When Mr. George Hickey rang the bell at the door of the modest Brewster
residence that night, it was with the pleasant anticipation of a simple,
but well-cooked dinner, of the sort a bachelor, condemned by his
solitary estate to prolonged residence in that semi-public caravansary
known as the American boarding-house, seldom enjoys.
He was very far indeed from a knowledge of the fact that he was in the
oft-quoted position of the man in a boat on the hither side of the great
rapids of Niagara. Mr. Hickey had allowed himself to be drawn into
feeling a somewhat uncommon interest in Miss Evelyn Tripp, it is true;
but he attributed this feeling wholly to the fact that he had known Miss
Tripp when he was a tall, awkward boy of twenty and she was a rosy,
fascinating miss of sixteen. She had laughed at him slily in those days,
and he had resented her mirth with all the secret and hence futile
agony which marks the intercourse of the awkward youth with the
self-possessed maid. But the scar which Evelyn's youthful laughter had
left in his bosom had remained unwontedly tender--as an old wound
sometimes will; and when after the lapse of years they had met once more
Mr. Hickey found the lady so surprisingly sweet, so gentle, so
altogether tactful and sympathetic, that he could hardly escape a
pleasant and soothing sense of gratitude. They spoke of old times--very
old times they were; the mere mention of which brought a delicate blush
to Miss Tripp's cheek. And the auroral light of youth, which never
appears so roseate as when it shines upon the cold peaks of middle life,
irradiated their common past and appeared to linger fascinatingly over
Miss Tripp's somewhat faded person.
It had not, however, occurred to Mr. Hickey that the foregoing had any
bearing whatever upon his own immediate future, nor upon the immediate
future of Miss Evelyn Tripp. In a word, Mr. Hickey was very far from
contemplating matrimony when he entered the Brewster's cheerful little
parlour, bearing a box of bonbons for its mistress, and a jumping-jack
capable of singular and varied contortions, for the young Brewsters.
Miss Tripp appeared very much surprised to meet Mr. Hickey again; she
gave him a beautiful little hand of welcome from the deep chair where
she was enthroned with Richard upon her knee ruthlessly crumpling the
skirt of one of her carefully cherished gowns.
"I'm telling the children a fairy story," she said archly; "you mustn't
interrupt."
"May I listen, if I'm a good boy?" asked Mr. Hickey, endeavouring to
assume a light and festive society air, which hardly comported with his
tall spare figure and the air of sober professionalism which he had
acquired during a somewhat stern and strenuous past.
Carroll, who guarded Miss Tripp's chair on the right, exchanged puzzled
glances with Doris who occupied the left. The little girl giggled.
"You aren't a boy," she said, addressing Mr. Hickey with a confidence
inspired by past acquaintanceship; "you're all grown up."
"I like fairy stories, anyway," he asserted untruthfully; "and I want
to hear the one Miss Tripp is telling. You'll let me; won't you, Doris?"
"I'll let you, if Aunty Evelyn'll let you; but I guess she won't."
Miss Tripp laughed musically. "What a quaint little dear it is," she
murmured, kissing the child's pink cheek. "Why shouldn't Aunty Evelyn
let Mr. Hickey hear the story if he wants to, dear?"
"He's too old," said Doris convincingly. "He wouldn't care about
Cinderella losing off her glass slipper."
"Oh-e-e, Doris Brewster!" exclaimed Carroll, swelling with the superior
enlightenment of his three years of seniority. "That's very rude indeed!
Mr. Hickey doesn't look so very old. He's got quite a lot of hair left
on the sides of his head, and----"
"Thanks, my boy," interrupted Mr. Hickey hastily. "But don't entirely
floor me by enumerating all my youthful charms. How about that slipper
of Cinderella's, Miss Tripp; there's a prince in that story, isn't
there? with--er--plenty of hair on top of his head?"
Miss Tripp, who was actually blushing pink, quite in her old girlish
fashion, exchanged mirthful glances with the engineer.
"I was just coming to the prince," she said. "He was--oh, such a
beautiful prince, all dressed in pale blue, embroidered with pearls and
silver, and on his breast a great flashing diamond star. And when he saw
Cinderella, standing all by herself, in her beautiful gauzy
ball-dress----"
"An' her glass slippers!" gurgled Doris rapturously.
"An' her gwass sippers!" echoed Richard, hugging the story-teller in a
sudden spasm of affection.
"Yes, her glass slippers, of course, darlings," cooed Miss Tripp; "but
the prince did not notice the slippers, he was so agitated by the sight
of her lovely face and her shining golden hair."
Mr. Hickey caught himself gazing dreamily at Miss Tripp's elaborately
arranged coiffure. The yellow gas light fell becomingly upon the
abundant light brown waves and coils, touching them into a shimmering
gold which he did not remember to have noticed before. How well she was
telling the story, too; and how fond of her the Brewster children
appeared to be. He recalled mistily that someone had said, or
written--perhaps it was one of those old author chaps--that it was
impossible to deceive a child. Mr. Hickey was convinced that this must
be true. And insensibly he fell to thinking how pleasant it would be if
this were his own fire-side, and if the lady in the deep wicker chair
were----.
A sound of small hand-clapping brought him out of this blissful revery
with a start. "I like that part best of all," Carroll was saying; "an'
if I'd been that prince I'd 'av taken my big, shining sword and cut off
the heads of those bad, wicked sisters! Yes; I would; I'd like to do
it!" And the sanguinary small boy swaggered up and down, his shoulders
squared and his eyes shining.
"Oh, my dear!" protested Miss Tripp mildly. "You wouldn't be so unkind;
I'm sure you wouldn't."
"I'd take all their pretty dresses away an' wear 'em myself," shrilled
Doris excitedly. "An' I'd--pinch 'em; I'd----"
"Let me tell you what dear, sweet Cinderella did," interrupted Miss
Tripp, tactfully seizing the opportunity to impress a moral lesson.
"She forgave her unkind step-mother and her two rude, spiteful sisters,
and gave them each a castle and many, many lovely gowns and jewels; and
after that they loved Cinderella dearly--they couldn't help it. And all
of them were good and happy for ever afterward."
The children stared in round-eyed displeasures at this ethical but
entirely tame denouement.
"That isn't in my story-book," said Carroll positively. "Cinderella
married the Prince, an' the fairy god-mother turned the bad sisters into
rats, an' made 'em draw her carriage for ever an' ever."
"Why, Carroll Brewster! I guess you made that up!" cried Doris. "The
fairy god-mother didn't turn the bad sisters into anything; she jus'
waved her wand an' turned Cinderella's ol' ragged clo'es into a lovely
spangled weddin' dress, an' then----"
"She turned 'em into rats," repeated Carroll doggedly. "An' I'm glad she
did it."
"She did not turn 'em into rats!"
"She did!"
"She didn't!"
At this crucial moment entered Elizabeth, flushed and bright-eyed from
a final encounter with the elemental forces in the kitchen. "Won't you
all come out to dinner," she said prettily; "I'm sure you must have
concluded that dining was among the lost arts by this time."
"Not in this house," said Mr. Hickey gallantly. "This is one of the
few--the very few places where one has the inestimable privilege of
really dining. The balance of the time I merely take food from a strict
sense of duty."
"We're going to have ice-cream," whispered Carroll kindly.
His father, who had caught the whisper, laughed outright. "He wants to
give you something to look forward to, George," he said, as he tried the
edge of his carving-knife. "If variety is the spice of life anticipation
might be said to be its sweetening--eh? Will you have your beef rare or
well-done, Miss Tripp?"
"Well-done, if you please," murmured Miss Tripp, smiling happily as she
squeezed Doris' chubby hand under the table-cloth.
The little girl's eyes were very bright as she said, "I like to have
you a-visitin', Aunty Evelyn."
"Do you, dear? Well Aunty Evelyn is very, very happy to be here."
"We were going to have rice-pudding for dessert if you hadn't come. I
don't like rice-pudding; do you, Aunty Evelyn?"
"Doris--dear!"
Her mother's voice held reproof and warning; but the child with the
specious sense of security inspired by the presence of strangers
displayed her dimples demurely. "I didn't know it was naughty not to
like rice-pudding," she said, in a small distinct voice.
Mr. Hickey glanced thoughtfully across the table at Miss Tripp, who was
smiling down at the little girl encouragingly. "Most of us are naughty
when it comes to hankering after the unusual and the unattainable," he
observed didactically. "I eat my rice-pudding contentedly enough most
days of the year; but on the three hundred and sixty-fifth I----"
"You pine for pink ice-cream; don't you?" smiled Miss Tripp; "but one
might tire of even the pinkest ice-cream, if it appeared too often. What
one really wants is--plain bread." She cast a barely perceptible glance
at Elizabeth, the laces at her throat quivering with the ghost of a
sigh. The next instant she was laughing at Richard whose curly head was
beginning to droop heavily over his food.
"Poor little fellow," she murmured. "Do look, Elizabeth, he's almost
gone!"
"Won't you carry him up-stairs for me, Sam?" Elizabeth begged her
husband. "I ought not to have kept him up for dinner.--You'll excuse us
just an instant; won't you?"
It was a pretty picture; the tall, stalwart father lifting the child
rosy with sleep, and the little mother hovering anxiously near, like a
small brown bird. Mr. Hickey observed it solemnly; Miss Tripp smilingly;
then, for some reason unknown to both, their eyes met.
"--Er--let me pass you the--bread, Miss Tripp," said Mr. Hickey,
short-sightedly choosing among the viands immediately within his reach.
"Thank you, Mr. Hickey," said Evelyn, and again that faint, elusive sigh
shook the delicate laces at her throat.