Part 22 (1/2)

”As if I were an old spidah, weaving webs for everybody that comes along!” cried Lloyd, indignantly. ”She's no right to talk that way.”

”I think it's because she really cares so much, and not that she does it to be spiteful,” said Katie. ”She hasn't a bit of pride about hiding her feeling for him. She openly cried about it while she was talking to me.”

”What do you think I ought to do?” asked Lloyd, with a troubled face. ”I like Mistah Shelby evah so much, and I'd like to be nice to him for the old doctah's sake if for no othah reason, for I'm devoted to _him_. And I really would enjoy seeing him often, especially now when everybody else is gone or going for the rest of the summah. Besides, he'd think it mighty queah for me to write to him not to come next Thursday. But I'd hate to really interfere with Bernice's happiness, if it has grown to be such a serious affair with her that she can cry about it. I'd hate to have her going through the rest of her life thinking that I had deliberately wronged her, and if she's breaking her heart ovah it”--she stopped abruptly.

”Oh, I don't see that you have any call to do the grand renouncing act!”

exclaimed Katie. ”Why should you cut yourself off from a good time and a good friend by snubbing him? It will put you in a very unpleasant light, for you couldn't explain without making Bernice appear a perfect ninny.

And if you don't explain, what will he think of you? Let me tell you, it is more than she would do for you if you were in her place. Somehow, with us girls, life seems like a game of 'Hold fast all I give you.'

What falls into your hands is yours by right of the game, and you've no call to hand it over to the next girl because she whimpers that she wants to be 'it.' Don't you worry. Go on and have a good time.”

With that parting advice Katie hurried away, and Lloyd was left to pace up and down the avenue more undecided than before. It was late in the afternoon of the next day when she finally found the answer to her question. She had been wandering around the drawing-room, glancing into a book here, rearranging a vase of flowers there, turning over the pile of music on the piano, striking aimless chords on the harp-strings.

Presently she paused in front of the mantel to lift the lid from the rose-jar and let its prisoned sweetness escape into the room. As she did so she glanced up into the eyes of the portrait above her. With a whimsical smile she thought of the times before when she had come to it for counsel, and the question half-formed itself on her lips: ”What would _you_ do, you beautiful Grandmother Amanthis?”

Instantly there came into her mind the memory of a winter day when she had stood there in the firelight before it, stirred to the depths by the music this one of ”the choir invisible” had made of her life, by her purpose to ”ease the burden of the world”--”to live in scorn of miserable aims that end with self.”

Now like an audible reply to her question the eyes of the portrait seemed to repeat that last sentence to her: ”_To live in scorn of miserable aims that end with self!_”

For a moment she stood irresolute, then dropping the lid on the rose-jar again, she crossed over into the next room and sat down beside the library table. It was no easy task to write the note she had decided to send. Five different times she got half-way through, tore the page in two and tossed it into the waste-basket. Each attempt seemed so stiff and formal that she was disgusted with it. Nearly an hour pa.s.sed in the effort. She could not write the real reason for breaking her engagement for the ride, and she could not express too much regret, or he would make other occasions she would have to refuse, if she followed out the course she had decided upon, to give Bernice no further occasion for jealousy. It was the most difficult piece of composition she had ever attempted, and she was far from pleased with the stiff little note which she finally slipped into its envelope.

”It will have to do,” she sighed, wearily, ”but I know he will think I am snippy and rude, and I can't beah for him to have that opinion of me.”

In the very act of sealing the envelope she hesitated again with Katie's words repeating themselves in her ears: ”It's more than she would do for you, if you were in her place.”

While she hesitated there came a familiar whistle from somewhere in the back of the house. She gave the old call in answer, and the next moment Rob came through the dining-room into the hall, and paused in the library door.

”I've made my farewells to the rest of the family,” he announced, abruptly. ”I met Betty and Mary down in the orchard as I cut across lots from home. Now I've got about five minutes to devote to the last sad rites with you.”

”Yes, we're going on the next train,” he answered, when her amazed question stopped him. ”The family sprung the surprise on me just a little while ago. It seems the doctor thought grandfather ought to go at once, so they've hurried up arrangements, and we'll be off in a few hours, two days ahead of the date they first set.”

Startled by the abruptness of his announcement, Lloyd almost dropped the hot sealing-wax on her fingers instead of the envelope. His haste seemed to communicate itself to her, for, springing up, she stood with one hand pressing her little signet ring into the wax, while the other reached for the stamp-box.

”I'll be through in half a second,” she said. ”This lettah should have gone off yestahday. If you will post it on the train for me it will save time and get there soonah.”

”All right,” he answered. ”Come on and walk down to the gate with me, and we'll stop at the measuring-tree. We can't let the old custom go by when we've kept it up so many years, and I won't be back again this vacation.”

Swinging the letter back and forth to make sure that the ink was dry, she walked along beside him. ”Oh, I wish you weren't going away!” she exclaimed, forlornly. ”It's going to be dreadfully stupid the rest of the summah.”

They reached the measuring-tree, and taking out his knife and pocket-rule, Rob pa.s.sed his fingers over the notches which stood for the many years they had measured their heights against the old locust. Then he held out the rule and waited for her to take her place under it, with her back against the tree.

”What a long way you've stretched up between six and seventeen,” he said. ”This'll be about the last time we'll need to go through this ceremony, for I've reached my top notch, and probably you have too.”

”Wait!” she exclaimed, stooping to pick something out of the gra.s.s at her feet. ”Heah's anothah foah-leaved clovah. I find one neahly every time I come down this side of the avenue. I'm making a collection of them. When I get enough, maybe I'll make a photograph-frame of them.”

”Then you ought to put your own picture in it, for you're certainly the luckiest person for finding them I ever heard of. I'm going to carve one on the tree, here by this last notch under the date. It will be quite neat and symbolical, don't you think? A sort of 'when this you see remember me' hieroglyphic. It will remind you of the long discussions we've had on the subject since we read 'Abdallah' together.”

He dug away in silence for a moment, then said, ”It's queer how you happened to find that just now, for last night I came across a verse about one, that made me think of you, and I learned it on purpose to say to you--sort of a farewell wish, you know.”

”Spouting poetry is a new accomplishment for you, Bobby,” said Lloyd, teasingly. ”I certainly want to hear it. Go on.”