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FRIENDSHIP AND FOLLY

[8]

"THERE WAS A LITTLE BLACK SHAPE SITTING ON SOME LUGGAGE."

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Friendship and Folly

A Novel

BY

MARIA LOUISE POOL

AUTHOR OF
"IN A DIKE SHANTY," "BOSS," ETC.

BOSTON
L. C. PAGE AND COMPANY

(INCORPORATED)

1898

[10]

Copyright, 1898
By The J. B. Lippincott Co.
Copyright, 1898
By L. C. Page and Company
(INCORPORATED)

Colonial Press
Electrotyped and Printed by C. H. Simonds & Co.
Boston, U.S.A.

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CONTENTS.

[12]

[13]

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

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FRIENDSHIP AND FOLLY.

CHAPTER I.
AT SAVIN HILL.

There was one large wicker chair on the piazza, and in the chair sat a girl. It was a spacious piazza, the roof of which was supported by gnarled tree-trunks, the bark and the knots carefully preserved so as to look "rustic." The deep eaves drooped in a rustic manner also, and there were trumpet-vines and wistaria, and various other creeping things of the vegetable world, wandering about in a careful carelessness, like the hair of a woman when it is dressed most effectively.

The lawn swept down rather steeply and stopped suddenly against a thick stone wall that was covered with ivy.

On top of this wall, ruthlessly trampling back and forth on the leaves, was a small boy dressed in the fashion of a member of the navy. His blue pantaloons flapped very widely at the ankles, and were belted about him by a leather belt on which was the word "Vireo," in gilt letters; his brimless cap was tipped perilously on that part of his head where the warm affections used to be located in the days of phrenology. On this cap also appeared the word "Vireo," in gilt. This figure, outlined as it was against the bright blue of the sky, had the effect of not being more than about sixteen inches long. And in truth Leander Ffolliott was very small for his age, which was ten years and five months. He did not feel small, however; his mind might suitably have inhabited a giant's frame, so far as his estimation of himself and the Ffolliott family generally was concerned. But the rest of the family did not always agree with him in this estimation, and at such times of disagreement the boy was given to screaming and kicking until the air round about this summer residence resounded, and seemed actually to crackle and glimmer in sympathy with the mood of Leander.

Just now he had stopped in his trampling of the ivy leaves. He was standing with his legs wide apart, and was bending forward somewhat, stirring with a stick something on the top of the wall in front of him. His atom of a face was screwed up, his lips sticking out,

"Sis!" he suddenly shrieked; "I say, sis!"

The girl on the piazza stopped reading, and looked at the boy.

"What's the matter?" she called out.

"You just come here; you come here this minute! Stop readin' that nasty book, 'n' come along!"

"Carolyn, you'd better go," said a voice from the inner side of an open window; "if you don't he may be so tried with you that he'll fall off the wall. I've told him not to get on that wall, anyway."

The girl rose and turned her book down open upon her chair. Then she sauntered slowly along over the lawn, so slowly that her brother Leander stamped his foot and called to her to hurry, for he couldn't wait.

"You'd better hurry, Carolyn," said the gentle voice at the window; "I'm so afraid he may fall."

So the girl hastened, and in a moment was leaning against the wall and asking, without much interest:

"What is it, Lee? You do shriek so!"

Leander was now standing upright. He had put his foot, encased in yellow leather, hard down on the something he had been poking at. His freckled face was red, his eyes shining with excitement.

"By George!" he exclaimed; "you can't guess in a million years what I've found! No, not in ten million! I ain't picked it up yet. I wanted you to see me pick it up. Oh, thunderation! won't I just do what I darn please with the money? You bet! Fifty dollars! Cousin Rod owes me fifty dollars! I don't s'pose he'll be so mean as to say that ad. of his has run out 'n' he don't owe me anything. Do you think he'll be so mean as that, Caro? Say!"

At this thought Leander's face actually grew pale beneath tan and freckles.

The girl was not very much impressed as yet by her brother's excitement. She was used to seeing him excited.

"You know Rod wouldn't do anything mean," she replied, calmly. "But what are you talking about? Of course it can't be—"

"Yes, 'tis, too. And it's fifty dollars. Now you needn't go 'n' tell Rod he no need to pay it, 'cause 'twas one of the family. I won't stand it if you do! I—"

"Stop your gabble!" interrupted the girl, imperatively. "Lift up your foot."

She took hold of the boy's arm as she spoke. A certain spark had come into her eye.

The foot was withdrawn. In a cleft between the stones, where the ivy leaves had hidden it, lay a ring. It was turned so that the stone could but just be seen.

She extended her hand, but it was promptly twitched away by her brother.

"None er that!" he cried. "I ain't goin' to let you pick it up; then you'll be wantin' to share in the fifty dollars. You can't do that,—not by a long streak. Here she goes!"

He stooped and then held up a ring between his finger and thumb. The sun struck it, and made the engraved carbuncle shine dully red.

"That's the very critter!" exclaimed Leander, triumphantly.

"Let me take it," said the girl.

She spoke shortly, and in a way that made the boy turn and look at her curiously. But he obeyed instantly. He laid the ring in the palm of her hand, thrust his own hands into his pockets, and stood gazing down at his sister.

Carolyn Ffolliott looked at the trinket with narrowing eyes. Her lips were a trifle compressed.

"There ain't any mistake, is there?" the boy asked, at last, speaking anxiously. "That's the ring Rod lost, ain't it? Anyway, it's one exactly like it,—that red stone with something cut into it."

"There isn't the least chance of any mistake," was the answer. "Of course it's Rod's."

Carolyn gave back the ring.

"And I sh'll have the reward?"

"Of course."

The girl appeared to have lost all interest in the matter. She turned to go back to the piazza.

Leander made an extremely tight, hard, dingy fist of one hand, with the ring enclosed, and then he leaped down from the wall, landing so near to his sister that she staggered away from him.

"I wish you would behave respectably!" she cried.

"Pooh!" said Leander. He ranged up by her side and walked across the lawn with her towards the house.

He had now put the ring on his thumb and was holding it up in front of him, gazing at it. He was greatly surprised that his sister took no more notice of it. But you never knew what to expect of a girl. Anyway, she shouldn't have any of that money.

"I'll bet I know how the ring got there," he remarked, presently.

"How?"

"Why, you gaby you, the crow, of course. But I don't know how he got it. Flew into Rod's room sometime, I s'pose. If he thinks such an almighty lot of it, Rod better look out. I guess fifty dollars'd get a lunkin' lot of cannon crackers, don't you think, sis?"

"Yes," absently.

"But I better have some pin-wheels, 'n' Roman candles, don't you think?"

"Yes."

Leander turned, and peered up at his sister's face.

"You mad 'cause you didn't find it?" he asked.

"No."

"All right. I guess I'll get you 'n' marmer some kind of a present. I'll make marmer tell me what she'd like for 'bout fifty cents. Hi! marmer! I'll let you have three guesses 'bout what I've found—"

Here Leander slammed in through the wide screen door which opened from the piazza into the hall.

Leander's sister resumed her seat. She had taken up her book, and now sat looking at it in much the same attitude that had been hers when her brother called her. She could hear his shrill voice inside the house, as he told his mother of his find.

After a few moments Carolyn heard the clock in the hall strike ten. At about ten the mail for "Savin Hill," as their place was called, was brought over from the village.

But she continued to look intently down at her book for several minutes more. Then she rose slowly; she stood and gazed off across the lawn to where a sharp line of glitter showed between some savin-trees that had been left standing on the other side of the wall. These trees slanted south-westerly, as do most of the trees on the south shore of Massachusetts, being blown upon so much of their lives by the northeast wind.

That line of glitter was Massachusetts Bay. Across the girl's vision moved two or three sails; but she did not seem to see them. Her eyes showed that she was not thinking of what was before her.

Presently a clock somewhere in the house struck the half-hour after ten.

A servant came out on the piazza with some papers and letters in her hand. She hesitated, then came forward. "You told me to bring the mail out here, Miss Ffolliott," she said, as if in apology.

"So I did; thank you."

"Why, Carolyn!" exclaimed a middle-aged lady, hurrying by the servant, "isn't this odd about Rodney's ring?"

"Very," answered the girl. She held the papers in her hand and did not raise her eyes as she spoke.

"I do wonder what he'll say," went on her mother. "I do wonder if he still cares. How upset he was! And how curious that he should have lost the ring just before the engagement was broken! It did seem almost like a forerunner."

Mrs. Ffolliott held the trinket in her hand. Her son was standing beside her still, with his hands in his pockets. He was watching the ring somewhat as he would have watched it if his mother had been likely to devour it.

"You know Devil took it, of course," answered Carolyn, without raising her eyes. "There's no other way to account for its being in the wall there."

"It always seems so profane to speak of the crow in that way," murmured Mrs. Ffolliott.

Whereat her son frankly exclaimed, "Oh, marmer, don't be a jackass! That's the crow's name, you know."

"But he ought never to have been named in that way. I objected to it from the first."

"Pooh!"—this from Leander.

"I know," went on the lady, "that it was Rodney himself who named him, but—"

"Come, now, marmer," the boy interrupted, impatiently, "you always say that."

"Here's a letter from Prudence at last."

It was the girl who spoke, now looking up at her mother.

"Read it to me, dear," was the response. But it was some moments before the mother and son could finish the altercation now entered into as to who should have charge of the ring until such time as it could be returned to the owner.

Mrs. Ffolliott succeeded in gaining permission, Leander perceiving that the article would be safer in her care. But he cautioned her not to expect any share of the reward.

Then he walked out of sight to some region momentarily unknown to his parent, and peace reigned on the piazza.

Mrs. Ffolliott sat down in the chair and placidly waited.

Carolyn stood leaning against the wall of the house. The open letter hung from her hand.

"That new man hasn't brought back the veranda chairs since he swept here," now remarked Mrs. Ffolliott. "I wish you'd tell him—"

"Yes, I will, presently," replied the girl. "Shall I read this to you now? She's coming home."

"Coming home!"

"Yes. Here's what she says: 'My dear old fellow—'"

"Does she call you that?" interrupted Mrs. Ffolliott.

There was a slight smile on the girl's face as she answered:

"Yes; she seems to mean me."

"Oh, dear! Well, it's just like her. But then, anything is just like her. Go on, please."

"'My dear old fellow,'" again began Carolyn, "'I suppose there is stuff that martyrs are made of, but none of that stuff got into my make-up, so I don't mean ever to pose for that sort of thing. That is, never again; but I've been doing it for the last four weeks.

"'You see, mamma would have me stay with her at Carlsbad. It has seemed as if I should die. And how horrid you would feel if you should have to tell people, "My dear cousin Prudence died at Carlsbad." Because, you see, they don't die at Carlsbad; they hustle off somewhere to die and be buried. And if I should give up the ghost here I should be thought quite odd. But I shouldn't care for that. Only I want to live, and I mean to. That's why I'm not going to stand it.

"'There hasn't been a man here that it would pay to speak to, much less to look at. I might just as well have been a nurse. I shouldn't have been so bored, for if I had really been one that knowledge would have sort of upheld me,—at least I think it would.

"'And mamma will have me with her when she takes the mud baths. I have to stay right there and see her step into the big tub of ground peat and sprudel water. And there are snakes in it; anyway, mamma feels just as if there were, and makes me feel so, which amounts to much the same thing, because if there were, they wouldn't be poisonous, you know. She sits up to her neck for half an hour. Black mud! Then a nurse comes and lifts out one arm; pours water over it. Then the other arm; pours water over it. Then mamma gradually rises and goes into a regular sprudel bath. I'm just pervading about as the dutiful daughter who is staying at Carlsbad with her mother. Every third day sprudel is omitted.

"'Mamma has me with her when she goes to the springs to drink. Drinks six glasses; stops after each glass to walk one-quarter of an hour. We walk one solid hour before breakfast. I go with the procession of drinkers, with mamma on my arm. Oh, that procession of drinkers solemnly walking the time out!

"'I always look to see if there are any new men. You know I must do something. And there always are some new ones. But they are watching themselves, their insides, you know, to see what the mud baths and the water are doing for them already. And I can tell you as a positive fact that a man who is watching to find what a mud bath has done to him is as uninteresting as a dummy. You try it and see, if you don't believe me.

"'One day I did have a bit of a sensation. I was going along just as primmy as prim, with mamma on my arm, when I suddenly felt as if somebody were staring at me. So I turned my eyes, and there was Lord Maxwell gazing right at me. He was one of the procession of drinkers. He was limping. Perhaps he has rheumatism, or, rather, of course he has it, or he wouldn't be here.

"'I wonder if I flushed. I couldn't positively tell. But I bowed, and he raised his hat, and his face grew red. But the procession kept right on. If I should see him, he wouldn't talk of anything but how many glasses he had to drink; he wouldn't, because it can't be done here in Carlsbad.

"'Mamma converses a great deal about her food. For some reason she makes me listen, or pretend to listen. I know all about how she can eat bread, but no butter, and stewed fruits, and once in awhile an egg. You can skip this if you want to, but I can assure you I can't skip it; I have to take it three times a day, and sometimes in the night,—the talk about it, I mean. I have a bed in mamma's room, and I have to be wakened and told how mamma detests bread without butter; and she never did like eggs.

"'I've borne the whole thing like an angel, I do believe; particularly since Lord Maxwell came. He hasn't been very interesting, but I was hoping all the time he would be. He still wears red neckties in the morning. He has gone now. He thought some other mud might do more for him than this mud. And I've told mamma that she positively must get along now with her maid and her nurse. And she's a lot better, anyway. And I'm going to start from Antwerp; and I shall alight at Savin Hill about as soon as you get this. And you must receive me with frantic delight. My love to Aunt Letitia, and to Leander, and to Devil; and millions of kisses to your own self. But I'll give them to you. I "don't nohow expect" that Rodney Lawrence is to be in Massachusetts this summer. But if he should be with you, kind remembrances to him. I saw a man a few weeks ago from New York who said that Mr. Lawrence was bound to make his mark. I don't suppose he cares for compliments any more.

"'Ever your
"'Prudence.'"

As Carolyn finished reading the letter she folded it carefully and stood there in silence.

Her mother drew a long breath. She contemplatively patted a bow of ribbon on her morning dress.

"That's just like Prudence Ffolliott," she said, at last.

"What is like her?"

"Why, starting off and coming home all in a moment like that."

"She has been abroad more than a year."

"Has she? Well, I've missed her unaccountably, but I must say I was relieved when she went. And now I shall be glad when she comes."

Carolyn turned her head and gazed at her mother for a moment. Then she smiled, slightly, as she said, "One is bound to miss Prue one way or the other."

Mrs. Ffolliott continued to smooth the bow of ribbon.

"And Rodney coming, too!" she exclaimed.

"That will make it interesting to all of us, don't you see?"

The girl made this remark a trifle satirically.

"And Leander has found the ring she gave him!"

The pronouns in this sentence were so indefinite in their reference that Carolyn smiled at them. But she did not take the trouble to reply. She knew her mother's manner of speaking.

Mrs. Ffolliott rose from her chair after a moment. She came to her daughter and put her hand on her arm as she asked, impressively:

"Can't you telegraph to Rodney not to come?"

At this instant something made the girl turn quickly. Her face flushed crimson. She uttered an exclamation, and ran forward to the open door.

On the other side of the screen there stood a man. He was tall, he was young, and at just this juncture he was laughing silently.

He hastily swung open the wire door and stepped on to the piazza. He put one arm about the elder woman and one about the younger, and kissed first one and then the other.

"Aunt Tishy," he said, "I reached that door just in time to hear you ask if I couldn't be telegraphed to not to come. No, I can't be."

Mrs. Ffolliott was gazing with delight up at the young man's face. Carolyn stood looking at him demurely.

"Is the scarlet fever here, and are you afraid I'll take it?" he asked.

"Did you hear anything else we said?" she inquired.

"Not a word."

"It has happened so unfortunately," now began the elder lady. "But what are we going to do?"

"Mamma!" exclaimed Carolyn.

The young man began to be puzzled. A line came between his eyes.

"If you really want me to go—" he began.

"No; mamma is silly, that's all," said Carolyn, frankly.

"As if that were not enough!" Here Lawrence laughed, but the line did not leave his forehead.

"You'll have to tell him now, mamma," said the girl, "or he will really think we don't want him."

Mrs. Ffolliott hesitated. And as she hesitated a glitter grew quite decidedly in Lawrence's eyes. The Ffolliott home had always been his home, and though "Aunt Tishy" was not his aunt, but only a second cousin, she had been very kind to the boy whom she had persuaded her husband virtually to adopt when he had been left alone before he was ten years old.

"Yes, you will certainly have to tell me," he said; and he drew himself up a little as he spoke. "I thought," he went on, "when I overheard you speak of sending me a message, that you were going away somewhere; but if it's not convenient for you to have me—"

"Now it's you who are silly," Carolyn interrupted.

"You see," said Mrs. Ffolliott, "we have just heard from Prudence."

"Well?"

Lawrence knew that Carolyn was carefully refraining from looking at him, and this knowledge keenly exasperated him.

"I thought that—I didn't know but—"

Having proceeded thus far, Mrs. Ffolliott paused.

Lawrence laughed, not quite pleasantly.

"You thought that if a man was once a fool he was always a fool?" he asked.

"I don't know, I'm sure," the lady answered, helplessly. "Caro, you tell him."

"One would think you were going to cut off an arm or a leg," he said.

"It's all quite ridiculous," the girl began. "Prudence writes that she is tired of staying abroad, and she is coming here. What she says is that she may 'alight at Savin Hill at any moment.'"

Lawrence walked to one of the piazza pillars, and leaned against it.

"I suppose I must have been even more of a raving maniac about Prudence Ffolliott than I knew, and I knew I was the most infernal idiot that ever walked on the face of the globe," he said, looking at Carolyn. "At least I came to know it, you understand. But a man gets over a lot of things. You'll find there won't be a bit of melodrama or anything of the sort. You'll have to let me stay, if that's all you've got against my staying." Here the speaker laughed gaily.

"That's so nice, I'm sure," said the elder lady, comfortably; "and now we won't think anything more about it."

But Lawrence did not seem to hear her. He was still gazing, somewhat markedly, at the girl, who smiled a little constrainedly at him, as she said:

"It's very odd, but Leander has just found that ring that Prue gave you, and that you lost so unaccountably."

"Has he?" The young man closed his lips tightly for an instant. Then he laughed, and said, "In that case I must owe the boy fifty dollars. That's the reward I offered. I remember at the time I wanted to offer five hundred, but you told me, Caro, that the smaller sum would be just as effective."

Lawrence turned and walked across the veranda. Mrs. Ffolliott went into the house. The young man returned to Carolyn's side.

"It all seems a thousand years ago," he said. "I was wild—wild for her. I suppose I was somebody else; don't you think I was somebody else, Caro?"

"No. And it is not quite two years since then."

"How literal you are!"

"Am I?" she asked, smiling.

"Yes. And such a comfort to me. Caro, I'm going to kiss your hand."

He took both of the girl's hands, held them closely, then kissed them gently.

"I'm sorry you and Aunt Tishy seemed to think you must arrange so that I shouldn't see Prudence. It makes me appear such a weak fellow. Do you think I am a weak fellow, Caro?"

"No."

"Honest Indian?"

"Honest Indian."

"Oh, I'm glad of that. I find I am asking myself so many times if Caro thinks this or that of me. Perhaps you call that weak?"

But the girl only laughed at this remark.

Then they talked of a great many things, until Lawrence asked, suddenly, "Where did Leander find that ring?"

Carolyn told him.

"Odd! Of course it was Devil's work?"

"Yes. He took my gold thimble, you know."

The young man said, "I'm sure Lee won't let me off; he'll exact every penny. I would gladly have given all my possessions to get it back again when I lost it. But now—"

Here Lawrence paused. He was gazing persistently at his companion. But she did not seem to be aware of this gaze. She did not try to help him out with his sentence. She was standing in perfect quiet; she was not a nervous woman, and she could remain for several moments without moving.

It was six months since Lawrence had seen Carolyn. He was wondering if she had always impressed him as she impressed him now. If she had done so, he thought it was inexplicable that he should have forgotten.

But then, formerly, he had seen somebody else. That accounted for everything, of course.

At this fancy he smiled.

And he wished that carbuncle had not been found. It seemed awkward to have that turn up now when he had ceased to care for it. It was like a ghost stalking out of the past.

He took a step towards the door.

"I'm as dingy with heat and dust as a savage," he remarked. "I suppose I can have my old room?"

"Of course."

"All right, then. Do stay out here until I come down, Caro; will you?"

He advanced now towards her.

"Will you?"

"If mamma doesn't call me."

"Very well."

Lawrence went into the hall and to the foot of the stairs. With his hand on the post, he paused. He stood there an instant, then he turned back. He rejoined the girl on the piazza. She had walked to the railing and was leaning both hands upon it. Lawrence caught a glimpse of her profile, and his own face grew tender at sight of it.

"Where in the world have my eyes been?" he asked himself.

She turned quickly as he came through the door.

"I came back because I was afraid Aunt Tishy would call you," he said.

"Oh!"

"Yes."

Then the two stood in silence.

"You see, I wanted to ask you about that man person who was hanging around you when I was at home the last time."

"What man person?"

"No wonder you don't know. I ought to be more specific. I mean the Morgan fellow."

"Nothing about him that I know."

Lawrence flung back his shoulders. His eyes began to sparkle.

"All the better for me, then," he exclaimed. "Caro," he went on, more softly, "do you think you could possibly make up your mind to marry me?"

There was a moment's silence, during which the girl's eyes were drooped. She had not flushed; she had grown white.

"Could you do it?" he repeated, gently.

He bent and took her hand. She withdrew it.

"I'm sorry you've asked me this," she said.

To these words he made no reply. His face grew a trifle set.

"Because," she went on, hesitatingly,—"because I feel almost sure—at least I'm afraid—"

"Well?" He spoke peremptorily.

"I'm nearly certain that you don't know surely that—that you've stopped loving Prudence."

He burst into a laugh; but he stopped laughing directly. He took her hand again. "Is that all?" he asked.

"Yes; I think that's all. And that's quite enough. You see, I was here when you were in love with her; I know something about how you loved her. You did love her. And you can't have forgotten it in less than two years. Why, I couldn't forget such an experience in a lifetime. It must have been like—like fire sweeping over your heart."

"But a man comes to his senses; a man gets over everything, you know. And I've had my lesson."

Lawrence was speaking eagerly now. His whole face began to glow.

"If you could only say yes to me, dear Caro!" he went on. "If you feel hopeful that you could learn to love me,—tell me, do you think you could learn?"

She smiled, and Lawrence asked himself why he had never before particularly noticed her smile.

"I think I could learn," she said, at last.

"Then you are promised to me? Caro, say, 'Rodney, I am promised to you.'"

He had drawn her more closely.

"Say it."

"Rodney, I am promised to you."

"Thank you, dear little girl, thank you. We shall be as happy as the day is long. I begin to be happy already."

She looked up at him wistfully. Her features were not quite steady.

"Oh," she whispered, "I hope you haven't made a mistake!"

"I'm sure I've not."

He kissed her, but she shrank a little from him. She put her hand on his breast, and thrust him from her.

"If you find you have made a mistake," she said, solemnly, "remember you are not bound,—not bound one instant after you see how blind you've been."

"I am glad to be bound to you," he returned, as solemnly as she had spoken,—"grateful beyond words, Caro, as time will prove to you."

The girl suddenly took the man's hands, and held them fast, looking earnestly in his face as she did so.

Then she said, nearly in a whisper:

"Yes, I love you, Rodney."

But the instant she had uttered those words, she was aware that he had not spoken thus, and a scorching blush rose to her face, and burned there until she was almost suffocated with it.

"Bless you for that! Oh, you don't know how I bless you for that!" exclaimed Lawrence, quickly. "And I love you with a love that lasts,—that means something,—that takes hold on life."

He spoke fervently. He had his arm about Caro now. His eyes were shining.

It was at this moment that a small figure in a naval suit appeared on the outside of the piazza, at the farther end of it. This figure noiselessly vaulted over the railing, and as noiselessly came forward.

Within a few yards Leander paused, with his hands thrust to the very depths of his pockets, and his small legs wide apart. His eyes were what romance writers used to call "glued" to the two standing there. His mouth was stretched in an appreciative grin. Directly it changed from a grin to a round shape, and a shrill whistle was emitted from it.

The two started. Lawrence wheeled round, frowning. He subdued his first impulse, which was to take that atom and fling him over the railing.

Leander nodded amicably.

"How de do?" he inquired.

"I'm pretty well, thank ye," answered Lawrence.

The boy looked with a new and curious interest at his sister. "Was she in love?" he was asking himself. And he immediately put the question aloud:

"I say, sis, are you in love? Is that why you 'n' Rodney were huggin' so?"

"Hold your tongue," Lawrence promptly commanded.

"All right." Then, contemplatively, "I s'pose you 'n' sis are spoons, ain't you? That's what the new chambermaid 'n' the coachman are. He told me the other day that he 'n' she were spoons. They were huggin', too. And I asked him about it."

"I'll swear you asked him about it," responded Lawrence.

Then the young man made a diversion. He walked forward, and laid hold of Leander's shoulder.

"I heard you found a ring," he said.

The boy puckered his face, and gazed up at the face above him.

"You bet," he replied at last. "Prove property and pay for this advertisement, and—fork over the fifty dollars,—that is, if you want her."

At this stage in the conversation, Leander's sister escaped to her own room, where she sat for a long time by the window, looking off on the bay.

Below she heard the murmur of voices, the shrill tones of her brother, and the deeper tones of Rodney.

She put her hand down to her belt. Her fingers touched something which rustled. She had thrust her cousin's letter into her belt. She now drew it out, and read it again. She read it as if it were written in a foreign language, and as if she were translating it word by word.

CHAPTER II.
A SLIGHT ACCIDENT.

When it is summer-time, and you are engaged to the most perfect man in the world, and you are at a lovely seaside cottage with him, and are boating, and playing tennis, and trying to play golf, and cycling, and it is a little too early for any of all those people who are going to visit you really to arrive,—when such conditions prevail, you don't expect time to drag.

And time did not drag with Carolyn Ffolliott,—it flew.

A week had gone when one day at breakfast Mrs. Ffolliott remarked that she had almost a good mind to worry.

Her daughter looked at her questioningly, and Leander, with his mouth full, said that "Marmer'd rather give a dollar any time than miss a worry."

But marmer took no notice of her son; she continued to gaze at Carolyn, with her brows wrinkled.

"Prudence, you know," she went on. "She said she might come any minute."

"I suppose she changed her mind."

"Perhaps. But I've been dreaming about her; I thought she was drowned, and when I told you, Caro, you laughed, and said it was a good thing. I was so shocked I—but, good heavens! Caro, what makes you look like that?"

"Like what?"

"Why, just as you did in my dream,—that same light in your eyes—"

"Mamma!" broke in the girl, angrily. But she did not say anything more.

At that moment a servant came into the room with a salver in her hand, and on the salver lay a yellow telegraph envelope.

Carolyn half rose from the table, then she sat down, for she saw the servant was coming to her.

To these people a telegram was little different from an ordinary note. Everybody telegraphed about everything. Notwithstanding this, the girl could not keep her hand quite steady as she tore open the cover.

Her mother watched her face; she was still thinking of her dream.

Immediately Carolyn began to smile. She read aloud:

"Please send your wheel over to station for 11.40 train.
"Prudence Ffolliott."

The elder woman stirred her coffee desperately. "She isn't drowned, then," she said.

"Apparently not, since she wants my wheel."

"Shall you send it?"

"Yes."

"Sha'n't you drive over to meet her?"

"No."

"Well," said the elder lady, forcibly, "I call it ridiculous, coming home from Europe on a bicycle! I don't see when she learned, either. I thought she had been giving her mother mud baths, and all that sort of thing, and being devoted and—and what not."

"As for that," responded Carolyn, "I don't know but Prue would be able to learn to ride a wheel in a mud bath itself."

"Bully for Prue!" cried Leander.

"My son!" said his mother, at which he grinned, but kindly refrained from repeating the remark.

Carolyn had risen from the table. She held the message crumpled in her hand.

"Sha'n't you meet her anyway?"

"How can I if I send my wheel?—but I have an idea that she doesn't care. I don't precisely know what she does mean, so I shall wait."

"I sha'n't wait," suddenly announced Leander. "I shall spin down there myself."

"And when is Rodney coming back, did you say?"

"Not until to-morrow."

Mrs. Ffolliott indulged in some remarks on the ways of young people at the present time, to which no reply was made.

So it happened that when the eleven-forty train steamed up to the little station, there were on the platform but two people, the agent and a small boy in a suit so close and abbreviated as to be almost no suit at all.

This boy was standing by his own wheel, and another bicycle leaned against the wall of the building.

Leander was scowling along the steps of every car, and saying to himself:

"I'll bet she hasn't come. Women never do anything right. I wanted to race her home."

Three men and a small girl had alighted. It was no use looking any more. There, the train was moving.

"Oh, thunder!" said the boy.

He was turning away, when something touched his shoulder, and somebody asked:

"Leander, why are you saying 'thunder?'"

He flung about quickly. He snatched off his atom of a cap and looked up at the tall girl beside him.

"Now, that's O. K.," he said, "and I'll race you home. How de do? You do look grand, though. And you can't ride a bike in that suit,—no more'n a bose."

"Can't I? We'll see. Let us kiss each other, Leander."

"All right. I ain't no objections."

The two kissed. Then Leander put on his cap.

Prudence Ffolliott was dressed with extreme plainness in a perfectly fitting suit of brown with a white hat, and she had on gloves like those which a few girls can find, and which most girls pass all their lives trying to find. And yet it might seem an easy matter to get rather loose brown gloves like these. She had a small leather bag in one hand.

She glanced up and down the platform. The train had sped away. The long waste of track lay desolate beneath the brilliant sun. The woods came up close on the other side of the rails. On this side a country road wound up a slight acclivity. There was one "open wagon," drawn by a sorrel horse, slowly ascending this hill. In the wagon sat three men very much crowded on the one seat. In the still air was a low, continuous sound.

Prudence listened; she sniffed the air.

"I hear the waves," she said. "The tide is coming in; and the wind is east."

"Yes," said Leander, "I should have gone perchin' if I hadn't come down here. And I might as well have gone, for you can't ride. Just look at all the pleats and pipes 'n' things on your skirt! It's too bad! And sis sent her bike down. You wired for it, you know."

"Yes," said the girl, "I know I wired for it. Wait for the transformation scene. How is Caro?"

"She's well enough," said the boy, shortly.

"And Aunt Letitia?"

"Well's ever."

"Any company yet?"

"Only Rodney."

It was an instant before the girl asked:

"Is Mr. Lawrence there?"

"Yep. 'N' he 'n' sis are such spoons that they ain't either of 'em any fun."

"Spoons, are they?" Prudence laughed slightly.

"Yep. 'N' I found Rod's ring, and marmer 'n' sis raised a most awful row 'bout my takin' the reward. They said it wasn't gentlemanly of me, bein' a friend and relation, to take it. Still they did let Rod give me two ten spots. But I didn't get marmer any present out of that, you bet!"

"What ring was it?"

While Prudence was talking she opened her bag and selected from its contents a leather strap.

Leander was so absorbed in watching her, and in wondering what she would do, that he did not hear her question.

He already began to have faith that she would be equal to any emergency,—that is, as nearly equal as anything feminine could be.

"What ring did you find?" she repeated.

As she spoke, she took a pair of white gloves from the bag, and extended them to the boy.

"Please hold them," she said. His little brown fingers closed over the gloves.

"Why," he answered, "that red stone, you know, with the head cut into it."

"Oh!"

She made no other remark for some time. The boy continued to watch her. He rather admired the deft way in which her hands removed something which made her belt slip from its place, and the next moment her skirt, which he had derided, dropped down to the floor of the platform, her jacket was flung off, and there Miss Ffolliott stood in a full bicycle suit of white flannel. It was then that Leander noticed that her shoes and hat were white, as he said, "to begin with."

He jumped up and down. "Hurray!" he cried, in his thin, sharp voice. "I guess you c'n do it."

"I guess I can," she answered. "Now I want to strap up this skirt, and we'll take it and the bag along. Are you good on a bike?" She turned and looked at her companion with a laugh in her eyes. She had just now so lithe and active an appearance that the boy wanted to clap his hands. She took the white gloves from him, and began to put them on.

"Good on a bike?" he repeated. "Well, you just wait. Are you good on one yourself? I ought to be; marmer says she's expectin' every minute to see me brought in with all my bones smashed. But I don't take headers nigh so often's I used to. Ready?"

Leander gallantly brought forward his sister's wheel, and held it. Within the station the agent was peering out from his window at the girl in white. He was shocked, but he was extremely interested, and he did not wink in his gaze until the boy and woman had wheeled out of sight along the lonely country road.

Leander immediately found that his small legs were called upon to do their utmost, but he kept on bravely. And he would not pant; he assumed an easy appearance. He even tried to whistle, but he had to give that up.

He glanced covertly at his companion. She sat up straight, and her figure showed very little movement.

Presently she asked, "Why didn't Caro come to meet me?"

"She kinder thought you didn't care to have her, as you sent for her wheel."

No answer. Then, "Perhaps she's gone somewhere with Mr. Lawrence."

"No, she ain't, either. Rodney's off just now—comin' back to-morrow. I say!"

"Well?"

"Slow up a bit. I can't stand this. I give in. I guess my legs ain't long enough. You're stunnin' on a bike. Caro's rather good, but—Hullo! what's that ahead, anyway? Let's put in 'n' get to it."

So they put in. In another moment they saw that the something was a man; then that he was lying flat on his face; then that it was Rodney Lawrence. It was the girl who discovered who it was. Instead of shrinking back a little, as Leander had done in spite of himself, when they found that it was a man lying there, Prudence forced her wheel up to the prostrate body, jumped off, and looked down at him. She stood perfectly still for an instant. Then she turned towards Leander.

"It's Rodney," she said, in a low voice.

"I don't believe it!" cried the boy.

He felt that it was impossible for Rodney to be hurt so that he would lie as stiff and dreadful as that. Some other man might be hurt thus, but not Rodney. With this rebellious disbelief in his fast-beating heart, Leander dismounted; he stood a little behind Prudence, and peered round her at the object on the ground.

"It is Rodney," repeated the girl.

Her face was quite white, and her eyelids, as she looked down, fluttered as if they would close over her eyes and thus shut out the sight of the senseless man. But she was calm enough as she turned to the boy.

She did not immediately speak. She glanced around the place. There was a wood on each side of the road. They might be there half a day, she knew, and no one would come along. It was not the main road, which itself was not much travelled.

She seemed to give up her intention of speaking. She pulled off a glove and knelt down in the gravel. She put out one hand, and gently turned the head so that the face was a little more visible. She shuddered as she did so. The vertical sun struck on a diamond on her hand, and made it send out sharp rays of light.

With a swift motion the girl turned the stone inward. Then she shuddered again. She rose.

"I'll go on to the first house," she said, "and get help."

"No, I'll go," exclaimed Leander, quickly, and in an unsteady voice.

"I can go in much less time than you could do the distance. You don't know how fast I can ride. It's almost three miles to the next house. Are you afraid to stay here and wait?"

The boy trembled and hesitated. Then he was ashamed to say he was afraid.

"I'll wait here," he said, huskily.

Prudence sprang on her wheel and started off. Leander watched her. For an instant he forgot everything else in admiration as he saw her whiz out of sight.

"By George!" he said to himself.

Then he looked back at that still figure. He braced himself up. He remembered that he was a boy instead of a girl.

He sat down on a stone by the wayside. He leaned his chin on his hands and stared at Rodney. Was that Rodney? If the man were dead, why, then it was not anybody; it was—oh, what was it?

And how could Rodney, so full of life and health and strength, be there so helpless?

A great many strange and solemn thoughts came to the boy's mind as he sat there.

And all the time he was listening for wheels, hoping that a carriage would come along.

The mosquitoes buzzed about his face and stung him unheeded.

He noticed that Rodney wore corduroys and leather leggings, and that a whip lay on the ground a few yards off. Leander went and picked up the whip, which he knew very well.

But how strange even the whip seemed! So Rodney had been riding; and he had come home sooner than he had been expected.

If he should be really dead, Leander supposed that his sister would mourn herself to death. He supposed his sister was in love with this long, still figure of a man.

All at once the little watcher felt the tears springing up and blinding him. He rubbed his fists into his eyes, but the tears would come. It was while he was doing this that he thought he heard a sound; as he could not distinguish what the sound was, he dared not take his hands from his face, and he dared not move.

Was it really a groan?

His curiosity overcame his terror. He looked at the man in the road. Lawrence had raised himself on his elbow, but he immediately sank back again.

Leander ran to him.

Lawrence gazed in a blind sort of way at the boy. Then he half smiled, and said, feebly, "I suppose you're dead too, Lee, and we're both in heaven."

"I ain't dead, for one," answered the boy. And then he sobbed outright in the intensity of his relief.

"Then perhaps I'm not."

A long silence, during which Lawrence stared rather stupidly at nothing, and Leander stared at him.

After a little the boy bethought himself to ask if he couldn't help.

"I don't know. I thought I'd wait until my mind cleared more."

He raised his head again.

"What's that?" he asked.

He was looking at a white glove that lay near him on the ground.

He dropped his head and slowly reached forth his hand till he grasped the glove.

"It's hers," was the answer.

"Hers? Caro's?" he asked, eagerly.

But as he spoke the faint odor of iris came to him from the bit of leather in his grasp. He knew that odor of iris; it had always been inseparable from anything belonging to Prudence Ffolliott.

"No," replied Leander; "it's Prue's."

Lawrence lay silent. His face was dull and clouded.

"Oh, I do wish I could do something!" exclaimed Leander. "She's gone on for help."

"Who's gone on?"

"Why, Prue, of course."

Lawrence lifted himself up on his elbow again.

"I had a nasty fall," he said. "I thought I was done for. Where's my horse?"

"I ain't seen any horse."

"It was one I was trying. Luckily, he'll go home to his own stable, and the stablemen won't break their hearts with anxiety."

The young man spoke quite like himself; and his face began to gain in color. He pressed his hand to his head. He laughed a little. "I must have a thick skull of my own," he said.

He turned and twisted, and then he rose to a sitting posture.

The glove had dropped to the ground. He looked down at it, made a slight motion as if he would take it, then turned away.

"I'm sorry I've made such a scene as this," he said. "It's unlucky that you should have happened along here now. You see I should have come to myself all right, and nobody been frightened. Give me a hand, Lee. There! The deuce! I can't do it, though!"

Lawrence sank back on the ground, and again lay quiet.

Leander could prevent himself from wringing his hands only by remembering that he was a boy. He recalled how in all the stories of adventure he had read the right person always had a bottle of whisky or brandy to produce at the right moment. But he had nothing. He hadn't even a string in his pocket. He "went in" for the lightest possible weight when on his wheel.

Thank fortune, there was Prue coming back. She had made good time, even to his anxious mind.

The girl's wheel glided up, and she alighted from it as swiftly as a bird would have done.

CHAPTER III.
"I WANT TO ASK YOU A QUESTION."

She bent down over Lawrence, who opened his eyes and looked at her.

"Oh!" she said, in a whisper. The thought which sprang swiftly into her mind was the thought of the last time she had seen this man. It was the time when she had told him that she had changed her mind about marrying him, and had decided to marry Lord Maxwell. But later, Lord Maxwell, for financial reasons and under parental influence, had also changed his mind, and had married somebody else. This was in Prudence's thought as she said, "Oh!" in a whisper.

"You see I'm not dead," remarked Lawrence, "only devilishly unlucky."

Prudence stood up erect.

"It quite relieves me to hear you say devilishly," she responded; "cheers my heart, indeed."

"But why?"

"Because men who are mortally hurt are more pious; if they wanted to say a bad word they would not do it. Thank you."

Lawrence smiled.

"I could cheer your heart still more," he answered, "for there are a lot of bad words just galloping to be said."

Prudence did not reply. She turned to Leander, and asked if Mr. Lawrence had been conversing like this, and had he been shamming when they had first found him.

At this Lawrence groaned. After a few moments the boy and woman assisted him to rise. He leaned heavily on them, but seemed to improve somewhat.

"I don't think you've done much more than break a few ribs and a collar-bone or so," said the girl, cheerfully.

"And p'raps concussed your brain a bit," added Leander, whose spirits were rising rapidly.

"There comes the cart," announced Prudence. "It hasn't any springs, but I didn't know but you were past minding springs. I did insist on a mattress being put in; only it isn't a mattress, but a feather bed."

Lawrence groaned again.

"That's right," she said; "don't suffer in silence."

It was not long now before the two men who came in the cart had assisted Lawrence into it. At first he refused to sit down on the feather bed. He caught a glimpse of Prudence's laughing face as she said, "If you don't, I shall think you're ungrateful for all we've done for you."

On this the young man sank down on the bed. "I've only been stunned," he said, morosely, "and you needn't make any more fuss about it."

"All right; have it your own way; but I insist on the ribs and the collar-bones. Now I'll go on and prepare the minds of your friends."

Before anything more could be said, Miss Ffolliott pedalled away.

Leander lifted his machine into the cart, and then placed himself between it and the feather bed. The horse started on his walk to Savin Hill.

As he started, Lawrence raised his head and looked back to the spot of ground where he had fallen. He saw something white lying there, and he knew that it was Miss Ffolliott's glove.

Miss Ffolliott herself rode swiftly along the shady, solitary road. She knew the way very well. She had ridden and driven here many times with the man who was lying there in the farm cart. He had been in love with her,—extravagantly, furiously, delightfully. She smiled as she remembered. Some men could make love so much more agreeably than others. She supposed that was a matter of temperament.

And he wasn't hurt very much, after all. And he and Caro were "spoons" now. She smiled more broadly.

"I always suspected that Caro cared," she thought, "and I was right. How funny it is! Well, I shall know precisely the state of the case in three seconds after I've seen them together. And I've come now."

She seemed to slide without propulsion along the road. She whistled two or three bars of a tune she had often whistled while she had sat beside her mother when the latter lady had been up to her neck in ground peat and sprudel water.

Sometimes the girl flung back her head and sniffed the air, much as a young colt sniffs when it has just been let out into a field after a long confinement.

But she did not relax her speed. It was not long before she turned into a better kept road, and here she saw ahead of her, and walking towards her, the figure of her cousin Carolyn, who began to hasten directly.

They fell on each other's necks, after the manner of girls, and kissed and hugged.

Then Prudence held her off, and examined her, smiling slightly all the while.

"Lee told me you were no good any more," she said, at last.

Then Caro blushed and blushed.

"I suppose you're happy?"

"Yes."

"Of course. Well, I've been to the mud baths of Carlsbad, and I'm not particularly happy. However, I congratulate you; and I won't be de trop any more than is absolutely necessary for the sake of appearances."

Prudence propelled her wheel with one hand; the other arm she put about her companion's waist, and so the two went out.

"Mr. Lawrence has returned," presently said Prudence.

"How do you know?" the other asked, quickly.

"Because we met him, Leander and I, on the Pine-wood road. Now if you scream I won't tell you anything more; and it really isn't anything to speak of, only he is on his way here now, and on a feather bed also, because they didn't have any mattresses. If it isn't ribs it's collar-bone,—what was it the Physiology used to call collar-bone?—and he's sane, and knew me, and wanted to swear, but wouldn't, much. So you see you needn't be alarmed a particle."

Carolyn had detached herself from her companion, and was gazing at her, her lips growing white, as she listened.

"His horse threw him," added Prudence, shortly.

"Threw him?"

"Yes," with still more impatience. "What else do you want me to say. Didn't I tell you he was on his way home, and that it was a feather bed only because I couldn't get a mattress? I did as well as I could."

Here Prudence gave a short laugh, and lightly kissed her companion's cheek.

Carolyn tried to appear calm. Her imagination had leaped to every dreadful thing. She wanted to turn her back on this girl, but, instead of doing that, she looked at her intently, and asked, steadily:

"Are you telling me the truth?"

"Absolutely. I don't think your precious young man is hurt much, only shaken up a bit."

The two girls were silent for a few moments. Carolyn had turned, and they were both walking back over the road, that they might the sooner meet the cart that was bringing Lawrence to Savin Hill.

"Providence made a great mistake in sending me to find your lover," at last said Prudence. "If Providence had wished to do the perfectly correct thing, you would have been on the Pine-wood road this morning. But then, when does Providence act quite up to the mark? I am tired of Providence myself."

Though Carolyn gazed at the speaker, she did not apparently hear her. Her eyes wandered off down the road.

After another short silence, Prudence spoke again.

"I hope there are people coming to the house this summer. I should go raving mad if I had only you and Rodney, and you two in love with each other."

The girl shrugged her shoulders, and shuddered. As there was no answer, she repeated:

"I suppose you are in love with each other, aren't you?"

"I suppose so," mechanically.

"That's what I thought. Are there people coming?"

"Oh, yes."

"Men?"

"A few."

"Ah, I revive! If you had had as much to do with sprudel water as I have, you would be as thankful as I am at the prospect of seeing some men who are not slyly feeling their pulse while they talk to you. You needn't look so curiously at me. It is strictly proper for a girl to like men, only it's very improper to acknowledge the liking. And when they begin to get in love—Oh, isn't that the head of the procession appearing? Yes. Now, Caro, run and throw yourself on your betrothed, and sing in a high soprano how thankful you are to see him yet again—again—a-g-a—in! You see, I've not forgotten my opera."

But Carolyn did not run. She walked slowly forward, her hands very cold, hanging inertly down, her lips pressed tightly together.

Of one thing she was sure,—that she would not make a scene. Yes, she would die rather than make a scene.

There was the bed, and there was Lawrence lounging upon it. Leander was standing rigidly straight, grasping the stakes of the cart. He shouted shrilly as he saw his sister. The old horse, which always stopped on any pretext whatever, stopped now, and drooped, as if he would lie down.

"I say, sis," said Leander, jumping from the tail of the cart, "don't you go and begin to cry, and all that stuff."

"I don't think your sister will cry, Leander," remarked Lawrence, with some dryness.

Carolyn came to the side of the cart. She said that she hoped Mr. Lawrence was not much hurt, and Mr. Lawrence replied that he should be all right in a few hours.

Then the horse was induced to start on. After a while they all reached the house, and Lawrence was helped to his room, while Leander volunteered to go on his wheel for the doctor.

In due time the doctor came, and pronounced that the young man would be as well as usual again in a few days.

The two girls were standing on the piazza, when this decision was announced to them by Mrs. Ffolliott.

Carolyn walked quickly to the nearest chair, and sat down. She fixed her eyes on that line of dazzling brightness which was the sea. But she saw nothing. Prudence sauntered to the railing, and leaned against it.

Presently Mrs. Ffolliott returned to the house, and the two were alone.

Prudence walked to a long chair near her cousin, and placed herself luxuriously in it. She still wore her bicycle suit. She crossed her legs, and, leaning forward, embraced her knees with her clasped hands.

"Got a smoke about you, Caro?" she asked.

"No. And I didn't know you had taken up smoking."

"No more I have. But my attitude, and the piazza, and a certain natural depravity in my own breast suggested the question. I think I shall try cigarettes. And one can have a truly divine thing in cigarette-cases now. And a woman's hand is peculiarly fitted to show jewels when holding a weed out—thus."

The speaker extended her left hand, while she seemed to puff smoke from her lips as she did so.

Carolyn smiled slightly, as she said:

"You are just the same, aren't you?"

"Of course. You didn't think I had met with a change, did you?"

"Hardly."

Carolyn clasped her hands, and gazed down at them. A cloud was on her face.

"You are not worrying about that great strapping fellow up-stairs, are you?" Prudence asked the question sharply.

"No."

"You didn't seem to feel much when you met him just now," remarked Prudence.

"I didn't want to make a scene," was the reply.

Prudence contemplated her companion for a moment in silence. Then she said that she had a bit of advice to offer; advice was easily given, and it never hurt any one, because no one ever followed it.

"What is it?"

"Don't be quite so self-controlled, or Rodney will begin to think you seem indifferent because you feel so. You know men are creatures who have no intuition, and who can't see the fraction of an inch below the surface. And though they say they don't like scenes, they do, when it's love for them that makes the scene. I don't charge you a cent for this information. I do wish I had a cigarette; I'd try it this very minute.

"''Twas off the blue Canary Isle

I smoked my last cigar!'"

Prudence sang in a deep bass that threatened to choke her. She grew red in the face, and did not try to go on any further with the song.

Carolyn glanced at her and laughed.

"Somehow," she said, "I believe I thought Carlsbad would make you over."

"You see I think I might have been made over if I had taken mud baths myself," was the reply; "but only seeing mamma take them didn't seem to have much effect,—only to bore me almost to death. Did you ever notice that, after you have been bored to extinction, and have escaped, you are liable to commit very nearly anything? You are so exhilarated, you know. Now I'm going to do something startling. I don't know yet whether I shall steal the Ffolliott silver, or—" here the girl paused to laugh—"or Carolyn Ffolliott's lover. For the first I might be put in jail; for the latter there's no punishment that I know."

Prudence leaned back now and clasped her hands over the top of her head.

"I do wish you wouldn't talk so!" Carolyn exclaimed.

"Why? It's fun to take out the stopper and let yourself bubble over."

"Prudence—"

"Ma'am?"

"I want to ask you something."

"Go right ahead. Questions cheerfully answered; estimates given upon application."

But Carolyn hesitated. Then she said that she wished her cousin would be serious.

"Serious! You don't call me gay, do you? Why, the solemnity that dribbled over me from mamma isn't washed off yet. It will take a whole summer, and several men in love with me at once, and fighting about me, to take away the melancholy that I acquired at Carlsbad."

As she finished speaking, Prudence rose, and stepped out on to the lawn. She ran across it and leaned on the wall at the end of it. Beyond lay the bay, flashing brightly in the sunlight; but her strong eyes did not blench as she gazed.

"Is that the Vireo in the sandy cove?" she asked.

"Yes."

"It's a little thing, isn't it?"

"Yes."

"I believe I could almost manage that myself."

"Yes."

Prudence turned towards her cousin, flung her head back, and laughed. A young man lying impatiently on a bed in a room on the second floor heard that laugh, and tossed his head on the pillow as he heard.

He inwardly compared the sound with Carolyn's musical gurgle when she was amused, and then said aloud that it was amazing that he had ever fancied that he had cared for Prudence Ffolliott. She must be out there by the wall. He raised himself on his elbow, but, though he could look through the window, he could see only the ocean and the sails on it, and the long trails of smoke from two steamers that were gliding away towards "the utmost purple rim."

That phrase came into his mind, and with it the memory of one evening, down on the beach, when Prudence had quoted that verse, and how her voice had sunk and thrilled as it pronounced the words and she had glanced up at him.

What an ass he had been! Well, he was thankful that was all over. It was incredible that he had been moved so by that woman. He was beyond all that now; and he was in love with the dearest girl in the world.

Prudence laughed again, and again Lawrence raised himself on his elbow, and once more saw nothing but the ocean and the sails. Then he turned with his back to the window, groaned by reason of his hurts, muttered something that sounded like "Damn it," and in a few moments fell asleep.

Prudence still remained by the wall, her arms upon it and her brilliant face towards the sea. And Carolyn still sat in her chair on the veranda. She was not looking at Massachusetts Bay, but at her cousin. She was wondering about her with an intensity that was almost painful. Among other things, she was trying to determine what it was in Prudence Ffolliott's face that made it interesting, and that gave it something very much more effective than beauty of feature. It was a mocking, flashing, melting, fiery, tender face; a face full of daring, of possibilities, and suggestions, and shadows, and brightnesses; and it was unscrupulous, and passionate, and cruel, and selfish, and—

Having thought of all these adjectives, Carolyn roused herself and smiled at her own folly, and told herself it was an impossible thing that any human countenance should be so contradictory. She recalled the story her own mirror told her. As for beauty, she possessed a share of that.

This thought strengthened and comforted her. She left her chair and joined her cousin by the wall. Prudence put her arm about Carolyn, and the two stood in silence a few moments. The water before them was vivid, shining green and blue and purple; and it was just ruffled by a gentle east wind that made the whole world seem a bright, joyous place to live in.

"How many times I've thought of just this place on the Savin Hill lawn, and just this outlook over the bay!"

Prudence spoke very gently, and sighed slightly as she spoke.

"Have you?"

"Indeed I have. What did you imagine I thought of in that dreadful hotel with mamma and the maid and the nurse and the peat and the water? I had to think of something. And I wondered if I should ever sail in the Vireo. And now I mean to sail in her the very first minute I can manage it. I got me the loveliest sailor hat in Paris, and a ribbon with 'Vireo' on it, and a yachting suit that looks as if it were made in Paradise. Yes, I sail the Vireo the salt seas over."

"I didn't know you went to Paris."

"I did. I wanted some clothing fit for mamma's daughter and your cousin to wear. And I've got it. You just wait and see. That's why I was a little late in coming across. Oh, how divine that color is beyond Long Ledge! Life is worth the living, isn't it, Caro dear? Yes, it is certainly a blessed thing to be alive. This world is a beautiful place. Yes, I must go out in the Vireo this very day, even if the wind isn't right for much of a sail."

Prudence leaned her head lightly on her companion's shoulder while she recited in a half-voice and with exquisite penetrating intonation:

"The day, so mild,

Is Heaven's own child,

With earth and ocean reconciled.

The airs I feel

Around me steal

Are murmuring to the murmuring keel.

"Over the rail

My hand I trail

Within the shadow of the sail;

A joy intense,

The cooling sense

Glides down my drowsy indolence.

"With dreamful eyes

My spirit lies

Where Summer sings and never dies.

O'erveiled with vines,

She glows and shines

Among her future oil and wines."

As she finished the lines Prudence lifted her head and smiled at her companion.

That smile somehow made Carolyn's heart sick, it was so softly brilliant. She had a wild notion, for the instant, that a woman who could smile like that, and whose eyes melted like that, was a woman to fly from across the whole world.

"Prudence—" began Carolyn, as she had once before begun.

This time Prudence did not say, "Ma'am." She responded, "Yes," in a half whisper.

Carolyn stood up a little more erectly; she felt her hands growing cold. She went on:

"I've often wondered how you happened to engage yourself to Rodney Lawrence."

"I shouldn't think you'd wonder about that, when you've just been and done the same thing yourself," was the response.

"Now don't be flippant."

"No, I won't be. Go on."

"Well," Carolyn began again, "perhaps I ought to say that I wonder how, having engaged yourself to Rodney, you could jilt him for anybody else in the world."

"Not for Lord Maxwell?"

"Not for a thousand Lord Maxwells."

"One is quite enough, thank you. Well, if I did wrong, I was speedily punished. I jilted Mr. Lawrence for his lordship; his lordship jilted me for the brewer's daughter. I notice that brewers' daughters over in England get much more than their share of the male nobility."

"You said you wouldn't be flippant."

"So I did. Have you any more remarks to make?"

"Yes. I remark that I thought you were in love with Rodney."

There was now a short silence. Prudence was standing with her hands clasped among the vines on top of the wall in front of her.

"Did I seem so?" she asked.

"Yes."

Prudence turned still farther away as she answered:

"I was in love with him."

"Oh, Prudence, you are certainly unaccountable!" burst out Carolyn.

"That's just what I think myself."

As she spoke, the girl turned back towards her companion and laughed.

"Oh, yes, I was certainly in love with him. The sun rose and set in his eyes for me; I thought of him by day and dreamed of him by night; when he looked at me I felt my heart give one delightful throb and then go on as if it were beating to delicious music. He was never absent from me really; he—"

"That's quite enough," interrupted Carolyn, harshly; and she added, after a moment:

"I don't believe one word you have said."

"Why not?" Prudence lifted her eyebrows.

"Because if you had loved him like that you would not have thought of any one else."

"Pshaw! While the fever was on, you mean."

"Prudence, why won't you be serious?"

"Because you are serious enough for two,—yes, for a dozen."

Carolyn's face had been gradually growing white. She now walked away, following the wall and staring out towards the ocean.

Prudence leaned forward on the wall, her arms extended over the thick green of the creeper that covered the stones. There was some new light in her eyes, but it was not easy to tell what that light meant.

When Carolyn returned she met her gaze with frankness, and said:

"Caro, what is it you want to say to me? You haven't said it yet."

"No, I haven't. I'm trying to ask you a question."

"Go on."

But the other girl still seemed to find extreme difficulty in saying what was in her mind. Finally she asked:

"Are you going to try to win Rodney back to you?"

There was something deeply piteous in Carolyn's lovely face as she spoke; a pain, a hope and doubt which made the tears rise to the eyes of her companion.

"You dear little thing!" cried Prudence. "How ridiculous you are! I couldn't do it if I tried."

"Oh, I don't know," was the response. "I wish you hadn't come now. Mamma dreamed that you were drowned, and that I was glad of it. That was horrible. It frightened me. I remember how Rodney felt about you. It's useless to pretend that I don't remember, or that he is in love with me in that kind of a way. You'd find out all about it, and I may just as well tell you. I've loved him ever since I can remember; I suffered when you and he were engaged; but I meant to be reconciled to anything that would make him happy. You see, I want him to be happy, whatever happens—"

"You foolish thing!" here Prudence murmured. But the other did not seem to hear this exclamation. She went on:

"And if I didn't think he'd be happy with me I never would have said yes to him,—no, not for anything in the world. I know he has a strong affection for me, and I—" The tender voice faltered for an instant, then went on. "I love him beyond anything I can imagine in this world or the next. I suppose I am wicked, and an idolater, and all that, but it's the truth, and I can't help it. Now are you going to—are you going to be very, very kind to him? You know you almost broke his heart once, and now I think you might let him alone. Will you?"

Instead of replying immediately, Prudence hurriedly passed her hand over her eyes; then she said, lightly:

"I don't think you have any idea how much breaking a man's heart will bear, and 'brokenly live on.'"

She smiled as she made the quotation.

"You needn't answer me like that," said Carolyn. "I suppose men's hearts are something like the hearts of women, after all. But we won't discuss that. I want you to reply to me. I've talked so frankly to you because I thought on the whole I would do so. I was determined that there should be no misunderstanding. Now, what are you going to do?"

"Nothing."

"Do you mean it?" she asked, eagerly.

"Absolutely nothing,—save to look on, when I can't help it, at this beautiful drama of love—"

"And you are not going to flirt with Rodney?" Carolyn interrupted.

"No," the other said, firmly.

Carolyn drew a deep breath; then she laughed. "I know I've been talking in the most ridiculous way possible," she said; "but no matter. I had a desire to have you give me your promise, and you have. But you needn't think I don't know exactly how foolish I've been; because I do."

As Carolyn finished speaking she came to her cousin's side and took her hand for an instant. To her surprise, she found it as cold as her own, though the sun was shining hotly down upon the two.

"If I were a man," began Prudence, "and saw two girls like you and me, I shouldn't look at me, I should just go and fall in love with you."

"No; you wouldn't do any such thing; you'd think—oh, I know what you'd think. Oh, dear!" she partially turned towards the house, "is that Leander's voice? There's no one in the universe but a boy who can be in all places at once. I thought he had gone fishing. Leander," turning and speaking with some asperity, "I thought you had gone codding."

"You must be a fool, then," promptly replied Leander, coming forward with his hands in his pockets. "I ain't goin' coddin' with the sun like this, 'n' the tide like this, 'n' late as this, I tell you. What you two been talkin' about?" He scanned the faces before him, squinting his eyes almost shut as he did so. "I declare, you look exactly as if you'd been tellin' secrets. Have ye?"

"Yes, we have," answered Prudence.

Leander came yet nearer. He reached out one grimy hand and took hold of his sister's skirt and pulled it.

"Tell me," he said. "It's such good fun to have a secret. I know two of the cook's and one of that new chambermaid's."

"Then you know enough."

"No, I don't, either. I never tell on one if I promise, you know; but I scare 'em half to death sayin' I will tell if they don't do so and so, you know. There's the cook, now. She's got so she makes my kind of choc'late cake 'bout every day 'cause she thinks if she don't I'll tell marmer something she did one time when you were all gone."

Here the boy laughed, and danced a short shuffle on the close-cut grass.

"You're a low-bred little cad, then," said Carolyn, so sharply that she rather wondered at herself.

Leander stopped dancing. His face grew very red.

"You dasn't say that again!" he shouted. "I guess you wouldn't say such rotten, nasty things if Rodney was here. You're as sweet as California honey when he's round. And I ain't a cad. 'N' if I am, who's a better right? 'N' you're a cad's sister, then,—that's what you are!"

"Welcome diversion!" cried Prudence. "We were getting very tired of telling secrets. Where's that tame crow? I haven't seen him yet."

But the boy could not answer. His face seemed swelling, his sharp eyes were filling.

"Leander, I beg your pardon," hastily said his sister.

"I ain't a cad!" said the boy, in a shrill quaver. "Rodney told me I was real gentlemanly 'bout that reward." Then, with a sudden fury, "I hate you, Carolyn Ffolliott, 'n' you needn't beg my pardon."

Leander spun around, and hurried away. As he did so, a black speck appeared over the savin-trees.

CHAPTER IV.
"I REALLY OUGHT TO HAVE BEEN AN ACTRESS."

Carolyn called imperatively to her brother to come back. Immediately after her call, Mrs. Ffolliott appeared on the piazza.

"Caro," she said, remonstrantly, "what have you been saying to Leander?"

"I've been calling him a little cad."

"My dear! How could you? Now he'll be somewhere kicking and screaming, and probably doing himself an injury. How could you be so thoughtless?"

The girl made no reply; but Prudence ventured to suggest that if Leander was screaming at the present moment, he would be heard plainly in the part of the world where his mother and sister were standing.

Mrs. Ffolliott twisted her hands together. "Leander is so sensitive," she said, pathetically.

By this time, Carolyn had started forward to find her brother. But she paused, at her cousin's exclamation:

"Why, here's Devil now. And why has he a cord tied to his leg?"

The black speck that had sailed up over the savins gently descended and alighted in front of Prudence. It was a glossy black crow, that now immediately pulled up one foot, cocked its head on one side, and gazed knowingly at the girl, as she extended a finger towards it.

It looked at the finger, and drew back a little, as if it had said, "No, you don't!"

Prudence laughed. She was glad to laugh. She wanted to stretch up her arms in her relief. She had hardly known how great had been the tension upon her in these few moments with her cousin.

"You'd better tell Leander you're sorry," called Mrs. Ffolliott to her daughter; "and I wish you'd be a trifle more careful—"

Here she was interrupted by a whoop from somewhere,—reenter Leander at a full run.

"I say!" he yelled, "Devil's gnawed his cord. I was punishin' him. I say, sis, have you been 'n' done anything to him? Oh, there he is! He's got to catch it for this!"

The boy threw himself forward with his hands out to seize the cord that extended from the crow's leg over the wall and off to the top of the nearest tree. But, as the tips of his fingers touched the string, Devil gave a hoarse caw, and sailed off towards the water.

Leander shrieked out, "Oh, darn that Devil!" hit his toe on a bat he had left on the lawn, and fell forward with great force on his nose, which immediately began to bleed profusely.

Then there was running to and fro by the three women, and a demanding of lint, and alum, and this thing and that, by Mrs. Ffolliott. She looked with terror at the stream of blood that poured from that small nose.

As Carolyn had often said, her mother was frightened when Leander was well, fearing he might be ill, and when he was ill, being sure he was going to die.

As soon as Leander could speak, he demanded cobwebs. He said that cobwebs were to be stuffed into his nose, and he should immediately die if this remedy were not applied.

"Does he think we have our pockets full of cobwebs?" asked Prudence, in so light a tone that the boy, as he half lay in his mother's arms, kicked one leg violently in resentment, and said indistinctly that he wished Prue's nose bled worse 'n his.

"Thank you," sweetly responded Prue; "then we could bleed and die together, and there'd be no more worry about us."

This the boy also resented as savoring of mockery, and he kicked again. Mrs. Ffolliott was actually weeping by this time, lest her son should do himself an injury. She begged Prudence to be careful; she asked her not to speak again, for she might inadvertently say something that dear Leander might not like.

Upon this Prudence turned and walked away, but, at the end of the piazza, she paused to inform the group assembled that she was going to the barn, for she was positive she had once seen cobwebs in the roof of the hay-loft.

She did go to the stable, and climbed into the mow, but by the time she had reached the door by which hay was put in, she forgot all about Leander and his nasal hemorrhage. The door was open, and there was the sea but some rods away, with no intervening wall in front. The building stood on a bit of rising ground, and the girl looked on a short stretch of glittering sandy beach. She sat down on the threshold, her feet hanging out.

After she had gazed intently for a few moments, she exclaimed aloud:

"It's just the place for a soliloquy. Enter the heroine in a white cycling suit, having come for cobwebs. Why, yes, it was cobwebs I came for. But I'm not a cat, and I can't go up into the peak there after them. No doubt Leander will presently stop bleeding, and, if he doesn't, there are already more than enough boys in the world."

She glanced up into the roof, a half smile on her face. Then she resumed her gaze at the sea, swinging her feet outside the door as she did so.

"I always did think soliloquies were great fun," she said, aloud, "particularly if it's the heroine who is doing the talking. Now, I suppose I'm the heroine at Savin Hill; if I'm not, I mean to be, somehow. It's always best to be the heroine if it's possible. A second fiddle has its uses, but it's pleasanter to be first fiddle. I should just like to ask what you expect of a girl who has been a Carlsbad nurse for months,—expect of her when she gets out, I mean. You expect some kind of a fling, don't you? Very well; all right; I don't think you'll be disappointed. Just wait until the folks begin to come here, and until I begin to wear my new frocks. Of course Rodney Lawrence can't be counted now. He's out of the running. He is going to marry Carolyn Ffolliott, and be adored all the rest of his life. At forty he'll be a fat, self-satisfied wretch.

"I hope there isn't anybody near enough to hear me."

She looked about the big chamber, which now had very little hay in it. She inhaled the air, which was odorous with the ocean smell and the fragrance of a thicket of wild roses which grew among the rocks in front of the barn and slightly to the left. Nowhere do wild roses grow more rankly, more beautifully, than on the New England coast; the keen salt wind seems to stimulate them to a greater loveliness.

She leaned back again upon the side frame of the door, and resumed her gaze at the sea. She had discontinued her monologue.

A sail came floating along around the point of rocks that guarded the northern side of the cove. It was a small craft, a tiny, sky-blue yacht, in which sat one man holding the tiller as he leaned back in a half-reclining position, his eyes scanning the shore, but scanning it lazily, and not as though he expected to see anything familiar. The wind was light and puffy, and sometimes the boat seemed as if it would stop, swinging slowly over the waveless water.

"I could manage a boat like that well enough," Prudence said to herself, "and it would be great fun, too.

"I heed not if

My rippling skiff

Float swift or slow from cliff to cliff;

With dreamful eyes

My spirit lies

Under the walls of Paradise."

Having repeated the lines, she suddenly leaned forward and said, "Ah!" with a quick, keen interest.

The man in the boat was looking at her; he took off his cap and waved it.

He seemed to be a very tall, athletic person, wearing white trousers, a blue sack coat, and a white cap. He had thick, light hair very closely cut, long, light Dundreary whiskers, a smooth chin that was so markedly retreating that it apparently required courage to refrain from allowing it to be covered with a beard, prominent blue eyes, short upper lip, and extremely white teeth. This newcomer was sufficiently near the shore to permit all these items of personal appearance to be noted.

"May I land, Miss Ffolliott?" he called out.

"I don't know why not. But I'm not the owner of the beach here," she answered.

In response the man laughed. The next moment he had half reefed the single sail. He took the oars, and brought the boat crunching on the sand; he flung out the anchor, and then leaped after it, pressing it down with his foot. Then he stood up and looked at the door of the barn, where Prudence still sat in the same position. She had watched his movements, a half smile on her face, her eyes narrowed to two glittering lines.

"This is jolly good luck, isn't it?" he asked. Then he hastily added, "For me, I mean. When did you come?"

"This morning," she answered.

"Oh, I say, now," he continued, "isn't this jolly, though? Are you going to stay long?"

"All summer, if I feel like it."

"I say, now, are you really?"

"Not really, but apparently, you know. Really I shall be somewhere else."

The man laughed delightedly.

"May I come up there in that hay-loft? It is a hay-loft, isn't it?"

"Yes, it is a hay-loft; but it isn't mine, any more than the beach is mine."

"Then I shall come."

He ran up the steps two at a time. Miss Ffolliott shook hands with him without changing her position, save to reach forth a hand negligently. He sat down at the other side of the doorway. He looked out at the sea.

"Jolly kind of a prospect, isn't it?"

"Yes, if one likes salt water. How came you over here?"

"Came in the Cephalonia."

"When?"

"Two weeks ago."

"You look very well. Did the mud baths cure you?"

"I suppose so; anyway, something cured me. I'm as fit as a man need be."

"Why don't you say 'as right as a trivet?'"

"Didn't think of a trivet. Isn't it jolly to see you, though?"

"Thank you."

The two gave one full glance at each other, then Prudence laughed.

"Why do you laugh?" he asked, in an aggrieved tone.

"I don't know unless it's because your conversation sounds so familiar."

"Well, laugh if you feel like it: I know conversation isn't my strong point."

"I know it isn't."

"I say, you're not very polite."

"And you're not very polite to tell me I'm not polite," she retorted.

The man laughed again, and began, "I say, now—" when Prudence interrupted him.

"Don't tell me it's jolly to see me."

"No, I won't; but it is—"

"There, you are at it again!"

"Oh, I beg your pardon."

The newcomer threw his head back and laughed once more. His companion did not join him. She gazed at him with apparent seriousness. When he had ceased laughing, Prudence inquired:

"Did Lady Maxwell come over with you?"

Lord Maxwell's face grew more grave.

"Yes; we took the trip for her health. The doctors said a sea voyage would tone her up, so we came over here. And now they've sent her to the Sulphur Springs. I've just taken her there. Her mother's with her, you know, and her maid, and her mother's maid, and somehow it seemed as if I'd better take a run round over the States, you know."

"Is Lady Maxwell's health improved?"

"I can't exactly tell. Some days she seems better, and then she'll be all down; malaria, you know."

"No, I didn't know."

"Yes; had Roman fever once, so her mother says. Wasn't treated right. I say, is this what they call Massachusetts Bay?"

Lord Maxwell swept out his arm towards the water.

"Yes, that's what they call it."

The gentleman expatiated again upon the beauties of his surroundings; he assured his companion that she must have no end of a jolly time, and then asked, with some abruptness, "Any men here?"

"One now; but a prospect of more."

There was a brief silence after this question and answer. Then Lord Maxwell exclaimed, "I say—"

Prudence looked at him, a smile lurking about her lips and in her eyes.

"You're always laughing at me, Miss Ffolliott," he said, but his manner showed that the fact did not make him miserable.

"What were you going to say?" she inquired.

"Only that it isn't a bad hotel over yonder where I'm stopping, and if you'd let me come here and call now and then, I'd stay there a week or two. Is this your Aunt Ffolliott's place that you told me about,—that you called one of your homes?"

"Yes."

"Would she permit me to call?"

"Certainly. Any friend of mine would be welcome," with a little air of hauteur and distance.

"Oh, thanks. And now I suppose I must go."

He rose and looked down at her, as if he were hoping she would tell him not to go so soon. But she said nothing.

"I suppose you wheel?" glancing at her dress.

"Yes, of course."

"I might have known you would; so do I. Perhaps you'll let me take a spin with you?"

"Perhaps."

"And you like sailing as well as ever?"

"Yes."

"Then I hope you'll go out in this bit of a boat of mine; she's a real fine one; and I like something I can manage all myself, so I got a small one. You'll try her?"

"Perhaps."

"You don't seem very eager."

"Don't I?"

"No. And we're old friends, aren't we?"

He asked the question with a wistful frankness. Before she could answer it, he went on in some haste:

"I never knew whether to believe you really when you told me you forgave me. You said you understood precisely how I was situated, and that you didn't blame me, for you might have done the same thing. Do you remember?"

"Oh, yes, I remember all about everything. And I do forgive you."

"I'm so glad! And we are friends?"

"Yes, we are friends."

Prudence had risen to her feet now. Her eyes were raised to the face above her, and the man met a softly brilliant look that recalled the past vividly to him and made him think that he could not do better, since he must kill time some way, than to stay over at that seaside hotel, though he had been thinking a half-hour ago that he might as well move on. He was also telling himself that Prudence Ffolliott was more sensible than most girls; she understood how a "fellow might be obliged to do some things when he wanted to do other things;" this was the way Lord Maxwell put the case in his own mind. And she wasn't going to lay anything up.

He looked at her gratefully. What a fetching kind of a face she had! He didn't know whether there was a really pretty feature in it, but that didn't matter. It had been a devilish set of circumstances that had obliged him to break off with her; yes, a devilish set. He had done it as honorably as he could; but he had never liked to think of his behavior at that time. It was such an immense relief to know that she didn't bear malice.

"Well," he said, abruptly, "I'll go now. Good-by."

He held out his hand, and Prudence put her fingers in it for the briefest space of time.

He ran down the stable stairs and down the slope of beach.

As he lifted his anchor to fling it into his boat, a crow flew down between him and the anchor, cawing as it flew.

He started back with an exclamation.

"It's only Devil," called out the girl from the door, laughing gaily as she spoke.

"That's just what I thought it was," was the response.

Lord Maxwell gazed an instant after the bird, which flew up to where Prudence stood and perched on the threshold beside her, curving its black neck and looking down at the man.

Maxwell pushed out and spread his sail. At the bottom of all his thoughts concerning this meeting was a feeling of pique that, after all, Miss Ffolliott cared so little for his failure to marry her. But he ought to be glad of that. Did he want her sighing and dying for him?

He glanced up at the sail, which almost flapped, so light was the wind. He had stopped thinking of Prudence, and was now thinking of the woman he had married. His thoughts did not often linger upon that subject. He didn't know of any earthly reason why they should. But just now he remembered with exceeding distinctness that Miss Arabella Arkwright had a thick waist and thick fingers; that she had at first shown a very annoying inclination to call him "my lord," but, thank fortune, he had made her drop that; and he was quite sure that she no longer referred to him as "his lordship;" he was glad of that also. And she had greatly toned down in regard to her dress. There was no fault to find with her money, however. She had no end of it,—literally no end, Lord Maxwell was grateful to know. Even the payment of his debts had not appreciably lessened the amount.

It had been extremely jolly for the first six months for this nobleman to be aware that he had no creditors, and to have no fear that he should overdraw on his banker. But it was sadly true that even the novelty of having money enough for every whim began to be what he called "an old story." He could get used to that, but he couldn't quite get used to the fact that Arabella Arkwright was his wife. He knew she was not to blame for his having had to break with a woman he fancied, and who could amuse him, but he often caught himself feeling as if she were to blame. At such moments Lord Maxwell fiercely reproved himself for a low-bred wretch. He was "not much for intellect," as he often said, but he thought he wanted to have the feelings of a gentleman, and to act like one.

Prudence Ffolliott resumed her seat in the door of the hay-mow. Devil remained beside her. The cord which Leander had tied to its leg still dangled from it. Occasionally the bird pecked at the string, but he had not yet succeeded in detaching it.

Now as he sat he would turn a bright eye towards his companion, looking as if he knew unutterable things about her, but would never tell them, never, never.

She extended her hand and touched the top of the bird's head with the tip of her finger.

"You and I know strange things, don't we, Devil?" she asked.

Devil turned his head this way and that. He hopped a few inches nearer.

"Do you care for Rodney Lawrence, Devil? Oh, you don't? Because he saved your life when you were just out of the shell; and he tamed you; and all you are you owe to him. You don't care if you do? All right. That's like a human being; that's ingratitude. And you stole his ring from him, did you? and hid it in the wall, and it wasn't found until he didn't care for it any more. No, he doesn't care now."

Prudence rose, and walked about over the hay-strewn floor. Her cheeks had grown red. Her eyes had sparks in them. Suddenly she put her hands together, then flung them out with a dramatic gesture. Then she smiled.

"I really ought to have been an actress," she said, looking at the crow, and speaking as if addressing it.

CHAPTER V.
BEING A CHAPERON.

Rodney Lawrence decided that he would not stay in his room more than twenty-four hours. Therefore on the following morning he essayed to dress himself, and was much disgusted to find that somehow his head was odd, and that a general stiffness and soreness made him feel as he fancied a man of eighty years must feel.

So he gave up the attempt. He donned a dressing-gown and put himself with some violence on a lounge near the window with a book in his hand. This he did for three consecutive days.

Company had arrived meantime. The young man heard talking and laughing and singing and piano and banjo playing in the house, and apparently all about him.

Once in the forenoon and once in the afternoon Mrs. Ffolliott paid him a short visit. She always told him she was glad to see he was improving, and always asked if he wouldn't like some calf's-foot jelly.

This morning, when she had made her customary visit, he had immediately volunteered this remark:

"Aunt Tishy, I don't want any calf's-foot jelly. I never did like it, and I don't like it now."

The lady had smiled in a somewhat vague manner as she patted the young man's cheek in response. Then she said that Rodney was so fond of his joke.

"I suppose you'll be down-stairs by to-morrow, won't you?" she asked; and this also was her customary question.

Lawrence made an impatient movement. He was fond of Aunt Tishy, but he often wished she were not quite so inconsequent.

"I shall be down as soon as I can, you may be sure of that," he answered. "Are the same people here?"

"Yes, but Mrs. Blair goes this afternoon. Good-by, Rodney dear. I'll send you up a fine dinner."

Then Mrs. Ffolliott walked towards the door. But the young man recalled her.

"Aunt Tishy, where's Leander? He's only been here twice, and he was on the wing then. He isn't entertaining Mrs. Blair and the rest, is he?"

"Oh, no." Here Mrs. Ffolliott smiled approbatively, as she often did when her son was mentioned. "Lee says he's in the chaperon business."

"The chaperon business? What on earth does he mean by that?" Lawrence tried to speak amiably.

"Why, he's been boating and cycling with Prudence and Lord Maxwell a good deal."

Lawrence instantly averted his eyes from his companion's face. His voice had a deeper note in it, though it sounded quite indifferent, as he said:

"I didn't know Lord Maxwell was here."

"Oh, yes; that is to say, he isn't here; he is over at the Seaview. He's stopping there, but he has been over here often."

"Oh, he has? And Lee is chaperoning Prudence, is he?"

"That's what he calls it; anyway, Prudence said of course she wasn't going out alone with Lord Maxwell. She said it would bore her to death to go alone with him."

"And so Leander goes to keep her from being bored to death?"

"Yes. She says Leander makes everything amusing."

"I wish, then, he'd come and amuse me. I don't have even Lord Maxwell."

"I'll tell Lee. You'll be sure to be down to-morrow, Rodney?"

So Mrs. Ffolliott swept out of the room. Lawrence turned again towards the window, magazine in hand. He seemed to read assiduously; he turned over the leaves regularly; his eyes ran along the lines scrupulously.

Presently there came a soft tap on the door. Lawrence's face brightened; he dropped the book on the floor and rose laboriously. He went to the door and opened it.

Carolyn stood there. She had on a hat and seemed in some haste. She carried a red rose in her hand.

Lawrence seized the hand eagerly. He drew her in and kissed her. She glanced back through the open door along the hall. She blushed delightfully.

"You're not afraid that some one will see me kiss you and thus know that you belong to me?" he asked, banteringly.

"It's too much like a chambermaid to be kissed in the hall," she answered, with a laugh.

"Oh, is it?"

"But I'm not afraid that people will think I belong to you; I'm—"

She hesitated so long that Lawrence drew her yet nearer, with a fine disregard of the open door.

"You're what?" he asked.

"I'm proud to be yours."

Here she turned her face away and held up the rose to shield her.

"My darling!" he exclaimed. She glanced at him shyly. It was enchanting to see the lovely face so happy.

"Now I must go," she went on, after a moment. "They're waiting for me. Oh, I wish you were able to come to drive with us! You are truly much better?"

"Truly. I shall surely be out in a day or two. Stay one minute. Why didn't you tell me Lord Maxwell was over at Seaview?"

Carolyn flushed deeply, but she answered, promptly, "Because I thought I wouldn't recall anything disagreeable to you; and I know he must be disagreeable."

"Pshaw! What do I care about him? Why, Carolyn," his voice sinking to a tender intonation, "haven't I got you to think of, to live for, now? What more do I want, and what can hurt me so long as I have you?"

The young man's face was full of a feeling that accorded with his words.

"Carolyn!" called her mother from the lower hall.

"Let me see you once more to-day," whispered Lawrence, and then the girl ran down the stairs.

Lawrence hobbled back to his lounge again. He was thinking that he was the luckiest fellow in the world, and why shouldn't he and Carolyn be married in the very early fall, say the first day of September?

He was still thinking this, when a sharp, fine rat-tat on the door made him call out:

"Come in!"

Whereupon the door was opened and shut with great swiftness, and Leander Ffolliott advanced to the lounge.

He was dressed in his suit as a member of the United States Navy, the same habiliments which he wore when we first had the honor of meeting him. He once explained why he liked these "togs" better than anything else he had, better even than the much-abbreviated cycling-suit, in which he looked like a mere atom of humanity. These, he said, were regular trousers; they were not the "darn things that came only to his knees." It will be seen that he was already looking forward to pantaloons.

Leander paused near where Lawrence was lying. He had his hands in his pockets, of course, and he was jingling jackstones industriously.

"Well," he said, "how does it go?"

"It doesn't go at all," was the response. Then Lawrence held out his hand and said, "Shake, old fellow."

The boy extended a hand and grinned appreciatively.

"I s'pose you ain't goin' to be hauled up long?" he asked.

"I don't know. I hear you've got a job. How do you like it?"

"What?"

"Why, being a chaperon."

Leander laughed shortly. He sat down on the edge of a chair.

"I tell you, ain't Prue jolly?" he exclaimed.

"Do you find her so?"

"You bet I do! No end. So does the Britisher."

"The Britisher?"

"Yes, you know,—the lord fellow that's got eyes, but no chin to speak of. You've seen him, ain't you?"

"Never had that pleasure."

"That so? Thought you had. He's in plain sight here a lot."

"He hasn't been in plain sight much from this window," said Lawrence.

The boy looked at him keenly. "Got a pain?" he asked.

"No. Why?"

"You spoke so sharp. I s'pose you ache a good deal?"

"Some. Are you always with Maxwell when he comes?"

"Lordy! no, I ain't. In the evening, if he 'n' Prue are walkin' round in the garden, I ain't with 'em then. But I'm along if they ride horseback, or go in the boat,—the Britisher's boat, you know,—or wheelin', and so on. Prue says I make things more interestin'."

"Oh, you go to make things interesting?"

"That's about it."

Leander's shrewd little eyes would roam about the moor and then come back to the face of the man on the lounge. He now added, "But I guess I don't make things as interestin' as Prue does."

"I guess you don't."

"No, you bet. She's a one-er for that, ain't she?" he remarked, with animation.

"Yes, she is."

There was a short silence now, during which Leander took a set of jackstones from his right pocket and began a game on his knee, getting no farther, however, than "two-sers," as his knee was very small.

Lawrence watched him. He was amused and interested. There were many questions he might ask, but he would not interrogate the boy, save in a general way.

"The Britisher never wants to go back to his hotel," at last remarked Leander. "I don't see why he stays at a hotel if he doesn't want to stay. I say, do lords always have that sort of a chin?"

"I don't know."

"And when they come over here, do they always put their wives into some kind of sulphur springs?"

"I don't know."

"'Cause that's where his wife is, in sulphur springs, and it don't do her any good, either."

Lawrence burst into a laugh, and, after staring an instant, Leander joined him shrilly.

After that the conversation turned to other subjects. Leander gave a detailed account of how his nose was finally stopped from bleeding, and informed his friend that, though his mother was scared almost to death, he himself was not in the least alarmed. Having exhausted this subject, he went to the window and immediately cried out, "There's Devil! Do you know what I'm doin' when I ain't chaperonin'?"

No, Lawrence did not know.

"I'm teachin' Devil to carry letters,—just as if he were a carrier-dove, you know." Here he chuckled. "You oughter have heard Flora Blair sing, 'Oh, carry these lines to my lady-love!'"

Leander raised his voice to a high squeak and shut his eyes languishingly as he mimicked the singer. He opened them again and continued:

"She said 'twas an old song, and, oh, wasn't it lovely? Her singin' that made me think of havin' Devil learn, you know. I tie a teenty bit of paper on his leg, and then—oh, I'll tell you all about it some time. Prue's helpin' me. She says it may come handy when one of us is shut up in a dungeon, you know. Don't you think so?"

Lawrence nodded. His mind was hardly following the boy's words now. There was creeping upon him a dull sense of dissatisfaction, he knew not why.

Leander prattled on, the words sounding confusedly in the still room. At last Lawrence's ears caught the sentence, "For Caro wouldn't let Lord Maxwell have the Vireo and take us all down to the Point of Rocks. She was as silly as she could be, but she wouldn't give in. When I asked her afterwards, she said the Vireo shouldn't go out till you were able to sail her."

Lawrence inwardly called himself childish because of the warm glow that came to his heart as he heard.

"Bless her! bless her!" he said to himself. "She cares for me."

In two days more the young man was down-stairs. He still moved rather stiffly, but his face was radiant as he sat on the piazza with Carolyn.

"We're going to have a long morning all by ourselves," said the girl, but she had scarcely spoken when two people came strolling along in the shrubbery at the left of the lawn.

Lawrence did not suppress an exclamation of impatience when Prudence came in sight, followed by a tall man whom Lawrence had not seen.

Prudence hastened forward. She came to Lawrence and held out her hand, looking up at him with a warm glance of delight.

"Welcome, Mr. Lawrence, welcome!" she said, in a low voice.

"Thank you," he responded, somewhat coldly.

"And so you're really better?"

"Oh, I'm all right now. I suppose you have all been desolated by my absence."

Lawrence knew that these last words were in very poor taste, but an inexplicable bitterness in his heart made him say them. He tried immediately to laugh them off.

"Oh, yes," returned Prudence, "we have refrained from smiling, all of us, save Leander, who is a heartless wretch."

Then she introduced the two men to each other, and they bowed stiffly, and Lord Maxwell said it must be no end of a bore to be shut up in a room; he had tried it and he knew.

Having said thus much, his lordship turned markedly to Prue. "I say, let's see what's the matter with your wheel. You've forgotten all about it, you know."

As the two walked away, Lawrence avoided looking after them. He turned towards Carolyn, and saw that she had her eyes fixed upon Prue's retreating figure. There was a look of anxiety on her face.

"Oh, I do wish she wouldn't do so!" he exclaimed.

"Do what?"

"Why, go on so with Lord Maxwell. Of course everybody notices it."

"And his wife in sulphur springs," laughed Lawrence.

The girl glanced at him quickly, and then laughed.

"That's what Lee told me," Lawrence explained. Then he added, with some edge to his tone, "I suppose no one but an Englishman would have the courage to shave such a chin as he wears. Most of us poor men-folks would let a beard hide that. Why, it makes him look almost imbecile."

And again Lawrence had the unpleasant consciousness that he was speaking childishly.

Carolyn leaned a little towards her companion. She smiled charmingly, as she said, in a bantering tone, "Don't let us care anything about the Maxwell chin."

Then they both laughed.

It was an hour later in the day that Prudence, walking down towards the shore, came upon Lawrence, sitting on the ground, placidly smoking a cigar.

She was alone, and she paused irresolutely, as she saw him.

CHAPTER VI.
THE EVENING BEFORE.

Lawrence rose, and threw away his cigar.

"Where's Carolyn?" she asked, quickly.

"Called into the house. Where's Lord Maxwell?"

"Gone back to Seaview. It seems as if we ought to console each other, doesn't it?"

"Yes. But I won't even try to make Maxwell's place good."

"Thank fortune you can't!"

"Is that the way you speak of absent friends?"

Prudence deliberately sat down in the shade of the tree near where Lawrence had been sitting.

"Let us converse," she said.

The young man resumed his position.

"No," remarked Prudence, presently; "that isn't the way I speak of absent friends. I don't know that Lord Maxwell is a friend—"

"What is he, then, I should like to know?"

"Oh, well, perhaps you may call him 'first flirter' just now."

Here Prudence pulled a long blade of grass, and thoughtfully examined it.

"First flirter? Ugh!"

After this Lawrence kept silence, and the girl picked the grass to pieces. He glanced at her; he saw that her face was softening in a way he remembered. He thought he would rise and walk away; then it did not seem quite courteous to leave her so markedly.

"I hope you enjoy it," he said, finally.

"Sitting here with you? Oh, yes," she replied, in a gentle voice, but with a quizzical smile.

"No," he said, rather too forcibly; "flirting with Maxwell."

"I don't enjoy it at all," she remarked, plaintively.

"Then I'd be hanged if I'd do it!" he commented, emphatically. "I suppose he likes it, though."

"Rodney, please don't talk to me so."

Prudence suddenly lifted her eyes, and looked at Lawrence. Her whole face seemed to quiver for an instant with some uncontrollable emotion. Then she turned her head aside, and was silent.

Lawrence sat there rigid, waiting for the next words to be spoken. He did not intend to be the one to speak them; but after a moment he said, slowly forming his sentence:

"I think a friend would advise you not to keep up this apparent intimacy with Lord Maxwell."

Prudence laughed, as one laughs who will not weep.

"One must do something," she said.

She did not glance at him now, but he looked at her, boldly and insistently.

"What do you mean?" He put the inquiry authoritatively.

She turned still farther away. "Do you require everything to be explained?" she asked, in a voice just audible.

He hesitated. Then he answered, "I beg your pardon. I require nothing."

She seemed to be waiting that she might have herself more under control. At last she said, "I deserve that you should speak in that way to me."

Lawrence thrust his hands into the pockets of his loose coat. He could shut them fast there and no one would see them.

"Deserve?" he repeated. "I don't understand."

"Yes, you must understand."

The words were spoken softly and tremulously; but the head was still averted. Prudence now went on hurriedly, as if she could not speak fast enough, and as if she were saying something that had long been in her mind to be spoken.

"It must be right to tell you how I've suffered for my—my mistake—I could almost call it crime—of two years ago. I—I—oh, I have suffered!"

The voice ceased, and the speaker covered her face with her hands.

Lawrence felt his heart growing hot with the sudden access of crowding emotions. He gave the girl one look, which took in the graceful, well-remembered figure, as if it were then and there being stamped afresh on his mind.

"Before you married and were happy with the woman you love," Prudence now went on, quickly, "I wanted you to say you forgave me."

"I forgive you," he said, promptly, and with unnecessary distinctness.

Prudence raised her head. Her face was wet, her eyes large and full of light.

"I didn't mean to make a scene," she said, still more hurriedly. "I know you don't like scenes, and I don't like them myself. But I didn't expect ever to see you alone again, and, happening to meet you, I had to tell you that I couldn't live if you didn't forgive me. You do?"

"Yes."

"Give me your hand upon it."

Lawrence drew a hand from his pocket, and extended it, grasping closely the hand Prudence placed in it.

"It's a strong hand and true," she said, smiling; "Carolyn will be happy. And she deserves to be."

Prudence withdrew her hand immediately. The two sat in silence, both gazing straight ahead with a look in their eyes as if they saw nothing.

"You will be so much happier with Caro than you would have been with me." Prudence spoke quite cheerfully. "I don't suppose I would have been anything like a model wife, and Caro will be. She'll be always wanting you to be comfortable; while I—I shouldn't have been so thoughtful, I'm afraid; I should only have just—" She stopped abruptly.

Lawrence, with his face still straight ahead, repeated:

"Only have just—"

"Loved you,"—in a tone so penetrating and so sweet that the man who heard it looked like a stone man, in that he made no visible response. She went on directly, in a matter-of-fact way, "I mean, you know, if things had gone on as we once planned."

"If you had not jilted me."

"Yes." She hesitated, and then said, "But you just told me that you forgave me."

"So I do."

"You ought; for if I had not done that, you wouldn't now be engaged to Caro; and you'll be so happy with her."

Lawrence moved uneasily. He glanced about him indefinitely. It did not seem to him as if he could abruptly walk away from this girl.

"Are you very tired of me?" she unexpectedly inquired. "Do you want me to go up to the house and tell Caro you are waiting here?"

Here she laughed, the sound ringing out in the still air. But before he could reply, the girl had risen to her feet.

Lawrence rose quickly also. "Are you going?" he asked.

"I bore you so," she said. She was standing before him, her hands clasped and hanging down in front of her. Her face was turned to him, but her eyelids were drooped.

He gave a short laugh. He tried to speak, but his tongue blundered over the words. At last he said, constrainedly, "You speak that which is not." Then he tried to laugh again.

Prudence looked about her rapidly. She took a step nearer to her companion.

"It isn't in the least likely that we shall ever be alone together again," she said, in a half voice; "so why need we quarrel?"

"Why, indeed? I have forgiven you, and we are going to be friends. Isn't that our attitude towards each other?"

Prudence clasped her hands. "Oh, Rodney, you don't forgive me, and you don't like me any more!"

He stood silent, grimly looking at the woman before him.

"I can't go on with my life thinking you bear me ill-will,—I tell you I can't!" she said.

"But I don't bear you ill-will. If Lord Maxwell had not married some one else, do you think you would have experienced this access of repentance?"

The instant Lawrence had spoken thus he would have given much to be able to take back the words. But the sting of bitter memory, the recollection of past suffering, overwhelmed him.

Prudence turned so white that it almost seemed as if she would fall. But she did not fall; she stood up straight and stiff. Even her lips appeared to be stiff, for she tried twice to speak before she said:

"Mr. Lawrence, will you give me that ring? Leander says you have it again."

For answer Lawrence put his thumb and finger in his waistcoat pocket, and drew forth a ring in which was set a large, dark red stone. He held out the trinket in silence, and laid it in the palm of the extended hand.

"I believe this is the end," he said, after a moment.

Her whole aspect changed in a flash. She smiled while she closed her fingers over the ring. She was glancing at some object behind Lawrence.

"It's not the end," she responded, in a low voice; "it's what I call the sequel." Then, louder, "I'm glad you've come, Caro, for I don't know what would have happened if we had been left to ourselves, Mr. Lawrence is that belligerent. We have quarrelled about everything we've mentioned."

Carolyn advanced along the path behind Lawrence, who, for the life of him, could not refrain from hesitating perceptibly before he turned. In the violence of the revulsion he could hardly breathe. What would Carolyn think of him if she saw his face, which he knew must tell her something, and which he was sure would tell the wrong thing? And how odd in him to hesitate.

There was Prudence strolling negligently away. Just now she reached a curve in the path. She paused and turned back. She waved her hand. She sang gaily:

"Oh, Love has been a villain

Since the days of Troy and Helen,

When he caused the death of Paris

And of many, many more!"

"What good spirits Prudence has!" Carolyn exclaimed, as she reached her lover's side.

"Yes," he answered; then the eyes of the two met, and the girl drew back somewhat.

"Has anything happened?" she asked, in a whisper.

"Nothing,—nothing," he returned, and then added, violently, "I thank heaven that it's you who will be my wife,—you, you, Caro, and no one else!"

She shrank from him still more, but he caught her hands and insisted upon drawing her nearer. With her head on his shoulder she said, indistinctly:

"I hope, oh, I do hope, Rodney, that you are not making a mistake! You're sure, aren't you?"

"Sure? A thousand times sure," he replied, eagerly. "And why should we put off our marriage? You haven't any reason."

"Yes, I have; a very strong one."

"I doubt it; and I shall not consider it."

"I want you to be positive, sure beyond question, that you know your own mind."

"Ah!" came triumphantly from Lawrence, "then we'll be married to-morrow."

From that day the young man was possessed with the resolve that his marriage should not be deferred. And of course he won over Carolyn and her mother.

Really, there seemed no need of delay. The two had always known each other; they had sufficient means.

So the day was set for the first week in September. Lawrence came and went in the very highest spirits. They were to start on a long journey, going in the Cunard steamer that sailed on the afternoon of the day. "We will be gone two years at least," Lawrence said. "We'll go everywhere and see everything. Nobody will ever be as happy as we will be."

And Carolyn was quite sure that no one was ever as happy as she was then. She wrote a long letter to Prudence, who was in Newport with her mother, who had come back from Carlsbad. She told her every detail. There was to be no wedding party, only just the family present; mamma had insisted otherwise, but she and Rodney had overruled her; they would probably never be married again, and they wanted things their own way. Only Prue and her mother must come.