Little Miss By-The-Day Part 31

"There's Mr. Graemer," she said; "here's some one to see you," she called wickedly, as she leaned across the balcony.

It was all over so quickly that afterward neither the Poetry Girl nor the lawyer could tell how it happened. Dulcie could tell a little more because she watched it from above.

Dudley Hamilt went down that narrow stairway in a sort of running leap. He faced the agitated Mr. Graemer squarely but he gave him something less than half a minute in which to defend himself. And then he proceeded with a most satisfying thoroughness to pummel and pound and thump. Their struggling figures shoved to and fro in the pebbled paths. Janet and Molly O'Reilly ran screaming from their kitchen. The Poetry Girl scrambled out of their way by jumping to an iron bench.

She dragged Felicia up after her.

"Stop them! Stop them!" shrieked the Poetry Girl.

But beside her Felicia clasping her little hands under her chin, watched with shining eyes; her anger was as the anger of the man who was fighting. She did not realize who he was or why he had come to the defense of her Blythe. She only knew that he was doing exactly what she had been longing to do ever since she had first heard about the acquisitive Mr. Graemer. And when she heard Blythe Modder shouting beside her she began to shout too. Only she did not entreat them to stop fighting. A curious thrill of victory made her voice vibrant with rapture.

"Do not stop striking him! Do not stop!"

And then suddenly, she saw to whom she was calling. And with her new found joy in her heart she shouted still louder, "Strike him much, much more, Dudley Hamilt!"

He stopped, absolutely dazed. He thought that he must be struggling in a dream. He actually stepped across his fallen antagonist as he strode toward her. His blonde hair was rumpled from wrestling, his eyes shone with the light of victory. He stretched out his arms.

"Are you real--" he stammered, "tell me quickly, are you real--"

"I am vairee real--" she answered breathlessly, "but I am old--"

Old! She was agelessly young as she stood there, smiling at him from her perch on the little iron bench. Her slender figure in the sage green frock was silhouetted against the wall, her head was lifted joyously.

It was the young lawyer who came to his senses first. He shoved the disheveled Graemer out through the rear gate, the stable gate--it happened to be open and he took an immense satisfaction in after years in remembering that it was the stable gate, did that c.o.c.ky young lawyer!

The rest of them fled through the kitchen doorway, or rather Molly O'Reilly adroitly pushed them through it and for the next half hour the household babbled discreetly behind drawn blinds.

But outside in the wee garden the years slipped back as though they had been Time in Maitre Guedron's song.

"Dudley Hamilt! Dear Dudley Hamilt! You are hurting my arms a little-- "

"Felice! Forgive me! I didn't mean to--it's only that I am afraid you are not real--I am afraid to let you go--"

Ineffably content she stood tiptoe to put her hands on his shoulders.

She lifted her adorable head and smiled.

"Nevaire do--" she murmured with her lips on his.

THE END