Part 7

"Las' stop!" he shouted impatiently, as the car came to a groaning standstill away out in a shabby suburb, where several huge factories were in process of erection.

Miss Tripp started up and looked out at the sodden fields and muddy, half-frozen road. Two or three dirty, dispirited-looking men boarded the car and sat down heavily, depositing their tools at their feet. Then the driver and conductor, who had swung the trolley around, and accomplished other official duties incident to the terminal, entered, closing the doors behind them with a professional crash.

Both stared at Miss Tripp who had subsided into her corner again.

"Say, Bill; nice weather for a trolley-ride--heh?" observed the motor-man, shifting an obvious quid of something in his capacious mouth.

"Aw--you shut up, Cho'ley!" growled his superior.

Bill thoughtfully obeyed, drumming with his feet on the floor and pursing up his tobacco-stained lips in an inaudible whistle. Presently he glanced at his big nickel watch and shook his head at the conductor. "A minute an' a half yet, b' mine," he said; "made a quick trip out."

Then he cast another side-long glance at the one lady passenger. "Got carried past, I guess," he suggested with a wink. "Better look sharp for the right street on the way back, Bill."

"You bet," observed the other, with his hand on the bell-rope. "I'm on the job all right."

Elizabeth Brewster was giving her youngest son his supper when her friend Miss Tripp entered her hospitable door.

"Oh, Evelyn!" she began, with an eager air of welcome; "I was hoping you would come home early to-night, Marian Stanford was here this afternoon; she wants to go---- But Evelyn, dear, what ever is the matter? You're as white as a ghost. Don't you feel well?"

Miss Tripp valiantly plucked up a wan smile.

"I am perfectly well," she declared; "but, Betty dear, could you give me a cup of tea? I was so--busy and--hurried to-day that I forgot all about my luncheon, and I just this minute realised it."

Elizabeth hurried into the kitchen on hospitable cares intent and Evelyn sank wearily into a chair. Her head was swimming with weariness and the lack of food; cold, discouraged drops crowded her blue eyes.

Richard quietly absorbing bread and milk from a gay china bowl gazed at her with a round speculative stare.

"Cwyin'?" he observed in a bird-like voice.

"No, dear," denied Miss Tripp, winking resolutely. "What made you think of such a thing, precious?"

"'Cause it's--it's naughty to cwy."

"I know it, dear; and I'm going to smile; that's better; isn't it?"

Her somewhat hysterical effort after her usual cheerful expression did not appear to deceive Richard. He waved his spoon charged with milk in her general direction.

"I'm a dood boy," he announced with pride. "I eat my shupper an' I don't cwy."

"Here is the tea you're evidently perishing for, Evelyn dear," said Elizabeth, setting a steaming cup before her guest; "and I've some good news for you--at least I'm hoping you'll like it. I'm sure I should love to have you so near us, and it would give you plenty of time to choose something permanent."

Miss Tripp's wan face had taken on a tinge of colour as she sipped the hot tea. "What is it, Betty?" she asked quietly enough, though her heart was beating hard with hope deferred. "Did that Popham man call to see me after all?"

"No," Elizabeth said; "it isn't the Popham man. And perhaps you won't like the idea at all. I started to tell you that Marian--Mrs. Stanford--was here this afternoon. She came over to tell me that her husband is going to California on a business trip; he wants her to go with him and she is wild to go; but she doesn't know what to do with the two children. She can't take them along, as Mr. Stanford will be obliged to travel rapidly from place to place. Her mother is almost an invalid and can't bear the excitement of having them with her. It just occurred to me that perhaps you might be willing to stay with the children. I spoke of it to Marian and she was delighted with the idea. You could have your mother come and stay with you, you know, and the house is so comfortable and pretty."

Elizabeth broke off in sudden consternation at sight of the usually self-possessed Miss Tripp shaken with uncontrollable sobs. "Why, Evelyn," she cried, "I never thought you would feel that way about it. Of course I had no business to speak of you to Marian without consulting you first; but I thought--I hoped----"

"It--isn't that, Elizabeth," Miss Tripp managed to say, "I'm--not offended--only tired. Don't mind me; I'll be all right as soon as I've swallowed my tea and----"

"It's naughty to cwy," chirped Richard, waving his milky spoon rebukingly. "I'm a dood boy. I eat my shupper an' I don't cwy."

In a fresh gown, with her nerves once more under control, Evelyn was able to look more composedly at the door which had so unexpectedly opened in the blind wall of her dilemma. There were serious disadvantages--as Elizabeth was careful to point out--in attempting the charge of the Stanford children, in conjunction with various undeniable privileges and a generous emolument.

"Robbie is certainly a handful for anybody to cope with, and the baby is a spoiled child already." Elizabeth's voice sank to a soulful murmur, as she added, "Marian has always believed in punishing her children--whipping them, I mean; and you know, Evelyn, how that brutalises a child."

As a matter of fact, Miss Tripp knew very little about children; but like the majority of persons who have never dealt familiarly with infant humanity, she had formulated various sage theories concerning their upbringing.

"Dear Elizabeth," she replied, "how true that is; and yet how few mothers realise it. Children should be controlled solely by love; I am sure I shall have no trouble at all with those two dear little boys."

And so it was settled. In less than a week's time Mrs. Stanford had departed upon her long journey. At the last she clung somewhat wistfully to Elizabeth.

"I'm almost afraid to go and leave the children," she said. "Of course I feel every confidence in Miss Tripp; but you know, Betty, how resourceful Robert is, and how---- But you'll have an eye to them all; won't you? And telegraph us if--if anything should happen?"

Elizabeth promised everything. But she was conscious of a great weight of responsibility as the carriage containing the light-hearted Stanfords rolled away down the street. "Oh, Evelyn!" she said; "do watch Robbie carefully, and be sure and call me if the least thing is the matter with the baby."

Miss Tripp smiled confidently. "I'm not the least bit worried," she said. "Little Robert loves me devotedly already, and I am sure will be most tractable and obedient; and Livingstone is a very healthy child. Besides, you know, I have mother, who knows everything about children."

She went back into her newly acquired domain, feeling that a sympathising Providence had been very good to her, and resolving to do her full duty, as she conceived it, by the temporarily motherless Stanford children.

In pursuance of this resolve she repaired at once to the nursery when the Stanfords had taken leave of their offspring, after presenting them with a parcel of new toys upon which the children had fallen with shouts of joy.

"I really could not go away and leave them looking wistfully out of the windows after us," Mrs. Stanford had declared, with tears in her bright brown eyes. "I should think of them that way every minute while we were gone, and imagine them crying after me."

"They won't cry, dear Mrs. Stanford," Evelyn had assured her. "I shall devote every moment of my time to them and keep them just as happy as wee little birdlings in a nest."

The youngest Stanford child was peacefully engaged in demolishing a book of bright pictures, while his elder brother was trying the blade of a glittering jack-knife on the wood of the mantel-piece, when Miss Tripp re-entered the room.

"Oh, my dears!" exclaimed their new guardian with a tactful smile, "I wouldn't do that!"

The Stanford infant paid no manner of attention to the mildly worded request; but the older boy turned and stared resentfully at her. "This is my jack-knife," he announced conclusively; "my daddy gave it to me to whittle with, an' I'm whittlin'."

"But your father wouldn't like you to cut the mantel-shelf; don't you know he wouldn't, dear?"

"I'm goin' to whittle it jus' the same, 'cause you ain't my mother; you ain't even my gran'ma."

Miss Tripp, unable to deny the refutation, looked about her distractedly. "I'll tell Norah to get you a nice piece of wood," she said. "Where is Norah, dear?"

"She's gone down to the corner to talk to her beau," replied Master Robert, calmly continuing to dig his new knife into the mantel. "She's got a p'liceman beau, an' so's Annie; on'y hers is a street-car driver. Have you got one, Miss Tripp?"

"Call me Aunty Evelyn, dear; that'll be nicer; don't you think it will? And--Robert dear; if you'll stop cutting the mantel Aunty Evelyn will tell you the loveliest story, all about----"

"Aw--I don't like stories much. They're good 'nough for girls I guess, but I----"

Then the knife slipped and the amateur carpenter burst into a deafening roar of anguish.

XV

Very much to his surprise, Mr. Hickey found himself disposed to hark back to the day on which he had so unexpectedly parted company with Miss Tripp on the corner of Tremont and Washington Streets. He had intended, he told himself, to order for their luncheon broiled chicken, macaroons and pink ice-cream, as being articles presumably suited to the feminine taste. He remembered vaguely to have heard Miss Tripp mention pink ice-cream, and all women liked the wing of a chicken. Was the unknown "friend" with whom she had made that previous engagement, a man or a woman? he wondered, deciding with the well-known egoism of his sex in favour of the first mentioned. The man was a cad, anyway, Mr. Hickey was positive--though he could not have particularised his reasons for this summary conclusion. And being a cad, he was not worthy of Miss Tripp's slightest consideration.

If he had the thing to do over again, he told himself, he would sneak up boldly to Miss Tripp concerning his own rights in the matter; he would remind her--humorously of course--that possession was said to be nine points in the law; and that he, Hickey, was disposed to do battle for the tenth point with any man living.

He grew quite hot and indignant as he pictured his rival sitting opposite Miss Tripp in some second-class restaurant, ordering chicken and ice-cream. As like as not the other fellow wouldn't know that she preferred her ice-cream pink, and----.

Mr. Hickey pulled himself up with a jerk at this point in his meditations and told himself flatly that he was a fool, and that further, when he came right down to it, he did not care a copper cent about Miss Tripp's luncheons, past, present or to come. What he really wanted to know--and this desire gained poignant force and persistence as the days passed--was whether he had said or done anything to offend the lady. He remembered that he had accidentally jabbed Miss Tripp's hat with his umbrella, and very likely put a feather or two out of business. That would be likely to annoy any woman. Perhaps she had felt that his awkwardness was unpardonable, and his further acquaintance undesirable.

Under the goad of this latter uncomfortable suspicion--in two weeks' time it had grown into a conviction--he actually made his way into a milliner's shop and inquired boldly for "feathers."

"What sort of feathers, sir?" inquired the cool, bright-eyed young person who came forward to ask the needs of the tall, professional-looking man wearing glasses and exceedingly shabby brown gloves.

"Why--er--just feathers; the sort ladies wear on hats."

The young person smiled condescendingly. "Something in plumes, sir?" she asked, "or was it coque or marabout you wished to see?"

"Something handsome. Long--er--and not too curly."

The young woman produced a box and opened it.

"How do you like this, sir? Only twenty dollars. Was it for an old lady or a young lady?"

"Er--a young lady," said Mr. Hickey hastily. "That is to say, she----"

"Your wife, perhaps?" and the young person smiled intelligently. "How would your lady like something like this?" And she held up a sweeping plume of a dazzling shade of green. "This is quite the latest swell thing from Paris, sir; can be worn on either a black or a white hat."

Mr. Hickey reflected. "I--er--think the feathers were black," he observed meditatively; "but I like colours myself. Red--er--is a handsome colour in feathers." He eyed the young person defiantly. "I always liked a good red," he asserted firmly.

"These new cerise shades are all the rage now in Paris, N'Yo'k an' Boston," agreed the young person, promptly pulling out another box. "Look at this grand plume in shaded tints, sir! Isn't it just perfectly stunning?"

It was. Mr. Hickey surveyed it in rapt admiration, as the young person dangled it alluringly within range of his short-sighted vision.

"I'd want two of those," he murmured.

"Forty-eight, seventy, sir; reduced from fifty dollars; shall I send them?"

"I--er--I'll take them with me," said the engineer, pulling out a roll of bills.

"Women's hats must be singularly expensive," he mused for the first time in his professional career, as he strode away down the street, gingerly bearing his late purchase in a pasteboard box. It had not before occurred to Mr. Hickey that mere "feathers" were so costly. He trembled as he reflected upon the ravages committed by his unthinking umbrella. Anyway, these particular plumes were handsome enough to replace the ones he had undoubtedly ruined. He grew eager to behold Miss Tripp's face under the cerise plumes. But how was this to be brought about? Obviously this new perplexity demanded time for consideration. He carried the plumes home to his boarding-place, therefore, and stored them away on the top shelf of his closet, where they were discovered on the following day by his landlady, who was in the habit of keeping what she was pleased to term "a motherly eye" upon the belongings of her unattached boarders.

"Well, I mus' say!" exclaimed the worthy Mrs. McAlarney to herself, when her amazed eyes fell upon the contents of the strange box, purporting to have come from a fashionable milliner's shop; "if that ain't the greatest! Whatever's got into Mr. Hickey?"

But the cerise plumes tarried in undeserved obscurity on the shelf of Mr. Hickey's clothes-press for exactly fifteen days thereafter; then they suddenly disappeared.

In the meantime their purchaser continued to indulge in unaccustomed reflections from day to day. He made no effort during all this time to see Miss Tripp; but on the fifteenth day he chanced to meet Sam Brewster as he was about entering the business men's lunchroom, which Mr. Hickey still frequented as in former days.

"Hello, old man!" was Sam's greeting. "Where have you been keeping yourself all these weeks? I thought you'd be around some evening to see us."

"Er--I've been thinking of it," admitted Mr. Hickey cautiously. "Is--er--Mrs. Brewster's friend, Miss Tripp, still with you?"

"No, George; she isn't," Sam told him, enjoying the look of uncontrolled dismay which instantly overspread Mr. Hickey's countenance. "She's gone next door to stay," he added.

"Next door--to--er stay?"

"At the Stanfords' you know. Miss Tripp is keeping house and looking after the young Stanfords while their exhausted parents are endeavouring to recuperate their energies in the far west."

"Hum--ah," quoth Mr. Hickey thoughtfully, his mind reverting casually to the cerise plumes.

"She's doing wonders with those kids, my wife tells me," pursued Sam Brewster artfully. "Miss Tripp's a fine girl and no mistake; it'll be a lucky man who can secure her services for life."

Mr. Hickey offered no comment on this statement, and his friend waved his hand in token of farewell.

"Come around and see us, George, when you haven't anything better to do," he said, as he stepped out to the street.

"Oh--er--I say, Brewster; would it be the proper thing for me to call on Miss Tripp? I--I have a little explanation to make, and----"

"Miss Tripp's mother is chaperoning her," said Sam, with unsmiling gravity. "It would be, I should say, quite the proper thing for you to call upon her."

"Well; then I think I'd better take those----. Er--Brewster, I wonder if you could enlighten me?--You see it's this way, a--friend of mine called at my office the other day to consult me about a little matter. He said he'd been unfortunate enough to injure a lady's hat--feathers, you know--and he wanted to know what I'd do under like circumstances. 'Well, my dear fellow,' I told him, 'I don't know much about women's head-gear and that sort of thing; but,' I said, 'I should think the square thing to do would be to buy some handsome plumes and send them to the lady--something good and--er--expensive; say forty or fifty dollars.'"

Sam whistled. "Pretty tough advice, unless the fellow happened to have plenty of cash," he hazarded, with a quizzical look at the now flushed and agitated Mr. Hickey.

"Wouldn't they be good enough at that price?" inquired the engineer excitedly. "Ought I--ought my friend to have paid more?"

"I should say that was a fair price," said Sam mildly. "I don't believe my wife has any feathers of that description on her hats."

Mr. Hickey looked troubled. "Do you think I--er--told my friend the correct thing to do?" he inquired humbly. "Of course I don't know much about--feathers, or anything about women, for that matter."

"That's where you're making a big mistake, Hickey, if you'll allow me to say as much. You ought to marry some nice girl, man, and make her happy. You'd find yourself happier than you have any idea of in the process."

Mr. Hickey shook his head dubiously. "That may be so," he admitted. "I don't doubt it, to tell you the truth; but I----. The fact is, Brewster, I'm too far along in life to think of changing my way of living. I--I'd be afraid to try it, for fear----"

"Oh, nonsense, man! you're just in your prime. Be sure you get the right woman, though; a real home-maker, Hickey; the kind who'll meet you at night with a smile, and have a first-class dinner ready for you three hundred and sixty-five days in the year."

Mr. Hickey stared inscrutably at a passing truck. "Hum--ah!" he ejaculated. "I--er--dare say you are right, Brewster. Quite so, in fact. I--I'll think it over and let you know--that is, I----"

Sam Brewster turned aside to conceal a passing smile. "The more you think it over the better," he said convincingly; "only don't take so much time for thinking that the other man'll cut you out."

"Then there is another man!" exclaimed Mr. Hickey, with some agitation. "I knew it; I felt sure of it. But how could it be otherwise?"

Sam Brewster stared in amazement at the effect produced by his careless speech. "There's always another man, George," he said seriously--though he felt morally certain there wasn't, if Hickey was referring to Miss Tripp. "But you want to get busy, and not waste time philandering."

XVI

The most unthinking observer could scarcely have accused Mr. Hickey of "philandering" up to this point; inasmuch as he had not laid eyes on the object of his thoughts--he would have demurred at a stronger word--for upwards of a month. That same afternoon, however, he left his office at the unwarranted hour of two o'clock, bearing a milliner's box in his hand with unblushing gravity.

It was after he had rung the bell at the Stanford residence that he felt a fresh accession of doubt regarding the cerise plumes. After all, Brewster had neglected to put his mind at ease upon that important point.

Miss Tripp was at home, the maid informed him, and showed him at once into the drawing-room when Miss Tripp herself, charmingly gowned in old rose, presently came in to greet him.

Mr. Hickey caught himself gazing at the subdued tints of her toilet with vague disapproval. It was not, he told himself, a stunning colour such as was all the rage in Paris, New York and Boston. He felt exceedingly complacent as he thought of the plumes awaiting her acceptance.

"I wonder," Miss Tripp was saying brightly, "if you wouldn't like to see my little kindergarten? To tell you the truth, Mr. Hickey, I shouldn't venture to leave them to themselves, even to talk with you."

She led the way to the library where they were greeted by a chorus of joyous shouts.

"You see," exclaimed Miss Tripp, "I am entertaining all five of the children this afternoon. Elizabeth--Mrs. Brewster--wished to do some shopping, so I offered to keep an interested eye on her three wee lambkins."

"We're playin' birdies, Mr. Hickey," said Doris, taking up the thread of explanation, "Buddy and Baby Stanford are my little birdies; an' I'm the mother bird, an' Carroll an' Robbie are angleworms jus' crawlin' round on the ground. See me hop! Now I'm lookin' for a breakfast for my little birds!"

The two infants in a nest of sofa-pillows set up a loud chirping, while the angleworms writhed realistically on the hearth-rug.

"Now I'm goin' to catch one!" and Doris pounced upon Robbie Stanford. "Course I can't really put him down my birdies' throats," she explained kindly, "I just p'tend; like this."

"Aw--this isn't any fun," protested her victim, as she haled him sturdily across the floor. "You're pullin' my hair, anyway; leg-go, Doris; I ain't no really worm."

"You shouldn't say 'ain't,' dear," admonished Miss Tripp. "You meant to say 'I'm not really a worm.' But I'm sure you've played birdie long enough. We'll do something else now; what shall it be?"

"Let's play reg'lar tea-party with lots an' lots o' things to eat," suggested Master Stanford. "I'm hungry!"

"Oh, no, dear; not yet; you can't be," laughed Miss Tripp. "We'll have a tea-party, though, by and by, and you shall see what a nice surprise Cook Annie has for you."

"I like t' eat better 'n anything; don't you?" asked Doris, sidling up to the observant Mr. Hickey, who was watching the scene with an inscrutable smile. "I like to eat candy out of a big box."

"Doris, dear," interrupted Miss Tripp tactfully, "wouldn't you like to look at pictures a little while with the boys? Aunty Evelyn has some pretty books that you haven't seen. Come here, dear, and help Aunty."

"I'm tired o' pictures," objected Doris with a pout. "I want to play train, or somethin' like that; don't you, Robbie?"

"Don't want to play anythin' much; I'm tired o' bein' s' good, 'n' I'd rather go up in the attic, or somewhere," and Master Stanford cast a rebellious glance at his guardian.

"Why don't you let them go out doors for a while," suggested Mr. Hickey, coming unexpectedly to the rescue.

"It's snowing a little; and I'm afraid Elizabeth would think it was pretty cold for Richard," objected Miss Tripp.

"It'll do 'em good," insisted Mr. Hickey, who was selfishly determined to clear the decks for his own personal ends. He had somehow formulated a very surprising set of resolutions as he sat watching Miss Tripp in the discharge of her quasi maternal duties. Primus: It was a shame for a sweet, attractive little woman to wear herself out caring for other people's houses and children. Secundus: If there was another man in the case (as Brewster had insinuated) he was determined to find it out without further delay. Tertius: If not----. Mr. Hickey drew a long breath.