Part 33 (2/2)

”Such beautiful lace I never saw,” said Mrs. Joseph Bell to Mrs.

Townsend, her fingers caressing the exquisite tracery of the pattern lying in her lap, which had come to her ”with the love of Eleanor Forrest Townsend.”

”I thought it looked like you,” returned Mrs. Townsend, who was looking very much pleased herself over a handkerchief wrought by Nancy's clever art. The others were busy over their gifts; it was a pandemonium of exclamations and congratulations, expressions of grat.i.tude and observations of wonder and delight. s.h.i.+rley, her lap full of parcels, tissue-paper, ribbons, and cards of presentation, talking and exclaiming with the rest, was yet keeping her eye on Santa Claus, as he stripped the tree. She was watching for the moment when he should find that envelope. When it came, she meant to be out of the room and away.

Meanwhile Santa Claus dropped a fresh package into her lap. She recognised the saint's own handwriting on the wrapper--a bolder, firmer hand than one would have expected from a gentleman with so long and snowy a beard. She opened it with strong antic.i.p.ation, and found within a set of note-books of special style and quality, evidently made to order, for the binding was of a beautiful texture of leather, and the paper within of the best known to trade--the thin India, used only for fine work. Her name, delicately stenciled on the covers, completed a gift which appealed to the girl with a sense of the thought and care put into its make-up. She looked up, to find Santa Claus's eyes watching her from behind the tree, his lips smiling beneath the white beard, for her surprise and pleasure were plainly to be read upon her face. She nodded at him, colouring rosily--a picture, in her gray and scarlet frock, as she sat upon the floor surrounded by her gifts, the sight of which was quite sufficient to reward any giver.

Almost everything was off the tree. ”h.e.l.lo, here 's something I nearly missed!” murmured Santa Claus, catching sight of the corner of the white envelope beneath the golden ball. s.h.i.+rley looked up quickly, saw him struggling with the red ribbon which tied the envelope in place, and rose to her feet, letting a lapful of miscellaneous articles slide to the floor.

Everybody was busy, and only Mrs. Bell noticed, and said, gently, ”Look out, dear, you 're dropping things.” But s.h.i.+rley was gone, through the crowd of people and packages, to the door, and had closed it softly behind her.

Peter had already had a gift from s.h.i.+rley, a little thing. She was not the girl to present any man with a keepsake more valuable than the small book of modern verse which had in it certain stirring lines that she knew would be a stimulus to him. So when he saw his own name in typewriting upon the envelope, he opened it without much consideration, thinking it a joke of Ross's or Rufus's. But a second envelope was fitted inside the first, and it was labeled, ”Please don't read this in public.”

His curiosity was awakened now, and slipping the communication into his pocket, he summarily finished his duties by distributing the few remaining parcels without comment, and then walked away out of the room.

It had occurred to him that that note-paper was of a sort that he had seen once or twice before, when s.h.i.+rley had had occasion to send him a note of invitation.

Outside in the hall, which was dimly lighted by an oil side-lamp screwed to the wall, Peter opened his inner envelope. Still in typewritten characters was a set of rhymes, cast in a popular fas.h.i.+on used by makers of humorous doggerel. His eye ran over them hurriedly, with a low e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n of astonishment and incredulity at the end; then he read them again more intently, looking as if he could not believe the evidence of his eyes, They ran thus:

A farm owned by people named Bell Was a place where a Thorn would fain dwell.

So he bought up a mortgage, Intending to war wage On the property-owners named Bell.

Now one of the Bells, christened Peter, Thought life would be fuller and sweeter If the farm could be shorn Of this sharp-p.r.i.c.king Thorn, For he feared a foreclosure, did Peter.

A designing young person called Townsend Was seeking investment (cash down), and She purchased the mortgage.

She never will war wage, She'll never foreclose, will S. Townsend.

Peter had noticed, if n.o.body else had, when s.h.i.+rley went out of the room. He now understood her sudden disappearance. He made a quick trip through the lower part of the house, paper in hand, his questioning gaze penetrating every corner. She was not in the sitting-room, or the dining-room, or the kitchen--at least he thought she was not, although he even looked into the wood-shed. As he was returning through the kitchen, an expression of determination on his face not wholly obscured by his patriarchal beard, whose hitherto uncomfortable presence he had quite forgotten, a slight movement of the pantry door caught his eye.

He seized the door-k.n.o.b. It would not turn for a moment; then it slipped slowly round, for his fingers were stronger than hers.

The two confronted each other--the white-bearded gentleman, with the figure of an athlete and the eyes of an excited youth, and the slim girl in the gray silk, with cheeks like her scarlet ribbons.

”What does this mean?” demanded Santa Claus. He put forth one vigorous arm and drew the runaway out from the closet by her resisting hand.

”Just what it says, I should think,” answered s.h.i.+rley, bravely, although trembling. Had she offended him? Through the whole transaction that had been the one burden of her anxiety. ”It doesn't say it very clearly, but she never tried writing limericks before. They 're not so easy as you might think.”

”She! Who?”

”'S. Townsend.'”

”Do you mean to say you 've actually bought that mortgage?”:

”Murray did the business. I didn't see Mr. Thorn.”

”But you own the mortgage?”

”Yes.”

”Thorn did n't want to sell it.”

<script>