Meanwhile the model's mouth was proving as troublesome to paint as Eleanor's had been, and as Madge grew more and more perplexed with the problem of it she thought of the miniature with a fresh pang. For she had lost it! Three days ago it had somehow slipped from her possession. Had she left it lying on the table in the Public Library? Nobody there had seen anything of it. But on the very day of her loss she had been at the Library, examining the current numbers of all the illustrated papers, in the hope of gleaning some hint as to editorial tastes. She remembered reading Eleanor's last letter there, the letter in which her friend had written that she was to have two years more of Paris. She had read the letter through twice, and then she had taken out the miniature and had a good look at it. To think of Eleanor, having two more years of Paris! And it had all come about so simply! She had merely persuaded her cousin, Mr. Hicks, to advance a few hundred dollars till she should be of age and at liberty to sell a bond.

"There isn't anybody that believes in me," Madge had told herself; and then she had thought of something that Mr. Salome had said to her a few days ago, something that she would have considered it very unbecoming to repeat, even to Eleanor, but the memory of which, thus suddenly recalled, had filled her with such hopefulness that she had sped homeward to the mahogany table almost with a conviction of success. Was it in that sudden rush of hopefulness, so mistaken, alas, so groundless, that she had left the little morocco case lying about? Or had she pulled it out of her pocket with her handkerchief? Or had she really had her pocket picked?

What wonder that in the stress of anxious speculation she was making bad work of her painting! This would never do! She took a long stride backwards, and over went Miss Ricker's long-suffering easel, prone upon the floor, carrying with it a neighbouring structure of similar unsteadiness, which was, however, happily empty, save for a couple of jam-pots filled with turpentine and oil! These plunged with headlong impetuosity into space, forming little rivers of stickiness, as they rolled half-way across the room. Everybody rushed to the rescue, while Miss Ricker gazed upon the catastrophe with stony displeasure.

By a miracle, the canvas, though "butter-side-down," had escaped unscathed. Not until she was assured of this did the culprit speak.

"I'm a disgrace to the class," she said, "and expulsion is the only remedy. Tell Mr. Salome that I have forfeited every right to membership, and it's quite possible that I may never exaggerate another detail as long as I live."

"Time's up in two minutes," Mary Downing remarked, in her matter-of-fact voice, as she dabbed some yellow-ochre upon her subject's chin. "I rather think you'll come back to-morrow."

"But I do think it's somebody's else turn to work behind her," said Josephine Wilkes.

Miss Ricker gave a faint, assenting smile.

"I think Miss Ricker is very much indebted to Artful Madge," Harriet Wells declared. "There isn't another girl in the class who could have knocked that easel over without damaging the picture."

"Practice makes perfect," some one observed; and then, time being called, everybody began talking at once, and wit and wisdom were alike lost upon the company.

But Artful Madge was not to be lightly consoled.

"Mother," she said, that same afternoon, as she came into the little sitting-room over the front entry, where her mother was stitching on the sewing-machine, "I think I should like to do something useful. I'm kind of tired of art."

Madge had been helping wash the luncheon dishes, and was beginning to wonder whether her talents were not, perhaps, of a purely domestic order.

"I should think you would be tired of it!" said Mrs. Burtwell, in perfect good faith, as she snipped the thread at the end of a seam. "How you can make up your mind to spend all your days bedaubing your clothes with those nasty paints passes my comprehension."

"But sometimes I daub the canvas," Madge protested, with unwonted meekness, as she drew a grey woollen sock over her hand, and pounced upon a small hole in the toe; and at that very instant, which Madge was whimsically regarding as a possible turning-point in her career, the doorbell rang.

"A gintleman to see you, Miss," said Nora, a moment later, handing Madge a card.

"To see me?" asked Madge, incredulously, as she read the name, "Mr. Philip Spriggs! Are you sure he didn't ask for Father?"

But Nora was quite clear that she had not made a mistake.

"Who is it, Madge?" Mrs. Burtwell queried.

"It's probably a book agent," said Madge, as she went down-stairs to the parlour, rather begrudging the interruption to her darning bout.

Standing by the window, hat in hand, was an elderly man of a somewhat severe cast of countenance, as unsuggestive as possible, in his general appearance, of the comparatively frivolous name which a satirical fate had bestowed upon him.

As Madge entered the room he observed, without advancing a step toward her: "You are Miss Burtwell, I suppose. I came to answer your letter in person."

"My letter?" asked Madge, with a confused impression that something remarkable was going forward.

"Yes; this one,"—and he drew from his pocket the red morocco miniature case.

"Oh!" cried Madge, "how glad I am to have it!—and how kind you are to bring it!—and, oh! that dreadful letter!"

The three aspects of the case had chased each other in rapid succession through her mind, and each had got its-self expressed in turn.

Mr. Spriggs did not relax a muscle of his face.

"I found this on a table in the Public Library," he stated. "Your directions were so explicit that I could do no less than be guided by them."

There was something so solemn, almost judicial, about her guest that Madge became quite awestruck.

"Won't you please take a seat?" she begged, humbly. "I think I could apologise better if you were to sit down."

"Then you consider that there is occasion to apologise?" he asked, taking the proffered chair, and resting his hat upon the floor.

"Indeed, yes!" said Madge. "It's perfectly dreadful to think of the letter having fallen into the hands of any one so—" and she broke short off.

"So what?" asked Mr. Spriggs.

"Why, so dignified and so—very different from—" but again she found herself unable to finish her sentence.

"From a 'dear pickpocket?'" he suggested.

"Did I say 'dear pickpocket'?" cried Madge in consternation. "I didn't know I said 'dear.'"

"I suppose you desired to make a favourable impression, in order to get your picture back. There are some very good points about the picture," he remarked, as he took it out of the case and examined it. "There's a good deal of drawing in it, and considerable colour."

"Do you know about pictures?" asked Madge with eager interest.

"Not much. I've heard more or less art-jargon in my day; that's all."

Madge looked at him suspiciously.

"I am sure you will agree with me that I don't know much," he continued, "when I tell you that I prefer your pen-and-ink work to the miniature. 'The Consequences of Crime' is full of humour; and I have been given to understand that you can't produce an effect without skill,—what you would probably dignify with the name of technique. The second small boy on the right is not at all bad."

"You do know about art!" cried Madge. "I rather think you must be an artist."

Mr. Spriggs did not exactly change countenance; he only looked as if he were either trying to smile or trying not to. Madge wished she could make out just what were the lines and shadows in his face that produced this singular expression.

"Have you never thought of doing anything for the papers?" he asked.

"Thought of it! I've spent four dollars and sixty-one cents in postage within the last ten months, and he always comes back to the ark!"

"'He'? Comes back where?"

"To the ark. I call the package 'Noah's Dove' because it never finds a place to roost."

"The original dove did, after a while." Mr. Spriggs spoke as if he were taking the serious, historical view of the incident. "I imagine yours will, one of these days. Have you got anything you could show me?"

"Would you really care to see?"

"I can't tell till you show me," he said cautiously; but this time there was something so very like a smile among the stern features that Madge could see just what the line was that produced it.

She flew to her room, and seized Noah's Dove, and in five minutes that much-travelled bird had spread his wings,—all six of them,—for the delectation of this mysterious critic.

Madge watched him, as he leaned back in his chair and examined the sketches. He seemed inclined to take his time over them, and she felt sure that her Student had never before been so seriously considered.

At last Mr. Spriggs laid the drawings upon the table and fixed his thoughtful gaze upon the artist. His contemplation of her countenance was prolonged a good many seconds, yet Madge did not feel in the least self-conscious; it never once occurred to her that this severe old gentleman was thinking of anything but her Student. She found herself taking a very low view of her work, and quite ready to believe that perhaps, after all, those unappreciative editors knew what they were about.

"Have you ever sent these to the Gay Head?" her visitor inquired casually.

"Oh, no! I should not dare send anything to the Gay Head!"

"Why not?"

"Why! Because it's the best paper in the country. It would never look at my things."

"It certainly won't if you never give it a chance. You had better try it," he went on, in a tone that carried a good deal of weight. "You know they can do no worse than return it; and I should think, myself, that the Gay Head was quite as well worth expending postage-stamps on as any other paper. Mind; I don't say they'll take your things,—but it's worth trying for. By the way," he added as he rose to go; "I wouldn't send No. 5 if I were you; it's a chestnut."

He had picked up his hat and stood on his feet so unexpectedly that Madge was afraid he would escape her without a word of thanks.

"Oh, please wait just a minute," she begged. "I haven't told you a single word of how grateful I am. I feel somehow as if,—as if,—the worst were over!" This time Mr. Spriggs smiled broadly.

"And you will send Noah's Dove to the Gay Head?"

"Yes, I will, because you advise me to. But you mustn't think I'm conceited enough to expect him to roost there."

And that very evening the dove spread his wings,—only five of them now,—and set forth on the most ambitious flight he had yet ventured upon.

In the next few days Madge found her thoughts much occupied with speculations regarding her mysterious visitor; everything about him, his name, his errand, both the matter and the manner of his speech, roused and piqued her curiosity. It was clear that he knew a great deal about art. And yet, if he were an artist, she would certainly be familiar with his name. Whatever his calling, he was sure to be distinguished. Those judicial eyes would be severe with any work more pretentious than that of a mere student; that firm, discriminating hand,—she had been struck with the way he handled her sketches,—would never have signed a poor performance. Perhaps it was Elihu Vedder in disguise,—or Sargent, or Abbey! Since the descent of the fairy-godmother upon the class a year ago, no miracle seemed impossible. And yet, the miracle which actually befell would have seemed, of all imaginable ones, the most incredible. It took place, too, in the simplest, most unpremeditated manner, as miracles have a way of doing.

One evening, about a week after the return of the miniature, the family were gathered together as usual about the argand burner. It was a warm evening, and Ned, who was to devote his energies to the cause of electrical science, when once he was delivered from the thraldom of the classics, had made some disparaging remarks about the heat engendered by gas.

"By the way," said Mr. Burtwell, "that, reminds me! I have a letter for you, Madge. I met the postman just after I left the door this noon, and he handed me this with my gas bill. Who's your New York correspondent?"

"I'm sure I don't know," said Madge, with entire sincerity, for it was far too early to look for any word from the Gay Head.

The letter had the appearance of a friendly note, being enclosed in a square envelope, undecorated with any business address. Madge opened it, and glanced at the signature, which was at the bottom of the first page. The blood rushed to her face as her eye fell upon the name: "Philip Spriggs, Art Editor of the Gay Head."

She read the letter very slowly, with a curious feeling that this was a dream, and she must be careful not to wake herself up. This was what she read:

* * * * *

"MY DEAR MISS BURTWELL,

"We like Noah's Dove as much as I thought we should. We shall hope to get him out some time next year. Can't you work up the pickpocket idea? That small boy, the second one from the right, is nucleus enough for another set. In fact, it is the small-boy element in your Student that makes him original—and true to life. We think that you have the knack, and count upon you for better work yet. We take pleasure in handing you herewith a check for this.

"Yours truly, "PHILIP SPRIGGS."

* * * * *

The check was a very plain one on thin yellow paper, not in the least what she had looked for from a great publishing-house; but the amount inscribed in the upper left-hand corner of the modest slip of paper seemed to her worthy the proudest traditions of the Gay Head itself. The check was for sixty dollars.

As Madge gradually assured herself that she was awake, the first sensation that took shape in her mind was the very ridiculous one of regret that the mahogany table should have been deprived of its legitimate share in this great event. And then she remembered that it was her father himself who had handed her the letter.

She was still wondering how she should break the news to him, when she found herself giving an odd little laugh, and asking, "Father, what is your favourite line of ocean steamers?"

Mr. Burtwell, who had really felt no special curiosity as to his daughter's correspondent, was once more immersed in his evening paper. He looked up, at her words, as all the family did, and was struck by the expression of her face.

"What makes you ask that?" he demanded sharply.

"Because I know you always keep your promises, and—there's a letter you might like to read."

Mr. Burtwell took the letter, frowning darkly, a habit of his when he was puzzled or anxious. He read the letter through twice, and then he examined the check. He did not speak at once. There was something so portentous in this deliberation, and something so very like emotion in his kind, sensible face, that even Ned was awed into respectful silence.

At last Mr. Burtwell turned his eyes to his daughter's face, where everything, even suspense itself, seemed arrested, and said, in a matter-of-fact tone:

"I think you had better go by the North German Lloyd. Shall you start this week?"

"Oh, you darling!" cried Madge, throwing her arms about her father's neck, regardless of letter and check, which, being still in his hands, were called upon to bear the brunt of this attack; "How can I ever make up my mind to leave you?"



THE IDEAS OF POLLY

CHAPTER I

DAN'S PLIGHT

"Well, Mis' Lapham, I am sorry to hear it, I must say! It doos seem's though you'd had your share of affliction!"

Mrs. Henry Dodge always emphasised a great many of her words, which habit gave to her remarks an impression of peculiar sincerity and warmth; a perfectly correct impression, too, it must be admitted. Her needle, moreover, being quite as energetic as her tongue, she was a valuable member of the sewing-circle, at which function she was now assisting with much spirit.

Mrs. Lapham accepted this tribute to her many trials with becoming modesty. She was a dull, colourless woman whose sole distinction lay in the visitations of affliction, and it is not too much to affirm that she was proud of them. She was sewing, not too rapidly, on a very long seam, which occupation was typical of her course of life. She sighed heavily in response to her neighbour's words of sympathy, and said:

"It did seem hard that it should have been Dan, just as he was beginning to be a help to his uncle, and all. But I s'pose we'd ought to have been prepared for it."

"There's been quite a pause in the death-roll," the Widow Criswell observed. She was engaged in sewing a button on a boy's jacket with a black thread.

"How long is it since Eliza went?" asked Miss Louisa Bailey, pursuing the widow's train of thought.

"Seven years this month. She began to cough at Christmas, and by Washington's Birthday she was in her grave."

"And Jane? They didn't go very far apart, did they?"

"No, Jane died eleven months before Eliza; and their mother went three years before that, and their father when Dan was a baby; that's goin' on sixteen years."

"Well, you have had a hard time, I will say!" exclaimed Mrs. Dodge. "Your Martha losing her little girl, and John's wife breaking her collar-bone, and all, and now this to be gone through with! I should think you'd feel discouraged!"

"I do; real discouraged. But I s'pose it's no more than I'd ought to expect, with such an inheritance."

"Have there been many cases of lung-trouble on your side of the family, Mrs. Lapham?" Miss Bailey inquired with respectful interest.

"No; Sister Fitch was the first case."

For a few seconds, conversation languished, and only the snip of Mrs. Royce's scissors could be heard, and the soft rustle of cotton cloth. The sewing-circle was going on in the church vestry where there was a faint odour from the kerosene lamps, which had just been lighted. The Widow Criswell was the first to break the silence.

"Polly ain't showed no symptoms yet, has she?" she asked, testing one of the buttons as if sceptical of her thread.

"Well, no; not yet. But then Dan seemed as smart as anybody six months ago, and just look at him to-day!"

The mental eyes of a score of women were turned upon Dan, as he was daily seen, round-shouldered and hollow-chested, toiling along the snowy country roads to and from school, coughing as he went. The topic was not an uncongenial one to the members of the sewing-circle, who had really very little to talk about. So absorbed were they, indeed, in the discussion of poor Dan's fate, and of the long list of casualties that had preceded it, that no one noticed the entrance of a young girl, rosy-cheeked and bright-eyed, who had come to help with the supper. There was an air of peculiar freshness about her, and as she stood in her blue dress and white apron near the door, her ruddy brown hair shining in the lamp-light, the effect was like the opening of a window in a close room. Her step was arrested in the act of coming forward, and, as she paused to listen, the pretty colour was quite blotted out of her cheeks.

"I don't think Dan's will be a lingering case," Mrs. Lapham was saying. "The lingering cases are the most trying."

Polly stood motionless. Was it true then, that which she had dreaded, that which she had shrunk from facing? Was it more than a cold that Dan had got? Was Dan really ill? Her Dan? Really ill? Her heart was beating like a trip-hammer, but no one seemed to hear it.

"Queer that the doctors don't find any cure for lung-trouble," Mrs. Royce was saying. "Seems as though there must be some way of stopping it, if you could only find it out."

"Have you tried Kinderling's Certain Cure?" asked Mrs. Dodge. "They do say that it's very efficacious."

"Well, no," said Mrs. Lapham; "I don't hold much to medicines myself; but if I did I should think it just a wilful waste to try them for Dan. The boy's doomed, to begin with, and there's no help for it."

"There is a help for it, there shall be a help for it!" cried a voice, vibrating with youthful energy and emotion. "I don't see how you can talk so, Aunt Lucia! Dan isn't doomed! he sha'n't die! I won't let him die!"

The women looked at Polly and then they looked at one another, fairly abashed by the girl's spirit; all, that is, excepting Aunt Lucia, who was not impressionable enough to feel anything but the superficial rudeness of Polly's outbreak.

"That'll do, Polly," she said, with a spiritless severity. "This is no place for a display of temper."

The colour had come back into the girl's face now, and there were hot tears in her eyes. She turned without a word and left the room, nor was she seen again among the waitresses who came to hand the tea.

Polly was rather ashamed of having run away from the sewing-circle, and she had serious thoughts of going back. It was the first time in her life that she had allowed herself to be routed by circumstances; but somehow she felt as if she could not find it in her heart to hand about tea and seed-cakes, sandwiches and quince-preserve, to people who could think such dreadful thoughts of Dan. And then, besides, she knew what a pleasant surprise it would be for Dan to have her all to himself for an evening. Uncle Seth would be sure to go for his weekly game of checkers with Deacon White, and she could help Dan with his algebra and Latin, and see that he was warm and "comfy," and perhaps find that he did not cough so much as he did the evening before.

They had a very cozy evening, she and Dan, just as she had planned it in every particular but one, namely, the cough. There was no improvement in that since the night before, and for the first time the boy spoke of it.

"I say, Polly! Isn't it stupid, the way this cold hangs on? Do you remember how long it is since I caught it?"

"Why, no, Dan. It does seem a good while, doesn't it? I guess it must be about over by this time. Don't you know how suddenly those things go?"

Dan, who was on his way to bed, had stopped, close to the air-tight stove, to warm his hands.

"I wish it were summer, Polly," he said, with a wistful look in his great black eyes that cut Polly to the heart. "It's been such a cold winter; and a fellow gets kind of tired of barking all the time."

"It'll be spring before you know it, Dan, you see if it isn't, and you'll forget you ever had a cold in your life."

And when, half an hour later, the evening was over, and Polly was safe in her bed, she buried her head in her pillow and cried herself to sleep.

But tears and bewailings were not a natural resource with Polly, whose forte was action. Her first thought in the morning was: what should she do about it? Something must be done, of course, and she was the only one to do it. What it was she had not the faintest idea, but then it was her business to find out. Here was she, eighteen years old, strong and hearty, and with good practical common sense, the natural guardian and protector of her younger brother. It was time she bestirred herself!

As a first step, she got up with the sun and dressed herself, and then she slipped down-stairs to the parlour where such of her father's books as had been rescued from auction were lodged; her father had been the village doctor. All the medical works had been sold, and many other volumes besides, but among those remaining was an old encyclopaedia which had proved to Polly a mine of information on many subjects. As she took down the third volume, she heard a portentous Meaouw! and there, outside the window, stood Mufty, the grey cat, rubbing himself against the frosty pane. Polly opened the window and Mufty sprang in, bringing a puff of frosty air in his wake. Without so much as a word of thanks he walked over to the stove. Finding it, however, cold, as only an empty air-tight stove can be cold, he strolled, with a disengaged air, beneath which lurked a very distinct intention, toward the only warm object in the room, namely, Polly in her woollen gown. She had the volume open on the table before her, and was deep in its perusal, murmuring as she read.

"Appears to have committed its ravages from the earliest time," Polly read, "and its distribution is probably universal, though far from equal."

At this point Mufty lifted himself lightly in the air, after the manner peculiar to cats, and landed in Polly's lap. After switching his tail across her eyes once or twice, and rubbing himself against the book in rather a disturbing way, he at last settled down, and began purring vigorously in token of satisfaction. The room was very cold, and Polly, without interrupting her reading, was glad to bury her hands in the thick fur. Presently the colour in her cheeks grew brighter and her breath came quicker. There was a way, after all! People had been saved, people a good deal sicker than Dan,—saved by a change of climate. What could be simpler? Just to pick Dan up and carry him off! And such fun, too!

"Mufty," she whispered, excitedly, "Mufty, what should you say to Dan and me going away and never coming back again?"

"Brrrrr, brrrrr," quoth Mufty.

"I knew you would approve! You know how necessary it is, and you think it best to do it; don't you, Mufty?"

"Brrrr, brrrrrrrrrr," quoth Mufty, again.

"O Mufty, what a darling you are, to approve! And there isn't really any one's opinion that I care more about!"

She got up and went to the window, while Mufty, not to be dislodged, hastily established himself across her shoulder, his fore paws well down her back, his tail contentedly waving before her eyes. The picture which he thus turned his back upon was a wintry one.

"Cold morning, isn't it, Mufty?" said Polly. "No kind of a climate for a delicate person."

"Brrrr, brrrrrr!" Mufty was digging a claw into her shoulder to adjust himself more comfortably.

"Ow!" cried Polly. Then, lifting him down: "Mufty, you're a very intelligent cat, and I haven't a doubt that your judgment is as penetrating as your claws. All the same, I guess you'd better get down and come with me and help Susan get the breakfast. Don't you hear her shaking down the kitchen stove?"

Whereupon Mufty, finding himself dropped upon the coldly unsympathetic ingrain carpet, desisted from further encouraging remarks.

Polly was a schoolgirl still, though she was nearing the dignity of graduation. She had no special taste for study, but she cherished the Yankee reverence for education, and although it was not quite clear to her how Latin declensions and algebraic symbols were to help her in after-life, she committed them to memory with a very good grace, and enjoyed all the satisfaction of work for work's sake.

It happened, therefore, that the pursuit of learning interfered for several hours with the far more important object which she had at heart to-day; and it was not until two o'clock that she found herself at liberty to do what every nerve and fibre of her young organism was straining to accomplish.



"I'm not going right home," she said to Dan; "I've got an errand to do."

"Polly's got an idea," Dan said to himself, struck with the eagerness in her face, and the haste with which she walked away. "What a girl she is for ideas, any way!" and he trudged along the snowy road with the other boys, getting rather out of breath in the effort to keep up with them.

Polly, meanwhile, stepped swiftly on her way. She was thinking of Dan. He at least was a natural student and had always led his class. She was not only fond of Dan, but proud of him, too. He was a handsome boy, with those clear, dark eyes of his in which a less partial observer than Polly might have read the promise of fine things.

"Yes," Polly said to herself, as she sped along the road that glittering winter's day: "Dan isn't just an ordinary boy. He's an unusual boy. Why, the world couldn't afford to lose Dan!" and she looked into the faces of the passers-by, as if to challenge their acquiescence in this bold statement.

Whether Dan was all that Polly thought him, only the future could prove,—that future that Polly was about to secure to him. If she idealised him a bit, why, all the better for Dan, and all the better for Polly, too. One thing is sure, that no one who could have looked into the sister's heart that winter's day would have doubted her for an instant when she said to herself:

"He sha'n't die! I won't let him die! But, oh! how I wish that cough were mine!"

From her interview with the doctor, Polly brought away with her only one word, "Colorado"; and with that word shining like a great snowy peak in her imagination, she took another swift walk to a farmhouse on the outskirts of the village, where dwelt a man whose son had gone to Colorado three years ago.

"Great place!" he told her; "Great place, Colorado! Mile up in the air! Prairie-dogs and Rocky Mountains! Big cattle ranches that could put all Fieldham in their vest pockets! Cold as thunder, hot as thunder! Blizzards and cyclones and water-spouts! Wind! Blow you right out of your boots! Cures sick folks? Oh, yes. Better than all the doctors. Braces 'em right up—stands 'em on their legs! Nothing like it, so Bill says. Costs a sight to get out there; oh, yes! Fifty dollars and fifteen cents! Queer about that fifteen cents. Seems as though they might ha' throwed that in on such a long trip's that; but them railroads ain't got no insides any way; and when you once git out there, why, there you are!"

The philosophy of that last remark appealed particularly to Polly. "When you once git out there, why, there you are!" Somehow it seemed to make everything perfectly simple and easy. Blizzards and cyclones? Yes, to be sure. But then it was the air that you went out for, Polly reasoned, that was what was going to cure you; and perhaps the more you got of it the quicker you would get cured. And Polly hurried home from her last visit, flushed and eager for the fray. She found her uncle in the barn putting up his horses.

Mr. Seth Lapham was a good man; there could be no doubt about that. Nothing but a sincere and very efficient conscience could have so tempered his natural penuriousness as to cause him to receive into his family a mere sister-in-law's children and allow them to "want for nothing"; that, too, at a time when his own children, John and Martha, were still a bill of expense to him, before their respective marriages. For many years, Uncle Seth had conscientiously, if not lavishly, fed and clothed the little orphans, whose entire patrimony in the Savings Bank scarcely yielded interest enough to pay for their boots and shoes; but it remained for the present crisis to prove him as open-minded as he was conscientious. For, no sooner had Polly finished the rapid exposition of her great plan—how they were to draw the money from the bank to pay for their tickets and start them in their new life, and how they were to earn their own living when once they got started—than he was ready to admit the reasonableness of it.

"And when you once get out there, why, there you are!" Polly declared, in her most convincing tone.

As she stood before him, flushed and breathless, prepared to do battle for Dan to the very last extremity, her uncle gave old Dick a slap that sent him tramping into his stall, and then said, with the drawling accent peculiar to him:

"Well, Polly, you're a pretty sensible girl. If the doctor says so, I guess it's wuth trying."

Then Polly, who had so courageously braced herself for the contest, experienced an overwhelming revulsion of feeling, and a great wave of gratitude and compunction swept over her. To Uncle Seth's speechless astonishment she flung her arms around his big neck, and, with some thing very like a sob, she cried:

"Oh, Uncle Seth, I never loved you half enough!"

Uncle Seth bore it very well, all things considered. He got pretty red in the face, but happily a full grizzly beard kept the secret of his blushes.

"Why, Polly!" he said, pounding away on her shoulder in an attempt to be consolatory; "you've always ben a good girl; not a mite of trouble, not a mite!"

They walked up to the house, Polly holding the rough, hairy hand as tightly as if it had been a solid chunk of gold. Before the short walk to the kitchen door was finished they had become sworn conspirators, and Uncle Seth was so entirely in the spirit of the piece that he held Polly back a minute to say, in a sepulchral whisper,

"Just you leave your Aunt Lucia to me. I'll fix her."

Polly never knew all the pains Uncle Seth was at to "fix" Aunt Lucia, but by hook or crook the "fixing" was accomplished, and Aunt Lucia had given a mournful consent.

"I shouldn't feel it right," she declared, "to let you suppose I thought there was any hope of its curing Dan. That boy's doomed, if ever a boy was, and I don't know how you'll ever manage with the funeral and all, way out there in Colorado, far from kith and kin. But your Uncle Seth says you'd better try it, and I ain't one to oppose just for the sake of opposin'. I've been through too much for that. Only I warn you; mind, you don't forget I warned you."

Polly listened to Aunt Lucia's lugubrious views with scarcely a twinge of alarm, and in five minutes she had plunged into preparations for the journey.

As for Dan, the mere thought of Colorado seemed to revive him. "Larks" of any description had always been very much to his taste, but the unending "lark" of an escape into the big world with Polly filled him with a fairly riotous joy.

And so it happened that by the time the March thaws were setting in and the March winds were getting ready for their boisterous attack, Polly and Dan had slipped away, and were travelling as fast as steam could carry them toward the high, health-giving region of the Rocky Mountains.

"A harebrained venture as ever was!" Miss Louisa Bailey declared when she heard of it. "I don't see what Mr. and Mrs. Lapham were thinking of, to countenance such a step!"

The monthly sewing-circle had come round again, and Mrs. Lapham, whose turn it was to look after the supper, had stepped out of the room for a moment.

"Well, I don't know but it's about as well," the Widow Criswell rejoined, sighing profoundly. She was more out of spirits than usual to-day, for circumstances, otherwise known as Mrs. Royce, the president of the sewing-circle, had forced into her hands a baby's pinafore, the cheerful suggestiveness of which could only serve to deepen her gloom. "The boy's doomed, wherever he is, and Sister Lapham never had any real taste for sick-nursing. She's spared a sight o' trouble and expense."

"Well," said Mrs. Henry Dodge, winding a needleful of No. 20 thread off the spool, with the hissing sound familiar to the ears of the seamstress, and breaking it off with a snap, "I think it's the very best thing that could have been done. The minute I saw that girl's face last sewing-circle, I knew she'd make out to save that boy. Mark my words, he'll outlive us all yet! I declare, I always did like Polly Fitch. She reminds me of myself when I was a girl!"



CHAPTER II

WESTWARD HO!

"Pike's Peak or Bust!" was the chosen motto of those early pilgrims who, thirty-odd years ago, crossed the continent in a "prairie schooner," escorted by a cavalry guard to keep Indian marauders at a respectful distance; and "Pike's Peak or Bust!" was the motto chosen by Polly and Dan, our two young modern pilgrims, as they journeyed with greater ease, but with no less courage and venturesomeness, across the two thousand miles intervening between quiet Fieldham and their goal.

"Pike's Peak or Bust!" No one looking into the bright young faces turned so bravely westward ho! could have had any doubt as to which of the two alternatives hinted at in that picturesque motto would be fulfilled for them. On they journeyed, on and on, past populous cities, across great rivers, over vast plains brown with last year's stubble or white with newly fallen snow, till at last there came a morning when they awoke in the tingling dawn, and, looking forth across miles of shadowy prairie, beheld a great white dome cut clear against a sapphire sky. On the train rushed, on and on, straight toward that snowy dome, and, as they drew nearer, other mountains began to define themselves on either side the central peak, and presently a town revealed itself, and they knew that it could be no other than Colorado Springs, sleeping there at the foot of the great range, all unconscious of the two young pilgrims, coming so confidingly to seek their fortunes within its borders.

Their first spring and summer were a very happy time, of which Polly and Dan could relate a hundred noteworthy incidents. They rented a tiny cottage of three rooms in the unfashionable part of the town where rents were low. Here was a bit of ground all about, and a narrow porch that looked straight into the face of the splendid old Peak; and here they lived the merriest of lives on the smallest and most precarious of incomes; for they were determined to infringe as little as possible upon the slender capital, snugly stowed away in a Colorado bank.

Dan soon found employment in a livery-stable at fifty cents a day. His chief business was the agreeable one of delivering "teams" and saddle-horses to pleasure-seekers at the north end of the town, riding back to the stable again on a "led horse" provided for the purpose. If not a very ambitious calling, it was, at least, exceedingly good fun, and it also had the merit of conforming to the doctor's directions. "Don't let him get behind a counter or into any stuffy back-office," the doctor had said to Polly. "Whatever he does, let it keep him in the open air as much as possible." Had the very obvious wisdom of this advice required demonstration, Dan's rapid improvement would have been sufficient.

They did not shock the sensibilities of the sewing-circle by writing home exactly what the employment was that Dan had found, while, for themselves, Polly had her own little ways of embellishing the somewhat prosaic situation. She dubbed the young stable-boy Hercules, and always spoke of the establishment he served as "The Augaeans." Nor did her invention fail when, a month or two later, Dan got a place at somewhat higher wages as druggist's messenger; for then he was promptly informed that his name was Mercury, and that there were wings on his heels, though he could not himself see them, by reason of their being turned back, and visible only when his feet were in rapid motion!

Meanwhile, Polly, too, was doing her part, though it had not yet proved very lucrative. When they first took the house, Dan painted a sign for her, bearing the following announcement:

FINE NEEDLEWORK AND EMBROIDERY TO ORDER.

But the spring and summer went by, and autumn came, and still the sign which had ornamented their house-front for so many months had as yet attracted the notice of only the impecunious class of customers their immediate neighbourhood afforded. Polly had gratefully taken coarse work at low prices, but she still hoped for better things. The street where their tiny cottage stood, though at the wrong end of the town, was a thoroughfare for pleasure parties driving to the great canyons, and Polly never saw the approach of a pretty turnout without a thrill of hope that the occupants might be attracted by her sign. She knew herself to be a quick and skilful needlewoman, and she thought that if only she might once get started in well-paid work, Dan, who was growing stronger every day, might go on with his education at the Colorado College Preparatory School. She had found out all about the college, of which she had formed a very high opinion, and she told herself proudly that Dan had such a good mind that he would not need to study too hard.

One evening in September they were clearing the supper table, preparatory to washing up the dishes, which ceremony was one of the numerous "larks" by which brother and sister found life diversified and enlivened.

"Mercury, I have an idea!" Polly suddenly cried.

"Never saw the time you hadn't, Polly."

"But this is a great idea, a really great one, because it includes all the little ones, like Milton's universe in the crescent moon; don't you remember?"

"My goody, Polly! But it must be a corker!"—and Dan was all attention.

Now Polly, it is needless to repeat, was a young person of ideas; that was her strong point, and Dan at least considered her a marvel of ingenuity and invention. Their tiny sitting-room, where Dan slept, was a witness to her taste and originality. There were picturesque shelves which Dan had made in accordance with her directions; there were cheesecloth window-curtains, with rustic boughs in place of poles; there were barrels standing bottom upward for tables, draped with ancient "duds"—a changeable-silk skirt of her mother's over one, a moth-eaten camel's-hair shawl over another. The crack in the only mirror which a munificent landlord had provided was concealed by a kinikinick vine; a piece of Turkey-red at five cents a yard, their one bit of extravagance, converted Dan's cot-bed into a canopy of state. And having heard Dan chant the praises of her "ideas" with gratifying persistence for a month past, Polly had begun to wonder whether they might not be turned to account.

"What's the latest idea, Polly?" Dan asked, seizing a dripping handful of what they were pleased to call their "family plate."

"Well, Dan, I want you to paint something more on my sign. Only two words; it won't take you long."

"What two words?"

"Also Ideas!"

Dan reflected a moment, and then he proceeded to dance a jig of delight, wildly waving his dish-cloth about Polly's head.

"Polly, you beat the world!" he cried.

A house-painter lived next door, from whom Dan borrowed paint and brushes, and before they slept the old sign was further decorated with two magic words done in brilliant scarlet. The inscription now read:

FINE NEEDLEWORK AND EMBROIDERY TO ORDER. ALSO IDEAS

There was something positively dazzling about those two words in flaming scarlet, and Polly and Dan stepped out twice in the course of their early breakfast to have a look at them.

"Don't you feel scared, Polly?" asked Dan, as he left her at her dish-washing.

"Scared? Not I!" and she walked down the path with him, drying her hands on a dish-towel.

It was a delicious morning in late September; the air dry and sparkling as a jewel, the mountains baring their shoulders to the morning sun. The Peak had already a dash of winter on his crown, but the barren slope of rock below looked like an impregnable fortress. Polly and Dan were never tired of wondering at the changing moods that played so gloriously upon that steadfast front.

"Seems as if they must almost see him from Fieldham this morning, he's so bright," said Polly.

"That's so," Dan agreed. "I say, Polly, isn't he enjoying himself, though?"

"Course he is!" Polly answered. "Isn't everybody?"

Then Polly went back to her splashing water and flopping dish-towels, and was busy for an hour about the house. By and bye she sat herself down in the little porch and proceeded to put good honest stitches into a child's frock, for the making of which she was to receive twenty-five cents. Not very good pay for a day's work, but "twenty-five-hundred-million per cent. better than nothing," as she had assured the doubtful Dan.

Life looked very different to her since those two bright words had been added to the sign. Not that it had looked otherwise than pleasant before; but there was so little originality in the idea of doing needlework that it had scarcely merited success, while this,—of course it must succeed!

In truth, she had sat there hardly an hour, when she distinctly heard the occupant of a yellow buckboard read the sign, and then turn to her companion with a word of comment. Polly had always had an idea that one of those yellow buckboards would be the making of her fortune yet. The one in question was drawn by a pretty pair of ponies, and two young girls were in possession of it.

"I have an idea they'll notice it again, when they come back this way," Polly surmised. "But if they're going up the canyon they won't come back till just as I'm getting dinner."

And, sure enough, the mutton stew was just beginning to simmer, when there came a rap at the door.

The front door opened directly into the little sitting-room, and was never closed in pleasant weather. As Polly emerged from the kitchen, her face very red from hobnobbing with the stove, she found one of the girls of the yellow buckboard standing in the doorway.

"Good morning, Miss——"

"Fitch. My name is Polly Fitch."

"What a jolly name!" the visitor exclaimed. "I think you must be the one with ideas."

"Yes," said Polly, "Do you want one? Come in and take a seat."

"I do want an idea most dreadfully," the young lady rejoined, taking the proffered chair. "I want something for a booby prize for a backgammon tournament. I don't suppose anybody ever heard of a backgammon tournament before, but it's going to be great fun. We are doing it to take the conceit out of a young man we know, who declares that there's nothing in backgammon that he didn't learn the first time he played it with his grandfather."

"And you want a booby prize?" Polly looked thoughtful for the space of sixteen seconds. Then she cried; "Oh, I have an idea! Get somebody to whittle you a couple of wooden dice; then paint them white and mark them with black sixes on each of the six sides of each die. You could call it 'a booby pair-o'-dice' if you don't object to puns!"

"What a good idea! It's simply perfect! I wonder whom I could get to do it for me?"

"Why, Dan could do it with his jackknife, just as well as not. If you'll come to-morrow morning you shall have them."

Accordingly, the next morning, the young lady appeared, and was enchanted with her prize.

"And how much will they be?" she asked.

"Well, I had thought of charging twenty-five cents for an idea, and the dice didn't cost us anything and only took a few minutes to make."

"Supposing we call it a dollar. Would that be fair?"

"I don't believe they are worth a dollar."

"Yes, they are; I should be ashamed to take them for less. What a splendid idea that was of yours, to put out that sign!"

"I should think it was, if I could get any more customers like you!"

"I'll send them to you,—never you fear!"

Miss Beatrice Compton returned to her buckboard a captive to Polly.

"She's the sweetest thing," she told her mother, who chanced to be her passenger on this occasion. "She's got eyes and hair exactly of a colour, a sort of reddish brown, and her eyes twinkle at you in the dearest way, and she wears her hair in the quaintest pug, just in the right place on her head, sort of up in the air; and she's a lady, too; anybody can see that. I wonder who 'Dan' is; you don't suppose she's married, do you?"

"You can't tell," Mrs. Compton replied. "Persons in that walk of life marry very young."

"But, Mamma, she isn't a 'person,' and she doesn't belong to 'that walk of life.' She's a lady."

Miss Beatrice was as good as her word, and three days had not passed when a horseman stopped before the little cottage, sprang from his horse, and looked about for a place to tie; there was no hitching-post near by. Polly was sitting in the porch making buttonholes.

"If you were coming in here, you'd better lead him right up the walk," she said, "and tie him to the porch-post."

"That's a good idea!" the young man replied, promptly acting upon the advice. "You are Miss Polly Fitch, are you not?"

"Yes."

"I knew you the minute I saw you, because Miss Compton described you to me." This was meant to be very flattering, but Polly, who seldom missed a point, was quite unconscious that one had been made.

"Have you come for an idea?" she asked, quite innocently, and Mr. Reginald Axton, who was rather sensitive, wondered whether she "meant anything." On second thoughts he concluded that she did not, and he began again:

"I got that booby prize you made."

"Did you?" cried Polly, with animation. "Oh, I wonder whether you were the one—" she paused.

"The one that what?" he asked hastily.

"The one that thought there wasn't anything in the game."

"Well, yes, I was. And the others had all the luck, and so of course I got beaten."

"Of course!" said Polly, with a twinkle of delight.

"I see you're on their side, but all the same I want you to help me to pay them back. You see I wanted to do something about it, and I thought of sending Miss Compton some flowers with a verse, and I thought perhaps you could do the verse."

"Did you expect me to furnish the idea, too?"

"Why, of course! That's why I came to you. I thought, if you were so awfully bright, perhaps you could make verses."

Polly looked thoughtful.

"I should charge you quite a lot for it," she said,—"much as a dollar perhaps; for you know writing verses is quite an accomplishment."

"I'll pay a dollar a line for it! I know a fellow that gets more than that from the magazines. And I'm sure that it will be good if you do it."

"My gracious! that's great pay!" cried Polly, with sparkling eyes, ignoring the compliment, but enchanted to hear what a price verses brought. "I'll send it to you by mail."

"No, I guess I'll look in every once in a while and see how you're getting on!"

"Dear me!" said Polly, "you don't expect me to spend a week over it, do you? That isn't why you offered such high pay?"

"Oh, no; the quicker you got it done the more I should be willing to pay for it." He paused a moment. "And, Miss Fitch," he went on, "I don't care if you make it a little,—well,—a little soft. She deserves it, she's such a tease! Her name's Beatrice," he added. "We call her Trix, if that'll help you any."

Polly understood Mr. Reginald perfectly, and she dismissed him with a twinkle which promised well. Then Polly proceeded to cudgel her brain, while the needle went in and out, and a buttonhole formed itself in the firm, narrow line that makes of a buttonhole a work of art.

"I wish I could rhyme words as well as I can stitches," Polly thought to herself, as she held up a completed buttonhole, with the honest pride of a good workman. "Sixes,—Trixes! that heart were Trix's! That ought to be made to go. A double rhyme, too! I don't believe he expects a double rhyme." And in and out and in and out her thoughts plied themselves round and about the two words, and her cheeks got quite hot with the pleasurable excitement of this new mental exercise.

At last she tossed down her work, and, fetching a piece of brown wrapping-paper, proceeded, with many erasures and tinkerings, to inscribe upon it the following verse:

Were hearts the dice and love the game, Of no avail were double sixes; On every heart is but one name, We nought could throw but double-Trixes!

"Rather neat," said Polly to herself, "rather neat! Now if he were to send it with two bunches of roses of six each, I think it could not fail to make an impression. I should rather hate to pay another person to make love for me, though," she went on, with a little toss of the head; and then she picked up her work and began again to "rhyme buttonholes."

When Dan came home to supper he had much to learn. He was lost in wonder over the rhyme which Polly repeated to him, but still more impressed by the four great silver dollars she had to show; for her impatient customer had already called for the verses.

"Jiminy!" cried Dan; "that's most a week's earnings for some of us!"

"Yes," Polly replied, demurely; "that's what Mrs. O'Toole would have paid me for sixteen baby-dresses. Things even themselves out in the long run, don't they, Dan?" As though Polly knew anything about the long run, by the way!

Before Christmas Polly was driving a pretty trade, not only in ideas but in sewing. She had in all ten dozen pocket handkerchiefs to mark for Christmas customers, besides towels and table-linen, sheets and pillow-cases. People had found her out, and she had to refuse more than one good order for lack of time. But needlework alone, quick as she was in doing it, would have given her but a meagre income, had she not been able to furnish "also ideas."

One lady, for instance, came to ask her for an "idea" for a Thanksgiving dinner, and Polly not only suggested the idea, but carried it out for her. She went about with a big basket to all the markets and collected perfect specimens of vegetables with which to make a centrepiece for the dinner table. The dinner was given in a house where the round dining table would seat twenty-four guests. In this ample centre she erected a pyramid of fruits of the earth. There were crimson beets, pale yellow squashes, scarlet tomatoes, and the long, thin fingers of the string-bean; potatoes furnished a comfortable brown, which, together with the soft bronze of the onion, harmonized discordant colours; and, crowning all, the silken tassel of the red-eared corn raised its graceful crest.

The hostess was delighted with her table, and more delighted still with the pretty decorator. Polly's fame flew from one to another throughout that kindly and prosperous community, and she found herself accumulating a goodly hoard. As Christmas drew near, many a perplexed shopper came to her for "ideas," and all went away content. She had long since discovered that the Colorado shops were treasure-houses of pretty things. She never passed a jeweller's window without taking note of his latest novelties; she kept an eye upon Mexican and Indian bazaars, and Chinese bric-a-brac collections; she made a study of Colorado gems, and knew where the prizes lay hidden; she ran through the books in the bookstores; she was alert for new inventions in harness decoration and bridle trimmings; she gave hints for fancy-work of divers kinds.

Mercury, meanwhile, sped about the town, dispensing healing, as Polly often reminded him, and "getting more than I dispense, Polly," he would declare in return. "I feel so well that everything is a regular lark!"

And so Dan made a "lark" of his work, and trotted all day in his capacity of Mercury, little dreaming of the wealth that was accumulating for his use; while Polly went on with her hoarding, of which she made a great secret, and thought of a still better time coming.



CHAPTER III

A MERRY CHRISTMAS

Of all Polly's new friends, not one took a warmer interest in the young idea-vendor than that first customer of hers, Miss Beatrice Compton. Miss Beatrice was a warm-hearted and enthusiastic girl, who never did anything by halves; and when she talked of Polly, of Polly's skill and of Polly's originality, when she extolled Polly's eyes and Polly's hair, Polly's wit and Polly's sweetness, few listeners remained quite unmoved and incurious. Among the many who were thus stirred to seek out this youthful paragon, was Miss Compton's brother-in-law, Mr. Horace Clapp. Nor was an idle curiosity his only motive in taking the step. Beneath the pretext he found for paying the visit lurked a rather shamefaced purpose of doing this "plucky little genius" a good turn.

It happened, therefore, one morning in December, that Polly came home from her marketing to find a stranger sitting in her porch. A dog-cart, driven by a groom in livery, was passing and repassing her door; and one look at the occupant of the porch sufficed to fix the connection between the two. He was a well-dressed man of thirty or more, who rose as she opened the gate and saluted her as if she had been a duchess.

"Miss Polly Fitch?" he inquired, as he stood before her, hat in hand.

It was noticeable that no one ever omitted the "Polly" from the girl's name. It seemed as much a part of her as the ruddy hair and the dimple in her chin. That dimple, by the way, should have been mentioned long ago; but that, in its turn, was so essential a feature, that one would as soon think it necessary to state that Polly's nose had an upward tilt as that her chin had a dimple. Any one who had ever heard of Polly must know that her nose would tilt and her chin have a dimple.

Polly had a large market-basket on her arm, and as she felt in her pocket for the key to the front door, her visitor took possession of the basket. She was a good deal impressed by the attention from so magnificent a personage, and one, moreover, of advanced years. She began to think that she must be mistaken about his being thirty; why, that was Cousin John's age, and Cousin John was quite an oldish man. She motioned her visitor to enter, and it must be admitted that there was no oppressive reverence in her tone as she said:

"If you would tell me your name, now we should be starting fair!"

"My name is Horace Clapp. Did you ever hear of me?"

"No, I don't think so. Ought I to have?"

"Well, no, there's no obligation in the matter. I only had an idea that I was a local celebrity, like you."

"Like me?"

"Yes! You're a surprise to the town and so am I."

"What have you done to surprise the town?" asked Polly, filled with curiosity.

"I've only got rich very fast."

"Why, so have I!" said Polly. "We are a good deal alike."

"Really? Then you will be in an even better position to advise me than I thought for."

"I supposed you had come for an idea," said Polly, as naturally as if her wares had consisted in tape and buttons.

Offering her visitor the only fairly comfortable chair in the room, she seated herself by the window, near which was one of the draped barrels with her work-basket on top.

"You won't mind my sewing, please," she said, picking up a bit of embroidery; "I can think better that way."

The new customer meanwhile was wondering whether Miss Polly would guess that he had come partly from curiosity, and partly with that other far more daring motive of finding a way to do her a service. And yet, who could tell? Perhaps she could give him a hint; perhaps she was the youthful sibyl people seemed half inclined to believe her.

"Miss Polly," he said, leaning forward in his chair, with his elbows on his knees,—"Miss Polly, I've got an awful lot of money, and I don't know what to do with it."

Mere words had not often the power of staying Polly's needle, but at this astounding declaration she actually let her work fall in her lap, and gazed with wide-eyed wonder at the speaker.

"Yes," he went on, "I really want to do some good with it, and I've tried in lots of ways and I've never hit it off. I should just like to tell you about some of the things I've made a fizzle of in the last year,—if it wouldn't bore you?"

"Oh, no, it wouldn't bore me; nothing ever does. Only,—I can't understand it. Why, I think I could give away a thousand dollars a year just there at home, where we used to live, and every dollar of it would be well spent!"

"Yes, Miss Polly," he said very meekly, "but, you see, what I've got to consider is two hundred thousand dollars a year!"

He looked positively ashamed of himself, and Polly did not wonder. She had given a little gasp at mention of the sum; then she shook her head with decision. Polly knew her limits.

"I haven't any ideas big enough for that" she said. "I should as soon think of advising the President of the United States!"

"Well, if you won't advise me about mine, perhaps you will tell me what you are going to do with your own riches. You said you were getting rich, did you not? You know," he added, "it isn't necessary to make the map of a State as big as the State itself."

"You have ideas, too," Polly remarked appreciatively, resuming her embroidery.

"But you have not told me how you are going to use your riches."

"Oh, I'm going to use mine for education."

"Going up to the college?" he asked.

"Oh, no; there'd be no good in my knowing a lot. I've been nearly through the Fieldham High School already, and the little that I've learned doesn't seem to stick very well. No, indeed! I'm going to—" she paused with a feeling of loyalty to Dan—"I'm only going to help on the general cause of education," she finished demurely.

As she made this sphinx-like remark, Mr. Horace Clapp wished she would relinquish the pursuit of wealth long enough to put her work down and let him see exactly what she meant.

"I think that is the best use to put money to," he said gravely, "but I'm not in the way of knowing about people who need help. Couldn't you tell me of somebody, some young man who wanted to go to college, or some girl who would like to go abroad? Of course, I could found a scholarship, or endow a 'chair,' but one likes a bit of the personal element in one's work."

Polly's heart gave a thump. Here was a chance for Dan; a word from her was all that was needed to make his path an easy one. Had she a right to withhold that word,—to cramp and hinder him? She did not speak for a good many seconds; she simply plied her needle with more and more diligence, while her breath came fast and unevenly. Suddenly a furious blush went mounting up into her temples and spread itself down her neck. Her visitor thought he had never seen any one blush like that, and it somehow struck him that his little plan was swamped. Quite right he was, too. Polly blushed to think that she had thought of Dan in such a connection for a single instant.

It was very unreasoning, this impulse of rebellious shame: are we not admonished to help one another? And what could the helpers do if all their benefactions were indignantly thrust back? Very unreasoning indeed, but natural!—natural as the colour of her hair and the quickness of her wit, natural as all the graces and virtues, all the misconceptions and foibles, that went to make up the personality of Polly Fitch,—of Polly Fitch, the daughter of Puritan ancestors; men and women who could starve, body and mind, but who never had learned to accept a charity.

Before the flush had died away, Polly was quite herself again, and looked up so brightly and sweetly that Mr. Clapp took heart of hope.

"You do know somebody like that; I'm sure you do!" he said insinuatingly.

"I?" said Polly. "I know hardly anybody. But I'm sure the president of the college could tell you of a dozen boys who would be grateful for help."

And so Mr. Horace Clapp's little plan had come to nought, and he took his leave more than ever convinced that it is a very difficult thing to spend one's money in a good cause. As he stood a moment, waiting for his dog-cart, a boy came down the street with a parcel under his arm.

"Say, Mister, do you know whether Daniel Fitch lives here?" he asked.

"Daniel Fitch?" thought Mr. Clapp, as the boy turned in at the gate. "Daniel Fitch? Where have I heard that name? Oh, yes, Beatrice said there was a brother; runs errands for Jones, the druggist. Plucky children! It would be pleasant to give them a lift!"

As for Polly, she had not a twinge of regret. In fact, she rather enjoyed dwelling upon the splendour of the opportunity she had thrust from her, the better to glory in her escape. And she looked forward with entire confidence to the time when she should test Dan's feeling on the point.

On Christmas Eve they hung up their stockings, fairly bulging with materialised jokes and ideas which the morning was to bring to light, and we may be sure that they did not wait for the lazy winter sun to put in an appearance before beginning their investigations. Amid shouts of merriment the revelations of a remarkably inventive Santa Claus were greeted, while Polly held her climbing excitement in check until the hour should be ripe for greater things. But when, at last, just as the sun was peeping in at the kitchen window, Dan's ferret fingers penetrated the extreme toe of his sock, she grew so agitated that she quite forgot to make a certain witty observation she had been saving up for that particular moment. And so it came about that an unwonted silence reigned as the unsuspecting Dan drew forth a small flat parcel labelled: "A Merry Christmas from Polly."

Within was their familiar bank-book, wrapped about with a less familiar sheet of note-paper bearing the following inscription:

"An Idea! Namely, to wit: That Daniel Reddiman Fitch, Esq., lay aside his character of Mercury, and become a student at Colorado College!

"P. S.—An examination of the within balance will assure the said Dan that there is nothing to prevent his thus delighting the heart of his faithful Polly."

A glance at the balance recorded, a reperusal of the "idea," and the impressive silence was broken into a thousand fragments.

"For you see, Dan," Polly explained, when, at last, she had secured a hearing, "I shouldn't know what in the world to do with so much money,—some rich people don't, they say,—and I've got plenty of ideas to last us for years to come. Then, just as they begin to give out, you'll have got to be a mining engineer, with your pockets cram-full of money, and you'll have to support me for the rest of my life. So I don't see but that I'm getting the best of the bargain, after all!"

It all seemed perfectly natural to Dan. This sister of his had always lent a hand when he needed it. Of course he would accept her help, and let the future, the glorious, inexhaustible future straighten out the account between them. He did not express himself even in his inmost thoughts in any such high-flown manner as this. He simply gave an Indian war-whoop, administered to Polly a portentous hug, and declared for the hundredth time, "Polly, you beat the world!"

When everything was thus amicably settled and Dan had agreed to "give notice" in his capacity as Mercury, the following day, Polly said: "You won't mind being poor, will you, Dan? You don't wish we were rich, do you?"

"Rich? Why, we are rich!"

"But, Dan, if any one came along and offered you a lot of money, say a thousand dollars a year, you wouldn't take it, would you?"

"Do you mean a stranger, Polly, some one we hadn't any claim on?"

"Yes; but somebody who had such a lot he wouldn't miss it. Would you take it, Dan? Say, would you take it?"

"What a goose you are, Polly! Of course I wouldn't take it! I would rather go back to the Augaeans for the rest of my life!"

On the evening of that momentous Christmas Day, our two young people had out their Latin books and began industriously to polish up their somewhat rusty acquirements in that classic tongue. A year ago they might not have regarded this as precisely a holiday pastime, but their ideas had undergone a great change since then.

They sat at the little centre-table, the ruddy head and the black one close together in the lamp-light, reading their Cicero. A rap at the door seemed a rude interruption; yet so unusual was the excitement of an evening visitor that they could not be quite indifferent to the event,—the less so when the visitor proved to be Polly's client of the cumbrous income.

"Good evening, Miss Polly," he called, from the door, and Polly fancied that his voice had a particularly cheerful ring in it. As he spoke, he glanced at Dan, who had opened the door.

"This is my brother, Dan. Won't you come in, Mr. Clapp?"

"With all the pleasure in the world, for I have come in the character of Santa Claus."

"Have you indeed?" thought Polly to herself; "we'll see about that!" Perhaps there was something in her manner that betrayed her thoughts, for her visitor said, with evident amusement:

"You take alarm too easily, Miss Polly. I should as soon think of offering a gift in my own name to,—to any other extremely rich young woman."

"I was glad to hear that your brother's name was Dan," he continued with apparent irrelevance, as he took his seat. "And more delighted still when I found out his middle name. Didn't it strike you," he asked, turning abruptly to Dan, "that your employer, Mr. Jones, was developing rather a sudden interest in your antecedents?"

"Yes," Polly thought, "he is pleased about something."

"Why, yes," Dan answered, with boyish bluntness. "But what do you know about it?"

"Only that it was I that put Jones up to making his inquiries."

"You?" Dan looked half inclined to resent the liberty. But Polly saw that there was something coming.

"Would you mind telling us what it's all about?" she asked. "You look as if you knew something nice."

"I do; it's one of the nicest things I ever knew in my life. I didn't tell you the other day, did I, that I had made most of my money in mines?"

"No," said Polly, wondering why he should want to tell them how he made "his old money."

"Well, that is the case; nearly all in one mine, too. It's a great placer mine up north. I don't suppose you know much about placer mines?"

Polly, disclaiming such knowledge, tried to look politely interested, while Dan's interest, fortunately for his manners, was very genuine. Was he not to be a mining engineer, and did he not want to learn all he could?

"Well," Mr. Clapp went on, "a placer mine is one where the gold lies embedded in the soil and has to be washed out, and if there doesn't happen to be running water near by it costs an awful lot to bring it in."

"Yes," said the polite Polly, with a vision of a fire-brigade running about with buckets in their hands, as they used to do in Fieldham.

"What they call hydraulic mining," Dan put in.

"Yes, that's it. Big ditches to be dug, and all that sort of thing. Well, this 'Big Bonus Mine' was discovered twenty years ago. A company was started and the stock was put on the market at a dollar a share. The management made a mess of it, as a management usually does, and it fizzled out. It was believed that the thing was chock-full of gold, but they couldn't get it out."

Polly was beginning to be interested; she usually did find things interesting when she gave her mind to them.

"Well, what did they do?" asked Dan.

"They gave it up for a bad job, and tried to forget all the money they had put into it."

"Then where did your money come from?"

"Out of the 'Big Bonus Placer Gold Mine!' We scoop it right out to-day."

"I wish you'd go ahead!" said Dan, for the guest had paused, and was examining the Cicero.

"Well, hydraulic mining improves, like every thing else, and three years ago a new company was formed. Luckily the old company had not gone into debt; perhaps they could not borrow money on their elephant. However that may be, they agreed to put half their stock back into the treasury, and it was sold at fifty cents a share, which gave us money to work with."

"And it was a howling success!" cried Dan. "I remember; I've heard all about it."

"Yes, we've paid out two dollars a share in dividends in the last six months, and the stock is held at fifteen or sixteen dollars a share to-day. The beauty of it is," Mr. Horace Clapp added, glancing quietly from Dan to Polly, "I am convinced that you are both stockholders."

"We?" they cried in a breath.

"Yes! For Jones tells me that your father was a doctor; that his name was Daniel Reddiman Fitch, and that he once lived in Bington, Ohio."

"Yes," said Polly; "that was when he was first married; before old Doctor Royce died, and left an opening in Fieldham, so that Father came back home again."

"The name of such a stockholder stands on our books, but we haven't heretofore been able to trace him."

"That's why old Jones pumped me so," Dan remarked, giving his mind first to the more familiar aspects of the case.

"What a pity he never knew!" said Polly, with glistening eyes. "He was always so poor."

"Your father's original holdings were five thousand shares, so that you are the possessors of twenty-five hundred shares. If you sell it pretty soon, as I think you may as well do, you will have something over forty thousand dollars to invest; for there is, in addition to the stock, five thousand dollars in back dividends due you."

Dan and Polly looked at each other almost aghast; but that was only for a moment.

"Why, Dan, you can have a saddle-horse of your own!" cried Polly.

"And so can you!"

"And we can—O Mr. Clapp, how rude we are!"

Mr. Clapp looked as if it were a kind of rudeness that he was enjoying very much. As he rose to go, he said:

"Don't you think I'm a pretty good sort of a Santa Claus after all, Miss Polly?"

Polly seized his outstretched hand.

"I didn't believe any one person could be so rich, and so good, too!" she declared.

"And, O Dan!" cried Polly, the minute they were alone together, "let's send a New-Year's box home. There'll be just time enough. We can get one of those great carriage rugs for Uncle Seth, and a China silk for Aunt Lucia."

"And I'll send Cousin John's boys some Indian bows and arrows."

"And Cousin Martha a dozen Chinese cups and saucers."

"And the old Professor a meerschaum pipe."

"And Miss Louisa Bailey, and dear Mrs. Dodge, and the Widow Criswell,—what shall we send the Widow Criswell, Dan?"

"Some black-bordered pocket-handkerchiefs!" cried the irreverent Dan.

Before going to bed they stepped out on the porch to bid the Peak good-night.

"Going to be a fine day to-morrow, Polly."

"All the days are fine in Colorado," said Polly.

"You forget the blizzard last month."

"Oh, but it was such a dear blizzard not to do you any harm when it caught you out!"

Dan grew thoughtful.

"Do you ever think, Polly, that we should never have come out here if it hadn't been for you?"

"You know it was 'Pike's Peak or bust!' with both of us, Dan."

Dan looked critically from the great Peak, gleaming there in the starlight, to Polly's uplifted face, and then, as they turned to go in, he exclaimed, for the hundred-and-first time:

"Polly, you beat the world!"



NANNIE'S THEATRE PARTY

CHAPTER I

NANNIE'S THEATRE PARTY

"Yes, my dear, I went to the theetter myself once when I was quite a girl, younger 'n you be, I guess. 'Twas Uncle 'Bijah Lane that took me, 'n' he was so upsot by their hevin' a fun'ral all acted out on the stage, that he come home and told Ma 'twa'n't no fit place for young girls to go to, 'n' I ain't never ben inside a theetter sence. Doos seem good to see play-actin' agin after all these years, I declare it doos!"—and Miss Becky took up her sewing, which she had laid down in a moment of enthusiasm.

"If you liked it half as well as I like to do it, Miss Becky, you'd like it even better than you do now," replied Lady Macbeth, with a cheerful gusto, somewhat at odds with her tragic character.

Nannie Ray, herself still very new to the delights of theatre-going, had recently seen a great actress play Lady Macbeth, and, fired with the spirit of emulation, she had been enacting the sleep-walking scene for the benefit of her country neighbour. Miss Becky Crawlin lived only half a mile down the road from the old Ray homestead, where the family were in the habit of spending six months of the year. She and Nannie had always been great cronies, Miss Becky finding a perennial delight in "that child's goin's on."

The "child" meanwhile had come to be sixteen years old, but no one would have given her credit for such dignity who had seen the incongruous little figure perched upon the slippery haircloth sofa, twinkling with delight at Miss Becky's encomiums. She wore a voluminous nightgown, from under the hem of which a pink gingham ruffle insisted upon poking itself out; her long black hair hung over her shoulders in sufficiently tragic strands; her cheeks, liberally powdered with flour, gleamed treacherously pink through a chance break in their highly artificial pallor, while portentous brows of burnt cork did their best to make terrible a pair of very girlish and innocent eyes. A touch of realism which the original Lady Macbeth lacked was given by a streak of red crayon which lent a murderous significance to the small brown hand.

"I declare!" her admiring auditor went on, stitching away to make up for lost time, "I can't see but you do's well's the lady I saw—only she was dressed prettier, and went round with a wreath on her head. A wreath's always so becomin'! We used to wear 'em May Day, when I was a girl. They was made o' paper flowers, all colours, so's you could suit your complexion, and when it didn't rain I must say we looked reel nice. 'Twas surprisin', though, how quick a few drops o' rain would wilt one o' them paper wreaths right down so's you could scurcely tell what 'twas meant for."

"Tell me some more about the girl with the wreath, Miss Becky," said Lady Macbeth, longing to curl herself up in a corner, but too mindful of her tragic dignity to unbend.

"Well, she looked reel pretty, but she didn't hev sperit enough to suit my idees. She was kind o' lackadaisical and namby-pamby, 'n' when her young man sarsed her she didn't seem to hev nothin' to say for herself. I must say 'twas a heathenish kind of a play anyway, 'n' I ain't surprised that Uncle 'Bijah got sot agin it. The language wa'n't sech as I'd ben brought up to, either."

Lady Macbeth had leaned forward and was clasping her knees, thus unconsciously widening the expanse of pink gingham visible beneath the white robe. She was glad she had modified her Shakespeare to suit her listener, though "Out, dreadful spot!" was not nearly as bloodcurdling as the original.

Miss Becky, meanwhile, had not paused in her narration.

"There was a long-winded young man," she was saying, "him that sarsed his girl, 'n' he went slashin' round, killin' folks off in a kind of an aimless way, an'——"

"It must have been Hamlet that you saw!" cried Nannie, much excited. "Oh, I do so want to see Hamlet!"

"Yes, Hamlet; that was it. And then there was a ghost in it that sent the shivers down my back; 'n' a king 'n' queen; 'n' the king looked for all the world like Deacon Ember, Jenny Lowe's grandpa, that died before you was born; 'n' I declare, I did enjoy it! 'Twas jest like bein' alive in history times! Why, I ain't had sech shivers down my spine's the ghost give me, sence that day, till I seen you standin' there tryin' to wash your hands without any water, 'n' your eyes rollin' fit to scare the cat!"

"Would you like to have me do it again for you, Miss Becky?" asked Nan, springing to her feet with renewed ardour. And straightway she stationed herself at the end of the little room and began propelling herself forward with occasional erratic halts.

The September sunshine came slanting through the tiny panes of glass at the window, and touched with impartial grace the youthful figure of distracted mien, the worsted tidies on the haircloth sofa, and the neat alpaca occupant of the stuffed "rocker." Again the sewing was forgotten, and Miss Becky's glittering spectacles were fixed upon the tragic queen. As the queer little figure stalked solemnly down the room, eyes fixed in a glassy stare, hands wringing one another distressfully; as a moving wail rent the air, to the effect that "all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand," a most agreeable succession of shivers made a highway of Miss Becky's spine.

"Why don't you ever go to the theatre now, Miss Becky?" Nannie asked, when, having laid aside her tragic toggery, she came in her own person to take her leave. "I should think you'd like to go again."

"Oh, yes, I should be reel tickled to go again, but I ain't got nobody to go with, and, well—there's other reasons besides."



Nannie blushed to think how inconsiderate she had been to force her old friend to allude, even indirectly, to her poverty, and she walked up the dusty road to her own gate, filled with compunction. Just outside the gate was a little wilderness of goldenrod and asters. She thought what a pity it was they should get so gray with dust. Poor things, they could not help it; they had to stay where chance had planted them unless somebody picked them and carried them away, and even then they left their roots behind them. Somehow they made her think of Miss Becky, living her little narrow, stationary life all alone in the old tumble-down farmhouse. And just at this point in her reflections a delightful scheme came into her head.

Now, Nannie was the recipient of a slender monthly allowance intended for gloves and ruchings, postage stamps, and the like, and, having spent the last four months far from the allurements of city shops, she happened at this juncture to be in funds. Her stock of gloves, to be sure, was pretty well exhausted, and Christmas was only a few months away. But Miss Becky was nearer still, and Nannie had no hesitation between the two claims. As a natural consequence it happened that, one pleasant day early in October, Miss Becky, in her best black bonnet, found herself steaming up to Boston, about to do Nannie "a real favour" by chaperoning her to the theatre. Miss Becky was so much impressed by the gravity of her responsibility that she hardly took in the fact that she was going to the theatre herself!

They were to see The Shaughraun—a play which her best friend had assured Nannie was "just great"; and as the train rushed up to town the young hostess was at a loss to decide whether she was happier on her own account or on Miss Becky's. To be sure, she was just a little disappointed about Miss Becky, who seemed curiously silent and stiff; and when they came out of the station and walked up the crowded city street, the old lady held her by the sleeve and looked bewildered and frightened.

"How long is it since you've been in Boston?" Nannie asked, looking up into the anxious old face framed in the black silk bonnet which looked twice as old-fashioned as ever before.

"Not sence Sophia was married 'n' we came up to select her weddin' gownd. I was quite a girl then, an' I guess I felt more at home in a crowd than I do now. We don't often hev much of a crowd out our way."

They were among the first to take their seats at the theatre. Mr. Ray had got places for them only three rows back from the stage, and, once established there, Nannie felt that they were in a safe haven, where her guest could grow calm and responsive again.

At first Miss Becky was almost too overawed to speak, but after a while she got the better of the situation and began telling Nannie all about Sophia and her "true-so," and how they got lost on their way to the station and almost missed their train, which was the only train "out" in old times.

"I do hope we sha'n't miss our train to-night, my dear! It doos seem's though we might 'f they don't begin pretty soon," and the old lady—for a very old lady she seemed to have become all of a sudden—fidgeted in her chair, and looked over her shoulder to see if the seats were not filling up.

"We sha'n't lose our train, Miss Becky," Nannie assured her. "You know it doesn't go until half-past five o'clock, and the play is always over before five. And even if we did miss it we could take the seven-fifteen."

"Oh, dear, no! I sh'd feel reel bad to miss the train. Why, it gits dark by six o'clock, 'n' 'twouldn't be safe for us to be goin' round the city streets after dark. We might git garroted or, or—spoken to! Dear me! I wish they would begin!"

"If it gets late, Miss Becky, we won't wait for the end of the play," said Nannie, while a very distinct pang seized her at thought of missing anything.

"I think that would be better!" Miss Becky cried, with evident relief. "Don't you think it might be better to go out a little early, anyway? They'll be such a crowd when everybody tries to go out to once that we might git delayed. My! what a sight of people there is already! And up in the galleries, too! Ain't you 'most afeared to stay in sech a crowd?"

"Oh, no, Miss Becky. It's just like this always, and nothing ever happens."

"Them galleries don't look strong enough to hold many people. Why, Nannie, see! They ain't any pillows under 'em! What do you suppose keeps 'em up?"

"I don't know, I'm sure; but they're safe enough."

At this point the orchestra struck up a popular tune and silence fell upon Miss Becky. She sat, stiff and severe, gazing straight before her, and when Nannie ventured to make a remark she received only a reproving look in reply.

How strange it was, Nannie thought! She had meant to give Miss Becky such a treat, and here sat her guest, looking anxious and distressed—yes, more anxious and distressed than she looked a year ago when her cow died. But then the play had not begun yet, Nannie reflected, with a gleam of hope. When the play had once begun, Miss Becky would forget all her worries and be as "tickled" as she had counted on her being. And when once the curtain had gone up, Nannie at least had no more misgivings. Her fancy was instantly taken captive, first by the charming young officer and his pretty Irish sweetheart, then by the fine old priest, then by Con himself,—dear, droll, happy-go-lucky Con, with his picturesque foibles, his bubbling humour, and his phenomenal virtues. From the moment of his entry, with "Tatters" just not at his heels, Nannie was all smiles and tears.

Miss Becky, meanwhile, sat erect as a ramrod, a look of perplexity screwing her wrinkles all out of shape. Her bonnet had got somewhat askew from her constant effort to keep an eye on those unsupported galleries, and there was a general air of discomfort about her, which was the first thing that struck Nannie when, as the curtain fell upon the first act, she turned to look at her.

"Aren't you enjoying it, Miss Becky?" she asked, with quick anxiety.

"Oh, yes, I'm hevin' a reel pleasant time. 'T ain't through yet, is it?"

"Why, no; it's only just begun. There's lots more! May Colby says that Con gets them all out of all their troubles and almost gets killed himself!"

"I sh'd think 't would take a long time. Are you sure 't ain't most five o'clock?"

"Oh, no; it's only three. See! And my watch is fast, too. Wasn't it funny about the letter?"

"Well, I didn't quite understand about that. What made 'em laugh so?"

"Why, that was because he couldn't read, and so he had to make it all up out of his head."

"Well!" declared Miss Becky, with strong disapproval, "I don't think he'd ought to hev deceived his mother that way; do you?"

This was a poser; but at that moment the orchestra came to the rescue with a new tune, and Nannie was spared the necessity of replying.

After that the play became every moment more exciting and the central figure more entirely captivating, and even between the acts Nannie was preoccupied and unobservant. They had got to the prison scene, with all its ingenious intricacies of plot and stage machinery; Con had accomplished the rescue, and was scrambling over the rocks, when suddenly the sharp report of a rifle rang out, followed by another, and then another, in quick succession.

Instantly Nannie felt her arm clutched, and she heard Miss Becky saying: "You must come right away, this very minute!"

"Oh, please not, Miss Becky," she implored.

But there was a resolute gleam in Miss Becky's eye.

"Come right along, child," she whispered, hoarsely, "come right along with me!"—and poor Nannie, to her consternation and chagrin, found herself absolutely obliged to follow.

The whole row of people stood up to let them pass, and every kind of look—glances of amusement and curiosity, of annoyance and of sympathy—followed the oddly assorted pair, as they made their way out of the slip and then up the aisle.

Once outside the door, the tension of Miss Becky's face relaxed, but she did not waver in her determination.

"There, child!" she cried, as they walked down the slight incline of the long passageway to the street. "There! I am glad I had strength given me to do my duty by you!"

"But, Miss Becky, there wasn't a bit of danger," Nannie protested, bravely keeping the tears back in her cruel disappointment. "Really, there wasn't. Won't you please go back with me, and just stand inside the door and see the end of it? I'm sure they'd let us stand inside the door."

"Nannie Ray," Miss Becky replied, looking very fiercely at the girl's flushed cheeks and imploring eyes, "if you knew as much about firearms as I do, you wouldn't ask such a thing. But there! It's jest because you're young and inexperienced that your ma wanted me to come and look after you. I guess she'll be thankful she was so foresighted when she hears of the danger you was in."

In her exultation and relief of mind, Miss Becky marched on, regardless of jostling crowds and thronging teams. Her whole attitude had changed. She was no longer the timid, shrinking old woman; she was the responsible guardian, aware of the importance of her charge, and nothing was ever to convince her that she had not as good as saved Nannie's life on that occasion.

Then Nannie, as became a hostess, accepted the situation with the best grace in the world.

"I tell you what let's do, Miss Becky," she said. "Let's go and get some ice-cream. That is, if you like it."

The stern old face relaxed.

"Oh, yes; I like ice-cream, especially vanilla. But—do you think we've got time enough?"

"We've got an hour and a quarter before the train goes. Let's come in here and get it."

From the crowded street they passed in at the doorway and walked between marble counters to what seemed to Miss Becky a scene in fairyland. Ascending two or three broad steps, on each side of which an antlered stag kept guard, they stepped upon a great carpeted space, lighted from above,—a space in the middle of which was a fountain, springing high into the air, and splashing back into a round basin lined with shining shells and pebbles, over and among which goldfish swam and dove like animated jewels. Ferns and palms grew all about the basin, and in among the greenery was a little table where Nannie and her guest sat hidden safe away from the world.

"Well, this doos beat all!" the old lady exclaimed, gazing at the fountain with an expression of rapt delight—just the expression that Nannie had counted upon seeing among the wrinkles.

"Do you like it?" she asked, all her disappointment and chagrin forgotten.

"Like it? Why, it's the most tasty place I was ever in! It's better than any play; it's like bein' in a play yourself! Jest see them pillows supportin' that gallery! 'N' them picters of tropical fruits! 'N' this ice-cream! Why, it's different from what we hev at the Sunday-school picnics! 'Pears to me it's more creamy!"

Now, at last, Miss Becky had lost all thought of the passage of time. She took her ice-cream, just a little at a time, off the tip-end of her spoon, and with every mouthful the look of content grew deeper. One of the little cakes that were served with the ice-cream was a macaroon with a sugar swan upon it—"a reel little statoo of a swan," Miss Becky called it. She could not be persuaded to eat it, but she studied it with such undisguised admiration that Nannie ventured to suggest that she take it home with her. Again Miss Becky was enchanted. She wrapped it in her pocket-handkerchief, and placed it carefully in her reticule, whence it was to emerge only to enter upon a long and admired career as a parlour ornament.

"And now, Miss Becky," Nannie queried, as they sat there embowered in palms and ferns, listening to the plash of the fountain, "didn't you enjoy the play at all?"

"Oh, yes," said Miss Becky, "I had a very pleasant time before they got so reckless with their guns. But—I wonder whether they take sech pains with the the-etter's they used to? Why, when I went with Uncle 'Bijah Lane that time, they all wore the most beautiful clothes. Even the men was dressed out in velvets and satins, and they wa'n't anybody on the stage that didn't make a good appearance."

"But, you know, this was a different sort of play, Miss Becky. The folks in The Shaughraun weren't kings and queens, but just every-day people."

"Well, s'posin' they was! I don't see no excuse for that man Con goin' round lookin' so slack. I sh'd think he might at least git a whole coat to wear when he 'pears before the public!"

"I'm afraid you're sorry you came," said Nannie, very meekly, feeling quite ashamed of her poor little party.

"Oh, no, I ain't! Why, child, I'd hev come barefoot to see this place here, with the founting a-splashin' and the fishes a-gleamin'! Barefoot, I tell ye!"

It was a forcible expression, yet Nannie was not quite reassured. She still demurred.

"But the play was the principal thing, you know."

"The play? Well, I don't know," said Miss Becky, thoughtfully. "I don't know's I'm so terrible sot on the theetter's I thought for. I'd a good deal ruther hev you come over 'n do that sleep-walkin' piece for me. I don't want nothin' better'n that. 'F I can see you act that once in a while, 'n' hev this here Garding of Eden to think about,—a founting playin' right in the house, 'n' all,—I ain't likely to want for amusement."

The best bonnet was still very much askew, but the pleasant old face within, whose wrinkles had resumed their accustomed grooves, was irradiated with a look of unmistakable beatitude; and somehow it was borne in upon Nannie that her theatre party had been a success after all.



OLIVIA'S SUN-DIAL

CHAPTER I

OLIVIA'S SUN-DIAL

"It's all we need to make it the prettiest garden in Dunbridge."

"Hm! And why must we have the prettiest garden in Dunbridge?"

"Why shouldn't we?"

Here was a deadlock—a thing quite shockingly out of place in a garden, and one's own particular garden at that!

Olivia Page could make almost anything grow, as she had abundantly proved, but even her garden-craft could hardly suffice for the setting of a sun-dial on a pedestal of snow-white marble over there where the four triangular rose-beds converged to a circle, and where the south sun would play on it all day long.

For a year Olivia had dreamed of this, and, since she was not a churlishly reticent young person, it was not the first intimation her father had received of her desire. Not until to-day, however, had she asked outright for what she wanted.

"I wish you would say something more," she remarked, glancing sidewise at the professor's deeply corrugated countenance, which, for all their intimacy, was sometimes difficult to decipher. She had heard of girls who could twist their parents round their fingers; she wondered how they did it.

The two were sitting on the white half-circle of a bench that stood at the west boundary of the old tennis-court, just where one end of the net used to be staked up. Excepting for that break, three sides of the garden were fenced in by the high wire screen originally designed to keep the tennis balls within bounds, and now doing duty as a trellis over which a luxuriant woodbine clambered, waving its reddening tendrils in the light September breeze. Wide flowerbeds bordered the entire court, the central turf being broken only by the cluster of rose-beds at the further end. From the white bench one looked across the grass to a broad flight of veranda steps, flanked on the right by a mass of white boltonia, while on the left a superb growth of New England asters reared their sturdy heads.

The garden had been a great success this year, quite the admiration of the neighbourhood. Really, Papa must be proud of it, and it was all Olivia's doing. Who would ever guess that it had had its modest beginnings in half a dozen tin cracker-boxes with holes bored in the bottoms, where, in March, two years ago, she had planted queer little brown seeds as hard as pebbles, which Nature had straightway taken in hand, softening and expanding them down there in the dark, till they came alive, and began feeling their way up to meet the sun. Ah, the bliss of seeing those first tiny shoots turn into stems and leaflets, ready to play their part in the great spring awakening! Would Olivia ever love any flowers quite as she had loved those first seedlings, especially a certain pentstemon, which blossomed "white with purple spots," exactly as the seed-catalogue had promised?

Yes, the garden was a great success, and just now it was at one of its prettiest moments, gay with autumn colours; the rudbeckia in its glory, and the great pink blossoms of the hibiscus spreading their skirts for all the world like ladies in an old-time minuet, while over yonder the soldier spikes of the flame-flower threatened to set the woodbine afire. Olivia loved the Latin names, but somehow "tritonia" did not seem to express those spikes of burning colour. And the roses! How lovely those late hybrids were! Why, the way that Margaret Dickson drooped her head above the pansies, still blooming freely at her feet, was enough to melt the heart of a Salem gibraltar! A pity that the professor's attention seemed for the moment to be riveted upon the toe of his boot!

"I wish you would say something more," Olivia repeated.

"Something different, you mean," and Doctor Page smiled, benignly and stubbornly.

"For instance, you might tell me why you are opposed to it."

"You wouldn't understand."

"I might; you said, only the other day, that I sometimes displayed almost human intelligence!"

The professor liked to have his jokes remembered; but still he seemed inclined to temporise.

"I might say that we couldn't afford it. It is generally conceded that Alma Mater is not a munificent provider."

"Yes; and you might say that my great-grandfather was not an East India trader—only you don't tell fibs."

"Or that a sun-dial is an anachronism."

"You are too good a Latin scholar for that."

"So a subterfuge won't do? Very well; then you'll have to put up with a psychological proposition."

"How interesting!"

The professor glanced at the expectant young face turned toward him, and he could not but admit that his estimate of its owner's intelligence had been well within the truth.