IN BETTY'S GARDEN
Ned Vaughan paused with a moment of indecision before the plain,
old-fashioned, brick house in which Senator Winter lived on the Capitol
Hill. It was a confession of abject weakness to decline her invitation
to dinner with his brother and jump at the first chance to butt in
before the dinner hour.
Why should he worry? She was too serious and honest to play with any
man, to say nothing of an attempt to flirt with two at the same time.
He refused to believe in the seriousness of any impression she had made
on his brother's conceited fancy. His light love affairs had become
notorious in his set. He was only amusing himself with Betty and she was
too simple and pure to understand. Yet to warn her at this stage of the
game against his own brother was obviously impossible.
He suddenly turned on his heel:
"I'm a fool. I'll wait till to-morrow!"
He walked rapidly to the corner, stopped abruptly, turned back to the
door and rang the bell.
"Anyhow, I'm not a coward!" he muttered.
The pretty Irish maid who opened the door smiled graciously and
knowingly. It made him furious. She mistook his rage for blushes and
giggled insinuatingly.
"Miss Betty's in the garden, sor; she says to come right out there----"
"What?" Ned gasped.
"Yiss-sor; she saw you come up to the door just now and told me to tell
you."
Again the girl giggled and again he flushed with rage.
He found her in the garden, busy with her flowers. The border of tall
jonquils were in full bloom, a gorgeous yellow flame leaping from both
sides of the narrow walkway which circled the high brick wall covered
with a mass of honeysuckle. She held a huge pair of pruning shears,
clipping the honeysuckle away from the budding violet beds.
She lifted her laughing brown eyes to his.
"Do help me!" she cried. "This honeysuckle vine is going to cover the
whole garden and smother the house itself, I'm afraid."
He took the shears from her pink fingers and felt the thrill of their
touch for just a moment.
His eyes lingered on the beautiful picture she made with flushed face
and tangled ringlets of golden brown hair falling over forehead and
cheeks and white rounded throat. The blue gingham apron was infinitely
more becoming than the most elaborate ball costume. It suggested home
and the sweet intimacy of comradeship.
"You're lovely in that blue apron, Miss Betty," he said with
earnestness.
"Then I'm forgiven for making home folks of you?"
"I'm very happy in it."
"Well, you see I had no choice," she hastened to add. "I just had to
finish these flowers before dressing for dinner. I'm expecting that
handsome brother of yours directly and I must look my best for him, now
mustn't I?"
She smiled into his eyes with such charming audacity he had to laugh.
"Of course, you must!" he agreed, and bent quickly to the task of
clearing her violet bed of entangled vines. In ten minutes his strong
hand had done the work of an hour for her slender fingers.
"How swiftly and beautifully you work, Ned!" she exclaimed as he rose
with face flushed and gazed a moment admiringly on the witchery of her
exquisite figure.
"How would you like me for a steady gardener?"
"I hope you're not going to lose your job on your brother's paper?"
"It's possible."
"Why?"
"We don't agree on politics."
"A reporter don't have to agree with an editor. He only obeys orders."
"That's it," Ned answered, with a firm snap of his strong jaw. "I'm not
going to take orders from this Government many more days from the
present outlook."
Betty looked him straight in the eye in silence and slowly asked:
"You're not really going to join the rebels?"
The slender boyish figure suddenly straightened and his lips quivered:
"Perhaps."
"You can't mean it!" she cried incredulously.
"Would you care?" he asked slowly.
"Very much," was the quick answer. "I should be shocked and disappointed
in you. I've never believed for a moment that you meant what you said. I
thought you were only debating the question from the Southern side."
"Tell me," Ned broke in, "does your father mean half he says about
Lincoln and the South?"
"Every word he says. My father is made of the stuff that kindles martyr
fires. He will march to the stake for his principles when the time
comes."
"You admire that kind of man?"
"Don't you?"
"Yes. And for that reason I can't understand why you admire a trimmer
and a time server."
"You mean?"
"The Rail-splitter in the White House."
"But he's not!" Betty protested. "I can feel the hand of steel beneath
his glove--wait and see."
Ned laughed:
"Let Ephraim alone, he's joined to his idols! As our old preacher used
to say in Missouri. Your delusion is hopeless. It's well the President
is safely married."
Betty's eyes twinkled. Ned paused, blushed, fumbled in his pocket and
drew out the card the President had given him to deliver.
"I am ordered by the administration," he gravely continued, "to serve
this document on the daughter of Senator Winter."
Betty's eyes danced with amazement as she read the message in the
handwriting of the Chief Magistrate.
"He sent this to me?"
[Illustration: "'Good-bye--Ned!' she breathed softly."]
"Ordered me to serve it on you at once--my excuse for coming at this
unseemly hour."
"But why?"
"I gave him a hint of your opinion of his Inaugural. I think it's a case
of a drowning man grasping a straw."
"Well, this is splendid!" she exclaimed.
"You take it seriously?"
"It's a great honor."
"And are you going?"
"I'd go to-night if it were possible--to-morrow sure----"
She looked at the card curiously.
"I've a strange presentiment that something wonderful will come of this
meeting."
"No doubt of it. When Senator Winter's daughter becomes the champion of
the 'Slave Hound of Illinois' there'll be a sensation in the Capital
gossip to say nothing of what may happen at home."
"I'll risk what happens at home, Ned! My father has two great passions,
the hatred of Slavery and the love of his frivolous daughter. I can
twist him around my little finger----"
She paused, snapped her finger and smiled up into his face sweetly:
"Do you doubt it, sir?"
"No," he answered with a frown, dropping his voice to low tender tones.
"But would you mind telling me, Miss Betty, why you called me 'Mr. Ned'
the other day when I introduced you to John?"
The faintest tinge of red flashed in her cheeks:
"I must have done it unconsciously."
"Please don't do it again. It hurts. You've called me Ned too long to
drop it now, don't you think?"
"Yes."
Her eyes twinkled with mischief as she took his hand in parting.
"Good-bye--Ned!" she breathed softly.
And then he did a foolish thing, but the impulse was resistless. He bent
low, reverently kissed the tips of her fingers and fled without daring
to look back.