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[Illustration: SHE SHOOK A WIRE CAGE ENERGETICALLY OVER THE COALS]




                            Those Dale Girls

                                   BY

                         Frances Weston Carruth

                 In the world’s broad field of battle,
                 In the bivouac of Life,
                 Be not like dumb, driven cattle!
                 Be a hero in the strife!
                                        —_Longfellow._

                                Chicago
                          A. C. McClurg & Co.
                                  1899




                               Copyright
                         By A. C. McCLURG & CO.
                               A. D. 1899




                               TO EDITH,

                   MY SISTER AND COMRADE, THE BRAVEST
                            OF SOLDIER GIRLS




                             ILLUSTRATIONS

She Shook a Wire Cage Energetically over the Coals         Frontispiece

The Girl Sat Down on the Arm of His Chair                            48

“May I Have a Guess, Miss Dale?”                                    114

There Were the Girls in Their Cotton Gowns                          188

Julie Was in Bed When Hester Came In That Night                     232

The Wedding Breakfast                                               304




THOSE DALE GIRLS




CHAPTER I


“Julie Dale, you’re the laziest thing in creation! Come down from that
window-seat and help.”

“Can’t, my dear,” a gay young voice responded. “I’m as ‘comfy as comfy
can be.’”

“Look at her, Peter Snooks,” said Hester to a fox-terrier at her side;
“just look at her! She’s curled up in a heap, reveling in that
fascinating Kipling, with her mouth all screwed up for this popcorn,
which she thinks we will take in state to her ladyship. But we’ll fool
her—eh, Snooks? We’ll fool her completely. We’ll just sit complacently
on the floor and eat it all up ourselves.”

The dog jumped about rapturously. The girl, who was kneeling before an
open fire, shook a wire cage energetically over the coals, and watched
the corn burst into great white flakes.

“It does _smell_ delicious,” came in an insinuating tone from the
window-seat across the room.

Hester maintained a lofty silence, and tipping the corn into a bowl,
sprinkled it with salt, adding dabs of butter. She then tossed a piece
to the dog, and began to sample it herself with apparent satisfaction,
for she smacked her lips and said, reflectively, as she put her hands to
her burning cheeks: “I believe it is quite worth ruining my complexion
over.”

Suddenly she whisked up bowl and dog, and crossing the room, dropped
both on the seat beside her sister. “There!” she exclaimed, “you knew I
would never eat it alone, even if you are a duffer!”

“‘Duffer’ is most inelegant” (this from Julie in an assumption of stern
reproach); “I do not see wherever you picked up such a word.”

“Read it in a book,” quoted Hester, laughing. This was a joke of
longstanding between them—to hold literature responsible for any
suspicious scraps of knowledge. It was a phrase they used also with much
frequency in argument, particularly when the subject was beyond the
range of their experience. “Don’t know a thing about it, read it in a
book,” one of them would say facetiously, by way of backing up some
remarkable statement, and feel herself at once relieved from personal
responsibility.

“You need not put on such frills,” Hester now said to her sister. “You
know you adore slang yourself.”

Julie was gazing out of the window. “Look, Hester, quick! There go the
crew! How they are skimming down the river! I’d no idea they trained out
here, had you?”

Both girls watched intently as the narrow shell shot by, the men pulling
the long, steady stroke which was the pride of their university.

“Aren’t they splendid?” Hester exclaimed, enthusiastically. “I wish we
knew some of the college men, Julie, don’t you?”

“It would be fun. I’d like to see something of college life. Perhaps we
may meet an occasional senior if Miss Ware takes us about any this
winter.”

“Do you suppose he’d be nice?” inquired Hester, quizzically. “I don’t
think we know much about very young men, do you? All we’ve known have
been so much older than we are.”

Julie puckered up her forehead and gazed after the vanishing crew. She
was trying to classify an unknown species.

“It does seem odd,” continued Hester, “_our_ contemplating formal
society, doesn’t it? I believe I shall hate it. We have roamed around
with Daddy too much to be quite like pattern society girls.”

“I tell you what we’ll do, Hester; we’ll go out with Miss Ware, meet
loads of people and pick out a nice congenial few whom Dad will like,
too, and just cultivate them informally. You know how Dad dislikes
society in the conventional sense, but he wants us to take our proper
place; and of course we ought to know people, now that we have really
settled down in Radnor to live.”

“Heavens! but you’re clever, Julie! We might set up a salon; only the
wise, the witty and the beautiful need apply. Which class would we come
under ourselves, do you think? We can begin with Dr. Ware and all the
old dears—only he never seems old a bit—that Dad is always bringing
home to dinner, and add any new dears we meet and think eligible.”

Julie laughed. “It sounds like a herd or something.” Then, with sudden
gravity, she said: “Hester, dear, I’m anxious about Dad. I can’t just
explain it, but somehow he’s been different ever since we’ve been here.
Haven’t you noticed how preoccupied he is and tired all the time, so
unlike Dad? The other day I spoke to him about it, and he shook his head
and said I mustn’t be so observant, that he happened to have an unusual
stress of business, that was all. But I don’t know,” she continued,
meditatively; “I can’t seem to throw off this queer feeling about him.”

Hester regarded her with wide-open eyes. “You frighten me, Julie.” Then
leaning toward her sister, she shook her finger admonishingly. “How dare
you go on having worries by yourself and not letting me know a thing
about them?” she said, lightly. “I think it is all your imagination. I
dare say Daddy has heaps of extra things on his hands because of all the
time he spent gadding with us in Europe. Of course, that’s it, you
goosey,” the idea gaining strength in her mind, “_of course_. You and I
and Peter Snooks must be more amusing, and make him laugh and forget the
‘stress of business.’ Ugh! what a horrid expression that is! Now I think
of it, he hasn’t laughed lately, Julie, has he?” She looked up with an
evident desire to be contradicted.

Julie shook her head.

Hester sprang up from her seat, and seizing the dog by the forepaws,
danced him violently about the room. “We need a shaking up, Peter
Snooks, or we’ll not be allowed to jingle our bells any longer at the
court of his majesty Dad the Great! Who ever heard of jesters neglecting
their duties! His royal highness must laugh,” she said gayly, “or he’ll
cry, ‘Off with their heads!’ like Alice’s fierce old queen.” She
emphasized this possible calamity by swinging the dog up in the air and
herself executing a daring _pas seul_ before she dropped breathless in a
chair. “I had rather die than be stupid, hadn’t you, Julie?” she gasped,
between breaths.

“In that case I think you will be spared to us a while yet,” replied her
sister, with quiet humor.

“So glad you think we’re a success,” Hester said, cheerfully. “Peter
Snooks, do you hear? we’re a success—she approves!” The dog lay panting
on the floor, and wagged his tail in understanding of the compliment.
“We’ll give a private exhibition to his majesty to-night after dinner.
How he will laugh! We will elaborate this feeble effort and call it ‘The
Dance of Joy.’ Things are always more interesting with names,” she said,
decisively. “Julie, you be showman and introduce us.”

Julie took her cue immediately, and rising, bowed low. “Ladies and
gentlemen (that means Dad)—ladies and gentlemen, I shall now have the
honor of presenting to your astonished vision the wonderful and original
‘Dance of Joy’—”

The library door opened suddenly, and a middle-aged woman entered and
closed the door after her. She stopped just inside the threshold, and
looking from one to the other with a scared face, stood wringing her
hands helplessly.

“Good gracious! what is the matter, Bridget?” Julie ejaculated. “Tell
us—you look frightened to death.”

The woman opened her lips and closed them with a moan. No word escaped
her.

Both girls were beside her in an instant, and Julie gave her a little
shake.

“Is it Daddy? What has happened? Bridget, Bridget, speak!” Her
beseeching young voice cried out with instinctive fear.

“They’re bringing him in,” Bridget gasped at last. “He took sick in the
office with a stroke. Dr. Ware’s with them. He sez you’re not to see him
yet. He sez I’m to keep you in here till he comes—the Doctor, I mean.”
Her words came in a tumult of confusion.

“Is—he—dead?” Julie asked. “Bridget, tell me the truth.”

It seemed to the girls that they lived an eternity in the second before
the woman said: “No, no, he’s not dead. Whatever made you say such a
fearful thing?” She buried her face in her apron and wept bitterly.
“He’s tired out and sick altogether, the dear man. I’ve seen it comin’
this long time.”

Hester looked at Julie with a sort of awe. The sound of footsteps in the
hall outside penetrated with ominous distinctness into the library.

Julie said tremulously, “Hester, dear, I am going to Dad; they shall not
keep us away.”

“No, they shall not. We are not babies; we must go and help.”

“That’s what I wus after tellin’ the Doctor you’d say,” Bridget sobbed,
“an’ it’s not for me to be lavin’ you here all alone, an’ me all over
the house to onct. But if yez wouldn’t go now, darlin’s. Just wait till
he’s took to his room, an’ ’twould be better—indeed, believe your old
Bridget, it would!”

The impetuosity of youth in the shock of joy or sorrow is not to be
checked. The girls went into the hall, to see a stretcher, on which lay
their father, being borne up the stairs, while Dr. Ware and two men, who
proved to be trained nurses, brought up the rear of the little
procession.

“Dr. Ware,” whispered the girls, slipping up close to him with blanched
faces, “we know—we must help, too.”

He took them each by the hand, as if they were little children, and
turned them back before they could reach their father’s side.

“Dear little girls,” he said, gently, “you can help your father most by
doing as I ask. It is hard to be shut out, I know, but you can do
nothing now. Later, perhaps, you can do—everything. I will tell you
frankly, he is a very sick man. I have no wish to hide anything from
you, but we shall try and get him better—much. I have two experienced
men, and Bridget here, and when we get him comfortably in bed you may
come in for a moment. He may not regain consciousness for many hours.
Will you trust me and be guided by my better judgment?” looking down at
them earnestly.

“Yes, yes,” they both sobbed through the tears, now falling fast; “go to
Dad—don’t think of us. We will do everything you say.”

“That pleases me—my brave little girls.” He went on into Mr. Dale’s
chamber.

Left to themselves, they huddled together outside their father’s door,
each trying to comfort the other. Peter Snooks, fully conscious that his
young mistresses were in trouble, climbed into Julie’s lap and stuck his
wet nose into her hand in true canine sympathy. Though they did not put
it into words, both girls were conscious of a curious sense of
remoteness from their father in being thus kept from him. This
immediate, poignant grief stung them bitterly and prevented for the
moment any thought of what the future might hold.

They never knew how long they had sat there on the stairs when Dr. Ware
opened the bedroom door and beckoned them in. But they carried ever
after a vivid impression of creeping stealthily to their father’s bed,
stooping to kiss the dear face, from which there was no answering sign
of recognition, and stealing softly out again. And in Julie’s mind there
flashed always an accompanying picture—the remembrance of how, when
they had reached the hall again, Hester had picked up a woe-begone,
shivering little dog, and burying her face in his neck, whispered,
brokenly: “Oh, Peter Snooks, how we were going—to—make—him—laugh!”




CHAPTER II


It was said of Mr. Dale by those of his friends’ wives who felt at
liberty to discuss his affairs with their husbands, that his bringing up
of his daughters was radically wrong. These whispers of feminine
disapproval were occasionally wafted to the seemingly heedless father,
who always smiled good-naturedly, yet was apparently blind to the
advantages to be derived from the conventional course of training the
young, for he continued to pursue his own methods with bland serenity.

Mrs. Dale had died when the girls were six and seven years old
respectively. Up to that time they had lived quite like other children,
going regularly to school and finding recreation in the pleasures common
to their age and condition. The house in which at that time they lived
was a somewhat pretentious mansion on the water side of Crana Street.
Now to live in this sacred precinct, as every one in Radnor knows, gives
an immediate claim to distinction. In the eyes of their neighbors,
however, the Dales were not distinguished beyond the matter of their
locality, for the family was not Radnor-bred, and this is an offense
tolerated but never condoned in Radnor society.

The Dales had drifted there from some unheard-of (to Radnor) western
town soon after the Civil War, while the country was still in a state of
upheaval. Major Dale brought to the readjustment of his business the
force and skill which won for him distinction on the battlefield,
gradually transferred his interests from the western town eastward, and
took root in Radnor, where he proceeded to build up a fortune. Not
there, however, but back in Mrs. Dale’s old home, some years later, the
girls were born. They came to Radnor as babies, and like their father
took root; but Mrs. Dale, a semi-invalid, spent much of her time wearily
traversing the country in search of health. She disliked Radnor, and
made no attempt to cultivate the people. During her prolonged absences
the children remained at home under the care of Bridget, a faithful
servant who had come with them from the west.

With Mrs. Dale’s death the quiet placidity of the children’s life
ceased. The house was closed, and Mr. Dale started immediately for
California, taking the girls and Bridget with him. While there he became
interested in railroad enterprises, which eventually extended through
remote and varied sections of the country and kept him a bird of passage
for many years. He built a private car and took his daughters everywhere
with him, to the consternation of Radnor, which was kept informed of the
magnate’s movements through the medium of the press.

The girls grew up in an atmosphere of devoted companionship, among
scenes that were ever changing. They lived much in hotels, and for weeks
at a time in their private car, “The Hustle,” which they never ceased to
regard as a fascinating playhouse, and where their father, in the midst
of his multitudinous cares, found time to watch their developing natures
and teach them to grow in grace and spirit, as became the daughters of a
soldier.

They were not wholly without lessons, for when they remained for any
length of time in one place Mr. Dale’s private secretary was dispatched
to find a good school, in which they were immediately placed; while Mr.
Dale, who had theories of his own, trained their eyes to keen
observation of what they saw and their minds to reason out the obscure
according to their own lights. He was full of wisdom and patience and
counsel, but he had a way of turning on them when they came for advice
and saying, “What do _you_ think?” in a manner that would have been
startling to the average child, who is apt to think what he is told.
This turning the tables began in their teens, whereby they came to have
opinions without being opinionated, for, though requiring them to think
out every subject carefully, he yet guided them with a firm hand, giving
them in every sort of discussion the wisdom of his wide experience. He
was a loving, indulgent father, and the girls adored him, but no sterner
disciplinarian ever held sway. Implicit and immediate obedience he
demanded—no questioning of his higher authority.

He taught them, too, much of the old-world philosophy, which he had
imbibed from extensive reading. They listened to him wonderingly, their
eager young minds drinking in the beauty of what he said, but failing at
that age to grasp the breadth and depth of all the truths he told them.
Sometimes he almost forgot that they were children.

When Julie was twenty and Hester nineteen he took them to Europe.
Bridget and Peter Snooks completed the party. They roamed about for a
year, and just before they were to sail for home late in the summer Mr.
Dale informed the girls that he intended to sell out his large railroad
interests; he was tired of their unsettled life, and thought they would
all enjoy the novelty of opening their house and taking up their abode
in Radnor. Radnor had long ceased to be anything more than a name to the
girls, but the proposition opened up joyous possibilities of “making a
home for Dad.”

“I will take you down to Cousin Nancy’s in Virginia when we land,” he
had said to them in London, “and leave you there a few weeks; she has
been begging for a visit from us this long while. Bridget and I will
open the house in Radnor and get everything in order; then you can come
up and run the establishment and queen it over your old Dad in royal
fashion.”

This program had been successfully carried out, except that it could
scarcely be said that the girls ran the establishment, for the
responsibility lay with Bridget, who assumed the duties of
housekeeper—duties she guarded jealously and performed with such skill
that there was not a better managed house on the water side of Crana
Street. This Radnor people knew through that mysterious agency by which
a neighborhood keeps in touch with itself.

After years spent in the narrow confines of a car, however luxurious,
and the necessarily limited quarters of hotels, the girls reveled in the
spacious house, over which they spread themselves in an amusing fashion,
sleeping in turn in the various bedrooms by way of getting acquainted
with them all over again, Julie said, and with reckless prodigality
hanging some portion of their wardrobe in every closet in the house.

At the end of their first week in Radnor, Hester amused her father by
telling him she thought she should enjoy housekeeping exceedingly if
they had an elevator, a menu and “The Hustle” side-tracked in the back
yard. Reluctantly she admitted that the yard could scarcely be made to
hold it, but at least, she suggested airily, he might build a float and
anchor the car at their back door on the river. The new life really
seemed to her incomplete without it.

Hester at twenty was a laughing, dancing sprite, yet with a certain
quaintness and matureness of mind that amused and delighted her father’s
friends. She was slim and dark, with a piquant face and fascinating
hazel eyes that shot out mischievous lights. They were unusual eyes, and
very beautiful with their fringe of long dark lashes; but she did not
think so, and compared them scornfully to a cat’s—the only animal she
hated. If she could be said to have any vanity it was for her hands,
which came in for a considerable share of her attention, and she went to
bed in gloves every night of her life.

Julie, whose hands were not a matter of comment, dispensed with this
bed-time ceremony, and usually devoted most of her time before retiring
to a vigorous brushing of her rebellious yellow hair, which, when it was
let alone, rioted all over her head in such babyish curls that her
father always called her “Curly Locks.” Her eyes were violet—her lashes
and brows dark, like Hester’s, which gave her a most remarkable contrast
of coloring. From her mother she had inherited a delicate constitution,
and lacked the buoyancy of Hester’s gay spirits; nevertheless, she had a
keen sense of humor and laughed immoderately on all occasions at her
sister, whom she considered altogether the cleverest and most amusing
person she knew. And they knew many delightful people from one end of
the country to the other—everywhere except in Radnor, where society was
waiting for Mr. Dale formally to present his daughters before setting
the seal of its approval upon them.

The second day following that on which Mr. Dale was brought home ill,
Dr. Ware stayed longer than usual with his patient and came out of the
sickroom with a grave face. In the hall the girls were waiting for him
as usual.

“My dears,” he said, abruptly, drawing them into the library, “you have
to know the worst, and there is no one but me to tell you.” For a moment
he hesitated. “Your father’s illness is caused by his financial
ruin—his entire fortune has been swept away. He has lost everything,
and the shock of his failure has paralyzed him.” For a moment neither
spoke; each girl felt that she could hear her heart beat in the awful
silence of the room. Then Julie said:

“Won’t Daddy soon be better? Oh, you can’t mean he will always be sick
like this?” Her eyes were black with pain and apprehension.

“He will never move about again. Physically he may suffer very little;
the anguish will come through the consciousness of his helplessness——”

“We will not let him feel that,” interrupted Julie, throwing up her
head. “Hester and I are strong.”

The Doctor cleared his throat. “Thank God for that, for you’ve a hard
fight ahead of you.”

Hester crept close to his side. “Will you tell us more about it,
please,” she whispered in a strange, tense voice; “it’s so—so difficult
to understand.”

“Of course it is, dear,” putting his arm around her. “Things began to go
wrong a year ago. Your father felt it, and nearly abandoned the European
trip, then went after all, feeling absolute need of rest and hoping he
had left the snarl sufficiently straightened out to go on without him.
But things went from bad to worse, and he came back to more
complications than any one man could manage. Even then he might have
pulled through somehow if that western road in which he had so largely
invested had not smashed and carried him down with it. You don’t want
the details, Hester.”

“No,” she answered, “it is enough that the thing is.”

He looked at her intently, as if astonished that so philosophic a
statement should come from so young a person.

“Shall we have to give up the house, and—and ‘The Hustle,’
and—everything?” asked Julie.

“I’m afraid so, Julie dear. That is especially what I want to talk to
you about to-day—your future. I want you to leave it all to me.”

“Oh, no, no!” she cried, “you’re good, so good, but we can’t do that. We
must look the future squarely in the face, and bravely, must we not,
Hester?” turning appealingly to her sister. “I’m sure that is what Daddy
would say.”

“Julie, don’t you be afraid; we’ll just do everything—somehow!” Hester
flung out her young arms with a sweeping movement as if she meant to
gather in all their perplexities and conquer them. “If Dr. Ware will
help us and advise us, we’ll try to get our feet down on
something—somewhere. Yours aren’t very big,” she said, with a piteous
attempt at her old lightness, “but mine are. I feel just now as if I
were standing on my head, it is all so sudden and so terrible!”

Dr. Ware rose and put on his coat. “I think you have heard enough for
one day,” he said. “You seem to be such surprisingly independent young
women that I do not know just how I am going to deal with you. But you
are to remember this, mind, that whatever I have is
yours—everything—though I shall not thrust it upon you. If you have
ideas of your own and wish to carry them out, I will help you in every
way in my power. Now I am off,” he added, briskly, “and don’t you worry
too much. We have many days yet to talk things over and decide what is
best to do.”

Julie tried to say something, but ended by burying her face in his coat
sleeve and sobbing quietly.

Hester fiercely bit her lip and gulped down the tears that threatened to
choke her. “You are the kindest, best—” she began.

“Tut, tut, nonsense!” said the Doctor. “Not a word like that, or I shall
desert you entirely.” And with a frown on his face that was half a smile
he left the room.




CHAPTER III


“Julie, it is too absolutely appalling to realize!” Hester pressed her
nose against the window and looked out over the river dejectedly. A
fresh September gale was blowing, ruffling the surface of the water into
miniature waves and rattling the window panes with a suggestion of
autumn days to come. Julie shivered a little, and crossed to the
fireplace, where a few pine logs sputtered on the hearth. She looked
down without seeing them. Her thoughts were turned within.

“Julie! do say something!” exclaimed her sister. “I can’t bear to have
you so still.”

“I am thinking, dear; trying to grasp what it all means.”

“Julie, what can we do?”

“Do? Well, we will do something.”

“Of course we will, old girl.” Hester left the window, and crossing the
room put her arms around her sister. “The two main things are to take
care of Dad and earn our own living. We couldn’t be dependent on Dr.
Ware, Julie. Do you suppose he meant he wanted to give us a home and
everything?”

“I don’t know, Hester. He is so generous and so fond of Dad I believe he
would; but that would not be right. I wonder what we can do to be
self-supporting? We have the usual accomplishments, and I suppose we
have average intelligence, don’t you?” she asked, anxiously.

“I would back the intelligence against the accomplishments any day,”
said Hester, sagely. “We have not had the usual sort of bringing up, so
we can’t do the usual thing.”

“Like teaching, you mean, or—or things like that? No, we can’t. We are
not trained or qualified for any sort of position, and only one of us
could work away from home anyway, for we can’t both leave Daddy.”

Hester’s forehead was creased into little wrinkles of perplexity. “If
only I were a man!” she exclaimed, “I might stand some chance—I know
how to do such a lot of mannish things. Why, I could be an engineer if I
were put to it, Julie! You know I’ve run the engine attached to ‘The
Hustle’ many a time; the men used to let me do it.” She drew in her
breath with a little gasp of remembrance. “As it is,” she continued, “I
suppose I’ll have to be a companion or something equally commonplace and
ladylike,” she ended in a tone of disgust.

“I suppose so,” agreed her sister reluctantly; “but, dear, the worst of
that is it will separate us, and I don’t believe either one of us could
stand that.” Julie’s lip quivered. “Isn’t it humiliating to have such a
feeling of utter helplessness?”

“Yes, it is.” Hester gave herself a shake. “I cannot seem to take it all
in yet, Julie—what it all means. It seems to me we must be some other
girls talking, not ourselves at all. Somehow it never entered my mind
that dreadful things could happen to us—not while we had Dad to take
care of us.”

“But that is just it now, Hester dear; we haven’t Dad to take care of
us—it is we who must take care of him.”

“We’ll do it, too,” said Hester, with a ring in her voice. “I’m going
down now to the kitchen to see about making him some wine jelly. Bridget
said she did not believe Dr. Ware would let him eat it, but I feel as if
I must be doing something. Come, Peter Snooks,” to the dog that was
never far out of sight, “we’ll at least make a pretense of being useful.
Now don’t you sit there and cry,” she said from the door to her sister.
“You just hold tight on to yourself, and think out something clever—I’m
sure you can,” convincingly.

Julie acknowledged this flattery by a wan little smile, and following
Hester out of the room, went in to see her father. The nurse was sitting
near the bed, but moved aside as she entered.

Mr. Dale partially opened his eyes as his daughter drew near, but closed
them again instantly. His drawn, haggard face showed the strain he had
undergone in the months before the final collapse of his business had
stricken him down. A look of tender pity came into Julie’s face as she
knelt by the bed and laid her hand over his. He was breathing heavily,
as if asleep, and she dared not speak. It seemed to her inconceivable
that her bright, energetic father could be lying there as helpless as a
little child! She put her head down on the bed, while her mind reverted
to their recent conversation with Dr. Ware and the subsequent talk which
had half stunned their senses. They must think, Hester said, and she was
right; but it almost seemed to her it would be a relief to stop thinking
for a moment, so rapidly had the events of the past two days been
crowded in upon them.

All this passed through her mind in a tumult of confused ideas, through
which ran the predominating thought of work, in obtaining which she knew
Dr. Ware would help them. But how, and what and where? In the first
shock of their trouble it was not possible to see the way clearly, nor,
indeed, to half understand the problems confronting them. Julie felt
this and knew she must be patient, though inwardly a wave of resentment
that such things should be, surged in her heart rebelliously. The next
instant she thrust down this feeling with a fierce determination to
control herself, and spreading out her hands, for the first time in her
life regarded them critically. They were not beautiful, like Hester’s,
but they were slender and white, and she suddenly felt a contempt for
their delicacy, while a consciousness that she had never exacted
anything from them caused her to view them in a new light. Why not work
with her hands! Why not put her fingers to some use and see what they
were capable of, making each one a vital thing full of strength and
character. The idea delighted her, and she closed her fingers in a tight
grip as if testing their possibilities. “Oh, Daddy, dear!” she half
whispered, with her head pressed close against him, “we will amount to
_something_.” Then rising from the bed, she stooped to kiss him, and
went in search of Hester.

When Dr. Ware came again they convinced him of their determination to
work, and he promised to look about and see what opening could be found
for them. He had only a moment to give them that morning, but said he
should return in the evening to have a long talk. When Hester kept him a
second longer to display, with considerable pride, the wine jelly she
had made for her father, he shook his head.

“Not just yet, my dear,” he said, kindly. Her disappointment was so
evident that the good Doctor felt inclined to eat it himself by way of
proving his admiration of her culinary skill, and then—he had an
inspiration.

“Hester,” he said, “will you do me a favor?”

“Indeed, I will.”

“I should like to carry that jelly off with me; it fairly makes my mouth
water. If you’ll give it to me, my dear, I will allow your father to eat
an unlimited amount of it later on; and then think how busy you will be!
Come, is it a bargain?”

“Dr. Ware! As if you need ask! Why, you know I’d just love to give it to
you.”

She had arranged the jelly in a dainty dish, and now ran into the
dining-room for a doily, which she wrapped about it.

“Won’t you let us send it over to you, Dr. Ware?” Julie asked.

“No, thank you, Julie; I’m going to drive right home,” and the Doctor
went off with the dish in his hand.

When he reappeared that evening he astonished the girls by approaching
them silently, while he bowed with great ceremony before Hester, to whom
he held out a package and said: “Allow me to congratulate you, my dear.”

Greatly mystified, Hester took the package and unwrapped it, to find the
glass jelly dish she had given him that morning, in the bottom of which
lay a two-dollar bill. She looked up at him wonderingly.

“It is yours, Hester,” he said. “I plead guilty. I took that jelly to a
crotchety old patient of mine who is boarding, and reviles all the jelly
his nurse buys for him. I told him I thought I had found some that would
please him, and I was right. He devoured half of it while I was there.
Then he insisted on paying for it. I did not tell him where it came
from, but he wants some more, and he said that was what it was worth.”
He was watching her closely.

She had taken up the bill, and was handling it nervously, a deep flush
on her bewildered young face. “Julie,” she exclaimed, breathlessly,
turning instinctively to her sister, “Julie, I’ve _earned_ some money!”

“How splendid!” Julie stared at the bill as if it were different from
any she had seen before. Hester threw her arms impulsively around Dr.
Ware’s neck. “This is the only way I know how to thank you,” she cried.

“I shall instantly create a demand for your jelly, my dear, if I am
always to get a commission like this,” the Doctor laughingly remarked,
delighted at the success of his venture.

“Are you serious, Dr. Ware? Do you suppose I could make jelly to sell?”
she asked, anxiously.

“Why not, Hester?”

The girl was silent for a moment then suddenly she cried, “Julie Dale,
we’ll _cook_ for a living!”

“Cook!” repeated Julie, incredulously, “I don’t know a thing about
cooking.”

“No, but I do. Don’t you know how Cousin Nancy was always fussing
because I would haunt the kitchen down there? I learned how to make
jelly from her old colored mammie, and heaps of things beside. Of
course, I never actually put my hand into anything—old Rachel wouldn’t
let me, but I saw how she did lots of things, and her cakes were famous
all through the County, you know they were. If we can sell wine jelly we
ought to be able to sell other things, don’t you think so, Dr. Ware?”

“I do indeed, my dear; I think your idea is excellent.”

“Hester, I will learn, I am sure I can,” cried Julie hurriedly. “I’m
aching to get my fingers into something.”

“Of course you’ll learn—we’ll both have to learn as we go along, and
even if we don’t succeed it’s worth trying.”

“As for that,” said the Doctor, “anything you may attempt will be more
or less in the nature of an experiment.”

“Yes,” acquiesced Hester, “and if we do succeed it means working
together, Julie dear, in a place of our own, and being with Dad. Just
think what that would mean!”

“Everything!” assented her sister. “I believe you’ve hit upon a
way—there always is a way, if one keeps looking!”

“One of the first things to ascertain,” said Dr. Ware, “is the cost of
materials and the market price of such things as you suggest making.”

“Yes,” confessed Hester. It had never occurred to her in the whole
course of her young life to consider the cost of anything.

From this the talk went on to other things relative to the change about
to take place, and Dr. Ware remained several hours in earnest
conversation with them. At the end of that time, when he rose to take
his departure, there was, added to the affection already in his heart, a
tremendous feeling of admiration and respect for these girls, whose
spirits flashed undaunted; while they, on their part, were experiencing
through him the depths of human kindness.

“We mean to be worthy of all you are doing for us,” said Julie, stopping
a moment to steady her voice, “and we mean to make our fight as bravely
as you and Daddy did years ago, when you tramped through the Wilderness
together.”

The Doctor straightened his shoulders and made a military salute. “On to
victory!” was all he said.




CHAPTER IV


“George Washington! G-e-o-r-g-e W-a-s-h-i-n-g-t-o-n!”

“Ma’am?”

“Why don’t you answer the first time I call you? Come here and go hunt
the Colonel and tell him I want him directly. He is around the house
somewhere.”

George Washington, aged ten, his woolly head full of sticks, his
blue-jeans sadly perforated and the lower portion of his ebony limbs
guiltless of covering, came out from behind the kitchen quarters and
shambled off in search of his master.

“That boy shows old Rachel’s blood,” soliloquized the mistress of
Wavertree Hall; “he would not run if there were a bomb under him!”

It was one of those balmy days in Virginia, when the sly, deceptive
October sun kisses one into the belief that summer will remain always.
Mrs. Driscoe sat down on the back steps of the verandah and watched two
cocks fighting in the yard, as she awaited the appearance of her
husband. She looked, herself, not unlike a bird of ruffled plumage, for
the bit of lace and pink ribbon with which she ornamented her scanty
locks was awry, while her crocheted shawl—pink to match the
ribbon—hung off one shoulder, and her whole aspect presented a
disheveled appearance which in her indicated a perturbed state of mind.
Now and then she glanced at an open letter in her hand, the contents of
which seemed to displease her, for she shook the paper as if it were a
live thing she were chastising and tapped her foot impatiently.

Presently a voice behind her said mildly: “Did you want me, my dear?”

“Want you? Certainly I wanted you! What do you suppose I sent for you
for if I didn’t want you?” Mrs. Driscoe drew up her pink shawl with a
gesture that spoke volumes.

“Won’t you get a headache, Nancy, sitting out there in the sun?” asked
the Colonel solicitously.

Concern for her physical welfare touched his wife’s vanity and appealed
to her heart. She softened perceptibly.

“Maybe I had better come up and sit in a chair,” she said. “It’s those
girls that have upset me. I believe they’re clean daft.”

He helped her up and pulled a chair into a shady part of the verandah,
waiting until she was comfortably ensconced before seating himself.

He was a gallant, the Colonel, full of little courtesies which endeared
him to the hearts of women. That was why the Widow Chisholme married
him, the County said. She wanted—but does it matter after all these
years what the County said?

He sat down now beside her and waited for her to begin. She usually did
begin and end everything.

“The girls refuse to come—I’ve just had a letter from Julie; she is the
most independent, ungrateful young minx I ever heard of!”

“Oh—ah—not that, Nancy, not that, I am sure—ahem—you must be
mistaken. She impressed me as a very gentle, sweet young creature.”

“Gentle fiddlesticks! Do you call that gentle?” flaunting the letter in
his face.

“Possibly, my dear, if I were to know the contents of the letter I might
be better able to form an opinion.”

She handed it over and watched him read it.

“Ah,” he commented at the end, “what remarkably original girls!”

“Give that letter to me, Driscoe,” (she had always called him Driscoe
from the beginning) “I don’t believe you half understand it—you are
always way off in the clouds somewhere when you haven’t got your nose
buried in a book. Those girls are going to work—to cook! They actually
prefer to cook for a living when they might come down here and live like
ladies the rest of their lives. They have moved into rooms their Doctor
found for them—I expect it is one of those nasty little places they
call flats, in some horrid neighborhood and I am sure no one will go
near them and they’ll die of loneliness with their crazy notions.”
“Cook!” she repeated scornfully, “who ever heard of a lady doing a
servant’s work!” The little pink bow on the top of her head fairly
quivered in outraged sympathy.

“I am sure the girls appreciate your offer to give them a home,” Colonel
Driscoe said when he was allowed to speak, “Julie’s letter speaks very
feelingly about it. If they think it wise to try and be independent I
must say I can’t help but admire their spirit.”

“That is all you know about it! In my day girls did not do odd,
independent things—they did as they were told!”

It occurred to the Colonel that her day was past, but he wisely
refrained from giving the thought utterance.

“A lot of your foolish Northern notions still cling to you Driscoe,” she
said resentfully. “It is my opinion that those Dale girls have disgraced
the family—there is too much of their father in them—a true Fairleigh
would never stoop to menial labor; and yet their mother and I had the
same Fairleigh grandmother. Oh, it is too trying—their behavior—too
trying for anything! It terrifies me to think what they may come to!”
She stopped rocking in her chair and sniffed audibly.

“There, there, Nancy, don’t take it so to heart,” comforted her husband,
“it may be best as it is—we’ll see if we can’t raise a little money
somewhere to send them—the poor young things must be in sore straits
these days with poverty to face and an invalid father to take care of.”

“Umph! they don’t act like it—and as for money, I don’t see it lying
round loose on the plantation.”

This was a sore point with the Colonel, who was known since his marriage
to have swallowed up a considerable portion of his small income
patenting farming implements that were impracticable. He had been a
bachelor with an inventive turn of mind and only one lung when he met
the Widow Chisholme at the Springs. Upon marrying her it seemed most
desirable for her convenience (for she would never have tolerated life
outside of Virginia) and his health, that they should live on the
Chisholme property, which was somewhat extensive and kept them land
poor. Mr. Driscoe, New Hampshire born and bred, settled down into a
country gentleman and turned his attention to agriculture; but his mind,
half inventive, half scholarly, wholly visionary, had made rather a
sorry mess of it, and his wife, who had never relinquished the reins of
government, now held them with a firmer hand. He was Colonel only by
courtesy, the servants having dubbed him that immediately. It was
impossible for them to recognize a real gentleman without a title.

He said no more about money, but shaded his eyes and looked down the
long avenue leading out to the road. In the distance he could see a
small darky open a gate, while down the road came a horse with a swift
gallop.

“Here comes Nannie, my dear. She will not be pleased with your news,
will she?” the Colonel said regretfully.

The girl brought the horse up with a sharp turn at the steps, thereby
causing consternation to a brood of chickens, which scattered in every
direction. Then she threw the bridle to George Washington and slipped to
the ground.

“My,” she exclaimed, fanning herself with her hat, “it is pretty warm
riding.”

“Now don’t sit down there and take cold,” expostulated her mother;
“here, put my shawl around you.”

Nannie, who had dropped down on the steps, laughed and shook her head.
“A shawl in October! who ever heard of such a thing. I am all right,
mummie; don’t take it off—it looks so pretty on you.” She smiled at her
mother, who was not proof against this bit of flattery, though her only
manifestation was a closer drawing of the shawl around her shoulders.
“Don’t you feel very well, mummie?” the girl asked, conscious that the
atmosphere was not altogether salubrious.

“Well enough,” replied the older woman, flipping a letter nervously
between her fingers as she rocked to and fro.

“Your mother has heard from your cousin Julie,” volunteered the Colonel.

“Let me see the letter, quick, mummie. When are they coming?”

“They are not coming at all,” replied Mrs. Driscoe, with a resentful
toss of her head, meanwhile thrusting the obnoxious letter into her
pocket.

Nan’s face fell. “Oh, mummie, can’t I see the letter, please?”

“Certainly not. It is full of crazy ideas that are most unbecoming in a
young girl, and I don’t consider such things proper for you to read.”

Colonel Driscoe gave an apologetic cough and opened his lips as if to
speak, but apparently thought better of it and studied his finger nails
with unwonted interest. Nan drew cabalistic signs on the steps with her
riding crop, and for some moments the silence was unbroken save for the
half chuckling singing of George Washington, who was turning somersaults
near by. Then Nannie said wistfully:

“May I know why the girls are not coming, please?”

The Colonel started to explain, but was overruled by his wife, who
preferred to give her own interpretation of the case. Accordingly she
poured out a torrent of abuse, in which her own individual woes over
what she called their “disobedience” were so involved with a mixed
statement of facts that Nan might have been led to believe that her
cousins were lost to all sense of propriety had she not thoroughly
understood her mother. As it was she listened quietly, sympathized with
and petted her, and told her not to bother her head any more about two
naughty girls in the North. She was a girl of considerable tact, this
Nannie, for all that the whole establishment “babied” her, and she knew
just how to smooth down her mother’s ruffled plumage; so that Mrs.
Driscoe, after a good, comfortable cry, which was a great relief to her
overwrought feelings, was persuaded to go indoors and lie down to
recover from the shock of the morning.

Nannie remained on the verandah with her father. “Will _you_ tell me
about it now?” she said, when her mother was well out of hearing.

The Colonel’s version, as he understood it from Julie’s letter was
expressed in five minutes.

“Oh, dear!” Nannie exclaimed, when he had finished, “I wish they did not
feel that way about things. I did so hope they were going to bring their
father here and let us nurse him, and live with us, and be just like my
own sisters—I’ve always wanted a sister so! I can’t seem to make it out
exactly, pa, how girls like that who have always had every mortal thing
on earth, can work just like poor girls.”

“No, you can’t understand, kitten,” stroking her head affectionately;
“it’s against all the traditions of your bringing up that you should,
for your mother takes such extreme views. But for my part, I think they
are very noble and deserve tremendous credit for taking the stand they
have.”

“Oh! so do I,” echoed the girl enthusiastically. “I just love them for
it. I think it is grand to be so heroic and brave. Why, just think, pa,
they are not very much older than I, and yet all of a sudden it seems as
if they were women and I only a baby.”

“We want to keep our little girl a while yet,” he said. “I have no fear
but she will be womanly enough when the time comes.”

“We did have the loveliest times when the girls were here, didn’t we?”
she said reminiscently. “They could ride as well as any girl in the
county, and Julie was the prettiest thing I ever saw. Do you remember
the funny tricks Hester did—springing on a horse bareback, and riding
backward, and things she’d learned from the cowboys? Oh! I did miss them
terribly when they went away.”

“They were unusually companionable to us all, I think, Nannie. I am sure
I missed them unspeakably.”

The girl sat down on the arm of his chair and as she leaned her head
against his, two tears trickled down the end of her nose and into his
neck. He put his arms about her and drew her into his lap, where she
lay, a dejected little heap, sobbing bitterly.

“There, there, kitten, don’t cry; Mr. Dale may get better, and the girls
may be able to bring him down for a long visit some time—who knows?”
said the kindly Colonel, who was already planning in his mind how he
could defray the expenses, should such a journey be possible. “We will
all have some happy times together again, Nannie; you’ll see, little
girl.”

[Illustration: THE GIRL SAT DOWN ON THE ARM OF HIS CHAIR]

Nan heaved a sigh and was comforted. It is easy to be sanguine at
seventeen.

Suddenly she exclaimed: “Do you know what?” sitting up and revealing a
tear-stained face and two brimming brown eyes which she rubbed with the
Colonel’s handkerchief, her own having long since been reduced to a damp
little ball; “I’m going to write to the girls not to mind a thing mummie
writes them, for she really loves them just the same, and you and I love
them heaps more—if such a thing is possible—and think about them and
just hope with all our might and main that Cousin Dale will be better,
and they won’t have to work themselves to death. Oh, don’t I just wish I
could help them!” “Pa!” she cried in a sudden inspiration, “you know the
new saddle you were going to give me for my birthday?”

“Yes, Nannie.”

“Well, you have not bought it, have you? and I don’t want it—I want you
to send the money to the girls instead.”

“But, Nannie, child, you have talked of that saddle for months. Are you
sure you want to do this?”

“Oh! yes,” she cried, rapturously with a childish clap of her hands;
“I’d love to do it more than anything. Can you see about it to-day?” Her
soft brown eyes were not brimming now, but full of eagerness.

“I am almost afraid,” said the Colonel, shaking his head, “that your
mother will not consent and that the girls might refuse to let you do it
if they knew.”

“Oh, they must not know,” said Nannie with an air of importance borne of
the project in hand. “No one must know, not even mummie; it is a secret
between you and me. We will send an anonymous letter the way they do in
books. Oh! won’t it be fun?”

“Who ever would have suspected we had an arch-conspirator in our midst,”
said the Colonel slyly, “and that she would victimize an old man like
me?” In his heart he was rejoicing over her pretty exhibition of girlish
love and unselfishness. Then more seriously, he added: “I am afraid we
shall have to wait until your birthday really comes round, Puss. I have
not the money just now.”

“But you are going to let me do it, aren’t you? No matter if we do have
to wait, come and begin the letter now. We must make it very mysterious,
and manage to get it to them somehow so they will never suspect. How do
you suppose we can?” She looked at him, confident that he would suggest
something.

And he did. But what he said was whispered so low that even we cannot
hear. The effect on her was instantaneous, and caused her to dance about
delightedly. Then suddenly remembering that her mother was sleeping in
an adjacent room, she became subdued and catching her father by the arm
drew him quietly into the house.




CHAPTER V


It is not until a great crisis is past that one comprehends with any
clearness of vision the multitudinous events that whirl about the one
supreme fact. Stunned by the first shock, one wakes to learn that close
on the heels of disaster come the consequences—pell-mell,
helter-skelter, pushing, crowding with a grim insistence from which
there is no escape. It was small wonder, then, that to the Dale girls
the world seemed topsy-turvy.

A change being inevitable, their one desire was to get it over quickly,
the first of October, therefore, saw them moved into new quarters. The
arrangements had been made by Dr. Ware, who effected a compromise with
the girls—he offering them a vacant apartment in a house he owned, they
gladly accepting this home if he would allow them to pay rent when they
became successful wage-earners. The good Doctor sighed and consented; he
recognized there was no thwarting their earnest purpose. In the first
discussion of plans, he had suggested a little house in the suburbs; but
Hester, with her practical nature fast developing, had said that to do
business they must be within reach of people—in the midst of things.
She did not quite know how she knew this—perhaps it was more that she
felt it instinctively; but it met with Dr. Ware’s approval and had great
weight with Julie, who secretly longed for the country, but put aside
all personal inclination and voted with her sister. The result was a
flat in a quiet, unpretentious neighborhood, which yet took on a
semblance of gentility from its proximity to Crana Street.

By methods known only to himself, Dr. Ware saved furniture enough to
make the place comfortable, while Bridget, who assumed mysterious airs
for days before their departure, saw to it that there was no lack of
household necessities. Bridget was no small factor in those days. She
came to the front with tremendous energy, backed up her young mistresses
in all their plans, and vowed she would never leave them. So the little
family held together, which was the main thing, and the girls settled
themselves in the new quarters with brave spirits—was not this, after
all, the real meaning of “making a home for Dad”?

All the choicest things were brought to the furnishing of his room; the
gayest pictures to relieve the tedium of the weary hours, his best loved
books near at hand, though he could no longer read or even reach out his
hand to touch them. In the window-sill Julie had set up a miniature
conservatory of potted plants that promised to bloom gayly, for down
upon them poured the morning sun, filling the room with golden light.
This was their resting-place in the new life—their father the center
about whom they gathered in every spare moment—the room a little shrine
from which in the midst of their attendance upon him many a silent
prayer for strength and courage went up to God.

The other sleeping-rooms were bedrooms by courtesy—mere closets, one of
which was given to Bridget and in the other the girls managed to squeeze
a double bed. Hester suggested that berths would be much more
convenient, and only the lack of money prevented her having that sort of
sleeping arrangement constructed.

“Julie!” she exclaimed, in the first days of squeezing themselves in,
“it is something like living in the car again, isn’t it? only it is
so—so different. I believe I’ll call the flat ‘The Hustle’—only
instead of _its_ hustling like the car, we’ll be the ones. Oh, Julie
dear, to think of never racing around the country like that again!”

“Don’t Hester; I can’t bear to think of it.” In spite of her good
resolutions Julie’s courage sometimes failed her.

A few days later Hester came into the kitchen one morning, her arms full
of paper bags strongly suggestive of the corner grocery. “There!” she
cried, “I’ve invested my last dollar in things for the cake.”

“Is it to-day you are going to see Miss Ware?” Julie asked.

“Yes, if the cake comes out all right. Roll up your sleeve, old girl,
and we’ll begin.” Hester suited the action to the words by weighing the
ingredients and turning the butter into a bowl. But ah! how hard it was
to put her pretty hand into it—how greasy the butter felt and how sandy
the sugar, and how unpleasant the general stickiness! But she worked it
through her fingers energetically, while Julie beat the eggs.

“It is going to be death on our hands, my dear,” remarked Hester,
picking up a knife with which she scraped the dough from her fingers.

“I wish you would always let me do that part, Hester. I know how you
will feel it to hurt your hands.”

“Well, as if I’d be likely to! No one part is worse than another. We’ll
get used to it after a while, though I know our hands will spread out to
twice their natural size.”

“Perhaps even if they do get big and not quite so fine as they are now,
_perhaps_ we won’t mind, Hester, if we just think of it as scars in the
battle, you know. Don’t you know how Daddy has often talked of the
honorable scars in the battle of life? We’re just finding out what that
means, old girl.”

“Well, if you haven’t a most blessed faculty for putting a comfortable
construction on everything!” Hester emphasized her words by a last
vigorous beat of the dough and held out the spoon to her sister. “Just
taste this, will you, Julie? I think it’s fine.”

“Umph, it is,” agreed Julie, who had disdained the spoon, and dabbed her
finger in the mixture after the manner of cooks. “But, my dear, if we
create a demand for cake like that which requires only the whites of
eggs, what shall we do with the yolks? Eat them, I suppose,” making up a
wry face.

“They are better than nothing and I do not see chickens hopping in the
window, do you?”

“No,” reluctantly. “We have fifteen dollars in the house,” she announced
solemnly. “How long do you suppose we can live on that?”

“I am sure I don’t know, Julie. We must learn to eat less, and that is
no joke. I’ll tell you what, one of the hardest things is learning to do
without what has always seemed absolutely necessary.” There was a husky
sound in Hester’s voice which Julie did not like to hear.

“No matter, dear, we are young and strong, and we will accomplish
something before we get through. Why, if you stop to think of it, nearly
every one who has made a success of life has started in the smallest
kind of way.”

Hester nodded.

“Did you say you were going to see Miss Ware to-day?”

“Yes, I think I had better take her this loaf if it bakes properly. Will
you come with me, Julie?”

“No, dear, I think you will manage better alone, though I’ll go of
course, if you want me.”

“No, I had rather go alone,” said Hester.

But no expedition to Miss Ware’s took place that day, for the cake was
spoiled in the baking and four succeeding attempts shared the same
tragic fate. Toward night, when the failures of the day had reduced them
to the verge of despondency, Dr. Ware came in and carried them off for a
long drive which wonderfully freshened up their spirits. On the way home
he asked their assistance in sending out a thousand circulars in regard
to some medical matters, telling them it would be a tremendous help to
him if they would write them. They acquiesced delightedly and
accordingly that evening a huge bundle of stationery was left at their
door. Inside, stuck in a package of envelopes, was a slip on which was
written: “Here’s the paper and the form to be copied. Don’t keep at this
too persistently, little girls, or you’ll bring down the wrath of your
faithful friend, Philip Ware.”

More than glad to have an opportunity of being of use to the Doctor, the
girls set to work early the next morning writing industriously. Julie,
after a few smirched and blotted copies, got well under way; she had
considerable precision in her character, which made a task like this
simple. But Hester during the first day or two spoiled so many sheets
that she viewed her rapidly filling waste-basket with dismay. Finally,
in supreme disgust she threw down her pen.

“I believe I could build a house easier!” was her impatient exclamation.
“Who ever saw such daubs as I’m making!”

Julie looked up and smiled. Her wrist ached, and she shook her hand to
limber the muscles. “If you did not dig your pen in the ink with such a
high-tragedy, Scott-Siddons air, maybe you’d get on better,” she
suggested.

“High-tragedy fiddlesticks! I _like_ a lot of ink. I am sure you’re a
sight,” she commented, with sisterly frankness; “all doubled up and your
forehead screwed into knots. How many have you done?”

“I don’t know; there they are,” pointing to a box-cover piled high.

Hester surveyed them with lofty scorn. “Mercy! That is nothing! I’ve
done heaps!”

“Where are they, you airy young person?”

“In the waste-basket, mostly.”

“Go to work, you ridiculous infant, or you will be stuck to that chair
the rest of your natural days.”

When Dr. Ware attempted to pay them for the work they remonstrated,
telling him in the most convincing language at their command that it was
a pleasure to feel they could do even so small a thing for him. To this
he refused to agree, finally persuading them to take the money if on no
other ground than to convince him of their business principles; while he
refrained from mentioning that he had himself deviated somewhat from
business methods when he ordered the circulars written instead of
printed in the usual way.

A week later the almond cake for Miss Ware was baked successfully and an
admiring group stood about the kitchen table taking a last look at it
before Hester did it up in a box preparatory to setting forth.

“Faith, it’s a beauty,” cried Bridget, arms akimbo. “Any lady’d be proud
to eat it. Shure it’s your mother’s own fingers ye’ve got, the both of
yez. Ther’ warn’t nothin’ she couldn’t make when she put her hand to it,
before she got so ailin’, an’ the Major, God bless him, got so well off
she didn’t have ter.”

“Poor, dear mamma!” said Julie, wistfully. “I only remember her ill and
not able to bear us noisy children about.”

“Sufferin’ made her a changed woman, the Saints preserve her! But I seen
the day, Miss Julie, when she slaved for the Major before you was born
an’ there warn’t nobody could beat her at anythin’. It looks like her
knack was croppin’ out in yez, shure as my name’s Bridget Maloney.”

“Perhaps it is, Bridget,” said Hester, who had heard this conversation
from the next room, where she was putting on her coat and hat. “We have
often heard Daddy tell people mamma was a practical genius, that would
mean nimble fingers, wouldn’t it? Maybe she has left them to us as a
legacy.”

“I’m not after understandin’ your words exactly, dearie, but the
meanin’s clear an’ it’s right yez are.”

As Hester picked up the box, Peter Snooks sprang down from the
window-sill jumping wildly about, the sight of her hat being conclusive
evidence to him that she was going out.

“Poor little Snooks, not this time,” the girl said, stooping to pat him.
“I am going in the car to-day.”

His stump of a tail drooped dejectedly as he looked at her with big
reproachful eyes.

“It does seem mean not to take him, doesn’t it, Julie?—but it is not
worth while, for it is so stormy I thought I had better ride both ways.”
It was only dire extremity that permitted the extravagance of car-fares
these days.

“Of course you must ride,” said Julie. “Peter Snooks,” to the still
hopeful little fellow, “you must not tease. Go find your ball and we’ll
have a play.”

He trotted off and Hester picked up the box and started.

“Tell Miss Ware that is only a hundredth part of the nice things you can
make, you clever girl,” Julie called after her.

“An’ good luck to you, dearie,” from Bridget.

The wind and rain blew about Hester unpleasantly when she reached the
street, but a car soon overtook her and afforded her a welcome shelter
from the storm. She found all the seats occupied, but some of the
passengers moved up to make room for her, and being a trifle tired from
the nervousness of the cake-making, she thankfully squeezed into the bit
of space allotted her, and laid the box in her lap.

Her thoughts as the car sped along were not of the most cheerful, for
she dreaded this visit to Miss Ware. That individual, who kept house for
her brother, had expressed herself in terms of strong disapproval of the
girls when he had told her their plans. She considered cooking greatly
beneath them and would have thoroughly agreed with the views of their
Cousin Nancy in Virginia, had she known that person. As it was, she
thought her brother should interest himself in finding suitable
positions for them, and she refused to recognize the fact that these
were not to be had for the asking. “There were plenty of ladylike things
girls could do,” she said, but did not give herself the trouble to
specify.

To the girls themselves she had talked at some length, endeavoring to
explain to them that they were laying out for themselves a path of
social ostracism by their extraordinary choice of work, never doubting
that this argument alone would convince them. But when Julie gently put
it aside with the assurance that she and Hester were sufficient to
themselves if the world chose to look askance at them; and when Hester
flushed angrily, and said the people whose friendship was worth anything
would not fail them, Miss Ware shrugged her shoulders and gave them up
as social heretics. She was not, however, allowed to wash her hands of
them, for her brother sang their praises perpetually. She therefore
forced herself to take a negative interest in them which carried her so
far as to order from them a loaf of cake.

Hester, gazing abstractedly out of the car window, felt it a momentous
errand on which she was going that day; it involved so much. If the cake
met with the critical approval of Miss Ware she intended to ask her to
solicit orders for it. It would not be easy to approach her on this
subject, but she should do it—oh! yes, she did not intend to be
frightened out of her purpose. A curious little ache came into her heart
as she braced herself for the coming ordeal. It was all so new and so
strange, to be put in the position of asking favors—to be looked down
upon from frigid heights—she and Julie, whose world hitherto had been
all sunshine and approval. For a second something came between her and
the window, blurring her vision. Then she brought herself up with a
sharp mental rebuke for allowing her thoughts for one moment to revert
to the past, and forced herself to look down with satisfaction on the
neatly wrapped box she was carrying.

By this time the car had become crowded, and directly in front of Hester
stood a woman of amazing breadth, clinging in a limp, swaying fashion to
the strap. Just as the girl observed her and was wondering if she could
squeeze into her seat should she offer it to her, the car jerked round a
corner, the stout woman screamed and landed with a thud on the box in
Hester’s lap!




CHAPTER VI


Comfortably ensconced in a victoria, two men were bowling out through
the suburbs of Radnor in the rapidly approaching dusk of a winter
afternoon. One, wrapped to the chin in furs, sat well back in the corner
of the carriage as if desirous of all possible protection from the cold;
the other leaned forward in a somewhat restive attitude and looked like
a man occupying his position under protest. Each was immersed in his own
thoughts, but from time to time the younger man took a surreptitious
glance in the direction of the older as if he were endeavoring to make
some important discovery. He was, in truth, trying to decide if the
moment were propitious for laying before his father a project which he
had been for some time considering, but the impassive face of Mr. Landor
told him nothing, and they continued to ride on in silence. Finally, in
a tone of annoyance the older man said: “I wish, Kenneth, you would
oblige me by leaning back and appearing as if you were enjoying
yourself. I must confess it is no particular pleasure to me to drive
with a man who looks as if he might leap from the carriage at any
moment.”

“Then why do you insist on my going, father? You know I detest this sort
of thing—it is only fit for women. If you would come out with me now in
my trap, it would be very different.”

“Your breakneck method of driving does not suit me at all. I suppose I
may be allowed to take my pleasures in my own way, and it occurs to me
that it is not altogether unreasonable to request you to accompany me
occasionally.”

To this Kenneth made no reply, while he decided that the moment was not
propitious for introducing the subject uppermost in his mind.

He conceded, however, to his father’s wishes in so far as to relax from
his objectionable posture, though there was about him a suggestion of
martyrdom that was irritating.

“What have you been doing to-day?” asked the senior Landor, abruptly.

“Nothing special, sir.”

“Do you ever do anything special?” turning two penetrating eyes upon
him.

“Why, yes; I suppose so. I was thinking of something special just now.”
After all, it might as well come out.

“If it is of any importance, I should like to hear about it.”

This was encouraging.

“I was thinking of a trip around the world, sir. To start in a month,
say, and be gone two or three years.”

Mr. Landor received this proposition with a quick drawing down of his
shaggy eyebrows and a closer upturning of his fur collar about his chin.
His face now was almost hidden from view.

“Do you propose to go alone?” he asked.

“No; two fellows at the Aldine Club have talked me into joining them. Of
course, sir, I realize you may object to so long an absence,” said
Kenneth, who felt that a storm was brewing, “and I might be able to make
it a year or so if you preferred.”

“Inasmuch as you have scarcely been at home a month in the past year or
so, I should prefer that you dismiss the project altogether.”

“That seems rather surprising, sir,” said Kenneth, with a laugh his
father did not like, “when I have been going and coming without comment
ever since I left college.”

“All the more reason why you should begin to think of settling down,”
replied his father testily.

“Settling down?” repeated the son; “what do you want me to do?”

“We will come to that later. The main thing is, that you are to give up
this notion and remain here with me. If you force me to it I shall
refuse to give you the money for such an expedition.”

“I have some property of my own,” Kenneth said, his whole nature rising
in rebellion.

“You wouldn’t be such a fool as to squander that pittance on a pleasure
trip! Be careful, Kenneth! I am in no mood to be thwarted to-day!”

“Then why do you thwart me? It is not a remarkable thing for a man to
want to travel,” trying to speak calmly, “and I don’t see why you should
take it in this unexpected way—it is unreasonable.”

But Mr. Landor, being a quick-tempered man, was beyond reason and had
too little comprehension of his son to realize that his opposition
tended to fan into a fixed resolve what had up to this time been only a
pleasing possibility. There was a stern look about his mouth as he said
to Kenneth, “You will do as I say, and remain for the present in Radnor.
I have other plans for you.”

As he had never been dictated to in his life, this emphatic order fell
with considerable astonishment upon Kenneth’s ears, even though he knew
his father to be in an irascible frame of mind. He thought, however,
that the thing might blow over, as many a quarrel between them had blown
over, after which, in all these contests of will, the younger man had
invariably gained the day.

Kenneth was not of an ugly disposition; indeed, his nature was most
lovable, while his peculiar exemption from responsibility had produced
an inconsequential, happy-go-lucky attitude toward life that was one of
his greatest charms. And the selfishness that sometimes cropped out in
his character was not viciousness, but the natural outcome of
over-indulgence. It had never occurred to him that his father would make
any demands upon him, though in a vague, unformed sort of way he
intended ultimately to make demands upon himself. Just how he should do
this gave him occasional delightfully introspective moments in which he
played with possibilities. In his father’s eyes that was Kenneth’s great
weakness—that he played with all the abandon of a vagabond; but to
blame the man for this was a great injustice, since his father had not
suggested or encouraged his taking up any business or profession, and
had supplied him with a liberal income dating back to the beginning of
his college career.

To this indolent, pleasure-loving son, nothing could be in greater
contrast than the father. Caleb Landor took life hard, but life had been
hard on him. Born of poor parents in a Maine village, he had been inured
to poverty from his infancy. His schooling had been meager, and
sandwiched in between long periods when he was required to lend a hand
in the saw-mill where his father was employed. But the habit of industry
thus acquired proved useful, and stimulated his desire to get into the
world of business, so that he made his way eventually to Radnor, the
goal of his ambition. Then followed years of hard work and small pay,
during which the greater part of his earnings went down to the large
family in the Maine village. At thirty he was looked upon as a man of
ability; at forty he was a prosperous merchant, with Fortune beckoning
him on. By all the laws of compensation this should have been his
turning point to happiness, but he had the misfortune to be married for
his money at this period of his career, by a frivolous Radnor girl of
good position, whose beauty turned his head. As after the first months
of marriage she took no pains to conceal her indifference to him, he
received a bitter blow, from which he was many years recovering. He was
spared, however, the anguish of protracted disappointment, for she had
died in the second year of their marriage, leaving him a baby son. And
so Caleb, giving all, lost what he had never won.

This episode in his life did not tend to soften a nature somewhat morose
and caused him to draw more and more within himself, devoting his
energies to his business, and almost forgetting at times that he was a
father.

When he did think of Kenneth, it was to realize that he had his mother’s
beauty; but even at an early age there was no indication that he had
inherited her smallness of mind, for which his father felt devoutly
grateful, though there were times when he could scarcely bear the boy
about, so forcibly did his likeness to his mother bring back the past.
So he left him to grow up among the servants in the dreary house, sent
him at fourteen to a preparatory school and then to college. He intended
that Kenneth should have everything he himself had missed. In the matter
of money it pleased him to provide generously for the lad, who grew to
manhood the envy and favorite of all his associates, but almost a
stranger to his father, who was equally a stranger to him. It did not
occur to Caleb Landor that this was because he had given to the boy
lavishly of everything except himself.

When the carriage drew up before their door on the evening with which
this chapter opens, Kenneth sprang out with a feeling of relief and
turned to help his father. It struck him suddenly that he looked old and
feeble, which would not be strange, inasmuch as he was fast approaching
his seventieth birthday, but Kenneth had never been impressed by this
before.

“You had better take my arm, sir,” he said, pleasantly, “the sidewalk is
slippery to-night.”

Mr. Landor refused the proffered aid and went on ahead into the house.
He had yet to learn that Kenneth could be leaned upon.

Through dinner there was little conversation between them, not from any
constraint arising out of the recent disagreement, but because each was
in the habit of carrying on his own inward train of thought without so
much as a suspicion that the outward expression of it would have been of
interest to the other. But it would have been of interest. Kenneth often
wondered what his father’s opinions were on the topics of the day and
many times would have broken the oppressive silence if the idea had not
become fixed in his mind that his father built up this barrier of
reserve from choice. It was a natural impression, but a wrong one, and
led to many misunderstandings, for though he gave his son no
encouragement to be communicative he secretly longed for his
companionship and was beginning to feel a need of his presence in the
house.

Kenneth went to a couple of receptions that evening and looked in at a
dance later on; but did not remain long, for things of this sort bored
him, albeit he was very popular in Radnor society.

As he entered the house after midnight he noticed a bright light in his
father’s room. This was so unusual an occurrence that he feared
something might be wrong and ventured to knock at the door. There was no
response, which was not reassuring, so he opened the door and walked in.
In a big chintz-covered chair sat Mr. Landor asleep before the fire. He
had undressed and was enveloped in a heavy dressing-gown that fell away
at the neck, disclosing the throat upon which Time lays such relentless
fingers. He stirred a little and Kenneth was about to leave the room
satisfied that his father was all right and would probably resent this
intrusion, when the older man woke with a start, and accosting him in a
tone more curious than resentful, said, “What are you doing in here?”

“I noticed your light, and thought you might be ill. Is there anything I
can do for you before I turn in?” replied Kenneth, looking down from the
height of his six feet upon the shrunken figure of his father.

“Nothing at all, nothing at all,” waving him off; “I am reading.” He
picked up the newspaper that had fallen to the floor, and became
suddenly absorbed in it, after the manner of persons who object to being
caught napping.

A smile flickered about Kenneth’s well-shaped mouth but was properly
suppressed. There was something pathetic, almost appealing to him
to-night about his father.

“If you are not in any particular hurry to finish your paper may I stop
a moment?” he said.

“There is a chair—make yourself comfortable.”

“I would like to talk about those plans you spoke of this afternoon,”
began Kenneth as soon as he was seated. “I wish very much you would tell
me more about them—what your idea is for my immediate future.”

“Where are your own ideas? At twenty-eight a man must have a few.” Mr.
Landor kicked a log impatiently, sending up a shower of sparks.

“We were speaking of your ideas, were we not, sir? Mine can come later.”

“So you have some, have you? Good! After all, with your education and
advantages it is to be expected. But as your ideas are to be kept to
yourself, so are mine. We will talk no further on this subject.”

“We _will_ talk on this subject,” said Kenneth, rising and standing with
head erect and flashing eyes. “I am not a boy, father, as you very well
know, and I shall not consent to this sort of thing for a moment. If you
have anything in your mind regarding me it is my right to know it, and
your duty to tell me. You spoke to-day of my settling down. I have been
thinking of it a good deal since, and I am inclined to think you are
right about it; but I would like to know just what you mean—just what
it is you want me to do.”

“Kenneth, I want you around.” The words came in a muffled tone that was
scarcely audible.

“Want me around?” repeated Kenneth incredulously; “why, I thought I
drove you to desperation with my lazy ways and erratic hours and general
worthlessness.”

“So you do, so you do,” gruffly, “but I like it. I like to know you are
in the house. Stay around, Kenneth and you can have things pretty much
your own way. We will say no more about settling down to business.”

“Oh! that is all right, father; I’ll stay.” It was a new sensation to
find that he was wanted. Moved by a sudden impulse he drew near meaning
to grip his father’s hand—the desire was strong within him to get close
to the old man. But when he neared the chair he turned sharply on his
heel and crossed to the door, withheld by the habit of years.

Mr. Landor was watching him through half-closed lids, and made no sign.

“Good night, father; glad I found you up. I have something in mind I
would like to discuss with you later if I am to stay on here.”

“Any time, any time. I have leisure enough for anything of importance.
Come in again some time—good night.” His head was turned away as he
spoke.

“Poor old governor,” thought Kenneth, as he went to his room; “I believe
he is lonely.”

When the door had closed, Caleb Landor sat some moments in deep
meditation. Then he rose and slowly crossed the room to a table on which
stood a box-shaped rosewood writing-desk curiously inlaid with
pearl—the most treasured possession of his mother long since dead. This
he unlocked, and lifting the lid pressed a small knob by means of which
a secret drawer flew open. In this shallow receptacle lay an oval
miniature which the man took out and held under the strong light of the
gas jet. It was the face of a woman, young and very beautiful, and for a
long while the image held the man transfixed. Once he lifted his head
suddenly, as if he thought some one was approaching but it was only the
noise of Kenneth’s boots flung upon the floor in an adjoining room. On
the mantel a clock ticked solemnly, warning him of the flight of time,
and at last he sighed wearily, and with unsteady hands dropped the
miniature into its hiding place and locked the desk. For a moment he
leaned heavily on the table and appeared to be listening, but all was
still in Kenneth’s room. Over the stern impassive features of Caleb
Landor came a look of yearning tenderness. Then he put out the gas and
went to bed.




CHAPTER VII


Hester never remembered leaving the car or how she got home after the
fatal catastrophe, but indelibly printed on Julie’s mind would always be
the picture of a wide-eyed breathless girl who rushed in upon her and
threw a mangled package on the table.

“Oh, my dear! what is the matter?” cried Julie.

But Hester could not speak.

Julie picked up the battered box, disclosing the cake within crushed to
a pancake. She turned to find Hester’s head buried in her arms; the girl
was sobbing convulsively.

“Never mind, dear,” said Julie, stroking her head sympathetically, “it
would be much worse if you were hurt too.”

“I am not crying,” the younger girl asserted stoutly; “not crying at
all.” She spoke in short gasps that were strangely like sobs, but Julie
ignored them. “I am all out of breath from running, that is all, and I
did not fall, you goose! A woman sat on me!” She broke into a peal of
hysterical laughter.

It was Julie’s turn to be speechless now.

“If she had just sat on _me_ it wouldn’t have mattered but she tumbled
in the car before I knew it and there is the result!” She waved her hand
tragically toward the table and wiped her eyes.

“We’ll make another one right away, dear.”

“Of course we will,” responded Hester, pulling off her hat and coat and
flinging them down impatiently; “but it breaks my heart to see such a
ruin of all our work not to mention the waste of materials!”

  Humpty Dumpty sat on the wall;
  Humpty Dumpty had a great fall;
  And all the king’s horses and all the king’s men—

sang Julie, suggestively, but was not allowed to finish the ditty, for
Hester said, with a thump on the table:

“We will put this together again double quick and I will get it to Miss
Ware before dark, you see if I don’t.”

“You had better let me go next time, Hester,” said Julie, getting out
the cooking utensils, “you will be tired to death.”

“No, I won’t; I have undertaken to do this thing, and I’ll put it
through if it takes forever,” with which characteristic remark she set
to work again.

The second effort in the culinary line was, if possible, more successful
than the first and immediately after their simple lunch of bread and
milk, Hester set forth again. The storm had ceased, and to the immense
delight of Peter Snooks, Hester confided to him that she should walk and
a certain good little dog that she knew should go too. Julie laughed at
this determination to avoid the car and called her superstitious. She
laughed, too, but refused to analyze her sensations.

She found Miss Ware, when she was ushered into her presence, in rather
an aggressive mood, which caused the girl to look on with some
nervousness as she opened the box and surveyed the loaf critically.

“Umph!” she said, examining it through her lorgnette, “did you do that,
or Bridget?”

“We did it, Miss Ware. Bridget knows nothing of fancy cooking.”

“And you do, it seems. It was an odd trick for a girl to pick up in
Virginia, and an undesirable one.”

“We look at things differently, Miss Ware,” Hester said, with
considerable asperity. “I don’t call it undesirable if it proves a way
of supporting ourselves. I would not choose it—to cook for a
living—but we’ve no choice in the matter whatever.”

“Your father is very much to blame, Hester. He should have looked after
your interests better when he saw the crash coming. There was no need
that you should be left absolutely penniless.”

Hester sprang to her feet and confronted Miss Ware like a young tigress.
“You shall not say such things about Dad. I will not listen—I—”

“Hoighty toighty!” broke in Miss Ware, “what a temper! You will have to
curb that, my dear Hester, if you expect to get on in the world—as
cooks!”

The girl flushed crimson, and bit her lip in an effort to regain her
self-control.

“I—I beg your pardon,” she faltered. “I—I never knew I had a temper
before. It’s—it’s one of the new things I am learning.” A sudden mist
came before her, and drawing near she laid her hand on the older woman
with an appealing touch. “Don’t say unkind things about Daddy, please,
Miss Ware; they are not true, and I—I can’t bear it.”

“Let’s get to business,” said Miss Ware, who dreaded a scene above
everything. “What do you mean to charge for your cake?”

“Fifty cents.” Hester was now quite herself again, and went on rapidly,
“I want to ask you if you will speak about our work to your friends. I
know it is asking a great deal under the circumstances, but we are such
strangers here in Radnor we really do not know any one to ask such a
favor of but you and Dr. Ware.”

“At least you have a champion in him.”

Hester’s eyes shone. “Next to Dad we love him better than any one in the
world.”

“Then why don’t you behave sensibly, and come here and live, and let me
take you about in society, as I meant to do this winter? I really looked
forward to chaperoning you and Julie—you’re very unusual girls. Now
give up this nonsense of yours and behave properly.”

“Oh, Miss Ware, must we go all over that again? Won’t you try to see it
our way, as—as your brother does? He never even talked of our coming
here to live, he understands so well that we want to be independent. I
know we must be a great disappointment to you. Cousin Nancy in Virginia
feels just as you do, too. Ever so many persons have offered us a home.
You can’t think what beautiful letters we’ve had from Dad’s friends
through the west. If it were possible to move him we’d go out there to
try our fortune; there are so many splendid out-of-door kinds of work a
girl can do in that big country. But Dad can’t be moved, and we’ve got
to do the best we can right here in Radnor.” She spoke convincingly and
with a certain submissiveness that sat oddly on her young shoulders.

Miss Ware, twisting her rings round on her fingers with a contemplative
air was wondering where the child got that dignity and poise.

“I’ve no patience with you whatever,” she said finally, after a long
pause, in which Hester imagined she had been waging an inward conflict.
“I am wholly out of sympathy with your ideas, but you cannot be allowed
to starve to death, and if cooking is the height of your ambition—”

“It isn’t the height of our ambition,” interrupted Hester, for youth is
impatient of being misunderstood; “it is only the thing that is nearest
at hand.”

“Your education must be sadly deficient,” regarding the girl critically.
“I always told Philip the harum-scarum way you were being brought up was
perfectly ruinous. If you had gone to school like other girls, you would
be qualified for some lady-like position.”

This was too much for Hester. “You need not trouble to do anything about
the cake, Miss Ware,” she said, proudly, “and I shan’t come here again
to hear my father insulted. And we are not going to starve either,” she
cried, her girlish wrath rising. “We are going to succeed and be a
credit to the best education in the world!”

She threw back her head and gazed straight into the older woman’s eyes
with a fearless look that was hard to meet. Only the fingers curled
tight into the palms of her hands, betrayed the mighty effort she was
making to hold herself in check, and this Miss Ware did not see, for
Hester’s unflinching eyes held her with a strange fascination. In
another moment the girl had turned and left the room.

For a while after her departure Miss Ware sat motionless like a person
who has received a shock. Presently she began to toy with her lorgnette,
dangling it back and forth on its chain with a swinging movement as if
keeping time to a rhythmic train of thought. This was not, indeed, the
case, and the action arose from nervousness, for the usual calm
placidity of her mind was sadly ruffled. She was not in the habit of
being contradicted, particularly by what she was pleased to call “a
young person”; but she was one of those women who having said their
worst, proceed to contradict themselves by an interest in that which
they have most condemned, and she was now speculating as to whether it
would not be expedient to take Hester’s cake to the meeting of her
sewing class the following day, and possibly get an order or two there
for it.

Only a true Radnorite could realize the possibilities that opened up to
one who was introduced as a subject of discussion at _the_ Sewing Class
of Radnor. For in the fashionable and exclusive set in which Miss Ware
had her being it was a function of tremendous importance, with sacred
rites known only to the initiated. In one another’s drawing-rooms, on
two mornings of the month, forty chosen spirits met to sew for the
poor—that great, clamorous, all-devouring body from which there is no
escape. This was ostensibly the purpose; in reality sewing was a minor
consideration, albeit much work was accomplished. The chief end of its
existence was to discuss, direct and control the movements of that
exclusive portion of Radnor society of which it was a part and upon
which it sat in fortnightly judgment. Following this arduous but
important morning duty came the luncheon, and it was of that Miss Ware
was thinking in connection with the cake.

When Hester left Miss Ware she ran down the stairs to the lower hall,
where she had left Peter Snooks with strict orders to remain until her
return. There she found him waiting to greet her with joyous caperings
of delight.

Dr. Ware and a tall, clean-shaven, athletic-looking man came out from
the office and encountered her.

“Ah, you, Hester?” said the Doctor. “Wait a moment, my dear. I have a
book here that I want you to take round to read to your father.”

He vanished, and the stranger glanced at the girl, hesitated, and then
stooping patted the dog. “You’ve a fine fox-terrier,” he said in a deep,
rich voice, looking up.

“We think so,” replied Hester, who couldn’t for the life of her conceal
her pleasure at hearing Peter Snooks praised.

At that moment the Doctor came out again.

“Why, Landor,” he said, “I beg your pardon; I forgot all about you when
I saw Hester. That is a way the minx has—of driving everything else out
of my head. Hester, my dear, this is Kenneth Landor, just up from Texas
to have a look at effete civilization—you have heard me speak of him
often—Mr. Landor, Miss Dale.”

The young people bowed.

“Don’t let him pose as a cowboy or anything interesting like that,”
continued the Doctor, “for he isn’t really—he only plays at things.
Takes a peep here and there over the continent, and pretends he is this
and that and the other, as the mood seizes him. A rolling stone, eh,
Landor?” turning with an affectionate, quizzical look at the man beside
him.

“Oh! go on, Doctor; pile it on—don’t leave me a shred of character. His
veracity is absolutely unquestioned, of course, Miss Dale?”

“Of course! He has made you interesting already.”

The Doctor laughed. “How one’s motives are mistaken. That was the last
thing I meant to do!”

Hester looked up at the Doctor, gleams of mischief in her eyes. “You
being you,” she said, “it couldn’t be otherwise.” With which ambiguous
remark she went out the door.

Landor followed her down the steps. “Miss Dale,” he asked, “may I walk
along with you? I fancy I am going your way.” Landor’s way was usually
where he chose to make it.

Hester acquiesced simply. She had been accustomed to the society of men
since she could toddle, and felt no embarrassment in the presence of a
stranger. Landor noted the free, swinging motion with which she kept
step with him as they went down the street.

“You are not a true Radnorite,” he said abruptly.

“No, I am not. Why?”

“Radnor girls do not walk as you do.”

“I am half inclined to believe you are a cowboy, after all, Mr. Landor.”

“Why?”

“Are we playing twenty questions? You have bad manners, a habit of
dealing in personalities—we call it impertinence.”

“Twenty questions,” he repeated, ignoring her rebuke. “Why, I have not
heard that mentioned for years. It is a favorite game in Radnor, isn’t
it?”

“I am sure I don’t know,” she said wearily; “I know very little about
Radnor.”

“And I less,” he said. “I’ve been away so much of the time. But there
were certain things taken into my innermost being in my youth, along
with the air I breathed, I suppose, that no amount of absence will
eradicate.”

“For instance?” she said, with feigned interest, for her mind kept
wandering off to her recent interview with Miss Ware, and she wished she
had not allowed him to accompany her.

“Well, the question of residence, you know. The few acres of sacred soil
in Radnor on which it is permissible to live. I remember as a little boy
how my nurse only allowed me to play with children whose parents lived
on the water side of Crana Street or the sunny side of Belton Avenue.
Any other than those and the streets immediately intersecting was beyond
the pale of civilization, even to her. It is odd, isn’t it?” smiling
down at her.

“What is odd, the fact or your acceptance of it?” There was a little
ring in her voice which struck the man’s alert ear.

A look of surprise came into his handsome dark face. “Am I walking too
fast for you, Miss Dale?” he asked, pleasantly.

That was the second time he had put aside a thrust of hers with some
trifling, irrelevant remark, and it tended to heighten rather than
soothe her growing irritation.

“I think,” she said, stopping abruptly on the corner, “that I shall say
good morning to you here. I do not happen to live in that sacred
locality you mention, and I would not for worlds take you beyond the
pale.”

“Miss Dale,” he gasped, “you don’t think I abide by any such
nonsense—you are doing me a great injustice. Surely you are not going
to dismiss me!”

“Yes,” she said, smiling, and showing her dimples in a sudden access of
pleasure at the thought of getting rid of him, “I really believe I am.”

He lifted his hat, and stood for some moments on the corner watching her
vanish from sight. How slender she was, and graceful, and what a sweet
little smile had accompanied her nod of farewell! Now he thought of it,
her eyes had queer lights in them, baffling, as if she were laughing at
him all the time. And her tone was half mocking, too, though he had
taken it seriously enough in all conscience. Was she serious, or had he
made an idiot of himself? This latter contingency was not one which
presented itself with marked frequency to the mind of Kenneth Landor,
and therefore gave him much food for reflection as the day wore on.




CHAPTER VIII


“Whom in the world do we know in New Hampshire?” asked Julie one
morning, glancing askance at an envelope in her hand.

“Suppose you open it and find out,” meekly suggested Hester, peeping
over her shoulder.

“Why, see, it is addressed to us both—it’s probably an invitation or
something.”

“It is not,” asserted Julie; “I can tell by the look of it. It’s—why,
Hester Dale, it’s a fifty dollar bill.”

“What?” ejaculated Hester.

“It is, and a note. Think of daring to trust such a thing by mail! Look
at it yourself.”

Hester seized both the bill and the letter, and unfolding the latter
found the following mysterious communication in typewriting:

  “From one some love to those one loves, Greetings:

  “A conspiracy having been formed for the purpose of circumventing
  fate, the initial step is herewith taken in the form of the enclosed
  paltry bill, intending it to be the forerunner of many a happy hour
  in which, though absent, will be ever present

                                               “The Arch-Conspirator.”

“Whoever could have done such a thing?” queried Hester in astonishment,
“Dr. Ware?”

“No, I don’t think so, though he might—is capable of doing anything.
But, Hester, just think of it—fifty dollars! Why, it is almost a
fortune!”

“I should think it was, and it is the kindest, most generous thing I
ever heard of. It couldn’t be from Virginia, could it?”

“I don’t believe so, Hester. Cousin Nancy disapproves of us too much to
do such a thing. I think it is from some one who loves Daddy and feels
sorry for us all, and takes this way of showing it. Oh, how good people
are!”

“Some people,” corrected Hester.

“If it had come from almost any other place than New Hampshire it
wouldn’t be quite so puzzling,” said Julie. “I am sure we don’t know a
soul in the whole state.”

“Well, I say let’s stop guessing and be thankful we have it,” advised
Hester. “It is some one who does not want to be known, and I don’t
suppose we really ought to try to guess, but I just hope we will get a
chance sometime to do something for that somebody, whoever he is. You
can see the person has had great fun doing it, by the way it is written,
Julie.”

“Yes.” softly, still puzzling over the unexpected windfall.

“You’ve got another letter in your lap, Julie. Have you forgotten its
existence? It looks like Nannie’s writing—do read it aloud.”

Julie took up the forgotten letter, and opening it began:

  “My Sweetest, Preciousest Girls” (Isn’t that just like Nan?) “You
  owe me a letter, both of you; but it’s such ages since we’ve heard
  that I just can’t wait any longer. I’m _so_ afraid mummie’s last
  letter hurt you, though I wrote you at the time just not to mind
  anything she said. She was awfully cross and put out for several
  days, but father and I played backgammon with her until we actually
  played her into a good humor—you know how she’d play backgammon
  until she couldn’t sit up another minute; and I know she loves you
  girls nearly as much as she does me, though she sputters away about
  you now and then; but that is just mummie’s way.

  “How I do wish you were here! I say that a dozen times a day, and
  whenever father hears me he says you will be, sometime. He’s got
  just the loveliest scheme for bringing you all down here on a visit,
  since you’re so proud and haughty and won’t come and live with us! I
  shan’t tell you a thing about it but you just wait until dear Cousin
  Dale gets better, and then you’ll see!”

Julie’s voice got suspiciously husky here, and it was a moment before
she went on:

  “We’ll have the grandest old times that ever happened, just like we
  did when you were here before.

  “Do you know I’d almost forgotten to tell you the thing I began this
  letter for—my birthday party. I know you want to hear about it! It
  was a surprise party, and such fun! To begin with, it was such a
  pretty day that I wanted to be out every minute, so I took a long
  ride with father in the morning, and spent most of the afternoon in
  the pasture with George Washington, he and I trying to do tricks on
  Gypsie the way you did, Hester. I said we were _on_ Gypsie, but it
  was mostly _off_, for she didn’t take to our circus performance at
  all and threw me twice, way over her head, and George Washington no
  end of times. He just loved it, and capered around and grinned and
  made absurd remarks until my sides ached with laughing. Just as I
  was actually succeeding in standing upon Gyp bareback, mummie spied
  me from her window, and of course that put an end to everything. She
  said she saw no reason why I should celebrate my eighteenth birthday
  by breaking my neck, and I expect she was right—but oh, it was fun!

  “When I came in to dress for supper, father called me one side and
  told me to put on my pink organdie (the one you liked so much, you
  know), because it would please mummie; so I did and mummie wore her
  claret-colored velvet and I picked two of my pet pink roses—one for
  Mummie’s hair and the other for father’s buttonhole, and we all
  looked very gay and festive and I thought it was lovely to be
  eighteen, especially as mummie had given me that beautiful pearl
  ring of hers which she always said I should have when I was a young
  lady.

  “Well, about nine o’clock, when mummie and I were in the midst of a
  game of backgammon, there was a crunching noise out in the driveway
  and I thought some one was coming to call. Then I heard laughter and
  a lot of people talking, and father went to the door, and let in a
  whole crowd calling for me. I was too surprised to understand, even
  when father explained that the neighborhood was giving me a surprise
  party. (I found out afterward, girls, that he got up the whole
  thing—he vowed them all to secrecy, because he didn’t want me to
  know he had a hand in it, but Lillie Blake told me—Lil never has
  secrets from me.)

  “Well, we danced in the big hall most of the evening, while the
  older people played cards, and we did have a jolly time, and there
  was a stranger here—he was staying with the Blakes and you’d never
  guess where he’s from—Radnor! He’s very fascinating, but he’s
  old—he must be at least thirty! I know that wouldn’t seem old to
  you, but it does to me, and I felt very shy with him at first until
  I found out he came from Radnor, and then I just pelted him with
  questions about you, and he didn’t know you at all! I could have
  wept! But I talked on about you just the same, and I was dying to
  tell him about your work, for I think it’s so noble of you, but
  mummie has forbidden my mentioning it to any one, and, of course, I
  wouldn’t disobey her. He got the ring in my birthday cake, girls;
  wasn’t that the funniest thing? Lillie Blake teased him to give it
  to her, but he wouldn’t, and slipped it in his pocket out of sight.
  I know he enjoyed hearing me talk about you, because he stayed with
  me a good part of the evening, and Teddie Carroll got cross and
  sulked in the corner. Isn’t he the silliest thing?

  “Good-by, you old darlings, and don’t forget your little cousin,

                                                             “Nannie.”

Julie smiled as she put down the letter. “Isn’t she a darling, Hester? I
don’t wonder they call her ‘Kitten,’ she purrs so. And she’s so
ingenuous! Imagine her thinking that a man stayed about with her because
she talked about us. He evidently took a fancy to her—the dear little
thing! I wonder who he was.”

“She has forgotten to mention his name,” said Hester, “but it does not
much matter. Come, Julie, we must switch our thoughts up from Virginia,
or we’ll never get to work to-day.”

Julie went over to a shelf and stuck the two letters behind a clock. “It
is an inspiration to work,” she said, “when we know people are thinking
of us and loving us. That money, dear, is a godsend. We had scarcely
enough left to market another day.”

Julie, who was self-appointed buyer, had been racking her brains to know
how they should get through another day without running into debt—a
contingency of which they had a horror. They had stopped all their
father’s accounts and were unanimous in agreeing that they would go
without that for which they could not pay cash. Accordingly they went
without a great deal.

In her first experience of marketing Julie was aghast to find that meats
which she regarded as a common necessity cost so much that she was
forced to act upon the butcher’s suggestion that it was “stew meat” she
wanted. It was _not_ what she wanted, but she took it meekly and ate it
with pretended relish, for Bridget took pride in serving a genuine Irish
stew.

It was characteristic of the Dales that they never did things by halves,
and they threw themselves with tremendous energy into their work, which
was developing, though still slowly. Orders for wine jelly and cake came
in from people unknown to them, and they knew that Dr. Ware’s influence
was working for their good. Miss Ware, too, though outwardly
antagonistic, had carried out her intention of taking Hester’s cake to
the Sewing Class, with the result that the hostess of the next meeting
had ordered all her cake from them for that occasion.

This order they were getting to work on now, and Julie remarked that she
wished white cake were not so much in demand, for the continued increase
of left-over yolks was appalling.

“Bridget has made them into omelette at least twice a day lately, until
it seems to me I can’t stand the sight of them, Hester. And the more we
have to make frosting the worse it gets. Either we’ve got to throw them
away in rank extravagance or keep on eating them and die. I wish we
could think of something to do with them!”

“If we only could afford to buy oil, Bridget would make us some
salad-dressing.”

“But we can’t afford it. Poor Bridget, that is her one accomplishment.
She says she learned it from mamma, who was famous for it.”

“Good gracious, Julie!” the practical Hester ejaculated, “don’t take to
‘reminiscing’ with that far-away look in your eyes. You’ll be weighing
salt instead of sugar.”

“I am not ‘reminiscing’—I am thinking. Why can’t we make mayonnaise and
sell it?”

“What!”

“Don’t drop dead with astonishment, you chief cook and bottle-washer,
because _I_ have an idea. What do you think of it?”

“Ye gods, but wouldn’t that be a scheme! Bridget could teach us—you
know how Daddy’s friends always said they never got such salads at any
other table!”

“Don’t ‘reminisce,’ my dear.”

“We’ll get the grocers to sell it,” disdaining to notice the pretended
rebuke, “just as they do pickles and things. We’ll put it up in nice
bottles, and——”

“Wouldn’t it be rather clever to learn how to make it first?”
interrupting this flight into future possibilities.

“Bridget, Bridget, come here!” called Hester.

Bridget, who was brushing up the sick-room, came down the little hall
and entered the kitchen.

“Do you see all those?” cried Hester, pointing to a bowl full of yolks
standing on the table. “Now if you had your own way, what would you do
with them?’

“Make ’em into mayonnaise, miss.”

“Of course you would, you extravagant creature! Well, that is just what
we want you to do. Tell her, Julie—it is your scheme.”

An amazed and delighted Bridget heard the girl unfold her plan.

“Shure it’s a wonder yez are, Miss Julie, the two of yez, an’ my
dressin’ can’t be beat. Could I be after showin’ yez how this mornin’?”

“I’ll go straight into the grocery now and get a bottle of oil,”
exclaimed Julie, and calling Peter Snooks, she was off in five minutes.

She noticed as she went down the stairs that the door of the apartment
underneath them was ajar, and to her astonishment Peter Snooks, that
most well-behaved of dogs, thrust his nose into the crack and vanished.

She stood a moment irresolute; then called peremptorily: “Snooks, Peter
Snooks! come here this minute!”

No dog appeared, and she was about to raise her voice for the second
time when from the darkness of the inner hall she heard some one
say—“Do you mind coming in just a minute? Your little dog is making
friends with me, and I can’t come to you.”

She followed the voice to the front room, where a boy lay in a wheeled
chair, while beside him sat Peter Snooks on his hind legs, putting out
his paw to shake hands in his most approved manner. At sight of his
mistress he curled his tail under and crawled to her guiltily. “Don’t
scold him, please,” said the boy; “it’s my fault. I’ve been wanting to
know him this ever so long.”

There was something so appealing in the boy’s voice and so penitent in
the way Peter Snooks looked up at her that she patted the little rascal,
and said brightly:

“I never knew him to play truant before; but if you and he have made
friends I shan’t apologize for his intrusion or mine.”

“Oh no! don’t,” said the boy. “I’ve watched you from the window ever
since you came here to live, and I feel somehow as if I sort of knew
you.”

“Are you ill?” she asked, gently.

“Broke my hip two months ago,” he said. “It’s a long time mending.”

“Oh! I am so sorry—I know how hard it must be—my father is—is ill,
too.” She never could bring herself to put into words her father’s
actual condition.

“I wish you would sit down,” the boy said. “Mother may be in any moment.
You can’t think how it cheers a fellow up to see somebody.” He spoke
hesitatingly, as if he feared to show too great pleasure lest he give
her offense.

“I can’t stop, thank you,” said Julie, suddenly remembering her errand,
“but if you are lonely and would like to have me, I will leave Peter
Snooks awhile with you—he’s no end of company.”

“Oh! would you, really?” The boy’s eyes glistened. “I wish mother were
here; she’d know how to—to thank you.”

At that moment a small, frail woman, gowned in black, entered the room.

“Why, mother,” exclaimed the boy, turning to her a flushed, eager face,
“I was just wishing for you. This is the young lady that lives upstairs,
you know.”

“How do you do?” the woman said, holding out her hand with quaint
simplicity, neither face nor manner betraying any surprise at finding
Julie there. “You are Miss Dale, are you not? I am Mrs. Grahame. It was
kind of you to come in and see Jack.”

“My little dog ran in here, and I followed in search of him and found
your son,” Julie explained. “I really did not intend to be intrusive.”

“It is a great pleasure to see you.” The older woman smiled at her. “You
must pardon the seeming liberty, but Jack and I have long been
acquainted with you. You see I am at work down-town most of the day, and
the boy spends long hours by the window watching his neighbors go in and
out, and he amuses himself by weaving little stories about them until he
comes to regard them as personal friends.”

Jack dropped his eyes. “You’ll think I’m the one who’s intrusive,” he
said.

“I do not think anything of the kind,” replied Julie; “I think it is a
very clever, happy idea.” She went over to the chair and called the dog
up in his lap. “Mrs. Grahame,” she said, “if you are not too busy, will
you come up some evening and see us? We are working girls, and we have
an invalid father, and we don’t expect to pay visits, but I would like
to come down here again, if I may, and bring my sister. Your son would
weave the most beautiful stories in the world if he really knew Hester.”

“Thank you for suggesting so much happiness for my boy,” said Mrs.
Grahame, earnestly. “You make me want to go to see you immediately.”

Just as Hester’s lively imagination was picturing all sorts of
calamities which might have overtaken her sister, that individual came
hurriedly in with a bottle of salad oil in her hand.

“Well, where on earth have you been?” cried Hester; “I thought you must
have dropped dead or been kidnaped or something fearful.”

“Was I so long? I am sorry, dear, but you see I made a call en route.”

“A call! who ever heard of such a thing! Where is Peter Snooks?”
suddenly missing him.

“He is finishing the visit for me.” Julie laughed with a provokingly
mysterious air.

Hester, who had been working on alone and diving her head into a hot
oven every five minutes to anxiously watch the evolution of bothersome
little dabs of thin dough into small puffy cakes, was feeling decidedly
cross and resented her sister’s apparent indifference to the business at
hand.

“Well, I’m glad if _you_ have time to gad about,” she said, witheringly.
“I _thought_ we were going to take a lesson in making mayonnaise.”

“You goose!” exclaimed Julie, pushing her away from the hot oven and
herself kneeling down to peer in. “I’ll watch these cakes—you sit down
and draw a breath and the cork of the oil at the same time, while I tell
you what happened.”

Somewhat mollified, Hester obeyed, and even deigned to show interest
when Julie graphically described their neighbors.

“Wasn’t it odd, Hester, just walking right into the midst of things like
that? And the boy was so pathetic, and his mother was so quaint, with
such a sweet face and pretty, wavy hair, and I only stayed a moment,
dear, really, for all the time I knew you’d be wondering what had become
of me.”

“Well, all I’ve got to say is,” remarked Hester, with decided emphasis,
“that if you were willing to leave Peter Snooks with them, they must be
very remarkable people indeed.”




CHAPTER IX


The weeks passed rapidly to the young workers, who found each day full
of experiments, sometimes developing into satisfactory results and again
filled with bitter discouragement. There were days when the battle for
existence threatened to overweigh and submerge them; days when from
morning till night their work seemed possessed by evil demons, and
everything went wrong; days when despair tugged at their hearts, and the
old happy life forced itself in upon their thoughts with clamorous
persistence. And ah! how they felt the sorrow of their father’s
helplessness, the loss of his companionship causing an ache that nothing
could assuage! But through it all they fought their way, upheld by the
longing to show a spirit worthy of their father’s daughters, sustained
by the consciousness that by their own endeavor they were “making a home
for Dad.” This was the dominant note of the new life—like a bugle-call
stirring them to action!

Julie, who had been reading aloud to her father one day, suddenly went
into the next room to find Hester, and exclaimed, “Thackeray says, ‘I
would not curse my fortune—I’d make it!’ I think that’s great, Hester!
We’ll take it for a motto.” And by that motto ever after they abided.

Mr. Dale had not awakened to any definite consciousness of his
condition, as Dr. Ware had anticipated, but remained in a passive,
tranquil state, taking little heed and no part in any conversation,
though his face brightened perceptibly whenever any one entered the
room. Much of the day he slept, but during his waking hours one of the
girls was constantly with him, hovering about with a tender protective
air.

Dr. Ware, who devoted all his spare time to his old friend, was a
frequent and most welcome visitor. He was a man of distinguished
presence, tall and well-knit, with the military bearing of a soldier and
some ten years younger than Mr. Dale, although they had served in the
War of the Rebellion together. Streaks of gray showed plentifully in his
hair and pointed beard, throwing into greater contrast his black brows
and blue-black eyes, while his face was marked with strong lines
indicative of character. It was an interesting face and one that
inspired immediate confidence, and in addition there was about him an
indefinable charm which made itself felt both professionally and
socially, so that there was not a more popular man in Radnor. This was
perhaps an unusual position for a man of strong convictions, expressed
fearlessly and freely on all subjects. To be thoroughly popular commonly
requires an adaptable temperament not compatible with strong
individuality.

He watched over “his girls” as he called them, with affectionate
solicitude mingled with an admiration and respect which knew no bounds.
“They are going to succeed,” he would frequently say to himself after
leaving them, “every failure only makes them more determined—it’s fine
to watch the growth of such spirit.” And then he would drive off on his
round of visits with a preoccupied air and vague longings would steal in
upon him, softening the lines about his mouth and eyes and lingering
deliciously in his mind even after he had roused himself impatiently
from such day-dreams.

The girls’ experiments in making mayonnaise resulted in Julie’s screwing
up her courage one day and going to the leading grocery of Radnor. She
asked for the proprietor and laid before him her scheme, at the same
time showing him a sample of the mayonnaise. Poor Julie, who did not
know what it meant to cry her wares in open market, felt very
uncomfortable and flushed quite red as she talked; but she struggled to
overcome her timidity and succeeded in interesting the man, who told her
to leave her sample for him to try at home and gave her some valuable
information about putting up such an article in the regulation form,
suggesting that she follow his directions and bring in the mayonnaise
again, bottled and labeled for his inspection.

Busy days those were indeed in “The Hustle,” for in addition to trying
varieties of cake, the mayonnaise suggested making salads and one thing
led to another with surprising rapidity.

It gradually began to be recognized in Radnor that if one wanted any
delicacy in the way of fancy cooking, one should order it from “those
Dale girls,” and this recognition was in no small part due to Mrs.
Lennox, the President of _the_ Sewing Class. It was she who had sent
them their first order and shown a marked interest in their work which
was not without its immediate effect, for people occupied in their
relation to Mrs. Lennox a position similar to that of “Mary’s little
lamb.” Mrs. Lennox was a beautiful woman and in the fashionable world
her word was law; but society amused rather than interested her, and her
keen intellect and strong individuality led her into devious paths.
Above all she was a philanthropist in that broad and humanitarian sense
which sees promise in all gradations of men and women.

She followed her first order to the girls with a second by mail; then a
little correspondence ensued, in which she suggested their sending her
any new thing they might be trying. A few weeks later she “blew over,”
as she expressed it, and said in her charming way to Julie, as if she
had known her intimately for years:

“My dear, are you busy enough?”

“No indeed, Mrs. Lennox, we never could be busy enough—we want to do so
much.”

“So I thought.” She threw back her furs and unclasping a big bunch of
violets tossed them into the girl’s lap. “You like them, don’t you? So
do I. I adore violets. I am raising white ones now and I will send you
over some if I may.”

“Oh, how good of you! Daddy loves them too. We always used to have
flowers wherever we were and we do miss them so. I don’t see how you
suspected it, Mrs. Lennox.”

“I am rather keen about human nature, my dear, and it occurs to me that
even though you do cook, you may have a love and longing for the
beautiful.”

Julie smiled. It was so comfortable to talk with some one who understood
them. “Miss Ware would not agree with you,” she said. “She considers us
lost to the finer things, beyond redemption. She dislikes us, you know,
and we never go there; but she comes here sometimes and asks us all
sorts of questions and wants to know about our recipes and things as if
we could not comprehend any other subject. Hester calls it ‘talking
shop’ and we hate it—not the work but the being excluded from other
things.”

“I understand perfectly. Miss Ware is a bit, well, narrow, like most
Radnor people. So you are not busy enough?” eyeing her curiously; “well
then, I have a suggestion. If you want to cater for the town, send out
cards.”

Julie gasped. “Business cards, you mean, soliciting orders?”

“Exactly. You do a variety of things already—think up and experiment
with more until you get an imposing little list, have cards printed and
send them about—at least five hundred, I should say. Radnor is a large
place and cliquey—there must be numbers of persons unknown to me who
have never heard of you girls, yet would be likely to give you their
custom. If my name on the cards by way of indorsement would be of any
advantage, you are more than welcome to use it.”

“Oh! thank you, of course it would be a great advantage, Mrs. Lennox,
for no one knows us at all, you see. I’m—I’m dazed by your idea—it
seems so pretentious—so bold to advertise ourselves. I don’t believe we
should ever have thought of it, but it _is_ the thing to do.”

“Decidedly. I know something about business and you have one of the most
necessary qualifications for success—indefatigable zeal—and I want to
push you along. But you must not overtax your strength. I suppose you
have heard that before, eh, Miss Dale?” She laughed musically. “No doubt
kindly disposed persons come here to leave orders and tell you not to
work too hard.”

“Yes, they do,” Julie earnestly replied. “I wish they would not. Just as
if we did not have to work with all our might and main, and it is not
easy—always.”

“Easy! I should think not!” Mrs. Lennox rose and smiled into Julie’s
grave eyes as she held out her hand to say good-by. “I am going now, but
I want to come again and meet your sister too. May I? I should so like
to know you and be your friend.”

Julie impulsively kissed her. “It is so good to find some one who wants
to know us—in spite of everything,” she faltered.

“It is because of everything, my dear,” giving the girl an impetuous
little hug. Which demonstration would greatly have astonished the smart
set of Radnor to whom this side of their leader was unknown and
unsuspected.

It was about this time that the girls got the mayonnaise put up to their
satisfaction, for innumerable perplexities had arisen in the matter of
suitable bottles, corks and labels. When finally Julie had submitted the
result to the grocer and that all-powerful man had ordered a dozen
bottles to sell on commission, the girls felt that they were working to
some purpose, and a glow akin to honest pride surged in their hearts.
But the sensation swelled to overwhelming proportions when late one
afternoon Julie, passing the store, spied in the great show-window a
group of their bottles standing boldly alongside the firm’s best fancy
articles. She gasped, scarcely daring to look at them, and rushed home
to tell Hester.

But when she got home she did not tell Hester. Instead she said: “Put on
your things and come out before it grows dark—the air will do you
good.”

“Can’t,” said Hester, deep in a book, “I’m too tired to move.”

“I want to show you something.”

“Where?” reading on.

“In a shop window.”

“Julie Dale, what’s the matter?” she exclaimed, dropping her book. “I’m
sure you’ve got a crazy look about you—your hat’s on crooked!”

“I don’t care, I think you would want to throw _your_ hat in the air if
you had seen it!”

“Seen what? A shop window? I hate them—they’re just full of tantalizing
things one wants and can’t have!”

“Well, this isn’t—or perhaps it is—I am sure I don’t know, but I came
way back after you and oh! do come.”

“You are responsible for great expectations,” said Hester, reluctantly
getting up from the bed. “I call it a most unchristian act to rout me
out like this.”

But she took another view of it when she found herself out in the brisk
wintry air, and she caught some of the exhilaration of her sister’s gay
spirits as they went along, Peter Snooks racing wildly about them.

When they approached the window of the grocery Julie’s heart beat
rapidly in anticipation of Hester’s surprise. As they reached it she
suddenly pulled her arm and led her close to the window. “Look!” she
said excitedly but in a low voice, for many persons were passing and
some few stood near them.

There it was, the mayonnaise into which they had put their best
endeavor, standing in so conspicuous a place that it could not fail to
attract the attention of the passers-by.

“New thing, that mayonnaise, isn’t it?” they heard a man say to his
companion, “well put up—let’s go in and look at it.”

Hester gazed speechless into the window, her eyes nearly bulging out of
her head.

“Would you ever have believed it!” whispered Julie, poking her. “Let’s
wait,” as she saw a clerk lean into the window and take down a bottle,
“let’s wait and see if those people buy it.”

“No we won’t,” said Hester, finding her voice at last. She clutched her
sister’s arm convulsively. “We’ll go straight home before I scream with
joy right here on the corner.”

“You don’t like shop windows, do you?” said Julie with a happy laugh.

In the exuberance of their spirits and with a desire to impart the good
news to their neighbors, whom they now counted as friends, the girls
stopped at the Grahame’s on their way upstairs.

“Jack,” exclaimed Hester the impetuous, “Jack, what do you suppose has
happened?”

“By the look of you I should say you’d inherited a fortune.”

“Pouf!” disdainfully, “that is commonplace.” She clapped her hands
together while her eyes danced merrily. “Try again, Jack.”

“May I have a guess, Miss Dale?” said a voice that made the girl start,
while a long, lazy form emerged from the corner.

Hester’s manner changed instantly, and her eyes sought Jack’s
questioningly, as if she were asking some explanation. Then she turned
to the man who stood quietly watching her.

“How do you do, Mr. Landor?” she said with a stiff little formality that
was unlike Hester, “I did not know you and Jack were friends.”

“May I be presented?” asked Julie, coming forward; “I seem to be quite
out of it.”

Jack from his chair in his capacity of host performed the introduction.

“Will _you_ let me guess?” said the man, addressing Julie as if there
had been no interruption. “Your sister refuses to answer me.”

“You certainly will not let him guess,” promptly replied Hester.
“Curiosity is a shockingly reprehensible trait and besides,” with a
little toss of her head, “our affairs cannot possibly be of interest to
Mr. Landor.”

The man flushed and picked up his hat. “I am off, old fellow,” he said
to Jack. “I’ll be in again before a great while.”

“Oh, don’t let us drive you away, please, Mr. Landor,” protested Julie,
who was secretly marveling over that cool little sarcastic voice which
she had scarcely recognized as Hester’s. “We had only a moment to stop
and we can come down again any time; we know what a great pleasure it is
to Jack to have visitors, don’t we, Hester?”

Julie had her hand on the door.

[Illustration: “MAY I HAVE A GUESS, MISS DALE?”]

“You will do what she asks, I am sure, Mr. Landor,” said Hester. It did
not escape him that she shifted the responsibility to her sister. “Julie
always arranges things perfectly. We really should be at home this very
minute.” And waving her hand at the astonished Jack, she followed in the
wake of her sister.

“Hester,” exclaimed Julie, in the seclusion of their own apartment,
“what made you so rude to Mr. Landor? I never heard you speak like that
to any one before.”

“Oh! Julie,” cried the younger girl, flinging herself down in a chair,
“I’ve the most disgusting, beastly temper!”

“You’ve nothing of the sort!” denied her sister indignantly.

“I have. You don’t know anything about it, it’s—it’s just developing. I
get all hot inside; sometimes it breaks out the way it did at Miss
Ware’s and to-day it made me nasty and sarcastic. I’ve always hated
sarcastic people!”

“What has Mr. Landor done, dear, to make you dislike him so? I thought
he seemed most charming and agreeable.”

“Did you?” indifferently, leaning back in her chair. Suddenly she sat
bolt upright and exclaimed vehemently, “Julie Dale, if you dare to take
to singing his praises as Dr. Ware does I’ll—I’ll—well, I don’t know
what I’ll do! I hate him, with his smiling, masterful air and his prying
into affairs which are none of his business.” (This seemed rather strong
language, but Julie did not interrupt her.) “He is an idle society man
and we are hard-working girls. He has nothing in common with us
whatever. We’ve no use for men, anyway—they don’t belong to the sort of
life we live, they—they don’t fit into our scheme of things. Rather
neat, that last phrase, eh, Julie? Read it in a book.” As usual,
Hester’s outburst ended in a laugh.

“Are you twenty years old,” said Julie stooping down to kiss the flushed
face, “or two hundred, Hester?”

“I’m an end-of-the-century idiot, that’s what I am!” she replied,
pulling Julie over to give her a suffocating hug. Then in that
irrelevant fashion so characteristic of her she threw back her head and
sniffed the air suspiciously.

“Julie!”

But Julie had slipped away.

Hester chased her into the little dining-room. “Julie Dale! do I smell
steak?” Hester’s nostrils fairly quivered.

“You do. I plunged into that wild extravagance on the strength of the
mayonnaise, and I don’t care what you say!”

“Say!” gasped Hester as Bridget brought in this unheard of luxury, “I
only want to eat!”




CHAPTER X


“I’m sorry, old fellow.”

“Sorry for what, Mr. Landor?”

“To have driven your little friends away. They evidently had some good
news to tell you.”

“Oh! that’s all right,” said Jack cheerily, “it will keep, you know, and
they were in a hurry—they said they could only stop a moment.” Jack was
puzzling his young brain over their abrupt departure, but his loyalty to
all three friends made him wish to hide from Landor the fact that he was
apparently the cause. “I’m so sorry they _were_ in a hurry,” he
continued, “for I’m always wishing you knew one another—you’d get on
like a house afire.”

“Should we, Jack? I don’t know. Recent events don’t seem to prove it, do
they?” laughing good-naturedly.

“Oh! that doesn’t count. You just wait until some day when they have
more time—I don’t know when that’ll be, though, for they’re regular
hustlers. What do you suppose?” confidentially. “They call their flat
‘The Hustle’—isn’t that great?”

“I should say so—it sounds enterprising.”

“They named it after the private car they used to live in—they’ve told
me all about it. Gee! wouldn’t I like to get aboard of her once! She
must have been a beauty!”

“What became of the car? Did you ever happen to hear, Jack?”

“It’s out west somewhere—some railroad’s got it, I think, but I’m not
sure. They never spoke of it but once—I could see it went kind of hard
talking about it, though Miss Hester laughed and joked about its being
they who did the hustling now, instead of the car. It must be fine to be
rich and travel all around,” exclaimed the boy, “but I’d hate to have
had it and then have to give it all up the way they have. Say, Mr.
Landor, shall I tell you something?” He clasped the arms of the
reclining chair with his thin hands and drew himself up to a sitting
posture.

Landor nodded and drew his seat closer. He encouraged the boy in his
confidences.

“I slumped the other night—clean went all to pieces. I’m fourteen, you
know, but if I’d been four I couldn’t have acted more kiddish. Mother
was out and I’d been thinking how I wanted to go to college and
couldn’t, because mother can’t afford it, and how I wanted to travel
around and couldn’t, and how I even wanted to walk and couldn’t—not for
a long time yet—and I just lay here and thought there wasn’t much sense
in getting any better anyway—I’d just have to go back and be nothing
better than an office boy where I was before I got hurt and—”

“And you succeeded in working yourself up into a fine frenzy of
discontent, didn’t you, Jack? I understand, my boy. We all have our
rebellious moments.”

“I was crying like a baby when Miss Julie came in.”

“Poor old Jack,” patting his hand sympathetically.

“Poor nothing!” exclaimed the boy in a tone of infinite disgust, “it
makes me hot all over to think about it and that wasn’t the worst! I
_kept on_ crying.” Jack’s honest nature was abasing itself before his
friend. “I kept on crying till she shamed me out of it.”

Landor did not speak, feeling silence at that moment would better
harmonize with the boy’s mood. Jack and he understood each other, and
the boy feeling his sympathetic interest drew a long breath and went on
again.

“She made me tell her all about it and I felt so cut up and blue that I
said a lot of things I didn’t mean and I told her it was easy enough for
her to be brave—she didn’t know what it was to lie still and perhaps be
crippled all your life—the doctor can’t tell. _Think of my telling her
that!_” The boy shuddered. “I believe if I’d struck her, Mr. Landor, I
couldn’t have hurt her more, for there’s her father, you see, a million
times worse off than I am, and I’d forgotten all about him.”

Landor pushed back his chair and as if he found action of some kind
necessary paced the room quietly while the boy talked on.

“Her face got so white and her eyes got so dark that it frightened me,
but do you know what she did? I was lying on the couch and she came over
and knelt down beside me and talked to me a long time about her father.”
Jack’s voice was awed and Landor’s hands went deeper down into his
pockets—a way he had when he was moved.

“She called him ‘Daddy’ and you could see just the way she said it that
she worshiped him, and she told me that when you loved a person very
much it was harder to see him stricken down than if you were ill and
helpless yourself. I hadn’t thought of that, but it must be so, mustn’t
it, Mr. Landor?”

“Yes, Jack, it must be so.” No cloud had ever darkened Kenneth Landor’s
pleasure-loving, pleasure-giving life.

“Then she told me that she wasn’t brave really. That many a night she
cried herself to sleep because she was heart-broken about her father and
discouraged about their work and tired. I think she just told me that so
I wouldn’t feel as if I were a coward because I cried too. I’d stopped
by that time, I can tell you! And then she said she wanted me to help
her and her sister be bright and jolly by being bright and jolly, too.
That made me laugh—to think I could help them! We both laughed and I
felt better. After that she talked a long time about trouble and how it
came to some people very young and how it was a sort of test—did you
ever think of that, Mr. Landor?” gazing earnestly into the man’s face.

“No, Jack, there are many things I have never thought of!”

“You would if you knew them, you couldn’t help it. She wasn’t a bit
preachy—I hate that—but she said the way we took things showed the
kind of characters we had and when we got discouraged we must just
remember we were soldiers—Christ’s soldiers—that’s what she said.” The
boy’s voice sank to a whisper. “And that no soldier amounted to shucks
till he was knocked about and disciplined and taught to obey his
superiors.”

“That is the truth, my boy.” In his heart Landor was marveling at what
he heard.

“And do you know what, Mr. Landor? I’m going to march in the ranks
too—a double-quick step to try to catch up with them and if ever I do
catch up and can march alongside of them, won’t I be proud, just!”
Julie’s little sermon had sunk deep into his receptive mind and kindled
his imagination to deeds of valor like some knight of old. He leaned
back on his cushions exhausted by this unusual talk, his frail body in
pitiful contrast to the strength of the spirit that had awakened within
him and glowed in his face with a transfiguring light.

Landor came over to his chair and took his hand in a grip that hurt. “I
am going to enter the ranks too, old fellow,” said he, carrying out the
illusion partly to please the boy’s fancy and partly because he had
never before been so in earnest in his life.

“You!” said the boy, to whom Landor was a hero, “you don’t have to
fight—why you can kill buffaloes and Indians and everything!”

Landor smiled. “Perhaps I have more dangerous foes nearer at hand, Jack.
Who knows? Well, I must be going. Shall I lift you onto the couch
first?”

Jack always enjoyed the feeling of Landor’s strong arms about him and
gave the man a grateful look as he was laid gently down. The couch was
in reality Jack’s bed and the change to the reclining chair had been
brought about by Landor, who sent the chair to him in the early days of
their acquaintance, but laughingly denied any previous knowledge of it
when Jack endeavored to thank him.

“You seem to have a lot of paper about,” commented Landor, picking up
some sheets from the floor. “What are you up to these days?”

Jack blushed.

“Out with it, old fellow; you look guilty.”

“I’m—I’m trying to write out the stories I make about the people I see
out of my window. You know I like to imagine things about them. _She_
said if I’d write them down the way I tell them they’d entertain her
father very much, but I’ve gotten sort of disgusted—it seems such awful
rot when it’s down on paper.”

Landor ran his eye over the sheets Jack indicated.

“They are not rot, Jack, they are pretty good. I am not much of a
literary chap, but I know when a thing is interesting. When you have
taken this way of introducing the neighborhood to Mr. Dale why don’t you
send him a weekly bulletin—a regularly gotten up paper with all the
neighborhood news? When there isn’t news you can invent it, you know,”
smiling; “that is allowable in the newspaper trade.”

“Say, that’s great!” cried Jack. “I’ll call it the—‘In the Ranks’ and
make a great big heading for my first column ‘News from the Front’ (that
means front window) and I know, that’ll please Mr. Dale, for mother told
me he was a distinguished officer in the Civil War and Miss Julie says
they were brought up on military principles.” Jack snatched paper and
pencil eager to begin.

“Keep on with your stories first, Jack. Why, we shall be setting up a
printing-press here next,” and with this delightfully suggestive remark
Landor departed.

He did not go on to the club, as was his wont at that hour, but lighted
a cigar and walked out of the little court and down through Crana Street
to the river, where on the bridge he paused and gazed across to the city
with a rapt, preoccupied air. Then, as if the noise of the ever-whirring
electric cars disturbed him, he retraced his steps and took a road in
the opposite direction which brought him into the quiet and seclusion of
the park. The air was keen and crisp and blew in his face in gusty
whiffs as he strode on, while all about him in their winter nakedness
the trees cast spectral shadows. Usually, from long training and
association with western plains and mountain trails, he took note of
everything as he passed, but to-night he gazed far on ahead, engrossed
in thought. To his annoyance, twice his cigar went out—which was in
itself significant. Finally he threw it away and lighted a little
bull-dog pipe, his solace and companion in many a solitary stroll.

So those were the Dale girls, he was thinking, of whom Dr. Ware had said
so much but of whom, all unconsciously, Jack had revealed more than
years of intercourse with them might tell. He thought of Julie as he had
seen her, quiet and fair-haired, with that gracious little plea that he
should not let them drive him away, to prevent which they had themselves
made a hasty exit from the room. And then there was another Julie as
Jack had pictured her, turning her heart out for a boy that he might be
comforted! He thought of her with reverence. A profound solemnity
possessed him, giving him a strangely subdued sensation as of a man
emerging from a sanctuary. What was he to whom life was an idle pastime,
that he should draw the same breath with her!

Then from out this solemn train of thought danced another picture—two
baffling eyes mocking him. Who was she, this will-o’-the-wisp, that she
should hold him at arm’s length in that imperious fashion! He stopped
and half closed his lids as if the better to conjure up a vision of her,
then shook himself and went on—were not those eyes enough and that
light ironical voice in his ears? Why had she snubbed him so—him, who
was surely unoffending? And she was a soldier too, marching in the
ranks. That pretty, piquant, fascinating sprite had shouldered her
knapsack and was fighting a battle royal. Dr. Ware had told him so long
ago, but somehow he only now began to realize it since Jack had
expressed it in Julie’s simple way. Jove! the very simplicity of it was
impressive! Thoughts like these carried Landor out into the country and
brought him back to the club two hours later in an unusually quiet frame
of mind. The men with whom he habitually fraternized found him dull and
unresponsive and to his inexpressible relief they left him to finish the
evening alone.




CHAPTER XI


Mrs. Lennox was giving one of those little dinners for which she was
justly famous. To-night it was in honor of Monsieur Jules Grémond, the
young African explorer who was paying a flying visit to the States. To
meet him were Miss Davis, a débutante whose prettiness could always be
counted on to make a picture; Miss Marston, whose cleverness it was
thought would interest him; and Kenneth Landor, whose attentions to Miss
Davis had been rather pronounced during the season. Opposite his wife
across the round table sat Mr. Lennox, than whom there was no more
delightful host.

They had not been long gathered about the table before Mrs. Lennox was
conscious that her guests were lacking in that subtle attraction toward
one another which is absolutely indispensable to the success of a small
dinner. Monsieur Grémond, between her and Miss Marston, appeared to be
listening in a most politely conventional manner to the girl who was
making commonplace conversation with frequent pauses during which he
turned to Mrs. Lennox, with whom he immediately fell into interesting
talk. Kenneth Landor was singularly distrait. At first he had
appropriated Miss Davis with his usual devoted air, but after a bit this
languished and he, too, turned so often to Mrs. Lennox, next whom he
sat, that Miss Davis first pouted and then in a fit of pique plunged
into a violent flirtation with Mr. Lennox, much to that person’s
amusement. Mrs. Lennox found it necessary to throw herself into the
breach here, there and everywhere, but under her skillful manipulation
the talk at last became general and animated.

The interest of the table naturally centered on Grémond, who managed
adroitly to keep the conversation off himself, thereby winning the
admiration of his hostess—she rather enjoyed a lion who did not roar.
Finally, with the arrival of the savory which followed the dessert—for
Mrs. Lennox had adopted this English custom, she had the satisfaction of
seeing Miss Marston and her husband deep in talk, Miss Davis and Kenneth
“frivoling” as was their wont and was herself free to enjoy a
tête-à-tête with her guest of honor.

“Your country is a source of endless interest to me, Madame,” the
Frenchman was saying, “but it is as nothing to your women. They rival
ours—even surpass them.”

“I am afraid we are in danger of being told that too often,” laughed his
hostess, gaily.

“Some things bear repetition, Madame.”

“Have you known many of us, Monsieur?” she asked, interested. “I think
you said you had been over here before.”

“Yes, nearly two years ago, before I started off to Africa. It was
indeed the cause of my immediate start for Africa,” he said with a
retrospective air. “Then, too, Madame, America became very dear to me
through my friendship with Sidney Renshawe—we were like brothers
together in Paris.”

“Ah, yes, I know, he speaks of you with great affection. He will be up
from Virginia in a day or two, will he not?”

“Not before I am off. I go to New Orleans on important business and from
there to California, but I shall stay with him here on my return. Ah!
you cannot dream what he has been to me,” he cried with Gallic
enthusiasm, “he—and one other.”

“Will you come and tell me about it later, Monsieur, when you have
finished your cigars?” she said softly, picking up her gloves and giving
the signal to rise.

“Madame is very good,” he murmured, bowing low as he stood aside for her
to pass.

Left together, the three men drew near and by a common interest caused
Grémond to talk of his explorations for fully half an hour, which time
was all too short to his listeners, who were greatly interested in the
man as well as in what he had done. Though they had just met him within
the week he was well known to them through Renshawe, a warm friend of
Kenneth and the Lennoxes and the half hour over their cigars would
unquestionably have lengthened out indefinitely had the women not been
waiting for them in the drawing-room.

The party had expected to go to the opera together, but when the men
rejoined the women they found a change of plan, Miss Marston having
secretly confided to Mrs. Lennox that she had been “on the go” so
steadily for weeks that it would be bliss to keep still, and “Couldn’t
we all spend the evening here instead?” Pretty, disdainful Miss Davis,
seeing in this suggestion possibilities of a prolonged tête-à-tête with
Kenneth Landor, was enthusiastic in seconding it; while Mrs. Lennox
acquiesced gladly—she had put in an exhausting day at various
charitable organizations and was more tired than she cared to admit. As
for the men, they were loud in their acclamations of delight over what
Mr. Lennox called “the joy of a home evening.” Accordingly they left the
formal drawing-room and repaired to Mrs. Lennox’s sanctum, a unique room
finished in ebony, the dark wood relieved from somberness by a deep
frieze of Pompeiian figures done in red, while bits of this vivid color
were everywhere conspicuous in the furnishing. In all its appointments
it showed the touch of a strong individuality and expressed in its way
the æsthetic side of Mrs. Lennox’s nature. It had also what in a woman’s
room made it distinctive—space. Mrs. Lennox was a person who liked free
scope for her body as well as her mind.

The guests, therefore, distributed themselves about comfortably and Miss
Davis found herself exercising her fascinations upon the distinguished
foreigner, who encouraged her by undisguised admiration, which indeed he
had given her throughout dinner by glances meant to convey what the
distance of the table between them made it impossible to say. But the
paying of excessive compliments to a girl like Miss Davis, who cares
only for that sort of thing from the masculine sex, sometimes palls and
Grémond was just thinking a bit longingly of his charming hostess when
that individual approached them.

“Miss Davis,” she said, “Mr. Landor has been proposing a game of
billiards. He wants you to help him beat Miss Marston and my
husband—they have already begun to play, I believe. Will you join
them?”

“Do Miss Davis, will you?” urged Kenneth, who always enjoyed the game.

Miss Davis looked at him and rose by way of answer. She had long ago
discovered that her eyes did considerable execution. Then with a glance
at Grémond which said that he too might follow her, she went with
Kenneth across the hall into the billiard room.

Mrs. Lennox sank into a curiously carved old ebony chair, against which
her bare arms and shoulders gleamed white. She was gowned in black,
unrelieved except for the rope of pearls wound twice around her throat
and hanging in a loose chain to her waist; but the severity of outline
was exceedingly becoming to her slender figure and the absence of color
emphasized the beauty of her skin, which was as fair and soft as if she
were twenty instead of forty. She sighed a little as she leaned back in
her chair, and Grémond reaching for some cushions from a divan near by
tucked them in behind her comfortably.

“Madame is tired to-night,” he said.

“Monsieur Grémond,” turning her head the better to see him, “I feel as
if I should offer you a thousand apologies. I had planned a gay evening
for you and instead you are becoming initiated into intimate home life.
We are already treating you like one of the family. Fancy!”

“A privilege not accorded to many; is it not so, Madame? I feel
flattered beyond all telling.”

It pleased her that he was quick to recognize this as unusual treatment
of the stranger within her gates and she said cordially, “I felt when I
saw you that we should not make the usual beginning. It is a little
peculiarity of mine that I steal into people’s lives in the middle—when
I like them. I have never analyzed it, but I trust to my instincts and I
am not often mistaken. Now you,” she said, leaning languidly back on her
cushions, “you interest me and I’ve sent them all off to play billiards
that we may have a quiet little talk together. I want to hear more of
what you were telling me at dinner, if I may.”

“Madame is very good,” he said again. “We were speaking of Sidney
Renshawe, were we not?”

“Of him—‘and one other,’” she quoted, watching his eloquent face.

His black eyes softened and he leaned forward a little, using his hands
in frequent gesticulation as he began to talk. “I am reminded, Madame,
of a certain witty English author who said that Columbus discovered
America but America discovered him. To paraphrase him, I should say that
two Americans discovered me—dear old Renshawe and the most charming
little girl I ever knew.”

“Yes?” she said.

“But for those two, Madame, I might have been—anything!” He shrugged
his shoulders expressively. “The one had faith in me, the other taught
me to have faith in myself. She was my inspiration.” It seemed as
natural to him to confide in this charming woman as if he had known her
all his life, and in this he was not unlike the majority of people in
whom Mrs. Lennox showed an interest, for she had that divine gift which
for lack of an English word we call “simpatica”—an open sesame to all
hearts.

She was listening very quietly, but the look on her face was one of
absorbed attention as Grémond went on.

“For several years, Madame, I had been formulating my African plans, but
I lacked distinct purpose until I knew her. She had the American idea
that a man must accomplish something in the world. She thought I should
prove myself capable of the great things I talked about.”

“She can scarcely have reason to find fault with you now,” the woman
said.

“I hope not, Madame, when she knows what I have tried to do and how much
more I shall do when I return.”

“Are you going to tell her—soon?”

“Soon?” with a quick indrawing of his breath, “as soon as I can get to
California, but alas! that will not be for many weeks. I am not sure
that she will want to listen to me, Madame, but I shall make her; I
must.”

“You met her in Europe, I fancy?”

“On the contrary, I met her in Southern California in one of the big
hotels where I was stopping. She was living there and we were thrown
together constantly, laughing, dancing, riding—a gay life. Now and then
when we touched on serious subjects I was amazed and moved by her great
comprehension and high ideals.”

“Does she not know what a powerful factor she has been in your life?”
she asked.

“Not yet, Madame. I went away with my heart full of her, but said no
word. I felt I had not the right on so short an acquaintance and before
I had really accomplished anything.”

“Perhaps not, my friend, but I am not sure that I altogether agree with
you. I feel that she liked you, with possibly more than the ordinary
liking, and a girl wants some sign.”

“I wrote her once, asking her to hold me in remembrance; was that a
sign, Madame? It was all I dared to make. It seemed to me it was deeds
and not words that were wanted.”

“It was both, Monsieur, if you will allow me to say so, for without
words how could a girl know that deeds were done for her sake alone?”

“I thought she would know it all because I loved her so,” he faltered.

“Oh, you men, you men!” Mrs. Lennox cried impatiently, “how you do
expect a woman to take things for granted! Forgive me, Monsieur
Grémond”—leaning forward and touching his arm—“but sometimes I get
very cross over it.”

“Oh Madame, Madame!” he exclaimed impetuously, “you cannot think, you
cannot mean I have made a mistake?”

“Indeed, no,” she replied reassuringly, seeing how his confident manner
had changed to despair, “but I do mean that the ways of women are not
more enigmatical than those of men—_some_ men,” she qualified.

He laughed, glad to have the tension of the past moment broken by her
light tone. For a moment neither spoke. Across the hall came the faint
clicking of the billiard-balls.

“We must join the others, Monsieur,” the woman said at last.

“May I thank you for the pleasantest hour I have spent since my
arrival?” he said earnestly as he rose.

“The pleasantest—as yet. Eh, Monsieur?” with a charming smile.

“As yet, Madame,” bowing gravely over her hand which he had taken in
his.

“Then will you come to me again, when you return and tell me _all_ about
it?” with a faint pressure of her fingers in his.

“May I, Madame? Ah, that will be a privilege indeed!” and stooping he
kissed her hand.

A moment later they had joined the others.




CHAPTER XII


“Those Dale girls are certainly remarkable!”

“I have always maintained that, Mary.”

“Remarkably surprising, I mean,” corrected Miss Ware, fingering the
coffee-cups noisily in rather an irritating manner as it seemed to her
brother, who was running over his voluminous morning mail.

“What have they done now?” he asked looking up at her over his glasses.

“To my mind a most unlady-like, vulgar thing. Here it is if you want to
see.” A second look at a card in her hand before passing it over caused
her to exclaim, “No! Is it possible! Mrs. Lennox has taken them up! Her
name is actually printed on the card—it is the most astonishing thing I
ever heard of!”

“If you mean their business cards, Mary, I was consulted and saw the
original draft and recommended the printer. Um,” examining the card
critically, “he has turned out an excellent piece of work, artistic and
quiet in tone. I thought he could be relied upon.”

“Philip, you are too exasperating! I believe if those girls sold papers
on the street corner you would think it the finest thing ever done!”

“I probably should,” he rejoined imperturbably. “As for these cards,
they are something to be proud of! ‘Salads, croquettes, fancy
sandwiches, jellies, salted nuts, etc., etc.,’” he went on, running his
eye down the list. “Gad! how they have pushed ahead! They mailed five
hundred of these yesterday,” looking over at his sister, “and I fancy
Radnor people will not be slow in responding.”

“Oh! Mrs. Lennox’s name will be an alluring bait,” she said. “People
will patronize them because she does, for a time, but they make a great
mistake in relying upon her; this is just one of her fads.”

“I can’t understand, Mary, how you take such delight in imputing
disagreeable motives to people. Mrs. Lennox is not patronizing the
girls—she has great respect for them. Neither are they relying on her
in the least. They rely only on their own skill and ability to do their
work to the satisfaction of their customers. Mrs. Lennox has kindly
allowed them to add her name by way of reference or indorsement for
those people who know nothing about them. It places them before the
public in an unassailable position.”

“Are they going to open a shop?” asked Miss Ware, a little
superciliously, interested in spite of herself.

“No, they mean to keep right on as they are, making things only to
order. They will have no stock on hand. It is the best they can do under
the circumstances, for it is impossible to branch out to any
considerable extent while their father needs them close at hand.”

“Good gracious, Philip! you wouldn’t advise a shop?” She made a wry face
over her coffee, in which, in the excitement of the discussion, she had
neglected to put any sugar.

“I don’t know,” the Doctor replied, stroking his beard thoughtfully, “I
am not sure. Being conducted in their home, a business such as theirs
must of necessity be limited, and the profits small. One must do things
in large quantities to make money. I have thought a good deal about a
little shop—it may come to that eventually, but I am not sure that I
want it to. They are not going to hold out forever; as it is they are
living on their nerves,—they have been too delicately reared to stand
such work.” He pushed his plate away and folding his arms on the table
leaned forward confidentially. “Mary,” he said, “I wish I could get you
to care for those girls—to love all that is so sweet and lovable in
them.”

“Perhaps I’d care more for them, Philip, if you did not care so much.”

“What!” in astonishment, “why you aren’t—you can’t be jealous of them,
Mary?”

“I don’t know,” she replied, looking away from him, “women are queer,
even we old ones—perhaps we’re queerest of all!”

“Why, Mary, what nonsense to be jealous of two little girls who regard
me in the light of a venerable uncle.”

“I should not call a fine-looking man in the prime of life ‘venerable,’”
said his sister resentfully, for she was immensely proud of her
distinguished brother. “I am sure it would be very odd if they did not
admire you for more reasons than one!”

“It is not a question of their admiring me, Mary, but of my admiring
them. And I am not the only one. People are beginning to talk about them
aside from Mrs. Lennox. Mary, I want them to marry!”

“Marry!” she exclaimed. “No eligible man would marry girls who cook and
deliver boxes at people’s doors and do goodness knows what besides.”

“You are very much mistaken, and while you cling to your absurd opinions
I don’t think it is desirable to continue the conversation.” He rose
with dignity and passed into his office.

Miss Ware followed him. “Philip,” she queried with feminine curiosity,
“had you any one special in mind?”

The Doctor was lost in the depths of the morning paper.

“Philip, I—I dare say I expressed myself rather strongly;” (this from
Miss Ware was a great concession). “_Was_ there any one special in your
mind?”

“And what if there was, Mary?” answered the Doctor, slightly appeased
but not wholly mollified, “would you really care to know?”

“Yes, I should. It is so unusual for you to be developing match-making
proclivities.”

“That is true. I seldom think of such matters and, mind you, I do not by
any means think that girls should marry just for the sake of
marrying—that it is the end and aim of their existence—but in the case
of the Dales my heart is set upon it.”

“I thought you approved of women who were self-supporting,” remarked his
sister, considerably surprised at the view he presented.

“So I do, when circumstances require it or their temperaments demand
independence and they are properly trained to stand shoulder to shoulder
with men in business or professional life. But these little girls are
wrestling with the bare problems of existence, working with the nervous
tension of a high-bred race-horse, using up their vitality over pots and
kettles and pans and smiling, smiling all the time as if they liked it!”

“Why, I thought they did like it!” Verily this was a morning of
surprises.

“Like it!” cried the Doctor, trying to keep down the anger in his voice,
“would you like it to be taken out of a life of keen enjoyment—a life
crowded with incidents and continuous change of scene such as the Dales
lived and be put down in a comparatively strange place, unrecognized
socially, without young companionship and, worse still, to see a father
whom they adore perfectly helpless and dependent on them for every
mouthful of bread! It is a wonder to me the spirit is not crushed out of
them!”

“I never quite thought of it like that, Philip.”

“Of course you didn’t, Mary. You thought they were rebellious,
head-strong young things who liked being cramped up in a kitchen all
day, beating their arms off over batches of dough and stirring
mayonnaise until they are ready to fall into the bowl from sheer
exhaustion! But I want you to look at it differently, I do indeed, and I
want you to help me put a new interest in their lives.”

“I will, Philip, there is my hand on it.”

The Doctor clasped it warmly. “What do you think of Landor?” he said.

“Kenneth Landor? Does he know them?”

“He met Hester here one day and was immensely taken with her. Afterward
he ran across them in my house in the apartment below them. There is an
invalid boy there whom Kenneth heard of—you know he is always finding
out-of-the-way people and going to see them. He told me he only saw the
girls there a moment, but he’s taken a violent fancy to the boy, who
talks about Julie and Hester by the hour together. Landor wants to meet
the girls again—he has asked me to ask him here to meet them, but I
have always put him off on one pretext or another, knowing it was
useless to try to do anything while you felt as you did, but now you
will arrange something, won’t you, Mary? You have such a talent for
little parties.”

“The girls won’t come. Have you heard them speak of Kenneth?”

“Only casually, most casually. Hester always gets the talk off on
something else when I mention him.”

“That’s a good sign.”

“A good sign!” said the Doctor, much puzzled, “I thought it was a bad
one.”

“Oh! you men,” laughed Miss Ware, “you don’t know anything. When a girl
does not discuss a man it is usually because he interests her. Do you
think,” she said seriously, “the girls, if they knew, would like your
disposing of one of them in this calm fashion?”

“Mary, I beg of you, do not misunderstand me. I have no wish to dispose
of them. Kenneth may not fall in love with either of them, though I
don’t see how he can help it” (this under his breath), “and neither of
them may care in the least for him, but it would gladden my heart if the
thing could be. He is an admirable fellow in every way, and during the
past month he has gone into business with his father. Did you know that?
There is no doubt that he could make a comfortable home for them all.
Even if nothing comes of it I want him to know them—he’ll be a better
man all his life for knowing them—and I want them to have a little
diversion, a little outside interest to take them out of the rut. I’ll
leave it all to you, Mary,” he ended, with a comfortable feeling of
security.

“I suppose, you know,” she said as she was leaving, “that both the girls
have had several offers of marriage.”

“No, I didn’t know.”

“Mr. Dale mentioned it when he was discussing the question of my
chaperoning them this winter. He said he wanted me to understand that
the girls were in some ways much older than their years and that having
been, through their constant companionship with him, thrown much into
the society of men, it was natural they should have had that experience.
He also said that neither girl had the slightest desire to marry for the
present or had ever shown any preference for one man above another. I
fancied from what he said that their manner toward men was frank, rather
a sort of ‘camaraderie’ than the silly sentimental attitude some girls
affect.”

“You are perfectly right, Mary, they have a most engaging frankness of
manner.”

“May I ask you one thing, Philip?”

“Certainly,” suddenly apprehensive of the question coming.

“How do you know they are beating their arms off over batches of
dough”—the phrase seemed to have stuck in her mind—“I mean how did you
realize it? Did they tell you?”

“Not they;” secretly relieved, “I hear it from Bridget. She worries her
faithful old heart out about them and vows me to secrecy when she
confides in me, for she says they would never forgive her if they knew
she took it so hard.”

“Good old Bridget,” he said to himself, for his sister had vanished
without another word, “how my little girls would scold her!”

Good old Bridget indeed, who told much, but was far too loyal to tell
all she knew!




CHAPTER XIII


“Hester, ‘we have arrived,’ as they say in France. This has been a
momentous month. We’ve sent out our cards and bought our first groceries
at wholesale.” Julie leaned her elbows on the kitchen table and gazed
with a rapt meditative air at their first barrel of sugar.

Bridget stood in the doorway openly admiring. “It’s like old times, Miss
Julie dear, to be seein’ things come in quantities agen.” She had
secretly harbored a grudge against the miserable little paper bags.

Peter Snooks sniffed at the unfamiliar barrel and then sat down beside
it with a comical air of importance, but Hester did not leave him long
undisturbed, for in wild exuberance of spirits she executed a war-dance
in which he joined, at the end of which she mounted the barrel and with
arms extended made a speech.

“Ladies and gentlemen (the gentlemen’s _you_, Snooks);

“This is the proudest moment of my life!”

Having delivered herself of this burst of eloquence she paused a moment
dramatically, then plunged into such a torrent of nonsense that Bridget
buried her head in her apron to stifle her laughter, Peter Snooks barked
frantically in a fit of delight and Julie pulled the young orator down
ignominiously.

“Come into the other room,” she said. “Daddy is asleep and I don’t want
you to wake him.”

Instantly subdued, Hester tip-toed down the hall, following her sister.

“Are we going to discuss affairs of state?” she whispered.

“No, but we must come to some decision about Mrs. Lennox’s invitation
for Thursday night. I think we ought to go.”

“Well, I don’t. I object to being patronized.”

“Oh! my dear, don’t look at it like that; it is not kind of you. You
regard Mrs. Lennox as a friend, do you not?”

“A business friend, yes; the kindest and best we have, but that is not
knowing her socially.”

“No, dear, but she wants to know us socially or she would not have
invited us to her house. Don’t you see that is what it means, Hester? It
is not patronizing us, but placing us on an equal footing—”

“Where we belong,” interrupted Hester, “though I don’t think we need
feel overwhelmed by Radnor’s recognition of the fact.” She spoke
bitterly in a tone that cut her sister.

“Hester dear, it does hurt to be utterly ignored by the people who used
to know us when we were children, but there are enough outside of Radnor
who have stood by us loyally and we will make headway here eventually
when people get a little more used to us.”

“Do you suppose I care a snap of my finger about these Radnor girls,”
said Hester savagely. “They’re a narrow snobbish lot and I’m glad I’ve
escaped knowing them! Just yesterday, as I was delivering that great box
of sandwiches at Mrs. Crane’s I met Jessie Davis on the steps—she’d
been calling there. Don’t you remember how we always played together
when we were little tots at school? Well, of course I knew her
immediately—she hasn’t changed a bit, and she knew me, but it was
surprising how absorbed she suddenly became in looking for her carriage
which was standing right under her nose! Think how disgraced she would
have been before her footman if I—nothing better than a parcel-delivery
girl—had spoken to her! She needn’t have been afraid,” scornfully,
giving full vent to her smothered wrath, “I wouldn’t have spoken to her
to have saved her life!”

“She is not worth getting angry about, dear. You ought to pity her for
not knowing any better.”

“She knows better, well enough,” said the irate Hester, who rather liked
to nurse her wrath. “She’s a nasty little snob!”

“Well, she is,” agreed Julie, “but I can’t help pitying her for all she
has missed in not knowing you.”

Hester smiled. “It is wicked of me to spit out at you, Julie dear. You
did not make snobs and you have to encounter them just as much as I do.
I dare say if we go to Mrs. Lennox’s we shall run up against some, but a
party does sound pleasant, doesn’t it?”

“I think, dear,” said Julie with that quiet little matronly air she
unconsciously assumed when she was trying to win over her sister, “I
think that even though parties are not at all in our line these days, we
should go. It is not a party, really, only an informal little musicale.
It will freshen us up tremendously to get into a different atmosphere
and it will please Mrs. Lennox, who has gone out of her way to be kind.”
She looked at her sister entreatingly.

“Julie, you are a saint! Sometimes you talk just like Daddy!”

Julie’s eyes moistened. “I am not a saint,” she protested. “Think what
Miss Ware will say when she hears of it?”

Hester’s eyes gleamed. “That settles it—I am going, and if you want to
know my honest opinion, I love Mrs. Lennox for asking us.”

There were many orders that week and their working capacity was taxed to
its utmost to meet the demand. Had it not been for their systematic
arrangement of everything it would have been impossible to accomplish so
much. They had learned that the early hours of the morning are the best
and got to work by six, continuing on through the day as long as there
was anything to do. They had laid down stringent rules for work hours
and strenuously endeavored to live by them.

By Thursday they were absorbed in the largest order they had yet
received, embracing as it did croquettes, patties and other elaborate
things which in an unguarded moment they had agreed to send hot to some
club-rooms in the neighborhood. Hester thought they could do this by
packing the things in a big steamer they had recently purchased. The
steamer was a large tin affair built in sections of trays and would pack
to great advantage, besides holding a considerable amount of boiling
water at the bottom whereby the things could be kept hot. They had
engaged an expressman to deliver this promptly at quarter past eight and
it was with anxious hearts and nervous fingers they made the final
preparations for packing. The cooking of all these elaborate things had
been in itself no light achievement, but even that was as nothing to
their fear lest the steamer should not reach its destination safely.
They had been at work since five that morning and wrapped and boxed and
packed securely was the last thing when the clock struck eight that
evening. Five minutes past eight and no expressman! Quarter after, and
two excited girls stared at each other across the steamer! Then Hester
fled to the basement. The janitor was out but she pounced upon the
engineer and got him upstairs before he realized what it was all about.
“You’re to go on an errand,” was all she had vouchsafed him, leaving
Julie to explain the rest.

The man when he reached their kitchen eyed the big steamer curiously and
said he could carry it. Whereupon Julie wanted to fall upon his neck
with joy, but showed him the address tied to the cover instead.

“Be’gorra miss,” he said in evident embarrassment, “I ain’t been in the
city a week. Not the name of a street am I after knowin’ entirely.”

Here was a dilemma.

“I’ll go with him,” said Bridget.

“You’ll do nothing of the sort,” said Julie, “you have been half dead
with rheumatism for two days and it is pouring in torrents. We’ll go,
Hester and I—we can get there in fifteen minutes. Hustle, Hester!”

It was an incongruous little procession that went out into the storm,
the girls leading, the man keeping close to his guides, who encouraged
him by a word now and then. He walked firmly and with head erect, not
because this was his habitual gait, but because he had been warned that
any undue motion of his body would bring showers of scalding water down
his back. An admonition like this was not to be disregarded and he
picked his way gingerly to the basement door of the club where the girls
rang the bell and the supper was safely left in the hands of the
housekeeper. Then having lavishly rewarded their cavalier two
light-hearted girls rushed home through the night to Bridget.

She welcomed them as if they had returned from some great peril, petted
and scolded them because of their wet things and fussed about like a hen
whose goslings have swam safely back to shore.

“I’ve made you a pot of coffee to warm your blessed selves,” she said.
“It’s a wonder you don’t kill yourselves entirely.”

“You Bridget!” said Julie affectionately as she kicked off her wet
shoes, “won’t you put me to bed just as if I were a little bit of a
girl?” With those tired eyes and that pathetic droop to her mouth she
did not look much of anything else as she said it.

“Julie Dale! are you crazy! Mrs. Lennox’s carriage is coming at nine
o’clock to take us to the musicale! You’ve ten minutes to dress!” Hester
made this announcement with a high tragedy air.

Julie jumped as if she had been shot. “I had completely forgotten it,
Hester. Oh! my dear, I am so dead tired I don’t feel as if I could
move.”

“Well, you’ve got to,” remarked Hester, who, having made up her mind to
do a thing, was not easily turned from her purpose; “you got me into
this thing and we’ll go if it kills us! I know I just about struck it
when I called this place ‘The Hustle’” she ruminated. “I am sure I don’t
feel as if I’d drawn a long breath since we came here!”

“What shall we wear?” asked Julie who scrambled after her sister,
shedding her wet things as she went.

“I got out your light silks, dearie,” came from Bridget.

“Do you suppose we ought to wear hats?” This from Hester, who was
wishing they had planned their costumes the night before.

“Perhaps we ought,” ruefully. “Good gracious! I haven’t any—not a small
one, Hester.”

“A trifle inconvenient, isn’t it? I might lend you the rose toque I
bought in Paris.”

“Indeed you won’t, it exactly matches your gown and you look dear in it.
I’ll wear a bow in my hair or something.” A bow, to Julie, always filled
any discrepancy.

Hester arrested her in the act of trying this effect before the mirror
and sat her down brusquely in a chair.

“Give me that bow,” she commanded, “and keep still. _I’ll make a hat on
your head!_ Bridget, you get down her picture hat quick, and rip off the
tips and the band of jet and some lace and we’ll fix her up in a jiffy!”

It was a wonderful creation—just a bit of lace and jet and ribbon with
never a stitch in it, all fastened with hairpins to Julie’s curly head.
Two white ostrich tips stood up saucily at the side, a few violets were
coquettishly stuck in the back and the effect was immensely modish and
becoming.

“Hold your head high all the evening and don’t toss it about for your
life!” warned Hester. “If you do, the whole thing will fall to pieces.”

“That’s a cheerful prospect,” commented Julie, surveying herself in the
glass. “Can’t you put in more hairpins?”

“You’ve got about a million now.” Hester’s imagination never failed her.

“Shure you look beautiful, Miss Julie, dear,” said Bridget, “and it
ain’t goin’ to come to pieces—Miss Hester’s only teasin’ yer.”

Five minutes later they were rolling through the storm in Mrs. Lennox’s
brougham.

“Hester,” whispered Julie from the depths of her luxurious corner, “_I_
never tramped out in the wet to-night to deliver a club supper, did
you?”

“Certainly not,” squeezing her hand hard, “who ever heard of such a
thing!”

Something very like a tremor of nervous excitement pervaded the girls as
their names were announced on the threshold of Mrs. Lennox’s
drawing-room. Their entrance attracted immediate attention. Mrs. Lennox
received them as Mrs. Lennox would, with most charming cordiality, yet
not too pronounced lest they be made to feel that their coming was not a
matter of common occurrence. She made a mental note of the fact that her
protégés had never looked prettier and was immensely pleased with their
poise and perfect self-possession under what she knew must be for them
something of an ordeal. If she could have looked into Julie’s heart she
would have discovered a shyness in coming among these people that
amounted to positive pain; but who would ever have suspected it from
that smiling exterior and that proud tilt of the head?

As for Hester, from the moment a woman who was one of their customers
bowed to her in a puzzled sort of way and then whispered so loud that
every one about her could hear, “Why it’s those Dale girls!”—from that
moment Hester’s spirit of deviltry awoke and she determined to outshine
every girl in the room.

Mrs. Lennox immediately presented half a dozen men who formed a little
group about them and presently she steered them all toward some chairs
preparatory to settling down to hear the music. As they crossed the room
several women with whom they had had business dealings, bowed to them
cordially. In a corner on a tête-à-tête seat sat Jessie Davis with
Kenneth Landor. Both looked up as the party approached and Landor gave a
half-stifled exclamation. Hester’s luminous eyes swept by the girl and
into the man’s face with such a distracting smile that he was on his
feet in a second.

“How do you do?” she said sweetly, just the suspicion of a smile still
lurking about the corners of her mouth while she extended her hand
cordially.

The man took it in an eager clasp and blessed the Fates for this
propitious moment. “This is charming,” he said. “It is a great pleasure
to see you.”

“Yes, is it not?” naïvely. “Julie, here is Mr. Landor,” bringing him
into the circle quite as if he were an old friend.

Genuinely glad to see him, Julie showed it unreservedly. All the men
knew him and envied him his luck as the little party found seats
together.

“You must not let us break up your tête-à-tête,” remonstrated the wicked
Hester with a glance in the direction of the divan where Miss Davis sat
deserted.

Miss Davis, gazing into space, heard and bit her lip with vexation. She
thought the airs the little upstart gave herself were intolerable. What
could Mrs. Lennox be thinking of to bring those Dale girls into society?

But Landor did not go back to her. Man fashion, he pleased himself by
becoming Hester’s shadow during the remainder of the evening, though he
was not allowed to monopolize her—far from it. He had to content
himself with scraps of conversation, for every man in the room wanted to
be presented and each found her so diverting and original that there was
constantly a little crowd about her, while in the intervals of the music
peals of merry laughter came from her corner of the room.

Julie, who was holding a little court of her own, could hear her and
rejoice, and she was especially glad that this should be so when later
in the evening Miss Ware, escorted by her brother, entered the room. She
recognized the girls and was conscious of their success five minutes
after her arrival and there was within her something like envy of Mrs.
Lennox who had been the first to take into the elect these social
renegades.

As for Dr. Ware, he threw himself with enthusiasm into the gayety of
Hester’s corner, vying with the younger men in jests and laughter. Later
he sauntered down the room, stopping on the way to chat with this person
and that, and sought out Julie, who, though she greeted him so smilingly
seemed to him suddenly remote. It was as if she had slipped away into a
younger world than his and an indefinable sensation awoke within him,
filling him with unrest. Partly because of this and partly because the
pleasure in her evident pleasure was so great, he lingered near her,
giving her that quiet, unobtrusive attention which his old friendship
warranted. And Julie liked to have him near. She was glad that he smiled
so approvingly upon her, happy that this little frivolity was given the
additional delight of his presence. For it was all delightfully
frivolous and gay, though Julie’s excitement and animation were
naturally somewhat tempered by her headgear, especially as every now and
then when she forgot herself and nodded her head emphatically over
something, Hester would give her a warning glance. Poor Julie! the
“proud and haughty” tilt became very trying, but it _was_ distinguished
and caused Mr. Lennox, who was most critical, likewise somewhat horsey,
to confide to his wife afterward that she was a thoroughbred.

“I hope you’ll have them often,” he said, when the last guest had
departed and they had settled down before the library fire to talk it
over. “After the cut-and-dried young people one usually meets they are
perfectly refreshing. I had a long talk with the blonde one—is she
Julie?—during supper about Arizona. Found myself telling her all about
my irrigation schemes out there. Fancy finding a young girl who
understands such things! She knows that country well and gave me an idea
or two worth considering.”

“I should like to have them often, John, but they won’t come. Their work
engrosses them to the exclusion of everything; it has to be so—they
need all their strength to get through the days. I understand it
perfectly. Did you notice how people were all in a flutter about them? I
fancy I have given Radnor something to talk about!”

“Oh! well, that is not unusual. Do you mean to say people have cut them?
It seems incredible in these enlightened days.”

“It is true, nevertheless, though Julie told me the other day that their
customers were showing the kindest possible interest in their work and
encouraging them by renewed orders; that every one showed them courtesy
and consideration in a business way, but I happen to know, though she
did not say so, that there it stops. The line is distinctly drawn. None
of the daughters of those women show any inclination to renew their
acquaintance with the girls, though many of them were their playfellows
years ago.”

“Well, they’re a disgrace to their sex, that is all I’ve got to
say—I’ve no patience with that sort of thing!” Mr. Lennox put down a
half-smoked cigar and pushed back his chair. “They were the success of
the evening, Mabel, and I am proud to know them. It strikes me,” slyly,
“there were others who succumbed to their fascinations. Landor, for
instance, and Dr. Ware—”

“Oh, he is their father’s oldest friend.”

“And Renshawe, who displayed surprising interest in Arizona when he
found us talking about it. Have you ever known him to care a hang about
Arizona before?”

“No,” laughed his wife, “but Sidney Renshawe always rises to the
occasion when he is interested. Principally it is Virginia he talks
about now. By the way, he is expecting Monsieur Grémond back from
California any day. Did you know?”

“I was glad to have a chance to speak to her of her father, too,” said
Mr. Lennox, who apparently had not heeded his wife’s last remarks. “I
knew Mr. Dale somewhat at the club and regretted his collapse as we all
did. She had such a pretty proud look when I spoke of him, as if I
couldn’t say too much. I felt as if I would like to take her off to some
quiet corner and talk to her by the hour together.”

“So you shall, my dear. Together we will lay siege and capture them
again. I should like to give a dinner for them soon.

“Oh! ask them informally when we are not entertaining,” remonstrated her
husband who evidently desired to monopolize them.

“Very well, dear, and if it pleases you to watch Julie’s eloquent
face—and I assure you Hester’s is equally so—Mr. Dale shall be the
chief topic of conversation. I never knew him, but it is a great deal to
know his daughters, John.”

Which sentiment being shared by the master of the house the mistress
called the midnight session off and they went upstairs.




CHAPTER XIV


It was a dismal rainy afternoon, and the work of the day having been
finished early the girls were ensconced in their little sitting-room
reveling in a well-earned rest. By the way of unusual dissipation a
teakettle was hissing on the table, while the freshly filled sugar bowl
and bits of lemon told of preparations for the cup that cheers.
Stretched out at full length on the floor lay Hester in her favorite
attitude. At her feet sprawled Peter Snooks, chewing frantically at a
piece of rubber tire which was at once his solace and despair, defying
as it did his most strenuous efforts to tear it to bits. Julie, who had
donned a negligé and shaken the pins out of her curly hair, was buried
in a book, yet with one ear alert lest her father in the adjoining room
should stir and want something. Bridget, remarkable to relate, had taken
an afternoon out.

Presently Julie dropped her book and curling herself into the depths of
the chair was dozing off when Hester said abruptly, “There’s a stranger
coming!”

Julie started up and gazed about as if expecting some one to loom up
before her.

“There is,” reiterated Hester.

“Is what?” sleepily.

“A stranger coming.”

“How do you know?”

“My nose itches,” announced the younger Dale, rubbing the tip of that
saucy feature.

“Nonsense! That’s an old granny’s reason.”

“Can’t help it if it is. There is only one alternative and that is to
kiss a fool. You would not exactly class yourself in that category,
would you?” turning on her elbow to look at her sister. “Of course if
you insist—” and Hester leaned toward her.

Julie gave her a push. “You idiot! go kiss yourself in a mirror.” But
the doorbell rang.

Julie bounced from her chair and fled down the hall. Hester stifled her
desire to laugh and opened the door on a tall, well-built man who stared
as he beheld her.

“Why—this is Mr. Renshawe, is it not?” the girl said with perfect
composure though inwardly amazed at seeing him. “Won’t you come in?”

“How do you do—thanks—I—that is—” he stammered helplessly.

“You wish to see my sister, of course,” ushering him in. “We did not
meet the other night at Mrs. Lennox’s, did we? but you see I heard about
you afterward. I’ll go and call my sister.”

“Oh! no, don’t, please, I beg of you. I must apologize for this
impertinent intrusion—I’ve made some abominable mistake!” In the hand
in which he was nervously twisting his hat, Hester caught a glimpse of
one of their business cards and in a flash the whole purport of his
visit was made clear to her.

“I do not think it is a mistake,” she said naturally. “I imagine you
have come to see us on business, have you not? Won’t you sit down, Mr.
Renshawe?”

“Oh, may I? Thanks. Do you do business?” he gasped incredulously,
glancing from the piquant girl about the pretty room where no suggestion
of anything like work was visible.

“Yes,” replied Hester, “all kinds of fancy cooking. Possibly you’ve seen
our cards,” she suggested in a desire to help him out.

He produced the one in his hand with the air of a guilty culprit. “Yes,
I have,” he confessed. “It was given me this afternoon by the manager of
Heath & Co. He knows I give a good many bachelor parties in my chambers
and recommended these things. But Miss Dale,” he protested, “I had no
idea it was you and your sister—it never occurred to me.”

“Why should it?” asked Hester, “but it is, just the same, and we shall
be very glad to fill your order.” She went to a desk and brought forth a
pad and pencil in a business-like manner.

He sat watching her with a puzzled, utterly perplexed expression drawing
his eye-brows together. Suddenly as she returned to her chair opposite
him he cried,

“By Jove! I know now, exactly—that’s just who you are!” looking into
her face with evident relief.

Hester wanted to laugh and say “Is it?” to this ambiguous remark but
having assumed her formal business manner she maintained a discreet
silence and waited for him to explain.

“You are little Miss Driscoe’s cousin!” he announced.

“Are you the Radnor man who has been visiting at the Blake’s
plantation?” cried Hester impulsively, forgetting in her excitement that
he was to be kept on a strictly business footing.

“I shouldn’t wonder,” was his smiling reply. “I’ve been there several
times this past winter; in fact I came up from there only last week.”

“Oh! did you? Long ago Nannie wrote us that there had been a Radnor man
at her birthday party but she quite forgot to mention his name. Oh! I
wish Julie had known this the other night! She would have loved a chance
to ask you all about the Driscoes. Isn’t Nannie the dearest little
thing?”

“If I hadn’t been a duffer, Miss Dale, I might have placed your sister
immediately when I met her, for I have had the minutest descriptions of
you both, I assure you. There was something very baffling about her that
night, as if I must have known her or at least seen her before
somewhere, but—”

“But you did not expect to see us in society, perhaps?”

He glanced at her as if the better to understand if her tone were
cynical, but her bland little smile told him nothing and before he could
make any reply she said:

“I am afraid we have strayed too far from important things, Mr.
Renshawe. It is shocking of me to encroach upon your time. Is there
anything we can do for you in a business way?” She told Julie afterward
she was quite proud of this little speech, for she had been consumed
with a desire to ask him a thousand questions about the Driscoes.

Renshawe interpreted it to mean that the chat was at an end and he
feared that in some clumsy way he had offended her, but she steered him
into a discussion of the order he had come to leave with such a calm
matter-of-fact air that he found himself consulting her about salads and
cakes with an ease he would not have believed possible when he entered
the room. He had never been brought into business relations with a young
girl of her position and he admired exceedingly her manner. The order
having been arranged quite to his satisfaction he dismissed the subject
and made up his mind to have his say in spite of the cue Hester had
given him. So as he rose to leave he said:

“I hope you will forgive me, Miss Dale, if I tell you I feel quite as if
I knew you and your sister and I am immensely glad to meet you. You see
the Blakes took me frequently to Wavertree Hall and Miss Nannie spoke of
you so often; she—”

“Dear little Nan,” the girl said musingly, “how I should love to see
her!”

The man looked as if he would like to echo that sentiment, but he only
said as he moved toward the door:

“Will you be very kind, Miss Dale, and let Mrs. Lennox bring me some
time to see you and your sister? I have so many messages from Virginia,
for Miss Nannie was confident I should meet you and you see she was
right.”

“Indeed you may come,” said Hester frankly, “we—we do not receive many
visitors, but I know Julie will be glad to see you—I shall too,”
genuinely, and not as if politeness prompted this after-thought.

“Thank you. For the next few weeks I am owned body and soul,” smiling,
“by Jules Grémond who is stopping with me. Perhaps you know of him, Miss
Dale? He’s made considerable of a stir since he came out of Africa. An
old chum of mine whom I think you might enjoy meeting—perhaps after
awhile you will allow me to arrange it.”

Hester always says she acted like a fool at this juncture and stammered
out some unintelligible reply, and that he immediately departed, she
thinks without any special consciousness of her idiocy—or at least she
hopes so, for she frankly confesses she was in no state of mind to know.
However that may be, the door had no sooner closed after him than the
dignified junior Dale, caterer, became metamorphosed into an excited
young girl who flew down the hall to the room where her sister had taken
refuge.

“Come back to the sitting-room where we can talk without waking Daddy,
quick!” she cried, pulling Julie down the hall. “Now what do you
suppose?” when they had reached the little room.

“Some one has left an extra fine order,” seeing several pieces of paper
clutched nervously in Hester’s hand.

“Don’t be so everlastingly material!” pinning the papers with a vicious
stab to the back of the chair. “It has nothing to do with work,
whatever—that is not exactly. Oh! do guess who has been here—and who
_is_ here?”

“Hester, are you hiding some one to surprise me?” looking eagerly about.
“I know it is a man—I heard him. It can’t be Dr. Ware; it wasn’t his
step. It’s—it’s—oh! Hester Dale, is it cousin Driscoe?”

“You’re getting hot,” cried Hester encouragingly, reveling in her
sister’s excited curiosity.

“Tell me this minute,” demanded Julie, shaking her. “What other man
would be coming here?”

“Well, there _are_ others,” laughed Hester, teasingly. “Mr. Renshawe,
for instance.”

“No!”

“Honor bright! And who do you suppose he is?” mysteriously.

“Don’t be so tantalizing! What on earth do I know about him?”
wrathfully.

“Well, you ought to. He hung around you the whole evening at Mrs.
Lennox’s, you know he did. I simply wasn’t in it. I don’t believe he
even knew I was there!”

“You idiot! I had no personal talk with him whatever. As for you, you
flirted shockingly with Mr. Landor. I was astonished at you!” severely.

“I _was_ nice to him, wasn’t I?” admitted Hester, “but that was all for
Jessie Davis’ benefit.”

“So I thought, you depraved wretch! Will you kindly tell me what all
this has to do with your present excitement?”

Hester sat on the edge of her chair and delivered her next speech in
italics.

“Mr. Renshawe is the man who went to Nannie’s party and got the ring in
her birthday cake!”

“Not really!”

“And he came here not knowing who we really were, because the manager at
Heath’s gave him one of our cards and recommended us as caterers. You
ought to have seen him, Julie! He was embarrassed almost to death and I
felt flustered myself, to say the least, but we managed to get through
the business part nicely and then at the end he just floored me!”

“Hester!” Words other than ejaculations seemed to have failed Julie.

The younger girl came over and stood in front of her to get the full
effect of her next speech, the most important piece of news, which she
had had hard work to keep until the last.

“Jules Grémond is in this country, staying with Mr. Renshawe now,” she
said.

Julie was rendered wholly inarticulate, but the color spread in a
crimson wave over her face and she made a grab at her sister, pulling
her down beside her.

“You are guying me!” she cried when she could speak.

“It is the solemn truth; ‘cross my heart, hope to die,’” maintained
Hester dramatically. “Moreover the things Mr. Renshawe has ordered are
for a tea he is giving for Monsieur Grémond to-morrow and the Fates
decree that we shall tickle the palate of the distinguished African
explorer with sandwiches and things! Oh! Julie, what a funny world!”

“How do you know he is distinguished?” asked Julie, clasping her hands
behind her head that her nervous fingers might not betray her.

“Because I do. Mr. Renshawe as much as said so. I wouldn’t have believed
he had it in him, would you?”

“I don’t know; we really hardly knew him well enough to judge.”

“Umph! I don’t know about that. What do you suppose he is doing here,
Julie? Do you think he’ll look us up?” hesitatingly.

“Of course not,” with more asperity than the innocent questions seemed
to justify. “He will never dream of our being in Radnor. You know we had
been some weeks at the hotel in Los Angeles when he came, and for all he
knew we might have been going to spend the rest of our days there.
Probably he has ceased to remember that we exist—a man would find his
_affaires du cœur_ rather clumsy baggage in the wilds of Africa!”

“If he carried them all, yes. One or two might be consoling,” suggested
Hester airily.

“Oh! bother Jules Grémond! I don’t want to think of him! He belongs to a
life that is past!”

“Well, it is queer, anyway,” insisted Hester, “and I want to scream with
laughter when I think of a divinity like you—didn’t he call you a
divinity, Julie?—coming down from your pedestal to cater for his serene
highness, the one and only Jules Grémond!”

There was something so inimitable about Hester’s manner coupled with the
graphic picture she drew that Julie went off into a paroxysm of laughter
that ended in hysterical sobbing which Hester put an end to by shaking
her vigorously.

“You are so funny,” said Julie faintly, wiping her eyes. “You are almost
as funny as the situation!” and then she buried her face in Hester’s arm
and laughed again.

“Shut up!” said Hester with more force than elegance for she was getting
frightened at Julie’s unusual behavior. “Stop this minute or you’ll go
all to pieces and besides, I’ve an awful confession to make!”

“Oh! not anything more,” protested Julie, leaning back exhausted. “My
dear, don’t! Another shock will certainly be the death of me!”
piteously.

“Well I’ll die if I don’t get it off my conscience, so there you are!”
cried Hester, thumping down in Julie’s lap and beginning to finger the
hair that strayed in little curls about her temples.

“Go on,” resignedly from Julie.

“Playing with your hair? I know you love to have me do it so you need
not put on such a martyred air.”

“Go on with your confession, you goose!”

“Well, I told Mr. Renshawe he might come to call on us. You see he asked
if we would let Mrs. Lennox bring him and he was so nice I couldn’t
refuse.”

An amused smile crept into Julie’s eyes. “I thought we had nothing in
common with men whatever—that they did not fit into the present scheme
of things—that we had no use for them in the life we live! _Wasn’t_ it
some such explosive theory you expounded to me ages ago?” she asked
teasingly.

“It is true, you know it is,” pulling Julie’s curls to emphasize her
words, “but I did it for Nannie’s sake. I know he is just dying to come
here and talk about her.”

“You mean you are just dying to have him! So am I, for the matter of
that. Won’t it be nice to hear all about them?”

“Do you know something?” said Hester who had a trick of beginning a
speech with a question, “I believe he is in love with her!”

“What gave you that idea, you precocious infant?”

“Oh! nothing special, only the way he looked when her name was mentioned
and his wanting to come here to talk about her—there is no other
possible reason why he should want to come—and he got the ring in her
cake you know. Wouldn’t it be romantic if she married him?”

“Hester Dale! The way you allow your imagination to run riot is
something perfectly fearful! You put one and one together and make a
thousand things! I never saw such a girl!”

“You are not cross, are you, Julie? You don’t think I did wrong to say
he might come?”

“Of course not, you baby, I think you did perfectly right. Now go and
make me a cup of tea if the kettle has not boiled dry. We need a brace
after all this excitement.”

Hester busied herself with the tea things and Julie sat staring at her,
wrapt in thought. If Hester was conscious of this preoccupation she gave
no sign, but hummed a gay tune and talked to Peter Snooks, who came and
sat pressed close to her knees in true dog fashion.

“Do you know, Peter Snooks,” she said speculatively, “we have one very
important feature in common—our noses.” At this he thrust his up in her
lap. “Yes,” she continued, patting him, “we have. Yours denotes your
state of health—mine the arrival of a stranger within our gates. A
certain proud and haughty person jeers at mine but you know how it is,
don’t you, old man?”

The dog pawed her lap by way of showing that he understood perfectly and
with his big eloquent eyes fixed on the sugar bowl, thrust out his
tongue suggestively.

“What! is that sensitive too! Oh! you scalawag!” and she tossed him a
lump of sugar.

This conversation had stolen in through Julie’s reverie and she pulled
up her chair and leaned over to her sister as she took her cup of tea.

“I dare say I did jeer at that saucy nose of yours,” she began, “but in
token of my future awe and respect I am going to kiss it now,” suiting
the action to the words. “It may be a precaution against its owner’s
kissing me as an alternative in the next emergency! Peter Snooks, I call
upon you to witness that I hereto set my seal,” with another kiss,
“having at this moment solemnly declared that I consider the aforesaid
feature infallible.”




CHAPTER XV


Radnor society was all agog over the second appearance of Monsieur
Grémond, and no sooner was his coming made known than Renshawe was
fairly deluged with invitations for his guest.

Miss Ware took that occasion to give a big reception to which
magnanimously, “those Dale girls” were invited. This was the only
outcome of the after breakfast talk many weeks before with her brother.
To tell the truth, the interest in them kindled at the moment by his
enthusiasm, waned, and she never arranged the little party for which he
had told her she had such a talent. Not that she altogether meant to
waive her promise; she compromised with her conscience by telling
herself that she had not yet gotten around to it. Here then was her
opportunity and the girls were invited to the reception not only by card
but personally. She only succeeded, however, in extracting a half
promise from them to come, for they were having an anxious time over a
new departure in their work and were little inclined for social
dissipation.

Kenneth Landor gave a stag dinner at his club in honor of the Frenchman
on the night of his arrival and Dr. Ware entertained Renshawe, Grémond
and Landor at the same place later in the week, dining them informally
before his sister’s reception. Dr. Ware greatly enjoyed the society of
younger men, who sought him in many capacities and as a counselor found
in his quick comprehension of their difficulties many a solution of
problems which to the young so often seem insurmountable. Then it was
that the wisdom grown out of his vast experience of life gave itself
freely to those who came to him, and many a man and woman left his
presence cheered by the grip of his hand, strengthened by the kindliness
that looked out from his eyes and pervaded his whole personality. On his
lighter side, as a delightfully congenial companion, he had no equal in
Radnor and this rubbing up continually against a younger point of view
tended to freshen his mind and keep him in touch with much that
otherwise, through the exigencies of his profession, would have escaped
him.

“I do not want to seem inhospitable,” he was saying that evening as the
four men sat together at dinner, “but we must not linger too long over
our cigars, or my sister will hold me responsible for keeping you away
from her.” He had his own reasons for wanting to arrive fairly early.

“In that case we’d better move along, Landor,” said Renshawe rising.
“Dr. Ware,” turning to his host, “will you take Grémond with you or wait
a few moments while we look in at a committee meeting upstairs. We will
not be long if you both care to wait.”

“I am in the hands of my friends,” said Grémond.

“We will wait, by all means,” replied the Doctor, consulting his watch.
“It is not much after nine now.”

Thought transference was a psychological phenomenon over which Dr. Ware
had pondered much, and a startling instance of it was borne in upon him
when after the other men had departed, Monsieur Grémond turned to him
and said abruptly, without any preamble:

“May I ask, Dr. Ware, if you know in this city a family of Dales? In
particular a Mademoiselle Julie Dale?”

“Why yes, I believe so,” said the Doctor who was nothing if not
non-committal, “do you?”

He was totally unprepared for the effusive manner in which the Frenchman
literally fell upon his neck, exclaiming, “Oh! my friend, I thank you, I
thank you!”

Masculine demonstration is not particularly pleasing to a man of
Anglo-Saxon blood and Dr. Ware, in order to prevent a further exhibition
of it, drew away slightly and offered his guest a fresh cigar.

Monsieur Grémond shook his head. “I will not smoke—I will do nothing
but ask you questions—if I may. Oh! you cannot think what it means to
know I have found her!”

“Have you been searching for Miss Julie Dale?” asked the Doctor, puffing
clouds of smoke into the air.

“Searching? Ah, if you but knew! I have been across your continent to
California only to learn that she had long ago left there and come to
your eastern coast, presumably here, though no one at the hotel knew
definitely about her.”

“You are especially interested in Miss Dale, I take it,” said the Doctor
quietly. “In that case perhaps I should tell you that I stand somewhat
in the relation of a guardian to her and her sister. You may talk quite
frankly with me if you care to do so.”

It was impossible to restrain or even resent the hand-shake with which
the younger man expressed his appreciation.

“The Fates have been kind!” was his exclamation. “I am rewarded for my
bitter disappointment. Is Monsieur Dale dead?” he asked suddenly.

“Not dead, but so ill that he is no longer able to look out for their
interests—the privilege, therefore, devolves upon me.”

“I wish to marry Mademoiselle Julie,” said the Frenchman with a
directness Dr. Ware liked. “I came to this country chiefly for the
purpose of taking her back with me. I knew them at Los Angeles two years
ago and Monsieur Dale liked me—at least I do not think he disliked me,
for he allowed me to be much in his daughters’ society. I realize that
to you I am quite unknown, but Renshawe will vouch for me and any
questions you may care to ask about my family or my future I shall be
most happy to answer.”

“Thank you.” There was silence for a moment and then the Doctor said
slowly, “Have you reason to suppose that Miss Dale will marry you?”

“Ah! that I do not know,—but she will—she must! Our intercourse was so
perfect that life without her is incomplete. And she seemed always very
happy with me. Has she never spoken of me or those days?”

“I think not,” replied the Doctor, remembering that according to his
sister that was in a man’s favor. “But it is not at all unnatural,” he
hastened to say kindly, “we have gone little into the past since they
have been living here—for many reasons.”

“Will you tell me where they live and have I your permission to call on
them to-morrow?” asked the Frenchman eagerly.

“Better than that, Monsieur, Miss Dale and her sister will be at my
sister’s reception this evening. It will give me great pleasure to see
that you meet her at once. Many changes have taken place since you last
saw her, but of all that she will prefer herself to tell you. You will
find her developed from a winsome, lovable girl into a noble young woman
whose attractions in every way are greater—”

“Not greater than when I knew her—that cannot be possible,” interrupted
the Frenchman. “To think that within the hour I shall see her! How can I
express to you my intense gratitude for all this?”

“By making her future all she has a right to expect from the man to whom
she entrusts it,” said the Doctor earnestly. “For the rest, we will talk
things over more thoroughly in a day or two. I think,” he said rising,
“that Renshawe and Landor have forgotten us. Suppose after all we go on
and let them follow at their leisure.”

And Monsieur Grémond readily assenting, Dr. Ware called a cab, which
soon left them at his door.

The house was already crowded and Miss Ware gave her brother a look of
displeasure which she considered his tardy appearance merited. It was
not more than a fleeting frown, however, for Monsieur Grémond followed
close at his heels and what hostess could fail to wreathe her
countenance in other than most charming smiles to greet so distinguished
a guest! Dr. Ware presented a number of persons to him and saw him well
launched before he left him to go in search of the Dale girls. He rubbed
up against Kenneth Landor presently and secured his aid as a scout to
reconnoiter, for in his semi-capacity of host he found it difficult to
ignore the people about him in pursuit of two elusive young women.

Kenneth appeared at the Doctor’s elbow in the course of half an hour and
confided to him that they were nowhere visible—“upstairs or downstairs
or in my lady’s chamber.” He wore such a dejected look that the Doctor
laughed and asked him why he wasn’t up to his old tricks—weren’t there
dozens of pretty girls in the room? Kenneth merely raised his eyebrows
expressively and the Doctor laughed again and reminded him that suspense
was stimulating. Then he bethought him of Monsieur Grémond and
discovering that individual, answered the questioning look in his eyes
with an encouraging nod and managed to go over and say, in spite of the
people by whom the Frenchman was surrounded, “She has not come yet but
you shall know the instant she does.”

When an hour passed and they did not appear he accosted his sister who
was still standing at her post receiving.

“Where are the girls?” with difficulty getting her attention.

“Girls? what girls? It seems to me there is no lack of them.”

“I mean the Dale girls. Didn’t you send the carriage for them as I
directed?”

“Of course I did. They—how _do_ you do, Mrs. Smartset—and Mr.
Smartset, charmed I’m sure.”

The Doctor stood back and patiently waited while an influx of guests
passed before her. When an opportunity offered he spoke again.

“They are not here, Mary. If you can give me a moment I would like to
know why.”

“You wouldn’t have me neglect my guests to discuss those Dale girls
would you? _Must_ you be going, Mrs. Marston, and your daughter too—so
good of you to come—goodnight. They are not coming,” she said in an
aside to her brother, “the carriage came back with a note. I had no time
to read it and I do not remember where I put it. Now for pity’s sake go
and look after people and don’t worry me any more about them! Ah, Mrs.
Lennox, this is really charming to see you,” as that individual entered.

It was no easy matter to escape to his office but Dr. Ware did it and
sent for Kenneth.

“I have just learned that my little girls are not coming,” he said when
Kenneth had joined him there. “I fear, my boy, that something is wrong
and I am off. If people miss me say I was called away to a patient.
Every one knows I am not to be counted on socially. Then there is
Grémond. He knew the girls long ago and has been looking forward to
meeting them to-night. Tell him they were prevented at the last moment
from coming and give him their address so he can call if he likes.” It
was characteristic of Dr. Ware that he left nothing undone.

“You are not apprehensive of anything very serious, are you?” asked
Kenneth who himself felt more concern than he cared to show.

“No, no; why should I be? They may merely be tired out and have gone to
bed or they may need me—I can’t take any chances where they are
concerned, my boy.”

“Of course not,” said Kenneth with unusual emphasis. “If you are going
to walk over, Doctor, I’d like to go along with you.”

“Take you away from the festivities? Nonsense! The girls in there would
never forgive me!”

“Oh! hang the whole business! I beg your pardon, Doctor, I forgot it was
your sister’s function.”

The Doctor laughed. “Come along with me. You need ozone to restore your
placidity, but go back again later, like an obliging chap, if only to
give my message to poor Grémond.”

They had been swinging along for several blocks in the cool night air
when Landor broke the silence by exclaiming savagely, “What in thunder
has Jules Grémond to do with them!”

“With the Dales?” asked the Doctor innocently, inwardly amused at
Landor’s resentful tone. “He met them in California, I believe.”

“Umph!” grunted Kenneth.

“Here we are,” said the Doctor presently as they reached the house, “and
there are lights in their rooms, so they are up about something and it
is well I came. Goodnight, and thank you for walking over with me,
Kenneth.”

“Dr. Ware,” said the younger man wistfully, detaining him a moment on
the steps, “if there is anything wrong up there,” with a motion of his
head toward the top story, “you’ll let me know, won’t you? And if I
could be of the slightest service you’ll call on me without hesitation,
won’t you? Of course I know they’ve no possible use for a chap like me
but I’d move heaven and earth to do anything—to feel that I was really
of service to them in any way.”

“You could not be better employed, Kenneth,” said the Doctor, looking
down on him affectionately. “I shall remember what you say and I like
you the better for saying it. Good-night.”

Dr. Ware hastened into the house and up the long flights of stairs
leading to the Dales’ apartment and knocked at the door, hesitating at
so late an hour to startle them by ringing the bell. Evidently they were
expecting him, for steps came down the little hall and the door was
opened almost immediately by Bridget.

“The saints be praised!” she exclaimed, “but it’s the Doctor!”

“You were expecting me, of course, Bridget,” as she helped him off with
his coat.

“Bless your heart but I can’t say as we wus, sir, glad though they’ll be
to see your blessed face.”

“Of course I would come. Don’t they know that by this time? Who is ill?
Is the Major worse? I should have been here long ago had I not been
expecting them at the house every moment.”

“They ain’t ill, sir, they’re workin’”, was her reply. “Maybe you’d
better come right out to the kitchen an’ see for yourself their
carryin’s on. We’re all at it to-night an’ it’s the fearful time they’ve
had but it’s all plain sailin’ to the end now,” she wound up hopefully.

Somewhat mystified, Dr. Ware followed and stood speechless on the
threshold of the kitchen. For there were the girls in their cotton gowns
with sleeves rolled up to the shoulders working away at what were to him
inexplicable things, while over in a corner sat Jack half buried in a
pile of small white boxes. The whole room presented the bustle of eleven
in the morning rather than eleven in the evening.

“You bad Dr. Ware,” said Julie playfully when she saw him, “what made
you come?” She stopped her work a moment and whisking her apron over the
chair Bridget had drawn out for him, motioned him to sit down. “We’re
just daubed with frosting from one end of the place to the other, but we
can’t stop working a moment, so if you dare, risk a chair?”

The Doctor sat down. He would have taken the chair with the same
equanimity if it had been caked with frosting.

“Now what does this mean, at this hour?” he said.

“Didn’t Miss Ware get our note? Oh! I am so sorry. We are terribly sorry
to miss the reception, aren’t we, Hester?”

“Um-um,” said Hester absorbed in making elaborate frosting designs on
small pieces of cake.

[Illustration: THERE WERE THE GIRLS IN THEIR COTTON GOWNS]

“We wrote her,” continued Julie, “that we were detained by our work and
I suppose if she did not get it that you thought when we did not appear
something was the matter with Daddy. What a shame you had that anxiety
for nothing!”

“You must go straight back,” said Hester. “We are getting on famously
and you must not miss another minute of the reception.”

“You want to get me out of the way, I suppose, so you can keep up this
orgy until all hours. I know you, you minx! I shan’t budge until I know
all about it so you may as well begin.” He surveyed the group with a
smiling imperturbable manner that was impossible to withstand. Jack,
gazing at him out of the corner of his eye, thought he had never seen so
splendid a gentleman and indeed his evening clothes became the Doctor
tremendously so that he had never looked more handsome nor distinguished
than at that moment as he sat among them leaning back in the kitchen
chair.

“It is all this wedding-cake,” said Hester disgustedly. “It has acted
like Sam Patch!”

“It is the first we have ever done,” explained Julie. “We took an order
for two hundred boxes of cake and a big loaf, all for a wedding, and we
made the cake a month ago. Oh! such a time as we had! You see, we are
such ignoramuses that we have to wade through endless wrong ways before
we discover the right one and we thought we had all the loaves properly
frosted to cut for the boxes; but when we tried to cut the slices all
the frosting fell off and so we had to begin all over again. Then we
decided it would be better to cut the cake up into pieces for the boxes
first and frost each one separately and—”

“_We_ didn’t any such thing!” interrupted Hester. “That was Julie’s
brilliant inspiration and she worked out all the frosting designs too.
The big loaf and the bride’s cake are perfect beauties. Did you know the
bride’s cake always had a ring and a thimble and a coin hidden in it for
luck? Just look at the cakes over there,” waving her hand toward a side
table, “aren’t they distinctly professional? Julie’s been hanging around
caterers’ windows with her nose pressed against the glass studying their
fancy frosted show pieces until I wonder she hasn’t been arrested for a
suspicious character. Of course that childlike and bland countenance of
hers was greatly in her favor but,” resignedly, “I was prepared for the
worst.”

“Miss Hester will have her laugh,” said Bridget, “but ’tain’t no
laughin’ matter this job they’re putting through!”

“Now Bridget, you keep still,” expostulated Julie. “She has been
scolding us all the evening,” to Dr. Ware, “and frightening poor Jack to
death, hasn’t she, Jack? Jack came to bring Daddy’s paper, you know,
which he prints in great style since Mr. Landor has given him a printing
press, and when he found we were busy he begged so hard to come out to
the kitchen and help that we just had to let him. He’s been helping
Bridget cut paraffine paper into squares—for each piece of cake has to
be wrapped separately before it goes into its box—and they have cut all
the white ribbon into pieces the right length to tie around the boxes
and now they’re uncovering the boxes and getting them ready for the cake
as soon as the frosting dries. Jack has been invaluable, hasn’t he,
Bridget?”

“Humph!” grunted Bridget, with whom, nevertheless, the boy was a prime
favorite.

“Good heavens! Julie,” cried the Doctor, “does one little box of
wedding-cake mean all that?”

“Two hundred do,” smiling, “but another time we’ll know better how to go
at it.”

All during this conversation she and Hester had been bending over the
big work-table making curious evolutions with frosting bags over the
pieces of cake spread everywhere about the room. Presently Hester
dropped her bag and sat down.

“Well,” she exclaimed, “I believe they are done—that part. Dr. Ware,”
turning to him suddenly, “doesn’t it strike you as funny that instead of
disporting ourselves gayly in the festivities of the town we should be
wasting our youth and beauty—doesn’t that sound just like a book!—our
youth and beauty over aggravating old things like these?” with a
disgusted look at the wedding-cake. “You do not seem to laugh but I
think it’s tremendously funny. Dear me!” to the air, reflectively, “how
trying it must be to get on without a sense of humor!” Then with an
entire change of tone, “We did want to go awfully, especially as we had
a suspicion that some one might be there. I wonder,” dreamily, “if he
was.”

“I fancy so,” said the Doctor, hardly knowing whether or not to take her
seriously. “Come back with me now and find out.”

“Can’t,” said Hester, “but you might be an angel and tell us if we knew
any one there.”

“Let me see, there was Landor—”

“Oh! bother Mr. Landor!” with a toss of her head. “He’s omnipresent!”

“Um,” thought the Doctor, “I’ve struck the nail on the head.” Outwardly
he said, “Then there was Renshawe,—you know him, do you not, and a
guest of his who was tucked under my wing—apparently for protection
against the wiles of the women who are trying systematically to spoil
him with adulation.”

“I know him,” said Hester, “that is Monsieur Jules Grémond.”

“Yes,” replied the Doctor, “I thought you would guess. He told me he
knew you girls and I believe he is hunting my house over for you at this
moment.” He was talking to Hester but watching Julie narrowly.

“There! Julie Dale,” exclaimed her sister triumphantly, “what did I tell
you! I knew he would not forget us. She swore, Dr. Ware, that he would
have forgotten our very existence and I vowed that he carried her image
around on his heart and all sorts of high-sounding things. Shouldn’t
wonder if they were true, too,” to Dr. Ware confidingly, “and you
needn’t blush so furiously about it, either, Julie Dale?”

“I am not blushing,” protested poor Julie who was crimson, “and I’ll
have Bridget carry you off bodily if you don’t stop talking such
nonsense. Don’t you mind what she says, will you Dr. Ware?” pleadingly.
“She would rather tease than eat any day.”

Julie’s embarrassment did not escape the Doctor and there was a twinge
of pain in his heart as he said to her gently, “She is a naughty little
girl, Julie, but she is right when she says your old friend Monsieur
Grémond has not forgotten you. He inquired with great interest about you
all and asked my permission to call upon you.”

To this Julie made no reply and for some moments there was silence, when
at last Hester sidled up to her and in her most wheedling voice said,
“Forgive me, please, I did not mean to be naughty.”

Julie gave her a hearty kiss and in the laugh that followed they all
joined, even including Jack, who had found the situation almost painful
a moment before when he thought his adored Miss Julie’s feelings had
been hurt. Perhaps the good Doctor did not laugh with his accustomed
zest but if so no one detected it, least of all Hester who gave him a
big hug by way of magnanimously forgiving him for being cross to her and
said emphatically:

“You _must_ go home. Miss Ware will be having a thousand fits, not to
mention all the guests who are probably looking everywhere for you.”

“I have been called out to see a patient,” replied the Doctor. “Every
one knows it by this time, only they do not know that instead of one I
find four,” with a sweeping glance that embraced them all, “and not an
inch do I stir until I see this case through. So you might as well make
up your mind to put up with me and I want something to do. Come, Jack,
show me how to take hold with you. I needn’t be condemned as utterly
worthless just because I am a man.”

In spite of their protestations Dr. Ware was as good as his word,
busying himself in Jack’s corner, and with so many hands the work went
forward swiftly. It was all smooth sailing now, as Bridget said, for the
critical and difficult part was done and the next two hours in which the
little group sat about the kitchen table wrapping, boxing and tying the
cake was immeasurably shortened by Dr. Ware, who told them interesting
anecdotes, experiences of his life that made Jack long to have the night
lengthen out indefinitely. But that which the Doctor most dwelt upon,
knowing well it was what the girls most liked to hear, were stories of
the days when he and Major Dale fought side by side for the Union of the
country in that war which was as much of a reality to these girls as if
they had taken part in every military engagement.

And Dr. Ware went home in the wee small hours with his mind in a tumult
of thought. Distress that the girls had had such a night of it formed
only a part of his disturbance, for above this fact, which in more
tranquil moments would have been pre-eminent, was the consciousness that
a new and central figure had arisen on the scene—yesterday a stranger
to him, to-day the hero of a drama which was to the Doctor as his very
life.

He sat a long while in his study when he reached home, pondering over
the future and the change that seemed imminent to the girls and he
wondered what the outcome would be should Grémond take Julie’s life into
his keeping. Was he worthy of her—_was_ he? How on so short an
acquaintance could he tell? And did she love him—_did_ she? Beset by
all these unanswerable questions he paced up and down the room, his slow
measured tread like an accompaniment strengthening the minor harmonies
in which his thoughts that night were set.

His Julie! His little girl! Ah! she was no child to choose her lover
lightly and if she loved him, trusted him to make her future, all would
be well. He thought of her as he had left her, sweet and dainty in spite
of the little dabs of sugar and frosting that stuck to the quaint blue
apron which nearly covered her from head to foot. He remembered her
embarrassment when Grémond’s name came up and kept that picture of her
long before his eyes as if to accustom himself to this new aspect. He
remembered too how flushed her cheeks were over the work and the tired
shadows under her eyes told him plainly enough the relentless demand she
was making upon her strength. Gad! those girls had been working eighteen
hours at a stretch! Eighteen hours! It wasn’t the first time, either!
And he, who would give his life to make things easier, was powerless—to
another man would be given the right! Good heavens! Did Grémond realize
his privilege? As if suddenly weary the Doctor flung himself down in his
chair and heaved a sigh. Presently his lids drooped heavily. When he
opened his eyes the room was flooded with sunlight.




CHAPTER XVI


The order for the wedding-cake which had been a cause of such
tribulation to the girls had come through Mrs. Lennox for a young cousin
of her husband’s in whose marriage she was much interested. The order
consisted of a bride’s cake, a round wedding-cake, two hundred boxes and
in addition some thirty dozen small assorted cakes to be served with the
supper. The bride’s mother had given the girls a fruit-cake recipe which
had been many years in her family and had asked them to make the cake at
least a month before the wedding that it might “age,” as the saying is.
Hours easily counting into days had gone into the preparation of the
fruit alone for this large order before the work of putting the cake
together began; and then to make the twenty loaves, each of which when
done resembled in size a two-quart brick of ice-cream, it was necessary
to mix and cook the dough in installments. But as Julie told Dr. Ware,
that was as child’s play to the intricacies of the frosting and the
catastrophe that ensued; and the nervous as well as the physical strain
of that, coming on top of all the rest of the work which the order
entailed, told severely on the girls, especially Julie, though she was
up with Hester at six the next morning packing the boxes into the wooden
case which was to take the cake to its destination.

The round loaf over which Julie had expended so much anxious thought was
wrapped in sheet after sheet of cotton wadding to protect the elaborate
frosting from breaking, and resembled when laid in its box a small-sized
snow drift. Hester printed “handle with care” in so many places on the
wooden box cover that the expressman when he came could with difficulty
distinguish the address; while Bridget cautioned him with such emphasis
to carry it “like it wuz a baby, shure,” that the man finally turned on
her and asked if she thought he played football with his packages. It
was an intense relief to them all when he had carried down the boxes and
driven away, though their suspense would not really end until they
learned of its safe arrival in the country town twenty miles away. And
that they would know that same afternoon, for the mother of the bride
had asked them to the wedding and Mrs. Lennox had been most urgent in
insisting upon their going out with her, just, as she put it, for a
“little country spree.”

Mrs. Lennox had arranged a charming program whereby the girls should be
of the party she and Mr. Lennox were to take out on their coach, but as
the morning wore on and Julie found each hour’s work more difficult she
finally told Hester she felt too tired to consider such an expedition
and should remain at home. It was so unusual for Julie to admit fatigue
that Hester felt alarmed and attempted to order her immediately to bed,
saying she and Bridget could easily get through the rest and she should
not go to the wedding without her. But Julie insisted, not only in
working on into the afternoon when the orders for the day were at last
completed, but in persuading Hester to consent to go to the wedding—a
consent reluctantly given, for she was loath to go off without her
sister. Having gained it, however, Julie dispatched a note to Mrs.
Lennox begging to be excused from the party and turned her attention to
helping Hester get ready when their work was done.

Whereas, owing to her delicate constitution, Julie’s fatigue usually
showed itself in complete physical exhaustion, Hester’s frequently took
the form of intense mental excitement, when the chords of her buoyant
nature were strung to their highest pitch. At such times she talked
incessantly, laughed immoderately and was so restless that Julie always
threatened to tie a string to her. She was in such a mood this
afternoon, laughing and capering about, performing such ridiculous
antics that Peter Snooks, who aided and abetted these moods, was barking
with joy while Julie despaired of ever getting her clothed, not to
mention restoring her to her right mind.

“You are a darling to help me but I don’t love you at all for making me
go when you are too ill to budge. I’ve a good notion not to mind you,
anyway! Why should I? I’m bigger ’an you!” dancing about on her toes to
increase her height, which possibly measured some two inches more than
her sister’s.

Julie caught her on the fly and thrust a dress skirt over her head,
hooking it together without loss of time. “I’m going to have a nice
quiet rest with Daddy,” she said, “and will be all right when you come
home. I want to hear all about the wedding and whether the cake got
there and everything, so do go, there’s a dear girl, and you’ll have a
beautiful drive and a good time into the bargain.”

“And feel like a pig because you are not there. That will be pleasant,
won’t it! Is that the doorbell? Do peek out the window like a dear and
see if the coach is there.”

Julie did as she was requested and reported the arrival of the coach
just as Bridget appeared and announced that Mrs. Lennox had sent Mr.
Landor up to ask if she were ready.

“Do you suppose he is going?” whispered Hester. “Oh! Julie dear, can’t
you go in and see him?”

“Not much! Here are your gloves and have you got a handkerchief? Can’t
find one? Never mind, here is one of mine. Now run along and kiss Daddy
and hurry—it is dreadful to keep people waiting. You look as fresh as a
lark but don’t talk yourself black in the face,” admonishingly.
“Remember ‘silence is golden,’” she called out when she had recovered
her breath from Hester’s parting hug.

She heard Mr. Landor expressing regret that the elder Miss Dale was not
to be of the party and then she heard nothing more; but in most plebeian
fashion she and Bridget and Peter Snooks peeped out of the window
watching their departure, as did also Jack from the floor beneath. They
saw Mr. Landor help her up to the box seat of the coach beside Mr.
Lennox and sent down answering smiles to the parting wave of her hand.

“Belikes I bet the young gentleman’s disappointed he ain’t got her
hisself,” commented Bridget. “She’s the prettiest of the whole lot!”

“Didn’t she look lovely, Bridget! She always does when she is so
excited.”

“It’s a lot more excited she’ll be when she gets back an’ finds you no
better, Miss Julie, so I’m just goin’ to put you to bed. You do look in
a way as I don’t like, an’ small wonder, the way you whip your poor
frail little body along to do the work of ten!”

“Nonsense, Bridget! I am not frail, you must not talk that way. I am
just tired out to-day and I couldn’t brace up and be agreeable to
people—I don’t want to be agreeable—I want to be cross, so I advise
you to keep out of the way.”

Bridget acted upon this suggestion by picking her up in her great
muscular arms and marching into her bedroom. There laying her down she
left to brew her a cup of tea—faithful Bridget’s panacea for every woe.
Having returned and administered this she proceeded to undress her.

“I was going to lie down with Daddy,” expostulated Julie feebly.

“You’ll do nothin’ of the sort,” commanded Bridget. “You ain’t fit to be
seen with that look in your face. I’m goin’ to tuck you into bed an’
darken the room an’ we’ll see what sleep’ll do for yez.”

As if this petting were more than she could bear, Julie buried her head
in the pillow with a movement that made the woman suspicious.

“What is it, darlint?” she cried, smoothing her hair. “Can’t you tell
your old Bridget about it?”

“Nothing,” said a muffled voice.

“Shure it’s rest yez want, darlint. I seen how yez kep’ up all day so
Miss Hester’d not be after knowin’ how dead beat yez wuz an’ now ye’ve
clean gone all to pieces. Jus’ cry it all out dearie, an’ it’s like a
new person you’ll be. ’Taint no small wonder yer wore out, with the
worryin’ an’ frettin’ that goes on inside yer an’ always a cheery smile
outside. Yer old Bridget knows! And may the blessed saints take yez out
of this business before yez drop dead in yer tracks, sez I, every night
on my knees—an’ I don’t care who’s after knowin’ it!” She gave the girl
a loving motherly kiss and thus encouraged Julie cried her heart out on
her shoulder.

This was an unusual proceeding, for Julie seldom cried in these days.
She had learned when her emotions threatened to overcome her to stiffen
her chin and swallow hard, hard, hard,—until the tears were forced back
and only a drawn look about the mouth told of the battle royal. She
valued each victory, however trifling, for tears are weakening and
self-control is a mighty weapon in the equipment of a soldier. To-day
she was weak bodily and the petting utterly unnerved her, so that she
cried until she could cry no longer and finally fell asleep from sheer
exhaustion.

When she awoke it was with a confused sense that it must be the middle
of the night and that something was wrong, for Bridget stood over her.

“Are yez wakin’? That’s right, dearie. You’ve bin sleepin’ these two
hours an’ there’s a gentleman to see yez.”

“What?” dazedly, rubbing her eyes.

“A gentleman to see yez—he didn’t give no name.”

“Probably he has come to give an order. Couldn’t you look after him,
Bridget?”

“No, miss,” with an air of suppressed excitement, “his business is
particular with you. Go bathe your face, Miss Julie, an’ I’ll have you
dressed in a jiffy.”

“Well, I am a pretty looking object,” commented the girl with a glance
in the mirror as Bridget let some light into the room.

“Never you mind, you’re feelin’ much better an’ you souse your eyes good
with hot water—they’ll look natural enough—an’ it’s gettin’ kinder
twilight in the parlor now anyhow,” consolingly.

“What is the matter with you, Bridget, are you daft?” seeing her bring
forth from the closet a French gown she had never worn in Radnor. “You
know I never would put on such a thing to go in to see a customer. Get
me a fresh shirt waist like the old dear you are.”

“Oh! Miss Julie, just this once, please,” in such a coaxing tone that
Julie found it hard to refuse her but she simply said:

“I couldn’t, Bridget, not even to please you,” and checked her
inclination to smile at the vicious manner in which Bridget got out a
shirt-waist and jabbed in the studs and cuff-buttons.

Immensely refreshed by her nap she went down the hall with a light heart
and entered the little sitting-room to be greeted by a stranger who
eagerly seized both her hands and cried:

“Mademoiselle, Mademoiselle, this is indeed a joy to find you!”

At the sound of his voice she trembled from head to foot and endeavored
to withdraw her hands but he held them in a firm clasp and led her over
to the window.

“I want the light to shine on your face, Mademoiselle, as it did in
sunny California. Am I too bold—have I startled you?”

Still she did not speak and he dropped her hands as moving back a little
he said penitently, “Forgive me, I am rough and have frightened you. May
I sit down, Mademoiselle?”

She dropped into the nearest chair and waved him to another as she said:
“I did not expect you here, Monsieur Grémond.”

“Not expect me! Did you not know I was in Radnor?”

“Oh! yes,” laughing a little for she was beginning to recover herself,
“but the two are not synonymous.”

“You are jesting, Mademoiselle. Surely you know—you must know that only
one thing would bring me to this country as soon as I came out of the
wilderness.” There was a world of meaning in his eyes, but Julie chose
to ignore it.

“Your friendship with Mr. Renshawe has been of long standing, has it
not?” she asked evasively.

“Oh! Mademoiselle Julie, it was not Renshawe—do not hold me aloof—have
you forgotten the dear old California days?”

“One might have been led to suppose you had,” she said quietly, “you
disappeared so suddenly and—”

“But I wrote,” he interrupted, “and though you never replied I meant
always to return when I had accomplished something. Did you not feel
that instinctively, Mademoiselle? Many things have happened to me since
then and to you, also, your guardian said.”

“My guardian?” she repeated. “Do you mean Dr. Ware?”

“He gave me permission to call and said you might have many things to
say to me,” looking at her rather perplexedly. “Will you tell me all
about it, Mademoiselle?”

“Tell you,” she cried springing up and confronting him, “tell you as if
it were a book I were reading all the sorrow and wretchedness and misery
of these past eight months! No, a thousand times no! It would not
interest you!” She threw back her head defiantly. “Why,” she demanded
fiercely, “did you find us out? We have no part in the world to which
you belong! Could you not know that to see you would bring back the
past, intensify the contrast between then and now—hurt us like the
thrust of a sword? Oh! how could you come?”

“I came because I—” and then breaking off suddenly he said gravely, “If
you think your affairs are of no interest to me you would perhaps prefer
that I ask no questions, even though I do not understand.”

“Oh! I did not mean to be rude,” she exclaimed, her burst of resentment
over, “how could you understand and how can I explain? Dear Daddy is
enduring a living death—everything is changed—we are professional
caterers—working women—you will not begin to comprehend that and no
doubt it shocks you. The dignity of labor is not a popular theme on the
other side!”

“Mademoiselle, have you only unkind things to say to me—me, who would
have given my life to have averted them or helped you through all this?
You do not seem to comprehend that I love you—love you—have journeyed
out to Los Angeles and back to find you and now,”—he drew in his
breath, “ah! now I never mean to let you go.” He took a step toward her
but she eluded him, standing well back in the room where he could not
see how her lips trembled as she said:

“You must not talk to me like this; I—I cannot bear it. I am all
unstrung to-day and you startle me with your calm air of taking things
for granted.”

“Do I, chérie?” tenderly. “But you see I love you and you are going to
love me, too.”

“No,” she replied, drawing still further back, “no, Monsieur Grémond, I
am not.”

Something unflinching about the girl’s quiet tone made the man say
beseechingly, “Ah! Mademoiselle Julie, do not kill me!”

“Kill you? You never thought whether you would kill me or not, did you,
when you almost taught me to love you in those old days and then rode
away? Many a man does that, expecting a girl to take everything for
granted and receive him with open arms when he returns. And many a girl
waits and waits, eating her heart out meanwhile. But I am not that kind,
Monsieur!”

“Oh, Mademoiselle!”

“I was very fond of you—so fond that when I knew you were in town I
wondered whether I cared to see you—wondered whether I would have loved
you had you loved me and last night I thought perhaps I should see you
at the Wares’; but we did not go, and now you come to me and at the
first sight of you I know it is not love—could never have been love
under any circumstances!”

“Are you sure you know what love is, Mademoiselle?” and seeing the color
spread in a crimson wave over her face he cried, “Some one has stolen
you away from me! Tell me, is it not true?”

“What right have you to ask questions?” she demanded, angered by his
assumption of authority. And then more quietly, “We must not quarrel,
Monsieur, we have been altogether too good friends for that. I want to
tell you that we are interested in your explorations and how proud we
are to know that so many of your plans have been accomplished.”

“It is nothing to me now.”

“Fie, Monsieur! Are you going to cry baby because you can’t have the
world all your way?”

“You are all my world.”

Julie had heard this from other men under similar conditions, and though
she believed his disappointment to be genuinely bitter she knew that
life could still hold out some hope even in the face of unrequited love.
But how make him see it her way? In a moment she said:

“I am only a girl, Monsieur Grémond, but I think you want me to respect
you, don’t you, and I certainly shall not be apt to if you are going to
be vanquished right before my very eyes.”

“What a strange girl you are, Mademoiselle,” he said, roused to a
critical survey of her. “Most girls like their lovers to be
inconsolable, but you threaten me with everlasting disgrace for refusing
to be consoled. I don’t understand it.”

“No, you would not understand me, ever,” said Julie cheerfully, glad to
have roused him at last. “You must go back to France and marry some nice
sweet little thing who will perfectly adore you and you’ll be ‘happy
ever after,’ as the story books say.”

“I wish you would not dispose of me in such an off-hand fashion,”
aggrievedly. “I am tempted to kidnap you and carry you off this moment
to the steamer. She sails in the morning. Oh! couldn’t you do it, _ma
petite_?”

The vehemence of his tone really startled Julie who laughed to herself
afterward as she remembered how she had shrank back in her corner as if
she expected him to snatch her up bodily.

“Leave Hester,” she cried aghast, “and Daddy and Bridget—and Peter
Snooks and—and every-body to go away with you? Monsieur Grémond, you
must be mad.”

“Then you do not know what love is.” He rose and came over to her. “Will
you put your hands in mine, Mademoiselle? I am going—good-by. I suppose
I have been a selfish brute to dwell altogether on my own troubles and
not sympathize with yours, but the truth is I am knocked out. I
undoubtedly, as you say, took too much for granted.”

“Do not put us out of your life altogether,” said Julie gently. “Some
day perhaps you will really care for my interest and respect and all the
things I would gladly give you if you would have them.”

“If you put it that way, perhaps—but it seems to me there is only one
thing,” he said disconsolately.

“Then you are not half the man I take you to be!”

“I will be,” asserted Grémond, his better nature responding to this
rebuke. “It is good at least to have been with you. Good-by,
Mademoiselle, good-by.”

For some time after he had gone Julie sat with closed lids trying to
forget the last look of his eyes into hers, so persistently did it haunt
her; but within her heart surged a feeling of gratitude that there is an
all-wise Providence who shapes our ends.




CHAPTER XVII


Madame Grundy was saying that winter that at last Kenneth Landor had
settled down, though why he should take the trouble to burden himself
with business cares when he had a rich, indulgent father was, from her
point of view, wholly incomprehensible. Other people who knew Kenneth
better saw that his life had become full of purpose and regarded it as
the natural outcome of a nature like his—rich in possibilities. To the
father who was just learning to know the son, there was much that was
surprising in the intelligent way in which he grasped the great
commission business and little by little made himself familiar with
every detail, showing that in his composition was much practical
ability—talents unquestionably inherited. Of any ulterior motive which
had led him on to these things Mr. Landor had no suspicion nor indeed
had any one save Dr. Ware, who kept his own counsel, and possibly Jack,
whose fanciful imagination wove endless romances, the thread of which
became wretchedly entangled, for what could a poor boy do with two
heroines to one hero?

That was the stumbling block of our young author, for he never could
make up his mind to choose between the Dale girls. First he would write
out a beautiful story in which his hero (and there was only one hero to
him) married Julie and was as happy as the day is long. This would have
been eminently satisfactory if it had not been for a sort of feeling of
slighting Hester, who seemed to be lurking in the background of his tale
gazing at him with reproachful eyes. Jack the tender-hearted could not
stand that, so zip!—would go all the paper, torn to shreds, and he
would patiently start all over again to give Hester a chance. But
however he arranged it, one was left out. He couldn’t have it on his
conscience to make his hero a Mormon and so to one and one alone could
he belong. This was all wrong, from Jack’s point of view, but he did not
know how to make it any different and as it seemed to be a subject he
could not discuss with any of the three persons most concerned the poor
boy gave it up in despair.

But if Jack was racked with indecision it was not so with Kenneth
Landor, who had fallen in love with Hester at first sight. One hears
that to fall in love at first sight is an experience belonging to bygone
days, and is quite unknown to the practical common-sense young people of
whom in this generation one hears so much. Be that as it may, Kenneth,
in spite of his worldly experience, was old-fashioned enough to be full
of sentiment and treasured in his mind every meeting with Hester down to
their first walk when she had dismissed him so summarily under the
lamp-post. He could count them on the fingers of one hand, the actual
hours he had spent with her, but between Dr. Ware and Jack he managed to
keep as well informed concerning her life as if he were in daily
intercourse with her; and it was his sole aim and ambition to put her
struggles to an end. The generous fellow had not Grémond’s idea of
taking one of them away—he could not conceive of the little family
being separated and his admiration of Julie was rapidly growing into an
affection that made him long to cast her life, too, in sunny places and
make a snug little home for them all. These were Kenneth’s hopes and
dreams—air-castles which sometimes took grim, fantastic shapes and
often tottered to the ground when he remembered that Hester might not
deign to look at him.

Suddenly into all this work and dreaming entered a new element,
threatening to disturb the future with a terrible upheaval, for the
necessity that our country should go to war with Spain was talked of
openly throughout the land. Rumors that war would be, had been, never
would be declared were rife, suggested and contradicted in a breath,
while the uncertainty of national affairs produced an excitement that
pervaded all classes and conditions of men.

Kenneth was one of those who believed in the war and whose whole spirit
was fired with a desire to do his part toward jealously guarding his
country’s honor. At the same time, if he hoped to win Hester and make a
home for her it scarcely seemed as if it would accrue to his advantage
to go away. These things were so in his mind that he longed for a chance
to see and talk with her, and then, as always, in his thoughts of her he
was confronted by the fearful consciousness that she might take no
interest in so unimportant a thing as himself. Nevertheless, he meant to
make himself important to her and it was therefore to him as to Grémond,
a great disappointment that the girls had not put in an appearance at
Miss Ware’s reception and he had spent an anxious night speculating as
to the cause of their non-appearance.

He managed by rising earlier than usual to get around to Dr. Ware’s
office on his way to business the morning after the reception; but,
contrary to habit, that individual was already off. Much perturbed he
worked harder than ever at the office and regretted that he had promised
to drive out of town to a wedding. He was in no mood for society, even
so charming as that of the Lennoxes. He was not a man who broke his
engagements, however, and therefore went home about three o’clock to
dress. When the Lennoxes called for him he sauntered out in his usual
charming manner and made the greater effort to be agreeable to each
member of the party from the mere fact that it _was_ an effort. This is
a form of unselfishness, trivial perhaps, but necessitating a
willingness to put aside one’s personal inclination, to thrust aside
one’s mood for the general good. Some people call it adaptability, some
tact, some a desire to please, but in Kenneth Landor, as in many others,
it was an unselfish wish to contribute his share to the general
entertainment. He was a man who recognized the duty of a guest to his
hostess and did not look upon it as being all the other way. Having
adjusted himself to a purely impersonal philosophical attitude toward
the expedition, imagine his revulsion of feeling when Mrs. Lennox told
him that the party would not be complete until they had picked up Miss
Hester Dale whose sister, unfortunately, was unable to go with them. As
we know, she delegated him to escort Hester down and we may know too,
though no one on the coach suspected it, that he went up the four
flights of stairs two steps at a time and nearly ran down Jack who was
hobbling up on his crutches.

What if, when he and Hester went into the street together she was
immediately appropriated by their host and given the seat of honor
beside him. Couldn’t Kenneth _see_ her—every turn of her pretty
head—and wasn’t he inwardly proud that she was chosen for this
distinction and didn’t he know that it would be his own fault if he did
not monopolize her later on?

As for Hester, she had never been in a merrier mood and chattered on
like a little magpie, forgetful of her sister’s warning “not to talk
herself black in the face.” Every now and then she would heave a little
sigh and audibly wish Julie were there—a wish promptly seconded by her
host, who nevertheless was amply satisfied with his companion.

The mere sensation of bowling along over smooth roads and through the
beautiful environs of Radnor was in itself a novelty and delight to
Hester but she was raised to the seventh heaven of bliss when Mr.
Lennox, after a talk they had had about horses, said:

“Wouldn’t you like to take the ribbons, Miss Dale?”

“Oh!” she gasped, “but my gloves—I can’t drive in these,” holding up
two white kid hands. She did not think it necessary to add that they
were her only pair.

“Take them off and I’ll give you mine. You can manage even if they are
big. Try.”

She tried and in another moment the gloves were on, the ribbons slipped
into her fingers and the control of four superb horses lay within her
hands. Ah! how delicious it was to feel their strength and hers!

“What would Mrs. Lennox say if she knew I were driving?”

“She would not mind, but the others might. We’ll never tell.”

“Never.”

They swung along at an even pace, but presently, as if conscious that
the ribbons had changed hands, the horses became restive and finally
taking fright at an imaginary object, the leaders shied and plunged
forward madly.

“Give them their heads!” commanded Mr. Lennox peremptorily.

“Don’t drive at quite such a mad pace, please Mr. Lennox,” cried a girl
from the rear, “you frighten us nearly to death.”

“Oh! it’s all right,” reassuringly, “they’ll quiet down in a moment.”

Hester with set lips and feet firmly planted was struggling to get them
under control. She did not speak nor did Mr. Lennox again, but he
watched her narrowly, alert and ready in a second to relieve her. He
thought her equal to the emergency and she was, for after half a mile of
tearing madly over the ground, she succeeded in regaining control of
them and the horses, recognizing the strength of an experienced hand,
quieted down into the old habit of obedience.

“Good!” cried Mr. Lennox, “you’re a crack whip, as I thought.”

A little color came back into Hester’s white face. “I’m so grateful to
you for not taking them away from me,” she said. “I should have died of
humiliation if you had.”

“I thought I could trust you to pull through, but now that you have
proved your prowess—and I believe you just got the animals to playing
tricks to show what you _could_ do, you sly young person—aren’t you a
bit tired? Shan’t I drive?”

“Oh! thank you, yes, but I—I enjoyed it.”

She was very quiet after that, and presently when they reached the house
and Landor sprang off and turned to lift her down, the two bright red
spots in her cheeks did not escape him nor the subdued manner so unusual
to her.

As they passed into the house Hester saw in the hall a large table piled
high with small white boxes and she shuddered as she thought how they
had spent half the night over the completion of those innocent looking
things. The satin bows actually had a “perky” look as if the ribbon had
just tied itself without any trouble whatever! Turning her back on them
abruptly she followed Mrs. Lennox into the drawing-room, where the
ceremony took place a few moments after their arrival.

It was a simple wedding with no bridesmaids nor ushers nor adjuncts of
any kind, and the bridegroom had so large a family connection that only
intimate friends had been added to the list so that the reception took
on the informal character of a large family gathering. When the bride
had been kissed all around, including every male cousin, in spite of the
laughing protests of the bridegroom, she led the way into the
dining-room for supper.

“May I take you out, Miss Dale?” asked a dapper young fellow who had
just been presented to Hester.

“Thank you, I—”

“You can’t walk off with Miss Dale in that calm fashion, Charley,” said
a voice back of them, “she’s promised to come to supper with me.”

Hester had no recollection of any such compact so she looked up and said
mischievously, “What a wonderful memory you have, Mr. Landor,” turning
the while as if to move off with the younger man.

“You come with me, won’t you?” urged Charley Bemis, “Landor always
claims the earth and never gives us younger fellows a chance. We’ll have
to hurry a bit, Miss Dale,” looking at her entreatingly, “if we want to
see the bride cut the cake.”

“The cake!” she repeated, suddenly shrinking back. “Oh! Mr. Bemis, you
go on without me, will you? I—”

“Run along, Charley,” said Landor. “Miss Dale and I will follow. The
dining-room will never begin to hold us all anyway, so if we do not get
in you look us up and tell us who got the ring. You may get it yourself
if you hurry, who knows!”

“Oh!” said Hester when the man had departed, “I couldn’t go in there—I
just couldn’t.”

“Of course not,” emphatically, “it is much too crowded. They’ve covered
in the piazza by the dining-room. Won’t you let me bring you something
to eat out there?”

“How could you fib to that boy so!” exclaimed the girl at the same time
signifying her willingness to be led to some less crowded spot.

Kenneth laughed. “You drove me to it. Do you suppose I intended to let
him walk off with you under my very eyes?”

“Why not? I’m sure he seemed a very _nice_ boy,” with marked emphasis.

“Oh! yes, he’s nice enough,” cheerfully, “quite nice, now you mention
it, but I’m not just yearning for his society at the present moment.”

“Perhaps I am,” getting a wistful far-away expression in her eyes that
was tantalizing.

“Here we are,” said the man abruptly as they reached a semi-circular
piazza where tables and chairs had been placed. “If you will sit down,
Miss Dale, I’ll look up Mr. Bemis immediately.”

“Thank you,” demurely, “but if it _should_ happen that you found the
supper first, would you mind bringing that instead? I am _so_ hungry,”
with a pathetic droop at the corners of her mouth.

He went off on air, returning followed by a waiter almost before she had
a chance to miss him.

And what a gay little supper that was! They had a small table quite to
themselves, where Landor played host and was solicitous in providing for
all her wants. Mr. Lennox, wandering about with an eye to his party,
smiled across the piazza at her and reported to his wife that Hester was
being well taken care of. Half unconsciously the girl herself was aware
that her slightest wish was anticipated and she caught herself wondering
as she played with her ice, whether it was chance or design that led Mr.
Landor to avoid having any cake served at their table. It was everywhere
else in abundance; hundreds of colored frosted cakes that seemed to
Hester like so many little imps grinning at her and crying, “You made
me—you made me!” This fantastic notion wrought itself into her tired
brain until she wanted to scream out from very nervousness and caused
Kenneth to say, as if divining her thoughts:

“You are tired, Miss Dale. I am afraid you had an anxious night of it. I
hope your father is better this morning.”

“How did you know?”

“We—we missed you at the reception,” evasively, “and when Dr. Ware went
off I had my suspicions.”

“It was not Daddy,” she said quietly, “it was—other things.” Then in a
lighter tone, “Don’t look so solemn, please, I want to be gay and forget
last night.”

“What would happen, Miss Dale, if I were to lecture you?” smiling at
her.

“Try and see,” teasingly. “Probably I shall laugh. I usually do when
Julie scolds me and then she laughs too and that spoils the effect.
Well, begin. What is the greatest of my enormities? Have you made out a
list?”

“Will you promise me something?” earnestly, leaning forward with a
pleading expression on his handsome face.

“Perhaps. I am in a most docile mood at this moment.”

“Then promise me you will do no more driving. You are not equal to it
to-night, indeed you are not, and it takes all the strength out of you.”

“How do you know I drove? Did Mr. Lennox tell you?” regarding him with
raised eyebrows.

“No—but I knew.”

“If you are one of those mysterious persons who always know everything,
I am going to avoid you,” she laughed, feeling herself flush under his
earnest scrutiny.

“You have not promised,” he persisted.

“Did I promise to promise?” with a swift provoking glance from under her
long lashes.

“Miss Dale,” pleading, “I never asked a favor of you before.”

“Why should you?” wrinkling up her forehead and wishing he had not so
persuasive a voice.

“I know—probably you think it is impertinent, but” coaxingly, “if you
would just this once,—”

“Well, is this where you sneaked off to?” cried a voice beside them; “a
pretty chase you’ve led me!” and Charley Bemis dropped into the nearest
chair and held out a plate to Hester. “See here, Miss Dale, you wouldn’t
go to the mountain, so I’ve brought the mountain to you. The bride cut
the cake long ago but I saved my piece to eat with you. Landor doesn’t
get a crumb.”

Landor looked as if he would like to stuff the whole slice down the
man’s throat. The girl smiled and resigned herself to at least make a
pretense of eating the thing she had tried so desperately to avoid.

“There is something in your half,” suggested young Bemis significantly.

“Is there?” replied Hester, wishing his enthusiasm were less. “You find
it for me.”

He cut her piece and pulled out something wrapped in paraffine paper
which proved to be a shining gold dollar.

“Oh! you’ve got it!” he cried. “Miss Dale’s got the money,” turning to
announce it to the whole piazza, “she’s going to be rich!”

“How nice of you to prophesy such good fortune,” she replied picking up
the coin and rising. “Won’t you come and help me find Mrs. Lennox and
tell her about it? I am sure Mr. Landor will excuse us?”

Kenneth, who had risen, bowed low and wondered how so adorably pretty a
girl could be so stony-hearted. He was utterly confounded when, as she
brushed by him she slipped something in his hand with a whispered
“That’s for luck,” and vanished with Bemis in attendance. A quick
indrawing of his fingers into the palm of his hand told Landor a little
coin lay within his grasp. A half-smothered ejaculation escaped him! Her
luck she had passed on to him! Did he dare attribute to it any
significance? No outward sign betrayed his inward perturbation as he
sauntered into the house to join the other guests.

Whether it was Kenneth’s skillful management or a preconceived
arrangement on Mrs. Lennox’s part or just Fate, deponent saith not, but
the fact remains that when the coach started off again that evening,
Hester found herself ensconced on the back seat with Landor, the rest of
the party chatting gayly in front of them, the guards well in the rear.

“Miss Dale,” Landor said when they had ridden some moments in silence,
“are you too tired to-night to let me talk to you a little, seriously?”
He had no desire to lose any time.

“Then you think I can be serious?”

“I know you can, only you never choose to be with me.”

“I _am_ an awful tease,” she admitted, touched by his wistful tone, “but
I can be the most serious person in the world and I should like to have
you to talk to me, only—you are not going to scold me any more, are
you, Mr. Landor? I think I am really too tired for that.” Her low
musical voice seemed to drift to him plaintively through the darkness.

“I was going to be selfishly egotistical and talk about—about a friend
of mine,” hoping she had not detected how near he had come to
blundering. “I wanted to ask your advice about him if you are quite sure
you are not too tired to listen, Miss Dale.”

“Of course I am not. I should like to hear about your friend, Mr.
Landor.”

Was there ever a voice so sweet, he thought, or a girl so full of
contradictions? One moment bewitchingly, aggravatingly whimsical, the
next revealing unfathomable depths of a nature which to him seemed the
purest and noblest in the world. Aloud he said:

“My friend is torn by a divided duty. He wants to go to the war but—”

“You think there will be war? Can’t he go?” she interrupted. “It seems
to me every man must go who can.”

“Yes, he can, but there are people whom he loves whom he hates to
leave—more than that whom he wants to stay and protect. It is as if his
whole future were at stake—not only his but theirs, and he can’t seem
to see his way clear.”

“Are they old and dependent on him for support, these people?”

“No, but he wants them to become dependent on him and how can that be if
he goes away?”

“If they love him,” the girl said emphatically, “they will not stand in
his way.”

“But he does not know that they love him or that they will ever love
him. He only knows that he loves them and—oh! Miss Dale,” sweeping
aside this strangely complicated case, “if you had a brother in times
like these, what would you do?”

“Do?” she cried; “why, I’d help him off to the front without a moment’s
hesitation! Julie and I would be the proudest girls in the world if we
had a brother to go to the war! If Daddy were well he would go—there
never was a finer officer than Daddy. Oh! Mr. Landor, you know us so
little that you’ve no idea how strongly we feel about these things.
We’ve tried in our own small way, Julie and I, to be soldiers ourselves
and we think no sacrifice too great to make for one another and for our
country.” In her earnestness she had forgotten the man beside her, the
friend and everything save the inspiration of those principles which
were as the very air she breathed.

He made no reply, fearing to break the spell and startle her back into
her old elusiveness. This revelation of her inner self was very precious
to him.

Presently she said: “Perhaps I know a little how your friend feels,
because I have always thought if ever I lived in war times I should go
as a nurse, but now I could not consider such a thing.”

“You? You are too young,” he gasped, never dreaming of this possibility.

“No, I am not too young, but Julie could not carry on our business and
take care of Daddy, too, all alone, and my duty is here.”

“You are doing active service in a field much harder than anything they
may see in Cuba,” he said intently.

“Oh! no, don’t say that; I do not deserve it; but you have talked to me
so frankly about your friend that I wanted you to know I understand a
little, though I do not believe I have been of any help. But this much I
know, if I were one of those people whom he loves, however much I might
need him and perhaps want him,”—was her voice faltering?—“I should
urge him to go and love him the better for going and believe that his
future and all connected with him would be the richer and the brighter
for the personal sacrifice.”

There was an exultant ring in her low voice that set the man’s heart to
throbbing with a pain strangely new and exquisite and so great was his
emotion that for some time he did not trust himself to speak. When he
did he said very gently:

“You _have_ helped my friend, Miss Dale, more than you have any idea and
I thank you for him. Some day, perhaps, you will let him thank you
himself. I—I shall always remember your kindness to-night” (poor
fellow, it was not easy to pick his words calmly when he longed to pour
his heart out to her). “I may not see you again for awhile; I—I am
going away.”

The coach drew up at her door and she was brought to a sudden
realization of her surroundings by the laughing salutations of the party
as they said goodnight. Kenneth had sprung to the ground and was waiting
to assist her to alight. She was not conscious of the gentle, almost
tender manner in which he lifted her down, but as he stood with bared
head holding the door open, for her, she stopped a moment and put out
her hands impulsively.

“Is this good-by?” she said, her beautiful eyes looking full into his.

“Yes,” with her hands close in his, “I shall go out with the first
regiment from Radnor.”




CHAPTER XVIII


Julie was in bed, but not asleep, when Hester came in that night, and
propped herself up on her elbow to listen with absorbed interest while
she gave an account of herself.

“Julie dear,” the younger girl began, “never urge me again to go
anywhere where I am to be confronted by the fruit of our labor. I can’t
stand it. I thought I should die when I first saw the boxes of cake
piled up in the hall—of course in a way it was a relief to know they
were safely there, but it gave me an actual pain to remember how we
nearly killed ourselves over them. Then a man I met nearly dragged me
out to see the bride cut the cake. That was too much and Mr. Landor came
to the rescue.”

“How nice of him!”

“Yes,” admitted Hester, “he _was_ nice and we were having a jolly time
when that awful man pounced down upon us, bride cake in hand, and I was
actually forced to eat some of it!”

“Poor child! Couldn’t you have intimated that you had tasted it just a
few times before?”

[Illustration: JULIE WAS IN BED WHEN HESTER CAME IN THAT NIGHT]

“I was tempted to, but out of consideration for Mrs. Lennox I spared him
the shock. And then what do you suppose? I got the gold dollar! I would
not have bothered to put such a polish on it yesterday if I had known it
was coming back to me!”

“Did you throw it out of the window in your best high-tragedy style?”

“No, I gave it to Mr. Landor. He looked so cross when Mr. Bemis joined
us that he was absolutely funny, so I thought I’d just give him a little
present—‘for a good boy on his birthday’ or something of that sort, you
know, only he wasn’t so alarmingly good and it wasn’t his birthday,—at
least I don’t suppose it was, do you?”

“Hester, you do talk the most idiotic nonsense!”

“Do I? Well, I’ve been pretty serious the past hour,” she said soberly
as she slipped off her gown and seated herself on the edge of the bed
preparatory to taking down her hair. “Julie, we are going to have war!”

To Julie, who could not be expected to know her sister’s train of
thought, this announcement seemed so irrelevant that she looked at her
wonderingly.

“It was not in to-night’s paper,” she said.

“No, but it is in the air. Mr. Landor thinks it is inevitable. He talked
with me to-night about a friend of his who’s crazy to go. I did not
suspect a thing at first but afterward I did—it’s himself, Julie—he
means to volunteer with the first call for troops.”

“That is just what I should expect of him, Hester.”

“Y-e-s,” reluctantly, “but do you know from things he said it is
evidently going to be a tussle for him to make up his mind to leave. He
is all upset about it and oh! Julie dear, how I did wish you were there
to talk to him—you always say such beautiful, helpful things. It is
some one he cares about—perhaps it is his father. Do you suppose it
_could_ be any one else, Julie?”

“I don’t know, dear”—certain suspicions in regard to Landor gaining
ground every minute—“perhaps it is Jessie Davis,” wickedly, for Julie
could do her share of teasing too.

“That fashion plate!” scornfully. “I don’t believe a word of it! She’s
not fit to button his shoes!”

“Probably she would not care to,” remarked Julie, intensely amused at
this taking up of the cudgels in Landor’s behalf; and then, thinking it
best—this wise Julie!—not to prolong the jest, she said, “It is
probably his father. He is old, you know, and Mr. Landor may hesitate to
go off and leave him. I am glad he talked with you, dear, about anything
he had so much at heart, for it shows how much he appreciates and values
your opinion and you probably talked to him twice as well as I could,
you funny little baby owl!”

Hester’s reply to this was to fling herself down on the foot of the bed
and cry in a muffled tone, “I’m so tired—so dead tired! I didn’t
realize it until I kept so still coming home and then I ached so I
wanted to scream while Mr. Landor was talking to me!”

Julie’s arms were around her in a moment. “The strain has been too much,
dear. You cannot stand the work and play too,—it is no use trying.”

“But I like to play,” cried Hester rebelliously, “and sometimes I feel
so wicked—as if I couldn’t keep up my end another minute, and then I
want to run away—all of us run away—to have ‘The Hustle’ again and go
racing out of all this, and then,”—her voice broke,—“Oh! then Julie
darling, I am so ashamed of such thoughts—so humiliated to think I
can’t be as patient as you are!”

“I know, dear,” stroking her sister’s hair softly, “and I am not
patient—not half as patient as I try to be—only I hold myself with a
fearfully tight rein for fear I’ll go all to pieces. We are both pretty
much knocked out now, dear, with the strain of the winter, the newness
of things and—”

“Not to mention being half fed,” inserted Hester.

“But we have paid all our expenses as we’ve gone along and kept out of
debt even if we have half starved to do it. You see, dear, up to now,”
said Julie, the accountant, “we have had to put such a large amount of
our earnings back into the business for all sorts of things.”

“Imagine what cousin Nancy would say if she knew how we wriggled along
on almost nothing, you and I!”

“She’d say we were fools not to have accounts with the butcher, the
baker and candlestick-maker but we do not agree with her, and Daddy,
bless his heart! does not want for anything. Thank heaven, we’ve
accomplished that much! Isn’t it a mercy, dear, that he does not realize
things? It would break his heart!”

“Oh! yes, but how I do long to have our darling old Daddy back!”

Julie said nothing. Her chin was very rigid but in a few moments she
said cheerfully, “I think the spring promises a good deal. Our work
increases every day and we can soon begin to live better. Bridget says
marketing is much cheaper in the summer, and if we only make enough now
to carry Daddy comfortably through the dull season when people are away
and we are not earning much, we’ll get on famously. Just think what
magnificent times we’ll have this summer just loafing around Daddy’s
room!”

Hester, who seldom allowed herself such luxury of woe as she had just
been indulging in, sat up, wiped her eyes on the corner of the sheet and
said emphatically, “I’m a fiend and I ought to be cow-hided!”

“I’ll paddle you instead,” said Julie, picking up the hair-brush Hester
had dropped and making as if to apply the back of it vigorously.

Hester dodged but Julie caught her and, springing out of bed, planted
her firmly in a chair and said, “I’ll brush that crazy head of yours and
help you to bed or you’ll never get there! It must be all hours of the
night.”

“You’ll catch your death of cold,” remonstrated Hester.

“I won’t, and if you’ll keep as still as a mouse and not scream when I
comb your hair—”

“You pull like the dickens; you know you do!”

“I do not and I wish you’d stop talking and give me a chance. I declare
you get worse every day—I tremble to think what you’re coming to!—and
I’ve, oh! such a piece of news to tell you!”

She was wholly unprepared for the clutch of Hester’s arms about her neck
as she cried, “Don’t tell me to-night, Julie dear, I—I
know—all—about—it!”

“Do you?” holding her fast. “Then aren’t you glad it has all come out
this way?”

“Yes, Julie darling,” stifling a sob.

“Why, Hester, what is it? You must not cry, dear. I can’t think what is
the matter!”

“I’m a selfish brute, but oh, I’m not really, Julie—not really. I think
it is the most beautiful thing!”

“What is ‘the most beautiful thing’?” wondering if the child were losing
her mind.

“That he’s been here. I knew it the moment you spoke. As if he’d fail to
come!”

“Hester! do you mean you think that I—I—”

Hester nodded.

“But I don’t dear, not the least little bit in the world!”

“Oh, Julie!”

For a moment they clung together. Then Julie gave a hysterical laugh.

“What a silly old goose you were to go having absurd thoughts about me,
and how dared you, how _dared_ you think I was in love with any one?”

“I did not know,” penitently, “you kept so still about Monsieur Grémond
and he _was_ in love with you, wasn’t he?”

“Yes dear. He came this afternoon and I sent him away. We do not want to
have secrets from each other, do we, old girl, but I never talked to you
much about him because there was a time when I did not quite know
whether I cared for him or not. Perhaps back in the old days, if he had
asked me, I might have said yes, but I doubt it—it was more a sort of
fascination he exercised over me for awhile and now I am truly thankful
he has come and gone. He has removed every particle of doubt as to my
attitude toward him.”

“Oh, I am so glad. I couldn’t bear the thought of his carrying you off
to France.”

Julie’s eyes opened wide. “Did you suppose I’d go away and leave you and
Daddy and the rest?” in a tone of astonishment.

“Some Prince Charming is coming along to carry you off some day, Julie
dear,” said Hester, who could bring herself to regard such an event with
some degree of complacency now that it was not an immediate fact. “I’m
not quite such a selfish pig” (she never spared herself in the matter of
epithets), “as to expect to have you always.”

“I think we are sufficient unto each other now, dear,” said Julie
seriously, “and we may always be, for all the years to come; but if some
day our lives should change—a new interest enter in—we’ll share it and
make it beautify the lives of both of us just as we’ve always shared
every joy and sorrow ever since we were babies.” She kissed her sister
solemnly.

“You blessed Julie!” was the response.

When the gas was out and Hester, the irrepressible, finally in bed, the
light of the full moon came streaming into the little room. And
lingering with a caressing touch it fell upon a white pillow on which a
curly golden head and a sleek dark one lay pressed close together. In
the solemn stillness the breathing of two slender forms told that the
excitement of the past forty-eight hours had at last ended in much
needed sleep.




CHAPTER XIX


Mrs. Driscoe was not a reasonable woman, never had been reasonable, had
no desire to be reasonable; it was therefore not to be expected that she
would take a reasonable attitude toward Sidney Renshawe when he went
down to Virginia early that spring and asked her for her Nannie. In vain
did he argue and cajole, in vain did the dear Colonel remonstrate, in
vain did little Nannie cry and plead; to one and all she turned a deaf
ear. It was no—no—no then and forever.

The County discussed the situation freely and wondered that so worldly a
mother should frown upon so eligible a _parti_. Sidney Renshawe was well
born, fairly rich, rising steadily in his profession; all the County
knew that much, though it is doubtful if any one of them had ever been
in Radnor. What if Renshawe’s hair was red and his mustache a trifle
bristly? Didn’t that add a touch of strength to his face and suggest a
resemblance to a certain Prisoner of Zenda, who, though only a man in a
book, as every one said, was, nevertheless, the most idolized of heroes.
As for poor little Nannie, it was plainly to be seen she was losing
flesh over the situation.

As she wrote the girls, she was “torn by conflicting emotions,” using
the well-worn phrase because the poor little thing had no words of her
own in which to express her feelings. She had never had complex feelings
before. Hitherto her life had consisted in loving and being loved, which
led her naturally enough into a similar state of things with Sidney
Renshawe, who came, saw and conquered her girlish heart. The Colonel was
her stanch friend and ally. He liked Renshawe and felt he was just the
man to whom he could trust his little girl when the time came to give
her up. And that was not necessarily imminent, for if Mrs. Driscoe was
unreasonable Renshawe certainly was not and was willing to wait one,
two, three years if need be. But Mrs. Driscoe remained obdurate and the
household was plunged into a state of strained atmospheric conditions
such as had never been known before.

“I can’t help loving him and it isn’t wrong to love him, is it?” little
Nannie would say appealingly to the Colonel.

“No, no, Puss, be patient. We’ll win her over soon.” It is doubtful if
the Colonel believed this cheerful prophecy, but the child had to be
comforted.

Renshawe had remained two weeks with his friends at the plantation
adjacent to the Driscoes, seeing Nannie every day. Mrs. Driscoe did not
refuse him this boon but, declined to receive him herself and intimated
so plainly that the man’s room was preferable to his company that the
girl took little pleasure in his visits and agreed with him that it was
far better he should go away. Without her mother’s permission she
refused to become engaged but the night previous to his departure she
allowed him to slip on her finger a certain simple little ring which he
reminded her he had been carrying in his pocket since the night they
met. The next day he went north leaving his heart in Virginia, with a
delicious sense of its security in Nannie’s keeping. The consciousness
was strong within him that the winning of such as she was worth the
waiting.

And Mrs. Driscoe all this while went about with the aggrieved air of one
whose troubles were scarcely to be understood by an unsympathetic world.
If she had been put to it she could have given no reason for her
opposition to Renshawe, for she had none and had shown him marked favor
at the beginning. But that was before, as she told the Colonel, “her
suspicions were aroused.” From the moment they were, Renshawe was made
unpleasantly conscious of it.

While Nannie, sustained by the Colonel and the County’s backing, got
what solace she could out of the days that were so long and oh! so
lonely after Sidney left her, he, back in Radnor, turned for comfort to
the Dale girls, who took him into their hearts for Nannie’s sake and
soon learned to like him for his own. He became a frequent visitor,
calling usually Sunday afternoons when he felt he would be less likely
to disturb them, and he wrote Nannie that except a certain little girl
in Virginia whose name he would never divulge, they were the sweetest
girls he had ever known and the bravest. But he did not tell Nannie how
as he came to observe them more closely he discovered in their faces
little careworn lines which told a tale their lips never would have
disclosed and how about Julie, especially, there was a subdued, almost
intense manner, as if she were holding herself in a vise. They never
spoke of their work or their cares to him or any one else and made light
of any passing reference to their business. Indeed, as far as Sidney
might have known from them, they lived quite like other girls.

In regard to his friend Grémond’s previous connection with them or of
his call on Julie, Renshawe knew nothing. The Frenchman left town the
day following that on which he had seen Julie and had not referred to
the Dales in any way either to him or Dr. Ware, who was left to draw his
own conclusions. This was not so simple as might be supposed, for while
in one light the man’s sudden disappearance looked as if Julie might
have given him his congé, viewed from another point, especially taken in
connection with a certain happy light in Julie’s eyes these days when he
caught her glance, it led him to believe that perhaps the girl had given
him her promise but required that he should wait yet a longer time to
claim her. The Doctor longed to know and wearied himself with imagining
why she did not confide in him. But since she did not, delicacy forbade
his mentioning Grémond’s name.

Another person who did some speculating over Grémond was Mrs. Lennox,
but being a woman she arrived at her conclusions quickly and decided
that his precipitous flight to France when he had been booked for some
weeks in Radnor, argued ill for the result of his trip across the
country. She was not at home the one time he had called on her and the
fact that he was not at more pains to seek her out and continue the
confidential relations established in her sanctum on his previous visit,
satisfied her that he could not have found what he was so eagerly
seeking. Being a sympathetic woman she was sorry, but she would have
thought more of him had he chosen to tell her the outcome of his
affairs. As he did not, she dismissed him from her mind altogether,
having agreed with Miss Marston one day when they were discussing him,
that he was a clever man but after all a trifle too self-centered. To
tell the truth Mrs. Lennox had been mistaken in her analysis of his
character and it annoyed her.

A fortnight after the wedding the Dale girls were devouring with eager
eyes one morning a very small note and a very large check which they
could scarcely read, so great was their excitement.

“Oh, what a relief!” cried Julie, “to know that everything pleased Mrs.
Truxton, and how good she was to write such a kind appreciative note to
people like us whom she scarcely knows! Let’s go and read it to
Bridget.”

Bridget, when she heard it, was reduced to tears and presently they were
all laughing and crying together, for the work of this first big order
had been more of an anxiety than any one of them cared to acknowledge,
while its success expressed so kindly by their thoughtful customer meant
as much in its way as the accompanying check, which fairly dazzled them.

“One hundred and twenty-five dollars!” cried Hester ecstatically. “We’re
millionaires! Oh— oh—oh! to think of our _earning_ so much money!” She
waved the check wildly over her head and even insisted that Peter Snooks
should have a sniff at it before she said, “Wouldn’t you just like to
frame it and keep it forever?”

“I know what I should like best of all to do with it,” said Julie.

“I bet Miss Hester can guess by the knowin’ look in her eyes,” said
Bridget. “It’s meself that knows too, what your blessed selves is
thinkin’.”

“Of course you both know,” Julie said quietly, “we want to begin to pay
Dr. Ware rent.”

They went the next afternoon to his office. On the doorsteps they
encountered Miss Ware, who turned about as she saw them approach.

“Don’t let us detain you,” said Julie politely, “we have just come for a
little business talk with your brother.”

“Ah!” she replied, “I fancied you got about all of that sort of thing
you wanted at home. You’d better come upstairs and let me make you some
tea—you look peaked, both of you. Philip ought to give you a tonic.
Tell him I said so, and come up afterward. I insist upon it and shall
have the tea ready. It will not do you any harm to sit down in a
different atmosphere for a while. I suppose you do get sick to death of
a kitchen.”

There was no doubt that Miss Ware possessed to perfection the faculty of
rubbing one the wrong way, but Julie deemed it wise not to decline these
overtures and made no further protest against her going in with them.

“Horrid old thing! How I hate her!” whispered Hester, as Miss Ware went
on upstairs and they waited a moment in the Doctor’s ante-room.

“So do I, but she’s _his_ sister and she means well.”

“You’d find excuses for the old boy himself.”

“No, I wouldn’t,” laughed Julie, “but—here’s Dr. Ware.”

He bowed to them as he entered from the private office and passed by
with an elderly man, with whom he was in deep conversation. In a moment
he returned and greeted the girls warmly.

“Well,” he said, giving each a hand, “this is delightful. Come into the
other room. That was old Mr. Landor—Kenneth’s father, by the way—did
you notice him? He is about half Kenneth’s size, but he has force enough
for a dozen men. I wish you girls knew him.”

He pulled out chairs as he talked and ensconced the girls comfortably,
then stood against the table facing them with arms folded and the smile
on his face which Bridget vowed was “like the blessed sun for warmin’
the cockles of your heart.”

“It is good to have you here,” he said heartily, “I wish you came more
often. Perhaps,” with a laugh that showed the gleam of his white teeth,
“I do not give you a chance—I go so often to see you.”

“If you came every hour of the day it wouldn’t be too often,” exclaimed
Hester, who never loved people by halves. “But Julie is going to do the
talking to-day. I intend to keep still.”

“As if you could! Well, Julie?” smiling at her.

“We have come to have a little business talk with you,” she said,
twisting her fingers together nervously and finding it a little
difficult to begin.

“Delighted to be so honored,” he replied lightly, bowing low.

“It is about the—the rent,” said Julie, who wished her words would not
stick in her throat. “We are getting on so well with our work that we
want to begin to pay you. We thought if you would let us begin this
month and—”

“And not object or scold us or anything,” broke in Hester who never
could remain out of a conversation, “but just take the money, we’d feel
a thousand times happier, though no money or anything else could ever
express our gratitude for all you are doing.”

He still leaned against the table with folded arms but the smile had
given place to an expression of sadness.

“Have you both quite finished?” he asked when Hester had stopped for
lack of breath.

“We never could finish talking about your kindness,” put in Julie.

The Doctor raised his hand as if to waive that aside. “I have listened
to your proposition,” he said, “because I am a practical business man
and I understand your spirit. It is the height of your ambition to be
independent.”

“Yes,” they assented.

“When your father broke down,” he continued, “I longed to take you all
home and look after you. I was amply able to do it and he is my oldest
and best friend. I would have done it, too, if you girls had not
astonished me by displaying so much courage and such a determination to
fight your own battles that I could only stand aside and watch you work
out your own salvation.”

“You have made the way easier all the time,” said Julie tremulously.

The Doctor cleared his throat.

“I have been so glad to share a bit of the responsibility, but now my
faithful little comrades want to shoulder it all.”

“Oh, Dr. Ware, you don’t think—” began Hester impulsively.

“Yes, I do think,” he interrupted, “that you have the right idea and
whatever my personal inclination may be, I like your spirit of
independence and it shall be as you say.”

Hester flung her arms about his neck and kissed him. “Do you know,” she
said brokenly, “Julie and I are getting so puffed up with conceit over
our business prosperity that presently you will disown us altogether.”

“Shall I?” holding her fast. “What do you think, Julie?” with a
searching gaze into the face of the older girl who stood a little apart
from them.

Julie flushed and turned her eyes away—tell-tale eyes like hers were
not to be trusted. “I think,” she said with a supreme effort to speak
calmly, “I think we had better go upstairs for tea. Miss Ware will be
wondering what has become of us.”

When the Doctor learned that tea was brewing in the library he followed
them upstairs and electrified his sister by handing about tea and taking
a cup himself with as much complacency as if he were in the habit of
dawdling around a tea-table every afternoon of his life. Miss Ware
wished he hadn’t come, for she had intended to ply the girls with
questions about their work; questions which in the presence of her
brother she hesitated to ask, standing, as she did, in considerable awe
of him. She did manage, while he was talking to Hester, to catechise
Julie a little, but that young woman’s answers were so evasive, yet
withal so sweetly polite that Miss Ware felt very much as if she were
hitting a rubber ball, which, while showing the imprint of her attack,
bounded back every time to the starting point. It happened also that Dr.
Ware having some notion of what his sister might be up to, rescued Julie
from too prolonged a tête-à-tête and with infinite tact kept the
conversation in such general channels that personalities were forgotten
and Miss Ware quite shone in her desire to be agreeable. There are many
persons who, given their own conversational way, manage in the course of
an hour to reduce to a state of irritation every person in the room, yet
who, guided and steered by a stronger force, rise to the best that is in
them and produce such a favorable impression that one wonders how one
ever thought them other than agreeable. It was thus with Miss Ware, who
under the guidance of her brother, appeared to the girls in a new light,
and she herself had the unusual sensation of regretting that they had
taken so early a departure.

“I wish I had asked them to stay on to dinner,” she said when they had
gone.

“I wish you had,” said the Doctor, accustomed to her after thoughts.

“Why didn’t you suggest it?”

“I was not sure that it would be agreeable to you, Mary.”

“Humph!” she said. Then critically, “Hester _is_ extraordinarily
pretty—and what an air! She’s almost conspicuous. How is your scheme
about Kenneth getting on?”

“It is not a ‘scheme,’ Mary. I wish you would not express it just that
way. And I have concluded I am not the right person to go in for
match-making. Think no more about it.”

“Humph!” she said again.

“I doubt if either of the girls will care to marry,” he volunteered.

“Girls are queer,” she said sententiously.

“Are they?” he rejoined wearily. “I do not think I know.”




CHAPTER XX


That spring would always be a memorable one both to the girls and the
country at large, for momentous events followed one upon another in
rapid succession. War was declared with Spain, as Kenneth had
prophesied, and all the bustle and activity attendant upon the
preparations of hostilities with a foreign power were felt throughout
the nation.

Kenneth, believing such a crisis inevitable, had prepared to respond
promptly to the first call for troops.

There had been a fierce tussle with his father when first he broached
the subject, but by that time Mr. Landor had learned that Kenneth’s was
not a nature to be forced into subjection and heard him out with far
more respect than would have been accorded him a year ago. Mr. Landor
suggested, in the course of the talk, that it was a pity to leave the
business just as he was mastering it; and Kenneth agreed with him. But
all the patriotism in his nature was aroused and this, combined with
Hester’s inspiration and his naturally adventurous spirit, held him
proof against his father’s arguments. This strength and decision were
not lost upon the older man, who, having put forth every argument to
keep his son at home, ended the discussion by saying, somewhat abruptly:

“When the call came in ’61 I could not go. I had a father and mother
dependent on me. I’m—I’m not dependent on you, Kenneth, and your
country needs you. I should have been disappointed in you if you had not
wanted to go.”

“Thank you, father,” with a hearty grip of the hand for he thought he
understood the personal sacrifice his father was making, though,
man-fashion, he said no word.

And so Kenneth used his influence toward the end he had in view, with
the good result that when on that twenty-third day of April the
President issued his first call for troops, he was given a commission as
lieutenant in the crack cavalry troop of Radnor and ordered into the
State camp to await developments.

The girls saw the troopers go. They happened to be in the business part
of the city that afternoon and were attracted by groups of people
standing about and talking excitedly. Further investigation, coupled
with the sound of a bugle in the distance, caused them to take refuge on
the nearest steps and wait with bated breath for the militia to appear.
Electric cars had stopped running, wagons rattled off into the side
streets, leaving the main thoroughfare clear, and presently they came—a
troop of cavalry followed by a regiment of infantry, the splendid column
swinging along to the gay music of the band, whose medley of martial
airs wound up suggestively with “The Girl I Left Behind Me.”

The crowd broke into a great spontaneous cheer and cheered and cheered
again, shouting until they were hoarse. On the sidewalks, steps, from
windows all about, people craned their necks for a last look at the
departing soldiers. Women waved their handkerchiefs and wept. Men raised
their hats—aye, flung them high in the air—while every man, woman and
child who could lay hand on a flag waved it in frantic demonstration.
For staid decorous Radnor it was an ovation.

The Dale girls thrilled with excitement. Just as the cavalry passed
their steps Julie grabbed Hester and said:

“Look at that officer just back of the men—isn’t he stunning! And see
how beautifully he manages that prancing horse! No, not over there,
Hester,—this way, nearer us,” excitedly, “the horse is dancing to the
music and oh!—why, Hester Dale, it’s Mr. Landor! Wave to him, quick! I
want him to see us!”

They both waved, standing on tip-toe, and, as if impelled by the
instinct that warns us when those we love are near, he turned and saw
them. There was a quick interchange of glances, a slight wave of the
hand and he was gone.

“He _did_ see us,” exclaimed Julie. “I am so glad even if it is against
the regulations for an officer to recognize people. Oh, aren’t you glad
we were down town! It is really living in war times and seeing for
ourselves the things Daddy has described a thousand times!”

“I can’t realize it,” said Hester, looking rather flushed, “but I would
not have missed it for anything in the world!”

When they got back to the house they found Jack in a fever of impatience
waiting to waylay them.

“Did you see him? Did you see him?” he cried, stopping them at his door.

“Mr. Landor? yes,” laughed Julie. “Did you?”

“Where were you? I was down at the Armory. Oh, please stop in here a
moment till I tell you about it.”

Thus urged, they went in.

“He was here,” cried Jack, to whom there was only one he, “early this
afternoon in his uniform and he asked for you; he wanted to say good-by,
but I said you’d just gone out. I saw you both going up the street
before he came—and he could only stay a second ’cause the troops were
ordered out and he thought I’d like to get around to the Armory and see
them start off. And didn’t I, just! I went lickety-split on my crutches
nearly as fast as a boy could run,” he cried, immensely proud of this
achievement, “and I was there in time and got a front seat. A fellow on
a grocery wagon asked me to sit up with him and I saw—everything,” with
a comprehensive sweep of his arms. “The horses and the officers and the
men and all their friends crowding around the Armory and hanging on to
some of them tight, and some of the ladies crying and gee! but it was
great!”

“Well, you certainly were right in it, Jack,” commented Hester.

“Should say I was! And pretty soon out came Mr. Landor—Lieutenant
Landor,” corrected Jack with great emphasis, “and an orderly was
standing alongside the curb with his horse and before he mounted he saw
me sitting in the wagon on the corner of the street and he came down and
saluted as though I was his superior officer,” Jack’s eyes were fairly
dancing out of his head, “and said good-by all over again. I wish you
could have seen the crowd! They just gaped! and the boys nearly had a
fit seeing me talking to an officer. And when he went off one of them
said, ‘Gee! he’s a corker—he’ll knock the spots out of the Spaniards,’
and I said, ‘You bet!’ That’s awful slang, Miss Julie,” apologetically,
“but it’s the truth.”

Julie smiled. “We are getting our first glimpse of war, Jack, and it is
pretty exciting for all of us.”

“I’m crazy to go—I bet they’d take me for a drummer-boy if I could get
rid of these,” with a disgusted glance at his crutches. “I told Mr.
Landor so and he said of course I wanted to go—every boy wanted to
serve his country—but sometimes there was just as much to do for those
who stayed at home as those who went. That the women and children must
be looked after” (the air of protection which the superiority of his sex
gave him would have been funny had he not been in such deadly earnest),
“and,” he continued, “he appointed me a guard of honor. I’m to take care
of you!” He made this announcement with positive triumph.

“How splendid!” said Julie, realizing how much this feeling of
importance meant to the restless boy who was longing to be off for the
front.

“I’m to go and see his father too, and print a weekly bulletin full of
what we’re all doing and anything I can make up—just like the one I do
for your father and he’s going to write me from camp. Think of that! And
I’m to get well as fast as I can and study very hard and try to be a man
when he gets back. And what do you suppose? No more office for me!”

“Jack, you are inventing!”

“Nope,” delighted at her incredulity, “he had a talk with mother last
week and I’m to go to school and then to college.”

“That is the best news I’ve heard for many a day,” said Julie,
affectionately regarding the happy boy. “If you work hard and go to
college I prophesy great things for you.”

“If the war’s still on, though, when I’m old enough and well enough,
maybe I’d get to be a drummer-boy.” In his present state of military
ardor life held the promise of nothing greater than that.

When they had left him and were nearly at their own door they were
stopped by the sound of his crutches on the stairs below. Hester ran
back to see what he wanted.

“Don’t come up, Jack,” she called, running down to meet him. “Did we
leave something behind?”

“It’s this, Miss Hester,” reaching out a note. “He gave it to me—I
nearly forgot. Please forgive me,” penitently.

“Of course, Jack,” taking it from him and turning again she went
upstairs.

It was only a thin sheet of paper, folded three-cornered, on which in
pencil was scrawled her name. But she opened it on the stairs with a
mixture of curiosity and tenderness which she would have been at a loss
to define had any analysis of her feelings been required of her.

  “I had hoped to see you,” it said, without any other beginning, “but
  that failing, I have stolen a moment here at the Armory to say
  good-bye. It was not a friend but I, myself, to whom you were such a
  help and inspiration that evening. When I come back will you let me
  thank you for that and—more? The bit of gold you gave me I am
  carrying with me as a mascot. Do you mind? And if I prove as
  fearless and brave a soldier as you I shall thank God for making me
  of the right stuff. Will you pray that it may be so? Good-bye.”

She stood quite still for a moment when she had finished reading, then
brushed her hand quickly over her eyes and went on into their apartment.
Finding Julie she handed her the bit of paper and said gayly, though
Julie thought there was a suspicious huskiness in her voice, “See, Julie
dear, a note from a really, truly soldier.” And before Julie could speak
she whisked out of the room and until Bridget called her to dinner, was
seen no more.

                   *       *       *       *       *

A month passed, during which, in spite of the excitement over war and
the subsequent depression along certain lines of business, their work
increased from day to day. And in the midst of all this bustle and rush
when each hour exacted of them the very limit of their endurance, Mr.
Dale died. He went to sleep with God as peacefully as a little child. At
first the girls could not believe it. They had grown so used to the long
hours in which he slept, so accustomed to the paralysis which kept his
mind and body apathetic, that they could not conceive that he would not
wake again and turn his eyes fondly on them as before. When finally he
was carried out of the little home and laid in his last resting place
they began to realize that God had released him from his earthly
thraldom and given them another saint in heaven. With characteristic
courage they lived through those first days when the awful loneliness
pressed so heavily upon them, and with characteristic determination took
up their work struggling to go on as if nothing had happened. But it was
hard—harder than any other sorrow which had come to them—for the whole
incentive of their work was gone. It was as if the very mainspring of
their lives had snapped and broken.

In the long solemn talks the girls had together at this time Julie urged
that they must be as faithful to their father’s precepts as they had
tried to be while he was with them. And she dwelt very much on the fact
that he was still with them, guiding and loving them as much as during
all those years before he was stricken down. And Hester believed this
too for they had been taught the beauty of the inner, spiritual life
that counts for immortality and makes all separation merely a transitory
thing bridged over by love. So they felt their beloved father still with
them, though Hester often brokenly whispered that working was robbed of
its incentive now that they were no longer “making a home for Dad.”

It must not be supposed that they were left alone in their affliction.
On the contrary, friends sprang up in every direction. Women whom
hitherto they had only regarded as customers and known most formally,
now came forward with kindest words and thoughtful suggestions, while
expressions of sympathy in the form of cards and flowers threatened to
well-nigh deluge them. It was evident to the most casual observer that
“those Dale girls” were persons of considerable importance. Unique as it
was, they had made their place in Radnor, and the fact was given wide
recognition. They themselves were fairly bewildered and overcome by so
much demonstration from people from whom they expected nothing. That
they were not insensible to its meaning was shown in their grateful
appreciation of every word and act. Even the haughty Miss Davis,
desiring to make reparation, chose this time to come and see them, and
Hester out of the fullness of her sorrowful heart accepted her repentant
kiss and fell to talking of childish days.

Next to Dr. Ware there was no one so keenly conscious of or who so
rejoiced over this capitulation of exclusive Radnor as the Lennoxes. As
Mrs. Lennox wrote Kenneth Landor, most girls were what their position
made them, but they had made their own position, winning the respect and
admiration and at last the friendship of every one who knew them. He,
hard at work drilling raw recruits in Virginia (for his troop had been
ordered into a Southern camp) found time to write how glad of this he
was and to the girls he sent a joint note of deepest sympathy.

The Driscoes wrote, of course, each in their own way. The girls half
smiled over Cousin Nancy’s letter—it was such a mixture of a belief in
the retribution that overtakes the willful and an evident grief that the
Major was no more. Colonel Driscoe wrote little but did much which
developed later through Dr. Ware who unwarily let the cat out of the
bag. And Dr. Ware, as might have been expected, did everything. This
time the girls allowed him to plan and arrange and perform with them and
for them the last loving offices for their father, feeling that it was
his right.

Miss Ware was at this time in England and as the Doctor was living at
his club, his time was more than ever at their disposal. Miss Ware had
taken flight at this first note of war, indeed before the bugle sounded,
for she had a very indifferent regard for her country and at all times
preferred England. So the Doctor came and went without comment, and a
month after Mr. Dale’s death he was summoned hastily one morning by
Bridget.

Julie lay ill. He could not find that she was in any great pain and he
had not expected that she would be. He knew immediately that the thing
he had been so long dreading had taken place. Her tired nerves refused
to do their work at last—the delicate mechanism of her body had
stopped.

Hester hovered about, wide-eyed and solicitous and then it was that more
than ever Dr. Ware took things into his own hands and said a few things
to Hester which caused that young woman to gasp with astonishment and
fling her arms about his neck in her usual impetuous fashion.




CHAPTER XXI


Under the most favorable auspices a military camp entails labor, but to
the volunteers who assembled in Virginia that spring and broke ground
for what afterward became known as Camp Alger, it was a tremendous
undertaking. The hewing of wood and clearing of underbrush which it
entailed was scarcely bargained for by the enlisted man fresh from
civilian life, who, nevertheless, went at it with the energy
characteristic of Uncle Sam’s boys the country over, as a result of
which, by the end of May, many of the regiments were as well quartered
as if they were enjoying the customary summer outing at their State
camp-grounds at home. These, of course, were the militia now mustered
into the United States service and awaiting orders to follow the
regulars into Spanish territory.

Troop D of Kenneth Landor’s squadron had unquestionably the finest site
on the reservation; a wooded knoll stretching down into a field of
grass—green when the troopers came but worn down to bare earth in the
first month of their encampment. Beneath the shade trees on the hillside
the officers pitched their conical tents, the men stretching out through
the field below in two troop streets, back of which on either side were
picketed their horses.

It was a warm June afternoon, but a little breeze stirred the branches
of the trees and blew with delicious freshness over the knoll, on which,
stretched out at full length, lay Kenneth Landor. It was an off hour in
camp and, barring the sentries who were tramping up and down their
posts, every man was taking advantage of it, some comfortably lounging
like Kenneth on the grass, others laboriously writing home letters
filled with their latest exploit. For they were just back from a three
days’ practice march along the Potomac, during which they had spent
their time in fighting the infantry they met on the road and swimming
their horses in the river; and this first bit of mimic warfare could not
fail to be of interest to the home people.

Kenneth had enjoyed the march hugely. He liked action and chafed, as did
all the men, under the monotony of their enforced encampment, although
realizing full well that the troop would be sent to the front as soon as
was deemed expedient. He was thinking, as he lay on his back gazing
skyward, of what he had once heard a veteran say,—that war was largely
made up of soldier housekeeping. That might be true, but he hoped he
should come in for some stiff fighting before he got through. These
interesting speculations so engrossed him that he scarcely noticed the
mail orderly going the rounds until turning suddenly on his elbow he saw
the man coming toward him. This trooper, detailed as mail orderly, was
no other than Charley Bemis, whom we last saw at the Earle-Truxton
wedding, but so strictly was the etiquette of military life maintained
in camp that the man on approaching, saluted his superior officer,
received an acknowledging salute, delivered a letter and turned away
without a word.

The envelope was addressed in Jack’s round sprawling hand and Kenneth
prepared himself for a comfortable perusal of the weekly bulletin which
the boy wrote, edited and printed with faithful regularity and which
never failed to be of absorbing interest to the man who received it.
This time, however, there was no printed sheet, but a letter written
apparently at fever heat.

“Dear Lieutenant,” (it began, with military terseness), “I’m too upset
to do the paper, though I’ll try to soon, but you won’t wonder when I
tell you. _They’re gone!_ I can’t realize it myself and I wish I didn’t
have to—it’s all so sudden and so lonesome I just want to go off and
die!

“Dr. Ware did it. He and Bridget packed them off before they could say
Jack Robinson. She’s gone, too, so has he—down to Wavertree Hall, their
cousin’s plantation in Virginia. You see, Miss Julie broke down, though
she wouldn’t let any of us say she was ill, and Mrs. Driscoe urged them
to come there and Colonel Driscoe wrote Dr. Ware and sent him the money
to buy their tickets and said he mustn’t tell and he should rely upon
him to get them off. Miss Hester told me all that. She laughed, the way
she always does, you know, and said their cousin Driscoe and Dr. Ware
together were too much for them. She said they meant to have a good rest
and get Miss Julie strong and then come back to their work again but
Gee! I wish they didn’t have to—it’s such a fearful grind.

“It’s awful without them, and Peter Snooks gone too! Lieutenant Landor,
what’s a guard of honor to do with nothing to guard? There’s mother, of
course, and Mr. Landor, but they don’t like me bothering around the way
those girls did. They never minded. I’ve left off my crutches and I’m
digging at my books, but I’m going to be a drummer boy yet, you bet!

“Please send me the latest news from the front. I think it’s _great_ to
be a soldier!

                                                                 “Jack.”

“P.S.—Mother says it’s a girl’s trick to add a postscript, but they’re
down there near you somewhere. Wouldn’t you love to see them, just! They
went to Dunn Loring the way you did and had to drive a ways into the
country. Thought you’d like to know.”

The varied sensations which surged through Kenneth as he finished
reading are difficult to describe. Paramount was the joyful surprise
that Hester was somewhere in the vicinity, followed by the overwhelming
desire to see her without loss of time. This he knew as he came to think
it over quietly, was impossible. He could not take the initiative or
seem to thrust himself upon her uninvited. She, of course, must know
that his troop was still at Camp Alger and if she cared to see him—but
did she care?

That baffling question haunted him a week. Then came one day a note
brought by a small darky who was inclined to ride rough-shod over the
sentries because, as he condescended to explain to them, he had a note
from the young missis to deliver right into the Lieutenant’s own hand. A
formal, brief little note Hester had written, but it was enough, for it
told him where they were and that their cousin Mrs. Driscoe would be
most happy to have him ride over and call.

He went that evening, inquiring the way in Dunn Loring and soon found
himself riding up a long avenue between rows of locust trees, at the end
of which he could just distinguish a large brick mansion with a square
portico and broad verandahs at either end. When he drew up at the house
he discovered a small cavalcade ahead of him. At least half a dozen
horses were standing hitched in various parts of the driveway, and
following the custom of the place he tied his own with the rest. Then he
rapped vigorously at the knocker to announce his arrival. By that
general factotum George Washington he was ushered immediately across a
huge square hall and out onto a verandah where a gay group of people
were laughing and chatting together. His first impression was a vivid
effect of blue uniforms and white muslin gowns while from out of this
medley a dignified, matronly figure came forward with his card in her
hand and said in hearty Southern fashion:

“How do you do, Mr. Landor? It is a pleasure to welcome you to Wavertree
Hall. Hester, my dear, here is one of your Radnor friends.”

Hester slipped down from the railing where she had been sitting and
shyly gave him her hand. Somehow, for a moment he scarcely knew her with
that strange light in her eyes. Then there was a general interchange of
greetings, for Julie called him over to the hammock where she was half
reclining and Dr. Ware rose up from his seat beside her and nearly shook
the arm off him; and there was dear little Nannie waiting to have him
presented and the Colonel, who laughingly consented to wait his turn,
and all the guests who enviously regarded this brother officer upon
whom, for the moment, all interest centered.

He saw very little of Hester that night. She was the gayest of the gay
and seemed to evade him with the old elusiveness which had been so
marked in the first days of their acquaintance. So he turned for comfort
to Julie, whose convalescence kept her a little apart from the lively
group and whose genuine interest in him seemed to the distracted fellow
almost the sweetest thing in the world.

He rode off rather early, in company with the other officers, whom he
found belonged to a Virginia regiment encamped at Alger, and when the
gay little cavalcade had waved their hands in parting and were lost to
sight Dr. Ware said to Julie:

“There was not a man of them who could compare with Kenneth—he is
superb!”

“Yes,” she assented, “he is. I never saw him look so handsome as he does
in his uniform.”

The others had strayed into the great hall, and they were alone on the
verandah.

“Julie,” he said gently, “you begin to feel more like your old self now,
do you not, dear?”

“Oh! yes,” she said, “I feel stronger and stronger every day. But,” with
a little laugh, “I am in danger of being spoiled—you all wait on me
so.”

“It is a good thing to get that independent young spirit of yours into
subjection,” he laughed. “We are all making the most of the
opportunity.”

“Do you notice how cousin Nancy has changed?” she asked. “She does not
eye Hester and me so curiously as she did at first. When we came she
scarcely took her eyes off us for days. I think she was prepared to see
freaks and could not readjust her mind to the fact that we looked and
behaved just as usual. To cook for a living and still be a lady was an
anomaly beyond her comprehension, but she is beginning to realize such
things can be, though she wouldn’t acknowledge it for the world. Dear
cousin Nancy! She’s so good and so contradictory!”

“I shall never forget her kindness in keeping me here,” he said
heartily. “Think of my merely meaning to see you safe at Wavertree Hall,
and being taken possession of by her and made one of the family! Her
hospitality is unbounded.”

Presently he said: “I have been waiting for you to feel strong enough to
have a little serious talk, Julie. What would you say if you were not to
go back to your work for another year?”

“Oh, we must go back,” she said. “Please don’t think we’ll allow
ourselves to get demoralized or unfitted for work because of all this!”

“I’m not likely to think that, dear, but your cousin Driscoe has had a
long talk with me and he urges me to persuade you all to remain with
them a year, at least. He says now they’ve got you here they want to
keep you and you’ll be all the better fitted to work, he thinks, for a
long rest. He says he has not mentioned this to your cousin Nancy
because he will not have her bothering you to do what you don’t want
to—”

“The dear, blessed man,” she exclaimed.

“And he didn’t want to bother you himself but he thought if I threw the
weight of my influence on his side you might be persuaded. He doesn’t
know, does he?” wistfully, “what little influence I really have with you
two independent girls!”

“Oh, don’t say that!” she protested; “it isn’t fair! And I do not
believe way down deep in your heart you would urge our staying on here
so long. You know too well how hard we have struggled to get started to
advise our letting the work all slip away. Besides, what would you do
without us all that time, I’d like to know,” she said playfully. “You’d
be terribly lonesome, you know you would and—oh no,” suddenly growing
serious again, “we must go back and take up the work and push on with
it, but it isn’t the same—it just can’t be without Daddy!” She turned
her face away but not before he had detected the brimming eyes.

“Dear,” he said, putting out his arms, “if only you would let me”—he
stopped, pulling himself together with a mighty effort. “I—I—”

“You are so good to me,” she faltered, “so good!”

“I’m far from good to let you get excited to-night,” he said, struggling
to speak calmly. “You are not strong yet, dear, but I wanted to speak to
you about your cousin Driscoe’s proposition before I went away!”

“Away?” she repeated as if scarcely understanding, “must you go away?”

“I think so, dear, in a day or two. Tell me what I can do for you in
Radnor.”

“Radnor?” musingly, “how far away that seems! Yes, you can do something
for me there—two things. See Jack and tell him all about us and hunt up
Mr. Renshawe and tell him we’ve nearly won the day. Hester and I have
been maneuvering in his behalf on all occasions. Tell him Nannie treads
on air and that any day he may expect a little flag of truce, for cousin
Nancy shows signs of surrendering. Will you tell him all that?”

“Julie dear,” bending toward her with a world of tenderness in his
voice, “Julie dear, do you never want anything for yourself?”

“Yes,” very faintly.

“Can you tell me, little girl?”

“Yes,” reaching out her hands with a little childish gesture,—“you.”

“Julie!”

He took her in his arms and for a moment there was silence while out in
the moonlit trees a mocking-bird called to its mate.

“My little girl,” he said at last tremulously, “is it really true?”

“Oh, how could I do it,” she whispered, “how could I!”

“Love me? I am sure I don’t know and I scarcely dare believe it. Look at
me, sweetheart and tell me it is true.”

She raised her beautiful honest eyes and let him look into the depths of
her pure soul. “It is so natural to love you and so beautiful,” she said
simply.

“But I am no longer a young man, dear. What right have I to ask you to
give your young life to me?”

“You didn’t ask me,” with a little fluttering laugh, “I asked you. It is
very humiliating for you to remind me of it.”

“Julie!” He was holding her fast as if he never meant to let her go.

“You are not old,” she protested. “It is not years but the spirit that
counts, and you are young—just as I am old for my years, and there is
no one like you but Hester in the world. I have been loving you so long
unconsciously, that I don’t know when it began.”

“Neither do I, dear.”

“But I knew you so well,” she continued, “I was afraid you would have
some mistaken sense of honor that would prevent your ever telling me you
loved me and I just couldn’t bear that.” Julie’s head was hidden on his
shoulder.

“You little saint,” stroking her hair tenderly, “you always seemed to
belong to me, as if you were a part of my very life, but I have never
felt I was worthy of such a blessing and I have reminded myself a
thousand times this past winter that I could only have one place in your
affections—the old family friend. When Monsieur Grémond came along I
realized more than ever that I had no right to daydreams—that some
other man would claim you and carry you away.”

“Did you want me to marry him?” she asked.

“I wanted your happiness above everything.”

“Do _you_ never want anything for yourself?” she asked saucily.

“You,” was his answer, at which they both laughed with the delicious
sense of their own humor which only lovers know.

Then they had a long quiet talk together about the future, and he told
her how he thanked God she was willing to give herself into his keeping;
how he wanted to flood her life with sunshine and how blessed he should
be if she and Hester would make for him such a home as they had made for
Dad. And they spoke long and tenderly of the man who had been as noble a
friend as a father and who would always be a loved memory to them both.
Then she slipped away from him and leaving him to dream of a reality
that was beyond all imagining, went up to her room in search of Hester.




CHAPTER XXII


The change to Virginia was perhaps appreciated by no one more than Peter
Snooks, that by no means unimportant member of the Dale family, whose
activity knew no bounds. He raced madly about the plantation, to the
consternation of the chickens and the terror of Mrs. Driscoe, who, never
having owned dogs, fancied he was going to take up everything by the
roots. But Peter Snooks behaved admirably. To be sure, he chased
chickens, but what canine could resist that temptation? And it was
recorded to his credit that he never hurt one of them. With Julie not
well and Bridget and the two younger girls scarcely leaving her, Peter
Snooks was forced to seek companionship out of the family—quite a new
order of things—and chose George Washington, greatly to the delight of
that ebony mite. What games they had out in the carriage-house and what
antics the two cut upon the lawn playing circus for the edification of
the people on the verandah! Hester herself was sometimes inspired to go
into the ring and put Snooks through his tricks, which were many,
herself performing some ridiculous caper which was received with wild
applause. But Snooks had the best time when Hester and Nannie went
riding, and he raced alongside and often way ahead, to his own evident
delight though not always to the comfort of the horses.

Nannie, these days, was the happiest girl in the County, for she had her
two cousins whom she adored and every prospect of a speedy adjustment of
her love affair. She nearly hugged Julie to death whenever she thought
of it and confided to Hester when they went off together that being
engaged was just the loveliest thing in the world.

It would have been impossible to find two girls in greater contrast than
Hester and Nannie, for all they were such chums. Nannie, in her white
frocks and big sun hats, was a sweet little maiden whose soft brown eyes
did not belie her disposition. She had a soft, drawling voice and dear
little clinging ways that made the Colonel’s sobriquet of “Puss” seem
most fitting. She was fast growing to womanhood, but was in all things
childishly appealing, though that she was not without character was
shown in various ways, culminating in her loyalty to Sidney Renshawe in
spite of the painful opposition.

Hester wore white muslin frocks and big hats, too—relics of their last
year’s Paris shopping. It had always been the avowed wish of their
father that in the event of his dying before them they should not wear
black. He had the strongest aversion to the garb of mourning and the
girls remembered and respected his wishes. So they had made no change in
their wardrobe, though since they had come down to Virginia they
confined themselves almost wholly to white.

Simple enough these frocks were, but Hester wore hers with an air that
gave them something of her personality and made her distinctive wherever
she appeared. There was never anything nondescript about Hester. And her
moods were so many and so varied that her cousin Nancy, who did not in
the least understand her, told the Colonel despairingly that she must be
a witch—there certainly was not a drop of Fairleigh blood in her.
Julie, forced to be quiet through indisposition, was regarded by her
cousin as really quite patrician and not in the least—and this was a
wonderful admission—not in the least vulgarized by work. Colonel
Driscoe agreed to her last statement and let the rest go. He found that
the simplest way to avoid argument.

Kenneth Landor became a frequent caller and grew to be an immense
favorite with the household, but he seldom had the satisfaction of more
than a few words with Hester. One morning he rode over and deemed the
Fates more than kind when, finding Julie on the porch, she sent him down
into the garden, where she said he would find Hester helping George
Washington pick blackberries.

His first glimpse of her was a sun-bonnet; then two sadly stained hands
reaching up among the bushes, then a white figure in sharp relief
against the green; then Peter Snooks barked and she turned and saw him.

“Good morning,” she said sweetly, from out of her sun-bonnet, giving him
a look that seemed propitious. “Have a blackberry?”

“Thanks, don’t mind if I do. May I help pick?”

“If you like. I can’t stop, you know, for old Aunt Rachael is expecting
them for dinner. We’re great cronies, she and I. I steal out to the
kitchen quarters often to see her when Cousin Nancy is not looking.”

“Do you mind pushing back that sun-bonnet?” he asked beseechingly. “I
know you’re inside of it somewhere and I should like to see you.”

She laughed and pushed it half way back. “If that does not suit you I’ll
take it off altogether.”

“Oh, don’t do that, it’s so—so nice,” not daring to say how adorable he
thought she was in it. “I like it the way you have it now. I never knew
sun-bonnets could be so frilled and furbelowed.”

“It is Nannie’s—she is making Julie and me each one. She says they are
a fad this year. They are pretty, aren’t they? But somehow they feel hot
and then I just tie the strings loose and let it hang down my back like
that. Cousin Nancy says a girl who will do that has absolutely no regard
for her complexion. It would be funny, wouldn’t it, if I took to
worrying about things like that? Why, where is George Washington? Gone?
And you’re shockingly lazy! You haven’t picked a berry since you came!”

“I—I beg your pardon,” scarcely able to take his eyes off her, “I
really mean to help.”

“How is Captain Loomis?” she asked, seeing that he seemed unable to do
much of anything but stare at her. “Have you seen him to-day?”

“That little Virginian? He haunts our camp and talks to me by the hour
about you! He is madly in love with you.”

“He is too silly to be anything else,” munching a berry.

“I do not like your way of putting it.”

“I mean,” she explained, swinging her sun-bonnet by one string, “that he
does not know how to be sensible and I do not like him well enough to
bother to teach him, so, as he is around a good deal I have to politely
put up with him. I should think you knew me well enough by this time to
know how I hate silly people.”

“Do you ever politely put up with me?”

“Sometimes,” teasingly.

“Hester, Hester,” called a fresh young voice, “are you down there? Come
up out of the garden quick! It’s so cool this morning father says he’ll
take us over to camp to see that fascinating Mr. Landor.”

Hester ducked her head in her sunbonnet and fled.

When she reappeared half an hour later she was in her riding habit,
looking so trig and tailor-made and altogether conventional that Kenneth
wondered if she could be the same mischievous sprite who had run away
from him in the garden.

It was arranged that Landor should escort them over, and the adroit
Hester managed that he should start off in advance with Nannie, she and
the Colonel bringing up the rear. Julie and Mrs. Driscoe waved them off,
then returned to their work of sewing for the soldiers. For Mrs. Driscoe
was the president of a ladies’ patriotic aid society and found plenty
for herself and the girls to do.

Hester looked forward with eagerness to reaching Camp Alger, which,
though only six miles distant from Wavertree Hall, they had not yet
visited. She rode along at first chatting gayly to the Colonel but at
last was forced to keep her mouth closed on account of the dust. And who
that experienced it, will ever forget the dust of that June in Virginia!
Inches deep on the roads it lay in a thick brown powder which, at the
slightest disturbance from man or beast, rose in choking waves, covering
and submerging everything; while in the immediate vicinity of Alger,
where the sentries warned every one that a gait other than a walk was
not permitted in and about the camp, it smothered them to the verge of
suffocation.

They approached their destination by way of the little village of Falls
Church, where over the rough and winding road traveled a constant
procession. It was said by the darkies in Virginia that spring, that all
the “poor white trash” in Fairfax County had abandoned their farms and
taken to “toting” people to Camp Alger. Vehicles of every description
were going back and forth carrying people from the station to the camp,
sometimes officers, sometimes soldiers, often visitors; in every case
the seating capacity of buggy, carryall or wagon was stretched to its
utmost capacity. Intermingled with this motley array were the army
wagons loaded with camp provisions and paraphernalia, on the top of
which usually perched two or more soldiers. These, drawn by four mules
and driven by an antiquated darky, seemed to Hester the most interesting
thing on the road, though possibly she made an exception in favor of the
mounted orderlies flashing in and out through the crowd or an occasional
mounted officer who saluted Kenneth and stared at the girls in open
admiration.

As they crossed the picket lines, the camp lay before them—row after
row of tents (reminding Hester of the card houses she used to build when
she was little) not “gleaming white” like the tents of story but brown
with the dust. Desiring to show them about before dismounting Kenneth
took them on by his troop and through the roads leading by the various
regiments. Of the thirty thousand men, more than half were encamped in
the fields, now resembling arid plains, so destitute were they of
vegetation; while the rest, more fortunate, were scattered through the
surrounding woods, lost to sight except for the flutter of a flag above
the trees.

The party did not attempt to cover the full length of the camp, for the
sun was getting very hot and Kenneth was anxious to get them back to his
troop in time for dinner. This, her first meal at an officer’s mess and
in a tent, was one of the most novel and delightful Hester had ever
known. Kenneth counted it the second time they had broken bread together
and was blissfully happy. When it was over, in a fit of excessive
magnanimity he hunted up Charley Bemis who he knew would like to see
Hester again and brought him up to his tent, where the Colonel and the
girls were resting. A little later they all strolled together over to
the troopers’ quarters, young Bemis being anxious to show them the troop
mascot, a stunning bull-terrier. Down here, too, were the horses,
picketed back of the tents, while working among them were several
troopers, one of whom Hester especially noticed tall and very blonde,
his skin tanned to a deep brown. He wore the regulation campaign outfit,
but his shirt was sleeveless. About his neck was knotted a yellow
handkerchief, his soft hat was pushed well back with an upward turn to
the front and he was busily engaged grooming his horse.

“That man,” said Kenneth, seeing that Hester observed him, “is the
president of our coaching club at home and drives the best horses in
Radnor. It’s great the way he, and in fact all the fellows have buckled
down to work. He’s a chum of mine and I’d like immensely to have him
meet you; I think you would enjoy him, too, but I won’t call him over.
It would embarrass him to death to be caught like that.”

Hester looked at the trooper in admiration.

“Let’s get out of the way before he discovers us,” she said tactfully,
“though I’d like to march straight over there and tell him how proud I
am of him.”

Nannie, who had ideas of her own, rode off with her father when they
started home. A mile or two on, the Colonel stopped and waited for them
to overtake them, when he said, if Hester and Landor would excuse them
he and Nannie would stop at the house in front of which they had halted
and make a call. So the girl and man rode on alone through the beautiful
woods which led to—was it happiness or only Wavertree Hall?

“Have you enjoyed it?” he asked when they had gone a little way.

“Oh! so much.”

“Even if you had to politely put up with me?”

“Well, there were others, you see. Mr. Bemis, and all those charming
officers at dinner. Now I think of it, you never took us to the Virginia
camp. Is Captain Loomis away?” looking up at him as if the whereabouts
of that individual was the thing which most concerned her.

He laid his hand for a moment over hers. “It’s no use,” he said, “you
can’t put me off with Loomis or any other man.”

The intense subdued manner in which he said it deepened the color in her
cheeks, but her dimples played mischievously.

“What are you going to do about it?” she asked.

“Hester,” he replied, “do you remember a night in April when you and I
talked together and you were kind and said things that would inspire a
man to do anything? It was the first time you had ever been serious with
me and you thought it was the first time I knew of the serious side of
you, but that was not true. You turned my life into a new, better
channel from the moment I first set eyes on you, dear. And I loved you
so that night on the coach that I didn’t know how I was ever going to
get through without telling you, but I didn’t want to take advantage of
your goodness and I knew you cared nothing for me, though I was
determined you should some day.” His voice rang out in the masterful way
she had so often berated to Julie. “I am telling you this now because my
opportunities of seeing you are so few and soon they may end altogether.
Oh! Hester,” he cried, finding it impossible to restrain himself any
longer, “couldn’t you learn to love me a little before I go away?”

She had listened with eyes gazing straight ahead of her. As he finished
she turned and looked at him fearlessly.

“Are you quite sure I have not learned already?” she said. And then as
he was about to speak, “No, no, do not answer me. I cannot answer the
question myself. Sometimes I like you and sometimes I want to run away
from you and sometimes—sometimes—”

He held his breath and waited.

But she did not finish it.

“We should never get on,” she said argumentatively, “we quarrel all the
time. At least you do—I’ve an angelic disposition,” complacently.

“I quarrel with you? How could I!” endeavoring to fall in with her mood.
“It is you who say shocking things to me, you bad thing; and sometimes,
ah! sometimes, dear, you do hurt.”

She touched him impulsively. “It is only teasing. I never mean to
hurt—I wouldn’t do it intentionally for the world.” How penitent and
sweet her voice was!

“Then won’t you be kind to me, please, and love me a little bit?”

“A little bit? Would that satisfy you?”

“No,” honestly, “it would not. Oh! my dear, I will be very patient if
only you will try.”

“I don’t have to,” she said.

“No,” despairingly, “you don’t have to.’

“Because—because—I do.”

The ambiguity of this might have been mystifying to any but a drowning
man ready to clutch at a straw. Kenneth was raised to a seventh heaven
of bliss and promptly kissed her; at which she blushed furiously and
pushed him away.

“You must not believe everything I say,” she protested.

“But I do and I want to and I shall,” exultantly. “Oh, my dear, my dear,
will you say it all over again?”

“Certainly not,” with pretended severity. And then with a light happy
laugh, “Do you remember how I snubbed you on the street corner the day
you met me at Dr. Ware’s?”

“Do I? Well, I should say I did! But you were even worse at Jack’s. You
plunged me into the depths of despair, from which I never should have
arisen if you hadn’t been so charming at Mrs. Lennox’s musicale. That
night I began to take notice again, as it were.”

“Notice of Jessie Davis? I heard you were in love with her.”

“As if I had eyes for any one but you! I used to fairly haunt dear old
Jack’s place in the hope of running across you, but you always managed
to elude me.”

“I used to think at first,” she said seriously, “that you were just
curious about us, because we were poor and earned our own living and
were not like the girls in your set, and I resented it. That made me
nasty to you, though I liked you all the time. Then, well,—do you know
what I believe made me care for you? If you laugh,” earnestly, “I’ll
never forgive you. It was because you took such care of me at the
wedding and never offered me a bit of cake! You suspected we had made
it, didn’t you? And I thought any man who had tact enough for that would
be my undoing and I should not wonder,” with a swift look from under her
long lashes, “if it were true, but you will never tell a soul I told
you, will you?” beseechingly. “It’s a secret—the undoing, you know.”

“Darling,” he said, “I knew more about you and your work than you
thought and that is why it was like wrenching my heart out to come away.
I wanted to stay there where I could work for you and wait and hope that
I might make your life easier. Then when you talked to me that night I
knew that whether you ever loved me or not you would want me to go.”

“Yes,” she said.

“And now if you only loved me enough to marry me I might at least leave
you my name and the protection of my father, whose home would gladly
open to you and Julie if he knew. _Couldn’t_ you do it, dear heart?”

“I—I don’t know,” she said so low that he could scarcely hear her. “I
do love you, but it is all so new and strange that I cannot realize what
it means or even if it means as much as it should to the man I marry. I
want to be honest—and you offer me so much that I don’t know what to
say. I don’t love you as I love Julie, and perhaps after that you will
not want me to love you at all.”

“Yes, dear, I shall. If you care for me in any sort of way I am thankful
and love is a thing that grows and grows. Some day I believe you will
love me as much as you do Julie, but in a different way. There is room
in your heart, dear, for both of us if you will only let me in.”

“That is just the way Julie puts it,” she answered. “She is going to
marry Dr. Ware.”

“She is? Jove! what an ideal match!”

“That’s what I think. I would not have believed that I could contemplate
sharing Julie and be as happy about it as I am. The night she told me I
danced for joy! She needs a man to take care of her, and I love him with
all my heart; it changes nothing inwardly and everything outwardly. I am
going to live with them but I shall not mind being dependent on them for
awhile. At first I thought I couldn’t, but they have made me promise.
Dr. Ware is so dear. He says what is his, is Julie’s, and what’s Julie’s
is mine, and,” laughing, “there is no getting around that, is there?
Julie and I have always gone shares. Besides, I’m going to study to be a
trained nurse when Julie is married. I couldn’t just sit down and be
idle the rest of my days.”

“Thank God your work is over!”

“Not my work but that work. No one will ever know how hard it was; there
was so little profit in most of the things we made that we could not
afford to hire the necessary assistance and had to take the brunt of
everything ourselves. We should have kept on until we ‘died in our
tracks,’ to quote Bridget, if it had been necessary, but I thank God,
too, that we are not obliged to. It taught us a great many things, the
poverty and hardship and all,” she continued, feeling his interest, “and
we shall be able to understand life and help people a great deal better
because of it. Julie and I have had so many talks together both with Dr.
Ware here and since he went North about all the things we mean to do. We
look forward to a very busy life.”

“I am supremely glad that things have come out this way, dear,” he said,
“only,” wistfully, “all these plans make me feel as if you had little
need of me. Won’t you please,” gazing pleadingly in her eyes which shone
steadfastly into his, “won’t you please see if you can’t make a place
somewhere for me?”

Far off through the woods came the note of a bugle. Hester drew in her
breath.

“Perhaps,” she said softly as they turned in the avenue, “I do need you
and want you, too. Will you wait and see?”




CHAPTER XXIII


There was no announcement of Julie’s engagement except to the household
of Wavertree Hall. Her marriage was likely to take place early in the
summer, for Dr. Ware was to attend a medical convention in California
and wanted to take her with him. In the event of his doing this, Hester
and Bridget would join them later, for Mrs. Driscoe wanted to be off, as
was her custom, to the Springs and Hester shrank from going into a scene
of gayety. There seemed to be no reason why this plan should not be
carried out, for Julie had entirely recovered and except for the shadow
of sadness left by her father’s death, was quite herself again. She knew
it would be their beloved Daddy’s wish that she should shape herself to
the events of her life in just the way she would have done had he been
actually among them, and many and many a time her new happiness was
glorified by the thought that he knew and was rejoicing too.

When Hester came and told her of that ride through the woods with
Kenneth, her cup was filled to overflowing. For Julie understood her
sister better than the girl understood herself and she knew the love she
now bore Kenneth would “grow and grow,” as he had said, until it became
a powerful factor in her life.

So finally Julie’s wedding day was fixed and the day before, Dr. Ware
with the Lennoxes and, as a joyful surprise above all things, Jack,
arrived on the scene. The Doctor told her that this was the Driscoes’
idea—to bring them down and surprise her, as Cousin Nancy’s guests. As
Mrs. Driscoe said to Mrs. Lennox, who laughingly protested against such
an invasion:

“Virginia is the heart of the country, my dear Mrs. Lennox, and we are
the heart of Virginia—welcome to Wavertree Hall.” She was heard to
remark afterward to the Colonel that that charming individual looked
like a thorough-bred Virginian.

As for Jack, a more ecstatic boy never trod on earth. The girls laughed
and cried over him. So did Bridget, who gave him such a hearty smack
that he nearly hugged the head off her.

There were other arrivals also, that day at Dunn Loring, for Mr. Landor
had come down to have a look at Kenneth, and Sidney Renshawe was once
more at the Blakes’ plantation.

The latter called at Wavertree Hall that afternoon and Mrs. Driscoe was
in such a good humor over the charming, aristocratic Mrs. Lennox and the
little excitement of guests which delighted her hospitable soul that she
actually shook hands with him and asked him to join their party that
afternoon—they were going over to camp to see Mr. Landor. That bit of
cordiality was enough for Renshawe. Enough, too, for dear little Nannie,
who had witnessed this meeting with mingled fear and delight.

They arrived at camp just before parade and at Kenneth’s tent was an
elderly man who proved to be his father. In the general introductions
which followed, Kenneth’s pleasure was very great in this meeting of
Hester and his father. She began talking to him at once in her bright,
vivacious way, and what was really remarkable,—for he never had the
faintest idea what to say to girls and seldom encountered them, he
talked to her quite at his ease. But then, this wily young woman touched
now and then on Kenneth—just enough to start him on the subject nearest
his heart. It was very near her heart, too. But when had the stern,
impassive Caleb Landor talked so freely of his son before?

As they sat under the “fly” which made a shelter in front of the tent,
the girls observed down the line the colors standing in front of the
Captain’s quarters and it thrilled them with the pride of patriotism to
see all the men and officers in going to and fro lift their hats and
pass bare-headed before the flag.

The routine of camp was very interesting to Dr. Ware who had lived
through it, to the girls who had all their lives heard of it, and to
Jack, who still hoped to be a part of it in spite of his years. So it
was a very talkative if somewhat weary party that returned to Wavertree
Hall.

Late that evening there came tearing up the avenue a mounted orderly. He
brought a note for Miss Hester Dale which required an immediate answer.
She opened it quickly. At the end she leaned against the pillar as if
for support. Then she called Julie out from the garden where she and Dr.
Ware were strolling and said unsteadily:

“Read that, Julie dear. I want you to know before I send my answer.”

Julie read:

  “Sweetheart, my orders have come. Since you left I have heard
  officially. I am to be transferred and leave for Tampa to-morrow
  afternoon to join the Rough Riders, who embark in a few days for
  Santiago. Do you think, dear—could you, would you marry me before I
  go? Would that dear little Julie let you and me go with her and the
  Doctor to-morrow and make our lives one in the sight of God? Oh, say
  yes, say yes! But not unless you are sure, dear. I had rather wait a
  dozen years than have you give yourself to me under protest.
  Whatever you say, dear, I shall believe is for the best. But, oh! if
  you could—KENNETH.”

Julie took her sister in her arms.

“Hester, darling, have you decided?”

“Yes, Julie.”

“You and Kenneth will come to-morrow with Philip and me?”

“Yes, Julie.”

“Oh! Hester, my blessed, blessed girlie, it is the most beautiful thing
in the world!”

There was very little sleep for the girls that night. They sat for a
long while in the window-seat up in their room where the scent of the
honeysuckle came drifting in, talking softly of the past and laying
plans whereby their happiness should go out into the world like a strong
search-light to illumine dark places.

“It is not always those commonly called the poor who are most in need,
Hester. It is the refined, sensitive people who have seen better days,
who suffer most. And we have learned, too, dear, how super-sensitive
adversity makes one. I am glad we know these things, aren’t you, even
though the learning of them nearly tore our hearts out? It has broadened
and developed us and is going to make us helpful women in the world.”

“And oh! Julie dear,” replied Hester, “isn’t it beautiful to think how
we shall be able, both of us, through our—our husbands,” stumbling over
the word, “to do things for people. Little things and big things to
lighten people’s burdens and give them courage, just as so many times
courage was given to us.”

“Yes, darling. God is putting the power in our hands—it is for us to
use it wisely.”

Presently Hester said, “I am glad we won our own place in Radnor before
going back there again under different circumstances. It makes me feel
that we amounted to something and that if it ever happened that
misfortune of that sort came again we should be able to keep our heads
above water, to turn our fingers to account. Look at them, Julie,”
holding up her hands for inspection, “they are not the same things at
all.”

“No dear, they have lost their porcelain transparency which used to be
such a pride and delight but I like them better as they are. They are
strong, capable hands, now, for all their daintiness which you never can
lose. I have been thinking lately, that one’s hand can be as indicative
of character as one’s face. I hope yours and mine will not belie us.”

“We did not much think when we came out of the flat that day that we
should never go back there, did we, old girl? I can’t realize it yet. It
seems as if all those pots and kettles and pans and bottles would swoop
down and whisk us off to ‘The Hustle’ when we get back to Radnor. Oh! my
dear, we _did_ ‘hustle’! The name did not belie that place! Down here in
this drowsy Virginia I sometimes wonder if it was really we who worked
like that.”

“I know,” Julie said, “I know, too, that we should have worked right on
there to the best of our ability all our lives if it had been so
ordered, but I am thankful, thankful that our energies can act in
another way. We shall have a great deal to do, dear, and the wisdom of
an older experience than ours to help us do it and all the time Daddy
watching over his little girls.”

And so at last they lay down to rest, these two little comrades whose
heads and hearts were full of joyous anticipation of a broader field of
action, a glorious life campaign.

                   *       *       *       *       *

Nothing could exceed the simplicity of the wedding that lovely June
morning. Flanked on either side by Dr. Ware and Kenneth, the girls
walked down the avenue to the gate and across the road with those
nearest and dearest in attendance, to the little chapel where for
generations the Fairleighs had worshiped and where the previous autumn
their father had put in a memorial window to their mother. The gardens
and the woods for miles around had been stripped of flowers to decorate
the chancel, which took on a thousand lights as the mellow sunshine
poured in through the stained glass windows.

Little Nannie stood up with them—she and Sidney Renshawe, and the dear
old Colonel during the ceremony was forced more than once to take off
his glasses and wipe them carefully. The girls were without ornament
save that each carried a great bunch of white roses gathered in the
garden at Wavertree Hall. Julie wore a certain white mulle gown that the
Doctor loved while Hester, to please Kenneth, the simple muslin frock in
which she had picked blackberries.

“A bride in a frock just out of the wash-tub!” cried Cousin Nancy
aghast. She had never dreamed of such a total disregard of the
conventionalities. But when she found Mrs. Lennox was on Hester’s side
she demurred no longer.

Mr. Landor sat with the Lennoxes and many a strange sensation took hold
of him as he gazed first at Kenneth and then at Hester and back again at
his stalwart son.

Bridget occupied a front seat in a state of perfect beatitude. She was
the first to receive a kiss from the brides when the ceremony was over.
Jack was there, of course, immensely relieved at this satisfactory
arrangement whereby all three of his friends were happily married. And
Peter Snooks was there, solemn and dignified, decorated with a gorgeous
red, white and blue bow but indignant at this touch of femininity and
resentful that he was not allowed to go up and stand with the bridal
party. George Washington and the other servants were in the rear of the
chapel.

After the ceremony they all trooped back again to Wavertree Hall where,
on the lawn under a cluster of superb oak trees, where the stars and
stripes were waving, a lunch was spread for their refreshment.

Cousin Nancy, aided by Mrs. Lennox, was the presiding genius of the
feast, while Mr. Lennox, also, came to the front with jests and stories
to relieve the solemnity of the past half hour.

Kenneth, radiantly happy and looking handsomer than ever in his uniform,
was here, there and everywhere, but with always his first thought for
Hester. She was unusually quiet—subdued by happiness and the thought of
the parting so near at hand. It was Julie that day whose laugh was the
merriest, but then Julie knew something which Hester did not.

In accordance with a tradition of Wavertree Hall Mrs. Driscoe had brewed
a punch, a mild but delicious concoction famous at all the Fairleigh
weddings.

Mr. Lennox proposed the health of the brides and then the bridegrooms.
Dr. Ware toasted the mistress of Wavertree Hall. And so it went around
from one to the other, until, having cheered the President, the army,
the navy and the flag, Dr. Ware excited the wildest enthusiasm by bowing
low to Mrs. Driscoe and saying:

“We lived through other days in Virginia, you and I, Mrs. Driscoe. Three
cheers now for a reunited country!”

How they did shout! There was not a dry eye among them. Then Jack’s thin
voice called out:

“Won’t somebody please cheer for the boys that want to be soldiers and
can’t?” At which they all laughed and cheered again.

There were other people who had a secret that day besides Julie. Indeed
they were all in it except Hester—in fact they knew much more about it
than Julie herself, who only knew half. It had been arranged that Hester
and Kenneth should drive with Julie and the Doctor to the station; then,
as Hester supposed, she and Kenneth were to have an hour together before
he took his departure. He had told her that he had left everything at
camp ready to send on, so that it would not be necessary for him to
return there.

She was a little surprised when they took such an affectionate farewell
of her as well as Julie and before she got into the carriage Mr. Landor
had asked her to step aside a moment with him.

[Illustration: THE WEDDING BREAKFAST]

“I shall be gone when you return,” he said, speaking with some
difficulty, “and it is proper you should know that I approve of
Kenneth’s marriage. He talked at some length about you last night and
it’s a good thing—a good thing. I never had a daughter—”

Hester kissed him. Caleb Landor had not been kissed for thirty years.

“Kenneth belongs to us both,” the girl said simply, “and we are both
giving him up but it must be the hardest for you, because you have had
him the longest.”

“I don’t know, I don’t know,” gruffly, to hide his emotion, “we can’t go
into that. I want you to take this,” slipping something in her hand. “I
hear your sister requested there should be no wedding gifts for her.
Mrs. Lennox tells me that she asked those who wished to remember her to
turn the money instead into the Red Cross Fund. No doubt you feel as she
does. I understand you are much alike. If you will keep that paper and
use it for the sick and wounded later—for we are bound to have them—as
a gift from yourself, I shall be much obliged to you. No, don’t thank
me, say nothing about it. And remember that my house is open to you
whenever you care to come.” It is doubtful if Caleb Landor had ever made
so long a speech in his life.

She did thank him, choking back her tears. Then she thrust the paper in
her pocket and later when she had a chance to examine it she found a
check of a thousand dollars, made payable to her, Hester Dale Landor!

All the way to the station she roused herself and chatted gayly to make
Julie’s last moments with her a bright remembrance. Julie was so excited
she could scarcely contain herself and in order to sit still was fairly
rigid in her seat.

When they reached the station the train was not yet in sight but on a
side track stood a car.

“What is that?” asked Julie curiously, as they left the carriage.

“That is yours,” quietly answered Dr. Ware, watching the effect of his
words.

“Mine? What _are_ you talking about?”

“Come and see,” cried the Doctor who felt like a boy of twenty.

She ran down the platform, stood still and trembled from head to foot.

“Hester,” she gasped, turning with the old habit to her sister, “Hester,
it is ‘The Hustle!’”

“What!”

“It is, it is!”

Bridget with Peter Snooks in her arms was waving out the car window.

“Oh, Philip!” Julie cried. And without another word he took her in his
arms and carried her in the car.

“If the days to come here,” he whispered as he put her down, “are as
happy as the old ones, little wife, I shall be satisfied.”

Hester and Kenneth, who had not known whether or not to follow were
called peremptorily in and all exclaimed over by Bridget, who having
been appointed by the Doctor a reception committee of one, felt this the
proudest and happiest moment of her life.

“Now tell us all about it,” said Julie, “but first I am going to make
Hester as ‘comfy as comfy can be.’ You poor little thing, you are not
going to lose Kenneth to-day. You are both coming South with us. We are
going to do escort duty to the distinguished young officer, Lieutenant
Landor.”

“What!” exclaimed the bewildered Hester.

“We are all going down in ‘The Hustle’ together, Hester,” explained Dr.
Ware, while she was made to sit down, Kenneth tucking a cushion under
her feet and Julie perching on the arm of her chair. “Julie did not know
about ‘The Hustle’—that was my surprise for her—but she did know that
we meant to go West by the way of Tampa—we settled that last night
after you heard from Kenneth—and have you and him go along with us so
that we could all see the last of him. Kenneth and the people at
Wavertree Hall knew about it. I had to let Kenneth into my secret so he
could send his things aboard. Bridget packed your trunks while you were
at luncheon and got them off without your knowing it and here we all
are, as snug as possible, with Bridget and Peter Snooks to keep us in
order.”

“Kenneth,” said Hester with brimming eyes but in the old bantering tone
which always made them laugh, “how dare you have secrets from your wife?
How dare you! It’s a perfectly scandalous beginning!”

“Please, you were not my wife then, and I won’t any more,” he said
penitently. “Will you forgive me, please?”

“I don’t understand how you did it,” said Julie to her husband, who
leaned over the back of the chair on the arm of which she was perching,
his head on a level with hers.

“It was not difficult, dear. I had been on the track of ‘The Hustle’ for
some time. I always intended to capture you all sometime and take you
off for a vacation in her. That was one of my dreams, but I never
mentioned it to certain little girls I knew for fear it would never come
true. Early this spring I learned that the car had been relegated to a
car shed on a Western road—it was not considered modern enough for use.
So I ordered it on to Radnor, had it overhauled and thought it would be
an ideal place for a honeymoon, eh, little wife?”

“Oh! yes,” she said shyly.

“And Hester,” slipping his hand down over the chair and resting it on
her shoulder, “it is your honeymoon, too, dear. I am so glad. And ‘The
Hustle’ is yours as much as it is Julie’s. Will you always remember
that? Kenneth, old man,” with a change of tone, “will you come with me
and see that everything is aboard? I hear the train, which means that we
shall be picked up and taken on in a few minutes.”

Left to themselves, the girls, half-dazed by these astonishing events,
wandered slowly about the dear old familiar car, which had suffered
scarcely an alteration. Julie felt it was Dr. Ware’s exquisite
forethought which had kept the interior so nearly as they had left it.
There was the piano at which she had so often played and sang for Daddy
and the great leather chair drawn up close in which he had spent many a
restful hour listening to her. Over the piano in its old place hung a
portrait of her mother and at one end of the car, looking down benignly,
hung their favorite picture of their father—the Major in full uniform
with that spirited look of action which so distinguished him. Over the
picture were crossed two swords, his and the Doctor’s; over these higher
up was draped Old Glory hanging in splendid folds.

“Miss Nannie and Mr. Renshawe and Jack, they come over this mornin’ an’
fixed the flag an’ all the flowers you see around everywheres. Jack said
to tell you he done the swords. Didn’t he get ’em up fine? They had a
great time over here all unbeknownst to yez,” explained Bridget.

The girls stood hand in hand before the picture. “Oh! Daddy,” they
whispered, “dear Daddy, help us to be worthy of all this!”




CHAPTER XXIV


They made the run to Tampa in two days. The transports were being loaded
with ammunition, provisions and all the paraphernalia of war as they
arrived and Kenneth went on board with the last detachment of Rough
Riders.

Hester bore up like the brave little soldier she was. There was never a
tear, though she clung at the last to Kenneth as if she could not let
him go. That was for but a moment. The next she stood erect and smiling
on the rear platform of “The Hustle” waving him off. The picture Kenneth
carried away with him cheered all the hours of all the days to come. He
had only to close his eyes to see a slender girlish figure with head
thrown back and radiant, unflinching eyes smiling and smiling into his
very heart. And all through the desperate fight before San Juan when the
bullets hissed and all was deafening, blinding chaos, rang her last
words, “Fight for your country and me—be as brave an officer as Daddy.”

                   *       *       *       *       *

At the hotel at San Francisco, when our party reached there, was found
an accumulation of mail forwarded from Radnor for the Doctor. A letter
from his sister was read and handed to Julie with a smile.

  “My Dear Philip,” it began:—“Your letter telling me of your
  engagement and probable speedy marriage to Julie Dale was no
  surprise to me. I had always known you were in love with her or you
  would never have been so idiotically approving of all the crazy
  things she did. I will say, though, that if you intended to marry
  you might have done worse. I understand from Mrs. Davis and Jessie,
  whom I saw last week in London (they have just been presented at
  Court) that the girls were recognized pretty generally by our set
  before they went away. Mrs. Lennox must have done some campaigning!
  However, people quickly forget things, and all that vulgar cooking
  may be regarded merely as the freakishness of two headstrong girls.
  I hope you will remember that she is headstrong and keep a tight
  rein over her. As your wife, of course her position in Radnor will
  be unimpeachable.

  “Now that you are to have a housekeeper I shall avail myself of
  invitations from English friends and remain here into the winter
  when I shall probably join Lord and Lady Wynne in a trip into Egypt.
  I may decide to make England my home. I prefer it to the States and
  should not under any circumstances think of returning while that
  tiresome war is going on.

  “The housekeeping keys are in my top bureau drawer, left hand end.
  Tell Julie I am most particular that the linen, especially that not
  in constant use, should be frequently aired, and the blankets must
  go down on the line in the yard once a week. There are other things
  which a flighty young person should know and which I shall write her
  at length later. I hope that dog is not to be allowed the freedom of
  the house. I shudder to think of it!

                                                      “Affectionately,
                                                                Mary.”

Julie laughed gayly when she had finished.

“Poor Miss Ware!” she said, “she still regards us as monsters of
iniquity. Am I a headstrong young thing?”

“Of course,” quizzically. “Don’t you feel the tight rein I hold over
you?” taking her face in his hands.

For answer she kissed him, to the embarrassment of Bridget who had
knocked unheard and entered the room at that moment.

Julie devoted herself to Hester these days and succeeded in keeping her
busy and diverted. Hester’s great wish had been to follow Kenneth to
Cuba, but she allowed herself to be convinced both by him and the others
that it would be an unwise thing to do. She knew no Spanish and nothing
of nursing beyond the limited experience she had gained in caring for
her father, and it was the season of yellow fever, to which, her
vitality having been greatly exhausted by the strain of the previous
winter, she would be dangerously susceptible. But the old wish to become
a Red Cross nurse was more than ever strong within her and this desire
they all encouraged and approved, feeling that if Kenneth were to be
long in the field Hester’s happiness would lie in being near him and
administering to the sick and wounded men. So she plunged into Spanish
with an excellent teacher in San Francisco while Dr. Ware brought her
books on nursing, gave her practical talks on surgery and promised to
get her into a training school for nurses as soon as they returned to
Radnor at the end of July.

The newspapers were her solace and despair—they said so little and so
much! With heads together she and Julie devoured them, reading every
word. The newsboys’ cry, “Extra, Extra!” filled her with apprehension.
She had had but one letter from Kenneth, written as they were about to
land with General Shafter at Baiquiri. Before there was time to hear
again, the papers blazed with the news of the desperate attack on San
Juan, and the Rough Riders became the heroes of the nation.

Hester, scanning the paper with wide eyes, searched for the list of dead
and wounded. With beating heart her finger went down the line and
stopped.

“Landor, Kenneth, Second Lieutenant, Troop—, Roosevelt’s Rough Riders,
wounded in the thigh.”

She lived through the next ten days of suspense like a person in a
dream. Her impulse had been to start immediately for Cuba, and Mr.
Landor wrote that he was going down and would take her with them. But
Dr. Ware, the far-seeing, advised them both to wait. News would soon
come direct from Kenneth and it was probable that he would be sent home
on sick leave before they could get down to him. Seeing the wisdom of
this, Mr. Landor wired Dr. Ware that he should wait. And Hester waited.
Julie never left her. She buoyed her up night and day with the belief
that Kenneth would not die.

The papers in their later and more detailed accounts of the attack and
capture of San Juan, spoke in high praise of the daring bravery of
Lieutenant Landor who had incited his men to the highest pitch of
enthusiasm by his unflinching spirit, which carried everything before
him. Later in the official report from General Shafter, Kenneth Landor,
wounded before San Juan, was given honorable mention.

Then one day came to Hester a letter in an unknown hand. It was written
from the field hospital and told Mrs. Landor that her husband was
recovering; that the operation upon his thigh had been successful; that
Mr. Landor’s cable to send the Lieutenant home had been received and
that already at headquarters arrangements were being made to get the
wounded who could be moved aboard a transport off by the end of the
week. That Landor himself knew nothing of all this, for he was too weak
to be consulted, but he, the surgeon, assured her there was no cause for
alarm and he hoped when Mr. Landor was safely home again she would get
him well and return him speedily—the troop could not afford to spare
for long so gallant an officer.

Hester read this precious document until it was worn to shreds. And
Julie and her husband took her back to Radnor as soon as the paper
informed them that the transport had started.

Dr. Ware and Hester went together to the dock to meet him. Mr. Landor
was too unnerved to leave the house and Julie remained with him, helping
him through the tedious hours that intervened between the time when a
clerk had telephoned from the office to the house that the transport was
sighted down the harbor and the moment when the carriage stopped at the
door.

They brought him into his father’s house on a stretcher, Hester walking
by his side, her hand in his. Weak and wan he was, but smiling, turning
from one to the other with a hungry devouring gaze that made his father
choke and leave the room.

What a home-coming that was! Very still, lest the invalid be excited,
but very impressive, and always to be remembered by those who witnessed
it; for hearts spoke through eyes what tongues dared not utter and a
suppressed sense of exaltation mingled in their love.

It is a very beautiful thing to have a hero in one’s family. So at least
thought the Dale girls, even though it was a very refractory hero, who
sometimes mutinied and always disavowed any claim to distinction
whatever.

Under Dr. Ware’s guidance, Hester and Bridget took care of him. He was
home on a two-months’ sick leave and hoped at the end of that time to
rejoin his troop wherever they then might be; but Dr. Ware, though he
said nothing, thought it extremely improbable that Kenneth would be
sufficiently recovered to go into the field before October. By that time
the war might be over. Who could tell?

Mr. Landor sat for hours at a time in the sick room listening quietly
while Hester, close to the bed, read the papers to her soldier husband,
who never took his eyes off her. And the father did much thinking at
that time. His stern repellent nature was softening under the warmth of
Hester’s sunny presence and more than once she had looked up suddenly to
find him gazing at them with misty eyes.

Jack came, too, satisfied to be permitted merely to gaze at his hero.
Now and then, as a mark of high favor, Peter Snooks was allowed to lie
on Kenneth’s bed. The little rascal seemed to appreciate the privilege
and kept very still, sometimes licking Kenneth’s hand, as much as to say
he knew how to behave in a sick room—had he not spent hours at a time
with Major Dale?

Julie was in and out many times a day, doing a thousand little things
for the comfort and happiness of the invalid. She and Hester were near
neighbors, for the Landor mansion was but two doors down from Dr. Ware’s
on the water side of Crana Street.

And here in Radnor where they had fought and won so great a victory,
“those Dale girls” began a new life.





End of Project Gutenberg's Those Dale Girls, by Frank Weston Carruth