Part 2 (1/2)

An hour later, when the door had finally closed on his last patient, Dr.

North sat still in his chair, apparently lost in thought. His dinner was waiting, he knew, and a round of visits must be made immediately thereafter, yet he did not stir. He was thinking, curiously enough, of the time when his daughter Elizabeth was a baby. What a round, pink little face she had, to be sure, and what a strong, healthy, plump little body. He could almost hear the unsteady feet toddling across the breadth of dingy oilcloth which carpeted his office floor. ”Daddy, daddy!” her sweet, imperious voice was crying, ”I'm tomin' to see you, daddy!”

His eyes were wet when he finally stumbled to his feet. Then suddenly he felt a pair of warm arms about his neck, and a dozen b.u.t.terfly kisses dropped on his cheeks, his hair, his forehead. ”Daddy, dear, he came; didn't he? I saw him go away. I hope you weren't--cruel to him, oh, daddy!”

”No, daughter; I wasn't exactly cruel to him. But didn't the young man stop to talk it over with you?”

”No, daddy; I thought he would of course; but he just waved his hand for good-bye, and I--was frightened for fear----”

”Didn't stop to talk it over--eh? Say, I like that! To tell you the truth, Bess, I--rather like him. Good, clear, steady eyes; good all 'round const.i.tution, I should say; and if--Oh, come, come, child; we'd better be getting in to dinner or your mother will be anxious. But I want you to understand, miss, that your old daddy has no notion of playing second fiddle to any youngster's first, however tall and good-looking he may be.”

And singularly enough, Elizabeth appeared to be perfectly satisfied with this paternal dictum. ”I knew you'd like him,” she said, slipping her small hand into her father's big one, in the little girl fas.h.i.+on she had never lost. ”Why, daddy, he's the best man I ever knew--except you, of course. He told me”--the girl's voice dropped to an awed whisper--”that he promised his mother when she was dying that he would never do a mean or dishonest thing. And--and he says, daddy, that whenever he has been tempted to do wrong he has felt his mother's eyes looking at him, so that he couldn't. Anybody would know he was good just from seeing him.”

”Hum! Well, well, that may be so. I'll talk to Collins and see what he has to say. Collins is a man of very good judgment; I value his opinion highly.”

”Don't you value mine, daddy?” asked Elizabeth, with an irresistible dimple appearing and disappearing at the corner of her mouth.

”On some subjects, my dear,” replied the doctor soberly; ”but--er--on this particular one I fancy you may be slightly prejudiced.”

CHAPTER III

The question of ”wherewithal shall we be clothed,” which has vexed the world since its beginning in the garden ”planted eastward in Eden,”

confronts the children of Eve so persistently at every serious crisis of life that one is forced to the conclusion that clothes sustain a very real and vital relation to destiny. Even Solomon in all his glory must earnestly have considered the colour and texture of his famous robes of state when he was making ready to dazzle the eyes of the Queen of Sheba, and the Jewish Esther's royal apparel and Joseph's coat of many colours played important parts in the history of a nation.

Elizabeth North had been engaged to be married to Samuel Brewster exactly a fortnight when the age-long question presented itself to her attention. It was perhaps inevitable that she should have thought speculatively of her wedding gown; what girl would not? But in the sweet amaze of her new and surprising happiness she might have gone on wearing her simple girlish frocks quite unaware of its relation to her wardrobe. She owed her awakening to Miss Evelyn Tripp.

Elizabeth had known Evelyn Tripp in a distant fas.h.i.+on suited to the great gulf which appeared to exist between the fas.h.i.+onable lady from Boston, who was in the habit of paying semi-annual visits to Innisfield, and the young daughter of the country doctor. She had always regarded Miss Tripp as the epitome of all possible elegance, and vaguely a.s.sociated her with undreamed-of festivities and privileges peculiar to the remote circles in which she moved when absent from Innisfield.

Miss Tripp explained her presence in the quiet village after one formula which had grown familiar to every one. ”I was _completely_ worn out, my dear; I've just run away from a perfect whirl of receptions, teas, luncheons and musicales; really, I was _on the verge_ of a nervous breakdown when my physician simply _insisted_ upon my leaving it all. I _do_ find dear, quiet Innisfield so _relaxing_ after the social strain.”

Miss Tripp's heavily italicised remarks were invariably accompanied by uplifted eyebrows, and a sweetly serious expression, alternating with flas.h.i.+ng glimpses of very white teeth, and further accented by numberless little movements of her hands and shoulders which suggested deeper meanings than her words often conveyed.

Ill-natured people, such as Mrs. Buckthorn and Electa Pratt, declared that Evelyn Tripp was thirty-five if she was a day, though she dressed like sixteen; and furthermore that her social popularity in Boston was a figment of her own vivid imagination. Elizabeth North, however, had always admired her almost reverently, in the shy, distant fas.h.i.+on of the young, country-bred girl.

Miss Tripp was unquestionably elegant, and her smart gowns and the large picture hats she affected had created quite their usual sensation in Innisfield, where the slow-spreading ripples of fas.h.i.+on were viewed with a certain stern disfavour as being linked in some vague manner with irreligion of a dangerous sort. ”She's too stylish to be good for much,”

being the excellent Mrs. Buckthorn's severe corollary.

Miss Tripp had been among the first to press friendly congratulations upon young Brewster, who on his part received them with the engaging awkwardness of the unaccustomed bachelor.

”You are certainly the _most_ fortunate of men to have won that sweet, simple Elizabeth North! I've known her since she was quite a child--since we were both children, in fact, and she was always the same unspoiled, unaffected girl, so different from the young women one meets in society circles.”

”She's all of that,” quoth the fortunate engineer, vaguely aware of a lack of flavour in Miss Tripp's encomium, ”and--er--more.”

Whereat Miss Tripp laughed archly and playfully shook a daintily gloved finger at him. ”I can see that you think no one is capable of appreciating your prize; but I a.s.sure you _I do_! You shall see!” This last was a favourite phrase, and conveyed quite an alluring sense of mystery linked with vague promise of unstinted benevolences on the part of Miss Tripp. ”Do you know,” she added seriously, ”I am told that you are closely related to Mrs. J. Mortimer Van Duser. She is a wonderful woman, so prominent in the best circles and interested in so many important charities.”

Samuel Brewster shook his head. ”The relations.h.i.+p is hardly worth mentioning,” he said. ”Mrs. Van Duser was a distant relative of my mother's.”

”But of course you see a great deal of her when you are in Boston; do you not?” persisted the lady.

”I dined there once,” acknowledged the young man, vaguely uneasy and rather too obviously anxious to make his escape, ”but I dare say she has forgotten my existence by this time. Mrs. Van Duser is, as you say, a very--er--active woman.”