"SHE COULD HEAR EVERY WORD OF THE CONVERSATION.""SHE COULD HEAR EVERY WORD OF THE CONVERSATION."
"I shall save her some, too," said Kitty. "I'd like to give her a good big squeeze for being so kind to us."
Mrs. Bond stepped out into the room again with a pleased smile on her motherly face. As she went down-stairs she began revolving a plan in her mind for the evening entertainment of these appreciative little guests which she thought would give them still greater pleasure. Scarcely had she gone when another listener took her place. This time the eavesdropping was intentional.
Mittie Dupong, crossing over to the west wing to borrow a magazine from Betty, saw the sign on the corridor door. Knowing what such signs usually mean at five o'clock on a Saturday afternoon, she softly turned the knob and stepped into the narrow hall. A delicious smell of boiling candy came floating down toward her from Lloyd's room, and a peal of laughter, in which she distinguished first Allison's voice, then Kitty's and Katie's. She felt a trifle piqued at being left out of the merry-making.
"I wonder who else is in there," she thought,slipping on toward the keyhole. Just as she was about to stoop and peep in, a sudden noise inside as of some one coming toward her made her draw back. The door into the Clark girls' room stood open. She darted in and waited breathlessly. Lloyd was coming out into the hall, saying, "Never mind about the lamp-chimney; I'll get Cassie's."
Mittie had barely time to spring into the closet when Lloyd entered, took the lamp from the table, and carried it back to her own room. Crouched down in her dark hiding-place Mittie discovered that the closet was a far better situation for eavesdropping than the keyhole. She could hear every word of the conversation without the risk of being detected.
Evidently the girls were discussing some story that they had been reading, and a very sentimental one at that. A wicked little gleam of triumph came into Mittie's eyes as she listened. For here were Lloyd and Allison and Kitty and Katie Mallard and Betty, actually teasing each other about the boys they liked best. And it hadn't been a week since Lloyd had said, with a scornful little toss of her head, "Oh, Mittie, you make me ti'ahed! Always talking about the boys!" and the four of them hadwalked off with their arms around each other as if quite disgusted.
"Oh, won't I get even with them now for turning up their noses at me!" exclaimed Mittie to herself, and she pressed her ear closer to the thin partition wall that divided the two closets.
Katie's voice came first: "If I'd been Daisy Dale I'd have fallen in love with Lord Rokeby instead of the Squire's son, because he was tall and fair and blue-eyed."
"Like Charlie Downs," put in Kitty, mischievously. "Oh, girls! Look at her blush!"
"I'm not blushing," protested Katie, wildly.
"But you can't deny that he's the one," insisted Kitty. "Even when we were little and used to play 'lady come to see' you always played that you were Mrs. Downs, you know you did."
"I don't care," pouted Katie. "I don't do it now, and anyhow I don't keep an old dead rose and a valentine and a brass button all tied up in a fancy box with blue ribbon, the way you do, because Guy Ferris gave them to you. N-ow, who's blushing?"
"Katie Mallard, that's something you promised you'd never tell as long as you live!" cried Kitty. "I didn't think you'd be so mean as to go back on your promise." She turned away with such an offendedair that Katie saw that her teasing had gone farther than she intended. She hastened to make amends, for she couldn't be happy while there was the slightest misunderstanding between her and her best friend.
"I didn't think you'd care, Kitty. Truly I didn't. I wouldn't have teased you before the other girls, but just here, in our own little club, it oughtn't to make any difference. Why, I don't mind one bit telling you girls that I like Charlie Downs better than any boy I know, and that I felt glad when my apple parings made his initials every time I threw them over my shoulder on Hallowe'en. I don't think it's anything to confess that much, or to care for things a boy gives you as you do for the valentine and the rose. That's a very different matter from talking about the boys as Mittie Dupong does about Carter Brown."
"Well I should think so!" exclaimed Lloyd, in a tone that made Mittie, on the other side of the wall, set her teeth together angrily. "But Mittie isn't like the girls we've always gone with. She's socommon! She playskissing-games. I've nevah had any use for her since Cartah Brown's birthday pahty. When they played Pillow and Post-office, every boy in the room kissed her, and Lollie Briggs and all thatset of girls that she goes with. I couldn't undahstand it. Some of them seemed so nice; Flynn Willis, you know, and Caddie Bailey. I wouldn't have thought it of them."
"I think they are all nice girls," said Betty, "even Mittie. It's just because they have been brought up that way. They've all come from little towns where such games are the custom, and they really don't know any better. Don't be so fierce about it, Lloyd. One of the girls at our table ate with her knife when she first came, and took her soup out of the end of her spoon, and picked her pie up in her fingers. But she's as ladylike in her manners as anybody now. She simply hadn't been taught how to eat. Those girls will change, too, probably in time."
"But this is different," persisted Lloyd. "I know whom you mean. It was that little Prosser girl. But for all her bad table mannahs she was a lady at heart.Shedidn't take part in those games, and she wouldn't allow a boy to take such a liberty with her as to kiss her, any moah than one of us girls would, that had been brought up heah in the Valley. I'll always be glad we didn't ask Mittie or any of that set to join our club. They may be all right, but if they don't want to be considahed common theyoughtn't to do things that make them seem so, and that are considahed so by the best society."
The blue blood of an old patrician family, proud of its traditions and proud of its generations of gentle breeding was coursing hotly through the Little Colonel's veins as she spoke. Mittie could imagine how she looked as she stood there passing judgment, her head haughtily lifted, a flush on the high-bred little face. The mortified eavesdropper could not feel that she had really done anything wrong at the party, for as Betty had said, such games were always played in the country place where she came from, even in the presence of grown people. And the sport was often rough and boisterous, as it is among the peasant class of the older countries. But measuring herself by Lloyd's exacting standard, she somehow felt that she had been found sadly wanting, and she angrily resented the verdict of this little patrician, who, dainty and refined to the very finger-tips, made her seem less of a lady, less worthy of respect than herself.
The next instant Lloyd's scornful tone changed to one of cheerful sweetness, as she called, "Bring the buttered plates, Betty, please. The fudge is ready to pour out."
Hiding there in the dark closet, Mittie heard manythings during the next half-hour, which she stored away in her memory for future repetition. The secret of the Shadow Club was one, for they discussed it freely, regretting that they had accomplished so little that afternoon, and discussing the place of the next meeting.
With the curtains drawn, and the red lamp-shade casting a soft rosy glow over the room, it seemed a time for confidences. The rain came harder and harder in stormy gusts against the windows, but the curtains that shut out the night seemed to shut them in with the warmth and cheer of the cosy room. As they drew their chairs around the table, rocking comfortably back and forth, with the candy passing from hand to hand, they felt more closely drawn together themselves than they ever had before. And they talked of things they had never mentioned to each other before. "The Fortunes of Daisy Dale" had turned their thoughts toward the far-off future, and standing before its closed gate as if it were the portal to some unexplored Paradise, they questioned each other with eager wondering, as to what might lie in store for them on the other side.
"Well," exclaimed Katie, at length, "when I grow up, I hope the man who proposes to me will do it just as Guy did. I think it's so pretty, that scenein the cherry lane." She quoted, softly: "'The cherry lane is all in bridal white, my Marguerite, and when it blooms again I'll come to claim my bride—my pearl.'"
"I wonder if they all talk that way," mused Kitty.
"Of course not," said Betty, with a laugh. "It wouldn't fit in most cases. Imagine old Mr. Andrews calling his little black skinny wife his Jane Maria, his pearl! I suppose most people do it in as commonplace a way as Laurie proposed to Amy, in 'Little Women.'"
"I'm going to ask papa whathesaid," declared Katie.
Then the supper-bell rang, and Mittie heard no more. As soon as it was safe to venture from her hiding-place, she followed them down to the dining-room.
Anxious to get back to the reading of the book, the members of the Shadow Club could hardly conceal their disappointment when Mrs. Bond invited them into her parlour after supper, to try some new games which she thought would interest them. Under the circumstances they felt it would be impolite to refuse. They whispered to each other that they would slipaway early, but one thing after another kept them, and it was bedtime before they started up-stairs.
"Oh, I'm so dreadfully disappointed!" wailed Katie; "I won't be able to sleep a wink to-night for wondering how that story is going to end."
"We'll never have such a good chance to finish it again," said Allison, "and even if Ida should loan us the book, we'll not enjoy it as much as if she could read it to us. Her reading adds so much to it."
Kitty expressed the same opinion, and openly envied Lloyd and Betty, who, being in the same building, might have future opportunities which would be denied them. At last Ida proposed that they finish the book after the curfew signal, and preparations were hastily made.
As soon as Kitty and Katie were ready for bed, they took possession, as before, of Lloyd's bed. Lloyd and Betty climbed into the one on the other side of the room. Allison carried blankets and pillows from the next room to the divan, where she made herself comfortable, and Ida, putting a heavy woollen bathrobe over her night-dress, and stretching out in a steamer-chair with a shawl over her, began to read. There was a golf cape draped over the transom. Paper was stuffed in the keyholes, theoutside shutters were tightly closed, the blinds drawn, and the curtains pinned together over them, so that not a single telltale ray of light could betray them to the outside world. Three lamps stood in a row on the table, so that they might be burned in turn, and no one of them be found with the oil entirely consumed in the morning.
Everywhere in the big building was silence and sleep, save in that one room in the west wing. There Ida's voice went musically on, and, with eyes wide open and every sense alert, the girls lay and listened. The rain still poured on, and the wind rattled the casements. Down-stairs the clock struck ten, eleven, twelve; but not till the bride-bells rang out in the last chapter from the steeple of the little stone church in the English village did they lose interest for a moment in the "Fortunes of Daisy Dale." The beautiful ending was something for them to dream over for weeks. It was Sunday morning before Ida and the three guests stole to their rooms, and crept shivering between the cold sheets.
A PLOT
"Ifthere's anything Iloatheit's a sneak and a telltale!" The Little Colonel's voice rang out so clearly that the girls in the cloak-room stopped to listen.
It was Monday morning, and the pupils were assembling in the chapel for opening exercises. Lloyd stood near the door, the centre of an indignant little group, which cast scornful glances at another little group, whispering together by one of the windows.
"It's the most contemptible thing that evah happened in the seminary," Lloyd continued. "It's a disgrace to have such a girl in school."
Katie, who had been anxiously watching the cloak-room door for the last five minutes, for the appearance of Allison and Kitty, suddenly exclaimed, "There they are now, hanging up their wraps. Let's hurry and tell them before school begins!"
The next instant the two late comers found themselves in a corner, hemmed in by Betty, Katie, and Lloyd, all so indignant that they could scarcely make themselves understood.
"Girls," began Lloyd, in a voice quavering with anger, "you nevah heard anything so outrageous! Satahday aftahnoon, all that time we were making fudge up in our room, somebody was hiding in the closet next to ours, listening to every word we said!"
"How do you know?" gasped Kitty, remembering with dismay several speeches she had made, which would sound decidedly foolish if repeated.
"Lollie Briggs said so. We'd hardly got into the room this mawning when some of the girls began to laugh and repeat every word we had said."
"It's all over the school about our Shadow Club," chimed in Betty, "and think how hard we tried to keep it secret! And the very girls who would have been glad to join, if they had been invited in the first place, are making fun of it. They keep pointing to the ground behind us, and pretend to be amazed at what they see there. Of course they are referring to our shadows, for they make all sorts of spiteful little side remarks about them."
"But there's something worse than that," addedKatie, almost tearfully. "I'll never hear the last of the speech I made about Charlie Downs and the apple-paring initials. Oh, you just wait! They've got hold of every foolish little thing we teased each other about that afternoon; Guy Ferris' valentine and brass button, and the little silver arrow Malcolm Maclntyre gave Lloyd years ago, and all we said about the way we'd like to be proposed to, you know—when we were talking about the 'Fortunes of Daisy Dale.' They're telling it all over the school, and making us appear too ridiculous for any use."
"Who could be mean enough to hide and listen?" exclaimed Allison, indignantly. "The sneak!"
"Say snake, while you're about it," hissed Kitty. "They're spelled with the same letters."
"We haven't any idea," answered Betty, "or why the girls who are doing the most teasing and talking should take such a spiteful pleasure in it. They've seemed so friendly always, until this morning."
"Come, girls," called Mrs. Clelling, in passing. "It's time for the silence bell."
Hurrying out of the cloak-room, they took their places in chapel, and obediently opened their song-books at the signal, but it is doubtful if any member of the Shadow Club could have told afterward whatwas sung that morning. The letter in Ida's chatelaine-bag, which Lloyd had smuggled to her soon after breakfast, on her return from the post-office, absorbed all her thoughts. The other five girls were busy with the one question: "Who could have been such a sneak as to listen and tell?"
There were six bad records in every recitation that the club made that morning. Notes flew back and forth, and anxious eyes watched the clock, eager for recess to come. At the first signal, Lloyd flew to Ida, but before she could outline the plan of action she and Allison had decided upon in the history class, Ida said, hurriedly, "Oh, Princess, that letter has upset me so I don't know whether I'm walking on earth or air. I'll tell you to-morrow—something awfully important, but I've got to plan something now, so I must go off by myself and put on my thinking-cap. Oh, I'm all in a flutter."
Wondering what news the letter could have contained to bring such a becoming flush to Ida's face, and such a glow of happiness in the beautiful violet eyes, Lloyd turned away disappointed. But she forgot both the wonder and the disappointment a few minutes later, as she and Allison walked up and down in front of the seminary arm in arm. Kitty and Katie were just behind them. Betty had notyet come out, having stopped at the sight of Janie Clung's tears to explain a problem in arithmetic.
Lollie Briggs, Flynn Willis, and Caddie Bailey stood on the front steps, and each girl who came out of the hall was called into their midst, and told something with many significant glances toward the four pacing back and forth past them in a fine unconcern.
Presently Caddie called out in a voice intended for them to hear, "I wonder if anybody can guess this conundrum. Nell, can you?"
The question was addressed to one of the older girls who came out of the front door just then, without a wrap around her. It was a frosty morning, and every one else had either a jacket or cloak.
"Wait till I run back and get my golf cape," she cried. "I didn't know it was so cold."
"Now look out," whispered Allison to Lloyd. "They're going to say something to her to try to set her against us. They're stopping everybody who comes out. That makes eight already they've set to whispering and looking at us, all standing there in that crowd on the steps."
Nell came out again, hugging her golf cape around her, and stood on the top step. "Well, what's your conundrum?" she asked, good-naturedly.
Caddie slightly raised her voice. "What's the difference between a person who wouldn't stoop to 'anything so common as a kissing-game,' and a person who would get up a goody-goody club, pretending it was for the benefit of the poor, and yet all the time be using it simply as an excuse to meet and read silly novels on the sly, and talk about the boys, and roast the other girls behind their backs, whom they considered 'too common' to associate with them?"
In a flash Lloyd realized what had offended Caddie, and what was the cause of her covert sneers. Whoever it was who had played the sneak had taken pains to report every word she had said about the girls who had played Pillow at Carter Brown's party. She looked around to see who had been the most active in denouncing the club. There they were on the steps, Flynn Willis, Caddie Bailey, Lollie Briggs, all but Mittie Dupong. The same girls she had called common, because they had allowed the boys to take a liberty which she thought cheapened them. She knew now why they were so spiteful in their remarks. Before Nell could gather her wits together for a reply, Lloyd sprang forward, her eyes flashing.
"Why don't you come straight out and say whatyou mean, Cad Bailey?" she cried. "You're only telling part of the truth. Now I'll tell it all. I did say behind your backs that I thought it was common to play kissing-games, and now I say it to yoah faces. I can't help thinking it. I've been brought up that way, and if you've been brought up differently, then you've a right to think yoah way. If I've hurt yoah feelings, I beg yoah pahdon, but I have a right to express my opinion in my own room to my best friends. We werenot'roasting' anybody. We only made a criticism that you must expect to have made on you, whenevah you do things that are common. And what are you going to say about the person who hid and listened all aftahnoon?Somebodywas sneak enough not only to hide in a closet and betray secrets that no girl of honah would have listened to, but she misrepresented the club in repeating them."
Lloyd's temper was rapidly getting the best of her, but in the middle of her anger she seemed to hear her father saying, in the playful way in which he used to warn her long ago, "Look out, little daughter, the tiger is getting loose." She stopped short.
"Who did that?" cried Nell. "I didn't suppose there was such a dishonourable girl in the school."
"Neither did I," answered Flynn Willis, quickly. "I never stopped to ask how the report started. I was so mad at being talked about that I did just what Cad Bailey told me to do, repeated everything I was told, just to tease the club and get even."
All eyes were turned inquiringly to Caddie Bailey.
"I don't know how it started," she cried. "Honestly I don't. Lollie Briggs told me. She and several girls were talking about it this morning before breakfast, out in the hall. They were all furious, and they told me lots of things to say that would tease Lloyd and the rest of them nearly to death. I was mad, too, but I don't know who told in the first place."
"It was you, Lollie Briggs, who told me that somebody had hid in the Clark girls' closet," cried Lloyd. "You know you did, when I demanded to know who had started all this talk. Who was it?"
"I promised I wouldn't tell," said Lollie, sullenly, "and I won't. You needn't ask, for no power on earth could drag it out of me. So there!"
"It's like the story of Chicken Little," laughed Nell. "'Who told you, Goosey-Lucy? Ducky-Lucky. Who told you, Ducky-Lucky? Henny-Penny. Who told you, Henny-Penny?' Seems tome I'd make it my business to find out who this particularly contemptible Chicken Little happens to be, before I'd report any more of her tales."
Nell swept back into the hall, and, as the four girls started to resume their walk, Betty knocked on the cloak-room window, beckoning violently for them to come inside. They ran in pell-mell and shut the door behind them.
"I've found out!" cried Betty, in a tragic whisper. "It was Mittie Dupong! Cassie found her class-badge on their closet floor, and just now brought it down to her. She denied it was hers, but there's no mistaking that queer little stick-pin and chain fastened to it that she uses as a guard. She's the only one in school who has one like that—an owl's head in a wishbone, you know. Besides, there were her initials, M. D., on the under side of the badge. Cassie turned it over and showed them to her. She took it, then, but denied having been in the closet, and was so confused and contradicted herself so many times that anybody could see that she felt caught and was telling a story. She even vowed that she hadn't been near the west wing for a week. Then she ran out and banged the door, but Janie Clung said, 'Oh, what a story! I met hercoming out of there Saturday night, on the way down to supper.'"
"What do you think we ought to do about it?" asked Katie. That was a question no one could answer. In the first flush of their indignation, it seemed to them that nothing they could do to Mittie would be sufficient punishment for such an act of meanness. They felt that she was a disgrace to the school, and decided that they would be conferring a benefit on the seminary if they could succeed in getting rid of her.
Even Betty failed for the time to remember the "Road of the Loving Heart" she was trying to leave behind her in every one's memory; and, if the little talisman on her finger pricked her tender conscience once or twice, she silenced it with the reflection that it was her duty to help punish the doer of such a contemptible deed. The name of the club finally suggested the means.
"She told all the secrets of the Shadow Club, and spoiled it," said Katie. "Now we just ought to shadowher. Haunt her, you know, like the Ku Klux Klan, or the White Caps, so she'll leave school and be afraid to listen again as long as she lives."
"Yes," agreed Kitty. "We'llhoodooher. That is the way."
Such a plan never would have been thought of in a Northern school. Even in this little Kentucky seminary it is doubtful if it could have been carried out had not previous events paved the way. There was scarcely a pupil in the school whose earliest impressions had not been tinged in some degree by the superstitions of some old coloured nurse or family servant. Even Lloyd had not escaped them entirely, in spite of all her mother's watchful care. Mom Beck knew better than to talk of such things openly before her, but she had hinted of them to the other servants in her presence, till Lloyd had a vague uneasiness when she dreamed of muddy water, or spilled the salt, or saw a bird flying against a window. From babyhood such happenings had been associated in her mind with Mom Beck's portents of ill-luck.
There was not a coloured person in the neighbourhood who could have explained why so many graves in the negro cemetery had bottles or fruit-jars placed upon them, inside of which were carefully sealed the whitest of chicken feathers. Undoubtedly they were the relic of some old African fetish, and a reverence for them had been handed down from grizzled grandsire to little pickaninny since the beginning of the slave-trade. In the sameway had come all those other superstitions at which white people laughed, but which influenced many of them also to some extent. For many a man who scoffed most, felt more comfortable when he saw the new moon in an open sky than when he caught first sight of it through the trees; and more than one, having once started on a journey, would not have turned back, no matter what important thing was left behind, preferring to do without at any cost or inconvenience rather than risk the ill-luck the turning back would bring.
Lloyd knew more than one housekeeper in the neighbourhood who, for the same reason, would not allow the ashes emptied after sundown, or an umbrella to be raised in the house; and who would turn pale if a mirror was broken or a picture fell from the wall or a dog howled in the night.
Probably not a pupil in the school would have admitted that she believed in ghosts, yet few would have been brave enough to venture into the cellar at night after Mary Phillips' encounter with the spirit of the "veiled lady" on Hallowe'en. That had been a frequent topic of conversation since that night, and had done much to prepare the way for the plot the club concocted.
So Kitty's proposition was received with enthusiasm.The performance began next day when she slipped up behind Mittie in the cloak-room, and solemnly touched her three times in quick succession on the left ear with something she held in her hand. It felt soft and furry, and Mittie, who had a horror of caterpillars, gave a little shriek as she put up her handkerchief to brush it away.
Kitty had already disappeared into the chapel, but Katie was waiting, ready to begin her part of the performance.
"Did you see that?" she said to Janie Clung, in an awed tone, just loud enough for Mittie to hear, and yet low enough to seem confidential.
"I know people who would go stark, raving crazy if that was done to them. What for? I thought everybody knew what for. My old nurse used to say that to be touched three times on the ear by the left hind foot of a rabbit that had been killed in a graveyard in the dark of the moon by a cross-eyed person, was the worst luck anybody could have." She lowered her voice a trifle. "It's a hoodoo-mark! You're marked for the haunts to follow you!"
"The what?" asked another girl who stood near.
"The haunts—ghosts—you know. Jim Briddle calls them 'ha'nts.' Nobody could be more cross-eyedthan he is, and he's the one who gave that rabbit's foot to Ranald Walton, and Ranald gave it to Kitty. I should think that Mittie Dupong would feel mighty creepy if she knew what's ahead of her."
Mittie heard and did feel creepy, although she shrugged her shoulders and tried hard to appear unconcerned. The fact that the club seemed to place so much reliance in the hoodoo made a strong impression on Janie Clung, and gave it a weight it would not have possessed otherwise when the occurrence was repeated to the other girls. Before the week was over it was whispered around the school that the charm was really working.
A WOLF IN SHEEP'S CLOTHING
Everyday since the first of November there had been a letter for Ida in the Sherman's post-office box, under cover of Lloyd's address. Lloyd had grown to dread the afternoon walks with the school, for she was in a flutter of nervousness from the moment they came in sight of the post-office until the letter was safe in Ida's possession. There was always the fear that Betty might get to the window first, or that she might catch sight of the envelope, addressed with many flourishes in a big, bold hand; or that that letter might be the only one, as it often was, and Betty might wonder why Lloyd's face should grow so red when she answered, "No, nothing for us this time."
It was easier to manage after the weather turned cold enough to furnish an excuse for carrying a muff, but even then she fancied that Miss Mattie looked at her curiously sometimes, when she thrustthe daily letter hastily out of sight without a second glance. She never went through the performance without wishing that it might be the last time that she should be placed in such an uncomfortable position; but afterward she always reproached herself for making such a wish. It seemed a very poor friendship that could not stand a little test like that. It was such a small thing to do when the happiness of her friend's whole life was at stake.
Then she had her reward in the evenings, when Ida, with her arms around her, whispered her undying gratitude, or read her extracts from her letters, which gave her glimpses into a romance far more beautiful than the "Fortunes of Daisy Dale," or the "Heiress of Dorn," or any of the others they had read since.
A sort of circulating library had started since the rainy night the Shadow Club read its first volume. Ida had a pile of paper-covered books in her closet which she pronounced fully as interesting as the one she had read aloud; so "Elsie's Wooing," "Fair but False," and the "Heiress of Dorn" began passing in turn from the covers of Katie's geography to Kitty's, and from Lloyd's history to Betty's and Allison's. They read at recess, they read before school, and more than once someexciting chapter proved too interesting to be laid aside in study time for the work of the hour.
After a few volumes of such tales, Betty became fired with an ambition to write one herself, and soon became so absorbed in her pastime that she could think of little else. Eugene was the name of her hero, and Gladys was the maiden who combined all the beauty and virtues possible for one mundane creature to possess. The whole club was consulted as to the colour of her eyes and hair, and many points about which the little author was undecided. They came in time to regard Eugene and Gladys as real personages, in whom they had a family interest. Lloyd had bits of the story read to her sometimes when they were getting ready for bed. Betty lost interest in everything to such an extent that she ceased to be sociable, and spent most of her time alone, dreaming out different scenes in the story, which filled her mind to the exclusion of even her lessons.
One afternoon, near the middle of November, Lloyd, hurrying through the lower hall with an open letter in her hand, met the president.
"Oh, Doctah Wells!" she exclaimed. "I was just going to yoah room. Heah is a note mothah sent you in the lettah that came to-day. She haswritten for some things she needs, and wants Betty and me to walk up to Locust aftah school with a message to the servants about packing them, if you'll excuse us from the regulah promenade."
"Certainly," he answered, glancing over Mrs. Sherman's gracefully written request.
"But Betty has such a bad cold," continued Lloyd, "that the matron thinks she oughtn't to go out to walk to-day, and it's lonely going back home by myself, when it's all shut up. May I take Ida Shane with me instead? She's nevah seen Locust from the inside, and I'd love to show it to her. You know," a little smile dimpling her face as she spoke, "I can't help being proud of the old place."
"You have good reason," said the professor, smiling back at her kindly. "It is certainly a beautiful old homestead. Yes, I have no objection to Ida's going with you."
"Oh, thank you!" cried Lloyd. She hurried up the stairs to Ida's room, calling excitedly as she reached the door, "Yes, he says you may go. Hurry and put on your things so that we can have as long time as possible up there."
Betty had gone into the matron's room in her absence. It took Lloyd only a moment to slip intoher hat and coat. Then catching up her muff and thrusting it under her arm, she started back to Ida's room, buttoning her gloves as she went. Ida had taken down her hair and was deliberately rearranging it before the mirror.
"Oh, what did you do that for?" cried Lloyd, half-impatiently. "It looked all right as it was. We're not going to see any one but the servants. There's no use wearing your best hat." She glanced at the mass of velvet and plumes lying on the bed. "Just pin your hair up any fashion and stick on your mortar-board. That'll do."
"Shut the door, please," said Ida, in a low tone. "I have something to tell you." She bent nearer the mirror, drawing the comb through the fluffy pompadour. "Wearegoing to see some one this afternoon.Edwardo is in the Valley."
Lloyd dropped her muff at this surprising announcement, but Ida went on, calmly. "I've been expecting him for several days. He comes to Lloydsboro sometimes to visit his cousin. I've lain awake nights trying to arrange some way to see him. This is a thousand times better than any way I could think of. I'm the luckiest girl that ever lived to have such a friend as you to plan for me, Princess."
"I don't know what you mean," exclaimed Lloyd. "I haven't planned anything."
"No, not intentionally, but look how easy you have made it for me to have an interview. He'll be on the watch for the seminary girls to pass by the store, for I was to manage to leave a note there for him, telling him where I can see him. All I have to do now is to signal him to follow, and we can have a good long talk at Locust while you are giving the servants their orders. You don't mind, do you?" she asked, as Lloyd continued to stare at her without saying anything.
"No. Oh, no! Of co'se not," answered Lloyd, with a confused laugh. "Only it makes me feel so que'ah to think that I'm really going to see him. It's just as if Lord Rokeby or the squire's son had stepped out of the book. I feel as if I were in a book myself since you told me that. This is the way it would be on the page, if we could stand off and read about ourselves: 'And Violet's little friend led the way down the long avenue, and there on the threshold of her home, after months of cruel separation, the reunited lovers kept their tryst.'"
Ida laughed happily. "You'll have a book written before Betty is half-started if you go on at that rate. Now tell me. Do I look all right?"
She was settling the big picture-hat in place over her soft hair as she anxiously asked the question. Lloyd regarded her critically, tipping her head a trifle to one side as she looked.
"Put your hat a hairbreadth farther over your face," she exclaimed. "There! That's lovely. Oh, Violet, that shade of velvet issobecoming to you. It's just the colah of yoah eyes. I nevah saw you look so beautiful."
A becoming pink flushed Ida's cheeks. She bent her head over the bunch of violets pinned on the lapel of her coat. "It's dear of you to think so," she said, "and it's dear of you to send me these violets every week. These are unusually sweet. I'm so glad I have a fresh bunch for to-day—this happy day."
Lloyd took the keenest delight in watching the graceful girl sweep down the hall ahead of her. From the plumes of the picture-hat to the hem of her stylish gown she thoroughly satisfied Lloyd's artistic instinct for the beautiful. She gave her arm an adoring little squeeze as they passed down the stairs together.
Out on the road she glanced up at Ida again. Happiness had not made her radiant, as it did Daisy Dale, but there was a soft light in the violeteyes which made Lloyd think of a picture she had seen of a vestal maiden on her way to guard the holy altar fires.
Lloyd's heart began to beat faster as she realized that every step was taking them nearer to Edwardo. She pictured him again in her imagination, as she had done so many times before. She would know that pale, serious face with its flashing eyes anywhere she might meet him, she was sure.
Neither of them spoke as they hurried along the path through the lower part of Clovercroft and pushed open the woodland gate. But as they stepped up on the platform in front of the depot, Lloyd said, "Let's cross the track heah, and go up on the othah side of the road. Then we'll not have to pass the waiting-rooms. There's always so many people loafing around the window of the telegraph-office."
Instinctively she felt that while a little girl like herself would attract no attention, Ida in her long sweeping dress that she held up so gracefully, and the big hat drooping over her pretty face, and the stylish fur collar, and the violets on her coat, made a picture that any one would turn to look at twice. She could not bear to think of the bold glances that might be cast after her by the loafers around the depot. It seemed to her little short of sacrilege,although she could not have put the feeling into words, for any eyes but Edwardo's to rest upon her as she went on her way to this meeting with that vestal-maiden look upon her face.
"Very well," assented Ida. "You know we want to stop at the store. I want to get some chocolate creams if they have any fresh ones."
"HE HELD IT ASIDE FOR THEM BOTH TO PASS THROUGH.""HE HELD IT ASIDE FOR THEM BOTH TO PASS THROUGH."
Lloyd's heart gave a frightened thump as she remembered that it was in the store that Edwardo would be watching presently for the seminary girls to go by. It was half an hour earlier than they usually passed, but there was a possibility that he might be there. In less than a minute she might be face to face with the live hero of a real romance. It was with an odd feeling of mingled relief and disappointment that she glanced around the store and saw only familiar faces. A young man whom she knew by sight was perched on the bookkeeper's high stool at the back of the store, so absorbed in the Louisville evening paper which the last mail-train had brought out that he did not look up. A small coloured boy stood patiently by the stove waiting for his coal-oil can to be filled. One of the clerks was tying up a package of groceries for Frazer to carry over to Clovercroft, and the other was showing ginghams to Mrs. Walton's Barbry.
"Be with you in a moment, please," called the first clerk as the girls entered. Lloyd stopped in front of the show-case near the door, and began idly examining the various styles of jewelry and letter-paper displayed within. She had almost decided to invest in a certain little enamelled pin which she knew would delight Mom Beck, and take it up to her as a surprise, when Barbry stepped beside her with a polite greeting and an inquiry about her grandfather's health.
While she was still talking with Barbry, Ida came up flushed and excited. She thrust her bag of chocolates into her muff, and, catching up her skirts, said, hurriedly, "Come on, I'm ready."
Lloyd started at once to follow her to the door, but looked back to nod assent to Barbry's last remark, and in turning again almost ran into the young fellow who had been reading at the bookkeeper's desk. He was hurrying after Ida to open the door for her. He held it aside for them both to pass through, and a flush of displeasure dyed Lloyd's face as she saw the admiring glance he cast boldly at Ida.
"He needn't have gone so far out of his way to have done that," exclaimed Lloyd, as they started up the road toward Locust. "It was the clerk'splace to open the doah, and he nearly knocked him down, trying to get there first."
"Who?" inquired Ida, innocently. She was several steps in advance, and could not see Lloyd's face.
"That horrid Mistah Ned Bannon. I can't bea'h him. Papa Jack told mothah she must nevah invite him to the house, undah any circumstances, because he wasn't fit for Betty and me to know, and—"
She stopped abruptly, for Ida turned with a white, pained face.
"Oh, Lloyd!" she cried. "How can you hurt me so? Don't believe any of those dreadful things you hear about him!" Then, seeing from Lloyd's amazed expression that she failed to understand the situation, she added, in a distressed tone, "HeisEdwardo."
If Ida had struck her on the face she could not have been more amazed. She stood staring at her helplessly, unable to say a word.
"I must be dreaming all this," she thought. "After awhile I'll surely wake up and find I've had a horrible nightmare."
But the distress in Ida's voice was too real to be a dream. She was biting her lips to keep back the tears. After one look into Lloyd's dismayedface she turned away and began moving slowly on toward Locust. Lloyd walked beside her, mechanically. She could not shake off the feeling that she must be in a dream. From time to time she cast a half-frightened glance toward Ida. She felt that she had wounded her so deeply that nothing she might say could ever make amends. When she saw a tear course slowly down her cheek and splash down on the bunch of flowers on her coat, she clasped her arm impulsively, saying, "Oh, Violet, deah,don'tcry! I wouldn't have hurt you for worlds. I didn't have the faintest idea thathewas the one."
"It isn't so much what you said," answered Ida, controlling her voice with an effort, "but I'd counted so much on your friendship for him. And now to know that people have prejudiced you against him before you've had a chance to meet him and find out for yourself that they're mistaken—" She stopped with a sob. "Under all his wild ways he's good and noble and true at heart, and it isn't fair for everybody to condemn him for what he has done, and stand in his way when he's trying so hard to do better."
One little hand in the muff was bare, and Lloyd saw the gleam of the pearl on it as Ida took outher handkerchief and dabbed it hastily across her eyes. It brought back all that scene in the moonlighted orchard, and Ida's blushing confession: "He says that is what my life means to him—a pearl. That if it wasn't for my love and prayers he wouldn't care what became of him or what he did. Do you blame me for disregarding aunt's wishes?" And again as on that night the Little Colonel's heart swelled with an indignant "No!" Again she arrayed herself beside her friend, ready to do battle for her against the whole world if necessary.
Wonderfully comforted by Lloyd's protests of sympathy and understanding, Ida dried her eyes and looked back over her shoulder, saying, "He's not in sight yet. I told him not to start for fifteen minutes, and then to come the long way, around through Tanglewood, so nobody could think he was following us. That will give you time to show me over the house."
As Lloyd swung open the entrance gate and started down the long avenue, a queer feeling crept over her that she could not have expressed had she tried. It seemed to her that the old trees were almost human, and stretched out their bare branches toward her with an offering of protection and welcomethat was like the greeting of old friends. Yet at the same time she felt the silent challenge of these old family sentinels, and involuntarily answered it by a slight lifting of the head and a trifle more erectness of carriage as she passed. They seemed to expect it of her, that she should walk past them, as all the Lloyds had walked, with the proud consciousness that none could gainsay their countersign of gentle birth and breeding which spoke even in their tread.
It was the first time she had been back to Locust since the beginning of school, and Ida felt some subtle change in her as soon as they passed inside the great gate. The Little Colonel's personality asserted itself as it had not at the seminary. There she was Ida's adoring little shadow, completely under the spell of her influence. Here, swayed by the stronger influence of old associations, she was herself again; the same well-poised, imperious little creature that she was when she first coolly "bearded the lion in his den, the Douglas in his hall," and brought the old Colonel to unconditional surrender.
Mom Beck came up from the servants' cottage and unlocked the house for them, and after reading her the list of articles to be packed, Lloyd left her in the linen-room and began a tour of the house.In the pleasure of acting as hostess and showing Ida the attractions of Locust, she would have forgotten that an unwelcome guest was on his way, had not Ida's restless glances from every front window they passed, reminded her.
The quarter of an hour was almost over when she led the way into the long drawing-room, which she had reserved until last. "Of co'se it doesn't look as it does when we are living heah. It makes such a difference having the curtains down and the furniture covahed; but I want you to see my harp." She I began slipping the cover from the tall burnished frame.
"It belonged to my grandmothah Amanthis, and I am proudah of it than anything I own. That's her portrait ovah the mantel. Isn't she beautiful? Somehow I nevah can call her just grandmothah, as if she were an old lady. She nevah lived to be one, you know. I always have to add her name, Amanthis, and I think of her as she looks there in the pictuah, the young girl she was when grandfathah first saw her, a June rose in her hair and anothah at her throat. 'The fairest flowah in all Kentucky,' he told me once. That's always seemed such a sweet romance to me. She wasn't much oldah than you when he brought her here a bride. Healways talks about her when the locusts bloom, for they were in blossom then, and the avenue was white with them."
Lloyd had expected more outspoken admiration from Ida when she showed her the portrait, and was disappointed to have her barely glance up at it, murmuring, "Yes, she is lovely," in an absent-minded way, and then hurry to the window, exclaiming, "Oh, there he is. I can see him just coming in at the gate."
Lloyd's glance followed Ida's, and, stepping back from the window, she began hastily drawing the cover over the harp.
"Oh, don't put it on yet," said Ida. "I want to show it to him." Lloyd hesitated an instant, then stammered confusedly, "But—but—oh, Ida, I'msosorry, but don't you see, I can't ask him into the house."
"Why not?" cried Ida. "You promised on the way up here you'd do anything you could for me."
Tears of distress gathered in the Little Colonel's eyes. It was impossible to answer Ida's question without wounding her deeply, for it was in this very room she had heard her grandfather say: "It's a pity Cy Bannon's youngest boy is such a profligate. Why, sir, he isn't worth the powder and shot thatwould put an end to his worthless existence. I wouldn't let him darken my doors, sir!" And it was in this room also that she had heard her father say: "No, Elizabeth, for the judge's sake I'd like to show Ned some attention, and some families do receive him. But his unprincipled conduct bars him out here. He's a fellow whom I never could permit Lloyd to know."
Ida repeated her question. "Oh, Violet," cried Lloyd, "it's just breaking my heart to refuse you, but I can't let him come in. It isn't my house, and I've no right to when grandfathah and Papa Jack have both forbidden it. But it's warmah on the poa'ch than it is in the house with no fiah, and I'll put some chairs out for you, and wait for you in heah."
"Won't you even come out and be introduced?"
"Oh, Violet,don'task me!" begged the Little Colonel. "I'd like to for your sake, but I can't. I simply can't!"
"Why not? Are you going to let your father's prejudices stand in the way? He doesn't know him as I do. He's just taken a dislike to him as aunt has done on account of things he's heard. It's unfair! It's unjust to condemn him on account of other people's mistaken opinions and prejudices."
The Little Colonel wavered. Ida's absolute trust made it seem possible that she might be right and everybody else mistaken. She peered out of the window again. He was half-way up the avenue now, sauntering along at a leisurely gait with a cigarette in his mouth.
"Besides," continued Ida, "nobody need ever know you have met him. It's easy enough to keep it secret, so what's the difference—"
She stopped in the middle of her sentence, surprised by the change in the Little Colonel's manner. She had drawn herself up haughtily, and in her fearless scorn bore a strong resemblance to the portrait of the soldier-boy in gray in the frame above her.
"I hope," she said, slowly, "that I have too much respect for the family honah to do such an undahhanded thing as that. Do you think that I'd be willing to be the only one of all the Lloyds who couldn't be trusted?"
"Why, Princess, I don't see what's changed you so suddenly," said Ida. "I haven't asked you to do anything more than you've been doing all along, by letting me use your post-office box."
"But I nevah would have done that" cried Lloyd, "if I'd have known who yoah Edwardo was, andnow I've found out that it is some one that Papa Jack disapproves of, of co'se I can't carry yoah lettahs any moah."
"Oh, Princess, I thoughtyou'dstand by me against the whole world!" sobbed Ida. "I had counted so much—just these few days he'll be here in the Valley—on seeing him up here. I didn't thinkyou'dbe unreasonable and unjust. It seems as if it would break my heart to have my only friend fail me now."
The tears were streaming down Lloyd's face, too, but she clenched her hands and shook her head stubbornly. "No, tell him he can't come heah again, and that he mustn't send any moah lettahs to my address."
Without another word Ida turned and walked out to the porch, where she stood waiting behind the bare vines that twined the pillars for Edwardo to come to her. All the pretty colour had died out of her face, and Lloyd felt in a sudden spasm of remorse that she was responsible for the tears in the beautiful eyes and the look of trouble on the face that only a little while before had been aglow with happiness. The odour of a cigarette floated in through the hall. Then Ida closed the door, and the two sat down on the step outside.
Lloyd paced up and down the long room with her hands behind her back. There was an ache in her throat. She was so miserably disappointed in Edwardo, so miserably sorry for Ida. More than all, she was miserably sorry for herself; for the friendship which she had counted one of the most beautiful things of her life lay in ruins. For a moment she doubted if she had done right to shirk the obligations it had laid upon her, and wondered if it were not a greater sacrifice than her father ought to expect her to make for him. The temptation pressed sorely upon her to go to Ida and tell her she would stand by her as she had promised, and for a few days longer, at least, be the bearer of their letters. She even started toward the door; but half-way across the room some compelling force drew her eyes toward the portrait of Amanthis, and she stood still, looking into the depths of the clear, true eyes which had given counsel to more than one troubled heart.
Years before, the old Colonel, standing with his head bowed on the mantel, had murmured, brokenly, "Oh, Amanthis, tell me what to do!" and, obedient to the silent message of that straightforward gaze, had started off through the falling snow to be reconciled to his only daughter. And now Lloyd,looking up in the same way, no longer had any doubts about her duty.
"It wouldn't be right, would it!" she murmured. "Younevah did anything you had to hide.Youwouldn't stoop to anything clandestine." She straightened herself up proudly, and wiped her eyes. "Neithah will I, no mattah what it costs me not to!" Then she went on, brokenly, as if talking to a living presence: "Oh, it's so pitiful for her to be so deceived in him; for of co'se grandfathah and Papa Jack and her aunt and everybody put togethah couldn't be mistaken. And I love her so much; I wish mothah were here, or Papa Jack—but I'll promiseyou, Grandmothah Amanthis, I'll nevah make you ashamed of me again. I wouldn't have carried the lettahs if I had known, and you can trust me always aftah this, for evah and evah."
It seemed to Lloyd that an approving smile rested on the girlish face, and a red streak of light from the wintry sunset, stealing in through the uncurtained window, shone across the June rose at her throat till it burned for the moment with the live red of a living rose.
She slipped the cover on the harp again, and taking one more look around the room at everyfamiliar object grown dear from years of happy associations, she closed the door softly and stole up-stairs to rejoin Mom Beck. She felt as if she had been to a funeral and had suddenly grown very old and worldly wise—years older and wiser than when she started blithely up to Locust an hour or two before.
It was late when she and Mom Beck came down-stairs again. The sunset glow had almost faded from the sky. They bolted the front door and went out the back, Mom Beck taking the key again.
"Ida is waiting for me on the front poa'ch," Lloyd explained. "Good-bye, Mom Beck. I'm mighty homesick to come back to you all."
"Good-bye, honey," responded the faithful old soul. "I'm going to bring you some prawlines in the mawnin'. Ole Becky knows what'll cheer up her baby."
Lloyd paused at the corner of the porch. "I think we ought to go now," she called.
"In a minute," answered Ida. "I'll catch up with you."
Lloyd walked on slowly by herself, down the avenue, through the gate, beside the railroad track. She was in sight of the depot before Ned Bannonstruck off across a field and Ida joined her. She did not speak as they hurried on toward the seminary, and Lloyd felt, with a desolate sinking of the heart, that the old intimacy could never be resumed.