WHAT THE ROBINS HEARD.
By-and-by, when Jessie removed the dust of travel, and freshened
herself up with a dainty blue gown that just matched her sky-blue eyes,
the two girls strolled out upon the lawn, and presently found seats in
the favorite rose-arbor, where the robins, nesting overhead, made a
mighty twittering in vain protest against their unwelcome intrusion.
“It is because you are a stranger, Jessie,” laughed Leola. “It is quite
different when Ray and I come here together--they treat us quite as if
we belonged to the Robin family.”
“Who is Ray?” asked Jessie, curiously.
Leola could not help blushing furiously, but she said, as carelessly as
she could:
“Oh, only one of our neighbors!”
She was inwardly furious with herself at this slip of the tongue that
was destined to lead her into self-betrayal. Ah, how true it is that a
name that is close to the heart must often rise to the lips.
To distract Jessie’s attention she asked, all in a breath:
“When are you going to marry your grand, rich lover, Jessie?”
“My wedding will be in October,” fibbed Miss Stirling, who had no mind
to confess that she had lost the prize, and she continued:
“Mr. Olyphant has gone on a yachting tour with some friends now, and I
do not know exactly when they will return. It was expected they would
only be gone two weeks, but they extended the trip. I miss him very
much, and I shall be quite frantic if he stays much longer!”
“Then you love him very much?” queried Leola, with shining eyes.
“Love him! I should say so!” cried Jessie, eagerly. “Why, Leola, he is
as handsome as a picture, tall, with an elegant figure, fine features,
brown, curly hair, and beautiful, laughing blue eyes!”
“So has Ray!” cried Leola, then bit her lips in confusion, sighing to
herself:
“What a lovesick little goose I am, giving away my dangerous secret in
spite of myself!”
“Ray again!” cried Jessie, suspiciously. “Come, now, tell me all about
him, Leola. A neighbor, you said, but I knew no one of that name about
here last summer. You say he has laughing blue eyes like Chester
Olyphant, so you must be fond of him, this neighbor! Confess now, is he
your lover?”
“Oh, nonsense, Jessie, we were talking of your lover!” cried Leola. “Go
on, please, tell me more of him, and of your love for each other.”
“We are perfectly devoted to each other,” declared Jessie,
unblushingly. “How could I help loving him--with all that money!”
“But, Jessie, if Mr. Olyphant were poor, would you not love him just
the same?”
Jessie had a red rose in her hand, and she tore it to pieces with
absent-minded fingers as she replied, bluntly:
“Bah. I wouldn’t permit myself to love a poor man if he were a perfect
Adonis!”
But artless Leola, with rosy cheeks and glowing eyes, retorted:
“Then you do not know how to love, Jessie--not even the meaning of that
sacred word, for I would adore Ray Chester if he had not a second coat
to his back!”
“Ray Chester! There you go again!” cried Miss Stirling, with a violent
start. “Oh, come now, you are madly in love with some man, Leola, and
you have got to tell me all about it this minute!”
“Oh, you are mistaken!” cried poor Leola, trying to flounder out of her
difficulty.
“I am not mistaken! Oh, no! I know all the signs of love, and you
cannot even keep his name off your lips!” cried Miss Stirling,
triumphantly:
It was true: Leola realized it, and felt how impossible it was to keep
hidden the happy secret of her love. Indeed, she fairly ached to tell
it to some sweet, sympathetic girl friend, and why not Jessie, whom
she had known from childhood, and who had always been fairly friendly?
True; the young lady was twenty-three, four years older than herself,
but as each was madly in love with a splendid young man, there was a
bond of sympathy between their hearts that might bring good results if
they fairly understood each other.
She suddenly made up her artless mind to confide in beautiful,
blue-eyed Jessie, and beg her to intercede with her guardian to consent
to her happiness, but because tears were very close to her own dark
eyes, she put Ray aside for a moment to recover herself, saying,
laughingly:
“Only think, Jessie, I have a rich lover, too. Our neighbor, Giles
Bennett, who has gotten rich by coal since his wife died, wants to
marry me, the little girl he used to dandle on his knee! Now, what do
you think of that?”
“A splendid match for you, Leola, and I hope you will accept him,”
declared Jessie, frankly.
“Oh, no, no, no!” Leola cried out, quickly, and Jessie retorted:
“More fool you, then, to let such a chance slip through your fingers!
If I weren’t going to marry Chester Olyphant I’d take old Fatty off
your hands myself. But it seems, from what you let slip just now, that
there’s a poor young man in the case--Ray Chester, you said, and if you
do not tell me the whole story instantly I shall die of curiosity!”
Leola, with her beautiful face glowing like a rose, exclaimed:
“I don’t want you to die, Jessie, so I am going to ‘’fess,’ as the
children say, and, after all, I think I ought to confide in you, for it
is through you all this happiness has come to me.”
“Through me,” gasped Jessie, and her lips went white, while a cold hand
seemed to press all the life from her heart with a swift, horrible
suspicion that centered around that name “Chester,” breathed so sweetly
just now from Leola’s lovely lips.
But Leola did not observe these signs of emotion. She was looking down,
bashfully, and playing with a bunch of red roses in the belt of her
simple white gown. Her beauty was glorified by the love that thrilled
at her heart.
“I will begin at the beginning first of all, and tell you how I saved
Ray Chester’s life,” she said, softly, and, as before, her voice seemed
to linger over that name like a caress.
Miss Stirling did not answer a word. She sat still and pale, listening,
with a horrible presentiment of what was coming, and a hatred for
innocent Leola, a jealous hatred that was more bitter than death.
Leola, still playing with her roses, in bashful confusion, looked down
with the curly lashes sweeping her rosy cheeks, and told her story
briefly, sweetly, and with the simplicity of strong emotion, dwelling
but lightly on her own heroism in saving Ray Chester’s life, and
touching, reservedly, on their love-story, but bringing into prominence
his confession that he had fallen so desperately in love with her
pictures that he had come to seek her and offer his love.
She concluded, gently:
“And although Ray has never once mentioned your name, he did not
deny it when I said that I was sure it was you from whom he got the
pictures; and, Jessie, dear, I am so glad you took those little
snap-shots of me, for through them has come the happiness of my life,
and I shall always be glad Ray saw them and loved me!”
The musical voice ceased speaking, but as Jessie made no answer, Leola
added, ardently:
“He is only a poor artist, my darling Ray, but I am glad, after all,
that he is poor, for he knows I love him for himself alone, for ‘his
own true worth,’ as the poem says, you know, Jessie.”
She gave a violent start when Miss Stirling answered, in a hoarse,
concentrated voice of hatred and bitterness:
“You are a silly little fool, Leola Mead!”
“Oh, Jessie!” and Leola’s voice trembled with wounded feeling.
She looked up and saw that her companion was deadly pale and trembling.
“Oh, what is the matter? Are you ill, Jessie? Have I wearied you with
my story?”
Miss Stirling was very cunning, or very brave. She had got a heart
wound, but she would not cry out against the hand that struck the blow;
after that one passionate outburst she struggled for calmness.
With a hollow laugh, she answered:
“I am very, very tired, after my long journey from New York, and the
sun is very hot, but--I shall be better presently.”
“Shall I go and bring you a little sip of wine?” urged Leola, and
Jessie assented.
She was glad to be alone for one moment, to cry out aloud at the fate
that had parted her from the man she loved.
“Mamma was right, and I was wrong. He was in love with her, after all,
and he came here, instead of going yachting, as he intended--came here
to woo this simple rustic, won by her wondrous beauty, that was more
dangerous than I dreamed! But he shall never marry Leola Mead--never!
Why, I think I would murder her first! And what will he say when he
finds me here? Above all, why is he masquerading under a false name,
and pretending to be a poor artist? Ah, I have it! He means to deceive
the silly girl; his intentions are dishonorable, but I will unmask him,
I will break up the affair, I swear it!” clenching her white hands
desperately.
Leola came back with the wine and a biscuit, and Jessie accepted,
eagerly.
“Wine always clears my brain, somehow, and I have got a lot of scheming
and planning to do,” she thought, as she drained the last drop and
munched the sweet biscuit.
“Ah, you look better now. I am afraid it quite unnerved you, hearing
all about that accident to Ray,” exclaimed Leola, tenderly.
“Yes, yes, it was dreadful; it made my flesh creep. Besides, I was very
tired, you know, and that made it worse; but I am ever so much better
now, thanks to the wine! Really, Leola, you were quite a heroine, and
I cannot wonder that my artist friend fell in love with you, though I
cannot, for the life of me, remember any man by that name, Ray Chester.
I know I loaned your pictures to my lover, Chester Olyphant, but it
cannot be that he came here to deceive a poor innocent country girl
because of her pretty face--oh no! I cannot believe that of my lover.
It is a good thing I came in time to thwart his evil designs, if he
really is my Chester, but--ah!” She looked up, wildly, for a man’s
step crunched on the ground, and the next moment he stepped into the
arbor--Ray Chester, or Ray Olyphant, cool, handsome, smiling, like the
villain in the play.
Miss Stirling sprang to her feet with a thrilling cry. The next moment
she flung herself on his broad breast, her arms about his neck, crying
joyously:
“Chester Olyphant, my own darling, naughty, runaway boy!”