Part 1 (2/2)

She sank to her knees after awhile and buried her face in the coverlid of her little bed. But she could think only of the look in his eyes when he had said ”I love you,” and of the thrilling touch of his lips on hers. She crept into bed and lay there in a wide-eyed rapture, while the village clock struck one, and after a long, blissful hour, two. Then she fell asleep, and did not hear the telephone bell which called her tired father from his bed in the dim, cold hour between three and four.

She was still rosily asleep and dreaming when Mrs. North came softly into the room in the broad sunlight of the winter morning.

”Isn't Lizzie awake yet?” inquired a brisk voice from the hall. ”My, _my_! but girls are idle creatures nowadays!”

The owner of the voice followed this dictum with a quick patter of softly shod feet.

”I didn't like to call her, mother,” apologised Mrs. North. ”She came in late, and----”

Grandmother Carroll pursed up her small, wise mouth. ”I heard her,” she said, ”and that young man with her. I don't know, daughter, but what we ought to inquire into his prospects and character a little more carefully, if he's to be allowed to come here so constant. Lizzie's very young, and----”

”Oh, grandma!” protested a drowsy voice from the pillows; ”I'm twenty!”

”Twenty; yes, I know you're twenty, my dear; quite old enough, I should say, to be out of bed before nine in the morning.”

”It wasn't her fault, mother; I didn't call her.”

The girl was gazing at the two round matronly figures at the foot of the bed, her laughing eyes grown suddenly serious. ”I'll get up at once,”

she said with decision, ”and I'll eat bread and milk for breakfast; I sha'n't mind.”

”She's got something on her mind,” whispered Mrs. North to her mother, as the two pattered softly downstairs.

”I shouldn't wonder,” responded Grandmother Carroll briskly. ”Girls of her age are pretty likely to have, and I mistrust but what that young Bowser may have been putting notions into her head. I hope you'll be firm with her, daughter; she's much too young for anything of that sort.”

”You were married when you were eighteen, mother; and I was barely twenty, you know.”

”I was a very different girl at eighteen from what Lizzie is,” Mrs.

Carroll said warmly. ”She's been brought up differently. In my time healthy girls didn't lie in bed till ten o'clock. Many and many's the time I've danced till twelve o'clock and been up in the morning at five 'tending to my work. You indulge Lizzie too much; and if that young Bixler----”

”His name is Brewster, mother; don't you remember? and they say he comes of a fine old Boston family.”

”Well, Brewster or Bixler; it will make no difference to Lizzie, you'll find. I've been watching her for more than a month back, and I'll tell you, daughter, when a girl like Lizzie offers to eat bread and milk for breakfast you can expect almost anything. Her mind is on other things.

I'll never forget the way you ate a boiled egg for breakfast every morning for a week--and you couldn't bear eggs--about the time the doctor was getting serious. I mistrusted there was something to pay, and I wasn't mistaken.”

Mrs. North sighed vaguely. Then her tired brown eyes lighted up with a smile. ”I had letters from both the boys this morning,” she said; ”don't you want to read them, mother? Frank has pa.s.sed all his mid-year examinations, and Elliot says he has just made the 'varsity gym' team.”

”Made the _what_?”

”I don't quite understand myself,” acknowledged Mrs. North; ”but that's what he said. He said he'd have his numerals to show us when he came home Easter.”

”Hum!” murmured Mrs. Carroll dubiously; ”I'm sure I hope he won't break his neck in any foolish way. Did he say anything about his lessons?”

”Not much; he never was such a student as Frank; but he'll do well, mother.”

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