Farewells
Polly O'Neill was entertaining at a farewell reception. April had passed
away and May and it was now the first week in June. In a few days more
she would be sailing for Southampton with Miss Margaret Adams to be gone
all summer. The party was not a large one, for Polly had preferred
having only her most intimate friends together this afternoon.
So of course the old members of the Sunrise Hill Camp Fire Club were
there and a few outside people, besides the group of young men who had
always shared their good times.
Moreover, the past two years had given the old Camp Fire Club an
entirely new distinction, since one of its girl members had recently
married.
At this moment she was approaching Polly O'Neill, and Polly held out
both hands in welcome, as she had not seen the newcomer since the
return from her wedding journey. Edith Norton it was, who was dressed,
as she had always hoped to be, in a costume that neither Betty nor Rose
Dyer could have improved upon, a soft blue crepe with a hat of the same
color and a long feather curling about its brim. For Edith had confessed
her fault to her employer soon after her difficulty in the last story
and had been forgiven. And, as a good-by present to Betty Ashton, she
had promised never to have anything more to do with the young man of
whom her Camp Fire friends had disapproved. The result was that she had
married one of the leading dry goods merchants in Woodford, and hard
times and Edith were through with each other forever.
Now her cheeks were flushed with happiness instead of the color that she
had used in the days before her membership in the Camp Fire Club, and
her pretty light hair made a kind of halo about her face.
"Apoi-a-kimi," Polly smiled at her guest, "you have not forgotten our
Indian name for you, have you, Mrs. Keating, now that you are the first
of us to acquire an altogether new name?"
Edith shook her head with perhaps more feeling than she might have been
expected to show and at the same time touching an enameled pin which she
wore fastened on her dress she said: "I am a Camp Fire girl once and
forever, no matter how old I may become! And I never needed or
understood the value of our experiences together so much as I do now.
Tell Betty for me, please, that I sometimes think it is to our Camp Fire
Club that I owe even my husband. He could not possibly have liked me had
he known me before those good old times. So since Betty brought me into
the club and has stood by me always----"
With a smile Polly now made a pretense of putting her fingers to her
ears; nevertheless she glanced around with a kind of challenging
amusement at the half a dozen or more friends who were standing near, as
she interrupted her visitor.
"Betty! Betty!" she exclaimed. "I have been wondering the greater part
of this afternoon whether this is a farewell party to me or an
opportunity to send messages to Betty Ashton." Purposely Polly waited
until she was able to catch John Everett's eye, for he stood talking to
Eleanor Meade only a few feet away. John pretended not to have heard
her. He had only returned to Woodford for the week in order to see his
father and sister, for he had graduated at Dartmouth some time before
and was now in a broker's office in New York City. And already he was
under the impression that he had attained the distinction of a New York
millionaire and that his presence in Woodford was a unique experience
for his former village acquaintances. So he was now being extremely kind
to his sister Meg's old friends, although it was, of course, absurd for
any one to presume that he had more than a passing, pleasant
recollection of any girl whom he had ever known in Woodford.
All this that he was thinking Polly appreciated when she had watched
the young man's face for less than half a moment. And as she had a
reprehensible fondness for getting even with persons, she then
registered a private vow to let Betty hear just how much John Everett
had changed.
However, she had but scant time to devote to this resolution, for almost
at the same instant another young man, excusing himself from his sister,
walked toward her with an expression which was rarely anything except
grave and reserved.
Polly spoke to him with especial pleasure. For the past two years had
changed not only her attitude toward Anthony Graham, but that of a good
many other persons in Woodford.
Two years can be made to count for a great deal at certain times in
one's life and Anthony had made the past two do for him the work of
four. He was no longer an office boy and student in Judge Maynard's
office, for he had graduated at law and was now helping the old man with
the simpler part of his practice. And because Judge Maynard was seventy
and childless he had taken a liking to Anthony and had asked him to
live in his home, for the sake of both his protection and his society.
And this perhaps was a forward step for the young fellow which the
people in the village appreciated even more than the boy's own efforts
at self-improvement; for Judge Maynard was eccentric and wealthy and no
one could foretell what might happen in the future.
Edith had moved away to make room for the newcomer, so that Polly and
her guest stood apart from the others.
Anthony was as lean as ever, although it was the leanness of muscular
strength, not weakness; his skin was dark and clear and his hazel eyes
gazed at one frankly, almost too directly. One had the sensation that it
might be difficult to conceal from him anything that he really wished to
know.
"Miss Polly," he began rather humbly, "I wonder if you would be willing
to do a favor for me?" He smiled, so that the lines about his mouth
became less grave. "Oh, I have not forgotten that you did not altogether
approve of Miss Betty's friendship for me when I came back to Woodford,
and I do not blame you."
"It was not Betty's friendliness for you that I minded," Polly returned
with a directness that was very often disconcerting.
The young man reddened and then laughed outright. "I thought it better
to put it that way, but if you must have the truth, of course I know it
was my liking for her to which you objected. But look here, Miss Polly,
no one knew of my admiration except you. So I suppose you know also that
every once in a while in these past two years Miss Betty has written me
a letter--perhaps half a dozen in all. So now I want you to take her
something from me. It does not amount to much, it is only a tiny package
that won't require a great deal of room in your trunk. Still I have not
the courage to send it her directly and yet I want her to know that I
have never forgotten that what she did for me gave me my first start. I
have improved a little in these past two years, don't you think? Am I
quite so impossible as I used to be?"
Polly frowned in reply; but she reached forward for the small parcel
that Anthony was extending toward her.
"Look here, Anthony," she protested, "for goodness sake don't make a
mountain out of a molehill, as the old saying goes. Betty Ashton did not
do anything more for you than she has done for dozens of other persons
when she could afford it, not half as much. So please cease feeling any
kind of obligation to her; she would hate it. And don't have any other
feeling either. Goodness only knows how these past two years in foreign
lands may have altered the Princess! Very probably she will even refuse
to have anything to do with me, if ever Miss Adams and I do manage to
arrive in Germany."
Polly ended her speech in this fashion with the intention of making it
seem a trifle less impertinent. However, Anthony appeared not to have
understood her. Nevertheless, having been trained in a difficult school
in life perhaps he had the ability for not revealing his emotions on all
occasions.
For Herr Crippen and Mrs. Crippen, Betty's father and stepmother, were
at this moment trying to shake hands with him. Herr Crippen looked much
more prosperous and happy since his marriage to the girls' first Camp
Fire Guardian. He had now almost as many music pupils in Woodford as he
had time to teach, while Miss McMurtry had lost every single angular
curve that had once been supposed by the girls to proclaim her an old
maid for life and as Mrs. Crippen was growing almost as stout and
housewifely as a real German Frau.
In the interval after Anthony's desertion, as Mrs. and the Herr
Professor had already spent some time in talking with her, Polly found
herself alone.
She was a little tired and so glanced about her for a chair. Her mother
and Mollie were both in the dining room as well as Sylvia, who had come
home for a week to say farewell to her beloved step-sister. But before
Polly could locate a chair for herself, she observed that two were being
pushed toward her from opposite sides of the room. Therefore she waited,
smiling, to find out which should arrive first. Then she sank down into
the one that John Everett presented her, thanking Billy Webster for his,
which had arrived a second too late.
Excitement always added to Polly O'Neill's beauty, and so this afternoon
she was looking unusually pretty. As it was the month of June she wore a
white organdie dress with a bunch of red roses pinned at her belt and
one caught in the coiled braids of her dark hair.
She had been perfectly friendly with Billy, even more so than usual,
since their April talk. For having her own way made Polly delightfully
amiable to the whole world. Billy, however, had not responded to her
friendliness. He was still deeply opposed to her going away with Miss
Adams. And though he was doggedly determined to have his own will in the
end, he seemed to have lost all his former interest and pleasure in
being often at the Wharton home. For not only was Polly in what he
considered a seventh heaven of selfish happiness at her mother's change
of mind, but Mollie no longer treated him with her former intimacy. She
was friendly and sweet-tempered, of course, but she never asked his
advice about things as she once had, nor seemed to care to give him a
great amount of her time. Instead she appeared to be as fond of Frank
Wharton and as dependent upon him as though he had been in reality her
own brother. And Frank having recently returned to Woodford to live, had
gone into business with his father. Truly Billy felt that he had not
deserved the situation in which he now found himself. Of course one
might have expected anything from so uncertain a quantity as Polly, but
to Mollie he had been truly attached and she had been to him like a
little sister. So it was difficult to comprehend what had now come
between them.
Billy had no special fancy for playing third person and remaining to
talk to Polly and John Everett, so considering that both his chair and
his presence were unnecessary, he moved off in the direction of the
dining room.
Polly smiled up at her latest companion with two points of rather
dangerous light at the back of her Irish blue eyes. Then she let her
glance travel slowly from the tips of John Everett's patent leather
shoes, along the immaculate expanse of his frock coat and fluted shirt,
until finally it reached the crown of his well-brushed golden brown
hair.
"It must be a wonderful feeling, John, to be so kind of--glorious!"
Polly exclaimed, in a perfectly serious manner.
"Glorious," John frowned; "what do you mean?" He was an intelligent,
capable fellow, but not especially quick.
"Oh, don't you feel that you are giving poor little Woodford a treat
every now and then by allowing it the chance of beholding so perfect an
imitation of a gentleman. I don't mean imitation, John, that does not
sound polite of me. Of course I mean so perfect a picture. I have been
feasting my eyes on you whenever I have had the opportunity all
afternoon. For I want to tell Betty Ashton when I see her who is the
most distinguished-looking person among us. And of course----"
John flushed, though he laughed good-naturedly. "What a horrid
disposition you still have, Polly O'Neill. One would think that you
were now old enough to make yourself agreeable to your superiors." He
stooped, for whether by accident or design, the girl had dropped a small
paste-board box on the floor.
"This is something or other that Anthony Graham is sending over to Betty
Ashton," Polly explained with pretended carelessness. "I suppose you can
remember Betty?"
But John Everett was at the present moment engaged in extracting a small
pin from the lapel of his coat. "Don't be ridiculous, Polly, and don't
impart your impressions of me to Betty, if you please. Just ask her if
she will be good enough to accept this fraternity pin of mine in
remembrance of old times."