Chapter X: Part 10

She paused suddenly as I watched from the window, and I stepped out to see what had attracted her attention. There into the garden from its farther entrance filed the six suitors who had previously come to sit beneath the windows of their stricken lady! Having failed to visit their wrath upon the perfidious Dick they had changed their clothes and returned to Hopefield. If Hezekiah had not expressly commanded me not to become the sixth man, I should have offered myself on the spot, and waited only until Cecilia had made the inevitable answer before summoning Wiggins to end the whole affair. Such, however, was not to be the order of events.

The procession, headed by Ormsby, was within a few yards of the terrace. Cecilia, apparently unconscious of their proximity, continued her promenade. In a moment she must recognize them, ask them into the house, give them tea, and otherwise destroy my hope of securing her happiness before the day's end.

A chorus of yelps and barks, as of dogs suddenly released, greeted my ear. The oncoming suitors heard it too, and the line wobbled uncertainly. Then round the house swept mastiffs, hounds, terriers,--a collection of prize-winners such as few kennels ever boasted, loping gayly in unwonted freedom toward unknown and forbidden pastures.

The vanguard of fox-terriers leaped down into the garden, with the rest of the pack at their heels. Happy dogs, to find grown men ready for a gambol! Six coat-tails streamed from the hips of six gentlemen in a hurry. Several battered hats mixed with geraniums were retained later as spoils of war by the gardener. That garden had been built for repose and contemplative amblings, not for panic and flight. The disorder was superior in picturesqueness to that which attended the pumpkin stampede; at least it struck me at the moment as funnier; and I have never since been able to attend a day wedding without appearing idiotic--the procession of ushers suggests possibilities that are too much for me. Four of the suitors found one of the proper exits into the road; two leaped the box-hedge on the other side without shaking a leaf.

I ran round the house, stumbling through the rear-guard of the truant canines, and passing the kennel-master, who had rallied the stable men and was in hot pursuit.

"Somebody turned 'em out--turned 'em out!" he shouted, and swept profanely by. The gate of the kennel-yard stood open. A familiar figure, running low, paused, and then sprinted nimbly along the paddock fence. A white sweater was distinguishable for a moment on a stone wall, then it followed a pair of enchanted heels into oblivion.

Time had been passing swiftly, and the shadows were deepening. I retraced my steps toward the terrace, hearing the cries of pursued and pursuers growing fainter. I had not yet gained a position from which I could see Cecilia, when a man appeared some distance ahead of me, walking guardedly in one of the garden-plots. He came uncertainly, pausing to glance about, yet evidently led toward the terrace by a definite purpose. All may be fair in love and war, but I confess to a feeling of pity for John Stewart Dick as I watched him slowly advancing to his fate. He was going boldly now, and I felt a sudden liking for him; nor can I believe that he was other than a manly fellow with sound brains and a good heart.

I reasoned, as I marked his approach to the terrace, that he had been loitering in the neighborhood, probably watching Cecilia and Pepperton, and when the architect retired, he had assumed that the sixth man had spoken. The appearance of his former comrades of the inn had doubtless disturbed him as it had me; then, thanks to the resourceful Hezekiah, they had been routed and the coast was clear. I think it likely that the sight of Cecilia sombrely pacing the terrace in the darkening shadows was too much for his philosophic poise, or like the rest of us who were actors in that comedy, he may have felt that any end was better than the doubts and uncertainties that beset us.

I watched him draw nearer to Cecilia as I have watched deer go down to a lake to drink. He would speak now; I was confident of it; and I stole round to the side entrance and sent word to Wiggins to go to the drawing-room and wait for me.

Miss Octavia and Pepperton still lingered over their tea-cups. The row made by the fugitives from her kennels had not, it seemed, penetrated to the library, and Miss Octavia bade me join the talk, which had to do, I remember, with some project for a national hall of fame that had incurred her characteristic displeasure. A hall of immortal rascals in pillories she thought far likelier to please the masses.

In fifteen minutes I saw Cecilia crossing the hall. She stopped where I could see her quite plainly, and thrust her hand into the pocket of her coat. Out flashed the silver note-book. She made a swift notation with the pencil that now, I knew, wrote the fate of the sixth man.

I went out and spoke to her, and walked beside her to the drawing-room door, where Hartley Wiggins was waiting.

Miss Octavia had risen when I returned to the library, and it was time to dress for dinner.

"Just a moment, Miss Hollister. Something of great interest is about to occur;" and I made excuses for detaining her for perhaps five minutes,--not more.

"You have never yet deceived me, Arnold Ames, and such is my confidence in you that if you tell me that something interesting will soon occur, I have no reason to doubt you. It is worth remembering, however, that fowl is not improved by prolonged roasting."

I heard Wiggins laugh in the hall, and Miss Octavia raised her head. Then Cecilia came into the room, and walked directly to her aunt.

"Aunt Octavia, here is the little silver notebook you gave me in Paris; I have just written Mr. Wiggins's name in it, and as I have no further use for the book, I return it with my love and thanks."

Without a word, Miss Octavia turned to the wall and pressed the button twice.

"William," she said as the butler appeared, "you may serve Oriana '97, and be careful not to freeze it to death; and the hour for dinner is changed to eight. Arnold, you may yourself drive to Gooseberry Bungalow for my brother and niece. They dine with me to-night."

Hezekiah and I built our bungalow in the orchard where on that October afternoon I found her munching a red apple on the stone wall. She is the most scrupulous of housewives, and only now took me to task for scattering the hearth with fragments of the notes from which this narrative has been written. She has just been reading these last pages, with meditative brown eyes, and not without occasionally reaching for the pen and retouching some sentence in which, she says, soot from my chimney-doctoring days has clogged the ink. Cecilia and Wiggins live at Hopefield across the fields. Miss Octavia insisted on this, for the reason that the sword of Hartley's great-grandfather, found in the chest under the old house, gives him inalienable rights to the premises. Miss Octavia and her brother Bassford are traveling abroad and enjoying those mild adventures to which they are both temperamentally inclined. As Miss Octavia carried with her the Parker House umbrella-check I am confident of her early return.

My name is joined to Pepperton's on his office-door. Pepperton proposed this arrangement, with so many assurances of faith in me that I could not refuse him; but I knew well enough that Miss Octavia had first put it into his head. So while I have called myself a chimney-doctor in these pages, I am again an architect, and the new cathedral now rising at Waxahaxie is, let me modestly note, the work of my hand.

"You ought to say something more about the Asolando," Hezekiah has just murmured at my shoulder. "Everybody will ask whether we ever went back there."

"Of course we go back there, Hezekiah, every time you come to town and can get hold of me. Will that be enough?"

"You'd better explain that Aunt Octavia started the tea-room and still owns it, and makes money out of it, though she rarely goes there, but sends Freda the maid to collect the profits. And it won't do any harm to say that when she met you there that day, she decided at once that you would be a proper husband for me. Any one who reads your book will want to know that."

Hezekiah is always right; so here endeth the chronicle.

The Riverside Press

CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS

U . S . A

THE RIGHT STUFF

By IAN HAY

"Those who love the companionship of people of fine fibre, and to whom a sense of humor has not been denied, will make no mistake in seeking the society open to them in 'The Right Stuff.'"--_New York Times_.

"Hay resembles Barrie, and, like Barrie, he will grow in many ways."--_Cleveland Leader_.

"A compelling tribute to the homely genuineness and sterling worth of Scottish character."--_St. Louis Post Dispatch_.

"Mr. Hay has written a story which is pure story and is a delight from beginning to end."--_San Francisco Argonaut_.

"It would be hard, indeed, to find a more winning book."--_New Orleans Times-Democrat_.

With frontispiece by James Montgomery Flagg. 12mo.

$1.20 net. Postage 10 cents.

* * * * * * * *

THE TWISTED FOOT

By HENRY MILNER RIDEOUT

"Henry Milner Rideout has written several good stories of Oriental mystery, but none of them approach in excellence 'The Twisted Foot.'"--_Cleveland Plain Dealer_.

"The story is fascinating and full of the witchery of the East."--_Congregationalist_.

"Its persuasiveness of action, its alluring color and high heart courage, make it one of the striking romances of the time."--_New York American_.

"The whole story glows with the local life and color."--_New York Times_.

With seven full-page illustrations by G. C. Widney.

12mo. $1.20 net. Postage 11 cents.

* * * * * * * *

THE PROFESSIONAL AUNT

By MARY C. E. WEMYSS

"One of the most delightful stories that has ever crossed the water."--_Louisville Courier-Journal_.

"The legitimate successor of 'Helen's Babies.'"--_Clara Louise Burnham_.

"A classic in the literature of childhood."--_San Francisco Chronicle_.

"Mrs. Wemyss is a formidable rival to E. Nesbit, who hitherto has stood practically alone as a charmingly humorous interpreter of child life."--_Chicago Inter-Ocean_.

"A charming, witty, tender book."--_Kate Douglas Wiggin_.

"It is a sunny, warm-hearted humorous story, that leaves the reader with a sense of time well spent in its perusal."--_Brooklyn Eagle_.

16mo. $1.00 net. Postage 10 cents.

* * * * * * * *

FARMING IT

By HENRY A. SHUTE

"There is nothing funnier in Mark Twain."--_Grand Rapids Herald_.

"Every man and woman who lives, or ever has lived, in the country will appreciate the situations described.... They are funny enough to disturb the calm of the most serious countenance."--_Boston Globe_.

"Includes more fun than is concealed in all his other books taken together."--_Living Age_.

"The book is extraordinarily frank ... spicy and enlivening."--_Baltimore News_.

"A wholesome and invigorating sort of book.... A real story of real life cheerfully narrated."--_New York Times_.

Fully illustrated by Reginald B. Birch

12mo. $1.20 net. Postage 12 cents

* * * * * * * *

OLD HARBOR

By WILLIAM JOHN HOPKINS

"A charming picture of an old New England sea-port.... It is a book to close reluctantly with the hope of soon opening another volume by the same author."--_New York Times_.

"A tale to chuckle over.... It is not often that a reader has an opportunity in the pages of a book to come in touch with such a group of genial and lovable people."--_Minneapolis Journal_.

"A cheerful, amusing story of old-fashioned people.... The author is a genuine humorist."--_Boston Transcript_.

"A story conceived in the same spirit as 'The Clammer,' filled with the same philosophy, displaying the same keen insight."--_Brooklyn Eagle_.

Square crown 8vo. $1.25 net. Postage 14 cents

* * * * * * * *

THE BREAKING IN OF A YACHTSMAN'S WIFE

By MARY HEATON VORSE

"Clever! Sparkling! Full of quaint humor and crisp description! Altogether a book which will not disappoint the reader. It is 'different,' and that is one great merit in a book."--_Brooklyn Eagle_.

"It will puzzle holiday makers to find a better vacation book than this. Those who go up and down the Sound in yachts will find it especially pleasing; it will appeal to those who are fond of human nature studies; may be recommended even more decidedly to the serious than to the young and frivolous; a tonic to depression and an antidote to gloom."--_N. Y. Times_.

"Charming, with its salt, sea-slangy flavor, its double love thread, and its pleasant chapters dealing with Long Island Sound, the Mediterranean, Massachusetts Bay and Venetian lagoons."--_Chicago Record-Herald_.

Illustrated by Reginald Birch. 12mo, $1.50

HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY

BOSTON AND NEW YORK

<pre id="pg-footer">