IX

She never forgot that night. When the door of Mother Cary's house

closed behind her, and she faced the wind and blinding rain, she awoke.

That was the way she always thought of it--as an awakening.

The Allen house lay beyond Father Cary's pasture; she knew the way by

day--down through the garden, then through the woods to the rock-ribbed

clearing where the cattle were, then up, into woods again; but in the

dark it was for her but a wild, instinctive rush, a stumbling over

rock-broken ground, a splashing through pools of water; on through the

darkness, on from one darkness to another, turning from time to time to

look back at Mother Cary's light as a guide to direction. Yet on she

flew, impelled by a conquering fear that drove out all lesser fears,

over rough places, through woods, up the ascent of hills, running as

much of the way as she could, bending against the wind that seemed

trying to force her back, praying that she might find the way, praying

that she might be in time.

At last, though she could never tell how she had come to it, a light

gleamed faintly through the dark and the rain. At last--the Allen

house! She tumbled to the door, paused a moment for breath, and opened

it.

It was the usual one-room cabin of the mountaineer; there were strange,

shelf-like beds against the farthest wall, and in a corner a wooden

bedstead. It was from there that John Ogilvie looked up as she opened

the door.

"Quick! That largest bottle--saturate something--anything--and hold it

over her face!"

She worked with him, obeying blindly, while he struggled through the

night for a woman's life, while the poor hungry baby awoke at intervals

to wail its complaint from the other bed, while the storm shook the

house and the rain swept down unceasingly. Once he bade her get more

light. There were no more lamps; she knelt down on the hearth to blow

into the flame the scraps she had gathered up in her bare hands from

the wood-box; those lighted, and lacking more, somehow she broke the

box itself--a task ordinarily as far beyond her strength as her

imagination. It was by the light of that blaze that he finished his

work, leaving Rosamund free to do what she could for the baby.

But, when at last there was time for speech, neither found anything to

say. He remembered too well the brutal words he had thrown at her a

few hours before; he could not but fear that her silence meant that

she, too, was recalling them. He saw her there beside the hearth, the

baby on her knees; but he saw her also in the doorway, her hair

wind-blown and wet, and her eyes wide with fear and dread,

determination and hope. He could have grovelled at her feet, had not

her silence held him back; but speak he could not; great emotion was

always to leave him inarticulate.

But as for Rosamund, she was unaware of his silence or her own. She

was like a woman after her travail, who is content to lie in silence,

because the purpose of the world has been revealed to her. Life--that

was it--to further life, to prolong it, to minister to it! How futile

was all else! How valueless were the things she had been taught to

value most! Her shielded ignorance, her--her refinement--of what use

were they, when they could not face such an emergency as last night's?

Her money, that could have bought a hospital--what had it bought last

night, when only the service of her own two hands could help to save a

woman's life? The pursuits of her kind--she smiled, remembering

Ogilvie's orderly haste, as unerringly he cut, and tied and sewed,

while she as unfalteringly watched him, even assisted. No! For her

there was nothing to say; she knew now what life was for. It was not

the empty, useless existence she had known. It had a deeper meaning, a

purpose worthier its Maker. It was wonderful beyond words. She had

nothing to say.

Neither of them was aware that the dawn had come, until someone knocked

on the door. Then Ogilvie opened it to Father Cary, and to the

grayness of a still driving rain.

The stalwart old man stepped inside and looked about the cabin, at the

quietly breathing woman on the bed, at Ogilvie, at Rosamund beside the

fire trying to persuade the baby to take something warm from a spoon.

"So!" he said. "And where's Jim Allen?"

Ogilvie threw up both his hands, hopelessly. "Where he always is--back

in the woods at one of the stills, dead drunk, like as not."

"More'n likely," Father Cary acquiesced. Then, nodding towards the

bed, he asked, "What's the matter with _her_?"

"Nothing now. She would have been dead, though, if I had operated half

an hour later. Lord knows how long she's been lying there. The baby's

nearly dead, too--half-starved and half-poisoned by his mother's

illness."

"How'd you happen to come?" the old man asked.

"The oldest boy came for me--all the way over to the Summit, and he's

not six. He's at my house in bed now."

Then Father Cary crossed the room, and stood beside Rosamund, looking

down at her. She met his look with a quiet smile.

"New work for you, ain't it?" he asked. "Ma Cary'll be real proud o'

ye!"

And answering the question in her eyes, he went on, "Oh, she'll be home

again in time to get dinner. Wasn't nothin' the matter with the baby;

but Nancy's that nervous, an' so's Ma Cary." He chuckled. "I reckon

it takes some experience and a right smart o' ca'm to be a real

successful granny."

The doctor was becoming impatient. "Will you stay here with Miss

Randall, Cary? I must get someone to come; she"--nodding towards the

bed--"will need watching until we can find Allen."

So for an hour or so Pa Cary sat opposite Rosamund or busied himself

preparing for breakfast the little food to be found in the house. The

other children awoke, tumbling down backwards from the high box-bed,

looking across at their mother with scared faces, and distrustfully at

Rosamund.

At last Ogilvie returned, bringing Grace Tobet with him, and Rosamund

was free to go home with Father Cary.

But there must first be the inevitable moment when she and Ogilvie

should stand face to face. It happened simply enough. Grace had taken

Rosamund's place beside the fire, replenished now through Father Cary's

efforts in the outer shed; the old man had gone out for a last armful

of wood, and Rosamund was about to take down her coat from its nail on

the door.

Then, somehow, Ogilvie was standing before her. He looked at her with

trembling lips; he did not dare to trust himself to speak. He could

only hold out his hands.

She turned her tired face up to him, looking, searchingly, it seemed,

into his eyes. Then, smiling, she laid her hands for the breath of a

moment in his, and with a little gasp reached for her coat and ran out

to join Father Cary.

She was glad that Eleanor's departure, and the rain, kept them apart

for a few days after that. She dreaded the restraint that she thought

they both must feel when they should meet; but, when the meeting came

at last, there was no embarrassment at all.

Father Cary had left her at the Summit and she meant to walk back to

the house on the mountain, to make the most of the first clear day

after the rain. There was a little brown house, set on the brow of the

hill overlooking the valley, almost opposite the mountain whence Mother

Cary's light shone every night. Rosamund had often noticed the little

place, and to-day, at the store, she had heard the men talking about

it. The man who owned it had come from the city a year or so before,

with his wife, to be near Doctor Ogilvie. They were young, and the

young do not see very far ahead. It had seemed to them in their

distress that they would have to stay there forever; they had done many

things to the little house, and put into it many of the comforts they

had been used to. Now the man was well, and they were going back to

the city.

"Want to sell out," the postmaster had told her. "Humph! Wouldn't

mind sellin' out myself! Like to know who's going to buy prop'ty up

here, this time o' year!"

So, as she approached the little house on her way home, Rosamund was

busily thinking about it. Perhaps, subconsciously, the idea had been a

long time growing in her mind; but when she turned the last bend in the

road that hid the house from her view, a plan seemed to burst upon her

with all the novelty of a revelation. She stood still, looking first

at the house, then across the valley towards the place which had

sheltered her all summer. She was not aware that a vehicle drawn by a

familiar white horse was just turning out of a wood-road into the

highway, scarcely ten yards behind her.

But Ogilvie, in the sudden gladness of thus unexpectedly coming upon

her, called out.

"Oh, good luck! Let me give you a lift, won't you?"

The embarrassment that she had been dreading was not there! They were

as simply glad to see each other as two children; laughing, she took

the place beside him in the buggy.

He had never looked more cheerful. "So I caught you staring into the

Marvens' windows!" he accused her.

She laughed again. "I am tempted to buy that little house," she told

him.

"Why don't you?" he asked, lightly. "And go there to live, and take

Timmy and Yetta with you!" He smiled down at her, indulgently, as at

the fancies of a child.

"That was just precisely what I was thinking of doing," she replied.

"We could be perfectly comfortable there during the winter. I don't

want to go back to town one bit!"

"So you could," he agreed, still in his bantering tone. "And I

wouldn't stop with Tim and Yetta. I'd take in a few more. You might

borrow some little Allens, or get someone to lend you an orphan asylum."

Rosamund put her head back and laughed aloud, merrily. "But I am

perfectly in earnest!" she cried; and was, from that moment.

But if the doctor refused to take the idea seriously, it was quite

otherwise with Mother Cary. When Rosamund disclosed to her the

half-formed plan--she had come to discuss nearly everything with that

fount of human wisdom--the dear soul did not seem surprised at all, but

at once made a thoroughly feminine mental leap into the very middle of

arrangements.

"Why, of course, dearie, it will be just splendid! And you won't need

so very many furnishin's. There's some cheers up in our loft you might

take, and you can have things up from the city. Yetta's learned a good

deal this summer. I can bake for you for a while, till the child gets

more used to the work, and I reckon you can manage the rest of it

betwixt you."

"Do you suppose," Rosamund asked, "that Grace Tobet would come, too?"

Mother Cary sat down in her little low rocking chair, and laid her

crutch on the brick floor of the front walk, always a sign of her

settling down for a real talk. Things had been going worse and worse

with the Tobets; Rosamund and Yetta went down almost daily, but beyond

their friendly visits there seemed little they could do. The

Government's suspicions were centering on Joe, the big, born leader of

rough elements, and on his band of four or five other men, who would

follow him to death or worse. Jim Allen was one; but now, repentant

and sobered by the baby's death, he was at home nursing his wife.

Grace had sped through the woods in the night to warn Joe and his

followers more than once; yet even to Ogilvie she denied any knowledge

of Joe's business.

"It's squirrels he's after," she said, "and sometimes drink; all this

talk of moonshine's jest foolishness. I'd know it ef 'twas so. It

ain't so!"

"Well, Mrs. Tobet," the doctor replied, "your squirrel stew would not

be to my liking! Better keep the lid on the pot while it's cooking!"

He saw too many evidences of the moonshine's work to believe her; but

he had seen Joe Tobet come home, and he honored Grace, too familiar

with human nature to marvel at her faithfulness. Mother Cary alone

knew all that Grace Tobet knew; all secrets were safe in her kind old

heart, and even from Pap she hid this one, for Father Cary was not one

of those who hold councils of compromise with the Evil One. Therefore,

when Rosamund suggested Grace Tobet, Mother Cary sat down to think it

out.

After a few minutes' silent pondering, she said, "Honey, I've never

been one to advise the partin' of husband and wife! Howsomever, if

there's any good left in Joe Tobet, it may be the surest way o'

bringin' him back to straight ways o' livin', ef we can coax Grace to

leave him for a while."

"I'm afraid I can't give a thought to Joe's salvation," Rosamund

declared. "But Grace--oh, she's too fine to be left there! I should

like to give her one winter of comfort!"

"Well, you haven't got a holt of her yet," Mother Cary reminded her,

"an' it wouldn't be but half comfort for her, the outside half,

anyways, away from her man. But I can't see what anybody could do

better than to keep little Tim and Yetta up here out o' harm's way, and

maybe save Grace Tobet an' Joe, too. Land's sake, dearie, you must be

quite well off!"

It seemed to come to Mother Cary suddenly, and was the first spark of

curiosity Rosamund had ever known her to show. Until now her wisdom

had seemed all-embracing; but that a young woman, that Rosamund, who

had lived so quietly in her house all summer, could carry out a

suddenly formed plan of buying a house and sheltering three

people--this was evidently quite outside of her experience. She looked

up with unwonted surprise in her face. Rosamund bent and kissed the

wrinkled pink cheek.

"Dear, dear Mother Cary," she said, "I am so well off that I could

probably buy every house at the Summit, and build as many more! I am

so well off that I have never in all my life, until this summer, had a

chance to find out how well off I am! I am so well off that I did not

know how poor I have been, nor how much people can need the wretched

mere money, nor how very, very little it can really do! I have only

begun to find out what life is made of, and so I'm not well off at all!"

Tears came into her eyes as she spoke, and she turned her head away;

but Mother Cary's hand was stretched towards her, instantly. Presently

she said, in the low tone which was the tenderest and sweetest of all:

"Dearie child, when the young folks come an' tell me things like you're

tellin' me now, I reckon there ain't anybody in the world as well off

as me! An' I'll tell you jest what it is makes you do it--it's because

I'm so happy! An' I'll tell you jest what makes me so happy. I let

Pap take keer o' me, an' I try to take keer o' him an' jest as many

other folks as I can! That's the whole of it!" After a pause she

added, "You're goin' to do jest the same as me, both in keering for

someone, an' in bein' took keer of!"

Rosamund's eyes opened wide; she paled a little and pressed her hand

against her trembling lips. "I don't know," she whispered. "I'm

afraid! Oh, I'm afraid!"

Mother Cary patted the hand she held, and knew too much to speak.

Their thoughts, in the silence, wandered far; came back and dwelt upon

the things that were, the things to be; there is no way of knowing

whether they went hand in hand, but after a while Mother Cary said:

"Dearie, I wouldn't tell him, if I was you, about--about all you have,

the money an'--you know!--I wouldn't tell the doctor yet a while!"

Rosamund drew her breath sharply, and her face flamed; she was too

startled to answer, but in a moment she left her place on the bench and

knelt beside the old woman, hiding her face on the knees where so many

had found comfort. Mother Cary smoothed her hair, and after a while

began to talk, almost as if to herself.

"There's a friend o' mine sometimes spends her summers up around here;

she's married to a eye doctor--that's how come Yetta got sent up here

to me. Her husband knew Doctor Ogilvie down in the city. She told me

there never was one they thought more of, down there; they said he

found out more about nerves than anybody else in the world, and he used

to work day and night and in between times, trying to discover more.

They said there never was such a one with little child'en; he could

almost make 'em over new, seemed like. They said he never cared

whether folks could pay him or not for what he did--all he cared for

was the curin' of 'em. I can well believe it, too, for many's the time

I see him almost starved without knowin' what's the matter with him,

and he ain't a mite particler about his clo'es. Well, he worked an' he

worked; and one day my friend's husband, that was one o' his friends,

went into his little room where he kept his bottles and things, and

found him layin' on the floor. They thought he surely would die, but

praise the Lord, that wasn't to be; only, he had to give up his work

down in the big horspital. I often think on what that must 'a' been to

him. I reckon it must 'a' been worse than it would be for Pap to give

up a raisin' them white hogs o' his he's so proud of. Anyway, he come

up here, an' he got well! And now he says he hasn't got time to go

back there again--there's too much for him to do up here all the time.

So he jest rides around the country with that Rosy horse. Somebody

asked him once why he didn't buy an automobile. He said for one thing

he hadn't the money for it; and for another, he needed White Rosy to

remind him where he was going!"

Mother Cary stopped to laugh; Rosamund raised her head, with an

answering smile that was half tears.

"Land sakes," Mother Cary went on, "I do believe if it wasn't for Rosy

he'd sometimes forget to come home! When they get to one o' the houses

where he visits, Rosy stops and turns her head around; ef he don't say

anything to her, there she stands; but if he tells her he don't have to

get out there that day, Rosy jogs along to the next place! I'm real

fond o' humans, but sometimes I do wish't they all knew as much as the

doctor's Rosy!"

This time Rosamund joined in the laugh. But the old woman had more to

tell. "Time was when I might 'a' wondered how come he stays on here,

him bein' the great doctor he is; but I'm so old now that I know too

much to wonder about anything any more! There's folks in this world

that never can find any work to do, and there's folks that makes work

for themselves, and then again there's folks that are so busy with the

work right at hand that they never get time to find out whether they're

workin' or not. That's Doctor Ogilvie's kind. He's so busy workin' up

here in the mountings, that he never stops to think about whether he is

doing the work he likes best or not; it's just work he has to do,

because it's here to be done, and that's all there is to it for him.

He works so hard at it, inside his own head, that he forgets most

everything else. Land, I remember the time he sat up with me all night

long, workin' over Milly Grate's baby that had the membranious

croup--dipthery, he called it. Come mornin', an' he told Milly the

baby'd get well, he suddenly went out and sat right down on the

doorstep; come to find out, he'd brought two babies into the world the

day before and driven twenty-two miles and walked about a dozen--and

forgotten to take a bite to eat! Another time, somebody sent a little

boy over the mounting for him in a hurry; he was at a house where a man

had broke his leg, and White Rosy was waitin' for him at the gate; but

when he heard how bad off the little girl was he'd been sent for,

didn't he jest set out and run all the way there, forgettin' that there

was such a thing as a wagon to ride in, and White Rosy still a waitin'!

"And he boards with the Widder Speers, where it ain't likely she can

make him very comfortable, she bein' well past eighty; but he found out

soon after he come up here that she would have to be moved to--the

place where nobody likes to go!--she not having any support; so he

boards there, an' she doesn't have to leave her home, that her husband

built for her when they was married, and where her only son died. You

might hunt the world over, honey-bird, without findin' any better man

than Doctor Ogilvie! But, somehow or other, ef I was you, I wouldn't

let on to him that I had as much money as you say you have. Money's a

dreadful stumblin'-block to some people! And you never can tell which

way men folks'll jump!"

It had been long since Rosamund, trained in self-control as she had

been, was so keenly aware of intense embarrassment. Her first impulse

was to feel affront at Mother Cary's taking so much for granted in her

relations with the doctor; but no one could really be angry with Mother

Cary. She was abashed that the old woman had divined more than she

herself had been aware of; and then there arose the doubt that she had

so often felt of the doctor's personal interest in herself or her

affairs. She yielded to the maiden's inevitable longing for

reassurance.

"What makes you think," she whispered, her cheek against Mother Cary's

hand, "what makes you think that he--would be--interested?"

"Darlin'!" Mother Cary cried, "John Ogilvie thinks a heap o' you--but

he ain't got hardly a suspicion of it yet--any more than you know how

much you're goin' to care for him!"

Then, with the usual coincidence, the object of their talk came into

view, driving White Rosy toward the little green gate, Yetta on one

side of him and Tim on the other; they waved to the two in front of the

house, but Rosamund sprang to her feet and fled indoors.

X

Rosamund awoke the next morning with her mind joyously full of her new

plans; but it was little Tim who suggested that which crowned them.

Tim was always the first member of the household, after Father Cary, to

go out of doors in the mornings; to-day he brought back a tight handful

of stemless blossoms to present to Rosamund. Dewy and rosy-cheeked, he

had never before appeared as much the baby as on this morning, standing

in front of her with his feet apart, holding up his floral offering.

"It was all ve pretty flowers 'at was awake," he announced. "Here--I

'ikes you!"

"Land! I hope he ain't been in my geraniums!" said Mother Cary, from

the stove; but Rosamund grasped the chubby hand, with its blossoms, and

kissed it.

"They are beautiful, Tim! I 'ike you, too! And Tim, how would you

like to live with me all the time?"

He stared at her for a moment. "Oh! O-o-oh! Is you gonin' to 'dopt

me?"

Mother Cary, with an exclamation, turned quickly to watch the two;

Rosamund met her eyes over the boy's head. Her plan was coming to

birth.

"Do you want me to, Tim?" she asked.

The child's lips began to quiver. Then he dumped himself down upon the

floor, and howled. "Want my White Lady!" he cried. "Want to 'dopt my

White Lady!"

Swiftly he was lifted in Rosamund's arms. "Good for you, Tim! Good

for you, old man! I'm glad you know your own mind!" she cried.

She gathered him up, threw herself into a big rocking chair, set him

astride on her knees and rocked him wildly back and forth, down until

his curls nearly touched the floor, then up again, up in a bubble of

laughter and kisses, Timmy forgetting his tears to shout with glee,

down and up again, down and up, the child screaming with joy. Father

Cary and Yetta coming in from the barn to breakfast, stood in the

doorway laughing, Yetta wondering a little at Miss Rose's unwonted

exuberance. Mother Cary had already taken her place at the table, and

was laughing in sympathy with them.

When Rosamund stopped, breathless, with aching arms, Tim still demanded

"More! More! do it 'den!"

"Land's sakes, honey-bird, what ails ye?" Mother Cary cried. "I never

suspected you _could_ be so lively!"

For reply Rosamund looked at Yetta. "When Tim adopts the 'White Lady,'

and I go to live with them, will you come, too, Yetta?" she asked.

"Is that a conundrum? I ain't much good at riddles!" Yetta declared.

Rosamund laughed; she would have laughed at anything to-day. "Not a

riddle--an answer, Yetta! You and Timmy, Mrs. Reeves and I, are all

going to live together in the brown house at the Summit! What do you

think of that?"

"Sho', now! That's the very ticket!" said Mother Cary. "How come you

didn't think o' Mis' Reeves yesterday, lamb? But--ain't she held by

that Mis' Hetherbee?"

"Yes, she is; but I think we can persuade Mrs. Hetherbee to let her

come."

"Gee! I'd be glad to get away from that old one, if 'twas me!" said

Yetta, in an aside which the others thought best to ignore.

"Pap," said Mother Cary, "if so be you'll put the harness on Ben, Miss

Rose and me'll drive over an' begin cleanin' the house this mornin'!"

The old man put down his knife and fork, looked from his wife to Miss

Randall, and back again. "It do beat all how you women-folks jump into

the middle o' things the minute you get started," he said. "The house

ain't even empty yet!"

"Land, I forgot all about them Marvens," said Mother Cary. "No matter!

It gives us all the more time to get good an' ready, honey-bird!"

Rosamund very soon began to realize that she needed time. First of

all, she sent for her man of business, an excellent person who lacked

imagination, and was later found to disapprove of purchases of little

brown houses or of anything else that could never bring interest or

increase in value. But his disapproval of that investment was as

nothing to the objections he made to another. It was not until

Rosamund reminded him that her twenty-fifth birthday had come and gone,

releasing the Randall property from all trust and making it now her

own, and declared that if he refused to obey her directions she would

be obliged to ask someone else to look after her interests, that he

reluctantly consented to it.

Then there was the delicate matter of bringing Eleanor to consent to

her plans.

DARLING ELEANOR [she wrote]: I have decided that Timmy must be adopted.

I make the announcement first of all, because I know that if I did not

mention him at once, you would skip all the first part of my letter

until you found his name, and only read on from there. And I have a

proposition which needs to be presented right end foremost. So--Tim

_must_ be adopted. He has his heart set upon it; and he has turned out

to be such a darling little boy. He cannot be sent back to the

Charities, to be looked over and refused by people who would not

appreciate him, anyway. Doctor Ogilvie says that he must stay here

another year, if he is to be made entirely well; but unless he has the

best of care after that, and is made happy, he will not live to be the

good and useful man we should like to see him. Doctor Ogilvie is a

great believer in the curative powers of happiness; and you know he is

a very good doctor. Well--I have already made over to Tim some money,

to be held in trust for him until he is twenty-five. The entire

interest is to be given, until said time, to the adopted parent of said

Tim, according to said agreement, for the use and maintenance of said

parent and said Tim, the entire amount to be paid over to him

twenty-one years after the execution of the deed of trust. I do hope

you are properly impressed by that legal phraseology, Eleanor darling.

I put in all the 'saids' I could, just as the lawyers do. I want you

to see what a fine and wonderful thing it is for Timmy, Timmy the waif,

to be the subject of anything so impressive; and the sum of money I

have given him will provide simple comfort for him and his

parent-by-adoption; only, of course, I must be sure that his parent is

a person whom I can trust to spend it as it should be spent, and so to

bring up the boy that he will be worthy of his--let's call it his

inheritance--when he finally receives it. So it has all been done

subject to one condition. Unless that condition should be fulfilled,

the child will have to go back to the Charities; I had a great

discussion about it all with Mr. Leeds, my lawyer; and he only

consented to draw up the paper subject to that condition. It is

that--oh, Eleanor, don't say 'no'!--it is that you will adopt little

Tim, let him fill that empty place in your heart, teach him to be a

good man, and--I shall spoil it if I write another word, dear White

Lady, sweet White Lady, White Lady that Timmy loves! See this blur,

Eleanor--it is where he has pressed a kiss, to send to his White Lady.

R.

To this Eleanor replied, "I have your letter. I must think." Rosamund

tried to be satisfied with that for a while; but as the days passed and

Eleanor wrote nothing more, and as Cecilia must be persuaded and her

trustees interviewed, she sent her sister a night letter, begging her

to join her in New York immediately. She told Ogilvie and the others

that she was going to buy furniture for the house, which was true

enough.

There was that in the interview with the lawyers that put Cecilia into

a most complaisant state of mind; when she thought of Rosamund's having

put the greater part of the Randall income at her disposal she could

not find it in her heart to show disapproval of anything else that

Rosamund might choose to do. The only protest she made was at the gift

to the little waif.

"Pure Quixotism, my dear, never gains you a thing. It is the most

utter madness I ever heard of."

"Well, it will gain Timmy something, and Eleanor something; and you

know very well, Cecilia, that I shall never miss it."

"We won't discuss it," Cecilia said, "but I am sure that not even

Colonel Randall would have done anything so wildly impulsive."

Rosamund could find very little to say to that; she knew well enough

that nothing but her faith in Eleanor could make it seem anything but a

hazardous experiment. Mother Cary had seen nothing but good in the

plan, but here in New York idealism seemed out of place; what had

appeared fine there looked foolish here. She was beginning to doubt

the excellence of her plan, when word came from Eleanor that Mrs.

Hetherbee was back in town. Rosamund called at once, presenting

Cecilia's cards with her own, as the first move in the little social

campaign that she foresaw. Eleanor, in her white gown, looked

strangely out of place in Mrs. Hetherbee's florid apartment that

overlooked the Hudson, and had every splendor known to apartments, even

to an up-and-down-stairs of its own.

Eleanor kissed her, then held her off for a long look.

"Rose, Rose! How can you tempt me so?" she cried. "It is only a

scheme for giving the money to me!"

"Eleanor, tell me the truth. Did you and Tim fall in love with each

other at first sight, or not?"

"Ah! Little Tim!"

"Precisely! Little Tim! Would you deprive him of such an opportunity

as this?"

"Oh, you would never take the money away from him, Rose--now?"

"But it is not his, yet! It never can be, unless you will take him for

your son--for your own little boy, Eleanor! Think of it!"

"I do think of it! I haven't thought of anything else."

"Except, my dear, that you, too, will benefit by the plan! So you are

trying to refuse. Don't be selfish, Eleanor!"

"Selfish? To deny myself what I want most in the world?"

"You and Tim seem to know your own minds! When I asked him if _I_

should adopt him, he plumped down on the floor and yelled for his White

Lady."

"Rose! Don't make it so hard!"

"It is you who are making it hard! I have grown very fond of Timmy,

and I should hate, just hate to see him go back to the Charities.

Think of the poor mite being scrubbed up and dressed in a clean striped

gingham, and brought out to be inspected by possible adopters! Think

how he will feel when they say, 'Oh, I don't think we want a little boy

with hip disease!' or 'Haven't you any--er--prettier children?'

"Oh, Rose!" Eleanor put her hands over her eyes, while Rosamund drew

her down to one of Mrs. Hetherbee's Louis Quinze settees.

"Eleanor," she said, seriously, "let us admit, if you want to, that I

am giving the money to you. Of course it will be practically your own

until you have had Tim twenty-one years. I have such faith in what you

will do with him that I give the whole amount to Tim, outright, after

then. I have such faith in the son he will be to you, that I am

willing to let him have the joy of taking care of his mother after that

time. Do you suppose I would give him money, if he were going to a

stranger? Cecilia calls me Quixotic, but I assure you I am not as far

gone as all that." Eleanor was weakening. "It is a great deal of

money, Rosamund," she said.

"Oh, if that's all that's troubling you! It does not seem much to me.

Besides, I owe the world something!"

"Ah!" Eleanor put her hand to the girl's cheek, turning her face until

she could look into her eyes. "Rose, what else has the summer taught

you?"

Rosamund's eyes widened a little. "We have no time to talk of that now

while Timmy is waiting for his mother!"

"His mother! Oh, how you tempt me, Rose!"

"Listen, Eleanor! I have bought that little house at the Summit that

the Marvens lived in. Mr. Marven is cured, and they have gone back to

the city. I am going to live in it this winter, with you and Tim and

Yetta; I have already sent down to Augusta for my old Mammy Susan and

her husband, Matt, to meet me there two weeks from now. The Charities

will not let you or me or anyone else adopt Timmy without a year's

probation first. Come with me for this winter, and see how we all feel

about it when the year is out. Come as my housekeeper. Put away your

selfish pride, White Lady--and let your salary be what Timmy's interest

would be if you had already adopted him. A year will help us all to

wisdom perhaps."

Eleanor, with head bent, and hands clasped in her lap, thought for a

long moment.

"I am asking you to take too much responsibility upon yourself, I

suppose!" Rosamund said at last, slyly watching her friend. Eleanor

turned at once, swift to deny.

"How can you insinuate such a thing! Are they open, at the Charities

building, in the afternoon?"

Rosamund threw her arms about the White Lady's neck in a

half-strangling embrace. "You darling! Yes, we will go there at once!

I told them we'd be there this afternoon!"

"Rose!" Eleanor cried. "How could you?"

"Oh, I knew you could never in the world send Tim back to them!"

They forgot Mrs. Hetherbee until they had signed the provisional papers

of adoption for the child, and were on their way uptown in Cecilia's

new limousine, which she had loaned Rosamund for the afternoon. It was

disconcerting to find that Mrs. Hetherbee had no intention of releasing

Eleanor; but Cecilia allowed herself to be persuaded to join in the

campaign. When at last Cecilia sent for a society reporter who had

never before succeeded in penetrating to her, and gave out the

interesting item that she was to dine, _en famille_, with Mrs.

Hetherbee on the twenty-second, the little lady capitulated, even

adding her blessing.

To Cecilia, admiration was an incense always acceptable; Mrs. Hetherbee

amused her, and one had to do something to amuse one's self. There was

nothing exciting in Rosamund's shopping expeditions. The city might

have been deserted, so few of their own friends were in town. Some

lingered at their country places, others were in Lenox for the hunting,

or still abroad. The effect of New York's social emptiness was to draw

more closely together than was possible during the busier season the

comparative few who for one reason or another were in town. There was

more time for lunching together and going afterwards for a spin toward

the Westchester hills or over to one of the Long Island golf courses;

and for one of the week-ends, which were torrid with the humidity of

late September, they stood out to sea aboard one of the steam yachts

that were beginning to bring their owners back to the North River.

Sometimes a longing for her mountains would sweep so strongly over

Rosamund that she would have a sense of unreality, as if she were in a

strange land, among strange people, instead of having just returned to

the familiar noise and glitter of New York.

One morning, when they had been shopping about for things that refused

to be discovered, and clothes which should be simple enough for the

brown house, and Cecilia had refused to go farther until she had had

something to eat, they went to their favorite lunching place, now

curiously deserted except by people who seemed to have come from

another world, who spoke in strange accents and stared about them as if

still under the spell of the man with the megaphone. In a corner of

the overdecorated room near a window which was still shielded by awning

and window boxes from the Avenue's glare, Cecilia sank back, weary, and

frankly out of sorts with everything.

"It is a most horrible time of year for shopping," she said, after she

had ordered their luncheon with great precision. "There is not a thing

left in the shops. I wonder what they do with the clothes that were

left over? Does somebody wear them, or do they just throw them out, or

what? Or is it because you are hunting for such queer things,

Rosamund?"

Rosamund laughed. "But they won't be queer in the mountains, Cecilia,"

she said.

"I am glad I shall not have to look at them," Mrs. Maxwell replied.

"But if you are going to do the peculiar, I suppose you may as well be

consistently peculiar all the way along. Only, don't expect me to like

it, nor approve of it; and don't think I'm encouraging you in it. I am

going about with you because someone has to; I think you are foolish,

_very_, and I really do _NOT_ believe even Colonel Randall would have

approved of your going off like this!"

Hunger and fatigue had worn on poor Cecilia's nerves; but if she had

dreamed of having any other audience than her sister, the scolding

would have been subdued. Flood and Pendleton, finishing their luncheon

in a distant corner, had seen the two and made their ways towards them.

The sharpness of Cecilia's tone seemed to amuse Marshall.

"Dear me, Cecilia," he said, so close behind her that she fairly

jumped, while Rosamund smiled, "what's going off?"

Cecilia's eyes looked dangerous, and Flood, laughing, came to the

rescue. "Come off with us, won't you?" he asked, so genially that for

the first time Rosamund felt some warmth of response to his smile. "We

thought of running up Westchester way for the afternoon; won't you come

with us?"

His lover's quick perception told him that Rosamund was not averse to

the interruption of the _tête-à-tête_, and he looked at her rather than

at Cecilia for response. "There's a bit of woods back of Pocantico

that always reminds me of those Virginia places where the leaves remain

pale green, and the sunlight comes through and touches the ferns; you

know!"

His own eloquence rather abashed him; but Rosamund's tired face

flushed; his words recalled to her the very scent of the woods;

suddenly, there overlooking the Avenue, amid the vibrating undertone of

noises, in the place of all others where the wealth of the metropolis

and its cosmopolitanism that is unlike any other cosmopolitanism

manifests itself most impressively, she was homesick for the mountains

and her friends there. She could have cried out with longing; and

Flood's offer of a glimpse of woods was to her what the blossom is to

the man in a hospital.

"Oh, yes!" she said, leaning towards him with a little air of

eagerness. "Oh, yes, do take us! I'd rather get out to the woods than

do anything else in the world this afternoon!"

Flood's face reddened deeply with the satisfaction of having scored at

last. He and Pendleton drew up chairs and chatted while the two women

disposed of their skillfully combined luncheons.

"I say, Flood, make her promise not to desert us again," cried

Pendleton.

"It is rather brave of you, Marshall, to talk about desertions!"

Cecilia remarked.

Pendleton grinned. "I haven't deserted you, Cecilia," he said. "I

retreated! You know I'm afraid of you, Cecilia, when you're in a

temper."

Flood was beginning to look distressed, but Rosamund smiled at him.

"Let them squabble, Mr. Flood! I want to tell you about Timmy!"

Flood's look brightened. "Ah! The little chap we bumped into! Yes!

And do tell me about Ogilvie. Didn't you find him a good fellow?"

She told him of her plans for the child and for her winter; Flood

listened, saying little. It put him to shame that she should be doing

everything for the two waifs, but her doing so only set her on a higher

throne in the heaven of his longing. So intent was he on listening to

every word, catching every intonation, watching every fleeting

expression, that he was unaware of her not answering his question about

Ogilvie.

At last Flood was driving his own car northward out of the city. A

hope that fortune would continue further to smile upon him had prompted

his asking a third man, who came up to speak to them, to join their

party, so that he could release his chauffeur for the afternoon; and it

was either an undefined wish to be rid of Cecilia for a few hours, or

else a latent sense of gratitude, which prompted Rosamund to take her

place beside him, smiling divinely--or so he fondly thought--at him,

and roguishly at Cecilia and her attendant swains. Cecilia thoroughly

enjoyed having two men to herself, especially as Marshall had been none

too faithful since their parting in Virginia, and the situation offered

an opportunity for discipline. The third man was benignly unaware of

complications, and Rosamund openly laughed at Pendleton's expression of

disgust.

They had passed out of the place side by side, while Flood went ahead

to see to the car. "What's the matter with its little nose?" Rosamund

laughed at Pendleton. "All out of joint?"

"You are perfectly disgusting, Rosamund," he replied in a most

matter-of-fact tone, quite as if he were saying the sun was warm or the

car was there. "Your manners have become contaminated, and your

complexion has suffered, and you are a most disagreeable person. I

hope you'll be stout before you are thirty! There!"

Rosamund's laugh was so frankly merry that Cecilia turned on a quick

impulse of repression. Rosamund ought to know better than to laugh

aloud in the door of a restaurant! But Flood was beside them, the

other man might misunderstand a sisterly admonition, and Pendleton's

raised eyebrows of disgust quite satisfied her. She allowed herself to

be helped into the tonneau, happy in her own situation.

Flood knew better than to attempt small talk; he divined that he could

better make himself felt by saying nothing than by saying the wrong

thing. They passed swiftly northward out of the city, following upland

roads that gave enchanting glimpses of the river and of nearer gardens;

after an hour or so he brought his car to slow speed. They were beyond

Sleepy Hollow, in woods of new growth, ferny depths, scarcely touched

by sunlight, roadsides where pale asters set themselves like stars.

"Isn't it like Virginia?" Flood asked.

Rosamund only nodded; but presently she almost whispered, "I love it!

Oh, I love it!"

"You are really going to spend the winter there?" Flood asked.

"Yes," she told him. "It somehow seems like home to me."

He knew that he must move carefully into her thoughts. "I understand

how that can be," he said, after a pause. "There was a place in Idaho

that used to make me choke every time I passed it; I never knew why,

until one day an English fellow happened to say as we rode by, 'Jove,

there must be trout in that brook!' Then I knew it made me homesick,

because every boy has something in him that makes him want to fish. I

had wanted to, worst sort, when I was a youngster--though I was born in

an inland city, and never had a chance to. It just made me homesick

for the boyhood I ought to have had!"

Rosamund looked at him in amazement. Subtlety and imagination from

Flood she had never foreseen; her own imagination was fired at once,

and her face flushed a little with shame at what she had thought of him

before. Flood looked straight ahead, but he was more keenly aware of

the girl beside him than she of him. His heart was pounding as if he

were setting out on a race; and indeed he beheld a stake before him as

clearly as ever in his life. She answered, and he knew that he had

scored; at last he had made her aware of him!

So well had they progressed by the time they had got back to town that

he felt he could dare to say, before he left her, "I want to know those

Maryland and Virginia woods of yours better, myself."

He wondered afterwards whether he had said too much.