Front matter (continued 4)

But now, a miracle! They whirled round a corner, whirled up a driveway: a touch on the reins, a word, and Pilot stood, breathing quickly, but otherwise statue-like, before Dr. Pettijohn's door. He had not been running away! Kitty had had him in control all the time! In one thought-flash, Miss Croly removed Joan of Arc and Mary Stuart from their pedestals and set up Kitty Ross as her Heroine for all time.

Three minutes more, and they were speeding back, still at arrow-flight. Dr. Pettijohn knew Pilot and Kitty, and leaned back comfortably on the front seat, reflecting that it was criminal for such a horse as that to be owned by any one but a doctor. Madam Flynt resumed her dignity, and cast a quelling glance at Miss Croly, who was now making ineffective dabs at her patroness's bonnet with a view to straightening it.

"Let me alone!" said the lady. "I prefer it as it is. And hold on, you ridiculous woman! We are going faster than ever, even if the animal is under control."

Kitty was very sorry about poor Mr. Gaylord, but she could not help realizing that Pilot was in wonderful condition to-day. She quoted under her breath, for Dr. Pettijohn's benefit:

The doctor nodded.

"Trouble is, Miss Kitty, your track is too short!" he said, as the Gaylord chimneys rose above the next turn of the road.

"I know!" Kitty nodded regretfully. "He's just got warmed up to his work, and here we are!"

Here they were; turning in at the great gateway; crunching over the gravel; stopping at the gaunt front door, which had not been opened in twenty years. It opened now, and Judge Peters stood on the steps.

"Well done, Kitty!" he exclaimed. "Yes, you are in time. Come in, Dr. Pettijohn. One moment!" he bent to whisper in Kitty's ear. "One more errand for you, my dear brave child! Providence sent you to-night, I am confident of it. Our poor friend desires greatly to see your Aunt Johanna. Yes!" as Kitty uttered a cry of surprise. "They were friends in youth; perhaps more than friends. He wishes to take leave of her. Is she able to come, do you think, Kitty? Not for worlds would I have her do herself an injury!"

"Perfectly able, I am sure! I'll just take the ladies home; thank you, Judge dear!"

Pilot did very well, Kitty thought, to slacken his pace so cheerfully the rest of the way to Madam Flynt's house; even so, they were two shaken and disheveled ladies who dismounted at the stone steps, and Abby Ann, hurrying out with the foot-stool, exclaimed in dismay at their appearance.

"For the goodness gracious sake, Madam!" she cried. "Whatever has happened to your bonnet?"

Madam Flynt waved her aside with dignity and addressed Kitty.

"We have had a most interesting drive!" she said. "I congratulate you, Kitty, on your skill; and I am deeply thankful to have been able—you understand, my dear! Good evening! Cornelia, you are treading on my skirt. If you have pretty feet, it is not necessary to trample——There! don't mind me! it was my fault, I dare say."

Every moment of this evening was bitten into Kitty's mind, an ineffaceable impression: sharpest and clearest of all, the moment when she stood faltering in the doorway of the Red Indian Room.

Miss Johanna Ross (in rose-color this time) was sitting erect among her pillows, reading "Framley Parsonage." She was going through the whole Trollope fleet of "old three-deckers" with infinite enjoyment. Her firm, rather sharp countenance was relaxed in lines of leisurely amusement. Looking up, and meeting Kitty's eyes, it waked into vivid attention.

"What's the matter?" demanded Miss Johanna. "Sickness or accident?"

She had dropped her book, and was gathering her draperies about her.

"Sickness!" Kitty spoke quietly, trying to keep all hurry out of her voice.

"An old friend of yours, Aunt Johanna, has come back and is—is very ill, I fear. He would like to see you. It is——"

"Russell Gaylord!" said Johanna Ross.

The Rosses all move quickly. "Medicated lightning," people used to call Dr. Ross, when he was summoned to an emergency case. Kitty could only think of this, as without another word her aunt flashed from her pillows, rustled into her clothes, and with a shake of her shoulders stood alert, able, prepared.

"Now, child!" she pinned on her veil with a steady hand. "I am ready. Who sent you? Judge Peters? Good! and you have Pilot? Good again! we need lose no time. I dreamed last night—come!"

Pilot may have wondered where his promised mash was; why he was carefully blanketed for ten minutes, then taken out once more, and once more given the signal for full speed; but beyond a whinny of surprise, and a toss of his head, he gave no sign. Kitty's word was Pilot's law. Again the miles sped by; this time the passenger took no heed of them; the pace was all too slow for her. Again the flying turn, the crunching gravel; again the door opening, the grave figure hastening down the steps.

"Alive! still conscious! yes! asking for you. Thank God you are come! The end is near, prepare for a great change, my friend!"

Shall we go in with Johanna Ross to that room where the love of her youth lies gasping his last hour away? Shall we look upon her, kneeling by the bedside, holding the skeleton hands, looking tenderly into the hollow eyes? No! we have no business there. We will come away, with the two faithful friends, who went, one to stand outside the chamber door, in case of need, the other on the steps, smoothing Pilot's glossy neck and exchanging brief snatches of talk with Kitty; she, wondering, pitying, yet dreading to touch upon the mystery that had outlasted her young life.

They were all at school together, Mr. Mallow said. Russ was an elegant boy. "Him and Johanna was always together, same as you and——" Here Mr. Mallow was seized with a prolonged fit of coughing.

"Anybody ask you about Russ Gaylord," cried the hotel keeper, "and you say he was nobody's enemy but his own. Nobody's but his own! Your father knew that. Doctor knew it. 'Russ,' he'd say, 'Stop now! stop to-day! you can!' but he couldn't; he couldn't. The peth was dead in him, like a dozy log. Yes! Poor Russ! too bad, ain't it?"

"Has he been ill long, Mr. Mallow?" asked Kitty timidly.

"He's ben ailin' ever sence he come. Lemme see! March wasn't it? Yes, March, and here we are in May. He's ben jest wastin' away, poor Russ has."

"Not—he hasn't been all alone, has he?" with a glance at the dark, shuttered house, the tall firs pointing spectral fingers at it, and the great chestnut tree, tossing its bare arms as if in grief or horror.

"Me and Ned—I would say the Jedge—has ben here all we could. He wouldn't have no one else! We was boon companions in primary school, and we kep' right on. Not in all ways, is what I would say; there was p'ints—no need to go into that! His heart was right in his boosum all the time, Russ's was. Now he lays there."

Mr. Mallow drew out his handkerchief and wiped his eyes simply.

All Cyrus came to Russell Gaylord's funeral. Tinkham, too, and Tupham. Some, no doubt, came from curiosity, idle or worse, to see the great house open once more, the long windows thrown wide, the sunlight gilding the mouldered furniture and moth-eaten tapestries. These would be outsiders. Cyrus people were full of sorrow and compassion. They came in their best clothes, Madam Flynt in her ermine and velvet, Anne Peace in her brown Sunday gown; it was all they could do. With bowed heads they entered the door. How jovially the gay young host used to welcome them to these long drawing-rooms! How shining and scented they used to be, with lights and flowers! There were flowers now. Kitty and Nelly Chanter had found enough early blossoms in the neglected garden to make a wreath—only Forsythia and Japanese pear, but it was gay and cheerful—and some one had sent a splendid wreath of passion flowers. At the last Johanna Ross, who stood at the head of the coffin, while Mr. Chanter read the service, took the bunch of violets from her bosom, and laid it over the dead man's heart.

CHAPTER XIV johanna rediviva

Miss Johanna did not go back to bed. She had had six months of rest, she said, and that was enough.

"Besides," she added, "I must show myself for poor Russell's sake. I can't have people saying that he ruined my health for life, as well as destroyed my reason."

She spoke frankly to Kitty, as they sat together on the leather sofa, the evening after the funeral.

"That was why I went away!" said Miss Johanna. "We were very much in love with each other, but it was no use. He couldn't keep straight; and I am not a fool, Kitty. He wouldn't give me up, so I went away. Wrongly, your little mother thought; John knew I was right. So there is all about that!" Thus Miss Johanna, very erect on the sofa. Kitty, moving close beside her, put her arm round her and laid her fair head against her shoulder.

"Thank you, my dear! yes, it was hard; almost as hard to have Mary disapprove of me as to lose him." Miss Johanna brushed away a tear, and frowned at the spot on her handkerchief.

"She asked me—little romantic goose of a white rose!—if I thought she would leave John if he——'My child,' I said, 'John would leave you! John would allow nothing of that kind to come within sight or sound of you. If he found he had to drink, he would go and drink in the Mammoth Cave, and drop the bottles into the bottomless pit.' It was true!

"But mind you, Kitty!" Miss Johanna spoke incisively, after a silence, during which both had gazed into the fire with tear-bright eyes. "You must not think I have mourned for twenty years. People don't do that, not even women. I mourned for a good while, as long as was reasonable; perhaps longer. Otherwise, I have been a busy and on the whole a contented woman. Why shouldn't I be? I have friends all over the country; I have had many pleasures; now, thanks to you, my dear child, I have a home, the home of my own childhood. Considering humanity in the aggregate, I have done extremely well. Extremely well! A single woman can be happy enough, Kitty," Miss Johanna did not look at her niece as she spoke, "happy enough if she has sense. I have known spinsters who had twice as many children as if they had borne 'em; and I've known mothers, dozens of 'em, with hearts and arms as empty as their heads. And if Sarepta Darwin wants anything," added Miss Johanna, "I'll thank her to put a name to it, instead of clucking and scuttling out there in the hall."

Sarepta appeared, and fixed the speaker with a wintry eye. "I don't want anything!" she said austerely. "I was comin' to ask whether you wanted any supper; that's all. Bell rang ten minutes ago; don't make no odds to me whether it's hot or cold."

It did make odds to Miss Johanna, however, that Sarepta had prepared for supper all her little favorite delicacies, down to the dash of cinnamon on the buttered toast, with which she usually "couldn't bother." Late that evening, when Kitty was in bed, the stately lady crept down the back stairs to the kitchen, and had a comfortable little cry with her old grammar-school mate, who in her grim fashion had worshiped Russell Gaylord ever since, at the age of twelve, he gave her a bite of his apple.

The next thing, Miss Johanna announced, was the Visits. People had left cards for her when she came: sympathetic cards, inquisitive cards, scandalized cards, as the case might be. Now, for the sake of things in general (and Kitty in particular, it may be confessed between author and reader), Miss Johanna determined to "make her manners," and prove her sanity of mind and body. These were exciting days for Cyrus. One hardly dared leave the house for fear of missing The Call.

"Has she been to see you? She has? Well! how did she appear? Was she flighty, or what you would call reasonable? Stylish? Well, you would expect that! she was always one to dress. What did she——oh! broadcloth! Well! that is always ladylike. They claim basket-weaves are all the style now, but I don't know. Anyhow, it's something for her to be in her right mind."

Mrs. Wibird was openly disturbed about the influence that Johanna was likely to exert over Kitty.

"While she was in her bed," said the lady, "it was another matter; but now, the two of them together, and like that, it's my fear we shall see things that we are not used to them in Cyrus."

Melissa was on fire instantly.

"I don't know what you mean, Mother! What kind of things?"

"No, you don't know, my child;" Mrs. Wibird shook a melancholy head over the bowl in which she was mixing gingerbread. "You don't know, and it is far from my wish that you should." (N. B. The good lady had no idea herself what she meant, but Lissy shouldn't speak back like that.) "I say nothing; nothing at all! I never do say anything, as is well known. But take the way Kitty Ross drives, which is in itself a scandal, be the other who it may; and add to it a person who has always been peculiar, and now little better than a lunatic, if all one hears—hand me the spice-box, will you, Lissy? You've kned that dough enough; you'll take the courage all out of it—all I say is, I hope Cyrus will not rue the day that either one of them—My gracious, Lissy! they're driving up to the door this minute! Here, take my apron! No! You go to the door—no, I'll go to the door and keep 'em back while you pull up the parlor curt——

"Johanna Ross! do not tell me this is you! well! well! well! you are a stranger! Kitty comin' in? No! the wild animal wouldn't stand, of course. Terrible!" as Kitty and Pilot whisked round the corner. "I expect to see her dashed in fragments any day: any day! My son Wilson nearly met his death the night of Madam Flynt's party. Well, if this isn't a sight for sore eyes. Come in! Come right in, Johanna! I never thought to be welcoming you into my humble sitting-room in this world!"

The Misses Bygood had made fitting preparations to receive their old friend and schoolmate. The covers were taken off Aunt Messenger's Chair (embroidered by that lady seventy-five years ago, and as fresh as the day it was finished, owing to the covers; there were three, one basted, one tied, and the third but- toned on); the tidies and the frilled tassel-bags were done up—I met some one the other day who had never heard of a tassel-bag!—an extra touch given to the shining silver and crystal. And after all this, Miss Johanna made her call in the shop! One might have known she would! Miss Almeria reflected; there was a shade of austerity on her smooth brow as she advanced to greet her guest. Miss Johanna was buoyant.

"Howdy? howdy?" she cried. "Second call, you see, Almy! First call on Madam Flynt, second on Miss Bygoods: Proprieties of Cyrus, volume I, chapter I. Father down yet?"

Father not down; it was early for him. Egeria usually brought him down at ten o'clock. It was now but——

"I know! half-past nine. I came early on purpose. To-morrow Kitty and I are coming to the house to tea, if you will have us, Almy. We want the Chair taken out, and the tassel-bags done up, and the Lowestoft cups. I'll wear my best dress, which is a beauty. But now—may I help you dust? You used to let me—thanks! Best of Almys!"

Miss Almeria proffered a silk duster with fingers that trembled slightly. She and Johanna Ross had been intimates in girlhood; she had found it hard to forgive the slight put upon Cyrus by her friend in leaving it with no word of explanation. She now felt that there had been extenuating circumstances. She had never thought to have Johanna dusting with her again.

For some minutes they plied their delicate task in silence; then:

"My stars!" cried Miss Johanna. She turned with shining eyes, holding up a book. "Almeria! here is 'Guy Livingstone' behind the Manila envelopes, where I dropped him twenty years ago when you wanted to burn him. Precious tome! untidy girl! Where is your housekeeping?"

Her laugh rang out triumphantly; a delightful laugh, clear and bell-like as Kitty's own.

Miss Almeria laughed, too. "I think you will find no dust on the volume, Johanna!" she said demurely. "I never thought it suitable for general circulation, as you are aware, but——"

Miss Johanna gave her a kind glance.

"But you kept it for naughty Johanna's sake! That was very sweet of you, Almy. I'll take it with me now, if you don't mind. Ah! 'I know men who would have given five years of life for the whisper that glided into his ear as he gave Miss Bellasys her candle on retiring, ten for the Parthian glance that shot its arrow home.' Now that is the way to write, Almeria Bygood! Nobody writes like that nowadays."

Then with an abrupt change of tone, "I wanted to ask you one or two things, Almy. You have sense, even if you don't appreciate 'Guy Livingstone.' People like my Kitty, do they, Almeria?"

"Can you doubt it, Johanna? She is the idol of Cyrus. I express myself too strongly!" Miss Almeria corrected herself: "idolatry is not a—sentiment which—everybody loves her, Johanna! Who could possibly help it? She is the light of the place!"

The touch of frost melted away, and Miss Almeria glowed with tenderness.

"Good!" Miss Johanna nodded approbation. "She ought to be! She is a blessed little Christmas candle! And—a—about the driving, Almy! It hasn't—eh? People don't think—you know what I mean!"

"Perfectly!" Miss Almeria bent her stately head in comprehension. "At first, Johanna, there were a few criticisms; only a few, and those not from persons whose opinions carry any weight in the community. In general, Kitty has had from the first the respect as well as the affection of Cyrus. Her course was unusual, but the circumstances were unusual. You need have no fear, Johanna!"

"Because of course," Miss Johanna paused to straighten a calendar which was hanging awry; "of course there is no need of her driving, you know, Almy!"

"No need?" repeated Miss Almeria.

"None in the world! I have done very well; I have plenty for both of us. But it was so good for her, and she was enjoying it so, I hadn't the heart to say 'Stop! Sit down, fold your hands, be a Young Lady of Cyrus'—Beg pardon, Almy! You know I always loved it, if it did stifle me!—when she was so gallant and having such a wonderful time. I pay enough to make it easy for her, with the business, you see. A single woman without a trade is a dog without a tail, my dear; you know that! What are you flashing at, Almeria Bygood? Have people been saying—they have! Transparency, thy name is Almy! They have been saying that I am—I suppose you would never speak to me again if I should say 'bumming' on Kitty!"

"The expression is new to me!" Miss Almeria stiffened for an instant, then flashed again.

"Of course, Josie—" the diminutive slipped out unaware—"Egeria and I—in fact, all your friends knew it was absurd to suppose for a moment that—that you would think of any such thing; but—well, you know there are persons, even in Cyrus, of suspicious nature; in short, my dear, I am glad to be able to make a positive statement to the effect——"

"Ah, but you aren't!" Johanna Ross turned a face a-twinkle with mischief.

"You aren't able to make any statement at all, Almy. I don't authorize it! No!" as Miss Almeria exclaimed, protesting. "You are not to say a single word. Let Cyrus sup full on my iniquities! My dear soul, when I say Cyrus in this sense, of course I mean the Sharpes, and I know as well as you that they are really Tinkham, So—Ah! here is Mr. Bygood! Good morning, Mr. Bygood! What can I offer you this morning? Something in the fancy line, my dear Sir? A looking-glass is what you need, to see how handsome you are. Oh! oh! if here is not Marsh Mallow! Marshall, how do you do? How do you spell 'fish' nowadays? Do you remember, Almy? He thought 'Psyche' was the queerest way of spelling 'fish' that ever he saw. Ha! ha!"

Judge Peters was late that morning. He had been detained by various petty annoyances. First he had cut his chin while shaving; then Mary wanted to talk about the price of eggs, which was a scandal, and to explain at length why there had been a button off his shirt last week. A client had come blundering to the house instead of the office—most annoying!—with a flood of questions about stumpage and flowage, and a torrent of asseverations that he wasn't goin' to be put upon, nobody needn't think he was. No l'ywer had ever got the better of him yet, his teeth was all eye-teeth, and he didn't cut 'em yesterday neither, no, sir! Etc., etc., etc. Altogether the Judge had been tried, and was in great need of his morning paper, and a few minutes of sedate chat at Bygoods' before going to his office. On entering the familiar door he started; absolutely started! the quiet place was a-bubble with laughter. Mr. Bygood's high "Te-hee! oh, very neat! very neat! te-hee!" quavered above the rest, but they were all laughing. Miss Almeria's blue eyes were flashing with merriment, Miss Egeria's beaming softly, as she murmured, "Most diverting, I am sure!" Mr. Jordano was waving his notebook in a state of excited rapture, while Mr. Mallow, his head thrown back, uttered sonorous bellows of laughter. Miss Johanna was telling stories. Standing erect, her back against the counter, trim and elegant in her purple broadcloth, she held them all spellbound. Her dark eyes shot sparkles of mirth; her whole countenance was alight with fun and mischief. At sight of the Judge's grave face in the doorway, a shadow swept over her own for a moment; their looks crossed gravely, not like swords; say, like heralds' staves! Next moment the lady was laughing again.

"Come in, Judge!" she cried. "Come in, Edward! Here I am, Johanna rediviva! We are having a Bygood reunion. There is one new boy!" she flashed a smile at Mr. Jordano, reducing him to the verge of fatuous idiocy; "the rest of us are all Bygood children, and Mr. Bygood is going to call the spelling class this minute. Go away, Kitty!" as Kitty's wondering face peeped in at the door. "This isn't the infant class. You are not born or thought of yet. Drive up and down the street a couple of times, will you, my dear? Or—say you meet me at Cheeseman's in fifteen minutes! I want some lemon drops."

Kitty, with a nod of comprehension, sped away; a little lonely at heart, seeing them all so merry. Youth was a sad time, it seemed; when one was entirely used to it, it would be different, she supposed. Then she caught sight of Lissy Wibird and Nelly Chanter posting along the street, laden with parcels from the General Store (Adamses' had no delivery; if folks wanted things, they could come and get 'em, was their view). Joyously signaling, Kitty drew up at the curbstone; swept the girls and their parcels into the wagon, and took them for a "perfectly delirious spin," as Nelly called it, along the Tupham Causeway. It was nearer half an hour than fifteen minutes before she drew up at Cheeseman's, her pocket full of apologies for keeping her aunt waiting; when, behold, the said aunt coming slowly down the street, Judge Peters beside her. The laughter had died out of Miss Johanna's face; she looked gravely downward, listening to her companion, whose face was equally grave. Kitty wondered; might have wondered more, had she overheard their words.

"I shall come very soon!" said the Judge. "You will find me unchanged, Johanna, in every respect."

"I am glad to hear it, Edward!" Miss Johanna gave a glance half sad, half quizzical, at the Judge's handsome iron-gray hair; "I have never found the Fountain of Youth; I am an old woman, simply and frankly."

"You are pleased to say so!" the Judge bowed courteously. "I have never measured sentiment by the calendar; nor do I find," the Judge's deep voice trembled slightly, "that Memory has lost any of her charm. With your permission, Johanna, I will call to-morrow evening."

"Oh, dear!" sighed Miss Johanna. "Yes, do, Edward; I shall be delighted to see you, and so will Kitty. Here I am, child! Had you given me up? We had to recite our history lesson, as well as spelling. 'King Canute reproved his flatterers and bade them perceive that he was unable to keep back the rising tide——'"

"Quite so!" said the Judge. "I wish you good morning, Johanna. Kitty, my love, your most obedient!"

"Oh, dear!" sighed Miss Johanna again as they entered the shop. "What is it Peggotty says? 'Drat the man!' Oh, how do you do, Mr. Cheeseman? You have been growing steadily younger for twenty years, I do believe!"

CHAPTER XV largely literary

"People do!" said Kitty,

"Do what?" asked Dan in an affectionate sniff. "Give a person an apple?"

"Yes, my Angel Poppet!"

Kitty reached for an apple—John Tucker kept a shelf of them handy by the stalls—gave it to Dan and ate one herself for company.

(There should be a digression here on Kitty eating an apple; how she succeeded in looking prettier than usual during the—as a rule—unbecoming process; how daintily she set her teeth into it, taking little pretty bites; how well her teeth matched the clear white as it broke crisply from the red. If Dan were writing this story, he would make such digression!)

"There is no need of snorting and sneezing over every crunch, Beloved! I know it is good: apples in May! John Tucker is very extravagant. But I meant matchmaking, Daniel dear. Do you think it is ever allowable?"

Daniel refused to commit himself; hinted delicately that another apple might aid him in forming an opinion.

"You see—" Kitty did not speak aloud; she was sure Dan understood pats just as well—"you see, Beloved, there is no sense in Bobby's going about looking sorrowful, when there is a perfectly dear, sweet girl, worth three of me, who—well, I know what I think, Dan dear! and I won't say I am probably mistaken as her mother does—and is!—and they are both just as nice as they can be, you know they are, and just the right age for each other, and he two inches taller and all; and I do think she has a rather horrid time at home, Dan dear! Just think of having to live perpetually with the tenth and last Wilson Wimberley Wibird! Poor creature; I wonder what Mr. Jordano said to him that day! He has not been near me since. And Mrs. Wibird is pretty lamenting, somehow; oh dear! and I'm afraid they haven't much to do with, Dan dear!"

Dan nodded thrice at this, whereupon Kitty told him he was a gossip, and she wondered at him; kissed his velvet nose and departed, thoughtful. She was on her way to the Library, to get books for Aunt Johanna, that lady being in frivolous mood, and demanding certain mid-Victorian novels which, when published, had caused Shudders. It was natural to step into the stable; she almost always did, whenever she was going out, in whatever direction. It seemed also natural (at least it had grown to be no uncommon thing) that Bobby Chanter should join her at the corner and be going to the Library, too. Wednesday, he explained, looking rather sheepish; funny thing, but there were some books they had here that the college library did not possess. They paced along together, the two young creatures, talking quietly of books. Bobby did not care much for books, but Kitty liked them, he knew. What had he been reading? she asked. Besides study books, of course! They took most of his time, no doubt, but one had always to have a book on hand.

"Oh, yes!" said Bobby rather forlornly. "I've got a book; Mother gave it to me at Christmas. I've read quite a lot of it. I don't remember its name. I'm not sure who wrote it; think it was a chap—oh! here we are!"

Could it be possible that Bobby felt for once the slightest shade of relief on arriving at the Library? Kitty knew such an awful lot! he reflected ruefully, and he was such a duffer!

At sight of the pair, Melissa looked up, and blushed as pink as the ribbon at her neat collar. Melissa was very pretty when she blushed, Kitty thought; a little color was all she needed; how unreasonable that one could not paint without immediately adding "Jezebel" to one's name!

"'Breaking a Butterfly,' Lissy, please! Now don't tell me you never heard of it, because I am perfectly sure Bobby never did, and that makes three of us."

"I never did, Kitty, honestly I didn't. I don't believe it's in the library, unless it is one of those old, old ones that haven't been catalogued yet. Old Mrs. Spooner left them to us, you know. They are in the inner room, waiting to be catalogued. I can't seem to get time——"

"I'll go look; may I? And, oh, Bobby, do you want to be a perfect angel and look up Orchis Spectabilis in Gray? We had such a dispute last night, Aunt Johanna and I! She says its habitat is—well, find out for me, there's a dear!"

Kitty vanished into the inner room, leaving the other two staring blankly at each other.

"Spec—what did she say, Bobby?"

"Spectabilis!" Bobby spoke hardily, as became a Corona senior, though he had not "taken" Latin since his first year in High School. "Respectable, I think it means; something bound in gray, she said. Let's see what there is in gray, Lissy! Here's the Life of Hannah More; that would be respectable, what?"

"I don't believe she means that!"

Melissa was fluttering very prettily. It was a most wonderful thing to be alone with Bobby in the Library, where she so often dreamed of him, little wistful gray dreams with only here and there a gleam of rose-color! How tall he was, how handsome, how strong! how like that beautiful bust! and Melissa glanced at the Olympian Hermes. Well, Bobby's hair did curl, but otherwise——

"I don't believe she means that," Melissa repeated. "Nobody has ever taken that out since I've been here. I looked into it once, dusting, you know; it looked awfully poky. Perhaps——" Melissa put forth the suggestion timidly, "she meant Gray was the person who wrote it. There's the Elegy, you know!"

"Of course!" Bobby responded heartily. "Sure thing! 'Curfew shall not ring to-night!' We learned that at High School, didn't we, Lissy?" He smiled kindly on the girl. "Gray's the chap; trot him out!"

Melissa had not the heart to correct him. How could she? Why should she? Men didn't have to know poetry, except ministers, she supposed, and the like of that. She meekly brought the works of Thomas Gray, and they looked through them together, making a very pretty picture, Kitty thought, as she peeped through the crack of the door. Bobby's fair hair—all men ought to have fair hair, of course—was bent over Melissa's little dark head, both looking at the same page. He sighed, which Kitty thought distinctly encouraging.

"Seems rather piffle, doesn't it?" asked the youth dolefully, looking up from "The Progress of Poesy." "Kitty knows an awful lot about books, doesn't she, Lissy? I suppose you do, too!"

"Oh, no!" Melissa replaced Gray with a look of relief. "I ought to, Bobby, but I don't. I love a good story, and I read travels some, and the like of that, but—oh, no! I don't begin—why, Kitty ought to be librarian here, by good rights. She knows an awful lot, simply awful. Why, she takes out books that no one else ever looks at, and reads 'em same as she would a detective story. Have you read 'The Hollow Needle,' Bobby?"

"Yes! Great, isn't it? Say, have you got any of his stuff? You never can get hold of one at Corona; they're out all the time. That chap is top-hole, no mistake."

When Kitty next peeped out, the two were surrounded by the works of a certain popular author. Bobby was discoursing upon their various merits, Melissa hanging on his words. Should she slip away and leave them together? Perhaps hardly, the first time. A glance at the clock showed that it was nearly closing time; at the same moment voices were heard in the entrance hall. Kitty slipped back into the main room and joined her two companions in time to greet Nelly Chanter and an attendant swain, also a Corona student, who came in quest of "something good to read!" Nelly fell instantly into what Kitty and I called Chanterics, embracing her friend with an ardor which made the two youths blink and blush.

"You darling Thing! I haven't seen you for forty years! Between my teaching and your driving, Kitty, I never see you! Except when you pick me up and give me a delicious turn, like an Angel, as you did the other day. How do, Lissy? How do, Bobby? Kitty, this is Mr. Myers, Bobby's roommate. He was at the Party, you know. Oh, and let me introduce Miss Wibird, Joe! I never do know how to introduce, do you? he! he! I should have introduced him to her, shouldn't I, Kitty?"

"We might all begin over again," said Kitty. "I am sure Mr. Chanter has never been introduced to me! Mr. Chanter, I am glad to have the honor of making your acquaintance!"

It takes little to amuse Youth. The Library, fortunately empty of readers, rang with shouts of glee.

"Isn't she killing?" whispered Nelly to her companion. "She's just as witty as she can be, all the time. She knows a most terrible lot, too, but you'd never know it, she's so darling and nice. Kitty, do tell us something good to read! Not deep things, you know. Mr. Myers has to read enough deep things at Corona, don't you, Mr. Myers? Ha! ha!"

Kitty laughed bravely with them, wondering why she was not amused. She must be growing old. She named at random the latest work of a great English novelist. Nelly exclaimed in dismay.

"Oh, Kitty, that's awfully deep, you know it is. Why, it's just full of religion and politics. Isn't there anything of Summer Sweeting's in? Don't you love her books? I cried quarts over 'My Burnished Dove': perfect quarts! Do you think Summer Sweeting is her own name or a nom de plume?"

"Too much sweetening for me!" said Bobby gruffly: one didn't have to make believe when it was one's sister. "I wouldn't give one of Sherlock Holmes for all she ever wrote."

"That's right!" chimed in Mr. Myers. "I don't stand for crying when you don't have to, what?"

"Oh, Joe! I love a sweet, sad book! Don't you love a sweet, sad book, Kitty? Who is your favorite author, Joe? I've often meant to ask you."

Unconsciously, Nelly's voice dropped a little; her blue eyes rested tenderly on the open countenance of Mr. Myers, known to his mates as "Jometry Joe," owing to certain exploits of his in the region of higher mathematics. Mr. Myers looked thoughtful.

"Of course, Ralph Henry Barbour used to be," he said, "and they're ripping good books still, but I suppose I read more novels now. I guess there's no one to beat old Sherlock, though Fu Manchu runs him close."

The talk ranged far and wide through the realm of "Thrillers." At five o'clock, Kitty proposed that they should all come home with her for a cup of tea and some of Sarepta's scones, which she had just been baking.

Accordingly, they closed the Library, with much merriment of mock formality and many friendly gibes from the lads at the Learned Ladies of Cyrus. Nelly's swain understood that Miss Wibird read the Encyclopedia through every year; was that so? Yes, Bobby assured him; but Miss Ross went her one better, and read it in French. Haw! haw! New shouts of mirth from both gentlemen at these subtle witticisms; tinkling peals of laughter from Melissa and Nelly. Kitty laughed, too, feeling motherly and benignant. What babes they were!

"But I keep my accounts in Russian," she said gravely, "and say my prayers in Siamese."

"Haw, haw! Oh, I say!" gasped the collegians. "That is rich! Russian and Siamese! I bet she does, what?"

Crossing the Common, the path narrowed, so that only two could walk abreast. Half consciously, Kitty stepped ahead; the others followed, two by two. This being seen of John Tucker, who chanced to be exercising Pilot at the moment, that calm personage straigthway seemed to fall into a rage. He muttered a pious execration and unconsciously tightened the reins; Pilot shot ahead like a rocket, demanding with ears and voice to know what was the matter.

"Stiddy, boy! stiddy!" muttered John Tucker. "Ca'm down, now. I didn't mean to rouse ye up. Them young idjits! lettin' her walk alone, and struttin' an' gigglin' along with Lissy Wibird and Nell Chanter—great hemlock! Well, stretch out a bit if you're a mind to; do us both good, I expect."

Sarepta Darwin, paring apples at the kitchen window, saw the little procession coming across the Common. A spark crept into her pale blue eyes; she dropped her knife and hastened to the front of the house. When Kitty, still motherly and benignant, led her guests up the front garden path, the door opened; Sarepta stood there, erect, austere, as if she opened the door invariably, instead of on the rare occasions when she happened to feel like it.

"Why, Sarepta, how nice of you!" said Kitty, surprised "Did you see us coming? This way, boys and girls!"

She was about to enter the sitting-room, but Sarepta intervened.

"This way!" she said briefly, and indicated the Other Parlor, across the hall. Now the Other Parlor was a charming room in itself: with delicate moldings, and hangings of rose-color and pale gray; with cases of family miniatures, and delightful old pastels; but somehow, one did not sit there often; it was just a shade formal, a trifle austere. And after all, why should one ever sit anywhere except in the Sitting Room? Kitty opened her eyes wide with, "Why, Sarepta?" but encountered a glance of such icy command that as she told Nelly afterward, she could hear the ice crackling in her spinal marrow.

"This way!" repeated Sarepta. "Your aunt has company in there!" And as Kitty, wondering more and more, shepherded the young people meekly into the Other Parlor, a steely whisper hissed in her ear, "Judge Peters—on business!"

CHAPTER XVI psycho-cardiac processes

Kitty was so pleased with her little party, and so interested in seeing how many cheesecakes and hot scones the boys could eat ("There were four dozen of them cakes, I counted as I laid them out," Sarepta announced grimly at supper. "There's one apiece left for you two folks, and that's all there is. If I was their Mas, I'd give 'em a portion of physic and put 'em to bed!") that she hardly noticed Judge Peters's quiet departure. When the young people reluctantly followed a little later, Kitty stood at the window of the Other Parlor, watching them with shining eyes. Melissa and Bobby walked together; well, they had to, of course, with that nice Myers boy so wrapped up in Nelly; dear Nelly! Kitty was so glad! But Bobby's back was really interested, his shoulders most attentive; and he did not once turn round to see if she were standing at the window. He always had, up to now, though of course she never let him see her. Now—of course he would walk home with Lissy; and then—there was no train back to Corona before the eight-thirty—if Lissy would only ask him in to supper!

"Because," said Kitty aloud, "you see, if one could make some one else—some two else—happy, perhaps it would not hurt so much; do you think?"

Lissy did ask him in to supper, in a rapture of wishfulness, in an anguish of terror lest there should not be enough, lest he should not like creamed fish and baked potatoes. Bobby hesitated, guessed the folks were expecting him at home; caught the glance of the sweet brown eyes, and yielded. There was enough; the simple refection proved to be his favorite supper. He ate as if cheesecakes and scones had never existed for him; ate till Lissy glowed with delight over her own humming-bird's portion; till even Mrs. Wibird felt a thin stream of cordiality stealing through her poor chilly little heart, and fetched the plateful set aside for Wilson, mentally promising him "a good scramble," which he really liked better.

"Gee!" said Master Bobby, surveying the total residue of two prunes and one molasses cooky, as he pushed his chair back; "I hope Wilse gets supper with Uncle Marsh, Mrs. Wibird. I don't seem to have left much, do I? Mother always says my legs are hollow!"

Still with that thread of warmth curling about her heart, Mrs. Wibird hesitated a moment after leaving the table. For the first time (except a brief space when Lissy had croup) her house of maternal instinct was divided against itself. She had always sacrificed Lissy, as she had herself, to every wish of her son's. Wilson was so particular, he had to have things just so, or it went to his liver, and made him bilious! He commonly occupied the sitting-room in the evening; he let her and Melissa creep in with their sewing, and sit in the corner, but callers disturbed him. Could she—how could she?

She glanced at Bobby, cheerfully unconscious; then at her daughter, flushing, fluttering, the meek little drudge transfigured for the moment. Her own youth rose up within her and struck.

"You take Robert into the sitting-room, Lissy!" she said. "You can light the stove if it's chilly. I'll wash the dishes; you go right along!"

Oh, blissful hour in the little stuffy sitting-room, which yet was chilly this May evening! Oh, friendly blinking of that one red eye of the baseburner stove! Bobby, comforted by supper, conscious of tender sympathy fluttering by his side in the low rocking chair, waxed confidential; told of college pranks, of contests on ball fields and on the river. Lissy hung on his lips: her own were parted, her breath came quick; she thought he must hear the beating of her heart. Her cries of wonder and admiration warmed him still further. His voice dropped to a lower note. It was awfully nice of Lissy to care. It was ripping to have some one to talk to; he was awfully lonely sometimes! Bobby! Bobby! with three sisters, all a-quiver to share the treasure of your heart—never mind! These things must be.

"I've been awfully unhappy, too, lately!" said Bobby. "Nobody knows, but——"

Out it all came! His love, his hopes, "seeing Tom was out of the running, or so everybody said," his bitter disappointment. Out it all poured in a flood; and little Lissy heard it all with tear-brimmed eyes, with clasped hands, and soft ejaculations of pity, of sympathy, of wonder that was almost anger. How could Kitty? How could she?

"But it is all over now!" Bobby rose and straightened his shoulders manfully. "Of course there will never be any one like her in the world, but I promised I would never say anything more, and I never will. As she says, there's lots to life even if one isn't happy; and she thinks we ought not to stand for kicking because things are the way they are: not that she put it just that way. And I shall be real glad to have you for a sister, Lissy, and I'll tell you everything. You must tell me things, too!" Mr. Chanter added as an afterthought, reaching for his hat. "I'm sure you must have lots of things; good-night, Lissy!"

He took her hand; hesitated a moment, and then took the other.

"Good-night, Sister Lissy! What soft little hands you have! What makes them shake so? I mustn't keep you standing here in the cold!"

Still he hesitated, holding the little hands in his. How they trembled! How they seemed to nestle in his! Kitty shook hands like another chap: her wrists were like steel. Well, of course, driving that way, she had to be strong. It was very pleasant to hold the little trembling hands; if they were to be brother and sister—perhaps? The girls were always bothering him to kiss them—Bobby decided it would be "too cheeky for the first time," and finally departed, warmer about the heart than he had felt since Madam Flynt's party.

And Melissa? I believe her little cold attic glowed that night with all the warmth and light of paradise, and that she went to sleep lulled by the sound of silver bells.

Kitty turned away happily from her window, and crossed the hall to the sitting-room, humming under her breath.

"What is that tune you are forever humming, child?" Miss Johanna looked up from her knitting.

"'The Duke of Lee?' Oh, it's an old, old English song and dance. Mother used to sing it, don't you remember? And Tommy and I used to dance it: he was the Duke of Lee, and I was the gentlewoman of high qualitee. Surely you remember! How handsome you look, Aunt Johanna!"

"Fiddlededee!" said Aunt Johanna; she got up and poked the fire. It was true none the less. The lady was slightly flushed; her dark eyes were very bright; the purple broadcloth, with touches of gold about the bodice, was extremely becoming; certainly she was a handsome woman.

"It's true!" said Kitty. "Just look in the glass and see if it isn't! I wonder the dear Judge managed to go at all, with you looking so, and the violets smelling so, and the fire crackling so, and—he might have waited to see me!" Kitty was hovering over the bowl of violets, drawing deep breaths of fragrance. "Business, Sarepta said. Nothing wrong, I hope, Auntie?"

"N-no!" said Miss Johanna, slowly and meditatively. "Nothing precisely wrong that I know of. Nothing half as wrong as this knitting!" she added briskly. "Come here, child! You and Sarepta Darwin together having accomplished this atrocity of teaching me to knit, are bound to see me through. I seem to have done something queer here!"

Kitty sat down beside her on the leather sofa, and for some minutes both were absorbed in the mysteries of purling, compared with which, Miss Johanna declared, those of Eleusis were kindergarten play.

"That's a ridiculous tune!" she remarked presently. "It keeps jigging through my head so, I can't keep my feet still. So you used to dance it with Tommy Lee. Tommy was a nice boy; I always liked him. Do you ever hear from him, Kitty?"

"No," said Kitty quietly. "I believe he is doing very well—Mr. Chanter heard of him last winter from a friend who had met him in the West—but I don't know that any one has heard directly."

She did not add that, according to Cissy Sharpe, "they claimed" that Tom Lee had married the widow of a cattle king, and was spending millions on a marble palace overlooking the Golden Gate; she did not believe this, but it hurt, somehow. If he would only write a line; a postal card even! Cissy had heard it in Tinkham; she fixed greedy eyes on Kitty as she spoke. Millions of money, they claimed! A handsome woman, ten years older than what he was. She presumed Kitty knew more about it than what she did; ha! ha!

"There!" Kitty handed Miss Johanna her knitting and took up her own. "That's all clear, dear. Now knit straight on, ten rows, and then I'll show you about the neck."

A long silence followed, broken only by clicking needles and purring fire. Presently Miss Johanna spoke, abruptly:

"Elderly marriages are ridiculous! Grandpa Westcott to the contrary notwithstanding. Ridiculous!"

Kitty started, then looked up wondering. "Are they?" she said vaguely. "And what about Grandpa Westcott, Aunt Johanna?"

Miss Johanna looked a little confused. "My dear," she said, "I was just thinking aloud. I was in a referee, as old Mr. Weller says. Nothing of importance; and then I thought of Grandpa Westcott; that's all!"

"Did he elderly marry?" Kitty roused herself with a little effort. If it were true, what did anything else matter? But that was no reason why she should be an unsociable curmudgeon.

"Tell me about him, Aunt Jo! dear Father never had time to tell me family stories, and blessed Mother didn't know them, I suppose. Let's have a good tell now!"

She looked up brightly. Miss Johanna returned the smile, not quite with her usual crisp composure. Her fine eyebrows lifted and knitted in a curious little way they had when she was disturbed; her laugh rang not wholly clear.

"I certainly cannot leave you in ignorance about Grandpa Westcott's third marriage!" she said. "I wonder at John; but he never cared about Family. Little White Lily didn't know, of course. Her grandfather was an archangel and her grandmother a seraph; good gracious! Suppose Egeria should hear me! Well, my dear, you shall have your 'tell'; I have brought it upon myself."

Miss Johanna paused to pick up a brand with the tongs and lay it carefully on top of the back-log. Kitty, turning the heel of her stocking, prepared for a pleasant season. She loved "tells," and Aunt Johanna was the ideal story-teller.

"Grandpa Westcott," the lady began, "my great, your great-great, was one of the best men that ever lived. I remember him well; tall, dignified, handsome: the only person I ever saw in a queue. He had had two wives, both patterns in every way. The first—she was a Siddall of Trimount, and a Beauty—the Stuart portrait—had no children and died young. The second was my grandmother, Katharine Turner; you are named for her, of course, and you look like her. She was not altogether plain, either," said Miss Johanna dryly, with a glance at the lovely face that smiled down from the wall in an exquisite pastel. "She had four children and lived to see them all grown up and settled in life, and to be the delight of her grandchildren's hearts. Then, when she was sixty and Grandpa seventy, she died quite suddenly, and Grandpa went all to pieces. Naturally! he was a very affectionate man, and for fifty years he had been told every day what to eat, drink and avoid, what shirt to put on, and where his socks were. More than that, he had been listened to, which is the most necessary thing for a man. He mourned and he moaned, he moaned and he mourned, till at last old Delia, who had been with him thirty of the fifty years, sent to the City for Uncle Doctor. I can just remember old Delia. She had large white teeth, and used to let me scribble on them with a pencil: horrid child! She sang old Irish songs as no one else ever did: I wish you could have heard her sing, 'Irish Molly O!'"

Miss Johanna broke off to sing, in a high, clear little voice:

"Well! So Delia sent for Uncle Doctor, and he came. 'Mr. Doctor,' she said, 'your Da is looking for his dead clo'es. If you don't find a woman for him to marry, I'll have to marry him myself, and fine I'd look cocking in the parlor, d'ye see?"

"'Bless my soul!' says Uncle Doctor, 'I see. I'll attend to it, Delia.'

"So Delia went back to her pots and pans, and Uncle Doctor, after thinking a little, went down the street and called on Aunt Elizabeth. Aunt Elizabeth was Grandma's sister; they were like a pair of gloves, only she was a single woman.

"'Auntie,'" says Uncle Doctor, 'would you mind marrying Father?'

"'Bless my soul, Nathaniel!' says Aunt Elizabeth. So he told her what Delia said, and they talked it over. She was a sensible woman and fond of Grandpa. By and by, back he goes to Grandpa. 'Father,' he says, 'I want you to put on your hat and go down street and ask Aunt Elizabeth to marry you.'

"'Bless my soul!' says Grandpa. 'She wouldn't have me, Nathaniel!'

"'I think she would,' says Uncle Doctor.

"'And what would Katharine say?' says Grandpa.

"'She would say, "Put on your hat, and don't forget your muffler."'

"So Uncle Doctor put on the hat and muffler for him and saw him out of the door, headed down street; and he and Aunt Elizabeth were married next day, and had ten happy years together. So there is that."

Miss Johanna rolled up her knitting briskly, and rose from her seat. "But one swallow doesn't make a summer, Kitty, and one pair of old f— of dear old things doesn't make folly the less foolish. I am going upstairs, my dear. If you are watering the plants, you might just change the water for those violets: they are drooping a little."

"Dear things! so they are!" Kitty rose, too, and bent lovingly over the bowl. "The new ones are due to-morrow, aren't they, Auntie?"

"I don't know anything about the new ones!"

Miss Johanna spoke rather snappishly from the door.

"We may all be dead to-morrow, and very likely the best thing for us. They would be nice for our funerals!" she added rather enigmatically from the stairs: and the door of the Red Indian Room closed shortly behind her.

Judge Peters seemed to have a good deal of business to transact with Miss Johanna. He came regularly once a week, almost always during the hour of Madam Flynt's drive. This puzzled Kitty, used all her life to being the Judge's pet and playmate. He could not be vexed with her, for his smile and greeting when they met was as affectionate as ever, even more so perhaps. He pressed her hand very tenderly on the steps one day, and said, "God bless you, my dear child!" in a way that brought the tears to Kitty's eyes. Yet he never came to see her nowadays!

"I do hope Aunt Johanna's business is all right!" she said to Madam Flynt one day, when that lady had brought her in after the drive for a little visit.

"I hope so!" said Madam Flynt. "Why shouldn't it be? Johanna is an excellent woman of business, I have always heard."

"Oh, it's only—well, Judge Peters comes pretty often, and—it may be all my imagination, but she seems rather troubled sometimes after he is gone. I ought not to speak of this, perhaps, but—Mother always used to come to you, didn't she, Madam Flynt?"

Madam Flynt took off her gold spectacles to wipe her eyes.

"She did, my dear. That sweetest flower of all the world used to bring her little troubles to me: she never had any big ones, bless her! she didn't like to bother John about the price of butter, she said. She called me her Cousin Confessor; as if she ever had anything to confess! But about Johanna—wait a moment, my dear!"

The door opened, and Miss Croly appeared with the inevitable milk posset.

"I will take it in ten minutes, Cornelia. I am busy now."

"It is the regular hour——" Miss Croly began mildly; but she was cut short.

"I will take it in ten minutes!" Madam Flynt raised her voice, a rare thing with her. "There is a gazelle in the garden, Cornelia!"

Miss Croly vanished without a word. Kitty opened wondering eyes; Madam Flynt waved her hand.

"She understands. We have our private code, my dear. Though exasperating at times, Cornelia Croly is no fool. She will be back in ten minutes. Kitty, my child——" Madam Flynt spoke with kindly emphasis—"don't be disturbed about your Aunt Johanna and the Judge. They know each other like two old shoes."

"Of course! I was only afraid——"

"You needn't be afraid. You would be glad, I should think, wouldn't you? Edward Peters is the very salt of the earth, and he has been in love with her all his life. It's the Cyrus way!" Madam Flynt added rather pettishly. "One-idea'd people: that's why they are mostly spinsters and bachelors. Well, Kitty! What is it?"

Kitty had risen from her low stool, pale and wide-eyed.

"You don't mean," she faltered; "Madam Flynt, you cannot mean that they——"

Madam Flynt nodded her cap-ribbons into a perfect dance of triumph. "I mean that they are probably going to marry each other," she announced. "I certainly hope they are! Why upon earth shouldn't they? Kitty, do you suppose the affections run down like a clock if they are not wound up in the early twenties? Nothing of the sort! A man of sixty needs a wife as much as a boy of twenty; more, in many cases! And if ever," she added emphatically, "a woman needed a sensible man to take care of her, and keep the bees out of her bonnet, that woman is Johanna Ross! There! Give me a kiss, my dear, and then run along, and tell Cornelia Croly, as you go, that she may bring in her noxious draught. She doesn't sleep at night if I don't take it regularly. Most exasperating woman—and, Kitty!" she called the girl back to add impressively; "if you meet your Uncle Edward on the steps to-day give him a kiss, and tell him you are thankful for your mercies!"

Was Madam Flynt in league with Occult Powers? An already sufficiently bewildered Kitty did meet Judge Peters on the steps, just coming out of Ross House. Some strong emotion had broken up his usual courtly calm; his face was suffused, his eyes shone.

"Kitty!" he cried. "Kitty, I——" He bent and kissed her forehead. "She will tell you!" he murmured, with a gesture toward the house. "Blessed,-blessed——" He waved his hand, almost (poor Kitty thought) like Mr. Jordano, and departed with long, hasty strides.

Kitty hesitated a moment at the sitting-room door, dreading she hardly knew what. Strong emotions shook her like a leaf in these days, she did not ask herself why.

"Foolish creature!" she murmured.

She need have had no fear; Miss Johanna was pale, and her eyes showed traces of tears, but she was entirely calm.

"Sit down, Kitty, my dear!" she said. "Here, by me, on the sofa. I have something to tell you. Do you remember my quoting Peggotty the other day? Barkis was willin', you know, and David didn't understand the message; 'Drat the man! he wants to marry me,' said Peggotty. Well, my child, drat the Judge, he wants to marry me! I haven't spoken of it before, because if I had decided to say no, there would have been no occasion; but he is the most obstinate man I ever saw, in his quiet way; so—I have said yes, Kitty. I told you, didn't I, it is he who has sent the violets all these years? You needn't smother me, my dear!"

Kitty had her in her arms, exclaiming, caressing, laughing and crying, all at once.

"Auntie! Darling, wicked, deceitful Auntie! What a blind bat I have been! I was afraid—oh! I am so glad, so glad! But you always said you didn't know who sent them."

"I didn't—exactly—know! I only felt at the back of my head that it was probably Edward; he is that kind of faithful, doggy person. It's perfectly ridiculous, as I said. And—my stars!" Miss Johanna was all in a moment her crispest, most incisive self. "There is no possible thing that a woman of fifty can be married in except gray or lavender, and I look like a blown-out tallow dip in either of 'em. Run after him, Kitty, and tell him I've changed my mind!"

CHAPTER XVII kitty sings

Miss Johanna decided finally on moss-green.

"It's emblematic, you see!" she explained to the Misses Bygood, who had come in state and their best summer silks ("a little early for them," Miss Almeria admitted, "but something festal—Johanna will appreciate our motive!") to offer their best wishes.

"Our congratulations," Miss Almeria said impressively, "are for Edward."

Miss Johanna raised her eyebrows. "Poor Edward!" she said. "Do you remember John's remark to Mrs. Pringle when Emmy was engaged? 'I congratulate you, ma'am, on this auspicious and desolating event!' As I was saying, girls, moss-green is not only becoming to me, it is also emblematic. Green is for hope, which springs eternal, you know; moss is appropriate for age. Velvet, because Edward swears he won't marry me in anything else—no, Gerie; don't look like that! because he likes it, and I may as well do something to please him while I can. I am sorry for Edward, but he has brought it upon himself."

"Johanna is jesting, sister!" Miss Almeria explained kindly. "We consider Edward an exceptionally fortunate man, Johanna!"

"You are dears, both of you!" Miss Johanna's eyes softened, and she spoke in a different tone from her usual half-gibing utterance. "I am very happy, girls, and very thankful, as I ought to be. And—don't tell, but, when we come back, I am going to try not to be peculiar any more. Only everybody will say I was changed at marriage!" she added ruefully. "Do you suppose Cyrus will think me all the more peculiar for trying not to be?" (As a matter of fact, this is precisely what Cyrus did think; but this is to anticipate.)

It was a very quiet wedding, only the few old friends who had stood by Johanna Ross through all her wayward years, and one new one. Mr. Jordano, the bride insisted, must be present. She felt like a criminal in not having a Real Wedding for Cyrus, but Edward could not abide weddings; you would think he had had a dozen already. The least they could do was to have it written up in style, and that this Delicious Creature was sure to do. Mr. Jordano did not know that he was a Delicious Creature, but he did know that Opportunity beckoned, and he rose to it. Fortunately the wedding took place the day before the weekly appearance of the Centinel, and Cyrus read over its breakfast with mingled feelings, of the Event which only a "select party of choice spirits," as Mr. Jordano put it, had the privilege of attending. (Not that Mrs. Sharpe wondered; far from it. Marrying at that age, Johanna Ross naturally would not wish to have any more witnesses than were absolutely necessary: Mrs. Sharpe for one was thankful to be spared such a spectacle.) The Scribe had been one of the fortunate few bidden to attend the nuptials of Miss Johanna Ross, a lady who, though long absent from our midst, was admired and revered by all who had the privilege of her acquaintance, and our highly-esteemed and justly celebrated fellow citizen and jurist, the Hon. Edward Peters, Justice of the Supreme Bench. The ceremony had taken place in the elegant and commodious mansion of the late Dr. Ross, now the abode of his charming and talented daughter, Miss Katharine Ross, whose reputation as an equestrienne of the highest order had spread far beyond the limits of Cyrus and environs. The spacious parlors of Ross House were tastily adorned with ferns, emerald moss (to which, it appeared, the bride was specially addicted) and violets, the latter in such profusion as to lade the ambient air with perfumes of Araby the blest. The bride, a superb brunette, wore a confection of moss-green velvet with gold garniture, and resembled, if Italio might take the liberty, a rare jewel in an emerald chalice. (Mr. Jordano had written "cup" at first; but he liked to murmur his copy aloud as he wrote; and "cup-pup-pup" struck harshly on his ear. He was in sensitive mood; a tail seemed to wag in the corner of his eye. "Chalice" came as a happy and satisfying inspiration.)

"The bride (we read over the shoulder of Cyrus, which is letting its coffee grow cold!) "was attended only by her niece, Miss Katharine Ross, who was indeed a vision for the Poet's eye. Simply gowned in filmy white, and which enclosed as fair a form as ever endowed nymph or grace, the effect was distingué beyond the simple pen of the Scribe to relate. The ceremony (with ring) was performed by the Reverend Timothy Chanter, who appeared in full regalia of black silk, and was accompanied by Mrs. Chanter in brown poplin with self trimmings of velvet. The Misses Bygood wore flowered silk, with a profusion of priceless lace, and were as ever the peers of grace and beauty; no eye could gaze on them unmoved." (Mr. Jordano sighed heavily after writing this, and murmured, "Almeria, to thee!" in unconscious imitation of Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton.) "Madam Flynt was sumptuously attired in lilac brocade and diamonds, Miss Croly in purple silk. Mr. Marshall Mallow, the genial Mine Host of the Mallow House, and the humble Scribe who pens this tribute from a feeling heart, made up a party which must ever esteem itself fortunate in having been chosen to participate in an Event which, though characterized by chaste severity and exclusiveness, will ever dwell in the mind as an Acme of elegance. At the conclusion of the ceremony, exquisite refreshments were served in receptacles of priceless porcelain and cut glass. It was whispered in the ear of the Scribe that everything was made in the house. Cyrus is, indeed, fortunate in possessing a culinary artist of such dimensions as Miss Sarepta Darwin, to whom, if Italio were rightly informed, is due the credit of the truly superlative repast enjoyed by the guests."

Sarepta read this next morning, and sniffed.

"What did the man expect?" she asked of Kitty, who had brought the paper out to her. "What d'he think I'd been doin' for forty years? The idea!" but she cut the item out none the less, and pasted it in her scrapbook.

So Judge Peters won the lady of his faithful heart, and carried her off for a summer in Europe: (there was a Europe in those days, not yet become a place of blood and tears!) "And now," said Cyrus hopefully, "perhaps Kitty will come and live with us!"

To be exact, it was only the Chanter girls and Mr. Mallow who said this. Madam Flynt and the Misses Bygood knew better; so did the bride, who checked her Edward's affectionate hope, expressed to Kitty at parting, with "Nonsense, Ned! Kitty will stay in her own house. She would be a great fool if she didn't."

Kitty cried a good deal after her aunt left. She missed the brusque, incisive speech, the odd, kindly ways. The house seemed very lonely, very silent; though of course it was just as dear. She was so glad they were going to be happy together, those two dear people! There would be no more violets now, she supposed. Ridiculous that here an absurd crystal tear dropped on the shining leaf of the orange-tree Kitty was watering: tears came so easily nowadays, when she was not really sad at all, only—only——

If Tom were really married, what did anything else matter? If he were! Kitty did not actually believe it. There were many people who did not write letters; but to marry, without a word or a line, after—she caught her breath, seeing his face as he took leave of her that day, so long—oh, so long ago!

"I shall find you here when I come back, Kitty? You—you'll wait——"

Some one came in: next moment he was gone. That was all. If he were really married——

The curious thing was, songs came as easily as tears. She had not sung since her mother's death, till just lately; but now, for all her sadness, which of course was not really sadness, song bubbled within her like a fountain. "The Duke of Lee" was on her lips all day long: it possessed her; she could not drive it away. She tried to do so by a severe course of scales, singing her solfeggi twice a day religiously; taking up, too, the Italian arias and canzonetti that her mother had loved to hear her sing, and the Scotch ballads she used to croon to her father when he came in from a long drive and sat on the leather sofa before the sitting-room fire. There was nothing wonderful about Kitty's voice, but it was very sweet, and had a harp-like quality that thrilled one strangely somehow.

She set herself a stiff little course of reading for the evening, when of course she would miss Aunt Johanna most. Plato to begin with; she had always meant to read Plato; then she would take Herodotus, and Josephus, and all the things she had never "got round to." It would be wonderful! she thought. If she kept at it steadily, by the time she was fifty, she might really begin to know just a scrap, "instead of being a Pit of Ignorance, Pilot, as I always have been; just like you, my lamb; heigh ho!

"I will not sing that again to-day!"

You see, Kitty did not know, could not possibly know, psychical processes being in their present veiled condition, that currents were flowing, wireless messages flashing, between her subliminal self and another; that Tom Lee, striding up and down the deck of his steamer, was crying all day long in his heart, "Kitty! Kitty! Kitty! I am coming! Wait for me!" Had "Psychic Wireless, Unlimited," informed Tom that there were other aspirants for the hand he had so confidently thought his? Who can tell? Certainly, he told Kitty afterward, the voyage was "H. E. Double," and ten times a day he thought of jumping overboard and swimming the Pacific Ocean, as likely to make better time.

John Tucker emerged from the harness-room, in leather apron and gloves.

"It's good to hear you singin' round the place, Miss Kitty," he said: "it is so! I enjoy it, and I expect they do as well, if they could speak."

He nodded toward Dan and Pilot, who were certainly pictures of attention, as they stood with shining eyes, ears pricked forward, and delicate nostrils dilated.

"Bless them!" said Kitty. "It's sugar they want, the darlings, not singing. Pilot, stop! You cannot get your head into my pocket, you greedy cherub, and it is Dan's turn, anyhow. Here, Dan! Don't slobber, darling! Eat like a gentleman, because you know you are one, a Perfect Pattern, except for just a shade of gluttony. Now, Pilot!"

John Tucker stood in the doorway, gazing at her with delight. She was the "very moral" of a picture that hung in his own sitting-room; a steel engraving, neatly framed. It was labeled "Thoroughbred," and showed a fair girl patting a noble horse. John Tucker had seen it in the window of a print shop in the city and had bought it, refusing steadfastly to tell his Mary what it cost. Miss Kitty and Pilot might have sat for the two portraits, he maintained, except for Pilot's being black, which was all a Pilot colt could be.

The horses fed and petted—not to their hearts' content, but as near it as the passing nature of time would allow—John Tucker turned back into the harness-room with a backward jerk of his head which said as plainly as one of Pilot's gestures, "Aren't you coming to see me now?"

Kitty followed him into the pleasant little leather-scented room and perched on the arm of a chair as was her wont.

"What was that tune you was singin' just now, Miss Kitty?" asked John.

"It is called the 'Duke of Lee,'" said Kitty. "It's an old English song, John, and there's a dance that goes with it."

"Didn't your Ma used to sing it now and then? 'Pears to me I remember of her singin' it."

"Of course she did! You clever John Tucker to remember! She used to sing it when I was a tiny tot, and I used to dance. Tommy and I," she added bravely.

John Tucker nodded a slow confirmation. "I remember!" he said. "I ricollect one day—summer day it was, later in the season than this, and warm—I ricollect your Ma settin' on the kitchen steps, an' Mis' Lee settin' beside her. I couldn't but notice what a pictur' they made, kind of showin' of each other off, as you might say. What I mean, your Ma was dark, you understand, leastways her hair and eyes, though she had that kind of soft whiteness that you'd thought there was a light inside, if you see what I mean, Miss Kitty——"

Kitty nodded silently.

"An' Mis' Lee," John Tucker went on, "was more like a red and white setter pup. No offense to her mem'ry in sayin' so, for she sure was a handsome lady, and I thought the world of her—and Tommy, too!"

John Tucker's eyes were bent studiously on the buckle he was polishing.

"But what I mean, there they sot, and honest, Miss Kitty, I never go by that kitchen door but I see them two—well, beautiful women is what I would say—settin' there side by each, and your Ma singin' that song, and you two little shavers dancin'. I—gorry! I wish't they was all back, Miss Kitty."

John Tucker dashed the back of his hand across his eyes, and gave a single portentous sniff.

"Dear John!" Kitty's eyes were brimming, too. She stroked John's blue shirt sleeve very tenderly.

"Dear John Tucker, I am so glad you remember. It's a pleasant picture to remember, isn't it, John?"

"You bet it is!"

John Tucker very gruff with himself, and polishing away like mad.

"Mis' Lee, she's gone, too, ain't she, Miss Kitty? Too bad!"

"Yes, John, she died three years ago. But Tom is alive," she added cheerfully, "and doing finely, I believe. Don't you want me to sing your own song for you, John? The one you taught me when I was a tiny? I have plenty of time before I go for Mr. Chanter. Do you believe Podasokus will ever get well, John Tucker, dear?"

"No'm, I do not; not as long as you and Pilot are handy by!" John Tucker looked up with a twinkle. "What I mean, 'tisn't to be expected, though I don't suppose Mr. Chanter senses how it is. That hoss ought to be put away, Miss Kitty. He ain't fit to drive, no more than an old buff'ler that the moths has got into it. Yes'm, I'd be tickled to death to hear that song, if you feel like singin' it. It's a long time since I've heard that song, Miss Kitty."

"I know, John! I haven't sung it since—I haven't sung at all since Mother went, till just these last few days. I don't know why I sing now, but somehow—now listen, John Tucker!"

Still perched on the arm of the chair, Kitty lifted up her voice and sang "Cockles and Mussels" till the stable rang with silver sound, and Dan and Pilot stamped and whinnied with excitement, while even Old Crummles, dozing in the farthest stall, raised his sleepy head and wondered what was going on. As for John Tucker, he wept with pleasure, openly and unashamed; those honest blue eyes of his were always ready for tears when he was moved.

"That's great!" he cried. "That certainly is great, Miss Kitty. I thank you for that!" he flourished a clean blue cotton handkerchief, and blew his nose sonorously. "You weren't more than knee-high to a grasshopper first time you sang that to old John Tucker. Your Ma sang it, too!" he added. "I remember of her singin' it that same day we was speakin' of. Miss Kitty——"

"Yes, John Tucker!" as he stopped abruptly.

"I was thinkin' I'd take Crummles to the station this afternoon. He ain't been out to-day."

"Yes, John Tucker. What else were you going to say?"

John gave a short embarrassed laugh. "I dunno as I ought to say it, Miss Kitty. Wal! if you will have it—there was something Mis' Ross said that day has stayed by me, kind of. Something—what I mean—well, 'twas this way. Those two ladies was talkin' together, and I no business to hear what they was sayin', but yet I couldn't but hear, bein' as I was holdin' the pony. Old Rosy Nanty! he was gettin' on in years, and he liked to lay down once in a while, and take a roll. He didn't mean no harm, he'd just antic a mite. So they was talkin', 'bout the children: they were both wropped up in 'em. Mis' Lee, she said something about young uns learnin' to know all sorts, kind of mix in, like, with folks in general: thought 'twas good for 'em and like that. And your Ma, she bust right out: 'No!' she says: 'my Kitty shall never know anything but what is lovely!' she says: and she went on, quoted the 'postle Paul and like that. I never forgot it. It kind o' sunk in. You weren't never to touch, or know, or think of, anything that wasn't just so, just—well, lovely, and good report, and that. You understand, Miss Kitty?"

Kitty nodded brightly. "I understand, John Tucker. Go on!"

"Wal! I dunno—I set here sometimes and mull over that, Miss Kitty, and wonder if we're doin' just what's right by your Ma. There! I guess it's got to come right out. I thought the first of it, takin' Madam Flynt for her ride and like that, 'twould be all right: of course you wouldn't be let to go to no trains nor nothin' of that sort. But come to see you kitin' round with tag rag and bobtail—what I mean,—I dunno as your Ma would like it, Miss Kitty. Of course 'tisn't for me to say, but——"

Kitty's eyes were dancing. She slipped from the arm of the chair, and stood before John Tucker, accusatory forefinger leveled.

"John Tucker," she said slowly, "you—are—a—snob!"

"Now, Miss Kitty, don't you——"

"A snob!" Kitty repeated with withering emphasis. "I know perfectly well what you mean. You saw me pick up poor old Mrs. Flanagan and take her home. John Tucker, Mrs. Flanagan is eighty if she is a day; and that basket weighed half a ton, I am sure. Would you have let her carry it, if you had been prancing past with Pilot? I ask you, John Tucker!"

John Tucker looked uncomfortable.

"Mis' Flanagan has four children of her own," he said, "and ten grandchildren. She'd oughter let them carry her baskets."

"Yes, but they weren't there, and I was. Try to have a little sense, John! as for the children on Saturday mornings—Yes! I saw you look at us, you snobbish John; you were coming out of Adams's: you gave us a Gorgon glare, and I was ashamed of you! As for the children, they are my joy and delight. I wouldn't miss the Saturday morning drive for anything, John Tucker. The lambs! didn't you see how they were enjoying it?"

"I saw they was awful dirty! Took me 'most an hour to get the wagon clean, all the mud they tracked in."

"They had been playing in the mud. What should they be doing on Saturday morning? I don't suppose you noticed," she added demurely, "that one of the boys was named Tucker, did you, John?"

"I did," said John Tucker grimly. "I told him I'd lick him out of his boots, if ever he took such a liberty again."

"Are you sure it was Jimmy who took the liberty, John?"

Kitty spoke very quietly, but there was a ring of steel in her voice. "There!" said John Tucker, describing the scene to Sarepta that night. "If it wasn't her Pa, lookin' straight at me, and lettin' me have it between the eyes, call me a juggins!"

"I will!" said Sarepta. "It's what you are! The idea!"

Kitty's vexation passed like summer lightning before John Tucker's abject penitence.

"I know!" she said, cheering and soothing him at once. "I know, dear John! It's all your goodness and faithfulness, and I love you for it. But don't you see, I cannot 'sit on a cushion and sew a fine seam, and feast upon strawberries, sugar and cream.' That is what blessed Mother would have liked for me, because she could, you know, and because I was her baby, and—oh, I understand so well! But I am a different kind, you see, John. I am mostly Ross, I suppose, at least, so Aunt Johanna says; and I don't like cushions, and I'm afraid I am not very fond of sewing fine seams. When one isn't driving or walking, it seems rather terrible not to be reading, don't you think?"

"Yes, Miss!" said John Tucker, submissively. His reading was confined to the State Farmer, but never again would he differ from his idol in any particular.

"And as for what is lovely, and so on—" Kitty's eyes and voice softened to the look and tone that were specially for her mother—"I think—John, would it be good for Pilot to live entirely on oats, and to trot always on a perfectly level State road? No? I thought not! And if he never did anything but speed in a trotting sulky, you wouldn't say he was being of any great use in the world? No, I thought not! And now it is half-past ten, John Tucker, and if you don't put Pilot into the beach wagon, I must."

CHAPTER XVIII old love and new

Why was Pilot put into the beach wagon instead of the buggy? Because it was the wedding anniversary of the Reverend Timothy Chanter and his Susan, and they were going on their annual picnic together. Unlike the Gilpin pair of immortal memory, they did not take the children with them. The children saw them off at the door, with many injunctions to be good, and to have a wonderful time, and not to get lost, as they did two years ago.

"Kitty," cried Lina, "do blaze a tree at the place where you leave them, won't you? They are not to be trusted in the least."

On this one day of the year, the minister and his wife cast care to the winds, locked duty up in the cupboard, and even shut the door on parental responsibility. They were no longer Drudge and Drudgess, as the girls, exasperated at the vanity of efforts to "save Pa and Ma," sometimes called them: they were Tim and Sue off on their holiday. They were to be taken first for a spin behind Pilot, because that was the greatest treat the Reverend Timothy could offer his faithful partner; then they were to be left at a certain place near the Lancaston Road, where the wood dipped sharply to a cup, enclosing a round pool, with a waterfall above it, and a ribbon of streamlet winding away at either end. Here they would sit and eat their luncheon, carefully prepared by Daughters; cold chicken (dear Madam Flynt always sent them a chicken the day before, one of her own prize Rhode Island Reds!), nut bread (Zephine's specialty), coffee and sponge cake (which no one could make like Lina), and some of dear Nelly's cream peppermints to top off with.

These cates disposed of, the Reverend Timothy would light his pipe, and lean back against a sun-warmed boulder, at peace with the world, while Mrs. Chanter read aloud a certain chapter of "Prue and I" which had been the precipitating drop in their cup of happiness twenty-three years before. Then he would go to sleep, dear man, and she would knit, and think what a happy woman she was, and wonder if there was enough mutton for to-morrow, or if she must have a vegetable chowder. By and by, when the sunbeams began to slant through the firs, she would wake her lord, who would fear he had missed that last sentence, my love! and the two would wander happily through the wood and along the elm-shaded road, and so home in time for the wonderful supper the girls would have ready, and the glorified table round which all six children would be gathered. A golden day, for two golden hearts! May their fiftieth anniversary find them hale and vigorous as their twenty-third!

This was Mrs. Chanter's first spin behind Pilot; it should be her last, she resolved, as she clung terrified to the low railing of the beach wagon. It was a bright June morning, and Pilot was "feelin' extry good," as John Tucker had intimated to Kitty; he flung the miles behind him in a nonchalant rapture that was all his own. Once Mrs. Chanter opened her lips to cry out, but a glance at her husband's face of delight closed them again. After all, the children were all grown!

"Thank you, Kitty!" cried Mr. Chanter, as they dismounted at the edge of the Lancaston woods. "Thank you, my dear! this has been a wonderful, wonderful treat; hasn't it, Susan?"

"Wonderful!" echoed Mrs. Chanter, dryly. "Next time I'll have Podasokus, please, Kitty; or if he has left us, then that nice old woolly thing: Crummles, is he? No more Pilot for me, my dear!"

Kitty laughed and sped away, leaving the worthy couple to gaze admiringly after her for a moment before they turned into the wood, hand in hand.

"Glorious girl!" said the Reverend Timothy. "Glorious horse!"

"He'll break her neck some day!" said his Susan.

Joy of the road on a June morning! Elms arching overhead, in long feathery arcades, or giving way to groups of singing pines, and clusters of white birches that rustled and whispered together like Nausicaa and her maidens. Under these, stretches of gray stone wall along which the chipmunks whisked, trying in vain to keep pace with Pilot's flying feet; stretches, again, of stump fence, the silver-bleached bones of ancient giants, with sturdy new growth of fir and hemlock pushing up between their locked skeleton-arms. Between fence or wall and the white ribbon of road, a strip of green a few yards wide, sown thick with the jewels of early summer. Ferns of every variety, from the lady-fern which Kitty always thought so like Mother, in the pale green dresses she loved, to towering plumes of ostrich fern and tumbled masses of Osmunda regalis. There was maiden-hair, too, Kitty knew, hiding in the crannies of the stone wall, but that could not be seen from the road. The cinnamon roses were out, sweet and untidy as Herrick's tempestuously-petticoated girl; "Virgin's Bower" flung its white-starred veil over rock and tangle. Kitty, flashing quick glances, as she sped along, saw and loved it all. The world held no tears any more; how should it, on a day like this?

"My heart leaps up when I behold, Pilot!" cried the girl. "Can't you hear it, Beloved? And oh—and oh—and Oh! pearl of Poppets, do you see whom we are overhauling? Do you see, Pilot? If my middle name is not Clotho"——

Melissa and Bobby were walking slowly along the road. Bobby had come over for the Anniversary Supper, of course. It was one of Melissa's free afternoons (the library was open only three days in the week); it was all perfectly simple. Bobby came pretty often nowadays, and Sister Lissy happened to be passing the station about train time. They were near the village now. The two were deep in talk, and paid no heed to the approaching wheels. Melissa, who hardly knew a baseball from a football, was listening with bated breath and kindling eyes to a highly technical description of yesterday's game.

"Binks got base on balls, you see, and walked; then Joyce threw to third to put out Bacon, but Hodges fumbled, so Bacon ran home, and Binks went to second, and then I got in a three-bagger and made a home-run."

"Oh, Bobby! how splendid! What a wonderful game! I wish I could see one!"

"You can!" said Bobby kindly. "I'll make one of the girls bring you over next time. And I'll get you a Corona banner!" he added. "A sister ought to wear her brother's colors, what, Lissy?"

It is not stated whose color it was that flamed in Lissy's cheeks as she looked up with shining eyes; it was very pretty anyhow, Bobby thought. He had never realized till lately what a pretty girl Lissy was. Hazel eyes were warmer, somehow, than gray, though of course——

"Hilo!" cried Kitty, checking Pilot with a touch.

No living horse, she always maintained, not even Angel Dan, made such a beautiful stop as Pilot.

"Hilo, folks! Don't you want a lift?" Glancing at Lissy's face, she added quickly, "I don't mean just home. I'm going to give this Lamb a little speed along the State Road. Will you come?"

"Gee! Won't we?" cried Bobby. A speed behind Pilot was a thing rarely offered, and not to be refused by any Cyrus youth. "Come on, Lissy!"

Melissa hung back. She was mortally afraid of Pilot, and of Kitty's reckless driving. Besides—ought she not to leave them? Would he not rather—A little cold snake seemed to creep about the girl's heart. It wasn't fair! Kitty didn't want him till she saw some one else—oh, Lissy! Lissy!

"Jump in, Lissy!" cried Bobby joyously. "You scared of Pilot? I believe she is, Kitty! now, then! In you go!"

In Lissy went, Bobby following; off went Pilot, at a three minute clip. Past fled the landscape, a blur of green, blue and white. Melissa, all in a moment her mother's daughter, sat crouched on the seat, clutching the rail. Bobby, in a state of high delight, glanced at her for sympathy, and saw her pale and trembling, her eyes brimming with frightened tears.

"Why, Lissy!" he said. Involuntarily he held out his hand; a little cold trembling hand slid instantly into it and was warmly grasped. Poor little hand! it quivered like a frightened bird, yet nestled close in his, as a bird would not.

"Don't be scared!" cried Bobby. "Pilot's steady as a rock, isn't he, Kitty? Perhaps," he added, "you might slow down just a scrap, though, Kitty. I hate to, but——"

This was heroic of Bobby, who loved fast driving as his father did.

Kitty said a word to Pilot, who cocked an indulgent ear, and slowed down to four minutes.

"Why, Lissy," she laughed over her shoulder, "rocks are flighty compared to Pilot; positively flighty! You saw how he stopped. I can stop him any instant, just like that. Lean back and enjoy yourself!"

Absorbed in her rôle of the youngest Fate, and used to fast driving from her cradle, Kitty could not realize the state of mind of an extremely timid girl, assailed by mingled pangs of terror and jealousy. It was not till they had reached the spot she had in mind for the development of her plan that, glancing round, she comprehended how for pleasure she was giving on the one hand anguish, and on the other embarrassment, if not distress. Melissa was leaning against her companion's shoulder with closed eyes and compressed lips: Bobby, red-faced and round-eyed, was holding her hand. His eyes met Kitty's with an expression of mingled deprecation, admiration and reprobation, which was too much for that young woman's composure.

"Ha! ha! ha!" her laughter broke out bell-like; then she checked herself.

"Oh! I am so sorry! Lissy, you poor child, I never thought—I never dreamed—Sst, Pilot!"

Pilot stopped, and stood like the least flighty of rocks.

"I am so sorry!" Kitty repeated penitently. "Bobby, why didn't you tell me? Are you going to give me in charge for fast driving?"

"Oh, I say!" cried a distracted Bobby. "Gee, Kitty, it was perfectly great, as far as I am concerned, but I do suppose we were going a pretty good clip, what? Poor little Lissy!"

"Now, I'll tell you what!"

Clotho Kitty advanced to her second parallel.

"This is where I really meant to stop. I want you both to see the view from that high rock!" she nodded toward a huge boulder that frowned from the hillside above the road. "It's really beautiful, and you said the other day you had never climbed the rock, Lissy. It's only a minute's climb, with a good strong paw like Bobby's to pull you up. It will shake your crinkles out, and steady your nerves; and we will crawl home, Lissy dear!" said penitent Kitty.

Lissy dismounted and stretched her cramped limbs. Bobby followed, with a doubtful glance at Kitty. Was she sure Pilot would stand? Sure she didn't want him to——? Reassured on that point by her laughing shake of the head, he turned to the big rock. It was a brief, but a stiff little climb; all his energies were required to pilot Melissa, timid and unused to climbing. Neither of them heard the low, clear whistle, or saw the black horse toss his head in reply, then settle down in the shafts like a cat settling to her spring. They gained the top, prepared to enjoy the view, which really was fine; when Melissa uttered a cry,

"Oh! oh, Bobby, look! Kitty!"

Pilot was off. Had something startled him, or was it the inherent viciousness of which Melissa had always felt sure? Off down the road like an arrow.

"He is running away!" cried Melissa. "She can't hold him any more than she could the wind. Oh, what shall we do? What shall we do?"