IN VACATION.
Marion felt a little desolate as the last of the light-hearted
homeward-bound crowd left the front door with faces bright with the
happy prospects before them. In their own delight the girls were rather
thoughtless in farewells to the lonely girl who was left. She could
hardly keep back the tears as she turned away from the door and walked
slowly to the empty schoolroom.
She sat down by the desk, and with her chin resting in the palm of her
left hand picked up a pencil and scribbled idly on an envelope that lay
at hand. She did not know what she was writing, and her thoughts were
so absorbing that she did not hear the approach of a gentleman with
gray hair and a black mustache, who came in through the door behind
her and stood a moment watching her with his hat in his hand, till he
spoke; then she started so violently that she almost fell off her chair.
“I beg your pardon,” he exclaimed, retreating a little way to give her
time to recover. “I must seem impertinent, but I am so much at home
in my sister’s house that I am apt to prowl around the rooms in this
lawless way.”
“Then you are Mr. Eaton?” said Marion, looking up into the kind,
trustworthy eyes, which returned her gaze with one as honest and frank
as her own.
“Thank you for guessing me out like an easy riddle. Now see if I can
make as shrewd a guess. You are Marion!”
“How could you know?” said Marion, wonderingly.
“That is not the only thing I know,” said Mr. Eaton. “I know that when
you turned and saw me you thought I had come to kidnap Ethel Bellamy?”
“O,” said Marion, coloring violently, “how could you think that?”
“You don’t deny it, though,” said Mr. Eaton, looking very much as if he
wanted to laugh heartily.
“But how did you know?” persisted Marion, pressing the backs of her
hands to her red cheeks, which would not grow cool.
“I have a Yankee trick of putting two and two together, and my sister
is a graphic letter-writer. I am so sorry I was detained and could not
get here before she went away.”
[Illustration: “THEN YOU ARE MR. EATON?”]
“She is coming back the day after to-morrow,” Marion told him, “and
I know she expected you, but she was obliged to go to New York on
business.”
“Did she take the little one? But never mind telling me if there is a
lingering doubt in your mind that I may not after all belong to the
vicious lot who are after poor Ethel Gray’s child”--this with a queer
twinkle in his eyes which made Marion laugh too.
“You look so exactly like Mrs. Abbott that I am sure of you.”
“Do I?” he said, pulling his heavy mustache thoughtfully.
“O, of course she has no mustache,” laughed Marion, “but the eyes--”
“And the gray hair? Yes, we are a pair of grizzled twins, and people
generally think us much alike. But, Miss Marion, do you feel certain
enough of me to tell me if the little girl has gone with my sister? I
had hoped to find her here.”
“Mrs. Abbott did not like to leave her, but she took Candace to take
care of her.”
“Then it seems to me that the burden of entertaining me for a day or
two is likely to fall to your unhappy lot. What shall you do to amuse
me?”
“I will show you which room you are to have and order a big pitcher of
hot water sent right up. Mrs. Abbott asked me to if you came.”
“That will be very amusing. Thank you.”
“I like him so much,” Marion said to herself as she came up from the
kitchen after giving orders for the hot water and suggesting that
dinner should be served on one of the little tables used to stand
dishes on instead of the long T-shaped table, which was a pleasant
sight to see when teachers and scholars surrounded it, but would be
doleful for two lone diners to contemplate.
She and Mr. Eaton did not meet again till the dinner-bell summoned them
to the long, lonely dining-room. He was standing behind one of the two
chairs Liny had placed at opposite sides of the little square table.
He made a slight motion, which she misunderstood, for her to take the
chair upon which his hand rested. She rather shyly walked toward the
other side, and he quickly stepped around and drew out that chair for
her, waiting with grave, old-fashioned courtesy to take his own seat
till she was comfortably settled in hers. It was all very embarrassing
to Marion. She colored distressingly, but Mr. Eaton, whose manners
were always charming, talked to her so entertainingly that she was soon
smiling and enjoying the cosy dinner with him very much.
“What would you have done if I had not come?” he asked, after Liny had
put the dessert on the table and left the room.
“I should have been very lonely, and I don’t believe I could have eaten
any dinner.”
“I have enjoyed my dinner far more for having you to eat it with me,
but it would be affectation for me to say that I couldn’t eat without
company, for I took every meal alone for two months in an African hut
and had a very fair appetite on some very peculiar diet.”
“O, what made you stay so long in that kind of a place?” said Marion,
adding, as she remembered he had been a missionary, “Did you stay
because you thought it was your duty?”
“I felt that it was my duty to get away as soon as I possibly could,
for I had strong reasons for supposing that I was only fed, watched,
and tended by my black captors to keep me in order for a certain annual
ceremonial which was considered a very poor show indeed unless a few
captives were sacrificed to lend _éclat_ to the occasion.”
“O, O, how dreadful!”
“I don’t think I liked any part of it except the escape. That will
always be a gratifying remembrance.”
“Lily said you told lovely stories,” said Marion.
“Lily Dart, if it is she you mean, is a great friend of mine, and a
person with an insatiable thirst for stories. But I don’t propose to
inflict one on you now.”
“But, O, please tell me how you got away.”
“Some day when we both feel like it I will tell you the beginning and
end of this story. As for the middle part I can tell you now that my
escape from the hut was not of a hair-breadth character, although the
journey I had to take to put a safe space between myself and my enemies
was sufficiently exciting.”
“I did not intend to tell any traveler’s stories this vacation,” he
added, smiling at the intense interest in Marion’s face, “but you have
almost beguiled me into it.”
“O, I should so like to hear how you got out of the hut,” said Marion.
“There is generally a story within a story. Six months before I had
administered some generous doses of medicine to a chief who was
believed to be dying, with the result of effecting a rapid cure.
This man, with some attendant warriors, happened to call a halt in
the vicinity of my prison. As a matter of etiquette the captives were
exhibited to the visitor. I did not then recognize the recovered
invalid in his feathers and paint, but during the night he stole into
my tent and by signs and the use of the little of his native language
which was at my command we had a short but delightful interview which
ended in his taking me out of the hut, stepping over a dozen dark
sleepers. They usually guarded me vigilantly, but my friend had managed
to drug them into stupidity. After passing them safely I was given over
to the care of two men who guided me on the way I wished to pursue till
daylight, when they left me to my own devices.”
“O, how interesting!” said Marion, drawing a long breath. “I have read
about savage countries and people, but I never expected to know any one
who had really seen them.”