One day the Boarder brought home some information that seemed to throw light on the subject.

"One of the railroad hands told me that a big train of cattle was sidetracked up this way somewhar the same night the cow come here. The whole keerload got loose, but they ketched them all, or thought they did. Mebby they didn't miss this ere one, or else they couldn't wait to look her up. Their train pulled out as soon as they rounded up the bunch."

"I guess the cow-house looked to her like it was a freight car," observed Milt, "and she thought she hed got back where she belonged."

The cow, meanwhile, quietly chewed her cud, and continued to endear herself to the hearts of all the Jenkins family save Cory. Every time Bobby spoke her name he called to her, "Co, boss! Co, boss," just as Gus did when he greeted the cow.

As for the little dairyman himself, he gave his charge the best of care. He took her for a little outing every day to a near-by lot where she could graze, being careful to keep a stout rope attached to her, although they walked to and from the recreation ground side by side. Derry painted a little picture of the pair as he saw them returning from a jaunt. Gus's arm was lovingly thrown around the neck of the gentle creature, and her Texas horns were adorned with a wreath of brown-eyed Susans woven by Cory.

It remained for Mrs. Jenkins to christen the creature.

"'Cowslip,'" she declared triumphantly, "'cause she just slipped in."



CHAPTER XX

Amarilly's pace in learning English from Derry during the following winter was only excelled by her proficiency in mathematics. "Figgerin'" the Boarder declared to be his long suit, and his young pupil worked every example in Flamingus's arithmetic, and employed her leisure moments in solving imaginary problems. Then came an evening when she put her knowledge to practical use and application. She had been working absorbedly with pencil and paper for some time when she looked up from her sheet of figures with a flushed race and a Q.E.D. written in each shining eye.

"Say!" she announced to the family who were gathered about the long table.

Instantly they were all attention, for they always looked to Amarilly for something startling in the way of bulletins.

"I've been setting down and adding up what we all bring in each week. Ma's washings, the Boarder's board, my studio work, Flamingus' and Milt's wages, Gus's cow, Bud's singing, Co's dish-washing, and Bobby's papers. What do you suppose it all amounts to?"

She allowed a few seconds of tragic silence to ensue before she gave the electrifying total.

"Land sakes! Who'd 'a thought it!" exclaimed Mrs. Jenkins.

"We'd orter hev ice-cream and pie every day," reproached Cory.

"It would be reckoned a purty big salary if one man got it all," speculated the Boarder.

"We are rich!" exclaimed Bobby decisively.

"I'll tell you what we'll do," pursued Amarilly. "We must start a syndicate."

"What's that, a show?" demanded Flamingus.

"No; I heard the artists down to the studio talking about it, and Mr. Derry explained it. He said when a lot of folks put their cash on hand together in one pile, they can buy something big and do more than as if they spent it separate."

"Well, I ain't a goin' to put my money in with Co's," said Milt sarcastically. "Wouldn't be much profit for me in that."

"You don't catch on," replied Amarilly. "If you should put in one dollar, and Co should put in ten cents, at the end of a certain time, you'd draw out ten dollars and Co would only draw out one. See?"

"I do," said the practical Gus.

"Well, now let's put our money into something and all own it together, each one's share according to what we put in. Let's buy this house!"

They all stared in amazement.

"Buy a house! You are sure crazy, Amarilly!" exclaimed Milt.

"We could buy it cheap," continued Amarilly unabashed. "I heard the grocer saying yesterday that property around here was at a low figure now. We could put our savings together and make a payment down, and instead of paying rent let it go on the balance each month. Before we knew it we'd own the house, and the deed could be made out to show how much of it each one owned."

"I choose the pantry!" cried Cory.

"I guess if you could buy a window-pane with what you've got, you'd do well," observed Milt in a withering tone.

"That's a splendid idee, Amarilly!" declared the Boarder enthusiastically. "I don't know what better investment you could make."

"It would be fine," sighed Mrs. Jenkins, "to own your own place and feel that no one could turn you out."

"You've got a great head, Amarilly," complimented Gus.

"We could borrow on the house if we ever got hard up, or the fever struck us again," said Flamingus.

"Well," proposed Amarilly, the ever-ready, "let's get right at it. I'll set down our names, and when I call the roll, tell me how much you've saved and will put in the house."

There was a general rush for bank-books, for ever since the preceding fall, the six oldest children had paid their board, clothed themselves, and saved the balance of their earnings.

From her washings, the revenue from the board of the children and Boarder, Mrs. Jenkins had paid the rent and the household expenses. By thrifty management she had also acquired a bank account herself.

"Ma!" called Amarilly expectantly.

There had been much urging on the part of

Deny in his zeal for language reform to induce his young pupil to say "mother," but in this sole instance Amarilly had refused to take his will for law.

"She's always been 'ma' to me, and she always will be," declared Amarilly emphatically. "If I were to call her anything else I'd feel as if I had lost her—as if she didn't belong to me."

Ma triumphantly announced: "Forty-seven dollars and fifty-one cents."

"A fine starter," commended Amarilly, "Flamingus?"

"Forty dollars," he announced with pride.

"Milt?" Amarilly called his name in faint voice. He was the only tight- tendencied member of the household, and she feared he might decline to give. But Milt was envious and emulative.

"Forty-two dollars and sixty-nine cents," he declared in a voice rendered triumphant by the fact of his having beaten Flam.

Amarilly drew a sigh of relief.

"It's going to add up fine, now. Guess I'll take my own account next. I haven't got as much as you boys, though." "Shouldn't think you would have," said Gus sympathizingly. "You don't earn so much, and yet you pay ma as much, and don't take out nuthin' fer your noon meal. And you give Co things."

"I've earned quite a bit," replied Amarilly cheerfully. "Besides what Mr. Derry gives me, there's what I've had from odd jobs like letting the artists paint my hair, and taking care of Mrs. Wick's baby afternoons when she goes to card parties. I've got thirty dollars to put in. Gus?"

"Thirty-five dollars," he replied in a pleased tone.

"Bud?"

They all looked expectantly. Bud received ten dollars each Sunday now, and he had been singing at concerts, organ recitals, and entertainments all winter. On account of these latter engagements, he had been obliged to expend a considerable amount in clothes suitable to the occasion. When Bud donned his "evening clothes," which consisted of black silk hose, patent leather pumps, black velvet suit with Irish crochet collar and cuffs, purchased under the direction of Mr. Derry, Amarilly always felt uncomfortable.

"Don't seem fair to Bobby when they're so near twins," she thought.

One day, however, she overheard Bud sweetly offer to buy his near half a similar outfit. Amarilly listened eagerly for Bobby's answer which brought a sigh of relief.

"I wouldn't wear one of them rigs on a bet," he had scoffingly answered.

"One hundred and twenty-five dollars," Bud now replied modestly.

"Gee! you take the cake!" said Bobby.

Amarilly was sorry that she had to call Bobby's name next. But Bobby had a surprise in store for them all.

"Forty-eight dollars!" he cried gleefully, giving Flam, Milt and Gus exultant glances, "Beat the hull of ye, except Bud!"

"How in the world did you ever do it on paper routes?" asked Amarilly wonderingly.

Bobby winked at his mother.

"Shall we tell our secret?" he asked. "You tell, Ma."

"You see," she explained, "when the clo'es are bilin' arter you hev all gone to work and to school, I've made twenty little pies and when Bobby got out of school, he'd come hum and git 'em and take 'em up to the High School. The girls bought 'em at five cents apiece. The stuff to make 'em cost about two cents a pie."

"And Bobby got all the profit!" expostulated Milt indignantly.

"Bobby paid me by taking the clo'es offen the line and bringin' them in every night, and fetchin' the water," she replied chidingly. "We was goin' to keep it a secret till he got enough to buy a pony."

"But I'd ruther buy a house," said Bobby.

"I ain't got enough to come in no snidikit," sobbed Co. "I ain't saved much."

"That's because you spend all you earn on candy," rebuked Milt.

"I ain't nuther. I bought me some rubbers and Iry some playthings."

"How much have you got, Co?" asked Amarilly gently.

"Two dollars and ninety-seven cents," she said, weeping profusely.

"I think that's pretty good for a little girl," said Amarilly. "All you strapping boys ought to chip in out of your cash on hand what isn't in the bank and give her some so she could be in on it. Here is fifty cents from me, Co."

"I'll give you fifty, Co," said her mother.

"Me, too," said Flamingus.

The other boys followed with equal contributions, Bud generously donating a five-dollar bill he had received that day for a solo at a musicale given by Miss Lyte.

"Here's fifty cents from me," said the Boarder, who had remained very thoughtful during this transaction.

"Eleven dollars and forty-seven cents for Co," announced Amarilly.

The little girl's eyes shone through her tears.

"Seems too bad that Iry is the only one left out," said Mrs. Jenkins.

"When he gits old enough to work, he can come in," said Milt. "Add her up, Amarilly."

"Three hundred and sixty-nine dollars and sixty-seven cents!" almost screamed Amarilly.

"Gee!" chorused the boys.

"Purty near buy the old shack," said Flamingus.

"Our landlord," said Amarilly sagaciously, "is a shark, and he'll try to get the best of us. I am going to get Mr. Vedder to do the business for us, and he'll get the deed in all our names."

"Put in Iry's too," pleaded Mrs. Jenkins solicitous for her Benjamin.

"I'll put it to vote," said parliamentary Amarilly. "Who's for Iry?"

"Me, me, me," came from all, though Milt's response was reluctant.

"I will see Mr. Vedder to-morrow, so we can begin to let the rent apply right off," said Amarilly.

"We'll take more pride in keeping it fixed up now," remarked Flamingus. "I'll mend the windowpanes and the door hinges."

"And I'll build some stairs and put up a partition or two," promised the Boarder.

"I'll paint it," said Gus, proud of his former work in this direction. Amarilly secretly resolved to select the color.

"I'll make curtains and rag rugs and sofa pillows," she observed.

"And I'll buy some cheers and a hangin' lamp," said Mrs. Jenkins. "Don't all this talk make you want to housekeep?" she asked with a knowing glance in the Boarder's direction.

He shook his head thoughtfully, but when the boys and Cory had gone to bed, he unfolded a proposition that he had been evolving during their financial discussion, and which now found overwhelming favor and enthusiasm with his hearers.

The next day Amarilly called upon Mr. Vedder at the theatre.

"He's got more sound business to him than Mr. Derry or Mr. St. John," she shrewdly decided.

"When she told him her plan and showed him her figures, he most heartily approved.

"The house, of course, isn't worth anything," he said, "but land down that way is a good investment. Who is your, landlord?"

She gave him the name and address.

"I am glad you came to me, Amarilly, instead of to your newer friends."

"Oh, you know more about it than they do," she replied, "and besides, some way I wouldn't feel as if I were bothering you."

"Not a bit of bother, Amarilly, and I hope you will always feel that way."

The ticket-seller was prompt, thorough, and shrewd in the matter. He had a friend in the real estate business, who appraised the property for him, and he proved most diplomatic in his dealing with the surprised landlord, who fortunately chanced to be in dire need of some ready cash. In an incredibly short space of time the bargain was closed.

The Jenkins family including the Boarder and Iry left the house one noon, each bearing a red bank-book. To the onlookers in the neighborhood, this Armada was all-impressive.

"Looks like a run on the bank," said the Boarder facetiously, as they all trooped up the steps to the big stone building.

The payment was made, and the deeds drawn in the names of all the family, but to the list was also added the name of the Boarder.



CHAPTER XXI

"I don't see," observed Colette, on learning of the existence and development of the syndicate, "why the Boarder is in on it. I thought he was going to have a Lily Rose garden all his own."

"We thought so, too," replied Amarilly. "He's been saving up to get married, and he's got a raise now, so the day is set for some time in June; but he told us the night we were first planning to buy the house that he wanted to be one of the syndicate. You see Lily Rose works—I mean she overworks—in a factory, and so the Boarder—you know he is awful gentle-like to her—says that she mustn't keep house or do anything but real light work after this. He has an interest in the house now, and he is going to build on a sort of an annex with a sitting-room and a bedroom and furnish it up fine, and when they are married, they are going to live there and take their meals with us. And they want Mr. St. John to marry them, and they want you to come. And Mr. Derry is coming. He asked to be invited."

For once Colette did not laugh at the chronicles of the Jenkins family. A very tender look came into her flashing eyes.

"That is very sweet in him—in the Boarder—to feel that way and to be so tender with Lily Rose. She ought to be very happy with a love and protection like that awaiting her."

"Yes," assented Amarilly; "it must be very nice to feel like that, and Mr. Derry says he really believes that it is only with poor folks like us and the Boarder and Lily Rose that love runs smooth."

"Then," said Colette musingly, "I wish I were poor—like you and the Boarder and Lily Rose!"

Amarilly secretly divined that this was merely a thought spoken aloud, so she made no comment. She had pondered a great deal over the attitude of her two friends towards each other. The only place she ever encountered them together was at church and to her observing eyes it was quite apparent that there was a restraint in their bearing. Amarilly remained so preoccupied with her thoughts that Colette, looking at her searchingly, became curious as to the cause.

"Amarilly," she commanded, "tell me what you were thinking of just now— I mean since I spoke last. I shall know by; your eyes if you don't tell me exactly."

"Mr. Derry says my eyes will always give me away," evaded Amarilly.

"Of course they will. You can never be a flirt, Amarilly."

"I don't want to," she replied indignantly.

Colette laughed.

"Well, tell me what you were thinking about?"

"I was wondering if Mr. St. John wasn't trying any more to find that thing you lost in the surplice pocket."

"Oh, Amarilly, has Mr. Phillips censored that word, too? I was in hopes he would never hear you say 'surplus,' so he could not correct you."

"I told him you didn't want me to speak correctly," said Amarilly a little resentfully.

"You did!" cried Colette, looking rather abashed. "And what did he say?"

"He said it was selfish in you to think more of your amusement than of my improvement."

Colette colored and was silent a moment.

"He's right, Amarilly," she said impulsively. "I am selfish to everyone. All I have ever cared for is to be entertained and made to laugh. I have been as selfish to St. John as I have to you and—I'll tell you a secret, Amarilly, because I know that I can trust you. I've gone just a little bit too far with St. John. I told him he needn't ever come to see me again until he found what was in the pocket of the surplice, and he took me at my word."

"He did all he could to find it," said Amarilly, immediately on the defence for the rector.

"I know he did, but you see before this I've always had everything I've asked for, even impossible things, and I didn't want to have him fail me. I have been selfish and exacting with him, and I think he realizes it now."

"Well, when you're in the wrong, all you've got to do is to say so."

"That isn't easy, Amarilly."

"But it's right."

"Oh, Amarilly, you're like a man with your right and your wrong!"

"But you would make yourself happy, too, if you told him you knew it wasn't up to him any more to find that."

"I'd rather be unhappy and stick to what I said. I must have my own way, Amarilly."

"Well," said Amarilly, abandoning an apparently hopeless subject, "I came to ask you to do me—us—the Boarder and Lily Rose, I mean, a favor."

"What is it, Amarilly?"

"Why, as I said, they want Mr. St. John to marry them, and they're afraid he won't want to because he—well—because he isn't their kind, you know, and he has such a fashionable church."

"And you don't know St. John better than that?"

"Why, yes; of course I do, but they don't know him at all, you know. And the Boarder is real shy, anyhow. And so I told him I'd ask you to ask him."

"Why don't you ask him?"

"I think it would please him so to have you ask. He likes to have you take interest in others."

"Amarilly, you are a regular little Sherlock! Well, yes, I will," promised Colette, secretly glad of this opportunity for friendly converse with John once more, "but if the—Annex has to be built first, there's no hurry."

"Yes, there is. The Boarder wants everything settled now, so they can be looking forward to it."

"Very well, Amarilly. I'll see him to-morrow night. Will that do?"

"Oh, yes; thank you, Miss King."

"Tell me more about the wedding plans. Are you to be bridesmaid?"

"She isn't going to have one. It won't be a stylish wedding, you know. Just quiet—like one of our neighborhood evenings. Only when I told Mr. Derry about it, he said he should come up that afternoon and trim the house up with greens, and that he should come to see them married."

"And I shall furnish the flowers and the bride's bouquet. Let me see, I think lilies of the valley and pink roses would suit Lily Rose, don't you?"

"They will be beautiful," said Amarilly, beaming. "And we are going to have a real swell meal. I have learned to make salads and ices, and then we'll have coffee and sandwiches and bride's cake beside."

"Some one has to give the bride away, you know, Amarilly, in Episcopal weddings."

"I know it. But poor Lily Rose has no one that belongs to her. Her relations are all dead. That's another reason why the Boarder is so nice to her. So ma is going to give her away. We're going to ask the neighbors and you and Mr. Derry and Mr. Cotter, of course. He's the brakeman friend of the Boarder."

"And are the Boarder and Lily Rose going away?"

"Yes; the Boarder can get a pass to Niagara Falls. They are going to stay there a week. Lily Rose has never been on the cars. And they are going to ride to the train in a hack."

"Why, it's going to be quite an affair," said Colette enthusiastically. "We'll throw an old shoe and some rice after them. And will she be married in white?"

Amarilly's face fell.

"I am afraid she can't afford a wedding dress. She's got to get a travelling suit and hat and gloves and shoes, and with other things it will take all she has saved. She'd like a white dress and a veil and get her picture taken in it to hang up by the side of the Boarder's in the surplice. And that makes me think, we want you to ask Mr. St. John if he will wear our surplice instead of bringing one of his. We'll do it up nice before the wedding."

"Oh, that prophetic surplice!" groaned Colette. "It's yesterday, to-day and forever; I wish something would happen to it, Amarilly. I hate that surplice!"

"I'm sorry, Miss King, but we all love it. And you see it means a good deal to Lily Rose; because she has looked at its photograph so long."

"Very well, Amarilly. I yield. St. John shall wear his surplice once more, and when he does—"

A sudden thought illumined her face. "I believe I will tell him—"

Amarilly deemed it a fitting time to depart, and she hastened to assure Lily Rose that it was "all right."

"Miss King will speak to Mr. St. John about marrying you, and she will ask him to wear our surplice. She's going to send you flowers—lilies of the valley and roses. It all would be perfect, Lily Rose, if only you had a white dress!"

Lily Rose smiled sweetly, and told Amarilly she was glad to be married in any dress, and that she should not miss the "reg'ler weddin' fixin's" nearly as much as Amarilly would mind her not having them. When Amarilly set her head and heart on anything, however, it was sure to be accomplished. It was a puzzling problem to equip Lily Rose in the conventional bridal white vestments, for the bride-to-be was very proud and independent and wouldn't hearken to Amarilly's plea to be allowed to contribute toward a new dress.

"We're under obligations to him, you know," argued Amarilly "and I'd like to help him by helping you."

Lily Rose was strong of will despite her sweet smile.

Deep down in her heart Amarilly, throughout all her scheming, knew there was a way, but she chose to ignore it until the insistent small voice spoke louder and louder. With a sigh of renunciation she yielded to the inevitable and again sought Lily Rose.

"I've thought out a way to the white dress," she announced.

Lily Rose's eyes sparkled for a moment, and their light died out.

"Yes, there's really a way," persisted Amarilly, answering the unspoken denial. "You said you could squeeze out slippers and stockings, didn't you?"

"Yes," she admitted.

"Well, there's your new white dress skirt, and for a waist there is my lovely lace waist that I told you about—the one Miss King gave me."

"Your weddin' waist! No, Amarilly. It's like you to offer, but I couldn't take it from you."

"No, I'm not giving it to you. Just lending it to you for your wedding. You couldn't hurt it any wearing it two hours. Then I'll lay it by again till I'm married. And I'll like wearing it all the more because you wore it to your wedding. Come over some day and we'll try it on. Then Miss King is going to give you the bouquet, and for a veil—"

"Oh, the veil! Amarilly, I would love a veil!" Lily Rose cried wistfully.

"Well, I've got one spoken for. You see, Mrs. Jimmels has been married so many different ways, I felt sure she must have worn a veil at one of her weddings, and seeing she had been married so many times, I thought she couldn't have any special feeling about any one of them, so I asked her if she wouldn't lend hers to you, and she's glad to have it put to use again. You'll look just perfectly swell, Lily Rose. And she's going to give you a pair of white gloves that she had when she was slim-like."

The little renunciator went home feeling amply rewarded by the look of shining content in the blue eyes of Lily Rose.

* * * * *

The next night Colette in accordance with her promise to Amarilly summoned John to council. It was not easy to bridge the distance which had been steadily increasing with the months that had rolled by since the surplice denouement, and Colette, formerly supreme in her sway, was perceptibly timid in making the advance. After writing and tearing up several notes she called him up by telephone and asked him in a consciously casual tone if he could find it convenient to call that evening with reference to a little matter pertaining to their mutual charge, the Jenkinses.

The grave voice in which he accepted the invitation was tinged with pleasure.

When he came Colette, fearful lest he should misinterpret her action in making this overture, plunged at once into the subject.

"I promised Amarilly I would see you and ask you for something in her friends' behalf."

"Then it is to Amarilly I am indebted for this call," he remarked whimsically.

"It's about the Boarder," she continued, gaining ease at the softening of his brown eyes. "You know he is to be married to Lily Rose, the girl we saw at the organ recital where Bud made his debut."

"I inferred as much at the time. When are they to be married?"

"In June. Just as soon as the Annex can be added to the Jenkins's upright. They are to build on two new rooms or rather the Boarder will do so and he will furnish them for his new abiding-place. But because she is 'delicate like' and overworked she is to become a Boarderess instead of a housekeeper, and they will 'eat' with the Jenkins family, thus increasing the prosperity of the latter. Amarilly says the Boarder is 'awful gentle of Lily Rose and wants to take good care of her.'"

The expression that moved the frostiest of his flock came into the still depths of his eyes and brought the wild rose to Colette's cheeks.

"They are going to make quite an affair of the wedding," she continued, speaking hurriedly and a little breathlessly. "You and I and Mr. Phillips are to be guests. There is to be a hack to take the bride and groom to the train and a trip to Niagara Falls, because Lily Rose has never been on the cars. They are to have salad and ice-cream and sandwiches and coffee. Mr. Phillips is to act as florist and I shall furnish the decorations and the bride's bouquet. I'd love to throw in a bridal gown and veil, but Lily Rose, it seems, is proud and won't accept them."

"I can find it quite in my heart to admire the reluctance of Lily Rose to accept them."

"And so can I," replied Colette, the rare sweetness coming into her eyes. "Underneath all my jests about this wedding, it is all very sweet and touching to me—the Boarder's consideration for her, the preparations for the wedding which appear so elaborate to them. And then the wedding itself seems to mean so much to them. It's so different from the weddings in our class which often mean so little."

"Colette, I know—I have always known in spite of your endeavor to have me believe otherwise—anything really true and genuine appeals to you. I—"

"But I haven't told you yet," she said, seized with an unaccountable shyness, "what your part is to be. The Boarder, Lily Rose, and naturally all the Jenkinses, want you to perform the ceremony. The Boarder, being shy and retiring, forbore to ask you, and Amarilly for some reason desired me to ask you if you would officiate, and I assured her you would gladly do so."

"I should have felt hurt," replied John with a happy smile, "if they had asked anyone else to marry them. And you will be there, Colette?"

"Certainly," she declared. "I wouldn't miss it for anything."

"And—you will go with me, Colette?"

She colored, and her eyes drooped beneath his fixed gaze.

"Yes," she said, "I will go with you."

"Thank you, Colette," he answered gently, realizing what a surrender this was, and deeming it wise not to follow up his victory immediately.

And at his reticence Colette was conscious of a shade of disappointment. She began to feel an uncomfortable atmosphere in the silence that ensued, so she broke it, speaking hastily and confusedly.

"Oh, John, there is something else they want of you. The request is made by unanimous desire that you wear their surplice—that awful surplice!"

A shadow not unlike a frown fell athwart John's brow, and he made no immediate reply.

The introduction of the unfortunate topic made them both self-conscious, and for the first time Colette acknowledged to herself that she had been in the wrong in the matter of the surplice. John, misinterpreting her constraint, and fearing that the reference to the garment had revived all her old resentment, arose to depart.

"I will wear it if they wish," he said stiffly.

"I, too, wish you would wear it," she said in a voice scarcely audible.

He looked at her in surprise, hope returning.

"To please them," she added, coloring.

"Colette!" There was a pleading in his voice that told her all she longed to know. "Colette, don't you think I have been patient? Won't you be friends again?"

"I will," she said, "after—the Boarder's and Lily Rose's wedding!"



CHAPTER XXII

Work on the Boarder's Annex was begun with frantic zeal, each and every member of the Jenkins family lending a helping hand. The Boarder, as boss carpenter, worked after switching hours until it grew dark; then the children took turns, in holding a lantern for him. The savings of the Boarder being taxed by the trip to "Niagry" and the furnishing of the apartment, great economy had to be exercised in the erecting of the Annex. He strictly adhered to his determination not to touch the "rainy day fund."

Amarilly pleaded for a bay window, but the Boarder felt this ornamentation to be quite beyond his means, so they finally compromised on a small and simple porch on which Lily Rose could sit of a summer night while the Boarder smoked by her side. Mrs. Jenkins, moved to memories long dormant of the home of her youth, suggested blinds instead of window-shades, but the Boarder after much figuring proved adamantine in resistance to this temptation.

Lily Rose was the only one who made no suggestions. Anything the Boarder might construct in the way of a nesting place was beautiful in her eyes.

"She'd be too sorter modist-like to tell me if she was sot on any perticler thing about the new place," he confided wistfully to Amarilly, "You're so sharp I wish you'd kinder hint around and find out what she wants. Jest put out some feelers."

Amarilly diplomatically proceeded to put out "feelers," and after much maneuvering joyously imparted to the Boarder the information that Lily Rose loved to look at the one solitary tree that adorned the Jenkins lot, because to her it meant "the country."

"So that's the way she loves to look out," informed Amarilly, "and, you see there isn't any window on that side of your rooms."

"There shall be one," declared the Boarder firmly.

"Couldn't you make it a bay?" again coaxed Amarilly, "It's on the side the sun comes in most, and the doctor said Lily Rose should get all the sunlight she could. If she could sit in that bay window sunny days next winter it would be better than medicine for her."

The Boarder sighed.

"Don't tempt me, Amarilly. There ain't a cent more I kin squeeze out."

"I'll think out a way," thought Amarilly confidently.

She took the matter to Colette, who instantly and satisfactorily solved the problem, and Amarilly returned radiant.

"She says you've saved too much out for furniture, and to build the bay window from the furniture fund."

The Boarder shook his head.

"I thought of that, but thar ain't a thing I can take out of that. I got the figgers on the price of everything from the House Furnishers' Establishment."

"But you see, Miss King says no one ever comes to a wedding without bringing a present. That it wouldn't be et—,—dear me! I have forgotten what the word is. And she says not to buy any furniture till all the presents come, and then I can settle the rooms for you while you and Lily Rose are away. Lots of the things you are expecting to buy will be given you."

"It's risky," said the Boarder dubiously. "We'll most likely git casters and bibles and tidies. That's what I've allers seen to weddin's."

"Well, I see I have got to put a flea in your ear, but don't tell Lily Rose. Let it be a surprise to her. Miss King is going to give you a handsome base-burner coal stove. So you can take that off your list."

The Boarder looked pleased and yet distressed.

"She shouldn't go fer to do that!" he protested.

"Well, she wants to give you a nice present because you've been nice to us, and she thinks Lily Rose is sweet, and she says she believes in making sensible presents. She asked Mr. Meredith what to get, and he told her to get the stove so you see it's all right if he says so. She thought you wouldn't need a stove till next winter, but I told her you wanted the rooms furnished complete now."

"Then," said the Boarder beamingly, "the bay winder shall be cut out ter-morrer."

"Don't cut it out!" said Amarilly alarmed.

"I don't mean in a slang way," he said, laughing. "I mean cut out with a saw."

When Lily Rose was brought over one starlight night in budding May to see the beautiful aperture that would eventually become a bay window and face the solitary tree, two dewy drops of joy came into her eyes. Before them all she raised her pale, little face for a kiss which the Boarder bestowed with the solemn air of one pronouncing a benediction, for Lily Rose was chary of outward and visible expressions of affection, and he was deeply moved by this voluntary offering.

The Annex grew rapidly, but its uprising was not accomplished without some hazard and adventure. There was an exciting day when Cory fell through the scaffolding where she had been climbing. She suffered a moment of unconsciousness and a bump on her head.

"An inch nigher her brain, and it would have killed her!" exclaimed the mother in tragic tones.

"An inch of miss is as good as a mile," said the Boarder philosophically.

There was also a thrilling moment when Iry thrust his head through the railings of the new porch. Satisfied with his outlook, he would fain have withdrawn, but was prevented by an unaccountable swelling of his pate. Flamingus, coming to the rescue and working seemingly on the theory that his skull might be compressible, tried to pull him backward, but the frantic shrieks of Iry caused this plan of ejection to be abandoned.

"The rest of him is smaller than his head," observed Amarilly practically, as she arrived upon the scene and took a comprehensive view of the case, "Push him through, Flam, and I'll go around on the other side and get him."

Iry, safely landed in Amarilly's arms, laughed his delight, and thinking it a sort of game, was about to repeat his stunt of "in and out."

"It's time something was done to you," said Amarilly determinedly, "before you get killed in this place. I am going to spank you, Iry, and Co, too. I am going to spank you both fierce. And you are to keep away from the new part."

In spite of wailing protests, Amarilly administered a spanking to the two younger children that worked effectually against further repetition of their hazardous performances. But Bobby tobogganed down the roof during its shingling and sprained his ankle, which necessitated the use of crutches.

"He can break his neck if he wants to," remarked Amarilly, when besought by Co to punish him too.

Mrs. Jenkins lost a finger-nail by an injudicious use of the hammer. Bud sat down in the paint pot, and had to go to bed while his clothes were cleaned. In fact Lily Rose was the only one of the whole family circle to suffer no injury, but the Boarder guided her so tenderly over every part and plank of the Annex that there was no chance for mishap.

When the lathing and plastering were completed, the little bride-elect began to tremble with timidity and happiness at the consciousness of the nearness of her approaching transfer to the Home.

The plan of the Boarder had been to leave the walls rough and unfinished till their settling process should be accomplished, but Amarilly, absorbed heart and soul in this first experience of making a nesting place, pleaded for paper—"quiet, pretty paper with soft colors," she implored, Derry's teachings now beginning to bear fruit in Amarilly's development of the artistic.

"Amarilly, we can't hev everything to onct," he rebuked solemnly. "The paper'll crack as sure as fate, if you put it on now."

"Let it crack!" defied Amarilly. "Then you can put on more. You're away nearly all day, and the rest of us are at work, but if Lily Rose has to sit here all day and look at these white walls that look just like sour bread that hasn't riz"—Derry had not yet discovered this word in Amarilly's vocabulary—"she'll go mad."

"Amarilly," sighed the Boarder, "you'll hev me in the poorhouse yit!"

"Oh, dear!" sighed Amarilly. "I'll have to let you into another secret. Mr. Meredith is going to give you and Lily Rose a handsome centre-table and an easy-chair. There won't be any surprises left for you by the time the wedding is over, but you're so set, I have to keep giving things away to you."

"That makes me think," remarked the Boarder. "I was going to ask you what I'd orter give the preacher fer marryin' Lily Rose and me. The fireman of Number Six told me he give two dollars when he was spliced, but you see Mr. Meredith is so swell, I'd orter give more."

Amarilly gazed reflectively into space while she grappled with this proposition.

"Do you know," she said presently, with the rare insight that was her birthright, "I don't think Mr. Meredith would like money—not from you— for Lily Rose. You see he's a sort of a friend, and you'd better give him a present because money, unless it was a whole lot, wouldn't mean anything to him."

"That's so," admitted the Boarder, "but what kin I give him?"

Amarilly had another moment of thought.

"Make him a bookrack. Mr. Derry will draw you the design, and you can carve it out. You can do it noons after you eat your luncheon, then you won't lose any time building the house."

"That's jest what I'll do. So with the fee saved and the cheer and table out, I kin paper the rooms. You find out what kind Lily Rose wants and help her pick it out."

"She'll choose blue," lamented Amarilly, "and that fades quick."

Lily Rose was easily persuaded to let Derry be consulted. He promptly volunteered to tint the walls, having studied interior decorations at one time in his career. He wrought a marvellous effect in soft grays and browns with bordering graceful vines.

Lily Rose by taking advantage of a bargain sale on suits saved enough from her trousseau to curtain the windows in dainty blue and white muslin.

Derry then diverted the appropriation for an ingrain carpet to an expenditure for shellac and paint with which he showed Amarilly how to do the floors. Some cheap but pretty rugs were selected in place of the carpet.

At last the Annex was ready for painting. Lily Rose wistfully stated that she had always longed to live in a white house, so despite the fact that the Jenkins house proper was a sombre red, the new part was painted white.

"'Twill liven the place up," Amarilly consoled herself, while Colette breathed a sigh of relief that the Annex was not to be entirely conventional.

At Amarilly's suggestion, the woodwork was also painted white.

"Hard to keep clean," warned Amarilly, divided in her trend of practicality and her loyalty to St. John's favorite color. White won.

The moment the paint was dry and the Annex announced "done," the Boarder took Lily Rose to view their prospective domicile. They were unaccompanied by any of the family, but it took the combined efforts of Mrs. Jenkins, Amarilly, and Flamingus, whose recent change in voice and elongation of trousers gave him an air of authority, to prevent a stampede by the younger members.

Lily Rose returned wet-eyed, sweetly smiling, and tremulous of voice, but the Boarder stood erect, proud in his possessions.

Colette vetoed the plan for Amarilly to settle in the absence of the groom and bride.

"If you have it all furnished beforehand," she argued, "there will be just so much more room to entertain in on the night of the wedding."

And then Lily Rose confessed that "she'd love to be 'to hum' in her own place."

"But they won't be furnished," argued Amarilly.

"Oh, yes, they will," assured Colette. "It's etiquette—" she paused to note Amarilly writing the word down in a little book she carried—"for people to send their presents before they come, and you can settle as fast as they come in."

The wedding gifts all arrived the day before the wedding. The base- burner, though not needed for some months, was set up, because the Boarder said he would not feel at home until he could put his feet on his own hearth. John Meredith sent an oaken library table and an easy-chair. Derry's offering was in the shape of a beautiful picture and a vase for the table.

The best man, who fortunately had appealed to Amarilly for guidance, gave a couch. The Jenkins family, assessed in proportion to their respective incomes, provided a bedroom set. Lily Rose's landlady sent a willow rocker; the girl friends at the factory a gilt clock; the railroad hands, six silver spoons and an equal number of forks. Lily Rose's Sunday-school teacher presented a lamp. A heterogeneous assortment of articles came from the neighbors.

These presents were all arranged in the new rooms by Lily Rose, and the elegance of the new apartment was overwhelming in effect to the household.

"It looks most too fine to feel to hum in," gasped the Boarder. "It makes me feel strange!"

"It won't look strange to you," assured the bride-elect, looking shyly into his adoring eyes, "when you come home and find me sitting here in my blue dress waiting for you, will it?"

"No!" agreed the Boarder with a quick intake of breath, "'Twill be home and heaven, Lily Rose."



CHAPTER XXIII

Shyly and perversely Lily Rose had postponed the trying on of her borrowed wedding waist until the day preceding the great event.

"There won't be time to fit it," pleaded Amarilly.

And Lily Rose had smiled a faraway smile and said her veil would cover it anyway. But finally Amarilly's pleas prevailed and the beloved garment was brought forth.

Amarilly took it reverently from its wrappings and held it up to view. After many exclamations of wonder and admiration, Lily Rose, who had removed her dress, essayed to try it on.

"Why, Amarilly," she said, struggling to get her arm into the sleeve, "there's something the matter! It's sewed together, or something."

Amarilly hastened to investigate.

"Oh!" she gasped, after thrusting her hand within, "to think it should be in here, for I am sure this is what Miss King has been looking for so long. Wait until I go and ask ma about it."

She hurried to the kitchen precinct of the house.

"Oh, Ma, do you know how this came in Miss King's lace waist? The one that was here through the fever?"

"Why, didn't you ever take that home?"

"Yes," informed Amarilly, "but she made me a present of it, and I put it away to keep till I was—grown up. And I want to lend it to Lily Rose to be married in. And when she went to try it on, she found this in the sleeve."

Mrs. Jenkins paused in the sudsing of a garment.

"Let me see!" she said, surveying the object with reminiscent scrutiny. "Oh, yes, I remember now. I found it on the floor the day she was here, afore the waist was ready for her. I thought she had dropped it, and so I pinned it in the sleeve of her dress, and was goin to tell Gus to give it to her, but he didn't take the waist hum, and then so much happened, it went clean out of my mind."

"I'll go right over to her house with it now," said Amarilly.

Lily Rose, adorned in the filmy, white waist, entered the kitchen.

"See, Amarilly," she said delightedly. "It's a beautiful fit!"

But Amarilly had something on her mind of more moment even than Lily Rose's wedding garments.

"I am glad it fits," she said hurriedly, scarcely vouchsafing a glance toward Lily Rose as she caught up her hat, and hastened as fast as the street-cars would take her to Colette. Orders had been given for the admittance of Amarilly at any hour and to any room her young patroness might chance to be occupying. This morning she was in her boudoir.

"Oh, Miss King!" cried Amarilly, her face aglow. "I guess I have found it!"

Colette's heart began to flutter and the wavering beat became a steady throb when Amarilly handed her the long lost article.

"Oh, Amarilly, you darling! Yes, yes, this is it! And it evidently has not been touched. Where did you find it? Who had it?" Amarilly related the story of its discovery.

"Then, but for your generosity, Amarilly, this would have been in the waist for years, so I am going to reward you. You shall make Lily Rose a wedding present of the waist, and when you are married, I shall give you a real, white wedding gown of white satin with a bridal train!"

"Oh, Miss King! I must get married then, even if I have to do it in a leap year!"

"Of course you will marry. I shall pick out the bridegroom myself. I feel like doing almost anything for you, Amarilly."

"Do you, truly?" asked Amarilly. "Then I wish you would—"

"Tell me, dear!" urged Colette. "I'll do anything for you to-day."

"Be nice to Mr. St. John!" whispered the little peacemaker.

"Amarilly! I will, indeed—nicer than you can imagine, or he either. And tell me, is Lily Rose still happy—very happy?"

"Yes," replied Amarilly. "So happy, and so scared-like, and she's going to dress at our house and could you come early and fix on the veil? We don't just know how it goes."



"Of course I will. And now will you take a little note to St. John for me on your way home?"

"Yes, Miss King. And are you going to tell him it is found?"

"No, Amarilly; not until to-morrow night, so don't say anything about it to him."

The rector looked up with a welcoming smile when Amarilly was shown into his study.

"I came with a note from her," she said with a glad little intonation in her voice.

John took it eagerly. His face fell at the first few words which told him not to call for her to-morrow night on the way to the wedding, but it brightened amazingly when he read the reason—the adjusting of Lily Rose's bridal veil; it fairly radiated joy when he read:

"I am not going to be disagreeable to—anyone to-morrow. I shall 'let my light shine' on Lily Rose and—every one. If you will keep your carriage to-morrow night, I will send mine away and ride home with you."



CHAPTER XXIV

On the night of the auspicious occasion, Mrs. Jenkins's home presented a scene of festivity. Neighbors had loaned their lamps, and the brakeman had hung out his red lantern in token of welcome and cheer. It was, however, mistaken by some of the guests as a signal of danger, and they were wary of their steps lest they be ditched. Mrs. Hudgers ventured the awful prognostication that "mebby some of them Jenkins brats had gone and got another of them ketchin' diseases."

When they entered the house there was a general exclamation of admiration. The curtain partitions had been removed, and the big room was beautifully decorated with festoons and masses of green interspersed with huge bunches of June roses.

Derry and Flamingus received the guests. Upstairs the Boarder and the brakeman were nervously awaiting the crucial moment. The door into the Annex was closed, for in the sitting-room was the little bride, her pale cheeks delicately tinted from excitement as Colette artistically adjusted the bridal veil, fastening it with real orange blossoms. Amarilly hovered near in an ecstasy which was perforce silent on account of her mouth being full of pins.

"There's Mr. St. John's carriage," she managed to murmur as she peered from the window.

Colette dropped her paper of pins, went hastily into the adjoining bedroom and slipped out again before John Meredith was ushered in where the surplice immaculately laundered, was waiting to be donned by its original owner.

After slipping it on, John's hand from force of habit sought the pocket and there encountered something. He drew it forth wonderingly. It was a small, silver-monogrammed envelope sealed and addressed to him in Colette's handwriting. He read the note once, twice, thrice. Then there was a knock at the door that led into the Annex sitting-room. He opened it to admit Amarilly.

"Are you ready?" she asked. "You're to go in with them. They—"

She paused and stared at him. The transformation in his face was wonderful.

"Yes, I am ready, Amarilly," he replied, and something in his voice sounded strange to her.

He followed her into the next room where the Boarder, awkward in his Sunday clothes, but regal in his pride in the little, white-veiled figure at his side, was awaiting him.

John walked out into the Jenkins's part of the house with them, while Amarilly slipped home by way of the Annex bedroom.

The entrance was certainly effective to the neighbors.

"Ain't she a lily though!" "Look at that long veil onct!" "Jest like 'a picter!" "What a swell waist" "That big bo'quet!" "I niver seed sech flowers afore." "That surplus makes it look like picters!"

All these comments were sweet music in Amarilly's ear. Only one person had regrets. Mrs. Hudgers was visibly disappointed.

"I thought they'd hev candles a-burnin'," she confided to Mrs. Huce.

"Don't you know no better than that?" scoffed Mrs. Huce with a superior air. "Them things is only used by Irish folks."

Derry's dancing eyes looked to Colette for appreciation of this statement, but her eyes and attention were entirely for John.

The ceremony began. John's impressive voice, with its new pervading note of exultant gladness, reached them all, tempering even Derry's light- hearted mirth. It gave courage to the little bride whose drooping head rose like a flower, and a light shone in her eyes as she made the responses sweetly and clearly. It found echo in the Boarder, whose stooping shoulders unconsciously straightened and his voice grew clear and strong as he promised to have and to hold. It found a place in Colette's heart which sent illumining lights into her starry eyes.

When the solemn ceremony ended, and the Boarder and Lilly Rose were pronounced man and wife, the guests flocked forward to offer congratulations. Then they were bidden to adjourn to the Annex that they might view the bride's domain, while Mrs. Jenkins assisted by many helping hands set the long tables, a small one being reserved for the Boarder, the bride, Mr. Cotter, and Mrs. Jenkins and Iry.

"I thought they could eat more natural," whispered the considerate little Amarilly to Colette, "if there weren't no strangers with them."

Colette, John, and Derry were also honored with a separate table. Mrs. Hudgers and Amarilly "dished up and poured" in the woodshed, while the boys acted as waiters, having been thoroughly trained by Amarilly for the occasion.

"Do you know," laughed Derry, "I was so surprised and relieved to find that the Boarder had a cognomen like other people. It never occurred to me before that he must of course have a name."

Colette smiled politely but perfunctorily. She was living too deeply to-night to appreciate wit. John, too, was strangely silent, his eyes resting often and adoringly upon Colette. Shrewdly Derry divined the situation and relieved it by rattling on with a surface banter that demanded no response.

"These refreshments," he observed, "are certainly the handiwork of my little maid. They have a flavor all her own. I am proud of Amarilly's English, too."

"I wonder," said Colette, "if you are doing quite right, Mr. Phillips, in improving Amarilly to such an extent? I am afraid she will grow beyond her family."

"No; even you, pardon me, Miss King, don't know Amarilly as I do. She couldn't get beyond them in her heart, although she may in other directions. Her heart is in the right place, and it will bridge any distance that may lie between them."

John looked up attentively and approvingly.

"Amarilly has too much aptitude for learning not to be encouraged, and I shall do more for her before long. We have pursued a select course of reading this winter. She has read aloud while I painted. We began stumblingly with Alice in Wonderland and are now groping through mythology."

After refreshments had been served, Lily Rose went to her bedroom to don her travelling gown, and when the happy couple had driven away amid a shower of rice and shouts from the neighbors, John's carriage drew up.

"John," asked Colette, after a happy little moment in his arms, "did you read my note and did you see what the date was?"

"Colette, surely it was the dearest love-letter a man ever received. If I could have had it all these dreary months!"

"Do you wonder that I feared its falling into strange hands?"

"Tell me its history, Colette. How you recovered it, and why you thought it was in the surplice in the first place?"

"I wrote it the day after you asked me—you know—"

There was another happy disappearance and silence before she resumed:

"I was sentimental enough to want to deliver it in an unusual way. I took it to Mrs. Jenkins's house the day your surplice was to be returned to you, and I slipped it inside the pocket. I wanted you to find it there on Sunday morning. I didn't know what to think when you looked at me so oddly that Sunday—yes, I know now that you were wondering at my silence. And when we came home in the fall and I learned from Amarilly that strangers might be reading and laughing at my ardent love-letter, which must have passed through many and alien hands, I was so horrified I couldn't act rational or natural. I was—yes, I will 'fess up, John,— I was unreasonable, as you said and—No, John! wait until I finish before you—"

"You want to know how and where it was found? It seems at the same time your surplice was laundered, a lace waist of mine was at their house. I didn't care for a 'fumigated waist' so, like you, I made Amarilly a present perforce. She laid it away in its wrappings to keep until her wedding day. Out of the goodness of her generous little heart she loaned it to Lily Rose and yesterday, when they were trying it on, Amarilly found my note in the sleeve. Mrs. Jenkins was appealed to and remembered that when the things were ready to be sent home, she found the note on the floor, and supposing it had fallen from the waist slipped it inside and forgot all about it. I decided that it should be delivered in the manner originally planned."

"But, Colette," he asked wistfully, a few moments later, "if you had never found it would you have kept me always in suspense and never have given me an answer? I began to hope, that night I called, that you were relenting."

"I was, John. Amarilly had been telling me of the Boarder's love for Lily Rose, and it made me lonely for you, and I determined in any event to give you your answer—this answer—to-night. And so I did, and—I think that is all, John."

"Not all, Colette."



CHAPTER XXV

The dairy business continued to prove profitable to Gus, the cow remaining contented, loving and giving. One night, however, there came the inevitable reaction, and the gentle creature in the cow-shed felt the same stifling she had rebelled against on the night of the stampede when she had made her wild dash for liberty. Moved by these recollections, the sedate, orderly cow became imbued with a feeling of unrest, and demolishing the frail door was once more at large. In a frenzy of freedom she dashed about the yard. Her progress was somewhat impeded by contact with the surplice which, pinned to the clothes-line, was flapping in the breezes. Maddened by this obstruction which hung, veil-like, over her bovine lineaments, she gave a twist of her Texas horns, a tug, and the surplice was released, but from the line only; it twined itself like a white wraith about the horns.

Then the sportive animal frisked over the low back fence and across the hill, occasionally stepping on a released end of the surplice and angrily tearing her way through the garment. She made her road to the railroad track. That sight, awakening bitter memories of a packed cattle-car, caused her to slacken her Mazeppa-like speed. While she paused, the night express backed onto the side track to await the coming of the eastbound train. The cow, still in meditation, was silhouetted in the light of a harvest moon.

"This 'ere," a home-bound cattleman was saying to a friend on the platform, "is nigh onto whar we dropped a cow. I swar if thar ain't that blasted cow now, what? Know her from hoof to horn, though what kind of a Christmas tree she's got on fer a bunnit, gits me! Ki, yi! Ki, yi!"

At the sound of the shrill, weird cry, the animal stood at bay. Again came the well-known strident halloo. A maelstrom of memories was awakened by the call. Instinctively obeying the old summons she started toward the train, when from over the hill behind her she heard another command.

"Co, boss! Co, boss!"

The childish anxious treble rose in an imploring wail.

The cow paused irresolute, hesitating between the lure of the old life on the plains and the recent domestic existence.

"Co, boss!"

There was a note of entreaty, of affection, in the cry.

After all, domesticity was her birthright. With an answering low of encouragement the black cow turned and trotted amiably back to meet the little dairyman.

"Well, I'll be jiggered," said the cattleman, as the train pulled out. "I'd a swore it was old Jetblack. Maybe 'twas. She was only a milker anyway, and I guess she's found a home somewhere."

Gus with arm lovingly about the cow's neck walked home.

"Bossy," he said in gently reproaching tones, "how could you give me such a skeer? I thought I'd lost you, and I'd hev sure missed you—you, yerself—more'n I would the money your milk brings us."

Then for the first time, the lad's eyes noted the decorated horns.

"What in thunder—"

He began to unwind the ribbons of white cloth, the stringed remnants of the surplice.

"Gracious Peter! It's the surplus! What will Amarilly say—and Lily Rose? It's only fit fer carpet rags now. Well, if this ain't the end of the surplus after all it has went through! I wonder what bossy wanted of it? Thought jest cause she was a cow, she must be a cow ketcher, I suppose."

Great was the joy of the Jenkinses at the restoration of the cow, but there was grievous lament from Amarilly for the fate of the precious garment.

"It was our friend—our friend in need!" she mourned.

"I'm so glad we hev a picter of it," said Lily Rose, gazing fondly at the photograph of the Boarder in the saintly robes.

"I'll go and tell Miss King," said Amarilly the next morning. "She said she felt that the surplice would come to some tragic end."

"It was a fitting fate for so mysterious a garment," commented Colette. "You couldn't expect any ordinary, common-place ending for the surplice. After officiating at funerals, weddings, shop-windows, theatres, pawnshops, and bishops' dwellings, it could never have simply worn out, or died of old age."

"I don't see," meditated Amarilly, "what possessed the cow. She's been so gentle always, and then to fly to pieces that way, and riddle the surplice to bits! It was lucky there was nothing else on the line."

"It's very simple," said Colette. "I suppose she wanted to go to the train. Maybe she expected to meet a friend. And as nearly everyone else had worn the surplice on special occasions, she thought she could do the same; only, you see, never having been to church she didn't quite know how to put it on, and I suppose got mad at it because it didn't fit her and gave vent to her anger by trampling on it."

Amarilly's doleful little face showed no appreciation of this conceit.

"Don't look so glum, Amarilly. I have something to show you that will please you."

She opened a desk and took a thick, white square envelope from it, and handed it to the little girl.

Wonderingly Amarilly opened it and took out a folded, engraved sheet of thick paper. She read eagerly, and two little spots of pink came into her cheeks.

"Oh, oh!" she cried, looking up with shining eyes, which in another moment glistened through tears.

"Why, Amarilly, aren't you glad that I am going to be—"

"Mrs. St. John?" smiled Amarilly. "I think it's beautiful. And," anxiously, "you will surely be good to—him?"

"Yes," replied Colette softly "I will be good—very good—to St. John. Don't fear, Amarilly."

A card had fallen from the envelope. Amarilly picked it up and read:

"To be presented at the church."

"What's that?" she asked curiously.

"You have to show that at the church door. If you didn't have it, you couldn't get in to see us married. It's the same as a ticket to a theatre. And St. John doesn't like it; but if we didn't have them there would be a mob of curious people who don't know us. I shall give all of you tickets to come to the church, the Boarder and Lily Rose, too."

"Oh," cried Amarilly, "that will be lovely, and we shall all come."

"Of course you will all come. Your friend, the bishop, is to marry us, and Bud is going to sing a solo. The choirmaster told me his voice was developing wonderfully."

"I must go home and tell them all about it," said Amarilly excitedly.

"Wait! There's more to hear. I am going to invite you to the reception here at the house, and I am going to have a lovely white dress made for you to wear, and you shall have white silk stockings and slippers and white gloves."

"Oh!" gasped Amarilly, shutting her eyes. "I can't believe it."

The next morning at the studio she announced the wonderful news to Derry.

"I just received an invitation, myself," he replied. "We will go together, Amarilly. I'll send you flowers and call for you with a taxicab."

"Things must stop happening to me," said Amarilly solemnly. "I can't stand much more."

Derry laughed.

"When things once begin to happen, Amarilly, they never stop. You are to go from here now every day after luncheon to this address," handing her a card.

"'Miss Varley,'" Amarilly read. "'1227, Winter Street.' Will she have work for me, too?"

"Yes; work in schoolbooks. She takes a few private pupils, and I have engaged her to teach you. I really think you should have instruction in other branches than English and art and arithmetic."

Amarilly turned pale but said nothing for a moment. Then she held out her hand.

"I will study hard—to pay you," she said simply.

"And can you stand another piece of exciting news, Amarilly? Sunset, which I have dawdled over for so long, drew first prize."

"Oh, Mr. Derry, that is best of all!"

"And do you know what I am going to give Mrs. St. John for a wedding present from you and me? The picture of The Little Scrub-girl."



CHAPTER XXVI

Another spring found the members of the Jenkins Syndicate still banking regularly and flourishing in their various walks in life. The Boarder had received a "raise"; Lily Rose was spending her leisure time in fashioning tiny garments which she told Cory were for a doll baby; Iry was wearing his first trousers cut over from a pair discarded by Bud; and Amarilly was acquiring book lore with an ease and rapidity which delighted Miss Varley and Derry. Through the medium of Mr. Vedder the attention of the manager of a high class vaudeville had been drawn to Bud, and he was now singing every night with a salary that made the neighbors declare that "them Jenkinses was getting to be reg'ler Rockyfellers."

Amarilly coming home one Monday evening found the family grouped about the long table listening with bulging eyes and hectic cheeks to the Boarder, who had before him a sheet of figures. Amarilly was at once alert, although somewhat resentful of this encroachment upon her particular province.

"Oh, come and hear, Amarilly!" "Amarilly, we've bought a farm!" "Amarilly, we air agoin' to live in the country!"

"Let me explain," said the Boarder, usually slow and easy going, but now alert and enthusiastic of mien and speech. "We've got a chance, Amarilly, to sell this place and make quite a profit. That new factory that's agoin' up acrost the alley has sent real estate scootin'. With what we git fer it, we kin make a big payment on a farm. I took a run down yesterday to look at one we kin git cheap, cause the folks on it hez gotter go west fer the man's health. What we hev all saved up sence we bought the place will keep us agoin' till we git in our fust summer crops."

"Tell her about the house," prompted Mrs. Jenkins, her quick, maternal eye noting the bewilderment and disapproval in her daughter's expressive eyes.

"It's all green meaders and orcherds and lanes," said the Boarder with the volubility of one repeating an oft-told and well-loved tale, while the young Jenkinses with the rapt, intense gaze of moving picture beholders sat in pleased expectancy, "and the house sets on a little rise of ground. It's a white house with a big chimbley and two stoops, and thar's a big barn with two white hosses in it, and a cow and an animal in the paster lot. A big pen of pigs, fifty hens in the henhouse, and a few sheep. Thar's a piece of woods and the river."

"I'm a little fearful of the river on Iry's account," said Mrs. Jenkins, "but we kin spank him up good as soon as we git thar, and then he'll understand he's to keep away."

"We kin git a good dog to keep track of Iry and the cattle," said the Boarder, and then he paused expectantly to listen to Amarilly's approbation. But she was strangely silent.

"It will be a fust class investment," he continued sagely.

"Why will it? We don't know anything about farming," objected Amarilly. "We'll have to hire someone to run it."

"I was brought up on a farm," replied the Boarder. "Thar ain't a thing I don't know about farm work."

"I was raised on a farm, too," said Mrs. Jenkins. "I can make good butter and I know all about raisin' chickens. I'll get some young turkeys and have them ready to sell for Thanksgiving, and I'll set out strawberries and celery plants."

"I kin larn, and I'll work hard and do just what he tells me to," said Flamingus, motioning toward the Boarder.

"I kin have my dairy all right, all right," said Gus joyfully. "I'll have a hull herd of cattle soon."

"I shall go in heavy on hens," said Milt importantly. "The grocer give me a book about raising them. There's money in hens."

"I choose to take keer of the sheep," cried Bobby.

"I'll help ma do the work in the house and the garden," volunteered Cory.

"And I'm strong enough to work outdoors now," said Lily Rose. "I shall help with the garden and with the housework."

"We'll all pitch in and work," said Flamingus authoritatively, "and we're all partners and we won't hire no help. It will be clear profit."

"Ain't it lovely, Amarilly?" asked the mother, apprehensive lest the little leader might blackball the project.

"We're all doing so well here, why change? Why not let well enough alone?" she asked.

There was a general and surprised protest at this statement. It was something new for Amarilly to be a kill-joy.

"Do you like to live in this alley when we kin hev all outdoors and git a chanst to be somebody?" demanded Flamingus, who was rapidly usurping his sister's place as head of the house.

"And think of the money we'll make!" reminded Milton.

"And the milk and butter and cream and good things to eat without buying them!" exclaimed Gus.

"And huntin' f'r eggs and swimmin' in the river and skatin' and gettin' hickory nuts and all the apples you kin eat," persuaded Bobby, who had evidently been listening to the Boarder's fancies of farm life.

"Thar's a school close by, and all the chillern kin go," said the mother anxiously. "Mebby you kin git to teach it after a while, Amarilly."

"Oh, Amarilly!" cried Lily Rose ecstatically, "to think of all the trees, and all the sky, and all the green grass and all the birds—oh, Amarilly!"

Words failed Lily Rose, but she sighed a far-seeing blissful sigh of exquisite happiness at her horoscope. The Boarder looked at her, his heart eloquent in his eyes, but he said nothing.

"Amarilly," cried Cory, "we kin hev real flowers fer nuthin' and pies and ice-cream, and we kin cuddle little chicks like ma told me, and make daisy chains, and hev picnics in the woods. Oh—"

Words also proved inadequate to Co's anticipations.

"Amawilly, we kin play wiv little lambs," lisped Iry.

"Bud, you haven't made your speech, yet," said Amarilly, wistfully, realizing that the majority was against her.

"Bud won't go till fall," said Mrs. Jenkins.

"Till fall!" cried Amarilly faintly. "Why, when are we going?"

"Next week," answered the Boarder jubilantly. "The folks want to leave right away, and we must get busy plantin'. I went to Vedder's friend, the real estate man, this mornin' as soon as I got back, and he says it's a real bargain."

"But why isn't Bud going?"

"This morning," informed Mrs. Jenkins proudly, "Bud had an offer. As soon as the theatre shuts down, Mr. Vedder is going to take Bud to a big resort and manage him for the season. He'll git lots of money. I wouldn't let Bud go off with no one else, but Mr. Vedder is so nice, and he says when Bud goes to the country in the fall he kin come into the city Saturday nights on the Interurban and sing in the choir Sundays and come back Monday. He kin stay with him, Mr. Vedder says. And the country air and the fresh milk and eggs, will make a diff'rent boy of him. It's what the doctor says he'd orter hev."

"Then, we'll go, of course," declared Amarilly resolutely.

"And, Amarilly," said the Boarder gravely, "your ma ain't said why she wanted to go, but think of the diff'rence it will make in her life. To be sure, she will have to work hard, but with you, Lily Rose, and Co to help her, it won't be so hard, and it'll be higher class work than slushing around in tubs and water, and she'll hev good feedin' and good air, and we'll all feel like we was folks and our own bosses."

"Ma, I was selfish!" cried Amarilly remorsefully. "I'll work like a hired man!"

Amarilly thereupon bravely assumed a cheerful mien and looked over the Boarder's figures, listening with apparently great enthusiasm to the plans and projects. But when she was upstairs in her own little bed and each and every other Jenkins was wrapt in happy slumber, she turned her face to the wall, and wept long, silently, and miserably. Far-away fields and pastures did not look alluring to this little daughter of the city who put bricks and mortar and lighted streets above trees and meadows, for Amarilly was entirely metropolitan; sky-scrapers were her birthright, and she loved every inch of her city.

"But it's best for them," she acknowledged.

A little pang came with the realization that they who had been so dependent upon her guardianship for guidance were entirely competent to act without her.

"It's Flam. He's growed up!" she sobbed, correctness of speech slipping from her in her grief. "And he don't know near so much as I do, only he's a man—or going to be—so what he says goes."

And with this bitter but inevitable recognition of the things that are, Amarilly sobbed herself to sleep.



CHAPTER XXVII

The next morning Amarilly served Derry's breakfast in heavy-hearted silence, replying in low-voiced monosyllables to his gay, conversational advances. She performed her household duties about the studio listlessly though with conscientious thoroughness. When it came time to prepare luncheon, Derry called her into the studio.

"Come here to the light, where I can see you best, Amarilly."

Reluctantly she came.

He turned his searching, artist's eyes upon her unsparingly, noting the violet shadows under the white-lidded eyes, and the hard, almost tragic lines in the drooping of her mobile mouth. She bore his gaze unflinchingly, with indrawn breath and clenched hands.

"What is it, Amarilly?" he asked gently. "You will tell me, nicht wahr?"

These two last words were in deference to her new study of German.

At the genuine sympathy in his voice, Amarilly's composure gave way and there was a rush of tears.

He led her to a divan and sat beside her.

"Yes, of course you will tell me, Amarilly. I knew there was an emotional side to my practical, little maid, and I noticed at breakfast that there was something wrong."

"Yes," she replied, with an effort, wiping away the rising tears, "I will tell you, but no one else. If I told Mr. Vedder, he would not understand; he would say I must do what was sensible. If I told Mr. St. John, he would be shocked, and tell me that duty was hard, and that was why it must be done,—to strengthen. Mrs. St. John would laugh, and say: 'Oh, what a foolish Amarilly!'"

"And what will I say, Amarilly?" he asked interestedly.

"You! Oh, you will understand what I feel, and you will be sorry."

"Then spin away, Amarilly. You'll have my sympathy and help in everything that makes you feel bad, whether it's right or wrong."

"Oh, Mr. Derry, we are all going away—way off to the country—to live on a farm!"

"Amarilly, you little city brat! You'd be a misfit on a farm. Tell me what has sent the Jenkins family into the open."

Faithfully Amarilly enumerated the pros and cons of the agricultural venture. When she had concluded her narrative, Derry, to her surprise and sorrow, looked positively jubilant.

"And you don't want to live in the country, eh, Amarilly?"

"No, Mr. Derry," she protested. "I don't. I have never been there, but I know the woods and the fields and—all that—must be beautiful—in patches—but I couldn't bear it all the time—not to see all the bright and white lights at night and the hurry, and the people, and the theatres. No! I'd rather be the poorest little speck here than to own and live on the biggest farm in the world."

He laughed delightedly.

"Oh, Amarilly, you little gamin! You have the right idea, though. We don't want anything, however perfect it may be, all the time. We want it just 'in patches'—as you say. You'll love the country with your whole heart and soul when you come to see it if you know that you can leave it. But this is a big change in your affairs, and we must talk it over. We'll go to Carter's again for luncheon. Take off your apron and cap. You won't have to fix your hair this time. It's even more beautiful than it was then. Your frock, if it is cheap and plain, is artistic in cut and color."

Amarilly felt cheered in spite of herself at his exuberant manner, but burst into tears when on leaving the studio he casually remarked:

"So this is almost the last of your work here! I can never hope to get such another housekeeper as you. I shall have to eat out again."

At sight of her grief he took hold of her arm almost roughly.

"Amarilly, you little goose, do you suppose I am going to let you be exiled to a farm and lapse into the vernacular of the Boarder? Now, buck up and trust to the judgment and affection of your twin brother."

Amarilly, wondering but hopeful, "bucked up," and they walked in silence to Carter's, where Derry ordered a private dining-room and luncheon. Then:

"Now, listen my child, and you shall hear, not of the midnight ride of Paul Revere, but of the sad story of the life of your twin brother. My parents died when I was too young to grieve for them. They are only a faint memory. I had a cold-blooded, sensible guardian who put me into a boys' school, from which I went to college, and then for a year in Paris. He didn't let me know the amount of my inheritance. Consequently I really worked and worked hard at the only thing I cared for and formed no extravagant tastes. Neither was I courted and flattered by parasites.

"On my return from Paris, a year before I met you, I came into my mother's fortune, and recently I have received the one left me by my father. Having been brought up to live a comparatively simple life, in the belief that I would be dependent on my own exertions, I have more money than I know what to do with as yet. I have no one, not even a fifth cousin, to be interested in. I have any number of acquaintances, but no really intimate friends, so I have no one to help me spend and enjoy my money.

"There was something about you, Amarilly, that appealed to me that first day you came up to the studio. It couldn't have been your looks, for aside from your hair, your expressive eyes, and your hands; you are quite ordinary looking; but something about you amused me, then interested me, and, now fascinates me. I have thought about it a good deal, and have come to the conclusion that it is your direct naturalness and earnestness. I have really come to feel as if you were a sort of a younger sister of mine. I have done a very little for you in the way of education, and I have intended to do more. The reason I have been slow about it was—for reasons. I have discussed your future with the Merediths a great many times.

"What I wished to do was to put you in the best girls' school I could find and when you were finished there, to send you abroad, and give you the same advantages that a sister of mine would have. But as I say, I hesitated. It didn't seem exactly wise to separate you from your family, surround you with different environments and then have you come home to—the alley. I know your loyal little heart would never waver in its affection for them, but such a decided change would not be wise.

"Now, you see, this farm business simplifies things wonderfully. With the thrift and industry of your brothers and the Boarder I can easily see the farm is going to be a prosperous undertaking, and by the time you are finished—say five years—for Miss Varley tells me you are quite up with the girls of your age in your studies, they will have a substantial country home which you will enjoy immensely between times. You will find that a country home, however humble, is not sordid like an obscure home in the city. So next week, Amarilly, or as soon as Mrs. Meredith can fit you out properly, you will be packed off to an ultra- smart school. There will be one term this year, but I think you should remain through the summer vacation and have private tutoring."

The waiter entered with the first course. When he had again gone out, Amarilly looked up at Derry, her eyes full of a yearning that touched him.

"It would be lovely, Mr. Derry. Too lovely to happen, you know."

"There, Amarilly," he said with a combination of frown and smile, "there it is again—your contradiction of eyes and mouth—the one of a gazelle; the other, of a mule. I'll answer your objections before you make them, for it is determined that you are to go."

The look he had ascribed to Amarilly's mouth came into the forward thrust of his chin.

"First, you think you are too proud and independent to accept. From your viewpoint it seems a good deal to do. From mine, proved by my bank account, it is an absurdly small thing to do, but if you are truly grateful for what you are pleased to think I have done for you, you will let me do this, because you feel sorry for me that I am so alone in the world. And St. John, himself, would tell you it was your duty to make the most of your talents and opportunities. You can also do a little charity work in keeping me straight, for you see, Amarilly, I am going to Paris for two years to study, and I will have an incentive to work and not play too hard if I know I have a little sister over here in school who would be sorry if her brother went wrong and didn't get to be a great artist. So for your sake, and for my sake—"

"But there's ma's sake," she said wistfully. "The Boarder says woman's work on the farm is hard."

"There's the Boarderess and Co—"

"Lily Rose is not strong and doesn't know much about farm work, and Co's only a kid."

"Well, I hadn't finished. You have an interest in the farm as one of the syndicate, and you have some money saved."

"Yes," admitted Amarilly bewildered, not following his train of thought.

"Well, you won't need that now, and it can go towards a woman to help,— a hired girl in country vernacular—during the busy seasons. And you can go home summers. Every week you are to write me a long letter and tell me about yourself and them."

Amarilly was gazing into space, and in silence he watched the odd, little signs of conflict. It was the same sort of a struggle, only harder and more prolonged, that she had passed through two years before at the theatre when her untutored conscience bade her relinquish her seat. Suddenly her countenance became illumined.

"I am going to do it, Mr. Derry! I am going to let you send me to school, and abroad and wherever you think best."

THE END