Transcriber’s Note:

New original cover art included with this eBook is granted to the public domain.

The figure standing close behind him scarcely breathed.
Frontispiece. Page [192].

Rena’s Experiment

BY

MARY J. HOLMES

G. W. DILLINGHAM COMPANY

PUBLISHERS      NEW YORK

Copyright, 1901, 1904,

By MRS. MARY J. HOLMES.

[All rights reserved.]

Rena’s Experiment.      Issued August, 1904.

CONTENTS

Rena’s Experiment

CHAPTER I
NANNIE’S WELL

A tall, angular woman, wearing a sun-bonnet and a big work apron which nearly covered her short dress, stood on the fence calling, “Charlotte Ann! Charlotte Ann! Charlotte Ann Parks! Where be you? Don’t you know it’s ’most noon, and the table not set? and Miss Bennett’s very partic’lar about her digester; and there’s a letter from the two summer boarders who are coming!”

The woman’s voice, strong and clear, went echoing down a grassy lane which led to a small grove, or thicket, of pine-woods in which was a shallow well, now seldom used except during a summer drought, when the cattle, which fed in the pasture-land around the woods, were watered from it. The old bucket and curb had fallen apart, and pieces of them were lying on the ground; but around the well were large, flat stones, one of which projected beyond the others a foot or more, so that a person standing upon it could look directly down into the centre of the water below. And it was on this projection that Charlotte Ann Parks was standing when her mother’s voice came warning her that it was nearly noon, that the table was not set, that Miss Bennett was particular about her “digester,” and there was a letter from the summer boarders. Charlotte Ann, or Lottie, as she was usually called by all except her mother, heard the call, but paid no attention. Her ear was strained to catch the first sound of the town clock in the village two miles away which would tell her that it was noon, and her eyes were fixed intently upon the small square mirror she held in her hand as nearly over the centre of the well as possible. She was trying a charm, or a trick, as it was designated in the rural district of Oakfield, where the traditions of a century ago had been handed down from generation to generation, and believed in, or discarded, according to the susceptibility of the people for the marvellous. Lottie always scoffed at the stories told of her great-grandmother’s time before the Revolution, when armies were seen passing and repassing in the heavens and the snow was like blood in the light of the Auroras; when houses were haunted and wizened old witch women rode through the air on broomsticks, or held their weird vigils in the woods which studded the wild New England coast. All this superstition had mostly died with the old people, whose gravestones in the Oakfield cemetery were sunken deep in the ground and so covered with mold and moss that it was impossible to read the date of their birth or death. A few oldtime customs, however, still clung to the young people, because of the romance attaching to them, rather than from any real faith in their efficacy. One of these had to do with the well in the pine-grove and the tragedy connected with it, the story of which I heard on the summer afternoon when I alighted at the little country station of Oakfield, dusty and tired, and wondering how I was to get to the place of my destination.

I was a stenographer and bookkeeper in a large city firm, and was overworked in body and brain. Sleep and appetite had both forsaken me, and I was sinking into a state of semi-invalidism, with little strength and less ambition. Rest I must have and a change of air, and when I saw an advertisement saying that Mrs. Eli Parks, who lived near the sea-coast and two miles from town, wanted summer boarders, and that her rooms were large and cool and quiet, and her house a hundred years old, I said: “That is the place for me; the fashionable world has not invaded Mrs. Parks. I can rest there. I will write her at once.”

I did write her, with the result that on a day in early July I was standing by my trunk and asking the station master if there was no means of conveyance for strangers who visited Oakfield?

“Why, yes,” he said; “of course there is. We ain’t so far behind as that. There’s a ’bus from town, here mostly for the trains. I don’t know why ’tain’t here now, only there don’t many come at this hour, or if they are comin’ they telegraph. Want to go to Miss Parks’? Well, you are in luck. That young chap there lives next to her. He’ll take you in his rig and I’ll send your traps bimeby. Hallo, you Sam! Come here!”

At the agent’s call a young man, or boy, reined up suddenly, and I was soon driving with him along the pleasant country road toward Mrs. Parks’. The agent had introduced him as Sam Walker, and I found him inclined to be very sociable and ready to give me many items of interest concerning the neighborhood and its people.

“See that big stone house on the hill?” he asked, pointing to a large, gray-looking building in the distance with tall pillars in front and a square tower on the corner. “Well, that’s the McPherson place—the richest man in town—or his half-brother was, and Mr. Colin has it in trust for a young man—Reginald Travers—who is visiting there now; some relation to old Sandy, I believe, and a big swell. He has money of his own, they say; and he’ll get a pile more bimeby. That’s the luck of some folks.”

He was not very lucid in his remarks, but by questioning him I managed to learn that the house, of which he seemed very proud, had been the property of Sandy McPherson, a Scotchman and eccentric old man, who had lived to be ninety and had died a few months before, leaving quite a fortune to his half-brother, Colin, thirty years his junior. Colin was also to have the use of the house as long as he lived, and at his death it was to belong to the “swell young man,” provided he married somebody, Sam did not know whom. Some girl, he s’posed. Men mostly did marry girls and anybody would be a fool to give up the McPherson house and the money which went with it. “It was an awful funny will old Sandy made, and had something to do with a love affair when he was young. Seemed queer that he could ever have been in love, he looked so old and his hair was so white, and his head kept shaking, and hands, too. Awful nice man, though, and had the biggest funeral you ever seen,” Sam said.

I was not particularly interested in Sandy McPherson’s funeral, and was silent until Sam asked suddenly, “Do you believe in tricks?” as he came in sight of a pine-grove in the distance.

I said I didn’t know what he meant by “tricks,” as I had never heard of one, and in a way he explained what he meant.

“Lots of young people are always trying ’em at the well in the middle of the woods. There’s a queer love-story, and a true one—old Sandy’s love-story—connected with it. Want to hear it?”

I was forty, and presumably past the age of romance, but I did want to hear the story, which I afterward heard two or three times, and which I give in my own words rather than in those of Sam, who rambled a good deal and threw in various opinions of his own concerning the parties interested.

Sixty or seventy years before that July day Sandy McPherson had been a rich young farmer in the neighborhood and looked up to and respected by every one. He was not very handsome, with his light hair and eyes and freckled face, but his money and great kindness of heart made amends for what he lacked in his personal appearance, and there was scarcely a girl in the town who would not gladly have taken him with his freckled face, light hair and Scotch brogue. When his choice fell upon Nannie Wilkes much wonder was expressed at her indifference to his suit and her preference for Jack Bryan, a handsome, rollicking young man, who played fast and loose with all the girls, and with none more so than with pretty Nannie Wilkes, until he heard that in a fit of pique she had accepted Sandy and was to be married in a month. Then his real love for her showed itself, and many were the arguments used to dissuade her from her promise. But Nannie was firm. She had pledged her word to Sandy and would keep it. She did not care so very much for him, she said; he had too many freckles and talked with a brogue, but her mother was anxious for the match and he was rich, and could give her a piano and solid silver tea-set, and carryall with a top to it and two horses, to say nothing of his handsome house. Jack could give her nothing but a very humble home with his half-blind mother and a salary as grocer’s clerk at eighteen dollars a week. And so the wedding day drew on apace, and Nannie’s gowns were being made by a seamstress who went to Boston twice a year and was consequently posted on fashions.

Nearly every night Sandy went to Nannie’s home, where the girl’s eyes, full of unshed tears, seldom met his glance, and her little hands lay in his great warm ones, cold and passive, with no return of the loving pressure he gave them. On the nights when he was not with her Nannie sat in the pine-woods, with Jack’s arm around her and Jack’s face very near her own, while he pleaded with her to give up the marriage with Sandy and take him instead. He could not give her a piano nor silver tea-set, nor carryall with a top to it, but he could buy her a buggy. One had been offered him at a bargain. And he’d get her a melodeon, and his mother had lots of old china, and he would work like a beaver in the garden and yard to make them more like the McPherson grounds. But neither the second-hand buggy, nor the melodeon, nor the old china appealed to Nannie, who only shook her head.

“I’ll tell you what,” he said to her at last, when all his arguments had failed to elicit from her anything more than, “I’ve given my word and I can’t break it. You should have spoken this way sooner.”

“I’ll tell you what. Try a trick at the well. I know how they do it. My aunt did it once, and mother, too. I heard them talking about it, and mother declared she saw father’s face and nearly fell into the well. Hold a mirror over the well at exactly noon when the sun shines down into it, and wish that you may see the face of the one you are to marry. If my face looks in the glass by yours, I’m the chap. If Sandy’s, then Sandy it is, and I’ve no more to say. Try it to-morrow noon. Will you?”

Nannie had little faith in the experiment, of which she had heard before, but to please Jack she promised, and the next day as it drew near the hour of noon when the oracle was supposed to be propitious, she stood leaning over the curb, holding in her hands a small mirror, into which her white face was looking anxiously for the one which was to appear beside it just as the sun touched the meridian and shone down upon the water. She had said she had no faith in the charm, but in her room before she started on her errand she had knelt in an agony of tears and prayed that it might be Jack instead of Sandy. Somewhat comforted with a belief that God would hear her, and it would be Jack, she stole down to the woods and stood watching and waiting till the noonday sun shining through a clearing in the pines struck the waters below.

Jack had fully intended to be on the spot hiding behind a tree which grew near, and when Nannie was absorbed in her task he meant to steal cautiously behind her on the carpet of soft pine-needles, which would give no sound, and by looking over the curb let his face appear beside hers in the mirror; then, before she recovered from her surprise, he could retreat backward, and when discovered declare he had just come upon the scene. But an unforeseen accident kept him away, and only a blackbird and bobolink among the pines saw the trembling girl, whose nerves were strained to their utmost, and whose disordered imagination grew more and more disordered as floating clouds flitted across the sun, shutting out some of its brightness. Then she fancied that shadowy lineaments were forming upon the mirror, that a pair of eyes were looking at her, and they were not the brown laughing eyes of Jack, but the blue ones of Sandy, whose rugged features spread themselves beside her own, while she stood riveted to the spot, her pale lips whispering, “It is Sandy, God help me!”

After that there was no wavering, and Jack’s arguments and ridicule had no power to move her. She knew what she had seen. It was Sandy. She could not defy fate, and the wedding was appointed for Thursday night, when the McPherson house was to be thrown open and the marriage-feast held there after the ceremony.

Half the town was bidden and Sandy was the happiest of men, and on Wednesday evening, which he had spent with Nannie, he told her that the carryall had come and she was to have her first ride in it when she went to church as bride the next Sunday. The piano had also come, and a silver tea-set and a Brussels carpet for the great room, with lace curtains and a pier-glass in which she could see herself from her head to her feet; “and you will be the bonniest wife in the whole world and I the happiest man,” he said.

Nannie listened without a word, or smile, or sign that she heard. At parting, however, she put her arms around his neck and kissed him, and said:

“I think you the best man in the world, and I thank you for all you have done for me. Always remember that; but I am not good enough for you.”

Sandy laughed his broad, good-humored laugh, which always grated a little on Nannie, as he paid her one kiss with many, and held her close for a moment.

“Not good enough for me, my pearl, my lily! I wish I were half as good as you,” he said, and the thought kept him laughing during his walk home, which lay through the woods and past the well, at which he stopped to look, as his hired man had told him the curb was a little shaky. “I’ll have it fixed after the wedding. Just now I can think of nothing but that and Nannie,” he said, as he continued his way home, trying to whistle, an accomplishment in which he was not an expert.

Arrived at home and alone in his room, he said to himself, “To-morrow at this time she will be here, my very own,” and he stretched out his arms to embrace an imaginary form with brown hair and soft-gray eyes, and cheeks like the summer roses.

Alas for the morrow and the anguish it brought! and alas for the young girl who at midnight, when the moon was high in the heavens, stood again by the fatal well, looking down into its depths with despair in her eyes and determination in her face! She could not marry Sandy, and she could not brave the world’s censure if she did not, and so she chose the coward’s part, to die. There was a hurried look around her, a thought of Jack, and a prayer to be forgiven, and then the cold, dark waters closed over her with a splashing, gurgling sound, and Nannie Wilkes had gone out into the great unknown, away from Sandy and away from Jack—both dreaming of her and both waking on the morrow to a horror which filled them with dismay. A note was found in her room which read:

“I cannot marry Sandy because I love Jack. I have wanted to do right and cannot. I tried the charm at the well, hoping it would be Jack’s face I saw, but it was Sandy’s which came and stood by mine in the mirror. I saw it so plain, and I cannot marry him, and so I must die. I shall not jump into the well. I can push the curb aside, it is so loose, and shall slip down the stones into the water, so as not to be bruised. Tell Sandy I am sorry and hope he will forget me and take some girl for his wife better than I am. Tell Jack—but, no, don’t tell him anything, except that I loved him and died for him. Good-by.”

It was Sandy who took her from the well and laid her on the soft bed of needles under the pines, wringing the water from her dripping garments and her long hair which clung to her face and which he put back behind her ears, saying nothing except, “Poor little Nannie! If you had told me, you would not have been lying here dead. Poor Nannie! I wish I had known.”

He even tried to comfort Jack, whose grief at first was violent and noisy, but like such grief, was easily consoled when another pretty face caught his fancy. They buried Nannie in the McPherson lot, for Sandy would have it so, and he bought the headstone and put upon it simply, “Nannie, Aged 19.” Then he went about his usual business, with a pain in his heart which time never fully healed. Naturally domestic in his nature, he wanted a home, with wife and children in it, and after a few years he married a Mrs. Travers, a young widow with an only son. He seemed happy, but Nannie was never forgotten, and not an hour of his life that he did not see her in fancy as she was when he kissed her in the moonlight, and again when he laid her upon the pine-needles, cold and dead, but with a look of peace on her face as if at the very last there had been upon her lips a prayer for forgiveness which God had heard and answered. When his wife died, which she did within two years of his marriage, the great house was so silent and lonely that he soon married again, and this time a cousin of Nannie’s, who, like his first wife, was a widow, with an only child, a little daughter, so that he had two stepchildren to whom he gave a father’s care and love.

What came next after his second marriage is not essential to the story. His wife died. His stepchildren were married and had families of their own to the second generation, when they, too, died, and still old Sandy lived on, his only companion now his half-brother Colin, who had come from Scotland to join him. One by one the descendants of his wives died and were scattered until in his last years, when nearly ninety, he knew of only one, and that was Reginald Travers, great-grandson of his first wife, in whom he felt no particular interest, until Reginald, who had heard of the rather eccentric old man, came to call upon him and claim relationship through the great-grandmother, dead years and years ago. Something in the young man pleased the older one, who kept him for weeks and finally conceived the idea of making him heir to a part of his fortune, which had grown steadily and was greater than his brother would care for. Colin, to whom he broached the subject, and who, being so much younger, was his right hand and left hand and brain, made no objections, but said:

“Why leave everything to Reginald? There may be some member of the other branch of your family. You had two wives, you know, and one was Nannie’s cousin.”

“To be sure; to be sure, I did,” Sandy answered, rubbing his bald head as if to recall an incident of more than fifty years ago. “You see I lived with Susie so short a time, and that girl of hers was married so young that things slip my mind, and sometimes it seems as if I was never married at all. Nothing is real but Nannie, who is as fresh in my mind as she was that last night when I kissed her for the last time. Poor little Nannie! and Susie was her cousin and looked some like her. There must be somebody somewhere related to her. I wish you’d hunt it up.”

Colin was accustomed to hunt up things for his brother, and as a result of this investigation he found that Irene Burdick, the great-granddaughter of Mrs. Sandy McPherson the second, who was a relative of Nannie, was an orphan, with some means of her own, and was living with her aunt in New York, and also that she was spending a part of the summer in New London. Greatly to Colin’s surprise, the morning after he had imparted this information to his brother, he found him with his valise packed and himself dressed for a journey.

“I’m going to New London,” he said, “going, incog., for a look at Ireny. She has some of Nannie’s blood in her. Pretty thin by this time, running through so many channels, it is true, but if she suits me, all right; if not, all right, the same.”

He went to New London and registered as Mr. McPherson. He thought the Sandy might betray him, forgetting that his name was as strange to Irene Burdick as hers was to him. She was at the hotel with her aunt and he saw her in the dining-room and on the piazza and in the water, where she could swim like a duck, and he watched her with a strange stir in his heart as he thought, “She is some relation to Nannie. Poor little Nannie, dead more than sixty years ago.”

She was small, and thin, and brown-haired, and pale-faced, but her dark-gray eyes were wondrously beautiful, and once, when they flashed upon him as she ran past him on the beach in her dripping garments, he saw, or thought he saw, a look like Nannie, while the voice which said to him, “I beg your pardon,” as she whisked past him was certainly like the voice he had never forgotten.

“Nannie’s eyes and voice have come down through all these years, and Ireny will do,” he said.

He did not make himself known to her, as he stood a little in awe of her aunt, a typical New York woman, but he watched the girl for a week, and after his return home, made one of the strangest wills ever put upon record.

To his brother Colin he gave fifty thousand dollars, with the use of the house and farm until it was taken possession of by the young people, Reginald Travers and Irene Burdick, with whom he was to make his home as long as he lived, and to whom he willed the remainder of his fortune, in case they married each other, said marriage not to take place until both had had plenty of time in which to consider it and know their own minds. If either of them preferred some one else, he or she was to receive twenty thousand dollars, and the rest go to the other party. If the disaffection was mutual and neither cared for the other, each was to have ten thousand dollars, and the remainder of the property was to go half to Colin and half for the support of different missions named in the will. If both parties were agreeable to each other and the one died before the marriage took place, the survivor was to have the whole.

This will Sandy drew up himself after an immense amount of thought and many sleepless nights and consultations with Colin, who knew something of law and made some corrections and suggestions. When at last it was finished, duly executed and witnessed, Sandy put it with his private papers, telling no one except Colin, who had questioned the propriety of a will which might induce the young couple to marry whether they liked each other or not.

“That’s so,” Sandy said, recalling with a shudder his experience with Nannie. “They must not only be agreed, but they must love each other. There must be no one-sided affair. I’ll make that plain,” and he wrote a note which he put with his will, addressed to Reginald and Irene, charging them, as they hoped for happiness in this world and heaven in the next, not to enter into matrimony with each other unless their hearts were in it. “For be ye well assured that if any persons are joined together otherwise than as God’s word doth allow, their marriage is not lawful,” he wrote in conclusion. This sentence from the prayer-book Sandy knew by heart as he did the whole of the marriage ceremony. He had gone through with it twice and had repeated it to himself many and many a time when he thought it was to be Nannie standing by his side. This done he felt that he had performed his duty to his two wives by trying to bring their great-grandchildren together and giving them his money. It was due them, he thought, because Nannie had always stood between them and himself, and Irene was a distant relative and had her eyes and voice, and he ought to leave her something, as he must show respect to both his wives.

When he was first engaged to Nannie he had a very good likeness made of her by an artist sketching in the neighborhood, and after her death this was enlarged into a life-sized portrait, said by those who had known the girl to be very natural, especially the eyes. This picture hung in the drawing-room between the portraits of the first and second Mrs. McPherson, who looked rather stiff and prim and wholly unlike Nannie, with her soft brown hair and grayish-blue eyes, which followed one with a wistful, pathetic look, whose meaning Sandy understood as he had not when she was living. Many times a day Sandy stood before the portrait, studying the face and comparing it with that of the girl seen in New London. “They are alike,” he would say to himself, feeling more and more satisfied with his will. Several cautious inquiries he made at intervals with regard to Irene, hearing always the same report that she was sweet and pure and womanly; “not burdened with brains enough to make her strong-minded, but she is altogether lovely,” one of her teachers wrote to him of her; and he was satisfied in the belief that he had done well for the young couple, and he was planning to bring them together without their knowing his intentions, when death came suddenly, and on his ninetieth birthday he was found dead in his bed, with a lock of Nannie’s hair on the table beside him, and under his pillow a miniature of her, which had been made in Dresden from a photograph of the portrait in the drawing-room. They buried the miniature and the hair with the old man beside poor Nannie and between her and his first wife. They found the will and the whole town buzzed with its contents, wondering who Irene Burdick was and how she would take it and how Reginald Travers would take it. Colin wrote to him with regard to it and invited him to visit the McPherson place again, but decided to wait before sending a copy to Irene, who was travelling in Europe. Then public curiosity abated a little and waited for what would come next. Nothing came at once. Irene remained abroad and no one knew anything of her. Reginald attended to his business, if he had any, while Colin lived his lonely life at the McPherson place and the affairs in the town went on as usual.

With Sandy’s death, however, a fresh impetus had been given to the interest felt by the young people in the charmed well where Nannie had ended her life.

“Beats all what fools some of us are,” Sam said, as he finished his story, adding that the swell young man visiting at the McPherson place was Reginald Travers, and “didn’t speak to nobody often, though when he did he was nice as a pin.”

Then he stopped for a moment on the top of a hill for me to look down upon the pine-woods in which was the well which bore Nannie’s name.

“I don’t believe there’s more than one or two girls hereabouts, or boys either, who hasn’t tried a trick at that well,” he said. “Why, there’s a little box in a hollow pine tree and in it is a small square mirror to hold over the water when the sun is right overhead. I call it rot, and I don’t believe Lottie has ever done such a silly thing.”

“Who is Lottie?” I asked, and the crimson on his face and the look in his eyes told me what she was to him before he replied.

“Oh, don’t you know? She’s Charlotte Ann, Widow Parks’ girl. I call her Lottie for short. There she is now, in the yard, and that’s the house, with the li-locks in front, and that is our house beyond, with the high board fence. Father and Widow Parks don’t agree very well. Get up, Beauty.”

He chirruped to his horse, who took us quickly to the old-fashioned house, whose open doors, and windows with white curtains blowing in and out, and the odor of roses and pinks and lilacs in the garden and yard gave promise of the comfort and rest it was mine to enjoy for two long, happy months.

CHAPTER II
THE FARM-HOUSE

At the sight of us the girl, who was gathering flowers, disappeared, and only Mrs. Parks came forward to meet me, her good-humored face beaming, and her large, helpful hands stretched out to relieve me of my bag and umbrella.

“So you brought her?” she said to Sam. “Wall, I’m glad you was there. I was afraid the ’bus wouldn’t go this time of day, and I kinder hoped the McPherson carriage might happen to go down, as I heard they was expectin’ another visitor up to the house, but nobody went by but Mr. Travers on hossback. Come right in. Your room is all ready for you when Charlotte Ann gets a few more flowers. Put up your money. Sam don’t want no pay.”

This last was said because I was opening my purse with a view to ask how much I was indebted to the young man, who shook his head and nodding a good-by drove off, after a wistful look at a blue skirt visible among the rose-bushes in the garden. Then I began to look around me at the quaint old house, with big rooms, wide hall, low ceilings, and open fireplaces, with pleasant views from every window, of wooded hills, and grassy valleys, and the pine-grove, with Nannie’s Well, which was beginning to interest me so much. But the object which attracted me most was the stone house on the hill—the McPherson place. Would the young people, Reginald Travers and Irene Burdick, ever come together? and how much truth was there in the story Sam had told me? I would ask Mrs. Parks when I knew her better, I thought. She was bustling about my room, a large, airy chamber, with four windows, a high-post bedstead, surmounted with what she called a “teaster” and surrounded with what she called a “balance.” Everything was old-fashioned, but scrupulously clean and comfortable to the last degree.

“You might like the south room across the hall the best,” she said, “and I’d give it to you, only it jines another, and I’m hopin’ to have two girls who’ll take the two rooms. Nobody sleeps with nobody nowadays; everybody must be separate; different from what it was when I was young, and three sometimes slep’ together if ’twas necessary; but Charlotte Ann says the world moves, and I s’pose it does. I’ve had a letter from them girls askin’ about ’em—the rooms, I mean.”

I assured her I wanted nothing better than the room I had, with the eastern sunshine in the morning and its cool north breeze all the day.

“Charlotte Ann, Charlotte Ann! Is that you? Miss Bennett’s come. Sam brought her, but he didn’t stop,” Mrs. Parks called over the balustrade, and a young girl came up the stairs with her hands full of roses, and cheeks which rivalled them in color, while her eyes at the mention of Sam had in them a look which reminded me of the boy when I asked him who Lottie was.

She was very pretty, and within a week we became great friends and as intimate as a woman of forty often is with a girl of seventeen. I knew all about Sam, for whom Lottie cared more than for the half-dozen other boys whom she called kids and who annoyed her with attentions. I knew, too, about Sam’s father, Ephraim Walker, who had quarrelled with her mother about a line fence and claimed two feet more land than belonged to him, to say nothing of his hens, which were always getting into Mrs. Parks’ garden, until Mr. Walker built a high board fence which shut out the hens and a view of his premises as well.

“Mother gave up the two feet for the sake of getting rid of the hens, and she has never spoken to him since,” Lottie said, with a snap in her eyes which told her opinion of Sam’s father, who, she added, “hates me like pisen.”

“Hates you! For what?” I asked, and after some hesitancy she replied, “I don’t mind telling you that Sam is carrying me now more than the other boys.”

I did not quite know what carrying her meant, but ventured to guess in my mind, and she went on—“and he comes here pretty often, and his father don’t like it and is crosser than a bear when Sam takes me out with Black Beauty, and once, when he found us in the McPherson pines sitting on a log he threatened to horsewhip Sam if he found him there again philandering with me. Sam squared up to him and said, ‘Come on and try it, if you dare.’ He didn’t dare; I should think not! He whip Sam! I’d laugh!”

She did laugh a little bitterly, and, reminded, by her mention of the McPherson pines of Nannie’s Well, I asked her about it and heard much the same story Sam had told me, with a few more details concerning the superstition attaching to the well, and the number of young people who had tried the trick at noonday—some with success, they pretended, and more with none.

“I don’t believe in it, of course,” Lottie said, “but sometime I mean to try it just for fun. If those two girls come maybe they’ll try it, too. I don’t s’pose you’d care to, you are too——”

She stopped abruptly, not wishing to say “You are too old,” but I understood her and answered, “Yes, too old to be looking into a well at noon to find my future husband.” Then I questioned her about the girls who might be my neighbors.

“They are cousins,” she said, “and their name is Burdick; one of them, we suppose, is the girl old Sandy McPherson wanted Mr. Reginald Travers to marry. It is the same name and she lives in New York with her aunt Mrs. Graham, and has just got home from Europe, and when mother asked Mr. McPherson if it wasn’t the one, he said he wouldn’t wonder, and laughed. I can’t imagine why she is coming here unless she wants to see what kind of man Mr. Travers is. I should suppose she’d let him go after her, wouldn’t you?”

I did not express an opinion, but began to feel a good deal of interest in the romance likely to go on around me. Mr. Travers was a great swell, Lottie said, and as that was what Sam had called him, I was anxious to see him. I did see him the next Sunday in the little church which, with Mrs. Parks and Lottie, I attended in the village. It was one of the oldest churches on the coast, Mrs. Parks said, and it looked its full age. There were not many Episcopalians in town; few of them had much money, except Colin McPherson, who paid three-fourths of the rector’s salary and left the rest of the expense to the other parishioners and summer visitors. The windows were high, with small panes of glass; the carpet was faded; the backs of the pews were low; the seats were narrow and hard, and the small organ was frightfully out of tune. Accustomed as I was to city churches, I began to feel homesick in this shabby place, where the people looked nearly as forlorn as their surroundings. The organ had just commenced what was intended as a voluntary, which set my nerves on edge, when there was a stir near the door, and the sexton in his creaky boots tiptoed up the aisle to a square pew with red cushions, which I had singled out as the McPherson pew. Nearly every one turned his head, and I with the rest, to look at the white-haired man carrying himself very erect, with his gold-bowed glasses on his nose and his big prayer-book held tightly in his hand. “Stiff, with a good face,” was my mental comment, and then I scanned curiously the young man who walked behind him, with aristocracy and polish and city stamped all over him from his collar and necktie to the shape of his shoes. I couldn’t see the latter, it is true, but I felt sure of them, and that his trousers were creased as they should be and were of the latest fashion. He had a pale, refined face, with clearly cut features, a mouth which told of firmness rather than sweetness, and eyes which I was certain seldom brightened at a joke because they didn’t see it. And yet there was about him something which I liked. He might be proud and probably was, but his presence seemed to brighten the little church wonderfully, so that I forgot its shabbiness in watching him, and nearly forgot the service, which the rector tried to intone, and the harsh notes of the organ and the discords of the soprano.

What did he think of it all? I wondered. He was certainly very devout and only once gave any sign of annoyance, and that was when the organ was galloping madly through the Te Deum and the soprano was trying to keep up with the alto, and the bass and tenor were in full pursuit of the soprano. Then he shrugged his shoulders very slightly and turned toward the organ loft so that, for an instant our eyes met. In his I fancied there was a look of surprise and half wonder, a second searching glance, and then he turned to his book more devoutly than ever, and I heard a full, rich baritone joining with the organ and soprano and leading them steadily on to the end of the grand anthem. As he sat down he looked at me again with something like inquiry in his eyes. Could it be that he had heard of the expected arrival of Irene Burdick at Mrs. Parks’ and wondered if I were she? If so, I knew he was thinking what his decision in the matter would be. He couldn’t marry his grandmother.

Mrs. Parks was one who meant to do her duty by her boarders, and was a little proud of her acquaintance with Colin McPherson and liked to show it. As we left the church she managed to get herself and myself very near to him, and after asking how he was and telling him she was pretty well and it was a fine day she introduced me to him as Miss Rose Bennett from Albany, while her eyes rested upon Mr. Travers standing close to him. Mr. McPherson took the hint and presented him after asking my name, which he had not quite caught, as he was rather deaf.

“Miss Benton! oh, yes, Miss Benton; good first-class name! Any relation to the Colonel? Mr. Travers, this is Mrs. Parks and Miss Benton,” he said, while Mrs. Parks grasped the young man’s hand effusively and said she was glad to know him and hoped he would call, and that she was expecting two young ladies, the Miss Burdicks, from New York.

Then over the cold, proud, pale face there broke a smile which changed its expression altogether and made it very attractive. “If he smiles like that on Irene she’ll not go back on him,” I thought, as I walked away after hearing him say something about being pleased to meet me and call.

That afternoon when dinner was over I went with Lottie to the pine-woods and saw Nannie’s Well and the little mirror which Lottie took from its box in the hollow trunk of the tree and showed to me, saying it was the very one into which poor Nannie had looked. It had been sold by the Wilkes family and bought and sold again and again until some one gave it to the young people of the town.

“It would be easy for two faces to be seen in it,” she said. “I wonder if there’s anything in it. I don’t believe so, but I shall try it to-morrow, if it’s a bright day. Don’t tell mother. She says it’s all humbug, but owns that she tried it once.”

I promised, and the next day about twenty minutes before twelve I saw Lottie going down the lane in the direction of the pine-woods, and felt a little curiosity as to the result of her experiment. I had been a week in the family and had learned their habits pretty well, while they had learned mine, and knew that I liked quiet and regular meals because, as Mrs. Parks said, my “digester was out of kilter and needed toning up,” and it was my digester which she used as one argument to hurry up the delinquent Lottie, when she stood on the rail fence, calling: “Charlotte Ann! Charlotte Ann! Charlotte Ann Parks! Where be you?”

It was nearly half-past twelve when Lottie returned, looking flushed and excited. Like Sam, I believed the whole thing rot, but was anxious to hear what she had to tell me.

“Did you see Sam?” I asked, when we were alone.

“Yes, bodily,” she answered with a laugh. “He saw me on the way to the woods and followed, and just as a shadow was beginning to come on the glass, or I thought it was, he seized me round my shoulders and said, ‘Let me see how our faces look together!’ I came near falling into the well, and should have done so, if he had not held me back. He just spoiled it, but I mean to try again after the young ladies are here. They are coming to-morrow. Mother has a letter. Here it is.”

She handed it to me and I read as follows:

“New York, July —, 18—.

“Mrs. Parks,

“Madam:—You may expect me on Wednesday, with my cousin Rena.

“Yours,      Miss Irene Burdick.”

The note sounded stiff and uppish, as Lottie said, and I at once conceived a dislike for Miss Irene, and a kind of sympathy for Rena, who was probably a poor relation and would act in the capacity of maid. Irene, who wrote the note, was of course the Miss Burdick, and the large corner room across the hall from mine was assigned to her. It had four windows and a fireplace, an ingrain carpet and Boston rocker, a high-post bedstead with “teaster and balance” like mine. It had a terrible daub of Beatrice Cenci on the wall, taken there from the parlor because Miss Burdick had been abroad and would feel more at home with a picture of the old masters, Mrs. Parks said, looking admiringly at the yellow-haired creation which bore but little resemblance to the original. There was a washstand in the room, with a hole on the top for the bowl to rest in, a piece of castile soap, and three towels on a line above the stand. There was a round cherry table which Mrs. Parks said was her grandmother’s and which she could have sold for a big price to some relic hunter, but Lottie wouldn’t let her, so she kept it, but didn’t see why there was such a craze for old things. The room adjoining Irene’s was long and narrow, with no fireplace. It had a rag carpet and single bedstead without “teaster” or “balance.” Its bureau of three drawers served as a washstand, and there were two towels on a line instead of three. But everything was clean and comfortable, and on Wednesday we filled the rooms with flowers, especially the one intended for Miss Irene. It was Mrs. Parks’ idea to put the most there and the best vases. Rena had broken-nosed pitchers and bowls, and flowers a little faded, until there came from the McPherson place a quantity of hot-house roses and lilies for the Misses Burdick and Miss Bennett. Nixon, who brought them, further said that the McPherson carriage would meet the young ladies at the station if Mrs. Parks would tell him on what train they were expected. She didn’t know, but it would probably be at four o’clock, and she nearly lost her head over the attention from Colin McPherson to her guests, and wondered how under the sun and moon he knew they were coming that day.

A young man and friend of Mr. Travers had arrived at the house the night before, Nixon said, and I began to think we might have some gay times with four city people in close proximity to each other. Mrs. Parks had taken possession of the flowers, and after giving me what she thought I ought to have, she put the larger proportion of the remainder in Irene’s room, saying it was quite proper for her to have the most from the greenhouse which would probably be hers. A few roses and lilies were accorded to Rena and put in a large tumbler which Mrs. Parks said had been used by her grandfather to mix toddy in when the minister called. I was not satisfied with the allotment to Rena, for whom my sympathy kept growing; and reserving for myself a single half-opened rose and one or two lilies, I took the rest to her room, putting them wherever I could find a place and in whatever I could find to put them. This done, the rooms were ready, and we waited with what patience we could for the train which was to bring the Burdicks. At half-past three we saw the McPherson carriage go by with Nixon. Half an hour later we heard the whistle of the train in the distance, and fifteen minutes later the McPherson carriage stopped at the gate, and while Lottie and I looked cautiously from my window, Mrs. Parks, in a flutter of pleasure and pride, went down the walk to meet the occupants of the carriage. The Burdicks had come.

CHAPTER III
RENA’S LETTER TO TOM GILES

(With remarks by Tom, as he read it)

“New York, June 10, 18—.

“Dear Old Tom:

“It is an age since I have heard from you. Don’t you know we have been home from Europe six weeks, and you haven’t been to see us. What kind of a cousin is that, I’d like to know? Are you so busy in your office, earning your bread, as you said you were when I tried to have you come over to Paris and meet us? Well, by and by I may be in a position to give you your daily bread, as you did me when I was a poor little waif stranded at your mother’s door before Uncle Reuben left me some money and Aunt Mary took me up.

“I have a tremendous matrimonial speculation on hand, with thousands and thousands of dollars in it.”

(“The devil you have!” was Tom’s exclamation, as he wiped his wet face, for the morning was hot and Rena’s letter made him hotter. Then he read on:)

“I never knew about it till a little while ago when I got the queerest letter from a Mr. Colin McPherson, enclosing a copy of the stupidest, ridiculousest, absurdest, craziest will that was ever made. Did you ever hear of old Sandy McPherson, of Oakfield, a little town on the New England coast, with nothing in it but rocks and ferns and huckleberries and sumac bushes? I never heard of it or him till I got his brother’s letter. It seems Sandy was my great-step-grandfather, who was married twice. His second wife was a widow, a Mrs. Somebody, who had a daughter when she married him and she—the wife—was my great-grandmother. I never knew I had a great-grandmother, though I suppose I must have had. I certainly did not know that she married Sandy McPherson. But to return to the will.

“Sandy McPherson’s first wife was also a widow, like the second. He was great on widows, and his first wife had a son, not his, but somebody else’s. That would make him a stepson just as my grandmother was a stepdaughter. I hope you follow me. I had to read the letter over two or three times before I understood it. Where was I? Oh, I know. I was telling you about the first wife and her son, and along this line comes Mr. McPherson’s great-step-grandson, Reginald Travers.”

(“Lord Harry!” and Tom nearly fell off his chair. Then straightening himself, he read on:)

“Now what possessed Sandy McPherson to pick out Reginald Travers and little, insignificant me to heir his property and marry each other, I don’t know, but he did!”

(“The old idiot!” from Tom, down whose face the sweat was running in streams, as he continued reading:)

“Aunt Mary has heard about him and says he had some kind of a love affair before he married. I don’t know what, but he got a twist in his head that he owed something to his two wives, or their relations on account of that love affair, and this is what he did: He gave one hundred thousand dollars to Mr. Travers and me in case we married each other for love. He laid great stress on that. We must love each other. If we do not, that is, if I love him and he does not me and draws back, he is to have only twenty thousand and I eighty thousand. If, on the other hand, he likes me, and I do not like him, he is to get eighty and I twenty. If we are indifferent to each other and want somebody else, each is to have ten thousand, and the rest goes to some missions and his brother, who is to live with us if we marry, and he wishes to.

“Did you ever hear anything so insane? Of course I shall hate Reginald Travers. That’s a foregone conclusion. I hate him now, but I want to see him without his knowing who I am. I am great on trying experiments, and this is my last, which promises a lot of fun. I have thought it all out and am quite excited over it.

“You know my cousin Irene Burdick—your second cousin, just as I am—but no relation to that great-grandmother who married Sandy McPherson. You never liked her very well, but I do. She is so much cleverer than I am and used to help me so much in school, and is so nice to me every way. I persuaded Aunt Mary to let her join us in Europe for six months, and you don’t know how much the travel did for her. She might have royal blood the way she carried herself,—and was mistaken for a titled lady once or twice. She is now in her own home in Claremont—that poky, stuffy home—and is very unhappy—and why shouldn’t she be? I spent a week there once, and nearly went crazy with homesickness—factories, and factory hands—and ceilings so low I nearly bumped my head, and I am not tall. Irene, who is tall, had to stoop in her chamber. I am very sorry for her. Think of Claremont after Paris, will you?”

(“Don’t you know Irene makes a tool of you for her own purposes?” Tom growled, and read on:)

“Now this is my plan. I am going to change places with Irene. Aunt Mary has heard that Mr. Travers is to visit Colin McPherson in Oakfield, if he is not there now—going, perhaps, to spy out the goodly inheritance which may be his, and I mean to go there too!”

(“To Colin McPherson’s! Great Scott! Rena mustn’t do that! I won’t allow it!” Tom exclaimed; but Rena’s next sentence enlightened him as to her meaning:)

“Quite providentially I saw an ad. in a paper, saying that a Mrs. Parks in Oakfield would take a few summer boarders, and the description of her big old house was so alluring that I said at once ‘I’ll go there.’ I am not supposed to know that his excellency is to be in town. I go for quiet and rest. I am tired of Saratoga and Newport and all those places Aunt Mary likes so much, and then I spent such a lot in Europe that I must retrench, and Oakfield is the very place in which to do it. Aunt Mary is willing. I think she wants me to meet Mr. Travers, hoping I will marry him, but I won’t! So you see it is all right. I shall take Irene with me and let her pass as the head of the firm. She will be Miss Burdick, and I just Rena, a poor relation, if you please. She is older and so much taller than I am and handsomer and grander looking every way that people will naturally think her the girl intended for Mr. Travers if they have heard of the will, as I dare say they have. I shall not say so, of course. I would not tell a lie for anything; you know I would not. I shall hold my tongue, and let Irene take the lead, and if any one is rude enough to ask which is which I shall be rude enough to say ‘That is for you to find out.’ Mr. Travers, of course, will not ask. If he does, we shall wriggle out somehow, or Irene will. I can trust her. I am really getting greatly interested in the matter. It will be such fun to watch Mr. Travers thinking Irene is the one he must marry. When he finds his mistake, if he does, I shall rise to the occasion and make it all right, trusting in Providence and Irene to help me out of the scrape. Of course he can’t fall in love with me, with Irene in the way, and if he takes to her I shall be glad. What do you think of my project? Write and tell me, but don’t try to dissuade me from it. My mind is made up, and you know I’m a stubborn little mule.

“Did you ever hear of Reginald Travers? Colin McPherson wrote that he was a graduate of Princeton. That’s where you were. Maybe you know him. If you do, write at once and tell me what manner of man he is, and if you ever heard of his great-step-grandfather, Sandy McPherson.

“Your loving cousin Rena.”

CHAPTER IV
REGINALD AND TOM

Tom Giles, Attorney at Law in Newton, Mass., sat in his office one hot summer morning, wondering if he should accept an invitation he had received by letter from his friend and college chum, Reginald Travers, to spend a few weeks with him in Oakfield.

“It is not a very gay town,” Reginald wrote. “The young persons have mostly emigrated to fairer fields in the west, and the old ones stay because they cannot get away and are attached to their rocky farms and houses and customs of a century ago. Some of them are as full of superstition as the negroes of the South, and I am told that what few young people there are here actually look into wells at noon and walk round haystacks at night, hoping to see their future consorts. To you, who are a descendant of the believers in Salem witchcraft, this sort of thing will be delightful, and I have no doubt you will be looking into a well some day at noon. There is a famous one on Uncle Colin’s farm, with a story attached to it.

“But no matter about the well, that is the least attraction. The air is fine and there are some pleasant drives and views, while Uncle Colin’s house is roomy and hospitable, and Uncle Colin the most genial of hosts. I call him uncle although he is in no way related to me. His brother, Sandy McPherson, married my great-grandmother, Mrs. Travers. She was a widow, with an only son, who was my grandfather. The Travers family must have been given to only sons, for my father was one and I am one, and, as you know, nearly alone in the world. Some time before Sandy McPherson’s death, which occurred several months ago, I visited him and was greatly pleased with the canny old Scotchman. I think he was pleased with me, for he left a will, made after I was there, in which I figure conspicuously and not altogether satisfactorily. When I have made up my mind I may tell you about it. Until then don’t bother me. You know I do not like to discuss my affairs with anybody, and this affair least of all. It is not pleasant. Don’t fail to come. I want to see you awfully.

“Reginald Travers.”

When Tom read this letter his first impulse was that he would accept the invitation. Then he began to waver. He had not a surplus of money to spend, and it might be better to stay at home and grind, as he called his office work. Then, too, he knew that in New York there was a little, dark-haired, brown-faced girl, whom he cared more to see than a dozen Reginalds. This was Rena, the pet name he had given her, although she was christened Irene. He had known her since she was three years old and her mother had died suddenly at his home where she was visiting his mother, who was her cousin. There was no one to care for her, as her father was dead, and she had stayed on, the darling of the household, the object of his boyish admiration and then of his love, as both grew older and the young girl seemed to know exactly what chords to touch to make him her slave. At fifteen she had fallen heir to ten or fifteen thousand dollars from a bachelor uncle, and as Tom’s mother died about that time Rena had gone to live with her Aunt Mary in New York, who, not caring for her when she was a baby, now found that she wanted just such a bright young girl to add éclat to her surroundings and keep her from growing old too fast.

Before she left for New York, Tom’s love for her got the better of his judgment and he asked her to be his wife when she was older. There was a look almost of horror in Rena’s gray eyes as she listened, and when he finished she began impetuously, “Tom Giles, are you crazy, making love to me, a child of fifteen, and you twenty-two and the same as my brother? I’d as soon marry my brother, if I had one. It is horrible, and almost makes me hate you. I shall hate you, if you ever say a word of this kind again.”

She burst into a fit of weeping so violent that it frightened Tom, who tried to make amends for his blunder by saying that he was a fool and a brute and everything bad and never would speak to her of love again, if she would forgive him. That was six years ago, and the episode had seemingly passed from Rena’s memory, or if she thought of it, it was as of something which would never be repeated, for Tom was one who kept his word. And so she went on teasing him with her pretty ways and blandishments and her open show of affection for and trust in him. He was the dearest old Tom, in whom she confided all her secrets and troubles, confident that he would never fail her, and all the while his great love for her was eating his heart out, and he sometimes felt that in spite of his word he must speak again.

“But I’ll wait a while longer,” he thought, “wait till I see some sign that she wants me to speak. She likes me now better than any one in the world, she says, and by and by, who knows?”

With this hope for the by and by, Tom contented himself, knowing that however much Rena might brother him, he could never think of her as a sister. He had soothed her with kisses and candy when her mother died. She had sat in his lap at her mother’s funeral. She had cried herself to sleep in his arms many a night. She had teased and tyrannized over him in a thousand ways, but had never given the slightest sign that he was more to her than dear old Tom, who was always to do her bidding, no matter what it was. And he had done it religiously, and was ready at any time to walk up to the cannon’s mouth, if she so desired it. He had wanted to join her in Europe, when she wrote so earnestly for him to do so, but funds were low and his business must not be neglected. She was home now. She would be going somewhere with her aunt, and if possible he meant to join her. That she was in any way connected with the will which was not satisfactory to Reginald he did not dream until he received her letter. He had been Reginald’s room-mate for two years in college, and there was a warm friendship between them, although they were entirely unlike each other. Reginald was naturally shy and proud, or seemed so, and awkward in ladies’ society, and reticent to the last degree; slow to like or show his liking, but firm as a rock and true as steel when once he cared for a person, or thought a thing was right. In this respect Tom was like him, but in scarcely any other. He was frank and outspoken, fond of fun and joke, and ready to do a favor to a friend or foe, and knew just what to say to ladies, no matter what their calibre might be. Everybody liked Tom Giles, and not many liked Reginald Travers until they knew him intimately, and found that beneath his cold, impassive exterior there was a heart as warm, perhaps, as Tom’s, when the right chord was touched. For women Reginald cared but little, and matrimony had had no part of his thoughts until he read a copy of Sandy McPherson’s will. He was glad enough for the money, if he could have it without the girl. She troubled him, and yet he never for a moment thought he should not try to fulfil his part of the contract. After a while, and he meant to make it a long while, he would find her, perhaps, and if she were at all desirable and seemed to fancy him, he would try conscientiously to manufacture a liking for her. He did not believe much in love anyway. Tom Giles went in for that sort of thing strong and was always mooning about a second cousin, Rena somebody, he had forgotten the last name, so little did he care for his friend’s love affairs. When he read that Irene Burdick was the girl intended for him, he had a vague idea that he had heard the name before, but had no idea that it was the Rena Tom mooned over so much. Since leaving college he had seen but little of Tom, who was working up a law business in Newton, while he was attending to some property he owned in and near Richmond, Va., where he was born. But he had not forgotten his friend, and after he had been in Oakfield a few days there came over him a great longing to see him again, and perhaps tell him about the will, which was giving him so much trouble. He did not like to think of it and had, of his own accord, mentioned it but once to Mr. McPherson, asking him if he knew where the girl was and if he had ever seen her.

Mr. McPherson never had, “but Sandy saw her,” he said. “I can’t remember exactly what he thought of her. I only know he liked her build and fancied there was a look in her eyes like Nannie, who was some very distant relative of hers, and whose portrait, you know, hangs in the drawing-room between his two wives, one your great-grandmother, the other Irene’s. She lives in New York with her aunt, a Mrs. Graham, and has not been home from Europe a great while.”

“Does she know about the will? and what does she think of it?” Reginald asked, and Mr. McPherson replied: “When my brother died, I made some inquiries about her and heard she was in Europe, so I concluded not to send her a copy till she came home, which she did some weeks ago. Then I sent it at once and her aunt replied that her niece was a good deal upset by it and would write me what she thought later on. She has not written, and that is all I know. She is probably waiting for you to take the initiative and find her.”

“Which I shall not do at present. I shall let Providence direct awhile,” was Reginald’s answer, and there the conversation dropped.

Reginald had heard of Nannie when he visited in Oakfield before, and had thought her a very foolish young girl to drown herself when she might have been mistress of Sandy’s fine house. Aside from that he had felt no particular interest in her. Now, however, if her eyes were like those of the girl he was to marry, he’d have a look at them. Watching his opportunity when Colin was out, he went into the room where the three portraits were hanging, the two great-grandmothers, his and Irene’s, with caps on their heads, as was the fashion of those times, and Nannie, looking very girlish in her low-necked gown, with her hair falling in long curls on her white shoulders. She was rather pretty, Reginald thought, especially her eyes, which followed him whichever way he turned, and gave him a queer kind of feeling, making him think of them even in his sleep. Still he did not speak of her to McPherson a second time, till the latter startled him one day by saying, “I saw a Mrs. Parks this morning, who lives in that big old house near the grove where the well is. She told me she had received a letter from a Mrs. Graham in New York asking her if her niece, Miss Irene Burdick, and a friend, cousin, I think, could be accommodated with board at her house a few weeks; and then she asked if I didn’t suppose it was the Miss Burdick your grandfather had in view for you. The will was so queer that it went like wildfire, and everybody knows about it, and the girl’s name and where she lives.”

Reginald grew very pale and then very red as he said, “Do you think it is she?”

Mr. McPherson knew it was, for after Reginald’s first conversation with him he had received a letter from Mrs. Graham, making some inquiries concerning Reginald.

“The old lady is after him, if the girl isn’t,” Colin had thought, and had at once replied that the young man was spending the summer with him, and she’d better come out and see him for herself.

When he heard she had written for board for her niece at Mrs. Parks’, he had wondered a little that she, too, did not come as chaperone, but reflected that it was none of his business and he would let Providence run it as Reginald was doing. In reply to Reginald’s question, “Do you think it is she?” he told of his correspondence with Mrs. Graham, and added, “I am sure of it, and shall be glad to see her.”

After this Reginald grew very nervous and began to think of writing a second time to Tom, asking why he neither came nor answered his letter. He began, too, to wonder when Irene would arrive at Mrs. Parks’, and when he saw me in church his first thought was, “she’s come, and she’s old enough to be my mother,” and this accounted for the expression of his face when he first caught sight of me. Mrs. Parks’ introduction reassured him, and his temperature went down a little. Still he was very anxious for Tom, who, he felt, would somehow be a help and a safeguard.

“He’ll know just what to say to her,” he thought. “He’ll talk to her, while I look on and draw my own conclusions.”

The next day he received a letter from Tom, very short and to the point.

“Old chap,” Tom wrote, “Providence permitting and nothing happening to prevent, I’ll pack my grip and be in Oakfield Tuesday.

“Tom.”

There was a comfort in this, and Reginald began to feel better, never dreaming of the state of Tom’s mind. Knowing Reginald, Tom did not believe Rena would fancy him, and there was hope in that. Of Reginald, he had no doubt. He could not help being interested in Rena, and what the outcome would be he could not guess. Irene, he was sure, would leave nothing undone to attract Reginald and might possibly succeed.

“Well, let her,” he thought for a moment. “That will leave Rena for me.” Then his better nature and his great liking for Reginald came to the surface, and he continued: “It is unworthy of Rena to deceive Rex even for a few weeks. Let her go to Oakfield, if she goes at all, as herself and not as another. I shall try to persuade her to give up her experiment.”

That day he wrote to her:

“Dear Rena, I was never so shocked in my life as when I received your letter. You have been up to a good many escapades, larks, or experiments you call them, but this last is the craziest of them all; and I beg you to give it up. It is unworthy of you. It is unwomanly—excuse me for saying so—it is a deception, if not a positive lie, and an imposition upon a good man. I know Reginald Travers. We were in college together and room-mates for two years. He is my best friend and I don’t want him wronged. He is shy and reticent, not at all a ladies’ man. Has no small talk. Knows nothing of girls and their ways, and does not care to know. But he is a gentleman and the soul of honor and would never be guilty of a mean act, and on that account does not suspect meanness in others, and might be easily imposed upon. I do not think he is just your style, but he is a clean, splendid man, and I do not want him fooled by Irene. You say I do not like her, and I admit it. I know she is a fine specimen of flesh and blood, and as artful as she is beautiful. There is no deception at which she would stop, if she hoped to be benefited by it. I am sure of it. It is in her blood—not on your side of the house, not on the Burdick side, thank Heaven! but on her mother’s. She is useful to you because—excuse me, Rena—you do not like trouble, and she takes it all from you, and does it in a purring kind of way which soothes you to sleep, as it were, or shuts your eyes to her real character. Don’t take her to Oakfield. Don’t go there yourself. If you do not like the will and do not mean to have anything to do with it, or with Reginald, say so at once; or if you have a curiosity to see him, wait and let him seek you, as he is sure to do in time, for if he thinks this will imposes a duty on him he is going to fulfil it. He has invited me to visit him in Oakfield, and I had about made up my mind to decline, when I received your letter. Now, if you still persist in this crazy scheme, I shall accept Rex’s invitation; for, Rena, O Rena! I cannot have you compromised in any way? I don’t know as my presence in Oakfield will help you, but if you go, I shall go, too, not to betray you, of course. If you insist upon my keeping silent I promise to do so, for a while at least.

“Your loving cousin,

“Tom.”

He sent the letter; and the answer came promptly, and hotly. Rena was very angry, and addressed him as “Mr. Thomas Giles,” instead of “Dear old Tom,” telling him to mind his business and she would mind hers. She was doing nothing out of the way. She was not going to lie, as he seemed to think, nor deceive, either. She was simply not going to blurt out to Reginald Travers, “I am the girl you are to marry.” He probably knew she was coming with her cousin, as her aunt had written about it to Mr. McPherson, and she was going to let him find out which was which. If he asked her, or any one else asked her, she would tell the truth, instead of saying, “That is for you to find out,” as she at first intended to do; and she hoped he’d be satisfied at that. As for Irene, she was to be Miss Burdick, and Rena was to be Rena. That was all. Then she went on to say that she thought old Tom might let her have a little fun, and she didn’t know whether she was glad he was to be at Oakfield or not. On the whole, she guessed she was, but he was to hold his tongue. If questions were put to him he wasn’t to lie; she could never respect him if he did; but he must get out of it some way, and if there were blame she’d take it all upon herself and tell Mr. Travers it was one of her larks.

“He is not likely to fancy me, a little, dark, scrawny thing, when there is Irene in all her blonde beauty and style,” she wrote, “and if he happens to fancy her, as I hope he will, the only wrong I can see is that he will think he is getting fifty thousand dollars with her, and may be disappointed when he finds he isn’t; but if he is all you say he is, the soul of honor, and all that, and his love for Irene rises above his love of money, I mean to give him my share, ten thousand dollars. You can’t say that it is not fair, or that I am such a little cat as your letter implied. I cried over it and had an awful headache, and I shall be very cool to you when I first meet you in Oakfield.

“Rena.”

“P. S.—We are going next week Wednesday.”

When Tom read this letter he decided at once to go to Oakfield the following Tuesday, and wrote to Reginald to that effect. Reginald met him at the station; and, grasping both his hands, said to him: “I am so glad you have come, more glad than you can guess.”

He had never shown so much feeling before, and Tom looked at him curiously, thinking all the time of Rena, who was to arrive the next day. He knew Reginald well enough to know he would not speak of her at present, perhaps not at all in connection with the will; but in some way he must let it be known that she was his cousin before she came. There could be no betrayal of confidence in that. Consequently when they were at dinner that night, he said, very indifferently, “Do you know a Mrs. Parks, who takes boarders?”

Reginald at once began to get nervous, and his hands shook as he replied, “I know there is such a woman. What of her?”

“Nothing much,” Tom answered. “Perhaps you may remember having heard me speak of my cousin Rena when we were in college. She lived with my mother when she was a little girl.”

“Oh, yes. I remember perfectly, but I don’t recall her last name,” Reginald said.

“Burdick,” Tom replied, with a sidelong look at his friend, who dropped his knife and fork suddenly upon his plate as he repeated, “Burdick! That is not a common name. I have heard it before.”

“Perhaps,” Tom answered. “I have two cousins by that name, or, rather, second cousins. One I call Rena, and the other Irene; their fathers were brothers. I hear from Rena that they have engaged board for the summer with a Mrs. Parks, and will be here to-morrow on the four o’clock train.”

Reginald resumed his knife and fork and said, with an attempt to laugh:

“Oh, yes, I see, and fancy it was Miss Rena who had something to do with your coming to Oakfield. What did you say of the other young lady, Irene you called her? Is she your cousin, too?”

“Second, I told you, same as Rena,” Tom answered, beginning to grow hot with a feeling that he was acting a lie by not telling the truth at once. “If Rex keeps on I shall tell him in spite of my promise,” he thought. But Reginald asked no more questions, nor did he in any way refer to the subject again that evening. He was, however, more than usually quiet, and looked the next morning as if he had not slept well.

“He is taking it hard,” Tom thought, as he watched him trying to seem natural and talk of what they would do that day.

“We might go into the billiard-room this morning and knock the balls round a little,” he said; “then in the afternoon I’ll take you for a drive over the hills, and—er—er—perhaps after dinner you will want to call upon your cousins—upon Miss Rena, and—er——”

He didn’t say “Irene.” The name seemed to cleave to the roof of his mouth, and he couldn’t speak it.

“Certainly,” Tom said. “I’ve not seen Rena since she came from Europe.”

“Oh-h! was she there with her cousin?” Reginald asked, and Tom answered:

“Yes, they were both there awhile,” and felt himself a worse deceiver than he had charged Rena with being.

After a moment Reginald looked across the table to Colin, who had taken no part in the conversation. Knowing he was a little deaf, Reginald said to him:

“The young ladies, the Misses Burdick, Tom’s cousins, come this afternoon to Mrs. Parks’.”

“Yes, I know,” Mr. McPherson replied, and Reginald continued, hesitatingly:

“How would it do to send them some flowers from the greenhouse? I noticed a good many roses in bloom yesterday.”

“I think it a good idea,” Mr. McPherson said. “I’ll have the carriage go for them, too. The village ’bus is a miserable old rattletrap, and may not be there.”

“Thank you,” Reginald answered, and there were two red spots on either cheek, while the rest of his face was very pale, as he finished his breakfast and went out into the open air and then into the billiard-room.

“He does take it infernally hard,” Tom thought again, feeling a disposition to laugh at Reginald’s abstracted manner as he knocked the balls listlessly about, seldom hitting the mark, and apparently caring little whether he did or not.

The roses and lilies were gathered and sent and at the appointed time the McPherson carriage went to the station for the expected travellers. Reginald had asked Tom if he cared to go and meet the young ladies, and Tom answered:

“I think not. I will wait and we will call this evening.”

“Yes, certainly; I’ll call, if you think I ought,” Rex said, and Tom replied:

“No ought about it that I know of. You must call some time, and may as well have it done with. You’ll find the young ladies charming.”

“A-all right,” Reginald answered, and the words sounded like a groan.

CHAPTER V
THE BURDICKS

When Rena read Tom’s letter she was very angry for a few moments, and in the height of her passion commenced her reply, cooling somewhat as she wrote, but still feeling very sore because Tom had failed her in this the greatest scheme in which she had ever embarked.

“It is just for fun I’m doing it,” she said, “and the horrid old Tom calls me unwomanly and a lot more names, when I thought he liked me, and I have liked him so much. I hate him now almost as much as I do Mr. Travers—Reginald Travers,” she continued, “what a stiff, stuck-up name, just like its owner, I know, and not a bit rollicking like Tom Giles.” Then she read Tom’s letter again, noting particularly what he said about acting a lie. Rena prided herself upon being truthful to a fault, and began to waver a little with regard to the plan of her campaign. “I’ll give Irene some points,” she said, and after finishing Tom’s letter she began a second one to her cousin.

She had written her very fully on the subject, telling her what she expected her to do, and Irene had replied, “I am yours to the death. Where you lead I follow, your obedient slave; and if you wish me to entice Mr. Travers to make love to me, Delilah was never more seductive than I can be. If you wish me to be simply the Miss Burdick, I can play the grand lady to perfection. Of course I must pose as the head of the Burdicks, the one to whom you defer, and as a starter let me announce our intended arrival to Mrs. Parks.”

Something in the tone of this letter had struck Rena unpleasantly, but her infatuation for Irene and her belief that she could do no wrong was great. Where Rena loved and trusted, she trusted and loved with her whole soul, and she trusted and loved Irene, who, being the stronger character, “twisted her around her fingers,” Tom said, and having no real principle did not always influence her for good. In her second letter to her cousin, Rena began:

“O, Irene! such a horrid letter as I have had from Tom, calling me unwomanly, accusing me of deceit, if not of lying, if I let the people in Oakfield believe I am you and you are me. And he knows Mr. Travers, who was his room-mate in college two years and his best friend. Why didn’t he tell me he knew him? That’s just like a man, and Tom especially, never telling anything we want to know, and Mr. Travers is ten times worse. I am sure he is. Tom says he is a gentleman. As if I didn’t know that, or Sandy McPherson would never have selected him for me. He says, too, he is the soul of honor, and a lot more things. Let me see what he did say.” Here she stopped and re-read some part of Tom’s letter with a rain of tears, which she dashed away and began to write again. “He said he was bashful and reticent, not a bit of a ladies’ man; has no small talk; knows nothing of girls and does not care to. (He must be horrid.) He would never be guilty of a mean act, nor suspect treachery in others; might be easily imposed upon, and isn’t my style, but a clean, splendid man every way. What did he mean by that, I’d like to know? Maybe he takes two baths a day instead of one; and just as if a splendid man couldn’t be my style! I was mad enough at Tom for his letter, and I intend to be very snippy at first in Oakfield, for he is going there ostensibly to visit his best friend, but really to keep an eye on us and see that we do not harm Mr. Travers. In view of all this we must change our programme. We mustn’t try to make them think we are somebody else. We will simply go as Miss Irene Burdick and Miss Rena Burdick, and let them draw their own conclusions; and if any one asks me square if I am the one meant in the will, I shall say yes, and you must do the same. The fun will be spoiled, of course, but Tom will be satisfied and not think me quite so much of an unwomanly liar as he intimated in his letter. You can announce our arrival as you proposed, and I shall not take my best Paris gowns, which might seem out of place on one who was nobody but Rena. I suppose Tom might say that was a lie, too. Oh, why did that old man make such a ridiculous will and put me in it, and why were you not his great-step-granddaughter instead of me? I fancy you would suit Mr. Travers perfectly. If he has no small talk and does not care for ladies’ society, you are just the one to bring him out. My head aches with crying so much over old Tom’s letter and I must stop. Shall expect you on Saturday. Aunt Mary is off for Saratoga some time next week, and the house will be closed. With love,

“Rena.”

This letter found Irene Burdick at her home in Claremont, which she hated, rebelling against it and the station of life in which she had been born and resolving to get out of it by marrying for money, if she could do so, and marrying without it, if she could not. “And with my face I ought to get money,” she would say, when contemplating herself in her mirror, which showed her a grand specimen of beautiful young womanhood with scarcely a flaw in her makeup. She was very tall and erect, with a splendid physique, telling of perfect health and spirits. Unlike Rena, she was a decided blonde, with regular features and fair hair, which she wore à la Pompadour, with wide braids supplemented with false ones coiled around her head like a coronet. In her neck one or two short loose curls occasionally strayed from the mass of braids as if by accident, and with no hint of the time spent in giving them their careless appearance. Everything Irene did was done for effect, and there was nothing natural about her. Reared in poverty, she early learned to cater to the whims and wishes of people whose notice she wished to attract. What they thought and believed, she believed and thought; while her skilful hands and active, well-balanced brain were always ready to help in any emergency. To Rena’s slightest wish she was a slave—toady, Tom called her, and Rena repaid her with a love which saw no fault in her. Nothing could dissuade her from her faith in and affection for Irene, who seemed to return the love bestowed upon her. She had heard of the will which affected Rena so unpleasantly and like her had wished that she might have been born the step-great-granddaughter of Sandy McPherson, instead of one of many children where there was a constant fight for daily bread. Her father was overseer in a cotton mill, where one of her brothers worked and where she, too, had once been employed for several months. How she loathed the thought of it, with the roar of the machinery, the heat and close air, and the associates around her. “Factory bugs,” some called them, and she was one of them, and despised herself for it, and when after Rena received her Uncle Reuben’s legacy she wrote offering to pay her cousin’s expenses at the same school with herself, she turned her back on Claremont and the factory, and for three years was a student with Rena at a young ladies’ school in New York. For nearly every good which had come into her life she was indebted to Rena, who had paid for her trip to Europe and the rather elaborate wardrobe she had bought in Paris and which was to do her good service now in the rôle marked out for her. She heard of the plan with a great deal of pleasure. Nothing would suit her better than the excitement of it, and then—. She laughed as she thought, “Give me a chance, and I will win this Mr. Travers, if what I can learn of him is satisfactory.” She was very happy now, for Oakfield opened up to her a wonderful field of adventure, and she was anticipating it greatly when Rena’s second letter came, and put a little different coloring upon the matter.

“It’s all Tom’s work,” she said, “and I dislike him as much as he dislikes me and always has. Acting a lie! Of course it is, if one chooses to give it that harsh name, but are not all our lives a lie? Do any of us declare our inner thoughts and motives upon the housetops, or issue daily bulletins with regard to what we intend to do? If I am to act the part of the Miss Burdick, the prospective bride of Reginald Travers, I shall do it well, or not at all. There is nothing half-way about me, and if I can win Reginald Travers, I shall do it. Rena will never care for him. She is in love with Tom, much as she says she hates him. I am glad Mr. Travers’ antecedents are all right. Family is something, when one has none to boast of.”

On the receipt of Rena’s first letter she had set on foot inquiries concerning Mr. Travers, and learned more of him than Rena herself knew. He belonged to a fine Virginia family, which became impoverished during the war. He had, however, inherited something from his parents, both of whom were dead. There was a house in Richmond, where he was born, a plantation in tolerably good condition a few miles from the city, and a small income, sufficient for him to lead the life of a gentleman of leisure, if he kept his wants within his means. With this knowledge Irene was ready to take Mr. Travers without Sandy McPherson’s money, if he proved at all desirable. She had the matter fully in hand and was only anxious to commence operations. As to Mr. Travers’ character she had not inquired, nor did she particularly care. An F. F. V. must be correct, and Rena’s description of him did not disconcert her in the least, but rather raised her spirits. A bashful man who had no small talk and did not care for ladies’ society, would be easier to manage than one up to all the tricks of women, she argued, and she had little fear of the result. If she succeeded in interesting Reginald in her for herself she knew exactly the pretty devices she would use in explaining the mistake when he learned who she really was. She had rehearsed it more than once in the privacy of her room. She knew the words she would use, the gestures she would make in her distress, and even the expression of her eyes, which could look unutterable things when she willed to have them. Her mirror showed her all this and she practised before it daily, arguing that it was just as much one’s duty to educate and train the expression of the eyes and face and smile as to walk and speak correctly. She had met a good many gentlemen, but they were either too small fishes for her net, or they saw through her little deceits and tired of a beauty behind which there was so much that was not real. Now, however, she meant to succeed, and laid her plans accordingly. She was twenty-three; she was poor; she hated her humble home. She wanted to marry, and if she could win Reginald Travers she would do so and lay all the blame of the deception on Rena, who had persuaded her to it.

There were a few days spent in New York with Rena, whom she thought a little mopish and stupid and not at all like the bright, sunny girl she had always known. Rena was beginning to wish she were not going to Oakfield, and that she had written frankly to Mr. Travers that she withdrew from the marriage proposition, leaving the field to him. Mingled with this was a thought of Tom, whose good opinion was everything to her. She had displeased him and he had scolded her. “Called me a liar,” she said often to herself; “and I hate him, and sometimes I don’t care whether his bosom friend is wronged or not.”

This was Rena’s attitude and feeling when with Irene she took her seat in the train which was to take her to Oakfield, the last place in the world she would have chosen for her summer outing, if it had not been for that wretched will. Irene was in high spirits. Her two large trunks were full of foreign dresses and a number of articles bought in New York with Rena’s money. She wore a tailor-made suit from Redfern’s, London. Her tall collar and shirt-waist and boots were up to date. The feather, or quill in her hat was exquisite in its kind; her manner was à la duchesse to perfection, and had a stranger been told that here were a grand lady and maid he would have had no hesitancy in identifying Irene as the lady and Rena as the maid, in her travelling-dress of dark-blue serge, her sailor hat with only a plain band of ribbon upon it, and her modest and quiet manner.

Rena was not very happy. The experiment did not look to her as it did before she received Tom’s letter. The word liar kept sounding in her ears, and but for Irene she would have ended the farce. But Irene’s influence was over her, keeping her silent and rather moody until the train stopped before the little way station where the McPherson carriage was waiting. When “Oakfield!” was shouted at the door of the car a young man arose and came forward, offering to take their parcels. It was Sam Walker, who was returning from a neighboring town. He had heard from Lottie of the expected arrivals that day and the moment he entered the car and saw the two young ladies he said, under his breath, “That’s them, and gewhitaker-whiz, ain’t she a stunner!” the “she” referring to Irene, whom he singled out as the Miss Burdick about whom Lottie was so curious.

There was no doubt in his mind as to which was which, and he barely glanced at Rena, who chose to carry her own umbrella and bag, but whose eyes, as she declined his services, flashed upon him a smile which made him think “she ain’t bad, neither; but, my! what a swell t’other one is!”

He had Irene’s belongings and helped her from the car, and when he saw her looking at the McPherson carriage, he said: “That’s the McPhersons. I’ll bet it has come for you, if you are Miss Burdick. There’s nobody else on the train.”

“Oh,” Irene exclaimed, “look, Rena!” and she nodded toward the handsome turnout and the highly respectable-looking coachman advancing toward her and touching his hat as he came.

“Miss Burdick?” he said, without looking at Rena, and Irene answered:

“I am Miss Burdick—yes.”

The man touched his hat again, and said: “Mr. McPherson has sent his carriage for you. This way, please.”

“Oh, thanks! It was very kind in him,” Irene replied, entirely ignoring Rena, who followed meekly to the carriage, which Irene entered before her, while Sam handed in her bag and umbrella, and then stood a moment while Nixon unhitched the horses and prepared to mount to his seat.

Seeing Sam there still, he said to him:

“Jump up, Sam. May as well ride as walk this hot day;” then to the ladies, or rather to Irene, “You don’t mind my givin’ him a lift. This is Sam Walker; lives next to the Widow Parks’, where you are goin’.”

Irene’s head, which was always held high, went up a little higher as she nodded condescendingly, but with an air that would have told Nixon that she resented being introduced to Sam Walker, if it had been in his nature to understand it. Rena on the contrary leaned forward and said: “Certainly, let him ride; he looks tired and warm,” and again her beautiful eyes beamed on Sam a look which made him change his mind a little as to Irene’s superiority over her. In a moment he was on the seat with Nixon, but turned toward the ladies, with whom he was inclined to be sociable, and knowing no reason why he should not be so. Nor was he at all abashed by the coolness with which Irene listened to him. He could see Rena’s eyes and the dimples in her cheeks and her smile at his loquacity, which amused her. He told them who lived in the few houses they passed, and finally pointed out the McPherson place on the brow of a hill in the distance. Both girls were now interested and Irene put up her veil and used her handsome lorgnette, which Sam thought long-handled spectacles, wondering if her sight were poor. In her rôle as the Miss Burdick, Irene thought it hardly becoming to make any comment, especially as Sam was watching her curiously. Rena on the contrary stood up a moment to look at the imposing house, with its spacious grounds sloping down to a valley through which a little brook, sometimes dignified by the name of river, was running.

“It must be very pleasant there,” she said, resuming her seat, while Sam rejoined:

“Well, you bet! and it or’to be, for Mr. McPherson spent piles of money on it while he lived. Got company there now, two of ’em—young men, I mean.”

“Oh, has he come?” Rena asked, impulsively, thinking of Tom, while Irene said, under her breath,

“Don’t give yourself away.”

Sam could not hear the words, but something in Irene’s manner made him think that perhaps he was too familiar, and he at once turned his back to her. He would like to have told them of Nannie’s Well, as they were now on a rise of ground looking down to the pine-grove, but Irene’s face was not encouraging to further conversation, and he kept quiet, while Nixon urged on the horses to a pace which soon brought them to their destination, where Mrs. Parks stood ready to greet them.

CHAPTER VI
THE FIRST EVENING

“Oh, what a cool, pleasant place! I shall like it here!” Rena exclaimed, her spirits rising as they drove up to the house with the big maple-trees in front, the honeysuckle climbing up the lattice, which shut off the rear of the house, the few roses still in bloom, with here and there a clump of peonies, which had not fallen to the ground, and tall stalks of tiger-lilies flaunting their gay colors in the sunshine.

Irene said nothing. She was accustomed to old country houses. She was born in one with a slanting roof and she cared nothing for climbing honeysuckle and wild clematis and peonies and tiger-lilies. They were common and old-fashioned. The brick walls of a city suited her better, with the noise and traffic and heat. That was life; that was progress, and made her blood move faster than the finest rural scene. But Rena loved the country and everything pertaining to it. Even the ledge of rocks in the pasture opposite Mrs. Parks’, where the low huckleberry bushes were growing, was lovely in her eyes, which sparkled with excitement, as she sprang from the carriage and looked around. Irene alighted leisurely, assisted by Sam, while through the half-closed blind of my room Lottie and I watched the strangers and made our comments. There was no doubt in our minds that the tall, graceful blonde, carrying herself so proudly, was the Miss Burdick. Everything about her led to that conclusion.

“She’s handsome, isn’t she?” Lottie said in a whisper, “and where in the world did they pick up Sam? and won’t you see him bringing Miss Burdick’s things up the walk just as polite as he can be? I wonder what she thinks of him. He has on his good clothes, anyway.” She was evidently proud of Sam, and proud that he was favored with the honor of waiting upon Miss Burdick. “I wonder where their baggage is?” she continued, and a moment after a truckman drove up with two large Saratoga trunks, marked “I. Burdick,” and a smaller one marked “Burdick.”

Naturally the larger ones belonged to Irene, and without questioning they were ordered to her room, while the smaller one was taken to the room intended for Rena, who had not yet attracted a great share of our notice. We had seen Miss Irene take Mrs. Parks’ hand and hold it very high, reminding me of a picture I once saw of some Congo women shaking their clenched fists in token of their pleasure at meeting each other. What Irene said we could not hear distinctly, except that it was something about “being pleased to see you”; then, without a look at the McPherson coachman, or Sam, who had sprung to his seat with Nixon, after a glance around for a sight of Lottie, she came up the walk, followed by Rena. Unlike her cousin, Rena had stopped a moment to speak to Nixon, and as her voice was of that quality which is readily heard at a distance, we heard her say, “Please tell Mr. McPherson that the Misses Burdick thank him for his kindness in sending his carriage for them;” then to Sam: “Good-by, boy. I don’t remember your name. It was nice in you to help us and tell us the places.”

“Sam, a boy, and he nineteen! I like that!” Lottie said, her lip curling scornfully, while Rena would have fallen in her estimation, if there had been any estimation to fall from.

She was so overshadowed by her stately cousin that we had scarcely thought of her except that she was short and slight and plainly dressed, compared with Irene, who, if she had had Paris, and London, and New York placarded on her back, could not have advertised them better than she did with her attire. They were in the house by this time, coming up the stairs, and were soon in their rooms, where Mrs. Parks, who was with them, hoped they would find themselves comfortable.

“I shall like mine,” Rena said, “and such lovely roses. Did they grow in your garden? I smelled them the moment I came in.”

She had her face close to the fruit-jar in which I had put a cluster of the finest roses from my room.

“No, they came from Mr. McPherson. He sent ’em with his compliments,” Mrs. Parks replied, and instantly Rena’s cheeks were like the flowers whose perfumes she was inhaling.

“Mr. McPherson,” Irene repeated, beginning to notice the flowers, for which she did not really care as Rena did. “What a delightful old man he must be. I hope we may see him, and perhaps we ought to send him a note of thanks.”

Rena did not respond. There was a strange feeling of unrest stirring in her heart as she thought of the attention which was unquestionably offered because of herself.

“I almost wish I were myself,” she was thinking, when Mrs. Parks, who was standing in the door between the two rooms, asked if there was anything she could do.

She spoke to Irene, who replied:

“No, thanks; or, yes, if your maid would be so good as to bring me a glass of ice-water. I am very thirsty.”

At the mention of maid Mrs. Parks looked flurried a moment, then in her straightforward way, she said:

“Certainly, yes; I have no maid. I do my own work, Charlotte Anne and I—Charlotte Anne is my daughter. I don’t know where she is, not to come and be introduced. I will get you some water—not ice. We don’t have it here in the country, but our well is the coldest and best in town.”

She left the room for the water, and the moment she was gone, Rena exclaimed:

“Irene, for pity’s sake, drop your fine-lady airs, and don’t go to calling for maids and ice-water. You might have known there were none here.”

Irene laughed and said:

“I must be a fine lady if I play the rôle you have assigned me, and don’t you go and spoil everything because of Tom’s letter. Let’s have some fun a little while. It is not my fault that Mrs. Parks has evidently mistaken me for you. She has asked no questions and I have told no lies, and we are not supposed to know what she thinks. So, soyez tranquille, ma chère cousine.”

At this point Mrs. Parks returned with the water, wondering again where Charlotte Anne was that she didn’t come to be introduced.

“There’s a Miss Bennett from Albany boarding here—not as young as you be, but a very nice woman. I’m sure you’ll like her,” she said, again addressing herself to Irene, who bowed, but did not manifest any desire to be presented to either Miss Bennett or Charlotte Anne, the latter of whom stole quietly down the back stairs, while I stayed in my room wondering how I should like the newcomers and if life at the farmhouse would be as pleasant with them as it had been without them.

Meanwhile the young ladies were discussing whether it was worth the trouble to change their dresses; deciding finally that is was not, as they were very tired and there were only Mrs. Parks, Charlotte Anne and Miss Bennett to see them. In the midst of their discussion there was a knock at Rena’s door. This time it was Charlotte Anne, who held a note in her hand directed to Miss Rena Burdick.

“Mr. McPherson’s man brought it. I suppose it’s for you,” she said, passing it to Rena, who recognized Tom’s handwriting.

“It is for me—yes,” she said, taking the note in which were only a few lines to the effect that Tom and Reginald would call that evening about eight, or half-past.

“Then I shall change my dress,” Irene said, when the note was read to her, and she began at once to unpack her trunk.

Rena, however, stood by her first decision. She was tired and her head ached, and she didn’t care for Tom anyway and less for Mr. Travers. She would put on a clean shirt-waist, with fresh collar and cuffs, and that was all. But Irene proceeded to make an elaborate toilet, taking a great deal of pains with her hair, which, with the help of a false braid, was piled higher than usual upon her head and made her seem as tall as an ordinary man.

“I think I shall wear this,” she said, selecting a sheer light organdy, with frills and bertha of lace, and knots of ribbon here and there, tied and placed as only French fingers could place and tie them.

Before commencing operations she had looked for a bell and finding none had called over the banister to Mrs. Parks, whose voice she heard in the hall:

“Will you please show me the way to the bath-room?” she said.

In a state of great agitation, Mrs. Parks went up the stairs after a few moments with a pail of hot water in one hand, a foot-tub in the other, and a bath towel over her arm.

“I’m awfully sorry,” she said, “but we haven’t a real bath-room. We or’to have one, I know, and mean to sometime, but I’ve brought you this,” and she put down the pail of hot water and the foot-tub. “There’s more in the range, and I hope you can make a sponge do. Miss Bennett does.”

Irene looked surprised, and said:

“No bath-room! How do you live without one, especially in summer? Yes, I suppose I can make that do. Please, what time do you dine?”

Again poor Mrs. Parks looked distressed. To dine at night was not on her programme, and she replied, apologetically and confusedly:

“We don’t dine in the country—nowhere except at the McPherson’s. We have tea at six, and dinner at noon sharp. We are particular about that on account of Miss Bennett, whose digester is out of kilter and has to have her meals reg’lar. Will the t’other one have a sponge, too?”

She nodded toward Rena, who was dashing cold water over her face and neck and arms, and who replied:

“No, thanks. I am doing very well.” To Irene, as soon as they were alone, she said: “Are you crazy? asking for a bath-room and dinner at night! When all your life at home you have had your dinner at noon and bathed in a tin basin or pail. Don’t drive that woman wild, or I shall certainly shriek out some day, ‘I am the Miss Burdick and she is only Irene!’”

She spoke lightly and laughingly, but Irene, who felt that she was in earnest, decided to come down from her stilts and conform to the customs of the house. She could not, however, divest herself of the grande duchesse manner, which was in a way natural to her, and no one would ever have suspected that the tall, queenly girl, who at about half-past five sailed into Mrs. Parks’ best room, looking as fresh as if she had bathed in the sea instead of a foot-tub, was not to the purple born and always accustomed to every luxury money could buy. Mrs. Parks was in the kitchen and Lottie and I were left to introduce ourselves, which we might have done awkwardly enough, if it had not been for Rena, who came up to me at once and said:

“I am sure you are Miss Bennett and this is Charlotte Anne,” turning to Lottie. “I hope we shall be friends.”

“Yes,” I replied, “I am Miss Bennett, and this is Lottie, Mrs. Parks’ daughter, and you are both Miss Burdick.”

I glanced at Irene, who smiled and bowed her head, while Rena replied:

“Yes, both Burdicks, and both Irene, but I am called Rena, for short.”

I think her conscience felt easier after she had given her real name, which, however, made no impression either on myself or Lottie. Our minds were made up as to the identity of the two young ladies. The tall blonde was “the” Miss Burdick; the little dark-haired girl was Rena, a poor relation, probably. But how she won upon me during the half hour before supper was announced, and how beautiful I thought her large, lustrous eyes with the heavy brows and long lashes, and how sweet her smile, which brought the dimples to her cheeks, which were rather pale than otherwise. In a short time I came to think her more attractive than her cousin, with all her queenly beauty and her many little graces of manner. At the supper-table Irene was very gracious, praising everything and finally declaring herself more than delighted with her surroundings.

“Just the place for a quiet summer after the fatigue of Europe and the gaieties of Paris,” she said, and then Mrs. Parks remarked:

“You have never lived much in the country, I suppose.”

There was a peculiar look in Rena’s eyes as they turned toward Irene, who, under the fire of those eyes, replied:

“Oh, yes, I have. I was born in the country, and know all about it, but cannot say I like it as well as the city. I shall like it here, though. Have you many neighbors—visitors, I mean?”

“Quite a few,” Mrs. Parks replied. “There’s Mrs. Ephraim Walker—next door—would run in any time and bring her work, if it weren’t for her husband, who dislikes me because I object to his hens and to his having his line fence two feet on my land. His boy, Sam, rode home with you from the station. He comes here pretty often. And there’s Miss Staples and Upham—nice folks, all of ’em. Then, there’s Mr. McPherson—different from the rest of ’em, and the young man visiting him, Mr. Travers. Maybe you know him?”

This was said to see what effect the mention of Mr. Travers would have upon Irene, who replied: “I have not that pleasure,” while Rena’s face was scarlet for a moment; then the bright color receded, leaving it pale as before.

When supper was over, I went with the ladies out upon the piazza, where I usually sat, and tried to entertain them, finding that Irene was more ready to talk than Rena, who seemed abstracted, with a troubled look in her eyes which I could not understand. At every sound of wheels she started and looked anxiously down the road as if expecting some one, while Irene chatted on as composedly as if her ear, too, were not constantly strained and her eyes on the alert. As it began to grow dark a lamp was brought into the parlor where I seldom sat, it was so stiff and dreary, with its large-patterned, oldtime carpet, its haircloth rocker, which threw your body forward instead of back, its long, black sofa and six chairs standing in a straight line against the wall, its centre-table with a red cover, and its mirror, ornamented with peacock feathers on the sides and top. It was not a room in which to stay on a hot night when there was the cool piazza with its comfortable seats and the scent of the honeysuckle and roses in the air. Irene, however, seemed to prefer it, and as soon as the lamp was lighted, arose, saying to me:

“I think I’ll go in; it is getting damp.” Then to Rena, who began to protest, she said in a low tone not designed for me to hear, “Don’t you know we can’t see how he looks out here? Come in.”

“You can go. I shall stay with Miss Bennett,” Rena replied, and Irene went in alone, trying the rocking-chair first, but leaving it at once as altogether too uncomfortable and too ill suited to the graceful attitude she meant to assume.

One chair after another was tried until a choice was made and a position chosen where the lamplight would fall fully upon her, while she could see herself in the mirror opposite. She knew she could bear the strongest light and that she was as near the perfection of youth and beauty and grace as one well could be, as she sat fanning herself and waiting, while outside the darkness deepened and I sat talking to Rena, who was waiting and listening quite as intently as Irene.

“It must be nearly nine,” she said at last; then started suddenly to her feet and sat down as quickly, as up the walk two gentlemen came, pausing a moment at the foot of the steps to take out their cards.

We were in the shadow where they could not see us, but I could see them, and knowing that Lottie had stolen out with Sam and that Mrs. Parks was busy with some domestic duty in the kitchen, I went forward to meet the strangers.

“Are the ladies—the Misses Burdick in, and yes, Miss Bennett, too?” Mr. Travers asked, adding me to the list as he saw who I was.

He had only two cards in his hand, for he had forgotten me entirely, but it did not matter. I meant to be present when he first met his intended bride, and I answered:

“We are all in, or rather Miss Burdick is in the parlor, and Miss Rena and I are on the piazza, but we will come in.”

Rena was sitting in the shadow, with her hands clasped tightly together, but as I turned toward her she came forward very slowly, until the light streaming from the window fell upon her and upon the other gentleman, now a little in advance of Mr. Travers, who had fallen behind as if loath to go in first. Rena had meant to be very cool toward Tom, whose letter was still rankling, and there was a slight upward tilt of her nose and chin, as she said.

“O Tom! is it you? How late you are. I had nearly given you up, and was thinking of going to bed!”

She was expecting him and knew him then, and I, who knew nothing of the contents of the note, or in fact that one had come, stood back in surprise, while Tom, without replying directly to Rena’s greeting, took her hand and presented her to Reginald Travers as “My cousin, Miss Rena Burdick.”

CHAPTER VII
THE CALL

Reginald had been very nervous all day. He had played billiards awhile with Tom and been badly beaten, had gone with him to the stables and through the grounds, sitting down often in the latter as if he were tired and wanted to rest.

“The day is very hot, isn’t it?” he said, wiping the sweat from his face, which was red and pale by turns.

Tom said the day was hot, but thought:

“Not hot enough, old fellow, to keep you sweating as you do. What a fool you are, if you did but know it; and what a charming wife old Sandy picked out for you; but I hope she will keep as far from you as you seem now to be from her.”

They took a long drive before lunch and on their return passed the Parks house, the doors and blinds of which were closed to keep out the heat. Reginald, who was driving, said casually, without turning his head:

“That’s Mrs. Parks’ place.”

Tom knew perfectly well what he meant, but feigned ignorance.

“Mrs. Parks,” he repeated; “who is she?”

“Why—er—you know. You asked about her, and I told you. She is to board the—your cousins—you know.”

“Oh, yes, I remember,” and Tom looked back at the house, and wondered which was to be Rena’s room, and if he would ever sit with her on the circular seat under the big maple, and if Reginald would fall in love with her, or would pretend that he did in order to get the money. “That isn’t like Rex,” he said to himself. “There isn’t a deceptive hair in his head, and mine is bristling with them.” Then he remarked:

“It must be pleasant for Mrs. Parks to have two young girls with her.”

“Yes, I dare say—and she has an oldish kind of young lady there now, whose name has slipped my mind,” Reginald replied, adding after a pause, “I promised to call upon her, but have not done so. My sins of omission are very great.”

“You can ask for her to-night when we call upon the Misses Burdick,” Tom suggested, and he could see Rex’s hands grow limp and his head droop between his shoulders, as he said:

“Yes. O Tom! must we call? I believe I’d rather jump into the sea. I don’t know what to say to ladies, especially these from New York.”

“Rex, you are a fool! Yes, an everlasting fool!” was Tom’s outspoken answer. “Why, there isn’t a more beautiful girl in the State than Irene, nor a sweeter, lovelier one than Rena; and as for talk, you needn’t worry. Irene is a steam-engine and will probably walk right into you, while Rena—well, she will listen and not talk so much.”

“I believe then I shall like her the better,” Reginald said, touching up his horse.

“No, you won’t; you mustn’t,” Tom answered, almost fiercely, while Reginald looked curiously at him a moment; then burst into a laugh and replied:

“Oh, I see. I remember; you used to be writing Rena on bits of note paper, and once you put her name instead of your own to an exercise. That was at school before we went to college, and Prof. ——, who was sometimes guilty of mild profanity, thought it a joke played on him, and asked who the d—l Rena was? I know who she was now and will not trespass on your preserves. I’m not the trespassing kind. I don’t care for women. I never did. I don’t believe I ever shall. Rena may be well enough for you, but, Tom!” he exclaimed vehemently; but if the intention to confide in his friend had entered his mind, it left it quickly, and he said no more, until Tom, after laughing at the reminiscence of his school-days when Rena’s name had figured at the end of one of his exercises, asked:

“Well, Rex, what is it? You said Tom, as if there were something you wanted to tell me.”

“Oh, nothing, nothing,” Reginald answered, “only I am a fool, that’s all.”

Tom had called him one two or three times that morning, and he did not dispute it, and as they had now reached home the conversation ceased. Tom, who was full of life and activity, found Reginald rather a stupid companion that afternoon. His head ached, in fact it ached most of the time, he said, and if Tom didn’t mind he would lie down after lunch, and Tom advised him to do so and rest, by all means, so as to be fresh for the evening. There was a hunted look in Reginald’s eyes as they met those of Tom, who began to pity him, while mentally calling him weak and a coward.

“He can’t help it, though,” he thought, “any more than I can help feeling happier with a woman’s skirt in sight than I am when alone. He was born that way. Poor Rex! I wonder what the outcome will be. Not Rena; no, not Rena, for whom I am acting a lie, and am actually feeling a good deal of interest in the drama, having this advantage that I know both sides of the story.”

What Tom had denounced to Rena as a deception did not seem quite so black now that he was in it, and he began to anticipate the evening with a good deal of interest, anxious to see Rena, and anxious to witness the meeting between her and Rex.

About four o’clock Reginald left his room and went down to the piazza, where he sat listening for the first sound that would herald the approach of the train at the station, and then watching for Nixon’s return. Sam Walker was with him when he came. He had found his father near the road and been sent on by him with a message for Mr. McPherson. As the carriage came up Reginald did not speak, but Tom, who was with him, asked:

“Did the ladies come?”

“Yes, sir!” Sam answered, “and you bet she’s a buster!”