Miss Lambkin was right. Sally found a place to board--a nice place, to
quote Letty Lambkin, although it was not Miss Miller's. No doubt Letty
was sorry that Sally had not chosen Miss Miller's, for Miss Miller was
an especial friend of Letty's; and, by choosing another place, Sally
had cut off, at a blow, a most reliable source of information. Very
possibly Sally did not think of this, but if she had, it would have
been but one more argument in favor of her choice, for Mrs. Stump
couldn't bear Letty, and she had vowed that she should never darken
her door. Letty would not have darkened the door very much. She was a
thin little thing. But, if Sally did not think of it, Letty did, and
she regretted it. She even went so far as to mention it to Mrs.
Upjohn.
"If Sally Ladue thinks she's getting ahead of me," she said, with
sharp emphasis, "she'll find she's mistaken. I have my sources of
information."
Mrs. Upjohn did not reprove her. She had an inordinate thirst for
information which did not concern her, and Letty was the most
unfailing source of it. So she only smiled sympathetically and said
nothing. She was sorry to be deprived of such accurate information
about Sally as Miss Miller would have supplied, but she still had
Patty. In fact, Mrs. Upjohn was beginning to wonder how much longer
she was to have Patty. Patty seemed to have no thought of going.
Indeed, she would not have known where to go. Patty was entering upon
some brand-new experiences, rather late in life. Already she was
beginning to miss the pendulum.
Before Sally took this step which seemed to be so much more important
to others than to herself, various things had happened, of which Miss
Lambkin could have had no knowledge, even with her reliable sources of
information. Everett Morton had had an interview with his mother, at
her request. He would not have sought an interview, for he had a
premonition of the subject of it.
Mrs. Morton was one of those rare women whom wealth had not spoiled;
that is, not wholly; not very much, indeed. There was still left a
great deal of her natural self, and that self was sweet and kind and
yielding enough, although, on occasions, she could be as decided as
she thought necessary. This was one of the occasions. The interview
was nearly over. It had been short and to the point, which concerned
Sally.
"Well, Everett," said Mrs. Morton decidedly, "your attitude towards
Sally Ladue must be changed. I haven't been able to point out, as
exactly as I should like to do, just where it fails to be
satisfactory. But it does fail, and it must be changed."
Everett was standing by the mantel, a cigarette between his fingers.
"You do not make your meaning clear, my dear mother," he replied
coldly. "If you would be good enough to specify any speech of mine?
Anything that I have said, at any time?" he suggested. "If there has
been anything said or done for which I should apologize, I shall be
quite ready to do so. It is a little difficult to know what you are
driving at." And he smiled in his most exasperating way.
Mrs. Morton's color had been rising and her eyes glittered. Everett
should have observed and taken warning. Perhaps he did.
"Everett," she said, as coldly as he had spoken and more incisively,
"you exhibit great skill in evasion. I wish that you would use your
skill to better advantage. I have no reason to think that there have
been any words of yours with which I could find fault, although I do
not know what you have said. But Sally could be trusted to take care
of that. It is your manner."
Everett laughed. "But, my dear mother!" he protested, "I can't help
my manner. As well find fault with the color of my eyes or--"
His mother interrupted him. "You can help it. It is of no use to
pretend that you don't know what I mean. You have wit enough."
"Thank you."
"And your manner is positively insulting. You have let even me see
that. Any woman would resent it, but she wouldn't speak of it. She
couldn't. Don't compel me to specify more particularly. You put Sally
in a very hard position, Everett, and in our own house, too. You ought
to have more pride, to say the least; the very least."
Everett's color had been rising, too, as his mother spoke. "I am
obliged for your high opinion. May I ask what you fear as the
consequence of my insulting manner?"
"You know as well as I," Mrs. Morton answered; "but I will tell you,
if you wish. Sally will go, of course, and will think as badly of us
as we deserve."
"That," Everett replied slowly, "could perhaps be borne with
equanimity if she takes Doctor Sanderson with her."
Mrs. Morton laughed suddenly. "Oh," she exclaimed, "so that is it! I
must confess that that had not occurred to me. Now, go along, Everett,
and for mercy's sake, be decent."
Everett's color was still high, but if he felt any embarrassment he
succeeded in concealing it under his manner, of which his mother
seemed to have so high an opinion.
He cast his cigarette into the fire. "If you have no more to say to
me, then, I will go," he said, smiling icily. His mother saying
nothing, but smiling at him, he bowed--English model--and was going
out.
Mrs. Morton laughed again, suddenly and merrily. "Oh, Everett,
Everett!" she cried. "How old are you? I should think you were about
twelve."
"Thank you," he replied; and he bowed again and left her.
So Mrs. Morton had not been surprised when Sally came to her, a day or
two later, to say that she thought that they--Doctor Sanderson and
she--had imposed upon Mrs. Morton's kindness long enough and that she
had found a boarding-place for her mother and Charlie and herself.
"I am very sorry to say that I am not surprised, Sally, dear," Mrs.
Morton returned, "although I am grievously disappointed. I had hoped
that you would stay with us until the house was habitable again. I
have tried," she added in some embarrassment, "to correct--"
Sally flushed quickly. "Please don't speak of it, dear Mrs. Morton,"
she said hastily. "It is--there has been nothing--"
"Nonsense, Sally! Don't you suppose I see, having eyes? But we won't
speak of it, except to say that I am very sorry. And I think that you
wouldn't be annoyed again. Won't you think better of your decision and
stay until you can go to your own house?"
"Oh, but nobody knows when that will be," Sally replied, smiling.
"Nothing has been done about it yet. Patty doesn't seem to know what
to do. Uncle John was the moving spirit." There were tears in her
eyes.
"I know, Sally, dear, I know. I am as sorry as I can be. I am afraid,"
she added with a queer little smile, "that I am sorrier for you than I
am for Patty."
"Thank you. But you ought not to be, you know, for he rather--well, he
steadied Patty."
Mrs. Morton laughed. "Yes, dear, I know. And you didn't need to be
steadied. But I'm afraid that I am, just the same."
So it was settled, as anything was apt to be concerning which Sally
had made up her mind. Mrs. Ladue did not receive the announcement with
unalloyed joy. She smiled and she sighed.
"I suppose it is settled," she said, "or you would not have told me.
Oh," seeing the distress in Sally's face, "it ought to be. It is quite
time. We have made a much longer visit upon Mrs. Torrington than we
ought to have made, but I can't help being sorry, rather, to exchange
her house for Mrs. Stump's. But why, Sally, if you found it
unpleasant--"
"Oh, mother, I didn't say it was unpleasant. Mrs. Morton was as kind
as any one could possibly be."
"I am glad, dear. I was only going to ask why Fox stayed."
Fox murmured something about Christian martyrs and a den of lions, and
Mrs. Ladue laughed. Then she sighed again.
"Well," she said, "all right, Sally. You will let me know, I suppose,
when we are to go. We can't stay on here forever, although I'd like
to."
At that moment Dick came in. "Why not?" he asked. "Why not stay, if
you like it?"
"How absurd, Dick!" Sally protested. "You are very kind, but you know
mother will have to go pretty soon. And I've found a very good place."
"If Sally says so, it's so," Dick retorted, "and there's no use in
saying any more about it. Mrs. Stump's or Miss Miller's?"
Fox had been looking out of the window. He turned. "Mrs. Ladue," he
asked suddenly, "will you go sleighing with me to-morrow? It will be
about my last chance, for I go back when Sally leaves the Mortons'."
"Oh," cried Sally, "why not me, too? And Henrietta?"
Fox smiled at her. "There's a reason," he said. "I'll take you when
the time is ripe. I have something to show your mother and we have to
go after it."
"Can't you get it and show it to me, too?"
Fox shook his head. "I'm afraid not. It isn't mine, for one thing."
"Oh," said Sally, her head in the air. "And I suppose you'll go in the
morning, when I'm in school."
"That might not be a bad idea. We might be followed. Can you go in the
morning, Mrs. Ladue?"
She laughed and nodded. She would go at any time that suited him.
So it chanced that Fox and Mrs. Ladue started out, the next morning.
Fox drove along Apple Tree Street and turned into another street.
"Isn't this Smith Street?" asked Mrs. Ladue doubtfully. "Where are we
going, Fox?"
"I'm astonished at your question," he replied. "You ought to know that
this is still Witch Lane for all the old families, in spite of the
fact that it is known, officially, as Smith Street. I have yet a very
distinct recollection of Miss Patty's lamentations over the change.
That was ten years ago, when Sally first arrived."
Mrs. Ladue laughed. She would have laughed at anything that morning.
"But, do you mind telling me where we are going?"
"I can't tell you exactly, as I am not very familiar with the country
here. I know where I am going," he explained hastily, "but I doubt if
I could tell you. We shall come to the end of the built-up part pretty
soon, and then it takes us out into the country. There'll be a turn or
two, and what I want you to see is about two miles out. Mr. Morton,"
he added, "put a horse at my service, and I have been exploring. I
have not wasted my time."
Mrs. Ladue made no reply. She was happy enough, without the need of
speech. They drove on, past the built-up part, as Fox had said, past
more thinly scattered houses, with little gardens, the corn-stubble
already beginning to show above the snow, here and there, for it had
been thawing. Then they began to pass small farms, and then, as they
made the first of the turn or two, the farms were larger, and there
were rows of milk-cans on their pegs in the sun.
Suddenly Mrs. Ladue laughed. "Now I know where I am," she exclaimed.
"That is, I remember that Uncle John Hazen brought me out here one
day, nearly two years ago. He wanted to show me something, too."
Fox turned and looked at her. "That is interesting," he said. "I
wonder if he showed you the same place that I am going to show you."
Mrs. Ladue only smiled mysteriously; and when, at last, Fox stopped
his horse and said "There!" she was laughing quietly. He looked
puzzled.
"The same," she said. "The very same."
"Well," Fox replied slowly, "I admire his taste. It is worth looking
at."
It was a very large house, looking out from beneath its canopy of elms
over a wide valley; a pleasant prospect of gentle hills and dales,
with the little river winding quietly below.
"It is worth looking at," said Fox again. He looked at her, then. She
was not laughing, but there was a merry look in her eyes. "What amuses
you? I should rather like to know. Isn't my hat on straight?"
She shook her head. "I'll tell you before long. But it is really
nothing." Truly it didn't need much to amuse her on that day.
He looked at her again, then looked away. "The house looks as if it
might have been a hotel," he remarked; "a little hotel, with all the
comforts of home. It is very homelike. It seems to invite you."
"Yes," she replied, "it does."
"And the barn," he went on, "is not too near the house, but yet near
enough, and it is very well ordered and it has all the modern
improvements. All the modern improvements include a tiled milking-room
and, next to it, a tiled milk-room with all the most improved
equipment, and a wash-room for the milkers and a herd of about
twenty-five registered Guernseys. I know, for I have been over it."
"That sounds very good. I know very little about such things."
"I have had to know. It is a part of my business. That barn and that
outfit would be very convenient if the house were--for instance--a
private hospital. Now, wouldn't it?"
She made no reply and he turned to her again. She was looking at him
in amazement, and her face expressed doubt and a dawning gladness.
"Oh, Fox!"
"Now, wouldn't it?"
"Yes," she murmured, in a low voice.
"And the house seems not unsuitable for such a purpose. I have not
been over the house."
"Fox! Will you tell me what you mean?"
He laughed out. "The old skinflint who lives there says he can't sell
it. He seemed very intelligent, too; intellect enough to name a price
if he wanted to. And I would not stick at the price if it were within
the bounds of reason."
"I think," Mrs. Ladue remarked, "that I could tell you why your old
skinflint couldn't sell it."
"Why?" Fox asked peremptorily.
"When you have shown me all you have to show," she answered, the look
of quiet amusement again about her eyes and mouth, "I will tell you;
that is, if you tell me first what you mean."
He continued looking for a few moments in silence. She bore his
scrutiny as calmly as she could. Then he turned, quickly, and drew the
reins tight.
"Get up, you ancient scion of a livery stable." The horse started
reluctantly. "There is something else," he added, "just down the road
a bit."
"I thought so," she said. "It is a square house, painted a cream
color, with a few elms around it, and quite a grove at a little
distance behind it."
"It is. But you forgot the barn and the chicken-houses."
She laughed joyously. "I didn't think of them."
"And the well-sweep."
"I'm afraid I didn't think of that, either."
"I should really like to know how you knew," he observed, as if
wondering. "Perhaps it is not worth while going there. But I want to
see it again, if you don't."
"Oh, I do. I am very much interested, and you know you are to tell me
what you are planning."
"Yes," he replied. "I meant to tell you. That was what I brought you
for. But I thought you would be surprised and I hoped that you might
be pleased."
"Trust me for that, Fox, if your plans are what I hope they are. If
they are, I shall be very happy."
They stopped in the road before the square house that was painted
cream color. Fox gazed at it longingly. It seemed to be saying, "Come
in! Come in!" and reaching out arms to him. There was the old well at
one side, with its great sweep. The ground about the well was bare of
snow and there was a path from it to the kitchen door. Thin curls of
smoke were coming lazily from each of the great chimneys.
He sighed, at last, and turned to Mrs. Ladue. "I should like to live
there," he said.
"You would find it rather a hardship, I am afraid," she returned,
watching him closely, "depending upon that well, picturesque as it
is."
He laughed. "Easy enough to lay pipes from the hotel, back there." He
nodded in the direction of the larger house, the one of the
twenty-five Guernseys and the model barn. "They have a large supply
and a power pump. Ask me something harder."
"The heating," she ventured. "Fires--open fires--are very nice and
necessary. But they wouldn't be sufficient."
He laughed again. "It is not impossible to put in a heating-system.
One might even run steam pipes along with the water pipes and heat
from their boilers. I press the button, they do the rest."
"Well, I can't seem to think of any other objection. And there is a
very good view."
"A very good view," he repeated. He was silent for a while. "I have
done very well in the past five or six years," he said then, "and the
wish that has been growing--my dearest wish, if you like--has been to
establish a sort of private hospital about here somewhere. It wouldn't
be a hospital, exactly; anyway, my patients might not like the word.
And I should hate to call it a sanitarium. Call it Sanderson's
Retreat." He smiled at the words. "That's it. We'll call it
Sanderson's Retreat."
It would have warmed his heart if he could have seen her face; but he
was not looking.
"I am very glad, Fox," she murmured. "That makes me very happy."
"Sanderson's Retreat?" he asked, turning to her. "But I haven't got
it. Just as I thought I had found it I found that I couldn't get it."
"Perhaps that old skinflint who lives there doesn't own it," she
suggested.
"Of course I thought of that," he answered, with some impatience. "But
how am I to find out about it without exciting the cupidity of the
native farmers? Once aroused, it is a terrible thing. I might
advertise: 'Wanted, a place of not less than fifty acres, with large
house commanding a good view over a valley, a herd of about
twenty-five Guernseys, a barn with all the modern improvements, and a
power pump. Price no object.' Rather narrows it down a trifle."
Mrs. Ladue almost chuckled. "I won't keep you in suspense," she said.
"Uncle John owned it when he brought me out here. He told me so. And
he owned this house, too."
"Uncle John!" cried Fox. "He knew a thing or two, didn't he? I wish I
had found it while he was living. Now, I suppose I shall have to buy
it of Miss Patty; that is, if I can. Who is the executor of the will?
Do you know?"
She shook her head. "I haven't heard anything about the will, yet. I
think it's likely to be Dick Torrington. Uncle John seemed to like
Dick very much and he thought very well of him."
"I'll see Dick Torrington to-day. We may as well go back." He turned
the horse about; then stopped again, looking back at the cream-colored
house. He looked for a long time. "It's very pleasant," he said, at
last, sighing. "Those trees, now--those in the grove--do they strike
you as being suitable for a gynesaurus to climb? Do they?" he asked
softly.
His eyes looked into hers for a moment. His eyes were very
gentle--oh, very gentle, indeed, and somewhat wistful; windows of the
soul. At that moment he was laying bare his heart to her. She knew it;
it was a thing she had never known him to do before.
She put her hand to her heart; an involuntary movement. "Oh, Fox!" she
breathed. "Oh, Fox!" Then she spoke eagerly. "Will you--are you going
to--"
He smiled at her, and his smile was full of gentleness and patience.
"I hope so," he answered. "In the fullness of time. It is a part of my
dearest wish. Yes, when the time is ripe, I mean to. Not yet. She is
not ready for it yet."
"She is nearly twenty-one," Mrs Ladue said anxiously, "and beginning
to be restless under her teaching. Don't wait too long, Fox. Don't
wait too long."
"I have your blessing, then? I have your best wishes for my success?"
"You know you have," she murmured, a little catch in her voice.
"I thought that I could count on them," he replied gratefully, "but I
thank you for making me certain of it."
She seemed as if about to speak; but she said nothing, after all. Fox
smiled and took up the reins again. The drive back was a silent one.
Fox was busy with his own thoughts; and Mrs. Ladue, it is to be
supposed, was busy with hers.