Next morning she said to Mrs. Barry:
“Aunt Thalia, I think I should enjoy my visit much more if I might ride
horseback.”
“Can you ride?” looking up from her breakfast of fried chicken and hot
rolls.
“I have been on a horse’s back only once, but I can easily learn if you
will let me have a horse,” Molly answered, confidently, and a sudden
light broke over Mrs. Barry’s face.
“The very thing,” she exclaimed. “I’m glad you thought of it. Cecil
Laurens shall teach you.”
“Oh, no, no,” Molly cried, in consternation. “I won’t ride with him.
I’ll go alone.”
“But Cecil will be perfectly willing, child, and he is a splendid
equestrian.”
“But I hate him--I mean I don’t like men,” exclaimed the girl, flushing
under Mrs. Barry’s gorgon stare.
“Louise Barry, you are a goose! I shall never cease to regret that Lucy
Everett had the training of you. Any other girl would be glad of the
chance of Cecil Lauren’s company. He is the richest and finest young
man in the state.”
“I--don’t--like--young men, auntie.”
Mrs. Barry glowered at her angrily over her glasses.
“Do you like woolly headed, stupid old negro men?” she snapped.
“Ye-es, aunt,” demurely.
“Very well, then, you shall have the finest horse in the stable, and
old Abe shall teach you to ride--but I wonder at your taste,” sneering.
Molly flushed, but finished her breakfast in silence, and then ran
upstairs to arrange an impromptu riding-habit.
By letting out the tucks in her red cashmere dress she made a very
presentable habit, combined with the velvet-trimmed jacket, and setting
a little red-plumed turban on her mop of curls she ran down-stairs in
the gayest spirits.
“I’m ready, Aunt Thalia.”
“Whew! You’re like a whirlwind, Louise,” exclaimed Mrs. Barry; but she
summoned old Abe at once, and said:
“Miss Barry wants a ride, Abe, and you must go with her as she is not
accustomed to riding. Saddle the young gray mare and take her at once.”
“Um-hum, gwine broke her neck now, fo’ sartain sure,” grumbled the old
man, who did not like to be called from his pipe in the kitchen. But he
set off obediently for the stable, while Molly danced with impatience
awaiting his return.
“May I go into Lewisburg for letters? I am sure there must be one from
my sister,” she said, and the brow of the old aristocrat gloomed over.
“You may go to the post-office, but--I told you, Louise, never to call
that girl your sister again!”
“I beg your pardon, Aunt Thalia, my step-sister,” amended Molly, but
she bit her red lips sharply to keep back indignant words.
“How she despises my mother’s memory and my mother’s daughter,” she
thought bitterly, and it was well that Uncle Abe came up just then,
mounted on a sturdy old bay horse and leading a handsome gray filly by
the bridle, or her indignation might have over-flowed into words. As
it was she turned off sharply, ran down the steps and sprang into the
saddle, cantering off at a pace that startled Uncle Abe.
“Lor’-A’mighty! De gal gwine broke her neck in ten minutes!” he
growled, as he galloped briskly after her, while Mrs. Barry looking on,
thoroughly enjoyed the girl’s fearless riding.
“She will make a good rider. It is the first thing in which she has
shown herself a Barry,” she muttered, for this gay little humming-bird
of a creature had rather startled the old lady by her unlikeness to the
Barrys, who as a rule were homely rather than handsome, and dignified
rather than merry.
But on the whole, Mrs. Barry was proud of this lovely niece. She had
all the fondness for beauty that is inherent in homely people, and it
pleased her to gaze on that beautiful, spirited face, although very
girlish-looking for the twenty-five years with which she was accredited.
She gazed after the girl with actual pride, and muttered:
“Cecil admired her, I am sure, although he left so soon! I hope from my
heart that it will be a match. It would please me better than anything
else in the world! How fortunate that he returned just now when he was
least expected. It must have been fate!”
Unconscious of Mrs. Barry’s designs against her single blessedness,
Molly jogged along soberly toward Lewisburg, having been scolded into
sedateness by lazy old Uncle Abe.
There must have been a fate in it as the old lady said, for just as
their horses came opposite the park gates at Maple Shade, Cecil
Laurens rode out on a magnificent black horse, bowed and smiled, and
cantered to Molly’s side.
“Good morning, Miss Barry, good morning, Uncle Abe. A bright day,” he
said.
Molly bowed with a half defiant air. What evil sprite had sent this man
again across her path?
Yet she gazed as if fascinated in unwilling admiration at his handsome
face which in the clear open light of day showed at its best. What
dark, tender depths there were to his violet eyes, how regularly
handsome his features, how the sun brought out the rare shade of his
thick mustache and clustering masses of gold-brown hair. Then his
figure, how tall and manly it was as it sat with martial grace in the
saddle.
“I hate him, but--he is rather good-looking,” she admitted to herself,
with reluctant justice.
“Marse Cece,” burst in Uncle Abe, with startling abruptness, “aine you
gwine to de pos’-office, too?”
“Yes, Uncle Abe.”
The artful old negro chuckled audibly:
“How fort’nit, how werry fort’nit,” he observed. “Now you kin take
keer o’ Miss Looisy on her ride, ef you please, sah, fo’ my hoss done
cast his shoe, and I got to turn off dis road and take him to de
black-smiff!”
“Uncle Abe, you are an old story-teller. There is nothing the matter
with the horse. I’ll tell Aunt Thalia if you don’t come straight along
with me!” threatened Molly in comical distress and anger combined; but
the cunning old fellow was already galloping off, leaving her to the
tender mercies of Cecil Laurens.
“Do not mind him, Miss Barry,” said the young man. “I will take as good
care of you as Uncle Abe.”
She pouted and turned her horse’s head.
“I am going back to Ferndale!”
He caught her reins and held them as he had done before.
“You are not!” he said, vexedly. “Why, what a baby you are! Why should
you go back and get that old darky a scolding from Mrs. Barry? The
old soul is only going into Maple Shade to chat with my servants. He
has known me ever since I was a baby, and feels safe in trusting you
to my care. Mrs. Barry is my godmother, too, so how can you be so
unreasonable? _Come._”
“I _am_ acting foolishly,” she thought, and yielded to that one word
of commingled command and entreaty, telling herself that she was too
anxious for a letter to turn back now.
Cecil Laurens knew well the magnetic power of that low, winning voice
of his. He smiled slightly as she turned and rode on by his side up the
mountain.
“You and I almost had a battle last night,” he went on. “After I went
away I thought it over, and decided that you--we--had been very silly.
It seemed so strange for a Barry and a Laurens to quarrel. Why, our
families have been neighbors and friends almost a century,” proudly.
“That is no reason why you should have been so--so domineering and
overbearing to me,” she broke out, with defiant eyes.
He looked intently at the tall green ferns growing in the masses
of mossy stone by the road-side several minutes before he replied,
quietly:
“I am sorry. Will you forgive me?”
“If--you--won’t--_tell_ Aunt Thalia,” she replied, half entreatingly.
The violet orbs turned from contemplating the ferns to her face. The
two pairs of eyes met.
“Did you really think I could tell tales?” he queried, gravely, and
something in those eyes impelled her to answer:
“No.”
“Ah, I thought you would learn to trust me,” he said, with that
wonderful smile whose sweetness dazzled Molly’s eyes. “Now let us
pledge friendship, for the sake of--our families.”
She began to smile, her anger melting under his kindliness.
“I--I--won’t claim your friendship on the score of our families. If you
promise me your friendship, it must be for what I am worth myself--and
if I like you, it must be for yourself, not because you are a Laurens,”
she replied, with such seriousness and earnestness that he laughed, and
quoted:
“‘Kind hearts are more than coronets,’
you think, Miss Barry. Well, I own I am proud of my family, but I am
willing to take your good-will on your own terms.”
He held his hand out, and she laid her little gloved one in it. He
pressed her shabby little gauntlet a moment, gently, and a thrill of
pleasure ran along the girl’s nerves.
“He is so nice--and only last night I hated him!” she said, naïvely, to
herself.
What a ride it was, and how charming she found her late foe! He praised
her riding, and declared that it was splendid, considering this was
only her second attempt.
“You must let me ride with you every morning. You will find me more
trustworthy than Uncle Abe,” he said, and Molly, who had vowed only
that morning that she would have nothing to do with him, agreed to his
wish with frank pleasure.
But the violet eyes and the low, winning voice had disarmed her
resentment. Molly was pleased to find a friend where she had dreaded an
enemy.
“He will not tell Aunt Thalia, and if Louise will only let me come home
before I do any other mischief, everything will go right,” she thought;
then, looking up, suddenly: “If I get a letter from my sister this
morning, I shall have to go home soon,” she said.
She saw a dark frown come over his face. He exclaimed, brusquely:
“I hate to hear you call that actress’ daughter sister!”
“Why?” sharply.
“Oh, it was a terrible _mésalliance_. Your father ought never to have
married that woman, and your friends should never have allowed you to
be raised as the companion of her child. The gulf between you is wide,
and there is really no relationship, you know,” he said, proudly.
Molly looked at him strangely without reply. He was puzzled by her
eyes--there was in them such a sudden look of anguish and pride, with
something like reproach. He could not understand it, and asked himself
if she meant to uphold the cause of that odious woman.
But here they were at the post-office, and there was a letter for Miss
Louise Barry. She caught it eagerly from his hand.
“It is from my sis--my step-sister, and I know she has written for me
to come home!” Molly cried, excitedly.