Part 3

"What! You engaged, Clover?" returned Jack in great astonishment, pausing in his walk. "Why, of course I didn't know it." He shook her passive hand again, and started on. "I haven't had a chance for any talk with father yet, for when I dropped in at the office, this morning, he had some old duffer with him. I only meant just now to fish for congratulations for myself, that my grind is over. I've been receiving a lot of them lately, you know. Excuse the egotism. Now I understand why you have seemed to have something on your mind this afternoon. I do congratulate him most heartily, whoever he is. He's a happy man. Do I know him?"

Jack saw his companion turn pale to her lips, as he asked the question, and her eyes amazed him by their piteous wistfulness as she raised them to his.

"I have made a great--a great mistake to speak," she returned faintly, "but I thought from what you said--and I hoped so you would not object! He is," eagerly, "oh, he is happy, Jack. It is your father."

The young man stared blankly into the white face, then his own turned red. Through all the tan of seashore sun she could see the color rise, and as the affectionate interest that had shone from his expressive eyes gave place to a violent revulsion of feeling, it seemed to her that a physical coldness crept around her heart.

"This is news to me," he said in a voice she did not know. "I--I wouldn't have believed it of you, Clover."

The girl winced. The contempt of her old playfellow was the severest blow she had ever had to bear. She walked fast under the stress of feeling, and her companion kept pace with her.

"This is why she refused the Breckinridge invitation," thought Van Tassel hotly. "My poor, generous, blind father."

They kept silence for half a block, then Clover spoke again, recovered calmness in her pale face.

"Your father said that if we were honest with each other, we should not do wrong," she said clearly, "and we have been very honest. He loves me. He wants to take all my cares upon himself. Nearly all our means of subsistence has recently been taken from us, and I was bewildered and helpless when Mr. Van Tassel came to me with his love and generosity."

"An irresistible temptation, no doubt," replied Jack dryly.

"It _was_ a great temptation. I have the future of three children in my care, with all my inexperience; but the keenest pang in my helplessness was mother's condition."

"You are honest; if you were equally so with my father, I do not wonder it occurred to his great heart to do as he has done."

The hot blood flew to Clover's cheeks. "You are wrong to insult me," she said, controlling herself with heroic effort, for her hurt youth longed to seek relief in flight instead of waiting to parley. "You will soon know that Mr. Van Tassel loves me; and--and"--suddenly turning suppliant, "when he told me so, and represented all that he could do for me if I would consent to marry him, why should I have refused? I did not know it would make you so angry, Jack, and," with eager explanation, "I do not care for anybody."

Her companion gave a short laugh. "A nice lookout for my father," he said curtly.

"You will not understand--you will not approve!" she said passionately, in a low voice that began to tremble. They were nearing her home now. "It is hard for you; perhaps it is wrong to you. So far as my own happiness goes, I could give it all up for your sake, for your rights are to be considered. Ah, there is mother in the window. She sees you, Jack!"

The white head behind the window-pane inclined, and Van Tassel mechanically lifted his hat.

"Do you see the peaceful look in her face?" went on the girl's unsteady voice. "She has only looked like that since yesterday. No," with new strength, and no supplication in her manner as she unconsciously drew herself up, "I will not waver. Say what you please to me. Think what you will of me; I can have but one thought, I must have but one, and that is--mother!"

Van Tassel lifted his hat once more, as to a stranger.

"Not one friendly word?" she asked desperately, her breath coming fast.

"What do you want?" asked the other. "That I should wish you prosperity?"

"You surely do not wish me ill, Jack?"

"You have just declared your intention not to consider me. What can my wishes be to you? My only course is to efface myself," and without another word of farewell Van Tassel bowed, and, turning on his heel, hurried away up the street.

*CHAPTER V.*

*MISS BERRY'S VISITORS.*

Miss Lovina Berry stood on the stone doorstep of her square, white house early one evening soon after the scene narrated in the last chapter. The elm growing in her yard would have put to shame those so carefully tended in front of the Van Tassel mansion a thousand miles away, and more of the noble trees stood outside the white picket fence and shaded the country road.

The flowers in her carefully weeded garden were homely and wholesome, like her own placid face, as she stood, elbows in her hands, regarding the neighbor who was in the act of departing from her hospitable roof.

"You're sure 't won't inconvenience you a mite, Loviny?" asked the latter, folding a brown paper parcel beneath her shawl as her anxious upturned face met Miss Berry's benevolent gaze. "You won't need the pattern this week?"

"No, I sha'n't need it this week," answered Lovina pleasantly; then, as the other started off contentedly toward the little white gate, she added in an equable, unvexed undertone: "but if I want it any time within two months I shall have to come after it, that I know. There ain't anybody slacker 'n you be, Ann Getchell, from one end o' Pearfield to the other." Miss Berry continued to watch contemplatively the woman whom she had characterized with such passionless severity, and suddenly she saw her stoop.

"Your posies do smell so good, Loviny," Miss Getchell called back. "I s'pose you don't care if I take some old man?"

Miss Berry smiled, and stepping deliberately off the stone advanced toward her guest. "Take any old man you can get, Ann. I wouldn't lay a straw in your way."

"That's an old joke, Loviny," returned the other with a sniff, breaking a piece of the feathery stuff with its pungent sweet odor, while her hostess with generous hand gathered the best the garden afforded, and tying the nosegay with a bit of striped grass, bestowed it upon the visitor, who buried her nose in its depths.

"You're just as much of an old maid as I be, you know," added Miss Getchell with an upward look.

"Just exactly, Ann. I don't know but more; more set in that direction, as it were."

Miss Lovina's lips twitched a little as she rested her arms on the gate after her guest had gone out, but all her neighbors had reason to know that the milk of human kindness became cream in her case, and Ann Getchell had too often benefited by its richness to feel less than content now. Indeed, as she turned a curve in the country road and hugged closer her brown paper parcel, she soliloquized with much satisfaction:--

"I wasn't sure she'd let me have it. Loviny always does set so much store by what Mis' Page sends her, and that dollman has got a style to it that I hain't seen anywhere else. I can get it out o' my old gray poplin, I'm next to certain. Them spots don't show hardly at all on the other side--Why, Mr. Gorham!" The spinster started back with a short, shrill screech. "What a turn you did give me! Why," clutching the left side of her dress waist, "I'm all of a tremble. You riz up so unexpected from behind that rock that I--law! I can't hardly stand up."

The young man who had thus rudely interrupted an absorbing sunset dream looked upon the ostentatiously perturbed speaker with some trouble in his absent gaze.

"Pardon me, Miss Getchell. The evening is so beautiful, I had thrown myself down in the grass there to listen to the thrushes, and that moment happened to decide I must be moving. I did not hear your soft tread approaching."

Over Miss Ann's agitated countenance there stole a gratified expression. This reference to her soft tread had a pleasing sound. It was characteristic of this young man to appear to compliment when no proceeding was further from his thoughts. More worldly-wise and charming women than Miss Getchell had been similarly misled by him. Nature in mischievous mood had added to his muscular physique the features of a hero of romance, and launched him, a practical joke, upon society.

The little woman tilted her thin head to one side with an arch air, and lifted her sharp-nosed face toward his pensive eyes.

"Ain't it a coincidence I should 'a' met up with you just now? I've got a pattern under my arm this minute that your sister'n law sent Loviny Berry. I didn't know as you was in town."

Her companion was anxious to pass on; but sense of duty forbade. He had startled Miss Ann. It would be uncivil to leave her abruptly.

"I have but just arrived. I've come down for a flying visit to Miss Berry."

"Jus' so. I've jus' come from there, as I said. You hain't been down in years, have you?"

"It is a long time for me to stay away from Pearfield. Good"--

"Loviny didn't say a word about expectin' you," said Miss Ann curiously. "Do you still like lawyerin'?"

"Yes, I like it. Good evening, Miss Getchell." He lifted his hat; then as though compunction prompted the act, he advanced a step and shook Miss Ann's limp hand. He was recalling that she had been kind to him in a past when the quality of apples was not material, and the fruit on her gnarly little trees had seemed desirable.

"Good evenin'," she answered. "Come and see me if you're stayin' long enough."

"Thank you. I return to Boston almost immediately."

The young man pursued his way, relieved to be free again to give all his attention to the soft summer sky where the light was fading; to the bird-notes which were becoming disconnected and dreamy; to the scents which rose gratefully from willows, and the thorny luxuriance of vines that rioted over the stone wall at the roadside.

Miss Berry was still lingering at her gate when he approached the house. She dropped her hands from her elbows and grasped the pickets of the fence at sight of the face under the lifted hat.

"Why, Mr. Gorham!" she exclaimed, and opened the gate, her countenance alight with pleased surprise. "I was just thinkin' about you this minute, as I was standin' here."

"Naturally. I was a coming event, and I cast my shadow before."

The visitor shook the plump offered hand with no abstraction now in his eyes, and his teeth gleamed beneath his mustache. "I've no doubt I can tell what you were thinking about, too."

"Like enough. I s'pose lawyers know everything. Come into the house," said Miss Lovina hospitably.

"Not yet. It is far too pleasant here. Where is that old settee that used to be under the oriole elm? Why, there it is, of course, only pushed to the other side," and the speaker started for the desired haven.

"Come back, come back, Gorham Page. Don't you wade through the wet grass!" exclaimed Miss Berry imperatively.

Her visitor turned around, laughing. "That sounds natural, Aunt Love," he said.

"Well, perhaps it does," replied the other in half-laughing apology; "but haven't you learned good sense yet? The dew's a-fallin', and that grass ought to been mowed last week."

"Do you remember when I used to mow it for you?"

"I remember when you used to promise to," rejoined Miss Berry, the corners of her mouth still twitching. "Look here. I ain't goin' under that elm to set with my feet in the water."

"All right," replied Page, succumbing with a sigh, and casting a glance toward the graceful branches of the tallest elm, behind which the new moon glimmered in a primrose sky. "What an evening!" he ejaculated.

"'M; dewy though," returned Miss Berry.

"I do like those old trees," said her guest slowly, continuing to gaze.

"So do the mosquitoes," replied Miss Berry inflexibly. "Come up on to the stoop."

Page, with a smile of amusement, followed his hostess to the piazza, where she ensconced him in one rocking chair, and herself in another.

"Do the orioles still hold possession of that elm?"

"Yes."

"I'm glad of that. The rest of the world may change, and must; but I'm jealous of a hair's breadth of change in Pearfield."

"Well, I don't know. The hang-birds squabble a good deal," remarked Miss Lovina impartially.

Her guest laughed again. The fact being that very few things in life moved him to laughter, he was enjoying himself hugely.

"You are too practical; too unsentimental, Aunt Love," he asserted argumentatively.

"Too unsentimental, hey?" responded Miss Berry, folding her hands over the white apron that protected her striped gingham gown. "That's pretty good from you. What does it mean? Have you repented o' your singular ways, and been fallin' in love?"

"Oh, yes," responded the other, more seriously; then added simply, as though stating an undeniable fact, "I am always falling in love."

"Then why don't you get married?" asked Miss Lovina bluntly. "I haven't heard a thing about you in so long, I didn't know but what you was married, only I hadn't received any cake. I didn't believe you'd forget me."

"No," said Page. "If I could be as loyal to any girl as I am to you, Aunt Love, I should certainly ask her if she would have me."

"But if you fall in love?" asked Miss Berry, perplexed.

"The trouble is I don't stay in love," explained Page with simple sincerity. "I can't help forgetting about the young lady in a little while. It really makes me blue sometimes. Now this summer at Bar Harbor I met a girl who was remarkably pleasant. Pretty, clever, a good talker. Her tastes and mine coincided. My mind was full of her when I left the place."

"Have you heard from her since?" asked Miss Berry with interest. This certainly sounded encouraging.

"Oh yes. I have sent her candy and flowers and books from time to time," responded Page, beginning to look serious and abstracted.

"Then you write to each other?"

"Yes, oh yes, we do--yes. Come to think of it, though," Page gave a short uncomfortable laugh, "I believe I never answered her last letter. I've forgotten. I must look it up when I get back to town, if I can remember it. Aunt Love," brightening, "are those scalloped cookies still in the tin box?"

"Child! You haven't had any supper!" Miss Berry sprang to her feet with astonishing celerity, her plumpness considered.

The guest also rose. "Yes I have, but I want a cookie."

"Then I'll get it for you."

"No, no; that would spoil everything." Page took his hostess by her plump, comfortable arms and forced her back into her seat.

"There ain't a bit o' light in there," remarked Miss Berry resignedly.

"That was the condition of things when my aim for the cookies used to be most unerring," returned the visitor, disappearing into the house.

He returned shortly, carrying in one hand a cookie which already had lost from its side a generous semicircle, and in the other a round, deep tin box which he placed at an impartial distance between his own chair and Miss Lovina's.

"Those are not my usual cookies," stated the latter, meditatively regarding the box as her guest settled himself with a sigh of content.

Page smiled. "That's all right," he answered. "You know they never were."

"Now I deny it, Gorham Page," rejoined Miss Berry warmly. "I was never one to make excuses all the time, and you can't say I was; not truthfully you can't."

"These are exactly right, anyway," returned the other calmly. "There never was a cookie outside this house that tasted as good."

"Oh now, that's silly, Mr. Gorham," returned Miss Berry with a pleased smile.

"No, it is sound sense. I feel old, and tired of things very often. If I could only get hold of one of these at such moments, I should be young again in a minute, with an appetite for everything. If you should some day receive a telegram asking for a cookie, you may know that I need to be rejuvenated, and mail me one at once."

"Have you forgotten my currant wine?" asked Miss Berry radiantly.

"Well, I guess not! But you never let me know where you kept that."

His hostess laughed. "No sir, indeed I didn't. You set where you are, and I'll fetch it out."

She was as good as her word, and in a short time a little table stood at Page's elbow, and upon it a bottle and two glasses.

"I am sure I'm a big boy now," he laughed, as he poured the wine, "since you trust me with this. I well remember the half glasses you used to give me as a treat. How many summers did we come here, Aunt Love?"

"Pretty near every year after you was ten years old till you went to college."

A little silence fell between them, for it was that summer before Page's collegiate life began that his mother bade him a last good-by upstairs in this very house, in the low-ceiled chamber where the branches of the oriole elm cast their shadow.

"How's your cousin Jack? I wonder if he remembers Pearfield too," continued Miss Berry.

"Indeed he does. He graduated from Harvard this year, and of course I attended the Commencement. He asked for you, and I told him I didn't know half as much about you as I ought to; so when your business letter reached me last week, I determined to answer it in person, and I hope you will pardon what was unbusinesslike delay, for I could not arrange to come at once."

"I feel as though I"--Miss Berry was beginning diffidently, when a small dark whirlwind rattled the tin cake box, jostled the table, and leaped frantically against Miss Lovina's arm, upsetting some drops of wine upon the clean white apron.

"Get out! get down! Your paws are dirty!" she exclaimed, emphasizing her unflattering protests with slaps at the panting, bounding, shaggy terrier, who at last seated himself for an instant on his stump of a tail, before rising to take a minute survey of the visitor's pantaloons.

"Oh, you nuisance!" apostrophized Miss Lovina, wiping up the wine drops with her handkerchief. "He's been to get the cow with Obed. He goes every night, and he always races home like a mad thing, just as though it had come over him up in the pastur' that p'raps I'd give him the slip and go off somewheres without him. No sir, don't you touch that cookie box!" for the terrier's eyes were gleaming through the mat of hair, and his mobile nose worked hungrily, first toward Page's hand, and then toward the base of supplies.

"H'm! He evidently knows those cookies, and agrees with my estimate of them," said the young man, breaking a piece and offering it to the dog as he returned alertly from Miss Berry's vigorous push. The creature swallowed the morsel, and at each mouthful Page took thereafter, became convulsed throughout his rough body, then planted his four feet firmly and expectantly, and emitted a little bark. "This is an innovation," continued the guest. "Pearfield does move, it seems, after all."

"Oh, well," sighed Miss Lovina, lifting the cookie box to a safe perch on the table, "it's none o' my doin'. Since the last season you spent here I haven't made it any reg'lar thing to keep summer boarders; but last year a lady was here with her children, and nurse, and this dog. They had him new for a plaything for the children, and they was too little to like him. He's the livest thing, Blitzen is, that ever walked, anyway. No, I ain't talkin' to you. Keep down! And he scared the children with his wild ways. The upshot of it was, they all went off and left him on my hands. Mrs. Siddall said it was so much trouble to travel with him that if he bothered me I might give him away to somebody in the village. Humph! That was all very well to say. I've given him to four folks already."

Page smiled and gave the dog another mouthful. "Wise Blitzen. He knows which side his bread is buttered on," was his comment.

"He wouldn't stay tied up, nor shut up, no more 'n a witch," continued Miss Berry, "and every time he'd come back, he looked rougher than the last time; and when he'd catch sight o' me, he'd act foolish and actually laugh. It's a fact. He'd grin till he showed every tooth in his head. Of course I gave in at last. I had to. He's a knowin' critter," sighed Miss Lovina; "he knows everything on earth only just that I don't want him. He's set out to deny that, and he'll stick to it."

"He seems to be a fine dog of his kind," said Page.

"Yes. They said he cost a lot o' money," returned Miss Berry, regarding the terrier dubiously. "I did think though, first off, that I should never get to tell quick which was which end of him. He hasn't got tail enough to wag, and he's so rough and queer he's given me a start many a time barkin' in the direction I didn't expect. What were we talkin' about when Blitzen broke in?"

"I was asking pardon for my delay in responding about your business matter. I told you when I met you at the gate that I knew you were thinking, as you stood there, that it was strange that I should be neglectful of you."

"Well, I wasn't. I was wonderin' if I'd done the right thing to bother you about the matter anyway."

"Decidedly you did. It is a problem I can solve for you with very little trouble, I'm sure, if you will show me the papers you spoke of. I have robbed the tin box shamefully and the light has gone; supposing we go into the house and talk the matter over. My time in Pearfield is limited. I sail for Germany next Saturday, and I have considerable to do between now and then."

"Well, if you ain't clever to me," said Miss Berry gratefully, as she rose and led the way into the house, while Page followed with the impedimenta of box and bottle, and the further embarrassment of Blitzen, who writhed ingeniously about his legs, evidently intending to make clear his adherence to one who could command cake at such an astonishing time and place.

*CHAPTER VI.*

*THE UNEXPECTED GUEST.*

Miss Berry's legal question was at last disposed of. Page carefully mapped out a plan of action for her, and explained each detail with painstaking kindness.

"You are clever to me, Mr. Gorham," she repeated gratefully, when all was made clear. "Now I want to pay you exactly as any of your clients would," she added, in a business-like tone.

"You can't," he answered, throwing himself back in his chair, "for they don't any of them make such cookies as you do."

"Now please don't joke," she begged, half-laughing. "You've had the cookies already."

"Of course, just a retaining fee as it were. Blitzen and I want some more before I go to bed."

"But such an obligation," pleaded Miss Berry.

"Such a pleasure, Aunt Love," rejoined her lawyer. "Now, to change the subject, what is Pearfield's opinion about the World's Fair? Where do you think it ought to be held?"

"I don't know enough about the different cities to say," returned Miss Berry. "I see by the papers some o' the Western cities think they have as good a right as anybody. Chicago is after it. Such an idea! As though folks want to have to traipse way across the country to see the Fair. I don't know much about public questions," continued Miss Lovina, complacently smoothing her apron, "but I know enough to see that there ain't any sense in that notion, and reasonable folks won't listen to it; not but what Chicago's a good deal of a city, I s'pose."

"Chicagoans have that idea," answered Page, smiling. "I have a friend who recently returned from Europe; and he says that one day in the boat's music-room he found on the table a book purporting to portray only Chicago and its suburbs. There were pictures in it of Niagara Falls and the Yellowstone Park."

"Do tell!" exclaimed Miss Berry, laughing. "Well, where do you want the Fair to be, Mr. Gorham?"