Aloud she said: “Miss Dane, please telephone the seminary and tell my daughter that I am sending the carriage for her at four this afternoon. I want her to come home. Then, when my son comes, tell him I wish to see him. He told me that he would be here in the early afternoon.”
“Very well. I will attend to it.” The nurse glided from the room to telephone Gwynette. Half an hour later she returned. The woman looked up almost eagerly. Miss Dane merely said, “The message was given.”
She did not care to tell that the girl’s voice had been coldly indifferent. Her reply had been, “Very well. One place does as well as another!”
At noon, after a morning cultivating in the fields, the boys were not sorry when the farmer advised them to take it easy during the afternoon. The day was very warm.
“Well, we will, just at first, while hardening up.” Harold was afraid the farmer would think that he was not in earnest about wanting to help, but there was no twinkle evident in the kind blue eyes of Silas Warner.
The boys, hoes over their shoulders, walked single file through the field of corn toward the farmhouse. The girls had not yet seen them and they expected to be well laughed at. Nor were they mistaken. They found Jenny and Lenora out in the kitchen garden. The former maiden had been gathering luscious, big, red strawberries, while her friend sat nearby on a rustic bench. Jenny stood upright, her basket brimming full, and so she first saw the queer procession.
“Oh, Lenora, do look! Is it or is it not your brother Charles?” The grinning boys doffed their frayed straw hats and made deep bows. Jenny pretended to be surprised. “Why, Harold, is that you? I thought Grandpa had hired a tramp or two to help out. My, but you look hot!”
“Indeed, young ladies, it does not take much perspicacity to make that discovery.” He mopped his brow with his handkerchief as he spoke.
Charles laughed. “It’s harder on Harold than on me. We do this sort of thing every day up at the Agricultural School.”
Then, to tease, he added: “Why don’t you invite the girls to watch you milk this evening?”
“Well, I may at that,” the younger boy said, nothing daunted by their laughter. “But just now we must hie us to our cabin. I promised to visit Mother about two.” Then to Charles he suggested: “Before we eat the good lunch Sing Long will have for us, suppose we go swimming, old man, what say?”
“Agreed! It sounds good to me!” Turning to his sister, Charles took her hand lovingly. “I’ll be over to spend the afternoon with you, dear?”
Harold, glancing almost shyly at the other girl, wished he could say the same thing to her. Then it was he recalled something. “Charles,” he said, “Mother wanted me to bring you over to the big house this afternoon. I call it that to designate it from the cabin. She is eager to meet my new friend.”
“Indeed I shall be very glad to meet your mother.” Then smiling tenderly at the girl whose hand he still held, he said: “You do feel stronger today, don’t you, sister?” She nodded happily, then away the two boys ran.
An hour later, refreshed and sleek-looking after their swim, they sat at a small table on the pine-sheltered side porch and ate the good lunch Sing Long had prepared for them.
“This is great!” Charles enthusiastically exclaimed. “I’d like Lenora to see it.”
“Better still, in a few days, when she is able to walk this far, we will invite the girls to dine.” Harold hesitated, flushed a little and added as an after thought: “Of course we’ll ask my sister, too.” Again he had completely forgotten Gwynette. His good resolution was going to be hard to put into effect, it would seem.
“I shall be glad to meet your mother and also your sister,” Charles was saying.
An impulse came to Harold to confide in Charles. Ought he or ought he not? He knew that he could trust his new friend and his advice might be invaluable. And so he began hesitatingly: “I’m going to tell you something, Charles, which I never told to anyone else. In fact, it’s only recently that Mother realized I knew about it. But now a complication has risen. We, Mother and I, don’t knowwhatis best to do, and what is more, Silas and Susan Warner have to be considered.”
“Don’t tell me unless you are quite sure that you want to, old man,” Charles said in his frank, friendly way, adding, “We make confidences, sometimes, rather on an impulse, and wish later that we had not.”
“Yes, I know. There are fellows I wouldn’t trust to keep the matter dark, but I know that you will. We especially do not wish Jenny Warner to know or Gwynette, my sister, until we have figured out whether or not it would be best. Of course, my mother and the Warners thought they were doing the right thing. Well, I won’t keep you wondering about it any longer. I’ll tell you the whole story as Mother told it to me only two days ago.”
Charles listened seriously. They had finished their lunch and had sauntered down to the cliff before the tale was completed.
“That certainly is a problem,” was the first comment. “I can easily understand that your mother wished to keep the matter a secret, but I do feel sorry for the girls. No one knows the comfort my sister has been to me. I would have lost a great joy out of my life if she had been taken from me—if we had grown up without knowing each other.”
“Of course you would, old man,” Harold agreed heartily. “But, you see, I early figured out that Gwynette couldn’t be my own sister, and I have never really cared for her nor has she for me. Well, she’ll be coming home tomorrow and then you can tell better, perhaps, after having met her, how to advise me. Mother said she would abide by my decision. I asked Mums to postpone for two weeks an ultimatum in the matter.” Then, placing a hand on his friend’s shoulder, he added: “Now I must go over and see Mother. If you care to wait in the cabin, I’ll be back in half an hour. I’ll find out when my mother will be able to see you.”
“Of course I’ll wait. Lenora ought to rest after lunch, I suppose. I’ll be glad to browse among the interesting books. Don’t hurry on my account.”
Ten minutes later Harold was admitted to his mother’s room.
“I am keeping awake just for this visit,” the smiling woman said when he had kissed her. “Is your friend with you?”
“No, he is at the cabin. I thought perhaps at first you would rather see me alone. I will go back and get him if you would like to meet him now.”
Instead of answering him, the woman turned to the nurse, who was seated at a window sewing: “Miss Dane, if I sleep for two hours, I might meet Harold’s friend about five, don’t you think?” The nurse assented.
To her son she then said, “I would like you and your friend to dine here every evening. Please begin tonight.”
She purposely did not tell Harold that his sister would be at home and would need his companionship.
When the boys reached the farm, they saw Jenny dressed in her sunny yellow with the buttercup wreathed leghorn hat shading her face, and, as she was walking down the lane carrying a basket, it was quite evident that she was going away. Harold felt a distinct sense of disappointment. Lenora was lying in the hammock under two towering eucalyptus trees. Charles went to her at once and sat on the bench near, but Harold, excusing himself, ran toward the barn where he could see that Jenny was already in the old buggy backing Dobbin out into the lane.
Hatless, he arrived just as the girl turned toward the highway. “Whither away, fair maid?” the boy sang out.
“To see my very nice teacher, Miss Dearborn. I had a message from her this morning. She wishes to see me before three. My heart is rebuking me, for it is over a week since our classes ended and I’ve been so busy I haven’t been over to Hillcrest. I’m glad, though, that she has sent for me, and I hope she will scold me well. I deserve it.”
The boy hesitated. “Would I be much in the way if I went with you?” Then eagerly, “I’d love to drive old Dobbin.”
Jenny, of course, could not deprive him of that pleasure, and so, at her smilingly given assent, the lad went around to the other side, leaped over a wheel and took the seat and reins abandoned by the girl.
Dobbin, seeming to sense that all was ready, started on a trot toward the gate. Harold turned to wave back to Charles, who returned the salute. He was glad to be alone for a time with Lenora. They were planning to write a combination letter to their far-away and, as they well knew, lonely father.
“You care a lot for this Miss Dearborn, Jenny, don’t you?” Harold turned to one side of the highway to give the automobiles the right of way on the pavement.
“Indeed I do! I love her and I am always fearful that I may lose her before my education is completed.”
“Wouldn’t you like to go away to school somewhere? Most girls do, I understand.”
“Oh, no! I couldn’t leave Grandma and Grandpa. They are old people and need me. At any time something might happen that either or both of them would be unable to work as they do now. I want to be right here, always, to be their staff when they need one.”
The boy, glancing at the girl, could readily tell that what she had said had come from her heart. It had been neither for effect nor from a sense of duty.
The boy changed the subject. “You will miss Lenora when she is gone.”
There was an almost tragic expression in the liquid brown eyes that were turned toward him. “No one can knowhowI shall miss her. It has been wonderful to have someone near one’s own age to confide in.”
“Wouldn’t I do when Lenora is gone?” Harold ventured. “I’m not such a lot older than you are.”
“I’m afraid not,” Jenny smilingly retorted. “Girl confidences would seem foolish to you.” Then, as they drove between the pepper-tree posts, she exclaimed, “I surely deserve a scolding for having so long neglected my beloved teacher.”
Miss Dearborn did not scold Jenny. There was in her face an expression which at once assured the girl that something of an unusual nature had occurred. Harold had remained in the wagon and the two, who cared so much for each other, were alone in the charming library and living-room of Hill-Crest.
“Miss Dearborn. Oh, what has happened? I know something has.” Then seeing a suitcase standing near, locked and strapped, the girl became more than ever fearful. “You are going away. Oh, Miss Dearborn, are you?” Tears sprang to the eagerly questioning brown eyes.
“Yes, dear girl, I am going to Carmel. I had told you that Eric Austin and his family are living there. Last night a telegram came, sent by that dear sister-friend herself. She is ill and wants me to come at once. Of course I am going.”
The telephone called Miss Dearborn to another room. When she returned she said, “A taxicab will be here shortly.” As she donned her hat, she continued talking. “No one knows how sincerely I hope my schoolmate will recover. She is so happily married, she dearly loves her husband and her children. Oh, Jeanette, it is so sad when a mother is taken away. There is no one,just no onewho can take her place to the little ones.”
The girl asked, “How many children are there, Miss Dearborn? I remember you said one girl had been named after you.”
“Yes, then there is a boy, a year or two older, and this baby, the one that has just come!” She took up the suitcase, but Jenny held out her hand. “Please let me carry it.” The teacher did so, as she had to close and lock the front door. Harold sprang from the wagon. “Miss Dearborn,” the girl said, “you have heard me speak of our neighbors, the Poindexter-Jones. This is my friend Harold.” The lad, cap under his arm, took the outstretched hand, acknowledging the introduction, then reached for the suitcase.
Sounds of an automobile laboring up the rough hill-road assured them, before they saw the small closed car, that the taxi was arriving.
Jenny held her teacher’s hand in a close clasp and her eyes were again brimmed with tears. This time for the mother of the little new baby.
“Good-bye, dear girl.” The woman turned to the boy and said, “Take good care of my Jeanette. Even she does not know what a comfort she is to me.”
The boy had replied something, he hardly knew what. Of course he would take care of Jenny. With his life, if need be. When the taxi was gone he took the girl’s arm and led her back to the wagon. He saw that she was almost crying and he knew that her dear friend must be starting on some sad mission, but Jenny merely said, when they were driving down the canyon road, “Miss Dearborn has a college friend living in Carmel and she is very ill and has sent for her.”
After a time he spoke aloud his own thoughts. “Jeanette, that is what your teacher called you. It reminds me of my sister’s name somewhat.” He hesitated. He was on dangerous ground. He must be very careful of what he said. The girl turned toward him glowingly. “How lucky you are, Harold, to have a real sister. She must be a good pal for you. Is she to be at home soon?”
“Yes, tomorrow.” The boy hesitated, then he said slowly, thinking ahead: “Jenny, Mother and I feel that we haven’t brought Gwyn up just right. We have helped her to be proud and selfish. I’m going to ask you a favor. Will you try to win her friendship and be patient and not hurt if she seems to snub you just at first? Will you, Jenny?” The boy was very much in earnest, and so the girl replied, “Why, Harold, I will try, if you wish, but I know that your sister does not want my friendship, so why should she be forced to have it?”
“Because I wish it,” was all the lad would reply. Jenny knew better than the boy did how difficult it would be.
True to his promise, Harold took Charles to the “big house” just before five, the hour of his mother’s appointing.
“You have a beautiful home,” the visiting lad remarked as he was led along box-edged paths and paused to gaze into the mirror-clear, sun-sparkled water in the pond lily garden. Lotus flowers were lying on the still blue surface, waxen lovely and sweetly fragrant.
They went up the marble steps, crossed the portico and entered a long wide hall which led directly to the front door through the windows of which the late afternoon sun was streaming.
“The library is my favorite room,” Harold said. “I will leave you there while I go up and see if mother is ready to meet my new friend.”
They were nearing a wide door where rich, crimson velvet portiers hung, when Harold heard his name spoken back of him. Turning, he saw Miss Dane beckoning to him. After speaking with her he said: “Charles, wait in the library for me. I won’t be gone long. Mother wishes to speak to me alone for just a few moments.”
Charles stopped to look at a very beautiful painting before he stepped between the velvet portiers. At once he saw that the room was occupied. “Pardon me!” he exclaimed. A girl had risen and was staring at him with amazement, but her momentary indignation was changed to interest when she saw how good-looking and well-dressed he was. With a graciousness she could always assume when she wished, Gwynette assured him: “Indeed you are not intruding. I heard my brother tell you to wait here until he came. Won’t you be seated? I am Gwynette, Harold’s sister. He may have told you about me?” The lad was amazed. Even while he was assuring the girl that he had indeed heard of her his thought was inquiring, “How could Harold find it hard to care for such a graceful, beautiful sister, even though she was adopted.”
Gwynette had resumed the seat she had occupied formerly, a deep softly upholstered leather chair drawn close to the wide hearth on which a drift log was burning with flames of many colors.
“And I,” the lad sat in the chair on the opposite side of the hearth to which she motioned him, “since Harold is not here to introduce me, will tell you who I am and how I happen to be here.” Then he hesitated, gazing inquiringly at the girl whose every pose was one of grace. “You probably know my sister, Lenora Gale, since she was at the Granger Place Seminary for a time.”
If there was a stiffening on the part of the girl, it was not perceptible. If her thought was rather disdainfully “another farmer”, she did not lessen her apparent interest. Her reply, though not enthusiastic, was in the affirmative, modified with, “I really cannot say that I knew your sister well, however. She was not in my classes and our rooms were far apart.”
Then, with just the right amount of seeming solicitude, “She is quite well now, I hope. I understand that she went to stay at my mother’s farm with our overseer’s family.”
Charles glanced up at her quickly. Gwyn could not long play a part without revealing her true self. “Very wonderful people, the Warners,” was what the young man said. “It has been a privilege to meet them. Lenora, I am glad to say, is daily becoming stronger and within a fortnight we will be able to travel to our far-away home.”
He paused and the girl said, now with less interest, “A ranch, I understand.”
“Yes, a ranch.” Silence fell between them. Gwynette gazed into the fire, torn between her scorn for her companion’s station in life and her admiration of his magnetic personality. Suddenly she smiled at him and Charles felt that he had never seen any girl more beautiful. “Do you know,” she said with apparent naivete, “it is hard for me to believe that you are a farmer; you impress me as being a gentleman to the manner born.”
The lad, who was her senior by several years, smiled. “Miss Gwynette,” he retorted, “I am far more proud of being a rancher than I would be of inheriting a title.”
Harold returned just then to say that his mother was ready to receive their guest. The younger lad was amazed at the graciousness with which his usually fretful sister assured Charles Gale that she was indeed glad he was to be with them for dinner.
When the two boys were quite out of hearing, Harold gave a low whistle. Clapping his friend on the shoulder, he said softly: “Charles, you’re a miracle worker. I haven’t seen such a radiant smile from Gwyn in more days than I can remember.” The other lad replied in a low voice, “I’m glad you took me into your confidence. I may be able to help you solve your problem.”
Harold asked with sincere eagerness, “You think that perhaps Gwyn can be changed without taking the extreme measure of telling her that she is Jenny Warner’s own sister?”
Charles nodded. “The ideal thing would be to so change Gwynette that she would be glad to learn that she had a sister all her very own.” Harold shook his head. “Can’t be done, old man, unless that sister proved to be an heiress or an earl’s daughter.” The boy laughed at a sudden recollection. “Poor Gwyn had a most unfortunate experience and sort of made herself the laughing stock of her crowd over at the seminary,” he confided. “She heard that there was a girl in the school whose father was a younger son of English nobility who might some day be Lady Something-or-other. Gwyn decided thatthatgirl should be cultivated, but, unfortunately, the young lady had requested that her identity be kept a secret. No one but Miss Granger knew it. The principal had been proud, evidently, of the fact that a member of a noble English family attended her school, and had let that much be known.” Charles smiled. “I thought America was democratic and cared nothing for class,” he said.
They had stopped on the circling, softly-carpeted stairway while they talked. Being far from the library, they had no fear of being overheard by Gwyn. Harold replied: “Well, there are some of us who care nothing at all for class, but every country has its snobs and Gwyn is one, unfortunately.”
Charles appeared interested. “Did she manage to identify the girl who might some day have a title?”
Again Harold laughed. “Poor Gwyn, it really was very funny. She selected a big, handsome blonde who ordered the maids about in an imperious manner and, more than that, she gave a dance at The Palms, inviting her to be the guest of honor. I brought down a bunch of cadets from the big town and it happened one of them hailed from Chicago, and so did the handsome blonde. He told us that she was a Swede and that her father had made a fortune raising pigs!”
Charles could not refrain from smiling. “That was hard on your sister, wasn’t it?” he said.
The other lad nodded. “I wouldn’t dare refer to it in Gwyn’s hearing, but come on! Mother will wonder where we are all this time.”
Mrs. Poindexter-Jones was as much pleased with Harold’s new friend as Gwynette had been, and, in the brief ten moments that the boys stayed with the invalid, she became convinced that he was just the lad she would like to have in the cliff cabin with her son. When the nurse appeared with a warning nod at Harold, the boys at once arose, and the woman, reclining among her pillows, smiled as she held out a frail hand. “Charles Gale,” she said kindly, “we are glad indeed to have you with us. Remain as long as you can, and, when your sister is stronger, I would like to have that dear little Warner girl bring her to call upon me.”
On the way down the wide circling flight of stairs Charles said softly, “Your mother seems to like Jenny Warner.” The other nodded. “Yes, she does. She wonders if, had she chosen Jeanette, as she calls her, and the Warners had taken Gwynette, the girls would have been different. Susan Warner declares that if her Jenny had been brought up as a princess she would still have been simple and loving, going about doing good as she does now. She is the bright angel to a family of Italians living in Sycamore Canyon.”
Soft chimes from the dining-room told them that the dinner hour had arrived, and so Harold went to the library to escort his sister, Charles following. Again the bright smile greeted them. Rising, the girl said, “Brother, Ma Mere told me, when I arrived from the seminary this afternoon, that I need not remain here this summer unless I so desire.”
To Charles she explained, “I did feel so neglected when Mother sent me to this out-of-the-way country school. I wanted to be with her in France. The resort where she was staying is simply charming, and one meets people there from the very best English families. For some reason, however, I had to be buried out here.” Then, after an expressive shrug, she added with renewed interest: “Ma Mere has heard of a select party sailing from San Francisco next week, and if I wish, I may join it.”
While Gwyn had been talking, they had sauntered to the dining-room and were seated in a group at one end of the long, highly-polished table. Charles, listening attentively, now realized how truly selfish the girl was. He was recalling another girl in a far-distant scene. When their mother had been ill, Lenora could hardly be persuaded to leave her bedside long enough to obtain the rest she needed, and that illness had lasted many months. Indeed, it was not until after the mother had died that the girl could be persuaded to think of herself, and then it was found, as Charles and his father had feared, that she had used up far more vitality than she could spare and she had not been strong since. He tried not to feel critically toward the beautiful girl at his side. Purposely he did not glance at Harold. That boy had flushed uncomfortably, and, at, last, he spoke his thoughts, which he evidently had tried to refrain from doing. “Gwyn, don’t you suppose, if you stayed at home, you might make our mother’s long hours in bed pleasanter for her?”
The girl’s tone was just tinged with irritation. “No, Harold, I do not. Mother does not find my companionship restful and Miss Dane surely does for her all that is humanly possible.” Gwyn was distinctly uncomfortable. She felt that the conversation was not putting her in an enviable light and she had truly wished to impress Charles Gale, for the time being, at least. She had no desire to have the admiration a lasting one, since he was merely a rancher’s son.
Gwynette had one ambition and that was to make a most desirable marriage soon after her eighteenth birthday, which was not many months away. She was convinced that, after her debut into San Francisco’s most select “Younger Set”, she would soon meet the man of her dreams. She never doubted but thatheat once would love her and desire to make her his wife. But just now it would be gratifying to her vanity to have so handsome a young giant as Charles Gale admire her. Poor Gwyn at that moment was far from having accomplished this. Charlesdidadmire beauty, and thought how charming she would be, were she not so superlatively selfish.
Harold changed the subject. “Gwyn, we boys are going to the farm after dinner. Will you go with us? Charles naturally wishes to spend the evenings with his sister.”
Both boys waited, though not appearing to do so, for the girl’s reply. Her brother well knew that she would not want to go to the farm and associate with her mother’s servants, as she called Susan and Silas Warner and their granddaughter, but, on the other hand, Harold could easily see that his sister was much impressed with Charles Gale and might wish to accompany them for the sake of his companionship if for no other reason.
Gwyndidaccept, after a moment’s thought. She knew that, all alone in the big house, she would be frightfully bored. And so, half an hour later, the three started out across the gardens, under the pines and along the cliff, where in the early twilight a full moon, rising from the sea, was sending toward them a path of silver. Gwynette paused and looked out across the water for a long silent moment. When she spoke, it was to her brother. “Harold, I’ve never before been along this cliff. In fact,” this to Charles, “all of my life has been spent either in San Francisco or abroad. This is the first year that Mother has seemed to want to come to Santa Barbara. I always supposed it was because it reminded her of our father, who died here so long ago.”
“Then you do not know the beautiful spots that are everywhere around your own home,” Charles said, and his voice was more kindly than it had been. He was sorry for the girl who had been brought up among people who thought that ascending the social ladder was the one thing to be desired. He knew, for Harold had told him, how sincerely the mother regretted all this, but now that the girl’s character was formed, they feared that only some extreme measure, such as revealing to her who she really was, could change her. Charles, who was a deep student of human nature, felt that the girl’s sincere joy in the loveliness of the path of silver light on the sea was a hopeful sign. Harold was thinking, “That is the first resemblance to Jenny Warner that I have noticed.Sheloves nature in all its moods.” At their first tap on the front door, it was flung open and Jenny, in her yellow dress, greeted them joyfully, pausing, however, and hesitating when she saw by whom the boys were accompanied. One glimpse into the old-fashioned farm “parlor”, with its haircloth-covered furniture, its wax wreath under a glass, its tidies on the chairs, its framed mottoes on the walls, beside chromo pictures of Susan and Si Warner made when they were married, filled Gwynette with shuddering dread. She couldn’t, she wouldn’t associate with these people as equals. Had she not been an honored guest in the homes of millionaires in San Francisco and abroad? But, distasteful as it all was to her, she found herself advancing over the threshold when Charles stepped aside to permit her to enter ahead of him. Jenny, remembering her promise to Harold, held out her hand, rather diffidently, but Gwynette was apparently looking in another direction, and so it was Harold who took it, and, although his greeting was the customary one, his eyes expressed the gratitude that he felt because Jenny hadtriedto fulfill her promise to him. “Don’t bother about it any more,” he said in a low voice aside, “it isn’t worth it.” Of course the girl did not know just what he meant, but she resolved not to be discouraged by one failure.
“Wall, wall,” it was Silas Warner who entered the parlor five moments later, rubbing his hands and smiling his widest, “this here looks like a celebration or some sech. ’Tain’t anybody’s birthday, is it, Jenny-gal, that yer givin’ a party for?”
“Oh, don’t I wish it were, though,” Harold exclaimed, “then Grandma Sue would make one of her famous mountain chocolate cakes.” He looked around the group beseechingly. “Say, can’t one of you raise a birthday within the next fortnight. It will be worth the effort.”
Lenora flashed a smile across the room at her brother. “Charles can,” she announced. “He will be twenty-one on the twenty-fifth of June.”
“Great!” Then turning to the smiling old woman who sat near Jenny in the most comfortable rocker the room afforded, “Grandma Sue, I implore that your heart be touched! Will you make us a cake twenty-one layers high, with chocolate in between an inch thick? I’ll bring the candles and the ice cream.”
Jenny, who for the first time was surrounded by young people, caught Harold’s holiday spirit and clapping her hands impulsively, she cried, “Won’t that be fun! Grandma Sue, you’ll let us have a real party for Charles’ birthday, won’t you?”
Of course the old woman was only too happy to agree to their plans. While she and Jenny were talking, Harold sat back and looked at the two girls, the “unlike sisters” as he found himself calling them. Gwynette sat on the edge of a slipper haircloth chair, the stiffest in the room. There was an unmistakable sneer in the curve of her mouth, which was quite as sensitive as Jenny’s but lacking the sweet cheerful upturn at the corners. Nor was Harold the only one who was thinking about this very evident likeness, or unlikeness.
Farmer Si, chewing a toothpick (of all plebeian things!), stood warming his back at the nickel-plated parlor stove, hands back of him, teetering now and then from heel to toe and ruminating. “Wall,” was his self-satisfied conclusion, “who wants her can have ’tother one. Ma and me got the best of that little drawin’ deal.”
“But that birthday is a whole week away,” Harold was saying, “and here is a perfectly good evening to spend. The question before the house is, how shall we spend it?”
“O, I know,” Lenora leaned forward eagerly. “Let’s make popcorn balls. Brother and I used to call that the greatest kind of treat when we were children.”
Gwynette’s cold voice cut in with: “Butwearenotchildren.”
Harold leaped up exclaiming, “Maybe you are not, Gwyn, but the rest of us are. Grandma Sue, may we borrow your kitchen if we leave it as spotless as we find it?”
Gwynette rose, saying coldly, “I am very tired. I think I will go home now.” Harold was filled with consternation. He, of course, would have to accompany his sister, but, before he could speak, Charles was saying: “I will walk over with you, Miss Gwynette, if you will permit me to do so. I haven’t had nearly my usual amount of outdoor exercise today, and I’d be glad to do it.”
Gwynette flashed a grateful glance at him, and, wishing to appear well in his eyes, she actually crossed the room and held out her hand to the old woman, who, with the others, had risen. “Goodnight, Mrs. Warner,” she began, then surprised herself by ending with—“I hope you will invite me to the birthday party.” She bit her lip with vexation as soon as she was outdoors. She had not meant to say it. Why had she? It was the same as acknowledging that she considered herself an equal socially with the Warners and the Gales, who also were farmers. She knew the answer, even though she would not admit it.
“What a warm, pleasant evening it is,” Charles said when the door of the farmhouse had closed behind them. “Would it bore you terribly, Miss Gwynette, to go out on the point of rocks with me for a moment? I’d like to see the surf closer in the moonlight.”
“Oh, I’d love to.” Gwynette was honest, at least, when she made this reply. She liked to be with this good-looking young giant who carried himself as a Grecian god might have done.
Taking her arm, the young man assisted the slender, graceful girl from rock to rock until they had reached the highest point. There Charles noted the canopied rock where Lenora and Jenny sat on the first day of their visit to the point together.
“Is it too cool, do you think, to sit here a moment?” Gwynette asked somewhat shyly. For answer, the lad drew off his outer coat, folded it and placed it on the stone. “Oh, I don’t need it,” he said, when she protested. “This slipover sweater of mine is all that I usually wear, but I put on the coat tonight in honor of the ladies.” Then, folding his arms, he stood silently near, watching the truly inspiring scene. One great breaker after another rolled quietly in, lifting a foaming crest as it neared the shore, glistening like fairy snow in the silver of the moonlight.
“The surf doesn’t roar tonight, the way it does sometimes,” the lad said, dropping at last to the rock at the girl’s side. “Watch now when the next wave breaks, how all of the spray glistens.”
For a few moments neither spoke and, in Gwynette’s starved soul something stirred again, this time more distinctly. It was an intense love of nature that she had inherited, with Jenny, from a wandering poet-missionary father. She caught her breath when spray and mist dashed almost up to them. “O, it is lovely, lovely!” she said, for once being perfectly sincere and forgetting herself. “I never saw anything so exquisite.”
Charles was more than pleased. Perhaps he was to find the soul of the girl at his side. Harold did not believe that she had one. As he glanced down at her now and then her real joy in the beauty of the scene before them, he concluded that she was fully as beautiful as her sister.
“I wonder where the silver path leads,” she said whimsically.
“I wish I had a sailboat here,” the lad exclaimed, “and if you would be my passenger, we’d sail over that silver stream and find where it leads.”
The girl looked up at him. Her new emotion had changed the expression of her face. It was no longer cynical and cold. “Our father had a sailboat, but for years it has been hanging to the rafters of the boathouse. Perhaps Harold would like to take it down, now that he is to be here all summer.”
“Good. I’ll ask him!” the lad was enthusiastic. “I suppose you wonder how I, a farmer from the inland, learned to sail. It was the year before mother died that we all went to Lake Tahoe, hoping that the change of air would benefit her. A splendid sailboat was one of the accessories of the cabin we rented, and how I reveled in it. I do hope Harold will loan me his boat. It seems calm enough beyond the surf. In fact I saw several boats today evidently racing around a buoy over toward the town.”
“Yes, there is a yacht club at Santa Barbara and they have a wonderful harbor. Harold has been invited to join the club. I would like to attend one of their dances.”
The girl hesitated to ask her companion if he could dance. Probably not, having been brought up on an isolated ranch. To her relief the question was answered without having been asked.
“I believe I like skating better than dancing, but, when the music pleases me and my partner, I do enjoy dancing.” Gwyn found that she must reconstruct her preconvinced ideas about Dakota farmers. Then, after silently watching the waves for a thoughtful moment, he turned toward her as he smilingly said: “Miss Gwynette, do you suppose that you and I could go to the next Yacht Club dance?”
“Oh, yes, of course.” The girl’s eyes were glowing. Now indeed the resemblance to Jenny was marked. “We have the entree everywhere.”
As they walked side by side toward the big house. Gwyn was conscious of being happier than she had ever been in all her seventeen years. Then she realized, with a pang of regret, that in two weeks this companion who seemed to understand her better than did anyone else, would be gone.
At the foot of the steps she turned and held out her hand. “Goodnight, Mr. Gale,” she said simply. “Thank you for escorting me home.”
Harold was more than glad to grant his sister’s request that the sailboat, which for years had been suspended in the boathouse, should be lowered and launched. Naturally, after having dried for so long leaks appeared as soon as it was afloat in the quiet cove sheltered by the little peninsula, Rocky Point. Again it was drawn up and a merry morning the two boys spent with the help of an old man about the place who at one time had sailed the seas. The cracks were caulked and again the pretty craft floated, seeming to dance for joy, over the smoothly rolling waves, when it was tied to the buoy a short distance from shore. The rowboat had been used by the gardener for fishing excursions, and so that was in readiness. The boys had been glad to find that, though the sails were somewhat yellowed, they had been so carefully rolled away and covered that no repairs were necessary.
“We’d better make a trial trip in the craft before we take the ladies,” Charles suggested when, dressed in their overalls, they paused on their way to the farm the next morning to look out at the boat.
It was that very day that Mrs. Poindexter-Jones again decided that she would like to be taken to the pond-lily garden and have Jenny Warner read to her. When, leaning on Miss Dane’s arm, she arrived in the charming shrub-sheltered nook, she saw Gwynette lying in a hammock which was stretched between two sycamore trees near. The girl at once arose and went forward to greet her mother with an expression of real solicitude which the woman had never before seen in her daughter’s face. She even glanced again to be sure that she had not been mistaken. Brightly the girl said, “Good morning, Ma Mere. I’m glad you are able to be out this lovely day. I was just coming to your room to ask if you’d like me to read aloud to you. I found such a good story in the library, a new one.”
The pleased woman glanced at the book the girl held. It was the one in which Jenny Warner had read a few chapters.
There was a glad light in the eyes of the girl’s foster-mother.
Gwyn saw it, and for the first time in her life her conscience stirred, rebuking her for having never before thought of doing anything to add to her mother’s pleasure.
What the older woman said was: “I shall be more than glad to have my daughter read to me. I was just about to send for Jenny Warner. Before you came home she started to read that very book to me, but we were only at the beginning.” Gwynette flushed. “Oh, if you would rather have—” she began. But her mother, hearing the hurt tone and wishing to follow up any advantage the moment might be offering, hurriedly said: “Indeed I would far rather have you read to me than anyone else, dear Gwynette. I had not asked you because I did not know that you would care to.” There was an almost pathetic note in the voice which again carried a rebuke to the heart of the girl.
Miss Dane left them, after having arranged her patient in the comfortable reclining chair.
Gwynette, having read by herself to the chapter where Jenny had stopped, began to read aloud and the woman, leaning back luxuriously at ease, listened with a growing tenderness in her eyes. How beautiful Gwynette was, and surely there was a changed expression which had come within the last few days.Whatcould have caused it? Why did she seem more content to remain in the country? The girl had not again mentioned the party for European travel which she had seemed so eager to join when her mother had proposed it. Half an hour later she suggested that they stop reading and visit.
“Dear,” she said, and Gwynette actually thrilled at the new tenderness in her mother’s voice, “it isn’t going to bore you as much as you thought to remain here with us?”
The girl rose and sat on a stool near the reclining chair. “Ma Mere,” she said, and there were actually tears in her eyes, “I have been very unhappy, miserably dissatisfied, and I sometimes think that what I am yearning for is love. I have had adulation,” she spoke somewhat bitterly. “I have demanded a sort of homage from the girls in my set wherever I was. I think often they grudgingly gave it. I’ve had lots of time to think about all these things during the last two weeks when Beulah and Patricia, who had been my best friends in San Francisco, were busy with final tests. I knew, when I faced the thing squarely, out there in the summer-house where I spent so many hours alone. I knew that neither of those girls really cared for me—I mean with their hearts—the way they did for each other, and it made me feel lonely—left out. I don’t know as I had ever felt that way before, and then, when I came over here, that first day after you came home, you talked about Harold with such loving tenderness, and again I felt so neglected.” She looked up, for the woman had been about to speak. “Let me finish, Ma Mere, please, for I may never again feel that Iwantto tell what I think. I have been locked up so long. I’ve been too proud to tell anyone that IknewHarold did not really care for me, that every little thing he did for me was because he considered it a duty.”