After the packing was completed and while there was still nearly an hour to wait before the carriage would come, Rose locked her door, and, after many failures, achieved her note:

"MY DEAR ALLISON:

"You don't know how glad I am for you and how glad I shall be all the rest of my life. I've hoped and dreamed and prayed from the very beginning that it might be so, and I believe that, in time, you'll have back everything you have lost.

"Now that you no longer need me, I am going away to attend to some necessary business for Aunt Francesca and myself, and perhaps to rest a little while in some new place before I go back to my work.

"Of course our make-believe engagement expires automatically now, and I hope you'll soon find the one woman meant to make you happy. I am glad to think that I've helped you a little when you came to a hard place, for the most that any one of us may do for another is to smooth the road.

"Remember me to the others, say good-bye for me, and believe me, with all good wishes,

"Your friend always,

"ROSE."

When she sealed and addressed it, she had a queer sense of closing the door, with her own hands, upon all the joy Life might have in store for her in years to come. Yet the past few weeks were secure, beyond the power of change or loss, and her pride was saved.

No one could keep her from loving him, and the thought brought a certain comfort to her sore heart. Wherever he might be and whatever might happen to him, she could still love him from afar, and have, for her very own, the woman's joy of utmost giving.

When the carriage came, she went down, and, without a word put her note into Aunt Francesca's faithful hands. Isabel had not appeared, fortunately, and it was not necessary to leave any message—Aunt Francesca would make it right, as she always had with everybody.

When the little old lady lifted her face, saying: "Good-bye, dear, come back to me soon," Rose's heart misgave her. "I'll stay," she said, brokenly; "I won't leave you."

But Madame only smiled, and nodded toward the waiting train. She stood on the platform, waving her little lace-bordered handkerchief, until the last car rounded the curve and the fluttering bit of white that was waved in answer had vanished.

Then Madame sighed, wiped her eyes, and drove home.



XXII

A BIRTHDAY PARTY

Allison received the note from Rose at the time he was expecting Rose herself, and was keenly disappointed. "She might at least have stopped long enough to say good-bye," he said to his father.

"Don't be selfish, lad," laughed the Colonel. "We owe her now a debt that we can never hope to pay."

The young man's face softened. "What a brick she has been!" Then, to himself, he added: "if she had loved me, she couldn't have done more."

Life seemed very good to them both that crisp September morning. Just after breakfast Doctor Jack had announced, definitely, that the crushed hand was saved, unless there should be some unlooked-for complication "But mind you," he insisted, "I don't promise any violin-playing, and there'll be scars, but we'll make it look as well as we can. Anyhow, you'll not be helpless."

Allison smiled happily. "Why can't I play, if it heals up all right?"

"There may be a nerve or two that won't work just right, or a twisted muscle, or something. However we'll keep hoping."

The heavy weight that had lain so long upon Allison's heart was slow in lifting. At first he could not believe the good news, greatly to Doctor Jack's disgust.

"You don't seem to care much," he remarked. "I supposed you'd turn at least one somersault. The Colonel is more pleased than you are."

"Dear old dad," said Allison, gratefully. "I owe him everything."

"Everything?" repeated the Doctor, with lifted brows. "And where does Jonathan Ebenezer Middlekauffer come in, to say nothing of the future Mrs. Kent?"

Allison's face clouded for an instant. "I'll never forget what you've done for me, but there isn't any future Mrs. Kent."

"No? Why I thought—"

"So did I, but she's thrown me over and gone away. This morning she sent me a note of congratulation and farewell."

"Upon my word! What have you done to her?"

"Nothing. She says I don't need her any more now, so she's going away."

Doctor Jack paced back and forth on the veranda with his hands in his pockets. "The darkly mysterious ways of the ever-feminine are wonderful beyond the power of words to portray. Apparently you've had to choose between your hand and hers."

"I'm not sure," returned Allison, thoughtfully, "that I wouldn't rather have hers than mine."

"Brace up, old man. Get well and go after her. The world isn't big enough to keep a man away from the woman he wants."

"But," answered Allison, dejectedly, "she doesn't care for me. It was only womanly pity, and now that I don't need that, I've lost her."

"She doesn't care for you!" repeated the Doctor. "Why, man, how can you sit there and tell a lie like that? Of course she cares!"

Allison turned to look at him in astonishment. "It isn't possible!"

"Isn't it? Then I don't know anything about human nature, though I must confess I'm not up much on the feminine part of it. How long—"

"Just since the accident. The girl I was going to marry let me release her. She didn't want a cripple, you know."

"And Miss Bernard did, and you've disappointed her?"

"Something like that."

"You seem to have had fierce luck with girls. One gives you up because you've only got one hand, and the other because you've got two. There's no pleasing women. Hello—here comes another note. Maybe she's changed her mind."

For a breathless instant Allison thought so, too, but Doctor Jack was opening it. "Mine," he said. "It's an invitation to Crosby's. It seems that they come of age day after to-morrow, and I'm invited out to supper to help celebrate. I won't go, or anything, will I? Oh, no, of course not! I haven't seen 'em for a week. Are presents expected?"

"Your presence seems to be expected," remarked Allison.

"I'm glad you've got that out of your system," the Doctor retorted, with a scornful smile. "You ought to improve right along now."

"Is it a party?"

"They don't say so. I hope it isn't."

However, when Doctor Jack strolled up the dusty road, a carriage that must have come from Crosby's passed him. He stopped short, wildly considering an impulse of flight. Then he went on bravely, smiling at the thought that any entertainment given by the twins could be by any possibility, a formal affair.

The other guest was Isabel, whom Doctor Jack had not met and of whom he knew nothing. She observed him narrowly when opportunity offered, for she knew who he was, and wondered what he had heard of her. Soon she became certain that her name carried no meaning to him, for he talked freely of Allison and the Colonel and frankly shared the joy of the twins at the welcome news.

"Oh," cried Juliet, clapping her hands in glee. "It's the very best birthday present we could have, isn't it, Romie?"

"I should say," replied that young man, with an expansive smile. "Say," he added to Doctor Jack, "you must be a brick."

"I've only done my best," he responded, modestly.

Isabel could say nothing for some little time. She was furiously angry with Aunt Francesca because she had not told her. The day that Rose went away, everyone in the house had been very glad about something, even to the servants, but she had asked no questions and received no information, except that Rose had been obliged to go away very suddenly upon business of immediate importance.

"You must be awful glad," said Juliet, to Isabel.

"Of course," answered Isabel, coldly, clearing her throat.

"He must feel pretty good," Romeo observed.

"Yes," returned Doctor Jack, "except that he's lost his girl."

Isabel flushed and nervously turned on her finger the diamond ring that she still wore.

"He's had fierce luck with girls," resumed the Doctor, unthinkingly. "One passed him up because he was hurt, and the other because he was going to get well."

The tense silence that ensued indicated that he had made a mistake of some sort. It had not occurred to him that the twins did not know of Allison's engagement to Rose, nor did he suspect Isabel's identity.

Juliet was staring at Isabel in pained surprise. "Did you?" she asked, slowly, "throw him over because he got hurt?"

"He offered to release me," said Isabel, in a small, cold voice, "and I accepted. I did not know until just now that Cousin Rose had taken my leavings." The older woman's mysterious departure presented itself to her now in a new light.

"Suffering Cyrus," said Doctor Jack, aloud, "but I have put my foot into it. Look here, kind friends, I never was meant for a parlour, and I always make mistakes when I stray into one. My place is in a hospital ward or at the bedside of those who have been given up to die. The complex social arena is not where I shine to my best advantage. There are too many rings to keep track of at once, and my mind gets cross- eyed."

"Come on up to the attic," suggested Juliet, with a swift change of subject, "and we'll do stunts on the trapeze."

Isabel and Doctor Jack sat side by side on a battered old trunk in stony silence while the twins were donning their gymnasium costumes. Fortunately, it did not take long and the sight of Juliet hanging by her feet furnished the needed topic of conversation. The lithe little body seemed to be made of steel fibres. She swayed back and forth, catching Romeo as he made a flying leap from the other trapeze, as easily as another girl would have wielded a tennis racquet.

At length Doctor Jack interposed a friendly word of warning. "Look here, kid," he said, "you're made of flesh and blood, you know, just like the rest of us. Better cut out that trapeze business."

"I don't know why," returned Juliet, resentfully, as she slipped gracefully to the floor, right side up. "I'm as strong as Romie is, or almost as strong."

"Girls do it in the circus," Romeo observed, wiping his flushed face.

"Ever heard of any of 'em living to celebrate their hundredth birthday?" queried Doctor Jack, significantly.

The twins admitted that they had not. "I don't care," cried Juliet, "I'd rather live ten years and keep going, than live to be a hundred and have to sit still all the time."

"No danger of your sitting still too long," returned Doctor Jack, good- humouredly. "It's hot up here, isn't it?"

"Rather warm," Romeo agreed. "You folks can go downstairs until we get on our other clothes, if you like."

They had reached the head of the stairs when Isabel changed her mind. "I believe I'll wait for Juliet," she said, turning back.

So the Doctor went down alone, inwardly reviling himself for his unlucky speech, and glad of an opportunity to contemplate the characteristic residence of the twins.

The whole house was, frankly, a place where people did as they chose, and the furniture bore marks of having been used not wisely, but too well. Everything was clean, though not aggressively so. He ascribed the absence of lace curtains to Romeo and the Cloisonne vase to Juliet. The fishing rods in one corner were probably due to both.

When the others came down, Juliet tied a big blue gingham apron over her white muslin gown and excused herself. She had been cooking for the better part of two days and took a housewifely pride in doing everything herself. They had chosen the things they liked the most, so the dinner was unusual, as dinners go.

Isabel, eating daintily, made no effort to conceal her disdain, but Doctor Jack ate heartily, praised everything, and brought the blush of pleasure to Juliet's rosy cheeks.

Romeo, at the head of the table, radiated the hospitality of the true host, yet a close observer would have noted how often he cast admiring glances at Isabel. She was so dainty, so beautifully gowned and elaborately coiffured, that Romeo compared her with his sister greatly to the disadvantage of the latter.

Juliet's hair was unruly and broke into curls all around her face; Isabel's was in perfect order, with every wave mathematically exact. Juliet's face was tanned and rosy; Isabel's pale and cool. Juliet's hands were rough and her finger-tips square; Isabel's were white and tapering, with perfectly manicured nails. And their gowns—there was no possible comparison there. Both were in white, but Romeo discovered that there might be a vast difference in white gowns.

Afterward, the guests were taken out into the yard, and led to the comprehensive grave of the nineteen dogs. Minerva kept at a safe distance, but the five puppies gambolled and frolicked, even to the verge of the sepulchre. Romeo desired to send a dog to Allison, and generously offered Isabel her choice, but she refused.

"I'll take the pup," said the Doctor. "It might amuse him, and anyhow, he'd like to know that you thought of him."

Isabel had strolled down toward the barn. Juliet hesitated, duty bidding her follow Isabel and inclination holding her back. Presently Isabel returned, and her face was surprisingly animated.

"Is that our car in the barn?" she asked. Her manner betrayed great excitement.

"Why, it's Allison Kent's car, isn't it?" inquired Romeo.

"I thought it was mine. Colonel Kent gave it to me for a wedding present."

"I thought you couldn't keep the wedding presents unless the wedding came off," Juliet observed, practically.

"I've still got my ring," said Isabel. "Allison said he wanted me to keep it, and he gave me his violin, too. I should think they'd want me to keep the car."

"Better make sure," suggested Doctor Jack, politely.

"People don't scatter automobiles around carelessly among their friends, as a general rule," observed Juliet.

"I wish I could get it up to Kent's," Romeo said, thoughtfully. "It always reminds me—here."

"I'd just as soon drive it back," the Doctor answered. "It's more of a trot out here than I supposed it was."

"Why, yes," cried Juliet. "You can drive it back to-night and take Isabel home!"

"Charmed," lied the Doctor, with an awkward bow.

So it happened that Isabel once more climbed into the red car and went back over the fateful road. The machine ran well, but it seemed to require the driver's entire attention, for his conversation consisted of brief remarks to which answers even more brief were vouchsafed.

When he turned, on the wide road in front of Madame Bernard's, after leaving Isabel at the gate, she lingered in the shadow, watching, until he was out of sight. The throb of the engine became fainter and fainter, then died away altogether. Isabel sighed and went in, wondering if Allison, after giving her the ring and the violin, would not also want her to have the car. Or, if that seemed too much, and she should send back the violin—she pondered over it until almost dawn, then went to sleep.

The following afternoon, while Madame Bernard slept, Isabel sat idly in the living-room, looking out of the window, though, as she told herself fretfully, there was not much use of looking out of the window when nobody ever went by. But no sooner had she phrased the thought than she heard the faint chug-chug of an approaching motor.

She moved back, into the shelter of the curtain, and presently saw the big red automobile whizz by. Doctor Jack, hatless and laughing, was at the wheel. Beside him was Colonel Kent.

Had they gone out and left Allison alone? Surely, since there was no one else. Fortune favoured her if she wished to see him. But did she dare?

Isabel was nothing if not courageous. Arming herself with an excuse in the shape of the violin, she sallied forth and made her way to Kent's, meeting no one upon the well-worn path.

As it happened, Allison was on the lower veranda, walking back and forth, persistently accompanied by the Crosby pup. Assisted by the Colonel and Doctor Jack, he had come down without accident, and had promised to go out in the car with them a little later.

When he saw Isabel coming up the walk, he stopped in astonishment. He did not go to meet her, but offered her a chair and said, with formal politeness: "How do you do? This is an unexpected pleasure."

"I brought this," began Isabel, offering him the violin.

He took it with a smile. "Thank you. I don't know that I shall ever use it again, but I am glad to have it."

There was a pause and Isabel moved restlessly in her chair. Then she slipped the ring from her finger. "Do you want this now?" she asked. Her face was a shade paler.

Allison laughed. "Indeed I don't. Whom could I give it to?"

"Rose," suggested Isabel, maliciously.

Allison sighed and turned his face away. "She wouldn't take it," he said, sadly.

Isabel slipped it back on her finger, evidently relieved. "I'm glad you're better," she went on, clearing her throat.

"Thank you. So am I."

"I saw your father, out in the car. The Doctor was with him."

"Yes. They're coming back for me in a little while."

"It's a lovely car. The Doctor brought me home in it last night, from Crosby's."

"So he told me." Allison did not see fit to say just how much Doctor Jack had told him. He smiled a little at the recollection of the young man's remorseful confession.

"I told them," continued Isabel, "that I thought it was mine—that your father had given it to me, but it seems I was mistaken."

"It seems so," Allison agreed. "Dad gave it to the Doctor this morning."

Isabel repressed a bitter cry of astonishment. "For keeps?"

"Yes, for keeps. It's little enough to give him after all he's done for me. We both wanted him to have it."

"You could get another, couldn't you?"

"I suppose so, if I wanted it. People can usually get things they want, if they are intangible."

"I wanted to tell you," resumed Isabel, "that I was sorry I acted the way I did the last time I was here."

"Don't think of it," replied Allison, kindly. "It was very natural."

"It was all a great shock to me, and I was lame, and—and—I wish everything could be as it was before," she concluded, with a faint flush creeping into her face.

"That is the great tragedy of life, Isabel—that things can never be as they were before. Sometimes they're worse, sometimes better, but the world is never the same."

"Of course," she answered, without grasping his meaning, "but you're going to be all right again now, and—that's the same."

Allison shrugged his shoulders and bit his lips to conceal a smile. "It may be the same for me, but it couldn't be for you. I couldn't give you any guarantee that it wouldn't happen again, you know. I might be run over by a railroad train or a trolley car, or any one of a thousand things might happen to me. There's always a risk."

Tears filled Isabel's eyes. "I don't believe you ever cared very much for me," she said, her lips quivering.

"I did, Isabel," he answered, kindly, "but it's gone now. Even at that, it lasted longer than you cared for me. Come, let's be friends."

He offered his hand. She put hers into it for a moment, then quickly took it away. He noted that it was very cold.

"I must be going," she said, keeping her self-control with difficulty, "Aunt Francesca will miss me."

"Thank you for coming—and for bringing the violin."

"You're welcome. Good-bye."

"Good-bye, Silver Girl. I hope you'll be happy."

Isabel did not answer, nor turn back. She went out of the gate and out of his life, pride keeping her head high until she had turned the corner. Then, very sorry for herself, she sat down and wept.



XXIII

"TEARS, IDLE TEARS"

"Say, Jule," inquired Romeo, casually, "why is it that you don't look like a lady?"

"What do you mean?" demanded Juliet, bristling.

"I don't know just what I mean, but you seem so different from everybody else."

"I'm clean, ain't I?"

"Yes," he admitted, grudgingly.

"And my hair is combed?"

"Sometimes."

"And my white dress is clean, isn't it?"

"Yes, but it doesn't look like—like hers, you know."

"Her? Who's 'her'?"

"You know—Isabel."

Juliet sighed and bit her lips. Her eyes filled with tears and she winked very hard to keep them back. An ominous pain clutched at her loyal little heart.

"What do you want me to do, Romie?" she asked, gently.

"Why, I don't know. Men never know about such things. Just make yourself like her—that's all."

"Huh!" Juliet was scornful now. "I don't know whether I want to look like her or not," she remarked, coldly.

"Why not?" he flashed back.

"And I don't want to be like her, either. She can't do anything. She can't cook, or swing on the trapeze, or skate, or fish, or row, or swim, or climb a tree, or ride horseback, or walk, or anything." "I could teach her," mused Romeo, half to himself. "I taught you."

"Yes," cried Juliet, swallowing the persistent lump in her throat, "and now you've done it, you're ashamed of me!"

"I didn't say so," he temporised.

"You didn't have to. Don't you suppose I can see?"

"Don't get so mad about it. She was laughing at you last night and so was the Doctor. They didn't think it was nice for you to put on your knickers and swing on the trapeze. Ladies don't do that."

"You taught me," she reminded him, quickly.

"Yes, but I didn't ask you to do it before everybody. You started it yourself. Isabel wouldn't look at you, and you remember what the Doctor said, don't you? He told you to cut it out."

"That was because he thought it was dangerous."

"'Tisn't dangerous, and he knows it. He knew it wasn't refined and lady- like for you to do that before men."

"It was only a doctor," Juliet replied, in a small, thin voice. "They're different from other people. I wouldn't let the Kents see me in my knickers, and you know it."

"You would, too, if you wanted to. You're a perfect tomboy. You wouldn't see Isabel doing that."

"Probably not," answered Juliet, dryly. "She's no more likely to do that than I would be to go back on the man I'd promised to marry, just because his hand was hurt."

"You'll never have a chance to go back on anybody, so you don't know what you'd do."

"Why won't I?"

"Because," answered Romeo, choosing his words carefully, "when a man gets married, he wants to marry a lady, not a tomboy." For some unknown reason, he resented any slur cast at Isabel.

"And," replied Juliet, cuttingly, "when a lady gets married, she wants to marry a gentleman." The accent carried insult with it, and Romeo left the house, slamming the door and whistling, defiantly until he was out of hearing.

There was no longer any need for Juliet to keep back the tears. Stretched at full length upon the disembowelled sofa, she buried her face in the pillow and wept until she could weep no more. Then she bathed her face, and pinned up her tangled hair, and went to the one long mirror the Crosby mansion boasted of, to take an inventory of herself.

She could see that Romeo was right—she didn't look like a lady. Her skirt was too, short and didn't hang evenly, and her belt was wrong because she had no corsets. Juliet made a wry face at the thought of a corset. None of her clothes fitted like Isabel's, her face was tanned, her hands rough and red, and her nails impossible.

"I look just like a boy," Juliet admitted to herself, "dressed up in girl's clothes. If Romie's hair was long, and he had on this dress, he'd look just like me."

Pride forbade her to go to Isabel and inquire into the mysteries of her all-pervading femininity. Anyhow, Isabel would laugh at her. Anybody would laugh at her—unless Miss Bernard—but she had gone away. She was a lady, even more than Isabel, and so was the little old lady everybody called "Aunt Francesca."

If she could see "Aunt Francesca," she wouldn't be ashamed to tell her what Romeo had said. If she only knew what to do, she could do it, for she had plenty of money. Juliet dimly discerned that money was very necessary if one would be the same sort of "lady" that the others were.

"If Mamma hadn't died," said Juliet, to herself, "I guess I'd have been as much of a lady as anybody, and nobody would have dared call me a tomboy." Her heart ached for the gentle little mother who had died many years ago. "She would have known," sighed Juliet. "Mamma was a lady if anybody ever was, and she didn't have the money we've got either."

The life of the Crosbys had been bare of luxuries and sometimes even of comforts, until the considerate uncle died and left his money to the twins. As fortunes go, it was not much, but it seemed inexhaustible to them because they did not know how to spend it.

"I'll go this very day," thought Juliet, "and see Aunt Francesca. I'll ask her. If Isabel is there, I'll have to wait, but if I don't ask for Isabel, maybe I won't see her."

Having decided upon a plan of action, the way seemed easier, so Juliet went about her daily duties with a lighter heart, and even sang after a fashion, as she awkwardly pressed the wrinkles from her white muslin gown. Though it was September, it was still warm enough to wear it.

Romeo, having only the day before attained his maturity, had taken unto himself the masculine privilege of getting angry at someone else for what he himself had done. He was furious with Juliet, though he did not trouble himself to ask why. "The idea," he muttered, "of her criticising Isabel!"

His wounded sensibilities impelled him to walk past the Bernard house, very slowly, two or three times, but there was no one in sight. He went to the post-office as a mere matter of habit; there was seldom any mail for the Crosbys except on the first of the month, when the lawyer's formal note, "enclosing remittance," came duly to hand. Nobody seemed to be around—there was nothing to do. It would have been natural to go back home, but he was too angry for that, and inwardly vowed to stay away long enough to bring Juliet to her senses.

He recalled the night he had called upon Isabel and had not reached home until late. He remembered the torrent of tears and Juliet's cry: "Oh, Romie! Romie! I don't care where you've been as long as I've got you back!" It pleased his masculine sense of superiority to know that he had power over a woman's tears—to make them come or go, as he chose.

He sauntered slowly toward Kent's, thinking that he might while away an hour or two there. It was a long time until midnight, and there seemed to be nothing to do but to sit and wait. He could ask about the car and whether it was all right now. If Doctor Jack could run it, maybe they could go out together for a little spin. It would be nice to go by his own house and never even turn his head. And, if they could get Isabel to go, too, it would teach Juliet a much-needed lesson.

He had nearly reached his destination when he came upon the picture of Beauty in Distress. Isabel sat at the roadside, leaning against a tree, sobbing. Romeo gave a long, low whistle of astonishment. "Say," he called, cheerfully, "what's wrong?"

Isabel looked up, wiped her eyes, and began to weep more earnestly. Though Juliet's tears had moved him to anger and disdain, Isabel's grief roused all his chivalry. He sat down beside her and tried to take her handkerchief away from her eyes.

"Don't," he said, softly. "What's the matter?"

"Oh," sobbed Isabel, "I'm the most miserable girl in the whole world. Nobody wants me!"

"What makes you say that?" demanded Romeo. "Look here, if you'll tell me who's been making you cry, I'll—"

He did not finish the sentence, but his tone indicated that dire misfortune would be visited upon the luckless individual directly responsible for Isabel's tears.

"You know," began Isabel, after her sobs had quieted somewhat, "I was engaged to Allison Kent until you ran over us. At first I couldn't go over—I was so bruised and lame and before I was well enough to go, I got a note from him, releasing me from the engagement."

"Yes?" queried Romeo, encouragingly. "Go on."

"Well, I didn't think I ought to go over, under the circumstances, but Aunt Francesca made me go—she's been mean to me, too. So I went and he was horrid to me—perfectly horrid. I offered him his ring and he almost threw his violin at me, and told me to keep that, too. I was afraid of him.

"Well, since that, everything has been awful. I wrote to Mamma and told her about it and that I couldn't stay here any longer, and she didn't answer for a long time. Then she said I would have to stay where I was until she could make new arrangements for me and that she was glad I wasn't going to marry a cripple. She said something about 'the survival of the unfit,' but I didn't understand it.

"And then, last night, when I heard that Allison wasn't going to lose his hand after all, I thought I ought to take his violin back to him and try to well,—to make up, you know. So I've just been there. He took the violin all right, but he didn't seem to want me. He said nothing could ever be as it was before. I was ready to get married and go away—I'd do almost anything for a change—but he actually seemed to be glad to get rid of me and they've given my automobile, that Colonel Kent himself gave to me for a wedding present, to that doctor who was out to your house last night. Oh," sobbed Isabel, "I wish I was dead. If you only hadn't run over us, everything would have been all right!"

Romeo's young face was set in stern and unaccustomed lines. He, then, was directly responsible for Isabel's tears. He had run over them and hurt Isabel and made everything wrong for her, and, because she was a lady, she wasn't blaming him in the least. She had merely pointed out to him, as gently as she could, what he had done to her.

A bright idea flashed into his mind, as he remembered that he was twenty-one now and could do as he pleased without consulting anybody. He reached into his pocket, drew out a handful of greenbacks and silver, even a gold piece or two. It would serve Juliet just right and make up to Isabel for what he had done.

"I say, Isabel," he began awkwardly. "Would you be willing to marry me?"

Isabel quickly dried her tears. "Why, I don't know," she answered, much astonished. Then the practical side of her nature asserted itself. "Have you got money enough?"

Romeo tendered the handful of currency. "All this, and plenty more in the bank."

"I know, but it was the bank I was talking about. Have you got enough for us to live at a nice hotel and go to the theatre every night?"

"More than that," Romeo asserted, confidently. "I've got loads."

"I—don't know," said Isabel, half to herself. "It would serve them all right. Allison used to be jealous of you," she added, with a sidelong glance that set his youthful heart to fluttering.

"Juliet is jealous of you," Romeo responded disloyally. "We had an awful scrap this morning because I asked her why she didn't try to be a lady, like you."

"Of course," replied Isabel, smoothing her gown with a dainty hand, "I've always liked Juliet, but I liked you better."

"Really, Isabel? Did you always like me?"

"Always."

"Then come on. Let's skip out now, the way they do in the books. Let's take the next train."

"Why not get married here?" objected Isabel, practically, "and take the four-thirty into town? There's a minister here, and while you're seeing about it, I can go home and get my coat."

"All right, but don't stop for anything else. We've got to hustle. Don't tell anybody."

"Not even Aunt Francesca?"

"No, she'd make a fuss. And besides, she doesn't deserve it, if she's been mean to you." Romeo leaned over and bestowed a meaningless peck upon the fair cheek of his betrothed.

"I'll never be mean to you," he said.

"I know you won't," Isabel returned, trustfully. Then she laughed as she rose to her feet. "It will be a good joke on Allison," she said, gleefully.

"It'll be a good joke on everybody," Romeo agreed, happily.

"Listen," said Isabel. A faint chug-chug was heard in the distance, gradually coming nearer. "It's my car. I wish you hadn't been so quick to get rid of it last night. We could have gone away in it now."

"Never mind, I'll buy you another."

They hoped to reach the turn in the road before the car got there, but failed. Doctor Jack came to a dead stop. "Want a lift?" he asked.

"No, thank you," said Romeo.

"No, thank you," repeated Isabel, primly. Colonel Kent had greeted her with the most chilling politeness, and she burned to get away.

"Say," resumed Romeo, "will you do something for me?"

"Sure," replied the Doctor, cordially. "Anything."

"Will you take a note out to my sister for me? I shan't get back for— some time."

"You bet. Where is it?"

"I haven't written it yet. Just wait a minute."

Romeo tore a leaf from an old memorandum book which he carried, and wrote rapidly:

"DEAR JULE:

"Isabel and I have gone away to get married. You can have half of everything. I'll let you know where to send my clothes.

"R.C."

He was tempted to add an apology for what he had said earlier in the day, but his newly acquired importance made him refrain from anything so compromising.

He folded the note into a little cocked hat and addressed it. "Much obliged," he said, laconically. "So long."

"So long," returned Doctor Jack, starting the engine.

"Good-bye," said the Colonel, lifting his hat.

Romeo left Isabel at Madame Bernard's gate. "Hurry up," he said, in a low tone. "I'll meet you under the big elm down the road."

"All right," she whispered.

Madame Bernard was asleep, so Isabel hastily crammed a few things into a suit-case and slipped out of the house, unseen and unheard. As the half- starved minister of the country parish was sorely in need of the generous fee Romeo pressed upon him in advance, the arrangements were pitifully easy. He was at the trysting place fully ten minutes before she came in sight, staggering under the unaccustomed burden of a heavy suit-case.

It might not have occurred to him to relieve Juliet of a cumbrous piece of baggage, but he instinctively took it from Isabel. "Come on," he said. "We've got to hurry if we don't want to miss the four-thirty."

"How long does it take to get married?" queried Isabel.

"Not long, I guess. See how people fool around over it, and we're getting through with it in one afternoon. We're making a record, I guess."

It seemed that they were, for when they came to the shabby little brown house, near the big white church, the minister, his wife, and a next- door neighbour were waiting. In a very short time, the ceremony was over and Mr. and Mrs. Romeo Crosby were on the train, speeding toward their honeymoon and the lively years that undoubtedly lay ahead of them.

Allison had changed his mind about going out that afternoon, but promised to go next time. Colonel Kent remained at home, and Doctor Jack sped away alone upon his errand.

When he reached Crosby's, Juliet clad in her best, was just leaving the house. She was outwardly cheerful, but her face still bore traces of tears.

"Where were you going?" asked the Doctor, as Juliet greeted him. There was a new shyness in her manner, as of some unwonted restraint.

"I was going into town. I wanted to see Aunt Francesca." She slipped easily into the habit of the others, seldom hearing the name "Madame Bernard."

"I'll take you. Here's a note from your brother."

Juliet opened it, read the fateful message, and turned white as death.

"What is it?" asked the Doctor, much alarmed.

In answer, she offered him the note, her hand shaking pitifully. The Doctor read it twice before he grasped the full meaning of it. "Well, I'll be—" he said, half to himself.

Unable to stand, Juliet sat down upon the well-worn door-step and he sat down beside her. "It's all my fault," she said, solemnly. "Romie told me this morning that I wasn't a lady, and he wanted me to be like her. He said I was a tomboy, and I told him that if I was, he'd done it himself, and he got mad and went away, and now—"

Juliet burst into tears, but she had no handkerchief, so Doctor Jack gave her his.

"'Tears, idle tears,'" he quoted lightly. "I say, kid, don't take it so hard."

"I—I'm not a lady," she sobbed.

"You are," he assured her. "You're the finest little lady I know."

"Don't—don't," she sobbed. "Don't make fun of me. Romie said that you were—laughing at me—yesterday-because I was—a—a tomboy!"

"Kid," he said, softly, almost unmanned by a sudden tenderness quite foreign to his experience. "Oh, my dear little girl, won't you look at me?"

The tone was wholly new to Juliet—she did not know that any man could be so tender, so beautifully kind. "It's because he's a doctor," she thought. "He's used to seeing people when they don't feel right."

"I'm so sorry," he was saying. "Your brother didn't mean anything by it, little girl. He was just teasing."

"He wasn't," returned Juliet, wiping her eyes. "Don't you think I know when he's teasing and when he isn't? I'm not a lady; I'm only a tomboy, and now he's gone away with her and left me all alone."

"You'll never be alone if I can help it," he assured her, fervently. "Look here, do you suppose you could ever learn to like me?"

"Why, I like you now—I've always liked you."

"I know, but I don't mean that. Do you think you could ever like me a whole lot? Enough to marry me, I mean?"

"Why, I don't know—I never thought—" Juliet's voice trailed off into an inarticulate murmur of astonishment.

"Won't you try?" he pleaded. "Oh, Juliet, I've loved you ever since I first saw you!"

The high colour surged into her face. He was not joking—he meant every word. Even Juliet could see that.

"Won't you try, dear? That's all I'll ask for, now."

"Why, yes," she said, her wide blue eyes fixed upon his. "I'd try almost anything—for you, but I'm only a tomboy."

Doctor Jack caught her cold little hands in his. "Kiss me," he said, huskily.

Juliet's face burned, but she lifted her lips to his, obediently and simply as a child. The man hesitated for an instant, then pushed her away from him; not unkindly, but firmly.

"No, I won't take it, Princess," he said, in a strange tone. "I'll wait until you wake up." "I'm—not asleep," she stammered.

"You are in some ways." Then he added, irrelevantly, "Thank God!"

"I don't know," remarked Juliet, at the end of an uncomfortable pause, "what to do with myself. I don't want to stay here alone and I wouldn't go anywhere near them—not for the world."

"Where did you say you were going, when I came?"

"To Aunt Francesca's—Madame Bernard, you know."

"Good business," he answered, nodding vigorous approval. "Come on. She seems to be the unfailing refuge of the shipwrecked mariner in this district. If I'm not much mistaken, she'll take you into her big house and her bigger heart."

"Oh," said Juliet, wistfully, "do you think she would take me—and make me into a lady?"

"I think she'll take you," he responded, after a brief struggle with himself, "but I don't want you made over. I want you to stay just exactly as you are. Oh, you dear little kid," he muttered, "you'll try to care, won't you?"

"I'll try," she promised, sweetly, as she climbed into the big red machine. "I didn't think I'd ever be in this car."

"You can come whenever you like. It's mine, now."

Juliet did not seem to hear. The car hummed along the dusty road, making a soothing, purring noise. Pensively she looked across the distant fields, whence came the hum and whir of reaping. There was a far-away look in her face that the man beside her was powerless to understand. She was making swift readjustments as best she might, and, wisely, he left her to herself.

As they approached Madame Bernard's, Juliet turned to him. "I was just thinking," she sighed, "how quickly you grow up after you get to be twenty-one."

He made no answer. He swallowed hard and turned the car into the driveway. Aunt Francesca came out on the veranda, followed by Mr. Boffin, as Juliet jumped out of the car. She had the crumpled note in her cold little hand.

Without a word, she offered it to Madame Bernard and waited. The beautiful face instantly became soft with pity. "My dear child," she breathed. "My dear little motherless child!"

Juliet went into her open arms as straight as a homing pigeon to its nest. "Oh, Aunt Francesca," she sobbed, "will you take me and make a lady out of me?"

"You're already a lady," laughed the older woman amid her tears. "Come in, Juliet dear—come home!"



XXIV

THE HOUSE WHERE LOVE LIVED

It was past the middle of October, and Allison's injured hand was not only free of its bandages, but he had partially regained the use of it. Doctor Jack still lingered, eagerly seizing every excuse that presented itself.

"I suppose I ought to be back looking for another job," he regretfully observed to Allison, "but I like it here, and besides, I want to hear you play on your fiddle before I go."

Allison laughed and hospitably urged him to stay as long as he chose. Colonel Kent added, heartily, after an old Southern fashion: "My house is yours."

Crimson and golden leaves rained from the maples, and the purple winds of Autumn swept them into drifts at the roadside. Amethystine haze shimmered in the valleys and lay, cloud-like, upon the distant hills. Through the long aisles of trees a fairy patter of tiny furred feet rustled back and forth upon the fallen leaves. Only a dropping nut or a busy squirrel broke the exquisite peace of the forest, where the myriad life of the woods waited, in hushed expectancy, for the tide of the year to turn.

Like a scarlet shuttle plying through the web of Autumn, the big red touring car hummed and whirred, with a happy young man at the wheel and a laughing girl beside him. Juliet's momentary self-consciousness was gone, and she was her sunny self again, though she still occasionally wept in secret, longing for her brother.

"Aunt Francesca," she said, one day, when the two were sewing on dainty garments destined to adorn Juliet, "do you think Romie will ever come back to me?"

"Not in the sense you mean, dear," replied Madame, gently. "We live in a world of change and things are never the same, even from day to day."

"She made him think I was a tomboy, and now she'll teach him not to love me. Why does she want everything?"

"Some women do, when they marry. Many are not content to be sweetheart and wife, but must take the place of mother and sisters too. But remember, Juliet, when a woman closes a man's heart against those of his own blood, the one door she has left open will some day be slammed in her own face."

"And then—?"

"Then the other doors will swing ajar, turning slowly on rusty hinges, but the women for whom they are opened will never cross the threshold again."

"Why?"

"Because they have ceased to care. There is nothing so dead as a woman's dead love. When the fire goes out and no single ember is left, the ashes are past the power of flame to rekindle."

"Do you think that, after a while, I won't care for Romie any more?"

"Not as you used to—that is impossible even now."

Juliet sighed and hastily wiped away a tear. With a quick, sure stroke, her life seemed to have been divided.

"Don't, dear. Remember what you have had. I often think a woman has crossed the line between youth and maturity, when she begins to put away, in the lavender of memory, the lovely things she has had—and is never to have again. The after years are made up, so many times, of things one has had—rounded off and put away forever."

"I know," returned Juliet, with a far-away look in her eyes. "I remember the day I grew up—almost the hour. It was the day I came here."

Madame stooped to kiss the girl's rosy cheek, then swiftly turned the talk to linen and lace. Always quick to observe, Juliet had acquired little graces of tone and manner, softened her abruptness, and, guided by loving tact, had begun to bloom like a primrose in a sunny window.

"When—when Miss Bernard comes back again," asked Juliet, wistfully, "shall I have to go?"

"No, dear—indeed no! This is your home until the right man comes a- wooing, and takes you to a little house of your own."

Scarlet signals flamed in Juliet's cheeks as she earnestly devoted herself to her sewing, and Madame smiled. Already, in quiet moments, she had planned a pretty wedding gown for Juliet, and a still prettier wedding.

Allison came frequently, sometimes alone and sometimes with his father or Doctor Jack. He had remarked once that when he desired to consult his physician, he always knew where to find him. Madame affected not to notice that a strange young man had become a veritable part of her family, for she liked Doctor Jack and made him very welcome, morning, noon, and night.

On Wednesdays, the men of the other household dined with her. Saturdays, she and Juliet were honoured guests at the Colonel's, though he deprecated his own hospitality. "A house needs a woman at the head of it," he said. "It was different when Miss Rose was here."

"Indeed it was," thought Allison, though he did not put it into words.

At the end of the month, when it was cool enough to make an open fire seem the most cheerful of companions, Madame had them all at her own table. Juliet was surpassingly lovely in her first long gown, of ivory- tinted chiffon, ornamented only by hand embroidery and a bit of deep- toned lace. Her wavy hair was gathered into a loose knot, from which tiny tendrils escaped to cling about her face. Madame had put a pink rose into her hair, slipped another into her belt, and had been well pleased with the work of her own hands.

After dinner, while Juliet played piquet with the Colonel, and Doctor Jack sat quietly in the shadow, where he could watch every play of light and shade upon the girl's lovely changing face, Allison drew Madame into the library and quietly closed the door.

"Aunt Francesca," he said, without preliminary, "I've been more kinds of a fool in a few months than most men can manage to be in a lifetime."

"Yes," Madame agreed, with a cool little smile.

"Where is Rose?" he demanded.

"Rose," replied Madame, lightly, "has gone away."

"I know that," he flashed back. "I realise it every day and every hour of my life. I asked where she was."

"And I," answered Madame, imperturbably, "have told you. She is simply 'away.'"

"Is she well?"

"Yes."

"Is she happy?'

"Of course. Why not? Beauty, health, talent, sufficient income, love— what more can a woman desire?"

"Aunt Francesca! Tell me, please. Where is Rose?"

"When I was married," answered Madame, idly fingering an ivory paper knife, "I went to live in a little house in the woods."

"Yes? Where is Rose?"

"It was only a tiny place, but a brook sang in front of it, night and day."

"Must have been pretty. Where did Rose go?"

"It was very quiet there. It would have been a good place to work, if either of us had been musical, or anything of that sort."

"Charming," replied Allison, absently.

"It wasn't far from town, either. We could take a train at two o'clock, and reach Holly Springs a little after three. It was half a mile up the main road from the station, and, as we had no horse, we always walked."

"Nice walk," said Allison, dejectedly.

"I have never been back since—since I was left alone. Sometimes I have thought my little house ought to have someone to look after it. A house gets lonely, too, with no one to care for it."

"I suppose so. Is Rose coming back?"

"I have often thought of the little Summer cottages, huddled together like frightened children, when the life and laughter had gone and Winter was swiftly approaching. How cold their walls must be and how empty the heart of a little house, when there is no fire there! So like a woman, when love has gone out of her life."

Allison sighed and began to sharpen his pencil. Madame observed that his hands were trembling.

"I see," he said. "I don't deserve to know where she is, and Rose doesn't want me chasing after her. Never mind—I had it coming to me, I guess. What a hopeless idiot I've been!"

"Yes," agreed Madame, cordially. "Carlyle says that 'there is no other entirely fatal person.'"

Something in her tone gave him courage for another question. "Once for all, Aunt Francesca, will you tell me where Rose is?"

"George Washington was a great man," Madame observed. "He never told a lie. If he had promised not to tell anything, he never told it." Then she added, with swift irrelevance, "this used to be a very pleasant time of the year at Holly Springs."

A great light broke in upon Allison. "Aunt Francesca!" he cried. He put his arms around her, lifted her from her chair, and nearly smothered her in a bear-like embrace. "God bless you!"

"He has," murmured Madame, disengaging herself. "My foster son has been a dunce, but his reason is now restored."

The two o'clock train to Holly Springs did not leave town until three, so Allison waited for an hour in the station, fuming with impatience. Both Colonel Kent and the Doctor had offered to accompany him, individually or together, but he had brusquely put them aside.

"Don't worry," he said. "My name and address are in my pocket and also inside my hat. I'll check my grip and be tenderly considerate of my left hand. Good-bye."

When he had gone Colonel Kent anxiously turned to the doctor. "Where do you suppose—and why—"

"Cherchez la femme," returned the Doctor.

"What makes you think so? It's not—"

"It's about the only errand a man can go on, and not be willing to take another chap along. And I'll bet anything I've got, except my girl and my buzz-cart, that it isn't the fair, false one we met at the hour of her elopement."

"Must be Rose, then," said the Colonel, half to himself, "but I thought nobody knew where she was."

"Love will find a way," hummed Doctor Jack. "I suppose you don't care to go for a ride this afternoon?"

"Not I," laughed the Colonel. "Why don't you take Juliet?"

"All right, since you ask me to. I wonder," he continued to himself, as he went toward Madame Bernard's at the highest rate of speed, "just how a fellow would go to work to find a woman who had left no address? Sixth sense, I suppose, or perhaps seventh or eighth."

Yet Allison was doing very well, with only the five senses of the normal human being to aid him in his search. He left the train at the sleepy little place known as "Holly Springs," and walked up the main road as though he knew the way.

"Half a mile," he said to himself, "and a little brown house in the woods with a brook singing in front of it. Ought to get to it pretty soon."

The prattling brook was half asleep in its narrow channel, but the gentle murmur was audible to one who stopped in the road to listen. It did not cross the road, but turned away, frightened, from the dusty highway of a modest civilisation, and went back into the woods, where it met another brook and travelled to the river in company.

The house, just back of the singing stream, was a little place, as Madame Bernard had said, but, though he rapped repeatedly, no one answered. So he lifted the latch and cautiously stepped in.

A grand piano, unblushingly new, and evidently of recent importation from the city, occupied most of the tiny living-room. The embers of a wood fire lay on the hearth and the room was faintly scented with the sweet smoke of hard pine. A well-known and well-worn sonata was on the music rack; a volume of Chopin had fallen to the floor. Allison picked it up, and put it in its place. On the piano was some of his own music, stamped with his Berlin address.

A familiar hat, trimmed with crushed roses, lay on the window seat. The faint, indefinable scent of attar of roses was dimly to be discerned as a sort of background for the fragrant smoke. An open book lay face downward on the table; a bit of dainty needlework was thrown carelessly across the chair. An envelope addressed to "Madame Francesca Bernard" was on the old-fashioned writing desk, and a single page of rose-stamped paper lay near it, bearing, in a familiar hand: "My Dearest."

The two words filled Allison with panic. Not knowing how Rose was wont to address the little old lady they both loved, he conjured up the forbidding spectre of The Other Man, that had haunted him for weeks past.

Sighing, he sat down at the piano, and began to drum idly, with one hand. "Wonder if I could use the other," he thought. "Pretty stiff, I guess."

He began to play, from memory:



and outside a woman paused, almost at the threshold, with her hands upon her heart. In a sudden throb of pain, the old days came back. She saw herself at the piano, aching with love and longing, while just beyond, in an old moonlit garden, Allison made love to Isabel.



Was it a ghost, or was it—? No, she was only foolish. Aunt Francesca had promised not to tell, and she never broke her word. Besides, why should he seek her?



"It's only someone who has stopped in passing," Rose thought, "to ask the way to the next town, or to get a glass of water, or—I won't be foolish! I'll go in!"

So she crossed the threshold, into the house where Love lived.

At the sound of her step, the man turned quickly, the music ending in a broken chord.

"You!" she gasped. "Oh, how could you come!"

"By train," answered Allison, gently, "and then by walking. I've frightened you, Rose."

"No," she stammered sinking into a chair. "I'm—I'm surprised, of course. I'm glad you're well enough to be about again. Did—is anything wrong with Aunt Francesca?" she asked, anxiously.

"Indeed there isn't. She was blooming like a lilac bush in May, when I saw her last night."

"Did-did—she tell you?"

"She did not," he returned, concisely.

"Then how—how—?"

"I just came. What made you think you could get away from me?"

"I wasn't—getting away," she returned with difficulty. "I was just tired—and I came here to—to rest—and to work," she concluded, lamely. "You didn't need me."

"Not need you," he cried, stretching his trembling hands toward her. "Oh, Rose, I need you always!"

Slowly the colour ebbed from her face, leaving her white to the lips. "Don't," she said, pitifully.

"Oh, I know," he flashed back, bitterly. "I've lost any shadow of right I might ever have had, because I was a blind fool, and I never had any chance anyway. All I can do is to go on loving you, needing you, wanting you; seeing your face before me every hour of the day and night, thirsting for you with every fibre of me. All I have to keep is an empty husk of memory—those few weeks you were kind to me. At least I had you with me, though your heart belonged to someone else."

"Someone else?" she repeated, curiously. The colour was coming back slowly now.

"Yes. Have you forgotten you told me? That day, don't you remember, you said you had loved another man who did not care for you?"

Rose nodded. Her face was like a crimson flower swaying on a slender stem. "I said," she began, "that I had loved a man who did not care for me, and that I always would. Wasn't that it?"

"Something like that. I wish to God I could change places with him."

"Did I," hesitated Rose, "are you sure—that I said—another man, or was it just—a man?"

"Rose! What do you mean?"

Covered with lovely confusion, she stumbled over to the window, where she might hide her burning face from him. "Don't you think," she asked, unsteadily, "that it is beautiful here? This is Aunt Francesca's little house, where she came when she was first married. She always calls it 'the little house where Love lived.'"

"And I came here," she went on, courageously, "because, in a house where Love—had lived, I thought there might be some—for—"

Her voice trailed off into an indistinct murmur. "Rose," cried Allison, "couldn't you give me just what I had before? Couldn't we go back, and never mind the other man?"

"There's never any going back," she answered, in a whisper. Her heart was beating wildly because he was so near. "And did I say—are you sure I said—another man?"

"Rose! Rose! Look at me! Tell me, for God's sake, who he was—or is. I can't bear it!"

She turned toward him. "Look," she said, softly. "Look in my face and see."

For a tense instant he hesitated. Then, with a little cry of joy, he clasped her close forever, having seen his own face mirrored in her happy eyes.

THE END