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The Seven Darlings

by Gouverneur Morris · English · Gutenberg #43977 · 357,790 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: The Seven Darlings

Author: Gouverneur Morris

Illustrator: Howard Chandler Christy


        
Release date: October 19, 2013 [eBook #43977]
                Most recently updated: October 23, 2024

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SEVEN DARLINGS ***

THE SEVEN DARLINGS




[Illustration: She stood stock-still, in plain view if they had looked
her way]




THE
SEVEN DARLINGS

       *       *       *       *       *

BY GOUVERNEUR MORRIS

       *       *       *       *       *


[Illustration]


With Frontispiece
By HOWARD CHANDLER CHRISTY

       *       *       *       *       *

A. L. BURT COMPANY
Publishers
New York
Published by Arrangements with CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS




COPYRIGHT, 1915, BY
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS




TO
HOPE DAVIS




THE SEVEN DARLINGS




I


Six of the Darlings were girls. The seventh was a young man who looked
like Galahad and took exquisite photographs. Their father had died
within the month, and Mr. Gilpin, the lawyer, had just faced them, in
family assembled, with the lamentable fact that they, who had been so
very, very rich, were now astonishingly poor.

"My dears," he said, "your poor father made a dreadful botch of his
affairs. I cannot understand how some men----"

"Please!" said Mary, who was the oldest. "It can't be any satisfaction
to know why we are poor. Tell us just how poor we are, and we'll make
the best of it. I understand that The Camp isn't involved in the general
wreck."

"It isn't," said Mr. Gilpin, "but you will have to sell it, or at least,
rent it. Outside The Camp, when all the estate debts are paid, there
will be thirty or forty thousand dollars to be divided among you."

"In other words--_nothing_," said Mary; "I have known my father to spend
more in a month."

"Income--" began Mr. Gilpin.

"_Dear_ Mr. Gilpin," said Gay, who was the youngest by twenty minutes;
"don't."

"Forty thousand dollars," said Mary, "at four per cent is sixteen
hundred. Sixteen hundred divided by seven is how much?"

"Nothing," said Gay promptly. And all the family laughed, except Arthur,
who was trying to balance a quill pen on his thumb.

"I might," said Mr. Gilpin helplessly, "be able to get you five per cent
or even five and a half."

"You forget," said Maud, the second in age, and by some thought the
first in beauty, "that we are father's children. Do you think _he_ ever
troubled his head about five and a half per cent, or even," she finished
mischievously, "six?"

Arthur, having succeeded in balancing the quill for a few moments, laid
it down and entered the discussion.

"What has been decided?" he asked. His voice was very gentle and
uninterested.

"It's an awful pity mamma isn't in a position to help us," said Eve.

Eve was the third. After her, Arthur had been born; and then, all on a
bright summer's morning, the triplets, Lee, Phyllis, and Gay.

"That old scalawag mamma married," said Lee, "spends all her money on
his old hunting trips."

"Where is the princess at the moment?" asked Mr. Gilpin.

"They're in Somaliland," said Lee. "They almost took me. If they had, I
shouldn't have called Oducalchi an old scalawag. You know the most
dismal thing, when mamma and papa separated and _she_ married _him_, was
his turning out to be a regular old-fashioned brick. He can throw a fly
yards further and lighter than any man _I_ ever saw."

"And if you are bored," said Phyllis, "you say to him, 'Say something
funny, Prince,' and he always can, instantly, without hesitation."

"All things considered," said Gay, "mamma's been a very lucky girl."

"Still," said Mary, "the fact remains that she's in no position to
support us in the lap of luxury."

"Our kid brother," said Gay, "the future Prince Oducalchi, will need all
she's got. When you realize that that child will have something like
fifty acres of slate roofs to keep in order, it sets you thinking."

"One thing I insist on," said Maud, "mamma shan't be bothered by a lot
of hard-luck stories----"

"Did it ever occur to you, Mr. Gilpin," said Arthur, in his gentle
voice, "that my sisters are the six sandiest and most beautiful girls in
the world? I've been watching them out of the corner of my eye, and
wishing to heaven that I were Romney or Gainsborough. I'd give a million
dollars, if I had them, for their six profiles, immortally painted in a
row. But nowadays if a boy has the impulse to be a painter, he is given
a camera; or if he wishes to be a musician, he is presented with a
pianola. Luxury is the executioner of art. Personally I am so glad that
I am going to be poor that I don't know what to do."

"Aren't you sorry for us, Artie?" asked Gay.

"Very," said he; "and I don't like to be called Artie."

       *       *       *       *       *

Immediately after their father's funeral the Darlings had hurried off to
their camp on New Moon Lake. An Adirondack "camp" has much in common
with a Newport "cottage." The Darlings' was no exception. There was
nothing camp-like about it except its situation and the rough bark
slats with which the sides of its buildings were covered. There were
very many buildings. There was Darling House, in which the family had
their sleeping-rooms and bathrooms and dressing-rooms. There was Guide's
House, where the guides, engineers, and handy men slept and cooked, and
loafed in rainy weather. A passageway, roofed but open at the sides, led
from Darling House to Dining House--one vast room, in the midst of which
an oval table which could be extended to seat twenty was almost lost.
Heads of moose, caribou, and elk (not "caught" in the Adirondacks)
looked down from the walls. Another room equally large adjoined this. It
contained tables covered with periodicals; two grand pianos (so that
Mary and Arthur could play duets without "bumping"); many deep and easy
chairs, and a fireplace so large that when it was half filled with
roaring logs it looked like the gates of hell, and was so called.

Pantry House and Bar House led from Dining House to Smoke House, where
an olive-faced chef, all in white, was surrounded by burnished copper
and a wonderful collection of blue and white.

There was Work House with its bench, forge, and lathe for working wood
and iron; Power House adjoining; and on the slopes of the mountain back
of the camp, Spring House, from which water, ice-cold, at high pressure
descended to circulate in the elaborate plumbing of the camp.

For guests, there were little houses apart--Rest House, two
sleeping-rooms, a bath and a sitting-room; Lone House, in which one
person could sleep, keep clean, write letters, or bask on a tiny balcony
thrust out between the stems of two pine-trees and overhanging deep
water; Bachelor House, to accommodate six of that questionable species.
And placed here and there among pines that had escaped the attacks of
nature and the greed of man were half a dozen other diminutive houses,
accommodating from two to four persons.

The Camp was laid out like a little village. It had its streets, paved
with pine-needles, its street lamps.

It had grown from simple beginnings with the Darling fortune; with the
passing of this, it remained, in all its vast and intricate elaboration,
like a white elephant upon the family's hands. From time to time they
had tried the effect of giving the place a name, but had always come
back to "The Camp." As such it was known the length and breadth of the
North Woods. It was _The_ Camp, par excellence, in a region devoted to
camps and camping.

"Other people," the late Mr. Darling once remarked, "have more land, but
nobody else has quite as much camp."

The property itself consisted of a long, narrow peninsula thrust far out
into New Moon Lake, with half a mountain rising from its base. With the
exception of a small village at the outlet of the lake, all the
remaining lands belonged to the State, and since the State had no
immediate use for them and since the average two weeks' campers could
not get at them without much portage and expense, they were regarded by
the Darlings as their own private preserves.

"The Camp," said Mr. Gilpin, "is, of course, a big asset. It is unique,
and it is celebrated, at least among the people who might have the means
to purchase it and open it. You could ask, and in time, I think, get a
very large price."

They were gathered in the playroom. Mary, very tall and beautiful, was
standing with her back to the fireplace.

"Mr. Gilpin," she said, "I have been coming to The Camp off and on for
twenty-eight years. I will never consent to its being sold."

"Nor I," said Maud. "Though I've only been coming for twenty-six."

"In twenty-four years," said Eve, "I have formed an attachment to the
place which nothing can break."

"Arthur," appealed Mr. Gilpin, "perhaps you have some sense."

"I?" said Arthur. "Why? Twenty-two years ago I was born here."

"Good old Arthur!" exclaimed the triplets. "We were born here, too--just
nineteen years ago."

"But," objected Mr. Gilpin, "you can't run the place--you can't live
here. Confound it, you young geese, you can't even pay the taxes."

Lee whispered to Gay.

"Look at Mary!"

"Why?"

"She's got a look of father in her eyes--father going down to Wall
Street to raise Cain."

Mary spoke very slowly.

"Mr. Gilpin," she said, "you are an excellent estate lawyer, and I am
very fond of you. But you know nothing about finance. We are going to
live here whenever we please. We are going to run it wide open, as
father did. We are even going to pay the taxes."

Mr. Gilpin was exasperated.

"Then you'll have to take boarders," he flung at her.

"Exactly," said Mary.

There was a short silence.

"How do you know," said Gay, "that they won't pick their teeth in
public? I couldn't stand that."

"They won't be that kind," said Mary grimly. "And they will be so busy
paying their bills that they won't have time."

"Seriously," said Arthur, "are you going to turn The Camp into an inn?"

"No," said Mary, "not into an inn. It has always been _The_ Camp. We
shall turn it into _The_ Inn."




II


Mr. Gilpin had departed in what had perhaps been the late Mr. Darling's
last extravagant purchase, a motor-boat which at rest was a streak of
polished mahogany, and at full speed, a streak of foam. The reluctant
lawyer carried with him instructions to collect as much cash as possible
and place it to the credit of the equally reluctant Arthur Darling.

"Arthur," Mary had agreed, "is perhaps the only one of us who could be
made to understand that a bank account in his name is not necessarily at
his own personal disposal. Arthur is altruistically and Don Quixotically
honest."

It was necessary to warm the playroom with a tremendous fire, as October
had changed suddenly from autumn to winter. There was a gusty grayness
in the heavens that promised flurries of snow.

Since Mary's proposal of the day before to turn the expensive camp into
a profitable inn, the family had talked of little else, and a number of
ways and means had already been chosen from the innumerable ones
proposed. In almost every instance Arthur had found himself an amused
minority. His platform had been: "Make them comfortable at a fair
price."

But Mary, who knew the world, had retorted:

"We are not appealing to people who consider what they pay but to people
who only consider what they get. Make them luxurious; and they will pay
anything we choose to ask."

After Mr. Gilpin's chillsome departure in the _Streak_, the family
resumed the discussion in front of the great fire in the playroom. Wow,
the dog, who had been running a deer for twenty-four hours in defiance
of all game-laws, was present in the flesh, but his weary spirit was in
the land of dreams, as an occasional barking and bristling of his mane
testified. Uncas, the chipmunk, had also demanded and received
admittance to the council. For a time he had sat on Arthur's shoulder,
puffing his cheeks with inconceivable rapidity, then, soporifically
inclined by the warmth of the fire and the constant strain incident to
his attempts to understand the ins and outs of the English language when
rapidly and even slangily spoken, he dropped into Arthur's breast-pocket
and went to sleep.

Arthur sighed. He was feeling immensely fidgety; but he knew that any
sudden, irritable shifting of position would disturb the slumbers of
Uncas, and so for nearly an hour he held himself heroically, almost
uncannily, still.

Two years ago, dating from his graduation, Arthur had had a change of
heart. He had been so dissipated as to give his family cause for the
utmost anxiety. He had squandered money with both hands. He had had a
regular time for lighting a cigarette, namely, when the one which he had
been smoking was ready to be thrown away. He had been a keen hunter and
fisherman. His chief use for domestic animals was to tease them and play
tricks upon them. Then suddenly, out of this murky sky, had shone the
clear light of all his subsequent behavior. He neither drank nor smoked;
he neither slaughtered deer nor caught fish. He was never quarrelsome.
He went much into the woods to photograph and observe. He became almost
too quiet and self-effacing for a young man. He asked nothing of the
world--not even to be let alone. He was patient under the fiendish
ministrations of bores. He tamed birds and animals, spoiling them, as
grandparents spoil grandchildren, until they gave him no peace, and were
always running to him at inconvenient times because they were hungry,
because they were sleepy, because they thought somebody had been
abusing them, or because they wished to be tickled and amused.

"He's like a peaceful lake," Maud had once said, "deep in the woods,
where the wind never blows," and Eve had nodded and said: "True. And
there's a woman at the bottom of it."

The sisters all believed that Arthur's change of heart could be traced
to a woman. They differed only as to the kind.

"One of our kind," Mary thought, "who wouldn't have him."

"One of our kind," thought Maud, "who couldn't have him."

And the triplets thought differently every day. All except Gay, who
happened to know.

"But," said Maud, "if we are to appeal to people of our own class, all
mamma's and papa's old friends and our own will come to us, and that
will be much, too much, like charity."

"Right," said Mary. "Don't tell _me_ I haven't thought of that. I have.
Applications from old friends will be politely refused."

"We can say," said Eve, "that we are very sorry, but every room is
taken."

"But suppose they aren't?" objected Arthur.

Eve retorted sharply.

"What is that to do with it? We are running a business, not a Bible
class."

But Phyllis was pulling a long face.

"Aren't we ever to see any of our old friends any more?"

Lee and Gay nudged each other and began to tease her.

"Dearest Pill," they said, "all will yet be well. There is more than one
Geoffrey Plantagenet in the world. You shall have the pick of all the
handsome strangers."

"Oh, come, now!" said Arthur, "Phyllis is right. Now and then we must
have guests--who don't pay."

"Not until we can afford them," said Mary. "Has anybody seen the
sketch-map that papa made of the buildings?"

"I know where it is," said Arthur, "but I can't get it now; because Wow
needs my feet for a pillow and at the moment Uncas is very sound
asleep."

"Can't you _tell_ us where it is?"

"Certainly," he said; "it's in the safe. The safe is locked."

"And where is the key?"

"Just under Uncas."

"Very well, then," said Mary, "important business must wait until
Stripes wakes up. Meanwhile, I think we ought to make up our minds how
and how much to advertise."

"There are papers," said Eve, "that all wealthy Americans always see,
and then there's that English paper with all the wonderful
advertisements of country places for sale or to let. I vote for a
full-page ad in that. People will say, 'Jove, this must be a wonderful
proposition if it pays 'em to advertise it in an English paper.'"

Everybody agreed with Eve except Arthur. He merely smiled with and at
her.

"We can say," said Eve, "shooting and fishing over a hundred thousand
acres. Does the State own as much as that, Arthur?"

He nodded, knowing the futility of arguing with the feminine conscience.

"Two hundred thousand?"

He nodded again.

"Then," said Eve, "make a note of this, somebody." Maud went to the
writing-table. "Shooting and fishing over hundreds of thousands of
acres."

"There must be pictures," said Maud, "in the text of the ad--the place
is full of them; and if they won't do, Arthur can take others--when Wow
and Uncas wake up."

"There must be that picture after the opening of the season," said Mary,
"the year the party got nine bucks--somebody make a point of finding
that picture."

"There are some good strings of trout and bass photographically
preserved," said Gay.

"A picture of chef in his kitchen will appeal," said Lee.

"So will interiors," said Maud. "Bedrooms with vistas of plumbing. Let's
be honestly grateful to papa for all the money he spent on porcelain and
silver plate."

"Oh, come," said Mary, "we must advertise in the American papers, too. I
think we should spend a good many thousand dollars. And of course we
must do away with the big table in the dining-house and substitute
little tables. I propose that we ransack the place for photographs, and
that Maud try her hand at composing full-page ads. And, Arthur, please
don't forget the sketch plan of the buildings--we'll have to make quite
a lot of alterations."

"I've thought of something," said Maud. "Just a line. Part of the ad, of
course, mentions prices. Now I think if we say prices from so and so
up--it looks cheap and commonplace. At the bottom of the ad, then, after
we've described all the domestic comforts of The Camp and its sporting
opportunities, let's see if we can't catch the _clientèle_ we are after
with this:

  "'PRICES RATHER HIGH.'"

"Maud," said Mary, after swift thought, "your mind is as clear as a gem.
Just think how that line would have appealed to papa if he'd been
looking into summer or winter resorts. Make a note of it-- What are you
two whispering about?"

Lee and Gay looked up guiltily. They had not only been whispering but
giggling. They said: "Nothing. Absolutely nothing."

But presently they put on sweaters and rowed off in a guide boat, so
that they might converse without fear of being observed.

"Sure you've got it?" asked Lee.

"Umm," said Gay, "sure."

They giggled.

"And you think we're not just plain conceited?"

"My dear Lee," said Gay, "Mary, Maud, and Eve are famous for their faces
and their figgers--have been for years, poor old things. Well, in my
candid opinion, you and Phyllis are better-looking in every way. I look
at you two from the cool standpoint of a stranger, and I tell you that
you are incomparably good-looking."

Lee laughed with mischievous delight.

"And you look so exactly like us," she said, "that strangers can't tell
us apart."

"For myself," said Gay demurely, "I claim nothing. Absolutely nothing.
But you and Pill are certainly as beautiful as you are young."

"For the sake of argument, then," said Lee, "let's admit that we six
sisters considered as a collection are somewhat alluring to the eye.
Well--when the mail goes with the ads Maud is making up, we'll go with
it, and make such changes in the choice of photographs as we see fit."

"That won't do," said Gay. "There will be proofs to correct."

"Then we'll wait till the proofs are corrected and sent off."

"Yes. That will be the way. It would be a pity for the whole scheme to
fall through for lack of brains. I suppose the others would never
agree?"

"The girls _might_," said Lee, "but Arthur never. He would rise up like
a lion. You know, deep down in his heart he's a frightful stickler for
the proprieties."

"We shall get ourselves into trouble."

"It will not be the first or the last time. And besides, we can escape
to the woods if necessary, like Bessie Belle and Mary Grey."

"Who were they?"

  "'They were two bonnie lassies.
  They built a house on yon burn brae
  And thecht it o'er wi' rashes.'"




III


If we except Arthur, whose knowledge of the Adirondack woods and waters
was that of a naturalist, Lee and Gay were the sportsmen of the family.
They had begun to learn the arts of fishing and hunting from excellent
masters at the tender age of five. They knew the deeps and shallows of
every lake and brook within many miles as intimately as a good housewife
knows the shelves in her linen closet. They talked in terms of blazes,
snags, spring holes, and runways. Each owned a guide boat, incomparably
light, which she could swing to her shoulders and carry for a quarter of
a mile without blowing. If Lee was the better shot, Gay could throw the
more seductive fly.

There had been a guide in the girls' extreme youth, a Frenchman, Pierre
Amadis de Troissac, who had perhaps begun life as a gentleman. Whatever
his history, he had taught the precious pair the rudiments of French and
the higher mysteries of fishing.

He had made a special study of spring holes, an essential in Adirondack
trout-fishing, and whenever the Darlings wanted trout, it had only been
necessary to tell De Troissac how many they wanted and to wait a few
hours. On those occasions when he went fishing for the larder, Lee and
Gay, two little roly-polies with round, innocent eyes, often accompanied
him. It never occurred to De Troissac that the children could mark down
the exact places from which he took fish, and, one by one and quite
unintentionally, he revealed to them the hard-won secrets of his spring
holes. The knowledge, however, went no further. They would have told
Phyllis, of course, if she had been a sport. But she wasn't. She
resembled Lee and Gay almost exactly in all other ways; but the spirit
of pursuit and capture was left out of her. Twice she had upset a boat
because a newly landed bass had suddenly begun to flop in the bottom of
it, and once, coming accidentally upon a guide in the act of
disembowelling a deer, she had gone into hysterics. She could row, carry
a boat, swim, and find the more travelled trails; but, as Lee and Gay
said: "Pill would starve in the woods directly the season was over."

She couldn't discharge even a twenty-two calibre rifle without shutting
her eyes; she couldn't throw a fly twenty feet without snarling her
leader. The more peaceful arts of out-of-doors had excited her
imagination and latent skill.

In the heart of the woods, back of The Camp, not to be seen or even
suspected until you came suddenly upon it, she had an acre of gardens
under exquisite cultivation, and not a little glass. She specialized in
nectarines, white muscats of Alexandria, new peas, and heaven-blue
larkspur. But, for the sake of others, she grew to perfection beets,
sweet corn, the lilies in variety, and immense Japanese iris.

As The Camp was to be turned into an inn which should serve its guests
with delicious food, Phyllis and her garden became of immense importance
and she began to sit much apart, marking seed catalogues with one end of
a pencil and drumming on her beautiful teeth with the other.

Negotiations had been undertaken with a number of periodicals devoted to
outdoor life, and a hundred schemes for advertising had been boiled down
to one, which even Arthur was willing to let stand. To embody Mary's
ideas of a profitable proposition into a page of advertising without
being too absurd or too "cheap," had proved extremely difficult.

"We will run The Inn," she said, "so that rich people will live very
much as they would if they were doing the running. One big price must
cover all the luxuries of home. We must eliminate all extras--everything
which is a nuisance or a trouble. Except for the trifling fact that we
receive pay for it, we must treat them exactly as papa used to treat his
guests. He gave his guests splendid food of his own ordering. When they
wanted cigars or cigarettes, they helped themselves. There was always
champagne for dinner, but if men preferred whiskey and soda, they told
the butler, and he saw that they got it. What I'm driving at is this:
There must be no difference in price for a guest who drinks champagne
and one who doesn't drink anything. And more important still, we must do
all the laundering without extra charge; guides, guide boats, guns, and
fishing-tackle must be on tap--just as papa had everything for his
guests. The one big price must include absolutely everything."

Added to this general idea, it was further conveyed in the final
advertisement that the shooting was over hundreds of thousands of acres
and the fishing in countless lakes and streams. And the last line of
the ad, as had been previously agreed, was this:

  "PRICES RATHER HIGH."

And, as Gay said to Lee: "If that doesn't fetch 'em--you and I know
something that maybe will."

The full-page ad began and ended with a portrait of Uncas, the chipmunk,
front view, sitting up, his cheeks puffed to the bursting point. The
centre of the page was occupied by a rather large view of The Camp and
many of the charming little buildings which composed it, taken from the
lake. Throughout the text were scattered reproductions--strings of
trout, a black bear, nine deer hanging in a row, and other seductions to
an out-of-door life. For lovers of good food there was a tiny portrait
of the chef and adjoining it a photograph of the largest bunch of white
muscats that had ever matured in Phyllis's vinery.

A few days before the final proofs began to come in from the advertising
managers, there arrived, addressed to Gay, a package from a firm in New
York which makes a specialty of developing and printing photographs for
amateurs. Gay concealed the package, but Lee had noted its existence,
and sighed with relief. A little later she found occasion to take Gay
aside.

"Was the old film all right? Did they print well?"

Gay nodded. "It always was a wonderful picture," she said.

"Us for the tall timber," she said--"when they come out."

The final proofs being corrected and enveloped, Gay and Lee, innocent
and bored of face, announced that, as there was nothing to do, they
thought they would row the mail down to the village. It was a seven-mile
row, but that was nothing out of the ordinary for them and it was
arranged that the _Streak_ should be sent after them in case they showed
signs of being late for lunch.

Gay rowed with leisurely strokes, while Lee, seated in the stern, busied
herself with a pair of scissors and a pot of paste. She was giving the
finally corrected proofs that still more final correcting which she and
Gay had agreed to be necessary.

They had decided that the centrepiece of the advertisement--a mere
general view of The Camp--though very charming in its way, "meant
nothing," and they had made up their unhallowed minds to substitute in
its place one of those "fortunate snap-shots," the film of which Gay
had--happened to preserve.

In this photograph the six Darling sisters were seated in a row, on the
edge of The Camp float. Their feet and ankles were immersed. They wore
black bathing-dresses, exactly alike, and the bathing-dresses were of
rather thin material--and very, very wet.

The six exquisite heads perched on the six exquisite figures proved a
picture which, as Lee and Gay admitted, might cause even a worthy young
man to leave home and mother.

It was not until they were half-way home that Lee suddenly cried aloud
and hid her face in her hands.

"For Heaven's sake," exclaimed Gay, "trim boat, and what's the matter
anyway?"

"Matter?" exclaimed Lee; "that picture of us sits right on top of the
line _Prices Rather High_. And it's too late to do anything about it!"

Gay turned white and then red, and then she burst out laughing. "'Tis
awful," she said, "but it will certainly fetch 'em."




IV


The Camp itself underwent numerous changes during the winter; and even
the strong-hearted Mary was appalled by the amount of money which it had
been found necessary to expend. The playroom would, of course, be
reserved for the use of guests, and a similar though smaller and
inferior room had been thrust out from the west face of Darling House
for the use of the family. Then Maud, who had volunteered to take charge
of all correspondence and accounts, had insisted that an office be built
for her near the dock. This was mostly shelves, a big fireplace, and a
table. Here guests would register upon arrival; here the incoming mail
would be sorted and the outgoing weighed and stamped. It had also been
found necessary, in view of the very large prospective wash, to enlarge
and renovate Laundry House and provide sleeping quarters for a couple of
extra laundresses.

Those who are familiar with the scarcity and reluctance of labor in the
Adirondacks will best understand how these trifling matters bit into the
Darling capital.

Sometimes Mary, who held herself responsible for the possible failure of
the projected inn, could not sleep at night. Suppose that the
advertising, which would cost thousands of dollars, should fall flat?
Suppose that not a single solitary person should even nibble at the high
prices? The Darlings might even find themselves dreadfully in debt. The
Camp would have to go. She suffered from nightmares, which are bad, and
from daymares, which are worse. Then one day, brought across the ice
from the village of Carrytown at the lower end of the lake, she received
the following letter:

  MISS DARLING,
  The Camp, New Moon Lake in the Adirondacks, New York.

     DEAR MADAM:--Yesterday morning, quite by accident, I saw the
     prospectus of your inn on the desk of Mr. Burns, the advertising
     manager of _The Four Seasons_. I note with regret that you are not
     opening until the first of July. Would it not be possible for you
     to receive myself and a party of guests very much earlier, say just
     when the ice has gone out of the lake and the trout are in the warm
     shallows along the shores? Personally, it is my plan to stay on
     with you for the balance of the season, provided, of course, that
     all your accommodations have not been previously taken.

      With regard to prices, I note only that they are "rather high." I
      would suggest that, as it would probably inconvenience you to
      receive guests prior to the date set for the formal opening of
      your camp, you name a rate for three early weeks which would be
      profitable to you. There will be six men in my party, including
      myself.

  Very truly yours,
  SAMUEL LANGHAM.

Mary, her face flushed with the bright colors of triumph, read this
letter aloud to the assembled family.

"Does anybody," she asked, "know anything about Samuel Langham? Is he a
suitable person?"

"I know of him," said Arthur, smiling at some recollection or other. "He
is what the newspapers call a 'well-known clubman.' He is rich, fat,
good-natured, and not old. It is that part of your prospectus which
touches upon the _cuisine_ that has probably affected him. His father
was a large holder of Standard Oil securities."

"As for me," said Gay, "I've seen him. Do you remember, Phyllis, being
asked to a most 'normous dinner dance at the Redburns' the year we came
out? At the last minute you caught cold and wanted to back out, but Mary
said _that_ wasn't done, and so I went in your place, and, as usual,
nobody knew the difference. Well, Mr. Langham was there. I didn't meet
him, but I remember I watched him eat. He is very smug-looking. He
didn't like the champagne. I remember that. He lifted his glass
hopefully, took one swallow, put his glass down, and never touched it
again. His face for the rest of dinner had the expression of one who has
been deeply wronged. I thought of Louis XVI mounting the scaffold."

"I do wish," said Mary, "that we knew what kind of wine the creature
likes."

"Father left a splendid collection," said Arthur. "Take Mr. Langham into
the cellar. He'll enjoy that. Let him pick his own bottle."

In the event, Maud sat down in her new office and wrote Mr. Langham that
he and his five guests could be received earlier in the season. And
then, with fear and trembling, she named a price _per diem_ that
amounted to highway robbery.

Mr. Langham's answer was prompt and cheerful. He asked merely to be
notified when the ice had gone out of the lake.

"Well," said Mary, with a long-drawn sigh of relief, "the prices don't
seem to have frightened him nearly as much as they frightened us. But,
after all, the prospectus was alluring--though we say it that
shouldn't."

Lee and Gay were troubled by qualms of conscience. The advertisements of
The Camp were to appear in the February number of some of the more
important periodicals, and the two scapegraces were beginning to be
horribly alarmed.

Magazines have a way of being received last by those most interested in
seeing them. And before even a copy of _The Four Seasons_ reached the
Darlings, there came a number of letters from people who had already
seen the advertisement in it. One letter was from a very old friend of
the family, and ran as follows:

     MY DEAR MARY:

      How could you! I have seen your advertisement of The Camp in _The
      Four Seasons_. It is earning much talk and criticism. I don't know
      what you could have been thinking of. I have always regarded you
      as one of the sanest and best-bred women I know. But it seems that
      you are not above sacrificing your own dignity to financial
      gain----

"Well, in the name of all that's ridiculous," exclaimed Mary; "of all
that's impertinent!--will somebody kindly tell me what my personality
has to do with our prospectus of The Camp?"

Those who could have told her held their tongues and quaked inwardly.
The others joined in Mary's surprise and indignation. Even Arthur, who
hated the whole innkeeping scheme, was roused out of his ordinary
placidity.

"I shall write to the horrid old woman," said Mary, "and tell her to
mind her own business. I shall also tell her that we are receiving so
many applications for accommodations that we don't know how to choose.
That isn't quite true, of course; but we have received some. Since I am
not above sacrificing my dignity"--she went on angrily--"to financial
gain, I may as well throw a few lies into the bargain."

The next day, addressed to "The Camp," came the long-expected number of
_The Four Seasons_. Arthur opened it and began to turn the leaves.
Presently, from the centre of a page, he saw his six beautiful sisters
looking him in the face.

"Mary!" he called, in such a voice that she came running. She looked and
turned white. Eve came, and Maud and Phyllis.

"Who is responsible for this--" cried Arthur, "for this sickening--this
degraded piece of mischief?"

"You corrected the final proofs yourself," said Maud.

"And sealed them up. If I find that some mischief-maker in the office of
_The Four Seasons_ has been playing tricks----"

"The mischief-makers are to be found nearer home," said Mary. "Don't you
remember that Lee and Gay took the proofs to the post-office. They said
they were bored and could think of nothing to do. _This_ is what they
were thinking of doing!"

"Where are they?" he said in a grim voice.

"Now, Arthur," said Maud, "think before you say anything to them that
you may regret. As for the picture of us in our bathing-suits--well, I,
for one, don't see anything dreadful about it. In fact, I think we look
rather lovely."

Arthur groaned.

"I want to talk to Lee and Gay," he said. "My sisters--an advertisement
in a magazine--for drummers and newsboys to make jokes about----"

He grew white and whiter, until his innocent sisters were thoroughly
frightened. Then he started out of the playroom in search of Lee and
Gay.

In or about The Camp they were not to be found. Nobody had seen them
since breakfast. With this information, he returned to the playroom.

"They've run away," he said, "and I'm going after them."

"I wouldn't," said Mary. "The harm's been done. You can't very well
spank them. I wish you could. You can only scold--and what earthly good
will that do them, or you?"

"I don't know that anything I may say," said Arthur, "_will_ do them any
good. I live in hopes."

"Have you any idea where they've gone?"

"I'll cast about in a big circle and find their tracks."

When Arthur, mittened and snow-shoed, had departed in search of Lee and
Gay, the remaining sisters gathered about the full-page advertisement in
_The Four Seasons_, and passed rapidly from anger to mild hysterics.
Mary was the last to laugh.

And she said: "Girls, I will tell you an awful secret. I never would
have consented to this, but as long as Lee and Gay have gone and done
it, I'm--_glad_."

"The only thing _I_ mind," said Eve, "is Arthur. He'll take it hard."

"We can't help that," said Maud. "Business is business. And this
wretched, shocking piece of mischief spells success. I feel it in my
bones. There's no use being silly about ourselves. We've got our way to
make in the world--and, as a sextet----"

She lingered over the picture.

"As a sextet, there's no use denying that we are rather lovely to look
at."

Phyllis put in a word blindly.

"Maud," she said, "among the applications you have received, how many
are from women?"

Maud laughed aloud.

"None," she said.

"There wouldn't be," said Eve.

"Well," said Mary, "compared to the rest of you, I'm quite an old woman,
and I say--so much the better."




V


Even on going into the open air from a warmed room, it would not have
struck you as a cold day. But thermometers marked a number of degrees
worse than zero. The sky was bright and blue. Not a breath of wind
stirred. In the woods the underbrush was hidden by the smooth
accumulations of snow, so that the going was open.

The Adirondack winter climate is such that a man runs less risk of
getting too cold than of getting too warm. Arthur, moving swiftly in a
great circle so that at some point he should come upon the tracks of his
culprit sisters, shed first his mittens and then his coat. The former he
thrust into his trousers pocket, and he hung the latter to a broken limb
where he could easily find it on his return.

"There would be some sense in running away in summer," he thought. "It
would take an Indian or a dog to track them then, but in winter--I gave
them credit for more sense."

He came upon the outgoing marks of their snow-shoes presently, just
beyond Phyllis's garden, to the north of the camp. In imagination he saw
the two lithe young beauties striding sturdily and tirelessly over the
snow, and then and there the extreme pinnacles of his anger toppled and
fell. There is no occupation to which a maiden may lend herself so
virginal as woodmanship. And he fell to thinking less of his young
sisters' indiscretion than of the extreme and unsophisticated innocence
which had led them into it. What could girls know of men, anyway? What
did his sisters know of him? That he had been extravagant and rather
fast. Had they an inkling of what being rather fast meant? His smooth
forehead contracted with painful thoughts. Even Mary's indignation upon
the discovery of the photograph in _The Four Seasons_ had not matched
his own. She had been angry because she was a gentlewoman, and
gentlewomen shun publicity. She had not even guessed at the degradation
to which broadcast pictures of beautiful women are subjected. His anger
turned from his sisters presently and glowered upon the whole world of
men; his hands closed to strike, and opened to clutch and choke. That
Lee and Gay had done such a thing was earnest only of innocence coupled
with mischief. They must know that what they had done was wrong, since
they had fled from any immediate consequences, but how wrong it was they
could never dream, even in nightmares. Nor was it possible for him to
explain. How, then, could any anger which he might visit upon them
benefit? And who was he, when it came to that, to assume the
unassailable morality of a parent?

It came to this: That Arthur followed the marks of Lee's and Gay's
snow-shoes mechanically, and raged, not against them, not against the
world of men, but against himself. He had said once in jest that many an
artistic impulse had been crushed by the camera and the pianola. But how
pitifully true this had been in his own case! If he had been born into
less indulgence, he might have painted, he might have played. The only
son in a large family of daughters, his father and mother had worshipped
the ground upon which his infant feet had trod. He had never known what
it was to want anything. He had never been allowed to turn a hand to his
own honest advantage. He was the kind of boy who, under less golden
circumstances, would have saved his pocket-money and built with his own
hands a boat or whatever he needed. There is a song: "I want what I want
when I want it." Arthur might have sung: "I get what I'm going to want
and then I don't want it."

His contemporaries had greatly envied him, when, as a mere matter of
justice, they should have pitied him. All his better impulses had been
gnarled by indulgence. He had done things that showed natural ability;
but of what use was that? He was too old now to learn to draw. He played
rather delightfully upon the piano, or any other instrument, for that
matter. To what end? He could not read a note.

There was nothing that Arthur could not have done, if he had been let
alone. There were many things that he would have done.

At college he had seen in one smouldering flash of intuition how badly
he had started in the race of life. When others were admiring his many
brilliancies, he was mourning for the lost years when, under almost any
guidance save that of his beloved father, he might have laid such sturdy
foundations to future achievements--pedestals on which to erect statues.

Self-knowledge had made him hard for a season and cynical. As a tired
sea-gull miscalculates distance and dips his wings into the sea, so
Arthur, when he thought that he was merely flying low the better to see
and to observe, had alighted without much struggling in a pool of
dissipation and vice.

The memory was more of a weariness to him than a sharp regret. Of what
use is remorse--after the fact? Let it come before and all will be well.

At last, more by accident than design, he drew out of the muddy ways
into which he had fallen and limped off--not so much toward better
things as away from worse.

Then it was that Romance had come for him, and carried him on strong
wings upward toward the empyrean.

Even now, she was only twenty. She had married a man more than twice her
age. He had been her guardian, and she had felt that it was her duty.
Her marriage proved desperately unhappy. She and Arthur met, and, as
upon a signal, loved.

For a few weeks of one golden summer, they had known the ethereal bliss
of seeing each other every day. They met as little children, and so
parted. They accepted the law and convention which stood between them,
not as a barrier to be crossed or circumvented but with childlike faith
as a something absolutely impassable--like the space which separates the
earth and the moon.

They remained utterly innocent in thought and deed, merely loved and
longed and renounced so very hard that their poor young hearts almost
broke.

Not so the "old man."

It happened, in the autumn of that year, that he brought his wife to New
York, in whose Wall Street he had intricate interests. He learned that
she was by way of seeing more of Arthur than a girl of eighteen married
to a man of nearly fifty ought to see. He did not at once burst into
coarse abuse of her, but, worldly-wise, set detectives to watch her. He
had, you may say, set his heart upon her guilt. To learn that she was
utterly innocent enraged him. One day he had the following conversation
with a Mr. May, of a private detective bureau:

"You followed them?"

"To the park."

"Well?"

"They bought a bag of peanuts and fed the squirrels."

"Go on."

"Then they rode in a swan-boat. Then they walked up to the reservoir and
around it. Then they came back to the hotel."

"Did they separate in the office?"

"On the sidewalk."

"But last night? She said she was dining with her sister and going to
the play. What did she do last night?"

"She did what she said. Believe me, sir--if I know anything of men and
women, you're paying me to run fool's errands for you. _They_ don't need
any watching."

"You have seen them--kiss?"

"Never."

"Hold hands?"

"I haven't seen any physical demonstration. I guess they like each other
a lot. And that's all there is to it."

But the "old man" made a scene with her, just such a scene as he would
have made if the detective's report had been, in effect, the opposite of
what it was. He assumed that she was guilty; but, for dread of scandal,
he would not seek a divorce. He exacted a promise that she would not see
Arthur, or write to him, or receive letters from him.

Then, having agreed with certain magnates to go out to China upon the
question of a great railroad and a great loan, he carried her off with
him, then and there. So that when Arthur called at the hotel, he was
told that they had gone but that there was a note for him. If it was
from the wife, the husband had dictated it:

     Don't try to see me ever any more. If you do, it will only make my
     life a hell on earth.

That had been the tangible end of Arthur's romance. But the intangible
ends were infinite and not yet. His whole nature had changed. He had
suffered and could no longer bear to inflict pain.

He lifted his head and looked up a little slope of snow. Near the top,
wonderfully rosy and smiling, sat his culprit sisters. He had forgotten
why he had come. He smiled in his sudden embarrassment.

"Don't shoot, colonel," called Gay, "and we'll come down."

"Promise, then," he said, "that you'll never be naughty again."

"We promise," they said.

And they trudged back to camp, with jokes and laughter and three very
sharp appetites.




VI


Beyond seeing to it that the alluring picture of his sisters should not
appear in any future issues of the magazines, Arthur did not refer to
the matter again. The girls, more particularly Lee and Gay, always
attributed the instant success of The Camp to the picture; but it is
sanely possible that an inn run upon such very extravagant principles
was bound to be a success anyway. America is full of people who will pay
anything for the comforts of home with the cares and exasperations left
out.

A majority of the early applications received at The Camp office, and
politely rejected by Maud, were from old friends of the family, who were
eagerly willing to give its fallen finances a boost. But the girls were
determined that their scheme should stand upon its own meritorious feet
or not at all.

       *       *       *       *       *

When Samuel Langham learned that the ice was going out of New Moon Lake,
he wrote that he would arrive at Carrytown at such and such an hour,
and begged that a boat of some sort might be there to meet him. His
guests, he explained, would follow in a few days.

"Dear me," said Maud, "it will be very trying to have him alone--just
like a real guest. If he'd only bring his friends with him, why, they
could entertain him. As it is, we'll have to. Because, even if we are
innkeepers now, we belong to the same station in life that he does, and
he knows it and we know it. I don't see how we can ever have the face to
send in a bill afterward."

"I don't either," said Mary, "but we must."

"I've never pictured him," said Arthur, "as a man who would brave early
spring in the Adirondacks for the sake of a few trout."

"I bet you my first dividend," said Lee, "that his coat is lined with
sable."

It was.

As the _Streak_, which had gone to Carrytown to meet him, slid for the
dock (his luggage was to follow in the _Tortoise_, a fatter, slower
power-boat), there might have been seen standing amidships a tall, stout
gentleman of about thirty-six or more, enveloped in a handsome overcoat
lined with sable.

He wore thick eye-glasses which the swiftness of the _Streak_'s going
had opaqued with icy mist, so that for the moment Mr. Samuel Langham
was blind as a mole. Nevertheless, determined to enjoy whatever the
experience had in store for him, he beamed from right to left, as if a
pair of keen eyes were revealing to him unexpected beauties and
delights.

Arthur, loathing the rôle, was on the float to meet him.

On hearing himself addressed by name, Mr. Samuel Langham removed one of
his fur-lined gloves and thrust forward a plump, well-groomed hand.

"I believe that I am shaking hands with Mr. Darling," he said in a slow,
cultivated voice; "but my glasses are blurred and I cannot see anything.
Is my foot going for the float--or the water?"

"Step boldly," said Arthur; and, in a hurried aside, as he perceived the
corner of a neatly folded greenback protruding between two of Mr.
Langham's still-gloved fingers: "You are not to be subjected to the
annoyance of the tipping system. We pay our servants extra to make the
loss up to them."

Mr. Langham's mouth, which was rather like a Cupid's bow, tightened. And
he handed the greenback to the engineer of the _Streak_, just as if
Arthur's remonstrance had not been spoken. On the way to the office he
explained.

"Whenever I go anywhere," he said, "I find persons in humble situations
who smile at me and wish me well. I smile back and wish them well. It is
because, at some time or other, I have tipped them. To me the system has
never been an annoyance but a delightful opportunity for the exercise of
tact and judgment."

He came to a dead halt, planting his feet firmly.

"I shall be allowed to tip whomsoever I like," he said flatly, "or I
shan't stay."

"Our ambition," said Arthur stiffly, "is to make our guests comfortable.
Our rule against tipping is therefore abolished."

They entered the office. Mr. Langham could now see, having wiped the fog
from his glasses. He saw a lovely girl in black, seated at a table
facing him. Beyond her was a roaring fire of backlogs. Arthur presented
Mr. Langham.

"Are you frozen?" asked Maud. "Too cold to write your name in our
brand-new register?"

He took the pen which she offered him and wrote his name in a large,
clear hand, worthy of John Hancock.

"It's the first name in the book," he said. "It's always been a very
lucky name for me. I hope it will be for you."

Arthur had escaped.

"There is one more formality," said Maud: "breakfast."

"I had a little something in my car," said Mr. Langham; "but if it
wouldn't be too much trouble--er--just a few little eggs and things."

"How would it be," said Maud, "if I took you straight to the kitchen? My
sister Mary presides there, and you shall tell her exactly what you
want, and she will see that you get it."

A rosy blush mounted Mr. Langham's good-natured face.

"Oh," he said, with the deepest sincerity, "if I am to have the _entrée_
to the kitchen, I shall be happy. I will tell you a secret. At my club I
always breakfast in the kitchen. It's against the rules, but I do it. A
friendly chef--beds of glowing charcoal--burnished copper--piping-hot
tidbits."

It was up-hill to Smoke House, and Mr. Langham, in his burdensome
overcoat, grew warm on the way, and was puffing slightly when he got
there.

"Mary," Maud called--"Mr. Langham!"

"The kitchen is the foundation of all domestic happiness," said he. "I
have come to yours as fast as I could. I think--I _know_, that I never
saw a brighter, happier-looking kitchen."

He knew also that he had never seen so beautiful a presiding deity.

"Your sister," he said, "told me that I could have a little breakfast
right here." And he repeated the statement concerning his club kitchen.

"Of course, you can!" said Mary.

"Just a few eggs," he said, "and if there's anything green----"

They called the chef. He was very happy because the season had begun. He
assigned Mr. Langham a seat from which to see and at which to be served,
then with the wrist-and-finger elegance of a prestidigitator, he began
to prepare a few eggs and something green.

"The trout--" Mary began dutifully, as it was for the sake of these that
Mr. Langham had ostensibly come so early in the season.

"Trout?" he said.

"The fishing--" She made a new beginning.

"The fishing, Miss Darling," he said, "will be of interest to my
friends. For my part, I don't fish. I have, in common with the kind of
boat from which fishing is done, nothing but the fact that we are both
ticklish. I saw your prospectus. I said: 'I shall be happy there, and
well taken care of.' Something told me that I should be allowed to
breakfast in the kitchen. The more I thought about it the less I felt
that I could wait for the somewhat late opening of your season, so I
pretended to be a fisher of trout. And here I am. But, mark you," he
added, "a few trout on the table now and then--I like that!"

"You shall have them," said Mary, "and you shall breakfast in the
kitchen. I do--always."

"Do you?" he exclaimed. "Why not together, then?"

His eyes shone with pleasure.

"I should be too early for you," she said.

"You don't know me. Is it ever too early to eat? Because I am stout,
people think I have all the moribund qualities that go with it. As a
matter of fact, I rise whenever, in my judgment, the cook is dressed and
down. Is it gross to be fond of food? So many people think so. I differ
with them. Not to care what you eat is gross--in my way of thinking. Is
there anything, for instance, more fresh in coloring, more adequate in
line, than a delicately poached egg on a blue-and-white plate? You call
this building Smoke House? I shall always be looking in. Do you mind?"

"Indeed we don't," said Mary. "Do we, chef?"

Chef laid a finger to his lips. It was no time for talk. "Never disturb
a sleeping child or a cooking egg," was one of his maxims.

"I knew that I should be happy here," said Mr. Langham. "I am."

Whenever he had a chance he gazed at Mary. It was her face in the row of
six that had lured him out of all his habits and made him feel that the
camp offered him a genuine chance for happiness. To find that she
presided over the kitchen had filled his cup to the brim. But when he
remembered that he was fat and fond of good things to eat and drink, his
heart sank.

He determined that he would eat but three eggs. They were, however,
prepared in a way that was quite new to him, and in the determined
effort to discern the ingredients and the method he ate five.

"There is something very keen about your Adirondack air," he explained
guiltily.

But Mary had warmed to him. Her heart and her reputation were involved
in the _cuisine_. She knew that the better you feed people the more they
love you. She was not revolted by Mr. Langham's appetite. She felt that
even a canary of a man must have fallen before the temptation of those
eggs.

They were her own invention. And chef had executed them to the very turn
of perfection.

Almost from the moment of his arrival, then, Mr. Samuel Langham began to
eat his way into the heart of the eldest Miss Darling.

In culinary matters a genuine intimacy sprang up between them. They
exchanged ideas. They consulted. They compared menus. They mastered the
contents of the late Mr. Darling's cellars.

Mr. Langham chose Lone House for his habitation. He liked the little
balcony that thrust out over the lake between the two pine-trees. And by
the time that his guests were due to arrive, he had established himself,
almost, in the affections of the entire family.

"He may be greedy," said Arthur, "but he's the most courteous man that
ever 'sat at meat among ladies'!"

"He's got the kindest heart," said Mary, "that ever beat."




VII


Mr. Langham's five guests arrived somewhat noisily, smoking five long
cigars. Lee and Gay, watching the float from a point of vantage, where
they themselves were free from observation, observed that three of the
trout fishermen were far older than they had led themselves to expect.

"That leaves only one for us," said Gay.

"Why?"

"Can't you see from here that the fifth is an Englishman?"

"Yes," said Lee. "His clothes don't fit, and yet he feels perfectly
comfortable in them."

"It isn't so much the clothes," said Gay, "as the face. The other faces
are excited because they have ridden fast in a fast boat, though they've
probably often done it before. Now he's probably never been in a fast
boat in his life till to-day, and yet he looks thoroughly bored."

The Englishman without changing his expression made some remark to the
other five. They roared. The Englishman blushed, and looked vaguely
toward a dark-blue mountain that rose with some grandeur beyond the
farther shore of the lake.

"Do you suppose," said Lee, "that what he said was funny or just dumb?"

"I think it was funny," said Gay, "but purely accidental."

"I think I know the other youth," said Lee; "I think I have danced with
him. Didn't Mr. Langham say there was a Renier among his guests?"

"H. L.," Gay assented.

"That's the one," Lee remembered. "Harry Larkins Renier. We have danced.
If he doesn't remember, he shall be snubbed. I like the old guy with the
Mark Twain hair."

"Don't you know _him_? I do. I have seen his picture often. He's the
editor of the _Evening Star_. Won't Arthur be glad!"

"What's his name?"

"Walter Leyden O'Malley. He's the literary descendant of the great Dana.
Don't talk to me, child; I know a great deal."

Gay endeavored to assume the look of an encyclopædia and failed.

"Mr. Langham," said Lee, "mentioned three other names, Alston,
Pritchard, and Cox. Which do you suppose is which?"

"I think that Pritchard is the very tall one who looks like a Kentucky
colonel; Cox is the one with the very large face; of course, the
Englishman is Alston."

"I don't."

"We can find out from Maud."

When the new arrivals, escorted by Arthur and Mr. Langham, had left the
office, Lee and Gay hurried in to look at their signatures and to
consult Maud as to identities.

The Kentucky-colonel-looking man proved to be Alston. Cox had the large
face, and the Englishman--John Arthur Merrivale Pritchard, as was to be
expected--wrote the best hand. Mr. O'Malley, the famous editor, wrote
the worst. His signature looked as if it had been traced by an inky worm
writhing in agony.

"Tell us at once," Gay demanded, "what they are like."

Maud regarded her frolicsome sisters with inscrutable eyes, and said:

"At first, you think that Mr. Cox is a heartless old cynic, but when you
get to know him really well--I remember an instance that occurred in the
early sixties----"

"Oh, dry up!" said Lee. "Are they nice and presentable, like fat old Sam
Langham?"

"The three old ones," said Maud, "made me think of three very young boys
just loose from school. Messrs. Renier and Pritchard, however, seem more
used to holidays. There is, however, a complication. All five wish to go
fishing as soon as they can change into fishing clothes, and there
aren't enough guides to go around."

"What's the trouble?" asked Gay eagerly.

"Bullard," Maud explained, "has sent word that his wife is having a
baby, and Benton has gone up to Crotched Lake West to see if the ice is
out of it. That leaves only three guides to go around. Benton oughtn't
to have gone. Nobody told him to. But he once read the Declaration of
Independence, and every now and then the feeling comes over him that he
must act accordingly."

"But," exclaimed Lee, "what's the matter with Gay and me?"

"Nothing, I hope," said Maud; "you look well. I trust you feel well."

"We want to be guides," said Gay; "we want to be useful. Hitherto we've
done nothing to help. Mary works like a slave in the kitchen; you here.
Eve will never leave the laundry once the wash gets big. Phyllis has her
garden, in which things will begin to grow by and by, but we--we have no
excuse for existence--none whatever. Now, I could show Mr. Renier where
the chances of taking fish are the best."

"No," said Lee firmly; "I ought to guide him. It's only fair. He once
guided me--I've always remembered--bang into a couple who outweighed us
two to one, and down we went."

"Mary will hardly approve of you youngsters going on long expeditions
with strange young men," Maud was quite sure; "and, of course, Arthur
won't."

Lee and Gay began to sulk.

At that moment Arthur came into the office.

"Halloo, you two!" he said. "Been looking for you, and even shouting.
The fact is, we're short of guides, and Mary and I think----"

Lee and Gay burst into smiles.

"What did we tell you, Maud? Of course, we will. There are no wiser
guides in this part of the woods."

"That," said Arthur, "is a fact. The older men looked alarmed when I
suggested that two of my sisters--you see, they've always had
native-born woodsmen and even Indians----"

"Then," said Lee, "we are to have the guileless youths. I speak for
Renier."

"Meanie," said Gay.

"Lee ought to have first choice," said Arthur. "It's always been
supposed that Lee is your senior by a matter of twenty minutes."

"True or not," said Gay, "she looks it. Then I'm to guide the
Englishman."

"If you don't mind." Arthur regarded her, smiling. He couldn't help it.
She was _so_ pretty. "And I'd advise you not to be too eager to show
off. Mr. Pritchard has hunted and fished more than all of us put
together."

"That little pink-faced snip!" exclaimed Gay. "I'll sure see how much he
knows."

Half an hour later she was rowing him leisurely in the direction of
Placid Brook, and examining his somewhat remarkable outfit with
wondering eyes. This was not difficult, since his own eyes, which were
clear brown, and very shy, were very much occupied in looking over the
contents of the large-tackle box.

"If you care to rig your rod," said Gay presently, "and cast about as we
go, you might take something between here and the brook."

"Do you mean," he said, "that you merely throw about you at random, and
that it is possible to take fish?"

"Of course," said she--"when they are rising."

"But then the best one could hope for," he drawled, "would be
indiscriminate fish."

"Just what do you mean by that?"

"Why!"--and this time he looked up and smiled very shyly--"if you were
after elephant and came across a herd, would you pick out a bull with a
fine pair of tusks, or would you fire indiscriminately into the thick of
them, and perhaps bring down the merest baby?"

"I never heard of picking your fish," said Gay.

"Dear me," he commented, "then you have nearly a whole lifetime of
delightful study before you!"

He unslung a pair of field-glasses, focussed them, and began to study
the surface of the placid lake, not the far-off surface but the surface
within twenty or thirty feet. Then he remarked:

"Your flies aren't greatly different from ours. I think we shall find
something nearly right. One can never tell. The proclivities of trout
and char differ somewhat. I have never taken char."

"You don't think you are after char now, do you?" exclaimed Gay.
"Because, if so--this lake contains bass, trout, lake-trout, sunfish,
shiners, and bullheads, but no char."

Pritchard smiled a little sadly and blushed. He hated to put people
right.

"Your brook-trout," he said, "your _salmo fontinalis_, isn't a trout at
all. He's a char."

Gay put her back into the rowing with some temper. She felt that the
Englishman had insulted the greatest of all American institutions. The
repartee which sprang to her lips was somewhat feeble.

"If a trout is a char," she said angrily, "then an onion is a fruit."

To her astonishment, Mr. Pritchard began to laugh. He dropped everything
and gave his whole attention to it. He laughed till the tears came and
the delicate guide boat shook from stem to stern. Presently the germ of
his laughing spread, and Gay came down with a sharp attack of it
herself. She stopped rowing. Two miles off, a loon, that most exclusive
laugher of the North Woods, took fright, dove, and remained under for
ten minutes.

The young people in the guide boat looked at each other through smarting
tears.

"I am learning fast," said Gay, "that you count your fish before you
catch them, that trout are char, and that Englishmen laugh at other
people's jokes."

She rowed on.

"Don't forget to tell me when you've chosen your fish," she remarked.

"You shall help me choose," he said; "I insist. I speak for a
three-pounder."

"The event of a lifetime!"

"Why, Miss Gay," he said, "it's all the event of a lifetime. The Camp,
the ride in the motor-boat, the wonderful, wonderful breakfast, water
teeming with fish, the woods, and the mountains--millions of years ago
it was decreed that you and I should rock a boat with laughter in the
midst of New Moon Lake. And yet you speak of a three-pounder as the
event of a lifetime! My answer is a defiance. We shall take one _salmo
fontinalis_--one wily char. He shall not weigh three pounds; he shall
weigh a trifle more. Then we shall put up our tackle and go home to a
merry dinner."

"Mr. Pritchard," said Gay, "I'll bet you anything you like that you
don't take a trout--or a char, if you like--that will weigh three pounds
or over. I'll bet you ten to one."

"Don't do that," he said; "it's an even shot. What will you bet?"

"I'll bet you my prospective dividends for the year," she said,
"against----"

"My prospective title?"

He looked rather solemn, but laughter bubbled from Gay.

"It's a good sporting proposition," said Pritchard. "It's a very sound
title--old, resonant--and unless you upset us and we drown, tolerably
certain to be mine to pay--in case I lose."

"I don't bet blindly," said Gay. "What is the title?"

"I shall be the Earl of Merrivale," said he; "and if I fail this day to
take a char weighing three pounds or over, you will be the Countess of
Merrivale."

"Dear me!" said Gay, "who ever heard of so much depending on a mere
fish? But I don't like my side of the bet. It's all so sudden. I don't
know you well enough, and you're sure to lose."

"I'll take either end of the bet you don't like," said Mr. Pritchard
gravely. "If I land the three-pounder, you become the countess; if I
don't, I pay you the amount of your dividends for the year. Is that
better?"

"Much," smiled Gay; "because, with the bet in this form, there is
practically no danger that either of us will lose anything. My dividends
probably won't amount to a row of pins, and you most certainly will not
land so big a fish."

Meanwhile they had entered the mouth of Placid Brook. The surface was
dimpling--rings became, spread, merged in one another, and were not. The
fish were feeding.

"Let us land in the meadow," said Mr. Pritchard, his brown eyes clear
and sparkling, "and spy upon the enemy."

"Are you going to leave your rod and things in the boat?"

"For the present--until we have located our fish."

They landed, and he advanced upon the brook by a detour, stealthily,
crouching, his field-glasses at attention. Once he turned and spoke to
Gay in an authoritative whisper:

"Try not to show above the bushes."




VIII


The sun was warm on the meadow, and although the bushes along its margin
were leafless, the meadow itself had a greenish look, and the feel of
the air was such that Gay, upon whom silence and invisibility had been
enjoined, longed to dance in full sight of the trout and to sing at the
top of her voice: "Oh, that we two were Maying!" Instead, she crouched
humbly and in silence at Pritchard's side, while he studied the dimpling
brook through his powerful field-glasses.

Gay had never seen red Indians except in Buffalo Bill's show, where it
is made worth their while to be very noisy. But she had read her Cooper
and her Ballantyne,

  "Ballantyne, the brave,
  And Cooper of the wood and wave,"

and she knew of the early Christian patience with which they are
supposed to go about the business of hunting and fishing.

Pritchard, she observed, had a weather-red face and high cheek-bones. He
was smooth-shaved. He wore no hat. But for his miraculously short-cut
hair, his field-glasses, his suit of coarse Scotch wool, whose colors
blended so well with the meadow upon which he crouched, he might have
been an Indian. His head, the field-glasses, the hands which clasped
them, moved--nothing else.

"Is it a bluff?" thought Gay. "Is he just posing, or is there something
in it?"

Half an hour passed--three quarters. Gay was pale and grimly smiling.
Her legs had gone to sleep. But she would not give in. If an Englishman
could fish so patiently, why, so could she. She was fighting her own
private battle of Bunker Hill--of New Orleans.

Pritchard lowered his glasses, handed them to Gay, and pointed up the
brook and across, to where a triangular point of granite peered a few
inches above the surface. Gay looked through the glasses, and Pritchard
began to whisper in her ear:

"Northwest of that point of rock, about two feet--keep looking just
there, and I'll try to tell you what to see."

"There's a fish feeding," she answered; "but he must be a baby, he just
makes a bubble on the surface."

"There are three types of insect floating over him," said Pritchard; "I
don't know your American beasts by name, but there is a black, a brown,
and a grayish spiderlike thing. He's taking the last. If you see one of
the gray ones floating where he made his last bubble, watch it."

Gay presently discerned such an insect so floating, and watched it. It
passed within a few inches of where the feeding trout had last risen and
disappeared, and a tiny ring gently marked the spot where it had been
sucked under. Gay saw a black insect pass over the fatal spot unscathed,
then browns; and then, once more, a gray, very tiny in the body but with
longish legs, approached and was engulfed.

"Now for the tackle box," Pritchard whispered.

They withdrew from the margin of the brook, Gay in that curious ecstasy,
half joy, half sorrow, induced by sleepy legs. She lurched and almost
fell. Pritchard caught her.

"Was the vigil too long?" he asked.

"I liked it," she said. "But my legs went to sleep and are just waking
up. Tell me things. There were fish rising bold--jumping clean
out--making the water boil. But you weren't interested in them."

"It was noticeable," said Pritchard, "and perhaps you noticed that one
fish was feeding alone. He blew his little rings--without fear or
hurry--none of the other fishes dared come anywhere near him. He lives
in the vicinity of that pointed rock. The water there is probably deep
and, in the depths, very cold. Who knows but a spring bubbles into a
brook at the base of that rock? The fish lives there and rules the water
around him for five or six yards. He is selfish, fat, and old. He feeds
quietly because nobody dares dispute his food with him. He is the
biggest fish in this reach of the brook. At least, he is the biggest
that is feeding this morning. Now we know what kind of a fly he is
taking. Probably I have a close imitation of it in my fly box. If not,
we shall have to make one. Then we must try to throw it just above
him--very lightly--float it into his range of vision, and when he sucks
it into his mouth, strike--and if we are lucky we shall then proceed to
take him."

Gay, passionately fond of woodcraft, listened with a kind of awe.

"But," she said, seeing an objection, "how do you know he weighs three
pounds and over?"

"Frankly," said Pritchard, "I don't. I am gambling on _that_." He shot
her a shy look. "Just hoping. I know that he is big. I believe we shall
land him. I hope and pray that he weighs over three pounds."

Gay blushed and said nothing. She was beginning to think that Pritchard
might land a three-pounder as well as not--and she had light-heartedly
agreed, in that event, to become the Countess of Merrivale. Of course,
the bet was mere nonsense. But suppose, by any fleeting chance, that
Pritchard should not so regard it? What _should_ she do? Suppose that
Pritchard had fallen victim to a case of love at first sight? It would
not, she was forced to admit (somewhat demurely), be the first instance
in her own actual experience. There was a young man who had so fallen in
love with her, and who, a week later, not knowing the difference--so
exactly the triplets resembled each other--had proposed to Phyllis.

They drew the guide boat up onto the meadows and Pritchard, armed with a
scoop-net of mesh as fine as mosquito-netting, leaned over the brook and
caught one of the grayish flies that were tickling the appetite of the
big trout.

This fly had a body no bigger than a gnat's.

Pritchard handed Gay a box of japanned tin. It was divided into
compartments, and each compartment was half full of infinitesimal trout
flies. They were so small that you had to use a pair of tweezers in
handling them.

Pritchard spread his handkerchief on the grass, and Gay dumped the flies
out on it and spread them for examination. And then, their heads very
close together, they began to hunt for one which would match the live
one that Pritchard had caught.

"But they're too small," Gay objected. "The hooks would pull right
through a trout's lip."

"Not always," said Pritchard. "How about this one?"

"Too dark," said Gay.

"Here we are then--a match or not?"

The natural fly and the artificial placed side by side were wonderfully
alike.

"They're as like as Lee and me," said Gay.

"Lee?"

"Three of us are triplets," she explained. "We look exactly alike--and
we never forgive people who get us mixed up."

Pritchard abandoned all present thoughts of trout-fishing by scientific
methods. He looked into her face with wonder.

"Do you mean to tell me," said he, "that there are two other
D-D-Darlings exactly like you?"

"Exactly--a nose for a nose; an eye for an eye."

"It isn't true," he proclaimed. "There is nobody in the whole world in
the least like you."

"Some time," said Gay, "you will see the three of us in a row. We shall
look inscrutable and say nothing. You will not be able to tell which of
us went fishing with you and which stayed at home----"

"'This little pig went to market,'" he began, and abruptly became
serious. "Is that a challenge?"

"Yes," said Gay. "I fling down my gauntlet."

"And I," said Pritchard, "step forward and, in the face of all the
world, lift it from the ground--and proclaim for all the world to hear
that there is nobody like my lady--and that I am so prepared to prove at
any place or time--come weal, come woe. Let the heavens fall!"

"If you know me from the others," Gay's eyes gleamed, "you will be the
first strange young man that ever did, and I shall assign and appoint in
the inmost shrines of memory a most special niche for you."

Pritchard bowed very humbly.

"That will not be necessary," he said. "If I land the three-pounder. In
that case, I should be always with you."

"I wish," said Gay, "that you wouldn't refer so earnestly to a piece of
nonsense. Upon repetition, a joke ceases to be a joke."

Pritchard looked troubled.

"I'm sorry," he said simply. "If it is the custom of the country to bet
and then crawl, so be it. In Rome, I hasten to do as the Romans do. But
I thought our bet was honorable and above-board. It seems it was just
an--an Indian bet."

Gay flushed angrily.

"You shall not belittle anything American," she said. "It was a bet. I
meant it. I stand by it. If you catch your big fish I marry you. And if
I have to marry you, I will lead you such a dance----"

"You wouldn't have to," Pritchard put in gently, "you wouldn't have to
lead me, I mean. If you and I were married, I'd just naturally
dance--wouldn't I? When a man sorrows he weeps; when he rejoices he
dances. It's all very simple and natural----"

He turned his face to the serene heavens, and, very gravely:

"Ah, Lord!" he said. "Vouchsafe to me, undeserving but hopeful, this
day, a char--_salmo fontinalis_--to weigh a trifle over three pounds,
for the sake of all that is best and sweetest in this best of all
possible worlds."

If his face or voice had had a suspicion of irreverence, Gay would have
laughed. Instead, she found that she wanted to cry and that her heart
was beating unquietly.

Mr. Pritchard dismissed sentiment from his mind, and with loving hands
began to take a powerful split-bamboo rod from its case.




IX


Gay's notion of scientific fishing might have been thus summed: Know
just where to fish and use the lightest rod made. Her own trout-rod
weighed two and a half ounces without the reel. Compared to it,
Pritchard's was a coarse and heavy instrument. His weighed six ounces.

"You could land a salmon with that," said Gay scornfully.

"I have," said Pritchard. "It's a splendid rod. I doubt if you could
break it."

"Doesn't give the fish much of a run for his money."

"But how about this, Miss Gay?"

He showed her a leader of finest water-blue catgut. It was nine feet
long and tapered from the thickness of a human hair to that of a thread
of spider-spinning. Gay's waning admiration glowed once more.

"That wouldn't hold a minnow," she said.

"We must see about that," he answered; "we must hope that it will hold a
very large char."

He reeled off eighty or ninety feet of line, and began to grease it with
a white tallow.

"What's that stuff?" Gay asked.

"Red-deer fat."

"What for?"

"To make the line float. We're fishing with a dry-fly, you know."

Gay noticed that the line was tapered from very heavy to very fine.

"Why is that?" she asked.

"It throws better--especially in a wind. The heavy part will carry a fly
out into half a gale."

He reeled in the line and made his leader fast to it with a swift,
running hitch, and to the line end of the leader he attached the fly
which they had chosen. Upon this tiny and exquisite arrangement of fairy
hook, gray silk, and feathers, he blew paraffin from a pocket atomizer
that it might float and not become water-logged.

"Do we fish from the shore or the boat?" Gay asked.

"From this shore."

"You'll never reach there from this shore."

"Then I've misjudged the distance. Are you going to use the landing-net
for me, in case it's necessary?"

Gay caught up the net and once more followed his stealthy advance upon
the brook.

Pritchard had one preliminary look through the field-glasses,
straightened his bent back, turned to her with a sorrowing face, and
spoke aloud.

"He's had enough," he said. "He's stopped feeding."

Gay burst out laughing.

"And our fishing is over for the day? This shall be said of you, Mr.
Pritchard, that you are a merciful man. You are not what is called in
this country a 'game hog.'"

"Thank you," he said gravely. "But if you think the fishing is over for
the day, you don't know a dry-fly fisherman when you see one. We made
rather a late start. See, most of the fish have stopped feeding. They
won't begin again much before three. The big fellow will be a little
later. He has had more than the others; he is older; his digestion is no
longer like chain lightning; he will sleep sounder, and dream of the
golden days of his youth when a char was a trout."

"_That_," said Gay, "is distinctly unkind. I have been snubbed enough
for one day. Are we to stand here, then, till three or four o'clock,
till his royal highness wakes up and calls for breakfast?"

"No," said Pritchard; "though I would do so gladly, if it were
necessary, in order to take this particular fish----"

"You might kneel before your rod," said Gay, "like a knight watching his
arms."

"To rise in the morning and do battle for his lady--I repeat I should do
so gladly if it would help my chances in the slightest. But it
wouldn't."

He rested his rod very carefully across two bushes.

"The thing for us to do," he went on, "is to have lunch. I've often
heard of how comfortable you American guides can make the weary, wayworn
wanderer at the very shortest notice."

"Is that a challenge?"

"It is an expression of faith."

Their eyes met, and even lingered.

"In that case," said Gay, "I shall do what I may. There is cold lunch in
the boat, but the wayworn one shall bask in front of a fire and look
upon his food when it is piping hot. Come!"

Gay rowed him out of the brook and along the shore of the lake for a
couple of miles. She was on her mettle. She wished him to know that she
was no lounger in woodcraft. She put her strong young back into the work
of rowing, and the fragile guide boat flew. Her cheeks glowed, and her
lips were parted in a smile, but secretly she was filled with dread. She
knew that she had brought food, raw and cooked; she could see the head
of her axe gleaming under the middle seat; she would trust Mary for
having seen to it that there was pepper and salt; but whether in the
pocket of the Norfolk jacket there were matches, she could not be sure.
If she stopped rowing to look, the Englishman would think that she had
stopped because she was tired. And if, later, it was found that she had
come away without matches, he would laugh at her and her pretenses to
being a "perfectly good guide."

She beached the boat upon the sand in a wooded cove, and before
Pritchard could move had drawn it high and dry out of the water. Then
she laughed aloud, and would not tell him why. She had discovered in the
right-hand pocket of her coat two boxes of safety-matches, and in the
left pocket three.

"Don't," said Gay, "this is my job."

She lifted the boat easily and carried it into the woods. Pritchard had
wished to help. She laid the boat upon soft moss at the side of a
narrow, mounting trail, slung the package of lunch upon her shoulders,
and caught up her axe.

"Don't I help at all?" asked Pritchard.

"You are weary and wayworn," said Gay, "and I suppose I ought to carry
you, too. But I can't. Can you follow? It's not far."

A quarter of a mile up the hillside, between virgin pines which made one
think bitterly of what the whole mountains might be if the science of
forestry had been imported a little earlier in the century, the steep
and stony trail ended in an open space, gravelly and abounding in huge
bowlders, upon which the sun shone warm and bright. In the midst of the
place was a spring, black and slowly bubbling. At the base of one great
rock, a deep rift in whose face made a natural chimney, were traces of
former fires.

"Wait here," commanded Gay.

Her axe sounded in a thicket, and she emerged presently staggering under
a load of balsam. She spread it in two great, fragrant mats. Then once
more she went forth with her axe and returned with fire-wood.

Pritchard, a wistful expression in his eyes, studied her goings and her
comings, and listened as to music, to the sharp, true ringing of her
axe.

"By Jove," said he to himself, "that isn't perspiration on her
forehead--it's honest sweat!"

In spite of the bright sunshine, the heat of the fire was wonderfully
welcome, and began to bring out the strong, delicious aroma of the
balsam. Gay sat upon her heels before the fire and cooked. There was a
sound of boiling and bubbling. The fragrance of coffee mingled with the
balsam and floated heavenward. During the swift preparation of lunch
they hardly spoke. Twice Pritchard begged to help and was twice refused.

She spread a cloth between the mats of balsam upon one of which
Pritchard reclined, and she laid out hot plates and bright silver with
demure precision.

"Miss Gay," he said very earnestly, "I came to chuckle; I thought that
at least you would burn the chicken and get smoke in your eyes, but I
remain to worship the deity of woodcraft. An Indian could not do more
swiftly or so well."

Gay swelled a little. She had worked very hard; nothing had gone wrong,
so far. She was not in the least ashamed of herself. But her greatest
triumph was to come.

Uncas, the chipmunk, had that morning gone for a stroll in the forest.
He had the spring fever. He had crossed Placid Brook, by a fallen log;
he had climbed trees, hunted for last year's nuts, and fought battles of
repartee with other chipmunks. About lunch time, thinking to return to
Arthur and recount the tale of his wanderings, he smelled a smell of
cooking and heard a sound of voices, one of which was familiar to him.
He climbed a bowlder overlooking the clearing, and began to scold. Gay
and Pritchard looked up.

"My word!" said Pritchard, "what a bold little beggar."

Now, to Gay, the figure of Uncas, well larded with regular meals, was
not to be confounded with the slim little stripes of the spring woods.
She knew him at once, and she spoke nonchalantly to Pritchard.

"If you're a great deal in the woods," she said, "you scrape
acquaintance with many of the inhabitants. That little pig and I are old
friends. You embarrass him a little. He doesn't know you. If you weren't
here, he'd come right into my lap and beg."

Pritchard looked at her gravely.

"Truly?" he said.

"I think he will anyway," said Gay, and she made sounds to Uncas which
reassured him and brought him presently on a tearing run for her lap.
Here, when he had been fed, he yawned, stretched himself, and fell
asleep.

"Mowgli's sister!" said Pritchard reverently. "Child, are there the
scars of wolves' teeth on your wrists and ankles?"

"No, octogenarian," said Gay; "there aren't any marks of any kind. What
time is it?"

"It is half-past two."

"Then you shall smoke a cigarette, while I wash dishes."

She slid the complaining Uncas from her lap to the ground.

"Unfortunately," said Pritchard, "I didn't bring a cigarette."

"And you've been dying for a smoke all this time? Why don't you ask the
guide for what you want?"

"Have you such a thing?"

"I have."

"But you--you yourself don't--do you?" He looked troubled.

"No," said Gay. "But my father was always forgetting his, and it made
him so miserable I got into the habit of carrying a full case years ago
whenever we went on expeditions. He used to be so surprised and
delighted. Sometimes I think he used to forget his on purpose, so that
I could have the triumph of producing mine."

Pritchard smoked at ease. Gay "washed up." Uncas, roused once more from
slumber by the call of one of his kind, shook himself and trotted off
into the forest.

Gay, scouring a pan, was beginning to feel that she had known Pritchard
a long time. She had made him comfortable, cared for him in the wild
woods, and the knowledge warmed her heart.

Pritchard was saying to himself:

"We like the same sort of things--why not each other?"

"Miss Gay," he said aloud.

"What?"

"In case I land the three-pounder and over, I think I ought to tell you
that I'm not very rich, and I know you aren't. Would that matter to you?
I've just about enough," he went on tantalizingly, "to take a girl on
ripping good trips into central Africa or Australia, but I can't keep
any great state in England--Merrivale isn't a show place, you know--just
a few grouse and pheasants and things, and pretty good fishin'."

"However much," said Gay, "I may regret my _bet_, there was nothing
Indian about it. I'm sure that you are a clean, upright young man. I'm
a decent sort of girl, though I say it that shouldn't. We might do
worse. I've heard that love-matches aren't always what they are cracked
up to be. And I'm quite sure that I want to go to Africa and hunt big
game."

"Thank you," said Pritchard humbly. "And at least there would be love on
one side."

"Nonsense," said Gay briskly. "I'm ready, if you are."

Pritchard jumped to his feet and threw away his cigarette.

"Now," he said, "that you've proved everything, _won't_ you let me
help?"

Gay refused him doubtfully, and then with a burst of generosity:

"Why, yes," she said, "and, by the way, Mr. Pritchard, there was no
magic about the chipmunk. He's one my brother trained. He lives at The
Camp, and he was just out for a stroll and happened in on us. I don't
want you to find out that I'm a fraud from any one--but me."




X


The big trout was once more feeding. And Pritchard began to cast his
diminutive fly up-stream and across. But he cast and got out line by a
system that was new to Gay. He did not "whip" the brook; he whipped the
air above it. He never allowed his fly to touch the water but drew it
back sharply, and, at the same time, reeled out more line with his left
hand, when it had fallen to within an inch or two of the surface. His
casts, straight as a rifle-shot, lengthened, and reached out toward the
bowlder point near which the big trout was feeding, until he was
throwing, and with consummate ease, a line longer than Gay had ever seen
thrown.

"It's beautiful," she whispered. "Will you teach me?"

"Of course," he answered.

His fly hovered just above the ring which the trout had just made.
Pritchard lengthened his line a foot, and cast again and again, with no
further change but of an inch or two in direction.

"There's a little current," he explained. "If we dropped the fly into
the middle of the ring, it would float just over his tail and he
wouldn't see it. He's looking up-stream, whence his blessings flow. The
fly must float straight down at him, dragging its leader, and not
dragged by it."

All the while he talked, he continued casting with compact, forceful
strokes of his right wrist and forearm. At last, his judgment being
satisfied by the hovering position attained by fly and leader, he
relaxed his grip of the rod; the fly fell upon the water like
thistle-down, floated five or six inches, and was sucked under by the
big trout.

Pritchard struck hard.

There was a second's pause, while the big trout, pained and surprised,
tried to gather his scattered wits. Three quarters of Pritchard's line
floated loosely across the brook, but the leader and the fly remained
under, and Pritchard knew that he had hooked his fish.

Then, and it was sudden--like an explosion--the whole length of floating
line disappeared, and the tip of Pritchard's powerful rod was dragged
under after it.

The reel screamed.

"It's a whale!" shouted Gay, forgetting how much depended upon the size
of the fish, "a whale!"

The time for stealthy movements and talk in whispers was over. Gay
laughed, shouted, exhorted, while Pritchard, his lips parted, his cheeks
flushed, gayly fought the great fish.

"Go easy; go easy!" cried Gay. "That hook will never hold him."

But Pritchard knew his implements, and fished with a kind of joyous,
strong fury.

"When you hang 'em," he exulted, "land em."

The trout was a great noble potentate of those waters. Years ago he had
abandoned the stealthy ways of lesser fish. He came into the middle of
the brook where the water is deep and there is freedom from weeds and
sunken timber, and then up and down and across and across, with blind,
furious rushes he fought his fight.

It was the strong man without science against the strong man who knows
how to box. The steady, furious rushes, snubbed and controlled, became
jerky and spasmodic; in a roar and swirl of water the king trout showed
his gleaming and enormous back; a second later the sunset colors of his
side and the white of his belly. Inch by inch, swollen by impotent fury,
galvanically struggling and rushing, he followed the drag of the leader
toward the beach, where, ankle-deep in the water, Gay crouched with the
landing-net.

She trembled from head to foot as a well-bred pointer trembles when he
has found a covey of quail and holds them in control, waiting for his
master to walk in upon them.

The big trout, still fighting, turning, and raging, came toward the
mouth of the half-submerged net.

"How big is he, Miss Gay?"

The voice was cool and steady.

"He's five pounds if he's an ounce," her voice trembled. "He's the
biggest trout that ever swam.

"He _isn't_ a trout," said Pritchard; "he's a char."

If Gay could have seen Pritchard's face, she would have been struck for
the first time by a sort of serene beauty that pervaded some of its
expressions. The smile which he turned upon her crouching figure had in
it a something almost angelic.

"Bring him a little nearer," she cried, "just a little."

"You're sure he weighs more than three pounds?"

"Sure--sure--don't talk, land him, land him----"

For answer Pritchard heaved strongly upward upon his rod and lifted the
mighty fish clear of the water. One titanic convulsion of tortured
muscles, and what was to be expected happened. The leader broke a few
inches from the trout's lip, and he returned splashing to his native
element, swam off slowly, just under the surface, then dove deep, and
was seen no more.

"Oh!" cried Gay. "Why _did_ you? Why _did_ you?"

She had forgotten everything but the fact that the most splendid of all
trout had been lost.

"Why did you?" she cried again.

"Because," he said serenely and gently, smiling into her grieved and
flushed face, "I wouldn't have you as the payment of a bet. I will have
you as a gift or not at all."

They returned to The Camp, Pritchard rowing.

"I owe you your prospective dividends for the year," he said. "If they
are large, I shall have to give you my note and pay as I can."

She did not answer.

"I think you are angry with me," he said. "I'd give more than a penny
for your thoughts."

"I was thinking," said she, "that you are very good at fishing, but that
the art of rowing an Adirondack guide boat has been left out of you."

"Truly," he said, "was that what you were thinking?"

"No," she said; "I was thinking other things. I was thinking that I
ought to go down on my knees and thank you for breaking the leader. You
see, I'd made up my mind to keep my word. And, well, of course, it's a
great escape for me.

"Why? Was the prospect of marrying me so awful?"

"The prospect of marrying a man who would rather lose a five-pound fish
than marry me--was awful."

Pritchard stopped rowing, and his laughter went abroad over the quiet
lake until presently Gay's forehead smoothed and, after a prelude of
dimples, she joined gayly in.

When Pritchard could speak, he said:

"You don't really think that, do you?"

"I don't know what I think," said Gay. "I'm just horrid and cross and
spoiled. Don't let's talk about it any more."

"But I said," said he, "I said 'As a bet, no; but as a gift'--oh, with
what rapture and delight!"

"Do you mean that?" She looked him in the face with level eyes.

Once more he stopped rowing.

"I love you," he said, "with my whole heart and soul."

"Don't," said Gay, "don't spoil a day that, for all its ups and downs,
has been a good day, a day that, on the whole, I've loved--and let's
hurry, please, because I stood in the water and it was icy."

After that Pritchard rowed with heroic force and determination; he
lacked, however, the knack which overlapping oar handles demand, and at
every fifteenth or sixteenth stroke knocked a piece of "bark" from his
knuckles.

Smarting with pain, he smiled gently at her from time to time.

"Will you guide me to-morrow?"

"To-morrow," she said, "there will be enough real guides to go around."

"You really are, aren't you?" he said.

"What?"

"Angry with me."

"Oh, no--I think--that what you said--what you said--was a foolish thing
to say. If I came to you with my sisters Lee and Phyllis, you wouldn't
know which of the three I was, and yet--you said--you said----"

"It isn't a question of words--it's a question of feeling. Do you really
think I shouldn't know you from your sisters?"

"I am sure of it," said Gay.

"But if you weren't?"

"Then I should still think that you had tried to be foolish but I
shouldn't be angry."

"How," said Pritchard, his eyes twinkling, "shall I convince the girl I
love--that I know her by sight?"

Gay laughed. The idea seemed rather comical to her.

"To-night," she said, "when you have dined, walk down to the dock alone.
One of us three will come to you and say: 'Too bad we didn't have better
luck.' And you won't know if she's Lee or Phyllis or me."

       *       *       *       *       *

Pritchard smoked upon the dock in the light of an arc-lamp. A vision,
smiling and rosy, swept out of the darkness, and said:

"Too bad we didn't have better luck!"

"I beg your pardon," said Pritchard, "you're not Miss Gay, but I haven't
had the pleasure of being presented to Miss Lee or Miss Phyllis."

The vision chuckled and beat a swift, giggling retreat to a dark spot
among the pines, where other giggles awaited her.

A second vision came.

"Too bad we didn't have better luck!"

Pritchard smiled gravely into the vision's eyes, and said in so low a
voice that only she could hear:

"Bad luck? I have learned to love you with all my heart and soul."

Silence. An answering whisper.

"How did you know me?"

"How? Because my heart says here is the only girl in all the world--see
how different, how more beautiful and gentle she is than all other
girls."

"But I'm not Gay--I'm Phyllis."

"If you are Phyllis," he whispered, "then you never were Gay."

She laughed softly.

"I _am_ Gay."

"Why tell me? I know. Am I forgiven?"

"There is nothing," she said swiftly, "to forgive," and she fled
swiftly.

To her sisters waiting among the pines she gave explanation.

"Of course, he knew me."

"How?"

"Why, he said there couldn't be any doubt; he said I was so very much
better-looking than any sister of mine could possibly be."

Forthwith Lee pinioned Gay's arms and Phyllis pulled her ears for her.

Mr. Pritchard paced the dock, offering rings of Cuban incense to the
stars.

       *       *       *       *       *

From Play House came the sounds which men make when they play cards and
do not care whether they win or lose.

Maud was in her office, adding a column of figures which the grocer had
sent in. The triplets, linked arm in arm, joined her. Arthur came, and
Eve and Mary.

They agreed that they were very tired and ready for bed.

"It's going to be a success, anyway," said Mary. "That seems certain."

"We must have the plumber up," said Eve; "the laundry boiler has sprung
a leak. Who's that in your pocket, Arthur?"

"Uncas. He came in exhausted after a long day in the woods. Something
unusual happened to him. I know, because he tried so very hard to tell
me all about it just before he went to sleep, and of course he couldn't
quite make me understand. I think he was trying to warn me of
something--trying to tell me to keep my eyes peeled."

The family laughed. Arthur was always so absurd about his pets. All
laughed except Gay. She, in a dark corner, like the rose in the poem,
blushed unseen.




XI


When their week was up, Mr. Langham's guests, Messrs. O'Malley, Alston,
and Cox, felt obliged to go where income called them. Renier, however,
who had only been at work a year, decided that he did not like his job,
and would try for another in the fall. Lee delivered herself of the
stern opinion that a rolling stone gathers no moss, and Renier answered
that his late uncle had been a fair-to-middling moss gatherer, and that
to have more than one such in a given family was a sign of low tastes.
"I have a little money of my own," he said darkly, "and, what's more, I
have a little hunch." To his face Lee upbraided him for his lack of
ambition and his lack of elegance, but behind his back she smiled
secretly. She was well pleased with herself. It had only taken him three
days to get so that he knew her when he saw her, and for a young man of
average intellect and eyesight that was almost a record.

The triplets were not only as like as three lovely vases cast in the
same mould but it amused them to dress alike, without so much as the
differentiation of a ribbon, and to imitate each other's little tricks
of speech and gesture. It was even possible for them to fool their own
brother at times when he happened to be a little absent-minded.

Every day Renier fished for many hours, and always the guide who handled
his boat and showed him where to throw his flies was Lee.

"They're only children," said Mary, "and I think they're getting
altogether too chummy."

Arthur did not answer, and for the very good reason that Mary's words
were not addressed to him, nor were they addressed to Maud or Eve.
Indeed, at the moment, these three were sound asleep in their beds. It
was to that plumper and earlier bird, Mr. Samuel Langham, that Mary had
spoken. The end of a kitchen table, set with blue-and-white dishes and
cups that steamed, fragrantly separated them. They had formed a habit of
breakfasting together in the kitchen, and it had not taken Mary long to
discover that Sam Langham's good judgment was not confined to eatables
and drinkables. She consulted him about all sorts of things. She felt as
if she had known him (and trusted him) all her life.

"Renier," he said, "is one of the few really eligible young men I know.
That is why I asked him up here. I don't mean that my intention was
match-making, but when I saw your picture in the advertisement, I said
to myself: 'The Inn is no place for attractive scalawags. Any man that
goes there on my invitation must be sound, morally and financially.'
Young Renier is as innocent of anything evil as Miss Lee herself. If
they take a fancy to each other--of course it's none of my business,
but, my dear Miss Darling--why not?"

"Coffee?"

"Thanks."

"An egg?"

"Please."

Mary was very tactful. She never said: "_Some more_ coffee?" She never
said: "_Another_ egg?"

"Some people," said Mr. Langham, smiling happily, "might say that _we_
were getting too chummy."

"Suppose," said Mary, "that somebody did say just that?"

"I should reply," said Mr. Langham thoughtfully, "that of the few really
eligible men that I know, I myself am, on the whole, the most eligible."

Mary laughed.

"Construe," she said.

"In the first place," he continued, "and naming my qualifications in the
order of their importance, I don't ever remember to have spoken a cross
word to anybody; secondly, unless I have paved a primrose path to
ultimate indigestion and gout, there is nothing in my past life to
warrant mention. To be more explicit, I am not in a position to be
troubled by--er--'old agitations of myrtle and roses'; third, something
tells me that in a time of supreme need it would be possible for me to
go to work; and, fourth, I have plenty of money--really plenty of
money."

Mary smiled almost tenderly.

"I can't help feeling," she said, "that I, too, am a safe proposition. I
am twenty-nine. My wild oats have never sprouted. I think we may
conclude that they were never sown. The Inn was my idea--mostly, though
I say it that shouldn't. And The Inn is going to be a success. We could
fill every room we've got five times--at our own prices."

"I pronounce your bill of health sound," said Mr. Langham. "Let us
continue to be chummy."

"Coffee?"

"Thanks."

Whatever chance there may have been for Gay and Pritchard to get "too
chummy"--and no one will deny that they had made an excellent start--was
promptly knocked in the head by Arthur. It so happened that, in a
desperately unguarded moment, when Arthur happened to be present,
Pritchard mentioned that he had spent a whole winter in the city of
Peking. The name startled Arthur as might the apparition of a ghost.

"Which winter?" he asked. "I mean, what year?"

Pritchard said what year, and added, "Why do you ask?"

Arthur had not meant to ask. He began a long blush, seeing which Gay
turned swift heels and escaped upon a suddenly ejaculated pretext.

"Why," said Arthur lamely, "I knew some people who were in Peking that
winter--that's all."

"Then," said Pritchard, "we have mutual friends. I knew every foreigner
in Peking. There weren't many."

Although Arthur had gotten the better of his blush, he felt that
Pritchard was eying him rather narrowly.

"They," said Arthur, "were a Mr. and Mrs. Waring."

"I hope," said Pritchard, "that _he_ wasn't a friend of yours."

"He was not," said Arthur, "but she was. I was very fond of her."

"Nobody," said Pritchard, "could help being fond of her. But Waring was
an old brute. One hated him. He wouldn't let her call her soul her own.
He was always snubbing her. We used to call her the 'girl with the dry
eyes.'"

"Why?" asked Arthur.

"It's a Chinese idea," said Pritchard. "Every woman is supposed to have
just so many tears to shed. When these are all gone, why, then, no
matter what sorrows come to her, she has no way of relieving them."

Arthur could not conceal his agitation. And Pritchard looked away. He
wished to escape. He thought that he could be happier with Gay than with
her brother. But Arthur, agitation or no agitation, was determined to
find out all that the young Englishman could tell him about the Warings.
He began to ask innumerable questions: "What sort of a house did they
live in?" "How do Christians amuse themselves in the Chinese capital?"
"Did Mrs. Waring ride?" "What were some of her friends like?" etc., etc.
There was no escaping him. He fastened himself to Pritchard as a
drowning man to a straw. And his appetite for Peking news became
insatiable. Pritchard surrendered gracefully. He went with Arthur on
canoe trips and mountain climbs; at night he smoked with him in the open
camp. And, in the end, Arthur gave him his whole confidence; so that,
much as Pritchard wished to climb mountains and go on canoe trips with
Gay, he was touched, interested, and gratified, and then all at once he
found himself liking Arthur as much as any man he had ever known.

"There is something wonderfully fine about your brother," he said to
Gay. "At first I thought he was a queer stick, with his pets and his
secret haunts in the woods, and his unutterable contempt for anything
mean or worldly. We ought to dress him up in proof armor and send him
forth upon the quest of some grail or other."

"Grails," said Gay, "and auks are extinct."

"Grails extinct!" exclaimed Pritchard. He was horrified.

"Why, my dear Miss Gay, if ever the world offered opportunities to
belted knights without fear and without reproach, it's now."

"I suppose," said she, "that Arthur has told you all about his--his
mix-up."

Pritchard nodded gravely.

"Is that the quest he ought to ride on?"

"No--it won't do for Arthur. He might be accused of self-interest. That
should be a matter to be redressed by a brother knight."

"Or a divorce court."

"Miss Gay!"

"I don't think it's nice for one's brother to be in love with a married
woman."

"It isn't," said Pritchard gravely, "for him. It's hell."

"_We_," said Gay, "never knew her."

"She's not much older than you," said Pritchard. "If I'd never seen you,
I'd say that she was the prettiest girl I'd ever seen. But she's gentler
and meeker than even you'd be in her boots. She isn't self-reliant and
able."

"You talk as if you'd been in love with her yourself."

"I? I thought I was talking as if I was in love with you."

"Looks like it, don't it?" said she. "Spending all your time with a
girl's brother."

"Not doing what you most want to do," said Pritchard, "is sometimes
thought knightly."

"Do you know," she said critically, "sometimes I think you really like
me a lot. And sometimes I think that I really like you. The funny thing
is that it never seems to happen to both of us at the same time. There's
Arthur looking for you. Do me a favor--shake him and come for a tramp
with me."

"I can't," said Pritchard simply. "I've promised. But to-morrow----"

"_Certainly not_," said she.




XII


Warm weather and the real opening of the season arrived at the same
time. The Camp hummed with the activities and the voices of people. And
it became possible for the Darlings to withdraw a little into their
shells and lead more of a family life. As Maud said:

"When there were more proprietors than guests, we simply had to sail in
and give the guests a good time. But now that the business is in full
blast, we mustn't be amateurs any more."

Langham, Renier, and the future Earl of Merrivale remained, of course,
upon their well-established footing of companionship, but the Darlings
began to play their parts of innkeepers with the utmost seriousness and
to fight shy of any social advances from the ranks of their guests.

Indeed, for the real heads of the family, Mary, Maud, and Eve, there was
serious work to be done. For, to keep thirty or forty exigent and
extravagant people well fed, well laundered, well served, and well
amused is no frisky skirmish but a morning-to-night battle, a constant
looking ahead, a steady drain upon the patience and invention.

In Sam Langham Mary found an invaluable ally. He knew how to live, and
could guess to a nicety the "inner man" of another. Nor did he stop at
advice. Being a celebrated _bon viveur_ he went subtly among the guests
and praised the machinery of whose completed product they were the
consumers and the beneficiaries. He knew of no place, he confided, up
and down the whole world, where, for a sum of money, you got exactly
what you wanted without asking for it.

"Take me for an example," he would say. "I have never before been able
to get along without my valet. Here he would be a superfluity. I am
'done,' you may say, better than I have ever been able to do myself. And
I know what I'm talking about. What! You think the prices are really
rather high. Think what you are getting, man--think!"

Among the new guests was a young man from Boston by the name of Herring.
He had written that he was convalescing from typhoid fever and that his
doctor had prescribed Adirondack air.

Renier knew Herring slightly and vouched for him.

"They're good people," he said, "his branch of the Herring family--the
'red Herrings' they are called locally--if we may speak of Boston as a
'locality'--he's the reddest of them and the most showy. If there's
anything he hasn't tried, he has to try it. He isn't good at things. But
he does them. He's the fellow that went to the Barren Lands with a
niblick. What, you never heard of that stunt? He was playing in foursome
at Myopia. He got bunkered. He hit the sand a prodigious blow and the
ball never moved. His partner said: 'Never mind, Syd, you hit hard
enough to kill a musk-ox.'

"'Did I?' said Herring, much interested, 'but I never heard of killing a
musk-ox with a niblick. Has it ever been done? Are there any authorities
one might consult?'

"His partner assured him that 'it' had never been done. Herring said
that was enough for him. The charm of Herring is that he never smiles;
he's deadly serious--or pretends to be. When they had holed out at the
eighteenth, Herring took his niblick and said: 'Well, so long. I'm off
to the Barren Lands.'

"They bet him there and then that he would neither go to the Barren
Lands nor kill a musk-ox when he got there. He took their bets, which
were large. And he went to the Barren Lands, armed only with his niblick
and a camera. But he didn't kill a musk-ox. He said they came right up
to be photographed, and he hadn't the heart to strike. He brought back
plenty enough pictures to prove where he'd been, but no musk-ox. He
aimed at one tentatively but at the last moment held his hand. 'He
remembered suddenly,' he said, 'that he had never killed anything, and
didn't propose to begin.' So he came home and paid one bet and pocketed
the other. He can't shoot; he can't fish; he can't row. He's a perfect
dub, but he's got the soul of a Columbus."

"Something tells me," said Pritchard, "that I shall like him."

Herring, having arrived and registered and been shown his rooms, was not
thereafter seen to speak to anybody for two whole days. As a matter of
fact, though, he held some conversation with Renier, whom he had met
before.

"It's just Boston," Renier explained. "They're the best people in the
world--when--well, not when you get to know them but when they get to
know you. Give him time and he will blossom."

"He looks like a blossom already," said Lee. "He looks at a little
distance like a gigantic plant of scarlet salvia, or a small maple-tree
in October."

Upon the third day Mr. Herring came out of his shell, as had been
prophesied. He went about asking guests and guides, with almost
plaintive seriousness, questions which they were unable to answer. He
began to make friends with Pritchard and Langham. He solemnly presented
Arthur with a baseball that had figured in a Yale-Harvard game. Then he
got himself introduced to Lee.

"You guide, don't you?" he said.

"I have guided," she said, "but I don't. It was only in the beginning of
things when there weren't enough real guides to go around. But, surely
you don't need a guide. You've been to the Barren Lands and all sorts of
wild places. You ought to be a first-class woodsman."

"I thought I'd like to go fishing to-morrow," he said. "It's very
disappointing. I've looked forward all my life to being guided by a
young girl, and when I saw you, I said, if this isn't she, this is her
living image."

"You shall have Bullard," said Lee. "He knows all the best places."

Herring complained to Arthur. "Your sisters," he said, "are said to be
the best guides in the Adirondacks, but they won't take me out. How is
a fellow to convalesce from typhoid if people aren't unfailingly kind to
him?"

Arthur laughed, and said that he didn't know.

"Let me guide you," he offered.

"No," said Herring, "it isn't that I want to be guided. It's that I want
the experience of being guided by a girl. I want to lean back and be
rowed."

Herring walked in the woods and came upon Phyllis's garden, with Phyllis
in the midst of it.

"Halloo again!" he said.

Now it so happened that he had never seen Phyllis before.

She straightened from a frame of baby lettuce and smiled. She loved
bright colors, and his flaming hair was becoming to her garden.

"Halloo again!" she said.

"Have you changed your mind?" he asked.

She sparred for time and enlightenment and said:

"It's against all the rules."

"We could," said he, "start so early that nobody would know. I have
often gotten up at five."

"So have I," said Phyllis wistfully.

"We could be back before breakfast."

Phyllis appeared to think the matter over.

"Of course," he said, "you said you wouldn't. But if girls didn't change
their minds, they wouldn't be girls."

"That," said Phyllis, "is perfectly true."

To herself she said:

"He's asked Lee or Gay to guide him, and thinks he's asked me."

Now, Phyllis was not good with oars or fishing-tackle, but she liked
Herring's hair and the fact that he never smiled. Furthermore, she
believed that, if the worst came to the worst, she could find some of
the places where people sometimes took trout.

"I have never," said Herring, "been guided by a young girl."

"What, never!" exclaimed Phyllis.

"Never," he said. "And I am sure that it would work wonders for me."

"Such as?"

"It might lead me to take an interest in gardening. I have always hoped
that I should some day."

"People," thought Phyllis, "interested in gardening are rare--especially
beautiful young gentlemen with flaming hair. Here is my chance to
slaughter two birds with one stone."

"You'll swear not to tell?" she exhorted.

"Yes," he said, "but not here. Soon. When I am alone." He did not smile.

"Then," she said, "be at the float at five-thirty sharp."

That night she sought out Lee and Gay.

"Such a joke," she said. "I've promised to guide Mr. Herring--to-morrow
at five-thirty, but he thinks that it's one of you two who has promised.
Now, as I don't row or fish, one of you will have to take my place for
the credit of the family."

But her sisters were laughing in their sleeves.

"My dear girl," said Gay, "why the dickens didn't you tell us sooner? We
also have made positive engagements at five-thirty to-morrow morning."

"What engagements?" exclaimed Phyllis.

Gay leaned close and whispered confidentially.

"We've made positive engagements," she said, "to sleep till breakfast
time."




XIII


In an athletic generation Phyllis was an anachronism. She was the sort
of girl one's great-grandmother was, only better-looking--one's
great-grandmother, if there is any truth in oil and canvas, having been
neatly and roundly turned out of a peg of wood. Phyllis played no game
well, unless gardening is a game. She liked to embroider and to write
long letters in a wonderfully neat hand. She disliked intensely the
roaring of firearms and the diabolic flopping of fresh-caught fish. She
was one of those people who never look at a sunset or a moonrise or a
flower without actually seeing them, and yet, withal, her sisters Lee
and Gay looked upon her with a certain awe and respect. She was so
strong in the wrists and fingers that she could hold them when they were
rambunctious. And she was only afraid of things that aren't in the least
dangerous. "No," they said, "she can't fish and shoot and row and play
tennis and dive and swim under water, but she's the best dancer in the
family--probably in the world--and the best sport."

Phyllis was, in truth, a good sport, or else she was more attracted by
Mr. Herring's _Salvia-splendens_ hair than she would have cared to
admit. Whatever the cause, she met him at the float the next morning at
five-thirty, prepared to guide him or perish in the attempt. She wore a
short blue skirt and a long white sweater of Shetland wool. It weighed
about an ounce. She wore white tennis shoes and an immense pair of
well-oiled gardening gloves. At least she would put off blistering her
hands as long as possible.

Phyllis, to be exact, was five minutes early for her appointment. This
gave her time to get a boat into the water without displaying
awkwardness to any one but herself--also, to slip the oars over the
thole-pins and to accustom herself to the idea of handling them. She had
taken coaching the night before from Lee and Gay, sitting on a bearskin
rug in front of the fire, and swaying rhythmically forward and back.

As Herring was no fisherman, her sisters advised her to row very slowly.
"Tell him," they said, "that a boat rushing through water alarms fish
more than anything in the world."

She told him when he was seated in the stern of the boat facing her.

"You mustn't mind going very slow," she said. "The fish in this part of
the Adirondacks are noted for their sensitiveness in general and their
acute sense of hearing in particular. Why, if I were to row as fast as I
can"--there must have been a twinkle in her eyes--"trout miles away
would be frightened out of their skins," and she added mentally, "and I
should upset this horribly wabbly boat into the bargain."

They proceeded at a snail's pace, Phyllis dabbing the water gingerly
with her oars, with something of that caution and repulsion with which
one turns over a dead snake with a stick--to see if it is dead.

The grips of guide-boat oars overlap. And your hands follow rather than
accompany each other from catch to finish, and from finish to catch. If
you are careless, or not to the stroke born or trained, you occasionally
knock little chunks of skin and flesh from your knuckles.

Herring watched Phyllis's gentle and restrained efforts with inscrutable
eyes.

"I never could understand," he said, "how you fellows manage to row at
all with that sort of an outfit. At Harvard they only give you one oar
and let you take both hands to it, and then you can't row. At least, I
couldn't. They put me right out of the boat. They said I caught crabs.
As a matter of fact, I didn't. All I did was to sit there, and every now
and then the handle of my oar banged me across the solar plexus."

"We're not going far, you know," said Phyllis (and she mastered the
desire to laugh). "Hadn't you--ah--um--better put your rod together?"

"Oh, I can do that!" said Herring. "You begin with the big piece and you
stick the next-sized piece into that, and so on. And I know how to put
the reel on, because the man in the store showed me, and I know how to
run the line through the rings."

"Well," said Phyllis, "that's more than half the battle."

"And," Herring continued, "he showed me how to tie on the
what-you-may-call-it and the flies."

"Good!" said Phyllis.

"And, of course," he concluded, "I've forgotten."

Now, Phyllis had been shown how to tie flies to a leader only the night
before, and she, also, had forgotten.

"There are," she said, "a great many fetiches among anglers. Among them
are knots. Now, in my experience, almost any knot that will stand will
do. The important thing is to choose the right flies."

As to this, she had also received instruction, but with better results,
since it was an entirely feminine affair of colored silks and feathers.

"I will tell you which flies to use," she said.

"And," said he, "you will also have to show me how to cast."

"What!" she exclaimed, and stopped rowing, "You don't know how to cast?"

"No," he said, "I don't. I'm a dub. Didn't you know that?"

"But," she protested, "I can't teach you in a morning"--and she added
mentally--"or in a whole lifetime, for that matter."

It was not more than a mile across the mouth of a deep bay to the brook
in which they had elected to fish. With no wind to object, the most
dabbily propelled guide boat travels with considerable speed, and before
Herring had managed to tie the flies which Phyllis had selected to his
leader (with any kind of a knot) they were among the snaggy shallows of
the brook's mouth.

The brook was known locally as Swamp Brook, its shores for a mile or
more being boggy and treacherous. Fishermen who liked to land
occasionally and cast from terra firma avoided it. Phyllis had selected
it solely because it was the nearest brook to the camp which contained
trout. If she had remembered how full it was of snags, and how easily
guide boats are turned turtle, she would have selected some other brook,
even, if necessary, at the "Back of beyond." It had been easy enough to
propel the boat across the open waters of the lake, but to guide it
clear of snags and around right-angle bends, especially when the genius
of rowing demands that eyes look astern rather than ahead, was beyond
her powers. The boat ran into snags, poked its nose into boggy banks,
turned half over, righted, rushed on, and stopped again with rude bumps.

Herring, that fatalistic young Bostonian, began to take an interest in
his fate. His flies trailed in the water behind him. His eyes never left
Phyllis's face. His handsome mouth was as near to smiling as it ever
got.

"Do you," he said presently, "swim as well as you row?"

She stopped rowing; she laughed right out.

"Just about," she said.

"Good," he said seriously, "because I'm a dub at it, and in case of an
upset, I look to you."

"The truth," said Phyllis, "is that there's no place to swim to. It's
all swamp in here."

"True," said Herring; "we would have to cling to the boat and call upon
Heaven to aid us."

One of Herring's flies, trailing in the water, proved, at this moment,
overwhelmingly attractive to a young and unsophisticated trout.

Herring shouted with the triumph of a schoolboy, "I've got one," and
sprang to his feet.

"Please sit down!" said Phyllis. "We almost went that time."

"So we did," said Herring.

He sat down, and they almost "went" again.

"Now," said Phyllis, "play him."

"Play him?" said Herring. "Watch me." And he began to pull strongly upon
the fish.

The fish was young and weak. Herring's tackle was new and strong. The
fish dangled in mid-air over the middle of the boat.

"Sorry," said Herring, "I can't reach him. Take him off, please."

It has been said that Phyllis was a good sport. If there was one thing
she hated and feared more than another, it was a live fish. She reached
forward; her gloved hand almost closed upon it; it gave a convulsive
flop; Phyllis squeaked like a mouse, threw her weight to one side, and
the boat quietly upset.

The sportsmen came to the surface streaming.

"I can touch bottom," said Herring politely; "can you?"

"Yes," she said, "but my feet are sinking into it--" She tore them loose
and swam. Herring did likewise. And they clung to the boat.

"I hope you'll forgive me," said Phyllis. "I never rowed a boat before
and I never could stand live fish."

"It was my fault," said Herring. "Something told me to lean the opposite
from the way you leaned. But it told me too late. The truth is I don't
know how to behave in a boat. Well, you are still guide. It's up to
you."

"What is up to me?"

"A plan of some sort," said he, "to get us out of this."

"Oh, no," she said, "it's up to you."

"My plan," he said, "would be to get back into the boat and row home. It
seems feasible, and even easy. But appearances are deceptive. I think
I'd rather walk. What has happened here might happen out on the middle
of the lake."

"What you don't realize," said Phyllis, "is that we're in the midst of
an impassable swamp."

"Impassable?"

"Well, no one's ever crossed it except in winter."

"What--no one!"

He was immensely interested.

"Do you know," he went on confidentially, "the only things that I'm good
at are things for which there are no precedents--things that nobody has
ever done before. That's why I'm so fond of doing unusual things. Now,
you say that this swamp has never been crossed? Enough said. You and I
will cross it. We _will_ do it. Are you game?"

"It seems," said Phyllis, "merely a question of when and where we drown.
So I'm game. Your teeth are chattering."

"Thank you," said Herring. "But no harm will come to them. They are very
strong."

"I hope," said Phyllis, "that when I come out of the water you won't
look at me. I shall be a sight."

"A comrade in trouble," said Herring, "is never a sight."

"I am so ashamed," said Phyllis.

"What of?"

"Of being such a fool."

"You're a good sport," said Herring. "That's what you are."

By dint of violent kicking and paddling with their free hands they
managed to propel the guide boat from the centre of the brook to a
firm-looking clump of reeds and alder roots which formed a tiny
peninsula from that shore which was toward The Camp. Covered with slime
and mud they dragged themselves out of the water and stood balancing
upon the alder roots to recover their breath.

"We must each take an oar," said Herring. "We can make little bridges
with them. And we must keep working hard so as to get warm. We shall
live to write a brochure about this: 'From Clump to Clump, or Mudfoots
in the Adirondacks.'"

Between that clump on which they had found a footing and the next was
ten feet of water.

Herring crossed seven feet of it with one heavy jump, fell on his face,
caught two handfuls of viburnum stems, and once more dragged himself out
of water.

"Now then," he called, "float the oars over to me." And when Phyllis had
done this: "Now you come. The main thing in crossing swamps is to keep
flat instead of up and down. Jump for it--fall forward--and I'll get
your hands!"

Once more they stood side by side precariously balancing.

"The moment," said Herring, "that you begin to feel bored, tell me."

"Why?"

"So that I can encourage you. I will tell you that you are doing
something that has never been done before. And that will make you feel
fine and dandy. What we are doing is just as hard as finding the North
Pole, only there isn't going to be so much of it. Now then, in
negotiating this next sheet of water----"

And so they proceeded until the sun was high in the heavens and until it
was low.




XIV


To attempt the dangerous passage of a swamp when they might have
returned to camp in the guide boat was undoubtedly a most imbecile
decision. And if Phyllis had not been thoroughly flustered by the upset,
which was all her fault, she never would have consented to it. As for
Herring's voice in the matter, it was that which the young man always
gave when there was a question of adventure. He didn't get around
mountains by the valley road. He climbed over them. He had not in his
whole being a suspicion of what is dangerous. He had never been afraid
of anything. He probably never would be. He would have enjoyed leading
half a dozen forlorn hopes every morning before breakfast.

"We were idiots," said Phyllis, "to leave the boat."

"We can't go back to it now," said Herring. "We don't know the way."

"Your voice sounds as if you were glad of it."

"I am. I was dreadfully afraid you'd decide against crossing this
swamp. I'd set my heart on it."

"It isn't I," said Phyllis, "that's against our crossing this swamp.
It's the swamp."

"The main thing," said Herring, with satisfaction (physically he was
almost exhausted), "is that here we are safe and sound. We don't know
where 'here' is, but it's with us, it won't run away. When we've rested
we shall go on, taking 'here' with us. Wherever we go is 'here.' Think
of that!"

"I wish I could think of something else," said Phyllis, "but I can't.
I'm almost dead."

"You are doing something that no girl has ever done before, not even
your sisters, those princesses of fortune. Years from now, when you
begin, 'Once when I happened to be crossing the Swamp with a young
fellow named Herring--' they will have to sit silent and listen."

"If you weren't so cheerful," said Phyllis, "I should have begun to cry
an hour ago. Do you really think this is fun?"

"Do I think it's fun? To be in a scrape--not to know when or how we are
going to get out of it? You bet I think it's fun."

"People have died," said Phyllis, "having just this sort of fun. Suppose
we can't get out?"

"You mean to-day? Perhaps we can't. Perhaps not to-morrow. Perhaps we
shall have to learn how to live in a swamp. A month of the life we've
led for the last few hours might turn us into amphibians. That would be
intensely novel and interesting. But, of course, when winter comes and
the place freezes over we can march right out and take up our orthodox
lives where we left off. Listen!"

"What?"

"I think I hear webs growing between my fingers and toes."

Phyllis laughed so that the partially dried mud on her face cracked.

"What," she said, "are we going to eat this side of winter? What are we
going to eat now?"

His face expressed immense concern.

"What? You are hungry? Allow me!"

He produced from his inside pocket a very large cake of sweet chocolate,
wrapped in several thicknesses of oiled silk.

"My one contribution," he said, "to the science of woodcraft."

Phyllis ate and was refreshed. Afterward she washed all the mud from her
face. Herring watched the progress of the ablution with much interest.

"Wonderful!" he said presently.

"What is wonderful?" she asked, not without anticipation of a
compliment.

"Wonderful to find that something which is generally accepted as
true--is true. To see it proved before your eyes."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean," he said, "that I never before actually saw a girl wash her
face. I've seen 'em when they said they were going to. I've seen 'em
when they said they just had. But now I know."

"If you weren't quite mad," said Phyllis, "you'd be very exasperating.
Here am I, frightened half to death, cold and miserable, and dreadfully
worried to think how worried my family must be, and there are you,
almost too tired to stand, actually delighted with yourself, because
you're in trouble and because for the first time in your life you've
seen a girl wash her face. Can't you be serious about anything?"

"Not about a half-drowned girl taking the trouble to wash her face," he
said.

"You," said she, "would look much better if you washed yours."

"But," he said, "we'll be covered with mud again before we've gone fifty
yards."

"Because you are going into a coal mine to-morrow," said Phyllis, "is
no reason why you shouldn't be clean to-day."

"True," said Herring, and he washed his face.

       *       *       *       *       *

At breakfast that morning Pritchard received the following cablegram:

     Come home and shake hands. I'm off. M.

Greatly moved, he carried it to Gay, and without comment put it in her
hand.

"Who is M?" she asked.

"My uncle, the Earl of Merrivale."

"What does _I'm off_ mean?"

"It means," said Pritchard, "that they've given him up, and he wants to
make friends. He never liked my father or me."

"It means," said Gay generously, "that you are going away?"

"Yes," he said, "at once. But it means more. It means that I've got to
find out if I'm--to come back some time?"

"Of course, you are to come back," she said.

Words rose swiftly to Pritchard's lips and came no further. Indeed, he
appeared to swallow them.

"And I'm glad you are going to make friends with your uncle," said Gay.

"There'll be such lots of young men here when the season opens," said
Pritchard.

"Judging by applications," said Gay, "we shall be swamped with gentlemen
of all ages."

Pritchard's melancholy only deepened. "Will you come as far as Carrytown
in the _Streak_?" he asked.

She nodded, and said she would because she had some shopping to do.

During that short, exhilarating rush across the lake, and afterward
walking up and down on the board platform by the side of the waiting
train, he tried his best to ring a little sentiment out of her, but
failed utterly.

The locomotive whistled, and the conductor came out of the village
drug-store, staggering slightly.

"I've left all my dry-fly tackle," said Pritchard. "Will _you_ take care
of it for me?"

"With pleasure," said Gay.

"I'd like you to use it. It's a lovely rod to throw line."

"All aboard!"

"I'd like to bring you out some rods and things. May I?"

"You bet you may!" exclaimed Gay.

Pritchard sighed. The train creaked, jolted, moved forward, stopped,
jerked, and moved forward again. Pritchard waited until the rear steps
of the rear car were about to pass.

"Good-by, Miss Gay!"

They shook hands firmly, and Pritchard swung himself onto the moving
train. Gay, walking rapidly and presently breaking into a trot,
accompanied him as far as the end of the platform. She wanted to say
something that would please him very much without encouraging him too
much.

"Looks as if I was after you!" she said.

Pritchard's whole soul was in his eyes. And there was a large lump in
his throat. Suddenly Gay reached the end of the long platform and
stopped running. The train was now going quite fast for an Adirondack
train. The distance between them widened rapidly.

"Wish you weren't going," called Gay.

And she saw Pritchard reach suddenly upward and pull the rope by which
trains are stopped in emergencies. While the train was stopping and the
train hands were trying to find out who had stopped it and why,
Pritchard calmly alighted, and returned to where Gay was standing.

"I just had to look at you once more--close," he said; "you never can
tell what will happen in this world. I may never see you again, and the
thought is killing me. Think of that once in a while, please."

He bent swiftly, caught her hand in his, kissed it, and was gone. Or, if
not exactly gone, she saw him no more, because of suddenly blinding
tears.

When she reached The Camp, Arthur was at the float to meet her.

"Phyllis and Herring haven't come back," he said. "Lee says they went
fishing. Do you know where they went?"

"I don't. And they ought to have been back hours ago."

"Yes," said Arthur, "and we're all starting out to look for them. Care
to come with me?"

"Yes," she said; "I've got to do _something_."

Something in her voice took his mind from the more imminent matter.

"What's wrong, Gay?"

She shook her head.

"Nothing. Let's start. If Phyl rowed, they must have gone to the nearest
possible fishing grounds."

At this moment Sam Langham came puffing down from Cook House. He was
dressed in white flannels and carried a revolver.

"It's to signal with," he explained. "I'm going to try Loon Brook,
because it's the only brook I know when I see it."

"Bullard's gone to Loon Brook."

"Pshaw--can't I ever be of any use!"

"Good Lord," said Gay, "look!"

There came around the nearest bend a man rowing one guide boat and
towing another, which was empty. Arthur called to him in a loud, hoarse
voice:

"Where'd you find that boat?"

"Up Swamp Brook," came the answer.

Arthur and Gay went gray as ashes.

"Who's to tell Mary?" said Arthur presently.

Then Sam Langham spoke.

"If you don't mind," he said, "I think I will."

An hour later the entire male population of The Camp was dragging Swamp
Brook for what they so dreaded to find.




XV


It wasn't all discouragement. For now and then it seemed as if the swamp
was going to have a shore of dry land. At such times Herring would
exclaim:

"There you see! It had never been done before, and now it's been done,
and we've done it."

And then it would seem to Phyllis as if a great weight of fear and
anxiety had been lifted from her.

But the shore of the swamp always turned out to be an illusion. Once
Herring, firmly situated as he believed, went suddenly through a crust
of sphagnum moss and was immersed to the arm-pits. For some moments he
struggled grimly to extricate himself, and only sank the deeper. Then he
turned to Phyllis a face whimsical in spite of its gravity and pallor,
and said: "If you have never saved a man's life, now is your chance. I'm
afraid I can't get out without help."

It was then that her phenomenally strong little hands and wrists stood
them both in good stead. The arches of her feet against a submerged
root of white cedar, she so pulled and tugged, and exhorted Herring to
struggle free, that at last he came out of that pocket quagmire and lay
exhausted in the ooze at her feet.

He was incased from neck to foot in a smooth coating of brown slime.
Presently he rolled over on his back and looked up at her.

"There you see!" he said. "You'd never saved a man's life before, and
now you've done it. Please accept my sincere expressions of envy and
gratitude-- Why, you're crying!"

She was not only crying, but she was showing symptoms of incipient
hysteria. "An old-fashioned girl," thought Herring, "like
Great-grandmother Saltonstall." He raised himself to a sitting position
just in time to slide an arm around her waist as, the hysteria now well
under way, she sat down beside him and began to wave her hands up and
down like a polite baby saying good-by to some one.

"One new thing under the sun after another," thought Herring. "Never had
arm round hysterical girl's waist before. Got it there now. When you
need _her_, she takes a good brace and pulls for all she's worth. When
she needs _you_, she seats herself on six inches of water and yells.
Just like Great-grandmother Saltonstall." Aloud he kept saying: "That's
right! Greatest relief in the world! Go to it!" And his arm tightened
about her with extraordinary tenderness.

Her hysterics ended as suddenly as they had begun. And then she wasted a
valuable half-hour apologizing for having had them; Herring protesting
all the while that he had enjoyed them just as much as she had, and that
they had done him a world of good. And then they had to stop talking
because their teeth began to chatter so hard that they simply couldn't
keep on. Herring stuttered something about, "Exercise is what a body
needs," and they rose to their feet and fought their way through a dense
grove of arbor-vitæ.

"The stealthy Indian goes through such places without making a sound,"
said Herring.

"Or getting his moccasins wet," said Phyllis. "Oh!" And she sank to the
waist.

"Never mind," said Herring, "it will be dark before long. And when we
have no choice of where to step, maybe we'll have better luck."

"It will _have_ to be dark very soon," said Phyllis, "if we have any
more of our clothes taken away from us by the brambles."

"That's a new idea!" exclaimed Herring. "Young couple starve to death
in the woods because modesty forbids them to join their friends in the
open. The head-line might be: 'Stripped by Brambles,' or 'The Two
Bares.'"

He was so pleased with his joke that he had to lean against a tree. The
laughing set him to coughing, and Phyllis beat him methodically between
the shoulders.

Herring still refused to be serious. In helping Phyllis over the bad
places, he performed prodigies of misapplied strength and made
prodigious puns. And he said that never in his life had he been in such
a delightful scrape.

Once, while they were resting, Phyllis said:

"All you seem to think of is the fun you're having. Most men would be
thinking about the anxiety they were causing others and about the
miseries of their companion."

"But," he protested, "you are enjoying yourself too. You don't think you
are, but you are. It's your philosophy that is wrong. You like to live
too much in the present. I like to lay by stores of delightful memories
against rainy days. The worse you feel now, the more you'll enjoy
remembering how you felt--some evening, soon--your back against soft
cushions and the soles of your feet toward the fire."

"Ugh!" shuddered Phyllis. "Don't talk about fires. Oh, dear!"

"What's wrong _now_!"

"I'm so stiff I don't think I can take another step. We oughtn't to have
rested so long."

But she did take another step, and would have fallen heavily if Herring
had not caught her. A moment later she lost a shoe in the ooze, and
wasted much precious daylight in vain efforts to locate and recover it.

"Sit down on that root," commanded Herring. And she obeyed. He knelt
before her, lifted her wet, muddy little stockinged foot and set it on
his knee.

"What size, please, miss?" he asked, giving an excellent imitation of a
somewhat officious salesman.

"I don't know; I have them made," said Phyllis wearily, but trying her
best to smile.

"Something in this style?" suggested Herring. He had secretly removed
one of his own shoes, and handling it with a kind of comic reverence, as
if the soggy, muddy thing was a precious work of art, he presented it to
her attention.

And then Phyllis smiled without even trying and then laughed.

"I said a _shoe_," she said, "not a travelling bath-tub."

But he slipped that great shoe over her little foot, and so bound it to
her ankle with his handkerchief and necktie that it promised to stay on.

"But you?" she said.

"Luck is with me to-day," said Herring. "Anybody can walk through an
impassable swamp, but few are given the opportunity to hop. General
Sherman should have thought of that. It would have showed the
Confederates just what he thought of them if instead of marching through
Georgia he had hopped."

And he pursued this new train of thought for some time. He improvised
words to old tunes, and sang them at the top of his lungs: "As we were
hopping through Georgia." And last and worst he sang: "There'll be a hop
time in the old town to-night." And when he had occasion to address
Phyllis directly, he no longer called her Miss Darling, but "Goody Two
Shoes." He said that his own name was not Mr. Herring but Mr. Hopper,
and that he was a famous cotillon leader.

But even he became a little quiet when the light began to fail, and a
little serious.

"Whatever happens," he said, "it will be a great comfort to you to
realize that it's entirely my fault. On the other hand, if we had
gotten back into that boat, we might have been drowned long before
this."

A little later Phyllis said: "I'm about all in. It's too dark to see.
I----"

"Couldn't have chosen a better camping site myself," said Herring
humbly. "First thing to think of is the water-supply--and fuel. Now,
here the fuel grows right out of the water----"

"We haven't any matches."

"Yes, we have; but they are wet and won't light."

"We'll die of cold before morning," said Phyllis; "there's no use
pretending we won't."

"On the contrary. Now is the time to pretend all sorts of things. Did
you ever try to make a fire by rubbing two sticks together?"

"Never."

"Well, try it. It will make you warmer than the fire would. Afterward we
will play 'Paddy cake, Paddy cake,' and 'Bean Porridge hot.'"

"Do men in danger always carry on the way you do?" asked Phyllis.

"Always," he answered.

"I can understand trying to be funny during a cavalry charge, or while
falling off a cliff," said Phyllis, "but not while slowly and miserably
congealing."

"You are not a Bostonian," said Herring. "Half the inhabitants of that
municipality freeze to death and the others burn."

"I've stayed in Boston," said Phyllis, "and the only difference that I
could see between it and other places was that the people were more
agreeable and things were done in better taste. And what gardens!"

"Ever seen the Arboretum?"

"Have I?"

"In lilac time?"

"Mm!"

She was on her favorite topic. She forgot that she was cold, wet,
miserable, and a frightful anxiety to her family.

"But why be an innkeeper?" asked Herring. "Why not set up as a
landscape-gardener?"

"I don't know enough. But I've often thought----"

"I've got five hundred acres outside of Boston that I'd like to turn you
loose on."

"You speak as if I were a goat."

"The first thing to do is to drain the swamps. Now, I'll make you a
proposition. I can't put it in writing, because it's too dark to see and
I have no writing materials, but there is nothing fishy about us
Herrings. You to landscape my place for me, cause a suitable house to
be built, and so forth; I to pay you a thousand dollars a month, and a
five per cent commission on the total expenditure."

"And what might _that_ amount to?"

"What you please," said Herring politely.

"Who says Bostonians are cold?" exclaimed Phyllis. And there began to
float through her head lovely visions of landscapes of her own making.

"You're still joking, aren't you?" she said after a while.

"I don't know landscapes well enough to joke about them," he said.

"But I can't design a house!"

"Oh, you will have architects to do that part. You just pick the general
type."

"What kind of a house do you want?"

"It depends on what kind of a house _you_ want."

"Oh, dear," she exclaimed, "what fun it would be!"

"Will you do it?"

She was tempted beyond her strength.

"Yes," she said, and began to talk with irresponsible delight and
enthusiasm.

"Ah," thought Herring to himself, "find out what really interests a girl
and she'll forget all her troubles."

It began suddenly to grow light.

"Good heavens!" exclaimed Phyllis. "The woods must be on fire! Oh, the
poor trees!"

"It isn't fire," said Herring, "it's the moon--'Queen and huntress,
chaste and fair--goddess excellently bright'--was ever such luck! I
hoped we were going to stand here cosily all night talking about
marigolds and cowslips and wallpapers, and now it's our duty to move on.
Come, Goody Two Shoes, Policeman Moon has told us to move on. I shall
never forget this spot. And I shan't ever be able to find it again."

They toiled forward a little way, and lo! upon a sudden, they came to
firm and rocky land that sloped abruptly upward from the swamp. They
climbed for several hundred feet and came out upon a bare hilltop, from
which could be seen billows of forest and one great horn of Half Moon
Lake, silver in the moonlight.

"Why, it isn't a mile to camp," said Phyllis. She swayed a little,
tottered, rocked backward and then forward, and fell against Herring's
breast in a dead faint.

In a few moments she came to and found that she was being carried in
strong arms. It was a novel, delicious, and restful sensation--one which
it seemed immensely sensible to prolong. She did not, then, immediately
open her eyes.

She heard a voice cheerful, but very much out of breath, murmuring over
her:

"New experience. Never carried girl before. Experience worth repeating.
Like 'em old-fashioned--like Great-grandmother Saltonstall. Like 'em to
faint."

A few minutes later, "Where am I?" said Phyllis.

"In my arms," said Herring phlegmatically, as if that was one of her
habitual residing places.

"Put me down, please."

"I hear," said he, "and I obey with extreme reluctance. I made a bet
with myself that I could carry you all the way. And now I shall never
know. Feel better?"

"Mm," she said, and "What a nuisance I've been all through! But it was
pretty bad, some of it, wasn't it?"

"Already you are beginning to take pleasure in remembering. What did I
tell you? Don't be frightened. I am going to shout."

He shouted in a voice of thunder, and before the echo came back to them
another voice, loud and excited, rose in the forest. And they heard
smashings and crashings, as a wild bull tearing through brittle bushes.
And presently Sam Langham burst out of the thicket with a shower of
twigs and pine-needles.

His delight was not to be measured in words. He apostrophized himself.

"Good old Sam!" he said. "He knew you weren't drowned in the brook. He
knew it would be just like Herring to want to cross that swamp. As soon
as I heard somebody say that it was impassable, I said: 'Where is the
other side? That's the place to look for them.' But why didn't you make
more noise?"

"Oh," said Herring, "we were so busy talking and exploring and doing
things that had never been done before that it never occurred to us to
shout."

"Herring," said Langham sternly, "you have the makings of a hero, but
not, I am afraid, of a woodsman."

"Well, we're safe enough now," said Herring. "Excuse me a moment----"

"Excuse you! What?"

"It's very silly--been sick you know--over-exertion--think better faint
and get it over with."

Langham knelt and lifted Herring's head.

"You lift his feet," he said to Phyllis, "send the blood to his heart;
bring him to."

Herring began to come out of his faint.

"This young man," said Langham, "may be something of an ass, but he's
got sand."

"He carried me a long way," said Phyllis, the tears racing down her
cheeks; "and he's only just over typhoid, and he never stopped being
cheerful and gallant, and he _isn't_ an ass!"

Herring came to, but was not able to stand. He had kept up as long as he
had to, and now there was no more strength in him.

Phyllis accepted the loan of Langham's coat.

"I'll stay with him," she said, "while you go for help."

The moment Langham's back was turned she spread the coat over Herring.

"_Please--don't!_" he said.

"You be quiet," said she sharply. "How do you feel?"

"Pretty well used up, thank you. Hope you'll 'scuse me for this
collapse. Shan't happen again. Lucky thing you and I don't both collapse
same moment."

A faint moan was wrung from him. She touched his cheek with her hand. It
was hot as fire. She was an old-fashioned girl, and the instinct of
nursing was strong in her.

She was an old-fashioned girl. There had almost always been a young man
in her life about whom, for a while, she wove more or less intensely
romantic fancies. They came; they went. But almost always there was one.

She raised her lovely face and looked at the moon, and made an unspoken
confession. There had always been one. Well, now there was another!




XVI


When the real season opened, you might have thought that the whole
venture was Mr. Sam Langham's and that he had risked the whole of his
money in it. Without being officious, he had words of anxious advice for
the Darlings, severally and collectively. His early breakfasts in Smoke
House with Mary, the chef beaming upon the efficient and friendly pair,
lost something of their free and easy social quality, and became
opportunities for the gravest discussions of ways and means.

The opening day would see every spare room in the place occupied--by a
man. To Mary it seemed a little curious that so few women, so few
families, and so many bachelors had applied for rooms. But to Sam
Langham the reasons for this were clear and definite.

"It was the picture in the first issues of your advertisement that did
it. I only compliment and felicitate you when I say that every bachelor
who saw that picture must have made up his mind to come here if he
possibly could. And that every woman who saw it must have felt that she
could spend a happier summer somewhere else. Now, if you had circulated
a picture of half a dozen men, each as good-looking as your brother
Arthur, the results would have been just the opposite."

"Women aren't such idiots about other women's looks as you think they
are," said Mary.

"I didn't say they were idiots; I intimated that they were sensible. The
prettiest woman at a summer resort always has a good time--not the best,
necessarily, but very good. Now, no woman could look at that picture of
you and your sisters and expect to be considered the prettiest woman
_here_. Could she, Chef?"

Chef laughed a loud, scornful, defiant, gesticulant, Gallic laugh. His
good-natured features focussed into a scathing Parisian sneer; he turned
a delicate omelette over in the air and said, "Lala!"

"There are," continued Mr. Langham, "only half a dozen women in the
world who can compare in looks with you and your sisters. There's the
Princess Oducalchi--your mother. There's the Countess of Kingston, Mrs.
Waring, Miss Virginia Clark--but these merely compare. They don't
compete."

Mr. Langham tried to look very sly and wicked, and he sang in a humming
voice: "Oh, to be a Mussulman, now that spring is here."

"Coffee?" said Mary.

"Please."

"Well," said she, as she poured, "the whys and wherefores don't matter.
It's to be a bachelor resort--that seems definitely settled. But I think
we had better send the triplets away. I don't want the Pritchard and
Herring episodes repeated while my nerves are in this present state. And
there's Lee--if she isn't leading Renier into one folly after another, I
don't know what she is doing. They seem to think that keeping an inn is
a mere excuse for flirtation."

"Don't send them away," said Langham. "If you sent those three girls to
a place where there weren't any men at all--they'd flirt with their
shadows. Better have 'em flirting where you can watch 'em than where you
can't. And besides--are you quite sure that the Pritchard and Herring
episodes were mere flirtations? Day before yesterday I came upon Miss
Gay by accident; she was practising casting."

"That's how she spends half her time."

"But she was practising with Pritchard's rod! Yesterday I came upon her
in the same place----"

"By accident?" smiled Mary.

"By design," he said honestly. "And this time she wasn't casting. She
had the rod lying across her knees, and her eyes were turned dreamily
toward the bluest and most distant mountain-top."

"'Why do you look at that mountain?' I said.

"'Because it's blue, too,' said she.

"'And what makes you blue?' I asked.

"'The same cause that makes the mountain blue,' said she.

"'Hum,' said I. 'Then it must be distance.'

"'Something like that,' she said. 'I sometimes think I'm the most distant
person in the world.'

"'You're probably not the only person who thinks that!' said I.

"And she said, 'No? Really?' And that was all I could get out of her.
Except that, just as I was walking away, I heard a sharp whistling sound
and my cap--my new plaid cap--was suddenly tweaked from the top of my
head and hung in a tree. She must have practised a lot with that rod of
Pritchard's. It was a beautiful cast----"

"She might have put your eye out!" exclaimed Mary.

"She hung the apple of my eye in a tree," said he dolefully. "You know
that one with the green and brown? And last night it rained."

"I hope she expressed sorrow," said Mary.

"She was going to, but I got laughing and then she did."

"What a dear you are!" exclaimed Mary. "And so you think she's making
herself mournful over Mr. Pritchard? And what are the reasons for
thinking that Phyllis is serious about Mr. Herring?"

"He's sent for blue-prints of his property outside Boston, and they are
busy with plans for landscaping it. Narrow escape that! I didn't let on;
but the second day I thought he was a goner. I did."

Mary sighed.

"We might just as well have called it a matrimonial agency in the first
place instead of an inn."

Mr. Langham rose reluctantly.

"I have an engagement with Miss Maud," he explained.

The faintest ripple of disappointment flitted across Mary's forehead.

"I've promised to help her with her books," said he. "Some of the
journal entries puzzle her; and she has an idea that The Inn ought to
have more capital. And we are going into that, too."

"I hope," said Mary, "that you aren't going to lend us money without
consulting me."

Chef was in a distant corner, quite out of ear-shot. And Mr. Langham,
emboldened by one of the most delicious breakfasts he had ever eaten,
shot an arch glance at Miss Darling.

"I wouldn't consult you about lending money," he said; "I wouldn't
consult you about giving money. But any time you'll let me consult you
about _sharing_ money----"

Panic overtook him, and he turned and fled. But upon Mary's brow was no
longer any ripple of disappointment--only the unbroken alabaster of
smooth serenity. She reached for the household keys and said to herself:

"Maud is a steady girl--even if the rest of us aren't."

She caught a glimpse of herself in the bottom of a highly polished
copper utensil and couldn't help being pleased with what she saw.

On the way to the office Mr. Langham fell in with Arthur. This one,
Uncas scolding and chatting upon his shoulder, was starting off for a
day's botanizing--or dreaming maybe.

"Arthur--one moment, please," said Langham. "As the head of the family
I want to consult you about something."

"Yes?" said Arthur sweetly. "Of course, Uncas, you are too noisy." And
he put the offended little beast into his green collecting case.

"I never would have come here," said Mr. Langham, "if it hadn't been for
that advertisement."

Arthur frowned slightly.

"You mean----"

"Yes. But I came," said Mr. Langham, "not as a pagan Turk but as a
Christian gentleman. I was just about to take passage for Liverpool when
I saw your sister Mary looking out at me from _The Four Seasons_. And so
I wrote to ask if I could come here. I have lived well, but I am not
disappointed. I am very rich----"

"My dear Sam," said Arthur, "you are the best fellow in the world. What
do you want of me?"

"To know that you think I'd try my best to make a girl happy if she'd
let me."

"A girl?" smiled Arthur. "_Any_ girl?"

"In all the world," said Mr. Langham, "there is only one girl."

"If I were you," said Arthur, "I'd ask her what _she_ thought about
it."

Langham assumed a look of terrible gloom.

"If she didn't think well of it I'd want to cut my throat. I'd rather
keep on living in blissful uncertainty, but I wanted _you_ to
know--_why_ I am here, and _why_ I want to stay on and on."

"Why, I'm very glad to know," said Arthur, "but surely it's your own
affair."

Mr. Langham shook his head.

"Last night," said he, "I was dozing on my little piazza. Who should row
by at a distance but Miss Gay and Miss Lee. You know how sounds carry
through an Adirondack night? Miss Lee said to Miss Gay: 'I tell you he
doesn't. Not _really_. He's just a male flirt.' 'A butterfly,' said Miss
Gay."

"But how do you know they were referring to you?"

"By the way the blessed young things laughed at the word '_butterfly_'.
So I wanted you to know that my intentions are tragically serious, no
matter what others may say. Whatever I may be, and I have been insulted
more than once about my figure and my habits, I am _not_ a flirt. I am
just as romantic as if I was a living skeleton."

Here Arthur's head went back, and he laughed till the tears came. And
Mr. Langham couldn't help laughing, too.

A few moments later he was going over The Inn books with Maud Darling
and displaying for her edification an astonishing knowledge of entries
and a truly magical facility in figuring. Suddenly, apropos of something
not in the least germane, he said:

"Miss Maud, when in your opinion is the most opportune time for a man to
propose to a girl?"

"When he's got her alone," said she promptly, "and has just been
dazzling her with a display of his erudition and understanding."

And she, whom Mary had described as the one steady sister in the lot,
flung him a melting and piercing glance. But Mr. Langham was not
deceived.

"I ask you an academic question," he said, "and you give me an
absolutely cradle-snatching answer. I may _look_ easy, Miss Maud, but
there are people who will protect me."

"The best time to propose to a girl? You really want to know? I thought
you were just starting one of your jokes."

"If I am," said he, "the joke will be on me. But I _really_ want to
know."

"The best moment," said she, "is that moment in which she learns that
one of her friends or one of her sisters younger than she is engaged to
be married. When an unengaged girl hears of another girl's engagement
she has a momentary panic, during which she is helpless and defenseless.
That is my best judgment, Mr. Sam Langham. And the older the girl the
greater the panic. And now I've betrayed my sex. In fact, I have told
you absolutely all that is definitely known about girls."

Just outside the office he met Gay.

"Halloo!" she said.

He only made signs at her and flapped his arms up and down.

"_They_ can't talk," he said.

"Who can't talk?"

He held her with a stern glance, and if the word had been hissable,
would have hissed it.

"Butterflies," he said.

Then Miss Gay turned the color of a scarlet maple in the fall of the
year. Then she squealed and ran.




XVII


"Are we all here?" asked Mary.

She had summoned her sisters and Arthur to the office for a conference.

"All except Sam Langham," said Gay.

"I didn't know that he was one of the family," said Mary.

"Of course, you _know_," said Gay; "you would. _I_ was just guessing."

"Well, he isn't," said Mary, trying not to change color or to enjoy
being teased about Mr. Langham.

The triplets sat in a row upon a bench made of little birch logs with
the bark on. It was not soft sitting, as Lee whispered, but one had
one's back to the light, and in case one had done something wrong
without knowing it and was in for a scolding, that would prove an
immense advantage.

"What I wanted to say," said Mary, "is just this----"

She stood up and looked rather more at the triplets than any one else,
so that Lee exclaimed, "Votes for women," and Gay echoed her with,
"Yes, but none for poor little girls in their teens."

"Hitherto," continued the orator, "The Inn has been only informally
open. It's been more like having a few friends stopping with us. We had
to see more or less of them. But after to-day there will be a crowd, and
I think it would be more dignified and pleasanter for them if _some_ of
us kept ourselves a little more to ourselves. What do _you_ think,
Arthur?"

Arthur looked up sweetly. It was evident that he had not been listening.

"Why, Mary," he said, "I think it might be managed with infinite
patience."

The triplets giggled; Maud and Eve exchanged amused looks.

"Arthur," said Mary, "you can make one contribution to this discussion
if you want to. You can tell us what you are really thinking about, so
that we needn't waste time trying to guess."

"Why," said he gently, "you know I have quite a knack with animals,
taming them and training them, and I was wondering if it would be
possible to train a snail. _That's_ what I was thinking about. I have a
couple in my pocket at the moment, and----"

"Never mind _now_," said Mary hurriedly, and she turned to the
triplets. "What do _you_ think of what I said?"

"I think it was tortuous and involved," said Lee, "and that it would
hardly bear repetition."

"It smacked of paternalism," said Gay. And even Phyllis, her mind upon
the convalescing Herring, was moved to speak.

"You said it would be more dignified for some of us to keep to
ourselves. Perhaps it would. You said it would be pleasanter for the
people who are coming here to stay. I doubt it!"

"Bully for you, old girl," shouted Lee and Gay; "sick her!"

Mary moaned. She was proof against their hostilities, but the language
in which they were couched pierced her to the marrow.

"I am sure," she said, "that Maud and Eve will agree with me."

"Of course," said Eve.

"Naturally," said Maud.

"There!" exclaimed Mary, with evident triumph.

"We agree," said Eve, "that _some_ of us should keep ourselves more to
ourselves."

And she looked sternly at the triplets. But then she turned and looked
sternly at Mary and rose to her feet.

"We think," she said with a _j'accuse_ intonation, "that those who
haven't kept themselves to themselves should, and that those who
have--shouldn't. Maud and I, for instance, haven't the slightest
objection to being fetched for and carried for by attractive young men.
Have we, Maud? But hitherto, as must have been obvious to the veriest
nincompoop, we have done our own fetching and carrying."

There was a short silence. Mary blushed. Arthur fidgeted. He was
wondering if snails preferred the human voice or whistling.

"I'm quite sure," said Maud, "that I haven't been wandering over the
hills with future earls, or lost in swamps with interesting invalids, or
basked morning after morning in the sunny smile of a gourmet----"

Mary paled under this attack.

"Mr. Langham is altogether different," she said.

"Oh, quite!" cried Lee.

"Utterly, absolutely different!" cried Gay. "To begin with, he's richer;
and to end with, he's fatter."

"I shouldn't have said 'fat,'" said Lee. "I should have said
'well-larded,' but then I am something of a stylist."

"Sam Langham," said Mary, "is everybody's friend. And he's an immense
help in lots of ways; and then he has a certain definite interest in The
Inn. Because, if we need it, he's going to lend us money to carry our
accounts."

Gay whispered to Lee behind her hand. Lee giggled.

"What was that?" asked Mary sharply.

"Only a quotation."

"What quotation?"

"Oh, Gay just said something about 'Bought and Paid For.'"

Here Arthur interrupted.

"They're like snails," said he to Mary. "You can only train 'em with
infinite patience."

Phyllis rose suddenly and became the cynosure of all eyes except her
own, whose particular cynosure at the moment was the floor. She moved
toward the door.

"Where are you off to?" asked Mary.

"I'm just going to speak to Chef."

"What about?"

"About some chicken broth."

"For yourself?"

The gentle Phyllis was being goaded beyond endurance. At the door she
turned and lifted her great eyes to Mary's.

"No," she said bitterly; "it's for Arthur's snails."

There was a silence.

"If there's any voting," said Phyllis, "I give my proxy to Gay." And she
vanished through the door.

"I'm sure," said Mary, "I don't know what the modern young girl is
coming to!"

"I know where _that_ one is going to," said Gay; "spilling the chicken
broth in her unseemly haste."

Then Arthur spoke.

"The modern young girl," he said, "is coming to just where her
grandmother came, and by the same road. Girls will be girls. So let's be
thankful that the men who have come here so far have been--men. And
hopeful that those who are to come will be also. I've lived too much
with nature not to know what's natural--when I see it."

"Do you think," said Gay sweetly, "that it's natural for a man to eat as
much as Sam Langham does?"

"As natural under the peculiar circumstances," said Arthur, "as it is
for you to tease."

Lee rose.

"And you?" said Mary, smiling at last.

"Oh," said Lee witheringly, "I have an engagement to carve initials
surrounded by a heart on a birch-tree."

And when Lee had gone Gay spoke up.

"I shouldn't wonder," said she, "if, by way of a blind, the baggage had
told the truth."

"We should never have called it The Inn," said Mary; "we should have
called it The Matrimonial Agency."

"Every pretty girl," said Arthur, "is a matrimonial agency."

At this moment Uncas, the chipmunk, rushed screaming into the room and
flung himself into Arthur's lap. Arthur comforted the little beast, and
noticed that his nose and face bore fresh evidences of a fight. Uncas
complained very bitterly; he was evidently trying to talk.

"Is Stripes hurt?" asked Mary.

"It's his feelings," said Arthur. "He's been made a victim of misplaced
confidence. Some young woman has been encouraging him."

"Poor little man!" said Gay with sudden emotion. "Did ums want some nice
vasy on ums poor sick nose?"

"He would only lick it off," regretted Arthur.

Mr. Langham's jolly face appeared in the open door.

"I've seen two depart," he said, "and thought maybe the meeting was
over."

"It is," said Mary, and, after a moment's hesitation, she boldly joined
Mr. Langham and walked off by his side. Even Arthur chuckled.

"And what was the meeting about?" asked Mr. Langham.

"Oh," said Mary, "they won't be serious--not any of them--not even
Arthur. So we forgot what the meeting was for, and got into violent
discussion about--about natural history."

"And what side did you take?"

"Oh," said Mary, "we were all on the same side--_really_, and that was
what made the discussion so violent."

"The day," said Langham, "is young. I feel ripe for an adventure. And
you?"

"What sort of an adventure?"

"I thought that if one--or rather if _two_ climbed to the top of a very
little hill and sat down in the sunshine and admired the view----"

       *       *       *       *       *

Far out on the lake they could see Lee, lolling in the stern of a guide
boat. Young Renier was at the oars. But the boat was not being
propelled. It was merely drifting.

"I wonder," said Langham, and he watched her face stealthily, "if by any
chance those two are really engaged?"

Was there the least hardening of that lovely, gentle face, the least
fleeting expression of that sort of panic which one experiences when
arriving at the station in time to see the train pull out but not too
late to get aboard by the exercise of swift and energetic manoeuvres?

"Don't say such things!" she said presently. "It's like jumping out from
behind a tree and shouting, 'Boo!'"

Mr. Langham smiled complacently and changed the subject. But he said to
himself: "That Maud is a clever girl!"

"I suppose," said Mary after a while, "that this is the last really
peaceful day we'll have for a long time. To-morrow the place will be
full of strange, critical faces. And it will be one long wrestle to make
everything go smoothly all the time."

She sighed.

"There are only two ways to success," said Langham. "One is across the
wrestling-mat, and one is through the pasture of old Bull Luck. But I'm
convinced that The Inn is going to pay very handsomely. There is a
fortune in it."

"There mightn't be," said Mary, "if--" and she broke into a peal of
embarrassed laughter.

"If what?"

"I was thinking of that _dreadful_ picture."

"I often think of it," said Mr. Langham, "and of the first time I saw
it."

Mary gave him a somewhat shy look.

"Of course it didn't influence you," she said.

"But it did. And that day I forgot to eat any lunch. I am looking
forward," he said, "to warm weather--I enjoy a swim as much as anybody."

"Why is it," said Mary, "that a girl is ashamed when it is her money
that attracts a man, and proud when it is her face? Both are equally
fortuitous; both are assets in a way--but of the two, it is the money
alone which is really useful."

"It sounds convincing to a girl," mused Mr. Langham, "when a man says to
her: 'I love you because of your beautiful blue eyes!' But it wouldn't
sound in the least convincing if he said: 'I love you because of your
beautiful green money!' I don't attempt to explain this. I am merely
stating what appears to me to be a fact. But, as you say, money is, or
should be, an asset of attraction."

"I suppose beauty is held in greater esteem," said Mary, "because it is
more democratically bestowed. Money seems to beget hatred because it
isn't."

"The French people," said Langham, "hated the nobility because of their
wealth and luxury. To-day a common mechanic has more real luxuries at
his disposal than poor Louis XVI had, but he hates the rich people who
have more than he has--and so it will go on to the end of time."

"Will there always be rich people and poor people?"

"There will always be rich people, but some time they will learn to
spend their money more beneficently, and then there won't be any really
poor people. If the attic of your house were infected with dirt and
vermin you couldn't sleep until it had been cleaned and disinfected. So,
some day, rich men will feel about their neighbors; cities about their
slums; and nations about other nations. I can imagine a future Uncle Sam
saying to a future John Bull"--and he sunk his voice to a comically
confidential whisper: "'Say, old man, I hear you're pressed for ready
cash; now't just so happens I'm well fixed at the moment, and--oh, just
among friends! Bother the interest!' What a spectacle this world
is--it's like the old English schools that Dickens wrote out of
existence--just bullying and hazing all around! Why, if a country was
run on the most elementary principles of honesty and efficiency, the
citizens of that country would never have occasion to say: 'Our taxes
are almost unbearable.' They would be nudging each other in the streets
and saying: 'My, that was a big dividend we got!'"

Mr. Langham only stopped because he was out of breath. His face was red
and shining. He mopped his brow with his handkerchief.

Mary was almost perfectly happy. She loved to hear Langham run on and
on. His voice was so pleasant, and his face beamed so with kindness. And
from many things which he had from time to time let slip she was
convinced that she needn't be an old maid unless she wanted to be. And
so to climb a little hill with him, to sit in the sun, and to admire the
view was really an exciting venture. For she never knew what he was
going to let slip next. And equally exciting was the fact that if that
slip should be in the nature of a leading question, she could only guess
what her answer would be.

When a man is offered something that he very much wants--a trifling
loan, for instance--his first instinct is to deny the need. And a girl,
when the man she wants offers himself, usually refuses at the first
time of asking. And some, especially rich in girl nature, which is
experience of human nature and somewhat short of divine, will persist in
refusing even unto the twentieth and thirtieth time.

Mary Darling was in a deep reverie. From this, his eyes twinkling behind
their thick glasses, Mr. Langham roused her with the brisk utterance of
one of his favorite quotations:

"'General Blank's compliments,'" said he, "'and he reports that the
colored troops are turning black in the face.'"

Mary smiled her friendliest smile.

"I was wondering," she said, "what had become of Lee and Renier."

"I have noted," said Mr. Langham, "that she always calls him by his last
name, sometimes with the prefix you--'You Renier' put like that. And I
was wondering if he ever turns the trick on her."

"Why should he?" asked Mary innocently.

"You have forgotten," said he, "that her last name is Darling." His eyes
twinkled with amazing and playful boldness. "You're _all_ Darlings," he
exclaimed, "and"--a note of self-pity in his voice--"I'm just a fat old
stuff!"

"That," said Mary primly, "is perfectly correct, but for three trifling
errors--you're not fat, you're not old, and you're not a stuff!"

If she had told him that he was handsome as Apollo he could not have
been more pleased.

And so their adventure progressed in the pleasant sunlight that warmed
the top of the little hill. No very exciting adventure, you say? And of
a shilly-shallying and even snail-like motion?

Oh, you can't be always riding to rescues, and falling over cliffs, and
escaping from burning houses.

At that moment, by the purest accident, the tip of Mr. Langham's right
forefinger just brushed against Mary's sleeve. And there went through
him from head to foot a great thrill, as if trumpets had suddenly
sounded.

"I suppose," said Mary, after a little while, "that we ought to be
going."

"But I'd rather sit here than eat," said Mr. Langham.

"Honestly? So would I."

"Then," said Mr. Langham, "without exposing ourselves to any other
danger than that of starvation, I propose that we lose ourselves--as
_other people do_--in short, that we remain here until one or other of
us would rather--eat."

"Good gracious," said Mary, "we might be here a week!"

Mr. Langham rose slowly to his feet. Far off he could see pale smoke
flitting upward through the tree-tops. He turned and looked into Miss
Darling's smiling, upturned face.

"I'll just run down and tell Arthur we're not _really_ lost," he said.
"But I'll make him promise not to look for us. I'll be right
back--almost before you can say 'Jack Robinson.'"

She held out her hands. He took them and helped her to her feet. And
then they both laughed aloud.

"Thank Heaven," said Mary, "that whatever else you and I may suffer
from, it isn't from insanity--or slim appetites! As a matter of fact,
I'm famished."

"Thank God!" said Mr. Langham; "so am I."

And they began to descend the hill. For to keep men and women and
adventurers going, the essential thing is food. And there's many a
promising romance that has come to nothing for want of a loaf of bread
and a jug of wine.




XVIII


In a certain part of the Land of Cotton, where they grow nothing but
rice, Colonel Melville Meredith stood beside the charred foundations of
a house and nursed his chin with his hand. With the exception of a sword
which the King of Greece had given him, all those possessions which he
had considered of value had gone up in smoke with the house of his
ancestors. The family portraits were gone, the silver Lamarie, and
Lesage, and all the Domingan satinwood. If Colonel Meredith had been an
older man, he must almost have wept. But the grip upon his chin was not
of one mourning. It was the grip of consideration. He was wondering what
sort of a new house he should build upon the foundations of the old.

He must, of course, build upon the old site. There were other good sites
among his thousands of acres, but none which was so well planted. A good
architect could copy the Taj Mahal for you. But the Pemaque oak is one
hundred and seven feet, or less, in circumference, and the avenue of
oaks leading from the turnpike, two miles away, was planted in 1653.
There were also divers jungles of rhododendrons, laurel, and azalea in
the river garden that it had taken no less than a great-grandmother to
plant.

"It can't be the first conflagration in the family," he thought.
"Everybody's ancestors, at one time or another, must have lost by fire
and built again. As for Pemaque--it _was_ a lovely old house, but a new
house could be just as lovely, and it could have bathrooms and be made
rat-proof. And I wouldn't mind if people scratched the floors."

I have said that Colonel Meredith had lost all the possessions which he
valued. But of course the land remained, the trees, the duck ponds, the
alligator sloughs, and so forth. There remained, also, a robust youth,
crowded with experiences and memories of wars and statesmen and of
delightful people who live for pleasure. There remained, also--least
valuable of all to a man of action and sentiment--a perfectly safe
income, derived from bonds, of nearly two hundred and fifty thousand
dollars a year. Colonel Meredith was by all odds the richest man in that
part of the Land of Cotton, where they grow nothing but rice.

It was piping hot among the foundations of the old house; the sticky,
ticky season had descended upon the Carolina seacoast. The snakes and
the lizards were saying among themselves, "Now this is really something
like," and were behaving accordingly. Every few minutes a new and
ambitious generation of mosquitoes was hatched. The magnolias were going
to seed. Colonel Meredith's Gordon setter, a determined expression upon
his face, had been scratching himself with almost supercanine speed for
the last twenty minutes.

Colonel Meredith scorned ticks, trod with indifference upon snakes, and
was not poisoned or even pained by mosquitoes, but he had travelled all
over the world and was not averse to being cooler and more comfortable.

"We've got the grandest climate in the world," he thought loyally, "for
eight months in the year--but when it comes to summer give me Vera Cruz,
Singapore, or even hell. I'll build a home for autumn, winter, and
spring, but when it gets to be summer, I'll go away and shoot polar
bears."

He whistled his dog and walked thoughtfully to where his automobile was
waiting in the shade. His driver, an Irish boy from New York, was in a
state of wilt.

"I have determined," said Colonel Meredith, "not to begin building
until cool weather. We shall go North to-night. I hope the thought will
refresh you. Now we will go back to Mr. Jonstone's. Do you feel able to
drive, or shall I?"

It was typical of the region that the Mr. Jonstone with whom Meredith
was stopping should own the best bed of mint south of Washington, and
could make the best mint-juleps. The mint-bed was about all he did own.
Everything else was heavily mortgaged. Everything, that is, except the
family silver and jewels. These Jonstone's grandmother had buried when
Sherman came marching through, and had almost immediately forgotten
where she had buried them. Jonstone employed one trustworthy negro whose
year-around business was to dig for the treasure. There existed a list
of the objects buried, which was enough to make even a rich man's palm
itch.

"Nothing to-day," said Jonstone as his guest drove up. "And it's about
time for a julep."

"I'm going North to-night," said Meredith, "and you're going with me."

They were cousins, second or third, of about the same age. They even
looked alike, but whereas Meredith had travelled all over the world,
Jonstone had never been south of Savannah or north of Washington.

He began with an ivory toddy-stick to convert sugar and Bourbon into
sirup.

"How's that, Mel?" he asked. "And why?"

"Between us two, Bob," said Meredith, "this is one hell of a climate in
summer. The brighter we are the quicker we'll get out of it."

"I'd like to go you on that, but aside from the family silver I haven't
a penny in the world."

"Bob, I'm sick of offering to lend you money. I'm sick of offering to
give you money. There's only one chance left."

Jonstone made a gentle clashing sound with fine ice.

"As you know, my family silver has all gone up in smoke. Now yours
hasn't. Suppose you sell me yours. What's it worth?"

"With or without the diamonds?"

"If I should ever marry, it would be advisable to have the diamonds."

"Well," said Jonstone, beginning to turn over a bundle of straws, with
the object of selecting four which should be flawless, "I don't want to
stick you. We have a complete list of the pieces, with their weights and
dates. Some of the New York dealers could tell us what the collection
would be worth in the open market. Double that sum in the name of
sentiment, and I'll go you."

"I must have a free hand to hunt for the stuff in my own way-- It's
perfection--you never, never made a better one--now, how about the
diamonds?"

"I have the weights. And you know the Jonstones were always particular
about water."

"That's why they are all dead but you. Then you'll come?"

Bob Jonstone nodded.

"You'll have to lend me a suit of clothes--but, look here, Mel: suppose
the silver and stuff has been lifted--doesn't exist any more? Wouldn't
I, in selling it to you, be guilty of sharp practice?"

"Our great-great-grandfather, the Signer, doesn't exist any more, Bob.
That silver is somewhere--in some form or other. I pay for it, and it's
mine. Does it matter if I never see it or handle it? I shall always be
able to allude to it--isn't that enough? As for you, you'll be able to
pay all your mortgages, to fix the front door so's it won't have to be
kept shut with a keg of nails, and to spend what is necessary on your
fields."

"Of course," said Jonstone, who had finished his julep. "It afflicts me
to part with what has been in the family so long."

"But you ought to be afflicted."

"Why?"

"Didn't you vote for Wilson?"

Jonstone nodded solemnly.

"Come, then," said Meredith, as if he were pardoning an erring child;
"there's just time for one julep and to pack up our things. You'll just
love New York. And when we get there we'll make up our minds whether
we'll go to Newport or Bar Harbor. Bob, did it ever occur to you that
you and I ought to get married? That looks as if it was going to be
better than the other, though darker-- What's the use of having
ancestors if you're not going to be one?"

"Show me a girl as handsome as Sully's portrait of Great-grandmother
Pringle, and I'll take notice."

"Why, every other girl in a Broadway chorus has got the old lady skinned
to death, Bob!"

"You may be worldly-wiser than me, Mel, but you've lost your reverence.
It's always been agreed in the family that Great-grandmother Pringle was
the most beautiful woman in the South. And when a man says 'the South,'
and refers at the same time to female charms, he has as good as said the
whole world."

"Bob, among ourselves, do you really think Jefferson Davis was a
greater man than Abraham Lincoln?"

"Ssssh!" said Jonstone.

"Do you really think the Southern armies wiped up the map with the
Northern armies every time they met? And do you really think that
wooden-faced doll that Sully painted has no equal for beauty north of
the Mason and Dixon line? What you need is travel and experience."

"What's the matter with _you_ getting married?--My God, don't spill
that, Mel!"

"There's nothing the matter with it. And I'll tell you what I'll do: I
will if you will."

"They ought to be sisters, seeing as how you and I have always been like
brothers and voted the Democratic ticket and fought chickens."

"And fed the same ticks and mosquitoes."

"We'll have a double wedding. We'll each be the other's best man, and
they'll each be the other's best girl."

"No--no; they are each to be our best girls."

"What I mean is----"

"I know what you mean, but you've made this julep too strong."

"That's _one_ thing they can't do in the North."

"What's that?"

"Make a julep."

Meredith considered this at some length. "No, Bob," he said at length,
"they can't. But I once met a statesman from Maine who made a thing that
looked like a julep, tasted like a julep, and that--I'd say it if it was
my dying statement--had the same effect."

"She must be better-looking than Great-grandmother Pringle," said
Jonstone. "She must be able to make a julep, and she must have a sister
just like her. Can you lend me a suit of clothes till we get to New
York?"

"I can lend you anything from a yachting suit to a Bulgarian uniform."

"And you're sure I'm not imposing on you in the matter of the silver?"

"Sure. I just want to know it's mine."

In the morning, soon after this precious pair had breakfasted, a boy
went through the train with newspapers and magazines. He proclaimed in
the sweetest Virginian voice that his magazines were just out, but a
copy of _The Four Seasons_ which Colonel Meredith bought proved not only
to be of an ancient date but to have had coffee spilled upon it.

At the moment when this discovery was made, the youthful paper-monger
had just swung from the crawling train to the platform of a way
station, so there was no redress. The cousins agreed, laughing, that if
a Yankee had played them such a trick they would have wished to cut his
heart out, but that, turned upon them by a fellow countryman, it was
merely a proof of smartness and push.

"Between you and me, Bob," said Colonel Meredith, "an accurate count of
our Southern population would proclaim a villain or two here and there.
I was brought up to believe that to be born in a certain region was all
that was necessary. But that's not so. I tell you this because I am
afraid that when you are meeting people in New York and having a good
time you will be wanting to lay down the law, to wit, that one
Southerner can whip five Yankees. Don't do it. I will tell you a horrid
truth. I was once whipped by a small-sized Frenchman within an inch of
my life. He had studied _le boxe_ under Carpentier and I hadn't. Did you
ever study _le boxe_? No? An Anglo-Saxon imagines that he was born
boxing. And it takes a licking by a man of Latin blood to prove to him
that he wasn't. Just because people make funny noises and monkey cries
when they fight doesn't prove that they are afraid. There is nothing so
ridiculous as a baboon going into action and nothing more terrible when
he gets there."

"The more you travel, Mel, the more you show a deplorable tendency to
foul your own nest."

"_I_ run down the South? I like that! But, my dear Bob, there is only
one chosen people. And it isn't us." Here he made a significant gesture
with his hands, turning the palms up, and they both laughed. "A Jew," he
went on, "is what he is because he is a Jew. His good points and his bad
are racial. But between two men of our race there is no material
resemblance. One is mean, the other generous; one broad, one narrow; one
brave, the other not. Do you know why hornless cows give less milk than
horned cows? Because there are fewer of them. Do you know why there are
more honest men in the North, and pretty girls, than there are in the
South? Simply because there are more men and more girls. It also follows
that there are more dishonest men and ugly girls; more of everything, in
fact."

He was slowly turning over the pages of _The Four Seasons_, looking
always, with Pemaque in mind, at pictures of country houses. Suddenly he
closed the magazine, looked pensively out of the window, and began to
whistle with piercing sweetness. He once more opened the magazine, but
this time with great caution as if he was half afraid that something
disagreeable would jump out at him. Nothing did, however. He folded the
magazine back upon itself and held it close to his eyes, then far off,
then at mid-distance.

"What's the matter with you?" said Bob Jonstone.

"Nothing," said Meredith, "only I'm thinking there ought to be six of us
instead of only two. Look at that page and tell me where we're going to
spend the summer."

Jonstone took the magazine and saw the six Darling sisters sitting on
the float in their bathing-dresses. Presently he smiled and said:
"You've just won an argument, Mel."

"How's that?"

"Why, in the South there wouldn't be so many of them--but maybe they are
not always there. Maybe they were only there last summer."

"Well, we can find out where they've gone, can't we?"

"It doesn't seem in strict good breeding to pursue ladies one doesn't
know."

"Why, bless you, I chased all over Europe after a face I saw in _The
Sketch_, only to find out that she was willing to marry anybody with
money and had a voice like a guinea-hen. And after I'd found that out,
she chased _me_ all over Europe and as far East as Cairo."

"I've never been chased by a woman," said Jonstone a little wistfully.
"What happened in the end?"

"I left Cairo between two days, fled away into the desert with some
people just stepped out of the Bible, and never came back."

"Suppose she hadn't been willing to marry you and had had a voice like a
dove?"

"Don't suppose. We are on a new quest."

"What is the Adirondacks?"

"We wouldn't think much of it in the South. It's a place where you are
always cool and clean and can drink the nearest water. The trout don't
eat mud and haven't got long white whiskers, and the deer are bigger
than dogs, and you don't go to sleep at night. The night just comes and
puts you to sleep. It's just like Bar Harbor--only a little more so in
some ways and a little less so in others."

Jonstone spread _The Four Seasons_ wide open upon his knees.

"Let's agree right now," he said, "which each of us thinks is the
prettiest. It would be dreadful after travelling so far if we were both
to pick on the same one."

"We would have to fight a duel," said Meredith, "with swords, and
considering that you could never even sharpen a pencil without cutting
yourself----"

"A boy wouldn't come along," said Jonstone, "and sell us a copy of a
magazine months old if fate hadn't meant us to see this picture. I think
I like the third one from the end."

"I think I like the three that look just alike."

"That is because you have travelled in Turkey. You never seem to
remember that you are a Christian gentleman."




XIX


When they found out how much the buried silver was worth--the inventory
was very thorough in the matter of description, dates, and weights--Mr.
Bob Jonstone burst out laughing. But Colonel Meredith, although
determined to stand by his bargain whatever the cash cost, looked like a
man who has just missed the last train.

"I haven't got that much money loose, Bob," he said, "but I can raise it
in a few days and then we'll execute a bill of sale. Meanwhile, allow me
to congratulate you on your accession to the aristocracy."

"Aristocracy? It's blood that counts--not money."

"According to the old democracy, yes. According to the new,
distinguished people pay an income tax and common people don't. And you,
a moment ago, before the valuation was completed, were a very common
fellow, indeed."

"Mel, I had no idea that old junk was worth so much."

"You hadn't? Well, it's worth more. I'm getting a bargain. Thank the
Lord you're a gentleman, so there's no danger of your backing out."

Jonstone seized his cousin's hand and pressed it affectionately.

"Mel," he said, "can you afford to do this thing? God knows the money
will make all the difference in the world to me! But in taking it I
don't feel any too noble."

"It was always ridiculous for me to be rich and for you to be poor.
That's done with. I'm still rich, thank God!--and you're well-to-do. You
can travel if you like, breed horses, install plumbing, burn coal, and
marry."

"If I was sure that the silver would ever be turned up, I wouldn't feel
so sheepish."

"As long as you don't look sheepish or act sheepish--suppose that now,
after a slight fortification, we visit a tailor. It is necessary for you
to dress according to your station in life."

Their first day in New York was immensely amusing to both of them.
Meredith was coming back to it after a long absence; Jonstone was seeing
it for the first time, and for the first time his pockets were full of
money that he did not owe. Now, New York is one of the finest summer
resorts in the world. Do not pity the poor business man who sends his
family to the mountains for the hot weather, for while they are burned
by the sun and fed an interminable succession of blueberry pies, he
basks in the cool of electric fans and dines on the fat of the land. His
business may worry him, but there is no earthly use in his attending to
it. That is done for him. He can skip away when he pleases for an
afternoon's golf or tennis. Somebody's motor is always going somewhere
where there is pleasure to be found and laughter. The lights of Luna
Park are brighter than the Bar Harbor stars, and the ocean which pounds
upon Long Beach is just as salt as that which thunders against Great
Head--and about twice as warm. For pure torture give me a swim anywhere
north of Cape Cod. Merely to step into such water is like having one's
foot bitten off by a shark.

It did not take Jonstone long to acknowledge that New York is even
bigger than Richmond, Virginia, and even livelier. The discovery of a
superannuated mosquito in his bathroom had made him feel at home, and
the fact that the head bartender in the hotel, though a native of
Ireland, fashioned a delicious julep.

But his equanimity came very near to being upset in the subway. He felt
a hand slipping into his pocket and caught it by the wrist. He had a
grip like looped wire twisted with pinchers. The would-be thief uttered
a startled shriek and was presently turned over to a policeman.

All the way to the station-house Mr. Jonstone talked excitedly and
triumphantly to his cousin.

"Yes, sir," he said, "you had me groggy with your high buildings and
your Aladdin-cave stores and your taxicabs and park systems. But by the
Everlasting, sir, this would never have happened to me south of the
Mason and Dixon line. No, sir; we may be short on show but we're long on
honesty down there. I don't even have to lock my door at night."

"That's because the lock's broken and you've always kept it shut with a
keg of nails. There are more pickpockets in New York than in Charleston,
but only because there are more pockets to pick."

"I don't get you," said Jonstone stiffly. A little later he did.

The culprit was asked his name by a formidable desk sergeant.

"Stephen Breckenridge."

Bob Jonstone gasped.

"Where do you come from?"

"Lexington, Kentucky."

Colonel Meredith let forth a howl of laughter. And after he had been
frowned into decorum by the sergeant, he continued for a long time to
look as if he was going to burst.

For some hours Mr. Jonstone was moody and unamused. Then suddenly he
broke into a winning smile.

"Mel," he said, "I wouldn't have minded so much if he had been smart
enough to get my money. It was bad finding out that he was a compatriot
of ours, but much more to realize that he was a fool."




XX


Mr. Langham was consulted about everything. And it was to him that Maud
Darling took Meredith's letter asking for accommodations.

"We've only two rooms left," she said, "and such nice people have come,
or are coming, that it would be an awful pity if we had the bad luck to
fill up with two men that weren't nice. Did you ever hear of a Colonel
Meredith?"

"Is that his letter? May I look?"

Mr. Langham read the letter through very carefully. Then he said,
looking at her over the tops of his thick glasses:

"I don't know if you know it, but I have made quite a study of
handwritings. The writer of this letter is a gentleman--a Southern
gentleman, if I am not mistaken. Accepting this premise, we may assume
that his friend Mr. Robert Middleton Jonstone is also a Southern
gentleman. Middleton, in fact, is pure South Carolinian."

"But if they are from South Carolina, wouldn't our terms stagger them?
I've always understood that Southern gentlemen lost all their money in
the war."

"Nevertheless," said Mr. Langham, "this is the writing of a rich man."

"How _can_ you know that?"

"I tell you that I have made a study of handwriting. It is also the
writing of a horse-loving, war-loving, much-travelled man--in the late
twenties."

"You will tell me next that he is about five feet ten inches tall, has
blue eyes, and is handsome as an angel."

"You take the words out of my mouth, Miss Maud."

"Tell me more." She was laughing now.

"He is very handsome, but not as angels are--his eyes are too bold and
roving. If he wasn't a good man he would be a very bad man. There was a
time, even, when strong drink appealed to him. He is quixotically brave
and generous. And I should by all means advise you to let him have his
accommodations."

"I can never tell when you are joking."

"I was never more serious in my life. Shall I tell you something else
that I have deduced?"

"Please."

"Well, then, he isn't married, Miss Maud, and he is a great catch!"

Miss Maud blushed a trifle.

"I don't know if you know it," she said, "but I have made a profound
study of palmistry. Will you lend me your hand a moment?"

"Very willingly. And I don't care if some one were to see us."

She studied his palm with great sternness.

"I read here," she said, "with regret, that you are an outrageous flirt.
It seems also that you are something of a fraud."

"One more calumny," exclaimed Mr. Langham, "and I withdraw my hand with
a gesture of supreme indignation."

But she held him very tightly by the fingers.

"And this little line," she cried, "tells me that you have known Colonel
Meredith intimately for years and that you never studied handwriting in
all your born days."

Mr. Langham began to chuckle all over.

"The next time," he said, "that people tell me you are easily imposed
on, I shall deny it."

"You _do_ know him?"

He blinke

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