Dawn of the Morning Part 3

he added, his eyes narrowing to observe her expression more closely.

"She is not my mother," answered the girl coldly, and became at once reserved, as if she were sorry for having spoken so plainly.

"Oh, I beg your pardon! I did not know," murmured the stranger, making mental note of her change of expression.

Suddenly her eyes flashed wide upon him, and she dashed a question out with a way that compelled an answer:

"Has my father come to take me home, do you know?"

"Oh, no, not at all," answered the young man suavely. He was delighted to have found this key to her thoughts. It led just where he desired.

"We are merely taking a business trip together, and your father stopped off to see how things were going with you. I am sure I am delighted that he did, for it has given me great pleasure to meet you."

"Why?" asked the girl, lifting relieved eyes to his face in mild astonishment.

He gave a half-embarra.s.sed laugh at this frank way of meeting him.

"Now, surely, you do not need to ask me that," he said, looking down at her meaningly, his eyes gazing into the innocent ones in open and intimate admiration. "You must know how beautiful you are!"

With a startled expression, she searched his face, and then, not finding it pleasant, turned away with a look resembling her father in its sternness.

"I don't think that is a nice way for a man to talk to a girl," she said in a displeased tone. "I am too big to be spoken to in that way. I am past sixteen, and shall be done school next year."

He dropped the offending manner at once, and begged her pardon, pleading that her father had talked of her as a child. He asked also that she would let him be her friend, for he felt that they would be congenial, and all the more that she was growing into womanhood.

Her gravity did not relax, however, and her eyes searched his face suspiciously.

"I think we would better go into the house," she said soberly. "Friend Ruth will not like my staying out so long, and I must see my father again."

"But will you be my friend?" he insisted, as they turned their steps toward the house.

"How could we be friends? You are not in the school, and I never go away. Besides, I don't see what would be the use."

"Don't you like me at all?" he asked, putting on the tone which had turned many a girl's head.

"Why, I don't know you even a little bit. How could I like you?

Besides, why should I?" answered Dawn frankly.

"You are deliriously plain-spoken."

She caught her lip between her teeth in a vexed way. Why would he persist in talking to her as if she were a child?

"There, now I have vexed you again," he said, pretending to be much dismayed, "but indeed you misunderstand me. I do not look upon you as a child at all. Many a girl is married at your age, and you will soon be a lovely woman. I want you for my friend. Are you not willing?"

"I don't know," said the girl bluntly, looking troubled. "I should have to think about it, and I don't see why I should. I shall be here a whole year yet, and I shall never see you. I wish I could stay here always," she ended pa.s.sionately. "I never want to go home."

"Perhaps you will not need to go there," he said insinuatingly, wondering how it was she was so different from other girls. She did not seem to understand coquetry. Her eyes met his now in mild question.

"You may marry and have a home of your own," he answered her unspoken question. A startled expression came into her eyes.

"Oh, no," she said quickly; "I don't think that will ever happen. I don't want that to happen;" and she drew away from him as if the thought frightened her. "Married people are not happy."

"Nonsense!" said the young man gayly. He had planted the seed in what looked like fallow ground, and perhaps one day it would blossom for him.

"There are plenty of happy married people. I've a good old father and mother who just worship each other. They've been happy as clams all their lives, and I know a great many more.

"My father and mother were not happy," said Dawn gravely. "Friend Ruth and Friend Isaac do not seem to be very happy either, though of course this isn't a real home. But they are never cross," she added in conscientious explanation.

"If you were married, you could have a real home of your own, and have things just as you wanted them," the young man remarked cunningly.

"That would be nice," said the girl thoughtfully. "I should like that part, but I think I would like it better without being married. There are father and Friend Ruth looking for us. Let us hurry."

"But you have not told me whether you will let me be your friend," he said, detaining her under a great elm tree, and looking off toward the river, as if he were still watching the steamer. "If you will let me be your friend, I will get permission to come and see you now and then, and I will bring you a box of sweets. You will like that, won't you? All girls are fond of sweets."

"I don't know," answered Dawn slowly, looking at him with troubled eyes, and wondering why it was that his eyes reminded her of a fish.

"The other girls would like the sweets," he suggested.

"Could I give them away?" she asked with a flash of interest.

"You may do anything you like with them," he responded eagerly. "So it is all settled, then, and I may be your friend?"

"I don't know," said Dawn again. "I suppose it will have to be as father and Friend Ruth say."

"No need to consult them in the matter. Leave that to me. All I want is your consent. Remember I am going to visit you next month and bring you something nice."

But by this time the others had reached them.

"Charming view, Mr. Van Rensselaer. I had no idea you could see New York so plainly from this point," said the young man.

Dawn stepped over and stood beside Friend Ruth, looking thoughtfully down the river. She would like the box of confections well enough, for not many sweets were allowed at the school and they could have a treat down in the woods, beside the brook. But somehow she had a vague uneasiness about this friendship. She did not like the stranger's face.

Her father and the other man went away after the noonday meal. The stranger's name, she learned, was Harrington Winthrop, and that he was interested in a business enterprise with her father. The matter pa.s.sed entirely from her mind, only, after that, when she sat alone to brood over her life, a new dream took the place of the old. Always there was a lovely home all her own, with comfortable chairs and plenty of books, and thin, sprigged china, such as had been her mother's. In this home she was sole mistress. Day by day she dreamed out the pretty rooms, and dwelt in them, and even occasionally let her imagination people them.

The image of her beautiful mother hovered about that home and stayed, but there came into it no one to annoy or disturb.

When the two men settled themselves in the stage that night, the younger began to talk:

"Do you know you have a very beautiful daughter, Mr. Van Rensselaer?"

The father started from the reverie into which he had fallen. The look of the moonlight was reminding him of a night over sixteen years ago, when he and Mary had taken this same stage trip. Strange he could not get away from the thought of it. Ah, yes! it had been the look of his daughter that had brought back Mary's face, for the girl was grown to be the image of her mother, save for a certain sad flitting of severity.

In the moonlight outside the coach he seemed to see again the sweet face in the coffin, and he compared it with the warm living face of the girl whom he had been to see that day. He knew that between his daughter and him was an impenetrable barrier that could never be removed, and the thought of it pierced his soul as it never had before. A great yearning and pity for his motherless, fatherless girl had come into his cold, empty heart as he had watched her move silently about. But ever present was the thought that he had no right-no right in her either, no matter how much he might try. No one would have suspected him of such feelings. He hid them deep under his grim and brilliant exterior, sternly self-contained in any situation. But now, in the half-darkness, a new thought came into his mind, and he started and gave his attention to the words of his companion.

"Is she your only child?"

The question made him start again. There was a long pause, so long that Harrington Winthrop thought he had not been heard; then a husky voice answered out of the shadows of the coach:

"No, there was another-a little boy. He died soon after his mother."

Outside in the moonlight, the vision of a ruddy-haired boy rode in a wreath of mist. The words were the man's acknowledgment to the two who ever attended him now through life. He did not wish to give his confidence to this business companion.

"Ah! Then this beautiful young woman will likely be sole heir to the Van Rensselaer estate," said the young man to himself, rejoicing inwardly at the ease with which he was obtaining information.