"Why does my Robin sit with her 'head under her wing, poor thing'?" asked Mrs. Grey. For Rob had been very silent and distraught for a few days, which was equivalent to being another person than Roberta Grey.
"I think it must be because it's the fall of the year and that my spirits go down with the leaves," said Rob rousing herself. "The thought of the operation on little crippled Jimmy has haunted me—I shall feel better to-morrow when it is over. Or worse," she added as an afterthought.
Mrs. Grey had a suspicion that this did not fully account for Rob's depression. She had heard from Wythie of her fears of Rob's bad treatment of Bruce that morning when they had set out together for Miss Charlotte's, but she was far too wise to ask a question or to hint at a more personal trouble in Rob's mind than the operation pending for little crippled Jimmy.She reflected that there was a remedy for this sort of complaint less difficult than a surgeon's knife, a remedy more likely to be taken when not recommended by onlookers.
Hester and her mother were staying up on the hill, occupying the rooms which Hester's tactful kindness had secured for them in Myrtle's house, thus giving the young widow just the additional income needed to smooth her hard path.
Rob went up to get Hester to go with her to Green Pastures on the morning when the experiment was to be tried which, if it should succeed, would restore Jimmy to his place among fully living people. And which would bring high honour to Bruce, whose theory of Jimmy's trouble was to be worked upon—perhaps this thought, not less than interest in Jimmy, sent Rob's feet rapidly on her way.
They were to operate at nine that lovely late September morning; by half-past ten the girls felt that they might venture to Green Pastures without being in the way. They could not talk on their way over, but hurried along in silence, eyes dilated and breath quick as the thoughts of both concentrated on what might be awaiting them at their destination.
Green Pastures looked cheerful as they nearedit. It had undergone improving and enriching at the hands of its young founders, and the old, barren look that it wore in the purely Flinders days had been merged in beauty of flowers and cultivation. Aunt Azraella had endowed it with a fund for keeping it in order, since paralysed Mr. Flinders could never work about his farm again, and Aaron, who had for so long made the hill house conspicuous in Fayre for its well-kept grounds, and who still looked after it for Myrtle, was responsible for the outward well-being of Green Pastures, also.
No one was in sight as Hester and Rob reached the gate, but when its latch clicked there swung around the corner on her crutches one of the children whom it sheltered, and who bore down on the girls with the speed in which she surpassed her comrades in misfortune.
"Oh, say," she called in that New York Eastside accent which is altogether incommunicable by printed signs. "Say, dey's been woikin' at Jimmy an' he's t'rough. Got his senses back all right. He's doin' fine. But, say, ain't it fierce? De knife slipped an' jammed de doctor, de young one, dat frien' er you's. Stuck him right in de hoit. He's huyt somethin' fierce. I heayd he wouldn't git over it." The child's eye gleamed with thefire of the born romancer, but neither Rob nor Hester saw it, nor stopped to remember that this was Nellie, whose tendency to fabricate troubled them more than her lameness.
They clutched each other, and the colour went out of Rob's face, leaving her so ghastly white that Hester put her arm around her and half carried her into the house. Mrs. Flinders was not in evidence, and they pushed open the door of what had been the Flinders' living-room, but which had been appropriated to the children for a play-room because of its generous morning sunshine.
There, in the flood of September's sunny warmth, in the window sat Bruce, the other two little girls, one on each knee, resting their heads confidingly on his shoulders while, his arms around their thin bodies, he busied himself with constructing something of cardboard for their amusement. Bruce's eyes were bent upon his work, but his face looked peaceful, with a certain strength and proud confidence in the lines of his mouth that told the story of that morning's work. The whole scene was so full of peace and security that Rob's brain reeled, and Hester uttered a glad cry.
At that Bruce looked up smiling, but his facechanged as he saw Rob's deathly look, and he set the children down quickly and gently, crossing over to the girls.
"Rob, what is it?" he cried, horrible visions of something tragic in the little grey house or in Basil's home flashing upon him.
Rob put out both hands and seized the lapels of his coat; a faint suggestion of ether about him made her shudder. "She said you were stabbed—in the heart—" gasped Rob. "Bruce, Bruce, I should have died, too!"
Bruce steadied her and turned to Hester for an explanation. "It's that dreadful, horrible little Nellie!" she cried. "She met us at the gate and told us that the knife had slipped and had stabbed you in the heart. I think we must amputate her head!" And Hester, gently disengaging herself from Rob, and with a look at Bruce, ran out of the room. Rob stood with bowed head still holding Bruce's coat, shaking with sobs beyond her control.
The colour mounted to Bruce's temples as he realized that at last Rob knew her own mind, and had surrendered. He did not speak for a moment, but stroked her hair from which her hat had fallen, and which the September wind had whipped into more rings and ripples than usual,steadying himself against the great rush of gladness with which he realized what all this meant.
Rob made a strong effort at self-control, feeling miserably for her handkerchief as she sobbed: "You wouldn't like to have a friend stabbed in the heart yourself, Bruce. And it shocked me."
Bruce laughed outright. "Don't apologize, Rob dearest," he said. "I don't mind." And he wiped her eyes with his own handkerchief in a paternal manner.
"She is a limb, that youngster, to frighten you so, but somehow I can't feel just indignation yet. I never thought I should admire a lie so much," said Bruce. "Look up at me, Rob, and let me see my wife."
"There isn't anything to see," said Rob faintly. "I am numb."
"Poor darling!" said Bruce. "It was a cruel thing! I won't bother you now, dear. Let me put you over in the rocking-chair in the sunshine, and then I'll hunt up Mother Flinders and get her to bring you a cup of hot milk, and I'll give you something to steady you. Dear heart, you didn't know that you cared like this, did you?"
"I didn't," said Rob feebly. "People always care most when you're dead."
"That's bad," said Bruce, "because I amalive, and hope to keep on living. There's enough strength left in you to make a feeble fight against capitulation, isn't there, Bobs Bahadur?" And Bruce lightly kissed the tumbled, reddish brown hair curling up against his arm. "Now sit here, all comfy, my Robin, and I'll bring you something that will set you up again, your old self. Do you want Hester?"
Rob shook her head. "Come back yourself, Bruce, only you, else I shall begin again believing it was true," she said simply, and Bruce left her with a throb of wondering delight that this could be independent Rob.
Bruce hastened back with his restorative, and Mrs. Flinders followed soon with the hot milk. "That is considered the best kind of a restorative after an operation, and you underwent a severe amputation, Rob," said Bruce, holding the cup to her lips, while Mrs. Flinders looked on with grimness, concealing her pleasure that what everybody wanted had come to pass.
"Give me the cup, Bruce; I'm quite able to feed myself, besides it is so hot you would scald me," said Rob, taking it from him. "I am ashamed, Mrs. Flinders; I never went to pieces like that before, but you see it came so suddenly!"
"Of course," assented Mrs. Flinders with entire gravity. "And cripple or not, I think that Nellie ought to be spanked—she can run on her crutches fast enough and lie fast enough to afford a good spanking."
"But not for this offence," pleaded Bruce. "Wait till she lies once more, and then spank her; the beneficent little humbug!"
"If Hester can't make them little angels, as well as improve them physically, Green Pastures is going to prove a pasture full of nettles to her," said Rob, with a return of the laughter to her eyes.
"I have not told you, Rob—your condition drove it from my mind—" began Bruce wickedly, "but the operation on Jimmy is a success. My theory was the right one, and the boy will be able to run about, on crutches maybe, but vastly improved. I really believe that he will be only slightly lame, and not need crutches."
"That means everything for you, doesn't it, Bruce?" said Rob proudly.
"It means a good deal," said Bruce quietly. "Now, Robin, let us fly to the little grey house. I am off duty this morning, and I want to take you home."
"Wait till I find Hester, and smooth myhair," said Rob, going in pursuit of her friend.
"I'm so glad, dearest Rob, I'm so very glad! I don't think I'm going to be a sour maiden lady with no sympathy for romance. I have wanted so much to see you wake up to what you really felt," said Hester, arranging the pins in Rob's wayward locks.
"I think now that I must have known all along, and that is why I behaved so badly," said Rob meekly.
Hester laughed. "I think so too," she said.
"I wish you were not the only one without a share in this epidemic of happiness! France and Prue will be married by spring, even I am doomed, and only splendid Hester, the great-hearted Hester, is left out," said Rob, her arms over her friend's shoulders as she looked into her eyes with joy beginning to illuminate her own.
Hester shook her head. "I am glad and sympathetic; I am even able to understand what it means to you all, but for myself I am satisfied. I would rather help the child waifs than have my own little ones to look after; rather feel that I was doing for others than have the dearest of love to look after me," she said. "I have alwaysbeen different from other girls, Rob, and my vocation is to be alone, though not lonely. Or, at least, not too lonely. Down in the bottom of my heart I am lonely, but I suspect that there is a lonely spot in every human heart, and that all human beings—or at least most of us—are a little hungry all their lives."
Rob did not answer, except to kiss Hester as she turned away. "You certainly are not much like other girls, my splendid Hester," she said. And she ran away to find Bruce.
"I thought you were never coming," he grumbled as she entered, already claiming her in true masculine fashion.
"Good-bye for to-day, Mrs. Flinders," said Rob, turning back a radiant face to the drab woman regarding her with incredible sympathy concealed beneath her flat chest.
"Good-bye, Roberta, and good luck to you; half you deserve would be enough to set you up for two lives. I'm sorry he can't sense the news I'll tell him, but I'll tell him just the same. He's set a lot by you ever since he got over being mad because you made him do the right thing by you when he run your place on shares, and that's ever since you was good to Maimie. Goodbye, Roberta."
"Mardy, Mardy Grey!" called Bruce in the doorway of the little grey house. "Come and see my beautiful wife!"
Mrs. Grey flew in from the kitchen where she was consulting with Rhoda, and that jovial person was so startled by Bruce's salutation that she followed to peer through the door at the strange lady.
"Rob!" cried her mother, and Rob ran to her, letting herself be gathered in the loving arms and drawn down into her mother's lap in the rocking-chair, half laughing, half crying.
"Oh, Bruce, dear Bruce, I am truly thankful this foolish child has come to her senses at last," cried Mrs. Grey, contriving to hold out a hand, to Bruce and to pull him down for the kiss which she gave him with her heart on her lips.
"Yes, ma'am," said Bruce dutifully. "I thought you would be glad to have such a well grown son who could mend bones and administer drugs when anything happened in the family. To tell you the honest truth Rob came to her senses with such a rush that she gave me no choice today but to accept the offer which she practically made me."
"Bruce, you wretch!" cried Rob. "Mardy, that dreadful story-telling Nellie Something, upat Green Pastures, told me that the operating knife had slipped, and that Bruce was stabbed fatally—wouldn't you have been sorry, too, if that were true?"
"I don't understand, but I can safely say yes, I think," said her mother. "Never mind, Rob; what you ought to be ashamed of is having tormented Bruce for so long. You won't take her away from me, Bruce? The one stipulation I make is that you live here. Even that I can't insist on, but I do hope you will let me keep Rob?"
"Why, Mardy Grey, there isn't a spot on earth I love like this little house of yours, and somehow I couldn't imagine Rob anywhere else. Neither of the other girls ever seemed so much a part of the home as Rob is," said Bruce.
"To tell the truth I feel just as you do about it; it seems to me more suitable that Rob should be here with you than that Wythie and Basil should live with me—of course Prue will not live in Fayre," cried Mrs. Grey. "Rob was her father's 'son Rob,' you know, and she seems as much a part of the little grey house as its lichens. Dearest, best and bravest of daughters! I am glad that you know her as I know her, Bruce. Rob could be very unhappy in the wrong hands."
"If these prove the wrong ones, or less than wholly pledged to her welfare, may they wither away!" said Bruce with such entire earnestness that there was nothing singular in the words, nor in the gesture with which he held out his firm brown hands.
Rob raised her head from her mother's lap, "Let's get commonplace at once!" she cried. "I refuse to remain at such an altitude another moment. Mardy, what's for lunch?"
There was ample, fortunately, for even the newly betrothed proved to be unromantically hungry. During the course of luncheon it suddenly flashed upon Mrs. Grey that that night the family, which included the Baldwins, Dr. Fairbairn, and Myrtle Hasbrook, had been invited to the little grey house to listen to the reading of Basil's first novel, of which he had written the final chapter two days before.
"It ought to be good," said Bruce. "He worked on it under the stimulus of his newly married bliss."
"Like the man in Stockton's story, 'His Wife's Deceased Sister,'" added Rob. "I hope he won't share that unfortunate author's fate. Wouldn't it be queer if Basil had written one of the six best selling books occurring in the listof sales in each city in the country in varying heights in the column, but always one of the six?"
"O Phaebus, forbid, Rob!" cried Bruce. "Basil isn't forced to write for money; he can afford to do good work."
"We will have our dearest people here tonight, and we will not only hear Basil's novel, but let them share our new happiness," suggested Mrs. Grey with a smiling look for Bruce's implied criticism.
"That will be a good way of announcing it," said Bruce, taking his hat. "I've got to go now to join the doctor. Mayn't I tell him myself?"
"Yes, and come with me to tell Wythie and Basil; it isn't fair to leave them to learn about it with the others—nor Cousin Peace. What a pity Prue is away!" said Rob, jumping up to go with Bruce. "I'll just look in a moment upon Cousin Peace on my way home from Wythie's, Mardy. And oughtn't I order a stirrup cup for our friends?"
"A stirrup cup, Rob?" repeated her mother.
"Yes, why not, if I am going to ride away from Green Pastures to Gretna Green? Only we may not quite elope," said Rob. "I mean nothing more startling than some refreshments, Mardy."
"Oh dear, oh dear," sighed Mrs. Grey in pretended distress. "The moment a girl is engaged her memory for details fails. Is it possible, Roberta, that you have forgotten that you and I made cake all yesterday afternoon, ordered cream, and prepared for the celebration of Basil's novel?"
Rob laughed, and hastily ran away; she really had completely forgotten, and it was embarrassing. She went from Wythie's raptures and Basil's profound delight, to Cousin Peace's not less genuine though quieter pleasure, and to little singing Polly's unexplained tears—"Singing Polly," they called the child often now, for her voice was becoming daily a more wonderful possession.
The evenings were already growing long, and early that night the curtains were drawn close around the little grey house, and the lamps lighted.
Wythie and Basil came down early, to find Bruce already there. The two brothers, very like in features and colouring, though differing in expression, and almost the same height, stood beside the fire, looking happy and handsome in their white linen—they were the sort of men to whom evening-dress is vastly becoming.
Each thought regretfully of Bartlemy far away, who had missed his prize out of the treasures the little grey house had to give. But it was good that the Commodore had arrived that day, and good to see the beaming satisfaction with which he regarded his two splendid sons, for whom no father could wish a better fate than to have won the two elder Grey daughters.
Wythie and Rob had lain down for a little talk, in the old fashion, on the bed they had shared from childhood. The little talk lengthened out into a longer one than they realized; Mrs. Grey startled them by warning them that it lacked but fifteen minutes to eight o'clock, and that Rob would surely be late.
Wythie helped her to dress in a hurry, just as Rob had always dressed. It was very like old times. Rob could not realize that this was Mrs. Rutherford, not Wythie Grey, helping her, and that her own days of girlhood were numbered.
Frances and Lester came, and Mrs. Baldwin and her husband, to the sound of whose voice Rob's heart went out as she heard it, for he had been her father's chum, and she longed for her "Patergrey's" blessing that night. Hester, Cousin Peace, little Polly, Myrtle, good old Dr. Fairbairn—the sisters recognized these asthe knocker repeatedly sounded and the guests came in.
"Only Bartlemy and Prue lacking! If only Prudy could have been as comfortable and conformable as we, Wythie!" said Rob as Wythie dropped over her beautiful hair the white skirt which she was so late in donning.
"It will be all right as it is, Rob dear. We won't regret anything to-night," said Wythie. "But it would have been lovely to have been the three Mrs. Rutherfords!"
"Well, we each could have been only one of them," said Rob. "Just hook my collar for me, Wythiekins, and then run down, for it makes me seem much later when I keep you up here, too."
Wythie did as she was asked, altered a pin in her sister's hair, laid against its unruly beauty the ferns and buds which Bruce had brought her, fell back to look at the effect, and found it so satisfactory that she seized Rob in an ecstatic embrace and then flew down-stairs, remembering for the first time that this had been intended to be her triumph through Basil's genius, and that nobody thought of the novel now.
Rob lingered for some last touches, then looked long and steadily at herself in the glass, holding up the hand that wore upon it thediamond which had been Bruce's mother's. Then she kissed the ring, and leaning forward, kissed the girl in the glass: "Because Bruce loves you, my dear Rob," she whispered. Then she went slowly down-stairs. There was no one there who was not familiarly dear to her, yet she hesitated on the lower step, half shy and frightened. Some one caught a glimpse of her, and said "Here's Rob!" The conversation ceased, and Bruce sprang forward to lead her in. They halted in the doorway, and the loving eyes of her kindred and friends fell on Rob. They saw a tall young creature, all in white, beautiful colour coming and going in the oval cheeks, great, flashing brown eyes ready to laugh or to cry, the sweet, sensitive, coaxing short upper lip quivering, a creature all compounded of mirth and love and tears. Not Prue in all her regal beauty could have looked as Rob looked at that moment.
The Grey mother's heart went out to her in a throb that included all the child's merry, impetuous ways, the young girl's chivalrous courage, the dead father's reliance and help, and, later, the sweet, cheerful, brave, high-minded young woman upon whom she herself had leaned since her day of widowhood, went out in unspeakable love and pride to Rob.
She rose and joined the girl still hesitating a moment's space in the doorway. Taking her hand she turned back to her guests, and said with a thrill in her voice:
"Dear people, here is the next mistress of the little grey house."