Shyly and perversely Lily Rose had postponed the trying on of her borrowed wedding waist until the day preceding the great event.
"There won't be time to fit it," pleaded Amarilly.
And Lily Rose had smiled a faraway smile and said her veil would cover it anyway. But finally Amarilly's pleas prevailed and the beloved garment was brought forth.
Amarilly took it reverently from its wrappings and held it up to view. After many exclamations of wonder and admiration, Lily Rose, who had removed her dress, essayed to try it on.
"Why, Amarilly," she said, struggling to get her arm into the sleeve, "there's something the matter! It's sewed together, or something."
Amarilly hastened to investigate.
"Oh!" she gasped, after thrusting her hand within, "to think it should be in here, for I am sure this is what Miss King has been looking for so long. Wait until I go and ask ma about it."
She hurried to the kitchen precinct of the house.
"Oh, Ma, do you know how this came in Miss King's lace waist? The one that was here through the fever?"
"Why, didn't you ever take that home?"
"Yes," informed Amarilly, "but she made me a present of it, and I put it away to keep till I was—grown up. And I want to lend it to Lily Rose to be married in. And when she went to try it on, she found this in the sleeve."
Mrs. Jenkins paused in the sudsing of a garment.
"Let me see!" she said, surveying the object with reminiscent scrutiny. "Oh, yes, I remember now. I found it on the floor the day she was here, afore the waist was ready for her. I thought she had dropped it, and so I pinned it in the sleeve of her dress, and was goin to tell Gus to give it to her, but he didn't take the waist hum, and then so much happened, it went clean out of my mind."
"I'll go right over to her house with it now," said Amarilly.
Lily Rose, adorned in the filmy, white waist, entered the kitchen.
"See, Amarilly," she said delightedly. "It's a beautiful fit!"
But Amarilly had something on her mind of more moment even than LilyRose's wedding garments.
"I am glad it fits," she said hurriedly, scarcely vouchsafing a glance toward Lily Rose as she caught up her hat, and hastened as fast as the street-cars would take her to Colette. Orders had been given for the admittance of Amarilly at any hour and to any room her young patroness might chance to be occupying. This morning she was in her boudoir.
"Oh, Miss King!" cried Amarilly, her face aglow. "I guess I have found it!"
Colette's heart began to flutter and the wavering beat became a steady throb when Amarilly handed her the long lost article.
"Oh, Amarilly, you darling! Yes, yes, this is it! And it evidently has not been touched. Where did you find it? Who had it?" Amarilly related the story of its discovery.
"Then, but for your generosity, Amarilly, this would have been in the waist for years, so I am going to reward you. You shall make Lily Rose a wedding present of the waist, and when you are married, I shall give you a real, white wedding gown of white satin with a bridal train!"
"Oh, Miss King! I must get married then, even if I have to do it in a leap year!"
"Of course you will marry. I shall pick out the bridegroom myself. I feel like doing almost anything for you, Amarilly."
"Do you, truly?" asked Amarilly. "Then I wish you would—"
"Tell me, dear!" urged Colette. "I'll do anything for you to-day."
"Be nice to Mr. St. John!" whispered the little peacemaker.
"Amarilly! I will, indeed—nicer than you can imagine, or he either. And tell me, is Lily Rose still happy—very happy?"
"Yes," replied Amarilly. "So happy, and so scared-like, and she's going to dress at our house and could you come early and fix on the veil? We don't just know how it goes."
[Illustration: "Be nice to Mr. St. John!" whispered the little peacemaker.]
"Of course I will. And now will you take a little note to St. John for me on your way home?"
"Yes, Miss King. And are you going to tell him it is found?"
"No, Amarilly; not until to-morrow night, so don't say anything about it to him."
The rector looked up with a welcoming smile when Amarilly was shown into his study.
"I came with a note from her," she said with a glad little intonation in her voice.
John took it eagerly. His face fell at the first few words which told him not to call for her to-morrow night on the way to the wedding, but it brightened amazingly when he read the reason—the adjusting of Lily Rose's bridal veil; it fairly radiated joy when he read:
"I am not going to be disagreeable to—anyone to-morrow. I shall 'let my light shine' on Lily Rose and—every one. If you will keep your carriage to-morrow night, I will send mine away and ride home with you."
On the night of the auspicious occasion, Mrs. Jenkins's home presented a scene of festivity. Neighbors had loaned their lamps, and the brakeman had hung out his red lantern in token of welcome and cheer. It was, however, mistaken by some of the guests as a signal of danger, and they were wary of their steps lest they be ditched. Mrs. Hudgers ventured the awful prognostication that "mebby some of them Jenkins brats had gone and got another of them ketchin' diseases."
When they entered the house there was a general exclamation of admiration. The curtain partitions had been removed, and the big room was beautifully decorated with festoons and masses of green interspersed with huge bunches of June roses.
Derry and Flamingus received the guests. Upstairs the Boarder and the brakeman were nervously awaiting the crucial moment. The door into the Annex was closed, for in the sitting-room was the little bride, her pale cheeks delicately tinted from excitement as Colette artistically adjusted the bridal veil, fastening it with real orange blossoms. Amarilly hovered near in an ecstasy which was perforce silent on account of her mouth being full of pins.
"There's Mr. St. John's carriage," she managed to murmur as she peered from the window.
Colette dropped her paper of pins, went hastily into the adjoining bedroom and slipped out again before John Meredith was ushered in where the surplice immaculately laundered, was waiting to be donned by its original owner.
After slipping it on, John's hand from force of habit sought the pocket and there encountered something. He drew it forth wonderingly. It was a small, silver-monogrammed envelope sealed and addressed to him in Colette's handwriting. He read the note once, twice, thrice. Then there was a knock at the door that led into the Annex sitting-room. He opened it to admit Amarilly.
"Are you ready?" she asked. "You're to go in with them. They—"
She paused and stared at him. The transformation in his face was wonderful.
"Yes, I am ready, Amarilly," he replied, and something in his voice sounded strange to her.
He followed her into the next room where the Boarder, awkward in his Sunday clothes, but regal in his pride in the little, white-veiled figure at his side, was awaiting him.
John walked out into the Jenkins's part of the house with them, whileAmarilly slipped home by way of the Annex bedroom.
The entrance was certainly effective to the neighbors.
"Ain't she a lily though!" "Look at that long veil onct!" "Jest like 'a picter!" "What a swell waist" "That big bo'quet!" "I niver seed sech flowers afore." "That surplus makes it look like picters!"
All these comments were sweet music in Amarilly's ear. Only one person had regrets. Mrs. Hudgers was visibly disappointed.
"I thought they'd hev candles a-burnin'," she confided to Mrs. Huce.
"Don't you know no better than that?" scoffed Mrs. Huce with a superior air. "Them things is only used by Irish folks."
Derry's dancing eyes looked to Colette for appreciation of this statement, but her eyes and attention were entirely for John.
The ceremony began. John's impressive voice, with its new pervading note of exultant gladness, reached them all, tempering even Derry's light- hearted mirth. It gave courage to the little bride whose drooping head rose like a flower, and a light shone in her eyes as she made the responses sweetly and clearly. It found echo in the Boarder, whose stooping shoulders unconsciously straightened and his voice grew clear and strong as he promised to have and to hold. It found a place in Colette's heart which sent illumining lights into her starry eyes.
When the solemn ceremony ended, and the Boarder and Lilly Rose were pronounced man and wife, the guests flocked forward to offer congratulations. Then they were bidden to adjourn to the Annex that they might view the bride's domain, while Mrs. Jenkins assisted by many helping hands set the long tables, a small one being reserved for the Boarder, the bride, Mr. Cotter, and Mrs. Jenkins and Iry.
"I thought they could eat more natural," whispered the considerate little Amarilly to Colette, "if there weren't no strangers with them."
Colette, John, and Derry were also honored with a separate table. Mrs. Hudgers and Amarilly "dished up and poured" in the woodshed, while the boys acted as waiters, having been thoroughly trained by Amarilly for the occasion.
"Do you know," laughed Derry, "I was so surprised and relieved to find that the Boarder had a cognomen like other people. It never occurred to me before that he must of course have a name."
Colette smiled politely but perfunctorily. She was living too deeply to-night to appreciate wit. John, too, was strangely silent, his eyes resting often and adoringly upon Colette. Shrewdly Derry divined the situation and relieved it by rattling on with a surface banter that demanded no response.
"These refreshments," he observed, "are certainly the handiwork of my little maid. They have a flavor all her own. I am proud of Amarilly's English, too."
"I wonder," said Colette, "if you are doing quite right, Mr. Phillips, in improving Amarilly to such an extent? I am afraid she will grow beyond her family."
"No; even you, pardon me, Miss King, don't know Amarilly as I do. She couldn't get beyond them in her heart, although she may in other directions. Her heart is in the right place, and it will bridge any distance that may lie between them."
John looked up attentively and approvingly.
"Amarilly has too much aptitude for learning not to be encouraged, and I shall do more for her before long. We have pursued a select course of reading this winter. She has read aloud while I painted. We began stumblingly with Alice in Wonderland and are now groping through mythology."
After refreshments had been served, Lily Rose went to her bedroom to don her travelling gown, and when the happy couple had driven away amid a shower of rice and shouts from the neighbors, John's carriage drew up.
"John," asked Colette, after a happy little moment in his arms, "did you read my note and did you see what the date was?"
"Colette, surely it was the dearest love-letter a man ever received. IfI could have had it all these dreary months!"
"Do you wonder that I feared its falling into strange hands?"
"Tell me its history, Colette. How you recovered it, and why you thought it was in the surplice in the first place?"
"I wrote it the day after you asked me—you know—"
There was another happy disappearance and silence before she resumed:
"I was sentimental enough to want to deliver it in an unusual way. I took it to Mrs. Jenkins's house the day your surplice was to be returned to you, and I slipped it inside the pocket. I wanted you to find it there on Sunday morning. I didn't know what to think when you looked at me so oddly that Sunday—yes, I know now that you were wondering at my silence. And when we came home in the fall and I learned from Amarilly that strangers might be reading and laughing at my ardent love-letter, which must have passed through many and alien hands, I was so horrified I couldn't act rational or natural. I was—yes, I will 'fess up, John,— I was unreasonable, as you said and—No, John! wait until I finish before you—"
"You want to know how and where it was found? It seems at the same time your surplice was laundered, a lace waist of mine was at their house. I didn't care for a 'fumigated waist' so, like you, I made Amarilly a present perforce. She laid it away in its wrappings to keep until her wedding day. Out of the goodness of her generous little heart she loaned it to Lily Rose and yesterday, when they were trying it on, Amarilly found my note in the sleeve. Mrs. Jenkins was appealed to and remembered that when the things were ready to be sent home, she found the note on the floor, and supposing it had fallen from the waist slipped it inside and forgot all about it. I decided that it should be delivered in the manner originally planned."
"But, Colette," he asked wistfully, a few moments later, "if you had never found it would you have kept me always in suspense and never have given me an answer? I began to hope, that night I called, that you were relenting."
"I was, John. Amarilly had been telling me of the Boarder's love for Lily Rose, and it made me lonely for you, and I determined in any event to give you your answer—this answer—to-night. And so I did, and—I think that is all, John."
"Not all, Colette."
The dairy business continued to prove profitable to Gus, the cow remaining contented, loving and giving. One night, however, there came the inevitable reaction, and the gentle creature in the cow-shed felt the same stifling she had rebelled against on the night of the stampede when she had made her wild dash for liberty. Moved by these recollections, the sedate, orderly cow became imbued with a feeling of unrest, and demolishing the frail door was once more at large. In a frenzy of freedom she dashed about the yard. Her progress was somewhat impeded by contact with the surplice which, pinned to the clothes-line, was flapping in the breezes. Maddened by this obstruction which hung, veil-like, over her bovine lineaments, she gave a twist of her Texas horns, a tug, and the surplice was released, but from the line only; it twined itself like a white wraith about the horns.
Then the sportive animal frisked over the low back fence and across the hill, occasionally stepping on a released end of the surplice and angrily tearing her way through the garment. She made her road to the railroad track. That sight, awakening bitter memories of a packed cattle-car, caused her to slacken her Mazeppa-like speed. While she paused, the night express backed onto the side track to await the coming of the eastbound train. The cow, still in meditation, was silhouetted in the light of a harvest moon.
"This 'ere," a home-bound cattleman was saying to a friend on the platform, "is nigh onto whar we dropped a cow. I swar if thar ain't that blasted cow now, what? Know her from hoof to horn, though what kind of a Christmas tree she's got on fer a bunnit, gits me! Ki, yi! Ki, yi!"
At the sound of the shrill, weird cry, the animal stood at bay. Again came the well-known strident halloo. A maelstrom of memories was awakened by the call. Instinctively obeying the old summons she started toward the train, when from over the hill behind her she heard another command.
"Co, boss! Co, boss!"
The childish anxious treble rose in an imploring wail.
The cow paused irresolute, hesitating between the lure of the old life on the plains and the recent domestic existence.
"Co, boss!"
There was a note of entreaty, of affection, in the cry.
After all, domesticity was her birthright. With an answering low of encouragement the black cow turned and trotted amiably back to meet the little dairyman.
"Well, I'll be jiggered," said the cattleman, as the train pulled out. "I'd a swore it was old Jetblack. Maybe 'twas. She was only a milker anyway, and I guess she's found a home somewhere."
Gus with arm lovingly about the cow's neck walked home.
"Bossy," he said in gently reproaching tones, "how could you give me such a skeer? I thought I'd lost you, and I'd hev sure missed you—you, yerself—more'n I would the money your milk brings us."
Then for the first time, the lad's eyes noted the decorated horns.
"What in thunder—"
He began to unwind the ribbons of white cloth, the stringed remnants of the surplice.
"Gracious Peter! It's the surplus! What will Amarilly say—and Lily Rose? It's only fit fer carpet rags now. Well, if this ain't the end of the surplus after all it has went through! I wonder what bossy wanted of it? Thought jest cause she was a cow, she must be a cow ketcher, I suppose."
Great was the joy of the Jenkinses at the restoration of the cow, but there was grievous lament from Amarilly for the fate of the precious garment.
"It was our friend—our friend in need!" she mourned.
"I'm so glad we hev a picter of it," said Lily Rose, gazing fondly at the photograph of the Boarder in the saintly robes.
"I'll go and tell Miss King," said Amarilly the next morning. "She said she felt that the surplice would come to some tragic end."
"It was a fitting fate for so mysterious a garment," commented Colette. "You couldn't expect any ordinary, common-place ending for the surplice. After officiating at funerals, weddings, shop-windows, theatres, pawnshops, and bishops' dwellings, it could never have simply worn out, or died of old age."
"I don't see," meditated Amarilly, "what possessed the cow. She's been so gentle always, and then to fly to pieces that way, and riddle the surplice to bits! It was lucky there was nothing else on the line."
"It's very simple," said Colette. "I suppose she wanted to go to the train. Maybe she expected to meet a friend. And as nearly everyone else had worn the surplice on special occasions, she thought she could do the same; only, you see, never having been to church she didn't quite know how to put it on, and I suppose got mad at it because it didn't fit her and gave vent to her anger by trampling on it."
Amarilly's doleful little face showed no appreciation of this conceit.
"Don't look so glum, Amarilly. I have something to show you that will please you."
She opened a desk and took a thick, white square envelope from it, and handed it to the little girl.
Wonderingly Amarilly opened it and took out a folded, engraved sheet of thick paper. She read eagerly, and two little spots of pink came into her cheeks.
"Oh, oh!" she cried, looking up with shining eyes, which in another moment glistened through tears.
"Why, Amarilly, aren't you glad that I am going to be—"
"Mrs. St. John?" smiled Amarilly. "I think it's beautiful. And," anxiously, "you will surely be good to—him?"
"Yes," replied Colette softly "I will be good—very good—to St. John.Don't fear, Amarilly."
A card had fallen from the envelope. Amarilly picked it up and read:
"To be presented at the church."
"What's that?" she asked curiously.
"You have to show that at the church door. If you didn't have it, you couldn't get in to see us married. It's the same as a ticket to a theatre. And St. John doesn't like it; but if we didn't have them there would be a mob of curious people who don't know us. I shall give all of you tickets to come to the church, the Boarder and Lily Rose, too."
"Oh," cried Amarilly, "that will be lovely, and we shall all come."
"Of course you will all come. Your friend, the bishop, is to marry us, and Bud is going to sing a solo. The choirmaster told me his voice was developing wonderfully."
"I must go home and tell them all about it," said Amarilly excitedly.
"Wait! There's more to hear. I am going to invite you to the reception here at the house, and I am going to have a lovely white dress made for you to wear, and you shall have white silk stockings and slippers and white gloves."
"Oh!" gasped Amarilly, shutting her eyes. "I can't believe it."
The next morning at the studio she announced the wonderful news toDerry.
"I just received an invitation, myself," he replied. "We will go together, Amarilly. I'll send you flowers and call for you with a taxicab."
"Things must stop happening to me," said Amarilly solemnly. "I can't stand much more."
Derry laughed.
"When things once begin to happen, Amarilly, they never stop. You are to go from here now every day after luncheon to this address," handing her a card.
"'Miss Varley,'" Amarilly read. "'1227, Winter Street.' Will she have work for me, too?"
"Yes; work in schoolbooks. She takes a few private pupils, and I have engaged her to teach you. I really think you should have instruction in other branches than English and art and arithmetic."
Amarilly turned pale but said nothing for a moment. Then she held out her hand.
"I will study hard—to pay you," she said simply.
"And can you stand another piece of exciting news, Amarilly? Sunset, which I have dawdled over for so long, drew first prize."
"Oh, Mr. Derry, that is best of all!"
"And do you know what I am going to give Mrs. St. John for a wedding present from you and me? The picture of The Little Scrub-girl."
Another spring found the members of the Jenkins Syndicate still banking regularly and flourishing in their various walks in life. The Boarder had received a "raise"; Lily Rose was spending her leisure time in fashioning tiny garments which she told Cory were for a doll baby; Iry was wearing his first trousers cut over from a pair discarded by Bud; and Amarilly was acquiring book lore with an ease and rapidity which delighted Miss Varley and Derry. Through the medium of Mr. Vedder the attention of the manager of a high class vaudeville had been drawn to Bud, and he was now singing every night with a salary that made the neighbors declare that "them Jenkinses was getting to be reg'ler Rockyfellers."
Amarilly coming home one Monday evening found the family grouped about the long table listening with bulging eyes and hectic cheeks to the Boarder, who had before him a sheet of figures. Amarilly was at once alert, although somewhat resentful of this encroachment upon her particular province.
"Oh, come and hear, Amarilly!" "Amarilly, we've bought a farm!""Amarilly, we air agoin' to live in the country!"
"Let me explain," said the Boarder, usually slow and easy going, but now alert and enthusiastic of mien and speech. "We've got a chance, Amarilly, to sell this place and make quite a profit. That new factory that's agoin' up acrost the alley has sent real estate scootin'. With what we git fer it, we kin make a big payment on a farm. I took a run down yesterday to look at one we kin git cheap, cause the folks on it hez gotter go west fer the man's health. What we hev all saved up sence we bought the place will keep us agoin' till we git in our fust summer crops."
"Tell her about the house," prompted Mrs. Jenkins, her quick, maternal eye noting the bewilderment and disapproval in her daughter's expressive eyes.
"It's all green meaders and orcherds and lanes," said the Boarder with the volubility of one repeating an oft-told and well-loved tale, while the young Jenkinses with the rapt, intense gaze of moving picture beholders sat in pleased expectancy, "and the house sets on a little rise of ground. It's a white house with a big chimbley and two stoops, and thar's a big barn with two white hosses in it, and a cow and an animal in the paster lot. A big pen of pigs, fifty hens in the henhouse, and a few sheep. Thar's a piece of woods and the river."
"I'm a little fearful of the river on Iry's account," said Mrs. Jenkins, "but we kin spank him up good as soon as we git thar, and then he'll understand he's to keep away."
"We kin git a good dog to keep track of Iry and the cattle," said the Boarder, and then he paused expectantly to listen to Amarilly's approbation. But she was strangely silent.
"It will be a fust class investment," he continued sagely.
"Why will it? We don't know anything about farming," objected Amarilly."We'll have to hire someone to run it."
"I was brought up on a farm," replied the Boarder. "Thar ain't a thing I don't know about farm work."
"I was raised on a farm, too," said Mrs. Jenkins. "I can make good butter and I know all about raisin' chickens. I'll get some young turkeys and have them ready to sell for Thanksgiving, and I'll set out strawberries and celery plants."
"I kin larn, and I'll work hard and do just what he tells me to," saidFlamingus, motioning toward the Boarder.
"I kin have my dairy all right, all right," said Gus joyfully. "I'll have a hull herd of cattle soon."
"I shall go in heavy on hens," said Milt importantly. "The grocer give me a book about raising them. There's money in hens."
"I choose to take keer of the sheep," cried Bobby.
"I'll help ma do the work in the house and the garden," volunteeredCory.
"And I'm strong enough to work outdoors now," said Lily Rose. "I shall help with the garden and with the housework."
"We'll all pitch in and work," said Flamingus authoritatively, "and we're all partners and we won't hire no help. It will be clear profit."
"Ain't it lovely, Amarilly?" asked the mother, apprehensive lest the little leader might blackball the project.
"We're all doing so well here, why change? Why not let well enough alone?" she asked.
There was a general and surprised protest at this statement. It was something new for Amarilly to be a kill-joy.
"Do you like to live in this alley when we kin hev all outdoors and git a chanst to be somebody?" demanded Flamingus, who was rapidly usurping his sister's place as head of the house.
"And think of the money we'll make!" reminded Milton.
"And the milk and butter and cream and good things to eat without buying them!" exclaimed Gus.
"And huntin' f'r eggs and swimmin' in the river and skatin' and gettin' hickory nuts and all the apples you kin eat," persuaded Bobby, who had evidently been listening to the Boarder's fancies of farm life.
"Thar's a school close by, and all the chillern kin go," said the mother anxiously. "Mebby you kin git to teach it after a while, Amarilly."
"Oh, Amarilly!" cried Lily Rose ecstatically, "to think of all the trees, and all the sky, and all the green grass and all the birds—oh, Amarilly!"
Words failed Lily Rose, but she sighed a far-seeing blissful sigh of exquisite happiness at her horoscope. The Boarder looked at her, his heart eloquent in his eyes, but he said nothing.
"Amarilly," cried Cory, "we kin hev real flowers fer nuthin' and pies and ice-cream, and we kin cuddle little chicks like ma told me, and make daisy chains, and hev picnics in the woods. Oh—"
Words also proved inadequate to Co's anticipations.
"Amawilly, we kin play wiv little lambs," lisped Iry.
"Bud, you haven't made your speech, yet," said Amarilly, wistfully, realizing that the majority was against her.
"Bud won't go till fall," said Mrs. Jenkins.
"Till fall!" cried Amarilly faintly. "Why, when are we going?"
"Next week," answered the Boarder jubilantly. "The folks want to leave right away, and we must get busy plantin'. I went to Vedder's friend, the real estate man, this mornin' as soon as I got back, and he says it's a real bargain."
"But why isn't Bud going?"
"This morning," informed Mrs. Jenkins proudly, "Bud had an offer. As soon as the theatre shuts down, Mr. Vedder is going to take Bud to a big resort and manage him for the season. He'll git lots of money. I wouldn't let Bud go off with no one else, but Mr. Vedder is so nice, and he says when Bud goes to the country in the fall he kin come into the city Saturday nights on the Interurban and sing in the choir Sundays and come back Monday. He kin stay with him, Mr. Vedder says. And the country air and the fresh milk and eggs, will make a diff'rent boy of him. It's what the doctor says he'd orter hev."
"Then, we'll go, of course," declared Amarilly resolutely.
"And, Amarilly," said the Boarder gravely, "your ma ain't said why she wanted to go, but think of the diff'rence it will make in her life. To be sure, she will have to work hard, but with you, Lily Rose, and Co to help her, it won't be so hard, and it'll be higher class work than slushing around in tubs and water, and she'll hev good feedin' and good air, and we'll all feel like we was folks and our own bosses."
"Ma, I was selfish!" cried Amarilly remorsefully. "I'll work like a hired man!"
Amarilly thereupon bravely assumed a cheerful mien and looked over the Boarder's figures, listening with apparently great enthusiasm to the plans and projects. But when she was upstairs in her own little bed and each and every other Jenkins was wrapt in happy slumber, she turned her face to the wall, and wept long, silently, and miserably. Far-away fields and pastures did not look alluring to this little daughter of the city who put bricks and mortar and lighted streets above trees and meadows, for Amarilly was entirely metropolitan; sky-scrapers were her birthright, and she loved every inch of her city.
"But it's best for them," she acknowledged.
A little pang came with the realization that they who had been so dependent upon her guardianship for guidance were entirely competent to act without her.
"It's Flam. He's growed up!" she sobbed, correctness of speech slipping from her in her grief. "And he don't know near so much as I do, only he's a man—or going to be—so what he says goes."
And with this bitter but inevitable recognition of the things that are,Amarilly sobbed herself to sleep.
The next morning Amarilly served Derry's breakfast in heavy-hearted silence, replying in low-voiced monosyllables to his gay, conversational advances. She performed her household duties about the studio listlessly though with conscientious thoroughness. When it came time to prepare luncheon, Derry called her into the studio.
"Come here to the light, where I can see you best, Amarilly."
Reluctantly she came.
He turned his searching, artist's eyes upon her unsparingly, noting the violet shadows under the white-lidded eyes, and the hard, almost tragic lines in the drooping of her mobile mouth. She bore his gaze unflinchingly, with indrawn breath and clenched hands.
"What is it, Amarilly?" he asked gently. "You will tell me,nicht wahr?"
These two last words were in deference to her new study of German.
At the genuine sympathy in his voice, Amarilly's composure gave way and there was a rush of tears.
He led her to a divan and sat beside her.
"Yes, of course you will tell me, Amarilly. I knew there was an emotional side to my practical, little maid, and I noticed at breakfast that there was something wrong."
"Yes," she replied, with an effort, wiping away the rising tears, "I will tell you, but no one else. If I told Mr. Vedder, he would not understand; he would say I must do what was sensible. If I told Mr. St. John, he would be shocked, and tell me that duty was hard, and that was why it must be done,—to strengthen. Mrs. St. John would laugh, and say: 'Oh, what a foolish Amarilly!'"
"And what will I say, Amarilly?" he asked interestedly.
"You! Oh, you will understand what I feel, and you will be sorry."
"Then spin away, Amarilly. You'll have my sympathy and help in everything that makes you feel bad, whether it's right or wrong."
"Oh, Mr. Derry, we are all going away—way off to the country—to live on a farm!"
"Amarilly, you little city brat! You'd be a misfit on a farm. Tell me what has sent the Jenkins family into the open."
Faithfully Amarilly enumerated the pros and cons of the agricultural venture. When she had concluded her narrative, Derry, to her surprise and sorrow, looked positively jubilant.
"And you don't want to live in the country, eh, Amarilly?"
"No, Mr. Derry," she protested. "I don't. I have never been there, but I know the woods and the fields and—all that—must be beautiful—in patches—but I couldn't bear it all the time—not to see all the bright and white lights at night and the hurry, and the people, and the theatres. No! I'd rather be the poorest little speck here than to own and live on the biggest farm in the world."
He laughed delightedly.
"Oh, Amarilly, you little gamin! You have the right idea, though. We don't want anything, however perfect it may be, all the time. We want it just 'in patches'—as you say. You'll love the country with your whole heart and soul when you come to see it if you know that you can leave it. But this is a big change in your affairs, and we must talk it over. We'll go to Carter's again for luncheon. Take off your apron and cap. You won't have to fix your hair this time. It's even more beautiful than it was then. Your frock, if it is cheap and plain, is artistic in cut and color."
Amarilly felt cheered in spite of herself at his exuberant manner, but burst into tears when on leaving the studio he casually remarked:
"So this is almost the last of your work here! I can never hope to get such another housekeeper as you. I shall have to eat out again."
At sight of her grief he took hold of her arm almost roughly.
"Amarilly, you little goose, do you suppose I am going to let you be exiled to a farm and lapse into the vernacular of the Boarder? Now, buck up and trust to the judgment and affection of your twin brother."
Amarilly, wondering but hopeful, "bucked up," and they walked in silence to Carter's, where Derry ordered a private dining-room and luncheon. Then:
"Now, listen my child, and you shall hear, not of the midnight ride of Paul Revere, but of the sad story of the life of your twin brother. My parents died when I was too young to grieve for them. They are only a faint memory. I had a cold-blooded, sensible guardian who put me into a boys' school, from which I went to college, and then for a year in Paris. He didn't let me know the amount of my inheritance. Consequently I really worked and worked hard at the only thing I cared for and formed no extravagant tastes. Neither was I courted and flattered by parasites.
"On my return from Paris, a year before I met you, I came into my mother's fortune, and recently I have received the one left me by my father. Having been brought up to live a comparatively simple life, in the belief that I would be dependent on my own exertions, I have more money than I know what to do with as yet. I have no one, not even a fifth cousin, to be interested in. I have any number of acquaintances, but no really intimate friends, so I have no one to help me spend and enjoy my money.
"There was something about you, Amarilly, that appealed to me that first day you came up to the studio. It couldn't have been your looks, for aside from your hair, your expressive eyes, and your hands; you are quite ordinary looking; but something about you amused me, then interested me, and, now fascinates me. I have thought about it a good deal, and have come to the conclusion that it is your direct naturalness and earnestness. I have really come to feel as if you were a sort of a younger sister of mine. I have done a very little for you in the way of education, and I have intended to do more. The reason I have been slow about it was—for reasons. I have discussed your future with the Merediths a great many times.
"What I wished to do was to put you in the best girls' school I could find and when you were finished there, to send you abroad, and give you the same advantages that a sister of mine would have. But as I say, I hesitated. It didn't seem exactly wise to separate you from your family, surround you with different environments and then have you come home to—the alley. I know your loyal little heart would never waver in its affection for them, but such a decided change would not be wise.
"Now, you see, this farm business simplifies things wonderfully. With the thrift and industry of your brothers and the Boarder I can easily see the farm is going to be a prosperous undertaking, and by the time you are finished—say five years—for Miss Varley tells me you are quite up with the girls of your age in your studies, they will have a substantial country home which you will enjoy immensely between times. You will find that a country home, however humble, is not sordid like an obscure home in the city. So next week, Amarilly, or as soon as Mrs. Meredith can fit you out properly, you will be packed off to an ultra- smart school. There will be one term this year, but I think you should remain through the summer vacation and have private tutoring."
The waiter entered with the first course. When he had again gone out, Amarilly looked up at Derry, her eyes full of a yearning that touched him.
"It would be lovely, Mr. Derry. Too lovely to happen, you know."
"There, Amarilly," he said with a combination of frown and smile, "there it is again—your contradiction of eyes and mouth—the one of a gazelle; the other, of a mule. I'll answer your objections before you make them, for it is determined that you are to go."
The look he had ascribed to Amarilly's mouth came into the forward thrust of his chin.
"First, you think you are too proud and independent to accept. From your viewpoint it seems a good deal to do. From mine, proved by my bank account, it is an absurdly small thing to do, but if you are truly grateful for what you are pleased to think I have done for you, you will let me do this, because you feel sorry for me that I am so alone in the world. And St. John, himself, would tell you it was your duty to make the most of your talents and opportunities. You can also do a little charity work in keeping me straight, for you see, Amarilly, I am going to Paris for two years to study, and I will have an incentive to work and not play too hard if I know I have a little sister over here in school who would be sorry if her brother went wrong and didn't get to be a great artist. So for your sake, and for my sake—"
"But there's ma's sake," she said wistfully. "The Boarder says woman's work on the farm is hard."
"There's the Boarderess and Co—"
"Lily Rose is not strong and doesn't know much about farm work, and Co's only a kid."
"Well, I hadn't finished. You have an interest in the farm as one of the syndicate, and you have some money saved."
"Yes," admitted Amarilly bewildered, not following his train of thought.
"Well, you won't need that now, and it can go towards a woman to help,— a hired girl in country vernacular—during the busy seasons. And you can go home summers. Every week you are to write me a long letter and tell me about yourself and them."
Amarilly was gazing into space, and in silence he watched the odd, little signs of conflict. It was the same sort of a struggle, only harder and more prolonged, that she had passed through two years before at the theatre when her untutored conscience bade her relinquish her seat. Suddenly her countenance became illumined.
"I am going to do it, Mr. Derry! I am going to let you send me to school, and abroad and wherever you think best."