"Did you see anything of her this morning?" asked Mrs. Black pointedly, as she cut the dried-apple pie. "I can't think what's become of her."

Wesley Elliot glanced up from an absent-minded contemplation of an egg spot on the tablecloth.

"If you refer to Miss Orr," said he, "I did see her—in a carriage with Deacon Whittle."

He was instantly ashamed of the innocent prevarication. But he told himself he did not choose to discuss Miss Orr's affairs with Mrs. Black.

Just then Lydia came in, her eyes shining, her cheeks very pink; but like the minister she seemed disposed to silence, and Mrs. Black was forced to restrain her curiosity.

"How'd you make out this morning?" she inquired, as Lydia, having hurried through her dinner, rose to leave the table.

"Very well, thank you, Mrs. Black," said the girl brightly. Then she went at once to her room and closed the door.

At supper time it was just the same; neither the minister nor the girl who sat opposite him had anything to say. But no sooner had Mrs. Black begun to clear away the dishes than the two withdrew to the vine-shaded porch, as if by common consent.

"She ought to know right off about Fanny Dodge and the minister," Mrs. Black told herself.

She was still revolving this in her mind as she walked sedately along the street, the red and yellow striped bag clasped tightly in both hands. Of course everybody in the village would suppose she knew all about Lydia Orr. But the fact was she knew very little. The week before, one of her customers in Grenoble, in the course of a business transaction which involved a pair of chickens, a dozen eggs and two boxes of strawberries, had asked, in a casual way, if Mrs. Black knew any one in Brookville who kept boarders.

"The minister of our church boards with me," she told the Grenoble woman, with pardonable pride. "I don't know of anybody else that takes boarders in Brookville." She added that she had an extra room.

"Well, one of my boarders—a real nice young lady from Boston—has taken a queer notion to board in Brookville," said the woman. "She was out autoing the other day and went through there. I guess the country 'round Brookville must be real pretty this time of year."

"Yes; it is, real pretty," she had told the Grenoble woman.

And this had been the simple prelude to Lydia Orr's appearance in Brookville.

Wooded hills did not interest Mrs. Black, nor did the meandering of the silver river through its narrow valley. But she took an honest pride in her own freshly painted white house with its vividly green blinds, and in her front yard with its prim rows of annuals and thrifty young dahlias. As for Miss Lydia Orr's girlish rapture over the view from her bedroom window, so long as it was productive of honestly earned dollars, Mrs. Black was disposed to view it with indulgence. There was nothing about the girl or her possessions to indicate wealth or social importance, beyond the fact that she arrived in a hired automobile from Grenoble instead of riding over in Mrs. Solomon Black's spring wagon. Miss Orr brought with her to Brookville one trunk, the contents of which she had arranged at once in the bureau drawers and wardrobe of Mrs. Black's second-best bedroom. It was evident from a private inspection of their contents that Miss Orr was in mourning.

At this point in her meditations Mrs. Black became aware of an insistent voice hailing her from the other side of the picket fence.

It was Mrs. Daggett, her large fair face flushed with the exertion of hurrying down the walk leading from Mrs. Whittle's house.

"Some of us ladies has been clearing up after the fair," she explained, as she joined Mrs. Solomon Black. "It didn't seem no more than right; for even if Ann Whittle doesn't use her parlor, on account of not having it furnished up, she wants it broom-clean. My! You'd ought to have seen the muss we swept out."

"I'd have been glad to help," said Mrs. Black stiffly; "but what with it being my day to go over to Grenoble, and my boarders t' cook for and all—"

"Oh, we didn't expect you," said Abby Daggett tranquilly. "There was enough of us to do everything."

She beamed warmly upon Mrs. Black.

"Us ladies was saying we'd all better give you a rising vote of thanks for bringing that sweet Miss Orr to the fair. Why, 'twas a real success after all; we took in two hundred and forty-seven dollars and twenty-nine cents. Ain't that splendid?"

Mrs. Black nodded. She felt suddenly proud of her share in this success.

"I guess she wouldn't have come to the fair if I hadn't told her about it," she admitted. "She only come to my house yesterd'y morning."

"In an auto?" inquired Abby Daggett eagerly.

"Yes," nodded Mrs. Black. "I told her I could bring her over in the wagon just as well as not; but she said she had the man all engaged. I told her we was going to have a fair, and she said right off she wanted to come."

Abby Daggett laid her warm plump hand on Mrs. Black's arm.

"I dunno when I've took such a fancy to anybody at first sight," she said musingly. "She's what I call a real sweet girl. I'm just going to love her, I know."

She gazed beseechingly at Mrs. Solomon Black.

"Mebbe you'll think it's just gossipy curiosity; but I would like to know where that girl come from, and who her folks was, and how she happened to come to Brookville. I s'pose you know all about her; don't you?"

Mrs. Solomon Black coughed slightly. She was aware of the distinction she had already acquired in the eyes of Brookville from the mere fact of Lydia Orr's presence in her house.

"If I do," she began cautiously, "I don't know as it's for me to say."

"Don't fer pity's sake think I'm nosey," besought Abby Daggett almost tearfully. "You know I ain't that kind; but I don't see how folks is going to help being interested in a sweet pretty girl like Miss Orr, and her coming so unexpected. And you know there's them that'll invent things that ain't true, if they don't hear the facts."

"She's from Boston," said Mrs. Solomon Black grudgingly. "You can tell Lois Daggett that much, if she's getting anxious."

Mrs. Daggett's large face crimsoned. She was one of those soft, easily hurt persons whose blushes bring tears. She sniffed a little and raised her handkerchief to her eyes.

"I was afraid you'd—"

"Well, of course I ain't scared of you, Abby," relented Mrs. Black. "But I says to myself, 'I'm goin' to let Lydia Orr stand on her two own feet in this town,' I says. She can say what she likes about herself, an' there won't be no lies coming home to roost at my house. I guess you'd feel the very same way if you was in my place, Abby."

Mrs. Daggett glanced with childish admiration at the other woman's magenta-tinted face under its jetty water-waves. Even Mrs. Black's everyday hat was handsomer than her own Sunday-best.

"You always was so smart an' sensible, Phoebe," she said mildly. "I remember 'way back in school, when we was both girls, you always could see through arithmetic problems right off, when I couldn't for the life of me. I guess you're right about letting her speak for herself."

"Course I am!" agreed Mrs. Black triumphantly.

She had extricated herself from a difficulty with flying colors. She would still preserve her reputation for being a close-mouthed woman who knew a lot more about everything than she chose to tell.

"Anybody can see she's wearing mournin'," she added benevolently.

"Oh, I thought mebbe she had a black dress on because they're stylish. She did look awful pretty in it, with her arms and neck showing through. I like black myself; but mourning—that's different. Poor young thing, I wonder who it was. Her father, mebbe, or her mother. You didn't happen to hear her say, did you, Phoebe?"

Mrs. Solomon Black compressed her lips tightly. She paused at her own gate with majestic dignity.

"I guess I'll have to hurry right in, Abby," said she. "I have my bread to set."

Mrs. Solomon Black had closed her gate behind her, noticing as she did so that Wesley Elliot and Lydia Orr had disappeared from the piazza where she had left them. She glanced at Mrs. Daggett, lingering wistfully before the gate.

"Goodnight, Abby," said she firmly.



Chapter VI

Mrs. Maria Dodge sifted flour over her molding board preparatory to transferring the sticky mass of newly made dough from the big yellow mixing bowl to the board. More flour and a skillful twirl or two of the lump and the process of kneading was begun. It continued monotonously for the space of two minutes; then the motions became gradually slower, finally coming to a full stop.

"My patience!" murmured Mrs. Dodge, slapping her dough smartly. "Fanny ought to be ready by now. They'll be late—both of 'em."

She hurriedly crossed the kitchen to where, through a partly open door, an uncarpeted stair could be seen winding upward.

"Fanny!" she called sharply. "Fanny! ain't you ready yet?"

A quick step in the passage above, a subdued whistle, and her son Jim came clattering down the stair. He glanced at his mother, a slight pucker between his handsome brows. She returned the look with one of fond maternal admiration.

"How nice you do look, Jim," said she, and smiled up at her tall son. "I always did like you in red, and that necktie—"

Jim Dodge shrugged his shoulders with a laugh.

"Don't know about that tie," he said. "Kind of crude and flashy, ain't it, mother?"

"Flashy? No, of course it ain't. It looks real stylish with the brown suit."

"Stylish," repeated the young man. "Yes, I'm a regular swell—everything up to date, latest Broadway cut."

He looked down with some bitterness at his stalwart young person clad in clothes somewhat shabby, despite a recent pressing.

Mrs. Dodge had returned to her bread which had spread in a mass of stickiness all over the board.

"Where's Fanny?" she asked, glancing up at the noisy little clock on the shelf above her head. "Tell her to hurry, Jim. You're late, now."

Jim passed his hand thoughtfully over his clean-shaven chin.

"You might as well know, mother; Fan isn't going."

"Not going?" echoed Mrs. Dodge, sharp dismay in voice and eyes. "Why, I did up her white dress a-purpose, and she's been making up ribbon bows."

She extricated her fingers from the bread and again hurried across the floor.

Her son intercepted her with a single long stride.

"No use, mother," he said quietly. "Better let her alone."

"You think it's—?"

The young man slammed the door leading to the stairway with a fierce gesture.

"If you weren't blinder than a bat, mother, you'd know by this time what ailed Fan," he said angrily.

Mrs. Dodge sank into a chair by the table.

"Oh, I ain't blind," she denied weakly; "but I thought mebbe Fannie—I hoped—"

"Did you think she'd refused him?" demanded Jim roughly. "Did you suppose—? Huh! makes me mad clean through to think of it."

Mrs. Dodge began picking the dough off her fingers and rolling it into little balls which she laid in a row on the edge of the table.

"I've been awful worried about Fanny—ever since the night of the fair," she confessed. "He was here all that afternoon and stayed to tea; don't you remember? And they were just as happy together—I guess I can tell! But he ain't been near her since."

She paused to wipe her eyes on a corner of her gingham apron.

"Fanny thought—at least I sort of imagined Mr. Elliot didn't like the way you treated him that night," she went on piteously. "You're kind of short in your ways, Jim, if you don't like anybody; don't you know you are?"

The young man had thrust his hands deep in his trousers' pockets and was glowering at the dough on the molding board.

"That's rotten nonsense, mother," he burst out. "Do you suppose, if a man's really in love with a girl, he's going to care a cotton hat about the way her brother treats him? You don't know much about men if you think so. No; you're on the wrong track. It wasn't my fault."

His mother's tragic dark eyes entreated him timidly.

"I'm awfully afraid Fanny's let herself get all wrapped up in the minister," she half whispered. "And if he—"

"I'd like to thrash him!" interrupted her son in a low tense voice. "He's a white-livered, cowardly hypocrite, that's my name for Wesley Elliot!"

"But, Jim, that ain't goin' to help Fanny—what you think of Mr. Elliot. And anyway, it ain't so. It's something else. Do you—suppose, you could—You wouldn't like to—to speak to him, Jim—would you?"

"What! speak to that fellow about my sister? Why, mother, you must be crazy! What could I say?—'My sister Fanny is in love with you; and I don't think you're treating her right.' Is that your idea?"

"Hush, Jim! Don't talk so loud. She might hear you."

"No danger of that, mother; she was lying on her bed, her face in the pillow, when I looked in her room ten minutes ago. Said she had a headache and wasn't going."

Mrs. Dodge drew a deep, dispirited sigh.

"If there was only something a body could do," she began. "You might get into conversation with him, kind of careless, couldn't you, Jim? And then you might mention that he hadn't been to see us for two weeks—'course you'd put it real cautious, then perhaps he—"

A light hurried step on the stair warned them to silence; the door was pushed open and Fanny Dodge entered the kitchen. She was wearing the freshly ironed white dress, garnished with crisp pink ribbons; her cheeks were brilliant with color, her pretty head poised high.

"I changed my mind," said she, in a hard, sweet voice. "I decided I'd go, after all. My—my head feels better."

Mother and son exchanged stealthy glances behind the girl's back as she leaned toward the cracked mirror between the windows, apparently intent upon capturing an airy tendril of hair which had escaped confinement.

"That's real sensible, Fanny," approved Mrs. Dodge with perfunctory cheerfulness. "I want you should go out all you can, whilest you're young, an' have a good time."

Jim Dodge was silent; but the scowl between his eyes deepened.

Mrs. Dodge formed three words with her lips, as she shook her head at him warningly.

Fanny burst into a sudden ringing laugh.

"Oh, I can see you in the glass, mother," she cried. "I don't care what Jim says to me; he can say anything he likes."



Her beautiful face, half turned over her shoulder, quivered slightly.

"If you knew how I—" she began, then stopped short.

"That's just what I was saying to Jim," put in her mother eagerly.

The girl flung up both hands in a gesture of angry protest.

"Please don't talk about me, mother—to Jim, or anybody. Do you hear?"

Her voice shrilled suddenly loud and harsh, like an untuned string under the bow.

Jim Dodge flung his hat on his head with an impatient exclamation.

"Come on, Fan," he said roughly. "Nobody's going to bother you. Don't you worry."

Mrs. Dodge had gone back to her kneading board and was thumping the dough with regular slapping motions of her capable hands, but her thin dark face was drawn into a myriad folds and puckers of anxiety.

Fanny stooped and brushed the lined forehead with her fresh young lips.

"Goodnight, mother," said she. "I wish you were going."

She drew back a little and looked down at her mother, smiling brilliantly.

"And don't you worry another minute about me, mother," she said resolutely. "I'm all right."

"Oh, I do hope so, child," returned her mother, sniffing back her ready tears. "I'd hate to feel that you—"

The girl hurried to the door, where her brother stood watching her.

"Come on, Jim," she said. "We have to stop for Ellen."

She followed him down the narrow path to the gate, holding her crisp white skirts well away from the dew-drenched border. As the two emerged upon the road, lying white before them under the brilliant moonlight, Fanny glanced up timidly at her brother's dimly seen profile under the downward sweep of his hat-brim.

"It's real dusty, isn't it?" said she, by way of breaking a silence she found unbearable. "It'll make my shoes look horrid."

"Walk over on the side more," advised Jim laconically.

"Then I'll get in with all those weeds; they're covered with dust and wet, besides," objected Fanny.... "Say, Jim!"

"Well?"

"Wouldn't it be nice if we had an auto, then I could step in, right in front of the house, and keep as clean as—"

The young man laughed.

"Wouldn't you like an aeroplane better, Fan? I believe I would."

"You could keep it in the barn; couldn't you, Jim?"

"No," derided Jim, "the barn isn't what you'd call up-to-date. I require a hangar—or whatever you call 'em."

The girl smothered a sigh.

"If we weren't so poor—" she began.

"Well?"

"Oh—lots of things.... They say that Orr girl has heaps of money."

"Who says so?" demanded her brother roughly.

"Why, everybody. Joyce Fulsom told me her father said so; and he ought to know. Do you suppose—?"

"Do I suppose what?"

Jim's tone was almost savage.

"What's the matter with you, Jim?"

Fanny's sweet voice conveyed impatience, almost reproach. It was as if she had said to her brother, "You know how I must feel, and yet you are cross with me."

Jim glanced down at her, sudden relenting in his heart.

"I was just thinking it's pretty hard lines for both of us," said he. "If we were rich and could come speeding into town in a snappy auto, our clothes in the latest style, I guess things would be different. There's no use talking, Fan; there's mighty little chance for our sort. And if there's one thing I hate more than another it's what folks call sympathy."

"So do I!" cried Fanny. "I simply can't bear it to know that people are saying behind my back, 'There's poor Fanny Dodge; I wonder—' Then they squeeze your hand, and gaze at you and sigh. Even mother—I want you to tell mother I'm not—that it isn't true—I can't talk to her, Jim."

"I'll put her wise," said Jim gruffly.

After a pause, during which both walked faster than before, he said hurriedly, as if the words broke loose:

"Don't you give that fellow another thought, Fan. He isn't worth it!"

The girl started like a blooded horse under the whip. She did not pretend to misunderstand.

"I know you never liked him, Jim," she said after a short silence.

"You bet I didn't! Forget him, Fan. That's all I have to say."

"But—if I only knew what it was—I must have done something—said something— I keep wondering and wondering. I can't help it, Jim."

There was an irrepressible sob in the girl's voice.

"Come, Fan, pull yourself together," he urged. "Here's Ellen waiting for us by the gate. Don't for heaven's sake give yourself away. Keep a stiff upper lip, old girl!"

"Well, I thought you two were never coming!" Ellen's full rich voice floated out to them, as they came abreast of the Dix homestead nestled back among tall locust trees.

The girl herself daintily picked her way toward them among the weeds by the roadside. She uttered a little cry of dismay as a stray branch caught in her muslin skirts.

"That's the sign of a beau, Ellen," laughed Fanny, with extravagant gayety. "The bigger the stick the handsomer and richer the beau."

"What made you so late?" inquired Ellen, as all three proceeded on their way, the two girls linked affectionately arm in arm; Jim Dodge striding in the middle of the road a little apart from his companions.

"Oh, I don't know," fibbed Fanny. "I guess I was slow starting to dress. The days are so long now I didn't realize how late it was getting."

Ellen glanced sympathizingly at her friend.

"I was afraid you wouldn't want to come, Fanny," she murmured, "Seeing the social is at Mrs. Solomon Black's house."

"Why shouldn't I want to come?" demanded Fanny aggressively.

"Well, I didn't know," replied Ellen.

After a pause she said:

"That Orr girl has really bought the Bolton house; I suppose you heard? It's all settled; and she's going to begin fixing up the place right off. Don't you think it's funny for a girl like her to want a house all to herself. I should think she'd rather board, as long as she's single."

"Oh, I don't know about that," said Jim Dodge coolly.

"You folks'll get money out of it; so shall we," Ellen went on. "Everybody's so excited! I went down for the mail this afternoon and seemed to me 'most everybody was out in the street talking it over. My! I'd hate to be her tonight."

"Why?" asked Fanny shortly.

"Oh, I don't know. Everybody will be crowding around, asking questions and saying things.... Do you think she's pretty, Jim?"

"Pretty?" echoed the young man.

He shot a keen glance at Ellen Dix from under half-closed lids. The girl's big, black eyes were fixed full upon him; she was leaning forward, a suggestion of timid defiance in the poise of her head.

"Well, that depends," he said slowly. "No, I don't think she's pretty."

Ellen burst into a sudden trill of laughter.

"Well, I never!" she exclaimed. "I supposed all the men—"

"But I do think she's beautiful," he finished calmly. "There's a difference, you know."

Ellen Dix tossed her head.

"Oh, is there?" she said airily. "Well, I don't even think she's pretty; do you, Fan?—with all that light hair, drawn back plain from her forehead, and those big, solemn eyes. But I guess she thinks she's pretty, all right."

"She doesn't think anything about herself," said Jim doggedly. "She isn't that kind of a girl."

Ellen Dix bit a vexed exclamation short.

"I don't believe any of us know her very well," she said, after a pause. "You know what a gossip Lois Daggett is? Well, I met her and Mrs. Fulsom and Mrs. Whittle coming out of the Daggetts' house. They'd been talking it over; when they saw me they stopped me to ask if I'd been to see Miss Orr, and when I said no, not yet, but I was going, Lois Daggett said, 'Well, I do hope she won't be quite so close-mouthed with you girls. When I asked her, real sympathizing, who she was wearing black for, she said she had lost a dear friend and never even told who it was!'"

Jim Dodge threw back his head and burst into a laugh.

"Served her right," he said.

"You mean Lois?"

"You didn't suppose I meant Miss Orr; did you?"

Jim's voice held a disdainful note which brought the hot color to Ellen's cheeks.

"I'm not so stupid as you seem to think, Jim Dodge," she said, with spirit.

"I never thought you were stupid, Ellen," he returned quickly. "Don't make a mistake and be so now."

Ellen gazed at him in hurt silence. She guessed at his meaning and it humiliated her girlish pride.

It was Fanny who said somewhat impatiently: "I'm sure I can't think what you mean, Jim."

"Well, in my humble opinion, it would be downright stupid for you two girls to fool yourselves into disliking Lydia Orr. She'd like to be friends with everybody; why not give her a chance?"

Again Ellen did not reply; and again it was Fanny who spoke the words that rose to her friend's lips unuttered:

"I can't see how you should know so much about Miss Orr, Jim."

"I don't myself," he returned good-humoredly. "But sometimes a man can see through a woman better—or at least more fair-mindedly than another woman. You see," he added, "there's no sex jealousy in the way."

Both girls cried out in protest against this.

It wasn't so, they declared. He ought to be ashamed of himself! As for being jealous of any one—Fanny haughtily disclaimed the suggestion, with a bitterness which astonished her friend.

It was something of a relief to all three when the brilliantly illuminated house and grounds belonging to Mrs. Solomon Black came in view. Japanese lanterns in lavish abundance had been strung from tree to tree and outlined the piazza and the walk leading to the house.

"Doesn't it look lovely!" cried Ellen, scattering her vexation to the winds. "I never saw anything so pretty!"

Inside the house further surprises awaited them; the music of harp and violins stole pleasantly through the flower-scented rooms, which were softly lighted with shaded lamps the like of which Brookville had never seen before.

Mrs. Solomon Black, arrayed in a crisp blue taffeta, came bustling to meet them. But not before Fanny's swift gaze had penetrated the assembled guests. Yes! there was Wesley Elliot's tall figure. He was talking to Mrs. Henry Daggett at the far end of the double parlors.

"Go right up stairs and lay off your things," urged their hostess hospitably. "Ladies to the right; gents to the left. I'm so glad you came, Fanny. I'd begun to wonder—"

The girl's lip curled haughtily. The slight emphasis on the personal pronoun and the fervid squeeze of Mrs. Black's fat hand hurt her sore heart. But she smiled brilliantly.

"Thank you, Mrs. Black, I wouldn't have missed it for worlds!" she said coldly.



Chapter VII

"Does my hair look decent?" asked Ellen, as the two girls peered into the mirror together. "The dew does take the curl out so. It must be lovely to have naturally curly hair, like yours, Fanny. It looks all the prettier for being damp and ruffled up."

Fanny was pulling out the fluffy masses of curling brown hair about her forehead.

"Your hair looks all right, Ellen," she said absent-mindedly.

She was wondering if Wesley Elliot would speak to her.

"I saw that Orr girl," whispered Ellen; "she's got on a white dress, all lace, and a black sash. She does look pretty, Fanny; we'll have to acknowledge it."

"Ye-es," murmured Fanny who was drawing on a pair of fresh white gloves.

"You aren't going to wear those gloves down stairs, are you, Fan? I haven't got any."

"My hands are all stained up with currant jelly," explained Fanny hurriedly. "Your hands are real pretty, Ellen."

Ellen glanced down at her capable, brown hands, with their blunt finger-tips.

"Did you ever notice her hands, Fanny?"

Fanny shook her head.

"Her nails are cut kind of pointed, and all shined up. And her hands are so little and soft and white. I suppose a man—do you think Jim would notice that sort of thing, Fanny?"

Fanny snapped the fastenings of her gloves.

"Let's go down stairs," she suggested. "They'll be wondering what's become of us."

"Say, Fan!"

Ellen Dix caught at her friend's arm, her pretty face, with its full pouting lips and brilliant dark eyes upturned.

"Well?"

"Do you suppose— You don't think Jim is mad at me for what I said about her, do you?"

"I don't remember you said anything to make anybody mad. Come, let's go down, Ellen."

"But, Fan, I was wondering if that girl— Do you know I—I kind of wish she hadn't come to Brookville. Everything seems—different, already. Don't you think so, Fanny?"

"Oh, I don't know. Why should you think about it? She's here and there's no use. I'm going down, Ellen."

Fanny moved toward the stairs, her fresh young beauty heightened by an air of dignified reserve which Ellen Dix had failed to penetrate.

Wesley Elliot, who had by now reached the wide opening into the hall in the course of his progress among the guests, glanced up as Fanny Dodge swept the last step of the stair with her unfashionable white gown.

"Why, good evening, Miss Dodge," he exclaimed, with commendable presence of mind, seeing the heart under his waistcoat had executed an uncomfortable pas seul at sight of her.

He held out his hand with every appearance of cordial welcome, and after an instant's hesitation Fanny laid her gloved fingers in it. She had meant to avoid his direct gaze, but somehow his glance had caught and held her own. What were his eyes saying to her? She blushed and trembled under the soft dark fire of them. In that instant she appeared so wholly adorable, so temptingly sweet that the young man felt his prudent resolves slipping away from him one by one. Had they been alone—...

But, no; Ellen Dix, her piquant, provokingly pretty face tip-tilted with ardent curiosity, was just behind. In another moment he was saying, in the easy, pleasant way everybody liked, that he was glad to see Ellen; and how was Mrs. Dix, this evening? And why wasn't she there?

Ellen replied demurely that it had been given out on Sunday as a young people's social; so her mother thought she wasn't included.

They entered the crowded room, where Deacon Whittle was presently heard declaring that he felt just as young as anybody, so he "picked up mother and came right along with Joe." And Mrs. Daggett, whose placid face had lighted with pleasure at sight of Fanny and Ellen, proclaimed that when the day came for her to stay at home from a young folks' social she hoped they'd bury her, right off.

So the instant—psychological or otherwise—passed. But Fanny Dodge's heavy heart was beating hopefully once more.

"If I could only see him alone," she was thinking. "He would explain everything."

Her thoughts flew onward to the moment when she would come down stairs once more, cloaked for departure. Perhaps Wesley—she ventured to call him Wesley in her joyously confused thoughts—perhaps Wesley would walk home with her as on other occasions not long past. Jim, she reflected, could go with Ellen.

Then all at once she came upon Lydia Orr, in her simple white dress, made with an elegant simplicity which convicted every girl in the room of dowdiness. She was talking with Judge Fulsom, who was slowly consuming a huge saucer of ice-cream, with every appearance of enjoyment.

"As I understand it, my dear young lady, you wish to employ Brookville talent exclusively in repairing your house," Fanny heard him saying, between smacking mouthfuls.

And Lydia Orr replied, "Yes, if you please, I do want everything to be done here. There are people who can, aren't there?"

When she saw that Fanny had paused and was gazing at her doubtfully, her hand went out with a smile, wistful and timid and sincere, all at once. There was something so appealing in the girl's upturned face, an honesty of purpose so crystal-clear in her lovely eyes, that Fanny, still confused and uncertain whether to be happy or not, was irresistibly drawn to her. She thought for a fleeting instant she would like to take Lydia Orr away to some dim secluded spot and there pour out her heart. The next minute she was ready to laugh at herself for entertaining so absurd an idea. She glanced down at Lydia's ungloved hands, which Ellen Dix had just described, and reflected soberly that Wesley Elliot sat at table with those dainty pink-tipped fingers three times each day. She had not answered Ellen's foolish little questions; but now she felt sure that any man, possessed of his normal faculties, could hardly fail to become aware of Lydia Orr's delicate beauty.

Fanny compelled herself to gaze with unprejudiced eyes at the fair transparent skin, with the warm color coming and going beneath it, at the masses of blond hair drawn softly back from the high round forehead, at the large blue eyes beneath the long sweep of darker lashes, at the exquisite curve of the lips and the firmly modeled chin. Yes; Jim had seen truly; the ordinary adjective "pretty"—applicable alike to a length of ribbon, a gown, or a girl of the commoner type—could not be applied to Lydia Orr. She was beautiful to the discerning eye, and Fanny unwillingly admitted it.

Lydia Orr, unabashed by the girl's frank inspection, returned her gaze with beaming friendliness.

"Did you know I'd bought a house?" she asked. "It's old and needs a lot of repairing; so I was just asking Judge Fulsom—"

"Deacon Amos Whittle is, so to say, a contractor," said the Judge ponderously, "and so, in a way, am I."

"A contractor?" puzzled Lydia. "Yes; but I—"

"If you'll just give over everything into our hands connected with putting the old place into A-number-one shape, I think you'll find you can dismiss the whole matter from your mind. In two months' time, my dear young lady, we'll guarantee to pass the house over to you in apple-pie order, good as new, if not better.... Yes, indeed; better!"

The Judge eyed his empty saucer regretfully.

"That's the best ice cream—" he added with total irrelevance. "Have some, won't you? I hear they're passing it out free and permiscuous in the back room."

"I think we should like some cream, if you please, Judge Fulsom," said Lydia, "if you'll keep us company."

"Oh, I'll keep company with you, as far as strawberry ice cream's concerned," chuckled the Judge, his big bulk shaking with humor. "But I see Mis' Fulsom over there; she's got her weather eye on us. Now, watch me skeedaddle for that cream! Pink, white or brown, Miss Orr; or, all three mixed? There's a young fellow out there in charge of the freezers that sure is a wonder. How about you, Fanny?"

The two girls looked at each other with a smile of understanding as the big figure of the Judge moved ponderously away.

"We never had ice cream before at a church sociable," said Fanny. "And I didn't know Mrs. Solomon Black had so many lanterns. Did you buy all this?"

Her gesture seemed to include the shaded lamps, the masses of flowers and trailing vines, the gay strains of music, and the plentiful refreshments which nearly every one was enjoying.

"It's just like a regular party," she added. "We're not used to such things in Brookville."

"Do you like it?" Lydia asked, doubtfully.

"Why, of course," returned Fanny, the color rising swiftly to her face.

She had caught a glimpse of Wesley Elliot edging his way past a group of the younger boys and girls, mad with the revelry of unlimited cake and ice cream. He was coming directly toward their corner; his eyes, alas! fixed upon the stranger in their midst. Unconsciously Fanny sighed deeply; the corners of her smiling lips drooped. She appeared all at once like a lovely rose which some one has worn for an hour and cast aside.

"It's such a little thing to do," murmured Lydia.

Then, before Fanny was aware of her intention, she had slipped away. At the same moment Judge Fulsom made his appearance, elbowing his smiling way through the crowd, a brimming saucer of vari-colored ice cream in each hand.

"Here we are!" he announced cheerfully. "Had to get a habeas corpus on this ice cream, though. Why, what's become of Miss Orr? Gone with a handsomer man—eh?"

He stared humorously at the minister.

"Twa'n't you, dominie; seen' you're here. Had any ice cream yet? No harm done, if you have. Seems to be a plenty. Take this, parson, and I'll replevin another plate for myself and one for Miss Orr. Won't be gone more'n another hour."

Fanny, piteously tongue-tied in the presence of the man she loved, glanced up at Wesley Elliot with a timidity she had never before felt in his company. His eyes under close-drawn brows were searching the crowd. Fanny divined that she was not in his thoughts.

"If you are looking for Miss Orr," she said distinctly, "I think she has gone out in the kitchen. I saw Mrs. Solomon Black beckon to her."

The minister glanced down at her; his rash impulse of an hour back was already forgotten.

"Don't you think it's awfully warm in here?" continued Fanny.

A sudden desperate desire had assailed her; she must—she would compel him to some sort of an explanation.

"It's a warm evening," commented the minister. "But why not eat your cream? You'll find it will cool you off."

"I—I don't care much for ice cream," said Fanny, in a low tremulous voice.

She gazed at him, her dark eyes brimming with eager questions.

"I was wondering if we couldn't—it's pleasant out in the yard—"

"If you'll excuse me for just a moment, Miss Dodge," Wesley Elliot's tone was blandly courteous—"I'll try and find you a chair. They appear to be scarce articles; I believe the ladies removed most of them to the rear of the house. Pardon me—"

He set down his plate of ice cream on the top shelf of Mrs. Solomon Black's what-not, thereby deranging a careful group of sea-shells and daguerreotypes, and walked quickly away.

Fanny's face flushed to a painful crimson; then as suddenly paled. She was a proud girl, accustomed to love and admiration since early childhood, when she had queened it over her playmates because her yellow curls were longer than theirs, her cheeks pinker, her eyes brighter and her slim, strong body taller. Fanny had never been compelled to stoop from her graceful height to secure masculine attention. It had been hers by a sort of divine right. She had not been at all surprised when the handsome young minister had looked at her twice, thrice, to every other girl's once, nor when he had singled her out from the others in the various social events of the country side.

Fanny had long ago resolved, in the secret of her own heart, that she would never, never become the hard-worked wife of a plodding farmer. Somewhere in the world—riding toward her on the steed of his passionate desire—was the fairy prince; her prince, coming to lift her out from the sordid commonplace of life in Brookville. Almost from the very first she had recognized Wesley Elliot as her deliverer.

Once he had said to her: "I have a strange feeling that I have known you always." She had cherished the saying in her heart, hoping—believing that it might, in some vague, mysterious way, be true. And not at all aware that this pretty sentiment is as old as the race and the merest banality on the masculine tongue, signifying: "At this moment I am drawn to you, as to no other woman; but an hour hence it may be otherwise." ... How else may man, as yet imperfectly monogamous, find the mate for whom he is ever ardently questing? In this woman he finds the trick of a lifted lash, or a shadowy dimple in the melting rose of her cheek. In another, the stately curve of neck and shoulder and the somber fire of dark eyes draws his roving gaze; in a third, there is a soft, adorable prettiness, like that of a baby. He has always known them—all. And thus it is, that love comes and goes unbidden, like the wind which blows where it listeth; and woman, hearing the sound thereof, cannot tell whence it cometh nor whither it goeth.

In this particular instance Wesley Elliot had not chosen to examine the secret movements of his own mind. Baldly speaking, he had cherished a fleeting fancy for Fanny Dodge, a sort of love in idleness, which comes to a man like the delicate, floating seeds of the parasite orchid, capable indeed of exquisite blossoming; but deadly to the tree upon which it fastens. He had resolved to free himself. It was a sensible resolve. He was glad he had made up his mind to it before it was too late. Upon the possible discomfiture of Fanny Dodge he bestowed but a single thought: She would get over it. "It" meaning a quite pardonable fancy—he refused to give it a more specific name—for himself. To the unvoiced opinions of Mrs. Solomon Black, Mrs. Deacon Whittle, Ellen Dix, Mrs. Abby Daggett and all the other women of his parish he was wholly indifferent. Men, he was glad to remember, never bothered their heads about another man's love affairs....

The chairs from the sitting room had been removed to the yard, where they were grouped about small tables adequately illuminated by the moon and numerous Japanese lanterns. Every second chair appeared to be filled by a giggling, pink-cheeked girl; the others being suitably occupied by youths of the opposite sex—all pleasantly occupied. The minister conscientiously searched for the chair he had promised to fetch to Fanny Dodge; but it never once occurred to him to bring Fanny out to the cool loveliness of mingled moon and lantern-light. There was no unoccupied chair, as he quickly discovered; but he came presently upon Lydia Orr, apparently doing nothing at all. She was standing near Mrs. Black's boundary picket fence, shielded from the observation of the joyous groups about the little tables by the down-dropping branches of an apple-tree.

"I was looking for you!" said Wesley Elliot.

It was the truth; but it surprised him nevertheless. He supposed he had been looking for a chair.

"Were you?" said Lydia, smiling.

She moved a little away from him.

"I must go in," she murmured.

"Why must you? It's delightful out here—so cool and—"

"Yes, I know. But the others— Why not bring Miss Dodge out of that hot room? I thought she looked tired."

"I didn't notice," he said.... "Just look at that flock of little white clouds up there with the moon shining through them!"

Lydia glided away over the soft grass.

"I've been looking at them for a long time," she said gently. "I must go now and help cut more cake."

He made a gesture of disgust.

"They're fairly stuffing," he complained. "And, anyway, there are plenty of women to attend to all that. I want to talk to you, Miss Orr."

His tone was authoritative.

She turned her head and looked at him.

"To talk to me?" she echoed.

"Yes; come back—for just a minute. I know what you're thinking: that it's my duty to be talking to parishioners. Well, I've been doing that all the evening. I think I'm entitled to a moment of relaxation; don't you?"

"I'm a parishioner," she reminded him.

"So you are," he agreed joyously. "And I haven't had a word with you this evening, so far; so you see it's my duty to talk to you; and it's your duty to listen."

"Well?" she murmured.

Her face upturned to his in the moonlight wore the austere loveliness of a saint's.



"I wish you'd tell me something," he said, his fine dark eyes taking in every detail of delicate tint and outline. "Do you know it all seems very strange and unusual to me—your coming to Brookville the way you did, and doing so much to—to make the people here happy."

She drew a deep, sighing breath.

"I'm afraid it isn't going to be easy," she said slowly. "I thought it would be; but—"

"Then you came with that intention," he inferred quickly. "You meant to do it from the beginning. But just what was the beginning? What ever attracted your attention to this forlorn little place?"

She was silent for a moment, her eyes downcast. Then she smiled.

"I might ask you the same question," she said at last. "Why did you come to Brookville, Mr. Elliot?"

He made an impatient gesture.

"Oh, that is easily explained. I had a call to Brookville."

"So did I," she murmured. "Yes; I think that was the reason—if there must be a reason."

"There is always a reason for everything," he urged. "But you didn't understand me. Do you know I couldn't say this to another soul in Brookville; but I'm going to tell you: I wanted to live and work in a big city, and I tried to find a church—"

"Yes; I know," she said, unexpectedly. "One can't always go where one wishes to go, just at first. Things turn out that way, sometimes."

"They seemed to want me here in Brookville," he said, with some bitterness. "It was a last resort, for me. I might have taken a position in a school; but I couldn't bring myself to that. I'd dreamed of preaching—to big audiences."

She smiled at him, with a gentle sidewise motion of the head.

"God lets us do things, if we want to hard enough," she told him quite simply.

"Do you believe that?" he cried. "Perhaps you'll think it strange for me to ask; but do you?"

A great wave of emotion seemed to pass over her quiet face. He saw it alter strangely under his gaze. For an instant she stood transfigured; smiling, without word or movement. Then the inward light subsided. She was only an ordinary young woman, once more, upon whom one might bestow an indulgent smile—so simple, even childlike she was, in her unaffected modesty.

"I really must go in," she said apologetically, "and help them cut the cake."



Chapter VIII

Jim Dodge had been hoeing potatoes all day. It was hard, monotonous work, and he secretly detested it. But the hunting season was far away, and the growing potatoes were grievously beset by weeds; so he had cut and thrust with his sharp-bladed hoe from early morning till the sun burned the crest of the great high-shouldered hill which appeared to close in the valley like a rampart, off Grenoble way. As a matter of fact, the brawling stream which gave Brookville its name successfully skirted the hill by a narrow margin which likewise afforded space for the state road.

But the young man was not considering either the geographical contours of the country at large or the refreshed and renovated potato field, with its serried ranks of low-growing plants, as he tramped heavily crosslots toward the house. At noon, when he came in to dinner, in response to the wideflung summons of the tin horn which hung by the back door, he had found the two women of his household in a pleasurable state of excitement.

"We've got our share, Jim!" proclaimed Mrs. Dodge, a bright red spot glowing on either thin cheek. "See! here's the check; it came in the mail this morning."

And she spread a crackling bit of paper under her son's eyes.

"I was some surprised to get it so soon," she added. "Folks ain't generally in any great hurry to part with their money. But they do say Miss Orr paid right down for the place—never even asked 'em for any sort of terms; and th' land knows they'd have been glad to given them to her, or to anybody that had bought the place these dozen years back. Likely she didn't know that."

Jim scowled at the check.

"How much did she pay for the place?" he demanded. "It must have been a lot more than it was worth, judging from this."

"I don't know," Mrs. Dodge replied. "And I dunno as I care particularly, as long's we've got our share of it."

She was swaying back and forth in a squeaky old rocking-chair, the check clasped in both thin hands.

"Shall we bank it, children; or draw it all out in cash? Fanny needs new clothes; so do you, Jim. And I've got to have a new carpet, or something, for the parlor. Those skins of wild animals you brought in are all right, Jim, if one can't get anything better. I suppose we'd ought to be prudent and saving; but I declare we haven't had any money to speak of, for so long—"

Mrs. Dodge's faded eyes were glowing with joy; she spread the check upon her lap and gazed at it smilingly.

"I declare it's the biggest surprise I've had in all my life!"

"Let's spend every cent of it," proposed Fanny recklessly. "We didn't know we were going to have it. We can scrub along afterward the same as we always have. Let's divide it into four parts: one for the house—to fix it up—and one for each of us, to spend any way we like. What do you say, Jim?"

"I shouldn't wonder if Mrs. Deacon Whittle would furnish up her best parlor something elegant," surmised Mrs. Dodge. "She's always said she was goin' to have gilt paper and marble tops and electric blue plush upholstered furniture. I guess that'll be the last fair we'll ever have in that house. She wouldn't have everybody trampin' over her flowered Body-Brussels. I suppose we might buy some plush furniture; but I don't know as I'd care for electric blue. What do you think, son?"

Jim Dodge sat sprawled out in his chair before the half-set table. At this picture of magnificence, about to be realized in the abode of Deacon Amos Whittle, he gave vent to an inarticulate growl.

"What's the matter with you, Jim?" shrilled his mother, whose perpetually jangled nerves were capable of strange dissonances. "Anybody'd suppose you wasn't pleased at having the old Bolton place sold at last, and a little bit of all that's been owing to us since before your poor father died, paid off. My! If we was to have all that was coming to us by rights, with the interest money—"

"I'm hungry and tired, mother, and I want my dinner," said Jim brusquely. "That check won't hoe the potatoes; so I guess I'll have to do it, same as usual."

"For pity sake, Fanny!" cried his mother, "did you put the vegetables over to boil? I ain't thought of anything since this check came."

It appeared that Fanny had been less forgetful.

After his belated dinner, Jim had gone back to his potatoes, leaving his mother and sister deep in discussion over the comparative virtues of Nottingham lace and plain muslin, made up with ruffles, for parlor curtains.

"I really believe I'd rather spend more on the house than on clo'es at my age," he heard his mother saying, happily, as he strode away.

All during the afternoon, to the clink of myriad small stones against the busy blade of his hoe, Jim thought about Lydia Orr. He could not help seeing that it was to Lydia he owed the prospect of a much needed suit of clothes. It would be Lydia who hung curtains, of whatever sort, in their shabby best room. And no other than Lydia was to furnish Mrs. Whittle's empty parlor. She had already given the minister a new long-tailed coat, as Jim chose to characterize the ministerial black. His cheeks burned under the slanting rays of the afternoon sun with something deeper than an added coat of tan. Why should Lydia Orr—that slip of a girl, with the eyes of a baby, or a saint—do all this? Jim found himself unable to believe that she really wanted the Bolton place. Why, the house was an uninhabitable ruin! It would cost thousands of dollars to rebuild it.

He set his jaw savagely as he recalled his late conversation with Deacon Whittle. "The cheating old skinflint," as he mentally termed that worthy pillar of the church, had, he was sure, bamboozled the girl into buying a well-nigh worthless property, at a scandalous price. It was a shame! He, Jim Dodge, even now burned with the shame of it. He pondered briefly the possibilities of taking from his mother the check, which represented the pro rata share of the Dodge estate, and returning it to Lydia Orr. Reluctantly he abandoned this quixotic scheme. The swindle—for as such he chose to view it—had already been accomplished. Other people would not return their checks. On the contrary, there would be new and fertile schemes set on foot to part the unworldly stranger and her money.

He flung down his hoe in disgust and straightened his aching shoulders. The whole sordid transaction put him in mind of the greedy onslaught of a horde of hungry ants on a beautiful, defenseless flower, its torn corolla exuding sweetness.... And there must be some sort of reason behind it. Why had Lydia Orr come to Brookville?

And here, unwittingly, Jim's blind conjectures followed those of Wesley Elliot. He had told Lydia Orr he meant to call upon her. That he had not yet accomplished his purpose had been due to the watchfulness of Mrs. Solomon Black. On the two occasions when he had rung Mrs. Black's front door-bell, that lady herself had appeared in response to its summons. On both occasions she had informed Mr. Dodge tartly that Miss Orr wasn't at home.

On the occasion of his second disappointment he had offered to await the young lady's home-coming.

"There ain't no use of that, Jim," Mrs. Black had assured him. "Miss Orr's gone t' Boston to stay two days."

Then she had unlatched her close-shut lips to add: "She goes there frequent, on business."

Her eyes appeared to inform him further that Miss Orr's business, of whatever nature, was none of his business and never would be.

"That old girl is down on me for some reason or other," he told himself ruefully, as he walked away for the second time. But he was none the less resolved to pursue his hopefully nascent friendship with Lydia Orr.

He was thinking of her vaguely as he walked toward the house which had been his father's, and where he and Fanny had been born. It was little and low and old, as he viewed it indifferently in the fading light of the sunset sky. Its walls had needed painting so long, that for years nobody had even mentioned the subject. Its picturesquely mossy roof leaked. But a leaky roof was a commonplace in Brookville. It was customary to set rusty tin pans, their holes stopped with rags, under such spots as actually let in water; the emptying of the pans being a regular household "chore." Somehow, he found himself disliking to enter; his mother and Fanny would still be talking about the disposition of Lydia Orr's money. To his relief he found his sister alone in the kitchen, which served as a general living room. The small square table neatly spread for two stood against the wall; Fanny was standing by the window, her face close to the pane, and apparently intent upon the prospect without, which comprised a grassy stretch of yard flanked by a dull rampart of over-grown lilac bushes.

"Where's mother?" inquired Jim, as he hung his hat on the accustomed nail.

"She went down to the village," said Fanny, turning her back on the window with suspicious haste. "There was a meeting of the sewing society at Mrs. Daggett's."

"Good Lord!" exclaimed Jim. "What an opportunity!"

"Opportunity?" echoed Fanny vaguely.

"Yes; for talking it over. Can't you imagine the clack of tongues; the 'I says to her,' and 'she told me,' and 'what do you think!'"

"Don't be sarcastic and disagreeable, Jim," advised Fanny, with some heat. "When you think of it, it is a wonder—that girl coming here the way she did; buying out the fair, just as everybody was discouraged over it. And now—"

"How do you explain it, Fan?" asked her brother.

"Explain it? I can't explain it. Nobody seems to know anything about her, except that she's from Boston and seems to have heaps of money."

Jim was wiping his hands on the roller-towel behind the door.

"I had a chance to annex a little more of Miss Orr's money today," he observed grimly. "But I haven't made up my mind yet whether to do it, or not."

Fanny laughed and shrugged her shoulders.

"If you don't, somebody else will," she replied. "It was Deacon Whittle, wasn't it? He stopped at the house this afternoon and wanted to know where to find you."

"They're going right to work on the old place, and there's plenty to do for everybody, including yours truly, at four dollars a day."

"What sort of work?" inquired Fanny.

"All sorts: pulling down and building up; clearing away and replanting. The place is a jungle, you know. But four dollars a day! It's like taking candy from a baby."

"It sounds like a great deal," said the girl. "But why shouldn't you do it?"

Jim laughed.

"Why, indeed? I might earn enough to put a shingle or two on our own roof. It looks like honest money; but—"

Fanny was busy putting the finishing touches to the supper table.

"Mother's going to stop for tea at Mrs. Daggett's, and go to prayer meeting afterward," she said. "We may as well eat."

The two sat down, facing each other.

"What did you mean, Jim?" asked Fanny, as she passed the bread plate to her brother. "You said, 'It looks like honest money; but—'"

"I guess I'm a fool," he grumbled; "but there's something about the whole business I don't like.... Have some of this apple sauce, Fan?"

The girl passed her plate for a spoonful of the thick compound, and in return shoved the home-dried beef toward her brother.

"I don't see anything queer about it," she replied dully. "I suppose a person with money might come to Brookville and want to buy a house. The old Bolton place used to be beautiful, mother says. I suppose it can be again. And if she chooses to spend her money that way—"

"That's just the point I can't see: why on earth should she want to saddle herself with a proposition like that?"

Fanny's mute lips trembled. She was thinking she knew very well why Lydia Orr had chosen to come to Brookville: in some way unknown to Fanny, Miss Orr had chanced to meet the incomparable Wesley Elliot, and had straightway set her affections upon him. Fanny had been thinking it over, ever since the night of the social at Mrs. Solomon Black's. Up to the moment when Wesley—she couldn't help calling him Wesley still—had left her, on pretense of fetching a chair, she had instantly divined that it was a pretense, and of course he had not returned. Her cheeks tingled hotly as she recalled the way in which Joyce Fulsom had remarked the plate of melting ice cream on the top shelf of Mrs. Black's what-not:

"I guess Mr. Elliot forgot his cream," the girl had said, with a spark of malice. "I saw him out in the yard awhile ago talking to that Miss Orr."

Fanny had humiliated herself still further by pretending she didn't know it was the minister who had left his ice cream to dissolve in a pink and brown puddle of sweetness. Whereat Joyce Fulsom had giggled disagreeably.

"Better keep your eye on him, Fan," she had advised.

Of course she couldn't speak of this to Jim; but it was all plain enough to her.

"I'm going down to the village for awhile, Fan," her brother said, as he arose from the table. But he did not, as was his custom, invite her to accompany him.

After Jim had gone, Fanny washed the dishes with mechanical swiftness. Her mother had asked her if she would come to prayer meeting, and walk home with her afterwards. Not that Mrs. Dodge was timid; the neighborhood of Brookville had never been haunted after nightfall by anything more dangerous than whippoorwills and frogs. A plaintive chorus of night sounds greeted the girl, as she stepped out into the darkness. How sweet the honeysuckle and late roses smelled under the dew! Fanny walked slowly across the yard to the old summer-house, where the minister had asked her to call him Wesley, and sat down. It was very dark under the thick-growing vines, and after awhile tranquillity of a sort stole over the girl's spirit. She gazed out into the dim spaces beyond the summer-house and thought, with a curious detachment, of all that had happened. It was as if she had grown old and was looking back calmly to a girlhood long since past. She could almost smile at the recollection of herself stifling her sobs in her pillow, lest Jim should hear.

"Why should I care for him?" she asked herself wonderingly; and could not tell.

Then all at once she found herself weeping softly, her head on the rickety table.

Jim Dodge, too intently absorbed in his own confused thoughts to pay much attention to Fanny, had walked resolutely in the direction of Mrs. Solomon Black's house; from which, he reflected, the minister would be obliged to absent himself for at least an hour. He hoped Mrs. Black had not induced Lydia to go to the prayer meeting with her. Why any one should voluntarily go to a prayer meeting passed his comprehension. Jim had once attended what was known as a "protracted meeting," for the sole purpose of pleasing his mother, who all at once had appeared tearfully anxious about his "soul." He had not enjoyed the experience.

"Are you saved, my dear young brother?" Deacon Whittle had inquired of him, in his snuffling, whining, peculiarly objectionable tone.

"From what, Deacon?" Jim had blandly inquired. "You in for it, too?"

Whereat the Deacon had piously shaken his head and referred him to the "mourner's pew," with the hope that he might even yet be plucked as a brand from the burning.

Lydia had not gone to the prayer meeting. She was sitting on the piazza, quite alone. She arose when her determined visitor boldly walked up the steps.

"Oh, it is you!" said she.

An unreasonable feeling of elation arose in the young man's breast.

"Did you think I wasn't coming?" he inquired, with all the egotism of which he had been justly accused.

He did not wait for her reply; but proceeded with considerable humor to describe his previous unsuccessful attempts to see her.

"I suppose," he added, "Mrs. Solomon Black has kindly warned you against me?"

She could not deny it; so smiled instead.

"Well," said the young man, "I give you my word I'm not a villain: I neither drink, steal, nor gamble. But I'm not a saint, after the prescribed Brookville pattern."

He appeared rather proud of the fact, she thought. Aloud she said, with pardonable curiosity:

"What is the Brookville pattern? I ought to know, since I am to live here."

At this he dropped his bantering tone.

"I wanted to talk to you about that," he said gravely.

"You mean—?"

"About your buying the old Bolton place and paying such a preposterous price for it, and all the rest, including the minister's back-pay."

She remained silent, playing with the ribbon of her sash.

"I have a sort of inward conviction that you're not doing it because you think Brookville is such a pleasant place to live in," he went on, keenly observant of the sudden color fluttering in her cheeks, revealed by the light of Mrs. Solomon Black's parlor lamp which stood on a stand just inside the carefully screened window. "It looks," he finished, "as if you—well; it may be a queer thing for me to say; but I'll tell you frankly that when mother showed me the check she got today I felt that it was—charity."

She shook her head.

"Oh, no," she said quickly. "You are quite, quite in the wrong."

"But you can't make me believe that with all your money—pardon me for mentioning what everybody in the village is talking about— You'll have to convince me that the old Bolton place has oil under it, or coal or diamonds, before I—"

"Why should you need to be convinced of anything so unlikely?" she asked, with gentle coldness.

He reddened angrily.

"Of course it's none of my business," he conceded.

"I didn't mean that. But, naturally, I could have no idea of coal or oil—"

"Well; I won't work for you at any four dollars a day," he said loudly. "I thought I'd like to tell you."

"I don't want you to," she said. "Didn't Deacon Whittle give you my message?"

He got hurriedly to his feet with a muttered exclamation.

"Please sit down, Mr. Dodge," she bade him tranquilly. "I've been wanting to see you all day. But there are so few telephones in Brookville it is difficult to get word to people."

He eyed her with stubborn resentment.

"What I meant to say was that four dollars a day is too much! Don't you know anything about the value of money, Miss Orr? Somebody ought to have common honesty enough to inform you that there are plenty of men in Brookville who would be thankful to work for two dollars a day. I would, for one; and I won't take a cent more."

She was frowning a little over these statements. The stalwart young man in shabby clothes who sat facing her under the light of Mrs. Solomon Black's well-trimmed lamp appeared to puzzle her.

"But why shouldn't you want to earn all you can?" she propounded at last. "Isn't there anything you need to use money for?"

"Oh, just a few things," he admitted grudgingly. "I suppose you've noticed that I'm not exactly the glass of fashion and the mold of form."

He was instantly ashamed of himself for the crude personality.

"You must think I'm a fool!" burst from him, under the sting of his self-inflicted lash.

She smiled and shook her head.

"I'm not at all the sort of person you appear to think me," she said. Her grave blue eyes looked straight into his. "But don't let's waste time trying to be clever: I want to ask you if you are willing, for a fair salary, to take charge of the outdoor improvements at Bolton House."

She colored swiftly at sight of the quizzical lift of his brows.

"I've decided to call my place 'Bolton House' for several reasons," she went on rapidly: "for one thing, everybody has always called it the Bolton place, so it will be easier for the workmen and everybody to know what place is meant. Besides, I—"

"Yes; but the name of Bolton has an ill-omened sound in Brookville ears," he objected. "You've no idea how people here hate that man."

"It all happened so long ago, I should think they might forgive him by now," she offered, after a pause.

"I wouldn't call my house after a thief," he said strongly. "There are hundreds of prettier names. Why not—Pine Court, for example?"

"You haven't told me yet if you will accept the position I spoke of."

He passed his hand over his clean-shaven chin, a trick he had inherited from his father, and surveyed her steadily from under meditative brows.

"In the first place, I'm not a landscape gardener, Miss Orr," he stated. "That's the sort of man you want. You can get one in Boston, who'll group your evergreens, open vistas, build pergolas and all that sort of thing."

"You appear to know exactly what I want," she laughed.

"Perhaps I do," he defied her.

"But, seriously, I don't want and won't have a landscape-gardener from Boston—with due deference to your well-formed opinions, Mr. Dodge. I intend to mess around myself, and change my mind every other day about all sorts of things. I want to work things out, not on paper in cold black and white; but in terms of growing things—wild things out of the woods. You understand, I'm sure."

The dawning light in his eyes told her that he did.

"But I've had no experience," he hesitated. "Besides, I've considerable farm-work of my own to do. I've been hoeing potatoes all day. Tomorrow I shall have to go into the cornfield, or lose my crop. Time, tide and weeds wait for no man."

"I supposed you were a hunter," she said. "I thought—"

He laughed unpleasantly.

"Oh, I see," he interrupted rudely: "you supposed, in other words, that I was an idle chap, addicted to wandering about the woods, a gun on my shoulder, a cur—quite as much of a ne'er-do-well as myself—at my heels. Of course Deacon Whittle and Mrs. Solomon Black have told you all about it. And since you've set about reforming Brookville, you thought you'd begin with me. Well, I'm obliged to you; but—"

The girl arose trembling to her feet.

"You are not kind!" she cried. "You are not kind!"

They stood for an instant, gazing into each other's eyes during one of those flashes of time which sometimes count for years.

"Forgive me," he muttered huskily. "I'm a brute at best; but I had no business to speak to you as I did."

"But why did you say—what made you ever think I'd set about reforming—that is what you said—reforming—Brookville? I never thought of such a thing! How could I?"

He hung his head, abashed by the lightning in her mild eyes.

She clasped her small, fair hands and bent toward him.

"And you said you wanted to be—friends. I hoped—"

"I do," he said gruffly. "I've told you I'm ashamed of myself."

She drew back, sighing deeply.

"I don't want you to feel—ashamed," she said, in a sweet, tired voice. "But I wish—"

"Tell me!" he urged, when she did not finish her sentence.

"Do you think everybody is going to misunderstand me, as you have?" she asked, somewhat piteously. "Is it so strange and unheard of a thing for a woman to want a home and—and friends? Isn't it allowable for a person who has money to want to pay fair wages? Why should I scrimp and haggle and screw, when I want most of all to be generous?"

"Because," he told her seriously, "scrimping, haggling and screwing have been the fashion for so long, the other thing rouses mean suspicions by its very novelty. It's too good to be true; that's all."

"You mean people will suspect—they'll think there's something—"

She stood before him, her hands fallen at her sides, her eyes downcast.

"I confess I couldn't believe that there wasn't an ulterior motive," he said honestly. "That's where I was less noble than you."

She flashed a sudden strange look at him.

"There is," she breathed. "I'm going to be honest—with you. I have—an ulterior motive."

"Will you tell me what it is?"

Her lips formed the single word of denial.

He gazed at her in silence for a moment.

"I'm going to accept the post you just offered me, Miss Orr; at any salary you think I'm worth," he said gravely.

"Thank you," she murmured.

Steps and the sound of voices floated across the picket fence. The gate rasped on its rusted hinges; then slammed shut.

"If I was you, Mr. Elliot," came the penetrating accents of Mrs. Solomon Black's voice, "I should hire a reg'lar reviv'list along in th' fall, after preservin' an' house-cleanin' time. We need an outpourin' of grace, right here in Brookville; and we can't get it no other way."

And the minister's cultured voice in reply:

"I shall give your suggestion the most careful consideration, Mrs. Black, between now and the autumn season."

"Great Scott!" exclaimed Jim Dodge; "this is no place for me! Good night, Miss Orr!"

She laid her hand in his.

"You can trust me," he said briefly, and became on the instant a flitting shadow among the lilac bushes, lightly vaulting over the fence and mingling with the darker shadows beyond.



Chapter IX

"Now, Henry," said Mrs. Daggett, as she smilingly set a plate of perfectly browned pancakes before her husband, which he proceeded to deluge with butter and maple syrup, "are you sure that's so, about the furniture? 'Cause if it is, we've got two or three o' them things right in this house: that chair you're settin' in, for one, an' upstairs there's that ol' fashioned brown bureau, where I keep the sheets 'n' pillow slips. You don't s'pose she'd want that, do you?"

Mrs. Daggett sank down in a chair opposite her husband, her large pink and white face damp with moisture. Above her forehead a mist of airy curls fluttered in the warm breeze from the open window.

"My, ain't it hot!" she sighed. "I got all het up a-bakin' them cakes. Shall I fry you another griddleful, papa?"

"They cer'nly do taste kind o' moreish, Abby," conceded Mr. Daggett thickly. "You do beat the Dutch, Abby, when it comes t' pancakes. Mebbe I could manage a few more of 'em."

Mrs. Daggett beamed sincerest satisfaction.

"Oh, I don't know," she deprecated happily. "Ann Whittle says I don't mix batter the way she does. But if you like 'em, Henry—"

"Couldn't be beat, Abby," affirmed Mr. Daggett sturdily, as he reached for his third cup of coffee.

The cook stove was only a few steps away, so the sizzle of the batter as it expanded into generous disks on the smoking griddle did not interrupt the conversation. Mrs. Daggett, in her blue and white striped gingham, a pancake turner in one plump hand, smiled through the odorous blue haze like a tutelary goddess. Mr. Daggett, in his shirt-sleeves, his scant locks brushed carefully over his bald spot, gazed at her with placid satisfaction. He was thoroughly accustomed to having Abby wait upon his appetite.

"I got to get down to the store kind of early this morning, Abby," he observed, frowning slightly at his empty plate.

"I'll have 'em for you in two shakes of a lamb's tail, papa," soothed Mrs. Daggett, to whom the above remark had come to signify not merely a statement of fact, but a gentle reprimand. "I know you like 'em good and hot; and cold buckwheat cakes certainly is about th' meanest vict'als.... There!"

And she transferred a neat pile of the delicate, crisp rounds from the griddle to her husband's plate with a skill born of long practice.

"About that furnitur'," remarked Mr. Daggett, gazing thoughtfully at the golden stream of sweetness, stolen from leaf and branch of the big sugar maples behind the house to supply the pewter syrup-jug he suspended above his cakes, "I guess it's a fact she wants it, all right."

"I should think she'd rather have new furniture; Henry, they do say the house is going to be handsome. But you say she wants the old stuff? Ain't that queer, for anybody with means."

"Well, that Orr girl beats me," Mr. Daggett acknowledged handsomely. "She seems kind of soft an' easy, when you talk to her; but she's got ideas of her own; an' you can't no more talk 'em out of her—"

"Why should you try to talk 'em out of her, papa?" inquired Mrs. Daggett mildly. "Mebbe her ideas is all right; and anyhow, s'long as she's paying out good money—"

"Oh, she'll pay! she'll pay!" said Mr. Daggett, with a large gesture. "Ain't no doubt about her paying for what she wants."

He shoved his plate aside, and tipped back in his chair with a heavy yawn.

"She's asked me to see about the wall paper, Abby," he continued, bringing down his chair with a resounding thump of its sturdy legs. "And she's got the most outlandish notions about it; asked me could I match up what was on the walls."

"Match it up? Why, ain't th' paper all moldered away, Henry, with the damp an' all?"

"'Course it is, Abby; but she says she wants to restore the house—fix it up just as 'twas. She says that's th' correct thing to do. 'Why, shucks!' I sez, 'the wall papers they're gettin' out now is a lot handsomer than them old style papers. You don't want no old stuff like that,' I sez. But, I swan! you can't tell that girl nothing, for all she seems so mild and meachin'. I was wonderin' if you couldn't shove some sense into her, Abby. Now, I'd like th' job of furnishin' up that house with new stuff. 'I don't carry a very big stock of furniture,' I sez to her; but—"

"Why, Hen-ery Daggett!" reproved his wife, "an' you a reg'lar professing member of the church! You ain't never carried no stock of furniture in the store, and you know it."

"That ain't no sign I ain't never goin' to, Abby," retorted Mr. Daggett with spirit. "We been stuck right down in the mud here in Brookville since that dratted bank failed. Nobody's moved, except to the graveyard. And here comes along a young woman with money ... I'd like mighty well to know just how much she's got an' where it come from. I asked the Judge, and he says, blamed if he knows.... But this 'ere young female spells op-per-tunity, Abby. We got to take advantage of the situation, Abby, same as you do in blackberrying season: pick 'em when they're ripe; if you don't, the birds and the bugs'll get 'em."

"It don't sound right to me, papa," murmured his wife, her kind face full of soft distress: "Taking advantage of a poor young thing, like her, an' all in mourning, too, fer a near friend. She told Lois so ... Dear, dear!"

Mr. Daggett had filled his morning pipe and was puffing energetically in his efforts to make it draw.

"I didn't say take advantage of her," he objected. "That's somethin' I never done yet in my business, Abby. Th' Lord knows I don't sand my sugar nor water my vinegar, the way some storekeepers do. I'm all for 'live an' let live.' What I says was—... Now, you pay attention to me, Abby, and quit sniffling. You're a good woman; but you're about as soft as that there butter! ..."

The article in question had melted to a yellow pool under the heat. Mrs. Daggett gazed at it with wide blue eyes, like those of a child.

"Why, Henry," she protested, "I never heerd you talk so before."

"And likely you won't again. Now you listen, Abby; all I want, is to do what honest business I can with this young woman. She's bound to spend her money, and she's kind of took to me; comes into th' store after her mail, and hangs around and buys the greatest lot o' stuff— 'Land!' I says to her: 'a body'd think you was getting ready to get married.'"

"Well, now I shouldn't wonder—" began Mrs. Daggett eagerly.

"Don't you get excited, Abby. She says she ain't; real pointed, too. But about this wall paper; I don't know as I can match up them stripes and figures. I wisht you'd go an' see her, Abby. She'll tell you all about it. An' her scheme about collecting all the old Bolton furniture is perfectly ridiculous. 'Twouldn't be worth shucks after kickin' 'round folk's houses here in Brookville for the last fifteen years or so."

"But you can't never find her at home, Henry," said Mrs. Daggett. "I been to see her lots of times; but Mis' Solomon Black says she don't stay in the house hardly long enough to eat her victuals."

"Why don't you take the buggy, Abby, and drive out to the old place?" suggested Mr. Daggett. "Likely you'll find her there. She appears to take an interest in every nail that's drove. I can spare the horse this afternoon just as well as not."

"'Twould be pleasant," purred Mrs. Daggett. "But, I suppose, by rights, I ought to take Lois along."

"Nope," disagreed her husband, shaking his head. "Don't you take Lois; she wouldn't talk confiding to Lois, the way she would to you. You've got a way with you, Abby. I'll bet you could coax a bird off a bush as easy as pie, if you was a mind to."

Mrs. Daggett's big body shook with soft laughter. She beamed rosily on her husband.

"How you do go on, Henry!" she protested. "But I ain't going to coax Lydia Orr off no bush she's set her heart on. She's got the sweetest face, papa; an' I know, without anybody telling me, whatever she does or wants to do is all right."

Mr. Daggett had by now invested his portly person in a clean linen coat, bearing on its front the shining mark of Mrs. Daggett's careful iron.

"Same here, Abby," he said kindly: "whatever you do, Abby, suits me all right."

The worthy couple parted for the morning: Mr. Daggett for the scene of his activities in the post office and store; Mrs. Daggett to set her house to rights and prepare for the noon meal, when her Henry liked to "eat hearty of good, nourishing victuals," after his light repast of the morning.

"Guess I'll wear my striped muslin," said Mrs. Daggett to herself happily. "Ain't it lucky it's all clean an' fresh? 'Twill be so cool to wear out buggy-ridin'."

Mrs. Daggett was always finding occasion for thus reminding herself of her astonishing good fortune. She had formed the habit of talking aloud to herself as she worked about the house and garden.

"'Tain't near as lonesome, when you can hear the sound of a voice—if it is only your own," she apologized, when rebuked for the practice by her friend Mrs. Maria Dodge. "Mebbe it does sound kind of crazy— You say lunatics does it constant—but, I don't know, Maria, I've a kind of a notion there's them that hears, even if you can't see 'em. And mebbe they answer, too—in your thought-ear."

"You want to be careful, Abby," warned Mrs. Dodge, shaking her head. "It makes the chills go up and down my back to hear you talk like that; and they don't allow no such doctrines in the church."

"The Apostle Paul allowed 'em," Mrs. Daggett pointed out, "so did the Psalmist. You read your Bible, Maria, with that in mind, and you'll see."

In the spacious, sunlighted chamber of her soul, devoted to the memory of her two daughters who had died in early childhood, Mrs. Daggett sometimes permitted herself to picture Nellie and Minnie, grown to angelic girlhood, and keeping her company about her lonely household tasks in the intervals not necessarily devoted to harp playing in the Celestial City. She laughed softly to herself as she filled two pies with sliced sour apples and dusted them plentifully with spice and sugar.

"I'd admire to see papa argufying with that sweet girl," she observed to the surrounding silence. "Papa certainly is set on having his own way. Guess bin' alone here with me so constant, he's got kind of willful. But it don't bother me any; ain't that lucky?"

She hurried her completed pies into the oven with a swiftness of movement she had never lost, her sweet, thin soprano soaring high in the words of a winding old hymn tune:

Lord, how we grovel here below, Fond of these trifling toys; Our souls can neither rise nor go To taste supernal joys! ...

It was nearly two o'clock before the big brown horse, indignant at the unwonted invasion of his afternoon leisure, stepped slowly out from the Daggett barn. On the seat of the old-fashioned vehicle, to which he had been attached by Mrs. Daggett's skillful hands, that lady herself sat placidly erect, arrayed in her blue and white striped muslin. Mrs. Daggett conscientiously wore stripes at all seasons of the year: she had read somewhere that stripes impart to the most rotund of figures an appearance of slimness totally at variance with the facts. As for blue and white, her favorite combination of stripes, any fabric in those colors looked cool and clean; and there was a vague strain of poetry in Mrs. Daggett's nature which made her lift her eyes to a blue sky filled with floating white clouds with a sense of rapturous satisfaction wholly unrelated to the state of the weather.

"G'long, Dolly!" she bade the reluctant animal, with a gentle slap of leathern reins over a rotund back. "Git-ap!"

"Dolly," who might have been called Caesar, both by reason of his sex and a stubbornly dominant nature, now fortunately subdued by years of chastening experience, strode slowly forward, his eyes rolling, his large hoofs stirring up heavy clouds of dust. There were sweet-smelling meadows stacked with newly-cured hay on either side of the road, and tufts of red clover blossoms exhaling delicious odors of honey almost under his saturnine nose; but he trotted ponderously on, sullenly aware of the gentle hand on the reins and the mild, persistent voice which bade him "Git-ap, Dolly!"

Miss Lois Daggett, carrying a black silk bag, which contained a prospectus of the invaluable work which she was striving to introduce to an unappreciative public, halted the vehicle before it had reached the outskirts of the village.

"Where you going, Abby?" she demanded, in the privileged tone of authority a wife should expect from her husband's female relatives.

"Just out in the country a piece, Lois," replied Mrs. Daggett evasively.

"Well, I guess I'll git in and ride a ways with you," said Lois Daggett. "Cramp your wheel, Abby," she added sharply. "I don't want to git my skirt all dust."

Miss Daggett was wearing a black alpaca skirt and a white shirtwaist, profusely ornamented with what is known as coronation braid. Her hair, very tightly frizzed, projected from beneath the brim of her straw hat on both sides.

"I'm going out to see if I can catch that Orr girl this afternoon," she explained, as she took a seat beside her sister-in-law. "She ought to want a copy of Famous People—in the best binding, too. I ain't sold a leather-bound yit, not even in Grenoble. They come in red with gold lettering. You'd ought to have one, Abby, now that Henry's gitting more business by the minute. I should think you might afford one, if you ain't too stingy."

"Mebbe we could, Lois," said Mrs. Daggett amiably. "I've always thought I'd like to know more about famous people: what they eat for breakfast, and how they do their back hair and—"

"Don't be silly, Abby," Miss Daggett bade her sharply. "There ain't any such nonsense in Famous People! I wouldn't be canvassing for it, if there was." And she shifted her pointed nose to one side with a slight, genteel sniff.

"Git-ap, Dolly!" murmured Mrs. Daggett, gently slapping the reins.

Dolly responded by a single swift gesture of his tail which firmly lashed the hated reminder of bondage to his hind quarters. Then wickedly pretending that he was not aware of what had happened he strolled to the side of the road nearest the hay field.

"Now, if he ain't gone and got his tail over the lines!" cried Mrs. Daggett indignantly. "He's got more resistin' strength in that tail of his'n—wonder if I can—"

She leaned over the dashboard and grasped the offending member with both hands.

"You hang onto the lines, Lois, and give 'em a good jerk the minute I loosen up his tail."

The subsequent failure of this attempt deflected the malicious Dolly still further from the path of duty. A wheel cramped and lifted perilously.

Miss Daggett squealed shrilly:

"He'll tip the buggy over—he'll tip the buggy over! For pity's sake, Abby!"

Mrs. Daggett stepped briskly out of the vehicle and seized the bridle.

"Ain't you ashamed?" she demanded sternly. "You loosen up that there tail o' yourn this minute!"

"I got 'em!" announced Miss Daggett, triumphantly. "He loosened right up."

She handed the recovered reins to her sister-in-law, and the two ladies resumed their journey and their conversation.

"I never was so scared in all my life," stated Lois Daggett, straightening her hat which had assumed a rakish angle over one ear. "I should think you'd be afraid to drive such a horse, Abby. What in creation would have happened to you if I hadn't been in the buggy?"