"These, ladies," she said, "as you will have guessed, are for the winter wear of our parish poor. Though you are not all so fortunate as to belong to our church, still I feel there is not one of you here but will be more than glad to help forward so blessed a charity as clothing the naked" (Mrs. Upjohn, in view of the nature of the garments, spoke even more literally than she intended), "who none the less need your ministrations whether you worship with us or apart. Maria, my child, Bell, Phebe, Mattie, will you kindly distribute the work among the ladies? There is another basket ready outside if the supply gives out. Dick, I would like you to carry around the thimbles. Jake, here are the needles and the spools and the scissors. If I may be permitted, ladies, I would suggest that we should all begin with the button-holes."
Nothing but the thought of the recompense in the coming supper could have sustained Mrs. Upjohn's doomed guests in the prospect before them. Extracts from Baroness Bunsen, and buttonholes in canton-flannel charity nightgowns, and a hot July afternoon, made a sum of misery that was almost too great a tax upon even Joppian amiability.
"I say it's a shame!" cried Bell Masters, in unconcealed wrath. "The idea of springing such a trap on us! Let Mrs. Upjohn's parish sew for its own poor,Iwon't crease my fresh dress holding that great, thick lump on my lap all the afternoon. I'm not going to be swindled into helping in this fashion."
"Oh, yes you are," said Mr. Halloway, bubbling over with suppressed merriment at the intense fun of it all. "There isn't one of you here who will refuse. I never knew any thing so delightful and novel in my whole life. This condensed combination, in one afternoon party of charity, literature, and indigestion is masterly. Miss Mudge, here is a seat for you right by Miss Masters. Miss Phebe, let me find you a chair."
And in a few moments, simply, it seemed, by the natural law of gravitation, without any engineering whatever, Mrs. Upjohn's guests had resolved themselves into two distinct parties, the elders all in the drawing-room, the younger ones in the parlor across the hall, too far off from Mr. Webb for their gay whispering to disturb that worthy as he boldly plunged headlong at his work, to do or die written on every feature of his thin, long face.
"So this is what the party turned out, Miss Masters, is it?" saidMoulton, pulling his moustache as he stood up beside her. "A first-classDorcas society."
"Charity covereth a multitude of sins," said Bell, crossly, giving a vindictive snap with her scissors, "but it won't begin to cover the enormity of Mrs. Upjohn's transgressions on this occasion. You gentlemen must be very devoted to atone to us for the button-holes. There's Mr. De Forest standing in the other room looking as if he wished he were dead. Go and bring him here."
Thus summoned, Mr. De Forest came leisurely enough, looking, if possible, a little more languid and blasé than he did in the morning. Bell instantly made a place for him on the sofa by her side.
"Thanks, I would rather stand. I can take it all in better."
"Well?" asked Bell, after a pause, looking saucily up at him. "Was I right this morning? Didn't we look prettier then?"
"Infinitely."
Bell colored rather angrily, and Phebe laughed outright. Mr. De Forest favored her with a stare, chewed the end of his side-whiskers reflectively a moment, then deliberately walked over to her. "Miss Lane, I believe."
Phebe bowed, but somewhat stiffly.
"Excuse me," continued De Forest, imperturbably. "There doesn't seem to be any one to introduce us, and we know perfectly well who we each are, you know, and I wanted to ask about a mutual friend of ours,—Miss Vernor."
Phebe brightened and softened instantly. "Oh!" she exclaimed, dropping her work, "you know her? you have seen her? lately?"
"I know her, yes, quite well. I saw her some weeks since. I understood then that there was a little talk of her coming up here this summer. One of those fearful children, Olly, or Hal, or some one of the superfluous young ones, was a little off condition,—not very well, you know,—and the doctor said he mustn't go with the rest to the sea-shore, and she mentioned bringing him up here to recruit. I heard her mention your name, too, and didn't know but you might have heard something of it."
"I have, I have!" cried Phebe, her face all aglow, "Sheiscoming,—she and Olly. She is going to stay with me. I wrote and begged her to."
"Ah, that will be very pleasant for you. Do you expect her soon?"
"To-morrow."
"Ah!" Mr. De Forest ruminated silently a moment. "She'll be bored to death up here, won't she?" he asked, presently.
"Then she can go home again," replied Phebe, shortly.
"True, true," said her companion, thoughtfully. "I forgot that. And she probably will. It would be like her to go if it bored her."
"Only there's Olly," said Phebe, grimly, the light fading out of her face a little. "She'll have to stay for him."
"Oh, no. She can put him to board somewhere and leave him. Miss Vernor doesn't concern herself overmuch with the young ones. They are an awful nuisance to her."
"She does every thing for them. You can't know her," said Phebe, indignantly. "Did you say you knew her well, Mr. De Forest?"
"I don't remember just what I said, Miss Lane, but it would have been the truth if I did, and I generally speak the truth when it's equally convenient. Yes, I do know Miss Vernorverywell, and I have worsted her in a great many arguments,—you know her argumentative turn, perhaps? If you will allow me, I will do myself the honor of calling upon her when she comes,—and upon yourself, if I may have the pleasure."
"Not if you come with the intention of putting Gerald out of conceit withJoppa. I want her to stay a long, long time."
"Don't be afraid, Miss Lane. I'll do my best to help keep her here, so long, at least, as I stay myself. 'Aprés celà le déluge.'"
"I don't speak French."
"Ah? No? I regret it. You might have assisted me in my genders. I am never altogether sure of them."
"Mr. De Forest," called Bell, imperatively, from the other side of the room, displeased at the defalcation of her knight, "I want to introduce you to Miss Mudge."
Miss Mudge tried to make Bell understand by frantic pantomime that she hadn't meant just now,—any time would do,—but Bell chose it should be just now; and slightly lifting his eyebrows, Mr. De Forest took his handsome person slowly back to Bell to make an almost impertinently indifferent bow to the new claimant upon him.
Mr. Halloway had been standing near Phebe, too near not to overhear the conversation, and he turned to her now quickly.
"So this accounts for your beaming face," he said in a low tone, as he took a seat just back of her in the window niche. "The mysterious Geraldisreally coming, then. I wondered what had happened as soon as I saw you. Why did you not tell me?"
"I was only waiting till I had the chance," she answered, all the brightness coming back into her bonny face as she smiled up at him.
"Do you think I could keep any thing so nice from you for long? It seems to make every thing nicer when you know it too. She is coming to-morrow,—only think,—to-morrow,—just twenty-one hours more now. I can hardly wait!"
"It will be a great happiness to her, surely, to see you again," said Denham.
"That's what she writes in her letter. At least she says: 'I shall be glad to see you again, Phebe, my dear' Isn't that nice? 'Phebe, my dear,' she says. That is a great deal for Gerald to say."
"Is it? But I believe some young ladies are less effusive with their pens than with their tongues."
"It isn't Gerald's nature ever to be effusive. But oh, I'm so glad she's coming! I only got her letter last night. See, doesn't she write a nice hand?" And cautiously, lest any one else should see too, Phebe slipped an envelope into Denham's hand. He bent back behind the lace curtains to inspect it.
"Do you generally carry about your letters in your pocket, Miss Phebe?"
"No, only Gerald's. I love so always to have something of hers near me.Isn't it a nice hand?"
Halloway looked silently at the upright, angular, large script. "It's legible, certainly."
"But you don't like it?"
"Miss Phebe, I am torn between conflicting truth and politeness. It is like a man's hand, if I must say something."
"And so are her letters like a man's. Read it and see. Oh, she wouldn't mind! There is nothing in it, and yet somehow it seems just like Gerald. Do read it. Oh, I want you to. Please, please do."
And led half by curiosity, half by the eagerness in Phebe's pretty face, Denham opened the letter and read, Phebe glancing over it with him as if she couldn't bear to lose sight of it an instant.
"DEAR PHEBE," so ran the letter, "your favor of 9th inst. rec. I had no idea of intruding ourselves upon you when I asked you to look up rooms, but as you seem really to want us"—("seem!" whispered Phebe, putting her finger on the word with a pout)—"I can only say we shall be very glad to come to you. You may look for Olly and myself Friday, July 15th, by the P.M. train. Olly isn't really ill, only run down. He is as horrid a little bear as ever. All are well, and started last week for Narragansett Pier. I shall rejoice to get away from the art school and guilds, which keep on even in this intemperate weather, and I shall be glad to see you again, Phebe, my dear," (Phebe looked up triumphantly in Denham's face as she reached the words.) "Remember me to Mrs. Lane and Miss—, I can't think of her name,—Aunt Lydia, I mean.
"Sincerely yours
"P.S.—Olly only drinks milk."
Phebe took back the letter and folded it up. "Well?" she said.
"Well?" said Denham, looking at her and smiling.
"It's just like her," declared Phebe. "It's so downright and to the point. Gerald never wastes words."
"You said it was like a man's letter," said Denham. "But I must beg leave to differ with you there. I don't think it is at all such a letter asIwould have written you, for instance."
"Of course not. It wouldn't be proper for you to say 'Phebe, my dear,' asGerald does. Yours would have to be a very dignified, pastoral letter."
"Yes, addressed to 'My Lamb,' which you couldn't object to in a pastoral letter of course, and which sounds nearly as affectionate, blaming you for having caused me to lose the valuable information I might have gained about the Baroness Bunsen. I never got much farther than her birth in that famous history. I see poor Miss Delano casting longing glances in here. I'll smuggle her in among you young people."
He departed on his errand of mercy, and soon had the timid little old maid in the more congenial atmosphere of the parlor, where little by little, though in a very stealthy and underhand way, the talk grew more general, and the restraint slackened more and more, until sewing and reading were both forgotten and the fun became fast and furious, culminating in the sudden appearance of Jake Dexter dressed up as an ancient and altogether unlovely old woman, whom Dick Hardcastle presented in a stage whisper as "Baroness Bunsen in the closing chapter," and who forthwith proceeded to act out in dumb show the various events of that admirable woman's life, as judiciously and sonorously touched upon by Mr. Webb in the drawing-room opposite. Jake was a born actor, and having "done up" the Baroness, he proceeded to "do up" several other noted historical characters, not omitting a few less celebrated contemporaries of his own, each representation better and truer to life than the last; and winding up with snatching away their work from the young ladies' not unwilling hands, and piling it in heaps on the floor around him, he sat himself in the middle with an armful hugged close and an air of comically mingled resignation and opulence, and announced himself as "a photo from life of ye destitute poor of Joppa."
Mrs. Upjohn may have had suspicions that all was not going on precisely as she had planned in that other half of her domains which she had surrendered to Maria's feeble guardianship, but it certainly could not be laid to her blame if young people would amuse themselves even at her house. If they wilfully persisted in neglecting the means of grace she had conscientiously provided for them, so much the worse for them, not for her; and if Mr. Upjohn found the contemplation of Mrs. Bruce's profile, and her occasional smiles at him as she bent over her ugly work, not sufficient of an indemnity for his enforced silence, and chose to sneak over to the young people's side and enjoy himself too, as an inopportune and hearty guffaw from thence testified just at the wrong moment, when Mr. Webb had reached the culminating point of the Baroness' death, and was drawing tears from the ladies' eyes by the irresistible pathos of his voice,—why, Mrs. Upjohn owned in her heart that it was only what might be expected of him, and that she couldn't help that either.
So at last the reading came to an end. Everybody said it had been unprecedentedly delightful, and they should never forget that dear Baroness so long as they lived, and they thought Mrs. Upjohn herself might have sat for the original of the biography, so identical were her virtues with those of the departed saint, and so exactly did she resemble her in every particular except just in the outward circumstances of her life. And Mrs. Upjohn modestly entreated them to desist drawing so unworthy a comparison, and said it was an example of a life they should each and all do well to imitate so far as in them lay, and then she went about collecting the nightgowns, and (oh, cruellest of all!) inspecting the button-holes. It was an excellent day's work, she reported, fanning herself vigorously, and Miss Brooks, as champion button-hole-maker, having made three more than any one else, should have the post of honor and be taken in to supper by Mr. Upjohn, who was routed out from the parlor for the purpose, very red in the face, and still convulsed with laughter. Mrs. Bruce may have suspected this to be designed as a neat way of cutting her out, but there is no knowing to what lengths a flippant widow's imagination will not go, and any way Mr. Upjohn quite atoned afterward for any temporary neglect, by paying her the most assiduous attentions right in the face of his wife, who apparently did not care a straw, and only thought her husband a little more foolish than usual. Did not everybody know that it was only Mr. Upjohn's way, and that it did not mean any thing?
And so the doors were thrown open, supper was announced, and Joppa, as it swarmed around the loaded tables, felt that its hour of merited reward was come; and Mr. Hardcastle, when at last he could eat and drink no more, stood up and pronounced, in the name of the united assembly, that Mrs. Upjohn's entertainment had been a very, very great success, as all that dear Mrs. Upjohn undertook always was sure to be, and particularly those devilled crabs were unapproachable for perfection. Nobody could make him believe that even the Baroness Bunsen with all her learning could ever have spiced them better.
Several days later, as Mr. Halloway was leaving the rectory one afternoon, he saw Phebe standing in her door-way, and crossed to speak to her.
"Alone?" he asked, smiling. "I supposed that now you would never be without a shadow."
"Gerald is up-stairs dressing. She is going to ride with Mr. De Forest. He has been to see her twice already, and you have not called yet." There was the faintest possible reproach in her voice and in her eyes.
"I have been really busy the last few days, Miss Phebe. You may know there is always some desperate reason when I am long absent. But here I am now. Shall I send in my card for Miss Vernor? Must I do it up in New York or Joppa style?"
Phebe laughed. "Never mind the card, Gerald will be down soon. It is nearly time, and she is always so punctual. What is it, Olly, dear?"
An ugly little boy, with a pale, pinched face and impish eyes, was pulling smartly at her dress.
"I say, Pheeb, can I have a cookie?"
"Does Gerald let you have cookies between meals, Olly?"
"Yes," answered Olly, unhesitatingly. "Always."
"What's that?" broke in an unexpected voice behind,—a clear, ringing, decided voice. "I will not have you tell such lies, Olly! Why will you do it!"
"I'll have the cookie anyhow," said Olly, starting on a run. "Pheeb saidI could, and this is Pheeb's house, and I will."
"And you won't," said the voice, sharply. There was a scuffle, a rush, the sound of a smart box on the ear, a sudden childish howl, and Olly fled back to Phebe and buried his face in her dress. Phebe folded her arms protectingly around him, and looked up appealingly at the tall, slender figure approaching.
"Oh, Gerald, must you?"
"Phebe, I can't have you spoil that boy so. I won't have him a liar and a gourmand; he's bad enough without that. Olly, stop bawling this moment."
"I won't," screamed Olly. "You hurt me, you did, and if I can't have a cookie I'll cry just as loud as ever I can; so there!"
"Then you'll cry in the house and not on the front steps. I won't have it. Come in immediately."
And holding up her habit with one hand, the young lady reached out with the other,—a very small and white but determined-looking little hand Denham noticed (from where he stood he could not see her face)—and wrenching the child by no means gently away from Phebe, she dragged him with her toward the parlor.
"I hate you! I hate you! I hate you!" cried Olly, vociferously, doing battle valiantly with hands and feet as he went. "I hate you every day worse than ever!"
"Hate me all you like," said Gerald, with utmost coolness and disdain. "I leave you perfectly free in that direction, but you shan't tell lies or disobey me. Now stay in there and be still."
And closing the door on the sobbing culprit, she came slowly back to Phebe, still scowling and pressing her lips firmly together as she drew on her gauntlets. "Little wretch!" she muttered.
"Gerald, please," said Phebe, flushing scarlet with mortification, "here is Mr. Halloway. I want to introduce him to you."
Gerald stopped abruptly and looked up. She had not seen him before. A fleet, faint color tinged her clear cheeks an instant, but there was no other sign of embarrassment or annoyance as her dark blue eyes met his with the singularly penetrating gaze with which they looked out on all the world. There was no denying it. With her clear-cut, aristocratic face, and her slim, straight figure, stately perhaps rather than graceful, and a trifle haughty in its unbending erectness, Gerald Vernor was very, very handsome.
"I am happy to meet you at last, Miss Vernor," said Denham, with his pleasant smile. "But you are no stranger to me, I assure you. Miss Phebe made us all friends of yours long since."
Gerald's brows contracted. "Phebe is very kind," she said, with quite the opposite from gratitude in her voice, "but I hate to be talked about beforehand. One starts on a false basis from the first. Besides, it gives every one else the advantage over one."
"To be sure," replied Denham, "we cannot expect you to know us as well from hearsay. It would be too much to hope that Miss Phebe should have had as much to say for any of the rest of us." He turned laughingly to Phebe as he spoke, and she looked at him with eyes full of implicit faith.
"No," she said, simply; "I haven't told Gerald any thing about you, only your name. She will find it all out for herself so much better than I can tell her."
"I am afraid I am not very good at finding people out," remarked Gerald, bluntly, "unless I am extraordinarily interested in them—"
"Which I imagine you generally are not," interrupted Denham.
"True," she answered, smiling a little, "which I generally am not; I am content with a very superficial knowledge. The world is crowded so full, where could one stop who set out to know thoroughly all he met?"
"It is a bitter thought that you will never know more of me than just the color of my beard," said Denham, reflectively, "but if such is your habit I suppose I must resign myself to it. Now, I am exactly the reverse from you; I am always extraordinarily interested in everybody."
"Ah, because as a clergyman you must be."
"No; simply because it happens to be my nature. One has one's individual characteristics, you know, quite independently of one's profession."
"Yes, in other professions; but in yours—"
"But we are men first, Miss Vernor, afterward clergymen. Why may we not keep our distinct idiosyncrasies, even in our clerical uniform?"
Gerald slashed her dress gently with her riding whip. "It seems to me as if you should all be clergymen first and men afterward, fitting yourselves to the profession rather than the profession to you; and so by all confessedly following one pattern, you would be necessarily drawn into a greater similitude with each other than any other class of men. Ah, here is Mr. De Forest at last."
"At last?" repeated that gentleman as he joined the group, or rather paused just beyond it, surveying Gerald with a critical glance which seemed to take in accurately at one swift sweep every least detail of her dress. "My watch stands at the minute, Miss Vernor."
"And here come the horses," added Phebe.
"Not much to boast of," said De Forest, turning the severe criticism of his look upon the animals as the boy brought them up. "I wouldn't let you be seen in Central Park with them. However, they are the best Joppa can do for us. They are not very good-natured brutes either, but I believe you look to a horse's hoofs rather than his head."
"I do, decidedly," laughed Gerald, as De Forest raised her deftly to the saddle and arranged bridle and girths to her liking, turning to tighten his own before mounting, and kicking away a small dog that had run up to sniff at his heels.
"What did you bring along this ugly little beast of yours for, Jim? I abhor curs."
"Tain't none of mine, Mister," said the stable-boy, grinning. "It's one of them street dogs that ain't nobody's." And he in his turn gave a push to the puppy, while Gerald leaned down and hit at it lightly with her whip.
"Get away, my friend. There isn't room both for you and for us here," she said, turning her horse toward it playfully as the little creature slunk aside. In another instant her horse kicked violently, there was a single sharp yelp, and the dog lay motionless in the road.
"Hi!" exclaimed Jim, quite in accents of admiration, as he ran up and bent over the poor thing. "That was a good un! Right on the head! He won't trouble any other genelman again, I'm thinking."
"What!" cried Gerald, sharply. "You don't mean the dog is dead?"
"Don't I?" said the boy, moving a little aside so that she should see."That was a neat un and no mistake."
Gerald looked down with a cry of horror; then suddenly sprang from her horse and caught up the poor little limp animal in her arms.
"Take away the horse," she said to the boy, imperiously. "I shall not ride to-day."
"But, Miss Vernor!" expostulated De Forest, "for heaven's sake don't take it so to heart. It's unfortunate, of course, but no one is to blame. Do put the thing down. It's dead. You can't do any thing more for it."
"I know it," said Gerald. "I did all I could; I killed him. But you'll have to excuse me, Mr. De Forest, I can't ride."
De Forest caught her by the arm impatiently, as she turned from him. "What nonsense, Miss Vernor! Whatisthe good of playing tragedy queen over a dead dog? I'll have him buried in a silver coffin if you like and raise a memorial to his inestimable virtues, but in the name of all that is sensible, do get on the horse again and let us have our ride."
"Not to-day," replied Gerald. "I could not. It is impossible." She looked up at him, holding the little victim pressed close in her arms, utterly regardless of its rough and grimy coat. Her eyes were swimming with tears.
"As you decide, of course," said De Forest, sulkily, releasing her, and tossing his bridle to the boy. "Here you, Sim, or Tim, or Jim, or whatever you are, take away the horses, and as you value your tip, mind you don't have any more dogs around the next time I want you."
Gerald turned away without another word, gathering up her dress as she best could, and went into the house. Olly, who had witnessed the whole proceeding enchantedly from the window, ran to meet her. "I say, let's see him. My, ain't he dirty! Is he dead? just as dead as he can be?"
"Yes," answered his sister, very gently; "the poor thing is quite dead. Come and help me bury him decently somewhere. No, Phebe, stay there. I wish it. Don't let us have any more fuss about it, please."
De Forest lifted his hat and turned to leave as Gerald disappeared. "Pray don't let me detain you from the interesting ceremony, Miss Lane," he said, with his most cynical and mocking voice; "Miss Vernor as high-priestess will be worth a full audience. Good-morning."
"Gerald wouldn't like it if I went to her when she said not; I must stay here," said Phebe turning her distressed face to Halloway, who had stood a silent spectator of it all. "Oh, I'm so sorry it happened! Isn't it too bad?"
"It certainly is,—for the dog."
"She won't get over it for ever so long, and it wasn't really her fault. She was only in fun when she turned her horse that way. Gerald is very tender-hearted."
"I see she is,—toward dogs."
"Mr. Halloway, you don't like her!"
"Miss Phebe, I am madly in love with her."
"Don't laugh at me, please. Isn't she handsome?"
"Well, I couldn't judge of the length of her hair."
"Nonsense, tell me what you really think of her."
Denham pondered a moment. "I think all sorts of things," he answered presently, with an amused laugh. "She is so contradictory she'll fit almost any opinion, and the worst I can say of her is that she'll never concern herself in the least to find out what my opinion may be."
"Ah," said Phebe, softly, "just wait. You don't either of you know each other yet!"
Gerald's and Olly's visit was quite an event in the quiet Lane household. Olly flagrantly broke every existing custom in it with the sublime autocracy of childhood, and regained his health at the cost of the peace of mind of every individual with whom he came in contact, from nervous Miss Lydia down to the protesting servants; while Gerald was one of those intense personalities whose influence seems to recreate the entire atmosphere about them at once, go where they will. Poor Miss Lydia was afraid of her quick speech and brusque ways and decided opinions, and spent more hours than usual upstairs alone in her own little room, and wore her best cap whenever she appeared below, as a sort of mute appeal to the young lady's indulgence. But Gerald, in her robust health, had no sympathy whatever with invalids as a class, and for "chronic nerves" she had an absolute contempt, unmitigated by even the best cap's gay ribbons. "It's altogether a matter of will," she asserted. "People needn't be ill if they are only resolved not to be so."
"Humph!" said Mrs. Lane, who had chanced to overhear; and there was a trifle more tenderness than usual in her manner when she went up later to put the mid-day cup of beef-tea into her sister's thin hands, and stood looking compassionately down at her. "Nothing is easier than to insist that a thing is so and so, just because there's no way to prove that it isn't so."
"How you do always talk in proverbs, Sister Sophy!" said Miss Lydia, admiringly. "I only wish Solomon could have heard you. I do believe he would have put some of them in."
"He would have been far too busy taking down Mrs. Upjohn's fine speeches to mindme," grunted Mrs. Lane. "And I never did think much of Solomon, anyway. He was too much of a Mormon with his hundred wives and that. Want any thing else, Lyddy?"
"No, thank you. The house is very nice and still this morning. There's a picnic up at the Dexter's farm, isn't there? I suppose they've all gone to it."
"Of course. Who ever heard of a picnic unless Phebe went along to do all the fussing and mussing that everybody else shirks? Don't tellmethere's any fun in a picnic,—going off in the woods like that, to do for yourself what you'd sell the clothes off your back to have somebody else do for you at home, and eating all kinds of heathenish messes with your fingers because you've forgotten the forks. But what people like let them have. They'll get experience out of it if nothing better. And of course Phebe had to go."
True enough, Phebe was as essential to any picnic as the feast, though much less obtrusively so, and Gerald watched her friend's quiet helpfulness with lazy interest. She herself was stretched at ease on the clean, fresh grass under some glorious old trees. The place chosen was a lovely spot at the head of the lake; the drive there had been long and hot, and now she lay enjoying to the full the refreshment of the shadow and the breeze, and the perfection both of the view and of her immediate surroundings. Bell Masters sat near her, having discovered that she was generally surest of Mr. De Forest's company when in Gerald's neighborhood. Nor had she been mistaken this time. He had openly abandoned the greedy band of berry-pickers, and the artistic knot of sketchers, and the noisy body of pleasure-seekers, who were paddling frivolously around the shores of the lake and screaming with causeless laughter, as soon as he found that Gerald did not intend attaching herself to any of them but had struck out the new and independent line of doing absolutely nothing at all. Halloway had been helping industriously with the fire, but he came toward the group under the trees when his services seemed no longer required.
"You look most invitingly comfortable," he said, fanning himself with his hat. "We must try to coax Miss Phebe here for a rest."
"Pray don't," said De Forest, lifting a lazy hand with an air of finding even that motion too great an effort. "At least not till the coffee is well under way. I tasted a cup of her make yesterday. Don't call her off. We are all benefiting in a manner by her absence."
"I can make good coffee too, when I choose," said Bell, biting at the rim of her straw hat.
De Forest contemplated her with new interest. "Ah, can you. 'Tis a gift of the gods given to few. And when do you choose, may I ask? Apparently not to-day."
"'Tisn't my picnic."
"Oh! Is it Miss Lane's?"
"One would say it was, from the way she slaves for it," remarked Gerald.
"Why don't you help too?" asked De Forest, breaking off blades of grass and flinging them out singly upon the air.
"For Miss Masters' excellent reason: it is not my picnic."
"You contribute your valuable aid solely to your own undertakings then?"
"Why am I called upon to contribute it to any other?"
"'Tis a problem for philosophers. But for argument's sake, let us say for the good of humanity at large, and of the Dexters in particular."
"I am not bound to the Dexters by any obligation that I can see to help them carry out their entertainment. If they are not equal to it, they should not give it."
"Nothing Quixotic about you, is there?" said De Forest, looking at her quizzically.
"Nothing whatever," replied Gerald, easily. "Why should there be? Let every one look out for himself."
"And if some can't?"
"That is no business of mine. It's simply my business to make sure that I can look after myself."
"What an outrageously frank exposure of a universally concealed sentiment! Mr. Halloway is scandalized. He is thinking how he can fit a scorching text to it to wither you with next Sunday."
"No; here is a sermon ready made on the spot," said Denham, as Phebe came slowly toward them. "Miss Lane in herself is a sufficient illustration of the opposite doctrine."
"Prove it," answered Gerald, shrugging her shoulders. "Prove that Phebe, who toils for everybody, is any happier than I, who only follow my inclination."
"You certainly look vastly the more comfortable at present," said De Forest, looking from Gerald's cool cheeks and unruffled muslin flounces to Phebe's flushed face and tumbled cambric. "You are a practical embodiment of the beauty and expediency of selfishness."
"What are you talking about?" asked Phebe, coming up and leaning wearily against a tree.
"About you and Miss Vernor," explained Bell. "Which of you is happier?Ishould say Miss Vernor decidedly."
A loving look came into Phebe's eyes, as she glanced down at Gerald.
"Miss Vernor,of course", she said, with a very tender inflection of voice. "Being what she is, how can she help being the happier?"
"Virtue advocating vice," said De Forest. "Mr. Halloway, your sermon is a dead failure,—as a sermon."
"By no means," answered Denham, smiling. "I don't expect to convert you in a single lesson. Will you not sit down with us, Miss Phebe? You look tired."
"Not just yet, thank you."
"And why not?" asked Gerald.
"I want to see a little after Miss Delano first. She's off there all alone hunting for ferns."
"Well," persisted Gerald, "what of it? Are you fonder of her society than ours, that you must run after her?"
"I am not fonder of any one's society than of yours, Gerald."
"But are you fond of that tiresome creature at all? Confess it; doesn't she bore you to death with her interminable grasshopper chatter?"
Phebe glanced at Halloway, and laughed a little as she moved away."Oh, I am learning by degrees not to be bored by people,—not even byMiss Delano."
"Now, will any one explain why she should wish to teach herselfnotto know a bore from a Christian?" exclaimed Gerald, impatiently. "It is quite beyond me."
"But do you really never talk to anybody unless you want to, Miss Vernor?" asked Bell, disagreeably conscious that Gerald had not voluntarily addressed her once that morning.
"Never," replied Gerald, staring out at the lake.
"Don't you ever do any thing you don't want to, because you ought to?"
"I don't always see the ought. For instance, why should I put myself out to entertain Miss Delano as Phebe does?"
"I don't know," muttered Bell. "I wouldn't, I am sure. She is mortally dull."
"One might imagine reasons for the self-sacrifice, I suppose," said De Forest, making a languid snatch at a butterfly fluttering near. "The possibility, we will say, that it might please the gentle old babbler to come under the condescension of your notice. How would that do for a motive?"
"Why should I want to please her?" insisted Gerald, removing a hideous beetle from her dress with all possible care lest she should hurt it. "I don't want to. I don't care for her, nor she for me. Why should I put myself out for her? What claim has she on me that I should displease myself to please her?"
"Let us see," said Denham, ruminatingly. "Miss Delano's pleasure against Miss Vernor's displeasure, or _vice versa, Miss Vernor's pleasure against Miss Delano's displeasure. Yes; the balance of pleasure remains quite the same whichever lady has it. Apart from principle, the logic is unanswerable."
"It is admirable," commented De Forest. "I always did like logic so much better than moral philosophy. Hello, what's the matter now?"
There was a wail of distress somewhere in the distance.
Gerald turned her shapely head and listened a moment. "It's only Olly," she said, composedly. "I recognize the cry. He isn't hurt. Oh, you needn't go, Mr. Halloway; Olly never comes to any harm. He's only quarrelling with some one."
De Forest raised himself on his elbow to listen, while Halloway walked off in the direction of the outburst. "There are possibilities lurking in picnics, you know," he remarked, resuming his recumbent position, "mad bulls, and rabbit traps, and fine chances for a drown now and then. But I suppose we needn't trouble ourselves, Mr. Halloway'll see to it. Besides, Olly bears the charmed life of the wicked. Miss Masters, I hope you remember to give daily thanks that you haven't any small brothers."
"I do devoutly give thanks that I haven't any sisters," said Bell, with an unaffectionate glance toward Gerald. "I should hate them."
And so the desultory talk rambled on, the little group growing larger by degrees as the approaching luncheon hour brought back the stragglers, and with them Olly, trotting contentedly along, clinging to Halloway's hand, meek as any lamb.
"What were you doing when you cried out so a little while ago?" askedGerald, going up to the child.
Olly looked at her with instant defiance in his eyes. "I hurt my foot."
"You know perfectly well you can't deceive me, Olly. Tell me the truth.What mischief were you at?"
"I tell you I hurt my foot, and it hurt like mischief, and that's all the mischief there was. I wish it had beenyourfoot, and I wouldn't have cried a bit."
Halloway was turning aside, but Gerald appealed to him. "Is he telling the truth?"
"Yes," answered Denham, dryly. "He was racing with the Anthony boys and fell, but, as you see, he's right enough now."
"Ya-ah!" said Olly, and leered into her face with brotherly disrespect."I'll tell you a lie next time if you'd rather. Ya-ah!"
Gerald looked as if she were going to shake him on the spot, and to prevent any such catastrophe Denham suddenly seized the little fellow and put him through a number of acrobatic feats in breathless succession, till he was fairly hustled into good temper and everybody around was laughing, even Gerald. Jake Dexter was instantly incited to display some marvellous limber-jointed powers of his own, and had just demonstrated to the assembled company, to his and their entire satisfaction, that the impossible is after all sometimes possible, when luncheon was announced by the ringing of a cow-bell, and a gay onslaught upon the usual picnic table, rich in luxuries and poor in necessities, superseded for the nonce all less material forms of amusement.
Later in the afternoon Halloway wandered off from the rest for one of the solitary strolls that he preferred to companionship as being less lonely,—a feeling often experienced when fate and not choice appoints one's comrades,—and returning leisurely along the banks of the lake, he came upon a little group of picnickers, and stopped unperceived beyond them, to enjoy for a while that comfortable sense of being in the world yet out of it, which is the birthright of all spectatorship. Gerald and Phebe were skipping stones, thoroughly absorbed in energetic enjoyment of the simple game; their two contrasting figures, Gerald dark and tall and slim, and Phebe so round and fair and supple, making a pretty-enough picture for any artist. Olly, little Maggie Dexter, and an assortment of sturdy urchins known throughout Joppa only as the Anthony boys, were dancing and chattering aimlessly around, and near by was drawn up a clumsy old boat where Phebe had made a comfortable niche for Miss Delano, who every day at about this hour was afflicted with a remarkable disorder which had grown upon her wholly of late years, and whose symptoms, so far as she was willing to admit them, consisted of a painful heaviness of the eyelids, a weakness in the nape of the neck, and an irresistible tendency to retire for a brief season within herself. A little farther off still, having taken fortune at the flood and secured De Forest at last, Bell Masters was embarked on another kind of craft, a thorough-going, fully-freighted flirtation, all sails set; and through the trees were glimpses of lazily moving figures beyond, generally in twos and twos, following some occult rule of common division peculiar to picnics. By degrees the children wandered off up the bank, and presently there came a shout, followed by an evident squabble. Phebe looked around uneasily. Gerald kept on with her sport.
"One, two, three, four, five, six, seven times, Phebe. Now do better than that."
At this juncture little Maggie ran up, her pretty brown eyes wide and her red lips quivering. "Oh! Miss Vernor, Olly shan't do it, shall he? Do say he shan't!"
"Do what?" asked Gerald, pausing in the act of searching for another pebble.
"Put it in the water to swim like a duck. It isn't a duck, it's a little, little young bird he's found in a nest, and it can't swim, it can't hardly fly. Oh, don't let him!"
"Let him!" echoed Gerald sharply. She sprang toward the children with a bound, almost lifting Olly off his feet as she drew him back from the water's edge. "You cruel boy!" she cried. "Give it to me directly."
"I won't!" answered Olly, trying to shake himself free from her grasp."It's mine, I found it."
But the small hands held him in a grip as strong as a man's, and in another moment Gerald had taken the poor little half-feathered creature from him, and bidden Maggie restore it carefully to its nest.
"It's mine! It's mine! I'll have it back!" shouted Olly, angrily, after the little girl.
Gerald took hold of him by the shoulders and turned him round toward her. There was a great deal of hatred for the sin, and not overmuch love for the sinner, in her face, as she looked down at him. "If you dare touch that bird again, Olly, I'll find a punishment for you that you will not soon forget, do you hear?"
A hidden thought of revenge for the spoiled sport came into Olly's mind. He twisted himself away from his sister with a little grunt, and stood peevishly playing a moment with a couple of marbles; then suddenly darting aside, seized the boat in which Miss Delano was established, still struggling, but more feebly, with the mysterious trouble that held her in thrall; and with a strength with which one would hardly have credited his slight form, he pushed it off into the water. There was, of course, not a particle of real danger for Miss Delano, even though this chanced to be the only boat at that point, and she was no oarswoman; but the poor little old lady, thus suddenly roused from the strange hallucinations (as she called them) which were the most marked feature of her complaint, and finding herself afloat upon the unstable deep, instantly supposed that her last hour was come. She sprang up, too terrified to scream, with a look of deadly horror in her face, and then sank again all in a heap in the bottom of the boat. Olly gave a fiendish laugh, but before any one else could move to the rescue, Gerald, with one fierce, unutterable look at her brother, and no thought but how soonest to end Miss Delano's speechless agony, quick as a flash, caught hold of an overhanging bough and swung herself on to a rock quite far out in the water, and thence, with a light, bold spring, landed safely in the middle of the boat as it drifted past.
"All right, Miss Delano," she said, briskly, seating herself and laying hold of the oars with accustomed hands; "I'm a born sailor, and we'll have a little row first before we go back."
Had an angel visibly descended from heaven to assume the helm, Miss Delano could not have been more grateful and overcome. "Oh, my dear, my dear!" she said, and, in the intensity of her relief, began to cry a little softly. Gerald pretended not to notice her emotion (she was very awkward as a comforter, and as shy before tears as a man), and rowed around for a while in utter silence; and then feeling that conversation might aid in quieting her companion's unnecessarily excited nerves she began abruptly charging her with questions as one loads a gun with cartridges, dropping down one after another with cruel directness into the harmless vacancy of Miss Delano's brain. How many inhabitants had Joppa in precise figures? what was the height of those farther hills to the left? upon what system was the village-school governed? what was the mineral nature of the soil? what was the fastest time ever made by that bay mare of Mr. Upjohn's with the white hind foot? etc. etc., etc., on all which points poor Miss Delano could only assure her timidly: "I don't know, dear; it would be well if I did," and relapsed into an alarmed and most uncharacteristic silence.
Phebe stood watching the boat as Gerald rowed off, then, as if recollecting some neglected duty, turned suddenly, and found herself face to face with Mr. Halloway.
"No farther," he said, playfully barring her passage.
"Oh, but I must! I want to find Olly and talk him into a better frame of mind before Gerald comes back."
"Leave Olly to me, please. I am a perfect child-tamer, and guarantee to exorcise his seven evil spirits in less than no time. Meanwhile, sit you down and rest."
"Oh, I don't need rest. If you'll undertake Olly I'll help put back the lunch things. Picnics are quite like the Biblical feasts: five loaves and two fishes somehow always make twelve basketfuls to take up."
"And you are always a true disciple at the feast, Miss Phebe, intent only upon ministering to others."
Phebe laughed her own peculiarly light-hearted, gay laugh. "That is a much prettier way of putting it than Gerald's. She says I make myself maid-of-all-work."
"Miss Gerald, of course, doesn't approve of such service."
"But you do. So I needn't mind her blame."
"But I shall blame too, Miss Phebe, when you overdo yourself. I don't see why others' recreation need be all work for you. Let each take his share of both the pleasure and the toil."
"But you see thisismy share, Mr. Halloway, because I can't help in any better way. I don't know enough to entertain people's guests just by talking to them, as Gerald does. You forget how dull I am."
"So I do," said Denham, gravely. "I forget it all the time. Indeed, the forgetfulness has quite become chronic. Now I'll find Olly, and we'll all go at the dishes together and make a game of it."
Certainly Denham Halloway must have possessed some secret charm in his management of children, for by the time Gerald turned her boat to the shore, he stood at the bank to meet them, with Olly by his side, as amiable a little fellow as any Sunday-school-book hero ever born.
"I am glad your sail turned out such a success, Miss Delano," said Halloway, cheerily, as he lifted the little old lady carefully out on to the pebbles. "You have been envied of us all. But here is a little boy come to tell you all the same how sorry he is that he gave you such a fright. Olly, my lad, I think Miss Delano looks as if she had forgiven you through and through."
"Oh, indeed, indeed yes," answered Miss Delano, hurriedly. "It was only my silly way of being scared, particularly when I'm roused up so sudden out of one of those turns of mine. And it's all right, my dear, all right."
"But I'm sorry, real and honest," declared Olly, stoutly, looking squarely in Miss Delano's kindly face. "And I didn't mean to scare you."
"You meant it for a revenge on me, I suppose," said Gerald, in a low, harsh voice. She took hold of his arm as she spoke. "Give me those marbles of yours."
Olly looked at her, hesitated, and then reluctantly produced three very handsome agates from some outlying storehouse of his jacket.
"I bought you six," said Gerald. "Where are the rest?"
"I lost one," answered Olly, sullenly. "It fell down a hole."
"Then give me the other two."
Olly obeyed still more reluctantly, fixing great, anxious eyes upon his treasures as he laid them, each one more slowly than the last, in his sister's hand.
"There," said Gerald. "Perhaps this will teach you to behave better another time. I shall not buy you any more this summer." She flung out her hand suddenly, and the five pretty stones fell with a splash far out in the lake and disappeared forever, five little cruel sets of circles instantly beginning to widen and widen over their graves in a perfect mockery of roundness. Olly gave one sharp cry, and then stood stock-still, a bitterly hard look coming over his face; those marbles had been very, very dear to his heart. Halloway put his arm tenderly around the little fellow, and drew him close in a very sympathetic way.
"Olly," he said, gently, "you know you deserved some punishment, but now that your sister has punished you, I am sure she will forgive you too, as Miss Delano has done, if you only ask her."
Olly buried his face in his friend's coat, and burst into a fit of heart-broken tears. "I don't want her to forgive me," he sobbed. "I only want my agates,—my pretty, pretty agates!"
"Surely you will forgive him?" pleaded Halloway, looking up at Gerald over Olly's head, and holding out one of the boy's hands in his own. "He was really penitent when you came up. Let me ask for him."
Gerald moved a step away, ignoring the hand. "Certainly, if you wish it," she said, coldly.
Halloway bent and kissed Olly's flushed face. "Do you hear, my boy? It is all right now, and there is Maggie calling you to swing her. Don't forget you promised to make me a visit at the rectory to-morrow."
Olly threw his arms around Denham's knees and gave him a convulsive hug. "I like you though youarea minister," he said, through his tears. "I just wish you were my sister!" And then he went slowly off to Maggie, and Denham and Gerald stood silently where he had left them. Gerald was the first to speak.
"You think I am hard on Olly. I see it in your face."
"I do think," replied Denham, slowly, with a faint smile curving his well-cut lips, "that perhaps it might be happier for Olly if you would try to consider him less in the light of a boy, and more as—as only a little animal. You are so tender-hearted and pitiful toward animals."
Gerald flushed angrily. "I like plain speaking best. You think I am hard on him. Why don't you say so?"
"I will if you prefer it. I do think so."
"Thanks. Is there any thing else you would like to say to me in your capacity as clergyman before we join the others?"
"Yes, if I may really venture so far. Your hat is quite crooked."
Gerald straightened it without a smile. "Thanks again. Anything else?"
"Absolutely nothing." He turned to escort her back, but Gerald stood still, frowning out at the lake.
"You don't know Olly," she said, curtly.
"Maybe not, but I know childish nature pretty well, perhaps becauseI love it."
"Ah! I don't love it. It isn't lovable to me. It is all nonsense to call it the age of innocence. It is vice in embryo instead of in full leaf, that is all."
"But that is an inestimable gain of itself. A little of a bad thing is surely much better than a great deal of it. For my part I confess to a great partiality for children. There is something pathetic to me in the little faults and tempers that irritate us now chiefly because they clash against our own weaknesses, and yet on the right guidance of which lies the whole making or marring of the child's life."
"Doesn't guidance include punishment?"
"Yes, it includes it. But it does not consist of it."
Gerald still stood half turned from him, frowning out over the placid blue water. "Ah," she said, "it chiefly consists of good example and that sort of thing, I suppose."
"I think it consists chiefly of love," said Halloway, simply.
Gerald made no answer at first, then turned and looked at him almost defiantly. Her changeable eyes seemed black as she raised them to his. "Would you have thrown Olly's marbles into the lake?"
"No," replied Halloway, looking steadily back at her.
"Then you would have been very foolish," said Gerald, haughtily. "It was the only way to touch him. I was quite right to do it."
"You should be the best judge of your actions, Miss Vernor."
Gerald bowed without answer, and moved past him like an offended duchess. Halloway stood looking after her with an amused sparkle in his eyes. "Miss Geraldine Vernor," he said to himself, "with all your beauty and your reputed accomplishments and intellect, you would yet do well to take a few lessons of my little friend Phebe Lane."
"Gerald, what are you thinking of?"
"I was wondering how soon you would let us have the lamp."
"I'll get it immediately, if you like, but it's so pleasant talking in the twilight. I could spend hours contentedly sitting here so with you."
"How reprehensibly idle!"
"No, I should be learning something all the time. You have always something to teach me. Or if you didn't feel like talking, I could just sit still and hold your hand and not need any thing more."
Gerald put her hand instinctively out of reach. "I beg you won't try it.I hate having my hand held."
"Yes, I know you do. You hate being kissed, too. You hate being admired and made a fuss over. I don't suppose any thing would induce you to let me call you a pet name. O Gerald, I do wish you liked being loved!"
"But I do like it well enough. Of course every one likes being cared for and all that sort of thing. It's only the gushing and spooning and sentimentalizing that I can't endure. I never could, even as a child."
Phebe sat suddenly upright, away from Gerald. Perhaps even the mute caress of her attitude jarred upon her friend. "To me the half of being loved would be the being told so," she said. "I should never weary of hearing it said over and over again."
"Bah!" ejaculated Gerald, "it would make me sick!" She got up as if the very thought were too much for her, and going to the window stood still there looking out. Phebe followed her with her eyes.
"I am afraid you are fated to be deadly sick all your life through,Gerald. Whatwillyou do with your lovers?"
"Dismiss them."
"All?"
"All but one."
"What will you do with him?"
"Marry him, of course. That is what he will be there for, won't it? I expect to marry some one some time. Marriage makes a woman's life fuller and freer, though not necessarily happier. I want to get all into my life that I can."
"I wonder whom you will marry," mused Phebe, where she sat curled up on the sofa. "I wonder what he could be like. Gerald, how I should like to see you in love!"
"You won't see it," replied Gerald. "No one will ever see it. It wouldn't be my way to make a display of the insanity, supposing, that is, that I have it."
"I hope at least you will show it tohim."
"Not overmuch even tohim. He'll have to take it on faith. I haven't the faintest intention of informing any one of the state of my affections a dozen times a day. Once for all ought to be sufficient with the declaration, as it is with the marriage vow."
Phebe puckered up her forehead. "Ah, how different we are! If I am ever engaged to any one I shall want to keep telling him all the time how much I love him, for fear he wouldn't guess it."
"You will bore him to death then."
"I suppose I shall," replied Phebe, dejectedly. "I don't suppose any one living wants to be loved so much as I would want to love him. I couldn't be cool and deliberate and wise at loving as you would be. I should have to do it with my whole heart and just give myself up to it for good and all."
"That's the story-book way of loving," said Gerald. "I don't believe in it for real life. Blind adoration doesn't do either the lover or the loved any good. There should be sense in one's emotions as well as in one's opinions."
Phebe was silent a moment or two. "You are so self-possessed, and so self-controlled, Gerald," she said at last. "It must be very nice to have one's self so perfectly in command as you have. And yet I don't know. I think it would be rather nice too to find one's self suddenly under the power of some one a great deal better and stronger and wiser than one's self, who compelled one to love him, not because one would, but just because one could not help it."
The girls were alone in the sitting-room, Mrs. Lane having gone out to a neighbor's, taking Olly with her, and Miss Lydia not having yet appeared for her usual hour downstairs. It was a few days after the picnic, and was one of those suddenly cool August evenings that sometimes drop down so unexpectedly upon the summer heat, and a wood-fire lay upon the hearth ready to light at the invalid's coming. Phebe too sprang from the sofa as she spoke, as if her words had evoked too vivid a picture, and kneeling down by the hearth, applied a match. The bright flame leaped swiftly up and filled all the room with a flickering golden glow. Gerald turned in the window to watch it. How quickly it had flushed Phebe's cheeks, and how soft her eyes looked in its light!
"It's downright cruelty to spoil our first cool evening with a fire, Phebe, but I'll forgive you, it makes you look so pretty," she said, quite unconscious of her beauty as she stood against the dark background of the curtain in picturesque stateliness, her dress of soft cream-white cloth falling in clinging folds about her, and her clear pale face turned dreamily toward the light, which gleamed out in fitful reflection from the heavy gold ornaments at her throat and wrists.
"Ah, you do not see yourself!" murmured Phebe, looking adoringly back at her. "No one else could look pretty to you if you did."
"How foolish!" said Gerald, scornfully. "Pray don't let us begin bandying compliments back and forth. That's next worse to eternally discussing love. Why it is that two girls seem never able to talk together half an hour without lugging in that threadbare subject as if it were the one most important thing in the world, I don't understand."
"Well, isn't love the most important thing,—to women?" asked Phebe, sitting down on the floor to nurse the fire, her thin muslin making a little ripple of pretty lightness around her.
"No, it isn't," replied Gerald. "It may be to some few perhaps, but certainly not to all women. It isn't to me. It's one thing; not every thing; and not even the best thing. Knowledge is better, and goodness is better, and to come down to purely personal blessings, health is better, and so is common-sense better, and in the long run there are dozens of things infinitely better worth having and better worth aiming for. It's a good enough thing to have in addition, but as to its being the sum and substance, the Alpha and Omega, of any sensible woman's life, that's all foolishness. Let's have done with it and order in the lights. I want to get at Euclid again. It will never do for that conceited Yale brother of mine to get ahead of me. Shall I call to Nancy?"
"No use. The servants are out. Wait a moment till the fire is well started, and I'll bring in the lamp."
"The servants are out?" repeated Gerald. "Both? At the same time? Is that the way you keep house in Joppa?"
"Oh, they like running out together, and we never want any thing in the evenings, you know. The front door always stands ajar, and visitors let themselves in."
"And you make your own fires and bring in your own oily lamps; or do your evening guests assist you perhaps in lieu of the servants?"
"But we don't generally have fires," laughed Phebe, greatly amused at Gerald's disgust. "Only to-night it would be too chilly for Aunt Lydia here without one. I feel cool too. I was not so sensible as you, and put on too thin a dress. Isn't it a pretty blaze? Wait just till I throw on another log. How it snaps and crackles!"
"Take your time," said Gerald, turning back to the window. "But what a way to manage! Why should you hire servants, if you do their work for them?"
Phebe only laughed, and a little shower of sparks flew over her from the hearth as if the fire laughed too.
"It's being needlessly indulgent," pursued Gerald. "One can give servants proper liberties without making one's self a slave to their caprices. If you yield to them in one instance because it chances to be convenient, they'll certainly exact it of you another time when it is not convenient. Gracious heavens! Phebe, what is it?"
There was a sudden outburst of light behind her, and a sharp scream of mingled terror and pain, and she turned to find Phebe standing the centre of a pillar of fire. Her light dress had ignited from the flying sparks, and the devouring flames seemed to burst forth in a hundred places at once and rush exultantly together. Phebe gave another wild cry and started for the door in that blind agony of despair which seems to hasten people at such times to their doom, as if by aimless flight they could escape the awful demon who possesses them. Too horror-stricken to utter a sound, Gerald sprang at her, and seizing her with fearless hands, forced the poor struggling girl by main strength down on to the floor. No one near to help! No water at hand! Not so much as a rug or a shawl to throw over her and stifle the flames! Yes! there was the table-cover, heavy and thick, as if created for this very life-service. Gerald tore it off,—books, boxes, china cups, and glass vases crashing to the ground together,—and flinging it over Phebe, threw herself on top of it, pressing it close in every direction with hands and limbs, and smothering the flames resolutely beneath it. It was but a moment, though a moment of lifetime horror, and all was over. There was only the fire on the hearth hissing and leaping as if in anger at its defeated design.
"Phebe!" whispered Gerald, hoarsely; "Phebe!"
Phebe had ceased to struggle, and lay perfectly motionless, apparently scarcely breathing, but she opened her eyes and smiled faintly as Gerald called her. The fright and the pain had taken her speech away. She could not find it at once. But the smile gave new hope and energy to Gerald.
"Never mind talking," she exclaimed, springing briskly to her feet. "If you are only alive it's all right. Don't attempt to stir. I'll get some one."
"Aunt Lydia—don't let her know," Phebe managed to gasp.
"No, no, of all people!" cried Gerald. She paused an instant. Not a servant in the house! whom was she to summon? A vague idea seized her of running into the street and catching hold of the first passer, when at the moment the door opened, and Mr. Halloway appeared on the threshold.
"Is there any one at home? Shall I come in, please?" called the bright, cheery voice.
"Mr. Halloway! oh, thank Heaven!" And seizing him by the arm, Gerald dragged him over to where Phebe lay. "Help me to take her up-stairs to her room."
Denham staggered back unutterably shocked and horrified as he recognized the prostrate form at his feet, the fire-light playing mockingly over it and revealing the white face and loosened hair. For the instant he thought her dead. He caught his breath and put his hand up over his eyes. "My God! what has happened?"
"Her dress took fire—she is burned, no, not badly I am sure, but let us get her up-stairs without losing time. Quick!"
Denham put Gerald aside almost roughly, and stooping down lifted Phebe tenderly in his arms. She moaned as he touched her, but smiled up at him as she had done at Gerald.
"Do I hurt you, dear?" he asked, with infinite pity and tenderness in his voice. "I will be as gentle as I can. Poor child! poor child!"
"Let me help you," said Gerald. "The stairs are steep and I am very strong."
She came nearer, but he shook his head. "I need no help."
"This way, then," said Gerald, shortly. "And don't speak. Miss Lydia mustn't know."
She led the way to Phebe's room, and he followed slowly, laying his burden carefully down on the bed and arranging the pillows under her head with all of a woman's gentleness of touch.
"Now go for the doctor," ordered Gerald, turning to the bureau to light the candles. "Dr. Dennis. If he is out, Dr. Harrison. Only find some one immediately."