Monday noon the postman gave the letter to twelve-year-old Emily, and
Emily in turn handed it to her young brother. Between the gate and the
door, however, Teddy encountered Rover, and Rover wanted to play. It
ended in the letter disappearing around the corner of the house, being
fast held in the jaws of a small black-and-tan dog.
Five minutes later the assembled family in the dining-room heard of the
loss and demanded an explanation.
"'T wasn't t-ten minutes ago, mother," stammered Emily defensively.
"The postman handed it to me and I gave it to Teddy to bring in."
"But whose letter was it?" demanded several voices.
Emily shook her head.
"I don't know," she faltered.
"Don't know! Why, daughter, how could you be so careless?" cried Mrs.
Clayton. "It is probably that note from the Bixbys--they were to write
if they could not come. But I should like to know what they said."
"But it might have been to me," cut in Ethel. (Ethel was pretty,
eighteen, and admired.)
There was a sudden exclamation across the table as James, the
first-born, pushed back his chair.
"Confound it, Emily, you've got us in a pretty mess! It so happened I
was looking for a letter myself," he snapped, as he jerked himself to
his feet. "See here, Teddy, where did that rascally little dog go to?
Come, let's go find Rover," he finished, stooping and lifting the small
boy to his shoulder. The next moment the dining-room door had banged
behind them.
"Dear, dear!" laughed Mrs. Clayton, a little hysterically, turning to
her husband. "You don't happen to be expecting a letter, do you,
Charles?"
"I do happen to be--and a very important one, too," returned the man;
and Mrs. Clayton, after a nervous glance at his frowning face, subsided
into her chair with a murmured word of regret. When luncheon was over
she slipped from the room and joined in the hunt for Rover.
They scoured the yard, the street, the house, and the woodshed, finding
the culprit at last in the barn asleep under the big automobile. Of
the letter, however, there was not a trace.
"Dear, dear, if dogs only could talk!" moaned Mrs. Clayton that night
as, restless and full of fancies, she lay on her bed. "If only I knew
where and what that letter was. But then, of course, it's from the
Bixbys; I'm going to think so, anyway," she comforted herself, and
resolutely closed her eyes.
"If that _should_ be Dennison's letter," mused Mr. Clayton as he locked
up the house; "if that should be--confound it, and I know it is! I 'd
swear it! It serves me right, too, I suppose, for telling him to write
me at the house instead of at the office. Confound that little beast
of a dog!"
In the south chamber Ethel, sending long, even strokes over the brown
satin of her hair, eyed her image in the glass with a plaintive pout.
"Now, if that letter _should_ be an invitation from Fred!" she said
aloud. "And when I 'd so much rather go on that ride with him! Oh,
dear! Where can Rover have put it?"
Across the hall James Clayton paced the room from end to end.
"Great Scott! What if it _were_ May's letter, after all?" he groaned.
"What a fool I was to leave it that if I did n't hear by Thursday night
I'd understand 'twas 'no'! And now she may have written and be
expecting me to-morrow, Wednesday,--_to-night_, even, and I not know
it--tied hand and foot! Oh, hang that dog!"
Tuesday morning the family awoke and met at the breakfast table. The
air was electric with unrest, and the food almost untouched. It was
Mrs. Clayton who broke the long silence that followed the morning's
greetings.
"I--I don't think I 'll do much to get ready for the Bixbys," she
began; "I 'm so sure that letter was from them."
"You mean that, Julia?" demanded her husband, brightening. "Are you
really positive?"
"Yes, really positive. They said all the time that they did n't think
they could come, and that without doubt I should get a letter saying
so."
"Then of course 'twas it," asserted Ethel, her face suddenly clearing.
"Of course," echoed her brother with a promptitude that hinted at more
than a willingness to be convinced that the letter was the Bixbys' and
none other.
It was about ten minutes past five that afternoon when the four Bixbys
came.
"There, we did get here!" they chorused gleefully.
"Yes, yes, I see, I see," murmured Mrs. Clayton, and signaled to Ethel
to hurry into the kitchen and give the alarm to the cook. "Then
you--you did n't write?"
"Write? Why, no, of course not! We were n't to, you know, if we could
come."
"Yes--er--I mean no," stammered Mrs. Clayton, trying to calculate just
how long it would take the maid to put three rooms in order.
At half-past six the family, with their guests, sat down to a dinner
that showed unmistakable signs of having been started as a simple one
for six, and finished as a would-be elaborate one for ten. To the
faces of Mr. Clayton, Ethel, and James the cloud of the morning had
returned. Mrs. Clayton, confident that the missing letter contained
nothing worse for her than its absence had already brought her, looked
comparatively serene.
After dinner, as by common consent, Mr. Clayton and his elder son and
daughter met in a secluded comer of the library.
"Hang it all, dad, _now_ whose letter do you suppose that was?" began
James aggressively.
"It's mine," groaned the father, with a shake of his head. "I know
it's mine."
"But it might n't be," demurred Ethel, with a hesitation that showed a
fear lest her suggestion meet with prompt acceptance.
"I tell you I know it's mine," retorted Mr. Clayton, and Ethel sighed
her relief. "I did hope 't was your mother's," he continued; "but I
might have known better. It's mine, and--and it means dollars to
me--hundreds of them."
"Why, father!" The two voices were one in shocked surprise.
"Well, it does. Dennison was going to drop me a line here if certain
things happened. And if they have happened, and I don't sell my P. &
Z. before to-morrow noon, it 'll mean--well, there 'll be something to
pay. On the other hand, if those certain things have n't happened, and
I do sell--it 'll be worse."
"Well, well," laughed James in a surprisingly buoyant tone, considering
the gloom on his father's face. "I guess the letter was yours all
right. I should take it so, anyhow, and go ahead and sell."
"Yes, so should I," tossed Ethel over her shoulder as she tripped
happily away.
"After all," mused James, slowly crossing the hall, "it could n't have
been my letter. May would n't have written so soon; she 'd have waited
until nearer Thursday. She would n't let me have the 'yes' quite so
quickly. Not she!--the little tease of a sweetheart!"
On Wednesday morning, at half-past eight, the maid brought in the mail
and laid it at her master's plate. There were a paper and two letters.
"Hm-m," began Mr. Clayton, "one for you, Julia, my dear, and--by Jove,
it's Dennison's letter!" he finished joyfully, thrusting an eager thumb
under the flap of the other envelope.
Twenty minutes later, with head erect and shoulders squared, the senior
member of the firm of Clayton & Company left his home and hurried down
the street. Behind him, on the veranda steps, were a young man and a
young girl looking into each other's faces in blank dismay.
"You--you said _you_ were expecting a letter, did n't you?" began Ethel
hopefully.
"Well, so were you, were n't you?" The tone showed quick irritation.
"Why, yes, but--"
"Well, don't you think it is yours?"
"Why, I--I don't know. It might be, of course; but--"
"You _said_ you thought it was yours, the very first thing."
"Yes, I know; but--well, perhaps it is."
"Of course it is," asserted James, as he ran down the steps. And
Ethel, looking after him, frowned in vague wonder.
Thursday morning's mail brought four letters, and Ethel blushed
prettily as she tucked them all in her belt.
"But they aren't all yours," protested her brother James.
"But they are!" she laughed.
"All?"
"All."
"But _I_ was expecting a letter."
"Oh-ho!--so you were, were you?" teased the girl merrily. Ethel could
afford to be merry; she had recognized a certain bold handwriting on
one of the envelopes. "I really don't see, then, but you 'll have to
go to Rover. Perhaps he can tell you where it is."
"Confound that dog!" growled James, turning on his heel.
"I'm going to accept Fred's invitation," soliloquized Ethel happily, as
she hurried into her own room. "I shall read his first, so, of course,
that will be the first one that I get!"
The noon delivery brought no letters for any one. James Clayton
fidgeted about the house all the afternoon instead of going down to the
golf club to see the open handicap--the annual club event. He felt
that, in the present state of affairs, he could take no chances of
seeing a certain young woman who was just then very much in his
thoughts. If she _had_ written, and he should meet her as though she
had not!--his blood chilled at the thought; and if she had not written,
and he should meet her as though she had!--To James Clayton, at the
moment, the thought of her precious letter lost forever to his longing
eyes was only a shade worse than that there should have been no letter
at all.
Five o'clock came, bringing the last mail--and still no letter. In the
Clayton residence that night dinner was served at a table which showed
a vacant place; James Clayton was reported to be indisposed. Yet, two
hours later, after a sharp peal of the doorbell and a hasty knocking at
his chamber door by the maid, James Clayton left the house; and one who
met him on the steps said that his face was certainly not that of a
sick man.
It was after breakfast the next morning, before the family had
dispersed, that Ethel rushed headlong into the dining-room.
"Oh, James, James!" she cried breathlessly. "It _was_ your letter that
Rover had, and here 't is!"
"But it was n't," retorted the young man airily. "I got mine last
night--special delivery."
"But it is yours. Teddy found it in a hole under the barn. See!"
crowed Ethel; and she thrust into his hand a tattered, chewed,
bedraggled envelope whose seal was yet unbroken.
"Well, by George--'t is for me," muttered the young man, as he descried
his own name among the marks left by dirt-stained paws and sharp little
teeth. "Humph!" he ejaculated a moment later, eyeing the torn and
crumpled sheet of paper which the envelope had contained.
"Well?" prompted several voices.
"It's an advertising letter from the Clover Farm kennels," he
announced, with a slight twitching of his lips. "Do you think
we--er--need another--dog?"