"Mother, de-ar, can we go out to play in the back yard? I c'n put on my overshoes an' leggins, an' I c'n help Doris too, if you're busy."
Elizabeth looked up from her task of cutting out rompers for her baby with a preoccupied sigh. "You have a little cold now, Carroll," she said doubtfully, "and if you should get wet in the snow——"
"We won't get wet, mother. I pr-romise!"
"Very well, dear; now remember!"
It was cold and clear and there seemed very little danger of dampness as the two children ran out with a whoop of joy into the side yard where the snow-laden evergreens partially screened the Stanford's house from view. Robbie Stanford's round, solemn face was staring at them wistfully from a second-story window as they dashed ecstatically into a snow bank, to emerge white with the sparkling drift.
"Hello, Rob; come on out!" called Carroll.
"I can't," replied Master Stanford, raising the window cautiously.
"Why?"
"Oh, nothin' much; but I guess I'd better stay up here till mother comes home."
"Who said so?"
"That horrid ol' Annie. I was down in the kitchen an' I fired only one clothespin at her, jus' for fun, an' it hit her in the eye; she got mad an' chased me up here an' locked the door."
"Where's your mother?"
"She's gone down town. She said she'd bring me some candy if I was good. Bu' 'f I ain't good she'll take the paddle to me. Say, Carroll!"
"What?"
"Why don't you an' Doris make a skatin' rink?"
"A—what?"
"A skatin' rink. It's great. I know how; I saw a boy makin' one in his back yard. It's awful easy. You just run the hose——"
Master Stanford paused in the course of his exposition to cast a cautious glance behind him. "I guess I'm takin' cold all right," he went onfeelingly. "I hope I am. Then maybe I'll have the croup an' be awful sick. I guess they'd all be sorry, then. Say, Carroll, do you see Annie anywheres?"
Carroll reconnoitred cautiously. "She's hangin' up clo'es in the back yard," he informed the young person aloft.
"If I c'd get out of here, I'd show you how to make that skatin' rink. We c'd make it easy, an' have it ready to skate on b' to-morrow."
"We haven't any skates," objected Doris. "B'sides," with a toss of her scarlet hood, "I don't believe you know how to make a skatin' rink."
"I don't know how? Well, I just bet I do!" exclaimed the prisoner dangling his small person far over the window-sill, while Doris screamed an excited protest. "Pooh! I ain't afraid of fallin' out—ain't afraid of nothin'; I'll bet I c'd jump out this window. I guess I'd have to if the house took on fire. Say, if this house should ketch on fire, Carroll, your house would burn up too. I've got some matches in my pocket," he added darkly; "if I should take a notion I c'd burn up everythin'on this block, an' maybe the whole town. I'll bet I c'd do it."
"How do you make a skatin' rink?" inquired Carroll, with an anxious glance at his own cosy home, which suddenly appeared very dear to him in view of a general conflagration.
Master Stanford reflected frowningly. "Is our cellar window open?"
"Nope; it's shut."
"Well, first you'll have to dig out a big square place, an' pile snow all round the edge. I'll get out o' here somehow b' the time you get that done; then we'll run it full of water. 'N after that it'll freeze."
"Where c'd we get the water?" inquired Doris, with an unbelieving sniff. "Mother wouldn't let us get it in the kitchen."
"Out of our hose pipe," said Master Stanford grandly. The Brewsters owned no hose, and this fact was a perpetual source of grievance in summer time. "I'll run her right under the hedge into your yard," continued the proprietor of the hose generously, "an' let her swizzle!"
"Oh—my!" gasped the small Brewsters in excited chorus.
"Well; are you goin' to do it?"
Carroll shook his head. "We promised mother we wouldn't get wet," he observed with an air of superior virtue. "'N we always mind our mother, don't we, Doris?—at least I do. Doris doesn't always. But she's a girl."
Master Stanford cackled with derision. "Aw—you're a terrible good boy, aren't you?" he crowed. "My father says you're a reg'lar prig. He says he'd larrup me, if I was always braggin' 'bout bein' so good the way you do. He says I haven't anythin' to brag of. Course if you're 'fraid of your mother——"
Doris pirouetted off across the yard with a flirt of her short skirts. "We aren't afraid, smarty!" she cried, her pink chin high in air. "An' we aren't any gooder an' you are, Robbie Stanford—at least I'm not; so there! Come on, Carroll; let's make a skatin' rink."
Hard labour with two small snow-shovels produced the semblance of a square enclosure bounded by uneven ridges of soft snow. Mrs. Brewster glancing out of the window at her darlings was pleased to observe their red cheeks and the joyous enthusiasm with which they were pursuing their self-imposed task.
"Dear little souls!" she thought, "how little it takes to keep them happy." Then she became absorbingly busy at her machine in the task of double-stitching the seams of the baby's rompers.
In the meanwhile young Robert Stanford had been released from durance vile by the kind-hearted Annie, whose warm Irish heart had reproached her for her fit of bad temper.
"Sure an' yez didn't mean to hit me eye; did yez, now?" she inquired, as she poked her broad red face into the room.
"Naw; course I didn't," the incarcerated one ingratiatingly assured her. "Say, Annie, c'n I have four cookies?"
"Oh, go 'way wid yez; four's too many entirely; I'll give ye wan wid a clip over yer ear."
"No; honest, I ain't goin' to eat 'em all. I want one for Carroll an' Doris an' two for me."
"An' it's the generous young one he is entirely," laughed Annie. "Come on down an' I'll put yer coat on, and mind yez don't get into no more mischief or I'll be afther tellin' yer mother; thin you'll get a taste of the paddle."
"I'll give you a whole lot of my candy, Annie," said the boy earnestly, "if you'll tell mother I was awful good. Will you?"
"'Awful' it was, all right," giggled Annie; "but if I was to say you was good I'd have to burn in purgatory for me sins. I'll say nothin'."
"Where's purgatory, Annie?" inquired the young person after a thoughtful silence.
"It's a warrum place entirely where you'll find yourself some day, I'm thinkin', if yez meddle too much in my kitchen," said Annie darkly. "Here's your cookies; now g'wan wid yez an' don't ye be afther botherin' me no more."
It was a matter which required concerted effort to uncoil the heavy hose, attach it to the water pipe and lift the nozzle to the level of the window; but it was accomplished at last through the united efforts of the two boys ably assisted by Doris, who was all excitement at the prospect of sliding on a real ice pond in her own yard.
"I guess our daddy'll be s'prised when he sees us goin' around like lightnin' on reg'lar ice," she said. "He's got skates, our daddyhas, an' he c'n skate like everythin', our daddy can."
"Pooh! that's nothin'," retorted Master Stanford; "my father c'n beat your father all holler. He's a whole lot taller 'n your father, an' our house is higher 'n yours, too."
"It's p'liter not to brag," said Doris, ignoring her own deflections from civility. "Oh, my, look at the water spurting out of that teeny, weeny hole! It's just like a fountain."
The two boys were laboriously dragging the heavy hose across the yard, and in the process other holes appeared through which the water hissed and gurgled with increasing force.
"I don't care," the proprietor of the hose assured them loftily. "It's an' ol' thing anyway. We're goin' to have a great long new one nex' summer; then maybe we'll give you this one. My father's so rich he don't care. Now I'll poke the nozzle through the hedge an' let her swizzle. Get out o' the way, Doris; I don't care if I do get wet."
Ten minutes later Mrs. Stanford, rosy and cheerful, after her brisk walk in the winter sunshine, appeared on the scene. "What are you doing, kiddies?" she inquired pleasantly; thenin a more doubtful tone. "Whatareyou doing? Why, Robbie!"
"We're jus' makin' a skatin' rink, and the ol' hose leaks like thunder," explained her son, employing a simile he had heard his father use the day before, and which he had considered particularly manly and admirable.
"Robert! you are soaked to the skin—and so is Carroll. Go right into the house. What do you mean by being so naughty?"
"You didn't say I couldn't take the hose," sulked the boy, surveying his parent from under lowering brows.
"Go in the house, sir; I'll attend to you presently," said his mother sternly.
"Oh, please; I'll be good! I didn't—mean—to," whined the child. "Carroll an' Doris, they wanted a skatin' rink, an' I——"
Mrs. Stanford stooped to turn off the water. "Go home at once," she said to her neighbour's children. "And you, Robert, go up to the bathroom and take off your wet clothing." Her pretty young face was flushed with anger. "I never saw such dreadful children!" she murmured wrathfully.
"My, but she's mad!" whispered Carroll,looking after the slim, erect figure, "it wasn't our fault their ol' hose leaked."
"I guess our mother'll be some mad, too," said Doris doubtfully; "that water spurted all over my leggins; an' now I guess it's freezing."
The two walked slowly across the yard, ploughing through the rapidly congealing slush, which was the disappointing outcome of two hours of hard work.
"I don't like Robbie Stanford one bit," said Doris disgustedly. "He's always getting us into mischief."
"I said we ought not to get wet," Carroll reminded her eagerly. "Don't you remember I did? An' you said——"
"I don't like you either," pursued the little girl stonily. "I don't b'lieve I like boysa'tall; so there!"
"I'm all wet," she announced to her mother, "an' Carroll's wetter 'an I am; an'—we—we're—both—c-cold!"
It was characteristic of Elizabeth that she thoroughly dried and warmed the children before asking any questions. Then despite their dismayed protests she put them both to bed. "You disobeyed me," she told them,"and now you'll have to stay in your beds till to-morrow morning. I'll explain to your father. Of course he'll be disappointed not to see you at dinner; but I can't help that."
A period of depressing silence followed during which both children caught the distant sounds of passionate and prolonged crying from the neighbouring house.
"It's Robbie," said Carroll in an awed whisper; "his mother's whipping him with that butter-paddle o' hers. She does that when he's awful bad."
"I'd bite her!" murmured Doris between her clenched teeth. "I'd—I'd—scratch her!" She burst into excited tears. "I'd just—hate my mother if she—if she hurt me like that!"
"Pooh! Rob don't care so very much," Carroll assured her; "he says he hollers jus' as loud as he can so his mother'll stop quicker. I s'pose," he continued after a thoughtful pause, "Robbie'll be up to dinner jus' the same, an' we'll be here eatin' bread and milk."
Elizabeth's promised explanation to the father of the culprits above stairs led to a spirited discussion between the husband and wife, after Miss Tripp had retired to her apartment.
"Poor little kids," Sam Brewster said whimsically. "I believe I'm glad I'm not your child, Betty,—I mean, of course, that I'm glad I'm your husband," he amended quickly, as her unsmiling eyes reproached him. "Don't you think you were a little hard on them, though?"
"Hard on them?" she echoed indignantly. "You're much more severe with the children than I am, Sam,—when you're at home. You know you are."
He smoked thoughtfully for a minute or two before replying. "Look here, Betty," he said at last, "you're right in a way. I'm not half so patient as you are, I'll admit. But I wonder if we don't all miss the mark when it comes to disciplining children?—Wait—just aminute before you answer. I've been thinking a whole lot about this business of home rule since we—er—discussed it the other day, and I've come to the conclusion that the only thing to do is to let universal law take its course with them. They are human beings, my dear, and they've got to come up against the law in its broader sense sooner or later. Let 'em begin right now."
She was eyeing him pityingly. "And by that you mean——?"
"I mean," he went on, warming to his subject, "that you've got to teach a child what it means to reap what he sows. If Richard wants to put his finger on the stove and investigate the phenomenon of calorics, let him. He won't do it twice."
"And if he wants to paddle in the aquarium of a cold winter day, you'd——"
"Let him—of course," said Sam stoutly. "He'd feel uncomfortably damp and chilly after a while."
"Yes; and have the croup or pneumonia that same night."
"You're hopelessly old-fashioned, Betty," he laughed; "you shouldn't introduce thecroup or pneumonia idea into the infant consciousness. But seriously, my dear, I believe I'm right. If you don't teach the children to recognise the relation between cause and effect now—so that it becomes second nature to them, how are they going to understand the subject when they're put up against it later? You'll find the mother bird and the mother bear, and, in fact, all the animal creation carefully instilling the idea of cause and effect into their offspring from the very beginning; while human parents are as constantly protecting their children from the effects of the causes which the children ignorantly set in motion. In other words we persist in undoing the work of old 'Mother Be-done-by-as-you-did.' It's a blunder, in my opinion. But of course, I'm a mere man and my ideas are not entitled to much consideration."
Elizabeth gazed at her husband with open admiration. "Of course they are entitled to consideration," she said decidedly. "And I believe what you have said—with reservations. Suppose Baby Dick, for example, should lean out of the window too far—a second-story window, I mean—and I should see him doing itand feel pretty certain he was going to pitch out head first and cripple himself for life. Do you think I ought to stand still and let the law of gravitation teach him not to do it a second time?"
Sam Brewster laid down his pipe and gazed steadfastly at his wife. She was looking extremely young and bewitchingly pretty as she leaned toward him, her cheeks pink, her brown eyes glowing with earnestness in which he thought he detected a spark of her old girlish mischief.
"'And still the wonder grew,'" he quoted solemnly, "'that one small head could carry all she knew!'"
"Please answer me, Sam," she insisted.
"Well, of course you've got me. You'd have to haul in the young person by the heels, and——"
"And what, exactly, if you please?"
"You might illustrate—with some fragile, concrete object, like an egg—as to what would happen if he fell out," said Sam, with exceeding mildness, "and——"
"In other words," she interrupted him triumphantly, "I ought to interferesomeofthe time between cause and effect. The question being when to interfere and when not to."
"Exactly!" he said, planting an irrelevant kiss on the pink cheek nearest him. "And that, my dear Betty, is your job—and, of course, mine, when I'm here. But I still hold that the natural penalty is best—when it's convincingly painful yet entirely innocuous."
"What is the natural penalty for eating cookies out of the box when you've been forbidden to do it?" she wanted to know.
He chuckled as certain memories of his boyhood came back to him. "My word!" he said, "I wish I could ever taste anything half as good as the cookies out of Aunt Julia Brewster's crock—it was a cooky-crock in those days. Of course I was forbidden to go to it without permission, and also of course I did it."
"What happened?" she demanded, the mischief growing bolder in her eyes.
He reflected. "Aunt Julia wouldn't let me have any at table on several occasions; but I—er—regret to say that I was not duly impressed by the punishment. A cooky—one cooky—decorously taken from a china plateat the conclusion of a meal did not, in my youthful opinion, court comparison with six—eight—ten cookies, moist and spicy from their seclusion and eaten with an uncloyed appetite. Let's—er—change the subject for the moment, my dear. Of course I'm right, but I appear to be hopelessly treed. Tell me how our friend Miss Tripp is getting on. She appeared somewhat depressed at dinner-time, and I didn't like to ask for information for fear there was nothing doing."
Elizabeth sighed sympathetically. "Evelyn had a dreadfully disappointing day," she told him. "But"—her eyes dancing again—"she met Mr. Hickey down town, and he actually invited her to lunch with him."
Sam whistled softly. "Hickey is progressing," he said approvingly. "Did he take her to the business men's lunchroom? Hickey has conscientious scruples against going anywhere else. I asked him into Colby's one day and he declined on the ground of his duty as a constant patron of the B. M. L. He said his table was reserved for him there by the season, and——"
"How absurd!" laughed Elizabeth. "But,I was going to tell you; Evelyn remembered another engagement, and so——" she stopped short, her eyes growing luminous. "Sam," she said suddenly, "I don't know what to think of Evelyn; she really didn't have any lunch at all; she said so when she came. I made her a cup of tea; she looked so worn and tired. I wonder if Mr. Hickey could have said anything, or—— What do you think, Sam?"
Sam yawned behind his paper. "I'm really too sleepy to give to the question the profound attention which it merits; but to-morrow when my intellect is fresh and keen, I'll endeavour to——"
"You mean you don't care."
"Suppose I did care, my very dear Betty; suppose my whole career depended upon what Hickey said—or didn't say; what could I do about it?"
"I'm sure I don't know, Sam," said his Elizabeth meekly. But her eyes were still full of speculative curiosity as she went up-stairs.
The facts in the case, if known to Elizabeth, might have served to throw a clearer light upon Miss Tripp's somewhat unsatisfactory account of her day in the city. In the first place, the weather which had dawned bright and sunny had suddenly turned nasty, with a keen wind driving large, moist snowflakes into the faces of pedestrians. Evelyn had found herself without an umbrella and wearing her best hat and gown walking the long block which intervened between her destination and the car from which she had alighted.
Mrs. Baxter Crownenshield was known to the wide circle of her acquaintances as a large, funereal person, invariably clothed in black, and as perpetually exuding a copious and turgid sympathy upon all who came in contact with her, somewhat after the manner of a cuttle-fish. She lived in a mansion, large and dull like herself, on Beacon Street, where she occupied herself exclusively with those dubiousactivities euphemistically called "charitable work."
When Miss Evelyn Tripp was shown into Mrs. Crownenshield's chilly reception-room that morning in February, she shivered a little in her damp clothes as she sat down on a slippery chair and endeavoured vaguely to forecast the coming interview. Her mother had suggested Mrs. Crownenshield as a sort ofdernier resort, with a fretful reminiscence of the days when the Baxter Crownenshields were poor and lived in a third-story back room of a fifth-rate boarding-house.
"I used to give Jane Crownenshield my gowns after I had worn them a season," Mrs. Tripp said querulously; "and glad enough she was to get them. As for her husband, he was not much of a man. Your father used to say Crownenshield couldn't be trusted to earn his salt at honest work in a counting-room; but when the war broke out he borrowed five hundred dollars of your father, and bought and sold army stores. After that he grew rich somehow, and we grew poor. But Jane Crownenshield ought to remember that she owes everything she has to-day to your father."
Miss Tripp perched uncomfortably on the unyielding surface of the inhospitable hair-cloth chair she had chosen, gazed attentively at the portrait of the late lamented Crownenshield which hung over the mantle-piece, and at the bronze representation of the same large and self-satisfied countenance smirking at her from a shadowy corner, while she repeated nervously the opening words with which she hoped to engage his widow's friendly interest. It seemed an interminable period before she heard the slow and ponderous footfall which presaged the majestic approach of Mrs. Crownenshield; as a matter of fact, it was almost exactly half an hour by the dismal-voiced black marble clock surmounted by an urn.
Miss Tripp arose upon the entrance of the large lady in black and held out her hand with a feeble effort after the sprightly ease of her old society manner. "Good morning, Mrs. Crownenshield," she began, in a voice which in spite of herself sounded weak and timid in the gloomy, high-ceiled room. "I do hope I haven't interrupted any important labour—I know you are always so much occupied with—charities, and——"
Mrs. Crownenshield stared meditatively at Miss Tripp's small, slight figure, her gaze appearing to concern itself particularly with her head-gear from which drooped two large dispirited plumes.
"Tripp—Tripp? I don't place you," she said at last,—"unless you are Mary Tripp's daughter. She had a daughter, I believe." The Crownenshield voice was loud and authoritative; it appeared to demand information as something due, upon which interest had accumulated.
"I am Mary Tripp's daughter," Evelyn informed her, in a sudden panic lest she be mistaken for an object of charity; then she hesitated, at a loss for something to say next.
Mrs. Crownenshield sighed heavily. "Poor woman," she observed lugubriously. "Mary Tripp has had many trials to support."
Evelyn's small, sensitive face grew a shade paler. "Yes," she agreed, "my dear mother has had more than her share of sorrow and loss. I wonder if you knew that we—that mother lost all of her remaining property in the failure of the Back-Bay Security Company?"
Mrs. Crownenshield's cold grey eyes opened a little wider upon her visitor. "How regrettable!" she observed. "No; I had not heard of it. But I fear many others have suffered with Mary Tripp. Fortunately for me, my dear late husband's investments were conservative and safe. Mr. Crownenshield did not approve of Trust Companies—except those which he controlled himself. If John Tripp had seen fit to leave his money in trust with Mr. Crownenshield—and I have always felt surprised and hurt to think that he did not do so, after all the business relations of the past—Mary Tripp would be quite comfortable to-day. Pray convey to your poor afflicted mother my condolences, and tell her that I was greatly grieved to learn of her misfortunes."
Evelyn murmured incoherent thanks.
"I—came this morning to ask—your advice," she added after a heavy pause. "I thought—that is, mother thought—that perhaps you—might know of something I could do to—to earn money. I must do something, you know." She had grown hot and cold with the shame of this confession under theunwinking gaze of Mrs. Crownenshield's colourless eyes.
That lady folded her large white hands upon which glittered several massive rings.
"I shall be very glad to advise you," she said, "if you will acquaint me with your qualifications for service. I have frequent opportunities to place indigent but worthy females, such as you appear to be. Are you a good seamstress?"
"I fear not, Mrs. Crownenshield," faltered Evelyn. "I never liked sewing."
"You could earn a dollar a day as a skilled seamstress," intoned the female philanthropist inexorably. "Whether you like sewing or not is of very little consequence in view of your necessities."
"I thought I should prefer teaching, or——"
Mrs. Crownenshield glanced abstractedly at the massive watch which depended from some sort of funereal device in black enamel upon her ample bosom, and compared its silent information with that of the black marble time-piece on the mantle. Then she arose with a smile, which appeared to have been carven upon her large pallid face with the effect of a mask.
"I am very sorry indeed that I can not give you more of my time this morning," she said mournfully. "But I have a board-meeting of The Protestant Evangelical Refuge for aged, indigent and immoral females at half-past eleven o'clock; and at one I am due at a luncheon of the Federated Woman's Charitable Associations of Boston, at which I shall preside."
She arose and enfolded both of Miss Tripp's small cold hands in her large, moist clasp, with an air of fervid emotion.
"I feel for you," she sighed, "I do indeed! and my heart bleeds for your unfortunate mother. Mary Tripp was always accustomed to every luxury and extravagance. She must feel the change to abject poverty; but I trust she will endeavour to lift her thoughts from the sordid cares of earth toward that better land where—I feel sure—my dear late husband is enjoying the rest that remaineth. After all, my poor girl, the consolations of religion are the only sure refuge in this sad world. I always strive to point the way to those situated like yourself."
"Thank you, Mrs. Crownenshield," said Evelyn stonily.
"If there is anything I can do to assist you further, don't fail to call upon me freely!" warbled the lady, as Evelyn passed out into the hall. "I will send you copies of the literature illustrating the work of our various refuges and asylums. You may be glad to refer to them later."
Evelyn found herself in the street, she hardly knew how, her little feet carrying her swiftly away from the Crownenshield residence. She felt hurt and outraged in every fibre of her being, and her tear-blurred eyes took little note of the weather which had changed from a wet clinging snow to mingled rain and sleet, which beat upon her unprotected face like invisible whips. She did not know where to go, or what to do next; but she hurried blindly forward, her limp skirts gathered in one hand, her head bent against the piercing wind.
Then, strangely enough, the stinging blast seemed suddenly shut away and she looked up to find a stout umbrella interposed between her and the storm. The handle of the umbrellawas grasped by a large, masterful-looking hand in a shabby brown glove, and a broad shoulder hove into view from behind the hand.
"Where is your umbrella, Miss Tripp?" inquired a voice, as masterful in its way as the hand.
"Oh!—I—that is, I forgot it," she faltered, looking up into Mr. George Hickey's eyes, with a belated consciousness of the tears in her own. "The rain—is—wet," she added, with startling originality.
"Hum; yes," assented Mr. Hickey thoughtfully. He was striving in his dull masculine way to account for the wan, woe-begone expression of Miss Tripp's face and for the telltale drops on her thick brown lashes. "I was on my way to luncheon when I saw you," he went on. "—Er—have you—lunched, Miss Tripp?"
Evelyn shook her head. "Is it as late as that?" she said. "I ought to go——"
"Not back to Mrs. Brewster's," he said; "it's too late for that.—Er—won't you give me the—er—the pleasure of lunching with you? I—er—in fact, I'm exceedingly hungry myself, and——"
Mr. Hickey stopped short and looked about him somewhat wildly. It had just occurred to him that he could not invite Miss Tripp to accompany him to the business men's lunchroom where he usually took his unimportant meal, and he wondered what sort of a place women went to anyway, and what they ate?
The experienced Miss Tripp smiled; she appeared to read his thoughts with an ease which astonished while it frightened him a little.
"It is very good of you to ask me, Mr. Hickey," she said prettily, "and I shall be very happy to take lunch with you. Do you go to Daniels'? It is such a nice place, I think, and not far up the street."
"Oh—er—yes; certainly. I like Daniels' exceedingly. A good place, very. We'll—ah—just step across and—— Oh, I beg your pardon!"
Mr. Hickey was so agitated by the sudden and unprecedented position in which he found himself that he almost knocked Miss Tripp's hat off with a sudden swoop of his umbrella, as they crossed the street.
"How stupid of me!" he cried, as she putit straight with one little hand, smiling up at him forgivingly as she did it. "I'm an awkward sort of a chap, anyway," he went on with another illustrative jab of the umbrella. "I guess I'm hopeless as—er—a ladies' man."
"Oh, no, you aren't," contradicted Miss Tripp sweetly. "I never felt more relieved and—and happy than when I looked up to find your big umbrella between my head and the storm. I went off to town in such a hurry this morning that I left my umbrella in the rack in Elizabeth's hall."
He tried not to look his curiosity; then blurted out his uppermost thought. "You looked awfully done up when I overtook you; what—er——"
"I was," she confessed. "I was ready to weep with rage and disappointment. Have you ever felt that way?"
"Well, no," said Mr. Hickey candidly; "I can't say that I've ever got to the point you mention. I don't believe I've shed a tear since—since my mother died. She was the only person in the world who cared a rap whether I sank or swam, survived or perished, and after she went. I—— But I've been angryenough to—er—cuss a little now and then. Of course ladies can't do that, so——"
Evelyn smiled appreciatively. "It might have relieved my feelings if you had been there to use a little—strong language for me," she said. Then she told him something of her visit to Mrs. Crownenshield and its outcome.
"Hum, yes!" he observed. "I fancy I know her sort, and I—er—despise it. What did you want her to do for you? There, now I've put my foot in! It's none of my business of course, Miss Tripp, and you needn't tell me."
Evelyn hesitated. "I shouldn't like you to think I'm whining or complaining," she said soberly; "but there's no reason why you—or anyone—shouldn't know that I am looking for work. I never have worked"—the brave voice faltered a little—"but that's no reason why I shouldn't work now. In fact, it's a reason why I must. Everything was different when I was a girl to what it is now," she went on, calmly ignoring her "feelings-on-the-subject-of-her-age" which had of late years been abnormally sensitive. "I wasn't brought up to do anything more useful than to sew lace on apocket-handkerchief and play a few easy pieces on the piano. Of course I learned a little French—enough to chatter ungrammatically when we went abroad—and a little bad German, and a little—a very little execrable Italian—nothing of a usable quantity or quality, you see; so now I find myself——"
"But why? What has happened?" he urged in a low voice.
"The usual and what should have been the expected, I suppose," she told him. "We—that is mother and I—lost our money. We never thought of such a thing happening. We had always drawn checks for what we wanted, and that was all there was of it—till the bank closed, and then of course we had to think."
"I'm—Confound it; it's too bad!" he said strongly. "Banks have no business to close; it's—er—it's a national disgrace. There ought to be some law to—er—put a stop to such outrages on civilisation!"
Miss Tripp said nothing. She was experiencing a quite natural revulsion of feeling, and was now exceedingly sorry that she had confided anything of her affairs to Mr. Hickey. "He'll think of course that I am making acheap bid for sympathy—perhaps trying to borrow money of him," she thought, while a painful scarlet crept up into her pale cheeks.
Mr. Hickey was not a tactful man. He did not observe the unwonted colour in Miss Tripp's face, nor the proud light in her eyes.
"I've got more money than I know what to do with," he said bluntly, "and—er—I wish you'd allow me to——"
Miss Tripp stopped short. "Oh, Mr. Hickey," she exclaimed regretfully, "I don't know what you will think of me for accepting your kind invitation to luncheon, and then leaving you—as I must. I'd entirely forgotten an important engagement to meet—a friend of mine. I shall have to ask you to excuse me. It's too bad, isn't it? But I am so forgetful. And—please don't worry about my absurd confidences. Really, I exaggerated; I always do. We are perfectly comfortable—mother and I—only of course it was hard to lose oursurplus—the jam on our bread, as I tell mother. But one can live quite comfortably on plain bread, and it is far better for one; I know that. Good-bye! So kind of you to shelter me!—No; I couldn't think of takingyour umbrella! Really; don't you see the rain is over; besides, I'm going to take this car. Good-bye, and thank you so much!"
Mr. Hickey stood quite still on the corner where she had left him and stared meditatively after the car, which bore her away, for the space of two unfruitful minutes. Then he turned squarely around and plodded down town to the business men's lunchroom. He did not care, he told himself, to change his habits by lunching at Daniels', which was a foolishly expensive place and haunted by crowds of women shoppers. Women were singular things, anyway. Mr. Hickey was satisfied, on the whole, that he was not obliged to meet them often. And later in the day he was selfishly pleased that he had not been obliged to loan his umbrella; for the rain, which had ceased a little, came down in icy torrents which froze as it fell on the sidewalks and branches of the trees.
Evelyn Tripp never informed anyone where she went on the car that bore her triumphantly away from Mr. Hickey and the conversation which had suddenly grown intolerable. The intolerable part of it was her own fault, she told herself. And—well, she realised that she was paying for it, as she jounced along over mile after mile of uneven track, through unfamiliar, yet drearily monotonous streets. Damp, uncomfortable-looking people came and went, and from time to time the conductor glanced curiously at the small lady in the fashionably-cut jacket and furs, who shrank back in her corner gazing with unseeing eyes out of the dripping windows.
"Las' stop!" he shouted impatiently, as the car came to a groaning standstill away out in a shabby suburb, where several huge factories were in process of erection.
Miss Tripp started up and looked out at the sodden fields and muddy, half-frozen road. Two or three dirty, dispirited-looking menboarded the car and sat down heavily, depositing their tools at their feet. Then the driver and conductor, who had swung the trolley around, and accomplished other official duties incident to the terminal, entered, closing the doors behind them with a professional crash.
Both stared at Miss Tripp who had subsided into her corner again.
"Say, Bill; nice weather for a trolley-ride—heh?" observed the motor-man, shifting an obvious quid of something in his capacious mouth.
"Aw—you shut up, Cho'ley!" growled his superior.
Bill thoughtfully obeyed, drumming with his feet on the floor and pursing up his tobacco-stained lips in an inaudible whistle. Presently he glanced at his big nickel watch and shook his head at the conductor. "A minute an' a half yet, b' mine," he said; "made a quick trip out."
Then he cast another side-long glance at the one lady passenger. "Got carried past, I guess," he suggested with a wink. "Better look sharp for the right street on the way back, Bill."
"You bet," observed the other, with his hand on the bell-rope. "I'm on the job all right."
Elizabeth Brewster was giving her youngest son his supper when her friend Miss Tripp entered her hospitable door.
"Oh, Evelyn!" she began, with an eager air of welcome; "I was hoping you would come home early to-night, Marian Stanford was here this afternoon; she wants to go—— But Evelyn, dear, what ever is the matter? You're as white as a ghost. Don't you feel well?"
Miss Tripp valiantly plucked up a wan smile.
"I am perfectly well," she declared; "but, Betty dear, could you give me a cup of tea? I was so—busy and—hurried to-day that I forgot all about my luncheon, and I just this minute realised it."
Elizabeth hurried into the kitchen on hospitable cares intent and Evelyn sank wearily into a chair. Her head was swimming with weariness and the lack of food; cold, discouraged drops crowded her blue eyes.
Richard quietly absorbing bread and milkfrom a gay china bowl gazed at her with a round speculative stare.
"Cwyin'?" he observed in a bird-like voice.
Cwyin'? he observed in a bird-like voice
"Cwyin'?" he observed in a bird-like voice
"No, dear," denied Miss Tripp, winking resolutely. "What made you think of such a thing, precious?"
"'Cause it's—it's naughty to cwy."
"I know it, dear; and I'm going to smile; that's better; isn't it?"
Her somewhat hysterical effort after her usual cheerful expression did not appear to deceive Richard. He waved his spoon charged with milk in her general direction.
"I'm a dood boy," he announced with pride. "I eat my shupper an' I don't cwy."
"Here is the tea you're evidently perishing for, Evelyn dear," said Elizabeth, setting a steaming cup before her guest; "and I've some good news for you—at least I'm hoping you'll like it. I'm sure I should love to have you so near us, and it would give you plenty of time to choose something permanent."
Miss Tripp's wan face had taken on a tinge of colour as she sipped the hot tea. "What is it, Betty?" she asked quietly enough, though her heart was beating hard with hope deferred."Did that Popham man call to see me after all?"
"No," Elizabeth said; "it isn't the Popham man. And perhaps you won't like the idea at all. I started to tell you that Marian—Mrs. Stanford—was here this afternoon. She came over to tell me that her husband is going to California on a business trip; he wants her to go with him and she is wild to go; but she doesn't know what to do with the two children. She can't take them along, as Mr. Stanford will be obliged to travel rapidly from place to place. Her mother is almost an invalid and can't bear the excitement of having them with her. It just occurred to me that perhaps you might be willing to stay with the children. I spoke of it to Marian and she was delighted with the idea. You could have your mother come and stay with you, you know, and the house is so comfortable and pretty."
Elizabeth broke off in sudden consternation at sight of the usually self-possessed Miss Tripp shaken with uncontrollable sobs. "Why, Evelyn," she cried, "I never thought you would feel that way about it. Of course I had no business to speak of you to Marianwithout consulting you first; but I thought—I hoped——"
"It—isn't that, Elizabeth," Miss Tripp managed to say, "I'm—not offended—only tired. Don't mind me; I'll be all right as soon as I've swallowed my tea and——"
"It's naughty to cwy," chirped Richard, waving his milky spoon rebukingly. "I'm a dood boy. I eat my shupper an' I don't cwy."
In a fresh gown, with her nerves once more under control, Evelyn was able to look more composedly at the door which had so unexpectedly opened in the blind wall of her dilemma. There were serious disadvantages—as Elizabeth was careful to point out—in attempting the charge of the Stanford children, in conjunction with various undeniable privileges and a generous emolument.
"Robbie is certainly a handful for anybody to cope with, and the baby is a spoiled child already." Elizabeth's voice sank to a soulful murmur, as she added, "Marian has always believed in punishing her children—whipping them, I mean; and you know, Evelyn, how that brutalises a child."
As a matter of fact, Miss Tripp knew verylittle about children; but like the majority of persons who have never dealt familiarly with infant humanity, she had formulated various sage theories concerning their upbringing.
"Dear Elizabeth," she replied, "how true that is; and yet how few mothers realise it. Children should be controlled solely by love; I am sure I shall have no trouble at all with those two dear little boys."
And so it was settled. In less than a week's time Mrs. Stanford had departed upon her long journey. At the last she clung somewhat wistfully to Elizabeth.
"I'm almost afraid to go and leave the children," she said. "Of course I feel every confidence in Miss Tripp; but you know, Betty, how resourceful Robert is, and how—— But you'll have an eye to them all; won't you? And telegraph us if—if anything should happen?"
Elizabeth promised everything. But she was conscious of a great weight of responsibility as the carriage containing the light-hearted Stanfords rolled away down the street. "Oh, Evelyn!" she said; "do watch Robbie carefully, and be sure and call me if the least thing is the matter with the baby."
Miss Tripp smiled confidently. "I'm not the least bit worried," she said. "Little Robert loves me devotedly already, and I am sure will be most tractable and obedient; and Livingstone is a very healthy child. Besides, you know, I have mother, who knows everything about children."
She went back into her newly acquired domain, feeling that a sympathising Providence had been very good to her, and resolving to do her full duty, as she conceived it, by the temporarily motherless Stanford children.
In pursuance of this resolve she repaired at once to the nursery when the Stanfords had taken leave of their offspring, after presenting them with a parcel of new toys upon which the children had fallen with shouts of joy.
"I really could not go away and leave them looking wistfully out of the windows after us," Mrs. Stanford had declared, with tears in her bright brown eyes. "I should think of them that way every minute while we were gone, and imagine them crying after me."
"They won't cry, dear Mrs. Stanford," Evelyn had assured her. "I shall devote every moment of my time to them and keep themjust as happy as wee little birdlings in a nest."
The youngest Stanford child was peacefully engaged in demolishing a book of bright pictures, while his elder brother was trying the blade of a glittering jack-knife on the wood of the mantel-piece, when Miss Tripp re-entered the room.
"Oh, my dears!" exclaimed their new guardian with a tactful smile, "I wouldn't do that!"
The Stanford infant paid no manner of attention to the mildly worded request; but the older boy turned and stared resentfully at her. "This is my jack-knife," he announced conclusively; "my daddy gave it to me to whittle with, an' I'm whittlin'."
"But your father wouldn't like you to cut the mantel-shelf; don't you know he wouldn't, dear?"
"I'm goin' to whittle it jus' the same, 'cause you ain't my mother; you ain't even my gran'ma."
Miss Tripp, unable to deny the refutation, looked about her distractedly. "I'll tell Norah to get you a nice piece of wood," she said. "Where is Norah, dear?"
"She's gone down to the corner to talk to her beau," replied Master Robert, calmly continuing to dig his new knife into the mantel. "She's got a p'liceman beau, an' so's Annie; on'y hers is a street-car driver. Have you got one, Miss Tripp?"
"Call me Aunty Evelyn, dear; that'll be nicer; don't you think it will? And—Robert dear; if you'll stop cutting the mantel Aunty Evelyn will tell you the loveliest story, all about——"
"Aw—I don't like stories much. They're good 'nough for girls I guess, but I——"
Then the knife slipped and the amateur carpenter burst into a deafening roar of anguish.
Very much to his surprise, Mr. Hickey found himself disposed to hark back to the day on which he had so unexpectedly parted company with Miss Tripp on the corner of Tremont and Washington Streets. He had intended, he told himself, to order for their luncheon broiled chicken, macaroons and pink ice-cream, as being articles presumably suited to the feminine taste. He remembered vaguely to have heard Miss Tripp mention pink ice-cream, and all women liked the wing of a chicken. Was the unknown "friend" with whom she had made that previous engagement, a man or a woman? he wondered, deciding with the well-known egoism of his sex in favour of the first mentioned. The man was a cad, anyway, Mr. Hickey was positive—though he could not have particularised his reasons for this summary conclusion. And being a cad, he was not worthy of Miss Tripp's slightest consideration.
If he had the thing to do over again, he told himself, he would sneak up boldly to Miss Trippconcerning his own rights in the matter; he would remind her—humorously of course—that possession was said to be nine points in the law; and that he, Hickey, was disposed to do battle for the tenth point with any man living.
He grew quite hot and indignant as he pictured his rival sitting opposite Miss Tripp in some second-class restaurant, ordering chicken and ice-cream. As like as not the other fellow wouldn't know that she preferred her ice-cream pink, and——.
Mr. Hickey pulled himself up with a jerk at this point in his meditations and told himself flatly that he was a fool, and that further, when he came right down to it, he did not care a copper cent about Miss Tripp's luncheons, past, present or to come. What he really wanted to know—and this desire gained poignant force and persistence as the days passed—was whether he had said or done anything to offend the lady. He remembered that he had accidentally jabbed Miss Tripp's hat with his umbrella, and very likely put a feather or two out of business. That would be likely to annoy any woman. Perhaps she had feltthat his awkwardness was unpardonable, and his further acquaintance undesirable.
Under the goad of this latter uncomfortable suspicion—in two weeks' time it had grown into a conviction—he actually made his way into a milliner's shop and inquired boldly for "feathers."
"What sort of feathers, sir?" inquired the cool, bright-eyed young person who came forward to ask the needs of the tall, professional-looking man wearing glasses and exceedingly shabby brown gloves.
"Why—er—just feathers; the sort ladies wear on hats."
The young person smiled condescendingly. "Something in plumes, sir?" she asked, "or was it coque or marabout you wished to see?"
"Something handsome. Long—er—and not too curly."
The young woman produced a box and opened it.
"How do you like this, sir? Only twenty dollars. Was it for an old lady or a young lady?"
"Er—a young lady," said Mr. Hickey hastily. "That is to say, she——"
"Your wife, perhaps?" and the young person smiled intelligently. "How would your lady like something like this?" And she held up a sweeping plume of a dazzling shade of green. "This is quite the latest swell thing from Paris, sir; can be worn on either a black or a white hat."
Mr. Hickey reflected. "I—er—think the feathers were black," he observed meditatively; "but I like colours myself. Red—er—is a handsome colour in feathers." He eyed the young person defiantly. "I always liked a good red," he asserted firmly.
"These new cerise shades are all the rage now in Paris, N'Yo'k an' Boston," agreed the young person, promptly pulling out another box. "Look at this grand plume in shaded tints, sir! Isn't it just perfectly stunning?"
It was. Mr. Hickey surveyed it in rapt admiration, as the young person dangled it alluringly within range of his short-sighted vision.
"I'd want two of those," he murmured.
"Forty-eight, seventy, sir; reduced from fifty dollars; shall I send them?"
"I—er—I'll take them with me," said the engineer, pulling out a roll of bills.
"Women's hats must be singularly expensive," he mused for the first time in his professional career, as he strode away down the street, gingerly bearing his late purchase in a pasteboard box. It had not before occurred to Mr. Hickey that mere "feathers" were so costly. He trembled as he reflected upon the ravages committed by his unthinking umbrella. Anyway, these particular plumes were handsome enough to replace the ones he had undoubtedly ruined. He grew eager to behold Miss Tripp's face under the cerise plumes. But how was this to be brought about? Obviously this new perplexity demanded time for consideration. He carried the plumes home to his boarding-place, therefore, and stored them away on the top shelf of his closet, where they were discovered on the following day by his landlady, who was in the habit of keeping what she was pleased to term "a motherly eye" upon the belongings of her unattached boarders.
"Well, I mus' say!" exclaimed the worthy Mrs. McAlarney to herself, when her amazed eyes fell upon the contents of the strange box,purporting to have come from a fashionable milliner's shop; "if that ain't the greatest! Whatever's got into Mr. Hickey?"
But the cerise plumes tarried in undeserved obscurity on the shelf of Mr. Hickey's clothes-press for exactly fifteen days thereafter; then they suddenly disappeared.
In the meantime their purchaser continued to indulge in unaccustomed reflections from day to day. He made no effort during all this time to see Miss Tripp; but on the fifteenth day he chanced to meet Sam Brewster as he was about entering the business men's lunchroom, which Mr. Hickey still frequented as in former days.
"Hello, old man!" was Sam's greeting. "Where have you been keeping yourself all these weeks? I thought you'd be around some evening to see us."
"Er—I've been thinking of it," admitted Mr. Hickey cautiously. "Is—er—Mrs. Brewster's friend, Miss Tripp, still with you?"
"No, George; she isn't," Sam told him, enjoying the look of uncontrolled dismay which instantly overspread Mr. Hickey's countenance. "She's gone next door to stay," he added.
"Next door—to—er stay?"
"At the Stanfords' you know. Miss Tripp is keeping house and looking after the young Stanfords while their exhausted parents are endeavouring to recuperate their energies in the far west."
"Hum—ah," quoth Mr. Hickey thoughtfully, his mind reverting casually to the cerise plumes.
"She's doing wonders with those kids, my wife tells me," pursued Sam Brewster artfully. "Miss Tripp's a fine girl and no mistake; it'll be a lucky man who can secure her services for life."
Mr. Hickey offered no comment on this statement, and his friend waved his hand in token of farewell.
"Come around and see us, George, when you haven't anything better to do," he said, as he stepped out to the street.
"Oh—er—I say, Brewster; would it be the proper thing for me to call on Miss Tripp? I—I have a little explanation to make, and——"
"Miss Tripp's mother is chaperoning her," said Sam, with unsmiling gravity. "It wouldbe, I should say, quite the proper thing for you to call upon her."
"Well; then I think I'd better take those——. Er—Brewster, I wonder if you could enlighten me?—You see it's this way, a—friend of mine called at my office the other day to consult me about a little matter. He said he'd been unfortunate enough to injure a lady's hat—feathers, you know—and he wanted to know what I'd do under like circumstances. 'Well, my dear fellow,' I told him, 'I don't know much about women's head-gear and that sort of thing; but,' I said, 'I should think the square thing to do would be to buy some handsome plumes and send them to the lady—something good and—er—expensive; say forty or fifty dollars.'"
Sam whistled. "Pretty tough advice, unless the fellow happened to have plenty of cash," he hazarded, with a quizzical look at the now flushed and agitated Mr. Hickey.
"Wouldn't they be good enough at that price?" inquired the engineer excitedly. "Ought I—ought my friend to have paid more?"
"I should say that was a fair price," saidSam mildly. "I don't believe my wife has any feathers of that description on her hats."
Mr. Hickey looked troubled. "Do you think I—er—told my friend the correct thing to do?" he inquired humbly. "Of course I don't know much about—feathers, or anything about women, for that matter."
"That's where you're making a big mistake, Hickey, if you'll allow me to say as much. You ought to marry some nice girl, man, and make her happy. You'd find yourself happier than you have any idea of in the process."
Mr. Hickey shook his head dubiously. "That may be so," he admitted. "I don't doubt it, to tell you the truth; but I——. The fact is, Brewster, I'm too far along in life to think of changing my way of living. I—I'd be afraid to try it, for fear——"
"Oh, nonsense, man! you're just in your prime. Be sure you get the right woman, though; a real home-maker, Hickey; the kind who'll meet you at night with a smile, and have a first-class dinner ready for you three hundred and sixty-five days in the year."
Mr. Hickey stared inscrutably at a passing truck. "Hum—ah!" he ejaculated. "I—er—dare say you are right, Brewster. Quite so, in fact. I—I'll think it over and let you know—that is, I——"
Sam Brewster turned aside to conceal a passing smile. "The more you think it over the better," he said convincingly; "only don't take so much time for thinking that the other man'll cut you out."
"Then there is another man!" exclaimed Mr. Hickey, with some agitation. "I knew it; I felt sure of it. But how could it be otherwise?"
Sam Brewster stared in amazement at the effect produced by his careless speech. "There's always another man, George," he said seriously—though he felt morally certain there wasn't, if Hickey was referring to Miss Tripp. "But you want to get busy, and not waste time philandering."