS`:

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   CHAPTER IV


.. class:: center medium

   POT-HOOKS

.. vspace:: 2

"I want to have a talk with you, Murray."

"All right, sister, I 'm at your service."

"Please come over to the seat beyond the
shrubbery, where nobody will see or hear.  It's
not a very suitable place, but it's better than
the house this hot night."

"Not a suitable place?" queried Murray, as
he followed Shirley across the lawn.  "Not so
fast, child.  It is a hot night, and I 've only just
cooled off since dinner.  It was insufferable
in the office to-day--or would have been if
anybody had had time to stop and think about
it.  Why is n't that romantic seat beyond the
shrubbery just the place to talk?"

"Because the talk has no romance about it.
The office would be the place for it, only you 've
no time to give me if I should come there."

"You excite my curiosity."  Murray disposed
himself comfortably upon the wide rustic seat,
screened from all beholders without and within
the grounds, not only by shrubbery and hedges,
but by the fast deepening July twilight.  "Fire
away.  Anything gone wrong?"

"Nothing--except me."

"You alarm me."

"Don't joke.  I 'm serious."

"I see you are.  And that's what alarms me.
Seriousness, at eighteen----"

"I 'm nineteen--nearly twenty.  And I 'm not
only serious--I 'm cross.  Murray, I want
something to do."

"Haven't you plenty?  Jane tells me she
could n't get on without you."

"Jane is a dear.  And I love to help her.  But
I want to be doing something--else.  I want to
amount to something.  I want to learn something."

"Miss Cockburn's finishing-school didn't finish
then?  Is college the bee you have in your
bonnet?"

"No, I 'm afraid I 'm too unsettled for that
now--I don't know why.  Once I spent a
whole week trying to convince mother I must
go to college instead of to school in England.
But I don't want that any more.  I want--Murray,
please don't laugh when I tell you!"

"Why should I laugh?  It's plain you
mean business of some sort, and I 'm honoured by
your confidence.  Go ahead, little girl, and
don't be afraid of your big brother."

"Well, then, I want to learn stenography
and typewriting."  It came with a rush, and
after it Shirley sat still, one hand holding the
other tightly while she waited for the explosion
she expected.

It did not come.  Murray turned his head
until she could feel that he was looking directly
at her through the dim light.  He sat up slightly,
and thrust his hands deeper down into his
pockets--a masculine action which usually indicates
concentration of attention.  He was silent for
a full minute before he spoke.  When he did
speak, it was in the tone that one man uses to
another when the basis of their intercourse is
that of mutual respect.

"Would you mind giving me your idea?  It's
plain you have thought something out to the
end.  I need to know it from the beginning,
if you want any advice worth while."

"I can, now I know that you're not going
to knock me down with arguments against it
before you know mine for it."

"That would be poor policy.  That's the
boomerang sort of argument--the one that comes
back at one's self.  Besides, I've too much
confidence in my sister's good judgment to believe
that she would fire a proposition like that at me
without a reason back of it."

"The reason is easy.  I'm restless for something
to do.  I don't want to be a next season's
debutante, and go through a winter like the
five Olive has spent.  I want to work.  I want
to fit myself to be independent.  If anything
should happen to father's money, I don't
want to be like the Desmond girls after their
father's failure, as helpless as baby birds pushed
out of the nest.  Olive could n't do a thing.
Forrest is just an idler.  You have Jane to take
care of.  But I--I could be learning to support
myself."

"The business is in fine condition.  We never
were so substantial a firm as now.  There's
very little danger of our going to pot."

"That may be," said Shirley, "though things
do happen, Murray, out of a clear sky.  But
that's not my real reason.  My real reason is a
genuine, great big longing to amount to something.
I never come down to the office without envying
the girls I see there.  I envy them because they
have to do it--because they 're supporting
themselves and somebody else by it."

"Do you mean that you would like a position
in our office?"

"Oh, would n't I!  If I could study and study,
and practise and practise, and then some day
take a dictation from you or father and bring
you a perfect copy, I believe I 'd be--Murray,
I 'd be the happiest girl that ever lived!"

"You mean that, do you?"

"I do."

"Have you thought that if you took a position
in our office, or in any other, you 'd be shutting
out some poor girl who really needs the salary?"

"Yes, I've thought of it.  I know that's an
argument against it.  But, Murray, don't you
think the rich men's daughters need employment
sometimes quite as much as the poor
ones do?  Why, I 'm telling you I envy the
poor ones!"

"I know; but the fact remains that they need
the money, and you don't."

"Are n't you keeping some poor man out of
the salary you get by taking the place of father's
right hand man?"

Murray laughed.  "There's a back-hander for
me!  But I 'm practically a partner, you know,
and a firm can't do without its heads, no matter
how many poor fellows would like the job."

"And you have the right to make something
of yourself.  But I have n't because I should
be taking work away from some girl who needs
it.  I don't want to do that.  I 'd work for nothing,
or give my salary away."

"Ah, but that wouldn't solve the problem.
The girl whose job you took from her would n't
accept your salary from you."

"Then, just because a girl's father can support
her, must she give up learning how to support
herself?  And the fun of doing it?"

"What do you expect the family to say about it?"

"Of course they won't like it.  Except father.
I think he will."

"Possibly, after you have wheedled him and
hung round his neck.  Well, do you feel you
have a right to disappoint mother and Olive,
as you will do, if you so much as begin on this
course, to say nothing of sticking to it?"

Shirley was silent for a moment.  Then she
answered, very gently, "I should be sorry for
that, of course, but I think I have the right.
Devoting one's self to society can't be a duty one
owes to one's family, if one does n't feel satisfied
with that life.  And my learning to earn my
own living won't disgrace my family--not in these
days of millionaire milliners and violet raisers."

"No, it won't disgrace your family.  Instead,
it makes one member of it sit up and look at
his small sister with a good deal of respect.  If
you take hold of the thing, you 'll go through
with it.  I 've not the least doubt of that, for
you 're no quitter."

"Thank you.  Then will you go with me
to talk with father about it?"

"When?"

"Now.  He 's in the library."

Murray got up.  "You are in earnest," he
remarked.  "Yes, I 'll go with you.  But you 'll
find the question will have to be pretty thoroughly
threshed out with him before he agrees.  He
employs none but experts; you 'll have to win
your spurs before you can wear them.  And
good stenographers are born, not made.  If
you 've got it in you, you 'll succeed; if you have n't,
you won't, no matter how hard you try."

He could not see his sister's eyes, but he could
read the determination in her voice as she
answered that it was the expectation of winning
those spurs that made her heart jump just to
think about it.

It was a fortnight after this talk, and the longer
and more earnest one which succeeded it, that,
coming away from the factory one warm July
afternoon at an earlier hour than usual, Peter Bell
happened upon his young neighbour in a most
unexpected place.  Far downtown, blocks below
the usual shopping district, he saw Shirley
Townsend come out of a doorway and start rapidly
up the street.  She had not seen him, and he
was too far away to call to her, so he was forced
to quicken his pace almost to a run to overtake
her at the next corner before she signalled her car.

She had walked so fast that the best he could
do was to run and swing himself aboard the same
car just as it got under way.  The car was full,
and Shirley herself was obliged to stand, clinging
to a strap.  Peter secured a strap beside her.
There was little chance for conversation during
the long ride uptown, but Peter's eyes were
observant, and he noticed a peculiarity in Shirley's
attire.

At an hour in the afternoon when the girls
of her sort would all be wearing light frocks
and ribbons, Shirley was dressed like the girls
in the office he had just left.  With a
difference--which Peter's eyes also discerned, although
he could not have told just where the difference
lay.  Shirley's white blouse, her blue serge skirt,
her sailor hat, her trim shoes, all bore about
them the stamp of quality, indefinable, yet not
to be denied.

As for her face, Peter thought he had never
seen it so alight with life.  The smile she had
flashed at him was brilliant.  He was glad he
had caught the car.  It was a decided
enlivenment of the long ride, monotonous with
daily repetition, just to stand beside the trim,
swaying figure, and occasionally exchange a word
with its possessor.  Besides, he was feeling not a
little curiosity as to the errand which had taken
her to a place where hung the sign of a well-known
commercial college.

"It is a hot day, isn't it?" observed Shirley,
when he had handed her off the car, and they
were walking up Gay Street toward Worthington
Square.  "Just the day to get into the country.
I 'd like a gallop over about ten miles of good
roads--just to feel the wind in my face."

"It would be great, would n't it?" agreed Peter.

She looked up at him.  "You and Olive don't
ride as much as you used to."

"She has n't seemed to care for it for the last
year or so."

"Hasn't she asked you to ride Grayback
whenever you wanted?"

"She 's been very kind about offering him.
But I don't like to go over and order him out
myself."

"He 's pining for exercise.  So is Pretty Polly,
though I had one short canter on her before
breakfast.  You 've never been out with me on
horseback.  Perhaps you don't know I can ride."

"I have my eyesight.  And as for inviting
you to go with me--how can I, when you have
the horses?  If you 're asking me to go with
you--there 's nothing on earth I 'd rather do
just now."

"I believe that," thought Shirley, as she ran
into the house to change her clothes.  "If ever
a man looked as if he 'd like to drop his cares
and get off on a horse's back, Peter does to-day."

In a few minutes she was crossing the lawn,
in her riding habit, crop in hand.  Peter met
her, himself in riding trim.  His face showed
his pleasure in the prospect, as he put her up
and swung into his own saddle.

"'If wishes were horses,'" he quoted, as they
turned toward the Northboro road.  "And
sometimes they are.  An hour ago I was looking out
of the office window at the factory, and wishing
for this very sort of thing.  I ought to see
Grandfather Bell.  Do you mind if we go that way?"

"I 'm fond of that way.  It will give us a good
gallop down the old turnpike, and a cool walk
through the woods to freshen the horses."

Once out of the city they were off at a brisk
trot, talking a little now and then, but mostly
busy with thoughts.  They had seen so little of
each other since Shirley's return that a sense
of having begun a new acquaintanceship hampered
them both.  They had not yet found common ground.

"Now for the gallop," said Shirley, as they
rounded a turn and came out upon a long, level
stretch of road, with few vehicles in sight.

"This is the spot where your sister lost most
of her hairpins, when she took her first ride with
me," said Peter, indicating to Grayback that a
change of pace was in order.  "I don't think
she 'd ever had such a dashing get-away before.
Off, are you?  Well, well, you do mean business,
don't you?  All right, I 'm with you.  But don't
expect me to recover the hairpins!" he called,
as Grayback picked up the pace Pretty Polly
had set.

But both Pretty Polly and her rider were
evidently on their mettle, and Grayback, bigger
and longer of stride though he was, had to look
to his heels to keep up with the little brown
mare.

Shirley proved a daring rider, and before she
finally pulled Polly down to a canter she certainly
had felt the wind in her face with a rush.

When she looked round at Peter, as they entered
the mile-long course of wood-shaded road which
succeeded the turnpike, she met a brighter smile
than she had seen on his face since she came
home, two months before.  Once more, for the
moment, he looked the care-free boy again.

"You may be a pupil of the riding-schools,
but you 've taken plenty of road-training since,"
was his comment.  "And not a hairpin loose,
so far as I can see."

"That's because I always tie my mop with
a ribbon for riding, like any schoolgirl.  It's
childish, but comfortable.  Is n't this deliciously
cool in here?  And I 've forgotten all about
the pothooks already."  But having said this,
Shirley bit her lip.  She had not meant to tell yet.

"Pothooks?" repeated Peter, curiously.  "Have
you been bothered by pothooks lately?"

"A trifle."  She turned away her head, and
pointed out a fine clump of ferns, growing on
a bank by the roadside.

"Do you want them?" he asked.

"No, no, not enough to get down for.  I--said
something I did n't mean to, and the ferns
offered a way of escape."

Peter was silent, wondering what she could mean.

Then Shirley said, frankly:

"That sounds rude, and I 'm going to tell you."

"Not because something slipped out.  I won't
even guess at it, unless you want me to."

"I do--now.  I think I 'd like to tell you,
though not even Nancy knows yet.  My family
do--but I don't think even they quite realise
what it means to me.  Perhaps you would."

"I 'd like to try."

"I--have begun to study stenography," said
Shirley.  "When I've learned it--and
typewriting--thoroughly, I 'm to have a place in
Murray's office."

She said it with her eyes looking straight
between her horse's ears; and she did not see the
quick, astonished glance which fell upon her.

Peter made no answer for so long that she
turned, wondering and a little resentful.

"I beg your pardon," said Peter.  "I believe
I forgot to answer.  But that was n't from lack
of interest.  You took my breath away.  When
I got it back I fell to thinking that I might have
expected it of you."

"You might?  Why?"

"I 'm not good at telling my thoughts.  But
I knew you had a mind of your own from the
day you first gave Nancy Bell of Gay Street
the preference over the little Hille girl of
Worthington Square."

"Gay Street was sixteen times more interesting
than Worthington Square, always," declared
Shirley, frankly.

"How do you like the pothooks?"

"I 'm going to like them, whether they 're
likable or not.  Just now I 'm in a sort of delirium
ever them.  Little black quirls and dots and
dashes walk through my dreams.  I 've
just one week of it now, and I 'm fascinated.
The only trouble is, I want to get hold of
everything at once."

"Hold steady and make sure as you go.  Slow
accuracy at first is much better than a fast jumble
that you can't read yourself.  If you like it,
and are getting hold of it already, that shows you
are going to win out.  It's easy to tell, from the
start, who 'll make a stenographer in the end
and who won't."

"That's what Murray says, and it encourages
me.  You 've studied it yourself, then?"

"Taught myself in odd hours; thought it might
be useful some time, and it has been, many times.
I can show you a lot of technical short cuts that
will be of use to you, when you 're familiar with
the regular method.'

"Oh, thank you--I'll be grateful.  Come
Polly--you 've cooled off--try a smooth little
canter for a while."

At Grandfather Bell's Peter took Shirley
down and sent her to roam about the great
orchard, while he hunted up the old gentleman
and had a talk with him.  This consumed
nearly an hour, and when they were off upon the
road once more, Shirley discovered that the
care-free look had vanished from her companion's
face, and that his mouth had taken again the
grave expression it had acquired after she went
away to school.

She let him ride to the edge of the woods,
four miles toward home, in the abstracted silence
which had fallen upon him; but as they came
under the first cool shadows, she brought Pretty
Polly down to a walk, and began to talk lightly
about Murray and Jane, and the successful way
in which Jane had taken up the cares of managing
the big house and its affairs.  Peter obediently
followed her lead, but after a short time she discovered
that he gave her his attention only by an effort.

She longed to know what was the matter,
for that something had gone wrong with him
she was more than ever sure.  Two years ago
she would have demanded, with the familiarity
of long acquaintance, an explanation of any
cloud upon his brow, for she and Peter had been
as good friends as seventeen and twenty-six may
be, when the families of both are united by certain
common interests.  But somehow nineteen and
twenty-eight had not yet recovered quite the old
ground of mutual frankness, and Shirley's anxious
questions halted upon her lips.

They had another gallop when they came to
the smooth stretch, but this time, although Peter
said, "That was a good one, was n't it?" his face
did not clear.

Just before they reached home, however, he
appeared to realise all at once that he must have
been poor company, and said so, with a word of
regret.

"I don't mind a bit," said Shirley.  "One
does n't always feel like talking.  And I know
in your position, you must have a good many cares."

"A few.  I 'm afraid I 'm not good at carrying
them, since I let myself keep them on my own
shoulders, even on horseback.  They fell off on
the way out, but at the farm they climbed up
Grayback's tail again.  I 'm sorry, for you 've
been jolly company, and I 've honestly enjoyed
the ride more than anything that has happened
in a year."

"We 'll go again, then, on another half-holiday,
and next time we 'll leave Black Care behind
altogether.  Or, if you will take him along you
shall introduce me.  Will you?"

Her look was so girlishly sympathetic and
inviting, Peter could hardly be blamed for finding
a ray of comfort in it, although he only said
stoutly:

"That would n't be fair."

"Indeed it would.  What are one's friends
for?  And Black Care does n't like the society
of two."

"That's true.  But he's not a desirable
acquaintance, and I don't mean to introduce
him to you.  Remember the pothooks--they 'll
keep you busy."

He smiled as he said it, but Shirley persisted,
more boldly, for she thought she detected the
fact that it would be a relief to Peter to tell
somebody his troubles, if his conscience would let him.

"I 've seen, ever since I came home, that
something was worrying you.  It's made me feel
badly.  Perhaps just telling would make it easier."

"I should imagine it might.  I 'll think about
it.  Meanwhile, thank you for two fine hours.
We 're back just in time for your dinner--and my
supper.  Will you go to the house door, or
dismount here at the stable?"

"Here, please.  And next Saturday we'll go
again, if you really care to."

"I shall think about it through the week.  Here
you are--you don't half let me help you.  Success
to the pothooks!  Good-bye!"





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`BLACK CARE`:

.. class:: center large

   CHAPTER V


.. class:: center medium

   BLACK CARE

.. vspace:: 2

On the following Saturday it rained all day,
and no horseback-riding or excursions
of any sort were possible.  Before another
half-holiday had come round, an unusual and
severe pressure of work had overtaken Peter,
which shut him off from any leisure whatever for
many successive weeks.  Night after night, all
through July and August, he came home late in
the evening, too weary for anything but supper
and bed.  During all this time he saw little of
the people in Worthington Square.

As for Shirley, although she thought often
of Peter, and was sorry that no chance
seemed to favour her getting at the secret of his
burdens, whatever they might be, her own work
absorbed her.  She was proving a ready pupil,
keen of intellect and quick of eye and hand.
As she advanced in the mastery of stenography,
she became more and more fascinated by its
details, and spent more and more of her spare
hours in practice.  The typewriting she acquired
in an unexpectedly short space of time, but her
chief ambition was to achieve the ability to take
dictation rapidly and accurately, and to this
end she laboured with much zeal.

Nancy Bell was taken into confidence, and
became an active and interested partner.  Many
were the hours she spent with Shirley, reading
aloud to her from all sorts of books and papers,
with a view to accustoming her to any kind of
composition.

"You certainly can do anything now," Nancy
said, one day in late September, when she had
given Shirley an unusually trying test at top speed,
and the worker had typewritten it without an
error worth mentioning.

"I 'm not so sure."  Shirley studied her paper.
"I 'm used to you, and you don't flurry me much.
But if I should go to father and offer myself for a
trial, I 'm afraid I should bungle it."

"But you can't get office practice without
office practice.  Nothing can take its place or
give you confidence, I should think.  Why don't
you let Murray try you?  If he dictates as fast
as he talks when he 's discussing business with
Peter, he must be hard enough for anybody."

That evening, as Murray and Jane, in the
library, were discussing certain household matters,
Shirley, sitting at the big table with her
notebook, turned a leaf and began to take down the
conversation.

"Did I say that?" Murray asked, toward the
close of the conference.  "I thought I put it
quite differently."

"You said, dear," said Jane, "that it ought
to cost that, not that it did."

"Are you sure?"

"Quite sure."

"I must have been wandering in my mind.
I seem to hear myself saying in a tone of great
assurance that it actually did cost seventeen
dollars.  I could n't have said anything else,
knowing the facts."

Jane merely smiled, sure of her ground, but
not liking to dispute it further.  Murray took
a turn up and down the room, whistling softly.
He himself would not insist upon the thing he
was sure he had said, but he was none the less
confident.  It seemed to bring the discussion to
a standstill, as such small differences of statement
sometimes will.

Shirley began to read aloud from her note-book
a reproduction of the conversation which had
just taken place.  Listening incredulously,
Murray heard himself quoted as saying precisely
that which Jane had asserted.

"Look here," said he, coming over to the
table and seizing upon the note-book.  "Are
you sure you have that straight--that you 're
not saying it from memory of what Jane said
I said?"

"I did n't get every word you said, but I did
get that sentence.  You brought out the 'ought'
so strenuously I put the exact sign down."

"I 'll give in, of course, but I 'll have to be
careful of what I say in your hearing after this.
You must be pretty good at it, if you caught all
that off our tongues.  We were talking fairly
fast, if I remember."

"You were very nearly too fast for me--in
spots.  Conversation 's harder to take than
anything else.  Do you want to try me on a business
letter?"

"With pleasure," and Murray promptly pulled
a letter out of his pocket, glanced it over, and
began to dictate a reply.

Before she had done two lines, Shirley realised
that the actual receiving of dictation from a
man of business, who was seriously putting her
to a test, was quite different from any amount
of practice with Nancy Bell.  Murray's keen
eyes were upon her, he was watching her fingers
as they flew, he was using business terms with
which she was not familiar.  These technicalities
she was forced to omit, but after a little she
steadied under the consciousness that he was
speaking not too rapidly, and that he paused
now and then between sentences, as if studying the
letter he was answering.

At the end she said, "I 'll make you a copy,"
and flew out of the room.  Murray smiled at
Jane, who had been an interested witness of the
scene.

"I can't get used to the idea that the child is
serious in all this," said he.  "I know she's
been working at it all summer, but I 've seen so
little of it, and she 's been so quiet about it, I
forget that she means business.  If mother and
Olive had been at home all this time I should
have heard of little else."

"There 's no doubt of her being in earnest.  She
and Nan have practised by the hour," answered
Jane.  "I think you'll find her copy pretty
correct."

"I doubt it.  She certainly caught the gist
of our conversation, but that 's comparatively
easy, for her memory would help out on the sort
of thing we were saying.  But when it comes
to getting it word for word, as a business letter
must, she 'll find that 's another thing."

Shirley came back presently and handed her
brother the letter.  He read it through carefully.
"By Jove!" he ejaculated, and looked at his sister.

"I had to leave spaces for the words you used
that I had never heard," said she.  "I did n't think
of it before, but there must be a lot of such words
in your correspondence.  Would you mind making
me out a list of them, or giving me a catalogue?
Next time I 'll know them."

"I'll warrant you will.  Except for them,
you 've practically every word just as I gave
it to you.  See here, when have you done it?
You have n't had time to accomplish so much.
It takes at least six months to make a respectable
stenographer.  You 've been at it but four.
Come here and let me look at you.  By rights
you ought to have grown thin.  No, I can't
see that you have."

"Of course I have n't.  I 've never been so
happy in my life."

"Miss Henley, who is in the office, is going
to be married in October."  He studied her face
keenly.

She looked at him with eager eyes.  He laughed.

"If you were a pauper with a family to support,
you could n't look more appealing," he said.
"Well, keep pegging away, and I 'll recommend
you to father."

.. vspace:: 2

Mrs. Harrison Townsend did not come home
at all that autumn.  Instead, she sailed for
Italy, taking Olive with her.  From Europe
Mrs. Townsend wrote Murray a letter which
he showed to no one, but which gave him no
little discomfort of mind.

"I am much better away," she wrote, "where
I shall not be in the throes of the revolution
which has overtaken my household.  With Jane
refusing many of her most important invitations,
Forrest away, and Shirley casting herself into
the business world, like any poor man's daughter,
I should be too distressed to be able to play my
own part with composure.  I hear that Jane
is not keeping up her calling list as conscientiously
as she should do.  Please try to impress her with
her duty to our friends, even if she does not care
to make them hers.  When I return, I shall
wish to take up my social life where I left it,
and if I should find my friends alienated by the
eccentricity of my daughter-in-law, I should feel
that a wrong had been done which it would be
difficult to overlook."

"About the hardest thing in the world," thought
Murray, as he pondered these lines, "seems to
be for one woman to get another's point of view.
Here 's Jane, staying at home all summer to keep
me company, when she might have gone off to
the seaside or the mountains with Olive.  She 's
tackling big problems every day in the
management of the house, to say nothing of looking after
all mother's social correspondence.  She 's
entertained relatives of ours from in town and from
out of town, to say nothing of making father's
evenings pleasant and seeing to her own family.
Yet because some woman on mother's list writes
her that Jane has failed to pay a call within the
required limit of time, the poor girl is 'eccentric.'  Well,
she shall not be taxed with it, if I can help it."

Feeling that Jane, although unconscious of
the elder woman's dissatisfaction with her
endeavours, should have amends made her after some
fashion, Murray arranged to take her with him
upon a week's business trip, a flying journey
half-way across the continent and back.  In
the absence of Mrs. Townsend and Olive, this
left Shirley and her father quite alone for a week.

One of the evenings of that week Mr. Townsend
spent with Joseph Bell--as was now his frequent
custom.  On this evening Shirley settled down with
a book before the library fire.  She had been
working harder and harder to perfect herself
for the position which she had been assured should
be hers upon the resignation of Miss Henley, a
fortnight hence.  And she had at last arrived
at that state of confidence in her own powers
which permitted an occasional indulgence in an
idle evening without a twinge of conscience.

The book proved so entertaining that an hour
passed, during which she took no note of time.
She could not have told whether it was late or
early, when a slight stir in the hall brought her
attention to the fact that somebody was there,
awaiting her recognition.  She looked up to see
Peter Bell standing in the doorway, his face so
grave and worn that she gave a little cry of amazement.

"Why, Peter!" she said, and came forward
to give him her hand.  He looked down at her
almost as if he did not see her.  His hand was cold.

"You 've been out in the wet--you 're chilled,"
she said, eagerly drawing him toward the fire.
"Why, you 're very wet!  You did n't have an
umbrella."

"I believe I did n't," Peter answered, glancing
at his coat-sleeve, which was, indeed, almost
dripping with dampness.  "I 've been walking
a long way--I don't know how far."

He took the big armchair which she offered
him, but she stood regarding his moist condition
with concern.  His visits were too few to make
her willing to run the risk of losing this one by
suggesting that he ought not to sit down in his wet
coat; and after a moment she ran away and came
back with a house coat of Murray's.

"Please put this on," she said.

Peter protested that he had no need of taking
such precautions, but Shirley persisted until
he obeyed her and donned the coat, throwing
his own upon a chair, whence she rescued it
and hung it where it might have a chance to dry.

"Now rest and be comfortable," said she,
drawing her own small chair into a friendly
nearness to the big one, "and tell me what's
wrong.  It needs to be told at once, I know--or
I 'd try to talk about something else first."

"I'm afraid I couldn't talk about anything
else first," said Peter.  "Yet I don't know that
I can talk about this.  But--I had to come.
There was no one else I could go to.  I 've stood
all the rest by myself, but this----"

He stopped short, as if he could not go on.
Something about his appearance made Shirley's
heart begin to beat fast with apprehension.  It
must be a very bad trouble indeed which could
make Peter act so unlike himself, Peter the
strong, the self-reliant.

Her mind went back in a flash to the day, weeks
before, when he had half promised to give her
his confidence in regard to matters which it was
evident were bothering him.  But he had not
looked then in the least like this.  It had been
merely business care which was heavy on his
shoulders at that time.  This was trouble, or she
did not know the signs.  His set face, upon which
her welcome had brought no hint of an answering
smile, the lines about his mouth, the suggestion
of pallor which was already succeeding to the
colour which had been the result of the tramp in
the rain, all made her sure of her conclusions.

"I want to hear," began Shirley, very gently,
controlling the anxiety in her voice.  Then,
suddenly, as a startling thought occurred to her,
"Peter, it's not--Murray--or Jane?--or mother?"

"No, no," said Peter, quickly, turning to her.
"No, it's not your trouble, it's mine--ours.
Only the others don't know it yet.  They must n't
know it till it--comes.  That's why I came
here.  It' s not right to burden you with it, I 'm
afraid.  But, somehow I----"

Shirley impulsively put out her hand, as if
to touch his.  He did not see it, and she
withdrew it again.  She longed to give him comfort
in some way.  Yet, until the story was told, she
could not tell what to do.  If only he would tell
it quickly.  But, plainly, it was hard to tell.

He drew a deep breath; then sat up straight,
staring into the fire.

"There has been a long succession of
misfortunes," he began, slowly.  "I don't need to
go into those, though I thought them bad
enough--until now.  Now--if it were nothing worse
than those things, if I could just go back to them,
I 'd shoulder them all gladly, and not mind.  It
was property business, all of it--foreclosure
of a heavy mortgage threatening Grandfather
Bell's farm, loss of the little money father had
got together and put into stocks that have gone
to pieces--that sort of thing.  It was up to
me to straighten it all out--and not much
to do it with.  And father--he seemed not
very well--had two or three queer attacks of
illness at the factory during the hot weather.
I felt I could n't worry him with it.  He
seemed to be getting old--all at once.  Finally,
yesterday----"

Peter paused; then he went on in a lower voice:

"Yesterday he had another of those attacks--much
worse than before.  A man near him sent
for me, and I sent for a doctor.  The doctor
brought him round, but it took some time.
To-day I made him go to another doctor--a specialist.
He examined father, and told me what it was."

Shirley, in a breathless silence, waited.

"Any over-exertion, excitement, worry--anything--may
end it at any time.  If he would
give up and stay quietly at home, he might last
a good while.  But that's what he won't do.
He knows it all--took it as coolly as if it were
nothing at all, but won't give up.  And he won't
have anybody told.  Says they 'd never know
another happy moment--and that's true enough.
He 'll just take his chances.  It's brave of him,
and I can understand how he feels, but the hard
thing for me is--I 've got to keep still, and stand
by, and--see it come."

With the last word Peter's voice almost broke.
He turned his head away.  Shirley got up and went
to him.  She laid one hand on his shoulder,
standing still beside him, her heart aching with
sympathy, but finding not a word to say.  In all
his unhappiness, Peter recognised the light touch,
and putting up his cold hand grasped the warm
one.  He held it tight for a minute, for the sense
of comradeship and comprehension it brought
him gave him courage to go on.

Shirley understood the warm and close
relations which had always existed between Peter
and his father.  And she realised, with a pang,
that which Peter had not mentioned, but which
must add its share to the poignancy of his
apprehension--the fact that with the loss of the head
of the family, the burden of the support of that
family must fall upon the son's shoulders.  Money
problems were not to be mentioned in the same
breath with the threatened loss of a dear parent,
but the anxiety they were bound to cause would
make Peter's trouble immeasurably more serious.

When Peter spoke his voice was steady again.

"Of course I 'm facing nothing harder than
other people have to face every day, in one way or
another.  I mean to stand up to it, like a man, if
I can--it would n't be worthy of a chap with a
father like mine to be bowled over by what he
bears with such courage.  But it seemed to me I
must tell somebody, and you--something you
said weeks ago, when we went riding together,
made me sure you would care."

"I do care, very, very much," Shirley answered.
"I 've wished ever so many times since then that
I knew what was the matter.  If you had told me
that, it would have been easier for you to come to
me with this, I think.  I 'm so glad you did.  I
only wish--oh, how I wish--there were something
I could do!"

"You can.  You 're doing it now.  Just
knowing you know makes it easier.  If there were
anything I could do myself I could bear it better."

She slipped out of the room.  In a few minutes
she came back, bearing a tray, upon which was
a cup of chocolate with a little mound of whipped
cream on top, and beside it a plate of sandwiches.
She set her tray at Peter's elbow.

"Father is so fond of this, late in the evening,
that Cook keeps a double boiler ready on the
back of the range, and the rest of us make use of
it," she explained.  "You may not be hungry,
but it will be good for you.  Tell me, did you have
your supper?"

"No, I haven't been home," he owned.  "If
a fellow could eat at all, he ought to be able to
eat this."

To Shirley's satisfaction Peter consumed every
one of the six thin sandwiches, and when she
suggested a second cup of chocolate, he gratefully
accepted it.  He had been famishing, though
he had not known it.  The interview with the
specialist had taken place before lunch time, and
Peter had not remembered lunch at all.

Being human, and very weary, creature comforts
did their part in strengthening him, in mind
as well as body.  When he had finished, and had
spent another half-hour listening to Shirley's
account of news from Forrest, who was in the
West Indies now, he rose, a very different young
man from the one who had come in out of the
rain an hour before.

When he had exchanged the velvet house-coat
for the rough tweed one, now dried by the fire,
he stood before her, hat in hand.  He looked
down into her friendly uplifted face and
something very appreciative showed in his own.  He
could summon only the suggestion of a smile,
but his eyes were less heavy, his colour had come
back, and resolution was once more in his bearing.

"You would put heart into a craven," he said,
shaking hands.

"You 're no craven," answered Shirley, returning
the look steadily with her frank eyes, "but
one of the stoutest-hearted I ever knew.  I know
lots more about you than you think, and I know
what you have been facing all these years in the
way of sticking to work you did n't like."

"That's nothing.  Everybody does that, if he
amounts to any thing."

"Everybody doesn't.  But it's made you
strong and brave.  You 're brave now--and
you 're going to be braver yet."

He studied her a moment in silence.  Then
the smile she had missed shone briefly out upon
her as Peter said fervently: "If I am, it will be
thanks to you, my friend.  Good night!"





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`A BREAKDOWN`:

.. class:: center large

   CHAPTER VI


.. class:: center medium

   A BREAKDOWN

.. vspace:: 2

"Now make her come!" commanded Marian
Hille, as her brother Brant brought his
big green motor-car to a stand in front of the
great building belonging to Townsend &
Company.  "Don't let her refuse.  How she can
spend her days down here, drudging away, I
don't see!  Brant, tell her I shall simply never
forgive her if she does n't shut up that
typewriter at once and come along."

"I 'll say what seems to me to suit the situation,"
declared her brother, sliding out of his seat and
divesting himself of his motoring coat.  "Whether
it will make any impression I 'm not so sure."

He walked leisurely off, but when he was
inside the building he made a short trip of it to
the fifth floor and the offices.  He was quite
as anxious as his sister for the success of his
errand.

Murray himself welcomed young Hille cordially,
and when Brant asked for Shirley, he led
his visitor into an inner office.  Here Brant stood
still, gazing with interest.  He had not yet seen
his old acquaintance at her new tasks.

Shirley sat before a typewriting machine, her
fingers playing as lightly and swiftly over the keys,
for all Brant could see, as those of any veteran
at the business.  The girl did not look up.
Plainly she was much absorbed in her work, a
little flush on her cheek, her eyes devouring the
"copy" before her in the shape of her note-book,
held open by a device above her machine.

Brant turned to look at Murray, and Murray smiled.

"She looks as if she enjoyed it!" Brant
exclaimed, under his breath.

"She does.  No question of that."

"It 'll wear off, don't you think?"

"I doubt it."

He walked over and stood at her elbow, waiting.
Shirley paid him no attention while she finished
the long business letter before her, and she would
not have turned then if her brother had not said
quietly, "A caller is waiting to see you, Miss
Townsend."

Then she glanced up, and rose, pulling a
glove finger from the forefinger of her right hand
before she let the visitor take it.  "I still seem to
give this finger a bit of extra work," she said
smiling.

Brant said a complimentary thing or two in
recognition of her businesslike command of the
typewriter, and then proceeded to put his case.

As she knew, a November house party was in
progress at the Hildreth's country place, eighteen
miles out.  He and Marian had come in on an
errand, and were going back.  A particularly jolly
evening was in prospect.  Somebody had
suggested that the Hilles bring Shirley back with
them, just for the evening.  They felt she owed
them that much, after so resolutely declining the
original invitation for the entire week.  Would
she not go?  It was a rare evening for early
November, the air mild, the moon magnificent, the
roads like a floor.

The Hildreths wanted her to stay the night;
but Brant would rise with the lark and bring
her back to town before breakfast, that she
might not miss so much as a semicolon of her
day's work.  Or--as Shirley continued to look
doubtful--he urged that, if she preferred, he
would actually get her back to-night.  Some of
the married people would drive in with them
for the sake of the run in the moonlight.  Please!

"Go, Shirley, and have a fine time," said her
brother.

She was only human--and a girl--after all,
and after many weeks of close and serious work
the prospect of the little spin of an hour's
duration, with the "jolly evening," appealed to her.
Smiling at Brant's last proposition, Shirley yielded.

"I shall have to go to the house first," she
said, setting the cover on her machine and putting
away her work.  The clock already indicated
the end of the working-day in the Townsend office.

"Of course.  We 'll take you right up in a
jiffy."  And Brant led the way to the elevator,
his soul filled with satisfaction.

The green car was shortly *chug-chugging* in
front of the Townsend house, while Shirley ran
up to exchange her office clothes for the pretty
dull red silk frock which seemed to her to fit the
November evening.

A sense of exhilaration took possession of her
as she pulled on her long driving-coat, and
pinned in place the close hat and swathing gray
veil which made her ready for the swift drive
in the autumn air.  To be really a working girl,
and yet not to be shut out from an occasional
taste of this sort of pleasure--it was certainly
a pleasant combination.  And Shirley had
accomplished one of the best day's works that she
had yet done, and felt as if she had earned
whatever of jollity the evening might have in
store for her.

"Well, I'm certainly thankful to see you acting
like one of us again, if only for a few hours,"
asserted "Marie Anne," as they whirled away.
"Shirley Townsend in a blue serge at four o'clock
in the afternoon is an extraordinary sight.  Now
you look like yourself again.  What have you
got on?  That Indian-red silk?  When you like a
thing you like it forever, don't you?  I wonder
how many times you came down to dinner last
winter at Miss Cockburn's in that red silk!"

"Don't be brutal, Marian!" called her brother,
over his shoulder.  "As if it made any difference
what she wears as long as she comes with us!
Besides, I haven't seen the red silk."

But Shirley was only smiling at Marian's
comments on her attire.  She had not summered
and wintered Miss Hille as a room-mate for two
years in the English school not to have become
inured to her style of intimate criticism.
Besides, she knew perfectly that that Indian-red
silk frock had been her friend's envy for the first
six weeks of its existence, on account of its beauty
and the way it became Shirley's colouring.

It does not take long for a motor-car of high
horse-power driven by a young man with the
usual dash of daring in his composition to cover
eighteen miles of smooth roadway, and it was
not yet six o'clock when the car shot up to the
entrance of the Hildreth's country place.  Half
a dozen young people, returning from the golf
links, hurried up to welcome Shirley Townsend
back to the ranks of the pleasure-seekers, and she
was borne into the house on a little wave of
good-fellowship and merriment which she could not
help decidedly enjoying.

"It's a shame to think of that girl throwing
herself away on the sort of fad she 's taken up!"
growled Somers Hildreth to Brant Hille, as the
two came in, after dressing for dinner, to find
Shirley Townsend the centre of a gay group
before the great fireplace, which was the heart
of the country house.

"I wonder what fault Marian had to find with
that dress," Brant was thinking, as he caught
its gleam in the firelight and saw the sparkling
eyes and warm-tinted cheeks above it.  "If she
is n't by long odds the finest girl in that crowd
I 'll go without my dinner."  But aloud he
responded, calmly, "It does n't seem to have dulled
her charms.  She never looked more as if she
found things worth while, did she?"

"That's reaction," declared the other young
man.  "Shut any girl up in a cage, and she'll
stretch her wings when she gets out.  It will
tell on her after a while, though, if she keeps
it up.  But she won't.  That goes without saying."

"Don't you fool yourself!" muttered Brant,
adopting Murray Townsend's view of the matter.

Shirley, indeed, did not look like a girl who
was accustomed to adopt courses, only to abandon
them when weary.  Whatever her views of the
"things worth while," she certainly enjoyed
that evening.  Those who had sent for her
congratulated themselves on their foresight.

Without making herself in any way a
conspicuous figure, or appearing to take the lead,
Shirley's very presence seemed somehow to bring
about that result most desirable to a hostess,
the making things "go."  The young people
had been together for five successive evenings,
and had about exhausted their resources and
those of their entertainers in the way of diversion.
But with Shirley Townsend's softly brilliant eyes
looking on, her spirited mouth curving into
mischief or merriment, her appreciative comments
spurring them, the young men of the party at
least found themselves stimulated to their best
achievement, and exerted themselves to bring
the response of her pleasure.

As for the girls, they all liked her, although
not without here and there a touch of envy at
the success of a style so free from affectation
that nobody could accuse its possessor of not
being genuine.

"You can't say you 're not having a good time,"
urged Hille, cornering Shirley as the evening
went on.

"There 's no reason why I should want to
say it.  I 'm having a delightful time."

"I thought it was part of your code, from now
on, to enjoy nothing but hard labour."

Her laugh rang out softly.

"You did n't believe anything of the sort.
If all work and no play make Jack a dull boy,
what would they do to Jill?  She would be
unendurable."

"She would.  But anybody would have taken
alarm at sight of you to-day, over your typewriter.
You looked as if you were nothing short of carried
away with it.  You did n't so much as notice
I was in the room."

"I 'm not supposed to notice people who come
into Murray's office.  I learned that at once, by
watching Miss Henley.  While I 'm there I 'm
to be merely an intelligent machine."

"'Machine' doesn't strike me as exactly the
word--in your case.  As for the 'intelligence'--I
suppose Townsend & Company are very exacting.
Do you suppose they 'd take me on the force?"

"You!"  It seemed to amuse her very much.

Brant looked nettled.  He had asked the
question in sport, but he did not like to be taken
that way.  "Look here, am I such a joke as that?"

"The notion of your working for anybody,
even for yourself, is very interesting."

"You think I 'm not capable?"

"I think the mere thought of going to an office
every morning at nine o'clock would be too much
for you."

"You must have a pretty poor opinion of me."

"Not at all.  But you have never needed to
work, never expect to need to work, and have
never shown the first sign of intending to work.
Why shouldn't the idea of your working seem
strange?"

"I might have said the same of you a few
months ago."  Brant was getting red.

"So you might.  But I 'm a girl."

"Does my being a man--I'm twenty-four--make
it a foregone conclusion that I should roll
up my sleeves and tackle a shovel and pick,
whether I need the money or not?"

Shirley surveyed him.  "No, I don't think
it does--*with you*."

The red which had begun to show above
Brant's collar now spread toward his ears,
extended his forehead, and finally suffused
his entire face.  He broke out hotly: "Look
here, you used not to be sharp-tongued like that.
If your taking up this sort of thing is going to
make you not mind how you cut your friends,
it 's my opinion you 'd be better at your
embroidery."

Shirley bit her lip with a mischievous desire
to say something which would make the angry
gleam in his eyes light up still more vividly.  She
and Brant had played together and quarreled
and made up since their nursery days, and this
retort, which she would have resented from
anybody else, merely delighted her from Brant.

She liked to wake him up, and considered that
hurting his feelings on the score of his idleness
was both salutary and justifiable.  Ever since
she had returned she had been feeling more and
more annoyed with him for seeming to settle
down so unconcernedly to a life of absolute ease
and the spending of his share of the estate left
him by a father who had toiled a lifetime to get
his property together.

But she did not intend to be led into a serious
argument with him now and here, nor did she
wish to make him like her less on account of
her new method of employing her time.  She
liked him for many good points, and she was
rather wiser than most girls in perceiving when
she had said enough.  So after an instant's
silence, she asked, with a bright glance, disarming
because unexpected, "Shall we call it even?"

"Did my shot about the embroidery hit?"
Brant exulted.

"Hard.  It doesn't matter that I don't know
how to embroider."

"Not in the least.  Yes, I 'll call it even,
though I got the worst of it.  I was mad enough
to bite something a minute ago, but you always
did have a way of making a chap double up his
fists, and then open them again, feeling foolish.
Oh, here comes Mrs. Hildreth.  You don't want
to go back to-night, do you?"

"I 'll wait till morning.  But we must be off
early.  I would n't miss being on time for a
week's salary."

"Before breakfast?"

"Of course--if they'll let us.  We'll have
breakfast at home; the early morning run will
make us hungry."

"It certainly will.  See here, we don't have
to get anybody up to go in with us, do we?"

Shirley looked doubtful.  "I 'm afraid we do."

"Then I 'd rather take you in to-night," said
Brant, promptly.  "We 'll fill up the car with
chaperons, and you can sit in front with me.
They 'll be tickled to go, in this moonlight.  I 'll
ask Mrs. Hildreth and Miss Armitage; they 'll
discuss dressmakers all the way in and leave
us in peace."

Shirley let him arrange it, personally much
preferring to reach home that night and get up
at the usual hour in the morning, with an interval
between her pleasure-making and her work.
The hour was not late, and Brant professed to
be able to make incredibly quick time, so he had
no difficulty in arranging his party.

There were many sallies at Shirley's expense
as her friends saw her depart.  Her devotion
to business was considered a caprice, likely at
any time to give way to more rational behaviour,
and she was assured of an enthusiastic welcome
back to the company of sane beings when her
"craze" should be over.  She went away smiling
at the thought of how little they understood her,
and with a sense of having at hand resources
of contentment at which they could not even guess.

With an empty road ahead, and the moonlight
making all things clear, Brant sent his car
humming.  In the rush of air caused by their flight,
all four travellers stopped talking, and it was
upon a silence hitherto disturbed only by the
muffled mechanism of the car that the startling
*bang* of an exploding tire woke the echoes.

"Confound the luck!" burst from the young
man in the driver's seat, as he brought the machine
to a standstill.  "That means stop and repair
right here.  We can't run her in on her rim.
We 're not half way."

Shirley looked about her.  Ten rods away,
its big barns looming against the sky, its
white house showing clearly in the moonlight, lay
the farm of Mr. Elihu Bell, the grandfather of
her friends.  Although it was after eleven o'clock,
there were lights showing in windows which
she knew belonged to the front room of the farm-house.

"Shall you need help?" she asked, as Brant
threw open the box which held his repair kit.
"The noise has brought somebody to the door
over there.  It 's the Bell farm--my sister
Jane's grandfather, you know."

"Is it?  Then we'll pull over there into the
yard, and you people can go inside, since they
seem to be up.  It may take me quite a while
to get out of this scrape.  I 'm not much of a
mechanic, and I 've been lucky enough not to
puncture many tires."

He got in again, and ran the car slowly over
to the open gate of the Bell place.  As he turned
in, the two figures which had been standing in
the doorway came out and crossed the yard.

Shirley recognized them both, one tall and
slim, with the slight stoop and characteristic
walk of age; the other also tall, but broad-shouldered
and erect.  She wondered what Peter
Bell could be doing out here, calling on his
grandfather at this late hour, and then remembered
that Peter's time was so full by day that he must
needs make his visits by night.  She thought of
the mortgage he had spoken of, and surmised
that the visit, prolonged past the hour when
farmhouses are usually dark and silent, was on
business.

"Well, well!" called the kindly voice of the
old man.  "Broke down, have you?  Anything
we can do?  Your lights are brighter than any
we can furnish you."

Peter came close.  "Will the ladies come into
the house?" he asked.  He could not see who
they were.

Mrs. Hildreth and Miss Armitage accepted
the offer, for the November air was not so mild
as it had been during the day, and they had
no great confidence in Brant's ability to repair
his own machine.

Peter offered a helping hand.  When the older
ladies were out, he turned to the girl on the front
seat.  She sprang down, and stood still before
him.  She had pulled her gray veil closely about
her face, and she spoke in a muffled whisper:
"Guess who I am."

.. _`"SHE SPRANG DOWN, AND STOOD STILL BEFORE HIM"`:

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   :alt: "SHE SPRANG DOWN, AND STOOD STILL BEFORE HIM"

   "SHE SPRANG DOWN, AND STOOD STILL BEFORE HIM"

Peter glanced toward Brant, who had now
come around into the glare from his own
headlights.  Peter knew Brant, as anyone must who
was included in the entertaining done in the
Townsend house.  But it had always been many
leagues farther to Gay Street from the Hille home
on the north side of Worthington Square than
from that of Murray and Shirley Townsend on
the south side.

"I'm afraid I can't guess," admitted Peter,
who thought he knew that Shirley was at home
that night, having noted a light in her window
when, at nine o'clock, he had mounted his bicycle
to make the trip to Grandfather Bell's.  Her
figure in the long coat and shrouding veil was
not familiar to him, and the whisper had
conveyed no note of Shirley's real tones.

"Then you shall never know," the sepulchral
whisper assured him, and he found some difficulty
in holding his hand from the desire forcibly to
remove the provoking veil.  The possibility that
it was his sister Jane caused him to estimate sharply
the height of the figure before him.

It was a little too tall for Jane, and Peter was
about to hazard a guess that it was one of the
least formidable of the girls of Shirley's set whom
he occasionally met at her home, when Brant
Hille called out, annoyance sounding in his
voice:

"You 'd better go in with the others, Shirley--this
is going to take time.  I 've got to put
on a new tire--worse luck!"

Peter's fingers grasped the veil and gently
pulled it aside from the laughing face beneath,
"No wonder you wanted to hide!" he jeered,
under his breath.  "A working-girl like you,
off on midnight larks like this, with to-morrow
ahead."

But there was a distinct hint of pleasure in
his voice at the discovery of her here, thrown
upon his hospitality.  He led her away to the
house, within whose open door the other ladies
had disappeared.

"Grandmother has gone to bed long ago," he
said, as they came up on the porch, "and I don't
think I 'll disturb her.  She 's deaf and won't
hear, and she needs her sleep.  But I can get
you all something hot to drink, and something
to eat, too, if there 's much delay."

Shirley presented him to Mrs. Hildreth and
Miss Armitage, who were already making
themselves at home in the low-ceiled, pleasant
living-room which lay all across the front of the
farm-house.  A dying fire reddened the hearth, which
Peter soon revived into a blaze.  Then he went
in search of refreshments.  Thereafter, returning
to the scene of the breakdown, he rendered Brant
valuable assistance, proving handier at the process
of replacing the injured tire than Brant himself.
When they finally had done the work, and Brant
pulled out his watch with a hand black with dirt
and grease, he gave an exclamation of dismay.

"One A.M., by all that's unfortunate!  Better
let me take you back to Longacre, Shirley, and
get you home comfortably in the morning.  What
difference does it make if you do miss part of a day?"

"Leave her here," said Mr. Elihu Bell.  "We 'll
take care of her to-night, and I 'll drive in with
her in the morning, bright and early.  That's
the best way out, and you people can go back
and go to bed.  Grandma 'll be mightily pleased
to wake up in the morning and find the little
girl here."

Feeling it the simplest solution of a situation
which was involving somebody's sacrifice,
whatever she did, Shirley accepted the offer.  Brant
did not feel altogether pleased over driving away
and leaving her standing on the porch beside
Peter, but he was decidedly weary with his
exercise, and sleepy after two brimming glasses of
milk, and he resigned his charge with one
murmured speech: "Shows what a fool thing it is
for a girl like you to play at holding down a
business position.  You can't be either one thing
or the other with any comfort, and it even gets
your friends into trouble."

This surly farewell was punished by the girl's
gay rejoinder:

"I suppose it was the weight of your cares
that was too much for the car!  I 'm sorry, and
I 'll promise not to run away from my work
again--with you."

When the car was off, Peter promptly brought
round his bicycle.  "This is n't quite so imposing
a conveyance as Hille's automobile," he said,
standing at the foot of the steps and looking up
at Shirley, "and I can't invite anybody to share
it with me and ride home.  But it's very
convenient for these little runs out to the farm, and
I 'm glad I happened to be here to-night.
Somehow, just the sight of you, without any chance
to talk, does me good."

"If that is true, I should think you might take
advantage of living so near just a bit oftener
than you do.  Do you know how long it is since
you 've been over?"

"It seems six months to me," said Peter, smiling.

"It is six weeks.  Are you so busy all your
evenings?"

"Pretty busy.  And I spend what little spare
time I can make with father."

"Of course," she agreed, gently.  "But I
think you need a little more change of scene
than you get."

"I 'd like it.  But I can't be bothering a girl
like you with entertaining an old chap like me."

"An old chap!" mused Shirley.  "Is that
the way you feel?"

"I was feeling forty, at least--till the tire
blew up.  Then I came down to thirty.  When
I found the girl under the veil, I dropped off
several years more.  But when I looked at that
boy Hille I became a patriarch again."

"I wish he could hear you call him a boy!
Suppose I give you a special invitation, and
run the risk of your bothering me, will you accept
it?"

"In a hurry!"

"Your first spare evening then?"

"You tempt me to cut everything and come
to-morrow night.  No--I 'll wait a decent
interval, to let you get caught up after this midnight
dissipation.  May I come early?"

"The earlier the better."

"And you won't invite anybody else to help
make it jolly for me?  The last time I ventured
over you had a roomful."

"I 'll invite nobody.  Come, Peter Bell--do
you know I 'm being much nicer to you than I
ordinarily am to anybody?  I let mother and
Olive do the inviting, and I just look demure,
as if I did n't care."

"You do care, then, this time?"

"It's time you were off, is n't it?" and she
retreated, laughing, to the open door.

Peter looked back at her, an alluring figure,
with the lamplight falling over the dull red silk
of her frock, and wished he need not go at all.
But Grandfather Bell's tall form appeared just
behind Shirley's.  This was an unheard-of hour
for Grandfather Bell.  So, with a friendly good
night and a warm feeling at his heart, Peter
bestrode his wheel and was off down the moonlit
road toward home.





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.. _`CHRISTMAS GREENS`:

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   CHAPTER VII


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   CHRISTMAS GREENS

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"Jane, I've the most charming plan in my head
for Christmas week you ever heard of."

"Have you, Shirley dear?  And are you
going to tell it to me?"

"I am, indeed.  Listen.  Let's take cook
and Norah, and go--all of us, your houseful
and ours--and spend part of holiday week at
Grasslands."

"Shirley!  You take my breath away!  Could
we do it?  Would n't it be fun if we could?"

"I don't see a thing in the way.  When I
stayed overnight, in November, your Grandmother
Bell said she wished she could get her
family together once more at Christmas there,
instead of going in to have dinner in Gay Street,
as they 've been doing since your family went to
live in town.  She said she 'd like to have us
all if she were younger again, but she has no
'help,' and thought it would be a pity to ask
us, and then have your mother and Nan do the
work.  I 've thought about it ever so many
times since, but this idea has only just popped
into my head."

"I should think it could be done," mused Jane.
"There are rooms and rooms at the farm, and
little open wood-stoves in every one.  You and
I could go out the day before, and get everything
aired and ready."

"What if you and Mrs. Bell and Nan and I
went, without telling any of the men?  I 'm to
have Christmas week for my first vacation, you
know.  Then when they came home in the
evening, have a bouncing big sleigh ready to carry
them off to the farm, and a jolly supper waiting?
Then a tree that night, and Christmas next day,
with coasting and skating and snowballing,
if the weather is right?"

"You artful child!" exclaimed Jane.  "It
would do us all heaps of good--especially father
and mother.  Father looks to me so worn and
tired.  Have you noticed it?"

Shirley nodded.  She had indeed noticed it,
and a deep-laid plot, having for its beneficiary
Mr. Joseph Bell, was at the back of the planning.
But she did not intend that anybody should find
that out.  So she agreed lightly that Jane's father
needed a holiday, as did all the others.

"If we can't get any of them to take more than
Christmas day, we can at least bring them out
there every night and back every morning,"
she said.  "We 'll give them such good things
to eat they won't mind the drive.  With Grandfather
Bell's big horses, all jingly with sleigh-bells,
they certainly won't.  Oh, will you go
and speak to Cook now?  I simply can't wait
to get things under way."

"Do you mean to surprise Grandmother Bell, too?"

"Yes, if your grandfather agrees, as I 'm sure
he will.  If we told her she 'd tire herself all out,
doing wholly unnecessary things.  Everything
in the house is always in apple-pie order, but
she would n't think so."

"You 're quite right, I think.  I 'll go and
talk with Cook"--and Jane hurried away, looking
as girlishly eager as Shirley herself.

She had small doubt of Cook.  If Mrs. Murray
Townsend had a friend in the house, it was Bridget.
Mrs. Harrison Townsend had never considered
Bridget a particularly amiable person, but Jane
had won her completely by treating her always
with consideration, and by showing the interest
in her affairs, which is appreciated most by those
who expect it least.

"Sure, then, we 'll go, Mrs. Murray, and take
it as a holiday," agreed Cook, when her young
mistress had explained her plans.  "And we 'll
take some of the fixings with us they 'll not be
havin' at the farm."

During the week that intervened before Christmas,
Shirley's head was so full of her schemes
that for the first time since her initiation into
office work she had considerable difficulty in
keeping her mind upon her tasks.  Christmas
fell upon a Tuesday that year, fortunately for
her plans, so after Saturday noon she was free
to give her mind to the pleasures in prospect.
Mrs. Bell and Nancy had agreed enthusiastically
to every detail of the arrangements, and
Grandfather Bell, when cautiously consulted over the
telephone and urged to keep it all a secret from
his wife, had responded as joyously as a boy that
the party might occupy every nook and corner
of the house and have things all their own way,
if they would only come.

It proved necessary to let somebody into the
plan at the last, in order that the men, returning
to their homes on Monday evening, should be
directed what to do.  Rufus was selected for this
office, an appointment which tickled him so that it
was with difficulty he kept from bursting out with
his secret.  At night he was first at home, and as
the others one by one arrived, he haled them to
their rooms, bade them make themselves ready
in short order, and surreptitiously packed away
several travelling bags in the recesses of Grandfather
Bell's capacious market-wagon, now on
runners and fitted with seats.

"What on earth does it all mean?" asked
Murray, taking his seat in the sleigh in which
the energetic Rufus had stowed the male members
of his own family, amidst a storm of questions
and surmises, accompanied by much good humoured
raillery at his own quite evident excitement.

"It means that you 're kidnapped, and may
never see home again," responded Rufus, tucking
a hot soapstone under his father's feet, for the
night was sharp, and Shirley's orders imperative.
"Warm, daddy?  Want an extra rug over you?
I 've enough here to wrap up a party of elephants."

"I'm very comfortable," Mr. Bell replied.
His shoulder rested against Peter's, and Peter's
arm lay along the low back of the seat behind
him.  Mr. Bell always felt a comfortable sense
of support and protection when Peter was
near--and Peter generally was near in these days.
The elder man well understood why, and appreciated
the devotion which showed itself in acts
rather than in words.

"I've only one objection to make," declared
Ross, as the sleigh moved briskly off, driven by
Grandfather Bell's next neighbour, a man who
did odd jobs for him when needed, and worked
for him steadily during the summers.  "I 'm
hungry as a bear, and don't want to go more than
fifty miles to supper."

"It would pay you to go a hundred, judging
by my observations," asserted Rufus, from among
the fur robes at Ross's feet.  "And we 'll be
there in a jiffy.  Don't these boys go, though?
They must get fed plenty of oats."

"They certainly do," agreed the driver.
"Elihu Bell is n't the man to starve his horses,
let alone humans."

"That's encouraging," and Murray, who also
boasted a vigorous appetite, fell to conjecturing,
after the manner of hungry man, what supper
at the farm would be like.  He knew nothing
of the arrangements that had been made, and
felt rather doubtful whether anything could take
the place of the dinner of Jane's planning he had
expected to find at home.

The ten miles were covered in a little more
than an hour, for the sleighing was good, and
the driver anxious to show what his horses could
do.  As they turned in at the gate and drew up
at the side porch, they saw that the old house
was aglow from top to bottom with lights in
every window.  At the jingle of their bells the
door flew hospitably open, although no one was in
sight, and only the roaring fire in the wide fireplace
opposite the door seemed on hand to give them
a welcome.

"It looks Christmas-sy enough in there, does n't
it?" said Ross, catching sight of holly branches
and ropes of ground-pine adorning the chimney-piece,
and holly wreaths tied with scarlet ribbons
in the windows.

"Well, well!" ejaculated Mr. Joseph Bell,
slowly, as Peter gently pushed him ahead into
the room, and his eyes fell upon a tree, its top
touching the low ceiling, its branches twinkling
with candles and loaded with packages.  He blinked
with astonishment, and sat abruptly down in the
first chair that offered, looking as pleased as a boy.

"Where are they all?" and Rufus, putting
his hands to his mouth, gave a ringing hail.

"Merry Christmas!" responded a chorus of
gay voices, and a curtain fell aside.  Grandmother
Bell, her rosy old face beaming, advanced
with outstretched hand, her husband close behind
her.  In the background appeared Mrs. Joseph
Bell, Jane, Shirley and Nancy, all in white dresses,
with holly berries gleaming in their hair.

"This is the best surprise ever heard of!"
cried Peter, stooping to kiss Grandmother Bell's
soft, wrinkled cheek, and then turning to wring
his grandfather's hand.  "This beats Christmas
in town all to nothing."

"It *is* jolly!" and Murray saluted the old lady
in his turn, for he was a favourite with her, not
only because he was Jane's husband, but because,
from the first, he had taken pains to be very good
to her.  He smiled at Jane as he stood straight
again, thinking she had never looked prettier
than she did to-night.  But Murray was apt
to think that, wherever he first caught sight of
her after a day's absence.

"I 've been trying all day," said Ross, as he
greeted the old people, "to make myself realise
this was Christmas eve.  But from this hour
all difficulty leaves me.  I smell Christmas in
the air."

"It's the pumpkin pies, and mince, and
doughnuts, and plum pudding you smell," laughed
Nancy.

"The greens smell sweet and Christmas-sy,
too," said Shirley.  "We had such fun gathering
them this morning.  It seemed a pity to do it
by ourselves."

"If I 'd known of it, I should have blown out
through the factory roof and landed over in
grandfather's woods!" declared Peter, coming
up to shake hands.  "Woods in winter!  And
to-morrow's a holiday!  Are we to stay?  I
thought I fell over a grip as I got out of the
sleigh."

"Indeed you are--for four days."

"Four days!  I only wish I could!"

"You can--evenings and nights and mornings."

"Do you mean it?  Are we invited?"

"We are."

"Who thought this magnificent scheme up?"
demanded Peter.  "Ah, you 're blushing!  I might
have----"

"I 've been out in the cold air more than half
the day," and Shirley covered one brilliant cheek
with her hand.  "Are n't you hungry?"

"Famishing!"

"We 're to have supper right away.  Your
grandmother calls it supper, and Cook calls it
dinner."

"Cook!"

"She 's here."

"Well, of all the----"

But Peter had to be hurried away by his sister
Nancy to his room--his old room upstairs
under the eaves, where he found his hand-bag
awaiting him, and a brisk fire snapping in the
old box stove.  For the time being, he felt he
could let himself forget that the old roof was
encumbered by a heavy mortgage, due in six
weeks now, and held by a man who had long
coveted that farm.  It was Christmas.

The meal spread in the long, low dining-room,
to which a merry company presently sat down,
was a delicious one.  Grandmother Bell's old
blue-and-white Canton plates and cups had
never been more delectably filled, nor had her
antique silver forks and spoons clinked to a livelier
measure than the talk and laughter which went
round as the supper proceeded.

"Does it seem like home here?" Shirley
asked Mr. Joseph Bell.

"Home?" said he, with a glance from the old
prints upon the walls to the antique side table
below, with its turned-up leaf.  "It's the only
place in the world that will ever really seem like
home to me.  It 's just a makeshift, living in
the city, to people who were brought up on a
place like this.  You see, though I went away
from here when I was a young man, and lived
a long time in the city, working up in the paper
factory, we came back here again and stayed
five years, while the children were little, on account
of a breakdown in my health.  Then when I
grew strong again, we moved back and settled
in Gay Street.  But the farm is home--always
will be.  My wife feels the same way, though
she was a city girl.  She 'd like to live here now
as much as ever."

"I don't wonder.  It's one of the pleasantest
farm-houses I ever saw."  And Shirley smiled
across the table at Peter as she spoke, meeting
his eyes as he glanced from his father's face to
hers, well pleased to see the elder man looking
as if heartily enjoying himself.

"The tree is only to look at this evening,"
announced Jane, when they were all back in
the living-room.  "Nothing is to be taken off
it till to-morrow evening."

"And we're to be tantalised all that while?
I 'm willing to see it shorn of its fruit any time
after I 've made a quick trip to town--which
will be the first thing to-morrow morning," said
Murray, with a meaning wink at Peter, who
nodded, comprehending.

Rufus grinned at his father, and a general
spirit of understanding appeared to prevail among
the guests, who had been brought away to the
party without a chance to get together the parcels
they had stowed in sundry secret places.

"We 're glad you 're so clever at seeing our
reasons for delay," said Nancy, gazing up into
the thick branches of the tree, her eye upon
various packages of her own, all tied in the
same way, so that they were easily recognisable.
She had worked for months over her gifts, having
little money to spend, but possessing much love
and ten skilful fingers.

"Meanwhile we must have something doing
this evening," said Rufus.  "What shall it be?"

"How will making candy suit your zest for
sport?" asked Jane.

"Bully!  We haven't made candy since we
grew up--not real candy.  I don't count Nan's
caramels and Shirley's fudge.  Let's make some
real old-fashioned molasses candy, and *pull* it!"

"What else, at the old farm?  As soon as the
kitchen is clear we 'll go out," and Jane
disappeared, to hasten operations in the kitchen by
tying on an apron and wiping dishes herself
with Norah.  Her blithe talk, while her fingers
flew, kept both Cook and Norah smiling while
they worked, and the big farm-house kitchen
was soon in spotless order.

"It does be after doin' me good to work in a
place like this again," declared Cook, as she helped
Jane measure out molasses and get the big kettle
on.  "It's not that I don't like the tiles and the
copper and all the conveniences of my kitchen
in the city.  But when a person has been brought
up in the country, there 's always the fondness
clingin' to them for the old ways, even if they 're
a bit inconvenient.  See the gourd dipper, now,
Norah.  Will you say that water does n't taste
better out of it than from granite ware?"

"I never saw a dipper like this before,"
answered Norah, who had been born in town, and
could hardly share Cook's enthusiasm for these
details of country living.

"*She* knows what I mean," said Cook, with
a nod of the head after her young mistress, just
departing.  "Sure, I have n't seen such a sparkle
in the eyes of her since she came to live at the house.
She 's not born to be a great lady, just a home-keeping
one.  And that's the best sort, to my mind."

Then she beckoned Norah away, and they
fled up the back stairs, just as the sounds of
approaching feet warned them that the company
were coming.

"Jolly!  This is the stuff!" exulted Rufus,
bursting first into the kitchen.  "Doesn't that
smell like the real thing?  Tie an apron on me
and let me take charge of the kettle.  The rest
of you can grease tins.  I 'll offer a prize for
the whitest candy.  Secure your partners for
the pulling!"

"May I have the honour?" and Peter made
his best bow to Shirley as she appeared from the
pantry, her hands full of shining tins.

"Of course you may, if you 'll show me how.
I never pulled candy in my life."

"Your education has been appallingly
insufficient, in spite of those two years in England.
But I used to be pretty good at it, and we 'll take
the prize if you follow directions.  Please begin
by taking off those rings!" commanded Peter.

Shirley obediently slipped off several pretty
rings.  Then she tied on a small and frivolous
apron, at which Peter frowned.

"Do you call that absurdity of lace and ribbons
an apron?" he demanded.  "What do you suppose
will happen to it if you drop a hunk of candy
in the sticky stage on it?  Here, I 'll get you
one of grandma's--they 're worth something."  Shirley
presently found herself invested in a
bountifully made apron of checked white material,
with a bib and strings, which nearly covered her
from sight.  "Now you're safe--and so is
the candy.  The minute it's fairly cool, we 'll seize
a generous portion and get away to some cool
spot with it."

It was some time before this stage in the
operations was reached, and meanwhile Peter found
himself obliged to share his partner with Ross
and Rufus, who had no idea of allowing
monopolies, with no other girls present but Nancy.

The elder people, however, proved themselves
nearly as good company as the younger ones,
for everybody seemed to have adopted the spirit
of the season and to be ready for as much
fun-making as possible.  And to the great satisfaction
of both Peter and Shirley, not the least care-free
of the company seemed Mr. Joseph Bell himself.

To Peter, especially, watching his father with
an eye which took note, as the others could not,
the very evident relaxation and refreshment of
the occasion were a source of deep satisfaction.
For once the son felt that he could himself relax and
dare to get out of the hour all the joy there was in it.
Happiness of this sort could not hurt, he was
sure.  It could only help.

"Our panful is cool enough!" declared Peter,
flourishing the blue-and-white-checked gingham
apron which veiled his long legs, as he returned
from the porch, where the candy had been cooling.
"Now, partner, hands buttered, courage good?
Stand ready to take hold when I say the word,
I 'll work the lump into malleable condition.
Open the door into the wood-shed, please.  We 'll
do our pulling there, if it's not too cool for you;
then we 'll not get stuck."

"*Ooh-h-h!*" Shirley gave a little shriek as
Peter presently, with a deft pull of his big lump
into a long, smooth skein, handed her one end
with the injunction to draw it out quickly and
swing it back to him.  "But it's hot!"

"Of course it is, Miss Tender-Fingers!  If
we let it get comfortably cool we could n't pull
it at all.  Keep hold--keep it moving.  Don 't
let it stay in your fingers long enough to stick.
Pull--swing--pull--swing!  Hold on!  You're
getting stuck!  Wait a minute!"

"I can't do anything but wait!" gasped Shirley,
holding up ten fingers hopelessly embedded in
a mass of uncomfortably warm material.

"What!  Can this be the expert stenographer,
all balled up in a couple of quarts of molasses?
Hold still!  Don't try to work out.  I 'll pull
you loose.  Don't let the others see.  Keep
away from that kitchen door!"

But Rufus, pulling smoothly away from Jane,
with the art acquired by much practice in past
years, spied out the tangled ones.  His shout
of laughter brought all the others toward the
wood-shed door.

Shirley and Peter were obliged to return to
the kitchen to obtain butter for the stuck-up
fingers.  They fell into a state of great
merriment over the situation, in which everybody
else joined appreciatively, and the old kitchen
rafters rang with the laughter.

"Where would the stage apron be now?  This
is no gallery play!" jeered Peter, rescuing one
long string of brownish-yellow sweetness from
the front of Shirley's big white apron.  "Want
a taste?  Shut your eyes and open your mouth!"

"No, thank you.  Eat it yourself."

"I will," and Peter tipped back his head.

At this interesting moment the door between
dining-room and kitchen swung open.  A figure
appeared upon the threshold--a figure clad in
silk and furs, topped by a Parisian bonnet.
Over its shoulder showed the heads of two
others--one wearing a wonderful hat covered with
fine black ostrich-plumes, the other its own thin
thatch of short, iron-gray hair.

"We have found you at last!" said the voice
of Mrs. Harrison Townsend.

Behind her, Olive burst into a musical peal
of laughter.

"Look at Shirley, mother!  Don't you think
it's about time we came home to prevent her
quite returning to childhood?"

Then Mr. Harrison Townsend, from the
background:--"This is rather stealing a march on
you, good friends.  But we found our own
house dark--and this is Christmas eve!"





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.. _`PETER READS RHYMES`:

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   CHAPTER VIII


.. class:: center medium

   PETER READS RHYMES

.. vspace:: 2

"Stay?  Of course you'll stay!" declared
Grandfather Bell to Mr. and Mrs. Townsend.
"It'll do you good after all your junketing,
and we'll be mightily pleased to have you."

It had not taken much persuasion.  There
certainly was a charm pervading the old
farmhouse, and the thought of resting quietly there
for a few days appealed to Mrs. Townsend.
Her husband was delighted at the plan, for he had
been persuaded to join his wife abroad, and
several months of European travel had wearied
him.  Everything simple and homelike attracted
him now more than ever.  It had been his
restlessness which had brought his party home a
month before the date originally set for their
return.

If there had been a goodly number of packages
upon the Christmas tree on Christmas eve,
there were more than double that number by
the evening of Christmas day.  Not only had
Murray and Peter made an excursion to town,
but Mrs. Townsend, mindful of many intended
gifts stored away in her trunks, had sent Olive
in with the others to get them.

When the Christmas dinner was over, Rufus
proposed that the clan go out for an hour's skating
on a pond not far away.  "We can enjoy that
tree a lot better if we have some good brisk
exercise beforehand," he asserted.

"I don't skate," said Olive, looking as if she
wished she did.

"Come along with us just the same," urged
Ross, "and we 'll take turns, not exactly 'sitting
out' with you, but walking up and down the
shore.  Or--we'll teach you."

Olive declined to be taught, but agreed to
accompany the others.  Promenading along the
bank, fur-wrapped, her dark beauty made brilliant
by the frosty air which nipped her cheeks, she
was a figure to compel attention.  She had never
seemed more companionable than now, and both
Ross and Rufus enjoyed, with more zest than
they had anticipated, the period allotted to them
for bearing her company.  Murray, observing
her with brotherly penetration, found her
decidedly improved, and wondered what had happened
during the months of her absence to make her
so much more appreciative of her family's society
than she had been wont to be.

When Peter, in his turn, came to offer himself
as partner in her exile from the gaieties going
on upon the ice, she greeted him with a smile
so radiant that he looked at her in wonder.  The
old friendship between the two, begun in the
earlier days of their acquaintance, and carried
on through several years, while they grew from
boy and girl to man and woman, had waned
and nearly died of neglect on both sides during
the past two years.  Each had become absorbed
in pursuits so different that they had little in
common, and Olive, especially, had seemed to
outgrow the traits of frankness and friendliness
which had made Peter like her in spite of many
obvious faults.  Before she went away, he had
come to think of her as hopelessly spoiled and
artificial.  But now--had something changed
her point of view?

"A few years ago."  said Olive, as the two
paced up and down, exchanging comments on
the occurrences of the past months, "I was in a
hurry to be grown up.  When I look at Jane
and Shirley and Nancy, after having been away
from them for six months, I realise that their
genius for remaining girls is going to be an
advantage.  What a trio they are!  Shouldn't
you say they were all three about sixteen?"

The three had just joined hands and skated
away from Murray, Ross, and Rufus, who had
promptly started in pursuit.  All three wore
skirts of ankle length, short jackets and close
little caps, and none had considered furs a necessary
article of apparel for lively exercise.  A blue
silk scarf about Jane's throat and a scarlet one
floating to the breeze from Shirley's furnished
notes of colour to the agile, dark-clad figures,
and three health-tinted, winsome faces looked up
at the two on the bank with a gay greeting as the
trio swung lightly by.

"I certainly should," agreed Peter.  "I don't
think Jane will ever grow old.  Nan is an infant,
and will be for ten years yet, as far as settling
down to consider herself too old for pranks like
that, and I 'm glad of it.  As for your sister
Shirley----"

"Tell me what you think of Shirley.  The
child is a continual puzzle to me; I can't make
her out.  This idea of working steadily at earning
a salary in the office seems to be a fixed one,
though I had supposed it only a freak.  Does
she look as contented as this all the time, or is it
just the relaxation of the holiday?"

"I should say it was a permanent condition
of mind.  She 's more interested to-day in her
work than when she began, and is growing
surprisingly expert.  Murray told me yesterday
she wants to tackle the special foreign
correspondence--French, you know.  That means a lot of
extra labour."

Peter spoke as if he felt a personal pride in
Shirley's achievements, an attitude which Shirley's
sister was quick to note.

"I felt out of patience with you when she began,
for I thought her zeal for making a working-girl
of herself might be of your inspiring," said
Olive, with a quick look at him.

"Not a bit of it.  I never heard of it till she
had been a week at her first studies.  How should
I have dared suggest such a course?"

"You and she seem to be great friends."

"Do we?  It is an honour I appreciate very
much," answered Peter, with a little touch of
courtliness in his manner such as had often
surprised her in the early days of their acquaintance,
and which struck her now as decidedly interesting
in a young man who spent his days in a factory,
even if he was many degrees higher in position
in that factory than when she had first known
him.  What his position was at present she did
not guess, nor did she know that Murray had
begun to look at him as a man to be desired in
his own business, a man whose brain was undoubtedly
to make him an important factor wherever
he might be.

What she did recognise was that she had met
few men anywhere who had the power to
command her interest as Peter had always done,
and seemed now more capable of doing than
ever before.  As for his looks--she owned to
herself that she had never before realised quite
how fine and resolute and altogether manly was
his whole personality.

"Speaking of contentment," said Peter, breaking
the little silence which had followed upon
his last words, "don't you think it follows rather
naturally upon feeling that you are accomplishing
something worth the doing?  It does n't make
so much difference what it is; the point is, that
you 're doing it.  If it costs effort, so much the
better."

"It depends on what you think is worth the
doing," said Olive.  "You and I would be apt
to differ on that--as Shirley and I do."

"Not much question of that," admitted Peter,
smiling.  He gave her one of his clear-sighted
glances, under which she shrank a little though
she did not show it.  It made her say, rather
defiantly:

"Of course you think, as you always did,
that I 'm the most useless creature living, and
that my ideals are about as insignificant as the
amount of actual work I do."

Their eyes met, hers black and sparkling,
his gray and steady and cool.  He studied her
for an instant, with a quality in his intent scrutiny
before which her eyes went down.  She was used
to admiration in men's observation of her, and
though that element could hardly be lacking
in Peter's, since he was human, and she a more
than ordinarily charming young woman, there
was also in his regard that appearance of taking
her measure, which, quite unconsciously, he
could never help exercising when brought into
contact with men or women.  But his words,
when they came, were gentle.

"If you don't mind my saying so, I think
you 're capable of things so well worth while
that your life might be a wonderful thing to you.
You could, if you cared to, do what you pleased
with almost anybody.  You have the art, the
magnetism--whatever it may be--of the born
leader.  The only trouble is--you don't much
mind--do you?--which way you lead."

This from Peter Bell!  For a minute Olive
was left speechless.  Yet it was impossible to
resent his frank putting of the case, for it conveyed
something which gave her a distinct pleasure.

"I 'm not sure whether I ought to be angry
with you or not," she said, after a minute.

"Please don't be."

"When did you take up the profession of preacher?"

"To the queen?" suggested Peter, with an
odd smile.  "But you 're at liberty to order my
head off at any minute, you know.  Or to preach
back--which would be worse."

In spite of this passage-at-arms, they were
both laughing when the others came up with the
announcement that it was time to go back to the
house.  But Peter's keen speech sank in; Olive
did not forget it soon.  And somehow, she was
more than ever sure that Peter himself was well
worth cultivating.

"I never was so excited over a Christmas
tree as over this one," confided Nancy to Shirley,
as the two dressed for the evening.  The
Christmas dinner had taken place, after the country
fashion, in the middle of the afternoon.  It was
now six o'clock, and the evening was before
them.  No supper was in order, after the
tremendous banquet at three o'clock; but Jane had
provided certain light refreshments of the
decorative sort; salad and sandwiches, gay-coloured
ices and bonbons, cakes and a great bowl of
fruit punch, all of which waited in a cool spot
ready for the serving by the young people
themselves.  Cook and Norah had been sent into town,
for a celebration of their own with friends.

"Oh, oh!  What a pretty frock!" cried Nancy,
as her friend shook out a soft silken fabric of pale
gray, lighted up here and there with small sprigs
of scarlet flowers, with belt and long streamers
of scarlet velvet to match.

"Do you like it?  It's my one French gown,
and an inexpensive one, too, but it looks festal,
and I thought I 'd christen it to-night.  Will
you wear the one I have for you?  I meant to
put it on the tree, but it occurred to me you
might like to wear it and keep me company,"
and Shirley pulled a long box from under the
valance of the high 'four-poster' bed.

"You are the dearest thing that ever lived!"
cried Nancy, going down on her knees before
the box, and lifting out the frock of pale blue
veiling, with its trimmings of flowered ribbon,
a girlish creation of the sort to please young eyes.

It was a very happy pair of maids who descended
the staircase together.  They were happy,
however, in two quite different ways.  Nancy's
cup was overflowing in the delight of her pretty
finery; but it was a joy of another sort which
made Shirley's heart beat high.  Under the folds
of gray with the scarlet flowers a small envelope
lay hidden, over the contents of which the girl
had spent an anxious hour.

There has not been room to tell of it in this
brief chronicle, but for the last month Shirley
had been having consultations with Murray
over an important subject--the matter of an
investment she wished to make.  She owned
not a small amount of property, in stocks and
bonds, an inheritance from her grandfather, the
management of which had been put into her
hands by her father as a matter of education.
Within a few weeks a chance for profitable investment
of a portion of this holding had appealed to her,
and after a spirited argument with her brother,
she had received his sanction in the course she
was eager to adopt.

The legal part of the transaction had been
completed two days before Christmas, and since
then Shirley had been greatly occupied in spare
moments with the composition of something
which might seem to have small connection with
so prosaic a subject as the transfer of certain
legal documents from one pair of hands to another.
She was not yet satisfied with the result of her
endeavours, being no poet, but the best burlesque
production of which she had been capable had
been carefully copied on her typewriter, and
was now reposing where its presence considerably
quickened the heart-beats under the scarlet
flowers.

At a moment when she was alone in the room
Shirley slipped round behind the tree, and
extracting the envelope from its agitating position,
quickly, although with fingers which mixed
themselves up a little, tied it in an obscure place
beneath a bough, where a gay golden ball
nearly hid it from view.

"Come out!  Come out!" commanded Rufus,
as, arriving upon the scene, he spied her.
"Absolutely not a feather's weight more allowed on
that tree.  There never was a tree so bowed
down with care as that one.  Nor another small
boy so impatient to begin as this one.  I caught
sight of my name on that package six feet long
under there, and I 've been delirious with suspense
ever since."

"As soon as Santa Claus arrives," promised
Jane, who had agreed with Shirley that no
accompaniment of the traditional Christmas should
be lacking, although there were no small children
present to be edified by the sight of the patron
saint.  Older people, as she well knew,
frequently enjoy a return to childish means of
entertainment, and when Santa Claus, in full rig,
walked into the room, she was not surprised
to see the looks of greatest pleasure upon the
faces of Grandfather and Grandmother Bell.

Peter made a capital Santa Claus, treating
them all as children, and making speeches as he
presented the gifts which brought forth peals
of merriment.  The gifts themselves were many
and varied, from the mittens knit by Grandmother
Bell's skilful fingers, to the silken scarfs
and fans and foreign photographs which were
the contributions of the travelled Townsends.

"Skees!" cried Rufus, going into contortions
of ecstasy over Murray's present, and clumping
up and down the room on the unwieldy articles.
"Won't I get out to-morrow night on that hill
back of the pond!"

"Such beautiful lace I never saw," said
Mrs. Joseph Bell to Mrs. Townsend, her fingers
caressing the exquisite tracery of the pattern
lying in her lap, which had come to her "with
the love of Eleanor Forrest Townsend."

"I thought it looked like you," returned
Mrs. Townsend, who was looking very much pleased
herself over a handkerchief wrought by Nancy's
clever art.  The others were busy over their
gifts; it was a pandemonium of exclamations
and congratulations, expressions of gratitude and
observations of wonder and delight.  Shirley,
her lap full of parcels, tissue-paper, ribbons,
and cards of presentation, talking and exclaiming
with the rest, was yet keeping her eye on Santa
Claus, as he stripped the tree.  She was watching
for the moment when he should find that envelope.
When it came, she meant to be out of the room
and away.

Meanwhile Santa Claus dropped a fresh package
into her lap.  She recognised the saint's
own handwriting on the wrapper--a bolder,
firmer hand than one would have expected from
a gentleman with so long and snowy a beard.
She opened it with strong anticipation, and found
within a set of note-books of special style and
quality, evidently made to order, for the binding
was of a beautiful texture of leather, and the
paper within of the best known to trade--the
thin India, used only for fine work.  Her name,
delicately stenciled on the covers, completed a
gift which appealed to the girl with a sense of the
thought and care put into its make-up.  She
looked up, to find Santa Claus's eyes watching
her from behind the tree, his lips smiling beneath
the white beard, for her surprise and pleasure
were plainly to be read upon her face.  She
nodded at him, colouring rosily--a picture,
in her gray and scarlet frock, as she sat upon the
floor surrounded by her gifts, the sight of which
was quite sufficient to reward any giver.

Almost everything was off the tree.  "Hello,
here 's something I nearly missed!" murmured
Santa Claus, catching sight of the corner of the
white envelope beneath the golden ball.  Shirley
looked up quickly, saw him struggling with the
red ribbon which tied the envelope in place,
and rose to her feet, letting a lapful of
miscellaneous articles slide to the floor.

Everybody was busy, and only Mrs. Bell
noticed, and said, gently, "Look out, dear, you 're
dropping things."  But Shirley was gone, through
the crowd of people and packages, to the door,
and had closed it softly behind her.

Peter had already had a gift from Shirley, a
little thing.  She was not the girl to present
any man with a keepsake more valuable than
the small book of modern verse which had in
it certain stirring lines that she knew would be
a stimulus to him.  So when he saw his own
name in typewriting upon the envelope, he
opened it without much consideration, thinking
it a joke of Ross's or Rufus's.  But a second
envelope was fitted inside the first, and it was
labeled, "Please don't read this in public."

His curiosity was awakened now, and slipping
the communication into his pocket, he
summarily finished his duties by distributing
the few remaining parcels without comment,
and then walked away out of the room.  It had
occurred to him that that note-paper was of a sort
that he had seen once or twice before, when Shirley
had had occasion to send him a note of invitation.

Outside in the hall, which was dimly lighted by
an oil side-lamp screwed to the wall, Peter opened
his inner envelope.  Still in typewritten characters
was a set of rhymes, cast in a popular fashion used
by makers of humorous doggerel.  His eye ran
over them hurriedly, with a low ejaculation of
astonishment and incredulity at the end; then
he read them again more intently, looking as if
he could not believe the evidence of his eyes,
They ran thus:

   |  A farm owned by people named Bell
   |  Was a place where a Thorn would fain dwell.
   |      So he bought up a mortgage,
   |      Intending to war wage
   |  On the property-owners named Bell.
   |
   |  Now one of the Bells, christened Peter,
   |  Thought life would be fuller and sweeter
   |      If the farm could be shorn
   |      Of this sharp-pricking Thorn,
   |  For he feared a foreclosure, did Peter.
   |
   |  A designing young person called Townsend
   |  Was seeking investment (cash down), and
   |      She purchased the mortgage.
   |      She never will war wage,
   |  She'll never foreclose, will S. Townsend.
   |

Peter had noticed, if nobody else had, when
Shirley went out of the room.  He now
understood her sudden disappearance.  He made a
quick trip through the lower part of the house,
paper in hand, his questioning gaze penetrating
every corner.  She was not in the sitting-room,
or the dining-room, or the kitchen--at least he
thought she was not, although he even looked
into the wood-shed.  As he was returning through
the kitchen, an expression of determination on
his face not wholly obscured by his patriarchal
beard, whose hitherto uncomfortable presence
he had quite forgotten, a slight movement of the
pantry door caught his eye.  He seized the
door-knob.  It would not turn for a moment; then it
slipped slowly round, for his fingers were stronger
than hers.

The two confronted each other--the white-bearded
gentleman, with the figure of an athlete
and the eyes of an excited youth, and the slim
girl in the gray silk, with cheeks like her scarlet
ribbons.

"What does this mean?" demanded Santa
Claus.  He put forth one vigorous arm and drew the
runaway out from the closet by her resisting hand.

"Just what it says, I should think," answered
Shirley, bravely, although trembling.  Had she
offended him?  Through the whole transaction
that had been the one burden of her anxiety.
"It doesn't say it very clearly, but she never
tried writing limericks before.  They 're not so
easy as you might think."

"She!  Who?"

"'S. Townsend.'"

"Do you mean to say you 've actually bought
that mortgage?":

"Murray did the business.  I didn't see Mr. Thorn."

"But you own the mortgage?"

"Yes."

"Thorn did n't want to sell it."

"No--but he had to take payment if it
came when the mortgage matured."

"It is n't due for six weeks yet."

"He did n't mind being paid sooner, when
he found all hope of the chance of foreclosing
was gone."

"He would n't sell for the face of it?"

"I 'm not familiar with business terms," urged
Shirley.

"Not?  A girl who holds a position with
Townsend & Company!  Tell me, Shirley--you
did n't get that mortgage six weeks before it
was due, for the face value of it?"

"Not quite."

"How much did you pay?"

"Not more than it was worth."

"Please tell me *how much more* you paid."

"I think that's my affair," said Shirley, with
her head up.  But her eyes were down.

There was a silence.  Peter put his hand
to his mouth with intent to cover a sudden urgent
and unwonted necessity to steady his lips.  He
encountered the beard, tore it off, and cast the
wig beside it upon the floor.  A young man with
a face of mingled light and shadow emerged
from the disguise of the elderly one.

"If I didn't know that, with this farm as
security, you 'd made a safe investment, I
could n't stand this."  he said, in a low tone.
"But I know that making a safe investment
was the last thing you cared about.  You wanted
to stand by in a time of need--and you 've done it."

"You mustn't think," said Shirley, looking
up eagerly, "that you 're under the least obligation
to me.  It's just as you say.  The farm itself
is more than security.  It's merely a matter
of business.  You know, I 'm learning to manage
my little affairs.  Father thought it would be
good for me.  And a change of investment
like this is great fun."

Peter looked at her steadily.  "Oh, no, we 're
not under the least obligation to you!" he
answered.  "It's very easy to find people to take
a mortgage at terms that will induce a man to
sell it who 's looking for a chance to foreclose--that's
why I have n't done any worrying about
the matter!  Shirley--you 're----" he seized her
hand.  "You're----"

"It 's all right," said Shirley, turning her head
away with a sudden access of shyness.  There
was no knowing what terms Peter might be going
to use, when his voice dropped to that vibrating
note.

But she did not escape.  Peter was ordinarily
a self-controlled young man, with a cool head
not likely to be carried away by sudden emotion.
But he had a warm heart, none the less, and the
girl's friendly act had touched him deeply.
Besides, he was, as has been admitted before,
entirely human, and Shirley, in her gray and
scarlet, with her brilliant cheeks and drooping eyes,
was a very captivating figure.  Tightening his
grasp upon her hand he ended his impulsive
speech half under his breath with--"You 're
the--dearest--girl in the world!"

What he would have said--or done--next
can only be conjectured, for upon this unexpected
and most disconcerting demonstration Shirley
pulled her hand away and ran--somewhere--anywhere--she
did not just know where.  In
this indefinite region she remained for fully half
an hour.  In the end she had to come back to
the living-room, but when she did it was not to
look at Peter.

As for Peter himself, when he had got rid of
his Santa Claus costume and put himself in
order again, he also came back to the living-room.
His face had been put in order as well as his dress,
and nobody noticed anything odd about him.
But there *was* something odd about him--very
odd.  He felt like a railway locomotive off the
track, obliged to convey to the beholders, by its
steadiness of gait, the impression that it was
still on!





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.. _`A RED GLARE`:

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   CHAPTER IX


.. class:: center medium

   A RED GLARE

.. vspace:: 2

"By all that's astonishing, are you actually
idling?  And may I come and idle, too?"

Shirley looked up from the depths of one of
the capacious willow chairs, which, well stocked
with cushions, were favourite lounging-places
upon the great side porch of the Townsend house,
and from which one could look out over a long
and charming stretch of lawn toward the tennis-court.

It was a warm evening in late May.  Everybody
else was away, and Shirley had settled
herself for one of the rare hours of rest and solitude
which she so much enjoyed when her work was
done.  But she answered Brant Hille cordially:

"Of course you may, if you will be nice and
soothing.  These first warm days make me feel
a trifle lazy."

"Not strange, when you spend them in a
stuffy office."  Brant accepted the cushions she
tossed to him, and disposed himself comfortably
upon them on the top step near her feet.

"The office is n't stuffy.  I 've sat by a
wide-open window all day.  Besides, the first thing
Murray did when he went in with father was
to overhaul our whole system of ventilation.
So the office is never stuffy, even in winter."

"Don't be belligerent, or I 'll not be responsible
for the soothing effects of my society.  What
can I do to lull you to repose?  You don't like
banjo music, or I 'd have brought my banjo over.
It's just the evening for that."

"If you had, you'd have gone home again."

"You *are* in a sweet mood!" Brant spoke
with the familiarity of old acquaintance.  "Would
you object to telling me what's gone wrong with
your ladyship?"

"I can't find out the French for certain phrases
it's necessary to use in the correspondence we
have on hand just now.  There are no equivalents
for the idioms that I can discover as yet, and
it's most important that I get them right.  I 've
practically had to make a phrase-book for myself
so far, because the dictionaries and hand-books
don't give the terms I want.  I got hold of some
old correspondence last week that helped me
immensely, but to-day I was completely baffled.
I suppose it has got on my nerves, and made me
fractious."

Yet she did not look particularly nerve-worn,
lying there in the low chair, in her thin white
frock, her round arms resting upon the arms
of the chair, her head thrown back, as she
regarded her visitor from under low-sweeping lashes.
Neither did she look in the least like the young
woman of business she had become.

Brant was always trying to convince himself
that her work was spoiling her--it would be a
comforting realisation if he could think it.  But
as often as he had succeeded in making himself
half believe that some other girl, whose ways
of living were such as he approved, was nearly
as attractive as Shirley Townsend, just so often
did the sight of Shirley in some unbusinesslike
surroundings upset his convictions.  To-night
she looked particularly feminine and alluring, in
spite of her avowed fractiousness and her
explanation of the cause.

"All baffling things wear on one," he answered,
with an air of being sympathetic.  "I know
how it is, from experience.  I 'd like a dictionary
or a phrase-book myself--one that would tell
me what to say to you when you want to be
'soothed.'  Shall I go in and get a book of verse
and read aloud to you?"

"Please don't."

"Fiction, then?

"Worse and worse."

"History?  Philosophy?  Science?  Travel?--Or humour?"

"None of them.  I don't like to be read to--as a duty."

"Duty!  I'd be delighted."

"I should n't, then."

"What *do* you want?"

"Silence, I think," said the girl in the chair,
with a mischievous look at the back of her
companion's head.  Her face was demure again,
however, when he turned.  "Don't you like just
to sit and gaze off into space on a languid night
like this, and say nothing at all?"

"If you prefer to have me go home----"

"Not in the least.  I 'd like to know you were
there on call--if you would n't talk."

A silence of some length ensued.  Brant stared
moodily off over the darkening lawn, watching
distant electric lights twinkle into existence
along the rows of tree-tops which outlined the
streets.  Shirley closed her eyes.  She really
was more weary than she knew.  It had been
a busy winter in the office, and she had worked
hard to be able to fill the place she held.  Her
achievements in the matter of the technical
French correspondence had proved of
considerable importance to the firm, and her
satisfaction at becoming so useful had led her to
spend much of her spare time in making herself
proficient.

It was fully fifteen minutes--he thought it
at least an hour--before Brant looked around.
He had vowed to himself that he would give her
all the silence she wanted, that he would not speak
until she spoke.  But after a time her absolute
motionlessness struck him as caused by something
even less flattering to himself than her desire
for absence of speech.

"Confound it--I believe she 's gone to sleep!"
he said to himself, and rose abruptly, to stand
looking down at her, discomfited and very nearly
angry.  Of all the odd girls, one who would tell
you to stop talking, and then go off to sleep in
your presence, was certainly the oddest.  He
supposed she might be tired, and with reason,
but--to go to sleep!

The shaded electric bulbs, which hung at each
corner of the porch, at this moment came glowingly
into life, as somebody within switched on the
current.  They were not designed to illuminate
the porch strongly, only to turn its gloom into a
mellow moonlight effect.  But the light was
quite sufficient to show Brant that although
Shirley's lashes still swept her cheek, her lips
were smiling.

"It was a frightful test of your friendship,
n't it?" she murmured, without opening her
eyes.  "But you did nobly.  I never thought
you could hold out so long!"

"You--rascal!  I 'll wager you wanted to
talk, yourself, after a while."

"Of course I did.  The minute a woman
gets what she wants, she wants--something else."

"What is it now?  Me to go home?"

"How distrustful of yourself you are to-night!"

"That's the effect you usually have on me."  Brant
drew up a chair.  "Shirley," he began
again abruptly, "do you know what I wish?"

"No."

"Do you want to know it?"

"Not badly."

"You don't care a straw for me, do you?"

"Several straws."

"You do!  I say----"

A door opened.  Sophy said, deferentially,
"You 're wanted at the telephone, if you please,
Miss Shirley."

Shirley vanished.  Brant rose and paced about
the porch, waiting.

"Of course it's no use!" he said, discontentedly,
to himself.  "I 've got as far as this forty
times--and no farther.  The next thing she did would
be to throw a soaking wet blanket over me.  I
ought to be used to it.  But she might at least take
me seriously.  She never does.  It 's no good--this
growing up with a girl and then trying to
convince her that you mean anything when you speak!"

Inside, Shirley was listening to a rapid fire
of words which woke her up as thoroughly as
anything had ever done in her life.  They came
in the voice of Peter Bell, a voice at once excited
and controlled:

"Shirley, the factory is on fire.  I don't want
father to hear about it--he 'd come down--you
understand.  Will you think up some way
to get him off with yourself for the next hour?
We 'll probably have to turn in a general alarm,
and if we do, somebody 'll be sure to call him
up and tell him.  That 's all.  I can count on you?"

"Yes--yes.  Peter----"

But Peter was already gone.  Evidently he
had no time to spare for answering questions.
Shirley turned away from the telephone, thinking
rapidly.

She knew that Mr. Joseph Bell was at home,
for she had seen him, an hour earlier, training
vines over the front porch.  She understood that
Peter had remained for late work at the factory
office, as he so often did, although it was
now nearly nine o'clock.  And she knew well
that it would never do for Peter's father to go
down to the burning building--the excitement of
a great fire at his own place of business would be
the worst thing in the world for him.

Mr. Joseph Bell had kept steadily on at his
work throughout the year, and nothing that
Peter had feared had happened.  It had been
arranged somehow so that the most fatiguing
part of his duties now came upon the broad
shoulders of the son instead of the bent ones of
the father.  But it was as necessary as ever
that there should be no sudden strain, either
physical or mental, and it was this which she
now must prevent.

Brant Hille, waiting impatiently outside, saw
Shirley fly back to him, and looked up at her
with gratification.  But her first words made
him sit up, for she spoke in haste:

"Brant, is your car ready for a start?"

"Always is.  Want to----"

"Will you get it--quick?  The Armstrong
paper-factory is on fire.  Mr. Bell mustn't
know it.  I can't stop to explain.  I must get
him away where he won't hear.  I 'll go ask
him and Mrs. Bell to take a drive with us--out
to the farm, perhaps.  I 'll run over.  You
drive round there--will you?"

"Why on earth should n't he know?  He----"

"Oh, don't stop to talk about it.  I 'll tell
you afterward.  The general alarm may go in
any minute, and somebody will telephone him
if he's at the house.  Quick--please!"

Of course Brant did not understand, but
Shirley's manner was not to be taken lightly.
Even as she spoke she left him and ran indoors
again.  Well, if he could serve her, it would be
better than having to sit beside her in silence
while she thought about technical French phrases.
Besides, he was an enthusiastic motorist, and a
hurry call for the car always gave him more or
less pleasure.  He bolted across the lawn, through
the hedge by a short cut to the street, and so to
his own home, on the farther side of Worthington
Square.

Shirley hurried across Gay Street, having
stopped only to pick up a long coat and scarf.
She caught sight of Mrs. Bell's light skirt at the
edge of the vine-screen of the porch.

"Isn't it a perfect night?" Mrs. Bell heard
a familiar, clear-toned voice ask.  "Don't you
and Mr. Bell want to take a gentle little spin
down Northboro road in Mr. Hille's car?  He 's
asked me out, and given me leave to invite
whomever I want.  I 'd love to have you."

Mr. Brant Hille--inviting Mr. and Mrs. Joseph
Bell to go motoring with him at nine
o'clock on a May evening--there was no precedent
for this!  But Mrs. Bell, with the intuition
of the mother of young people, thought she
understood.  Shirley wanted a chaperon, and
her kind young heart prompted her to ask a
pair who were not much accustomed to the delights
of automobiling in the moonlight.

"Why, yes, we'll go," said Mr. Bell, getting
up from his rocking-chair.  "We 're all alone
to-night--the young people are off at a party.
If you 'll persuade the young man not to put on
too much speed."

So in less than five minutes the party were
settling themselves in the big green car, its
headlights making a wide, brilliant track before it
down the quiet street.

"All ready?" asked Hille, and started the
car.  As it began to move, the distant but
distinct sound of a telephone-bell struck upon
Shirley's ear.  Mr. Bell turned his head.
"Was that in our house?" he asked.

Mrs. Bell was tying a scarf over her hair,
slightly muffling her ears.  She had not heard.

"Go on--fast!" breathed Shirley in Hille's
ear.  The street was nearly empty, and he
obeyed.  For a moment Mr. Bell's attention
was taken by the new sensation of speed,--not
appreciable speed, from the motorist's stand-point,
because the car was within city limits, but
to the novice considerable.

At the intersection of Gay Street with Conner
Street it was possible to look for a moment straight
down toward the heart of the city, into the
business district.  A red glare was plainly visible,
although partly dimmed by hundreds of twinkling
electric lights between.

"Must be a big fire," said Mr. Bell, straining
his eyes to see.  Then the trees and houses hid
the city from view.  "It was down our way,
too.  I wish I could telephone the factory and
find out.  Peter's there.  He 'd know.  Might
be that was our telephone-bell that rang."

"I did n't hear any bell, dear," his wife assured him.

"A fire always looks nearer than it is," said
Hille, over his shoulder, driving on without
diminishing his speed.  Instead, he accelerated
it.  The street was a quiet one, there was nobody
in sight.

"One summer, when I was a little girl, and
we were staying in the country, father and I
walked half a mile to see a fire--and found a
big red moon coming up behind the trees," said
Shirley, and talked lightly on.

Brant seconded her efforts with skill, for which
she inwardly thanked him, and between them
they soon had the thoughts of their guests far
away from the dangerous subject.  They ran
quickly through the suburbs out into the open
country, taking the Northboro road, for that
course led directly away from the red glare which,
as Shirley covertly glanced back from time to
time, could be clearly perceived on the western
side of the city behind them.

Gaily as she talked and laughed, the girl's
thoughts were with Peter.  He was somewhere
back in that red glare, working, without doubt,
if there were anything for him to do.  She was
thankful that it was after hours, and that there
were probably few of the factory hands about
the place, yet there were undoubtedly many
things to be saved in the office--books and papers
and drawings.  She knew Peter well enough to
be sure that his own personal safety would be
the last thing he would think of, so long as he
could do what might look like his duty to the house
he served.

The Bells did not know how far they went,
nor did they guess at what a pace.  Brant's
machine was a fine one, and he was an expert
at smooth running.  The flight through the
warm moonlight was a delightful experience,
for few curves and no sharp grades gave accent
to the speed, and the hour flew by as swiftly
as the road.  When they turned again toward
the city, the crimson glow upon the clouds had
gone.

"The fire is out," remarked Mr. Bell, as they
arrived at the top of a small hill in the suburbs,
from which he could see into the heart of the
business district.  "Hope it was n't as serious as it
looked."

But Brant's eyes and Shirley's, younger and
sharper, could make out a dense mass of smoke
hanging over the place where the flames had been.

"It won't do to take them home yet," thought
the girl, setting her wits at work again.

The result was an invitation to the Bells to
alight at the great porch of the Townsend house,
instead of in Gay Street, with the promise of
some light refreshment.  At first they shook
their heads; but Hille declared so loudly that
he knew what Shirley had to offer, and could
not think of letting them down short of the full
measure of the entertainment, that there seemed
to be no way out without spoiling the pleasure
of the two young people.  So presently they were
all partaking of a hastily concocted iced drink,
served with tiny cakes, and laughing over Hille's
stories of certain college incidents, which he
told with gusto, incited thereto by Shirley's
whispered, "You 're helping me splendidly.
Please keep it up, and I 'll be forever in your debt."

"If there's any way of making you forever
in my debt," Brant made reply under his breath,
"I 'll do a continuous performance for your
friends till daylight."

But such an effort as this would have been was
unnecessary.  Mrs. Bell presently took her
husband away, and since it was a late hour, and no
other chaperons appeared upon the scene, Brant was
forced to go, also.  He was obliged to give up
making any further attempts at gaining headway
in Shirley's good graces, for although she
dismissed him with hearty thanks, it was with an
air of abstraction hardly to be wondered at.  Her
one desire was to hear the telephone-bell ring
again, and learn that although the factory might
have burned to the ground, no lives were lost--and
that not a hair of her friend's head was hurt.

She stood alone upon the porch, waiting
anxiously, when the Townsend landau drove
in at the gate, bringing home Murray and Jane,
who had been out to dinner.

"There she is," said Murray, with suppressed
excitement.  The next instant he was out, had
whirled Jane out also, and was grasping his
young sister's hands.

"Don't be frightened--it 's all right.  But
a few things have happened this evening.  The
Armstrong factory----"

"I know.  Is it gone?"

"To the foundations.  Peter found the fire,
fought it alone till the firemen came, rescued
the night-watchman--played the leading part
generally--till an accident put him out.  My
word!--that fellow----Well--he 's all right, but
he 's burned a bit, and his leg 's broken.  He
was so confoundedly risky, trying to save the last
calendar on the wall----"

"Where is he?"

"St. Martin's Hospital.  We 've just come
from there.  He got his knock-out the first
half-hour after the thing began, so there 's been time
to get him fixed up.  Our man Larrabee was
at the fire, saw Peter put into the ambulance,
and telephoned me at the Kingsfords'.  Tried
three times to get his people at home, but could n't.
See here, he wants you to tell his mother--says
Jane is too much upset."

.. _`"'LARRABEE WAS AT THE FIRE AND SAW PETER PUT INTO THE AMBULANCE'"`:

.. figure:: images/img-322.jpg
   :align: center
   :alt: "'LARRABEE WAS AT THE FIRE AND SAW PETER PUT INTO THE AMBULANCE'"

   "'LARRABEE WAS AT THE FIRE AND SAW PETER PUT INTO THE AMBULANCE'"

Shirley looked at Jane.  "I 'm not upset,"
said Jane, but her lips were unsteady.  Murray
put his arm around her.

"You see, Larrabee thought it was worse
than it was with Peter, when they put him in
the ambulance.  He was stunned by the fall
that broke his leg.  It gave Janey a bad shock,
and no wonder--it did me.  But the old boy 's
himself again, all right, and his one idea is to
let his mother know why he does n't come home,
but to keep even the news of the factory fire from
his father to-night, if he can.  We don't see why,
but he seems to, so we 'll follow his wishes.  It's
the least we can do for him."

Shirley slipped through the hedge, and slowly
crossed Gay Street in the moonlight.  She was
trying hard to be cool and do as Peter wanted
her to do.  If she rang, Mr. Bell would come
to the door, and then how should she manage,
what excuse should she give?  She thought
of a way.

"Mr. Bell," she said when he appeared,
"Janey 's come home from her party--and she 's
had just a little bit too much party.  She feels like
a small girl again, and wants her mother to come
over for a few minutes."

"Why, of course," said Mr. Bell, heartily,
from the shadow of the doorway.  "Nothing
much the matter with the little girl?"

"Oh, no--she 'll be all right in the morning."

So Mrs. Bell crossed the road with Shirley,
and the girl, with her arm round the elder woman's
shoulders, gently told her the news.  Mrs. Bell
took it as Peter had known she would, quietly,
although, aside from his personal injury, there
was much cause for anxious thought in the loss
of the factory and the consequent putting of its
workers out of employment.

When Peter's mother had gone home again,
resting on Murray's promise that in the morning
he would take her to the hospital, Shirley turned
to her brother.  He had taken Jane upstairs,
and come down again, himself too restless to go
to bed.  He discovered his sister to be in a like
mood, and they sat down once more in the moonlit
porch to talk it over, regardless of the hour,
which was past midnight.

"I wonder sometimes," said Murray, suddenly,
when he had told Shirley in detail all
he knew of the events of the evening, "whether
anybody but me fully appreciates that chap,
Peter Bell.  Do you know what I' ve been
thinking a long time?  That he 's the man we need
at the head of one of our departments.  From
all I can learn, he 's been growing as nearly
invaluable to the Armstrongs as a man can be,
yet they have n't raised his salary for two years.
Now 's our chance to jump in and get him.  If
I can only convince father--and I think he 's
pretty nearly convinced--I 'll make Peter an
offer to-morrow.  Pretty good medicine for a
broken leg and burned hands--eh?"

"I should hope it would be."

"You 'd like to see him in the business, would n't you?"

"If you think him fit for it."

"If I think him fit!  What about you?"

"How can I judge?  It's for you to say."

Murray looked sharply at her, in the shaded
light of the electric bulbs.  He smiled, for in
spite of her remarkably quiet manner, her fingers,
unconsciously twisting and untwisting her delicate
handkerchief, were, as he put it to himself,
"giving her away."  He had an idea that it
mattered a good deal to his sister what Peter
Bell's future might be, although he was confident
that there was no understanding between them.

If he knew Peter, that young man was not
the one to ask to marry a rich man's daughter
until his own feet were on substantial ground.
But that Peter cared, and cared very deeply, for
Murray Townsend's sister, Murray was well
assured.

"It's for me to say, is it?" he went on, wickedly
persisting in his theme.  "But it's for you to
think!  How about having him round our office
every day--desk next mine--giving you dictation,
now and then, maybe, when it suits me to
put it off on him?  Think you could stand it?
Look up at him as coolly as you do at me?  Could
you, Miss Townsend, stenographer?  See here,
what are you jumping up for?"

"Because you are getting impudent," responded
Miss Townsend, turning her head so that her
face was in shadow.  Her heart was beating
so quickly she was afraid her brother would
recognise the fact.  It had been an agitating
evening all through, and now this last suggestion
was rather more than she could face with composure.

"I 've a notion P. B. himself could put up
with the situation," went on Murray, watching
her.  "His dictation might be a trifle flurried
at first, and he might forget himself now and
then, and ignore those purely businesslike relations
which should always exist between a business
man and his stenographer.  But I 've no doubt
that by a judicious course of snubbing you
could----"

But he was talking to the empty air.  By a hasty
flight and the abrupt closing of a door, his sister
had put herself out of range.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`PETER PREFERS THE PORCH`:

.. class:: center large

   CHAPTER X


.. class:: center medium

   PETER PREFERS THE PORCH

.. vspace:: 2

"You 're quite sure you want me?" asked Peter Bell.

"Quite sure," replied Murray Townsend.  The
two pairs of eyes looked into each other.

Peter's gaze shifted to his father.  "I 'll do
it under one condition," he said.  "That father
gives up factory work and goes to live at the
old farm."

Mr. Harrison Townsend turned also toward
Mr. Joseph Bell.  He smiled slightly, noting
the hesitation of the other man.

"It's time you and I retired, Bell," said he.
"I 've been getting to the point for a long time.
Let's make a bargain of it.  If you 'll go back
to the farm, I 'll come and spend a good share
of my time there.  I 'd like to help with the
haying.  I should enjoy watching the cows
come home.  I 'll venture to say I could drive a
mowing-machine--for an hour or two."

The four men occupied the small rear porch
of the house in Gay Street, looking out on Nancy's
garden.  Peter lay upon a couch, his leg in
splints, his hands in bandages.  After a few
days at the hospital he had been brought home,
to spend the long hours of his recovery where
he could bear them best.  The other three were
close by, Murray nearest.  He had put off making
his proposition to Peter until he and his father
could arrive at a perfect agreement as to every
term of the offer.

Joseph Bell met his son's meaning gaze with
understanding.  He knew nothing counted with
Peter as did the anxiety over his father's physical
condition.  He had kept his boy a long time upon
the rack, because of his own unwillingness to
give up his old work.  But the work was taken
away from him now; there would be a considerable
interval before the Armstrongs would be ready
for him again; and he could hardly think of
trying for a new position.  Meanwhile, the haying
season was approaching.  He thought with longing
of the scent of the newly cut grass.  He could
not work hard out under the sun, he knew that;
but--he could play at work.  And his friend,
Harrison Townsend, rich man though he was,
was offering to play, too.

He looked at Peter and smiled, under his
short gray beard.  Peter smiled back entreatingly.
Slowly Joseph Bell nodded.  "All right,
Peter," he said.  "I'll let you have your way
at last."

For a moment Peter could not speak.  He
lay with dropped eyelids, fighting lest the sudden
relief from the long strain should unman him
before these who had been paying tribute to his
manhood.  But after a short space he looked
from Mr. Townsend to his son.

"I 'll come," said he, and forgetting his
bandaged hands, started to hold one out.  Then he
smiled whimsically, and added in an odd tone,
"If you 're not afraid of the bad omen in taking
on a man with a pair of hands like these?"

"Not much, when we remember what put
them in that shape!" declared Murray, in a tone
of great satisfaction; and his father gave an
emphatic assent.

.. vspace:: 2

"What do you think 's going to happen *now*?"
cried Nancy, rushing out upon Peter's porch,
a week later.

"Give it up.  But nothing can surprise me,
after recent events," replied Peter, removing
his gaze for a moment from the morning
newspaper pinned up in front of him to the excited
face of his sister, but looking immediately back
again at the absorbing column of business news
he had been with some difficulty perusing.  His
hands had been slow in recovering from the
severe injuries they had received.

"This will.  Somebody's going to be married."

"Remarkable.  But such events have occurred
before in the history of nations," replied her
brother, abstractedly.

"Not at the Townsend house, for Murray
married Jane over here.  Ah, ha!  I thought
you 'd give me your undivided attention at last,"
crowed Nancy, triumphantly.

Peter did his best to look unconcerned, but
his heart had begun to thump quite suddenly
and disconcertingly.  He waited.  He forgot the
newspaper.

"Have n't you noticed how devoted Brant
Hille has been for the last year?" Nancy demanded.

"No."

"Then you 've been blind."

"I 've been busy."

"How oddly you speak!  Is your throat sore?"

"Don't tease, Nan.  I'm not up to it."  It
was no use trying to look unconcerned.

Nancy saw, and took pity on him, as she might
not have done if he had been upon his feet.  "It's
Olive, then--though I believe I could have made
you think it was Shirley.  It's not Brant Hille's
fault that it is n't, I can tell you that.  Olive's
going to marry an Englishman she met last
summer abroad--Mr. Arthur Crewe of Manchester.
It's just announced.  The wedding 's to be the
first of July.  You 'll be on crutches, Peter.
Is n't that lucky?  You can go."

"Oh, yes, I 'll dance at the wedding!" agreed
Peter, looking as if the shot that missed him
had come uncomfortably close.

"It's going to be a big wedding--a gorgeous
one.  Is n't that like Olive?  Shirley's to be
maid of honour, and there 'll be six bridesmaids.
Six ushers--and you 'd have been one if you
had n't broken your leg.  Olive told me so."

"Compensation in all things," murmured Peter.

"The best man is the Englishman's brother.
Olive says he 's stunning.  Would n't it be funny
if he and Shirley should take a fancy to each
other?  The maid of honour and the best man
often do, you know."

"Very interesting.  I should say you had been
taking a course of novels, you 're so full of
possible plots."  And Peter eyed his newspaper as
if he preferred its practical columns to his
sister's outlines of sentimental situations.  Nancy
laughed.

"Shirley's to have a vacation, for a week
before the wedding.  Perhaps she 'll find time
to get over to see you oftener, then."

"She 's been over to see me."

"How many times?"

"Twice."

"For how long?"

"Five minutes, the first time, three, the second."

"How many other people present?"

"A dozen or so."

"Have a satisfactory visit?"

"Oh, very!"  Peter hit the newspaper with
his elbow, and it fell down.  "What have you
got it in for me this morning for, Sis?" he
demanded, wrathfully.

Nancy stopped laughing and looked serious.
"It won't hurt you any.  It may wake you up.
I just want you to know that I 'm honestly and
truly worried about Brant Hille."

Then she vanished, and Peter lay wishing he
had two good legs, that he might get up and go
and see for himself just how much all this meant.
He read the newspaper no more that morning;
it lay forgotten on the floor where it had fallen.

The weeks went by slowly enough to the
convalescent, impatient to begin his new work,
and full of plans for it.  Long talks with Murray
helped most to make the waiting endurable,
and the two young men grew to know and respect
each other still more deeply than ever before.
Everybody was kind.  Both Mr. and Mrs. Townsend
came often to see Peter; and even
Olive, although at times distraught with the
business of preparation for her approaching
marriage, found a half-hour now and then in
which to slip across to Gay Street and talk
with him.

At these times she found decided refreshment
in his society, for Peter's ideas on the subject
of matrimony were both novel and sensible,
and in after years she often found herself
remembering and putting into practice one or another
of his quizzical maxims, founded on much shrewd
observation.

"You are coming to my wedding, you know,"
she said, on the last of these occasions, three
days before the date set for that event.  "And
I want you at dinner the evening before, so you
may get to know Mr. Crewe, and he you, as well
as you can in one short evening.  I'm so
disappointed he could n't be here all this week, as
he planned."

"Dinners?--weddings?--on these sticks?"
scoffed Peter, that day promoted to crutches and
finding them as yet merely invitations to ironic
humour.

"Certainly.  If you make them an excuse
for staying away, I shall never forgive you."

"Please let me off from the dinner.  If you 'll
put me in the porch, and let me be found there
afterward, I 'll agree, but I can't hobble out to
the table on crutches of torture."

"Not even to take out Shirley?"  Olive glanced
at him mischievously, and saw him colour slightly
as he answered:

"That would be an inducement if anything
would.  But I 'm sure you 'll adopt my point
of view if I beg you to."

"Then I shall have to send her in with Geoffrey
Crewe--or Brant Hille."

"Will the men stay behind when the ladies
come out?"

"Yes, of course."

"Then I prefer the porch," persisted Peter,
comfortably; and Olive acknowledged that he
had chosen the wiser part.

So on Tuesday evening, when Shirley, in the
midst of a rainbow-tinted group of young women,
floated airily out from the brightly lighted and
oppressively warm dining-room to the cool, softly
lighted recesses of the great porch, it was with a
sense of refreshing change that she went straight
to the big chair by a pillar, where Peter sat waiting
for her.  As she dropped into a low seat by his
side, she thought she had never seen him show
to greater advantage, although he could not
rise to do her honour, and could only say, with
a straight, upward glance, "This is kind of you.
I 've been thinking for an hour how you 'd look
when you came out that door."

"Do I look it?"

"My imagination fell a long way short.  It's
months since I 've seen you in this sort of thing."

He indicated her gauzy evening frock of pale
rose-colour.  A wreath of tiny rosebuds crowned
her hair; a little silver basket of roses, ribbon-tied,
lay in her lap, a dinner favour like those the others
carried, but suiting her attire with special charm.

"Do you remember our first party?" asked
Shirley, smiling at him.

"I certainly do," Peter assured her.  "You
had on a white dress and pink ribbons--pink
slippers, too.  You came up and slid your hand
into mine, because you saw I was feeling lonely.
You were jolly kind to me that night, and I never
forgot it.  I suppose I was a pitiful object,
standing there looking on, all by myself."

"You did n't look pitiful at all, but rather
superior, if I remember, like a big St. Bernard,
condescending to watch the antics of a lot of
frolicsome terriers."

Peter threw back his head and laughed low,
with a gleam of white teeth.  Whatever there
might have been that was odd about Peter's
appearance at that first party, there could be
no criticism of his looks to-night.

Olive, taking critical note of Shirley's
companion, owned that she should feel no hesitation
in presenting him to Mr. Arthur Crewe and his
brother as a connection of the family.  When
that moment arrived, the American and the
Englishmen appeared to take a frank liking
to one another on the spot, for the Crewes both
sat down to talk, and Peter, sitting up, met them
half-way in a cordial effort to become acquainted
in the brief time allotted them.

"Will you tell me what you think of him?"  It
was Olive, slipping for a moment toward the
end of the evening into the chair by Peter's, he
being temporarily left to himself.

"I think he's a man," said Peter, heartily,
and to the point.  "There 's nothing better I
could say than that, is there?"

"I suppose not, being one yourself.  A woman
would think it necessary to add a number of
complimentary things about his appearance and
his manner and all that."

"I could do that, at a pinch," said Peter,
smiling, "for my memory would tell me that
they were all right, though I thought nothing
about them at the time.  I was looking to see
what it was you were going to marry, and I
found out--as far as a half-hour's talk would
show it.  I wish you great happiness, Olive--and
I believe you 'll get it."

"Thank you," and Olive was gone again, being
in constant demand, as the central figure of the
occasion.  She found time, however, to ask
much the same question of Arthur Crewe
concerning Peter Bell, and received so nearly the
same sort of answer that she laughed, and told
him of the similarity in the two estimates.

"I am flattered," said Crewe, "for I don't
know when I 've met a young American I 've
liked better.  He 's both frank and reserved--a
combination which appeals to me.  It looks
a bit as if you were going to have him in the
family, I believe you told me?  I sincerely hope
you will--though, if you don't mind my saying
it, now that I see your sister, I feel as if I 'd like
to leave Geoffrey here for the summer, with
deliberate intention.  I fancy it's too late for
that, though."

"I 'm glad you like Peter.  It would be too
unkind to the family to take more than one daughter
to England."

"See how well Geoffrey appreciates his
privileges?" whispered Crewe, indicating his brother,
as that personable young man went by with Shirley,
his manner suggesting concentration of attention
upon the subject in hand.  Then he looked in
Peter's direction.  "The chap in the chair isn't
deserted, is he?  I think each bridesmaid has taken
a turn at him, and he seems equal to them all."

However this might have been, Peter found
himself thoroughly weary at the end of the evening,
and glad to be put into a wheeled chair and taken
home, ignominious as that mode of departure
seemed.  Arthur Crewe insisted on walking at
Peter's elbow, all the way round to the house in
Gay Street and the two parted with friendly
warmth of good-will on each side.

According to Nancy, who kept Peter informed,
Geoffrey Crewe neglected none of the opportunities
afforded him by his brief visit, and in
one way and another Shirley was kept busy all
the next day.  The wedding was to take place
in the evening, so Peter had plenty of time to
rest and reflect on the advantages an able-bodied
man has over a temporary cripple, as he caught
glimpses, from time to time, of such sights as
Shirley driving off in the trap with the younger
Englishman, or sitting beside Brant Hille as he
took a portion of the bridal party away for a
spin in his big green car.

Olive had chosen to be married at home, so
every effort at effective decoration had been
expended upon the house and grounds in
Worthington Square.  For a hot night in July,
it was expected that the outdoor arrangements
would be most popular, and the great lawn,
with its natural beauties of landscape-gardening
enhanced by the devices of electricity and
Chinese lanterns, flowers and bunting, was like a
fairyland.

"If a fellow's will amounted to anything,
a scene like this would make him get on his legs,
if both of them were only just out of the
repair-shop!" groaned Peter, as he was brought through
the gates by Rufus at an early hour.  He took
note of the paths winding away through the grounds,
made enticing to promenades by every witchery
of art, and his imagination already pictured
Shirley, in her maid-of-honour attire, floating
away down one of them, devotedly attended by
Brant Hille or Geoffrey Crewe.

"Cheer up.  The wounded-hero role is awfully
taking with the girls, you know," consoled
Rufus, divining the tantalising effect of this
stage setting upon his handicapped brother.

"Wounded hero be shot!" retorted Peter.

"It would be the most soothing thing that could
happen to him.  Would you like to change places
with him, instead of being able to dash about
in search of what you want?"

"I shouldn't mind, if my crippled condition
seemed to have the hypnotic effect yours did last
evening.  According to Nancy, the bride-elect
was n't in it with you at posing as an
interesting figure.  She said the bridesmaids were
four deep around you."

"Kind-hearted things--they were nearly the
finish of me.  When I become a society man please
notify my family.  I shall not have the brains,
myself."

"I will.  Where will you be placed for the ceremony?"

"Behind a screen of palms, if possible,"
requested Peter.  He did not get his wish literally,
but by grace of a special plea to one of the
ushers, he was put in an inconspicuous place
of great advantage, where he could not only
view the entire scene, but could watch the bridal
party during its whole course, from stair-landing
to improvised altar beneath a vine-covered canopy
at one end of the long drawing-room.

Olive made a strikingly beautiful bride, as
her friends had known she would, and her bridesmaids
were nearly all more than ordinarily fair--or
seemed so in their picturesque garb.  But to
Peter, in all the bridal party there was only one
face and figure worth more than a moment's
glance.  And when the maid-of-honour finally
turned away from the altar to take her position
by the side of the best man for the ceremonies
of reception and congratulation which followed
upon the conclusion of the marriage service,
the one onlooker who could not get up and take his
place in the gay company forming in line to greet
the bridal party, was feeling more than ever like
a stranded canal-boat in the company of a fleet
of racing yachts.

They came to him, however, when they were
free--Olive Crewe and her husband, Shirley
and Mr. Geoffrey Crewe, several of the
bridesmaids, and even Brant Hille, and Peter said
all the things that were expected of him, and
said them well.  He might be no "society man,"
as he had said, but he possessed the self-command
and quickness of wit which take the place of
familiarity with such situations.  Arthur Crewe
liked him better than ever as the two shook hands,
and Peter spoke his quiet but earnest words of
felicitation and prophecy for the future.

"I 'm sorry I can't be here to see you when
you get about again," said Crewe, at parting.
"I can quite fancy the energy and enthusiasm
you put into your work."

"I don't need to see you at yours to be sure
you 're a steam-engine both at project and
performance," responded Peter, smiling.

"We 'd work jolly well together, I venture to
say," said the Englishman.  "Perhaps we'll
have the chance some day."

"I wish we might," and Peter gave the friendly
hand a hearty grip.  "Good-bye--good-bye.
The best of luck."

.. vspace:: 2

Peter sat alone upon the Townsend porch,
waiting for someone to come and take him
home.  Everything was over; the bridal pair
had gone; the last lingerers along the
lantern-lighted paths among the shrubbery had straggled
in and reluctantly taken their departure.  The
big marquee in the centre of the lawn, where
supper had been served, was empty except for
scurrying caterer's men.  The string orchestra
stationed in the summer-house had at last stopped
playing, mopped their perspiring heads, and
packed up their instruments.  Mrs. Townsend
had betaken herself to her room in a state of
collapse, requiring the attendance of her husband
and Jane; and Murray paced up and down the
upper hall, thinking to himself that he had never
before realised what unpleasant things weddings
were when they occurred in one's own family.

As for Shirley, no one had laid eyes upon her
since the moment when the Townsend landau
had driven away, with everybody throwing confetti,
and Olive, leaning out, had flung her bouquet
straight at her sister's feet.  Everybody had
laughed as Shirley picked it up, but the girl had
run away with the white bridal roses crushed
close against her breast, her lips set tight and
her eyes brilliant with unshed tears.  She and
Olive had been more to each other during this
last year than ever before--and England, as a
place of permanent residence, seemed a very,
very long way off.

It was odd that at the last everybody seemed
to have forgotten Peter.  Ross, laughing with
a pretty girl, had walked directly past him and
gone home, unmindful.  Peter had supposed
he would come back, but he did not.  The
servants were busy, the quiet of the deserted porch
restful, and Peter leaned his head against one
of the tall white pillars, thinking less of the
evening that was past than of the future that was,
coming--so soon as he could walk sturdily about
once more.

Up through the narrowest and least conspicuous
path of all, one which few of the wedding revelers
had noticed because its entrance was designedly
unlighted, came a slim white figure with bent
head.  Peter, gazing dreamily out over the
lawn, saw it at once, and recognised it with a
start of gladness.

Shirley came on across the velvety grass
without looking up, and slowly ascended the
porch steps with her eyes still cast down.
Reaching the top, she turned about and stood leaning
against the pillar, on the other side of which
was Peter's chair, without noticing his presence,
staring off at the rainbow-tinted lights, and seeing
a little misty halo about each one.

When she had stood motionless there for some
time, Peter spoke, so quietly that he hardly
startled her.  She turned about with a little
choking breath, said, "Oh, is it you?" in a tone
of relief, and resumed her former position.

"I wish I could help make it easier," said
Peter, very gently.  "You 've made things easier
for me so many times, first and last."

"You do," said Shirley, in a half-whisper.

"Do I?  I'm glad.  But how?"

"Just by being there."

Peter's face lighted up.  This was a most
unusual tribute from his independent little friend.
He got slowly to his crutches, and with a greater
effort than he had yet made, came stumping
round to her side of the pillar, and stood near
her, leaning against a great green tub which held
a towering palm.  He felt somehow as if he must
be literally upon his feet in order to stand by her
in this crisis.

Both were silent again for some minutes,
until suddenly Shirley looked round at him,
and exclaimed, "Why, I mustn't let you stand
like this!  Please sit down again."

"Not unless you do."

"Why?  I 'm not tired."

"But I want to be near you.  I 've done nothing
all the evening but envy the men who could get
about and do things for you."

"You 'll soon be walking off at your usual
breakneck pace," said Shirley, the colour coming
back with a rush into cheeks which had been
pale since Olive went.

"To the office--yes--your office.  I can
hardly wait.  But I wonder sometimes if I can
keep my wits and do my work there."

"Why not?"

"Don't you know why?"

Shirley's little moist ball of a handkerchief
was all at once being clutched very tight in her
fingers.  She shook her head.

"I think you do.  I think you must know why
I 'm half out of my head with the prospect of being
manager of the new house of Townsend & Son."

"I 'm glad that you like the prospect," said
Shirley, in the lowest of voices, and looking
anywhere but at Peter.

"Are you?  Do *you* like it?"

"Very much."

Peter forgot his crutches, and one of them
fell with a rattle at Shirley's feet.  She would
have bent to pick it up, but he prevented her,
and laboriously reached for it himself.

"I 'm not going," said Peter, deliberately,
"to let you wait on me, when all in life I want
is the chance to serve you--all my life."

"It would be a very poor partnership," said
Shirley, in a half-whisper, after a minute--and
Peter's heart stopped beating--"if the serving
were all on one side"--and Peter's heart went
thumping on again, though not in proper rhythm.

"Partnership!  *Is* it a partnership, Shirley?"

She nodded.  But she moved three steps out
of reach.  Peter made a hasty movement, and
both crutches slipped down to the floor with
a crash, and slid away off the edge of the porch
to the ground.  Peter glared after them.  Then he
looked at Shirley, standing there, rose-cheeked,
her tear-wet eyes now full of laughter.

"Oh, *please* get them for me, dear!" he pleaded.
"Or--no--never mind the crutches!  Just--*come here*!"

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