Chapter 2

Along bowery roads to Stockholm, Franklin, Lafayette we passed (later in the year the goldenrod must be like a sunburst there!), and motors, big and little, weave their way democratically among lazy-looking, old-fashioned chaises and slender "buggies." The "going" was always good, and there was some delicious "coasting" down one long, long hill almost like a mountainside. How Jack loved the cozy farmhouses and red barns which were so becoming to the black and white cattle grazing in the valleys; and the slender waving corn like fairy dancers in jewelled head-dresses! Some of the barns were so big, the houses they belonged to reminded him of little mothers who had produced giant children. The homelike effect of all these gentle hills and flowery valleys and floating blue mist wreaths appealed curiously to the heart, like minor music; yet there were grand things, too: here and there a noble limestone cliff; a gloomy wood of hemlocks where it seemed _anything_ might happen; a mossy dark ravine, as at Branchville; and all the large lakes or "ponds," so unexpected each time when you come in sight of them.

After a dear little town called Layton (with a river singing it to sleep) we turned off to the right for Dingman's Ferry, and then felt we were really on the way to the Delaware Water Gap. We had come to the Delaware River! From the top of a very high hill we saw it--the river, I mean; and, oh, but it looked worthy of its guardian mountains! Winding and wonderful it was in beauty as we dropped into its deep, intimate valley, down the tremendous slope. We were so excited we hardly knew the road was bad! And after all there was no old ferry answering to the name of "Dingman," but a wide bridge in its place. On the other side was Pennsylvania, with a barred gate to keep you out of it until you had handed over forty cents to a wee boy who "held us up" and firmly said, "You've got to pay!" He lived in a pet of a house, where I should love to live, myself (with Jack), and the entrance to the neighbour state was so fine as to seem dramatic.

The smooth tarred road was a relief, too, after a few hard bumps: a lovely tree-shadowed road past a big yellow-painted hotel; past a delightful village high above the river bed, where a great forest made a dark, perfumed screen between our eyes and the bright glitter of water. So we dipped down by and by to a house with a garden full of flowers, and a forest of its own with the river sparkling through it. The hemlocks gave out a perfume as if a box of spices had been newly opened; and when we saw that the house was a hotel and restaurant we simply had to stop for tea. To our surprise and joy we found that the man who kept the place was a Frenchman--an Alsatian named Schanno; and everything he gave us was so delicious we might have been at Ciro's, in Paris or Monte Carlo!

Almost, it would have been a relief, said Jack, to find the scenery less beautiful, so as to have a diminuendo and a crescendo--the crescendo to be our goal of that day, the Water Gap. But it _would_ keep on being so lovely, we could scarcely say when it was just _good_, when better, or when best. We had a gray road, glossy as a beaver's back, to travel on toward the Gap; a valley road with small mountains lifting curly dark heads in every direction to gaze down on us out of their glistening, perfumed foot-bath of evening mist. The villages we passed had pretty, sophisticated-looking new houses for "summer people"; here and there was a charming country inn with the air of being famous. At Bushkill (nice name!) the brown river forked, in a coquettish, laughing way shaking hands with itself and parting in the woods. Nearby was a glorious waterfall among charming hills which seemed to have been roused by the music of the cataract, and sat up with their hair standing all on end.

Four or five miles from the great Water Gap we began to see the formation which gives that name. The mountains seem cleft in twain. It's a marvellous effect--startling! It took my breath away, as if I had seen a great window suddenly flung wide open in the sky. Truly, that's not an exaggeration of the sunset-wonder of the Delaware Water Gap! The hills were a deep, almost sullen purple that evening, the purple of darkest hyacinths. They made a high wall for the valley; then, in an instant, the wall was gone, as if hewed down with a firm, straight stroke, and there was that immense open window of golden light. Why, it was worth crossing the ocean to see as we saw it then! And we had come through such winding ways of hill and valley that it felt as if this were the end of the earth, the jumping-off place into a sea of jewelled colour. Yet they say it's only three or four hours in a fast train from New York! I don't want to believe that, and I shall never know by experience, for I shan't be so sacrilegious as to take a train while motors run on roads and aeroplanes skim through clouds.

The town where the hotels and cottages are is as gay a little fairyland among the mountains as I used to think Baden-Baden or Carlsbad; just such maddeningly attractive little shops and bright gardens and beautifully grouped trees. We went on to a hotel in the woods, a hotel which seemed all veranda and view--a view our spirits drank in, in deep, unforgettable draughts: I mean, Jack's and mine drank. They were the only well-regulated, calm spirits in the whole procession, except the Goodriches, who are "always merry and bright."

When darkness fell in a shimmering blue curtain shot with silver, we found that the hotel had other things besides those two "Vs" which were all we had thought of at first: very nice, pleasant things, and Jack and I decided that it wouldn't be wrong or selfish to the war, or each other, to let ourselves feel perfectly happy for a few serene hours. But it wasn't to be! Far from it--Fate has such a rude way of ignoring my plans and substituting her own, which are seldom a patch on mine!

I "got myself up to kill" for dinner, and thought Pat intended to do the same. Being made in the Creator's image, I like to look as nice as I can, to do Him credit, even when travelling, especially in large hotels full of other women. But Pat didn't appear. Neither did Larry. My eyes and Jack's conspired across the table. "Good!" we thought. "The Plot works!"

We couldn't tell by what process it worked, but that it did work we were sure, until Peter shook his head at the signal of our raised eyebrows. "Nothing has happened in the Grayles-Grice," his expression said; so the only hope left was the Wilmot. Anything that might take place there was of secondary importance, still, indirectly, a break there might bring relief to the other forces engaged. Instead of stopping downstairs to let the world admire my Paris frock, and listen to the music (not just nice little music for nice little minds, but something really good and suited to the scenery), I bolted my dinner and dashed up to Patsey's room.

A knock brought no answer, but when I called, "May I come in?" Patsey unlocked the door. You know how, when I want to get things out of people, I disguise myself with a spaniel smile and spaniel eyes? Well, I did that with Pat. There was just enough light in the room for her to see my spanielness, for she'd done away with all but one small reading-lamp, with a depressing green shade. She was in her kimono, with her hair down, looking an ideal Ophelia. Not that Ophelia sported a kimono; but you know the effect I mean, all masses of wavy tresses round a small white face, and eyes very big and wistful. She wasn't going to tell me a thing, but my spanielhood melted her.

It was perfectly true, as Peter had warned me: nothing had happened in the car; but the night before in Flirtation Walk Caspian had tried to kiss the girl! He had wanted to before, when he gave her the ring; she had refused, explaining that the Marquise had told her she was not to be kissed before marriage. He hadn't persisted then, but last night he had been _horrid_. She would not have gone for the walk if he hadn't asked her before Larry, and Larry had seemed to want her to go. Perhaps it was only that she might be near, and protect him from Mrs. Shuster; but Idonia could have done that. Anyhow, Pat and "Mr. Caspian" (she would not call him "Ed") had got separated from the others. She had struggled, but he had succeeded in kissing her ear, and she had boxed his! "It can't be exactly wicked to marry for money," sighed Pat. "It's too disagreeable. And wicked things are always nice--in books. Oh, Molly, it will be awful to marry _him_. Already he tries to make me do what he likes. He puts himself in front of me and all r-round me like a bar-rbed wire fence. I don't know how to bear it. I am a broken girl!"

About Larry: I don't think I'd much care if it weren't for Pat. For a perfectly fascinating human creature he is the most selfish pig I ever met, and for a selfish pig he is the most charming being! He has certainly tried Lily's patience to the breaking point, but it hasn't broken, and seems warranted not to break. Sometimes I've thought that he wanted to force the woman to throw him over, then I've changed my mind and decided that he doesn't flirt for a motive. He simply can't _help_ it. And if the fleshpots of Egypt can only be his, mixed with a diet of orange blossoms, I verily believe he'll take them together.

Ever your affectionate and apologetic,

MOLLY OF THE GUILTY SECRET.

MOLLY'S DIARY FOR MERCEDES

_From Wenham to Bretton Woods_

Jack said at Ipswich that one ought to have a guide-catcher on one's automobile, like a cowcatcher on an engine. The air was dark with would-be guides, though it's a beautiful town to get lost in. We came to it from Wenham (where I ought to have mentioned the polo, _Jack_ wouldn't have forgotten) along a dream of a road lined with lovely white birches and lovely white houses. The houses keep on being lovely at Ipswich, and the wonderful elms are many-branched, like immense Jewish candlesticks of green-gold. You would never think the devil would come to such a place! But it seems he did. There was a church he had heard of where the folk were particularly religious, and he wanted to have a look. One was enough, however. He jumped right over the church to avoid it and get back home as quickly as he could, and to this day you can see his footprint on a black rock in the park.

That's one story. Another is that instead of going home, he bounded to Rowley, where there is another charming church, looking the very haunt of peace, good will to men. I can quite believe that even the devil might come a long way to gaze at some of these old New England churches. You can't think what a feeling of pure delight they give to the mind, in spite of, or because of, their simplicity. The green banks where they are built might be vast altars with elms for the altar candlesticks, and the smooth sward for the altar cloth. The devil may have heard all this, and wanted to see for himself if it were true. I don't know how he escaped from Rowley, as he left no footprint, though the easiest way would have been along the good Bay Road! Maybe he had a secret passage down under the sea, which isn't very far off. Spinning on between meadows, you can see it away to the right, misty blue as the wild forget-me-nots which mingle with a thousand other wild flowers.

Newburyport is like a perfume bottle for its sweetness, or, rather, two perfume bottles: one filled with salt fragrance from the sea, the other with the scent of apple blossoms from countless orchards. That sounds as if it were only a small village, but it isn't: it's a town, and one of the most historic. Almost everything exciting that can happen in New England has happened at Newburyport--from earthquakes which uprooted corn and set all the bells to ringing, to visits of the French aristocracy, dashing exploits of privateers, the entertaining of General Washington, and the quickest proposal of marriage on record. Almost the nicest thing about Newburyport, however, and one of the nicest things I ever heard, is the story of Timothy Dexter, who grew very rich, nominated himself for the peerage, and assumed the title of "Lord." He was considered a half-witted sort of fellow, who inherited a little money and didn't know what business to engage in. "Charter a ship," said a practical joker whom he consulted. "Buy a cargo of warming-pans and send them to Cuba." Timothy Dexter did as he was told; but fortune is always supposed to favour simpletons, you know! It happened in Cuba that there were not nearly enough buckets to bail up the syrup from the vats in the sugar-cane mills, and those at hand were too small. Dexter's warming-pans were just the thing! The whole cargo was bought up, fetching huge prices, and "Lord" Timothy's fortune was made. After that he bought himself a big house and planted his garden full of dreadful wooden statues, the worst of all representing himself.

We lost our fine roads as we left Massachusetts for New Hampshire, but the country was beautiful: stone-wall country again, with straight, dark pines; and the road grew better as we neared the dear old sea-going town of Portsmouth, full of beautiful and romantic houses. In one of the best of them Governor Wentworth invited his friends to a party and flabbergasted them all by turning the "party" into a wedding. He married his housemaid--but she was a beauty! But of all the pleasant things of Portsmouth the Thomas Bailey Aldrich house is the best. This lovely old house is kept exactly as he left it. His spirit seems to pervade the place as a fragrance lingers after the flowers have gone.

You may call Portsmouth "Strawberry Bank" if you like. And once, at the mouth of Great Bay, there was a terrible bar of rocks beautifully named "Pull-and-be-Damned-Point." People used to love saying it when they felt cross, for even the ministers couldn't scold them for mentioning it; but an interfering government took it away for the prosaic motive of making a fine harbour.

Across the Piscataqua River we were plumped into Maine, at Kittery, where there's a big navy yard now, and where once they made splendid ships.

By a road that ran through woods and past ideal, storybook farmhouses we came to York, where Captain John Smith came by sea. There we had to stop and look at "Ye Olde Gaol," because it's the very oldest building of the American Commonwealth. The prisoners used to be "sold" for several years, to work out their punishment, just as if they were regular slaves; and now in the gaol they have all sorts of relics of past, queer customs. There's a fort still standing, too, with an overhanging upper story to shoot Indians from, like the houses I wrote you about when we first came into New England. There was a frightful massacre of the settlers once upon a time, and a frightful revenge. Also there was a witch, who lies buried under a great stone, so huge that she can't possibly squeeze through at night to ride on her deserted broomstick. There are legends, too, and the nicest we heard was the ghost-tale of Pirate Trickey, who was hanged on the seashore. That atonement wasn't enough for his crimes, though! He still haunts the beach, ever binding sand with a rope, and groaning above the sound of the waves as the sand slips away. And I mustn't forget "Handkerchief Moody," who gave Hawthorne his idea for the "Minister's Black Veil"; but he was real and neither ghost nor legend.

There's a modern York, too, and so much of it that you might almost miss the old if you didn't know. Lots of interesting people have stayed there: Mr. Howells, and Mark Twain, and your beloved Thomas Nelson Page among the rest, but beyond their zone is the zone of the tiny toy cottages, the crowded boarding-houses, the snub-nosed Lord motor cars rolling along the beach close to the rolling waves, and beginning to sink in the sand if they stop. Beyond again, woods which might be primeval, broken with farms as hidden away in their midst as those of the early settlers; here and there a pile of fragrant cut timber; now and then a few hayricks, in fields surrounded by vast tracts of pineland. Jack and I began to think we were on the most beautiful road yet.

We lunched at Ogonquit, beloved of artists, and then fell so in love with it ourselves that we stayed all the rest of the day and all night, too. It's a fishing village, but you don't stop in the village. You stop under the wing of a large gray, mother-bird-looking hotel close to the shore, and away from everything else. On one side there is a cove with shiny brown rocks so thinly trimmed with grass that they look like a suit of giant armour showing through a ragged green cloak. On the other side is sea, blue by day as if it flowed over bluebell fields--strangely blue as it sweeps up to embrace the rose and golden sands, the apricot pink sands. Toward evening these sands were covered with gulls, lying thick as white petals shaken down from invisible orchards. And the mourning cry of the sea-birds was as constant and never ending as the sea-murmur. We forgot we heard it! But suddenly, as night fell, we remembered, because the crying ceased as if it obeyed a signal for silence. No sooner had it stopped than the moon blossomed out from the sea-mist like a huge rose unfolding behind a scarf of blue gauze. We _were_ glad we had stayed!

Next morning we atoned for lost time by getting up early and starting on again: a pretty road through the village of Wells, with the sea in the distance. All the farmhouses seemed to take summer boarders or give meals, and sell vegetables or something. They showed nice enticing samples at their gates: strawberries, green peas, honeycomb, or gilded eggs. It did look so idyllic!

We couldn't mistake Kennebunk when we came to it, because it advertises itself on a sign-post: "This is Kennebunk, the Town You Read About." I _hadn't_ read about it, but I felt I ought, for if ever there was a typical New England town, Kennebunk is _It_! We slipped in along a grass-grown, shady way, with old houses looking at us virtuously with sparkling eyes, as virtuously as if they hadn't been built with good gold paid for rum. I think that was what the ships used to bring back from their long voyages; but maybe the most virtuous-looking houses were built with molasses. The ships brought that, too.

There are two rivers--the Monsam (at the Monsam House Lafayette stayed) and the Kennebunk, and there's a roaring mill, but greatest of all attractions at Kennebunk is that of going on to Kennebunkport. Mrs. Deland has a house there, and Booth Tarkington, too, and it's a dear delightful place, with arbourlike streets running inland, and deep lawns with elms shaped like big shower bouquets for brides.

It wasn't long after Kennebunkport that we beheld for the first time sawmills, and logs that had come down from the White Mountains. That was a thrill! For we were on our way to the White Mountains. We saw no sign of them yet, but there was no cause for impatience. The landscape was as lovely as if planned by the master of all landscape gardeners. There were quaint features, too, as well as beautiful ones: everywhere funny little tin boxes standing up on sticks by the roadside, labelled "U.S. Mail," with no guardians but squirrels and birds, and apparently no one to read or send letters.

Biddeford was attractive, and so was Portland, but Portland was the means of delaying our car. Jack would go wandering to the eastern side of the nice city, to find a monument he had read about, overlooking Casco Bay. Underneath are buried, in one grave, the commanders of the _Enterprise_ and the _Boxer_, British and American ships. The American won, but both commanders were killed, and the Britisher had been so brave that they thought their own captain would like to lie by his side. It wasn't a grand monument to see, but I love the idea. And another thing I love about Portland is the thought that Longfellow was born there in sight of the ocean.

By and by, a good long time after we had got out of Portland by Forest Avenue, our road began to run uphill. In a park leading to Raymond, where Hawthorne "savagized" as a boy, our hearts beat at sight of a sign saying "White Mts." Just that! Abrupt but alluring. White birches were like rays of moonlight striping the dark woods, and there was the incense smell of balsam firs. We sniffed the perfume joyously and reminded each other--Jack and I--that Maine is America's Scotland: like Scotland for beauty of lake and forest and mountain; like Scotland, too, "hard for the poor, and a playground for the rich."

Along a rough but never bad country road we flashed past lake after lake--Sebago the biggest--and ahead of us loomed far-off blue heights like huge incoming waves sweeping toward an unseen shore. No longer did we need a sign-post to point us to the mountains; but there were some things by the way that surprised us. Suddenly we found ourselves coming on the "Bay of Naples," a big sapphire sheet of water ringed in with some perfectly private little green mountains of its own. It was as if we had dreamed it, when we plunged into forests again, deep, mysterious forests of hemlock. Cowbells tinkled faintly, as in Switzerland, though we saw no cows, and there was no other sound save the sealike murmur of the trees--that sound which is the voice of Silence. Lakes and ponds lay at the feet of dark slopes, as if women in black had dropped their mirrors and forgotten to pick them up.

We were back in New Hampshire again for the night, for we stopped in North Conway, at a hotel in a great garden. If it had liked, it could have called the whole valley its garden, for it is a vast flowery lawn with mountains for a wall. Such a strange wall, with a high-up stone shelf on which you might think the brave Pequawket Indians had left the images of their gods, beyond the reach of white men. They had a fine village of wigwams where our hotel stands now, facing the mountains it's named for, and the trees and the Saco River haven't forgotten their old masters' songs of war and of hunting.

I looked back just long enough to answer that I _loved_ to be soaked to my skin, and I was not afraid of catching the cold. All I wanted was that he did not catch me. But I did not say this part aloud. He called out something more, but I had got too far away to hear, for I was walking fast, and the rain made a loud, sweet sound, pattering on leaves. When I had looked back, I had seen something more than the figure of Mr. Caspian standing on the steps in his nice white flannel clothes: I had seen Molly and Jack and Mr. Storm. They were not on the side of the veranda I had come out on, but just round the corner, talking together in great earnest. I did not think they saw me; but you shall know by and by!

I must have seemed like a mad one walking along with my head up in all that rain, as if I were out for my pleasure. But I did not care. I felt not to care for anything. It did not seem to matter what happened to me; I wished that I could take cold and die. I found a path under trees, winding up a beautiful high hill. On one side was rock, and I wished a large piece would fall on my head so I should never have to go back to the hotel. But that was selfish to Larry, for I could not bring him any money if I were dead!

I walked on and on, and the rain made my hair go in little corkscrew curls over my eyes, and my thin dress stuck to my neck and arms like a skin, and I must have looked an object to scare the crows. I was cold, too, for there was a chill in the rain as if it had once been ice on some mountain-top, but I would not turn back. I was determined to wait a long time and be sure Mr. Caspian had gone in to his bridge. Then, I thought, I would find some side way into the hotel where I should not be seen.

As I walked up the path, I heard suddenly steps coming behind. I was afraid that after all Mr. Caspian had decided himself to follow. I thought he had perhaps put on a coat for the rain, and brought an umbrella to take me back, with my hand on his arm. Quick, I hurried to climb up to a terrace-place there was above that place in the path, with a lovely tree on it, almost like a tent. I think it is named the weeping ash. I sat very still underneath, and I hoped the man might not look up; but I did not remember about my footprints in the wet earth stopping just there. I did not think of the footprints at all.

From where I sat, crouched down under the low tent of the little tree, I could see the head of a person coming. It was not the head of Mr. Caspian! It was a much higher head, and it wore the hat of Peter Storm. When I knew it was he, I wanted, oh, so much, to call out his name and tell him I was there. But I said to myself, "No, that would not be nice, my girl. He will guess you hid from Mr. Caspian, but that you did not wish to hide from _him_!" So I did not move. But he stopped and called my name. Then it was no harm to answer. Even the Sisters would say it would be rude if I did not! I looked out from under the tree, and explained that I had come there to wait till the rain was not so much. On his part he explained that he had seen my footmarks come to an end on the path.

"I have brought you Mrs. Winston's umbrella," he said. "We saw you go away without one, so she sent me with hers. May I come up and help you down? The grass is slippery."

I did not need the help, but I said, "Yes, come." And as he came, the rain, which had not been so bad for some minutes, began to pour down in a torrent. Instead of falling in drops, it was like thick crystal rods.

"We had better wait," he said. "The umbrella won't be much good in this deluge." It would have been cruel not to ask him into my shelter, so I did; and it was too low for him to stand up. He had to sit down by my side. The rain came in a little, though the tree made a thick roof, and he put up the umbrella over my head. I told him he must come under it, too. We were close to each other, more close than we had been on the front seat of the car in the days when he drove with me by his side--closer than I had ever been with him except when we danced.

I looked up at him, and he looked down at me. "Poor little girl!" he said. "You are drenched!"

They were such simple words. Any one might have said them. But it was as if his eyes spoke quite different things. A light shone out of them into mine. And though I did not mean to do it, my eyes answered. I knew the most wonderful thing! I knew that he loved me, not like a friend, but with a great, immense, fiery love. And I think he must have known that I loved him, for I couldn't help my eyes telling.

Oh, Adrienne, now the secret is out to you. I have loved him a long time, loved him _dreadfully_. I have felt as if he were _me_--as if I wasn't _there_ till he had come. Do you understand? If you do not, you have not yet loved your cousin Marcel de Moncourt!

It seemed to me that never in my life before had I felt; and suddenly I was crying, as his eyes held mine to his. The next instant I was in his arms. It was not till then I thought of my promise to another man. And to tell the truth, as I wish to do to you, it was two or three minutes or maybe more that I did not think.

Then I took my arms down from his neck (yes, I had put them there, as if I were in a dream, when his arms went round my waist and he kissed my cheek, all wet with cold rain and hot tears). It was only my cheek, because I turned my lips away, not out of goodness or because of being loyal to somebody else, I am afraid, but just because it seemed so great and wonderful to be in his arms I could bear no more.

"I forgot!" I said. "I forgot that I have given my word."

"I forgot, too," he said. "But now it is irrevocable. Your word can't stand. You love me, and nothing shall make me let you go. Don't you know that?"

I told him that if he loved me, I did not want to go. I was in the midst of saying that--though I did not want to--I _must_; but he interrupted to tell how he loved me. And, Adrienne, if I had never been happy for one single hour in my life till then, and could never be happy after, still I should have been glad I was born--yes, glad even if I lived to be an old, old woman with nothing of joy to remember but that. If this is wicked, it cannot be helped.

I had to listen while he explained that he knew I couldn't care for Ed Caspian, and it was only to help Larry I had said yes. He went on, that he understood there must be money, for Larry's sake, and if he could get money, quite a good deal, would I marry him? Even if I wouldn't (he flashed out in a sudden, almost fierce way) he would never let Ed Caspian have me, because he was not worthy and it would be sacrilege. I said, if I were alone in the world I would marry for love if there was not a cent. But I must think for Larry, as Larry was like a boy, and by comparison I felt an old woman. That made Peter laugh, for the first time, but he did not laugh long. He begged me to trust him: that he knew how to get all Larry would need, and we would both look after him together as if we were old people and Larry our child. He said there were reasons why he could not have this money at once; at least, he _could_ have it, but there were things to be done first. All he asked for himself, till the hour came, was my trust. But he wanted me to break off my engagement at once. After what had happened between us, he could not any longer bear it to go on.

If it had been that I could give Mr. Caspian back his ring, I would have agreed to do as Peter asked. Yet how could I say, "I will not marry you. But your ring you cannot have till I am married to another man and his money gets it from the Uncle?" Even less could I tell Peter about the Uncle, because he would blame poor Larry. It was dreadful to refuse Peter what he asked, but I had to refuse. I was afraid he would be angry and despise me because I could not even explain why I would not break. But there he was wonderful. When he had thought for a moment, and looked at me as if he would read my soul, he said: "You must have some reason which seems to you very strong. I asked you to trust me, and now I'm going to trust _you_, though it hurts a good deal. It will be all the more of an incentive to me to make the way clear as soon as possible; and meanwhile I'm not going to spoil the best hour I have ever known."

I was a little afraid, when he said this, that he might think we could lose ourselves in love again; and he must have guessed what troubled me, for he spoke at once: "Don't worry. I know now you love me. That's all I want. Till you give me the right to something more, I'll stand where I stood half an hour ago, down on the ladder of friendship. But give me the rest of the hour here--if you trust me as I trust you."

I was only too glad to consent. But the moment I agreed, he remembered that I was drenched, and said he would take me home. I had to give him my hot hand before he would believe I was warm as if sitting by a stove.

Oh, the glorious half-hour that followed! I cannot express to you, Adrienne, the joy of it. We spoke no more of love. We did not touch each other. But we _knew_. And the rain, which had come down for a few minutes in that great flood, stopped, to let the sun shine out. I never saw the world so marvellous as then. The lovely things sparkling bright all around where we looked put ideas of beauty in our heads, so we spoke about them, not about ourselves. Just to be there together, that was all. You cannot think what a pleasure only to talk of _trees_! And it seemed they were listening. They laughed and clapped their little hands.

Towns had a way of appearing where we least expected to see them; Chester, for instance, which had nothing to lead up to it. (But there was a delicious luncheon in it!) And the instant we had passed out from its street of stately trees we were deep in the country again. I don't know why Vermont should have the greenest grass and trees in the world, and more varieties of wild flowers growing in thick borders by brooks and roadsides. Yet really it does seem to be so! I shall always think of Vermont as the State of wild lawns and gardens.

We spoke of staying at Pittsfield all night, just because it's lovely; but we arrived so early that Caspian and Mrs. Shuster wanted to go on to Great Barrington, where we had planned to stop. They said they expected letters. "Shall we thwart them?" Jack asked me mischievously. I murmured that it was a "toss up," so we did go on--which was a good thing, as it turned out.

Pittsfield _ought_ to have been stopped in, for it is a dream of beauty, and so is Lenox. Stockbridge seemed just as charming--almost more to me, for Hawthorne lived there, in a "little red house with green shutters," on the shore of Stockbridge Bowl. We had followed him about from place to place, but there we had to leave him at last, writing "The House of the Seven Gables."

Then, always running along the most perfect road, we came to Great Barrington, Bryant's home. We couldn't escape the romancers and the poets if we'd wished, for it was _their_ country. It was late by this time, and we were hungry and dusty. I didn't expect letters, and felt inclined to wish we had lingered farther back. Here there would be a rush to bathe and dress before a decent dinner hour: and it looked such a smart hotel!

"I believe, now I come to think of it, that I asked to have letters forwarded to me from Kidd's Pines," remarked Larry, as we all walked into the big hall. "They'll be the first I've had--if there are any. I put them off till the last minute! I didn't want the beastly things to look forward to on getting home."

I hardly listened. The hotel seemed full, and I was wondering if Jack could get me a room with a bath. Pat and I and the Goodrich goddesses grouped together, waiting to hear our luck as to quarters, when Larry came to us, looking rather dazed. He had some letters in his hand, and an open telegram.

"This has been waiting for me all day," he said in a queer voice, and held out the telegram to Pat. I felt a little frightened. But nobody we loved could be dead!

"Oh, Molly!" the girl cried. "Kidd's Pines has had a fire. It is partly burnt down. All the people have had to go away. That means my life is over!"

The last words broke from her in such a tone of despair that I was startled. It was grievous that damage should have come to the dear old house. But why should she say her "life was over?" I asked myself the question; but suddenly the answer seemed to come, like a whisper in my ear:

"She thinks it means ruin. If she hoped to break off with Caspian in spite of everything, and marry Peter, she feels that hope is over."

There was no chance of a private word with Pat then or afterward. The news ran like wildfire. All the men came and crowded round us, consoling or giving advice. Jack was the most sensible.

"Let's see when the next train starts," he said. "You and I, Molly, will go with Moore and Pat; and they must stop with us at Awepesha. The others, of course, can do as they like."

It ended in the whole party taking the train, for every one was anxious for one reason or other. The bride and bridegroom and the Goodriches had left things they valued at Kidd's Pines. Caspian and Mrs. Shuster felt that where the Moores went, there they ought to go also. As for the Boys, they would have followed Pat to the death.

* * * * *

Transcriber's note:

The page numbers of illustrations have been changed to reflect the new positions, and are now indicated in the illustration list by 'Page' instead of 'Facing Page'.

For the benefit of certain readers, explanatory names have been added to some illustration tags and these have been identified with an asterisk.

Obvious printer's errors have been corrected. All other inconsistencies are as in the original. The author's spelling has been retained.