THE MAN IN LONELY LAND

by

KATE LANGLEY BOSHER

Author of "Mary Cary" and "Miss Gibbie Gault"

MCMXII

TO MY BROTHER

EDWARD PORTIUS LANGLEY

CONTENTS

CHAPTER

 I. GENERAL II. THE REQUEST III. SCIENTIFICS IV. DOROTHEA AND MR. LAINE V. THE LOSS OF HIS BEST FRIEND VI. A LETTER FROM DOROTHEA VII. AN AFTERNOON CALL VIII. THE RECEPTION IX. DOROTHEA ASKS QUESTIONS X. A DISCOVERY XI. A CHANCE ENCOUNTER XII. CHRISTMAS SHOPPING XIII. MR. LAINE GOES SHOPPING ALONE XIV. AN INFORMAL VISIT XV. THE MAN WHO DID NOT KNOW XVI. A CHANGE OF PLANS XVII. A VISIT TO VIRGINIA XVIII. ELMWOOD XIX. CHRISTMAS XX. CLAUDIA XXI. A VISIT FROM DOROTHEA XXII. SPRINGTIME

I

GENERAL

Mr. Winthrop Laine threw his gloves on the table, his overcoat on achair, put his hat on the desk, and then looked down at his shoes. 

"Soaking wet, " he said, as if to them. "I swear this weather wouldruin a Tapley temper! For two weeks rain and sleet and snow andsteam heat to come home to. Hello, General! How are the legstonight, old man?" Stooping, he patted softly the big, beautifulcollie which was trying to welcome him, and gently he lifted thedog's head and looked in the patient eyes. 

"No better? Not even a little bit? I'd take half if I could, General, more than half. It's hard luck, but it's worse not to knowwhat to do for you. " He turned his head from the beseeching eyes. "For the love of heaven don't look at me like that, General, don'tmake it--" His breath was drawn in sharply; then, as the dog madeeffort to bark, to raise his right paw in greeting as of old, he putit down carefully, rang the bell, walked over to the window, and fora moment looked out on the street below. 

The gray dullness of a late November afternoon was in the air of NewYork, and the fast-falling snowflakes so thickened it that the peoplehurrying this way and that seemed twisted figures of fantasticshapes, wind-blown and bent, and with a shiver Laine came back andagain stood by General's side. 

At the door Moses, his man, waited. Laine turned toward him. "Getout some dry clothes and see what's the matter with the heat. Ablind man coming in here would think he'd struck an ice-pond. " Helooked around and then at the darkey in front of him. "The Lord gaveyou a head for the purpose of using it, Moses, but you mistake it attimes for an ornament. Zero weather and windows down from the toptwelve inches! Has General been in here to-day?"

"No, sir. He been in the kitchen 'most all day. You told me thismorning to put fresh air in here and I put, but me and General ain'tbeen in here since I clean up. He's been powerful poorly to-day, sir. "

"I see he has. " Laine's hand went to the dog and rested a moment onhis head. "Close up those windows and turn on the lights and seeabout the heat. This room is almost as cheerful as a morgue atdaybreak. "

"I reckon you done took a little cold, sir. " Moses closed thewindows, drew the curtains, turned on more heat, and made the room ablaze of light. "It's a very spacious room, sir, and for them whatloves books it's very aspirin', but of course in winter-time a roomwithout a woman or a blazin' fire in it ain't what it might be. Don't you think you'd better take a little something, sir, to het youup inside?"

Laine, bending over General, shook his head. "No, I don't. I wantsleep. I came home early to try and get a little, but--"

"You ain't had none to speak of for 'most a week. " Moses stilllingered. "I wish you'd let General come in my room to-night. Youcan't stand seein' him suffer, and you'll be sick yourself if youkeep a-waitin' on him all night. Can't I get you a little Scotch, sir, or a hot whiskey punch? I got the water waitin'. They say nowwhiskey ain't no permanent cure for colds, but it sure do help youthink it is. Experience is better than expoundin' and--"

Again Laine shook his head. "Get me some dry clothes, " he said, thenwent to the table and looked over the letters laid in a row upon it. "Have a taxi-cab here by quarter past six and don't come in againuntil I ring. I'm going to lie down. "

A few minutes later, on a rug-covered couch, General on the floorbeside him, he was trying to sleep. He was strangely tired, and fora while his only well-defined feeling was one of impatience at havingto go out. Why must people do so many things they don't want to do?He put out his hand and smoothed softly General's long ears. Whycouldn't a man be let alone and allowed to live the way he preferred?Why-- "Quit it, " he said, half aloud. "What isn't Why in life isWherefore, and guessing isn't your job. Go to sleep. "

After a while he opened his eyes and looked around the book-linedwalls. When he first began to invest in books he could only buy oneat a time, and now there was no room for more. He wondered if therewas anything he could buy to-day that would give him the thrill hisfirst books had given. He had almost forgotten what a thrill couldmean. But who cared for books nowadays? The men and women he knew, with few exceptions, wouldn't give a twist of their necks to see his, would as soon think of reading them as of talking Dutch at adinner-party, and very probably they were right. Knowledge addedlittle to human happiness. Science and skill could do nothing forGeneral. Poor General! Again he smoothed the latter's head. Foryears he had barked his good-bye in the morning, for years watchedeagerly his coming, paws on the window-sill as dusk grew on, foryears leaped joyously to meet him on his return, but he would dothese things no longer. There was no chance of betterment, and deathwould be a mercy--a painless death which could be arranged. But hehad said no, said it angrily when the doctor so suggested, and hadtried a new man, who was deceiving him. 

"You are all I have, General"--his hand traveled softly up and downthe length of the dog's back--"and somewhere you must wait for me. I've got to stay on and play the game, and it's to be playedstraight, but when it's called I sha'n't be sorry. "

From a box on a table close to him he took a cigar, lighted it, andwatched its spirals of smoke curl upward. Life and the smoke thatvanisheth had much in common. On the whole, he had no grievanceagainst life. If it was proving a rather wearisome affair it wasdoubtless his own fault, and yet this finding of himself alone atforty was hardly what he had intended. There was something actuallycomic about it. That for which he had striven had been secured, butfor what? Success unshared is of all things ironic, and soon noteven General would be here to greet him when the day's work was done. He blew out a thin thread of smoke and followed its curvings withhalf-shut eyes. He had made money, made it honestly, and it hadbrought him that which it brought others, but if this were all lifehad to give--He threw his cigar away, and as General's soft breathingreached him he clasped his hands at the back of his head and staredup at the ceiling. 

Why didn't he love his work as he used to? He had played fair, butto play fair was to play against the odds, and there were times whenhe hated the thing which made men fight as fiercely to-day as in thedays of the jungle, though they no longer sprang at each other'sthroats. On the whole, he preferred the cavemen's method of attack. They at least fought face to face. As for women--

He got up, stooped down, and patted General softly. "I'm sorry toleave you, old man, but you'll sleep and I won't be long. Why Hopedidn't telephone what she wanted me to do, instead of beseeching meto come to her that she might tell me, is beyond male understanding. But we don't try to understand women, do we, General?"

The big brown eyes of the collie looked up in his master's face andin them was beseeching adoration. With painful effort he laid firstone paw and then the other on Laine's hand, and as the latter strokedthem he barked feebly. 

For a moment there was silence, the silence of understandingcomrades, then Laine turned away and began to dress. 

II

THE REQUEST

Hands in his pockets and back to the fire, Mr. Winthrop Laine lookedaround the room which his sister, Mrs. Channing Warrick, believed wasa library, and again wondered why she had sent for him instead oftelephoning what she wanted. He wasn't going to do it. That is, ifit were one of the old pleadings that he would come to her parties orgo to some one else's he would decline to do it, and usually theimportant matter on which she must see him proved something of thatsort. Five years ago he had cut out things of this kind and--

"Oh, Winthrop, I'm so glad you've come!" Laine stooped and kissed hissister. "And going out to prove it. " In a gown of clinging silverover soft satin she was very lovely, and as he held her off he lookedat her critically. "That is a pretty dress you have on, but thereisn't enough of it. What on earth did you make me come for if you'regoing out? When a man is my age he is privileged to stay at home andenjoy himself, not--"

Mrs. Channing Warrick stopped the buttoning of her long white glovesand looked up in her brother's face. "Do you enjoy yourself when youstay at home?"

"I enjoy myself much more at home than in other people's houses. Where are you going to-night?"

"To the Warings. There'll be cards after dinner. I suppose youdeclined. "

"I wasn't invited. "

"Hilda wanted you, but knew it was useless. " Again the big blue eyeswere raised to her brother's. "What makes you so horrid, Winthrop?If you go on ignoring people as you do--"

"I'll have to have paid pall-bearers at my funeral, won't I? Not abad idea. Well, why this summons to-night?"

Mrs. Warrick pressed the last button of her glove securely, eased herskirt over her hips, and sat down carefully. "To ask you to dosomething for me, " she said. "Channing won't be back untilto-morrow, and there is no one to meet her except Decker if youdon't. Outside of an automobile Decker has no sense and--"

"Meet whom?" Laine flicked the ashes from his cigar into the grate. "Who is it you want me to meet?"

"Claudia Keith. She is a cousin of Channing's and lives somewhere inVirginia on the Rappahannock River, miles from a railroad, and hasnever been to New York alone before. I thought I had told you shewas coming, but I see you so seldom lately that I forget what I tellyou and what I don't. The children think it's inhuman. After awhile you won't know how to behave in company, and what will your oldbooks and your money matter if--"

"By and by nothing will matter, my dear, but Decker's honk will beheard before I understand what you're getting at, if you don't hurry. What do you want me to do?"

"I want you to meet the nine-fifteen train from the South and--"

"Pick out an unknown person and bring her to a hostless house? Iwish I was as nice as you think I am, dear madam, but I'm not. Isuppose you also want me to apologize to your guest for your absencefrom home, tell her a pretty fairy tale and say--"

"If you'd say the right thing I'd like you to make up something, butyou wouldn't. I certainly have no idea of breaking an engagement, however, just to be home when a country cousin of Channing's arrives. Being such an out-of-the-world sort of person she may think it isstrange, so please tell her--"

"I'll tell her nothing. " Laine lighted a fresh cigar. "I'm goinghome. "

"But you can't! You're to stay to dinner, that's why I didn'ttelephone you about Claudia. The children chose taking dinner withyou as their compensation for having to stay in on account of theweather, and they're hanging over the banisters this very minute. "Mrs. Warrick got up and with care straightened her skimpy skirts. "Please don't let them eat too much. They can have--"

"Not a bit more than they want. " Laine took the white fur coat whichthe maid had laid on the chair a minute before and held it for hissister to put on. "All this sloppy stuff given to children of thepresent day will mean anemic men and women to-morrow. I'll takedinner with them, and if they are sick I'll take the blame, but notif the Virginian has opinions of her own concerning modern manners. Are you sure you're well wrapped?"

"Sure. I hope Decker can find her, but I doubt it. Maybe she canmanage by herself. Anyway, I've done all I could. Good night, andplease don't let the children eat too much of a mixture. You'll comeand see Claudia, won't you?"

Laine shook his head. "I haven't time. "

"Time! Of all nonsense!" She turned and kissed him. "The childrenwill have you at dinner, anyhow, and that's why I sent for you. Goodnight, mean man!"

She gathered up her skirts, and Laine, following her to the door, atwhich the second man stood waiting to throw a roll of carpet down thesnow-sprinkled steps to the car at the curb, watched it until thecorner was turned, then walked toward the dining-room, where twoyoung people threw two pair of arms around his legs and rent the airwith two ecstatic shrieks. 

"There's turkey and giblet gravy and salad and loads of things, UncleWinthrop, and I am going to sit at the head of the table, and Timkinssays I may pour the coffee for you in the library, and--"

"Mother said I could have some ice-cream and two pieces of cake ifthey weren't very big. " And Channing Warrick, Junior, aged seven, made effort to remove Dorothea Warrick, aged ten, from her point ofvantage next her uncle's right hand. But breath was lost in the hightoss given him by the strong arms which had sent him in the air, andas he landed on his feet he laughed in gasping delight. 

"Come on. " Dorothea's voice was eager. "It's ready, and so am I, and at eight we've got to be in bed. "

III

SCIENTIFICS

As he took his seat at the perfectly appointed table, Mr. WinthropLaine nodded at first one child and then the other. "What very piggyrelations I have, " he said, opening his napkin. "Not a word ofgreeting to an ancient uncle, but just an announcement of what thereis to eat. One would think you were starving. "

"We are. " Dorothea laid down her napkin and got up. "Excuse me forleaving my seat, but mother 'said we could have a good time to-night, and we can't if we're particular about manners. I hate manners. Iguess I get it from you, Uncle Winthrop. I heard Miss Robin Frenchsay you didn't have any. She said she'd invited you to her house adozen times, and you'd never been once, or made a party call oranything. "

"What's a party call?" Channing's mouth was full of soup. "What's aparty call, Uncle Winthrop?"

"It's the penalty one has to pay for being invited where one doesn'twant to go. What were you saying, Dorothea?"

"I've forgotten. Channing is just as rude as if he were somebody!Oh yes--I started to say I'm sorry we were piggy about mentioning thefood first. We've been crazy to see you. We had something to tellyou. I think I'll sit down here right by you; it's too far offbehind those flowers, and I'll kiss you now if you don't mind. " AndDorothea's arms were around her uncle's neck and her cheek was laidlovingly to his. 

"Of course. " Laine unfastened the arms, drew the child's head down, kissed her, and patted the little hands before sending their owner toher seat. "Being the beginning of a woman you kiss and make up, which is more than your heathen brother does. Not another one!" Thedish of almonds was withdrawn from Channing's reach. "Let me seeyour hands, sir! And you a member of polite society! Ah, here's theturkey. And it's the drumstick you said you wanted, did you, Channing? Drumsticks were put on turkeys just for little boys. Ialways got the drumstick and the gizzard. "

"I don't want any drumsticks!" Channing's lips quivered. "I want--"

"And he can't have the gizzard, Uncle Winthrop, really he can't. Maybe you don't know about Fletcherizing, and you ought to bethankful you don't, but you can't Fletcherize a gizzard, not if youchew all night, and if there's breast enough for everybody, I thinkhe'd better have that. And I'll take plenty of gravy, please, andstuffing, if there's oysters in it. Wait a minute!" Dorothea's handwent up and her head went down. "I'd like to say grace: 'I thankThee, Lord, for this sure-enough food and for Uncle Winthrop beinghere, and please let it happen again and don't let it make us sick. Amen. '"

Through the grace Channing's fork had been suspended, but his jawshad not stopped work; and at the last word he leaned forward and madea dive for the olives, two of which he put in his mouth at once. 

To the man at the foot of the table the situation was perplexing. His niece and nephew, born of wealth and surrounded by abundance, were eating with the eagerness of little pigs; eating as if afraidtheir plates would be withdrawn before they had had their fill. Onthe tip of Channing's nose a drop of gravy glistened in thecandle-light, and Dorothea was swallowing much too rapidly for health. 

Looking up, she caught her uncle's eye and leaned back in her chair. Hands on her breast and eyes half closed, she sighed regretfully. "I'm full already, and we're not half through, " she said, andbeckoned to the butler, who came closer. "What kind of salad is it, Timkins, and is there mayonnaise on it or that thin stuff?"

Timkins coughed slightly behind his hand. "It's mushrooms and whitegrapes with mayonnaise, I think, Miss, but--"

Dorothea's eyes closed tightly. "Just my luck. I've never tasted itbut once, and it's perfectly grand, Uncle Winthrop. Mother had itfor lunch the day that scraggy-looking woman and her daughter werehere from London. Mother said she was Lady somebody, but our cook ismuch nicer-looking on Sundays. She didn't eat her salad. "

"You ate it. " Channing's fork was pointed accusingly at Dorothea. "You licked the plate. "

"I certainly did. " Dorothea stood up, shook herself, sat down again, and carefully arranged her knife and fork. "We were in the pantry. Antoinette was ill and Timkins let us come in. You see, UncleWinthrop, it's this way. We are scientifics, Channing and I. We'vebeen brought up on a book, and we don't get enough to eat. Mothersays everything has been learned out of science now--I mean about howmuch children can eat, and how much they can drink, and how much airthey can sleep in, and how to breathe right, and Antoinette says whenwe were little we used to be weighed every day. And that's why westuff so when we get a chance. I'm ten, going on eleven. "

"And I'm seven, going on eight"--Channing had not yet yielded theturkey in sight for the salad to come, and his fork was still beingsteadily applied--"and all we have for supper--"

"Is bread and milk. " Dorothea's hand waved silence to Channing. "Antoinette says the milk is magnificent, but I'd rather havesomething with more taste that isn't so grand. I wish I'd been bornbefore all this science had been found out. If we sneeze we have tobe sprayed, and if we cough we're sterilized or something, and theonly word in the English language Antoinette pronounces right isgerms! You'd think they were ghosts, the way she lifts her eyes andraises her hands when she says it. And she don't know what they are, either. Did you kiss me when I was a baby, Uncle Winthrop?"

"I did. "

"In the mouth?"

"In the mouth. "

"Well, they don't let anybody kiss babies that way now. But if everI have any I'm going to let people kiss them and squeeze them, too. I mean nice people. I don't believe in scientifics for children. "

"But, my dear Miss Warrick"--Mr. Laine was also waiting on his youngnephew--"suppose your husband does. Surely a man should have somesay in the upbringing of his family!"

"Father don't. " Dorothea leaned forward and selected an olivecritically. "Father would let us have anything we want, but he saysmother must decide. He's so busy he hasn't time to see aboutchildren. He has to make the money to buy us--"

"Milk. " Channing pushed his plate back. "I hate milk. Gee! I'mfull. You can have my salad, Dorothea, if you'll give me yourice-cream. It didn't make you sick the day you ate all that ladyleft. "

"You ate leavings!" Laine's voice made effort to be horrified. "Dorothea Warrick ate leavings from a lady's plate!"

"It wasn't leavings. She didn't touch it. I was peeping through thedoor and I heard her say she never ate trash. It was grand. Nobodytold me not to eat it, and I ate. "

"An inherited habit, my dear. " Laine put the almonds, the olives, and the mints beyond the reach of little arms. "Once upon a timethere was a lady who lived in a garden and she ate something sheought not to have eaten and thereby made great trouble. She had beentold not to, but being a woman--"

"I know about her. She was Eve. " Dorothea took some almonds fromher uncle's plate and put one in her mouth. "She was made out ofAdam's rib, and Adam was made out of the dust of the earth. Eversince she ate that apple everybody has been made of dust, Antoinettesays. "

Channing sat upright, in his big blue eyes doubt and distress. "WasDorothea and me made out of dust, Uncle Winthrop?"

"Dust, mere dust, my man. "

For a moment there was silence and seeming thought, then Dorothea'shead bobbed up and down. "Well, we can't help it, and there's no useletting things hurt that you can't help! But I don't think motherknows, Uncle Winthrop, and please don't tell her. She just hatesdirt. Gracious goodness! I'm as full as a frog, and the ice-cream'sgot chocolate on it, too!"

In the library some minutes later Dorothea was pouring her uncle'scoffee, and as he took the cup she brought him he bowedceremoniously, then put it down to light a cigar. There were timeswhen he wished Dorothea were his. If she were his-- He took a longwhiff of his cigar and threw the match in the fire. 

IV

DOROTHEA AND MR. LAINE

"Pardonnez-moi!" Mademoiselle Antoinette stood at the door. Aroundand about her hung blushing apology, and her hands clasped andunclasped in nervous appeal. The hour had struck and her littlecharges must come. Would Monsieur pardon? She was so sorry, it wassad, but Madame would not like it. "Oh, of course!" Laine waved hishand. "Good night, Buster!" Channing was tossed in the air. "Ifthe gobblers get you to-night, don't mind. They're just turkey. Good night, Miss Wisdom!" Stooping, he kissed Dorothea and unwoundthe arms with which she clung to him. "I'm sorry, child, but abargain is a bargain, and your mother won't trust us if we don't playfair-- It's after eight and--" "But I haven't told you what was thespecialest thing I had to--" Dorothea turned to the woman standingin the door holding her brother's hand; spoke to her rapidly. 

"Je vous en prie, Mademoiselle Antoinette, Prenez Channing et nem'attendez pas. Je vous rejoindrai dans un instant. J'ai quelquechose de tres important a dier a mon oncle--deux minutes et j'arrive!"

Antoinette hesitated, then, with a gesture of despair, left the room;and instantly Dorothea was on a stool at her uncle's feet. 

"Did you know?" Elbows on his knees and chin in the palms of herhands she looked up eagerly in his face. "Did you know my cousinClaudia was coming to-night?"

"I did. "

"Isn't it grand!" Dorothea's hands came together, and in anotherminute she was dancing round and round the room, the tip ends of herskirt held by her fingers. "I'm crazy about my cousin Claudia. She's my only correspondent, the only one I love to write to, I mean. She writes things I like to hear about, and Christmas she sends mesomething I want. That's the way we began to write. She sent me apresent, and father made me thank her in writing myself, and then shewrote me and we've been friends ever since. "

Laine knocked the ashes from his cigar toward the grate. "I didn'tknow you knew Miss Keith. "

"I don't. But I'm going to like her all right. Some things you knowright here"--she put her hand on her breast. "Father's been wantingmother to ask her for a long time, but mother said she knew shedidn't have clothes like New York people wore, and it might make herfeel badly. I heard them talking one night, and father said theKeiths didn't have to depend on their clothes to show where theybelonged, so mother invited her; but I don't think she wanted to verymuch. Do you suppose?"--she came toward him, and, with her hands onthe arms of his chair, searched his face--"Do you suppose she will bevery country-looking?"

"I really couldn't guess. People who live in the backwoods and milesfrom a railroad are not apt to be leaders of fashion. Doubtless herhands will be red and her face will be red and her hair will be red, but--"

"I don't care how red she is, I'm going to love her. I can tell byher letters!" Dorothea's shoulders were back and her eyes wereshining. "And I don't see why you say things like that! I don'tthink you are very polite!"

"I don't, either. I think I'm very impolite. It may be, you know, that her eyes will be blue and her lips will be blue and her skinwill be blue--"

"And that will be worse than red. I thought you were going to beglad she was coming. Aren't you glad?"

"Shall I tell the truth, or be polite?"

"Both. "

"Impossible! If I told you I was glad I would be untruthful; ifsorry, I would be impolite. "

"But why aren't you glad? Are you too old to be glad over youngladies?"

Laine laughed. "I think I am. Yes, I'm sure that's what's thematter. Not for some years have I been glad over them, I don't carefor girls older than you are, Dorothea. When they reach the grown-upage--"

"Claudia has reached the age of twenty-six. She told me so in one ofher letters. What age have you reached, Uncle Winthrop?"

"Middle age. "

"Is that very old?" Dorothea came closer, and her fingers slipped inand out of Laine's hair. "You're gray just a teensy bit, but I don'tthink she's a person who will mind if a man isn't truly young. You've got such nice strong arms, and I'm not afraid of lions ortigers or bears or--or mice or anything when you are with me. Pleaselike her, Uncle Winthrop!" Dorothea's face was pressed againstLaine's. "Next to father and mother and Channing I love you best, and I think I'm going to love her next after you. "

"Mademoiselle Dorothea!"

From the steps outside Antoinette was calling, and Dorothea noddedher head at her uncle. "That's another thing my children are notgoing to have. They are never going to have a French governess toput them to bed and make them say their prayers in French. I don'tbelieve the Lord likes it. Good night, Uncle Winthrop. I hope mycousin Claudia will be politer about you than you've been about her, and I know she hasn't red hands. " She waved her own and threw a kiss, but as she reached the door Laine called her back. 

"Come here, Dorothea. "

She turned and came toward him. "Did you call me, Uncle Winthrop?"

"I did. " He drew her on his knees. "Did you say you said yourprayers in French?"

"Every night, unless for punishment I have to say a German one. Channing just shuffles his out and runs all the words together so Idon't believe even God can understand them. I don't like Frenchprayers. "

"Then why do you say them?"

"Oh, we have to! All the children I know say their prayers inFrench. One day six of us had a race to see which could say themfastest and say the most. I beat. Want to hear me?"

"Indeed I don't!" Laine's voice was emphatic. "But I don't likeFrench prayers for little American girls. I never cared for parrotsor--"

"What kind do you say, French or American?" Dorothea was strokingher uncle's fingers one by one. "I always say my real prayers insideafter I get in bed--that is, if I'm not too sleepy; and they're justplain talking to the Lord. You see, we are not allowed to speak oneword except in French to Antoinette, and mother likes us to speak itto her, only she is always in such a hurry she forgets half the time. We speak English to father, all right, though; father says French forbreakfast is all foolishness, and I think so, too. We take breakfastwith father every morning, and we just have a grand time. Mother isnever very well in the mornings, so she don't get up; but we takelunch with her when there isn't company and she isn't going out. Didyou know the Dufferns had a new baby at their house?"

Laine shook his head. 

"They have. It's a girl. They had four girls already, and Juliasays they're going to change their doctor. He always brings girls. "

"Madam-oiselle Dor-othea!"

Dorothea slipped from her uncle's lap. "I know what that means. Whenever she says 'Madam-ois-elle Doro-thea!' through her nose it's aGerman prayer. Good night. " And this time she was gone. 

Laine followed her to the steps to take upon himself theresponsibility of her delay, and as he came back in the room heglanced at the clock and took out his watch. It wouldn't do for agirl from the country to get into New York alone at this time ofnight, and, of course, he would have to meet her; but why did shecome at this hour of night? Ringing for his coat and hat, he putthem on, then stopped to light a cigar, and as the match was held toit the front door-bell rang sharply. A moment later some one wastalking to Timkins. 

"Is this Mr. Warrick's residence?"

The voice that asked the question was fresh and clear, and carriedeasily to where he stood. He looked around quickly as if for escape. 

"Yes'm. " He could picture the bow Timkins was making. Timkins wasthe politest person he knew. "Yes'm, and this is Miss Keith, isn'tit? Just come in, ma'm, we're expecting of you, though your trainmust have been a little earlier than usual, ma'm. Mr. Warrick is outof town, and Mrs. Warrick had a pressing engagement which couldn't bedenied, but she left messages for you, and I think a note. Yes'm, just this way. " And Timkins, knowing Laine was in the library, ledthe stranger past the door and up the steps, over the banisters ofwhich was heard from Dorothea a cry of delight. 

"Oh, my Cousin Claudia! My Cousin Claudia! I'm so glad you've come!I'm so glad!"

A laugh as fresh as the dawn of perfect morning followed the kissesnext heard, and then the new voice spoke again. 

"You precious child! I'm so glad you're glad. It's so nice to havesomebody glad to see you!"

V

THE LOSS OF HIS BEST FRIEND

At the click of Laine's latch-key Moses started from the doze intowhich he had fallen and jumped to his feet. "Lord, sir, I sure isglad you've come, " he said, following Laine into the library. "Gineral's been mighty bad off since you went away, and one time Ithought he was plumb gone. He done had what you might call afaintin' fit if'n he was a person. "

"Where is he?" Laine's voice was quick, and his eyes swept the room. "What have you done for him?"

"He laid himself on the rug in your room, sir, and I give him alittle brandy and water. Most in general that will hit the spotand--" But Laine was in his room, and Moses, following, saw him onhis knees by the rug, his right arm under the dog's head, his left onthe heart which was barely beating, and softly he tiptoed out again. 

For an hour or so he stayed away, wandering between his room and thekitchen, the kitchen and the dining-room, and back again to his room, talking to himself in an undertone; and presently he sat down by atable and began to turn the pages of a family Bible which adorned it, and which he had presented to himself the Christmas before. 

"It do beat all how he love that dog, " he said, as if to some one athis side, "and it's a-goin' to make a hole in his heart when he'sgone. I never seen anybody set such store on a thing what ain't ahuman being as he do on Gineral, and as for Gineral--if a dog coulddo what you call worship, he sure do worship Mr. Laine. They waspartners, them two, and it will be a quiet place when Gineral ain'there any more. "

Slowly he turned page after page of the big-printed Bible, with itsilluminated text; but presently he closed it. "I've read right muchof it, and I've heard a heap of it expounded, but I haven't got norecollections of any references to the passing of dogs in it, " hecontinued, taking out a plug of tobacco and cutting off a good-sizedpiece. "I wish there was. When something you love is leavin' you, you have a mighty sinkin' feeling in the pit of your stomach, and aterrible understandin' of the unableness of man. And then it is youfeel a reachin' out after something what ain't man. Mr. Laine ismighty learned, but learnin' ain't no cure for loneliness, andGineral is all he's got. And I tell you now, this comin' home toempty rooms is cold comin'. "

Moses was speaking to the wall opposite, but the wall not replying hegot up and tip-toed to Laine's bedroom. Looking up, Laine saw himand called him in. 

"Go to bed, Moses, " he said, and his voice was very tired. "There isnothing you can do. If I need you I will let you know. "

Moses shook his head. "I ain't a-goin' to bed, Mr. Laine. You canmake me go out if you want to, but if I ain't intrudin' I would liketo stay. "

Slowly the hours passed. From the street occasional stirringsreached them faintly; but in the room only short breathing broke thesilence. As day dawned Moses, from his seat near the door, spoke:

"Mr. Laine?"

"Well. " Laine did not look up. 

"When dogs die do they live again?"

"I don't know. "

"I don't reckon anybody knows. But that don't mean they don't. If Iwas as certain I was fixed for heaven as I know Gineral is a-goin' tobe waitin' for you somewhere, I'd feel more reconcilement to death. Some things can die and some things can't. There ain't no time limitto love, Mr. Laine. I think"--Moses got up--"I think Gineral istrying to make you understand something, sir. "

Half an hour later Laine called Moses back into the room, gave a feworders, changed his clothes, and without waiting for breakfast wentout, and not until dark did he come in again. 

Dinner was a pretense, and presently he pushed his coffee aside, lighted a cigar, and took up the evening paper. The headlines wereglaring, but he passed them quickly. Telegraphic news was skimmed, stock reports and weather conditions glimpsed unheedingly, and theeditorial page ignored, and, finally, with a gesture of weariness, hethrew the paper on the floor and went into the library. 

It was, as Moses had said, a very spacious room, and its furnishingswere distinctive; but, though warm and brightly lighted, to stay init to-night was impossible, and, ringing for his coat and hat, hemade ready to go out. 

At the table he lingered a moment and glanced at some letters uponit. Mechanically he took one up, looked at the writing of his name, and wondered indifferently who it was from. Breaking it open, heread the few words it contained, and at them his face colored and hebit his lips to hide their twitching. He read:

 DEAR MR. LAINE, --Dorothea has just told me. I am so sorry. CLAUDIA KEITH. 

With a sudden surrender to something stubbornly withheld, he sat downin the chair near the table, leaned back in it, and closed his eyesto keep back that which stung and blinded them. To most of hisfriends the going of General would be but the going of a dog, andbarely a passing thought would be its portion when they heard, butshe must understand. He got up. No. There was no one who couldreally understand. 

VI

A LETTER PROM DOROTHEA

For a moment he hesitated whether to go down or up the street. Theair was biting, but the snow, fairly well cleaned from the sidewalks, no longer bothered; and, crossing into Madison Avenue, he turned downand began to walk rapidly toward that part of the city where therewould be few people and little glare, and as he walked unconsciouslyhe repeated over and over to himself: "Dorothea has just told me. Iam so sorry. "

"Mister, please, sir, buy a paper?" He stopped abruptly. The boy infront of him stamped first one foot and then the other, and the handhe held out was rough and red. Drawing it back he blew on it for alittle warmth. 

"What are you doing out this time of night?" Laine asked the questionhardly knowing why. "You ought to be home in bed. "

"Ain't got no home. " The boy laughed cheerfully, and again put hisfist to his mouth and blew upon it. "I'm sleepin' with another boythis week, but I have to pay him. Please buy a paper, Mister!"

Under his breath Laine caught himself saying something, then handedthe boy a piece of money and passed on. Where was he, anyhow?Surely he was in no mood for the life of this neighborhood. It wasone he had seldom been in, and as he looked at its houses dull wonderfilled him as to their occupants. To keep breath in their bodiesmeant sordid struggle and bitter strife, but possibly they werehappy. Certainly he had long since learned the possession of merematerial things did not mean happiness. He had long since learned agreat many things it was unfortunate to know. 

A clock in the church near by struck ten, and turning he went overinto the Avenue and began his walk up-town. As he reached MadisonSquare he looked at the empty benches and wondered as to the fate ofthe derelicts who daily filled them in warm weather, and wondered ifthey, too, wondered what it was all for--this thing called life. 

In contrast to the traffic of the day the stillness of the Avenue waspuzzling. Only the whir of an automobile or the occasional hoofbeatsof a cab-horse broke the silence, and hardly less dark than thetenements just passed were its handsome houses, with their closedshutters and drawn curtains, and the restless occupants therein. Ashe reached the Park he stopped, hesitated, and lighted a fresh cigar. Three squares away was his sister's house, and in it was the girlwith the fresh, clear voice. He took the note she had sent him outof his pocket, and in the light hanging just above him looked againat the firm, clear writing, then put it back. Did she, too, wonderat life, at its emptiness and aimlessness? Her voice did not soundas if she were tired of it or found it wearisome. It sounded like avery happy voice. 

At his door he turned the latch-key, and for a moment--a baremoment--drew back; then, with a shiver, he opened the door and wentinside. 

Moses was waiting. "Miss Dorothea she called me up, sir, and told meto be sure and give you this letter to-night. She slip out of bed totelephone when that French white lady was out the room, she say. Shehad her Ma send it by messenger, and she was so 'fraid you wouldn'tget it to-night she couldn't sleep. She sent a peck of love. "

Laine took the letter and went to his room. Dorothea was given toletters, and if his absence was unduly long a communication to thateffect was promptly received. He had seen her last night, however. What was she wanting now? Breaking the seal, he read the sprawlywriting with narrowed eyes, then read again, that he might miss noword. 

DEAR UNCLE WINTHROP, --Moses telefoned us and Channing and I have justcried and cried and cried. But I won't even call his name if youwill only come and let me kiss you so you will know. We wanted tosend you some flowers but Claudia said our love was best. She is sosorry too. She had one and it died last spring. I had a headaketo-day. It came from my heart because of you and she made it goaway. I think she could make most any kind of pain go away. And herhands are not red and her hair is brown and her lashes are brown too, and long and lovely. I don't know the color of her eyes. I thinkthey are glad color. I love her! I knew I would. 

 Your devoted niece, DOROTHEA. 

P. S. --I told her you didn't like young ladies and she said shedidn't like old gentlemen, except a few. Please, P-L-E-A-S-E comeand see me--and you can come in the nursery if you don't want to seeher. She knows. 

 Your loving niece, DOROTHEA. 

P. S. Again. --You ought to hear her laugh. Its delishus. 

He put the letter back in the envelope, and the envelope in hispocket. "She knows, " he repeated. What under heaven had Dorotheabeen telling her? He must see Dorothea and have it stopped. Did shethink him a feeble and infirm person who leaned on a stick, or acrabbed and cross one who had no manners? He would have to call, ifonly to thank her for her note. No. He would do that in writing. Next week, perhaps, he might drop in and see Dorothea. But Hope andChanning should take the girl about, show her the city. CertainlyHope could not be so idiotic as to let clothes matter. In hissister's world clothes were the insignia of its order, and of lateHope had shown signs that needed nipping. He must see Hope. Nextweek would be time enough, but Hope and Dorothea must both be seen. 

VII

AN AFTERNOON CALL

"How do you do? Oh, how do you do, too, Miss Keith?" Miss RobinFrench held out a hand first to Mrs. Channing Warrick and then to herguest and shook their hands with vigor. 

"Did you ever know such weather at this season of the year? Evenheat and cold are no longer like they used to be. Everything isintensified. Indeed I will have some tea! No lemon, and one lump. One. That's a sick-looking fire, Hope. Good gracious! I just didcatch that vase of flowers! Such a stupid fancy, putting flowerseverywhere for people to knock over. Well, Miss Keith, have yougotten your breath since you reached New York? Something of a town, isn't it?"

A gulp of hot tea, taken standing by Miss French, gave pause for amoment, and Claudia Keith instinctively drew her feet up under herchair behind the tea-table. To duck her head, as one would dodge anon-coming deluge, was an impulse, but only with her feet could effortbe made for self-preservation, and as she refilled the cup held outto her by the breezy visitor she blessed the table which served as abreastwork of defense. With a hasty movement she put in the one lumpand handed the cup back. "I breathe here very well, " she said, andsmiled into the scrutinizing eyes. "New York is very wonderful. "

"And very disagreeable eight months out of the twelve. " Miss Frenchput her cup on the table, threw her fur coat on the chair behind her, sat down, and, taking the cup again, drank its entire contents. "Pretty good tea, Hope; at most places it's undrinkable. " Again shehanded the cup to Claudia. "One more and that's all. I'm cuttingout tea a bit--only twelve cups a day now. "

"Twelve!" The exclamation was beyond recall. Claudia's hand stoppedin its pouring. "Twelve!"

"That's what I said. Have taken thirty many times, but the doctorthought I was getting nerves and called me down. Nerves!" MissFrench's nose went up. "Nerves and nonsense are twin sisters, andI've no opinion of either. How did you like the opera last night?"

The question being addressed apparently to the cigarette Miss Frenchtook out of a little silver case, lighted, and began to smoke, neither Mrs. Warrick nor Miss Keith answered, each waiting for theother; but it did not matter, Miss French was looking at a photographin front of her. With lorgnette to her eyes, she examined itcritically. 

"Rather a good picture of your brother, Hope. Didn't know he'd doanything so human as have a picture taken. " She took it up. "Winthrop would hardly take prizes at a beauty show, but he'scertainly all there for something better. When did you get this?"

"A month ago, I guess. " Mrs. Warrick took a log from the basket onthe hearth and put it on the andirons. "The editors of the Reviewmade him send his picture when that article of his came out on 'TaxTerrors and Tax Traditions. ' Channing says it's the best thingthat's been written on taxation for years, and in banking circles--"

"He's earned his pedestal. " Miss French put down her cigarette andhanded the case to Claudia. 

"Smoke?"

Claudia shook her head. "Thanks. I don't--"

"Pity. You've lots to learn yet. Most of you Southerners have, butwhen you catch up you speed all right. I'll give you this fornothing--don't toboggan all at once. Have you seen this picture ofHope's crank of a brother? You needn't expect to meet him. He comesof good Vermont stock, and its granite is no firmer than hisprinciples; but he has no manners. I've known him fifteen years andam qualified to speak. "

"He has got manners!" Mrs. Warrick turned indignantly toward MissFrench. "Claudia only got here Thursday night, and Winthrop has beentoo busy--"

"Busy! You're dippy about Winthrop, Hope. He's the most indifferenthuman being to other human beings that walks this earth, and has morefriends--men friends--than any man I know. He's rotten spoiled;that's what's the matter with him. He's been chased, I admit. Whatuncaught man of means isn't? I've no patience with Winthrop. It'snatural young girls should bore him, but that's no reason why heshould live so entirely to himself. "

"Perhaps"--Claudia took up a letter from the table in front of herand with it tapped her lips absently--"perhaps he prefers to livethat way. I wonder, Miss French, if you can tell me whereKroonstater's is? No one here seems to know, and every day I getfurther commissions from my county which can only be filled there. Years ago some one from Brooke Bank bought wonderful and marvelousChristmas things from Kroonstater's, and ever since it's been the onestore in New York for many of our people. I must find it. "

"Kroonstater's?" Miss French again put up her lorgnette. "Neverheard of it. "

Claudia laughed. "I see you, too, have something to learn. Youdon't know the joy of shopping if you don't know a store of thatkind. I suppose I'll have to find it by myself. "

"For goodness' sake don't, Claudia. " Mrs. Warrick got up; some oneat the telephone wanted her. "I passed one of those downtown storesonce, and the crowd in it was something awful. You never know whatkind of disease you might catch, and the people are so pushy. Allthe nice stores have Christmas things. "

"I don't doubt it. " Claudia smiled. "But Brooke Bank people haveideas of their own. Their demands are many, and their dollars few. And, then, I love to see the crowd. Their pennies are as importantas our pounds, and to watch their spending is the best kind of aplay. "

"Where did you say you came from?" Miss French surveyed the girl infront of her with sudden interest. Something new under the sun wasever the quest of her inquiries and pursuits, and as if she hadpossibly found it she looked closer at her friend's guest. Not theyouth, not the fair skin now flushed with color that came and went, nor the long dark lashes, nor perfect teeth, nor anything that couldbe named made the girl distinctive, but something well-defined andpenetrating. Again she asked the question. "Where did you say youwere from?"

"From Virginia. Have you ever been there?"

Miss French shook her head. 

Claudia sat up. In her eyes no longer laughter, and incredulity thatwas genuine. "You mean you _never_ have been to Virginia?"

"Never. "

Elbows on the table and chin in the palms of her hands, Claudialooked at Miss French as intently as Miss French looked at Claudia. "Then you've never heard, I suppose, of the Northern Neck, orWestmoreland County, or Essex, or Lancaster, or King George, or--"

"Never. Quite English, aren't they? Is that where you live?"

"I live in Essex. We're on the Rappahannock. There isn't a railroadin the county. We have to take the boat for Fredericksburg orNorfolk to get anywhere, unless we cross the river into WestmorelandCounty and drive over to the Potomac side and make the boat toWashington. Have you ever been to Washington?"

"Of course. I've been pretty well over the world. "

"And left out its best part!" Claudia laughed and got up to turn thelogs which were smoking. "You mustn't die before seeing it. Thereisn't so much to see, perhaps, but a good deal to feel. Do you likefox-hunting?"

"Never tried it. " Again Miss French looked at the girl now standingin front of her. She was certainly not a plate of fashion--that is, not a French plate--but she was graceful, and her clothes were reallyvery good. Her unconsciousness of self was rather astounding in acountry girl. 

"I think you'd like a fox-hunt. I will miss the big one thisyear--Thanksgiving comes so late, and Christmas there's no time. "

"Christmas in the country must be very stupid. "

"Stupid!" Claudia's hands, which had been clasped behind her back, opened and came together on her breast. "Of course"--her eyes wereraised to Miss French's--"it's a point of view, I suppose. We don'tthink it's stupid. We love it. "

Miss French got up, put her cigarette-case in her velvet hand-bag, slipped on her coat, fastened her veil, picked up her muff, shook it, and looked toward the door, between whose curtains Mrs. Warrick wasstanding. 

"I thought you'd gone for good, Hope. You must have been telling allyou knew, and more. Miss Keith was just saying she loved Christmasin the country. I can't imagine anything worse, unless it'sChristmas in town. I hate Christmas! If I could go to sleep a weekbefore, and not wake up until a week after, I'd surely do it. Why, Winthrop Laine!"

On her way to the door Miss Robin French stood still and looked atthe man coming in; and over her ruddy face swept color, almost purplein its deepness. She was a handsome woman, stubbornly resisting thework of time. In her eyes was restless seeking, in her movements anenergy that could not be exercised in the limits of her little world;and Claudia, watching her, felt sudden whimsical sympathy. She wasso big, so lordly, so hungrily unhappy. 

She held out her hand. "How do you do?" she said. "I am just goinghome, as your sister hasn't asked me to dinner. I suppose you willstay--"

"If there's to be any dinner. Hope has a way of cutting it out everynow and then. " He turned to his sister. "Are you going out to-night?"

"I certainly am not, and I'm so glad you've come! I've lots to tellyou and ask you. Won't you stay, Robin?" The question was putfeebly. "Do stay. Oh, I beg your pardon, Claudia, you were so faroff! You haven't met my brother. Winthrop, this is Channing'scousin, Miss Keith. Please give him some tea, Claudia. I know he'sfrozen. Can't you stay, Robin--really?"

"Really nothing! Good-bye. " Miss French waved her muff to the manwho, over the teacups, was shaking hands with the girl on theopposite side of the table, and shook her head as he started towardher. "Don't come, Jenkins is out there with the car. I'd stay todinner, but Hope doesn't enjoy hers if there's a high-neck dress atthe table. Good-bye, Miss Keith; see you to-morrow night, Isuppose. " And, like a good strong draught that passes, she was gone. 

"I'm glad she had sense enough not to stay. " Mrs. Warrick came towardthe tea-table. "I'm fond of Robin, but of late she's been even moreenergetic and emphatic than usual, and I feel like I'm beingbattledored and shuttlecocked whenever I see her. Why don't youdrink your tea, Winthrop?"

"I don't believe I put any sugar in it. I beg your pardon!" Claudiatook up the sugarbowl. "It was Miss French, I guess. She's sucha--such a gusty person. I love to hear her talk. How many, Mr. Laine?"

"Three, please, and no comments, Hope. If a man must drink tea heought to have all the sugar he wants. That last lump was so verylittle I think you might put in another, Miss Keith. Thank you. Perhaps this is sweet enough. " "Winthrop just takes tea to have thesugar, He's as bad as Dorothea about sweet things. " Mrs. Warrickturned to her brother. "Are you really going to stay to dinner?Please do. This is the only evening we're to be home for a week, andCharming is anxious to see you on some business. "

"Is he?" Laine put down his cup. "Well, he won't see me on businessto-night. I've an office down-town. In your part of the world, MissKeith, don't you ever let men have a chance to forget there's such athing as business?"

Claudia got up. "I'm afraid they have too much chance. " She put herhand lightly on Mrs. Warrick's arm. "Will you excuse me, Hope? Ihave a letter to write. " She bowed slightly in Laine's direction andwas gone before he could reach the door to draw aside the curtainsfor her. 

Mrs. Warrick leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms. "Do sitdown, Winthrop, and let's talk. I'm so glad to have a little timealone with you. I so seldom have it that--"

"Your guest was certainly not slow in giving it to you. She couldhardly do anything but leave after your insistence upon having thingsto tell me. What in the name of Heaven did you do that for? Doesshe think we don't know how to behave up here?"

"Oh, she understands! She knows you didn't come to see her, and, besides, she's gone up-stairs to write to her mother. If King Georgehad been here she'd have gone. You know, I really dreaded hercoming, but I needn't. She has been to a good many places--wasabroad for a year with one of her sisters whose husband was secretaryor something to one of our ministers or somebody--but she doesn'tknow New York at all. She's met a number of her friend's friendsalready, and I won't have to scoop up men for her. Last night at theVan Doren's she had more around her than she could talk to. Alwayshas had, Channing says. She'll be no bother; and don't stay awaybecause she's here. Tell me"--she put her hand on his knee--"is ittrue you are going to Panama next month? Robin French told me sheheard you would leave on the twelfth. "

"If Miss French could sell fairy tales as rapidly as she can repeatthem she'd make a fortune. I have no idea what I am going to do nextmonth. "

"I wish I didn't know I was going to Savannah for Christmas. It'sChanning's year, and of course we ought to go to his mother, as sheis too old to come to us, but there's so much going on, and thenyou'll be alone. "

"Oh, I'll manage all right. The one good thing about Christmas is itdoesn't last long. " He leaned forward and with the tongs turned asmoldering log. "But it's incomprehensible how a woman with a homecan keep up this everlasting going to other people's houses. To-morrow night you go--"

"To the Taillors. Mrs. Taillor's debutante daughter makes her firstbow to--"

"Capitalized society, does she? Poor child! The pains of pleasureare many. "

"They surely are! She looks like a scared rabbit, and I heard hersay only a week ago she'd rather die than be a debutante. But she'llget on. Her mother will corral the men and compel them to come inand pay her attention. Are you going?"

"Hardly. " Laine looked at his watch. "What time do you have dinner?"

"Seven. It's time for me to dress. " Mrs. Warrick got up. "Do praybe decent and go to-morrow night, Winthrop. Mr. Taillor has beensuch a good friend, and Mrs. Taillor will be so pleased. Don'tforget to send the child flowers. I wonder if Claudia is ready. Dorothea grabs her every chance she gets, and I don't doubt she'swith the children this minute. She'll stay until dinner is served, so don't worry; and for goodness' sake don't let her being here keepyou away. "

VIII

THE RECEPTION

Going down the crowded steps into the crowded drawing-room, WinthropLaine slowly made his way through the door to the place where Mr. AndMrs. Taillor and their daughter were receiving their guests andpassing them on with a rapidity that would have been creditable tothe custodian of a game of human roulette, and as he reached them hisname was called with uncomfortable clearness. 

"Well, this is a surprise!" Both of Mrs. Taillor's hands heldLaine's. "But commend me to a person who knows when to change hismind. Jessica, you should feel honored. Awfully good of you tocome! How do you do, Mrs. Haislip?" And Laine, too, was passed on, and a moment later found himself in a corner where he could watch thedoor and all who came in. 

What was he here for? He didn't know. The air was heavy withperfume. In the distance music reached him faintly, and the throband stir and color and glow for some minutes interested him as heglanced around the handsome room with its massed palms, its wealth offlowers, its brilliant lights, and streams of gorgeously gowned womenand prosperous-looking men, and then he wondered what had made himstart anything of this sort again. To come had been a suddendecision. Long ago the dreariness of functions such as these hadcaused their giving-up, but a fancy to look once more upon one hadpossessed him unaccountably, and he had come. 

Up-stairs in the men's room his reappearance had been banteringlycommented on, and with good-natured hand-shaking he had been welcomedback; but down here many faces were strange and figuresunrecognizable; and with something of shock he realized how few werethe years necessary to change the personnel of any division ofhumanity. The heat was intense, and moving farther back toward ascreen of palms near a half-open window, he pulled one slightlyforward that he might see and not be seen, and again watched eachnewcomer with mild speculation as to whether he or she were known ornot. 

For a while it was puzzling, this continuing arrival of new faces, with here and there one he knew well or slightly; but gradually itseffect chilled, and he was wondering if he could get away when heheard his name called. 

"Winthrop Laine! Of all people!" Miss French held out her hand. "From what loophole were you watching this passing show for man'sderision given? May I come in?"

"You may. "

Miss French moved behind the palms and pushed a tall leaf aside. "You and I are too old for these things, Winthrop. I don't know whyI come--to get away from myself, I suppose. Look at that MissCantrell! She parades her bones as if they were a private collectionof which she was proud! And did you ever see anything as hideous asthat gown Miss Gavins has on? Paris green couldn't be more deadly. I heard Mathilda Hickman tell her just now to be sure and wear it toher dinner next week, it was so becoming; and only yesterday she wasshrieking over it at a luncheon where everybody was talking about it, Mr. Trehan is to be at the dinner, and Mathilda wants every woman tolook her worst. Hello! There comes Channing and Hope and the cousinfrom the country. Rather a nice sort of person, awfully young andinexperienced, but--" She put up her lorgnette. "They are talkingto Miss Cantrell. Miss Keith is not becoming to Miss Cantrell, orMiss Gavins, either. Her shoulders are excellent and her headperfectly poised. That white dress suits her. Have you been in thedining-room?"

Laine came from behind the palms. "No; I was to wait for Hope. Awfully glad to have seen you, Robin. A stranger in a strange landhas a chance, but a man who has lost his place hasn't. People have away of closing up if you lose step, and I"--he laughed--"I lost steplong ago. I'll see you again. " And, watching, Miss French saw himtake possession of Miss Keith and go with her out of the room. 

Half an hour later Laine found a chair for Claudia at the end of thehall opposite the dining-room, and as she sat down he wiped hisforehead. "I used to play football, but--"

"You're out of practice? I don't believe you did take more thanthree men by the shoulders and put them aside. I don't understandfootball very well, but a dining-room seems to be the center-rush. Please look at that crowd over there!" She nodded toward the opendoor, through which a mass of men could be seen struggling. "Isn'tit queer--the eagerness with which a plate of salad is pursued?"

"And the earnestness with which it is devoured. " Laine put hishandkerchief in his pocket. Will you wait here a moment until I canget you something? I'll be back--"

"Indeed I won't. " Claudia stood up. "It's fun to watch, but onlyfruit from the tree of life would be worth a scrimmage of that kind. If I could get on top of a picture-frame or a curtain-pole, oranything from which I could look down on a show like this, I'd have abeautiful time, but"--she opened her fan--"it's rather stuffy to bein it. "

Laine glanced around. He knew the house well. Next to the library, but not opening into it, was a small room of Taillor's which couldonly be reached by a narrow passage at their right. He walked awayand looked in at the door. The room was empty. 

"I think it will be more comfortable over there, " he said, comingback, then saw she was talking to a man he had long known and longdisliked. He stopped a servant who was passing, a man who had oncebeen in the employ of one of his clubs. "Bring some stuff over hereand be quick, will you, David?" he said, then spoke to the mantalking to Miss Keith. 

His greeting to Dudley was not cordial. It was with difficultyindeed that he did not take Claudia away at once. Dudley was not thesort of man for her to have anything to do with. In a timeincredibly short, but to Laine irritatingly long, David was back, abundantly supplied; and with a nod he was directed to the room atthe end of the narrow hall, and Laine turned to the girl at his side. "Are you ready?"

"Good night. " Miss Keith held out her hand. "Bettina sent you manymessages. "

"I'm coming to get them--may I?" Mr. Dudley's eyes were franklyeager. "But where are you going? Laine always was a monopolist. What are you doing at a thing of this kind, anyhow, Laine? Don't payany attention to him, Miss Keith. He's mere facts and figures, andthe froth of life is not in him. I'm much better company. "

The last words were lost in the push of new arrivals, and quicklyLaine led the way to the room where David was waiting. Through theopen door the sound of music reached them faintly over the shrillrise and fall of many voices; and as Claudia sat down near the tableon which various plates had been placed she put her hands to thesides of her face and, laughing, drew them away. 

"Did you ever put a cockle-shell to your ear and notice its roar?"she asked. "That's how a Tea sounds when there're only women at it. When there're men it's more so. What is this?" She held her forksuspended for a moment. "It's awfully good, but very elusive. Whatdo you suppose it is?"

"A bunch of guesses wouldn't hit it. Clicot is providing theprovender, I believe; I see his men here, and the ambition ofClicot's life is to create a new dish. I'm glad you like it. It'sas near nothing as anything I ever ate. Are you comfortable? Isthat chair all right?"

Claudia nodded. "Why don't you sit down? I'm sorry we can't see thepeople, but it's nice to be out of the crowd. " She looked around theroom. "This is a very handsome house. I never saw more gorgeousflowers, and tomorrow, " she gave a queer little sigh, "tomorrow itwill all be over--and the flowers faded. "

"Faded things are the penalties of wealth. It's the one compensationfor follies of this sort that they are soon over. "

"I don't think they are always follies. When I was young--"

He looked down at her, in his eyes a quiet gleam. "When you werewhat?"

"Young. Really young, I mean. I had my party when I was eighteen. I remember it just as well. " She gave a happy little laugh. "But ofcourse we change with time. My sister says I am developing adreadful disease. It's a tendency. Did you ever have it?"

"A what?"

"A tendency--to think and wonder and ask questions, you know. Shesays people who have it are very trying. But how can you help athing you're born with?" She leaned forward, pushed the platesaside, and folded her arms on the table. "I always wondered aboutthings, but I didn't entirely wake up until I was over twenty. Idon't blame people for having things like this"--she waved her handsinclusively--"that is, if they like this kind of thing. " She lookedup at him. "We're just like children. All of us love to splurgeevery now and then. Don't we?"

"It looks that way. Splurge has a variety of forms. " Laine leanedforward, hands clasped loosely between his knees. "But thetendency--is it catching?"

She laughed. "In the country it is. I live in the country, but itdidn't develop in me until I had several winters in the city. I usedto love things like this. I didn't know much about a good many otherthings, and it was when I found out that I began to look at peopleand wonder if they knew, and cared, and what they were doing withit--their life I mean, their chance, their time, their money. Onewinter it got so bad Lettice sent me home. Lettice lives inWashington; she's my second sister. My oldest sister is a widow, andis still in London, where her husband died two years ago. I keptlooking for glad faces and real, sure-enough happiness; and so manypeople looked bored and bothered and tired that I couldn'tunderstand--and Lettice made me go home. Her husband is in Congress, and she said I wanted to know too much. "

"Have you yet found what you were looking for?" Laine leaned back inhis chair and shaded his eyes with his hand. 

"Yes. " She laughed lightly and got up. "You can find anything, Iguess, if you look for it right. And in such unexpected places youfind things!" She stopped and listened. "I believe people are goinghome. Please take me to Hope. I can't imagine what made us stay inhere so long!"

IX

DOROTHEA ASKS QUESTIONS

At the library window Dorothea drew the curtains aside and looked upand down the street. Presently she blew softly upon the pane andwith her finger made on it four large letters, then rubbed them outand went back to the mantel, before whose mirror, on tiptoe, shesurveyed the bow on her hair and straightened it with care. 

"I don't see why they don't come, " she said, aggrievedly, smoothingdown her skirt. "It's time, and I'm going to ring for tea, anyhow. Mother said I could pour it, and I'll play lady all by myself ifnobody comes to play it with. I believe"--she turned her head--"Ibelieve they're coming now. "

Again she went to the window, then rang for tea. "Quick, Timkins;please hurry and bring it in before they come, " she said. "They'llbe frozen. " And as Timkins disappeared she put a fresh log on thefire, drew the table closer to it, and seated herself at it. 

"I'm a chaperone lady. I'm chaperoning my Uncle Winthrop and myCousin Claudia!" In gleeful delight she rocked backward and forwardand twisted her hands together tightly. "I'm sorry mother has aheadache, but I certainly am glad I can pour tea for them. I don'tknow why anybody wants to go horseback-riding on a day like this, though; I'd freeze. " She straightened the embroidered cloth on thetable as Timkins put the tray on it, and lighted the lamp under thekettle, and, taking up the tea-caddy, she measured out a generousamount of its contents. 

"I'll be careful and not get burnt up. " She waved Timkins out. "They're coming right in. It's the funniest thing about UncleWinthrop, " she went on, as if to the tea-cups she was arranging. "Hedidn't want to come and see Cousin Claudia, and now he comes hereevery day. Wouldn't it be funny if he wanted her for asweetheart--and wouldn't it be grand!" Her arms were thrown out andthen hugged rapturously to her bosom; but instantly her face sobered. "He can't have her, though, because she's somebody else's. I wonderif he knows? He ought to, for Miss Robin says when he wants anythinghe never gives up until he gets it, and he can't get her if she'sgotten. Mother says he just comes here and takes her out and sendsher flowers and things because she asked him to be nice to her; but Idon't believe it's just for kindness. Gentler men aren't kind toladies if they don't like them. I believe-- Heigho, CousinClaudia!" She waved her hand from behind the table. "Have you had anice ride? Where's Uncle Winthrop?"

"Coming. "

Drawing off his gloves, Laine came in the library, and as he reachedthe table he took from Dorothea's hands the cup of tea just pouredand handed it to Claudia. 

"Are you frozen?" His voice was slightly worried. "We shouldn'thave gone--I did not know how very cold it was. "

"It wasn't a bit too cold. I love it. " Claudia shook her head. "Idon't want any tea until my hands can hold the cup, though. They_are_ cold. " With her foot on the fender, she held out first onehand and then the other to the blazing fire and laughed in Dorothea'swide-opened eyes. "What is it, Madam Hostess? Is anything thematter with me?"

"Your cheeks look like they're painted. They didn't when you wentout. "

"Do they?" Claudia put her hands to her face. "The wind did it. "Taking off her hat, she laid it on the table, loosened the hair onher temples, and sat down on the tapestried footstool near thehearth. "I'll have some tea now, please. Are there any sandwiches?I'm starving. Where's your mother, Dorothea?"

"Sick. Got a headache. I'm to pour tea, unless you'd rather. " Shegot up reluctantly. "Would you?"

"Indeed I wouldn't. " Claudia waved her back. "You suit that tablebeautifully. When you're a real grown-up lady you won't leave outanything; but this time you forgot the sugar. "

"Did I? I was thinking of something else, I guess. " Two lumps wereput in the cup Laine handed her. "Where did you all go thisafternoon?"

Claudia looked at Laine. "I don't know the names of the placesaround here. Where did we go?"

"We went--" Laine put his cup on the table and, drawing a chaircloser to the fire, sat down. "I've forgotten the name of the road. "

"Forgotten!" Dorothea stopped the rattling of the spoons. "You toldme once you knew all the roads within twenty miles of New York in thepitch-dark. I think it's very funny you don't know where you'vebeen. You couldn't have been looking much. "

"We didn't look at all. It was too cold--" Laine put another log onthe fire--"the roads were frozen, and to keep the horses fromslipping was all we could attend to. "

"Couldn't you talk?"

"Not a great deal. Miss Keith insists upon keeping her horse aheadof mine. It is snowing! Did you know it?"

Dorothea jumped up and ran to the window. "It wasn't just now when Ilooked out. Yes, it is. " She peered through the pane, pressing hernose close to it. "It hasn't snowed since that first week you came, Cousin Claudia, and that's nearly a month ago. I hope it will snowfifty feet deep, so the cars can't run, and that the river willfreeze so the boats can't go down it, and then you will have to stay;and so would we, and we could all be together Christmas. Don't youwish so, too, Uncle Winthrop?" She came back and leaned against heruncle's chair. "Did you know Cousin Claudia was going home nextweek?"

"She told me so this afternoon. "

"I certainly am. " Elbows on her knees and chin in her hands, Claudialooked straight into the fire. "If your wish comes true, Dorothea, I'll get an air-ship. I expected to stay three weeks, and will havestayed five before I get back. I ought to be home this minute. "

"I don't think five weeks is long. I think it's very short. "Dorothea took a seat on a stool at her uncle's feet, and looked up inhis face. "Father says he thinks it's downright mean in her to gobefore we do. Don't you think she might stay, Uncle Winthrop?"

"I do. " Laine changed his position and looked away from Dorothea'seyes. "Is there nothing we can do to make her change her mind?"

"Is there?" Dorothea fumed to Claudia. "I think you ought to, formother says Uncle Winthrop is just beginning to act like a Christianin coming to see her regularly, and when you go he might stop actingthat way. Are you going to stay to dinner to-night?" She tookLaine's hand and intertwined her fingers in his. "Please do. "

"In these clothes?"

Dorothea hesitated. "Mother wouldn't like them, but--" She jumpedup and clapped her hands in excited delight. "Mother's got aheadache and isn't coming down to-night, and if you will stay I thinkshe will let me take dinner with you. I hate foolishness aboutclothes, and these are the becomingest ones you wear; and, besides, at the Hunt Club you eat in them, and why can't you do it here justonce? Wouldn't it be magnificent if I could sit up?" Dorotheawhirled round and round. "Father is out of town, and Channing has atiny bit of cold and can't leave his room, and I'm so lonesome. Oh, please, Uncle Winthrop, please stay!"

"Ask Miss Keith if I can stay. She may have other engagements. "

"Have you?" Dorothea was on her knees by Claudia, hands on hershoulders. "And may he stay? You won't have to change your clothes, either. You look precious in those riding things, and, when you takethe coat off, anybody who didn't know would think you were a littlegirl, the skirt is so short and skimpy; and your hair with a bow inthe back looks like me. Can't he stay, Cousin Claudia?"

"If he wants to, of course. I'm sorry your mother is sick. Shedidn't tell me at lunch. "

"It's just a headache, and as father is away and there was nothing togo to, I think she thought she'd take a rest and read something. Areyou going out to-night?"

Claudia got up. "No, I'm not going out; but I have a letter towrite. Will you stay to dinner, Mr. Laine?"

"I will. Thank you very much, Miss Warrick. The invitation wasforced from Miss Keith, but I accept it notwithstanding. " Laine, whohad risen, put his hand on Dorothea's shoulder. "I think we willhave a very nice dinner-party. "

"I'll chaperone it!" Dorothea rose to full height and balancedherself on her toes. "Miss Robin French said she couldn't go on sometrip the other day because there was no chaperone; and if a lady witha mole on her chin and nearly forty has to have a chaperone, I guessyou all will. Please don't stay long, Cousin Claudia. If you don'twant to see mother, Uncle Winthrop, I'll talk to you, for afterdinner I will have to go right straight to bed, being abrought-up-on-a-book child, and then you and Cousin Claudia will beall by yourselves. Maybe if you asked mother, though, she might letme sit up just this once. Shall I go and tell her you say so?"

Laine held the curtains for Claudia to pass out. "We wouldn't be socruel as to keep her up, would we?" he asked, and smiled in the eyesturned quickly from his. "You will not be gone long, and you won'tchange your dress?"

"I will be back in time for dinner--and I won't change my dress. Tell Dorothea about the birds we saw this afternoon. "

During the hour that passed before Claudia came back Dorothea had achance that seldom came for uninterrupted conversation, and that heruncle said little was not noticed for some time. Presently shelooked up, "I don't believe you've opened your lips since Cousin Claudia wentup-stairs, " she said. "I don't wonder you don't know where you wentthis afternoon if you didn't see any more than you're hearing now. You don't know a thing I've been talking about. "

Laine raised his head with a start. "Oh yes, I do. You weresaying--saying--"

"I told you so! You didn't even know where you were! You were wayoff somewhere. " Dorothea's voice was triumphant. "I want to ask yousomething, Uncle Winthrop. I won't tell anybody. " She settledherself more comfortably on the stool at his feet, and crossed herarms on his knees. "Don't you think my Cousin Claudia is nice?"

"Very nice. " Laine took out his handkerchief, wiped his glasses, andheld them to the light. 

"And don't you think she has a lovely mouth? When she talks I watchher like I haven't got a bit of sense. " Dorothea scanned her uncle'sface critically. "Your eyes are dark; and hers are light, with darkrims around the seeing part, and she just comes to your shoulder; butyou look so nice together. I hope you feel sorry about the thingsyou said about her before she came. "

"What things?"

"That maybe her face was red and her hair was red and her hands werered, or if they weren't, maybe they were blue. Aren't you sorry?"

"Very sorry, Dorothea. I was rude and tired and worried thatevening. Let's forget it. "

"I never have told her, but I supposed you must have changed yourmind, for you've been here so much lately, and gone to so many placeswith her that you don't like to go to, that I thought--"

"Thought what, Dorothea?"

"That maybe--" Dorothea stroked Laine's fingers one by one--"maybeyou liked her a little bit. Don't you remember I asked you please tolike her, and you didn't seem to think you would. But you do, don'tyou? I won't tell anybody. Don't you like her, Uncle Winthrop?"

"I like her very much, Dorothea. " Into Laine's clear-cut face thecolor crept to his temples, "She is very different from any oneI've--"

"I knew you would. " Dorothea's hands came together excitedly. "Iknew it the minute I saw her, for she isn't a bit frilly, and youdon't like frills any more than I do, and she doesn't, either. She'ssees through people like they were glass, and she tells us thegrandest, shiveringest, funniest stories you ever heard. I bet she'stelling Channing one this minute. She loves children. I'm so gladyou like her, Uncle Winthrop. I knew you would if you saw her, but Ididn't know you'd see her so much. "

"How could I help it if I saw her once? The trouble has been to gether to see me. Perhaps she thinks I am too old to--"

"Oh, she knows you aren't the sweetheart kind--Miss Robin French toldher so, and mother and everybody says you are too set in your ways toget married, and that's why I think she likes you, because you aren'tthat sort. She hates flum talk, and you talk sense and things. Shetold father so. Here she is now. Please stay with Uncle Winthrop, Cousin Claudia, while I ask mother if I may take dinner with you. "Dorothea got up. "You took off your riding boots, didn't you?"

Claudia looked at her slippers. "I surely did. I never wear highshoes in the house. Your mother says you may take dinner with us, but she wants to see you as soon as it is over. Her headache isbetter, but she doesn't feel like coming down to-night. "

X

A DISCOVERY

In a chair of curious carving, his feet on a pile of books which hadbeen unpacked, but for which there was as yet no place, WinthropLaine leaned back, partly relaxed, partly tense, and with half-shuteyes looked at a picture on the wall opposite. For an hour, twohours, he had sat like this. On his desk was an unfinished article, but "The Punishments of Progress" did not interest to-night, andafter vain effort to write he had thrown the pages aside and yieldedto the unrest which possessed him. 

In his hands was a small calendar, and with it he tappedunconsciously the arm of his chair; but after a while he again lookedat it and with his pencil marked the date of the month. It was thefifteenth of December. Miss Keith was going home on the eighteenth. Three days of her visit yet remained, a month of it had passed, andafter she went-- He stirred uneasily, changed his position, put downthe calendar, then got up and began to walk the length of the roombackward and forward. A long mirror filled the space between the twosouthern windows, and for some time as he reached it he avoided theface seen therein; but after a while he stopped in front of it, handsin his pockets, and spoke with smiling bitterness to it. 

"Take it off, man, take it off! All men wear masks, but they needn'tgo to bed with them. For years you've pretended, smiled, sworn, played with all the toys, worked with the best you had, and believedyou were content. And you're finding out at forty what a fool you'vebeen. You love her. She isn't married yet, if she is engaged toanother man--and if you've no fight in you, go make a hole and get init!"

In the glass he saw his face whiten, saw the lines on his foreheadswell, saw his eyes grow dark with rebellious pain, and, turningaway, went to a window, opened it, and let the cold air blow uponhim. Few people were on the street, and in the windows opposite waslittle light. The neighborhood was exclusively correct; and onlythat evening walking home from the club the man with him had franklyenvied his manner of life, his freedom and independence. He closedthe window, turned off some of the lights, and went back to hischair. "I am an entirely free and independent person, " he saidaloud. "A most desirable condition for a man without a heart. " Whydid men have hearts, anyhow, and especially such a queer kind as hehad. In the days of his youth he had expected the days of hismaturity to find him married, find him with the responsibilities andobligations of other men; but he had strange views of marriage. Oneby one his friends had entered the estate; he had helped them enterit, but he had acquired an unhealthy habit of watching their venturewith wonder at its undertaking and with doubt of its success, and theyears had gone by with no desire on his part to assume the risk. What he saw was not the life he wanted. Just what he did want he wasnot sure; but years of contact with much that blights and withers hadnot killed his belief in certain old-fashioned things, and if theycould not come true the journey would be made alone. 

What whimsical ways fate had of deciding great issues. Four weeksago he was something of a piece of mechanism, fairly content with hisdrab-colored life; and now a girl had entered it and brought to himvisions too fair and beautiful to be viewed unveiled, and he knew atlast the mystery and power of love. Almost a week of her stay hadgone before he met her. In those that followed, he had seen her manytimes, but frequently he had to stand back and know that others weretaking her time when there was none for him to lose. 

Should love come to him, he had imagined he would pursue it with thesame directness and persistence which had impelled the securing ofwhatever was determined upon, and instead he was that most despicableof things--a coward. 

She was so young--fourteen years younger than he--and what was his tooffer in exchange for her life of varied interests, of sweet, sane, helpful, happy things of which he knew so little? He had thought heknew life, its all sides; and unknown to herself she had shown himwhat had not been understood before, and his was cold and colorlessby the side of the warmth and glow of hers. 

Yesterday he had known, however, he would not wait long. After shehad returned to her home he would go to it and tell her why he hadcome. All through the day certain words had sung in his ears, andover his books had danced and blurred the figures he was making; andbefore him in fancy she was waiting for his coming when the day wasdone, was in the room with outstretched hands to give him greeting ashe entered the door. The light of a new vision had blinded, and inits fire the loneliness of his life had stood out in chill clearness, and no longer could it be endured. Some one to care if the days weredark, some one to share the giving and taking of life. At thethought of trust so sacred, his face had whitened, and in his heartunconscious prayer had sprung. 

That was yesterday. This afternoon he had stopped at his sister'shome for tea, as he had done for days past now, and, Dorothea beingsick, he had gone up to see her and give her the book bought for her. As usual, she had much to say, and he let her talk uninterruptedly. It was of Claudia that she talked, always of Claudia, and he hadlistened in a silence that gave chance for much detail. 

"She gets more letters!" Dorothea's hands came together as if veryfull. "Every day there is one from the same person, sometimes two, and specials and telegrams; and sometimes he talks over thetelephone. I know his handwriting now. She lets me come in her roomwhenever I want to. I don't see how one person could have so much tosay. I knew he must be her sweetheart, and I asked mother, andmother says she's engaged to a, man in Washington. Miss Robin Frenchtold her. Mother thinks it's real strange Claudia didn't tell her. "And he had answered nothing, but had gone down the steps and out ofthe house, and to no one said good night. 

XI

A CHANCE ENCOUNTER

Claudia glanced at the clock. She must be dressed by seven. Hurriedly she put aside the letters which could wait, and began towrite. 

"Just three days more, precious mother, and I will leave for home. I've seen such remarkable things; heard such wonderful music; been toso many parties and luncheons and teas and dinners; met so manypeople, some fearfully, dreadfully dressed, some beautifully, gorgeously gowned, that my brain is a plum-pudding, and my mind meremoving pictures. It's been a lovely visit. Channing is a dear, andHope has done her full duty, but it's something of a strain to dwellin the tents of the wealthy. I'm so glad we're not wealthy, mother. There are hundreds of things I'd like money for, but I've gotten tobe as afraid of it as I am of potato-bugs when the plants are wellup. It has a way of making you think things that aren't so. I dohope Uncle Bushrod's cold is better. 

"I've tried to fill all the orders from everybody, but some I haven'tfound yet. Hope and her friends shop only in the expensive stores, and the prices are so paralyzing that, though outwardly I don'tblink, I'm inwardly appalled; but I put the things aside as ifundecided whether to get them or something nicer. I'm afraid I don'tmean I'm glad we're not wealthy. Certainly when shopping I don'twish it. I want millions then. Millions! And when I get among thebooks I'd like to be a billionaire. To-morrow I'm going out bymyself and finish up everything. Hope would be horrified at mypurchases, for Hope has forgotten when she, too, had to be careful inher expenditures. Her brother hasn't. 

"Did I tell you about the crazy mistake I made? I thought, from whatDorothea told me, he was an old gentleman, her mother's uncle, andwrote him a note before I met him. Dorothea adores him, and when hisdog died I was so sorry I told him so. I wonder what does make me dosuch impulsive things! I get so discouraged about myself. I'llnever, never be a proper person. He isn't old. 

"I wish you could see the letter Beverly wrote me from MammyMalaprop. She says she is 'numberating the date of my return to thedissolute land in which I live, and is a-preparing to serve forsupper all the indelicacies of the season. ' If I didn't know oldMalaprop I'd think Beverly was making up her messages, but noimagination could conceive of her twists and turns of the Englishlanguage. 

"Are the hens laying at all? and please tell Andrews to watch thesheep carefully; it's so bitterly cold. 

"I've had a beautiful time, but, oh, mother dear, I shall be so gladto get home, where there are real things to do and where you all loveme just for myself! Every night I kiss your picture and wish it wasyou. Best love for everybody. I have Gabriel's little trumpet. 

 "Devotedly, " "CLAUDIA. "

"P. S. --We are going again to-night to the opera. If only you weregoing, too! I never see anything beautiful, hear anything beautiful, that I don't wish you could see it and hear it also. I'm so glad Ibrought my riding-habit. They have been the best things of all, thelong, splendid rides in the country. So much nicer than motoring. Mr. Laine rides better than any city man I know. Three days more andI leave for home. 

 "C. "

Guilty gladness at being alone, at getting off by herself and goingwhere she chose, so possessed her the next day that as Claudia passedMrs. Warrick's sitting-room she tip-toed lest she be called in and amoment of her precious freedom be lost. Several hours of daylightwere still left, but there was much to be done; and hurriedly shewent down the steps, hurriedly walked to the avenue, and caught the'bus she saw coming with a sigh of thankfulness. In the center ofthe shopping district she got out and disappeared soon after in oneof the stores. It was her only chance for the simple purchases to bemade for the slim purses of her country friends; and as she readfirst one list and then the other she smiled at the variety of humandesires and the diversities of human needs, and quickly madedecisions. A letter received just before leaving the house had notbeen read, but its writing was recognized, and going to the door shetried to make out the scrawly contents and get, at the same time, thebreath of fresh air brought in by its opening as hurrying customerscame and went. To read there was impossible, however. Darkness hadfallen; and, going outside for a moment, she looked up and down atthe surging, pushing, shivering crowd and wondered as to the time. She was not through, and she must finish before going back. 

"Is Madame Santa Claus ready to go home?"

Startled, she looked up. "Oh, Mr. Laine, I'm so glad! Indeed I'mnot through, and it's dark already. Do you think Hope will mind if Idon't get back for tea?"

"I think not. " He smiled in the troubled face. "What is left to bedone?"

"This among other things. " Together they moved slowly down thecrowded street, and she held the letter in her hand toward him. "It's from Mrs. Prosser, who has eleven children and a husband who istheir father and that's all. They live on faith and the neighbors, but she has sold a pig and sent me part of the money with which tobuy everybody in the family a Christmas present. That's all I'vemade out. "

Laine took the sheets of paper torn from a blank-book and looked atthem under an electric light. "This Syro-Phoenician writing needswhat it can't get out here, " he said, after a half-minute's pause. "A cipher requires a code, and a code means sitting down. Aren't youcold? You are. Come over here and we'll have some tea and work itout together. " And before protest could be made they were in a hotelacross the street and at a table on which a shaded light permitted acloser examination of the penciled scrawl which went for writing. Slowly he read aloud:

"DERE Miss CLAUDIA, --The chillern is near bout set me crazy sence Itole 'em I was agoin' to ask you to do me some favors which is to buyfor me some New York krismus presents. I have sole the pig and I ama-puttin' in this six dollars and sixteen cents, I would have sentseven dollars even but the baby had the colic so bad I had to gitsome more of that pain-killer which I give the hoss onct, and Johnnielost the change comin' home from the store. The baby is well, butthe hoss ain't. The followin' is what I would like to have. Ifenyou can't git the things, git what you can. I have confidence inyour jedgment. 

"2 pare sox and a maresharm pipe for the old man. Don't spend morethan fifty cents on him. He drunk up the whiskey your ma give me forthe mincemeat for Thanksgivin' and I had to lock him up in thegarret. He'd like the pipe yaller. 

"1 A blew skarf pin--Johnnie. 

"2 A bracelet. Bras will do if you can't git gold. Minnie is themeekest and don't look for much but she wants a bracelet awful bad. 

"3 A box of paper and envellopes for Maizzie--Maizzie's got a bow. He lives in the next county. I don't let the chillern say nothin'. I'm 'fraid they'll scare the ducks. 

"4 A wax doll in pink tarlton for Rosy. She won't be here nextkrismus. The doctor done tole me, and my hart it have been hurtin'so ever since that I have to hide every now and then so as to git mybreath good. Sometimes I can't help chokin', I can't. She seen adoll in pink tarlton onct and the other night I heard her talkin' upthe chimney and she was askin' Santa Claus to bring her one if hecould spare it. Ifen you can't git all the things with the pigmoney, please'm git the doll, and in pink, please'm, and let theothers go. "

Laine took up his cup of tea and drank it slowly. "Part of this ishard to make out, " he said, after a moment. "I can't see it verywell. "

"All of it is hard. " Claudia put a piece of cracker in her mouth. "But it's a wonder she can write at all. The boys are as trifling astheir father, and she does the work of five people. Is that all?"

Laine began again. "Becky say she don't want nothin' but a pare ofsilk stockings. She's crazy, but she seen the summer girls with 'emand I don't reckon it will do no harm if we ain't pracktical atkrismus. It do seem like krismus ain't for prackticals. 40 cents isher share. 

"Sam he wants a harmonicum, and Bobbie he just set his hart on asled. I don't reckon you can get that in your trunk, and ifen youcan't a necktie will have to do. The other chillern is so small itdon't make no difference what you get for them, any little thing youcan pick up will please 'em. They is all so excited about havin'presents from New York that they's plum crazy. I don't know what thecounty would do without you, Miss Claudia. You is everybody's friendand everybody is--"

Claudia put out her hand. "Oh, that part doesn't matter. I'll takeit now. We'll have to go. Are you ready?"

"Not quite. " Laine, who had finished the letter, handed it to her, then took out a note-book and pencil. "Are you sure you can rememberthe things? Hadn't I better write them down?"

Claudia shook her head. "Not a bit of use. These are the last toget, and then I'm through. Are you?"

"Am I what?"

"Through. "

"Through what?"

"With your Christmas things. I don't suppose men have as much to doas women and don't have to begin so early. Some people don't loveChristmas. It's such a pity. "

"It's a pity the old Christmas has given way to the new one. Withmany it's a sort of hold-up. I don't believe in it. "

Claudia's arms were folded on the table, and her eyes were gravelylooking into his. "What kind do you believe in?"

Into Laine's face the color crept slowly, then he laughed. "I reallydon't know. I only know the present kind is wrong. "

"You know a great many things that are wrong, don't you?"

"I'm afraid I do. " With his handkerchief Laine wiped his glasses, put them back, and again tapped the table. "That is, I know a greatmany things that aren't nice to know. "

"Most of us do. It isn't difficult to see what isn't nice in peopleor things. " She got up. "I'm sorry you don't love Christmas. "

"Why should I love it? For the men at the office there are checks;for my brother's widow and children are other checks; for Hope, another. A man makes a mess of buying presents. Cigars for men andflowers for women are the two orders telephoned in advance for thefew so remembered. The employees at the clubs, the servants at thehouse, the--the associations which do things merely mean more money, and money--"

"I think I should hate Christmas, too, if it merely meant the writingof checks or the giving of gold. I wouldn't want a million if therewas no love with it. " Eyes on her muff, she smoothed it softly. "That is what Christmas is for. To take time to remember, and to letpeople know we do care--and to make somebody glad. Let me see. " Onher fingers she enumerated the things desired by Mrs. Prosser. "Harmonicum, silk stockings, socks, yellow pipe, blue scarf-pin, bracelet (brass or gold), box of paper, sled, and--"

"A doll in pink tarleton. " Again in Laine's face the color creptslowly. He hesitated. "In all my life I never bought a doll or asled or anything except books for children. May I go with you? Andwould--would you mind if I got that doll?"

XII

CHRISTMAS SHOPPING

Five minutes later Laine and Claudia were caught in the crowd ofChristmas shoppers and valiantly made their way to a counter on whichwere objects gay and glittering. With a seriousness and persistencythat was comic to the girl watching him, Laine began with the bluescarf-pin and the bracelet, but not until he was giving an order didshe touch him on the arm and draw him aside. 

"We can't get those, Mr. Laine, indeed we can't. " She nodded in thedirection of the counter. "There aren't but six dollars and sixteencents of the pig money, and a dozen things to buy yet. "

"Oh, blow the pig money! She won't know the difference. That pin isonly one dollar and ninety-eight cents and the bracelet two dollarsand forty-eight cents. Nothing could be worse than that, could it?"

"It could. Johnnie is a lazy good-for-nothing, and twenty-five centsis all his pin is to cost. It will be big and blue, but not a pennyover twenty-five can be spent on it. I think we'd better get thedoll and the silk stockings and the sled first. I've already boughta doll for Rosy, but it's in white, and we'll have to get the pinkone. "

"And is the pig money going to do all that?" Laine's eyes weresearching Claudia's. 

"It is. " She laughed and turned away as if to see some one who waspassing. "It doesn't matter whose pig. "

"Then I'll play the pig to-night! I've played it the wrong way oftenenough. Why can't we be sensible? I've got a spending jag on, andI've never been Christmas shopping before. Something is happening tomy backbone, something that used to happen in the days when I hung upmy stocking. Please be good and let me have a little Christmas!"

Claudia's forehead wrinkled and for a moment she hesitated, thenagain her eyes sought his doubtfully. "I don't know whether I oughtto. You are very kind, but--"

"But nothing. I'm merely very selfish. Those things are all right. Come on and let's go in the toy department. The doll is the mostimportant of all, and don't dolls have carriages or something? Here, this way to the elevator. "

To the joy of it, the surrender to inherent instinct, to the childthat is dormant in all, Claudia and Laine yielded, went in and outamong the sea of toys, and critically doll after doll was examined, compared, laid down and taken up, and finally decided upon; and asLaine gave the address he looked at Claudia for final confirmationand approval. 

"You're sure it's pink? Her mother said pink, you know. "

"Pink! It's the pinkest pink I ever saw. It is much too grand. But, oh, those patient little eyes! I didn't think she'd be herethis Christmas. You will make her so happy, Mr. Laine. "

"Not I. " He shook his head. "It is you. What does a man know aboutthings like this? But what else does she want? I never had anyopinion of a one-piece Santa Claus. These things would make a monkwant children of his own. How about those youngsters that anythingwill please? and don't you have to have things for stockings?"

With hurried decisions, as if afraid he might not be allowed to dowhat he chose, Laine went up and down and in and out among the manysections into which the department was divided, and made hisselections with entire disregard of appropriateness; and Claudia, keeping near, countermanded with equal firmness all that was unwise. So warm at times did their dissensions wax that the sales-girlfollowing would smile and point out something before unseen, hoping amutual surrender would accept the compromise, and presently shebrought up a cash register and held it toward Laine. 

"Most children like these, " she said, "and as your wife doesn't carefor the mechanical toys--"

Laine turned away. With pitiless reality the play of it all cameover him, and he walked off lest the sudden surging of his blood beheard. 

"But I'm not his wife. " Claudia's voice was cool and even. "Hedoesn't know the children he is getting these things for, and I do. But Channing would like this register, Mr. Laine. And Dorothea toldme she wanted a drawing-table like that one over there. Have youbought Dorothea's present yet?"

Laine came back. "Only books. Her mother gets the other things forme. If she'd like that, get it. "

Out of his voice had gone all spirit, and Claudia, noticing, lookedup. "You're tired, aren't you? I think we'd better stop. "

Laine laughed. "Tired? No, I'm not tired. I'm having a great time. Playing make-believe is a good game. I haven't played it lately, andI was doing it rather hard. I wonder what that bunch of people areover there for? A number of children seem to be among them. "

The girl waiting on them looked around. It was Santa Claus, sheexplained, who was taking the names and addresses, with a list of thepresents most wanted by the children, who were there to tell wherethey lived. "Some of them have been here all day. That little lamefellow was among the first to come, and Santa Claus hasn't seen himyet. The crowd pushes him out so, and there's no one to lift him uphigh enough to be seen. He's held that piece of paper in his handfor hours. "

Laine looked closer. On the outskirts of the crowd, his thin littleface still eagerly trying to peer between the shifting circles, hiscrutches held tightly by hands too thin to grasp them properly, hesaw the boy pointed out by the girl, and, without a word, he walkedtoward him. As he drew nearer, the head of Santa Claus could be seenover those of the crowd, but to the child he was still invisible; andas Laine saw the pinched face he swore softly under his breath. 

For half a minute he stood by the boy's side, then touched him on theshoulder. "What is it, son? Can't you make the old fellow see you?"

The child shook his head. "Somebody always gets in ahead. I ain'ttall enough. "

"Here, hold your crutches. " With a swift movement Laine swung theboy on his shoulders. "There, can you see him all right?"

"Yes, sir. And he can see me!" The thin little hand was held up, and Laine felt the quiver that ran over the frail body. "He sees me!"

"Well, my man"--Santa Claus was noticing at last--"what is it thatyou want?"

"A coat for mother. Black, please. " Soft and eager the words camequickly. "And a worsted skirt, and some shoes for Dick, and a mufffor Katie. "

"Oh, I'm not bringing anything but toys this time. Only toys. Quick, what are they?"

On his shoulders again Laine felt a quiver, this time of suddenrelaxation, and heard a sob that was quickly smothered. "Oh, I don'tneed toys, and mother hasn't got a piece of coat. "

Laine coughed and caught the eye of Santa Claus, and by telepathymade the latter understand his questions must continue. Two minutesand they were over, the child's name and address taken, his desiresmade known, and as he put him down on the floor Laine took from thetrembling fingers the piece of paper which for hours had been tightlyheld and put it in his pocket. 

"All right, son. " He slipped some money in his hand. "Rundown-stairs and get something to eat before you go home, and don'tworry about the things--they'll be there Christmas. Scoot!" Andwith a pat Laine sent him off. 

Coming back he turned to Claudia. "Are you through up here? Theyellow pipe and the socks for the man who gets locked in the garretare down-stairs, I suppose. "

For answer Claudia looked in his face as if not hearing. "Mercifulgoodness!" she said. "I had forgotten all about this being Tuesday!I ought to be home this minute. A friend from Washington is comingto dinner to-night. What time is it?"

Laine looked at his watch. "A friend from Washington" was what heread. He turned the face toward her. "What is it? I can't see itin this light. "

"Seven-twenty-five!" Claudia sat down dejectedly. "You don'tsuppose they could be waiting, do you?"

"I don't. " Laine smiled a twisted little smile. "Channing by natureis a train-despatcher. Dinner on the dot and served swiftly is hisone household demand. They will be half through before we can getthere. "

"And I'm starving. " She got up. "Well, I can't help it. I had nobusiness forgetting, but I'm always doing things I oughtn't. "

"We'll go up to Sherry's. Dinner isn't limited to Hope's house. I'll telephone and explain. "

"Oh, I mustn't! It isn't just dinner. I have an engagement. Do youthink we could get there very quickly? I can't understand how Iforgot!"

XIII

MR. LAINE GOES SHOPPING ALONE

"Did you ring, sir?"

Moses, standing at the door, waited, and as he waited he talked tohimself. "Something is the matter with Mr. Laine. He ain't nevercall Gineral's name since he done pass away, and I know the miss ofhim has been a-smartin', but don't seem like that would have made himso restless like he been. 'Tain't like him to come in and go rightout, and come back and go out again. He got something on his mind, akind of warfare like. " He coughed slightly and again spoke. "Didyou ring, Mr. Laine?"

"I did. Five minutes ago. As a member of the leisure class you'dtake a blue ribbon, Moses. Where in the devil are you? Why don'tyou come in? I can't talk to air. "

"I was waitin' to see if I was mistook: about the bell. " Moses cameinside the room. 

"Where I come from folks don't step so lively as they do up here, andold Colonel Tayloes, he used to say there ain't nothin' so inelegantas hurry, lessen 'tis worry. But of course I shouldn't have had nodiscussion in my mind about that bell. I got a bad way of projectin'when--"

"You don't want to move. You have. Any day an affidavit is neededto that effect I'll sign it. Did you go to that address I gave youyesterday?"

"Yes, sir. I went and I been a-tryin' to forgit I went ever since Igot back. It's God's truth the boy told you, I seen him and his ma, and all the other children 'cept those at work, and the whole of 'emwas livin' in two rooms, and a closet where the biggest boy slept. Their pa he got kilt at the shops where he work, and the lawyer whatundertook to get damages got 'em, and they ain't seen him since. "

"Did you notice the size of the woman and the age of the children?"

"Yes, sir. The mother she come near 'bout up to my shoulder and wasthin and wore-out lookin'. The two little ones was four and twoyears old. You saw the lame one. There's a girl seven. She's apuller-out of bastin's, her ma said, and the oldest girl is fourteen. She's a runner, or a cash, or somethin' in a store. The biggest boyis in a foundry-shop and the lame one sells papers. "

"A mother and six children. " Laine made some notes in a book and putit back in his pocket. "I'm going out. Have a cab here ateight-thirty. The things I bring back will be put in the room at theend of the hall. On Christmas Eve you are to buy what I've mentionedin this"--he handed him an envelope--"and with them take the bundlesin the room to the place you went to yesterday. You are not to knowwho sent them, and when you come back you are to forget you've been, and no one is to be told. You have a great habit of telling Dorotheathings. I'm understood, am I?"

"Yes, sir. You is understood, I know about a left hand and a righthand. God knows I'll be glad to go again if it's to take someChristmas to them. That woman's face kinder hant me ever sence Iseen it. 'Twasn't mad or nothin', but plum beat out. I had to makea little egg-nog for my stomach when I got home. 'Tain't time foregg-nog, but a disturbance in the stomach--"

"You're having a disturbance in your stomach too often. Get thatcab, will you, and tell them to hurry. "

Two hours later he was back. No doubt he had done foolishly, boughtunwisely; but there had been no time for indecision, and the womanwho waited on him had been a great help. As he was shown warmdresses and thick coats for the mother and little girls, suits andshoes and stockings for the boys, bedclothing, towels, soap, ribbons, and neckties, he had smiled at the absurdity of his opinion beingasked concerning things of which he was as ignorant as a blind baby;but with determination he kept on until the woman told him he hadgotten enough. With the toys he was more confident; and, rememberingClaudia's restrictions, he had exercised what he believed wasexcellent judgment and only bought what was probably appropriate. 

When the bed in the end room had been piled with his purchases, thedoor locked, and the key in Moses's pocket, Laine went into thelibrary, turned off its brilliant lights, and, leaving only the lampburning, closed the door, sat down in his high-back chair, andlighted a cigar. After the stir and glow of the store the silence ofthe room was oppressive, its emptiness chilled, and, unthinking, heput his hand down by the side of his chair and nipped his fingers ashe was wont to do when calling General. With an indrawn breath hedrew his hand back and put it in his pocket. His Christmas shoppingwas over. A very unexpected Christmas shopping it had been. In allthat city of millions there were few personal purchases to be madefor others. What had to be gotten Hope got. Not since the death ofhis mother had Christmas meant more than something to be dreaded andendured. And to Claudia it meant so much. 

Why had she come into his life? Why was hers the divine gift ofrecognition which dispensed with the formal development of friendshipand yielded, as a flower its fragrance, the warmth and gladness, thesurety and genuineness, that so long he had looked for. Apparentlyshe was as unconscious as Dorothea, and yet too many men had lovedher for her not to understand. Not by the subtlest sign had sheshown, however. Indifference or dislike would have been moreencouraging, but her cordial frankness had been that of unstirreddepths. 

Suppose she was engaged to another man? Was that any reason why heshould not tell her of his love, ask her to be his wife? Puritanicscruples such as his were beyond pardon. A sense of honor might gotoo far. Why didn't he find out if it were true what Dorothea hadtold him? God! To have had a vision, only to go through life indarkness!

An hundred times in fancy he had heard the sweep of her skirts, thesound of her footsteps, the tones of her voice, and laughter gay andsweet and soft; an hundred times had seen the glad eyes grow grave, the forehead wrinkle in fine folds, the quick turn of her head; anhundred times had felt the touch of her hands; and he had never askedHope to bring her to his home, lest her spirit should not come again. 

The badinage of other days came to him, the days when women hadrather bothered. They would be amused, these women, did they knowhis surrender to the god unknown at that time--the god he hadsometimes smiled at because he had not known. Day after to-morrowshe was going home. He had not seen her since the afternoon they hadbeen shopping together. The man from Washington had claimed hertime, and he had stayed away. Who was this man? To ask Hope orChanning had been impossible. Dorothea would be delighted to tellhim. The instincts of her sex were well developed in Dorothea; andshe missed no chance of letting him know of Claudia's engagements, ofwhat she did, and where she went, and from whom her flowers came. Doubtless she would be delighted to tell him even more. 

He got up and began to walk the length and breadth of the room. Thesound of his footsteps was lost in the heavy rugs, and only theticking of the clock broke the stillness, and presently it struck thehour of midnight. He took out his watch and looked at it. "Tomorrowshe is going home, " he said. 

XIV

AN INFORMAL VISIT

At the door of what was still called the nursery Laine stood amoment, hesitating whether to go in or to go away. In a lowrocking-chair Claudia was holding Channing, half-asleep in her arms;and at her feet Dorothea, on a footstool, elbows on knees and chin inthe palms of her hands, was listening so intently to the story beingtold that for half a minute his presence was not noted. 

Presently she looked up and saw him. "Come in. " Her voice was ahigh whisper. "It's the grandest story. Wait a minute, CousinClaudia. " She ran toward the door and drew him in. "You'll have tostay with us, " she said, "because mother and father have gone out. Some kind of a relation is in town and they had to go. Channing'sgot an awful cold, and mother said he could have anything he wanted, and he took Cousin Claudia to tell him stories. She's been doing itever since dinner. He's asleep now, but--"

"I'm not asleep. " Channing's eyes opened blinkingly. "She said theyfound the squirrel in a hollow down by the chestnut-tree, and themoonlight on the snow--the moonlight--on--the--snow. " His head fellback on Claudia's bosom and, with a smile, she nodded to Laine andheld out her hand. 

"The spirit is valiant, but the flesh prevails. I'm so sorry Hopeand Channing are out. "

"I'm not. " He drew a cushioned wicker chair close to the fire. "It's been long since I heard a good fairy story. Please don't stop. "

Dorothea pushed the stool aside and settled herself comfortably inher uncle's lap. "It isn't a fairy story. You don't tell fairystories at Christmas; they're for summer, when the windows are openand they can hide in the flowers and ride on the wind--the fairies, Imean--but this is Christmas. " She twisted herself into a knot ofquivering joy and hugged her arms with rapturous intensity. "It'sall in my bones, and I'm nothing but shivers. Isn't it grand to haveChristmas in your bones? Have you got it in yours?" She heldLaine's face between her hands and looked at it anxiously. "CousinClaudia has it in hers. She and I are just alike. We've beenfilling stockings to-day for some children Timkins told us about. They live near him, and their mother is sick and their father isdead, and they haven't a bit of money. Channing and I are going tohang our stockings up here before we go to grandmother's, and we'regoing to hang them up there again. I wish we were going to CousinClaudia's. Of course, I love to go to grandmother's, but she livesin town and they don't have snow in Savannah; and at Cousin Claudia'sthey have everything. I mean everything Christmasy like I like. She's been telling us about when she was a little girl. "

Dorothea's feet twisted around each other and her hands were laidpalm to palm as her body swayed backward and forward in rhythmicmovement. "They go out in the woods and cut cart-loads of holly andmistletoe and pine and Christmas-trees, and dress the house, and thefires roar up all the chimneys, and they kill the pigs--"

Channing sat upright and rubbed his eyes. "They don't kill the pigsat Christmas. She said they kill them when the persimmons get ripe. "

"Well, they're killed and you eat them Christmas. They put a littleone on the table with an apple in its mouth. And they pick out thefattest turkeys and ducks and geese and chickens; and they go to thesmoke-house and punch and poke the hams and things; and the oysterscome from the river; and Mammy Malaprop comes up from the gate, whereshe lives now, and helps make the cakes and the, pies andplum-puddings and beaten biscuits; and Cousin Claudia says when shewas a little girl Mammy Malaprop always gave her some of theChristmas cake to bake in egg-shells. I wish I could see somebodymake a cake. And Christmas Eve they make egg-nog, and Uncle Bushrodmakes the apple toddy two weeks before. " She turned to her uncle. "Why don't you go down there, Uncle Winthrop? I bet you'd getChristmas in your bones if you did. "

"I am very sure of it. " Laine fixed Dorothea more firmly on his lap. "There is only one reason in the world why I don't go. "

"What's that? We're going away, and you will be all alone if youdon't. Can't he come, Cousin Claudia? He'd love it. I know hewould. "

"I don't. " Claudia moved her chair farther from the firelight. "Christmas at Elmwood would be punishment for a city man. We aremuch too primitive and old-fashioned. He would prefer New York. "

"Would you?" Dorothea's arms were around her uncle's neck, and herhead nodded at his. "Would you?"

"I would not. " Laine's voice was a little queer. "The punishment isall at this end. I would rather spend Christmas at Elmwood thananywhere on earth. But your Cousin Claudia will not let me, Dorothea. "

"Won't you really?" Dorothea slipped from his lap, and, with handson the arms of Claudia's chair, gazed anxiously in her eyes. "He'llbe all alone if you don't. Please ask him, Cousin Claudia! You saidyourself there was always so much company at Elmwood that one morenever mattered and you managed to put them somewhere. Please--oh, please ask him, Cousin Claudia!"

Claudia kissed the lips held close to her own. "I think it is timefor you to be in bed, Dorothea. You are making your uncle say thingshe doesn't mean. He can come to Elmwood if he wishes, but--"

Dorothea sprang back and, with arms extended and fingers flipping, danced round and round the room. "How magnificent! Now I won't havea thing on my mind!" With a last whirl she jumped in Laine's lap andtook his hands in hers. "That's the only thing I hated aboutChristmas, your being here all by yourself. " She gave a deep breath. "And now you'll be in that heavenly place with Cousin Claudia. WhenI get big I'm going there and hunt by the light of the moon, and hearthe darkies sing when they're having a party with possum andhoe-cake, and--" She sat upright. "Did you know Cousin Claudia wasgoing home to-morrow?"

Laine nodded. Speech had suddenly left him. He did not know whetherto take Dorothea in the next room and lock her up or hold her closeto his heart. What had the child done and made Claudia do?Christmas at Elmwood! His blood surged thickly, and as Dorotheasettled back in his arms he looked up and met Claudia's eyes. 

"I'm so scrumptious happy I feel like I'm in heaven!" Dorotheawriggled in sleepy content. "Please finish that story you weretelling when Uncle Winthrop came in, Cousin Claudia. You had gottento where the little boy and the little girl were knocking at the doorof the big house with the wreaths in the windows, and it was snowing. I couldn't sleep to save my life if I didn't know whether they got inor not. Please finish it. "

Claudia hesitated, then, changing Channing's position, finished thestory and glanced at the clock. "It is time for you to be in bed, Dorothea. I have some notes to write and some packing to--"

"Just one more and that's all. " Dorothea cuddled closer. "It's sonice and home-y with just us in here. Please don't make me go yet. Tell Uncle Winthrop a story"--she blinked bravely--"and then I'llgo--to--bed. "

Laine leaned back and turned off the light from the lamp on the tablebehind him, and as the firelight played on Claudia's soft, bluedress, on the slippered feet tapping the stool on which they rested, ran up to the open throat and touched the brown hair, parted andbrushed back in simple fashion, he held Dorothea close lest words hemust not speak be spoken. Presently he looked toward her. 

"I am waiting, " he said. "Will you tell me a story, Santa Claudia?"

"A story?" Her eyes were watching the curling flames. "What kindshall I tell you? I do not know the kind you like. "

"I would like any kind that you would tell me. "

She leaned her head back against the cushioned chair, and again herlashes seemed to touch her cheek. For a moment the soft silence wasunbroken, then she turned her face toward him. 

"Very well, " she said. "I will tell you a story. It will be aboutthe man who did not know. "

XV

THE MAN WHO DID NOT KNOW

"Once upon a time there was a man who had to make a journey. He didnot want very much to make it; and, not knowing whether it was to bea long journey or a short one, he did not feel a great deal ofinterest in it. Still it had to be made, and at its end he was tofind out whether he had been a good traveler, or a bad one. 

"For a long time he did not notice very closely the road he was on. He had been so busy getting ready, first at school, where he studieda great many books that he might be better prepared for traveling, and then in business, where money must be made to give him comfortand pleasure on the way, that he did not have time to look aroundvery much; but after a while he saw that the road was getting verydull and dusty, that most of the flowers were faded and the fruitswere not sweet and the birds did not sing as they had sung when firsthe started out. 

"A great many people had been traveling the same way he had. Thoughthey seemed to be having a good time, he had soon seen that most ofit was make-believe, and that much of their energy was spent intrying to find something to play with, that they might forget whatkind of journey they were on. He did not like these people veryspecially. He did not know any others, however, and he had kept upwith them because they had started out together; but, little bylittle, he had slipped away from them, and after a while he foundthat he was walking most of the time by himself. At first he did notmind. The things his friends cared for and talked about did notgreatly interest him, and then it was he began to remember that agood many things he had been passing were ugly and cruel, and bitterand unjust. He could not understand why some should travel inluxurious ease while others could hardly get along, their burdenswere so great; why some rode in carriages, and others, sick andhungry and tired and cold, could never stop lest they die upon theroad; and why some sang and others wept. 

"In groups and pairs, and sometimes one by one, they passed him, andas they went by he would look into their faces to see why they weretraveling; but, like him, they did not know, they only knew they mustkeep on. And then one day he saw he had come back to where hisjourney had begun. He had been on the road to Nowhere--the road thatwound round and round. "

"Just like travelers in the desert. " Dorothea's eyes made effort toopen, but sleepily they closed again. "Why didn't he ask somebodythe way?"

"He didn't think any one knew. He was much wiser than most of thepeople who passed him. To many who seemed to be in need he had givenmoney; he was very generous, very kind, and he gave freely; but healways turned his head away when he gave. He did not like to seesuffering and sorrow; and with sin of certain sorts he had nosympathy, and so he would not look. But after a while he had to look. 

"He was standing at the place from which he had started, and, to hissurprise, he saw what he had never seen before. Out from its centerled all sorts of roads that stretched beyond sight, and on each ofthem people were traveling, all kinds of people, and he knew he couldno longer stand still. He must take one of these roads, but whichone he did not know. As he stood uncertain what to do, he felt someone touch him; and, looking down, he saw a child; and into his stronghand the child slipped his little one. 

"'I have been waiting for you, ' he said. 'I have been waiting along, long time. '

"'For me?' The man drew back. 'You can't have been waiting for me. I do not know you, child!'

"He heard a little sigh, as soft as the stir of wings, and again theboy smiled. 

"'But I know you. There is much for you to do. '

"Again the man held back. 'There is nothing for me to do. I pay mytaxes and give my tithes, and let the world alone. '

"'You cannot let the world alone. It is your world. ' The boy lookedup. 'Come, they are waiting. '

"'Who is waiting?'

"'Your people. '

"'I have no people. There is no one waiting for me. '

"The child shook his head. 'You do not know your people, and theyare waiting. We must hurry, the time is short. We will go on thisroad first, and then on that, and then on that and that and that. Oneach one they are waiting. '

"All through the night they traveled, uphill and down, and in and outof narrow paths and hidden places, and everywhere he saw them, thepeople he had never known. Into the darkness of pits and mines, intothe fires of foundries and furnaces, into the factories where wheelsturned night and day, and into the holds of the ships of the sea, thechild led him to show him the people who were his. In cellars andgarrets, in jails and prisons, in shops and stores, in hunger andcold, in the silence of sickness, the noise of sin, they were waitingfor his coming; and in their faces was that which made him cover his, and he begged the child to take him where breath could come again. 

"But the child held his hand still tighter. 'You have traveled longand you have not known, ' he said. 'You helped to make things as theyare, and now you must see. '

"'I helped to make things as they are? I have not even dreamed suchthings could be!'

"'I know. And that is why I came. They are your people; and you didnot know. '

"And then the child took him on another road, one that was smooth andsoft, and the air that blew over it was warm and fragrant. On it thewomen wore jewels and laces and gorgeous gowns; and men threw goldaway to see it shine in the sunlight, threw it that others might seethem throw. 

"'Why do we come here?' the man asked. 'They are not waiting. Theydo not need. '

"The child looked up in his face. 'They, too, are waiting--for someone to let them know. And they, too, need, for hearts hurteverywhere. Sometimes the loneliest ones are here. '

"Before answer could be made, the main road was left, and in a tinyby-path they heard the laughter of children's voices; and, lookingahead, they saw a little house with wreaths in the windows throughwhich the glow of firelight sent threads of dancing light upon thesnow, and the door was open. 

"'We will go in, ' said the child, 'for there is welcome. '

"Inside, the mother and the father and all the children were hangingholly on the walls and bringing bundles and boxes and queer-shapedpackages from the other rooms and hiding them under chairs and tablesand in out-of-the-way places; and presently a row of stockings washung from the chimneypiece, and the children clapped their hands anddanced round and round the room. And then they threw their armsaround their father and mother and kissed them good night and leftthem that Kris Kringle might come in. 

"'They have no money, but are very rich, ' said the child. 'They lovemuch. '

"Over long roads and short ones, over some that were dark and somethat were bright, they went their way, and presently they came to ashabby, snow-covered street where children were pressing their facesagainst shop-windows, and men and women were hurrying in and out ofcrowded stores; and the child loosened his hold upon the man's hand. 'I must go now, ' he said. 

"'Oh no, you must not go!' Quickly the man reached for him. 'Youmust not go. I do not even know your name!'

"The child shook his head. 'I cannot stay. And some day you willknow my name. '

"'But why did you come? If you must leave me, why did you come?'

"'Why did I come?' In the crowd he was slipping away, but the lightin his face streamed through it. 'I came to bring Good-Will to men. I came that Men might Know. '"

XVI

A CHANGE OF PLANS

When Moses saw Mr. Laine hurrying from one side of his bedroom to theother, opening bureau drawers and closet doors and throwing things onfloor and bed in an excited haste never seen before, he was convincedthat something was the matter with his master's mind. It hadhappened very suddenly. He had eaten his dinner, but eaten so littlethat Caddie, the cook, was in angry tears. For days her finestefforts had been ignored, and temptation after temptation, triumphsof skill on her part, had come back barely tasted, and, what wasworse, with no comment made upon them. Praise had hitherto neverbeen withheld, and to please him no labor was too great, no time tooprecious to be expended; but if this was what she was to get-- Caddiewas Irish, and she threw birds and sweetbreads in the slop-can andslammed the door in Moses's face. 

"No, siree! I ain't a-goin' to let white folks' eatin's go in blackfolks' stomachs, that I ain't!" she said, and shook both fists up atthe ceiling. "Pigs can have it first; there's some reason for pigs, but that nigger man Moses!" Her nose went up, her head went back, and she wept aloud. The work of her hands was as naught. She woulddie and be buried before Moses should have it!

At his coffee Laine had asked for his mail, asked it to get Moses outof the room. A creature who smiled always was not always to beendured, and to-night he was in no mood for smiles. 

Moses brought two letters. "These is all, " he said. 

Laine waved him out and opened the top one, which was from Dorothea. What a queer propensity the child had for writing! Elbow on thetable and cigar in hand, he began to read indifferently; but in amoment his hand stiffened and his face whitened to the lips, and, half aloud, he read it again. 

DEAR UNCLE WINTHROP, --I forgot to tell you something the other night. I told you once that Cousin Claudia's sweetheart was that Washingtonman. He isn't. I asked her and she said he wasn't. I asked her ifshe was going to marry him and she said she was not. I don't like tosay things that aren't true and that's why I'm telling you. MissRobin French thinks she knows everything. We are going awayto-morrow. 

 Your loving niece, DOROTHEA. 

P. S. --When a lady gets married she has to go away with a man, don'tshe? That's why she isn't going to get married. She says she lovesElmwood better than any kind of man she's seen yet. I'm so glad, aren't you?

 D. 

For half a moment longer Laine stared at the paper in his hand, then, with the cigar, it fell to the floor, and he lifted his head as iffor breath. Something had snapped, something that had been tense andtight, and his throat seemed closing. Presently his face dropped inhis arms. What a fool he had been! He had let the prattle of achild torture and torment him and keep him silent, and now she wasgone. After a while he raised his head and wiped his hands, whichwere moist; and, as he saw the writing on the letter beside him, hisheart gave a click so queer that he looked around to see if the doorwas shut. Quickly he opened the envelope and tried to read: hecouldn't see; the words ran into each other, and, going over to aside light, he held the paper close to it. 

DEAR MR. LAINE, --Ours is a very old-fashioned, country Christmas, butwe will be glad to have you spend it with us if you have not madeother arrangements. Uncle Bushrod and I will be at the wharfWednesday to meet the boat from Fredericksburg, and if you are on itwe will bring you home with us, and if not we will be sorry, so comeif you can. One or two other friends are coming that day, but mostof our guests are here. All the trains from the North stop atFredericksburg, and the boat that goes down the river leaves any timeafter 2 P. M. , the hour of leaving depending upon the amount offreight, the convenience of the passengers, and the readiness of thecaptain. As there's a boat only three times a week you can't gethere in time for Christmas unless you make the Tuesday boat whichshould reach Brooke Bank, that's our landing, by ten o'clockWednesday morning. Do come if you can. 

 Sincerely, CLAUDIA KEITH. 

"If I can! If I can!" With a sudden movement of his hand the letterwas put in one pocket, his watch taken out of another, and the buttonunder the light pressed violently. It was eight-forty-five. Thelast train for Washington left at twelve-thirty, and a local fromthere reached Fredericksburg at nine-twenty-four the next morning. He knew the schedules well. "I have three hours and forty-fiveminutes, " he said, under his breath. "I'd make it if there were butthe forty-five minutes--if there were but ten. "

And then it was that Moses, coming in answer to the bell, concludedthat his master was not himself. He had left him a few minutesbefore, unapproachable in his silence, unappreciative of his effortsto please and provide, and now he was giving so many orders at once, calling for this and for that, pulling out clothes and pushing themback, that Moses, who hated to be hurried as only his race can hate, stood helpless, knowing only that something had happened, somethinghe did not understand. 

"Did you say your riding-clothes, sir?" he asked, holding adress-shirt in his hand. "Or did you say--"

"I don't know what I said. " Laine knocked over a box ofhandkerchiefs and threw a white vest on the bed. "Where are myshaving things? I told you I didn't want a trunk. Take the durnedthing away. I'll break my neck over it! Where is that Englishbag--the big one? Get it, will you, and put in my riding-clothes, evening clothes, and one other suit; put in the things I need. You've packed it often enough. Call up Jerdone's private number, andtell him I want all the flowers he's got. Get a move on you, Moses. If you're paralyzed tell me; if not--"

"No, sir. I ain't paralyzed. I just demoralized. Suddenness alwaysdid upset me. At dinner you look like you just as lief be dead aslivin', and now--"

"You or I will be dead if I miss that twelve-thirty train. Have youcalled the cab?"

"No, sir. I ain't called no cab. You ain't never call the word cab. You mean--" Moses's hands dropped limply at his side. "You meanyou're goin' away for Christmas?"

"That's what I mean!" Laine's voice was exultant, revealing, and hecoughed to hide its ring. "By the way, Moses, why don't you go homefor Christmas? Didn't you tell me once you came from Virginia? Whatpart?"

"Palmyra, sir. In Fluvanna County, that's where I come from. Excuseme, but I bound to set down. Go _home_? Me go _home_? I couldn'tgit there and back not to save my life for lessen than twenty-fivedollars, and till I git that farm paid for what I been buyin' to goback to and die on I can't go nowhere. That I can't. "

Laine looked up from the collection of collars, cravats, and cuffs hewas sorting. "Is it the money that's keeping you back, or is it youdon't want to go?"

"Don't want to go!" The palms of Moses's hands came together, opened, and came back. "Yesterday I near 'bout bus' open withwantin' to go. My mother she's near 'bout eighty, and she got MissLizzie to write me and beg me to come for this here Christmas. MissLizzie is old Major Pleasants's youngest old-maid daughter. He's gotthree of 'em. He was my mother's marster, old Major Pleasants was, and he sold me the land my mother's livin' on now. He didn't chargenothin' much for it, but I had to have a house built, and buy somepigs and some furniture and git a cow, and I bought two of themstreet-car mules what was in Richmond when they put the 'lectric carson down there. 'T'was the first city in the United States to have'em, Richmond was. They thought them mules was wore out, but thereain't no friskier ones in the county than they is, I tell you now. Iain't been home for four years--"

"And your mother is eighty?"

"Yes, sir, that's what they tell me, though she say she don't knowherself 'ceptin' she had four chillern which was good size when thewar broke out. I belong to the second crop. My mother done hadnineteen chillern, the triflinest, good-for-nothin'est lot the Lordever let live on this earth, if I do say it, and ain't a one of 'emwhat does a thing for her, savin' 'tis me and Eliza--Eliza she's mysister and lives with her. "

"And you'd like to spend Christmas with your mother, you say?"

In the years of his service Moses had never before mentioned familymatters, but, having started, he was not likely to stop, and Lainewas forced to interrupt, "Yes, sir. This Christmas I would. Some other Christmases Iwouldn't, 'count of a yaller girl what lived on the next place. Itwas in the summer-time, the last time I was home, and, she bein' alikely-lookin' girl, I seen right much of her every now and then, andI just talk along and tell her 'bout New York and what a grand, lonely place it was, and how my heart got hongry for my own people, and--things like that, you know, but I didn't mean nothin' serious orhave any matrimony ideas, and first thing I know she done had meengaged to her. She chase me near 'bout to death, that girl did, butMiss Lizzie say she gone away now and I can come in peace. "

Laine took out his pocket-book, put some notes in an envelope, andhanded it to Moses. "This is for your ticket and to get some thingsto take to your mother, " he said. "Be back by the thirtieth, andhurry and call that cab for the twelve-thirty train. I've someletters to write before I leave, and there's no time to lose. TellCaddie I want to see her, and don't forget about that Reilley family, and see that everything gets to them in good shape--a good dinner andall the bundles and plenty for the stockings. Tell Caddie I'mwaiting. "

Later on, in the library, Laine sealed his last letter and put it onthe pile Moses was to mail in the morning. Perhaps he had been alittle rash this Christmas. Well, suppose he had. The boys in theoffice had done well through the year and ought to be told so. Byitself a check was a pretty cold thing, and the words he had writtento each had been honestly meant. And Miss Button, his stenographer, needed a little trip. Ten days at Atlantic City with her motherwould pull her up. She had been looking badly lately--worried abouther mother, Weeks had told him. Pity she was so homely. It waspretty unfair the way women had to work at both ends of the line. Weeks, too, could get his wife that fur coat he'd been wanting her tohave for three years. What an honest old duck Weeks was!--and whowould ever believe him as full of sentiment as a boy of twenty? Hehad overheard him talking to Miss Dutton about the coat that morning. Fifteen years Weeks had been his secretary, but to-night was thefirst time he had ever told him in actual words of his appreciationof his faithful service. "I wouldn't want a million if it didn'thave some love with it, " Claudia had said to him, and before hishalf-closed eyes she seemed to stand in front of him. 

"They are her gifts, " he said. "I was blind, and she has made mesee. "

XVII

A VISIT TO VIRGINIA

Not until he was settled in the car did Laine let himself take in themeaning of the journey he was taking. The past few hours had beentoo hurried to think; but as he sat in the smoking-compartmentthought was no longer to be held in abeyance, and he yielded to itwith no effort at restraint. 

Sleep was impossible. The train, due at Washington at seven-twelve, would there have to be changed to a local for Fredericksburg, but theearly rising was no hardship. To sit up all night would have beennone. Each turn of the wheel was taking him nearer and nearer, andto listen to them was strange joy. Only that morning he had wishedChristmas was over, had indeed counted the days before business couldagain absorb, and now every hour would be priceless, every moment tobe held back hungrily. 

One by one, the days in which he had seen Claudia passed in reviewbefore him. The turn of her head, the light on her hair, the poiseof her body on her horse, bits of gay talk, the few long quiet ones, the look of eyes unafraid of life, light laughter, and sometimesquick frown and quicker speech, and, clearest of all, the evening inwhich she had told him the story, with Channing in her arms andDorothea in his. There had been few waking moments in which it hadnot repeated itself to him, and in his dreams the scene would changeand the home would be theirs--his home and hers--and she would betelling him again what life should mean. 

He had long known the name of the land in which he lived. It was, indeed, a Lonely Land; but that it was of his own choosing he had notunderstood, nor had he cared to think all people were his people. There was much that he must know. He needed help, needed itinfinitely. If she would give it-- A man, reeling slightly, came inthe compartment, and, getting up, Laine went out quickly. For a fewmoments he stood in the vestibule and let the air from a partly opendoor blow over him, then, with a glance at the stars, turned and cameinside. 

At Fredericksburg the next morning Laine turned to the negro hackman, who, with Chesterfieldian bows, was hovering over his baggage andboxes, and made inquiries of the boat, the time of leaving, of ahotel, of what there was to see during the hours of waiting; andbefore he understood how it happened he found himself and hisparaphernalia in the shabby old hack and was told he would be takento the boat at once. He had never been to Virginia, had never seen aspecimen of human nature such as now flourished a whip in one handand with the other waved a battered and bruised silk hat toward themuddy street that led from the station to the town above, and withpuzzled eyes he looked at the one before him. 

"Yas, suh! I knows jes' exactly what 'tis you want to be doin', suh. You jes' set yourself right back in the carridge and I'll take youand the baggige right down to the boat and put 'em in for you, andthen me and you'll go round and see this heah town. I reckon youain't never been to this place before. Is you all right now, suh?"The once shiny hat was put on the back of the grizzled gray head, aworn and torn robe was tucked around Laine's knees, and before answercould be made the driver was on the box, the whip was cracked, andtwo sleepy old horses began the slight incline of the long street outof which they presently turned to go to the wharf and the boat tiedloosely to it. 

Half an hour later, bags and boxes having been stored in astate-room, a hasty survey of the boat made, and a few wordsexchanged with a blue-coated man of friendly manners concerning thehour of departure, Laine again got in the old ramshackle hack and fortwo hours was shown the honors and glories of the little town whichhad hitherto been but a name and forever after was to be a smilingmemory. Snow and slush covered its sidewalks, mud was deep in themiddle of the streets, but the air went to the head with its stingingfreshness, the sun shone brilliantly, and in the faces of the peoplewas happy content. 

Reins dropped loosely in his lap, Beauregarde, the driver, satsideways on the box and emitted information in terms of his own; andLaine looked and listened in silent joy to statements made and themanner of their making. 

"Yas, suh, this heah town am second only in historic con-se-quence toWilliamsburg, suh, though folks don't know it till they come and findit out from me. I been a-drivin' this heah hack and a-studyin' ofhistory for more'n forty years, and I ain't hardly scratch the skinof what done happen heah before a Yankee man was ever thought of. They didn't use to have no Yankees 'fore the war, but they donepropogate themselves so all over the land that they clean gotpossession of 'most all of it. They's worse than them little Englishsparrows, they tell me. Marse George Washington he used to walkthese streets on his way to school. He had to cross the river fromFerry Farm over yonder"--the whip was waved vaguely in the air--"andhe wore long trousers till he got to be a man. Young folks didn'tuse to show their legs in those days, suh, jes' gentlemen. Thatplace we're comin' to is Swan Tavern, and if it could talk it couldtell things that big men said, that it could. This heah house iswhere Mis' Mary, the mother of Marse George Washington, used to livewhen she got too old to boss the farm. Some society owns it what wasoriginated to preserve our Virginia iniquities, and they done put upa monument to her that's the onliest one ever put up to a woman forbeing the mother of a man. They was bus head people, the Washingtonswas, but so was a lot of others who didn't do nothin' to prove it, and so is now forgot, and quality folks in them days was so thickthere warn't enough other kind to do 'em reverence. GovernorSpottswood and his Horse-Shoe gentlemen took dinner once in this heahtown, and President James Monroe used to live heah. I'm a-goin' toshow you his home and his office, presently, and the house whereMarse Paul Jones used to live in. I reckon you done heard tell ofMarse John Paul Jones, ain't you?"

Laine admitted having heard of him, but historic personages did notinterest as much as present-day ones. The occupants of certainquaint and charming old houses, with servants' quarters in the rearand flower-filled gardens in the front, the rose-bushes of which werenow bent and burdened with snow, appealed, as the other places offamous associations failed to do, and he wondered in which of themClaudia's relatives lived. 

At Marye's Heights Beauregarde waxed eloquent. Half of what he saidwas unheard, however, and as Laine's eyes swept the famousbattle-fields his forehead wrinkled in fine folds. Could they havebeen settled in any other way--those questions which had torn anation's heart from its bosom? Would the spilling of blood beforever necessary? He ordered Beauregarde to drive to the hotel. There was just time for lunch, and then the boat which would take himdown the river to where Claudia would be waiting. 

As the boat swung off from the wharf and slowly made its way down thenarrow river, curving like a horse-shoe around its ice-bound banks, Laine, standing in the bow, scanned the scene closely, and wonderedif it were but yesterday that he had been in the rush and stir ofcity life. Straight up from the water the bluff rose boldly. Raysof pale sunlight sent threads of rainbow colors on the snow whichcovered it, and through the crystal-coated trees, here and there, astately mansion could be seen overlooking the river. Skimming thewater, a sea-gull would now and then dip and splash and rise again inthe clear, cold air, and, save for the throb of the engine, there wasno sound. 

Until the sun had set and darkness made farther scanning of banks andbluff and winding river impossible, Laine walked the deck, hands inpockets, and thought of the morrow and the days ahead. The boatwould tie up for the night at Pratt's Wharf and was due at ten thenext morning at Brooke Bank if there was no unusual delay. Suddenlyhe remembered she had said other friends would be on the boat. Mostof the passengers were obviously returning home from a shopping tripto the city, package-laden and bundle-burdened, but two city men hehad noticed and then forgotten in the thought of other things. Whowere they? He opened the door of the stuffy little cabin and wentin. Five minutes later he was at the supper-table and next to thetwo men who were talking in undertones of former Christmases atElmwood. They were young, good-looking, and of Claudia's world. Hegot up and again went out. 

XVIII

ELMWOOD

For some time Laine had seen Claudia. Walking up and down the littlewharf at the end of the long bridge, railless and narrow, which ranfar out into the river, her hands in her muff, the collar of her furcoat turned up, her face unprotected by the brown veil which tieddown securely the close-fitting hat, he had seen her a long way off, and as she waved her hand in greeting he lifted his hat and waved itin return. 

A few minutes later he was shaking hands with her, with her uncle, with his two fellow-passengers, with a number of other people, andeverybody was talking at once. Those on the wharf were calling outto those on the boat, and those on the boat were making inquiries of, or sending messages by those on the wharf, and not until Laine'shands were again shaken well by Claudia's uncle as the Essex drewoff, did he understand just who was his host. 

"A hearty welcome to Virginia, sir! A hearty welcome! We're happyto have you in our home! Here, Claudia, you drive Mr. Laine in thesmall sleigh, and I'll take the boys in the big one. Are you ready?Look at that rascal Jim dancing a horn-pipe instead of filling thatwagon! We're glad to know you, sir, glad to have you!" And for thethird time Laine's hands were shaken well by the ruddy-faced, white-haired old gentleman, with the twinkling, faded blue eyes, andold-fashioned clothes; shaken until they hurt. He was no longer astranger. The touch of hands, the sound of voice, and a somethingwithout name had made him one of them, and that of which he had oncebeen doubtful he knew was true. 

Ahead of them his fellow-travelers, one a Keith cousin and the othera friend, waved back and disappeared in a bend of the road; and asClaudia took up the reins he turned toward her. 

"Have you been waiting long? Are you sure you are not cold?" heasked. 

"Cold! On a day like this?" The color in her face was brilliant. "We don't often have weather of this sort, and to stay indoors isimpossible. I love it! It's so Christmasy, if it isn't Southern. Did you have a very dreadful trip down? It takes courage to make it. "

"Courage!" He laughed and tucked the robe closer around her. "Itwas the most interesting trip I ever took. This is a very beautifulcountry. "

"We think it is. " She turned slightly and looked around her. Theroad from the boat-landing wound gradually up the incline to theridge above the river; and as they reached its top the view of thelatter was unbroken, and broad and blue it stretched between itssnow-clad banks, serene and silent. 

Laine's eyes swept the scene before him. The brilliant sunshine onfield and river and winding road for a moment was blinding. Thebiting air stung his face, and life seemed suddenly a splendid, joyous thing. The girl beside him was looking ahead, as if atsomething to be seen there; and again he turned to her. 

"You love it here?"

"Love it?" Her eyes were raised to his. "Everything in it, of it, about it!" With her left hand she brushed away the strands of hairthe wind had blown across her eyes. "It is my home. "

"A woman can make a home anywhere. A man--"

"No, she can't--that is, I couldn't. I'd smother in New York. It iswonderful to go to. I love its stir and color and the splendidthings it is doing; but you can't listen to the wind in the trees, orwatch the stars come out, or let your other self have a chance. " Sheturned to him. "We're very slow and queer down here. Are you sureyou won't mind coming for Christmas?"

Laine leaned forward and straightened the robe, and out of his facethe color faded. He was only one of the several guests. "You arevery good to let me come, " he said, quietly. "I have not thankedyou. I don't know how to thank you. Christmas by one's self--"

"Is unrighteous!" She nodded gaily and touched the horse with thewhip. "There's Elmwood! There's my home! Please like Virginia, Mr. Vermont man!"

Before he could answer, the sleigh stopped at the entrance to theroad leading to the big house, and at the door of the little lodge bythe always-open gate stood a short, stout colored woman, hands on herhips, and on her head a gaily colored kerchief. 

Laine was introduced. Mammy Malaprop was known by reputation, but nowords could make of Malaprop a picture, and in deep delight Lainewatched her as she curtsied in a manner all her own. 

"How you do, suh! How you do! A superfluous Christmas to you, suh!I'm sorry you didn't git heah 'fore de war. Livin' nowadays ain'tmore'n shucks from de corn of what it used to be. Is dey all heahnow, Miss Claudia?"

"I believe so. I am going to bring Mr. Laine down for some hoe-cakesand buttermilk after Christmas, and you might tell him some of thestories you used to tell us when we were children. He lives in NewYork, and--"

"He do! I hope he got himself petrified on the way down, for theytell me 'tis a den of promiscuity, and all the nations of the earthdone took their seats in it. I knowed a woman who lived there once. She near 'bout work herself to death, and she say she couldn't havestood it if it hadn't been for the hopes of a glorious immoralitywhat was awaitin' her when she died--" And Mammy Malaprop's handswaved cheerfully until the sleigh was lost to sight. 

From the public road skirting the Elmwood land the private one, tree-bordered by century-old elms, leading to the terraced lawn, wound for some three-quarters of a mile, and as they approached thehouse Laine saw it was architecturally of a type unseen before. Thecentral building, broad, two stories high, with sloping roof anddeep-pillared portico, by itself would not have been unusual; but theslightly semi-circular corridors connecting it with the two wingsgave it a grace and beauty seldom found in the straight lines of theperiod in which it had been built, and the effect was impressive. Atthe foot of the terrace a little colored boy was blowing ardently alittle trumpet, giving shrill greeting to the stranger guest, and asthey came closer he took off his hat and held it in his hand. 

"All right, Gabriel. " Claudia nodded to the boy. "Run on, now, andtell Jeptha to come for the horse. " She laughed in Laine's puzzledeyes. "He's Mammy Malaprop's grandson. He thinks he's the realGabriel and it's his duty to blow. He sings like an angel, but can'tlearn to spell his name. There they are!" She waved her hand gailyto the group on the porch. 

As he saw them Laine thought of Claudia's arrival in New York, andhis face flushed. The men came down the steps, and a moment later hewas presented to Claudia's mother, gracious, gentle, and of a dignityfine and sweet; to her sister, home for the holidays with her husbandand children; to an engineer cousin from the West, and a girl fromPhiladelphia; and once more his hands were shaken by Colonel BushrodBall. It was a Christmas guest who was being welcomed, not WinthropLaine alone, and he wondered if he were indeed himself. 

More than once he wondered before the day was done. Under theleadership of the Colonel the men were shown their rooms, by way ofthe dining-room, for, like Moses, Uncle Bushrod believed inward cheeressential after outdoor chill; and, moreover, the apple toddy must betested. It was an old world he was in, but to him a very new one. The happy stir of Christmas preparations, the coming and going offriends and neighbors, the informality and absence of pretense, thegay chatter and genuine interest, was warm and sweet; and as one whowatches a play he wondered at it, and something long thought deadthrilled and throbbed and stirred within him. 

In former days the house had doubtless been the scene of lavishliving, he thought from time to time, and he would have liked toexplore the many rooms with their polished floors and deepwindow-seats, their carved paneling and marble mantels; and when, inthe afternoon, he found himself alone for a few minutes in the vasthall, he paced off its sixty feet of length and its twenty of widthto know their number, studied the winding staircase with its whitepilasters and mahogany rails, scanned hurriedly the portraits intheir tarnished frames, some with the signatures of Sir JoshuaReynolds, some with Stuart, and others of lesser fame, which hungabove the wainscoted walls; and as he looked he did not wonder atClaudia's love for her home. 

"You care for these things, too, do you?"

The voice behind made him turn quickly. The girl from Philadelphianodded to him and hugged her crossed arms closely to her bosom. "Idon't. That is, not in weather like this, I don't. Ancestral hallssound well, but, unheated, they're horrors. I'm frozen, and thedoors are open, of course. Have you been in the big parlors? Somepretty things are in them, but faded and rather shabby now. Whydon't you go in the library? There's a roaring fire in there, and achair you can sit on. Every other one in the house has something init. "

Laine followed the girl into the library, and as she held her handsto the blaze she motioned him to sit down. "I don't believe anybodyin the world is as crazy about Christmas as Claudia. She gets thewhole county on the jump, and to-morrow night everything in it willbe here. Giving is all right, but Claudia takes it too far. Thehouse needs painting, and a furnace would make it a different place, but she will do nothing until she has the money in the bank to payfor it; and yet she will give everybody within miles a Christmaspresent. When she took hold of things the place was dreadfullymortgaged, and she's paid off every dollar; but, for chance, stock-markets aren't in it with farming. Isn't that a pretty olddesk? I could sell lots of this furniture for them and get big moneyfor it, but I don't dare say so. They never talk money here. Myroom hasn't a piece of carpet on it, and one of those old JoshuaReynoldses in the hall would get so many things the house needs. I'ma Philistine, I guess, as well as a Philadelphian, and I like newthings: plenty of bath-rooms and electric lights and steam heat. Idon't blame them for not selling the old silver and china or thedining-room furniture, though it needs doing over pretty badly; butsome of those old periwigged pictures I'd sell in a minute. Plentyof people would pay well for ancestors, and it's about all they'vegot down here. Hello, Claudia; we were just talking about you!"

Claudia put down the armful of red roses she was carrying and beganto fill a tall vase with them. "Did you say anything that wasn'tnice?" She bit a piece of stem off. "If you did, it wasn't so. " Sheturned to Laine. "You ought to see mother. She rarely has suchflowers as you brought down--You have made her so happy. It was verygood of you. "

"Good!" The girl from Philadelphia went out of the room. "Ifonly--" In his eyes no longer was restraint, and Claudia turned herhead as if listening to something outside. 

"I believe mother is calling me, " she said. "Would you mind tellingher, Mr. Laine, I am coming right away?"

XIX

CHRISTMAS

Laine looked at his watch. Twenty minutes past twelve. Christmaswas over. Two days after were over also, and in the morning most ofthe guests were going away. 

From the basket by the hearth he threw a fresh log on the smolderingfire, lifted it with his foot farther back on the hot ashes, drew theold-fashioned arm-chair closer to the fender, and, turning down thelight from the lamp on the pie-crust table near the mantel, sat downand lighted a fresh cigar. 

It had been very beautiful, very wonderful, this Christmas in thecountry. Its memories would go with him through life, and yet hemust go away and say no word of what he had meant to say to Claudia. 

Very definitely he had understood, from the day of his arrival, thatto tell her of his love would be a violation of a code to which thedirectness of his nature had given little thought in the reaction offeeling which had possessed him when he read her note. He was aguest by invitation, and to speak now would be beyond pardon. In hisheart was no room for humor, and yet a comic side of the situation inwhich he found himself was undeniable. The contrast it afforded toformer opportunities was absurdly sharp and determined, and the ironyof the little god's way of doing things was irritatingly manifest. 

If in Claudia's heart was knowledge of the secret in his, she maskedit well. Warmly cordial, coolly impersonal, frankly unconscious, she had never avoided him, and still had so managed that they werenever alone together. Hands clasped loosely, he leaned forward andstared into the heart of the blazing logs. Of course she knew. Allwomen know when they are loved. No. The log fell apart, and itsburning flame glowed rich and red. She had not known, or she wouldnot have asked him to Elmwood. Merely as she would ask any otherlonely man in whom she felt a kindly interest, she had asked him, and, thus far, her home was the love of her life. In a thousand wayshe had felt it, seen it, understood it; and the man who would takeher from it must awaken within her that which as yet was still asleep. 

The days just past had been miserably happy. Before others lightlaughter and gay speech. In his heart surrender and suppliance, andbefore him always the necessity of silence until he could come again, and he must go that he might come again. 

One by one, pictures of recent experiences passed before him, experiences of simple, happy, homelike living; and things he hadalmost forgotten to believe in seemed real and true once more. A newsense of values, a new understanding of the essentials of life, hadbeen born again; and something growing cold and cynical had warmedand softened. 

In the big hall he had helped the others put up the fragrant sprucepine-tree which reached to the ceiling, helped to dress it midstjolly chatter and joyous confusion, helped to hide the innumerablepresents for the morrow's findings; and on Christmas morning had aseagerly dumped the contents of his stocking as had Jack and Janet, orthe men who had come from busy city lives to be boys again, or asClaudia herself, who could not see with what her own was filled, forthe constant demand that she should come here and there, and see thisand that, or do what no one else was able to. 

Slipping down farther in his chair, Laine put his feet on the fenderand with half-shut eyes saw other pictures in the fire. The graydawn of Christmas morning came again, and he seemed to hear theclear, childish voice below his window. Half asleep, he had stirredand wondered what it was, then sat up to listen. The quaint words ofthe old carols he knew well, but never had he heard them sung asGabriel was singing them. Shrill and sweet in the crisp, cold air, the voice sounded first as if far away and then very near, and heknew the boy was walking up and down below each window that all mighthear alike. 

 As Joseph was a-walking He heard the angels sing, This night there shall be born Our heavenly King. 

Here and there, in a verse from one carol joined almost in the samebreath to another he went from:

 God rest you, merry gentlemen, Let nothing you dismay. Remember Christ, our Saviour, Was born on Christmas Day. 

to

 We are not daily beggars, That beg from door to door, But we are neighbor's children Whom you have seen before. 

He had smiled at the mixture of verses and jumped up, for Jim hadcome in to light the fire, and from his broadly grinning face"Christmas Gif" was radiating, if from his lips, in obedience toorders, their utterance was withheld. On his door a half-hour latercame the pounding of childish fists, and Janet's lisping voice wascalling sturdily:

"Oh, Mither Laine, Santa Clauth hath come and your stocking ithdown-stairs. Pleath, thir, hurry! Mother said I could kiss you ahappy Chrithmath if you were drethed. "

Hand in hand they had gone into the dining-room, with its lavishlyspread table and mantel-hung stockings, and the chorus of heartygreetings and warm hand-shaking had made his heart beat like a boy's. 

The day had passed quickly. The gay breakfast; the unwrapping ofbundles; the sleigh-ride to church, where the service was not so longas was the seemingly social meeting afterward; the bountiful dinnerwith its table laden as in days of old rather than in the modernfashion of elegant emptiness; the short afternoon--it was all soonover, and the evening had gone even more rapidly. 

The crackling logs and dancing flames in the huge old-fashionedfireplace in the hall, the tree with its myriad of lighted candles, the many guests from county's end to county's end, the delicioussupper and foaming egg-nog, and, last of all, the Virginia reeldanced in the vast parlors and led by Colonel Bushrod Ball and MadamBeverly, who had not missed a Christmas night at Elmwood since shewas a bride some sixty years ago, made a memory to last through life, a memory more than beautiful if-- He drew in a deep breath. Thereshould be no "if. "

Through the days and the evenings of the days that followed there hadbeen no word alone with Claudia, however. She had taken him to seethe Prossers, but Jack and Janet had gone with them, and out-of-doorsand indoors there was always some one else. Was this done purposely?

He leaned forward and threw a couple of logs on the fire. The roomwas cold. As the wood caught and the names curled around the roughbark, the big tester bed, with its carved posts and valance of whitemuslin, threw long shadows across the room, and in their brasscandlesticks the candle-light flared fitfully from the mantel, touching lightly the bowl of holly with its scarlet berries, andthrowing pale gleams of color on the polished panels of the oldmahogany wardrobe on the opposite wall. For a moment he watched theplay of fire and candle, then got up and began to walk backward andforward the length of the uncarpeted floor. Writing was a poorweapon with which to win a woman's heart. Rather would he tell herof his love, ask her to be his wife, and, if she would marry him, compel her to say when; but he could not come as quickly as he couldwrite. He must go away that he might tell her what no longer was tobe withheld. Indecision had ever been unendurable, and uncertaintywas not in him to stand. Without her, life would be--again he lookedin the fire--without her, life would not be life. 

XX

CLAUDIA

Claudia parted the curtains of her bedroom window and, holding themaside, looked out upon the scene before her with eyes love-filled atits wonder and beauty. 

Across the broad, terraced lawn the fresh-fallen snow was unbroken, and every crystal-coated branch and twig of the great trees upon itgleamed in the moonlight as though made of glass. In the distancethe river between its low hills seemed a shining, winding path ofsilver, and over it the moon hung white and clear and passionless. The mystery of silence, the majesty of things eternal, broodedsoftly; and with a sudden movement of her hands Claudia held them asthough in prayer. 

"In all the world there is no place like this--for me. It is myplace. My work is here. I could not--could not!"

With a slight indrawing breath that was half sigh, half shiver, sheleft the window and drew her chair close to the fire. For a longtime she looked into its dancing depths, and gradually her eyes sonarrowed that their long lashes touched her flame-flushed cheeks. After a while she got up, went over to her desk, took from it severalletters locked in a small drawer, came back to the fire, and againlooked into it. 

The girlish grace of her figure in its simple dress of soft blue, open at the neck and showing the curves of the beautiful throat, wasemphasized by the unconscious relaxation of her body as she leanedfor a moment against the mantel; and the Claudia to whom all lookedfor direction, the Claudia who had small patience with hesitatingindecisions, and none for morbid self-questionings, searched theleaping flames with eyes uncertain and afraid. 

A slight noise in the hall made her start uneasily. She did not wantto be disturbed to-night. Turning her head, she listened. Thecorners of the large, high-ceilinged room, with its old-fashionedmahogany furniture, its shelves of books, its carved desk of quaintpattern, and its many touches of feminine occupancy, were lost inshadow, and only here and there on chair or table or bit of wall thefirelight darted, but to dance off again, and the stillness wasunbroken save by the crackling logs upon the hearth. 

Drawing the lamp on the table closer, she sat down and took out oftheir opened envelopes two letters, one addressed to her mother andone to her Uncle Bushrod Ball; and as she read them the flush in herface deepened, then paled, and she bit her lip to hide its quivering. Putting them aside, she held for a moment, in hands that trembledslightly, another letter, and presently she began to read it:

 "_December 30th_. 

"I can wait no longer, Claudia. Words are not for love like mine;but you, who gave it life, will understand it without words. Ibelieved I had put it from me--the thought of marriage--for almost Ihad lost my faith in the love for which I looked, and with compromiseI could not be content. Perhaps I had no right to ask for what fewfind in life, but I did ask it, and when you came I knew my dreaminghad come true. Will you marry me, Claudia? So infinitely I loveyou, want you, need you, that the days ahead until I win you--for Ishall win you--are dark and dreaded. All of your love, its supremestbest, I want; but if for mine, which is beyond all measure, you cangive me now but little, give it and let me come to you. I must come. I am coming. And believe me always Yours, "WINTHROP LAINE. "

The pages dropped slowly in her lap, and, leaning back in her chair, Claudia closed her eyes and pressed her hands against them tightly. For some time she sat thus, then took up the last letter and readthat also. 

 "_December 31st_. 

"It is within an hour of midnight, Claudia. Soon the new year willbe with us and the old one gone--the one that brought you to me. Almost the year had gone before I met you, but time is more than daysand weeks, and that of ours together has been the real living of mylife. In the stillness of my room I drop my book and dream that youare with me. On the street I hurry home to you; and once I stoppedand bought you flowers--and in the darkness threw them away. To haveyou really here, to know that you are waiting--

"The new year has come, Claudia. The bells are striking the hour. It must, it shall bring you to me. I am asking much when I ask youto marry me, to leave your home to make a home for me. Your infinitelove for Elmwood is understood well. Its old-world air of dignityand charm, of gracious courtesy and fine friendships, of proudmemories and gentle peace, could scarce find counterpart elsewhere onearth, and yet in the days to come would it content alone, Claudia?For my great need of you might there not be some little need of me?Tell me I may come; but, whether you tell me or not, I am coming. 

 "WINTHROP LAINE. "

Claudia put the pages back in their envelope. On the hearth the fireburned low, and, slipping out of her chair, she sat upon the rug andheld her hands out shiveringly to the red ashes slowly turning gray. The habit of childhood was upon her, and quiveringly she talked toherself:

"You shouldn't have asked him to come Christmas! But how could Ihave known? I only thought he would be lonely. He cares for so fewpeople and with all his wisdom has so little understanding of manythings in life. He is so intolerant of weakness and meanness, ofsham and show and pretence and make-believe that--that that's why youlike him, and you know it, Claudia Keith! You shouldn't have askedhim. You didn't know--but you knew before he went away. And he iscoming back. " Slowly she got up. "No. He is not coming back. Thatis, not yet, he isn't. You are not sure. Are you glad?" In themirror over the mantel she met her eyes unshrinkingly. "Yes, I amglad, " she said, and her lips whitened. "I am glad, but I am notsure. " In her eyes was strange appeal. "Vermont and Virginia!Could we be happy? We are so different--and yet-- Perhaps in thespring. . . . The winter months are very long. Oh, Winthrop Laine!"She pressed her hands to her heart as if to still its suddenthrobbing, then reached for his letter and kissed it. "I wonder if Iam going to know what Lonely Land can mean!"

XXI

A VISIT FROM DOROTHEA

Dorothea settled herself more comfortably in her uncle's lap. "Youcertainly ought to be thankful you've never had it, " she said. "It'sworse than being a leper. I've never been a leper, but when you'rethat you can go out, the Bible says so, and people just pass you byon the other side and let you alone. With diphtheria they don't letyou alone. Lepers are just outcasts, but diphtherias--what arepeople who have diphtheria?--well, whatever they are, they're cast inand nobody can see them except the nurses and the doctor and yourmother and father. The doctor said father mustn't come in my room, as he had to go to his business, and father told him to go to thedevil--I heard him. I just love the way father talks when he's mad. I couldn't have stood the long days if it hadn't been for you andfather coming in every evening. They certainly do a lot of thingswhen you're sick with contagiousness. Everything you eat out of anddrink out of has to be boiled and stewed, and the things you spit inburned up, and the walls washed, and more foolishness!" Dorothea'seyes rolled and her voice was emphatic. "I don't believe in a lot ofthings, Uncle Winthrop. I wasn't really sick, and just had a teensy, weensy bit of pain in my throat; and if I'd known what they weregoing to do to me I'd have been one of those Science Christians andkept it to myself. "

"But suppose you had given it to Channing?" Dorothea's uncle settledDorothea more steadily on his lap. "The foolishness of wisdom is allsome see of it, but if Channing had taken diphtheria from you--"

"I don't believe there was any diphtheria for him to take. If I'dbeen a poor person it would have been plain sore throat, and I'd hadsome peace. Timkins says his little girl was a heap sicker than Iwas, and her mother nursed her all the time, and she got well longbefore I did. Are we very rich, Uncle Winthrop?"

"You are not billionaires. Your father has been fortunate and madesome money--"

"Is making money fortunate? Of course, I like nice things; but awhole lot of us children feel like"--Dorothea's arms waved as if tofree herself from unseen strappings--"feel like Chinese children. Our feet aren't really bound, sure enough, but we can't do like welike. Sometimes I just want to run as fast as a racehorse, andholler as loud as the poor children do in the park. I hateregulations and proper things. If father were to lose his money, doyou suppose we would have to have a special time for everything wedo? Go to bed, and get up, and eat, and say lessons, and studylessons, and take lessons, and go out, and come in, and lie down in adark room, and go again to drive or walk, and in between everythingyou do dress over again, and never, _never_ run or climb trees ortear your clothes and have just plain fun? I love dirt. I do! Ihave to be so careful with my finger nails and my clothes that ifever I have children I am going to let them get right down in thedirt and roll in it and make all the noise they want. Mother says aloud voice is so inelegant. So is affectatiousness, I think, and Iwasn't born with a soft voice. I just bawl at Channing sometimes. Ido it on purpose. I'm like father. I get tired of being elegant. Haven't you any kind of candy anywhere, Uncle Winthrop? Mother saidI could have a few pieces if it didn't have nuts in it. "

Laine reached for a drawer in the book-piled table near which he sat. "If I had known I was to have the honor of a visit from you thisafternoon I would have been better prepared for entertainment. I'mafraid this candy isn't very good. It's been here since your lastvisit, and--"

"That's been two months ago. We didn't get back from Florida untilFebruary, and in March I was taken sick, and then we went toLakewood, and now it's May. Mother can't understand how I got sick. She says she tries so hard to keep us from diseases and they comeanyhow. I wish I didn't have to be educated and find outthings--mother knows a lot; but it makes her so nervous. I'd ratherbe sick sometimes than afraid of being all the time. This certainlyis poor candy. I promised mother I wouldn't eat a thing Caddie gaveme if she'd let me come to see you; but I don't think she'd mind if Itook home some of those little cakes Caddie makes with almonds inthem. Do you suppose she has any?"

"I couldn't guess. I'll ring and find out. "

"I'll ask her. " Dorothea slipped from her uncle's lap. "I'll beback in a minute, " and before Laine could press the button whichwould bring Moses she had disappeared. Five minutes later she wasback, in her hands a good-sized paper box, tied clumsily with redstring, and as she put it on the table she patted it withsatisfaction. 

"That's for Channing, " she said, half leaning against the table anddrumming on it with the tips of her fingers. "Caddie didn't have anycakes. She says you used to like sweet things, and it was once apleasure to cook for you; but if you enjoy anything you eat now younever confess it to her. She says you eat, but you don't know thename of what you're eating, and one thing is the same as another. Ithink her feelings are getting hurt, Uncle Winthrop. "

"Are they? I'm sorry. Caddie is a spoiled creature. I long agoexhausted the English language in commendation of her efforts. Nothing is so wearing on one as continual demand for praise, andCaddie's capacity is exhaustless. I'm sorry she didn't have thelittle cakes. "

"She's going to make some to-morrow and send them to me. It'spop-corn in this box. " Dorothea held up the latter and shook it. "Moses brought it from Virginia. They are the cunningest little earsyou've ever saw. Wasn't it nice of Moses to think about us and bringit? Of course, he didn't know we would be away so long and that Iwas going to be sick and he wouldn't see me until spring; but it's athing that keeps, and the drier it is the prettier it pops, he says. What is that picture over there, Uncle Winthrop? It is very ugly. "

Laine glanced at the picture to which Dorothea pointed. "That is aJan Steen--'The Village Fair. ' Sorry you don't like it. You thinkthat Botticelli is ugly also. A little later in life it may meetwith your approval. The original is priceless. "

"A lot of priceless things aren't pretty. I don't ever expect to bea culturated person. Mother makes me go to all those old galleriesand museums, when we're in Europe, and look at a lot of crackedpictures and broken statues and carved things, and wants me to thinkthey're beautiful, but I don't. Some of them are hideous, and I getso tired of being told I must admire them that I make a face insideat most of them as I walk along, though, of course, outside, formother's sake, I don't make any signs. I'm a great disappointment tomother. We had a lady artist guide the last time we were in Italy. She used to get so mad with me that once she shook me. Father wouldhave killed her if she hadn't been a lady, and after that he and Iused to go out by ourselves and have the grandest times. He'd showme just a few pictures at the time, and tell me all about them, andsome of them I just loved. Mother says you have so many beautifulthings, Uncle Winthrop, and that it's a shame for a man to have themall by himself. " She looked around the large room, and again tookher seat in her uncle's lap. "Some things I like in here, and some Idon't. You've got an awful lot of books, haven't you?"

"Too many, I'm afraid. Would you mind if I smoked?" Laine reachedfor a cigar from the box on the table and held it between his fingers. 

"May I?"

"Of course. I hope I won't forget, though, and kiss you. I'm so aptto when I'm talking, if I like a person. Tobacco is so bitter. I'lltell you what I think is the matter with this room. It's--it's--"She looked around carefully. "It's something that isn't in it. Idon't know what it is. Why don't you get married, Uncle Winthrop?Maybe your wife would know. "

Laine put the unlighted cigar back on the table, and Dorothea'shands, which were stroking one of his, were gripped by it and heldtightly. 

"I do not doubt it. The trouble is in getting the wife. "

Dorothea sat upright. "The idea! I heard Miss Robin French say theother day the way unmarried men were run after was outrageous, andall they had to do was to stand still and crow a little, and up wouldcome a-clucking all kinds of hens, little ones and big ones, andyoung ones and old ones, and-- Don't you tell anybody, but I thinkshe'd come, too!" Dorothea's hands came together, and she laughedgleefully. "Father says if Miss Robin would give up hoping she'd behappier. " Suddenly her face sobered. "Do all ladies try to marry aman, Uncle Winthrop?"

"They most certainly do not. " Laine smiled in Dorothea's face, andbefore the child's clear eyes his own, full of weary pain, turnedaway. "Many of them take very long to make up their minds to marryat all. "

"Have you ever asked one to marry you?"

Laine did not answer. Dorothea's question was unheard. His thoughtswere elsewhere. 

"Have you?"

"Have I what?"

"Ever asked a lady to many you?"

"I have. "

The hand which Dorothea had been stroking was dropped. She sprang toher feet and stood in front of him, her hands clasped in rigidexcitement on her breast. 

"When"--her voice curled upward in quivering delight--"when is shegoing to do it, Uncle Winthrop?"

"I do not know. She has not said she would do it at all. "

"Not said--she would--marry--you!" Delight had changed toindignation high and shrill, and Dorothea's eyes blazed brilliantly. "Is she a crazy lady?"

"She is not. "

"Then why?"

"She is not quite sure she-- It is not a thing to talk about, Dorothea. " He drew her again on his lap and unclasped the clenchedfingers. "We are good friends, you and I, and I have told you what Ihave told no one else. So far as I am concerned, it does not matterwho knows, but until she decides we will not talk of this again. Youunderstand, don't you, Dorothea?"

"I understand she must have very little sense. I don't see how youcould want to marry a lady who didn't know right off, the very firstminute, that she wanted to marry you. Do--do I know her, UncleWinthrop?"

"You do. "

For a moment there was silence, broken only by the ticking of theclock on the mantel; and slowly Dorothea turned to her uncle, her bigbrown eyes troubled and uncertain. For half a moment she looked athim, then, without warning, threw her arms around his neck and hidher face against his. 

"Is--is--it Claudia, Uncle Winthrop?" she whispered. "Is--it--mycousin Claudia?"

"It is--your cousin Claudia. "

The quiver in Laine's voice was beyond control, and, lifting thechild's face, he kissed it. "I have asked her to marry me, Dorothea, but not yet has she promised to do so. "

In Dorothea's cheeks two burning spots of red glowed brilliantly. Slipping down from her uncle's lap, she drew a long breath. "I knewshe must be queer about something, " she said, and her fingersinterlocked in trembling excitement. "She was too nice not to be, but I didn't think she'd be this kind of queer. The idea of notpromising right away! I know what's the matter. It's her home andher mother, and all the things she is doing in the country that shedon't want to give up. Why don't you go down there and make her, Uncle Winthrop?"

"She asks me not to come--yet. There is no hotel, and--"

"Does she write to you?"

Laine smiled in the eager eyes. "Yes, she writes to me. "

Again there was silence, and presently a queer sound from Dorothea. "I can't help it, Uncle Winthrop! They're coming! Won't it begrand, because she will, I know she will, and I'm so glad Ican't--can't help--" And big, happy tears rolled down Dorothea'sface, which was pressed close to Laine's as he held her close to hisheart. 

That night, when all the house was still and every one asleep, Dorothea slipped out of bed and, kneeling down beside it, folded herhands and began to pray. 

"O Lord"--her voice was a high whisper--"please make my cousinClaudia come to her senses and promise my uncle Winthrop that shewill marry him right away. She lives in Virginia. Her post-officeis Brooke Bank, and she's an awfully nice person, but father sayseven You don't know why women do like they do sometimes, and ofcourse a man don't. Please make her love him so hard she'd just diewithout him, and make her write him to come quick. Give herplenteous sense from on high, and fill her with heavenly thankfulnessand make her my aunt for ever and ever. Amen. "

She got up and scrambled into bed and closed her eyes tightly. "French prayers aren't worth a cent when you want something and wantit quick, " she said, half aloud. "And when you're in dead earnestyou have to get right down on your knees. I don't know what I'd doif I couldn't talk in plain English to the Lord. I hope He willanswer, for if He don't I certainly couldn't say right off, 'Thy willbe done. ' I'd say I thought my cousin Claudia had mighty littlesense. "

XXII

SPRINGTIME

Winthrop Laine lifted the tangled vines which overhung theshrub-bordered path leading down the sloping lawn at the back of thehouse to the rose-garden at its foot, and held them so that Claudiacould pass under. 

"They ought to be cut. " She stopped and unfastened a long tendril ofintertwined honeysuckle and bridal-wreath which had caught her hair. "Everything ought to be cut and fixed, only--"

"It would be beyond pardon. If any one should attempt to change thisgarden, death should be the penalty. One rarely sees suchold-fashioned flowers as are here, never in modern places. "

"No one knows when many of them were planted, and nothing hurtsthem. " Stooping, Claudia picked from the ground a few violets andlilies-of-the-valley growing around the trunk of an immense elm-treeat the end of the path, then looked up. 

"Don't let's go to the roses yet. I want to see what the sun-dialsays. This is the way my great-grandmother used to come to meet mygreat-grandfather when she was a girl. Her parents wanted her tomarry some one else. She would slip out of the house and down thispath to that big magnolia-tree, from where she could see and not beseen, and it was there they made their plans to run away. "

"We will go there. It looks like a very nice place at which to makeplans. "

Into Claudia's face color sprang quickly, and for a moment she drewback. "Oh no! It is too beautiful to-day to make plans of any kind. It is enough to just--live. You haven't seen half of Elmwood yet, and you want to talk of--other things. "

"I certainly do. " Laine stepped back that Claudia might lead the waydown the path, box-bordered so high that those within could not beseen outside, and smiled in the protesting face. A few moments moreand they had come out to the front lawn on the left of the house andsome distance below the terrace on which it overlooked the river, andas they reached a group of spreading magnolias he drew in his breath. 

"I do not wonder that you love it. And I am asking you to leave it!"

She looked up. "Come, I want to show you some of the old things, thedear things, and then--"

"We will come back, and you will tell me what I must know, Claudia?"

She nodded and pulled the bells from the lily-of-the-valley she heldin her hands. "We will come back and--I will tell you. "

For an hour, in the soft glow of the sun now, sinking in the heavens, they wandered through the grounds and separate gardens of the oldestate, now walking the length of the long avenue, shaded by greatelms of more than century age, now around the lawn with its beds ofbleeding-hearts and snowdrops, of wall-flowers and sweet-William, ofhyacinths and tulips, with their borders of violets and cowslips, ofcandytuft and verbenas, and at the old sun-dial they stopped and readthe hour. Picking an armful of lilacs and calicanthus and snowballsand blue flags, planted in the days when the great trees were tinysaplings, they sent them in by Gabriel, who was following at adistance, blowing softly on his trumpet, and for some minutes stoodin front of the house and watched the sun touch, here and there, theold brick laid in Flemish bond; then went back and sat down on thelow seat under the big magnolia, from which the river could beglimpsed, and over which every now and then a white sail could beseen. 

Behind them the sun sank. The mass of shifting gold and blue andcrimson and pale purple lost little by little its brilliant splendor, and slowly over land and sky soft twilight fell, and only here andthere was heard the song and twitter of birds as they made ready forthe night. 

For a few moments there was silence, and then in his Laine held thehands of Claudia. 

"It is a wonder world, this old, old world of yours with its manythings we have forgotten. And yet--you will come to me? You aresure at last, Claudia?"

"I am sure--at last. " She raised her eyes to his. "I could not letyou come until I knew that--all the homes in all the world would notbe home without--"

"Without what, Claudia?"

"Without-- Why do you make me tell you when you know? You make metell too much. "

"You cannot tell too much. Claudia! Claudia!"

Overhead the birds chirped sleepily and one by one the stars cameout. Presently Claudia drew herself away and smoothed her kissed andwind-blown hair. "I am such a queer person. I think you ought toknow, " she said, and again her shining eyes were raised to his. "There are a great many things I don't care for, and I don't thinkthe way some people do about a good many other things. I had to takelong to be sure. "

"It was very cruel, Claudia. " He lifted her face to his and smiledin the confessing eyes. "My forgiveness proves the measure of mylove. As proof of penitence, will you marry me in June?"

"I certainly--will--not!" Again she drew away. "Jacqueline will notget here until July. I told you she was coming home to live. Youdon't suppose I'd leave my mother before Jacqueline comes home?"

"Then when?"

"In October, perhaps. " Slowly the color crept to her temples. "Itis so beautiful here in October. There isn't a month in all the yearit will not hurt to leave. " Sudden tears were in her eyes. "But itwould hurt worse not to be--with--you. They were very long, Winthrop, the winter months that followed Christmas. You have verypoor manners. You should have written first and told me you hadenjoyed yourself instead of telling--"

"What I could no longer keep back? There was no time for manners. Ihad to know. "

"But you didn't, and because I couldn't tell you. Before, I havealways been so quick to know. To go away--with just you! I had tobe so certain there was no other way of happiness. " In the darknessshe shivered slightly, and Laine drew her into his arms and held herclose. 

"Perhaps"--her voice was so low he had to bend his head to hearit--"perhaps it is because we are apart from the things that make oneforget that I have thought more about what it should mean--whatmarriage should mean--than I might have done had there been no timeto think. It is forever, Winthrop, this life that we are entering. Are we very, very sure there's love enough to last?"

"I am very sure, Claudia. " He lifted her hands to his lips andkissed them. "For me your love will make of life a--"

"Land that is not lonely?" Under her breath she laughed, to hide thesob in her throat. "Oh, Winthrop Laine, it is what love is for! Andno one's land is lonely when there is love enough!"