WHILE he waited the cat looked up at him, curiously but pleasantly.
"Hello, old lady," he said; and she arched her back and rubbed lightly
against his nigh leg while the kittens tumbled over his shoes and played
frantically with the frayed bottoms of his trousers.
This preliminary welcome seemed to comfort him out of all proportion to
its significance; he gazed complacently about at the trees and flowers,
drew in deep breaths of the lilac's fragrance, and waited, listening
contentedly for the coming foot-fall.
He had not heard it when the door opened and a young girl appeared on the
threshold, standing with one hand resting on the inner knob; the other
touching the pocket of her apron, in which was a ball of yarn stuck
through with two needles.
She was slim and red-haired and slightly freckled, and her mouth was
perhaps a shade large, and it curled slightly at the corners; and her
eyes were quite perfectly made, except that one was hazel-brown and the
other hazel-grey.
Hat in hand, Brown bowed; and then she did a thing which interested him;
she lifted the edges of her apron between slender white thumbs and
forefingers and dropped him the prettiest courtesy he had ever seen off
the stage.
"I came to inquire," he said, "whether you ever take summer boarders."
"What are boarders?" she asked. "I never heard of them except in naval
battles."
"Thank heaven," he thought; "this is remote, all right; and I have
discovered pristine innocence in the nest."
"Modern boarders," he explained politely, "are unpleasant people who come
from the city to enjoy the country, and who, having no real homes, pay
farmers to lodge and feed them for a few days of vacation and dyspepsia."
"You mean is this a tavern?" she asked, unsmiling.
"No, I don't. I mean, will you let me live here a little while as though
I were a guest, and then permit me to settle my reckoning in accordance
with your own views upon the subject?"
She hesitated as though perplexed.
"Suppose you ask your father or mother," he suggested.
"They are absent."
"Will they return this morning?"
"I don't know exactly when they expect to return."
"Well, couldn't you assume the responsibility?" he asked, smiling.
She looked at him for a few moments, and it seemed to him as though, in
the fearless gravity of her regard, somehow, somewhere, perhaps in the
curled corners of her lips, perhaps in her pretty and unusual eyes, there
lurked a little demon of laughter. Yet it could not be so; there were
only serenity and a child's direct sweetness in the gaze.
"What is your name?" she asked.
"John Brown 4th."
"Mine is Elizabeth Tennant. Where do you live?"
"In--New York," he admitted, watching her furtively.
"I was there once--at a ball--many years ago," she observed.
"Not _very_ many years ago, I imagine," he said, smiling at her youthful
reminiscence.
"Many, many years ago," she said thoughtfully. "I shall go again some
day."
"Of course," he murmured politely, "it's a thing to do and get done--like
going abroad."
She looked up at him quickly.
"Years ago I knew a boy--with your easy humour and your trick of speech.
He resembled you otherwise; and he wore your name becomingly."
He tried to recall knowing her in his extreme youth, but made no definite
connection.
"You wouldn't remember," she said gravely; "but I think I know you now.
Who is your father?"
"My father?" he repeated, surprised and smiling. "My father is John Brown
3rd."
"And his father?"
"My grandfather?" he asked, very much amused. "Oh, he was John Brown 2nd.
And _his_ father was Captain John Brown of Westchester; but I don't want
to talk D. A. R. talk to you about my great grandfather----"
"He fought at Pound Ridge," said the girl, slowly.
"Yes," said Brown, astonished.
"Tarleton's cavalry--the brutal hussars of the legion--killed him on the
Stamford Road," she said; "and he lay there in the field all day with one
dead arm over his face and his broken pistol in his hand, and the
terrible galloping fight drove past down the stony New Canaan road--and
the smoke from the meeting house afire rolled blacker and blacker and
redder and redder----"
With a quickly drawn breath she covered her face with both hands and
stood a moment silent; and Brown stared at her, astonished, doubting his
eyes and ears.
The next moment she dropped her hands and looked at him with a tremulous
smile.
"What in the world can you be thinking of me?" she said. "Alone in this
old house, here among the remoter hills of Westchester. I live so vividly
in the past that these almost forgotten tragedies seem very real to me
and touch me closely. To me the present is only a shadow; the past is
life itself. Can you understand?"
"I see," he said, intensely relieved concerning her mental stability;
"you are a Daughter of the American Revolution or a Society of Colonial
Wars or--er--something equally--er--interesting and desirable----"
"I am a Daughter of the American Revolution," she said proudly.
"Exactly," he smiled with an inward shudder. "A--a very
interesting--er--and--exceedingly--and--all that sort of thing," he
nodded amiably. "Don't take much interest in it myself--being a broker
and rather busy----"
"I am sorry."
He looked up quickly and met her strange eyes, one hazel-grey, one
hazel-brown.
"I--I'll be delighted to take an interest in anything you--in--er--this
Revolutionary business if you--if you don't mind telling me about it," he
stammered. "Evenings, now, if you have time to spare----"
She smiled, opened the door wider, and looked humorously down at him
where he stood fidgeting on the step.
"Will you come in?" she asked serenely.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]