"I'm so glad I haven't named the plane yet," said Ben impulsively. "You shall name it."

"There's no name good enough," she replied—"unless—unless we name it for that carrier pigeon that was such a hero in the War. We might name it Cher Ami."

"Good," declared Ben. "It is surely a homing bird."

"And such a cher ami to me," added Geraldine fervently.

Ben wondered if this marvelous girl never smiled.

"You were going to tell me how the ogre was able to force you to marry him," he said.

"Yes; I don't like to tell you. It is very sad, and he crushed me with it." The girl's lips trembled for a silent moment, and Cupid alone knows how Ben longed to kiss them, close to him as they were.

"He said that my father forged two checks, and that he only refrained from prosecuting him because of me. He said my father had promised that he should have me."

Ben scowled, and the dark eyes fixed upon him brightened with sudden eagerness. "But that was a lie—about father giving me to him. I have Daddy's letter here." She felt again inside her blouse. "You will have to know everything—how my poor father was his own worst enemy and came to rely for money on that impossible man."

She took out the letter and gave it to Ben and he read it in silence.

"Probably it was a lie also about the checks," he said when he had finished.

"No, oh, no," she replied earnestly. "He showed me those. He said that my father was held in affectionate remembrance at his clubs and among his friends, and that he could ruin all that and hold him up to contempt as a criminal, unless—unless I married him." Geraldine's bosom heaved convulsively. "I have been wild with joy ever since you came," she declared. "If I ever go to heaven I can't be happier than I was flying up from that meadow where there seemed a curse even on the poor little wild flowers but you can see how it is going to keep coming over me in waves that perhaps I have done wrong. You see, Daddy tells me not to consider him; but should I not guard his name in spite of that? That is the question that will keep coming up to me. Nevertheless"—she made a gesture of despair—"if I went through with it—if I married Mr. Carder, I'm sure I should lose all control and kill myself. I'm sure of it."

Here Ben gave rein to the dastardly instinct which occasionally causes a poor mortal to fling all conscience to the winds when he sees an unexpected opportunity to attain a longed-for prize.

"For you to become his wife cannot be right," declared Ben, endeavoring to speak with mature and legal poise; "but as you say, that heartrending doubt of your duty may attack you at times. How would it be to put it beyond your power to yield to his wishes by marrying some one else—me, for instance?"

Geraldine regarded the speaker with grief and reproach. "Can you joke about my trouble?" She turned away and he suspected hurt tears.

"Miss Melody—Geraldine." What Ben had fondly hoped was the judicial manner disappeared in a whirlwind of words. "I'm in earnest! I've thought of nothing but you since the day I saw you with that cut-throat. It's my highest desire to guard you, to make you happy. Give me the right, and every day of my life will prove it. Of course, I saw that Carder had some hold over you. I've spent all my time ever since that day trying to ferret out facts that could give me some hold on him. I haven't found them. The fox has always left himself a loophole. Marry me to-day: now: before we go home. I'm well known in the town yonder. I can arrange it. Marry me, and whatever comes you will be safe from him. Geraldine!"

The girl's gaze was fixed on the flushed face and glowing eyes beside her and she leaned as far away from him as possible.

"You really mean it?" she said when he paused.

"As I never meant anything before in my life."

"Have you a mother?"

"The best on earth."

"And yet you would do this to her, just because I have nice eyes."

It was a frigid bucket of water, but Ben stood up under it.

"Yes, I could give her nothing better."

"You don't even know me," said Geraldine. "How strange men are."

"Yes, those you hate; but how about me? You said you liked me."

At this the girl did smile, and the effect was so wonderful that it knocked what little sense Ben Barry had left into oblivion.

"Love at first sight is a fact," he declared. "No one believes it till he's hit, but then there's no questioning. You looked that day as if you would have liked to speak to me—yes"—boldly—"as if to escape Carder you would have mounted that motor-cycle with me and we should have done that Tennyson act, you know—'beyond the earth's remotest rim the happy princess followed him'—or something like that. I don't know it exactly but I'm going to learn it from start to finish and read law afterward. I've dreamed of you all night and worked for you all day ever since and yet I haven't accomplished anything!"

"Haven't!" exclaimed Geraldine. "You've done the most wonderful thing in the world."

"Oh, well, Cher Ami did that. Tell me you'll let me take care of you always, and knock Carder's few remaining teeth down his throat if he ever comes in sight. Tell me you do—you like me a little."

Geraldine's entrancing smile was still lighting her pensive eyes.

"Oh, no, I don't like you. How can I? People don't like utter strangers. One feels worship, adoration for a creature that drops from the skies, and lifts a wretched helpless girl out of torturing captivity into the free sweet air of heaven."

"Well, that'll do," returned Ben, nodding. "Adoration and worship will do to begin with. Let us go over to the village and be married—my beautiful darling."

Geraldine colored vividly under this escape of her companion's ungovernable steam, but she did not change her expression.

"I certainly shall not do that," she answered quietly.

Ben relaxed his tense, appealing posture.

"Well, then," he said, drawing a long breath, "if you positively decline the trap—oh, it was a trap all right—if you are determined to postpone the wedding, I'll tell you that I really don't believe your father forged those checks."

"Oh, Mr. Barry—" the girl leaned toward him.

"Ben, or I won't go on."

"Ben, then. It is no sort of a name compared to the one I have been giving you. I've been calling you Sir Galahad."

Ben smiled at her blissfully. "Nice," he said. "I don't believe Miss Upton went beyond that."

"Oh, please go on, Mr. Barry—Ben—Sir Galahad."

"Why couldn't our cheerful friend have shown you any checks he drew to your father's name and claim that they were forged?"

Geraldine's eyes shone. "I never thought of that."

"Of course I cannot be sure of it. I would far rather get something definite on the old scamp."

Geraldine shuddered. "He is so cruel. He is so rough to that poor little fellow Pete. Think what I owe that boy! He managed to get your message to me even when threatened with his master's whip. Mr. Carder saw you speaking to him and questioned him."

"Oh, you mean that nut who took my letter?"

"The hero who took your letter. He had to lie outside my door every night to keep me from escaping, and he slipped your message under it. Where should I be now but for him? Poor child, he is as friendless as I am"—Geraldine interrupted herself with a grateful look at her companion—"as I was, I mean. He had to follow me and guard me wherever I went, always keeping at a distance, because he mustn't speak to me and the ogre was always watching. How I thank Heaven," added Geraldine fervently, "that Mr. Carder himself had called Pete off duty for the first time before the—the archangel swooped down from the sky."

"I'm getting on," said Ben. "If you keep on promoting me, I'll arrive first thing you know."

"I should honestly be wretched if I had to think Mr. Carder was blaming Pete for my escape. The boy did tell me his life depended on my safety."

"Well, I don't understand," said Ben with a puzzled frown. "Who lies in front of Pete's door? Why does he stay there? Why doesn't he light out some time between two days?"

"Oh, Mr. Carder has told him no one would employ him, that Pete would starve but for him. Did you notice how ragged and neglected he looked?"

"He looked like a nut. I was afraid he was so stupid that you would never receive the message." Ben looked thoughtful. "How long has he lived at the farm?"

"For years. Mrs. Carder took him from the orphan asylum when he was a child. She thought he would be more useful than a girl. They keep him as a slave. You saw how very bow-legged he is. He can't get about normally, but he drives the car and helps in the kitchen and does every sort of menial task. There was such a look in his eyes always when he saw me. Little as I could do for him, or even speak to him, I'm afraid he is missing me terribly." Geraldine's look suddenly grew misty. "See how faithful he was about Daddy's letter. Poor little Pete. Mr. Carder will be out of his mind at my flight. I hope he doesn't visit it on that poor boy."

"Well," said Ben, heroically refraining from putting his arms around her, "why don't we take him?"

"We? Take Pete? How wonderful!" she returned, her handkerchief pausing in mid-air.

"Sure thing, if you want him. Send him to the barber and have his hair mowed. Have some trousers cut out for him with a circular saw and fix him up to the queen's taste."

"Oh, Mr. Barry—Ben! You don't know what you're saying. It would give me more relief than I can express, for the boy's lot is so miserable and starved."

"Well, then, that is settled, my princess."

"But you can't get him. I can't help feeling that anyone who has lived there so long, and been so unconsidered and unnoticed, must know more than Mr. Carder wishes to have go to the outside world. His mother hinted some things." Geraldine gasped with reminiscent horror of that low-ceiled kitchen.

Her companion suddenly looked very alert. "Highly probable," he returned. "Why didn't you say that before? We certainly will take Pete in. What are his habits? You say he drives the car."

"Yes, he did until he was set to dog my movements. I often heard it referred to. Do you mean—you could never get him in this blessed chariot. He will probably never see the meadow again unless they send him to get the cows."

Ben shook his head. "No; I think he will have to be bagged some other way. What's the matter with my going back to the farm on my motor-cycle and engaging him, overbidding the ogre?"

Geraldine actually clasped her hands on the leathern arm beside her. "Promise me," she said fervently, looking into her companion's eyes—"promise me that you will never go back to that farm alone."

"You want to go with me?"

"Don't joke. Promise me solemnly."

Ben's lips took a grave line and he put one hand over the beseeching ones.

"Then what will you promise me?" he returned.

The blood mantled high over the girl's face. "You're taking me to Miss Upton, aren't you?" she returned irrelevantly.

"Yes, if you positively refuse still to go to the parson."

The expression of her anxious eyes grew inscrutable.

"I want your mother to love me," she said naively.

Ben lifted her hands and held them to his lips.

"You haven't promised," she said softly. "I know he suspects you now. I think he is a madman when he is angry."

"Very well, I promise." Ben released her hands and smiled down with adoring eyes. "Now, we will go home," he said.

Again the great bird rose and winged its way between heaven and earth.

Now it was not as before when Geraldine's whole being had seemed absorbed in flight and freedom. The earth was before her and a new life. She had a lover. Wonderful, sweet, incredible fact. A good man, Miss Upton said. Could it be that never again desolation and fear should sicken her heart; that like the princess of the tales her great third day had come and brought her love as well as liberty? Happiness deluged her, flushed her cheeks, and shone in her eyes. She longed and dreaded to alight again upon that earth which had never shown her kindness. Could it be possible that she should reign queen in a good man's heart? For so many years she had been habitually in the background, kept there either by her stepmother's will or her own desire to hide her shabbiness, and when need had at last forced her to initiative, she had received such humiliating stabs from the greed of men—could it be that she was to walk surrounded by protection, and love, and respect?

She closed her eyes. Spring, sunlight, joy coursed through every vein. When at last they began again to dip toward earth, the question surged through her: "Shall I ever be so happy again?"

And now Miss Upton's figure loomed large and gracious in the foreground of her thoughts. She longed for the refuge of her kindly arms until she could gather herself together in the new era of safety and peace.

The plane touched the earth, ran a little way toward an arched building, and stopped.

Ben jumped out, and Geraldine exclaimed over the beauty of a rose-tinted cloud of blossoms.

"Yes. Pretty orchard, isn't it?" he said. He unstrapped her safety belt and lifted her out of the cockpit. Her eager eyes noted that they were at the back of a large brick dwelling.

"Is Miss Upton here?" she asked while her escort took off her leather coat and her helmet. The latter had been pushed on and off once too often. The wonder of her golden hair fell over the poor little white cotton gown and Ben repressed his gasp of admiration.

"Oh, this is dreadful," she said, putting her hands up helplessly.

"Don't touch it," exclaimed her companion quickly. "You can't do anything with it anyway. There isn't a hairpin in the hangar. Miss Upton will love to see it. She will take care of it."

"Oh, I can't. How can I!" exclaimed Geraldine.

"Certainly, that's all right," said Ben hastily. "Miss Upton is right here. She will take you into the house and make you comfy. Let me put this around you."

He took the crepe shawl and put it about her shoulders, lifting out the shining gold that fell over the fringes.

"I know it is very old-fashioned and queer," said Geraldine, pulling the wrap over the grass stains and looking up into his eyes with a childlike appeal that made him set his teeth. "It was my mother's and you said 'white.' It was all I had."

Miss Upton had come to Mrs. Barry's to receive her protegee provided Ben could bring her. The two ladies were sitting out under the trees waiting. Miss Mehitable had obeyed Ben, and some days since had given Mrs. Barry the young girl's story, and that lady had received it courteously and with the tempered sympathy which one bestows on the absolutely unknown.

Miss Upton's excitement when she heard the humming of the aeroplane and saw it approaching in the distance baffles description. She had been forcing herself to talk on other subjects, perceiving clearly that her hostess was what our English friends would term fed up on the subject of the girl with the fanciful name; but now she clasped her plump hands and caught her breath.

"Well, she ain't killed, anyway," she said. She longed to rush back to the landing-place, but instinctively felt that such action on the part of a guest would be indecorous. She hoped Mrs. Barry would suggest it, but such a move was evidently far from that lady's thought. She sat in her white silken gown, with sewing in her lap, the picture of unruffled calm.

Miss Upton swallowed and kept her eyes on the approaching plane. "She ain't killed, anyway," she repeated.

"Nor Ben either," remarked Mrs. Barry, drawing the fine needle in and out of her work. "He is of some importance, isn't he?"

"Oh, do you suppose he got her, Mrs. Barry?" gasped Miss Mehitable.

"Ben would be likely to," returned that lady, who had been somewhat tried by her son's preoccupation in the last few days and considered the adventure a rather annoying interlude in their ordered life.

"Why don't she say let's go and see! How can she just set there as cool as a cucumber!" thought Miss Mehitable, squeezing the blood out of her hands.

The plane descended, the humming ceased. Miss Upton sat on the edge of her chair looking excitedly at the figure in white who embroidered serenely. Moments passed with the tableau undisturbed; then:

"Oh! Oh!" exclaimed Miss Mehitable, still holding a rein over herself, mindful that she was not the hostess.

Mrs. Barry looked up. She was a New Englander of the New Englanders, conservative to her finger tips. Ben was her only son, the light of her eyes. If what she saw was startling, it can hardly be wondered at.

There came through the pink cloud of the apple blossoms her aviator son looking handsomer than she had ever beheld him, leading a girl in white-fringed crepe that clung in soft folds to her slenderness. All about her shoulders fell a veil of golden hair, and her appealing eyes glowed in a face at once radiant and timid.

Mrs. Barry started up from her chair.

"Mother!" cried Ben as they approached, "I told you I should bring her from the stars."

The hostess advanced a step mechanically, Miss Mehitable followed close. Geraldine gazed fascinated at the tall, regal woman, whose habitually formal manner took on an additional stiffness.

"This is Miss Melody, I believe." Mrs. Barry held out her smooth, fair hand. "I hear you have passed through a very trying experience," she said with cold courtesy. "I am glad you are safe."

The light went out of the girl's eager eyes. The color fled from her face. She had endured too many extremes of emotion in one day. Miss Mehitable extended her arms to her with a yearning smile. Geraldine glided to her and quietly fainted away on that kindly breast.

"Poor lamb, poor lamb," murmured Miss Mehitable, and Ben, frowning, exclaimed: "Here, let me take her!"

He gathered her up in his arms and carried her into the house and laid her on a divan, Miss Upton panting after his long strides and his mother deliberately bringing up the rear. Mrs. Barry knew just what to do and she did it, while Miss Upton wrung her hands above the recumbent white figure. When the long eyelashes flickered on the pallid cheek, Ben spoke commandingly: "I'll take her upstairs. She must be put to bed."

Miss Mehitable came to herself with a rush. "Not here," she said decidedly. "If you'll let me have the car, Mrs. Barry, we'll be out of your way in five minutes."

Ben looked at his mother, who was still cool and unexcited; and the expression on his face was a new one for her to meet.

"She isn't fit to be moved, Mother, and Miss Upton hasn't room. Miss Melody is exhausted. She has had a frightful experience," he said sternly.

If he had appealed she might have been touched, but it is doubtful. The grass stains, the quaint shawl, the hair that was rippling down to the rug, were none of them part of her visions of a daughter-in-law, and, at any rate, Ben shouldn't look at her like that—at her! for the sake of a friendless waif whose existence he had not suspected one week ago.

Miss Upton, understanding the situation perfectly, saved the hostess the trouble of replying.

"It won't hurt her a bit to drive as far as my house after she's been caperin' all over the sky!" she exclaimed, seizing Geraldine's hands.

The girl heard the declaration and essayed to rise while her eyes fixed on the round face bending over her.

"I want to go with you," she said.

"And you're going, my lamb," returned Miss Mehitable.

"Certainly, you shall have the car," said Mrs. Barry suavely.

She wished to send word to the chauffeur, she wished to give Geraldine tea, she was entirely polite and sufficiently solicitous, but her heir looked terrible things, and, bringing around the car, himself drove the guests to Miss Upton's Fancy Goods and Notions.

Geraldine declined his help to walk to the door of the shop. Miss Upton had her arm around her, and though the girl was pale she gave her rescuer a look full of gratitude; and when he pressed her hand she answered the pressure and restored a portion of his equanimity.

"I never, never shall forget this happiest day of my life," she said.

"And don't forget we are going to get Pete," he responded eagerly, holding her hand close, "and everything is going to come out right."

"Yes"—she looked doubtful and frightened; "but if you get Pete don't let your mother see him. She is—she couldn't bear it."

"Don't judge her, Geraldine," he begged. "She is glorious. Ask Miss Upton. Just a little—a little shy at first, you know. Miss Upton, you explain, won't you?"

"Don't fret, Ben," said Miss Mehitable. "You're the best boy on earth, and I want to hear all about it, for I'm sure you did something wonderful to get her."

"Yes, wonderful, Miss Upton!" echoed Geraldine, with another heart-warming smile at her deliverer whose own smile lessened and died as he walked back to his car. By the time he entered it he was frowning, thinking of his "shy" mother.



CHAPTER XI

Mother and Son

Miss Upton had looked upon the parting amenities of the two young people with beaming approval; and Geraldine's first words when they were alone astonished her.

As soon as they were inside the shop and the door closed, the young girl looked earnestly into her friend's eyes. Miss Mehitable returned her regard affectionately. The golden hair had been wound up and secured with Mrs. Barry's hairpins.

"I wish there were some way by which I need never see him again," she said.

"Why, Miss Melody, child, what do you mean? Every word I told you in my letter was true. Perhaps you never got it, but I told you that he is the finest—"

"Yes, yes, I believe it," was the hasty reply. "I did receive your letter, and some time I'll tell you how, and what a comfort it was to me. Oh, Miss Upton"—the girl threw her arms around the stout figure—"I can't tell you what it means to me for you to take me in; and this is your shop you told me of—" she released Miss Mehitable and looked about—"and I'm going to tend it for you and help you in every way I can. It is paradise—paradise to me, Miss Upton."

Her fervor brought a lump to her companion's throat, but she knew that Mrs. Whipp was listening from the sitting-room, and Miss Mehitable did love peace.

"Yes, yes, dear child; it'll all come out right," she said vaguely, patting the white shoulder. "I have another good helper and I want you to meet her. Come with me." She led the girl through the shop.

Mrs. Whipp had retreated violently from the front window when she saw the closed car drive up, and now she was standing, at bay as it were, with eyes fixed on the doorway through which her employer would bring the stranger. Pearl was placidly purring in the last rays of the sinking sun, her milk-white paws tucked under her soft breast, the only unexcited member of the family.

Mrs. Whipp had excuse for staring as the young girl came into view. Short wisps of golden hair waved about her face. Her beauty struck a sort of awe to the militant woman, who was standing on a mental fence in armed neutrality holding herself ready to spring down on that side which would regard the stranger as an interloper come to sponge on Miss Upton, or possibly she might descend upon the other side and endure the newcomer passively.

"This is our little girl, Charlotte," said Miss Mehitable; "our little girl to take care of, and who wants to take care of us. This is Mrs. Whipp, Geraldine."

Charlotte blinked as the newcomer's face relaxed in her appealing smile, and she came forward and took Mrs. Whipp's hard, unexpectant hand in her soft grasp. "Such a fortunate girl I am, Mrs. Whipp," she said, "I'm sure I shall inconvenience you at first (this fact had been too plainly legible on the weazened face to be ignored), but I will try to make up for it—try my very best, and it may not be for long."

Charlotte mumbled some inarticulate greeting, falling an instant victim to the young creature's humility and loveliness.

"I look very queer, I know," continued Geraldine, "but you see I just came down out of the sky."

"She really did," put in Miss Upton. "She came in Mr. Barry's areoplane."

"Shan't I die!" commented Mrs. Whipp, continuing to stare with a pertinacity equal to Rufus Carder's own. "I believe it. She looks like an angel," she thought. Miss Mehitable watched her melting mood with inward amusement.

"What a beautiful cat!" said Geraldine. "She's tame, isn't she? Will she let you touch her?"

"Well," said Charlotte with a broader smile than had been seen on her countenance for many a day, "I guess they don't have cats in the sky." She lifted Pearl and bestowed her in Geraldine's arms.

The girl met the lazy, golden eyes rather timorously, but she took her.

"All the cats where—where I was—were wild—and no one—no one fed them, you see."

"Well, this cat is named Pearl," said Miss Mehitable. "She's Charlotte's jewel and you can bet she does get fed. How about us, Charlotte?" She turned to the waiting table. "I want to give Miss Melody her supper and put her to bed, and after she has slept twelve hours we'll get her to tell us how it feels to fly. Thank Heaven, she's here with no broken bones."

Meanwhile Ben Barry had reached home and made a rather formal toilet for the evening meal. Even before his mother saw it, she knew she was going to be disciplined. While the waitress remained in the room the young man's gravity and meticulous politeness would have intimidated most mothers with a conscience as guilty as Mrs. Barry's. She was forced to raise her napkin several times, not to dry tears, but to conceal smiles which would have been sure to add fuel to the flame.

She showed her temerity by soon dismissing the servant. Her son met her twinkling eyes coldly. She leaned across the table toward him and revealed the handsome teeth he had inherited.

"Now, Benny, don't be ridiculous," she said.

This beginning destroyed his completely. He arrived at his climax at once.

"How could you be so heartless!" he exclaimed. "She had told me she wanted you to love her. Your coldness shocked her."

This appeal, so pathetic to the speaker, caused Mrs. Barry again to raise her napkin to her rebellious lips.

"I tell you," went on Ben heatedly, "she has been through so much that the surprise and humiliation of your manner made her faint."

"Now, dear, be calm. Didn't I bring her to again? Didn't I do up her hair—it's beautiful, but I like it better wound up, in company—didn't I want to give her—"

"Do you suppose," interrupted Ben more hotly, "do you suppose she wasn't conscious, and hurt, too, by her unconventional appearance?"

He was arraigning his parent now with open severity.

"How about my shock, Ben? I'm old-fashioned, you know. You come, leading that odd little waif and displaying so much—well, enthusiasm, wasn't it—wasn't the whole thing a little extreme?"

"Yes, the situation was certainly very extreme. An old rascal had managed to capture that flower of a girl, and made her believe that to save her dead father's good name she must marry him. I come along with the Scout and pick her up out of a field where she was walking, he running, and yelling, and firing his gun at us. There was scarcely time for her to put on a traveling costume to accord with your ideas of decorum, was there?"

Mrs. Barry's eyes widened as they gazed into his accusing ones.

"How dreadful," she said.

"Yes; and even in all her relief at escaping, Miss Melody was in doubt as to whether she was not deserting her father's cause—torn, as the books say, with conflicting emotions. You may think it was all very pleasant."

"Benny, I think it was dreadful! Awfully hard for you, dear; and, oh, that wretch might have disabled the plane and hurt you! Why did I ever let you have it?"

"To save her! That's why you let me have it."

His mother regarded his glowing face. "What a wretched mess!" she was thinking. "What a bother that the girl is so pretty!"

"You remember the other evening when I came home from that motor-cycle trip, and the next day Miss Upton came and told you Miss Melody's story?"

"Yes, dear." Mrs. Barry added apologetically, "I'm afraid I didn't pay strict attention."

"Well, it is a pity that you did not, for I've known ever since that day that Geraldine Melody is the only girl I shall ever marry."

His mother's heart beat faster as she marked the expression in those steady, young eyes.

There was silence for a space between them. She was the first to speak, and she did so with a cool, unsmiling demeanor which reminded him of childhood days when he was in disgrace.

"Then you care nothing for what sort of mind and character are possessed by your future wife. The skin-deep part is all that interests you."

"That's what she said," he responded quickly. "I suggested that she put affairs in a shape where it would be of no use for an irritating conscience to try to make trouble. I urged her to marry me this afternoon before we came home."

Mrs. Barry's nonchalance deserted her with a rush. Her face became crimson.

"How—how criminal!" she ejaculated.

"That's what she said," returned Ben. "She asked if I hadn't a mother. I told her I had a glorious one; and she just looked at me and said: 'And you would do that to her just because I have nice eyes.'"

Mrs. Barry bit her lip and did not love the waif the more that she had been able to defend her.

"What is the use of being a mother!" she ejaculated. "What is the use of expending your whole heart's love on a boy for his lifetime, when he will desert you at the first temptation!"

"Well, she wouldn't let me, dear," said Ben more gently, flushing and feeling his first qualm. "I would stake my life that she is as beautiful within as without and that you would have a treasure as well as I. It wasn't deserting you. I was thinking of you. I felt she was worthy of you and no one else is."

"This is raving, Ben," said his mother, quiet again. "He has escaped," she thought, "and now nothing will come of it." She raised her drooping head and again regarded him deprecatingly. "Let us talk of something else," she added.

"No," he returned firmly; "not until you understand that I am entirely in earnest. You had your love-affair, now I am having mine, and I am going through with it, openly and in the sight of all men. I urged her a second time to marry me this afternoon, and she looked at me soberly with those glorious eyes and her only answer was: 'I want your mother to love me.'" Ben looked off reminiscently. "It encouraged me to hope that she cares for me a little that your coldness bowled her over so completely."

Mrs. Barry looked at him helplessly, and this time when she put up her napkin she touched a corner of her eye.

"We stopped at the landing-field at Townley and had our talk," he went on.

"And she seemed refined?" Mrs. Barry's voice was a little uncertain.

"Exquisite!" he exclaimed.

"You have standards, Ben," she said. "You couldn't be totally fooled by beauty."

He smiled upon her for the first time and a very warming light shone in his eyes. "The best," he replied, leaning toward her. "You."

She drew a long, quavering breath; but she scorned weeping women.

Ben watched her repressed emotion.

"Now you examine, Mother," he said gently. "Take your New England magnifying-glass along, and when she will see you, put her to the test."

"When she will see me? What do you mean?" asked Mrs. Barry quickly.

"Well"—Ben shrugged his shoulders—"we'll see. How much she was hurt, how long it will last, I don't know, of course. You can try."

"Try!" repeated the queen of Keefe, her handsome face coloring faintly above her white silken gown.

"Yes. Miss Upton will be a good go-between, when she is placated. You saw the partisan in her."

Of course, it was all very absurd, as Mrs. Barry told herself when they arose from the table; but there was no denying that her throne was tottering. Her boy was no longer all hers. Bitter, bitter discovery for most mothers to make even when the rival is not Miss Nobody from Nowhere.

The next morning betimes Ben presented himself at the Emporium. He drove up in his roadster and rushed in upon Miss Upton with an arm full of apple blossoms.

"How is she?" he inquired eagerly.

"Hush, hush! I think she's goin' to sleep again. She's had her breakfast."

"Mother sent her these," he went on, laying the fragrant mass on the counter behind which Miss Mehitable was piling up goods for packing.

She looked at him and the corners of her mouth drew down. "Ben Barry, what do you want to tell such a lie for?"

"Because I think it sounds nice," he returned, unabashed. "Really, I think she would if she dared, you know. We had it out last night. Now what are you going to do about Miss Melody's clothes?"

"Yes, what am I?" said Miss Upton. "Say, Ben"—she gave his arm a push and lowered her voice—"what do you s'pose Charlotte's doin'? She's out in the shed washin' and ironin' Geraldine's clothes." She lifted her plump shoulders and nudged Ben again. They both laughed.

"Good for Lottie!" remarked Ben.

"Oh, she's in love, just in love," said Miss Mehitable. "It's too funny to see her. She wants to wait on the child by inches; but clothes—Ben! You should have seen Geraldine in my—a—my—a wrapper last night!" Miss Mehitable gave vent to another stifled chuckle. "She was just lost in it, and we had to hunt for her and fish her out and put her into something of Charlotte's. Charlotte was tickled to death." Again the speaker's cushiony fist gave Ben's arm an emphatic nudge.

He smiled sympathetically. "I suppose so," he said; "but aren't you going to town to-day to buy her some things?"

"What with?" Miss Upton grew sober and extended both hands palms upward. "I've been thinkin' about it while I was workin' here. She's got to have clothes. I shouldn't wonder if some o' my customers had things they could let us have. Once your mother would 'a' been my first thought."

"Hand-me-downs?" said Ben, flushing. "Nothing doing. Surely you have credit at the stores."

"Yes, I have, but it's my habit to pay my bills," was the defiant reply, "and that girl needs everything. I can't buy 'em all."

Ben patted her arm. "Don't speak so loud, you'll wake the baby. You buy the things, Mehit. I'll see that they're paid for."

"How your mother'd love that!"

"My mother will have nothing to do with it."

"Why, you ain't even self-supportin' yet," declared Miss Upton bluntly. "'T ain't anything to your discredit, of course; you ain't ready," she added kindly.

Ben's steady eyes kept on looking into hers and his low voice replied: "My father died suddenly, you remember. He had destroyed one will and not yet made another. I have money of my own, quite a lot of it, to tell the truth. Now if you'd just let me fly you over to town—"

Miss Mehitable started. "Fly me over, you lunatic!"

"Well, let us go in the train, then. I'll go with you. I know in a general way just what she ought to wear. Soft silky things and a—a droopy hat."

"Ben Barry, you've taken leave o' your senses. Don't you know that everything I get her, that poor child will want to pay for—work, and earn the money? If I buy anything for her, it's goin' to be somethin' she can pay for before she's ninety."

Ben sighed. "All right, Mehit! have it your own way, only get a move. I can't take her out till she gets a hat."

"You haven't got to take her out," retorted Miss Upton decidedly. "She don't want to go out with you. It was only last night she was sayin' she wished she might never see you again."

"Huh!" ejaculated Ben. "Poor girl, I'm sorry for her, then. She is going to stumble over me every time she turns around. She is going to see me till she cries for mercy."

He smiled into Miss Upton's doubtful, questioning face for a silent space.

"Don't worry about that," he said at last. "Just go upstairs and put on your duds, like the dear thing you are, and get the next train." The speaker looked at his watch. "You can catch it all right."

"I never heard o' such a thing," said Miss Mehitable. She had made her semi-annual trip to the city. The idea of going back again with no preparation was startling—and also expensive.

Ben perceived that if there were to be any initiative here he would have to furnish it.

"You don't expect to open the shop again until you have moved, do you?"

"No," admitted Miss Upton reluctantly.

"Then you can take your time. Take these flowers upstairs, ask her what size things she wears, and hurry up and catch the train."

Miss Upton brought her gaze back from its far-away look and she appeared to come to herself. "Look here, Ben Barry, I'm not goin' to be crazy just because you are. Her clean clothes'll be all ready for her by night. I can buy her a sailor hat right here in the village and maybe a jacket. She's got to go to town with me. The idea of buyin' a lot of clothes and maybe not havin' 'em right."

"You're perfectly correct, Miss Upton."

The young man took out his pocket-book and handed his companion a bill. "This is for your fares," he said.

Miss Mehitable's troubled brow cleared even while she blushed, seeing that he had read her thoughts.

"I don't know as this is exactly proper, Ben," she said doubtfully.

"Take my word for it, it is," he replied. "Let me be your conscience for a few weeks. I may not see you for a day or two. I have another little job of kidnapping on hand; so I put you on your honor to do your part."

He was gone, and Miss Upton, placing the sturdy stems of the apple blossoms in a pitcher of water, carried them upstairs. She tiptoed into the room where Geraldine was in bed, but the girl was awake and gave an exclamation of delight.

"Have you an apple tree, too?" she asked.

"No, Mr. Barry brought these over."

The girl's face sobered as she buried it in the blooms Miss Upton offered. Miss Mehitable looked admiringly at the golden braids hanging over the pillows.

"Do you feel rested?" she asked.

"Perfectly, and I know I have taken your bed. To-night we will make me a nice nest on the floor."

Miss Upton smiled. "Oh, I've got a cot. We'll do all right. Do you s'pose there is any way we could get your clothes from that fiend on the farm?" she added.

Geraldine shrank and shook her head. "I wouldn't dare try," she replied.

"Then you and I've got to go to town to-morrow," said Miss Upton, "and get you something."

The girl returned her look seriously and caught her lip under her teeth for a silent space.

"Yes, I know what you're thinkin'," said Miss Mehitable cheerfully; "but the queerest thing and the nicest thing happened to me this mornin'. I got some money that I didn't expect. Just in the nick o' time, you see. We can go to town and—"

Geraldine reached up a hand and took that of her friend, her face growing eager.

"How splendid!" she exclaimed. "Then we will go and get me the very simplest things I can get along with and we'll keep account of every cent and I will pay it all back to you. Do you know I think this bed of yours is full of courage? At any rate, when I waked up this morning I found all my hopefulness had come back. I feel that I am going to make my living and not be a burden on anyone. It's wonderful to feel that way!"

"Of course you are, child." Miss Upton patted the hand that grasped hers. "But first off, you'll have to help me move. I've got a lot o' packin' to do, you understand. I'm movin' my shop to Keefeport. I always do summers."

For answer Geraldine, who had been leaning on her elbow, sat up quickly, evidently with every intention of rising.

"Get back there," laughed Miss Mehitable. "Your clothes ain't ironed yet. I'll move the apple blossoms up side of you—"

"Don't, please," said Geraldine, as she lay down reluctantly. "I think I'd rather they would keep their distance—like their owner."

"Now, child," said Miss Mehitable coaxingly. "Mrs. Barry's one o' the grandest women in the world. I felt pretty hot myself yesterday—I might as well own it—but that'll all smooth over. She didn't mean a thing except that she was surprised."

"We can't blame her for that," returned Geraldine, "but—but—I'm sorry he brought the flowers. I wonder if you couldn't make him understand—very kindly, you know, Miss Upton, that I want to be—just to be forgotten."

Miss Upton pursed her lips and her eyes laughed down into the earnest face. "I'm afraid, child, I don't know any language that could make him understand that."

Geraldine did not smile. She felt that in those intense hours of yesterday, freed from every convention of earth, they two had lived a lifetime. She would rather dwell on its memory henceforth than run the risk of any more shocks. Peace and forgetfulness. That is what she felt she needed from now on.

"He said he was goin' on another kidnappin' errand now," remarked Miss Upton.

The girl looked up quickly from her introspection. A startled look sprang into her eyes and she sat up in bed.

"Oh, Miss Upton, you know him!" she exclaimed, gazing at her friend. "Does he keep solemn promises?"

"I'm sure he does, child. What's the matter now?"

"He promised me—oh, he promised me, he wouldn't go back to that farm alone." The girl's eyes filled with tears that overflowed on her suddenly pale cheeks.

Miss Mehitable sat down on the edge of the bed and patted her, while Geraldine wiped the drops away with the long sleeve of Charlotte's unbleached nightgown. "Then he won't, dear, don't you worry," she said comfortingly. "Where's that courage you were talkin' about just now?"

"That was for myself," said the girl grievously, accepting the handkerchief Miss Upton gave her.

"Who else does he want out o' that God-forsaken place?" asked Miss Upton impatiently. "I wish to goodness that boy could stay put somewhere."

"It's a servant, a dwarf, a poor little friendless boy who was kind to me there. If it hadn't been for him I shouldn't be here now. I should be dying—there! Mr. Barry is going to get him and bring him away. Oh, why didn't I prevent him!" Geraldine broke down completely, weeping broken-heartedly into the handkerchief.

Miss Upton smiled over her head. She knew nothing of Rufus Carder's shot-gun, and she was thinking of Geraldine's earnest request that Ben Barry should forget her.

"Now, stop that right away, my child," she said, enjoying herself hugely. She had seen Ben Barry's heart in his eyes as he came walking under the apple blossoms yesterday and this revelation of Geraldine's was most pleasing.

"Stop cryin'," she said with authority. "Ben Barry's just as smart as he is brave. He ain't goin' to take any foolish risk now that you're safe. I don't know what he wants the boy for, but probably it's some good reason; and if you don't stop workin' yourself up, you won't be fit to go to town to-morrow. I want you should stay in bed all day. Now, you behave yourself, my lamb. Ben'll come back all right."

Geraldine flushed through her tears. It was heavenly to be scolded by someone who loved her.

She looked at the pitcher exiled to the bureau. "I—I think you might as well move the apple blossoms here," she said, wiping her eyes and speaking meekly.

"All right," said Miss Mehitable, beaming, and she proceeded to set a light stand beside the bed and placed the rosy mass upon it.

Toward night came a parcel-post package for Miss Geraldine Melody. Miss Upton and Charlotte both stood by with eager interest while the girl sat up in bed and opened it. None of the three had ever seen such a box of bon-bons as was disclosed. It was a revelation of dainty richness, and the older women exclaimed while Geraldine bowed her fair head over this new evidence of thoughtfulness. The long sleeves of Charlotte's nightgown, the patchwork quilt of the bed, the homely surroundings, all made the contrast of the gift more striking. There was a card upon it. Ben Barry's card: Geraldine turned it over and read: "Is the princess happy?"

She was back among the clouds, the bright spring air flowing past her, each breath a wonderful memory.

The two women looked at one another. They saw her close her hand on the card. She lifted the box to them, and raised her pensive eyes.

"It is for us all," she said softly; but her ardent thought was repeating:

"He would—he will take care of himself, for me!"



CHAPTER XII

The Transformation

Into the village nearest the Carder farm rolled Ben Barry's roadster. He stopped at the inn which made some pretension to furnishing entertainment to the motorists who found it on their route, and after a luncheon put up his car and walked to the village center to the post-office and grocery store. He had most hope of the latter as a bureau of information.

After buying some cigarettes and chocolate, and exchanging comments on the weather with the proprietor, he introduced his subject.

"I believe Rufus Carder lives near here," he remarked.

"Yus, oh, yus," agreed the man, who was in his shirt-sleeves, and who here patronized the cuspidor.

"He's pretty well-to-do, I understand. I should suppose if he is public-spirited his being in the neighborhood would be a great advantage to the village."

"Yus, if," returned the grocer, scornfully. "The bark on a tree ain't a circumstance to him. Queer now, ain't it?" he went on argumentatively. "Carder's a rich man, and so many o' these-here rich men, they act as if they wasn't ever goin' to die. Where's the satisfaction in not usin' their money? You know him?" The speaker cocked an eye up at the handsome young stranger.

"I—I've met him," returned Ben.

"You might be interested, then, to hear about what happened out to the farm yisterday. P'r'aps it'll be in the paper to-night. A young girl visitin' the Carders was kidnapped right out o' the field by an areoplane. Yes, sir, slick as a whistle." Ben's look of interest and amazement rewarded the narrator. "One o' the hands from the farm come in last night and told about it, but the editor o' the paper thought't was a hoax and he didn't dare to work on it last night. Lots of us saw the plane, but the feller's story did sound fishy, and if the Sunburst—that's our paper—should print a lot o' stuff about Carder shootin' guns and foamin' at the mouth when he saw the girl he was goin' to marry fly up into the sky and't wa'n't so—ye see, 't would go mighty hard with our editor."

"Why didn't he send somebody right out to the farm to inquire?" asked Ben.

The grocer smiled, looked off, and shook his head.

"You say you've met Rufus Carder? Well, ye don't know him or else ye wouldn't ask that. Don't monkey with the buzz-saw is a pretty good motter where he's concerned. I'm lookin' fer Pete now. This is his day to come in an' stock up. He's so stupid he couldn't make up anything, and we'll know fer sure if there's any truth at all in the story."

"Who is Pete—a son?" Ben put the question calmly, considering his elation at his good luck. He had made up his mind that he might have to spend days in this soporific hamlet.

The grocer looked at him quickly from under his bushy eyebrows.

"What made ye ask that? Some folks say he is. Say, are you one o' these here detectives? Be you after Carder? Pete's a boy they took out of an asylum, and if he'd ever had any care he wouldn't be bandy-legged and undersized, but don't you say I've told ye anything, 'cause I haven't."

Ben smiled into the startled, suspicious face. "Not a bit of it," he answered. "I'm just motoring about these parts on a little vacation, and I got out of cigarettes, so I called on you."

"There's Pete now!" exclaimed the grocer eagerly, hurrying out from behind the counter and to the door.

Other of the neighbors recognized the Carder car and came out to question the boy, who by the time he entered the grocery found himself confronting an audience who all asked questions at once. Pete's shock of hair stood up as usual like a scrubbing-brush; he wore no hat, and his dull eyes looked about from one to another eager face. Ben had strolled back of a tall pile of starch-boxes.

"Is it true an areoplane come down in Mr. Carder's field yisterday?" The question volleyed at the dwarf from a dozen directions.

He stared at them all dumbly, and they cried at him the more, one woman shaking him by the shoulder.

"Look here, shut up, all of you!" said the proprietor; "let the boy do his business first. Ye'll put it all out of his head. What d'ye want, Pete?"

The dwarf drew a list out of his pocket and handed it to the grocer upon which the bystanders all fell upon him again.

As Ben regarded the dwarf, he felt some reflection of Geraldine's compassion for the forlorn little object in his ragged clothes, and he realized that it was a wonder that the poor, stultified brain had possessed enough initiative to carry out the important part he had played in their lives.

While the grocer's clerk was putting up the packages the man himself laid his hand on Pete's shoulder.

"Now then, boy," he said kindly, "an areoplane dived down out o' the sky into your medder yisterday and picked up a homely, stupid girl and flew off with her."

"She was an angel!" exclaimed the dwarf. His dull eyes brightened and looked away. "She was more beautiful than flowers."

"She was, eh?" returned the grocer, and the crowd listened breathlessly. "They say your master was goin' to marry her? That a fact?"

The light went out of Pete's face and his lips closed.

The grocer shook him gently by the shoulder. "Speak up, boy. Was there any shootin'? Did the air turn blue 'round there?"

Pete's lips did not open for a moment. "Master told me not to talk," he said at last.

A burst of excited laughter came from the crowd. "Then it's true, it's true!" they cried.

The grocer kept his hand on the dwarf's shoulder. "Ye might as well tell," he said, "'cause Hiram Jones come in last night and told us all about it."

Pete's lips remained closed.

"Give ye a big lump o' chocolate if ye'll tell us," said one woman.

"Master told me not to talk," was all the boy would say.

The grocer's clerk went out to the auto with a basket and packed the purchases into it.

Ben came from behind the starch boxes, went out the door, and accosted him.

"Do you want to make five dollars?" he asked.

"Do I?" drawled the boy, winking at him. "Ain't I got a girl?"

"Then jump in and drive this car out to the Carder farm. I want to talk to Pete."

"Eh-h-h! You're a reporter!" cried the boy. "Less see the money."

Ben promptly produced it. "In with you now."

"Sure, I'll have to speak to Pete," the boy demurred. "He can't walk out to the farm with them phony legs."

"In with you," repeated the tall stranger firmly. "Go now or not at all." He held the bill before the boy's eyes. "I have my car at the inn. I'll take care of Pete."

The boy looked eagerly at the money. "Can't I tell the boss?"

"I'll fix it with the boss. Here's your money. In with you."

The next minute the car was rattling down the street and Ben went back into the store where Pete was still being badgered by a laughing crowd persisting in questions about the angel.

As Pete caught sight of him, the obstinate expression in his dull eyes did not at first change, but in a minute something familiar in the look of the stranger impressed him, and suddenly he knew.

"Was it you? Was it you?" the boy blurted out, elbowing the others aside and approaching Ben eagerly.

The bystanders looked curiously at the stranger and at the excited boy.

"I want to have a little talk with you, Pete," said Ben. The dwarf's staring eyes had filled.

"Is she here? Has she come down again?" he cried, unmindful of the gaping listeners.

"Be quiet," returned Ben. Then he turned to the grocer. "I've sent your boy on an errand," he said, and he handed the man a bill. "Will that pay you for his time? I've paid him."

He put his hand on Pete's shoulder and led him through the crowd out to the street.

"Master's car has gone," cried the dwarf, looking wildly up and down the street.

"I have taken care of it," said Ben quietly.

"But I must find it," declared Pete, beginning to shake.

Ben saw his abject terror.

"There's nothing to be afraid of, Pete, nothing any more," said Ben. "Do you want to see Miss Melody?"

"Oh, Master!" exclaimed the boy, looking up and meeting a kindly look.

"Then come with me. Let us hurry." Reaching the inn, Ben paid his bill while Pete's eyes roved about in all directions for his goddess.

Leading the boy out to the garage he bade him enter the machine. Even here Pete hesitated, his weight of terrifying responsibility still hanging over him.

"Master's car!" he gasped, looking imploringly up into Ben's face.

"It has gone home, back to the farm," said Ben. "Don't worry. There's nothing to worry about."

Pete was trembling as he entered the roadster. He wondered if he were dreaming. All this couldn't be real. Nothing had ever happened to him before except his goddess.

Ben put on speed and the car flew out of the village and along the highroad. They entered another village, but halted not. Through it they sped and again out into the open country.

Pete felt dazed, but the man of the motor-cycle, Master had said, was the man of the aeroplane. He was here beside him, big, powerful. The dwarf felt that he was risking his own life on the hope of seeing his goddess, for what would Rufus Carder say to him when he finally returned to the farm, a deserter from his duty.

Silently they sped on. Just once Pete spoke, for his heart had sunk.

"Shall we see her, Master?" he asked unsteadily.

Ben turned and smiled at him cheerfully.

"Sure thing," he answered. "She is well and she wants to see you."

Pete had had no practice in smiling, but a joyful reassurance pervaded him. Let Rufus Carder kill him, if it must be. This would come first.

Darkness had fallen when they finally entered a town and drove to a hotel. Ben looked rather ruefully at the poor little scarecrow beside him with his hatless scrubbing-brush of a head, but the keeper of the garage consented to give the boy a place to sleep.

"At least," thought Ben, "it will be more comfortable than the boards outside Geraldine's door."

He saw to it that the dwarf should have a good supper, after which Pete presented himself at Ben's room as he had been ordered to do. Never before in his life had he had all the meat and potato he wanted, and still marveling at the wonderful things happening to him he was conducted to Ben, and stood before him with questioning eyes.

"Is she here, Master?" he asked.

"No, but we shall see her to-morrow."

"When—when do I go back to the farm?" asked the boy.

"Never," replied Ben calmly.

"Master!" exclaimed the dwarf, and could say no more. His tanned face grew darker with the rush of crimson.

"You're my servant now," said Ben, and his good-humored expression shone upon an eager face that worked pitifully.

"What—what can I do?" stammered Pete, his rough hands with their broken nails working together.

"You can get into the bathtub."

"Wha—what, Master?"

Ben threw open the door of his bathroom.

"Draw that tub full of water and use up all the soap on yourself. Make yourself clean for to-morrow. Understand?"

Pete didn't understand anything. He was in a blissful daze. He had never seen faucets except the one in the Carder kitchen. Ben had to draw the water for him, showing him the hot and the cold; finally making him understand that he was not to get in with his clothes on, and that he was to use any and all of those fresh white towels, the like of which the boy had never seen; then his new master came out, closed the door, and laughing to himself sat down to wait and read a magazine.

There was a mighty splashing in the bathroom.

"Clean to see her. Clean to see her," Pete kept saying to himself. He was going to be able to speak to her with no one to object. He was going to work for this god who could fly down out of the sky. Rufus Carder might come to find him later and kill him, but that was no matter.

When finally the bathroom door opened and again arrayed in his disreputable clothes the dwarf appeared, Ben spoke without looking up from his magazine.

"Did you let the water out of the tub?"

"No, Master. I didn't know."

Ben got up, and Pete followed him, eager for the lesson. Ben viewed the color of the water frothing with suds.

"I think you must be clean," he remarked dryly, as he opened the waste-pipe, "or at least you will be after a few more ducks."

"Yes, Master, to see her."

He showed the boy how to wash out the tub which the little fellow did with a will.

"Now, then, to bed with you, and we'll have an early breakfast, for we have a busy day to-morrow. Good-night."

Pete ambled away to the garage so happy that he still felt himself in a dream. To see his goddess, and never to go back to Rufus Carder! Those two facts chased each other around a rosy circle in his brain until he fell asleep.

When Ben Barry came out of his room the next morning he found Pete squatting outside his door. He regarded the broken, earth-stained shoes and the ragged coat and trousers, which if they had ever been of a distinct color were of none now, and the thick mop of hair. The eyes raised to his met a gay smile.

"Hello, there," said Ben. "Did you think I might get away?"

The dwarf rose. "I—I didn't—didn't know how much—much was a dream," he stammered.

"I hope you had a real breakfast," said Ben.

The dwarf smiled. It was a dreary, unaccustomed sort of crack in his weather-beaten face. "I had coffee, too," he replied in an awestruck tone.

Ben laughed. "Good enough. You go out to the car and wait till I come. I'm going to my breakfast now."

In less than an hour they were on their way. Pete's eyes had lost their dullness.

Ben drove to a department store, on a small scale such as the cities boast. He parked his car, and when he told Pete to get out the boy began looking about at once for Geraldine.

"Is she here, Master?" he asked as they entered the store.

"No, we shall see her to-night," was the reply.

Then more miracles began to happen to Pete. He was taken from one section to another in the store and when he emerged again into the street, he hardly knew himself. He was wearing new underclothes, stockings, shoes, coat, vest; even the phony legs had been cared for in the trousers, cut off to suit the little fellow's peculiar needs, and his eyes seemed to have grown larger in the process. Under his arm he carried a box containing more underwear.

Next they drove to a barber's where Pete's hair was properly cut; then to a hat store and he was fitted to a hat.

When they came out, Ben regarded his work whimsically. The boy was not a bad-looking boy. He liked the direct manner of the dwarf's grateful, almost reverent, gaze up into his own merry eyes. There was nothing shifty there.

When they reentered the roadster, Ben spoke to him before he started the car.

"Do you know why I have done all this, Pete?"

The boy shook his head. "Because you came down out of the sky?" he questioned.

"No, it is just because you took care of Miss Melody; because you put those letters underneath her door."

Pete's face crimsoned with happiness. "I helped her—I—I helped her get away," he said.

"Yes, and she will never forget it, and neither will I."

"You—you—asked me if I loved her," said Pete, his mind returning to the day of the motor-cycle visit.

"Yes, and you did, didn't you?"

"Yes, and—and when she was gone up to—to heaven, I wanted to die till I—I remembered that she—she wanted to go."

"Yes, wanted to go just as much as you did, and more. Now that life is all over, Pete. Just as much gone as those old clothes of yours that we left to be burned. You've been a faithful, brave boy, and Miss Melody and I are going to look after you henceforth."

Pete couldn't speak. Ben saw him bite his lip to control himself. The roadster started and moving slowly out of the town sped again along a country road.



CHAPTER XIII

The Goddess

On the same day Geraldine and Miss Upton were patronizing the department stores in the city and getting such clothing as was absolutely necessary for the girl. Geraldine's purchases were rigidly simple.

"I think you're downright stingy, child," commented Miss Upton when the girl had overruled certain suggestions Miss Mehitable had made with the fear of Ben Barry before her eyes.

"No, indeed. Don't you see how it's counting up?" rejoined Geraldine earnestly. "All these things on your bill, and no telling how soon I can pay for them."

Miss Upton noticed how the salesgirls appreciated the beauty they had to deal with, and she was in sympathy with their efforts to dress Geraldine as she deserved.

There were some shops into which the girl refused to enter, and it was plain to her companion that these had been the scenes of some of her repulsive experiences.

Also they shunned the restaurant where they had met; and every minute that they were on the street Geraldine held tight to Miss Upton's substantial arm.

"I shall be so glad when we get home," she said repeatedly.

"Now, look here," said Miss Upton, "there's one thing you've got to accept from me as a present. You're my little girl and I've a right to give you one thing, I hope."

"I'd much rather you wouldn't," returned Geraldine anxiously—"not until I've paid for these."

She had changed the white dress she wore into town for a dark-blue skirt and jacket which formed the chief item of her purchases, and on her head she had a black sailor hat which Miss Upton had procured in Keefe.

"I want to give you," said Miss Upton—"I want to give you a—a droopy hat!"

Geraldine laughed. "What in the world for, you dear? What do I need of droopy hats?"

"To wear with your light things—your white dress, and—and everything."

"Miss Upton, how absurd! I don't need it at all. Don't think of such a thing. I shan't go anywhere."

"I don't believe you know what you'll do," returned Miss Mehitable. "Just come and try one on, anyway. I want to see you in it."

So, coaxing, while the girl demurred, she led her to the millinery section of the store they were in. Of course, putting hats on Geraldine was a very fascinating game, which everybody enjoyed except the girl herself. There was one hat especially in which Miss Upton reveled, mentally considering its devastating effect upon Ben Barry. It was very simple, and at the most depressed point of the brim nestled one soft, loose-leaved pink rose with a little foliage. Miss Upton's eyes glistened and she drew the saleslady aside.

"I've bought it," she said triumphantly when she came back.

"It isn't right," replied Geraldine, although it must be admitted that she herself had thought of Ben when she first saw the reflection of it in the glass.

"Don't you want me to have any fun?" returned Miss Mehitable, quite excited, for the price of the hat caused the matter to be portentous.

"Let him pay for it," she considered recklessly. "What's the harm as long as he and I are the only ones who know it, and wild horses couldn't drag it out of me?"

So, Geraldine carrying the large hatbox, they at last pursued their way to the railway station and with mutual sighs of relief stowed themselves into the train for Keefe.

"What you thinkin' about, child?" demanded Miss Mehitable after a long period of silence.

Geraldine met her regard wistfully. "I was wondering if anybody is ever perfectly happy. Isn't there always some drawback, some 'if' that has to be met?"

"Was you thinkin' about Mrs. Barry, Geraldine? I'm sorry she had one o' her haughty spells that day—"

"No, I was not thinking of her; it is Mr. Barry—Ben. He went on a very dangerous errand yesterday."

"You don't say so! Why, he came in as gay as a lark with those apple blossoms and he went out to his machine whistlin'. He couldn't have had much on his mind. You know I told you yesterday he's as sensible as he is brave."

"What good is bravery against a madman with a gun—still he promised, he promised me he would not go to the farm alone."

"Then he'll abide by it. You do give me a turn, Geraldine, talkin' about madmen and guns."

The girl sighed.

"I haven't had anything but 'turns' ever since I first saw the Carder farm; but it is unkind to draw you into it. Sometimes I wish I had never mentioned Pete to Mr. Barry, yet it seems disloyal to leave the boy there when I owe him so much."

And then Geraldine told her friend in detail the part the dwarf had played in her life.

* * * * *

Mrs. Barry was, of course, able to think of little else than the new element which had come so suddenly into her calm, well-ordered life. She shrank fastidiously from anything undignified, and she felt that through no fault of her own she was now in an undignified position. In her son's eyes she was a culprit. Even her humble friend, Mehitable Upton, had revealed plainly an indignation at her attitude. When Ben left yesterday telling her that he might be gone several days, without explaining why or where, she felt the barrier between them even while he kissed her good-bye. He had made a vigorous declaration of independence that night at dinner, and now he had gone away to let her think it over, not even noticing that her eyes were heavy from a sleepless night.

All that day, as she moved about her customary occupations, the thought of Geraldine haunted her; the way the girl had avoided her eyes after their first encounter, how she had clung to Miss Upton, and how eagerly she had urged departure.

"So silly," thought Mrs. Barry while she fed her pigeons. "How absurd of her to expect anything different from a civil reception."

Side by side with this condemnation, however, ran the consideration of how Ben had probably flung himself at her feet so far as the Scout plane would allow, and how he had even urged immediate matrimony. That hurt too much! Mrs. Barry saw the pigeons through a veil of quick tears. One more night she slept or waked over the problem, and as her thought adjusted itself more to Geraldine, the practical side of the girl's situation unfolded to her consideration. There would seem to be no question of returning to the irate farmer to get her clothing, yet that might be the very thing Ben was doing now; risking his precious life again for this stranger who was nothing to them. The more Mrs. Barry thought about it, the more restless she became. At last there was no question any longer but that her only peace lay in going to Miss Melody. After all, it was merely courteous to inquire how the girl had borne the excitement of her escape; but in the back of Mrs. Barry's mind was the hope that she might discover where her boy had gone now.

She made a hasty toilet, jumped into her electric, and drove to Upton's Fancy Goods and Notions. The shades were drawn. The taking-account-of-stock notice was still on the door which resisted all effort to open it.

Knocking availed nothing. Mrs. Barry's lips took a line of firmness equal to her son's. Walking around to the back door, she found it open and entered the kitchen. It was empty.

She moved through the house into the shop. There was Mrs. Whipp, her head tied up in a handkerchief, bending over a packing-box. She started at a sound, raised her head, and stood amazed at the visitor's identity.

"I knocked, but you didn't seem to hear me," said Mrs. Barry with dignity.

"Yes'm, I did hear a knock," returned Charlotte, "but they pound there all day, and o' course I didn't know't was you. I tell Miss Upton if we kept the door locked and the shades down all the time, we'd do a drivin' business. Folks seem jest possessed to come in and buy somethin' 'cause they can't. Did you want somethin' special, Mrs. Barry?"

"I came to see Miss Melody. I wished to inquire if she has recovered from her excitement."

A softened expression stole over Charlotte's weazened face.

"She ain't here. They've gone to the city."

"Who—who did you say has gone?"

Mrs. Barry controlled her own start. Visions of two in that roadster swept over her. Perhaps, she herself having forfeited her right to consideration—there was no telling what might have happened by this time. Mrs. Whipp's smile was frightfully complacent.

"Miss Upton and her went together," was the reply. "Of course, all the girl's clo'es was in the den o' that fiend she got away from, and she had to git some more."

Mrs. Barry breathed freer.

"Miss Upton cal'lated to get some things from her customers and fix 'em over, but Mr. Barry, he wouldn't have it so."

"Are you referring to my son?"

"Yes, Miss Upton said he turned up his nose at hand-me-downs, so she had to jest brace up and git 'em new."

Mrs. Whipp's eyes seemed to see far away and her expression under the protecting towel was one quite novel.

Mrs. Barry cleared her throat.

"My son was here, then, before he went away on his—his little trip."

"Yes," replied Mrs. Whipp, appearing to perceive Dan Cupid over her visitor's shoulder. "He come in to bring the apple blossoms and ask how Geraldine was, and that night sech a box o' candy as he sent her! You'd ought to 'a' seen it, Mis' Barry. P'r'aps you did see it." Charlotte met the lady's steady eyes eagerly.

"No, I did not see it."

"Well, that poor little girl she couldn't half enjoy them bon-bons, 'cause she was so scared somethin' was goin' to happen to Mr. Barry."

"What do you mean?"

"Why, she was afraid he'd gone back to that farm where they murder folks as quick as look at 'em." Charlotte sniffed a sniff of excited enjoyment.

"What would he go there for?" demanded Mrs. Barry. "Surely not to get those foolish clothes!"

"I don't know. I only know Geraldine cried. Miss Upton said so; but she told her how Mr. Barry was jest as smart as he was brave and she took her to the city to git her mind off."

Charlotte smiled with as soft an expression as the unaccustomed lips could reveal, and nothing but stamping her aristocratic foot could have expressed Mrs. Barry's exasperation.

"I am quite sure my son would not take any absurd and unnecessary step," she said, with such hauteur that Mrs. Whipp came out of her day-dream and realized that the great lady's eyes were flashing. Without another word the visitor turned and left the shop, her black and violet cape sweeping through living-room and kitchen and back into her machine.

The rest of the day was spent by the lady in alternations of scorn, vexation, and anxiety.

Late in the afternoon she heard a motor enter the grounds, and hurrying to the door saw with a happy leap of the heart that it was Ben's roadster. Her relief drove her to forgive and forget and to hurry out to the piazza. The machine came on and she saw that her son was not alone. A boy sat beside him.

The roadster stopped. Ben jumped out and kissed his mother, then beckoned to Pete, who obediently drew near and stood on his curved legs, his hat in his hand. He looked up at the queenly lady, and his eyes which had ceased to wonder were still seeking.

"Is she here, Master?" he asked.

"No, but near by," replied Ben.

"Mother, I've engaged a new boy. His name is Pete. He is here for general utility. He is very willing."

Mrs. Barry gazed in disapproval at the quaint, clean figure in his brand-new clothes. Pete's rough hands constantly twirled his straw hat.

"You should have asked me," she said. "We don't need any more help."

Ben put his arm around her and drew her close to him. "Yes, we do," he replied cheerfully, "down at Keefeport. Pete will go there and keep things in shape. You will wonder how you ever got along without him; but I need him first. He was one of the hands at the Carder farm—has been there from a child and he knows more about his master's devilment than anybody else."

"Ben!" His mother looked up reproachfully into the young fellow's happy eyes. "Why did you need to risk your life again—"

"Oh, not a bit of that," laughed Ben. "I picked Pete out of a grocery store—"

"Where is she, Master?" The voice of the boy was pleading again.

"Pete was a good friend to Miss Melody, the only one she had, and now his reward is going to be to see her."

"You don't mean," exclaimed Mrs. Barry, "that you have spent a couple of days to get this boy and dress him up in order to allow him to see Miss Melody?"

"No, not exactly. I kidnapped him as an information bureau."

"Why can't you let that disgusting farmer alone?" asked the lady despairingly.

"Because if I do, he won't let us alone," returned Ben shortly. "Well, now, we've shown ourselves to you and we'll be off to keep my word to Pete. Hop in, boy."

* * * * *

Miss Upton and Geraldine had reached home, hatbox and all, and were in the dismantled shop answering Charlotte's questions when they heard an automobile stop before the door and a cheery whistle sounded. The repellent shades were still down at the windows.

"That's Ben Barry!" exclaimed Miss Mehitable. "Don't you dare to touch that hat!" she added severely to Geraldine, whose cheeks flushed deeply as a tattoo began on the locked door.

So the girl was standing in the middle of the room wearing the droopy hat when Ben came in, followed by the dwarf at whom Miss Mehitable and Charlotte stared.

Geraldine forgot her hat, and Ben Barry—forgot everything but the eager adoration in the face of the transformed slave. "Why, Pete, Pete!" she cried joyously, running to meet him.

The boy bit his lips to keep back the tears and his clumsy fingers worked nervously as his goddess rested both her hands on his shoulders. He couldn't speak, but gazed and gazed up into the eyes under the droopy hat.

Ben Barry, his arms folded, looked on at the tableau while Geraldine murmured welcome and reassurance.

"Aren't we the happiest people in the world, Pete?" she finished softly.

He choked. "Yes, and I'm not going back," he was able to say at last.

"I should say not," put in Ben. "I've brought somebody to help you move, Mehit," he added. Miss Upton was still staring at the dwarf's legs.

"That's fine," said Geraldine. "Pete is just the right one for us."

The boy kept his eyes on hers.

"He can't ever get you again," he said, with trembling eagerness, "'cause I know all about the girls he had there before you, and how one jumped out the winder, and I know what hospital they took her to, for I drove, and I'm goin' there with Mr. Barry, and he's goin' to—"

"Never mind, Pete," interrupted Ben quietly. "We're going to take care of that without troubling Miss Melody."

The dwarf dropped back as Ben advanced. Charlotte said afterward that it gave her a turn to see the manner in which the young man took both the girl's hands and scanned her changed appearance.

"It looks perfectly absurd with this tailor suit," she said, blushing and laughing. "Miss Upton would give it to me. So extravagant!"

The elaborate wink which Miss Mehitable bestowed on Ben as he glanced at her over his love's head was intended to warn him that he had a bill to pay.

"Miss Upton has been your good fairy all along, hasn't she?" His look was so intense and he spoke so seriously that Geraldine glanced up at him half timidly and down again.

Charlotte pulled Miss Upton's dress and motioned with her head toward the living-room; but, as Miss Mehitable said afterward, "What was the good of their goin' and leavin' that critter there?"

"Thank you for the candy, Mr. Barry," said Geraldine, meeting his eyes again steadily, "but please don't. You have put me under everlasting obligation, but will you do me one more favor? Will you let me help these dear women and—and stay away, and—don't send me anything?"

Miss Mehitable understood this prayer, and she had a qualm as she thought of the price of the bewitching hat which was at the present moment doing its worst.

"Yes, for a little while," replied Ben. "Pete will get you moved and settled at the Port and then he and I will take a trip. I don't know how long we shall be away; but when we return you will understand that the ogre's teeth have been extracted, the tiger's claws cut, and the spider's web rent. How's that?" He smiled down into the girl's grave eyes, still holding her hands close.

"If I could only find out what my father's debt to him really is, I would consecrate my life to paying it," she said in a low tone.

Miss Mehitable felt that the atmosphere was getting very warm.

"Come here, Pete," she said. "I want to show you my kitchen." The dwarf walked slowly backward to the door, his eyes on the young couple, as if he feared to let them out of his sight lest they vanish and he waken. "Come on, Charlotte."

The three disappeared, Miss Mehitable urging Pete by the shoulder.

"I'll try to find out," returned Ben; "and if it is possible to do that, the debt shall be paid."

Geraldine caught her lip under her teeth and swallowed the rising lump.

"Oh, Mr. Barry—Ben," she said at last, "of course I have no words to thank you—"

"I don't wish to be thanked in words."

"You're too generous."

"Not in the least," returned Ben quietly. "I want to be thanked. I want each of us to thank the other all our lives. I to be grateful to you for existing, and you to thank me for spending my days with the paramount thought of your happiness."

They looked at each other for a long silent minute.

"Mrs. Whipp says your mother came to call on me to-day," said Geraldine at last. "She described her manner so well that it is evident she came at the point of your bayonet. I understand the situation entirely. I've already heard that she is the great lady of the town. You are her only son. Do you suppose I blame her when out of a clear sky you produced me and made your feeling plain to her? Is it any wonder that she made hers plain to me? I should think"—Geraldine gave an appealing pressure to the hands holding hers—"I should think you could be generous enough to—to let me alone."

Her eyes pleaded with him seriously.

"What am I doing?" asked Ben. "What do you suppose is the reason that I'm wasting all these minutes when I might be holding you in my arms!" He had to stop here himself and swallow manfully. "If you knew how you look at this moment—and I don't kiss you—just because I'm giving Mother a little time, so that you will be satisfied—"

"Then you'll promise—will you promise—you kept your promise about the farm?"

"Yes; I found Pete in the village."

"Then you do keep promises! Tell me solemnly that you will leave your mother in freedom. If you don't, Ben—Sir Galahad—I'll run away. I really will—"

In her earnestness she lifted her face toward his, her eyes were irresistible, and in an instant he had swept her into his arms and was kissing her tenderly, fervently, to the utter undoing of the droopy hat which fell unnoticed to the floor.

Voices approaching made him release her.

Very flushed, very grave, both of them, they looked into each other's eyes, and Geraldine, being a woman, put both hands up to her ruffled hair.

"I do promise you, Geraldine," he said, low and earnestly. "Whatever my mother does after this you may know is of her own volition."

Pete burst into the room wild-eyed, followed by Miss Mehitable, who was talking and laughing.

"He was afraid you'd go away without him," she said—"Mercy's sakes, Geraldine Melody, look at your hat!" She darted upon it and snapped some dust off its chiffon. "You'd better be careful how you throw this around. We can't buy a hat like this every day."

"Oh, do forgive me, Miss Upton!" murmured the girl, her eyes very bright. "It was her present to me," she added to Ben. "I'm so sorry!" She went to Miss Mehitable and laid her cheek against hers, and Miss Upton bestowed another prodigious wink upon the purchaser of the hat.

It did not break his gravity; a gravity which Miss Upton but just now noticed.

"Come, Pete, we'll be going," said Ben, and his flushed, serious face worried Miss Mehitable's kind heart, especially as no sign of his merry carelessness returned in his brief leave-taking.

When they were gone and the door had closed after them, she looked at the girl accusingly.

"Something has happened," she said, in a low tone not to attract Charlotte.

"Don't be cross with me about the hat," said the girl, nestling up close to her again. "I just love it—much better even than I did in the store."

Miss Mehitable put an arm around her, not because at the moment she loved her, but because she was there.

"I wonder," she said, "if there's anything in this world that can make anything but a fool out of a girl before it's too late. I know you're just as crazy about him as he is about you! If you wasn't, would you have been snivellin' around because he might get hurt to the farm? And yet jest 'cause o' your silly, foolish pride you've gone and refused him. It's as plain as the nose on his splendid face. As if in the long run it mattered if Mrs. Barry was a little cantankerous. She's run everything around here so long that she forgets her boy's a man with a mind of his own. It's awful narrow of you, Geraldine, awful narrow!"

Upon this the girl lifted her head and smiled faintly into the accusing face.

"Won't it be nice to have Pete help us move," she said innocently.

Miss Upton's lips tightened. She dropped her arm, moved away, and put the droopy hat back in its box.

"You're heartless!" she exclaimed. There was such a peachy bloom on the girl's face. "I won't waste my breath."

"I love you," said Geraldine, meekly and defensively.

"Ho!" snorted her good fairy, unappeased.



CHAPTER XIV

The Mermaid Shop

For the next few days Miss Mehitable had no time to worry over love-affairs. No matter how early she arose in the morning she found Pete arrayed in overalls sitting on the stone step of Upton's Fancy Goods and Notions, and when by the evening of the third day all her goods, wares, and chattels were deposited in the little shop at Keefeport, she wondered how she had ever got on without him.

On that very day Ben Barry received a threatening letter from Rufus Carder demanding the return of Pete, and he knew that no more time must be lost. He flew over to the Port that afternoon, and alighting on the landing-field which had been prepared near his cottage walked to the little shop near the wharf. Here he found Pete industriously obeying Miss Upton's orders in company with his idol, the whole quartet gay amid their chaos. Even Mrs. Whipp had postponed the fear of rheumatism and had learned how to laugh.

They had formed a line and were passing the articles from boxes to shelves when the leather-coated, helmeted figure stood suddenly before them.

The effect of the apparition upon Geraldine with its associations was so extreme as to make her feel faint for a minute, and Ben saw her face change as she leaned against the counter.

Miss Mehitable saw it too. "Aha!" she thought triumphantly. "Aha! It isn't so funny to break a body's heart, after all."

"Well, Ben Barry," she said aloud, "why didn't you wait till we got settled?"

The aviator stood in the doorway, but came no farther.

"Because I have to take Pete away. I've had a billet doux from Rufus Carder and he wants him."

The dwarf rushed to his new master on quaking legs. "Oh, Master! I won't go! I can't go." He looked off wildly on the big billows rolling in. "I'll throw myself in the sea."

Ben put a hand on the boy's shoulder.

"Of course you won't go," he said; "but you want to brighten up your wits now and remember everything that will help us. We're going to the city to-night and begin at once to settle that gentleman's affairs." He gave Geraldine a reassuring look. "I should like to take your father's letter with me," he added quietly.

"But we mustn't get Pete into trouble," she replied doubtfully.

"I'm not intending to show it. I want to familiarize myself with his handwriting. I expect to have an interview and perhaps there will be notes to examine."

"But not at the farm," protested the girl quickly. "You'll not go near the meadow?"

"No; the cows have nothing to fear from us this time."

"And you'll"—Geraldine swallowed—"you'll be careful?"

Ben nodded. "All my promises hold," he replied, looking straight into her eyes with only the ghost of his old smile, as Miss Upton noticed.

Geraldine ran upstairs, brought down her father's letter, and gave it to him.

He took it with a nod of thanks. "How do you think you will like to fly, Pete?" he asked. "You can go home with me, or, if you prefer it, in the trolley."

"Anywhere with you, Master," returned the boy. He felt certain that Rufus Carder would not be met among the clouds, but who could be sure that he would not pop up in a trolley car.

"Very well, then. Good-bye, everybody, and expect us when you see us."

"Good-bye, you dear boy," cried Miss Mehitable. Somebody should call him "dear." She was determined on that. "Always workin' for others," she continued loudly, "and riskin' your life the way you are." She moved to the door, and raised her voice still higher as the strangely assorted pair moved away up the road. "I hope you'll get your reward sometime!" she shouted; then she turned back and glared at Geraldine.

The girl put her hand on her heart. "It startled me so to see him—just as he looked on that—that—dreadful day," she was going to say, but how could she so characterize the day of her full joy and wonder? So her voice died to silence, and Miss Upton began slamming articles up on the shelves with unnecessary violence, while Geraldine, smiling into the packing-boxes, meekly set about helping her.

Pete, like Geraldine before him, was in such terror of his former master and so full of trust in his present one, that he swallowed his fears as the plane rose for its short trip, and he found the experience enjoyable. Ben, when they reached the house, sought his mother. She was walking on the piazza.

"You didn't tell me you were off for a flight," she said in an annoyed tone.

"Well, it was now you see me and now you don't this time, wasn't it? You had hardly time to miss me. I flew over to the Port to get Pete. We have to go to the city to-night. I'll be gone a few days, Mother, perhaps a week."

"On some disgusting business connected with that unspeakable man, I suppose."

"Verily I believe it will be very disgusting; but it has to be gone through with."

"Why does it?" His mother stood before him and spoke desperately. "Why can't you let it alone?"

"I've told you—because it affects the happiness of my future wife."

Mrs. Barry's eyes were hard, though her cheeks grew crimson. "You haven't announced your engagement to me. Don't you think I should be one of the first to know?" she said.

"I'm not engaged." Ben smiled into her angry, hurt eyes. "Something stands in the way as yet."

"What?"

"Can't you guess?"

They continued to exchange a steady gaze. She spoke first.

"Do you mean to say that anyone concerned in the affair still considers me?"

Her boy's smile became a laugh at the deliberate manner of her sarcasm.

"Oh, cut it out, Mother mine," he said. And though she tried to hold stiffly away from him, he hugged her and kissed her and pulled her down beside him on a wicker seat.

She could not get away from his encircling arm and probably she did not wish to.

"Ben, I've had a most disagreeable day," she declared. "Everybody within fifteen miles knows that you flew into the village with a strange girl."

"They said she was pretty, didn't they?"

"I can't leave the house without somebody stopping me and asking me about it, and I'll have to order the telephone taken out if this goes on. I can hardly bear to answer it any more. I called on Miss Melody, but she had gone to town, and that hopeless Mrs. Whipp babbled about your attentions. I don't want you to break the apple blossoms anyway."

"All right, honey, I won't. They're nearly gone; but I shall always love apple blossoms. They're fragrant like her spirit, pink and white like her, wholesome like her, modest like her. You see she has always been kept in the background. No one has taken the bloom from her freshness. She has had blows, has come in contact with some of the world's mud, but it washed away and disappeared under her own purity."

Mrs. Barry looked into the speaker's flashing eyes. "My poor boy," she said at last. "I wonder whether you're crazy or whether you're right. What am I going to do!"

"Of course I don't know what you're going to do," he returned, his lips and voice suddenly serious. "It depends largely upon whether you want my future wife to hand out ice-cream cones to the trippers at Keefeport."

"What do you mean now?" Mrs. Barry asked it severely.

"Why, the little girl is going to try to earn her living, of course, and she will be slow to leave Miss Upton's protection, for she has proved, that a girl's beauty may be her worst enemy. Miss Upton will do a bigger business than ever, that is easily prophesied. The hilarious, rowdy parties that come over in motor-boats will pass the word along that there is something worth seeing at Upton's this year. They will crack their jokes, and Miss Melody will be loyal to her employer. She won't want to discourage trade. They will make longer visits than usual and the phonograph will work overtime."

Mrs. Barry had risen slowly during this harangue and now looked down upon her son with haughty, displeased eyes.

"I shall speak to Miss Upton," she said.

"I advise you not to," returned Ben dryly, crossing one leg over the other and embracing his knee. "I don't think you are in any position to dictate. I left a merry party down there just now. Mrs. Whipp cracking the air with chuckles, Mehitable rocking the store with her activities, Miss Melody enveloped in a gigantic apron and with a large smudge across her cheek, having the time of her life unpacking boxes. I was sorry to bereave them of Pete, but it won't take them long now to be ready for business."

Mrs. Barry did not speak. A catbird sang in an apple tree, a call to vespers.

"This won't do for me," said Ben, suddenly rising. "I'll go up and throw a few things into my bag. Give us a bite to eat, Mother dear, and tell Lawson to bring the car around. We must get the seven-thirty."

After her boy and his humble lieutenant had left for the train, the mother sat a long time on the piazza thinking. The telephone rang at last. She sighed, went to its corner, and sat down to stop its annoying peremptoriness. For days it had reminded her of an inescapable, buzzing gnat, a thousand times magnified.

"Oh, Mrs. Barry," came a girlish voice across the wire. "Don't think me too inquisitive, but we're all dying to know if that beautiful girl, Miss Melody, is going to live with Miss Upton? Mrs. Whipp said they were going to take her to Keefeport with them, and somebody said they did move to-day and that she did go with them. We thought she was visiting you and I wanted to ask when we might come to call. We're all dying to meet her. You know Ben has been a sort of brother to us all, and we're simply crazy to know this girl and hear about her rescue."

While this speech gushed into Mrs. Barry's unwilling ear, her martyred look was fixed upon the wall and her wits were working. It was Adele Hastings talking. She had always liked Adele. In fact this young girl had been her secret choice for Ben in those innocent days when she supposed she would have some voice in the most important affair of his life. She could not turn Adele off as she had other questioners.

"I suppose this is Adele Hastings speaking."

"Oh, didn't I say? I do beg your pardon. I just saw Ben on the station platform with the queerest little bow-legged boy. Ben looked like a giant beside him. I just flew home to the telephone to ask how you were and—and—about everything."

"That is just a servant Ben has picked up." ("A member of our new menagerie," Mrs. Barry felt like adding, but held her peace and continued to look at the wall.)

"Well, Mother wanted me to say to you that if you were house cleaning, or there was any other reason why it was inconvenient for you to have Miss Melody with you, she would be so glad to have her come to us till you are ready. I told Mother she had probably gone to Keefeport to recuperate in the quiet before the season really begins. I haven't seen Miss Upton or that cross thing that tends store for her, but some people have, and we've heard such fairy tales about that lovely creature—I saw her on the train with Miss Upton—about her being shut up with a madman and Ben literally flying to her rescue and carrying her off under the creature's nose. Why, it's perfectly wonderful! I can hardly wait to hear the truth about it. Talk about the prince on a milk-white steed that always rescued the princess—Ben in his aeroplane makes him look like thirty cents."

"Tut, tut," said Mrs. Barry; "you know I don't like slang."

The girlish voice laughed. "But, dear Mrs. Barry, 'marry come up' and 'ods bodikins' were probably slang in the day of the spear and shield. When may I see you and hear about it?"

This direct question forced Mrs. Barry to a decision. The impossible Charlotte Whipp, who had not hesitated to tell her regal self of her son's attentions to the waif, had doubtless poured enough of the yeast of gossip into eager ears to set the whole village to swelling with curiosity, and her dignity as well as Ben's depended on the attitude she took at the present moment.

Her rather stiff and formal voice took on a more confidential tone. "I'm going to ask you to wait a few days, Adele. We have been passing through rather stirring times. I thank your mother very much for her kind offer, but it seemed best for Miss Melody to go to the sea, at least for a few days. You know what an excellent soul Miss Upton is. Miss Melody knew her before, and as the girl was a good deal upset by some exciting experiences, and as I was a complete stranger, Miss Upton stepped into the breach. Please don't believe the exaggerated stories that may be going about. Ben was able to do the young lady a favor, that is all. As you say, she is very charming to look upon. We shall all know her better after a while."

"Well, just one thing before you hang up, dear Mrs. Barry. I know you will excuse my asking it, because I know your standards, and you have been an even stronger influence upon me socially than my own mother; but is—is Miss Melody the sort of girl you will entertain as an—an equal? or does she—it sounds horrid to ask it—or does she belong more in good Miss Upton's class?"

Mrs. Barry ground her teeth together, and luckily the wall of her reception room was of tough stuff or her look would have withered it. She had a mental flashlight of Geraldine serving trippers with ice-cream cones behind Miss Upton's counter.

"My dear," she said suavely, "do you sound a little bit snobbish?"

"No more than you have taught me to be," was the prompt reply. "I want to behave toward Miss Melody just as you wish me to. It looks to us all, of course, as if she were Miss Upton's friend and not yours."

Mrs. Barry's cheeks flamed. This dreadful youngster was forcing her, hurrying her, and she would be spokesman to the village. Ben's infatuation left her no choice.

"Oh, quite in ours, quite, I judge," she said graciously. "Ben thinks her quite exceptional."

The girlish voice laughed again: not so gleefully as Mrs. Barry could have wished. She hoped they were not sister-sufferers!

"I should judge so, from what Mrs. Whipp has told people. Well, I will be patient, Mrs. Barry. We want to show all courtesy to Ben's friend when the right time comes. Good-bye."

"Good-bye," replied Mrs. Barry, and hung up the receiver.

She sat a few minutes more without moving, deep in thought.

"I have no choice," she said to herself at last. "I have no choice."

The next day she moved about restlessly amid her accustomed occupations and by evening had come to a conclusion and made a plan which on the following afternoon she carried out.

After an early luncheon she set forth in her motor for Keefeport. Miss Upton's little establishment was in nice order by this time and the sign had been hung up over the door: "The Mermaid Shop." By the time Mrs. Barry's car stopped before it, the three residents had eaten their dinner and the dishes were set away.

"There's so few folks here yet, there's hardly anything to do in the store," said Miss Mehitable to Geraldine. "Now's the time for you to go out and walk around and see the handsome cottages and the grand rocky shore. This wharf ain't anything to see."

"Do you think Pearl would like to go to walk?" said the girl, picking up the handsome cat, while Charlotte looked on approvingly.

"Pearl does hate this movin' business," she said. "It'll be weeks before she'll find a spot in the house where she can really settle down."

Geraldine was burying her face in the soft fur when the motor flashed up to the grassy path before the shop, and stopped.

"For the land's sake!" said Miss Mehitable. "It's the Barry car." She hurried forward, and Geraldine, still holding the cat against her cheek, saw the chauffeur open the door and Mrs. Barry emerge.

Ben's assurance flashed into her thought. "Whatever she may do hereafter, remember it is of her own volition."

The lady came in, and, smiling a return to Miss Mehitable's welcome, looked at the girl in the blue dress. She liked the self-possessed manner with which Geraldine greeted her.