There was a skeleton in Mrs. Margaret Ellis's closet; the same skeleton
abode also in the closet of Miss Lorania Hopkins.
The skeleton--which really does not seem a proper word--was the dread of
growing stout. They were more afraid of flesh than of sin. Yet they were
both good women. Mrs. Ellis regularly attended church, and could always
be depended on to show hospitality to convention delegates, whether
clerical or lay; she was a liberal subscriber to every good work; she
was almost the only woman in the church aid society that never lost her
temper at the soul-vexing time of the church fair; and she had a larger
clientele of regular pensioners than any one in town, unless it were her
friend Miss Hopkins, who was "so good to the poor" that never a tramp
slighted her kitchen. Miss Hopkins was as amiable as Mrs. Ellis, and
always put her name under that of Mrs. Ellis, with exactly the same
amount, on the subscription papers. She could have given more, for she
had the larger income; but she had no desire to outshine her friend,
whom she admired as the most charming of women.
Mrs. Ellis, indeed, was agreeable as well as good, and a pretty woman to
the bargain, if she did not choose to be weighed before people. Miss
Hopkins often told her that she was not really stout; she merely had a
plump, trig little figure. Miss Hopkins, alas! was really stout. The two
waged a warfare against the flesh equal to the apostle's in vigor,
although so much less deserving of praise.
Mrs. Ellis drove her cook to distraction with divers dieting systems,
from Banting's and Dr. Salisbury's to the latest exhortations of some
unknown newspaper prophet. She bought elaborate gymnastic appliances,
and swung dumb-bells and rode imaginary horses and propelled imaginary
boats. She ran races with a professional trainer, and she studied the
principles of Delsarte, and solemnly whirled on one foot and swayed her
body and rolled her head and hopped and kicked and genuflected in
company with eleven other stout and earnest matrons and one slim and
giggling girl who almost choked at every lesson. In all these exercises
Miss Hopkins faithfully kept her company, which was the easier as Miss
Hopkins lived in the next house, a conscientious Colonial mansion with
all the modern conveniences hidden beneath the old-fashioned pomp.
And yet, despite these struggles and self-denials, it must be told that
Margaret Ellis and Lorania Hopkins were little thinner for their
warfare. Still, as Shuey Cardigan, the trainer, told Mrs. Ellis, there
was no knowing what they might have weighed had they not struggled.
"It ain't only the fat that's _on_ ye, moind ye," says Shuey, with a
confidential sympathy of mien; "it's what ye'd naturally be getting in
addition. And first ye've got to peel off that, and then ye come down to
the other."
Shuey was so much the most successful of Mrs. Ellis's reducers that his
words were weighty. And when at last Shuey said, "I got what you need,"
Mrs. Ellis listened. "You need a bike, no less," says Shuey.
"But I never could ride one!" said Margaret, opening her pretty brown
eyes and wrinkling her Grecian forehead.
"You'd ride in six lessons."
"But how would I _look_, Cardigan?"
"You'd look noble, ma'am!"
"What do you consider the best wheel, Cardigan?"
The advertising rules of magazines prevent my giving Cardigan's answer;
it is enough that the wheel glittered at Mrs. Ellis's door the very next
day, and that a large pasteboard box was delivered by the expressman the
very next week. He went on to Miss Hopkins's, and delivered the twin of
the box, with a similar yellow printed card bearing the impress of the
same great firm on the inside of the box cover.
For Margaret had hied her to Lorania Hopkins the instant Shuey was gone.
She presented herself breathless, a little to the embarrassment of
Lorania, who was sitting with her niece before a large box of
cracker-jack.
"It's a new kind of candy; I was just _tasting_ it, Maggie," faltered
she, while the niece, a girl of nineteen, with the inhuman spirits of
her age, laughed aloud.
"You needn't mind me," said Mrs. Ellis, cheerfully; "I'm eating
potatoes now!"
"Oh, Maggie!" Miss Hopkins breathed the words between envy and
disapproval.
Mrs. Ellis tossed her brown head airily, not a whit abashed. "And I had
beer for luncheon, and I'm going to have champagne for dinner."
"Maggie, how do you dare? Did they--did they taste good?"
"They tasted _heavenly_, Lorania. Pass me the candy. I am going to try
something new--the thinningest thing there is. I read in the paper of
one woman who lost forty pounds in three months, and is losing still!"
"If it is obesity pills, I--"
"It isn't; it's a bicycle. Lorania, you and I must ride! Sibyl Hopkins,
you heartless child, what are you laughing at?"
Lorania rose; in the glass over the mantel her figure returned her gaze.
There was no mistake (except that, as is often the case with stout
people, _that_ glass always increased her size), she was a stout lady.
She was taller than the average of women, and well proportioned, and
still light on her feet; but she could not blink away the records; she
was heavy on the scales. Did she stand looking at herself squarely, her
form was shapely enough, although larger than she could wish; but the
full force of the revelation fell when she allowed herself a profile
view, she having what is called "a round waist," and being almost as
large one way as another. Yet Lorania was only thirty-three years old,
and was of no mind to retire from society, and have a special phaeton
built for her use, and hear from her mother's friends how much her
mother weighed before her death.
"How should _I_ look on a wheel?" she asked, even as Mrs. Ellis had
asked before; and Mrs. Ellis stoutly answered, "You'd look _noble_!"
"Shuey will teach us," she went on, "and we can have a track made in
your pasture, where nobody can see us learning. Lorania, there's nothing
like it. Let me bring you the bicycle edition of _Harper's Bazar_."
Miss Hopkins capitulated at once, and sat down to order her costume,
while Sibyl, the niece, revelled silently in visions of a new bicycle
which should presently revert to her. "For it's ridiculous, auntie's
thinking of riding!" Miss Sibyl considered. "She would be a figure of
fun on a wheel; besides, she can never learn in this world!"
Yet Sibyl was attached to her aunt, and enjoyed visiting Hopkins Manor,
as Lorania had named her new house, into which she moved on the same day
that she joined the Colonial Dames, by right of her ancestor the great
and good divine commemorated by Mrs. Stowe. Lorania's friends were all
fond of her, she was so good-natured and tolerant, with a touch of dry
humor in her vision of things, and not the least a Puritan in her frank
enjoyment of ease and luxury. Nevertheless, Lorania had a good,
able-bodied, New England conscience, capable of staying awake nights
without flinching; and perhaps from her stanch old Puritan forefathers
she inherited her simple integrity so that she neither lied nor
cheated--even in the small, whitewashed manner of her sex--and valued
loyalty above most of the virtues. She had an innocent pride in her
godly and martial ancestry, which was quite on the surface, and led
people who did not know her to consider her haughty.
For fifteen years she had been an orphan, the mistress of a very large
estate. No doubt she had been sought often in marriage, but never until
lately had Lorania seriously thought of marrying. Sibyl said that she
was too unsentimental to marry. Really she was too romantic. She had a
longing to be loved, not in the quiet, matter-of-fact manner of her
suitors, but with the passion of the poets. Therefore the presence of
another skeleton in Mrs. Ellis's closet, because she knew about a
certain handsome Italian marquis who at this period was conducting an
impassioned wooing by mail. Margaret did not fancy the marquis. He was
not an American. He would take Lorania away. She thought his very virtue
florid, and suspected that he had learned his love-making in a bad
school. She dropped dark hints that frightened Lorania, who would
sometimes piteously demand, "Don't you think he _could_ care for
me--for--for myself?" Margaret knew that she had an overweening distrust
of her own appearance. How many tears she had shed first and last over
her unhappy plumpness it would be hard to reckon. She made no account of
her satin skin, or her glossy black hair, or her lustrous violet eyes
with their long, black lashes, or her flashing white teeth; she glanced
dismally at her shape and scornfully at her features, good, honest,
irregular American features, that might not satisfy a Greek critic, but
suited each other and pleased her countrymen. And then she would sigh
heavily over her figure. Her friend had not the heart to impute the
marquis's beautiful, artless compliments to mercenary motives. After
all, the Italian was a good fellow, according to the point of view of
his own race, if he did intend to live on his wife's money, and had a
very varied assortment of memories of women.
But Margaret dreaded and disliked him all the more for his good
qualities. To-day this secret apprehension flung a cloud over the
bicycle enthusiasm. She could not help wondering whether at this moment
Lorania was not thinking of the marquis, who rode a wheel and a horse
admirably.
"Aunt Lorania," said Sibyl, "there comes Mr. Winslow. Shall I run out
and ask him about those cloth-of-gold roses? The aphides are eating them
all up."
"Yes, to be sure, dear; but don't let Ferguson suspect what you are
talking of; he might feel hurt."
Ferguson was the gardener. Miss Hopkins left her note to go to the
window. Below she saw a mettled horse, with tossing head and silken
skin, restlessly fretting on his bit and pawing the dust in front of
the fence, while his rider, hat in hand, talked with the young girl. He
was a little man, a very little man, in a gray business suit of the best
cut and material. An air of careful and dainty neatness was diffused
about both horse and rider. He bent towards Miss Sibyl's charming person
a thin, alert, fair face. His head was finely shaped, the brown hair
worn away a little on the temples. He smiled gravely at intervals; the
smile told that he had a dimple in his cheek.
"I wonder," said Mrs. Ellis, "whether Mr. Winslow can have a penchant
for Sibyl?"
Lorania opened her eyes. At this moment Mr. Winslow had caught sight of
her at the window, and he bowed almost to his saddle-bow; Sibyl was
saying something at which she laughed, and he visibly reddened. It was a
peculiarity of his that his color turned easily. In a second his hat was
on his head and his horse bounded half across the road.
"Hardly, I think," said Lorania. "How well he rides! I never knew any
one ride better--in this country."
"I suppose Sibyl would ridicule such a thing," said Mrs. Ellis,
continuing her own train of thought, and yet vaguely disturbed by the
last sentence.
"Why should she?"
"Well, he is so little, for one thing, and she is so tall. And then
Sibyl thinks a great deal of social position."
"He is a Winslow," said Lorania, archin her neck unconsciously--"a
lineal descendant from Kenelm Winslow, who came over in the _May_--"
"But his mother--"
"I don't know anything about his mother before she came here. Oh, of
course I know the gossip that she was a niece of the overseer at a
village poor-house, and that her husband quarrelled with all his family
and married her in the poor-house, and I know that when he died here she
would not take a cent from the Winslows, nor let them have the boy. She
is the meekest-looking little woman, but she must have an iron streak in
her somewhere, for she was left without enough money to pay the funeral
expenses, and she educated the boy and accumulated money enough to pay
for this place they have.
"She used to run a laundry, and made money; but when Cyril got a place
in the bank she sold out the laundry and went into chickens and
vegetables; she told somebody that it wasn't so profitable as the
laundry, but it was more genteel, and Cyril being now in a position of
trust at the bank, she must consider _him_. Cyril swept out the bank.
People laughed about it, but, do you know, I rather liked Mrs. Winslow
for it. She isn't in the least an assertive woman. How long have we been
up here, Maggie? Isn't it four years? And they have been our next-door
neighbors, and she has never been inside the house. Nor he either, for
that matter, except once when it took fire, you know, and he came in
with that funny little chemical engine tucked under his arm, and took
off his hat in the same prim, polite way that he takes it off when he
talks to Sibyl, and said, 'If you'll excuse me offering advice, Miss
Hopkins, it is not necessary to move anything; it mars furniture very
much to move it at a fire. I think, if you will allow me, I can
extinguish this.' And he did, too, didn't he, as neatly and as coolly as
if it were only adding up a column of figures. And offered me the engine
as a souvenir."
"Lorania, you never told me that!"
"It seemed like making fun of him, when he had been so kind. I declined
as civilly as I could. I hope I didn't hurt his feelings. I meant to pay
a visit to his mother and ask them to dinner, but you know I went to
England that week, and somehow when I came back it was difficult. It
seems a little odd we never have seen more of the Winslows, but I fancy
they don't want either to intrude or to be intruded on. But he is
certainly very obliging about the garden. Think of all the slips and
flowers he has given us, and the advice--"
"All passed over the fence. It is funny our neighborly good offices
which we render at arm's-length. How long have you known him?"
"Oh, a long time. He is cashier of my bank, you know. First he was
teller, then assistant cashier, and now for five years he has been
cashier. The president wants to resign and let him be president, but he
hardly has enough stock for that. But Oliver says" (Oliver was Miss
Hopkins's brother) "that there isn't a shrewder or straighter banker in
the state. Oliver knows him. He says he is a sandy little fellow."
"Well, he is," assented Mrs. Ellis. "It isn't many cashiers would let
robbers stab them and shoot them and leave them for dead rather than
give up the combination of the safe!"
"He wouldn't take a cent for it, either, and he saved ever so many
thousand dollars. Yes, he _is_ brave. I went to the same school with him
once, and saw him fight a big boy twice his size--such a nasty boy, who
called me 'Fatty,' and made a kissing noise with his lips just to scare
me--and poor little Cyril Winslow got awfully beaten, and when I saw him
on the ground, with his nose bleeding and that big brute pounding him, I
ran to the water-bucket, and poured the whole bucket on that big,
bullying boy and stopped the fight, just as the teacher got on the
scene. I cried over little Cyril Winslow. He was crying himself. 'I
ain't crying because he hurt me,' he sobbed; 'I'm crying because I'm so
mad I didn't lick him!' I wonder if he remembers that episode?"
"Perhaps," said Mrs. Ellis.
"Maggie, what makes you think he is falling in love with Sibyl?"
Mrs. Ellis laughed. "I dare say he _isn't_ in love with Sibyl," said
she. "I think the main reason was his always riding by here instead of
taking the shorter road down the other street."
"Does he always ride by here? I hadn't noticed."
"Always!" said Mrs. Ellis. "_I_ have noticed."
"I am sorry for him," said Lorania, musingly. "I think Sibyl is very
much taken with that young Captain Carr at the Arsenal. Young girls
always affect the army. He is a nice fellow, but I don't think he is
the man Winslow is. Now, Maggie, advise me about the suit. I don't want
to look like the escaped fat lady of a museum."
Lorania thought no more of Sibyl's love-affairs. If she thought of the
Winslows, it was to wish that Mrs. Winslow would sell or rent her
pasture, which, in addition to her own and Mrs. Ellis's pastures thrown
into one, would make such a delightful bicycle-track.
The Winslow house was very different from the two villas that were the
pride of Fairport. A little story-and-a-half cottage peeped out on the
road behind the tall maples that were planted when Winslow was a boy.
But there was a wonderful green velvet lawn, and the tulips and
sweet-peas and pansies that blazed softly nearer the house were as
beautiful as those over which Miss Lorania's gardener toiled and
worried.
Mrs. Winslow was a little woman who showed the fierce struggle of her
early life only in the deeper lines between her delicate eyebrows and
the expression of melancholy patience in her brown eyes.
She always wore a widow's cap and a black gown. In the mornings she
donned a blue figured apron of stout and serviceable stuff; in the
afternoon an apron of that sheer white lawn used by bishops and smart
young waitresses. Of an afternoon, in warm weather, she was accustomed
to sit on the eastern piazza, next to the Hopkins place, and rock as she
sewed. She was thus sitting and sewing when she beheld an extraordinary
procession cross the Hopkins lawn. First marched the tall trainer, Shuey
Cardigan, who worked by day in the Lossing furniture-factory, and gave
bicycle lessons at the armory evenings. He was clad in a white sweater
and buff leggings, and was wheeling a lady's bicycle. Behind him walked
Miss Hopkins in a gray suit, the skirt of which only came to her
ankles--she always so dignified in her toilets.
"Land's sakes!" gasped Mrs. Winslow, "if she ain't going to ride a bike!
Well, what next?"
What really happened next was the sneaking (for no other word does
justice to the cautious and circuitous movements of her) of Mrs. Winslow
to the stable, which had one window facing the Hopkins pasture. No cows
were grazing in the pasture. All around the grassy plateau twinkled a
broad brownish-yellow track. At one side of this track a bench had been
placed, and a table, pleasing to the eye, with jugs and glasses. Mrs.
Ellis, in a suit of the same undignified brevity and ease as Miss
Hopkins's, sat on the bench supporting her own wheel. Shuey Cardigan was
drawn up to his full six feet of strength, and, one arm in the air, was
explaining the theory of the balance of power. It was an uncanny moment
to Lorania. She eyed the glistening, restless thing that slipped beneath
her hand, and her fingers trembled. If she could have fled in secret she
would. But since flight was not possible, she assumed a firm expression.
Mrs. Ellis wore a smile of studied and sickly cheerfulness.
"Don't you think it very _high_?" said Lorania. "I can _never_ get up on
it!"
"It will be by the block at first," said Shuey, in the soothing tones of
a jockey to a nervous horse; "it's easy by the block. And I'll be
steadying it, of course."
"Don't they have any with larger saddles? It is a _very_ small saddle."
"They're all of a size. It wouldn't look sporty larger; it would look
like a special make. Yous wouldn't want a special make."
Lorania thought that she would be thankful for a special make, but she
suppressed the unsportsmanlike thought. "The pedals are very small too,
Cardigan. Are you _sure_ they can hold me?"
"They would hold two of ye, Miss Hopkins. Now sit aisy and graceful as
ye would on your chair at home, hold the shoulders back, and toe in a
bit on the pedals--ye won't be skinning your ankles so much then--and
hold your foot up ready to get the other pedal. Hold light on the
steering-bar. Push off hard. _Now!_"
"Will you hold me? I am going--Oh, it's like riding an earthquake!"
Here Shuey made a run, letting the wheel have its own wild way--to reach
the balance. "Keep the front wheel under you!" he cried, cheerfully.
"Niver mind _where_ you go. Keep a-pedalling; whatever you do, keep
a-pedalling!"
"But I haven't got but one pedal!" gasped the rider.
"Ye lost it?"
"No; I _never had_ but one! Oh, don't let me fall!"
"Oh, ye lost it in the beginning; now, then, I'll hold it steady, and
you get both feet right. Here we go!"
Swaying frightfully from side to side, and wrenched from capsizing the
wheel by the full exercise of Shuey's great muscles, Miss Hopkins reeled
over the track. At short intervals she lost her pedals, and her feet,
for some strange reason, instead of seeking the lost, simply curled up
as if afraid of being hit. She gripped the steering-handles with an iron
grasp, and her turns were such as an engine makes. Nevertheless, Shuey
got her up the track for some hundred feet, and then by a herculean
sweep turned her round and rolled her back to the block. It was at this
painful moment, when her whole being was concentrated on the effort to
keep from toppling against Shuey, and even more to keep from toppling
away from him, that Lorania's strained gaze suddenly fell on the
frightened and sympathetic face of Mrs. Winslow. The good woman saw no
fun in the spectacle, but rather an awful risk to life and limb. Their
eyes met. Not a change passed over Miss Hopkins's features; but she
looked up as soon as she was safe on the ground, and smiled. In a
moment, before Mrs. Winslow could decide whether to run or to stand her
ground, she saw the cyclist approaching--on foot.
"Won't you come in and sit down?" she said, smiling. "We are trying our
new wheels."
And because she did not know how to refuse, Mrs. Winslow suffered
herself to be handed over the fence. She sat on the bench beside Miss
Hopkins in the prim attitude which had pertained to gentility in her
youth, her hands loosely clasping each other, her feet crossed at the
ankles.
"It's an awful sight, ain't it?" she breathed, "those little shiny
things; I don't see how you ever git on them."
"I don't get on them," said Miss Hopkins. "The only way I shall ever
learn to start off is to start without the pedals. Does your son ride,
Mrs. Winslow?"
"No, ma'am," said Mrs. Winslow; "but he knows how. When he was a boy
nothing would do but he must have a bicycle, one of those things most as
big as a mill wheel, and if you fell off you broke yourself somewhere,
sure. I always expected he'd be brought home in pieces. So I don't think
he'd have any manner of difficulty. Why, look at your friend; she's
'most riding alone!"
"She could always do everything better than I," cried Lorania, with
ungrudging admiration. "See how she jumps off! Now I can't jump off any
more than I can jump on. It seems so ridiculous to be told to press hard
on the pedal on the side where you want to jump, and swing your further
leg over first, and cut a kind of a figure eight with your legs, and
turn your wheel the way you don't want to go--all at once. While I'm
trying to think of all those directions I always fall off. I got that
wheel only yesterday, and fell before I even got away from the block.
One of my arms looks like a Persian ribbon."
Mrs. Winslow cried out in unfeigned sympathy. She wished Miss Hopkins
would use her liniment that she used for Cyril when he was hurt by the
burglars at the bank; he was bruised "terrible."
"That must have been an awful time to you," said Lorania, looking with
more interest than she had ever felt on the meek little woman; and she
noticed the tremble in the decorously clasped hands.
"Yes, ma'am," was all she said.
"I've often looked over at you on the piazza, and thought how cosey you
looked. Mr. Winslow always seems to be at home evenings."
"Yes, ma'am. We sit a great deal on the piazza. Cyril's a good boy; he
wa'n't nine when his father died; and he's been like a man helping me.
There never was a boy had such willing little feet. And he'd set right
there on the steps and pat my slipper and say what he'd git me when he
got to earning money; and he's got me every last thing, foolish and all,
that he said. There's that black satin gown, a sin and a shame for a
plain body like me, but he would git it. Cyril's got a beautiful
disposition too, jest like his pa's, and he's a handy man about the
house, and prompt at his meals. I wonder sometimes if Cyril was to git
married if his wife would mind his running over now and then and setting
with me awhile."
She was speaking more rapidly, and her eyes strayed wistfully over to
the Hopkins piazza, where Sibyl was sitting with the young soldier.
Lorania looked at her pityingly.
"Why, surely," said she.
"Mothers have kinder selfish feelings," said Mrs. Winslow, moistening
her lips and drawing a quick breath, still watching the girl on the
piazza. "It's so sweet and peaceful for them, they forget their sons may
want something more. But it's kinder hard giving all your little
comforts up at once when you've had him right with you so long, and
could cook just what he liked, and go right into his room nights if he
coughed. It's all right, all right, but it's kinder hard. And beautiful
young ladies that have had everything all their lives might--might not
understand that a homespun old mother isn't wanting to force herself on
them at all when they have company, and they have no call to fear it."
There was no doubt, however obscure the words seemed, that Mrs. Winslow
had a clear purpose in her mind, nor that she was tremendously in
earnest. Little blotches of red dabbled her cheeks, her breath came more
quickly, and she swallowed between her words. Lorania could see the
quiver in the muscles of her throat. She clasped her hands tight lest
they should shake. "He's in love with Sibyl," thought Lorania. "The poor
woman!" She felt sorry for her, and she spoke gently and reassuringly:
"No girl with a good heart can help feeling tenderly towards her
husband's mother."
Mrs. Winslow nodded. "You're real comforting," said she. She was silent
a moment, and then said, in a different tone: "You 'ain't got a large
enough track. Wouldn't you like to have our pasture too?"
Lorania expressed her gratitude, and invited the Winslows to see the
practice.
"My niece will come out to-morrow," she said, graciously.
"Yes? She's a real fine-appearing young lady," said Mrs. Winslow.
Both the cyclists exulted. Neither of them, however, was prepared to
behold the track made and the fence down the very next morning when
they came out, about ten o'clock, to the west side of Miss Hopkins's
boundaries.
"As sure as you live, Maggie," exclaimed Lorania, eagerly, "he's got it
all done! Now that is something like a lover. I only hope his heart
won't be bruised as black and blue as I am with the wheel!"
"Shuey says the only harm your falls do you is to take away your
confidence," said Mrs. Ellis.
"He wouldn't say so if he could see my _knees_!" retorted Miss Hopkins.
Mrs. Ellis, it will be observed, sheered away from the love-affairs of
Mr. Cyril Winslow. She had not yet made up her mind. And Mrs. Ellis, who
had been married, did not jump at conclusions regarding the heart of man
so rapidly as her spinster friend. She preferred to talk of the bicycle.
Nor did Miss Hopkins refuse the subject. To her at this moment the most
important object on the globe was the shining machine which she would
allow no hand but hers to oil and dust. Both Mrs. Ellis and she were
simply prostrated (as to their mental powers) by this new sport. They
could not think nor talk nor read of anything but _the wheel_. This is a
peculiarity of the bicyclist. No other sport appears to make such havoc
with the mind.
One can learn to swim without describing his sensations to every casual
acquaintance or hunting up the natatorial columns in the newspapers. One
may enjoy riding a horse and yet go about his ordinary business with an
equal mind. One learns to play golf and still remains a peaceful citizen
who can discuss politics with interest. But the cyclist, man or woman,
is soaked in every pore with the delight and the perils of wheeling. He
talks of it (as he thinks of it) incessantly. For this fatuous passion
there is one excuse. Other sports have the fearful delight of danger and
the pleasure of the consciousness of dexterity and the dogged
Anglo-Saxon joy of combat and victory; but no other sport restores to
middle age the pure, exultant, muscular intoxication of childhood. Only
on the wheel can an elderly woman feel as she felt when she ran and
leaped and frolicked amid the flowers as a child.
Lorania, of course, no longer jumped or ran; she kicked in the Delsarte
exercises, but it was a measured, calculated, one may say cold-blooded
kick, which limbered her muscles but did not restore her youthful glow
of soul. Her legs and not her spirits pranced. The same thing may be
said for Margaret Ellis. Now, between their accidents, they obtained
glimpses of an exquisite exhilaration. And there was also to be counted
the approval of their consciences, for they felt that no Turkish bath
could wring out moisture from their systems like half an hour's pumping
at the bicycle treadles. Lorania during the month had ridden through one
bottle of liniment and two of witch-hazel, and by the end of the second
bottle could ride a short distance alone. But Lorania could not yet
dismount unassisted, and several times she had felled poor Winslow to
the earth when he rashly adventured to stop her. Captain Carr had a
peculiar, graceful fling of the arm, catching the saddle-bar with one
hand while he steadied the handles with the other. He did not hesitate
in the least to grab Lorania's belt if necessary. But poor modest
Winslow, who fell upon the wheel and dared not touch the hem of a lady's
bicycle skirt, was as one in the path of a cyclone, and appeared daily
in a fresh pair of white trousers.
"Yous have now," Shuey remarked, impressively, one day--"yous have now
arrived at the most difficult and dangerous period in learning the
wheel. It's similar to a baby when it's first learned to walk but
'ain't yet got sense in walking. When it was little it would stay put
wherever ye put it, and it didn't know enough to go by itself, which is
similar to you. When I was holding ye you couldn't fall, but now you're
off alone depindent on yourself, object-struck by every tree, taking
most of the pasture to turn in, and not able to git off save by
falling--"
"Oh, couldn't you go with her somehow?" exclaimed Mrs. Winslow, appalled
at the picture. "Wouldn't a rope round her be some help? I used to put
it round Cyril when he was learning to walk."
"Well, no, ma'am," said Shuey, patiently. "Don't you be scared; the
riding will come; she's getting on grandly. And ye should see Mr.
Winslow. 'Tis a pleasure to teach him. He rode in one lesson. I ain't
learning him nothing but tricks now."
"But, Mr. Winslow, why don't you ride here--with us?" said Sibyl, with
her coquettish and flattering smile. "We're always hearing of your
beautiful riding. Are we never to see it?"
"I think Mr. Winslow is waiting for that swell English cycle suit that I
hear about," said the captain, grinning; and Winslow grew red to his
eyelids.
Lorania gave an indignant side glance at Sibyl. Why need the girl make
game of an honest man who loved her? Sibyl was biting her lips and
darting side glances at the captain. She called the pasture practice
slow, but she seemed, nevertheless, to enjoy herself sitting on the
bench, the captain on one side and Winslow on the other, rattling off
her girlish jokes, while her aunt and Mrs. Ellis, with the anxious, set
faces of the beginner, were pedalling frantically after Cardigan.
Lorania began to pity Winslow, for it was growing plain to her that
Sibyl and the captain understood each other. She thought that even if
Sibyl did care for the soldier, she need not be so careless of Winslow's
feelings. She talked with the cashier herself, trying to make amends for
Sibyl's absorption in the other man, and she admired the fortitude that
concealed the pain that he must feel. It became quite the expected thing
for the Winslows to be present at the practice; but Winslow had not yet
appeared on his wheel. He used to bring a box of candy with him, or
rather three boxes--one for each lady, he said--and a box of peppermints
for his mother. He was always very attentive to his mother.
"And fancy, Aunt Margaret," laughed Sibyl, "he has asked both auntie
and me to the theatre. He is not going to compromise himself by singling
one of us out. He's a careful soul. By the way, Aunt Margaret, Mrs.
Winslow was telling me yesterday that I am the image of auntie at my
age. Am I? Do I look like her? Was she as slender as I?"
"Almost," said Mrs. Ellis, who was not so inflexibly truthful as her
friend.
"No, Sibyl," said Lorania, with a deep, deep sigh, "I was always plump;
I was a chubby _child_! And oh, what do you think I heard in the crowd
at Manly's once? One woman said to another, 'Miss Hopkins has got a
wheel.' 'Miss Sibyl?' said the other. 'No; the stout Miss Hopkins,' said
the first creature; and the second--" Lorania groaned.
"What _did_ she say to make you feel that way?"
"She said--she said, 'Oh my!'" answered Lorania, with a dying look.
"Well, she was horrid," said Mrs. Ellis; "but you know you have grown
thin. Come on; let's ride!"
"I _never_ shall be able to ride," said Lorania, gloomily. "I can get
on, but I can't get off. And they've taken off the brake, so I can't
stop. And I'm object-struck by everything I look at. Some day I shall
look down-hill. Well, my will's in the lower drawer of the mahogany
desk."
Perhaps Lorania had an occult inkling of the future. For this is what
happened: That evening Winslow rode on to the track in his new English
bicycle suit, which had just come. He hoped that he didn't look like a
fool in those queer clothes. But the instant he entered the pasture he
saw something that drove everything else out of his head, and made him
bend over the steering-bar and race madly across the green; Miss
Hopkins's bicycle was running away down-hill! Cardigan, on foot, was
pelting obliquely, in the hopeless thought to intercept her, while Mrs.
Ellis, who was reeling over the ground with her own bicycle, wheeled as
rapidly as she could to the brow of the hill, where she tumbled off, and
abandoning the wheel, rushed on foot to her friend's rescue.
She was only in time to see a flash of silver and ebony and a streak of
brown dart before her vision and swim down the hill like a bird. Lorania
was still in the saddle, pedalling from sheer force of habit, and
clinging to the handle bars. Below the hill was a stone wall, and
farther was a creek. There was a narrow opening in the wall where the
cattle went down to drink; if she could steer through that she would
have nothing worse than soft water and mud; but there was not one chance
in a thousand that she could pass that narrow space. Mrs. Winslow,
horror-stricken, watched the rescuer, who evidently was cutting across
to catch the bicycle.
"He's riding out of sight!" thought Shuey, in the rear. He himself did
not slacken his speed, although he could not be in time for the
catastrophe. Suddenly he stiffened; Winslow was close to the runaway
wheel.
"Grab her!" yelled Shuey. "Grab her by the belt! _Oh, Lord!_"
The exclamation exploded like the groan of a shell. For while Winslow's
bicycling was all that could be wished, and he flung himself in the path
of the on-coming wheel with marvellous celerity and precision, he had
not the power to withstand the never yet revealed number of pounds
carried by Miss Lorania, impelled by the rapid descent and gathering
momentum at every whirl. They met; he caught her; but instantly he was
rolling down the steep incline and she was doubled up on the grass. He
crashed sickeningly against the stone wall; she lay stunned and still
on the sod; and their friends, with beating hearts, slid down to them.
Mrs. Winslow was on the brow of the hill. She blesses Shuey to this day
for the shout he sent up, "Nobody killed, and I guess no bones broken."
When Margaret went home that evening, having seen her friend safely in
bed, not much the worse for her fall, she was told that Cardigan wished
to see her. Shuey produced something from his pocket, saying: "I picked
this up on the hill, ma'am, after the accident. It maybe belongs to him,
or it maybe belongs to her; I'm thinking the safest way is to just give
it to you." He handed Mrs. Ellis a tiny gold-framed miniature of Lorania
in a red leather case.
* * * * *
The morning was a sparkling June morning, dewy and fragrant, and the
sunlight burnished handle and pedal of the friends' bicycles standing on
the piazza unheeded. It was the hour for morning practice, but Miss
Hopkins slept in her chamber, and Mrs. Ellis sat in the little parlor
adjoining, and thought.
She did not look surprised at the maid's announcement that Mrs. Winslow
begged to see her for a few moments. Mrs. Winslow was pale. She was a
good sketch of discomfort on the very edge of her chair, clad in the
black silk which she wore Sundays, her head crowned with her bonnet of
state, and her hands stiff in a pair of new gloves.
"I hope you'll excuse me not sending up a card," she began. "Cyril got
me some going on a year ago, and I _thought_ I could lay my hand right
on 'em, but I'm so nervous this morning I hunted all over, and they
wasn't anywhere. I won't keep you. I just wanted to ask if you picked up
anything--a little red Russia-leather case--"
"Was it a miniature--a miniature of my friend Miss Hopkins?"
"I thought it all over, and I came to explain. You no doubt think it
strange; and I can assure you that my son never let any human being look
at that picture. I never knew about it myself till it was lost and he
got out of his bed--he ain't hardly able to walk--and staggered over
here to look for it, and I followed him; and so he _had_ to tell me. He
had it painted from a picture that came out in the papers. He felt it
was an awful liberty. But--you don't know how my boy feels, Mrs. Ellis;
he has worshipped that woman for years. He 'ain't never had a thought
of anybody but her since they was children in school; and yet he's been
so modest and so shy of pushing himself forward that he didn't do a
thing until I put him on to help you with this bicycle."
Margaret Ellis did not know what to say. She thought of the marquis; and
Mrs. Winslow poured out her story: "He 'ain't never said a word to me
till this morning. But don't I _know_? Don't I know who looked out so
careful for her investments? Don't I know who was always looking out for
her interest, silent, and always keeping himself in the background? Why,
she couldn't even buy a cow that he wa'n't looking round to see that she
got a good one! 'Twas him saw the gardener, and kept him from buying
that cow with tuberculosis, 'cause he knew about the herd. He knew by
finding out. He worshipped the very cows she owned, you may say, and
I've seen him patting and feeding up her dogs; it's to our house that
big mastiff always goes every night. Mrs. Ellis, it ain't often that a
woman gits love such as my son is offering, only he da'sn't offer it,
and it ain't often a woman is loved by such a good man as my son. He
'ain't got any bad habits; he'll die before he wrongs anybody; and he
has got the sweetest temper you ever see; and he's the tidiest man
about the house you could ask, and the promptest about meals."
Mrs. Ellis looked at her flushed face, and sent another flood of color
into it, for she said, "Mrs. Winslow, I don't know how much good I may
be able to do, but I am on your side."
Her eyes followed the little black figure when it crossed the lawn. She
wondered whether her advice was good, for she had counselled that
Winslow come over in the evening.
"Maggie," said a voice. Lorania was in the doorway. "Maggie," she said,
"I ought to tell you that I heard every word."
"Then _I_ can tell _you_," cried Mrs. Ellis, "that he is fifty times
more of a man than the marquis, and loves you fifty thousand times
better!"
Lorania made no answer, not even by a look. What she felt, Mrs. Ellis
could not guess. Nor was she any wiser when Winslow appeared at her
gate, just as the sun was setting.
"I didn't think I would better intrude on Miss Hopkins," said he, "but
perhaps you could tell me how she is this evening. My mother told me how
kind you were, and perhaps you--you would advise if I might venture to
send Miss Hopkins some flowers."
Out of the kindness of her heart Mrs. Ellis averted her eyes from his
face; thus she was able to perceive Lorania saunter out of the Hopkins
gate. So changed was she by the bicycle practice that, wrapped in her
niece's shawl, she made Margaret think of the girl. An inspiration
flashed to her; she knew the cashier's dependence on his eye-glasses,
and he was not wearing them.
"If you want to know how Miss Hopkins is, why not speak to her niece
now?" said she.
He started. He saw Miss Sibyl, as he supposed, and he went swiftly down
the street. "Miss Sibyl!" he began, "may I ask how is your aunt?"--and
then she turned.
She blushed, then she laughed aloud. "Has the bicycle done so much for
me?" said she.
"The bicycle didn't need to do _anything_ for you!" he cried, warmly.
Mrs. Ellis, a little distance in the rear, heard, turned, and walked
thoughtfully away. "They're off," said she--she had acquired a sporting
tinge of thought from Shuey Cardigan. "If with that start he can't make
the running, it's a wonder."
"I have invited Mr. Winslow and his mother to dinner," said Miss
Hopkins, in the morning. "Will you come too, Maggie?"
"I'll back him against the marquis," thought Margaret, gleefully.
A week later Lorania said: "I really think I must be getting thinner.
Fancy Mr. Winslow, who is so clear-sighted, mistaking me for Sibyl! He
says--I told him how I had suffered from my figure--he says it can't be
what he has suffered from his. Do you think him so very short, Maggie?
Of course he isn't tall, but he has an elegant figure, I think, and I
never saw anywhere such a rider!"
Mrs. Ellis answered, heartily, "He isn't very small, and he is a
beautiful figure on the wheel!" And added to herself, "I know what was
in that letter she sent yesterday to the marquis! But to think of its
all being due to the bicycle!"