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Those Dale Girls

by Frances Carruth Prindle · English · Gutenberg #37304 · 388,236 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Those Dale Girls

Author: Frances Carruth Prindle


        
Release date: September 3, 2011 [eBook #37304]

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/37304

Credits: Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed
        Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THOSE DALE GIRLS ***




Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net





[Illustration: SHE SHOOK A WIRE CAGE ENERGETICALLY OVER THE COALS]




                            Those Dale Girls

                                   BY

                         Frances Weston Carruth

                 In the world's broad field of battle,
                 In the bivouac of Life,
                 Be not like dumb, driven cattle!
                 Be a hero in the strife!
                                        --_Longfellow._

                                Chicago
                          A. C. McClurg & Co.
                                  1899




                               Copyright
                         By A. C. McCLURG & CO.
                               A. D. 1899




                               TO EDITH,

                   MY SISTER AND COMRADE, THE BRAVEST
                            OF SOLDIER GIRLS




                             ILLUSTRATIONS

She Shook a Wire Cage Energetically over the Coals         Frontispiece

The Girl Sat Down on the Arm of His Chair                            48

"May I Have a Guess, Miss Dale?"                                    114

There Were the Girls in Their Cotton Gowns                          188

Julie Was in Bed When Hester Came In That Night                     232

The Wedding Breakfast                                               304




THOSE DALE GIRLS




CHAPTER I


"Julie Dale, you're the laziest thing in creation! Come down from that
window-seat and help."

"Can't, my dear," a gay young voice responded. "I'm as 'comfy as comfy
can be.'"

"Look at her, Peter Snooks," said Hester to a fox-terrier at her side;
"just look at her! She's curled up in a heap, reveling in that
fascinating Kipling, with her mouth all screwed up for this popcorn,
which she thinks we will take in state to her ladyship. But we'll fool
her--eh, Snooks? We'll fool her completely. We'll just sit complacently
on the floor and eat it all up ourselves."

The dog jumped about rapturously. The girl, who was kneeling before an
open fire, shook a wire cage energetically over the coals, and watched
the corn burst into great white flakes.

"It does _smell_ delicious," came in an insinuating tone from the
window-seat across the room.

Hester maintained a lofty silence, and tipping the corn into a bowl,
sprinkled it with salt, adding dabs of butter. She then tossed a piece
to the dog, and began to sample it herself with apparent satisfaction,
for she smacked her lips and said, reflectively, as she put her hands to
her burning cheeks: "I believe it is quite worth ruining my complexion
over."

Suddenly she whisked up bowl and dog, and crossing the room, dropped
both on the seat beside her sister. "There!" she exclaimed, "you knew I
would never eat it alone, even if you are a duffer!"

"'Duffer' is most inelegant" (this from Julie in an assumption of stern
reproach); "I do not see wherever you picked up such a word."

"Read it in a book," quoted Hester, laughing. This was a joke of
longstanding between them--to hold literature responsible for any
suspicious scraps of knowledge. It was a phrase they used also with much
frequency in argument, particularly when the subject was beyond the
range of their experience. "Don't know a thing about it, read it in a
book," one of them would say facetiously, by way of backing up some
remarkable statement, and feel herself at once relieved from personal
responsibility.

"You need not put on such frills," Hester now said to her sister. "You
know you adore slang yourself."

Julie was gazing out of the window. "Look, Hester, quick! There go the
crew! How they are skimming down the river! I'd no idea they trained out
here, had you?"

Both girls watched intently as the narrow shell shot by, the men pulling
the long, steady stroke which was the pride of their university.

"Aren't they splendid?" Hester exclaimed, enthusiastically. "I wish we
knew some of the college men, Julie, don't you?"

"It would be fun. I'd like to see something of college life. Perhaps we
may meet an occasional senior if Miss Ware takes us about any this
winter."

"Do you suppose he'd be nice?" inquired Hester, quizzically. "I don't
think we know much about very young men, do you? All we've known have
been so much older than we are."

Julie puckered up her forehead and gazed after the vanishing crew. She
was trying to classify an unknown species.

"It does seem odd," continued Hester, "_our_ contemplating formal
society, doesn't it? I believe I shall hate it. We have roamed around
with Daddy too much to be quite like pattern society girls."

"I tell you what we'll do, Hester; we'll go out with Miss Ware, meet
loads of people and pick out a nice congenial few whom Dad will like,
too, and just cultivate them informally. You know how Dad dislikes
society in the conventional sense, but he wants us to take our proper
place; and of course we ought to know people, now that we have really
settled down in Radnor to live."

"Heavens! but you're clever, Julie! We might set up a salon; only the
wise, the witty and the beautiful need apply. Which class would we come
under ourselves, do you think? We can begin with Dr. Ware and all the
old dears--only he never seems old a bit--that Dad is always bringing
home to dinner, and add any new dears we meet and think eligible."

Julie laughed. "It sounds like a herd or something." Then, with sudden
gravity, she said: "Hester, dear, I'm anxious about Dad. I can't just
explain it, but somehow he's been different ever since we've been here.
Haven't you noticed how preoccupied he is and tired all the time, so
unlike Dad? The other day I spoke to him about it, and he shook his head
and said I mustn't be so observant, that he happened to have an unusual
stress of business, that was all. But I don't know," she continued,
meditatively; "I can't seem to throw off this queer feeling about him."

Hester regarded her with wide-open eyes. "You frighten me, Julie." Then
leaning toward her sister, she shook her finger admonishingly. "How dare
you go on having worries by yourself and not letting me know a thing
about them?" she said, lightly. "I think it is all your imagination. I
dare say Daddy has heaps of extra things on his hands because of all the
time he spent gadding with us in Europe. Of course, that's it, you
goosey," the idea gaining strength in her mind, "_of course_. You and I
and Peter Snooks must be more amusing, and make him laugh and forget the
'stress of business.' Ugh! what a horrid expression that is! Now I think
of it, he hasn't laughed lately, Julie, has he?" She looked up with an
evident desire to be contradicted.

Julie shook her head.

Hester sprang up from her seat, and seizing the dog by the forepaws,
danced him violently about the room. "We need a shaking up, Peter
Snooks, or we'll not be allowed to jingle our bells any longer at the
court of his majesty Dad the Great! Who ever heard of jesters neglecting
their duties! His royal highness must laugh," she said gayly, "or he'll
cry, 'Off with their heads!' like Alice's fierce old queen." She
emphasized this possible calamity by swinging the dog up in the air and
herself executing a daring _pas seul_ before she dropped breathless in a
chair. "I had rather die than be stupid, hadn't you, Julie?" she gasped,
between breaths.

"In that case I think you will be spared to us a while yet," replied her
sister, with quiet humor.

"So glad you think we're a success," Hester said, cheerfully. "Peter
Snooks, do you hear? we're a success--she approves!" The dog lay panting
on the floor, and wagged his tail in understanding of the compliment.
"We'll give a private exhibition to his majesty to-night after dinner.
How he will laugh! We will elaborate this feeble effort and call it 'The
Dance of Joy.' Things are always more interesting with names," she said,
decisively. "Julie, you be showman and introduce us."

Julie took her cue immediately, and rising, bowed low. "Ladies and
gentlemen (that means Dad)--ladies and gentlemen, I shall now have the
honor of presenting to your astonished vision the wonderful and original
'Dance of Joy'--"

The library door opened suddenly, and a middle-aged woman entered and
closed the door after her. She stopped just inside the threshold, and
looking from one to the other with a scared face, stood wringing her
hands helplessly.

"Good gracious! what is the matter, Bridget?" Julie ejaculated. "Tell
us--you look frightened to death."

The woman opened her lips and closed them with a moan. No word escaped
her.

Both girls were beside her in an instant, and Julie gave her a little
shake.

"Is it Daddy? What has happened? Bridget, Bridget, speak!" Her
beseeching young voice cried out with instinctive fear.

"They're bringing him in," Bridget gasped at last. "He took sick in the
office with a stroke. Dr. Ware's with them. He sez you're not to see him
yet. He sez I'm to keep you in here till he comes--the Doctor, I mean."
Her words came in a tumult of confusion.

"Is--he--dead?" Julie asked. "Bridget, tell me the truth."

It seemed to the girls that they lived an eternity in the second before
the woman said: "No, no, he's not dead. Whatever made you say such a
fearful thing?" She buried her face in her apron and wept bitterly.
"He's tired out and sick altogether, the dear man. I've seen it comin'
this long time."

Hester looked at Julie with a sort of awe. The sound of footsteps in the
hall outside penetrated with ominous distinctness into the library.

Julie said tremulously, "Hester, dear, I am going to Dad; they shall not
keep us away."

"No, they shall not. We are not babies; we must go and help."

"That's what I wus after tellin' the Doctor you'd say," Bridget sobbed,
"an' it's not for me to be lavin' you here all alone, an' me all over
the house to onct. But if yez wouldn't go now, darlin's. Just wait till
he's took to his room, an' 'twould be better--indeed, believe your old
Bridget, it would!"

The impetuosity of youth in the shock of joy or sorrow is not to be
checked. The girls went into the hall, to see a stretcher, on which lay
their father, being borne up the stairs, while Dr. Ware and two men, who
proved to be trained nurses, brought up the rear of the little
procession.

"Dr. Ware," whispered the girls, slipping up close to him with blanched
faces, "we know--we must help, too."

He took them each by the hand, as if they were little children, and
turned them back before they could reach their father's side.

"Dear little girls," he said, gently, "you can help your father most by
doing as I ask. It is hard to be shut out, I know, but you can do
nothing now. Later, perhaps, you can do--everything. I will tell you
frankly, he is a very sick man. I have no wish to hide anything from
you, but we shall try and get him better--much. I have two experienced
men, and Bridget here, and when we get him comfortably in bed you may
come in for a moment. He may not regain consciousness for many hours.
Will you trust me and be guided by my better judgment?" looking down at
them earnestly.

"Yes, yes," they both sobbed through the tears, now falling fast; "go to
Dad--don't think of us. We will do everything you say."

"That pleases me--my brave little girls." He went on into Mr. Dale's
chamber.

Left to themselves, they huddled together outside their father's door,
each trying to comfort the other. Peter Snooks, fully conscious that his
young mistresses were in trouble, climbed into Julie's lap and stuck his
wet nose into her hand in true canine sympathy. Though they did not put
it into words, both girls were conscious of a curious sense of
remoteness from their father in being thus kept from him. This
immediate, poignant grief stung them bitterly and prevented for the
moment any thought of what the future might hold.

They never knew how long they had sat there on the stairs when Dr. Ware
opened the bedroom door and beckoned them in. But they carried ever
after a vivid impression of creeping stealthily to their father's bed,
stooping to kiss the dear face, from which there was no answering sign
of recognition, and stealing softly out again. And in Julie's mind there
flashed always an accompanying picture--the remembrance of how, when
they had reached the hall again, Hester had picked up a woe-begone,
shivering little dog, and burying her face in his neck, whispered,
brokenly: "Oh, Peter Snooks, how we were going--to--make--him--laugh!"




CHAPTER II


It was said of Mr. Dale by those of his friends' wives who felt at
liberty to discuss his affairs with their husbands, that his bringing up
of his daughters was radically wrong. These whispers of feminine
disapproval were occasionally wafted to the seemingly heedless father,
who always smiled good-naturedly, yet was apparently blind to the
advantages to be derived from the conventional course of training the
young, for he continued to pursue his own methods with bland serenity.

Mrs. Dale had died when the girls were six and seven years old
respectively. Up to that time they had lived quite like other children,
going regularly to school and finding recreation in the pleasures common
to their age and condition. The house in which at that time they lived
was a somewhat pretentious mansion on the water side of Crana Street.
Now to live in this sacred precinct, as every one in Radnor knows, gives
an immediate claim to distinction. In the eyes of their neighbors,
however, the Dales were not distinguished beyond the matter of their
locality, for the family was not Radnor-bred, and this is an offense
tolerated but never condoned in Radnor society.

The Dales had drifted there from some unheard-of (to Radnor) western
town soon after the Civil War, while the country was still in a state of
upheaval. Major Dale brought to the readjustment of his business the
force and skill which won for him distinction on the battlefield,
gradually transferred his interests from the western town eastward, and
took root in Radnor, where he proceeded to build up a fortune. Not
there, however, but back in Mrs. Dale's old home, some years later, the
girls were born. They came to Radnor as babies, and like their father
took root; but Mrs. Dale, a semi-invalid, spent much of her time wearily
traversing the country in search of health. She disliked Radnor, and
made no attempt to cultivate the people. During her prolonged absences
the children remained at home under the care of Bridget, a faithful
servant who had come with them from the west.

With Mrs. Dale's death the quiet placidity of the children's life
ceased. The house was closed, and Mr. Dale started immediately for
California, taking the girls and Bridget with him. While there he became
interested in railroad enterprises, which eventually extended through
remote and varied sections of the country and kept him a bird of passage
for many years. He built a private car and took his daughters everywhere
with him, to the consternation of Radnor, which was kept informed of the
magnate's movements through the medium of the press.

The girls grew up in an atmosphere of devoted companionship, among
scenes that were ever changing. They lived much in hotels, and for weeks
at a time in their private car, "The Hustle," which they never ceased to
regard as a fascinating playhouse, and where their father, in the midst
of his multitudinous cares, found time to watch their developing natures
and teach them to grow in grace and spirit, as became the daughters of a
soldier.

They were not wholly without lessons, for when they remained for any
length of time in one place Mr. Dale's private secretary was dispatched
to find a good school, in which they were immediately placed; while Mr.
Dale, who had theories of his own, trained their eyes to keen
observation of what they saw and their minds to reason out the obscure
according to their own lights. He was full of wisdom and patience and
counsel, but he had a way of turning on them when they came for advice
and saying, "What do _you_ think?" in a manner that would have been
startling to the average child, who is apt to think what he is told.
This turning the tables began in their teens, whereby they came to have
opinions without being opinionated, for, though requiring them to think
out every subject carefully, he yet guided them with a firm hand, giving
them in every sort of discussion the wisdom of his wide experience. He
was a loving, indulgent father, and the girls adored him, but no sterner
disciplinarian ever held sway. Implicit and immediate obedience he
demanded--no questioning of his higher authority.

He taught them, too, much of the old-world philosophy, which he had
imbibed from extensive reading. They listened to him wonderingly, their
eager young minds drinking in the beauty of what he said, but failing at
that age to grasp the breadth and depth of all the truths he told them.
Sometimes he almost forgot that they were children.

When Julie was twenty and Hester nineteen he took them to Europe.
Bridget and Peter Snooks completed the party. They roamed about for a
year, and just before they were to sail for home late in the summer Mr.
Dale informed the girls that he intended to sell out his large railroad
interests; he was tired of their unsettled life, and thought they would
all enjoy the novelty of opening their house and taking up their abode
in Radnor. Radnor had long ceased to be anything more than a name to the
girls, but the proposition opened up joyous possibilities of "making a
home for Dad."

"I will take you down to Cousin Nancy's in Virginia when we land," he
had said to them in London, "and leave you there a few weeks; she has
been begging for a visit from us this long while. Bridget and I will
open the house in Radnor and get everything in order; then you can come
up and run the establishment and queen it over your old Dad in royal
fashion."

This program had been successfully carried out, except that it could
scarcely be said that the girls ran the establishment, for the
responsibility lay with Bridget, who assumed the duties of
housekeeper--duties she guarded jealously and performed with such skill
that there was not a better managed house on the water side of Crana
Street. This Radnor people knew through that mysterious agency by which
a neighborhood keeps in touch with itself.

After years spent in the narrow confines of a car, however luxurious,
and the necessarily limited quarters of hotels, the girls reveled in the
spacious house, over which they spread themselves in an amusing fashion,
sleeping in turn in the various bedrooms by way of getting acquainted
with them all over again, Julie said, and with reckless prodigality
hanging some portion of their wardrobe in every closet in the house.

At the end of their first week in Radnor, Hester amused her father by
telling him she thought she should enjoy housekeeping exceedingly if
they had an elevator, a menu and "The Hustle" side-tracked in the back
yard. Reluctantly she admitted that the yard could scarcely be made to
hold it, but at least, she suggested airily, he might build a float and
anchor the car at their back door on the river. The new life really
seemed to her incomplete without it.

Hester at twenty was a laughing, dancing sprite, yet with a certain
quaintness and matureness of mind that amused and delighted her father's
friends. She was slim and dark, with a piquant face and fascinating
hazel eyes that shot out mischievous lights. They were unusual eyes, and
very beautiful with their fringe of long dark lashes; but she did not
think so, and compared them scornfully to a cat's--the only animal she
hated. If she could be said to have any vanity it was for her hands,
which came in for a considerable share of her attention, and she went to
bed in gloves every night of her life.

Julie, whose hands were not a matter of comment, dispensed with this
bed-time ceremony, and usually devoted most of her time before retiring
to a vigorous brushing of her rebellious yellow hair, which, when it was
let alone, rioted all over her head in such babyish curls that her
father always called her "Curly Locks." Her eyes were violet--her lashes
and brows dark, like Hester's, which gave her a most remarkable contrast
of coloring. From her mother she had inherited a delicate constitution,
and lacked the buoyancy of Hester's gay spirits; nevertheless, she had a
keen sense of humor and laughed immoderately on all occasions at her
sister, whom she considered altogether the cleverest and most amusing
person she knew. And they knew many delightful people from one end of
the country to the other--everywhere except in Radnor, where society was
waiting for Mr. Dale formally to present his daughters before setting
the seal of its approval upon them.

The second day following that on which Mr. Dale was brought home ill,
Dr. Ware stayed longer than usual with his patient and came out of the
sickroom with a grave face. In the hall the girls were waiting for him
as usual.

"My dears," he said, abruptly, drawing them into the library, "you have
to know the worst, and there is no one but me to tell you." For a moment
he hesitated. "Your father's illness is caused by his financial
ruin--his entire fortune has been swept away. He has lost everything,
and the shock of his failure has paralyzed him." For a moment neither
spoke; each girl felt that she could hear her heart beat in the awful
silence of the room. Then Julie said:

"Won't Daddy soon be better? Oh, you can't mean he will always be sick
like this?" Her eyes were black with pain and apprehension.

"He will never move about again. Physically he may suffer very little;
the anguish will come through the consciousness of his helplessness----"

"We will not let him feel that," interrupted Julie, throwing up her
head. "Hester and I are strong."

The Doctor cleared his throat. "Thank God for that, for you've a hard
fight ahead of you."

Hester crept close to his side. "Will you tell us more about it,
please," she whispered in a strange, tense voice; "it's so--so difficult
to understand."

"Of course it is, dear," putting his arm around her. "Things began to go
wrong a year ago. Your father felt it, and nearly abandoned the European
trip, then went after all, feeling absolute need of rest and hoping he
had left the snarl sufficiently straightened out to go on without him.
But things went from bad to worse, and he came back to more
complications than any one man could manage. Even then he might have
pulled through somehow if that western road in which he had so largely
invested had not smashed and carried him down with it. You don't want
the details, Hester."

"No," she answered, "it is enough that the thing is."

He looked at her intently, as if astonished that so philosophic a
statement should come from so young a person.

"Shall we have to give up the house, and--and 'The Hustle,'
and--everything?" asked Julie.

"I'm afraid so, Julie dear. That is especially what I want to talk to
you about to-day--your future. I want you to leave it all to me."

"Oh, no, no!" she cried, "you're good, so good, but we can't do that. We
must look the future squarely in the face, and bravely, must we not,
Hester?" turning appealingly to her sister. "I'm sure that is what Daddy
would say."

"Julie, don't you be afraid; we'll just do everything--somehow!" Hester
flung out her young arms with a sweeping movement as if she meant to
gather in all their perplexities and conquer them. "If Dr. Ware will
help us and advise us, we'll try to get our feet down on
something--somewhere. Yours aren't very big," she said, with a piteous
attempt at her old lightness, "but mine are. I feel just now as if I
were standing on my head, it is all so sudden and so terrible!"

Dr. Ware rose and put on his coat. "I think you have heard enough for
one day," he said. "You seem to be such surprisingly independent young
women that I do not know just how I am going to deal with you. But you
are to remember this, mind, that whatever I have is
yours--everything--though I shall not thrust it upon you. If you have
ideas of your own and wish to carry them out, I will help you in every
way in my power. Now I am off," he added, briskly, "and don't you worry
too much. We have many days yet to talk things over and decide what is
best to do."

Julie tried to say something, but ended by burying her face in his coat
sleeve and sobbing quietly.

Hester fiercely bit her lip and gulped down the tears that threatened to
choke her. "You are the kindest, best--" she began.

"Tut, tut, nonsense!" said the Doctor. "Not a word like that, or I shall
desert you entirely." And with a frown on his face that was half a smile
he left the room.




CHAPTER III


"Julie, it is too absolutely appalling to realize!" Hester pressed her
nose against the window and looked out over the river dejectedly. A
fresh September gale was blowing, ruffling the surface of the water into
miniature waves and rattling the window panes with a suggestion of
autumn days to come. Julie shivered a little, and crossed to the
fireplace, where a few pine logs sputtered on the hearth. She looked
down without seeing them. Her thoughts were turned within.

"Julie! do say something!" exclaimed her sister. "I can't bear to have
you so still."

"I am thinking, dear; trying to grasp what it all means."

"Julie, what can we do?"

"Do? Well, we will do something."

"Of course we will, old girl." Hester left the window, and crossing the
room put her arms around her sister. "The two main things are to take
care of Dad and earn our own living. We couldn't be dependent on Dr.
Ware, Julie. Do you suppose he meant he wanted to give us a home and
everything?"

"I don't know, Hester. He is so generous and so fond of Dad I believe he
would; but that would not be right. I wonder what we can do to be
self-supporting? We have the usual accomplishments, and I suppose we
have average intelligence, don't you?" she asked, anxiously.

"I would back the intelligence against the accomplishments any day,"
said Hester, sagely. "We have not had the usual sort of bringing up, so
we can't do the usual thing."

"Like teaching, you mean, or--or things like that? No, we can't. We are
not trained or qualified for any sort of position, and only one of us
could work away from home anyway, for we can't both leave Daddy."

Hester's forehead was creased into little wrinkles of perplexity. "If
only I were a man!" she exclaimed, "I might stand some chance--I know
how to do such a lot of mannish things. Why, I could be an engineer if I
were put to it, Julie! You know I've run the engine attached to 'The
Hustle' many a time; the men used to let me do it." She drew in her
breath with a little gasp of remembrance. "As it is," she continued, "I
suppose I'll have to be a companion or something equally commonplace and
ladylike," she ended in a tone of disgust.

"I suppose so," agreed her sister reluctantly; "but, dear, the worst of
that is it will separate us, and I don't believe either one of us could
stand that." Julie's lip quivered. "Isn't it humiliating to have such a
feeling of utter helplessness?"

"Yes, it is." Hester gave herself a shake. "I cannot seem to take it all
in yet, Julie--what it all means. It seems to me we must be some other
girls talking, not ourselves at all. Somehow it never entered my mind
that dreadful things could happen to us--not while we had Dad to take
care of us."

"But that is just it now, Hester dear; we haven't Dad to take care of
us--it is we who must take care of him."

"We'll do it, too," said Hester, with a ring in her voice. "I'm going
down now to the kitchen to see about making him some wine jelly. Bridget
said she did not believe Dr. Ware would let him eat it, but I feel as if
I must be doing something. Come, Peter Snooks," to the dog that was
never far out of sight, "we'll at least make a pretense of being useful.
Now don't you sit there and cry," she said from the door to her sister.
"You just hold tight on to yourself, and think out something clever--I'm
sure you can," convincingly.

Julie acknowledged this flattery by a wan little smile, and following
Hester out of the room, went in to see her father. The nurse was sitting
near the bed, but moved aside as she entered.

Mr. Dale partially opened his eyes as his daughter drew near, but closed
them again instantly. His drawn, haggard face showed the strain he had
undergone in the months before the final collapse of his business had
stricken him down. A look of tender pity came into Julie's face as she
knelt by the bed and laid her hand over his. He was breathing heavily,
as if asleep, and she dared not speak. It seemed to her inconceivable
that her bright, energetic father could be lying there as helpless as a
little child! She put her head down on the bed, while her mind reverted
to their recent conversation with Dr. Ware and the subsequent talk which
had half stunned their senses. They must think, Hester said, and she was
right; but it almost seemed to her it would be a relief to stop thinking
for a moment, so rapidly had the events of the past two days been
crowded in upon them.

All this passed through her mind in a tumult of confused ideas, through
which ran the predominating thought of work, in obtaining which she knew
Dr. Ware would help them. But how, and what and where? In the first
shock of their trouble it was not possible to see the way clearly, nor,
indeed, to half understand the problems confronting them. Julie felt
this and knew she must be patient, though inwardly a wave of resentment
that such things should be, surged in her heart rebelliously. The next
instant she thrust down this feeling with a fierce determination to
control herself, and spreading out her hands, for the first time in her
life regarded them critically. They were not beautiful, like Hester's,
but they were slender and white, and she suddenly felt a contempt for
their delicacy, while a consciousness that she had never exacted
anything from them caused her to view them in a new light. Why not work
with her hands! Why not put her fingers to some use and see what they
were capable of, making each one a vital thing full of strength and
character. The idea delighted her, and she closed her fingers in a tight
grip as if testing their possibilities. "Oh, Daddy, dear!" she half
whispered, with her head pressed close against him, "we will amount to
_something_." Then rising from the bed, she stooped to kiss him, and
went in search of Hester.

When Dr. Ware came again they convinced him of their determination to
work, and he promised to look about and see what opening could be found
for them. He had only a moment to give them that morning, but said he
should return in the evening to have a long talk. When Hester kept him a
second longer to display, with considerable pride, the wine jelly she
had made for her father, he shook his head.

"Not just yet, my dear," he said, kindly. Her disappointment was so
evident that the good Doctor felt inclined to eat it himself by way of
proving his admiration of her culinary skill, and then--he had an
inspiration.

"Hester," he said, "will you do me a favor?"

"Indeed, I will."

"I should like to carry that jelly off with me; it fairly makes my mouth
water. If you'll give it to me, my dear, I will allow your father to eat
an unlimited amount of it later on; and then think how busy you will be!
Come, is it a bargain?"

"Dr. Ware! As if you need ask! Why, you know I'd just love to give it to
you."

She had arranged the jelly in a dainty dish, and now ran into the
dining-room for a doily, which she wrapped about it.

"Won't you let us send it over to you, Dr. Ware?" Julie asked.

"No, thank you, Julie; I'm going to drive right home," and the Doctor
went off with the dish in his hand.

When he reappeared that evening he astonished the girls by approaching
them silently, while he bowed with great ceremony before Hester, to whom
he held out a package and said: "Allow me to congratulate you, my dear."

Greatly mystified, Hester took the package and unwrapped it, to find the
glass jelly dish she had given him that morning, in the bottom of which
lay a two-dollar bill. She looked up at him wonderingly.

"It is yours, Hester," he said. "I plead guilty. I took that jelly to a
crotchety old patient of mine who is boarding, and reviles all the jelly
his nurse buys for him. I told him I thought I had found some that would
please him, and I was right. He devoured half of it while I was there.
Then he insisted on paying for it. I did not tell him where it came
from, but he wants some more, and he said that was what it was worth."
He was watching her closely.

She had taken up the bill, and was handling it nervously, a deep flush
on her bewildered young face. "Julie," she exclaimed, breathlessly,
turning instinctively to her sister, "Julie, I've _earned_ some money!"

"How splendid!" Julie stared at the bill as if it were different from
any she had seen before. Hester threw her arms impulsively around Dr.
Ware's neck. "This is the only way I know how to thank you," she cried.

"I shall instantly create a demand for your jelly, my dear, if I am
always to get a commission like this," the Doctor laughingly remarked,
delighted at the success of his venture.

"Are you serious, Dr. Ware? Do you suppose I could make jelly to sell?"
she asked, anxiously.

"Why not, Hester?"

The girl was silent for a moment then suddenly she cried, "Julie Dale,
we'll _cook_ for a living!"

"Cook!" repeated Julie, incredulously, "I don't know a thing about
cooking."

"No, but I do. Don't you know how Cousin Nancy was always fussing
because I would haunt the kitchen down there? I learned how to make
jelly from her old colored mammie, and heaps of things beside. Of
course, I never actually put my hand into anything--old Rachel wouldn't
let me, but I saw how she did lots of things, and her cakes were famous
all through the County, you know they were. If we can sell wine jelly we
ought to be able to sell other things, don't you think so, Dr. Ware?"

"I do indeed, my dear; I think your idea is excellent."

"Hester, I will learn, I am sure I can," cried Julie hurriedly. "I'm
aching to get my fingers into something."

"Of course you'll learn--we'll both have to learn as we go along, and
even if we don't succeed it's worth trying."

"As for that," said the Doctor, "anything you may attempt will be more
or less in the nature of an experiment."

"Yes," acquiesced Hester, "and if we do succeed it means working
together, Julie dear, in a place of our own, and being with Dad. Just
think what that would mean!"

"Everything!" assented her sister. "I believe you've hit upon a
way--there always is a way, if one keeps looking!"

"One of the first things to ascertain," said Dr. Ware, "is the cost of
materials and the market price of such things as you suggest making."

"Yes," confessed Hester. It had never occurred to her in the whole
course of her young life to consider the cost of anything.

From this the talk went on to other things relative to the change about
to take place, and Dr. Ware remained several hours in earnest
conversation with them. At the end of that time, when he rose to take
his departure, there was, added to the affection already in his heart, a
tremendous feeling of admiration and respect for these girls, whose
spirits flashed undaunted; while they, on their part, were experiencing
through him the depths of human kindness.

"We mean to be worthy of all you are doing for us," said Julie, stopping
a moment to steady her voice, "and we mean to make our fight as bravely
as you and Daddy did years ago, when you tramped through the Wilderness
together."

The Doctor straightened his shoulders and made a military salute. "On to
victory!" was all he said.




CHAPTER IV


"George Washington! G-e-o-r-g-e W-a-s-h-i-n-g-t-o-n!"

"Ma'am?"

"Why don't you answer the first time I call you? Come here and go hunt
the Colonel and tell him I want him directly. He is around the house
somewhere."

George Washington, aged ten, his woolly head full of sticks, his
blue-jeans sadly perforated and the lower portion of his ebony limbs
guiltless of covering, came out from behind the kitchen quarters and
shambled off in search of his master.

"That boy shows old Rachel's blood," soliloquized the mistress of
Wavertree Hall; "he would not run if there were a bomb under him!"

It was one of those balmy days in Virginia, when the sly, deceptive
October sun kisses one into the belief that summer will remain always.
Mrs. Driscoe sat down on the back steps of the verandah and watched two
cocks fighting in the yard, as she awaited the appearance of her
husband. She looked, herself, not unlike a bird of ruffled plumage, for
the bit of lace and pink ribbon with which she ornamented her scanty
locks was awry, while her crocheted shawl--pink to match the
ribbon--hung off one shoulder, and her whole aspect presented a
disheveled appearance which in her indicated a perturbed state of mind.
Now and then she glanced at an open letter in her hand, the contents of
which seemed to displease her, for she shook the paper as if it were a
live thing she were chastising and tapped her foot impatiently.

Presently a voice behind her said mildly: "Did you want me, my dear?"

"Want you? Certainly I wanted you! What do you suppose I sent for you
for if I didn't want you?" Mrs. Driscoe drew up her pink shawl with a
gesture that spoke volumes.

"Won't you get a headache, Nancy, sitting out there in the sun?" asked
the Colonel solicitously.

Concern for her physical welfare touched his wife's vanity and appealed
to her heart. She softened perceptibly.

"Maybe I had better come up and sit in a chair," she said. "It's those
girls that have upset me. I believe they're clean daft."

He helped her up and pulled a chair into a shady part of the verandah,
waiting until she was comfortably ensconced before seating himself.

He was a gallant, the Colonel, full of little courtesies which endeared
him to the hearts of women. That was why the Widow Chisholme married
him, the County said. She wanted--but does it matter after all these
years what the County said?

He sat down now beside her and waited for her to begin. She usually did
begin and end everything.

"The girls refuse to come--I've just had a letter from Julie; she is the
most independent, ungrateful young minx I ever heard of!"

"Oh--ah--not that, Nancy, not that, I am sure--ahem--you must be
mistaken. She impressed me as a very gentle, sweet young creature."

"Gentle fiddlesticks! Do you call that gentle?" flaunting the letter in
his face.

"Possibly, my dear, if I were to know the contents of the letter I might
be better able to form an opinion."

She handed it over and watched him read it.

"Ah," he commented at the end, "what remarkably original girls!"

"Give that letter to me, Driscoe," (she had always called him Driscoe
from the beginning) "I don't believe you half understand it--you are
always way off in the clouds somewhere when you haven't got your nose
buried in a book. Those girls are going to work--to cook! They actually
prefer to cook for a living when they might come down here and live like
ladies the rest of their lives. They have moved into rooms their Doctor
found for them--I expect it is one of those nasty little places they
call flats, in some horrid neighborhood and I am sure no one will go
near them and they'll die of loneliness with their crazy notions."
"Cook!" she repeated scornfully, "who ever heard of a lady doing a
servant's work!" The little pink bow on the top of her head fairly
quivered in outraged sympathy.

"I am sure the girls appreciate your offer to give them a home," Colonel
Driscoe said when he was allowed to speak, "Julie's letter speaks very
feelingly about it. If they think it wise to try and be independent I
must say I can't help but admire their spirit."

"That is all you know about it! In my day girls did not do odd,
independent things--they did as they were told!"

It occurred to the Colonel that her day was past, but he wisely
refrained from giving the thought utterance.

"A lot of your foolish Northern notions still cling to you Driscoe," she
said resentfully. "It is my opinion that those Dale girls have disgraced
the family--there is too much of their father in them--a true Fairleigh
would never stoop to menial labor; and yet their mother and I had the
same Fairleigh grandmother. Oh, it is too trying--their behavior--too
trying for anything! It terrifies me to think what they may come to!"
She stopped rocking in her chair and sniffed audibly.

"There, there, Nancy, don't take it so to heart," comforted her husband,
"it may be best as it is--we'll see if we can't raise a little money
somewhere to send them--the poor young things must be in sore straits
these days with poverty to face and an invalid father to take care of."

"Umph! they don't act like it--and as for money, I don't see it lying
round loose on the plantation."

This was a sore point with the Colonel, who was known since his marriage
to have swallowed up a considerable portion of his small income
patenting farming implements that were impracticable. He had been a
bachelor with an inventive turn of mind and only one lung when he met
the Widow Chisholme at the Springs. Upon marrying her it seemed most
desirable for her convenience (for she would never have tolerated life
outside of Virginia) and his health, that they should live on the
Chisholme property, which was somewhat extensive and kept them land
poor. Mr. Driscoe, New Hampshire born and bred, settled down into a
country gentleman and turned his attention to agriculture; but his mind,
half inventive, half scholarly, wholly visionary, had made rather a
sorry mess of it, and his wife, who had never relinquished the reins of
government, now held them with a firmer hand. He was Colonel only by
courtesy, the servants having dubbed him that immediately. It was
impossible for them to recognize a real gentleman without a title.

He said no more about money, but shaded his eyes and looked down the
long avenue leading out to the road. In the distance he could see a
small darky open a gate, while down the road came a horse with a swift
gallop.

"Here comes Nannie, my dear. She will not be pleased with your news,
will she?" the Colonel said regretfully.

The girl brought the horse up with a sharp turn at the steps, thereby
causing consternation to a brood of chickens, which scattered in every
direction. Then she threw the bridle to George Washington and slipped to
the ground.

"My," she exclaimed, fanning herself with her hat, "it is pretty warm
riding."

"Now don't sit down there and take cold," expostulated her mother;
"here, put my shawl around you."

Nannie, who had dropped down on the steps, laughed and shook her head.
"A shawl in October! who ever heard of such a thing. I am all right,
mummie; don't take it off--it looks so pretty on you." She smiled at her
mother, who was not proof against this bit of flattery, though her only
manifestation was a closer drawing of the shawl around her shoulders.
"Don't you feel very well, mummie?" the girl asked, conscious that the
atmosphere was not altogether salubrious.

"Well enough," replied the older woman, flipping a letter nervously
between her fingers as she rocked to and fro.

"Your mother has heard from your cousin Julie," volunteered the Colonel.

"Let me see the letter, quick, mummie. When are they coming?"

"They are not coming at all," replied Mrs. Driscoe, with a resentful
toss of her head, meanwhile thrusting the obnoxious letter into her
pocket.

Nan's face fell. "Oh, mummie, can't I see the letter, please?"

"Certainly not. It is full of crazy ideas that are most unbecoming in a
young girl, and I don't consider such things proper for you to read."

Colonel Driscoe gave an apologetic cough and opened his lips as if to
speak, but apparently thought better of it and studied his finger nails
with unwonted interest. Nan drew cabalistic signs on the steps with her
riding crop, and for some moments the silence was unbroken save for the
half chuckling singing of George Washington, who was turning somersaults
near by. Then Nannie said wistfully:

"May I know why the girls are not coming, please?"

The Colonel started to explain, but was overruled by his wife, who
preferred to give her own interpretation of the case. Accordingly she
poured out a torrent of abuse, in which her own individual woes over
what she called their "disobedience" were so involved with a mixed
statement of facts that Nan might have been led to believe that her
cousins were lost to all sense of propriety had she not thoroughly
understood her mother. As it was she listened quietly, sympathized with
and petted her, and told her not to bother her head any more about two
naughty girls in the North. She was a girl of considerable tact, this
Nannie, for all that the whole establishment "babied" her, and she knew
just how to smooth down her mother's ruffled plumage; so that Mrs.
Driscoe, after a good, comfortable cry, which was a great relief to her
overwrought feelings, was persuaded to go indoors and lie down to
recover from the shock of the morning.

Nannie remained on the verandah with her father. "Will _you_ tell me
about it now?" she said, when her mother was well out of hearing.

The Colonel's version, as he understood it from Julie's letter was
expressed in five minutes.

"Oh, dear!" Nannie exclaimed, when he had finished, "I wish they did not
feel that way about things. I did so hope they were going to bring their
father here and let us nurse him, and live with us, and be just like my
own sisters--I've always wanted a sister so! I can't seem to make it out
exactly, pa, how girls like that who have always had every mortal thing
on earth, can work just like poor girls."

"No, you can't understand, kitten," stroking her head affectionately;
"it's against all the traditions of your bringing up that you should,
for your mother takes such extreme views. But for my part, I think they
are very noble and deserve tremendous credit for taking the stand they
have."

"Oh! so do I," echoed the girl enthusiastically. "I just love them for
it. I think it is grand to be so heroic and brave. Why, just think, pa,
they are not very much older than I, and yet all of a sudden it seems as
if they were women and I only a baby."

"We want to keep our little girl a while yet," he said. "I have no fear
but she will be womanly enough when the time comes."

"We did have the loveliest times when the girls were here, didn't we?"
she said reminiscently. "They could ride as well as any girl in the
county, and Julie was the prettiest thing I ever saw. Do you remember
the funny tricks Hester did--springing on a horse bareback, and riding
backward, and things she'd learned from the cowboys? Oh! I did miss them
terribly when they went away."

"They were unusually companionable to us all, I think, Nannie. I am sure
I missed them unspeakably."

The girl sat down on the arm of his chair and as she leaned her head
against his, two tears trickled down the end of her nose and into his
neck. He put his arms about her and drew her into his lap, where she
lay, a dejected little heap, sobbing bitterly.

"There, there, kitten, don't cry; Mr. Dale may get better, and the girls
may be able to bring him down for a long visit some time--who knows?"
said the kindly Colonel, who was already planning in his mind how he
could defray the expenses, should such a journey be possible. "We will
all have some happy times together again, Nannie; you'll see, little
girl."

[Illustration: THE GIRL SAT DOWN ON THE ARM OF HIS CHAIR]

Nan heaved a sigh and was comforted. It is easy to be sanguine at
seventeen.

Suddenly she exclaimed: "Do you know what?" sitting up and revealing a
tear-stained face and two brimming brown eyes which she rubbed with the
Colonel's handkerchief, her own having long since been reduced to a damp
little ball; "I'm going to write to the girls not to mind a thing mummie
writes them, for she really loves them just the same, and you and I love
them heaps more--if such a thing is possible--and think about them and
just hope with all our might and main that Cousin Dale will be better,
and they won't have to work themselves to death. Oh, don't I just wish I
could help them!" "Pa!" she cried in a sudden inspiration, "you know the
new saddle you were going to give me for my birthday?"

"Yes, Nannie."

"Well, you have not bought it, have you? and I don't want it--I want you
to send the money to the girls instead."

"But, Nannie, child, you have talked of that saddle for months. Are you
sure you want to do this?"

"Oh! yes," she cried, rapturously with a childish clap of her hands;
"I'd love to do it more than anything. Can you see about it to-day?" Her
soft brown eyes were not brimming now, but full of eagerness.

"I am almost afraid," said the Colonel, shaking his head, "that your
mother will not consent and that the girls might refuse to let you do it
if they knew."

"Oh, they must not know," said Nannie with an air of importance borne of
the project in hand. "No one must know, not even mummie; it is a secret
between you and me. We will send an anonymous letter the way they do in
books. Oh! won't it be fun?"

"Who ever would have suspected we had an arch-conspirator in our midst,"
said the Colonel slyly, "and that she would victimize an old man like
me?" In his heart he was rejoicing over her pretty exhibition of girlish
love and unselfishness. Then more seriously, he added: "I am afraid we
shall have to wait until your birthday really comes round, Puss. I have
not the money just now."

"But you are going to let me do it, aren't you? No matter if we do have
to wait, come and begin the letter now. We must make it very mysterious,
and manage to get it to them somehow so they will never suspect. How do
you suppose we can?" She looked at him, confident that he would suggest
something.

And he did. But what he said was whispered so low that even we cannot
hear. The effect on her was instantaneous, and caused her to dance about
delightedly. Then suddenly remembering that her mother was sleeping in
an adjacent room, she became subdued and catching her father by the arm
drew him quietly into the house.




CHAPTER V


It is not until a great crisis is past that one comprehends with any
clearness of vision the multitudinous events that whirl about the one
supreme fact. Stunned by the first shock, one wakes to learn that close
on the heels of disaster come the consequences--pell-mell,
helter-skelter, pushing, crowding with a grim insistence from which
there is no escape. It was small wonder, then, that to the Dale girls
the world seemed topsy-turvy.

A change being inevitable, their one desire was to get it over quickly,
the first of October, therefore, saw them moved into new quarters. The
arrangements had been made by Dr. Ware, who effected a compromise with
the girls--he offering them a vacant apartment in a house he owned, they
gladly accepting this home if he would allow them to pay rent when they
became successful wage-earners. The good Doctor sighed and consented; he
recognized there was no thwarting their earnest purpose. In the first
discussion of plans, he had suggested a little house in the suburbs; but
Hester, with her practical nature fast developing, had said that to do
business they must be within reach of people--in the midst of things.
She did not quite know how she knew this--perhaps it was more that she
felt it instinctively; but it met with Dr. Ware's approval and had great
weight with Julie, who secretly longed for the country, but put aside
all personal inclination and voted with her sister. The result was a
flat in a quiet, unpretentious neighborhood, which yet took on a
semblance of gentility from its proximity to Crana Street.

By methods known only to himself, Dr. Ware saved furniture enough to
make the place comfortable, while Bridget, who assumed mysterious airs
for days before their departure, saw to it that there was no lack of
household necessities. Bridget was no small factor in those days. She
came to the front with tremendous energy, backed up her young mistresses
in all their plans, and vowed she would never leave them. So the little
family held together, which was the main thing, and the girls settled
themselves in the new quarters with brave spirits--was not this, after
all, the real meaning of "making a home for Dad"?

All the choicest things were brought to the furnishing of his room; the
gayest pictures to relieve the tedium of the weary hours, his best loved
books near at hand, though he could no longer read or even reach out his
hand to touch them. In the window-sill Julie had set up a miniature
conservatory of potted plants that promised to bloom gayly, for down
upon them poured the morning sun, filling the room with golden light.
This was their resting-place in the new life--their father the center
about whom they gathered in every spare moment--the room a little shrine
from which in the midst of their attendance upon him many a silent
prayer for strength and courage went up to God.

The other sleeping-rooms were bedrooms by courtesy--mere closets, one of
which was given to Bridget and in the other the girls managed to squeeze
a double bed. Hester suggested that berths would be much more
convenient, and only the lack of money prevented her having that sort of
sleeping arrangement constructed.

"Julie!" she exclaimed, in the first days of squeezing themselves in,
"it is something like living in the car again, isn't it? only it is
so--so different. I believe I'll call the flat 'The Hustle'--only
instead of _its_ hustling like the car, we'll be the ones. Oh, Julie
dear, to think of never racing around the country like that again!"

"Don't Hester; I can't bear to think of it." In spite of her good
resolutions Julie's courage sometimes failed her.

A few days later Hester came into the kitchen one morning, her arms full
of paper bags strongly suggestive of the corner grocery. "There!" she
cried, "I've invested my last dollar in things for the cake."

"Is it to-day you are going to see Miss Ware?" Julie asked.

"Yes, if the cake comes out all right. Roll up your sleeve, old girl,
and we'll begin." Hester suited the action to the words by weighing the
ingredients and turning the butter into a bowl. But ah! how hard it was
to put her pretty hand into it--how greasy the butter felt and how sandy
the sugar, and how unpleasant the general stickiness! But she worked it
through her fingers energetically, while Julie beat the eggs.

"It is going to be death on our hands, my dear," remarked Hester,
picking up a knife with which she scraped the dough from her fingers.

"I wish you would always let me do that part, Hester. I know how you
will feel it to hurt your hands."

"Well, as if I'd be likely to! No one part is worse than another. We'll
get used to it after a while, though I know our hands will spread out to
twice their natural size."

"Perhaps even if they do get big and not quite so fine as they are now,
_perhaps_ we won't mind, Hester, if we just think of it as scars in the
battle, you know. Don't you know how Daddy has often talked of the
honorable scars in the battle of life? We're just finding out what that
means, old girl."

"Well, if you haven't a most blessed faculty for putting a comfortable
construction on everything!" Hester emphasized her words by a last
vigorous beat of the dough and held out the spoon to her sister. "Just
taste this, will you, Julie? I think it's fine."

"Umph, it is," agreed Julie, who had disdained the spoon, and dabbed her
finger in the mixture after the manner of cooks. "But, my dear, if we
create a demand for cake like that which requires only the whites of
eggs, what shall we do with the yolks? Eat them, I suppose," making up a
wry face.

"They are better than nothing and I do not see chickens hopping in the
window, do you?"

"No," reluctantly. "We have fifteen dollars in the house," she announced
solemnly. "How long do you suppose we can live on that?"

"I am sure I don't know, Julie. We must learn to eat less, and that is
no joke. I'll tell you what, one of the hardest things is learning to do
without what has always seemed absolutely necessary." There was a husky
sound in Hester's voice which Julie did not like to hear.

"No matter, dear, we are young and strong, and we will accomplish
something before we get through. Why, if you stop to think of it, nearly
every one who has made a success of life has started in the smallest
kind of way."

Hester nodded.

"Did you say you were going to see Miss Ware to-day?"

"Yes, I think I had better take her this loaf if it bakes properly. Will
you come with me, Julie?"

"No, dear, I think you will manage better alone, though I'll go of
course, if you want me."

"No, I had rather go alone," said Hester.

But no expedition to Miss Ware's took place that day, for the cake was
spoiled in the baking and four succeeding attempts shared the same
tragic fate. Toward night, when the failures of the day had reduced them
to the verge of despondency, Dr. Ware came in and carried them off for a
long drive which wonderfully freshened up their spirits. On the way home
he asked their assistance in sending out a thousand circulars in regard
to some medical matters, telling them it would be a tremendous help to
him if they would write them. They acquiesced delightedly and
accordingly that evening a huge bundle of stationery was left at their
door. Inside, stuck in a package of envelopes, was a slip on which was
written: "Here's the paper and the form to be copied. Don't keep at this
too persistently, little girls, or you'll bring down the wrath of your
faithful friend, Philip Ware."

More than glad to have an opportunity of being of use to the Doctor, the
girls set to work early the next morning writing industriously. Julie,
after a few smirched and blotted copies, got well under way; she had
considerable precision in her character, which made a task like this
simple. But Hester during the first day or two spoiled so many sheets
that she viewed her rapidly filling waste-basket with dismay. Finally,
in supreme disgust she threw down her pen.

"I believe I could build a house easier!" was her impatient exclamation.
"Who ever saw such daubs as I'm making!"

Julie looked up and smiled. Her wrist ached, and she shook her hand to
limber the muscles. "If you did not dig your pen in the ink with such a
high-tragedy, Scott-Siddons air, maybe you'd get on better," she
suggested.

"High-tragedy fiddlesticks! I _like_ a lot of ink. I am sure you're a
sight," she commented, with sisterly frankness; "all doubled up and your
forehead screwed into knots. How many have you done?"

"I don't know; there they are," pointing to a box-cover piled high.

Hester surveyed them with lofty scorn. "Mercy! That is nothing! I've
done heaps!"

"Where are they, you airy young person?"

"In the waste-basket, mostly."

"Go to work, you ridiculous infant, or you will be stuck to that chair
the rest of your natural days."

When Dr. Ware attempted to pay them for the work they remonstrated,
telling him in the most convincing language at their command that it was
a pleasure to feel they could do even so small a thing for him. To this
he refused to agree, finally persuading them to take the money if on no
other ground than to convince him of their business principles; while he
refrained from mentioning that he had himself deviated somewhat from
business methods when he ordered the circulars written instead of
printed in the usual way.

A week later the almond cake for Miss Ware was baked successfully and an
admiring group stood about the kitchen table taking a last look at it
before Hester did it up in a box preparatory to setting forth.

"Faith, it's a beauty," cried Bridget, arms akimbo. "Any lady'd be proud
to eat it. Shure it's your mother's own fingers ye've got, the both of
yez. Ther' warn't nothin' she couldn't make when she put her hand to it,
before she got so ailin', an' the Major, God bless him, got so well off
she didn't have ter."

"Poor, dear mamma!" said Julie, wistfully. "I only remember her ill and
not able to bear us noisy children about."

"Sufferin' made her a changed woman, the Saints preserve her! But I seen
the day, Miss Julie, when she slaved for the Major before you was born
an' there warn't nobody could beat her at anythin'. It looks like her
knack was croppin' out in yez, shure as my name's Bridget Maloney."

"Perhaps it is, Bridget," said Hester, who had heard this conversation
from the next room, where she was putting on her coat and hat. "We have
often heard Daddy tell people mamma was a practical genius, that would
mean nimble fingers, wouldn't it? Maybe she has left them to us as a
legacy."

"I'm not after understandin' your words exactly, dearie, but the
meanin's clear an' it's right yez are."

As Hester picked up the box, Peter Snooks sprang down from the
window-sill jumping wildly about, the sight of her hat being conclusive
evidence to him that she was going out.

"Poor little Snooks, not this time," the girl said, stooping to pat him.
"I am going in the car to-day."

His stump of a tail drooped dejectedly as he looked at her with big
reproachful eyes.

"It does seem mean not to take him, doesn't it, Julie?--but it is not
worth while, for it is so stormy I thought I had better ride both ways."
It was only dire extremity that permitted the extravagance of car-fares
these days.

"Of course you must ride," said Julie. "Peter Snooks," to the still
hopeful little fellow, "you must not tease. Go find your ball and we'll
have a play."

He trotted off and Hester picked up the box and started.

"Tell Miss Ware that is only a hundredth part of the nice things you can
make, you clever girl," Julie called after her.

"An' good luck to you, dearie," from Bridget.

The wind and rain blew about Hester unpleasantly when she reached the
street, but a car soon overtook her and afforded her a welcome shelter
from the storm. She found all the seats occupied, but some of the
passengers moved up to make room for her, and being a trifle tired from
the nervousness of the cake-making, she thankfully squeezed into the bit
of space allotted her, and laid the box in her lap.

Her thoughts as the car sped along were not of the most cheerful, for
she dreaded this visit to Miss Ware. That individual, who kept house for
her brother, had expressed herself in terms of strong disapproval of the
girls when he had told her their plans. She considered cooking greatly
beneath them and would have thoroughly agreed with the views of their
Cousin Nancy in Virginia, had she known that person. As it was, she
thought her brother should interest himself in finding suitable
positions for them, and she refused to recognize the fact that these
were not to be had for the asking. "There were plenty of ladylike things
girls could do," she said, but did not give herself the trouble to
specify.

To the girls themselves she had talked at some length, endeavoring to
explain to them that they were laying out for themselves a path of
social ostracism by their extraordinary choice of work, never doubting
that this argument alone would convince them. But when Julie gently put
it aside with the assurance that she and Hester were sufficient to
themselves if the world chose to look askance at them; and when Hester
flushed angrily, and said the people whose friendship was worth anything
would not fail them, Miss Ware shrugged her shoulders and gave them up
as social heretics. She was not, however, allowed to wash her hands of
them, for her brother sang their praises perpetually. She therefore
forced herself to take a negative interest in them which carried her so
far as to order from them a loaf of cake.

Hester, gazing abstractedly out of the car window, felt it a momentous
errand on which she was going that day; it involved so much. If the cake
met with the critical approval of Miss Ware she intended to ask her to
solicit orders for it. It would not be easy to approach her on this
subject, but she should do it--oh! yes, she did not intend to be
frightened out of her purpose. A curious little ache came into her heart
as she braced herself for the coming ordeal. It was all so new and so
strange, to be put in the position of asking favors--to be looked down
upon from frigid heights--she and Julie, whose world hitherto had been
all sunshine and approval. For a second something came between her and
the window, blurring her vision. Then she brought herself up with a
sharp mental rebuke for allowing her thoughts for one moment to revert
to the past, and forced herself to look down with satisfaction on the
neatly wrapped box she was carrying.

By this time the car had become crowded, and directly in front of Hester
stood a woman of amazing breadth, clinging in a limp, swaying fashion to
the strap. Just as the girl observed her and was wondering if she could
squeeze into her seat should she offer it to her, the car jerked round a
corner, the stout woman screamed and landed with a thud on the box in
Hester's lap!




CHAPTER VI


Comfortably ensconced in a victoria, two men were bowling out through
the suburbs of Radnor in the rapidly approaching dusk of a winter
afternoon. One, wrapped to the chin in furs, sat well back in the corner
of the carriage as if desirous of all possible protection from the cold;
the other leaned forward in a somewhat restive attitude and looked like
a man occupying his position under protest. Each was immersed in his own
thoughts, but from time to time the younger man took a surreptitious
glance in the direction of the older as if he were endeavoring to make
some important discovery. He was, in truth, trying to decide if the
moment were propitious for laying before his father a project which he
had been for some time considering, but the impassive face of Mr. Landor
told him nothing, and they continued to ride on in silence. Finally, in
a tone of annoyance the older man said: "I wish, Kenneth, you would
oblige me by leaning back and appearing as if you were enjoying
yourself. I must confess it is no particular pleasure to me to drive
with a man who looks as if he might leap from the carriage at any
moment."

"Then why do you insist on my going, father? You know I detest this sort
of thing--it is only fit for women. If you would come out with me now in
my trap, it would be very different."

"Your breakneck method of driving does not suit me at all. I suppose I
may be allowed to take my pleasures in my own way, and it occurs to me
that it is not altogether unreasonable to request you to accompany me
occasionally."

To this Kenneth made no reply, while he decided that the moment was not
propitious for introducing the subject uppermost in his mind.

He conceded, however, to his father's wishes in so far as to relax from
his objectionable posture, though there was about him a suggestion of
martyrdom that was irritating.

"What have you been doing to-day?" asked the senior Landor, abruptly.

"Nothing special, sir."

"Do you ever do anything special?" turning two penetrating eyes upon
him.

"Why, yes; I suppose so. I was thinking of something special just now."
After all, it might as well come out.

"If it is of any importance, I should like to hear about it."

This was encouraging.

"I was thinking of a trip around the world, sir. To start in a month,
say, and be gone two or three years."

Mr. Landor received this proposition with a quick drawing down of his
shaggy eyebrows and a closer upturning of his fur collar about his chin.
His face now was almost hidden from view.

"Do you propose to go alone?" he asked.

"No; two fellows at the Aldine Club have talked me into joining them. Of
course, sir, I realize you may object to so long an absence," said
Kenneth, who felt that a storm was brewing, "and I might be able to make
it a year or so if you preferred."

"Inasmuch as you have scarcely been at home a month in the past year or
so, I should prefer that you dismiss the project altogether."

"That seems rather surprising, sir," said Kenneth, with a laugh his
father did not like, "when I have been going and coming without comment
ever since I left college."

"All the more reason why you should begin to think of settling down,"
replied his father testily.

"Settling down?" repeated the son; "what do you want me to do?"

"We will come to that later. The main thing is, that you are to give up
this notion and remain here with me. If you force me to it I shall
refuse to give you the money for such an expedition."

"I have some property of my own," Kenneth said, his whole nature rising
in rebellion.

"You wouldn't be such a fool as to squander that pittance on a pleasure
trip! Be careful, Kenneth! I am in no mood to be thwarted to-day!"

"Then why do you thwart me? It is not a remarkable thing for a man to
want to travel," trying to speak calmly, "and I don't see why you should
take it in this unexpected way--it is unreasonable."

But Mr. Landor, being a quick-tempered man, was beyond reason and had
too little comprehension of his son to realize that his opposition
tended to fan into a fixed resolve what had up to this time been only a
pleasing possibility. There was a stern look about his mouth as he said
to Kenneth, "You will do as I say, and remain for the present in Radnor.
I have other plans for you."

As he had never been dictated to in his life, this emphatic order fell
with considerable astonishment upon Kenneth's ears, even though he knew
his father to be in an irascible frame of mind. He thought, however,
that the thing might blow over, as many a quarrel between them had blown
over, after which, in all these contests of will, the younger man had
invariably gained the day.

Kenneth was not of an ugly disposition; indeed, his nature was most
lovable, while his peculiar exemption from responsibility had produced
an inconsequential, happy-go-lucky attitude toward life that was one of
his greatest charms. And the selfishness that sometimes cropped out in
his character was not viciousness, but the natural outcome of
over-indulgence. It had never occurred to him that his father would make
any demands upon him, though in a vague, unformed sort of way he
intended ultimately to make demands upon himself. Just how he should do
this gave him occasional delightfully introspective moments in which he
played with possibilities. In his father's eyes that was Kenneth's great
weakness--that he played with all the abandon of a vagabond; but to
blame the man for this was a great injustice, since his father had not
suggested or encouraged his taking up any business or profession, and
had supplied him with a liberal income dating back to the beginning of
his college career.

To this indolent, pleasure-loving son, nothing could be in greater
contrast than the father. Caleb Landor took life hard, but life had been
hard on him. Born of poor parents in a Maine village, he had been inured
to poverty from his infancy. His schooling had been meager, and
sandwiched in between long periods when he was required to lend a hand
in the saw-mill where his father was employed. But the habit of industry
thus acquired proved useful, and stimulated his desire to get into the
world of business, so that he made his way eventually to Radnor, the
goal of his ambition. Then followed years of hard work and small pay,
during which the greater part of his earnings went down to the large
family in the Maine village. At thirty he was looked upon as a man of
ability; at forty he was a prosperous merchant, with Fortune beckoning
him on. By all the laws of compensation this should have been his
turning point to happiness, but he had the misfortune to be married for
his money at this period of his career, by a frivolous Radnor girl of
good position, whose beauty turned his head. As after the first months
of marriage she took no pains to conceal her indifference to him, he
received a bitter blow, from which he was many years recovering. He was
spared, however, the anguish of protracted disappointment, for she had
died in the second year of their marriage, leaving him a baby son. And
so Caleb, giving all, lost what he had never won.

This episode in his life did not tend to soften a nature somewhat morose
and caused him to draw more and more within himself, devoting his
energies to his business, and almost forgetting at times that he was a
father.

When he did think of Kenneth, it was to realize that he had his mother's
beauty; but even at an early age there was no indication that he had
inherited her smallness of mind, for which his father felt devoutly
grateful, though there were times when he could scarcely bear the boy
about, so forcibly did his likeness to his mother bring back the past.
So he left him to grow up among the servants in the dreary house, sent
him at fourteen to a preparatory school and then to college. He intended
that Kenneth should have everything he himself had missed. In the matter
of money it pleased him to provide generously for the lad, who grew to
manhood the envy and favorite of all his associates, but almost a
stranger to his father, who was equally a stranger to him. It did not
occur to Caleb Landor that this was because he had given to the boy
lavishly of everything except himself.

When the carriage drew up before their door on the evening with which
this chapter opens, Kenneth sprang out with a feeling of relief and
turned to help his father. It struck him suddenly that he looked old and
feeble, which would not be strange, inasmuch as he was fast approaching
his seventieth birthday, but Kenneth had never been impressed by this
before.

"You had better take my arm, sir," he said, pleasantly, "the sidewalk is
slippery to-night."

Mr. Landor refused the proffered aid and went on ahead into the house.
He had yet to learn that Kenneth could be leaned upon.

Through dinner there was little conversation between them, not from any
constraint arising out of the recent disagreement, but because each was
in the habit of carrying on his own inward train of thought without so
much as a suspicion that the outward expression of it would have been of
interest to the other. But it would have been of interest. Kenneth often
wondered what his father's opinions were on the topics of the day and
many times would have broken the oppressive silence if the idea had not
become fixed in his mind that his father built up this barrier of
reserve from choice. It was a natural impression, but a wrong one, and
led to many misunderstandings, for though he gave his son no
encouragement to be communicative he secretly longed for his
companionship and was beginning to feel a need of his presence in the
house.

Kenneth went to a couple of receptions that evening and looked in at a
dance later on; but did not remain long, for things of this sort bored
him, albeit he was very popular in Radnor society.

As he entered the house after midnight he noticed a bright light in his
father's room. This was so unusual an occurrence that he feared
something might be wrong and ventured to knock at the door. There was no
response, which was not reassuring, so he opened the door and walked in.
In a big chintz-covered chair sat Mr. Landor asleep before the fire. He
had undressed and was enveloped in a heavy dressing-gown that fell away
at the neck, disclosing the throat upon which Time lays such relentless
fingers. He stirred a little and Kenneth was about to leave the room
satisfied that his father was all right and would probably resent this
intrusion, when the older man woke with a start, and accosting him in a
tone more curious than resentful, said, "What are you doing in here?"

"I noticed your light, and thought you might be ill. Is there anything I
can do for you before I turn in?" replied Kenneth, looking down from the
height of his six feet upon the shrunken figure of his father.

"Nothing at all, nothing at all," waving him off; "I am reading." He
picked up the newspaper that had fallen to the floor, and became
suddenly absorbed in it, after the manner of persons who object to being
caught napping.

A smile flickered about Kenneth's well-shaped mouth but was properly
suppressed. There was something pathetic, almost appealing to him
to-night about his father.

"If you are not in any particular hurry to finish your paper may I stop
a moment?" he said.

"There is a chair--make yourself comfortable."

"I would like to talk about those plans you spoke of this afternoon,"
began Kenneth as soon as he was seated. "I wish very much you would tell
me more about them--what your idea is for my immediate future."

"Where are your own ideas? At twenty-eight a man must have a few." Mr.
Landor kicked a log impatiently, sending up a shower of sparks.

"We were speaking of your ideas, were we not, sir? Mine can come later."

"So you have some, have you? Good! After all, with your education and
advantages it is to be expected. But as your ideas are to be kept to
yourself, so are mine. We will talk no further on this subject."

"We _will_ talk on this subject," said Kenneth, rising and standing with
head erect and flashing eyes. "I am not a boy, father, as you very well
know, and I shall not consent to this sort of thing for a moment. If you
have anything in your mind regarding me it is my right to know it, and
your duty to tell me. You spoke to-day of my settling down. I have been
thinking of it a good deal since, and I am inclined to think you are
right about it; but I would like to know just what you mean--just what
it is you want me to do."

"Kenneth, I want you around." The words came in a muffled tone that was
scarcely audible.

"Want me around?" repeated Kenneth incredulously; "why, I thought I
drove you to desperation with my lazy ways and erratic hours and general
worthlessness."

"So you do, so you do," gruffly, "but I like it. I like to know you are
in the house. Stay around, Kenneth and you can have things pretty much
your own way. We will say no more about settling down to business."

"Oh! that is all right, father; I'll stay." It was a new sensation to
find that he was wanted. Moved by a sudden impulse he drew near meaning
to grip his father's hand--the desire was strong within him to get close
to the old man. But when he neared the chair he turned sharply on his
heel and crossed to the door, withheld by the habit of years.

Mr. Landor was watching him through half-closed lids, and made no sign.

"Good night, father; glad I found you up. I have something in mind I
would like to discuss with you later if I am to stay on here."

"Any time, any time. I have leisure enough for anything of importance.
Come in again some time--good night." His head was turned away as he
spoke.

"Poor old governor," thought Kenneth, as he went to his room; "I believe
he is lonely."

When the door had closed, Caleb Landor sat some moments in deep
meditation. Then he rose and slowly crossed the room to a table on which
stood a box-shaped rosewood writing-desk curiously inlaid with
pearl--the most treasured possession of his mother long since dead. This
he unlocked, and lifting the lid pressed a small knob by means of which
a secret drawer flew open. In this shallow receptacle lay an oval
miniature which the man took out and held under the strong light of the
gas jet. It was the face of a woman, young and very beautiful, and for a
long while the image held the man transfixed. Once he lifted his head
suddenly, as if he thought some one was approaching but it was only the
noise of Kenneth's boots flung upon the floor in an adjoining room. On
the mantel a clock ticked solemnly, warning him of the flight of time,
and at last he sighed wearily, and with unsteady hands dropped the
miniature into its hiding place and locked the desk. For a moment he
leaned heavily on the table and appeared to be listening, but all was
still in Kenneth's room. Over the stern impassive features of Caleb
Landor came a look of yearning tenderness. Then he put out the gas and
went to bed.




CHAPTER VII


Hester never remembered leaving the car or how she got home after the
fatal catastrophe, but indelibly printed on Julie's mind would always be
the picture of a wide-eyed breathless girl who rushed in upon her and
threw a mangled package on the table.

"Oh, my dear! what is the matter?" cried Julie.

But Hester could not speak.

Julie picked up the battered box, disclosing the cake within crushed to
a pancake. She turned to find Hester's head buried in her arms; the girl
was sobbing convulsively.

"Never mind, dear," said Julie, stroking her head sympathetically, "it
would be much worse if you were hurt too."

"I am not crying," the younger girl asserted stoutly; "not crying at
all." She spoke in short gasps that were strangely like sobs, but Julie
ignored them. "I am all out of breath from running, that is all, and I
did not fall, you goose! A woman sat on me!" She broke into a peal of
hysterical laughter.

It was Julie's turn to be speechless now.

"If she had just sat on _me_ it wouldn't have mattered but she tumbled
in the car before I knew it and there is the result!" She waved her hand
tragically toward the table and wiped her eyes.

"We'll make another one right away, dear."

"Of course we will," responded Hester, pulling off her hat and coat and
flinging them down impatiently; "but it breaks my heart to see such a
ruin of all our work not to mention the waste of materials!"

  Humpty Dumpty sat on the wall;
  Humpty Dumpty had a great fall;
  And all the king's horses and all the king's men--

sang Julie, suggestively, but was not allowed to finish the ditty, for
Hester said, with a thump on the table:

"We will put this together again double quick and I will get it to Miss
Ware before dark, you see if I don't."

"You had better let me go next time, Hester," said Julie, getting out
the cooking utensils, "you will be tired to death."

"No, I won't; I have undertaken to do this thing, and I'll put it
through if it takes forever," with which characteristic remark she set
to work again.

The second effort in the culinary line was, if possible, more successful
than the first and immediately after their simple lunch of bread and
milk, Hester set forth again. The storm had ceased, and to the immense
delight of Peter Snooks, Hester confided to him that she should walk and
a certain good little dog that she knew should go too. Julie laughed at
this determination to avoid the car and called her superstitious. She
laughed, too, but refused to analyze her sensations.

She found Miss Ware, when she was ushered into her presence, in rather
an aggressive mood, which caused the girl to look on with some
nervousness as she opened the box and surveyed the loaf critically.

"Umph!" she said, examining it through her lorgnette, "did you do that,
or Bridget?"

"We did it, Miss Ware. Bridget knows nothing of fancy cooking."

"And you do, it seems. It was an odd trick for a girl to pick up in
Virginia, and an undesirable one."

"We look at things differently, Miss Ware," Hester said, with
considerable asperity. "I don't call it undesirable if it proves a way
of supporting ourselves. I would not choose it--to cook for a
living--but we've no choice in the matter whatever."

"Your father is very much to blame, Hester. He should have looked after
your interests better when he saw the crash coming. There was no need
that you should be left absolutely penniless."

Hester sprang to her feet and confronted Miss Ware like a young tigress.
"You shall not say such things about Dad. I will not listen--I--"

"Hoighty toighty!" broke in Miss Ware, "what a temper! You will have to
curb that, my dear Hester, if you expect to get on in the world--as
cooks!"

The girl flushed crimson, and bit her lip in an effort to regain her
self-control.

"I--I beg your pardon," she faltered. "I--I never knew I had a temper
before. It's--it's one of the new things I am learning." A sudden mist
came before her, and drawing near she laid her hand on the older woman
with an appealing touch. "Don't say unkind things about Daddy, please,
Miss Ware; they are not true, and I--I can't bear it."

"Let's get to business," said Miss Ware, who dreaded a scene above
everything. "What do you mean to charge for your cake?"

"Fifty cents." Hester was now quite herself again, and went on rapidly,
"I want to ask you if you will speak about our work to your friends. I
know it is asking a great deal under the circumstances, but we are such
strangers here in Radnor we really do not know any one to ask such a
favor of but you and Dr. Ware."

"At least you have a champion in him."

Hester's eyes shone. "Next to Dad we love him better than any one in the
world."

"Then why don't you behave sensibly, and come here and live, and let me
take you about in society, as I meant to do this winter? I really looked
forward to chaperoning you and Julie--you're very unusual girls. Now
give up this nonsense of yours and behave properly."

"Oh, Miss Ware, must we go all over that again? Won't you try to see it
our way, as--as your brother does? He never even talked of our coming
here to live, he understands so well that we want to be independent. I
know we must be a great disappointment to you. Cousin Nancy in Virginia
feels just as you do, too. Ever so many persons have offered us a home.
You can't think what beautiful letters we've had from Dad's friends
through the west. If it were possible to move him we'd go out there to
try our fortune; there are so many splendid out-of-door kinds of work a
girl can do in that big country. But Dad can't be moved, and we've got
to do the best we can right here in Radnor." She spoke convincingly and
with a certain submissiveness that sat oddly on her young shoulders.

Miss Ware, twisting her rings round on her fingers with a contemplative
air was wondering where the child got that dignity and poise.

"I've no patience with you whatever," she said finally, after a long
pause, in which Hester imagined she had been waging an inward conflict.
"I am wholly out of sympathy with your ideas, but you cannot be allowed
to starve to death, and if cooking is the height of your ambition--"

"It isn't the height of our ambition," interrupted Hester, for youth is
impatient of being misunderstood; "it is only the thing that is nearest
at hand."

"Your education must be sadly deficient," regarding the girl critically.
"I always told Philip the harum-scarum way you were being brought up was
perfectly ruinous. If you had gone to school like other girls, you would
be qualified for some lady-like position."

This was too much for Hester. "You need not trouble to do anything about
the cake, Miss Ware," she said, proudly, "and I shan't come here again
to hear my father insulted. And we are not going to starve either," she
cried, her girlish wrath rising. "We are going to succeed and be a
credit to the best education in the world!"

She threw back her head and gazed straight into the older woman's eyes
with a fearless look that was hard to meet. Only the fingers curled
tight into the palms of her hands, betrayed the mighty effort she was
making to hold herself in check, and this Miss Ware did not see, for
Hester's unflinching eyes held her with a strange fascination. In
another moment the girl had turned and left the room.

For a while after her departure Miss Ware sat motionless like a person
who has received a shock. Presently she began to toy with her lorgnette,
dangling it back and forth on its chain with a swinging movement as if
keeping time to a rhythmic train of thought. This was not, indeed, the
case, and the action arose from nervousness, for the usual calm
placidity of her mind was sadly ruffled. She was not in the habit of
being contradicted, particularly by what she was pleased to call "a
young person"; but she was one of those women who having said their
worst, proceed to contradict themselves by an interest in that which
they have most condemned, and she was now speculating as to whether it
would not be expedient to take Hester's cake to the meeting of her
sewing class the following day, and possibly get an order or two there
for it.

Only a true Radnorite could realize the possibilities that opened up to
one who was introduced as a subject of discussion at _the_ Sewing Class
of Radnor. For in the fashionable and exclusive set in which Miss Ware
had her being it was a function of tremendous importance, with sacred
rites known only to the initiated. In one another's drawing-rooms, on
two mornings of the month, forty chosen spirits met to sew for the
poor--that great, clamorous, all-devouring body from which there is no
escape. This was ostensibly the purpose; in reality sewing was a minor
consideration, albeit much work was accomplished. The chief end of its
existence was to discuss, direct and control the movements of that
exclusive portion of Radnor society of which it was a part and upon
which it sat in fortnightly judgment. Following this arduous but
important morning duty came the luncheon, and it was of that Miss Ware
was thinking in connection with the cake.

When Hester left Miss Ware she ran down the stairs to the lower hall,
where she had left Peter Snooks with strict orders to remain until her
return. There she found him waiting to greet her with joyous caperings
of delight.

Dr. Ware and a tall, clean-shaven, athletic-looking man came out from
the office and encountered her.

"Ah, you, Hester?" said the Doctor. "Wait a moment, my dear. I have a
book here that I want you to take round to read to your father."

He vanished, and the stranger glanced at the girl, hesitated, and then
stooping patted the dog. "You've a fine fox-terrier," he said in a deep,
rich voice, looking up.

"We think so," replied Hester, who couldn't for the life of her conceal
her pleasure at hearing Peter Snooks praised.

At that moment the Doctor came out again.

"Why, Landor," he said, "I beg your pardon; I forgot all about you when
I saw Hester. That is a way the minx has--of driving everything else out
of my head. Hester, my dear, this is Kenneth Landor, just up from Texas
to have a look at effete civilization--you have heard me speak of him
often--Mr. Landor, Miss Dale."

The young people bowed.

"Don't let him pose as a cowboy or anything interesting like that,"
continued the Doctor, "for he isn't really--he only plays at things.
Takes a peep here and there over the continent, and pretends he is this
and that and the other, as the mood seizes him. A rolling stone, eh,
Landor?" turning with an affectionate, quizzical look at the man beside
him.

"Oh! go on, Doctor; pile it on--don't leave me a shred of character. His
veracity is absolutely unquestioned, of course, Miss Dale?"

"Of course! He has made you interesting already."

The Doctor laughed. "How one's motives are mistaken. That was the last
thing I meant to do!"

Hester looked up at the Doctor, gleams of mischief in her eyes. "You
being you," she said, "it couldn't be otherwise." With which ambiguous
remark she went out the door.

Landor followed her down the steps. "Miss Dale," he asked, "may I walk
along with you? I fancy I am going your way." Landor's way was usually
where he chose to make it.

Hester acquiesced simply. She had been accustomed to the society of men
since she could toddle, and felt no embarrassment in the presence of a
stranger. Landor noted the free, swinging motion with which she kept
step with him as they went down the street.

"You are not a true Radnorite," he said abruptly.

"No, I am not. Why?"

"Radnor girls do not walk as you do."

"I am half inclined to believe you are a cowboy, after all, Mr. Landor."

"Why?"

"Are we playing twenty questions? You have bad manners, a habit of
dealing in personalities--we call it impertinence."

"Twenty questions," he repeated, ignoring her rebuke. "Why, I have not
heard that mentioned for years. It is a favorite game in Radnor, isn't
it?"

"I am sure I don't know," she said wearily; "I know very little about
Radnor."

"And I less," he said. "I've been away so much of the time. But there
were certain things taken into my innermost being in my youth, along
with the air I breathed, I suppose, that no amount of absence will
eradicate."

"For instance?" she said, with feigned interest, for her mind kept
wandering off to her recent interview with Miss Ware, and she wished she
had not allowed him to accompany her.

"Well, the question of residence, you know. The few acres of sacred soil
in Radnor on which it is permissible to live. I remember as a little boy
how my nurse only allowed me to play with children whose parents lived
on the water side of Crana Street or the sunny side of Belton Avenue.
Any other than those and the streets immediately intersecting was beyond
the pale of civilization, even to her. It is odd, isn't it?" smiling
down at her.

"What is odd, the fact or your acceptance of it?" There was a little
ring in her voice which struck the man's alert ear.

A look of surprise came into his handsome dark face. "Am I walking too
fast for you, Miss Dale?" he asked, pleasantly.

That was the second time he had put aside a thrust of hers with some
trifling, irrelevant remark, and it tended to heighten rather than
soothe her growing irritation.

"I think," she said, stopping abruptly on the corner, "that I shall say
good morning to you here. I do not happen to live in that sacred
locality you mention, and I would not for worlds take you beyond the
pale."

"Miss Dale," he gasped, "you don't think I abide by any such
nonsense--you are doing me a great injustice. Surely you are not going
to dismiss me!"

"Yes," she said, smiling, and showing her dimples in a sudden access of
pleasure at the thought of getting rid of him, "I really believe I am."

He lifted his hat, and stood for some moments on the corner watching her
vanish from sight. How slender she was, and graceful, and what a sweet
little smile had accompanied her nod of farewell! Now he thought of it,
her eyes had queer lights in them, baffling, as if she were laughing at
him all the time. And her tone was half mocking, too, though he had
taken it seriously enough in all conscience. Was she serious, or had he
made an idiot of himself? This latter contingency was not one which
presented itself with marked frequency to the mind of Kenneth Landor,
and therefore gave him much food for reflection as the day wore on.




CHAPTER VIII


"Whom in the world do we know in New Hampshire?" asked Julie one
morning, glancing askance at an envelope in her hand.

"Suppose you open it and find out," meekly suggested Hester, peeping
over her shoulder.

"Why, see, it is addressed to us both--it's probably an invitation or
something."

"It is not," asserted Julie; "I can tell by the look of it. It's--why,
Hester Dale, it's a fifty dollar bill."

"What?" ejaculated Hester.

"It is, and a note. Think of daring to trust such a thing by mail! Look
at it yourself."

Hester seized both the bill and the letter, and unfolding the latter
found the following mysterious communication in typewriting:

  "From one some love to those one loves, Greetings:

  "A conspiracy having been formed for the purpose of circumventing
  fate, the initial step is herewith taken in the form of the enclosed
  paltry bill, intending it to be the forerunner of many a happy hour
  in which, though absent, will be ever present

                                               "The Arch-Conspirator."

"Whoever could have done such a thing?" queried Hester in astonishment,
"Dr. Ware?"

"No, I don't think so, though he might--is capable of doing anything.
But, Hester, just think of it--fifty dollars! Why, it is almost a
fortune!"

"I should think it was, and it is the kindest, most generous thing I
ever heard of. It couldn't be from Virginia, could it?"

"I don't believe so, Hester. Cousin Nancy disapproves of us too much to
do such a thing. I think it is from some one who loves Daddy and feels
sorry for us all, and takes this way of showing it. Oh, how good people
are!"

"Some people," corrected Hester.

"If it had come from almost any other place than New Hampshire it
wouldn't be quite so puzzling," said Julie. "I am sure we don't know a
soul in the whole state."

"Well, I say let's stop guessing and be thankful we have it," advised
Hester. "It is some one who does not want to be known, and I don't
suppose we really ought to try to guess, but I just hope we will get a
chance sometime to do something for that somebody, whoever he is. You
can see the person has had great fun doing it, by the way it is written,
Julie."

"Yes." softly, still puzzling over the unexpected windfall.

"You've got another letter in your lap, Julie. Have you forgotten its
existence? It looks like Nannie's writing--do read it aloud."

Julie took up the forgotten letter, and opening it began:

  "My Sweetest, Preciousest Girls" (Isn't that just like Nan?) "You
  owe me a letter, both of you; but it's such ages since we've heard
  that I just can't wait any longer. I'm _so_ afraid mummie's last
  letter hurt you, though I wrote you at the time just not to mind
  anything she said. She was awfully cross and put out for several
  days, but father and I played backgammon with her until we actually
  played her into a good humor--you know how she'd play backgammon
  until she couldn't sit up another minute; and I know she loves you
  girls nearly as much as she does me, though she sputters away about
  you now and then; but that is just mummie's way.

  "How I do wish you were here! I say that a dozen times a day, and
  whenever father hears me he says you will be, sometime. He's got
  just the loveliest scheme for bringing you all down here on a visit,
  since you're so proud and haughty and won't come and live with us! I
  shan't tell you a thing about it but you just wait until dear Cousin
  Dale gets better, and then you'll see!"

Julie's voice got suspiciously husky here, and it was a moment before
she went on:

  "We'll have the grandest old times that ever happened, just like we
  did when you were here before.

  "Do you know I'd almost forgotten to tell you the thing I began this
  letter for--my birthday party. I know you want to hear about it! It
  was a surprise party, and such fun! To begin with, it was such a
  pretty day that I wanted to be out every minute, so I took a long
  ride with father in the morning, and spent most of the afternoon in
  the pasture with George Washington, he and I trying to do tricks on
  Gypsie the way you did, Hester. I said we were _on_ Gypsie, but it
  was mostly _off_, for she didn't take to our circus performance at
  all and threw me twice, way over her head, and George Washington no
  end of times. He just loved it, and capered around and grinned and
  made absurd remarks until my sides ached with laughing. Just as I
  was actually succeeding in standing upon Gyp bareback, mummie spied
  me from her window, and of course that put an end to everything. She
  said she saw no reason why I should celebrate my eighteenth birthday
  by breaking my neck, and I expect she was right--but oh, it was fun!

  "When I came in to dress for supper, father called me one side and
  told me to put on my pink organdie (the one you liked so much, you
  know), because it would please mummie; so I did and mummie wore her
  claret-colored velvet and I picked two of my pet pink roses--one for
  Mummie's hair and the other for father's buttonhole, and we all
  looked very gay and festive and I thought it was lovely to be
  eighteen, especially as mummie had given me that beautiful pearl
  ring of hers which she always said I should have when I was a young
  lady.

  "Well, about nine o'clock, when mummie and I were in the midst of a
  game of backgammon, there was a crunching noise out in the driveway
  and I thought some one was coming to call. Then I heard laughter and
  a lot of people talking, and father went to the door, and let in a
  whole crowd calling for me. I was too surprised to understand, even
  when father explained that the neighborhood was giving me a surprise
  party. (I found out afterward, girls, that he got up the whole
  thing--he vowed them all to secrecy, because he didn't want me to
  know he had a hand in it, but Lillie Blake told me--Lil never has
  secrets from me.)

  "Well, we danced in the big hall most of the evening, while the
  older people played cards, and we did have a jolly time, and there
  was a stranger here--he was staying with the Blakes and you'd never
  guess where he's from--Radnor! He's very fascinating, but he's
  old--he must be at least thirty! I know that wouldn't seem old to
  you, but it does to me, and I felt very shy with him at first until
  I found out he came from Radnor, and then I just pelted him with
  questions about you, and he didn't know you at all! I could have
  wept! But I talked on about you just the same, and I was dying to
  tell him about your work, for I think it's so noble of you, but
  mummie has forbidden my mentioning it to any one, and, of course, I
  wouldn't disobey her. He got the ring in my birthday cake, girls;
  wasn't that the funniest thing? Lillie Blake teased him to give it
  to her, but he wouldn't, and slipped it in his pocket out of sight.
  I know he enjoyed hearing me talk about you, because he stayed with
  me a good part of the evening, and Teddie Carroll got cross and
  sulked in the corner. Isn't he the silliest thing?

  "Good-by, you old darlings, and don't forget your little cousin,

                                                             "Nannie."

Julie smiled as she put down the letter. "Isn't she a darling, Hester? I
don't wonder they call her 'Kitten,' she purrs so. And she's so
ingenuous! Imagine her thinking that a man stayed about with her because
she talked about us. He evidently took a fancy to her--the dear little
thing! I wonder who he was."

"She has forgotten to mention his name," said Hester, "but it does not
much matter. Come, Julie, we must switch our thoughts up from Virginia,
or we'll never get to work to-day."

Julie went over to a shelf and stuck the two letters behind a clock. "It
is an inspiration to work," she said, "when we know people are thinking
of us and loving us. That money, dear, is a godsend. We had scarcely
enough left to market another day."

Julie, who was self-appointed buyer, had been racking her brains to know
how they should get through another day without running into debt--a
contingency of which they had a horror. They had stopped all their
father's accounts and were unanimous in agreeing that they would go
without that for which they could not pay cash. Accordingly they went
without a great deal.

In her first experience of marketing Julie was aghast to find that meats
which she regarded as a common necessity cost so much that she was
forced to act upon the butcher's suggestion that it was "stew meat" she
wanted. It was _not_ what she wanted, but she took it meekly and ate it
with pretended relish, for Bridget took pride in serving a genuine Irish
stew.

It was characteristic of the Dales that they never did things by halves,
and they threw themselves with tremendous energy into their work, which
was developing, though still slowly. Orders for wine jelly and cake came
in from people unknown to them, and they knew that Dr. Ware's influence
was working for their good. Miss Ware, too, though outwardly
antagonistic, had carried out her intention of taking Hester's cake to
the Sewing Class, with the result that the hostess of the next meeting
had ordered all her cake from them for that occasion.

This order they were getting to work on now, and Julie remarked that she
wished white cake were not so much in demand, for the continued increase
of left-over yolks was appalling.

"Bridget has made them into omelette at least twice a day lately, until
it seems to me I can't stand the sight of them, Hester. And the more we
have to make frosting the worse it gets. Either we've got to throw them
away in rank extravagance or keep on eating them and die. I wish we
could think of something to do with them!"

"If we only could afford to buy oil, Bridget would make us some
salad-dressing."

"But we can't afford it. Poor Bridget, that is her one accomplishment.
She says she learned it from mamma, who was famous for it."

"Good gracious, Julie!" the practical Hester ejaculated, "don't take to
'reminiscing' with that far-away look in your eyes. You'll be weighing
salt instead of sugar."

"I am not 'reminiscing'--I am thinking. Why can't we make mayonnaise and
sell it?"

"What!"

"Don't drop dead with astonishment, you chief cook and bottle-washer,
because _I_ have an idea. What do you think of it?"

"Ye gods, but wouldn't that be a scheme! Bridget could teach us--you
know how Daddy's friends always said they never got such salads at any
other table!"

"Don't 'reminisce,' my dear."

"We'll get the grocers to sell it," disdaining to notice the pretended
rebuke, "just as they do pickles and things. We'll put it up in nice
bottles, and----"

"Wouldn't it be rather clever to learn how to make it first?"
interrupting this flight into future possibilities.

"Bridget, Bridget, come here!" called Hester.

Bridget, who was brushing up the sick-room, came down the little hall
and entered the kitchen.

"Do you see all those?" cried Hester, pointing to a bowl full of yolks
standing on the table. "Now if you had your own way, what would you do
with them?'

"Make 'em into mayonnaise, miss."

"Of course you would, you extravagant creature! Well, that is just what
we want you to do. Tell her, Julie--it is your scheme."

An amazed and delighted Bridget heard the girl unfold her plan.

"Shure it's a wonder yez are, Miss Julie, the two of yez, an' my
dressin' can't be beat. Could I be after showin' yez how this mornin'?"

"I'll go straight into the grocery now and get a bottle of oil,"
exclaimed Julie, and calling Peter Snooks, she was off in five minutes.

She noticed as she went down the stairs that the door of the apartment
underneath them was ajar, and to her astonishment Peter Snooks, that
most well-behaved of dogs, thrust his nose into the crack and vanished.

She stood a moment irresolute; then called peremptorily: "Snooks, Peter
Snooks! come here this minute!"

No dog appeared, and she was about to raise her voice for the second
time when from the darkness of the inner hall she heard some one
say--"Do you mind coming in just a minute? Your little dog is making
friends with me, and I can't come to you."

She followed the voice to the front room, where a boy lay in a wheeled
chair, while beside him sat Peter Snooks on his hind legs, putting out
his paw to shake hands in his most approved manner. At sight of his
mistress he curled his tail under and crawled to her guiltily. "Don't
scold him, please," said the boy; "it's my fault. I've been wanting to
know him this ever so long."

There was something so appealing in the boy's voice and so penitent in
the way Peter Snooks looked up at her that she patted the little rascal,
and said brightly:

"I never knew him to play truant before; but if you and he have made
friends I shan't apologize for his intrusion or mine."

"Oh no! don't," said the boy. "I've watched you from the window ever
since you came here to live, and I feel somehow as if I sort of knew
you."

"Are you ill?" she asked, gently.

"Broke my hip two months ago," he said. "It's a long time mending."

"Oh! I am so sorry--I know how hard it must be--my father is--is ill,
too." She never could bring herself to put into words her father's
actual condition.

"I wish you would sit down," the boy said. "Mother may be in any moment.
You can't think how it cheers a fellow up to see somebody." He spoke
hesitatingly, as if he feared to show too great pleasure lest he give
her offense.

"I can't stop, thank you," said Julie, suddenly remembering her errand,
"but if you are lonely and would like to have me, I will leave Peter
Snooks awhile with you--he's no end of company."

"Oh! would you, really?" The boy's eyes glistened. "I wish mother were
here; she'd know how to--to thank you."

At that moment a small, frail woman, gowned in black, entered the room.

"Why, mother," exclaimed the boy, turning to her a flushed, eager face,
"I was just wishing for you. This is the young lady that lives upstairs,
you know."

"How do you do?" the woman said, holding out her hand with quaint
simplicity, neither face nor manner betraying any surprise at finding
Julie there. "You are Miss Dale, are you not? I am Mrs. Grahame. It was
kind of you to come in and see Jack."

"My little dog ran in here, and I followed in search of him and found
your son," Julie explained. "I really did not intend to be intrusive."

"It is a great pleasure to see you." The older woman smiled at her. "You
must pardon the seeming liberty, but Jack and I have long been
acquainted with you. You see I am at work down-town most of the day, and
the boy spends long hours by the window watching his neighbors go in and
out, and he amuses himself by weaving little stories about them until he
comes to regard them as personal friends."

Jack dropped his eyes. "You'll think I'm the one who's intrusive," he
said.

"I do not think anything of the kind," replied Julie; "I think it is a
very clever, happy idea." She went over to the chair and called the dog
up in his lap. "Mrs. Grahame," she said, "if you are not too busy, will
you come up some evening and see us? We are working girls, and we have
an invalid father, and we don't expect to pay visits, but I would like
to come down here again, if I may, and bring my sister. Your son would
weave the most beautiful stories in the world if he really knew Hester."

"Thank you for suggesting so much happiness for my boy," said Mrs.
Grahame, earnestly. "You make me want to go to see you immediately."

Just as Hester's lively imagination was picturing all sorts of
calamities which might have overtaken her sister, that individual came
hurriedly in with a bottle of salad oil in her hand.

"Well, where on earth have you been?" cried Hester; "I thought you must
have dropped dead or been kidnaped or something fearful."

"Was I so long? I am sorry, dear, but you see I made a call en route."

"A call! who ever heard of such a thing! Where is Peter Snooks?"
suddenly missing him.

"He is finishing the visit for me." Julie laughed with a provokingly
mysterious air.

Hester, who had been working on alone and diving her head into a hot
oven every five minutes to anxiously watch the evolution of bothersome
little dabs of thin dough into small puffy cakes, was feeling decidedly
cross and resented her sister's apparent indifference to the business at
hand.

"Well, I'm glad if _you_ have time to gad about," she said, witheringly.
"I _thought_ we were going to take a lesson in making mayonnaise."

"You goose!" exclaimed Julie, pushing her away from the hot oven and
herself kneeling down to peer in. "I'll watch these cakes--you sit down
and draw a breath and the cork of the oil at the same time, while I tell
you what happened."

Somewhat mollified, Hester obeyed, and even deigned to show interest
when Julie graphically described their neighbors.

"Wasn't it odd, Hester, just walking right into the midst of things like
that? And the boy was so pathetic, and his mother was so quaint, with
such a sweet face and pretty, wavy hair, and I only stayed a moment,
dear, really, for all the time I knew you'd be wondering what had become
of me."

"Well, all I've got to say is," remarked Hester, with decided emphasis,
"that if you were willing to leave Peter Snooks with them, they must be
very remarkable people indeed."




CHAPTER IX


The weeks passed rapidly to the young workers, who found each day full
of experiments, sometimes developing into satisfactory results and again
filled with bitter discouragement. There were days when the battle for
existence threatened to overweigh and submerge them; days when from
morning till night their work seemed possessed by evil demons, and
everything went wrong; days when despair tugged at their hearts, and the
old happy life forced itself in upon their thoughts with clamorous
persistence. And ah! how they felt the sorrow of their father's
helplessness, the loss of his companionship causing an ache that nothing
could assuage! But through it all they fought their way, upheld by the
longing to show a spirit worthy of their father's daughters, sustained
by the consciousness that by their own endeavor they were "making a home
for Dad." This was the dominant note of the new life--like a bugle-call
stirring them to action!

Julie, who had been reading aloud to her father one day, suddenly went
into the next room to find Hester, and exclaimed, "Thackeray says, 'I
would not curse my fortune--I'd make it!' I think that's great, Hester!
We'll take it for a motto." And by that motto ever after they abided.

Mr. Dale had not awakened to any definite consciousness of his
condition, as Dr. Ware had anticipated, but remained in a passive,
tranquil state, taking little heed and no part in any conversation,
though his face brightened perceptibly whenever any one entered the
room. Much of the day he slept, but during his waking hours one of the
girls was constantly with him, hovering about with a tender protective
air.

Dr. Ware, who devoted all his spare time to his old friend, was a
frequent and most welcome visitor. He was a man of distinguished
presence, tall and well-knit, with the military bearing of a soldier and
some ten years younger than Mr. Dale, although they had served in the
War of the Rebellion together. Streaks of gray showed plentifully in his
hair and pointed beard, throwing into greater contrast his black brows
and blue-black eyes, while his face was marked with strong lines
indicative of character. It was an interesting face and one that
inspired immediate confidence, and in addition there was about him an
indefinable charm which made itself felt both professionally and
socially, so that there was not a more popular man in Radnor. This was
perhaps an unusual position for a man of strong convictions, expressed
fearlessly and freely on all subjects. To be thoroughly popular commonly
requires an adaptable temperament not compatible with strong
individuality.

He watched over "his girls" as he called them, with affectionate
solicitude mingled with an admiration and respect which knew no bounds.
"They are going to succeed," he would frequently say to himself after
leaving them, "every failure only makes them more determined--it's fine
to watch the growth of such spirit." And then he would drive off on his
round of visits with a preoccupied air and vague longings would steal in
upon him, softening the lines about his mouth and eyes and lingering
deliciously in his mind even after he had roused himself impatiently
from such day-dreams.

The girls' experiments in making mayonnaise resulted in Julie's screwing
up her courage one day and going to the leading grocery of Radnor. She
asked for the proprietor and laid before him her scheme, at the same
time showing him a sample of the mayonnaise. Poor Julie, who did not
know what it meant to cry her wares in open market, felt very
uncomfortable and flushed quite red as she talked; but she struggled to
overcome her timidity and succeeded in interesting the man, who told her
to leave her sample for him to try at home and gave her some valuable
information about putting up such an article in the regulation form,
suggesting that she follow his directions and bring in the mayonnaise
again, bottled and labeled for his inspection.

Busy days those were indeed in "The Hustle," for in addition to trying
varieties of cake, the mayonnaise suggested making salads and one thing
led to another with surprising rapidity.

It gradually began to be recognized in Radnor that if one wanted any
delicacy in the way of fancy cooking, one should order it from "those
Dale girls," and this recognition was in no small part due to Mrs.
Lennox, the President of _the_ Sewing Class. It was she who had sent
them their first order and shown a marked interest in their work which
was not without its immediate effect, for people occupied in their
relation to Mrs. Lennox a position similar to that of "Mary's little
lamb." Mrs. Lennox was a beautiful woman and in the fashionable world
her word was law; but society amused rather than interested her, and her
keen intellect and strong individuality led her into devious paths.
Above all she was a philanthropist in that broad and humanitarian sense
which sees promise in all gradations of men and women.

She followed her first order to the girls with a second by mail; then a
little correspondence ensued, in which she suggested their sending her
any new thing they might be trying. A few weeks later she "blew over,"
as she expressed it, and said in her charming way to Julie, as if she
had known her intimately for years:

"My dear, are you busy enough?"

"No indeed, Mrs. Lennox, we never could be busy enough--we want to do so
much."

"So I thought." She threw back her furs and unclasping a big bunch of
violets tossed them into the girl's lap. "You like them, don't you? So
do I. I adore violets. I am raising white ones now and I will send you
over some if I may."

"Oh, how good of you! Daddy loves them too. We always used to have
flowers wherever we were and we do miss them so. I don't see how you
suspected it, Mrs. Lennox."

"I am rather keen about human nature, my dear, and it occurs to me that
even though you do cook, you may have a love and longing for the
beautiful."

Julie smiled. It was so comfortable to talk with some one who understood
them. "Miss Ware would not agree with you," she said. "She considers us
lost to the finer things, beyond redemption. She dislikes us, you know,
and we never go there; but she comes here sometimes and asks us all
sorts of questions and wants to know about our recipes and things as if
we could not comprehend any other subject. Hester calls it 'talking
shop' and we hate it--not the work but the being excluded from other
things."

"I understand perfectly. Miss Ware is a bit, well, narrow, like most
Radnor people. So you are not busy enough?" eyeing her curiously; "well
then, I have a suggestion. If you want to cater for the town, send out
cards."

Julie gasped. "Business cards, you mean, soliciting orders?"

"Exactly. You do a variety of things already--think up and experiment
with more until you get an imposing little list, have cards printed and
send them about--at least five hundred, I should say. Radnor is a large
place and cliquey--there must be numbers of persons unknown to me who
have never heard of you girls, yet would be likely to give you their
custom. If my name on the cards by way of indorsement would be of any
advantage, you are more than welcome to use it."

"Oh! thank you, of course it would be a great advantage, Mrs. Lennox,
for no one knows us at all, you see. I'm--I'm dazed by your idea--it
seems so pretentious--so bold to advertise ourselves. I don't believe we
should ever have thought of it, but it _is_ the thing to do."

"Decidedly. I know something about business and you have one of the most
necessary qualifications for success--indefatigable zeal--and I want to
push you along. But you must not overtax your strength. I suppose you
have heard that before, eh, Miss Dale?" She laughed musically. "No doubt
kindly disposed persons come here to leave orders and tell you not to
work too hard."

"Yes, they do," Julie earnestly replied. "I wish they would not. Just as
if we did not have to work with all our might and main, and it is not
easy--always."

"Easy! I should think not!" Mrs. Lennox rose and smiled into Julie's
grave eyes as she held out her hand to say good-by. "I am going now, but
I want to come again and meet your sister too. May I? I should so like
to know you and be your friend."

Julie impulsively kissed her. "It is so good to find some one who wants
to know us--in spite of everything," she faltered.

"It is because of everything, my dear," giving the girl an impetuous
little hug. Which demonstration would greatly have astonished the smart
set of Radnor to whom this side of their leader was unknown and
unsuspected.

It was about this time that the girls got the mayonnaise put up to their
satisfaction, for innumerable perplexities had arisen in the matter of
suitable bottles, corks and labels. When finally Julie had submitted the
result to the grocer and that all-powerful man had ordered a dozen
bottles to sell on commission, the girls felt that they were working to
some purpose, and a glow akin to honest pride surged in their hearts.
But the sensation swelled to overwhelming proportions when late one
afternoon Julie, passing the store, spied in the great show-window a
group of their bottles standing boldly alongside the firm's best fancy
articles. She gasped, scarcely daring to look at them, and rushed home
to tell Hester.

But when she got home she did not tell Hester. Instead she said: "Put on
your things and come out before it grows dark--the air will do you
good."

"Can't," said Hester, deep in a book, "I'm too tired to move."

"I want to show you something."

"Where?" reading on.

"In a shop window."

"Julie Dale, what's the matter?" she exclaimed, dropping her book. "I'm
sure you've got a crazy look about you--your hat's on crooked!"

"I don't care, I think you would want to throw _your_ hat in the air if
you had seen it!"

"Seen what? A shop window? I hate them--they're just full of tantalizing
things one wants and can't have!"

"Well, this isn't--or perhaps it is--I am sure I don't know, but I came
way back after you and oh! do come."

"You are responsible for great expectations," said Hester, reluctantly
getting up from the bed. "I call it a most unchristian act to rout me
out like this."

But she took another view of it when she found herself out in the brisk
wintry air, and she caught some of the exhilaration of her sister's gay
spirits as they went along, Peter Snooks racing wildly about them.

When they approached the window of the grocery Julie's heart beat
rapidly in anticipation of Hester's surprise. As they reached it she
suddenly pulled her arm and led her close to the window. "Look!" she
said excitedly but in a low voice, for many persons were passing and
some few stood near them.

There it was, the mayonnaise into which they had put their best
endeavor, standing in so conspicuous a place that it could not fail to
attract the attention of the passers-by.

"New thing, that mayonnaise, isn't it?" they heard a man say to his
companion, "well put up--let's go in and look at it."

Hester gazed speechless into the window, her eyes nearly bulging out of
her head.

"Would you ever have believed it!" whispered Julie, poking her. "Let's
wait," as she saw a clerk lean into the window and take down a bottle,
"let's wait and see if those people buy it."

"No we won't," said Hester, finding her voice at last. She clutched her
sister's arm convulsively. "We'll go straight home before I scream with
joy right here on the corner."

"You don't like shop windows, do you?" said Julie with a happy laugh.

In the exuberance of their spirits and with a desire to impart the good
news to their neighbors, whom they now counted as friends, the girls
stopped at the Grahame's on their way upstairs.

"Jack," exclaimed Hester the impetuous, "Jack, what do you suppose has
happened?"

"By the look of you I should say you'd inherited a fortune."

"Pouf!" disdainfully, "that is commonplace." She clapped her hands
together while her eyes danced merrily. "Try again, Jack."

"May I have a guess, Miss Dale?" said a voice that made the girl start,
while a long, lazy form emerged from the corner.

Hester's manner changed instantly, and her eyes sought Jack's
questioningly, as if she were asking some explanation. Then she turned
to the man who stood quietly watching her.

"How do you do, Mr. Landor?" she said with a stiff little formality that
was unlike Hester, "I did not know you and Jack were friends."

"May I be presented?" asked Julie, coming forward; "I seem to be quite
out of it."

Jack from his chair in his capacity of host performed the introduction.

"Will _you_ let me guess?" said the man, addressing Julie as if there
had been no interruption. "Your sister refuses to answer me."

"You certainly will not let him guess," promptly replied Hester.
"Curiosity is a shockingly reprehensible trait and besides," with a
little toss of her head, "our affairs cannot possibly be of interest to
Mr. Landor."

The man flushed and picked up his hat. "I am off, old fellow," he said
to Jack. "I'll be in again before a great while."

"Oh, don't let us drive you away, please, Mr. Landor," protested Julie,
who was secretly marveling over that cool little sarcastic voice which
she had scarcely recognized as Hester's. "We had only a moment to stop
and we can come down again any time; we know what a great pleasure it is
to Jack to have visitors, don't we, Hester?"

Julie had her hand on the door.

[Illustration: "MAY I HAVE A GUESS, MISS DALE?"]

"You will do what she asks, I am sure, Mr. Landor," said Hester. It did
not escape him that she shifted the responsibility to her sister. "Julie
always arranges things perfectly. We really should be at home this very
minute." And waving her hand at the astonished Jack, she followed in the
wake of her sister.

"Hester," exclaimed Julie, in the seclusion of their own apartment,
"what made you so rude to Mr. Landor? I never heard you speak like that
to any one before."

"Oh! Julie," cried the younger girl, flinging herself down in a chair,
"I've the most disgusting, beastly temper!"

"You've nothing of the sort!" denied her sister indignantly.

"I have. You don't know anything about it, it's--it's just developing. I
get all hot inside; sometimes it breaks out the way it did at Miss
Ware's and to-day it made me nasty and sarcastic. I've always hated
sarcastic people!"

"What has Mr. Landor done, dear, to make you dislike him so? I thought
he seemed most charming and agreeable."

"Did you?" indifferently, leaning back in her chair. Suddenly she sat
bolt upright and exclaimed vehemently, "Julie Dale, if you dare to take
to singing his praises as Dr. Ware does I'll--I'll--well, I don't know
what I'll do! I hate him, with his smiling, masterful air and his prying
into affairs which are none of his business." (This seemed rather strong
language, but Julie did not interrupt her.) "He is an idle society man
and we are hard-working girls. He has nothing in common with us
whatever. We've no use for men, anyway--they don't belong to the sort of
life we live, they--they don't fit into our scheme of things. Rather
neat, that last phrase, eh, Julie? Read it in a book." As usual,
Hester's outburst ended in a laugh.

"Are you twenty years old," said Julie stooping down to kiss the flushed
face, "or two hundred, Hester?"

"I'm an end-of-the-century idiot, that's what I am!" she replied,
pulling Julie over to give her a suffocating hug. Then in that
irrelevant fashion so characteristic of her she threw back her head and
sniffed the air suspiciously.

"Julie!"

But Julie had slipped away.

Hester chased her into the little dining-room. "Julie Dale! do I smell
steak?" Hester's nostrils fairly quivered.

"You do. I plunged into that wild extravagance on the strength of the
mayonnaise, and I don't care what you say!"

"Say!" gasped Hester as Bridget brought in this unheard of luxury, "I
only want to eat!"




CHAPTER X


"I'm sorry, old fellow."

"Sorry for what, Mr. Landor?"

"To have driven your little friends away. They evidently had some good
news to tell you."

"Oh! that's all right," said Jack cheerily, "it will keep, you know, and
they were in a hurry--they said they could only stop a moment." Jack was
puzzling his young brain over their abrupt departure, but his loyalty to
all three friends made him wish to hide from Landor the fact that he was
apparently the cause. "I'm so sorry they _were_ in a hurry," he
continued, "for I'm always wishing you knew one another--you'd get on
like a house afire."

"Should we, Jack? I don't know. Recent events don't seem to prove it, do
they?" laughing good-naturedly.

"Oh! that doesn't count. You just wait until some day when they have
more time--I don't know when that'll be, though, for they're regular
hustlers. What do you suppose?" confidentially. "They call their flat
'The Hustle'--isn't that great?"

"I should say so--it sounds enterprising."

"They named it after the private car they used to live in--they've told
me all about it. Gee! wouldn't I like to get aboard of her once! She
must have been a beauty!"

"What became of the car? Did you ever happen to hear, Jack?"

"It's out west somewhere--some railroad's got it, I think, but I'm not
sure. They never spoke of it but once--I could see it went kind of hard
talking about it, though Miss Hester laughed and joked about its being
they who did the hustling now, instead of the car. It must be fine to be
rich and travel all around," exclaimed the boy, "but I'd hate to have
had it and then have to give it all up the way they have. Say, Mr.
Landor, shall I tell you something?" He clasped the arms of the
reclining chair with his thin hands and drew himself up to a sitting
posture.

Landor nodded and drew his seat closer. He encouraged the boy in his
confidences.

"I slumped the other night--clean went all to pieces. I'm fourteen, you
know, but if I'd been four I couldn't have acted more kiddish. Mother
was out and I'd been thinking how I wanted to go to college and
couldn't, because mother can't afford it, and how I wanted to travel
around and couldn't, and how I even wanted to walk and couldn't--not for
a long time yet--and I just lay here and thought there wasn't much sense
in getting any better anyway--I'd just have to go back and be nothing
better than an office boy where I was before I got hurt and--"

"And you succeeded in working yourself up into a fine frenzy of
discontent, didn't you, Jack? I understand, my boy. We all have our
rebellious moments."

"I was crying like a baby when Miss Julie came in."

"Poor old Jack," patting his hand sympathetically.

"Poor nothing!" exclaimed the boy in a tone of infinite disgust, "it
makes me hot all over to think about it and that wasn't the worst! I
_kept on_ crying." Jack's honest nature was abasing itself before his
friend. "I kept on crying till she shamed me out of it."

Landor did not speak, feeling silence at that moment would better
harmonize with the boy's mood. Jack and he understood each other, and
the boy feeling his sympathetic interest drew a long breath and went on
again.

"She made me tell her all about it and I felt so cut up and blue that I
said a lot of things I didn't mean and I told her it was easy enough for
her to be brave--she didn't know what it was to lie still and perhaps be
crippled all your life--the doctor can't tell. _Think of my telling her
that!_" The boy shuddered. "I believe if I'd struck her, Mr. Landor, I
couldn't have hurt her more, for there's her father, you see, a million
times worse off than I am, and I'd forgotten all about him."

Landor pushed back his chair and as if he found action of some kind
necessary paced the room quietly while the boy talked on.

"Her face got so white and her eyes got so dark that it frightened me,
but do you know what she did? I was lying on the couch and she came over
and knelt down beside me and talked to me a long time about her father."
Jack's voice was awed and Landor's hands went deeper down into his
pockets--a way he had when he was moved.

"She called him 'Daddy' and you could see just the way she said it that
she worshiped him, and she told me that when you loved a person very
much it was harder to see him stricken down than if you were ill and
helpless yourself. I hadn't thought of that, but it must be so, mustn't
it, Mr. Landor?"

"Yes, Jack, it must be so." No cloud had ever darkened Kenneth Landor's
pleasure-loving, pleasure-giving life.

"Then she told me that she wasn't brave really. That many a night she
cried herself to sleep because she was heart-broken about her father and
discouraged about their work and tired. I think she just told me that so
I wouldn't feel as if I were a coward because I cried too. I'd stopped
by that time, I can tell you! And then she said she wanted me to help
her and her sister be bright and jolly by being bright and jolly, too.
That made me laugh--to think I could help them! We both laughed and I
felt better. After that she talked a long time about trouble and how it
came to some people very young and how it was a sort of test--did you
ever think of that, Mr. Landor?" gazing earnestly into the man's face.

"No, Jack, there are many things I have never thought of!"

"You would if you knew them, you couldn't help it. She wasn't a bit
preachy--I hate that--but she said the way we took things showed the
kind of characters we had and when we got discouraged we must just
remember we were soldiers--Christ's soldiers--that's what she said." The
boy's voice sank to a whisper. "And that no soldier amounted to shucks
till he was knocked about and disciplined and taught to obey his
superiors."

"That is the truth, my boy." In his heart Landor was marveling at what
he heard.

"And do you know what, Mr. Landor? I'm going to march in the ranks
too--a double-quick step to try to catch up with them and if ever I do
catch up and can march alongside of them, won't I be proud, just!"
Julie's little sermon had sunk deep into his receptive mind and kindled
his imagination to deeds of valor like some knight of old. He leaned
back on his cushions exhausted by this unusual talk, his frail body in
pitiful contrast to the strength of the spirit that had awakened within
him and glowed in his face with a transfiguring light.

Landor came over to his chair and took his hand in a grip that hurt. "I
am going to enter the ranks too, old fellow," said he, carrying out the
illusion partly to please the boy's fancy and partly because he had
never before been so in earnest in his life.

"You!" said the boy, to whom Landor was a hero, "you don't have to
fight--why you can kill buffaloes and Indians and everything!"

Landor smiled. "Perhaps I have more dangerous foes nearer at hand, Jack.
Who knows? Well, I must be going. Shall I lift you onto the couch
first?"

Jack always enjoyed the feeling of Landor's strong arms about him and
gave the man a grateful look as he was laid gently down. The couch was
in reality Jack's bed and the change to the reclining chair had been
brought about by Landor, who sent the chair to him in the early days of
their acquaintance, but laughingly denied any previous knowledge of it
when Jack endeavored to thank him.

"You seem to have a lot of paper about," commented Landor, picking up
some sheets from the floor. "What are you up to these days?"

Jack blushed.

"Out with it, old fellow; you look guilty."

"I'm--I'm trying to write out the stories I make about the people I see
out of my window. You know I like to imagine things about them. _She_
said if I'd write them down the way I tell them they'd entertain her
father very much, but I've gotten sort of disgusted--it seems such awful
rot when it's down on paper."

Landor ran his eye over the sheets Jack indicated.

"They are not rot, Jack, they are pretty good. I am not much of a
literary chap, but I know when a thing is interesting. When you have
taken this way of introducing the neighborhood to Mr. Dale why don't you
send him a weekly bulletin--a regularly gotten up paper with all the
neighborhood news? When there isn't news you can invent it, you know,"
smiling; "that is allowable in the newspaper trade."

"Say, that's great!" cried Jack. "I'll call it the--'In the Ranks' and
make a great big heading for my first column 'News from the Front' (that
means front window) and I know, that'll please Mr. Dale, for mother told
me he was a distinguished officer in the Civil War and Miss Julie says
they were brought up on military principles." Jack snatched paper and
pencil eager to begin.

"Keep on with your stories first, Jack. Why, we shall be setting up a
printing-press here next," and with this delightfully suggestive remark
Landor departed.

He did not go on to the club, as was his wont at that hour, but lighted
a cigar and walked out of the little court and down through Crana Street
to the river, where on the bridge he paused and gazed across to the city
with a rapt, preoccupied air. Then, as if the noise of the ever-whirring
electric cars disturbed him, he retraced his steps and took a road in
the opposite direction which brought him into the quiet and seclusion of
the park. The air was keen and crisp and blew in his face in gusty
whiffs as he strode on, while all about him in their winter nakedness
the trees cast spectral shadows. Usually, from long training and
association with western plains and mountain trails, he took note of
everything as he passed, but to-night he gazed far on ahead, engrossed
in thought. To his annoyance, twice his cigar went out--which was in
itself significant. Finally he threw it away and lighted a little
bull-dog pipe, his solace and companion in many a solitary stroll.

So those were the Dale girls, he was thinking, of whom Dr. Ware had said
so much but of whom, all unconsciously, Jack had revealed more than
years of intercourse with them might tell. He thought of Julie as he had
seen her, quiet and fair-haired, with that gracious little plea that he
should not let them drive him away, to prevent which they had themselves
made a hasty exit from the room. And then there was another Julie as
Jack had pictured her, turning her heart out for a boy that he might be
comforted! He thought of her with reverence. A profound solemnity
possessed him, giving him a strangely subdued sensation as of a man
emerging from a sanctuary. What was he to whom life was an idle pastime,
that he should draw the same breath with her!

Then from out this solemn train of thought danced another picture--two
baffling eyes mocking him. Who was she, this will-o'-the-wisp, that she
should hold him at arm's length in that imperious fashion! He stopped
and half closed his lids as if the better to conjure up a vision of her,
then shook himself and went on--were not those eyes enough and that
light ironical voice in his ears? Why had she snubbed him so--him, who
was surely unoffending? And she was a soldier too, marching in the
ranks. That pretty, piquant, fascinating sprite had shouldered her
knapsack and was fighting a battle royal. Dr. Ware had told him so long
ago, but somehow he only now began to realize it since Jack had
expressed it in Julie's simple way. Jove! the very simplicity of it was
impressive! Thoughts like these carried Landor out into the country and
brought him back to the club two hours later in an unusually quiet frame
of mind. The men with whom he habitually fraternized found him dull and
unresponsive and to his inexpressible relief they left him to finish the
evening alone.




CHAPTER XI


Mrs. Lennox was giving one of those little dinners for which she was
justly famous. To-night it was in honor of Monsieur Jules Grémond, the
young African explorer who was paying a flying visit to the States. To
meet him were Miss Davis, a débutante whose prettiness could always be
counted on to make a picture; Miss Marston, whose cleverness it was
thought would interest him; and Kenneth Landor, whose attentions to Miss
Davis had been rather pronounced during the season. Opposite his wife
across the round table sat Mr. Lennox, than whom there was no more
delightful host.

They had not been long gathered about the table before Mrs. Lennox was
conscious that her guests were lacking in that subtle attraction toward
one another which is absolutely indispensable to the success of a small
dinner. Monsieur Grémond, between her and Miss Marston, appeared to be
listening in a most politely conventional manner to the girl who was
making commonplace conversation with frequent pauses during which he
turned to Mrs. Lennox, with whom he immediately fell into interesting
talk. Kenneth Landor was singularly distrait. At first he had
appropriated Miss Davis with his usual devoted air, but after a bit this
languished and he, too, turned so often to Mrs. Lennox, next whom he
sat, that Miss Davis first pouted and then in a fit of pique plunged
into a violent flirtation with Mr. Lennox, much to that person's
amusement. Mrs. Lennox found it necessary to throw herself into the
breach here, there and everywhere, but under her skillful manipulation
the talk at last became general and animated.

The interest of the table naturally centered on Grémond, who managed
adroitly to keep the conversation off himself, thereby winning the
admiration of his hostess--she rather enjoyed a lion who did not roar.
Finally, with the arrival of the savory which followed the dessert--for
Mrs. Lennox had adopted this English custom, she had the satisfaction of
seeing Miss Marston and her husband deep in talk, Miss Davis and Kenneth
"frivoling" as was their wont and was herself free to enjoy a
tête-à-tête with her guest of honor.

"Your country is a source of endless interest to me, Madame," the
Frenchman was saying, "but it is as nothing to your women. They rival
ours--even surpass them."

"I am afraid we are in danger of being told that too often," laughed his
hostess, gaily.

"Some things bear repetition, Madame."

"Have you known many of us, Monsieur?" she asked, interested. "I think
you said you had been over here before."

"Yes, nearly two years ago, before I started off to Africa. It was
indeed the cause of my immediate start for Africa," he said with a
retrospective air. "Then, too, Madame, America became very dear to me
through my friendship with Sidney Renshawe--we were like brothers
together in Paris."

"Ah, yes, I know, he speaks of you with great affection. He will be up
from Virginia in a day or two, will he not?"

"Not before I am off. I go to New Orleans on important business and from
there to California, but I shall stay with him here on my return. Ah!
you cannot dream what he has been to me," he cried with Gallic
enthusiasm, "he--and one other."

"Will you come and tell me about it later, Monsieur, when you have
finished your cigars?" she said softly, picking up her gloves and giving
the signal to rise.

"Madame is very good," he murmured, bowing low as he stood aside for her
to pass.

Left together, the three men drew near and by a common interest caused
Grémond to talk of his explorations for fully half an hour, which time
was all too short to his listeners, who were greatly interested in the
man as well as in what he had done. Though they had just met him within
the week he was well known to them through Renshawe, a warm friend of
Kenneth and the Lennoxes and the half hour over their cigars would
unquestionably have lengthened out indefinitely had the women not been
waiting for them in the drawing-room.

The party had expected to go to the opera together, but when the men
rejoined the women they found a change of plan, Miss Marston having
secretly confided to Mrs. Lennox that she had been "on the go" so
steadily for weeks that it would be bliss to keep still, and "Couldn't
we all spend the evening here instead?" Pretty, disdainful Miss Davis,
seeing in this suggestion possibilities of a prolonged tête-à-tête with
Kenneth Landor, was enthusiastic in seconding it; while Mrs. Lennox
acquiesced gladly--she had put in an exhausting day at various
charitable organizations and was more tired than she cared to admit. As
for the men, they were loud in their acclamations of delight over what
Mr. Lennox called "the joy of a home evening." Accordingly they left the
formal drawing-room and repaired to Mrs. Lennox's sanctum, a unique room
finished in ebony, the dark wood relieved from somberness by a deep
frieze of Pompeiian figures done in red, while bits of this vivid color
were everywhere conspicuous in the furnishing. In all its appointments
it showed the touch of a strong individuality and expressed in its way
the æsthetic side of Mrs. Lennox's nature. It had also what in a woman's
room made it distinctive--space. Mrs. Lennox was a person who liked free
scope for her body as well as her mind.

The guests, therefore, distributed themselves about comfortably and Miss
Davis found herself exercising her fascinations upon the distinguished
foreigner, who encouraged her by undisguised admiration, which indeed he
had given her throughout dinner by glances meant to convey what the
distance of the table between them made it impossible to say. But the
paying of excessive compliments to a girl like Miss Davis, who cares
only for that sort of thing from the masculine sex, sometimes palls and
Grémond was just thinking a bit longingly of his charming hostess when
that individual approached them.

"Miss Davis," she said, "Mr. Landor has been proposing a game of
billiards. He wants you to help him beat Miss Marston and my
husband--they have already begun to play, I believe. Will you join
them?"

"Do Miss Davis, will you?" urged Kenneth, who always enjoyed the game.

Miss Davis looked at him and rose by way of answer. She had long ago
discovered that her eyes did considerable execution. Then with a glance
at Grémond which said that he too might follow her, she went with
Kenneth across the hall into the billiard room.

Mrs. Lennox sank into a curiously carved old ebony chair, against which
her bare arms and shoulders gleamed white. She was gowned in black,
unrelieved except for the rope of pearls wound twice around her throat
and hanging in a loose chain to her waist; but the severity of outline
was exceedingly becoming to her slender figure and the absence of color
emphasized the beauty of her skin, which was as fair and soft as if she
were twenty instead of forty. She sighed a little as she leaned back in
her chair, and Grémond reaching for some cushions from a divan near by
tucked them in behind her comfortably.

"Madame is tired to-night," he said.

"Monsieur Grémond," turning her head the better to see him, "I feel as
if I should offer you a thousand apologies. I had planned a gay evening
for you and instead you are becoming initiated into intimate home life.
We are already treating you like one of the family. Fancy!"

"A privilege not accorded to many; is it not so, Madame? I feel
flattered beyond all telling."

It pleased her that he was quick to recognize this as unusual treatment
of the stranger within her gates and she said cordially, "I felt when I
saw you that we should not make the usual beginning. It is a little
peculiarity of mine that I steal into people's lives in the middle--when
I like them. I have never analyzed it, but I trust to my instincts and I
am not often mistaken. Now you," she said, leaning languidly back on her
cushions, "you interest me and I've sent them all off to play billiards
that we may have a quiet little talk together. I want to hear more of
what you were telling me at dinner, if I may."

"Madame is very good," he said again. "We were speaking of Sidney
Renshawe, were we not?"

"Of him--'and one other,'" she quoted, watching his eloquent face.

His black eyes softened and he leaned forward a little, using his hands
in frequent gesticulation as he began to talk. "I am reminded, Madame,
of a certain witty English author who said that Columbus discovered
America but America discovered him. To paraphrase him, I should say that
two Americans discovered me--dear old Renshawe and the most charming
little girl I ever knew."

"Yes?" she said.

"But for those two, Madame, I might have been--anything!" He shrugged
his shoulders expressively. "The one had faith in me, the other taught
me to have faith in myself. She was my inspiration." It seemed as
natural to him to confide in this charming woman as if he had known her
all his life, and in this he was not unlike the majority of people in
whom Mrs. Lennox showed an interest, for she had that divine gift which
for lack of an English word we call "simpatica"--an open sesame to all
hearts.

She was listening very quietly, but the look on her face was one of
absorbed attention as Grémond went on.

"For several years, Madame, I had been formulating my African plans, but
I lacked distinct purpose until I knew her. She had the American idea
that a man must accomplish something in the world. She thought I should
prove myself capable of the great things I talked about."

"She can scarcely have reason to find fault with you now," the woman
said.

"I hope not, Madame, when she knows what I have tried to do and how much
more I shall do when I return."

"Are you going to tell her--soon?"

"Soon?" with a quick indrawing of his breath, "as soon as I can get to
California, but alas! that will not be for many weeks. I am not sure
that she will want to listen to me, Madame, but I shall make her; I
must."

"You met her in Europe, I fancy?"

"On the contrary, I met her in Southern California in one of the big
hotels where I was stopping. She was living there and we were thrown
together constantly, laughing, dancing, riding--a gay life. Now and then
when we touched on serious subjects I was amazed and moved by her great
comprehension and high ideals."

"Does she not know what a powerful factor she has been in your life?"
she asked.

"Not yet, Madame. I went away with my heart full of her, but said no
word. I felt I had not the right on so short an acquaintance and before
I had really accomplished anything."

"Perhaps not, my friend, but I am not sure that I altogether agree with
you. I feel that she liked you, with possibly more than the ordinary
liking, and a girl wants some sign."

"I wrote her once, asking her to hold me in remembrance; was that a
sign, Madame? It was all I dared to make. It seemed to me it was deeds
and not words that were wanted."

"It was both, Monsieur, if you will allow me to say so, for without
words how could a girl know that deeds were done for her sake alone?"

"I thought she would know it all because I loved her so," he faltered.

"Oh, you men, you men!" Mrs. Lennox cried impatiently, "how you do
expect a woman to take things for granted! Forgive me, Monsieur
Grémond"--leaning forward and touching his arm--"but sometimes I get
very cross over it."

"Oh Madame, Madame!" he exclaimed impetuously, "you cannot think, you
cannot mean I have made a mistake?"

"Indeed, no," she replied reassuringly, seeing how his confident manner
had changed to despair, "but I do mean that the ways of women are not
more enigmatical than those of men--_some_ men," she qualified.

He laughed, glad to have the tension of the past moment broken by her
light tone. For a moment neither spoke. Across the hall came the faint
clicking of the billiard-balls.

"We must join the others, Monsieur," the woman said at last.

"May I thank you for the pleasantest hour I have spent since my
arrival?" he said earnestly as he rose.

"The pleasantest--as yet. Eh, Monsieur?" with a charming smile.

"As yet, Madame," bowing gravely over her hand which he had taken in
his.

"Then will you come to me again, when you return and tell me _all_ about
it?" with a faint pressure of her fingers in his.

"May I, Madame? Ah, that will be a privilege indeed!" and stooping he
kissed her hand.

A moment later they had joined the others.




CHAPTER XII


"Those Dale girls are certainly remarkable!"

"I have always maintained that, Mary."

"Remarkably surprising, I mean," corrected Miss Ware, fingering the
coffee-cups noisily in rather an irritating manner as it seemed to her
brother, who was running over his voluminous morning mail.

"What have they done now?" he asked looking up at her over his glasses.

"To my mind a most unlady-like, vulgar thing. Here it is if you want to
see." A second look at a card in her hand before passing it over caused
her to exclaim, "No! Is it possible! Mrs. Lennox has taken them up! Her
name is actually printed on the card--it is the most astonishing thing I
ever heard of!"

"If you mean their business cards, Mary, I was consulted and saw the
original draft and recommended the printer. Um," examining the card
critically, "he has turned out an excellent piece of work, artistic and
quiet in tone. I thought he could be relied upon."

"Philip, you are too exasperating! I believe if those girls sold papers
on the street corner you would think it the finest thing ever done!"

"I probably should," he rejoined imperturbably. "As for these cards,
they are something to be proud of! 'Salads, croquettes, fancy
sandwiches, jellies, salted nuts, etc., etc.,'" he went on, running his
eye down the list. "Gad! how they have pushed ahead! They mailed five
hundred of these yesterday," looking over at his sister, "and I fancy
Radnor people will not be slow in responding."

"Oh! Mrs. Lennox's name will be an alluring bait," she said. "People
will patronize them because she does, for a time, but they make a great
mistake in relying upon her; this is just one of her fads."

"I can't understand, Mary, how you take such delight in imputing
disagreeable motives to people. Mrs. Lennox is not patronizing the
girls--she has great respect for them. Neither are they relying on her
in the least. They rely only on their own skill and ability to do their
work to the satisfaction of their customers. Mrs. Lennox has kindly
allowed them to add her name by way of reference or indorsement for
those people who know nothing about them. It places them before the
public in an unassailable position."

"Are they going to open a shop?" asked Miss Ware, a little
superciliously, interested in spite of herself.

"No, they mean to keep right on as they are, making things only to
order. They will have no stock on hand. It is the best they can do under
the circumstances, for it is impossible to branch out to any
considerable extent while their father needs them close at hand."

"Good gracious, Philip! you wouldn't advise a shop?" She made a wry face
over her coffee, in which, in the excitement of the discussion, she had
neglected to put any sugar.

"I don't know," the Doctor replied, stroking his beard thoughtfully, "I
am not sure. Being conducted in their home, a business such as theirs
must of necessity be limited, and the profits small. One must do things
in large quantities to make money. I have thought a good deal about a
little shop--it may come to that eventually, but I am not sure that I
want it to. They are not going to hold out forever; as it is they are
living on their nerves,--they have been too delicately reared to stand
such work." He pushed his plate away and folding his arms on the table
leaned forward confidentially. "Mary," he said, "I wish I could get you
to care for those girls--to love all that is so sweet and lovable in
them."

"Perhaps I'd care more for them, Philip, if you did not care so much."

"What!" in astonishment, "why you aren't--you can't be jealous of them,
Mary?"

"I don't know," she replied, looking away from him, "women are queer,
even we old ones--perhaps we're queerest of all!"

"Why, Mary, what nonsense to be jealous of two little girls who regard
me in the light of a venerable uncle."

"I should not call a fine-looking man in the prime of life 'venerable,'"
said his sister resentfully, for she was immensely proud of her
distinguished brother. "I am sure it would be very odd if they did not
admire you for more reasons than one!"

"It is not a question of their admiring me, Mary, but of my admiring
them. And I am not the only one. People are beginning to talk about them
aside from Mrs. Lennox. Mary, I want them to marry!"

"Marry!" she exclaimed. "No eligible man would marry girls who cook and
deliver boxes at people's doors and do goodness knows what besides."

"You are very much mistaken, and while you cling to your absurd opinions
I don't think it is desirable to continue the conversation." He rose
with dignity and passed into his office.

Miss Ware followed him. "Philip," she queried with feminine curiosity,
"had you any one special in mind?"

The Doctor was lost in the depths of the morning paper.

"Philip, I--I dare say I expressed myself rather strongly;" (this from
Miss Ware was a great concession). "_Was_ there any one special in your
mind?"

"And what if there was, Mary?" answered the Doctor, slightly appeased
but not wholly mollified, "would you really care to know?"

"Yes, I should. It is so unusual for you to be developing match-making
proclivities."

"That is true. I seldom think of such matters and, mind you, I do not by
any means think that girls should marry just for the sake of
marrying--that it is the end and aim of their existence--but in the case
of the Dales my heart is set upon it."

"I thought you approved of women who were self-supporting," remarked his
sister, considerably surprised at the view he presented.

"So I do, when circumstances require it or their temperaments demand
independence and they are properly trained to stand shoulder to shoulder
with men in business or professional life. But these little girls are
wrestling with the bare problems of existence, working with the nervous
tension of a high-bred race-horse, using up their vitality over pots and
kettles and pans and smiling, smiling all the time as if they liked it!"

"Why, I thought they did like it!" Verily this was a morning of
surprises.

"Like it!" cried the Doctor, trying to keep down the anger in his voice,
"would you like it to be taken out of a life of keen enjoyment--a life
crowded with incidents and continuous change of scene such as the Dales
lived and be put down in a comparatively strange place, unrecognized
socially, without young companionship and, worse still, to see a father
whom they adore perfectly helpless and dependent on them for every
mouthful of bread! It is a wonder to me the spirit is not crushed out of
them!"

"I never quite thought of it like that, Philip."

"Of course you didn't, Mary. You thought they were rebellious,
head-strong young things who liked being cramped up in a kitchen all
day, beating their arms off over batches of dough and stirring
mayonnaise until they are ready to fall into the bowl from sheer
exhaustion! But I want you to look at it differently, I do indeed, and I
want you to help me put a new interest in their lives."

"I will, Philip, there is my hand on it."

The Doctor clasped it warmly. "What do you think of Landor?" he said.

"Kenneth Landor? Does he know them?"

"He met Hester here one day and was immensely taken with her. Afterward
he ran across them in my house in the apartment below them. There is an
invalid boy there whom Kenneth heard of--you know he is always finding
out-of-the-way people and going to see them. He told me he only saw the
girls there a moment, but he's taken a violent fancy to the boy, who
talks about Julie and Hester by the hour together. Landor wants to meet
the girls again--he has asked me to ask him here to meet them, but I
have always put him off on one pretext or another, knowing it was
useless to try to do anything while you felt as you did, but now you
will arrange something, won't you, Mary? You have such a talent for
little parties."

"The girls won't come. Have you heard them speak of Kenneth?"

"Only casually, most casually. Hester always gets the talk off on
something else when I mention him."

"That's a good sign."

"A good sign!" said the Doctor, much puzzled, "I thought it was a bad
one."

"Oh! you men," laughed Miss Ware, "you don't know anything. When a girl
does not discuss a man it is usually because he interests her. Do you
think," she said seriously, "the girls, if they knew, would like your
disposing of one of them in this calm fashion?"

"Mary, I beg of you, do not misunderstand me. I have no wish to dispose
of them. Kenneth may not fall in love with either of them, though I
don't see how he can help it" (this under his breath), "and neither of
them may care in the least for him, but it would gladden my heart if the
thing could be. He is an admirable fellow in every way, and during the
past month he has gone into business with his father. Did you know that?
There is no doubt that he could make a comfortable home for them all.
Even if nothing comes of it I want him to know them--he'll be a better
man all his life for knowing them--and I want them to have a little
diversion, a little outside interest to take them out of the rut. I'll
leave it all to you, Mary," he ended, with a comfortable feeling of
security.

"I suppose, you know," she said as she was leaving, "that both the girls
have had several offers of marriage."

"No, I didn't know."

"Mr. Dale mentioned it when he was discussing the question of my
chaperoning them this winter. He said he wanted me to understand that
the girls were in some ways much older than their years and that having
been, through their constant companionship with him, thrown much into
the society of men, it was natural they should have had that experience.
He also said that neither girl had the slightest desire to marry for the
present or had ever shown any preference for one man above another. I
fancied from what he said that their manner toward men was frank, rather
a sort of 'camaraderie' than the silly sentimental attitude some girls
affect."

"You are perfectly right, Mary, they have a most engaging frankness of
manner."

"May I ask you one thing, Philip?"

"Certainly," suddenly apprehensive of the question coming.

"How do you know they are beating their arms off over batches of
dough"--the phrase seemed to have stuck in her mind--"I mean how did you
realize it? Did they tell you?"

"Not they;" secretly relieved, "I hear it from Bridget. She worries her
faithful old heart out about them and vows me to secrecy when she
confides in me, for she says they would never forgive her if they knew
she took it so hard."

"Good old Bridget," he said to himself, for his sister had vanished
without another word, "how my little girls would scold her!"

Good old Bridget indeed, who told much, but was far too loyal to tell
all she knew!




CHAPTER XIII


"Hester, 'we have arrived,' as they say in France. This has been a
momentous month. We've sent out our cards and bought our first groceries
at wholesale." Julie leaned her elbows on the kitchen table and gazed
with a rapt meditative air at their first barrel of sugar.

Bridget stood in the doorway openly admiring. "It's like old times, Miss
Julie dear, to be seein' things come in quantities agen." She had
secretly harbored a grudge against the miserable little paper bags.

Peter Snooks sniffed at the unfamiliar barrel and then sat down beside
it with a comical air of importance, but Hester did not leave him long
undisturbed, for in wild exuberance of spirits she executed a war-dance
in which he joined, at the end of which she mounted the barrel and with
arms extended made a speech.

"Ladies and gentlemen (the gentlemen's _you_, Snooks);

"This is the proudest moment of my life!"

Having delivered herself of this burst of eloquence she paused a moment
dramatically, then plunged into such a torrent of nonsense that Bridget
buried her head in her apron to stifle her laughter, Peter Snooks barked
frantically in a fit of delight and Julie pulled the young orator down
ignominiously.

"Come into the other room," she said. "Daddy is asleep and I don't want
you to wake him."

Instantly subdued, Hester tip-toed down the hall, following her sister.

"Are we going to discuss affairs of state?" she whispered.

"No, but we must come to some decision about Mrs. Lennox's invitation
for Thursday night. I think we ought to go."

"Well, I don't. I object to being patronized."

"Oh! my dear, don't look at it like that; it is not kind of you. You
regard Mrs. Lennox as a friend, do you not?"

"A business friend, yes; the kindest and best we have, but that is not
knowing her socially."

"No, dear, but she wants to know us socially or she would not have
invited us to her house. Don't you see that is what it means, Hester? It
is not patronizing us, but placing us on an equal footing--"

"Where we belong," interrupted Hester, "though I don't think we need
feel overwhelmed by Radnor's recognition of the fact." She spoke
bitterly in a tone that cut her sister.

"Hester dear, it does hurt to be utterly ignored by the people who used
to know us when we were children, but there are enough outside of Radnor
who have stood by us loyally and we will make headway here eventually
when people get a little more used to us."

"Do you suppose I care a snap of my finger about these Radnor girls,"
said Hester savagely. "They're a narrow snobbish lot and I'm glad I've
escaped knowing them! Just yesterday, as I was delivering that great box
of sandwiches at Mrs. Crane's I met Jessie Davis on the steps--she'd
been calling there. Don't you remember how we always played together
when we were little tots at school? Well, of course I knew her
immediately--she hasn't changed a bit, and she knew me, but it was
surprising how absorbed she suddenly became in looking for her carriage
which was standing right under her nose! Think how disgraced she would
have been before her footman if I--nothing better than a parcel-delivery
girl--had spoken to her! She needn't have been afraid," scornfully,
giving full vent to her smothered wrath, "I wouldn't have spoken to her
to have saved her life!"

"She is not worth getting angry about, dear. You ought to pity her for
not knowing any better."

"She knows better, well enough," said the irate Hester, who rather liked
to nurse her wrath. "She's a nasty little snob!"

"Well, she is," agreed Julie, "but I can't help pitying her for all she
has missed in not knowing you."

Hester smiled. "It is wicked of me to spit out at you, Julie dear. You
did not make snobs and you have to encounter them just as much as I do.
I dare say if we go to Mrs. Lennox's we shall run up against some, but a
party does sound pleasant, doesn't it?"

"I think, dear," said Julie with that quiet little matronly air she
unconsciously assumed when she was trying to win over her sister, "I
think that even though parties are not at all in our line these days, we
should go. It is not a party, really, only an informal little musicale.
It will freshen us up tremendously to get into a different atmosphere
and it will please Mrs. Lennox, who has gone out of her way to be kind."
She looked at her sister entreatingly.

"Julie, you are a saint! Sometimes you talk just like Daddy!"

Julie's eyes moistened. "I am not a saint," she protested. "Think what
Miss Ware will say when she hears of it?"

Hester's eyes gleamed. "That settles it--I am going, and if you want to
know my honest opinion, I love Mrs. Lennox for asking us."

There were many orders that week and their working capacity was taxed to
its utmost to meet the demand. Had it not been for their systematic
arrangement of everything it would have been impossible to accomplish so
much. They had learned that the early hours of the morning are the best
and got to work by six, continuing on through the day as long as there
was anything to do. They had laid down stringent rules for work hours
and strenuously endeavored to live by them.

By Thursday they were absorbed in the largest order they had yet
received, embracing as it did croquettes, patties and other elaborate
things which in an unguarded moment they had agreed to send hot to some
club-rooms in the neighborhood. Hester thought they could do this by
packing the things in a big steamer they had recently purchased. The
steamer was a large tin affair built in sections of trays and would pack
to great advantage, besides holding a considerable amount of boiling
water at the bottom whereby the things could be kept hot. They had
engaged an expressman to deliver this promptly at quarter past eight and
it was with anxious hearts and nervous fingers they made the final
preparations for packing. The cooking of all these elaborate things had
been in itself no light achievement, but even that was as nothing to
their fear lest the steamer should not reach its destination safely.
They had been at work since five that morning and wrapped and boxed and
packed securely was the last thing when the clock struck eight that
evening. Five minutes past eight and no expressman! Quarter after, and
two excited girls stared at each other across the steamer! Then Hester
fled to the basement. The janitor was out but she pounced upon the
engineer and got him upstairs before he realized what it was all about.
"You're to go on an errand," was all she had vouchsafed him, leaving
Julie to explain the rest.

The man when he reached their kitchen eyed the big steamer curiously and
said he could carry it. Whereupon Julie wanted to fall upon his neck
with joy, but showed him the address tied to the cover instead.

"Be'gorra miss," he said in evident embarrassment, "I ain't been in the
city a week. Not the name of a street am I after knowin' entirely."

Here was a dilemma.

"I'll go with him," said Bridget.

"You'll do nothing of the sort," said Julie, "you have been half dead
with rheumatism for two days and it is pouring in torrents. We'll go,
Hester and I--we can get there in fifteen minutes. Hustle, Hester!"

It was an incongruous little procession that went out into the storm,
the girls leading, the man keeping close to his guides, who encouraged
him by a word now and then. He walked firmly and with head erect, not
because this was his habitual gait, but because he had been warned that
any undue motion of his body would bring showers of scalding water down
his back. An admonition like this was not to be disregarded and he
picked his way gingerly to the basement door of the club where the girls
rang the bell and the supper was safely left in the hands of the
housekeeper. Then having lavishly rewarded their cavalier two
light-hearted girls rushed home through the night to Bridget.

She welcomed them as if they had returned from some great peril, petted
and scolded them because of their wet things and fussed about like a hen
whose goslings have swam safely back to shore.

"I've made you a pot of coffee to warm your blessed selves," she said.
"It's a wonder you don't kill yourselves entirely."

"You Bridget!" said Julie affectionately as she kicked off her wet
shoes, "won't you put me to bed just as if I were a little bit of a
girl?" With those tired eyes and that pathetic droop to her mouth she
did not look much of anything else as she said it.

"Julie Dale! are you crazy! Mrs. Lennox's carriage is coming at nine
o'clock to take us to the musicale! You've ten minutes to dress!" Hester
made this announcement with a high tragedy air.

Julie jumped as if she had been shot. "I had completely forgotten it,
Hester. Oh! my dear, I am so dead tired I don't feel as if I could
move."

"Well, you've got to," remarked Hester, who, having made up her mind to
do a thing, was not easily turned from her purpose; "you got me into
this thing and we'll go if it kills us! I know I just about struck it
when I called this place 'The Hustle'" she ruminated. "I am sure I don't
feel as if I'd drawn a long breath since we came here!"

"What shall we wear?" asked Julie who scrambled after her sister,
shedding her wet things as she went.

"I got out your light silks, dearie," came from Bridget.

"Do you suppose we ought to wear hats?" This from Hester, who was
wishing they had planned their costumes the night before.

"Perhaps we ought," ruefully. "Good gracious! I haven't any--not a small
one, Hester."

"A trifle inconvenient, isn't it? I might lend you the rose toque I
bought in Paris."

"Indeed you won't, it exactly matches your gown and you look dear in it.
I'll wear a bow in my hair or something." A bow, to Julie, always filled
any discrepancy.

Hester arrested her in the act of trying this effect before the mirror
and sat her down brusquely in a chair.

"Give me that bow," she commanded, "and keep still. _I'll make a hat on
your head!_ Bridget, you get down her picture hat quick, and rip off the
tips and the band of jet and some lace and we'll fix her up in a jiffy!"

It was a wonderful creation--just a bit of lace and jet and ribbon with
never a stitch in it, all fastened with hairpins to Julie's curly head.
Two white ostrich tips stood up saucily at the side, a few violets were
coquettishly stuck in the back and the effect was immensely modish and
becoming.

"Hold your head high all the evening and don't toss it about for your
life!" warned Hester. "If you do, the whole thing will fall to pieces."

"That's a cheerful prospect," commented Julie, surveying herself in the
glass. "Can't you put in more hairpins?"

"You've got about a million now." Hester's imagination never failed her.

"Shure you look beautiful, Miss Julie, dear," said Bridget, "and it
ain't goin' to come to pieces--Miss Hester's only teasin' yer."

Five minutes later they were rolling through the storm in Mrs. Lennox's
brougham.

"Hester," whispered Julie from the depths of her luxurious corner, "_I_
never tramped out in the wet to-night to deliver a club supper, did
you?"

"Certainly not," squeezing her hand hard, "who ever heard of such a
thing!"

Something very like a tremor of nervous excitement pervaded the girls as
their names were announced on the threshold of Mrs. Lennox's
drawing-room. Their entrance attracted immediate attention. Mrs. Lennox
received them as Mrs. Lennox would, with most charming cordiality, yet
not too pronounced lest they be made to feel that their coming was not a
matter of common occurrence. She made a mental note of the fact that her
protégés had never looked prettier and was immensely pleased with their
poise and perfect self-possession under what she knew must be for them
something of an ordeal. If she could have looked into Julie's heart she
would have discovered a shyness in coming among these people that
amounted to positive pain; but who would ever have suspected it from
that smiling exterior and that proud tilt of the head?

As for Hester, from the moment a woman who was one of their customers
bowed to her in a puzzled sort of way and then whispered so loud that
every one about her could hear, "Why it's those Dale girls!"--from that
moment Hester's spirit of deviltry awoke and she determined to outshine
every girl in the room.

Mrs. Lennox immediately presented half a dozen men who formed a little
group about them and presently she steered them all toward some chairs
preparatory to settling down to hear the music. As they crossed the room
several women with whom they had had business dealings, bowed to them
cordially. In a corner on a tête-à-tête seat sat Jessie Davis with
Kenneth Landor. Both looked up as the party approached and Landor gave a
half-stifled exclamation. Hester's luminous eyes swept by the girl and
into the man's face with such a distracting smile that he was on his
feet in a second.

"How do you do?" she said sweetly, just the suspicion of a smile still
lurking about the corners of her mouth while she extended her hand
cordially.

The man took it in an eager clasp and blessed the Fates for this
propitious moment. "This is charming," he said. "It is a great pleasure
to see you."

"Yes, is it not?" naïvely. "Julie, here is Mr. Landor," bringing him
into the circle quite as if he were an old friend.

Genuinely glad to see him, Julie showed it unreservedly. All the men
knew him and envied him his luck as the little party found seats
together.

"You must not let us break up your tête-à-tête," remonstrated the wicked
Hester with a glance in the direction of the divan where Miss Davis sat
deserted.

Miss Davis, gazing into space, heard and bit her lip with vexation. She
thought the airs the little upstart gave herself were intolerable. What
could Mrs. Lennox be thinking of to bring those Dale girls into society?

But Landor did not go back to her. Man fashion, he pleased himself by
becoming Hester's shadow during the remainder of the evening, though he
was not allowed to monopolize her--far from it. He had to content
himself with scraps of conversation, for every man in the room wanted to
be presented and each found her so diverting and original that there was
constantly a little crowd about her, while in the intervals of the music
peals of merry laughter came from her corner of the room.

Julie, who was holding a little court of her own, could hear her and
rejoice, and she was especially glad that this should be so when later
in the evening Miss Ware, escorted by her brother, entered the room. She
recognized the girls and was conscious of their success five minutes
after her arrival and there was within her something like envy of Mrs.
Lennox who had been the first to take into the elect these social
renegades.

As for Dr. Ware, he threw himself with enthusiasm into the gayety of
Hester's corner, vying with the younger men in jests and laughter. Later
he sauntered down the room, stopping on the way to chat with this person
and that, and sought out Julie, who, though she greeted him so smilingly
seemed to him suddenly remote. It was as if she had slipped away into a
younger world than his and an indefinable sensation awoke within him,
filling him with unrest. Partly because of this and partly because the
pleasure in her evident pleasure was so great, he lingered near her,
giving her that quiet, unobtrusive attention which his old friendship
warranted. And Julie liked to have him near. She was glad that he smiled
so approvingly upon her, happy that this little frivolity was given the
additional delight of his presence. For it was all delightfully
frivolous and gay, though Julie's excitement and animation were
naturally somewhat tempered by her headgear, especially as every now and
then when she forgot herself and nodded her head emphatically over
something, Hester would give her a warning glance. Poor Julie! the
"proud and haughty" tilt became very trying, but it _was_ distinguished
and caused Mr. Lennox, who was most critical, likewise somewhat horsey,
to confide to his wife afterward that she was a thoroughbred.

"I hope you'll have them often," he said, when the last guest had
departed and they had settled down before the library fire to talk it
over. "After the cut-and-dried young people one usually meets they are
perfectly refreshing. I had a long talk with the blonde one--is she
Julie?--during supper about Arizona. Found myself telling her all about
my irrigation schemes out there. Fancy finding a young girl who
understands such things! She knows that country well and gave me an idea
or two worth considering."

"I should like to have them often, John, but they won't come. Their work
engrosses them to the exclusion of everything; it has to be so--they
need all their strength to get through the days. I understand it
perfectly. Did you notice how people were all in a flutter about them? I
fancy I have given Radnor something to talk about!"

"Oh! well, that is not unusual. Do you mean to say people have cut them?
It seems incredible in these enlightened days."

"It is true, nevertheless, though Julie told me the other day that their
customers were showing the kindest possible interest in their work and
encouraging them by renewed orders; that every one showed them courtesy
and consideration in a business way, but I happen to know, though she
did not say so, that there it stops. The line is distinctly drawn. None
of the daughters of those women show any inclination to renew their
acquaintance with the girls, though many of them were their playfellows
years ago."

"Well, they're a disgrace to their sex, that is all I've got to
say--I've no patience with that sort of thing!" Mr. Lennox put down a
half-smoked cigar and pushed back his chair. "They were the success of
the evening, Mabel, and I am proud to know them. It strikes me," slyly,
"there were others who succumbed to their fascinations. Landor, for
instance, and Dr. Ware--"

"Oh, he is their father's oldest friend."

"And Renshawe, who displayed surprising interest in Arizona when he
found us talking about it. Have you ever known him to care a hang about
Arizona before?"

"No," laughed his wife, "but Sidney Renshawe always rises to the
occasion when he is interested. Principally it is Virginia he talks
about now. By the way, he is expecting Monsieur Grémond back from
California any day. Did you know?"

"I was glad to have a chance to speak to her of her father, too," said
Mr. Lennox, who apparently had not heeded his wife's last remarks. "I
knew Mr. Dale somewhat at the club and regretted his collapse as we all
did. She had such a pretty proud look when I spoke of him, as if I
couldn't say too much. I felt as if I would like to take her off to some
quiet corner and talk to her by the hour together."

"So you shall, my dear. Together we will lay siege and capture them
again. I should like to give a dinner for them soon.

"Oh! ask them informally when we are not entertaining," remonstrated her
husband who evidently desired to monopolize them.

"Very well, dear, and if it pleases you to watch Julie's eloquent
face--and I assure you Hester's is equally so--Mr. Dale shall be the
chief topic of conversation. I never knew him, but it is a great deal to
know his daughters, John."

Which sentiment being shared by the master of the house the mistress
called the midnight session off and they went upstairs.




CHAPTER XIV


It was a dismal rainy afternoon, and the work of the day having been
finished early the girls were ensconced in their little sitting-room
reveling in a well-earned rest. By the way of unusual dissipation a
teakettle was hissing on the table, while the freshly filled sugar bowl
and bits of lemon told of preparations for the cup that cheers.
Stretched out at full length on the floor lay Hester in her favorite
attitude. At her feet sprawled Peter Snooks, chewing frantically at a
piece of rubber tire which was at once his solace and despair, defying
as it did his most strenuous efforts to tear it to bits. Julie, who had
donned a negligé and shaken the pins out of her curly hair, was buried
in a book, yet with one ear alert lest her father in the adjoining room
should stir and want something. Bridget, remarkable to relate, had taken
an afternoon out.

Presently Julie dropped her book and curling herself into the depths of
the chair was dozing off when Hester said abruptly, "There's a stranger
coming!"

Julie started up and gazed about as if expecting some one to loom up
before her.

"There is," reiterated Hester.

"Is what?" sleepily.

"A stranger coming."

"How do you know?"

"My nose itches," announced the younger Dale, rubbing the tip of that
saucy feature.

"Nonsense! That's an old granny's reason."

"Can't help it if it is. There is only one alternative and that is to
kiss a fool. You would not exactly class yourself in that category,
would you?" turning on her elbow to look at her sister. "Of course if
you insist--" and Hester leaned toward her.

Julie gave her a push. "You idiot! go kiss yourself in a mirror." But
the doorbell rang.

Julie bounced from her chair and fled down the hall. Hester stifled her
desire to laugh and opened the door on a tall, well-built man who stared
as he beheld her.

"Why--this is Mr. Renshawe, is it not?" the girl said with perfect
composure though inwardly amazed at seeing him. "Won't you come in?"

"How do you do--thanks--I--that is--" he stammered helplessly.

"You wish to see my sister, of course," ushering him in. "We did not
meet the other night at Mrs. Lennox's, did we? but you see I heard about
you afterward. I'll go and call my sister."

"Oh! no, don't, please, I beg of you. I must apologize for this
impertinent intrusion--I've made some abominable mistake!" In the hand
in which he was nervously twisting his hat, Hester caught a glimpse of
one of their business cards and in a flash the whole purport of his
visit was made clear to her.

"I do not think it is a mistake," she said naturally. "I imagine you
have come to see us on business, have you not? Won't you sit down, Mr.
Renshawe?"

"Oh, may I? Thanks. Do you do business?" he gasped incredulously,
glancing from the piquant girl about the pretty room where no suggestion
of anything like work was visible.

"Yes," replied Hester, "all kinds of fancy cooking. Possibly you've seen
our cards," she suggested in a desire to help him out.

He produced the one in his hand with the air of a guilty culprit. "Yes,
I have," he confessed. "It was given me this afternoon by the manager of
Heath & Co. He knows I give a good many bachelor parties in my chambers
and recommended these things. But Miss Dale," he protested, "I had no
idea it was you and your sister--it never occurred to me."

"Why should it?" asked Hester, "but it is, just the same, and we shall
be very glad to fill your order." She went to a desk and brought forth a
pad and pencil in a business-like manner.

He sat watching her with a puzzled, utterly perplexed expression drawing
his eye-brows together. Suddenly as she returned to her chair opposite
him he cried,

"By Jove! I know now, exactly--that's just who you are!" looking into
her face with evident relief.

Hester wanted to laugh and say "Is it?" to this ambiguous remark but
having assumed her formal business manner she maintained a discreet
silence and waited for him to explain.

"You are little Miss Driscoe's cousin!" he announced.

"Are you the Radnor man who has been visiting at the Blake's
plantation?" cried Hester impulsively, forgetting in her excitement that
he was to be kept on a strictly business footing.

"I shouldn't wonder," was his smiling reply. "I've been there several
times this past winter; in fact I came up from there only last week."

"Oh! did you? Long ago Nannie wrote us that there had been a Radnor man
at her birthday party but she quite forgot to mention his name. Oh! I
wish Julie had known this the other night! She would have loved a chance
to ask you all about the Driscoes. Isn't Nannie the dearest little
thing?"

"If I hadn't been a duffer, Miss Dale, I might have placed your sister
immediately when I met her, for I have had the minutest descriptions of
you both, I assure you. There was something very baffling about her that
night, as if I must have known her or at least seen her before
somewhere, but--"

"But you did not expect to see us in society, perhaps?"

He glanced at her as if the better to understand if her tone were
cynical, but her bland little smile told him nothing and before he could
make any reply she said:

"I am afraid we have strayed too far from important things, Mr.
Renshawe. It is shocking of me to encroach upon your time. Is there
anything we can do for you in a business way?" She told Julie afterward
she was quite proud of this little speech, for she had been consumed
with a desire to ask him a thousand questions about the Driscoes.

Renshawe interpreted it to mean that the chat was at an end and he
feared that in some clumsy way he had offended her, but she steered him
into a discussion of the order he had come to leave with such a calm
matter-of-fact air that he found himself consulting her about salads and
cakes with an ease he would not have believed possible when he entered
the room. He had never been brought into business relations with a young
girl of her position and he admired exceedingly her manner. The order
having been arranged quite to his satisfaction he dismissed the subject
and made up his mind to have his say in spite of the cue Hester had
given him. So as he rose to leave he said:

"I hope you will forgive me, Miss Dale, if I tell you I feel quite as if
I knew you and your sister and I am immensely glad to meet you. You see
the Blakes took me frequently to Wavertree Hall and Miss Nannie spoke of
you so often; she--"

"Dear little Nan," the girl said musingly, "how I should love to see
her!"

The man looked as if he would like to echo that sentiment, but he only
said as he moved toward the door:

"Will you be very kind, Miss Dale, and let Mrs. Lennox bring me some
time to see you and your sister? I have so many messages from Virginia,
for Miss Nannie was confident I should meet you and you see she was
right."

"Indeed you may come," said Hester frankly, "we--we do not receive many
visitors, but I know Julie will be glad to see you--I shall too,"
genuinely, and not as if politeness prompted this after-thought.

"Thank you. For the next few weeks I am owned body and soul," smiling,
"by Jules Grémond who is stopping with me. Perhaps you know of him, Miss
Dale? He's made considerable of a stir since he came out of Africa. An
old chum of mine whom I think you might enjoy meeting--perhaps after
awhile you will allow me to arrange it."

Hester always says she acted like a fool at this juncture and stammered
out some unintelligible reply, and that he immediately departed, she
thinks without any special consciousness of her idiocy--or at least she
hopes so, for she frankly confesses she was in no state of mind to know.
However that may be, the door had no sooner closed after him than the
dignified junior Dale, caterer, became metamorphosed into an excited
young girl who flew down the hall to the room where her sister had taken
refuge.

"Come back to the sitting-room where we can talk without waking Daddy,
quick!" she cried, pulling Julie down the hall. "Now what do you
suppose?" when they had reached the little room.

"Some one has left an extra fine order," seeing several pieces of paper
clutched nervously in Hester's hand.

"Don't be so everlastingly material!" pinning the papers with a vicious
stab to the back of the chair. "It has nothing to do with work,
whatever--that is not exactly. Oh! do guess who has been here--and who
_is_ here?"

"Hester, are you hiding some one to surprise me?" looking eagerly about.
"I know it is a man--I heard him. It can't be Dr. Ware; it wasn't his
step. It's--it's--oh! Hester Dale, is it cousin Driscoe?"

"You're getting hot," cried Hester encouragingly, reveling in her
sister's excited curiosity.

"Tell me this minute," demanded Julie, shaking her. "What other man
would be coming here?"

"Well, there _are_ others," laughed Hester, teasingly. "Mr. Renshawe,
for instance."

"No!"

"Honor bright! And who do you suppose he is?" mysteriously.

"Don't be so tantalizing! What on earth do I know about him?"
wrathfully.

"Well, you ought to. He hung around you the whole evening at Mrs.
Lennox's, you know he did. I simply wasn't in it. I don't believe he
even knew I was there!"

"You idiot! I had no personal talk with him whatever. As for you, you
flirted shockingly with Mr. Landor. I was astonished at you!" severely.

"I _was_ nice to him, wasn't I?" admitted Hester, "but that was all for
Jessie Davis' benefit."

"So I thought, you depraved wretch! Will you kindly tell me what all
this has to do with your present excitement?"

Hester sat on the edge of her chair and delivered her next speech in
italics.

"Mr. Renshawe is the man who went to Nannie's party and got the ring in
her birthday cake!"

"Not really!"

"And he came here not knowing who we really were, because the manager at
Heath's gave him one of our cards and recommended us as caterers. You
ought to have seen him, Julie! He was embarrassed almost to death and I
felt flustered myself, to say the least, but we managed to get through
the business part nicely and then at the end he just floored me!"

"Hester!" Words other than ejaculations seemed to have failed Julie.

The younger girl came over and stood in front of her to get the full
effect of her next speech, the most important piece of news, which she
had had hard work to keep until the last.

"Jules Grémond is in this country, staying with Mr. Renshawe now," she
said.

Julie was rendered wholly inarticulate, but the color spread in a
crimson wave over her face and she made a grab at her sister, pulling
her down beside her.

"You are guying me!" she cried when she could speak.

"It is the solemn truth; 'cross my heart, hope to die,'" maintained
Hester dramatically. "Moreover the things Mr. Renshawe has ordered are
for a tea he is giving for Monsieur Grémond to-morrow and the Fates
decree that we shall tickle the palate of the distinguished African
explorer with sandwiches and things! Oh! Julie, what a funny world!"

"How do you know he is distinguished?" asked Julie, clasping her hands
behind her head that her nervous fingers might not betray her.

"Because I do. Mr. Renshawe as much as said so. I wouldn't have believed
he had it in him, would you?"

"I don't know; we really hardly knew him well enough to judge."

"Umph! I don't know about that. What do you suppose he is doing here,
Julie? Do you think he'll look us up?" hesitatingly.

"Of course not," with more asperity than the innocent questions seemed
to justify. "He will never dream of our being in Radnor. You know we had
been some weeks at the hotel in Los Angeles when he came, and for all he
knew we might have been going to spend the rest of our days there.
Probably he has ceased to remember that we exist--a man would find his
_affaires du coeur_ rather clumsy baggage in the wilds of Africa!"

"If he carried them all, yes. One or two might be consoling," suggested
Hester airily.

"Oh! bother Jules Grémond! I don't want to think of him! He belongs to a
life that is past!"

"Well, it is queer, anyway," insisted Hester, "and I want to scream with
laughter when I think of a divinity like you--didn't he call you a
divinity, Julie?--coming down from your pedestal to cater for his serene
highness, the one and only Jules Grémond!"

There was something so inimitable about Hester's manner coupled with the
graphic picture she drew that Julie went off into a paroxysm of laughter
that ended in hysterical sobbing which Hester put an end to by shaking
her vigorously.

"You are so funny," said Julie faintly, wiping her eyes. "You are almost
as funny as the situation!" and then she buried her face in Hester's arm
and laughed again.

"Shut up!" said Hester with more force than elegance for she was getting
frightened at Julie's unusual behavior. "Stop this minute or you'll go
all to pieces and besides, I've an awful confession to make!"

"Oh! not anything more," protested Julie, leaning back exhausted. "My
dear, don't! Another shock will certainly be the death of me!"
piteously.

"Well I'll die if I don't get it off my conscience, so there you are!"
cried Hester, thumping down in Julie's lap and beginning to finger the
hair that strayed in little curls about her temples.

"Go on," resignedly from Julie.

"Playing with your hair? I know you love to have me do it so you need
not put on such a martyred air."

"Go on with your confession, you goose!"

"Well, I told Mr. Renshawe he might come to call on us. You see he asked
if we would let Mrs. Lennox bring him and he was so nice I couldn't
refuse."

An amused smile crept into Julie's eyes. "I thought we had nothing in
common with men whatever--that they did not fit into the present scheme
of things--that we had no use for them in the life we live! _Wasn't_ it
some such explosive theory you expounded to me ages ago?" she asked
teasingly.

"It is true, you know it is," pulling Julie's curls to emphasize her
words, "but I did it for Nannie's sake. I know he is just dying to come
here and talk about her."

"You mean you are just dying to have him! So am I, for the matter of
that. Won't it be nice to hear all about them?"

"Do you know something?" said Hester who had a trick of beginning a
speech with a question, "I believe he is in love with her!"

"What gave you that idea, you precocious infant?"

"Oh! nothing special, only the way he looked when her name was mentioned
and his wanting to come here to talk about her--there is no other
possible reason why he should want to come--and he got the ring in her
cake you know. Wouldn't it be romantic if she married him?"

"Hester Dale! The way you allow your imagination to run riot is
something perfectly fearful! You put one and one together and make a
thousand things! I never saw such a girl!"

"You are not cross, are you, Julie? You don't think I did wrong to say
he might come?"

"Of course not, you baby, I think you did perfectly right. Now go and
make me a cup of tea if the kettle has not boiled dry. We need a brace
after all this excitement."

Hester busied herself with the tea things and Julie sat staring at her,
wrapt in thought. If Hester was conscious of this preoccupation she gave
no sign, but hummed a gay tune and talked to Peter Snooks, who came and
sat pressed close to her knees in true dog fashion.

"Do you know, Peter Snooks," she said speculatively, "we have one very
important feature in common--our noses." At this he thrust his up in her
lap. "Yes," she continued, patting him, "we have. Yours denotes your
state of health--mine the arrival of a stranger within our gates. A
certain proud and haughty person jeers at mine but you know how it is,
don't you, old man?"

The dog pawed her lap by way of showing that he understood perfectly and
with his big eloquent eyes fixed on the sugar bowl, thrust out his
tongue suggestively.

"What! is that sensitive too! Oh! you scalawag!" and she tossed him a
lump of sugar.

This conversation had stolen in through Julie's reverie and she pulled
up her chair and leaned over to her sister as she took her cup of tea.

"I dare say I did jeer at that saucy nose of yours," she began, "but in
token of my future awe and respect I am going to kiss it now," suiting
the action to the words. "It may be a precaution against its owner's
kissing me as an alternative in the next emergency! Peter Snooks, I call
upon you to witness that I hereto set my seal," with another kiss,
"having at this moment solemnly declared that I consider the aforesaid
feature infallible."




CHAPTER XV


Radnor society was all agog over the second appearance of Monsieur
Grémond, and no sooner was his coming made known than Renshawe was
fairly deluged with invitations for his guest.

Miss Ware took that occasion to give a big reception to which
magnanimously, "those Dale girls" were invited. This was the only
outcome of the after breakfast talk many weeks before with her brother.
To tell the truth, the interest in them kindled at the moment by his
enthusiasm, waned, and she never arranged the little party for which he
had told her she had such a talent. Not that she altogether meant to
waive her promise; she compromised with 

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