SPRING BLOSSOMS
For days the neighbors in and about the village of Warehold had been
looking forward to Lucy's home-coming as one of the important epochs in
the history of the Manor House, quite as they would have done had Lucy
been a boy and the expected function one given in honor of the youthful
heir's majority. Most of them had known the father and mother of these
girls, and all of them loved Jane, the gentle mistress of the home--a
type of woman eminently qualified to maintain its prestige.
It had been a great house in its day. Built in early Revolutionary
times by Archibald Cobden, who had thrown up his office under the Crown
and openly espoused the cause of the colonists, it had often been the
scene of many of the festivities and social events following the
conclusion of peace and for many years thereafter: the rooms were still
pointed out in which Washington and Lafayette had slept, as well as the
small alcove where the dashing Bart de Klyn passed the night whenever
he drove over in his coach with outriders from Bow Hill to Barnegat and
the sea.
With the death of Colonel Creighton Cobden, who held a commission in
the War of 1812, all this magnificence of living had changed, and when
Morton Cobden, the father of Jane and Lucy, inherited the estate, but
little was left except the Manor House, greatly out of repair, and some
invested property which brought in but a modest income. On his
death-bed Morton Cobden's last words were a prayer to Jane, then
eighteen, that she would watch over and protect her younger sister, a
fair-haired child of eight, taking his own and her dead mother's place,
a trust which had so dominated Jane's life that it had become the
greater part of her religion.
Since then she had been the one strong hand in the home, looking after
its affairs, managing their income, and watching over every step of her
sister's girlhood and womanhood. Two years before she had placed Lucy
in one of the fashionable boarding-schools of Philadelphia, there to
study "music and French," and to perfect herself in that "grace of
manner and charm of conversation," which the two maiden ladies who
presided over its fortunes claimed in their modest advertisements they
were so competent to teach. Part of the curriculum was an enforced
absence from home of two years, during which time none of her own
people were to visit her except in case of emergency.
To-night, the once famous house shone with something of its old-time
color. The candles were lighted in the big bronze candelabra--the ones
which came from Paris; the best glass and china and all the old plate
were brought out and placed on the sideboard and serving-tables; a wood
fire was started (the nights were yet cold), its cheery blaze lighting
up the brass fender and andirons before which many of Colonel Cobden's
cronies had toasted their shins as they sipped their toddies in the old
days; easy-chairs and hair-cloth sofas were drawn from the walls; the
big lamps lighted, and many minor details perfected for the comfort of
the expected guests.
Jane entered the drawing-room in advance of Lucy and was busying
herself putting the final touches to the apartment,--arranging the
sprays of blossoms over the clock and under the portrait of Morton
Cobden, which looked calmly down on the room from its place on the
walls, when the door opened softly and Martha--the old nurse had for
years been treated as a member of the family--stepped in, bowing and
curtsying as would an old woman in a play, the skirt of her new black
silk gown that Ann Gossaway had made for her held out between her plump
fingers, her mob-cap with its long lace strings bobbing with every
gesture. With her rosy cheeks, silver-rimmed spectacles, self-satisfied
smile, and big puffy sleeves, she looked as if she might have stepped
out of one of the old frames lining the walls.
"What do ye think of me, Miss Jane? I'm proud as a peacock--that I am!"
she cried, twisting herself about. "Do ye know, I never thought that
skinny dressmaker could do half as well. Is it long enough?" and she
craned her head in the attempt to see the edge of the skirt.
"Fits you beautifully, Martha. You look fine," answered Jane in all
sincerity, as she made a survey of the costume. "How does Lucy like it?"
"The darlin' don't like it at all; she says I look like a pall-bearer,
and ye ought to hear her laughin' at the cap. Is there anything the
matter with it? The pastor's wife's got one, anyhow, and she's a year
younger'n me."
"Don't mind her, Martha--she laughs at everything; and how good it is
to hear her! She never saw you look so well," replied Jane, as she
moved a jar from a table and placed it on the mantel to hold the
blossoms she had picked in the garden. "What's she doing upstairs so
long?"
"Prinkin'--and lookin' that beautiful ye wouldn't know her. But the
width and the thickness of her"--here the wrinkled fingers measured the
increase with a half circle in the air--"and the way she's plumped
out--not in one place, but all over--well, I tell ye, ye'd be
astonished! She knows it, too, bless her heart! I don't blame her. Let
her git all the comfort she kin when she's young--that's the time for
laughin'--the cryin' always comes later."
No part of Martha's rhapsody over Lucy described Jane. Not in her best
moments could she have been called beautiful--not even to-night when
Lucy's home-coming had given a glow to her cheeks and a lustre to her
eyes that nothing else had done for months. Her slender figure, almost
angular in its contour with its closely drawn lines about the hips and
back; her spare throat and neck, straight arms, thin wrists and
hands--transparent hands, though exquisitely wrought, as were those of
all her race--all so expressive of high breeding and refinement,
carried with them none of the illusions of beauty. The mould of the
head, moreover, even when softened by her smooth chestnut hair, worn
close to her ears and caught up in a coil behind, was too severe for
accepted standards, while her features wonderfully sympathetic as they
were, lacked the finer modeling demanded in perfect types of female
loveliness, the eyebrows being almost straight, the cheeks sunken, with
little shadows under the cheek-bones, and the lips narrow and often
drawn.
And yet with all these discrepancies and, to some minds, blemishes
there was a light in her deep gray eyes, a melody in her voice, a charm
in her manner, a sureness of her being exactly the sort of woman one
hoped she would be, a quick responsiveness to any confidence, all so
captivating and so satisfying that 'those who knew her forgot her
slight physical shortcomings and carried away only the remembrance of
one so much out of the common and of so distinguished a personality
that she became ever after the standard by which they judged all good
women.
There were times, too--especially whenever Lucy entered the room or her
name was mentioned--that there shone through Jane's eyes a certain
instantaneous kindling of the spirit which would irradiate her whole
being as a candle does a lantern--a light betokening not only
uncontrollable tenderness but unspeakable pride, dimmed now and then
when some word or act of her charge brought her face to face with the
weight of the responsibility resting upon her--a responsibility far
outweighing that which most mothers would have felt. This so dominated
Jane's every motion that it often robbed her of the full enjoyment of
the companionship of a sister so young and so beautiful.
If Jane, to quote Doctor John, looked like a lily swaying on a slender
stem, Lucy, when she bounded into the room to-night, was a full-blown
rose tossed by a summer breeze. She came in with throat and neck bare;
a woman all curves and dimples, her skin as pink as a shell; plump as a
baby, and as fair, and yet with the form of a wood-nymph; dressed in a
clinging, soft gown, the sleeves caught up at the shoulders revealing
her beautiful arms, a spray of blossoms on her bosom, her blue eyes
dancing with health, looking twenty rather than seventeen; glad of her
freedom, glad of her home and Jane and Martha, and of the lights and
blossoms and the glint on silver and glass, and of all that made life
breathable and livable.
"Oh, but isn't it just too lovely to be at home!" she cried as she
skipped about. "No lights out at nine, no prayers, no getting up at six
o'clock and turning your mattress and washing in a sloppy little
washroom. Oh, I'm so happy! I can't realize it's all true." As she
spoke she raised herself on her toes so that she could see her face in
the mirror over the mantel. "Why, do you know, sister," she rattled on,
her eyes studying her own face, "that Miss Sarah used to make us learn
a page of dictionary if we talked after the silence bell!"
"You must know the whole book by heart, then, dearie," replied Jane
with a smile, as she bent over a table and pushed back some books to
make room for a bowl of arbutus she held in her hand.
"Ah, but she didn't catch us very often. We used to stuff up the cracks
in the doors so she couldn't hear us talk and smother our heads in the
pillows. Jonesy, the English teacher, was the worst." She was still
looking in the glass, her fingers busy with the spray of blossoms on
her bosom. "She always wore felt slippers and crept around like a cat.
She'd tell on anybody. We had a play one night in my room after lights
were out, and Maria Collins was Claude Melnotte and I was Pauline.
Maria had a mustache blackened on her lips with a piece of burnt cork
and I was all fixed up in a dressing-gown and sash. We never heard
Jonesy till she put her hand on the knob; then we blew out the candle
and popped into bed. She smelled the candle-wick and leaned over and
kissed Maria good-night, and the black all came off on her lips, and
next day we got three pages apiece--the mean old thing! How do I look,
Martha? Is my hair all right?" Here she turned her head for the old
woman's inspection.
"Beautiful, darlin'. There won't one o' them know ye; they'll think
ye're a real livin' princess stepped out of a picture-book." Martha had
not taken her eyes from Lucy since she entered the room.
"See my little beau-catchers," she laughed, twisting her head so that
Martha could see the tiny Spanish curls she had flattened against her
temples. "They are for Bart Holt, and I'm going to cut sister out. Do
you think he'll remember me?" she prattled on, arching her neck.
"It won't make any difference if he don't," Martha retorted in a
positive tone. "But Cap'n Nat will, and so will the doctor and Uncle
Ephraim and--who's that comin' this early?" and the old nurse paused
and listened to a heavy step on the porch. "It must be the cap'n
himself; there ain't nobody but him's got a tread like that; ye'd think
he was trampin' the deck o' one of his ships."
The door of the drawing-room opened and a bluff, hearty, round-faced
man of fifty, his iron-gray hair standing straight up on his head like
a shoe-brush, dressed in a short pea-jacket surmounted by a low sailor
collar and loose necktie, stepped cheerily into the room.
"Ah, Miss Jane!" Somehow all the neighbors, even the most intimate,
remembered to prefix "Miss" when speaking to Jane. "So you've got this
fly-away back again? Where are ye? By jingo! let me look at you. Why!
why! why! Did you ever! What have you been doing to yourself, lassie,
that you should shed your shell like a bug and come out with wings like
a butterfly? Why you're the prettiest thing I've seen since I got home
from my last voyage."
He had Lucy by both bands now, and was turning her about as if she had
been one of Ann Gossaway's models.
"Have I changed, Captain Holt?"
"No--not a mite. You've got a new suit of flesh and blood on your
bones, that's all. And it's the best in the locker. Well! Well! WELL!"
He was still twisting her around. "She does ye proud, Martha," he
called to the old nurse, who was just leaving the room to take charge
of the pantry, now that the guests had begun to arrive. "And so ye're
home for good and all, lassie?"
"Yes--isn't it lovely?"
"Lovely? That's no name for it. You'll be settin' the young fellers
crazy 'bout here before they're a week older. Here come two of 'em now."
Lucy turned her head quickly, just as the doctor and Barton Holt
reached the door of the drawing-room. The elder of the two, Doctor
John, greeted Jane as if she had been a duchess, bowing low as he
approached her, his eyes drinking in her every movement; then, after a
few words, remembering the occasion as being one in honor of Lucy, he
walked slowly toward the young girl.
"Why, Lucy, it's so delightful to get you back!" he cried, shaking her
hand warmly. "And you are looking so well. Poor Martha has been on pins
and needles waiting for you. I told her just how it would be--that
she'd lose her little girl--and she has," and he glanced at her
admiringly. "What did she say when she saw you?"
"Oh, the silly old thing began to cry, just as they all do. Have you
seen her dog?"
The answer jarred on the doctor, although he excused her in his heart
on the ground of her youth and her desire to appear at ease in talking
to him.
"Do you mean Meg?" he asked, scanning her face the closer.
"I don't know what she calls him--but he's the ugliest little beast I
ever saw."
"Yes--but so amusing. I never get tired of watching him. What is left
of him is the funniest thing alive. He's better than he looks, though.
He and Rex have great times together."
"I wish you would take him, then. I told Martha this morning that he
mustn't poke his nose into my room, and he won't. He's a perfect
fright."
"But the dear old woman loves him," he protested with a tender tone in
his voice, his eyes fixed on Lucy.
He had looked into the faces of too many young girls in his
professional career not to know something of what lay at the bottom of
their natures. What he saw now came as a distinct surprise.
"I don't care if she does," she retorted; "no, I don't," and she knit
her brow and shook her pretty head as she laughed.
While they stood talking Bart Holt, who had lingered at the threshold,
his eyes searching for the fair arrival, was advancing toward the
centre of the room. Suddenly he stood still, his gaze fixed on the
vision of the girl in the clinging dress, with the blossoms resting on
her breast. The curve of her back, the round of the hip; the way her
moulded shoulders rose above the lace of her bodice; the bare, full
arms tapering to the wrists;--the color, the movement, the grace of it
all had taken away his breath. With only a side nod of recognition
toward Jane, he walked straight to Lucy and with an "Excuse me,"
elbowed the doctor out of the way in his eagerness to reach the girl's
side. The doctor smiled at the young man's impetuosity, bent his head
to Lucy, and turned to where Jane was standing awaiting the arrival of
her other guests.
The young man extended his hand. "I'm Bart Holt," he exclaimed; "you
haven't forgotten me, Miss Lucy, have you? We used to play together.
Mighty glad to see you--been expecting you for a week."
Lucy colored slightly and arched her head in a coquettish way. His
frankness pleased her; so did the look of unfeigned admiration in his
eyes.
"Why, of course I haven't forgotten you, Mr. Holt. It was so nice of
you to come," and she gave him the tips of her fingers--her own eyes
meanwhile, in one comprehensive glance, taking in his round head with
its closely cropped curls, searching brown eyes, wavering mouth, broad
shoulders, and shapely body, down to his small, well-turned feet. The
young fellow lacked the polish and well-bred grace of the doctor, just
as he lacked his well-cut clothes and distinguished manners, but there
was a sort of easy effrontery and familiar air about him that some of
his women admirers encouraged and others shrank from. Strange to say,
this had appealed to Lucy before he had spoken a word.
"And you've come home for good now, haven't you?" His eyes were still
drinking in the beauty of the girl, his mind neither on his questions
nor her answers.
"Yes, forever and ever," she replied, with a laugh that showed her
white teeth.
"Did you like it at school?" It was her lips now that held his
attention and the little curves under her dimpled chin. He thought he
had never seen so pretty a mouth and chin.
"Not always; but we used to have lots of fun," answered the girl,
studying him in return--the way his cravat was tied and the part of his
hair. She thought he had well-shaped ears and that his nose and
eyebrows looked like a picture she had in her room upstairs.
"Come and tell me about it. Let's sit down here," he continued as he
drew her to a sofa and stood waiting until she took her seat.
"Well, I will for a moment, until they begin to come in," she answered,
her face all smiles. She liked the way he behaved towards her--not
asking her permission, but taking the responsibility and by his manner
compelling a sort of obedience. "But I can't stay," she added. "Sister
won't like it if I'm not with her to shake hands with everybody."
"Oh, she won't mind me; I'm a great friend of Miss Jane's. Please go
on; what kind of fun did you have? I like to hear about girls' scrapes.
We had plenty of them at college, but I couldn't tell you half of
them." He had settled himself beside her now, his appropriating eyes
still taking in her beauty.
"Oh, all kinds," she replied as she bent her head and glanced at the
blossoms on her breast to be assured of their protective covering.
"But I shouldn't think you could have much fun with the teachers
watching you every minute," said Bart, moving nearer to her and turning
his body so he could look squarely into her eyes.
"Yes, but they didn't find out half that was going on." Then she added
coyly, "I don't know whether you can keep a secret--do you tell
everything you hear?"
"Never tell anything."
"How do I know?"
"I'll swear it." In proof he held up one hand and closed both eyes in
mock reverence as if he were taking an oath. He was getting more
interested now in her talk; up to this time her beauty had dazzled him.
"Never! So help me--" he mumbled impressively.
"Well, one day we were walking out to the park--Now you're sure you
won't tell sister, she's so easily shocked?" The tone was the same, but
the inflection was shaded to closer intimacy.
Again Bart cast up his eyes.
"And all the girls were in a string with Miss Griggs, the Latin
teacher, in front, and we all went in a cake shop and got a big piece
of gingerbread apiece. We were all eating away hard as we could when we
saw Miss Sarah coming. Every girl let her cake go, and when Miss Sarah
got to us the whole ten pieces were scattered along the sidewalk."
Bart looked disappointed over the mild character of the scrape. From
what he had seen of her he had supposed her adventures would be
seasoned with a certain spice of deviltry.
"I wouldn't have done that, I'd have hidden it in my pocket," he
replied, sliding down on the sofa until his head rested on the cushion
next her own.
"We tried, but she was too close. Poor old Griggsey got a dreadful
scolding. She wasn't like Miss Jones--she wouldn't tell on the girls."
"And did they let any of the fellows come to see you?" Bart asked.
"No; only brothers and cousins once in a long while. Maria Collins
tried to pass one of her beaux, Max Feilding, off as a cousin, but Miss
Sarah went down to see him and poor Maria had to stay upstairs."
"I'd have got in," said Bart with some emphasis, rousing himself from
his position and twisting his body so he could again look squarely in
her face. This escapade was more to his liking.
"How?" asked Lucy in a tone that showed she not only quite believed it,
but rather liked him the better for saying so.
"Oh I don't know. I'd have cooked up some story." He was leaning over
now, toying with the lace that clung to Lucy's arms. "Did you ever have
any one of your own friends treated in that way?"
Jane's voice cut short her answer. She had seen the two completely
absorbed in each other, to the exclusion of the other guests who were
now coming in, and wanted Lucy beside her.
The young girl waved her fan gayly in answer, rose to her feet, turned
her head close to Bart's, pointed to the incoming guests, whispered
something in his ear that made him laugh, listened while he whispered
to her in return, and in obedience to the summons crossed the room to
meet a group of the neighbors, among them old Judge Woolworthy, in a
snuff-colored coat, high black stock, and bald head, and his bustling
little wife. Bart's last whisper to Lucy was in explanation of the
little wife's manner--who now, all bows and smiles, was shaking hands
with everybody about her.
Then came Uncle Ephraim Tipple, and close beside him walked his spouse,
Ann, in a camel's-hair shawl and poke-bonnet, the two preceded by Uncle
Ephraim's stentorian laugh, which had been heard before their feet had
touched the porch outside. Mrs. Cromartin now bustled in, accompanied
by her two daughters--slim, awkward girls, both dressed alike in high
waists and short frocks; and after them the Bunsbys, father, mother,
and son--all smiles, the last a painfully thin young lawyer, in a low
collar and a shock of whitey-brown hair, "looking like a patent
window-mop resting against a wall," so Lucy described him afterward to
Martha when she was putting her to bed; and finally the Colfords and
Bronsons, young and old, together with Pastor Dellenbaugh, the
white-haired clergyman who preached in the only church in Warehold.
When Lucy had performed her duty and the several greetings were over,
and Uncle Ephraim had shaken the hand of the young hostess in true
pump-handle fashion, the old man roaring with laughter all the time, as
if it were the funniest thing in the world to find her alive; and the
good clergyman in his mildest and most impressive manner had said she
grew more and more like her mother every day--which was a flight of
imagination on the part of the dear man, for she didn't resemble her in
the least; and the two thin girls had remarked that it must be so
"perfectly blissful" to get home; and the young lawyer had complimented
her on her wonderful, almost life-like resemblance to her grand-father,
whose portrait hung in the court-house--and which was nearer the
truth--to all of which the young girl replied in her most gracious
tones, thanking them for their kindness in coming to see her and for
welcoming her so cordially--the whole of Lucy's mind once more reverted
to Bart.
Indeed, the several lobes of her brain had been working in opposition
for the past hour. While one-half of her mind was concocting polite
speeches for her guests the other was absorbed in the fear that Bart
would either get tired of waiting for her return and leave the sofa, or
that some other girl friend of his would claim him and her delightful
talk be at an end.
To the young girl fresh from school Bart represented the only thing in
the room that was entirely alive. The others talked platitudes and
themselves. He had encouraged her to talk of HERSELF and of the things
she liked. He had, too, about him an assurance and dominating
personality which, although it made her a little afraid of him, only
added to his attractiveness.
While she stood wondering how many times the white-haired young lawyer
would tell her it was so nice to have her back, she felt a slight
pressure on her arm and turned to face Bart.
"You are wanted, please, Miss Lucy; may I offer you my arm? Excuse me,
Bunsby--I'll give her to you again in a minute."
Lucy slipped her arm into Bart's, and asked simply, "What for?"
"To finish our talk, of course. Do you suppose I'm going to let that
tow-head monopolize you?" he answered, pressing her arm closer to his
side with his own.
Lucy laughed and tapped Bart with her fan in rebuke, and then there
followed a bit of coquetry in which the young girl declared that he was
"too mean for anything, and that she'd never seen anybody so conceited,
and if he only knew, she might really prefer the 'tow head' to his
own;" to which Bart answered that his only excuse was that he was so
lonely he was nearly dead, and that he had only come to save his
life--the whole affair culminating in his conducting her back to the
sofa with a great flourish and again seating himself beside her.
"I've been watching you," he began when he had made her comfortable
with a small cushion behind her shoulders and another for her pretty
feet. "You don't act a bit like Miss Jane." As he spoke he leaned
forward and flicked an imaginary something from her bare wrist with
that air which always characterized his early approaches to most women.
"Why?" Lucy asked, pleased at his attentions and thanking him with a
more direct look.
"Oh, I don't know. You're more jolly, I think. I don't like girls who
turn out to be solemn after you know them a while; I was afraid you
might. You know it's a long time since I saw you."
"Why, then, sister can't be solemn, for everybody says you and she are
great friends," she replied with a light laugh, readjusting the lace of
her bodice.
"So we are; nobody about here I think as much of as I do of your
sister. She's been mighty good to me. But you know what I mean: I mean
those don't-touch-me kind of girls who are always thinking you mean a
lot of things when you're only trying to be nice and friendly to them.
I like to be a brother to a girl and to go sailing with her, and
fishing, and not have her bother me about her feet getting a little bit
wet, and not scream bloody murder when the boat gives a lurch. That's
the kind of girl that's worth having."
"And you don't find them?" laughed Lucy, looking at him out of the
corners of her eyes.
"Well, not many. Do you mind little things like that?"
As he spoke his eyes wandered over her bare shoulders until they rested
on the blossoms, the sort of roaming, critical eyes that often cause a
woman to wonder whether some part of her toilet has not been carelessly
put together. Then he added, with a sudden lowering of his voice:
"That's a nice posy you've got. Who sent it?" and he bent his head as
if to smell the cluster on her bosom.
Lucy drew back and a slight flush suffused her cheek; his audacity
frightened her. She was fond of admiration, but this way of expressing
it was new to her. The young man caught the movement and recovered
himself. He had ventured on a thin spot, as was his custom, and the
sound of the cracking ice had warned him in time.
"Oh, I see, they're apple blossoms," he added carelessly as he
straightened up. "We've got a lot in our orchard. You like flowers, I
see." The even tone and perfect self-possession of the young man
reassured her.
"Oh, I adore them; don't you?" Lucy answered in a relieved, almost
apologetic voice. She was sorry she had misjudged him. She liked him
rather the better now for her mistake.
"Well, that depends. Apple blossoms never looked pretty to me before;
but then it makes a good deal of difference where they are," answered
Bart with a low chuckle.
Jane had been watching the two and had noticed. Bart's position and
manner. His easy familiarity of pose offended her. Instinctively she
glanced about the room, wondering if any of her guests had seen it.
That Lucy did not resent it surprised her. She supposed her sister's
recent training would have made her a little more fastidious.
"Come, Lucy," she called gently, moving toward her, "bring Bart over
here and join the other girls."
"All right, Miss Jane, we'll be there in a minute," Bart answered in
Lucy's stead. Then he bent his head and said in a low voice:
"Won't you give me half those blossoms?"
"No; it would spoil the bunch."
"Please--"
"No, not a single one. You wouldn't care for them, anyway."
"Yes, I would." Here he stretched out his hand and touched the blossoms
on her neck.
Lucy ducked her head in merry glee, sprang up, and with a triumphant
curtsy and a "No, you don't, sir--not this time," joined her sister,
followed by art.
The guests were now separated into big and little groups. Uncle Ephraim
and the judge were hob-nobbing around the fireplace, listening to Uncle
Ephraim's stories and joining in the laughter which every now and then
filled the room. Captain Nat was deep in a discussion with Doctor John
over some seafaring matter, and Jane and Mrs. Benson were discussing a
local charity with Pastor Dellenbaugh.
The younger people being left to themselves soon began to pair off, the
white-haired young lawyer disappearing with the older Miss Cromartin
and Bart soon following with Lucy:--the outer porch and the long walk
down the garden path among the trees, despite the chilliness of the
night, seemed to be the only place in which they could be comfortable.
During a lull in the discussion of Captain Nat's maritime news and
while Mrs. Benson was talking to the pastor, Doctor John seized the
opportunity to seat himself again by Jane.
"Don't you think Lucy improved?" she asked, motioning the doctor to a
place beside her.
"She's much more beautiful than I thought she would be," he answered in
a hesitating way, looking toward Lucy, and seating himself in his
favorite attitude, hands in his lap, one leg crossed over the other and
hanging straight beside its fellow; only a man like the doctor, of more
than usual repose and of a certain elegance of form, Jane always said,
could sit this way any length of time and be comfortable and
unconscious of his posture. Then he added slowly, and as if he had
given the subject some consideration, "You won't keep her long, I'm
afraid."
"Oh, don't say that," Jane cried with a nervous start. "I don't know
what I would do if she should marry."
"That don't sound like you, Miss Jane. You would be the first to deny
yourself. You are too good to do otherwise." He spoke with a slight
quiver in his voice, and yet with an emphasis that showed he believed
it.
"No; it is you who are good to think so," she replied in a softer tone,
bending her head as she spoke, her eyes intent on her fan. "And now
tell me," she added quickly, raising her eyes to his as if to bar any
further tribute he might be on the point of paying to her--"I hear your
mother takes greatly to heart your having refused the hospital
appointment."
"Yes, I'm afraid she does. Mother has a good many new-fashioned notions
nowadays." He laughed--a mellow, genial laugh; more in the spirit of
apology than of criticism.
"And you don't want to go?" she asked, her eyes fixed on his.
"Want to go? No, why should I? There would be nobody to look after the
people here if I went away. You don't want me to leave, do you?" he
added suddenly in an anxious tone.
"Nobody does, doctor," she replied, parrying the question, her face
flushing with pleasure.
Here Martha entered the room hurriedly and bending over Jane's
shoulder, whispered something in her ear. The doctor straightened
himself and leaned back out of hearing.
"Well, but I don't think she will take cold," Jane whispered in return,
looking up into Martha's face. "Has she anything around her?"
"Yes, your big red cloak; but the child's head is bare and there's
mighty little on her neck, and she ought to come in. The wind's begun
to blow and it's gettin' cold."
"Where is she?" Jane continued, her face showing her surprise at
Martha's statement.
"Out by the gate with that dare-devil. He don't care who he gives cold.
I told her she'd get her death, but she won't mind me."
"Why, Martha, how can you talk so!" Jane retorted, with a disapproving
frown. Then raising her voice so that the doctor could be brought into
the conversation, she added in her natural tone, "Whom did you say she
was with?"
"Bart Holt," cried Martha aloud, nodding to the doctor as if to get his
assistance in saving her bairn from possible danger.
Jane colored slightly and turned to Doctor John.
"You go please, doctor, and bring them all in, or you may have some new
patients on your hands."
The doctor looked from one to the other in doubt as to the cause of his
selection, but Jane's face showed none of the anxiety in Martha's.
"Yes, certainly," he answered simply; "but I'll get myself into a
hornet's nest. These young people don't like to be told what's good for
them," he added with a laugh, rising from his seat. "And after that
you'll permit me to slip away without telling anybody, won't you? My
last minute has come," and he glanced at his watch.
"Going so soon? Why, I wanted you to stay for supper. It will be ready
in a few minutes." Her voice had lost its buoyancy now. She never
wanted him to go. She never let him know it, but it pained her all the
same.
"I would like to, but I cannot." All his heart was in his eyes as he
spoke.
"Someone ill?" she asked.
"Yes, Fogarty's child. The little fellow may develop croup before
morning. I saw him to-day, and his pulse was not right, he's a sturdy
little chap with a thick neck, and that kind always suffers most. If
he's worse Fogarty is to send word to my office," he added, holding out
his hand in parting.
"Can I help?" Jane asked, retaining the doctor's hand in hers as if to
get the answer.
"No, I'll watch him closely. Good-night," and with a smile he bent his
head and withdrew.
Martha followed the doctor to the outer door, and then grumbling her
satisfaction went back to the pantry to direct the servants in
arranging upon the small table in the supper-room the simple
refreshments which always characterized the Cobdens' entertainments.
Soon the girls and their beaux came trooping in to join their elders on
the way to the supper-room. Lucy hung back until the last (she had not
liked the doctor's interference), Jane's long red cloak draped from her
shoulders, the hood hanging down her back, her cheeks radiant, her
beautiful blond hair ruffled with the night wind, an aureole of gold
framing her face. Bart followed close behind, a pleased, almost
triumphant smile playing about his lips.
He had carried his point. The cluster of blossoms which had rested upon
Lucy's bosom was pinned to the lapel of his coat.