A Little Girl in Old Philadelphia Part 48

"It is where I shall come some day," announced Primrose with a plaintive accent, as if she were at the end of life.

"You!" Polly glanced at her with surprised eyes, hardly knowing whether to laugh or not.

"As if you would ever have need!" declared Betty Mason.

"But they are not very poor, you see. They have to be worthy people and nice people, who have been unfortunate. And when I am old I shall beg one of the little houses to live in. I think I shall make sweet flavors and raise herbs."

She looked so utterly grave and in earnest that both Wharton and Lieutenant Vane stared as if transfixed.

"What nonsense!" exclaimed her brother. "As if there would not always be someone----"

"But I shall live to be very old, I know. Aunt Wetherill tells of one of the Wardour women who lived to be a hundred and two years old, ever so long ago, in England. And it is hardly probable, Phil, that you can live to be one hundred and ten or more, and, if you did, you would most likely be helpless," in an extremely a.s.sured tone.

"Well, you would not be poor," he subjoined quickly, indignantly.

"How do you know? Some of the people here have been in comfortable circ.u.mstances. And, two days ago, when Mr. Northfield was over he was talking about some of papa's property that had nearly gone to ruin--been destroyed, I think, and would take a good deal to repair it. And--eighty or ninety years is a long time to live. There may be another war--people are so quarrelsome--and everything will go then! Betty's house was burned, and her father's fine plantation laid waste. And Betty is not very much older than I, and all these misfortunes have happened to her."

The whole four men are resolved in their secret hearts that no sorrow or want will ever come to her, even if she should outlive them all.

They reached Mrs. Preston's cottage and Primrose delivered her message.

Then they lingered about, and Betty concluded it would be no great hardship to come here when one was done with other pleasures and things, and had little to live upon.

"It is a delightful spot," said Vane, "and I never dreamed of it before.

That it should have been here all through that winter----"

"But you were dancing and acting plays!"

"Don't call up any more of my bad, mistaken deeds! Have I not convinced you that I repented of them, and am doing my best to make amends?"

The fire in Vane's eyes awed Primrose, conquered her curiously, and a treacherous softening of the lines about her sweet mouth almost made a smile.

"And now what next?" commented Polly. "Do you know how we are loitering?

Has the place charmed us? I never thought it so fascinating before."

It was to charm many a one, later on, like a little oasis in the great walls of brick that were to grow about it, of traffic and noise and disputations that were never to enter here, and to have a romance, whether rightly or wrongly, that was to call many a one thither at the thought of Evangeline. And so a poet puts an imperishable sign on a place, or a historian a golden seal.

"We were to go somewhere else. And see where the sun is dropping to. It always slides so fast on that round part of the sky."

"Yes, the most beautiful little place, and to get our violets. Betty, when they are all gone we will have long days hunting up queer corners and things. And somewhere--out at Dunk's Ferry--there is a strange sort of body who tells fortunes occasionally--when she is in _just_ the humor. And that makes it the more exciting, because you can never quite know. We will take Patty; we can find all the strange corners."

"Why couldn't we all go? To have one's fortune told--not that I believe in it," and Vane laughed.

"Then you have no business to have it told. And Miss Jeffries runs over the cards and tells ever so many things, and they _are_ really true. You will meet her again some evening."

Gilbert Vane blushed. The fortune he wanted to hear was not one with which he would like a whole roomful entertained.

"It is this way."

Primrose walked on ahead with Andrew Henry.

"There is a suspicious-looking cloud, bigger than a man's hand."

"Oh, then let us hurry! Nonsense, Phil, why do you alarm a body? See how the sun shines. It is going past. Now--down at the end of this lane----"

Just then some great drops fell. Primrose ran like a sprite and turned a triumphant face to the others when she was under shelter.

It was indeed a fairy nook with a strip of woods back of it. A little thread of a stream ran by on one side. In summer, when the trees were in full leaf, it would be a bower of greenery. A low, story-and-a-half house, with a porch running all across the front, roofed over with weather-worn shingles. The hall doors, back and front, stand wide open, and there is a long vista reaching down to the clump of woods made up of a much-patched-up trellis with several kinds of vines growing over it to furnish a delightful shade in summer. Some benches in the shining glory of new green paint stand along the edge. There was a small table with three people about it, and the stout, easy-going hostess, who p.r.o.nounced them "lucky," as there comes a three-minutes' fierce downpour of rain while the sun is still shining, then stops, and everything is beaded with iridescent gems. The very sky seems laughing, and the round sun fairly winks with an amused joviality.

In the small front yard the gra.s.s is green and thickly sown with tulips that have two sheath-like leaves of bluish-green enfolding the bud. "It will be a sight presently," exclaimed Polly, "but so will most of the gardens. Why, we might be Hollanders, such a hold has this tulip mania taken of us!"

By craning their necks a little they can look out on the Delaware and see the ambitious little creek rushing into it. The glint of the sun upon the changing water is magnificent.

"What a beautiful spot! Why, Polly, have we ever been here before?"

asked Allin.

"No, I think not. There are some places very like it on the Schuylkill.

But I do not remember this."

Then the hostess comes to inquire what she can serve them with. There is fresh birch beer, there is a sa.s.safras metheglin made with honey, there is mead, and she looks doubtfully at the two soldiers as if her simple list might not come up to their desires.

"And cheesecake?" ventured Primrose.

"Oh, yes! and wafers and gingerbread, and real Dutch doughnuts."

Primrose glanced around, elated. Her birthday treat was to be a success.

So they sat and refreshed themselves and jested, with Primrose in her sunniest mood, while the sun dropped lower and lower and burnished the river.

"I wonder if there are many violets in the woods."

"Oh, yes, indeed!" answered the woman. "It's rather early for many people to come and I am out of the way until they begin to sail up and down the river; that's when it is warmer, though to-day has been fine enough."

"Suppose we go and gather the violets," suggested Philemon.

"Of course we expect you to go, don't we, Polly? But then we are going also."

"Won't it be wet?"

"Not with that little sprinkle!" cried Primrose disdainfully.

There were dozens of pretty spring things in the woods, but violets were enough. Large bluish-purple ones, down to almost every gradation. Then Betty thought of an old-time verse and Lieutenant Vane of another.

"But it should be primroses," he said. "If we were at home in English haunts we should find them. I don't know why I say at home, for I doubt if it is ever my home again."

"I am a more hopeful exile than you," commented Betty Mason. "My country will be restored to me, and I shall never forget that you helped."

What large, soft, dark eyes she had, and a voice with a peculiar lingering cadence; but it did not go to one's heart like that of Primrose.