Chapter VI: Part 6

“I’m not going out to get the cabs,” said Clover. “I thought of the idea and someone else must work it out. I’m opposed to working after time and I call time at midnight.”

Mitchell rose with a depressed air.

“I’ll go,” he said. “I feel the need of a walk. When I feel the need of anything I always take it and I’ve needed and taken so freely to-night that I need to take a walk to—”

“I don’t think it funny to talk that way,” said Burnett a little heatedly. “If you want to get the cabs why get the cabs. I’m going to get them, too, and I reckon we can get them combined just as easy as alone.”

“I will go with you,” said his friend solemnly. “I will accompany you because I feel the need—” He stopped and turned his hat over and over. “I know there’s a hole to put my head into,” he declared, “but I can’t just put my hand—I mean my head—on to—I mean, into—it.”

“Do you expect to find a brass hand pointing to it?” said Burnett testily. “Come on!”

“Three cabs and five—or was it six?—jews-harps?” continued Mitchell dreamily. “It must have been six, five for we five, and one for Lord Chesterfield—but where is Lord Chesterfield?” he asked suddenly with a disturbed glance around. “I hope he hasn’t deserted and gone home.”

“Come on, come on!” said Burnett. “There won’t be a sober cab left if we don’t hurry while everything is still able to stand up.”

This reasoning seemed to alarm Mitchell and he went out with him at once.

“My head feels awfully,” said Clover to Jack. “It sort of grinds and grates—does yours?”

Jack stared straight ahead and made no reply.

“I’m goin’ home no more to roam,” said Aunt Mary slowly and sadly,—“I’m goin’ home no more to roam, no more to sin an’ sorrow. I’m goin’ home no more to roam—I’m goin’ home to-morrow. O hum!” She heaved a heavy sigh.

“Now see what you’ve done!” said the parrot with emphasis.

“Never mind,” said Clover bitterly. “Better people than you have gone home before now; I used to do it myself before I was old enough to know worse. Will you excuse me if I say, ‘Damn this buzzing in my head?’”

“I know how you feel,” said Aunt Mary sympathetically. “Don’t you want me to ring for the porter and have him make up your berth right away?”

Clover didn’t seem to hear. His eyes were roving moodily about the room; they looked almost as faded as his mustache.

“Seems to me they’re gone a long time,” said Jack presently, twisting a little in his seat. “It never takes me so long to get a cab. I hold up my hand—the man stops—and I get in—what’s the matter, Aunt Mary?” He asked the question in sudden alarm at seeing Aunt Mary bury her face hastily in her handkerchief.

“What’s the matter?” he repeated loudly.

“Don’t mind me,” said Aunt Mary sobbing. “It’s just that I happened to just think of Lu—Lu—Lucinda—and somehow I don’t seem to have no strength to bear it.”

“Split the handkerchief between us,” said Clover. “I want to cry, too, and there’s no time like the present for doing what you want to do.”

“Rot!” said Jack, “look here—”

He was interrupted by the return of the embassy, Mitchell bearing the jews-harps.

“What’s the matter?” Burnett asked.

“Nothing,” said Clover; “we were so worried over you, that’s all.” Burnett called for the bill and found that he had run out of cash; “Or maybe I’ve had my pocket picked,” he suggested. “I’m beginning to be in just the mood in which I always get my pocket picked.”

Jack produced a roll of bills and settled for the refreshments. Then they all started down stairs as Aunt Mary wouldn’t risk an elevator going down.

“It’s all right comin’ up,” she said, “but if it broke when you were going down where’d you be?”

“In the elevator,” said Clover. “I’d never jump, I know that.”

“Oh, I’ve left my ear-trumpet,” said Aunt Mary.

“Let’s draw lots to see who goes back?” Burnett suggested.

They drew and the lot fell to Clover.

“I’m not going back,” he said coldly. “I haven’t got the energy. Let her apply the megaphone.”

Jack went back.

Then they all got into the street and into the cabs. Aunt Mary and Jack went first, Mitchell and Burnett second, and Clover brought up the rear alone.

They set off and it must be admitted that the effect of the three cabs going single file one after another with their five occupants giving forth a most imperfect version of his or her favorite tune, was at once novel and awe-inspiring. But like all sweet things upon this earth the concert was not of long endurance. It was only a few minutes before the duos ceased utterly to duo and the soloist in the rear fell sound asleep. For several blocks there was a mournful and tell-tale lack of harmony upon the air and then the three young men seemed to have exhausted their mouths and all lapsed into a more or less conscious state of quietude.

Only Aunt Mary was indefatigable. Like Cleopatra, age seemed to have no power to stale her infinite variety, and leaning back in her own corner she continued to placidly and peacefully intone with disregard for time and tune which never ruffled a wrinkle. She hadn’t played on a jews-harp in sixty years, and being deaf she was pleasantly astonished at how well she still did it. Jack leaned in his corner with folded arms; he was deeply conscious of wishing that it was the next day—any day—any other day—for the week had been a wearing one and he could not but be mortally glad that it was so nearly over. The task of fitting the plan of Aunt Mary’s revelries to the measure of her personal capacity had been a very hard one and his soul panted for relief therefrom. It is one thing to undertake a task and another thing to persevere to its successful completion. Aunt Mary’s nephew was tired—very tired.

A little later he felt a weight against him; he looked; it was Aunt Mary’s head,—she was oblivious there on his bosom.

He heard a voice; it was the parrot.

“Now see what you’ve done,” it said in sepulchral tones.

They reached the house, bore the honored guest within, and delivered her to Janice.

“You can have that parrot,” Jack called back to the cabman. “He’s guaranteed against slang.”

The cabman drove away.

Janice received them with a look which might have been construed in many ways, but they were all far past construing and the look fell to the ground unheeded.

And again Aunt Mary was tucked carefully up to dream herself rested once more.

Chapter Eighteen A Departure And A Return

The next day poor Aunt Mary had to undergo the ordeal of being obliged to turn her face away from all those joys which had so suddenly and brilliantly altered the hues of life for her. It pretty nearly used her up. She took her reviving decoction with tears standing in her eyes,—and sat down the glass with a bursting sigh. “My, but I wish I knew when I’d be taking any more of this?” she said to Janice.

“Oh, you’ll come back to the city some day,” said the maid hopefully.

“Come back!” said Aunt Mary. “Well, I should say that I would come back! Why—I—?” she stopped suddenly, “never mind,” she said after a minute, “only you’ll see that I’ll come back. Pretty surely—pretty positively.”

Janice was folding her dresses into the small trunk. Aunt Mary contemplated the green plaid waist with an air of mournful reflection.

“I believe I’ll always keep that waist rolled away,” she murmured. “I shall like to shake it out once in a while to remind me of things.”

“Hand me my purse,” she said to the maid five minutes afterwards. “Here’s twenty-five dollars an’ I want you to take it and get anythin’ you like with it.”

“But that’s too much,” Janice cried, putting her hands behind her and shaking her head.

“Take it,” said Aunt Mary imperiously; “you’re well worth it.”

“I don’t like to—truly,” said the girl.

“Take it,” said Aunt Mary sternly.

So Janice took it and thanked her.

The train went about 4 p.m., and it seemed wise to give the traveller a quiet luncheon in her own room and rally her escort afterwards.

When she had eaten and drank she sighed again and thoughtfully folded her napkin.

“I’ve had a nice time,” she said, gazing fixedly out of the window. “I’ve had a nice time, and I guess those young men have enjoyed it, too. I rather think my bein’ here has given them a chance to go to a good many places where they’d never have thought of goin’ alone. I’m pretty sure of it.”

Janice made no reply.

“But it’s all over now,” said Aunt Mary with something that sounded suspiciously like a sob in her voice, “an’ I haven’t got only just one consolation left an’ that’s—” again she paused.

Janice carried the tray away and the next minute they all burst in bearing their parting gifts in their arms.

The gifts were an indiscriminate collection of flowers, candy, magazines, books, etc.

Aunt Mary opened her closet door and showed the four dressing-cases. Everyone but Jack was mightily surprised and everyone was mightily pleased. The room looked like Christmas, and the faces, too.

“I shall die with my head on the hair brush,” Clover declared, and Mitchell went down on his knees and kissed Aunt Mary’s hand.

“You must all come an’ see me if you ever go anywhere near,” said the old lady. “Now promise.”

“We promise,” they yelled in unison, and then they asked in beautiful rhythm “What’s the matter with Aunt Mary?” and yelled the answer “She’s all right!” with a fervor that nearly blew out the window.

“I declare,” Aunt Mary exclaimed, as the echoes settled back among the furniture, “when I think of Lucinda seems as if—” she paused; further speech was for the nonce impossible.

“The carriages are ready,” Janice announced at the door, and from then until they reached the train all was confusion and bustle.

Only the train whistle could drown the farewells which they poured into her ear-trumpet, and when they could hover in her drawing-room no longer they stood outside the window as long as the window was there to stand outside of. And then they watched it until it was out of sight, and after that turned solemnly away.

“By grab!” said Burnett, “I think she ought to leave us _all_ fortunes. I never was so completely done up in my life.”

“My throat’s blistered,” said Clover feebly; “I’m going to stand on my head and gargle with salve until my throat’s healed.”

“I shall never shine on the team again,” said Mitchell. “I shall hire out for bleacher work. He who has successfully conversed with Aunt Mary need not fear to attack a Wagner Opera single-handed.”

Jack did not say anything. His heart was athirst for Mrs. Rosscott.

She was back in her own library the next night, and he rushed thither as soon as his first day’s labor was over. She was prettier and her eyes were sweeter and brighter than ever as she rose to meet him and held out—first one hand, and then both. He took the one hand and then the two and the longing that possessed him was so overwhelming that only his acute consideration for all she was to him kept him from taking more yet.

“And the week’s over,” she said, when she had dragged her fingers out of his and gone and nestled down upon the divan, among the pillows that rivaled each other in their attempts to get closer to her, “the week’s all over and our aunt is gone.”

“Yes,” he said, rolling his favorite chair up near to her seat, “all is over and well over.”

She smiled and he smiled too.

“She must have enjoyed it,” she said thoughtfully.

“Enjoyed it!” said Jack. “She won’t like Paradise in comparison.”

“And you’ve been a good boy,” said Mrs. Rosscott, regarding him merrily. “You’ve played your part well.”

He rose to his feet and put his hand to his temple.

“I salute my general,” he said. “I was well trained in the maneuver.”

“It’s odd,” said Mrs. Rosscott thoughtfully. “It was really so simple. We are only women after all, whether it is I—or Aunt Mary—or all the rest of the world. We do so crave the knowledge that someone cares for us—for our hours—for our pleasures. It isn’t the bonbons—it’s that someone troubled to buy the bonbons because he thought that they would please us.”

“Doesn’t a man have the same feeling?” Jack asked. “It isn’t the tea we come for—it’s the knowledge that someone bothers to make it and sugar it and cream it.”

“I wasn’t laughing,” said she.

“I wasn’t laughing either,” said he.

“But it’s true,” she went on, “and I think the solution of many unhappy puzzles lies there. Don’t forget if you ever have a wife to pay lots of attention to her.”

“I always have paid lots of attention to her, haven’t I?” he demanded.

Mrs. Rosscott shook her head.

“We won’t discuss that,” she said. “We’ll stick to Aunt Mary. Aunt Mary is a rock whose foundation is firm; when it comes to your relations toward other women—” she stopped, shrugging her shoulders, and he understood.

“But it’s going to come out all right now, I’m sure,” she went on after a minute, “and I’m so glad—so very glad—that the chance was given to me to right the wrong that I was the cause of.”

He looked at her and his eyes almost burned, they were so strong in their leaping desire to fling himself at her feet and adore her goodness and sweetness and worldliness and wisdom from that vantage-ground of worship.

She choked a little at the glance and put her hands together in her lap with a quick catching at self-control.

“And now the fun’s all over and the work begins,” she said, looking down.

“I know that,” he asseverated.

She lifted up her eyes and looked at him so very kindly. And then—after a little pause to gain command of word and thought she spoke again, slowly.

“Listen,” she said, this time very softly, but very seriously. “I want to tell you one thing and I want to tell it to you now. I had a good and sufficient reason for helping you out with Aunt Mary; but—” She hesitated.

“But?” he asked.

“But I’ve no reason at all for helping your Aunt Mary out with you, unless you prove worthy of her, and—”

“And?”

She looked at him, and shook her head slightly.

“I won’t say ‘and of me,’” she said finally.

“Why not?” he asked, a storm of tempestuous impatience raging behind his lips. “Do say it,” he pleaded.

“No, I can’t say it. It wouldn’t be right. I don’t mean it, and so I won’t say it. I’ll only tell you that I can promise nothing as things are, and that unless you go at life from now on with a tremendous energy I never shall even dream of a possible promising.”

He rose to his feet and towered above her, tall and straight and handsome, and very grave.

“All right,” he said simply. “I’ll remember.”

Ever so much later that evening he rose to bid her good-night.

“Whatever comes, you’ve been an angel to me,” he said in that hasty five seconds that her hand was his.

“Shall I ever regret it?” she asked, looking up to his eyes.

“Never,” he declared earnestly, “never, never. I can swear that, and I shall be able to swear the same thing when I’m as old as my Aunt Mary.”

Mrs. Rosscott lowered her eyes.

“Who could ask more?” she said softly.

“I could,” said Jack—“but I’ll wait first.”

Chapter Nineteen Aunt Mary’s Return

Joshua was at the station to meet his mistress, and Lucinda, full to the brim with curiosity, sat on the back seat of the carryall.

Aunt Mary quitted the train with a dignity which was sufficiently overpowering to counteract the effect of her bonnet’s being somewhat awry. She greeted Joshua with a chill perfunctoriness that was indescribable, and her glance glided completely over Lucinda and faded away in the open country on the further side of her.

Lucinda did not care. Lucinda was of a hardy stock and stormy glances neither bent nor broke her spirit.

“I’m glad to see you come back looking so well,” she screamed, when Aunt Mary was in and they were off.

Aunt Mary raised her eyebrows in a manner that appeared a trifle indignant, and riveted her gaze on the hindquarters of the horse.

“I thought it was more like heaven myself,” she said coldly. “Not that your opinion matters any to me, Lucinda.”

Then she leaned forward and poked the driver.

“Joshua!” she said.

Joshua jumped in his seat at the asperity of her poke and her tone.

“What is it?” he said hastily.

“Jus’ ’s soon as we get home I want you to take the saw—that little, sharp one, you know—and dock Billy’s tail. Cut it off as close as you can; do you hear?”

“I hear,” was the startled answer.

“Did you have a good time?” Lucinda had the temerity to ask, after a minute.

“I guess I could if I tried,” the lady replied; “but I’m too tired to try now.”

“How did you leave Mr. Jack?”

“I couldn’t stay forever, could I?” asked the traveler impatiently. “I thought that a week was long enough for the first time, anyhow.”

Lucinda subsided and the rest of the drive was taken in silence. When they reached the house Aunt Mary enveloped everything in one glance of blended weariness, scorn and contempt, and then made short work of getting to bed, where she slept the luxurious and dreamless sleep of the unjust until late that afternoon.

“My, but she’s come back a terror!” Lucinda cried to Joshua in a high whisper when he brought in the trunk. “She looks like nothin’ was goin’ to be good enough for her from now on.”

“Nothin’ ain’t goin’ to be good enough for her,” said Joshua calmly.

“What are we goin’ to do, then?” asked Lucinda.

“We’ll have enough to do,” said Joshua, in a tone that was portentous in the extreme, and then he placed the trunk in its proper position for unpacking and went away, leaving Lucinda to unpack it.

Aunt Mary awoke just as the faithful servant was unrolling the green plaid waist, and the instant that she spoke it was plain that her attitude toward life in general was become strangely and vigorously changed, and that for Lucinda the rack was to be newly oiled and freshly racking.

This attitude was not in any degree altered by the unexpected arrival of Arethusa that evening. Strange tales had reached Arethusa’s ears, and she had flown on the wings of steam and coal dust to see what under the sun it all meant. Aunt Mary was not one bit rejoiced to see her and the glare which she directed over the edge of the counterpane bore testimony to the truth of this statement.

“Whatever did you come for?” she demanded inhospitably. “Lucinda didn’t send for you, did she?”

Arethusa screamed the best face that she could onto her visit, but Aunt Mary listened with an inattention that was anything but flattering.

“I don’t feel like talkin’ over my trip,” she said, when she saw her niece’s lips cease to move. “Of course I enjoyed myself because I was with Jack, but as to what we did an’ said you couldn’t understand it all if I did tell you, so what’s the use of botherin’.”

Arethusa looked neutral, calm and curious. But Aunt Mary frowned and shook her head.

“S’long as you’re here, though, I suppose you may as well make yourself useful,” she said a few minutes later. “Come to think of it, there’s an errand I want you to do for me. I want you to go to Boston the very first thing to-morrow morning an’ buy me some cotton.”

Arethusa stared blankly.

“Well,” said the aunt, “if you can’t hear, you’d better take my ear-trumpet and I’ll say it over again.”

“What kind of cotton?” Arethusa yelled.

“Not _stockin’s!_” said Aunt Mary; “Cotton! Cotton! C-O-T-T-O-N! It beats the Dutch how deaf everyone is gettin’, an’ if I had your ears in particular, Arethusa, I’d certainly hire a carpenter to get at ’em with a bit-stalk. Jus’s if you didn’t know as well as I do how many stockin’s I’ve got already! I should think you’d quit bein’ so heedless, an’ use your commonsense, anyhow. I’ve found commonsense a very handy thing in talkin’ always. Always.”

Arethusa launched herself full tilt into the ear-trumpet.

“What—kind—of—cotton?” she asked in that key of voice which makes the crowd pause in a panic.

Aunt Mary looked disgusted.

“The Boston kind,” she said, nipping her lips.

Arethusa took a double hitch on her larynx, and tried again.

“Do you mean thread?”

Aunt Mary’s disgust deepened visibly.

“If I meant silk I guess I wouldn’t say cotton. I might just happen to say silk. I’ve been in the habit of saying silk when I meant silk and cotton when I meant cotton, for quite a number of years, and I might not have changed to-day—I might just happen to not have. I might not have—maybe.”

Arethusa withered under this bitter irony.

“How many spools do you want?” she asked in a meek but piercing howl.

“I don’t care,” said Aunt Mary loftily. “I don’t care how many—or what color—or what number. I just want some Boston cotton, and I want to see you settin’ out to get it pretty promptly to-morrow morning.”

“But if you only want some cotton,” Arethusa yelled, with a force which sent crimson waves all over her, “why can’t I get it in the village?”

Aunt Mary shot one look at her niece and the latter felt the concussion.

“Because—I—want—you—to—get—it— in—Boston,” she said, filling the breaks between her words with a concentrated essence of acerbity such as even she had never displayed before. “When I say a thing, I mean it pretty generally. Quite often—most always. I want that cotton and it’s to be bought in Boston. There’s a train that goes in at seven-forty-five, and if you don’t favor the idea of ridin’ on it you can take the express that goes by at six-five.”

Arethusa pressed her hands very tightly together and carried the discussion no further. She went to bed early and rose early the next morning and Joshua drove her in town to the seven-forty-five.

“It doesn’t seem to me that my aunt is very well,” the niece said during the drive. “What do you think?”

“I don’t think anything about her,” said Joshua with great candor. “If I was to give to thinkin’ I’d o’ moved out to Chicago an’ been scalpin’ Indians to-day.”

“I wonder if that trip to New York was good for her?” Arethusa wondered mildly.

Joshua flicked Billy with the whip and refused to voice any opinion as to New York’s effect on his mistress.

Arethusa was well on her way to Boston when Aunt Mary’s bell, rung with a sharp jangle, summoned Lucinda to open her bedroom blinds. While Lucinda was leaning far out and attempting to cause said blinds to catch on the hooks, which habitually held them back against the side of the house, her mistress addressed her with a suddeness which showed that she had awakened with her wits surprisingly well in hand.

“Where’s Joshua? Is he got back from Arethusa? Answer me, Lucinda.”

Lucinda drew herself in through the open window with an alacrity remarkable for one of her years.

“Yes, he’s back,” she yelled.

Aunt Mary looked at her with a sort of incensed patience.

“Well, what’s he doin’? If he’s back, where is he? Lucinda, if you knew how hard it is for me to keep quiet you’d answer when I asked things. Why in Heaven’s name don’t you say suthin’? Anythin’? Anythin’ but nothin’, that is.”

“He’s mowin’,” Lucinda shrieked.

“Sewin’!” exclaimed Aunt Mary. “What’s he sewin’? Where’s he sewin’? Have you stopped doin’ his darnin’?”

Lucinda gathered breath by compressing her sides with her hands, and then replied, directing her voice right into the ear-trumpet:

“He’s mowin’ the back lawn.”

Aunt Mary winced and shivered.

“My heavens, Lucinda!” she exclaimed, sharply. “I wish’t there was a school to teach outsiders the use of an ear-trumpet. They can’t seem to hit the medium between either mumblin’ or splittin’ one’s ear drums.”

Lucinda was too much out of breath from her effort to attempt any audible penitence. Her mistress continued:

“Well, you find him wherever he is, and tell him to harness up the buggy and go and get Mr. Stebbins as quick as ever he can. Hurry!”

Lucinda exited with a promptitude that fulfilled all that her lady’s heart could wish. She found Joshua whetting his scythe.

“She wants Mr. Stebbins right off,” said Lucinda.

“Then she’ll get Mr. Stebbins right off,” said Joshua. And he headed immediately for the barn.

Lucinda ran along beside him. It did seem to Lucinda as if in compensation for her slavery to Aunt Mary she might have had a sympathizer in Joshua.

“I guess she wants to change her will,” she panted, very much out of breath.

“Then she’ll change her will,” said Joshua. And as his steady gait was much quicker than poor Lucinda’s halting amble, and as he saw no occasion to alter it, the conversation between them dwindled into space then and there.

Half an hour later Billy went out of the drive at a swinging pace and an hour after that Mr. Stebbins was brought captive to Aunt Mary’s throne.

She welcomed him cordially; Lucinda was promptly locked out, and then the old lady and her lawyer spent a momentous hour together. Mr. Stebbins was taken into his client’s fullest confidence; he was regaled with enough of the week’s history to guess the rest; and he foresaw the outcome as he had foreseen it from the moment of the rupture.

Aunt Mary was very sincere in owning up to her own past errors.

“I made a big mistake about the life that boy was leadin’,” she said in the course of the conversation. “He took me everywhere where he was in the habit of goin’, an’ so far from its bein’ wicked, I never enjoyed myself so much in my life. There ain’t no harm in havin’ fun, an’ it does cost a lot of money. I can understand it all now, an’ as I’m a great believer in settin’ wrong right whenever you can, I want Jack put right in my will right off. I want—” and then were unfolded the glorious possibilities of the future for her youngest, petted nephew. He was not only to be reinstated in the will, but he was to reign supreme. The other four children were to be rich—very rich,—but Jack was to be _the_ heir.

Mr. Stebbins was well pleased. He was very fond of Jack and had always been particularly patient with him on that account. He felt that this was a personal reward of merit, for it cannot be denied that Jack had certainly cashed very large checks on the bank of his forbearance.

When all was finished, and Joshua and Lucinda had been called in and had duly affixed their signatures to the important document, the buggy was brought to the door again and Mr. Stebbins stepped in and allowed himself to be replaced where they had taken him from.

Joshua returned alone.

“There, what did I tell you!” said Lucinda, who was waiting for him behind the wood-house,—“she did want to change her will.”

“Well, she changed it, didn’t she?” said Joshua.

“I guess she wants to give him all she’s got, since that week in New York,” said Lucinda.

“Then she’ll give him all she’s got,” said Joshua.

Lucinda’s eyes grew big.

“An’ she’ll give it to you, too, if you don’t look out and stay where you can hear her bell if she rings it,” Joshua added, with his usual frankness, and then he whipped up Billy and drove on to the barn.

Arethusa returned late in the afternoon, very warm, very wilted. Aunt Mary looked over the cotton purchase, and deigned to approve.

“But, my heavens, Arethusa,” she exclaimed immediately afterwards, “if you had any idea how dirty and dusty and altogether awful you do look, you wouldn’t be able to get to soap and water fast enough.”

At that poor Arethusa sighed, and, gathering up her hat, and hat-pins, and veil, and gloves, and purse, and handkerchief, went away to wash.

Chapter Twenty Jack’s Joy

About the first of July many agreeable things happened.

One was that Mr. Stebbins found it advisable to address a discreet letter to John Watkins, Jr., Denham, conveying the information that although he must not count unduly upon the future, still, if he behaved himself, he might with safety allow his expenditures to mount upward monthly to a certain limit. This was the way in which Aunt Mary salved her conscience and saved her pride all at once.

“I don’t want him to think that I don’t mean things when I say ’em,” she had carefully explained to Mr. Stebbins, “but I can’t bear to think that there’s anybody in New York without money enough to have a good time there.”

Mr. Stebbins had made a note of the sum which the allowance was to compass and had promised to write the letter at once.

“What did you do the last time you were in the city?” Aunt Mary asked.

“I was much occupied with business,” said the lawyer, “but I found time to visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art and—”

“Good gracious!” exclaimed Aunt Mary, “who was takin’ you ’round! I never had a second for any museums or arts;—you ought to have seen a vaudeville, or that gondola place! I was ferried around four times and the music lasted all through.” She stopped and reflected. “I guess you can make that money a hundred a month more,” she said slowly. “I don’t want the boy to ever feel stinted or have to run in debt.”

Mr. Stebbins smiled, and the result was that Jack began to pay up the bills for his aunt’s entertainment very much more rapidly than he had anticipated doing.

Another pleasant thing was that a week or so later—very soon after Mrs. Rosscott had given up her town house and returned to the protection of the parental slate-tiles—Burnett’s father, a peppery but jovial old gentleman (we all know the kind), suddenly asked why Bob never came home any more. This action on the part of the head of the house being tantamount to the completest possible forgiveness and obliviousness of the past, Burnett’s mother, of whom the inquiry had been made, wept tears of sincerest joy and wrote to the youngest of her flock to return to the ancestral fold just as soon as he possibly could. He came, and as a result, a fortnight later Jack came, and Mitchell came, and Clover came. Mrs. Rosscott, as we have previously stated, was already there, and so were Maude Lorne and a great many others. Some of the others were pretty girls and Burnett and two of his friends found plenty to amuse them, but Burnett’s dearest friend, his bosom friend, his Fidus Achates, found no one to amuse him, because he was in earnest, and had eyes for no feminine prettiness, his sight being dazzled by the radiance of one surpassing loveliness. He had worked tremendously hard the first month of daily laboring, and felt he deserved a reward. Be it said for Jack that the reward of which Aunt Mary had the bestowing counted for very little with him except in its relation to the far future. The real goal which he was striving toward, the real laurels that he craved—Ah! they lay in another direction.

Middle July is a lovely time to get off among the trees and grass, and lie around in white flannels or white muslins, just as the case may be. It was too warm to do much else than that, and Heaven knows that Jack desired nothing better, as long as his goddess smiled upon him.

It was curious about his goddess. She seemed to grow more beautiful every time that he saw her. Perhaps it was her native air that gave her that charming flush; perhaps it was the joy of being at home again; perhaps it was—no, he didn’t dare to hope that. Not yet. Not even with all that she had done for him fresh in his memory. The humility of true love was so heavy on his heart that his very dreams were dulled with hopelessness, the majority of them seeming too vividly dyed in Paradise hues for their fulfillment in daily life to ever appear possible. But still he was very, very happy to be there with her—beside her—and to hear her voice and look into her eyes whenever the trouble some “other people” would leave them alone together. And she did seem happy, too. And so rejoiced that the tide of Aunt Mary’s wrath had been successfully turned. And so rejoiced that he was at work, even in the face of her hopes as to his college career. And also so rejoiced to take up the gay, careless thread of their mutual pleasure again.

The morning after the gathering of the party was Saturday and an ideal day—that sort of ideal day when house parties naturally sift into pairs and then fade away altogether. The country surrounding our particular party was densely wooded and not at all settled, the woods were laid out in a fascinating system of walks and benches which in no case commanded views of one another, and the shade overhead was the shade of July and as propitious to rest as it was to motion. Mitchell took a girl in gray and two sets of golf clubs and started out in the opposite direction from the links, Clover took a girl in green and a camera and went another way, Burnett took a girl in a riding habit and two saddle horses and followed the horses’ noses whither they led, and Jack—Jack smoked cigarettes on the piazza and waited—waited.

Mrs. Rosscott came out after a while and asked him why he didn’t go to walk also.

“Just what I was thinking as to yourself,” he said, very boldly as to voice, and very beseechingly as to eyes.

“Oh, I’m so busy,” she said, laughing up into his eyes and then laughing down at the ground—“you see I’m the only married daughter to help mamma.”

“But you’ve been helping all the morning,” he complained, “and besides how can you help? One would think that your mother was beating eggs or turning mattresses.”

“I have to work harder than that,” said Mrs. Rosscott; “I have to make people know one another and like one another and not all want to make love to the same girl.”

“You can’t help their all wanting to make love to the same girl,” said Jack; “the more you try to convince them of their folly the deeper in love they are bound to fall. I’m an illustration of that myself.”

Mrs. Rosscott looked at him then and curved her mouth sweetly.

“You do say such pretty things,” she said. “I don’t see how you’ve learned so much in so little time. Why, General Jiggs in there is three times your age and he tangles himself awfully when he tries to be sweet.”

“Perhaps his physician has recommended gymnastics,” said Jack.

“Perhaps,” said Mrs. Rosscott laughing, and then she turned as if to go in.

“Oh, don’t,” said her lover, barring the way with great suddenness; “you really mustn’t, you know. I’ve been patient for so long and been good for so long and I must be rewarded—I really must. Do come out with me somewhere—anywhere—for only a half-hour,—please.”

She looked at him.

“Won’t Maude do?” she asked.

“No, she won’t,” he said beneath his breath; “whatever do you suggest such a thing for? You make me ready to tell you to your face that you want to go as bad as I want you to go, but I shan’t say so because I know too much.”

“You do know a lot, don’t you?” said she, with an expression of great respect; “why, if you were to dare to hint to me that I wanted to go out with you instead of staying in and talking Rembrandt with Mr. Morley, I’d never forgive you the longest day I live.”

“I know you wouldn’t,” said he, “and you may be quite sure that I shall not say it. On the contrary I shall merely implore you to forget your own pleasure in consideration of mine.”

“I really ought to devote the morning to Mr. Morley,” she said meditatively; “it’s such an honor his coming here, you know.”

“A little bit of a whiskered monkey,” said Jack in great disgust; “an honor, indeed!”

“He’s a very great man,” said Mrs. Rosscott; “every sort of institution has given him a few letters to put after his name, and some have given him whole syllables.”

“You must get a straw hat, you know, or a sun-shade; it will be hot in half an hour.”

“Oh, I couldn’t stay out half an hour; fifteen minutes would be the longest.”

“All right, fifteen minutes, then, but do hurry.”

“I didn’t say that I would go,” she said, opening her eyes; “and yet I feel myself gone.” She laughed lightly.

“Do hurry,” he pleaded freshly; “oh, I am so hungry to—”

She disappeared within doors and five minutes later came back with one of those charming floppy English garden hats, tied with a muslin bow beneath her dimpled chin.

“This is so good of me,” she said, as they went down the steps.

“Very good, heavenly good,” said Jack; and then neither spoke again until they had crossed the Italian garden and entered the American wood. She looked into his eyes then and smiled half-shyly and half-provokingly.

“You are such a baby,” she said; “such a baby! Do ask me why and I’ll tell you half a dozen whys. I’d love to.”

The path was the smoothest and shadiest of forest paths, the hour was the sweetest and sunniest of summer hours, the moment was the brightest and happiest of all the moments which they had known together—up to now.

“Do tell me,” he said; “I’m wild to know.”

He took her hand and laid it on his arm. For that little while she was certainly his and his alone, and no man had a better claim to her. “Go on and tell me,” he repeated.

“There is one big reason and there are lots of little ones. Which will you have first?”

“The little ones, please.”

“Then, listen; you are like a baby because you are impatient, because you are spoilt, because when you want anything you think that you must have it, and because you like to be walked with.”

“Are those the little reasons,” he said when she paused; “and what’s the big one?”

“The big one,” she said slowly; “Oh, I’m afraid that you won’t like the big one!”

“Perhaps it will be all the better for me if I don’t,” he laughed; “at any rate I beg and pray and plead to know it.”

“What a dear boy!” she laughed. “If you want to know as badly as that, I’d have to tell you anyhow, whether I wanted to or not. It’s because I’m so much the oldest.”

“Oh!” said Jack, much disappointed. “Is that why?”

“And then too,” she continued, “you seem even younger because of your being so unsophisticated.”

“So I am unsophisticated, am I?” he asked grimly.

“Yes,” she said nodding; “at least you impress me so.”

“I’m glad of that,” he said after a little pause.

She looked up quickly.

“Truly?”

“Yes, indeed.”

“Oh,” she laughed, “if you say that, then I shall know that you are less unsophisticated than I thought you were.”

“Why so?” he asked surprised.

“Don’t you know that meek, mild men always try to insinuate that they are regular fire-eaters, and vice versa? Well, it’s so—and it’s so every time. There was once a man who was kissing me, and he drew my hands up around his neck in such a clever, gentle way that I was absolutely positive that he had had no end of practice drawing arms up in that way and I just couldn’t help saying: ‘Oh, how many women you must have kissed!’ What do you think he answered?—merely smiled and said: ‘Not so many as you might imagine.’ He showed how much he knew by the way he answered, for oh! he had. I found that out afterwards.”

“What did you do then?” he asked, frowning. “Cut him?”

“No; I married him. Why, of course I was going to marry him when he kissed me, or I wouldn’t have let him kiss me. Do you suppose I let men kiss me as a general thing? What are you thinking of?”

“I was thinking of you,” he said. “It’s a horrible habit I’ve fallen into lately. But, never mind; keep on talking.”

“I don’t remember what I was saying,” she said. “Oh, yes, I do too. About men, about good and bad men. Now, even if I didn’t know how much trouble you’d made in the world, I’d divine it all the instant that you were willing to admit being unsophisticated. People always crave to be the opposite of what they are; the drug shops couldn’t sell any peroxide of hydrogen if that wasn’t so.”

He laughed and forgot his previous vexation.

“Now, look at me,” she continued. “Oh, I didn’t mean really—I mean figuratively; but never mind. Now, I’m nothing but a bubble and a toy, and I ache to be considered a philosopher. Don’t you remember my telling you what a philosopher I was, the very first conversation that we ever had together? I do try so hard to delude myself into thinking I am one, that some days I’m almost sure that I really am one. Last night, for instance, I was thinking how nice it would be for my Cousin Maude to marry you.”

“Ye gods!” cried Jack.

“She’s so very rich,” Mrs. Rosscott pursued calmly; “and you know the law of heredity is an established scientific fact now, so you could feel quite safe as to her nose skipping the next generation.”

Jack was audibly amused.

“It’s not anything to laugh over,” his companion continued gravely. “It’s something to ponder and pray over. If I were Maude I should be on my knees about it most of the time.”

“Nothing can help her now,” said Jack. “Her parents have been and gone and done it, as far as she’s concerned, forever. Prayer won’t change her nose, although age may broaden it still more.”

“Don’t you believe that nothing can help her now. A good-looking husband could help her lots. I’ve seen homelier girls than she go just everywhere—on account of their husbands, you know. That was where my philosophy came in.”

“I’d quite forgotten your philosophy.” He laughed again as he spoke. “I must apologize. Please tell me more about it.”

She laughed, too.

“I’m going to. You see, I was lying there, looking out at the moon, and thinking how nice it would be for Maude to marry you.”

“Did you consider me at all?” he interposed.

“How you interrupt!” she declared, in exasperation. “You never let me finish.”

“I am dumb.”

“Well, I thought how nice it would be for Maude to marry you. You’d have a baron for a papa-in-law, and an heiress to balance Aunt Mary with. If you went into consumption and had to retreat to Arizona for a term of years, the climate could not ruin her complexion as it would m—most people’s. And she’s so ready to have you that it’s almost pathetic. I can’t imagine anything more awful than to be as ready to marry a man who is’nt at all desirous of so doing, as Maude is of marrying you. But if you would only think about it. I thought and thought about it last night and the longer I thought the more it seemed like such a nice arrangement all around; and then—all of a sudden—do you know I began to wonder if I was philosopher enough to enjoy being matron-of-honor to Maude and really—”

“At the wedding I could have kissed you!” he exclaimed, and suddenly subsided at the look with which she withered his boldness.

“And really I wasn’t altogether sure; and then, it occurred to me that nothing on the face of the earth would ever persuade you to marry Maude. And I saw my card castle go smashing down, and then I saw that I really am a philosopher, after all, for—for I didn’t mind a bit!”

Jack threw his head back and roared.

“Oh,” he said after a minute, “you are so refreshing. You ruffle me up just to give me the joy of smoothing me down, don’t you?”

“I do what I can to amuse you,” she said, demurely. “You are my father’s guest and my brother’s friend, and so I ought to—oughtn’t I?”

“Yes,” he said, “I have a two-fold claim on you if you look at it that way and some day I mean to go to work and unfold still another.”

They had come to a delightful little nook where the trees sighed gently, “Sit down,” and there seemed to be no adequate reason for refusing the invitation.

“Let’s rest, I know you’re tired,” the young man said gently, and the next minute found his companion down upon the soft grass, her back against a twisted tree-root and her hands about her knees.

He threw himself down beside her and the hush and the song of mid-summer were all about them, filling the air, and their ears, and their hearts all at once.

Presently he took her hand up out of the grass where its fingers had wandered to hide themselves, and kissed it. She looked at him reprovingly when it was too late, and shook her head.

“Such a little one!” he said.

“I call it a pretty big one,” she answered.

“I mean the hand—not the kiss,” he said smiling.

“You really are sophisticated,” she told him. “Only fancy if you had reversed those nouns!”

“I know,” he said; “but I’ve kissed hands before. You see, I’m more talented than you think.”

“Don’t be silly,” she said smiling. “I really am beginning to think very well of you. You don’t want me to cease to, do you?”

“Why do women always say ‘Don’t be silly’?” he queried. “I wish I could find one who wanted to be very original, and so said, ‘Do be silly’, just for a change.”

“Dear me, if women were to beg men to be silly what would happen?” Mrs. Rosscott exclaimed. “The majority are so very foolish without any special egging on.”

“But it is so dreadfully time-worn—that one phrase.”

“Oh, if it comes to originality,” she answered, “men are not original, either. Whenever they lie down in the shade, they always begin to talk nonsense. You reflect a bit and see if that isn’t invariably so.”

“But nonsense is such fun to talk in the shade,” he said, spreading her fingers out upon his own broad palm. “So many things are so next to heavenly in the shade.”

“You ought not to hold my hand.”

“I know it.”

“I am astonished that you do not remember your Aunt Mary’s teaching you better.”

“She never forbade my holding your hand.”

“Suppose anyone should come suddenly down the path?”

“They would see us and turn and go back.”

“To tell everyone—”

“What?”

“A lie.”

Jack laughed, folded her hand hard in his, and drew himself into a sitting posture beside her knee.

“Now, don’t be silly,” she said with earnest anxiety. “I won’t have it. It’s putting false ideas in your head, because I’m really only playing, you know.”

“The shadow of love,” he suggested.

“Quite so.”

“And if—” He leaned quite near.

“Not by any means,” she exclaimed, springing quickly to her feet. “Come—come! It’s quite time that we were going back to the house.”

“Why must we?” he remonstrated.

“You know why,” she said. “It’s time we were being sensible. When a man gets as near as you are, I prefer to be _en promenade_. And don’t let us be foolish any longer, either. Let us be cool and worldly. How much money has your aunt, anyhow?”

Jack had risen, too.

“What impertinence!” he ejaculated.

“Not at all,” she said. “Maude has so much money of her own that I ask in a wholly disinterested spirit.”

“She’s very rich,” said Jack. “But if your spirit is so disinterested, what do you want to know for?”

“This is a world of chance, and the main chance in a woman’s case is alimony; so it’s always nice to know how to figure it.”

“It’s a slim chance for your cousin,” said Jack. “Do tell her that I said so.”

“No, I shan’t,” said she perversely. “I won’t be a go-between for you and her. Besides, as to that alimony, there are more heiresses than Maude in our family.”

“Yes,” said he; “I know that. But I know, too, that there is one among them who need never figure on getting any alimony out of me. If I ever get the iron grasp of the law on that heiress, I can assure you that only her death or mine will ever loosen its fangs.”

“How fierce you are!” said Mrs. Rosscott. “Why do you get so worked up?”

“Oh,” he exclaimed, with something approaching a groan, “I don’t mean to be—but I do care so much! And sometimes—” he caught her quickly in his arms, drew her within their strong embrace, and kissed her passionately upon the lips that had been tantalizing him for five interminable months.

He was almost frightened the next second by her stillness.

“Don’t be angry,” he pleaded.

“I’m not,” she murmured, resting very quietly with her cheek against his heart. “But you’ll have to marry me now. My other husband did, you know.”

“Marry you!” he exclaimed. “Next week? To-morrow? This afternoon? You need only say when—”

“Oh, not for years and years,” she said, interrupting him. “You mustn’t dream of such a thing for years and years!”

“For years and years!” he cried in astonishment.

“That’s what I said,” she told him.

He released her in his surprise and stared hard at her. And then he seized her again and kissed her soundly.

“You don’t mean it!” he declared.

“I do mean it!” she declared.

And then she shook her head in a very sweet but painfully resolute manner.

“I won’t be called a cradle-robber,” she said, firmly; and at that her companion swore mildly but fervently.

“You’re so young,” she said further; “and not a bit settled,” she added.

“But you’re young, too,” he reminded her.

“I’m older than you are,” she said.

“I suppose that you aren’t any more settled than I am, and that’s why you hesitate,” he said grimly.

“Now that’s unworthy of you,” she cried; “and I have a good mind—”

But the direful words were never spoken, for she was in his arms again—close in his arms; and, as he kissed her with a delicious sensation that it was all too good to be true, he whispered, laughing:

“I always meant to lord it over my wife, so I’ll begin by saying: ‘Have it your own way, as long as I have you.’”

Mrs. Rosscott laid her cheek back against his coat lapel, and looked up into his eyes with the sweetest smile that even he had ever seen upon even her face.

“It’s a bargain,” she murmured.

Chapter Twenty-One The Peace and Quiet of the Country

Along in the beginning of the fall Aunt Mary began suddenly to grow very feeble indeed. After the first week or two it became apparent that she would have to be quiet and very prudent for some time, and it was when this information was imparted to her that the family discovered that she had been intending to go to New York for the Horse-Show.

“She’s awful mad,” Lucinda said to Joshua. “The doctor says she’ll have to stay in bed.”

“She won’t stay in bed long,” said Joshua.

“The doctor says if she don’t stay in bed she’ll die,” said Lucinda.

“She won’t die,” said Joshua.

Lucinda looked at Joshua and felt a keen desire to throw her flatiron at him. The world always thinks that the Lucindas have no feelings; the world never knows how near the flatirons come to the Joshuas often and often.

Arethusa came for two days and looked the situation well over.