Front matter (continued 2)

Olive's dark face was colouring warmly. She looked down at her roses, wondering what to say. Somehow she found herself unwilling to let Peter Bell think she did n't want him at her party, for it was becoming clear to her that she did.

"I'm so sorry," she murmured. "But I'm very glad you did n't go home. If I had known you longer I 'm sure I should have invited----"

"Don't bother to explain," urged Peter's low voice. "'I did n't tell you to make you uncomfortable. Perhaps you won't mind my saying that looking on at this sort of thing is very interesting to me. I 've never seen it before."

"How do you like it?" asked Olive, glancing up at him curiously.

Peter laughed, looking off for a moment toward the drawing-room. "I 'm an outdoor sort of chap, I think," he said. "Yet it's very pretty, all that down there, and I like to look at it. Miss Townsend, do you ride horseback much?"

"Sometimes--not often. I don't care for it."

"Neither should I, down the boulevard or in the park, but out on a country road. I 'm a country boy, and I like a good gallop down the old Northboro Road--miles of it as smooth as a floor. As for cross-country--ah, there's sport!"

"I 've never seen you ride."

Peter's face changed. "No, I don't ride now," he said.

"But you have Saturday afternoons free?"

"Oh, yes."

"There are three saddle-horses in the stable," said Olive, making a sudden resolve, "and only one of them gets much use. Would you--care to take me for a gallop down the Northboro Road some day?"

That she should make such a proposition as this would have seemed to Olive Townsend but an hour before preposterous. But now, looking up at the sturdy figure before her, noting the wistful smile with which Peter had spoken of past experiences, it had come to her all at once that a new pleasure might be hers. She saw plainly that she should not be ashamed of Peter as an escort anywhere.

Peter stared at his hostess for a moment as if he could hardly believe that he had heard aright. "Do you really mean that, Miss Townsend?" he asked.

"Indeed I do. I 'm not in the habit of saying things I don't mean."

"Then, thank you, I should like it immensely," he said, with a smile and bow, more attractive, Olive admitted to herself, than any she had received that evening.

CHAPTER VI

WEEDS AND FLOWERS

"Good morning, Miss Jane Bell! May I come in?"

Jane lifted her head quickly from over the phlox-bed she was weeding in the little garden back of the house, to see Forrest Townsend looking over the wooden gate which shut away the garden from the surrounding neighborhood.

"Good morning! Yes, indeed, come in," she responded blithely, waving a discarded white ruffled sunbonnet at her guest. He vaulted over the low barrier and came swinging down the narrow path to the end of the enclosure, where the phlox-bed lay. Here he stood still, regarding with favour the girl in the blue dress, whose bronze-tinted hair glinted in the early June sunlight.

"Always busy at something, are n't you?" he said, tipping over a bushel-basket half-filled with weeds, and seating himself upon it. "Yes, I know I 've spilled out the weeds, but I 'll pick 'em up again when I 'm through. I came over to have a serious talk with you, and I 've got to be down here near you, where I can look you in the eye. The grass is too damp yet to sit on in white trousers."

Jane laughed. "It can't be a very serious matter that's troubling you, or you would n't think of your clothes."

"It is serious, though. I 'm full of it, and can't stop to talk about the weather, so here goes.--I 've quarrelled with my father."

Jane, who had thus far not ceased her weeding, stopped work and sat still to look at her neighbour. He met her gaze defiantly.

"Yes, I know. You think this is another case of schoolboy heroics, like the last fuss I told you I had with him--"

"I wish you would n't tell me."

"I 've got to tell somebody. Come, Jane--you 've grown to seem like the best friend I have--don't turn the cold shoulder on me just when I need you. You know what my mother and sister are like----"

With a gesture of disapproval Jane turned away to her work.

Forrest watched her for a moment in silence; then he began again:

"All right, I won't complain if you 'll just let me tell you about this last scrape. There 's nobody else I can talk to--you know enough about us to know that."

"There ought to be. Your brother----"

"Oh, Murray! With all respect to him--since you insist on respect--he 's not off the same piece of cloth with me, and can't understand me any more than I can him. His blood is n't good red blood at all; it's white, I think, and I----"

Jane rose up from her knees and stood above her visitor, determination on her frank face.

"Forrest Townsend," said she, "if you can talk to me without running down your family, I 'll listen, but not otherwise. I don't think you ought to tell me your affairs at all, but if you 're sure I can be of use I 'll hear them, on that one condition."

Forrest studied her a moment without replying, while her clear hazel eyes returned his gaze. Then he laughed rather awkwardly.

"You 're the soul of honour, are n't you?" he said. "And that's just why I need your advice. I don't want to do anything dishonourable, but I 'm in a corner, and don't see any way out except a jump over the wall. Let me tell you--please!"

Jane dropped upon her knees again and gave her attention to her work. Taking this as permission, Forrest began, picking up a long, pink-headed weed and pulling it through his fingers as he talked.

"I 've known all the while father wanted me in the house with him, and wanted me to go to college with that end in view. We 've had a few brushes on the subject from time to time, and I 've told him over and over I never meant to go to college, or to go into the business, either, but he 's thought it boy talk, I suppose. Anyhow, it turns out he's never taken me seriously when I 've told him I meant to live my own life in my own way. He had me tutored all last winter, to get me ready for my entrance examinations, and he expects me to go down and take them next week. That 's where I balked. He tackled me last night, and I had it out with him. The result was"--Forrest tried to keep up the nonchalant manner he had assumed when he began this explanation, but his voice showed his strong feeling as he ended the sentence--"the result was--he gave it to me hot and heavy, and I--talked back at him. In short, I----"

Jane, her pretty lips set close together, her troubled eyes on the ground, listened anxiously for the words.

"You don't mean----" she began, slowly.

Forrest nodded, and she caught the gesture. It brought her head round and her eyes to search his. "You didn't--say you wouldn't do what he wants?"

"I did--and meant it."

Jane drew a long breath. She forgot her weeding and sat back upon the walk, pulling off her gloves. Forrest waited silently for her first comment.

"Imagine my brother Peter doing that," she murmured.

"I can't imagine it--though Peter's no soft-head. But your father's human, Jane. Mine--isn't."

"Oh, he is--he is! Don't say that! He may seem stern and hard, but that 's only on the surface, I 'm sure."

"Much you know about it!" muttered Forrest. "But, anyhow, hard or not, I 'm not going to be put into a business life I hate."

"What would you like to do?"

"Go into the army."

Jane stared at him, astonished. This idle youth live that sort of life? Her lips curved slowly into a smile, at which Forrest promptly took umbrage.

"See here," he said, sitting up straight, "you 're not to judge me, you know, from what you 've seen of me in the two months you 've lived in Gay Street. I 've been on vacation, I admit, ever since my tutor left in March. Besides, it 's not enlisting as a private I 'm thinking of--no, no! I want to enter the army by the way of West Point, and get my lieutenant's commission at graduation. That 's a very different thing."

"Yes, that's true. It means, I believe, four years of the severest training in the world. I know a boy who went--he could n't stand it."

Forrest flushed hotly under his fair skin. "And you think I could n't. That settles it. I 'll go, if only to prove you 're mistaken."

The girl looked up quickly, startled by his tone. "Ah, please," she began, "don't talk that way. Tell me--will your brother go into the business?"

"Not much! His health settles that for him. Besides, he 's too bookish, and father 'll let him do what he pleases, anyway--he does n't mind having one son of that stripe. But the other son--he must go into the mill, whether he wants to or not!"

"Could you get to West Point without your father's permission? Don't you have to be sent by somebody--your Congressman, is n't it?"

"Oh, there 's a lot of red tape, and father could block the whole game, I suppose. If he does--well, I 'd enlist and get into the ranks and work my way up, rather than go into that dingy old office and tie myself to a desk and a telephone."

Forrest got upon his feet as he spoke, brushed a clinging weed leaf or two from his clothes, and stood looking gloomily down at Jane, who had risen also. "It 's evident I get no sympathy from you," he said. "I thought you were a girl who could understand a fellow's ambitions--not wet-blanket them."

Jane looked up at him, smiling, although her eyes were still troubled. "I can, I think," she said. "Yet--somehow--I'm imagining the disappointment it must be to a father who has built up a great business like Townsend & Company's to have his son take no interest in it. I can't help thinking--"

"What?"--as Jane paused abruptly.

"Never mind."

"But I want to know what you can't help thinking."

"Well, I 'm wondering if it would be any harder for you to go into your father's office than it is for Peter to work with my father in the note-paper factory. Do you know what Peter wants to be?"

"No. I know he has a good position for his age, with the Armstrongs."

"Yes, but Peter wants--has wanted for six years--to be a chemist--an expert, you know. Oh, I 'm not sure I ought to tell you--please never speak of it. Even father does n't know it's any more than a boy's fancy. Peter could n't afford the years of training, of course--and father can't spare him. There are"--as Forrest looked surprised--"more people dependent on father and the boys than you know of--and I must n't tell you. All I want you to know is that"--Jane smiled wistfully--"there are other people who can't have their own way--and who are making the best of it, and pretty bravely, too."

Mrs. Bell came to the door of the house, and with a pleasant nod and smile to Forrest, told Jane that a certain bowl of bread-dough had reached a critical condition of lightness. The girl picked up her basket, and Forrest bent to toss into it the weeds he had thrown out.

"Please don't feel I 'm an unsympathetic listener," begged Jane, as her visitor took his leave.

"I won't. I know you mean it all right. I just think you don't understand all the facts in the case. Much obliged to you for hearing me out. If I turn up missing some day, you 'll know you did your part, and gave me the proper grandmotherly advice." And Forrest swung away through the gate with a reckless air, which Jane thought rather melodramatic, and quite in keeping with a certain staginess sometimes apparent in the youth's bearing.

Jane's acquaintance with Olive Townsend had progressed very slowly. Olive was not a girl who possessed the gift of making many warm friendships. She was not well liked even by the young people of her own chosen circle. Girl visitors were not frequent at the Townsend house, and Olive was seldom seen coming or going with one or another of such friends. Yet there was something about her personality which held a strong attraction for Jane, and made her want to know Olive well.

When Peter returned from his first horseback ride in Olive's company, Jane had waited with interest for his description of the event. Peter always told Jane his experiences--for the reason, perhaps, that she never demanded them from him, never betrayed his confidences, and invariably showed her appreciation of his comradeship.

"She 's an odd girl," said Peter to Jane. "She seemed principally occupied, for the first two miles, in noticing how I rode, whether I kept elbows in, head up, back stiff, like herself, and whether I held my whip in the proper position. We jogged along at a fussy little pace, talking about nothing in particular, and minding our p's and q's as if we were at Professor Miller's riding academy, with the eye of the master on us."

"I hope she was satisfied with your correct style," Jane said. "I saw you start, and I thought you looked more at home in the saddle than she."

"I probably am. After riding everything on grandfather's farm ever since I was a little shaver, and breaking every colt he had for the three years we lived there, I ought to feel fairly comfortable on a model saddle-horse like the one she gave me. She's been trained in the school, which leaves a lot of things to be desired, to my way of thinking. She broke loose all right, though, when I got my chance to show her what my idea of the sport is."

Peter's face took on a comical expression, and Jane hurried him on with an eager "Well?"

"We got out on the Northboro Road. You know that long stretch where there are so few houses--just a sort of lane between big trees, shady and cool, and the road like a training-track at this time of year?"

Jane nodded.

"I proposed that we let out a reef or two. She agreed, and we broke into a baby canter. I kept hitting up the pace a little. Her horse caught the idea, and began to quicken. She bumped about a bit, but I saw she would know how to stay on, even if she moved faster than she ever had before. Just as we got up a fairly decent speed, one of those little crack-a-cracks of motor-cycles came bursting out of a driveway, and both our horses shied and threatened to bolt.

"It was nothing, you know; they were over it in a jiffy, and she kept her seat all right, and showed she was game. But it stirred both horses to take the rest of that stretch at as pretty a gallop as you 'd care to see; and when I saw the girl was all right, I shouted, 'Come on!' and let them have it. I tell you, she forgot the riding academy and Professor Miller, and rode for fair. It was jolly good fun, and she enjoyed it, too."

Peter laughed reminiscently. Jane remarked that she had noticed Olive's masses of black hair were not in quite such trim shape when she came home from that ride as upon setting forth; and Peter admitted that upon that joyous gallop she had dropped not only her whip, but most of her hairpins, of which latter articles he had been able to recover for her only a few.

"That's all the girl needs," he observed, sagely. "Just shake out a few of her hairpins each time you 're with her, and she 'll learn how to be good friends with you."

"I don't have much chance to shake out her hairpins," Jane objected.

"You will. You're to go next time--some day when her brother Forrest is away, and I can ride his horse and you the one I had. I told her a pitiful tale of how you loved to ride, how well you could do it, and----"

"Peter!"

"Oh, I didn't whine--just let her know I was n't the only horseman in the family. She 'll ask you--see if she doesn't; if she doesn't I won't go my self."

Olive did not ask Jane, however, and after one more ride with her, Peter suddenly became too busy to accept her invitations. Olive went off by herself one day, suffered a fall and a sprained shoulder, and was thereby initiated at last into Jane's friendship.

"My sister sent me over," said Murray Townsend, one June evening, to Jane, who, hemming a tiny ruffle, sat in the western sunlight upon the little back porch, where the family now spent their evenings, enjoying the first blossomings of the small garden. "She's been fretting all day with that shoulder of hers she hurt last week, and vows she can't get through the evening with me. The others are all away--as usual. Won't you do us the favour of coming over?"

"Was it really her suggestion--or yours?" Jane challenged him, for it was not the first time he had made the attempt, upon one excuse or or another, to get her across the street.

"Hers, on my honour, though I 'll admit I seconded the motion. She really wants you. She's lying on a couch round on the side porch. It's a jolly place, or would be if it--had you in it," he nearly said, but discreetly substituted--"had such a nice crowd in it as this."

He glanced from one to another of the group upon the little porch. Ross was softly breathing notes from a flute. Mr. and Mrs. Bell sat side by side, in happy comradeship. Peter, his long legs extending well out upon the grass before the porch, whittled at a bit of wood; and Nancy, close beside her cousin Ross, was holding for him a page of music, which he evidently was trying for the first time.

"Stay with them, if you 'd like to," suggested Jane, softly, as she put away her work and prepared to accept his invitation. "You know they always like to have you--every one of them--and I can slip across by myself. I 'll take her some of my mignonette and June roses."

"Thank you for your kind permission," answered Murray, following Jane's white-clad figure slowly down to the mignonette-bed at the farther end of the garden, "but I 'd rather accept it some evening when Miss Jane Bell is to be at home. 'Hamlet' with Ophelia left out would n't be much more of a play than it would be minus the melancholy gentleman himself."

Armed with a great bunch of the fragrant blossoms from the garden, Jane accompanied Murray across Gay Street, through the gate in the high hedge, and over the lawn and round the house to the great sheltered porch on the other side, its tall columns making it as great a contrast to the miniature place she had just left as could be imagined. Rugs carpeted the floor, big bamboo and rush chairs invited repose, and screens hung ready to be dropped, and to shut it quite away from invading breezes.

On a wide, richly cushioned settee lay Olive, listless and unhappy. She scanned Jane closely, noted that her visitor was not less attractively, if far less expensively, dressed than herself, and lifted to her face eyes into which had suddenly come a look of relief and interest.

"For me?" she asked, as Jane put the flowers into her outstretched hands. "Oh, how sweet! Why don't we have such mignonette as that in our gardens?"

"There are a lot of flowers," thought Murray, as he watched Jane take her seat by his sister and begin to entertain her, "that they grow in Gay Street which we don't know the smell of over here. If we could just transplant the one I brought over to-night, what a beginning of a garden we should have!"

CHAPTER VII

JANE PUTS A QUESTION

On her way home from a trip to a not far-distant fruit-shop, Nancy Bell caught sight of her friend, Shirley Townsend, waving an eagerly summoning hand from the gateway in the hedge.

It was a hot morning in early July, and Nancy, after running into the house to report her return to her mother, joined Shirley in a shady corner under the shrubbery, which had become a favourite trysting-place of the two children.

Half an hour afterward Nancy, her eyes wide with excitement, sought out her mother and Jane upon the small back porch, where each was busy with the morning's work--at this moment the looking-over of raspberries and the shelling of peas.

"O mother--O Jane!" the child began, "the dreadfullest thing has happened over at the big house! Forrest Townsend 's run away, and they don't know where he is!"

"Why, Nan!" Jane's busy fingers, red with raspberry stains, stopped their work, as she stared at her sister in dismay. "That can't be so!"

"Yes, it can--it is! Shirley told me. He's been gone three days, but they thought he must be off on a visit till they got a letter this morning. And they don't even know where the letter was mailed from. Mrs. Townsend 's sick in bed about it, and Shirley says her father won't say a word--just looks white and angry and queer."

"The poor father and mother!" murmured Mrs. Bell, her eyes full of sympathy.

"But he can't have gone away to stay," said Jane, staring at Nancy, still incredulous. "He's an impulsive fellow--quick tempered, hot-headed--and he and his father don't get on well together. But to run away----"

"But he has," persisted Nancy. "The letter said it was no use looking for him; he'd come back some time when he 'd shown he could look after his own--oh, I don't remember just what he said--Shirley was n't sure what it meant. But she said her mother just cried and cried, and told her father she'd always known his harsh ways----"

"Don't, dear--don't tell us!" Mrs. Bell interrupted, quickly. "Shirley should n't have told you anything that was said; we have no right to know. When people are hurt and sad, they say bitter things they are very sorry for afterward. The only thing for us to know is that this trouble has come to our neighbours. We must think how we can help them. I would go over at once if I thought I could be of use to poor Mrs. Townsend--and were sure she was willing I should know."

They discussed the situation, Mrs. Bell and Jane, as they went on with their work; and Jane told her mother all she knew of Forrest's differences with his father. "It bothers me so," she ended, sorrowfully, "that I did n't realise he was in earnest about taking things into his own hands, and do something to let the others know. Do you suppose that foolish threat about enlisting in the army could really have been what he meant to do? Do you suppose he has done it?"

"It is a possible clue. I think they ought to know it, if they have nothing else to guide them. When your father comes home I will talk with him about it, and he may think it best to go to Mr. Townsend himself, tell him what we know, and offer to help."

But it proved not necessary to wait until the evening to consult about offering sympathy and counsel to the troubled family in Worthington Square. Early in the afternoon, while Mrs. Bell lay resting in her room, and Nancy and Jane sat in the shadow of one of the big maples at the end of the garden--their special retreat on hot days--the tap of Murray's cane was heard on the walk outside.

"Run into the house, dear, please!" Jane whispered, quickly. "It 's Murray, and I believe he's come to talk with me about Forrest."

Her surmise proved correct, as she knew from her first glance at the pale face and grave eyes of her friend. He was her friend--that she had come to know very clearly in the last few weeks--her friend in quite a different way from that in which Forrest had shown her friendship. There had developed a genuine congeniality of interests between the quiet, book-loving youth and the girl who had not gone to college, but who was persistently giving herself the higher education she longed for. Books he was lending her, lessons in French and German he had been lately begging to be allowed to give her, and many inspiring talks he had with her on the subjects both loved, whenever a chance offered or he could make one.

So now, as Murray came toward her, his eyes fixed upon her as if he were sure that here he would find something he sorely needed, Jane felt an added longing to show her power to be of use in time of trouble; and dropping her book--one that belonged to Murray--she came forward to meet him with outstretched hand, and a look which showed him that she already understood.

"You 've heard?" he asked, in surprise. "I don't know how, but I 'm glad, for I dreaded to tell it."

"Shirley told Nancy--just the bare facts--and of course my little sister told my mother and me. We 've been thinking of you all ever since, wishing we could help you."

"You can; we need you. Even mother feels it. Olive says when she asked her if she wanted a nurse, she refused to have one except her maid, but said, 'I wish I dared to ask that kind-faced Mrs. Bell. I feel as if she could tell me what to do.'"

"Mother will be so glad. She will go over by and by. She loves to help people, and always knows how better than anybody else in the world."

"I can believe it. She makes a fellow feel as if he belonged to her, somehow, and she was interested in him."

"She is--that's why she makes you feel so.--Come over here in the shade, please, and tell me what I can do."

Murray dropped upon the grass beside Jane's low chair with a sigh of weariness, and ran his hand through the thick locks of his hair, pushing them away from his forehead with an impatient gesture, as if he would like thus easily to clear away the clouds which bothered him.

"You see," he began slowly, "I feel more or less responsible myself for this outbreak. I can't help thinking that if things had been between us as they ought to be between brothers Forrest would have brought his notions and troubles to me."

"But you--but he----" Jane paused, surprised at the tone he took. "You have n't been able to be with Forrest much, because--because he has been so active and lived such a different life----"

"You are kind to excuse me, but I don't see how that makes it any better. I could have shown interest and sympathy enough with his tastes and plans to have made him come naturally to me. I 'm the elder brother, and I have n't been a brother, only a querulous, fault-finding, elderly relative, as if he were fourteen and I forty. He did come to you with his grievances against father, did n't he?"

Jane coloured a little as his eyes keenly questioned her.

"Yes, though I did n't want him to tell me, and would n't listen to very much of it. I felt guilty to let him talk at all, but he was so----"

"I 'm glad you did. If anybody could have given him advice that he would take it would have been you. I was pretty sure he had been to you, by the way I saw him fling over here just after he 'd had a bout with father."

"He said something that day I feel as if your father ought to know, and I 've been wondering how I could let him know," and with this introduction, Jane told Murray all she had learned of Forrest's inclination toward the army and its varied experiences, ending as gently as she could with the boyish threat of enlisting if he could not bring about his own appointment to West Point. Murray listened to her very soberly.

"Father would veto the West Point proposition from the first word," he said, "merely because he has no notion of the sort of fascination the idea would have for a restless chap like my brother. So if Forrest asked him to let him go, I 've no doubt he refused him, and then--well, I can easily imagine Forrest carrying out his threat out of pure bravado. It gives us something to go by, anyhow. We can soon find out if he 's had the folly to enlist. He may have the dash and bravery to do a gallant deed, to fight stoutly enough at a time of need, but the patience and endurance for the every-day army life----" He shook his head. "He's only a boy, you know. You could n't expect it of him."

Just here Peter opened the little garden gate and came swinging in. "Hello!" he called, at sight of the pair under the maple-tree. "You two look cool and restful out there. May I join the picnic party when I 've freshened up a bit? A breakdown in the power at the factory sent fifty or sixty of us in our department home for a quarter-holiday."

"That 's luck for us, too!" called back Murray, cordially.

Jane bent forward eagerly. "Do you mind Peter's knowing?" she asked. "Pete's so big and strong and--ingenious; he 's like mother at knowing what to do."

"I want Peter to know," Murray replied, without hesitation. "We 're going to try to keep this thing out of the papers, of course, and away from our acquaintances as long as we can, but your family must all know. I feel, somehow, as if having the Bell family stand by us would be worth a lot."

When Peter came out, in fresh clothes, his brown hair damp from the splashing shower he had just taken, and joined the two others under the maple, he was told the whole story. He listened in clear-eyed gravity, with once or twice a short exclamation of regret. As Murray ended with Jane's suggestion about the runaway's possible enlistment in the army, Peter drew a long breath.

"I believe I can understand how he felt about it," he said, throwing his head back and staring up at the sky for a moment. Then, coming back to earth with a squaring of his broad shoulders, he added, with a rueful smile at Jane, "And that's not because my home is n't the happiest one on earth. It 's just the feeling a fellow gets once in a while that he 'd like to jump over something and make a dash for the horizon line--to see what's beyond it! And I can see how he----" Then he broke off suddenly, looking at Murray. "That does n't mean I don't appreciate what this is to all his family. And if there's anything I can do to help, I 'm your man."

"You 'd be a good one to send after him," Murray answered, with a slight smile. "You 'd know better than to pounce on him like an officer of the law. You 'd treat him like a brother--a better brother than I 've been,"--and the smile faded.

"Look here, don't take it that way. There are few brothers I know who stand shoulder to shoulder as they ought to do. It's odd, but it's so, and a pity it is, too. I think our family is different from most--for the reason----" Here Peter stopped abruptly once more, meeting Jane's eyes. He could not say that early training, given by wise parents, had made all the difference in the world with their family life.

"Yes, I fancy I know the reason," said Murray, wistfully, "and I congratulate you on it."

"I 'm a stupid sort of Job's comforter," Peter went on. "But one thing is sure; if you 'd like an extra brother, to stand by in this difficulty, here he is."

He laid his hand on Murray's arm as he spoke, and Murray flushed with pleasure. He turned and held out his own hand, and Peter's closed on it with a grip. Then both began to talk with a will about other things.

When Murray went home he took Mrs. Bell with him. He watched her vanish through the doorway of his mother's room, where that poor lady had been all day in a state of nervous prostration, and felt that he had brought her a friend worth while.

The moment that his father came home Murray went to him with the news he had obtained in Gay Street. The two had a long conference, during which Murray discovered his father to be watching him with a peculiar expression, as if surprised to find this reserved son so ready with suggestions.

Mr. Townsend shook his head over the notion that Forrest could have carried his revolt against authority so far as to have taken the step of enlisting in the army; but when Murray urged that the clue should be followed up, the elder man said slowly:

"I don't know whether it would do any good to hunt him up and bring him home. He's taken things into his own hands. I feel like letting him manage his own affairs for a while. He has n't the force of character to deprive himself of the comforts of life very long. If he has enlisted, he 'd better take the consequences. I 'm not so sure but a term of service in the army would do him good, take the conceit out of him, and show him that he cannot escape discipline anywhere;--life itself means discipline of one sort or another."

"If we should find he had enlisted, then, you wouldn't take the steps to get him off? You could, you know, sir, since he 's under age. Peter says so."

"Peter? Peter who?"

"Peter Bell--in Gay Street."

"Oh, yes. You see a good deal of the Bells, Murray?"

"Yes, sir."

"I don't think I should apply to have him released from service," said Mr. Townsend, slowly, grim lines settling about his mouth.

A week went by. At its close a second briefly letter arrived from Forrest, addressed to his mother. It stated that Forrest had enlisted in the army, and had, at his own application, been allowed to join a regiment just leaving for San Francisco, to be sent for a term of three years' service in the Philippines. By the time the letter reached home, Forrest would have sailed.

The letter was written in a spirit of boyish bravado, like the first, but although it upset Mrs. Townsend again and sent her back to her bed, it relieved the tension of the family. It furnished definite news of the young fellow's whereabouts, and made it possible to communicate with him when he should have reached his destination.

Mrs. Townsend spent many days thereafter in urging her husband to apply at headquarters to have her son returned. It could be done, she was sure, because the boy was but nineteen, and having enlisted without his father's permission, must have misrepresented his age at the recruiting-station. But Mr. Townsend remained firm. He said that Forrest, having chosen this course, must abide by it, at least for the term of service for which he had enlisted. He would not have a turncoat for a son, he said sternly, although with a suspicious lowering of the voice; and he was more and more impressed with the conviction that the hard realities of life would make a man out of Forrest if the stuff of which men are made was in him.

"Meanwhile," he said to Murray, with a sadness which the other detected, "it is the father, rather than the son, after all, who has the bitterest dose of medicine to take."

"I 'm sorry, sir," was all Murray could say, wondering if his father meant the fact that his plan for taking Forrest into the business would have to be given up.

He suggested this to Jane Bell, in the little garden one evening, down by the phlox-bed, where she had gone to pick a bunch of flowers for Olive, who sat upon the porch with Ross and Peter. Olive had at last learned the way over to Gay Street, and having found it, had discovered that the knowledge lent interest to a life she had felt to be very dull.

"I suppose he feels badly about it," said Murray, holding the phlox Jane gave him while she picked a cluster of lilies to go with it.

"Indeed, he must."

"It is the thing he has looked forward to for years--ever since he realised he could n't make a business man out of me."

"Yes, and I suppose, even if your brother came back after two or three years, less head-strong than now, he might not be any more willing to settle down to that life."

"No, I doubt if he would. It's all up for father, and it's a tremendous disappointment."

"I am very, very sorry for him," said Jane, gravely, musing over her lilies. There was silence for a moment; then she looked up. "You don't think," she ventured, her hazel eyes scanning his, "that anybody could possibly make it up to him?"

"Anybody? Who?"

"Who, indeed?" Jane was breathing a little quickly.

Murray stared at her in mingled astonishment, questioning and dismay. Then he spoke, abruptly and roughly: "In the name of all absurdity, you can't mean me?"

Jane dropped her eyes, flushing deeply. She bit her lips. "It would be very, very hard, would n't it?"

Murray drew a deep, impatient breath. "Hard!" he exploded, and turned away. Then he wheeled back. "You're not serious?" he said, hurriedly. "You can't be serious in even suggesting such a thing. I--bookworm, cripple, weakling----"

Jane raised her eyes once more. In the deepening twilight Murray felt as if they were searching his soul.

"And yet," she said, slowly, and almost wistfully, "it would be such a magnificent thing to do. It would take hero stuff, I know--yet," she smiled, "I think--you--could----" Then she stopped short. "Oh, forgive me!" she cried, softly, under her breath. "What am I that I should suggest hero deeds to you? A girl who cries nearly every night of her life because she can't go to college!"

CHAPTER VIII

MURRAY GIVES AN ANSWER

"I wish I knew," observed Olive Townsend to Jane Bell, "what in the world is the matter with Murray. He acts as if he had lost his head completely. I went into his room this morning, and almost fell over a pile of Indian clubs and dumb-bells; and I saw a set of chest weights hanging against the wall. It's the queerest thing! He's never gone in for that sort of thing at all--and I shouldn't think he was strong enough for it, either."

The two girls were driving along the park roadway in a high-hung phaeton of Olive's, behind a very smartly harnessed horse. This was the third time Olive had asked Jane to drive with her, and although Jane would have enjoyed excursions into the country much more than these drives about the fashionable city streets, she appreciated the honour Olive meant to do her in thus exhibiting their friendship to all beholders. Olive had grown to be rather proud of Jane's company upon these drives, for she was conscious that they attracted considerable admiring attention, and she fancied that Jane's quiet daintiness of attire set off her own rather more striking style.

Jane laughed at the notion that Murray was not strong enough to put himself in the way of being stronger. She knew it was Peter who had suggested this course of proceedings in response to an envious comment from Murray, when he had seen Peter scantily garbed for some severe physical labor about the house.

"Biceps?" Peter had laughed, as Murray grasped the sinewy arm and expressed his admiration for the fine development thereof. "And deltoid?--Oh yes, that's easy. If your particular form of daily toil does n't give you muscle where you want it, get it for yourself with exercise. You can build up anything you like in a gymnasium--or in your own room, if you have the persistence."

"You could, with your splendid health to begin on, of course," Murray replied, with a sigh, for he had begun to suspect that Peter's unusual level-headedness and efficiency came in considerable degree from his well-developed body.

"So could you. A year of solid work with a good instructor would make another chap of you. Two years, an athlete."

"Oh, no--not with my constitution."

"Your constitution, man!" Peter had almost shouted. "What's constitution? Something to be made just about what you will of. Fellows with a direct tendency toward consumption have made themselves giants by living outdoors and sawing wood."

This had been the beginning, the first result of which serious talk had been the dumb-bells and chest-weights which had called forth Olive's suspicion of her brother's sanity.

"But he's never cared for anything but books--and to be let alone," objected Olive, when Jane replied that she thought nothing better could happen to Murray than to become interested in building up his physical being. "It's just since Forrest has been gone--only think, that's six weeks now--that Murray has been at this."

"It's telling on him already, too," said Jane, feeling a sense of elation over the fact which she could not quite account for. "He has a better colour. I noticed it yesterday."

"That was sunburn," declared Olive, skeptically. "He spent the afternoon lying on the ground with a book down by the hedge, right squarely in the hot August sun. I think it was ridiculous."

"He's lived in the house ever so much more than was good for him," Jane insisted, gently. "So does everybody in cities. My idea of happiness--one sort--is a day on my grandfather's farm. It's only about ten miles out, and we 've a plan. Should you, Murray, and Shirley, care to spend a day with us out there? A sort of picnic, you know. Down by the river there are the loveliest places you can imagine, and Peter says he 'll take you fishing if you care for it."

"Indeed I should, I 'm sure," agreed Olive, with real pleasure. She loved new sensations, and the notion of going fishing with Peter Bell appealed to her strongly. She was growing more and more to respect and admire Peter; in a way, it was true, in which she quite failed to appreciate his best qualities, but in which she responded, nevertheless, to those which his family would have rated as his second best.

"Don't forget the picnic," was Olive's last word, as she set Jane down at her own door. "I shall begin to get an outing hat ready now."

"If I should forget, Peter would remind me. It's his plan," Jane reassured her--a fact which of itself pleased Olive, for she was confident that it meant his regard for her entertainment.

If she had known, however, the whole plan was a plot of Peter's for Murray's diversion.

"The fellow 's worrying about something," Peter had said. "He's pitching into the exercises I showed him, but his mind 's counting against him. I know what he wants to build himself up for. He told me that if he had to be the family's sole representative in the matter of sons for the next three years, he wanted to put up a better showing, and I 'm decidedly glad he takes it that way. I 'd hate myself to be five feet ten and weigh only one hundred and thirty. Let 's take him--and the girls if you like--out for a day on Grandfather Bell's farm. What do you say? Do you suppose we could make the thing acceptable to Miss Worthington Square?" After due consideration of the matter, and some consultation with her mother, Jane had enthusiastically agreed. Now, upon returning from the drive, she was able to tell Peter that Olive had accepted the invitation with alacrity.

"What--fishing and all?" he laughed. "Really, I think better of her ladyship than ever for coming down to earth like that. The question is now, how to get them there without resorting to hay-wagons--a form of conveyance I judge Miss Olive would n't deign to accept."

"Imagine one rolling up to the porte-cochère on the Worthington Square front!" and Jane broke into such a merry laugh that everybody joined in--for Jane had told Peter her news at the dinner-table.

"Let Miss Olive and Murray and Shirley drive in their own trap, and have Pete bring out grandfather's new surrey for us. I 'm sure it's as trim a looking vehicle as any, if his horses don't have quite the smartest harness going," suggested Ross McAndrew. "The horses themselves are crack-a-jacks."

"That will have to do, I think," Jane agreed, "though it seems too bad to ask our guests to take themselves."

"No matter in what order we go, you 'll find we 'll come home democratically mixed up," prophesied Ross. "I defy Miss Worthington Square to withstand the leveling influences of a day on Grandfather Bell's farm. I 've no doubt Peter will drive the trap home, with Rufe hanging on the back seat, and Murray will learn what it means to coax a pair of shy farm horses past the electric cars. As for me, I may come home as jockey on young Major's back, the city youth having proved not up to the situation."

With such merry comments the preparation for the picnic was made. And if the Bells had known it, their guests looked forward to the affair with quite as pleasant anticipations as themselves. When the day came--a sultry August morning, with signs of thunder-showers in the west--Olive and Murray and Shirley found themselves as willing to risk a possible wetting as the Bells themselves, who never minded such small things as thunder-showers in the least.

The farm horses--Grandfather Bell's pride, and with reason, for they were a fine pair of blacks--led the way, the new surrey carrying such a jolly company that the guests, following close behind in the smart trap, tried in vain to rival their hilarity. The three Townsends were all arrayed in white linen from head to foot, and presented a cool and attractive spectacle; but Murray's eyes watched with envy the parti-coloured group in the conveyance ahead, and Olive reluctantly owned to herself that Jane's fresh little blue cotton frock, while better suited to a farm picnic than one of white linen, was also a charming spot of colour upon the landscape.

"Now, who's going fishing?" called back Peter, as he drove his steeds briskly in through Grandfather Bell's gateway, followed by the trap at its best pace. "It's clouding over now, so that we ought to have some good sport--if the rain holds off, and I think it will, judging by the wind. Grandfather Bell can tell us that," he added, as a tall old man of a hale and vigorous aspect came out of the house to greet his guests.

"The rain won't bother you before afternoon, I guess," prophesied Grandfather Bell, shaking hands cordially with his guests. "When it does, you 'd better put for the house. You can have your picnic indoors, where you won't get your clothes wet," and his glance fell on the three white-clad young people from the city.

"Never mind our clothes," said Murray. "We were thinking of the hot day coming when we put them on. It would have been more sensible to dress like you fellows," and he glanced from Ross's worn gray corduroys to Peter's faded blue flannels, in which costumes both young men looked ruggedly--and not unattractively--ready for roughing it.

"Picnics appeal to people from different points of view," suggested Ross. "Now, Miss Olive can certainly sit on a rock and watch Peter, Rufe, Nan and myself fish, giving us practical suggestions from time to time--in a whisper. Perhaps she 'll photograph us with that camera she has there. But I would advise that Mr. Murray Townsend, Miss Shirley Townsend, and Miss Jane Bell, sit apart on some mossy bank and read some pleasant tale about fishing."

"Nonsense. You talk like a stage manager," jeered Peter. "Miss Olive 's going to do some real fishing if Grandmother Bell has to lend her a dress to go home in--and so are the rest. Fishing is the first thing on this programme and fishing is to be done. You saw to the rods and lines, Rufe--where are they?"

Rufe raced away to the barns, and came back with a full fishing equipment for everybody. After greeting Grandmother Bell, a pleasant little old lady, with a warm welcome for every one, the party proceeded through the orchard and down a long, maple-Leaded lane to the river--a picturesque spot, which had been the paradise of the Bell family from its earliest recollections.

Here sport reigned for an hour, although few fish were caught. The spirit of hilarity ruled the holiday too thoroughly to admit of much wooing of the frightened prey; but nobody minded except Rufus, who finally left the others and wandered away up-stream, whence he returned after a time, triumphant, with a respectable showing of fish.

"The clouds don't look as threatening as they did. Could n't we climb that small hill on the other side of the river? I 've been looking at that winding path for an hour, wishing I could see where it leads," said Murray to Jane, propping his fishing-rod against a tree.

"It leads to a little hemlock grove, and a field of corn beyond," answered Jane, fanning her flushed and laughing face with her wide-brimmed hat.

"Oh, don't tell me! Come and explore it with me, will you?" Murray gave her such a pleading look that she could not refuse him, although she and Peter had agreed that this picnic was not to be a "pairing off" affair, because that would leave Ross in the lurch, and Ross had been working hard of late, and needed an outing, his cousins thought, more than anybody.

"We'll just go over and back, if you like--to satisfy your curiosity," and Jane let him walk away with her.

They slowly climbed the hill path, Murray stopping to cut himself a stout staff in lieu of the cane he no longer used. "I shall always be lame," he said to Jane, "but I 'm not going to depend on canes any longer except for such special occasions as this. Do you know, I think I 'm growing a shade brawnier--thanks to Peter's training."

"I 'm sure you are; you look it," responded Jane, warmly, "and I 'm so glad."

"There has been wonderful work done in the world by people in ill health. But I 'm afraid I could never be a Carlyle or a Stevenson, no matter how bright the fires of genius burned. They worked for the love of it, but when the task a fellow sees before him is one he dislikes, he certainly needs the backing of a sound body."

As they attained the top of the hill, panting a little for breath, Murray stared ahead into the hemlock grove.

"That 's a cool-looking spot. Can't we sit down there a few minutes? I 'll have to rest a bit before I do more," he urged. "It's three years since I climbed a hill like that--just the day before I had my accident. I seem to have got started on the uninteresting subject of myself, so I may as well go on a little further and tell you my plans about the same chap, if you don't mind listening."

"I 'd love to hear them. Here's a fine mossy spot, and two trees to lean against," and Jane dropped at the foot of one of the trees she had pointed out. Murray, casting aside his stick, threw himself down at full length near by, his arms clasped under his head.

"Ah, this is great!" he murmured. "Smell those balsams? It makes one want to live outdoors. And that's what I'm thinking of doing."

"Really? How? Will you pitch a tent on the lawn? That would be fine for you, and we should all envy you."

"No, I want a more radical change to outdoor life than that--or at least I want the results. I 've made up my mind that to live my life out as a bookish invalid, if I might do better, is 'too poor a way of playing the game of life,' as one author I like immensely puts it. I shall stick to the books all I can, but--I want some good red blood in my veins besides."

Forrest's words spoken weeks ago, charging Murray with the very lack of "red blood," came to Jane's mind, and she smiled and sighed, thinking what a change those weeks had made in the relations of the two brothers. And here was Murray wishing for the very thing the want of which his vigorous brother had deplored.

"I 'm sure you can have it, and all the good things that go with it."

"Which are many, as you people have already taught me. Honestly, it's seeing your family so alive and hearty and happy that's brought me to be dissatisfied with myself. I 'm going to have need of all I can put into Murray Townsend, and so--I 've about made up my mind----"

He hesitated, pulling a hemlock branch through his slim fingers with nervous energy. Then he began again: "I 've been reading a lot lately about life on one of those Western ranches--real ranch life, I mean; not Eastern play at it. I 've a cousin who went to Montana six years ago. I get a letter from him once in a while. He's a Westerner now, full-fledged. I doubt if he ever comes East again to stay. I 've written him to ask if he has any room for a tenderfoot on his ranch, and if he says he 'll take me in, I think I 'll go."

"Right away?"

"Right away, if father agrees--and I think he will. He 'll be only too glad to have me take the chance of making a man out of myself, instead of a bloodless bookworm." Murray turned over with a short laugh, and propping his chin on his elbows, lay looking at Jane.

"How long shall you stay?"

"Long enough to do the business. A year, if necessary. When I come back, I 'll probably be wearing leather leggings with fringes, a handkerchief round my neck, and a sombrero. I 've no doubt the cowboys will have played tricks enough on me to prove satisfactorily to all concerned whether I 'm a man or a mushroom."

Jane looked steadily down at the face below her, and realised that it was a face of strength as well as of fineness. The eyes which met hers were enlivened by a determination she had never seen in them before, and her answer brought into them a light which surprised and pleased her.

"I think it's the best plan in the world," she said, heartily, "and I know it will succeed. Nobody ever set himself to accomplishing anything without accomplishing either that thing or something better."

"What could the 'something better' be in my case?"

"I don't know. Do you?"

The question was a challenge. Murray sat up. A tinge of red crept into his cheek. "Yes, I know," he answered. "So do you, I think. You put it into my head. Am I a coward, that I can't decide to give myself over to my father and the business?"

"No. But you are planning to put your shoulder to his wheel somehow--I know you are, or you would n't be trying so hard to strengthen that shoulder."

"You're a wizard--or a witch." Murray spoke soberly; then he laughed, as the two pairs of eyes met, and he caught the fire in Jane's. "Are you always so sure of your friends?"

"Always. If I have a friend, I believe in--her--whether she wants me to or not. She always proves me right."

"Suppose it 'him'?

"I don't know so much about the 'hims,'" said Jane, "except my brothers. The rule works with them."

"You must be an inspiring sister. You 've brothers enough already, I suppose, but I wish you 'd adopt another. My sister--she can't be far from your age, but she seems years younger. She has n't thought about things the way you have. Look here! If I go to Montana for a year, I shall be pretty lonesome sometimes, I expect. Will you let me write to you?"

"It would be great fun," answered Jane, simply, "to have letters from a real cowboy with six-shooters in his belt."

"I 'll take them out when I write to you. Must we go back? Well, if you think we ought--though I 'd like to lie here all day and dream dreams about the great things I 'm going to do. But a fellow can't dream much in the society of the Bells--he has to be up and doing."

"With a heart for any fate," quoted Jane, blithely, as she led the way. "I 'll tell you a better motto than that, though, fine as it is."

"What is it? Give it to me, will you?"

"I 'll write it out for you."

"When?"

"To-morrow, perhaps."

"To-day, please. I 'm an impatient chap."

"Very well. You shall have it when we get home. It's one I can't talk about, somehow--it gives me a choke in my throat--I don't know why."

Hours later Murray found out why. By the time he and Jane had rejoined the rest of the party the threatening storm-clouds had brought the promised rain. The lunch had to be eaten in Grandmother Bell's pleasant kitchen, but the guests enjoyed it almost as much as they could have done in the sylvan spot that Peter had picked out. By three o'clock in the afternoon the storm had passed. It had cooled the air a little, so that it was possible for the party to spend three long and delightful hours upon the river before going home.

"We three in what was once white," said Murray, as he stood by the trap, "are a pretty sorry-looking crowd to go back all together. Why may I not change places with Peter, and drive the Bell family home?"

Ross chuckled as he winked at Jane, and she recalled his prophecy of some days earlier. But it was he and Nancy who took the back seat of the trap, leaving Rufus and Shirley in the surrey, to carry on an acquaintance which had developed to great friendliness in the Townsend tennis-court, where the children had played every evening throughout the summer.

Up in his own room Murray took from his pocket a slip of paper Jane had given him as she said good night, and unfolding it as if it were a message from a royal hand, he read it slowly through. The expectation of this message had been warm all through the pleasant drive home in the twilight.

The words of Jane's quotation were these:--and as it happened that he had never seen them before, they came to him at this crisis of his life with peculiar force.

"Life is an arrow--therefore you must know

What mark to aim at, how to use the bow--

Then draw it to the head, and let it go!"

There was a little constriction in Murray's own throat as he studied the brave words. He saw at a flash their deeper meaning. "Make myself fit to live my life," he thought "and then--whether it's the life I want to live or not--let it go! Jane, you know how to fit the arrow to my hand--bless you! I will draw it to the head--and let it go!"

CHAPTER IX

SNAP SHOTS

"A letter from Montana for Miss Jane Bell," observed Peter, distributing the mail at the breakfast-table one May morning, nine months after the picnic at Grandfather Bell's farm. "It strikes me these Montana letters are beginning to arrive with astonishing regularity."

"They began," declared Ross, enjoying the sight of the sudden colour in Jane's face, as she tucked the letter into her belt and tried vainly to look unconscious as she went on serving the family from a big dish of oatmeal porridge, "by coming modestly once in about three or four weeks. Then they got to once a fortnight--that was in midwinter. Along about April----"

"If I were a big, grown man," murmured Jane, "I 'd never condescend to keep track of----"

"Along in April," pursued Ross, unmoved, "once in ten days was the schedule. But this last, coming as it does just one short week after its predecessor, and carrying, as it does, two large red postage-stamps--which, I am confident, is underpayment----"

"Stop teasing!" cried Nancy, always loyal to her sister. "Every one of you is envying Jane, wishing you could have letters from a real cowboy."

"A real cowboy!" laughed Ross. "I think I see Murray Townsend getting himself up in that rig. With his pale face and thin shoulders he 'd look like the tenderest kind of a tenderfoot."

Jane pulled the letter out of her belt. The previous letter had promised that this one should bring some snap-shot pictures of the writer and his surroundings. She hoped, as she broke the seal, that she should find them, feeling sure that the extra thick letter indicated that it carried the promised enclosures.

As she pulled out the sheets a little packet of blue-prints dropped into her lap. She picked them up and fell to looking at them. Peter, sitting next to her, laughed to himself, as he reached for his dish of oatmeal, Jane having forgotten to serve him. But everybody forgot breakfast, as the blue-prints went round the table. All but one were scenes of ranch and camp life, bringing into view horses and cowboys of all sorts and conditions, each carefully labelled with its descriptive title. But the one at the bottom of the pack was called "the tenderfoot"--the only one of the set in which Jane's correspondent was in evidence.

"Can it be possible this is Murray?" exclaimed Mrs. Bell, studying incredulously the erect figure on horseback, life and energy in every outline, from the tilt of the wide hat to the set of the leg in the saddle. "Why, he looks as if he weighed thirty pounds more than when he went away."

"By George, the fellow has n't roughed it nearly a year for nothing, has he?" admitted Ross. "He doesn't look the stage cowboy, either--I 'll say that for him. Those clothes have seen wear and rain, and that hat has had the true Western shape knocked into it. It makes you envy him, does n't it?"

Peter said nothing, but his eyes dwelt upon the figure in the saddle with a look of longing so intense that if anyone had been observing him it must have told his story plainly. One person was observing him, and as Peter looked up at last, with an involuntary glance at his father, who had just made some observation on the advantage it had been to the rich man's son to get out among the ranchmen and gain a new view of life, he met his father's eyes. Joseph Bell understood just what it meant to Peter to stay at home and work as foreman in a note-paper factory when there were such places as Montana in the world waiting for young men to come and explore them. And there was that in his father's look which told Peter that his sacrifice was appreciated.

Up in her own room, when a dozen duties had been done, Jane read her letter. It was to her a deeply interesting letter, as had been all those which came before it, for Murray wielded a graphic pen, and his pictures of the sort of life he had been living were vivid as colour-sketches. He was rejoicing in the coming of spring and summer, after the long, cold winter, and his delight seemed to Jane so unlike any pleasure in outdoor life she had seen him show at home that it filled her with joy. The letter said, as it neared the close and fell into the personal vein, as letters do:

I never knew before what it was to breathe way down to the bottom of my lungs. My existence--after my accident, and up to the time I came here--seems now to me like that of some pale monk in his cell, feeding on other men's thoughts, but never living them himself. I've learned to live! You, who have long known that secret, will be glad with me, won't you?

All through the winter I was wrapped to the eyes whenever I put my head out of the cabin door. Men dress warmly here in the winter--flannel-lined canvas overcoats--"blanket coats" they call them--felt boots, and all that. But they don't make grannies of themselves as I did--at first. As the winter advanced, though, I began to get hardened to it, and before spring I could stand a pretty low temperature without feeling my blood congeal. But when spring came--spring in this Western country! I wish I could describe it. The air like wine, the sunshine like--nothing I can think of. When spring came I began to expand mentally and physically--and in still another way, I think. Anyhow, I 'm not the same fellow who went to the doctor for an outfit of drugs before he dared start West.

I 've learned a lot from these men I 've been associated with. A rough set they would seem to you, most of them--they did to me at first. But when I got to know them, underneath the roughness I found--men. It's no use trying to put it into a letter. I must talk with you, face to face--and just what that means to me when I think of it I won't venture to say. I 'll be home in the fall, and then--I 'm going into my father's business. I have n't said that before, have I? You 'll please not mention it to anyone, except Peter, if you like; I want to surprise father. That's going to be my reward for doing my duty. It is my duty--I see it plainly at last, and every ounce of determination I can grow from now till fall is going to be just so much more to offer him. But I won't brag about that. Do the best I can, it won't be a wonderful gift, for I 'm afraid my talents don't lie in that direction. But if honest effort can make up--Jane, I have n't watched some of these heroic chaps for nothing. I 'm simply shamed into taking my medicine, and shutting my mouth tight after it. And that's the last word about it's being medicine. I 'm going to get interested in the business if pitching in all over will do it.

This is a long letter, and I 'm done--except to tell you that the West does n't deserve all the credit for my altered views of life. A certain girl I know, who wanted to go to college, but gave up all thought of it because, besides the family, her father and brothers had half a dozen helpless elderly relatives to support, isn't the poorest sort of inspiration to her friend, when he happens to be a fellow who never gave up anything for anybody in his life. He values her friendship far more than he dares to tell her now. Somebody--Ruskin?--said a knight's armour never fitted him quite so well as when the lady's hand had braced it--and I 'm beginning to understand what that rather picturesque metaphor may mean. Do I sound sentimental, and are you laughing at me? Don't do it! I 've not a "gun" in my belt, but I'm rather a rough looking customer nevertheless. I came in an hour ago, wet to the skin--caught out in a cloudburst without my slicker--and while my clothes dry am attired in my cousin's (seven sizes too big!) being averse to putting on any of the clothes in my trunk, the foolish clothes of civilisation.

I weigh one hundred and sixty-five. What do you think of that? And it's not flesh, but worked-on muscle and sinew. Did I say I was done? I am. But I am also

Faithfully your friend,

MURRAY TOWNSEND.

"You look it," agreed Jane, studying the photograph. "You certainly look it." She gave the little print one more careful examination, noting the steady gaze the pictured face gave back, a spirited expression very different from the half-moody look she had first known; then she put the photographs away and went about her work. And as she went, a little song sang itself over and over in her heart--the song of trust in a ripening friendship of the sort that makes life worth living.

Spring and summer passed slowly by, marking a growing interchange of amenities between the little house in Gay Street and the big one in Worthington Square. Things had happened during the winter, things kept on happening as the year advanced, to draw the two families together. In January Shirley had had a long and severe illness, during which Mrs. Bell and Jane made their way into the inmost heart of every member of the household. There were nights during that illness when Joseph Bell, feeling that difference of social position counted for nothing when a father was in trouble, went over to shake Harrison Townsend's hand, bidding him be of courage--and found himself detained as a friend in need.

By and by, when the anxiety was over and the Bells ceased coming often in and out, the Townsends began to summon them. Mr. Townsend discovered the shrewd wisdom and genial philosophy of Joseph Bell to be of value, and often went to sit with him in the little front room, where his eyes noted with approval the rows of books. He discovered that Armstrongs's head man knew more that lay between the covers of those books than did Harrison Townsend himself.

As for Mrs. Townsend and Mrs. Bell, while they were too different in temperament and taste to get far into each other's lives, they found enough in common to bring them together rather oftener than could naturally have been expected. There was a quiet poise about Mrs. Bell which the other woman, accomplished woman of the world though she was, could only study in despair of ever being able to attain. But she found a rest and refreshment in her neighbour's society which none of her more fashionable friends could give her, and she sent often for Mrs. Bell to keep her company.

"Olive's taken one big step in advance," Peter said to his mother, one day in early summer. "She has begun to write regularly to Forrest."

"I'm very glad," said Mrs. Bell. "Does he answer her letters?"

"He does--only too glad to, I should say. She's shown me some of his letters. There 's a homesick grunt to them, that's sure. Life in the army, and particularly life in the Philippines, is n't unmitigated bliss, and he's finding it out. He does n't exactly squeal, but you can see how it is with him."

"It will do Olive good to take up such a sisterly duty. Was it your suggestion?" asked Mrs. Bell.

"How did you guess that? I did give her a talk one day, when she happened to say that Shirley was the only one of the family who wrote to Forrest with any regularity. She was pretty angry with me for a day or two, but she came round, and now she writes once a fortnight. There 's really more to that girl than you would think."

"She is improving very much, I am sure," agreed his mother, warmly. "With a different early training, Olive would have been by now a much more lovable girl than she has seemed. But, happily, it 's not too late to give her new ideals, and I think you have helped in that direction."

"Ideals?" mused Peter. "I don't think I have any of those--at least, I don't call them by that name. Rules of the game--how will that do, instead? The foreman of Room 8 in a note-paper factory is n't supposed to have ideals, is he?"

"I don't know about that. Suppose you ask the men and women under you. I fancy they would protest your ideals were pretty hard for them to live up to?"

Peter laughed to himself. "Maybe they would. But they would n't put it that way. 'The boss is a tough one to suit,' they 'd say."

"Call it what you will--rules of the game, if you like. But, as the children used to say, 'Peter Bell plays fair!'"

"I hope he does. If he does n't, it is n't the fault of his trainer." And the gray eyes met the brown ones for an instant in a glance which said many things Peter could not have spoken.

The days went on; June gave place to July; August heat melted into September mildness; and October, with its falling leaves, marked the end of the days of outdoor life lived from April to November in the little garden.

"The twenty-fifth is Jane's birthday," observed Nancy to Shirley, several days before that event. "We 're wondering what to do in celebration."

"Why, it's mine, too!" cried Shirley. "How funny that we did n't know it! We ought to celebrate it together."

This remark was duly reported to Mrs. Bell, who said at once that they must invite Shirley over to have her birthday cake with Jane's. But before this plan could be carried into effect, an invitation arrived from the big house, asking every member of the Bell household to be present at a small dinner of Shirley's own planning.

"This is the first time we 've all been asked over there together--it's quite an occasion," declared Peter, on the evening of the twenty-fifth, as he stood waiting in the doorway for everybody to be ready. "I say," he exclaimed, "but we're gorgeous!"

And he fastened admiring eyes on his mother, who was dressed in a pale gray gown of her own making, and therefore of faultless effect. The quality was fine also, for Peter had looked after that.

"Gorgeous does n't seem exactly the word," Ross commented. "Demure but coquettish, I should call that gown."

The party proceeded in a body to the corner of Worthington Square, where Jane, under escort of Peter, came to a sudden halt. "Oh, I 've forgotten something to go with my present to Shirley," she said to him. "Give me the key, please. I 'll run back and get it. Don't wait. I want to slip into the dining-room over there, anyway, before I see anybody, and I 'll come in by the side door."

So Jane ran back alone, and let herself into the dark house, the lamps having, for safety, been all extinguished before the family went out. She hurriedly lighted the lamp in the front room, for she meant to fill out a card with a certain appropriate quotation, to put with Shirley's gift, and the book she needed was in this room.

The quotation was not as easily found as she had thought it would be, and hurriedly searching for it, Jane consumed considerable time, but did not want to give it up, for the words fitted Shirley delightfully, and would give point to the gift.

So bending over the book, still unsuccessful, she heard with regret the sound of a quick step upon the porch, followed by a ring at the bell. She sprang up, book in hand, wishing she had taken her affairs, with her light, into the dining-room. Hoping that her appearance, in her evening frock, would warn the chance visitor that the time was inopportune, she opened the door.

"Jane!" exclaimed a joyful voice. "Ah, but this is good luck!" And Jane looked up into a face so brown and rugged and strong that for an instant she did not know it. But the eyes gazing eagerly into her own told her in the next breath who stood before her. She put out both hands, speechless with surprise. They were grasped and held, as Murray Townsend closed the door behind him with a sturdy shoulder.

"I--you--why, I thought you were n't coming for a month yet," she said, half shyly, for in spite of the smile and the warm handclasp, it seemed as if this must be a stranger who stood before her, radiating health and happiness, and looking so different from the pale young man who had gone away a year before.

"I was hit by a sudden wave of homesickness that swept me off my feet," Murray explained, releasing the hands which were gently drawing themselves away, but continuing to stare down at the engaging young figure in its modest evening attire, as if he had seen nothing so attractive in all Montana, in spite of his fine tales of its glories. "I began to think about it, and that was fatal. Once the notion of coming home a bit ahead of the date I 'd set took hold of me, I was no more use to anybody. They told me to pack up and start, for I was n't fit to brand a calf, and could n't earn my salt." He laughed. "Tell me you 're not sorry."

"Indeed, I'm not. This happens to be my birthday, and it's the nicest surprise I've had yet."

"Thank you--that's the welcome I wanted. But"--he glanced at her dress again, and his face fell--"you were going out?"

"Only to Worthington Square," laughed Jane. "It's Shirley's birthday, too, and we're all to be there at dinner. Why, you must know! You 've just come from there."

"That is a joke on me. I rang--no latch-key, you know--and a new maid I 've never seen let me in. I saw everything lighted up and flowers all about, and asked if they were entertaining. She said they were, and everybody was dressing. So I just turned and ran, thinking I 'd slip over here and see you first, since I could n't see much of my family till the affair was over. Well, well--so I may spend the evening in your company. Talk about luck!"

They stood there, exchanging questions and replies in the laughing, disconnected way in which people are wont to address each other in the first excitement of an unexpected and welcome meeting, neither of them knowing quite what they were saying, but each feeling that something of great importance had happened. Then Jane gathered up her wraps and Shirley's gift, and said, with a startled glance at the clock, "It is later than I thought! We must go this minute."

"Shall I put out the light?" and Murray strode across the floor. Jane noted with gladness that his walk was the walk of a strong man.

They crossed the street to the hedge gate, and came to the side entrance. As he put his thumb to the bell, Murray said, half under his breath, "I've imagined all sorts of home-comings, but never one quite so nice as this. To make my entrance with you----"

"Oh, you 're not going to make it with me!" said Jane, gaily. "I shall stay in the dining-room, arranging Shirley's plate, until you are safe in the midst of them."

And plead as he would, Murray found there was no way to make her change this decision. So, at last, hearing the voices of the others in the big hall, where they were gathered about the fireplace, in which roared a royal October fire, he went to the door and opened it a crack. From this position, he looked back at Jane, where she stood by Shirley's chair watching him across the gala decorations of roses which crowned the handsome table.

"I 'm at home again!" he called to her softly, and she nodded, smiling.

Then, hat in hand, he threw the door wide and marched through, shoulders back, head up, eyes intent upon the faces which, at the opening of the door, had turned that way.

CHAPTER X

HIDE AND SEEK

There was a moment's astonished hush as the group about the fire stared at the erect young figure. Then Murray's father was the first across the floor to meet him; and in an instant more the whole family was upon him, while the Bells rose, smiling, to do him honour.

"My dear boy!" There was a great gladness in Harrison Townsend's voice and he wrung his son's hand as if he would wring it off. Murray's mother, too--he had not known she was capable of so much tenderness, and he kissed her with a feeling that in his thoughts he had n't done her love for him justice.

As for Olive and Shirley, there was nothing lacking in the way they showed their joy in having him at home again. Murray himself, during this long year of absence, was not the only one who had learned a few enlightening truths about the great business of living.

To the full, also, Murray enjoyed the surprising fact that the Bells were grouped about the fire in a way which indicated that they were entirely at home. He rejoiced in the heartiness with which the male members of that family gripped his hand--they seemed like brothers. And when the sweet-faced, bright-eyed lady in gray pressed his hand in both her own and looked at him as if her pleasure in his return was very great, Murray, quite unable to help it, stooped and kissed her also. Surely, homecoming was a happier thing than he had dared to picture it.

He was off upstairs to his room presently, while word was sent to an exasperated cook to delay the dinner yet a little longer. In less time than could have been expected, however, Murray was down again, and in his evening clothes showed even more plainly than before the astonishing increase in his weight.

"These shoulders," cried Peter, inspecting them, "can they be the shoulders of the delicate young gentleman who went away last year looking so long and lean and lank? I wonder you could get them into your coat."

"I could n't," Murray answered, laughing. "I had to borrow father's dinner-jacket and one of his waistcoats."

"It was fortunate for you that the old coat was n't given away when the new one came home," his father observed, regarding the shoulders in evidence with great satisfaction.

They went out to dinner in the gayest spirits, and if everybody remembered with regret the one absent, everybody still rejoiced that this promising son of the house was once more at its board. For there could be no question that the eldest son looked now a fit representative of the family of Townsend.

The dinner which followed was an elaborate one, for it was not within the range of the hostess's notions to entertain in any simple fashion, even when the occasion was the birthday of a fourteen-year-old. But the young people at the board succeeded in infusing so much of their own joyousness into the affair that the time passed swiftly. There were birthday gifts at Jane's plate as well as at Shirley's, and it would have been hard to tell, at the close of the feast, which pair of cheeks was the pinker, or which pair of eyes the brighter. It is safe to guess however, that there were elements in the pleasure of one recipient which must have been lacking in that of the other, and that the presence of one birthday guest counted for more to her than all the gifts put together. The fact that she could hardly look up without encountering the interested glance of the newly arrived traveller was just a trifle disconcerting, and it must be admitted that when Jane and Shirley gathered up their gifts at the close of the dinner, the little girl knew better than the older one just what she had received.

Dinner over, a short and not especially dramatic little scene took place behind closed library doors. Scenes which mean the most are often quietest of all.

"I just wanted to tell you, sir," said Murray to his father, "something I thought you might like to know right away. I--went West to make myself strong enough to--to go into the business, if you care to have me. I mean," he went on quickly, as his father looked at him as if he could not quite believe the purport of these words, "I mean in whatever capacity you can use me. Shipping-clerk, if you think I 'd better begin at the bottom"--and his smile was not a smile which supplied "but of course you won't."

Mr. Townsend stood looking at Murray, studying the straightforward gaze which met his; noting the tints of health, the signs of vigour in the fine face. "Murray, do you mean it?" he asked.

"I do, sir."

"And yet you don't like the prospect of a business life any more than you ever did, do you?"

"Not much, sir."

"You make this offer knowing fully what it entails? I have little expectation that your brother will ever agree to my wishes."

"That's what decided me."

"You are willing to give up your books? You could complete your college course now, with your renewed health."

If Murray winced at this he did not let it show.

"I think you need me now, sir. And as for the college course--and the books--I shall have my evenings."

Mr. Townsend studied his son's face a full minute in silence. Then he held out his hand. Murray seized it with a grasp which banished the elder man's doubts and showed him that his boy's heart was in this offer of himself. The two shook hands without speaking. There seemed no need of further words just then.

It being Shirley's birthday, that young person's wishes ruled the hour. Prompted by Rufus, who thirsted for something lively, she decreed a game of hide-and-seek over the whole house, and succeeded in enticing the elder people into the frolic. Mr. Townsend and Murray, coming from the library, found things in full swing.

Mr. Bell was just emerging from a small closet under the staircase, his hair much rumpled. Mrs. Bell, laughing blithely, had run round a corner of the reception-room and touched "goal" before her son Rufus could swing himself down the stairs and get in ahead of her. Mrs. Townsend--and her husband could not quite credit his eyes as he saw her--was, with trailing skirts held close, squeezing out of a very small corner behind the grand piano in the drawing-room.

"Well, well!" cried the newcomers, enthusiastically. "Let us into the game."

"Come on!" shouted Rufus. "Father 's 'it'! Let's play it in another way, and hide for keeps. Everybody stay hid till found, and each man found join the hunt. Makes it nice and exciting for the last fellow."

"You 'll have to tell us our bounds pretty carefully," said Mr. Bell, smiling at his hostess. "In our excitement we may open the wrong doors."

"Open any door," responded Mrs. Townsend promptly, feeling more like a girl again than she had felt in many years of formal entertaining, and preparing, as she spoke, to hurry up the staircase to a retreat that she felt would be secure. It proved great fun, and a full half-hour went by before the last one was found. Murray had been the first to be discovered, his head so full of the late talk in the library that he had somewhat dazedly secreted himself in a position easily come upon by Mr. Bell. So when the second round began, it was Murray who stood counting the tale of numbers in the hall below, while his quarry scurried away over the house.

"He knows every nook and corner of it, of course," whispered Ross to Jane, as they ran lightly up the second flight of stairs, "so we 'll have to hide pretty close to escape him. I 'm for a closet I know of where there's a pile of blankets as big as a barn. Will you come?"

"No--I know a better place," and Jane slipped away by herself. She meant to be the last found, and to elude Murray as long as she could, a very girlish feeling having taken possession of her that the time to run away is the time when you see somebody looking uncommonly as if he would like to be with you. Although she longed to hear the outcome of the conference in the library, she was somehow just a little afraid of the new Murray, and it was with a delightful sense of exhilaration that she made her quick and quiet way up a third flight of stairs to one of Shirley's haunts in an unused portion of the regions under the eaves.

It was a long time before she heard the sounds of the hunt, in which at last the whole party had come to join, approaching her hiding place. But suddenly a lower door was thrown open, and Murray's voice sounded far down in a determined challenge:

"We'll have you now, Jane--it's no use. Shirley 's kept us away so far--the rascal--but your time 's up!"

She could not be caught! There was a tiny door low down in the side of the closet where she was hiding, and dark though she knew it must be in the unknown region beyond this door, she opened it, slipped through, closed it, and crept along the bare beams beyond.

Murray was carrying a little electric searchlight, which he was flashing into every nook and crevice. Its sharp beam had penetrated the hole in the blankets Ross had kept for a breathing space. It had likewise sought out the hems of skirts, the soles of shoes, fingers clutching concealing draperies, and elbows sticking unwarily out from sly nooks. Jane saw its rays outline the edges of the small door beyond which she crouched; then she heard Murray's triumphant cry, "O-ho, she's dropped her handkerchief! Now we 're hot on the trail. She's gone through this door, the crafty lady!"

There was a shout of mingled laughter and expostulation. "She wouldn't go through that rat-hole! It's too dark in there for a girl. There 's no floor, either."

But Murray was attempting to open the door. It was a sliding door, not a hinged one, and for a moment it delayed him, for he was not familiar with these regions, so dear to Shirley.

During that moment, Jane, with the breathless unreadiness to be discovered which takes hold of the hiding one, even in a game, had desperately retreated over the rafters, in the hope of coming upon some sheltering corner. The next instant, with a smothered cry, she had fallen over the edge of something, splash into three feet of water!

Nobody had heard her, and somehow, in the intensity of the game, Jane's second emotion, after the startling sensation of her sudden immersion, was one of absurd relief at finding herself, after all, safe from discovery. For, as the little door at last flew open, and Murray's brilliant light leaped into the space under the eaves, it disclosed to Jane that she had dropped into a cistern, the top of which lay level with the floor beams, and at the bottom thereof, where, having scrambled to her feet, she stood stooping, was out of sight of the faces peering in at the small door.

"Not here," was Murray's disappointed observation, after one wave of his light round the small space, "unless she's in mother's special rain-water tank, white frock and all. Come on. I thought we had her then, sure. Where can she be? She's been here--witness that handkerchief. And if there's a cranny we have n't explored, I 'll----"

The little door closed with a slam; the light faded away from its edges. The voices of the party were heard retreating down the stairs, and Jane was left alone to realise the humour of the situation.

It was undoubtedly humorous. It could hardly be dangerous, for October had been a mild month, and Jane was well used to cold plunges. The wetting of the pretty frock was of no consequence, for it was quite washable. It was fairly easy to scramble back to the rafters--Jane had done that the moment the searching party was out of hearing, and was carefully wringing out her drenched skirts. Her impromptu bath had wet her to the shoulders, besides bruising her arm rather badly. But the trying thing was to get downstairs and away without being discovered--and the whole company in full cry over the house!

Jane laughed rather hysterically, shivering a little, more from excitement and chagrin than from chill. She crept carefully to the small door, meaning to push it open and listen, when suddenly it began to slide quietly aside of itself. The next instant she saw a sunburned hand upon its fastening, and heard a cool voice, close by, say quietly:

"It's all right. Nobody knows but me. They 've given it up, and sat down to await your own sweet will in showing up. Here 's a big steamer rug. Will you have it to wrap up in? I 'll get you home without a soul knowing, and we 'll play it off as a joke, somehow."

"Thank you," answered Jane, in a very meek voice, which shook with mingled irritation and merriment, as the rug came through the opening. "Perhaps I could put it on better if I were not balancing myself on these rafters."

"I beg your pardon. I 'll get out of this closet, and you can get in. I just thought you would n't leave so--so damp a trail behind you if you were wrapped up in something. Here are a--er--a pair of Olive's rubbers for your feet, so you won't show any tracks."