A Colony of Girls Part 9

"I am so glad you like it, but I fear you will find very little to interest you in so sleepy a place."

Farr was about to make answer in words of conventional flattery, but something in the girl's tone of sincerity and good faith deterred him and impelled him to reply in kind.

"But I a.s.sure you I am delighted with it. You know we knock about a good deal, and some of our stations are almost unendurable. We have been on the Sound for several months now, and this is to me by far the pleasantest place in which we have cast anchor."

"It does my heart good to hear you say that," she rejoined navely, "for naturally Hetherford is very dear to us."

"You have lived here all your life, Miss Lawrence?"

"Ever since I was a wee little girl. Of course we have been away from time to time, but we are always glad to get back again."

"I can well understand your feeling so, although I have had very little of home life myself." Farr sighed as he uttered these last words.

Jean looked at him with gentle sympathy. "You say that sadly," she said.

"Do I?" He turned on his elbow, and his grave eyes met hers. His next words were prompted by a sudden unwonted impulse. "Perhaps I will tell you about it some day."

Then a silence fell between them.

The sweet stillness held its sway o'er land and sea, its perfect harmony emphasized by the soft lapping of the waves against the shadowy sands below. The breeze was dying with the dying sun. Just off the sh.o.r.e a little white-sailed cat-boat was drifting in with the flowing tide.

Jean drew a long breath and started swiftly to her feet.

"Why, how late it is growing," she exclaimed. "I must be going, Mr.

Farr."

"Already?" he said, and then they made their way down the rugged cliff.

"Take care, Miss Lawrence," he cried, as she missed her footing and slipped a little. "Please let me a.s.sist you," and he extended his hand.

Jean put her hand in his with a demure uplifting of her eyebrows, and just a fleeting smile on her lips. There flashed through her mind the thought:

"How unmercifully Nan would chaff me, if she could catch a glimpse of me now."

The descent was a brief one, and soon they had crossed the sands and were strolling along the road in the direction of the manor.

"You are coming to dine with us to-morrow night, are you not, Mr.

Farr?"

"Your sister was good enough to ask us, and I shall be only too delighted to avail myself of her kind invitation."

"I really will not let you come any further with me," she declared as they reached the manor gates. "I fear, as it is, I have taken you very much out of your way, and it must be late."

"It is close upon seven," he told her after looking at his watch. "And you dine?"

"At seven, and let me warn you now that to be late is to meet with my sister's ire."

"I shall remember," he answered, with his pleasant laugh. "And now can I not see you to your door?"

"No, indeed. I must hurry away," she said as they shook hands, "for time, tide, and dinner at the manor wait for no man. Good-by."

"Until to-morrow," he said, as he turned away.

CHAPTER VI.

A DINNER AT THE MANOR.

It was the evening of the dinner given in honor of the naval officers, and even as the old Dutch clock in the corner of the manor hall struck the hour of seven, Farr was shaking hands with Mrs. Dennis.

"I am so sorry," she said to him with a sweet smile, "that I shall be obliged to absent myself from the dinner table to-night, but my strength is not very great and I dare not overtax it. My niece Helen,"

with a proud accent, which was not lost upon Farr, "has taken my place for so long that I feel no hesitation in leaving everything in her hands."

"Oh, Auntie," cried Helen, with shy deprecation, "Mr. Farr will begin to think me that most tiresome of all things, a paragon of household virtue."

Farr made a gesture of dissent, and then as Clifford Archer presented himself, he turned and followed Helen with admiring eyes. Very fair and womanly she seemed to him, in her gown of pale lavender crepe, moving about among her guests, greeting one and all with gentle courtesy.

His gaze wandered on to where, in a further corner of the drawing-room, Nathalie was keeping up a merry chatter with Wendell Churchill. In spite of her eighteen years, she looked a very child to-night, in her white mulle gown, with a broad white sash around her waist, and one red rose in her brown hair. A spoiled child, too, she undeniably was; unused to restraint, somewhat willful and quick-tempered, but with a heart so true and generous that one could always trust this small maiden and know that the good would predominate.

Eleanor Hill, standing very erect, her slender figure clad in a severely simple gown of India silk, her hair brushed straight from her fair face, her blue eyes alight with intelligence, her sensitive mouth revealing every pa.s.sing shade of feeling, held his attention for a moment, for there was something patrician in the girl's mien and bearing which greatly charmed him.

Involuntarily Farr smiled as he caught sight of Nan's jolly face beaming with an unending fund of good humor, and he was man enough of the world for one glance at dainty Mollie Andrews to suffice to tell him that she was an adept in the truly feminine art of dressing, for her white gown, covered with lace and embroidery, was made in a mysterious Parisian fashion, not easily imitated.

What an arrant little flirt was dark-eyed Emily Varian. The smile that Nan had evoked deepened as Farr noted the rapt expression on Dudley's face as he bent over her. Her yellow gown, while not as modish as Eleanor's and Mollie's, nor as artistic as the Lawrence girls', yet showed a fine sense of color, and lighted up her pretty, piquant face, which was surmounted by a smooth coil of hair the color of a raven's wing.

They were an unusually lovely group of girls, and, beyond this, unusually pure-hearted and intelligent. Farr appreciated this the more keenly, perhaps, in that he had seen much of the world in his thirty years of life. Sometimes the old ideals of his boyhood had suffered sadly; but his faith in the gentler s.e.x was too deep-rooted to be easily dispelled, and now all that was n.o.blest and most chivalrous in his nature was awakened by the atmosphere of honesty and sweetness surrounding him.

He was brought back to the starting-point of his observations by Helen's voice saying, apologetically:

"I am so sorry my sister is so late," and even as she spoke a little hand pushed the portieres hastily aside, and Jean stood in the doorway.

She glanced impulsively across at Farr, and caught a wicked gleam from his eyes as he advanced to meet her.

"'Time, tide, and dinner at the manor wait for no man,'" he quoted maliciously.

"That is one advantage in being a woman," she promptly retorted.

She was radiant to-night in a gown of silver and blue. From under level brows her eyes shone like stars, and some slight inward tremor of excitement flushed her sweet face with unusual color. Her soft yellow hair was gathered up in a simple coil, little tendrils of it curling upon her forehead and on her neck.

"What a bonny little la.s.s she is," thought Farr, surprised by the sudden feeling of tenderness which took possession of him.

Then dinner was announced, and, with a half cynical smile at his own susceptibility, he pulled himself together, and offered her his arm.

"Why, I am quite in the navy, am I not?" she asked archly, as she took her place between Farr and Dudley.