"Well, all things come to him who waits, and I can afford to wait in such comfortable quarters. Do you catch on, and call me a scamp with your Puritanical notions? Not so fast, old fellow. You have chosen to earn your living delving at the law. I earn mine by being so useful to my uncle that he will not part with me. He has already made me a kind of agent to attend to his business, so that I look upon myself as permanently fixed at Crompton House for as long as I choose to stay. It is a grand old place, with an income of I do not know how many thousands, and if I should ever be fortunate enough to be master, I shall say that for once in his life Howard Crompton was in luck. I want you to come here, Jack, when you have finished visiting your sister. I asked my uncle if I could invite you, and he said, 'Certainly; I like to have young people in the house. It pleases Amy.'

"This is wonderful, as they say he used to keep young people away, almost with lock and key, when she was young. But now anything which pleases Amy pleases him.

"And now for another matter which involves a girl, Eloise Smith. Who is she, you ask? Well, she is neither high born, I fancy, nor city bred; nor much like the girls from Wellesley and Lasell, with whom we used to flirt. She is a country school-ma'am, and is to be graduated this month in the Normal School in Mayville, where you are visiting. What is she to me? Nothing, except this: She has haunted me ever since I heard of her, and I can't get rid of an idea that in some way she is to influence my life. You know I was always given to presentiments and vagaries, and she is the last one. I might not have thought much of her if my uncle were not in a great way on her account. Long ago when they changed the name of the town from Troutburg to Crompton in his honor, he built a school-house on his premises, and gave it to the town. Since then he has felt that he had a right to control it, and say who should teach, and who shouldn't. For a long time the people humored him, and made him school inspector, whose business it was to examine the teachers with regard to their qualifications. With his old time notions, he had some very old-time questions, which with others, he always propounded. As a test of scholarship they were ridiculous; but he was Col. Crompton, and the people shrugged their shoulders and laughed at what they called the Crompton formula. Here are a few of the questions: First, What is logic? Second, Why does the wind usually stop blowing when the sun goes down? I don't know; do you? and we are both Harvarders. The third introduces a man in old Colburn's Arithmetic, driving his sheep or geese to market. The fourth is a scorcher, and has to do with the diameter of a grindstone, after a certain number of inches have been ground from it. Then comes what I call the piece de resistance, but which my uncle called 'killing two birds with one stone.' He has a fad on writing and spelling, and required his victims to put on paper the following:

"'Mr. Wright has a right To write the rites of the church.'

"Blamed if I didn't get stuck on that last rite when he gave it to me! If the teachers got safely through with the sheep, or geese, and the grindstone, and Mr. Wright, and the rest of them, he gave them a certificate declaring them qualified to teach a district school. In these days of methods, and analysis, and different ways of looking at things, all that is exploded, and the Crompton people have dropped my uncle, who is furious, and charges it to young blood, and the normal schools which have sprung up, and in which he does not believe. 'No matter how many diplomas a girl may have,' he says, 'proving that she has stood up in a white gown, and read an esay nobody within four feet of the rostrum could hear, or care to hear, if they could, she ought to pass a good solid examination to see if she were rooted and grounded in the fundamentals,' and when he heard that a normal graduate was engaged for District No. 5, he swore a blue streak at the girl, the trustee who hired her, and the attack of gout which keeps him a prisoner in the house, and will prevent his interviewing Miss Smith, as he certainly would if he were able. I tried to quiet him by offering to interview her myself. Think of me in a district school-house, talking to the teacher about the diameter of a grindstone! The absurdity must have struck my uncle. You should have seen the look he gave me over his spectacles, as he said, 'You, who know nothing, except ball games, and boat races, and raising the devil generally, interview a girl with a diploma! You would probably end by making love to her, but I won't have it; mind, I won't have it! Remember, you are a Crompton, and no Crompton ever married beneath him!' Here he stopped suddenly, and turned so white that I was alarmed, and asked what ailed him.

"'Nothing,' he said, 'nothing but a twinge. I had an awful one.'

"I suppose he referred to his foot, which was pretty bad that day. After a little, quite to my surprise, he said, 'If you knew anything yourself, you might manage to see if this Smith girl knows anything. Amy can coach you. She is rooted and grounded. She was taught in the old school-house, which I would never have given the town but for her.'

"What he meant I don't know. What I do know is that Amy has told me why the wind stops blowing when the sun goes down, but I'll be hanged if I understand much about the rarefaction of the air. Do you? She was very glib with the sheep and the geese, but the grindstone made her head ache, and she gave it up. I think, however, I have all the knowledge necessary to judge whether a girl is rooted and grounded, and now I want to know something about the girl. Manage to see her while you are in Mayville. Attend the commencement exercises. She is sure to read an essay in a white gown. Write me what she is like, and if I am likely to fall in love with her. Come as soon as you can.

"Always your friend,

"HOWARD CROMPTON."



CHAPTER II

JACK HARCOURT TO HOWARD CROMPTON

Mayville, July —, 18—.

"Dear Howard:

"That you are a scamp of the first water goes without saying, insinuating yourself into an eccentric old man's confidence in hopes to be his heir! I dare say, Amy is his daughter, and you will have to work for a living after all, and serve you right, too. But have a good time while you can, and I'll help you after a little, as I accept your invitation with pleasure.

"Now for the girl! I have seen her, and if there was ever a case of love at first sight, I'm that case. It was this way. Mayville is not a very lively place, and when my sister, Mrs. Lovell, who you know has a summer home here, suggested one morning that we attend the commencement exercises of the Normal School, saying, that twenty-five or thirty young girls were to be graduated, I concluded that it was better than nothing. I hate such places, as a rule, they are so close and stuffy, and the essays so long and dull, and the girls all look pretty much alike, and I begged Bell to get a seat as near the door as possible, so I could go out when it became unendurable. Just then your letter was brought to me, and after reading it, nothing could have kept me from Eloise Smith. I asked Bell if she knew her.

"'I don't know many of the girls by name,' she said, 'but I have heard of Eloise Smith. She sings in the choir, and is a basket-boarder of Mrs. Brown's.'

"'What the mischief is a basket-boarder?' I asked, and Bell explained that girls sometimes hire a room, and bring their food from home, and have the family with whom they lodge cook it for them, or cook it themselves on the family stove. A kind of picnic to get an education, you see, and just think of all we spent uselessly in college. Why, it would keep a lot of basket-boarders. Well, we started for the chapel, which was literally crammed, and the thermometer at ninety. You know, Mr. Lovell is wealthy, and from New York, and that makes Bell a kind of swell woman in the place, while I fancy your humble servant had something to do with the attention we received. Instead of a seat by the door, we were pushed to the front, within ten feet of the rostrum, and I was wedged in with Bell on one side of me, afraid I'd jam her sleeves, and on the other side was a woman, who weighed at least two hundred, and was equally afraid of her sleeves. In front of me was a hat so big that I couldn't begin to see all the stage, and but for Eloise I'd have got out some way, I was so uncomfortable with Bell fanning on one side till that rheumatic spot on my shoulder, which troubled me some at Harvard, began to ache, and the fat woman the other side mopping her face with a handkerchief saturated with cheap perfumery, and the big hat in front flopping and nodding this way and that, and no place to stretch my long legs.

"There was a prayer, a song circle, and et ceteras, and a great flutter in a row of white dresses, and many colored ribbons to my left. 'The Graduates,' Bell whispered, and the business of the day began. There were eight in all to read essays—nice looking girls, and much like the Lasells and Wellesleys we used to know. As for the essays—well, there was either a good deal of bosh in them, or a profundity of learning and thought to which Jack Harcourt never attained. But the people cheered like mad whenever one was ended, and sent up flowers, while I grew hotter and hotter, and when the seventh went up, and unfolded the 'Age of Progress and Reason,' which looked as if it might last an age, I made up my mind to bolt, and said so to Bell.

"'Keep still; there's only one more after this one, and that is Eloise Smith,' she said.

"I thought of you, and settled myself for another fifteen minutes, while a red-haired girl in glasses went through the 'Age of Progress and Reason' with great applause, and a basket of flowers, and bowed herself off the stage. There was a little delay. Somebody had fainted. I wonder they didn't all faint, the air was so hot and thick; and to crown all, the window near us had to be shut, because that fat woman didn't want a draught on her back! When they got the fainting person out, and the window shut, I saw the flutter of a white dress, and knew the eighth and last essay was coming.

"'That's Eloise,' Bell said, as a slender little girl walked on to the rostrum, looking as fresh, and cool, and sweet as a—well, as the white lilies of which I am so fond.

"'By George!' I said, so loud that those nearest me must have heard me, and wondered what ailed me.

"Perhaps she heard me, for she looked at me with her beautiful eyes, which steadied me, and kept me quiet all through her essay. Don't ask me what it was about. I don't know. I was so absorbed in the girl herself, she was so graceful, and pretty, and self-possessed, and her voice was so musical that I could think of nothing but her; and when she finished I cheered louder than anybody else, and kept on cheering as they do in plays when they want them to come back, till Bell nudged my side, and whispered, 'Are you crazy? Everybody is looking at you.'

"I was a little ashamed to be spatting away alone, but it pleased the fat woman, who proved to be Mrs. Brown, the keeper of the basket-boarders.

"'That's Miss Smith. She done nice, didn't she, and she or'to of had some flowers,' she said to me; and then I remembered with a pang that not a flower had been sent up to her—the flower of them all—and wished I had a whole green-house to give her.

"Did she think of it? I wondered, as I watched her after she sat down. The big hat had moved a little, and I could see the top of Eloise's head, with its crown of reddish-brown hair, on which a gleam of sunshine from a window fell, bringing out tints of gold, as well as red. That sounds rather poetical, don't it? for a prosy chap who professes never to have been moved by any piece of femininity, however dainty. I'll confess I was moved by this little girl. She is very slight and very young, I judge. I like Mrs. Brown, and do not think her perfumery bad, or herself very fat, and am glad they had the window shut for her. I wouldn't have her in a draught for anything, because she told me Eloise was the nicest girl she ever had in her house, and the best scholar in her class. Of course she is; I'd swear to that. She may not be rooted and grounded in the fundamentals your queer old uncle thinks necessary, and I doubt if she knows about the grindstone, and the rest of it. I'd laugh to see a great hulking fellow like you questioning her on such subjects. I've a great mind to write out the lingo, and send it to her anonymously, so she will be prepared to satisfy your uncle, who, I fancy, is the Great Mogul of Crompton.

"I got quite chummy with Mrs. Brown before the exercises were over, and she told me Eloise lived in North Mayville with her grandmother, and that she was real glad she had a place to teach in Crompton, for she needed it.

"'Poor?' I asked, feeling ashamed of myself for the question.

"But Mrs. Brown saw nothing wrong in it, and answered, 'Very.'

"Just then Bell nudged me again, and said, 'Let's go. We can get out now. You don't care to see them receive their diplomas?'

"But I did, and sat it out till Eloise had hers, and I saw her face again, and saw, too, what I had not noticed before, that her dress looked poor and plain beside the others. Of course she's poor; but what do I care for that? I am a good deal struck, you see, and if there were nothing else to bring me to Crompton, Eloise would do it. So expect me in September about the time her school commences. When will that be?

"Very truly,

"JACK HARCOURT."



CHAPTER III

ELOISE

It was a brown, old-fashioned house such as is common in New England, with low ceilings, high windows, and small panes of glass, and in the centre a great chimney of a fashion a hundred years ago. In the grass plot at the side, where clothes were bleached and dried, there should have been a well-sweep and curb to complete the picture, but instead there was a modern pump where an elderly woman was getting water, and throwing away three or four pails full, so that the last might be fresh and sparkling for the coffee she was to make for the early breakfast. Above the eastern hills the sun was rising, coloring everything with a rosy tinge, and the air was full of the song which summer sings, of flowers and happy insect life, when she is at her best. But the woman neither heard the song nor saw the sunshine, her heart was so heavy with thoughts of the parting which was so near.

"I can't let her know how bad I feel," she said, fighting back her tears, as she prepared the dainty breakfast which she could scarcely touch, but which her grand-daughter, Eloise, ate with the healthy appetite of youth, and then turned her attention to strapping her trunk, while her grandmother began to fill a paper box with slices of bread and butter, and whatever else she could find, and thought Eloise would like on the road.

"There, I've got it done at last, and hope it will hold till I get there, the old lock is so shaky," Eloise said, rising to her feet, and shedding back from her face a mass of soft, fluffy hair.

"Please don't put up any more lunch. I can never eat it all," she continued, turning to her grandmother; then, as she saw the tears dropping from the dim, old eyes, she sprang forward, and exclaimed, "Don't cry. You know we promised we would both be brave, and it is not so very long to Christmas. I shall certainly be home then, and Crompton is not so very far away."

With a catching kind of sob, the elder woman smiled upon the bright face uplifted to hers, and said: "I didn't mean to cry, and I am going to be brave. I am glad you have the chance."

"So am I," the girl replied, her spirits rising as her grandmother's tears were dried. "Ever since I was engaged to go to Crompton I have felt an elation of spirits, as if something were going to come of it. If it were not for leaving you, and I had heard from California, I should be very happy. When a letter comes, forward it at once, and if necessary I shall go there during the holidays, and bring her home. I am glad we have her room all ready for her. I must see it once more."

Running upstairs she opened the door of a large chamber, and stood for a moment inspecting it. Everything was plain and cheap, from the pine washstand to the rag carpet on the floor; but it was cosey and home-like, and the girl who had worked in it so much, papering and painting it herself, with her grandmother's help, and then arranging and rearranging the furniture until it suited her, thought it fine, and said to herself, "She'll like it better than any room she ever had at the grandest hotel. I wish she were here. Mother's room, good-by."

She kissed her hand to it and ran downstairs, for it was time to go. The train was drawing up at the station, a short distance from her grandmother's door, and in a few minutes she was speeding away towards Crompton. At nearly the same hour Jack Harcourt was starting from New York for his promised visit to Crompton. His letter has given some insight into his character, but a look at his face will give a better. It was not a very handsome face, but it was one which every man, and woman, and child would trust, and never be deceived. For a young man of twenty-six he had seen a good deal of life, both at home and abroad, but the bad side had made but little impression upon him.

"It slips from Jack like water from a duck's back, while we poor wretches get smirched all over," Howard Crompton was wont to say of him, when smarting from some temptation to which he had yielded, and which Jack had resisted.

They had been friends since they were boys of eighteen in Europe, and Howard had nursed him through a fever contracted in Rome. They had also been chums in Harvard, where both had pulled through rather creditably, and where Jack had acted as a restraint upon Howard, who was fonder of larks than of study.

"Are you sure he is the right kind of friend for you?" Jack's sister—who was many years his senior, and who stood to him in the place of a mother—sometimes said to him; and he always answered, "He isn't a bad sort, as fellows go. Too lazy, perhaps, for a chap who has nothing but expectations from a crabbed, half-cracked old uncle, and not always quite on the square. But he is jolly good company, and I like him."

Something of this sort he said to his sister, who was in her New York home on the day when he was starting for Crompton, and had expressed her doubts of Howard's perfect rectitude in everything.

"He isn't a saint," he said to her, "but I don't forget how he stuck to me in that beastly place on the Riviera, while every soul of the party but him hurried off, afraid of the fever. He is having a grand time at Crompton, and I'm going to help him a while, and then buckle down to hard work in the office. So good-by, and don't worry."

He kissed her and hurried off to the station, bought the "Century," put several expensive cigars in the pocket of his overcoat, took a chair in a parlor car, and felt, as the train sped away out of the city, that it was good to live, and that Crompton held some new pleasure and excitement for him, who found sunshine everywhere.

Moving in the same direction and for the same point was another train, in which Eloise sat, dusty and tired, and homesick for the old grandmother and the house under the big poplar tree. Added to this was a harrowing anxiety for news from California.

"If I do not hear by Christmas, I shall certainly take an extra week in my vacation, and go there," she thought; and then she began to wonder about Crompton, and District No. 5, and if she would have any trouble with the big boys and girls, and how she would like Mrs. Biggs, who had boarded the school teachers for twenty years, and was to board her; and if by any chance she would ever see the inside of the Crompton House, of which she had heard from a friend who had visited in the town and had given glowing descriptions of it.

At last, as the air in the car grew cooler, she fell asleep, and did not waken till the sun was down, and a great bank of black clouds was looming up in the west, with mutterings of thunder, and an occasional flash of lightning showing against the dark sky. She might not have wakened then if the car had not given a lurch, with a jar which brought every one to his feet. The train was off the track, and it would be two or three hours before it was on again, the conductor said to the crowd eagerly questioning him. There was nothing to do but wait, and Eloise did it philosophically. She had dined from her lunch box in the middle of the day, and was now glad that her grandmother had put so much in it, as it not only served her for supper, but also a tired mother and two hungry children. As the car began to grow close again, she left it for a breath of the fresh air, which blew over the hills as the storm came nearer. She heard some one say it was time for the New York Express, which was to pass them at Crompton, and it soon came thundering on, but stopped suddenly when it found its progress impeded. She saw the passengers alight to ascertain the cause of the hindrance, and heard their impatient exclamations at the delay, which would seriously inconvenience some of them.

"It may be midnight before we reach Crompton. I wonder if Howard will meet me at that late hour," she heard a young man say, the smoke from his cigar blowing in her face as he passed where she was sitting on a stump.

"He is sure to be there. I saw him day before yesterday, and he is wild to have you come. I fancy he finds it rather dull with only a cranky old man and a half-crazy woman for associates. Howard wants life and fun," was the reply of his companion, and then the two young men were out of hearing.

Who Howard was, or the cranky old man and half-crazy woman, Eloise had no idea, nor did she give them a thought. One thing alone impressed her,—the late hour when she would probably arrive at Crompton. Would any one be there to meet her, or any conveyance, and if not, how was she to find her way to Mrs. Biggs?

"Grandma says never cross a river till you reach it, when you will probably find a plank, if nothing more," she thought, and settled herself to wait through the long hours which elapsed before the welcome "All aboard!" was sounded, and the two trains were under way,—the accommodation in front, and the express in the rear.

The storm had broken before the trains started, and it increased in such violence that when Crompton was reached it was raining in torrents. The wind was like a hurricane, with alternate flashes of lightning which lit up the darkness, and peals of thunder which seemed to shake the trains as they stopped to let off their passengers. There were but two, the young man from the parlor car, and the girl from the accommodation. The girl was almost drenched to the skin in the downpour before she could open her cotton umbrella, which was at once turned inside out. Holding her satchel with one hand and struggling to keep her hat on her head with the other, she was trying to reach the shelter of the station, where a faint light was shining, when the violence of the wind and rain drove her backwards, almost into the arms of a young man hurrying past her, in a slouched hat and water-proof coat. Thinking him an official, she seized his arm and said, "Oh, please, sir, tell me is there any one here from Mrs. Biggs's, or any way to get there?"

Her question was inopportune, for at that moment the stranger's umbrella met a like fate with her own, and was turned inside out, while hers, loosened by the opening of her hand, went sailing off into the darkness and rain. She thought she heard an oath before the stranger replied that he knew nothing of Mrs. Biggs, and did not think any conveyance was there at that hour.

"Hallo, Jack! Is that you? and did you ever know such an infernal storm? Nearly takes one off his feet. My umbrella has gone up; so will yours if you open it. Didn't see you till I was right on you," was his next exclamation, as a vivid flash of lightning lit up the platform, and showed Eloise two young men clasping hands within three feet of her.

Howard Crompton had been to the station at the appointed time, and learned of the delay of the train in which he expected his friend. Later a telephone had told him when the belated train would arrive, and the carriage was again ordered, the coachman grumbling, and the Colonel swearing to himself at having the horses go out in such a storm. To Howard he said nothing. That young man had so ingratiated himself into his uncle's good opinion, as to be nearly master of the situation. He wrote and answered most of the Colonel's letters, collected his rents, and looked after his business generally, and did it so well that the Colonel was beginning to feel that he could not get on without him, and to have serious thoughts of making it worth his while to stay indefinitely.

Nothing could have been further from Howard's wishes than going out so late at night, and in such a storm, but the one unselfish passion of his life was his attachment to Jack Harcourt. He was not very well pleased with the wetting he got, as his umbrella was turned inside out; nor at all interested in the girl asking so timidly for Mrs. Biggs, and in his pleasure at meeting Jack he forgot her entirely, until the same flash of lightning which showed her the two men showed them her white face, with an appealing expression on it which Jack never passed by, whether it were matron or maid who needed his help. Who the drooping little figure was, with the water running down her jacket and off her hat in streams, he had no idea from the glimpse he had of her features as the lightning played over them for a moment. That she was in trouble was evident, and in return to Howard's greeting, he said, "This is a corker of a storm, and no mistake, and I do believe I am wet through, but,—" and he spoke a little lower,—"there's a girl here near us,—alone, too, I do believe."

"Yes, I know," Howard replied. "The station master will see to her. Come on to the carriage. The horses are plunging like mad. Sam can't hold them much longer."

He moved away, but Jack stood still, for a second flash of lightning had shown him Eloise's face again. It was very pale, and tears, as well as rain, were on her cheeks.

"Can I do anything for you?" he said, opening his umbrella, and holding it over her.

His voice was that of a friend, and Eloise recognized it as such, and answered, "I don't know. I am a stranger. I want to go to Mrs. Biggs's. Do you know where she lives?"

"I am a stranger, too, and have never heard of Mrs. Biggs," Jack replied; "but the station agent will know. He ought to be here. Hallo! you, sir! Why are you not attending to your business? Here is a young lady," he called out, as the agent at last appeared coming slowly toward them, holding a lantern with one hand, and his cap on with the other.

"I didn't s'pose there was anybody here but Mr. Crompton's friend. Who is she? Where does she want to go? There ain't no conveyance here for nowhere at this hour," he said, throwing the light of his lantern fully on Eloise, whose face grew, if possible, a shade paler, and whose voice shook as she replied, "I want to go to Mrs. Biggs's. I am to board with her. I am the new school teacher, Miss Smith. Can I walk there when the storm is over? How far is it?"

"Great guns!" Jack said under his breath, holding the whole of his umbrella now over the girl instead of half, while the agent replied, "Walk to Widder Biggs's! I'd say not. It's two good miles from here. You'll have to sit in the depot till it stops rainin' a little, and I'll find you a place till mornin'. Tim Biggs was here when the train or'to of come, and said he was expectin' a schoolmarm. Be you her?"

"Yes, oh, yes; thank you. Let me get into the station as soon as I can. My umbrella is gone, and I am so cold and wet," Eloise said, with catches in her breath between the words.

"Hold on a minit," the agent continued. "The Crompton carriage goes within quarter of a mile of the Widder Biggs's. I guess the young man will take you. I will ask him."

"No, let me. I'm sure he will," Jack interrupted him, and thrusting his umbrella into Eloise's hand, he stumbled through the darkness to the corner where he heard Howard calling to him, "Jack, Jack, where in thunder are you?"

"Here," Jack replied, making for the voice, and saying to Howard when he reached him, "Howard, that's Eloise Smith, the girl I wrote you about,—the school teacher. She hasn't a dry rag on her. Her umbrella is lost. She wants to go to Widow Biggs's. The agent says it is not far from the Crompton Place. Can't we take her? Of course we can. I'll go for her."

He hurried off as well as he could, leaving Howard in no very amiable frame of mind. He had laughed at Jack's rhapsodies over Eloise Smith, and said to himself, "His interest in her will never be very lasting, no matter how pretty she is. Jack Harcourt and a basket-boarder! Ha, ha! Rich. Still, I'd like to see her."

After that he had nearly forgotten her in his absorbing efforts to keep the right side of his uncle, and entertain Amy. And now she was here, and Jack was proposing to have him take her to Widow Biggs's, which was a quarter of a mile beyond the park gates, Sam said, when consulted as to the widow's whereabouts. There was no help for it, but he didn't like it, and there was a scowl on his face as he waited for Jack, who came at last with Eloise and the agent, whose lantern shed a dim light on the handsomely-cushioned carriage when the door was open.

"I'm not fit to get in there, I am so wet," Eloise said, drawing back a little.

"As fit as we are," Jack replied, almost lifting her in, and tilting his umbrella till one of the sticks struck Howard in the eye, increasing his discomposure, and making him wish both Eloise and Mrs. Biggs in a much dryer place than he was.

"Now, Howard, in with you. There's a little lull in the rain. We'll take advantage of it," Jack continued, as he followed Howard into the carriage, where both sat down opposite Eloise, who crouched in her corner, afraid she did not know of what. Certainly not of the man who had been so kind to her, and who she wished was sitting in front of her, instead of the one who did not speak at all, except to ask Sam how the deuce they were to know when they reached the Widow Biggs's.

"Easy enough. It is a squat-roofed house with lalock and piney bushes in the yard."

"Yes, but how are we to see a squat roof with lalocks and pineys on this beastly night?" Howard rejoined, in a tone which told that he was not anticipating his trip to the widder Biggs's. "Drive on, for heaven's sake," he continued, "and don't upset us. It is darker than a pocket."

"No, sir, not if I can help it. I never knew the horses so 'fraid. Easy, Cass—easy Brute," Sam answered, as in response to a flash of lightning Brutus and Cassius both stood on their hind feet and pawed the air with terror. "Easy, easy, boys. Lightnin' can't strike you but once," Sam continued soothingly to the restless, nervous horses, who were at last gotten safely from the station, and started down the road which lead through the village to Crompton Place.



CHAPTER IV

THE ACCIDENT

For a short time the carriage went on smoothly and swiftly through the town, where the street lamps of kerosene gave a little light to the darkness. Once out of town in the country Sam became less sure of his way, and as he could not see his hand before him, he finally left the matter to the horses, trusting their instinct to keep in the road.

"I shall know when I reach the gate, and so will Brute and Cass; but we've got to go farther to the Widder Biggs's, and darned if I b'lieve they'll know the place," he thought, with a growing conviction of his inability to recognize Mrs. Biggs's squat roof and lilacs and peonies.

The storm which had abated for a short time was increasing again. The peals of thunder were more frequent, and with each flash of lightning the horses grew more unmanageable, until at last they flew along the highway at a speed which rocked the carriage from side to side, and began at last to alarm its occupants. Eloise in her corner was holding fast to the strap, when a lurid flame filled the carriage for an instant with a blaze of light. She had removed her hat, and her face, silhouetted against the dark cushions, startled both the young men with its beauty. It was very white, except the cheeks which were flushed with excitement. Her lips were apart, but her chief beauty was in her eyes, which were full of terror, and which shone like stars as they looked from one young man to the other.

"Oh, I am afraid. Let me out. I'd rather walk," she cried, starting to her feet and grasping the handle of the door.

"Please be quiet. There is no danger. You must not get out," Howard said, laying both his hands on hers, which he held for a moment, and pressed by way of reassuring her as he pushed her gently back into her seat.

She felt the pressure and resented it, and releasing her hands put them behind her, lest in the darkness they should be touched again. The same lightning which had showed her face to Howard had also given her a glimpse of his black eyes kindling with surprise and admiration at a beauty he had not expected. A lurch of the carriage sent Jack from his seat, and Eloise felt him close beside her. Was he going to squeeze her hands, too? She didn't know, and was holding them closely pressed behind her, when there was another flash, a deafening peal of thunder, a crash, and the next she knew the rain was falling upon her face, her head was lying against some one's arm, and two pairs of hands were tugging at her collar and jacket.

"Do you think she is dead?" was asked, in the voice which had told her not to be afraid.

"Dead!" a second voice replied. "She cannot be dead. She must not be. Miss Smith, Miss Smith! Where are you hurt?"

It was on the arm of this speaker she was lying, and she felt his breath on her face as he bent over her. With a great effort she moved her head and answered, "I'm not dead, nor hurt either, except my foot, which is twisted under me."

"Thank God!" Jack said, and instantly the two pairs of hands groped in the dark for the twisted foot.

"Oh!" Eloise cried, sitting upright, as a sharp pain shot from her ankle to her head. "Don't touch me. I can't bear it. I am afraid it is broken. What has happened, and where is the carriage?"

"Home by this time, if Brutus and Cassius have not demolished it in their mad fright," Howard said, explaining that at the last heavy peal of thunder the horses had swerved from the road and upset the carriage at the entrance to the park; that Sam had been thrown to some distance from the box, but had gathered himself up, and gone after the horses tearing up the avenue. "I shouted to him to come back with a lantern as quickly as possible. He'll be here soon, I think. Are you in great pain?"

"When I move, yes," Eloise replied, and then, as the full extent of the catastrophe burst upon her, she began to cry,—not softly to herself, but hysterically, with sobs which smote both Howard and Jack like blows.

It was a novel predicament in which they found themselves,—near midnight, in a thunderstorm, with a young girl on the ground unable to walk, and neither of them knowing what to do. Howard said it was a deuced shame, and Jack told her not to cry. Sam was sure to come with a lantern soon, and they'd see what was the matter. As he talked he put her head back upon his shoulder, and she let it lie there without protest.

After what seemed a long time, Sam came up with a lantern. The carriage was badly injured, he said, having been dragged through the avenue on its side. Brutus had a gouge on his shoulder from running into a tall shrub; he had hurt his arm when he fell from the box, and the Colonel was not in a very pious state of mind on account of his damaged property.

Eloise heard it all, but did not realize its import, her foot was paining her so badly. Jack had helped her up when Sam came, but she could not walk, and her face looked so white when the lantern light fell upon it, that both men feared she was going to faint.

"What shall we do?" Howard asked, standing first on one foot and then on the other, and feeling the water ooze over the tops of his shoes.

"Take her to the Crompton house, of course. It must be nearer than Mrs. Biggs's," Jack suggested.

Before Howard could reply, Eloise exclaimed, "Oh, no, I can hop on one foot to Mrs. Biggs's if some one helps me. Is it far?"

The two men looked inquiringly at each other and then at Sam, who was the first to speak. In the Colonel's state of mind, with regard to his carriage and his horses, he did not think it advisable to introduce a helpless stranger into the house, and he said, "I'll tell you what; did you ever make a chair with your hands crossed—so?"

He indicated what he meant, and the chair was soon made, and Eloise lifted into it.

"That's just the thing; but you'll have to put an arm around each of our necks to steady yourself," Jack said. "So! That's right! hold tight!" he continued, as Eloise put an arm around each neck.

Sam was directing matters, and taking up the lantern and Jack's umbrella, which he had found lying in the mud, he said, "I'll light the way and hold the umbrella over you. It don't rain much now."

"My hat and satchel, please," Eloise said, but neither could be found, and the strange cortege started.

For an instant the ludicrousness of the affair struck both young men, convulsing them with laughter to such an extent that the chair came near being pulled apart and Eloise dropped to the ground. She felt it giving way, and, taking her arm from Howard, clung desperately to Jack.

"Don't let me fall, please," she said.

"No danger; hold fast as you are," Jack answered cheerily, rather enjoying the feeling of the two arms clasping his neck so tightly.

What Howard felt was streams of water trickling down his back from the umbrella, which Sam held at exactly the right angle for him to get the full benefit of a bath between his collar and his neck. He did not like it, and was in a bad frame of mind mentally, when, after what seemed an eternity to Eloise, they came to three or four squat-roofed houses in a row, at one of which Sam stopped, confidently affirming it was the Widder Biggs's, although he could not see the "lalock and pineys."

"Knock louder! Kick, if necessary," Howard said, applying his own foot to the door as there came no answer to Sam's first appeal.

There was a louder knock and call, and at last a glimmer of light inside. Somebody was lighting a candle, which was at once extinguished when the door was open, and a gust of wind and rain swept in.

"Are you Mrs. Biggs?" Sam asked, as a tall figure in a very short night-robe was for a moment visible.

"Mrs. Biggs! Thunder, no! Don't you know a man from a woman? She lives second house from here," was the masculine response.

The door was shut with a bang, and the cortege moved on to the third house, which, by investigating the lilac bushes and peonies, Sam made out belonged to the Widder Biggs. It was harder to rouse her than it had been to rouse her neighbor. She was a little deaf, and the noise of the wind and rain added to the difficulty. When she did awaken her first thought was of burglars, and there was a loud cry to her son Tim to come quick and bring his gun, for somebody was breaking into the house.

"Robbers don't make such a noise as that! Open your window and see who's there," was Tim's sleepy answer, as Sam's blows fell heavily upon the door, accompanied with thuds from Howard's foot.

Mrs. Biggs opened her window cautiously, and thrust out her head, minus her false hair, and enveloped in a cotton nightcap.

"Who is it? What has happened? Anybody sick or dead?" she asked; and Sam replied, "Miss Smith is here with a broken laig, for't I know!"

"Miss Smith! A broken leg! For the land's sake, Tim, get up quick!" the widow gasped.

Closing the window and putting on a skirt, she descended to the kitchen, lighted an oil lamp, and, throwing open the door, looked at the group outside. She was prepared for Sam and Miss Smith, and did not mind her deshabille for them. But at the sight of two gentlemen, and one of them young Mr. Crompton, she came near dropping her lamp.

"Gracious goodness!" she exclaimed. "Mr. Crompton! And I half-dressed! Wait till I get on some clothes, and my hair, and my teeth. I am a sight to behold."

"Never mind your teeth, nor your hair, nor your best gown," Sam said, pushing open the door Mrs. Biggs had partially closed, and entering the house, followed by Howard and Jack, with Eloise still clinging to Jack's neck, and half fainting with the pain in her ankle which had increased from hanging down so long.

Tim had come by this time, fastening his suspenders as he came, and caring less for his appearance than his mother. She had disappeared, but soon returned with teeth, and hair, and clothes in place, and herself ready for the emergency. Following Tim's directions they had put Eloise on a couch, where she lay with her eyes closed, and so still that they thought she had fainted.

"Bring the camphire, Timothy, and the hartshorn, and start up the oil stove for hot water, and move lively." Mrs. Biggs said to her son. "I don't believe she's broke her laig, poor thing. How white she is," she continued, laying her hand on Eloise's forehead.

This brought the tears in a copious shower, as Eloise sat up and said, "It is my ankle. I think it is sprained. If you could get off my boot."

She tried to lift it, but let it drop with a cry of pain.

"I'll bet it's sprained, and a sprain is wus than a break. I had one twenty years ago come Christmas, and went with my knee on a chair two weeks, and on crutches three," was Mrs. Biggs's consoling remark, as she held the lamp close to the fast-swelling foot, to which the wet boot clung with great tenacity.

"Oh, I can't bear it," Eloise said, as the process of removing her boot commenced; then, closing her eyes, she lay back upon the cushions, while one after another, Mrs. Biggs, Howard, Jack, and Tim worked at the refractory boot.

It was such a small foot, Jack thought, pitying the young girl, as he saw spasms of pain upon her face, where drops of sweat were standing. He wiped these away with Mrs. Biggs's apron, lying in a chair, and smoothed her hair, and took one of her clenched hands in his, and held it while the three tried to remove the boot.

"'Tain't no use,—it's got to be cut off,—mine did. Tim, bring me the butcher knife,—the sharpest one," Mrs. Biggs said.

Eloise shuddered, and thought of the only other pair of boots she had,—her best ones, which were to have lasted a year. But there was no alternative. The boot must be cut off, and Jack continued to hold her hands while, piece by piece, the wet leather dropped upon the floor.

"Now for the stockin'; that'll come easier," Mrs. Biggs said.

"Must you take that off now?" Eloise asked, her maidenly modesty prevailing over every other feeling.

Howard and Jack understood, and went to the window, while the stocking followed the fate of the boot; and when they came back to the couch Eloise's foot was in a basin of hot water, and Mrs. Biggs was gently manipulating it, and declaring it the worst sprain she ever knew, except her own, which, after twenty years troubled her at times, and told her when a storm was coming.

"Ought she to have a doctor?" Jack asked, and Mrs. Biggs replied, "A doctor? What for, except to run up a bill. I know what to do. She'll have to keep quiet a spell; wormwood and vinegar and hot water will do the rest. Tim, go up garret and get a handful of wormwood. It's the bundle of 'arbs to your right. There's catnip, and horehound, and spearmint, and sage, and wormwood. Be lively, and put it to steep in some vinegar, and bring me that old sheet in the under bureau drawer for bandages."

She seemed to know what she was about. Eloise was in good hands, and the two water-soaked young men were about to leave when she said, "I guess one of you will have to carry her to her chamber. I can't trust Tim, he's such a blunderhead."

"No, no! Oh, no! I can walk somehow," Eloise said, starting to her feet, and sinking back as quickly.

"Let me. I'll carry her!" Howard and Jack both exclaimed; but something in Eloise's eyes gave the preference to Jack, who lifted her as easily as if she had been a child, and carried her up the narrow stairs to the room which at intervals had been occupied by one teacher after another for nearly twenty years, for it was understood that Mrs. Biggs was to board the teachers who had no home of their own in the district.

But never had so forlorn or wretched an one been there as poor Eloise. The world certainly looked very dreary to her, and her lip quivered as she said good-by to Jack, and tried to smile in reply to his assurance that she would be better soon, and that he would call and see her on the morrow. Then he was gone, and Eloise heard the footsteps and voices of the three men as they left the house and hurried away. She was soon in bed, and as comfortable as Mrs. Biggs could make her. That good lady was a born nurse as well as a gossip, and as she arranged Eloise for what there was left of the night, her tongue ran incessantly, first on her own sprain,—every harrowing detail of which was gone over,—then on the two young men, Howard Crompton and t'other one, who was he? She knew Mr. Howard,—everybody did. He was Col. Crompton's nephew, and he ruled the roost at the Crompton House, folks said, and would most likely be the Colonel's heir, with Miss Amy, as folks called her now. Had Miss Smith ever heard of her?

Eloise never had, and the pain in her ankle was so sharp that she gave little heed to what Mrs. Biggs was saying. She did not know either of the young men, she said. Both had been kind to her, and one, she thought, was a stranger, who came in the train with her.

"Oh, yes," Mrs. Biggs answered briskly. "I remember now. Cindy,—that's Miss Stiles, the housekeeper at Crompton Place,—told me Mr. Howard was to have company,—another high buck, I s'pose, though Howard don't do nothin' worse than drive horses pretty fast, and smoke most all the time. Drinks wine at dinner, they say, which I disbelieve in on account of Tim, who never took nothin' stronger'n sweet cider through a straw."

At last, to Eloise's relief, Mrs. Biggs said good-night, and left her with the remark, "I don't s'pose you'll sleep a wink. I didn't the first night after my sprain, nor for a good many nights neither."



CHAPTER V

AMY

"If this isn't a lark I never had one," Howard said to Jack, when they were safely housed and had changed their clothes, not a thread of which was dry.

Jack, whose luggage had not come, and who was obliged to borrow from Howard's wardrobe, looked like an overgrown boy in garments too small for him. But he did not mind it, and with Howard discussed the events of the evening, as they sat over the fire the latter had lighted in his room. Naturally Eloise was the subject of their conversation.

"I wrote you I had a presentiment that she was to come into my life in some way, but I had no idea it was to be this way," Howard said, as he puffed at his cigar and talked of their adventure and Eloise.

That she was very handsome and had pretty little feet went without saying, and that both were sorry for her was equally, of course. Jack was the more so, as his was the more unselfish and sympathetic nature.

"By Jove, didn't she bear the cutting of that boot like a hero, and how is she ever to get to school with that ankle?" he said; "and I think she ought to have a doctor to see if any bones are broken. Suppose you get one in the morning, and tell him not to send his bill to her but to me."

Howard looked up quickly, and Jack went on, "I wrote you that Mrs. Brown said she was poor, and I should know it by her boots."

"Her boots!" Howard repeated, and Jack continued, "Yes, wet as they were I noticed they were half-worn, and had been blacked many times. She can't afford to pay many doctor's bills, and I ask you again, how is she to get to school?"

Howard did not know, unless they made another chair and carried her.

"I wouldn't mind it much for the sake of her arm around my neck. I can feel it yet. Can't you?" he said.

Jack could feel it and the little wet hand which once or twice had touched his face, but something in his nature forbade his talking about it. It might have been fun for them, but he knew it was like death to the girl, and that she had shrank from it all, and only submitted because she could not help it. He was very sorry for her, and thought of her the last moment before he fell asleep, and the first moment he awoke with Howard in the room telling him it was after breakfast time, and his uncle, who did not like to be kept waiting, was already in a temper and blowing like a northeaster.

The Colonel, who was suffering from an attack of rheumatic gout, was more irritable than usual. He had not liked having his horses and carriage go out in the rain, and had sat up waiting for the return of his nephew, and when Sam came in, telling what had happened to the carriage and horses, and that he must go back with a lantern to the park gates and see if the new school mistress was alive, he went into a terrible passion, swearing at the weather, and the late train, and the school mistress who he seemed to think was the cause of the accident.

"What business had she in the carriage? Why did she come in such a storm? Why didn't she take the 'bus, and if the 'bus wasn't there, why didn't she—?" He didn't know what, and it took all the tact of Peter, who was still in the family and old like his master, to quiet him.

Then next morning his gout was so bad that he was wheeled into the dining-room, where he was fast growing angry at the delay of breakfast, and beginning to swear again when Peter, who knew how to manage him, went for Amy. Nothing quieted the Colonel like a sight of Amy, with her sweet face and gentle ways.

"Please come. It's beginning to sizzle," Peter frequently said to her when a storm was brewing, and Amy always went, and was like oil on the troubled waters.

"What is it?" she now asked, and the Colonel replied, "What is it! I should say, what is it! There's the very old Harry to pay. Brutus has a big hole in his breast, the carriage is smashed, silk cushions all stained with a girl's blue gown, and that girl the school-teacher I didn't want; and she's broken her leg or something when they tipped over, and Howard and his friend carried her to Widow Biggs's, and the Lord knows what didn't happen!"

Amy had a way of seeming to listen very attentively when the Colonel talked to her, and always smiled her appreciation and approbation of what he said. Just how much she really heard or understood was doubtful. Her mind seemed to run in two channels,—one the present, the other the past,—and both were blurred and indistinct,—especially the past. She understood about the young girl, however, and at once expressed her sympathy, and said, "We must do something for her."

To do something for any one in sickness or trouble was her first thought, and many a home had been made glad because of her since she came to Crompton.

"Certainly; do what you like, only don't bring her here," the Colonel replied, his voice and manner softening, as they always did with Amy.

She was a very handsome woman and looked younger than her years. The storm which had swept over her had not impaired her physical beauty, but had touched her mentally in a way very puzzling to those about her, and rather annoying to the Colonel, who was trying to make amends for the harshness which had driven her from his home. Sometimes her quiet, passive manner irritated him, and he felt that he would gladly welcome the old imperiousness with which she had defied him. But it was gone. Something had broken her on the wheel, killing her spirit completely, or smothering it and leaving her a timid, silent woman, who sat for hours with a sad, far-off expression, as if looking into the past and trying to gather up the tangled threads which had in a measure obscured her intellect.

"The Harrises are queer," kept sounding in the Colonel's ears, with a thought that the taint in the Harris blood was working in Amy's veins, intensified by some great shock, or series of shocks.

Once, after he brought her home, he questioned her of her life as a singer, and of the baby, which she occasionally mentioned, but he never repeated the experiment. There was a fit of nervous trembling,—a look of terror in her eyes, and a drawn expression on her face, and for a moment she was like the girl Eudora when roused. Then, putting her hand before her eyes as if to shut out something hateful to her, she said, "Oh, don't ask me to bring up a past I can't remember without such a pain in my head and everywhere, as if I were choking. It was very dreadful,—with him,—not with Adolf,—he was so kind."

"Did he ever beat you?—or what did the wretch do? Smith, I mean," the Colonel asked, and Amy replied, "Oh, no; it wasn't that. It was a constant grind, grind,—swear, swear,—a breaking of my will, till I had none left. He never struck me but once, and then it was throwing something instead of a blow. It hit me here, and it has ached ever since."

She put her hand to one side of her temple, and went on, "It was the night I heard baby was dead, and I said I could not sing,—but he made me, and I broke down, and I don't know much what happened after till you came. I can't remember."

"Yes, but the baby,—where did it die, and when?" the Colonel asked.

Amy had been getting quiet as she talked, but at the mention of the baby, she began to tremble again, and beat the air with her hands.

"I don't know, I don't know," she said. "He took her away, and she died. It is so black when I try to think how it was, and it goes from me. Wait a bit!" She sat very still a moment, and then in a more natural voice said, "It may come back sometime, and then I will tell you. It makes me worse to talk about it now. It's this way: The inside of my head shakes all over. The doctor said it was like a bottle full of something which must settle. I am settling here where everybody speaks so low and kind, but when I am a little clear, with the sediment going down, if you shake up the bottle, it is thick and muddy again, and I can't remember."

"By Jove!" the Colonel said to himself, "that bottle business isn't a bad comparison. She is all shaken up, and I'll let her settle."

He did not question her again of her life with Homer Smith, or of the baby. Both were dead, and he felt that it was just as well that they were. Homer Smith ought to be dead, and as to the baby it would have been very upsetting in the house, and might have been queer, like the Harrises, or worse yet, like its cuss of a father. On the whole, it was better as it was, although he was sorry for Amy, and would do all he could to make her happy, and some time, perhaps, she would remember, and tell him where the baby was buried, and he'd have it brought to Crompton, and put in the Crompton vault. As for Homer Smith, his carcase might rot in the desert of Arizona, or anywhere, for aught he cared. He was very gentle and patient with Amy, and watched the settling of the bottle with a great deal of interest. Sometimes he wondered how much she remembered of her Florida life, if anything, and what effect the mention of Jaky and Mandy Ann would have upon her, and what effect it would have upon her if he took her to the palmetto clearing, and found the negroes, if living. But pride still stood in the way. More than thirty-five years of silence were between him and the past, which to all intents was as dead as poor Dory; and why should he pull aside the dark curtain, and let in the public gaze and gossip. He couldn't and he wouldn't. All he could do for Amy in other ways he would, and for her sake he controlled himself, mightily, becoming, as Peter said, like a turtle dove compared to what he once was, when the slightest crossing of his will roused him into fury.

Harsh, loud tones made Amy shiver, and brought a look into her eyes which the Colonel did not like to see, and with her he was usually very docile, or if roused, the touch of her hand and the expression of her eyes subdued him, as they did now when he told her of his broken carriage and ruined cushions and the young girl for whom Amy at once wished to do something.

"Certainly," he had said; "only don't bring her here," and he was beginning to wonder where Howard was, and to feel irritated at the delay, when the latter came in with Jack, and found a tolerably urbane and courteous host.

Naturally the conversation turned upon the storm and accident, the particulars of which were briefly gone over, while Amy stirred her coffee listlessly and did not seem to listen. She was very lovely, Jack thought, with no sign of her mental disorder, except the peculiar expression of her eyes at times. Her dress was faultless, her manner perfect, her language good, and her smile the sweetest and saddest he had ever seen, and Jack watched her curiously, while the conversation drifted away from Eloise, in whom the Colonel felt no interest. She was a graduate, and probably knew nothing of what he thought essential for a teacher to know. She was not rooted and grounded in the fundamentals. Probably she had never heard of the grindstone, or the sheep, and could not work out the problems if she had. She was superficial. She belonged to a new generation which had put him and his theories on the shelf. Her blue dress had stained the cushions of his carriage, and there was a puddle of water in the hall where Sam had put down her satchel and hat, which had been found in the driveway near the stable. They had been thrown from the carriage, and lain in the rain all night. The hat was soaked through and through, and the ribbons were limp and faded; but he did not care a rap what became of them, he said to himself, when Howard spoke of them and their condition, saying that bad as they were he presumed she wanted them.

Amy on the contrary was instantly on the alert, and as they passed through the hall from the dining-room, and she saw the poor crushed hat, she said to Jack, "Is it hers?"

"Yes, and I'm afraid it is ruined," Jack answered, taking it in his hand and examining it critically.

"I will fix it," Amy replied, and, carrying it to her room, she tried to bend it into shape and renovate the bows of ribbon.

But it was beyond her skill.

"She can never wear it. I must send her one of mine," she said, selecting a hat which she wore when walking in the park. "You must take it to the young lady at Mrs. Biggs's. What is her name? I don't think I understood; they were all talking together and confused me so," she said to her maid, who had heard of the adventure from Sam, but had not caught the right name.

"It is Louise something. I don't remember what," she replied.

"Louise! That sounds like baby's name, and it makes my head ache to think of it," Amy said sadly, going to the window, and looking out at the rain and fog, for the weather had not cleared.

It was a wet morning, and Howard, who liked his ease, shrugged his shoulders when Jack suggested that they should call upon Miss Smith.

"She ought to have her satchel and her hat," Jack said, and Howard replied, "Oh, Amy sent Sarah off with a hat half an hour ago. She would send all her wardrobe if she thought the girl wanted it, and, by George! why didn't she send a pair of boots? She has dozens of them, I dare say," he continued, as he recalled the bits of leather they had cut from Eloise's foot, and left on Mrs. Biggs's floor.

Jack had spoken of her boots, and he readily acceded to Howard's proposition to ask Amy if she had any cast-offs she thought would fit Miss Smith. "They must wear about the same size, the girl is so slight," Howard said as he went to Amy's room, where he found her still standing by the window drumming upon the pane as if fingering a piano and humming softly to herself. She never touched the grand instrument in the drawing-room, and when asked to do so and sing, she answered, "I can't; I can't. It would bring it all back and shake up the bottle. I hate the memory of it when I sang to the crowd and they applauded. I hear them now; it is baby's death knell. I can never sing again as I did then."

And yet she did sing often to herself, but so low that one could scarcely understand her words, except to know they were some negro melody sung evidently as a lullaby to a child. As Howard came up to her he caught the words, "Mother's lil baby," and knew it was what she sometimes sang with the red cloak hugged to her bosom.

"Miss Amy," he said, "I wonder if you haven't a pair of half-worn boots for the young lady at Mrs. Biggs's? We had to cut one of hers off, her foot was so swollen."

Amy was interested at once, and ordered Sarah, who had returned from Mrs. Biggs's, to bring out all her boots and slippers, insisting that several pairs be sent for the girl to choose from. Sarah suggested that slippers would be better than boots, as the young lady could not wear the latter in her present condition.

"Yes," Amy said, selecting a pair of white satin slippers, with high French heels and fanciful rosettes. "I wore them the night he told me baby was dead. I've never had them on since. I don't want them. Give them to her. They are hateful to me."

Amy was in a peculiar mood this morning, such as sometimes came upon her and made Peter say she was a chip of the old block, meaning the Colonel, who he never for a moment doubted was her father. Sarah's suggestion that white satin slippers would be out of place made no difference. They must go. She was more stubborn than usual, and Sarah accounted for it by saying in a low tone to Howard, "Certain spells of weather always affect her and send her back to a night when something dreadful must have happened. Probably the baby she talks about died. She's thinking about it now. Better take the slippers. I've heard her talk of them before and threaten to burn them."

"All right," Howard said. "Miss Smith can send them back if she does not want them."

The slippers were made into a parcel so small that Howard put them in his pocket and said he was ready. It had stopped raining, and as the young men preferred to walk they set off through the park, laughing over their errand and the phase of excitement in which they found themselves. Jack liked it, and Howard, too, began to like it, or said he should if the girl proved as good-looking by daylight as she had been in the night.



CHAPTER VI

AT MRS. BIGGS'S

Notwithstanding Mrs. Biggs's prediction that she would not sleep a wink, Eloise did sleep fairly well. She was young and tired. Her ankle did not pain her much when she kept it still, and after she fell asleep she did not waken till Mrs. Biggs stood by her bed armed with hot coffee and bandages and fresh wormwood and vinegar.

"Do you feel like a daisy?" was Mrs. Biggs's cheery greeting, as she put down the coffee and bowl of vinegar in a chair and brought some water for Eloise's face and hands.

"Not much like a daisy," Eloise answered, with a smile, "but better than I expected. I am going to get up."

"Better stay where you be. I did, and had 'em wait on me," Mrs. Biggs said; but Eloise insisted, thinking she must exercise.

She soon found, however, that exercising was a difficult matter. Her ankle was badly swollen, and began to ache when she moved it, nor did Mrs. Biggs's assurance that "it would ache more until it didn't ache so bad" comfort her much. She managed, however, to get into a chair, and took the coffee, and submitted to have her ankle bathed and bandaged and her foot slipped into an old felt shoe of Mrs. Biggs's, which was out at the toe and out at the side, but did not pinch at all.

"Your dress ain't dry. You'll catch your death of cold to have it on. You must wear one of mine," Mrs. Biggs said, producing a spotted calico wrapper, brown and white,—colors which Eloise detested.

It was much too large every way, but Mrs. Biggs lapped it in front and lapped it behind, and said the length would not matter, as Eloise could only walk with her knee in a chair and could hold up one side. Eloise knew she was a fright, but felt that she did not care, until Mrs. Biggs told her of the hat which the lady from Crompton Place had sent her, and that Sarah had said the young gentlemen would probably call.

"I've been thinking after all," she continued, "that it is better to be up. The committee man, Mr. Bills, who hired you, will call, and you can't see him and the young men here. I'm a respectable woman, and have boarded the teachers off and on for twenty years,—all, in fact, except Ruby Ann, who has a home of her own,—and I can't have my character compromised now by inviting men folks into a bedroom. You must come down to the parlor. There's a bed-lounge there which I can make up at night, and it'll save me a pile of steps coming upstairs."

"How am I to get there?" Eloise asked in dismay, and Mrs. Biggs replied, "It'll be a chore, I guess, but you can do it. I did when my ankle was bad. I took some strong coffee, same as I brought you, had my foot done up, and slid downstairs, one at a time, with my lame laig straight out. I can't say it didn't hurt, for it did, but I had to grin and bear it. Christian Science nor mind cure wasn't invented then, or I should of used 'em, and said my ankle wasn't sprained. There's plenty of nice people believes 'em now. You can try 'em on, and we'll manage somehow."

Eloise was appalled at the thought of going downstairs to meet people, and especially the young men from Crompton, clad in that spotted brown and white gown, with nothing to relieve its ugliness, not even a collar, for the one she had worn the previous day was past being worn again until it had been laundered. She looked at her handkerchief. That, too, was impossible.

"Mrs. Biggs," she said at last, "have you a handkerchief you can loan me?"

"To be sure! To be sure! Half a dozen, if you like," Mrs. Biggs answered, hurrying from the room, and soon returning with a handkerchief large enough for a dinner napkin.

It was coarse and half-cotton, but it was clean, and Eloise tied it around her neck, greatly to Mrs. Biggs's surprise.

"Oh," she said, "you wanted it for that? Why not have a lace ruffle? I'll get one in a jiffy."

Eloise declined the ruffle. The handkerchief was bad enough, but a lace ruffle with that gown would have been worse.

"Now, I'll call Tim to go in front and keep you from falling. He is kind of awkward, but I'll go behind and stiddy you, and you grit your teeth and put on the mind cure, and down we go," Mrs. Biggs said, calling Tim, who came shambling up the stairs, and laughed aloud when he saw Eloise wrapped in his mother's gown.

"Excuse me, I couldn't help it; mother has made you into such a bundle," he said good-humoredly, as he saw the pained look in Eloise's face. "I'll get your trunk the next train, and you can have your own fixin's. What am I to do?"

This last was to his mother, who explained the way she had gone downstairs when she sprained her ankle twenty years ago come Christmas.

"She must sit down somehow on the top stair and slide down with one before her,—that's you,—and one behind,—that's me,—and she's to put on the mind cure. Miss Jenks says it does a sight of good."

Tim looked at his mother and then at Eloise, whose pitiful face appealed to him strongly.

"Oh, go to grass," he said, "with your mind cure! It's all rot! I'll carry her, if she will let me. I could of done it last night as well as them fine fellows."

He was a rough young boy of sixteen, with uncouth ways; but there was something in his face which drew Eloise to him, and when he said, "Shall I carry you?" she answered gladly, "Oh, yes, please. I don't think I have any mind to put on."

Lifting her very gently in his strong arms, while his mother kept saying she knew he'd let her fall, Tim carried her down and into the best room, where he set her in a rocking-chair, and brought a stool for her lame foot to rest upon, and then said he would go for her trunk, if she would give him her check. There was something magnetic about Tim, and Eloise felt it, and was sorry when he was gone. The world looked very dreary with the fog and rain outside, and the best room inside, with its stiff hair-cloth furniture, glaring paper and cheap prints on the wall—one of them of Beatrice Cenci, worse than anything she had ever seen. She was very fastidious in her tastes, and everything rude and incongruous offended it, and she was chafing against her surroundings, when Mrs. Biggs came bustling in, very much excited, and exclaiming, "For the land's sake, they are comin'! They are right here. They hain't let much grass grow. Let me poke your hair back a little from your forehead,—so! That's right, and more becomin'."

"Who are coming?" Eloise asked.

"Why, Mr. Crompton and his friend. I don't know his name," Mrs. Biggs replied, and Eloise felt a sudden chill as she thought of the figure she must present to them.

If she could only look in the glass and adjust herself a little, or if Mrs. Biggs would throw something over the unsightly slipper and the ankle smothered in so many bandages. The mirror was out of the question. She had combed her hair with a side comb which had come safely through the storm, but she felt that it was standing on end, and that she was a very crumpled, sorry spectacle in Mrs. Biggs's spotted gown, with the handkerchief round her neck. Hastily covering her foot with a fold of the wide gown, she clasped her hands tightly together, and leaning her head against the back of her chair, drew a long breath and waited.

She heard the steps outside, and Mrs. Biggs's "Good-mornin'; glad to see you. She is expectin' you, or I am. Yes, her laig is pretty bad. Swelled as big as two laigs, just as mine was twenty years ago come Christmas, when I sprained it. Tim brought her downstairs where she can see folks. She's in the parlor. Walk in."

Eloise's cheeks were blazing, but the rest of her face was very pale, and her eyes had in them a hunted look as the young men entered the room, preceded by Mrs. Biggs in her working apron, with her sleeves rolled up.

"Miss Smith, this is Mr. Crompton," she said, indicating Howard; "and the t'other one is—his name has slipped my mind."

"Harcourt," Jack said, feeling an intense sympathy for the helpless girl, whose feelings he guessed and whose hand he held a moment with a clasp in which she felt the pity, and had hard work to keep the tears back.

Howard also took her hand and felt sorry for her, but he did not affect her like Jack, and she did not like his eyes, which she guessed saw everything. He had a keen sense of the ridiculous, and the contrast between Eloise and the gown which he knew must belong to Mrs. Biggs struck him so forcibly that he could scarcely repress a smile, as he asked how she had passed the night. Mrs. Biggs answered for her. Indeed, she did most of the talking.

"She slep' pretty well, I guess; better'n I did when I sprained my ankle twenty years ago come Christmas. I never closed my eyes, even in a cat nap, and she did. I crep' to her door twice to see how she was gettin' on, and she was—not exactly snorin'—I don't s'pose she ever does snore,—but breathin' reg'lar like, jess like a baby, which I didn't do in a week when I sprained my ankle."

She would have added "twenty years ago come Christmas," if Jack had not forestalled her by asking Eloise if her ankle pained her much.

"Yes," she said, while Mrs. Biggs chimed in, "Can't help painin' her, swelled as 'tis,—big as two ankles; look."

She whisked off the bottom of her dress which Eloise had put over her foot, and disclosed the shapeless bundle encased in the old felt slipper.

"Look for yourselves; see if you think it aches," she said.

This was too much for Eloise, who, regardless of pain, drew her foot up under the skirt of her dress, while her face grew scarlet. Both Howard and Jack were sorry for her, and at last got the conversation into another channel by saying they had brought her satchel and hat, which they feared were ruined, and asking if she had seen the hat Miss Amy had sent her.

"Land sakes, no! I told her about it, but I hain't had time to show it to her," Mrs. Biggs exclaimed, starting from the room, while Howard explained that his cousin had tried in vain to renovate the drenched hat, and, finding it impossible, had sent one of her own which she wished Miss Smith to accept with her compliments.

"How do you like it?" Mrs. Biggs asked, as she came in with it.

It was a fine leghorn, with a wreath of lilacs round the crown, and Eloise knew that it was far more expensive than anything she had ever worn.

"It is very pretty," she said, "and very kind in the lady to send it. Tell her I thank her. What is her name?"

Jack looked at Howard, who replied, "She has had a good many, none of which pleased my uncle, the last one least of all; so he calls her Miss Amy, and wishes others to do so."

Eloise was puzzled, but the sight of Mrs. Biggs tugging at her wet satchel to open it diverted her mind.

"Your things is sp'ilt, most likely, but you'd better have 'em out. For the mercy's sake, look!" she said, passing the satchel to Eloise, who was beyond caring: for what was spoiled and what was not. "There's somebody knockin'. It's Mr. Bills, most likely, the committee man, come to see you; I told Tim to notify him," Mrs. Biggs exclaimed, hurrying out, and saying to Howard as she passed him, "You can visit a spell before I fetch him in. She needs perkin' up, poor thing."

It proved to be a grocer's boy instead of Mr. Bills, and Mrs. Biggs came back just as Howard was presenting the slippers.

"I did not think they were just what you wanted," Howard explained, as he saw the look of surprise on Eloise's face. "Miss Amy is not always quite clear in her mind, but rather resolute when it is made up; and when we told her we had to cut off your boot, she insisted upon sending these."

At this point Mrs. Biggs appeared, throwing up both hands at what she saw, and exclaiming, "Wall, if I won't give up! Satin slips for a spraint laig. Yes, I'll give up!"

She looked at Howard, who did not reply, but turned his head to hide his laugh from Eloise, while Mrs. Biggs went on, "I don't see how she can ever get her feet into 'em. I can't mine, and I don't b'lieve she can. Better send 'em back;" and she looked at Eloise, who, if she was proud of any part of her person, was proud of her feet.

Flushing hotly she said, "They are not suitable for me, of course, but I think I could get one on my well foot."

"I know you could; try it," Jack said.

Stooping forward Eloise removed her boot, although the effort brought a horrible twinge to her lame ankle and made her feel faint for a moment.

"Put it on for me, please," she said to Mrs. Biggs, who, mistaking the right-hand slipper for the left, began tugging at it.

"I told you so," she said. "Your foot is twice as big."

"Try this one," Jack suggested, "or let me;" and he fitted the slipper at once to the little foot, while Mrs. Biggs exclaimed, "Wall, I vum, it does fit to a T! If anything, it's too big."

In spite of her pain and embarrassment there was a look of exultation in Eloise's eyes, as they met those of Jack, who was nearly as pleased as herself.

"You will keep them and wear them some time," he said; and when Eloise declined, saying they would be of no use to her, Howard, who had been watching this Cinderella play with a good deal of interest, and wishing he had been the prince to fit the slipper instead of Jack, said to Eloise, "I think it better for you to keep them. Miss Amy will not like to have them returned, and if they were, she'd give them to some one else, or very likely send them to the Rummage Sale we are to have in town."

"That's so," Mrs. Biggs chimed in. "There is to be a rummage sale, and Ruby Ann has spoke for Tim's old clothes and mine, especially our shoes. Keep 'em by all means."

Eloise was beginning to feel faint again, and tired with all this talk and excitement, and painfully conscious that Howard's eyes were dancing with laughter at the sight of her feet,—one swollen to three times its natural size and pushed into Mrs. Biggs's old felt shoe, and the other in Miss Amy's white satin slipper.

"Oh, I wish you would take it off!" she gasped, feeling unequal to leaning forward again, and closing her eyes wearily.

She meant Mrs. Biggs, but Jack forestalled that good woman, and in an instant had the slipper off and the boot on, doing both so gently that she was not hurt at all.

"Thanks!" Eloise said, drawing her well foot under the spotted calico, and wishing the young men would go.

How long they would have staid is uncertain if there had not come a second knock at the kitchen door. This time it was really Mr. Bills, and Mrs. Biggs went out to meet him, while Eloise felt every nerve quiver with dread. She must see him and tell him how impossible it would be for her to commence her duties on Monday. Perhaps he would dismiss her altogether, and take another in her place, and then—"What shall I do?" she thought, and, scarcely knowing what she said, she cried, "Oh, I can't bear it!" while the tears rolled down her cheeks, and Howard and Jack gathered close to her,—the laugh all gone from Howard's eyes, and a great pity shining in Jack's.

"Excuse me," she continued, "I don't mean to be childish, but everything is so dreadful! I don't mind the pain so much; but to be here away from home, and to lose the school, as I may, and—and,—I want a handkerchief to wipe my face,—and this is ruined."

She said this last as she took from her satchel the handkerchief which had been so white and clean when she left home, and which now was wet and stained from a bottle of shoe blacking which had come uncorked and saturated everything. She had borne a great deal, and, as is often the case, a small matter upset her entirely. The spoiled handkerchief was the straw too many, and her tears came faster as she held it in one hand, and with the other tried to wipe them away.

"Take mine, please; I've not used it," Jack said, offering her one of fine linen, and as daintily perfumed as a woman's.

She took it unhesitatingly. She was in a frame of mind to take anything, and smiled her thanks through her tears.

"I know I must seem very weak to you to be crying like a baby; but you don't know how I dread meeting Mr. Bills, or how much is depending upon my having this school, or what it would be to me to lose it, if he can't wait. Do you think he will?"

She looked at Jack, who knew nothing whatever of the matter, or of Mr. Bills, but who answered promptly, "Of course he will wait; he must wait. We shall see to that. Don't cry. I'm awfully sorry for you; we both are."

He was standing close to her, and involuntarily laid his hand on her hair, smoothing it a little as he would have smoothed his sister's. She seemed so young and looked so small, wrapped up in Mrs. Biggs's gown, that he thought of her for a moment as a child to be soothed and comforted. She did not repel the touch of his hand, but cried the harder and wiped her face with his handkerchief until it was wet with her tears.

"Mr. Bills wants to know if he can come in now," came as an interruption to the scene, which was getting rather affecting.

"In just a minute," Jack said. Then to Eloise, "Brace up! We'll attend to Mr. Bills if he proves formidable."

She braced up as he bade her, and gave his handkerchief back to him.

"I shan't need it again. I am not going to be foolish any longer, and I thank you so much," she said, with a look which made Jack's pulse beat rapidly.

"We'd better go now and give Mr. Bills a chance," he said to Howard, who had been comparatively silent and let him do the talking and suggesting.

Howard could not define his feeling with regard to Eloise. Her beauty impressed him greatly, and he was very sorry for her, but he could not rid himself of the conviction which had a second time taken possession of him that in some way she was to influence his life or cross his path.

He bade her good-by, and told her to keep up good courage, and felt a little piqued that she withdrew her hand more quickly from him than she did from Jack, who left her rather reluctantly. They found Mr. Bills outside talking to Mrs. Biggs, who was volubly narrating the particulars of the accident, so far as she knew them, and referring constantly to her own sprained ankle of twenty years ago, and the impossibility of Miss Smith's being able to walk for some time.

With his usual impetuousness Jack took the initiative, and said to Mr. Bills: "Your school can certainly wait; it must wait. A week or two can make no difference. At the end of that time, if she cannot walk, she can be taken to and from the school-house every day. To lose the school will go hard with her, and she's so young."

Jack was quite eloquent, and Mr. Bills looked at him curiously, wondering who this smart young fellow was, pleading for the new school-teacher. He knew Howard, who, after Jack was through, said he hoped Mr. Bills would wait; it would be a pity to disappoint the girl when she had come so far.

"Perhaps a week or two will make no difference," Mr. Bills said, "though the young ones are getting pretty wild, and their mothers anxious to have them out of the way, but I guess we'll manage it somehow."

He knew he should manage it when he saw Eloise. She could not tell him of the need there was of money in her grandmother's home, or the still greater need if she took the trip to California which she feared she must take. She only looked her anxiety, and Mr. Bills, whose heart Mrs. Biggs said was "big as a barn," warmed toward her, while mentally he began to doubt her ability to "fill the bill," as he put it, she looked so young and so small.

"I'll let her off easy, if I have to," he thought, and he said, "Folks'll want school to begin as advertised. You can't go, but there's Ruby Ann Patrick. She'll be glad to supply. She's kep' the school five years runnin'. She wanted it when we hired you. She's out of a job, and will be glad to take it till you can walk. I'll see her to-day. You look young to manage unruly boys, and there's a pile of 'em in Deestrick No. 5 want lickin' half the time. Ruby Ann can lick 'em. She's five feet nine. You ain't more'n five."

Eloise did not tell him how tall she was. In fact, she didn't know. She must look very diminutive in Mr. Bills's eyes, she thought, and hastened to say, "I taught boys and young men older than I am in the normal at Mayville, and never had any trouble. I had only to speak to or look at them."

"I b'lieve you, I b'lieve you," Mr. Bills said. "I should mind you myself every time if you looked at me, but boys ain't alike. There's Tom Walker, ringleader in every kind of mischief, the wust feller you ever see. Ruby Ann had one tussle with him, and came off Number One. He'd most likely raise Cain with a schoolmarm who couldn't walk and went on crutches."

"Oh-h!" Eloise said despairingly. "I shall not have to do that!"

"Mebby not; mebby not. Sprained ankles mostly does, though. I had to when I sprained mine. I used to hobble to the well and pump cold water on it; that's tiptop for a sprain. Well, I must go now and see Ruby Ann. Good-day. Keep a stiff upper lip, and you'll pull through. Widder Biggs is a fust rate nurse, and woman, too. Little too much tongue, mebby. Hung in the middle and plays both ways. Knows everybody's history and age from the Flood down. She'll get at yours from A to izzard. Good-day!"

He was gone, and Eloise was alone with her pain and homesickness and discouragement. Turn which way she would, there was not much brightness in her sky, except when she thought of Jack Harcourt, whose hand on her hair she could feel just as he had felt her wet hand on his neck hours after the spot was dried, ft seemed perfectly natural and proper that he should care for her, just as it did that the lady at the Crompton House should send her a hat. It was lying on a chair near her with the slippers, and she took it up and examined it again very carefully, admiring the fineness of the leghorn, the beauty of the lilac wreath, and the texture of the ribbons.

"I shall never wear it," she thought. "It is too handsome for me; but I shall always keep it, and be glad for the thoughtfulness which prompted the lady to send it."

Then she wondered if she would ever see the lady and thank her in person, or go to the Crompton House; and if her trunk would ever come from the station, so that she could divest herself of the detestable cotton gown and put on something more becoming, which would show him she was not quite so much a guy as she looked in Mrs. Biggs's wardrobe. The him was Jack, not Howard. He was not in the running. She cared as little for him as she imagined he cared for her. And here she did him injustice. She interested him greatly, though not in the way she interested Jack, whom he chaffed on their way home, telling him he ought to offer his services as nurse.

"I wonder you did not wipe her eyes as well as give her your handkerchief," he said. "I dare say you will never have it laundered, lest her tears should be washed out of it."

"Never!" Jack replied, and, taking the handkerchief from his pocket and folding it carefully, he put it back again, saying, "No, sir; I shall keep it intact. No laundryman's hands will ever touch it."

"Pretty far gone, that's a fact," Howard rejoined, and then continued: "I say, Jack, we'd better not talk of Miss Smith before the Colonel. It will only rouse him up, and make him swear at normal graduates in general, and this one in particular. You know I wrote you that he gave the lot and built the school-house, and for years was inspector of Crompton schools,—boss and all hands,—till a new generation came up and shelved him. He fought hard, but had to give in to young blood and modern ideas. He had no voice in hiring Miss Smith,—was not consulted. His choice was a Ruby Ann Patrick, a perfect Amazon of an old maid; weighs two hundred, I believe, and rides a wheel. You ought to see her. But then she is rooted and grounded, and uncle does not think Miss Smith is, though she was pretty well grounded last night when she sat on that sand heap with her foot twisted under her. I'm not a soft head like you, to fall in love with her at first sight; but I'm awfully sorry for her, and I don't wish to hear the Colonel swear about her."

Jack had never seen Howard more in earnest, and his mental comment was, "Cares more for her than I supposed. He'll bear watching. Poor little girl! How white she was at times, and how tired her eyes looked; and bright, too, as stars. I wonder if she really ought not to have a doctor."

He put this question to Howard, who replied: "No, that Biggs woman is a full team on sprained ankles. She'll get her up without a doctor, and I don't suppose the girl has much to spend on the craft."

"Yes, but what is a little money to you or me, if she really needs a doctor?" Jack said thoughtfully, while Howard laughed and answered, "Don't be an idiot, and lose your heart to a schoolma'am because she happened to have had her arm around your neck when we carried her in that chair. I can feel it yet, and sometimes put up my hand when half awake to see if it isn't there, but I am not going to make a fool of myself."

As they were near home Jack did not reply, but he could have told of times when half awake and wide awake he felt the arms and the hands and the hot breath of the girl clinging to him in the darkness and rain, and saw the eyes full of pain and dumb entreaty not to hurt her more than they could help, as they cut the soaked boot from the swollen foot. But he said nothing, and, when the house was reached, went at once to his own room, wondering what he could do to make her more comfortable.

Acting upon Howard's advice, Eloise was not mentioned, either at lunch or at dinner. Amy had evidently forgotten her, for she made no inquiry for her. Neither did the Colonel. She was, however, much in the minds of the young men, and each was wondering how he could best serve her. Howard thought of a sea chair, in which his uncle had crossed the ocean. He had found it covered with dust in the attic, and brought it to his room to lounge in. It would be far more comfortable for Eloise than that stiff, straight-backed, hair-cloth rocker in which she had to sit so upright. He would send it to her with Amy's compliments, if he could manage it without the knowledge of Jack, who he would rather should not know how much he was really interested in Eloise. Jack was also planning what he could do, and thought of a wheel chair, in which she could be taken to and from school. He might possibly find one in the village by the shore. He would inquire without consulting Howard, whose joking grated a little, as it presupposed the impossibility of his really caring for one so far removed from his station in life as Eloise seemed to be.

Could she have known how much she was in the minds of the young men at Crompton Place, she would not have felt quite as forlorn and disconsolate as she did during the long hours of the day, when she sat helpless and alone, except as Mrs. Biggs tried to entertain her with a flow of talk and gossip which did not interest her. A few of the neighbors called in the evening, and it seemed to Eloise that every one had had a sprained ankle or two, of which they talked continually, dwelling mostly upon the length of time it took before they were able to walk across the floor, to say nothing of the distance from Mrs. Biggs's to the school-house. That would be impossible for two or three weeks at least, and even then Miss Smith would have to go on crutches most likely, was their comforting assurance.

"I've got some up garret that I used twenty years ago. Too long for her, but Tim can cut them off. They are just the thing. Lucky I kept them," Mrs. Biggs said, while Eloise listened with a feeling like death in her heart, and dreamed that night of hobbling to school on Mrs. Biggs's crutches, while Jack Harcourt helped and encouraged her, and Howard Crompton stood at a distance laughing at her.



CHAPTER VII

RUBY ANN PATRICK

She had taught the school in District No. 5 summer and winter for five years. She had been a teacher for fifteen years, her first experience dating back to the days when the Colonel was school inspector, and his formula in full swing. She had met all his requirements promptly, knew all about the geese and the grindstone, and the wind, and Mr. Wright, and had a certificate in the Colonel's handwriting, declaring her to be rooted and grounded in the fundamentals, and qualified to teach a district school anywhere. As Mr. Bills had said to Eloise, she was five feet nine inches high and large in proportion, with so much strength and vital force and determination, that the most unruly boy in District No. 5 would hesitate before openly defying her authority. She had conquered Tom Walker, the bully of the school, and after the day when he was made to feel the force there was in her large hand, he had done nothing worse than make faces behind her back and draw caricatures of her on his slate.

As a rule, Ruby Ann was popular with the majority of the people, and there had been some opposition to a change. It was hardly fair, they said to the Colonel, who took so much interest in the school, and who was sure to feel angry and hurt if deprived of the privilege of catechising the teachers in the office he had erected for that purpose on his grounds. He had not only built the school-house, but had kept it in repair, and had added a classroom for the older scholars because somebody said it was needed, and had not objected when it was only used for wraps and dinner pails, and balls and clubs in the summer, and in the winter for coal and wood and sleds and skates and other things pertaining to a school of wide-awake girls and boys.

This was the conservative party, but there was another which wanted a change. They had been in a rut long enough, and they laughed at the Colonel's formula, which nearly every child knew by heart. The Colonel was too old to run things,—they must have something up to date, and when the president of Mayville Normal School applied for a situation for Eloise she was accepted, and Ruby Ann went to the wall. She was greatly chagrined and disappointed when she found herself supplanted by a normal graduate, of whom she had not a much higher opinion than the Colonel himself. When she heard of the accident and that her rival was disabled, she was conscious just for a moment of a feeling of exultation, as if Eloise had received her just deserts. She was, however, a kind-hearted, well-principled woman, and soon cast the feeling aside as unworthy of her, and tried to believe she was sorry for the girl, who, she heard, was very young, and had been carried in the darkness and rain to Mrs. Biggs's house in Howard Crompton's arms.

"I would almost be willing to sprain my ankle for the sake of being carried in that way," Ruby thought, and then laughed as she tried to fancy the young man bending beneath the weight of her hundred and ninety pounds.

It was at this juncture that Mr. Bills came in asking if she would take Miss Smith's place until she was able to walk. It might be two weeks, and it might be three, and it might be less, he said. Any way, they didn't want a cripple in the school-house for Tom Walker to raise Hail Columby with. Would Ruby Ann swaller her pride and be a substitute?