"LOVE ALONE WILL STAY"
"It never ought to rain in June," said Sylvia.
She had just alighted from the train, and was in Thinkright's arms as
she said it.
"I had set my heart on just such a drive with you as we had the first
time I came."
"This will be far better than that was, Sylvia." He held her off at
arm's length, and viewed her deliberately. "We had the sunshine outside
that day. This time it's inside."
He could see it while he spoke, shining out through blue eyes and
smiling lips, as the girl looked long into his face.
"It seems to me you are a rather elegant person to be clinging to an
old farmer like me," he went on.
"Have I changed, Thinkright? You haven't. Oh, I'm so glad!"
"Yes, you have changed, little one. I'm looking at you, trying to find
out how."
"I'm awfully well dressed, for one thing," whispered Sylvia, laughing.
"Edna would have it. She's made Uncle Calvin pay bills that I'm sure
must have shocked him. Yes, I know my things look simple, but they're
right; and oh, how you do have to pay for millinery rightness, _à
la_ Edna!"
"Well, I think the loafers have stared at you enough," said Thinkright.
"Let's get into the wagon. I've brought a rubber coat for you, but very
likely it'll be clear before we get home. Why," with sudden perception,
"I know what has happened; your curls are gone."
"No, no, not gone, only promoted. I'm going to say good-by to this very
proper hat for three months, and I think I'll begin now. It would be a
tragedy if it should get wet."
While they still stood under the roof of the station platform, Sylvia
took out her hat pins, and Thinkright unrolled and opened her neat
umbrella.
"I've brought the umbrella, too," he said, with a humorous appreciation
of the difference between that ample cotton shelter and the dainty silk
affair he held in his hand.
"So," regarding the uncovered coiffure which had won John Dunham's
approval, "so that is what has become of the wreath of curls. H'm. It
makes you look--look very grown up, Sylvia."
"It's about time," returned the girl. "Wasn't I twenty last February?"
They went to the wagon, where the baggage had been placed, and Sylvia
put on the rubber coat and jumped in. A sudden peal of thunder rolled.
"A salute in your honor, my dear," said Thinkright, climbing in beside
her.
"I'm delighted," she answered, as the horses started, "for it means
showers instead of a three days' rain. Here, let's take the calico
tent," she added, "then we can both get under it."
She put her little umbrella under the rubber laprobe, and, raising the
weather-beaten canopy, slipped her arm through Thinkright's.
"I'm going to paint such a lovely picture of you this summer, dear,"
she said, studying his face fondly.
"Of me? Oh, no."
"Oh, yes. I won't admit that any one else can paint such a likeness of
you as I can."
"I hear good reports of your work."
"My own reports?" she laughed.
"No. Calvin's, Edna's, Mr. Dunham's."
"John's, Mr. Dunham's?"
Thinkright's answer was rather slow in coming, she thought.
"Yes. We've had occasion for some correspondence on a matter of
business, and he has mentioned your promise."
"My promise to what?" asked Sylvia, suddenly interested in the
fastening of the umbrella.
"The promise shown in your work," replied her companion, looking
steadily between the horse's ears.
"Oh, yes," returned Sylvia in a small voice.
"You were a little mistaken about that match you had fixed up," said
Thinkright, "between Edna and Mr. Dunham, weren't you?"
"Yes; and she's going to marry such a fine man, so worthy of her in
every way!" Sylvia spoke with enthusiasm.
"You're better pleased than if it had been Dunham?" asked Thinkright.
It was his companion's turn to hesitate. "Oh, she didn't ask my
advice," she replied at last, with elaborate lightness.
"It's rather easy to make mistakes about those matters," observed
Thinkright.
"Yes; and rather easy in avoiding Scylla to fall into Charybdis." She
had spent her winter in endeavoring to avoid Charybdis. Just because it
had not been Edna who was John's ideal was no sign that the Princess
did not exist, either already selected, as Edna's lover had been, or
else still to appear. An acquaintance with Boston, and the dozens of
interesting people she had met, had cleared her provincial vision,
until she was more than ever wary of believing that an interest in her
personality and her work meant anything deeper. There were a number of
men who had shown her more attention than had John Dunham, aside from
those evenings he had spent with Edna and herself. She had kept her
thought filled with healthful interest in her work, the effort to
please her teachers, and to make the most of her uncle's generosity;
and the winter had gone swiftly. She had spent Christmas with her aunt,
and Judge Trent and Mr. Dunham had dined with them on the holiday.
After dinner she had gone sleigh-riding with John, far into the frosty,
sparkling country, despite Miss Lacey's protest that she couldn't see
why they wouldn't rather stay by the fire. Miss Martha declared that
for her part she would just as soon sit with her feet in a pail of ice
water and ring a dinner-bell as to go sleighing. Upon which Judge Trent
reminded her that she had not always felt so; a concession on his part
to the past which furnished Miss Lacey with gratified sensations for
some time to come; the more that, instead of making some excuse to
leave, her old friend had taken with extraordinary grace to the rôle of
fireside companion, and remained talking with her of Sylvia, and mutual
acquaintances, until the young people's return.
Sylvia brought her reminiscent thought back to the present.
"How are the Fosters?" she asked.
"Well."
"And my boat?"
"Fine. Waiting for you. Minty wanted to come over with me to get you;
but I decided to be selfish." Sylvia squeezed his arm.
When they reached the height to-day, the wide view was sullen; the
waves lashing, and gnawing with white teeth at the leaden rocks under a
leaden sky. The dripping firs were dark blots on the vague islands.
Sylvia recklessly let go the old umbrella, which fell backward as she
stood up in the rain and looked off, affectionately. The damp rings of
hair blew about her forehead on the wind-swept height, and she reached
out her arms toward the grand, forbidding prospect.
"You can't frighten me, dearest, _dearest_!" she said exultantly.
"Rumble and roar as much as you like. I know what is behind the mask."
She sat down and righted the umbrella, and while the horses descended
the hill she looked and looked, feasting her eyes on every
well-remembered landmark.
The Tide Mill loomed out of the mist.
"Poor dear!" she said, apostrophizing it. "Are things just as desperate
as ever?"
Tears were glistening on the closed shutters, and running down the
weather-beaten sides.
"I think when the mill is crying like that, it always seems as if it
were softening a little, Thinkright. Don't you? As if there were
greater chance of its opening its eyes and taking notice once more."
Thinkright gave a low laugh. "Your miracle hasn't come to pass yet, has
it?"
"No, but I'm going to hope, still."
"That's right. If those shutters ever open I think you'll have to be
the prime mover. No one else seems to care."
"_You_ care, Thinkright," replied the girl wistfully. "There shouldn't
be anything sad or hopeless around the Mill Farm, least of all that
dear old neglected thing that named it."
"You're a very fanciful little girl," was the reply; but there was
nothing disapproving in the glance her companion bent upon her.
As they drove up to the farmhouse, the living-room door flew open, and
Minty was disclosed, prevented by her mother from going out into the
rain, and expending pent-up energy by hopping up and down with
irrepressible eagerness.
Mrs. Lem appeared behind her, wreathed in smiles, and coiffured and
arrayed in her company best.
"It's so good to be home again," cried Sylvia, "so good, so good!" and
she jumped out of the wagon and seized Minty's hands and danced around
the living-room in the rubber coat until the child's laughter rang out
gleefully.
"And how have you been, Mrs. Lem?" she asked when their breath was
gone.
"Smart," replied that lady, regarding the girl admiringly, and
wondering whether by patience and perseverance she might force her own
hair to go into the shape of Sylvia's.
"I do hope you've brought us a change in the weather," went on Mrs.
Lem. "When it hain't ben actually rainin' the past two weeks, there's
ben so much timidity in the atmosphere that I've got hoarse as a crow,
and we'll all be webfooted pretty soon if it don't clear up."
"You shall have sunshine to-morrow," declared Sylvia.
"I hain't touched the Rosy Cloud yet," said Minty, "even though you
wrote I could. Thinkright said I might let her git stove on a rock, and
he'd druther I'd wait."
"Very well, Minty, to-morrow we shall begin making up for lost time.
Let them watch us."
Cap'n Lem soon appeared, and the five made a happy supper party. During
the meal the clouds lightened and the rain abated. Mrs. Lem would not
hear to Sylvia's assisting in clearing away, but sent her upstairs to
unpack her trunk. She was at work at it when the western sun suddenly
shone out.
"The rainbow, the rainbow!" shouted Minty at the foot of the stairs.
"Where?" cried Sylvia.
"Over the mill."
Sylvia ran into Thinkright's room, which was on the eastern side of the
house, and, throwing open a window, fell on her knees before it. In a
protecting, splendid arch a perfect rainbow spanned the cloud above the
mill. Rays of sunlight struck full upon the sightless eyes, and kissed
its gray face until the tears sparkled into diamonds and the old
building was beset with glory.
"The bow of promise," murmured Sylvia. She stretched out her hands to
the mill. "Just open them a little way," she said. "You're no unhappier
than I was, but I've found it such a good world! Just open your
shutters and look. You'll always be glad. Perhaps you can't have
everything you want, perhaps not the very thing you want most. What of
that? Can't you trust? I'm learning to. 'Love alone will stay,' and it
won't forget. It never forgets."
The girl's eyes lifted to the glorifying arch. One end curved to a
distant forest and was lost, and the other dipped deep within the
ocean. The Tide Mill grew to radiance beneath its caress. It seemed on
the point of yielding, and opening gently to the setting sun.
At the climax of color Sylvia, smiling, dropped her eyelids. She would
not see it fade. Suddenly, her ear was caught by a note as of a distant
bell; then a tangle of bells, tiny, musical, and the song of the hermit
thrush rang out from the far thicket.
[Illustration: Bar of music]
Sylvia caught her lip between her teeth, and her heart swelled.
The next morning nature, as always after a gloomy season, seemed trying
to cause forgetfulness of its sulks and tears by bringing the whole
battery of its charms to bear upon sea and land.
After breakfast Thinkright produced a key from his pocket. "There, my
girl," he said, "is the key to the boathouse. I know you can scarcely
wait."
"That's true," replied Sylvia. "Come on, Minty."
The child's round eyes were fixed solemnly on some point beyond
Sylvia's shoulder.
"I don't know as I care 'bout goin' boatin' this mornin'," she replied
decorously.
"What?" returned Sylvia, astonished. She remembered now how remarkably
quiet the child had been throughout breakfast. "Why, how do you feel,
Minty?"
"Smart," returned the child, still with her gaze on the uncertain point
in space.
Thinkright's eyes had a humorous twinkle. "I want Minty to help me a
little while this morning," he said. "She'll see you later."
Sylvia turned to him, demurring. "She has been looking forward to it so
much," she said.
"Yes, I know. She won't have to wait long," he replied kindly, putting
his arm around the child's shoulders.
Mrs. Lem, her hair strained back in its least decorative twist, fixed
her offspring with black eyes that snapped.
"You're a-goin' to have a good time with Thinkright, ain't you, Minty?"
she asked, and the child's breath caught through her little nose as she
replied promptly:--
"Yes, I be."
Sylvia looked from one to the other uncertainly, but Thinkright was
patting the little shoulder he held, and he nodded at her reassuringly.
"Run along, Sylvia. You'll find everything in good shape."
"I never saw such a man," thought the girl as she went down the hill.
"How did he know that it would mean so much to me to go out alone just
this first morning? Oh, Thinkright, Thinkright," she sighed. "How great
it is to have come where you are; to have one's skylight always open,
and the trap door always closed!"
She ran lightly in among the evergreens, and touched their bright buds
here and there.
"That's right, precious things," she said, giving a lingering look up
and down the familiar woodland path by the water side.
Then she came through the trees out upon the little dock beside her
boathouse, and stood there, looking about with fond eyes at the broad
sweep of the Basin waters. The snowy stems of the birches seemed alive
as they swayed forward, waving their lustrous banners across the tide.
She nodded in all directions, and kissed her hands to the encircling
woods. "I'm exactly as glad to see _you_," she said; "and you shall sit
to me for your pictures, all of you. Just as soon as"--
She paused, her lips apart, her eyes wide, for all at once she caught
sight of the Tide Mill. Every one of its shutters had turned back. The
sunlight was flooding in. She grew pale, sank down upon a rock near by,
and gazed. While she was thus absorbed John Dunham came out of the
woods and advanced to her. His step creaked the boards of the little
dock, and she looked up. Springing to her feet, the color rushed back
to her face.
"John, you here? The mill shutters have opened." She looked into his
eyes appealingly, while he held both her hands.
"The mill? That's so," he answered. "Gives the old misanthrope a
different look, doesn't it?"
"But when--how?" asked Sylvia. "Last night it was closed. I saw it; and
the rainbow was inspiring it, and the setting sun was begging it, and I
was coaxing it, and--look! When could it have happened? How could it
have happened?"
"You expected a miracle, didn't you?" asked Dunham. "I remember you
talked about it last summer."
"What are you doing here?" asked the girl, remembering he had her
hands, and withdrawing them. "You couldn't have driven over from the
village as early as this."
"No. I came up on business, and I'm staying in the neighborhood."
"But there isn't any neighborhood," said Sylvia.
"Is that all you know about this region?" he returned. "I'll show you
where I'm staying, some day." John thought of his fragrant couch of hay
in the barn. "Isn't it astonishing what a gay old boy that mill has
turned into? Look at it sidle around on those posts. It seems to say,
'Come in. The water's fine.' Why don't we accept the invitation? Let's
go over there."
"Oh, come. I can't wait. Here's the key to the boat-house."
The hand that gave it to him trembled. It seemed the crown of all that
Dunham should be with her the first time she approached the opened
shutters.
In a couple of minutes he was pulling the light craft across the Basin.
"Do you think we can possibly get in?" asked Sylvia. "How I have wanted
to get inside that mill!"
"Then we shall have to, that's all," replied her companion, his eyes on
her absorbed face, above which the breeze was blowing a little mass of
auburn curls. "I think if I stood in the boat, and you stood on my
shoulders, you might reach a lower window."
"I hope it won't come to that," she answered; "but I am afraid the
ladders will have rotted away. We may find people there. Why, we
probably shall. I don't know why I haven't come down to earth enough to
realize that only the owners could have opened the mill."
Dunham nodded. "They must have entered to open it, too. What man hath
done, man can do. You shall get in, else what is the use of _my_ being
here? Say you're glad I'm here, Sylvia."
She nodded at him collectedly. "If you get me in, I will," she
returned.
They found an upright ladder, weather-beaten but still strong, beside
one of the posts. Dunham tied the boat, then began to climb up, Sylvia
following, and in a minute more they stood inside the desolate
building, where strips of sunlight patched the floor. It was deserted.
"Well?" questioned John, as the girl looked all about.
"I thought it would be like this," she answered. "Can we get up higher?
There must be a fine view."
Dunham found a flight of steps in a corner, and climbed it, Sylvia
following.
The ramshackle old building had platforms rather than floors, leaving
space in the middle for the machinery which ran up through it, and
stairs led from one to another of these. These steps looked newer than
their surroundings. When the visitors had reached the next to the upper
floor, Dunham led Sylvia to a window, and together they exclaimed upon
the wide beauty of the great, open bay.
"Whoever owns this old mill owns a palace," said Sylvia. She placed her
hand lovingly on the edge of a hoary shutter. "Didn't I tell you it was
worth while to open your eyes, dear?"
She glanced at John, who was standing, tall and thoughtful, at the
other side of the window, watching her. She smiled with rather unsteady
lips. "You would laugh if you knew how much it means to me to be
standing in here," she said.
"Not more to you than to me, I am sure," he returned. "I've never
forgotten a fanciful thing you said about this mill last summer. You
said that Love would open the shutters some day. Listen, Sylvia, do you
hear that?"
Across the still water rang the woodland bells that preceded the
triumphant flourish of the thrush's song.
"I should like that for my wedding music," said Dunham slowly, after a
minute. "Those are the only bells that should chime upon my wedding if
I had my wish."
Sylvia's heart beat fast. She thought it cruel of him to look at her
like that.
He continued: "There is a spot over there in the woods near a thicket
of white birches that I have selected as the spot for the ceremony."
"Very poetical," returned Sylvia. "Such a plan suits this outlook."
"I see there are some more stairs," said Dunham, looking about. "Shall
we do the thing thoroughly? Let's go to the top."
He preceded the girl up the steep flight, and turned to give her his
hand for the last steps. Sylvia emerged upon a newly-placed floor, and
looked about her in a daze.
She glanced back at Dunham, then again her wondering eyes swept the
great apartment in which she found herself.
It was a studio, furnished with every convenience for an artist's work,
and many luxuries for an artist's idleness.
Again the girl turned pale, as at the moment when first she discovered
the Tide Mill this morning.
She sank into a wicker chair by one of the many windows framing their
vast views, and continued silent.
Dunham pulled up an ottoman to her feet, and sat upon it.
She dared not believe the signs in his eyes. "You are Uncle Calvin's
messenger"--she began, at last.
He shook his head. "No, I've bought this mill myself for a wedding
present; but whether for my bride or another man's I don't know yet.
The only objection to this plan has been that it appeared to take a
good deal for granted, and I want you to know that it doesn't. You said
Love would open the shutters, and it has; but I don't know how much you
care for me, I only know how much I care for you."
Sylvia's eyes, startled, incredulous, tender, filled slowly from her
heart, until again John met that Look, never for one second forgotten.
He reached out his hand, questioning still, and now her longing was
satisfied to put hers within it, in its rightful home.
Across the silence rang the Hermit's song; for even the Hermit had a
mate.
After a while Sylvia lifted her head from her lover's shoulder.
"I suppose there may be some troubles in the world still, John," she
said.
"Possibly," he replied, the hint of a smile on his lips as he looked
into the face so close to his.
"We can do without joy many times, John. We can meet everything now
without a fear. Do you remember:
'Kiss my lips and softly say,
"Joy, sea-swept, may fade to-day;
Love alone will stay!'"
The Riverside Press
_Electrotyped and printed by H. O. Houghton & Co.
Cambridge, Mass., U. S. A._
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THE MAYOR OF WARWICK
By HERBERT M. HOPKINS
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