The Girl at Cobhurst by Frank Richard Stockton (page 6)

here to look after Mike, an’ was too stingy even to pay my hack fare. She wanted me to come day before yesterday, but I couldn’t get away ’til to-day.”

“Where is Miss Panney?” asked La Fleur, quickly.

“She’s gone to the seashore, where the Bannisters an’ Miss Miriam is. She said she’d come here herself if it hadn’t been for goin’ thar.”

“To look after Mike?” asked the other.

“Not ‘zactly,” said Phoebe, with a grin. “There’s other things here she wanted to look after.”

“Upon my word!” exclaimed La Fleur, “I can’t imagine what there is on this place that Miss Panney need concern herself about.”

“There isn’t no place,” said Phoebe, “where there isn’t somethin’ that Miss Panney wants to consarn herself in.”

La Fleur looked at Phoebe, and then dropped the subject.

“Don’t you want a cup of tea?” she asked, a glow of hospitality suddenly appearing on her face. “That will set you up sooner than anything else, and perhaps I can find a piece of one of those meat pies your husband likes so much.”

Phoebe was not accustomed to being waited upon by white people, and to have a repast prepared for her by this cook of high degree flattered her vanity and wonderfully pleased her. Her soul warmed toward the good woman who was warming and cheering her body.

“I say it again,” remarked La Fleur, “that I cannot think what that old lady should want to look after in this house.”

“Now look here, madam,” said Phoebe, “it’s jes’ nothin’ at all. It’s jes’ the most nonsensical thing that ever was. I don’t mind tellin’ you about it; don’t mind it a bit. She wants Mr. Hav’ley to marry Miss Dora Bannister, an’ she’s on pins an’ needles to know if the young woman here is likely to ketch him. That’s all there is ’bout it. She don’t care two snaps for Mike, an’ I reckon he don’t want no looking after anyway.”

“No, indeed,” answered the other; “I take the best of care of him. Miss Panney must be dreadful afraid of our young lady, eh?”

“That’s jes’ what she is,” said Phoebe. “I wonder she didn’t take Mr. Hav’ley along with her when she went to the seashore.”

La Fleur’s eyes sparkled.

“Now come, Phoebe,” said she; “what on earth did she want you to do here?”

Phoebe took a long draught of tea, and put down the cup, with a sigh of content.

“Oh, nothin’,” said she. “She jes’ wanted me to spy round, an’ see if Mr. Hav’ley an’ Miss Drane was fallin’ in love with each other, an’ then I was to go an’ tell her about it the mornin’ before she started. Now I’ll have to keep it ’til she comes back, but I reckon thar ain’t nothin’ to tell about.”

La Fleur laughed. “Nothing at all,” said she. “You might stay here a week and you wouldn’t see any lovemaking between those two. They don’t as much as think of such a thing. So you need not put yourself to any trouble about that part of Miss Panney’s errand. Here comes your good Michael, and I think you will find that he is doing very well.”

About ten minutes after this, when Phoebe and Mike had gone off to talk over their more than semi-detached domestic affairs, La Fleur took the telegram from the drawer, replaced it in its envelope, which she closed and fastened so neatly that no one would have supposed that it had been opened. Then she took from a shelf a railroad time-table, which lay in company with her cookbook and a few other well-worn volumes; for the good cook cared for reading very much as she cared for her own mayonnaise dressing; she wanted but little at a time, but she liked it.

“The last train to the city seems to be seven-ten,” she said to herself. “No other train after that stops at Thorbury. If he had been at home he would have taken an early afternoon train, which was what she expected, I suppose. It will be a great pity for him to have to go tonight, and for no other reason than for that old trickster’s telegram. If anything has really happened, he’ll get news of it in some sensible shape.”

At all events, there was nothing now to be done with the telegram, so she put it on the shelf, and set about her preparations for dinner, which had been very much delayed.

Ralph had gone off fishing; but, before starting, he had put Mrs. Browning to the gig and had told Cicely that as soon as her work was finished, she must take her mother for a drive. The girl had been delighted, and the two had gone off for a long jog through the country lanes.

It was late in the afternoon when Ralph came striding homeward across the fields. He was still a mile from Cobhurst, and on a bit of rising ground when, on the road below him, he saw Mrs. Browning and the gig, and to his surprise the good old mare was demurely trotting away from Cobhurst.

“Can it be possible,” he exclaimed, “that they have just started!” And he hurried down toward the road. He now saw that there was only one person in the gig, and very soon he was near enough to perceive that this was Cicely.

“I expect you are wondering what I am doing here by myself, and where I am going,” she said, when she stopped and he stood by the gig. “I shall tell you the exact truth, because I know you will not mind. We started out a long time ago, but mother had a headache, and the motion of the gig made it worse. She was trying to bear it so that I might have a drive, but I insisted upon turning back. I took her as far as the orchard, where I left her, and since then I have been driving about by myself and having an awfully good time. Mother did not mind that, as I promised not to go far away. But I think I have now gone far enough along this road. I like driving ever so much! Don’t you want me to drive you home?”

“Indeed I do!” said Ralph, and in he jumped.

“I expect Miriam must be enjoying this lovely evening,” she said. “And she will see the sun set from the beach, for Barport faces westward, and I never saw a girl enjoy sunsets as she does. At this moment I expect her face is as bright as the sky.”

“And wouldn’t you like to be standing by her?” asked Ralph.

Cicely shook her head. “No,” she said. “To speak truly, I should rather be here. We used to go a good deal to the seashore, but this is the first time that I ever really lived in the country, and it is so charming I would not lose a day of it, and there cannot be very many more days of it, anyway.”

“Why not?” asked Ralph.

“I am now copying chapter twenty-seventh of the doctor’s book, and there are only thirty-one in all. And as to his other work, that will not occupy me very long.”

Ralph was about to ask a question, but, instead, he involuntarily grasped one of the little gloved hands that held the reins.

“Pull that,” he said quickly. “You must always turn to the right when you meet a vehicle.”

Cicely obeyed, but when they had passed a wagon, drawn by a team of oxen, she said, “But there was more room on the other side.”

“That may be,” replied Ralph, with a laugh, “but when you are driving, you must not rely too much on your reason, but must follow rules and tradition.”

“If I knew as much about driving as I like it,” said she, “I should be a famous whip. Before we go, I am going to ask Miriam to take me out with her, two or three times, and give me lessons in driving. She told me that you had taught her a great deal.”

“So you would be willing to take your tuition secondhand,” said Ralph. “I am a much better teacher than Miriam is.”

“Would you like to make up a class?” she asked. “But I do not know how the teacher and the two pupils could ride in this gig. Oh, I see. Miriam and I could sit here, and you could walk by our side and instruct us, and when the one who happened to be driving should make a mistake, she would give up her seat and the reins, and go to the foot of her class.”

“Class indeed!” exclaimed Ralph; “I’ll have none of it. I will take you out tomorrow and give you a lesson.”

So they went gayly on till they came to a grassy hill which shut out the western view.

“Do you think I could go through that gate,” asked Cicely, “and drive Mrs. Browning up that hill? There is going to be a grand sunset, and we should get a fine view of it up there.”

“No,” said Ralph, “let us get out and walk up, and as Mrs. Browning can see the barn, we will not worry her soul by tying her to the fence. I shall let her go home by herself, and you will see how beautifully she will do it.”

So they got out, and Ralph having fastened the reins to the dashboard, clicked to the old mare, who walked away by herself. Cicely was greatly interested, and the two stood and watched the sober-minded animal as she made her way home as quietly and properly as if she had been driven. When she entered the gate of the barnyard, and stopped at the stable door, Ralph remarked that she would stand there until Mike came out, and then the two went into the field and walked up the hill.

“I once had a scolding from Miriam for doing that sort of thing,” said Ralph; “but you do not seem to object.”

“I do not know enough yet,” cried Cicely, who had begun to run up the hill; “wait until I have had my lessons.”

They stood together at the top of the little eminence.

“I wonder,” said Cicely, “if Miriam ever comes upon this hill at sunset. Perhaps she has never thought of it.”

Ralph did not know; but the mention of Miriam’s name caused him to think how little he had missed his sister, who had seemed to live in his life as he had lived in hers. It was strange, and he could not believe that he would so easily adapt himself to the changed circumstances of his home life. There was another thing of which he did not think, and that was that he had not missed Dora Bannister. It is true that he had never seen much of that young lady; but he had thought so much about her, and made so many plans in regard to her, and had so often hoped that he might see her drive up to the Cobhurst door, and had had such charming recollections of the hours she had spent in his home, and of the travels they had taken together by photograph, her blue eyes lifted to his as if in truth she leaned upon his arm as they walked through palace and park, that it was wonderful that he did not notice that for days his thoughts had not dwelt upon her.

When the gorgeous color began to fade out of the sky, Cicely said her mother would be wondering what had become of her, and together they went down the hill, and along the roadside, where they stopped to pick some tall sprays of goldenrod, and through the orchard, and around by the barnyard, where Mike was milking, and where Ralph stopped while Cicely went on to the house.

Phoebe was standing down by the entrance gate. She was waiting for an oxcart, whose driver had promised to take her with him on his return to Thorbury. She had arranged with a neighbor to prepare the minister’s supper, but she must be on hand to give him his breakfast. As there was nothing to interest her at Cobhurst, and nothing to report, she was glad to go, and considered this oxcart a godsend, for her plan of getting Mike to drive her over in the spring cart had not been met with favor.

Waiting at the gateway, she had seen Ralph and Cicely walk up the hill, and watched them standing together, ever and ever so long, looking at the sky, and she had kept her eyes on them as they came down the hill, stopped to pick flowers which he gave to her, and until they had disappeared among the trees of the orchard.

“Upon my word an’ honor!” ejaculated Mrs. Robinson, “if that old French slop-cook hasn’t lied to me, wus than Satan could do hisself! If them two ain’t lovers, there never was none, an’ that old heathen sinner thought she could clap a coffee bag over my head so that I couldn’t see nothin’ nor tell nothin’. She might as well a’ slapped me in the face, the sarpent!”

And unable, by reason of her indignation, to stand still any longer, she walked up the road to meet the returning oxcart, whose wheels could be heard rumbling in the distance.

La Fleur had seen the couple standing together on the little hill, but she had thought it a pity to disturb their tete-a-tete.

CHAPTER XXXVIII

CICELY READS BY MOONLIGHT

Just before Cicely reached the back piazza, La Fleur came out of the kitchen door with the telegram in her hand.

“Do you know,” she said, “if Mr. Haverley has come home, and where I can find him? Here is a message for him, and I have been looking for him, high and low.”

“A telegram!” exclaimed Cicely. “He is at the barn. I will take it to him. I can get there sooner than you can, La Fleur,” and without further word, she took the yellow missive and ran with it toward the barn. She met Ralph half way, and stood by him while he read the message.

“I hope,” she cried as she looked into his pale face, “that nothing has happened to Miriam.”

“Read that,” he said, his voice trembling. “Do you suppose–” but he could not utter the words that were in his mind.

Cicely seized the telegram and eagerly read it. She was on the point of screaming, but checked herself.

“How terrible!” she exclaimed. “But what can it mean? It is from Miss Panney. Oh! I think it is wicked to send a message like that, which does not tell you what has happened.”

“It must be Miriam,” cried Ralph. “I must go instantly,” and at the top of his voice he shouted for Mike. The man soon appeared, running.

“Mike!” exclaimed Ralph, “there has been an accident, something has happened to Miss Miriam. I must go instantly to Barport. I must take the next train from Thorbury. Put the horse to the gig as quickly as you can. You must go with me.”

With a face expressing the deepest concern, Mike stood looking at the young man.

“Don’t stop for a minute,” cried Ralph, in great excitement. “Drop everything. Take the horse, no matter what he has been doing; he can go faster than the mare. I shall be ready in five minutes!”

“Mr. Hav’ley,” said Mike, “there ain’t no down train stops at Thorbury after the seven-ten, and it’s past seven now. That train’ll be gone before I can git hitched up.”

“No train tonight!” Ralph almost yelled, “that cannot be. I do not believe it.”

“Now look here, Mr. Hav’ley,” said Mike, “I wouldn’t tell you nothin’ that wasn’t so, ‘specially at a time like this. But I’ve been driving to Thorbury trains an’ from ’em, for years and years. There’s a late train ’bout ten o’clock, but it’s a through express and don’t stop.”

“I must take that train,” cried Ralph, “what is the nearest station where it does stop?”

“There ain’t none nearer than the Junction, and that’s sixteen miles up, an’ a dreadful road. I once druv there in the daytime, an’ it tuk me four hours, an’ if you went to-night you couldn’t get there afore daylight.”

“Why don’t you go to Thorbury and telegraph?” asked Cicely, who was now almost as pale as Ralph. “Then you could find out exactly what has happened.”

“Oh, I must go, I must go,” said Ralph; “but I shall telegraph. I shall go to Thorbury instantly, and get on as soon as I can.”

Mike stood looking on the ground.

“Mr. Hav’ley,” he said, as the young man was about to hurry to the house, “tain’t no use, the telegraph office is shet up, right after that down train passes.”

“It is barbarous!” exclaimed Ralph. “I will go anyway. I will find the operator.”

“Mr. Hav’ley,” said Mike, “don’t you go an’ do that. You is tremblin’ like a asp. You’ll be struck down sick if you go on so. There’s a train a quarter of six in the mornin’, an’ I’ll git you over to that. If you goes to Thorbury, you won’t be fit to travel in the mornin’, an’ you won’t be no good when you gits there.”

Tears were now on Cicely’s cheeks, in spite of her efforts to restrain herself.

“He is right, Mr. Ralph,” she said. “I think it will be dreadful for you to be in Thorbury all night, and most likely for no good. It will be a great deal better to leave here early in the morning and go straight to Barport. But let us go into the house and talk to mother. After all, it may not be Miriam. You cannot tell what it is. It is a cruel message.”

Mrs. Drane was greatly shocked, but she agreed with her daughter that it would not be wise for Ralph to go to Thorbury until he could start for Barport. La Fleur was somewhat frightened when she found that her wilful delay of the telegram might occasion Mr. Haverley an harassing and anxious night in Thorbury, and was urgent in her endeavors to quiet him and persuade him to remain at home until morning. But it was not until Cicely had put in her last plea that the young man consented to give up his intention of going in search of the telegraph operator.

“Mr. Ralph,” said she, “don’t you think it would be awful if you were to send a message and get a bad answer to it, and have to stay there by yourself until the morning? I cannot bear to think of it; and telegraphic messages are always so hard and cruel. If I were you, I would rather go straight on and find out everything for myself.”

Ralph looked down at her and at the tears upon her cheeks.

“I will do that,” he said, and taking her hand, he pressed it thankfully.

Every preparation and arrangement was made for an early start, and Ralph wandered in and out of the house, impatient as a wild beast to break away and be gone. Cicely, whose soul was full of his sorrow, went out to him on the piazza, where he stood, looking at the late moon rising above the treetops.

“What a different man I should be,” he said, “if I could think that Miriam was standing on the seashore and looking at that moon.”

Cicely longed to comfort him, but she could not say anything which would seem to have reason in it. She had tried to think that it might be possible that the despatch might not concern Miriam, but she could not do it. If it had been necessary to send a despatch and Miriam had been alive and well, it would have been from her that the despatch would have come. Cicely’s soul was sick with sorrow and with dread, not only for the brother, but for herself, for she and Miriam were now fast friends. But she controlled herself, and looking up with a smile, said, “What time is it?”

Ralph took out his watch and held the face of it toward the moon, which was but little past the full.

“It is a quarter to nine,” he said.

“Well, then,” said she, “I will ask Miriam, when I see her, if she was looking at the moon at this time.”

“Do you believe,” exclaimed Ralph, turning suddenly so that they stood face to face, “do you truly believe that we shall ever see her again?”

The question was so abrupt that Cicely was taken unawares. She raised her face toward the eager eyes bent upon her, but the courageous words she wished to utter would not come, and she drooped her head. With a swift movement, Ralph put his two hands upon her cheeks and gently raised her face. He need not have looked at her, for the warm tears ran down upon his hands.

“You do not,” he said; and as he gazed down upon her, her face became dim. For the first time since his boyhood, tears filled his eyes.

At a quick sound of hoofs and wheels, both started; and the next moment the telegraph boy drove up close to the railing and held up a yellow envelope.

“One dollar for delivery,” said he; “that’s night rates. This come jest as the office was shetting up, and Mr. Martin said I’d got to deliver it to-night; but I couldn’t come till the moon was up.”

Cicely, who was nearer, seized the telegram before Ralph could get it.

“Drive round to the back of the house,” she said to the boy, “and I will bring you the money.”

She held the telegram, though Ralph had seized it.

“Don’t be too quick,” she said, “don’t be too quick. There, you will tear it in half. Let me open it for you.”

She deftly drew the envelope from his hand, and spread the telegram on the broad rail of the piazza, on which the moon shone full. Instantly their heads were close together.

“I cannot read it,” groaned Ralph; “my eyes are–“

“I can,” interrupted Cicely, and she read aloud the message, which ran thus,–

“Fear news of accident may trouble you. We are all well. Have written. Miriam Haverley.”

Ralph started back and stood upright, as if some one had shouted to him from the sky. He said not one word, but Cicely gave a cry of joy. Ralph turned toward her, and as he saw her face, irradiated by the moonlight and her sudden happiness, he looked down upon her for one moment, and then his arms were outstretched toward her; but, quick as was his motion, her thought was quicker, and before he could touch her, she had darted back with the telegram in her hand.

“I will show this to mother,” she cried, and was in the house in an instant.

La Fleur was in the hall, where for some time she had been quietly standing, looking out upon the moonlight. From her position, which was not a conspicuous one, at the door of the enclosed stairway, she had been able to keep her eyes upon Ralph and Cicely; and held herself ready, should she hear Mrs. Drane coming down the stairs, to go up and engage her in a consultation in regard to domestic arrangements. She had known of the arrival of the telegraph boy, had seen what followed, and now listened with rapt delight to Cicely’s almost breathless announcement of the joyful news.

After the girl went upstairs, La Fleur walked away; there was no need for her to stand guard any longer.

“It isn’t only the telegram,” she said to herself, “that makes her face shine and her voice quiver like that.” Then she went out to congratulate Mr. Haverley on the news from his sister. But the young man was not there; his soul was too full for the restraints of a house or a roof, and he had gone out, bareheaded, into the moonlight to be alone with his happiness and to try to understand it.

When Mrs. Drane returned to her room, having gone down at her daughter’s request to pay the telegraph messenger, she found her daughter lying on a couch, her face wet with tears. But in ten minutes Cicely was sitting up and chattering gayly. The good lady was rejoiced to know that there was no foundation for the evils they had feared, but she could not understand why her daughter, usually a cool-headed little thing and used to self-control, should be so affected by the news. And in the morning she was positively frightened when Cicely informed her that she had not slept a wink all night.

Mrs. Drane had not seen Ralph’s face when he stretched out his arms toward her daughter.

CHAPTER XXXIX

UNDISTURBED LETTUCE

When Ralph Haverley came in from his long moonlight ramble, he was so happy that he went to bed and slept as sound as rock. But before he closed his eyes he said to himself,–

“I will do that to-morrow; the very first thing to-morrow.”

But people do not always do what they intend to do the very first thing in the morning, and this was the case with Ralph. La Fleur, who knew that a letter was expected, sent Mike early to the post-office, and soon after breakfast Ralph had a letter from Miriam. It was a long one; it gave a full account of the drowning accident and of some of her own experiences, but it said not one word of the message sent by Miss Panney, to whom Miriam alluded very slightly. It gave, however, the important information that Mrs. Bannister had been so affected by the dreadful scene on the beach that she declared she could not go into the ocean again, nor even bear the sight of it, and that, therefore, they were all coming home on the morrow.

“She will be here to-night,” said Ralph, who knew the trains from Barport.

As soon as he had read the letter Ralph went to look for Cicely. She had come down late to breakfast, and he had been surprised at her soberness of manner. On the other hand, Mrs. Drane had been surprised at Ralph’s soberness of manner, and she found herself in the unusual position of the liveliest person at the breakfast table.

“People who have heard such good news ought to be very happy,” she thought, but she made no remark on the subject.

It was Cicely’s custom to spend the brief time she allowed herself between breakfast and work, upon the lawn, or somewhere out of doors, but to-day Ralph searched in vain for her. He met La Fleur, however, and that conscientious cook, in her most respectful manner, asked him, if he happened to meet Miss Cicely, would he be so good as to give her a message?

“But I don’t know where she is,” said Ralph. “I have a letter to show her.”

La Fleur wished very much to know what was in the letter, which, she supposed, explained the mystery of the telegrams, but at a moment like this she would not ask.

“She is in the garden, sir,” she said. “I asked her to gather me some lettuce for luncheon. She does it so much more nicely than I could do it, or Mike. She selects the crispest and most tender leaves of that crimped and curled lettuce you all like so much, and I thought I would ask you, sir, if you met her, to be so very kind as to tell her that I would like a few sprigs of parsley, just a very few. I would go myself, sir, but there is something cooking which I cannot leave, and I beg your pardon for troubling you and will thank you, sir, very much if you–“

It was not worth while for her to finish her sentence, for Ralph had gone.

He found Cicely just as she stooped over the lettuce bed. She rose with a face like a peach blossom.

“I have a letter from Miriam,” he said, “I will give it to you presently, and you may read the whole of it, but I must first tell you that she, with Mrs. Bannister and Dora, are coming home to-day. They will reach Thorbury late this afternoon. Isn’t that glorious?”

All the delicate hues of the peach blossom went out of Cicely’s face. That everlasting person had come up again, and now he called her Dora, and it was glorious to have her back! She did not have to say anything, for Ralph went rapidly on.

“But before they leave Barport,” he said, “I want to send Miriam a telegram. If Mike takes it immediately to Thorbury, she will get it before her train leaves.”

“A telegram!” exclaimed Cicely, but she did not look up at him.

“Yes,” said he; “I want to telegraph to Miriam that you and I are engaged to be married. I want her to know it before she gets here. Shall I send it?”

She raised to him a face more brightly hued than any peach blossom–rich with the color of the ripe fruit. Ten minutes after this, two wood doves, sitting in a tree to the east of the lettuce bed, and looking westward, turned around on their twig and looked toward the east. They were sunny-minded little creatures, and did not like to be cast into the shade.

As they went out of the garden gate, Cicely said, “You have always been a very independent person and accustomed to doing very much as you please, haven’t you?”

“It has been something like that,” answered Ralph; “but why?”

“Only this,” she said; “would you begin already to chafe and rebel if I were to ask you not to send that telegram? It would be so much nicer to tell her after she gets back.”

“Chafe!” exclaimed Ralph, “I should think not. I will do exactly as you wish.”

“You are awfully good,” said Cicely, “but you must agree with me more prudently now that we are out here, and I will not tell mother until Miriam knows.”

A gray old chanticleer, who was leading his hens across the yard, stopped at this moment and looked at Ralph, but it is not certain that he sniffed.

Ralph knew very well when people, coming from Barport, should arrive in Thorbury, but his mind was so occupied that when he went to the barn, he forgot so many things he should have done at the house, and he ran backward and forward so often, and waited so long for an opportunity to say something he had just thought of, to somebody who did not happen to be ready to listen at the precise moment he wished to speak, that he had just stepped into the gig to go to the station for his sister, when Miriam arrived alone in the Bannister carriage. Not finding anybody at the station to meet her, they had sent her on.

Mrs. Drane was not the liveliest person at the dinner table, and she wondered much how Ralph and Cicely, who had been so extremely sober at breakfast time, should now be so hilarious. The arrival of Miriam seemed hardly reason enough for such intemperate gayety.

As for Miriam, she overflowed with delight. The ocean was grand, but Cobhurst was Cobhurst. “There was nothing better about my trip than the opportunity it gave me of coming back to my home. I never did that before, you know, my children.”

This she said loftily from her seat at the head of the table. Dinner was late and lasted long, and Ralph had gone into the room on the lower floor, in which he kept his cigars, and which he called his office, when Miriam followed him. There was no unencumbered chair, and she seated herself on the edge of the table.

“Ralph,” said she, “I want to say something to you, now, while it is fresh in my mind. I think we can sometimes understand our affairs better when we go away from them and are not mixed up in them. I have been thinking a great deal since I have been at Barport about our affairs here, not only as they are but as they may be, and most likely will be, and I have come to the conclusion that some of these days, Ralph, you will want to be married.”

“Do you mean me?” cried Ralph. “You amaze me!”

“Oh, you are only a man, and you need not be amazed,” said his sister. “This is the way I have been thinking of it: if you ever do want to get married, I hope you will not marry Dora Bannister. I used sometimes to think that that might be a good thing to do, though I changed my mind very often about it, but I do not think so, now, at all. Dora is an awfully nice girl in ever so many ways, but since I have been at Barport with her, I am positive that I do not want you to marry her.”

Ralph heaved a long sigh and put his hands in his pockets.

“Bless my soul!” he exclaimed, “this is very discouraging; if I do not marry Dora, who is there that I can marry?”

“You goose,” said his sister, “there is a girl here, under your very nose, ever so much nicer and more suitable for you than Dora. If you marry anybody, marry Cicely Drane. I have been thinking ever and ever so much about her and about you, and I made up my mind to speak to you of this as soon as I got home, so that you might have a chance to think about it before you should see Dora. Don’t you remember what you used to tell me about the time when you were obliged to travel so much, and how, when you had a seat to yourself in a car, and a crowd of people were coming in, you used to make room for the first nice person you saw, because you knew you would have to have somebody sitting alongside of you, and you liked to choose for yourself? Now that is the way I feel about your getting married; if you marry Cicely Drane, I shall feel safe for the rest of my life.”

“Miriam!” exclaimed Ralph, “you astonish me by the force of your statements. Wait here one moment,” and he ran into the hall through which he had seen Cicely passing, and presently reappeared with her.

“Miss Drane,” said he, “do you know that my sister thinks that I ought to marry you?”

In an instant Miriam had slipped from the table to the floor.

“Good gracious, Ralph!” she cried. “What do you mean?”

“I am merely stating your advice,” he answered; “and now, Miss Drane, how does it strike you?”

“Well,” said Cicely, demurely, “if your sister really thinks we should marry, I suppose–I suppose we ought to do it.”

Miriam’s eyes flashed from one to the other, then there were two girlish cries and a manly laugh, and in a moment Miriam and Cicely were in each other’s arms, while Ralph’s arms were around them both.

“Now,” said Cicely, when this group had separated itself into its several parts, “I must run up and tell mother.” And very soon Mrs. Drane understood why there had been sobriety at breakfast and hilarity at dinner. She was surprised, but felt she ought not to be; she was a little depressed, but knew she would get over that.

La Fleur did not hear the news that night, but it was not necessary; she had seen Ralph and Cicely coming through the garden gate without a leaf of lettuce or a single sprig of parsley.

CHAPTER XL

ANGRY WAVES

The ocean rolled angrily on the beach, and Miss Panney walked angrily on the beach, a little higher up, however, than the line to which the ocean rolled.

The old lady was angrier than the ocean, and it was much more than mere wind that made her storm waves roll. Her indignation was directed first against Mrs. Bannister, that silly woman, who, by cutting short her stay at the seashore, had ruined Miss Panney’s plans, and also against Ralph, who had not come to Barport as soon as he had received the telegram. If he had arrived, the party might have stayed a little longer for his sake. Why he had not come she knew no more than she knew what she was going to say to him in explanation of her message, and she cared as little for the one as for the other.

Her own visit to Barport had been utterly useless. She had spent money and time, she had tired herself, had been frightened and disgusted,–all for nothing. She did not remember any of her plans that had failed so utterly.

Meeting the bathing-master, she rolled in upon him some ireful waves, because he did not keep a boat outside the breakers to pick up people who might be exhausted and in danger of drowning. In vain the man protested that ten thousand people had said that to him, before, and that the thing could not be done, because so many swimmers would make for the boat and hang on to its sides, just to rest themselves until they were ready to go back. It would simply be a temptation to people to swim beyond the breakers. She went on, in a voice that the noise of the surf could not drown, to tell him that she hoped ten thousand more people would say the same thing to him, and to declare that he ought to have several boats outside during bathing hours, so that people could cling to some of them, and so, perhaps, save themselves from exhaustion on their return, and so that one, at least, could be kept free to succor the distressed. At last the poor man vowed that he acted under orders, and that, if she wanted to pitch into anybody, she ought to pitch into the proprietors of the hotel who employed him, and who told him what he must do.

Miss Panney accepted this advice; and if the sea had broken into the private office of that hotel, the owners and managers could not have had a worse time than they had during the old lady’s visit. It may be stated that for the remainder of the season two or three boats might always be seen outside the breakers during bathing hours at the Barport beach.

For the sake of appearances, Miss Panney did not leave Barport immediately; for she did not wish her friends to think that she was a woman who would run after the Bannisters wherever they might please to go. But in a reasonable time she found herself in the Witton household, and the maid who had charge of her room had some lively minutes after the arrival of the old lady therein.

The next day she went to Thorbury to see what had happened, and chanced to spy Phoebe resting herself on a bench at the edge of the public green. Instantly the colored woman sprang to her feet, and began to explain to Miss Panney why she had not made her report before the latter set out on her journey.

“You see, ma’am, I hadn’t no shoes as was fit for that long walk out in the country, an’ I had to take my best ones to the shoemaker; and though I did my best to make him hurry, it took him a whole day, an’ so I had to put off going to Cobhurst, an’ I’ve never got over my walk out thar yit. My j’ints has creaked ever sense.”

“If you used them more, they would creak less,” snapped Miss Panney. “How are things going on at Cobhurst? What did you see there?”

“I seed a lot, an’ I heard a lot,” the colored woman answered. “Mike’s purty nigh starved, an’ does his own washin’. An’ things are in that state in the house that would make you sick, Miss Panney, if you could see them. What the rain doesn’t wash goes dirty; an’ as for that old cook they’ve got, if she isn’t drunk all the time, her mind’s givin’ way, an’ I expect she’ll end by pizenin’ all of them. The vittles she gave me to eat, bein’ nearly tired to death when I got thar, was sich that they give me pains that I hain’t got over yit. And what would have happened if I’d eat a full meal, nobody knows.”

“Get out with you,” cried Miss Panney. “I don’t want any more of your jealousy and spite. If that woman gave you anything to eat, I expect it was the only decently cooked thing you ever put into your mouth. Did you see Mr. Haverley? Were the Drane women still there? How were they all getting on together?”

Phoebe’s eyes sparkled, and her voice took in a little shrillness.

“I was goin’ to git the minister to write you a letter ’bout that, Miss Panney,” said she; “but you didn’t tell me whar you was goin’, nor give me no money for stamps nor nothin’. But I kin say to you now that that woman, which some people may call a cook, but I don’t, she told me, without my askin’ a word ’bout nothin’, that Mr. Hav’ley an’ that little Miss Drane was to be married in the fall, an’ that they was goin’ away, all of them, to the wife’s mother’s to live, bein’ that that old farm out thar didn’t pay to run, an’ never would. I reckoned they’d git sick of it afore this, which I always said.”

“Phoebe!” exclaimed Miss Panney, “I do not believe a word of all that! How dare you tell me such a lot of lies?”

Phoebe was getting very angry, though she did not dare to show it; but instead of taking back anything she had said, she put on more lie-power.

“You may believe me, Miss Panney, or you needn’t; that’s just as you choose,” she said “but I can tell you more than I have told you, and that is, that from what I’ve seen and heard, I believe Mr. Hav’ley an’ Miss Drane is married already, an’ that they was only waitin’ for the Tolbridges to come home to send out the cards.”

Miss Panney glared at the woman. “I tell you what I believe, and that is that you never went to Cobhurst at all. You must tell me something, and you are making up the biggest story you can,” and with this she marched away.

“I reckon the next time she sends me on an arrand,” thought Phoebe, whose face would have been very red if her natural color had not interfered with the exhibition of such a hue, “she’ll send me in a hack, and pay me somethin’ for my time. I was bound to tell her ‘zactly what she didn’t want to hear, an’ I reckon I done it, an’ more’n that if she gets her back up ’bout this, an’ goes out to Cobhurst, that old cook’ll find herself in hot water. It was mighty plain that she was dreadful skeered for fear anybody would think thar was somethin’ goin’ on ‘twixt them two.”

If Phoebe had been more moderate in her doubleheaded treachery, Miss Panney might have been much disturbed by her news, but the story she had heard was so preposterous that she really believed that the lazy colored woman had not gone to Cobhurst, and by the time she reached the Bannister house her mind was cleared for the reception of fresh impressions.

She was fortunate enough to find Dora alone, and as soon as it was prudent she asked her what news she had heard from Cobhurst. Dora was looking her loveliest in an early autumn costume, and answered that she had heard nothing at all, which surprised Miss Panney very much, for she had expected that Miriam would have been to see Dora before this time.

“Common politeness would dictate that,” said Miss Panney, “but I expect that that child is so elated and excited by getting back to the head of her household that everything else has slipped out of her mind. But if you two are such close friends, I don’t think you ought to mind that sort of thing. If I were you, I would go out and see her. Eccentric people must be humored.”

“They needn’t expect that from me,” said Dora, a little sharply. “If Miriam lived there by herself, I might go; but as it is, I shall not. It is their duty to come here, and I shall not go there until they do.”

Miss Panney drummed upon the table, but otherwise did not show her impatience.

“We can never live the life we ought in this world, my dear,” she said, “if we allow our sensitive fancies to interfere with the advancement of our interests.”

“Miss Panney,” cried Dora, sitting upright in her chair, “do you mean that I ought to go out there, and try to catch Ralph Haverley, no matter how they treat me?”

“Yes,” said Miss Panney, leaning back in her chair, “that is exactly what I mean. There is no use of our mincing matters, and as I hold that it is the duty of every young woman to get herself well married, I think it is your duty to marry Mr. Haverley if you can. You will never meet a man better suited to you, and who can use your money with as much advantage to yourself. I do not mean that you should go and make love to him, or anything of that sort. I simply mean that you should allow him to expose himself to your influences.”

“I shall do nothing of the kind!” cried Dora, her face in a flush; “if he wants that sort of exposure, let him come here. I don’t know whether I want him to come or not. I am too young to be thinking of marrying anybody, and though I don’t want to be disrespectful to you, Miss Panney, I will say that I am getting dreadfully tired of your continual harping about Ralph Haverley, and trying to make me push myself in front of him so that his lordship may look at me. If he had been at Barport, or there had been any chance of his coming there, I should have suspected that you went there for the express purpose of keeping us up to the work of becoming attached to each other. And I say plainly that I shall have no more to do with exerting influence on him, through his sister or in any other way. There are thousands of other men just as good as he is, and if I have not met any of them yet, I have no doubt I shall do so.”

“Dora,” said Miss Panney, speaking very gently, “you are wrong when you say that there was no chance of Ralph’s coming to Barport. If some things had not gone wrong, I have reason to believe he would have been there before you left, and I am quite sure that if you had stayed there until now, you would have been walking on the sands with him at this minute.”

Dora looked at her in surprise, and the flush on her face subsided a little.

“What do you mean?” she asked. “You do not think he would have gone there on my account?”

“Yes, I do,” said Miss Panney. “That is exactly what I mean, and now, my dear Dora, do not let–“

At this moment Mrs. Bannister walked into the room, and was very glad to see Miss Panney, and to know that she had returned in safety from the seashore.

When Dora went up to her room, after the visitor had gone, she shut the door and sat down to think.

“After all,” she said to herself, “I do not believe much in the thousand other men. Not one of them is here, and none may ever come, and if Ralph really did intend to come to me at the seashore, I wish we had stayed there. It is such a good place to find out just how people feel.”

In this frame of mind she sat and thought and thought, until a servant, who had been to the post office, came up and brought her a note from Miriam Haverley.

The next morning Dora Bannister, in an open carriage, drawn by the family bays, appeared at the door of the Witton mansion. Miss Panney, with overshoes on and a little shawl about her, for the mornings were beginning to be cool, was walking up and down between two rows of old-fashioned boxwood bushes. She hurried forward, for she knew very well that Dora had not come to call on the Wittons.

“Miss Panney,” said the young lady, “I am on my way to Cobhurst, and I thought you might like to go there, and so if you choose, I shall be glad to take you with me.”

“Now, my dear girl,” said Miss Panney, “you are a trump. I always thought you were, but I will not say anything more about that. I shall be delighted to go with you, and we can talk on the way. If you will come in or take a seat on the piazza, I shall be ready in five minutes.”

As Miss Panney busied herself preparing for the drive and the call, her mind was a great deal more active than her rapid fingers. She had been intending to go to Cobhurst, but did not wish to do so until she had decided what she should say to Ralph about the telegram she had sent him. Until that morning, this had given her very little concern, but as the time approached when it would be absolutely necessary to speak upon the subject, she found that she was a good deal concerned about it. She saw that it was very important that nothing should be said to rouse Ralph into opposition.

But now everything seemed bright and clear before her. After Dora, looking perfectly lovely, as she did this morning, had shone upon Ralph for half an hour, or even less, the old lady felt that if the young man asked her any questions about her telegram she would not in the least mind telling him how she came to send it, giving him, of course, a version of her motive which would make him understand her anxious solicitude, in case anything had happened to any one dear to him, that his arrival should not be delayed an instant, as well as the sympathetic delight she would have felt in witnessing the joy his presence in Barport would cause to the dear ones, alive and well.

This somewhat complicated explanation might need policy and alteration, but Miss Panney now felt quite ready for anything Ralph might ask about the telegram. If any one else asked any questions, she would answer as happened to please her.

As they drove away Miss Panney immediately began to congratulate Dora on her return to her senses. She was in high good humor, “You ought to know, my dear, that if the loveliest woman in the world found herself stuck in a quagmire, it would be quite foolish for her to expect that the right sort of man would come and pull her out. In all probability it would be precisely the wrong sort of man who would do it. Consequently, it would be wise in her if she saw the right sort of man going by, not only to let him know that she was there, but to let him understand that she was worth pulling out. All women are born in a quagmire, and some are so anxious to get out that they take the first hand that is stretched toward them, and some, I am sorry to say, never get out at all. But they are the wise ones who do not leave it to chance, who shall be their liberators. Number yourself, my dear, among this happy class. I am so glad it is cool enough this morning for you to wear that lovely costume. It is as likely as not that by tomorrow it will be too warm. All these little things tell, my child, and I am glad to know that even the thermometer is your friend.”

“I had a letter from Miriam yesterday afternoon,” said Dora, “in which she told me that her brother Ralph is engaged to Miss Drane.”

Miss Panney turned around like a weather vane struck by a squall. She seized the girl’s arm with her bony fingers.

“What!” she exclaimed.

Ordinarily, the pain of the old lady’s grasp would have made Dora wince, but she did not seem to feel it. Without the slightest sign of emotion in her face, she answered,–

“It is so. It happened while I was at Barport.”

“Stop!” cried Miss Panney, in a voice that made the driver pull up his horses with a jerk. In a moment she had stepped from the low carriage to the ground, and with quick strides was walking back to the Witton house. Dora turned in the seat, looked after her, and laughed. It was a sudden, bitter laugh, which the circumstances made derisive.

Never before had Miss Panney’s soul been so stung, burned, and lacerated, all at once, as by this laugh. But the sound had scarcely left Dora Bannister’s lips when she bounded out of the carriage and ran after the old lady. Throwing her arms around her neck, she kissed her on the cheek.

“I am awfully sorry I did that,” she said, “and I beg your pardon. I don’t mind the thing a bit, and won’t you let me take you home in the carriage?”

Dora might as well have embraced a milestone and talked to it, for the moment she could release herself, Miss Panney stalked away without a word.

When she was again driving toward Cobhurst, Dora took from the front of the carriage a little hand mirror, and carefully arranged her hat, her feathers, her laces and ribbons. Then having satisfied herself that her features were in perfect order, she put back her glass.

“I am not going to let any of them see,” she said, “that I mind it in the least.”

CHAPTER XLI

PANNEYOPATHY AND THE ASH-HOLE

Neither Ralph nor his sister nor either of the Drane ladies had the least reason to believe that Dora minded the news contained in Miriam’s note, except that it had given her a heartfelt delight and joy, and that it had made her unable to wait a single moment longer than was necessary to come and tell them all how earnestly she congratulated them, and what a capital good thing she thought it was. She caught Ralph by himself and spoke to him so much like a sympathetic sister that he was a little, just the least little bit in the world, pained.

As Cicely had never had any objection to Miss Bannister, excepting her frequent appearances in Ralph’s conversation, she received Dora’s felicitations with the same cordiality that she saw in her lovely eyes and on her lips. And Mrs. Drane thought that if this girl were a sample of the Haverleys’ friends and neighbors, her daughter’s lot would be even more pleasant than she had supposed it would be. As for Miriam, she and Dora walked together, their arms around each other’s waists, up and down in the garden, and back and forward in the orchard, until the Bannister coachman went to sleep on his box.

During this long interview, the younger girl became impressed, not only with the fact that Dora thought so well of the match, that, if she had been looking for a wife for Ralph, she certainly would have selected Miss Drane, but with the stability of Miss Bannister’s affection for her, which did not seem to be affected in the least by the changes which would take place in the composition of the Cobhurst household. Dora had said, indeed, that she had no doubt that she and Miriam would be more intimate than ever, because Mr. Haverley would be so monopolized by his wife.

This was all very pleasant to Miriam, but it did not in the least cause her to regret Ralph’s choice. Dora was a lovely girl, but it was now plainer than ever that she was also a very superior one, whereas Cicely was just like other people and did not pretend to be anything more, and, moreover, she would not have wished her brother to marry anyone whose idea of matrimony was the monopoly of her husband, and she knew that Cicely had no such idea. But Dora was the dearest of good friends, Miriam was very sure of that.

The Bannister carriage had scarcely left the Cobhurst gates when the dog, Congo, came bounding after it. Dora looked at him as his great brown eyes were turned up towards her, and his tail was wagging with the joy of following her once more, she knew that his training was so good that she had only to tell him to go back and he would obey her, sorrowfully, with his tail hanging down. He was Ralph’s dog now, and she ought to send him back, but would she? She looked at him for a few moments, considering the question, and then she said,–

“Come, Congo” and with a bound he was in the carriage and at her feet. “You were not an out and out gift, poor fellow,” she said, stroking his head. “I expected you to be partly my dog, all the same, and now we will see if she will let him claim you.”

The dog heard all this, but Dora spoke so low, the coachman could not hear it, and she did not intend that any one else should know it unless the dog told.

Ralph did not miss Congo until the next morning, and then, having become convinced that the dog must have followed the Bannister carriage, he expressed, in the presence of Cicely, his uncertainty as to whether it would be better for him to go after the dog himself, or to send Mike.

“If I were you,” said Miss Cicely, “I would not send for him at all. If Miss Bannister really wants to get rid of him, and does not know anybody else who would take him, she may send him back herself. But it seems to me that a setter is not the best sort of a dog for a farm like this. I should think you ought to have a big mastiff, or something of that sort.”

“It is a great pity,” said Ralph, musingly, “that he happened to be unchained.”

“The more I think about it,” said Cicely, “the less I like setters. They are so intimately connected with the death of the beautiful. Did you ever think of that?”

Ralph never had, and as a man now came up to talk to him about hay, the dog and everything connected with it passed out of his mind.

When Miss Panney reached home after her abrupt parting from Dora Bannister, she took a dose of the last medicine that Dr. Tolbridge had prescribed for her. It was against her rules to use internal medicines, but she made exceptions on important occasions, and as this was a remedy for the effects of anger, she had taken it before and she took it now. Then she went to bed and there she stayed until three o’clock the next afternoon. This greatly disturbed the Wittons, for they had always believed that this hearty old lady would not be carried off by any disease, but when her time had come would simply take to her bed and die there, after the manner of elderly animals.

About the middle of the afternoon Mrs. Witton came up into her room. She did not do this often, for the old lady had always made everybody in the house understand that this room was her castle, and when any one was wanted there, he or she would be summoned.

“You must be feeling very badly,” said the meek and anxious Mrs. Witton “don’t you think it would be better to send for a doctor?”

“There is no doctor,” said Miss Panney, shortly.

“Oh yes,” said the other, “there are several excellent doctors in Thorbury, and Dr. Parker takes all of Dr. Tolbridge’s practice while he is away.”

“Stuff!” remarked Miss Panney. “I spanked Dr. Parker, when he wore little frocks, for running his tin wheelbarrow against me so that I nearly fell over it.”

“But he has learned a great deal since then,” pleaded Mrs. Witton “and if you do not want any new doctors, isn’t there something I can do for you? If you will tell me how you feel, it may be that some sort of herb tea–or a mustard plaster–“

“Gammon and spinach!” cried Miss Panney, throwing off the bedclothes as if she were about to spring into the middle of the floor. “I want no teas nor plasters. I have had as much sleep as I care for, and now I am going to get up. So trot downstairs, if you please, and tell Margaret to bring me up some hot water.”

For an hour or two before supper time, Miss Panney occupied herself in clearing out her medicine closet. Every bottle, jar, vial, box, or package it contained was placed upon a large table and divided into two collections. One consisted of the lotions and medicines prescribed for her by Dr. Tolbridge, and the other of those she herself, in the course of many years, had ordered or compounded,–not only for her own use, but for that of others. She had long prided herself on her skill in this sort of thing, and was always willing to prepare almost any sort of medicine for ailing people, asking nothing in payment but the pleasure of seeing them take it.

When everything had been examined and placed on its appropriate end of the table, Miss Panney called for an empty coalscuttle, into which she tumbled, without regard to spilling or breakage, the whole mass of medicaments which had been prepared or prescribed by herself, and she then requested the servant to deposit the contents of the scuttle in the ash-hole.

“After this,” she said to herself, “I will get somebody else to do my concocting,” and she carefully replaced her physician’s medicines on the shelves.

It was three days later when Miss Panney was told that Dr. Tolbridge was in the parlor and wished to see her.

“Well,” said the old lady, as she entered the parlor, “I supposed that after your last call here, you would not come again.”

“Oh, bless my soul!” said the doctor, “I haven’t any time to consider what has happened, I must give my whole attention to what is happening or may happen. How are you? and how have you been during my absence?”

“Oh, I had medicines enough” said she, “if I had needed them, but I didn’t.”

“Well, I wanted to see for myself, and, besides, I was obliged to come,” said the doctor; “I want to know what has happened since we left. We got home late last night, and I have not seen anybody who knows anything.”

“And so,” said the old lady, “you will swallow an insult in order to gratify your curiosity.”

“Insult, indeed!” said he. “I have a regular rule about insults. When anybody under thirty insults me, I give her a piece of my mind if she is a woman, and a taste of my horsewhip if he is a man. But between thirty and fifty, I am very careful about my resentments, because people are then very likely to be cracked or damaged in some way or other, either in body or mind, and unless I am very cautious, I may do more injury than I intend. But toward folks over fifty, especially when they are old friends, I have no resentments at all. I simply button up my coat and turn up my collar, and let the storm pelt; and when it is fine weather again, I generally find that I have forgotten that it ever rained.”

“And when a person is in the neighborhood of seventy-five, I suppose you thank her kindly for a good slap in the face.”

The doctor laughed heartily.

“Precisely,” said he. “And now tell me what has happened. You are all right, I see. How are the Cobhurst people getting on?”

“Oh, well enough,” said Miss Panney. “The young man and that Cicely Drane of yours have agreed to marry each other, and I suppose the old lady will live with them, and Miriam will have to get down from her high horse and agree to play second fiddle, or go to school again. She is too young for anything else.”

The doctor stared. “You amaze me!” he cried.

“Oh, you needn’t be amazed,” said Miss Panney; “I did it!”

“You?” said the doctor, “I thought you wanted him to marry Dora.”

“If you thought that,” said Miss Panney, flashing her black eyes upon him, “why did you lend yourself to such an underhanded piece of business as the sending of that Drane girl there?”

“Oh, bless my soul!” exclaimed the doctor, “I did not lend myself to anything. I did not send her there to be married. Let us drop that, and tell me how you came to change your mind.”

“I have a rule about dropping things,” said the old lady, “and with people of vigorous intellect, I never do it, but when any one is getting on in years and a little soft-minded, so that he does what he is told to do without being able to see the consequences of it, I pity him and drop the subject which worries his conscience. I have not changed my mind in the least. I still think that Dora would be the best wife young Haverley could have, and after I found that you had added to your treacheries or stupidities, or whatever they were, by carrying her off to Barport, I intended to take advantage of the situation, so I got Dora to invite Miriam there, feeling sure that the Drane women would have sense enough to know that they then ought to leave Cobhurst; but they had not sense enough, and they stayed there. Then I saw that the situation was critical, and went to Barport myself, and sent the young man a telegram that would have aroused the heart of a feather-bed and made it be with me in three hours, but it did not rouse him and he did not come; and before that silly Mrs. Bannister got back with the two girls, the mischief was done, and that little Drane had taken advantage of the opportunity I had given her to trap Mr. Ralph. Oh, she is a sharp one! and with you and me to help her, she could do almost anything. You take off her rival, and I send away the interfering sister; and all she has to do is to snap up the young man, while her mother and that illustrious cook of yours stand by and clap their hands. But I do not give you much credit. You are merely an inconsiderate blunderer, to say no more. You did not plan anything; I did that, and when my plans don’t work one way, they do in another. This one was like a boomerang that did not hit what it was aimed at, but came banging and clattering back all the same. And now I will remark that I have given up that sort of thing. I can throw as well as ever, but I am too old to stand the back-cracks.”

“You are not too old for anything,” said the doctor, “and you and I will do a lot of planning yet. But tell me one thing; do you think that this Haverley-Drane combination is going to deprive me of La Fleur?”

“Upon my word!” cried the old lady, springing to her feet, “never did I see a man so steeped in selfishness. Not a word of sympathy for me! In all this unfortunate affair, you think of nothing but the danger of losing your cook! Well, I am happy to say you are going to lose her. That will be your punishment, and well you deserve it. She will no more think of staying with you, after the Dranes set up housekeeping at Cobhurst, than I would think of coming to cook for you. And so you may go back to your soggy bread, and your greasy fries, and your dishwater coffee, and get yellow and green in the face, thin in the legs, and weak in the stomach, and have good reason to say to yourself that if you had let Miss Panney alone, and let her work out that excellent plan she had confided to you, you would have lived to a healthy old age, with the best cook in this part of the country making you happy three times a day, and satisfied with the world between meals.”

“Deal gently with the erring,” said the doctor. “Don’t crush me. I want to go to Cobhurst this morning, to see them all, and find out my fate. Wouldn’t you like to go with me? I have a visit to make, two or three miles above here, but I shall be back soon, and will drive you over. What do you say?”

“Very good,” said Miss Panney. “I have been thinking of calling on the happy family.”

As soon as the doctor had departed Miss Panney ordered her phaeton.

“I intended going to Cobhurst to-day,” she said to herself, “but I do not propose to go with him. I shall get there first and see how the land lies, before he comes to muddle up things with his sordid anxieties about his future victuals and drink.”

CHAPTER XLII

AN INTERVIEWER

The roan mare travelled well that morning, and Miss Panney was at Cobhurst before the doctor reached his patient’s house. To her regret she found that Mrs. Drane and Miriam had driven to Thorbury. Miss Drane was upstairs at her work, and Mr. Haverley was somewhere on the place, but could easily be found. All this she learned from Mike, whom she saw outside.

“And where is the cook?”

“She’s in the kitchen,” said Mike.

“A good place for her,” replied the old lady; “let her stay there. I will see Mr. Haverley, and I will see him out here. Go and find him and tell him I am sitting under that tree.”

Ralph arrived, bright-eyed.

“Well, sir,” cried the old lady, “and so you have decided to take a wife to yourself, eh?”

“Indeed I have,” said he, with the air of one who had conquered a continent, and giving Miss Panney’s outstretched hand a hearty shake.

“Sit down here,” said she, “and tell me all about it. I suppose your soul is hungering for congratulations.”

“Oh yes,” he said, laughing; “they are the collateral delights which are next best to the main happiness.”

“Now,” said Miss Panney, “I suppose you feel quite certain that Miss Drane is a young woman who will suit your temperament and your general intellectual needs?”

“Indeed I do,” cried Ralph. “She suits me in every possible way.”

“And you have thoroughly investigated her character, and know that she has the well-balanced mind which will be very much wanted here, and that she has cut off and swept away all remnants of former attachments to other young men?”

Ralph twisted himself around impatiently.

“One moment,” said Miss Panney, raising her hand. “And you are quite positive that she would have been willing to marry you if you had not owned this big farm; and that if you had had a dozen other girls to choose from, you still would have chosen her; and that you really think such a small person will appear well by the side of a tall fellow like you; and you are entirely convinced that you will never look around on other men’s wives and wish that your wife was more like this one or that one; and that–“

“Miss Panney!” cried Ralph, “do you suppose there was ever a man in the world who thought about all those things when he really loved a woman?”

“No,” said she, “I do not suppose there ever was one, and it was in the hope that such a one had at last appeared on earth that I put my questions to you.”

“Well, I can answer them all in a bunch,” said he; “she is exactly the wife I want, and nobody in the world would suit me as well. And if there is any one who does not think so–“

“Stop!” exclaimed Miss Panney; “your face is getting red. Never jump over a wall when there is a bottomless ditch on the other side. You might miss the ditch, but it is not likely. You are in love, and when people are that way, the straight back of a saw is parallel to every line of its teeth. Don’t quarrel, and I will go on with my congratulations.”

“Very queer ones they are so far, I am sure,” replied Ralph, his face still flushed a little.

“Oh yes,” said Miss Panney, rising, “there are a lot of queer things in this world, and I may be one of them. Now I will go and see your young lady. I do not know her very well yet, and I must make her better acquaintance.”

“Miss Panney,” said Ralph, quickly, “if you are going to stir her up with questions such as you put to me, I beg you will not see her.”

“Boy, boy,” said the old lady, “don’t bubble and boil. I have a great regard for you, and care a great deal more for you than I do for her, and it is only people that I care a great deal for that I stir up. Go back to your grindstone, or whatever you were at work at, and do not worry your mind about your little Cicely. It may be that I shall like her enough to wish that I had made the match.”

When Cicely accidentally met Ralph in the garden, a few hours later, she said to him that she could not have imagined that Miss Panney was such a dear old lady.

“Why, Ralph,” said the girl, looking up at him with moistened eyes, “she talked to me so sweetly and gave me such good advice that I actually cried. And never before, dear Ralph, did good advice make me feel so happy that I had to cry.”

And at this point the two wood doves, who had become regular detectives, actually pecked at each other in their despair of emulation.

Miss Panney’s interview with Cicely had not been very long, because the old lady was anxious to see La Fleur before the doctor got there, and she went down into the kitchen, where, although she did not know it, the cook was expecting her. La Fleur’s soul was in a state of turbulent triumph, but her expression was as soft as a dish of jelly.

Miss Panney sat down on the chair offered her, while the cook remained standing.

“I came down to ask you,” said the old lady, “if you have heard whether Dr. Tolbridge and his wife have returned. I suppose you will be going back to them immediately.”

“Oh no,” said La Fleur, her eyes humbly directed toward the floor as she spoke, “at least not for a permanency. I shall get the doctor a good cook. I shall make it my business to see that she is a person fully capable of filling the position. I have my eyes on such a one. As for me, I shall stay here with my dear Miss Cicely.”

“Good heavens, woman!” exclaimed Miss Panney, “your Miss Cicely isn’t head of this house. What do you mean by talking in that way? Miss Haverley is mistress of this establishment. Haven’t you sense enough to know that you are in her service, and that Miss Drane and her mother are merely boarders?”

Not a quiver or a shake was seen on the surface of the gentle jelly.

“Oh, of course,” said La Fleur, with her head on one side, and her smile at its angle of humility, “I meant that I would come to her when she is settled here as Mrs. Haverley, and her dear mother is living with her, and when Miss Miriam has gone to finish her education at whatever seminary is decided on. Then this house will seem like my true home, and begging your pardon, madam, you cannot imagine how happy I am going to be.”

“You!” exclaimed Miss Panney. “What earthly difference does it make to anybody whether you are happy or not?”

The jelly seemed to grow softer and more transparent.

“I am only a cook,” said La Fleur, “but I can be as happy as persons of the highest quality, and I understand their natures very well, having lived with them. And words cannot tell you, madam, how it gladdens my old heart to think that I had so much to do myself with the good fortunes of us all, for the Dranes and me are a happy family now, and I hope may long be so, and hold together. I am sure I did everything that my humble mind could conceive, to give those two every chance of being together, and to keep other people away by discussing household matters whenever needed; for I had made up my mind that Miss Cicely and Mr. Haverley were born for each other, and if I could help them get each other, I would do it. When your telegram came, madam, it disturbed me, for I saw that it might spoil everything, by taking him away just at the time when they had nobody but each other for company, and when he was beginning to forget that he had ever been engaged to Miss Bannister, as you told me he was, madam, though I think you must have been a little mistaken, as we are all apt to be through thinking that things are as we want them to be. But I couldn’t help feeling thankful that nobody but me was home when the telegram was brought without any envelope on it, and I had no chance to give it to him until it was too late to take a train that night; for the trouble the poor gentleman was in on account of his sister, being sure, of course, that something had happened to her, put him into such a doleful way that Miss Cicely gave herself up, heart and soul, to comfort him. And when a beautiful young woman does that for a young man, their hearts are sure to run together, like two eggs broken into one bowl. Now that’s exactly what theirs did that night, for being so anxious about them I watched them and kept Mrs. Drane away. The very next morning when I asked her to go into the garden and pick some lettuce, and then told him where she was, he offered himself and was accepted. So you see, madam, that without boasting, or exalting myself above others, I may really claim that I made this match that I set my heart on. Although, to be sure–for I don’t take away rightful credit from anybody–some of the credit is yours for having softened up their hearts with your telegram, just at the very moment when that sort of softening could be of the most use.”

Miss Panney sat up very cold and severe.

“La Fleur,” said she, “I thought you were a cook who prided herself on attending to her business. Since I have been sitting here, listening to your twaddle, the cat has been making herself comfortable in that pan of bread dough that you set by the fire to rise.”

La Fleur turned around; her impulse was to seize a poker and rush at the cat. But she stood where she was and infused more benignity into her smile.

“Poor thing,” said she, “she doesn’t do any harm. There’s a thick towel over the pan, and I should be ashamed of my yeast if it couldn’t lift a cat.”

When Miss Panney went upstairs she laughed. She did not want to laugh, but she could not help it. She had scarcely driven out of the gate when she met Dr. Tolbridge.

“A pretty trick you have played me!” he cried.

“Yes, indeed, a very pretty one,” replied the old lady, pulling up her mare. “I thought you knew me better than to think that I would come here to look into this engagement business with you or anybody else. Or that I would let you get ahead of me, either. Well, I have got all the points I want, and more too, and now you can go along, and Mr. Ralph will tell you that he is the happiest man in the world, and your secretary will tell you that she is the happiest young woman, and the cook you are going to lose will vow that she is the happiest old woman, and if you stay until Mrs. Drane and Miriam come back, the one will tell you that she is the happiest middle-aged woman, and the other that she is the happiest girl, and if you give Mike a half dollar, he will tell you that he is the happiest negro in the world. Click!”

The doctor went on to Cobhurst, where Mrs. Drane and Miriam soon arrived, and he heard everything that Miss Panney told him he would hear.

CHAPTER XLIII

THE SIREN AND THE IRON

The summer, the Dranes, La Fleur, and Miriam had all left Cobhurst. The summer had gone south for an eight months’ stay; the Dranes had gone to their old Pennsylvania home to settle up their affairs, and prepare for the marriage of the younger lady, which was to take place early in the coming spring; La Fleur had returned to the Tolbridges’ to remain until the new Cobhurst household should be organized; and Miriam, whose association with Dora and Cicely had aroused her somewhat dormant aspirations in an educational direction, had gone to Mrs. Stone’s school for the winter term.

November had come to Cobhurst, and there Ralph remained to get his farm ready for the winter, and his house in order for the bride who would come with the first young leaves. He did not regret this period of solitary bachelorhood, for not having very much money, he required a good deal of time to do what was to be done.

He had planned a good deal of refitting for the house, although not so much as to deprive it of any of those characteristics which made it dear old Cobhurst. And there were endless things to do on the farm, the most important of which, in his eyes, was the breaking of the pair of colts, which task he intended to take into his own hands. Mrs. Browning and the gig were very well in their places, but something more would be needed when the green leaves came.

Seraphina, Mike’s sister, now ruled in the kitchen, but Ralph’s thoughts had acquired such a habit of leaving the subject on which he was engaged and flying southward, that even when he took a meal with the Tolbridges, which happened not infrequently, he scarcely noticed the difference between their table and his own. Nothing stronger than this could be said regarding his present power of abstracting his mind from surrounding circumstances.

His income was a limited one, although it had been a good deal helped by the products of his farm, and he had to do a great deal of calculating with his pencil before he dared to order work which would oblige him to draw a check with his pen. But by thus giving two dollars’ worth of thought to every dollar of expenditure, he made his money go a long way, and the lively and personal interest he took in every little improvement, made a garden fence to him of as much importance and satisfaction as a new post-office would have been to the people of Thorbury.

One day he went into a hardware store of the town to buy some nails, and there he met Miss Panney, who had just purchased a corkscrew.

“A thing you will not want for some time,” she said, “for you do not look as if you needed anything to cheer your soul. Now tell me, young man, is it really the engagement rapture that has lasted all this time?”

“Oh, yes,” said Ralph, laughing, “and besides that I have had all sorts of good fortune. For instance, one of my hens, setting unbeknown to anybody in a warm corner of the barn, has hatched out a dozen little chicks. Think of that at this season! I have put them in a warm room, and by the time we begin housekeeping we shall have spring chickens to eat before anybody else. And then there is that black colt, Dom Pedro. I had great doubts about him, because he showed such decided symptoms of free will, but now he is behaving beautifully. He has become thoroughly reconciled to a haycart. I have driven him in a light wagon with his sister, and he is just as good as she is, and yesterday I drove him single, and find that he has made up his mind to learn everything I can teach him. Now isn’t that a fine thing?”

“Oh, yes,” said Miss Panney, “it must be such things as those that make your eyes sparkle! But of course it warms your heart to give her delicate eating when she first comes to you, and to have a fine pair of horses for her to drive behind. If your face beams as it does now while she is away, it will serve as an electric light when she comes back. Good fortune! Oh, yes, of course, you consider that you have it in full measure. But we are sometimes apt to look on our friends’ good fortune in an odd way. Now, if I had wanted you to go to Boston to get rich, and instead of that you had insisted on going to Nantucket, and had become rich there, I suppose that I should have been satisfied as long as you were prosperous, but I do not believe I would have been; at least, not entirely so. In this world we do want people to do what we think they ought to do.”

“Yes,” said Ralph, knowingly, “I see. But now, Miss Panney, don’t you really think that Boston would have been too rich a place for me? That it would have expected too much of me, and that perhaps it would have done too much for me? Boston is a good enough place, but if you only knew how much lovelier Nantucket is–“

“Stop, stop, boy!” said the old lady. “I am getting so old now, that I am obliged to stop happy people and disappointed people from talking to me. If I listened to all they had to say, I should have no time for anything else. By the way, have you heard any news from the Bannister family? That sedate Herbert is going to be married, and he intends to live with his wife in the Bannister mansion.”

“And how will his sister like that?” asked Ralph.

“She won’t like it at all. She has told me she is going away.”

“I am sorry for that,” he said. “That is too bad.”

“Not at all. She could not do better. A girl like that in a town such as Thorbury, with nobody to marry her but the rector, is as much out of place as a canary bird in a poultry yard. I have advised her to visit her relatives in town, and go with them to Europe, where I hope she will marry a prince. Good conscience! Look at her! Imagine that girl in a sweeping velvet robe with one great diamond blazing on her breast.”

Ralph turned quickly, and as his eyes fell upon Dora, as she entered the store, it struck him that no royal gowns could make her more beautiful than she was at that moment.

“Now, my dear,” said Miss Panney, “what did you come here for? Do you want a saw or a pitchfork?”

“I came,” said Dora, with her most charming smile, “because I saw you two in here, and I wanted to speak to you. It is a funny place for this sort of thing, but I do not see either of you very often, now, and I thought I would like to tell you, before you heard it from any one else, of my engagement.”

“To whom?” cried Miss Panney, in a voice that made the ox-chains rattle.

Dora looked around anxiously, but there was no one in the front part of the store.

“To Mr. Ames,” she replied.

“The rector!” exclaimed Ralph.

“Yes,” said Dora; “I want to write to Miriam about it, and do you know I have lost her address.”

“Dora Bannister,” interrupted Miss Panney, “it may be a little early to make bridal presents, but I want to give you this corkscrew. It is a very good one, and I think that after a while you will have need of it. Good morning.”

When the old lady had abruptly departed, the two young people laughed, and Ralph offered his congratulations.

“I do not know Mr. Ames very well,” he said, “but I have heard no end of good of him. But this is very surprising. It seems–“

“Seems what?” asked Dora.

“Well, since you ask me,” Ralph answered, hesitating a little, “it seems odd, not, perhaps, that you should marry the rector, but that you should marry anybody. You appear to me too young to marry.”

“Oh, indeed!” said Dora; “you think that?”

“I do not know that you understand me,” said Ralph, “but I mean that you are so full of youth–and all that, and enjoy life so much, that it is a pity that you should not have more of youthful enjoyment before you begin any other kind.”

Dora laughed.

“Truly,” said she, “I never looked at the matter in that light. Perhaps I ought to have done so. You think me too young, and if you had had a chance, perhaps you would have warned me! You are so kind and so considerate, but don’t you think you ought to speak to Mr. Ames about it? He does not know you very well, but he has heard no end of good of you, and perhaps what you say might make him reflect.”

As she spoke she looked at him with her eyes not quite so wide open as usual. Ralph returned her gaze steadfastly.

“I know what you are thinking of,” he said. “You are thinking of a fable with an animal in it and some fruit, and the animal was a small one, and the fruit was on a high trellis.”

“Oh, dear,” said Dora. “It must be very nice to have read as much as you have, and to know fables and all sorts of things to refer to. But my life hasn’t been long enough for all that.”

The more Ralph’s mind dwelt upon the matter, the more dissatisfied did he feel that this beautiful young creature should marry the rector. If, in truth, she applied the fable to him, this was all the more reason why he should feel sorry for her. If anything of all this showed itself in his eyes, he did not know it, but Dora’s eyes opened to their full width, and grew softer.

“I expect I surprise you,” she said, “by talking to you of these things, but I have so few friends to confide in. Herbert is wrapped up in his own engagement, and Mrs. Bannister is entirely apart from me. Almost ever since I have known you two, I have felt that Miriam and you were friends with whom I could talk freely, and I am now going to tell you, and I know you will never mention it, that I do not believe I shall ever marry Mr. Ames.”

“What!” exclaimed Ralph. “Didn’t you say you were engaged to him?”

“Of course I said so; and I am, and I was very glad to be able to say it to Miss Panney, for she is always bothering me about such things; but the engagement is a peculiar one. Mr. Ames has been coming to see me for a long time, and I think it was because he heard that I was planning to go away that he decided to declare himself at once, before he lost his opportunity. I told him that I had never thought of anything of the sort; but he was very insistent, and at last I consented, provided the engagement should be a long one, and that, if after I had seen more of the world and knew myself better, I should decide to change my mind, I must be allowed to do so. He fought terribly against this, but there was nothing for him to do but agree, and so now we are engaged on approbation, as it were. This is a great relief to me in various ways, because I feel as if I were safely anchored, and not drifting about whichever way the wind blows, while other people are sailing where they want to; and yet, whenever I please, I can loosen my anchor, and spread my sails, and skim away over the beautiful sea.”

It is seldom that a siren, leaning lightly against a bright new hay-cutter, with a background of iron rakes and hoes and spades, sings her soft song. But it was so now, and Dora, her heart beating quickly, looked from under her long lashes to note the effect of her words.

“If he will drop the little Drane,” she said to herself, “I will drop the rector.”

But Ralph stood looking past her. It was as plain as could be that he was not approaching the rocks; that he did not like the song; and that he was thinking what he should say about it.

“Oh, dear,” said Dora, suddenly starting. “I have ever so much to do this morning, and it must be nearly noon. I wonder what made that queer Miss Panney think of giving me this corkscrew.”

Ralph knew very well that the old lady meant the little implement as a figurative auxiliary of consolation, but he merely remarked that Miss Panney did and gave very queer things. He opened the door for her, and she bade him good-by and went out.

She crossed the street, and when on the opposite sidewalk, she turned her luminous eyes back upon the glass doors she had passed through.

But there was no one looking out after her. Ralph was standing at the counter, buying nails.

CHAPTER XLIV

LA FLEUR’S SOUL REVELS, AND MISS PANNEY PREPARES TO MAKE A FIRE

Cobhurst never looked more lovely than in the early June of the following year. With the beauty of the trees, the grass, the flowers, the vines, and all things natural, it possessed the added attractiveness of a certain personal equation. To all the happy dwellers therein, the dear old house appeared like one in which good people had always lived. Although they used to think that it was as charming as could be, they now perceived that the old mansion and all its surroundings had shown strong evidences of that system of management which Mike called ramshackle. No one said a word against any of the changes that Ralph had made, for in spite of them Cobhurst was still Cobhurst.

On a bench under a tree by the side of the house sat La Fleur, shelling some early spring peas, a tin basin of which she held in her lap. Mrs. Drane, in a rustic chair near by, was sewing, and Miriam, who had come laden with blossoms from the orchard, had stopped in the pleasant shade. Mike, absolutely picturesque in a broad new straw hat, was out in the sunshine raking some grass he had cut, and Seraphina, who remained in the household as general assistant, could be seen through the open window of the kitchen.

“As I told you before, madam,” said La Fleur, “I don’t think you need feel the least fear about the young horses. Their master has a steady hand, and they know his voice, and as for Mrs. Haverley, she’s no more afraid of them than if they were two sheep. As they drove off this afternoon, I had a feeling as if I were living with some of those great families in the old country in whose service I have been. For, said I to myself, ‘Here is the young master of the house, actually going to drive out with his handsome wife and his spirited horses, and that in the very middle of the working day, and without the prospect of making a penny of profit.’ You don’t see that often in this country, except, perhaps, among the very, very rich who don’t have to work. But it is a good sign when a gentleman like Mr. Haverley sets such an upper-toned example to his fellow young men.

“I spoke of that to Dr. Tolbridge once. ‘Begging your pardon, sir,’ said I, ‘it seems to me that you never drive out except when you have to.’ ‘Which is true,’ said he, ‘because I have to do it so much.’ ‘You will excuse me, sir, for saying so,’ said I, ‘but if you did things for pleasure sometimes, your mind would be rested, and you would feel more like comprehending the deliciousness of some of my special dishes, which I notice you now and again say nothing about, because you are so hungry when you eat them, you don’t notice their savoriness.'”

“La Fleur,” said Mrs. Drane, “I am surprised that you should have spoken to the doctor in that way.”

“Oh, I have a mind,” said La Fleur, “and I must speak it. My mind is like a young horse–if I don’t use it, it gets out of condition; and I don’t fear to speak to the doctor. He has brains, and he knows I have brains, and he understands me. He said something like that when I left him, and I am sure I never could have had a night’s rest since if I hadn’t put a good woman there in my place. With what Mary Woodyard knows already, and with me to pop in on her whenever I can coax Michael to drive me to town, the doctor should never have need for any of his own medicines, so far as digestion goes.”

“Don’t you think,” interpolated Miriam, “that there is a great deal more said and done about eating than the subject is worth?”

Mrs. Drane looked a little anxiously at La Fleur, but the cook did not in the least resent the remark.

“You are young yet, Miss Miriam,” she said; “but when you are older, you will think more of the higher branches of education, the very topmost of which is cookery. But it’s not only young people, but a good many older ones, and some of them of high station, too, who think that cooking is not a fit matter for the intellect to work on. When I lived with Lady Hartleberry, she said over and over to my lord, and me too, that she objected to the art works I sent up to the table, because she said that the human soul ought to have something better to do than to give itself up to the preparation of dishes that were no better to sustain the body than if they had been as plain as a pike-staff. But I didn’t mind her; and everything that Tolati or La Fleur ever taught me, and everything I invented for myself, I did in that house. My lady was an awfully serious woman, and very particular about public worship: and on Sunday morning she used to send the butler around to every servant with a little book, and in that he put down what church each one was going to, and at what time of day they would go. But when he came to me, I always said, ‘La Fleur goes to church when she likes and where she chooses.’ And the butler, being a man of brains, set down any church and time that happened to suit his fancy, and my lady was never the wiser; and if I felt like going to church, I went, and if I didn’t, I didn’t. But when the family went to their seat in Scotland, they did not take their butler with them, and the piper was sent round on Sunday morning to find out about the servants going to church. And when he came to me, I said the same thing I had always said, and do you know that pink-headed Scotchman put it down in the book and carried it to my lady. And when she read it, she was in a great rage, to be sure, and sent for me and wanted to know what I meant by such a message. Then I told her I meant no offence by it, and that I didn’t think the idiot would put it down, but that I was too old to change my ways, and that if her ladyship wasn’t willing that I should keep on in them, she would have to dismiss me. And then I curtsied and left her; and my lord, when he heard of it, got a new piper. ‘For,’ said he, ‘a fool’s a dangerous thing to have in the house,’ and I stayed on two years. So you see, Miss Miriam, that we are getting to the point,–even my strait-laced lady made her opinions about church-going give way before high art in her cook. For, as much as she might say against my creations and compositions, she had gotten so used to ’em, she couldn’t do without ’em.”

“Well,” said Miriam, “I suppose when the time comes I do not like everything as I do now, I shall care more for some things. But I mustn’t sit here; I must go up to my sewing.”

“Miriam!” exclaimed Mrs. Drane, “what on earth are you working at? Shutting yourself up, day after day, in your room, and at hours, too, when everything is so pleasant outside. Cannot you bring out here what you are doing?”

“No,” said Miriam, “because it is a secret; but it is nearly finished, and as I shall have to tell you about it very soon, I may as well do it now: I have been altering Judith Pacewalk’s teaberry gown for Cicely. It was altered once for me, and that makes it all the harder to make it fit her now. I am not very good at that sort of thing, and so it has taken me a long time. I expected to have it ready for her when she came back from the wedding trip, but I could not do it. I shall finish it to-day, however, and to-morrow I am going to invest her with it. She is now the head of the house, and it is she who should wear the teaberry gown. Don’t tell her, please, until to-morrow; I thought it would be nice to have a little ceremony about it, and in that case I shall have to have some one to help me.”

“It is very good of you, my dear,” said Mrs. Drane, “to think of such a thing, and Cicely and your brother will be delighted, I know, to find out what you think of this change of administration. Ralph said to me the other day that he was afraid you were not altogether happy in yielding your place to another. He had noticed that you had gotten into the habit of going off by yourself.”

Miriam laughed.

“Just wait until he hears the beautiful speech I am going to make to-morrow, and then he will see what a wise fellow he is.”

“Mrs. Drane! Miss Miriam!” exclaimed La Fleur, her face beginning to glow with emotion; “let me help to make this a grand occasion. Let me get up a beautiful lunch. There isn’t much time, it is true, but I can do it. I’ll make Michael drive me to town early in the morning, and I’ll have everything ready in time. A dinner would be all very well, but a luncheon gives so much better chance to the imagination and the intellect. There’re some things you have to have at a dinner, but at a lunch there is nothing you are obliged to have, and nothing you may not have if you want it. And if you don’t mind, I’d like you to ask old Miss Panney. I’ve been a good deal at odds with her since I have known her, but I’m satisfied now, and if there is anything I can do to make her satisfied, I’m more than ready. Besides, when I do get up anything extraordinary in the way of a meal, I like to have people at the table who can appreciate it. And as for that, I haven’t met anybody in this country who is as well grounded in good eating as that old lady is.”

Her proposition gladly agreed to, La Fleur rose to a high heaven of excited delight. She had had no chance to show her skill in a wedding breakfast, for the young couple had been married very quietly in Pennsylvania, and she was now elated with the idea of exhibiting her highest abilities in an Investiture Luncheon.

She handed the basin of peas through the open window to Seraphina, and retired to her room, to study, to plan, and to revel in flights of epicurean fancy.

“Mike,” said Seraphina to her brother, who was now raking the grass near the kitchen window, “did you hear dat ar ole cook a talkin’ jes’ now?”

“No,” said Mike, “I hain’t got no time to harken to people talkin’, ‘cept they’re talkin’ to me, an’ it ‘pends on who they is whether I listens then or not.”

“That fool thinks she made this world,” said Seraphina. “I’ve been thinkin’ she had some notion like dat. She do put on such a’rs.”

“Git out,” said Mike. “You never heard her say nothing like that.”

“I didn’t hear all she said,” replied the colored woman, “but I heard more’n ‘nough, an’ I heard her talkin’ about her creation. Her creation indeed! I’ll let her know one thing; she didn’t make me.”

“Now look a here, Seraphiny,” said Mike; “the more you shet up now, now you’s in the prime of life, the gooder you’ll feel when you gits old. An’ so long as Mrs. Flower makes them thar three-inch-deep pies for me, I don’t care who she thinks she made, an’ who she thinks she didn’t make. Thar now, that’s my opinion.”

* * * * *

The Investiture Luncheon, at which the Tolbridges and Miss Panney were present, was truly a grand and beautiful affair, to which Dora would certainly have been invited had she not been absent on her bridal trip with Mr. Ames. Seldom had La Fleur or either of her husbands prepared for prince, ambassador, or titled gourmand a meal which better satisfied the loftiest outreaches of the soul in the truest interests of the palate.

Cicely appeared in the teaberry gown, and if the spirit of Judith Pacewalk hovered o’er the scene, and allowed its gaze to wander from the charming bride, over the happy faces of the rest of the company, to the half-open door of the dining-room, where shone the radiant face of the proudest cook in the world, it must have been as well satisfied with the fate of the pink garment as it could possibly expect to be.

It was late in the afternoon when the luncheon party broke up, and although Miss Panney was the last guest to leave, she did not go home, but drove herself to Thorbury, and tied her roan mare in front of the office of Mr. Herbert Bannister. When the young lawyer looked up and perceived his visitor, he heaved a sigh, for he had expected in a few moments to lock up his desk, and stop, on his way home, at the house of his lady love. But the presence of Miss Panney at his office meant business, and business with her meant a protracted session. Miss Panney did not notice the sigh, and if she had, it would not have affected her. Her soul had been satisfied this day, and no trifle could disturb her serenity.

“Now what I want,” said she, after a good deal of prefatory remark, “is for you to give me my will. I want to alter it.”

“But, madam,” said young Bannister, when he had heard the alterations desired by Miss Panney, “is not this a little quixotic? Excuse me for saying so. Mr. Haverley is not even related to you, and you are bestowing upon him–“

“Herbert Bannister,” said the old lady, “if you were your father instead of yourself, you would know that this young man ought to have been my grandson. He isn’t; but I choose to consider him as such, and as such I shall leave him what will make him a worthy lord of Cobhurst. Bring me the new will as soon as it is ready and bring also the old one, with all the papers I have given you, from time to time, regarding the disposition of my property. I shall burn them, every one, and although it may set the Wittons’ chimney on fire the conflagration will make me happy.”

THE END